I'm trying something a little different here, and putting together the first-ever Cocktailians Holiday Gift Guide. This is basically a listing of interesting things that you, or I, or a cocktailian you know, might like to get in their stocking this year. (And no one's paid anything to get on here -- all these products are things that I've either bought for myself, or I haven't tried them but think they look interesting enough to buy or recommend to others. Exceptions (Chopin rye vodka, To Have And Have Another) noted in tooltips.)
That said, on to the loot, presented in no particular order:
A cocktailian will always accept a bottle, particularly an interesting one. You could go in several directions here, ranging from something new, like the Charbay Hop Whiskey or Dad's Hat Rye (more on that presently) to something newly available, like the bitter liqueurs Byrrh, Salers, and Suze, or even something that's been around for a while. Such as a bottle of Chartreuse, for instance, which is useful in lots of different drinks and is probably a bit too spendy for all but committed home bartenders to splash out on...so why not give someone a bit of a nudge? Also, I tasted Larceny, a really nice new wheated bourbon from Heaven Hill, at Tales this year and quite enjoyed it. Great Lakes Pumpkin Spirit is unusual and far more whiskeylike than I'd expected. And I haven't tried it, but I'm very curious about the Bittermens New Orleans Coffee liqueur, with its promised chicory notes. On the gin side, there's the intense Perry's Tot and the well-balanced, more citrusy and floral Dorothy Parker, both from the New York Distilling Company in Brooklyn, and Plymouth Navy Strength is now findable. I'm also curious to taste the Half Moon from Tuthilltown and see what it's like. And, for the vodka lover, I've been impressed with the Core Vodka made from apples by Harvest Spirits in the Hudson Valley (which also makes the gorgeous Rare Pear brandy), Tuthilltown's Heart of the Hudson (also made from apples) , and the red-label Chopin Rye vodka is earthy and unusual -- all of these have more character than most vodkas out there, so they may not be your thing if you're looking for clean no-flavor ethanol. Or you could go more personal with a bottle of homemade liqueur; the recipe for cranberry liqueur looks great for this time of year. Master of Malt sells all sorts of interesting spirits out of the UK, and teeny 30mL sample bottles are available if you just want a dram of something intriguing. Their Whisky Advent Calendar gives you a bunch of intriguing samples (some worth £350/bottle), one a day till Christmas. (If you don't dig on whiskey, check out their Ginvent Calendar too.) But if you have a ton of money to burn, go delving into the Finest & Rarest spirits on offer: pre-ban absinthe, rhum agricole from the 1920s (!), Creme de Thé from 1850 (!!), and rye from 1863 (!!!).
And, if all this drinking stuff has left you a little peaked, I can also recommend great coffee from Tonx, which'll send you expertly-sourced and freshly-roasted beans every other week. (You can get a free trial here.) Or give an early gift with a ticket to the New York Distilling Company's Sandy benefit on Repeal Day, next Wednesday, December 5th: you get to see some night distilling in action, you'll get half a bottle of new make rye, half a bottle of the rye after it finishes aging, and the chance to win your own personalized 5-gallon barrel of rye. If you want to get some art and help out a great bar which was hit hard by Sandy, St. John Frizell's Fort Defiance is offering "junk bonds": gift certificates costing double their face value, each decorated with a different bartender's portrait. What a great idea!
...or wait, you were looking for a Holiday .GIF Guide instead? Tonx has you covered there, too.
also over at Serious Drinks, Michael Dietsch gives us a superlative guide to rye. Pay special attention to his descriptions of the various LDI/MGP ryes made in Lawrenceburg, Indiana -- an undercovered bit of information that most consumers don't know about;
Both Jim Beam and Jack Daniel's have recently released white whiskeys, or rather spirits...and Chuck Cowdery is on the case, noting that the Jack Daniel's Tennessee Rye calls itself a "neutral spirit" despite not meeting the TTB's definition (which requires distillation at > 190° proof/95% abv.) But because it hasn't touched wood, it can't be called a "whiskey", also per the TTB. He hears from Jack Daniel's -- which doesn't shed much light on it; why would you want to sell something as "neutral spirit" if you're not forced to label it as such? -- and from the Feds, who point out that it's properly classified as "a distilled spirits specialty product" or "spirits distilled from grain." Will the Not-So-Old No. 7 have to change its label? Stay tuned;
Zagat also runs down the 10 Most Annoying Cocktail Trends, only some of which I agree with. What in the world's wrong with coupes? Or classic drinks? Or bars in expensive cities charging enough to pay the rent and their staff?;
Did you know that there are bars in Brooklyn? With lady bartenders, even?;
eBay has cracked down on alcohol sales, reportedly. Drink Spirits tells you how else you can get booze online. (The Masters of Malt Drinks by the Dram program is fascinating: you can get 30ml bottles of whiskies you'd like to try.)
Have you made or drunk a Last Word? Do you read cocktail blogs or participate in the cocktail renaissance? (Rhetorical question, that.) What you enjoy now is in no small part due to the efforts of Seattle's Murray Stenson, and he needs your help. Do help him out -- I want him well and back behind the stick, so I can visit him in Seattle.
Here are some things we've found along the byways of the World Wide Web, usually while we're in our cups:
Friend of the blog Marshall from Scofflaw's Den sends word that two of his drinks are in a cocktail/mocktail contest. You should vote for them. Not just because they're friends of the blog, but: non-alcoholic gin from a nitrous infuser! Mixed with beet juice! And another drink with pineapple-infused tequila and long pepper syrup! Neat-sounding stuff. You can vote till 11:30p PDT (no, not that PDT) tonight. So DO EET.
So apparently some joint called the Flatiron Room is opening up. Um. Do they not know about, or are they hoping to capitalize on confusing arising from the name of, the Flatiron Lounge, a spectacularly good bar that's been open for almost a decade, six blocks away?! And who do these jokers think they are, anyway? WTF?
Robert Simonson looks at Japanese whiskies in the NYT. (I hadn't discovered them till Tales 2011, but was impressed with what I found. The Hibiki 12 was in my flask all winter long.)
They also have recently profiled a front-of-house person: Pegu Club GM Robert Oppenheimer. (There are many reasons why Pegu remains one of my most-favorite places to tipple in town. The superb staff is one of them.)
Interesting NYT story on folks in Kentucky who don't like the ethanol-loving black fungus that lives near distilleries, so they're suing major distilleries Brown-Forman, Heaven Hill, Diageo, Buffalo Trace, and Jim Beam. The stuff's been around forever, and Baudoinia compniacensis was first described in the 1870s. (Even the scientific name shows off its origins: "compniacensis" means "from Cognac.") I noticed it all over the sides of warehouses when I visited the Kentucky Bourbon Trail a few years ago, and Chuck Cowdery notes: "The fungus is well known and generally regarded as harmless, if a bit of a nuisance. It can be removed with a little soap and water. Typically, all a distillery neighbor has to do is ask and the distillery will send a cleaning crew at no charge. It is extremely doubtful that any complainant bought their house before the accused distillery was built." Cowdery also points out that the stuff is pretty similar to common mildew, and decries the NIMBYism of people not wanting to live near distilleries;
Tuthilltown Spirits has a bitters coming out! "Bitter Frost" is made from rye, sarsaparilla, maple syrup, and a bunch of other things, and is aged in rye barrels. Interesting;
Not to be outdone with the oranges and the tasting, In the Cupboard has come out with a guide to orange bitters, with useful tasting notes;
Martin Doudoroff tastes Knob Creek Rye. So many questions here: How does it compare to Jim Beam Rye, current 80-proof Old Overholt or Ri1 (or however the hell you're supposed to write that one?);
and gorsh, I wish I had the night off and the money for this, but this bitters-focused dinner Parsons is hosting at the James Beard House looks amazing;
There's lots of other interesting things I've found on teh interwebs lately:
Jim Meehan picks his top ten new bars in the US. I would consider this a checklist: NoMad and Bellocq are both great, and I would love nothing more to go visit the other eight. Where's that Powerball ticket again?
Which isn't to say that I haven't been busy. I've been writing a lot elsewhere, but will renew my efforts to keep up the ship here. For you. Yes, you. You're my favorite.
And I've been reviewing new and new-ish cocktail bars in New York for Diffords Guide's CLASS Magazine, which has been tons of fun. Here are links to my reviews:
If you're one of the seventy million or so critics and bloggers (or one of the nine Nielsen families) who are distraught about the hiatusizing of the sitcom Community, GOOD Magazine is here to help. And by help, I mean give you something to drink while we wait for some other NBC turd to get cancelled, so they can get the best sitcom since Arrested Development over the 88-episode threshold and into sweet, lucrative syndication.
You might want to cut back on portions for the Seven & 7, as their recipe is made to serve a few million people at a time. But the variation they call a Six Seasons And A Movie? Well, it might not be streets ahead, but it's certainly a nice Chang from the original. And the real cane sugar will make the drink really pop-POP!
Okay, I'm done. Apologies for the in-jokes, it's been a while.
We here at Cocktailians are as pleased as punch that one of our authors, one Tony Hightower, appeared on Jeopardy! this week, and downright surprised and tickled that he gave this li'l ole blog a shoutout in his chat with Alex. (Yours truly, the other co-author, was on the show some ten years ago, but didn't do nearly as well.)
I recently hopped a bus up to Providence to check out an exhibition at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. "Cocktail Culture: Ritual and Invention in American Fashion, 1920-1980" opened in mid-April and runs through the end of this month and is well worth a visit, especially if you're interested in fashion. But even if you're not -- no one who knows me or even sees me on the street would peg me as a snappy dresser -- there's enough here to warrant a trip. (I mentioned the exhibition in this space back in April, but wasn't able to get up to Rhode Island till now, and am glad I made the not-arduous-at-all trek)
The first thing you see on arriving at the exhibition's entrance is a well-edited montage of clips involving drinking in various movies. Lots of them were familiar to me, including scenes from "Auntie Mame" (passing along the old "bruise the gin" canard), "Casablanca", "The Thin Man", "Notorious", and others. But I discovered a lot more that I hadn't previously encountered, including this marvelous scene involving a jilted husband and his reactions, from Charlie Chaplin's "The Idle Class":
The clips set the scene nicely before one passes into the exhibition proper, which is arranged into nine themed sections and spans more than 220 objects drawn from the museum's own holdings and items borrowed from other museums and private collections. Cocktail attire, barware, glassware, furniture, and photographs all figure prominently, making for a nicely-balanced selection of artifacts that gives you a good sense of the culture surrounding the cocktail and how it changed over time. The museum refers to it as "the first multi-disciplinary exhibition to explore the social ritual of the cocktail hour through the lens of fashion and design", and delivers on this aim. (The exhibition's catalogue is worth picking up as well, with five meaty, detailed essays on how various factors -- from Hollywood to hats, Harlem, and postwar barware -- shaped cocktail culture and its visual expression.)
The first thing you see is the "Icons" section, which is meant to give the viewer some grounding in the basic look of the cocktail hour: glassware and shakers are presented, as is the truly iconic little black cocktail dress. (As I'd noted, I'm no fashion guy, but the 1954 Dior dress shown here is amazing in its alluring elegance; it highlights the shape of its wearer to arresting advantage, as it carves out three-dimensional space around the figure. All while remaining relatively demure!)
The elegance continues with Norman Bel Geddes' stunning Manhattan cocktail service, all sleek verticals and boxy forms: the bibulous equivalent of the RCA Building (completed a year or two before this was designed) in chrome-plated brass. This was what I coveted more than anything else in the exhibit, with its cool, unfussy Art Deco sophistication and clean lines.
Other sections covered Prohibition's pervasive influence: how it forced men and women together, did away with drinking as an all-male pastime, and mixed company as well as spirits. Prohibition also gave birth to the speakeasy, of course, which was different from pre-Prohibition saloons. The time was known as the Jazz Age, and the exhibition features several flapper dresses with their beaded fringes. (And it's neat to see actual flapper dresses and cloche hats from the Twenties, rather than inferior costume knockoffs.) Harlem's influence on cocktail culture is covered, as is the anti-Prohibition movement as shown by scarves and even needlepoint samplers -- apparently prominent members of the W.O.N.P.R. would make these to show their support for the law's repeal.
Prohibition also forced drinkers and bartenders to travel: steamship lines would advertise drinks such as the "Three Miler" or the "Twelve Mile Limit" (referencing how far offshore boozing would become legal), and bartenders such as the great Harry Craddock fled the dry shores of the United States for wetter foreign climes, resulting in the sublime (and beautiful) Savoy Cocktail Book. This section of the exhibition features lots of more casual, flowing cocktail attire, some gorgeous molded-glass Tiki stemware designed by "Trader Vic" Bergeron himself, a custom-made Japanese bar, sophisticated posters for French ocean liners, and more.
Other sections address wartime austerity, with its rationing of materials, and postwar prosperity, which set the style for how we experience the culture of drinking. As the exhibition materials point out, "cocktail culture as we have come to understand or visually interpret it today originated during this postwar period; the cocktail dress, combining the elegance of evening wear with the informality of the day dress, is the iconic look of this period and continues to define style to the present day." The exhibition continues tracing the history of cocktail fashion from the Fifties to the late Seventies, looking at crazy accessories, casual backyard get-togethers with their Modernist tone, and even clubwear.
I especially enjoyed the Eclipse glassware shown above, designed by industrial designer Russel Wright in 1957. They're fun, yet classy, and emblematic of the "New Casual" approach to the cocktail hour that emerged in the Fifties. By 1951, 70 percent of alcohol bought was consumed at home, according to a contemporary account by Walter Browden in Crockery and Glass Journal. The suburban cocktail party, scene of most drinking, emphasized the pursuit of leisure and fun (as seen in these1950sexhibits at the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans, and see also the profusion of cocktail shakers bearing drink recipes, which emphasized to the suburban crowd how easy it could be to make a quality drink.) Russel Wright, together with his wife Mary, even wrote a book about casual living and home entertaining during the increasingly mechanized times. 1950's Guide to Easier Living (here's a nice article about it in the Times from last year), in the words of "Cocktail Culture" catalogue contributor Kristina Wilson, was "modeled on the decorating and etiquette manuals that had proliferated in the interwar years, [and] argued for a new approach to home life. . .an emphatic modernist respect for systems and efficiencies dominated the Guide to Easier Living. . .Not only was the atmosphere of the Wrights' efficient household more casual than previous generations might have aspired to, but it emphasized to the hostess and host the possibility of well-deserved relaxation." The exhibition even includes Hawaiian and other casual sport shirts -- one emblazoned with grills and other barbecue implements -- to underline this theme.
In short, this exhibition is well worth checking out, especially if you're interested in the clothing and fashion angle of the story of cocktails. (I understand that this was a fashion-focused event, and the non-clothing artifacts were very well-chosen indeed. However, I'd have liked to have seen even more items showing changing product design and marketing over the years. Perhaps bottle designs, advertising graphic design and other commercial art, and more glassware and barware would have fit in well.) The catalogue will serve as a useful reference and is a worthy addition to my cocktail library. And I even picked up some cocktail-themed encaustic pieces by Dorothy Imagire at the museum gift shop. (I also fell in love with this painting by Gregory Poulin, but couldn't quite afford it.) They'll go nicely over my home bar.
(Photos, except for the first one showing the exhibition's name, are all courtesy of the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Thanks to the RISD Museum's Lani Stack for her assistance.)
