Category Archives: Most excellent ideas

Cocktails, French things, Green Chartreuse, Spirits and liqueurs, Why doesn't this happen more often

Into the lime light: Dallas bartenders giving Green Chartreuse her chance to shine

1 Comment
LARK on the Park
Sweet, wonderful you: Green Chartreuse, stepping into the spotlight.

Stand back: The green genie is having her moment. Her radiance is typically loosed in increments — too much and she overwhelms with her blossomy, 110-proof lushness. You know her as Green Chartreuse – a crucial player in such classics as the Bijou and the Last Word, but never, ever the star (though she manages to steal the show anyway with her presence alone). Her true identity has been kept secret for more than 400 years, closely guarded by the French Carthusian monks who’ve been crafting this gem, and her milder yellow sister, for nearly three centuries.

But now. Now. The emerald tiger is running free. At least four Dallas-area bartenders have thrust this mystery mix of 130 herbs, plants and flowers into the spotlight. The seeds were planted last year when Victor Tango’s’ Alex Fletcher – then bar manager at The People’s Last Stand – gave us the luscious One Smashed Monk, among my favorite cocktails of 2013, accessorizing Chartreuse with lime, simple syrup and Thai basil.

The Chartreuse-based cocktails that have sprung up around town since early this year are similarly paired with citrus and sweetener in succulent variations that play well with the liqueur’s flowery, vegetal essence, one a friend described “like wonderful, toasted hay, with the freshness of grass.” All are worth trying – and it’s worth asking for a solo audience with the queen herself, or if you can find it, Green Chartreuse’s extra-aged VEP version.

Grant Parker, Hibiscus
God bless the monks and their monk-y meditation for making this drink possible at Hibiscus.

THE FRUITS OF CONTEMPLATION – Hibiscus

With spring in the air, Grant Parker, lead barman at this Henderson Avenue mainstay, wanted to put a tiki drink on the menu. Rum, however, was out of the question; it’s just not something his clientele goes for. He considered doing a swizzle, some crushed-ice thing with lime and pineapple; then he added a boost of falernum, a rum-based syrup. All of a sudden, Green Chartreuse seemed like a natural fit. “These ingredients go together perfectly,” he says, and he’s not kidding. It’s big, boozy and beautiful, just like the liqueur.

The name refers to the lifestyle of the Carthusian monks themselves, who after being twice expelled now manage a peaceful existence at France’s Grande Chartreuse monastery despite the proximity of one of the world’s finest liqueurs. Or perhaps because of it. “Their whole lives are run by contemplation,” Parker says.

Sean Conner, for The Establishment
Chartreuse gets the mojito treatment at The Establishment.

GREEN DRANK – The Establishment

This one is sweet and light on its feet, as Green Chartreuse meets lime and simple syrup, accompanied by muddled mint and a float of soda for effervescence. “It’s built exactly like a mojito,” says creator Sean Conner, the former Whiskey Cake bar man who consulted on some of the Knox-Henderson restaurant’s drinks and whose new pizzeria, P1.E 3.14, debuts this week in Lewisville. “I’ve been making that for years, but I’ve never put it on the menu.” Though the drink just dashed off the Establishment’s cocktail menu, it’s still available by request.

Matt Ragan, Victor Tango's
Sometimes you just gotta write those dreams down. Lucky for you, Matt Ragan did.

THE NUN AND THE NYMPH – Victor Tango’s

General manager and beer nerd Matt Ragan says he woke up one morning with a burst of inspiration: “Oh! A Green Chartreuse Shandy. I want to drink one of those right now.”

He was referring to the summery libation that mixes a light beer with lemonade or ginger ale, a concept bartenders have run with by further adding gin and other ingredients. He immediately scrambled out of bed and over to Victor Tango’s on Henderson, where he started playing with the idea. His final version outfits Green Chartreuse with lemon, honey, some ginger for bite and a nice Belgian Wit beer spiced with coriander and orange peel.

The name is a play on the accompanying beer — Adelbert’s Naked Nun — and the “green fairy” nickname usually linked with absinthe.

Matt Orth, LARK on the Park
Enhancing Chartreuse’s mood with leafy substances at LARK on the Park.

CHARTREUSE AND TONIC – LARK on the Park

A simple gin and tonic is the drink of choice for Matt Orth, LARK’s bar manager, when he’s out on the town. Well, maybe that with a bit of Green Chartreuse on the side. The Chartreuse and tonic has been done before, but let’s be honest: It hasn’t been done enough, and in Dallas, it’s hardly been done at all. Orth is ready to change that with his viridescent, swizzle-esque mix of Green Chartreuse, tonic, lime and Thai basil (or even better, bay leaf), sprinkled with a few dashes of excellent lime and molasses bitters made in-house at the downtown restaurant. “I like to use crushed ice,” Orth says. “Because Green Chartreuse is just so big.”

LARK on the Park
The liqueur that gave the color its name. LARK’s Damon Bird pouring sample tastes of VEP.

You can find Chartreuse VEP (Vieillissement Exceptionnellement Prolongé) at Boulevardier, Hibiscus, LARK on the Park and other clever establishments.

Horses, Most excellent ideas, Nostalgia, The frontier, Whiskey, You gotta eat

Cocktails, pasta and pistols highlight Dallas bar’s Spaghetti + Western nights

1 Comment
Windmill Lounge
Thirst rides a bar stool:  Hit the Windmill for the good, the badass and the linguini.

“I’m just a simple man of God.”

“Well, it’s time we unsimplify you, Reverend.”

The mysterious man rode in from the West, and before long the townsfolk would be looking to him to save their wretched lives. But that’s what happens when you’re packing whiskey, and Chris Furtado, Texas state manager for Utah-based High West Distillery, rose to the occasion.

On Monday, Furtado pardnered up with Dallas’ Windmill Lounge to present Spaghetti + Western Night, a “pasta and pistols” event they hope to make a regular occurrence. For $10 – barely a fistful of dollars, let’s face it – you’ll score a plate of pasta and an accompanying High West spirit-based cocktail to go along with the night’s chosen Western flick.

This week’s inaugural outing featured “High Plains Drifter,” the 1973 Clint Eastwood classic with dialogue like the above and a frontierswoman disparaging Eastwood’s character with the line: “From a distance you’d almost pass for a man.” The hearty, homey pasta was bowtie, the cocktail a theme-conscious, bitter and refreshing “Sergio” made with High West’s Double Rye whiskey, Ramazotti amaro and sparkling cider. The Windmill’s Charlie Papaceno even wore an apron. “This is a real Texas pasta because it’s got beans in it,” he said in his best Lee Van Cleef scowl.

If you want to ride in and hitch your horse for the next showing, “The Outlaw Josey Wales (another Eastwood vehicle) will hit the screen at 8 p.m. Monday, May 5. You might even run into a few of your favorite bartenders.

WINDMILL LOUNGE, 5320 Maple Ave., Dallas. 214-443-7818.

Events, Whiskey, Why doesn't this happen more often

Go Irish: Tonight’s whiskey dinner at Barter is a celebration of Tullamore DEW

Whiskey cocktail dinner
Do the DEW — with dinner, too. (Image courtesy of Barter)

Whiskey fans: There’s still time to get your name on the list and do that other Dew — Tullamore DEW, that is — at tonight’s whiskey-themed dinner at Barter, in Uptown. On the docket: Four courses, plus four Tullamore DEW interpretations, for $55.

Your host for the evening:  Maurice “Mossie” Power, the Irish whiskey’s lively and ubiquitous Texas ambassador whose charm and joie de vivre somehow make him seem to be always having a better time than you are. Come. Learn his secrets. Have a sampling of the whiskey whose name comes from the Irish town in which it was once produced, plus the initials of one of its early managers, Daniel E. Williams.

Guests will kick off the evening at 6:30 p.m. with one of Barter’s newest cocktails, playfully named for Power and featuring Tullamore DEW in tandem with the fabulous Ancho Reyes, a Mexican-produced ancho-chile-spiced liqueur. Both are now part of the William Grant & Sons spirits family.

Seating is at 7 p.m. As of late last night, the dinner was about three-fourths full. For reservations, call 214-969-6898.

BARTER, 3232 McKinney Ave., Dallas.

 

Brunch, Cocktails, Most excellent ideas, Restaurants, Tiki, Uptown

Tiki brunch: Why not? Barter dares to ask

Barter, Dallas
Tiki: It’s not not-for-breakfast anymore. The Polynesian Pearl Diver’s Punch, from Don The Beachcomber.

Peanut butter and chocolate. Chicken and waffles. John Denver and the Muppets. So wrong and yet: so right.

Well, here’s another contender: Brunch and tiki cocktails. Wait, what?

Hold on: Hear Barter’s Rocco Milano out.

“Brunch really lends itself to the tiki experience,” Milano says. While traditional brunch cocktails like Bellinis and Mimosas are marked by fruit and effervescence, tiki drinks likewise complement breakfast-y foods with fresh juices and refreshing, vibrant flavors. “They sparkle and pop in the same way,” Milano says.

If that’s about all the convincing you need to try a Mai Tai with your eggs Benedict, then you’re in luck: Barter debuted its tiki brunch this weekend, and it’s a welcome wrinkle to the whole morning-after routine.

Tiki brunch at Barter, Dallas

Despite its “Dallas cuisine” theme, both Milano, Barter’s beverage director, and bartender Brad Bowden had been looking for a good reason to launch a tiki brunch menu at the newly opened restaurant. They spent hours scouring old cocktail books for viable recipes, and among their research materials was a recently published tome of tiki-dom, Beachbum Jerry’s Potions of the Caribbean. Inside, they found a reproduction of a 1940s-era tiki menu from an old Dallas hotel – drinks like the Navy Grog, Bird of Paradise, Samoan Fog Cutter and Polynesian Pearl Diver’s Punch. “We were kind of blown away by that,” Bowden says.

That, plus the fact that patio weather is just around the corner, was all the inspiration they needed. All four cocktails are among a half-dozen on the new brunch menu. (And at $7 apiece, not a bad deal.)

Barter, Dallas
Ice, ice, baby: The Navy Grog and Hula Girl are among Barter’s tiki brunch lineup

Tiki cocktails flourished in the 1930s and 1940s, a California-born craze popularized by bars like Trader Vic’s that gave us fruity rum classics like the aforementioned Mai Tai and the Zombie. Though tiki would fizzle within a few decades, the re-emergence of craft-cocktail culture revived interest in the trend; places like Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco and New York’s PKNY breathed life back into a genre borne of rum, brandy, fruit juice and kitsch, giving tiki drinks a modest, if still mostly a niche, footing.

Tiki reappeared in Dallas a couple of years ago, with The People’s Last Stand crushing ice and whipping up flaming punch bowls on Sundays; meanwhile, the now-defunct Chesterfield had a handful of Polynesian tipples submerged in its menu’s oceanic depths. Early last year, the resuscitated Sunset Lounge on Ross Avenue became the first of the area’s new craft-cocktail bars to embrace a full-on tiki identity.

Barter, Dallas
The Samoan Fog Cutter: A lot of good stuff going on here.

Barter’s mini tiki production gives the often-underappreciated cocktail genre a new stage, one worth adding to your brunch tryout roster. The rummy Navy Grog and acai-liqueur-based Hula Girl, with their flamboyant ice cones, are solid; and I grew to love the heady Samoan Fog Cutter, with its aggressive mix of brandy, sherry and a trio of rums. But the star of the bunch may be Bowden’s favorite, the Polynesian Pearl Diver’s Punch, which requires a pre-assembled “Pearl Diver’s mix” of clarified butter, allspice dram, cinnamon and vanilla syrups. Tasted alone, the goopy mix has a candy-corn-like taste, but it gives the cocktail – including three rums, orange and lime, plus the nutty, spiced-citrus liqueur Velvet Falernum – admirable depth.

The drink is also referenced by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Calvin Candie in Django Unchained, though it technically wasn’t invented until 70-plus years after the movie’s time period at the pioneering Polynesian-themed Hollywood bar, Don The Beachcomber. But apparently even Quentin Tarantino knows a good drink when he sees one, and now, 70-plus more years after its invention, you can judge for yourself. It won’t be served up in a coconut, but isn’t that a minor quibble when you can pair rum with your breakfast hash?

BARTER, 3232 McKinney Ave., Dallas. 214-969-6898. Brunch starting at 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Restaurants, The maturing scene, Why doesn't this happen more often, You gotta eat

Pairing spirits with dinner: More of that, please.

 

Whiskey Cake, Plano
Plays well with food: Last month’s whiskey-paired dinner at Plano’s Whiskey Cake.

More than three years later, the memories linger. Five courses at one of the city’s best restaurants, each paired with cocktails made by five of the city’s best bartenders, and all featuring Maker’s Mark whiskey.

The scene was Seattle’s Spur Gastropub, and the chefs were rocking it as usual. (Example: sous vide pork belly with sunchokes and Bing cherries – whut whut?) The all-star bartender lineup cranked out an assembly line of original cocktails like the Pine Box, with its grilled-pineapple garnish. There was even some Maker’s 46, which was about to hit the market in summer 2010. We were a happy bunch.

I moved to Dallas soon afterward, and since then I’ve been to barely a handful of spirit or cocktail-themed dinners, though not for lack of want. Last month some friends and I hit a Hudson Whiskey-themed dinner at Whiskey Cake in Plano. And as I do every time I go to one of these events, I wondered: Why doesn’t this happen more often?

Wine and beer dinners have long been a thing, but bartenders like J.W. Tate – formerly of Tate’s Dallas – at first faced resistance to the notion of making a one-stop night of cocktails and food. That’s starting to change as DFW’s cocktail culture comes of age – a welcome and logical step in the scene’s continuing evolution.

Tate’s offered two spirits-paired dinners before J.W. left Dallas earlier this year to head up a company venture in Winston-Salem, N.C., and places like Dallas’ Libertine Bar and La Duni have experimented with the idea too. “People are trying it,” says Libertine’s Mate Hartai. “It’s just going to take a while for the wheels to hit the ground.”

Seattle
Among a cocktail dinner’s challenges: Quickly producing drinks en masse. At Seattle’s Spur, an assembly line of bartenders churn out pairings for a Maker’s Mark dinner.

One reason for the slow going is that these dinners — which generally run from $35 to $100 — aren’t easy to pull off. Cocktails are time-intensive and demand smaller groups; achieving drink consistency can be difficult when produced in a bunch. And the kind of patron who embraces the idea of a cocktail dinner isn’t going to tolerate pre-batched drinks.

On the other hand, the ever-broadening assortment of quality spirits, cordials and apertifs give bartenders a grand palette to work from.

“It’s rewarding when you do it right,” Hartai says. “But it’s much more difficult than people think.”

***

The glasses are set, pretty orbs in a row, when a legion of Sazeracs appear in our midst. The classic cocktail is the evening’s first volley at last month’s Hudson-themed dinner at Whiskey Cake. The Plano restaurant’s dinner showcased the Hudson line’s various incarnations, from its New York Corn Whiskey, well paired with chef Brent Hammer’s charred octopus; and Four Grain Bourbon, solidly supporting an extraordinary, In-N-Out-inspired dry-aged-sirloin burger; and more.

Whiskey Cake, Plano
Whiskey Cake’s Hudson dinner kicked off with a classic Sazerac.

Sean Conner, Whiskey Cake’s beverage director, tackles pairings the way he does cocktails, dissecting courses’ flavor profiles to match. “Certain things go with blackberry or cinnamon or basil,” he says. “It takes six weeks to plan out four or five different cocktails and make them really special.”

Pairing cocktails with food offers some of the same challenges that went into creating, say, sweet-and-sour chicken, with its mix of sweet and savory. “You try to figure out how someone else solved that puzzle,” says Libertine’s Hartai. “To me, that’s really fun. It takes a lot of out-of-the-box thinking.”

Last year, when Tate’s offered a cocktail-paired dinner with chef DAT (David Anthony Temple), “DAT sent over a menu, and I riffed on that,” Tate says. “We talked a bit, and I threw out a cocktail menu, and we each made changes as it got closer…. It’s a lot like making music, with two people jamming – you throw something out there and the other person runs with it, and five weeks later you’ve got something.”

When Temple said he was doing garlic soup, Tate immediately thought of Campari and came up with a drink called the Italian Resistance. On its own, the drink’s various elements struggled to mingle, but fared much better as a pairing. Similarly, a chanterelle-and-pink-peppercorn-infused vodka drink went nicely with Temple’s speck and arugula salad but its savory character made it less pleasurable as a stand-alone cocktail.

The bar’s whiskey-themed dinner in April was a treat, pairing peppery Buffalo Trace Single Oak Barrel whiskey, for instance, with corn soup with fried pig ear, parsley crème fraiche and house-made hot sauce.

J.W. Tate, formerly of Tate's Dallas, among spirit-paired dinners' early adopters.
J.W. Tate, formerly of Tate’s Dallas, which was among spirit-paired dinners’ early adopters.

And last year, at Libertine’s whiskey-and-beer-paired dinner featuring three Scotches and two hefty beers, Hartai wanted to echo the flavors of Lagavulin. “I sat down with the chef and said, `I need smoke, earth and some kind of heat.’ He did a mushroom compote with this awesome smoked-pork thing and some vinegary thing for a kick. It took the whiskey apart into its larger flavor components.”

More recently he did what he called an Italian dinner, but by dinner’s end he had unveiled it more precisely as a vermouth-paired dinner. “The whole point was to change people’s minds about vermouth,” he says. “By the end, people were drinking straight glasses of vermouth and saying, `This is great!’ Well, yeah, it is.”

Hartai likes to save a palate-testing curve ball for the last course. “I want to jar people, give them a reason to talk,” he says. “If you realize you’re putting together an experience aimed at creating lasting memories and challenging palates, you can make an awesome dinner.”

Tate's Dallas whiskey dinner
At Tate’s whiskey dinner, Buffalo Trace Single Oak Barrel was paired with this delicious corn soup with fried pig ear.
Whiskey Cake's dinner featured this tasty sirloin burger alongside Hudson's Four Grain Bourbon.
Whiskey Cake’s dinner featured this tasty treat alongside Hudson’s Four Grain Bourbon.

Looking for a cocktail or spirits-themed dinner? Contact these spots and see what’s on the schedule, or follow them on Facebook.

WHISKEY CAKE KITCHEN AND BAR, 3601 Dallas Parkway, Plano. 972-993-2253. Offers quarterly alcohol-paired dinners.

LIBERTINE BAR, 2101 Greenville Ave., Dallas. 214-824-7900. Does dinners monthly, generally beer.

LA DUNI LATIN KITCHEN, four locations in Dallas/Fairview. Offers cocktail-paired, three-course dinners. Join the restaurant’s “inner circle” at one of its locations or at www.laduni.com to advance notice of such events.

KOMALI, 4152 Cole Ave., Dallas. 214-252-0200. Offers occasional tequila- and mezcal-paired dinners.

Events, Most excellent ideas, You gotta eat

Down and Dirty on the Boulevard: Gettin’ our picnic on at Chefs for Farmers 2013

Chefs for Farmers 2013
Boulevardier’s Eddie Eakin knocking out Maker’s 46 cocktails at Chefs for Farmers 2013.

Hey, Chefs For Farmers: You can tell everybody this is your song, because last weekend I was reminded like a big slap in the face how wonderful life is when you’re in the world. Or in Dallas, anyway.

Yep: Four days later, I’m still recovering from the Elton-John-esque epicness that was Chefs For Farmers 2013, which brought more than a thousand of my fellow food and drink aficionados to Dallas’ Robert E. Lee Park to basically form obstacles between my appetite and all the tasty consumables that were there to be had.

Chefs for Farmers 2013
Cafe Momentum’s smoked bison tamale with fig mole, among Sunday’s culinary bounty.

 

 

 

 

 

Not that it mattered. I realized that by the end of the all-afternoon event that I had partaken of cow, pig, bison, duck, rabbit and boar, not to mention a bit of chicken liver spread. (Thanks to a late dinner at Nora, I managed to add lamb to the day’s lineup, too.) As CraveDFW’s Steven Doyle put it, there were a lot of critters in my belly.

Little of the fare could be called average. Far more of it ranged from very good to outstanding, from Parigi’s wild boar Bolognese (my personal fave) to the short-rib soup from The Mansion At Turtle Creek (fab) to the euphoria-inducing maple-pecan-bacon ice cream (!!!) from Jack Perkins of Maple and Motor and Slow Bone BBQ. Dude, Sweet Chocolate’s drinking chocolate with carrot-lemon foam was a standout, too.

But there were drinks, too, which is what had initially drawn your intrepid cocktails scribe to the picnic-blanket-and-revelry-covered scene. Boulevardier’s Eddie Eakin, High West Distillery’s Chris Furtado and Ten Bells Tavern’s Greg Matthews cranked out Maker’s 46 magic – including Eakin’s Steep Buzz, which married the Kentucky bourbon with  Earl Grey honey syrup, ginger liqueur, lemon and apple bitters. “I’ve never made a thousand cocktails at once before,” Eakin said, managing not to seem overwhelmed.

Chefs for Farmers 2013
Ryan Sumner and Julian Pagan of Cedars Social, craftily engineering a good time for all.

The drinks poured forth from nearby fellow libationists, including Cedars Social’s Julian Pagan and Ryan Sumner, Central 214’s Amber West, Abacus’ Lucky Campbell and The People’s Last Stand’s Brad Bowden. I had to give my nod to the Autumn’s Apple cocktail from The Standard Pour’s Christian Armando and Brian McCullough, a spicy medley of Patron Reposado, cinnamon syrup, lemon, apple cider and Angostura bitters.

Until next year, Chefs For Farmers, when I’m counting on one of those excellent chefs to bring some goat to the party. Don’t go breakin’ my heart.

Chefs For Farmers 2013
Chef David Anthony Temple got into the fun with attendee Sheila Abbott.

 

Chefs for Farmers 2013
Christian Armando of Standard Pour doing double-duty.
Event program
Chefs For Farmers 2013
CraveDFW’s Steven Doyle awards me my Maker’s Mark pin.
Events, Whiskey, Why doesn't this happen more often

Hudson Whiskey: It’s what’s for dinner.

The Hudson Whiskey collection. (Photo courtesy of Hudson Whiskey)
The Hudson Whiskey collection. (Photo courtesy of Hudson Whiskey)

In the category of Why Doesn’t This Happen More Often, cocktail-paired dinners is one of the top things on my list. I’ve attended several over the last two years, which for the same time period is fewer times than I’ve been to the dentist, or dropped everything to watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on cable, and that’s just wrong.

Well, here comes Whiskey Cake to right the ship. On Monday, Oct. 28, the Plano restaurant and cocktail joint will host Carve and Craft, a five-course dinner highlighted by cocktails featuring the very excellent Hudson Whiskey collection. If you know nothing about Hudson, that’s not a problem: Gable Erenzo, the company’s owner, distiller and brand ambassador, will be on hand to fill in the blanks.

If you know nothing about Whiskey Cake, that’s an issue. The place emerged onto the scene about two years ago and was one of the Dallas-Fort Worth area’s original craft cocktail bars. Its beverage program, still under the able leadership of Sean Conner, mirrors Whiskey Cake’s self-proclaimed “farm-to-kitchen” philosophy, with drinks incorporating items from the restaurant’s adjoining garden.

Plano's Whiskey Cake. (Photo courtesy of Whiskey Cake)
Plano’s Whiskey Cake, getting down with whiskey on Oct. 28. (Photo courtesy of Whiskey Cake)

From the looks of it, this dinner will not suck. (A menu preview is below.) The best part is, it’s only 35 bucks.

Capacity is limited to 60 and remaining availability is very limited. Call the restaurant to make a reservation, but if you don’t catch this one, there’s more good news: This won’t be your last chance. “We do dinners like this pretty much quarterly,” says Whiskey Cake’s marketing director Katie Allen.

The best way to keep tabs on the action, she says, is to follow the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Here’s an abbreviated version of the menu for the Oct. 28 dinner, which gets underway at 7 pm:

Course One: Hudson New York Corn

Charred octopus with green olive, chorizo, marble potato, and salsa verde

Course Two: Hudson Baby Bourbon

Cold smoked BBQ tuna ribs with marinated watermelon and jalapeno mint vinaigrette

Course Three: Hudson Four Grain Bourbon

Dry-aged sirloin, iceberg lettuce, vintage Irish cheddar, onion marmalade, 1000 island, 3 inch brioche bun

Course Four: Hudson Single Malt

Local sheep’s milk ricotta agnolotti with duck pancetta, black trumpet mushrooms, and horseradish on marrow bones

Course Five: Hudson Manhattan Rye

Cardamom doughnuts with roasted banana, sea salt pastry cream, and maple rye

WHISKEY CAKE, 3601 Dallas Parkway, Plano.  972-993-2253.

Come meet this guy: Hudson Whiskey's Gable Erenzo. (Photo courtesy of Hudson Whiskey)
Come meet this guy: Hudson Whiskey’s Gable Erenzo. (Photo courtesy of Hudson Whiskey)
Cocktails, Events, Knox-Henderson, Most excellent ideas, Nostalgia, People

Smyth’s Rainbow connection: Tonight’s tribute honors “King Cocktail” Dale DeGroff

Let's do the Time Warp again: Tonight, Smyth revives the Rainbow Room of 1980s NYC
Let’s do the Time Warp again: Tonight, Smyth revives the Rainbow Room of 1980s NYC.

The craft-cocktail revival is in full swing, with its attention to classic recipes, seasonal ingredients and fresh-squeezed juices. If there’s one man you could credit for relaunching the mixology movement, it’s Dale DeGroff, who presided over New York City’s Rainbow Room starting in the late 1980s.

Tonight, Dallas’ Smyth will honor “King Cocktail” — now author, consultant and founder of New Orleans’ Museum of the American Cocktail — by recreating one of his original Rainbow Room menus for the evening. From the Derby cocktail to the Orange Breeze, you’ll have a chance to be transported back in time, and if Smyth’s Ryan Sumner has his way, 1980s tunes will be on the playlist will help you get there. Let’s hope that doesn’t mean any Huey Lewis and the News.

Don’t forget to make — and keep — your reservations.

SMYTH, 4513 Travis Street, Dallas. 214-520-0900

You owe this man. The great Dale DeGroff, throwing down at Tales of the Cocktail 2012.
Craft-cocktail drinkers: You owe this man. The great Dale DeGroff, throwing down at Tales of the Cocktail 2012.
Bars, Deep Ellum, Events, Most excellent ideas, Uptown

Put me in coach: The report from Dallas’ inaugural cocktail bus tour

Central 214
Central 214’s red-sorrel-accented Last Monkey Standing, one of last week’s cocktail bus tour highlights. (Marc Ramirez)

“There are going to be times when we can’t wait for somebody…. You’re either on the bus or off the bus. If you’re on the bus, and you get left behind, then you’ll find it again. If you’re off the bus in the first place — then it won’t make a damn.”

Ken Kesey, as quoted by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

***

So, here’s how things went on Dallas’ first-ever cocktail bus tour: Festively. By 7:05, two dozen imbibers were on the bus, a dazzling white coach and our carriage for the evening. Already, at The People’s Last Stand at Mockingbird Station, the evening’s initial libation had been sampled, some flouncy red thing with gin and Campari and watermelon and rhubarb liqueur.

For $60 apiece, the inaugural “chartered bus tour of some serious libations” would ferry us to six craft-cocktail bars from Uptown to Cedars to Deep Ellum. As you might expect, the evening’s mood was progressively buoyant; few cared that the excursion was less an actual “tour” than a series of stops via luxury taxi.

For one glorious moment, Tate's Dallas' Robbie Call was on the bus -- and then he was not
For one glorious moment, Tate’s Dallas’ Robbie Christian was on the bus — and then he was not. (Marc Ramirez)

It was a group primed for fun, but not one of people looking to fog up their night in clouds of vodka and Red Bull. Those on board were willing to be led down new paths — believers in, or at least curious about, the concept of craft cocktails with their artisan ingredients, fresh-squeezed juices and creative depths. As former Private/Social barman Rocco Milano once described an evening of imbibement to local cocktail enthusiast Manny Mendoza, who’s working on a documentary about the Dallas cocktail scene: “You’re going to be inebriated at the end of the night. The difference is in how you get there.”

Wise words indeed. But to get there you had to be on the bus, and so we were. The idea was to showcase Dallas’ craft-cocktail diversity; not everyone had been to all six spots and certainly not all in one night. First came the Palomar Hotel’s Central 214, where we enjoyed bartender Amber West’s Last Monkey Standing – a bouquet of Monkey Shoulder blended scotch, Lillet Rose, chamomile, lemongrass syrup, lemon and a touch of red sorrel from Tom Spicer’s gardens.

Cocktail fan Manny Mendoza enjoys the Last Monkey Standing at tour stop No. 2, Central 214
Cocktail fan Manny Mendoza enjoys the Last Monkey Standing at tour stop No. 2, Central 214 (Marc Ramirez)

Then, back on the bus. “Everybody here?” asked tour host and mastermind Alex Fletcher, general manager at The People’s Last Stand. Hmmm. He paused. “OK,” he said, “if you’re not here, raise your hands!”

Havoc.

At Uptown’s The Standard Pour we encountered the Mexican Standoff – a tequila-and-mezcal concoction from Pozo, TSP’s sister-establishment next door and one of my favorite tastes of the night – before hoofing it down the street to Tate’s, tour stop No. 4.

Standard Pour's Brian McCullough, cranking out Mexican Standoffs.
Standard Pour’s Brian McCullough, cranking out Mexican Standoffs. (Marc Ramirez)

Levity ruled the occasion, thankfully never descending into sloppiness. “I’m surprised at how calm everybody is,” said tour co-host Brad Bowden, also of The People’s Last Stand. “I thought there’d be a lot of drunk people walking around.”

The bars themselves, too, performed admirably, firing up twenty-something drinks in quick fashion and keeping us on schedule, and somehow the bus we managed to collect a bartender or two, as well as CraveDFW’s Steven Doyle, along the way.

At Stop No. 4, tour-goers had a choice -- a basil gimlet or this bit of Scotch beauty
At Stop No. 4, tour-goers had a choice — a basil gimlet or this bit of Scotch beauty. (Marc Ramirez)

After Deep Ellum’s divey Black Swan came the pioneering Cedars Social south of downtown, where bartender Julian Pagan wowed with his tiki-esque Yacht Rock: “It’s Sailor Jerry rum, Velvet Falernum, cinnamon syrup, lime, and… yeah.” Yeah!

The Cedars Social's Yacht Rock cocktail. (Marc Ramirez)
The Cedars Social’s Yacht Rock cocktail. (Marc Ramirez)

By the time the call came to head back to The People’s Last Stand for a nightcap and munchies, we were having trouble corralling even our hosts. Personally, I’d love to see more tour-like features in something like this – more info about the bars we visited, for instance, or the Dallas scene itself, but all in all, it had been a good night. Fletcher figured he’d be lucky to break even with the trial-run event; it was more about getting people out of their cocktail comfort zones.

And that was just fine with Calissa Gentry, a Cedars Social regular who’d taken the tour with friends Elaine Lagow and Genevieve Neyens. “We usually like vodka on the rocks,” she said. “But because we go to Cedars, we try new things.”

Trying new things was the reason Lagow was on the tour, too. “I’d do it again in a minute,” she said.

"By the way, guys, great idea," said bartender Danno O'Keefe. "I hate you, because I didn't think of it first." (Marc Ramirez)
“By the way, guys, great idea,” said bartender Danno O’Keefe. “I hate you, because I didn’t think of it first.” (Marc Ramirez)
Night-night: Genevieve Neyens smooches pal Elaine at tour's end. (Marc Ramirez)
At night’s end, smooches: Genevieve Neyens bids pal Elaine Lagow farewell. (Marc Ramirez)
Central 214's bartender extraordinaire Amber West hopped aboard the tour at Stop No. 2 (Manny Mendoza)
Central 214’s bartender extraordinaire Amber West hopped aboard the tour at Stop No. 2. (Manny Mendoza)
Bars, Events, Most excellent ideas

Dallas, your cocktail coach has arrived: A tour of city craft outposts

Dallas cocktail tour
This ain’t the 3:10 to Yuma.

These cocktail bars. They’re all over Dallas. But odds are you’ve never hit six of them in one night.  What if there was… a cocktail tour bus? Why doesn’t somebody make one of those?

Well, now someone has. The enrichment gets rolling at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 22, and for that you can thank general manager Alex Fletcher of The People’s Last Stand. “Cocktail culture has grown here at such a rapid pace,” he says. “We’ve all solidified our businesses, we have extremely high-end ingredients…. It’s time to show that off a little bit.”

In addition to the Mockingbird Station second-floor lounge, the estimated six-hour, “chartered bus tour of some serious libations” will make stops at nearby Central 214, Uptown’s Standard Pour and Tate’s, and further south, The Cedars Social and Black Swan Saloon.

Price is $60 and includes a cocktail at each stop, which despite the lack of cookies is a deal not even DART can beat. It’s also a chance to get people out of their cocktail comfort zones, both culinarily and geographically speaking. “A lot of people who come (to People’s Last Stand) never go to Black Swan, and vice versa,” Fletcher says. “And a lot of people probably haven’t been to all six of them, so why not get a handful and take everybody out for a night?”

Capacity will be limited to 40, because who wants to be the bus that shows up to a bar on Thursday night with 100 people all wanting drinks at the same time? No, you don’t want to be that bus. “We’re trying not to throw anybody in the weeds,” Fletcher says.

Good call.

To reserve your seat or for more information, call 263-5380 or email plsdallas@gmail.com.