Cocktails In Boquete

We lost the old comments but installed a new system as of today. Talk back or add your own Lolita or general Boquete experiences if you want.

Posted by petefredbob at 07:23 PM | Permalink

I have no idea how Hillbilly managed to get in all of the photos. These are from Thursday day into nighttime.

Posted by petefredbob at 01:35 PM | Permalink

So Sandy brought the cocktail book home with her the other night and came back today with a list of drinks she wants to add to the menu. This one is called a "coup de soleil." White rum, Campari and orange juice.

Posted by petefredbob at 08:47 PM | Permalink

It's Tuesday and we have much lower and more comfortable benches, and, I still have all my fingers by the grace of the saw gods.

Before:

After:

I'm planning to quit the Boquete Panama dot ning site this Friday over censorship issues. It isn't getting me many (if any) new customers anyway and the tone is getting self righteous and a bit prudish.

Here in Boquete we already have a community site that holds posters to a moderated civility and Boquete dot ning was supposed to be for adults having hearty discussions. It was not to be. Pity.

A certain 'Bradley' had started discussions calling for a brothel in town, advertised and then reported on a 'swingers party' and otherwise generally attempted to mix things up by testing people's tolerance levels. He was ultimately banned for accusing someone of bestiality.

Here at Cocktails we don't moderate the comments unless somebody keeps missing the point, whatever that may be. Unless of course they amuse me while off topic by accusing me or another commenter of bestiality or some such. Then my Jersey can come out, so comment away and see if you can make me mad enough to ban you. Or at least insult you.

And come down on Friday with your favorite Lenny Bruce joke or routine for a free beer or well drink (after six PM) and maybe we can get Bradley to come by and regale us with tales of low times and debauchery.

Posted by petefredbob at 07:57 PM | Permalink

We'll try to pick up on the blogging from here on as we change from simply a construction update to gossip and shameless promotion like good little capitalists.

Immediately we announce that Sundays will be Pizza special day with "Two Beers and a Pizza" for ten bucks. As we now have celery salt and (well, prepared) horseradish Sunday will see Bloody Marys at a dollar off as well. We'll be awaiting Giovy's approval for our new recipe.

Our crack bartending staff, formerly consisting of the delightful Sandy (with a 'y', not to be confused with the lovely Sandi), has now been joined and extended by Maria and Yaris so come on down and try and make them speak English. Dictionaries are available.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:25 AM | Permalink

Great news for Cuba today, February 19, 2008: Castro steps down.

No matter what your political stripe I think we can all agree that Fidel has had his turn and it's time for someone new to lead these long-suffering people. To celebrate the transition today we will feature Cuba Libres for two dollars and Mojitos for four dollars.

I knew there was a reason we were playing the Buena Vista Social Club record last night. We'll try and dig up some Celia Cruz and maybe Ricky Ricardo- I mean Desi Arnaz. Bring your Cuban themed CD's and get a two for one special if we have time to play it.

Come on, shake your body baby, do the conga!

Posted by petefredbob at 12:50 PM | Permalink

Did the cutting of the tile today (the bar top anyway) as Roberto Carlos stopped by to tell me the benches were done and he'd be by tomorrow to do the bar cushion. The mortar is setting as we speak. Hopefully Phil will stop by with the back bar shelf within the next day or so and then all the tiling should be done by the weekend.

Vacation day today which meant Hidalgo stopped by about half a dozen times. The water pipe broke again, he fixed it, it broke again, I gave him money for the hardware store tomorrow. Mostly he stared at me. He asked for money once. It really annoyed the hell out of me, especially when I dropped a beam out back only to turn around and find him there. I yelled at him to pick it up instead of just standing there so I could finish what I was doing (I was on the ladder). Primo has gone to Dolega for the Carnaval celebration and he's iffy for tomorrow.

The last three days have been fruitful and if the roofing panels are delivered tomorrow when they're supposed to I'll begin to see an end. The bodega and the men's room are the final two big projects before the decorating. Oh yeah, the block for the back bar. Need to order the blocks pretty quick. Then more stone for the front. Then plumb the hot water heater.

I think some of the things Sandy put in the back of the house are dying though I've been pretty good about watering in the front. Outlaw Bob and I are scheduled for another run to David on Thursday when I'll order up some glasses and bar implements as well as the nylon screening for the windows, the sconces and some other stuff I forget at the moment. Moto Phil has a line on some molding for the windows.

I may have a new alcohol distributor out of Panama City and I've got an order in at Cosechas for a few cases of wine to start off: a cab, a merlot and a chardonnay.

Posted by petefredbob at 09:49 PM | Permalink

Had a full page of calculations and measurements concerning the panels for the roof and done went and lost it. I felt the urge this morning and ordered them for Monday. Um, no, Monday is a holiday. Tuesday? No. Wednesday it is by jove! What? No more 18-foot panels? In David? They have thinner gage stuff. Will the wind take it and blow it away because it's thinner? Not if I have it screwed down well enough. And the seven-foot? How 'bout 8-foot? Ok. Wednesday. You take what you get. I'll make it work.

More painting today and the yellow made its way into the main room.

Back roof supports are firmly cemented in place.

The front beam? Another story. I'm going to have to take it off and redo the holes and buy more anchors. I 'think' the fellas understand this time how important it is to hold the thing steady. I don't know. I managed to get two bolts secured, one on each side, then broke the lead anchors on the rest of them because the angles weren't straight.

I may have found my first bartender, fingers crossed. Showed her the place today and explained what I was after and she seems ready to go. She's twenty-two and the boys next door at Recuerdos gave her a loooong look as she walked away. Might be a keeper.

Posted by petefredbob at 07:40 PM | Permalink

OK then. Just back from Roxane's Steakhouse where I had a most pleasant dining experience and will endeavor to write it up on the Boquete dot ning site. Maybe tomorrow.

Deyanira was a no-show today so I started out painting. After Hidalgo was done securing the rest of the screens he took over the paint pot. And I mean pot, as in cooking pot. I needed something to hold the wood treatment for the termites about six months ago and the little lady wasn't around so my medium saucepan was pressed into service. It is now a handy paint holder. She's still not happy about it.

We'll run a final coat tomorrow on the red, finish the top of the men's room and get ready for the yellow.

The wall is very nearly done and ready for sanding, missing some small additional pieces around the wall sockets where Primo was a little too zealous with the blade. But close. I did a test mix on the mortar for the final roof support box and laid two rows of block. That will be done and ready for planting the post tomorrow.

The front roof support beam is hanging in place, but the anchors keep spinning. I need to get some kind of socket adaptor for my drill to spin those suckers into submission. We'll be doing a citywide hardware store search on the morrow.

I'm thinking all the currently planned roof supports should be in place by Friday, and I'll finally order the zinc roofing then. Hope it's not windy on Monday or I may wind up doing my Wizard of Oz trick. The back pieces will be eighteen feet long. I'm really jonesing to start laying out tile on the bar, or at least putting the paneling on the front, so that may be a Sunday thing.

Photos tomorrow.

Posted by petefredbob at 09:28 PM | Permalink

Primo is back! He's already working on the sheetrock. I apologized for being insensitive on Thursday. Sending Hidalgo to get new screwdriver bits for the drill, and longer bolts and washers for the front beam. Deyanira (yes, I remember her name now) is putting the second coat of paint on the men's room and then will start on the security screens. Glorious Monday!

Yesterday on my day of rest, windy rainy and cold, the internet connection decided to get weird. Ftp program, Skype and two out of three instant message programs worked. I could get my email off of my server, but not from Hotmail. The http protocol was kaput.

All the diagnostic tools told me I was connected just fine. Being that Skype worked I called my buddy in the States and he started walking me through pinging stuff and checking DNS servers. We got to the point of rebooting the router and modem (again) and I knew I was going to lose Skype. I did, and luckily for me his computer geekery overcame his loathing for paying for international calls, and he called me back at home when it became apparent I wasn't calling him.

We're still not exactly sure what we did to get it all working, but we're 'pretty' sure the modem uses the IP address usually reserved for many wireless routers, which was confusing. Luckily, my router has a different IP address than normal, which helped during the troubleshooting.

Posted by petefredbob at 09:03 AM | Permalink

A little better today. Got the bench together, mostly, but of course the top didn't match the bottom. Hidalgo started out with the gringo machete but ultimately preferred the regular one. He did a much better job than I did with the gringo version. Got all the light boxes wired along with an outlet. All I got to do is figure out what fixtures are going in and twist the wires.

New female worker today, forgot her name already but she can clean. Had her hit behind the bar and she did so well I had her redo what the guys did the other day. Bathrooms are done too. Worth every nickel.

Tomorrow she gets to start painting. That's right, Bob and I picked up the paint, and some blocks for the roof support out back, and the tile, and the laminate. One of the girls at the paint store was definitely barmaid material, until I watched her struggling to do her job.

It took two employees to open the buckets, add tint to the machines and mix. I actually helped get one of the tint cans open as it was becoming un-cute. I'll probably get the rest of it off my hands by sometime tomorrow. She would have looked good shaking a cocktail, but I'm not up for retraining the employees between drinks.

Tomorrow we'll start off cutting sheetrock and then to the bench seats and fronts, until and if Gary comes by. If that happens we'll change up immediately for the roof support beams, and after the first three are up hit the blocks out back and see if we can get the final support cemented in to set for Monday. I'm having the strangest sense of déjà vu at the moment. Ever get that? Weird.

Jack and George came by to kibitz today for a few minutes and said they'd be on the lookout for suitable employees. It's getting to be that time folks, any locals reading that have recommendations for barmaids that can at least fake a smile for an interview, send them by. This weekend I'll make the initial list for the booze order and get that going. Any further suggestions for favorite liquor should be put in the comments here before Tuesday. Not saying we'll get it, but we'll consider it and see if it's available.

I'm going to have to figure out how to accommodate private bottles as well. Maybe a dollar per drink handling charge or glass rental or mix setup or something. Anybody familiar with a good system go ahead and throw that in the comments too. And remember to tip your servers, this is a gringo joint.

Posted by petefredbob at 05:54 PM | Permalink

Found out a few moments ago why the 2 by 4's didn't come on Saturday, the boss's truck broke down. It's a small operation around five hundred meters or so from here and I've been known to hump a couple of pieces to the house on my back, or on Hidalgo's, when I really needed to.

The foreman was there and he told me as soon as they can get some kind of vehicle they'll get the 2 by's over. I also went down to order the metal crossbeams for the outside roof at Materiales Karen. I begged Verushka from El Constructor yesterday to come over and check my measurements but she couldn't make it. Not a big surprise then when I found they really don't make 25 and 30 foot sections like I wanted.

I had been told by various people that they could custom make virtually any size piece cut to order, but I didn't know what the limit was. Now I know and I'm glad I didn't get that last post in the ground last week as I would have been short by about six feet.

As it stands I'm going to have to figure out how to place a post for the back porch somewhere in the middle of what I've got going on now. The plus side is that the decision whether or not to use concrete blocks or a wood or an iron railing has been made for me. I'll have to encase the added support in block or cement so we'll just make it look like I meant it that way from the beginning.

About five hundred meters in the opposite direction from the taller de madeira is another small business that offers tours on horseback. They often canter by in front of the house with their pale-skinned clients of varying equestrian skills. They are either doing well or somebody hit the lottery because for the last couple of months they've been doing construction on the place. It's on the way to Karen so I've passed in front dozens of times and have exchanged many como esta's with the work crew.

From the get go I was impressed by the design and execution of their new building and it looks like they're adding a hotel feature. I turned the corner onto the main road and looked across the field at it and was further impressed enough to take a few photos.

I decided to stop on the way back and see if the owner or one of the job bosses were around and got lucky. The main contractor is Allen Candonedo and he gave me the nickel tour.

Later: The sand came, woo hoo!

Later still: Hey, the wood for the benches is here too. Waiting for the metal beams. Could we have three for three?

I also have a call into my errant electrician as I want to see if he'll play trumpet or bring his group for opening day. I'll have to go back and check email but I think Sieg is coming right around that time and it's apparently the opening day of the Boquete Jazz Festival.

The festival people were a little late getting their act together this year but they finally sent the emails for the schedule out last week and we have a working link for them on the sidebar, or Here. It would be cool to have a Jazz band for opening day of Cocktails and the Jazz Festival, no?

Just reread some stuff and was reminded that Seig is coming on the 18th or so. Sorry Sieg. The festival is running the 15th, 16th and 17th. Still haven't heard from Fernando at now 5 PM -ish. We'll have to see what happens.

And later still: Yes, we have metal.

Today is yet another substitute type day as Primo decided not to show. I started out by asking Hidalgo to clean the corner of the yard, which is the last thing I want done with there so as to get onto other things. I'd been trying to get them to clean it for three days, but there seems to be some kind of 'block.'

So Hidalgo decided to work on the garden, which is already done enough, instead. The usual kibitzers came by and I went down to redirect his energy. Came and went to Materiales Karen, twice, and he again scampered to the corner. Came and went to the wood shop, I shot this photo on my return.

Now that the sand for the cement has arrived he's finishing up with the bricks instead (I changed my mind about how to finish them (I was going to put sod or colored pebbles in the little squares).

Here is the corner at coming up on 2 PM.

Tomorrow is another day, and if el Primo no show, he fired. Alice now has a permanent job so she's not coming to clean, triste, so despite my long standing policy of no spouses working together, Hidalgo's woman is coming in for two days to whip the bar into shape for painting starting tomorrow.

Posted by petefredbob at 04:57 PM | Permalink

First of the benches is framed out and screwed in, the wood for the second one comes tomorrow en la manana.

Outside is bien bonito as Hidalgo (with rake) and his newly arrived primo take a break. The south forty will be ready by lunchtime tomorrow at this rate and we can finally get the last roof post in the ground and the bricks cemented in out front.

The stylish Sandi and her suave boyfriend Bob stopped by today to say hi and chat a bit. We have tentative plans to hit Amigos tomorrow evening. Phil, you there? Stop on by as well. Sandi, you can comment on this blog as you see fit. Liven up the place.

Sandi and Bob had a bar called the Blue Parrot on Roatan in Honduras, right down the street from Rick's Café American, or American Café or whatever. They swear Sydney Greenstreet had nothing to do with it.

Phil also came by to conduct some business and we took a ride out to his woodshop where I begged him for his hand belt sander. I've a feeling that the three quarter inch ply on the benches is going to need a little touchup and the gringo machete might be a little, um, primitive.

Visiting creatures today were just ducky. It's a regular animal adventure around here.
Hablamos manana.

Posted by petefredbob at 05:58 PM | Permalink

I'm remembering that I had some witticism thought up today to introduce today's post as I was walking back from the hardware store laden with rakes, a hoe, nails and that plastic wire for the Weedeater. But I've forgotten what it was.

But this is likely because I've thought up another better thingy. Just wait. As the photo below shows the first bancara, or bench, is coming right along. I've only to screw into place the upright supports and get to work on the second leg of the 'L' tomorrow. There will be a corner piece, though how I'm going to arrange that remains to be determined.

I'm using 'rustico' two by fours, which means they run whatever they have through the saw, likely either on a Friday or Monday, and if it's close, what the hell? The end product is far from uniform, width and length vary, knots proliferate and the moisture content depends on how close to the front of the stack it is.

Which means I had to mix and match and decide what pieces were more important in which scheme to produce the desired outcome. I guessed wrong, as after top and bottom pieces were assembled, no matter which way I turned them, they didn't match well.

Living in Central America you find that things are done differently than in Leviathan, or even in the Great White North. Especially in Canadia you don't mess around with construction because the smallest little opening will let that Arctic blast chill you to an Eskimo Pie. Here the locals don't even use window screens, they just wind up and smack that bug right back out the window.

Having grown up in the age of power tools it has been an education simply observing the local unplugged construction techniques. For instance, while widening the bridge across the street I observed in minute detail how they cut the rebar, mixed the concrete and built the wood frames. In that last part I was amazed, as when a fine adjustment needed to be made, they used a machete to cut and trim the wood.

I had chosen to use the most 'out-of-true' lumber for the cross braces, cutting them in short pieces to avoid the 'long twist.' But they also turned out to be anywhere from 4 to 4 1/2 inches wide, which meant that, well, it turned out to be fucked up in the middle. So I remembered how the fellas fine-tuned the concrete bridge supports and at the same moment laid my eyes on what will now be referred to as the 'Gringo Machete.'

Worked like a charm.

[In case you missed it, that was the 'witticism' that was 'better.' Gringo Machete, get it? Damn. It really sounded good when I was busting my knuckles.]

Muneco's primo failed to show up again so he worked solo, again, on the yard. Tomorrow should see it finished enough to get some cement work done in the afternoon. I've also decided to rename him 'Hidalgo.' Rumor has it that he killed a man in a fight once and spent time in jail. He's also the only person that my landlady admits to being afraid of. And speaking of cement, two bags finished the straightening job so I could get the bottom bench frame attached well enough to the wall.

It doesn't twist all that much anymore.

In other news two creatures kept me company today: Paco the dog, who also seemed to bring along a varying assortment of insects with him, and a toad (name to be determined if I see him again) that migrated from under the kitchen sink to under the bathroom sink. He first showed up when I retrieved my miter saw, and today when I grabbed the bags of concrete.

Paco likes to chew on sneakers.

Maybe I'll call him froggy.

That's all.

Posted by petefredbob at 09:59 PM | Permalink

Bob Villa here. Not. The neighbors had me up until three-ish last night 'sound-checking' the new disco equipment with about thirty seconds allotted to each 'tune.' We had words. Tonight, Saturday, is the official three a.m. night here in wild Boquete and I'm weighing my options. So, late start today, went out and got some two by fours and a couple pieces of plywood. And I have a question for those in the know.

The normal two by fours you buy at Home Depot are not two inches by four inches. They're a smidge less, and I used to know why or how that is, but I'm not going to Google it for the moment. But as far as I know a half inch piece of plywood is supposed to be a real half inch. That's what I ordered today, and though it seemed a little thin when I grabbed a hold of it, I didn't measure until the delivery guy had left.

Out of curiosity I did a quick check, and it sure enough didn't quite find a half inch, so I wandered back down to Materiales Karen and bitched a bit. I didn't want them to change it, as it turned out to be sufficient for what I wanted, I just wanted to pay for three eighths. Then they brought me in the back and showed me that they didn't have any three eighths, which is what I assumed I received. Out came the measuring tape and sure enough the wood in the only stack they had was a half inch thick.

Feeling kind of dumb I walked back home and got out my measuring tape again, and sure enough again it still didn't measure a half inch. But it wasn't quite three eighths either. It was hovering somewhere around seven sixteenths. I don't get it. Is this normal? I used two separate measuring tapes just to make sure the metal hadn't 'stretched' on one of them. It still doesn't make sense that the plywood in the back of the shop measured a full half and the wood at my house didn't.

Such are the ways of America Central.

So the footrest on the bar is framed in the way I wanted it, I figured out how to get the final framing done on the main corner to accept the ply for the front and one sheet managed to cover the whole top. Tomorrow is all corners and long strips to be cut and I'll need to get another piece of 'half inch.'

Checked out the quotes I got yesterday and it looks like the top of the bar will be black tile as will be the footrest, and the front will be rosewood laminate. There will be much cutting of tile. Alice hasn't showed up yet, but that's normal in these parts. I won't write her off until Tuesday. Monday is reacclimation day for Muneco, the name I have for my semi-sane Panamanian foreman.

Tuesday we'll measure a final time for roof supports (measure twice cut once) and order up the metal. Done for the day, over and out.

Update on Saturday: That was not Saturday, it was Friday, and the noise was happening on Thursday. And while Saturday normally is 3 am night, this week we have the Flower and Coffee Fair, which means every night is 3 am night. Which explains my sleeplessness and confusion, sort of.

Posted by petefredbob at 07:26 PM | Permalink

Those who know me have watched as I moved from the Colossus known as Los Angeles to explore the Tropical non –Paradise known as Costa Rica, and then struggle to escape its clammy death-like grip to a country with an even higher machete to resident ratio, home of pockmarked ex-strongman Manuel Noriega, my newly beloved Panama. (It's the place with that big canal.)

And though one day I hope to ultimately migrate even further south to the land of ubiquitous G-strings and Carnival, this moment in time might just prove to be the conclusive argument God can make in order to justify my existence (and all the crap He's put me through). And as they say 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating,' so let's get to whipping up some desert, eh?

Today I'm coming down off the high that only new money can bring as I hop the bus to David and root around the distributor called, no shit, 'Plywood' and a bar equipment supply joint that sounds like it's called 'Era' (I'll find out how close my interpretation is once I get down there and start asking around for it). And "why" you may ask "is this a significant thing?" Well because at least three people, sight unseen- and Canadians at that- have seen fit to take me at my word that I'm going to build a bar and they think that this is a swell idea, and are in the process of providing me the last bit of funds that are needed to do so.

Synchronicity and pure stubbornness have chosen to lay together to birth the most clichéd fantasy child since Rick's famous joint in Casablanca. The world war isn't touching us here- though the smoking police are making their scurrilous rounds- but bribable border guards still tend to be the norm as well as other forms of petty corruption and populist politics.

To the task at hand: for the last nine months I've been in fits and starts using up the last of my capital to hammer together a watering hole in a badly constructed two-storey quasi-A frame. Stalled for six weeks or so while my landlord began to use the place for storage, It's now been given new life and I have thirty days to do the impossible, all the while reporting my progress, or lack thereof on this new Oprah-fied internet forum under the constant scrutiny of my backers, and the odd web searcher who happens to click on the wrong link.

Today or tomorrow the hard-drinking Alice will show up to begin weeding the neglected flower bed out front and scrubbing the walls inside to get ready for paint. The landlord will send a crew over to remove her junk from the main bar area and back patio. Before the end of the day I hope to be back in time from the city to order up some more two-by-fours for tomorrow so as to continue building the bar footrest and benches, and on Monday my very own machete wielding Panamanian madman will attack the jungle out back.

More to come......

Posted by petefredbob at 10:57 AM | Permalink

And so.... Welcome to the Boquete Cocktails blog, wherein a group of Canadians and their crazy American counterpart will attempt to create a place of imbibance and imbalance in the wild hills of West Central Panama. A truly international adventure we invite you to join us in our alcoholic endeavor and watch while the bar grows from a shell to a comfy concordance of camaraderie.

I would be Pete, the American, and as my partners figure out how to operate this blog contraption they will bye and bye introduce themselves.

Cheers!

Posted by petefredbob at 04:54 PM | Permalink