Jeffrey Morgenthaler


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The Kingston Club

One advantage I have in my career – and believe me, I thank my lucky stars every day for my good fortune in this regard – is that I travel a lot. And when I do travel, I get to visit the greatest bars in the world and spend time picking the brains of the world’s greatest bartenders.

The most recent drink to grace our cocktail list is the result of my travels.

Taking inspiration from many sources, my initial interest in bitter, sour and sweet with a distinctly tropical bent was taken directly from the ever-brilliant Giuseppe Gonzalez and his now-famous Trinidad Sour.

While I, and the rest of the world, was taken by the combination of bitter, herbal, sweet flavors, it never really struck me as a an extensible sort of drink style until I came across Andrew Bohrer’s amaro-based Mai Tai variation called the “Elena’s Virtue”. Now here was a drink with legs, and a hint of what was to come in the world of cocktails, in my humble opinion.

But what New York and Seattle do well, San Francisco often does better, and usually with a lot more Fernet Branca, and that’s the conversation I had with Josh Harris while competing in the Domaine de Canton finals in St. Maarten this spring. And after tasting his simple concoction of ginger liqueur, pineapple and Fernet Branca I knew it was time for me to get my feet wet and try my hand at the herbal tropical sour.

The result has been a smash hit at the bar, as it very much follows in the style of our restaurant bar, a reflection of the crafted European style of cooking that emerges from the kitchen on a nightly basis. In other words, earthy, sour, herbal flavors do very, very well where we work.

Put all of this together, throw in a desire to explore the dusty, neglected bottle of Drambuie, and an early morning racking one’s brain to come up with a drink name (the original intent was Brixton Club) and a star was born:

Kingston Club

1½ oz Drambuie
1½ oz pineapple juice
¾ oz lime juice
1 tsp Fernet Branca
3 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake ingredients with ice and finish with 1 oz soda water. Strain mix over fresh ice into a chilled collins glass and garnish with an orange twist.

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About Me

My name is Jeff Morgenthaler and I'm the head bartender at Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon.

A photo of me behind the bar.

I've been tending bar since 1996 and writing about it since 2004. Mixing drinks has become something of a passion for me in recent years, and I strive to elevate the experience of having a drink from something mundane to something more culinary.

The writing I do here is intended as a work in progress. My recipes are like my opinions: they are constantly being revised and refined as I work them through my mind and my fingers. Comments and participation are encouraged, so please don't feel the need to tread lightly here.

2007

Those Other Drink Bloggers Get to Have All the Fun

Monday, July 30th, 2007
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For the past few months, I had my heart set on attending Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. However, after weeks of painful deliberation, the Girl and I decided to stay home and focus on domestic matters. So I sent out my heartfelt regrets to all of my so-called friends and told them I would see them next year.

End of story, right? Wrong.

Okay, so do you remember that time you broke your ankle right before the big pool party in high school and you had to stay home, and the phone was ringing off the hook all night with people being all like, “Where are you, we’re having so much fun here drinking and partying without you!” and you were all, like, “Thanks for calling.” Well, it was like that.

Click here to continue reading »

13 Comments

Mixology Monday: The Bramble

Monday, July 16th, 2007
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mm-17.gifGreetings, and happy Mixology Monday! Paul over at Cocktail Chronicles is hosting this month’s get-together, and the theme is Blog Love. Yikes, what a name, huh?

But it’s a great idea: we’re all going to try out recipes that we’ve seen on each other’s sites, and report on our findings.

Because we’re bloggers.
And we have love.
Blog love.

Got it?

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1 Comment

Dirty, Dirty Sue

Friday, July 13th, 2007
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If you’ve been reading this website for a while, you probably know that I spout the virtues of fresh ingredients and encourage people to eschew the use of pre-made drink mixes.

So, I was a little taken aback when I received a package containing two bottles of Dirty Sue Dirty Martini Mix in the mail this week.

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6 Comments

How to Make Sexy European Mojito Drink

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007
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The mojito education bus keeps on rollin’ on over here. Thanks to Joe Bartender for finding this brilliant (read: boobalicious) instructional video embedded below:

To recap, here’s the recipe:

1. Pick some mint for your mojito. Wink!
2. Put some ice like America.
3. Split half of the cup to half of the cup (to each glass the mixture).
4. Use “one part” of Bacardi rum.
5. Put “three parts” of club soda.
6. Make some lemon on side of glass.
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Enjoy!

And don’t forget to see another great instructional video here.

13 Comments

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Thursday, July 5th, 2007
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Jeffrey Morgenthaler | Mojito

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blogspot_current-cover.jpgMy friend Paul Clarke just published a fantastic article about bartenders making their own liqueurs in the latest Imbibe magazine, and El Vaquero has the honor of representing falernum.

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31 Comments

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Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
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Over the past few weeks, my friend Darcy over at The Art of Drink has helped lash together the rafts and bring together the best in spirit and cocktail writers (for some reason he felt I could be included in that category) and create a new form of advertising superpower: the Spirit and Cocktail Ad Network.

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