Tag Archives: HG Sply Co.

Bartenders, Community, For A Good Cause, General revelry, Knox-Henderson, Pop-Up Bars

Sunday’s holly-jolly-palooza for charity gives you five bars in one

Henry's Majestic
At last year’s Trigger’s Toys benefit, bartenders sling tiki drinks at one of the event’s five pop-up bars. (Mary Christine Szefzyk)

‘Tis the season, yo. Of giving.

Next Sunday, Dec. 13, you’ve got the chance to give and get at the same time. It’s a pre-Christmas miracle.

The 5th annual Trigger’s Toys Fantasy Draft Main Event takes place Dec. 13, with five all-star teams of bartenders and industry professionals staffing five tongue-in-cheek pop-up bars under one roof. Tito Beveridge himself, of Tito’s Vodka, will be there. The entire team of New York-based The 86 Co, will be there. YOU SHOULD BE THERE.

Twenty-five bucks in advance gets you in the door at Henry’s Majestic in Knox-Henderson, plus two drink tickets. (You can also buy tickets at the door for $30.) Then, wherever you want to cut loose and drop your dough is your choice: Will it be Chubbies, the dive bar, or yacht club bar Billion $ Baby? Karaoke bar Liquid Courage, or disco bar Studio Zoom Zoom? Or do you just want a place where you can call your own drink? Then it’s TOGA for you.

The best thing is, it’s all for a good cause. What cause might that be? Gather ’round and listen, boys and girls.

**

Bryan Townsend was at a hospital in Grapevine with his newly trained dog when he met a nurse distressed over a young girl who’d been in therapy for a year, unable to socialize with others. “She’s not getting any better,” the nurse said.

Townsend himself had been stuck for a while, in a corporate job where he wasn’t very happy. In 2008, he left and began focusing on other things. His dog, Trigger, was one of them.

He told the nurse: Maybe she’d like to give Trigger a treat?

The girl did.

“Then I wondered if she’d follow Trigger through a tunnel,” Townsend said. “And she did. The nurse went and got the girl’s mom; it was the first time she’d ever crawled.”

“I truly believe we’re all in the world to do something better.” – Bryan Townsend, The 86 Co.

Inspired by the experience, Townsend – now a vice president and sales director for spirits outfit The 86 Co. – launched Trigger’s Toys, a nonprofit that provides toys, therapy aids and financial assistance for hospitalized kids and their families.

“It instantly changed this girl’s life just because I was throwing treats for my dog,” Townsend says.

**

Last year’s Trigger’s Toys event, including sponsorships, raised about $100,000 for the cause. This year’s total is already at $87,000. “That’s the most we’ve had going in,” said Ariana Hajibashi, who’s handling publicity for the event.

Matt Orth, Lark on the Park
He’s making a drink, he’s shaking it twice. LARK on the Park’s Matt Orth doing good for goodness’ sake at the 2013 Trigger’s Toys benefit event at Standard Pour.

Among the projects past funds have benefited include therapeutic equipment, Christmas toys and construction of a courtyard at Our Children’s House, a facility for children with special healthcare needs at Baylor Scott & White in Carrollton.

Sunday’s event runs from 8 pm until midnight-ish, with stacks upon stacks of participating bartenders coming from all over Texas. There’ll even be a couple from Oklahoma City.

This year’s bartending team captains are Ida Claire’s Bonnie Wilson, Parliament’s Stephen Halpin, Leonard Oliver of Austin’s VOX Table, Juli Naida of HG Sply Co. and Armando Guillen of The Standard Pour.

Each bar team is going all out, as usual: Tito Beveridge will be slinging with the Chubbies team, while Studio Zoom Zoom is gathering short rah-rah videos from classic bars around the world, including New York’s Employees Only and Pegu Club and The Violet Hour in Chicago – each of which will play disco music for an hour at their respective establishments in support.

“I truly believe we’re all in this world to do something better,” Townsend says.

For more details, to purchase tickets or to make a donation, please visit http://www.triggerstoys.org/

HENRY’S MAJESTIC, 4900 McKinney Ave., Dallas.

Cocktails, Events, Negroni, Vintage cocktails

If there was ever a time to celebrate the Negroni, National Negroni Week is it

National Negroni Week
It’s National Negroni Week. Why aren’t you celebrating?

The Negroni is among the most perfect of cocktails, a happy triumvirate of gin, sweet vermouth and the Italian bitter liqueur Campari that appeals to the bittersweet lover in you. It works as a handy aperitif or a dependable go-to, and it’s got some legs: The recipe dates back to at least the 1950s, though its rumored origins trace back to 1919, when the Italian Count Negroni asked for a variation on the Americano to be made with gin instead of club soda.

As consummate bar man Rocco Milano once said, “It’s a drink that’s greater than the sum of its parts, because they have an amplifying effect.”

That they do. Master bartender Gary Regan calls the Negroni one of the world’s finest drinks. “The balance is of primary importance in a Negroni,” he writes in The Joy of Mixology. “Using equal parts of each ingredient is absolutely necessary to achieve perfection.”

It’s also a drink that oh so willingly lends itself to multiple variations. Sub mezcal for gin and you’ve got a smoky Negroni; use bourbon and you’ve got a Boulevardier. Fancy up your sweet vermouth with Carpano Antica for some extra zing. And so on. It’s a versatile vehicle for your whims.

Which is all the more reason to celebrate the currently ongoing National Negroni Week, as proclaimed by Imbibe magazine. And it’s for a good cause – participating bars are offering the classic drink at special prices this week, with the proceeds benefiting the charity or cause of their choice: At Dallas’ Black Swan Saloon, it’s the ALS Association’s Texas chapter; at Henry’s Majestic, it’s Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. Other participating bars include Proof + Pantry, Dish Preston Hollow, Twenty Seven, Victor Tango’s, Nickel and Rye, Libertine Bar and HG Sply Co.

Get over there and try the Negroni or some variation therein. (At Henry’s Majestic, cocktail guru Alex Fletcher cooked up a Campari infused with dried currant and golden raisin, for example.)  Personally, I recommend having one on the rocks with an orange twist and a dash of Pacific Ocean.

Salut!