Adventures in cocktailing, based in Dallas USA -- drinking globally, acting locally. Barmoire is Marc Ramirez -- journalist, boulevardier, lover of food and drink and winner of exactly one cocktail contest.
Petraske pioneered or made popular many of today’s craft-cocktail bar practices. (Ben Rose Photography)
Milk & Honey appeared on New York’s Lower East Side in 1999, when today’s rocketing craft cocktail renaissance was practically still on the launchpad. The proprietor was a debonair young gent named Sasha Petraske, who in deference to his mostly residential-area neighbors instituted a number of features that would be copied by other cocktail spots in years to come: A speakeasy-style unmarked location and entrance (to be inconspicuous). A reservations-only policy (to avoid lines of people outside). A no-standing policy at the bar (to quell hooliganism). And because Petraske was a decorum-minded soul, rules of behavior to maintain civility (for instance, asking men to remove their hats and not hit on women).
Other practices would follow, also to become cocktail-bar staples – things like hand-carved ice, an adherence to jiggers and water served with cucumber slices. “If he didn’t outright originate (those practices), he was the most successful champion of them early on,” said Chad Solomon, who along with fellow New York ex-pat Christy Pope now runs Midnight Rambler in downtown Dallas.
And so it was with much sadness that the craft-cocktail world absorbed the news that Petraske had died Friday of unknown causes in Hudson, N.Y., as reported by The New York Times. He was just 42.
Both Solomon and Pope got to know Petraske well, having worked at Milk & Honey in the early 2000s; both bartended and worked as servers in the intimate, 34-seat, candle-lit venue to which customers had to be buzzed in. Petraske had flown in for Midnight Rambler’s grand opening in October 2014, and the two were among the attendees’ at Petraske’s recent wedding.
“Shock doesn’t even cover it,” Solomon said Friday. “It’s a very sad day.”
Even more than his contribution to cocktail culture, Solomon said, Petraske stood out for his generosity and decency. “He was always self-aware, always about becoming a better man,” he said.
Petraske helped launch a number of prominent bars and, in partnership with others, created stalwart spots like Greenwich Village’s Little Branch, Queens’ Dutch Kills and Varnish in Los Angeles. Such was his sway that when San Antonio’s Bohanan’s Prime Steaks & Seafood sought to overhaul its bar in hopes of revitalizing the city’s Riverwalk area, Petraske was brought in to train the staff. He would go on to become a co-founder of the San Antonio Cocktail Conference and was among the New York City bartenders featured in the 2013 documentary Hey Bartender.
His reservations-only and no-standing policies would be adopted by places like Dallas’ Bar Smyth (now closed), while Denver’s Green Russell has been among the bars that similarly posted rules of decorum for their customers. Meanwhile, speakeasy-style entrances, hand-carved ice and cucumber water are everywhere.
While the original Milk & Honey had closed, Petraske was planning to reopen at a new location.
“He was never content to leave things static,” Solomon said. “He was always looking to improve. His influence cannot be overstated.”
This gin and tonic — with rosemary and a bit of ginger liqueur — will take you back to yesteryear at Ruth’s Chris’ 50th anniversary cocktail dinner. (Photo courtesy of Ruth’s Chris Steak House)
That name: It’s hard to wrap your mind around. Ruth’s Chris Steak House. Or is it Chris Ruth’s Steak House? Or wait a minute – was it the Steak House that Chris Ruth built?
No matter what it is, the place has longevity – 50 years of it, in fact. This year, Ruth’s Chris Steak House hit the half-century mark – and the national restaurant chain’s milestone means your good fortune.
Get ready for the 1965 Cocktail Dinner Party, a celebration of the New Orleans-based institution’s 50th anniversary. On Thursday, Aug. 20, Ruth’s Chris Steak House will offer a five-course dinner at 99 nationwide locations, including sites in North Dallas and Fort Worth.
There will be drinks, the type of which Don Draper would approve — modern renditions of classics like the Gin and Tonic, the Gimlet and the Manhattan. They’ll accompany dishes like seared jumbo sea scallops, grilled ginger shrimp and, naturally, filet mignon. The full menu is available here.
Tickets are $90 plus gratuity. Reservations are required, and participants are invited to share their experience on social media with the hashtag #ThisIsHowItsDone.
RUTH’S CHRIS STEAK HOUSE
North Dallas location: 17840 Dallas Parkway. 972-250-2244.
Fort Worth location: 813 Main Street, 817-348-0080
At last month’s Tales of the Cocktail festival in New Orleans, bartender Jim Kearns’ of New York’s Happiest Hour and Slowly Shirley used pisco in his slightly spicy Tierra D’Oro.
HEY, TEXAS: Peru Wants You. It wants you to love pisco the way it loves pisco. It wants pisco to roll off your tongue as readily as whiskey or tequila, to be pressed into duty among your home bar’s loyal soldiers, to pepper the ranks of cocktail lists from Dallas to San Antonio. It wants thoughts of pisco to hover at happy hour like unmarked helicopters in your head.
We’re a long way from that now. But the South American brandy is on the rise in the U.S., with American imports of Peruvian pisco more than doubling from 2010 to 2014. That’s enough to inspire Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism to mount an all-out campaign to promote pisco in the States, with Texas its number-one target.
This week, at Dallas’ Midnight Rambler, Pisco Porton’s Johnny Schuler led a session for local bartenders on Peruvian’s national spirit.
“It’s, like, its own country,” says Erick Aponte, trade commissioner of the ministry’s Miami office. “It’s a combination of sophisticated, chic markets. We’re hoping to take advantage of the enormous potential Texas has as a market for Peru’s pisco.”
In fact, until Aponte counseled otherwise, officials had initially considered making Chicago the third stop on a recent pisco promotion tour that included New York City and New Orleans. “I was, like, ‘No – let’s go to North Texas,’ ” Aponte says.
That’s what brought a small delegation to Dallas’ Midnight Rambler early last month for a reception celebrating the Texas debut of two Peruvian piscos, La Diablada and Macchu Pisco. “I like to think of pisco as the other aromatic white spirit,” says Rambler co-owner Chad Solomon – gin being the other.
Pisco, a brandy with 16th-century roots, is made from freshly pressed stemless grapes, a clear cousin of Cognac and Armagnac. (The Peruvian distinction matters because pisco is made in both Peru and Chile, both of whom claim to have invented it and have more or less agreed to disagree. Or at least to not be in the same room together.)
Pisco supporters include pioneering bar man and personality Tony Abou-Ganim, who dished out his Pisco Punch variation at Tales of the Cocktail last month.
Pisco’s popularity is up even in Peru, part of a growing embrace of gastronomy and consumption of healthy, quality ingredients – the same type of foodie movement that inspired America’s cocktail renaissance. “People are understanding that pisco is part of that,” says BarSol Pisco founder Diego Loret De Mola.
But while pisco is making big strides, the 1.7 million cases sold last year are still a trickle among the $23 billion flood of spirits sold nationwide. “It’s not even to the stage where mezcal was a few years ago,” says John Garrett of Irving-based distributor Victory. “Pisco is a long row to hoe.”
Peru has some work to do, then – a state full of bartenders and consumers to rev up and educate. For that it will need a point man, a firebrand: Someone to plant the seeds of inspiration. Someone to champion the cause.
Someone like Johnny Schuler.
**
YOU THINK YOU can keep up with this man? Forget about it. You can’t keep up with this man. “I love to drink,” says Johnny Schuler, the sonorous, ebullient master distiller of Pisco Porton, Peru’s largest exporter to the U.S. “And I do it with regularity.”
At Stop No. 3 of Schuler’s Dallas tour, bartender Daniel Guillen’s outstanding Brujeria featured Pisco Porton, mezcal, apricot liqueur, lime, cinnamon and torched rosemary.
He has to. As the nation’s unofficial pisco ambassador, the larger-than-life TV host is constantly on the campaign trail. This week, on a trip that coincided with Peruvian Independence Day, he came to Texas and beat a 10-hour, Pisco Porton-laden path through central Dallas that tested the gaudy dress socks he’s fond of wearing.
As a young man in Peru he worked for his father, unimpressed with the cheap pisco served in his dad’s restaurant. But one day, a friend introduced him to the goods made by local artisan producers, and he couldn’t believe his taste buds.
This wasn’t pisco. This couldn’t be pisco. It tasted too good. Since that night, he says, he’s never drunk anything but and has spent his life promoting the spirit, and in 2010 he launched Pisco Porton with the help of a Houston-based backer, the two devising Porton’s muscular signature bottle one night over rounds of whiskey sours.
Tuesday’s five-stop tour kicked off with a two-hour pisco workshop at Midnight Rambler before an increasingly lively rented coach hauled attendees toward pisco receptions at The Mansion at Turtle Creek and then Stephan Pyles downtown, followed by a pisco-paired Peruvian dinner at Victor Tango’s in Knox-Henderson. A late-night pisco happy hour capped things off at The Dram, across the street.
Schuler, left, at Dallas’ Stephan Pyles with Henry’s Majestic bar manager Alex Fletcher.
The idea was to promote the spirit’s versatility by showcasing its use in cocktails and ability to be paired with food. At the opening workshop, attendees got a taste of Pisco Porton’s pepper-raisin flagship expression and banana-peel-scented Caravedo, one of the distillery’s newest releases. They learned that there are three types of pisco, made from eight possible grape varieties, a palette that opens realms of flavor possibility.
Schuler’s presentation extolled pisco’s lightly nuanced character and the stricter rules that Peruvian producers play by since pisco was declared a national heritage in 1991 – forbidden, for example, to use oak to add character or water to lower the proof, methods used by many other spirit producers.
Pisco is made in five coastal Peruvian states whose environmental conditions, nestled against the towering Andes mountain range and set off from the Amazon jungles, benefit from a greenhouse effect creating overpoweringly sweet grapes.
“But that is what gives us the alcohol,” Schuler says. Like his own distillery, whose modern design evokes the centuries-old hacienda operation it succeeds and lets gravity drive the distillation process, it’s nature at work.
“This is the miracle that makes pisco happen,” he says.
Attendees of Schuler’s five-stop Dallas visit could ride along on Pisco Porton’s increasingly lively rented coach.
In Peru, pisco is kind of a big deal. The country has a National Pisco Day, and a National Pisco Sour Day; in 2007, the government awarded Schuler its Congressional Medal of Honor for his efforts to promote the spirit. He’s a master storyteller, and his passion for his product is evident, with pronouncements occasionally pouring from his lips in Vicente Fernandez-like growls.
The results show in his much-decorated portfolio; Caravedo, a 100-percent quebranta grape product that goes down velvety smooth with lingering chocolate notes, recently won an unprecedented four gold medals in Peruvian pisco competition.
“My pride – I’m sorry, it overflows,” he says. “But I will make the best pisco in the world.”
Meaning, he thinks the best is still to come.
**
THE PISCO PUNCH came to life in San Francisco, of all places, during the go-for-broke days of the Gold Rush. Pisco was easier to get than whiskey, which had to be brought in by wagon from the Eastern U.S; pisco arrived on South American cargo ships that regularly posted up in the Bay.
At last month’s pisco tasting room, Peru’s trade commission went all-out to evoke Peruvian flavor.
No one knows for sure exactly what comprised Duncan Nicol’s recipe that rose to popularity at San Francisco’s Bank Exchange Saloon, but today it’s evolved as a tropical blend of pisco, pineapple, citrus and sweetener. A supposed secret ingredient, which may or may not have been cocaine, has been lost to the ages – but for that reason, it’s an openly malleable cocktail.
That made it the perfect drink du jour at last month’s pisco tasting room at New Orleans’ Tales of the Cocktail festival, the spirits industry’s largest annual gathering.
Sponsored by the Peruvian trade office, the packed event featured seven Peruvian piscos and differing spins on the drink applied by American mixmasters who’ve climbed aboard the pisco train. For example, a supremely refreshing version from Tony Abou-Ganim (aka “The Modern Mixologist”) featured Macchu Pisco, floral Yellow Chartreuse and a pineapple-ginger foam garnish. Meanwhile, bar man Jim Kearns, of New York’s Happiest Hour and Slowly Shirley, expertly paired Pisco Porton with aji amarillo (a Peruvian chili), passion fruit syrup and a guava puree.
Peru’s pisco tasting room included a photo station where attendees could don traditional garb.
The commission went all-out to evoke Peruvian flavor in the party surroundings, with artifacts, Peruvian cookies ordered from a baker in Miami and replicated artworks from the Cuzco School of Art. Attendees lined up to take photos in Peruvian garb.
Ultimately, whether Peru’s efforts will bear fruit depend on continued interest in craft cocktails and, obviously, building an American taste for the product. As for cocktails, Victory’s Garrett thinks the simpler, the better. “Not everybody wants to deal with egg whites and all that,” he says. “What about a pisco and tonic? Let’s dumb it down.”
For Schuler and his proud compatriots, it’s not just a matter of business. It’s a matter of pride. “We can make Peru be known through a glass of pisco,” says BarSol’s Loret. “I don’t sell pisco; I sell Peru.”
Texas bar peeps putting a Lone Star stamp on Bourbon Street at Tales of the Cocktail 2015.
THEY CAME, they saw, they cocktailed – and by Sunday evening, Tales of the Cocktail 2015 had been conquered. Thousands of bartenders, bar owners, distillers, product reps and cocktail enthusiasts — a good portion of them from Texas — swarmed New Orleans’ French Quarter last week for the spirits industry’s biggest gathering, taking in five days’ worth of workshops, networking, tasting receptions, parties and spirit-paired dinners.
From brand-sponsored cocktail breakfasts to rum seminars to after-party confabs at favorites like Erin Rose (home of the Frozen Irish Coffee), there’s a lot to take in. But most of all, the festival is about camaraderie – a time for those who practice and support the cocktail craft to revel in each other’s knowledge, company and support. Bar staffs get better at their craft – by watching each other work, learning about new products and techniques, discovering the history behind what they do — and as a result, we, the consumers, get a better bar experience. It’s a win-win.
Tales’ tasting rooms promoted various brands — or entire spirits, like Thursday’s pisco party, which went all out to evoke Peru.
One big happy family. Except for one thing: While festival rivalries are never bitter, Texas members of the U.S. Bartenders Guild got word that heading into this year’s ritual midnight toast, another USBG chapter had Texas in its sights.
***
AMONG THE MANY traditions of Tales – which last year drew 18,000 people – is the USBG’s annual midnight toast, held on Thursday night of the festival outside the landmark Old Absinthe House, at Bienville and Bourbon streets.
The toast is a quick but raucous affair, a celebration of unity, but of course, Texas can’t help but go big. And having been late to the cocktail game behind places like New York, San Francisco and Chicago – a deficit Lone Star State cities have since made long strides toward closing – maybe there was a little something to prove as the 2014 toast approached.
Either way, forces aligned: With a Texas-staffed event simultaneously happening at a two-story venue across the street, “there were, like, Texas fight songs and Texas flags waving from up on the railing,” remembers Dallas’ Chase Streitz, Bulldog gin’s Texas ambassador. “It was like Texas Mardi Gras for 15 minutes.”
Will Croxville of Dallas’ Proof + Pantry offers a hearty welcome during his guest stint at an Edrington Scotch whisky party at New Orleans’ Bourbon Cowboy.
“Texas is kind of the underdog of Tales,” said Alex Fletcher, bar manager at Dallas’ Henry’s Majestic. “So it was kind of, like…. You know. Texas style.”
It was all over quickly. But rumors soon began that a Texan had thrown a rival chapter flag to the ground, and naturally its owners were not amused. When Travis Tober, beverage director at Austin’s VOX Table, heard they were going to come out swinging this year, Texans decided it was time to rally.
***
TEXAS’ MARK ON TALES is huge, given the state’s size and proximity to New Orleans. Festival founder Ann Tuennerman says representation likely lags only behind New York and California, but this year marked the fourth in a row that a Texas-run party helped kick off the week – and as far as I’ve been able to tell, it’s still Tales’ only state-specific event.
Houston cocktail enthusiasts Michelle Mata, Teddy Bucher and Laura Villafranca were making their second, fourth and sixth Tales visits, respectively. At a dinner at famed Commander’s Palace to showcase Maker’s Mark’s new Cask Strength bourbon, the state went four-for-four, with one table seating a Houston-based rep for Beam Suntory spirits, a wine enthusiast from Austin and a pair of spirits writers from San Antonio and Dallas.
Hey, House of Angostura Orange is the New Black pool party: You’ve got balls.
One morning in the festival’s pop-up bookstore, bartenders Christian Armando (of Uptown’s Standard Pour) and Austin Gurley (of Plano’s Whiskey Cake) browsed the festival’s ever-increasing stock of spirits-related books and cocktail enhancers, from ginger-turmeric bitters to smoke-and-salt bitters to a $75 bottle of truffle bitters.
And the weather was scorching hot – which made the lavish pool parties thrown by spirits producers such as Trinidad-based House of Angostura – all the more welcome. As an attendee from Austin posted on Facebook: “Never in my life have I felt more confident in my decision to pack 8 undershirts.”
***
THE RALLY PLAN was this: To meet at Thursday night’s High West whiskey-sponsored barbecue dinner at One Eyed Jacks on nearby Toulouse Street. Chris Furtado, High West’s Texas rep, had brought a backpack brimming with Texas flags, ready to distribute. From there the group would move on to Erin Rose, and finally to the Old Absinthe House. “I’m sure I’ll be hoarse by the end of the night,” Furtado said. “I’ve heard they (the other chapter members) have a chant. We’re not that organized.”
Accoutrements of drinkdom in Don Julio’s Airstream Speakeasy at the Diageo House Party.
He had big hopes, though, expecting other Texas-based liquor reps and distributors and hordes of bartenders. But by 10:30 p.m., when it was time to move on to Erin Rose, there was just him and a pair of Texas supporters from Reston, Va.
Outside Erin Rose, the passing minutes brought only a trickle, and by 11:15, Furtado seemed concerned.
At last, a handful of others showed, including Austin’s Tober, USBG Austin chapter president Jessica Sanders, North Texas chapter president Brian McCullough and Julian Pagan of The Mitchell in Dallas.
The showdown was barely a half-hour away.
***
THE SPIRITS INDUSTRY is now a $23 billion beast. The category made up 35 percent of alcohol sales last year, a slow but steady rise from 29 percent in 2000, with new products coming out all the time.
Making music at the House of Angostura’s Orange is the New Black pool party.
So you can’t blame brands for going all-out to win favor. On top of dozens of Tales tasting rooms, spirit portfolio giants William Grant & Sons, Diageo and Bacardi are known for extravagant parties with multiple drink stations churning out brand-specific cocktails amid the sensory smorgasbord.
Rutte, a Holland-based line of vodka and gins, made its official U.S. launch with a presentation led by master distiller Myriam Hendrickx and packets of the many botanicals that go into its products – juniper, fennel, coriander, cardamom and, interestingly, nuts, which influence its genever (gin’s European precursor). Then came another party, with more drinks handed out, and oysters done Dutch: On the half-shell, with a splash of gin.
With so much liquor flowing freely, it’s wise to heed the words of advice that preface many a festival: You don’t have to finish that. In other words, unless a cocktail is truly special, a taste is enough. Then set it aside. There will always be another one.
Herbs, nuts and botanicals: Spirit makings utilized by Holland-based Rutte, which just launched in the U.S.
That said, among the drinks I actually got the chance to try, these were my top four. I might have even have had one or two of them twice.
SWEET AND DANDY (by Kellie Thorn, Empire State South, Atlanta)
This sublimely bittersweet gem from Alameda, Calif.-based St. George Spirits – of which I am a loyal fan – featured its California Citrus vodka, Suze bitter liqueur, vanilla liqueur, lemon, green tea syrup and orange peel. I arrived late to the St. George tasting, so I only got to try it because publicist Ellie Winters was nice enough to share hers with me. And thank the heavens for that.
SOLERA PINA (Lynette Marrero, Zacapa Rum)
OK, it was crazy hot at Diageo’s annual House Party, held at the city’s Contemporary Arts Warehouse, and between that and the killer 80s-cover band onstage, it somehow seemed OK to fall for a snow-cone cocktail. Featuring Zacapa rum along with amantillado sherry, macadamia nut syrup and pineapple, its icy crunch was gloriously enhanced with a sprinkling of Marrero’s vanilla-infused salt.
Yes, one of my favorite festival cocktails was a snow cone. I’m not ashamed. Zacapa’s Solera Pina.
TIERRA D’ORO (Jim Kearns, Happiest Hour and Slowly Shirley, Greenwich Village, New York); and
MACHO PUNCH (Tony Abou-Ganim, The Modern Mixologist)
At Thursday’s packed Peruvian pisco tasting room, at least a half-dozen versions of the classic Pisco Punch were on display, and these two were absolutely standout: Kearns’ Tierra D’Oro spiced up Pisco Porton with lime, aji Amarillo (a Peruvian chili) syrup, passion fruit syrup, guava puree and classic pineapple, gorgeously presented with an edible flower garnish.
Meanwhile, the gregarious Abou-Ganim mixed Macchu Pisco with floral Yellow Chartreuse, pineapple gomme syrup, lime and lemon and a garnish of pineapple and pineapple-ginger foam to sweet, refreshing effect.
***
Texas bartenders stage a huge last-minute rally — including, at rear, Dallas’ Brian McCullough and Austin’s Travis Tober.
THINGS WERE LOOKING shaky as the Texans headed into battle a couple of blocks away. But as the group neared the intersection of Bourbon and Bienville, a critical mass began to form, constellations of others joining in along the way as they closed in.
“Let’s do this, Texas!” Tober yelled.
The avenue was a gumbo of Bourbon Streeters and festival-goers, but little Lone Star flags were already waving en masse as beads rained off the balconies. A bigger flag drew a lineup of Texans for selfies and, as midnight drew near, the throng broke into a loud, proud group-sing of “Deep in the Heart of Texas.”
The big showdown – well, it never materialized. If the rumors had ever been true, the evidence was nowhere to be seen or heard. “I don’t know what happened,” Furtado said. “We owned it.”
And then it was over once again, and the festival rolled on. San Francisco’s ABV bar reigned victorious at Tales’ annual Bar Fight (which went international this year) and won Best New American Bar at Saturday’s annual Spirited Awards, Denver’s Williams & Graham was named Best American Cocktail Bar and New York’s Ivy Mix was named best bartender.
Among the shirt on display at this year’s Tales of the Cocktail festival.
Sunday’s annual picnic rewarded those who went the distance, but for many, Tales was a beatdown and done before they knew it – with great memories tinged with realizations of how much they had yet to learn or regrets over missed opportunities.
“New Orleans, you were a whirlwind romance this year,” Austin’s Sanders posted on Facebook. “Can’t believe I have to leave already!”
And from Whiskey Cake’s Gurley: “Well, that was an experience. Tales of the Cocktail, you win this time. Back to Dallas.”
It’s that time again: The spirits industry’s annual festival is back in The Bayou.
NEW ORLEANS — The Season of the Drink is upon us once again: Tales of the Cocktail 2015 has come to town, marking its 13th year in the Big Easy. From around the world they’ve come – thousands of bartenders, liquor reps, spirits producers, bar owners, beverage industry scribes and cocktail enthusiasts here to witness the monster truck of all spirits festivals in the grandest of all party towns.
New Orleans is a city that knows how to drink: From its primordial jambalaya sprang more than a few now-classic cocktails – among them the mighty Sazerac, the sultry Vieux Carre, the demanding Ramos Gin Fizz and the insufferable Hurricane. We know her as NOLA, and she is among America’s craft-cocktail matrons, with heralded institutions like Arnaud’s French 75, Antoine’s Hermes Bar and the Court of Two Sisters evidencing craft culture before its modern renaissance; it’s not for nothing that the Museum of the American Cocktail is based here.
Here, have a Ramos Gin Fizz Slushie: Things going down at The London No. 1 gin’s tasting room.
The five-day festival can be grueling, overflowing as it is with workshops, networking, happy hours, competitions, tastings, spirit-paired dinners, Bloody-Mary breakfast stations, new product unveilings, cocktail tours, chance wee-hour reunions and French Quarter camaraderie, huge parties and… even huger parties. A smorgasbord of delights, for sure; but also a test of one’s resolve; there are opportunities to be missed if one is not careful – for instance, advanced bartender trainings; tips on opening and running a bar; seminars about the flavors of Cognac, the reemergence of Canadian whiskey or the pairing of cocktails with cigars; and of course, the singularly unique city itself.
This is either The Last Supper or a seminar panel on agave spirits.
This is my fourth year at Tales, soaking in knowledge and sunshine and chronicling the shenanigans as the members of Texas’ craft-cocktail community represent the Lone Star State. Texas, along with New York and California, is among the top-represented states at the festival, which last year drew nearly 18,000 attendees. About three-fourths of those were working bartenders or industry professionals.
“Everything we do is in support of the spirits industry,” said Paul Tuennerman, co-founder of the New Orleans Culinary and Cultural Preservation Society, which sponsors the festival. “We want to ensure that flavorful cocktails are served for years to come.”
Houston cocktail enthusiasts Laura Villafranca, Teddy Bucher and Michelle Mata, multiple-year attendees of the conference, are back again.
Most of the action is going down at the veritable Hotel Monteleone on Royal Street (home to the famously revolving Carousel Bar), where Wednesday morning’s annual Texas party helped kick things off for the fourth year in a row, with Austin’s bar peeps leading this year’s charge.
The bar staff of The Pastry War, Houston’s pioneering agave spirits spot, is among a handful of crews competing in Thursday’s yearly Bar Fight (which this year has gone international, with competitors representing Paris, London and Melbourne). Texas is also known to bring its oversized presence to the U.S. Bartenders Guild’s annual midnight toast, and in general you’ll find Lone Star peeps chilling at local spots like Cane and Table, One Eyed Jacks and Erin Rose.
Mexican Sugar’s Benito Juarez: A cocktail worthy of the name.
In case you hadn’t noticed, mezcal is having a moment. The once misunderstood Mexican spirit has been seeping into the mainstream at a pace that has revved up in recent years, riding a craft-cocktail wave that has seen imbibers clamor for more and better ingredients.
For a spirit that at one time was known mostly as “that bottle with the worm in it,” this cousin of tequila has not only come a long way, but, it turns out, is way more interesting: a markedly smoky concoction that rewarded early adopters with broad (and wormless) expressions deriving from its ability to be cultivated from a range of Mexican agave plants. (Tequila, on the other hand, can only come from blue agave.)
“It’s just a great way to introduce mezcal to people who haven’t had it or think it’s too intense in other cocktails.”
— Bartender Moses Guidry, of Twenty Seven’s Smoke Ring
The plants’ hearts are roasted in pit ovens prior to fermentation, producing the spirit’s smoky influence that for many first-timers presents a line in the sand. But the days when mezcal cocktails were found only in mixology dens are over; I knew the U.S. had reached a milestone when, several years ago, I saw a mezcal-tinged cocktail appear on the menu at P.F. Chang’s. Now you’ll find mezcal cocktails everywhere from Pappasito’s to Frisco’s 3 Stacks Smoke and Tap House.
Many of those drinks, like the ones first rolled out even in craft-cocktail bars, have eased mezcal onto unfamiliar palates by placing it alongside tequila, like a kid brother riding sidecar. But drinks putting mezcal front and center are getting easier and easier to find.
Here are some of my favorites thus far in 2015.
BENITO JUAREZ, Mexican Sugar (pictured above)
In Oaxaca, where most mezcal is produced, the traditional way of consuming the artisan spirit is in small cups flanked by orange wedges and a spice mix of sea salt, crushed chilies and the ground remains of toasted moth larvae that feed on the agave plant. The combo is a mouth-pleasing explosion of smoke, citrus, heat, nuttiness and saltiness – and Plano’s Mexican Sugar pays homage to the tradition with this excellent blend – named after Mexico’s beloved former president – of mezcal, chipotle puree, orange, lime, honey and orange liqueur, slapped with a splotch of imported sal de gusano.
The Mexican Martini showed how well agave spirits and Yellow Chartreuse play together.
MEXICAN MARTINI, Origin
Alas, this one is no longer on the menu at the Knox-Henderson restaurant, but ask for it and you might get lucky.
Agave spirits and herbal Yellow Chartreuse liqueur are swell buddies and play nice here in Laura Ball’s south-of-the-border creation, along with lemon, agave, jalapeno and apricot liqueur. It’s sweet and piquant, tantalizing you with its boozy charms before fading away in a haze of spice and smoke.
Doing things the Old-Fashioned way is a fine approach for mezcal.
MEZCAL OLD-FASHIONED, Henry’s Majestic
Hector Zavala has learned a thing or two in his many years as a bar back for luminaries such as 86 Co. co-founder Jason Kosmas, not the least of which that the classic Old Fashioned packs a kick in any language. Now bartending at the Knox-Henderson one-two punch of Henry’s Majestic and Atwater Alley, the Torreon, Mexico-born Zavala subs Wahaka mezcal for whiskey with a bit of agave syrup and bitters, and his handiwork lets the spirit announce itself like a poncho’d Clint Eastwood waltzing through your whistle’s saloon doors.
More layers than an enchilada casserole: Mr. Brown Goes to Oaxaca takes you places.
MR. BROWN GOES TO OAXACA, Tate’s
Mixmaster Creighten Brown’s deceivingly demure doozy may look like a mere wallflower in its Uptown surroundings, but it’ll impress your taste buds with its flavorful gift of gab. Supplementing mezcal with bittersweet Grand Poppy, dry vermouth, Hellfire bitters and chocolate bitters, this off-menu creation cuts through the smoke with floral and citrus swirls while the bitters offer lingering complexity.
Mezcal boldly steps in for pisco in Twenty Seven’s weekend tipple.
SMOKE RING, Twenty Seven
At Deep Ellum’s Twenty Seven, Moses Guidry’s frothy Smoke Ring is basically a mezcal Pisco Sour, subbing the smoky spirit for tamer Peruvian brandy alongside tequila, simple syrup, lime, cucumber, egg white and a sprinkling of Peychaud’s bitters. “It’s just a great way to introduce mezcal to people who haven’t had it or think it’s too intense in other cocktails,” says Guidry, who’ll you find behind the bar on Saturdays.
Remember that scene in True Romance where Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper face off? This is that scene in a cocktail.
TRUE ROMANCE, Black Swan Saloon
At this Deep Ellum fixture, Gabe Sanchez’s riveting play on the Copper Cocktail gives mezcal the starring role over rum with a supporting cast of herbal Yellow Chartreuse, bitter Averna, lime and a bit of Szechuan pepper tincture. While the mixture might sound overpowering, the end result nicely shapes the best of each ingredient into something unique and memorable.
Unfortunately for Dallas, Meddlesome Moth’s Loiselle has taken her talents to ‘Frisco. Um, the one in California. Shown here at San Fransciso’s Hops and Hominy, she’s now at Cafe du Nord.
We all know that the people who make your cocktails can be right up there with your doctor, your shrink, your spiritual leader and your favorite podcast host when it comes to simple week-to-week survival. Sometimes they’re kind of all of those things rolled into one, except that they can also knock out a good drink – which might make them the most important people of all.
So when the best of them move on to new places, you want to know. Here’s a roundup of some of Dallas’ craft-cocktail peeps who’ve found new digs.
Don’t start freakin’ if you haven’t seen Eakin: He’s over at soon-to-open Rapscallion.
If you haven’t seen Eddie Eakin mixing things up at Bishop Arts’ Boulevardier lately, it’s for good reason: The buff barman has been busy readying beverage operations at soon-to-open Rapscallion, the new Lower Greenville venture from the folks behind Boulevardier.
With Eakin at the helm and one wall pretty much entirely devoted to bar space and storage, you know it’s going to be serious.
In Eakin’s absence, former Meddlesome Moth mixmaster Austin Millspaugh has stepped in to fill the void. The man who once incorporated foie gras into a cocktail is now overseeing Boulevardier’s bar program and is already in full tinker mode; if your tastes lean toward bitter, try his smoked Negroni with Fernet, thyme and Green Chartreuse. His ambitious alchemy should be interesting to watch as the year goes on.
Millspaugh: Your new master of ceremonies at Boulevardier.
Oak, in the Design District, is another place to put on your radar: The high-end restaurant has gotten double-barrel-serious about its cocktail program by bringing on both Michael Reith and James Slater, who between them produced three of my favorite cocktails of 2014.
One night, Reith was working his last night at the venerable Windmill Lounge in T-shirt and jeans, and the next he was pouring fancydranks in Oak’s signature white button-down shirt, black pants and tie. “I love it here,” he says. “It’s going to be a chance to shine again.”
Done with the utensils: After gigs at Knife and Spoon, Slater is now at Oak.
Slater, formerly of Spoon, is likewise happy about the move; the dynamic duo have already put their formidable imprint on Oak’s cocktail menu with classic variations that include a killer Negroni and an Old Fashioned made with Old Tom gin. Though the two are different in style, their philosophies are simpatico, and the Panamanian-born Slater aims to inspire patrons to consider them as much of an accompaniment to dinner as wine.
“We’re going to change the bar program,” Slater says. “We’re like Batman and Robin.”
Reith: Taking things up a notch at Oak.
Meanwhile, it’s been six weeks since the much decorated Daniel Guillen left La Duni, for … well, for what no one was exactly sure – but after more than nine years with the operation, whose cocktail operations had become synonymous with his name, it was time to make a change.
It turns out there was a beast waiting to explode: The proudly Peruvian-born bartender has been unleashing his passions for Central and South American drink culture at places like Proof + Pantry and pop-up events – like next week’s cocktail dinner with Chef David Anthony Temple at Twenty Seven.
Guillen, here at Proof + Pantry, is loosing Latin libations on Dallas after his long stint at La Duni.
“Most bartenders focus on classic American cocktails, maybe a few from Europe,” Guillen says. “In my case, that doesn’t make sense. I would be one of many. So I thought, what can I bring to the table?” Look for more of the same while he and cocktail guru Sean Conner, he of the metroplex’s northern hinterlands, work on an upcoming project set to launch this fall.
At Blind Butcher, Ian Reilly is putting his own spin on things after joining the meat-forward establishment a couple months ago. “He’s the shit,” a departing and obviously happy patron says one evening. “He educates you and he makes you a badass drink.”
Reilly’s variation on the Old Fashioned, which he calls the Hubris, features whiskey with a hops-based syrup, because, “If I had to envision something that men here would want to drink – guys on the prowl, out celebrating, maybe going from beer to cocktails – what better way than to use hops as the sweetener?”
The Beard and the Butcher: Reilly, now pouring on Lower Greenville.
It’s one way that the bearded bar man is easing his way in at a place that has carved out a niche on busy Lower Greenville. “The formula here is working,” says Reilly, formerly of Bowl & Barrel and The People’s Last Stand. “I don’t want to stomp on that.”
Barter’s closing in January dispersed a number of souls to the winds – and one of them was the understated Creighten Brown, who has resurfaced at Tate’s in Uptown. (Juli Naida, as noted in 2014’s end-of-year post, has joined Mate Hartai’s team at Remedy.)
Mr. Brown is back Uptown, at Tate’s.
The talented tipple maker – whose Black Monk was also among my favorite cocktails last year – went from bar-back to bartender at Barter and is already hyped to be among Robbie Call’s team at Tate’s, along with Pro Contreras and Ryan Sanders. “The whole gang, man,” he says. “Good times, good times.”
Finally, Dallas recently bid farewell to two budding talents – Lauren Loiselle, who headed the bar program at Meddlesome Moth, and bartender Damon Bird of LARK at the Park. Both also figured prominently in my 2014 list but found themselves drawn to the Bay Area (and who can blame them?). “Two of our real good friends live in San Francisco,” Bird told me before they left. “We talked about it a long time and just decided to give it a go.”
The Bird has flown: Formerly at LARK, he’s now settling in at San Francisco’s Mikkeller Bar.
Leaving Dallas was bittersweet, but both are excited about their new opportunities: Loiselle has joined the bar team at Café Du Nord, the new venture from the owners of Trick Dog. The team knows what it’s doing: Trick Dog is among four finalists for Best American Cocktail Bar at this year’s Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards, to be awarded next month. “I’m super stoked,” she says.
Bird, meanwhile, has nested at Mikkeller Bar, a beer-centric spot near Union Square featuring the best of brews from around the world. While he misses the craft-cocktail world, you can tell the easygoing drink-slinger has found his people. “This was my choice place,” he says.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misidentified Tate’s Ryan Sanders as Ryan Frederick.
Charlie Papaceno, who left the Windmill to start a new bar, faces a new challenge.
They call Charlie Papaceno the godfather of Dallas’ craft-cocktail scene. Ten years ago, he and then-wife Louise Owens opened the no-frills Windmill Lounge in Oak Lawn, unassumingly planting the local flag of an ongoing national renaissance on a nondescript stretch of Maple Avenue.
With the easygoing maestro at the helm, the low-key bar became a practice ground and hangout spot for the scene’s growing field of practitioners – pioneers like Jason Kosmas, Michael Martensen, Eddie “Lucky” Campbell and Sean Conner. Its homey vibe and quality drinks earned the friendly dive a place in Esquire’s top U.S. bars of 2013.
“That was the place you’d go to see all your friends,” says Bonnie Wilson, director of independent bar programs for Addison-based FrontBurner Restaurants. “He nurtured a lot of us, and he was always willing to listen and guide us. We all learned from him.”
Now, the cocktail-community cache that Papaceno has earned is coming full circle. This time, it’s the godfather who is struggling: Late last year, Papaceno left the Windmill to launch his own bar, wanting to work on a new project. And then he found out he had Stage 4 cancer.
**
The #RallyForCharlie hashtag says it all: Charlie Pap has earned his support. The opportunities to help gets underway Thursday with cocktail specials at places like LARK on the Park and Black Swan Saloon to benefit the cause. But the major fundraising event happens Monday, when an “industry rally” is set for Industry Alley, Papaceno’s soon-to-open bar in the Cedars neighborhood.
“It’s awfully nice,” he says, sitting in the Lamar Avenue nightspot that’s still taking shape, with the lingering smell of fresh paint garnishing the air. “It’s humbling.”
“He nurtured a lot of us, and he was always willing to listen and guide us. We all learned from him.” — Bonnie Wilson, FrontBurner Restaurants
Monday’s cash-only event runs from 2 to 8. Twenty bucks gets you two drink tickets and pork tacos from a whole hog presented onsite. (Additional tickets can be purchased for $5 apiece.) Bartender-led teams of four will be pitted against each other in a giant game of Twister for the cause, and a silent auction will feature multicourse group dinners at places like FT33, Bolsa and Proof + Pantry.
**
For weeks, the ache in his ear and jaw wouldn’t go away. The first hospital visit revealed nothing. But when the pain got so bad he couldn’t sleep, he went back again; this time the tests showed he had, essentially, cancer of the tongue.
He’s been through radiation and chemo; he’s lost 30 pounds and is moving more slowly, but it hasn’t kept him from pursuing his goal. “I’m just working and trying to get better,” he says.
As a military veteran, the VA is covering his medical costs, but living expenses are another matter, especially if he’s left unable to work for a time.
Monday’s Industry Rally will showcase the bar he’s toiled to make real. It’s kind of two venues in one – an informal lounge as you enter, with a jukebox, sexy wall art and a bar with a heavy-duty zinc top and see-through panels underneath. In the rear is a cavernous, corrugated-metal-walled game room that will eventually feature pinball and pool tables. “It’s gonna be a split-personality kind of bar,” he says.
He’d originally wanted something much more intimate. “Then I saw this Quonset-hut backroom, and the office upstairs that’s like something out of some British gangster movie,” and he was sold.
Industry Alley, a work in progress. Papaceno’s new bar should open sometime this summer.
A metal-gated courtyard alley winds toward the front door; hence the name. The “industry” part refers to the neighborhood’s history as an industrial area.
Nothing fancy here – no syrups, no tinctures, no shrubs. Except for Miller Lite ponies, all beers will come in a can. The cocktails will be classically simple. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t walk into a regular bar and be able to get a decent Manhattan or Old Fashioned,” Papaceno says. “It doesn’t have to be The Mansion but I don’t want to be a McDonald’s either. Something in the middle.”
So yeah, there won’t be any elaborate garnishes or a kitchen full of produce, but if he has his way, you’ll know you can walk in and get a quality drink in a comfortable atmosphere. It’s the kind of place he hopes people will go before or after the place they’re headed to that evening. Kind of like the Windmill – though he’s not looking to reinvent the place.
Industry Alley, he says, “is not a destination bar. It’s a hangout bar. Hopefully I can design a place that people can hang out in and feel comfortable.”
For Papaceno, that should be no struggle whatsoever.
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.
Don Draper did it. Now it’s time for the Green Chartreuse Mojito to reinvent itself under another name, too.
The mojito is the pop song that took over summer. You heard it and loved it, or maybe you didn’t — but you still had to admit it was pretty catchy. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere, which was either the best thing ever or just completely insufferable. Even when it fell off the playlists, people kept asking for it. Others did nothing but kvetch. And somewhere lost in the mess was the fact that it was actually a pretty decent song.
There’s a reason the mojito has endured. But guess what: There’s an even better remake, and though it’s not so new, it’s never quite made the charts. It replaces rum with the magic elixir Green Chartreuse, which if you know me, is a plus in my book to begin with. The potent French liqueur, whose mystery monk-made mix of 130 herbs, plants and flowers goes back 500 years, is an accomplished supporting actress, but rarely gets a starring role. After all, when you’re dealing with a 110-proof blast of blossomy jade lushness, you’ve got to be careful.
The Green Chartreuse mojito is an excellent drink. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but the rain in Dallas is going to end and it’s going to get hot and you’re going to want this drink. But nothing stunts a career like bad name (Frances Gumm, anyone? Marion Morrison? Benedict Cumber – wait, never mind) and however this rich rendition came to be, it was foolishly recast as – wait for it – the CHARTREUSITO. That basically makes it the De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da of cocktails: It might be good, but who actually wants to request it?
Sean Conner, among Dallas’ craft-cocktail pioneers, has been making the drink for years, unaware of its miserably named connections. (It lived briefly as “Green Drank” at The Establishment, where Conner consulted, before the restaurant closed last year.) Formerly of Plano’s Whiskey Cake, he now owns Lewisville’s Pie 3.14. “I was at Whiskey Cake one day playing around with Chartreuse and just made an herbal mojito,” he said. At Pie 3.14, “we still make it all the time. It’s a good drink.”
The hefty version at Cosmo’s Bar and Lounge.
Then, not long ago, bartender Brad Stogsdill of Cosmo’s Bar & Lounge in Lakewood was scouring the Internet for drinks to make with mint when he unearthed the ugly duckling from the marshy archives and put it on the menu. I took a swan dive right in: Properly made, the drink is simple, sweet and light on its feet, a radiant emerald Venus circled by her moons mint, lime, sugar and soda. Stogsdill reins in the sugar levels to adjust for Chartreuse’s floweriness; those same floral qualities cast it perfectly alongside the other ingredients, which tame the potion’s bossy nature while letting its shimmery essence shine.
“I remember being skeptical,” Stogsdill said. “Then I tasted it and I was, like, that’s pretty good.”
But: That name. Stogsdill and I agreed that a new appellation was in order. After a half-hour of brainstorming, I modestly proposed the following:
Two Revolutions.
The name plays off both the mojito’s origins in Cuba and the twist offered by a liqueur from France, reflecting the upheaval that came to alter the course of both countries. It leans weighty instead of silly, is no puzzle to pronounce and carries enough unspecific imagery to give it verve. And now you’ll occasionally find it on the nightly cocktail specials board at Cosmo’s.
And maybe, just maybe, a new name can itself come to alter the course of a cocktail that deserves a better fate.
DO IT YOURSELF:
Start your own revolution at home with the same ingredients you’d use to supplement a mojito – fresh limes, sugar, mint and club soda – plus a bottle of Green Chartreuse (about $58 at Spec’s). While the version listed in The Ultimate Bar Book— according to chezbonnefemme.com — calls for an ounce each of rum and Chartreuse, I prefer an all-green method similar to one found at completecocktails.com.
2 oz Green Chartreuse
1 oz fresh lime juice
6 to 8 mint leaves
1 tsp sugar (or 1 tbsp of 1:1 simple syrup)
Chilled club soda
Muddle the lime, mint and sugar in a highball or Old Fashioned glass.
Fill with ice, then add the Green Chartreuse and stir.
Add in a squeezed-out lime wedge if you like, top with club soda and garnish with a mint sprig.
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
