In recent days I have been doing some serious damage to a new bottle of OYO Stone Fruit, the fourth product to come out of Ohio’s first microdistillery, Middle West Spirits, located here in Columbus. OYO Stone Fruit is based on the same rich winter wheat neutral spirit that makes up Middle West’s flagship vodka and fresh, tart Montmorency cherries. It is rounded out with a range of yellow peaches, and apricots, thus giving it the stone fruit moniker. In addition, the flaovr is enriched with almonds and sweetened with hibiscus and wildflower honey from local fields, not China. The result is a deep, complex liquor that is lightly sweet but carries considerable bite.

As with all their products, Stone Fruit is made almost exclusively with local products. The cherries are from the Niagara region, and the apricots are necessarily from further afield, but everything else is Ohio grown, allowing them the best freshness and control over quality.

The guys at Middle West call Stone Fruit an infused vodka. I don’t think this is a good idea, from an accuracy or a marketing standpoint. Like their OYO Honey Vanilla (my absolute favorite among their products), this is much too rich and nuanced a liquor to let be confused with the sea of infused vodkas on the market. And for such a small-run product aimed at the high-end cocktail maker, I think that’s a sales suppressant. This is a serious product, not some shelf-space expander.

Regardless of how you categorize it, Stone Fruit is a lot of fun to mix with. It holds its own as the primary spirit in a cocktail, yet also mixes very well with a variety of other liquors. It works particularly nicely with a soft bourbon like Four Roses or Maker’s Mark, as you’ll see in a moment. It pairs with good rum, depending on the variety, in ways either interesting or disastrous. I don’t have a rum solution good enough to offer yet, but I will suggest a bourbon pairing that I like quite a bit, another cocktail where the Stone Fruit is the primary spirit, and a third with champagne.

The Rolling Stone is my favorite creation so far with the Stone Fruit. You can up the ratio of Stone Fruit to bourbon to as much as 1:1, but I think you get a more balanced result with these ratios. Four Roses works best for me with this, but try Maker’s for a little softer, sweeter result. Bigger, more robust, super-premium bourbons are both a waste and get a little titchy with the Stone Fruit. The drink leaves an interesting impression of passion fruit, or all things, without the distinctive electric vibe that fruit always leaves behind.
My bartender buddy, Cris Dehlavi, who also happens to be Middle West’s brand mixologist, suggested the Cointreau. Without it, the drink is still delicious, but that electric Passion Fruity effect is very pronounced. Don’t overdo the Cointreau, however, as it easily overwhelms the subtler flavor elements.

The Stone Fruit works nicely with different citruses, though I haven’t tried orange juice yet and make no warranty there. My second cocktail uses only the Stone Fruit which, when by itself, likes lime juice much better than the lemon I used in the Rolling Stone. I wanted to play up the almond notes in it and used a bit of BG Reynold’s excellent orgeat for a nice, funky sour.

The last cocktail I’ve come up with so far that is worth sharing is the serendipitous result of New Year’s leftover champagne that was much too good to pour out and a Twitter discussion I had with a reader who wanted something like but unlike a Bellini. I’ve also been on a French 75 kick lately, and things kinda clicked.

A few notes here. Do not use Fee’s Cherry Bitters here, as was my first instinct. They bring out the cherry flavors of the Stone Fruit far too strongly. The Peach Bitters instead highlight the supporting flavors. And this is one of those cocktails where the bottled juice just won’t do. Squeeze your limes fresh or don’t bother. Really.

OYO Stone Fruit is available all over Ohio, as well as online nationally at The Party Source out of Kentucky. Middle West also hopes to have retail distribution in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Maryland/DC by the end of February. If you can get ahold of some, I invite you to try it out.

The Dispatch writes on Columbus’ two local distilleries. Some good stuff on the economics of micro-distilling, as well as background on both Watershed and Middle West. (With bonus misspelling of one of the world’s great cocktails!)
Also, see this article in Metropreneur Columbus.

My recent post about the demolition of the Kahiki Supper Club got me to wondering about what contributions, if any, Columbus and the Kahiki had made to the Tiki drink oeuvre. Fortunately, when you wonder things about Tiki, the path to answers is fairly simple….

Google it?

No, silly sockpuppet. Beach Bum Berry it. For a guy who calls himself a bum, he’s put a bit of work into researching the whole Tiki thing. Remixed has not one, but two drinks we owe to those who toiled at the Kahiki in its heyday. The one I want to talk about is the Port Light, a child of Sandro Conti from 1961.

The Port Light is that relative rarity among Tiki drinks, a whiskey-based one. The recipe calls for bourbon, but since I was working on my Crown Royal Black review at the same time, I decided it would be a good way to test the Tiki suitability of the brand.

Canadian whisky for Tiki drinks?
Globally, doesn’t that miss by, um, all the way?

Hey, the original recipes for this supposedly South Pacific movement came from the Caribbean, which misses by, um, most of the way. So I fail to see why I should expect geographical consistency to be any more of a hobgoblin of the Tiki mind than any other kind.

True, the mind of Tiki is indeed gloriously free of any consistency hobgoblins.

Exactly.
Now, a lot of Canadian whiskys are so gentle that they might well become lost among the wildly varied flavors of Tiki-style cocktails. But since Black was specifically designed to hit the Bourbon dance and not be a wallflower, I figured it would be up to the challenge. Here’s the recipe (substitute bourbon for the Black if you want the original):

The resulting drink is one of the more refreshing whisky based drinks I’ve tried, Tiki or otherwise. In fact, I’ve marked the recipe for reuse this Summer when things get sticky. It is not as perfectly balanced as some recipes. I think this is because from a texture standpoint, I just don’t want to use so much ice. And as I learned earlier this month, the amount of ice you use in a blender drink can seriously affect the balance. Still, perfectly balanced or not, it’s perfectly tasty. The flavors go so nicely together, I’m surprised that there aren’t more passion fruit and whiskey recipes. Next time round, I’ll up the grenadine or simply hit it with a quarter ounce of simple syrup.
Or a few of you could make the effort and report back here. I’ve got other drinks to make this month, you know!
Regardless of your deification to helping me with my research, I suggest you give this drink a try. It’s well worth it.

* I’ve been specifying Trader Tiki’s syrups this month for most everything he makes, but the passion fruit syrup is one I don’t have.

Each year during Tiki Month, I reflect on one of my real cocktail-related regrets: That I never visited the Kahiki Supper Club here in Columbus while it was still open. The Kahiki was a massive, and I mean massive, Tiki palace. I’ve never heard of a Tiki-themed restaurant that was larger. Inside the massive building you see pictured above, were something like six smaller thatched buildings housing various bars and dining rooms. Surrounding these were a lagoon, a rain forest, and an eighty foot high fireplace.

The Kahiki survived far longer than the original age of Tiki (2000), succumbing finally not to abandonment by its customers, but to a need by the owners to divert capital to their frozen food business, which still thrives today. The Kahiki food in its early days got the laughing reputation around Columbus as the only place where the food could kill you, served as it was on sharp swords and spears with lots of open flames on the table. I’ve eaten the grocery store product they have now, and it isn’t half bad.

[source]

I worte this post to direct you to the Kahiki’s website, where they have an incredible, vintage video of the Kahiki that gives an idea of what the experience was like. I curse them for not making it embedable, so you’ll just have to follow this link, then click on “Kahiki Supper Club Video” right below the picture of the grand old palace. It’s a pain, I know, but it’s worth it if you have any Tiki in your soul.

I do have one video I can embed. When the place was finally torn down (to make room for a CVS Pharmacy!) Much of the decor was salvaged. To get an idea of the scale of the place, check out this clip of the massive fireplace being removed:

UPDATE: Mike Monello, who posted the YouTube video above has dropped by in the comments, and provided a link there to his Flickr page with lots of stills of the demolition! Thanks, Mike!

The Columbus Iron Bartender competition, 2011 edition, was last Sunday night, at the Park Street Saloon. This year’s Iron Bartenders were last year’s winner, Cris Dehlavi of M at Miranova, Chris Dillman (of the late, much lamented Details), representing the just reopened Jury Room, Zak Colburn of Bodega, and Catherine Morel of DeepWood.

This year’s event was a good time again, and promoters Reed Woogerd and Hans Maggard in fact delivered on thier promise of a better competition. The change in venue to Park Street Saloon was a net positive. While the western decor isn’t really the ideal fit for a classic cocktail competition, the physical layout of the place made for a much improved experience for the audience. The long, barbell-shaped bar made it easy for people to get a good view of the Iron Bartenders at work. They also mounted a high camera to pump video of them at work to the numerous TVs all around the bar. (Allegedly, this was my idea.) The stage, which let people see the band, also gave us an opportunity of see the contestants while they explained their offerings to emcee Monica Day. The sound system was also an improvement, but there is only so much you can do with bartenders who won’t speak up! (Seriously guys, you make yourself heard over the din every night you work. Would it kill you to use those pipes to let us hear what you did?) As a final note about the venue, the judges sat in one of three, what I’m guessing are, innovative, western-style bottle service areas. They are large booths, with swinging doors, and in addition to a table for bottles and prep stuff, not one but two beer taps!

Zak Colburn delivers his offering to the judges.

As the competition began, the bar was very well-appointed with exotic ingredients, from fruits and veggies, including pineapples, kumquats, cucumbers, and a whole horseradish, to spices, herbs, and bitters. The botanical selection was so complete, I speculated with the guys from Middle West Spirits that Reed was going to require the contestants to make their own gin and serve a basic Martini. Fortunately, this was not the actual case. The secret ingredient was… Peppers. Lots of peppers, from bell to hot, fresh and dried.

Catherine Morel preps her peppers.

The only real problem with the night came right after the start, when all four contestants ran as one back to the kitchen, I’m guessing to make syrups. Once they got back to the bar, folks crowded around to have fun watching them work. The video camera really helped this process when the crowd got thick.

Cris Dehlavi works at perfecting her drink.

The first runner up was Cris from M. She is a good friend of ours, and I was sorry to see her, and her spicy tequila and blood orange concoction which she called Truth Serum, not win. It was a gorgeous and very tasty drink. In retrospect, however, I think it might be better for the Columbus bar scene, and Cris herself for that matter, that she doesn’t win every damn single bartending contest she enters….

Chris Dillman used about eight pots to make his syrups….

The 2011 Iron Bartender is Chris Dillman, representing the Jury Room. I’m not usually a chocolate drink afiicianado, but his concoction of Godiva, dark rum, hot pepper syrup, and cinnamon, rimmed with a beautifully balanced mix of cinnamon, fresh grated pepper, and sugar was a real winner. This little molé-like concoction had a sweet burn that kept all its very different parts in line nicely. I will say that Chris probably benefited from one of the judges being Jeni of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. If something very like Chris’s offering doesn’t show up as an ice cream from Jeni real soon, I’ll eat my hat.

Zak and Catherine both produced good offerings as well, but my notes on their work are less… coherent than I’d like. Go visit them at work and ask for a sober run down of what they gave us. The whole evening was a lot of fun, and I look forward to Reed and Hans doing it again next year.

The second edition of Columbus’s Iron Bartender competition will be this Sunday, January 16th, from six until nine PM. This year’s event will be held at the Park Street Saloon (525 N Park St), just around the corner from the North Market. I covered last year’s event here and here.

This year’s four Iron Bartenders will include returning champion Cris Dehlavi of M at Miranova, and challengers representing Bodega, the Jury Room, and DeepWood. The basic format is the same as last year. Each contestant will prepare an original cocktail using a rather lavishly appointed setup, and the drinks must feature the evening’s Secret Ingredient (which organizer Reed Woogerd claims he hasn’t decided on yet). Channel 4′s Monica Day is hosting again, with a new panel of celebrity judges such as Jeni Bauer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream.
The venue is new this year, and I think it’s better suited to this kind of competition. It’s larger, and has a real stage and show bar. Another improvement for this year’s event will be two service bars and the spirits tasting tables, so the guests can still get cocktails during the actual competition. Also, since Park Street Saloon is a performance venue, the sound system should be better this year, so we should be able to better hear what the contestants are telling the judges about their creations.

So, my Columbus readers, if you know any of the contestants, or are just a fan of fine drinks, how about you join me in the crowd this Sunday? It looks to be a good time. If you do come and see me (picture here), how about you introduce yourself? I’d love to meet you.

Tickets for the event are twenty five bucks per person, and include hors d’ouvres, live entertainment (beyond the alcoholic prestidigitation), and tasting stations for various products represented by Southern Wine & Spirits. Go here for advance tickets.

A year ago, to my knowledge, Columbus, Ohio had no distilleries. Now we have two. On an annual basis, this in infinite growth. Look upon us Scotland and Kentucky, and despair!

One of these two new producers is Watershed Distillery, located in the Grandview area of town, tucked away in a light industrial/warehouse park. They currently offer two spirits for sale. In no-nonsense style, they call them Vodka from Watershed Distillery, and Gin from Watershed Distillery. A bourbon, whose name I can only speculate upon, has begun production and now needs only the magic of time and oak to be ready for market.

I didn’t know of Watershed until just after New Year’s, when I was wandering the aisles of a new liquor store near my house, and stumbled across their gin. Any new gin that is added to Ohio’s meager selection is good news, but when I saw where this gin was made I was pretty darn excited.
Really.
Just ask my long-suffering wife who had to put up with me sailing into the house brandishing the bottle like it was a winning lottery ticket….

Gin from Watershed Distillery is a light, citrus-accented liquor in the New American school of gins. It has a distinctively bright and zesty character that is evident from when you first tug the stopper from the wide, cylindrical style bottle. The juniper is there, of course, but it isn’t heavy. The other botanicals consist of four citrus zests, lime, lemon, orange, and grapefruit, along with cinnamon, coriander, and allspice. They balance very well.

I asked co-owner Greg Lehman how they arrived at their formulation. They experimented with a wide variety of styles, with many test batches of each, to see which ones they could execute well. Then, through a combination of market research and personal preference, they settled on the citrus-influenced, New American style and perfected their recipe.
After he told me all this, I jammed a camera in his face without warning and made him give me the highlights of the process all over again. The result is the second Pegu Blog Original Video.

Not only is Gin from Watershed a very nice gin in its own right, but it also fills a need in the gin selection available to Ohioans. There are relatively few gins available in this state to begin with, and most that we do have are the big, traditional brands, in the big, traditional styles. Watershed’s offering can provide local bartenders and mixers with a great new option should they want to be working with a brighter, cleaner spirit that may be more accessible to drinkers who are just getting used to gin.

I’m not saying that Gin from Watershed is mild. It’s not. A sip of it neat will punch you in the snoot. But it’s a punch in the snoot from a pretty girl. The first bottle I bought (from hand-numbered batch #1) is already gone, so let me offer my coroner’s report on how it went.
Of course, the first drink I tried, as with all new gins, was a standard Pegu. Watershed is good here… really good. The added tones of all that citrus zest seem to enhance the drink’s regular flavors, especially those underlying the Angostura Bitters, without altering the balance. I then experimented with other gin sour variants and Watershed worked there very well, too. I think these kind of drinks are the best use for this gin.
It also makes a fine Martini, however. If you use fresh vermouth, and enough of it, dammit! For me, I’ve come to prefer a bit more juniper as I’ve come to know the cocktail. But if you are just making the move from Vodka Martinis to the real thing, I’d say Watershed would be worth a try to get you in the door.
I don’t drink Gin & Tonics, so I can’t speak to how Gin from Watershed works in that standard. Can any G&T drinkers out there who’ve tried it shoot me some feedback in the comments?

Right now, both both Gin and Vodka from Watershed are available only in Ohio, and right now they are only using the Columbus warehouse. The rest of you will have to wait. [UPDATE: Outside Ohio you can now buy the Gin from Watershed for $28.99 from ThePartySource.com. Lots of bars bars are using it around town, and it has been selling in a good selection of liquor stores all over, so it should not be hard to find. My advice is to pick up a bottle and drink all you want. Greg says he’ll make more.

I recently had a chance to tour a brand spanking new distillery right here where I live in Columbus, Ohio. Middle West Spirits has set up in a re-purposed auto service garage and has begun producing fine artisanal liquor. Middle West is a fascinating story in many ways, from their production methods, to the community efforts of their principals, to the challenges and obstacles we as a society present to startup businesses in this industry. I hope to write about all of these subject in coming weeks, but for this post I just want to do a review of the first product they have commercially available, OYO Vodka.

{Welcome Foodista readers! I hope you’ll look around while you are here. In addition to spirits reviews, I also do bar reviews, cocktail recipes, intermittent tikiblogging, and a lot about basement bar design, among other things.}

I’ll talk about the spirit, but first we have to talk about the name. It is not “Oh-Yo”, nor “Oi-oh”, but “O-Why-O”, as in an older pronunciation of Ohio. I like the name, but I foresee future marketing problems with it if (as I expect) this brand takes off outside of the Midwest.

OYO is not anything like your standard, made for the American market, vodka. The common American idea is that vodka needs to be as tasteless as possible. We tend to call this lack of character “smooth”. But drinkers who expand their horizons to liquors beyond vodka soon realize their definition of “smooth” simply means “bland”. Try a high-end Bourbon or Cognac, and you will see that “smooth” can be complex, rich, and flavorful.

The methods used, indeed bragged about, by Vodka makers are designed to hunt down character, kill it, and drag the corpse as far away from their product as they can. They repeatedly distill and repeatedly charcoal filter their spirit (perhaps pouring in some glycerin) until this body dump is complete. And for a huge portion of the drinking public, this just the right thing. If your aim is to look cool whilst jacking up your BAC, then by all means, order your “Martini” or your Triple Cranberry Fandango with Grey Goose.

Middle West goes a different way. OYO is single-distilled. That is, their first-of-its-kind-in-the-US Kothe Vodka Still takes their mash all the way to the required 190 proof in one pass. Further, they do not use any charcoal filtration at all. They run the product through a product that is essentially a coffee filter on steroids, but this only removes visible particulates and performs no chemical filtration. Of course, they discard the first and last cuts, where the bad congeners dwell, but what remains is a spirit that while still definitely vodka, is very distinct from most others you’ll find on shelves.

The first, and to me most noticeable difference is in the texture. I normally avoid phrases like “mouth-feel” as belonging to pretentious foodies and/or wine snobs. But I can’t think of a better phrase to use to describe this difference between OYO and your average, run-of-the-mill $35 Vodka. It simply feels different in your mouth. While viscous isn’t exactly right it coats your tongue and feels thicker in your mouth. I remember Head Distiller Ryan Lang swirling a glass of OYO before handing it to me. It developed big, beautiful legs in the glass, but did so much more slowly than I’m used to.
Beyond the texture, there is also a taste component difference in OYO. I wouldn’t say it has a flavor, Vodka shouldn’t, but there is a depth and breadth to the burn that you don’t usually get. Ryan suggested several hints of flavor that are present in OYO, but I’ll leave those to him. My mind doesn’t process flavors like that, so I very seldom pick up that “hint of Montmorency cherries” people will rave about in some new cabernet either. What I did note was the pleasant fact that more of my tongue was engaged while sipping OYO than I am used to.

The differences are subtle, but quite real. And all to the good (with one odd exception I mention below).

OYO is distilled from 100% whole Ohio-grown red winter wheat, which arrives at the distillery as bags of (custom ground?) flour. I am usually a potato vodka guy, but this works very well.
Wheat and water go in 1230 Courtland Ave., and bottled OYO rolls out. The still I mentioned before dominates the center of the building and is a real beauty. Middle West has a beautiful efficient setup, which has room and is laid out to expand as demand grows.

Now, how do you drink this stuff? Well, it’s Vodka. You can do most anything with it, but I have some suggestions of ways that take most advantage of its different character. Some of this comes from my explorations with a bottle of OYO that they presented me with when I toured the distillery, and some from their brand ambassador, my friend Cris Dehlavi.

First, this is a wonderful Vodka Martini product. It is delicious if you are from the “glass of cold vodka” school, but I think it extends and enlivens the drink even more when you use a measurable amount of vermouth, say 4-1, and some Regan’s Orange Bitters.

I had thought that it would make an interesting Old-Fashioned. But experimentation showed me that subtlety of the OYO is wiped out here. In fact, the sweeter the drink, the less interesting and distinctive the OYO’s effect. Along this same line, do not use OYO in Vodka Gimlets or Kamikazes. Rose’s and OYO do not get along very well at all.

Beyond that caveat, OYO likes regular lime juice. But I think if you want citrus, you are better off starting with lemons.
I’ll offer one of Cris’ recipes she has created to promote OYO, called the Summer Thyme. It works nicely as a counterpart to the Vodka Martini to show how OYO works in a more complex vodka cocktail.

* A more experienced cocktailian is going to want to reduce or even eliminate the simple in this, I think. Try muddling the thyme in the Grand Marnier.

Right now, you can only get OYO in Ohio, but they hope to have that rectified soon. I’ll let you know. They have only been in production for a few months, and I’m told that the response has been very promising.
If you want to see the distillery for yourself (it’s a fascinating facility) they have weekly open houses every Wednesday from 5-7 PM.

The Liquor Fairy Was Here!
The following product, OYO Vodka, 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.

June 28th was the third round of Columbus Chopped Mixology, hosted by Mozaik. (Here are the Week One and Week Two roundups) I was once again a judge, and had a great time. If you don’t think that judging a contest like this is hard, however, you are wrong.

Oh, sure.
It’s a hard knock life, sitting there at a table while bartenders bring you cocktail after cocktail to try….

No seriously, it’s hard work!

I can tell.
Clearly, your fellow judge here is weary from all the drudgery….

She was going that extra mile in getting a clarification on his technique!
And shut up.
The first round secret ingredients this week were Espolon Tequila Blanco, seedless watermelons, World Market Blood Orange Soda, and Tropical Punch Kool-Aid! That last ingredient confirmed to me that the organizer, Brandon Bowsher, has an evil streak.
For Michael Valentino, of Hyde Park’s Eleven, the pink powder was the source of both a great idea, and his downfall. His drink, Sunset at Eleven was a tequila punch. His cool idea was to rim half the cocktail glass with salt, and the other half in a sugar/Kool-Aid mixture. It was an innovative idea, and it looked great when he first did it. But he finished too soon, and the rimming dissolved before he could present it to us. Also, he just used too much of the Kool-Aid in the drink itself to let much of the tequila flavor come through. When you have never competed under clock pressure before, knowing how much time you have is hard. I think if Michael had realized how for ahead of things he was, he’d have realized he had more time to get the balance right. Regardless, I’m shamelessly stealing the yin-yang rimming idea.

Michael, representing Eleven, prepares his custom cocktail shaker.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the most innovative and successful presentations of the entire contest so far. Adam Winham, of Brewsky’s Sports Bar, presented us with a flight of shots, instead of a single cocktail. Not only was it a ballsy, out of the box move, but he nailed it. Each of the three shots was good, and one was really good.

Round two featured a secret ingredient basket that contained the sponsor’s SKYY Vodka, Campari, fresh ginger root, and a bottle of mango pureé. With Campari and ginger, that’s two ingredients that have great character, but can go from awesome to too much in a very narrow range. For me, that’s what got Mozaik’s own Eric Barhorst in trouble. His Ginger, Spice, ‘n Everything Nice had the most complex flavors of the bunch, but the pungency was just a little too in your face. In talking to Eric before the contest, he told me that he has a weakness for hot or spicy cocktails, so I can see where he was going.

Mozaik’s Eric Barhorst has a knack for never appearing rushed, while getting things done in plenty of time.

The final round pitted the aforementioned Adam against Jordan Conkey of Smith and Wollensky. Based on thumbnail resumés, these are not the two a cocktail snob would have expected to be in the finals. Adam works at a popular beer and shot sports bar, while Jordon has been bartending for barely a year. Neither had ever been in anything like this competition.
Resumés mean nothing!
As the last round progressed, the judges discussed what it was about both these guys that makes them good. Both have a great skill set. Their drinks were both very consistent in appearance and amount from glass to glass, which is harder in these circumstances than you think. Also, both are very good with their knives. There were a few garnishes by Adam and Jordan last night that Rick Stutz would’ve been proud of. Both also have great flavor instincts. All three drinks by each (well, five for Adam) were balanced and pleasant. Finally, both guys used those skills in a creative fashion throughout the contest.

Adam is the first Chopped Mixology contestant to have actual stadium-style signs wielded by his fans….

The final mystery basket contained Wild Turkey Rare Breed, rhubarb raspberry jam, and Trader Tiki’s Cinnamon Syrup (from some damn crazed blogger in Portland). One of the best things about this week is that we got two utterly different drinks to judge.
Adam offered us his Just Desserts, which was a chocolate, whipped cream confection. It was sweet, and pretty, and the stuffed strawberry garnish rocked. (Is it fair to have a garnish, a plate of which might have won all on its own?) We all liked it, but it wobbled a bit in the way a lot of the sweet round drinks have throughout the contest: You lost track of the featured spirit.

Jordan Conkey, of Smith & Wollensky Easton, is absurdly talented for someone who has been legally drinking less than two years.

Jordan served us his Redneck Holiday, an Old-Fashioned/Mint Julep hybrid. It was gorgeous to look at, meticulously constructed, and tasted wonderful. Lots of sweet drinks taste good, but it’s damn hard to make them also feel “clean” on the palate. The Redneck Holiday managed that difficult feat. It was refreshing as well as tasty, and they took mine away before I was finished!

And so we conversed. The challenge in judging the last round is that we are to judge the entire, three-drink “cocktail menu” the contestants have created. We took longer than we should have, but in the end we had to lift away a bucket and declare Adam to be chopped.
Jordan moves on to the finals on July 12th.

Monday was the second round of the Chopped Mixology Competition at Mozaik in the Columbus Arena District. (First round results here) I had the very cool opportunity to be a judge this time around, and it was a great time. This week’s winner was Zak Renzetti-Voit, who bartends at Black Olive. Zak benefited from some extensive experience in competitive mixology. He was one of Columbus’ Iron Bartenders, and also was a national finalist in the Bombay Sapphire Most Inspired Bartender competition in Las Vegas.

Zak Renzetti-Voit of Black Olive. Gin-haters, should go see him. He has a challenge for you….

The first round was marked by the exceptional looks of all the drinks. Among the secret ingredients that each contestant had to use in his or her drink were Finlandia Vodka and star fruit. (I never wrote down the exact lists, bad journalist! No cookie!) Each of the potions we were presented had that, “Ooh. What is that she’s having, bartender?” appearance.

Larry of J. Liu. He specializes in champagne cocktails, not three foot putts. Honest.

In fact, the first contestant to be chopped fell afoul of making his drink too pretty. Larry, who has been bar manager at J. Liu’s Dublin location almost since it opened, wanted the beautiful layered appearance you can just make out above in his Tidal Wave creation. But the separation of flavors made a well-conceived recipe taste unbalanced. Also, the very nifty lime boat garnishes he made each capsized as he brought the drinks over to us. There are fifty Poseidon Adventure jokes to be made, especially given the drink name of Tidal Wave, so I’ll leave them to you, dear reader, to make for yourself.
One area that this week’s contestants were much stronger on than last’s was in drink naming. I find that to be an important part of the scoring chart.

Bee, representing the Scarlett and Grey Café. Bee also creates drinks at Ozone

The next round won me and the other judges no friends. Jack Daniels lead the secret ingredients, along with dried chili peppers. We got three utterly different drinks this round, in taste and appearance. The other judges and I took some time to make a decision here.
The one who got chopped was Bee, who make a drink she called S’Mores. It was a cream-based highball with a lovely strawberry garnish. And it tasted really good, maybe the best of the round. But the problem was that neither of the two secret ingredients I mentioned were apparent at all in her final product. When I explained this as we announced our decision, I got us pretty comprehensively booed by Bee’s section of the crowd.
Actually, getting booed aside, the crowd is one of the really fun things about this competition. Each contestant has a lot of support among the multitude, and there is a lot of cheering and hollering. Also, many of the contestants make use of the stacks of shot glasses around them as they are formulating their entries, trying variations out on the fans clustered around them as they work.
While Michael and Zak prepared for the final challenge, Bee and Larry came back out for a lightning round shot contest. They formulated and served up shots for the crowd as quickly as possible in a naked attempt to convince them to vote for them for the consolation prize.

Michael, of Hyde Park on the Cap in the Short North, the swankiest restaurant located on a freeway overpass on Earth. When you visit, ask him for his family’s secret recipe Manhattan.

The last round featured Southern Comfort, pecans, Fee’s Aztec Chocolate Bitters, and apple butter! I was impressed by how decisively both guys embarked on the challenge here. Zak was yelling for eggs, while Michael crumbled pecans and tossed the large crumbs in the bitters. Both chose to rim their cocktail glasses with the apple butter. Michael embedded the pecans in the butter, while Zak dipped his in toasted coconut.
To be honest, when I saw the ingredient list, I didn’t know what to think, and had steeled myself for a strange third round. But these two drinks were the best of the night. Michael’s Apple Pecan Peach Rob Roy was a solid drink that looked and tasted great. If you had told me that single-malt and SoCo could work well together, I’d have scoffed mightily. I’d have been wrong.
But Zak’s Breakfast Before Bed was just a bit better. His float of whipped egg whites added both visual interest and some nice smoothness as well. The bitters demonstrated why they are such an important part of modern cocktailia, melding and punching up the other flavors very well.
We judges enjoyed the drinks for this last round, but not making our final decision. If one of these guys had had the grace to make a clunker in the final round, we could have kicked back and relaxed. But noooo! We had to go back through all our scratched out notes from the first two rounds and ask each other a lot of questions, when we could have been enjoying the drinks.
In the end, I think we made the right decision. This was a very strong field, with our two finalists last night both being Iron Bartender veterans.
With Cris, who won week one, that is all the Iron Bartenders we’ll have in this competition. The fourth contestant from that event, Brandon Bowsher, is the organizer of Chopped Mixology, and thus won’t be competing. (Also, he only has so many hands to nearly cut off during bartending competitions…) As I have said here before, the thing that most impresses me about Brandon is how he learns from experience. This week’s event ran faster and more smoothly than last. The crowd was larger, and Brandon and company did an even better job of keeping them involved directly in the event. It really is a great party, as well as a legitimate, interesting competition. I hope you’ll come down for the next few Mondays and join in. Cheer on your favorite bartender, or go shopping among the contestants for a new one!