Give some money to the girl outside, as much as you can spare.
C’mon in, have a good time and pull you up a chair.
If you’re holding anything you know, it’s just polite to share.
Try and keep the conversation light.
— Brian Wright, Red Rooster Social Club.
Amy and I came to the Finger Lakes for the first time in 2012. Wine brought us here, wine keeps us returning, wine will eventually have us here to stay. There have been times, perhaps even most of the time, when it appeared we were here for little except the wine. Food, of course, but how can you reasonably drink wine without talking about food. The scenery, true, but if it weren’t for wine, we may have never found this seasonal wonderland. So, wine is the ultimate black hole, sucking all into it’s maw, it looms quietly (most of the time) over every conversation. At other times it nearly screams out, this is wine, the magnificent, the all encompassing, the only word more ubiquitous than “fuck”, though possibly not as useful – I can’t imagine yelling out “wine” when hitting one’s hand with a hammer, and I would personally prefer something stronger than wine to drown the pain in. Still, wine sends its tendrils out into the Earth literally, and figuratively into the minds of Earth’s inhabitants. These days, I resist the urge to speak of wine as much as possible, so as to avoid terms like pedantic or bore. Ask questions at your peril, however, I will happily leap over the abyss and sing praise and hymns to the ethereal world of wine. I was lately thrown into such a conversation with a well matched individual, and in a seemingly most unlikely place, about which I would like to tell you. If you have a few, well, I’m not going to lie, if you have fifteen or twenty minutes to spare, I will try to be entertaining, although I’ll settle for interesting. Attends!
I lost my mojo over the last few months. Life kind of sits you down once in awhile and reminds you that, although the daily grind seems bad, there are moments of worse, sometimes even worst, waiting to grind you down. My mother’s death was obviously the most momentous occurrence during this time, but many other situations, both personal and professional, nibbled away at my new found zen. I somehow found the habit of shifting from a shared bottle of wine with dinner, to a Manhattan nightcap, then to two or three Manhattans. It’s not just the alcohol that had me concerned, it’s consuming it without a pleasurable experience, and waking in the morning somewhat worse for wear. I don’t drink wine to get tipsy, or drunk, as I’ve written before, it’s the whole experience; the way it changes in the glass over time, the way it interacts with well prepared food, the swirl, the wafting of aromas, the removal of the cork, the presentation, all of it. Alcohol in moderation lubes the conversation, lowers inhibitions, and makes for interesting conversation. Drinking whisky might be a similar experience for others, but spirits are too high in alcohol for me to properly judge. It’s all alcohol, true, but wine lights up different centers in my brain. And I’m a fan.
We live outside Hammondsport now, and I do my best to support local businesses. I was looking for a new place to drink and ponder, and I stumbled into Maloney’s Pub. I had driven past the place dozens of times over the years, but I had never ventured in, a fact I can’t quite explain. There was something a bit ominous in my mind about Maloney’s, it’s no one comment I can recall, just an overall impression picked up from hanging out in town over a year or so. I had ventured close once, I made it to the porch on a weekend night and a wall of people and sound held me back. It turns out that I would have many interesting conversations on this porch, with many of these same people. These strangers, for now. When I did finally make it to the bar over the winter, I was tentative. It was immediately clear that this was no wine bar (although they do sell wine, and people drink it, it is, alas, not Finger Lakes wine. But we’re working on it.) When asked my preference, I nodded towards the guy next to me and said “I’ll have what he’s having”, which turned out to be a Bud Light, my first, and last, in decades. I’ve settled on Red Stripe, an old friend from my Navy days, and the occasional margarita or Bloody Mary (their Bloody Marys are beyond reproach).
Once I entered that door, I was hooked. Depending on the time of year, it’s a glorious mix of locals, tourists, winemakers, hospitality workers, tasting room employees, teachers (a lot of teachers), people from all walks of life, drinking and mingling and, with a very rare exception, getting along. There’s another thing you’ll notice about Maloney’s, the regulars watch out for each other. Even some that don’t necessarily care that much for each other’s company will have each other’s back. If you enter this community with love and acceptance in your heart, they will welcome you into their figurative, and literal (I’m looking at you Stan.) arms. I dropped into this fascinating mix in the midst of my leanings towards harder spirits, not necessarily fortuitous. Regardless of how welcoming and back-watching it gets in Maloney’s, it can be a hard drinking bar, with regulars coming off double shift jobs and ordering cheap beer. Twelve hours of serving food and drinks to sunburned and sometimes drunk tourists doesn’t need anything fancy to take the edge off, sometimes alcohol is all that’s required. The reason I didn’t fall into a Maloney’s pit is because the owner, Rick DeSalvo, politely started to inquire, towards the end of an evening, if I really needed that last drink. Ricky did this with such finesse that I honestly can’t remember if he ever actually cut me off, but he did get me thinking.
My mother died on a Thursday. This is forever locked in my mind because I always work Thursdays, but I took this one off when my brother’s call left me with little ability to concentrate on cases. I roamed around the Finger Lakes, and had a sip or two of wine, but I didn’t get drunk, my mother wouldn’t have liked that, I just wandered. Thinking. Trying not to think. Then a friend reminded me that Maloney’s had an open mic on Thursdays. I’ve done open mics before, but stage fright and poor acoustics had left me even more convinced that performing in public was not for me. I’ve been playing guitar for almost forty years, and I think I’m able to stay within my limits enough to be pretty good. I’ve never played in a band, I’ve rarely performed for more than friends and family, I never knew what I was missing. But this particular day my mother had died, and she had been my greatest fan. Get it? What did I care about stage fright? I got up, told P.J. to join in if he wanted, and with the exception of a few moments of clarity, came back to reality 45 minutes later to surprising applause. That was several months ago, now I have a portable PA system I can lug around and play wherever. I’m at Maloney’s at least once a week and will be branching out soon. It’s a little overwhelming, in a tempest in a teapot kind of way, but I’ve now been offered money to play, so I guess I’ll jettison the Imposter Syndrome. I own it. Come see me play sometime.
Now, about that conversation. I got to talking to a gentleman on the porch one night, I should have recognized him but we were both out of context. Alec works at Forge, a favorite place to spend an afternoon. He’s also the owner of Divided Sky Vineyard, right down the road from Dr. Frank’s. I’ll tell more of this in a follow up article but, suffice to say, he has a very few wines and they are remarkable. Alec reminded me of where I knew him from and we started one of those esoteric conversations that would be anathema to a non-wine person. I suppose we may have cleared the porch of beer drinkers, and neither of us cared a whit. We were in thrall. All in, as they say. We talked of micro wineries, of what constitutes a natural wine, the nature of Finger Lakes wine in general, vineyard sites, basically a geek fest. And somewhere in there, my flame reignited. That little kernel of fascination with something on both a grand and minute scale, of the ability to study one tree, or the entire forest, over a glass of fermented juice that can be rustic or ethereal. Light and fruity, or dark and earthy. It’s a miracle I’ve described before, it had just gone to sleep in my head, in my heart. I felt dominoes start to tumble in my brain. I felt curiosity awake. How fascinating to rekindle my wine spirit on the porch at Maloney’s.
And yet, why not? In the last nine months I’ve gotten to know many of the people that frequent Maloney’s. They care deeply, possibly not about wine, but what does that matter? Caring is caring. Giving a shit is the universal language of people that care. About the wine. Or the darts. Or pool. Or that local sour beer. Or of being nigh on to a scratch golf player. A passionate love for pop music and film. An infatuation with boats. Lovers of all things, especially their fellow human beings. I love these people, and they seem to love me back. I’m sure they would do the same for any of you, if you leave hate and intolerance at the door.
Here’s a few things that should be in the insider’s guide to Maloney’s:
- It’s cash only.
- There’s an ATM that works most of the time, and two nearby banks.
- They don’t have a kitchen.
- They don’t mind if you order food from somewhere else and eat it there.
- They have darts and a pool table.
- Open mic on Thursdays.
- Live music most Fridays and Saturdays.
- Who knows when I might play.
Cheers, Jerry.