The LAST CALL Holiday Special

Caffè Cappelletti

Isaiah Kimball, LUCA | Lancaster, Pennsylvania

1-1/2 ounces Reposado Tequila
3/4 ounce See the Elephant Amaro
3/4 ounce Caffè Borghetti
1/2 ounce Cappelletti Amaro Sfumato Rabarbaro
1/2 ounce Salted Honey Syrup (1:2, water: honey and a pinch of kosher salt)
Garnish: salted orange wedge

Combine all the ingredients in a shaker and fill with ice. Shake vigorously until well chilled, about 15-20 seconds. Strain out the ice and then dry shake without ice for another 15 seconds to achieve a dreamy, cloud-like texture. Pour into a small glass tumbler and serve on a saucer or small plate. Garnish with an orange wedge with a generous sprinkle of flaky sea salt.

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Welcome to the 2023 LAST CALL Holiday Special

BTP and Martha Stewart. (Photo: Courtesy The Martha Stewart Show)

There’s a reason why the LAST CALL Holiday Special always falls on December 20th (well twice now, since this is our second Christmas here together). Today is the day where, for the past 12 years, I share my “Happy Holidays from BTP and Martha” card to commemorate when I appeared on “The Cocktail Party Show” episode of The Martha Stewart Show on Tuesday, December 20, 2011.

From TV Guide
Episode 59: “The Cocktail Party Show”
Tue, Dec 20, 2011 60 mins
Setting up a bar for a holiday party with event planner Bronson Van Wyck; cocktail recipes with "Bitters" author Brad Thomas Parsons; a mixed-nut blend with rosemary and brown butter.

My first book, Bitters, was published on November 1, 2011. I was living in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, and at that time working in publishing in the Big City. A publishing colleague I know, whose wife was a producer on Martha Stewart, suggested I get him a galley of Bitters to pass along to his wife. I was grateful to have a semi-direct connection like that but had given up hope as we moved into the holiday season when most media takes a break.

My book publicist, Anna Mintz Tarver, had followed up with the Martha Stewart people but it remained wait-and-see until she called me on Thursday, December 15, to let me know we had a confirmed date for my appearance the following Tuesday. I was informed that Martha was taking a copy of Bitters home with her to personally select the two cocktails she’d like me to make live on the air.

She picked the Cranberry Crush (a shaken holiday drink with gin, Amaro Ramazzotti, cranberries, and lime) and the Red Carpet Reviver (a low-ABV highball I had made for a friend’s Oscar party), both original creations from me, which was kind of cool. There was a pre-interview phone Q&A with a producer and then a flurry of emails with two different producers going through the punch-list of what ingredients and equipment and glassware would be needed for my appearance.

Anna was already back home in Atlanta for the holidays so that Tuesday morning I took the C train from Clinton Hill, schlepping a big tote bag filled with assorted bottles of bitters and homemade syrups and barware to their Chelsea studio for my 8:00 a.m. call time. The other guests were in their dressing rooms with multiple handlers with their on-air outfits hanging in garment bags while I showed up “camera ready.” One of the producers poked her head in to say hello and seemed surprised that I was all alone. “You don’t have anyone with you?” she asked, seeming a bit concerned.

Once they slapped some makeup on my face, touched up my hair, and rain a lint roller over my sweater I was escorted to the stage for a quick rehearsal. I still hadn’t actually seen Martha herself. We did a run-through of the questions Martha might ask and I pantomimed the steps and motions of making both drinks. Then they filmed a little B-roll of me muddling some cranberries while smiling at the camera and I was then escorted back to my dressing room.

As it got closer to showtime things became more frenetic. I had tread the boards in high school and college as an actor and performed in front of audiences before, but this was live TV with Martha Stewart. I was nervous, but this was going to happen, with or without me, so I wanted to make the best of it.

A handler knocked on my door and walked me down the hallway then brought me onstage and I saw the studio audience for the first time, who were getting ready for showtime by the warm-up person. Martha’s handsome and talented nephew, Christopher Dylan Herbert, was the guest before me, performing with the New York Polyphony. Martha apparently enjoyed their number so much she requested another song that cut into my segment. As they were counting down to coming back from commercial the producer said they only had time for me to make one drink. But I was more occupied that I was now standing next to Martha Stewart. She nodded at me, but reserved any conversation for our segment.

Martha introduced me and then as we were talking about the book, the producer, standing just off camera, was aggressively miming to me to start making the drink (which was pretty distracting when Martha Stewart is standing next to you and you’re trying to pay attention). At one point she became quite enamored with the small stainless steel OXO angled measuring cups I brought to use as jiggers. I thought it would be polite to let Martha transition to that part of the interview where I start making drinks, but judging by the producer standing in front of me directly off camera waving his arms and pointing to his watch I dove in. I was genuinely worried about the splatter from muddled cranberries staining Martha’s festive, and surely expensive, sparkly top, but she pressed on. It wasn’t until we were shaking the cocktails that I realized the awkward silence of the tins meant that I had missed a vital step. “Oh! We forgot the ice, Martha.”

I felt more in the groove after that swift recovery, and wished I could’ve stuck around to make a second drink with her. The segment ended, people clapped, the official photographer took our photo, and everyone in the studio audience got a copy of Bitters to take home.

When I was waiting in the dressing room for a staghand to bring me my personal gear we had used on camera they informed me that Martha had inquired about possibly keeping a few specific bottles of bitters to take home for a party she was hosting. I had plenty of bottles of bitters at home and smiled at the thought of my bitters hanging out in her Connecticut bar cart.

And then, just like that, it was over and I, still in stage makeup, was back on the C train heading home to Brooklyn where my phone was buzzing with texts from friends who had watched it live.

Watch me make a Cranberry Crush for Martha Stewart.

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Martha: A Coda

On several occasions since then, I’ve encountered, been in the same room with, and actually conversed with Martha Stewart. Once was at a publishing party (we share the same publishing house) at an upscale taco bar in the East Village. We were given “Hello, My Name is…” stickers to fill out when we walked in to make mingling a bit easier. She walked by me holding a cocktail with both hands while sipping from a straw and “Martha” (per her name tag) gave my tag (“BTP”) the up-down and swiftly moved on.

And once at the James Beard Media Awards, we were sitting back to back at adjoining tables. During a break in the programming when the house lights came up a bit, attendees swarmed to her table and lined up to take selfies with her. There were a lot of big names in the room, but Martha was obviously the biggest star in the room. I used that time to go to the can but when I came back I leaned over to get her attention and re-introduced myself, explaining that I had been on her program a few years prior and it remained a highlight of my writing career. She had no memory of my appearance but asked if it went well and hoped the book sold many copies (it did, and it did) and then, like royalty, presented her outstretched arm and limp wrist as a way to wrap things up. I knew I wasn’t supposed to kiss her hand so I just sort of held it for a brief moment and thanked her for her time.

While I was still working in publishing I was part of a small envoy who took a meeting with Martha at her Martha Stewart Omnimedia offices. She was across the table from me and as we were going around for introductions she smiled when it was my turn to speak up and she said with a bit of smirk, “I understand we’ve met before.”

Finally, one December 20th I noticed that Martha Stewart followed me on Instagram. It turns out after I posted my annual “Happy Holidays from BTP & Martha” photo on Instagram, my publisher happened to be having dinner with Martha that night and showed her the photo on his phone. He later conveyed that she seemed “tickled.”

Not to make this all about BTP celebrity encounters, but my time with Martha is second only to my other favorite publishing party adjacent celebrity story. As some of you might recall I used to work as a senior book editor at Amazon for many years and during Book Expo they would host a big party and they invited me as an author, not a former employee. Their parties often drew big names and that night everyone was, rightfully so, buzzing around Molly Ringwald. Sometimes when I’m around famous people who have meant, or still mean, a lot to me I’m afraid to actually meet them (I had this sensation the most when I once had lunch with David Lynch). I don’t want to be disappointed, of course, but I also already want it to be a memory rather than an actual event. So even though she was my high-school crush, a fellow ginger, and in my eyes one of the coolest women out there, I didn’t join the many fans crowding around Molly Ringwald and kept to myself.

Cut to: the party’s wrapping up, people are mobbing the coat check, and I was leaning against a pillar in the hotel lobby waiting for my friends when Molly herself was standing across from me with nobody around her. I’m no Jake Ryan, but she smiled at me and reached out her arm to offer a handshake and said, “Hi, we haven’t met. I’m Molly.”

And I don’t remember anything else after that because “If You Were Here” by the Thompson Twins started playing in the soundtrack of my mind.

Recipe: Cranberry Crush 2.0

Brad Thomas Parsons | Brooklyn, New York

As my friend David Lebovitz likes to say, recipes are a living thing, and when I was revisiting this 11-year-old cocktail that I hadn’t shaken up in a long time, I couldn’t help but tweak it a bit. It’s still a shaken affair but now served on the rocks and I leaned into the signature red of Christmas by subbing in classic Campari rather than Amaro Ramazzotti. It’s still tart, bitter, and botanical driven and would be nice to have in your hand at any Christmas party.

Makes 1 drink

Ingredients

12 cranberries
Two 1-inch pieces candied ginger, chopped
1/2 ounce Cranberry Syrup (recipe below)
1 dash cranberry bitters
1 dash orange bitters
1-1/2 ounces gin
3/4 ounce Campari
1/2 ounce lime juice
Soda water, chilled
Garnish: lime wheel

Combine the cranberries, candied ginger, cranberry syrup, and both bitters in a mixing glass and muddle until the cranberries have popped and released their juice. Add the gin, Campari, and lime juice and shake until chilled. Double-strain into a chilled old-fashioned glass over ice. Add a splash of soda water and garnish with a lime wheel.

Cranberry Syrup

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup cranberries

In a medium saucepan, bring the sugar, water, and cranberries to a simmer, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar and pressing the cranberries with the back of a wooden spoon to help break them down a bit. At the first crack of a boil, remove from the heat. Once cooled, pour the syrup through a strainer, discard the solids, and store in a glass jar. The syrup will keep in the refrigerator for up to a month.

Darlene Love outside The Ed Sullivan Theater on the last Late Show Christmas special, December 19, 2014. (Photo: Joshua Bright, *New York Times*)

If you’ve been reading along with some of the recent holiday dispatches here on LAST CALL you’ve likely noted that I’m a bit sentimental, and one to commemorate traditions. Posting that picture with Martha is a holiday tradition that lets you know it’s time to activate that out-of-office message and settle in for everything the holidays may offer. Based on the comments each year, it’s something people actually look forward to seeing, and if it makes someone smile that brings me joy.

David Letterman’s annual Christmas Special had that same effect on me. I never missed it, and if I did, usually when I was home from college for the holiday break and hanging out late with friends, I could count on my father recording it for me so we could watch it together. Letterman never met a recurring bit he didn’t like and the Christmas Special was all about hitting the same familiar beats each year and always featured the same lineup of special guests along with taped messages from military service members overseas to their families back home between the commercial breaks.

“O Holy Night”

After the monologue and once Dave was at the desk he would weave his way to Paul Shaffer’s impression of Cher singing “O Holy Night” from the 1973 The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour Christmas special. Actor William Conrad (TV’s Cannon) was the special guest and after a big medley of Christmas songs, Shaffer notes, “they had had a lot of fun but finally it was time to get serious at the end of the show.” He sets the scene of Cher appearing under a street lamp in the falling snow wearing a “beautiful Victorian overcoat… her hands in a muff” (Dave: “Say again?…”) and slowly plays the intro to the song on his keyboard and says, “it sounded something like this…” before offering his take on the historic television moment.

Jay Thomas Shares the Lone Ranger Story

And then actor Jay Thomas (RIP) would make his annual return to share “The greatest talk show story of all time” about one fateful day when he was young DJ in the ‘70s broadcasting from the opening of a car dealership in Charlotte, North Carolina. Clayton Moore, TV’s Lone Ranger, was also there signing autographs and when the actor’s ride doesn’t show up Thomas and his friend Mike (who looks like a Bay City Roller, per Thomas), who had both just “herbed up behind a Dumpster,” offer to drive him back to his hotel in his beat-up Volvo. A fender-bender and a slow-speed car chase ensue, ending with the punchline which I will let you experience yourself.

The Late Show Holiday Quarterback Challenge

Jay Thomas and David Letterman and the Late Show Quarterback Challenge. (Photo: John Paul Filo, *The Daily News*)

Thomas then sticks around for The Late Show Holiday Quarterback Challenge, a tradition that dated back to 1998, when Dave had New York Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde on the show and they each threw footballs to try to knock the meatball off the top of the Late Show Christmas tree (per tradition, the spire of Empire State Building tree-topper was spiked through with a slice of pizza and a giant meatball). Thomas was backstage and, embarrassed at the spectacle of both Dave and a Heisman Trophy winner unable to perform, flew out on stage and took out the meatball on the first throw. Since then, he and Dave end their segment zipping footballs at the meatball-topped Christmas tree.

Darlene Love Sings “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

But the showstopper is the annual return of the great Darlene Love to perform her 1963 hit, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” a tradition that dated back to 1994 (except for 2007 during the writers strike). During their last interview together she promised Dave she would never sing the song another late-night show.

After hearing her and a full orchestra blow the roof off the dump and the final credits rolled, I always knew I was ready for Christmas. There’s something to be cherished about traditions, even if it means only hanging on to memories of the past.