You go, Angelina!

The scary thing is … I might just want one of the King Cake flavors Larry mentioned.

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#McDStories, McDonald’s Twitter Hashtag Promotion, Goes Horribly Wrong

As with most people I love a good PR FAIL story, and this one’s a doozy. Last Wednesday McDonald’s sent out two tweets on their Twitter feed — only two — to spark a new marketing campaign. One of them went like this:

@McDonalds Meet some of the hard-working people dedicated to providing McDs with quality food every day #McDStories http://t.co/BoNIwRJS

Unfortunately, many many people leapt onto this hashtag, and their tweets tended to look like this:

@Cate_Storm #McDStories I just read that McDonalds chicken nuggets have a foaming agent in them, similar to products used for building materials

It made me think of my own recent McD story.

I must confess that I do like their fries, frozen and processed as they are. One good example of how freshly-cut French fries aren’t necessarily all they’re cracked up to be is my beloved In-N-Out Burger. Now, I love me a Double Double (Animal Style, no pickles, ketchup instead of spread), but let’s face it … their fries stink. Everybody who knows how to fry a potato knows that you have to cook the potatoes TWICE, first a blanch in low temperature oil to cook the potato all the way through, then a few minutes in higher temperature oil to get them golden and crispy on the outside. The fries can be frozen in between these two steps, so the frozen fries that go into the fryer at McDonald’s area already partially cooked. In-N-Out cuts the potato, dumps them right into the fryer only once and then out, usually resulting in limp, unsatisfying fries. But I digress.

Other than the occasional breakfast McMuffin at the airport maybe twice a year, I don’t eat McDonald’s food. I don’t eat the fries, since I’m almost never in there, and I certainly don’t eat the burgers. I used to, though — way back in my youth, I was quite the fan of the Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

Big Macs never did anything for me, and their plain hamburgers and cheeseburgers seemed rather insubstantial. My regular order, though, was a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, large fries, large iced tea, for years. (And of course, they never ever look like the above image in real life.)

These days I try not to eat burgers all that often — although I love them, they don’t love me. Once a week at the most, and maybe even once every two weeks. This means that if I’m going to have a burger, I’m going to make it count. That means that I’m going to get my burger in a quality, independently-owned burger joint or in a restaurant that does a good burger. (Note that I don’t count In-N-Out as a typical fast food burger, as their quality is a lot higher than the national chains; the meat is always fresh, never frozen with no ammoniated pink slime mixed in, and if you order the fries well-done or “lightly well” they’re better than the garden variety fries. I will give them points for freshness.) No Burger King, no Wendy’s and certainly no McDonald’s. Pie ‘n Burger. The Counter. The Oinkster. Umami Burger. Or in one of our favorite restaurants, like Bar | Kitchen. You get the idea.

Sometimes, though, a sailor must seek any port in a storm. Last time I traveled to Houston to visit family I had to fly back through Dallas-Fort Worth airport on a night when the weather was bad. I had barely more than enough time to make my connection, and just as I was about to hop on their intra-airport monorail a huge clap of thunder and bolt of lightning struck, and the train went down. I then had to slog a very long way through that ridiculously large airport to get to my gate, only to find that all flights were suspended due to weather. It was late, I was starving, I had no idea when the weather would let me get home, and every single food vendor in that terminal was closed … except McDonald’s.

Yeah, I know, they have apple and walnut salads now, but I didn’t want a godsdamned salad, I wanted something substantial, so I went back to my old college standby of the Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

I’ve lost count of the number of years since I’d had one, and for the record it tasted exactly the same as I remembered.

Only now it tasted awful.

I’ve spent the last umpty-ump years being spoiled by quality meat, it seems. I could barely choke that feckin’ thing down.

I tried to condense my wordy story into 140 characters so that I could offer my own entry to the #McDStories hashtag festival. I find Twitter’s now-arbitrary 140-character limit to be annoying and frustrating, but I got the point across. I’ve also resolved never to eat another McDonald’s hamburger, unless it’s the only thing standing between me and the fellow airline passenger who might find me gnawing on his arm. You have my promise, McDonald’s — I won’t resort to cannibalism as long as you’re there.

Now, to plan my next burger. I’m thinking maybe Golden State or The Burger Kitchen at some point, but those are a bit far to drive. This Friday. Before “Fringe.” Pie ‘n Burger. Yeah.

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Uh oh, Marie doesn’t look happy. I suspect we’ll be seeing Vincent soon. And then there’s Angelina … as my friend Peter described her, “the modern day Mona Lisa, with that enigmatic smile.”

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There’s been a meme going around YouTube, Facebook and other segments of the Intarnets lately: videos entitled something like “Shit __________ Say.” Fill in the blank with guys, girls, single girls, black girls, gay guys, vegans, project managers … you name it. I’ve been ignoring most of them, until one came along that I couldn’t ignore. Because maybe 50 of my friends have forwarded this around, and … because it’s hilarious.

Those of you who are bartenders or cocktail geeks, c’mon … I suspect you’ve been caught saying at least one, and probably more, of these things. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you “Shit Bartenders Say.”

(“I’m a mixologist.“)

Er, sorry.

Hi-frakkin-larious!

Adding some icing to that cake, mixologist bartender Derek Brown, proprietor of The Passenger in Washington, D.C., ran some “Shit Bartenders Mixologists Say” cocktail specials the other night …

Photo courtesy of Derek Brown. Click to embiggen.

Brilliant. The fourth one nearly made me spray my tasty beverage onto my monitor.

I love how the community is serious about what we do, but don’t take ourselves too seriously. Now, would you care for a drink? Hey, I’m really into amaro …

(* – Why is it that you can say “crap” on TV but you can’t say “shit?” They mean exactly the same thing. Sigh. People are so stupid.)

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Okay, I know it’s nineteen days into the new Year and most people are done wishing others a happy new year, but if any of you know anything about me at all it’s that I’m the God Emperor of Procrastination. However, I have in fact resolved to write and post more this year, and in a more timely manner. Let’s get going!

Almost two weeks ago was Twelfth Night, the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas and the beginning of Carnival season. And you know what Carnival means — revelry, parades, Carnival balls, and … King Cakes! You know the tradition, don’t you? King Cakes are served only during Carnival season, and if you get the little plastic baby inside your piece of cake you’re obliged to throw the next King Cake party. When you think of the finest in New Orleans King Cakes, a few major names come to mind: Manny Randazzo’s, Haydel’s, Gambino’s, and of course … the Ragusa Brothers, Larry and Vincent.

When last we left the Ragusa family — Larry, maker extraordinaire of … er, odd King Cakes, his wife Angelina, his estranged brother Vincent and sister-in-law Marie –there was some serious squabbling going on. You will be thrilled and delighted to know the brothers have reconciled! (Kinda.) Here’s a teaser for 2012′s season of commercials for Larry Ragusa King Cakes Ragusa Brothers King Cakes!

(* – After overhearing people refer to recent years as “oh-ten” and “oh-twelve,” we cannot help but laugh and immediate appropriate this usage. I suppose “oh-thirteen” isn’t really going to work, so enjoy it while you can.)

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I love redheads, by the way.

Dubonnet, if you’re not familiar, is a fortified apéritif wine along similar lines as vermouth, and comes in white and red expressions (rouge and blanc, but not a “dry” version as with vermouth). The vast majority of the time when someone refers to Dubonnet they are referring to Dubonnet Rouge. It’s similar to sweet vermouth, although a fair bit sweeter, with fruitier notes, and it’s very slightly more bitter. Dubonnet Rouge does contain quinine, although I don’t detect a whole lot of it on my palate. The sweetness tends toward a ruby port, although not as richly flavored, and one article compared it to sangria, “with a heavier mouthfeel and a spicier aroma.”

Dubonnet was created in 1846 by a Parisian wine merchant and chemist named Joseph Dubonnet, “as a means to make quinine more palatable for the soldiers battling malaria in North Africa.” Still made in France, but for the American market it’s made in Kentucky by the Heaven Hill distillery. There are those who say the American-made product is inferior to the European one. I’ve never tried it in Europe myself, but my pal Martin Doudoroff (who has an excellent site called Vermouth 101 all about vermouth, quinquinas, americanos and other fortified wines) remarked that “[t]he flavor profile is basically the same as the Kentucky edition and it isn’t dramatically more bitter (maybe a touch—it’s still pretty mild stuff in comparison to, say, Bonal) but it’s also clearly a more carefully wrought product. I guess I’d describe the European product as a little move vital and alive.”

I’m quite fond of Dubonnet Rouge myself, and with the proper adjustments I enjoy swapping it in for sweet vermouth for a nice change of pace. It’s lovely in a Dubonnet Cocktail, half and half with gin (one of the preferred tipples of the late Queen Mother, who in her later eyars was probably tipsy all day long, bless her). We also stumbled across this one in the long out-of-print Café Royal Cocktail Book; it’s also up on CocktailDB.

The original recipe called for orange Curaçao, but given the sweetness of the Dubonnet Wesly decided to go for a slightly drier orange liqueur, the excellent triple sec Combier. Cointreau would also work well.

The original recipe, as with so many recipes of its era, also called for precise proportions yet were vague on exact amounts. It read “2/3 Dubonnet, 1/3 gin, 2 dashes each orange Curaçao and Angostura bitters, dash of absinthe on top.” Given some other instructions gleaned from the preface as well as the typical cocktail size of the time, I’m guessing that he was making 2 to 2-1/2 ounce cocktails. I’ve tried to adjust this slightly for the slightly larger cocktails we tend to drink these days, but by all means make the nice little two-ouncers, especially if you have great little tiny vintage cocktail glasses in your collection. Make those proportions 1 to 1/2, otherwise …

I tweeted this recipe after Wesly made this for us one night, and my friend Maitri, who was at the bar at the wonderful Anvil Bar & Refuge in Houston drinking at the time, read it to our pal Chris Frankel, who was behind the stick that night. Chris thought it sounded good and made one for Maitri on the spot. Good gods, I love the Internets.

Photo by Maitri Erwin, used with her kind permission. Drink made by Chris Frankel at Anvil Bar & Refuge, Houston

DUBONNET ROYAL
(collected by W. J. Tarling, American Bar, Café Royal, London, 1937)

1-1/2 ounces Dubonnet Rouge
3/4 ounce London dry gin
1 barspoon Combier Liqueur d’Orange
3 dashes Angostura bitters
1 dash absinthe
1 Luxardo cherry

Combine the first four ingredients with ice in a mixing glass and stir for 20-30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Top with the dash of absinthe and garnish with the cherry.

Wililam J. Tarling was the head bartender of London’s sadly long-lost Café Royal as well as president of the United Kingdom Bartenders’ Guild, and in 1937 compiled a wonderful book of recipes invented by himself, his fellow Café Royal bartenders as well as other members of the UKBG. He was also a good, charitable fellow, as evidenced by this preface to the edition:

ALL Royalties derived by W. J. Tarling from this book are to be equally divided between the United Kingdom Bartenders’ Guild Sickness Benefit Fund and the Café Royal Sports Club Fund.

The book has been out of print for decades, and was quite hard to find for a long time. As with many of the great old out-of-print cocktail books I own, this one was brought to my attention by the inimitable Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh, who once again sent me scrambling across the Internets in search of a near-extinct tome. My search became fruitful when I finally got not one but two hits on ABEbooks.com — one in decent condition and perfectly readable condition, with a weathered and cracked but intact dust jacket even, for $25; the other was a pristine edition, autographed by the author, for $25,000.

After careful consideration I chose the former.

Fortunately Mixellany Books, in conjunction with the UKBG, has produced a facsimile edition, which you really should get:

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For several years now, one of the Fat Pack’s annual traditions has been Second Thanksgiving. What, well may you ask, is Second Thanksgiving? In response I say, “Consider the hobbits and their dining habits, and all shall be made clear.”  Second Thanksgiving is a day—usually the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend—spent with friends (the family you choose), free of family tension, drama and general angstiness. It is an opportunity to connect and re-connect, to get caught up, and to show off one’s cooking prowess with something especially decadent, most likely incorporating bacon or other variations on the theme of pork…but, bacon. Yes.

In past years I’ve tended to leave the cooking to Chuck, because I don’t really cook, not like he does, and also I’m lazy. But last year he was out of town for the holiday, arriving home basically just in time to hop in the car and head off to Second Thanksgiving. So last year I cooked, or rather baked, or rather followed one (actually it was two) of Paula Deen’s butter-based recipes. As I recall, one of them started with biscuits from a tube, and the other with crescent rolls from a tube. Ah, Paula, how we love thee!

But this year I decided to bake from scratch. Because, while I’m not really a cook, I do like to bake. Cakes and cookies are fun and actually pretty easy, if you can measure and stay organized—this may be why I like mixing cocktails. Pies, on the other hand, are more difficult—pastry crust is just difficult for me, and custard fillings…well, they’re daunting. But my granny taught me to bake cookies, and I knew I could pull off something good if I didn’t mess around. It came to me as if in a dream, and I knew it was the right, perfect idea: Peanut Butter Cookies…with Bacon. It’s a classic with a twist! And the twist is bacon! I basically couldn’t go wrong, unless I burned them.

Interestingly, it never occurred to me to look for an actual recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies with Bacon—I just searched up a cookie recipe that looked a lot like my granny’s, and added bacon to it. So I’m not trying to take credit for originality here, just for the thought and effort. Oh, and the success. The base recipe is from allrecipes.com; all the bacon stuff is mine. Without further ado:

Peanut Butter Cookies with Bacon

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 ounces applewood-smoked bacon

Cook the bacon until crisp. Strain and reserve the bacon fat. Put aside four strips of bacon. Eat two of them, and give the other two to your honey to eat. Crumble the rest of the bacon and set aside.

Cream together the butter, peanut butter and sugars. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and powder and salt. Stir into batter. Fold crumbled bacon into the batter. Refrigerate batter for one hour.

Heat oven to 375ºF.

Roll cookie dough into 1-inch balls and put on baking sheets. (Optional step—grease the baking sheet with some of the reserved bacon fat.) Flatten each ball with a fork, making the classic cross-hatch pattern. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until cookies start to brown. DO NOT OVER-BAKE.

Cool on racks, then enjoy.

I had a lot of fun baking, and it’s been a while, so that was good. My Granny Foster (my mom’s mother) was talking to me in my head from the moment I pulled out the mixing bowl, and pretty much throughout the whole process, and those were nice memories to savor. “Make sure you start with a big enough bowl!” “Be sure to stir all around the outside of the bowl, not just in the middle, and all the way to the bottom, not just the top. Otherwise your dough won’t be right, and the cookies will come out wrong.” “One-inch dough balls are just silly; you want one-and-a-half-inch balls. They’ll take longer to bake, but the cookies will be bigger and better.” (If you do this, the baking time will be closer to 12 minutes.) It was nice to hear her voice again, even if only in my head, and I like to think that she’d be glad to see me baking from scratch.

As it turned out, my experiment was entirely successful: the cookies were a big hit at Second Thanksgiving, and I noticed extras going home in zip-lock bags for later enjoyment. Our friend Larry reportedly “went coo-coo” for them, which is pretty much the best reaction I could possibly have hoped for. It’s worth mentioning that the recipe was annotated with “Servings: 24”. I read this as “Makes two dozen” and thought, “Oh no, two dozen cookies will never be enough—I need to double this.” Which I did, and it was way more than I needed—I still have about 1/3 of the dough in the refrigerator, and I need to either freeze it for later or bake even yet still more cookies…the horror, the horror. I can only imagine that the 24 people being served are supposed to eat three cookies each, or more like four if you’re just silly and make one-inch dough balls. Just something to keep in mind; your mileage, of course, may vary.

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Last year Dave discovered an amazing technique for doing infusions. Typically we read of infusing various ingredients into spirits for times ranging from an hour or two (in the case of teas, for instance) to a week or even longer for fruit and spice infusions. This is apparently no longer necessary unless you want to test your patience (which I never do, because I have none, and I want it NOW, Daddy!) — how about thirty seconds to five minutes? Dave wrote an article entitled “Infusion Profusion: Game-Changing Fast ‘n Cheap Technique.” If you’re intrigued by my summary (and if you want to make the cocktail as demonstrated below), you may want to pause and read that article.

You can infuse flavors into liquor (and water based things, too) almost instantly with nothing more than an ISI whipped cream maker. You can use seeds, herbs, spices, fruits, cocoa nibs, etc. Here’s how:

Put room-temperature booze into the cream whipper. Add herbs, seeds, whatever. Close the whipper and charge it with nitrous oxide (N₂O –the regular whipped cream chargers). Swirl gently 30 seconds and let stand 30 seconds more. Quickly vent the N₂O out of the whipper, open it, and strain out the infusion. Done.

[...]

Here is what I think is happening:

When you charge your whipper with nitrous oxide, high pressure forces liquid and nitrous oxide into the pores of your flavorful food (your seeds or herbs or what-have-you.) When you suddenly release the pressure inside the whipper, the nitrous forms bubbles and escapes from the food quickly, bringing flavor and liquid out with it.

This is mindbogglingly useful, Babel Fish be damned. (Okay, a Babel Fish would be pretty cool, but it can’t infuse cacao nibs into Bourbon in two minutes.) “I did a 5-minute knee-slapping song-singing jig around the school when I figured out this technique. It’s really good,” says Dave.

The equipment you’re going to need is minimal, and relatively inexpensive, and the sky’s the limit for your infusion ideas. Try to think of flavors that go well together, rather than just sticking fruit into vodka, for instance. Yes, I’m sure many of us went through our fruit-infused vodka phase; I did, about 12 years ago. You do it, and then you move on. (That said, that apple-infused one I made was pretty good.) How about a beautiful marriage like … sweet white vermouth and watermelon?

Bartender Alex Day, formerly of Death & Co. in New York and currently one of the main partners in cocktail and hospitality consultancy Proprietors LLC in Los Angeles, demonstrates this marriage of flavors done in five minutes rather than two weeks.

This drink is also a perfect example of another technique we’ve been learning about of late, one that stretches back over 100 years to the heyday of the American soda fountain — acid phosphate. Ever been to one of the few remaining true soda fountains, perhaps even in an even rarer drugstore that still has one? Ever wonder what a “chocolate phosphate” or “cherry phosphate” soda was, or what it tasted like, or what the hell phosphate is and what is it doing in my drink? It’s a way to add acidity to a drink, either alcoholic or not, but with a “blank slate” of flavor. In many cocktails you’ll see the sweetness balanced by acidity from citrus juice, typically lemon or lime, and while this works wonderfully in a variety of classic drinks they also have a very strong flavor. What if you want to achieve balance via acidity in your drink without adding citrus flavor, which might throw the flavor balance off? Acid phosphate is your solution.

My friend Darcy O’Neil, bartender extraordinaire, professional chemist by day and author of Fix the Pumps, a wonderful history of the soda fountain, now manufactures a high-quality acid phosphate for use in cocktails. If you’re a cocktail geek — hell, if you’re a soda fountain geek who wants to learn how to make the soda fountain drinks of yore — you need both the book and the phosphate. You might also want to pause again to read Darcy’s article, linked above.

Okay, I grant you … this does involve a bit of prep, but I think you’ll find it immensely rewarding. Alex brings together all these ingredients and techniques in an absolutely gorgeous drink he calls “an adult soda.” It’s a perfect light aperitivo, and something I can relax with and enjoy after work and before dinner. I’m trying to cut down a bit on my daily alcohol consumption — yes, I have a drinking problem, but it’s not what you might think. My drinking problem currently manifests itself in my not being able to get my pants buttoned (and a recent trip to Ross and Macy’s to buy bigger pants and THIS IS NOT GOOD). A lighter yet very flavorful cocktail is exactly what I need. Take it away, Alex …

HEADS UP
(by Alex Day, Proprietors LLC)

2-1/2 ounces watermelon-infused blanc vermouth
1/2 ounce Aperol
1 teaspoon acid phosphate
Soda water
Grapefruit slice

Equipment:
iSi or other cream whipper
2 standard N₂O cartridges

In a Collins glass, build the first three ingredients, add ice and stir. Top with soda water, stir gently to mix and garnish with your lovely grapefruit slice.

Dolin Blanc Vermouth de Chambéry is preferred, but you may use Martini & Rossi or any bianco vermouth.

[Yeah, I'm beginning to get my writing mojo back. I just needed something to come up behind me and zap me with a cattle prod, and this drink was it. It looked really great, plus it gave me the opportunity to link to Dave's article on nitrous infusions, Darcy's article on and source for acid phosphate, plus the drink itself. Great links brought together by commentary, the perfect old-school weblog post. Thanks, Alex. Thanks also to Taste Terminal for producing the video.]

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For many it’s Veteran’s Day (and here’s to those folks). For others it’s just a big round scary birthday. Oh well, they say 1/20th of a millennium is the new 1/25th of a millennium …

“What are you going to do at 11:11:11 on 11/11/11?” a few people asked.

The answer to that question? Have a wee dram of 23-year-old Black Maple Hill rye whiskey. Why? Well … why not?

All that aside, we should celebrate elevens today! You did have your elevenses today, didn’t you? My elevenses consisted of the aforementioned whiskey, good New Orleans coffee ‘n chicory au lait, and a banana. (Remember, life is good if you eat seven meals a day like a hobbit — “I don’t think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.” “Breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, supper!”)

This one about killed me — Scottish comedians Iain Connell and Robert Florence of “Burnistoun” are presented with an American-made voice-actuated elevator …

And of course … Happy Nigel Tufnel Day!

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and…
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel: Exactly.
Marty: Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel: Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty: I don’t know.
Nigel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty: Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel: [pause] These go to eleven.

[P.S. -- Yeah, it's been weeks since I posted. I guess I lost my mojo for a bit, and needed to recharge my batteries. I'll be back soon, I promise.]

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Image by Jonathan Mak Long

Thank you, Steve.

You and Woz changed the way we use computers. You brought publishing to the desktop instead of the print shop. You changed animated motion pictures. You changed the music industry, and the way we buy, listen to and carry around our music. You changed our concept of how we use mobile telephones, and now have a slice of our computers in our pocket. You truly changed the world with your vision, leadership and the amazing, talented Apple, NeXT and Pixar teams you put together.

The things you and the Apple team have given us truly boggles my mind when I stop to think about it instead of taking it for granted. There’s the fact that I can carry three solid months of 24-hour days of music listening in my pocket, for starters. If I were to go back in time and show the iPhone 4 (and especially the iPhone 4S I’m gonna get soon) to my 16-year-old self, he’d say, “… This is way, way cooler than a ‘Star Trek’ communicator.” It’s also strangely appropriate that I learned of your passing when my iPhone emitted a distinctive chime indicating a breaking news report from the Associated Press; it popped up the familiar blue notification box on my home screen that said, simply, “Apple says Steve Jobs has died.”

Your influence has changed lives in other ways too. Wesly said tonight that his choice of career was due in large part to the Apple ][ computers in the lab at his high school. Many of my friends are saying similar things.

Although I got my start on the Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga, it was an easy step over to the Mac. (Ah, System 7.) This website was primarily built on a Mac, and this weblog has been since the beginning.

It’s terribly sad to think that your vision and genius aren’t with us anymore. I’ll just bet, though, that for as long as you could continue working you most likely put your head together with Tim, Phil, Jony and the rest of the senior Apple team and probably sketched out the next five years’ worth of Apple products, services and innovations.

As for the rest of us, we can continue to “Think Different,” and we could do a lot worse than to take the advice you offered to Stanford graduates in 2005:

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

(Fifty-six years old. Too goddamn soon. With every passing day I am more and more fucking sick of cancer. Can you imagine what else he’d have come up with if he’d had 20 or even 10 more years? On a further and more enraging note, Peter Daou pointed out today that it’s worth noting that for less than the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan wars, we could have likely cured cancer. Don’t get me started, though.)

Here’s to the crazy ones.
        The misfits.
                The rebels.
                        The troublemakers.
                                The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.
        And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
        disbelieve them, glorify them or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.
        They invent. They imagine. They heal.
        They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
        Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.
Because while some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

And it’s the people who are crazy enough to think they can
change the world who actually do.

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Every now and again one needs to take a little break, which I hope is understandable. I also hope you haven’t forgotten about this little weblog in the meantime — I’m sure many shiny things have come along in the last 42 days to distract you. Rest assured that posts will be picking up now.

So! One of the things I’ve been distracting myself with is a relatively new site I stumbled across thanks to the Ardent Spirits newsletter (which you should subscribe to if 1) you’re a lover of boozy things, and 2) you haven’t already done so).

Kindred Cocktails is described as a “craft cocktail recipe database for enthusiasts & professionals,” which pretty much sums it up. It differs from CocktailDB in that the focus is on new recipes from craft bartenders rather than historic ones. There’s also a certain amount of moderation happening, so that you don’t end up with 2,500 cocktails created by college students that contain Jägermeister, cream and lemon juice and are called something like “The Puddle of Vomit” as you get in certain other add-to-it-yourself online drinks databases. There’s rather good stuff to be found here.

You can add your own creations, or creations from your favorite bartender that aren’t already in KC’s database. You can keep your own running cocktail recipe book on your profile, export recipes to CSV or plain text for insertion into your favorite database software, and more. (Hmm, wonder if we’ll see a Kindred Cocktails iOS app anytime. Ahem. Getting ahead of myself here, I’m sure!)

So go play around with it while I get my head out of my arse and start posting again.  Cheers!

© Chuck for Looka!, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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The long line in which I waited to get into this sold-out seminar last Thursday was unsurprising. Bitters, as you’re undoubtedly aware, are a hot topic among bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts. We were hoping we’d taste things both new and old, and we weren’t disappointed. (As we waited and chatted amongst ourselves, we were offered tastes of … cupcake-flavored vodka. Ah, the diversity of Tales.)

Indeed, when I arrived at my seat and saw what was waiting for each of us I let out a somewhat subdued “Yay!” — several cups of bitters to taste (’cause it’s all about tasting stuff, folks). My only quibble might have been that there wasn’t a larger shot of each, but that’s because I’m weird about bitters. I just want ‘em. I’m a bit greedy, I must shamefully confess.

I seem to have a lot of company, and it seems we’re all willing to pay through the nose for it. Seminar moderator Jacob Briars, global brand director for Leblon Cachaça and the 7th most famous bartender in New Zealand, noted that milliliter for milliliter, bitters were often more expensive than fine Cognacs. Indeed, when Dr. Adam Elmegirab’s Boker’s Bitters replica was first released I of course had to have it immediately. Once shipping from the U.K. was figured into it my two 100ml bottles ended up costing me $52, or $195 for a 750ml bottle. Fortunately that product is much more readily available, but I’ve still paid upwards of $20 for small bottles of domestically-made small-batch bitters.

As expected, Jacob and his co-presenters Sebastian Reaburn and Francesco Lafranconi led an informative and very entertaining seminar.

(Ah, what happens when you start doing shots of bitters? Blurry pictures!)

Bitters in alcoholic beverages undoubtedly pre-date the famous first definition of the “cock-tail” as published in the Balance and Columbian Repository in Hudson, New York on May 13, 1806, to wit:

“Cock-tail, then, is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters; it is vulgarly called a bittered sling…”

Since that was unearthed many have boldly declared that in order for a drink to be a “true cocktail” it must have bitters in it, but Jacob pointed out that this isn’t really reflected by history. The cock-tail wasn’t defined by its bitters; the drink and its alcohol content only existed to mask the usually digusting flavor of the bitters, which were taken in the morning and were strictly and unironically medicinal. Bitters were used in cocktails solely to make the bitters drinkable.

The cocktail bitters we know today didn’t even exist in 1806, but bitters as medicine were widespread. What was going on with the ingredients in these bitters? What were the volatiles doing? What was the medicinal use?

Gentian was the most widely-used bittering ingredient, and it’s the bitterest of them all — a little goes a long way. The gentian plant has meter-long roots which must be harvested by hand, which makes it a rather expensive ingredient as well. Other bittering agents included quinine, wormwood and quassia, as well as myriad other ingredients that were including for supposed medicinal effect — digestive, anti-malarial, etc. — rather than flavor (despite the fact that some of these allegedly “medicinal” ingredients were sometimes quite toxic).

Aside from a number of snake-oily claims made about the medicinal value of bitters in those days there’s one effect we know they had then and have now — bitters are very good for your digestion. Bitter digestifs/digestivos taken about 20-30 minutes after dinner truly settle the stomach and aid in the digestion of your meal, as anyone who’s had a shot of Fernet Branca after an overindugent dinner knows very well. Bitter aperitifs/aperitivos taken before dinner stimulate the palate and the flow of saliva, which in turns stimuates the digestive system to prepare for the intake of food.

The digestive bitters was the most popular type of bitters sold during the bitters-as-medicine days, but the bitters that became cocktail essentials were those that embraced the flavors need by the budding bartenders but which could still lay claim to the medical traditions. Not a single bitters from that medicinal era has survived, however … save one — the mighty Angostura Bitters.

As we began learning about this venerable product, we were given quite a treat — Jacob and Sebastian had brought along several bottles of vintage Angostura bitters, including samples dating from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. I only go to taste one, the 70ish-year-old ’40s version, which tasted amazing — the bitterness was much more pronounced, perhaps due to oxidization and evaporation; it was recognizably Angostura but different from the modern product we’re used to. A bit stronger on the clove, perhaps. Jacob told us that all the bottles tasted completely different due primarily to varying rates of oxidation and evaporation, and one of them was “totally fucked” and undrinkable. This is one of the really magnificent things about Tales — with one taste of a special product you can step back into a time machine, and very few people get to do that.

Jacob ran through the basics of Angostura’s storied history — it was created originally as a health tonic by J.G.B. Siegert, a German doctor who had been appointed by Simón Bolívar to be Surgeon-General of the military hospital in town of Angostura, Venezuela in the early 1820s. The spices are macerated in a dark rum base and are heavy in gentian, cinnamon and cloves, all of which are proven digestive aids. Contrary to popular myth (and to the belief of many would-be imitators of Angostura Bitters throughout the latter part of the 19th Century, the product does NOT contain Angostura bark, but is named after the town in which its creator did his magic.

Continuously made and sold since 1824 (in Venezuela and then in Trinidad since 1875), Angostura is seen as the quintessential bitters, and is the most widely distributed cocktail ingredient in the world. It’s also quite profitable, and has been since the beginning. One reason for this is that Angostura were one of the first companies to vigorously protect their trademarks. In 1864 they sued another company who were making an “Angostura bitters,” made a bit further up the Orinoco River. They won this suit even though the impostor was actually making their bitters with Angostura bark; the original was awarded the patent for “Angostura” and “aromatic” due to their having used the brand for so long, and that it was named for its place of origin (even though the town of Angostura was renamed Cuidad Bolívar). Once they established their trademark, they took over the aromatic bitters world and still rule it today, although there’s a lot more small-scale competition than there once was.

We got the story of their oddly ill-fitting labels too — in a nutshell, they were in a hurry to get their product to a big competition, and two different people were in charge of ordering the bottles and the labels. Once they came together it was immediately apparent that the labels were too big, but it was too late to do anything about it so they were slapped onto the bottles anyway, the top sticking up nearly an inch above the bottle’s shoulder. Alas, they lost that competition, but the judges made sure to mention that they thought the packaging was brilliant.

Many years later an industrial design conference chose the Angostura bottle and label as one of the worst examples of product packaging in the 20th Century … but they were advised never to change it due to its now-iconic look. I concur.

The flavor of Angostura is unmistakable, deep and spicy and beautifully suited to many different styles of cocktails across the entire spectrum. The aroma is woody, predominant of clove and cinnamon and all those “Christmassy” brown spices. On the palate it’s quite bitter from the gentian but not unpleasantly so — seriously, do a shot of Ango sometime — continuing with Christmas cake, clove, citrus and sweet cinnamon.

For all the bitters we tasted the presenters also provided a list of things each bitters was particularly good with, bad with and some surprising combinations they thought worked beautifully. Unsurprisingly Ango is excellent with whiskies and rums, goes very well with lime, and I think with gin as well (remember the Pink Gin, just a good London dry with six or eight dashes of Ango). It doesn’t go well with Cognacs — even though they’re aged spirits the gentle fruit character of fine brandies tends to get overwhelmed. For surprises, try it on vanilla ice cream (I can already tell you this is fantastic), on grapefruit broiled with brown sugar, a few dashes in your coffee (which I have not tried) or in your Coca-Cola (which I have — at home our Coke Zero is never served without dashes of Ango) and … in a Piña Colada!

You can also use it as a base spirit for a cocktail (it’s 90 proof, after all) and it’s not difficult to balance. Our first sample cocktail was this one, which you can find at finer bars including Cure in New Orleans:

ANGOSTURA SOUR
(from Charles H. Baker Jr.’s 1939 book, The Gentleman’s Companion; or, Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask)

1.5 ounces [45 ml] Angostura bitters (yes, you read that correctly)
1 ounce [30 ml] fresh lime juice
1 ounce [30 ml] gomme syrup
1 egg white

Combine all ingredients and shake vigorously without ice for about 20 seconds to froth up the egg white. Add ice and shake until delightfully cold. Strain into the sour-appropriate vessel of your choice, and optionally garnish with a lime peel.

Next came our beloved local favorite, Peychaud’s Bitters, an old family recipe brewed up by Antoine Amédée Peychaud in his Royal Street apothecary shop in the 1830s. (And no, he didn’t invent the cocktail, and the cocktail wasn’t named for a coquetier in which he served his nascent Sazerac brandy-and-bitters drinks. New Orleanians, I know we love a good story but please stop telling that one, because it’s bullshit, has been conclusively proven to be bullshit and telling it doesn’t do us any favors. Instead tell the one about how Huey Long brought his own bartender to New York to train the people there how to make Ramos Gin Fizzes; it’s a better story and mostly true.)  Essential to a Sazerac, these bright red bitters are quite different from Angostura, and until 10 or so years ago were the only other bitters you’d find other than Ango, and not far outside New Orleans at that (unless you were lucky enough to get your hands on what was probably the only remaining orange bitters being made by Fee’s, also hard to find back then).

Much lighter on the nose, with anise hitting you first, an a light cherry fruit note and a tiny whiff of cinnamon.  Jacob said he calls the smell “Old Absinthe House;” not having smelled the OAH recently, I can’t say myself. On the palate: more anise, cherry and cherry stones, sweet cinnamon and a very light bitterness. It’s quite an elegant product.

Peychaud’s is great with whisky, tequila, and Cognac; however, it’s bad with gin. (It seems to bring out the bitter elements of gin, and not the good kind of bitterness.) For the “Surprise me!” bit … Jacob said try it in vodka; a dash per inch brings out the grain. (Now that I’d be curious to try.) It’s also good Islay malts, he says, which didn’t surprise me.  I remember gaz regan saying a good while ago that he prefers Peychaud’s in his Rob Roys, and I’ve been enjoying them that way ever since.

[Also worth mentioning here is a product from The Bitter Truth that we didn't get to taste this time, their amazing Creole Bitters, which has some similarities to Peychaud's but is more bitter and complex, with a greater range of spices in the base. Superb in Sazeracs, Manhattans, Rob Roys or whatever you care to try it in.]

We got another cocktail with Peychaud’s as the base too:

PEYCHAUD’S SWIZZLE

1 ounce Peychaud’s bitters
1 ounce Cognac
1 ounce pineapple puree
Dash of absinthe
Dash of The Bitter Truth’s Jerry Thomas Decanter Bitters

Shake and strain over crushed ice. Insert swizzle stick and swizzle until the glass is frosty.

This was good, but for me the best-ever Peychaud’s-based cocktail by far is the Gunshop Fizz, by Kirk Estopinal of Cure and Maks Pazuniak, formerly of Cure. What an outstanding drink. The only thing that keeps me from slamming them all day all summer is that they’re somewhat labor-intensive (oh, and if I slammed them all day all summer I’d end up in rehab).

Next was a look at Fee Brothers, who’ve been around since 1863 (or 1864, depending on whether you read the company history or the date on the bottles) and have been making bitters since after Prohibition. After old brands like Gordon’s and Old House stopped making orange bitters they were the only game in town until Regans’ and the other modern brands started cropping up. They’re also very responsive to bartenders and their needs and are willing to create flavors as long as there’s some demand; this began back when Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh started bugging them to make a peach bitters several years ago.

Their best product is their aromatic bitters (which do actually use Angostura bark, and their heaviest and most foreward note is cinnamon) but even better are their Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters, a result of aging their “Old Fashioned Aromatic” bitters in used Woodford Reserve Bourbon barrels. Cloves, angostura bark, cinnamon, nutmeg, “chubby, chubbiness” as Jacob put it, richness and fatness on the tongue. Powerful and sweet on first drinking, but on the tongue the bitterness arrives late and kicks in the complexity. Really nice product.

Fee’s Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters are great with Bourbon and dark rum, bad with tequila or gin (unsurprisingly). For the “Surprise me!” … chocolate, and lemon!  Hmm.  A chocolate tart or flourless cake, or soda, or ganache, maybe a bit in a lemon curd or meringue pie.

Next we tasted (only one, sadly) from The Bitter Truth from Germany, one of my two favorite bitters companies these days. Started in 2006 by Stephan Berg and Alex Hauck, bartenders who had a very large collection of vintage bitters between them, their products flew out of the gate and very quickly knocked everyone on their arses with an outstanding aromatic bitters (a la Angostura) and an orange bitters.  Other flavors quickly followed, including, amazingly, one-off special flavors that theyd do for particular occasions. (I cherish my bottle of Bitter Truth Repeal Bitters, which I only use on December 5. They’ve done a tiny batch based on the botanicals of Beefeater 24 gin, and I understand their most recent special batch was made to commemorate a bar show in Europe.) Stephan and Alex are very secretive about their process and the exact combination of bittering agents, botanicals, herbs and spices that go into each product, and this seems to have served them well. No one else is approximating some of their flavors, including an outstanding celery bitters as well as the product we tasted … Jerry Thomas’ Own Decanter Bitters.

If you’re reading this, I shouldn’t have to explain who Jerry Thomas was (and if you’re scratching your head, the Google is your friend). He had his own formula for bitters that he’d keep behind his bar, which went something like this:

JERRY THOMAS’ OWN DECANTER BITTERS

(Bottle and serve in pony-glass.)
Take 1/4 pound of raisins.
2 ounces of cinnamon.
1 ounce of snake-root.
1 lemon and 1 orange cut in slices.
1 ounce of cloves.
1 ounce of allspice.
Fill decanter with Santa Cruz rum.

As fast as the bitters is used fill up again with rum.

Let me be the first to say … DO NOT MAKE THIS RECIPE! Why? Well, because Virginia snake-root — a bittering agent that also provided a rather nice spicy, woody, gingery flavor — is toxic and causes renal failure. (“But surely an ounce of it in a whole bottle of spirit, of which you’d only use a couple of dashes, couldn’t be that bad for you, could it?”, Dr. Cocktail once asked an organic chemist, who replied, “If it were me, I wouldn’t even take one drop.” Ohh-kay then.)

Needless to say when recreating this recipe Stephan and Alex found a substitute for snake-root (and what it is, they will not say), and they rounded out the original formula with angostura bark and a bit of citrus peel. I’m also more with the organic chemist when you look at Thomas’ instructions — not to dash into cocktails but to serve in a pony glass, a pony being one ounce. If you look through Thomas’ recipes he almost always specifies Boker’s bitters when he’s dashing aromatics into a cocktail — this bitters was meant to be slammed back by the bracing shot for medicinal use.

Of course, that’s not to say that you can’t dash it into cocktails, and it works really well that way (more on that momentarily).  We took shots of it though, ’cause that’s what The Professor wanted us to do.

Ohh, my … it is fantastically bitter! In fact, it was the bitterest product we’d tasted so far in the seminar. Cloves, wood and aromatic spices on the nose (that allspice really came through nicely), and on the palate lemon peel, dried fruit and brown spices, very dry and woody, and VERY bitter. The clove note is very heavy as in the original recipe, so much so that it actually numbs the tongue a bit.  This bitters is great in an Old Fashioned, and with genever; I like it in rum Old Fashioneds particularly. A bad combination would be in white spirits, which would get completely wiped out.  And for the “Surprise me!” … well, this was perhaps the biggest surprise of the day, and it was this “cocktail”:

THE TOM BOMB

1-1/2 ounces The Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas’ Own Decanter Bitters
8 ounces Red Bull, chilled

Put the bitters in a shotglass and the Red Bull in a mug. Drop the shotglass in and chug, just like every dopey frat boy has ever chugged a Jäger Bomb.

Belch.

Now … I hate Red Bull. Therefore, I hate Jäger Bombs.  However, this concoction which was presented by Jacob to Stephan with great glee, was apparently not bad.  Not bad at all, in fact. The flavors worked, and the extreme bitterness of the bitters balanced out the massive, tooth-cracking glucose sweetness of the Red Bull.  “It almost makes Red Bull taste good!” cried Jacob!  We didn’t get to try one of these ourselves (for which I was somewhat relieved), but I might just maybe try it one day (if I were already very drunk).

Next was “Dr.” Adam Elmegirab’s Boker’s Bitters, which began production on a very small scale by the eponymous Aberdeen bartender in 2009 (his doctorate being self-awarded, apparently).  Adam based his bitters on old published recipes for Boker’s — there were a few floating around — from tastes of several vintage Boker’s bottles, and largely based it on the 1883 recipe using quassia bark, calamus root, catechu, orange peel, and cardamom. The botanicals steeped in grain alcohol, then cut with Scottish spring water after 2 weeks.

On the nose we got Christmas pudding, orange, cinnamon, and cardamom. Then we tasted … and holy bejeebies! This was by far the bitterest bitters of the day! Extremely difficult to sip straight, but I got complex flavors of wood, eucalyptus, bitter almonds and fruit stones plus those deep, lovely spices amidst the insane bitterness. This is powerful stuff.

Adam’s Boker’s Bitters are excellent in a Martinez, dashed into barrel proof spirits or  genever, or in any cocktail from Jerry Thomas’s (or one of said cocktail’s descendants) that originally called for them. For example, I must say that the Willett Rye Manhattan (2 year, 57.6% abv) with Cinzano Rosso and 3 dashes of Boker’s I’m sipping as I write is exquisite. I wouldn’t use it in anything delicate, as this bitters will kick the living crap out of it, and remember that great idea of dashing Angostura into your coffee? Bad idea with Boker’s; the bitterness will leap up orders of magnitude and possibly implode your head.

Jacob said his big “Surprise me!” with this one was … a Mai Tai! Not the first thing that’d pop into my head, surely, but I’d definitely give it a try.  He said it also works well with orgeat, which is unsurprising, given the bitter almond and fruit stone notes I picked up.  Try it in a Japanese cocktail, which actually called for the original Boker’s bitters in the recipe Jerry Thomas published in 1862. Go wild with this stuff — the incredible length of flavor will carry other flavors along with it.

Next we got to be perhaps the first people in the United States to try Bob’s Bitters, from New Zealand. The small-batch company was founded in 2005 by Robert Petrie — not the former head writer for “The Alan Brady Show,” but a “notoriously shy pastry chef” (as Jacob described him) from the Dorchester Hotel in London. He’d done a lot of spirit- and liqueur-based work for the hotel’s kitchen and bar, including recreating his own version of the long-lost pommelo-and-honey liqueur Forbidden Fruit, as well as creating a line of cocktail bitters.  The bitters tended to be one-note flavors — chocolate, lavender, cardamom, coriander, licorice, etc. — with a solid bitter base, until he and his partner Jake Burger got the idea to recreate one of the great lost aromatic bitters of all time.’

Abbott’s Bitters were made in Baltimore, Maryland from 1872 until around 1950. The product is almost completely forgotten except for lucky cocktail fanatics who’ve tasted vintage bottles. The pre-World War II version is the superior; from what I remember learning from Ted Haigh the bitters were reformulated with a lower proof when production resumed after the war, and the product never found its footing again. Although Abbott’s did advertise itself as “Abbott’s Angostura Bitters” during some of the latter 19th Century, it was NOT Angostura and did not contain angostura bark. The “Angostura” was dropped from the product name after squawking from the actual trademark holder.

I’ve been lucky enough to taste it from several different batches, and to acquire a small supply of my own. The flavor is incredible, and without a doubt the best Manhattan you’ll ever have in all your born days will be an Abbott’s Manhattan. So of course, everyone who’s tasted it but not acquired vintage bottles has wanted to recreate it. That’s the fantastic thing about bitters — we as bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts cannot make our own Scotch or tequila, but we damn well can make our own bitters.

Although we knew a few ingredients from being listed on the label — gentian, cardamom, cloves, the usual suspects — there was something special and elusive about the unique flavor of Abbott’s. People tried — everything from “mix half Angostura with half Fee’s Old Fashioned bitters” (which was fine on its own but didn’t really work) to multiple experiments with various tinctures — but nothing really came close. Then a gentleman named Kevin, a perfumer and cocktail enthusiast who went by the handle of “PerfumeKev” on Robert Hess’ old DrinkBoy forum on MSN and its successor, The Chanticleer Society, took a sample of vintage Abbott’s and ran it through a gas chromatograph, a formidable piece of equipment “used in analytic chemistry for separating and analysing compounds that can be vaporized without decomposition.” Among other flavor compounds in Abbott’s, Kevin revealed the magic ingredient, the thing that gave Abbott’s its unique flavor. And that ingredient was … (Chairman Kaga cries “Kyo no tema … KORE DESU!”, tears off the cloth and unveils with a flourish …) TONKA BEAN!

Wait, what the hell’s a tonka bean? Dipteryx odorata — aha, we get a hint of it’s aromatic properties just from the Latin name — which contains a chemical called coumarin. That chemical is primarily responsible for its amazing aroma, and it’s the same chemical that contributes marvelous aromas and flavors to bison grass, used to make Żubrówka, the amazing Polish vodka. Tonka is prized by perfumers for its aroma, and by bitters makers and pastry chefs for its amazing flavor, which is reminiscent of cinnamon, vanilla, almonds, cloves, and … something else, je ne sais quoi.

Brilliant! Now we can make Abbott’s again! Well, not so fast … coumarin was apparently shown to cause liver damage in rodents if you feed them a hundred times more than they could possibly ever eat in one day, and coumarin also contains a chemical used to manufacture the well-known blood thinner Coumadin, although coumarin itself is not a blood thinner. Based on this bit of highly unlikely potential damage, our intrepid Food and Drug Administration has banned it for food additive use because of the coumarin content.

Let’s forget for a minute that there’s just as much coumarin in cassia cinnamon and, for instance, that if you consume three or four tablespoons of ground nutmeg you will get spectacularly high … and that these spices are perfectly legal. Until we can convince the government otherwise (and there are several efforts afoot right now to do just that), we’re going to have to do without our magical tonka bean to make bitters, for commercial sale at least. It’s perfectly legal to buy tonka beans, and some folks like John Deragon have begun their own Abbott’s experiments using them as the key flavoring ingredient.

However, Bob and Jake weren’t subject to such doting nannylike laws, and they worked diligently to produce an Abbott’s replica … which is what we tasted.

Although sadly completely illegal for sale in the U.S. at the moment, it is still an extraordinary product, aged for 6 months in toasted oak barrels (the original Abbott’s was the only bitters on the market at the time that were barrel-aged). The flavor was redolent with nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, cardamom, lavender, mallow, spearmint, and our old friend the tonka bean. They’d be fantastic in a Manhattan, and Jacob noted they’d be lousy with tequila. For a surprise use, he suggested trying them neat, like an amaro with a dash of sugar and a slice of orange over ice.

How did they compare to the vintage Abbott’s I’ve tasted? Well, let’s keep in mind Jacob’s advice about not trying to base a recreation of vintage bitters on one bottle, given that all those different bottles of Ango tasted completely different. However, I’ve tasted vintage Abbott’s from at least four different batches, all of which were reasonably similar, so I’m pretty familiar with the flavor profile. Bob’s Bitters were delicious, but didn’t quite taste like the Abbott’s I know. There was much more of a floral note, with pronounced elements of spearmint in the background, and I thought the tonka could have been a bit stronger. That said, I can’t wait to get my hands on a bottle of these, via … um, whatever means. Bob and Jake have done an extraordinary job.

Reeling from this, we moved on to the American bitters-making company that’s doing some of the most exciting work in the business — Bittermens (with no apostrophe, dammit!), founded in 2007 by Avery and Janet Glasser as experiments in their San Francisco kitchen, and now produced commercially in Brooklyn. Theirs is a completely modern approach to bitters-making, without attempting to recreate historical recipes. Their first product was the amazing Xocolatl Mole Bitters, using cacao as the primary flavor with a broad range of spices similar to what’s used in the exquisite Mexican mole negro sauce. They followed this with a bitters called ‘Elemakule Tiki Bitters, formulated for tropical and tiki-style drinks, and Boston Bittahs (heh, they’re in the yaahd not too faah from the caah), a summery citrus and chamomile blend, plus a few more and more still on the way.

The one we tasted was the latest incarnation of their initial experiments in producing a grapefruit bitters, Hopped Grapefruit Bitters. Organic grapefruit peel and oil, fruity Palisade hops, cinchona bark, gentian, cardamom and other ingredients are macerated in neutral grain spirit to make this bitters, which was fantastic. On the nose you get strong grapefruit and cardamom, and there was one offered aroma note of “irie” (“It smells like pot!”). On the palate bitter grapefruit and a bit of grapefruit pith, hops, crisp dryness, and even a note of the French gentian liqueur Suze. Jacob recommended these highly in tequila and mezcal drinks, and in a gin & tonic. Not so good would be the dark spirits of pretty much any variety, and for this one’s big surprise … beer! Not so much of a surprise, really; he said Hopped Grapefruit Bitters are amazing in a shandy gaff — half beer, half ginger beer, with a slice of grapefruit and several dashes of the bitters on top. I’m making that on the next hot Saturday.

Our last domestic producer before the grand finale was Brooklyn Hemispherical Bitters, which I hadn’t heard of until the seminar. The project started as a venture between Brooklyn bartender Mark Buettler and Jason Rowan, one of his bar regulars. After a fair bit of experimentation with bitters they were inspired by a visit to Eau de Vie bar in Sydney, Australia to come up with a name and start marketing them. Their approach is a classic bitter base with “farmer’s market” top-note flavorings. The portfolio includes strawberry, peach, sriracha (!!), Meyer lemon, rhubarb and black Mission fig, plus the one we tasted — Blueberry Bitters. Farmer’s market organic blueberries, gentian, cardamom, cinnamon and other flavorings sit in the bitter base for a week, then are filtered and bottled. I’d heard about other people making homemade blueberry bitters but hadn’t tried any of them, so I was eager for this quaff. There was woody cinnamon and dry oakiness in the aroma; on the palate sweet blueberries and blueberry pie. I could do shots of this one too.

Excellent with American whiskey, vodka and sloe gin, Jacob said; bad with tequila and some gins (the New Western ones would seem to work better then really junipery London Drys) For the “Surprise me!” … fruit salad (not so surprising), or add several dashes to the top of a Ramos Gin Fizz. Now that I can see; I fondly remember the Ramos I had in Audrey Saunders and Tony Conigliaro’s aroma seminar a few years ago, with four drops of cardamom tincture placed on the head, plus the lovely violette-drizzled Ramos John Coltharp made for me a Seven Grand a few years back as well. All their flavors sounded so wonderful that I will, of course, have to have them all. Sigh. You like bitters? There goes your money, honey.

The cruel death blow was saved for last, a product unavailable in the United States with no importation plans yet in sight. Mozart Chocolate Bitters, from Austria.

This new bitters is produced by Mozart Distillerie GmbH, the people who make another product I’ve been coveting, Mozart Dry Chocolate Spirit. Using a proprietary low-temperature extraction process they’ve actually figured out how to distill chocolate; they say the clear spirit is “directly gained from the untreated raw materials cacao and vanilla.” It’s not a liqueur either, it’s a spirit — actual hooch. The flavor is said to be distinctly chocolate, dry, complex and bittersweet. I cannot wait to try this on its own.

I did try it as part of the bitters, though — the production of Mozart Chocolate Bitters is done with cacao nibs and vanilla with a bit of nutmeg and clove, macerated in the dry chocolate spirit. Some might say it’s technically not a bitters, because it contains no typical bittering agents like gentian or cinchona. To that Jacob said, “Balls! It takes all the bitterness from the chocolate!!” Amazingly enough, the inherent bitterness of the cacao is all that’s needed to make this a true bitters (and if you forget how bitter unsweetened chocolate really is, take a bite of some sometime). That bit of news was astonishing and delightful and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that bottle.

This stuff was so delightful that we just laughed as we tasted it, and the comments were funny too — the aroma was variously described as Valrhona chocolate, Cocoa Pops, and chocolate magic! The taste — bitter chocolate, spices, and more magic! The perfume that it left behind on my hand was intoxicating; we all must have looked like idiots, walking around smelling the backs of our hands all day. Had I lingered a bit longer with the bottle I might have rubbed a drop behind each ear, too. (Sexeh!) This bitters was a revelation, and I sincerely hope we can get it over here before too much longer.

And then, alas, the clock ran out, although we could have tasted bitters all day, and there were many more nascent companies we didn’t have time to get to — Bar Keep Bitters, made by Monrovia, Calfornia-based Modern Spirits (current flavors: Swedish Herb, Lavender Spice and Baked Apple); Bitter End Bitters from Santa Fe, New Mexico (current flavors: Jamaican Jerk, Memphis Barbecue, Mexican Mole, Moroccan and Thai, all containing a tongue-searing amount of chile); and the next most exciting entry to the U.S. bitters market, Miracle Mile Bitters from my adopted home of Los Angeles. Even though they haven’t ramped up to full commercial production just yet (they’ll also be made at the Modern Spirits facility) I’ve gone absolutely bonkers over all the samples I’ve tasted, and they’re already a fixture in L.A. bars — Chocolate-Chili, Yuzu, Castilian, Sour Cherry, Orange, Peach, Gingerbread and the amazing aromatic variety called “Forbidden Bitters,” because its initial formula contained an ingredient that’s not currently allowed in bitters, but when it is … well, I think this one will eventually win the Abbott’s replica contest hands-down. I’ve tasted things.

Exhausted after reading that? I’m certainly exhausted after writing it, and you can guess how our tongues were singing and heads were spinning after this seminar, yet we could have kept going for hours. Bitters are exciting, and anybody who says something silly like “Why would I want some thing bitter in my drink?” might as well be asking “Why would anyone want more than salt and pepper in my spice rack?” Through bitters we’re heading into our future while rediscovering our past — in the 1860s the proliferation of bitters was like the proliferation of vodka in L.A. in the 1990s, and now it’s happening again as even more and more bitters are coming out all the time. From a long, dry time when the only bitters you’d find would be dusty bottles of Angostura at the grocery store and a yellowed-label bottle which sat untouched for decades behind some bars, now we have a bitters explosion, a huge palette from which bartenders and mixologists can build layers of flavor.

Life is good.

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I wish my high school history classes had been a tenth as fun as this one.

Historian-of-booze David Wondrich and guru of all thinks tropical and drinkable Jeff “Beachbum” Berry led us on a survey of the global reach of America’s greatest ambassador to the world at large — the cocktail (and the julep, cobbler, smash, daisy, etc.). It was one of those classes where there’s so much information coming forth that after a few minutes not only can you not even begin to write it all down, it’s a struggle to remember everything. You just have to sit back, let it wash over you, enjoy and laugh and let whatever bits of it stick with you as you practically marinate in history. 

There’s a popular myth that’s been promulgated for years that the spread of the American cocktail and the American bar was due to Prohibition. “Horse puckey,” Dave said, only he didn’t, he said something pithier. It had already been a global phenomenon for generations. In fact, American cocktail making and culture began to spread almost immediately after it began to coalesce at home in the mid-1800s, and within fifty years had spread to nearly every corner of the globe. Almost any country that wasn’t too far off the beaten path had an “American Bar,” and sometimes the beaten path extended very far indeed. In the 1890s there was an American bar in Punta Arenas, Patagonia. “That’s practically the end of the earth, and you could get a Manhattan cocktail there.  There are parts of Kansas now where I can’t get that,” said Wondrich.

People came to the States from myriad places where their drinking choices were limited by tradition, lack of ingredients, what have you. The light came on in their eyes, though, when a simple glass of sherry (perfectly nice on its own) was transformed by the addition of sugar, citrus, shaved ice and fruit decorations into a luscious sherry cobbler. Writers and poets extolled our drinks’ virtues and sang their praises, and before long everyone wanted bars like this where they lived.

By this point you could get an American-style cocktail almost anywhere in the world, and chances are it’d be pretty damn good. American bartenders hadn’t quite made it around the world in force just yet, though — that’s where Prohibition came in — so you’d often get local variations which weren’t always necessariliy a good thing. Bringing in local traditions and ingredients is fine, but Wondrich said some of these bars were like an insect that had been eaten by a spider, “which sucked all the insides out and left only the shell.”

One difference that snuck into American-style bars which continues here in America is a point that makes Dave bristle.  ”Look at any old pictures of pre-Prohibition American bars, especially those in the late 1800s. What don’t you see? … Barstools! There were no barstools in proper American bars!” Barstools were an import from Germany, apparently, and Dave finds them the ruination of the spirit of the American bar.  ”Think about it,” he said. “When you’re standing at the bar, unless you happen to be chatting with the bartender, you’re leaning on it, facing the side or the rear, interacting with the people around you. Nowadays in bars you see only the backs of people on barstools, a phalanx of backs that’s a barrier between you and the bar, and lots of them sit there all night — screw you buddy, I’ve got mine, get yours!” Although I’m as lazy as the next guy, if not more so, and enjoy warming my barstool, I do see his point.  And how that I think of it, two of my very favorite bars — The Varnish in Los Angeles and Bar 1886 in Pasadena — have no barstools. But I digress.

After describing the lengths to which our drinks found the corners of the globe (including two fairly notorious bars opened at opposite ends of the Panama Canal by Mayme Kelley and Max Bilgray, who once named a horrid-looking cocktail after famed evangelist Aimee Semple Macpherson after he spotted her in his joint), Jeff Berry took over and we spent a considerable amount of time looking at one particular drinking destination where the American Bar single-handedly sparked a national tourist industry — Havana, Cuba. It was a fairly sleepy town where not a lot of Americans visited, and then the Volstead Act passed, bringing the Noble Experiment of Prohibition to the entire country.  And look … there, a mere 90 miles from our shores, was a potential haven of drinking. Plentiful drinking, stacks of liquor and some pretty damn good bartenders, too.

“Have one in Havana!” became the rallying cry for tourists, and one enterprising Spaniard by the name of Jose Abial y Ortega opened what became the number one tourist destination for Americans in Cuba — Sloppy Joe’s Bar.

Many American tourists came to Havana, went straight to Sloppy Joe’s, much to the annoyance of some people who thought the reason to visit a country is to see a country.  See Cuba, see more of Havana … for God’s sake, see what else is on the street besides this bar! “Sloppy Joe’s is not Cuba,” snarled one contemporary travel writer. Charles H. Baker Jr, writer for Town & Country, Gourmet and other food and travel magazines as well as the book The Gentleman’s Companion: Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask had a different view of drink-oriented tourists who frequented the place: “Sneer all they please as Sloppy Joe’s, the fact still remains that there are as good, and better, and more varied cocktails suitable to our somewhat exacting taste than at any spot in Cuba.” So there.

Jeff even brought along a bottle of Sloppy Joe’s own house label rum (empty, sadly) — they stocked amazing 30-year-old rums which were apparently extraordinary. 

There was also a signature cocktail at the bar, the first one of which was served free to every guest:

SLOPPY JOE SPECIAL

2 ounces pineapple juice
1 ounce Cognac
1 ounce ruby Port
Dash of orange curaçao
Dash of grenadine

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail coupe.

It’s quite a lovely drink, actually.

In the 1930s Ernest Hemingway, who drank copiously in Cuba, first at Sloppy Joe’s and later at what became his preferred spot, El Floridita, advised his friend Joe Russell, a speakeasy owner, on a new name for his joint, once named the Blind Pig and then the Silver Slipper.  ”What about Sloppy Joe’s?” he suggested (perhaps as a raised finger to his former regular watering hole, as one speculation went). It was his name, after all. Joe thought it was a good idea, and it stuck — much to the chagrin of the owners of the real Sloppy Joe’s in Havana, who found their fame overtaken by the Key West impostor.

Alas, the original Sloppy Joe’s is no longer with us, although the Cuban government, in the interests of encouraging tourism, is busily restoring the bar to its former glory, or at least a semblance of such. Work is proceeding slowly, and will be finished … one day.  The Key West Sloppy Joe’s is still there, though. “If you’re ever in Key West,” went the advice, “do not go to this bar. Worst frakking Daiquiri I’ve ever had.” Only he didn’t say frakking.

Long live the American Bar.

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Fire, red-hot metal, smoke and sizzle — now that’s my kind of seminar! (More in a bit.)

And oh, the punch! We do love our punch, and punch is undergoing quite the revival these days, now that we remember how to do it properly. Punch lost its cachet for a while, thanks to an image of frumpy old ladies with porcelain cups, followed by the frat boys’ version of cheap booze dumped into a garbage can, and that bizarrely violent “Hawaiian punch” guy certainly didn’t help.  Punch is back though, from its 17th and 18th Century origins, but what about the other drinks of the era? How about recreating that style?

“Nobody looks good in breeches, stockings, a frock coat and a three-cornered hat,” said our presenter Wayne Curtis. “Really, who ever thought that looked good? Nowadays it’s a great way to get beaten up in a bar.”

Punch is indeed back, and we’re learning and enjoying the basic flavor profile of punch — “one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong and four of weak, plus spice” — but why aren’t we seeing more colonial-era drinks returning to our modern drinking? Well, it could be that colonial-era flavor profile — “sweet, sweet, sweet and sweet,” as Wayne put it. The drinks were also sweetened in ways we might find a bit unusual today. People at the time didn’t have a lot of access to white refined sugar and used what they had on hand — honey and molasses, but also apple juice, maple sap, dark hard cones of loaf sugar and even dried pumpkin, called for in many recipes of the era due to its native sugar content. We might not want to drink exactly what they drank in those days, but we can certainly modernize them and use elements from them to more suit contemporary palates.

They drank a wide variety of booze back then too. A Swedish traveler and writer named Israel Acrelius kept a meticulous list of every spiritous potable he came across in the colonies at the time:

That’s quite a bar crawl, although we might not necessarily like it all.

Wayne took us through some really tasty modern versions of what our forefathers drank 200+ years ago, starting with a lovely Pineapple Syllabub, which I can see myself having for breakfast in the morning:

It’s a fairly gentle morning drink a hybrid imported from abroad along with New World materials at hand.  It’s an incredibly old style of drink as well, dating back to the 15th century.  Wayne read us an early recipe: “To one bottle of red or white wine, ale or cider, sweeten and grate in nutmeg. Hold under a cow and milk it until a fine froth is on top.”

Well, we had a hard time getting the cow up in the elevator, so our modern version was made with pineapple-infused Cruzan rum, cream, and lemon zest. Yum.

I’ve enjoyed  modern versions of the Stone Fence, but this one was a bit more like the so-named drink of old. The colonials basically drank it as a spirits-fortified apple cider; today’s version was made with Cruzan blackstrap rum, St. Elizabeth’s allspice dram for a bit of spicy complexity, Woodpecker hard cider, and a bit of vinegar for acidity. (Vinegar was a common souring agent used in lieu of citrus, which was unavailable to colonial folks most of the year.)

Spruce sap/resin was very popular in 19th century — spruce gum was one of the more popular chews of the time, with a flavor so long-lasting that a writer of the era said you could chew it half the day, then pass it on to a friend and let him chew it for a while. (Ahem. Very glad I live in the 21st Century.) 

Calibogus was a typical spruce-based drink of the era, which at the time was a spruce beer fortified with rum. Today’s version was made with Cruzan single barrel rum, fresh lime juice (not a typical historic ingredient), Layman’s spruce beer extract, Zirbenz Stone Pine Liqueur for a little bit more of that flavor of the forest, plus a bit of molasses syrup & soda.  Delicious and (to our contemporary palates) pretty unusual.

Aha! But! What about the fire and glowing iron?

About an hour into the seminar we were ready.  Wayne had a reproduction of an 18th century loggerhead made — an iron implement about three feet long, with a small hook on one end and a ball on the end somewhere between a tennis ball and golf ball in size.  Someone apparently had the grand idea that this should be moved into the bar to heat up drinks. (Well, why not? Go figure.)

What Wayne had been saving for us was a Colonial-era Flip, which bears pretty much zero resemblance to what we think of as a flip today (a drink shaken with spirits and a whole egg). Flips in the 1700s were brown ale, rhum and molasses, heated up by plunging a hot loggerhead into the pitcher.  It wasn’t just a way to heat it up quickly, though — the red-hot loggerhead had some other amazing effects on the mixture.  It almost immediately builds up a huge, frothy head, burns the grains, hops and the barley of the ale, caramelizes the molasses and really blends the flavors and changes the taste profile in a way you wouldn’t get by just heating it up on the stove. (Martin Cate once tried using a charcoal starter, and that really didn’t work.)

Here’s how it’s done (tri-cornered hat optional):

Wayne prepared the drink by pouring two bottles of dark ale (Bass Newcastle, in this case), 4 ounces of molasses and 8 ounces Cruzan aged rum. Then … the plunge!

Man … that was good. The sharp tang of the molasses that bothers some people was really nicely tempered, making a deep, rich flavor with developed sweetness from the caramelization.  I could really get used to this drink. Unfortunately, living in either New Orleans or Los Angeles a piping hot drink isn’t going to be terribly appropriate most times of the year … but hell, I’ll enjoy it during the two weeks that it’s actually cold.

Of course, during the question and answer session I was curious as to whether there was any direct evolution from this style of colonial flip with the drink to which we now refer as a flip, spirits shaken with whole egg. “You sir,” Wayne replied, “have just destroyed three days of my life!” Actually, the serious answer was … who knows? The only relation, it seems, is the name, and sometime in the mid-1800s the name was appropriated for the egg-bearing drink. Ah well, the reality might be unsatisfying but it’s good to know.  I’ll do whatever I can to get Wayne those three days back.

And man, that flip was good.

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“The entire soda market is dominated by one or two huge corporations,” said Darcy O’Neil during today’s soda program seminar. “I think it would be great if we could get more sodas created by bartenders in our bars,” said his co-presenter Andrew Nicholls.

Absolutely right.

Don’t buy little bottles, don’t use the hose guns … control what you do and keep the quality high by making your own soda and using soda chargers. This is handy for your home use as well as instituting a professional soda program in a bar or restaurant, which was the focus of Andrew and Darcy’s fascinating seminar today — we learned a lot, including a pile of chemistry.

The two main things to remember when making soda — CHILL YOUR WATER and BOIL YOUR WATER. Sounds a bit contradictory, doesn’t it? There are solid reasons for it though, right out of chemistry. Warm or room-temperature doesn’t carbonate well at all, you may have noticed; if you put tepid water in your soda siphon and charge it, all that carbon dioxide will just whoosh right out, leaving your water rather flat. The solubility of CO2 in water increases dramatically the lower the water temperature is — the closest to freezing point the better.

But boiling it? Why would we do that? Because dissolved air in water takes up four times the room that carbon dioxide would — make more room in the water and more CO2 will have room to remain behind and create sparkle. Bring your water to a boil, fill your soda siphon (preferably a metal one), let it cool and stick it in the fridge for at least 24 hours, preferably 48. Your water will sparkle beautifully and retain that sparkle.

Don’t over-pressurize your water, but using two chargers in a standard one-quart or one-liter siphon would create the ideal pressure for more robust carbonation. That tingle on your tongue works physiologically on multiple levels, bringing aroma up the back of your throat and into your olfactory system, plus that tingle on your tongue can get quite addictive, not unlike how folks get addicted to very spicy food. Endorphins being released in your brain is a very good thing.

The growing trend is for bars to ditch their horrid soda guns and start making their own soda, tonic waters etc. in-house, but it can go far beyond that. For instance, in old cocktail books we see fizzy drinks calling for Apollinaris water, a particular mineral water which added a lot of character to the drink as well as fizz. Who knew that you can make your own Apollonaris water by adding 23g sodium bicarbonate, 11.5g sodium sulphate, 8.8g sodium chloride, 7.6g magnesium carbonate and 1g calcium carbonate to 5 gallons of water and carbonating it?

We were reminded in the seminar that mineral salts found in mineral waters enhance flavor, which is why mineral waters work so well with food, and carbonated ones even more so, as the carbon dioxide enhances flavor as well, as do the bubbles which bring the aroma up to your nose, both outside and up the back of your throat. This is why people have enjoyed soda for so many years, and why flat soda is singularly unappealing.

Our cocktail example was delicious and instructive on multiple levels, with a house-made syrup added to cream, egg and fizzy mineral water to create an amazing, multi-layered flavor.

ZOZIA FIZZ
(featured in Fix the Pumps, by Darcy O’Neil)

2 ounces zozia syrup
1/2 ounce heavy cream
1 whole egg
Soda water

Prepare as a standard egg fizz — vigorously shake first three ingredients, strain into a tall ice-filled glass and top with soda water.

Zozia Syrup
3/4 tsp lemon essence
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
15 drops Angostura bitters
15 drops absinthe essence (Herbsaint was added to taste in this version)
3/4 tsp citric acid solution
1 qt simple syrup (or gum syrup, preferably)
Caramel coloring (sufficient)

The chemistry was fascinating here, as the vanilla worked well with the abisnthe flavors, and the lemon essence provided wonderful aroma but very little flavor until the acid was added in the form of citric acid (or acid phosphate in similar syrup and cocktail formulae), and then the flavor just popped right out.

Andrew went on to discuss working with taste, texture, flavor and aroma in conjunction with mineral salts in soda water to create unique flavors, and this could have gone on all weekend. Tying in with Darcy’s excellent book on the history of the soda fountain, Fix the Pumps, and his forthcoming seminar with David Wondrich on the oft-crossed line between bartender and soda jerk, all this shows us what wide-ranging opportunities we have to improve the drinking experience in our bars by taking control of soda and integrating it thoroughly into cocktail programs.

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“Oh yeah, we’re going to New Orleans for Tales this year! I hear the food’s good!” (Well … yeah.)

I thought it only proper to continue the four-year series of posts I’ve been writing about places to eat and drink in my hometown as you descend upon it for Tales, but first a few logistical notes …

In case you haven’t noticed the weather forecast, scattered thunderstorms began in New Orleans last week and are expected to continue through the beginning of Tales. I’ve seen forecasts that show daily thunderstorms the entire week, but the local forecast on nola.com shows good weather Thursday through Sunday. As one always does when one comes to New Orleans, though, bring your umbrella and don’t lose it, ’cause you’re likely to need it.

Also there’s apparently still some construction going on around the Carousel Bar in the Monteleone Hotel, drinking central for many folks staying in the hotel for Tales. Not to worry, the Carousel Bar itself is open but as of this weekend the piano bar behind it was not, as it’s under construction; it’s being joined with part of the restaurant space behind it to create a larger bar space. They’ll be opening up windows on the street-side of the new space, which will be terrific. According to Diana Schwam of Frommers.com, one of our esteemed local advisers, apparently there were windows when the building was first built, which makes sense; now they are going through 3-foot walls to re-use them. I love the reclamation of history! The plan was for the project to be finished before Tales, so we’ll see what happens by Wednesday.

Now, eating and drinking! First of all, my previous advice stands. If you’re a newbie to Tales or a veteran who needs a refresher course, check out my posts from 2010, 2009 and 2008. All the advice in the previous post from Steve and Paul is good too. (And may I add … Cochon, Cochon, Cochon! Do it!) Shall I tempt you a bit more? Here are a few scenes from my most recent meal at Cochon, a couple of months ago:

Some crispy-fried pork belly, perhaps?

Fried rabbit livers with pepper jelly? (They also do the dish with chicken livers.)

Braised pork cheeks with fava beans and spoonbread? Yeah, like they said, get thee to Cochon.

Don’t forget Cochon Butcher next door for quick, casual dining or grabbing a magnificently porky or other meaty sandwich to go. You also might want to grab some charcuterie to bring home with you if your trip isn’t too long.

My foremost new recommendation this year is one of the newer spots in the Quarter, one we’d heard a lot about and checked out during Jazzfest this year — Sylvain, at 625 Chartres St., about a seven minute walk from the Monteleone. Sylvain is housed in a historic building, a 3-story carriage house built by Don Andres Almonaster y Roxas when the province of Luisiana was held by Spain, and you get a feel of that history when you walk in. The gorgeously appointed room is dominated by a beautiful copper-surfaced bar, behind which are an array of spirits and a cocktail list (with influences from Death & Co. in New York) that will make you very happy indeed. I’m not sure how often they change their coctkail menu, but on our last visit in late April we enjoyed a Dutch Afro (a Negroni variation with Bols Genever, Aperol, Carpano, Regans’ orange bitters), a Final Word (a Bulleit rye, fresh lemon, Luxardo Maraschino, green Chartreuse), a lovely Maker’s 46 Manhattan, and a Death Co. import called the Pressure Drop (Hayman’s Old Tom Gin, Amaro Meletti, Dolin Dry Vermouth, pear eau de vie, Angostura bitters). Happiness ensued. Murf Reeves, the head bartender, is very dedicated to the craft of spirits and cocktail and will undoubtely be happy to see you. (Incidentally, you can also catch Murf on the air, hosting the New Orleans Music Show every Monday morning from 11am to 2pm Central Time on WWOZ, locally at 90.7 FM and on the web at wwoz.org.)

The chicken liver crostini were insanely good, as were the pan-fried pork shoulder, the roasted pork po-boy (oh my), pappardelle Bolognese (fresh house-made pasta, of course) and braised beef cheeks (tender as all get out and profoundly beefy). The Sylvain Burger is also outstanding if you’ve got a craving for a big, sloppy, perfectly medium-rare burger (and I often do). A new and tasty-looking sandwich addition is the “Chick-Syl-Vain,” a buttermilk-fried chicken breast with house-made pickles which I suspect will beat the hell out of what you’d get at that chain that’s closed on Sundays.

All this plus supremely friendly staff, great atmosphere, beautiful courtyard and a live-in ghost. As is the case with many French Quarter buildings, they say that 625 Chartres is haunted … well, maybe. The supposed spectral resident is Aunt Rose, a madam who ran a brothel in the early part of the 20th Century and who once owned and lived in the building. By the account I heard she’s quite benevolent, however, and the staff take good care of her — every night a fresh Sazerac is made for her and left as an offering on a high shelf behind the bar (which is awesome). It seems to get consumed every night, but by whom? The actual ghost of Aunt Rose? A sneaky bartender? Who can really say? If I were behind the stick there I’m not sure I’d steal a ghost’s cocktail, though, if I knew what was good for me. I do so love this place, and can’t wait to get back. Don’t miss Sylvain, and raise a toast to Aunt Rose while you’re there.

I want to emphasize last year’s recommendation for the marvelous Chef John Besh-owned Italian restaurant Domenica, in the Roosevelt Hotel. Just a quick walk from the Quarter into the CBD, I consider it to be the finest Italian restaurant in town; in fact, local food writer and critic Tom Fitzmorris notes that the average diner might not recognize 80% of the dishes on the menu if he or she hasn’t been to Italy. The menu is marvelous — every single morsel I’ve had here has been delicious, especially all the house-made salumi and other charcuterie. Chef Besh and executive chef Alon Shaya go all out in this department, raising their own pigs and dry-curing all the salumi and hams for the weeks and months needed for each variety. What I’d like to feature this time is the amazing pizza, easily the best in the city and perhaps the best I’ve ever had. They have a custom-made pizza oven, fired by both pecan wood and gas with a rotating platter inside for even cooking. My favorites are the Bolzano (roast pork shoulder, fennel, bacon and sweet onions), Prosciutto with bufala mozzarella, tomato and arugula, Gorgonzola with pecans and speck (like a smoked prosciutto) and Bacon with fontina cheese and yard egg. Best of all, pizza happy hour is every day from 3pm to 6pm — all pizzas, beers, well cocktails and wines by the glass are 50% off. A late afternoon or very early evening pizza that will beat all pizzas you’ve ever had? Yes, you should.

The Bolzano Pizza at Domenica

In all my visits home over the last several years I’m not sure how I managed to miss going to Bar Tonique … maybe it’s because I don’t know anyone who works there, and I had a tendency to visit my bartender friends at other places. This is a loss for me, and one I intend to remedy this week. As those of you who’ve imbibed there already know, they’re very serious about their cocktails; “[j]ust because you are at a neighborhood watering-hole doesn’t mean that you have to settle for a sub-par cocktail,” they say. This neighborhood is the edge of the Quarter heading toward the Tremé and directly across the street from Louis Armstrong Park, Bar Tonique have a very impressive cocktail program. Their lengthy menu of classics includes the venerable Widow’s Kiss (which I’ve never seen on any other bar’s menu), Last Word, Southside and Corpse Reviver No. 2, and several intriguing originals such as the locally-named St. Claude (Old New Orleans Cajun Spice Rum, lemon and maraschino) and the Bitter Harvest (Berhheim’s Wheat Whiskey, Averna, allspice dram and bitters). Walking distance from your hotel, so walk on over and have a drink or three. Meauxbar, which I covered year before last, would be a logical pre- or post-Tonique destination for food.

A new spot I’m eager to try is Patrick’s Bar Vin at 730 Bienville St. Those of you who are longtime New Orleans diners will remember the wonderful maitre d’ at The Bistro at Maison de Ville, Patrick van Hoorebeek. Everyone knew him as the consummate host, a man who knew his customers yet was able to quickly determine the needs of new customers and out-of-towners, a lover of wine with a deep knowledge of the subject, and the King of the Krewe of Cork, among other things. During the Bistro’s long closure and hiatus following Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood, Patrick moved around town a bit, at the now-closed Peristyle, the Rib Room and finally at Restaurant August. He’s finally settled down in his own place, which will of course feature a wide variety of wines as the star of the show. There’ll be a list of signature cocktails as well, most wine-based or featuring vermouths, aromatized wines or quinquinas, and chef Agnes Billet will be offering a menu of small plates “typical of traditional French wine bars and cafes: endive salad, French onion soup, charcuterie and cheese selections,” according to the Times-Picayune. The more time spent in Patrick’s company the better, so please do visit him, sample the plates, have a cocktail if you like … but you’ll make him happy if you take a bit of time out of this gigantic cocktail festival to enjoy a nice glass of wine.

If you’ve missed out on cabbing or taking the St. Charles Ave. streetcar down to the Riverbend to eat at the legendary Camellia Grill, you’re now in luck — they’ve just opened a new branch in the French Quarter at 540 Chartres St., right off the corner of Toulouse. It looks almost exactly like the Riverbend original, with the same menu and same old-school service. They open at 7am for breakfast (not that any of you will be up that early, unless you’ve been up all night) and best of all, they stay open late — 1am on weeknights, 3am on Friday and Saturday. Just what you need to soak up all that booze …

A Pecan Waffle with syrup and butter …

One of their famous omelettes that are about the size of a rolled-up newspaper (this one is my favorite since high school — a potato, onion and cheese omelette) …

Or a slice of chocolate pecan pie à la mode? You can actually do all three (if you have someone with a wheelbarrow to help you get out). There are myriad sandwiches on the menu as well, great burgers, daily specials including red beans ‘n rice on Mondays and more — like the chocolate freeze, don’t forget that.

Diana also told me about a new find of hers which I have yet to try — Somethin’ Else Café at 620 Conti Street. It’s not a must-do attraction — basic American breakfast & lunches, melets, burgers, salads, po-boys, etc. But it’s tasty and hearty and a convenient walk from the Monteleone, it seems to be well-regarded and they’re also open late — Sunday through Wednesday until 10pm, Thursday ’til 12 midnight and Friday-Saturday until 3am. We figure their killer big-ass biscuits with boudin balls and eggs (or pulled pork, or traditional gravy or various other things) would do well to soak up a bellyful of booze the night before or a hangover the morning after.

I know that many Talesgoers tend to stick around within walking distance of the hotels, within the Quarter and the Marigny, which makes a certain amount of sense — you’d really have to be irresponsibly crazy to rent a car while you’re attending a five-day drinking festival — and some people don’t want to deal with cabs. That’s okay, there’s certainly plenty to do within walking distance of Tales. Those who don’t mind hopping in a cab (affordable; the city’s not that big) will be rewarded handsomely, though. I know some of y’all are going to see the Rebirth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf Bar tonight — if you think you’ll get to the neighborhood early enough call the amazing Boucherie at (504) 862-5514, 8815 Jeannette St. about 4 blocks from the Maple Leaf. It’s a cozy, friendly restaurant, nestled in a former Uptown home and began its life as a purple food truck parking outside music venues like Tipitina’s before they found a more permanent home. They serve “contemporary Southern cuisine” with a Louisiana twist, and our last meal there was spectacular. Start off sharing some boudin balls (spicy Cajun pork and rice sausage, removed from the casing, rolled into balls, breaded and deep-fried) or hand-cut French fries with garlic butter and topped with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, or …

Steamed Mussels with Collard Greens and Grits Crackers (this one’s more like a French dish with a Southern twist) …

Blackened Shrimp on Grits Cake with Warm House-Made Bacon Vinaigrette … oh my.

Pulled Pork Cake with Potato Confit and Purple Cabbage Cole Slaw, which was rich and porky and balanced with the crispy, vinegary slaw. The dish you’ll be served will be in focus too, unlike my lousy photograph which was taken after a fair number of cocktails and glasses of wine.

There’s also a fantastic scallop preparation which changes constantly; I remember at least one person at our table saying that it was the best scallops they’d ever had, perfectly seared on the outside and perfectly cooked inside. The current menu lists the preparation as Applewood Smoked Scallops with a Low Country Red Risotto, Pickled Green Tomatoes and Cucumbers; the one shown below that we had had a spicy aïoli and was atop corn flapjacks.

Enjoy Boucherie if you can, and your continued business will greatly help the restaurant and its chef/owner Nathaniel Zimet, who was shot and seriously wounded in an attempted robbery about two months ago. He’s recovering well and his crew is doing a great job keeping the restaurant going but he’s got a lot of medical bills to pay, so go eat his food!

For more casual dining there are two new spots open in the neighborhood — Cowbell and TruBurger, the latter being a brand-new venture by Chef Aaron Burgau of the well-known local restaurant Patois. TruBurger is a burger joint as its name implies, although Cowbell’s menu is a bit more varied with items such as grilled fish tacos and lime grilled chicken. Both are casual, and according to Diana well worth a try and ideal for your pre-Rebirthing.

I’m sure many of you will be cabbing it up to the Freret neighborhood for a visit to Cure, the cocktail nerd and craft bartender’s local nirvana. Cure has pretty much singlehandedly sparked a rebirth of that neighborhood, and many more establishments are popping up all the time. Cure has a terrific small plates menu to enjoy with your drinks, but there are several other walking-distance options: Ancora Pizzeria & Salumeria at 4508 Freret for authentic Neopolitan pizza (with the gorgeous imported oven to prove it), and from what I’ve heard really terrific salumi. Next door is High Hat Café, offering home-cooked New Orleans and Southern-style food (think catfish, pork chops, and specials like crawfish étouffée or chicken-fried steak), very much a neighborhood joint but with high-quality food. The chef-owner’s resumé is mostly in fine dining, and has worked in kitchens in Manhattan and Memphis. Chef Adolfo Garcia of Rio Mar, a Mano and La Boca is partner in both Ancora and High Hat, an additional assurance of great food.

That, plus three other years’ worth of posts ought to keep you busy. Remember, bring loose pants when you dine in New Orleans, take your time (you should be built for comfort, not for speed) and just don’t bother getting on the scale when you get home. Those extra pounds are, as a wise man once said, a small price to pay for such pleasure.

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Horror on TV, though, has been (no pun intended, but take one if you like) a bit of a crapshoot, especially of late. I’m thinking of anthology series like Showtime’s “Masters of Horror”, which started off well but deteriorated quickly after the first season. Or NBC’s “Fear Itself”, interesting but thuddingly mediocre overall, with one stunning exception: a twisted zombie story called “New Year’s Day”. Has it really been so long since “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” and “Night Gallery”? I guess it has.

So, although I was dubious at first—highly so, in fact—now I find myself wondering if I’m the only person on the planet who thinks that MTV’s reboot series “Teen Wolf” isn’t that bad? That maybe, just maybe, it’s actually pretty good? That it is, in fact, kind of…weirdly…brilliant? The other night—I think it was after watching episode four—I turned to Chuck and said as much, and he didn’t actually disagree. Thus justified, or at least emboldened, I’ve been thinking about the reasons why. I waited until after episode five to formulate my conclusions, just to make sure I wasn’t making any snap judgments. Things can always change, of course, but so far what I’ve seen has been pretty consistent, so I feel safe or at least comfortable in my analysis, such as it is.

Taking horror seriously is a good idea.

Funny horror, if not perfectly executed, rings false and grows tiring. I’m not arguing that this is a rule with few exceptions so much that the balance here is difficult, even almost impossible to strike. The sheer, unadulterated genius of “Beetlejuice” springs instantly to mind; I watched it again recently with my friend LeeAnn (who had never seen it! O, the shame!), and it still works—gloriously. (“I myself am…strange and unusual.”) But it is, make no mistake, a rarity. For every “Beetlejuice,” there’s a…well…a “Teen Wolf”.  Or fifty.  In a fairly radical break from its in-name-only forebear, MTV’s “Teen Wolf” (hereinafter referred to as MTVTW), takes the horror seriously—hell, there’s a horribly mutilated victim in the very first episode—and in my opinion is the better for it.

Thankfully, it isn’t too serious, Sturm und Drang serious, so serious as to lose all life and perspective. (I’m thinking of Spike’s “Blade” series, notable for being the only time any Spike programming has landed on our DVR (please don’t judge me). I liked the movies to varying degrees—“Blade” is great, “Blade II” is absolutely freaking brilliant, and “Blade: Trinity” …um…has a great title and co-stars Ryan Reynolds.  I liked a lot about the series, too, but overall it was far too serious for its own good, and in the end nobody cared.  No, MTVTW knows how to bring the humor. On the one hand, I shudder to think about the story meeting where somebody proposed the idea of a “comic sidekick”; on the other hand, I hope that writer is still on the show. Because the result is Dylan O’Brien’s appealingly portrayed best-buddy-to-the-hero, Stiles. We learned in episode five that Stiles isn’t actually his name—he just prefers Stiles to his apparently embarrassing yet still undisclosed first name. The non-reveal reveal of that moment made me laugh out loud. This is the kind of quiet comedy that orbits Stiles, zipping and crashing around like an asteroid belt. You never know when funny sparks are going to fly.

Tweak the mythology.

Everybody knows the basic story: boy meets dog, dog bites boy, boy turns into dog. This story has been told for centuries, from story-legends passed on verbally around crackling campires to CGI extravaganzas intended to hook the new generation (and spawn a movie franchise…or, you know, not). This story, like any other, has changed over the years of its telling; after all, storytellers embellish. Why not, if it makes things more interesting? Now, when I talk about “tweaking the mythology” I’m not talking about angsty, dewy-eyed, sparkly boy-toy vampires. (Nope, no link.  You know what I’m talking about.)  I am at least hoping for something far more interesting. I’m talking about the kind of enhancements that (speaking of vampires) make the ongoing storylines of CW’s “The Vampire Diaries” so much more intriguing and enjoyable than you’d think they have any right to be. (Rings that let vampires walk in daylight? Where did they get them? Who all has them? I must know more! TVD, from whose playbook MTVTW seems to have borrowed a judicious idea or two, is another show that gets a lot of things right.) Here, the main tweak is still being fleshed out, but it has something to do with different types of werewolves: run-of-the-mill pack wolves vs. some kind of super “alpha” wolf.

It seems clear that there’s more than one method to the madness. One smart outcome here is that our recently bitten title character (Scott McCall, played by Tyler Posey), who now turns into a fairly standard-issue werewolf, is actually a hero we can root for, not a tragic figure or anti-hero. Win the big game! Kiss the girl! Don’t get found out! It’s a familiar model, but in an unexpected setting. Beacon Hills is Smallville, Tyler’s Scott McCall is Clark Kent, the wolf is the hero…really, it’s not too big a stretch. And it’s a good idea. It also allows for fairly minor rather than elaborate makeup (or expensive CGI) on the title character (along with occasional glowing yellow eyes, just for emphasis), which keeps him recognizable and accessible. But make no mistake—there’s still another Bad Wolf, and at least one whose allegiances are in flux. It’s a lot to keep track of, but it’s also interesting.

People like to look at pretty people.

It’s true. We do. That’s why movie stars and models are all beautiful. (Well, those strange American Apparel ad campaigns aside. They’re like the anti-Abercrombie & Fitch.) This is not exactly new news—any number of CW shows get this much right, if nothing more, but that alone doesn’t make them watchable.  Believe it or not, the trick is to make sure the pretty people are window dressing, not the main attraction. For your consideration, MTVTW offers (in no particular order):

• Model-turned-actor Colton Haynes, not the best actor in the world but still model-pretty and fairly passable as an extraordinarily frustrated jock confused by a high school dynamic that’s even stranger than the norm.
• Smokin’ hot Tyler Hoechlin, all grown (and buffed) up since traveling the Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks, and rocking a triskelion-ish tattoo across his shoulder blades, no doubt just for the exotic mystery.
• Crystal Reed and Holland Roden, lovely ladies indeed, all dewy eyes, shining hair and warm voices. There’s also Jill Wagner as tough-as-nails Kate Argent (get it?), a wolf hunter who will no doubt bring tension, angst and conflict to Our Hero and his Trusty Sidekick.
• Speaking of which—Dylan O’Brien, geeky but not too much so and terrifically appealing. The perfect sidekick; he’s funny, devoted and—perhaps most importantly—completely non-threatening. There’s no subtext in this relationship, none at all.
• Pocket-sized yet impressively fit Tyler Posey, who’s more cuddly wolf-pup than slavering beast. It’s surely no coincidence that he has shaggy hair and big, brown puppy-dog eyes that are noticed (and commented on) not just by the viewing audience but by other characters…the better to go with his occasional wolfy sideburns, my dear!

Truly, there’s nothing that works like knowing your target audience.

Make your young actors not too old.

There’s a fairly common problem with TV shows set in high school: the actors are usually too old to pass as teenagers, if not at first then certainly over time. Yes, “BH 90210” and “Glee” , I’m looking at you. What adults do watch these shows may not notice or care, but actual teenagers will know the difference. Of course, like any others the actors on MTVTW will age, noticeably so if the series runs for more than a couple of years, but for now at least they aren’t too old—Tyler Posey is actually still a teenager (he’s 19, at least for a few more months), and Dylan O’Brien is only a couple of months older. It’s nothing like poor 28-year-old (and, eventually, 38) Gabrielle Carteris trying to pass for 17 or so. Oh dear. And, much as I like his character, Mark Salling isn’t really believable as a high-schooler any more, either. Send ‘em off to college!

Keep things happening. Keep things interesting.

Like TVD (and, I would argue, the usually nonsensical but always guilty-pleasurably watchable “V” remake), MTVWD knows its audience. On a show like this, stuff needs to happen. It doesn’t have to make sense, but it has to be interesting. When I say “happen,” I don’t mean every episode—I mean every commercial interval. When I say “interesting,” I mean it has to grab your attention—and keep it until the next thing happens. And when I say “it doesn’t have to make sense,” I pretty much mean that 100%. Who cares if it’s silly? Please—it’s a show about a teenage werewolf! I’m going to give credit to director Russell Mulcahy (“Highlander” —I know, right?) and writers Tim Andrew and Toby Wilkins for getting things off to a tight, intriguing start.

Lacrosse.

Every burgeoning young superhero needs a setting in which to express his super side, ideally without giving away the farm (so to speak). Clark Kent had football, and Scott McCall has lacrosse. Lacrosse? Who plays lacrosse? People on the East Coat, that’s who—and, perhaps not so coincidentally, although it’s set in a fictional small Northern California mountain town, MTVTW is filmed in and around Atlanta, home of any number of youth lacrosse teams. Aha, suddenly it all makes more sense! Sure, maybe it’s because the local actors and extras already know how to play lacrosse. Sure, maybe it’s because the high school location has a lacrosse field but no football equipment. Who cares? Lacrosse fills the clichéd dramatic need for ritualized conflict without being itself a cliché. Our Hero needs to play a sport—it’s what boys in high school do—but his sport of choice happens to be one you’ve probably never played. This is clever, as it allows the necessary imagery to be familiar, yet still fresh. Unsurprisingly, it also allows for scenes played out in the locker room, which as everyone knows is simply de rigeur in horror, not to mention Youth TV.

Credit where credit is due.

No populist exercise in dramatic storytelling that follows a traditional narrative structure (so, not “The Tree of Life” ) can succeed without characters the audience can get its collective grip on, fairly quickly at that, and a hero (or antihero) who is likeable (or not) but most of all relatable. If you and I as viewers can’t connect to the protagonist on some level, we’re unlikely to care how things play out for him or her. I think this is the single biggest thing that was gotten wrong (repeatedly, it must be said) by both “FlashForward” and “The Event” (which at our house was mostly called “The Non-Event”). Did you care what happened to Joseph Fiennes (egregiously miscast) in “FlashForward”? Did you care what happened to Laura Innes (egregiously wasted) or Blair Underwood (egregiously overly made-up, at least in HD) in “The Event”? Neither did I. But, very interestingly, I do care what happens to Scott McCall, and that’s almost entirely due to Tyler Posey. He is, at times awkwardly but always earnestly, acting and emoting his ass off. Each. And. Every. Week. Who knew that the kid from “Maid in Manhattan” had it in him? I don’t know if he’s the Real Deal or not, at least not yet, and he may not be MTVTW’s greatest asset, but I do think he’s its secret weapon.

In its own arguably un-ambitious, self-deprecating way, MTVTW is fairly balls-out brilliant. Honestly, I haven’t enjoyed a new horror series on TV this much since TVD. It’s no “Supernatural”, but then what is?

Hey, maybe next time I’ll tell you why you ought to be watching “Falling Skies”!

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You know what the worst thing about Tales of the Cocktail is?

Well, other than oppressive heat in New Orleans in July (solution — stay inside and drink!), forgetting to avail yourself of the spit bucket while tasting spirits all day long (ooh, learned that one the hard way) or having two fantastic seminars taking place at the same time and having to decide which one to miss?

It is having TWENTY-FIVE fantastic dinners with amazing mixologists pairing cocktails with amazing chefs’ dishes happening simultaneously, and having to pick ONE. That would be the Spirited Dinner series, in all its glory and intense frustration.

Pick just one from all of these?! Excuse me while I go stand in the corner and tear my hair out.

Many of these dinners look so good that I’m beginning to wonder if the only way to decide is to spin a big wheel, roll dice or perform a series of coin flips. Or … maybe you just need a little nudge in the right direction.

One of the most tantalizing looking menus offered this year is from one what is perhaps the most unique restaurant in New Orleans — Feast. It’s a newcomer to the city, having only just opened in 2010. In fact, the original Houston location only opened in 2008, resulting in immediate accolades and James Beard Award nominations. Chefs Richard Knight and James Silk are from England, and own the restaurant with Silk’s wife Meagan. Their approach is “rustic European fare,” concentrating on beloved and comforting dishes they grew up with in England. The chefs are also strong advocates of “nose-to-tail” cooking, using all parts of the animal (and introducing adventurous New Orleanians to the joys of offal). They round out their menu with historic English dishes and other dishes and influences from around Europe, all bound together by one thing — flavor. Their concentration on only the finest ingredients, locally grown, and only animals from small farms and never from factory or industrial farm sources combined with the fact that they’re really great cooks brings us superlatively delicious food.

They were so taken by New Orleans that James and Meagan moved to the city to open another branch of Feast, and all of them commute back and forth between the two restaurants. I think Feast is a terrific addition to the food culture of New Orleans

Here are a few examples of a recent meal I had at their Houston location back in February:

Welsh Rarebit, Feast-style. This isn’t your toasted white bread with beery cheese sauce poured on top. The bread was thick, rustic, hand-cut and grilled. The “sauce” was more like a thick paste of cheese and ale and spices, robust and tangy. It was unexpected, and delicious.

Duck Livers in Beef Broth with Mint and Fresh Vegetables, which seems simple enough but offered many layers of flavor. The deep, rich flavor of the livers, the broad beefiness of the broth, crisp-tender vegetables is sort of a large-dice mirepoix and the brightness of the fresh mint and parsley … wow. That’s some soup.

Braised Pork Cheek Pie with Red Chard “Bubble & Squeak.” Oh my. Put any animal’s cheek on a plate and I’ll probably eat it — it’s such a profoundly rich and tender cut of meat, full of flavor.

Blackberry-Pear Crumble with Vanilla Bean Crème Anglaise — again, simple but deeply satisfying comfort food, made with perfectly ripe and great quality fruit. And just look at all those vanilla bean specks in the crème anglaise.

You’re not getting any of this at the Spirited Dinner, though, sorry. What you are getting is a true pan-European feast, hopping around the continent and settling down in the comfort of the chefs’ native England. The astounding looking cocktail pairings come from the talented Jackson Cannon of Eastern Standard in Boston, who appears to be outdoing himself this time.

FIRST COURSE

Chilled Almond Soup with Grapes (Spain)
Aperitivo Verano – Soberano brandy, fresh muddled raspberry, Verveine du Velay, Champagne

SECOND COURSE

Scallops St. Jacques: Scallops with a Mushroom Brandy Cream Sauce (France)
Belle Normandie – Breuil Calvados, Granier de Mon pastis, Jackson’s vermouth rouge

THIRD COURSE

Parsley and Pancetta Salad with Grapefruit and Parmesan (Italy)
L’alto Stalone – No. 3 gin, Luxardo maraschino, fresh squeezed grapefruit, Amaro Abano float

FOURTH COURSE

Braised Pork Cheeks with Garlic Rutabaga and Kale (England)
Storm Port Old Fashioned – English Harbor 5 year rum, Curaçao de Curaçao, Luxardo Fernet, orange oil

FIFTH COURSE

English Bread and Butter Pudding (England)
Flip Royal – King’s Ginger, rooibos tea infusion, whole egg, charged water, shaved spices

They’ve hit four of my favorite countries to eat in Europe. (Yes, four — I had nothing but magnificent food and beer in England last year. Can we finally put to death this lingering myth of English food being bad? There are bad cooks everywhere, even in Paris and New Orleans, and well-cooked English food is, as you can see, terrific.)

The soup looks wonderful, as does its accompanying Champagne apéritif, spiked with the relatively rare (in this country) French liqueur Verveine du Velay, an herbal liqueur not unlike Chartreuse although less complex, made with 32 herbs and featuring the citrusy flavor of lemon verbena. Classic Coquilles St. Jacques paired with an apple brandy cocktail scented with anise and what looks to be a housemade sweet vermouth (wow). Chef James starts ramping up the porkiness in the salad course — making him a perfect new New Orleanian, putting pork on your salad — with a gin cocktail that seems to pair beautifully with this salad in a way that could be rather difficult for a wine pairing.

Then … hooray! Our beloved pork cheeks! See, I lied — you are getting pork cheeks. Having had their pork cheeks, I can guarantee this will knock your socks off. The Old Fashioned that Jackson’s serving with it looks perfect, and I want to run home and try to make one right now. Finishing with English bread and butter pudding is just the right touch — it’s the chefs’ own native version of bread pudding, and New Orleanians love bread pudding. This’ll be a different spin on our local version that I suspect will fit in with the Creole versions quite nicely, and if we’re going to have a rich, eggy dessert why not have a rich, eggy cocktail to go along with it?

From my experiences at Feast, I can tell you that this is looking to be one of the more legendary Spirited Dinners ever. I hope this has made your decision easier, so if you’re sufficiently tempted, go for it! The price is $80, a bargain. For reservations please call Feast at (504) 304-6318, but hurry before all the remaining seats are gone!

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Here’s a look at the finale of the show, “Rebuild Renew.”

Now go buy the CD!

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The Big Man and The Boss

“Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.” — Bruce Springsteen

I’m very sad tonight, and listening to the E Street Band.

Thank you, Clarence, for being a big part of the greatest rock ‘n roll shows I’ve ever seen in my life.

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Most of the time the process is reversed, at least with most bartenders I know. The spirits and flavors form the initial idea, and the name comes afterward. Sometimes, though, you just come up with such a great drink name that you use that as your creative inspriation.

There was one such night several months back, drinking at The Varnish in Downtown L.A. My friend Aaron was with us and was on a roll, tossing out great drink names one after the other. Most of them I don’t remember, given that my memory tends to be a bit hazy with trivial details during periods of cocktail quaffing. I do, however, remember one very clearly.

My friend Zane Harris from Seattle was guest bartending that evening (that was the night he made me the Yellow With Envy cocktail), and one of the concoctions he served up was based on Averna amaro, with a touch of Fernet. It was fabulous, and I loved the idea of using two amari in the same cocktail. Hell, why not try a drink combining bitter elements the way tiki drinks combine rums? Certainly this has been done before, but I hadn’t done it before. Aaron immediately tossed off a perfect drink name — “Something Bitter This Way Comes.” Had he been reading my mind, coming across my lifelong love of the writing of Ray Bradbury, and the fact that Something Wicked This Way Comes has been one of my favorite novels since I was 13? Whether he was mindmelding or not, he nailed this one, and kindly gave me the name to use as I saw fit. (Fortunately I forgot all the other ones, at least one of which I challenged him to actually create.)

I wanted a rye base for this for spice and backbone, and definitely Fernet although not so much that it would dominate. For the primary amaro I chose Amaro CioCiaro — bracingly bitter and herbal but bright and citrusy enough to be refreshing, and sweeter than you might imagine once you’ve had a few sips. What would I use to bind these together, though?

I tried almost everything, or so it seemed; I went through many many incarnations of this one before I was satisfied. Previous versions included maraschino (too sweet) and Aperol (getting there, but no). Cocchi Aperitivo Americano seemed just the thing to ameliorate the sweetness inherent in the amari while adding a bitter element of its own. I tried overproof ryes to attempt to stand up to the amaro combinations but it wasn’t necessary — a 90ish proof rye (Bulleit or Redemption or Sazerac 6) seems to work the best.

And then … I put it aside for a while. Procrastinated. Time passed. Wesly made the amazing Golden Dahlia. The following weekend I thought it might finally be time to run this post, so I’d make the drink again and take some pics … and then I had another thought.

We had just gotten our first bottle of another Cocchi product, the Vermouth di Torino, a fantastic red vermouth from Turin, Italy that’s brand-new to the States. I love it. I decided to give the drink one more incarnation, to let the cocoa and bitter notes of this vermouth work with the other amari and see what happens.

What happened was that the bell rang. This one was it.

That cocoa aspect of the Cocchi di Torino hooked in perfectly with the orangey notes of the CioCiaro, while contributing a bit of citrus of its own along with a great breadth of complexity (in fact, you should be drinking Cocchi Vermouth di Torino by itself as much as possible, and don’t ever let it go bad in your fridge).

The final touch (learned from friends and mentors Kirk Estopinal and Maks Pazuniak after several rounds of drinking at Cure in New Orleans) was a tiny pinch of kosher salt. This helped rein in the bitterness to make it more pleasant and less of an attack on the palate, and helped cut down a bit on the sweetness too. Remember, amari are liqueurs and contain a fair amount of sugar.

Funny thing is … it’s actually not all that bitter, and comes in squarely in the Manhattan variation category. That may not have been what I was initially going for, but it’s what evolved. Who am I to question it? Also, I’m tired of working on it. It’s a mighty tasty drink, but does it live up to the name? That may well be up to you.

SOMETHING BITTER THIS WAY COMES

1-1/2 ounces rye whiskey.
1 ounce Amaro CioCiaro.
1/2 ounce Cocchi Vermouth di Torino.
1/4 ounce Fernet-Branca.
2 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters.
Tiny pinch of kosher salt.

Combine ingredients with cracked ice in a mixing glass. Stir for at least 30 seconds until thoroughly chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange peel after expressing the orange oil onto the drink.

If you can’t find the Vermouth di Torino near you, Cocchi Aperitivo Americano still works well. Barring either of those, I’d say go for Punt E Mes.

Gaah, I might work on it again. Campari or Luxardo Bitter instead of Cocchi Vermouth? *tear hair out*

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Do you remember your first Negroni?

Photo by Jeremy Brooks, licensed via Creative Commons

I do. It was way back in the early days of my cocktail journey, when I was a mere cocktail toddler. One of the many silly things I thought I “knew” then was that I hated Campari, the frighteningly red (colored with bugs, eww!) and bitter (gaah!) potion that I had heard Italians drank with soda. I tried a Campari and soda at the time and … it didn’t speak to me. (That was primarily because I wasn’t listening, and my palate still had some maturing to do.) Then someone made me a Negroni. I was hesitant — I don’t like Campari! — but I was assured, “You’re going to like this a lot more than Campari and soda. Trust me.” I don’t even remember who the bartender was, but I owe him my thanks. The Negroni is one of my very favorite cocktails, and we go through so much Campari at home now that I ought to start buying it by the case. I’m even enjoying cocktails (nay, especially enjoying cocktails) in which Campari is actually the base spirit.

It’s such a marvelous combination of ingredients — the bracing bite of the Campari, the aromatic and spiritous backbone of the gin, the sweetness and spice of the vermouth — that it lends itself to lots of tinkering. Some bartenders have made them with genever instead of gin, different styles of gin and bitters, or even a powerfully funky rum, and I’ve become a huge fan of its Bourbon-bearing cousin. As much as I enjoy those drinks, we keep going back to the original time after time. Before dinner, a Negroni just hits the spot, and is one of our primary preprandial quaffs.

If you share a similar love and fascination with the Negroni, Paul Clarke has a seminar for you. He’ll be moderating “The Negroni: An Iconic Cocktail” at Tales of the Cocktail next month, and this is one you’re not going to want to mix. I asked Paul why a whole seminar about this cocktail, and what tantalizing tidbits he could share with us with five weeks left to go.

“In thinking about this session, I’ve come to the conclusion that not only is the Negroni an excellent cocktail — it’s perhaps the PERFECT cocktail,” he said. “It balances potency, sweetness and bitterness with an elaborate flavor that can be consistently engaging and always open to interpretation and inspiring creativity.” Indeed — see the interpretations and inspirations above!

Paul will be joined by some distinguished panelists as well. “One of my panelists is Livio Lauro, a bartender originally from Florence who is now head of U.S. Bartenders Guild in Las Vegas, and who just completed a translation of Luca Picchi’s book about Count Negroni and the development of the Negroni cocktail; the history and background of the drink is his department. I will be talking about the cultural context of the Negroni and how it’s a ‘bridge-the-gap’ drink between not only the 19th century simplicity drinks and the turn-of-the-century vermouth/bitter drinks, but also between the European aperitif tradition and the American cocktail tradition. My other panelist, Jacques Bezuidenhout, is of course a San Francisco-based bartender and consultant and a bonafide Negroni fiend; he’s going to talk a bit about the Negroni’s enduring legacy, and how it’s a foundation drink for so much creativity and inspiration behind the bar.”

I tried to pry a bit more from Paul about what we’ll actually be tasting during the seminar, but that proved to be a bit more difficult. “We’re going to be serving a few variations on the Negroni theme, all using identical ingredients and proportions, with minor tweaks to demonstrate how what’s basically the same drink can appeal in several different guises. I’ll keep the precise details close to the chest, but expect a couple of interesting takes on the Negroni — including one that most people have never before tried, and that for the first time is available for a large audience.” I have a suspicion as to what the latter reference refers, but I’ll keep that close to the chest as well. If I’m right, you’re in for a major treat.

Paul, Livio and Jacques will be presenting “The Negroni: An Iconic Cocktail” on Thursday, July 21 at 12:30pm. Buy your tickets now before this one sells out.

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Last year I had the best Ramos Gin Fizz I’d ever had in my life.

As a New Orleanian I’ve had a lot of ‘em, good and bad. (The nadir was the one at an unnamed restaurant which should have known better; it had so much orange flower water in it that it tasted like hand soap.) I’m thrilled to see the drink being made very well around the country thanks to the craft cocktail renaissance, but my favorite place to get them is in New Orleans. It’s part of what makes the city feel like home.

This particularly stunning Fizz was made at Bar UnCommon in the Père Marquette Hotel, and was made by Chris McMillian, unsurprisingly. Chris is a consummate bartender — methodical and deliberate, making perfect drinks, and entertaining you with tales and history as he does it. This one, though, this one …

Chris had been trying some new things out on me, and we’d had some classics, and even though it was late at night and I do tend to enjoy this particular drink earlier in the day, I was just in the mood. “Could you make me a Ramos?” I asked.

“Coming right up!”

I continued chatting with my friends, not really watching what the bartender was doing, oddly enough, as bartender-watching is something I frequently do. I noticed that he wasn’t shaking the egg white for nearly as long as I’ve seen other bartenders do it, though, and I began to try to pay more attention. The conversation also demanded my attention, so I wasn’t able to closely follow what Chris was doing, but I recall there being a bit of soda already in the glass as he strained the drink, agitating it gently with a barspoon as the glass filled.

He placed the drink in front of me, and I took a sip of what was the most spectacular Ramos Gin Fizz I had ever tasted.

It was perfect. Not only the balance of flavor, but the texture … holy hell, the texture was magnificent. Silky and smooth and completely emulsified, almost like very soft peak meringue, but not just on top. This emulsified texture remained consistent all the way to the bottom of the drink, with no separation at all, until I slurped the very last drops of it through the straw. Even the best Ramos Fizzes I’ve had separated after a bit. Not this one.

I had to gush. “Chris, this is amazing! I caught a few glimpses of you making it — how’d you get it like this?”

Chris replied that after all these years making them in the usual way, he had recently completely changed his technique after reading Darcy O’Neil‘s book, Fix the Pumps. “Read it if you haven’t,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “and you’ll see how I did it.”

Intrigued yet?

Darcy is a bartender and trained chemist from Ontario, Canada whose aforementioned self-published book is a history of the American soda fountain, its rise and fall, and the myriad secrets of the sodajerk — many of which were nearly lost to history (when’s the last time you saw a full-fledged, old-fashioned soda fountain?) and nearly all of which are incredibly useful to the modern bartender.

Along with the esteemed David Wondrich Darcy will be presenting a seminar called “Sodatender or Barjerk?” in which they’ll review this history, techniques of the sodajerk that the bartender can use (see above), and how the techniques of the bartender — many of whom were out of work 90 years ago due to Prohibition — came into play at the soda fountain.

Want to learn some fascinating history and some great techniques to make your drinks even more amazing? If so, this seminar is not to be missed!

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If there’s anything I like almost as much as rye, it’s rum. And if there’s anything I like more than a good amaro, it’s…actually, I don’t know what that is. This gave me the foundational idea I needed to get started. I’d like to say that next I went through some astonishing testing gyrations, or chemical flavor component analysis, or dug deeply into the Flavor Bible. Alas, I can make no such claims. What I did was, I pawed through the liquor stash in the rum and amaro sections and found one of each that (a) weren’t nearly empty and (2) seemed, very subjectively and unscientifically, i.e. all in my mind, like they would play well together.

I see a great deal of sense and logic in Gary Regan’s theory of cocktail and mixed-drink families, as outlined in his essential, eminently readable resource, The Joy of Mixology. Is there a “family name” for drinks following the formula rum + amaro modifier, or even base spirit + amaro modifier? Is it sufficiently original to warrant its own surname? Chuck helpfully pointed out that Cora, like most although not all amari, is not a fortified wine.  So, technically at least, this drink is something other than a Manhattan variation (and therefore not a member of Gary’s French-Italian cocktail family), even though that was certainly my inspiration. In the end, I decided that it didn’t really matter, and if someone decides that it does, they can work out the family tree with my blessing.

But what, oh what were the two bottles I selected? I can hear you wondering from here. I’ll just cut right to the chase. Without further ado:

Golden Dahlia
created by Wesly Moore

2 ounces Rhum Neisson Agricole Élevé Sous Bois
1 ounces Amaro Cora
3-4 dashes Bittermen’s Xocolatl Mole Bitters
Large lemon twist

Stir over ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and squeeze a lemon twist to express its oils over the surface of the drink. You may choose to commit the delicious sacrilege of dropping the twist into the drink, or not, as you prefer.

[Note: Amaro Cora is hard to find, but you can mail order it without a problem. If you enjoy amari, you need this in your collection. Find it here via Mount Carmel Wines & Spirits in the Bronx, New York City, only $10 per bottle.]

As I mentioned, this cocktail is not terribly, or really even at all, brown—this Neisson is aged for but 18 months in French oak barrels, so the resulting pour is light in color, and Amaro Cora is far from the darkest of the amari I tend to prefer and enjoy. In the glass, the cocktail has a lovely blonde color, and who doesn’t admire a lovely blonde? (I myself thought of Veronica Lake—hence the name I’ve given the drink—although Scarlett Johansson will certainly do in a pinch.) But the flavor experience is somehow browner than that, delightfully complex and pleasantly but not overwhelmingly bitter. Neisson is an agricole rum from Martinique. I love how distinct, uniquely local flavors stand out in agricoles; here the drink has an underlying earthy/grassiness that is just beautiful. I have on occasion overheard Amaro Cora dismissed a bit more readily than I think is warranted, typically for being “not all that bitter”. It’s true: Cora is not as bitter as Cynar or Fernet Branca, but its flavor profile is just gorgeous—lovely notes of orange peel and cinnamon. Here it does play very well together indeed—the bitterness it provides is understated and mellow, but clear and clean. I’m a huge fan of the Bittermens line of bitters (in spite of their disappointing caps, which always seem to crack and split long before the bottle is anywhere near empty), and their Xocolatl Mole is one of my favorites. It’s such a distinctive flavor combination that of course it isn’t suitable for just any cocktail, but here it adds a spicy richness with notes of not-at-all-sweet chocolate that’s just right. I did play a bit with proportions before settling quite happily on the classic and successful 2:1.

And now the world opens up before us, a world of rums, amari and bitters, all with the potential to be combined in luxurious and near-infinite variation, no doubt with varying degrees of success, but all to the pleasure of our palates. Go forth and conquer. Please do post your own suggestions as a comment.

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(Oh, crap.)

I was a little nervous about this whole being-on-camera thing to begin with, and after hearing from Tatsu about how he ran the gauntlet the night before, I had a minor panic attack. (Not a real panic attack, but more along the line of all the chickens in “Chicken Run” — “We mustn’t panic!” … *sounds of chickens panicking*)

I wasn’t panicking about doing the work — I was really excited about doing the work, in fact. Other than at home and friends’ houses, and bartending some parties, this would be my first time behind a working bar. I was a bit more concerned about the idea of having shots poured into me all night. Alas, I had to be a party pooper and put my foot down — no 12 shots over the course of the night, as not only did I have to be at work at 7:30 the next morning but I also had to drive myself home. Sigh, what the day job will do to us …

I showed up bright and early to help prep, which was apparently a good sign. Points scored already! Before starting the video I’d like to describe one thing it didn’t portray — in fact, none of the videos did — what Jim called “the pre-shift ritual.” This wasn’t any kind of barback hazing, this was a participatory ritual in which Jim and Rocky would join me. Sure, sounded great, but I wasn’t getting any explanations until we got to the site of the ritual.

The site, in everyone’s case, was the nearest dive bar to the venue where Jim would be guest-bartending. The ritual was for the three of us to consume … a Jäger Bomb.

Would you believe, though, that in my entire life, and after all the spirits and liqueurs I’ve quaffed or merely tasted in my life (I’ve lost count), I have never once tasted Jägermeister, much less some college kid drink made from it.

You’d think it’d be right up my alley, if you look at it for its original purpose — a herbal* liqueur meant as an after-dinner digestivo. Somehow over the years it became some kind of frat-boy shooter, and that whole reputation that developed around it just put me off. Actually though, if the ritual had just been shots of Jäger, I would have been fine with that. I mean, I’ve done shots of Malört, fer chrissakes — very little could be less palatable than that (and I actually kind of like Malört). I started thinking about it and figured a Jäger Bomb would likely be something like a shot of Jäger dropped into a beer, which I imagine would have been palatable enough. Sure, I’d be fine with that.

Nope. You probably already knew this, but that night I learned that a Jäger Bomb is a shot of Jägermeister dropped into a large glass of Red Bull. *groan*

I hate Red Bull. Sickly sweet, tasting like bad cotton candy and with an absurd amount of caffeine … blecch. In fact, I despise all those so-called “energy drinks,” primarily for the fact that they all — every single one of them — unequivocally tastes like shit. I mean, spit-take bad. And Red Bull is probably the best of them.

The bartender at the little dive down the street delivered unwelcome news, though. “We’re out of Red Bull,” he said. “All we’ve got is Rockstar.” Rockstar not even out of the can — Rockstar squirted out of the soda gun, in fact.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about Rockstar:

“As with all energy drinks, Rockstar can cause jitteriness, anxiety, and high blood sugar levels. If mixed with alcohol it may also mask the level of alcohol intoxication. Because of the diuretic effect of caffeine, Rockstar can exacerbate dehydration. [...] Rockstar Original was named Worst Energy Drink by Men’s Health magazine for having 280 calories due to 62 grams of sugar.” Rockstar also has about four times as much caffeine as Coca-Cola. Then there’s that whole tasting-like-shit thing. That, plus I mislike that company for other reasons as well. I found myself wishing they had had Red Bull.

Sigh. Stop whining and just drink it. Yep, it was about as bad as I thought it’d be, entirely due to the Rockstar. I’d gladly have done a few Jäger shots instead.

But enough grousing about the pre-shift ritual (which, other than the Rockstar, was fun). Let’s get down to work!

I was very happy to get a good grade! I was even happier that compared to some other videos, I was pretty boring. (Being earnest at your job is not terribly entertaining.) I’d rather be boring than be “good TV” though, I guess. I’m really glad Rocky and Jim asked me to participate, and I had a ton of fun. Despite what the video’s web page says I learned a lot working with Jim — a hell of a lot more than “Never run unless someone’s chasing you with something pointy,” which I actually already knew.

Jim’s featured drink this time is way better than a Jäger Bomb. I love the combination of gin and Aperol, and the lovely savory note from the sage really makes this drink.

MARQUEE COCKTAIL
by Jim Romdall, Vessel, Seattle

1-1/2 ounces Martin Miller’s Gin
3/4 ounce Aperol
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/4 ounce simple syrup
2 sage leaves
Pinch of salt

Shake all ingredients with cracked ice until very cold, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a sage leaf.

* — “You say ‘erbs’ and I say ‘herbs,’ because … there’s a fucking ‘H’ in it.” — Eddie Izzard.

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NEENER NEENER
by Jim Romdall, Vessel, Seattle

1-1/2 ounce Dos Maderas PX Rum
3/4 ounce Ramazzotti Amaro
1 egg
dash simple syrup
dash Angostura Bitters
float Green Chartreuse

Combine the first five ingredients in a shaker and dry shake WITHOUT ICE for at least 20 seconds. Add ice and shake to chill. Double strain into a Irish coffee glass and float with green Chartereuse.

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While Jim’s Martini featured a dash of his beloved Ardbeg in the mixing glass along with everything else, this one features his trademark Ardbeg float. While not exactly red, given its name this drink could be a contender for the house cocktail of House Targaryen. Dracarys!

DRAGON’S BLOOD
by Jim Romdall, Vessel, Seattle

1 ounce Martin Miller’s Gin
3/4 ounce Green Chartreuse
1/3 ounce Dry Sack Sherry
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
1 dash absinthe
Ardbeg scotch whisky float
Lime twist

Combine the first 5 ingredients with ice in a mixing glass, stir for 30 seconds and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Drizzle a barspoon or so of Ardbeg on top of the drink as a float, garnish with a lime twist and serve.

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She looked like she had a great time, and fortunately Jim didn’t break her. (“She’s tiny! She’s Li’l Bak!”) Behind the stick at San Francisco’s Cantina, Humuhumu acquitted herself quite well for her barthoritarians. (It’s Neologism Thursday, apparently.)

Today’s featured drink is very refreshing, savory with a touch of sweetness and fruit from the St. Germain. This is something you could easily put down on a summer’s day while reading out in the hammock. You can use whatever gin you prefer, but Jim used Hendrick’s here — its own cucumber notes capture those of the fresh cucumber quite nicely.

CUCUMBER LIME SWIZZLE
(from Vessel in Seattle, 2008)

1-1/2 ounces Hendrick’s Gin
1 ounce fresh lime juice
1/2 ounce Lillet
1/4 ounce St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur
1/4 ounce simple syrup
3 cucumber slices
Soda

Vigorously shake all the ingredients with ice (the ice and shaking will muddle the cucumbers for you). Double strain into a tall glass, fill with crushed ice, top with soda water and stir gently. Garnish with a cucumber slice, lime wedge or both.

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Today’s drink is a riff on the simple but lovely Alaska cocktail, which is gin and yellow Chartreuse, 3:1. It makes a great basis for a sour, and is an excellent example of building on an old drink to get a new one.

ALASKAN SOUR
by Charlotte Voisey, bartender and
portfolio ambassador for Hendrick’s Gin

1-1/2 ounce Hendrick’s Gin
1/2 ounce yellow Chartreuse
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup
2 dashes orange bitters
1 dash egg white

Combine all the ingredients in a shaker WITHOUT ICE and vigorously dry shake for at least 20 seconds. Add ice, and shake until cold. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

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It was back in January. I was at Rob Roy in Seattle, one of my favorite bars anywhere. My friend Jim Romdall, bartender extraordinaire at Vessel (which closed after it lost its lease, to reopen in a better location this summer) was guest-bartending. My friend Rocky Yeh, bon vivant and force of nature, was barbacking with him (as was the usual team effort on Mondays at Vessel). Jim had been making us fantastic drinks all night until closing, and at one point Rocky approached me with a proposal.

“Sure, what did you have in mind?” I said.

“Jim and I are going to be doing a little tour down the West Coast, stopping in bars and doing a little competition. We want knowledgeable booze people who aren’t professional bartenders to barback for us, and we want you. What do you say?”

What else could I say? “I’m in!” This sounded like a lot of fun.

Word of advice, though — be careful what you agree to after six cocktails!

A barback, in case someone you aren’t aware of the term, is a bartender’s assistant. Making sure the bartender has everything he or she needs, keeping the ice bin filled, keeping fresh bottles of booze coming, washing barware, fetching eggs, cleaning, helping with taking orders … whatever needs to be done to make the bartender’s job easier, and making sure he or she doesn’t have to take more than one step away from their station to get a drink made. Speed is of the essence, especially on a busy night. This is what the participants in the Pro-Am and I would be doing. If nothing else, I would also probably hold the title of World’s Oldest Barback.

Word of advice to iPhone and iPad users — the iOS built-in autocorrect always wants to change the word “barback” to “bareback.” Keep an eye on this, or else it could get embarrassing.

As the date of this thing approached and I hadn’t heard anything, I called Rocky and he tossed some dates at me. I managed to get my schedule open that week so that either of the dates he mentioned would be available, and then he emailed me a little electronic flier that described the event in more detail.

Click to embiggen

“Amateur mixologists” were being sought! Okay, I resemble that remark. “The challenge is part of a mini-series to be shown on the Small Screen Network.”

Uh. What? (And what’s with the dead suckling pigs?)

“I could have sworn I mentioned that to you,” said Rocky after I had my first minor panic attack. I swore up and down he didn’t, “This is the FIRST I’ve heard of it!” I cried, but he almost certainly did at the time. Remember that six cocktails thing.

Here’s the thing. I hate being on camera. Hate hate hate. “Camera-shy” doesn’t even begin to describe it, if the camera takes moving pictures. I may be one of the only people in America who has on his bucket list never to be on TV in any way, shape or form. I was once approached to see if I was interested in participating in a reality show. “Does it involve me being on TV? Then no.”

“C’mon, it’s the Small Screen Network — you know those guys,” Rocky said, full of encouragement. “It’ll be great. You’ll be fine. Just relax. We’re going to have a lot of fun.”

I began to think of what kind of bullshit story I could tell my doctor to get him to prescribe me some tranquilizers.

I actually had a major panic attack (not a clinical one, just a Chuck panic attack) the night before, which left me feeling sheepish the next day. “We’re your friends,” said Jim. “You should trust us.” They are, and I do … but after hearing tales of the way the Barback Pro-Am went the night before with the previous victim, I was still a bit wary.

Y’know what, though? It was a lot of fun. (Once I put my foot down and said no, I won’t be doing a dozen shots over the course of the night.) It was actually the first time I’d been behind a working bar doing actual work, and it felt great. Granted, I wasn’t really mixing any customers’ drinks (although I did get to make a Blue Blazer!) and the bar wasn’t as busy as I would have liked, it was still a terrific night. Well, except for when I decided to run. More on that later.

My episode of the series is probably going up within the next week, and I had meant to be posting these all along, but Jazzfest and Houston travel combined with my own absentmindedness and procrastination delayed us until now. Better late than never!

Jim did a fantastic specialty cocktail menu for all the Barback Pro-Am stops, and we’ll be featuring a cocktail along with each video — the cocktails are on the Small Screen Network site along with the videos, but I want to get ‘em in our database here as well.

Follow Jim and Rocky’s Barback Pro-Am for all the videos and recipes, which we’ll also put here for you. First up is Jennifer Heigl of the site The Daily Blender. Let the games begin!

Jim is a passionate lover of Ardbeg whisky, and sometimes seems to think that the crowning touch on any drink is the Ardbeg float. In fact, you can follow him @ardbegfloat on Twitter. This is a lovely Martini — a little bit of sweetness from the Dolin blanc, and a touch of smoke from the Ardbeg.

JIM’S MARTINI
by Jim Romdall, Vessel, Seattle

1-3/4 oz Hendrick’s Gin
1/2 oz dry vermouth (Dolin dry or Noilly Prat Original)
1/4 oz blanc vermouth (Dolin blanc or Cinzano bianco)
1 dash Ardbeg scotch whisky
Lime peel

Combine ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the lime twist.

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“Left Behind!” cried Chris. “Someone should make a drink called that. Just for the Rapture!”

“Ugh, Left Behind …” says I. “Worst. Books. EVAR.”

“It could be like a Left Hand.”

Hmm, a left hand and another left body part — the left behind as in my left butt cheek, which is what I think about doomsday happening on Saturday. I got yer Rapture right here, pal! *grasps left butt cheek* Yeah, this is sounding better and better.

“I wish we had Port in our repertoire,” he said. “Swap it out for the vermouth. Make it look like blood.”

“No port here either. We should swap out the base spirit. Rum! And Vergano Chinato Americano for the vermouth.”

Chinato (kee-NAH-to) is another style of Italian aperitif wine, the Italian version of a quinquina, as it’s given a bitter component by the addition of cinchona bark, the source of quinine. This one’s lovely, made from red Grignolino grapes in Piedmont and with more bitter oomph than Carpano Antica

“Appleton, Aperol & Chinato,” he said. “Dash Ango, dash mole bitters.”

“That sounds really good in my head,” I said.

It was good — perfectly pleasant. I felt the need for something a bit more bitter, though. We are being Left Behind, after all! The disappearance of Kirk Cameron won’t make up for the bitter tears we’ll shed while we’re weeping, wailing, gnashing teeth, rending clothing and otherwise generally tribulating. I decided to up the Chinato, and instead of reverting back to Campari I thought I’d kick the bitterness up a notch. Cynar, I thought, but not quite so much. I also swapped out Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters (a product I absolutely adore) for a local product with a bit more kick — Miracle Mile Chocolate-Chili Bitters. (No link yet because the website isn’t quite done, but you’ll be hearing a LOT more about those bitters very soon.)

I was pretty happy with the result, but it could still stand for some tinkering. As a one-day cocktail menu special, though, it ain’t bad.

THE LEFT BEHIND COCKTAIL

1-1/2 ounces Appleton Extra rum
1 ounce Vergano Chinato Americano
1/2 ounce Cynar
2 dashes Miracle Mile Chocolate-Chili Bitters
1 dash Angostura Bitters
Orange peel

Stir ingredients with cracked ice for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe, twist the peel over the drink and garnish with the peel.

Doesn’t quite look like blood, but it’s tasty enough. For the Left Behind No. 2 (which we didn’t have time to try but will likely try tonight) I’d swap the Cynar out for Campari and use the original proportions of 1-1/2 to 3/4 to 3/4, and maybe add a barspoon of Smith & Cross for a touch of funk.

So, enjoy your drink special (I hope), and Happy Doomsday!

P.S. — Given that this is a variation on the Left Hand, I think a post about said cocktail plus two tasty variations is due next. Stay tuned.

[P.P.S. -- While my tone may indeed be mocking (the idea of the rapture itself, much less calculating it to the day and hour, is the biggest load of peanut butter and horseshit I've ever heard), I have to say that I feel sorry for that nutbar preacher's followers who quit their jobs, sold their houses and everything they had to spend on end-of-the-world-is-nigh billboards. Come Sunday those people will be penniless and destitute, left with nothing but their betrayal. Beware of false prophets, y'all.]

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Seeing Mrs. Merlene Herbert, who makes and sells these from her Lafayette restaurant Creole’s Lunch House, is a gem of a human being — I adore her and I love her food! The lines for her stuffed bread (still the most underrated food item at Jazzfest yet one of it’s very best) should be at least as log as for the Crawfish Monica right next door. Go get one every day if you’re going to the Fair Grounds this or next weekend.

(No more strawberry lemonade for me though, sadly — they changed vendors last year and now it sucks.)

Don’t get used to me weblogging from the Fair Grounds, though! It’s seriously draining my battery. Better to follow my Twitter feed – I’ll be updating that frequently.

Happy Jazzfest!!

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I sighed whenever I heard those words. I knew I wouldn’t be seeing any of those shows because I was too young and wouldn’t be allowed to go. (For a variety of reasons my mom was horrified by the very idea of that venue.) By the time I was old enough to go to the Warehouse the venue started seeing hard times, and by that time I tended to go to see bands that played in smaller clubs Uptown for the most part.

People who frequented the Warehouse (always referred to as “A Warehouse” in the ads, as I remember) have memories fond and not-so-fond (it apparently got really, really hot in there), and there was an excellent article in the Gambit a year and a half or so ago about the good old days of the Warehouse.

For those of you who yearn to relive those days (and those of us who never quite got to live them in the first place), documentarian Jessy Cale Williamson is about to release his film A Warehouse on Tchoupitoulas, featuring interviews from the former owners and other people in the local music scene at the time, and what looks to be a great soundtrack. I can’t wait for this one.

Here’s a 16-minute preview:

Keep an eye on the filmmakers’ blog for more details and news. Now I’m off for Jazzfest, and I hope not to be completely absent the whole time. We’ll see!

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I’m way behind on posting, as you can undoubtedly tell, but I’m going to try to feature some music posts up through the beginning of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival next Friday. I’ll be home for Fest so posting likely won’t be happening, but I’ll try to get at least something quick up as often as I can. Please stay tuned!

Oh, and please visit trumpetsnotguns.com to support Glen’s music education initiative.

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It’s a lovely-looking highball, a gin fizz amplified with a bit of Cognac — very refreshing. I like the technique used by the bartender here. Rather than straining the shaken ingredients directly into the ice-filled Collins glass and then topping with soda (as many people would do, and which would require additional swizzling to avoid having a layer of plain soda water sitting on top) he adds the soda to the other half of the shaker, giving it a gentle swirl to combine and then pouring into the ice-filled glass — already mixed! Nice.

STAY UP LATE
(from The Stork Club Bar Book, by Lucius Beebe, 1946)

1-1/2 ounces Plymouth gin.
1/2 ounce Cognac.
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice.
3/4 ounce simple syrup.
3 ounces soda water.

Combine in a cocktail shaker with one piece of ice and shake for 10 seconds. Strain into the smaller half of the mixing tin and add the soda.

However, today you might want to celebrate Tax Day (we’re hoping you got refunds) with an Income Tax Cocktail, which is easy-peasy — basically it’s a Bronx cocktail with aromatic bitters added. In fact, I think you should have every cocktail mentioned in this post this evening.

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I love how the last step before DEATH is … absinthe. P’shaw, load up the fountain with ice water and get out the Marteau! I shall cheat death right this minute!

(P.S. — Always drink responsibly.)

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ROYAL SMILE
(adapted from The Artistry of Mixing Drinks, by Frank Meier, 1934)

1 ounce gin.
1 ounce apple brandy.
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice.
3/4 ounce real pomegranate grenadine.

Combine with cracked ice and shake for 10-12 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe, and garnish with two thin slices of apple on the edge of the glass.

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This is a drink that I think should get a lot more attention than it does, ’cause it’s damned good. It isn’t a Negroni variation per se, as it developed quite independently from that drink, but fits in with them quite nicely. As Dr. Cocktail said in the above link, “The Boulevardier … appeared in Harry [McElhone]’s 1927 bar guide, Barflies and Cocktails … Obviously, this is a Negroni with bourbon in lieu of gin. The Negroni, however, would not see print for another 20 years, and Americans had never heard of Campari in 1927.”

THE BOULEVARDIER COCKTAIL

1-1/2 ounces Bourbon whiskey
1 ounce Campari
1 ounce sweet vermouth.

Stir and strain. Garnish with orange slice, lemon twist or cherry at your discretion.

Ask for it by name!

Finally, here’s a variation on that which came about one night when bartender Chris Day and I were talking about cocktails in Google Chat. Our Boulevardier and Funky Negroni got together and had a demon spawn, which is actually amazingly good.

The conversation went something like this: I wanted a stiff drink, something with Stagg Bourbon. Chris and I had been talking about Smith & Cross rum. As I was musing about mixing Smith & Cross and Stagg, Chris said almost simultaneously, “Try a Boulevardier with a Smith & Cross float.” My eyes lit up and I said, “A STAGG Boulevardier!” He said, “Oh god, what have I done?” (AWESOMENESS, that’s what you’ve done!)

George T. Stagg Bourbon is arguably the best Bourbon on the planet. It’s certainly my special favorite, so full of flavor that it makes your head spin … quite literally. This is because Stagg is also barrel proof, slightly varying in proof each year but is generally around 144 proof. That’s 72% alcohol, kids — not to be trifled with. It’s a bit hot to drink neat — you might want to add a bit of cool water — but it mixes amazingly well. Given its strength proportions almost always have to be adjusted, but this gets easier with practice.

I wondered if the strength of this whiskey would overwhelm the Campari, but when I tried it with equal proportions I didn’t like it as much. The Campari is still there in the standard Boulevardier proportion, but it’s less assertive. That said, Wes and I both preferred the version below. “The other one was perfectly fine,” Wes said, “but this one … this is the one that makes you pound on the table, say ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ and order it again.” Your mileage may vary; try it 1:1:1 if you like, and see if you like it. Justin Burrow in Houston said, “That drink should be called the ‘Naptime.’” That gave me the idea to call it this:

BOULEVARD DES RÊVES

1-1/2 ounces George T. Stagg Bourbon
1 ounce Carpano Antica
1 ounce Campari
1/4 ounce Smith & Cross rum

Combine the first 3 ingredients with ice, stir and strain into a chilled coupe. Float Smith and Cross onto the surface of the drink. Lemon peel garnish.

Make sure someone else is driving you if you have this one.

And with that, our little series on Negroni variations comes to an end. This should give you plenty of stuff to try at home or in your favorite bar, as they should be pretty easy to order (i.e., “Genever Negroni,” “Stagg Boulevardier with a Smith & Cross float,” etc.). So, give ‘em a try!

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This next one is the one that’s been killing me lately, and I mean in the best possible way. As with so many of us, I just can’t get enough Smith & Cross rum. This “traditional Jamaican” navy-strength rum (coming in at 100 English proof, i.e. 57% alcohol by volume) is so packed with flavor and funk and “hogo” that a bottle doesn’t last long on our shelf. I like it so much I briefly considered pouring a bottle into my humidifier so that I could breathe it. Eric Seed of Haus Alpenz, whoi imports this stuff, should be canonized for bringing this to us alone, not to mention all the other wonderful things he provides — Batavia arrack,Crème de Violette, allspice dram, Old Tom gin, Cocchi Americano … *boggle*

Oh, what’s “hogo,” you ask? From David Wondrich at the above link:

[B]ack when it was young, rum was possessed of a certain “hogo.” Derived from the French phrase for the “high taste” (haut goût) game meats develop when they’re hung up to mature before cooking — and by “mature,” we mean “rot” — hogo used to be a term of art in the rum trade to describe the sulfurous, funky tang that raw-sugarcane spirits throw off. For 300 years, rum distillers have sought ways first to tame and then to eliminate it: high-proof distillation (more alcohol equals less hogo), filtering, tweaking the fermentation, long aging in barrels — all very effective, particularly when used in combination. Perhaps too effective.

A lot of that hogo has been removed from smooth, easy-to-drink rums of today. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing — give me a glass of Zaya or Appleton Extra any day — but there’s something to be said about that funk, properly tamed. Smith & Cross doesn’t exactly tame it but makes for a delicious rum that won’t funk you to death, although it will funkify your life. (Ah, my stream of consciousness calls for a musical interlude …)

I had forgotten what this drink, first sight of which came from bartender Joaquin Simo at Death & Co. in New York was actually called and started calling it the “Funky Negroni” — fortunately Garret reminded me it’s really called …

THE KINGSTON NEGRONI
(adapted from Joaquin Simo, Death & Co., NYC)

1 ounce Smith & Cross Jamaican rum
1 ounce Campari
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth (Carpano)

Stir & strain, no garnish.

Joaquin takes the vermouth back to cut down on the sweetness, but feel free to kick it back up to 1 ounce if you like. The way I first heard about this was without a garnish, but sometimes I enjoy an orange twist with it.

This drink came into my house, mated with another one and begat a Devil’s Spawn … a most diabolical, wonderful one. Stay tuned!

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Well … sure! Okay then! Twist my arm, why dontcha?

I love getting emails like this.

It’s exciting news that Bulleit are putting out a rye. I’m a huge fan of their Bourbon, its own high rye content being one of the reasons (about 28% of the mashbill, in fact). Such a high rye content gives wonderful spice notes and produces a drier product that one that’s mostly corn. (Remember, by law Bourbon whiskey must be at least 51% corn, and rye whiskey must be at least 51% rye.) The new rye won’t contain any corn — the mashbill will be 95% rye with 5% malted barley for natural grain-based enzymatic action for converting the rye grain’s starches to sugars in fermentation. Their rye grains have been obtained from Germany, Sweden, Canada as well as the U.S., and they use a proprietary yeast strain for fermenting the mash. The age is described as being “between 4 and 7 years.” It’s a hefty dram too, with the finished product coming in at 90 proof (45% abv).

I had read that Tom Bulleit and his distillers had been working on this product for about 7 years, talking to whiskey lovers as well as bartenders for ideas and inspiration. That’s plenty of time to give it some age and fine-tune. I could hardly wait to taste it.

Whiskey has quite a history in this family –- the Bourbon made from a 175-year-old recipe by Augustus Bulleit, Tom Bulleit’s great-great-grandfather. The production process for the Bourbon also uses a proprietary yeast culture (I wonder if it’s the same one as the rye) and a Kentucky limestone-filtered water source originating from the Salt River, both of which help impart a unique character.

There’s a lot of fascinating history to their Bourbon. I’m not one to parrot liquor company press releases, but when it involves a good story, mysterious disappearances and the city of New Orleans, I take an interest. Here’s the story, courtesy of Bulleit:

“[In the 1820s the young Augustus] emigrated from Alsace-Lorraine, France. Augustus arrived in the city [of New Orleans, Louisiana] during a time of great growth and prosperity. The United States had recently obtained the territory from Napoleon Bonaparte in the Louisiana Purchase, and New Orleans had successfully defended itself from a British invasion during the War of 1812. The population of the city doubled in the 1830s, and by 1840, New Orleans had become the wealthiest and third- most populous city in the nation.

“The strategic location of New Orleans, at the base of the Mississippi River, made it one of the primary gateways to the West for many early pioneers. To service this ever-growing community of frontiersman, a sizable industry selling needed products for the journey West was forming along the banks of the Mississippi. It’s easy to imagine a young Augustus Bulleit observing the growing American population, the swelling movement west, and noting the ease of transport from the North as a result of the river.

“Around 1840, Augustus Bulleit took his newfound entrepreneurial ambitions and moved from New Orleans to just outside Louisville, KY. Augustus established himself as a tavern keeper, where he began producing small batches of bourbon. Relentless in his pursuit of perfection, he experimented with countless recipes, finally finding one that consistently met his expectations. And thus, Bulleit Bourbon was born.

“Augustus’ bourbon was sold throughout Kentucky, Indiana and New Orleans where it quickly gained the reputation as the bourbon of choice for America’s most haled and hardy adventurers—the frontiersmen.

“In 1860, America was rapidly expanding further west, and Augustus’ adopted hometown of New Orleans had become a major distribution point for his whiskey. That year, while transporting barrels of whiskey from Kentucky to New Orleans, Augustus Bulleit mysteriously disappeared just outside of New Orleans.

“Walter Q. Gresham, a farm boy from Augustus’ neighborhood, who later became Secretary of State under President Grover Cleveland, formed a search party to travel from Indiana to New Orleans in search of Augustus. The searchers came back empty handed, with no knowledge of what happened to Augustus. However, they did discover that his whiskey and flatboat had been sold. His body was never found.

“Shortly after Augustus’ disappearance, the Civil War began and his case was lost in the chaos of the time. While presumed dead, his death has never been certified.

“After Augustus’ disappearance, it seemed the making of his legendary bourbon would disappear with him. However, as decades passed, the Bulleit family never lost its passion for telling the story of Augustus Bulleit, nor the desire to resurrect his signature creation. After more than a century, the family returned at last to bourbon making. In 1987, Tom Bulleit fulfilled a lifelong dream by reviving his family’s ancestral distilling enterprise, using the original recipe of his great-great-grandfather.”

That’s a hell of a story!

About a week after I enthusiastically responded to the email, the Liquor Fairy — dressed in brown with brown shorts as usual — deposited a package at my door containing this:

I must confess I was looking forward to seeing that big pretty bottle with the new green label, but I love getting little medicine bottle samples. Given the limited quantity though, we were going to have to taste and mix carefully.

Into the Riedel Bourbon glasses it went, one ounce each.

First impressions on the nose: fruity! A bit of dark berry but the thing I noticed first was bananas. No, not quite. More like banana esters, like the ethylene gas from when you keep bananas in a paper bag to help ripen them. (This is a good thing.) Tropical, almost floral. Dry spice, a touch of toffee, unburned tobacco (an aroma I love; why must people ruin that aroma by setting it on fire?). Very round and inviting.

On the palate: Lean, robust, medium dry, very crisp. It’s spicy but not overwhelmingly so, and not necessarily the brown “Christmas” spices; it’s almost lightly peppery. Great rye flavor. The brown sugar and nutty toffee notes from the nose come in here too but it’s not the kind of sweetness you get from a high corn Bourbon. The finish is dry and nutty with that little touch of sweetness and a really nice rush of spices. It’s big and complex and spicy and absolutely delicious. Wow.

We couldn’t wait to mix this. We had just enough left to make one Manhattan. I had barely an ounce and a half left — to that I added 3/4 ounce of Carpano Antica vermouth and a dash of Bitter Truth Aromatic Bitters. Lemon twist.

Superb. This rye is not only great for sipping but for mixing as well — that was a terrific Manhattan.

I wish I had more of it to do a more studied tasting, but you can bet that as soon as I see this on the shelves I’ll be picking up a couple bottles. Release date was a week ago on March 1, but I have yet to see it pop up at my usual spirits emporia. Keep an eye out. You’re going to want this one.

Well done, Bulleits!

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Jonathan Gold, Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer from the L.A. Weekly, has been drinking his way across town for quite a while now. (This is a job I would not mind having.) All the while, he’s been thinking about essence:

We have, I think, nearly come to agreement on what an essential restaurant might be in Los Angeles, a place that may have transcendent food or occupy a niche in the social ecosystem, but explains something to us about ourselves. Our ideas on the subject are firm. The nature of an essential cocktail may be more subjective. To one man we know, 55 essential cocktails means 55 glasses of Chivas, because that’s all he’ll ever drink. To us, an essential cocktail says something about L.A. [...]

Three years into the cocktailian revolution, there remains little agreement about what an essential bar should be, but a rough consensus about how an essential bar should be run. At the best bars, be it The Varnish or Tiki-Ti, syrups are fresh, juices are prepared daily, and the ice, whether chipped from a giant block or made by a $10,000 machine, is clear and cold. Even a novice can tell a great bar from a mediocre one by the sharpness of the report from the shakers.

But 55 essential cocktails? Why not 99? Why not 82? Why a number associated with that which Sammy Hagar cannot drive? Because I drive. Because I have a human liver. Because however much you may adore the saketini at that little place in Torrance, it is only essential if you happen to be eating a sliver of yellowtail sashimi there at the time.

Bottoms up!

He’s come up with his voluminous list of what he considers to be the 55 very best tipples in Los Angeles, at a variety of places undoubtedly familiar to most of us locals, as well as some I still have yet to try. I think you’ll find it’s a pretty solid list; perhaps it’ll give you some inspiration for a formidable (and, one would hope, weeks-long) bar crawl.

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Chris adds, “I’d read significance into this ad and the brand, were it not published three years before the Kinsey Report.” Doug adds, “So what’s that book concealing?” Heh. (Come to think of it, The Kinsey Report might be a great name for a cocktail. I’ll have to come up with something.)

I was curious about not only the advertising but the whiskey behind it, so I did some further digging. It seems that’s not the only Kinsey Whiskey ad I’ve come across that’s had an element of … er, camp to it. This ad is from Christian Montone‘s vintage ad collection on Flickr:

One more:

Um …

The whiskey does indeed date back to 1892, and was produced at a quite lovely distillery on the banks of the Schuykill River near Linfield, Pennsylvania. Taking a break (of course) during Prohibition, the stuff was produced until the mid-1980s, although I don’t ever recall seeing it; it must have been primarily an East Coast brand.

Notice the fine print in the ads, which says that Kinsey Whiskey is “65% grain neutral spirits,” i.e. vodka. That’s even higher than the 55% grain neutral spirit content of the spectacularly uninteresting Seagram’s 7 Crown, which along with its slightly less dull sibling Seagram’s V.O. was quite accurately referred to by my friend Darcy O’Neil as “brown vodka.”  ”Light whiskey … for pleasant taste” was one of their ad slogans, and I imagine it was fairly accurate.  This particular “Gold Label” blend was a fairly typical example of blended American whiskies produced after World War II, when supplies were limited and could be stretched by the addition of column still-produced grain neutral spirits. Of course I’ve never tasted Kinsey Gold Label, but I imagine the adjective I’d use to describe it would be the same ones I use to describe 7 Crown and V.O. — “bland.”

However, according to this excellent article they also made a bonded rye whiskey as well:

Now THAT would have been something to try.  Fortunately we have our beloved Rittenhouse bonded rye to cuddle and quaff these days, but sadly we don’t have much in the way of bonded ryes these days to compare it to.

Here are a couple more ads:

Oh sure, he’s showing them a football play, but had this ad been 1965 and not 1945 I’m sure he would have been showing his buddies how fabulously he can sing “Stop In The Name of Love.”

As you may have noticed, Kinsey (as did many if not most liquor producers of the time) put out a cocktail booklet. The whiskey itself might have been nothing to write home about, but they sure knew what to do with it still, even as late as circa 1950 when this booklet came out:

It’s sad to say that these days it would likely take what’s at the moment being called a “craft bartender” to even know what a Daisy, Flip or Sling is, and if you ordered a Whiskey Sour in most bars these days you probably wouldn’t get fresh squeezed lemon, but some artificial “sour mix” crap out of a jug. This is slowly but surely changing, especially in higher-end bars and restaurant, but please … can we at least get things back to 1950, if not 1920 and earlier just yet?

Flickr vintage ad collector alsis35 adds, “You have to wonder: Why did drunks need number puzzles to play with? Maybe they took away the darts after somebody lost an eye.”  Heh.

I think this one is my favorite Kinsey Whiskey ad of all, though. From the January 14, 1946 issue of LIFE Magazine:

That slogan speaks the truth. To accompany their regular meeting of the He-Man Woman Haters’ Club, at least these fellows know how to mix a cocktail. Perfect recipe, perfect glassware. Of course, I’m sure it’d be a much better Manhattan with Kinsey’s 100 proof bonded rye product — one made with such a blend containing so much grain neutral spirits would be limp and limpid at best, with barely a whisper of whiskey flavor — although I don’t know if Kinsey was still making it at this point.

Thanks to Chris Gaal for inspiring this post! Incidentally, Chris’ blog is well worth following, full of interesting tidbits of Los Angeles, Glendale and Pasadena history and photos. The Vintage Ads LJ is also a regular hoot too — the mind boggles at what admen used to think would sell products.

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Perhaps my favorite album of the year so far has been the new one by The Decemberists, The King is Dead. I’ve been a big Decemberists fan for a while now; I love their big, complex, literate “folk-rock symphony” rock sound, including second most recent The Hazards of Love, which a lot of people seemed not to like — silly people, I think. (The record also includes “The Rake’s Song,” which is one of the most harrowing murder ballads I’ve ever heard.)

“Stripped down” is how they’re describing the new one, with much more of a folk and country tinge and with a strong R.E.M. influence; some songs even feature Peter Buck on guitar, which is probably the best way to lend an R.E.M. sound to your song. The stripped down aspect touched all my folk-country-roots music nerves in the best way, and I found it hugely appealing this time around. Interestingly enough, a good friend who’s a music critic cited that aspect of the record as the primary reason he didn’t like it at all. All I can do is encourage him and anyone else who was put off by this record’s style to listen to it again, because it’s wonderful.

Not only do you hear R.E.M. in this record’s sonic fabric, but one of my favorite songs on the record, “Rise to Me,” sounds to me as if it would be perfectly in place on an Uncle Tupelo (or perhaps Son Volt) record. It’s gorgeous from beginning to end. Can’t you just hear Jay Farrar singing this?

I also love the little instrumental snippet of “The Raggle Taggle Gypsy” that they throw into the song “Rox in the Box,” reinforcing the album’s traditional feel.

The amazing folk-country singer Gillian Welch is also a featured guest on the record — here’s herself performing the song “Down by the Water” with the band on Conan O’Brien a while back:

And here’s the entirety of a recent visit to KCRW, which I missed at the time. Fortunately, they’ve been archiving their live performances for years (and incidentally, I really wish I had some from the pre-web days — there’s been an astonishing amount of great music made at that radio station). Appropriately enough, they start the show with a perfect R.E.M. cover.

You can download an MP3 of “Cuyahoga” here.

If that’s not enough, you can watch and audio-stream a live performance of the album The King is Dead in its entirety, from Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland.

Now, go out and buy that record!

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Last time I was at the venerable Vessel* in Seattle, bartender Jim Romdall made me a lovely, spicy, bracing Negroni variation using a very different style of gin, the aforementioned Gran Classico Bitter, and a different vermouth to kick up the spice and bitterness profile a notch.

Ransom Old Tom Gin comes from Ransom Spirits in Oregon, and is their recreation of one possible expression of the 18th and 19th Century style of gin known as “Old Tom.” It’s lightly sweetened, sweeter than a London dry style, where the juniper is not so forward as in the latter. I’m not sure of the botanicals that go into Ransom, but they provide a nice, peppery spice profile, and the color comes from an amount of barrel-aging roughly equivalent to what the gin might have picked up while being shipped over from the Old Country in barrels. They developed the spirit in collaboration with writer, historian and monarch of the Hereditary Principate of Drunkistan, David Wondrich. If you’re looking to recreate a spirit from the mid-1800s, he’s probably your man. Or prince. Or … well, you get the idea.

Ransom works wonderfully in a Negroni, and Jim kicked it up with the new bitter on the block as well as my second-favorite vermouth after Carpano Antica, most coincidentally made by the same folks.

Feel free to vary the proportions to adjust to your preferred level of sweetness; this is just a guideline.

I don’t remember what Jim called it, but it was probably something like this:

RANSOM NEGRONI
(as served by Jim Romdall at Vessel, Seattle)

1-1/4 ounce Ransom Old Tom Gin.
1 ounce Gran Classico Bitter.
1 ounce Punt E Mes.
Orange peel.

Stir with ice for 30 seconds, strain into a chilled coupe, garnish with the orange peel. You know the drill.

* – Vessel is currently closed, having lost their lease at the old location. They’re working hard to reopen in a new space (which I think will have parking, yay!) by late spring or early summer 2011. That’s a grand reopening party I don’t want to miss.

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The bitterness of Campari sometimes scares folks away, but it shouldn’t — it’s a bracing flavor that’s perfect for awakening your palate before a meal. It can be a bit much if the first time you try it is in a Campari and soda (wildly popular in Italy), but most places tend to serve it tall, in a highball or Collins glass. It works much better short, in nearly equal proportions with soda, to give the sugar in Campari a chance to balance out the bitterness. Too much dilution will tend to let the bitter element take over the sweet. Remember, it’s all about balance. (I prefer my Americanos short too.)

My first introduction to Campari was in the entertaining Combustible Edison cocktail, in which an ounce each of Campari and lemon juice are shaken and strained into a cocktail glass, and then two ounces of warmed Cognac are flamed and poured in a flaming stream into the glass. Entertaining indeed, but not my favorite. Many folks’ introduction to Campari is by mixing it with orange juice, about double juice to spirit, perhaps with a splash of soda or tonic. I’d have to pick the Negroni as my favorite, though, and if you haven’t tried it you should. As with most adult tastes, it’s one worth acquiring.

The drink we know as the Negroni has had various names; the Camparinette is perhaps the most well-known, and according to Andrew the Alchemist it was also called the Cardinale in Italy. It dates back to as early as 1919, although what the Italians were calling a “Negroni” then would seem more like an Americano with gin to us.

All this has evolved into the classic Negroni proportion we’ve come to know — equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari. That can be a bit sweet for some people, and I’ve seen many variations on the proportion — typical is 1-1/2 gin, 1 Campari and 3/4 vermouth, to keep the sweetness at bay. I’ve also been fond of the Cinnabar Negroni, in which the Campari is doubled and orange bitters added.

The basic Negroni formula lends itself quite nicely to variation of spirits and even in the bitter element, despite Campari seeming quintessential to the drink. I’ve sampled many lovely versions that take the gin-Campari-vermouth formula to something more like spirit-bitter-aromatized wine. Aperol is a natural substitute for the Campari, but other interesting bitters outside the dark Italian amaro field have popped up recently. One of my favorites is the Swiss-made bitter called Gran Classico Bitter, based on a recipe from Turin from the 1860s. It contains bitter orange, gentian, rhubarb and wormwood among its botanicals. It’s got quite a bitter punch, not unlike Campari but with a less bright, rounder, deeper flavor. It’s being directly marketed as a Campari substitute, even recommending its use in cocktails like the Negroni, Americano or spritzer.

Jason Schiffer at 320 Main in Seal Beach, CA uses Gran Classico in one of my favorite recent twists on the Negroni, swapping the gin for its malty progenitor, Dutch genever, and bringing down the other two components. The maltiness of genever with the citrus oils accenting the citrus notes in the bitter work beautifully here; this one didn’t last long the last time we visited 320. They’ve just changed their menu and this cocktail isn’t on it anymore, but they’d still be happy to make you one. If you’re in Southern California, and especially if you’re in Orange County, you need to drink here — it’s the best place to get a drink for many miles. The food’s terrific, too. Duck mac ‘n cheese? Oh my.

NEGRONI’S LOSS
(320 Main, Seal Beach, CA)

1 ounce Bols Genever.
3/4 ounce Carpano Antica sweet vermouth.
3/4 ounce Gran Classico bitter.
Lemon and orange peel & oils.

Combine with ice and stir for at least 30 seconds. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass. Express the oil from the lemon and orange peels onto the surface of the drink, and garnish with the peels.

Now, moving on from “Holland Gin” to another older style of gin for our next drink …

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As I’ve mentioned in the past, the Old Fashioned might just be my favorite cocktail ever. It’s certainly at the top of my “comfort cocktails” list, being the first one I ever learned to make — Dad taught me when I was a kid, and sometimes I’d get to make him one after he got home from work. That basic recipe, truly the first “cock-tail” ever, adheres to a very simple recipe — “spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters.” One of my favorite variations has been to make Old Fashioneds with half rye whiskey for spice, and half bonded applejack for the wonderful fruit flavors, along with a variety of different bitters. Turns out that for the last four years or so, head bartender Michael McIlroy of New York’s Milk & Honey has been making essentially the same drink for over three years now. I’m glad to know that my cocktailian brain is wired properly, at the very least!

His cocktail is called the American Trilogy, combining those two very American spirits with orange bitters. Whether he named his drink after Mickey Newbury’s song, an arrangement of 19th Century traditional songs that was a hit for Elvis Presley, I don’t know. It’s a decent guess, at least.

Make sure you use Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy for this drink (and for all drinks containing apple brandy if you’re not using Calvados), a 100% brandy product not to be confused with Laird’s other product, called Laird’s Applejack. “Applejack” is the proper name for American apple brandy, but Laird’s Applejack brand is not all apple brandy; it’s 60% grain neutral spirits (i.e., vodka), with only 40% actual apple brandy by volume. It’s an inferior product to be avoided if the bonded product is available, so don’t be fooled by the prettier bottle. Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy is an outstanding product, and an indispensable part of your bar. I really wish they’d ditch that blend and concentrate on the bonded product, which is one of the finest spirits produced in the country.

In the video the bartender is shown muddling a sugar cube with a splash of water. I’m down on the use of sugar cubes in cocktails unless you can be certain that every granule of sugar is dissolved; I don’t like grit in my cocktails, and it takes time to do it this way. I much prefer a 2:1 simple syrup — either brown or demerara sugar in this case.

Thanks to Garret Richard for sending me the video — he’s becoming our semi-official Looka! New York correspondent!

AMERICAN TRILOGY
(adapted from Michael McIlroy, Milk & Honey, NYC, 2007)

1 ounce rye whiskey (we like Rittenhouse bonded rye).
1 ounce Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy.
1 barspoon rich Demerara syrup.
2 dashes orange bitters.
Orange peel.

Combine with ice and stir for 20-30 seconds, strain over a large ice cube into a large Old Fashioned glass. Express the oil from the orange peel onto the drink and around the rim of the glass, and garnish with the peel.

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Uh oh. I knew he was gonna show up sooner or later. No wonder Larry has anger issues.

I’m becoming a big fan of Mrs. Ragusa. Just watch her in this video. She’s hilarous!

Don’t watch unless you’ve been watching the commercials all along:
Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Larry’s gifts to our lexicon of catch phrases at home so far:

“I know what you want.”

“Yeah, you know you hungry nah!”

“Bet you’d like it bettah if I didn’t chop dem weenies all up, huh?”

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Sadly, I don’t have a spiff new prototype iPhone which will take the texted recipe and use its built-in replicator to rez one on the spot. (“Cocktail. South Central. Cold.”)

My friend Garret recently moved back to New York City to go to gradual school and regularly excites/taunts me with reports from their amazing bar scene, including some recipes for drinks he’s managed to pry out of the bartenders. Since my iPhone won’t rez them just yet I have to make them myself — fun, and easy enough … if I can find the ingredients, that is.

The latest one he sent was one he encountered at Fatty Johnson’s, one of the newly trendy “pop-up” restaurants and bars, which will serve for a mere six weeks and then close, perhaps to move on elsewhere, or perhaps not. Fatty’s features a rotating cast of bartenders and mixologists, and recently featured Eben Freeman, head bartender at Tailor Restaurant in NYC, whose amazing cocktails range from perfectly-made classics to complex, modern cocktails employing molecular techniques from the restaurant kitchen, working closely with the chef in developing his cocktail program.

I’ve never met Eben nor have I had the opportunity to sit across the bar from him, but have been reading about his work for quite a while and have been quite eager to sample his concoctions. (His signature drink at Tailor is the Waylon, made from Bourbon with a smoked Coca-Cola syrup … wow.) The drink Garret had and texted me about sounded fantastic, but one specified ingredient was going to give me a bit of trouble.

The cocktail was called the South Central. I liked it already just from the name, having grown up in the south central part of the country, also growing up with our own version of Ma Bell in the form of South Central Bell plus being part of the title of an R.E.M. song I love, so the name rang a few … um, never mind. Two rums formed its base — one light, one dark. In the video below Eben says any light and dark rum will do; he named the drink not for any of the things that the named triggered in my memory, but for the South and Central American rums he mixed. The ones he was using at Fatty Johnson’s have very distinct flavors, though — the rums you choose to make this drink will definitely make a difference, and I wanted to try it the way he was serving it there. The dark one he specified is one of my all-time favorite rums, the rich, brown-sugary, caramelly, spicy, tropical fruity wonder that is Lemon Hart Demerara rum. The other was one I’d never heard of, and that I’d never seen locally — Banks 5 Island.

I looked up Wayne Curtis’ review of Banks rum from about a year ago, and it sounded fantastic. It’s a blend of rums from five different islands, if you pretend that Guyana (the source of Demerara rum) is an island and not a very continent-bound north-coastal nation in South America. Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados round out the actual islands, along with the Indonesian isle of Java. Yep, this blend of rums actually contains some Batavia arrack, the sugar cane and fermented red rice spirit that gives this rum some of the wonderful funk that Garret mentioned in his voluminous text messages. Wayne mentioned aromas and flavors that led him to believe there was an agricole rum in the blend, and was startled to find that there was none. The various rums are aged between 3 and 12 years, blended then filtered through charcoal, resulting in a crystal clear, nicely dry spirit.

I can’t WAIT to get my hands on some of this stuff, but I’ve had no luck locally so far — even the venerable Hi-Time Wine doesn’t seem to have any! I’m unaware of anyone in the L.A. area who’s carrying it at the moment. (Matt, please correct me if I’m wrong.) It is, however, mail-orderable from DrinkUpNY.com, from whom I order regularly, so I’ll have some on the way soon.

“This doesn’t do me any good NOW,” I whined night before last, because I was channeling Veruca Salt and wanted the drink NOW, Daddy! Furthermore, Eben uses his own cacao-mole tincture that he makes “with a crazy process involving liquid nitrogen,” Garret said. Impractical in my kitchen, to say the least. He recommended substituting Bittermens most excellent Xocolatl Mole Bitters, and I concur.

So, except for the housemade mole tincture, here’s the drink you’d get if you ordered it from Eben:

SOUTH CENTRAL
(adapted from the original recipe by Eben Freeman)

1-1/2 ounces Banks 5 Island Rum.
1-1/2 ounces Lemon Hart Demerara Rum, 80 proof.
1/2 ounce white crème de cacao.
3 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters.
Orange peel.

Combine with ice in a chilled mixing glass. Stir for 30-45 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Express the oil from the orange peel onto the drink and garnish with the peel.

First problem — no Banks 5 Island. Second … I was almost out of Lemon Hart. There wasn’t enough to make one drink, much less two, and the future of this brand was in question for quite a while.

If I was going to try this drink — which I really, really wanted to do — I was going to have to improvise and come up with something similar, but not the same. Since I didn’t have enough (or any, in the case of the Banks) I need to do some blending. What the hell, blending one, two or several rums into one drink is a classic Tiki technique, right? And stumbling into a more or less blind blend of rums in order to substitute for and approximate an unavailable rum that I’ve never even tasted before? Yes, that’s crazy talk, but I want a drink and I want it now. Let no man, beast or empty bottle stand in my way.

Given that the review had cited an herbal, vegetal agricole-like flavor, I thought of using a non-agricole cane juice rum like 10 Cane. Checked the rum stash, and … nope. Out of 10 Cane. Well, what the hell, let’s try for that vegetal, herbal, tropical fruity flavor from an actual agricole. And since the blend contained Batavia arrack for a little funk, let’s throw in a little of that. And because I love the funk and felt like funkin’ it up, let’s supplement the Lemon Hart with some magnificently funky Smith & Cross Jamaican pure pot still rum. (Garret used half Banks — available in NYC, and half Smith & Cross, but if I’m blending to try to approximate this other rum that I’ve never tasted I want some of the other described characeristics to come through and not be too funky just yet.) Then maybe a visit to our hometown run to help balance and tie things together.

Okay, okay … it wasn’t all that much alchemical cleverness. It was mostly me finishing up the last few drops of some of the rums I had because that’s what I had on hand, not unlike the chemistry student who says, “Hey, let’s mix some of this stuff together, and hope it doesn’t blow up!” or the explorer who plows into the jungle on heretofore unexplored Skull Island hoping not to become dinosaur or giant spider food.

There was a total of 2 ounces of Lemon Hart left (and that’s the end of my supply of the 80 proof until it’s reimported) and a scant ounce of Smith & Cross. I just needed something else to make up for what I was missing, and I needed to finish up some bottles that had a half an inch of spirit in them. I stumbled right into this one; fortunately, no explosions.

Do I really get to rename his drink? Probably not, but I’ll name this version anyway. Given that I’ve been wanting to name cocktails after some R.E.M. songs, one of the names I had already picked out to use for some future drink was so close to the one he chose for his original that it had to be used for this one. I want to make clear that this is still Eben’s drink, but with the slight variation of my wacky blend of rums. To paraphrase the namesake song, “The wise man built his drink upon the rums / But I’m not bound to follow suit.”

That said, I steeled myself before the first sip. “This is probably going to suck.”

SOUTH CENTRAL RAIN
(adapted by me from Eben’s original)

1 ounce Lemon Hart Demerara Rum, 80 proof.
3/4 ounce La Favorite blanc rhum agricole.
1/2 ounce Smith & Cross Jamaican pot still rum.
1/2 ounce Old New Orleans Crystal Rum.
1/4 ounce Batavia Arrack van Oosten.
1/2 ounce Marie Brizard dark crème de cacao.
3 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters.
Orange peel.

Combine with ice in a chilled mixing glass. Stir for 30-45 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Express the oil from the orange peel onto the drink and garnish with the peel. Just like above!

*sip* … oh my. No, this most certainly did not suck.

I was halfway through drinking this when Wes said, “You know, I think you have a keeper here.” Well actually, Eben has the keeper, I just switched the rums around a bit. Still though, he said I should write it up, hence this post. As the drink was already half-gone I wondered if I should bother with a picture, but what the hell … I grabbed my iPhone and snapped. Imagine a full glass — it’s a big drink.

This was one of those weird combinations of cocktailian effort — part trying to recreate someone else’s drink, part dumb luck and part total fluke. Fortunately it worked, and I hope this encourages experimentation! There’ll have to be more experimentation soon, though — that’s going to be the last Lemon Hart I see until Ed Hamilton completes his Herculean efforts to get Lemon Hart — both the 80 and 151 proof varieties — back into the States, and there’ll have to be yet another variation next time we try it. I have a couple of bottles of Lemon Hart 151 left, but that along with the navy strength Smith & Cross might just knock me flat on my arse. I may just have to do it Garret’s way with all Smith & Cross, or try it with 2 ounces of the Banks and one of the 151. It shouldn’t be too much longer before my Banks rum comes in; I am eager to try different variations, and will stock up on both varieties of Lemon Hart the instant I see them. This is indeed one hell of a drink, and I look forward to finally trying one as close to the original as possible.

I love it when I get a cocktail via text message, and I love it even more when it sends me on an adventure. Thanks to Eben for coming up with this superb drink, and thanks to Garret for sending it to me!

Next, stay tuned for a three-part series on delectable Negroni variations.

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My old friend Chris Caldwell, a writer and cocktailian living in Denver, issued the following post on his Twitter feed the other day:

“And how can this be? For he is the Kwisatz Sazerac!” #cocktailsonarrakis

I laughed, I groaned, I shouted “ARRGGGHHH!”, I wanted to buy him a drink, I wanted to slap him upside the head with a flyswatter. In other words, my natural reaction to a really great/awful pun.

But it got me thinking.

I wrote him back right away and said, “Shai-Hulud’ll get you for that, Chris. That said, The Crysknife would be a great name for a drink.”

He replied, “That was better than ‘I must not beer. Beer is the mind-killer. Beer is the little death that brings total oblivion.’” Oh, gods. *facepalm* Okay, it’s a good thing I wasn’t in the room with him, because he’d have flyswatter prints on both cheeks.

“Or ‘May thy coupe glass chip and shatter.’” Hmm, that’s better. Now we’re getting somewhere.

“Or ‘When you reach the bottom of the drink you dare not drink, you’ll find me staring back at you!’” Oh, oh … the boy’s on a roll.

I told him that now he has to make a Kwisatz Sazerac. It would, of course, have to have a faint whiff of cinnamon, to recall the spice melange — “the smell – bitter cinnamon, unmistakable.”

Not only that, we need to get to work on other Dune cocktails too. The Crysknife, of course. The Heighliner? The Gom Jabbar! Chris said, “A Gom Jabbar would be an awesome drink! ‘I remember your gom jabbar, you remember mine!’” I mentioned this to Matt “Rumdood” Robold, and he immediately said, “You mean a Gomme Jabbar, of course.”

*SCREAM!* Genius!!

A while after our initial conversation Chris got back to me with the results of his experimentation. “Surprisingly good,” he said. It’s really just a simple Sazerac variation, but the geeky pun is just too priceless to pass up, and warrants a post of its own — the first, I hope, of several posts featuring Cocktails on Arrakis.

It’s still a rye base with a rinse of absinthe. A spiced simple syrup is the main difference, plus some orange bitters (the color of the spice) and an orange peel instead of lemon.

Don’t add a splash of the Water of Life, though, because you’ll die an agonizing death. Or, if you’re female and can transmute the poison, you’ll become a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother. Or if you’re male, and you don’t die, you become …

THE KWISATZ SAZERAC
(by Christopher Caldwell)

2 ounces Rittenhouse 100 bonded rye whiskey.
1 barspoon Spice-Must-Flow Syrup.
3 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters.
1 dash Regans’ Orange Bitters.
Splash of absinthe.

As in a traditional Sazerac, coat a chilled Old Fashioned glass with the absinthe and discard all or most of the excess. Combine rye, Spice-Must-Flow syrup and bitters in a chilled mixing glass and stir with ice for 30-45 seconds. Strain into the absinthe-coated glass. Twist the orange peel over the drink. It is the will of Shai-Hulud that you drop the peel into the drink (especially if you’ve cut it to look like a sandworm).

SPICE-MUST-FLOW SYRUP

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cinnamon stick
1/8 teaspoon green cardamom seeds (not pods)

Crush the stick and seeds in with a mortar and pestle. Toast the spice gently in a small saucepan, tossing constantly, until it begins to become fragrant. Add the water and sugar and heat gently, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and allow the syrup to steep for 15-20 minutes. Strain out the spice through a fine strainer and pour into a jar. Keep in the fridge; should last about a month.

Stay tuned for the Gomme Jabbar — the high-handed enemy. My idea for the base was a navy-strength gin; Matt thinks Wray & Nephew Overproof, which I may like better and should be sufficiently deadly. Don’t worry, though — it kills only … animals.

P.S. — Chris has one of the most consistently great Twitter feeds of anyone I know. Follow him.

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In fact, Carnival season has been going on for a week now, having begun as true to tradition on January 6, the Twelfth Night of Christmas. Carnival kicks off in New Orleans with the very first Carnival ball that night, put on by a krewe called the Twelfth Night Revelers. Also that night, another group called the Phunny Phorty Phellows take over a streetcar for their first-night-of-Carnival revelry.

The Phunny Phorty Phellows, Twelfth Night 2011. Photo by Jim Hobbs, via Creative Commons

We’ve got a nice long Carnival season this year, which I love — Mardi Gras Day isn’t until March 8. That means there’s more time for … King Cake! You can read more about the tradition at the links, but in a nutshell … King Cakes are a sweet, coffee-cake like ring cake decorated with purple, green and gold sugar (the colors of Mardi Gras), available from Twelfth Night until Mardi Gras Day. (There are those who make them available year-round, but it is BLASPHEMY! BLASPHEMY, I TELL YOU! to eat King Cake anytime other than between these dates. Just don’t.) Baked into the cake is a small plastic baby, and if you get Da Baby in your piece of King Cake, you are obliged to throw the next King Cake party. This is a lot of fun, but can be problematic if your luck (good or bad, depending on your perspective) leads you to get the baby numerous times in one Carnival season. As a cartoon in artist Bunny Matthews’ old “F’Sure!” strip, which featured actual dialogue heard in New Orleans once portrayed, a guy said, “Yeah, when I was a kid at St. Rita’s, I got da King Cake baby five pawties in a row! My mama almos’ died,” to which his podna’ replied, “Yeah brah, ya shoulda swallowed dem!” (If this isn’t hilarious to you … well, it’s a New Orleans thing; you wouldn’t understand.)

Expatriate New Orleanians and others who love the city are now, thanks to the fact that we live in Da Future, ordering King Cakes over the Internets! They’re a bit expensive to ship, but as far as I’m concerned it’s worth every penny. Those of us who have baking skills or who live too far away for reasonable shipping, both of which apply to my friend Tiare in Sweden, make things easier by simply making their own!

King Cake, baked in Sweden! Looka dat! Just like ya mamma usesta go ova by McKenzie's ta buy!

I can’t bake worth a hoot, so this year I got mine from my old high school classmate Manny Randazzo’s King Cakes, which are some of the best in town. The first one I tried this year is one of his Pecan Praline King Cakes, which sounds really good. It was JUST delivered, and we’ll haul it to Seattle tomorrow to bring a little touch of Carnival to the snowy Pacific Northwest.

Speaking of pecan praline … King Cakes have come a long way since I was a kid. I grew up on the plain, dry, bready King Cakes made by McKenzie’s Pastry Shoppes, and I loved ‘em. A lot of people didn’t (the plain, dry, bready bit being a big reason why), but I suppose it’s a nostalgia thing for the rest of us. Most “plain” King Cakes today are at the very least a sweet, moist cinnamon coffee-cake dough, and many have myriad fillings — fruit, vanilla, chocolate, etc. Pecan praline is a new one on me though — nice going, Manny ‘n krewe — and I can’t wait to try it.

There are those who might want to take their King Cakes a bit … further. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Larry Ragusa.

Could it be … the ultimate King Cake? Awrite … I know what you want.

(Thanks to Greg Beron for sending this to me; that’s his brother Larry portraying “Larry.”)

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I hope your holidays were happy and fun and safe and indulgent. It’s the latter part that’s kind of the problem for me. I was very, very indulgent during the holidays …

“Hey Chuck, what’d ya do during the holidays?!”

“I got fat!”

Yes, a very unwise step onto the scale after New Year’s Day revealed that the 35 pounds I lost once upon a time have now all returned. It may have taken seven years to do so, but I am now once again the fat motherfrakker I was in January 2004. Sigh.

Some of it isn’t just fried seafood po-boys, of course. If I may quote my friend Erick Castro, who responded thusly to someone who observed that he had developed a beer belly, “That is a WHISKEY belly, and I consider it to be a significant investment!”

Well, one thing we can do to help shave off some of that blubber is to eat a bit more healthily, smaller portions and more green stuff. I came across recipes for a “detox” diet for January in Bon Appetit, some of which looked interesting but it’s an awful lot of work (three meals a day from scratch) for someone who has to work all day, plus a 2-hour roundtrip commute. I did get some good ideas from it and from other sources though, and last night I cobbled together a remarkably delicious soup from a few different recipes plus my own ideas. Wesly responded very positively to it, and with tweaks it can be done with meat, dairy-vegetarian style or even completely vegan.

For convenience I bought two 12-ounce bags of prepared, washed broccoli florets and a 5-ounce bag of washed baby spinach — 6 minutes in the steamer or 2-1/2 minutes each in the microwave. Easy peasy.

I know I’m a pain in the ass about making homemade chicken stock, but I am aware of the realities of time constraints. You can use a good-quality prepared stock — I like Kitchen Basics, which comes in cartons. Swanson’s Low-Sodium version is also pretty good, and a lot better than it used to be. Whatever you use, make sure it’s as low in sodium as possible.

If you want to make it a little less healthy you could use full-fat yogurt or even heavy cream. Vegans, you’re on your own for substituting this one, or you could just leave it out.

If you don’t think you like broccoli, or that it’s smelly (well, it kind of is, when you’re steaming it), fear not — all the other elements in this soup help rein it in, and it’s really delicious. Bright, balanced, very satisfying and really, really good for you. Here’s how I did it.

NEW YEAR’S BROCCOLI SOUP

1-1/2 pounds fresh broccoli florets.
5 ounces fresh spinach.
1 medium red onion, diced.
2 carrots, peeled and grated.
3-5 cloves garlic (to taste), minced.
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil.
1 avocado.
1 one-inch piece of fresh ginger, chopped.
4 cups chicken stock or broth, preferably homemade.
6 ounces non-fat yogurt, preferably Greek-style.
Few pinches cumin, to taste.
Few pinches hot smoked Spanish paprika or ground chipotle chile, to taste.
Salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste.
1 to 1-1/2 ounces prosciutto crudo, julienned (optional).

Heat the oil and sauté the onions, carrots and garlic until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Throw in the spinach for the final minute or so and cook until it’s wilted. Meanwhile, steam the broccoli until cooked but still crisp-tender, about 6 minutes.

In a blender or food processor, add the broccoli, onions, carrots, garlic, avocado, ginger and chicken stock, and blend until puréed. Transfer to a pot, stir in the yogurt and season with salt, pepper, cumin and paprika/chipotle to taste.

Serve 1 cup as a side dish or starter, or 2 cups as a whole meal. Optionally, top with julienned prosciutto, diced Spanish chorizo or a small amount of salumi or charcuterie.

YIELD: About 9 cups

Now, time to get my big ass back to the gym. Sigh. The very thought. I need a drink.

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Heck, I love two-ingredient cocktails, but they’re a bit rarer. There’s just something magical about the alchemy of putting just two or three things together and sipping the results of the alchemy. Plus, on a practical level … well, I do love me the 9- or 10-ingredient tiki cocktails, but I’m not sure I’d want to be knocking them out all night (says the lazy bastard who lives inside me).

When we were hanging out at The Varnish for the Left Coast Libations book release party a couple months ago, guest bartender Anu Apte of Rob Roy in Seattle made one for us and for book co-author Ted Munat that wasn’t actually in the book, or on the bar menu that evening. Always willing to try something new (and always agreeing with Wesly when he says, “What the world needs now is more rye cocktails”), I said I was game.

“It’s called a ‘TLC,’” Anu said. “I came up with it just for Ted.” *

“Sounds lovely!” said I. “Does the name stand for the usual?”

“Nope, said she. “‘Ted Likes Chartreuse.’”

Marleigh, Wes and me: “Awww!”

She may have come up with it for Ted, but it’s also for all the Teeming Millions of us out there who also like (or love) Chartreuse.

TLC
(by Anu Apte, Rob Roy, Seattle)

2 ounces rye whiskey.
1/2 ounce green Chartreuse.
1/4 ounce apricot liqueur (Apry or Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot).

Combine with cracked ice, stir for 30 seconds and strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Garnish with an orange peel.

* – Conversational details which I attempt to recall from a time during which I have been imbibing may not be exactly historically accurate, but it’s more or less the gist of it.

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The Fat Pack has also had a tradition for many years — Second Thanksgiving. This takes place on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, three days after the official holiday. The primary motivation behind it is to 1) see each other on the holiday weekend, 2) have a massively fattening and indulgent meal, usually fraught with bacon, and which includes 3) no family drama. It’s pretty much always a raging success.

Over the years I’ve also really enjoyed getting different circles of our friends together, and this year was one of the best of those meetups, achieving a critical mass of food and good times that I think will undoubtedly carry on into the future. Our friend Robb, who had met very few of the Fat Pack folk before, came along with us to Second Thanksgiving this year and brought along two dishes that flipped everyone’s lids. Of course, they would have loved him anyway, ’cause he’s a great guy, but those two dishes certainly cemented that love. The first dish he unveiled was a gorgeous from-scratch mac ‘n cheese (oricchiette, to be precise) laden with applewood-smoked bacon … delicious, but almost too easy. Okay, we love bacon, and THANK YOU! … but what else ya got?

Well, what else he had was this, and it blew everyone away.

Robb’s been experimenting with homemade marshmallows recently. If you’ve ever done them, you’ll know that they’re actually pretty easy, and about eleventy million times better than what you get out of the plastic bags from the grocery store. Basically it’s just four ingredients — cold water, gelatin, sugar and corn syrup — plus a pinch of salt and some confectioners’ sugar and potato starch for dusting. Easy peasy. But … there’s a lot you can do with that. You can easily add flavorings, fruit purées … just swap out part of the liquid content (i.e., the water) for the liquid or purée you’re adding, and bloom the gelatin on that as you would if it were just water.

The first batch Robb made were strawberry marshmallows, made from strawberry purée (fresh or frozen, and strained). In addition to the powdered sugar/potato starch dusting on the outside, the original recipe called for freeze-dried strawberries — Robb found a relatively new Trader Joe’s product packaged as a snack — pulverized and resulting strawberry powder added to the sugar and cornstarch mixture. What a perfect touch.

For his next batch, he began thinking along the lines of the holidays. What fall and winter flavors do we like, and what do we like for dessert on Thanksgiving? Pumpkin pie comes to mind immediately, so that became Robb’s next experiment, based upon the strawberry marshmallow recipe he’d found.

The results of that experiment — orange-tinted, squooshy, pumpkiny magic.

The had an amazing pumpkin-spice flavor, and were just as light as any other marshmallow. Delicious as they were right out of hand, when Nettie said, “Hey, let’s stick these on forks and toast them over the gas flame” … well, our heads pretty much exploded at that point. These are great marshmallows, but toast them over an open flame and they’re INSANELY great marshmallows.

Robb was kind enough to share the recipe with us. When you make these at home and boggle your family, make sure you give credit where credit is due!

(Unfortunately, everyone nomnomnommed these marshmallows so quickly that by the time anyone thought to take a picture of them, they were gone, alas.)

SPICED PUMPKIN PIE MARSHMALLOWS
(Recipe adapted by Robb Briggs)

4 envelopes unflavored gelatin
2/3 cups canned pumpkin purée
1-1/4 cups water
3 cups sugar
1-1/4 cups light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt, about
1-1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (adjust to taste), plus more for dusting
Powdered sugar and potato starch or rice flour for dusting

Line a 9×13 baking pan with aluminum foil (I prefer a pan with sharp corners, so you don’t get rounded corner marshmallows). If you want thinner marshmallows that you can cut with cookie cutters, use a sheet pan. Coat the foil with vegetable oil or non-stick spray. Fit the mixer with the whisk attachment.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the pumpkin puree and 1/2 cup of the water. Sprinkle the gelatin over this mixture to bloom, or soften. (I actually mix the gelatin in, it seems to work better for me.)

In a heavy saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, remaining 3/4 cup water and salt. Bring to a boil and cook until it reaches the soft-ball stage (234-240°F).

With the mixer at full speed, pour all of the hot syrup slowly down the side of the bowl. Be careful as the mixture is very liquid and hot at this point and some may splash out — use a splash guard if you have one. Whip until the mixture is very fluffy and stiff, about 8-10 minutes. Lower the speed and add the pumpkin pie spice, and let it run for a few seconds, until the spice is fully mixed in. Pour mixture into the foil-lined pan and smooth with an oiled offset spatula. Allow the mixture to sit, uncovered at room temp for 10 to 12 hours.

Mix equal parts powdered sugar and potato starch (about 1/3 cup of each), and add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, and sift generously over the rested marshmallow slab. Turn it out onto a cutting board or counter, peel off foil and dust with more sugar/starch mixture. Slice with a thin-bladed oiled knife or oiled cookie cutters or a pizza cutter. Dip all cut edges in sugar/starch mixture and shake off excess. Marshmallows will keep several weeks at room temperature in an air-tight container.

P.S. — Before the year is out, I’ll have made boozy marshmallows. Stay tuned.

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This one comes from bartender Neyah White, who’s been behind the stick for many years and made a particular impact on the San Francisco cocktail scene before he decided to take a gig traveling the world, teaching folks about the wonders of Japanese whisky. I finally met Neyah a few months back at a local bartenders’ gathering, where we all knocked back some fine whisky and astonishing Japanese whisky-based cocktails (oh my, that Yamazaki 18 year Old Fashioned … oh my). He’s a great guy, and I hope we get to knock back a few more.

This is one of Neyah’s drinks featured in the book, which was on the menu at the party. It’s closely related to Ada “Coley” Coleman’s classic Hanky Panky cocktail from her stint as head of the bar at the Savoy Hotel in the early 1900s; her original recipe is half gin, half sweet vermouth with 2 dashes of Fernet Branca. A more recent version by Ted Haigh upped the gin, lowered the vermouth and brought the Fernet up to 1/4 ounce. This is an entirely different drink though, even if you think of genever as “Dutch gin” (which I think is really a misnomer). To me genever is more like whisky than gin, with that wonderful maltiness bringing a body and flavor that’s miles removed from actual gins like a London dry.

This is also a hefty dose of Fernet Branca in a cocktail, and that’s one difficult ingredient to work with. It doesn’t like to play with others, and has a tendency to completely take over unless it’s used in very small quantities. We’ve got a whole tablespoon of the stuff here, but it’s properly tempered — the thick maltiness of the genever reins it in, the vermouth smooths it out and they both provide a strong enough counterpoint (especially if you use a powerful vermouth like Carpano Antica). Make sure you don’t use a jonge style genever, which is light and has a minimum amount of maltwine in its base (5% or less). You’ll want an oude style genever, and our favorite these days (and the easiest to find) is Bols Genever. I can’t wait to try this with an oude with a bit of age on it, or with a corenwijn

This drink is a whoop upside the head, but in the nicest possible way.

606
(by Neyah White)

1-1/2 ounces genever (our favorite is Bols Genever).
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/2 ounce Fernet Branca.

Stir with cracked ice for at least 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with an orange peel.

The flaming of the orange peel is an optional step; Neyah doesn’t specify this in the book but Chris was making them this way at The Varnish. I do enjoy the flavor of caramelized orange oil, and of course I love the light show. Enjoy it either way.

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We’re also seeing nice, big ice that chills the drink without overly diluting it — Kold-Draft machines are becoming more common, and some bars produce their own ice.  Apparently there has been a price to pay for this, though.

Pain!

The New York Times recently published an article featuring several of our local bartenders about the mounting problem of repetetive stress injuries.

Bartender Marcos Tello, shaking the bejesus out of a drink

“When we first started Varnish, we began sustaining a bunch of injuries,” Marcos Tello said. “I had a huge, constant knot in my forearm. Chris Ojeda developed tennis elbow. Matty Eggleston popped a tendon in his hand. We were all sidelined with all these injuries.”

Varnish is not a football team. It is a stylish, speakeasy-style cocktail bar that opened early last year in downtown Los Angeles. And the men Mr. Tello mentions are fellow bartenders, ranging in age from mid-20s to mid-30s. But in these heady days of behind-the-bar showmanship, when theatrical agitations of shakers filled with heavy-duty ice are becoming the norm, the mixologist’s physical lot is not so terribly far removed from an athlete’s.

I’d been hearing about this from several of our bartender friends in town, and it’s becoming a bigger and bigger problem.  I’m glad it’s being addressed — I don’t want everyone to have to retire by the time they’re 40!  Later in the article Marcos mentions consulting and even hiring physical therapists as consultants, which is a great idea.  If you’re a bartender, how do you cope?  How will we have to adapt our shaking techniques to still knock out great drinks without compromising health?  Do we need to invent a shaking machine?  Or is that just too wimpy?

Let’s be careful out there!

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I’m home in New Orleans for Thanksgiving (and a Saints game), and for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. (Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad!) I’m hoping that on the spare day I have before I fly back I’ll be able to get me a po-boy. I haven’t had a proper one in months, and I’m jonesin’.

A week ago Sunday was the New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival, a madhouse of over 40,000 people crammed onto Oak Street to celebrate one of the national dishes of our beloved city-state. Some locals groused about the crowds, preferring to get their po-boys at actual po-boy shops during the other 364 days of the year, but it looked like quite a party.

“CBS Sunday Morning” did a terrific report on the festival, and on our love for the Emperor of All Sandwiches.

The winners of the festival all looked terrific, and none of them was one of the classic po-boy joints like Parkway, Domilise’s, Johnny’s or even the more recent upstarts like Mahony’s. I’d love to track all these sandwiches down (the lobster po-boy will be on the menu at GW Fins soon) although unfortunately I won’t be able to during the one extra day I’ll have at home, sigh. I’m trying not to drool just reading this list — it’s great to see the art of the po-boy being elevated with all this creativity. That said, you just can’t beat a hot sausage po-boy.

Best of Show Po-boy: GW Fins’ Fried Lobster tossed in Crystal Hot Sauce Butter
Best Pork Po-boy: Grand Isle Restaurant — Boucherie Po-Boy
Best Specialty Seafood Po-Boy: Grand Isle Restaurant — Smoked Fish Po-Boy
Best Roast Beef Po-Boy: Sammy’s Deli on Elysian Fields — Garlic Stuffed Roast Beef Po-Boy
Best Specialty Non-Seafood Po-Boy: Sammy’s Deli on Elysian Fields -– Fried Chicken, Chisesi Ham and Swiss Cheese Po-Boy
Best Shrimp Po-Boy: Redfish Grill — Grilled Shrimp with Blackened Avocado Po-boy
People’s Choice Award: Coquette Restaurant — Homemade Hot Sausage Po-Boy

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Those of you who were at Tales of the Cocktail a few years ago may remember being handed a small, spiral-bound booklet by one of two (or perhaps, if you were lucky, both!) delightfully quirky brothers from Seattle, the Munat Brothers (a.k.a. Charles and Ted), whose liver-straining toil produced a hand-made compendium of cocktail recipes with enlightening and amusing commentary. Since then the idea behind the book evolved into a gorgeous hardback entitled, oddly enough, Left Coast Libations: The Art of West Coast Bartending. One hundred, count ‘em, one hundred original cocktails by craft bartenders from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. This time Ted’s the principal author, along with Michael Lazar and with lovely photos by Jenn Farrington.

It’s a fascinating snapshot of the West Coast coctkail scene … well, circa 2009, given how lead times work in the publishing industry. If you know Ted at all or read his I-wish-he’d-post-to-it-more-often-but-jeez-who-am-I-to-call-that-kettle-black weblog Le Mixeur you may have encountered his sense of humor, which is in full force in LCL. Ted’s biographies of the bartenders are highly entertaining, although not necessarily … um, well, true. Oh sure, there are bits of truthiness in there, but I wouldn’t swear on any of it in court. Take the bartender character sketches with a grain of salt — well, actually, head down to Avery Island, Louisiana and get the whole mine. That’s Ted, though, and it’s always clear that he adores and admires his bartenders (as do we all, right?). Also, given the book’s lead time, beware going to any particualr bar that’s mentioned to find a particular bartender — you know how it is, I have enough trouble keeping up with where my bartender friends are currently working on a weekly basis.

These are not all cocktails that you’ll find easy to make at home — these are specialty drinks from craft bars, and a number of them call for housemade ingredients that might be easy for a bar to batch and keep on hand in large quantity, but perhaps a bit more challenging for the home bartender.

Some are easy — cardamom and cinnamon tinctures are a cinch, as are simple infused spirits — others not so much. Costus root bitters, various foams, and … smoked cider air? Most you can make in small quantities, and in some cases you’ll find it worth the effort (as for the more complicated ones … you might end up just going to get one from the bartender himself or herself).

Although some of the drinks are quite complicated many are not, and all are more than noteworthy. A couple have been covered here before, including John Coltharp’s excellent Historic Core Cocktail, always worth a revisit.

The party was a blast, starting off with an early event featuring Marcos Tello and Varnish proprietor Eric Alperin behind the bar with a range of cocktails of their creation that were featured in the book. Then the main party took off, with The Varnish’s own Devon Tarby and Rob Royt owner-bartender Anu Apte in from Seattle to mix up yet another selection of drinks. (We were well-preserved by evening’s end.)

Chris Bostick, bartender and general manager at The Varnish, knocks out three at once at the Left Coast Libations L.A. launch event.

I’m going to feature a handful of cocktails from Left Coast Libations over the next few days, starting with this one of Anu’s that I first had at Rob Roy last year. It’s a wonderful take on a gin sour that incorporates comforting flavors of her childhood into a unique signature drink. It requires a bit of advance prep, but don’t be daunted. Saffron is an expensive spice but is available in small quantities, and you’ll get your best price at an Indian grocery store. (Penzey’s Spices is also a good place to start, as is Spice Station in Silver Lake in Los Angeles and The Spice House.) Indian groceries are your best bet for sandalwood sticks, too. Make sure you get food grade, and don’t grate up sandalwood incense.

Saffron Sandalwood Sour

1-1/2 ounces Plymouth gin.
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice.
1/2 ounce lime juice.
1/2 ounce saffron sharbat.
1 barspoon Angostura bitters.
1 egg white.
Sandalwood, for garnish.

Dry shake all ingredients except the garnish, for 20 seconds at least. Add the ice and shake again until very cold. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with sandalwood — if you have sandalwood sticks, grate over the drink using a microplane grater. (Anu points out that sandalwood sticks are very hard, so if you’re fresh grating it might be better to use chips, grind them in a spice grinder and strain out the larger pieces. Pre-powdered sandalwood has very little fragrance.)

Saffron Sharbat

1-1/4 cups water.
2 cups sugar.
1/4 cup rosewater.
Generous 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads.
1 tablespoon boiling water.

Make a saffron extract by placing the boiling water into a small bowl, crushing the saffron threads with your fingers and adding to the water. Let steep for 15 minutes.

Mix the water and sugar in a saucepan and make a simple syrup by heating gently until the sugar is dissolved.

In another bowl, add the rosewater to the saffron extract. Then add this mixture to the simple syrup. Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool, and store in the refrigerator.

This makes enough for 16 cocktails, and will keep in the fridge. You can leave the saffron threads in, or strain them out if you like. Anu says the syrup also makes an excellent soda when mixed with lime juice and soda water.

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I couldn’t help it, though. When I saw this report from WWL-TV in New Orleans I had to share it. New Orleans R&B legends Antoine “Fats” Domino and Dave Bartholomew, who together (and along with producer Cosimo Matassa) were responsible for so much great New Orleans music (and the building blocks of rock ‘n roll), hadn’t seen each other or spoken for years. Then WWL reporter Eric Paulsen brought Mr. Dave over to Fats’ house in the Lower Ninth Ward.

“And when these two living legends got together, it was magic… Fats is 82. Dave turns 90 next month. But they felt like teenagers when they saw each other.”

What I’d give to be able to see these two perform together. I last saw Dave years ago at Tipitina’s, heading up a big band and tearing it up for a guy who was in his 70s at the time. It’s been longer for Fats, a Jazzfest performance in 1997. He’s cripplingly shy these days and almost never performs, and was supposed to play Fest again in 2006, but that didn’t happen (sigh).

The Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame is honoring Fats and Dave, and the special event will feature Lloyd Price, Irma Thomas, Dr. John, The ReBirth Brass Band, Theresa Andersson, The Dixie Cups, Toots & the Maytals, James Andrews, Jon Cleary & more. As our friend Diana said, “Just your average night in New Orleans …” I surely hope they release a DVD of this event.

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The city had yet to recover from the near-death of bartending and mixology, the nadir of which gave us the once-ubiquitous artificially-colored and -flavored green “apple-tinis,” and more often than not the best you could do (other than drink beer, wine or straight spirits) was an overly-sweet (and equally ubiquitous) Cosmopolitan.

Things began to look up for us in the early ’00s, when Wes and I became regulars at a wonderful (and now-closed) restaurant in Glendale called Cinnabar. Our friend Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh worked with them to put together an amazing menu of classic cocktails, and on our first visit we were thrilled to see it. Finally, a place where we could go out and get a really good classic cocktail! We also quickly became thrilled with the food, and drank and dined there regularly until they closed in 2005.

For me, the moment when the switch got flipped was at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans in 2007. I had just finished participating in a seminar on homemade and defunct cocktail ingredients in which I did a presentation on my homemade allspice liqueur when a young bartender approached and introduced himself. “I just helped open a bar in Los Angeles — we’ve been open for three months now, and I really want you to come.” I had actually heard about this bar, although being God Emperor of Procrastination I hadn’t made it over there yet. The bartender was Marcos Tello, the bar was Seven Grand, and the rest is history. Los Angeles’ cocktail renaissance — for me, at least — had begun.

Now … we have such a mindbogglingly large number of truly wonderful cocktail bars (many of them world-class) in this city that I cannot keep up with them all. I thought it was about time I made a list of them, and I’ll make it sticky somewhere on the site so that it’ll be easy to find.

These are bars in which bartenders (and their trusty barbacks) squeeze their own juices (which is now de rigueur in a bar in which I’ll drink cocktails, as far as I’m concerned). These are bars in which you won’t have to ask if they have rye whiskey, unless you want to know how many different ones they stock. You won’t have to remind the bartender that a Manhattan contains bitters, and you’re unlikely to get a muddled Old Fashioned in which the orange slice and fake neon red artificially flavored cherry are mashed into a nasty pulp. They’ll have menus of classic and creative new cocktails. Many if not most of them use large, clear ice cubes and crack their own ice for stirring or shaking; some actually make their own ice. Fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs are used. Housemade syrups and bitters are not uncommon.

This is where to drink in L.A. (and environs). Most are free-standing bars, some are restaurants, all of them will serve you a really good drink. Many of them will serve you an amazing one.

320 Main, 320 Main St., Seal Beach, CA 90740. (562) 799-6246. Jason Schiffer, co-proprietor. Erik Trickett, Matt Robold et al., bartenders.

A-Frame Restaurant, 12565 Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90066. (310) 398-7700. Bar program by Brian Butler.

Bar 1886 at the Raymond, 1250 S. Fair Oaks Ave, Pasadena, CA 91105. (626) 441-3136. Cocktail menu by Marcos Tello & Aidan Demarest, and the crew of 1886: Head bartender Garrett McKechnie and bartenders Danny Cymbal, Brady Weise, Laura Lindsay, Greg Gertmenian, Lacey Murillo, et al.

Bar | Kitchen, O Hotel, 819 S. Flower St., Los Angeles, CA 90017. (213) 623-9904 x105. Bar program by Alex Day and David Kaplan.

Bar Bouchon, 235 N Canon Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (310) 281-5698. Small and casual, downstairs from and to the right of the restaurant’s main entrance.

Bar Centro, The Bazaar at SLS Hotel, 465 S La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211. (310) 246-5555.

Bar Marmont, 8171 W. Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90046. (323) 650-0575.

Big Bar at The Alcove, 1929 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027. (323) 644-0100. Juan Sevilla et al., bartenders.

Black Market Liquor Bar, 11915 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604. (818) 446-2533. Tricia Alley, Ray Ewers, et al., bartenders.

Bottega Louie, 700 S. Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90017. (213) 802-1470. Across the street from Seven Grand.

Bouchon Bistro, 235 N Canon Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (310) 271-9910. The upstairs bar in the bistro has a separate staff and menu.

Caña Rum Bar, 714 W. Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90015. (213) 745-7090. Enter at the first private driveway south of Olympic on Flower St. Members only; membership is open and is $20 annually. Allan Katz, general manager.

Church & State Bistro, 1850 Industrial St., Los Angeles, CA 90021. (213) 405-1434.

Cole’s Red Car Bar, 118 East 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90014. (213) 622-4090.

Comme Ça Restaurant, 8479 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, CA 90069. (323) 782-1104.

Copa d’Oro, 217 Broadway, Santa Monica, CA 90401. (310) 576-3030. Vincenzo Marianella, proprietor.

Craft Los Angeles, 10100 Constellation Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90067. (310) 279-4180.

La Descarga,1159 North Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038. (323) 466-1324. Steve Livigni, general manager. Pablo Moix, Ken Arbuckle, et al., bartenders.

Drago Centro, 525 S Flower St., Suite #120, Los Angeles, CA 90071. (213) 228-8998. Michael Shearin, sommelier & beverage director. Jaymee Mandeville, Jen Len, Mark Blackhart et al., bartenders.

The Edison, 108 W 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. (213) 613-0000.

El Carmen Restaurant, 8138 W Third St., Los Angeles, CA 90048. (323) 852-1552. Large selection of tequilas.

The Eveleigh Restaurant, 8752 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069. (424) 239-1630.

First & Hope Supper Club, 710 W 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. (213) 617-8555.

Harvard & Stone, 5221 Hollywood Blvd. (at N. Harvard), Los Angeles, CA 90027. (323) 466-6063. Bar program by Steve Livigni & Pablo Moix of La Descarga. Matt Wallace, head bartender, with bartenders Rich Andreoli, Nathan Oliver, Francois Vera & Mia Sarazen, opening crew.

Hemingway’s Lounge, 6356 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028. (323) 469-0040.

The Hungry Cat, 135 N Vine St. at Sunset, Los Angeles, CA 90028. (323) 462-2155.

Jones, 7205 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069. (323) 850-1726. Eric “E.T.” Tecosky et al, bartenders.

Las Perlas, 107 E 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90014. (213) 988-8355. Across the street from Cole’s. Tequila & mezcal.

Library Bar, Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028. Matthew Biancaniello, Ryan Green, Brady Weise et al., bartenders.

Malo Taqueria, 4326 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90029. (323) 664-1011.

Musso and Frank Grill, 6667 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028. (323) 467-7788.

Next Door Lounge, 1154 N Highland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038. (323) 465-5505. Head barman, Joe Brooke.

Osteria Mozza, 6602 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038. (323) 297-0100. Finest collection of Italian amari in Los Angeles, perhaps anywhere.

Providence Restaurant, 5955 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038. (323) 460-4170. Zahra Bates, bartender.

Rivera Restaurant, 1050 S Flower St., Los Angeles, CA 90015. (213) 749-1460. Julian Cox et al., bartenders.

The Roger Room, 370 N La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048. (310) 854-1300. Damian Windsor, Jason Bran et al., bartenders.

Seven Grand, 515 W 7th St., Los Angeles, CA 90014. (213) 614-0737. Leo Rivas et al., bartenders.

Sotto Restaurant, 9575 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035. (310) 277-0133. Cocktails by Julian Cox and team.

The Spare Room, Mezzanine Level, Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028. Two bowling alleys, backgammon and chess tables, board games.

The Tar Pit, 609 N La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036. (323) 965-1300.

The Tasting Kitchen, 1633 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, CA 90291. (310) 392-6644. John Coltharp, Justin Pike et al., bartenders.

Tiki-Ti, 4427 W Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027. (323) 669-9381. Mike Buhen Sr. & Jr., bartenders.

Tlapazola Grill, 11676 Gateway Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90064 (310) 477-1577. Edwin Cruz, bartender and co-proprietor.

Tony’s Saloon, 2017 E 7th St., Los Angeles, CA 90021. (213) 622-5523.

The Varnish, 118 E Sixth St., Los Angeles 90014. (213) 622-9999. Entrance through a non-descript door in the back of the dining room in Cole’s French Dip. Eric Alperin, co-owner & bartender. Chris Bostick, manager & bartender. Devon Tarby et al., bartenders.

Villains Tavern, 1356 Palmetto, Los Angeles, CA 91003. (213) 613-0766. Dave Whitton, co-owner & bartender, et al.

Westside Tavern, 10850 W Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064. (310) 470-1539. Kylee Van Dillen, Dan McClary, et al., bartenders.

If I’ve missed any, shout at me in the comments. Also … I know it’s fraught with peril to list any bartenders in bar listings — it’s almost a full-time job keep track of where my bartender friends are working. I’ve thrown in a few more well-known names of people that I know are relatively settled, for the time being at least.

Next stop … where to get a great cocktail in New Orleans.

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And for your Election Day amusement, here’s a new election-themed short story by one of my favorite writers, John Scalzi:

“An Election,” a short story presented by Subterranean Press.

(...)
Read the rest of Do you remember? (1 words)

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I first tried this cocktail in September of 1999 on our first visit to Absinthe Brasserie & Bar in San Francisco. I liked it a lot, and came across the original recipe somewhere (now apparently lost in the depths of the web).

It was fairly typical of the type of cocktail I was drinking at the time (vodka-based, oy) but a pretty good use of vodka. As much as we may deride vodka in cocktails, it has its place and uses, one of which is to smooth out and extend the flavor of a sweet liqueur while cutting the sweetness (such as in the Gypsy cocktail), or in this case taking a strong fruit brandy and maintaining that flavor while lightening and extending it somewhat. A bit of lime juice for tartness, a touch of orange juice for smoothness and a bit of sugar to sweeten it up. Nice cocktail. In fact, at a cocktail party Wes and I threw the following year, this was one of the most popular drinks we made all night, and even then I was tweaking the recipe. “More pear brandy!” cried my friend René.

I put this cocktail aside for years, and as I was going through my old Gumbo Pages cocktail and beverages page looking for stray recipes that hadn’t gotten integrated into the Looka! cocktail index I came across this one. I do love pear brandy (or eau-de-vie; these are the clear, dry fruit brandies, not super-sweet liqueurs that are called “brandy” as a misnomer), and I love the crisp flavor of pears in the fall. I also wondered what I could do to bring this drink up a bit, more in line with my current tastes.

Well, first thing — replace the vodka with gin. Guh. That always works.

Except … it doesn’t. Not always.

It’s true, there are myriad vodka cocktails that can be vastly improved by replacing the vodka with gin, and I do it all the time. It’s bitten me in the ass on a couple of occasions, though. I recall a dinner at MiLa in New Orleans a few years ago in which I read the ingredients of a particular drink on their cocktail menu and instantly knew that it would be much better with gin than vodka, and I ordered it with that substitution.

Guess what. It wasn’t that good.

I finished it and asked for another, this time made by the original recipe. It was a lot better.

Given that experience I approached a vodka-to-gin tweak of the Perfect Pear with an arched eyebrow. So the other night I substituted Plymouth gin, a wonderful English gin with a lighter profile than a London Dry, and sipped the result.

Holy hell. That was really, really good.

This cocktail has been on the menu at Absinthe for many years, but a check of the current cocktail menu on their website shows that it’s dropped off. I suspect that this is because they have a new bar manager, now that longtime Absinthe bartenders Jeff Hollinger and Jonny Raglin have moved over to the restaurant’s new venue, the Comstock Saloon. (I’ll bet they’ll still make it for you if you as, though.) If you want to make this cocktail at home the way it was originally done at the restaurant, use vodka … and lemon juice instead of lime.

(Note on the vodka: Don’t spend a fortune on something like Grey Goose or any of those so-called “premium vodkas” if you’re just going to mix it in a cocktail. If you’re a vodka connoisseur and you drink it chilled and neat, that’s one thing. If you’re going to mix it, I guarantee that you won’t be able to tell the difference between a fifty dollar premium vodka and a good quality vodka almost a fifth its price. For the money and the quality I highly recommend Sobieski vodka from Poland.)

The Perfect Pear
(adapted from Absinthe Brasserie & Bar, San Francisco, c. 2000)

1-1/2 ounces Plymouth gin.
3/4 ounce pear eau-de-vie (I used Purkhart).
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice.
2 teaspoons orange juice.
1 teaspoon simple syrup.

Combine with ice in a shaker and shake for 10-12 seconds. Strain into chilled cocktail glass.

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Hallowe’en weekend is upon us! I love Hallowe’en! What’re we doing for Hallowe’en?

Nothing.

Wes is gone all weekend for work, I’m exceedingly lazy and don’t feel like coming up with a costume and have grown weary of all the hassle of going out to Santa Monica Boulevard. I’ll probably get stuff done around the house, and in the later evening we’ll have some seasonally appropriate cocktails, such as the Corpse Reviver No. 2, Satan’s Whiskers and the Zombie. (Hm. It occurs to me that I’ve never written up those last two. *make note for later*)

To make matters worse, for years we haven’t bothered decorating the house for Hallowe’en because for the first three years in a row at our house there were no trick-or-treaters. Either the few kids in our neighborhood don’t go out, or they’ve already finished by the time we get home. Now we don’t even bother with decorations or even buying any candy. (Last thing we need is big bowls of candy around the house with no one to eat them from us.) It’s a bummer — it’s fun to have trick-or-treaters come over. In Silver Lake near our friend Steve’s house there’s a block that gets hundreds, if not over a thousand kids trick or treating! What do we get?

Standing on our water meter, not a single trick-or-treater
Knocking now to put an end to my loud, horrendous snore
Nary even just one nipper dressing up as Jack the Ripper
Underneath the great Big Dipper, seeking candy at my door
“Zero visitors,” I muttered; the no-ones at my green front door
Will find candy … nevermore!

Oh wait, that reminds me … in a special treat from the shiny, shiny folks at Quantum Mechanix, we present you with a dramatic reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem “The Raven” — produced, directed and performed by John De Lancie:

We’ll also undoubtedly watch some scary movies this weekend (we have many), plus Sunday is the premiere of the new AMC series adaptation of the graphic novel The Walking Dead, which I’ve been looking forward to for months! I’ve been reading Robert Kirkman’s ongoing series for six years now, and the show has a lot going for it — director Frank Darabont, plus the great track record for dramatic series on AMC (“Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men”). Tune in on Sunday at 10pm (Eastern & Pacific), 9pm Central, and check out the above link for a ton of behind-the-scenes documentaries.

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Zane is always challenging my expectations, and did so again with a recent visit to Los Angeles and a guest turn behind the stick at The Varnish, one of the L.A. bars I love. (I still enjoy quoting my friend Chris from Denver, after I brought him to that bar for the first time: “I wish that I had a wardrobe in my bedroom which, Narnia-like, would transport me to The Varnish on demand.”) Unfortunately the only recipe I remember from that night (when you’re drinking, write recipes down à la minute, you idiot, or you’ll forget them!) is this one, which Zane was kind enough to share with me.

Using Chartreuse as a base spirit isn’t something you come across all that often. It’s certainly powerful enough — 40% alcohol for the yellow variety, and a whopping 55% for the green — although most of the time it’s used in smaller quantities as an accent, given its even more powerful, even pungent herbal flavor.

One of my favorite cocktails is the Chartreuse Swizzle, a magnificent creation by Marco Dionysos with a whopping two ounces of green Chartreuse as its base. Zane’s drink uses the same concept — a tall, Chartreuse-based swizzle — but it’s the first time in my life I’d ever had a drink with yellow Chartreuse as its base. An additional boost to the spice is from a spicy peppercorn syrup, which would be pretty versatile once you’ve got it on hand.

Yellow With Envy
(by Zane Harris, Rob Roy, Seattle)

1-1/2 ounces (45 ml) yellow Chartreuse.
1 ounce (30 ml) fresh lime juice.
1 ounce (30 ml) fresh grapefruit juice.
1/2 ounce (15 ml) black peppercorn syrup (see below).

Shake vigorously with cracked ice until the shaker is too cold to hold (12 seconds or so). Strain into a tall glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

 

Black peppercorn syrup

2 cups (400 g) sugar.
1 cup (250 ml) water.
1/4 cup (use a 60 ml measure) cracked black peppercorns.

In a saucepan, heat the peppercorns until they become fragrant. Add the water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to very low, add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to stand for 20 minutes. Strain the syrup through a fine mesh strainer to remove all of the peppercorn particles. Add a splash of vodka as a preservative, bottle and store in the refrigerator.

Yield: About 1-1/2 cups syrup

NOTE: Zane may end up correcting me on the amount of pepper in the syrup, but this is what my pickled brain recalled from the evening.

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This anise-scented variation on our local beloved milk punch comes from Chef Susan Spicer of Bayona and Herbsaint restaurants) and features Herbsaint, New Orleans’ original absinthe substitute. While you may substitute Pernod, Ricard, or any pastis or anise liqueur for the Herbsaint, if you want this to be truly New Orleanian you’ll use la vraie chose.

Herbsaint Original, the 1934 recipe

You’ll especially want to use Herbsaint Original, with the above label. Over the years Herbsaint’s formula changed, but in late 2009/early 2010 the Sazerac Company reproduced Marion Legendre’s original 1934 recipe — deeper, richer and with a broader, more complex herbal base.

You are, of course, welcome to use actual absinthe as well, but then if you used absinthe or pastis it wouldn’t be Brandy & Herbsaint Milk Punch, would it? (Well, all you’d have to do is change the name, but still.)

This punch is terrific when the weather starts to turn crisp in autumn and for the holiday season as well, but New Orleanians are fond of milk punches year-round. This would be great at breakfast or brunch, for a pre-dessert nog, or just for a party. Here’s the version to serve in The Flowing Bowl:

Brandy & Herbsaint Milk Punch

2 quarts cold milk
3 cups brandy
1/2 cup Herbsaint
1/2 cup superfine sugar

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients and stir to combine. Add more sugar or brandy to taste. Chill. Pour into a large punch bowl with a large block of ice and serve cold, topped with freshly grated nutmeg.

Serves 16-20.

… and if you’re only making one or two, the single-serving version:

1-1/2 ounces brandy or bourbon
1/4 ounce Herbsaint (especially Herbsaint Original)
1/4 ounce simple syrup
4 ounces whole milk or half-and-half

Shake with ice and strain into a punch cup, and garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.

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This one may be familiar to many of you, but if you’re scratching your head thinking, “Nope, never seen this one before, and grapefruit juice? Ew!” it’s another “forgotten” cocktail that comes to us courtesy of Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh, who first served it to us years ago. The Blinker is the creation of a bartender whose name has escaped into the mists of history, but it was first mentioned in print in 1934 by bartender Patrick Gavin Duffy. (There’s a bit more about it in Doc’s most excellent book, Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails.)

Doc tinkered with the recipe; originally the drink was made with grenadine (and a horrifying amount of it, equal to the grapefruit juice). Raspberry syrup gives it a lovely complexity, especially when considering most commercially-made grenadines. I think it’s a terrific variation.

The thing that made the drink Doc made for us so much better than the first one we made at home was his use of Smucker’s brand raspberry syrup, right from the grocery store, instead of the Torani raspberry syrup we used. Nowadays for prepared syrups I’d generally go with Monin, which would also be good. But man … that Smucker’s stuff had an fabulously fruity, aromatic and intensely jammy quality (unsurprisingly) that really put this drink over the top. Even better was a raspberry syrup from Harry and David, the Fruit of the Month Club folks, which was hands-down the best raspberry syrup I’d ever tasted (and didn’t have the tendency to sink to the bottom of the drink that Smucker’s has). Sadly, the product’s been discontinued.

If you have a really good, homemade pomegranate grenadine or an excellent commercial product like Trader Tiki’s Hibiscus Grenadine, by all means use that if you like. Otherwise, try the Smucker’s, or better still, a homemade raspberry syrup from fresh (or even frozen) raspberries.

Of course, it goes without saying that you should not use bottled grapefruit juice. Freshly-squeezed white grapefruit juice, please. It takes half a minute to cut and squeeze a grapefruit, and it’s eleventy million times better. Also, if you’re one of those folks that doesn’t like grapefruit juice, this may be your conversion moment; you’ll like it here, even if you only ever have it in this cocktail (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Enjoy the Blinker — it’s a simple yet really lovely drink, and don’t worry about the silly name (drives Doc crazy).

Oh, the image below is temporary, shamelessly purloined briefly borrowed from the fine folks at Modern Drunkard magazine, who in turn lifted it from Ted’s book (naturally, since the article was an interview with Ted about his book). I’ll have one of my own up by the weekend, especially since I haven’t had a Blinker in a while, and I want one.

The Blinker Cocktail

2 ounces rye whiskey.
1 ounce fresh grapefruit juice.
1 teaspoon raspberry syrup.

Combine with cracked ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake vigorously for no less than 10 seconds, until very cold; strain into a cocktail glass.

Doc didn’t garnish this, and I don’t know if the original recipe called for a garnish, but we like a pretty grapefruit peel curl cut with a channel knife (Doc opts for lemon). Don’t squeeze any grapefruit oil over the drink, though; we don’t want this one to be too bitter.

To quote Wes, “What the world needs is more rye cocktails.” Amen.

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There’s my usual credo (with very few exceptions ever granted), in which I do not patronize a Louisiana restaurant outside of Louisiana unless someone from Louisiana is in the kitchen. Back during the 1980s “Cajun craze” there were a lot of places that switched to or offered menu items labelled as “Cajun” without knowing what the hell they were doing, and putting out a lot of really bad food. Primary among these sinners were the people who thought that Cajun food was regular food encased in red pepper. Then there were those who thought Cajun food came from New Orleans … the litany of offenses goes on and on.

But for years there have been solid, reliable places in L.A., driven by a black Creole community who’ve been out here since the 1940s. Old favorites like Harold and Belle’s (dress up and bring a fat wallet) or Stevie’s Creole Café (former owner of Stevie’s on the Strip, which closed in 2006) in Encino; late, lamented places like Sid’s Cafe (owned by the wonderful Mr. Jase, and almost a second home to me when it was open) and other places that have come and gone.

Apparently, though, another one popped up a couple of years ago, and I didn’t even notice until I got an email from a co-worker which included this appeal:

Click to embiggen

A New Orleans restaurant needed our help? Our help was to go there and eat? Well … I can do that! And so off to New Orleans Vieux Carré Creole Cuisine we went. (4317 Degnan Blvd., LA 90008 in Leimert Park.) The timing couldn’t have been better, either — the day we went was the 5th anniversary of the arrival of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, followed by the failure of the Federal levee and floodwall system, and I needed some New Orleans food in me that day.

Spacious, plenty of New Orleans-local decoration and appropriate music, very friendly and welcoming service … I felt right at home. The place was just shy of half-full on a Sunday afternoon, so they can most certainly use the business (although we may have missed out on the after-church crowd).

Let’s get right to business. Iced tea. I figured I didn’t have to do my usual L.A. move of asking whether the tea was real, regular iced tea or some kind of Tropical PassionBerry Explosion kind of abomination. Nope, real southern iced tea — thumbs up. (They kindly offer both unsweetened and “sweet tea,” the latter of which I usually avoid pretty much anywhere.) Next, the test of mettle of a Louisiana restaurant — the gumbo.

Filé gumbo

Dark roux, very flavorful, although a bit salty for me (I tend to be sensitive to it, however). Plenty of seafood (big chunk of blue crab and shrimp), plus smoked and fresh hot sausage. I didn’t need to add any hot sauce to it, either. All in all a fine gumbo.

Crawfish & Corn Chowder

This is what blew me away in the soup category, though. What the menu describes as their “famous” Crawfish and Corn Chowder came next, and it seems to me that whatever fame it has is more than justified. Thick, rich, lots of crawfish (Louisiana crawfish, I was assured), freshly cut corn, beautifully seasoned. Next time I’m getting a whole bowl of this.

Those of you who may know my taste know how much I love New Orleans’ beloved Creole hot sausage, and especially hot sausage po-boys. If I had to choose a last meal, it’d probably be a hot sausage po-boy with fries, and a big plate of red beans ‘n rice. I didn’t order the red beans — I don’t usually order that dish in a restaurant, because I make it at home all the time and because mine is, well … the best (*cough*cough* … okay, I really should try their red beans next time) — but I had to have a hot sausage po-boy, despite the massive amount of food we’d already ordered.

Hot sausage po-boy

My first question — links or patties? Patties are the way to go for me, but NOVC serves theirs with links. That’s fine, of course! It’s just my personal idiosyncracy, and it depends on the type and style of sausage, and these were hot links, perfectly seasoned and nicely grilled with crisp edges. Then there’s the question of the bread … sigh. It’s nearly impossible to get proper New Orleans po-boy bread out here — Vietnamese baguettes come the closest — even though Leidenheimer’s say they ship nationally. The bread was good, but it was the soft variety. Still, a very solid hot sausage po-boy, probably the only one you can get in Los Angeles that I know of, and for that reason it is to be celebrated. (The fries were good too.)

Next came their featured dish of the day:

Shrimp & Crawfish Étouffée

Shrimp and Crawfish Étouffée, loaded with seafood, big fat shrimp and a ton of crawfish, and easily enough food for two people (I took half mine home and had a wonderful leftover dinner the next night). A marvelous dish, and I’ve heard good things about it at this restaurant, but if anything that day it seemed a touch underseasoned. (I added a few sprinkles of Creole seasoning to my leftovers and that really did the trick.) I suspect that this was just an inconsistency of that day, though, given how well everything else was seasoned, and I’d most certainly order it again.

Stuffed Catfish

Wes got the Stuffed Catfish, beautifully fried and seasoned, and stuffed with a seafood and ham dressing. This is exactly the kind of dish I’d expect to get at Mandina’s back home, even down to the little dish of green beans (just like you get at Mandina’s, if you know what I mean. )

Desserts were offered, but we were more than stuffed. That will have to wait for next time, when we come back in force with the Fat Pack in tow, and tear our way through as much of that menu as we can (entire dishes ordered “for the table,” as we’re fond of saying). I’d prefer to have at least a couple more visits under my belt before writing an actual review, but we were happy enough eating there, and we want to help them enough as well, that I decided not to wait until I had tried more dishes. (Sheesh, it’s already been six weeks, with me being God Emperor of Procrastination and all.)

If you’re looking for very good, relatively inexpensive Creole food in Los Angeles, this is where you need to go, and go often.

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One of the places we hadn’t been to yet was Tavern Law, and as I’d heard and read so much about it I wanted to make it up at the top of the list along with Zig Zag. They have a spectacular cocktail menu and seriously talented bartenders, one of whom, Cale Green, took care of us that night. My memory-jogging notes from that evening are sadly somewhat liquor-sodden, so I don’t have names or proportions, but that evening Cale made us cocktails consisting of:

1) Rye whiskey, Amaro Montenegro, Punt E Mes, Angostura bitters
2) Bourbon whiskey, Amaro Ramazzotti, dry vermouth, Peychaud’s bitters
3) Laird’s bonded apple brandy, Swedish punsch, sweet vermouth, lime juice

These are EXACTLY the kinds of drinks I love, and Cale’s the kind of bartender who, after chatting with you for a bit about what you like, can come up with amazing drinks.

We had been hoping to get to the speakeasy-style bar above Tavern Law, a place called Needle and Thread, a hidden room which one enters by passing through a bank vault (gotta love existing architectural details in your building!). Cale also works up there, but alas, they were closed that evening. No worries, though — we’ll hit them next time, and that evening we had a wonderful time, had world-class drinks and made a new friend.

The other bit prompting this post was GQ magazine’s publication of its list of the The 25 Best Cocktail Bars in America (as they see it). Number One on that list is, unsurprisingly, The Zig Zag Café, where Murray works alongside Ben and Erik and Kacey the whole gang there who make it such a wonderful place. I was happy to see some of our local L.A. bars (Tiki-Ti and Cole’s Red Car Bar, plus a mention of The Varnish in the back of Cole’s), one of our New Orleans watering holes (Arnaud’s French 75 Bar, although I’d have thrown Cure and Bar UnCommon into that list, at least whenever Chris McMillian is behind the stick at the latter) plus one I frequent in Houston whenever I’m there visiting family (the wonderful Anvil).

And right there at Number 25 was not Tavern Law (although I think it deserves high mention in such a list) but Needle and Thread upstairs. GQ said:

“I spend all day on a tractor. Make me a drink that reminds me of the farm. You know, of dirt and diesel.” This is how an organic farmer from Portland ordered his drink here, because that is how they encourage drinks to be ordered. Get poetic about it; you’ll wind up with something like the Dirt ‘n Diesel.

I found out from Cale later on that the aforementioned bartender was himself, and the Dirt ‘n Diesel was his creation. It’s a cousin to the Corn ‘n Oil, with inky black Black Strap rum as its molasses-heavy base, with additional bitterness from the Cynar and plenty of dirt from Fernet. This is a terrific drink, and makes up for the fact that we never get out to the farm. Stop in at either of the two aforementioned bars where Cale works, and see what he’ll come up with for you.

DIRT AND DIESEL
(by Cale Green, Tavern Law and Needle & Thread, Seattle)

2 ounces Cruzan Black Strap Rum
1/2 ounce Fernet-Branca
1/2 ounce Demerara sugar syrup
1/4 ounce Cynar
1/4 ounce lime juice

Combine ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker and shake for 10-12 seconds. Strain over ice into a rocks glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.

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This drink demonstrates how one small, simple addition can completely transform a cocktail. Remove the teaspoon of crème de cacao and it’s an old-school 2:1 Martini (which I frequently enjoy with orange bitters, as was the old method). Put it back in, though, and hat hint of sweetness, that subtle whisper of chocolate — an amount so small that it might take you a moment to realize what you’re tasting — and the perfect flavor combination of chocolate and orange … yum!

Use this old idea to fuel your own experimentation. What can you do to your favorite classic cocktails by the addition of just a barspoon of a liqueur or amaro? For instance, a Daiquiri made with Scarlet Ibis rum and with the addition of one barspoon of Averna is now one of my favorite cocktails, thanks to my friend John Coltharp, currently bartending at Copa d’Oro and The Tasting Kitchen. I have no idea what he calls it (I’ll have to ask him), but I’ve been calling it the Sicilian Daiquiri.

Now … it’s love-love, and it’s your serve.

THE RACQUET COCKTAIL

2 ounces Plymouth Gin
1 ounce Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth
1 teaspoon white crème de cacao (Marie Brizard, preferably)
2 dashes orange bitters

Stir with cracked ice for at least half a minute, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a thin slice of lemon peel, twisted over the top and dropped into the drink.

The Racquet Cocktail is a cousin of both the Martini and the Twentieth Century Cocktail (swap the vermouth for Lillet, add lemon juice and up the cacao a bit, roughly). If you haven’t tried the latter, please do so.

Speaking of Wondrich, he will soon regale us with another magnificent tome called Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl. (Pre-order at this link or, preferably, pick it up on its publication date of November 2 at your nearest independent bookseller.) You can now also harass follow him on Twitter and that monstrously big social network that’s having the movie made about it this year, not to mention his own shiny new website, The North Gowanus Institute for Cranial Distempers.

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They brought back the entire original 7G menu for that night, too. Well, nearly; the Ramos Gin Fizz was missing (perhaps a bit too labor-intensive for a night when they were going to be slammed two or three deep at the bar), and of course the Bartender’s Choice drinks came at us left and right.

When I asked Damian for something whiskey-bearing but not on the special menu for the night, he offered this tasty variation on the Old Fashioned, or the Manhattan, or the Monte Carlo … sort of like all three fused at the molecular-genetic level inside a telepod (and with no fly, fortunately).

For the base spirit Damian chose Bernheim’s, a wheat whiskey from Kentucky made by the folks at Heaven Hill. The primary grain here is soft winter wheat (at least 51%, differing from Bourbon and rye in that those spirits must be at least 51% corn or rye grain, respectively), with some corn in the mashbill for sweetness and a bit of barley as well. It’s dry and crisp although with a bit of sweetness in the nose, full-bodied and fruity-nutty. Really wonderful stuff, and works very well in this drink where Bourbon might work less well. “The syrup takes the edge off the whiskey,” Damian says, and makes this a very well-balanced drink.

There’s a classic cocktail called The San Francisco; this isn’t it. I’m not certain if this is one of Damian’s own creations, but until he corrects me let’s say that it is.

San Francisco Cocktail

2 ounces Bernheim Straight Wheat Whiskey
1/2 ounce Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
1/4 ounce simple syrup
1 dash orange bitters
Splash Bénédictine liqueur
Lemon twist

Rinse a rocks glass with the Bénédictine and pour out the excess. Combine the other ingredients with cracked ice in a mixing glass and stir for at least 30 seconds. Strain into the coated glass, add a large ice cube and twist the lemon peel over the drink. Garnish with the peel.

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This is a linky-goodness post, as there have been some fascinating articles of late on the subject of mixing cocktails — to wit, on sweetness, balance, dilution and temperature.

First off, Chicago bartender Todd Appel puts forward a good case for why we should stop using 1:1 simple syrup.

I never have been a fan of 1:1 simple; it’s always seemed watery and not sweet enough, and simple math makes one wonder how a teaspoon of granulated or “powdered” sugar, called for in so many classic recipes, can be justifiably substituted with a teaspoon of something that’s got so much water in it. I’m not a fan of overly sweet cocktails either, but you have to have balance — sweet with the sour or bitter or strong, and plain ol’ sugar water doesn’t cut it. Todd starts off his article with the same observations:

For years I have wondered why my taste buds seemed to be at odds with many of the classic and new cocktails being offered around the country in our modern cocktail world.

I realized something important many years ago

Syrup in cocktails should be sugar heavy, period.

The problem here is twofold. 1-1 syrup offers more water and less sugar. This leads to more dilution and/or overly acidic drinks.

This is a recognized issue, hence the discussion of what many call “rich” simple syrup, made 2:1 with double the amount of sugar as water. This helps a great deal, but is it enough?

He reminds us of David Embury as well — we may have thought some of his ratios a bit wonky, but it’s easy to gloss over the ratio of syrup to water in the simple syrup he made, which was basically liquid sugar. Embury, plus at least one book by William Terrington from 1870, call for a 3:1 syrup!

I’m at the point now where I only use 2:1 simple syrup, for the simple reason that 1:1 simple syrup is by no means a substitute for the same volume of granulated sugar. I’m going to try a small batch of the more concentrated syrup and see where that gets me … mmm, cocktail experimentation.

Moving on!

It killed me to have to miss the 2010 edition Tales of the Cocktail, especially because the quality of the seminars truly shone this year. One of the more talked-about sessions (and one of the ones I was most annoyed to have missed) was The Science of Stirring, taught by Dave Arnold (Director of Culinary Technology at the French Culinary Institute in New York), bartender/beverage director Eben Klemm and Death & Co. bartender Thomas Waugh.

Dave has written another pair of epic posts about the seminar and the cocktail-making science explored within. Part 1 deals with shaking, stirring, temperature and dilution, and Part 2 with temperature and dilution, texture, notes on batching drinks and an epilogue from Waugh about how all this science stuff affects a real live bartender. Here’s the brief introduction:

Cocktail shaking is a violent activity. If you shake for around 12-15 seconds (though shaking longer won’t hurt), and if you aren’t too lethargic, neither the type of ice you use nor your shaking style will appreciably affect the temperature or dilution of your drink. Shaking completely chills, dilutes and aerates a drink in around 15 seconds, after which the drink stops changing radically and reaches relative equilibrium. Shaking is basically insensitive to bartender-induced variables. See my post on The Science of Shaking. [Definitely read this if you haven't already. -- CT]

Stirring is different. Think of stirring as inefficient shaking. It can take over 2 minutes of constant stirring to do what shaking can accomplish in 15 seconds. No one stirs a drink for 2 minutes, so the drink never reaches an equilibrium point. All the bartender-induced variables – size of ice, speed of stirring, duration of stirring, etc. — make a difference in stirred cocktails, so bartender skill is very important in a stirred cocktail.

Because stirring doesn’t reach equilibrium, stirred drinks are warmer and less diluted than shaken cocktails. Stirred drinks, unlike shaken ones, are not aerated. Stirring does not alter the texture of a drink –it merely chills and dilutes. A properly diluted cocktail stored at -5 degrees Celsius in a freezer is indistinguishable from a properly stirred one.

There’s a lot of reading here, and it does get quite scientific (for those of you who might be scared away by such things, don’t — it’s really fascinating and worth the effort). If the science is too much you can always skip down to Waugh’s final list of things for the everyday bartender to remember, the first of which you can begin implementing right away (if you haven’t already copied it from seeing better bartenders do it when you go out):

1. Chill your mixing (stirring) glass — ice works, as does a fridge or freezer.

This is all fascinating stuff, and a must-read for everyone interested in executing a properly stirred cocktail.

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