Mark's eJournal October 22, 2009 – Odds and Sods #4 –The Gentleman’s Club

Katherine’s brother Bobby came to town. It was his 60th birthday in June, so as a present we brought him over to Paris for a visit. Now Bobby and I share similar tastes. We both are enamored of French doors. Separately, we have both been taking pictures of doors. As this picture shows, the doors are huge and beautiful. When I get enough door pictures, I plan on making an album. And for lunch, we like a little wine….well, at least he does….I save it for dinner. But we also enjoy trivial pursuit and Scottish pubs. Katherine and I haven’t really gone to many Paris pubs. Don’t get me wrong, we are single-handedly saving the French wine industry during La Crise Économique. But we have checked out where all the local pubs were, just in case we ran out of wine.

One pub we found was the Highlander…apropos given our heritage [or at least their heritage]. And to our great surprise, they had a pub quiz on Sunday nights. Without going into details, we came in second and won free shots of whiskey. And if it wasn’t for all those French questions like “what color is the number 4 Metro line and the name of its ending stations”, we would have come in first. But Bobby needed a pub with music, with characters, with life, and most of all, with cheap Guinness. And he found it. The Gentleman. Easily within walking distance of our flat, sober or not.

Now by himself, Bobby is a very friendly guy. He makes friends with everybody. Paris is no exception. And he makes important friends, like with the bouncer, Ahmed. This friendship ensured that no matter how crowded the Gentleman got, we were always allowed entry. It also allowed Bobby easy access to all parts of the pub especially where the music was playing. And the group [or should I say duo] that were playing were great. For a couple of acoustic guitars, they sounded great.

And I didn’t have any problems making friends with the locals either. I never met this guy, Vladimir, before but he and his friends loved Americans [or maybe just me]. Anyway, they were having this drink which looked very special. I think it’s called a B-52. I watched as he and his friends appeared to “snort” the flaming drink. Apparently, I was obvious so Vlad bought me one. Not to be outdone, I reciprocated…..twice. Not because I felt obligated but because Katherine didn’t really get a good first picture. Needless to say, I didn’t mind the retake. And for those interested few, here’s how you make one of these B-52s:

In a large shot glass layer Kahlua, Bailey’s, and then Grand Marnier.

In our case, the bartender used a tiny bent sugar spoon to pour each layer onto. This ensured three distinct layers. Then he ignited the Grand Marnier. Hence the reason the picture looks like we are snorting the drink….you suck the whole flaming drink [as in "on fire"] in one suck from the bottom using a straw.....hence the expression, bottom's up???

Needless to say, we all had a great time and we look forward to Bobby taking us through more pub crawls in Paris.