Taste Ⅱ- Boilermaker

Stir the whiskey, vermouth, and pineapple juice (be sure to use unsweetened) well with cracked ice (if you shake it, the pineapple juice will foam), then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Truth be told, we find that 2 or 3 dashes of Fee Bros. West Indian Orange Bitters (call 716-544-9530) does wonders for the drink. Failing that, a generous squeeze of orange peel will work almost as well.

Sometimes you need a drink. Need a drink. The last thing you want to do is mess around with cocktail shakers and vegetable peelers and fancy little glasses on delicate stems, let alone herb-infused thises and hand-squeezed thats. You have entered the realm of the Boilermaker. Whiskey, in a glass. Beer, in another. Drink A, drink B, repeat if necessary. Single malt and microbrew? Okay. Wild Turkey and Olympia? Fine. Jim Beam and Jax, or Old Overholt and Iron City, or ...? Just as good. Better.

"Boilermaker" used to be the generic term for industrial metalworker. We're not sure precisely how it got attached to this simple spine-straightener, or exactly when, but it fits. And we're quite sure it was in use before 1932, when the drink turns up in James Wiley and Helene Griffith's Art of Mixing under an alternate name, Block and Fall ("drink two, walk a block and fall"). In any case, "the boilermaker and his helper," the "one and one," the shot and the beer, make up a drink that nobody can screw up -- not even you, no matter what state your nerves are in. Word to the wise, though: As far as we're concerned, after two, the helper's ready to go it on his own. But then again, we're not industrial metalworkers.