Cocktailians

Speed Rack

Liquor and fast women: what's not to love?

I should clarify, though: A few days ago, I attended Speed Rack, a fundraiser for breast-cancer research organized by LUPEC NYC's Ivy Mix and Lynnette Marrero and emceed by USBG's James Menite. It was interesting, because it paired a speed-bartending competition with an appreciation of a quality cocktail. Here's how it worked: Four judges (Dale DeGroff, Audrey Saunders, Julie Reiner, and Time Out NY's Jordana Rothman) would each pick a cocktail:

Then, two bartenders would set about furiously making all four drinks simultaneously (Ivy Mix told Inside F&B's Francine Cohen that "Speed Rack started as a joke I had with a bartender in San Francisco about getting women to double shake on camera") and, when finished, slap a buzzer which recorded their time. The drinks were delivered to the judges, and the judges then evaluated the finished cocktails for temperature, balance, adherence to the recipe, garnish, correct glassware, and all sorts of things, and their demerits would add to the bartenders' times.

A winner was declared, and then it was on to the next pairings in a tournament-style bracket.

The whole thing was a blast, with good music pumping, lots of cheering and energetic and light-hearted trash talk, and a convivial, friendly atmosphere. It was definitely an industry event, but lots of people who weren't in the industry were there and felt welcomed. A $10 donation got you in the door and as much punch (three different ones!) or gin & tonic as you wanted, and T-shirts, beer, and food (from Mayahuel, including a fantastic carnitas taco) were available for purchase as well.

Another note: I think we've all been to poorly-organized events (fundraisers often seem to be the worst for this), where food and beverage run out, where there are ponderous delays in the entertainment, where sponsors weren't wrangled well, where decision-making was muddled and no one knew what came next. This event didn't suffer from any of that, and speaks to the organizational abilities of Mix and Marrero.

Yael Vengroff of Painkiller (ahem, PKNY) took top honors in the New York competition, and she'll face off against other regional winners at next year's Tales of the Cocktail.

Wanna see more? Here's a gallery of some pictures from the event:

Chilling Effects, Part II: Pusser's Revenge

I wrote a post back in August '09 about the intellectual property of booze, and the various attempts to copyright, trademark, or otherwise legally restrict cocktail recipes, names, and techniques. (That was sparked by my getting a nastygram from a company wanting me to rename my "Gingerita." I chose to call it the "Litigious Bastard" instead.) A year or so later, Chantal Martineau wrote a post for The Atlantic covering the same territory, (though it doesn't draw many distinctions between copyrights, trademarks, and patents, and has some other inaccuracies.) That article starts out by mentioning a cease-and-desist threat against the Lower East Side tiki bar Painkiller:

Shortly after the tiki-themed cocktail lounge Painkiller opened its doors on the Lower East Side of Manhattan this May, a man walked into the bar and threatened to issue a cease and desist order. Pusser's, which distills a Navy-proof rum in the British Virgin Islands, trademarked the recipe for a Painkiller cocktail back in 1989. The man claimed that Painkiller's owners, Giuseppe Gonzalez and Richard Boccato, had no right to the name of the bar or its namesake cocktail, which they like to make with rums from Martinique and Jamaica. He was promptly sent packing.

As well he should have been. As it turned out, they didn't trademark the recipe (see my earlier post for some analysis on whether that is or isn't actually doable. I don't think you actually can, and I certainly don't think it's a good idea, for reasons I outline there.) 

Pusser's has a relatively recent history, though their principal product is a recreation of high-strength blended rum issued to sailors by the Royal Navy since 1678. So what exactly did Pusser's trademark? It's hard to link to their search results, but if you go over to TESS, the US Patent and Trademark Office's electronic system, you'll see that among other results for "Painkiller" (such as trademarks for "gymnastic and sporting articles", clothing, and "entertainment and education computer game software", bicycles, and medication...all of which are trademarked by entities other than Pusser's), there are live trademarks owned by Pusser's for "advertising services" (for "National Pusser's Painkiller Day"), "restaurant and bar services", "non-alcoholic mixed fruit juices", and "alcoholic fruit drinks with fruit juices and cream of coconut and coconut juice."

Diary of a Tales Virgin, Part 1

I'm greatly enjoying my time at Tales of the Cocktail so far. Hotter than the hobs of Hades, as my friend Tizzie puts it, but it certainly feels goshdarned civilized to stroll down the sidewalk with a St. Germain cocktail clutched in one's paw. (The impending Tropical Storm Bonnie should at least dump some rain here. I think I'll stay inside the Hotel Monteleone, only leaving for medicinal Powerade refills and fried-oyster po'boys. We journalists suffer, I tell you.)

I've had excellent food at Green Goddess and the Acme Oyster House and Nola and the Old Coffee Pot so far. But how were the cocktails? My God, this place is amazing. Yesterday I had to pause and realize that I had to slow down and pace myself, because I was reaching the point where I had to pay attention to my consumption of free drinks or else lose my effectiveness for the day. It was 10am.

Thank goodness there is coffee available -- you just have to remember that spiking said coffee with Kahlua Especial is going to have an effect. But chalk up any sightings of green monkeys and man-sized celery stalks to the booze industry's promo folks, and not what's nestled in your tasting glass. (I'm proud of that link, by the way: my first CNN.com byline.)

More soon.

PDX (The "D" evidently stands for "drinking") Part 4: Teardrop Lounge & Thatch

After our wonderful dinner and drinks at Beaker & Flask, we headed back to downtown Portland, where I dropped off my (very understanding) girlfriend at Powell's Books while I headed around the corner to the Teardrop Lounge. This cocktailian temple is sleek and highly-designed, with a circular bar with a teardrop-shaped island (and suspended shelf above it, which seemed to function as something of an additional speed rail.) The place was pretty quiet when I was there, and the menu (I can't link to it here because of silly Flash design, but click to that main site, then "menus", then "cocktails") was fascinating. Rarely do I see a menu where I immediately want to try more than half of the drinks, and this one was full of really creative, interesting-sounding libations.

I chose the "Impossible Dream", which apparently was the brain child of one David Shenaut and consists of Small's gin, Brew Dr. white rose kombucha, lime, the Rothman & Winter apricot liqueur, and gomme syrup. I couldn't picture it, and was especially curious about the presence of kombucha in the mix. Its fermented astringency worked really well well with the creamy-sweet liqueur, and the herbal gin brought it all together. Small's Gin is local to Portland, and is produced by Ransom, who also produced the Gewurztraminer grappa that David Shenaut had me taste at Beaker & Flask and which I enjoyed so much. (They also make a great and unusual Old Tom gim.) Small's is heavy on the cardamom in addition to the usual juniper and other botanicals. The Brew Dr. kombucha is also local to Portland.

After just the one drink -- I really wanted to stay longer, but my time was running short -- I was happy to get a Twitter message from Blair Reynolds (aka Trader Tiki) letting me know he was behind the stick at Thatch in Northeast Portland. So off I zoomed to check it out. Thatch has an unassuming exterior set in a commercial strip, but feels like a tiki paradise once you're in; you cross a small footbridge over a rock-lined pool to get to the bar, which is liberally festooned with tiki decor and its namesake thatch. It was fun to meet Blair, whose enthusiasm and depth of knowledge fairly bubble out of him. At his suggestion -- since I'll be the first to admit that I don't know much about the Tiki kingdom -- he fixed me a Three Dots and a Dash, which was fantastically good: a little sweet, a a little tangy, a little spicy, and a little bit funky too.

After shooting the breeze for a while, I decided to head back to Powell's to collect my girlfriend from the briar patch, since we had to fly home the next day. I said my goodbyes to Portland -- I greatly enjoyed my all-too-brief visit to this very livable city that boasts some excellent drinking opportunities. Can't wait to come back soon.

(Thanks to all who made me great drinks and pointed me in the right directions, especially David Shenaut, Blair Reynolds, Lindsey Johnson, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, and Ricky & Brian at Teardrop.)

PDX (The "D" evidently stands for "drinking") Part 3: Beaker & Flask

After visiting Clear Creek Distillery, it was definitely time for an early dinner. We picked out Beaker & Flask from my Frommer's Portland guidebook, as it sounded like the food was good and the cocktail program was as well; after all, the name of the restaurant was certainly an encouraging sign. After a small bit of difficulty in finding the place (the guidebook has the address wrong, listing the side of the building around the corner from the restaurant entrance), we rolled up just before five. The hostess was kind enough to let us in before they'd technically opened (I'd say it's certainly in line with the ethos of hospitality to let one's prospective customers use the bathroom) and seated us right away. We were the first people in the joint, but it got busier pretty quickly. They even had stacks of interesting cocktail books scattered among the tables!

The menu looked great and creative -- for both food and cocktails -- and we were glad to see a happy-hour cocktail list of four drinks that were $5 from 5p-6p and $7 afterwards (the rest of the cocktails were $8; I could get used to Portland cocktail prices after New York's). Even the selection of non-alcoholic drinks was pleasantly eclectic, with Blenheim Ginger Ale, Orange Crush, San Pellegrino, Sparky's Root Beer, and more. One offering that caught my eye was Faygo Rock & Rye, which apparently doesn't taste like actual rock and rye made with rock candy, rye whiskey, and fruit (it supposedly tastes more like a cherry cream soda, and has the advantage of being 100% more juggalo-approved than the rye-whiskey version.)

So, for our first course of drinks I had to go for the happy-hour Between The Posts, consisting of Campari, fresh grapefruit juice, the Faygo Rock & Rye, and Peychaud's bitters. (My girlfriend had an excellent Dublin Dr. Pepper, poured from its glass bottle.) I was wondering if the drink would be too sweet (if my fuzzy memories of the stuff are correct, Faygo's sweet enough to dissolve a bulldozer), but it was wonderful and a great aperitif -- the citrus notes from the Campari and grapefruit (what a great combination), the bitter playing nicely with the sweet. I haven't mixed much with commercial sodas, apart from the odd Cuba Libre, and I really should start experimenting with this.

Our meal was great, too -- we split the butter lettuce salad with a buttermilk-and-tarragon vinaigrette, and I had a pan-seared trout with spring veggies, smoked mussels, and sauce Gribiche. My entree was good, but my girlfriend's was great: a fork-tender grilled pork tenderloin with English pea arancini, pea greens, and pistou. With our entrees, I chose a Stuck in Lodi (rye, Gewurztraminer syrup, Cynar and Peychaud's bitters) for my second cocktail. I was curious about all the various flavors in this one, and there were a lot of moving parts -- possibly too many. The drink was definitely rich and complex, but I kept wanting to take smaller and smaller sips because it was a bit of a sensory assault. 

I overheard some folks at the bar drop a familiar name, and sure enough, David Shenaut was working behind the stick. I sent over my good wishes, and he dropped by to say hello and welcome us. (Thanks to Lindsey from Live the Lush Life and Brown, Bitter & Stirred for introducing us a few days earlier on Twitter -- but I didn't realize I'd be bumping into him here. Always fun to unexpectedly meet up with new friends.)

Dessert was a very nice panna cotta with warm fluffy beignets and a fresh huckleberry sauce, tamped down nicely down by a very, very good Ransom Gewurztraminer grappa, which was fruity and smooooooth and all-around wonderful. (As much as I liked Clear Creek's Gewurz grappa, I liked this one even more.) We left the restaurant pleasantly sated, and then the big conundrum presented itself: off to Powell's Books for more browsing, or search out a couple of the other cocktailian boites that had been recommended to me? (Guess you'll just have to tune in to the next installment to find out.)

PDX (The "D" evidently stands for "drinking") Part 1: Clyde Common

I recently returned from an all-too-brief sojourn to Portland, Oregon. Aside from enjoying a beautiful setting, nearby mountains, lush greenery, and workable public transit, the denizens of Portland seem to pay exceptionally close attention to what they put in their mouths. We had some stunningly good coffee  (double macchiato for me, cold-brewed iced coffee for my special lady friend -- both were fantastic and rich, and we're greatly enjoying the Burundi Bwayi beans we brought home) at Stumptown's downtown location (with a comically-hip magazine selection), some good microbrewed beer (Hogsback Oatmeal Stout at the Mt. Hood Brewing Company's Ice Axe Grill in Government Camp, LTD 02 at Full Sail in Hood River, and Golden Ale at the Lucky Lab in Portland), and even some wine.

But all of that, no matter how good it was, is well outside the mission statement of this here site. I am pleased to report that Portland treated us very, very well on the cocktail and spirits fronts. The first place I decided to check out was Clyde Common, run by the estimable Jeffrey Morgenthaler. (Jeffrey wasn't there at the time -- the guy unaccountably seems to get some days off once in a while -- but Shannon cut through the happy-hour crowd of braying hipsters and took good care of us.) The cocktail list there was fascinating and complex, and I wanted to try everything on the menu. 

We limited ourselves to one each, though, as we had other commitments later on. My girlfriend chose the One-Trick Pony (Pelinkovac bitter, Maraschino, house-made tonic, lime), which was very good. I hadn't heard of Pelinkovac before -- from what I could taste in this drink, it was reminiscent somewhat of fellow Eastern-European bitter Unicum -- but the idea of mixing a digestive bitter with Maraschino liqueur and bitter-ish tonic sounded yummy. The liqueur and tonic balanced out the herbal bitterness nicely, and it went smoothly down the hatch.

 The drink that I'd been itching to try, though, was the Barrel-Aged Negroni, which absolutely blew me away. I was very intrigued to read Jeffrey's blog post about barrel-aging finished cocktails, and his description of the Negroni was dead-on:

After six weeks in the bourbon barrel, our Negroni emerged a rare beauty. The sweet vermouth so slightly oxidized, the color paler and rosier than the original, the mid-palate softly mingled with whiskey, the finish long and lingering with oak tannins.

I also thought it smoothed out the bitter spikes that can come from the Campari, and basically mellowed the whole thing. The whiskey barrels gave it an oomphier flavor that melded well with the vermouth's spiciness, and added a complex richness to the drink. This was a great before-dinner drink that almost made me want to skip the dinner.

(Another installment of PDX cocktail-y goodness coming soon!)

The Manhattan Cocktail Classic

What did you do the other weekend?

Well -- and this post has taken me longer than I'd have liked to get written and posted -- I went to the fall preview event of the Manhattan Cocktail Classic. Something akin to New York's version of Tales of the Cocktail, the event was a jam-packed two days of seminars, open bars, lectures, history lessons, war stories from behind the stick, and an over-the-top fancy-dress gala.

(According to Robert Simonson in the Times, the gala "was attended by 1,000 people, who consumed roughly 190 turkey drumsticks, six whole smoked pigs, and literally thousands of cocktails, prepared by a team of more than 150 bartenders." A friend referred to it as "cocktail prom", and that was really what it felt like.)

Cocktailians was there, of course, and I shot pictures of all the sessions, three of the "Stories from Behind the Bar" events, the official bar, and the closing gala. I thought some of the most interesting sessions centered around stuff I didn't know as much about -- Andy Seymour's session on sherry and Steve Olson's session on agave stood out especially, as did the session on barware with Greg Boehm, Don Lee, and Alex Day (and David Wondrich as a surprise special guest.) I got to see Jim Meehan inviting guests behind the bar at PDT and teaching them how to make quality drinks, and I got to hear Phil Ward's and Joaquin Simo's stories about life behind the bars at their respective establishments. I got to see Don Lee scientifically analyzing various bartenders' shaking techniques, Dale DeGroff flaming orange peels, Sasha Petraske cracking ice, Charlotte Voisey shaking up cocktails, and Audrey Saunders dancing with Gary Regan shortly before regaling the crowd with tales of gin. The weekend was so engrossing, in fact, that I wonder how they'll top it in May for the full Manhattan Cocktail Classic -- it took me several days to recover, and that was just from a weekend of shooting pictures and conducting brief interviews.

For more pictures than you can shake a muddler at, go here for my full set on Flickr. (If you know peoples' names, feel free to fill them in where I don't have 'em.) And I'll see you at the full Manhattan Cocktail Classic in May.

Bar Artisanal Cocktail Contest: A Recap

[Edit: Surname and thus drink name fixed.]

Well, that was a great way to spend an afternoon. 

Tribeca cocktails-&-super-high-class-snack-plate joint Bar Artisanal threw a cocktail contest, and a whole mess of people sent in submissions according to a few simple parameters: you needed a cocktail that was original, looked and tasted good, and went well with any of their amazing cheeses. 

I was one of the five lucky people who got to try out the finalists and pass some big time on-high judgement upon them in front of the management, the audience and the universe, and while I fully resolved to be the Mary Murphy or the Tyra of the panel, honestly, it never really got to that, past a couple of off-color references to Greek supermarkets and a Sartre reference or two. 

The six finalists were courtesy of Thad McArthur, Orr Shtuhl, Blair Frodelius, Linda Tam, Kevin Dea, and the winner, Alexander Doyne, whose unnamed fernet menta, sloe gin & lemon juice concoction was incredibly summery and bright even before the mint came, and afterward it was positively perfect. It was the only drink we tried that didn't need cheese to complete it, although the others (especially Dea's Corpse Canonizer -- gin, lemon juice, St. Germain, orange curacao, herbsaint & bitters --which also got high marks from the panel) were certainly worthy. Well, okay, there was one serious clunker, but every reality show needs its William Hung. 

The winning drink, now called The Doyne after its creator, is available at Bar Artisanal through the summer. It's a gorgeous and smooth-tasting cocktail, regardless of the cheese plate with which you choose to have it. I recommend it highly.

Many thanks to Wendy, Alex & everyone at Bar Artisanal, and may I say, I would like to encourage the discussion of holding a competition like this every month. It's good publicity, you can't help but find good amateur mixers who should be maybe turning pro, they're a fun and cheap way to get people to come to your place for an event, and hey, the world always needs more and better cocktails.

Cheeses Be Praised! [A Contest!]

Well, it seems we've hit a bit of a good stretch lately at Cocktailians. Some excellent reviews from Vidiot, a lovely (if occasionally wet) summer here in NYC, and now, we've been lucky enough to be asked to participate in a contest in which, honestly and without corniness in the slightest, everyone will be a winner.

Thursday, July 30, 2009, Bar Artisanal will throw what could easily be the social event of the Summer: A cocktail contest for amateur mixologists, with the winner getting their creation added to Artisanal's extremely well-regarded menu. From their notes to us:

Amateur mixologists and cheese lovers alike (who are at least 21 years) should send an original cocktail recipe that pairs well with cheese for a chance to have their cocktail featured on the Bar Artisanal cocktail menu and win $200 gift certificates for each of the Artisanal Group restaurants: Bar Bar Artisanal, Artisanal Fromagerie, Bistro and Wine Bar, and Picholine.

The judges' panel will include: Terrance Brennan, Chef-Proprietor of Artisanal and Bar Artisanal; Robert Haynes-Peterson, The NY Drinks Examiner; Jason Miller, Artisanal Group Beverage Director; Dave Arnold, Director of Culinary Technology at The French Culinary Institute; and, um, yours truly. (I can claim I'm an unbribeable judge, but please, feel free to try me.)

If you'd like to enter a cocktail in the contest, or if you'd just like more information, you can contact them through email or through their Facebook page. And of course, if you're more of a partaker than a maker of cocktails, there will be steep discounts for all the contested offerings the evening of the contest.

Regardless, it sounds like it's going to be a hell of a fun night. I hope some of you can come on out.

Red Hot Poker

Dave Arnold is the Director of Culinary Technology at the French Culinary Institute. More relevantly to this space, he's also a mad scientist, with a strong mixological bent.

He's invented a "Red Hot Poker" that's electrically heated to over 1700°F, which he then plunges into drinks, caramelizing the sugars and adding a toasty note to their flavors. Arnold told me in a recent interview that he's simply updating "the oldest boiling technology", pointing out that people originally boiled liquids in hollowed-out wood or clay pots by dropping heated rocks into them. (You see vestiges of this method in the superheated stone or iron pots used for Korean dolsot bibimbap.)

Arnold said that in the late 17th- and early 18th-centuries, a popular drink in what would become the US was a "flip" (no relation to the slightly-more-common "flip" style of cocktail with eggs, a sort of a creamless eggnog.) A flip consisted of ale, rum or brandy and sugar or molasses. The bartender would heat a "loggerhead" -- a tool consisting of a long pole with a ball on one end and a handle on the other, originally used to melt pitch -- in the fire and use it to heat the drinks. These flips were popular roughly until the Civil War.

After reading John Hull Brown's "Early American Beverages", Arnold became interested in flips and loggerheads, and decided to experiment with them. He first picked up some soldering coppers -- solid copper rods used in welding and soldering -- and heated them on the stove. Those infused a slight copper taste and "left little black flecks of metal in the drink", so they were unacceptable. He then built a small insulated box with a bendable heating coil inside, to warm a loggerhead-like poker...but that box got too hot: "We put a chicken heart in there, and it basically exploded." Vaporized poultry hearts aside, the iron poker also left a noticeable taste in the drinks. Next, he tried a high-temperature stainless-steel alloy, but that wasn't a terribly good conductor of heat, and it didn't heat the drinks with quite enough oomph.

So finally, he settled on an internally heated rod made from an esoteric nickel-based alloy, and he hooked it up to bendable heating coils and all kinds of thermocouples and other gear to control and monitor the temperature. When he demonstrated it to me, though, the equipment was recalcitrant, and he fought with it: first having to find a way to run it without blowing a circuit breaker, then discovering a short circuit and re-soldering it in front of me. The fixed version didn't have a working thermocouple on it, so the digital temperature display wouldn't be reliable. The indefatigable Arnold would have to gauge the temperature by eye. And monitoring the temperature is important: the Red Hot Ale cocktail he created ignites at 1700°F, the Red Hot Manhattan he also serves ignites at 1750°F...and the heating element burns out at 1800°F. Delicacy and a keen eye were going to be absolutely necessary.

(Before he got around to fitting the poker with a temperature display, Arnold had to learn what, say, 1700°F looks like. "The one reference we had", he said, "was 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.'")

So he set to measuring out Ommegang Abbey ale, Courvoisier Cognac, a bit of simple syrup (since the poker's caramelizing effect takes some of the sweetness out, he mixes the cocktails a bit sweeter than usual), lemon juice, and some Regans' Orange Bitters, stirred them, and set them alight with the poker. The beer foamed wildly as he agitated the poker, and when it was done he set the finished drink in front of me. It was yeasty, toasty, and slightly sweet -- and it was wonderful and like nothing I'd ever tasted before.

Next up was the Red Hot Manhattan, which he made with Sazerac rye, Dolin vermouth, and Angostura bitters. This time the flames shot even higher, and the resulting toddy-like drink was very good -- still recognizably a Manhattan, with noticeable sweet-vermouth notes, but with the feel of warm whiskey.

After wowing me with the Red Hot Poker, Arnold then showed me another toy -- his rotary evaporator, or "roto-vap." Arnold uses it as a vacuum distiller, and infuses neutral spirits (el-cheapo vodka, filtered multiple times through charcoal) or other liquors with whatever he can think up. (Unlike the Red Hot Poker drinks, he can't sell the results at the French Culinary Institute's restaurants.) The low-temperature distilling infuses the flavors into the spirit with a great deal of presence; I sampled a caraway aquavit with a very forward rye-bread flavor, a peanut-infused Scotch that was fantastically fascinating, and even vodka and Scotch infused with hops. ("Hops-Scotch", of course.) The roto-vap removed the hops' extreme bitterness but left their characteristic flavor. I wish this stuff were more readily available...hmmm...perhaps I'll have to start trolling eBay for a roto-vap of my own.

Arnold is working on opening a bar with pastry-chef pal Johnny Iuzinni of Jean-Georges, but until then, you can taste the Red Hot Ale and Red Hot Manhattan at L'Ecole, the French Culinary Institute's restaurant.