December 2011
1 post
The Swan Song...
So, I started this blog in 2009, as a way to…Spread the love and appreciation of Mixology to our students.
This tumblr was such a wonderful experience of pure joy, there was no profit motive, or even expectation that anyone would read it. I still remember getting an e-mail from the folks at Bulldog Gin saying they loved my Gin Punch piece and it’s posts like that that inspire...
August 2011
1 post
Egg Whites, Pisco, and the New Cool
(Pisco at Cuba, note the traditional three drops of bitters on the froth)
About six months ago, you could walk into Cuba Libre, and order a Pisco Sour and ask if they used egg whites, and they’d look at you like you had three arms. I know this, because I did it before relenting and writing about their Mojito…
Using egg whites in drinks is a Mixology mainstay, a practice dating...
March 2011
7 posts
Blackberry Jam (our May drink for South Jersey...
Hey guys, we started doing a monthly column for South Jersey Magazine, and we share the unabridged recipes with you guys because…we can =)
(Image Credit: DrMixologist.com)
Spring is here! Here’s a variant of one of the most simple and easy brunch drinks to make, the Champagne Cocktail.
It’s simply sugar, and bitters, muddled together and filled with champagne.
This...
Yogic Bartending
Your only right is to the action, and never to its results. You may never act for the sake of the results; but neither may you ever become attracted to deciding not to act.- Bhagavad Gita 11.47 It’s Tuesday morning in New York. It’s beautiful, the sun is shining, and I don’t have any “work” to do besides attending a Mixology Seminar, which is as close to Disneyland-without-lines for me as life...
What's the very BEST way to drink Scotch on the...
So imagine you’re there, with your bottle of Macallan 30, and it’s the end of a perfect day. You get your favorite glass out, maybe it’s a brandy snifter, maybe it’s crystal, maybe something personal, and you pour yourself a gentle dram (an amount that corresponds to how you generous you feel) of the good spirit.
Aaaaahhhhhh
But, you wish your Scotch, though perfect,...
Before Eat, Pray Love...
So I found out today, that Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat, Pray Love, wrote another little article for GQ, and they made that little article into a movie called Coyote Ugly.
It might be the best thing I’ve read all week. And that’s saying something. I read a lot of comic books.
Here’s the link.
Jack Daniel's Brown Sugar Sour (with Meyer Lemons)
This is article I wrote for South Jersey Magazine. Because of space considerations, they weren’t able to publish the whole thing. On the internet, where we laugh at such things and don’t worry about Perfume ads crowding text space, here is the whole thing =). Bonus Points if you drink this while watching Justified and wearing a Cowboy Hat.
Mixology Monthly: Whiskey Sour
...
Rye Revolution: Bulleit's new offering
And now we have yet another new Rye Whiskey
This is from Bulleit, and it boasts one of the highest rye content on the mashbill (95%!!!). Why not 100% you ask? Some barley is necessary for balance as it contains enzymes that convert the grain into sugar.
A crash course on Rye/Wheat/Corn in American Whiskeys is as follows:
Bourbon has to be 51% Corn, HOWEVER, it cannot be more than 80% corn....
Are you against Mixology?
(Source: iamtommyg.com)
There’s a really popular essay, making the blog rounds, called “Against Mixology,” by Sarah Deming. It’s an important essay to read for all Mixologists, because it sums up the critiques and angry customers that have challenged the movement from the beginning. Her words are in italics, and my responses are in bold. When I walk into a SoHo gallery, I expect to be...
February 2011
2 posts
Mixology in Literature
Okay, so I read One Day, by David Nicholls six months ago, when my friend, who’s…A player, read it and decided that he wanted real love. Any book that could elicit that kind of transformation was worth a read. Ok, fine I skimmed it! Which is how I missed this awesome part, which I found thanks to Gaskella’s blog:
‘I eat out most days now. As a matter of fact, I’ve been...
The Liqueur of Love (and Models)
So it’s Valentine’s Day! And for Mixologists, it’s the day we celebrate the story of Amaretto.
Leonardo Da Vinci had a lot of students. One of the best and most famous of these was a painter by the name of Bernardino Luini. In 1525, a church of the town of Saronno commissioned Luini as their painter. The church itself was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and Luini needed a...
December 2010
2 posts
Beer Street vs. Gin Lane
The picture on the right, Gin Lane by William Hogarth (1751), is now used extensively to characterize the Gin craze of London, an epidemic similar to crack cocaine in the 80s.
Beer Street, is much less well known and less popular, but the two are meant to be viewed together. The reason this isn’t always done is because Gin Lane is used to shock contemporary audiences, and also to...
Consumed: Mojito @ Cuba Libre
Mojito @ Cuba Libre
I felt like a fraud until I had my first mojito. I liked beer, wine was nice once in a while, and gin and tonics were just…swell. But nothing really moved me until that first Mojito. Wham! That’s it! That’s a drink. Cuba Libre has built a massive corporate empire, and an iconic spot on Philly’s temperamental club scene for nearly 20 years on...
Consumed: Backhanded Punch @ Franklin
Backhanded Punch @ Franklin
Cruzan White Rum
Kashmiri Tea
Creme de Cacao
Fresh Lime Juice
The best thing about this drink is how the Creme de Cacao seems to disappear into it, and how perfectly it’s balanced. Kashmiri tea is a form of chai tea made with green tea leaves, so it’s light and complex. The rum here really plays a sleek supporting role, melding with the lime juice,...
November 2010
10 posts
Who's Who in Mixology: Sam Caglione
Sam is the head founder of Dogfish Head, a craft brewing company based in Delaware. He’s also the host of Brewmasters, a new craft beer show on the Discovery Channel, that premiered last night at 10 (it’s ok, I was watching the Eagles too).
When Sam started Dogfish Head in 95, it was tiny, he got the beer brewing bug from working at a Microbrewery in NYC. Since then, he put his...
Secret Philly Based Cocktails
Thrillist just put up this article featuring spirits made in Philly, cocktails made out of them, and where to find them.
Most interesting/seasonal seems to be:
Catahoula’s “Xanadu” 775 S Front St; Queen Village; 215.271.9300 Hit up the recently revamped bar at Catahoula for this potation of Bluecoat gin, crystal marmalade, lemon juice, honey syrup, whiskey barrel...
David Wondrich's Punch!
Appetite just posted an interview with David Wondrich on his second Mixology book “Punch!,”
David Wondrich (for those of you who don’t know), is an Esquire columnist and the foremost cocktail historian in the world. If Dale DeGroff is the Michael Jordan of the craft cocktail world, David Wondrich is the Kareem Abdul Jabbar: equally awesome, but with a penchant for history and a...
Lifescience: Beer Helped Rise of Civilization
According to Lifescience, there’s growing evidence and scientific interest in the rise of alcohol, specifically beer, in civilization.
The health argument has been made that beer, because of its malted sweetness, b complex vitamins, and anti microbial properties, was more nourishing to our forefathers than bread.
This article makes the argument for feasting. Cereal grains require a lot of...
Vintage TIME: "Whiskey is one of the cheapest and...
Turns out those Civil War doctors were on to something.
This vintage TIME magazine article presents the case for Whiskey to be used again as a painkiller. The world is much too politically correct for such an article to appear now, but in 1941, when the war effort was in full swing, everything was in short supply, and Europe had a plentiful amount of alcohol, this article makes a lot of...
The Martini Gospel: Keep it in the Fridge
Martinis and Manhattans aren’t hard to make, but it’s the one drink that really ticks people off. From Mixologists like Eben Klemm (who demands they get it right) and Bobbie Gleason (who carries his own bitters because it is better to wear slippers than carpet the whole world) to Grandfathers and Cocktail purists. The Martini just has to be “right.” But what is the...
October 2010
4 posts
Mixology Wine Instructor's Meeting, October 2010:...
Italian Drinking Culture: Tuaca, an Italian Vanilla and Spice Liqueur marketed in the US to be the next Jagermeister, is made in a little town in Tuscany. It’s weird, because I was in Tuscany, for two weeks, in April, and nobody even knew what Tuaca was. So much of our culinary and Mixology heritage comes from Italy, and so much of it has changed drastically. The effervescent crispiness...
The Yoga of Alcohol: Drinking to Live Longer and...
Why Yoga:
There’s a part in the Baghavad Gita, where it’s explained that people are drawn to yoga almost against their will, because it is only through yoga that they can find what they are seeking. That’s definitely true for me. I got into yoga after I tore my ACL in Jiu Jitsu, and sprained the other knee. I decided that, if I’m going to go back to Jiu Jitsu, I...
It's like a mummy..but you can drink it
The oldest drinkable Champagne in the world, almost certainly a 230 year old Veuve Cliquot from before the French Revolution, was found in a shipwreck.
The conditions of the wreck made it possible to preserve the champagne for so long.
Link:
http://news.discovery.com/history/shipwreck-230-year-old-champagne-discovered.html
Jell-O Shots + Art = Yes
When you cross the boundary from Bartender to Mixologist, you pass through a gate: Abandon all shots ye who enter here. Of the 25 essential drinks covered in the Barsmarts training module, 0 are shots. In all of our 100+ posts, none have been about shots. Tony Abou-Ghanim’s classic The Modern Mixologist suggests them only in basic bar ware, and as a receptacle for Limoncello. What gives?...
September 2010
8 posts
Retro (Pre-Prohibition) Guinness Comes Back!
Does Guinness taste better in Ireland?
It’s kind of a trick question, because all of the Guinness we drink in the US is made in Ireland.
But, it’s true in a sense, because before Prohibition, Guinness was different. And Guinness is bringing that original recipe back…Tomorrow!
It’s crisper and hoppier than the Guinness we know, but it may suit pub food better.
Link:
...
Old and New, Borrowed and Blue at APO
I had just started working “seriously” at MWI, thinking that maybe Mixology was kind of interesting after all and that my family’s company was maybe worth more than the summers I was free to work there. I met kind of a lanky guy, with coke bottle frames and the largest, most eccentric handwriting I’ve ever seen.
He majored in Philosophy at Swarthmore, and lately he was...
Blood and Sand at Mahogany
Bars used to be different. They used to be a place where men went to drink strong, expensive drinks together. At lunch. They used to be a place where a smoke haze filled the air.
(Smoke at Mahogany) Prohibition killed the cowboy club that we called a saloon. Women started mingling with men without fear of a bad reputation. After prohibition ended its lingering moral elements made the habit...
It's dangerous to go cold turkey, I'm down to...
Girlfriend: I told you months ago that if we were going to make this work you had to stop drinking and smoking pot, and you didn’t. Jonathan: It’s dangerous to go cold turkey. I’m down to white wine.
George: Men face reality; women don’t. That’s why we need to drink.
Bored to death comes back in a couple weeks, and in honor of this (probably not), Liquor.com just put out an article on...
Cab is the toughest wine? Jets say yes
The New York Jets became the world’s first football team to have their own wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon NOT from New York, but from the Napa Valley.
The Jets have been doing a lot of promotional stuff lately, that HBO Doc about their pre-season. But I’m glad they’re the first team to do this, I’m sure Jets lover and wine blogger Gary Vaynerchuck is…Pretty happy...
Instructor's Meeting Two Caipirinhas, and a Drink...
It’s the September Instructor meeting, and I’m LATE. This is a problem because I’m supposed to lead the start of this particular instructor’s meeting with some demonstration of Mixology. New drinks, bold ingredients, something they’ve never seen before. Teaching teachers is stressful enough without being late, and at this particular moment I want to crawl into...
Astoundingly Modest Frank Bruni NYT Article
Pretty succinctly describes the infusion craze. If you were part of that hapless bunch of students last summer that heard me scream:
“ARE YOU OVER 21!!! TRY THIS, IT’S VODKA AND PEPPERMINT AND BASIL!”
“GRAPEFRUIT, GRAPEFRUIT IS AMAZING!!!”
Then I apologize, but Frank Bruni (yes the savage NYT restaurant critic and Top Chef repeat guest) tries his hand at...
Man figures out HOW TO FRY BEER!
This has been all over the news today, and I am a little shocked by how cool this is, but a Texas amateur chef, Mark Zable, in preparation for the yearly Texas State Fair, has toiled for two years perfecting the process of frying a liquid. Highlights from the NPR interview:
INSKEEP: OK. What’s fried beer?
Mr. ZABLE: Fried beer’s exactly like it sounds. I’ve taken dough,...
August 2010
12 posts
Can a Man's drink be pink?
Although historically the Hemingway Daiquiri is just a daiquiri (rum, lime, sugar), with double the rum, and no sugar AKA a “papa double,” it hasn’t stopped us from moving on from the requisite blandness of this drink (essentially a rum gimlet). This is my favorite variation:
2 1/2 jiggers white rum (Note, a Jigger here is 1.5 oz.) Juice of two limes Juice of 1/2 ruby...
Very well written and exhaustively researched...
Encapsulates:
Old Tom Gin (what it is and why it’s important)
New Mixology Trends (well, old is new again)
Link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-sachs/old-tom-for-a-new-century_b_695381.html
It's kind of cool
How we were playing around with Coconut Water:
http://mixologywine.tumblr.com/post/750367418/the-quest-for-the-ultimate-summer-drink
A couple months before Liquor.com
declared it the next great Mixing Ingredient. Great article!
LINK:
http://liquor.com/liquor/articles/the-hot-list-coconut-water/
Appalachian Flip..Philly Beer Cocktail
Continuing the Beer cocktail trend. The Art in the Age blog, showcases it’s Root spirit with the help of the Franklin’s Al Sotak (Watch the Video to see him cutting the gigantic ice meteor for this drink:)
Appalachian Flip
Ingredients:
2 Parts ROOT 1/2 Part Rich Demerara Syrup 1 Whole Egg Pale Ale
Directions:
Dry shake (without ice)
Then shake again with ice, and double...
Science Confirms "Beer Goggle" effect
I thought this was a myth/excuse, but apparently, alcohol does effect the part of the brain responsible for detecting facial symmetry, a key part of attractiveness in any part of the world. Weird.
Link:
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/08/20/2010-08-20_alcohol_impairs_ability_to_judge_facial_symmetry_key_component_of_attractiveness.html
Great Colin Shearn Write up at Philly Mag's Blog
Interview Highlights
Most underutilized bar tool: A straw to taste your drink and make sure it’s right.
I KNOW!!!
What you have against vodka [which the Franklin doesn’t serve]: Vodka is wonderful for many things. It just doesn’t belong in a cocktail.
This pretty much showcases the craft cocktail aesthetic. I like my Grey Goose L’Orange and Sicilian Blood Orange screwdrivers,...
the lost golden age..
When most people think about cocktail culture in America, they think it really got started during Prohibition. Truthfully, prohibition was The Empire Strikes Back for Mixologists, they went underground, the good ones anyway. Men with families, who didn’t or couldn’t be part of the illegal liquor trade. Only now, with the rediscovery of traditional artistry and technique in Mixology,...
Our hearts go out to Monk's Cafe
The Colossus at Rhodes of the Philly Beer World closed due to a weird accident for the second August in a row…A bus swerved into it. Thankfully, nobody was hurt, and Monk’s should be up and running in two weeks or less. Get well soon Monks <3
Link:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20100811_Monk_s_Cafe_closed_after_bus_accident.html
Beer Cocktails NYP vs. NYT
THE SKOOKUL PUNCH AT VANDAAG ¾ oz. bonded applejack ¾ oz. Jamaican style rum ¾ oz. fresh lime juice ½ oz. orgeat (almond syrup) One dash of Angostura bitters One drop absinthe
Spearheaded by the Michelada (a Mexican beer cocktail with more variations than the Bloody Mary), Beer Cocktails are being rediscovered in New York. New York Post reports:
...
The Spirit of Wine
By William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)
The Spirit of Wine
Sang in my glass, and I listened
With love to his odorous music,
His flushed and magnificent song.
“I am health, I am heart, I am life!
For I give for the asking
The fire of my father the Sun,
And the strength of my mother, the Earth
Inspiration in essence,
I am wisdom and wit to the wise,
his visible muse to the poet,
The...
Craft Beer Continues to Dominate →
Insightful article in Business Week that validates what we already see out there:
Craft Beer is huge. The 1,600 little breweries we have in this country have increased the sales of craft beer by 12 percent in the first half of the year, all while the volume of beer sold overall is down 2.7 percent.
The Brewers Association’s statement:
“There is a movement by beer lovers to the...
July 2010
16 posts
Amazing and Completely Counterintuitive
NYT piece on adding water to INCREASE flavor. I’ve been doing this to Scotch forever, and always do it with people unaccustomed to alcohol burn, but it’s great to see it explained here.
Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/dining/28curious.html?_r=1