As many of you might know, this week is the annual cocktail geek gathering in New Orleans known as Tales of the Cocktail. Every year, bartenders, brand ambassadors, and cocktail enthusiasts from all over the world come together to celebrate, learn about, and embrace the cocktail renaissance.

Coincidentally, Tales falls almost five months to the day after International Bear Rendezvous in San Francisco. Every year bears, cubs, and daddies from all over the world come together to celebrate, learn about, and embrace the bear culture.

And while the two festivals may have different purposes, they do share a common theme: liberal cities full of large, bearded men getting together and sweating profusely while consuming lots of alcohol. So in the the spirit of celebrating our collective alternative lifestyles, I present to you this photo quiz: let’s see if you can tell the two events apart.

1. Start with an easy one. Cocktail geek, or “bear”?

Big guy, full beard, collared shirt, lanyard. That’s classic cocktail geek getup right there, folks, in the form of top cocktail geek Rick Stutz, AKA Kaiser Penguin.

2. Okay, this one’s a little tougher. Cocktail geek, or “bear”?

Big guy, full beard, no shirt, no lanyard. You’ve got yourself a bear in the wild right here.

3. Answer this one quickly: cocktail geek, or “bear”?

Smaller guy, full beard, no shirt, but standing in front of the Hotel Monteleone at four in the morning? Unfortunately for some, public nudity is a very real part of both events. And while your initial response might have been “bear”, this is actually cocktail geek and Chicago bartender Brad Bolt.

We would have also accepted “cub”.

4. Okay, let’s go. Cocktail geeks, or “bears”?

Two men: one bearded, one goateed. Both are wearing polo shirts, and both are understandably drinking beer from plastic cups. Ready? Bears.

I warned you, this isn’t always easy.

5. Now try this. Cocktail geeks, or “bears”?

Again, two men, one bearded, one goateed. Both are wearing Hawaiian shirts and inexplicably drinking Velvet Falernum from the bottle.

Cocktail geeks. Always. These bears are actually a special subset of cocktail geeks known as tiki nerds. The nerds in this instance are Matt “RumDood” Robold and Craig “Dr. Bamboo” Mrusek. Only a tiki nerd would drink Velvet Falernum straight from the bottle.

6. An important part of bear culture is the notion of “cubs”; younger men who identify with the culture and often accompany older men. Here are four pictures of younger men accompanying older men. See if you can pick out the one couple of cocktail geeks from the group.

Photos C and D are of bears and cubs.
Photo A is Seattle cocktail and spirits writer Paul Clarke, and San Francisco bartender/brand ambassador Neyah White.
Photo B is an intentional trick: Star Trek: The Next Generation actors Jonathan Frakes (as Commander WIlliam Riker) and Wil Wheaton as (Lieutenant Wesley Crusher) are huge icons in the bear/cub community.

Sadly I can’t be there in New Orleans this year with all of my cocktail nerd brothers and sisters, as I came down with a wicked case of pneumonia earlier in the week. But if you’d like to follow along with all of their exploits, be sure to check out the Tales Blog for all of the juicy bits.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Quiz: Cocktail Geek, or “Bear”?

It’s six o’clock at night in New Orleans and I’m sweating, hard. Not because of the heat outside, but because I’m inside, on a stage with a microphone in my hand. Eight of the best bartenders in the country are lined up behind me, hundreds of people are seated in front of me, and everyone in the room is staring at me. And at this moment all I can think about is my near-debilitating case of stagefright and how much I hate speaking in public. So I pause for a second and think to myself:

How in the hell did I end up here?

To answer that, we have to go back a year, to the previous gathering of bartenders, cocktail aficionados, bon vivants and drunkards known as Tales of the Cocktail. One similarly steamy night in July of 2008, after a long night of trash-talking with friends Daniel Shoemaker and Erik Adkins, we decided it would be a fine idea to have an impromptu three-man cocktail contest using only the ingredients found in my swag bag. So we grabbed a few friends, headed up to the pool, spread out a mind-numbing array of airplane bottles, syrups, sauces, candies and even (seriously) candles and proceeded to see who could make the best cocktail using only those ingredients (read more and even watch a video of the contest here.)

Anyway. It was fun, and dumb, and none of us thought much of it ten minutes after we declared Daniel the winner. But word spread, and our little throwdown became a sort of celebrated thing underground. Even David Wondrich grabbed my by the arm on the last night and said, “Hey, Morgenthaler, if you do that swag bag thing again next year, I want in.”

So, fast-forward four or so months – when I’m really not thinking about that night – to a cocktail party… in New Jersey of all places. It was there that I bumped into Ann Tuennerman, founder of Tales of the Cocktail. Ann pulled me aside and propositioned me about making the Swag Bag Competition a real sanctioned event at Tales this year. “Sounds good”, I said, and we put together a conference call to hammer out the details.

It was during this conference call that I was introduced to the folks at Grand Marnier/Navan and we all chatted about the event. Now, I’m generally pretty clueless, but I must have sounded like a real rube when I exclaimed, “Wait, let me get this straight – you want that thing I did on the roof last year to be the official Grand Marnier cocktail contest?!”

“Yes, you idiot”, must have been what everyone in on the conference call was thinking, but thankfully nobody spoke out loud. But what they did tell me was that they wanted me to design and host the whole thing: I was now in charge of picking the contestants, judges, setting the rules, choosing the items for the swag bags, and get up in front of the crowd and emcee the event – everything.

Well, shit. Fortunately I remembered that David Wondrich had wanted in, so I emailed him and asked him if he’d like to be a judge. But Dave wrote back and said, “I was actually hoping to compete.” Well, double-shit, now I’ve got James Beard award-winning author David Wondrich competing, and this is becoming, like, a real thing.

But if there’s one thing I’ve got going for me, it’s the fact that I’ve got a lot of good friends in this business. So I called up seven of them from cities around the country and asked them if they’d like to compete in my humble little Grand Marnier sponsored event. And you know what I love about my friends? Every one of them said, “Yes”.

And so there I was, on stage in front of Ricky Gomez, Paul Clarke, Misty Kalkofen, Neyah White, Todd Thrasher, David Wondrich, Giuseppe Gonzalez and Eric Alperin (who even went one step further for me and shaved a mohawk just for the competition).

On my cue, the eight of them opened their swag boxes and began working on a cocktail with the following disparate list of ingredients: Glenmorangie Scotch, Chopin Vodka, Don Julio Blanco Tequila, Hennessy VSOP Cognac, Tanqueray, Grand Marnier, Navan, Tabasco, Tea Forte Cocktail Infusions, Amarula Cream, Yellow Chartreuse, Alexia Chips, Freshies Bloody Mary Mix, Dirty Sue Olive Juice, Antigua & Barbuda Hot Sauce, Jalapeno, Chocolate, & Tropical Tanteo Tequilas, Kona Coffee Liqueur, Purista Natural Mojito Mix, Dum-Dum Lollipops and M&Ms

It was – in a word – insane. Wondrich immediately began building a little makeshift still out of a cocktail shaker and some aluminum foil and distilled Navan liqueur. I thought Misty was pouring a shot for me and herself, but she was actually about to infuse the tequila with Tea Forte tea infusions (we did the shot anyway). Thrasher was working on a reduction of Navan liqueur, and the whole thing went up in flames.

Alperin’s cheering section brought a boom box and was blasting music from inside the audience. The ladies of LUPEC Boston were standing on their seats and screaming for Misty. Our judges didn’t know what to think, I’m guessing it was the most unconventional cocktail competition they’d ever been involved in.

At one point I was asked to clear the stage of the people that had gotten up out of their chairs and were yelling at the contestants, but to no avail – the crowd had officially decided to bum-rush the show.

The whole thing lasted only an hour and a half, but it felt like it was over as soon as it began. The contestants presented their cocktails to the judges one-by-one and after much deliberation, they declared Giuseppe’s mixture of tea-infused Glenmorangie, Navan and Piña Colada mix to be the winner.

Special thanks to Brian Huff and David Shenaut for the use of the photos. Hopefully we’ll be returning next year with more.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

The On-The-Fly Competition

(Gosh, they look happy.)

Anyway – it’s July, which means that it’s that time of year, to take a week-long reprieve from the steamy swelter of Oregon and head once again to the cool lazy breezes of New Orleans. Tales of the Cocktail is a week of cocktail seminars, workshops, classes, competitions, food, fun, friends, and – for some – nearly lethal amounts of alcohol that flows freely through the streets like so much urine in the morning sun.

I’ll be there, working, playing, talking, laughing, and – if Keith Waldbauer has anything to say about it – drinking while I provide blow-by-blow updates via my Twitter account.

So join me, and I hope to see you next week at Tales.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Tales of the Cocktail is Almost 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!

My name is Jeffrey Morgenthaler, and I’m a bartender and cocktail blogger from Eugene, Oregon. Oregon is, for those of you who don’t know, on the west coast of the United States, north of California – where I grew up.

Eugene is a small town of about 100,000 people. The closest metropolitan area is Portland, about 100 miles to the north. Here it is.

Eugene is a college town, and so most of the bars are college bars. A lot of beer gets poured, and lot of Jägermeister gets taken down in shots. The sorts of things we’re seeing here at the BCB, craft bartending, classic cocktails, culinary-style drinks, etc. don’t matter to most of the bar community in my town, they’re all relatively unknown outside of a small handful of bars. So what you’re probably wondering is, how did this guy, from this bar, in a small town we’ve never heard of, how did he end up coming all of the way to Berlin to speak at the BCB? Well, for many years now, I have been using the web to connect to the global bar community.

As I’ve learned while preparing this presentation, this can be a really big topic. Robert Hess said it best:

So how does one begin connecting to the global bar community through the web? Well, I’m going to show you a brief history of the path I’ve taken, and hopefully give you some insight into how you can both connect and contribute to what’s happening out there now.

In the late 1990s, a San Francisco bartender named Paul Harrington started writing a cocktail column for Hotwired, which was an online magazine at the time. In the column, Paul examined the history of classic cocktails and provided recipes and notes for a drink every week. He also published some of his original creations.

While the site only lasted a couple of years before being abandoned and eventually taken down, it was a tremendous influence on me and a lot of other aspiring mixologists at the time. It had the most thorough information on the web about cocktails, ingredients, liquors, and drink history. It was also updated every week, which made it an early version of a cocktail blog.

I started blogging about cocktails in 2004. My site originally began as a way to share my bar’s cocktail recipes with our customers, and not really much more. As the site began to grow, I started looking around for other cocktail blogs.

The first site I discovered was The Art of Drink. At the time it was – and still is – the most widely-read cocktail blog in the world. Darcy O’Neil is a chemical engineer and a bartender living in Canada. He’s written for The Journal of the American Cocktail, presented at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans and is generally a master of his craft. His site should always be your first stop when doing any cocktail research on the web. The amount of information here is not just impressive, it’s breathtaking. Really. From instructions on how to make your own vermouth and bitters, to the complete Jerry Thomas Bartender’s Guide, it’s all here.

Another site I became an instant regular reader of was the Cocktail Chronicles by Paul Clarke. While Paul doesn’t write about bartending per se, this is still one of the most informative cocktail-related websites out there, especially as related to classic cocktails.

In April of 2006, Paul proposed the idea of a monthly online gathering for cocktail writers and enthusiasts. Each event would have a theme, and a different blogger would host the party at their site each month. He called it Mixology Monday, and that first round drew a whopping crowd of eight bloggers. Two and a half years later, over 40 websites from all over the world participate in Mixology Monday each month. If you maintain any sort of cocktail-related presence on the web, whether it be on a forum, with a blog, or through any other means, participating in Mixology Monday is the single best way to connect to the online cocktail community. You can go to mixologymonday.com to learn more about how to participate.

Back when I started writing about cocktails, blogging was a relatively new phenomenon. But today there are nearly 113 million blogs on the internet. And thanks to the work of my friend Gabriel at cocktailnerd.com, we’ve estimated that somewhere over 130 of them are cocktail-related blogs.

Now at .000000115% of the total blog population, that’s not a huge number, ha ha. But considering what a specialized group of enthusiasts we are, 130+ is a pretty good start.

Paul Harrington’s column on Hotwired was indicative of the web at that time: it was relatively static, and although it contained, as I said before, the most thorough information about cocktails on the internet – something was missing: audience participation.

The real power of blogging versus standard web publishing is that it helps foster a conversation. Some posts on my website have turned into conversations that have spanned several years, with hundreds of comments from visitors all over the world.

It’s been my dedicated reading and commenting on both my site and other blogs around the world that has been the most effective way I’ve managed to connect with people in the global bar community. Not only can I attract new readers by participating on other sites, I can keep the conversation alive on my own site by simply popping in from time to time to add my thoughts.

But another important quality that the blogs have the ability to do is to educate us about the most recent trends in mixology. And one very powerful side effect to this is that they can sometimes have a profound impact on taste. Here’s a perfect example.

I think most of you might know this guy. For those who don’t, this is Joerg Meyer, of Le Lion in Hamburg. Earlier this summer, Joerg had been playing around with a Gin Smash that substituted basil for mint. In July bought some red basil at the wholesale market and upon returning to work, came up with this drink:

That night, after work, he posted photos of the drink and the recipe to his blog.

Within days, bartenders from all over Germany were trying the drink for themselves and posting their findings on the internet.

Soon after, Helmut Adam declared that the search for the official drink of Summer 2008 was over, and that it was the Gin Red Basil Smash. Now bars all over Europe are putting the drink on their menu, and seeing great success with it.

We’ve looked at the evolution of the internet over the past ten years.

It started with web authoring being an answer to traditional publishing media. Suddenly people from all over the world had access to information instantly, for free, and at any time they chose.

Then we saw the development of the blogs. Now not only could the average person be an author, but through the commenting system readers could interact with the content.
Now, the next phase of the internet is the most exciting yet. Not only do we have access to the information, and not only can we interact with the information, but now we’ve reached a new phase where we can actually interact with the people responsible for content.

Backing up a bit, I want to talk about the web’s most popular blogging tool, Blogger.com. Blogger was developed by two young web developers who originally intended to build a piece of project management software. It morphed into the most popular web publishing tool, and was eventually purchased by Google in 2003.
Incidentally, it was these two people and this piece of software that were responsible for popularizing the term “blog”

Anyway, one of these developers went on to create a new piece of software, designed as a “micro-blogging” tool: a new way of publishing to a focused audience, initially via SMS, and eventually through the web. His name was Evan Williams, and this new piece of software is called Twitter.

I don’t know if Evan Williams is related to the Evan Williams we’re all familiar with, I’ve got an email out to him but I haven’t gotten a response yet.

Anyway, Twitter represents a way to communicate instantly to people who follow your Twitter feed. There are a few benefits to this. It takes no time at all to set up, even less time than a Blogger account. Twitter can be updated from anywhere, at any time, even from the most basic cell phone. You don’t have to be at a computer, you don’t even need a web-enabled mobile phone. You can begin to develop a relationship instantly with your readers, and receive feedback in real time.

Now, why is this so powerful? Because with very little energy, you can begin to connect to the global bar scene immediately. I use Twitter every day to communicate with many of the top cocktail bloggers, brand ambassadors, magazine editors and spirits writers in the industry. I also use Twitter to fill in the gaps between blog posts and stay connected to my readers. I also use a plugin to automatically update my Facebook page from Twitter.

And speaking of Facebook, this is another tool I use to fill in the gaps between blog posts and stay connected with my readers. Facebook is the fastest-growing social network site in the world, with an annual growth rate of 153%. Compare this to MySpace’s 3% annual growth rate and it becomes obvious that Facebook is the best way to connect to the social networking community. There are literally thousands of Facebook groups dedicated to the bar trade, and actively participating in these groups is a very simple way to connect to the global bar community.

But Facebook isn’t exclusive, and it’s easy to get lost among the millions of other users who visit Facebook every day for personal reasons or business unrelated to the bar trade. Fortunately, there is a new social networking platform on the horizon that hopes to attract some of those users who hope to exchange information in a more exclusive environment.

This is a brand new site that was just launched this year – sponsored by Angostura Bitters. It’s not the biggest social networking site, but it is gear specifically toward bartenders. Nearly 500 bartenders from all over the world use MySpeedRail, and they’re committed to improving the service every day. With MySpeedRail, you can do a lot of the same things you do with Facebook or MySpace – you can get involved in forums, send messages, read blog posts, etc.

I asked them why Angostura Bitters would want to sponsor a site like this. They don’t get involved with the content, they don’t advertise too heavily on the site and the site’s only purpose is to promote craft bartending worldwide. Their answer? “Quality bartenders know how to use bitters.” Fair enough.

Now, to close this segment on social networking, I did want to mention one last point: one of the downsides to social networking is that it’s easy to forget one important thing: and that’s this: While social networking may feel like you’re having a personal relationship with your friends, or even “friends”, you should still be mindful of the fact that these relationships are available to and accessible by anyone on the internet, so maintaining some sense of privacy should always be considered a priority. Whether it’s comments left in somewhere like a Facebook wall, or personal photos that are made available to the public, you should always remember to proceed with caution.

I want to step away from social networking for a minute and talk about learning resources. Since we were talking earlier about how the blogs are a great way to learn about new trends, I think I should point out a few of my other favorite online resources for learning about mixology, craft bartending, new products, and cutting-edge techniques

First up are the mailing lists. Now, there are many, many bar trade mailing lists you can subscribe to, but I strongly recommend you make joining Gary Regan’s Ardent Spirits mailing list a priority. It’s sent out almost every other week, and it contains information about new products, educational seminars, job opportunities, and so many other types of announcements. You can sign up for the newsletter at ardentspirits.com
Another great way to connect to the global bar community is through forums.

eGullet is not technically a bar trade forum, but an online group discussion targeted at those in the world of the culinary arts. Fortunately for all of us, they have a very active section of the website that encompasses mixology and all things bar-related. If you’re concerned with being involved on a daily basis, eGullet is a great way to connect and contribute to the online bar community through a group of enthusiasts who maintain an active influence on the current global trends. You can even catch my good friend Erik Ellestad, who is posting every single drink – in order – from the Savoy Cocktail Book on eGullet.

The English-speaking European world also has a forum that enjoys some very healthy group participation: barbore.com. While the mainstay of forum regulars here is UK bartenders, there is still a clear opportunity for more worldwide participation throughout the English-speaking world.

And last, but certainly not least, there is DrinkBoy.com. Created in the late 90s by our friend Robert Hess, the DrinkBoy forums now contain some of the most valuable cocktail information out there, with such luminaries as Gary Regan and David Wondrich making regular visits and providing insights into the trade. On DrinkBoy you’ll not only find recipe research and historical information, but also reviews of bars and bartenders around the world.

Another way to stay on top of what’s happening in the bar world is through multimedia. I’m a sucker for technique, I like to know more than just a recipe – I want to see how other bartenders are actually making their drinks. So I watch videos and try to learn all I can from them.

Speaking of Robert Hess, this is The Cocktail Spirit video podcast. These are some of the best videos on classic cocktail construction out there. I can make a Pegu Club Cocktail in my sleep, but I still re-watch Robert make one from time to time just to remind myself how it should be done and stay connected to current technical trends.

This is Brilliant Cocktails by Chris Doig, a bartender in Copenhagen. Chris’s girlfriend and her friends originally suggested filming Chris at work one night, and like a good boyfriend he obliged them and they put out the first season of podcasts. The feedback he received from viewers all over the world has been so positive that he has filmed a second season, and I’m happy to announce today that the first episode has been released and it is available for viewing at brilliantcocktails.com

But there can be a negative side to all of this information that’s available out there, and I want to caution you all to continually do thorough research, and question everything you read online. Because not all of the bartending information out there is good, and some of it is downright incorrect. And to illustrate this point I want to introduce you to one such bit of bartending information:

Thank you for coming.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Use the Web to Connect to the Global Bar Community

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.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Swag Off ’08: We Have a Winner!

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.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

I’m Over Here!

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.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Tales of the Cocktail: Day Zero

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!

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

On My Way!