Category Archives: Bummer

Bummer, Deep Ellum, Plano, Seasonal, The Cedars, Uptown, West Dallas

Fall is here, but it still feels like summer. Here are some cocktails to help with that.

Yes, it might be fall, but summer don’t care. It’s decided to linger around North Texas and deliver one last beatdown, with temps in the mid-90s until early next week.

You don’t have to sit there and take it. Because when life hands you lemons, you make Sidecars, and when it hands you unbearably hot weather, you’re going to fight back with cool, refreshing cocktails.

Here are six drinks you should enjoy before autumn finally sets in.

BIG STICK MOJITO, The Theodore, NorthPark Center

Hugo Osorio, The Theodore
At The Theodore, Hugo Osorio’s Big Stick Mojito is nothing to speak softly about.

First of all, just look at this. This is a gorgeous drink. And the Big Stick Mojito – the “big stick” a reference to the famous “speak softly” quote from the president this NorthPark Center restaurant is named for – is as fun and delicious as it appears, a visual feast of green, white and red from bartender Hugo Osorio.

This mojito sweetened with tropical pineapple features a brilliant raspberry coulis that rests at the bottom of the glass, perfect for slurping through a straw while simultaneously offering balance in taste and texture.

“We wanted this cocktail to be super approachable,” says Kyle Hilla, bar director for Turn The Tables Hospitality, the group behind The Theodore as well as Bolsa, Smoke and other restaurants. “And on top of that, we wanted something incredibly stunning to look at.”

Mission accomplished, sirs.

RASPBERRY-WATERMELON FREEZE, Fat Chicken, Trinity Groves

Stephen Halpin, Fat Chicken
When it’s hot outside, your body naturally craves snow cones. It’s science.

You’re probably not surprised to see a snow cone on the list. When it’s hot out, your body naturally craves snow cones. It’s science.

However, you may be surprised to know this snow cone comes from Fat Chicken, the fried chicken joint at Trinity Groves. One of a trio of frozen drinks designed by Stephen Halpin, global mixologist for Patron tequila, the Raspberry-Watermelon Freeze is summery and fruity with a bit of DIY mischief: The mix of Patron silver, watermelon and lemon juices and muddled raspberries is presented in a small carafe that you get to pour into the heaping glass of Hawaiian shaved ice presented alongside. (Though I’d recommend first using your straw to dig out a shaft into which the liquid can descend so it doesn’t end up all over your table.)

“I wasn’t sure when I got here if people would want to drink their drinks out of a snow cone,” says manager Christopher Garrison. “But they love it.”

MEET YOUR MATCHA, Yayoi, Plano

Lyndsy Rausch, Yayoi, Plano
Shochu: It’s big in Japan.

When Lyndsy Rausch took over the bar program at Yayoi in Plano, shochu – the featured spirit at Japanese izakayas – was a natural starting point. “Adding matcha to it was really the first thing that came to mind,” she said, “because I wanted something earthy to match the complex flavors in shochu.”

A low-proof liquor distilled from rice, barley or sweet potatoes, shochu likewise is earthy; Rausch paired Iwai barley-based shochu with matcha powder, added citrus-y yuzu and mint to cut the bitterness, and topped it off with club soda. The result is radiantly green and highly drinkable, a liquid hammock to lay your thirst in when temperatures climb.

FROZEN GIN AND TONIC, Harlowe, Deep Ellum

Harlowe, Deep Ellum
This is probably why Billy Joel wrote the lyric “makin’ love to his tonic and gin.”

It’s got gin.

It’s got tonic.

And it’s frozen.

There’s much to like about Deep Ellum newcomer Harlowe, including the brunch-time lobster waffle and an expansive rooftop bar, but the simplicity of the Frozen Gin and Tonic is nothing short of genius on a 90-degree day. With nothing but a bit of star anise stranded atop the blindingly bright tundra of its surface, it’s a stone-cold certain way to punk that nasty summer-like warmth.

DUE SOUTH, Parliament, Uptown

Jeremy Koeninger, Parliament
If you’re wondering how to cool off in Uptown, I will point you Due South. (Photo by SungJoon Bruce Koo)

Another way to beat the heat is to fight fire with fire. At Parliament, bartender Jeremy Koeninger’s Due South puts a Texas spin on the tropical Painkiller, adding jalapeno to the tiki staples of rum, coconut and pineapple with a dash of orange and nutmeg.  “Being from Texas, I like the combination of spicy and sweet,” he says.

Presented with a jalapeno coin atop the foam, Due South is a terrific hot-weather refresher, showcasing creamy pineapple, cool citrus, peppery heat and a nutty finish. (I’m always surprised at how well coconut and jalapeno pair up, which is probably the one reason I never get tired of watching Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray in Lost In Translation.)

The name of the drink, Koeninger says, refers partly to the happy coincidence that any south-of the-border spirit – except for cachaca – works in the drink; pisco, in particular, is excellent.

ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER, The Cedars Social, The Cedars

The Cedars Social
If you’re both in need of refreshment and absinthe-minded, this drink is for you.

It might be hard to imagine absinthe as the basis of a soothing refresher, because unlike shochu, it’s notoriously anything but low proof. The Cedars Social’s Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder is a drink to ease the pain of a sweltering summer night, or a starry starry night, or in this case, an autumn night that still feels like summer.

Copper & Kings’ 130-proof absinthe is the star of this show, backed by a remarkable pecan-based orgeat and a chorus of soda. A fortifying fusion of licorice and pecan, it’ll almost make you wish the hot weather would linger a while longer. Almost.

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Alchemy, Bummer, Cocktail history, Cocktails and art, Flair

Flaming cocktail at Dallas’ Highland Village gets two people airlifted to a hospital

Armoury DE
Proceed with caution: Fire and alcohol can be dangerous if not handled with care..

Fancy cocktails aren’t for everyone, especially when there’s fire involved: That’s what a couple — and, quite possibly, a bartender — found out Wednesday afternoon after receiving a fiery drink at Shoal Creek Tavern at The Shops at Highland Village.

As The Dallas Morning News reported, emergency crews were called to the shopping center about 3:50 p.m. Wednesday, where they found a man and woman with major burns on their bodies from the waist up.

Sunset Lounge
Pretty to look at, delightful to hold. But if you don’t douse it, don’t say you weren’t told.

The two had apparently gotten a flaming cocktail at the bar, authorities said, when “an additional ignition took place which caused major burns” to the couple.  A medical helicopter was called to take them to Parkland Memorial Hospital; however, their injuries are non-life-threatening.

No telling what cocktail it might have been, since the bar’s online drink menu lists only beer and wine, but suffice it to say things didn’t go as planned.

Blue Blazer
Pioneering bartender Jerry Thomas mixing the Blue Blazer, in an illustration from his classic 1862 tome. (Wikipedia: Jerry Thomas)

Though increasingly popular, cocktails involving fire date back to the grandfather of mixology himself, Jerry Thomas, who included the famous Blue Blazer in his 1862 Bartenders Guide: How To Mix Drinks. But that blend of Scotch, boiling water and sugar, set afire, is all about the show as the (ideally much-practiced) bartender flamboyantly pours the flaming blue mixture from one vessel to another — and then finally into a cup, dousing the flames before serving.

It’s that last part that tends to get people into trouble. Blue flames look cool, especially in low light. But whether atop tiki drinks or bursting out of flaming party shots, the important thing is to put out the fire before drinking them. You don’t want to eat or drink anything that’s on fire, because, you know, it’s on fire.

“There’s absolutely no safe way to consume a flaming food or beverage,” then-Nassau County Fire Marshall Vince McManus told Inside Edition in a program segment on fire-related alcohol mishaps, including a March 2016 incident in which a woman preparing to drink a flaming shot at a Moscow bar instead had her face set afire as the bartender poured from a bottle. Video captured at parties also shows the disastrous results of people attempting to do the same.

In short: Cocktails may be the hot thing to drink these days, but they should never be on fire when you do.

 

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Bars, Bartenders, Bishop Arts, Bummer, Follow the bouncing ball, On the move, People

Bolting Bolsa: Stalwart bartender Kyle Hilla departs for parts north

Bolsa
Seven-year itch? The longtime face of Bolsa’s bar program is headed to NorthPark.

Bartenders are a mobile bunch, so it’s rare that a name becomes as synonymous as a place as Kyle Hilla’s did at Bolsa.

Friday was Hilla’s last day at the Oak Cliff restaurant, marking the end of a seven-year run that saw him rise from server to bartender to manager of Bolsa’s vaunted bar program, among the pioneering establishments of DFW’s craft-cocktail scene.

“I don’t think it’s hit me yet,” Hilla said at the end of his busy final night, after the place had pretty much emptied out.

The talented barman is on his way to NorthPark Center, where he’ll be heading up the bar at The Theodore, the new venture from the owners of Bolsa, nearby Bolsa Mercado, Chicken Scratch and The Foundry. In his stead, the gifted Spencer Shelton will be assuming Bolsa’s bar reins.

Like many a bartender, Hilla didn’t set out to pour drinks. Instead, he tired of a retail manager position (“To this day, I’m still the youngest store manager in Dollar General history,” he said) and aimed to head back to school. In the meantime, he figured, he’d be a server. That eventually brought him to Bolsa, where then-bar-managers Eddie “Lucky” Campbell and Dub Davis kept prodding the Boy Wonder to get behind the bar. He resisted – until the night Campbell asked him to help make drinks at an art gallery special event.

“I had the time of my life,” he said. Two days later, he was walking the aisles of a Kroger store with now-wife Jessica and realized he’d been transformed. “Everything I saw in the store, I was like, `Hmm, what can I make a cocktail with?’ “

Hilla embraced the jigger and shaker, and in the ensuing years, as the cocktail scene began to grow, both Davis and Campbell (and Jason Kosmas, who had left New York’s Employees Only to raise a family in Texas) departed for other projects. In 2010, Hilla took over the bar.

He further streamlined the program, making his cheerful, quip-smart presence a Bolsa mainstay, along with attentive service and creative mixology. “People before me laid an amazing foundation,” he said. “I just focused it.”

Campbell and Kosmas had created one of the bar’s best-known features, the weekly cocktail challenge on Wednesdays in which two bartenders would face off, creating cocktails based on a pair of customer-chosen ingredients and let the night’s sales dictate a winner. Those ingredients occasionally verged on the ridiculous, stretching bartenders’ talents and imaginations to extremes – for instance, banana ketchup. “Think about that, buddy,” he nodded with a wry smile. (He made a Bloody Mary.) “There was a time when I hated Wednesdays.”

Others included oysters, black garlic or Pop Rocks. “Pop Rocks were terrible,” he said.

Eventually, Hilla rescheduled the challenges to just the first Wednesday of each month, and his final match – against bartender Marcos Hernandez – took place on September 3. Hilla drew saffron and tangerines, Hernandez got plums and blood orange. It was Hernandez who late last year conceived a drink that paired the bitter Italian liqueur Cynar’s artichoke flavor notes with the smokiness of toasted mesquite chips. But it was Hilla who eventually named it, calling it the Imenta.

“When we first came out with it,” Hernandez said, “it was the Oaky Smoky Arthichoke-y.”

“And that’s why we started requiring drug tests at work,” Hilla cracked.

In his seven years at Bolsa, Hilla has gotten to know a few people. “I know 99 percent of the people who come in here,” he said as the minutes ticked down on Friday night’s last shift, and he hopes some of his regulars follow him to The Theodore, set to open late next month at NorthPark. He told one pair of retiree regulars, “Y’all just need to become mall walkers. I’ll tell you what – I’ll invent a drink called the Mall Walker just for you.”

Moving on and up is the next logical step for Hilla, but it’s hard to see familiar traditions end. Bolsa was among my first cocktail finds when I moved to Dallas five years ago, so for my last Hilla-made drink there, I asked for something bitter/sweet to commemorate the moment. He produced a blend of bourbon and Cynar goodness and made clear that in spite of the change, he and Jessica won’t be forgetting Oak Cliff anytime soon.

“We just closed on a house here,” he said. “I’ll always be a part of this community.”

Bars, Bummer

Private/Social closes its doors

 

Cucumber gimlet, by Rocco Milano
Little did I know this cucumber gimlet would be my last drink at Private/Social.

Sad news, homies: There is one less cocktail oasis in Dallas.

Private/Social apparently marked its last night Saturday, and the place where I enjoyed many a first cocktail experience is apparently no more. The news came in a tweet from chef Najat Kaanache Sunday morning: “Last Night At Private/Social Was The Last service We Closed ready for New Adventures within Food Thanks To My Great Team.”

Rocco Milano, among the best barmen in Dallas, confirmed the closure to me later that morning. The restaurant had struggled to reinvent itself after chef Tiffany Derry’s departure early this year, but with Rocco at the helm, P/S remained one of the more adventurous cocktail spots around: He had spirits on tap (including my beloved Hum botanical spirit, to which Rocco introduced me) soon after the restaurant opened in late 2011; his Fall Into A Glass was my favorite cocktail discovery of 2012; and most recently he’d unveiled a lineup of a half-dozen tap cocktails.

Sitting at the bar, I could always depend on a pleasant experience. It was the kind of place you could share secrets, kindle romance, celebrate birthdays and wind down even as you expanded your cocktail horizons. One mark of a great bar is its consistency, and Milano’s staff — including Matt Medling, Creighton Brown, E.J. Wall and Pro Contreras — was always a well-oiled machine. No doubt they’ll find new stages on which to showcase their craft, but it was always fun to be a guinea pig in Rocco’s lab. On Friday — not realizing it was Private/Social’s penultimate day — a friend and I took in one of his most recent and typically improbable off-menu experiments: A riot of rye whiskey, Cointreau, peach and maraschino liqueurs and Hum botanical spirit (swoon) that he called I’ll Have One Of Those.

Here, Rocco makes that cocktail for another patron: http://youtu.be/a–bWcleAuQ

Rocco Milano: I’ll Have One of Those

I’ll update this post as I learn more.

P/S: Thanks for the memories.