Half Full

Why Dan Aykroyd’s Wine Cellar Is Empty

Drinking Rules

The legendary actor and funny man talks about his signature cocktails, his favorite bars, and why he keeps running out of vino.

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How did you go from acting to running Crystal Head Vodka? “The reason I got into the whole business was because I just wanted a better Margarita at my dockside in the summer in Canada. I had two brands to work with, I won’t name them but they were lesser tequila brands, and I thought ‘god, wouldn’t it be great to have a luxury tequila up here, like Patrón.’ So I talked to JP [DeJoria, the founder of Patrón] about it. I said ‘I’d like to bring it into just my government liquor store in the little rural town that I live in Ontario. I’d love to just have it there in the summer. And he said ‘Well, Dan, you’re going to have to bring it to the whole country, because we don’t have it in Canada.’ So JP and I brought it to Canada together and it’s now the number one selling luxury tequila in Canada. And that led me into researching vodka and I really didn’t like what additives are commonly put into vodka to mask the smell and taste of the alcohol. I think if you got good pure components and a good pure source of the mash you don’t need oils. So, we strip them out of Crystal Head.”

Besides vodka and tequila what else do you like to drink? “I run to a nice 1990 Brane-Cantenac Margaux with a burger, say. Or I’ll like a Chassagne-Montrachet with a roast chicken. Then, of course, up here in Canada we have a beer culture. I think I had a little tipple of beer before I had some mother’s milk, you know? They use beer to put kids to sleep up here when they’re infants. I do like a bourbon sometime. I like a Whiskey Sour. I like bourbon in a cocktail. But I’m not much of a Scotch man, I have friends that are devoted to that.”

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How do you like to make your Margarita? “I make it more like a Julep. I like the idea of putting mint in the Margarita. As long as you have the sugar balance right and the lime balance right, it’s not too sour. So, I take two-and-a-half ounces Patrón over ice chips, maybe a splash of soda water, maybe an ounce of really good hand squeezed lime juice, maybe half to three-quarters ounce of agave syrup, shake it all up and garnish it with a mint or basil leaf. It’s delicious. And foamy, too. It’s got that foam to it. I like to do a Pinhead, where I put pineapple juice, soda water and the vodka in a shaker. Shake that up and pour that up in a glass. The trick is to get it nice and foamy, so that it has a kind of soft texture when you sip it.”

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Are you very particular about your ice? “I don’t like ice out of a machine. The Freon, you taste it sometimes in an icemaker. I like the good old-fashioned cubes. Put’em in a plastic tray and just freeze them the old-fashioned way. The water I use here and in my other home is well water without any pollutants. So, I’ll use the well water, freeze it and then it’s nice and clean.”

When you were on Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s in New York, what were people drinking? “The whole thing then was about the Beaujolais Nouveau. Everybody went crazy about the Beaujolais Nouveau. I remember hanging at the Bar Central and at the Hudson Bar where Bruce Willis worked as a bartender but back then I knew very little about the spirits business. A Screwdriver to me was any kind of vodka you had on the bar and orange juice out of a Tropicana box. Back then it was Nouveau Beaujolais, a cold beer and then we back to work.”

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When did that change for you? “It was only when I met Steve Cropper, from the Blues Brother’s Band, who was Otis Redding’s lead and rhythm guitar player and co-song writer, he wrote Dock on a Bay, he turned me on to all these red wines. The world of cocktails really didn’t come to me until I brought the Patrón into Canada. I was seriously unsophisticated. So, jeez, I can’t even recall having a cocktail in Manhattan back then. You don’t know too much about life in your early 20s. Now I know more of the fineries of life and what a fine cocktail can be. It’s taken me this long!”

Do you have a go-to dive bar jukebox song? “Well, sure, anything by Howlin’ Wolf. Evil by Howlin’ Wolf that would be the song. It has a bit of a shake, a shimy and a shiver in it.”

What are your top three bars? “I think my favorite bar in the world is Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. You might put the label on it that it’s a kind of a dive or a hole, but it’s dark and it’s got ambiance. It’s one of the greatest basic human bars in the world. It’s my favorite. Jumbo’s Clown Room in LA is legendary. They shoot a lot of movies there. That’s a classic American bar. And there’s also a bar at the Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada, that’s pretty strange. They’re selling that place I understand because it has quite a history of paranormal activity. The bar there is great. Those are three of my favorites.”

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When it comes to shots do you have any personal rules? “I prefer to sip the shot. I don’t shoot it. I wouldn’t start before lunch and I don’t ever do more than six of the vodka or eight of the tequila. I’m a fairly hefty large, endomorphic individual, so I can absorb more than many but everything in moderation.”

Do you have any advice when it comes to pairing food and drinks? “I don’t order the food first. It’s the wine first. It’s the cocktail first.”

What’s currently in your wine cellar? “Right now, you’d open it up and a moth would fly out. There’s nothing in it. It’s all drunk. It’s all gone. It’s never full. Because we entertain here. We had a birthday party for my wife, Donna, and there were at least 30 people here consistently over four, five days and you go through the wine. I’ve got to do some replenishing. That’s one of my missions today. Go out and grab a good quality Margaux or Bordeaux and a nice California Cabernet and restock.”

Who is the best onscreen bartender? “You got to give it to Tom Cruise. He’s a consummate filmmaker who does his research. He’s an athlete, a great entertainer and a comedian among other things. He took all of that to make that movie Cocktail. I think he’s the king daddy bartender of all time. But then if you want to go to classic moments in classic bars you have to go to Casablanca. Seeing Bogart drink, that’s a privilege and a pleasure.”

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Interview has been condensed and edited.

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