Beijing Boyce

Question: Is it true that people in China mix wine with Sprite?

Answer: Yes.

I have witnessed hundreds of people indulge in this practice that raises the wrath of the wine-loving world. Ironically, most imbibers are foreigners and the smoking gun, so to speak, is none other than… the Champagne cocktail.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Frankly, I have not witnessed Chinese mix Sprite with an ’82 Latour or any other such vintage wine though I am sure this and other vinological atrocities have occurred. (And they make for good copy, as Business Week , The New York Times, Decanter and other media show.) It more likely happens with cheap local wine, the labels most foreigners wouldn’t even stoop to use for the Sangria they brew here. (Aha! Mixing wine and fruit, are we?).

People worldwide mix wine with plenty of things. It’s a pity if vintage wine is despoiled, but when it comes to most local grog, a dash of bubbly (variety: soda) doesn’t hurt. Just something to mull over while enjoying a perfectly good cup of Chinese tea… mixed with sugar and milk.

This is warning 2 of 3 to be issued this week. Also see Warning 1: Watch your nuts.

Someone stole my mobile phone last weekend. Sometime between me being bumped into by a group of guys in one bar and having paid for a drink in another, my beloved K-Touch B922 was nabbed. Hardly an isolated incident, my friends, but a good reminder scumbags do prowl among us.

Consider someone who recently had her laptop stolen in a restaurant / bar. The computer sat near a table’s edge, beside a sofa. She arrived when the place was quiet, did some work, and stayed on to meet friends as things got progressively more crowded and louder.

Several men came in and moved expertly throughout the room. One of them spotted the laptop and noticed the woman was distracted. He walked over, bumped it onto the sofa, then served as a shield as an accomplice approached, covered the laptop with a jacket and headed for the door. How do we know? A security camera caught the scene. Let’s hope the lady gets her laptop back.

The obvious lesson: watch your bag, your phone, your laptop, your wallet, and anything else of value you take out in public in Beijing.

This is warning 1 of 3 to be issued this week.

If my observations are any indication, the personal hygiene habits of one-third to one-half of male bar-goers in Beijing are deficient in the “washes hands after using toilet” category. This holds true whether these patrons have just finished shaking their tally whackers at a urinal or more prolonged business in a stall. It applies both to locals and expatriates.

And this brings me to the humble peanut. A bowl of these ranks among the most common and shared bar snacks in town. As anyone knows, grabbing a handful means a good bit of “digging around” in the bowl and thus much skin-to-peanut contact. The implications are obvious. So, next time you find a hair in your bowl, don’t blame the waiter - instead, look at the guy beside you.

Or just BYOP (Bring Your Own Peanuts).

Shanghai’s antipodean paragon of pub proclamations, Winopete, is up and writing again after a multi-month absence. Denizens of our sister city to the south are well-advised to subscribe to said scribbler’s e-newsletter (email winopetechina@yahoo.com with “a dingo stole my baby” in the subject line).

From his most recent newsletter:

• “[Check out] Sasha’s (corner of Hengshan and Dongping Roads), which holds a wine buffet every Friday, when it’s an all-you-can drink deal from a selection of about a dozen wines from 6.30pm-9.00pm for just RMB148. A lot of the wines are drinkable lower end labels, with one or two nasty Nelly’s, but most weeks there are a few roses among the thorns to keep the pickier plonkheads happy (e.g. Pedroncelli 2002 Merlot, Jim Barry 2004 Shiraz). Note, the wine selection changes each week.”
• “Forget Beyonce and listen to some proper music instead. The Blarney Brothers, an Irish band based in Hong Kong, will perform traditional Celtic music with a modern twang at O’Malley’s this Tuesday and Wednesday (November 6th and 7th) about 8.30pm. Come and check it out, while downing a pint or two of the black stuff.”
• “Every Friday the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai (”AustCham”) holds a drinks function at the Le Royal Meriden Hotel’s 789 Bar from 6.30-9pm approx. Yep, fair dinkum, the Poms, Yanks and everyone else hold their sundowners once a month, but we Aussies need an excuse for a business drink at least once a week. Don’t get me wrong, all are invited, just don’t talk about the rugby, George Bush or Johnnie Howard. Put the ayi on overtime to mind the ankle-biters and other half, then come down for RMB15 Coopers beers, RMB30 wines and join the throng where everyone’s flappin’ their gums. You’ve got kangaroos in the top paddock if you miss this!”

Time flies faster than a bottle of free Johnnie Walker Blue empties: October marks year one of this blog and year two of my e-newsletter. Both have steadily grown in circulation and I owe thanks to all those who have taken time to read them and to give support, inside information and constructive criticism.

In the end, the blog and newsletter come down to people. I have enjoyed meeting that broad swath of Beijing’s diverse (and often eccentric) bar population. They include the following (no doubt, I’ve forgotten some people - let me know and I’ll append this list):

- Owners such as Leo (Cheers), Keiko & Roger (First Cafe), Henry Li (Rui Fui), Phil & Sally (Phil’s Pub), Stefan & Johannes (Cafe Pause), Russell & Christine (The Pavilion), Roger (TRIO), Philip (Browns), Dave (5:19), Joseph & Lee (Cafe Europa), Cho (Bed), Amy & Jon (Stone Boat), Ai Wan (China Doll), and Jennifer & Frank (John Bull Pub, Sequoia Cafe)

- Managers such as Glenn (Pavillion, Browns, Frank’s Place, Paddy O’Shea’s), Joop (China Doll, The Bank, Mingle), Chad & Luge (The Rickshaw), Phoebe (Icehouse) and Jacky (Browns, Suzie Wong), and bartenders such as George & Echo (First Cafe, Midnight, Q Bar), Austin (Midnight), Alex (Phil’s Pub) and Badr (I’ve only had his drinks once, but they were good).

- Fellow patrons such as Agent Red Wolf, M-Dawg, Eddie O, Sir Campell T, Special K, Jolly, Winopete, O-Zone, The Flash, P-Dong, p3wong, The Cellar Rat, Kraft-D, The Rock, Funky Walker and Doctor E.

- Those who have helped bring readers, including Will at Imagethief and Dan at China Law Blog for links, the guys at Chinalyst for the blog award, Mark at CRI, Mike & Paul at that’s Beijing, and Adam, Reid & Gabe at the Insider’s Guide, whoever is behind the Yan Xishan blog, as well as everyone who has passed on the newsletter or passed on the link to the blog.

Others who have helped out: Don, Trevor, Kenn, Dan, Ali, Roger, Samantha, Ro, Janalyn, Kay, ET, GL, SM, Tom, Peter, Desmond, Finella, Adhiyanto, Traci, Bjorn, Hugh, Katy, Ben, Greg, Meg… my First Cafe buddies Oliver, Stefan, Joan, Kay, Janet, Herbert, Jason, Ping, Ken & Ken… the Friday night Sequoia wine crew, especially Alain, Alan, Arnault, Paul, Gabe and Jenn… the members of the Bourbon Rye and Whisk(e)y League (sorry I haven’t organized more events)… Mark “The Prince of Pinyin” Swofford (a good friend in Taiwan crucial to getting my two blogs going)… and many, many more.

The bar industry is not an easy one. Great places disappear along with the not-so-great ones, and those who venture into it are a diverse and usually optimistic bunch - and are usually good fun, too.

Once again, thanks to all those who have supported the blog and the newsletter over the past two years. As always, eat, drink and be merry. Cheers, Boyce

(If you’d like to get the newsletter, send an email to beijingboyce@yahoo.com with “sign me up” in the subject line. )

On those nights I am not traversing the town in my burgundy cashmere smoking jacket to attend events in support of charitable causes, I am occasionally found roughing it in places such as, say, The Rickshaw. Last Saturday eve was such an occasion. Any who spotted me no doubt noticed my table surrounded by six of the lovelier members of the fairer sex.

I would love to think that like moths to a flame they were drawn by my wit and charm, or by the shadows playing upon my face from the smog-filtered moonlight that made my profile particularly rugged. But given the scarcity of tables, perhaps the real attraction was the real estate (which included numerous chairs). Then again, it might have been the peaty Whisky I concocted earlier that night at The Dewar’s Academy of Whisky, and willingly allowed to be sampled.

I call that Whisky the Boyce Blend’r - it’s heavy on the Islay and drew praise as often as it was drawn from the flask by these connoisseurs. I believe there might be a market for it. Interested investors may inquire at beijingboyce@yahoo.com (note: smoking jackets are not cheap, thus nor are my services).

The bigger message is that if you haven’t attended Dewar’s Academy, I suggest trying to hitch onto one of the groups that will take the dozens of master classes yet to be held. This is a top-notch experience, and a free and educational one at that. Here’s the poster that the company sent me:

I went to the Dewar’s Academy of Whisky launch last night. It marks the start of 60 Whisky-related events - master classes, parties, etc - to be held during the next 30 days. BRAWL - The Bourbon, Rye and Whisk(e)y League (the club founded by Ed Ohlin and myself) - will be the guinea pigs and take the first class tonight. A few observations about the launch party:

- The academy is a giant castle-like structure between buildings A and B in Jianwai Soho, and includes two long bars, an area for the master classes and a big open space for parties. The one thing they forgot was a Whisky-filled moat.

- Based on some of the imagery, Dewar’s hopes to do what Chivas did - cash in big time with young, rich Chinese. One poster features five well-dressed, attractive, young Chinese (evoking thoughts of Babyface). The women wear the types of short-skirted dresses that might be slipped off by moving a strap or two, while the men are in full suits with ties up and shoes tightly laced. I’ll let the psychologists explain what it all means.

- There were guys wearing kilts, there were bagpipes, there was a Scottish band - what else would you expect?

- One patron approached the bar, looked past the 12-year-old Scotch and spied a bottle of Dewar’s Signature. He asked for some… with Sprite. Before generalizations kick in, he was a foreigner, American I believe. There’s nothing wrong with Sprite and Whiskey, but best to use the cheaper stuff with mix, even when it’s free (it’s the principle of the thing).

I will have more later. Now, I must be off to class…

A recent China Law Blog post provoked commentators to contrast Beijing and Shanghai taxi drivers. In my humble opinion, it comes down to one word - consistency.

Most Shanghai cabbies tend to have reasonably clean cabs and give reasonably good service. Beijing cabbies, in contrast, are all over the map. The taxis here range from spotless and fresh to filthy and smelling like the driver uses the glove compartment for composting. Some drivers readily turn the radio volume up or down, while others get offended and act as though you should feel privileged to be in their cab. They span the “friendliest guy in the world” to those who look as though they might slit passengers’ throats and stuff their bodies in the trunk (maybe that’s where the smell comes from).

But this is simply one rider’s opinion. To test it, I kept notes on the five Beijing taxis I took last Thursday.

1. The aroma of the taxi’s interior hovered between “moist tobacco” and “five-day-old skid-marked shorts” (don’t ask). The driver hustled me to work, provided change, and rode off without uttering a word, although he did grunt an affirmation when I provided my intended address.

2. This guy asked me if I was from Europe. I told him no. He said “okay”, played a Bob Marley CD and hummed along as I sang the choruses. We joked about how to translate “No Woman, No Cry” and it seemed as though he related the song to his marriage.

3. I clearly emphasized I wanted to go to Hua Reun Building, not Hua Reun Hotel, but the driver headed for the latter. Just when we got on track, he spotted a friend in another car and basically waved me out of the cab so he could stop and chat. I left without paying and walked off. He pulled up a few minutes later to offer a ride. I refused. Not only because he had been unprofessional, but also because his breath smelled like he’d eaten a month-old tuna and garlic sandwich wrapped in a dirty diaper.

4. Twenty seconds into the ride, this driver pointed to a public toilet and indicated with explicit body language that he needed to use it. I told him I was in a hurry. He drove on and became increasingly sullen. I gave him a four-kuai tip because I felt guilty.

5. This guy had his radio on loud, even though it only played static, but turned it down when requested. He used a flattened straw to clean out his ears while he drove. The trip was otherwise uneventful.

All over the map…

Still water still life

It’s not exactly turning water into wine, more like adding it to the product mix, as ASC Fine Wines introduces Voss to China and Macau. Summergate has Perrier, and now ASC is positioning itself to scoop up a bucketful of the premium bottled water market.

Beijing Boyce is a value-conscious consumer and has difficulty getting excited about things like this (I expect the stuff will cost more than 100 kuai for 500 ML at hotel restaurants). But he realizes some out there might be thirsty for information, so here you go:

- Voss springs from Norway and carries a hint of the Viking sweat that for centuries has steeped through the nation’s soil and finally reached its water supply.

- It is low in minerals and those it does have originate from the few micro-grams of pulverized Yangtze River dolphin bones added to each bottle, thus localizing the product and making it attractive in China as both a potential aphrodisiac and a rarity.

- The bottle was designed by the former creative director for Calvin Klein - apparently the director scrutinized a CK perfume sampler, dictated to lower-downs to “make it bigger and take the spray cap off”, and returned to sipping Whisky and water (Voss, of course).

Actually, only the bold parts above are true. As I said, I have trouble getting excited about this stuff…

Now for the consumer report: three people in my office have tried Voss and liked it - one even proclaimed it her favorite water. I also took a bottle to Mare last eve and gave some to a manager. “It’s soft,” he said. Well, there’s no doubting the water is good — it’s a matter of how much people are willing to pay for it.

By the way, Voss is popular with Lindsay Lohan. That’s not inspiring. I suggest trying to associate the water with someone a bit classier, say Scarlett Johannson.

And before anyone is so bold as to claim Voss as the purest water in the world, it is not. That honor goes to Canada.

In Beijing, Voss is available at Face, Centro and Lan.