{"id":1268,"date":"2021-04-02T15:32:31","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T22:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/?p=1268"},"modified":"2021-04-03T16:33:40","modified_gmt":"2021-04-03T23:33:40","slug":"we-miss-ya-johnny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/?p=1268","title":{"rendered":"We miss ya, Johnny"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next week marks the one-year anniversary of John Prine’s<\/a> death from COVID.<\/p>\n

This week’s Sunday Special<\/a> is the great singer-songwriter’s favorite cocktail, one he actually invented: the Handsome Johnny. And this post is more about the man than the drink.<\/p>\n

My first exposure to Prine came shortly after his eponymous debut album<\/a> was released in 1971. I didn’t discover the album itself until several years later, but in between I heard its songs covered by everyone from Bonnie Raitt (“Angel From Montgomery”) to John Denver (“Paradise”) and even Bette Midler (“Hello In There”).<\/p>\n

When I finally got the original record, and listened to each of his subsequent releases, I was dazzled by Prine’s remarkable talent\u2014his ability to create seemingly simple songs filled with the most complex, meaningful, and sometimes LOL-funny lyrics. Time and again, Prine found ways to mine plain language for profound insights. This former mailman was, to use the hackneyed description, a true working-person’s poet. And I was a fan.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When I moved from my hometown of Boise to Portland in the early 1980s, my friends created an “I-84 Road Tape” filled with songs by Prine and his fellow Chicago musical raconteur, Steve Goodman<\/a>, to keep me company in the grim stretch between Pendleton and Hood River. As a weekend musician, I filled my repertoire with Prine tunes, and I haven’t played a single house party or campfire singalong in the past 35 years without “Only Love”<\/a> as the finale. I had the tremendous good fortune, as a music critic in the late 1980s, of interviewing Prine before his performance at Portland’s old Starry Night club (now the Roseland Theater<\/a>); he was just like his songs: gentle, insightful, and fricking hilarious. As Raitt later remarked<\/a>, Prine was “probably the closest thing for those of us that didn\u2019t get the blessing of seeing Mark Twain in person.”<\/p>\n

There’s so much more to be said about Prine’s amazing life and his unparalleled talent: how he was discovered by none other than film critic Roger Ebert, who walked into a bar after leaving the movie he was supposed to be reviewing because the popcorn was too salty<\/a>; how Prine was the first singer-songwriter to perform at the Library of Congress<\/a>; how he survived successive bouts of neck cancer and lung cancer, only to be killed by COVID.<\/p>\n

As for the Handsome Johnny, Prine wasn’t a big drinker, but he did enjoy vodka and ginger ale. “I named it kind of after myself,\u201d Prine said several years ago<\/a>. \u201cI thought Handsome Johnny sounded like a Rob Roy or a Manhattan.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the last song of his last album, 2018’s Tree of Forgiveness<\/em><\/a>, Prine told us everything else we need to know about the Handsome Johnny:<\/p>\n

When I get to heaven, I\u2019m gonna shake God\u2019s hand<\/em>
\nThank him for more blessings than one man can stand<\/em>
\nThen I\u2019m gonna get a guitar and start a rock-n-roll band<\/em>
\nCheck into a swell hotel; ain\u2019t the afterlife grand?<\/em><\/p>\n

And then I\u2019m gonna get a cocktail: vodka and ginger ale<\/em>
\nYeah, I\u2019m gonna smoke a cigarette that\u2019s nine miles long<\/em>
\nI\u2019m gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl<\/em>
\n\u2018Cause this old man is goin\u2019 to town<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Handsome Johnny<\/h3>\n

Courtesy of Fiona Whelan Prine<\/a><\/p>\n

1 to 2 ounces vodka (Prine preferred red-label Smirnoff, but any inexpensive 80 proof vodka will do; I drink Taaka<\/a>)
\nGinger ale (Prine recommends diet; I suggest a premium ginger ale or ginger beer, such as Fever Tree<\/a>)
\nWedge of lemon (in the summertime) or lime (in the wintertime)<\/p>\n

Fill a cocktail glass with ice.<\/p>\n

Pour in vodka.<\/p>\n

Pour in ginger ale.<\/p>\n

Stir and drop the lemon or lime in from approximately 6 inches above. Do not squeeze it.<\/p>\n

(John Prine photo courtesy of WFUV Public Radio<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next week marks the one-year anniversary of John Prine’s death from COVID. This week’s Sunday Special is the great singer-songwriter’s favorite cocktail, one he actually invented: the Handsome Johnny. And this… [Continue Reading]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sunday-specials-cocktails","category-beverages"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/prinecrop.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2LarU-ks","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1283,"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions\/1283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cuisinestupide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}