Scott Patterson (AKA Luke Danes from Gilmore Girls) has his own coffee and his espresso beans have quickly become a staple at our home. I got a chance to ask him all about his coffee and other fun things. Read my interview below:
Abbi: I’ve been a fan of yours since the first episode of Gilmore Girls. I’m curious, how different is your personality from Luke’s?
Scott: I don’t answer questions like these. Now, get the hell out of my store and take that damn cell phone with you!!!
Abbi: That clears things up.
Abbi: I’m a lover of espresso and Scotty P’s Big Mug Coffee espresso beans is a favorite at my house. I’m still trying to score the K-Cups and try the coffee version but that’s a very popular item, which makes me want it more. Have you always been a coffee lover?
Scott: “Yes. I come from a time long ago when kids didn’t want to be kids, they wanted to be adults and take on the behaviors of adults. That included coffee. Freeze dried granules in your cup and add hot water. Many cups with my mom discussing how I wanted my life to go. Great memories. I’m from the northeast and diner coffee was – and remains – a very specific flavor and consistency. “
Abbi: I’ve wanted to live in the northeast most of my life. Now that I am a resident of New Hampshire, I look forward to finding these diners you speak of.
Abbi: What inspired Scotty P’s Big Mug Coffee?
Scott: Oh, many things. Mainly my desire to own my own company and build something from the ground up. Coffee was the natural choice. I’m what’s referred to as a “layman’s expert” in the coffee space because I have enjoyed coffee over many decades.
Abbi: How do you take your coffee?
Scott: Different ways for different blends. Some black but a few with a good ol’ fashioned sugar cube and milk. Depends. I like classic things and that combo is classic.
Abbi: I’ve been told you’re an avid reader? What’s your favorite book? And how many times have you read it?
Scott: Anything Fitzgerald because nobody handles prose like him. Extraordinary. Some of those passages in ‘Gatsby’ simply describing the curtains in the ocean breeze are pure literary genius. They evoke so much longing, ennui. Hemingway’s economy, simplicity and power. Marquez’s magical realism and scale. I love the latin writers – Cervantes and his mad rush to get it all down on paper. Some obscure names, as well. There are some very talented writers out there.
Abbi: You and my husband would be able to discuss books for days. We have all these authors in our home library, thanks to his collection.
Abbi: What book changed the way you looked at something? Made you question your opinions?
Scott: ‘Un Saison En Enfer’. Rimbaud. Read it at fourteen and it slayed me. Changed everything for me, how I saw things, my own life. Great art opens you up, expands you in ways nothing else can. Breton was correct – art is convulsive or it is not at all.
Abbi: Gilmore Girls and Vampire Diaries are my two binge watch favorites. During this time of staying home what have you been binge watching?
Scott: I have no interest in TV shows. I’m a film buff when I have the time. I saw Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ the other day and I consider it high art. It fulfills the promise of what film can be, which too few anymore aspire to and even fewer can accomplish. Tarantino steps in and delivers his best film, in my humble opinion. He takes liberties with structure and story that only great novelists would attempt. He’s really a gifted novelist as a filmmaker.
Abbi: What have you been reading?
Scott: Right now? I’m re-reading the Walter Issacson book on Steve Jobs. It’s beautifully written. I find the genre replete with dry, cold renderings of marginally interesting men and women but Jobs was anything but boring and Issacsson can actually write.
Abbi: Completely agree.
Abbi: Staying quarantined with young children calls for creativity to entertain them. My youngest and I have baked a lot of things I don’t need to be eating. What are your favorite things to do with Nick while social distancing?
Scott: Funny you should mention baking because he’s baking brownies at this very moment with my wife. I cook a lot so he’s trying to up his game. Nick and I rough house a great deal. He’s constantly attacking me – like a kiddie version of Kato in the Pink Panther movies and I’m Peter Sellers. He’s pure fun, energy and mayhem. We also build structures together. He constructs these elaborate, well. thought out cities and then proudly displays them to me. Amazing. That’s when I started teaching him chess because the strategic thinking that goes into conceiving these structures isn’t normal lol. I could be in real trouble if I’ not careful!
Abbi: I knew when I was 8 years old that I wanted to write books. When did your love for acting begin?
Scott: I was four and wanted to be a singer, a Beatle, and my mic was a hairbrush. I’d give concerts to my parents atop the stereo console. Acting was never a desire growing up. Then, at twenty-one I saw the film ‘Altered States’ and marveled at the story, William Hurt’s performance and most of all the script. Chayefsky had me in the library checking out books on the Hinchi Indians, Dimethyltryptamine, sensory deprivation tank experiences, schizophrenia as evolution of the species. That film turned me on, man. Wanted to act from that moment. Hurt made it look fun.
Abbi: What’s your favorite Luke quote?
Scott: ‘Red meat can kill you. Enjoy.’ Because it can and I do.
Abbi: I repeat important things to all of my kids in hopes it’ll sink in… What is the one thing you tell Nick regularly?
Scott: I tell him the two most important words in the english language are “please” and “thank you”, among others. He is a gentleman because he has been raised as one thus far. Manners are everything and dictates how high one rises.
Abbi: What’s the first thing you want to do once the quarantine is over?
Scott: Go skiing if there’s any snow left. I live for it come winter and it’s hard not being able to fly down the mountain. It’s my peace and meditation. I work very long hours year round but my winter weekends are all about squeezing in one day of skiing.
Abbi: One thing no one knows about you that they wouldn’t expect?
Scott: That I am nothing like the character that made me famous and that it was very difficult for me to play it that long. I did go through bouts of depression playing him because he was so constipated and filled with anxiety and I took that on in my personal life when I shouldn’t have. There is a cost to playing introverts who are that closed off and that tight but it’s what I thought the part, and the show, needed given the extremely sunny nature of most characters and the overall tone. There needed to be a counterweight and that was Luke. You make a choice before auditioning, you execute the choice and it worked. It really worked. It’s all in the choice.
Apart from that character I enjoy conversation, cutting up, chopping it up, laughing with people and even playing a practical joke or two. A sense of humor is my main criteria. My parents were both fast and funny and they set a very high bar when it came to conversation and storytelling. My mother could sit there and weave a story like I haven’t heard since. She was remarkable. A true wit, like my dad. I had to toughen up, step up and compete with that – and you couldn’t take it personally or you were dead. They didn’t suffer fools.
Abbi: Now, my selfish question… anything you can tell us about the future of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life? I need another season, like yesterday.
Scott: Like everyone else I heard rumblings of a musical version which would be a gas. Imagine Luke atop his counter belting out a tune about cell phones or dancing/singing down the street with Taylor in a song to the death. We could do a Three Tenors version of Luke/Lorelai/Rory at the diner ordering coffee and pie? The possibilities are endless. Hope it happens.
Abbi: HA! Yes, that would be an interesting turn of events.
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Abbi’s Review:
My morning espresso is a cherished event that happens to also be critical for the rest of my family’s wellbeing. I don’t function without it. I’ve tried a slew of espresso beans in my life. There isn’t a place I’ve visited that I didn’t research and try the local favorite espresso. Finding the perfect cup is a hobby of mine and I was excited to try Scotty P’s Big Mug Coffee espresso beans. From the aromatic experience, while grinding the beans, to the first sip, I enjoy each step and soak it in. Scotty P’s Big Mug Coffee did not disappoint. There was no trace of bitterness. It was as sweet and smokey as it claimed to be. I didn’t require cream or sugar to enhance the taste. It was a delicious surprise.
Abbi Glines
#1 New York Times Bestselling Author- Rosemary Beach Series, The Field Party Series, Sea Breeze Series, The Vincent Boys Series, Existence Trilogy