Jeffrey Morgenthaler

Since I was deep in the thick of competition and couldn’t take notes, I enlisted the services of Portland, Oregon food writer Ms. Lizzy Caston. Following is her report.

What does a group of creative bartenders do with bags full of promotional alcohol samples, mixers and condiments? Hold a contest to determine who can make the best drink using nothing but the swag handed out at Tales of the Cocktail.

Welcome to Swag Off ’08.

In true rogue spirit, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, Daniel Shoemaker from the Teardrop Lounge in Portland, Oregon and Eric Adkins from the Slanted Door in San Francisco met Friday night on the roof the Monteleone Hotel by moonlight, in what is sure to become a legendary annual event.

The rules were simple. Gather together a group of three judges; in this case Keith Waldbauer, bartender at Union in Seattle and author of Moving at the Speed of Life, Lauren Clark from Drink Boston and Misty from LUPEC http://lupecboston.blogspot.com/. The lovely and vivacious Liquid Muse, Natalie Bovis-Nelson agreed to MC.

Ingredients included a hodge-podge of liquors not limited to airplane sized bottles of Bluecoat Dry Gin, G’Vine French Grape Gin, Pearl Vodka, St. Germain Elderflower liqueur, Veev Acai Spirit, Poli Grappa and the most prominent swag at Tales this year: Canton French Ginger Liquor.

Yikes.

In lesser hands these drinks could have been small disasters, yet each contestant showed skill, inventiveness and their own personal touches. Jeff’s strategy was to, “take one of everything on the table and mix it together” in a technique reminiscent of a savant teenage mixologist at a house party. Eric on the other hand, took the molecular cocktail approach by smoking an inverted drinking glass over a Navan liqueur vanilla-scented aromatherapy candle. Daniel simply grabbed a few different ingredients and like a mad scientist on speed mixed and tasted and mixed some more.

All drinks were served up, and Eric’s had a whopping 2 oz of gin, a full oz of Veev, an undisclosed amount of grappa and the above mentioned “smoke of the vanilla candle”. Daniel chose chili powder, 7 whole dashes of Angostura bitters, agave nectar, 1.5 oz gin, ¾ oz grappa and ½ oz of Campari for his “Seat of the Pants” cocktail. Jeff could not resist muddling the Sour Green Apple Cocktail Candy http://www.cocktailcandy.com/ccandy/ccandy.html for his “Green Mile”, adding it along with 4 dashes of Campari, dashes of Angostura, with some of the gin, St. Germaine, Bitter Lemon and a float of Lemoncello.

While the judges reactions were mixed, no one “spat” which is surely a good sign. Feedback was generally positive with all judges agreeing that each certainly had the Spirit of the Cocktail in them. Yet a clear winner did emerge; Daniel Shoemaker’s Seat of the Pants. Look for it at a Bennigan’s or TGIF Fridays soon.

So congratulations Daniel. And remember, we are all winners at Tales of the Cocktail.

Thanks, Lizzie! Be sure to watch the video coverage of the event at the Small Screen Network.

If you’ve noticed a dearth of posts from me while I’m at Tales of the Cocktail, please join me at the collaborative cocktail blog, TalesBlog.com

I’m attempting to liveblog some of the events I’m attending, and my colleagues are doing the same. I will, of course, be posting lots of photos and sharing some of the better stories once the trip is over.

I’m calling this “Day Zero” since the events don’t officially start until tomorrow. Although, you’d never know it by the sheer quantity of cocktail luminaries amassed in the French Quarter right now.

My day started with an internal miscommunication about the actual date of my departure (that’s what I get for booking the trip three months in advance and not checking my itinerary) - and this was after a full night behind the bar at Bel Ami.

After 10 hours of travel time, I was safely on my way to the hotel, sharing a cab with Chuck and Wes and longing for a lap or two around the Carousel Bar. And as much as I wanted to offend the room with my travel scent, I used my better judgement and cleaned up as well as I could before heading down to the bar.

There I spent some quality cocktail time with my old pals Natalie “The Liquid Muse” Bovis-Nelsen, Jenny Adams, and the Vieux Carré cocktail. It was an explosion of blogger-types as we rode the bar around the room in three complete cycles.

Then, the bloggers split off in search of jambalaya and gumbo at Coop’s (mmmm, rabbit, sausage, shrimp, oh my!). By this time I was feeling the effects of several cocktails, sleep deprivation and a full belly. Time for an iced coffee at Café du Monde! (Note to Café du Monde enthusiasts, they’ve got nothing on Pacific Northwest java. Seriously.)

The rag-tag group of enthusiasts then made its way down Bourbon Street (at Paul Clarke’s doing - thanks, Paul) to the French 75 bar next to Arnaud’s. We shared a round of 75s made with cognac and - I believe - orange liqueur (not my preferred recipe) and chatted with Jim Meehan.

I’d had my arm twisted into attending a tasting of La Fée Parisienne absinthe at the Old Absinthe House by Natalie (where were you?) and ran into some old friends from Las Vegas last year.

Anyway, it’s 11PM, I’ve been awake since I-don’t-know-when, and now I’m contemplating flipping a coin and braving the Carousel Bar once more before bed. This is going to be a good week.

To Tales of the Cocktail, that is. You see, after last year’s debacle there was no way I was going to miss this one. In fact, I was so excited about going that I somehow showed up to the airport a day early, embarrassed as heck and thanking the nice young lady up and down for rescheduling my flights. (If Beaumont were there he totally would have made fun of me until I peed my pants.)

Anyway, no harm done, as I’m currently at the Portland Airport waiting for my connection to Dallas, and then off to New Orleans. I’ll be posting updates via Twitter, here on my site, and most importantly on the ginormous collaborative cocktail blog that we’ve set up to provide more Tales coverage than you’ll be able to shake a swizzle stick at.

More to come soon, I’ve got to get ready for my flight!