Category Archives: Events

Competitions and Honors, Events, Gin, People

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

1 Comment
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.

Arts District, Bars, Events, General revelry, Music, Reunited and it feels so good

Proof + Pantry party drops a bomb on One Arts Plaza, hints at what’s to come

1 Comment
TEXSOM 80s Party
Though still a work in progress, Proof + Pantry hit a groove Sunday night.

The official opening of one of Dallas’s most anticipated craft-cocktail bars is about a week away, but sometimes it pays to be into wine: Attendees of last weekend’s 10th annual TEXSOM conference, one of the country’s biggest wine gatherings, got a lucky peek at Michael Martensen’s Proof + Pantry space at a 1980s-themed bash that dropped a Super Freak bomb on One Arts Plaza Sunday night.

Beats dropped, wine corks popped, glasses were topped. Roast pig was served. Meanwhile, the mad bartending skills scattered to the winds when Martensen and his team left Dallas’ Bar Smyth and The Cedars Social in November crafted five shades of Negronis for a workshop-weary crowd eager to party like it was 1989. As reunions go, seeing bartenders Julian Pagan, Trina Nishimura, Josh Mceachern, Josh Hendrix and back-from-Denver Mike Steele simultaneously behind the bar again was sorta like Eric B. & Rakim getting back together – “and you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Mceachern said. “We’re just getting started.”

Proof + Pantry
Josh Maceachern, one of Michael Martensen’s reunited bartending crew.

And indeed, Proof + Pantry’s rustic wood and metal interior is still a work in progress. In fact, one would have been hard-pressed on Saturday morning to believe any sort of gathering would be happening in the space 36 hours later, given its warehouse-like disarray. (Deadlines help.)  But many features were already evident, like the Restoration-Hardware-esque decor, the classy illuminated modular shelving suspended above the marble-topped bar and the exterior courtyard with its Arts-District view.

There was more wine than anyone could drink, and with air-conditioning on the fritz in the immediate area, the sweltering atmosphere was like a jungle sometimes, it made you wonder how you kept from – well, you know.  By night’s end, the contentedly reunited Proof + Pantry team was nonetheless exhausted, having worked nearly around-the-clock to make this moment happen. Still, it was clear that they wanna be startin’ something: This was just a taste of what’s to come.

TEXSOM 2014
Attendees of TEXSOM didn’t stop ’til they got enough.
TEXSOM 2014
P+P’s exterior courtyard got a generous pour from TEXSOM 2014 attendees.
TEXSOM 2014
True that.
Proof + Pantry
This is how you 80s.
Proof + Pantry
Five shades of Negronis on the menu.

 

 

 

 

 

Barmoire, Events, Exotic tales of adventure, Gin, Tastings

From the Venezuelan jungle, a most unique gin — and a rare tasting experience for Dallas

1 Comment
Hendrick's Gin
Out of the jungle, a mysterious elixir.

Whether the whole thing was for real it was hard to tell, but it’s fair to say we wanted it to be. As Dallas bartender Stephen Halpin would later put it, the lines between fairy tale and fact were “bewitchingly blurred.” What were the chances that Hendrick’s Gin’s master distiller and global ambassador would be dispatched into the Venezuelan jungle in search of a unique ingredient with which to produce a spirit that would never see mass production?

“This was an experiment,” said David Piper, the Scotland-based company’s global ambassador. “A little bit of an indulgence.”

So began the saga of Hendrick’s’ so-called Perilous Botanical Quest, a zesty tale of pluck and determination spun early this month for two dozen DFW-area bartenders and spirit enthusiasts at, fittingly, the Dallas Zoo.In a setting of artificial moss, magnifying glasses, mini-globes and creepy-crawly things under glass – a most exotic and scientific atmosphere indeed – containers of crispy edible mealworms and crickets offered themselves for the taking, the former echoing corn nuts, the latter salty sunflower seed shells. It all fit the brand’s cheeky, carnival-esque vibe.

Hendrick's Kanaracuni gin
Adventurous tales require adventurous snacks.

The mysterious gin – dubbed Kanaracuni – was labeled with clinical small-batch simplicity. As we explored our fantastical surroundings, a concoction was prepared – a mix of caramelized pineapple and peppercorn to which was added cinnamon, lemon, vanilla liqueur and finally gin. The drinks were served in distinctive gourds with metal tea straws, the kind with enlarged, enclosed ends with small holes to strain out leaves.

A short film delivered the thrilling narrative: The intrepid Hendrick’s team, joined by practiced explorer Charles Brewer-Carias and botanist Francisco Delascio, set deep into the Guayana Highlands, into an area “nestled among vertiginous crags and protected by ancient spirits” and hostile wilds teeming with what Piper not so fondly remembered as “lots of nasty little stinging things.” With them they had a baby 10-litre copper still, a small ice machine and generator, spices, freeze-dried cucumber and, judging from the final frames, at least one incredibly sturdy martini glass.

Hendrick's Kanaracuni gin
Caramelizing pineapple and peppercorn for the first cocktail.

They were seeking an ingredient to complement Hendrick’s’ floral, green and spicy profile. The team befriended natives of the village Kanaracuni, a small-statured tribe with four-foot blowpipes who introduced them to local herbs and spices – many of them “mesmerizingly pungent, but not quite right,” said Piper, looking like a pith-helmeted Bradley Cooper.

Then, on the seventh day, they found scorpion tail – a leafy plant drunk in tea form by the locals as a digestive aid. (The same Venezuelan plant appears to be described in a 1968 article by researcher John H. Masters in The Journal of the Lepidopterists Society.) The taste was just what master distiller Lesley Gracie, a wee fairy godmother with a youthful smile and a mile-long mane of hair, was looking for. “We rubbed it in our hands,” she said. “It was very green, almost cucumber. I knew it would fit the profile…. I don’t think we could have picked anything better to strike all the cues.”

Hendrick's Gin
Through the looking glass: A cocktail served in a tiny gourd with a metal tea straw.

There in the jungle, Gracie produced a trial distillate, quickly deemed a success. She then made nearly 9 liters of concentrated scorpion’s tail, which with some difficulty the team managed to transport back to Europe. That became 350 liters of gin. “That’s all we have of this Kanaracuni,” Piper said.

As the film came to a close, we were treated to small samples of the prize distillate. No doubt the story’s allure added to its appeal, but it was lovely – the familiar Hendrick’s taste, less juniper-heavy than other gins and rife with floral and cucumber notes, but with a little extra, something like the tangerine-y sweet-and-sour taste of kumquat.

Then came a Kanaracuni martini. Eyes widened: Could this be for real, considering how little of this there was to go around? Dallas was one of only a select handful of cities on this tour, including San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Boston. But that wasn’t all: The Hendrick’s team then turned over to the group their bar setups – including a bottle or two of Kanaracuni – for our own experimentation.

“There’s very little of this gin,” Piper said. “It’s best to keep it as pure as possible. But the more you play with it, the more remarkable things it does.”

Hendrick's Gin
Creating a buzz: The rare liquid was unveiled in the most exotic of atmospheres.

That Hendrick’s would create such a rare spirit just to showcase the brand’s pursuit of new flavors “was an extremely cool move,” said Tate’s bartender Austin Gurley. And to choose DFW as one of few venues to unveil it was an honor, too. “Dallas has stepped up in the cocktail world,” he said.

None of us were botanically informed enough at the time to ask whether this elusive Venezuelan plant was the same scorpion tail wildflower found throughout Florida and southern Texas. Maybe climatic differences make that a moot point, anyway. Yet despite the proclamation that Kanaracuni would never be available for retail, one had to think Hendrick’s would ultimately decide whether to produce more based on how it was received during this exclusive tour. Wouldn’t they?

Hendrick's Gin
Bartender Juli Naida of Barter enjoys a gourd drink now and then.

But I later found an October 2013 article from London’s Daily Telegraph that detailed the same jungle narrative and noted that Gracie was then working on the final recipe for a small batch that would be available in 2014. A short time earlier, at London Cocktail Week, Hendricks’ Britain ambassador Duncan McRae had said the entire batch would be drunk during a series of special events the next year.“There is something quite special about a drink made in a finite quantity being entirely consumed over a short period,” McRae said then. “Once it’s been drunk, it will be gone forever.”

And if that’s truly the case, we had been part of a real adventure indeed.

Gin
The makings of a uniquely mystical and improbable tasting event at the Dallas Zoo.

 

Events, Restaurants, You gotta eat

Edgy, fun and sexy: LARK on the Park meets The 86 Co., and everybody wins

Jason Kosmas
The 86 Co. spirits line, shown here at New Orleans’ Gravier Street Social.

Perhaps you are accustomed to your wine and beer dinners being proper, stately affairs. Perhaps you are given to gatherings punctuated with string quartets and at which your only words to a total stranger might be “Check, please.”

Then perhaps you are not quite prepared for Aug. 18’s “86 & Noise” dinner that aims to infuse Dallas’ LARK on the Park with an experience that head barman Matt Orth calls “edgy, fun and sexy.”

Imagine realigned tables and a revamped sound system. “It’s going to be as brash as possible,” Orth says. “But in a good way. We want you guys to mingle and jump around.”

And, possibly, to jump up and get down.

The four-course dinner will highlight The 86 Co., the celebrated spirits line launched in late 2012 by a trio of fine gentlemen including Austin-by-way-of-Dallas-resident Jason Kosmas. Kosmas, co-founder of legendary New York craft-cocktail bar Employees Only, will host the dinner along with Orth and 86 Co. Texas brand ambassador Omar YeeFoon.

“It’s not going to be like your normal wine-tasting dinner,” YeeFoon says. “We’re gonna try to make it very communal. We’re going to try to get people who don’t know each other to sit together.”

Bombay Sapphire competition
LARK on the Park’s Matt Orth, who not only knows how to make a good drink but how to enjoy one too.

In other words, wear deodorant. But mostly, prime your palate for a 6 p.m. cocktail hour with cocktails and tastings of The 86 Co.’s signature spirits: Tequila Cabeza, Ford’s Gin, Aylesbury Duck & Weave Vodka and Cana Brava Rum.

Dinner – which will include grilled shrimp, steak tartare and grilled jerk chicken – will start at 7 p.m., with each 86 Co. spirit having its turn in a Matt Orth-designed cocktail to accompany each course.

“The whole idea behind it is to just be fun,” YeeFoon says.

Tickets are $75 plus tax and gratuity. I’d make reservations if I were you.

LARK ON THE PARK, 2015 Woodall Rodgers Fwy, Dallas. 214-855-5275.

Bartenders, Cocktail Nation, Community, Events, General revelry, New Orleans, Tales of the Cocktail, Texas

Amid the mayhem, camaraderie: Texas weathers the Tales of the Cocktail storm

Tales of the Cocktail's Absolut Welcome Party
At Tales of the Cocktail’s opening party, the great Dale DeGroff crooned Sinatra-style standards.

NEW ORLEANS — Here in the city that sets the standard for revelry, you never know what you might see: A Santa Claus in shorts, random people on stilts, or perhaps a llama. Add to that the loosely organized mayhem that is Tales of the Cocktail, the spirits industry’s largest national gathering, and you‘ve got “Rum Institute” class sessions, tasting stations disguised as giant Cointreau bottles and sponsored parties teeming with booze and spectacle.

Exhibit A: Absolut Vodka’s Wednesday-night welcome bash at Mardi Gras World, a circus-themed soiree featuring drink-slinging midway characters, Andy Warhol lookalikes in various sizes and craft-cocktail founding father Dale DeGroff crooning jazzy standards in the garden of gigantic floats. Or: the acrobat-dotted William Grant & Sons-sponsored party at Lakefront Airport, a restored art-deco edifice where I’m 85 percent sure I saw a camel.

Clockwise, from upper left: Esquire's David Wondrich at a Tales workshop; The Old Absinthe House; French Quarter llama sighting; The 86 Co.'s Jason Kosmas; Italian amaro producer Orietta Varnelli; a freakin' camel; a TOTC cocktail.
Clockwise, from upper left: Esquire’s David Wondrich at a TOTC workshop; The Old Absinthe House; French Quarter llama sighting; The 86 Co.’s Jason Kosmas; Italian amaro producer Orietta Varnelli; a freakin’ camel; a TOTC cocktail.

This was the 12th annual TOTC gathering; nearly 23,000 people attended last year. The whole experience can be a bit much, a day-to-day beatdown so grueling that it’s tempting to keep score. “Goodnight NOLA, you’re a worthy adversary,” went Dallas’ Trina Nishimura’s fifth-night post on Facebook. “This round however, goes to me.” (Her final score: NOLA 2, Trina 2, draw 1.) But the frenzy couldn’t obscure the little things that make the annual festival special: The random run-ins with friends not seen since last year, the face-to-face encounters with people known only through social media, the new friends made over spirited dinners and Thursday’s massive midnight toast outside the Old Absinthe House by members of the U.S. Bartenders Guild. The days were sprinkled with seminars on topics like bitters, a history of women working behind the bar or the Chinese spirit baijiu, but it was also worth taking a breather to browse the event’s bitters-and-book store or the Cocktail Kingdom-run shop with its gold-plated jiggers and beautifully reproduced vintage tomes like “Harry Johnson’s Bartender’s Manual – Or: How To Mix Drinks of the Present Style” (1900 edition).

Tales of the Cocktail 2014
DFW’s Bonnie Wilson held down one of Anchor Distilling’s tasting stations.

The Lone Star State was well represented. It was Texas, of course, that kicked off the jauntiness with Wednesday morning’s Tiki Throwdown at host Hotel Monteleone. The next day, Bonnie Wilson, beverage program manager forFrontburner’s Fork It Over Restaurants – think Plano’s Whiskey Cake or The Ranch at Las Colinas – crafted mini cocktails for the sampling hordes at one of numerous drink stations in Anchor Distilling’s tasting room. Later that afternoon, Austin’s Chris Bostick represented not just Texas but an entire gender at a Battle of the Sexes event sponsored by Mandarine Napoleon. And that night, Dallas’ Brad Bowden (Barter) and Christian Armando (The Standard Pour) were among the many visiting bartenders getting behind the stick at festival-related parties popping up at French Quarter-area locations.

Tales of the Cocktail 2014
In case you ever wondered what a Rum Institute looks like. Presented by Angostura.

Austin-via-Dallas resident Jason Kosmas, the easygoing co-founder of legendary New York bar Employees Only and one of the driving forces behind Dallas’ now thriving craft-cocktail scene, took some time to talk up The 86 Co., the fledgling spirits line he started with fellow EO barman Dushan Zaric and liquor ambassador Simon Ford. He held afternoon court at New Orleans’ Gravier Street Social, describing his products like a proud daddy recounting his 3-year-old’s budding sports prowess. “If it wasn’t for Tales, I don’t think we would have had the resources and relationships to take it to the next level,” he said.

Friday night would bring yet another party, this one sponsored by The 86 Co. – the annual bar battle pitting half a dozen bars from around the country against each other in a raucous atmosphere to see who could best handle the pressure, evoke their home environment and make the best set of cocktails. In short: To see who was mas macho. As with last year’s event — at which Dallas’ late Bar Smyth made an admirable showing — the throwdown was promoted boxing-style, this time with fancy posters and clever profile cards proclaiming each bar’s staff, fighting styles and words of warning to the competition. In addition to the Tiki Throwdown team, the night’s powerful Texas showing included at least a half-dozen Dallas-based state beverage reps; bartenders Alex Fletcher of Victor Tango’s, Sissy’s Southern Kitchen’s Chase Streitz, Barter’s Stephen Halpin and Brad Bowden, Libertine’s Will Croxville and Driftwood’s Ryan Sumner; even cocktail gadabout Sean Reardon.

Upstairs, Houston bartending luminary Bobby Heugel poured mezcal. Vegas-based “Modern Mixologist” and author Tony Abou-Ganim singlehandedly lit up an entire corner of the dark room with his big-time smile. There was New York’s Julie Reiner, co-founder of the Flatiron Lounge, Pegu Club and Clover Club – but wait, who was that once again behind the bar at The 86 Co.’s  station? None other than Dallas’ own Omar YeeFoon, the former Bar Smyth/Cedars Social cocktail magician who joined The 86 Co. as Texas state brand ambassador earlier this year.

Tales of the Cocktail 2014
Bar Fight Club, clockwise from upper left: Trick Dog’s drink menu; The Williams & Graham team; Texas’ Brian McCullough and Jason Kosmas; New York’s NoMad squad; happy revelers; the guys from Herbs & Rye; Dallas’ Omar YeeFoon; The menu from Boston’s Backbar; Bar Fight Club 2014’s poster.

My favorite sips of the evening, aside from the chicory-syrup-enhanced Milk Punch Hurricane poured at Boston’s Backbar, leaned toward the trending mezcal, including Vegas-based Herbs and Rye’s brilliant Smoking Mirrors – a spicy, sweet and smoky mix mining Fernet and pineapple syrup – and Denver stalwart Williams & Graham’s voluptuous Gold Digger, which matched the smoky agave spirit with Pierre Ferrand dry curacao and two kinds of sherry.

San Francisco’s Trick Dog would take the judges’ top prize, boosted by its carnival theme and cocktail-filled watermelons suspended in mini hammocks for midair imbibing through tiny spouts. Williams & Graham’s team – whose lead man, Sean Kenyon, would earn Tales’ nod as American Bartender of the Year, worked hard to recreate the bar’s library-esque atmosphere. A guy from New York’s NoMad climbed atop the bar and rained shots of premium mezcal into willing mouths, while Backbar was fronted in part by a fierce and impressively bearded madman with habanero eyes. Los Angeles’ Harvard & Stone was back there in a corner somewhere, out-crazied by the adjacent team from Herbs and Rye with its gaudy chandeliers and a leopard-bikini’ed woman the size of a Galliano bottle primping atop the bar, which in turn inspired Seattle bar man Rocky Yeh to peel off his shirt, leap aboard and let out his best beastly roar.

Tales of the Cocktail 2014
You’ll have whatever he makes you. At Boston’s Backbar station at Fight Club 2014.

Could that have been what ultimately earned Herbs and Rye the People’s Choice award? Who knows, but it was that kind of night. It was that kind of week. And for a community whose living revolves around giving guests a great experience, a time to soak in camaraderie and a great experience for themselves.

“I’m Dallas bound,” wrote TOTC first-timer Lauren Spore, a cocktail waitress at Southlake’s Brio Tuscan Grille, in a Facebook post when it was all over. “But thank you to everyone I met, the new friends I made and the old friends who helped make this even more amazing. This has been one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had in my life and to all the people who made it happen, thank you.”

Tales of the Cocktail 2014
Words can’t even: The Absolut Welcome Party at Mardi Gras World.

 

Brunch, Events, General revelry, Most excellent ideas, Tiki, Uptown

Texas Tiki Week is almost over. Why are you still sitting there?

Barter, Uptown
Tiki yourself to Barter for this Tradewinds cocktail-for-two before Texas Tiki Week goes away forever, or at least until next year.

Texas Tiki Week has been stomping through town, and if you want to get your boozy coconut on, there’s still two days left to go.

Already the week has brought a Mount Gay Rum-sponsored tiki dinner at Victor Tango’s, an Uptown tiki bar crawl and a Papa’s Pilar Rum-sponsored party at the Windmill Lounge – which not only featured the tropical-style drinks associated with the California-born genre but the meaty handiwork of barman Charlie Papaceno, who produced for the peckish late-night masses (in the words of bartender Trina Nishimura) an eye-popping “deconstructed, reconstructed Spam-ham.”

Thursday’s Uptown tiki crawl breezed through five McKinney Avenue-area destinations – Barter, Nickel & Rye, Bowen House, Tate’s and The Standard Pour –with each featuring their own umbrella- and flower-topped tiki spins (all of which should be available through the weekend). My favorites: Erikah Lushaj’s “1874” cocktail at Bowen House, a smoky-sweet mix of Brugal silver, Galliano, vanilla and smoked pineapple puree; and Mike Hamilton’s Timebomb at Nickel & Rye, which paired Brugal 1888 aged rum with peach liqueur and Hum, a botanical spirit for which I’ve been known to carry a tiki torch from time to time.

Bowen House
Bowen House’s 1874 cocktail made me want to party like it was 1874.

But wait, you say. What good does this do me, the thirsty reader, who also wishes to partake in such tropical revelry?

Simmer down: Here is your remedy. Friday night brings tiki revelry to Knife, where Omar YeeFoon and Michael Martensen will be doing it up with The 86 Co.’s Cana Brava rum.

This weekend, you’ve got two tiki brunches to choose from – Standard Pour will host one on Saturday from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, while Barter will offer another on Sunday from 11:30 am to 2 pm. If you want to make a full night of it, there’s still a few seats left for Saturday’s Tiki Bus Tour, which will rumble to destinations including Bolsa, Driftwood and Dallas’ first renaissance-age tiki bar, Sunset Lounge. Tickets are $65 and can be reserved by emailing Steven Doyle at steven@cravedfw.com.

The week will culminate with a tiki luau at The Standard Pour, which knows a thing or two about throwing a party. Sponsored by Utah’s High West Distillery, the event will run from 6:30 to midnight. Price is $20 and includes roast pig and a cocktail.

Tiki on.

Nickel & Rye
Another Tiki Week hit: The explosive Timebomb at Nickel and Rye.
Cocktails are everywhere, Events, Horses, The Boonies

For your consideration: Another Derby event. Yes, there will be cocktails. And fancy hats.

1 Comment
Polo on the Lawn
Amber West’s Thoroughbred may set your heart racing. (Photo courtesy of Lovell PR)

You could spent hours thinking about how none of the hats that appear on Derby Day are actually derbies, or you could do something way more productive: Figure out how you’re going to get yourself to Polo on the Lawn, the annual afternoon fundraiser featuring horses, cool hats and the excitement of the Kentucky Derby.

The 13th annual event, at the Prestonwood Polo & Country Club in Oak Point, features a U.S. Polo Association-sanctioned polo match and benefits Project Transformation, a Dallas organization serving low-income youth in North Texas. There’ll be live music, a silent auction and, no doubt, plenty of fancy chapeaus. Prizes will be given for best hat, picnic, tailgate and outfits.

The match will break at 5:15 pm for the traditional Champagne divot stomp, wherein attendees sip glasses of bubbly while wandering the polo field and stomping grass back in place where the horses have torn it up with their hooves. That will be followed by a viewing of the Kentucky Derby, accompanied by the day’s special cocktail, the Thoroughbred, a gin mint julep designed by bartender Amber West.

What’s this? A julep made with gin, not bourbon? “Gin and genever were used more in the medicinal juleps in the 19th century,” explains West, the former bar master at Central 214 who’s now with Caledonia Spirits. Her version uses honey, mint and Caledonia’s honey-tinged Barr Hill gin.

The polo match gets underway at 4 pm, with doors open at 3. VIP tickets – including grandstand box seating, a catered meal, wine and swag – are $150, though if you act fast you might be able to score them at half-price. General admission tickets are $45 for tailgate and lawn seating, plus Champagne and a commemorative glass. Kids 12 and under get in free.

Giddy-up.

PRESTONWOOD POLO & COUNTRY CLUB, 525 Yacht Club Road, Oak Point. 214-390-3444.

Beer, Dallas, Events, Pisco, You gotta eat

Dinners and drinks: Don’t mind if I do

Bolsa
Pisco: More versatile than you might think. Wednesday’s dinner at Barter will now demonstrate.

UPDATE, April 30: Barter has postponed its pisco dinner until late May. Stay tuned for updates.

Posted April 29: Hump Day is coming and the pantry is empty. What’s a person to do? A pair of drink-paired dinners on the schedule might help you make your decision.

First up, in Lower Greenville, is the Libertine Bar’s monthly beer dinner, which this month showcases the brews of Central Texas.  The five-course menu features items like Texas sturgeon and venison blood sausage, complemented by a beer lineup that includes Adelbert’s Flying Monk (Austin) and Rogness Rook (Pflugerville). Price is $60 and the full menu is available here.

If Peruvian brandy is more your thing, Barter in Uptown is offering a three-course meal paired with cocktails featuring Pisco Porton, which thanks to a big marketing push seems to be everywhere these days.  For $30, you’ll start with a welcome punch before noshing on drink-supplemented goodies like tuna crudo and banana-ginger empanadas.

Bar manager Rocco Milano knows the first thing — and probably the only thing — people think of when they hear pisco is a Pisco Sour and so he promises a Pisco-Sour-free drink lineup. “It’s a fun spirit that has totally been pigeonholed,” he says.

Reservations are required for both events.

LIBERTINE BAR, 2101 Greenville Ave., Dallas. 214-824-7900.

BARTER, 3232 McKinney Ave., Dallas. 214-969-6898.

 

Events, Seasonal, Tiki, You gotta eat

Standard Pork: Uptown cocktail bar celebrates spring with a roast-pig luau

The Standard Pour
The Standard Pour makes some tropic thunder this weekend. (Image courtesy of The Standard Pour)

Spring: A time of renewal, of singing birds and blooming flowers, of tiki drinks and roasting pigs.

Yes, it’s spring luau time, and if you need any more explanation than that, here’s Brian McCullough.

“We just wanted to do something fun and cook a pig,” said McCullough, co-founder of The Standard Pour in Uptown. “It’s springtime and we figured this would be fun.”

And there you have it.  The party begins at 6 pm Sunday, April 27. There will be $5 drink specials. If you need more encouragement than that, I can’t help you.

THE STANDARD POUR, 2900 McKinney Ave., Dallas. 214-935-1370.

Events, Fashion and style, Horses, Theme parties

Fancy clothes, fancy dranks: Sissy’s’ annual Derby party rides again

2 Comments
Sissy's Southern Kitchen
If you can’t make it to Churchill Downs, there’s always Sissy’s.

For those of you who like to drink in costume, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Barely a few days have gone by since we told you about History With A Twist, the Prohibition-Era vintage-cocktail-station benefit hitting Dallas Heritage Village later this month.

Now, on Saturday, May 3, comes Sissy’s Southern Kitchen’s third annual Jockeys and Juleps party, where you and your sophisticated self can sip $8 Mint Juleps while watching the horses run the track onscreen at the venerable Kentucky Derby.

Churchill Downs fashion is encouraged, and a $200 prize awaits the house’s best outfit. If this all sounds to you like a winning place to show (see what we did there?), grab your gaudy hats, your bow ties and blazers; settle your sockless feet into those horsebit loafers and join Sissy’s from 3 to 6 p.m. for the big race and all its pre- and post-hoopla.

The day’s drink specials – starting with brunch at 11 a.m. – will also include a Grapefruit Julep, Kentucky Punch and Presbyterian Bourbon Press. Reservations are available.

SISSY’S SOUTHERN KITCHEN & BAR, 2929 Henderson Ave., Dallas. 214-827-9900.