Tag Archives: Dallas Museum of Art

Barware, Cocktail history, Cocktail Legends, Downtown, Most excellent ideas, Prohibition

DMA exhibit to showcase cocktail culture history — through its barware

Dallas Museum of Art
Did someone say cocktails? Among the collection of vintage barware at the DMA exhibit. (Photo courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art)

So….. that cocktail you’re holding in your hand? Your great-great-grandfather might have drunk the very same thing.

That historical connection is one of the great charms of the modern craft-cocktail renaissance, and now, thanks to the Dallas Museum of Art, you might even get to see the very shaker the old guy’s drink got made in. (OK, the chances are wee, but you get the point.)

Dallas Museum of Art
“Shaken, Stirred, Styled: The Art of the Cocktail” features nearly 60 vintage and modern cocktail items. (Photo courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art)

Later this month, the DMA will open “Shaken, Stirred, Styled: The Art of the Cocktail,” a yearlong exhibit tracing the development of cocktails from the late 19th century to their modern-day renaissance, as well as the wares used to prepare and serve them.

The collection goes on display Nov. 18 and features nearly 60 items ranging from 19th century punch bowls and early 20th-century decanters to Prohibition-era shakers and modern designer barware.

The exhibit also spans craft-cocktail culture’s long and glorious history, starting with the punchbowl potions of colonial times and, long before fedoras were a thing, the 1862 publishing of storied bartender Jerry Thomas’ How To Mix Drinks: Or, The Bon Vivant’s Companion – the first printed compilation of cocktail recipes.

Opening night will bring an appearance by Dale DeGroff, another storied bartender whose attention to fresh ingredients and classic techniques at New York’s Rainbow Room throughout the 1990s are pretty much why you can find a properly made Sazerac even in select dive bars today. The godfather of the modern cocktail revival, DeGroff (a.k.a. “King Cocktail”) will addfress the current scene and its centuries-old roots.

As cocktails rose in popularity, so too did the tools needed to make them, and they got fancier and cleverer as time went on.

Dallas Museum of Art
Cocktail culture’s modern reboot has inspired a new wave of designer barware. (Photo courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art)

In an article about the exhibit, Samantha Robinson, the DMA’s interim assistant curator of decorative arts, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that silver was among the primary materials for luxury barware, especially in the prosperous 1920s, when speakeasies flourished in defiance of Prohibition.

Given drinking’s underground nature at the time, shakers took on seemingly whimsical shapes – like penguins, or lighthouses – to mask their actual utility.

(The coolest thing about the story, by the way, is learning that Robinson is a fan of the Aviation, though I prefer mine with crème de violette – as it should be.)

Starting around the 1960s, cocktails fell out of favor and plummeted to truly awful depths of neglect. The current reboot, rooted in the late 1990s, has inspired a new wave of cocktail artistry, including designer shakers and martini glasses, some of which will also be on display.

The exhibit runs through Nov. 12, 2017.

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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.