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!

This is first and foremost for the local readers, but I hope it will be of interest to others as well.
Starting next Monday, June the 14th, sixteen of the most committed bartenders in Columbus will begin a month-long mixology competition at Mozaik in the Arena District. It will begin with four weekly preliminary competitions, and the four winners of those rounds will compete on July 12th for the grand championship. The Facebook page is here, and the Local Night Scene page is here.
This competition grew out of the earlier Columbus Iron Bartender event I wrote on before. The organizer is former Iron Bartender Brandon Bowsher. Brandon looks to have learned a lot from the earlier event, and he’s using that experience to make this competition much bigger and more comprehensive. Brandon has also shown some real drive and agility, keeping the whole thing on track after the initial home for the event succumbed to the hard economic times less than a fortnight before the scheduled start. That he kept all but one competitor through the rescheduling shows how eager the contestants are to compete.
Um, modesty compels me to refrain from mentioning the most obvious example of Brandon’s organizing taste and genius.

Ha!
You mean the fact that you’ll be one of the judges, Doug?
Well, I’ll say it for you.

That’s what sockpuppets
are for, dear.

Exactly.
Anyway, I hope I see a bunch of you down there at Mozaik on Mondays for the next month or so! I’ll be covering the event here, with likely obsessive detail. Of course, I’ve also got a trip to New York City to throw in as well this month, so expect this to be bar review central in June and July!
Not all the contestants are from traditional cocktail-centric bars. There are some pubs and watering holes too. I’ll tuck the participating bars and restaurants below the fold. It is an impressive list.
(more…)

I’ve gotten some details about the the drinks created at the Columbus Iron Bartender competition that I wrote up before. That post was little long to update with all this, so I’m doing a separate post. Here is what I have:

Brandon Bowsher of Martini Park
Jack Ginger Fresh

I used the pecan and apricot infused jack daniels, then made an infused simple syrup with the ginger root and fresh sliced pears. In addition I used whole fresh pineapple and muddled it to a fine pulp and then added fresh mint leaves into the remaining juice. I used a a little Tuaca and amaretto as well.
I also squeezed two fresh limes to help balance the sweetness.
And for the rim I used agave nectar and Grand Marnier, slightly warmed and placed on the rim of the martini glass to hold on fresh toasted, grated almonds, and an orange twist garnish.

Zak Renzetti-Voit of Black Olive
Pineapple Upside-down Ginger

I made a ginger simple syrup and muddled it with mint & cucumber. I added Hendricks Gin (infused w/ cucumber & rose petals) and dashed with Rhubarb bitters and a splash of soda. The kicker was the glass – I chopped the top off of a pineapple, hollowed it out, turned it upside down and stood it on its spiky top. So, it basically looked like an edible martini glass. It was delicious, but very refreshing.

(By the way, I’ve never seen anyone make a pineapple drinking vessel this way. Is it common in the Tiki world, or did Zak do something special here?)

Mike Vehlber of Hyde Park
Ginger Blood Orange Manhattan
I haven’t heard back from Mike yet. Hopefully this is just a placeholder paragraph until he gets me some information. The drink sounded pretty elegantly simple in construction

Cris Dehlavi of M at Miranova (Winner)

There you go, folks! They were all great. Now all you Columbus folks, go visit these guys and tell them I sent you.

As promised, Maggi and I went to the 2010 Columbus Iron Bartender competition at Cotters on Sunday. It was a fun party, and the competition was entertaining. The crowd was great. We arrived about three minutes after the official start time of the pre-competition cocktail hour, and most of the audience had beaten us there.
After an hour of chatting, people watching, and some great sax music from the band, the Iron Bartenders were introduced. They were (in the order they appeared on the audience ballots):

Iron Bartender M at Miranova, Cris Dehlavi

Iron Bartender Martini Park, Brandon Bowsher

Iron Bartender Hyde Park, Mike Vehlber

Iron Bartender Black Olive, Zak Renzetti-Voit

My abject apologies to our contestants for the photo quality and angles. The event was popular and I couldn’t move… at all.
Once the contestants were announced, the large white cloth covering the center of the bar was ceremoniously whipped away revealing the secret ingredient: Ginger! There was a whole pile of fresh ginger, gorgeous enough to make me want to steal some of the leftovers, several containers of home-made ginger beer, and bottles of Canton ginger liqueur.
The Iron Bartenders fell upon this cornucopia of spicy goodness and carried it back to their stations where they went into a frenzy of grating and blending and juicing. Cotters had supplied the bar with a wide selection of bitters, fruits and other unusual ingredients, the the players had whatever they wanted to work with. (Brave words. I’m sure one of them was wishing for something that wasn’t there.)
For thirty minutes, they made a variety of simple syrups, carved enticing garnishes, and mixed and tasted, and mixed and tasted, and mixed and tasted.
When finished, each produced four portions of a gorgeous-looking concoction to present to the judges, who were a collection of local celebrities and media figures.
Three of the cocktails were in a classic cocktail form, one rimmed attractively, another garnished with flowers, and the last sported a complex construction of blood orange slices. Zak Renzetti-Voit went all Blair Reynolds and got his tiki on with a hollowed out pineapple goblet.
Each Iron Bartender served up the drinks and explained what they had made. Monica Day, the local NBC affiliate reporter was the emcee, and she had a bit of a hard time keeping the crowd quiet enough so that those of us trying to pay attention could hear what was in the drinks. She failed. If I can get a detailed rundown on what was in them, I’ll update the post at the bottom. (UPDATE: I put the info I’ve received in a separate post.) I feel sorry for Monica, she did her best to get things quiet. But I wrangle crowds of drunks for a living, and getting a crowd that size, having that good a time, to quiet down fully is just this side of impossible. To get them to do it four times in the space of twenty minutes is the other side of impossible.
(I apologize for no pictures of Monica, but every pic I took of her trying to quiet the crowd came out really bad. I’m sure she’d thank me for including none of them.)
Once the Iron Bartenders had presented their creations to the judges, they returned behind the bar to make up scores more smaller portions, still elegantly garnished, for we hoi polloi to enjoy.
There were two awards given at the evening’s end, the judges’ prize, and the people’s choice. The winner of both was…

Cris Dehlavi, from M at Miranova!

As I said in my preview post, Cris is a friend, and I have written about her here twice before, so I couldn’t be happier for her. And she deserved to win both awards, but for different reasons.
Her cocktail was classically pretty, and tasted delicious. Had I been a judge, I’d have chosen it too. The hibiscus syrup she made married well with the Canton and other ingredients to make for a balanced cocktail that was slightly sweeter than I usually choose, but then aren’t most drinks? She used the ginger to good effect, giving the cocktail an undertone of exoticism that was further highlighted by the candied hibiscus flower she perched on the rim. It was a good drink that would appeal to a wide range of drinkers, and used the secret ingredient to good but not overpowering effect.
As for why she won the People’s Choice, there were a couple of reasons beyond the quality of the drink. While every bartender there had a crowd of supporters, Cris clearly had the most fans in the room. When the Iron Bartenders were introduced, it was like a home game for her. More importantly, she did one outstanding thing for the crowd. As soon as she finished presenting her drinks to the judges, she went back and got started prepping her made on the spot ingredients and mixing up the big batch of her cocktail to hand out to the crowd. This meant that once all the drinks had been presented to the judges, she had samples ready to go almost immediately for the crowd, well ahead of the other competitors. Now, Cris went first to present her drink, so she had the most time to begin with. But while she had the most time to take a break, she seemed to instead treat the whole process, not just the judges’ drinks, as the competition.
Everyone’s creations were quite good, but her win was well-deserved.
It was a cool event, and well run. I hope Cotters does it again next year, and I’ll close with some suggestions that could make it better. First off, the sound system was set to work for the band. That meant that the mic levels were far too low to be really useful when the bartenders were trying to be heard over the crowd. (See my comments above about Monica’s valiant, doomed struggle) Second, it was hard for most of the crowd to see what was going on during the prep phase. I bet a lot of people who were there still have no idea how much work and creativity and effort all four of these bartenders put into their creations. There are two large TVs overhead of the bar. A roving cameraman behind the bar could feed video to those screens and let the audience see up close how to make a drink cup out of the top of a pineapple, make up a quick infused simple syrup, or rim a glass with something other than salt. Finally, if you fix the sound system, how about stealing one more bit of the Iron Chef schtick, have someone be the equivalent of Alton Brown or Doc Hattori (Hey, I’m available!), and comment a bit on what we were seeing as it happened.
But those thoughts are suggestions, not criticisms. The event was fun and I thought it went well. I hope the organizers, and the sponsor Jack Daniels, think it was a big success and will do it again, next year.

Just a note for local readers here in Columbus.
Cotters Restaurant (in the Arena District) will be hosting the Columbus version of an Iron Bartender competition this Sunday, January 17th, from 6 to 9 PM. Cotters’ regular bartenders will be battling for tips to go to charity, while “Iron Bartenders” from Hyde Park, Martini Park, and Black Olive will compete alongside my friend Cris of M at Miranova, about whose work I have written previously.
Tickets are $25.00, and include hors d’oeuvres, live entertainment, and of course some of each Iron Bartender’s creation. Phone (614) 221-9060 for reservations, or you can download the flyer here.
Maggi and I will be there to observe and report on the festivities. If you see me there (picture here), please grab an elbow and say hello! I really hope to meet some more of my readers here in Ohio.

A good country club bar is many things. It is a place to go to see friends. It is a place for swift, attentive, personalized service from people who know you on sight. It’s a place for reasonable drinks at reasonable prices. At least a good country club bar is all that. If you belong to a country club, and the bar is missing even one of these elements, get a new club. The bar at my club on the north side of Columbus, Ohio, Worthington Hills Country Club, is all of these things in spades.
Country club bars are also usually do not offer certain things. Chief among them is anything like high-end mixology. They aren’t the place to find original drinks, the bitters bottle usually has a splash of dust on it, and an Aviation is something the richer members do in their Cessnas. Over the years, the bar staff at the Hills has made some great strides in breaking out of this mold. Of course, you can safely order and get a Pegu there (I am a member, after all), and you can also get a decent Moscow Mule. And they have real lemon and lime juices to make drinks with, not just an endless supply of Finest Call Sour Mix to use for anything citrusy. My point is that I am lucky in the watering hole I frequent most. They are a cocktailian cut above country clubs just about everywhere.
But this May, they are making me swoon. Every month, they do a promotional cocktail, for which they bring in any needed special ingredients and stock up on fruit or whatever for garnishes that go the extra mile. Most of them haven’t been my cup of tea, but the effort and attention to detail is much appreciated….

Here’s your Mai Tai, Mrs. Calvert.

But this month, the Cocktail of the Month is the MaiTai. A real MaiTai. As in Trader Vic’s original 1940-something masterpiece (minus the original $50,000 a bottle rum). As in not that sweet mess you get virtually everywhere these days, if quixotically order one up. I’m betting the Hills is the only bar in Columbus with a bottle of oregeat behind the mahogany. If I’m wrong, I really want to know where it is! And they garnish it with a luxurious stem of Kentucky Colonel mint that I’ve now discovered really adds more than just pretty to the drink’s enjoyability. Never again will I garnish my MaiTais with lime!
Ditch the straw, people. It just takes away from the fragrance of the mint.
For those of you among my readers who are members, make sure you try a real MaiTai next time you hit the bar. This is a special cocktail, folks. If you live in Columbus and aren’t a member at the Worthington Hills, well, neener, neener. Or give me a call. I’ll get you in long enough to see what you’ve missing ’till now.
Now, it’s true that some of the upgrades in mixology have been in response to prodding from some damn cocktail geek who is there more than is good for him…

Gee.
I wonder who that could be!

Sure, I’ve pushed some recipes into their repertoire by ordering them over and over, and getting others to order them. But I also want to say that a lot of the improvement in available ingredients is due to the fine efforts of our new head bartender, Tony Baker. (For you members, that’s Bald Tony, as opposed to Big Tony. I’m not saying Big Tony isn’t going bald, and Bald Tony isn’t big, just that Tony Myers is bigger than Tony Baker, and Tony Baker is much balder than Tony Myers….) Thanks, Tony! Keep up the good fight!

This is the first post in a new series for me. Columbus, Ohio may be behind (way behind) cities like New York, Portland, or Seattle in the modern bar progression, but we do have a few sparks of light in this vast wasteland of college and alumni bars. I’ve detailed Details to death here already, but as big a fan of that watering hole as I am, the real driver toward a better class of cocktail in Central Ohio is the medium-sized chain of fine restaurants run by Cameron Mitchell. Not so very, very long ago, Cameron got bar religion. The first places in town (and still almost the only places in town) where I actually saw lime and lemons juiced right in front of me were Cameron’s restaurants, or restaurants where he consults. To my regular readership in the cocktailian world, freshly squeezed citrus is so basic as to be akin to Thou Shalt Not Kill. But to the average Central Ohio bartender or patron, explaining the value of fresh lime juice is like explaining the virtues of microwave ovens to an ancient Incan. Now, none of Cameron’s establishments are going to threaten Vessel, or Pegu Club, or the Velvet Tango Room for cocktailian supremacy any time soon, but they are the best I have to choose from around here, especially if I want a full (and damn good) meal to follow my drink.
Therefore, I will be embarking on a series of profiles of the Mitchell’s restaurants, and more to the point their bars, in the coming weeks. It’s hard work, eating in the best restaurants in town and downing good drinks, but I’m willing to do it, for you. I’m going to try to feature a specific drink and/or bartender at each location, as well.
First up in this series is M at Miranova. Located downtown, on the first floor of the Miranova riverfront skyscraper, M is Cameron’s most modern, avant garde establishment. The menu offers sushi, steaks, and other delicate, delicious offerings. I call it hearty haute cuisine. Hear that, Seattle and New York? Come to Columbus, where even the finest food arrives table-side via forklift. (I kid my city, but only a little.)

The bar at M is the central feature of the restaurant, dominating the length of the restaurant with a huge, shifting color, backlit wall. They offer an extensive, well-balanced, and not terribly discounted wine list, as well as a reasonable beer selection, if you must. The cocktail menu actually has a number of original cocktails that are or look to be worth drinking, almost all featuring fresh squeezed or muddled ingredients. I have been eating and drinking at M regularly but infrequently since it opened (it’s a long way from my house). The bartenders have turned over in that time, but everyone behind the sleek plexiglass counter are consistently intelligent, educated, mixologists. Moreover, at M, unlike some of Cameron’s more frantic locations, they usually have time to for a little conversation about booze. This is a major plus for me, of course.
The minuses for the bar at M are the same as those I’ve found at most Mitchell’s joints. Aside from the emphasis on fresh fruits, the ingredients on offer are fairly pedestrian. There are no exotic gins, beyond Hendrick’s, on offer. No absinthe, or Lillet, or orgeat, or falernum peeked their necks out to entice me into a Vesper, Corpse Reviver, or Mai Tai. M’s inventory covers all the basics, and covers them very well. But for the adventurous cocktailian, there is still room for improvement. Of course, they may have a secret stash of Old Raj, Fernet Branca, and homemade cinnamon syrup that I simply didn’t ask the right questions about, but I doubt it.
This last Friday I was at loose ends. I had a babysitter, but I also had a wife in Georgia. Instead of choosing to go out and get into what little trouble Columbus has to offer, I opted for drinks and dinner at the bar at M to kick off this series of posts. My bartender this time was Cris, a mixologist by calling whom I had not encountered before. She and I, and the wine-drinking couple beside me whose date I kept interrupting, had a fine conversation about liquor, cocktails, wine snobbery, and of course the literary phenomenon that is sweeping the nation: The Pegu Blog.
The evening was marred only briefly when Cris revealed to me that she will be attending Tales, the lucky wench. My fellow cocktail bloggers know how much I cheerfully despise them for being able to go when I cannot find the time, so it’s only fair I hate Cris too. I did tell her who I expected her to go pester while there. Consider yourselves forewarned, dudes and dudettes. Oh, and I’ll be interested to see which exotic ingredients that I griped about being missing above show up at M once Cris gets back from Tales.
I went through the cocktail menu and chose a cocktail from the seasonal menu, one it turns out Cris authored herself, the Blood Orange Margarita. It was quite appealing, and although she happily gave me the recipe, I won’t post it here. I won’t because:

• I didn’t ask permission,
• I immediately saw how I wanted to tinker with it, resulting in a cocktail that may appeal more to both me and my regular readership, if not necessarily to M’s usual clientele.

Said tinkering has been accomplished, and it gave me the results I wanted. If you live in Columbus, I suggest you hightail it down to M and try the original, as well as mixing up mine. Let me know which you prefer.

A couple of notes here: I don’t like salted rims that much, as I feel like I either get too little or too much salt with each sip. The salt isn’t really necessary in this Margarita at all, but if you do want some, try mixing it in the drink for a change of pace.

Also, I find it a particularly good application for the Tequila Ocho Plata I specified. I intend to do a full review later on this bottle, but I’ll take the opportunity to talk a bit about it here and now. (It was not what M uses, for what it is worth. Tequila Ocho is not for sale in Ohio, more’s the pity.) The Ocho is very mild, even sweet, and pairs very well with the exotic nectar of the blood orange. In fact, I think this tequila might get a bit lost in a regular Margarita, it is so mild.
As a shot, it is lethally soft. It’s not unflavorfully smooth, mind you, but it is awfully easy to down, especially for an unaged bottle. Beware.
Frankly, for a tequila aficionado, which I am not, I suspect the Plata would be a little bland. For a guy like me who likes to tinker, and also likes the occasional brush with the signature funk of agave, it’s a damn fine bottle to play with. It’s perfect for the drink I just outlined, and I intend to try it very soon with the Mai Tai variant, the Pinky Gonzales, where I think it will shine.

Here’s a complete list of the posts so far in my Meandering Through Mitchell’s series:

• The Blood Orange Margarita: A "Meandering Through Mitchell's" Find
• "Meandering Through Mitchell's": Mitchell's Ocean Club
• The Vanilla Bean Old Fashioned: A Meandering Through Mitchell's Find
• The Plasma Mary

In my main review of Details Minibar and Lounge, I mentioned a feature adventure that they offer, The Detailed Experience. Maggi and I went with our friends Carol and Greg on Friday night to experience the Experience.
The Detailed Experience is available for groups of two to six people, and takes place upstairs at the open kitchen. The kitchen is set up like a very modern diner, with six seats at the bar counter, giving you a full view as the food is prepared. They offer seatings at six and nine, and the meal will last at least two hours. Ours took almost two and a half. The meal consists of ten courses from on and off the menu. The chef chooses which ten he’ll make, and in what order, for each Experience, and apparently the group before us at six had five different dishes than we did at nine. If our experience is any indication, they will ask you at least three times between when you make the reservations and when you start eating if you have any food allergies. It was amusing to me, but I suppose if you have any such allergies, this is another detail to appreciate.
Chef Drew Garms presides over the whole thing, preparing and serving each dish for you himself, explaining how it’s done, and also why, if you express interest. How much he talks to your group depends on what you want. If you are working a client, or fighting with your spouse, he’ll leave you alone. If you are full of questions, like we were, he’ll do a great job of answering them in as much depth as you like. He’s a charming and entertaining host.
And oh yeah, and he serves some fascinating and delicious food.
There’s no point in giving you the full menu, since if you go, you won’t have the same things at all. But I will talk about a few of the courses that exemplify the whole thing. Drew started out with a little molecular mixology, serving us a Liquid Nitrogen Margarita:

To freeze the Maragrita, Drew slowly whisks in liquid nitrogen into a classic Margarita until it reaches a perfect, slushy consistency. I was actually surprised at how long this took, but apparently if you do it too fast, you get a giant Margaritacicle on a whisk. I’ve had nitrogen frozen drinks before, but the twist he added was the salt. Rather than rimming the glass, Chef topped it with a dollop of salt air. To make this, you mix salt water and lecithin, then whip it lightly. Spoon up what forms on the surface and you have a relatively stable puff of sea foam. Incidentally, this is more than just a show-off way of doing a Frozen Margarita. Maggi and I both agreed that the foam was a far superior way to deliver the salt. It is smoother and melds better with the drink.
Another dish that I took pictures of as Chef Drew prepared it was this one:

Not sure what it is? I didn’t know what is was at this point either.
It’s a Cobb Salad. Don’t beleive me?
How about now?

For the record, I’m not a big Cobb Salad guy. But I destroyed this.
There were a number of other dishes, including sushi tacos and a chocolate dirt pile for a final course, and they were all winners. Alright, there was a chutney with one dish that was merely OK. Personally, I actually felt reassured by this. It meant I wasn’t just loving the food because of the atmosphere. Chef Drew’s grumpiness that his chutney failed to enrapture me was just another sign, beyond the quality of the food, of his perfectionism.
The Detailed Experience is not a completely unique idea, of course. There are a number of high-end restaurants around the U.S. and the world that offer this kind of hours long, small plate dining experience. But my friend Greg, who’s tried a few others, confirmed several things I had surmised:

• There is enough food here. While, you won’t get stuffed, the combined courses add up to a true, full meal. And really, do you want to be needing White Castle after a meal of this quality? No.
• The food really is outstanding. Period.
• No, Columbus, it isn’t cheap. Not in absolute terms. An evening doing the Detailed Experience will likely run you almost as much as a spread at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. But in comparison to similar offerings in other cities, it is a steal. Try an eating adventure like this in New York or Chicago, and your check will literally be an order of magnitude higher, plus the cost of those sliders you’ll need afterward to fill you up.

The cocktails were as beautifully prepared as I expected, and the bar staff makes sure you don’t forget them while you eat. Though I did not mention it in my bar review, Details offers a nice beer and wine list (PDF) as well. The beers are a pretty esoteric selection of offerings (though The Usual Suspects are available as well). The wine list has mostly european offerings. Though it isn’t long, there’s something there to float the boat of most wine drinkers.
Details really is an apt name for this restaurant. Go there and it will be as apparent to you as it is to me that this is both a labor of love and product of great skill.
Details is located on North High Street in the Short North District of Columbus, next door to Rosendale’s. Valet parking out front. 614-298-1301 for reservations for the Detailed Experience. You need to call at least 24 hours in advance. For my review of the cocktail bar area downstairs, go here.

Last night, Maggi and I went for the first time to Details Minibar & Lounge in Columbus’s Short North. Details, which just opened in December, is the sister establishment to its next door neighbor Rosendale’s, which I wrote about earlier. So as not to bury the lede, Details is the first real, new-era cocktail lounge to appear in Columbus. With a drink menu consisting of properly made classics, as well as a few interesting originals, and a bottle inventory that warms the heart of folks like me, Details finally provides Columbus, Ohio with a bar where even the most obnoxious, persnickety, nerdish, cocktail snobs on the planet would feel happy to have a drink. And Details, while not a full restaurant, offers eats on a similarly high level.
I’m dancing a little cocktail-geek dance right now. You can’t see it, but it is true.
Hopefully this will be interesting both to readers from Central Ohio, and those in the greater Cocktail Nation. For locals, if you like fine cocktails, your ship has come in and you need to go meet it. For those outside the Greater Central-Buckeye Co-Prosperity Sphere, understand that Columbus is America’s Test Market. We often get trends here later than in the avant-gard, coastal markets, but when those things do take hold here, you can expect to them spreading into mainstream America in short order. New York may be the place where “if you can make there, you can make it anywhere,” but with Columbus, if you can make it there, you can make it everywhere. Craft bartenders, cross your fingers. If Details works here, it likely indicates that there will be an explosion of need for your skills in lots of new markets where housing costs a lot less than San Francisco or Seattle….
I am quite serious when I say that Details is designed and executed to be a top shelf cocktail lounge, in the class of Pegu Club, Velvet Tango Room, or Vessel. Foremost, the cocktail menu (pdf) includes an array of serious cocktailian favorites, such as the Moscow Mule, Pimm’s Cup, Old-Fashioned, Daiquiri and Margarita (this post does not apply at Details), and mama mia, the Aviation. They also have a number of cocktails that the Beverage Manager, Chris Dillman has created that seem well worth the drinking. The wall of bottles offers a breadth of ingredients not found elsewhere in our fair city, with the Aviation-required Creme de Violette, St. Germaine, Maraschino Liqueur, Lillet (Blanc and Rouge) and a host of high-end bourbons and cognacs.
I started out with an Aviation (pictured above, with my stylish hat). When I started writing about cocktails, I quickly realized that knowledge of the Aviation is like the secret handshake of cocktail geeks. The Aviation I had here had a nice firm grip and looked you straight in the eye. I never before bothered with the careful layer of Creme de Violette on the bottom of the glass like an expensive garnish, but it looks just so darn nice, I will from now on. Maggi started with her standard bartender test, the Sidecar (not on the menu). The bartender (Matt, I believe), took the time to find out what exactly she wanted under that name and delivered an excellent result.
For a second drink, I had a Singapore Sling. I had just spent time crafting one of these myself the night before, and unfortunately there was a distinct quality difference. This one was better than mine! I hate it when that happens.
Maggi rounded out her drinks with one of Detail’s original concoctions, a Mojito 183. This is a Mojito modified with the addition of Licor 43 and Green Chartreuse, and a lessening of the mint. The result is a much more complex, more herbaceous drink than its progenitor. I doubt it is for everyone, but if your tastes run that way, it is definitely worth the try.
I’l round out the discussion of the menu, and its appeal to the cocktail snob with a quote from the first item on the menu:

Martini
We are unabashed purists.
Your choice of Gin and a healthy pour of dry vermouth.
On the rocks if you must. Optional Olive or Twist.
Not available in Vodka.
(emphasis mine)

The architecture is very clean and modern, with an open design, metal bar top, and bar stools that are surprisingly comfortable, if perhaps two inches too high. The bar itself isn’t very big, with perhaps twelve seats. There are a couple of tables downstairs by the bar, with more to be found up the prominent, glass-railed stairs, along with some couches in a secluded area in back. The whole look is slightly more sterile than meets my taste, but it is a very attractive, cohesive design that makes this small space seem as big as possible.
If the top-notch cocktails aren’t enough of a draw for you, then let’s discuss the food. Chef Drew Garms came up under some impressive tutors, especially Richard Rosendale, who presides over the mothership restaurant next door. The menu at Details is fairly small, featuring seriously foodie versions of traditional pub food, but no major entrées. We saw Tuna Tar Tar Tacos and Angus Beef Sliders being utterly destroyed by the folks just down the bar from us, and they certainly looked to be worth destroying. We went with a couple of items from the Bar Bites section of the menu: The Smoked Paprika Potato Chips and the Red Hot Pork Rinds.

Pork Rinds?!?
Seriously? Pork Rinds?
Isn’t that kinda redneck, if the joint is as swanky as you say?

Yes, porkrinds are kind of a redneck delicacy. I was raised among rednecks, I know. But as I said, foodie versions of pub food. If you live in Columbus, drive, drive now, as swiftly as you can reasonably get away with, to Details. Order the pork rinds. Enjoy. I’ll wait. By the way, they serve them in little metal baskets that look like deep fryer baskets. They are very cool and a much better choice than the presentation in the picture to the right that I stole from their website.

OK, yeah.
Those are good.

Told you. The chips were great too, but not as yummy as the pork rinds.
And yes, I can’t believe I’m rapturing on about pork rinds either.

One last wonderful feature of Details, one that we couldn’t enjoy this trip but will soon, is the Detailed Experience. On the second floor, there is a second, smaller bar with only six seats, that is used only for the Detailed Experience. There are two available seatings each evening, at 6:00 and 9:00, for two to six people, with reservations twenty-four hours in advance being virtually mandatory. For two hours, you and your party sit at the Minibar and are served a series of ten small plates, none or almost none from the menu. The offerings change constantly, but the price is a constant fifty five dollars. Your chef prepares each dish at the bar while you watch, explaining the methods and taking your questions. As with the cocktails, the theme is attention to detail (Get it? Details?) and the offerings seem to be pretty elaborate. I absolutely love to watch any sort of craftsman show off, and when I get to enjoy the results, so much the better. When I get a chance to try the Detailed Experience, I’ll post a follow up. UPDATE—You can read my review of the Detailed Experience here.
Simply put, Details is a gem. If you live in Columbus, or visit here, drop in and enjoy. And if you are a cocktailian who lives elsewhere, be excited that a place like this is showing up in a city like Columbus.