Category Archives: Competitions and Honors

The Dallas Museum of Art’s cocktail contest: Calling all mixology Michelangelos

 

Matt Talbert
When it comes to cocktails, I am all about life imitating art. And vice versa. (Image courtesy of artist Matt Talbert)

Do you fancy yourself a Cointreau Renoir? A Picasso of Prosecco? Or do Salvador’s surrealist images simply drive you to drink?

Then you’re in luck: Tonight, the Dallas Museum of Art is kicking off its first-ever Creative Cocktail Contest.

At stake is a DMA partnership – and the chance to be featured at the museum’s Late Night event in January. The museum’s Late Night series takes place on the third Friday of each month.

Here’s how the contest works: Go check out the museum. Choose a work of art from the collection that, um, touches you. Maybe it’s the drawings of Robert Rauschenberg, or the Big Apple photography of Berenice Abbott, or as is currently on exhibit, the modernist jewelry of Art Smith. (By the way, am I the only one who finds it confusing when guys named Art actually do art?) Whatever.

Then, once you’ve pinpointed your mixology muse, come up with an original cocktail recipe inspired by this artistic work. Create a name for your drink – maybe Nighthawk, or Rumbrandt, or Bourbon Landscape. Use your imagination.

Finally, submit your cocktail recipe, and the name of the artwork that inspired you, to publicprograms@DMA.org by 5 pm Monday, Dec. 1.

Then, wait a month as DMA staff – those lucky art types! – and the museum’s executive chef – ahem –  test the recipes. Because that’s what good art museum staffers do. A winner and four finalists will be named on Jan. 5.

The contest is a precursor to the next installment of the museum’s Fresh Ink series, which features authors and their newly published books. Tim Federle, author of the book Tequila Mockingbird, will be at January’s Late Night event to promote his new book, Hickory Daiquiri Dock: Cocktails With A Nursery Rhyme Twist.

“We wanted our visitors to get involved in this fun way,” said Stacey Lizotte, the DMA’s head of adult programming and multimedia services. “January is also our birthday month and we treat it as a birthday celebration. Why not toast the museum with some fun cocktails?”

In addition to receiving a DMA partnership, the contest winner will have his or her drink featured as the main drink on the Atrium’s special menu at DMA’s January Late Night event. Each finalist will also get a special menu nod and a signed copy of Tequila Mockingbird.

“We’re excited to see our visitors’ creativity,” Lizotte said. “The entire collection is open to them. Whatever work of art will inspire a great cocktail.”

What are you waiting for? You have nothing Toulouse-Lautrec.

Contestants must be at least 21 years old. Full contest details are available here.

And if your creative muse just isn’t speaking to you and you just want to see some cocktail-related art, you can always check out California artist Matt Talbert’s cool assortment of cocktail-related art, where I found the image above.

Third time’s the charm: Front Burner’s Bonnie Wilson en route to Vegas to represent DFW in national cocktail competition

Frontburner
Wilson, DFW’s first female rep in the prestigious contest’s national finals. (Photo courtesy of Front Burner)

Sometimes all it takes is a pinch – a pinch of this or a drop or a float of that – to turn a drink around. Heading into this summer’s Bombay Sapphire-sponsored “GQ’s Most Imaginative Bartender” competition in Dallas, Bonnie Wilson aimed to put a different spin on the gin.

Wilson, director of independent bar programs for Addison-based Front Burner Restaurants, was one of 10 finalists competing in the national contest’s Dallas-Fort Worth regional at Uptown’s Nickel & Rye. The victor would head to Las Vegas to face winners from 27 other U.S. markets in the finals, vying for a cover feature in GQ magazine.

One by one, the gin variations appeared before the judges – a drink inspired by Taiwanese bubble tea, another served up alongside a Venus flytrap, another with a smoked stalk of lemongrass for garnish. But when it was all over, it was Wilson’s so-called “Axl Rose” – a bouquet of Bombay Sapphire, Brut Rosé, strawberry syrup, lemon and rose water – that had taken top prize. (Full disclosure: I was among the event’s three judges.)

GQ Most Imaginative Bartender
The final touch on Wilson’s Axl Rose: A sugar-candy rose petal

This week, Wilson is Vegas-bound to compete in the finals, the first woman to have that honor for the DFW area. “I’m a little nervous,” she said. “I just want to make sure I represent our city well, that I represent myself and our brand and women well, all of those things. Most of all I just want to have fun.”

This was Wilson’s third attempt at the prestigious contest: Bartenders submit a recipe and a short essay, and a national panel whittles each market’s field down to 10. With her winning cocktail, she aimed for simplicity. “I’ve been obsessed with rosé lately,” she says, “so I wanted to do something around that.”

Citrus was a common flavor in the gin to play off of, but Sapphire’s floral aspects were often forgotten. That’s where the rose water came in, plus a self-made strawberry syrup to echo the flavors of the wine. The topper was the garnish: She worked with Front Burner’s pastry chef to produce a sugar-candy rose petal tinted with pomegranate juice. “We made about 60 of them over the course of two weeks to get the consistency I was happy with,” she says. “I think it came out really good.”

The national contest runs Monday through Thursday in three stages. After the 28 competitors present the cocktails that got them there, the field is whittled to about half. The survivors then face off in two further rounds, crafting entirely new cocktails featuring an ingredient to be specified by the judges.

GQ Most Imaginative Bartender contest
Sweet cocktail o’ mine: Wilson’s Axl Rose’.

Last year, DFW was represented by La Duni’s Daniel Guillen, who made it to the second round. Wilson has been prodding him for tips based on his experience. As far as being DFW’s first female representative in the nationals, she says, “we’ve just got to continue to elevate our diversity.”

That’s a priority for her at Front Burner, where she oversees bar operations for the corporation’s independent brands, including Whiskey Cake, Mexican Sugar and The Ranch at Las Colinas.  Menu development, special events and training are among her duties, but it’s the latter that lets her tap into her first love, customer interaction. “I can get behind the bar and make drinks for people,” she says.

Hospitality-minded people are the ones who catch her interest and attention. “You can teach somebody how to bartend and teach them about spirits, but you can’t teach the heart of it, the love of that interaction with the guest,” she says.

Others cite her dedication to cultivating talent and encouraging other women to pursue similar paths. “She’s moving up, but she’s not forgetting us,” says Alexandrea Rivera, a bartender at The Ranch at Las Colinas. Adds fellow Ranch bartender Gabrielle Murray: “Everything Bonnie says, we just sponge up.”

Daniel Guillen
2013’s national finalists were featured in a GQ photo spread. That’s La Duni’s Daniel Guillen with the giant honey dipper.

Now, after winning the local Bombay Sapphire contest, Wilson says: “I’ve actually had women come to me who want to work for me. That’s super flattering, and inspiring.”

It was people like Sean Conner – whose Pie 314 pizzeria recently opened in Lewisville – and The Standard Pour’s Brian McCullough who helped on her own learning path. And in particular, she credits Angel’s Envy bourbon rep Trina Nishimura with showing her how as a woman to negotiate a male-dominated world. Brands like Bacardi and Heaven Hill have given her valuable educational opportunities, but it’s her own company, she says, that has really challenged her recently. “Sometimes we have these amazing weeks, and we want to rest on our laurels and celebrate,” she says. “They always say, `Great job. How do we make it better?’ Everybody has pushed and encouraged me.”

Not bad for someone who never planned to make craft cocktails. But negative environments in previous workplaces spurred her to move onward, and she landed behind the bar with Conner at Whiskey Cake. “It was like a fated spiritual thing,” she says. “That’s exactly where I was supposed to be. It started me on this career that was like a dream. It’s been such a great ride and it keeps getting better and better.”

Sometimes all it takes is a pinch – to be reminded that it’s not a dream at all.

Doing it the Old Fashioned way: Dallas bartenders face off at whiskey competition

By Charlie Tips Ferrin, Smyth
This apple-walnut Old Fashioned earned 2nd-place honors.

“We’re kind of scrunched for space, but I’m doing the best I can,” Ryan Sumner said as he kicked off the Clyde May’s Whiskey Old-Fashioned competition at The People’s Last Stand with a version featuring apple bitters, demerara syrup and the French bitter Suze.

Consider this post Old-Fashionably late: It’s been a couple of weeks since 16 bartenders vied for the top prize of $500, each with up to six minutes to make and present their drink for the judges. Clyde May’s was the vehicle here, an apple-ish, bordering-on-caustic whiskey with some colorful moonshine roots, and each contestant spun a different version of the cocktail stalwart while adhering to its traditional mix of whiskey, sweetener, bitters and water.

Clyde Mays Old Fashioned competition
Chase Streitz of Sissy’s Southern Kitchen, serving up his twist on the classic cocktail.

Cinnamon, vanilla, peach and, of course, apple were popular flavors. One of my favorite versions came from Greg Matthews of Oak Cliff’s Ten Bells Tavern, who froze Mudsmith Coffee’s steeped coffee into cubes and punctuated his whiskey concoction with a vanilla sugar made with Mexican vanilla beans, hazelnut bitters and a vanilla/hazelnut garnish.

Clyde Mays Old Fashioned competition
The vanilla-accented version from Ten Bells’ Greg Matthews featured coffee ice cubes.

La Duni’s Daniel Guillen shone, too, gussying up his Old Fashioned with sherry, Campari and a roasted red pepper and pecan jam. And Smyth’s Charlie Tips Ferrin, like his compatriot Sumner, served his summery green apple/walnut drink in little mason jars – “in the spirit of the moonshine that it came from,” he said.

Clyde Mays Old Fashioned competition
Ryan Fussell of Ruth’s Chris Steak House prepares his drink’s fig garnish.

Brad Bowden of The People’s Last Stand infused his whiskey with smoked peaches, while Ryan Fussell of Ruth’s Chris Steak House strived to use ingredients that would have been available in the 1800s, when the classic cocktail was born. He topped it with a warm fig garnish. (“Figs are badass,” pronounced photographer Mary Szefcyk, clearly impressed with the choice.)

Brad Bowden of The People's Last Stand infused Clyde Mays with smoked peaches for his entry.
Brad Bowden of The People’s Last Stand infused whiskey with smoked peaches for his entry.

In the end it was Smyth’s Omar YeeFoon who walked away with top honors, flavoring his version with Plantation 5-year-old rum, Angostura and tiki bitters, cane syrup and a light dash of orange oils.  With Ferrin placing second and Sumner taking third, it was a Smyth sweep, which if nothing else proved the speakeasy boys could come through in scrunch time.

Clyde Mays Old Fashioned competition
Smyth’s Omar YeeFoon with the double-stir on his way to the evening’s top honors.

And if you’d like to see Smyth’s Ryan Sumner explain the method behind his Old Fashioned twist, here’s a link to my YouTube video:

Old Fashioned variation, from Smyth’s Ryan Sumner

At TOTC’s national bar battle, Dallas’ Bar Smyth showed it could pack a good punch (and a few good cocktails besides)

At Tales of the Cocktail 2013
The Bar Smyth crew — sharing space with Chicago’s Barrel House Flat — was one of eight bars facing off against a deluge of humanity.

You can’t say Dallas’ Bar Smyth didn’t try. Did any of the other half-dozen establishments facing off at Tales of the Cocktail’s Bare-Knuckle Bar Fight sport a derby-hatted fire eater?  Could any of them claim to wield as original a punch as mobile cocktail service poured out of a backpack keg?

That was Bar Smyth, going big and gloves-off in its debut at the nation’s largest cocktail conference in New Orleans. Friday night’s annual showdown-slash-party pitted bar crew against bar crew for yearlong bragging rights, measuring bars on the quality of their beverages, sense of atmosphere and ability to churn out cocktails for the great, buzzing tides of humanity thirsting for drink. It was a madhouse. It was supposed to be.

Tales of the Cocktail 2013
Smyth’s record-album covers evoked the Dallas speakeasy’s 70’s-esque decor, part of the judging criteria.

The chaotic hordes began forming outside the Jackson Brewery’s microscopic entryway well ahead of the event’s 10 p.m. start time and before long resembled a ravenous weasel trying to poke its nose into some tiny field mouse’s hiding hole. Once inside, the senses were dazzled by a raging tumult, tables piled with pasta trays, a spunky rockabilly band and monitors spilling footage of Muhammad Ali.

Tales of the Cocktail 2013
The event was sponsored by The 86 Co., a new spirit line that includes Tequila Cabeza.
Tales of the Cocktail 2013
The drink lineup from New York City’s The Daily included a chamomile Negroni and a watermelon-shiso Collins.

But people were here for the drinks, and of those there was plenty: Eight bars in all, plucked from around the country by The 86 Co., the just-launched spirit line that sponsored this year’s event. The company’s aim was to showcase notable up-and-coming bars rather than the established stalwarts of years past: There was Miami’s Broken Shaker, with its Santeria vibe and a killer banana-mint daiquiri; Queens’ Sweet Leaf with its Jose Camel, a tequila-mezcal pachanga laced with coffee liqueur and Punt e Mes; the two were my favorite sips of the night.

Tales of the Cocktail 2013
The atmosphere at Miami’s Broken Shaker recalled a botanica store.

Los Angeles’ Old Lightning threw down with a mezcal Negroni. New York City’s The Daily had a popcorn machine and an air of uniformed aplomb amid the fray. Chicago’s Barrel House Flat poured shots from a bottle labeled “Encyclopedia Brown” – a tantalizing formula of Rittenhouse Rye, Punt e Mes, Amaro Montenegro, Cynar, Angostura bitters and salt.

I failed to find San Diego’s Polite Provisions in the maelstrom, but Boston’s Citizen Public House and Oyster Bar was remarkably hospitable considering its three-deep crowd and the fact that it was bartender Sabrina Kershaw’s birthday; the bar’s red-velvety Negroni variation, called The New Black, was as delicious as it was alluring.

Tales of the Cocktail 2013
Sweet Leaf, of Queens, served up one of my favorite drinks of the night, with tequila, mezcal and coffee liqueur.

Dallas’ Bar Smyth made the most of its prime real estate on the brewery’s second floor. Smyth barmen Mike Martensen, Omar Yeefoon, Josh Hendrix, Julian Pagan and, inexplicably, Standard Pour’s Brian McCullough slung drinks as fast as they could muster. The crew donned Lone Star aprons, and bar host Ryan Sumner stirred up the crowd, occasionally from atop the bar counter – whooping and hollering, ringing a bell, kick-starting choruses of “Deep In The Heart of Texas.”

And despite a superior Cuba Libre anchoring its drink lineup, it was what Smyth had conjured beyond the bar that set it apart: Bar-back Charlie Ferrin blazed a trail through the darkness, wowing anyone within eyeshot with his fire-eating prowess. (“You only see the bartender side of me,” the longtime circus performer explained.) And bartender Mate Hartai waded through the crowd with a handmade backpack keg and a Texas-stamped helmet, pouring shots of Smyth’s Mexican Monk, a habanero-watermelon spin on a Tom Collins.

Tales of the Cocktail 2013
Smyth’s Mate Hartai poured drinks from his handmade backpack keg.
Tales of the Cocktail 2013
Hartai’s boozy contraption.

Texas represented well: There was Austin star barman Bill Norris; The 86 Co.’s Jason Kosmas, the bartender extraordinaire recently relocated to Austin from Dallas; Emily Perkins of Dallas’ Victor Tango; Bonnie Wilson of The Ranch at Las Colinas; Kevin Gray of CocktailEnthusiast.com and Hypeworthy’s Nico Martini.

When it was all over, Boston’s Public House had taken People’s Choice honors, no doubt aided by its giveaway signature cozies and fans (brilliant in light of the unspeakable humidity) and a machine dispensing frozen Julep Slushies. Then it was time for the judges’ decision: “We got to try drinks tonight from some of the best bars in the world,” one of them announced. “Those of you who tend bar know what it takes. Not just cocktail creativity, but teamwork, speed and execution. We know what it takes to make people happy not just this one night, but every night of the year.” And with that it was declared that The Daily of New York City had taken top prize.

Ah, Dallas. There’s always next year.

Tales of the Cocktail 2013
Lone Star pride: Smyth’s Ryan Sumner works up the crowd.
Tales of the Cocktail 2013
The fired-up champion bartenders of New York’s The Daily.

Tales of the Cocktail 2013: It’s not just gin cannons. But whoa: Gin cannons!

At the William Grant and Sons party, Tales of the Cocktail 2013
Yup, that’s a gin cannon.

As the 11th annual Tales of the Cocktail conference winds to a close, we’ve learned about airport bars and the Prohibition-Era invasion of Cuba by American bartenders, slogged our way through cocktail competitions and witnessed elaborate fetes featuring fancy hats, gin cannons and a band suspended in midair.

Dallas bartenders have done us proud, too: Bar Smyth’s Omar Yeefoon took the title of “Stoli’s Most Original Bartender” at the UrbanDaddy-sponsored cocktail contest of the same name, throwing down an unlikely combo of Stoli Salted Karamel vodka, sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters and Prosecco. “I was thinking, this would never make a good cocktail,” Yeefoon said. But apparently it did, giving him the edge over four other bartenders from around the country.

William Grant and Sons party, TOTC 2013
The Wednesday night scene inside New Orleans’ newly revamped Civic Theater.

Bonnie Wilson of The Ranch at Las Colinas represented DFW at Anchor Distilling’s 21-Cocktail Salute competition, where drink-makers each had to fire up an original shot, punch and cocktail. Her tangy Fire and Brimstone shot featured Hirsch small-batch bourbon, lime, honey syrup and Cholula hot sauce; the winner of that contest won’t be known until well after the conference wraps up this weekend.

But hey. The Hendrick’s Gin cannon.  The sight was part of the annual packed-to-the-gills William Grant and Sons party, held this year at New Orleans’ beautifully revamped Civic Theatre. It had to be seen to be believed, and let’s just you had to get your kisser up close to avoid having your entire upper torso drenched in alcohol, unless you were looking to cool off, in which case you would have been faulted by no one.

Tales of the Cocktail 2013
Bonnie Wilson of The Ranch at Las Colinas dishes up drinks at the 21-Cocktail Salute competition.

 

Boulevardier’s Eddie Eakin is The Man About Town (& Country)

Boulevardier's Eddie Eakin
Boulevardier’s Eddie Eakin flashes his winning smile.
I first met Eddie Eakin in July 2012 at the Libertine Bar, where he was in the habit of ordering a bun-less burger as part of his gluten-free fitness regimen. At the time, he was readying for his job at bar manager at Boulevardier, which was just about to open in the Bishop Arts area of Dallas’ Oak Cliff neighborhood.
Since then he’s headed up one of Dallas’ better bar programs with quiet aplomb, and now it’s paid off with some national recognition: Town & Country Magazine has chosen one of Eakin’s as its signature cocktail.
That’s right: Town & Country, the high-society lifestyle magazine that’s also the longest-running general-interest publication in America.
Well done, Mr. Eakin.
Eakin's victorious cocktail, the Town & Country
Eakin’s victorious cocktail, the Town & Country.

About four months ago, Eakin caught wind of a national competition the magazine — which dates to 1846 — was holding for a signature cocktail to which to lend its name. Editors ultimately chose 20 recipes from bars and restaurants nationwide and submitted them to a judging panel at Harding’s restaurant in NYC.

“The only rules were that you had to send in a picture,” Eakin said. “That’s what piqued my interest. I’m a total Instagrammer. I like it more than Facebook.”

And in the end, it was his concoction that grabbed the honors. “I was very happily surprised to hear that I had won,” he says.

His now-official Town & Country cocktail ($11) is a melting pot of bourbon, Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, dark amber syrup and apple bitters. The result is very much like an Old Fashioned with an extra smooch of sugar.
Eakin’s genius was in the concept: He just wanted to come up with something a reader could replicate at home with readily available traditional American ingredients. No fancy infusions, no juices to squeeze, no syrups to make. And since the publication goes back to the mid-1800s, he wanted his drink to echo American classics and flavors (hence the apple and maple). “If you break it down,” he says, “it is really a blend of a little Manhattan and a little Old Fashioned, two of the most quintessential classic cocktails.”
RECIPE (as published in Town & County magazine’s Aug. 2013 issue)
2 oz Bulleit Bourbon
1/2 Carpano Antica Formula vermouth
1 tsp Crown Maple dark amber syrup
3 dashes Bar Keep apple bitters
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass and stir with ice. Strain over large ice cubes in a rocks glass and garnish with an orange peel and brandied cherry.
BOULEVARDIER, 408 N. Bishop, Ste. 108, Oak Cliff, Dallas
The August 2013 issue of Town & Country highlights the Dallas bartender's recipe (courtesy Town & Country magazine)
The August 2013 issue of Town & Country highlights the Dallas bartender’s recipe (courtesy Town & Country magazine)