Jeffrey Morgenthaler

I grew up in California in the 1970s and 1980s. I never really understood water when I was growing up. Water was in the ocean, but you couldn’t drink it because it was too salty. There was water in the garden hose, but that was for hooking up to a sprinkler and playing in. My mother would take water from the tap, but then mix it with instant lemonade powder, or Kool-Aid or something like that. Water wasn’t really something you drank on its own.

It wasn’t until the bottled water craze hit in the late 1980s that I ever considered drinking water – plain water. Because, when you opened up that kitchen faucet in California, you got a nice cold glass of liquid that you couldn’t see through. Liquid that wasn’t colorless, and very possibly might have had little bits of toilet paper floating in it. It didn’t look like something you’d want to put in your mouth.

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If you’re going to be taken halfway across the world to learn about the clarity of Icelandic water, you’re probably going to be shown some of the stuff in its natural state. So at 8 this morning, after a night of dinner and a few Brennevins at one of the many bars near the hotel, Superjeeps picked up this slow-moving pack of fools and whisked us off to the Icelandic wilderness.

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Mostly a photo update today, as I think the pictures speak for themselves and I didn’t bother taking notes at the spa or while eating dinner. Call me crazy.

The car arrived early this morning to pick us up and take us to Heathrow Airport for Iceland. After an unfortunate hour spent on the runway, we were soon up in the air and enjoying a scrumptious lunch of cold chicken and raspberry yogurt.

Landing in Iceland can be a little rough, considering the main export here is weather. But all bumps and bruises aside, the scenery was immediately pretty breathtaking and we were quickly whisked away from the airport to the Blue Lagoon.

Blue Lagoon is a gigantic outdoor spa, with hot water provided by the output of the local geothermal power plant. The waters are rich in minerals and reportedly quite therapeutic to the skin. And a nice hot soak was a pretty ideal way to rinse off a day’s worth of air travel.

Fairly immediately after arriving at the hotel, it was time for an incredible dinner at Sjávarkjallarinn, or Seafood Cellar. This very well might have been one of the best meals I’ve had in my life. Incredible food and brilliant chat.

Today was a very different day than yesterday. Very different.

Yesterday was all about a glamourous cocktail competition, an exquisite dinner in a private salon, and an exclusive tour of some of London’s most luxurious bars. Today was about a wretched hangover, six hours spent in a cramped Peugeot with three other people, driving in the pouring rain, miserable traffic, discovering the hard way that I’m allergic to airborne botanicals in a cold Birmingham distillery storage room, being fed cheese and pickle relish sandwiches from a gas station (twice) and being subjected to some very, very bad singing.

It was also my favorite day of the trip and I’d never give back a single second of it.

Our 8 AM distillery tour time was delayed in typical London fashion by several hours due to the various hangovers, traffic issues, communication problems and breakfast woes that seem to often accompany scheduled events in this city. However, things eventually made their way back on track and I found myself in the seat of that cramped little Peugeot with three of the ladies from Martin Miller’s gin on our way to the distillery in Birmingham.

London doesn’t like to see you leave, however, and makes it as hard as possible to get out of the city. So at a snail’s pace we wove our way through the towns and highways west of London. I was pleased to see that there really is a Slough (from The Office) and that it looks about as lovely as I imagined.

Slough might have been the site of the auto plaza where Martin Miller’s treated me to my first meal of the day: a cold sandwich, cut on the diagonal and encased in one of those triangular plastic sandwich containers we have back in the States. However, unlike the gas station sandwiches back home, the English varieties only come in flavors such as egg salad with smoked fish, chicken with boiled potato, bacon with butter, and aged cheese with pickle chutney. Being the brave soul that I am, yet fearing anything containing convenience store meat, I opted for the cheese and pickles.

And let me tell you, oh-my-god, I have a new favorite sandwich. I am not kidding. Cheese and pickle sandwiches from the BP in Slough are really, really good.

Back on the road, and fortified by our bizarre sandwich selections, we braved another hour of English-style directions (“follow the garden wall until you see the pub with the fox on the door, then turn into Butterbank road”), nonsensical roundabouts and near-misses, until we happened upon the distillery, which was set apart from its other Industrial Revolution-era brick neighbors by a small sign in block letters that read “Alcohols”.

This is the home of Alcohols, LTD, and is where Martin Miller’s gin is made,

We were greeted by Peter McKay, and Master Distiller Rob Dorset and given a brief introduction to the company. Alcohols, Ltd. is owned by W.H. Palmer, a family-owned firm that is 203 years old. This particular site has been part of the family since the 1970s, but the buildings themselves are the remains of what used to be a brewery in the 1700s. It was sometime during the Seventies that a still was discovered on site, and the English being the English, they started making gin here.

Over the years, more stills were added and additional contract accounts were added (Peter wouldn’t tell me the names of any other gins that are produced there, such information is held pretty close to the vest). Martin Miller’s Gin has been produced here for nearly ten years.

Each still is given a female name, and each is cared for with a great amount of love and respectful attention. The still that makes Martin Miller’s Gin is named Angela, she’s 105 years old and has a 3,000 liter capacity. Angela’s neck is handcrafted from a single thick sheet of copper, and Rob went on at great length to me about his refusal to use metal polish on any of the stills or brass fittings around the distillery, as he worries it would disrupt the integrity of these special, antique stills.

Each of these old stills has their own particular quirks and needs, and Rob seems to have formed a very personal attachment with each and every one over the course of his 27 years making gin. Rob is a dying breed in England: a master distiller that does everything by hand and nose, never aided by a computer but always by an assistant who will one day become a master craftsman like him. Together they inspect the arrivals of neutral spirits by climbing atop the tanker truck and smelling its insides. They run their hands, eyes and noses through the bags of botanicals that arrive, and weigh them on a big analog scale before they’re loaded to soak in the still over the course of 24 hours before being distilled (Miller’s is not made with the Carterhead process, and they’re very adamant about it).

Everything is so accessible, and analog, and personal here. We were able to reach into the bags, smell and taste the botanicals, taste the neutral spirits made from genetically unmodified wheat, and feel the thickness of the still walls with our hands. It’s a hands-on process, and not a product cranked out by a giant machine. It’s a really beautiful thing to be surrounded by.

As I mentioned before, the site was originally a brewery back in the days of the Industrial Revolution. Breweries were special back then, because they were very location-specific: you had to have access to clean, fresh running water. So as you’d expect, this site is sitting on top of an underground river, one we were allowed to inspect only by first crawling down a very cramped, rickety ladder into something resembling a cold, damp cave with a little creek running through it. This water helps provide steam power to fuel the distillery, but due to its high concentration of metals and minerals isn’t the water they use to cut the gin. No, we’ll have to wait for the second part of that story, which takes place on a glacier in Iceland later this weekend.

At any rate, the day was growing long and we’d taken up more than plenty of Rob’s time with our curious questions and open-mouthed fascination, so London was calling us home. And so, with another three hours of traffic jams and torrential downpours, a second round of cheese and pickle sandwiches and a very strange bag of potato chips that resembled fried calamari, we finally made it home to London and collapsed. A terrible, beautiful, exhausting and energizing day.

I’m on my way to Iceland as I write this, so stay tuned for more in the story of how Martin Miller’s gin is made. And thanks for reading.

“You’re in for a real treat tonight.” That came from Liam Davies late in the afternoon as we snuck out back for a nip before the festivities began. In retrospect, I’m not sure if he was referring to the very formal dinner upstairs at Miller’s Academy, expertly prepared by Fifteen alum Harry Cummins, or if it was to be the tour of London’s upper echelon of bars until the wee hours.

Either way, he hit the nail right on the head.

First was an exquisite meal that got off to a proper start with some Westbourne martinis (I hope I’m not ruined for gin after this trip), wine of course, and a salad of roasted beets and the finest ricotta cheese I’ve ever tried. Next up was a Welsh lamb tenderloin and some fantastic conversation with the rest of the Americans, who had only today showed up to join in on the fun.

While the real highlight of the night should have been getting the call that my bag had finally arrived and I’d be allowed to excuse myself pre-dessert to at long last slip into some clean clothes, that historic event was actually overshadowed by what was to come next.

First we enjoyed a delightful London evening stroll through Notting Hill to Trailer Happiness. I’d been wanting to experience the fun, campy vibe and the masterfully-prepared Tiki-inspired cocktails of Trailer H for a long, long time. Bartender Tim Stone didn’t disappoint me with a more-than-perfect rendition of a classic Mai Tai. The only disappointment is that given their posh neighborhood surroundings, Trailer closes at 11 PM.

So we wandered down the road to Jake Burger’s newest venture, the Portobello Star, where we would eventually stumble back upon the UK’s most famous cocktail blogger, Jay Hepburn. Jake was behind the bar, slinging up some classic White Ladies, brilliant blender-less Piña Coladas, and a beautiful classic Daiquiri made with El Dorado 15 year old rum. At this point, things are starting to look up, the crowd is energized, and we’re ready to see what else London can throw at us.

So we high-tailed it to Quo Vadis, SoHo’s latest and most decadent private club. One of my new favorite bartenders, Paul Mant gave us the full tour, whipped up a quick Cava-spiked creation, and demonstrated the coolest little machine I’ve seen in a long time, a non-motorized, non-electrical brass ice-baller that uses gravity to punch out the perfect ice ball in seconds. The crowd stood around and watched, agape.

If you’re going to roll, I highly recommend rolling with the team from Martin Miller’s. One quick phone call later, and we were all set up with a table at Milk and Honey (not always something the average human can do on such short notice, I’ve heard tell) and it was on. Soon Pisco Punches, Old Fashioneds, Brambles and other worldly delights were finding their way to our table as the bartenders took over one side of the booth and argued the delicate intricacies of the craft cocktail movement and the merit of the enthusiasts’ contributions to the bar renaissance.

That’s a lot of heavy drinks and dialogue to digest in one night (I can’t believe I’m leaving for Iceland tomorrow) so it was Bedtime for Bonzo to catch a quick bit of beauty rest before leaving in the morning to take in the distillery, two hours away in Birmingham.

More to come, friends, stay with me!

Sometimes the best laid plans don’t always work out. What we had originally intended was to show up in London and try to – at the very least – make a favorable impression on fifteen of the best bartenders in the UK. By the end of the night, we were hoping not to make fools of ourselves and escape with our reputations intact.

Jon Santer and I came to London with bags packed full of neat tricks. Jon was going to carbonate some Negronis with a homemade apparatus, all gauges and hoses and valves and whatnot. I packed a bottle of homemade lemongrass tonic syrup and a batch of orange bitters I’d been aging in a Madeira cask for four months prior.

But whether it was fate or irony, the airlines didn’t want to cooperate. For obvious reasons, Jon wasn’t going to be allowed to ship a full steel tank of carbon dioxide underneath the plane, and British Airways lost my bags altogether.

So we ended up upstairs in Simon Difford’s kitchen, Jon whipping up a batch of raw ginger syrup for his take on a Gin-Gin Mule, me cooking down albariño for some East of Edens before we headed down to the Cabinet Room to put our already-fatigued skills to the test.

The crowd seemed accepting of our offerings (you’ve got to love the English – even if they didn’t like the drinks, they were damned polite about it) and soon the party was in full swing. I’ll need to come back with a full listing of the London (and yes, Brighton too, Jason) cocktail luminaries in the comments section, but rest assured that we were surrounded by the best in the country.

There were well over two hundred combined years of bartending experience in the room, we figured, as we watched bartender after bartender climb back behind the bar and try to one-up the previous participant.

But here’s the rub, dear reader. Maybe we’re all just a jaded lot. Maybe we’ve all had so many perfectly-balanced margaritas, crystal-clear Manhattans, proper Sidecars and original-recipe Mai Tais that we’re no longer amused with a proper drink. Whatever the reason, I was shocked to discover that the one drink that inspired the most dialogue, the drink that got Ben Reed behind the bar for the first time in years, the drink that was passed around again and again?

The Jägerita. A margarita made with Jägermeister.

Sometimes bartenders just want to have a good time. Cheers.

And thank you for having us, Simon. I had an incredible time and hope we didn’t leave too much of a mess.

The driver that picked me up at Heathrow almost didn’t find the place. I definitely didn’t see it, but after nit-picking through the library of buildings packed together on Westbourne Grove it suddenly appeared to us, like something out a Harry Potter tale. Ten feet wide and six stories tall, Miller’s Residence is packed to the rafters with a display of antiques amassed by lifelong collector Martin Miller.

On my bed, I found a note:

To the uninitiated, this is an intimate 18th century style boutique hotel nestled in the heart of London that will transport you into the romance of a bygone era. Here you will see for yourself the sumptuous antique furnishings and exquisite decoration that belie my fascination with the past. The hotel is the essence of a welcoming private residence and I am confident that your stay will be a comfortable and interesting one.

My room is on the very top floor, overlooking Notting Hill. I’m surrounded by antique plates, etchings of fox hunts, and layers of rich embroidery and tapestry. There are also framed political cartoons and a picture of Jerry Hall.

Some delight in calling me an eccentric but I rather like to think of myself as more of a traditionalist in most things. The wonderful thing about tradition is that it exists to be subverted and this is what I have done in the creation of my Martin Miller’s Gin.

I can already tell that this is going to be a most interesting trip.

I don’t know how food writers do it. Talking with Andrew tonight, he told us about their last-minute pairing dinners and the challenges of putting together an article the night before the Washington Post’s due date.

And so here I am, trying to write a simple blog post after six courses, complete with wine pairings and an after-dinner sampling of Blue Gin graciously brought to me by Matt Lanning and Chris Bailey.

(If you don’t know what dinner I’m talking about, hear me gush here.)

Anyway, I’m going to shoot off-the-cuff and put this thing out, grammar and prose be damned. Here’s my play-by-play of the dinner at Marché tonight.

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