Tag Archives: Manhattan Project

Barmoire

A double-whammy of feel-good

A great cocktail: Definitely a day-brightener. Giving to a good cause: Ditto. Doing both at the same time: Awesome.

Consider it charitable multi-tasking. From 6 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, you can enjoy New York-themed cocktails AND benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy as four of the city’s best barmen do duty at Dallas’ Windmill Lounge to raise funds for bar and restaurant owners in Manhattan’s East Village.

The effort, called All 4 1, is the handiwork of four accomplished bardudes — Omar Yeefoon and Julian Pagan of Cedars Social, Libertine Bar’s Mate Hartai and Marquee Grill & Bar’s Jason Kosmas — who last week stepped behind bars in Austin, Houston and San Antonio raising money for the cause. Originally the four had been looking for a way to do guest spots around Texas, but when the largest Atlantic storm on record pummeled the East Coast last month, they suddenly had a purpose.

Kosmas, a New York transplant who still co-owns Manhattan’s Employees Only, personally knew people in the East Village whose businesses had been devastated by the superstorm. A fun idea turned into a focused one.

“We’re just trying to make sure some of these places don’t shut down, or at least not for long if they do,” Yeefoon said.

Tuesday night, the four will be at the old-school Windmill Lounge making New York-themed cocktails for a minimum $5 donation apiece. T-shirts will be available too.

“Of course we have a good time while we’re doing it, but now we’re, like, really into the charity,” Yeefoon said.

Go. Be like Omar. Have a good time while you’re doing it, and be really into the charity. It’s a double-whammy of feel-good.

The event is one of two going on around town Tuesday as the ongoing Manhattan Project moves northward to Plano’s Whiskey Cake (not Hibiscus, as originally planned). From 7 to 9 p.m., the bar will be dishing up free Manhattans in a periodic series of events designed to promote whiskeys, and the classic cocktail, throughout the colder season.

Some of the whiskeys available for sampling at ongoing Manhattan Project events.

— Marc Ramirez, posted 11/18/12

Barmoire

The Mixologists Take Manhattan

The Manhattan: It’s the drink mixologist Gary Regan says “changed the face of cocktails.”

Featuring rye whiskey with a bit of vermouth with a sprinkle or three of bitters, it was arguably the first drink to draft vermouth as a sidekick. That was, as they say, a damn game-changer. The Martinez followed, then the Martini, and eventually all manner of cocktail goodness gracing humanity today.

In case you hadn’t noticed, brown spirits are everywhere, which not only means that fall is officially here but also that if you haven’t turned back your clocks by now, you’re way behind the curve. That would make you highly unworthy to participate in the aptly named Manhattan Project, an ongoing push to promote the drink that runs through early next year.

Two or three times a month, one of six participating Dallas venues will host the free event, whipping up the voluptuous namesake cocktail using whiskeys represented by project sponsor Republic National Distribution Company, such as Buffalo Trace and W.L. Weller.

“The Manhattan is the classic bourbon cocktail,” says Chris Furtado, Republic’s craft specialist. “We really want to emphasize the drink itself, and everybody’s interpretation of it.”

With the mass market kinder to vodka and gin, Furtado says, bourbon cocktails can be overlooked. “But for us classic cocktail lovers,” he says, “it’s a great drink.”

So far, the Manhattan has been celebrated at Cedars Social, People’s Last Stand and the Black Swan Saloon. This week, the tour hit Uptown’s Private/Social. Still to come are Hibiscus and Whiskey Cake before the tour circles around and each gets another shot at the deal.

“We’re showcasing bourbon and places that do it well,” Furtado says, nursing a Manhattan at Cedars Social. “I want people who come here to go to People’s Last Stand. I want people to think of Black Swan as a cocktail destination; they’re doing great stuff.”

The classic Manhattan recipe calls for a 2:1 rye whiskey-to-vermouth ratio. I typically make mine with a 3:1 ratio using Bulleit Rye and a few dashes of Bittercube’s Cherry Bark Vanilla bitters.

Japanese cocktail legend Kazuo Uyeda makes his Manhattans 4:1 and  suggests the ratio can go up to 5:1 before the whiskey’s “brooding, complex character” body-slams everything else in the glass.

Experiment with it yourself and figure out what you like. “Quite simply,” mixologist Regan writes in his classic The Joy of Mixology, “when properly constructed, it is the finest cocktail on the face of the earth.”

The next Manhattan Project event will be Tuesday, Nov. 20, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Hibiscus, 2927 N. Henderson in Dallas.

— Marc Ramirez, Nov. 5, 2012