“Here, see if you can make me something with this”, the liquor rep taunted as he dropped a bottle of aquavit on the bar. If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I don’t really work that well under pressure. I try, but it literally takes me weeks to come up with a new drink that I’m happy with. Maybe I’m slow, maybe I’m a perfectionist, doesn’t matter: I hate it when I have to work under pressure.
So I was especially vexed when this particular wiseass handed me a bottle of aquavit. For those of you who don’t know, is a traditional Scandinavian liquor flavored with caraway and - typically - other herbs such as fennel and anise. It’s delicious, but it’s unique and isn’t known for its superb mixability.
However, I knew the liquor boob was insinuating that I might not be able to rise to the challenge, so I whipped this up (after about three false starts). A small handful of visitors to the bar at Clyde Common have suggested that it might be one of the best drinks I’ve come up with so far, but I’ll let you be the judge of that. I just think it tastes delicious.
1 oz aquavit
1 oz applejack
¾ oz sweet vermouth
¼ oz yellow Chartreuse
1 dash Angostura bitters
Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Garnish with a large twist of lemon peel and serve.
My problem with homemade tonic water has always been a flavor profile that was too esoteric for the general audience. This recipe takes some of the positive qualities people have come to understand from commercial tonic water and updated them with fresh ingredients.
One question I'm often asked is "Do you have any drink-related book recommendations?" Well, funny you should ask, I've compiled a list of the ten books every professional bartender or home mixologist should own. I keep every one of these close at hand and have read most of them several times. I suggest you do the same.
The problem with living in Oregon is the absence of little wooden shacks by the sea that sell cases of fresh ginger beer stacked on back porches. But with some readily-available ingredients, a recipe I've been revising for several years - and a few free minutes - I can easily transport myself to a little fishing boat on the ocean as I sip a Dark and Stormy made with fresh, house-made ginger beer.
It's always mojito season somewhere, so this advice is timely in your area about half the year. Wether you're making them or simply enjoying them, this advice will help you look like a pro in no time at all.
The flavors of the Richmond Gimlet are imbued with sunshine. Fresh mint mingling with the herbaceousness of gin and the tartness of lime have made this drink a Eugene classic for many years now.
You'll get a lot of snarky advice on this site about how to make a proper drink, but if you ever need to know what not to do, this is the video for you.
Not to be confused with the Spanish wine-and-fruit-based alcoholic beverage sangria, sangrita (meaning "little blood") is a traditional accompaniment to a tequila served completo; a non-alcoholic sipper that cleanses the palate between fiery doses of agave.
The world of booze can be mystifying to people that don't work in bars or around alcohol all the time. I hear a lot of assumptions about the industry I'm in that are - much like 90% of what you hear in bars - completely false. Here are a few you've probably heard yourself.
The debate rages on: Should we try to look cool and crack open the Boston shaker or be tidy professionals and use the Hawthorne strainer the way God intended? Be sure to leave your two cents in the comments section.
The traditional garnish for a Pisco Sour is a couple of drops of bitters in the foam, but I've never been particularly impressed with the way these few paltry drops of bitters sat in their little egg-white mattress and didn't play along with the rest of the drink. I envisioned a Pisco Sour with a uniformly-distributed bitters-scorched foam: slightly crisp as the fire burnt the sugars, and slightly warm as the foam insulated the rest of the frosty cocktail from the heat. A pisco creme brulée in a glass!
I get so many visitors looking for tips on how to write a bartending resume that I thought I should finally post a tutorial on how to write your own. Click the headline to read more.
I always love showing up to a party with a gallon jug of pre-mixed margaritas, so I've decided to share my recipe. This margarita recipe is the perfect blend of strong, sweet, and sour. But be warned: this recipe packs a serious punch.
There isn't much I can say about this video that hasn't been said already. If you've read anything I've written about cocktails, you'll understand why this video symbolizes everything wrong with the state of bartending in America today. Watch and learn, but be warned: this one isn't for the feint of heart.
My name is Jeff Morgenthaler and I'm the head bartender at Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon.
I'm 37, 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.
I’ve put together a transcript of my presentation at the BCB as well as all of the slides I used, especially for those of you whose first language is not English. I had a great time presenting and sincerely hope I can do it again next year!
Click here to continue reading »
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.
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!
I absolutely hate it when someone sends me a box full of sex toys in the mail. Sure, it might sound like fun to some of you (you know who you are), but receiving a big box of free sex is much more trouble than it’s worth. Believe me. So I get a [...]
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