Mustache seesaws. Vodka ice cream. A magical wall through which seemingly disembodied hands offer cocktails for the taking. It might sound like something out of an Alice in Wonderland fantasyland, but that’s what you’ll find on the evening of Sunday, Oct. 13, at Deep Ellum’s Harlowe MXM and its adjoining sister bar, Trick Pony.
The event is the 8thannual Ultimate Cocktail Experience, which in its previous seven years has raised nearly $1 million total for Dallas-based Trigger’s Toys, a non-profit organization aiding hospitalized kids and their families.
2018’s Ultimate Cocktail Experience took place at The Bomb Factory. Image from video footage produced for the event.
“It’s one of those days when everybody comes together,” said Naomi Ayala, president of the U.S Bartenders Guild’s Dallas chapter, at a recent group workshop. “It’s for the kids.”
Originally known as the Fantasy Bar Draft and then Cocktails for a Cause, the Ultimate Cocktail Event has snowballed since its initial runs at The Standard Pour in Uptown and Henry’s Majestic in Knox-Henderson, held more recently at massive venues like the Bomb Factory and Klyde Warren Park. This year’s move to Harlowe/Trick Pony takes the party back to its roots while maintaining its spirit and spectacle.
“We’re toning it back down,” says Brian McCullough, among the event’s
original organizers. “Everyone will feel the whole thing a little more.”
The Ultimate Cocktail Experience, now in its 8th year, has raised nearly $1 million for Trigger’s Toys.
The Ultimate Cocktail Event runs from 6 to 11 p.m. and capitalizes on the Harlowe/Trick Pony complex’s two-story design – a perfect setting for the gala’s traditional five-way battle of pop-up bars staffed by more than a hundred bar industry pros from DFW and beyond.
Every year, five teams of bartenders conceive an imaginary bar and spend time developing the drinks, concept and clever marketing campaigns in pursuit of the coveted people’s choice prize. This year’s event is an all-star reunion, bringing together each of the last five year’s winners for a bid at the ultimate crown.
“We’re even bringing back Ampersand and Ampersand,” says Stephen Halpin, Dallas-based manager of trade education for Patron Tequila, referring to the cheeky name of 2014’s champ.
But as Ayala said, it’s all about the kids. It was Bryan Townsend, vice president of global sales for spirits producer The 86 Co., who launched Trigger’s Toys 11 years ago after witnessing the positive effect that his dog, Trigger, had on an antisocial child at a local care facility.
This year’s move to Harlowe MXM/Trick Pony takes the annual benefit back to its bar roots. Image from video footage produced for the event.
Now, in addition to providing financial support for kids and their families facing long-term hospital care, Trigger’s Toys every year buys holiday-season gifts for them and their families and funds therapeutic care for kids with autism, cerebral palsy and other conditions through an organization called Bryan’s House.
“It has just evolved and evolved,” Townsend says.
Joining “& and &,” helmed by the Statler Hotel’s Kyle Hilla, will be 2018 champ Elevate, captained by Megan McClinton and Jason Pollard of The Usual in Fort Worth; 2017 champ Cuba, led by Nicholas Grammer of The Mitchell; 2016 winner American Carnival, headed by Andrew Stofko of Te Deseo; and 2015 champ Zoom Zoom, led by Zach Smigiel of Billy Can Can.
NOTE: A previous version of this post stated that Ravinder Singh of Sloane’s Corner would be leading team Cuba; Nicholas Grammer has since stepped in to take his place.
Dallas’ Midnight Rambler, in the lower level of downtown’s Joule Hotel, was named one of the country’s four best hotel bars for the second year in a row.
Chad Solomon and Christy Pope, owners of downtown Dallas’ Midnight Rambler, didn’t set out to open a hotel bar, but when the lower level of the Joule Hotel became available, the New York City transplants jumped at it. “We wanted to create something dynamic and soulful that felt like a standalone bar,” Solomon says. “Hotel bars can sometimes lack a pulse.”
This year, for the second time in a row, Midnight Rambler finished as a top-four finalist in the Best American Hotel Bar category at the Tales of the Cocktail conference’s annual awards. And last year, hotel bars accounted for all top five spots in the annual rankings of the world’s 50 best cocktail bars (of any kind) voted on by global drink experts.
Midnight Rambler’s Chad Solomon.
When it comes to hotel bars, maybe you’ve got reservations: Aren’t they basically bland, overpriced way stations where you grudgingly take refuge in the face of bad weather, or knock down a so-so drink while waiting for your out-of-town friends to finish getting ready for an evening out?
Well, not only have hotel bars played an important role in craft-cocktail history, birthing modern classics like the Hanky Panky, Sidecar and the Bloody Mary; they’ve been key to the scene’s modern reawakening. The best of them aim to appeal to locals as much as to hotel guests themselves, and while prices do trend higher, so does the experience, offering quality, creativity, consistency and superior service as much as leathery swank or great city views.
“Hotels are the original high-end places that people went to drink,” says Ryan Littman, food and beverage director for the Sheraton Dallas.
The American Bar at London’s Savoy Hotel dates back to the 1890s and is regularly lauded as one of the world’s best.
Take the American Bar at London’s Savoy Hotel: To this day, the globally lauded bar is an eye-catching beauty in sparkling white, with impeccable service and elaborately conceived cocktails, earning Tales of the Cocktail’s honor for best international hotel bar in 2018. But the place is no newcomer: Dating to the 1890s, it’s the longest surviving cocktail bar in London, where bartender Harry Craddock perfected the dry martini and in 1930 published one of the craft’s landmark recipe tomes, The Savoy Cocktail Book.
That’s the legacy Midnight Rambler built on when it opened in 2014, earning a sizeable local following with its glamorous, subterranean setting and thoughtful cocktails ($12-16) supported by a backroom lab with high-tech, ingredient-making gadgets. “We’re happy to be a destination bar,” Pope says. “What goes in your glass is important, but the experience is important as well.”
The bar’s success, along with cocktails’ continued popularity, has nudged other local hotels like the Canvas and AC Hotel to amp up or even re-do their bar programs. “It’s really come full circle,” Solomon says. “There’s a newer breed of hotel bars that don’t want to just be for guests; they want to be a destination for locals, too.”
Here are some of Dallas’ best.
THE MANSION BAR (at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek)
A choice corner booth at the Mansion Bar, the most influential hotel bar in the Dallas cocktail scene.
Probably no hotel bar in Dallas has spawned more talent in the local craft cocktail scene than the Mansion Bar, where three of Dallas’ most prominent cocktail pioneers – Eddie “Lucky” Campbell, Michael Martensen and Rocco Milano – all did time before making their names in the scene.
The bar, with its sexy lighting, velvet settees and Texan and equestrian-themed wall art, was once the dining room of the 1920s-era landmark former residence, which opened as a hotel and restaurant in the early 1980s. Renovated in 2007, it’s now a sleek spot to rub shoulders with wedding partiers and fancy nightcrawlers, with live music three nights a week.
“Saturday nights are like a party in here,” one busy bartender says between shakes.
The seasonally minded cocktails – priced from $14-$16 with a $23 Old Fashioned outlier – include the spicy Peach Please, with mezcal, Italian bitter liqueur, peach chile syrup and lime.
THE PARLOR (at the Sheraton)
The Parlor’s ‘Daiquiri Reimagined.’
The Parlor is a relative newcomer, built like a living room – or at least one with a well-stocked bar at one end. There are no seats at the bar, just a lounge-like setting with sofas and sectionals amid encyclopedia-lined shelves and retro games like Atari, chess and shuffleboard.
A pair of vintage valises propped at the front doors signal The Parlor’s location, deep in the back pocket of the recently renovated Sheraton Dallas. “Hotels these days are finding a more secluded bar setting as being more attractive,” says Littman, the food and beverage director. “We wanted people to be able to come in and relax and be comfortable.”
That they are starting to do, from convention-goers to out-of-towners roaming Deep Ellum to downtown office-types who drop in for happy hour. The Parlor holds monthly art shows and retro game nights; a humidor and a discreet street entrance are in the works.
Cocktails are $15 apiece, featuring a selection of classics and their “reimagined” counterparts – for instance, the Daiquiri Reimagined substitutes smoky mezcal for rum and malic acid for lime, giving the drink a lighter feel. A meringue-like garnish of absinthe foam, zested with lime, lends a striking hint of anise and citrus.
LIBRARY BAR (at the Warwick Melrose)
All the mahogany: The Library Bar at Dallas’ Warwick Melrose Hotel was once recognized as one of the country’s ‘most iconic’ bars by Business Insider.
Keith, a retired firefighter from Sarasota, Fla., straddles his barstool like a La-Z-Boy, armed with a martini glass and shoulder-length white hair. “Yeah, this is the Library Bar,” he says with a manly growl. “I love this bar. All the mahogany.”
Like him, the iconic bar room inside the ritzy Warwick Melrose Hotel – built in 1924 – is sturdy and muscular, with tall, weighty shelves that mean business, lined with vintage decanters and objets d’art. Massive zebra-pattern lamps flank the mirrored bar presiding over a kingdom of leather and wood.
Classic drinks like the Sazerac, Old Fashioned and Gold Rush are joined on the menu by solid variations on the Sidecar, Aviation and New York Sour, with names tapping the bar’s literary theme. The clever Room 237 – a nod to Stephen King’s “The Shining” – is a spin on the Vieux Carre, with rye, Benedictine, simple syrup and peach and Angostura bitters. All drinks run a flat $16.
“Hotel bars have a reputation for being super expensive,” says bar manager Chris Hazelwood. “But we’re a smaller hotel, and we rely on the local community. I don’t want to raise prices just because it’s a hotel bar.”
The bar – named by Business Insider among the 30 most iconic bars in America in 2015 – has also been featured in Playboy, Maxim and The Wall Street Journal. And the food’s pretty good, too.
BOURBON AND BANTER (at the Statler)
At Bourbon & Banter, in the lower level of the Statler, cocktails are intended to be “Instagrammable.”
The drinks at this refuge in the lower level of downtown’s historic Statler Hotel are alternately eye-catching, interactive and whimsical – in short, Instagrammable. That’s by design, a nod to the tastes and word-of-mouth potential of the well-heeled hotel guests who pass through – the same motivations that pushed hotels to the forefront of the cocktail movement in the first place.
“We know that a big reason why so much of that was possible was because of the traveler,” says Kyle Hilla, the Statler’s beverage director. “Now, especially with social media and outreach from influencers, for someone from Chicago to come in and try one of our drinks and then push it out there – well, you can see why so many classic cocktails were developed in hotels.”
The low-lit, low-ceilinged, speakeasy-style bar hides behind a wooden panel that swings open with the punch of a code on a nearby phone. “It’s kind of a cheesy entrance,” said a guy visiting from New York. “But they make good drinks. That’s the only thing that matters.”
Those drinks, all priced at $15, are all named for hairstyles, a nod to the site’s former life as a salon. As with Midnight Rambler a few blocks away, Bourbon & Banter draws a good number of locals, even during the week, with acts like standards crooner Ricki Derek and a 2 a.m. closing time.
FRENCH ROOM BAR (at The Adolphus)
The French Room Bar’s Peche d’Ange.
The bar adjoining the upscale French Room in the glitzy Adolphus is a testament to its legacy: A red-painted, 18th-century Chinese fireplace, once part of hotel founder Adolphus Bush’s collection, sits off to one side of the dimly lit lounge. The atmosphere is elegant and sophisticated, a site for making deals or romance, and it’s not hard to feel like you’re part of something grander than yourself.
“I think everybody who works here kind of feels like that,” says Leslie Hartman, the French Room’s wine director. “Because it’s not just any hotel. It’s the Adolphus.”
Built in 1912, the elaborately detailed hotel was Dallas’ tallest building at the time; more than a hundred years later, the bar and restaurant were reinvented and reopened in October 2017. An arcing, six-seat bar is the focal point of the room, with the proverbial bottle of Louis III cognac on the top shelf.
The French-leaning cocktails – think cognac, pamplemousse and Pernod – are priced from $14 to $23. The Peche d’Ange is an elevated whiskey sour, with Angel’s Envy, peach liqueur, sugar, lemon and peach bitters. “We want to highlight what’s hot now, to see what those trends are and run with them,” says French Room general manager Victor Rojas. “It’s not enough to just offer what 10 bars down the road are doing.”
Some of the year’s best, clockwise from upper left: Kyle Hilla’s Undercut; Chad Solomon’s Screwpine Fix; Hugo Osorio’s Big Stick Mojito; Brittany Day’s Prolific Poet; Austin Gurley’s Smokey Bandit; Gabe Sanchez’s Calvados Sidecar.
As 2017 got underway, it wasn’t insane to wonder if the local craft-cocktail scene had lost its mojo despite its expanding influence around the region. Sure, Hide had just opened in Deep Ellum, with its fancypants behind-the-scenes gadgetry elevating its ambitious alchemy, and well-etched torchbearers like The Standard Pour, Atwater Alley, Bolsa, Jettison, Black Swan, Bowen House, Thompson’s Bookstore and Industry Alley (to name a few) powered on, doing what they do.
But even as cocktail lists sprouted like bluebonnets throughout North Texas – in Frisco, in Lewisville, in Trophy Club, for god’s sakes – too many of the area’s proliferating iterations emerged uninspired or even unhinged, seemingly designed more to ride the trend than to propel it forward. Overall, creativity seemed stifled by malaise. Had things finally peaked?
Then July brought Shoals, the soulful, back-to-basics cocktail lounge in Deep Ellum, and Fair Park’s Las Almas Rotas, whose heartfelt ambience admirably sated Dallas’ growing thirst for mezcal. And as the year pulled to a close, Bourbon & Banter appeared down the rabbit hole of downtown Dallas’ Statler Hotel, sprinkling its craft savvy with photogenic dashes of Wonderland whimsy.
Hide, Deep Ellum’s science-y cocktail lab, gave life to some of 2017’s best cocktails.
DFW did get its groove back, and then decided to make a night of it. In 2017, a wave of low-proof cocktails met the need for an evening’s worth of social nectars without the boozy kick that might send one home early. Low-alcohol cocktails dotted menus at Hide, Uptown’s Standard Pour and sherry-focused Jettison in Oak Cliff; Yayoi, in Plano, made its Wasabi Bloody Mary with Japanese shochu, while Bourbon & Banter’s excellent Undercut put Cynar, an Italian bitter liqueur, in the spotlight.
Hide also blazed tasty trails with savory cocktails, employing mushrooms in its magnificent Champion, bananas in its Tally Man and chicken stock in – well, more on that later. At Bourbon & Banter, Kyle Hilla topped two of his stellar cocktails with small spoonfuls of savory goodness. Meanwhile, green chilies surfaced as a popular flavor as bartenders toyed with a pair of newly arrived ingredients, poblano-driven Ancho Reyes Verde and St. George’s multi-peppered green chile vodka; elsewhere, Hatch green chile syrup ignited Skyler Chastain’s Santa Fe Smash at The People’s Last Stand at Mockingbird Station.
Sprezza’s Julieta. Get to it, Romeo.
Ever-flourishing agave-based spirits drove some of the year’s best drinks. Smoky mezcal danced with Ancho Reyes Verde and lemon liqueur in Brittany Day’s Prolific Poet at Thompson’s Bookstore in Fort Worth; at High and Tight in Deep Ellum, it partnered with cinnamon-infused whiskey to amp up the smoke in Austin Gurley’s solid Smokey Bandit. And at East Dallas’ Lounge Here, Brad Bowden flexed aged tequila’s guns in Dirty D’s Thang, his tribute to an aging dive-bar ladies man in long-ago New Orleans.
Gin sparkled in Sprezza’s Julieta in Oak Lawn, in George Kaiho’s Sylvan at Oak Cliff’s Jettison and in Chad Solomon’s remarkable Screwpine Fix at downtown’s Midnight Rambler, where it was infused with lemongrass and paired with Bolivian pisco. And Robbie Call used Gracias A Dios’ agave-based gin and his own vanilla-spiced tonic for a smoky Spanish Gin Tonic, a short-lived gem at since-shuttered Filament in Deep Ellum.
Finally, the force was strong in 2017’s classic covers, with solid spins on drinks like the Old Fashioned, Sazerac, Bijou, Last Word and Pina Colada. At Black Swan, Gabe Sanchez’s Calvados-anchored Sidecar was a thing of beauty; Scandinavian aquavit fancied up The Keeper’s gimlet in Plano; and at the Theodore in NorthPark Center, Hugo Osorio’s falernum-spiked Bee’s Knees and Big Stick Mojito, juiced up with raspberry coulis, were as pretty as they were delicious.
My tastes are my own, of course. I love the botanicals of gin and the smoke of mezcal, the warm comfort of whiskey and the bittersweet beauty of European amari; I’m drawn to flavor combinations that lure me to unfamiliar territory and drinks that go down like great train rides, where every ingredient is visible along the way.
Here were my 15 favorite cocktails of 2017.
Long’s lush La Joya showed you can still count on Abacus.
LA JOYA (Jason Long, Abacus)
Tequila reposado, Green Chartreuse, sweet vermouth, Port, orange bitters
At this cozy upscale lounge welcoming patrons of the celebrated Knox-Henderson restaurant, Long’s agave-driven play on a classic Bijou (French for “jewel”) was a bouquet of caramel, grape-y sweetness. Eager to make a drink honoring a tequila-loving colleague, Long tinkered with the floral Bijou, subbing smooth, aged tequila for gin plus a touch of Port. The name is the classic’s Spanish translation and an equally perfect gift for somebody special.
When you needed to cool off in Uptown, it was time to go Due South. (Photo by SungJoon Bruce Koo)
DUE SOUTH (Jeremy Koeninger, Parliament)
Rum, coconut, pineapple, orange, jalapeno, nutmeg
At Parliament, Koeninger put a Texas spin on the tropical Painkiller, itself a spin on the Pina Colada. “I wanted something a little less tiki,” he says. “And being from Texas, I like the combination of spicy and sweet.” So he added jalapeno and called it the Due South for the happy coincidence that any south-of-the-border spirit works as well as rum – except for, apparently, cachaca. (What up, Brazil?) Pisco in particular is fantastic. As you might expect, it’s a great warm-weather refresher, with its creamy pineapple, cool citrus and nutty spice, with some lingering heat on the tongue to boot.
MAMBO MORADO (Jonathan Garcia, Jose)
Blueberry/lavender-infused sotol, sunflower seed orgeat, lime, Campari, Crème de Violette
The drinks at this Highland Park gem naturally lean agave, and Garcia drew upon a pisco-based concoction he’d made for a local competition and funked it up by subbing little-known sotol, distilled in Chihuahua from desert Spoon, an agave cousin. Hacienda de Chihuahua’s delicately smoky sotol gets the tiki snow cone treatment here, draped it in floral, fruity and slightly nutty tones with a splash of bitter Campari to rein in the sweetness.
At members-only Network Bar, James Slater’s Malta was berry berry good.
A few years ago when Slater was helming the bar at Spoon (now closed), he wowed with an off-the-cuff, darkly bittersweet creation he ultimately named Blue Moon, and he’s been riffing on it ever since. Though he’s since left his brief post as bar director for the members-only club at Trinity Groves, his latest spin on the drink was a winner: Still mining the bitter mint depths of Fernet, it subbed blackberries for blue and a ginger-forward bitter liqueur for less aggressive Averna, taming Fernet’s harshness while retaining its flavor; gorgeous Amer Gingembre does the same with ginger. Think of the Malta as a boozy berry detox juice with a dollop of licorice-like sweetness.
New Orleans meets Oaxaca in Osorio’s classic spin, and now I can’t wait to have a chicken mole po’boy.
It was actually Sam Gillespie of The Mitchell, in downtown Dallas, who recently introduced me to the notion of a Sazerac built on smoky mezcal rather than the classic rye or cognac. His simple switch of spirit was solid and satisfying – but then, the very next day, I happened to drop by the Theodore, the NorthPark Center lair where barman Hugo Osorio has been unspooling impressive off-menu creations in his spare time. When I asked for something new, he said: “How about a mezcal Sazerac?” Osorio made the drink his own by adding the wintry cinnamon spice of tiki bitters and replacing sugar with a bit of sweet tawny port, serving up a spectacular sipper for the season.
At Parliament, Jesse Powell’s Osage County is built on childhood memories.
God bless Jesse Powell’s grandparents in small-town Osage County, Oklahoma, for supplying him with all the sarsaparilla sweets a little boy could eat, because otherwise we might never have had this bodacious burst of root beer candy in a glass. When Powell visited them again not so long ago, “they had the same exact candy, and I was like, I want to come back and make a cocktail like that.” The infused rum pairs with earthy fernet and cola to echo herbal vanilla root beer with a hint of licorice and a drink that makes you feel like a kid in a candy store.
At Hide, Jenkins’ Winner Winner was chicken soup for the cocktail soul.
WINNER WINNER (Scott Jenkins, Hide)
Ford’s gin, chicken broth, clarified lemon, thyme
Why did the imbiber cross the road? To get to this drink at Hide. Though the bar’s beverage director, Scott Jenkins, is a fan of savory cocktails, he knows consumers don’t always warm to the idea. But once the menu’s magnificent mushroom-driven Champion earned a following, he knew he had license to do more. One day, as he was looking for something to complement gin and thyme, a thought occurred: What about chicken stock? “I gave it a try,” he said, “and I was, like, yeah. It’s got that saltiness.” Before you pooh-pooh the idea, know that Brits drink something called a Bullshot, a Bloody Mary alter-ego mix of vodka and beef consommé. (Midnight Rambler’s Pho King Champ shot is not far off, either, with a little oloroso sherry thrown in.) In Jenkins’ yummy Winner Winner, the broth grows more robust as you drink – offering a much-needed remedy for flu season.
Its namesake might not have the fastest run in the west, but Brick and Bones’ Slowpoke Rodriguez is a rush of sweet and heat.
All the drinks at Brick and Bones are named for occasionally obscure cartoon characters, and this one pays homage to Speedy Gonzales’ acceleration-challenged cousin. While its namesake might be slow, this drink is a carefree rush of floral sweet with a dash of heat, with exuberant hibiscus the life of the party. With citrus-y blood orange liqueur and sweet amaretto, “it’s like a Margarita without the acid,” Cantu says.
Sturdivant draws on Angus Winchester’s No. 4 and takes it up a notch.
At The Cedars Social, the pioneering craft-cocktail joint just south of downtown, bar manager Sturdivant is always up for a challenge. For a good while, the bar menu featured a terrific drink called the No. 4, a creation of former Tanqueray Gin rep Angus Winchester. “People would order it all the time,” Sturdivant says. Then, this year, “I was trying to impress a girl at the bar who ordered one, and I told her I could do one better.” His botanical re-do, poured over flamed floral Chartreuse, is somewhere between the original and the classic Bee’s Knees (gin, lemon and honey): On the palate, it’s candied lemon tailgated by a mambo of lush botanicals, aromatic sweet celery and a pleasant, lingering burn.
At Standard Pour, Millspaugh’s Fleur de Feu is like an after-dinner treat around the campfire.
FLEUR DE FEU (Austin Millspaugh, The Standard Pour)
St. Germain elderflower liqueur, Ancho Reyes Verde, Angostura bitters, cream
Austin Millspaugh, you so cray. This creamy off-menu knockout at Uptown’s Standard Pour, with a name that means “flower of fire,” is a low-proof treat, a deceptively sweet drink that actually turns out to be more savory. After the first three ingredients are mixed and poured into a nifty Nick and Nora glass, Millspaugh tops it all with a thin layer of cream, then torches it for a burnt marshmallow effect and a stunning contrast between the foamy top and wine-clear body below. “You think it’s going to be sweet,” he says. “But your notions are debunked the second you sip it.” The creamy fats add texture and depth to a beautiful mix of floral and spicy flavors with smoky overtones.
Hilla merged two of his favorite ingredients — Suze and turmeric — in Bourbon & Banter’s savory Rat Tail.
A fan of the bitter spice turmeric, Hilla wanted to feature it in a cocktail at the speakeasy-style bar where each of his house cocktails features a little razzle-dazzle. He muddled actual turmeric root rather than using the familiar powder, but its tannic earthiness was too overwhelming for tequila, and smoky mezcal was too strong, so he went half and half and added bitter Suze for some botanicals. As with all the bar’s hairstyle-themed drinks, Hilla put some thought into the Rat Tail’s picture-perfect presentation, serving it in a capita and capping it with a spoonful of avocado, cilantro and Basque Espelette pepper, whose mix of flavors both complement and counter. Marked by turmeric’s orange-yellow hue, it drinks like an earthy, slightly bitter Margarita.
It’s high time we had more low-proof cocktails like Hide’s No Scurvy Here.
Texas this year saw the coming of Italicus, a lovely bergamot-forward liqueur from Italy, and in this low-proof libation it pairs with Suze, an equally lovely French gentian liqueur. Ruiz initially set out to produce a Suze “sour” – a category of cocktail built on spirit, citrus and sweetener –and when bar manager Scott Jenkins brought Italicus to the shelf, Ruiz had his tools in place. With a few tweaks brainstormed with his colleagues, Ruiz’s result is soft bitter orange: Bittersweet bergamot and sweet maple balance Suze’s earthy bitterness with the abundant citrus – hence the name – playing off the drink’s orange notes.
If your mouth likes pina coladas and getting caught in a rain of fizzy tang, Yarbrough’s Colada No. 2 is your escape.
COLADA NO. 2 (Chad Yarbrough, Armoury)
Cachaca, lime, orgeat, soda, coconut balsamic
This tangy tiki tipple, an obvious nod to its classic predecessor, was conceived as Yarbrough was browsing 1890 Marketplace, the most excellent olive oil and vinegar shop that at the time had just opened a few blocks away on Main in Deep Ellum. Having discovered the shop’s coconut balsamic vinegar, “I tried it and I was, like, we have to do something with this,” he said. Thus was born the Colada No. 2, a sweet and nutty mouthparty tempered by a tantalizing tang. Tangs a lot, Mr. Yarbrough. Tangs a lot.
This ain’t rocket science: Hide’s Delight is perfect for your afternoon.
Nothing at Hide is simple. They just make it look that way. Mostly when you’re not looking, spirits are “milk washed” and relieved of their harshness, citrus juices are clarified for a pure veneer and soda and tonic water are eschewed in favor of a lighter-handed carbonating device. The radiant Delight – Jenkins’ low-proof, bittersweet ballet of Italian aperitifs tamed with soft grapefruit and elderflower – is perfectly crisp and flavorful, whirled in a Perlini device for a delicate fizz that curls up on the roof of your mouth like a cat settling onto a sunny windowsill.
For a time, LARK drifted into a bit of a tailspin, but with Trevino at the helm, the drinks, at least, have regained their footing. This was the finest of his new additions to the menu, a play on the Last Word – a classic which, full disclosure, I adore – that drinks like candied apricot in a glass. Trevino says when he first tasted the fruity, spicy notes in this American-oak-aged whiskey, part of Johnnie Walker’s Blenders’ Batch series, “I immediately thought of apricot,” he said. “We didn’t have anything on the menu that was like a Last Word, so I built it that way.” With whiskey standing in for gin, lemon for lime, Yellow Chartreuse for Green and apricot liqueur for maraschino, it’s a handsome, honey-gold humdinger with bold autumn flair.
Yes, it might be fall, but summer don’t care. It’s decided to linger around North Texas and deliver one last beatdown, with temps in the mid-90s until early next week.
You don’t have to sit there and take it. Because when life hands you lemons, you make Sidecars, and when it hands you unbearably hot weather, you’re going to fight back with cool, refreshing cocktails.
Here are six drinks you should enjoy before autumn finally sets in.
BIG STICK MOJITO, The Theodore, NorthPark Center
At The Theodore, Hugo Osorio’s Big Stick Mojito is nothing to speak softly about.
First of all, just look at this. This is a gorgeous drink. And the Big Stick Mojito – the “big stick” a reference to the famous “speak softly” quote from the president this NorthPark Center restaurant is named for – is as fun and delicious as it appears, a visual feast of green, white and red from bartender Hugo Osorio.
This mojito sweetened with tropical pineapple features a brilliant raspberry coulis that rests at the bottom of the glass, perfect for slurping through a straw while simultaneously offering balance in taste and texture.
“We wanted this cocktail to be super approachable,” says Kyle Hilla, bar director for Turn The Tables Hospitality, the group behind The Theodore as well as Bolsa, Smoke and other restaurants. “And on top of that, we wanted something incredibly stunning to look at.”
When it’s hot outside, your body naturally craves snow cones. It’s science.
You’re probably not surprised to see a snow cone on the list. When it’s hot out, your body naturally craves snow cones. It’s science.
However, you may be surprised to know this snow cone comes from Fat Chicken, the fried chicken joint at Trinity Groves. One of a trio of frozen drinks designed by Stephen Halpin, global mixologist for Patron tequila, the Raspberry-Watermelon Freeze is summery and fruity with a bit of DIY mischief: The mix of Patron silver, watermelon and lemon juices and muddled raspberries is presented in a small carafe that you get to pour into the heaping glass of Hawaiian shaved ice presented alongside. (Though I’d recommend first using your straw to dig out a shaft into which the liquid can descend so it doesn’t end up all over your table.)
“I wasn’t sure when I got here if people would want to drink their drinks out of a snow cone,” says manager Christopher Garrison. “But they love it.”
MEET YOUR MATCHA, Yayoi, Plano
Shochu: It’s big in Japan.
When Lyndsy Rausch took over the bar program at Yayoi in Plano, shochu – the featured spirit at Japanese izakayas – was a natural starting point. “Adding matcha to it was really the first thing that came to mind,” she said, “because I wanted something earthy to match the complex flavors in shochu.”
A low-proof liquor distilled from rice, barley or sweet potatoes, shochu likewise is earthy; Rausch paired Iwai barley-based shochu with matcha powder, added citrus-y yuzu and mint to cut the bitterness, and topped it off with club soda. The result is radiantly green and highly drinkable, a liquid hammock to lay your thirst in when temperatures climb.
FROZEN GIN AND TONIC, Harlowe, Deep Ellum
This is probably why Billy Joel wrote the lyric “makin’ love to his tonic and gin.”
It’s got gin.
It’s got tonic.
And it’s frozen.
There’s much to like about Deep Ellum newcomer Harlowe, including the brunch-time lobster waffle and an expansive rooftop bar, but the simplicity of the Frozen Gin and Tonic is nothing short of genius on a 90-degree day. With nothing but a bit of star anise stranded atop the blindingly bright tundra of its surface, it’s a stone-cold certain way to punk that nasty summer-like warmth.
DUE SOUTH, Parliament, Uptown
If you’re wondering how to cool off in Uptown, I will point you Due South. (Photo by SungJoon Bruce Koo)
Another way to beat the heat is to fight fire with fire. At Parliament, bartender Jeremy Koeninger’s Due South puts a Texas spin on the tropical Painkiller, adding jalapeno to the tiki staples of rum, coconut and pineapple with a dash of orange and nutmeg. “Being from Texas, I like the combination of spicy and sweet,” he says.
Presented with a jalapeno coin atop the foam, Due South is a terrific hot-weather refresher, showcasing creamy pineapple, cool citrus, peppery heat and a nutty finish. (I’m always surprised at how well coconut and jalapeno pair up, which is probably the one reason I never get tired of watching Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray in Lost In Translation.)
The name of the drink, Koeninger says, refers partly to the happy coincidence that any south-of the-border spirit – except for cachaca – works in the drink; pisco, in particular, is excellent.
ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER, The Cedars Social, The Cedars
If you’re both in need of refreshment and absinthe-minded, this drink is for you.
It might be hard to imagine absinthe as the basis of a soothing refresher, because unlike shochu, it’s notoriously anything but low proof. The Cedars Social’s Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder is a drink to ease the pain of a sweltering summer night, or a starry starry night, or in this case, an autumn night that still feels like summer.
Copper & Kings’ 130-proof absinthe is the star of this show, backed by a remarkable pecan-based orgeat and a chorus of soda. A fortifying fusion of licorice and pecan, it’ll almost make you wish the hot weather would linger a while longer. Almost.
Seven-year itch? The longtime face of Bolsa’s bar program is headed to NorthPark.
Bartenders are a mobile bunch, so it’s rare that a name becomes as synonymous as a place as Kyle Hilla’s did at Bolsa.
Friday was Hilla’s last day at the Oak Cliff restaurant, marking the end of a seven-year run that saw him rise from server to bartender to manager of Bolsa’s vaunted bar program, among the pioneering establishments of DFW’s craft-cocktail scene.
“I don’t think it’s hit me yet,” Hilla said at the end of his busy final night, after the place had pretty much emptied out.
The talented barman is on his way to NorthPark Center, where he’ll be heading up the bar at The Theodore, the new venture from the owners of Bolsa, nearby Bolsa Mercado, Chicken Scratch and The Foundry. In his stead, the gifted Spencer Shelton will be assuming Bolsa’s bar reins.
Like many a bartender, Hilla didn’t set out to pour drinks. Instead, he tired of a retail manager position (“To this day, I’m still the youngest store manager in Dollar General history,” he said) and aimed to head back to school. In the meantime, he figured, he’d be a server. That eventually brought him to Bolsa, where then-bar-managers Eddie “Lucky” Campbell and Dub Davis kept prodding the Boy Wonder to get behind the bar. He resisted – until the night Campbell asked him to help make drinks at an art gallery special event.
“I had the time of my life,” he said. Two days later, he was walking the aisles of a Kroger store with now-wife Jessica and realized he’d been transformed. “Everything I saw in the store, I was like, `Hmm, what can I make a cocktail with?’ “
Hilla embraced the jigger and shaker, and in the ensuing years, as the cocktail scene began to grow, both Davis and Campbell (and Jason Kosmas, who had left New York’s Employees Only to raise a family in Texas) departed for other projects. In 2010, Hilla took over the bar.
He further streamlined the program, making his cheerful, quip-smart presence a Bolsa mainstay, along with attentive service and creative mixology. “People before me laid an amazing foundation,” he said. “I just focused it.”
Campbell and Kosmas had created one of the bar’s best-known features, the weekly cocktail challenge on Wednesdays in which two bartenders would face off, creating cocktails based on a pair of customer-chosen ingredients and let the night’s sales dictate a winner. Those ingredients occasionally verged on the ridiculous, stretching bartenders’ talents and imaginations to extremes – for instance, banana ketchup. “Think about that, buddy,” he nodded with a wry smile. (He made a Bloody Mary.) “There was a time when I hated Wednesdays.”
Others included oysters, black garlic or Pop Rocks. “Pop Rocks were terrible,” he said.
Eventually, Hilla rescheduled the challenges to just the first Wednesday of each month, and his final match – against bartender Marcos Hernandez – took place on September 3. Hilla drew saffron and tangerines, Hernandez got plums and blood orange. It was Hernandez who late last year conceived a drink that paired the bitter Italian liqueur Cynar’s artichoke flavor notes with the smokiness of toasted mesquite chips. But it was Hilla who eventually named it, calling it the Imenta.
“When we first came out with it,” Hernandez said, “it was the Oaky Smoky Arthichoke-y.”
“And that’s why we started requiring drug tests at work,” Hilla cracked.
In his seven years at Bolsa, Hilla has gotten to know a few people. “I know 99 percent of the people who come in here,” he said as the minutes ticked down on Friday night’s last shift, and he hopes some of his regulars follow him to The Theodore, set to open late next month at NorthPark. He told one pair of retiree regulars, “Y’all just need to become mall walkers. I’ll tell you what – I’ll invent a drink called the Mall Walker just for you.”
Moving on and up is the next logical step for Hilla, but it’s hard to see familiar traditions end. Bolsa was among my first cocktail finds when I moved to Dallas five years ago, so for my last Hilla-made drink there, I asked for something bitter/sweet to commemorate the moment. He produced a blend of bourbon and Cynar goodness and made clear that in spite of the change, he and Jessica won’t be forgetting Oak Cliff anytime soon.
“We just closed on a house here,” he said. “I’ll always be a part of this community.”
Bolsa’s Kyle Hilla, left, is all smiles as the pop-up bar “draft” gets underway in preparation for Sunday’s annual fundraiser.
As Ryan Fussell of Fort Worth’s Bird Café put it, it was a veritable who’s-who of craft bartenders, dozens of them assembled on a weekday afternoon for the first of several steps toward a purpose greater than themselves. The site was Uptown’s Standard Pour, where five boards had been posted above the bar, each topped with the name of a trusty tipple maker.
Yes, there’s a story there, but here’s what you really need to know: That on Sunday, Dec. 14, five teams of drink-slingers will face off at Henry’s Majestic as part of the Trigger’s Toys Fantasy Draft Main Event – not only for your imbibing pleasure but for the benefit of Trigger’s Toys, a Dallas charity serving hospitalized kids and their families.
As if that’s not enough reason to get yourself over there, consider this: The agency’s third annual fundraiser will feature five pop-up bars of varying tongue-in-cheek themes, and if you’re wondering how Henry’s – the recently opened Knox-Henderson gastropub in the space once occupied by Acme F&B – is going to pull that off, you’re going to have come see for yourself the little ace that bar manager Alex Fletcher has been hiding up his sleeve.
Your five pop-up bar captains: Campbell, Sanders, Orth, Moore, Hilla. Yup, it’s going to be a party.
So on this afternoon, the gathered bartenders were at The Standard Pour for the “fantasy draft” that would produce the five teams of 13, along with bar concepts and sponsored spirit lineups. Organizer David Alan, the Austin-based Tipsy Texan himself, was here with his team, the lot of them dressed like referees. Actually, it wasn’t so much a draft as a draw, with each captain – Parliament’s Lucky Campbell, Bolsa’s Kyle Hilla, Knife’s Charlie Moore, LARK at the Park’s Matt Orth and, from Austin, Drink.Well’s Jessica Sanders – picking names out of a bowl to compile their teams. While most of the crews represent the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a number are coming in from elsewhere to aid the cause from places like Austin, San Antonio, San Diego and Los Angeles.
Knife’s Moore, left, meets outside The Standard Pour with members of his team, including Windmill Lounge’s Reith, Windmill co-founder Charlie Papaceno and Proof + Pantry’s Hendrix.
“Dang, my team looks good,” Moore crowed after drawing Fletcher’s name from the batch, adding to a lineup that already included Bolsa’s Spencer Shelton, Proof + Pantry’s Josh Hendrix and Michael Reith of the Windmill Lounge. “That’s it! It’s over. Everybody go home.”“Stacks on stacks,” Hendrix added.Your pop-up bar lineup will include a sports bar, honky-tonk saloon, nightclub, tiki bar and, of course, bespoke cocktail lounge. Each ephemeral entity is already being promoted on Facebook and other social media, and you’ll find them here:
The event runs from 8 pm to midnight at Henry’s Majestic, 4900 McKinney in Dallas. Pre-purchased tickets on Eventbrite (available here) are $20, which includes two drinks. You can also buy tickets at the door for $10, then spring for your drinks inside.
LARK’s Matt Orth, center, meets with his “drafted” team at The Standard Pour. The nightclub-themed pop-up will be called Klub Dreemz.
Along with donations from sponsoring spirit producers, last year’s bash at The Standard Pour pulled in a whopping $45,000 for Trigger’s Toys, which in addition to financial aid provides kids with toys and therapy aids. With the help of the bartenders giving their time on Sunday, founder Bryan Townsend – who named the agency for his dog after seeing the animal’s positive effect on a child in need of therapy – hopes to take that to new levels.
“Not only are you changing this industry,” an emotional Townsend told the group. “What we’re doing today will change lives.”
It’s holiday season, and that means you’ve added a few more things on your to-do list.
Give to charity
Have a holiday cocktail or two
Well, joy to your world: Now’s your chance to do both at once at the second annual Cocktails For A Cause, happening this Sunday at The Standard Pour in Uptown from 6 p.m. until close. The evening’s “ultimate pop-up bar” will feature $10 cocktails made by a rotating, ridiculously rife assortment of local bartenders, with all proceeds going toward Trigger’s Toys, a charity benefiting hospitalized children.
The cool thing, says charity founder Bryan Townsend – who named the organization after his golden Lab – is that bartenders have been clamoring to join in on the reindeer games. “It’s been overwhelming, the response,” he says. “People were actually really upset that they missed out last year.”
And not just because they might have missed the inaugural event’s spectacle of bar man extraordinaire Michael Martensen in a Santa suit: No, this is a chance to help make children’s wishes come true, to help create awwwww moments like the night when Townsend and his pals get to deliver a truckload of toys to kids Baylor Medical Center. “My favorite night of the year,” Townsend says.
Last year’s event, which Townsend coordinated along with Standard Pour’s Brian McCullough and Sean Conner of Whiskey Cake in Plano, raised $17,000. He’s hoping that Sunday’s event, combined with what sponsors have already donated, will raise as much as $50,000 to help fund the charity’s efforts in the coming year.
And so, 45 of your favorite drink crafters will be taking turns behind the bar, which as you might guess is just about every bartender in Whoville. In addition to Conner, McCullough and Martensen, the lineup includes Abacus’ Lucky Campbell, Alex Fletcher and Chris Dempsey of Victor Tango’s, Central 214’s Amber West, Bolsa’s Kyle Hilla, Bonnie Wilson of The Ranch at Las Colinas, Windmill’s Charlie Papaceno, a smattering of bar peeps from Fort Worth’s The Usual – the list goes on and you’ll be checking it twice to make sure you’re not just seeing things.
Brian McCullough, Mike Martensen and Charlie Papaceno will be among the all-star lineup at Sunday’s event.
“It gives us a chance to get together and have some fun and not compete,” Conner says. “To just throw out some really good drinks and raise money for the less fortunate around holiday time.”
They have fun. You drink craft cocktails from an all-star lineup of bartenders. Children’s wishes come true. Everybody wins.
THE STANDARD POUR, 2900 McKinney Avenue, Dallas. 214-935-1370.
As Private/Social’s Rocco Milano put it, things went wrong. Campari bottles broke. Ordered produce was nowhere to be seen. A batch of concentrated blackberry mix blew up in Whiskey Cake bartender Bonnie Wilson’s car.
Whatevs. Texas knows how to go big, never mind the circumstances. And given their chance in the spotlight, Dallas bartenders left their Lone Star mark on this year’s 10th annual Tales Of The Cocktail conference in New Orleans: No one who stepped into the Iberville Ballroom of the Hotel Monteleone could leave saying they didn’t have a good time. OK, maybe whoever had to clean up the blackberry juice. But on the whole. Seriously.
Drinks flowed. Multitudes appeared. Moods lifted. The Chesterfield’s Eddie “Lucky” Campbell sang a song. And this was all before noon.
The Chesterfield’s Campbell with the double-pour.
“Come And Get It! Cocktails Texas Style!” was the title of the Wednesday morning tasting event, and despite the tricky A.M. draw on the festival’s opening day, word in the stairwells was that the session was the rockingest party in its time slot. An all-star crew of Dallas barmen and women shook their stuff for a packed room of conference attendees: There was Mike Martensen of The Cedars Social, Oak’s Abe Bedell, Standard Pour’s Brian McCullough, Jay Kosmas of Marquee Grill & Bar… the list goes on.
But even before the doors opened at 10:30 a.m., things looked a little shaky, and not in the diffused citrus and disintegrating ice-crystals sort of way. A day earlier, Bonnie Wilson had arrived with bottles of blackberry puree corked and sealed by Whiskey Cake’s Sean Conner, then checked into the hotel. Sugars fermented. Pressure built. The next morning, they opened the car to find that streams of puree had burst through the box overnight. “It looked like a paintball gun had hit the roof,” Conner said.
One bottle survived. And now it was Wednesday morning and the Dallas bartenders frantically readied workstations, setting up tiny sampler glasses, organizing their mises-en-place.
Then, suddenly, Bonnie Wilson’s voice cut through the room: “Oh, Anthony!”
Then, anyone who turned to watch, which was everybody, saw a blast of burgundy spewing in a volcanic rush from Conner’s surviving bottle of berry mix, which Whiskey Cake’s Anthony Krencik had just uncorked. Before they could stanch the flow, much of the mix had doused them and the hotel carpet in a bath of goopy concentrate.
Kosmas, as always unflappable amid the chaos, walked in two minutes later. “Oh, another explosion?” he said.
Bonnie Wilson’s “Bird” was a fetching blend of Evan Williams single-barrel whiskey, black tea, blackberry puree and Benedictine topped with sweet vanilla cream and mint leaf.
Meanwhile, Bolsa’s Hilla had had to scramble when the produce he’d ordered never showed, forcing a last-minute cab ride to the market. His planned drink – the Cherry Pit – became, well, something else. “You can call it the Plum Pit,” he said.
Before long the troublesome juju was lost in an increasingly happy flow of people, who sampled drinks ranging from Abe Bedell’s Barbados Breeze – a frosty blend of Mount Gay XO rum, basil, ginger, lime, pineapple and banana-coconut sorbet – to Kosmas’ Oaxaca Sour, a deliciously smoky blend of Ilegal mezcal, Texas grapefruit, honey cordial, egg white, lime, barrel-aged bitters and a sprinkling of nutmeg.
Bolsa’s Kyle Hilla made do with a last-minute produce run.
Martensen and Cedars Social owner Brian Williams had recreated a mini version of their bar in the ballroom, propping up signature menus and a small array of books on the table to evoke Cedars’ study-like atmosphere. Martensen had gone as basic as possible. “I’m doing the original margarita,” he said. “We want to represent Texas, right?”
Martensen has been coming to Tales for years, and Williams joined him starting four years ago. But Dallas was barely represented otherwise, and today’s splash showed how far the scene has come.
“It’s good representation for Dallas,” Williams said. “We have so many chain restaurants, and people get caught up in the whole restaurants-per-capita thing It’s good to let people know we’re out there.”
The Cedars Social’s Mike Martensen made margaritas. “We’re representing Texas, right?”
Eventually, Chesterfield’s Campbell – who was flanked by New Orleans native and Dallas chef David Anthony Temple, he of the festive “underground” dinners – would make a prideful speech and belt out “Deep In The Heart Of Texas.”
You could say Private/Social’s Milano was, well, moved. “As I look around the room, this is, to me, a minor miracle,” he said. “This is awesome. We are not a backwater third-tier market.”
And Krencik, in the conference T-shirt he’d quickly bought to replace his berry-drenched top, added this: “Texas is one of those states everybody knows, but they probably don’t expect us to bring a cocktail game. But from five years ago to now, it has just skyrocketed. We’re, like, the underdogs, coming out and showing that we can shake.”
The fun showed no sign of slowing down until conference officials finally shooed everyone out of the room. As the buoyant Dallas bunch headed onto the streets of the French Quarter to celebrate at nearby Mr. B’s Bistro, a hotel staff person came up to Bolsa’s Hilla.
“Sir,” she said. “Your produce is here.”
Dallas’ Lauren Laposta was here to help the Lone Star State represent.
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
