Five years ago, Yangdup Lama and his business partner launched Sidecar in New Delhi; last year, the two-story neighborhood bar and speakeasy was named India’s best bar and came in at No. 67 in an annual ranking of the world’s best cocktail bars (and No. 18 in Asia) – the only establishment in India to make the global list . Meanwhile, Lama was named Travel + Leisure Asia’s 2022 Mixologist of the Year.
Not bad for an accidental bartender, as Lama likes to describe himself. Last week, the energetically elfin, 27-year industry vet purposely found himself in North Texas, where he’d been drafted to design the cocktail program at Sanjh, the posh, highly anticipated Indian restaurant recently opened in Irving.
At a pop-up event at Sanjh in Irving, Yangdup Lama of New Delhi’s Sidecar stirs up his namesake Old Fashioned.
For a long time, he says, bartenders in India looked to the West for inspiration as they crafted basic martinis and Manhattans in New Delhi’s fledgling cocktail scene. But with people around the globe increasingly warming to Indian flavors, Lama and others have proudly embraced the chance to showcase the country’s richness of flavors and culture in their own land and beyond.
In North Texas, such flavors have gone woefully underutilized in cocktails, which is why what Lama aims to do at Sanjh is so exciting.
From ‘accidental bartender’ to national industry icon
Lama, from the hill district of Darjeeling, joined Delhi’s Hyatt Regency in the 1990s with others who’d worked banquets and restaurants; having joined later than most of his colleagues, he said, he was assigned to the Hyatt’s chic Polo Lounge, where he had zero experience.
“I had no clue what I was doing,” he said. “But I started to enjoy the space. I realized you could be casual and build relationships with guests.”
He embraced the challenge. In short time, Lama was named India’s bartender of the year. Since then he’s won bartending competitions, worked as a brand ambassador, authored a cocktail book, started a bartending school and trained bartenders throughout India and beyond.
Lama’s Tea Tonic, built around a Darjeeling-tea-infused sweet vermouth, reflects his enthusiasm for featuring the flavors of his native India.
Pop-up showcases creations for Irving restaurant
Last week, Lama hosted a pop-up event in Sanjh’s second-floor lounge to showcase some of his creations for the restaurant, including a gimlet tinged with a Himalayan cherry tincture brought from India and a tea tonic boldly anchored by a Darjeeling-tea-infused sweet vermouth.
“Whenever I make a menu, there’s always one tea element,” he said.
His Jaam E Aam, featuring roasted cumin liqueur blended with gin, mango puree and chili tincture, is refreshingly lush while leaning on a rarely mined taste profile.
Then there’s the Chaat, named for the Indian street food typically laced with flavors spanning the spectrum of sweet, spicy, savory and salty with a bit of crunch. “It’s Hindi for ‘to lick,’” Lama said. “There’s something for everyone in a chaat.”
Yangdup Lama pours a pair of Jaam E Aams, featuring a roasted cumin liqueur with gin, mango puree and a chili tincture.
Lama built his eponymous cocktail on a base of tequila, lime and a syrup made from chaat masala, a spice mix whose range of variable ingredients can include amchoor, coriander, cumin, asefetida, ginger and chili powder. The silky, boldly flavorful drink was topped with a pepper-cilantro foam.
Lama said he hoped to not only tap the range of Indian food and culture but to inspire nostalgia as well, and he may have nailed it mostly with his Yang’s Old Fashioned. He mixed Buffalo Trace bourbon and Angostura bitters with a syrup made from betel nut.
“Every Indian at some point will have an experience with this,” he said, proffering a betel leaf, typically rolled with ground areca nut and slaked lime and chewed as a mouth freshener or snack. “For a lot of people it’s a habit. You can bite on it any time of day.”
Vijay Patel, at rear, a retired businessman attending the pop-up from Austin, waxed nostalgic over the betel nut flavor in Lama’s Yang’s Old Fashioned. “Dude,” he said. “That’s paan.”
Vijay Patel, a retired businessman visiting from Austin, was captivated from the first sip.
“Dude. This is paan,” Patel said, citing the name given the mixture throughout South Asia. “People snack on it in the afternoon. It’s like putting on a shirt, dude. It’s no big deal.”
Patel’s reaction infused the visiting bartender with no small amount of joy.
“The idea is to translate some of it, what people have done at home,” Lama smiled.
One of Lama’s spur-of-the-moment creations.
Sanjh, 5250 N. O’Connor Blvd., Ste. 146, Irving. Cocktails are priced at $16.
Ever since leaving their native Peru to come to Dallas 15 years ago, bartenders Armando and Daniel Guillen have never stopped paying tribute to their motherland – or their mother. Recalling the struggles she overcame as a divorced single mom to see them prosper in adulthood helps put the strain of the pandemic in perspective.
“She taught us to fight, to go on,” said Armando, who along with older brother Daniel ultimately rose to become part of the forefront of Dallas’ craft-cocktail scene over the last decade. “Anytime I thought about how bad we had it…. She had it 10 times worse.”
Over the last two weeks, the Guillens have devoted their energies to Rosario, which besides being their mother’s name is also the name of the speakeasy-style South American pop-up they’ve created at Bourbon and Banter, in downtown’s Statler Hotel. In the process, they’ve briefly infused life and Latin verve into the subterranean cocktail lounge, which has been closed since the shutdown began.
Forgiveness Before Permission: The mezcal- based cocktail, featuring passion fruit and aji amarillo –a Peruvian yellow pepper — is among a half-dozen South-American-influenced drinks on the pop-up menu.
The brothers had mere days to design their theme and menu, which they hammered out in typically heated fashion, or what Armando describes “the usual dynamic arguments between Peruvian A and Peruvian B.”
But the biggest battle, he said, was what to call the pop-up. The two considered Peruvian heroes or other South American figures, but none of the names seemed right (“It’s like naming your son,” Armando says) until Armando finally stepped back and said to Daniel: Well, why not Rosario?
“I thought, ‘If you gonna fight me over your mother’s name, I’m gonna punch you,’” he said.
And so, Rosario the pop-up was born. The event is into its final three days, but it’s proved so popular that an extension may be imminent.
Five years have passed since the brothers first slung drinks together behind a bar – that was at a Jameson Black Barrel event at Uptown’s Standard Pour, in 2015 – and it’s great to see them practicing their cocktail handicraft again. Even at that event, their mother played a role, with Daniel’s DeRosario cocktail rounding out its Irish whiskey base with sweet vermouth and a pair of Italian bitter liqueurs.
The Chicha Tu Madre’s sangria-like vibrancy comes from its namesake chicha morada, a beverage made from Peruvian purple corn.
Their ongoing pop-up is into its third week, and among its standout drinks is the luscious Chicha Tu Madre, whose name mischievously plays off a Spanish-language insult but actually references the housemade chicha morada within.
Slightly sweet with the spice of mulled wine, chicha morada – made from Peruvian purple corn – is among the bottled or jarred products the Guillens now offer as part of their just-launched product line, under the brand name El Cantinero. (Yes, they’ve kept themselves busy in spite of the shutdown.)
The cocktail is built on a base of Maker’s Mark bourbon, along with pineapple, lime and barrenwort (otherwise known as horny goat weed). A garnish of salted canchita – a corn-nut like snack made from chulpe corn – lounges on a banana-leaf carpet. “It has very humble roots,” Armando says. “Bourbon and chicha are both made from corn, so this is trying to form that bonding bridge between North and South America.”
The Buenos Aires Menyul – a phonetic spelling of a South American Spanish speaker’s pronunciation of “mint julep” — is another gem, playing off Argentina’s obsession with the Italian bitter Fernet. “They love Fernet and Coke in Argentina,” Armando notes. “They love bitter.”
Don’t cry for me: The Buenos Aires Menyul is a brilliantly bitter bit of cultural cocktail homage.
The foundation of this delicious julep is Cynar, an Italian bitter less aggressive than Fernet, along with the Guillens’ own grapefruit cordial and Peruvian chuncho bitters.
Along with bar bites like grilled octopus and an aged steak with chimichurri sauce, the Guillens have outfitted Bourbon and Banter with South American touches and a Latin music soundtrack. “It’s fun to work with your brother for a night,” Daniel quipped. “But to be in close (quarters) for nearly a month…” He play-rolled his eyes and then was off into the speakeasy darkness, to whip up another drink.
It’s clear that the brothers’ current effort comes from the heart. No doubt Mom would be proud.
“We have to give a little bit of ourselves in everything we do,” Armando said. “So why not just give it our all?”
In the south of Mexico, people have been making mezcal – the smoky, agave-based forebear of tequila – for generations. But only on special occasions, like weddings or quinceaneras, would a mezcalero break out one of his rare pechuga mezcals – which unlike traditionally twice-distilled mezcal are distilled a third time, with a protein, typically a chicken or turkey breast, suspended within the heated still. (“Pechuga” means breast in Spanish.)
The pechuga mezcal made by Gracias a Dios for Dallas’ Las Almas Rotas using Texas smoked brisket. Both the bar and spirits purveyor Bar & Garden will hold launch events Saturday.
As the mix cooks, the meat drippings impart more of a savory quality to the finished product than actual meat flavor. “People get this idea that you’re going to taste the meat, and you really don’t,” says Shad Kvetko, co-owner of Dallas mezcaleria Las Almas Rotas. “It’s more of an umami mouthfeel. The flavors that come through are more the fruits and spices you put into it; I’ve had some made with green mole, and that you can really taste.”
With mezcal’s popularity booming, more pechugas are on the market than ever before. Late last spring, as Kvetko and his bar staff chatted with mezcal producer Xaime Niembro about the idea of visiting Oaxaca to see the production process firsthand, Niembro suggested making a pechuga while the group was there. Naturally, the conversation turned to what meat to use.
The brisket pechuga-style mezcal made by Gracias a Dios for Dallas’ Las Almas Rotas was flavored with Texas smoked brisket, prickly pear, chilies, corn and other local ingredients. (Photo by Emmy Hernandez Jimenez)
“We said, let’s do a smoked brisket,” Kvetko said. “You know, make it kind of a statement.”
OK, this is the kind of Tex-Mex I can get behind.
Has a more Texas-style pechuga ever hit the market before? Doubtful. And from 6 p.m. until close Saturday, Las Almas Rotas will celebrate its one-of-a-kind creation, made in collaboration with label Gracias a Dios, at a launch party featuring Niembro and brisket tacos by Oak Cliff’s Brandon Mohon.
It was Mohon who smoked the brisket used to flavor the small, 80-liter batch, and the special-edition bottle’s stylish design, featuring a Dia-de-los-Muertos-style cow head, belies the effort it took to bring it to life: Before it could happen, the brisket first had to be smuggled into Mexico.
Gracias a Dios mezcalero Oscar Hernandez hands the medley of ingredients, including smoked brisket, that will flavor the pechuga mezcal to Las Almas Rotas co-owner Shad Kvetko to place inside the still. (Photo taken October 2018 by Emmy Hernandez Jimenez)
Mohon used a smaller-than-normal cut rubbed simply with salt and pepper, making it slightly underdone knowing it would be further cooked in the still. “I wanted to give it some nice color so it would look like Texas brisket when it arrived,” he said.
Mohon vacuum-sealed the brisket, froze it and delivered it to Kvetko, who packed it in ice and squirreled it away in his Mexico-bound luggage. Luckily, he said, no one made a fuss about it.
Once in Oaxaca, Kvetko hit a local mercado and loaded up on other ingredients like prickly pear, corn, squash blossoms, Mexican stone fruit and a bunch of chilies. In they went, along with the brisket, into a cognac-style Charentais still – it looks a bit like a giant onion – that Gracias a Dios was using for the first time.
Kvetko got a tattoo of an agave plant to commemorate the making of the brisket pechuga mezcal. (Photo taken October 2018 by Emmy Hernandez Jimenez)
The initial release of barely 75 or so bottles – a little more than two-thirds of the batch – was snatched up by spirits purveyor Bar & Garden on Ross Avenue, which sold out of nearly all of its supply through pre-orders within 24 hours. This weekend, the store will raffle off chances to buy the remaining few bottles at an event featuring Niembro from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday.
The $80 price tag is well worth it: The finished product, sweet and citrus-y on the nose, is complex and robust, best taken in small sips that deliver smoky spice and citrusy sweetness with a dark, warm undercurrent of savoriness.
“The nose I get is salt-water taffy,” says Bar & Garden’s Victoria Garcia. “It’s candy-esque, incredibly smooth.”
The rest of the batch will be stored in glass vessels for a while, to be released later this year or early next, and while Kvetko is excited to showcase the one-of-a-kind product, it’s the larger context represented in the bottle that warms his heart.
“It’s a symbol of cooperation and friendship between two nations,” Kvetko says. “And any show of friendship right now is great. We love these people. We love Mexico.”
Saturday, Feb. 2
Brisket pechuga launch at Bar & Garden, 3314 Ross Ave., Ste. 150, 1 to 3 p.m.
Pechuga Pachanga at Las Almas Rotas, 3615 Parry Ave. 6 p.m. until 2 a.m.
Shochu, once a spirit of the Japanese working class, is becoming increasingly available as the craft-cocktail renaissance prompts interest in global spirits.
A man and woman sitting at the bar eye the glass curiously at Jettison, in West Dallas, not sure what to make of this liquid they’ve barely heard of, which has been poured over ice. The man picks it up and brings it to his nose. “I can smell the sweet potato,” he says.
The vegetal sweetness is evident on the tongue, too – that’s the beauty of shochu, the centuries-old, national spirit of Japan, which is slowly gaining a steady, if still uncertain, foothold in Dallas-Fort Worth as a casual Japanese food scene blossoms throughout the area.
“Because it’s only one-time distilled, you really taste the base ingredient,” says Jettison’s bar manager, George Kaiho, who grew up in Japan until he was 18. “And potato and rice shochu will taste totally different.”
In Uptown, Bowen House’s Do, Re, Miso cocktail supplements delicate rice shochu with fennel flavor and white miso paste
Shochu’s single distillation keeps its alcohol level between 20 and 25 percent, not as strong as most spirits but still heftier than wine, making it a great accompaniment to yakitori and other small dishes over convivial, leisurely dinners at Japanese izakayas.
“I enjoy the nuance and complexity,” says Justin Holt, sous chef at Lucia in Bishop Arts, who plans to feature shochu at his upcoming restaurant, Salaryman. Shochu’s low-proof nature, he says, means more of them can be sampled in a single sitting – typically as a mix of shochu and soda (or juice, or occasionally iced tea) called a chu-hai, basically a shochu highball (hence the abbreviated name).
Besides rice and sweet potato, the spirit is made from things like soba, sugarcane and, most commonly, roasted barley, giving the category a broad range of flavor profiles, from mild to aggressively earthy.
Barley-based shochu is typically dry and spicy, while sweet potato is at the root of many premium shochus prized for their natural sweetness. Some rice shochus have a mild sweetness similar to sake, though some, Kaiho says, can seem nearly flavorless. The types of yeast used in the fermentation process also play a role in flavor profiles.
At since-closed Yayoi in Plano, bartender Lyndsy Rausch featured shochu in its traditionally popular highball form, mixed with tea or soda.
While shochu began as a working-class spirit, the global craft spirits trend has ushered in higher quality versions fit for drinking on the rocks, or with water. One brand, a sherry-cask-aged sweet potato shochu called Angel’s Temptation, can sell for as much as a fine whiskey.
In addition to Jettison, you’ll find shochu at Niwa Japanese BBQ in Deep Ellum, Plano’s Yama Izakaya and Irving’s Mr. Max. This being America, its rising availability means bartenders are exploring its use in cocktails: In Uptown, Bowen House features the spirit in its delicious Do, Re, Miso, served in a small bowl, while Oak Lawn’s Izakaya RoMan (at which Kaiho consulted) spins several shochu variations of classics like the Negroni and Martini.
At since-closed Yayoi in Plano, in addition to a number of traditional chu-hai combinations, bartender Lyndsy Rausch blended shochu with matcha, yuzu and soda in her Meet Your Matcha cocktail as well as in a wasabi-spiced Bloody Mary.
“It’s a wonderful liquor that unfortunately is still a little hard to find in Dallas,” Rausch says. “Adding matcha to it was really the first thing that came to mind, because I wanted something earthy to match its complex flavors.”
At Jettison, in West Dallas, George Kaiho’s Earth Wind and Fire is a fine example of how shochu’s delicate flavor can be used effectively in a cocktail.
One reason shochu hasn’t yet found popular footing in the U.S., Kaiho believes, is because there’s no definitive shochu-based cocktail. He sees shochu following a path similar to pisco, the national spirit of Peru, in that it’s easily subbed in cocktails for spirits like vodka or gin – except that it offers the added benefit of being low-proof, a slower-paced option that’s trending around the country.
“In order to popularize shochu, there needs to be a cocktail,” Kaiho says. “If you can make a good cocktail with potato shochu, you’ve got yourself a good cocktail.”
Kaito’s latest shochu cocktail wouldn’t be a bad place to start: His Earth Wind & Fire supplements Shiranami’s sweet potato shochu with a harmony of smoky mezcal, the sweetly vegetal backbeat of Green Chartreuse and a citrusy yuzu tincture. The mezcal and Chartreuse boost the drink’s alcohol content while still allowing the earthy shochu to take the lead.
Thankfully, the sweet potato flavor is strong enough to meet the task, since, as bartender Tommy Fogle of Industry Alley in the Cedars notes, many shochus are so subtle that they’re better off being consumed straight.
“I feel like shochu is so light and delicate, it gets lost really easily,” Fogle says as he pours a sample. “Why put it in a cocktail? The point of this is to buy a bottle with a buddy and just take shots until the bottle is gone.”
Japan’s sake-influenced Sakura Martini is among the dozens of global cocktails that will roll out over the next few months at Trick Pony. (Photo by Austin Marc Graf)
If there’s one thing that unites the majority of the globe, it’s the sweet relief and refreshment that many of us find at day’s end in a cocktail glass. Now, all-world barman Alex Fletcher is summoning the spirits of the earth to Deep Ellum’s Trick Pony, where starting Tuesday (today) and for the next few months, you can sample international sips one drink at a time.
The drinks of “Around the World in 80 Cocktails” — a nod to the Jules Verne novel, made into its best-known movie version in 1956 — will be rolled out weekly in groups of six. One of them will get a social-media push daily, but all six will be available during the week. “It’s a trip all over the world,” says Fletcher, who handles operations for the group that owns Harlowe MXM, Breadwinners and Henry’s Majestic.
Some familiar names dot the overall list, standards like Peru’s Pisco Sour, France’s French 75, Tahiti’s Mai Tai and Brazil’s Caipirinha. But there’s also a sake martini from Japan, a rum-based drink called a “Hot Dog” from Martinique and the Suffering Bastard, a gin-and-brandy concoction from Egypt.
The lineup represents nations from Iceland and Indonesia to Uruguay and the Netherlands. The Kenya-based Dawa is a Caipirinha-like cocktail that involves muddling lemons with cream honey. Vietnam’s Fishy Surprise supplements whiskey and Drambuie with a bit of fish sauce.
The Rhubarb Fizz, by way of Australia. (Photo by Austin Marc Graf)
“There’s some cool stuff from Thailand that I found,” Fletcher says, such as the Siam Sunrays, which flavors up vodka with ginger, lemongrass and Thai chili. “I tried to find places where people didn’t know cocktails existed.”
In addition to the sake martini and Caipirinha, this week will kick off with Spain’s cava-infused Agua de Valencia, Hollywood’s bourbon-based Brown Derby, a rhubarb fizz from Australia and the Jamaican Planter’s Punch.
Coming off Trick Pony’s last special program – a lineup of cheesy 1980s drinks – Fletcher’s bar team was jazzed but wanted something more challenging. The fact that Fletcher threw 80 cocktails at them may have made them think twice.
He says he first got the idea while perusing the web site of Hendricks Gin, a brand given to fanciful, old-timey imagery. The hot-air balloons reminded him of the 1956 movie and then, a book called “Around the World in 80 Cocktails” was published last fall.
Bourbon, grapefruit and honey syrup make Week 1’s Brown Derby, created in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Austin Marc Graf)
He’s even had a 5-foot-by-10-foot world map produced for the occasion, which ultimately will be smattered with travelogue-style Polaroids of each drink.
All are established cocktails. “Why reinvent the wheel?” he says. “Why not showcase what’s going on around the world?”
He did have to ignore some of his discoveries because the ingredients weren’t available locally, while other specifics, like measurements, were inexact or described in old terms such as “a hogshead of lime juice.”
“I thought, ‘How am I going to make this into something my bartenders will understand?’” he says. “What does that mean in ounces?”
In a few months, this map will be covered with Polaroids of cocktails from around the world. Think globally, drink locally,
The drinks aren’t necessarily arranged by region; Fletcher says he tried not to bunch similar flavor profiles together to avoid “a palate blowout.”
One drink he found from Hong Kong is traditionally served punch-style in, literally, half a globe – which makes sense because it involves a dozen ingredients.
“I saw that, and I’m, like, ‘I’m in,’” Fletcher says. And he may or may not have ordered some globes for the event, which means you might not only be able to drink in the world, but drink from the world too.
The Ultimate Cocktail Experience, coming soon to a Klyde Warren Park near you. (Photo by Don Mamone)
Oh, Cocktails for a Cause. My, how you’ve grown.
Four years ago, the annual, bar-industry-driven fundraiser for Triggers’s Toys was a modest Christmas-season party at The Standard Pour, with 50 bartenders in Santa hats raining cocktails upon their mirthful elf minions. These days… well, look at it: Repositioned in the expansive savanna of Klyde Warren Park, this benefit behemoth, now dubbed the Ultimate Cocktail Experience, last year raised more than $200,000 and aims to exceed that this time around. Naturally.
The 2017 version of the Ultimate Cocktail Experience is set to go down on Saturday, Sept. 30, from 6:30 to 10 p.m. There will be food trucks and a charity casino area. Tickets, which range from $65 to $125 for VIP status, are available here. Or you can get your tickets for $80 at the door.
This big boy pop-up is the brainchild of Bryan Townsend, vice president and sales director for spirits producer The 86 Co., who a decade ago was a corporate wonk who didn’t like his job very much. In 2008, he left his job and began to focus on other things – including his dog, Trigger.
One day he was a Grapevine hospital with his newly trained dog when he met a nurse distressed about a young girl who’d been in therapy for a year, unable to socialize with others. Townsend suggested that maybe the girl would like to give Trigger a treat.
The girl did, and Townsend wondered if she might follow the dog through one of the hospital’s children’s ward play tunnels. Then that happened too. The nurse retrieved the girl’s mother. “It was the first time she’d ever crawled,” Townsend remembered.
Inspired by the experience, Townsend launched Trigger’s Toys, a nonprofit that provides toys, therapy aids and financial assistance to hospitalized kids and their families. That’s the organization at the heart of the revelry that now includes bartenders, brand reps and spirits distributors from Texas and beyond who come to lend their shaking, stirring hands.
A scene from 2016’s Ultimate Cocktail Experience at Klyde Warren Park. (Photo by Don Mamone)
Recast as a global throwdown, the Ultimate Cocktail Experience puts forward six unique bar “concepts,” each representing a different part of the world with drinks to match. This year’s showcased locales are Mexico City, London, New Orleans, Hong Kong, Havana and Casablanca, and each station’s drink lineup will include a classic drink and a non-alcoholic selection.
In the mix this year are bartenders Ash Hauserman of New York’s Havana-themed Blacktail, named Best New American Bar at this summer’s Tales of the Cocktail festival, and Iain Griffiths of London’s Dandelyan, which won the honor of the world’s best cocktail bar.
This year’s teams, classic drinks and team captains are as follows:
Casablanca (Mule): captain Andrew Stofko (Hot Joy, Uptown)
A man and his brews: At Niwa, George Kaiho’s sake game is strong.
Let’s say you are the type of diner who confidently fords a robata grill menu, stoutly navigating the fare only to break into a paralytic stupor at the sight of an extensive sake list. Faced with a noodle bowl of unfamiliar terms, you might very well leap into the abyss of a random choice or opt for a safer fallback (“Sapporo, please!”) — but wouldn’t life be one less mystery burdened if you knew what all those enigmatic terms meant?
Partially unfiltered Daku sake, paired with a Wagyu short rib deviled egg.
Fortunately for you, George Kaiho is here to help. The resident bar manager at mezcal/sherry bar Jettison in Oak Cliff, Kaiho has been moderating a series of sake tastings every other Sunday at Deep Ellum’s Niwa Japanese BBQ, sharing his love and considerable knowledge of Japan’s brewed, rice-based alcohol with anyone who will listen. (Niwa’s next sake tasting will be Sunday, Aug. 6.)
This is the way to explore sake: In dribs and drabs, with an experienced tour guide leading the way. Niwa’s tastings begin with a thin spiral-ring booklet called “A Guide To Tasting Sake.” Inside is a detailed description of sake production along with a map of the 47 prefectures of Japan. And because one is never too old for sticker books, attendees also receive a baggie of stickers with photos of the five premium sakes to be sampled and background on each; these can be applied to pages in the booklet with space for notes about each sake’s first impressions, tasting notes, pairing ideas and more.
Kaiho explains the meaning behind the name of Dassai’s “Otterfest” sake at a tasting in July. “This one’s special,” he said.
Each sake – all of them registering about 15 percent alcohol – is paired with a small bite. At Niwa’s inaugural sake tasting in late June, first up was the Daku Nigori, nigori meaning a sake left partially unfiltered; with a milky, porridge-like texture, it’s best served chilled. Offering notes of grape, berry, banana and pear, the Daku was paired with a Wagyu short rib deviled egg, a rich contrast to its viscous, syrupy sweetness.
Kaiho, who was born in Dallas but grew up in Japan, explained that while sake’s quality and diversity are similar to wine, it ‘s better compared to beer, being less affected by climate than by the production process itself. “Wine is about what happens in the vineyard,” he said. “This is more like a beer. It’s about what happens along the way.”
Restaurant owner Jimmy Niwa displays the evening’s menu at a sake tasting last month.
Cheap sakes abound, but it’s premium sakes that are on the rise, one of the main characteristics being the degree to which the rice is polished, or washed, since the grains’ exterior layers offer less desirable flavors to the final product. To be called premium, a sake’s grains must have been polished down by at least 30 percent. “Ginjo” sake has been 40 percent polished, “Daiginjo” 50 percent.
Our second sake was Otokoyama’s Tokubetsu (special) Junmai from Hokkaido prefecture, one of Japan’s northernmost breweries, founded in 1661. While some producers add alcohol to sakes to bypass the lengthy fermentation process, a junmai sake is free of such chicanery; made with snowmelt well water, ours was dry with apple notes and it paired well with the starch of spicy fries and wasabi aioli.
Shiokawa brewery’s “Cowboy” Yamahai sake, paired with Niwa’s pork belly bun at a tasting in July.
Next up, the Kirinzan Classic, immediately distinguished by a funky, yeasty aroma. Its watery, nearly flavorless taste blossomed into an apple/pear finish; Kaiho speculated that yeasts were likely added during production with a neutral spirit added to halt fermentation. (Trickery! See above paragraph.) It coupled nicely with a salty kara-age chicken.
Fourth up was Masumi’s highly drinkable Karakuchi Kiippon, a junmai ginjo (no added alcohol, 40 percent polished) made with soft mountainous water from Japan’s alpine Nagano region. (The Coors of Japan!) Kaiho said this particular sake, served with sashimi, was a favorite when he worked at Tei-An, where tables of buoyant imbibers would order bottle after bottle. Pleasantly refreshing with a clean, cucumber-y taste, our glass at Niwa was appropriately flanked by a crab cucumber roll.
Kaiho demonstrating the art of the proper pour at a sake tasting in July.
Our final pour was Kirinzan’s Junmai Ginjo. The brewery, founded in 1843, gets both its water and rice from Niigata prefecture, and Kirinzan is a so-called zizake (local) sake consumed largely by local inhabitants. Sweet and clean with a lovely floral character, it was paired with sushi.
At the moment, Niwa offers the tastings for a generous $20-$25, a bargain compared to the pricey sake dinners Kaiho oversaw when he worked at Tei-An. The booklets have enough pages to accommodate multiple visits. “If you come to four or five, you’ll end up with a good book of sakes you can keep to yourself,” Kaiho said. (Actually, two tastings was enough to fill up my booklet, but I’ll not quibble with a pleasant buzz and a good time, provided the math isn’t torpedoing my wallet.)
And anyway, “the goal here is not to make money,” said restaurant owner Jimmy Niwa. “It’s to show people what sake is all about.”
And that right there should be reason enough to give sake’s goodness a try, for goodness’ sake.
At Louisville’s artsy Proof on Main, the spice-forward False Flattery.
If you’re headed to Louisville for next weekend’s 143rd running of the Kentucky Derby, you’ve probably got whiskey on your mind. But while the city and its signature brown spirit have become synonymous, Louisville’s craft-cocktail scene is having a moment, too.
No doubt, Louisville is a straight-ahead bourbon town, and visitors will find expressions here they won’t find anywhere else. Things could get even better, with the state considering legislation that would let anyone sell old unopened whiskey bottles to bars or restaurants. If it passes, some cool vintage stuff could be showing up soon on (or off) menus.
“There are probably more bottles of bourbon tucked away in attics in Kentucky than anyplace else in the world,” Kentucky Distillers Association president Eric Gregory told the Louisville Courier-Journal. “It just stands to reason, because we are the birthplace of bourbon and we have been producing the great majority of the world’s bourbon for now over 200 years.”
Whiskeys like Old Forester have made the Louisville area the heart of American distilling.
But the city hasn’t missed out on the craft-cocktail boom, and you’ll find plenty more than Manhattans, Old Fashioneds and Whiskey Sours. Plus, bars here stay open until 4 a.m.
“The city has evolved a lot,” says Matthew Landan of Haymarket Whiskey Bar, which stocks about 400 bourbons, some for sale by the bottle. “It’s incredibly more advanced than it was when I moved here 12 years ago.”
The rise of the region’s whiskey visibility and the city’s cocktails scene has been a symbiotic one, says Brian Elliott, master distiller at Four Roses Bourbon. When he was a kid, Louisville wasn’t widely known for much beyond the University of Louisville Cardinals and that big horse race at Churchill Downs. That began to change in the mid-1990s as foodie culture took root nationwide and the craft-cocktail renaissance bubbled in the wings. As tastes changed and chefs and bartenders answered consumer demands for authentic, quality ingredients, Kentucky whiskey offered Louisville homegrown artistry.
“At the same time that people started caring about the craftsmanship of their cocktails, bartenders were looking for quality ingredients and the story behind them,” Elliott says. The same had happened with food, and whiskey was prized as a local product. “It’s such a part of the culture here that inevitably it became kind of a centerpiece of cocktails and food.”
At Louisville’s historic Brown Hotel, the famous Hot Brown is big enough for two.
Cocktails, marinades, glazes, dessert syrups– any way you can utilize whiskey has been tried.
“Now the scene in Louisville is remarkable,” he says. “I don’t think you can think about Louisville without thinking about the food scene, and that goes hand in hand with the cocktail scene.”
Four Roses’ Kentucky roots date back to 1888; the brand was one of a half-dozen allowed to be sold during Prohibition for medicinal purposes. “You could actually get a prescription,” Elliott says. For what? “Well….that was probably more about your relationship with your physician than anything.”
After Prohibition, Four Roses became the top-selling bourbon in the U.S., and the brand was purchased by Seagram’s, in Canada. While the company kept exporting Four Roses’ original recipe to Europe and Japan, it remade a Canadian-style blended whiskey for the U.S. That continued until 2001, when Japan’s Kirin bought the brand and reinstituted the original style.
Meta’s Normandy Invasion: Apple brandy, bonded bourbon, simple syrup, absinthe and three types of bitters.
You’ll now find Four Roses in cocktails like the Petal Pusher at Martini Italian Bistro, in East Louisville. But it’s also among the local whiskeys on the shelves of cocktail bars like Meta, a Daniel-Craig-cool industrial-style hang (next to a downtown strip joint) with marble counters and original drinks traced to their classic influences: For example, try the Northern Lights, featuring un-aged brandy from locally distilled Copper & Kings along with bourbon-barreled gin, Yellow Chartreuse and dandelion bitters; underneath that you’ll find the classic from which the drink gets its inspiration, the Alaska.
A few blocks in one direction takes you to the regal Brown Hotel, where you can enjoy a Mint Julep in oaky opulence along with the famous Hot Brown, an open-faced turkey sandwich topped with bacon, tomatoes, Pecorino Romano cheese and Mornay sauce developed in the 1920s to appease hangry wee-hour clubgoers. Head another direction and you’ll find the historic Seelbach Hilton hotel, which opened in 1905 and poured drinks for the likes of Al Capone and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
At Proof on Main, you can sip on cocktails while enjoying contemporary art.
Not far away is the fascinating Proof on Main, a whimsically artful cocktail bar and restaurant attached to the renowned 21c Museum Hotel. (You’ll know it by the strawberry-pomegranate-themed Lincoln limo parked outside, and if not that, then the gold, four-story-high statue of David.) Look through a thoughtful drink menu bursting with fruit and herb and try the outstanding False Flattery (pictured at top) – a mix of ginger liqueur, Hum botanical liqueur, lime, simple, tiki bitters and mint. Then check out the contemporary art gallery in back while you sip.
A 2014 Imbibe magazine story traced the scene’s roots to long-gone pioneers like Meat and 732 Social, but those led to local granddaddies like the Silver Dollar, a Southern cocktail honkytonk rocking a former firehouse and once named one of the nation’s best whiskey bars by GQ magazine. But there’s other gems on the menu, too, like the Juke Box Mama, a bright blend of aquavit, Aperol, vanilla syrup, lemon and sparkling wine.
Farther out, in a developing area called NuLu, or New Louisville, is Garage Bar, an informal bourbon den housed in a former auto service garage and whipping up wood-fired pizza; a few minutes’ walk away on Market is Rye, where you can partner cocktails with lamb burgers and more from an internationally inspired menu.
The Lady Midnight, featuring a bone-marrow-washed sherry, is among the invention cocktails on Lola’s drink menu.
I found one of my favorite Louisville spots in Butchertown, a historic neighborhood east of downtown. A stone’s throw from the Copper & Kings distillery, Lola is the cozy, late-night sister to the excellent Butchertown Grocery restaurant. Lola’s dimly lit, vintage vibe is backed by a refreshingly inventive cocktail menu; down some beignets or tasty mushroom fries and sip a Golden Porsche, featuring Copper & Kings brandy and absinthe, lemon and two Italian bitter liqueurs, or a luscious Lady Midnight (Old Forrester bourbon, bone-marrow-washed sherry, honey liqueur and mole bitters).
Take the time to get to the other side of the freeway and you’ll find the quirky Louis’ The Ton, with some of the best cocktail names in town – take Life in the Shruburbs, or Not Drunk, Just Buzzed. Or head a few miles southeast of downtown to Germantown, where the speakeasy-style Mr. Lee’s Lounge has a reputation for Southern hospitality and sparse illumination; table servers are beckoned via little lights on the wall.
For fine Southern dining and great cocktails, head to Jack Fry’s, in the Highlands, or Bourbon’s Bistro, in the historic Clifton neighborhood adjacent to Butchertown. As always, it comes back to bourbon.
“Any bartender in this city worth their salt is going to be heavy on bourbon,” Haymarket’s Landan says. “Just like anyone in London is going to know their gin drinks, or someone in Mexico City can talk about agave…. That’s what’s going to set us apart from anywhere else in America.”
A welcome gift at Louisville’s historic Brown Hotel honors the region’s whiskey traditions. Plus chocolate.
Over the years, the Singapore Sling came to be known as a tropical drink like this one from Dallas barman Lucky Campbell. Its origins are nowhere as sweet — but arguably just as delicious.
The Singapore Sling is the Rashomon of cocktails: Everyone remembers it differently. Like a rumor that starts at one side of the table and wildly mutates by the time it comes back round again, it’s a tasty tale whose twists and turns vary depending on who’s doing the telling.
How is it still considered a classic?
Because despite its many tweaks – “The Singapore Sling has taken a lot of abuse over the years,” wrote tiki master Jeff Berry in his book Beachbum Berry Remixed – it’s managed to stay delicious no matter how it’s interpreted. Even gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson considered it a favorite.
But somewhere along the line, the century-old drink attributed to bartender Ngiam Tong Boon of Singapore’s Raffles Hotel lost sight of its simpler beginnings, becoming a tropical mishmash of seven ingredients or more – and a headache for bartenders, which may be why you rarely see it on bar menus. “I remember Sasha (Petraske, founder of the classic New York City bar Milk and Honey) was not a fan,” says Chad Solomon of Dallas’ Midnight Rambler, who worked with the late cocktail legend. “But people loved drinking it. He was, like, ‘It’s got too many damn ingredients!’ ”
It’s a misfit of a drink, a gin-powered cocktail that muscled its way into the tiki canon through luck and guile, disguising itself in pineapple and grenadine. But while its more dignified origins faded in the process, two Dallas bars – Industry Alley and Midnight Rambler – are breathing new life into the Sleeping Beauty that’s been there all along.
**
Imagine two actor brothers born in close succession. They look just enough alike, and their names are similar enough, that they’re often confused with each other. The older brother teaches the younger one all he knows, but the younger brother’s easier disposition makes him more likable than his rugged, reserved sibling. And when the younger’s career veers from drama into comedy, making him a star, the family name rises to fame with him.
That seems to be the story of the Singapore Sling, whose sweeter flavors and catchier name propelled it through the thick and thin of cocktail lineage rather than its older brother, the Straits Sling. A sling is a type of drink, at its base a simple mix of spirit, sweetener and water. As cocktails historian David Wondrich observed in his book Imbibe!, it’s “a simple drink in the same way a tripod is a simple device: Remove one leg and it cannot stand, set it up properly and it will hold the whole weight of the world.”
The Straits Sling, born sometime in the late 1800s, was just that: A mix of gin (spirit), sweetener (Benedictine, a honey-sweet herbal liqueuer) and carbonated soda (water), plus lemon and bitters. But its defining flavor was cherry – in the form of kirsch, a dry cherry brandy.
The original Singapore Sling – at least as well as anyone can figure out – was basically the same drink, except that it used sweet cherry brandy instead of dry and subbed lime as the citrus. That’s the Singapore Sling you’ll get if you order the classic drink at Midnight Rambler in downtown Dallas, and a few dashes of Angostura make all the difference, giving depth to what would otherwise taste like an off-kilter black cherry soda.
Adam McDowell includes the mix in his entertaining and recently published Drinks: A User’s Guide, whose characterization is hard to argue with: “Here’s the correct recipe; ignore all other versions like the meaningless static they are.”
Ingredients
1 oz London dry gin
1 oz cherry brandy
1 oz Benedictine
1 oz lime
3 d Angostura bitters
Club soda
Instructions
Stir in a Collins glass. Garnish w/Maraschino cherries
You’ll also find the drink on the inaugural menu at Industry Alley just south of downtown, where owner Charlie Papaceno digs its less-is-more simplicity. “It’s like with French cooking: Here’s the mother sauce,” he says. “Here’s what we work from.”
But of course Papaceno had to tweak his version just a little. Rather than using equal parts, his recipe boosts the gin and tones down the liqueurs, with just a squeeze of lime. The drink is tart and a bit Scotchy thanks to its signature ingredient, Cherry Heering – not the summery cool pineapple drink the name usually calls to mind, but a leathery, autumn-ready gin-and-tonic.
“So, it’s like, to take it back,” Papaceno says. “Somehow it’s just gotten so tricked up.”
At Industry Alley, Charlie Papaceno’s slightly tweaked version of what’s believed to be the drink’s original recipe is suitable for colder weather.
Until Wondrich tracked down the recipe above in a 1913 Singapore newspaper, no one really knew what the standard was for sure. By the late 1920s and early 1930s the rumor was a good ways down the table and already starting to morph; even the Raffles Hotel itself touted an “original” recipe in the 1930s with pineapple and grenadine, flowery additions that nonetheless endeared it to the wave of tiki that was just starting to emerge.
Before long the drink with the catchy name became a game of eeny meeny miny mo, something everyone did but felt free to put their own spin on. “Of all the recipes published for this drink, I have never seen any two that were alike,” wrote David Embury in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1948).
Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide (1947) included two versions; so did Gary Regan’s The Joy of Mixology (2003), listing the neglected Straits Sling recipe as “Singapore Sling #1” and offering a second that included triple sec.
“The Singapore Sling is a perfect example of the kind of drinks that came from outside the world of tiki establishments and took up residence on tiki menus everywhere,” wrote San Francisco bar owners Martin and Rebecca Cate in Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum and the Cult of Tiki (2016). The legendary Trader Vic, they wrote, included it on his first menu under the category, “Drinks I Have Gathered from the Four Corners of the Globe.”
Here’s a typically involved recipe, the one I favored for a while, from The PDT Cocktail Book: The Complete Bartender’s Guide from the Celebrated Speakeasy (2011):
2 oz. pineapple
1 ½ oz gin
½ oz Cherry Heering
½ oz grenadine (I use pomegranate molasses)
¼ oz Cointreau
¼ oz Benedictine
¼ oz lime
Angostura bitters
Shake with ice and strain into a chilled Collins glass filled with ice. Garnish with a cherry and a slice of pineapple.
Yep, that’s a lot of moving parts for one drink. No wonder Wondrich once wrote: “The Singapore Sling is one of those complicated drinks that taste better when you don’t have to make them.”
Midnight Rambler’s play on the Straits Sling, the Solomon Sling, is served “Gonzo-style” with a shot of mezcal and a beer.
But, you might be saying, what about the Straits Sling? Isn’t it being neglected all over again?
Not anymore, thanks to Midnight Rambler, where mixmaster Solomon has revived his own version of the drink with a wry literary nod.
Even before he began learning the craft, Solomon had the Singapore Sling on his radar after reading Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in high school. “(Thompson) was describing sitting poolside at his hotel with a Singapore Sling, a side of mezcal and a beer chaser,” Solomon said. “I was, like — what’s a Singapore Sling?”
Then Solomon happened into the budding cocktail renaissance underway in New York City in the early years of the millennium, working at classic bars like Milk and Honey and the Pegu Club. In 2004, Ted Haigh gave a nod to the drier Straits Sling in his book, Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails – “but if you make it as Ted as written,” Solomon says, “it’s a terrible drink. Virtually undrinkable.”
Egged on by cocktails writer Martin Douderoff, one of his Pegu Club regulars, Solomon decided to see how he could improve on the drink while keeping its historical accuracy. By early 2006, he’d hit on a Benedictine-less version that used both dry and sweet cherry brandies – kirsch and Cherry Heering. It appeared on the Pegu Club menu later that year as the Solomon Sling.
Late this summer, as Solomon prepared Midnight Rambler’s fall menu, he knew he wanted to incorporate seasonal stone-fruit flavors, but not in an overly sweet way. When one of his bartenders suggested he reincarnate the Solomon Sling, he thought,“Okay. But let’s have some fun with it: Let’s serve it Hunter S. Thompson style and miniaturize it.’”
And that’s how you’ll find it on Rambler’s current menu – served “Gonzo-style” and slightly downsized with a side of mezcal and a Miller High Life pony. It’s a delicate drink, slightly sweet with a lush cherry finish – and did I mention it comes with a side of mezcal and a Miller High Life pony?
The sibling slings are finally having their day, and there’s little to fear or loathe about it.
Sling made: Gin, lime, Benedictine, Cherry Heering and a few dashes of bitters, topped with Topo Chico.
This year’s benefit cocktail event aims to be the largest ever.
It’s the fete that launched a thousand sips.
Now, it’s back for another run: The 5th annual Trigger’s Toys cocktail bash, billed as “The Ultimate Cocktail Experience,” is projected to be the biggest ever – with ailing kids as the beneficiary.
The yearly pop-up, scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 5, has moved to Klyde Warren Park, showing how far the annual benefit event has come after stints at The Standard Pour in Uptown and Henry’s Majestic in Knox-Henderson.
Five teams of bartenders, distributors and brand ambassadors from around Texas will face off for charity, and under this year’s theme, “Cocktails Around The World,” each squad’s pop-up bar will represent a particular continent – North America, South America, Africa, Asia or Europe.
With this year’s larger venue, Trigger’s Toys founder Bryan Townsend hopes to raise as much as $300,000, more than three times the $130,000 raised at last year’s event. By 2020, he aims to offer a million Christmas-season care packages to needy area children.
“We’re offering a unique way for people to experience the talents of our service industry while giving back to their community,” said Townsend, who named the agency for his dog, Trigger, after seeing the animal’s positive effect on a child in need of therapy.
The annual event helps chronically sick kids and their families through financial assistance and supplemental programming.
This year’s event will run from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tickets, available here, are $65 or $125 for the VIP experience — including 6 p.m. entry.
Team captains and their logos (provided courtesy of Trigger’s Toys) are as follows:
Booze news and adventures in cocktailing, based In Dallas, Texas, USA. By Marc Ramirez, your humble scribe and boulevardier. All content and photos mine unless otherwise indicated. http://typewriterninja.com
