Barmoire

Dallas bartenders make a Lone Star splash at national cocktail festival

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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.

— Marc Ramirez

Published 7-27-12

Barmoire

D and Easy: Tales of the Cocktail opens with Dallas on menu

Lucky Campbell of The Chesterfield says hello to New Orleans.

Tales of the Cocktail, the premier party event for the nation’s bartenders, cocktail chroniclers and spirit and liqueur reps, is officially underway in the Big Easy, with one big D of difference:

For the first time, Dallas bartenders have a special seat at the table, with a tasting event called “Come and Get It! Cocktails Texas Style!”

I’m not sure what the purpose of that second exclamation point is, but suffice it to say that the sampling of local luminaries – including Jason Kosmas of Marquee Grill & Bar, Rocco Milano of Private/Social and Michael Martensen of Cedars Social – on hand to show what makes the Lone Star State so dadgum special are awfully excited.

Bartending tool seller Cocktail Kingdom represents with shakers, jiggers and coupes.

I’ll be posting dispatches from that event and some of the 10th annual festival’s other cocktail workshops, tastings, contests, industry showdogging and requisite revelry along the way.  Most of the action will be going down at the veritable Hotel Monteleone on Royal Street, home to the revolving Carousel Bar and birthplace of the Vieux Carre cocktail.

The Vieux Carre is one of several classic cocktails with roots in New Orleans, which makes this festive city an appropriate home for the yearly event founded by Ann Tuennerman and just one more reason to shower it with love.

Tales of the Cocktail has taken over New Orleans’ Hotel Monteleone. In the background, event founder and executive director Ann Tuennerman talks with a conference attendee.

This is my first year at the festival, and I’m already wowed by the offerings: tributes to rum, apertifs and cucaçao; workshops on Russian drinking culture, foraged ingredients, bartending ecology and even the health benefits of alcohol spiked with beneficial herbs. Some of us will see how bartenders have been portrayed in popular culture, make our own vermouths and bitters or experience the whisky bars of Japan.

These are marathon days, launching with Bloody Marys and oysters on the half-shell when most other people are barely pawing at bagels and drearily sipping morning coffee. Making it through the race requires a shrewd sense of pacing, indomitable endurance and a mighty constitution.

Let’s do this.

Absolut Breakfast.

– Marc Ramirez

Published 7-25-12

Barmoire

Jason Kosmas is about to raise your spirits

What has Jason Kosmas not done? Maybe that’s what the Dallas bartending luminary was wondering when he decided to launch his own spirits outfit, which has debuted with Cana Brava rum and Aylesbury Duck vodka.

Who’s Jason Kosmas, you ask? (But only because you’re nice enough to play along. Either that or you’ve been under heavy sedation for the last decade.)

Kosmas studied under mixology master Dale DeGroff, co-owns New York City’s Employees Only, co-authored a couple of bartending books and then came to Dallas to wield his bar smarts at Windmill Lounge, Bolsa, Neighborhood Services and finally Marquee. What’s next, a reality show?

Actually, Kosmas has been ruminating on the spirits idea for some time, and with The 86 Company, he and his partners are rolling out a bartender’s basic palette. (Gin and tequila are set to follow.) All are meant to be user-friendly and affordably priced. And tasty, of course: Both hold their own behind the bar.

For Cana Brava, Kosmas visited a good number of distilleries before settling on Panama’s Las Cabras, run by Don Pancho Fernandez.

The name may mean little north of the border, but in the Caribbean, Fernandez is legend, a master distiller who for 30-some years had a hand in Cuba’s classic Havana Club rum. In Panama, his molasses-based rums are aged for three years in a combination of new American oak and older American whiskey barrels, then blended with older rums.

Fernandez, Kosmas says, “put together a blend specifically for us.” The result, officially introduced at last month’s inaugural Craft Cocktail TX festival is 86 proof and straw-toned with deep aromas of sugar cane, caramel and citrus.

Kosmas, right, with Standard Pour’s Brian McCulllough at last month’s Craft Cocktail TX festival

Cana Brava is just now hitting state liquor stores, but in the meantime can be found at places like Cedars Social, Marquee, Private/Social, People’s Last Stand, Sundown at the Granada, Victor Tango, Neighborhood Services and Malai Kitchen.

Kosmas likes Cana Brava in the classic Daiquiri – 2 ounces of rum plus ¾ each of fresh lime juice and simple syrup, shaken with ice, strained into a chilled glass and garnished with a lime wheel.

At Sundown at the Granada, Casey Willis’s Cana Brava mojito muddles seven mint leaves and an ounce of honey syrup with lime juice, then adds two ounces of the rum before shaking and pouring over rocks.

Private/Social’s Rocco Milano slips it into something summery that he calls the Sex Panther. Here’s the recipe:

            3 ounces Cana Brava

            Juice of three limes

         2 ounces Monin pure cane syrup (or agave nectar)

            2 slices of seedless watermelon (about 2-3 inches apiece)

            Place watermelon in blender, then add other ingredients. Add ice and blend, pour into two glasses and top each with a mint sprig.

— Marc Ramirez

Posted 7-9-12

Barmoire

CCTX 2012 wraps up its initial run

Were we not entertained? During this weekend’s inaugural run of Craft Cocktail TX, local cocktail enthusiasts flirted with alchemy, thought like chefs, embraced the possibilities of going green, beheld a master showman and witnessed a Sinatra-like rendition of Modern English’s “I Melt With You.”

Oh, and had a memorable tipple or three along the way.

Eddie “Lucky” Campbell of the Chesterfield makes yet another grand entrance, this time at Main Street Garden.

Stretched over the course of three and a half days, DFW’s first-ever cocktail festival may have been guilty of being a tad too ambitious. Some of Friday’s seminars bordered on sheer brand promotion. And it’s possible that scheduling the Main Street Garden party and bartender competition for an afternoon in June may not have been the best idea.

“I realized that about two o’clock Saturday,” said event co-founder Brian McCullough during Sunday’s closing party at The People’s Last Stand. Just the same, the man behind Uptown’s Standard Pour didn’t seem discouraged by the turnout, which was at times sparse: Seminar attendance ranged from five to 50.

“People are saying, you gotta keep doing this,” he said. In other words, it was like crafting a new cocktail: You taste, you adjust, you try again. The festival, he said, “about broke even” with an overall attendance he pegged at more than 600, and for a first-time event, it wasn’t bad; industry reps, well steeped in these sorts of occasions, praised DFW’s proceedings for not devolving into mere drunkenness.

Also, there were a lot of guys in hats.

Ian Reilly of The People’s Last Stand dishes up tiki flamboyance at Sunday’s festival closing party.

Saturday’s sweltering Main Street Garden party peaked with a small but happy crowd of liquoring neophytes and connoisseurs. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Suzi Ricci, a marketing professional from Dallas’ Design District. “It makes me want to bump it up at home. Why keep serving the same old Chardonnay? Let’s smash some watermelons and crush some basil.”

Bartenders vying for top honors whipped up cocktail samples showcasing a handful of sponsoring spirit producers like Milagro Tequila and Pink Pigeon Rum. Sommelier Sean Corcoran of The Joule made Rosemary “Jen” Fizzes featuring Roxor gin, rosemary-steeped cream, simple syrup, yuzu juice and egg white nitrogen-whipped into a frothy foam, then topped with dehydrated rosemary and candied sugar.

Brad Bowden of The People’s Last Stand hands out his sample creations at Saturday’s Main Street Garden party and cocktail competition.

Charlie Papaceno of Windmill Lounge used Roxor to make a Rhubarb Ginger Fizz, crushing and straining boiled rhubarb into a “rhubarb elixir” mixed with gin, lemon and ginger, topped off with seltzer and a fragrant basil leaf.

Only one barman, however, could walk away as best in show. Who would it be? “It’ll be a terrier,” Papaceno said. “It’s always a terrier.”

But it was Feodore Forte’, a server at Bolsa, who nabbed that recognition with a drink he called Summer Chill. The combination of Maker’s Mark whiskey, fresh lemon juice and pre-mixed yuzu, agave syrup and Fresno chiles was shaken with egg white, dolloped with a small scoop of locally made lemon-thyme sorbet and a brush of habanero syrup.

Josh Hendrix and Chef Patrick Stark of Sundown at the Granada prepare for their session on locally-sourced ingredients.

The outdoor party followed Friday’s lineup of cocktail seminars at Dallas’ historic Stoneleigh Hotel, which is where you would have found me that afternoon, geeking out high on the 11th floor as Private/Social’s Rocco Milano and his wizardly wagon of herbs, roots, spices and tinctures took us into the science lab to blend our own bitters and create our own tequila infusions.

Friday’s festival attendees blend their own dropper-bottle creations in Rocco Milano’s bitters workshop.

From Marquee’s Jason Kosmas we learned the elements of a great cocktail and some techniques for getting there; Josh Hendrix and Chef Patrick Stark of Sundown at the Granada touted a philosophy of ingredients sourced within 100 miles.

Armed with jalapeno-infused tequila, Trevor Landry of Dish shared the basics of heat and why it might appeal in a drink; and again and again, Lucky Campbell of the Chesterfield showed that when it comes to showmanship – an oft-forgotten element of bartendering – no one quite does it like him. 

Veni, vidi, tiki: Craft Cocktails TX co-founder Brian McCullough, far left, and local liquor luminary Jason Kosmas, far right, celebrate at CCTX’s closing party.

DFW’s rapidly growing craft-cocktail scene has officially entered adolescence. Whether the city’s drinking populace – much of which still balks at the idea of egg white in a drink—has the inclination to usher it into adulthood, a thriving and educated community of muddlers and shakers, remains to be seen. But it’s an encouraging start.

— Marc Ramirez

Posted 6-18-12

Barmoire

Craft Cocktail TX launches at the Stoneleigh

For reals: What wasn’t to like? The drinks were flowing, the vibe was humming, the rooftop view was phenomenal and before long hardly anyone cared that the ice hadn’t arrived for the first-floor patio cocktails or that for a while, the only real food available was a basket of buns on the 11th floor.

A smartly primped Hendrick’s Gin rep, who has been doing these kinds of events for some time, agreed that the inaugural Craft Cocktails TX Festival appeared to have gotten off to an impressive start with last night’s VIP Party, the four-day event’s official launch on three floors of the Stoneleigh Hotel and Spa. Of course, it’s hard to go wrong when you’ve got spirit makers handing out cocktails.

The drinks were built around Monkey Shoulder Whiskey, Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur, Lillet Rose and Sailor Jerry Rum. But my favorite drink of the night was a summery cooler called the Sanchito, the handiwork of Standard Pour’s Polo that involved classed up Stoli Raspberry vodka with cumin syrup, muddled raspberries and jalapeno and likely another ingredient that somehow didn’t make its way into my notes.

Other winners — Hendrick’s’ Windowsill Cooler and featuring rhubarb liqueur and vanilla cream soda, and the Margarita Popsicle crafted by Whiskey Cake’s Bonnie Wilson, the winner of Oak Cliff’s Margarita Meltdown earlier this year.

There were drinks dressed as snow cones, drinks with rose petals and Manhattan magic served up by Hudson Whiskey’s former chief distiller Gable Erenzo, who now handles the brand’s sales and marketing. By night’s end, many — including festival co-founder Brian McCullough of Standard Pour, Charlie Papaceno of Windmill Lounge and the Libertine’s Mate Hartai — had left their mark on a massive posterboard that captured the evening’s mood for posterity.

The real essence of the festival starts today with a full lineup of workshops led by some of DFW’s best bartenders and various liquor luminaries from around the country. I’ll be live-tweeting with the hashtag #CCTX, if you want to follow along.

— Marc Ramirez
Published 6-15-12
Barmoire

Dallas has itself a cocktail festival

The Dallas-Fort Worth drinking scene has come a long way in a short time, still playing catchup with a craft cocktail trend frothing at the nation’s edges for some time. But has it reached a point of critical mass? A group of local enthusiasts hope so.

Here comes Craft Cocktail Week, a four-day drinkstravaganza of cocktail seminars, bartender competitions, tastings, parties and happy hours starting next Thursday at a number of venues anchored by Dallas’ Stoneleigh Hotel and downtown’s Main Street Garden.

         

Event co-founder Nico Ponce, a longtime area bartender (most recently Standard Pour and The Chesterfield), said he just sensed “a movement — a cocktail movement” inspired by the enthusiasm for the craft he saw in his fellow barmen. “I’m not saying they’re badass national-scale mixologists or that they’re ready to take on the world,” he said, “but … there’s a passion.”

Ponce concocted the event along with Brian McCullough of Standard Pour in Uptown. Both are founding members of the newly formed Dallas chapter of the U.S. Bartenders Guild, which has put its stamp on the event.

Seminars will be led by local luminaries including Private/Social’s Rocco Milano, Lucky Campbell of The Chesterfield and Jason Kosmas of Marquee Grill & Bar.

“Dallas has really started to blossom,” said Kosmas, co-owner of Manhattan’s internationally recognized Employees Only and co-author of “Speakeasy: The Employees Only Guide to Classic Cocktails Reimagined.” So much so, he said, that he and several partners will be launching their new rum and vodka lines at the festival instead of in New York.

Kosmas will give a workshop on cocktail composition, while others will address specific components such as absinthe, gin and bitters. There’s even sessions on throwing your own cocktail party and the link between mixology and astrology. (As an Aquarius, I always appreciate it when a bartender gives me a glass of water along with my drink.)

Saturday’s Main Street Garden Festival will have arts merchants, food trucks, live music and handcrafted drinks as well as a USBG competition with up to 30 geographically far-flung bartenders fashioning cocktails built around one of five spirits.

For tickets or more information, go to http://craftcocktailstx.com/index.php. Part of the proceeds will benefit Young at Heart, a group of young professionals supporting the American Heart Association.

Ponce said he’s hoping to draw anywhere between 500 and 1,000 people each day, but whether the turnout leaves organizers shaken or stirred remains to be seen.

“It’s like opening up a bar,” Ponce says. “You never know what kind of culture you have until you get started…. We’re just seeing what the city takes a hold of.”

— Marc Ramirez

Published 6-8-12

Barmoire

Three Sheets of Gray

If you’ve been following the growing cocktail scene in Dallas — or just listening to the gravelly-voiced tales of head barman Eddie “Lucky” Campbell — you probably know that the Chesterfield has seen its share of drama in its brief six months of life. On Monday, though, everything was chill as the Main Street gastropub said goodbye to Rookie of the Year bartender (if there were such a thing) Kevin Gray.

Gray didn’t expect to be working behind the bar anywhere, much less one of the city’s prime cocktail spots. For years he’s been the man behind CocktailEnthusiast.com, a blog devoted to spirit reviews and drinking culture. But such is his expertise that one of Campbell’s former bartenders asked Gray to help staff the newly opening Chesterfield late last year, and he couldn’t say no.

Now the enterprising and affable Plano native is off to join the Dallas operation of online lifestyle publication UrbanDaddy. For his last night at the Chesterfield, he ditched the ceremonial barman’s vest and poured pretty much bartender’s choice all evening for a growing crowd of well-wishers.

“As proud as we are, it’s a sad day for us,” said Campbell, among the city’s preeminent cocktail corps.

What has Gray learned in his six months on the job? That it’s harder than it looks, that customers can be condescending and stingy but more often understanding and gracious, that there’s a certain choreography to being one of multiple staff behind the bar.

What have we learned about him? That he’s talented enough to have eased into the formidable Chesterfield cocktail menu with little behind-the-bar experience going in. Also, that he’s a huge fan of Angostura bitters, the distinctive Trinidadian-based formula that’s a staple of classic cocktails like the Manhattan and Old-Fashioned.

Typically Angostura is used in small amounts — a dash here, a few there. But Gray’s favorite creation in the last six months is something he calls either Das Boot or Dark Water, a light-rum and Falernum mixture boldly infused with a full ounce of Angostura, as well as lime and sugar.

That’s some adventurous stuff. Delicious, too. Gray also poured Negronis punctuated with mezcal and grapefruit bitters, but as often as he could, he reached for the distinctive bitters bottle with the oversized label.

“Everything’s got Angostura tonight,” an observer remarked.

“As everything should,” Gray chirped.

Finally, Fernet found its way into the proceedings, and the funereal farewells were lost in festivity.

See you around, Kevin. Was great having you behind the bar.

Chesterfield’s head barman, Eddie “Lucky” Campbell, toasts the departing Gray.

— Marc Ramirez

Published 5-30-12

Cocktails, Negroni

Muh-muh-muh-my…. Negroni

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In the early stages of my ongoing evolutionary stumble toward cocktail geekdom, the Negroni was probably fourth or fifth. One at a time, I discovered certain drinks and clung onto them like handholds amid the fray as I felt my way around this dizzying new world beyond beer and simple mixed drinks — the Martini, the Vesper, the Aviation.

Somewhere along the way I found the Negroni,  a classic cocktail that remains entrenched in the pantheon of drinks I return to again and again at home and beyond, solid as an Iron Chef under the spotlight.

Campari is its heart — yes, Campari, the brilliant red Italian aperitif with the distinctively bitter character. For some, the familiar bottle conjures images of grandpa’s liquor shelf — the Negroni dates back to at least the 1950s — but I’m already sensitive enough about the white hairs starting to muscle their way into the thicket atop my head. You don’t need to compare me to Christopher Plummer.

This kinda sorta happened the other night when I popped into my local watering hole and considered the bartender’s offer to spice up my basic gin and tonic with a splash of Campari.

“Campari?” a woman nearby said. “Isn’t that an old man’s drink?”

I was aghast. You should be too. Call it bitter — hell, call me bitter — but don’t call it that.

The apertif’s forceful flavor is not for everyone, but it’s not mean like Grappa. It starts out smooth but develops into something far more edgy, the stylish guy who shows up at a party and destroys everyone at the pool table before disappearing into the night. Who was that guy? everyone asks. That was Campari.

You can top it with club soda, or you can mix it with wine or orange juice. Balanced with sweet vermouth and held at bay by club soda, it becomes an Americano.

For me, though, it’s the Negroni that captures Campari’s best qualities.

Consummate mixologist Gary Regan calls the Negroni one of the world’s finest drinks. While legend has it that around 1919, a certain Count Negroni asked an Italian bartender to make an Americano using gin for club soda, the earliest recipes Regan could find for it surface around 1955.

Equal parts Campari, gin and sweet vermouth, garnished with an orange twist, it’s one of the simplest drinks to make — and yet one of the easiest to spoil, a delicate dance of bitter and sweet that can easily come off as too much of one or the other.

“The balance is of primary importance in a Negroni,” Regan writes in The Joy of Mixology. “Using equal part of each ingredient is absolutely necessary to achieve perfection.”

It’s one of the drinks I’ll order when trying out a new bar — or specifically, a new bartender. While variations exist — Dallas’ Private/Social makes a luscious one with a fantastically delicious, prime-quality vermouth — I believe Campari is its essence.

As my friend Ryan, a fellow cocktail enthusiast, pointed out the other day, Liquor.com carried a recipe for something called an “East Indian Negroni.” It subbed rum for gin, sherry for vermouth and Luxardo bitter liqueur for Campari. Is that still a Negroni? More like a Ne-phony, if you ask me.

J.W. Tate, the guy behind the craft cocktail program at Tate’s in Dallas, calls the Negroni “the essence of life.” “It’s not obnoxiously strong,” he says. “There’s a lot of layers there. It’s the best drink there is.”

— Marc Ramirez
Spirits and liqueurs

Long Cool Woman in a Red Dress

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Yeah, it’s true: Gin is my longtime BFF. But lately… well, there’s a certain lady in red who’s gotten under my skin.Her name is Hum. She’s like no dame I ever met before. She’s the Jessica Rabbit of liqueurs.

Some say she’s hard to get along with. I gotta say: She does dominate a room. One-on-one, though — oh yeah, she’s something special. I’ll never forget the first time I met her….

It was Rocco who turned my world upside down. Rocco Milano, the head barman at Private/Social. Rocco knows a lot of characters. Rocco gets around. And he ain’t shy about introducing them to his friends.

In January, Rocco was working his usual artistry behind the bar when he saw me grab a stool with a look that said I needed some excitement in my life. That’s what I’m guessing, anyway, because the first thing he did was grab a shot glass and pull a tap and slide the first step toward madness under my nose.

“Try this,” he said. “It is amazing.”

I should have noticed then that Rocco had slipped off the rails himself. He and Hum first got acquainted at Victory in New Orleans, and then he realized he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

I should have noticed it, but I didn’t. I was too mesmerized by the foxy gal in front of me — a lush burst of magenta with a body that spoke volumes.

I picked her up and right away I knew I was in over my head. The pungency of ginger swaddled in fruity spice and the red blaze of hibiscus. I raised her to my lips and felt her syrupy hello. And then, the bite — tangy, stinging the tongue, then settling into a floral embrace. This Hum wasn’t gonna be no pushover.

Hum’s creators, Chicago’s Adam Seger and London’s Joe McCanta, in the spirit of Italian Amaros, infuse pot still rhum with hibiscus, ginger root, green cardamom and kaffir lime — a blend inspired by the French Caribbean.

* * *

You heard right. Rocco had her on tap. He had captured the red queen — a savvy play made when Hum Spirits contacted him after they heard he’d been looking for her. His Fernet — also on tap — had just run out, and he saw an opportunity.

But he’d also found a way to get Hum to play well with others. Things That Make You Go Hum, he called it — a sublime, frothy mix of Hum, Strega, lemon, simple and egg white, with a touch of absinthe.

Hum has made a huge push here in Dallas in the last few months, and she’s starting to appear in the mix at headier cocktail spots, even if some bartenders aren’t quite sure what to do with her. People’s Last Stand uses it in the vodka-based Lying Beauty, but the first version — later corrected, at my behest — barely let the genie out of the bottle.

At The Cedars Social, Mike Steele craftily partnered her with Buffalo Trace bourbon, grapefruit, honey and Strega. The bourbon proved a worthy partner, letting Hum shine without coming on too strong.

And last month, at The Usual in Fort Worth — I’m obsessed, I tell you — resident genius Juan Solis pulled Hum off the back shelf when I picked her out of the crowd.

He gave the hummingbird-logo’d bottle a good look-over. I was supposed to try this a week ago, he said.

He poured a shot and sipped, then grimaced. What’s in that? he asked.

Juan eyed the ingredients, then tasted it again. I have some ideas, he said. He poured a little of this and that and poked around a smattering of tiny bottles on the counter.

His solution doted on on Hum’s Caribbean flavor: Hum, light rum, lime and simple syrup, with coconut extract and a sprig of mint. It was damn good.

Now, just suppose you’re at my place and you meet a lovely stranger in red. Actually, supposin’s as far as you get: Go buy your own bottle.

— Marc Ramirez

Barmoire

Romancing the Bean

The spare confines of Boston’s Drink, where what you’re going to drink is, literally, whatever you feel like if your bartender has anything to say about it.

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Powerful evidence of my cocktail geekery lies in the fact that whenever I head to a new city, one of the first things on my agenda is to sniff out the best cocktail bars in the area. Recently I found myself in Boston, which for years has been all buzzed about as a major nexus of mixology, and I could barely contain my glee at finally getting to throw down in Beantown.

Knowledgeable friends raved about Drink, near the waterfront, in the city’s Fort Point neighborhood. The concept is as spare as its name: A simple sign on the wall, straight out of a 1960s insurance office, tells you where you are, and inside, a smooth wooden bar snakes around Drink’s dimly lit, low-ceilinged confines in the shape of a Princess telephone receiver, two squares joined at the top by a long narrow line.

Crowd size is carefully controlled. This is because it is imperative that you sit at the bar. You are your bartender, see, are about to have a conversation. No pointing at the drink menu. And by the way, where is the drink menu? There isn’t one. In fact, now that you think about it, you don’t even see any actual liquor bottles. They are kept out of sight, like at grandpa’s house. You’re about to go off-road here.

The bartender swings around again. Do you know what you want? She wants to know what sort of spirit you prefer, what kind of mood you’re in, what your tolerance for adventure is, anything that will help her decide what kind of drink you’re going to have. And then she returns, with a concoction dredged from the past or riffed on the spot, and it is delicious.

I wanted something gingery, but something I’d never had before — and knowing that gin is often paired with ginger, I asked for something without gin. Certainly no vodka. The drink I got was dark and robust, with a gingery bite. Turns out it was a Dark and Stormy, a mix of rum and ginger beer that I had in fact had before — and had I seen it on a drink menu, I wouldn’t have ordered it for that very reason. A small complaint, but there it is. I comforted myself with as many sips of a friend’s Maximilian Affair (mezcal, St. Germain, Punt e Mes, lemon) as she would allow.

The class of the city is probably Eastern Standard, a cavernous, glamorously Sinatra-esque spot reigning over Commonwealth Avenue near Boston’s Kenmore Square. Primarily a restaurant, Eastern Standard’s has a pleasant stretch of a bar that you’ll want to find a place at, if only to see a waitress climb atop the back bar at midnight to scrawl late-night happy-hour food specials (lobster roll, anyone?) on the chalkboard. Eastern Standard’s drink menu is playfully vague, with creations like the Periodista (“Rum for the Intrepid Reporter”) and Le Grande Flip (“Big Time Sexy Beast”). 

Eastern Standard has been on my short list ever since getting to know Marley Tomic-Beard, one of my favorite Seattle bartenders whose impressive Emerald City pedigree (Spur, Bathtub Gin, Golden Beetle and The Sexton) is made even more awesometastic by her Eastern Standard origins. The drinks here were well-crafted and perfectly presented, from the tiki-ish Hapa N’ui to my personal favorite, the Aprilia — a blend of Beefeater 24 gin, Cocchi Americano, Amaro Nonino and grapefruit bitters as elegant and pure as a Vesper.

In the end, I found my favorite Boston cocktail at Brick and Mortar, a semi-hidden gastropub above busy Massachusetts Avenue. As at Drink, the crowd is carefully monitored for size; as with Seattle favorite Rob Roy, the atmosphere is casually unfussy and the music often blasts via turntable. Brick and Mortar’s killer menu features a short list of house cocktails — including the fantastic A Bullet for Fredo, whose aged grappa, dry vermouth and Campari was as poignant and powerful as its name. A second? That was an offer I couldn’t refuse.