Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | July 17, 2009

The Rickey Contest

The DC Craft Bartenders Guild is hosting a contest where top DC bartenders are creating original Rickey recipes. The Rickey is Washington DC’s most famous native cocktail.

Invented in 1883 at Shoomaker’s by George Williamson at the bequest at Colonel Joe Rickey. The drink consists of any base spirit with lime juice and sparkling mineral water or soda. The original was with Bourbon served in a goblet with ice and the lime shell was dropped in the glass. It was not served with sugar.

My preferred Rickey is either one of the classics – gin or bourbon – or a variation of my own:

Blanc Rickey

2 oz Dolin Blanc vermouth
2 dashes Orange Bitters
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/2 Lime shell
Club Soda

Add vermouth, bitters, lime juice, & lime shell to a Collins glass. Fill with ice and top with club soda.

This is about as light and refreshing as it gets, perfect for hot and humid DC weather. That’s the whole beauty of the Rickey – it’s engineered for the District’s swampy weather, though it’s certainly ready to export to most other places in the summertime.

Looking through the creations of bartenders for this contest, you see a lot of very refreshing drinks in the mix. I was initially inclined to only vote for a recipe that included club soda and lime; many of them include sodas or other mixers and different fruit and citrus flavors. But in the end, I made the hard choice and voted for what sounded to me to be the most interesting, refreshing, and delicious cocktail proposed: Owen Thompson’s Watermelon Rickey. According to Metromix, it includes:

Hendrick’s Gin, watermelon puree, mint leaves, juice of half a lime, agave syrup, and prosecco.

Described as “summer in a glass.”

Other participating bartenders include Clinton Terry of PX, Chantal Tseng of Tabard Inn, Tiffany Short of The Gibson, and Gina Chersevani of PS7s. You can vote for your favorite at Metromix.

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Posted in Cocktails, Contests, MBH Creations

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | July 16, 2009

Japanese Bartending @ Cocktails & Spirits

Jay Hepburn of Oh, Gosh! has an incredible hour-long video of Japanese bartender Hidetugu Ueno, proprietor of High Five in Tokyo (previously of Star Bar Ginza), giving a session at Tales of the Cocktail Cocktails & Spirits (Thanks to Jay Hepburn in the comments for correcting this) about Japanese bartending traditions. He includes detailed explanations of ice carving and multiple types of hard shaking methods. Though it’s a relatively new project, High Five was ranked the #1 bar in Asia and the Pacific by Australian Bartenders Magazine last month.

This is the first video of a seminar from Tales and I was truly impressed by the quality of the lesson from Ueno. Watch the video at Oh, Gosh!

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Posted in Bars, Cocktail Culture

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | July 14, 2009

Three Sheets Gets Picked Up

Zane Lamprey’s great show, Three Sheets, has been picked up by the Fine Living Network according to Drink Planner. For those that haven’t watched Three Sheets is a travel show where samples locals beer, wine, and spirits and finds out about local drinking customs. It was dropped by MoJo earlier this year and there was concern that it would not find a new home. Fortunately new episodes will begin on July 20th.

You can watch old episodes of Three Sheets on Hulu.com.

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Posted in Blogs, Media, & Advertising

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | July 14, 2009

A Different Look at Tales

Daniel Hyatt, who writes at The Alembic’s blog, has quite a different take from most I’ve read about Tales of the Cocktail. He laments how crowded bars were, making it impossible to get any well-made, fancy cocktails. Instead he reports an over-emphasis on getting sauced and paying in to expensive workshops sponsored by top brands of spirits. Not surprisingly, this experience wasn’t one he loved, leaving him questioning the state of the cocktail and cocktailian bartending culture.

I return with a real sense that this “cocktail thing” may just be a bit out of control. We’ve stopped being servants and craftsmen and become authors, artists, chefs, and technicians. Do we need degrees or crowns?

Some of the best things in life, as in gastronomy or mixology, require little hermeneutics or decoding. They just present themselves as they are, satisfy, and then resonate. The way a walk in the park might stick with you better than an art history exam.

For my part, I still appreciate immensely the hard work and rich creative resources of my colleagues. I maintain a deep respect for experimentation and innovation, love to be challenged, and wholeheartedly give credit where credit is due.

That being said, I come back humbled, wishing only to throw some thick chunks chilled melon into a glass with a small sprig of fresh herb and a healthy dose of blanco tequila and a twist of lime, set it carefully on a cocktail napkin on a clean bar top, smile and be smiled at. Either that or a shot and a beer. It’s your dime.

I wasn’t at Tales of the Cocktail. If I was, there’s probably a decent chance I would have fallen into the hedonistic revelry that Dan found objectionable. But I can also, from afar, read his critique and perfectly imagine what caused it and why it has produced such a strong (and thoughtful) response from him. His words definitely resonate with me, especially given that while it’s not a side of contemporary cocktail culture that I’ve seen at all, it doesn’t surprise me that it might exist. The bartenders I’m friends with or ones I’ve only briefly met as their customers have pretty much always been friendly, down to earth, purveyors of satisfying and interesting cocktails. I haven’t seen many egos or people that sought celebrity. But put a few hundred people in a bunch of seminars and that dynamic may well change for some.

I’ve never been to The Alembic, which is by all accounts one of the Bay Area’s top cocktail stops. But I do read their blog and respect their work a great deal. To wit, Dan’s conclusion that a simple and tasteful cocktail can be matched up alongside a beer and a shot, depends solely on the mood of the person partaking it is something I can relate to. Love the fancy and the fine, love the simple just the same.

I’ll be curious to see what some of the non-pro cocktail bloggers have to say about this side of Tales.

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Posted in Cocktail Culture

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | July 9, 2009

Light Posting

I’m on vacation this week and posting is light as a result. Sadly I’m not at Tales of the Cocktail conference – hopefully I’ll be able to go next year. I’m sure you can get lots of great updates from many of the cocktail blogs in my blog roll, especially Scofflaw’s Den.

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Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 30, 2009

Navan Vanilla Liqueur

I’ve been looking forward to reviewing Navan Natural Vanilla Liqueur for a while now, having received a sample bottle and accompanying materials about  a month ago. Navan is a liqueur that combines natural vanilla from Madagasgar with aged French cognac. It’s made by the House of Grand Marnier, where they’ve brought their long experience to bear on this bottling.

The nose started off with a very strong scent of cognac. On second waft, though, the vanilla beans shone through. A little more time and the depth of the scent revealed itself with stronger dried fruit and honey profiles. It has a quite viscous mouth feel. The vanilla stands out up front, while towards the back of the palate there’s a stronger cognac taste. I also get an orange and cream flavor, showing the richness of this spirit. It’s quite sweet, but not unbearably so.

Before doing this tasting I experiment with Navan as an element in a tropical style drink.

White Hart Cocktail
1.5 oz gold rum (Appleton Estate VX)
1.0 oz white rum (Niesson Blanc Rhum Agricole)
4.0 oz fresh squeezed grapefruit juice
.5 oz falernum syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
.5 oz Navan Vanilla Liqueur

Combine rums, grapefruit juice, falernumm and bitters in an ice-filled cocktail shaker and give the good workout. Strain contents into a highball filled with crushed ice. Float Navan on top.

It was a fun and simple cocktail that I thought the Navan would add something to, though I can’t say it was my favorite creation ever.

CV Manhattan

CV Manhattan

For this tasting, though, I wanted to try something that evoked a more classic cocktail.

CV Manhattan

1.5 oz Jim Beam Red Stag Black Cherry Bourbon
1.0 oz Jim Beam Distillers Series 7 Year Bourbon
0.5 oz Navan Vanilla Liqueur
3 dashes Dr. Schwartz Cherry-Vanilla Bitters

Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a bourbon cherry.

What I found was that the Navan was a very sweet ingredient to mix with. I’d initially hoped that I could make this cocktail with just the Red Stag bourbon, but a 3:1 ratio proved way too sweet. Adding the regular bourbon balanced out the sweetness and the 3:2:1 ratio worked much better for this drink.

I think Navan has a lot of potential for a wide range of cocktails. Its sweetness will make it a bit of a bull in a china shop in some recipes and I certainly think most of what is on Navan’s website is going to be a bit overpowering for those who don’t want a very sweet drink. Fortunately the cognac side of Navan gives it some punch and, as I said, I look forward to seeing how else I can use this spirit in new recipes.

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Posted in Bourbon, MBH Creations, Reviews

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 29, 2009

Mixtape Arsonist

Last night I attended Mixtape Arsonist, a special cocktail session put on by Adam Bernbach. Adam had promised that he’d be doing a number of one-off events after he left Bar Pilar. Rather than a traditional Cocktail Session modeled from BP of a set menu for all guests, Mixtape Arsonist was omakase.  Adam said he had a general idea of six or more cocktails, with at least three lighter tastes and three full sized cocktails. Unfortunately I had a work obligation last night that prevented me from going through a longer sitting, so I asked Adam to keep it on the shorter side.

We started with a delicious light punch that included pisco, honeydew syrup, watermelon and sparkling wine (among other ingredients). I never think to myself, “Gee, I’d really like a nice glass of refreshing and tart punch!” But maybe I should change that. This stuff was great, especially coming in from a hot day in Washington DC.

Next up was a modified classic daiquiri. Instead of simple syrup, Adam made his one cane sugar syrup. And instead of using water to make the syrup, he used watermelon water. It gave the cocktail a slight hint of watermelon flavor to compliment the lime, cane, and rum tastes. The daiquiri and variations on it (the Papa Doble and Derek Brown’s Best Daiquiri Ever to name two in particular) have become one of my favorite cocktails in recent months. This new twist worked really well for me and definitely makes me want to try my making my own watermelon cane syrup.

The next two cocktails Adam made were DC classics. The first was a Bourbon Rickey, made with Willett and key lime juice. The Rickey is another drink that has recently made its way into my regular rotation, especially as weather has gotten hot here in the District. It’s simple, light, and refreshing – made with just a base spirit, lime juice, and club soda.

The second classic DC drink that Adam served was one I’d never heard of before, called the Hong Kong. I was familiar with a Hong Kong Cocktail made with gin, but this version is unique to DC and apparently recently rediscovered by Derek Brown in a turn of the century cocktail book. Here’s the recipe:

Hong Kong

2 parts scotch (Famous Grouse)
1 part dry vermouth (Dolin Dry)
1 part sweet vermouth (Dolin Rouge)
Barspoon of maraschino (Luxardo Maraschino)

Stir and serve in a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a flamed lemon peel.

This was a simply phenomenal cocktail. The scotch flavor was far less dominant than I expected. The cocktail actually had a surprisingly similar taste to a Martinez. I loved the flavor – sweet, boozey, clean and clear. It pretty much is exactly the sort of cocktail that I most like to drink.

The other thing that was great about this cocktail is it is one of the few I recall having at one of Adam’s sessions that I could walk home and make for myself. One of the upsides of going to an event with a bartender like Adam is that you can have drinks made with syrups, infusions and other rare ingredients that you can’t expect to normally have at home. That’s not to say that the ingredients are inaccessible to home bartenders, but merely that it takes more time. As I noted above, I could see myself making the watermelon cane syrup – there’s no reason why I can’t. But for the most part, these aren’t things that I have lying around, ready to hand to replicate drinks I’ve had at a cocktail session. The Hong Kong is a big break with that tradition and quite an enjoyable discovery for me.

The final drink of the omakase session was another scotch drink, made with tamarind syrup, tea, and club soda. It was a delicious, complex drink that remained surprisingly light. Characteristic throughout the session was the drinks were light, refreshing, somewhat boozy and lightly sweet.

I’m not sure how many events I’ve been to with Adam Bernbach bartending. Quite a few, to be sure. This session was probably the most enjoyable I can recall. Pretty much everything was accessible, interesting, and very much the sort of drinks that I like. I’m only sorry that I wasn’t able to have it be a longer omakase session, as I’m sure Adam had more great drinks in store. Nonetheless, I can’t complain, as it was just a truly memorable course of tastings all in all.

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Posted in Cocktails

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 24, 2009

Papa Hemingway Seminar

Phil Greene of the Museum of the American Cocktail will be giving a seminar at the Smithsonian in Washington DC on Ernest Hemingway and cocktails next month.  Tickets are $65 for non-Smithsonian members like me, or $45 for members. In an email, Phil writes:

Please join me in celebrating Ernest Hemingway’s 110th birthday by enjoying some of the drinks he and his characters imbibed, during my seminar To Have and Have Another – The Hemingway Bartender’s Companion.  The seminar will be held at the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian on July 15, from 6:45 to 8:45 pm.  For members of Smithsonian Associates, the cost is $45, for general admission it’s $65.

I’ll be serving the Jack Rose (from The Sun Also Rises), the Green Isaac’s Special(Islands in the Stream), the Montgomery Martini (Across the River and Into the Trees), the Papa Doble Daiquiri (Islands in the Stream, and other sources), and the Death in the Afternoon (a classic mixture of champagne and absinthe).  Plus, you’ll learn how to make these and other Hemingway drinks at home.  You’ll also enjoy excerpts from Papa’s prose, letters, and biography, hear anecdotes about his life and times, and more.

You can buy tickets here.

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Posted in Cocktail Culture

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 23, 2009

About That Neon Blue Cocktail…

For the various P.R. reps and advocates for various spirits who contact me via email with information about your products, I want to pass along a list of things that will almost certainly guarantee that I will not take interest in what you’re sending me.

Generally speaking, I like getting recipe ideas from brands. I hope that good brands are spending times with their brand ambassador bartenders to come up with recipes that are both interesting and profile the spirit in question well. However, I can say with a high degree of certainty that I will not post on your product or really even take it terribly seriously if the recipes you send me include any of the following ingredients:

  • Sour mix
  • Blue curacao
  • Flavored vodka
  • Any type of hyper-sweet schnapps-like thing (Rumpelmintz, Aftershock, 99 Bananas etc)

Here’s what I like:

  • Bitters
  • Freshly squeezed fruit juice
  • Herbs
  • Falernum, orgeat, or other specialty syrups

Now I get that my tastes don’t really fit in with the usual “specialty” cocktails that are used at TGI Fridays during the summer time to promote major brands. But this is more about knowing my audience. I’ve never had someone comment on this blog or email directly and say, “Hey Matt, I love what you’re doing, but why don’t you have more electric blue cocktails on your blog? Or why haven’t you showed my how to best use my neon green sour mix in a classy cocktail?” Unless I’m really off, my audience just doesn’t care about these sorts of cocktails.

I get to work with a lot of great PR folks for spirit companies. I don’t hold this against them and I’m certainly not calling anyone out in particular. I’ve just noticed that with the arrival of summer, the incidence of these god-awful recipes landing in my inbox has greatly increased. I love margaritas and I love the Fourth of July, but I don’t think those two loves justify posting neon blue concoctions that would likely put a diabetic into a coma.

</ rant>

Update:

What’s nice about getting in a foul mood about the bad recipes being sent out from liquor company PR reps is that when I get a good one, it gives me faith that the spirit industry isn’t devoid of promoting halfway decent cocktails. I just got this in my inbox from the fine folks at Combier triple sec.

“Jubilee Sangrita”
Created by Mixologist Darryl Robinson

2 oz Silver tequila
1 oz Combier triple sec
2 oz Pinot Grigio
Fill with equal parts of White Cranberry and White Grape juices
Splash with Ginger Ale
Dash of Orange Bitters
Add Strawberries, Blueberries for the red, white and blue effect

This sounds pretty tasty. I’m going to the beach for the 4th and this looks exactly like something I’d like to make for the friends I’m staying with.

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Posted in Blogs, Media, & Advertising

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 17, 2009

Saturday: Beer, Bourbon, & BBQ Festival

I’m not sure how I’m just hearing about this now, but this Saturday in DC there will be the Beer, Bourbon, & BBQ Festival in National Harbor, Maryland. For $30, you can sample over 50 bourbons and spirits and over 30 beers.

I mean, really. What more could a guy want out of a Saturday afternoon? This is like the holy trinity of male epicurean pleasure. I can’t wait to go.

Saturday, June 20
12-6pm
National Harbor, MD
Directions

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Posted in Beer & Cider, Bourbon

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 15, 2009

Expanding Horizons

Yesterday’s Washington Post included a letter to the editor by Nick Wineriter which was somewhat critical of the an article on the rise of craft cocktail bars in DC.  The letter’s author, himself a bartender, bemoaned the lost stature of the simple orders in a bar like a beer and a bump.

Being an old-school bartender, I often wonder: Whatever happened to just a beer and a shot? Or a classic Manhattan? Or a classic anything? These old-school cocktails will always stand the test of time. How many bartenders know that a Manhattan requires a dash of bitters?

Well I think Wineriter will be happy to learn most of these cocktail bars actually primarily serve classic cocktails or drinks inspired in the same tradition as classic drinks. The menus include items that have roots going back 100, 150 or even nearly 200 years. I would hope that this bit of information satisfies Wineriter. In fairness, Wineriter was responding to an article where 5 DC craft bartenders were specifically asked to create new cocktail alternatives to the mojito (a drink which itself dates back to the late 1800s). He may be reacting to the creative process these bartenders were undergoing in finding new things that expand the imbibing options of a knowledgeable clientele.

But more to the point, I don’t think the efforts of craft bartenders to come up with new drinks as alternatives to classics or reviving classics that have been forgotten in any way stands in opposition to the past times of 99.9% of American bartenders. In the year and a half or so that I’ve been heavily involved in the craft cocktail movement — the first year as a customer, the last 10 months or so as a blogger and home bartender — my interest in really well crafted drinks has never stopped me from enjoying classics. On any given night, I’m more likely to order a domestic light beer, bourbon and ginger ale, or Jameson on the rocks than any fine cocktail. If I want a fancier cocktail, I’ll go to a bar that I know makes them. But I certainly haven’t stopped going to good ol’ fashioned dive bars, sports bars, hotel bars, or restaurant bars because I can’t get a perfectly made Ramos Gin Fizz.

A great deal of what appeals to me about the craft cocktail movement is that it adds a level of history and culinary adventurism to drinking that goes far beyond comparing vintages or flavor profiles of the spirits themselves. To me, this adds another avenue of enjoyment beyond intoxication. It’s just fun to geek out on cocktails. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t also fun to hang out at a deep dive, chat with the other patrons and make a new bartender friend. In fact, I consider myself a dive bar guy above all else. I can think of no other bar I’d rather hang out than a joint like Cherry Tavern or B-Side in New York City’s East Village. They’re dingy, concrete floored, beer and a shot type places with great punk rock on the jukebox. My enjoyment for the exquisite hasn’t tempered my like for what Wineriter likely would call “old fashioned” bars.

I’m not working in the bar industry so I can’t adequately assess how craft cocktails are impacting the business of someone like Wineriter. But I would hope that at best it means that every now and then a customer will have a new drink idea or recipe, tasted at a fine cocktail bar, that they want to tell him about while in his bar. At worst, it will mean that Wineriter has to learn a few new tricks to keep customers coming back. I don’t think either of these things are bad and, in the end, I don’t think Wineriter really does either.

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Posted in Blogs, Media, & Advertising, Cocktail Culture

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 12, 2009

Easy Drinks

Derek Brown’s latest post at The Atlantic looks at some very easy cocktails that make for good summer drinking. It’s a good list and I’d like to submit my favorite easy cocktail, which I’d say has more than 1 ingredient.

Untitled Vermouth Cocktail

3 oz Dolin Blanc
2 dashes Regan’s Orange Bitters No. 6
2 dashes Fee Brothers West Indian Orange Bitters

Pour in a crushed-ice-filled rocks glassed and stir a few times.

I love Dolin Blanc. This is about as close as I can get to drinking any vermouth neat. There’s a fairly heavy dose of bitters in this drink, in part because the vermouth is quite sweet. Fortunately the citrus and floral flavors of the vermouth lend themselves well to the citrus-orange bitter. It’s perfect on a hot summer day when you’re looking for something light and refreshing to cool off without putting in too much work.

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Posted in MBH Creations, Vermouth

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 12, 2009

Bernbach to Proof

Fritz Hahn at the Washington Post’s Going Out Gurus blog reports that former Bar Pilar head manager will be starting at Proof this July.

“Honestly, I didn’t leave Pilar for Proof,” Bernbach said today. “I didn’t expect to be back in a restaurant with this speed. But the opportunity presented itself and it seemed like a good fit. I’ve known everyone involved [with Proof] for quite a long time.”

I’ve never been to Proof, though that will obviously change in the foreseeable future.

Hahn asks the question all of Adam’s fans were surely thinking: will he revive the Tuesday Cocktail Sessions at Proof? Bernbach responds:

“There’s the possibility that I will do something along the lines of Cocktail Sessions, or have an omakase menu, but I don’t know what that’s going to be. Honestly, I just want to be involved in a restaurant with a great beverage program.”

I’m sure whatever Adam and the team at Proof decide to do will be great. I’m just happy that he’s found a new home and it’s in DC.

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Posted in Bars

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 10, 2009

A Sweet Union: Bittermens & The Bitter Truth

I know well the moment I fell in love with craft cocktails. Sitting at the bar in Death & Company for the first time over a year and a half ago, I was sipping an old fashioned variation called The Conference. Holding a rocks glass that contained bourbon, rye, cognac, calvados, demerara syrup, angostura bitters and a hunk of ice the size of my fist, I marveled that such an intense recipe could taste so marvelous. What held it all together and made all the difference in the world in terms of how well the cocktail worked was the ingredient that was most unfamiliar to me: Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters. The chocolate flavor worked with the brown spirits and sugar syrup and added just the right complexity to a very boozy cocktail.

When I decided to stop merely visiting fine cocktail bars and learn to make my own drinks, I decided the best way to start would be to learn how to make my favorite drink, The Conference. So I went out and bought bottles of Buffalo Trace Bourbon, Rittenhouse Rye, Courvoisier VSOP, Calvados Morin Selection, and Angostura bitters. Unfortunately when I searched for Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters, I found they weren’t yet for sale; only select bartenders at high-end bars had been given access to them. By visiting Bittermens website, I found that the company was involved in a long-running struggle with the TTB and state level regulatory agencies covering food and alcohol. This resulted in repeated delays in their bitters arrival on the market. As a result, I couldn’t make an authentic version of The Conference (though I was able to get by on the generosity of Adam Bernbach – formerly of Bar Pilar – who gave me a small bottle of his delicious chocolate bitters).

The good news today is that Bittermens is partnering with The Bitter Truth, an incredible bitters company in Germany who makes some of the best craft bitters on the market, to distribute their Xocolatl Mole and Grapefruit bitters. They will be for sale later this month. You can preorder them online today at The Bitter Truth’s online store.

Obviously I’m ecstatic about this development. I’m already anxious to receive my bottle of Xocolatl Mole bitters and, for the first time, make The Conference as Brian Miller intended it.

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Posted in Bitters, Fruit, & Syrups

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 9, 2009

Horin Gekkeikan Sake

I’ve been meaning to get to this for a while, but have been unfortunately busy with other work and neglecting my reviews. I’ve long been a fan of sake, though in the same sort of way that I’m a fan of riesling or anejo tequila – which is to say that while I like it and wish I knew more about it, I’ve never bothered to pursue expertise in it, in part out of the breadth of the subject. Horin Gekkeikan Sake is certainly a bottling that makes me reconsider my hesitance to learn more about this spirit.

According to a bit of light purple paper that accompanies the bottle, Horin Gekkeikan Sake is an ultra premium Junmai Daiginjo. Junmai Daiginjo is the highest level of sake refinement; John Gaunter of Sake World calls it “The pinnacle of the brewers’ art.” The purple tidbit goes on to say:

This sake is made from two select rice varieties cultivated especially for brewing: Yamada-nishiki and Gohyakumangoku. Polished to 50% of its original size, the rice is added with pure underground water and slowly fermented at low temperatures yielding a refreshingly fruity aroma and mild flavor.

This description of Horin as “refreshingly fruity” and of “mild flavor” is about as spot on in terms of taste notes from a spirit’s distributor as I’ve seen with any other product. Horin hits immediately with a nose of fermented rice, lemon, and apple. It’s incredibly light on the palette, with a very smooth taste of apples, citrus, and a hint of honey.

I’m going to hold off on posting a cocktail recipe using this product, as frankly I’m a bit stumped about what I’d want to make with it. I’d previously experimented with using other sake as a base spirit in a cocktail with rye and Domaine de Canton (I called the drink Matanuska), but that experiment scared me off from working with sake and such potent ingredients. There’s a real debate to be had, though, about using a finer sake like Horin in cocktails at all. I don’t think there’s any need to fully prohibit the use of any fine stand-alone ingredient from use in cocktails, so long as the cocktail is well-balanced and an amplification of the spirit’s original value for consumption. Which is to say that there really is no limit to using a spirit like Horin Gekkeikan Sake other than the capacity of me or another bartender to craft good cocktails around it.

I wasn’t able to find anything in my searches around the intertubes for sake cocktail recipes that struck me as intriguing or worthy of republication here. That, to me, sounds like the grounds for a challenge. If I had to guess, I’d immediately pursue cocktails that include fresh citrus juice, small doses of gin, aperitif wines, and perhaps even tinier doses of potable bitters. But we’ll see what I come up with. And if any readers have suggestions for sake cocktails, please leave links or recipes in the comments section.

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Posted in Reviews

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 4, 2009

This Is HUGE

BREAKING NEWS ALERT!!

The Gibson has…wait for it…charcuterie! That’s right, DC’s best fine cocktail bar is finally offering food to its patrons.

I’ll admit, I haven’t been to The Gibson in about a month and a half, so I don’t know exactly when this was added. But even this small addition of food makes The Gibson have even more staying power.

I went last night for some post-work cocktails. Seeing food in the bar, I asked bartender Derek Brown who was serving food (initially I thought it may be coming in from Marvin next door). He handed me a small charcuterie menu that included five kinds of cheese, three varieties of meat, olives, and crackers. The whole ensemble was $30 (we looked at the menu, sans price, and just said “Yes”). But you can order meat or cheese and crackers for $20 or olives for $4. The price is actually a good deal, as the full plate came with large pieces of each cheese and substantial piles of each meat. For two people, we basically had enough food for dinner. And when we were done with the meat and cheese, there were still crackers left over. In short, you’re getting quite a bit of food for your money.

I’m not an expert on cheeses or fine meats, but really enjoyed everything that was included. I meant to take a copy of the menu to post but will have to wait until my next visit for the detailed offering.

As I’ve already said, this is a great thing for The Gibson. It’s a long awaited development and one that will certainly make me more likely to go there even more than I already do.

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Posted in Bars

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 3, 2009

White Sangria

Leblon Cachaca has put together a fun video of two of their brand ambassador bartenders, Naren Young and Jacob Briars, visiting the Union Square farmers market in New York City and crafting some delicious looking white sangria. I’ve always been partial to white sangria, so I wanted to put up the video.

Below is a recipe for white sangria – it’s not the one used in this video, but from another Leblon Cachaca video on white sangria:

Sangria Blanco

3 oz cachaca
3 oz pisco
3 oz St. Germain Elderflower liqueur
1 oz lime juice
6 oz semi-sweet white wine (Riesling)
6 oz white cranberry juice
3 oz soda water

Add ingredients to an ice filled pitcher and stir. Garnish with sliced kiwi, grapes, apple, cucumber, lime wheels, and fresh sage leaves.

I cannot wait to make this up for friends during an afternoon of sunning ourselves on a roofdeck. It just screams summer.

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Posted in Cachaca, Cocktails, St. Germain Elderflower

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 3, 2009

Speakeasies in the NYT

William Grimes of the New York Times has a pretty good, non-condescending write-up on speakeasy culture and the resurgence of bars that give patrons a Prohibition Era ambiance.

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Posted in Blogs, Media, & Advertising

Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 2, 2009

Things You Should Know

I haven’t done much of this sort of posting yet, but it’s an area I want to break into: helping readers learn about how to set up a home bar, decide what spirits to stock in the early going, and what bottlings you should have as an introduction to specific sorts of liquor. Fortunately today there are two posts from other esteemed cocktail bloggers to help neophytes navigate around the important questions of what to stock for their home bar.

Matt at RumDood makes his recommendations for the essentials brands to start out with each major type of rum: white, gold, spiced, and aged. I don’t know of any bloggers whose advice on rum I would take ahead of Matt’s, so I’m happy to pass along his advice of Flor de Cana Extra Dry, Mount Gay Eclipse or Appleton Estate V/X, Sailor Jerry’s Spiced Rum, and Appleton Estate 12 Year Old as the starting points for your rum repertoire.

Marleigh at Sloshed! has an incredibly comprehensive run-down of the essentials for setting up a home bar. Actually comprehensive may not do this post justice. It’s thorough. Exhaustive. Detailed. In-depth. Just go read it already…

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Posted by: Matt Browner Hamlin | June 1, 2009

Bar Closings

In a post at The Atlantic’s food blog, Derek Brown gives a requiem for Bar Pilar’s Tuesday Cocktail Sessions. Not surprisingly, Derek aptly captures what the DC cocktail scene has lost with Adam Bernbahc’s departure from BP.

Derek also writes about the closing of Timberlake’s, a quasi-Irish dive on Connecticut Avenue, that I hadn’t realized had closed. I used to go to Timberlake’s with some regularity when I first lived in DC. It was a common hangout for some of my coworkers and also hosted the District’s Drinking Liberally chapter. I was never that big of a fan of Timberlake’s – it was a pretty generic bar’s bar. Derek’s obituary of it, though, shows that for the folks who called it a regular haunt, it had all the character and charisma of any of my favorite spots.

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Posted in Blogs, Media, & Advertising, Tuesday Cocktail Sessions

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