As the 11th annual Tales of the Cocktail conference winds to a close, we’ve learned about airport bars and the Prohibition-Era invasion of Cuba by American bartenders, slogged our way through cocktail competitions and witnessed elaborate fetes featuring fancy hats, gin cannons and a band suspended in midair.
Dallas bartenders have done us proud, too: Bar Smyth’s Omar Yeefoon took the title of “Stoli’s Most Original Bartender” at the UrbanDaddy-sponsored cocktail contest of the same name, throwing down an unlikely combo of Stoli Salted Karamel vodka, sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters and Prosecco. “I was thinking, this would never make a good cocktail,” Yeefoon said. But apparently it did, giving him the edge over four other bartenders from around the country.
The Wednesday night scene inside New Orleans’ newly revamped Civic Theater.
Bonnie Wilson of The Ranch at Las Colinas represented DFW at Anchor Distilling’s 21-Cocktail Salute competition, where drink-makers each had to fire up an original shot, punch and cocktail. Her tangy Fire and Brimstone shot featured Hirsch small-batch bourbon, lime, honey syrup and Cholula hot sauce; the winner of that contest won’t be known until well after the conference wraps up this weekend.
But hey. The Hendrick’s Gin cannon. The sight was part of the annual packed-to-the-gills William Grant and Sons party, held this year at New Orleans’ beautifully revamped Civic Theatre. It had to be seen to be believed, and let’s just you had to get your kisser up close to avoid having your entire upper torso drenched in alcohol, unless you were looking to cool off, in which case you would have been faulted by no one.
Bonnie Wilson of The Ranch at Las Colinas dishes up drinks at the 21-Cocktail Salute competition.
The fancydranks of Texas strutted their Lone Star stuff at Tuesday’s kickoff event
You could say that Texas did itself proud in New Orleans yesterday, but then again pride in Texas has never been in short supply. Anyone taking in Tuesday’s festivities in front of the venerable Hotel Monteleone would have seen a state standing as one, with two dozen bartenders and liquor promoters firing a collective bar gun of Lone Star hospitality.
The “Texas Tailgate” — among the kickoff events for the 11th annual Tales of the Cocktail conference — served up a double-digit selection of punch-cooler cocktails, plus a handful of Texas distillers and brewers offering samples of their work. Breaking a sweat in the NOLA humidity, they poured: Charlie Papaceno of Windmill Lounge, Creighten Brown of the late Private/Social, Sean Conner of Plano’s Whiskey Cake and a smattering of representatives from the Cedars Social and Bar Smyth.
Mate’ Hartai — of Dallas’ Libertine Bar and Bar Smyth — and Whiskey Cake’s Sean Conner beat a punch-cooler drum rollBrian McCullough’s tequila-fueled Garden District Punch was among the day’s highlights
There was the bourbon-fired Leather Face Mask, from Bonnie Wilson of The Ranch in Las Colinas; the tiki-ish Paradise Dream from Republic Distributing’s Chris Furtado, made with Mount Gay small-batch Black Barrel rum; and coolers of Shiner beer. Brisket was served. Austin’s Treaty Oak distillery handed out sips of two limited-release products – Red Handed Bourbon and Antique Reserve Gin – scheduled to be available by year’s end.
“Every good party needs a good kickoff before the festivities,” said Standard Pour’s Brian McCullough, president of the North Texas chapter of the U.S. Bartenders Guild. “We’re just celebrating what we do in Texas.”
And apparently, that’s good times and drinks: McCullough’s Garden District Punch was among the day’s best concoctions, a tart and refreshing burst of Dulce Vida tequila blanco, watermelon, raspberry, strawberry, lemongrass, jalapeno and red wine vinegar.
The ‘Texas Tailgate’ welcomed early conference-goers outside the Hotel Monteleone, TOTC headquarters
Suddenly, Papaceno’s voice boomed, as if over a megaphone: “WE HAVE EIGHT MINUTES UNTIL THESE COCKTAILS SHUT DOWN, SO PLEASE, DRINK HEARTILY WITHIN THOSE EIGHT MINUTES.”
The able and willing complied. After all, it was barely 4 p.m.
“Yeah!” someone shouted. “Texas!”
“Texas has four little gems,” said Juan Pablo DeLoera, the state’s rep for Milagro Tequila, referring to the cities of Dallas, Austin, Houston and San Antonio. “There’s a lot of talent and passion. It has the right to show what it’s made of.”
Brad Bowden of The People’s Last Stand was one of a dozen-plus bartenders representing Dallas
The great Dale DeGroff, at Tales of the Cocktail 2012
Here’s what you need to know about New Orleans. While it may not be at the forefront of the nation’s cocktail revival, it doesn’t need to be: The city has earned its spot in the cocktail pantheon and, as anyone who’s been to the French Quarter knows, drinking runs through its veins. The city is home to several classic drinks, including the mighty Sazerac, the venerable Ramos Gin Fizz and the luscious Vieux Carre.
In short, all you little cocktail whippersnapper scenes with your fancy infusions and dapper vests and shiny bar equipment can brag all you want to, but New Orleans is, along with New York and Chicago, one of the original cocktail gangstas that paved your way. Cocktails ain’t nothin’ but a thang here. That’s not to say there aren’t some great new cocktail bars in NOLA: Cure and Bellocq have earned much national acclaim, and Barmoire plans to visit them both. But it’s places like Arnaud’s French 75, Antoine’s Hermes Bar and the Court of Two Sisters that reflect a craft cocktail culture before its modern rejuvenation and one reason The Museum of the American Cocktail is based here.
Last year’s event featured samplings of Japanese Scotch
And that’s why, for the 11th straight year, the Tales of the Cocktail conference – the nation’s largest such event, founded by Ann Tuennerman – is now underway in New Orleans again, and Barmoire is along to bring you the action live. OK, well, not live, and maybe not even immediately, but eventually and eagerly. Over the next few days, the French Quarter will be crawling with bartenders and spirit reps and cocktail enthusiasts from all over the country – all here to drink up a lineup of informational seminars, classes, excursions, tasting rooms, dinners and, of course, parties designed to promote America’s thriving cocktail culture.
The Texas contingent is huge this year and well represented in the festivities, from bartender competitions to today’s tailgate event outside the flagship Hotel Monteleone and, as Barmoire noted earlier, Friday’s epic Bare Knuckle Bar Fight national bar vs. bar vs. bar throwdown that will feature Dallas’ own Bar Smyth.
Esquire magazine’s cocktail guru, David Wondrich, helped lead a session on Curacao at last year’s event
Barmoire was here last year when Dallas made its first-ever conference splash with a festive tasting-room event, but there was so much more, including Japanese Scotch tastings, a Brugal Rum party bus, burlesque, and even a sighting of cocktail legend Dale DeGroff, the man who essentially launched the craft cocktail revival.
This year promises to be equally eventful, and you can track my perambulation throughout the week on Twitter at @typewriterninja.
Did we mention there was burlesque? At last year’s posh William Grant & Sons party.
Are these bartenders ready to represent or what? Some of the Bar Smyth staff headed to New Orleans.
Another big coup for Dallas on the national cocktail front: Bar Smyth has been chosen to compete in this year’s bar-versus-bar-versus bar cage match at next month’s annual Tales of the Cocktail conference in New Orleans.
Smyth’s selection to the so-called Bare Knuckle Bar Fight gives the months-old lounge another dose of national publicity in the short time since it opened earlier this year in the Knox-Henderson neighborhood. In March, Vogue magazine cited the new venture from Michael Martensen and Brian Williams – co-owners of The Cedars Social – as a factor in naming Dallas one of the four “buzziest cultural capitals” in the world alongside Lisbon, Toronto and Istanbul.
Smyth will go up against six other competitors: Polite Provisions (San Diego), Sweat Leaf (Queens, NY), Broken Shaker (Miami), The Daily (New York City), Barrel House Flat (Chicago) and Citizen Pub (Boston).
This year’s bar battle royale is unusual in the sense that the establishments chosen to compete are typically seasoned entities with some mileage under their tires. It’s part of a new focus on new and upcoming bars, a philosophy espoused by the event’s new host, The 86 Co., which launched a new line of spirits earlier this year.
Surely it helped that Dallas bartender extraordinaire Jason Kosmas is among The 86 Co.’s ringleaders, putting Smyth and its smooth 1970s vibe that much closer to the national radar. “It’s usually the biggest and best that get the acclaim,” Kosmas said. “But (this year’s contestants) will be the ones that get no acclaim.”
Bar Smyth, about to prove itself on the national stage despite opening just three months ago.
But Smyth’s bartenders – including Omar Yeefoon, Josh Hendrix, Trina Nishimura and Mate Hartai – are among the best in Dallas’ come-of-age craft-cocktail culture. They’ll help Smyth represent at the annual event, which in essence is a massive wall-to-wall party of 1,000 people with competing bar staffs scattered throughout a gi-normous space, judged for character, quality, originality and speed in a frenzied atmosphere.
“They’re going up against some real talent,” Kosmas said. And this year’s focus will be riffs on the classics, daring each bar staff to not adhere too closely nor to venture too far from the original formula. “It was, like, these events have to outdo themselves every year,” he said. “We figured, let’s just go back to the basics.”
Bars are also expected to recreate in some small form the character of their actual establishment. Last year, for instance, Seattle’s Rob Roy brought along its signature deer-hoof lamp.
“We’re flattered,” said Smyth’s Martensen. “Our brains are already working. Do we show up with vinyl records?”
The team will no doubt have some tricks up its sleeve, and perhaps one surprising advantage: Bar Smyth is the only one of the seven competing bars that doesn’t have a Web site. Added Martensen: “Now that our wheels are spinning, now that we know who we’re competing against…. We can see what they do. ”
“We’re excited,” Yeefoon added. “Bring it.”
Tales of the Cocktail’s annual competition: Not for the faint of bar
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
