Jeffrey Morgenthaler

This appalling affront to the craft that so many of us have worked hard trying to restore over the past fifteen-plus years has been making the rounds on Twitter, but I thought I’d share it here with all of you. Browse at your own risk, my advice is to keep a bucket handy.

Oscar Party Cocktails! 10 Tipples Inspired By the Best Picture Nominees – ”Semi-Homemade” star Sandra Lee shakes up some tantalizing recipes to help you toast your favorite contenders.

Some highlights:

1. The Avatar: “…the citrus vodka honors that beautiful tree of life.” – I’m not sure how citrus vodka honors much of anything other than a can of Red Bull.

2. The Blind Side: “When her son wins the football game, God bless, she gets to go home and have her cocktail.” – With a whopping 2¼ ounces of half-and-half on top of that Irish Cream, you’ll look like Sandra Bullock in no time.

3. District 9: ”Like the movie, this drink is a little gritty.” – Enough said.

4. An Education: “Grand Marnier is sophisticated and it kind of goes with the theme of the art galleries and the different places that he took her that really wooed her.” – I don’t know what the Blueberry Smirnoff is a reference to, but I’m guessing it’s underage drinking.

5. The Hurt Locker: – “I did not see this movie — but I saw all of the big bombs and the car blow-ups.” – As someone who creates cocktails from time to time, I’m not sure I’d want to admit this to the people writing my check.

6. A Serious Man: “With a little bit of bitters and some pineapple juice to top it off, this is a beautiful, masculine drink. Or a very sexy woman’s drink.” – Either, or. You pick.

7. Up in the Air: “There are so many jobless people right now that I should come up with a cocktail to suit them. But this [is a drink] for George Clooney.” – I should really… enh, fuck it. Here, George Clooney, drink this.

8. Precious: “There’s so much abuse and violence in this movie. I think that any adult who watches that movie should have a cocktail.” – You know what dulls the pain of watching a young girl being abused on your 52″ flat-screen TV? A Chi-Chi with a squeeze of lime.

9. Up: ”The half-and-half and the milk are supposed to represent the beautiful fluffy clouds and the sky.” – If you haven’t started dry-heaving at the thought of two types of dairy products shaken with Sambuca and Tanqueray gin at this point, my hat is off to you.

10. Inglourious Basterds: “The garnish is not very guy-y. But the gin definitely makes this a guy’s drink.” – The only reasonable drink in the lot, a modified Negroni with a splash of orange juice, smudged by the term ‘guy-y’. If anyone needs me, I’ll be cutting my genitalia off with a rusty steak knife and burning my website to the ground.

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To get to the town of Cognac, France, you have to fly into the airport at Bordeaux, nearly two hours south. You spend a good hour on the freeway, which looks pretty much like any freeway in the world, until eventually you see an exit marked “Cognac”. You then make your way from the main artery, away from the large billboards, away from the big trucks, and slowly the usual trappings of a big, busy road are replaced with things like vineyards and the small houses that dot hills that were previously unnoticeable.

The road winds through little collections of buildings almost too small to be called villages, taking a hard left here and a ninety-degree right there, following the signs to Cognac. Soon you crest a hill, large-ish for the area, and sprawled out in the tiny valley below is the town itself. At night, from above, the lights help register this as a populated area, but during the day the stone buildings blend in almost imperceptibly with the color palate of the surrounding landscape.

My journey to Cognac began, oddly enough, with a visit to a gin distillery. Just a few minutes southwest of central Cognac is the G’Vine gin distillery in Merpins. And this was a perfect beginning to my journey into the flavor of Cognac, because G’Vine gin and Cognac brandy are made from the same grape.

Ugni Blanc is one of the more prolific white grapes in Europe, often blended with others in its family to make, well, usually pretty unremarkable wines. In Italy, the grape is known as Trebbiano and accounts for a large part of the blended white wine produced there, and a lot of it is fine stuff. But in France, the grape doesn’t take quite as well and is primarily used either for blending, or for the production of Cognac.

G’Vine uses Ugni Blanc as a spirit base (much like Ciroc vodka, which is made at the same distillery), but then they also take the plant’s flowers and soak them in the neutral spirit before adding the other usual gin botanicals to the mix. The effect of this floral soak in the finished product is a richer mouthfeel, a young floral fruit component, and a slightly peppery edge to the gin. But the spirit, when tasted after the flowers are added and before the gin botanicals are soaked, well that’s just a pure expression of the flavor of the grape. And I have to admit, it’s absolutely finish-your-sample-glass divine.

Armed with the raw flavors of the Ugni Blanc grape still dancing on my tongue, I made my way to the Pierre Ferrand estate in Segonzac, southeast of the town of Cognac, to further my education of Cognac and the pervasive Ugni Blanc grape. It was there in the main distilling room, buried under the weight of little sleep and the humidity and dull hum imparted by nearly a dozen Charentais stills, that I first tasted the brouillis, the first run-off of the still at around 30% ABV (alcohol by volume) that will – after a secondary distillation – become Cognac.

The brouillis is cloudy, rich, and full of that huge, fruity, floral Ugni Blanc flavor I’d discovered at G’Vine only hours prior. This is the white dog of Cognac, and I think it’s the best way to discover what a Cognac is destined to become. Ferrand runs their first distillation on the lees, which means that rather than filter the yeast out of the wine used to distill the brandy, they leave it in, which results in an added layer of richness, freshness, complexity and depth to the final product.

The second distillation at approximately 70% ABV is what ultimately lands into the barrels, either Limousin or Tronçais oak barrels, or both. The wider grain of the Limousin oak lends a softness and an oak expression that doesn’t come as easily from the tighter-grained Tronçais. But regardless of the oak used, one could say that aging is what puts the finesse into Cognac – or any other aged spirit.

The process is simple, and somewhat strange. Put simply: take a bunch of new spirit, straight from the second run of the still (where the “heart” of the distillate is captured) and let it sit until it’s done; two years for VS, four for VSOP, and six for XO or Napoleon. The strangeness is the little ecosystem that thrives in the aging cellars; you see, there is a loss due to evaporation that Cognac endures at the rate of about 3% per year, known lyrically as “the angel’s share”. This evaporation inside the cave feeds a black mold found only in Cognaçais cellars; it very literally exists because of the Cognac fumes. Tucked up into that mold are centuries worth of spiders’ nests, which are left to further scary-up the cellars because the spiders will in turn eat their favorite meal: a type of worm that feeds on oak barrels. Left unchecked, the worms would devour the barrels and expose the Cognac. However, thanks to the microsystem inside the cellar, the worms are harvested by the spiders and the Cognac is safe, resting comfortably for up to (but generally no longer than) 55-70 years in its gently-toasted French oak chamber.

Overseeing much of this process is the BNIC, the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac – my hosts for the week. Born out the Ministry of Agriculture in 1946, the BNIC is the governing body that handles all things Cognac – from protecting the A.O.C., to regulating the labeling (VS, VSOP, XO, etc.) practices, to working with the growers, winemakers, distillers, blenders and bottlers from the first step of the process through the last.

The BNIC also orchestrates the event that the sixty of us bartenders and journalists traveled from all over the Western world to participate in, the International Cognac Summit. For four long days, we studied, tasted, toured and created cocktails using Cognac. I was truly privileged to be included in this lineup of some of the greatest minds in the industry, and am even happier to have a new-found appreciation for a spirit that, quite frankly, I always found to be enshrouded in mystery.

So as I boarded that bus for the last time and slowly made my way back to Bordeaux on the last day of the Summit, I peered out the window and watched the sun slowly make its way down below the vine-covered hills, my eyes scanning everything they could before we rediscovered the soulless highway that signaled the end of a rewarding and eye-opening trip.

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If there’s one thing I hate about living in the Pacific Northwest, it’s the stretch of time from late October until late June, when the sun makes only the most occasional of appearances. I typically pack on an extra 10-15 pounds during those rainy months, party due to over-consumption of wintertime drinks like dark beer, egg nog, hot-buttered-anything and wassail. I wanted a drink for the winter that I could add to my cocktail menu that was more like the light, café-style cocktails I typically gravitate to during the summer.

Jerry Thomas prescribed a drink called “sangaree” that, to the best of our knowledge was a colonial adaptation of the Spanish “sangria”. The recipe, which calls for anywhere from 1½ to 4 ounces of port, Madeira, gin or brandy dolled up with sugar and dusted with nutmeg in a glass sounded less than exciting to me, but the challenge of updating this old chestnut sounded like a fun January task.

We began with ruby and tawny ports but found both way too sweet. White port got us much closer to our target, but it wasn’t until a healthy dose of dry vermouth was applied that we knew we were on to something. To provide additional depth and hint at the drink’s colonial origins we sweetened with a maple-nutmeg syrup and finished the whole thing off with a teaspoon of allspice liqueur and orange oil.

The Dry Vermouth Sangaree

3 oz dry vermouth
½ oz maple-nutmeg syrup*
1 tsp St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
1 large strip orange peel

Shake everything – yes, even the orange peel – with ice until well-chilled and strain into a cold cocktail glass. Garnish with a fresh strip of orange peel.

*To make maple-nutmeg syrup, combine 8 ounces each of Grade B maple syrup and water, and 1 tbsp freshly-grated nutmeg. Simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Let cool, strain out solids, bottle and chill.

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While this is a topic that has been covered by pretty much every cocktail blog under the sun, I haven’t yet written about it. Why? Well, for one, I’m lazy and never got around to it. But after having made various versions of grenadine for years at my bars and after doing a little research on the web recently, I’ve wondered if the topic of homemade grenadine couldn’t use a little revisit.

There are a few key problems with a lot of the house-made grenadines out there. The first issue you can see immediately: the color is all wrong. Grenadine isn’t brown, and the good stuff, the real grenadine won’t make your El Presidente look like mud. Grenadine also isn’t pale pink, and it shouldn’t turn your Jack Rose grey. Grenadine is a vibrant shade of magenta, a rich syrup that brightens every cocktail it touches with its sweet, slightly tart, beautifully bright, rich, deep and lightly floral flavors.

A lot of grenadines call for an inordinate amount of work for very little payoff. This recipe is going to take you all of five minutes to prepare and – I promise you – will taste better than anything else you can buy in the stores. Because if there are two things you really need to know about me, it’s the following: I’m lazy and I like stuff that tastes good.

Some recipes are going to tell you you need to remove each individual seed from the pomegranate (a long, painful and finger-stainingly messy process) and either simmer them in water over heat or steep them in water overnight to extract the juice. I’ll tell you what, you want to extract the juice from a pomegranate? Do what I do: cut that puppy open like a grapefruit and press it with your juicer. Done and done. And the resulting juice is far more intense and flavorful than anything you’re going to get from those other methods that employ a bunch of water, believe me.

So now that you’ve got a bunch of fresh pomegranate juice – each full fruit should yield approximately one cup of juice – it’s time to turn it into grenadine. Many of the recipes you’ll see out there are going to tell you to boil the juice until it’s reduced by half, under the guise of concentrating the rich, fresh flavor of the pomegranate. I find this to be an unnecessary, time-consuming process that results in an end product that’s about as delicious as boiled orange juice. My solution is to heat the juice just enough to melt sugar, well below the point of boiling. You’ll still retain the fresh flavor of the pomegranate without having to do all the work of a cold-process grenadine, an ordeal that requires ten minutes of shaking until the sugar is dissolved.

You can do this in a small saucepan, but I just throw it in the microwave for a minute or two, because that’s exactly what microwaves are good for.

Heat your juice up and stir in an equal amount of unbleached sugar. I start with two cups of juice and dissolve two cups of sugar into it, stirring until the mixture is clear. Now what you’ve got is a pomegranate syrup, but not quite yet grenadine. The next step will add the depth of flavor you’re looking for, and for this you’re going to need to make a trip to your local Mediterranean or Latin American market for pomegranate molasses and orange blossom water. I add two ounces of the molasses and a teaspoon of the orange blossom water to my warm mix and stir again until everything is dissolved.

The only step left is to add one ounce of vodka – if you like – this is an optional preservative. If you’re not planning on using your grenadine pretty quickly, like over the span of a month, then add it. But if you’re serving it in a bar and plan on going through it pretty quickly, like I do, then you can just skip it.

Grenadine

2 cups fresh pomegranate juice (approximately two large pomegranates) or POM Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice
2 cups unbleached sugar
2 oz pomegranate molasses
1 tsp orange blossom water

Heat juice slightly, just enough to allow other ingredients to dissolve easily. Stir in remaining ingredients, allow to cool, and bottle.

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For many years before this whole cocktail thing really took off, I worked in dive bars. Really crappy dive bars where people would visit – often nightly – for what appeared to be the sole purpose of getting very, very drunk. These bars were loud, they were obnoxious, and at times they could be very dangerous.

We could cut people off as an act of self-preservation. Sometimes it was because we didn’t want to fined by the state liquor control board. Sometimes it was because we didn’t want a particularly drunk patron scaring away other, big-spending customers. And sometimes it was because we were genuinely concerned for our safety.

Which could backfire. I remember one night in college when, after refusing to serve an especially drunk redneck, he announced, “I’m getting in my truck, going home, grabbing my shotgun, and coming back here to blow your head off.” I locked the door and called the cops, who greeted him outside the bar about a half hour later.

And there came a breaking point, when I didn’t want to do that anymore. So I made the conscious decision to try to get jobs in better bars, where people didn’t behave like that as much. Which might be why you’re reading this now, because I devoted myself to learning how to make good drinks and do something more than sling cheap beer and cut people off. Starting this website was part of that process.

But just because now I’m charging eight bucks for a drink doesn’t mean that I’ve found a magic clientele paradise where everyone orders expensive cocktails and nobody gets drunk. It does mean, however, that I’ve had to take a different attitude to service that doesn’t include drawing a line across my throat with my forefinger to indicate that a guest was no longer allowed access to the alcohol.

But as I was trying to illustrate with my earlier story, telling someone “No more” can lead to an uncomfortable situation. So that’s why I now try to approach the denial of alcohol from a hospitality-centric perspective: I’m the one who helped get you into this mess, and now I’m going to be the one who helps you get out of it – a bartender in every sense of the word.

So you have to inform your guest that you can’t serve them any more liquor. It’s a delicate situation, but the most crucial part of the rest of your time together. There are a few points that you need to convey:

1. You’re not comfortable serving them any more alcohol. This is important because it places the weight of the decision on you. Why are you uncomfortable? Because you’re concerned about their safety. Because you want to make sure they get home safely. Because they’re your guest and you genuinely care about the direction the rest of their night takes.
2. You want your guest to continue enjoying their time at your bar. Offer them a coffee, offer them water, and if you can swing it, some food from the kitchen on the house. It makes such a big difference and shows that you actually care about their time spent at your bar.
3. You want them to come back. It’s embarrassing to get cut off at a bar, it makes you reconsider visiting again. I like to tell people that their first drink on their next visit will be on me. It’s a hospitable way of saying, “This isn’t a personal issue, and I look forward to spending more time with you in the future.”
4. You need them to get home safely. Offer to pay for a taxi home. Help find a ride from a sober friend. I’ve even known bartenders who have personally driven people home while the other bartender covered the bar in their absence. This is the very definition of hospitality.

This is merely a primer and my hope is that all of you will chime in to the comments section and share your thoughts on how best to handle a delicate situation. Personally, I plan on not getting to the point of being cut off this Repeal Day, but if I do, I hope I’m in the competent hands of a caring bartender at the time.

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Wow, I apparently thought it was still late-October or something, because it came as a complete surprise to me today that my favorite drinking holiday in the whole world is next weekend. I guess that between keeping my nose to the grindstone at work and traveling extensively lately, it was bound to happen. Then I found this email in my inbox:

Jeff,

What do you have in store for Repeal Day? It’s only 2 weeks away and you’ve been as quiet as a church mouse!

All the Best,

Kris

Gulp. Well, Kris, I’ll tell you. But first, a short primer for those who might not know what Repeal Day is all about. A few years ago, I wrote a piece on this website urging people to embrace a new celebratory holiday: the day Prohibition was repealed, December Fifth. It was something I’d been celebrating in my bars for years, but just threw up onto my blog for a lark. Well, the Internet went for it in a big way and suddenly people were taking Repeal Day seriously.

And so, to answer Kris’ question, I’m headed back to Washington, D.C. for the nation’s largest, most boisterous, celebration’est Repeal Day party, hosted by the DC Craft Bartenders Guild. Here’s what they themselves have to say about the shindig:

“The DC Craft Bartender’s Guild (DCCBG) is holding the Second Annual Repeal Day Ball on December 5th from 9 P.M. to midnight, celebrating the 76th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Attendees will enjoy craft cocktails from the city and country’s best mixologists and food from renowned chef Peter Smith while dancing along to the Prohibition-era sounds of the Red Hot Rhythm Chiefs. The ball is black tie and will be held at PS7’s restaurant at 777 Eye Street, NW.

This year’s ball location is across from historic Calvary Baptist Church, the first national convention site of the Anti-Saloon League, which launched the legislative agenda for Prohibition. Of course, the DCCBG is pleased to announce our own agenda–to have fun! We will celebrate our freedom in style and have dubbed this year the “Spirit of 76” to commemorate the freedom to drink as adults, featuring our “Founding Drinkers” dressed as the founding fathers.

Come celebrate too with cocktail creations from local favorites Gina Chersevani, Derek Brown and Todd Thrasher, to name a few, along with special guests–bartending legend Dale DeGroff, nationally-renowned bartender Tad Carducci, and toastmaster Jeffrey Morgenthaler. We will also feature top spirit brands and a special rum and cigar lounge.

Tickets are $100 for general admission ($150 for VIP) and can be purchased online at www.dccraftbartendersguild.org. A portion of the final proceeds will go to benefit the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans.

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Well, folks, it’s time of year again. I repost this recipe every year because I’m a man on a mission. You see, I love egg nog, but I can’t stand the thick, gelatinous goop they sell at the grocery store. Even if you were to cut it with alcohol, it’s still so overly-pasteurized and full of preservatives that it would be anything but enjoyable to slug down at a Christmas party. So a few years ago, I set about concocting the simplest, tastiest Egg Nog recipe I could, and after many trials and errors, here’s what I came up with.

In terms of cocktail history, Egg Nog is nothing more than a brandy or rum (or both) flip made with the addition of cream or milk. The 1862 Bar-Tender’s Guide by Jerry Thomas calls for a nog made up of a tablespoon of bar sugar, a tablespoon of water, a whole egg, cognac, rum and milk, shaken and strained, with some nutmeg grated on top. The problem I have with Thomas’ recipe is all the extra water that comes from the melting of the ice, not to mention that extra half ounce he calls for. Watery egg nog, anyone? Yeah, no thanks.

So I did a lot of research, in cookbooks and on the web, and tried a bunch of different recipes and methods. Some called for cooking the eggs into sort of a custard, but that’s a heck of a lot of work and results in something that can only be described as thick glop. Others required separating the eggs, beating them independently, and folding them together. But again, it’s too thick and I’m too lazy.

This is the recipe I devised. It can be made in just about any home or bar, since the ingredients are fairly simple. It can be done entirely in a blender, so there are no whisks or beaters or rubber spatulas or stovetops needed. It yields two healthy servings, so you can easily multiply it to serve more. It doesn’t use a ton of heavy cream, so it’s fairly light. In other words, it’s practically perfect.

2 large eggs
3 oz (by volume) granulated sugar
½ tsp freshly-grated nutmeg
2 oz brandy
2 oz spiced rum (I use Sailor Jerry’s)
6 oz whole milk
4 oz heavy cream

Beat eggs in blender for one minute on medium speed. Slowly add sugar and blend for one additional minute. With blender still running, add nutmeg, brandy, rum, milk and cream until combined. Chill thoroughly to allow flavors to combine and serve in chilled wine glasses or champagne coupes, grating additional nutmeg on top immediately before serving.

One note about blenders. This recipe works great in home blenders, but the commercial models are designed to heat whatever they’re blending, which can result in scrambled eggs by the time you get around to the sugar. If you’re using a Vita-Mix or similar commercial blender, cut that initial blend time down to a quarter minute or so.

Enjoy!

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I’m back from Europe and getting ready for Art of the Cocktail next weekend. No, I’m not talking about the book by Philip Collins. Nor am I talking about this blog by Darcy O’Neil. I’m also not referring to Anthony Caporale’s long-running video series.

No, this Art of the Cocktail is a new cocktail-centric event in Victoria, British Columbia. Distillery ambassadors, representatives and lounges will be offering tastes of their products or creating sophisticated cocktails for sampling. Wander around the Tasting Room sampling the cocktails that appeal to you while catching tips from mixologists (I guess this is where I come in), authors and reps. Take in ongoing demonstrations on the side stage that will run throughout the Tastings. One-dollar-each tasting tickets may be purchased on the website and are only available in advance – no tickets will be available at the door.

I’ll be there teaching you how to make your own cocktail mixers like ginger beer and tonic water in person, so if you’re in the Pacific Northwest please do stop by what promises to be a great event. Oh, and I’d be remiss not to mention the immense involvement in this event by the hardest working bartender in the business, Mr. Shawn Soole. Try to watch this video of my friend Shawn, if you can get past the fake English accent:

See you at the show.

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