On Optimal Shaving Time, Extremes, and a perfectly imperfect Bloody Mary Recipe

Shaving is a ritual most men go through once or every other day. For some the process is quick and uninspiring and for others the usage of Penhaligon’s¹
and a silver tipped badger brush makes much more sense. Shaving is a refined process steeped in process and diligence. Looking at my medicine cabinet and the array of shaving supplies it would be easy to think that I take shaving to an extreme² point. To me shaving is a refined exercise that is both relaxing and elegant. Taking the thoughtful diligence in each activity, not matter how banal it may seem, is a quality I aspire too and try to respect.

No more than two days ago I was sitting in a bench taking in the lights from the Christmas tree at the Stuyvesant Town Oval where I got to thinking about optimal shaving time. This is of no doubt concern for me as my five o’clock shadow arrives at half past two and my night time stubble shows its face before the sun comes down.

There is a delicate balance then between what is acceptable for work, what is cool, and what is a scraggily mess.

To defined optimum shaving time we first need to define the optimal outcome. I’m going to choose to disregard work and focus on maximum time to being cool. Plotting against the standard CFFO (Coolness Form Factor from Optimal Shaving Time) some interesting results appear.

From the figure below we see that the optimal shave time is t-minus fifteen hours. This leaves a five hour window of that cool amount stubble. After that I begin to transform into what could be described as a very well dressed vagabond or drifter. After thirty six hours my beard begins to enter dangerous hipster related territory. Luckily I am well stocked with shave soap and a straight razor.



And now…

The Bloody Mary is a truly singular cocktail. The cocktail is almost always accompanied with excellent conversation.

In 1934 Fernand Petiot invented the Bloody Mary at the King Cole Bar⁵
at the venerable St. Regis Hotel. While there is little to no complexity in mixing tomato juice with vodka, the Bloody Mary becomes this personal experience as in its purest form is made to taste. “More Worcestershire sauce”, “lemon juice instead of lime juice if you please”, “pink sea salt on the rim.” Unlike most traditional cocktails steeped with history and precise parts, the Bloody Mary stands alone in being right when it is often wrong. What could be too spicy for some or most could be the perfect drink for someone else. The tangy taste of too much acid could be the well delivered wake up to your friend.

The Bloody Mary is peerless in its individuality.

What I present is an augmentation of a Bloody Mary I had at Eleven Madison Park and a portion of a meal I had at The Breslin. It’s quite good.

L'huître sanglante

To Make 1 Drink
• 3-4 Large Heirloom Tomatoes
• 3oz of Ketel One Vodka
• 1oz of fresh squeezed lime juice
• ¾ teaspoon of freshly grated horseradish
• 1 teaspoon of Tabasco
• 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
• dash of fleur de sel
• dash of coarsely grinded black pepper
• ½ teaspoon of Mignonette sauce
• Mignonette sauce for garnish of oyster
• 1 Shibumi or Kumamoto oyster⁶



Pass the tomato through a potato ricer. This will give you a large amount of juice steeped with some pulp. Remove the large solids by passing the juice through a cocktail strainer or using a chinoise if you prefer a smoother juice. Refrigerate the juice for about an hour.

Place a highball glass in the freezer to chill. In a cocktail shaker add all of the ingredients and the chilled juice and gently stir. Adjust to your personal taste. Remove the highball glass and rim half of the glass with fleur de sel. Fill the glass halfway with ice. Pour the mixture over ice and garnish on top by placing one shucked oyster and a delicate strip of mignonette sauce.

¹Penhaligon’s was the shave soap of choice by Winston Churchill. That was not by only determining factor in choosing Penhaligon’s, but it certainly did help.

²Annually American Express provides a summary detailing your purchases and your spending habits. It is a harrowing but necessary exercise to fully understand the often grim nature of the report. The eye is naturally drawn to the disproportionate size of the Restaurant/Bar column in the bar graph. Delving into the Restaurant/Bar column supported a key behavioral trait of mine, a proclivity for extremes.

My restaurant and bar tabs are often exorbitant or miniscule and largely back to back. Recounting many nights support that as I am wearing a suit at Eleven Madison Park and then wearing a suit at Mars Bar³. Both are excellent.

My ethos does not seem to support the common “moderation in moderation” mantra. Being moderately moderate sounds incredibly uninspiring. I greatly support being minimally moderate.

My being minimally moderate I often walk down the street with such thoughts as “why am I not on my way to trapeze school right now,” “at what height can you pour a gallon of water out and capture it all falling in one shot,” or “where does the J subway line even go.” I have the answer to at least two of those questions.

This focus and unrelenting desire to explore and understand everything has allowed me to hyper extend into many different tasks and activities. It has come to such a point where I have been forced to evaluate my time so much that it has forced new creativity to invent time saving devices and ways to accomplish my goals in proxy⁴.

³No less than three times at Mars bar has there been a seemingly dead corpse. Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop is always on the jukebox and a glass of gin is six dollars. Tonic available upon request.


⁴ http://capt-renault.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-exponential-art-number-59-vermillion.html

⁵The King Cole Bar is conveniently located two blocks from my office at 55th and 5th avenue. At the King Cole Bar it is ordered though as a Red Snapper. I prefer the Bloody Mary nomenclature.

⁶ My favorite. Extremely creamy with a nutty flavor