Enhance your art appreciation with a cocktail like this. (Photo courtesy of the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art)
Cocktails, cocktails. They’re everywhere. Heck, even P.F. Chang’s has a pretty decent drink menu now. You might have thought museums were the one place that cocktails had missed, but you’d be wrong, because on Thursday, Aug. 15, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is offering an evening of fancy drinks, tasty bites and live music at its own Café Modern.
A solid slate of area bartenders will be on hand to create works that go not under glass but in your glass – from Fort Worth, Brad Hensarling of The Usual; and from Dallas, Mate Hartai of Libertine Bar and Bar Smyth, Emily Perkins of Victor Tango’s and Ten Bells Tavern’s Greg Matthews.
Their palette will consist of products from William Grant and Sons, including Hendrick’s Gin, Art in the Age, Reyka Vodka and Monkey Shoulder Whiskey. If you’d rather get your tipples from a punch bowl, you can try one of two cocktail punches made with Milagro Tequila or Solerno blood orange liqueur.
The museum has offered wine-based events in the past, but this time around, says district manager Sharon Whieldon of William Grant and Sons, “they were looking for something a little more engaging and cocktail-driven for their members.”
So maybe it’s not such a stretch, you know: Some cocktails are quite artful, and many are even classics.
Admission is $60, not including tax or tip. The event runs from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Make a reservation by calling the café at 817-840-2157.
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.
Austin-bound badass Jason Kosmas, who leaves an indelible mark on Dallas’ cocktail culture. Monday, at Libertine Bar on Lower Greenville.
Bolsa, in Oak Cliff, was among the pioneers of Dallas’ early cocktail scene, and Standard Pour’s Eddie Campbell, who headed Bolsa’s bar program at the time, remembers the first Friday he ever worked there with a new guy from New York named Jason Kosmas.
It was 2011. Fridays were ridiculously busy, and that night was no different: people were shouting orders from three or four deep, and Campbell and his regular sidekick Johnny were getting killed. “Hey, should we check on the new guy?” Johnny asked.
Campbell had forgotten all about Kosmas amid the flurry, so the question threw him into a mild panic. He ran over to the other end of the bar and asked what he could do. Without an ounce of stress, Kosmas turned and said, “I think I’m okay.”
“And he was,” Campbell recalls. “Everybody on his side of the bar was happy, with a full drink — beautiful colors and garnishes…. every drink looked like a masterpiece. That’s when I realized: Jason Kosmas is a total badass.”
Kosmas is a total badass, but you would never know it from his demeanor. Co-founder and co-owner of New York City’s renowned Employees Only and one of the bartending luminaries behind new spirits line The 86 Co., Kosmas is one of the most humble, upbeat and likeable guys around. But if cocktail culture in Dallas has gone from practically zero to 60 in the last two years (and it has), it’s fair to say that Kosmas has been among those at the wheel.
Now Kosmas is taking his talents to Austin, which will no doubt benefit immensely from his arrival.
It’s difficult to fully capture the impact that Kosmas has had on Dallas since arriving here with his unflappable, affable scruffiness. You can talk about the places he worked at and helped put on the map early on (Bolsa, Windmill, Neighborhood Services Tavern) and the places he opened (Marquee) and the very many places he’s left his mark on (Malai Kitchen, The Greek, etc.), but for many in the scene, it’s his ready assistance and mentorship behind the scenes that resonate most powerfully.
“Gonna miss you J,” wrote The People’s Last Stand’s Brad Bowden on Facebook. “Thanks for all the advice and words of wisdom you have given me… meant a lot to me.”
Kosmas came to the Dallas area for both family reasons and business opportunities, and that’s what’s taking him deeper into the heart of Texas: The capital city is more centrally located, putting him in better touch with amped-up drinking cultures in Houston and San Antonio as well. Besides, he’s done what he can in Dallas, which has now eclipsed adolescence, a vibrant cocktail city ready to move forward on its own.
“What I can contribute is over,” he says. “There’s not a lot of challenges left for me here.”
Other people have helped make that happen too, and the city’s collaborative atmosphere has propelled it forward. Kosmas was instrumental in instilling that sense of teamwork. “As time went on,” says Standard Pour’s Campbell, “we all got to know him better and realized what an incredibly nice guy he is, and watched as he offered help to anyone who wanted it. I’ve constantly been amazed at how easy he makes everything look.”
Kosmas, who has already been moving back and forth between the two cities, doesn’t plan to be a stranger here once he leaves for good, by week’s end.
In his own modest way, he wrote about his departure: “I have been embraced and am grateful to have been a part of a rapidly growing restaurant community…. It is bittersweet. I feel so fortunate to have been able to watch the city change and play some small role in it.”
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
