Blog

Aug 28, 2023

Bits & Bites: Poe speakeasy pops up in Baltimore, McCormick raps with Doug E. Fresh and Italy gets crabby

Labor Day weekend is widely considered the de facto end of summer. But a new cocktail pop-up coming to Baltimore will have the city rolling straight into fall. The Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy will

Labor Day weekend is widely considered the de facto end of summer. But a new cocktail pop-up coming to Baltimore will have the city rolling straight into fall.

The Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy will deliver some macabre vibes more than a month before Halloween during its brief run in Downtown Baltimore this holiday weekend. The speakeasy is set to pop up at Chase Court, an event venue located in the former Christ Episcopal Church parish house at 1112 St. Paul St., from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2.

Visitors to the speakeasy will be served Poe-inspired cocktails, such as the Pale Blue Eye, a mix of blueberry vodka, lemon juice, rose syrup and La Croix sparkling water, and the Raventini, a black-and-gold drink with citrus vodka and blackberry liqueur.

Accompanying the drinks will be an interactive show with live storytelling based on Poe’s works. The poet and short story writer lived and worked for a time in Baltimore and is buried here, in lot 27 of the Westminster Burying Ground on the corner of Greene and Fayette streets.

The pop-up, organized by Rock Star Beer Festivals, is the latest Poe-themed event to come to town. The annual Poe Fest International is scheduled for October, around the date of his death in 1849, and features tours of the writer’s house on Amity Street and a Black Cat Ball gala. On Poe’s birthday, Jan. 19, a mysterious “Poe Toaster” pays tribute to the author at his grave site.

Baltimore is the third stop this year for the Poe pop-up, which has already made appearances in Charleston, South Carolina and Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s headed next to Orlando, Tampa and New York City.

Timed tickets for the speakeasy cost $55 and include all four cocktails on the pop-up menu. Organizers recommend donning cocktail attire or even a Poe costume.

Pasta with blue crabs is prepared at a restaurant kitchen in Orbetello, Italy, on Aug. 14. To tame hordes of blue crabs that are spreading along the coasts of all Italian regions, restaurants have begun to change their menus, introducing linguine with blue crab or grilled blue crab alongside more traditional dishes. (Luigi Navarra/AP)

Summer may be waning, but there’s still plenty of time left for one more crab feast. Tell that to the Italians, who are grappling with an invasion of blue crabs on the other side of the Atlantic.

It might be hard for us crab-loving Marylanders to comprehend, but in Italy, blue crabs are an invasive species, preying on local populations of clams, eels and mussels — and wreaking havoc on local fisheries and cuisine.

So, just as Maryland chefs have done with local invasive species like catfish and snakehead, Italian cooks are coming up with dishes aimed at encouraging diners to add crabs to their diet. The menu at one farm lobby event this summer, according to a recent Associated Press report: rosemary crab salad, Venetian-style crab with onion and vinegar sour and pasta with garlic-tossed crab.

Call it dining to save the environment — as if anyone needed an excuse to eat more blue crabs. Maybe it could encourage some culinary tourism, too. (Note to my editors: I stand ready to fly to Italy for a deeper look at this story.)

First Lisa Loeb, now Doug E. Fresh.

Hunt Valley-based spice maker McCormick & Co has a new partnership — and a new original song — with Doug E. Fresh, the legendary beatboxer and hip-hop pioneer. Loeb’s song, as you might remember, was about Old Bay Goldfish; this time, the McCormick ditty is about bottle caps.

“Herbs and spices to your likeness, a new red cap that increase the tightness,” Fresh raps over a bass-heavy beat punctuated by beatboxing. That “new red cap” is part of McCormick’s first bottle redesign in nearly 40 years, according to the company. The new bottles have a snap-on lid that McCormick says will better preserve herbs and spices.

Are city businesses with a liquor license obligated to fork over security camera footage when asked?

That’s what a liquor board inspector is arguing after an incident in Fells Point in June. According to the board’s docket, police and the inspector asked employees of the Sagamore Pendry hotel if they could review the hotel’s security camera footage on June 24 to get a better look at a man with a large knife who had slashed the tires of a police department wagon in the area.

According to the report, the manager on duty declined to hand over the footage, citing hotel policy, unless there was a subpoena or a warrant. That prompted a write-up from the liquor inspector, who says the Pendry was in violation of the liquor board’s rule 3.02, which requires “licensees and their agents and employees (to) cooperate with representatives of the Board, the Police Department, Health Department, Fire Department, Building Engineers office, and any grand jury, and representatives of other governmental agencies who are on official business.”

The hotel will be able to present a rebuttal at a board hearing set for Sept. 7.