[FIND] Vice - Jim Rockford

"This is Jim Rockford. At the tone leave your name and message; I'll get back to you." - Answering machine message at the Rockford Agency.

It's sometimes hard to craft a story about someone you idolize. Jim Rockford, for lots of people my age and older, is the iconic modern private investigator. There were others before and of course there's magnum and that passel of PIs that came later, but Rockford is, for many, simply the best.

He lived in a trailer (that seconded as an office), drove a gold Pontiac Firebird, and owned a handgun that, according to him, "I just point it. I don't shoot." Rockford entertained flight attendants on layover, continuously bothered his cop buddies, and spent quality time with his old man, Rocky (see photo at right). 

 

He was, as was the era, a bit of a sartorial mess. But he had a life that most men envied. 

An ex-con: "I was pardoned." 

An optimist: "Yeah but look at it this way, an inch or two to the left and he'd have missed me completely." 

A fair fighter: "Ow. If I could do that without a roll of quarters in my hand, I'd be a terror." 

A coiner of classic phrases: "Freeze turkey!"

The Rockford Files was a virtual one-liner factory and James Gardner could deliver those lines like no other. So, it is with respect, admiration, and honor that we at [FIND] Investigations bring you this months [FIND] Vice:

The Cocktail - actually a guest post from our friends over at Q103 in Albany, NY, with the perfect tag line: Go Rock (ford) Yourself. Thank you Brian Bushner, Digital Program Director at Townsquare Media for a fantastic guest appearance here at [FIND] Vice. Here's what Brian has to say:

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What Beer Would Jim Rockford Drink?

I’m a huge fan of Classic TV shows –  call it part of my nerd charm. I watch The Rockford Files nearly every night and I’m pretty annoyed that NBC is so out of ideas that they are going to remake this classic. So I ask the big question: what would Jim Rockford drink?

When Jim wasn’t being shot at while working on a case that he'd likely never get paid for, he enjoyed sitting in his trailer eating Oreos, or going out to a good steak dinner, or a spicy taco from his favorite restaurant, Casa Taco. Jim always had a beer too with that stuff. Usually it was in a can at home or what I’m pretty sure was a lager at a restaurant or bar.

Beer was pretty boring in the mid to late 1970s. Beers popular at that time included Miller High Life, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Schlitz, and a very limited supply of imported beers for variety.  Things started getting better when the ban on homebrewing was lifted in October 1978. The entire microbrewery movement is a fairly recent thing too.

Basically, Rockford was a beer lover with limited options. But if he could sip a cold one today,  here are a few I'd like to pair with his favorite three foods:

Oreos – best known for dunking in milk, dunk in beer at your own risk. I’d say a chocolate and vanilla stout. Breckenridge Brewery makes an awesome vanilla stout, and the Creme Brulee Stout from Southern Tier Brewing Company goes perfectly with Oreos. Very vanilla scent, along with some chocolate and both scents translate to flavor. 

Steak dinner? I’d go with the Brown Ale from Brooklyn Brewery, a great beer which isn’t too heavy. It goes well with a hearty meal, and the flavor pairing with steak is phenomenal. This beer smells like maple and brown sugar. The sweet chestnut flavors mixed with beef (especially grilled) plays a symphony of delight in your mouth. This beer has a low alcohol content so it’s okay to have a second one because once you taste the flavor combinations you’ll want to keep the flavor flowing.

Jim also liked a “spicy taco” from a fictional local joint. Usually I suggest anything with lots of hops, like an IPA, with a spicy food because the hops help cool the burn and the bitter + spicy flavor contrast is one of my favorites. 

Let’s pair Redhook ESB with the spicy taco. The sweet/butter flavors with the spice kicks the flavor up a notch. There are enough hops in this beer to take it a step further and have it with a spicy fish taco. If you take a sip of this as a chaser, the fish flavor returns for a second quick round. It’s a neat flavor trick!

Not sure if Jim would actually drink all that but it was fun to speculate, no?

Thanks again to our friends over at Albany's very own Q103, Go Rock Yourself.

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The Cigar - Actually a cigar
By: Joe Zike, Cigar Expert, formerly of UpTown's Smoke Shop. 

Padron 1926 Anniversary Series

Length: 5-1/2" 

Ring Gauge: 52

Filler: Nicaraguan

Binder: Nicaraguan

Wrapper: Nicaraguan Maduro

Rockford knows how to relax, and he's going to need to after getting caught up in his friends' activities, a bathroom brawl or two, and a car chase in his Pontiac Firebird. He'll take time out to go fishing, and he's gonna bring a cigar along. It'd be the Padron 1926 Anniversary Series #2 maduro. Its dark wrapper gives the cigar a creamy undertone. As the cigar smokes, peppery spice and hickory notes alternate and are kept in check by the creamy undertone. Whether he catches any fish or not doesn't matter. 

On a personal note: We said a temporary goodbye to out friend Joe last Wednesday night. He's off to Germany for a summer internship at journalism school. We're proud of Joe and we wish him well. Give us a call when you get back this direction, we'll share a cigar and a glass of wine at Rumours.

[FIND] Vice - Taylor Jackson

Taylor Jackson, Lt. Metro Nashville Police Department, Homicide.

What can we say about Taylor Jackson? She’s tall, blond, gorgeous, smart, well-bred, but rebellious. She’s tough, strong, pretty, leggy, manly, yet feminine. She kills it in a dress and will kick your ass for noticing. Lieutenant Taylor Jackson, the leading lady in a series of detective novels written by Nashville author J.T. Ellison, is unique.

I met Taylor at Patterson House, local gin-joint, dark, tin-ceiling, and bookshelves for walls. We sat at the end of the bar, either side of the corner, facing each other. I ordered my usual, and asked her what’s her poison. She said, “I like beer, maybe a wine. Don’t drink much heavy liquor.”

Thank god James, the friendly barkeep and mix-master picked up on that vestigial Belle Meade drawl. “Young lady,” he said, “trust me on this, you need a cocktail.” He tore a handful of mint, slammed it in a sterling tumbler and twisted the classic julep into a new and delightful taste of old-Nashville.

The Cocktail

by James Hensley, Patterson House

Taylor’s Old-School

2 oz Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey (the Nashville connection)

1/4 oz Rothman & Winter Apricot Liqueur 

1/4 oz Demarara Syrup

13 Drops of Peychaud's Bitters

3 Sprigs of Mint

Place the mint in the bottom of a metal julep cup and bruise it. Then, using your muddler, pull the mint up the inside wall of the cup to coat the inside with mint oil. Press the mint back down in the tin and then add the whiskey and stop. Give the spirit a moment to extract still more mint essence from the mint. After ten seconds or so add the rest of the ingredients and fill the cup about 3/4 of the way full with crushed ice. Swizzle the drink until a frosty coat of ice is built on the exterior of the cup. Cap the drink with a heaping dome of crushed ice and garnish with a bouquet of mint and a straw. 

- - -

After enjoying a few too many, we slip out the back door, down the wooden steps to the secret patio behind The Patterson House. We pick a table—there’s nobody else—and settle into seats for a pause. Taylor reaches into her purse and pulls out a cigar. “Guilty pleasure,” she says, clips the end, lights it, and delivers it across the table. Thoughtful lady, that Taylor…

The Cigar

by Joe Zike, UpTowns

CAO – Sopranos Edition

Wrapper: Brazil

Binder: Honduras

Filler: Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Columbia

A local woman, she knows Nashville's players and fakers. She'd support the homegrown CAO cigar company, and her smoke of choice from the 14 blends they make would be the "Sopranos" edition. This blend has rich cocoa and coffee notes. Her size, fittingly, would be the "Boss" which is 7 inches long with a 56 ring gauge. It's the right cigar for her to blow smoke rings around the shrewdest criminal mind. -JZ

[FIND] Vice - Jake Gittes

"What I do for a living may not be very reputable. But I am. In this town I'm the leper with the most fingers." Jake Gittes, "The Two Jakes"

Loach: What happened to your nose, Gittes? Somebody slammed a bedroom window on it?

Jake Gittes: Nope. Your wife got excited. She crossed her legs a little too quick. You understand what I mean, pal?

Equal parts mystery and psycho-thriller, the 1974 movie Chinatown revived the film noir genre and gave the world one of [FIND]'s favorite fictional private eyes, Los Angeles gumshoe J.J. "Jake" Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson.

Screenwriting professors everywhere get all misty about Robert Towne's  superbly-crafted screenplay, a dark tale of murder, corruption, and water rights set in 1930s Southern California. Towne's stark, whittled-down dialogue breathes life into Gittes, a cynical, every-man-for-himself divorce-shamus resplendent in a back-belted white linen suit and straw hat.

Gittes isn't afraid to compromise to the very edge of legality and sleaze, but the evil he encounters surrounding his mysterious client, Mrs. Mulray (Faye Dunaway), pushes the limits of even Gittes's flexible morality. Embittered by some murky past as a cop in L.A.'s Chinatown, in which his job was to "do as little as possible," he's learned that nothing is ever as it seems.

Gittes's momentary resurgence as a man who protects the weak and fights for what's right comes to naught, in a dark, climactic scene re-tooled by director Roman Polanski from the original screenplay. Gittes, again, steeps in disgust at the futility of salvation in a venal world. As the two watch the tragedy unfold, Gittes's partner, Lawrence Walsh, tells him, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

The Cocktail
James Hensley manages The Patterson House, a favorite watering hole of ours, and just the kind of dramatically-lit speakeasy Gittes would have loved, if only he could pay the bar tab. Hensley cooked up the ideal mouth-shattering cocktail in honor of that rough-cut L.A. gumshoe:


The Chinatown

1.5 oz.             Lunazul Reposado Tequila

1/2 oz.             Chichicappa Mezcal

3/4 oz.             Fresh lime juice

3/4 oz.             Ginger syrup

1/2 oz.             Aperol

Place all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake. Strain over ice in a rocks glass and garnish with ginger candy.

The Cigar

PI Gittes seems to need to unwind, relax, let his thinning hair down, whatever one may call it, with a cigar after an investigation that left him with a mutilated nostril. He doesn't need anything too strong, but something smooth and capable of creating a contemplative distance from the day's events. 

The Zino Classic No. 1 would do just fine. It is mild to medium, depending on one's palate. The Ecuadorian wrapper complements the cigar's Dominican and Honduran tobacco to reveal a very slightly bitter, buttery, woodsy flavor. 

Wrapper: Ecuador 

Binder: Honduras 

Filler: Dominican Republic, Honduras

(Wordsmithing and cigar suggestion courtesy of Joe Zike at UPtown's Smoke Shop)

[FIND] Vice

In the next several issues of THE Monthly Ledger, we’ll be running a guest column called [FIND] Vice.

We here at [FIND] Investigations occasionally enjoy our vices. For lead investigator THH, it’s the rare cigar. Investigatrix KDG appreciates the beauty of a fine, hand-crafted cocktail. So we’ve joined forces with two of our favorite local businesses to help us, and you, explore our respective vices with knowledge and artistry.

The Cocktail –

Mission: Pick the perfect cocktail to complement a fictional Private Investigator.

Operative: Josh Habiger, Manager

Venue: The Patterson House

1711 Division Street

Nashville, TN 37203

Tuesday – Sunday 5pm to 3am

615-636-7724

Qualifications: Chef Josh Habiger, an alumnus of Fat Duck in London, Craft in New York City, and Alinea in Chicago, will apply his considerable talents to the task assigned. He’ll be pairing a cocktail with a PI for the next several months. Be sure and sign up for The Monthly Ledger to get the latest in Vice.

The Cigar –

Mission: Choose the perfect cigar to fit the character of a fictional Private Investigator.

Operative: Scott Partridge, General Manager

Venue: Uptowns Smoke Shop

4001 Hillsboro Road

Nashville, TN 37215

Qualifications: Scott Partridge will, with the help of Joe Zike, select a cigar for our PI of the month. Is he qualified? Well, Partridge is manager of one of the World’s Top 12 Tobacconists according to Forbes. Nothing more to say about that…

Drop by any time.