Editorial
Hi there:
Spring has nigh-on sprung here in the Hudson Valley, and we’re gearing
up for the first group of reprobates to attend this year’s Cocktails in the
Country workshops. We’ve got bartenders coming from far and wide again this
year. They’re flying in from California, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alaska. That’s right,
folks, we have our first bartender from Alaska coming to join the mayhem this
year. The Spring series is just about full, but if you want to put your name
down for one of our summer workshops, now’s the time to do it. Click here for more info.
One thing you don’t want to miss in this issue is the
piece about World Cocktail Day, 2007. It’s gonna be a doozy of a day. Look
under the Bar Code banner.
Mardee & Gary
In This Issue:
- The Cocktailian Daytime bar crawlers find perfect
setting for a Pearl
- Potent Quotables What makes The Glenlivet different
from the rest? Captain Smith Grant fills us in.
- Bar Code World Cocktail Day; Partida Tequila
Newsletter; Tales of the Cocktail 2007
- Worldwide Bartender Database Recipes Plain and Fancy
- On the House with Jack Robertiello
The Cocktailian
image
courtesy the good folk at quanya
Daytime
bar crawlers find perfect setting for a Pearl
03/02/2007:
Recipe by Jon Santer, bartender at Bourbon and Branch, San
Francisco.
"I never heard of such a thing as a daytime bar crawl," the
Professor, our cocktailian bartender, tells the half dozen professional mixologists
who just descended on his bar...
Potent Quotables
Martha, the latest addition to what we laughingly call the
Ardent Spirits office, recently brought a book to work: Pieces of the Frame by John McPhee. “There’s a short
story about scotch in there,” she told us. And Martha don’t lie.
Josie’s Well, a story written by McPhee in 1970, gives us
a wonderful glimpse into the world of single malt scotch in the days before
single malt scotch became, well, before it became what single
malt scotch is today. Before we recognized it as being worthy of
connoisseurship
Captain Smith Grant, the man who, according to McPhee,
was chairman of The Glenlivet at
the time, was one of the subjects of the story. Here’s a short excerpt:
“There’s nothing secret about any of it,”
[Smith Grant] says. “It just happens to come out like that. People come
here and ask if they can measure the stills. ‘Measure them,’ I say.
‘Photograph them. Do anything you like with them so long as you leave them
here.’ Many people have copied them. Actually, we chucked out an old still
three years ago that was ninety-eight years old. We put in a new one and it
didn’t seem to affect anything. We buy our peats from a subcontractor in Tomintoul.
We’re using British barley, the same barley everyone else uses. We have
used California barley, Danubian barley, Karachi
barley--Tunisian, Australian, Danish island barley. It isn’t the barley. We
can’t be bothered malting our own barley. We buy it from maltsters in the
south of Scotland.” . . . “I think it’s
ninety-nine and a half percent the water--the water and a fiddle-faddle in
the manufacture. The water comes from Josie’s Well. Who Josie was I don’t
know, but the water comes from Josie’s Well” . . . he pours a glass of The Glenlivet,
drops just enough water into it for a perfect nose, and hands it to me. Then
he mixes himself a gin and tonic.
Bar Code
This just in from, well, you can see who it’s from . . .
World
Cocktail Day Comes to Devin Tavern!
Renowned Mixologists Present Cocktail Dinner to Raise
Funds for a Permanent Museum in New Orleans
WORLD
COCKTAIL DAY 2007
Celebrating the Cocktail’s 201st Birthday!
May 7th through the 14th
We are pleased to announce a World Cocktail Dinner will
be held at Devin Tavern at 363 Greenwich Street, NYC on Monday May 14th as a
fundraiser to benefit The Museum of the American Cocktail. Renowned mixologists
Tony Abou-Ganim, Dale DeGroff, Sasha Petraske, Gary Regan, David Wondrich, Michael
Waterhouse, Will Shine, Aisha Sharpe, to name just a few, will present an
extraordinary array of cocktails matched to Chef Christopher Dunn’s
creations.
Half of the price of each ticket will go towards building
our permanent exhibit in New Orleans in 2008. Tickets cost $250* ($125 of
each ticket is tax deductible and will go towards building the new permanent
exhibit in New Orleans.) Purchase tickets by calling 212.334.7337 Tickets are
limited; please reserve as soon as possible!
In addition, World Cocktail Day celebrations are being
planned everywhere from New York to Sydney, Amsterdam, London, Hong Kong, and Berlin…JOIN US! We
invite any bar, restaurant, or establishment that is a current
"Industry" member of The Museum of the American Cocktail to
participate with their own celebrations during the week of May 7th through
the 14th. We will be gathering the details and favorite cocktail recipes from
participating establishments to post at our website. For more details and
information: http://www.MuseumOfTheAmericancocktail.org/WCD/
We are pleased to announce that the Museum of the
American Cocktail will open a satellite exhibit at Pegu Club, at 77 West
Houston St, NYC this spring. A separate room in the back of Pegu is being
renovated to include a small exhibit that will feature cocktail shakers, rare
books, and other artifacts and the brand new "Museum Bar" where
guests can enjoy classic, new, and historical cocktails. The space will also
be used as a forum for a series of Museum cocktail presentations given by top
mixologists. Details will be posted at the MOTAC website in May.
Founded by a group of the world’s most preeminent
cocktail historians and spirits experts, The Museum of the American Cocktail™
is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing education in mixology and
preserving the rich history of the American cocktail. Through its exhibit,
educational seminars, and publishing program, the Museum will advance the
profession of mixology while stressing the importance of responsible
drinking. Please support our efforts by becoming a member today! http://www.museumoftheamericancocktail.org
Our old friend in San Francisco, Jacques Bezduinhout
is featured in the latest issue of The Spirit Bird Sentinal, the
official newsletter of Partida
Tequila, and the drink featured there, The Big Spender, looks like a doozy.
As many of you know, Jacques is fond of using fortified wines in his innovative
drinks, and this one fits that bill to a T. If you like to subscribe to this
newsletter, click the logo above.
Tales
of the Cocktail, July 18 - 22
This is looking like it’s gonna be the biggest and best
Tales of the Cocktail ever. Be there! Click on the logo to see more
Worldwide Bartender
Database
Here’s a new feature for Ardent Spirits.
Members of our bartender database send us so many wonderful cocktail recipes,
and we try to feature as many as possible in various magazine and newspaper
columns, but of course, not all of them get the ink that they deserve. Here,
then, we’re bringing you some recipes submitted by various bartenders, and
we’ll let them comment on their own creations. Sound good? Here’s the first
batch:
Tea Whiskey Highball
Adapted from a recipe James Meehan, bartender at Gramercy Tavern, NYC.
Brew Lapsang Souchong tea and store in a
glass container in the refrigerator. (Meehan uses the In Pursuit of Tea brand, and we at
Ardent Spirits also recommend Numi
Organic Tea very highly.)
2 1/2 ounces chilled brewed Lapsang Souchong
tea
1 1/4 ounces Glenlivet scotch
1 ounce mint syrup (see recipe below)
1/2 ounce Fernet Branca Menta
1 lemon twist, for garnish
Jim Comments: I measure
the ingredients using a measuring cup and then store them in a sealed glass
container in the fridge. Once you've mixed it together, just pour 5 oz
into an ice filled Collins glass and garnish with a lemon twist peeled using
an oxo peeler.
Mint Syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
40 mint leaves
Combine the sugar and water in a medium
saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until sugar dissolves
completely. Remove from the heat and add the mint leaves. When cool,
transfer the misture to a sealed container and refrigerate overnight. Strain
the mint leaves from the syrup the following day and store in a resealable
container for up to 3 weeks.
Elderwilde
Adapted from a recipe by Keith Waldbauer,
bartender at Union in Seattle.
2 1/2 ounces Bombay gin
1/2 ounce elderflower
syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 orange twist, for garnish
Fill a mixing glass two-thirds full of
ice and add all of the ingredients. Stir for approximately 30 seconds,
strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and add the garnish.
Keith Comments: My chef
ended up with a case of elderflower syrup he couldn't use and asked me if I
could create a drink using it. The Elderwilde is what i came up with. I
used Bombay (not Bombay Sapphire) because
people seemed to think it was too 'hot' otherwise.
Parsnip Parasol
Adapted from a recipe by John Allen
Kinder, bartender at Moxie in Chicago.
2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cracked black peppercorns
2 ounces fresh parsnip juice
1/4 ounce buttermilk
1 1/2 ounces Chopin potato vodka or Plymouth gin
5 drops truffle oil
3 drops clove tincture
Mix the salt and pepper, then rim a
chilled cocktail glass with it. Fill a mixing glass one-third full of ice and
add the parsnip juice, buttermilk, and vodka. Shake for approximately 15
seconds, strain into the glass. Float the truffle oil and clove tincture on
top.
John Comments: I worked
this drink out last week and I’m really happy with the results, but think it
can be heightened. This is drink as a result of combining my wanting to make
both a root vegetable-based and a truffle oil cocktail for this winter. In
fact, the drink’s base was to be heightened on a Valentine’s Day menu with
Joe Kindred at Patrick’s. I’ve decided to scale it back (lack of
ingredients, tools) and focus on the base taste more. I’m using Plymouth
gin as the base ingredient at Moxie, but I’m extremely happy with Chopin and,
to some extent, Luksusowa. I’m happy with the complimentary aromatics of the
gin, but the Chopin’s smooth potato delivery makes this drink sing. The
truffle oil and clove tincture that tops the drink add an incredible aroma and
taste to the root vegetables and [they don’t] overpower it. However, the
drink’s highlight is the fresh parsnip juice. This creamy, sweet earthy
juice is phenomenal. In terms of functionality, parsnips (first brought to North
America in the early 1600s) are full of vitamins C and E, as
well as potassium. There’s also some protein, iron and calcium. It’s best
to boil, deep-fry or puree parsnips after the frost has converted the
carbohydrates into sugar. I believe it’s the parsnip juice’s sweetness that
allows the drink to be paired with beef dishes, particularly cuts cooked rare
to medium-rare . . . the sweetness of the parsnip pulls out the sweetness of
the meat. It’s quite something to taste. I’m using less ice than normal
to balance water and temperature. I think the one main difficulty to give
people cause is the drink’s temperature sensation. There’s a usualness that
most of us, myself included, have in drinking a beautiful, yet slightly
warmer, red wine with our beef. This parsnip drink seeks to take a different
tact and focus on sweet. The buttermilk replaces the lemon juice and syrup
(whose sweetness isn’t needed) that I’d been using for both balance and
texture. The drink is rimmed with kosher salt and cracked black pepper (5:3 ratio).
No garnish.
We at Ardent Spirits had a few questions
about this drink. You can’t get a recipe for a cocktail that involves
parsnip juice and not have questions, right? So we risked asking John Allen
Kinder a couple of things about the Parsnip Parasol. We say risk cos
as you can see, John Allen Kinder tends to be a little wordy. Not that that’s
necessarily a bad thing to be when you tend bar for a living . . .
As things turned out, as you’ll see below,
John Allen Kinder got straight to the point when answering our questions. We’ll
take a page from Jeopardy and not tell you the questions. Here are the
answers:
1) Parsnips are raw, peeled
and cut up to fit in my juicer
2) Champion is the brand
name of the juicer from Lodi, Calif. (http://www.championjuicer.com/) .
Champion is an example of a masticating juicer, one that chews up fibers and
breaks up vegetable and fruit cells and separates juice from pulp, if
necessary. This is opposed to a centrifugal juicer (e.g., Omega or Juiceman
are examples) which spins and spits out the juice and keeps the pulp in the
middle. I prefer the heavy-duty masticating juicer as I get better taste and
color results than a centrifugal. Yet, you could use either.
3) Clove tincture is 1.5
oz. cloves (by weight) and approximately 16 oz. (or 1/2 L) 190 proof neutral
grain spirit. Let sit at least 1 - 3 weeks with a daily shake. This is
enough to last a good while.
On the House with Jack Robertiello
Don’t forget to visit our friend, Jack Robertiello’s round up of blogs
from cocktail geeks far and wide: On
the House with Jack Robertiello
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