Baltimore’s Spookiest Spot: Green Mount Cemetery

For those among you who are wont to give credence to ghosts and spirits, there’s no need whatsoever to look toward haunted houses or haunted hayrides or any other seasonal attractions where high schoolers and jaycees put on masks and yell ‘boo.’

Those who wish to seek out ghosts need not look very far in a city like Baltimore, where the past haunts each street with every nightfall. We like to think that our streets are new with their crushed glass surfacing and our homes are new with their double-paned windows and granite counters, but they are not. Virtually every brick and stone was worn well before we arrived, and most all of them will remain unmoved by the time the last of us is gone.

Green Mount Cemetery is one of Baltimore most scenic, historic, and underrated attractions.

In a sense, it’s not our city at all. It’s theirs. They built it, and they continue to dwell here.

They are some our our city’s most prominent figures; men with names like Pratt, Latrobe, Preston, Hopkins, Walters, and Garrett. and here is Green Mount Cemetery, more than 65,000 graves situated over 68 acres, right here in our own back yard.

Unfortunately, because Halloween falls on a Sunday this year, the cemetery is not open to visitors today, although they do keep their gates open every other day of the week both for formal tours and individual wandering. For All Hallows’ Eve, we’d greatly encourage you to spend a few minutes and take your time surfing around their website and discovering the history and scenery of Green Mount for yourself.

The Chop is totally remiss, and almost ashamed to admit that we have never set foot inside Green Mount Cemetery. We’ve been whistling past the graveyard for years, and although always fascinated by it, we’ve never taken a walk around inside. We’re going to change that at some point this week.

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Green Mount Cemetery is at 1501 Greenmount Ave. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 8am-4pm. (410) 539-0641.

Gutter Magazine’s Dead Celebrities Ball, CA Lantern Parade Tonight

What? You think you’re done with Halloween? You went out raging last night and now you think you’re just going to stay at home and watch Simpsons’ Halloween special reruns and eat pumpkin flavored junk food? Well, Halloween’s not done with you, Baltimore.

You’d better get started on washing off all the beer and lipstick stains you got on that costume last night, because you’re going to need it again tonight. As luck would have it, all of the reasonable, moderate and sane folks are heading down to DC to be reasonable and moderate together, which means that by default, the rest of us left in Baltimore are unreasonable, immoderate, and insane. Should make for a hell of a Devil’s Night.

Gutter Mag's Dead Celebrities Ball is at Metro Gallery tonight.

As if we didn’t have enough to do last night, we’re starting off tonight with a trip to Patterson Park for the Creative Alliance‘s Great Halloween Lantern Parade and Festival. From what we’ve heard, last year’s parade was really quite a spectacle, done well down to the last detail. Word was that it was on of the very rare events that’s billed as ‘fun for the whole family’ that actually is fun for the whole family.

Afterward we’re heading back up to Station North, where we’ll be around and about the rest of the night. We’re definitely going to make the Metro Gallery our home base though. Our friends at Gutter Magazine are back there tonight with their second annual Dead Celebrities Ball. They’ve booked in four of Charm City’s best post-rock bands including old favorites Sick Sick Birds as well as Squaaks and the Jennifers. Plus we’ll finally get a chance to check out the relatively new(ish) Sal Bando, who we haven’t had a chance to see live yet.

With a grown up set like that, we can pretty much guarantee that the Misfits covers and Halloween cheesiness will be kept to a minimum, which is a great relief at this point. Best part? It’s only five bucks at the door, sucka.

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Lantern festivities begin at 3pm. Parade Starts at 7:30 pm. Corner of Eastern and Linwood in Patterson Park.

Metro Gallery is at 1801 N. Charles St. in Station North. Doors at 8:45.

Two Halloweens for the Price of One!

So, Halloween is pretty much here. Like today. Like right now. You may think that Halloween falls on Sunday, and that that’s totally lame, but for all intents and purposes, it’s really a blessing in disguise for fans of the holiday. A blessing from the Devil maybe. A super secret double bizarro blessing. Or something like that. For the kiddies, trick-or-treating may indeed be Sunday evening, but for the rest of us, we get a two day holiday for drinking and carrying on. Plus a Sunday to sleep it all off again. Talk about a win/win situation…

We spent some time in and around Station North last Halloween, and if you’re in the mood for going out, we’d definitely recommend doing likewise this year. The college kids can have the East Side and the South Side. Take ’em. We’re done with ’em. We’re perfectly happy right here in North Baltimore. Station North has been doing Halloween right for a few good years now, and if previous experience is anything to go by (and it is), there will be just enough costumed revelers to make every place in the neighborhood fun and interesting, but never so many in one place that the party is overwhelming or overcrowded.

 

Of course you can be two places at once. You've got superpowers.

So, by now you’ve got your costume, and you know what to look out for, but where are you going to go, eh?

There’s plenty going on around town tonight, but there are two events we feel are especially worthy of your attention. First up at the Ottobar the Charm City Roller Girls are going to be holding their 6th annual Bruisers’ Ball. This year’s theme is a Supervillain Soiree, and the costume contests will showcase that with various prizes in several different categories. There’s going to be plenty of other fun stuff too, like Halloween themed drinks and a photobooth, and of course, plenty of rollergirls all about the place. They’re even going to tape Dirty Marty to a wall, which just in itself should be worth the price of admission. And of course there’s a solid slate of bands including the Degenerettes, Hollowboy, and the Stalking Horses, as well as the Moustache dance party upstairs.

And if you can’t get your fill of heroes and villains in just one place, you can always head down to the Windup Space for a separate party with a similar theme. It’s Atomic Books’ second annual celebration of heroism and villainy, and this time around it’s going to feature. DJ Miracle Ear, debut videos from Atomic TV, and the new Rock Band 3 for your enjoyment, complete with Keytar.

Plus, the costume contest pays $400 in cold, hard cash. We’re calling it right now: if you’re lucky enough to snag a jackpot like that, the only right thing to do is to buy the house a round of drinks.

Happy Halloween.

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The Bruisers’ Ball at Ottobar (2549 N. Howard, Charles Village) begins at 9pm with the show bands playing at 10:00. $10, 18+.

Atomic’s Heroes and Villains Costume Ball at the Windup Space (12 W. North Ave in Station North) runs concurrently.

The Baltimore Chop’s One Year Anniversary

Today, Baltimore, the 28th of October, is a day of tremendous moment and importance. It’s a big red letter day for us, because exactly one year ago today we launched our humble little blog with this post about the Office of Future Plans at the Sidebar.

Now that we’ve turned 30, a year will go by really, really fast. It’s true that we spent half the year abroad and not writing, but still, it feels as though we’re just getting started. When we began we had very little idea what sort of shape this blog would take. We’re still pretty much making it up as we go along. We’ve got to say, we’re fairly pleased with how things have turned out so far. We didn’t think we’d be able to hack it putting up a post every single day, but we haven’t missed one yet. Most of all though, we didn’t think anyone would actually read this, and we’re still kind of shocked when we find out that people really do. Monday’s post about getting dressed properly produced our best day yet, and month-over-month traffic continues to grow steadily.

The Chop greets throngs of ardent admirers on the occasion of our one year anniversary.

We want to thank you for that, Baltimore. We also want to call your attention to the new share buttons that WordPress has installed for us, as well as the subscription panels in the sidebar. They work quite well, try them and see.

This month also marks the (roughly) one year anniversary of the Baltimore Sun’s Maryland’s Outstanding Blogs (Mobbies) contest. Like we said, we spent a good deal of time reviewing the field last year, and that contest was largely responsible for getting us to go through with making this blog. We’re writing the exact blog that we would want to read every day, because we couldn’t find it among the nominations. We’d definitely recommend you check out this year’s nominations, because there’s some pretty interesting stuff in there, and a few that had escaped our attention until now. As of today though, some of our favorites are still missing, so we might have to do some nominating ourselves if they don’t turn up soon.

Finally, we’re late on this one, but September 30 marked the one year anniversary of our buying the Chophouse. Our mortgage now says “one year down, 29 to go.” This is another thing that still feels brand new and strange, and which we’re kind of making up as we go along. We’ve always sort of secretly braced for the worst of home ownership. A little part of us has thought it was only a matter of time before the roof caved in or the basement flooded or someone seized the deed over a water bill lien or missed ground rent payment.

We’re just now starting to realize that that’s probably not going to happen. When things break, we can fix them. When bills come, we can pay them. The neighbors are nice and the streets are safe and there hasn’t been one single day that we’ve regretted buying here. To the contrary, we wake up every morning (noon) and immediately think of how lucky and happy we are to live here.

Bi-Weekly Political Roundup: We’re Much Better Off Than We Were Four Years Ago Edition

For all the complaints of Baltimore being (or at least feeling like) a small city, it does have one distinct advantage over some of its larger counterparts, namely the ability to sometimes be in two places at once. That’s exactly what we plan on doing tonight as we ping pong back and forth between the No Friends/ Deep Sleep show at CCAS and the regular meeting of the Baltimore Chapter of Drinking Liberally at Joe Squared.

Baltimore's Drinking Liberally meets at Joe Squared tonight. 7 pm.

With both events starting at 7 pm, it won’t be difficult to ask a friend for a text message alert when the bands are about to play, and spend the rest of the time around the corner at Joe’s drinking beers and talking politics. It’s a lucky break too, as tonight marks the last regular meeting at Joe Squared until the spring. For the rest of the Fall/Winter season the DL crew will be alternating between two of the Chop’s other favorite establishments, Midtown Yacht Club and the Laughing Pint. For anyone who’s a fan of those bars, but has been hesitant to make the trip up to North Ave, we’ll be sure to save you a seat.

We feel like we should be much more excited about politics today, what with the elections so close, but the truth is that there’s not much happening right here in Maryland, now that the Democrats have the governor’s race in the bag.

The Chop is endlessly pleased that Martin O’Malley and Bob Ehrlich have a real and genuine dislike for each other. We can’t stand all this “my good friend” and “the distinguished gentleman” type rhetoric you sometimes hear during campaigns. We see nothing wrong with partisan politics, and at the end of the day, although we may loathe and despise the Ropewalk crowd, we secretly respect them much more than these so called ‘swing voters’ and ‘undecideds’ who are really just wussies and retards.

But even with the abiding distaste that MD’s last two governors share, the campaign has remained pretty dull. O’Malley is running a crummy campaign (a kitchen table? Really???) But somehow, Ehrlich is doing even worse. He’s pouring on that fake-ass homer Arbutus charm and trying to make the case that he was a good governor (He wasn’t. Not by any metric. Ineffectual at best.) and the case that Maryland was a paradise four years ago and that it’s one big Hooverville now.

The truth is that Ehrlich only got to be governor in the first place because Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was one of the weakest candidates, running one of the weakest campaigns in the history of our fair state. Sure, those were better times nationally, but Maryland has quite frankly done a better job of weathering the storm than almost every other state. California, Nevada, Ohio, Florida… these are places with problems. Maryland’s local economy has remained vital. Businesses small and large are still opening and operating, whether they’re wont to complain about taxes or not.

Bob Ehrlich’s big final push is a direct rip off of some Reaganite pap from the 80’s, and honestly Bob, Yes. We are better off than we were four years ago.

Four years ago we didn’t have a car. We were able to buy one with cash. Four years ago we didn’t have a job, now we’ve got a legitimate skill set in a very secure field and get paid to travel around the world and take 6 months of vacation every year. Then we had no insurance and a mouth full of cavities. Now we’re covered and smiling brightly. Four years ago we were living in our parents’ basement. Last year we were able to buy a renovated house in a neighborhood we like and even get rental income from our best friend and roommate. Four years ago we were in a twin bed and eating from TV trays. Now we’re sitting at the head of a well appointed table and sprawling out in high thread count sheets on a queen sized bed.

We could go on, but the point is clear: The Chop is much better off with O’Malley in Annapolis, and so is the rest of Maryland.

Tomorrow: No Friends, Deep Sleep @ Charm City Art Space

With records like these, who the hell needs friends?

This is our question to you, Baltimore. Our answer is “No Idea.” And speaking of No Idea, you could do a lot worse than trading in all your lousy, crummy friends for a shelf full of No Idea releases. The label that single-handedly made Gainesville a punk rock destination from the mid 90’s on is sending one of the best acts it has going to CCAS tomorrow night: No Friends.

No Friends plays CCAS with Deep Sleep tomorrow. 7 pm Doors.

No Friends sounds exactly what you think a band would sound like when you combine 3 members of New Mexican Disaster Squad with Tony from Municipal Waste. It may be predictable, but it’s predictably awesome. Muni Waste has put on some of the most fun and exciting DIY shows Baltimore has seen in the last decade, always with large turnouts of eager and diverse fans, and we expect nothing less from No Friends, who are playing real, balls-out punk rock the way it’s supposed to be played- loud, fast, and reckless. They definitely deserve the comparisons they’ve drawn to legends like Dag Nasty and the Descendents, and we feel that their output so far can stand side by side with either of those bands’ early (best) work.

Not to be outdone, Baltimore matches Gainesville by putting up Deep Sleep, who are also carrying the torch of that early 80’s HC/punk sound. Tony Pence and company rode along with No Friends on their first East Coast tour back in April, and these two amazing bands (who actually are friends) match each other about as well as a left shoe matches the right.

Montreal’s Trigger Effect rounds out the bill, and with three fast bands playing 60 second songs, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get home in plenty of time to wake up for work on Wednesday. Check it out.

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Charm City Art Space is at 1729 Maryland Ave. in Station North. 7 pm Doors. All ages.

Chop Style: Five Things You Need to Get Dressed Properly

We caught you Baltimore. Red Handed. You’ve just been busted by the fashion police. We caught you slipping, and you’re going to have to step up your game wardrobe-wise, or risk being mocked mercilessly out in public for looking like a complete heel.

This weekend was full of uniforms everywhere we looked. There was, of course, the literal uniform of a football jersey which has become de rigueur for everyone everywhere all day on Sundays. On Friday though, it was a different sort of uniform altogether. We went down to check out Helmet at Sonar on Friday, where the dress code was a strict black XL band t-shirt, everyday jeans that haven’t been washed in a year, and black boots. That was a really cool look when Meantime came out, but of course, we were in middle school then. And so was the rest of the over-thirty crowd Friday night.

Every Baltimorean should own an ironing board. Just ask Divine.

Your clothes should be age appropriate, Baltimore. It’s a rule. It matters. It’s time to start dressing like a grown up. Of course, if you’re going to do it right, you’ll need more than just new clothes. You can’t fix what’s broken without the proper tools. What are the proper tools? Read on:

A Mirror

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it occurs to us that some of you bachelors on renters’ row are living without a mirror in the bedroom. Even our own roommate relies on the small, slightly cramped bathroom’s mirror. We were once guilty of this too, before we moved into the Chophouse, and we hated it. If a decent dresser/mirror combo is out of the question for you, at least take yourself up to Ikea and grab one for under $10. We bought one of these the week we moved in. You can hang it on the back of the closet door and paint the frame any color you like.

An Iron and Board

We know what you’ve been doing… waiting until Sunday to do your laundry, then getting sucked into football and food and other chores, and leaving the laundry to sit and wrinkle in the dryer. Or worse, dragging it home from the laundromat in a sack and leaving it for 3 days. If you’re going to look like a grown up, you need an iron and board. Hanging it in the bathroom during a hot shower isn’t cutting it. Bed Bath and Beyond will hook you up with an iron and compact board for $10 each. And when football season ends, you’ll be all set to pursue an interest in extreme ironing.

A Lint Brush

A lint brush is possibly the best five bucks you can invest in your wardrobe. Make sure you get one like this, and not one of those crappy ones with sticky paper on it. They’re available at any grocery store or pharmacy chain, and for a few bucks you can throw it in your drawer and leave it there forever. No matter how nice your clothes are, they look stupid when they’re covered in lint and pet hair.

A Shoeshine Kit

These are also available anywhere. You don’t even have to spring for a whole kit. A can of Kiwi and an old t-shirt and toothbrush will be serviceable. There’s no need to go overboard with it, like some pretentious assholes are wont to do. It’s not even necessary to put a lot of time or effort into the actual polishing if you don’t want to… just a quick shine 5 or 6 times a year will make your shoes look better and last longer.

A Door Hook

Time was, we’d take off a jacket or a pair of pants and toss it on a seat, intending to wear it again the next day. Then change our mind and gradually watch the clothes pile up. With the addition of a simple hook over the door, we now have a decent place to hang that stuff and keep it out of the way. And when the hooks get full we know it’s damn well time to put some clothes away. Buying a door hook is the best thing that ever happened to our dressing routine, and we can’t recommend it highly enough. Target has a ton of them, anywhere from 2 to 6 hooks, and starting as little as $4.99. Go get one.

With these tools in your box you should be able to fix any wardrobe wheels that may fall off on a Monday Morning. There’s plenty of other tools that may serve you well also; sewing kits, shoe insoles and the like. What sort of other items are helping you get dressed, Baltimore?

American Visionary Art Museum Offers Free Admission Today

Well, here it is Sunday again. Caw Caw and Purple Reign and all that. We’re still not that into it. And aside from the few tiny home improvement chores still on our list, we’re going to be looking for something non-football related to entertain ourselves with today.

The Visionary offers free admission today. 11am-3pm.

Fortunately, this week it’s a pretty easy choice. We had such a good time at the BMA’s Warhol exhibit last week, that another museum trip seemed like an obvious choice for this Sunday. Even better, the AVAM is offering free admission today as part of Free Fall Baltimore.

If you ask the Chop, Free Fall Baltimore is just about the best thing that ever came out of City Hall, and if you don’t avail yourself of at least some of the program’s offerings, you’re just plain missing out on one of the best things about living in Baltimore. It’s making us smile from ear to ear.

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The American Visionary Art Museum is at 800 Key Highway in Federal Hill. Today’s Free Fall hours are from 11am until 3 pm.

An Evening With Greg Dulli @ Ottobar Tonight

Well, if tonight’s show is anything, it’s proof that we’re out of touch. Almost cool. You might think we have our finger on the pulse of the scene, but we do not. We have it up our nose.

We went ahead and bought a ticket for tonight’s Greg Dulli show in advance since we were on the Missiontix site anyway. We figured it would be a pretty low key Saturday night, with just a few aged scenesters drinking heavily and gnashing their teeth at the thought of being 22 again with their present bitter, jaded knowledge of how the world works. Hell, even though Dulli is touring nationally and about to split for England, tickets were only $12.

Greg Dulli plays the Ottobar tonight. 8 pm Doors.

So we were surprised when the show not only sold out, but sold out well in advance. We’d tried to track down an extra ticket for a friend from New York, and came up empty handed. Word is that the very few tickets available at resale are going for up to five times face value. With that kind of demand, you’d think they would have cost more initially, or that they would have booked the show into a bigger venue. Oh well. We’ll see how it goes.

Perhaps it’s fitting that we’re way out of touch on this one. We were pretty well aware of the Afghan Whigs during their Gentlemen/ Black Love heyday. As a 12 or 13 year old kid who knew very little about music (or life) we thought they sounded good enough, but most of those songs went right over our head. You can’t expect a middle school kid to actually understand songs about hatefucking, cold revenge, solitude in company, and danger for danger’s sake. It wasn’t long before we caught on to the broad brush anthems of three chord punk and spent the next decade not looking back.

Sometime around our mid-to-late 20’s though, we began to rediscover a lot of this music of which we were dimly aware as a kid; Pavement, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr., Catherine Wheel, etc. Once we did, our admiration and appreciation for Dulli grew exponentially. We’re an adult now. We’ve been fired from jobs, scorned by women, abandoned by friends, dragged into courtrooms, drunk by noon, and and even, on occasion, betrayed by our own body. All of that happened.

It’s only now that we fully understand the music of Greg Dulli.

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Craig Wedren (Shudder to Think) opens tonight’s show. Ottobar is at 2549 N. Howard St. in Charles Village.

How to Stock a Home Bar, Part 2

Welcome back, Choppers. In yesterday’s post we went over the problems with most bar-stocking advice at great length. Today we’re back to give you some solid advice on how to get started on building a bar that even Churchill himself would be proud of.

We told you yesterday that collecting 30 good bottles of liquor would not be as expensive or as difficult as one might imagine. Make no mistake though… it’s going to take a while. If you happen to have a large lump sum to blow on booze that’s all to the good. Most of you though, will be wanting to spread the cost out over time, by adding one or two bottles a week.

These posts make a couple of assumptions about you, Gentle Reader. They assume that if you’re going to acquire a piece of furniture for specific use as a bar or liquor cabinet, then you actually like to drink. We assume you’re the type who comes home from work and has three drinks to unwind, and then has a friend or a couple over on Saturday for four drinks. (And if anyone ever asks you how many drinks you’ve had, they’re an uncouth bastard. You will not answer with a number higher than 4 under any circumstance.) It assumes you know what you like and what your friends like, and that your tastes have evolved beyond your college years.

As we hinted before, we believe 30 bottles is the ideal number for the well stocked home bar. Any fewer might just leave you wanting for something particular in the wee hours. Any more will almost certainly gather dust and hang around way too long. Let us be very clear about this though; that 30 does not include wine. 90% Of bar guide books will suggest putting a few types of wine on your bar, and this is just plain wrong. Wine goes on the wine rack. We also assume that you own a wine rack.

This is pretty much what your weekends will look like with a proper bar in your house.

So with the wine out of the way, you can break down your 30 bottles into 7 different categories, which can be purchased individually in turn in the order of their utility. A hard and fast rule of bar stocking is this: Never return from the liquor store with a free hand. meaning that you should be buying at least 2 bottles at a time. One is the everyday bottle you went to the store to refill, and the other is stock to be put by for the future. In this way, in about 7 months of weekly trips to the liquor store, you should have a very well-supplied bar at home.

The Staples… 6 bottles.

These are what you definitely need to be shopping for first. They are the basic 6 liquors that you’ll find in any bar anywhere. They’re your everyday go-to’s, your speed rail, if you will. Whiskey, gin, vodka, brandy, rum and tequila. These don’t need to be very expensive at all, since you’re going to run through them. You do want to stick to name brands though. We’d recommend Jim Beam, Beefeater, Smirnoff, Bacardi, Cuervo, and Tariquet. (Which is actually Armagnac, but who cares? We like it and it makes a tasty Sidecar, so don’t be a nerd about it.) These are your minimums. You can adjust upwards as your taste and budget allows.

Variations… 8 Bottles

These are liquors of the same types as above, but of a slightly different type or a better quality. Example: One bottle of Cuervo might be plenty enough, but even though you like Beam okay, you still want to keep something better on hand like Buffalo Trace, as well as a good rye (Rittenhouse), 2 Scotches (Johnnie Walker and something in the $40-$50 range), a blend (Dickel) and an Irish (Tullamore Dew or Powers). You might even throw in a second gin and a dark rum.

Liqueurs… 6 Bottles.

These are going to be bottles that you use primarily as mellowing, sweetening, or flavoring agents in cocktails. They should be of at least the same quality as the base spirit, so do yourself a favor and stay away from the Mr. Boston and Bols shite down there on the bottom shelf. Six good choices would be: Kahlua, Cointreau, Domaine de Canton, St. Germain, Rumple Minze, and a Calvados or apple liqueur of some sort.

Vermouth… 2 Bottles.

Sweet red and dry white. You may think you can get by without them, but you can’t. Not even in the age of Red Bull. Smallish bottles of brand name stuff will pay dividends.

After Dinner Drinks… 2 bottles.

It’s handy to have something sweet on hand that you intend to drink one glass at a time. Nobody’s going to sit around and get drunk on sambucca, but sometimes it really hits the spot after a meal. Good choices in this category might be Pernod, Bailey’s, and Tia Maria.

Wild Cards… 4 bottles.

Use this category to fill in the gaps and experiment a bit. You might want to fill it up with more after dinner type drinks, or experiment with whatever catches your eye at the liquor store. At this point you’ve been collecting bottles for a while now, so you know what you’d like to try. You can also change it up once you empty a bottle.

Special Occasion Bottles… 2 Bottles.

These are your macho single malts and your VSOP or XO cognacs. Odds are you won’t even have to buy these bottles, as someone will likely notice you’ve built a hell of a bar, and may give you one as a gift. Likewise, they are what the name suggests. You’ll save them for a special occasion and share them as a gift with your guests for that occasion.

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You’ll need to round out the bar with mixers, maybe the two most important of which are bitters and simple syrup. get at least one bottle of bitters, and buy (or re-use) a dedicated bottle for simple syrup. you’re not going to be buying any of those pre-made gross grocery store mixers, so go ahead and boil some sugar. It’s really not hard.

For everything else, stick to small cans. You can skip whatever you’re in the habit of keeping in the fridge already. For instance, we usually have orange juice and ginger ale in the fridge at the Chophouse, so we don’t bother much with stocking bar sizes of it. You are going to want Coke, ginger ale, Sprite, club soda, tonic, OJ, cranberry, and the surprisingly versatile Minute Maid lemonade, as well as a can of tomato or v8 stashed way in the back just in case. We say experiment as much as you want with juice, but leave the flavored vodkas to the D.C. set.

The only other thing you’ll need is glassware. We swear by the double old-fashioned glass. It will in fact hold a nice double shot with room for sloshing if you’re drinking on the rocks, and is plenty big enough to build a highball in if you want some soda. It’s the only glass you’ll ever really need. If you have any room left, you might want to also go in for a decent set of cocktail glasses for serving drinks straight-up or neat. We recommend cocktail glasses without stems.

You won’t look or feel like Don Draper when you’re busy wiping that Negroni off your white sofa just because you wanted a set of “real martini glasses.”