The Flying Dotman

The Peppermint Squad, that intrepid gang of motor scooterists pledged to patrol Dorchester's tangled streets to promote Justice, Tolerance, and the Dorchester Way, have a legend that they share on rainy nights in their headquarters in Codman Square. It's been a rainy week in Dorchester and the squad was kept in home base most evenings, performing minor repairs to thier mounts and emptying bottles of Hoffenreffer Private Stock. The close quarters and malt liquor and repetative tap-tap-tapping of raindrops on the rooftop lent themselves the sharing of scooter folklore.

Cherrypicker asked Raisin, "Have you seen the Flying Dotman yet?" Raisin is a newcomer to this band of merry vesparadoes. Every rookie is called 'Raisin' until he or she has earned his or her 'peppermint-handle,' a monniker that cements their place in the squad's hierarchy. Raisin replied, "I've never even heard of the Flying Dotman."

Agent Widowmaker, who had been adjusting the brake cables on his "Princess Go-Go" Chinese scoot, looked up. "Beware the Flying Dotman, Raisin. You're lucky you've never seen him." Widowmaker looked dead serious and spoke in baritone though his voice is usally a bit higher pitched.

"Who's the Flying Dotman?" Raisin felt his comrades were pulling his leg. Tweedledum pulled up a milk crate next to Raisin and, after settling in and taking a pull of Private Stock, told this story:

"On foggy nights when the moon is full, a specter haunts the skies above Dorchester Bay," he began. "No one knows how or why, but a doomed scooterist rides the fog on nights like that. He's an old-timer by the look of his ride. He steers a Honda Super Cub looking to find his way to the Great Beyond. Locals call him the Flying Dotman because sight of him portends an impending crash."

Tweedledum continued. "I was on Morrisey Boulevard one night, after a few pops at Tom English's, when I saw the Flying Dotman. He must have been forty feet tall leaning around a fog bank on his Super Cub faster than I would ever take a curve like that. He was glowing with an eerie light, surrounded by a green nimbus. Apparently, when he was alive Massachusetts didn't have helmet laws becasue he was only wearing a painter's cap. He took the turn and sped off in the direction of Mattapan, disappearing into a passing cloud. When I got home, I mustn't have put my kickstand all the way down when I parked because my bike was flat on the ground the next morning."

Raisin shivered. "I'm not going down Morrissey any time soon on a foggy night," he said.

"I wouldn't advise it," Tweedledum replied. Widowmaker nodded in agreement. Cherrypicker said, "Who's going to make a run to ODB Liquors? We're running low on liquid refreshment."

The beer they call liquor

Haffenreffer Private Stock, that supposed scourge of the inner city, 'liquid crack', ghetto-juice, actually has a respectable history with roots in Boston's brewing history. In fact, the site where it was orginally made is home to a national brewery that is either reviled or admired depending on your point-of-view. Boston's own Sam Adams Beer is made where the recipe for this supposed, modern urban scourge was first concocted:. As the label says: "Malt Liquor...with the imported taste." The Boston Brewing Co. is doing well on the foundations laid by Haffenreffer & Co. just after Prohibition was repealed. A little history.

When malt liquor was first introduced (please don't call it beer) it was sold as an upper class drink. The first national brand was 'Country Club' sold in tiny cans for cocktail party sipping because it tasted like champagne. The breed of yeast, among other things, lends understated, flavorful undertones reminiscent of fine wines. You can find this beverage in many corner package stores not just in Dorchester and Roxbury, but in East Boston, Charlestown, the South End, West Roxbury, Hyde Park, and in the surrounding communities of Somerville, Chelsea, Cambridge, Milton and Quincy.

Of course people now associate malt liquor with poverty, skid row, bums, and pocket-poor college students and hip-hop imressarios looking to make a quick endorsement buck. It didn't start out that way. I am just starting to scratch the surface of my malt liquor research (don't ask how this project came about) but one of the more popular, earlier brands was called Champale for a reason. It was intended for the upper crust or, at least, the upwardly mobile. Natty tennis players drank it. That's not an image you associate with gangsters sporting low-slung, baggy pants even if they can "sing."

Boston didn't invent malt liquor but the city, Jamaica Plain and Stony Brook in particular, played an important role in its evolution. Haffenreffer Private Stock is still made according to the original recipe and it is still sold here and enjoyed by thousands of Bostonians. To see how it matches up to other brands, click here. Indepent experts agree it stands up pretty well to the competition. Sam Adams would be proud.

If you are interested in malt liquor let me know. I prowl all the packies in the Dot and can offer reviews of what's on offer. It's a head-splitting job but somebody should do it to set the record straight.