Category Archives: Arts District

Arts District, Cocktails and art, Cocktails are everywhere, Competitions and Honors, Most excellent ideas

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arts District, Bars, Bartenders, Fancydranks, Food and spirits

Michael Martensen’s Proof + Pantry officially set to open Wednesday, Aug. 27

Proof + Pantry
Josh Maceachern, among the reunited bar crew of Proof + Pantry.

Attention, craft cocktailers: Set your timepieces for Wednesday, Aug. 27, when Proof + Pantry, the long-awaited concept from mixmaster luminary Michael Martensen and  hospitality management firm Misery Loves Co., officially opens its doors to the craft-cocktail public at One Arts Plaza in the Dallas Arts District.

OK, other publics are welcome, too, but it’s no secret that the fancydrank faction has been chomping at the bitters to witness the now-imminent reunion of some of Dallas’ most talented mixologists, whose diaspora was set in motion in November when Martensen left celebrated Bar Smyth and The Cedars Social to pursue his own ventures.

Last week, as first reported here, we caught a brief glimpse of that reunion when Proof + Pantry hosted a private 80s-themed party for those attending the 10th annual TEXSOM 2014 conference in Las Colinas. The space was still a work in progress at that point, with no menus to speak of, but that will change next week when Proof + Pantry unfurls its bar program (that’s the “proof”) and a food lineup heavy on global cuisine (aye, that be the “pantry”) from executive chef Kyle McClelland.

With Eddie “Lucky” Campbell’s Parliament also on the horizon, it should be an exciting next couple of weeks.

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.