Reason brought us a new video yesterday about the question of legalizing home distilling. In the process, they illustrate (probably by accident) how an issue like this can bring our fractured nation together.

…making your own liquor at home is about as legal as making your own Meth at home….

The unfortunate fact is this: You cannot distill alcohol at home legally in the United States. Period. And you cannot distill alcohol commercially without overcoming regulatory hurdles that are to those of other beverages as the Rockies are to the Ozarks. As the cocktail revolution proceeds, the silliness of this situation becomes more readily apparent to ordinary people.

This thing I find so enjoyable about Reason’s piece (which is actually less persuasive than some of their stuff) is that it triggers an examination of how many disparate groups have a dog in this hunt, and on the same side. Actually, I’m not sure who would not be on the side of the angels here, except for entrenched corporate interests throwing around bribes campaign contributions, and the neo-prohibitionists. I genuinely don’t have a problem with either of these groups fighting distilling reform either. When the government makes itself a part of commerce, working the government is part of honest competition. (If you don’t like that, get the government out of private enterprise. But that’s a different post for a different blog.) As for the neo-prohibitionists… well, bless their hearts, they’re just a little stupid, God love ‘em.

But my point is the allies that this issue makes!

Hipster Douchebags and Toothless Hillbillys united at last!

Tea Party Anti-Regulation types and Manhattan Speakeasy Aficionados (George Washington was the nation’s largest whiskey distiller after being President)

Cunning Suburban Survivalists and Innovative Martha’s Vineyard Foodies

We even have conservatives giving it up for…Jimmy Carter?

You simply can’t be more uniting than that.

Brown, Bitter, and Stirred. That is this month’s invocation for Mixology Monday, hosted this round by Lindsey Johnson of Lush Life Productions at her blog, er, Brown Bitter and Stirred. At first glance, it is almost too easy. The phrase itself is practically a recipe for the first cocktail, and three mighty elders of classic cocktaildom leap immediately to mind: The Sazerac, the Old-Fashioned, and the mighty Gospel of Whiskey, the Manhattan. But the challenge with Mixology Monday for me is to offer something that may be a twist for at least some readers who stumble into this blog binge.
I’m going to discuss an Old Fashioned. Specifically, I’m going to offer up the much lesser known Rum Old Fashioned. Like Sours and Rickeys, Old Fashioneds are actually a class of cocktail. While a single spirit is best known as the base, a mixer can open up new worlds just by substituting another. The method of preparation is the same.
I’ll start right off with my recipe for an Old Fashioned. It is not the recipe for an Old Fashioned, which is too damn time-consuming to use for everyday work. Nor is it (thankfully) any of the other recipes for an Old Fashioned.
For the nonce, I’ll just say spirit. You can use most base liquors here, but it works best with certain brown ones like Bourbon, Rye, and Aged Rum.

I use simple syrup instead of the sugar cube in the recipe because I have things to do. I don’t use wads of citrus or cherries because this ain’t no fern bar beverage.

I recently made some disparaging remarks about ice geekery, but the quality and nature of the ice you use in an Old Fashioned has a greater effect on the experience of drinking it than with most any other cocktail I regularly drink. Old Fashioneds are sipping drinks, meant to be savored slowly, while thinking deep thoughts on matters of importance. Yet, they taste best cold. That’s why you serve them on the rocks, rather than up. But they also suffer greatly with dilution. The Old Fashioned is a potent potion, and if you let it get all watery, you go from Don Draper to Dwight Schrute.
This is why I stir the drink first, then strain. This gets the drink good and cold to start. Then I use the largest ice I have available in the drink when I serve it. The large ice will keep things cold, but does not melt with anything like the speed of smaller pieces and their vastly increased surface area. Clover Club takes this to an art form, but I’m pretty happy with what I do.

Hey!
That’s a cocktail glass!

Yes. Yes it is. Your point?

Well, there is a different kind of glass that people usually use. It’s got a funny name… Whatchacallit… Oh yeah, an Old Fashioned Glass!
What is wrong with you?

More things than I’ve got space for here….
I just think that the ice ball looks better in a cocktail glass than the traditional low ball. And I’m an iconoclast.

Lastly, let’s talk about the spirit that makes this drink different from the regular Old Fashioneds that I more often make. Old Fashioneds are obviously going to be very sensitive to the quality of the liquor you use, since that liquor is almost the entire drink. Less expensive rums that may be just fine in more complex cocktails will be a waste of time, money, and liver in a Rum Old Fashioned. And many top shelf rums have the wrong profile to be really happy in the drink either. I prefer a rich, mellow rum on the sweeter side in an Old Fashioned.
I’ll make a suggestion here of Zaya Gran Reserva rum. I do so for two reasons: The Liquor Fairy sent me a bottle recently, so I’ve been experimenting with it; And since I first tried it in a Rum Old Fashioned, I’ve been hoarding the remaining amount solely for this use. (As is so often the case with really good stuff, it isn’t available locally in Ohio. Sigh.)
Zaya is a blackstrap rum from Trinidad. It is a luscious dark color, with a viscous consistency, and redolent aromas. It is a lot of fun in Tiki drinks, but it is so rich on its own that I think it best reserved for drinks like this one instead. The makers are positioning it as a sipper as well. RumDood points out that the connoisseurs may be split on how this rum ranks. I think that that is a good sign of interesting character in a product. I also like to see this since it means the stuff isn’t likely to cost twice as much next year….

Regardless of the rum you use, the Rum Old Fashioned is a markedly different drink from the more common whiskey variety. It is a happier and less introspective drink in general, though it will still do the job when deep thoughts must be thunk. Now, go back to Lindsey’s place for more Brown, Bitter and Stirred! Thanks for dropping by, and don’t be a stranger.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was an age of drinking called the Tiki Era. It was a perfect storm of circumstances and personalities that illustrates my contention that drinking defines and is defined by all peoples in general and America in particular. Tiki arose from the fact that The Noble Experiment and the Second World War had left a nation where rum was one of the few spirits available in quantity and quality at a reasonable price. The exposure of millions of American men to the South Pacific environment made fertile ground for Tiki’s faux Polynesian vibe. The agricultural revolution in California, Hawaii and elsewhere were changing and expanding the fruits and juices available. Labor was cheap and government regulation was light. And a man named Don and another named Vic, friends and bitter competitors, formed the tenets of Tiki and drove it to dizzying heights of creativity in a manner not unlike another rivalry in another industry between guys named Steve and Bill.
The first embers of Tiki flared in the 1930s, and it erupted like a volcano in the late 1940s. It spread across the US, establishing with its faux pagan shenanigans that America was not quite the stultifying land in those days that it seemed. Then, after but a decade to two, the torch guttered and began to go out.
The slow, ignominious death of the Tiki Era was due to the slow passing of the factors I noted above, and other reasons. But what is important is that as the original temples of Tiki slipped into the night, the knowledge that built them disappeared even faster. As the Millennium approached, a general rediscovery of the well-made cocktail led to a nascent revival of interest in the early, glorious Tiki drinks. But there was no knowledge to feed this hunger. There were never any good books of recipes and knowledge produced in the days of Tiki’s greatness. The Tiki gods were jealous of their secrets, it was part of the charm.
Bartenders and home mixers had no easy way to copy the glorious old drinks. Some might have had fragments of knowledge, a recipe or two. Others had only the debased versions from the end of the era to emulate, such as frozen Daiquiris, syrupy Pina Coladas, and Mai Tais made with grenadine or Hawaiian Punch. Most attempts to emulate the glory days were either stillborn for lack of knowledge, or discarded in disgust.

Enter a beach bum.

Jeff Berry is a bartender. Beyond that, I know nothing of his background. I could ask him, but it’s more fun not to know. He might have three advanced degrees for all I know. But I doubt it. And it wouldn’t be half as much fun if he did, because Jeff Berry is one of the more successful and accomplished legit cultural anthropologists working in America today.

Excuse me.
Did someone say, “nutritional anthropologist”?

Yes, but I didn’t mean you, Deb. Go bother Alton.

Beachbum Berry set out in the 1990′s to find, preserve, publish, and popularize the Lost Knowledge of the Tiki Gods™. He has dug and scrounged through trash heaps, attics, and defunct watering holes. He has interviewed and cajoled. He uncovered secrets and decoded archives. In short, he has conducted a more than decade long investigation and preservation of lost knowledge. And he has popularized his research with several books on Tiki drinks, food and history. Jeff thinks he’s a bartender. Too bad, because I think he is more of a social scientist than most who actually try to lay claim to the title.
Last Tiki Month, I reviewed his early work, Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log. Recently, I was sent an autographed copy of his latest, Beach Bum Berry Remixed for review. The cover letter suggested that after I read it, I might offer it as a contest prize…

HAHAHAHA!!
That’s rich!

Exactly.
Like I’m going to give away a signed copy of this book.

Remixed is a compilation of Grog Log, and another of the Bum’s works, Intoxica! (Now likely out of print forever) Remixed combines and re-organizes all the recipes from the other two books, adds a ton of new, tasty pours to explore, and garnishes with lots of short, enjoyable excursions into the history and minutiae of the Tiki Era. It is lavishly illustrated with color photographs and graphics from Tiki bars and restaurants of that time. It also has three distinct and useful indexes, as well as a detailed glossary.
Of particular note is the section listing and describing the sea of different rum types. If you are into cocktails with rum at all, buy the book just for this section. It is indispensable for any and all, unless you have a certain bearded hipster lying around your living room.
Remixed is that rare find among cocktail books: a definitive resource that is also a good read. Pick up a copy. At its current price on Amazon (and Prime eligible!), it’s a steal.

The Liquor Fairy Was Here!
The following product, Beachbum berry Remixed, was recently provided to me as promotional consideration to encourage me to discuss it.
For a complete disclosure of my policies regarding promotional items and all other financial interests, please click this link, or follow the Liquor Fairy link in the header of this page.

The Liquor Fairy brings me many things, not just booze. But his little wings were beating mightily this week as he flew up with a box from Air & Water, Inc. The box contained a new model portable ice making machine called the NewAir Portable Ice Maker.

The current model is more sleekly trimmed than pictured here.

Among my most important rules for a successful Basement Bar setup is the importance of a ready supply of fresh ice. Cocktails and Ice are inseparable items, like chickens and eggs. One of the more popular posts I’ve ever written was my discussion of ice making options for your home bar. Therein, I strongly encouraged people, for a variety of reasons, to consider adding an automatic, stand-alone ice machine to their setup. I got two objections from most readers to this advice: the expense of the machines and the expense or sheer impossibility of plumbing them.

The NewAir holds at least the possibility of an answer to their pleas. I’ll talk about the machine, how it works, the ice it makes, who will want this machine, and who won’t.

The unit itself is fairly large, 17 inches by 17 by 15, and weighs about 45 pounds. It is a bit large to set on a countertop, but it really is fairly portable. It has well-placed handles, large, sturdy feet, and seems pretty durable. While it is actively making ice, you can hear it but it is not obnoxiously loud.

The way it makes ice is actually pretty ingenious. I made a YouTube video so you can watch it work.

The refrigerant is pumped through pipes connected to twelve vertical cylinders. The little bucket revolves up to contain those prongs and fills with water from the machine’s internal reservoir that doubles as a drip catcher below the finished ice bucket (not seen in the video). The NewAir holds enough water to fill its ice bucket several times.
The ice forms around the prongs. There are three ice size settings, and these merely determine how thick the ice is allowed to form. When the ice has reached the desired size (about seven minutes for the smallest setting), the bucket rotates away from the prongs and the remaining water flows back into the reservoir. You can see in the video that the refrigerant goes from cold to warm, and the ice slides right off the prongs.
After a moment, the bucket rotates back into position for the next round of ice, and the attached flipper shoves the new ice over the edge to fall into the ice bucket.
The machine is not designed to be on and running full time like a built in version that costs five times as much. The ice turns into a glob of merged pieces after a day or so, rather than cleanly melting away and being replaced. This isn’t a problem if you are using the ice all the time, but if you make a drink or two a day, take advantage of the automatic timer to ensure you have fresh ice ready for you at cocktail hour. On the other hand, it is very easy to maintain, with a swift and effective self-cleaning mode.

So what is all this ice like? Each piece is a rounded, hollow cone, about an inch and a half long. It is also filled with microbubbles so it’s white rather than clear. Finally, it is pretty warm ice, coming out of the machine right at 32 degrees. As an aside, the little flanges you see in the video on the top of the ice are due to leaving the door open while videoing the mechanism. The actual ice produced is much cleaner in appearance. The ice has a large surface area to mass ratio and is warm. This means it will start melting pretty quickly in a glass or mixing tin.

In short, the ice geeks and cocktail showmen are not going to like this ice.
But then, mostly they don’t like any ice from a machine, preferring to fill a freezer with all manner of fancy ice trays and molds, or hack away like Sharon Stone on a huge block of the crystal clear stuff, so the Camper Englishes of the world really aren’t the issue here.

First off, I think the ice is just fine in the tin for shaking and stirring. I know some mixers swear by “super cold” ice, but the science (and my own experimentation) says that most all of the chilling from ice comes at the moment it melts. Using cold ice may make your drink at most a degree or two colder, but actually takes longer to get there. “Warm ice”, especially with lots of surface area, can chill a drink faster than anything else, with only a very little more dilution.
Additionally, unlike with plumbed-in ice makers like mine, you can be as big a water snob as you like with the NewAir. Use Fiji water or even Perrier I suppose. I use water from my Brita filter and the ice tastes great.
For serving in a glass, the NewAir’s ice is less ideal. It really isn’t a pretty as cubes, and its propensity to melt quickly makes for dilution issues if you are a slower drinker.

OK, who would find this machine a great buy, and who won’t?
I see two main categories of buyer who will be happy with the NewAir. The first is a lot of the people for whom I’ve been writing my Basement Bar Design series. If you are putting together a bar for your home, don’t have a massive budget and/or can’t get running water into your chosen space, the machine will get you plentiful ice for everyday use at a great price. Home bar builders who have available plumbing and sufficient budget will be much happier with a built-in system.

This guy needs a NewAir….

An even better buyer for this machine is the mobile mixer. If you like to tailgate, camp out, or own an RV, a continuous supply of fresh ice will save you from the utter barbarity of no Martinis. Of course, if you want to run the NewAir in the woods so you can sip a Pegu while fishing in that remote stream, you’ll need power. The machine takes 400 watts, and most trees don’t have electrical outlets. Ditto for stadium parking lots. If this is your desired application, be sure to purchase a power inverter so you can run it off your car. Be sure to get one that wires into your battery directly, as the NewAir draws too much power for the inverters that just plug into the cigarette lighter.

The NewAir doesn’t make perfect ice. If you enjoy being persnickity about your ice, or view it as a garnish, this machine will likely not meet your needs. If you need a lot of fresh ice for mixing cocktails, or chilling juices, sodas, or basic mixed drinks like Rum and Cokes or Screwdrivers, it will provide plenty of the cool stuff fairly conveniently and for a very reasonable price. I like the machine. It is an ingenious design, the maker has a number of previous models, so they have had the chance to refine and improve what they are doing. I haven’t had it long enough to really vouch for its durability, but as I mentioned before, both the stainless steel case and the mechanism seem pretty sturdy. If you need what a portable ice maker can give you, I can definitely recommend the NewAir. UPDATE: If you decide to get a NewAir directly from the company, you can get an extra 10% off the price by entering the discount code: “PEGU” at checkout!

The Liquor Fairy Was Here!
The following product, NewAir Portable Ice Maker, was recently provided to me as promotional consideration to encourage me to discuss it.
For a complete disclosure of my policies regarding promotional items and all other financial interests, please click this link, or follow the Liquor Fairy link in the header of this page.

If you want to follow this specific series of posts on the Pegu Blog, you can subscribe to our Basement Bar feed here. Or you can just subscribe to the entire blog, with all its brilliant content, here!
Here’s a list of the other articles in this series that have been posted so far:

• Basement Bar Accessories #10: The NewAir Portable Ice Maker
• Basement Bar Accessories #6: DIY Kegerator
• Basement Bar Accessories: Herbal Assault Part 1
• Basement Bar Design #0: Introduction
• Basement Bar Design #1: Where, What, and Why.
• Basement Bar Design #2: Refrigerators
• Basement Bar Design #3: Ice Supply
• Basement Bar Design #4(a): Essential Glassware
• Basement Bar Design #4(b): Supplemental Glassware
• Basement Bar Design #4(c): Buying Glassware
• Basement Bar Design #5: Water and Washing Up
• Basement Bar Design #6: My Own Basement Bar
• Basement Bar Design #7: Bar Top and Countertop Surfaces
• Basement Bar Design #8(a): Artists
• Basement Bar Design #8(b) More Artists
• Basement Bar Design #8: Artwork
• Basement Bar Design Accessories #1: Lit Backbar Walls
• Basement Bar Design Accessories #2: Holiday Glassware Giveaways
• Basement Bar Design Accessories #3: Beer Dispensing from Heineken and Elsewhere
• Basement Bar Design Accessories #4: Branded Beer Taps
• Basement Bar Design Accessories #5: Pure American Ingenuity
• Basement Bar Design Accessories #7: The Man Wall
• Basement Bar Design Accessories #8: The Arkeg
• Basement Bar Design Accessories #9: Global Domination
• Basement Bar Design Accessories: Hidden Lairs
• Basement Bar Design Elsewhere in the Cocktailosphere
• Basement Bar Design Elsewhere in the Cocktailosphere #2
• Basement Bar Design Factoid #1: Sheds
• Basement Bar Design Factoid #2: Dangerous Party Invitees
• Basement Bar Design Factoid #3: Irish Pub in a (really big) Box
• Basement Bar Design Factoid #4: Mr. Blendtec, activate the defenses!
• Basement Bar Design Factoid #5: 1800 Tequila's Mancave Contest
• Basement Bar Design, Things to Consider #1: The Bargain
• Basement Bar Design: A Tour of the Parade of Homes
• Bulletin, Bulletin, Bulletin!
• Christmas Idea: Martini Shaker
• I Saved at Least $10,000 Because of Cocktail Blogging...
• New Basement Bar Contest From Grant's Whisky
• The Sixth Day of Christmas
• Tiki Timeout: Bar Building and BlogBarCrawl Update
• Trader Tiki's Basement Bar in the News
• Wow, They Even Have Black Friday Sales In the Cocktail World....

Wicked tats, officer!

OK, so if you are reading about this story here first, you need to get out on the Internet more. I am talking about JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, who got into a profane argument with a passenger, cursed out his entire plane, popped the emergency slide, took two beers, and exited the plane and his job, going home to await police in the arms of his gay lover. This kind of situation is what the new industry calls, a gift.
However, my wife points out a serious side to the story. The argument came when a passenger got up to get her luggage before the plane was secure at the gate. It’s against the law to do this folks, because the bags could shift and fall on someone, hurting them. This is exactly what happened to America’s Newest Folk Hero™.
Why has no one mentioned that the passenger was breaking the rules and causing a safety hazard? I guess JetBlue just wants this story to go away…

Fat chance of
that happening!

But I think the airline should take this chance to lay some knowledge on travelers about the dangers of trying to snag your bag while still away from the gate. And since I’m all about helping people, I have a few suggestions.
I know exactly the person to deliver this message (I saw her in person just a few weeks ago on a Delta aircraft), and I have some suggested visual aids that will certainly help her deliver this important message….
“Deltalina”, the ball is in your court!

(more…)

“My understanding of Tiki is that in order to do it right, one must have balls.”
—Giuseppe Gonzalez

While I’ve been to bars that can do a few good Tiki drinks, and I’ve been to at least one place with a great, Tiki-inspired menu, I have never been to a genuine, all-dressed-up-and-ready-to-dance Tiki bar. Thus I was intent on a visit to Manhattans’ new entry in the Tiki bar resurgence, Painkiller, during my recent trip to NYC. Behind the graffiti-style warehouse door you see above (it looks dingier in person), guarded by an enormous doorman (very impressive in person), is a stairway down into a narrow enclave of play Polynesian paganism.

Maggi and I arrived just in time to grab the last two seats at the bar, right on the end. This left me with a great view of the whole operation, only slightly obstructed by the twin towers of a pair of Blendtec blenders. Painkiller is not a big joint, so get there early or be prepared to wait.
The bar, walls, and ceiling are all covered or trimmed in bamboo and rattan. There are several tiki-themed murals, as well as lots of Tikis and Tiki doodads, but the decor is actually a little bit understated for what you might expect of such a den. Every inch of shelf space behind the bar that is not occupied by bottles of occasionally mysterious ingredients is crammed full of Tiki vessels, flowers, or accouterments.

We went on an evening that ended up affording me an even greater appreciation of the skills of co-owner Giuseppe Gonzalez than I’d have gotten otherwise. His second bartender was off sick, so Gonzalez was manning the bar all by himself! In a normal bar with this many patrons, that sounds like a recipe for being “in the weeds”. In an authentic tiki bar, that’s more like being in the heart of the jungles of Borneo.
Vic or Donn would have had a squad of Philippinos (most future Tiki gods in their own rights) backing them up, but Gonzalez stood tall with but a single bar back, who seemed pressed merely to keep the man supplied with the 5 kinds of ice they use at Painkiller. For all that, the service was smooth, the drinks were great, and the Man never looked rushed. If I sound impressed, I was. I wrote to him after we got home, and I’ll integrate his answers into this review and into a future post.

Painkiller is a pure bar, with no food to offer. They have some plans to offer hot dogs sometime this Fall. (I think that to get them, you should have to go through a secret door in a phone booth in back, but that’s just me….)
The cocktail menu is essentially a place mat, with pictures of the drinks recommended, but little detail. It goes wildly counter to the trend with high-end cocktail menus I’ve seen elsewhere, with their detailed information and leather-bound luxury. Instead, here you have evocative illustrations suggesting whole classes of drinks, from the questionably Tiki Daiquiris, through the variously suffering Bastards, to the deadly Zombies. There is only one Mai Tai, of course. (Sorry Donn-o-philes.) Really, the menu is the sole decision in Painkiller’s design that I question. For those who know their Tiki, as I sort of do, the mat is a cool, retro-looking kick start to the imagination. But were someone whose prior Tiki knowledge comes only from Chinese restaurant menus to enter Painkiller, I think this menu would be confusing and intimidating, and above all uninformative. I wonder how many first-timers come in, see this menu, and decide to… bluff. New Yorkers love to bluff, as do I, but I wish there was enough here to run a good one. If you don’t know a damn thing about Tiki, don’t let that stop you from going—just be prepared to swallow your pride and ask questions. You will have a happy educational experience.

The menu aside, the drinks absolutely rocked. We had six or seven different drinks between us. The only one I confess I didn’t particularly like was the Painkiller, though that was a matter of taste, rather than execution. I contend that if anyone likes all the drinks on a menu, the menu isn’t varied enough. And you can go beyond the menu, of course. Maggi wanted a Demerara Cocktail, and Giuseppe and I went back and forth about how it should be made. Eventually, he Burger Kinged up and let us have it my way, only to have my wife declare his result was better than my usual efforts… Perfidious woman!

If all cocktails are more art than science, Tiki is even more so. Gonzalez and his partner Richard Boccato are attempting to practice the full-on (faux) dark arts of tropical intoxication. There is every bit the precision in making the drinks here as at Pegu Club, but the impression you get as you watch is of jazzy improvisation. Giuseppe notes that Painkiller is still, by design, a work in progress. The decor will change as time goes by, with new tchotchkes jostling for space with old. More importantly, they recognize that there is no best model for the tools and mis en place of Tiki drinks, only better ones… models they intend to find.

I found Painkiller to be an exhilarating place to drink. It is clearly a labor of love, and a thoroughly professional joint as well. I’m not sure I could make it a regular hangout if I lived in New York (as I could with, say, Clover Club). I’d more likely come here in waves, as tiki-philia comes and goes in my heart. Any New York cocktailian who hasn’t gotten around to Painkiller needs to… now. And if you are like me, generally a tourist in New York, put Painkiller on your list of evening entertainment—it’s not to be missed.

{As of this writing, Painkiller’s website is down. If it still is when you read this, bookmark it for later perusal.}

The Summer New York Adventure is the first truly kid-free vacation Maggi and I have taken since, well, we’ve had kids. By day, we’ll be exploring Manhattan’s Garment District, buying fabric for Maggi’s coture workings, and by night we shall explore the SoHo dining and drinking offerings, which should give me some of the best material to blog about in a good long while! Cheers!

Aloha folks! Februaries may be Tiki Month here at the Pegu Blog, but we are halfway between, and I have a number of Tiki thoughts to share, so I hereby declare a Tiki-gasm this August.
I’ve got non-Tiki stuff to write about too, so we’re just dating, nothing exclusive. OK?

Dan Dunn, of Playboy’s The Smoking Jacket (the articles sometimes really are worth reading) offers up his Top Ten Barchetypes. Writing a post on someone else’s meme-ish post for easy content should be in every blogger’s bag of tricks, and I haven’t pulled this one out in a while. Hopefully I won’t shank the drive….
Dan’s Barchetypes are the ten categories into which he claims all bars on Earth fit. It’s almost comprehensive, and very funny. You need to read the whole thing, of course, but I’ll steal excerpt a bit to whet your appetite, before revealing the category he missed.

3: The High Concept Bar
These are built upon a central idea that is sometimes clever, but more often tiresome once the novelty has worn off (this process usually takes about a week). These typically sprout up in major metropolitan areas like New York, LA and Paris where there’s an ample supply of either a) tourists looking for expensive thrills or b) arrogant twits who believe they’re more sophisticated than the average beer-swilling Philistine and feel the need to prove it by embracing the latest in nightlife novelties. For example, I was once dragged by a publicist to the Ice Kube Bar in Paris where, for somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 dollars (luckily I wasn’t paying), I got to dress up like an arctic explorer and spend 20 minutes doing Grey Goose shooters inside a bleak frozen chamber made entirely of ice… The publicist maintained that freezing my dick off just to catch a buzz was an “authentic experience like no other.” Funny, it seemed an awful lot like another highly authentic experience called “homeless in winter,” only a hell of a lot more expensive.

The most authentic part of that experience, like every other, is Dan’s interaction with a certain type of publicist….

6: The Full Of Itself
… these bars are specifically aimed at that vertical slice of humanity that enjoys liquor…. I’m talking, of course, about the bars that purport to bring a science and a purism and a sense of history to the creation of cocktails. In these places you’ll often hear bartending referred to as “mixology.” You are also very likely to be charged $15-$20 per drink. Which is great when they’re great. But their trendlet has attracted poseurs, and when these places are bad, they are deeply hideous. Because the last thing you want when you’re trying to enjoy a relaxing drink is either smug superiority from the bartender or a member of the waitstaff insisting on telling you about the fair-trade origin of the drink’s agave syrup. Shut the hell up and make with the alcohol fetching. … I should reiterate that many of these places are wonderful and employ some of my favorite people in the world. Some I’ve been known to enjoy are New York City’s Death and Co., LA’s The Doheney, San Francisco’s Bourbon and Branch, and Chicago’s Violet Hour. Oh, and London’s famed Milk and Honey….

I actually have a soft spot for poseurs, when they are posing for something I appreciate.

Wait, you mean you hate them, right?

No, actually. I mean they are an indication that people are interested in what I love. If I and others do our job to make sure people are educated enough to experience the good places, the poseurs won’t hurt, and will show how good the good ones are in comparison.

Anyway, Dan misses one major category of bar: The Restaurant Bar.
This is a dark hole off beside the entrance of a restaurant, a bar where no one ever goes just to drink, but is instead a place to anesthetize yourself to the mind-numbing wait for a table. You will be ignored by the bartender working right in front of you, because his real customers are the wait staff. The drinks will have no imagination, there will be no conversation, and the wait will be more than twenty minutes longer than promised….
The restaurant bar is like Purgatory, or dentist’s waiting room, minus the six month old Golf Digests, but at least with drinks. Which is better, I leave to the reader.

Monday was the finals of B² Productions’ Chopped Mixology Columbus. It was a crowded, raucous house at Mozaik that got its money’s worth out of the competition.
The finalists were, in order of selection, Cris Dehlavi, Zak Renzetti-Voit, Jordan Conkey, and Joseph Gardina. You can read about each and their roads to the finals at the links.
The format of this bartending competition is different from most, as are the skills it tests. Before the finals, Zak told me that, Of all the competitions I’ve done, this is my favorite. I asked him why and his response was that the compressed time and the mystery ingredients made it more of a test and less of a show. Twenty minutes is not a lot of time to make up a new drink and produce four good looking specimens thereof, especially with ingredients you at least aren’t expecting and may not have ever tried before.
And while creativity and taste instincts are the primary skills being tested in this format, I can tell you as a judge that fancy knife skills, witty words, and general professionalism prolonged the stays of several of the 16 competitors during the last month.

The competitors this week all had experience with the format, and each seemed both more focused and more nervous than they had before the preliminaries. Some of this was knowing what they were in for, and some was the fact that the prize for the first four weeks was more work, whereas the prize for this week was a trip for two to Las Vegas….
Each contestant had brought a large crowd to support them in their efforts. This is great for the contestants, but a bit less so for the judges, since they could tell before the competition that they were gonna get booed every time they gave someone the chop!

The first round featured a mystery basket containing Ketel One, Tanqueray 10, Ruby Red grapefruit, and a jar of Penzey’s Chinese Five Spice Blend. Apparently the baskets for this round were packed by Pandora, because they also contained the most drama of any round in the competition.
Joseph elected to concoct a pair of drinks, each of which was to be topped with champagne. A staff member was tidying up around the periphery as time was running out, and when Joseph went to pour his champagne floats, the bubbly he had set up was nowhere to be found! Panicked seconds flew by, and he did not get all his drinks finished, leaving a ragged line of eight different looking flutes at his station—right in front of the judges!
As the other contestants approached with their drinks, Brandon offered to poll the others about whether Joseph should be allowed to finish prepping the rest of his drinks. Zak was asked first, and since he had seen this unfolding, he said OK. Cris, who did not understand what was happening heard only that Joseph wanted more time, and hard-nosed competitor that she is, said no. This made for a testy round of drink presentations….
It turned out not to matter, as Zak ended up getting the chop. He had the most trouble with the spice, and he neglected to tell the judges that they were supposed to use the sugared grapefruit garnish to counteract the bitterness in the pure drink.
Now, if this had been a TV reality show like Survivor or Next Food Network Star (or something more mature like seventh grade), the producers would have gotten Cris and Joseph separated and fanned the situation into an eight episode feud. Instead, Cris and Joseph talked among themselves and demonstrated that they were grownups. Take that, Hollywood!

The second round basket contained Parrot Bay 90, some berry applesauce, apple green tea, and a bottle of pomegranate soda. Cris and Joseph put together tasty concoctions that did a great job of marrying the pretty wild collection of flavors, while Jordan chose to make a coffee cocktail, the Blackheart Martini. If you liked coffee drinks, this one had potential. But it fell afoul of the dreaded question, Where the heck are the required ingredients? There was just too much bitter blackness (NotThatThere’sAnythingWrongWithThat) to pick out the original fruitiness. But the Parrot Bay 90 went surprisingly well, so keep that in mind.

And with that, we were down to two contestants. My impression was that Cris and Joseph were essentially tied going into the last round, the judges also seemed to think that way. It was interesting to note that Columbus has only two AAA Four Diamond rated restaurants, and their representatives were the finalists in this competition.

The final basket contained Ciroc Red Berry Vodka, a tub of pistachio ice cream, toasted almonds, and the oh, so esoteric Pimm’s #1.
Joseph did what he had for every drink in he competition: he started with his garnish. His skills with a knife are really impressive. I almost stopped worrying he was going to add blood as an extra ingredient by the time the finals were over. He does a lot of the elaborate tableside preparation that the Refectory offers, so he works fast and sure while creating food sculpture. In this case, he made little shot glasses out of the strawberries, covered them in chocolate and set them in the fridge to set up. His drink, Strawberries and Cream, was a well-made blender concoction that took every minute he had left to balance and prepare.
Cris also used every moment of allotted time. Her Berries and Meringue was a beautiful cocktail. The really interesting element was a quick toasted almond meringue she made on the spot. Having just made a batch of mayonnaise the day before myself, I was amazed that she could get such a nice foam going with a hand-whisk in the little time she had after re-balancing her drink more than once. The dollop of the stuff that she added to the drinks was both a cool garnish, and a delicious flavoring.

Joseph’s strawberry shot glasses of Gran Marnier did not quite come off as intended, with the chocolate failing to fully set and most of the liqueur absorbing into the berry. They still looked good, and the drink itself was delicious and had a great texture. The flavors were all there and all happy together.
Cris’s was also fabulous, and while I’d have dinged her on the scorecard for the less than lyrical name, the meringue worked perfectly and the drink was one of those rare dessert cocktails that would appeal to snooty cocktailian (with it’s delicate and exotic flavors) and country club party-goer (with its creamy sweetness) alike.

For the record, I agreed with the judges who narrowly awarded the win to Cris.

Cris deserves this win because she had to work so hard for it. The competition she faced was very, very good as well. No one advanced from round to round, much less night to night, without being both talented and at least a little lucky. Brandon Bowsher produced a really excellent event that truly tested the contestants’ instincts and abilities. The crowds had fun too, which is not an unimportant detail.
I’ll try to do one more post about the whole thing, with some general comments on the process, in a little while, but this post is already a week late and over long. Congratulations to every contestant and to Cris Dehlavi for the win. I’ll leave you with her recipe for her final cocktail.

Image stolen from Brownstoner
(See the end of this post for what is going on with this series)

Friday night, during Maggi’s and my Summer New York Adventure, we visited some old and dear family friends for dinner across the water in the dark far-off land of Brooklyn. An added bonus to the good food and conversation that they offered was that they live easy walking distance from 210 Smith Street, the address of the famous Clover Club.

After the relatively anonymous entrances of Pegu Club and Painkiller, the wide open entrance of Clover Club and the large visible sign over it was an interesting change of pace. We entered the main bar, and since it was full, we slipped to the back and grabbed seats at the second bar in the smaller, more cozy back room.

The basic vibe I got from Clover Club is that of a magnificent, pre-prohibition saloon, or perhaps gentleman’s club of that era. (The kind where the brass pole run under the patron’s feet, not up on stage….) The bars and bar backs are of elegant hard wood, with huge mirrors in the classic style. The sea of bottles, commercial and unlabeled alike, that crowd the bar top and shelves evoke a creative clutter and suggest that a game of Stump the Bartender would be a bootless quest herein. The back room is particularly cozy, with a fireplace, antique-esque furniture and oriental rugs.
The bartender working the back bar by himself was Nick, an itinerant pro who works in many places. He was fun to watch and pleasant to talk to. One of the joys I got from all the places we visited in New York was the bartenders’ conversation. At times, of course, it was impossible for them to talk due to the press of thirsty customers, but when they had time, a knowledgeable question or two would unlock a torrent of useful and educational information. Nick was perhaps the best at this of all we spoke to. The questions he answered and the information he offered beyond what I asked showed his love for his profession as much as his incredibly fast but meticulous work.

Since I kind of felt Clover Club had a bit of the feel that imagined would have been found at the Pendennis Club in its heyday, I needed to order an Old-Fashioned. For a twist, I asked for a rum version and got one of the most perfect drinks, in flavor, appearance, preparation and presentation, that I had in New York.
The glass was a plain, straight-sided cylinder, as boring by itself as can be. The drink was as classically old-fashioned an… Old-Fashioned as you could ask (with simple syrup instead of a sugar cube—things have to get done with some alacrity) as well.
The magic began with the ice. Clover Club uses a perfect cylinder of the cold stuff, just a bit smaller than inside of the glass, and nearly crystal clear. Nick peeled a twist of orange the entire circumference of the fruit, trimmed it perfectly straight, and spiraled it around between ice and glass. The remaining gap was filled with delicious and surprisingly copious cocktail. Needless to say, I’m in search of the perfect glass and mold paring to duplicate this for my own Old-Fashioneds.

We had a number of rounds, and all were lovely. (Though I just don’t see myself ever growing to truly love the Last Word, even if it leaves a hole in my Classic Cocktail Cred) I’ll simply mention one drink of Maggi’s that was particularly good and has already led to some experimentation on my own, Clover Club’s Bitter Tom. It is a rum gin* drink that demonstrates the secret to making Campari work just may be grapefruit….

Of all the bars we went to, Clover Club was a narrow winner in the “Damn, I wish I lived close by this bar” category. It is welcoming and open, with meticulous service, and a wonderful atmosphere. Young or old, hipster or old-school, anyone who appreciates good things and people will find themselves happy drinking here. If you appreciate fine cocktails before you enter, you’ll be deliriously happy. If you don’t understand the fuss, you likely will when you’ve tried this place. This last goes for all the places I’m reviewing from New York, but Clover Club seems the most convivial not only to those looking for a “cocktail experience”, but also to those who just want to hang with some friends who all happen to have meticulous taste.

*Clover Club’s head bartender, Brad Farran wrote me this morning to gently remind me that the Bitter Tom, which he created, is made with gin instead of rum. It was nice of him to not laugh in my face. I make this note down here because it is an interesting illustration of the perils of bar reporting: Even contemporaneous notes may become, um, garbled….

The Summer New York Adventure is the first truly kid-free vacation Maggi and I have taken since, well, we’ve had kids. By day, we’ll be exploring Manhattan’s Garment District, buying fabric for Maggi’s coture workings, and by night we shall explore the SoHo dining and drinking offerings, which should give me some of the best material to blog about in a good long while! Cheers!