Anyway, as part of my continuing work with the Small Screen Network, I’ve put together my rebuttal and a quick demonstration of what I think a proper mint julep should be. Seems like a lot of people liked the last one, so I hope this one is just as satisfying. Click the image below to head over to Small Screen and check it out.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Sorry, lady, but that is definitely not a Mint Julep.

Well, regardless, in order to commemorate this very special event I’ve teamed up with the Small Screen Network to shoot what I hope will be a series of informative, but also very different sorts of videos. Rather than the traditional format of standing behind the bar and lecturing you about drinks, these are a bit more narrative and exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from me (minus the swearing).

For this first installment, we’re shooting a response to the now-famous Daiquiri video that made the rounds for several years before being taken down. Rather than discuss the disputed history I’ll just show you how to make the damn thing, and quite well, might I add.

I’m stoked to be working with Small Screen Network, and to be up there with such an impressive roster of talent – the people that I’ve looked up to for years in this business. So without further ado, here’s the video:

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Not Fuck Up a Daiquiri

In my opinion, one of the greatest triumphs of the cocktail renaissance is the rediscovery of the classic Old Fashioned. I’ve often spoken of how at some point after the repeal of Prohibition, the Old Fashioned became lost and possibly confused with a long-forgotten drink called a Smash (basically a tarted-up Mint Julep covered in fruit), a mere husk of its former, glorious self.

For decades, bartenders just like me served a limp, weak concoction consisting of a half-muddled sugar cube, a mashed-up neon red cherry and orange, a splash of whiskey, and some soda water drowning the results.

With a little luck, and a lot of hard work, that’s all changed with the renewed interest in classic cocktails. Now at any given night at my bar you can find literally a dozen people sipping on two ounces bourbon touched with a teaspoon of sugar and two dashes of bitters, garnished with a simple orange twist over a couple big ice cubes.

But don’t try to pull that bullshit with the good people of the Great State of Wisconsin, where the Brandy Old Fashioned rules supreme. It’s not the same drink as above, it just shares a name. And if you make it right, really right, it’s a damn delicious cocktail and worthy of examination.

Being located in a hotel, we’re used to serving folks from all over the world. And the first time I witnessed a guest from Wisconsin stare blankly as one of my bartenders handed over two ounces of Cognac touched with a teaspoon of sugar and two dashes of bitters and garnished with a simple orange twist over a couple big ice cubes, I knew some further training was in order.

So in the name of making cocktails – all cocktails – with as much of our hearts as we can offer, I present to you what I believe to be the perfect Brandy Old Fashioned… Wisconsin-style.

I start with an old fashioned glass I’ve chilled in the freezer. Call it a tumbler, call it a double rocks glass, or call it a bucket, it’s a glass you’re familiar with. To that I add two dashes of Angostura bitters and a teaspoon of sugar. If I’m in a hurry I use a 2:1 simple syrup, but if I’m going to spend some time, I use a sugar cube. The sugar cube is preferable here because it’s going to add some friction to the muddling we’re about to do. Brace yourselves, cocktail “nerds”.

Next I’ll take a thick-cut orange wedge, and a cherry. The usual suspect here is a grocery store maraschino cherry, but I always choose a brandied Amarena cherry. Remember, you’re going to get out what you put in, so a quality cherry is going to make the drink that much better.

I muddle the sugar, bitters, orange wedge and cherry into a thick paste, careful not to touch the orange peel too much as it’ll bring unwanted bitterness to the party – just work around the peel and pulverize that orange meat.

Your standard Brandy Old Fashioned brandy of choice is Korbel: cheap California brandy. Considering the hundreds of thousands of cases they ship to Wisconsin every year, it might be considered sacrosanct to use anything else. But if you want to do this right, really right, then do yourself a favor and use some good Cognac. I have my preferred brandy, you have yours.

At this point your typical Wisconsinite barkeep is going to add ice and finish the drink in one of two main ways: sweet or sour. Those who take it sweet will ask for a splash of Sprite or 7-Up, those who take it sour get a dose of Collins Mix or Squirt. To me, it’s just a way of watering down the drink, so I leave out the soda and take a more… cocktail-y method.

Crushed ice is a must for me whenever I whip up a Brandy Old Fashioned. I always skip the soda and let the tiny shards of ice do the work, taming those strong, sweet flavors and turning this into a drink you can sip slowly.

As for a garnish, most will throw a “flag” of an orange wedge and a cherry spiked through with a wooden toothpick, but my take here is that those things are already in the drink, so I skip ‘em. Besides, how pretty does that look without the goofy fruit salad perched over the top?

You know, it’s something to enjoy sipping on while you cook up some bratwurst and onions in a boiling kettle of beer before everyone comes over to watch the Packers game. Drink accordingly.

Brandy Old Fashioned

1 sugar cube or 1 tsp 2:1 simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 orange wedge
1 cherry, preferably Amarena or Maraska
2 oz brandy or Cognac

In a chilled old fashioned glass, muddle the sugar, bitters, orange wedge and cherry into a thick paste, careful not to work the orange peel. Add brandy or Cognac, stir, and fill glass with crushed ice and serve.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Brandy Old Fashioned

A couple of years ago, like so many other bartenders around the world, I implemented a daily punch program at my bar. It’s been well received by our guests, who enjoy exploring a different, interesting and inexpensive tipple every night. And my staff loves it, because it’s a drink that can be poured and handed over to the guest in absolutely no time at all, but provides a daily conversation piece to interact with the folks across the bar.

One of the key components to a classic punch, as we learned from our friend David Wondrich in his book Punch, is a proper oleo saccharum. The process involves peeling citrus (usually lemon) and gently muddling it into superfine sugar, letting it rest for an hour or more. I always recommend stirring the mixture occasionally until the sugar essentially melts from the citrus oil as it leeches from the peels. What you’re left with is a sweet, aromatic base for a tasty bowl of punch.

The problem? Well, the biggest drawback has been having to haul myself in to the bar every morning for the past two years and preparing the oleo saccharum, then mixing the punch and chilling it before the evening’s service. I’d prefer to hand over the duty to my daytime prep bartender, but tending to an oleo saccharum every day would have been one additional duty that he just didn’t need. In Wondrich’s own words, “This process is admittedly time-consuming and to some degree a laborious one.”

If only there were a quicker way to prepare oleo saccharum, a method that didn’t require any stirring or tending, a method that could be prepared ahead of time without fear of spoilage or evaporation, so that a delicious punch could be prepared quickly by anyone with a recipe.

Here’s our solution: superfine sugar and lemon peels are immediately placed into a vacuum seal bag and sealed. Over the course of four to six hours, the lemon oils in the airtight environment leech out and perfectly dissolve the entire mass of sugar, without any need for a watchful eye or constant agitation. Once the process is complete, the bags are dated and refrigerated, and ready for use. We prepare a week’s worth at a time, and the last bag is every bit as fresh as the first. We use the inexpensive FoodSaver vaccum sealer ($50 on Amazon), and quart-sized bags ($20 for 44) at our bar.

One of our favorite punches from David’s book is the classic Philadelphia Fish House Punch, updated with his kludges, and re-updated here using the vacuum seal oleo saccharum technique.

Philadelphia Fish House Punch

Adapted from a recipe by David Wondrich

1 pound superfine sugar
12 lemons, peeled

Place sugar and lemon peels into a vaccum-seal bag and seal according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Let rest at room temperature for four hours, or overnight, until the sugar is soaked in lemon oil. When punch is ready to assemble, pour contents into an eight-quart container and add:

16 oz Appleton V/X rum
8 oz Smith and Cross rum
12 oz Hennessy VS cognac
3 oz Briotette creme de peche
9 oz Laird’s applejack
16 oz lemon juice, finely strained
6 pints cold water

Makes approximately 5½ quarts.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Vacuum Seal Oleo Saccharum

I have a confession for you: I can’t remember how to make a Mai Tai. I’m serious, I can’t. I mean, I know what goes in one, I know the legend of the drink, the names of the supposed creators, and the importance of the Mai Tai in modern cocktail culture. I can even conjure up the flavor and texture of the three most perfect Mai Tais I’ve ever had as if they were sitting in front of me.

But for the life of me I can never remember if it’s a half ounce of orgeat and a quarter ounce of simple syrup, or a quarter ounce of orgeat and a half ounce of simple syrup. Honestly, I probably get about five Mai Tai orders a year at my bar, so there’s a lot of time to forget exactly how to make one.

So, rather than just guess at it and risk screwing up my guest’s drink order, I simply swallow my pride and reach for a book that I’ve kept in my back pocket for the past six years: a Moleskine Address Book that contains every drink recipe I deem worthwhile.

It’s the most important tool I own, and I never set foot behind a bar without my book. The alphabetical tabs make it quick and easy to look up a recipe, and inside I’ve got years worth of classic cocktails, house recipes, syrup and mixer recipes for prep or to share with guests, variations, and layer upon layer of correction fluid and margin notes. It’s absolutely indispensable to me.

I also keep a second copy behind the bar, with every house recipe and house version of classic cocktails for my bar staff to consult when a menu drink from two years ago comes across the bar. Additionally, I present each new bartender with their own blank recipe book on their first day behind the bar, and we’ve all spent many late nights sharing with each other and transcribing the recipes we’ve discovered during our travels.

It’s the first thing I mention when aspiring bartenders ask me what my ideal tool kit would be. With a good book, the rest of what we do can be improvised. Pick one up for yourself here.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

The Most Important Bar Tool You’re Probably Not Using

No, really. I’m serious. In case you think I’m joking, or that you read that wrong, let me go on the record right now:

I make the best Amaretto Sour you’ve ever had in your life. No ifs, ands or buts about it, my Amaretto Sour dominates and crushes all others out there. And now, I’m going to share my secrets with you.

There are two things that impede all other Amaretto Sours from challenging mine. First off, the obvious: they’re too sweet. One does not simply use an everyday sour recipe to make a world-class Amaretto Sour, it must be adjusted for this particular liqueur.

Second, and this is a big one: amaretto isn’t strong enough on its own to stand up to a bunch of other ingredients. It’s weak. It needs help. And for this, I enlist the assistance of an old friend. One that knows amaretto’s strengths and weaknesses. Or, mainly, its weaknesses. One that works with amaretto, to complete it like Jerry Maguire completes Rene Zellwiger’s character, whatever her name was. And that, my friends, is cask-proof bourbon.

Behold, the recipe:

Amaretto Sour

Makes 1 Awesome Drink

1½ oz amaretto (I love the Lazzaroni amaretto, but DiSaronno works well here, too)
¾ oz cask-proof bourbon (I use Booker’s, from the Jim Beam distillery)
1 oz lemon juice
1 tsp. 2:1 simple syrup
½ oz egg white, beaten

Dry shake ingredients to combine, then shake well with cracked ice. Strain over fresh ice in an old fashioned glass. Garnish with lemon peel and brandied cherries, if desired. Serve and grin like an idiot as your friends freak out.

The Video

on Small Screen Network

My friends at Small Screen Network and I made a little video about the Amaretto Sour in my apartment a while ago, for a series we’re calling The Morgenthaler Method. Click below to watch the video:

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

I Make the Best Amaretto Sour in The World

I guess I’m getting old. I don’t say this because my fortieth birthday is approaching like a speeding bullet, but this: I know that cocktail carbonation is the hot new thing right now, but if someone hands me another carbonated Manhattan I’m going to cry into it, I swear.

Believe me, I’m all for innovation in this little business of ours. I mean, crap, I’ve made quite a name for myself capitalizing on it. But just as I don’t think we need to run around barrel-aging every god damn liquid out there, I fail to see the longevity of a glass of carbonated Barolo, and I’ll be damned if I want my Sazerac full of bubbles.

That said, there’s nothing like a little fizz on the tongue. I’ve always been enamoured with the sorts of long drinks you find in European cafes: the Americano, the Aperol Spritz, and the Bicyclette. These afternoon refreshers share a common structure of a low-alcohol bitter base, a measure of fortified wine, some citrus oil, and a sparkling component for length. They’re light, palate cleansers, appetite awakeners, and thirst quenchers. God damn they’re delicious.

What if… okay, what if we could take a café cocktail, which traditionally relies on just a splash of sparkling water or wine for its fizz, and carbonate the whole thing: base spirit, modifier, lengthener, garnish and all? And what if we could keep it bottled and perfectly chilled to control dilution by omitting the ice? Now that, my friends, might be a reasonable use of a carbonator.

Born from the Jerry Thomas era and inspired by a brown-bagged Pisco and fruit juice variation I tried at Aviary in Chicago last month, the bottled sparkling café cocktails we’re currently serving at Clyde Common are tailor-made for our particular beverage program. There are benefits from a service standpoint to the pre-bottled cocktail, of course, but we also have some very specific reasons why these café coolers work well in this carbonated format.

• They are, essentially, spirit-driven, so there is no need to worry about spoilage.
• The entire drink is carbonated, providing a more complete experience than simply adding a sparkling finish as one would do when building these drinks à la minute.
• And the whole bottle is pre-chilled, eliminating the need for ice and maintaining perfect dilution from beginning to end.

Anyway, there’s the reasoning behind it, let’s begin:

You’re going to need some equipment to get started here, the primary piece of equipment being a carbonator. At at home and in my bar, I use a very inexpensive carbonator called the iSi Twist ’n’ Sparkle (it’s like $35 on Amazon). Next you’re going to need some empty bottles (we use clear 187 ml Champagne bottles at my bar, check your local homebrew shop for other options, just make sure they’re crown-cappable), a bottle capper, and some bottle caps.

The Twist ‘n’ Sparkle will carbonate three cups of cocktail at a time, so use this basic formula for three cups of Americano:

Bottled Carbonated Americano

6 oz sweet vermouth (something drier than Carpano; think Cinzano, Dolin Rouge or Martini and Rossi here)
4.5 oz Campari
13.5 oz water
1 orange, peeled with a vegetable peeler, zests squeezed into the mixture to express the oils

Carbon dioxide is much more soluble in cold liquid than warm, so you’ll need to get this mixture cold. I typically make a batch a day ahead of time, and then store it in the fridge. Your call.

Fill the carbonator and carbonate according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Once it’s done doing its business, you’re going to need to fill some bottles, and rather quickly before the carbonation dissipates.

I have a small funnel attached to a piece of plastic tubing that has been trimmed to fit my bottles’ height exactly. This is going to allow us to fill the bottles from the bottom, and avoid a big, bubbly, heady mess (those bubbles mean carbon dioxide is escaping your solution). Slowly fill each bottle and cap using your handy bottle capper.

We serve these drinks to our guests in the bottle, with no glass or ice alongside. I think a fun part of the experience is sipping them directly from the bottle, enjoying the maximum amount of fizz as the drink hits your tongue and releases its bubbles. It’s playful, it’s whimsical, sessionable, drinkable, and fun. And, as you can see from the video below by our friends at Small Screen Network, it’s easy.

Cheers.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Bottled Carbonated Cocktails

One advantage I have in my career – and believe me, I thank my lucky stars every day for my good fortune in this regard – is that I travel a lot. And when I do travel, I get to visit the greatest bars in the world and spend time picking the brains of the world’s greatest bartenders.

The most recent drink to grace our cocktail list is the result of my travels.

Taking inspiration from many sources, my initial interest in bitter, sour and sweet with a distinctly tropical bent was taken directly from the ever-brilliant Giuseppe Gonzalez and his now-famous Trinidad Sour.

While I, and the rest of the world, was taken by the combination of bitter, herbal, sweet flavors, it never really struck me as a an extensible sort of drink style until I came across Andrew Bohrer’s amaro-based Mai Tai variation called the “Elena’s Virtue”. Now here was a drink with legs, and a hint of what was to come in the world of cocktails, in my humble opinion.

But what New York and Seattle do well, San Francisco often does better, and usually with a lot more Fernet Branca, and that’s the conversation I had with Josh Harris while competing in the Domaine de Canton finals in St. Maarten this spring. And after tasting his simple concoction of ginger liqueur, pineapple and Fernet Branca I knew it was time for me to get my feet wet and try my hand at the herbal tropical sour.

The result has been a smash hit at the bar, as it very much follows in the style of our restaurant bar, a reflection of the crafted European style of cooking that emerges from the kitchen on a nightly basis. In other words, earthy, sour, herbal flavors do very, very well where we work.

Put all of this together, throw in a desire to explore the dusty, neglected bottle of Drambuie, and an early morning racking one’s brain to come up with a drink name (the original intent was Brixton Club) and a star was born:

Kingston Club

1½ oz Drambuie
1½ oz pineapple juice
¾ oz lime juice
1 tsp Fernet Branca
3 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake ingredients with ice and finish with 1 oz soda water. Strain mix over fresh ice into a chilled collins glass and garnish with an orange twist.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

The Kingston Club

Contrary to what you may have heard, there’s more to my job than coming up with cool mezcal cocktails and bitching about having to write the schedule. At the end of the day, I’ve got to approach this career as a professional, with an eye on business. One of the more challenging parts of my job is designing a cocktail menu that is not only constantly fresh and on the cutting-edge, but also satisfies my two cruel taskmasters: our guests, and the guy who signs my paycheck.

My guests need to feel like they’re getting their money’s worth when they’re spending it at my bar. My restaurant needs to make a certain margin in order to pay purveyors, sign payroll, and maintain bills. The beauty of my job lies in that place in between, where guests are happy and the business is healthy. That place in between is where a successful bar lives.

There is some simple math involved with pricing a cocktail. At the core, all you need to do is figure out how much the drink costs to make, and multiply by your targeted pour cost (if you’re unsure what this is, ask your boss or bookkeeper; the industry standard usually lies somewhere between 18% and 24%). It’s that easy, but it can get a little tricky sometimes. And so…

Download my fancy cocktail pricing calculator here.

Over the years I’ve developed a lot of spreadsheets to help make my job easier, and I’m going to share my simple cost calculator with you here today. All you need to plug into the formula are the following pieces of information: the cost and size of each bottle you’re pouring from, the cocktail recipe, and your target pour cost (all highlighted in yellow). The spreadsheet will calculate the rest.

Keep in mind that this is pricing at its most simple. The orchestration of a full cocktail menu can be a beautiful and complex thing, or it can be as simple as using the spreadsheet above. A simple list would have all of its drinks priced according to the formula I’ve given you. A complex list – like the one I currently curate – takes into account some other factors.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you’ve got a two-drink cocktail menu, consisting of Drink A and Drink B.

Drink A is a complex cocktail that requires a little more attention from the bartender and uses some more obscure, expensive ingredients. It costs $10 but comes in at a 32% pour cost, but it’s designed appeal to a smaller segment of the customer base, and therefore you only sell ten of them a night. You make up for this with Drink B. Drink B costs $8 but comes in at a 17% pour cost. It’s appealing to a much larger audience, and therefore you sell 150 of them a night. Drink A is called a loss leader and it keeps your bar on the cutting edge, is there for the cocktail geeks, and helps stimulate the sale of Drink B by bringing in a constant flow of new guests to the bar. And the good news is that you can calculate all of these percentages with the spreadsheet I’m providing you.

I hope this spreadsheet helps and is of some help to at least a few of you out there. If there’s enough interest in this boring topic I’ll be happy to post some of my other formulas in the interest of being of service to my fellow bar managers everywhere.

Download my fancy cocktail pricing calculator (in metric) here.

As a last-minute addition, I’m including a metric version of this spreadsheet for our friends outside of the United States. I think I’ve converted everything successfully but if anyone notices any problems (yes, the default currency is in Euros but that shouldn’t have any bearing on the final numbers) please do let me know.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Price a Cocktail Menu

Inspired by a visit to see Tony Conigliaro at the unnamed bar at 69 Colebrooke Row in London last fall, where Manhattans are aged in glass vessels to sublime and subtle effect, the barrel aged cocktails I’ve been serving at Clyde Common this year are a decidedly American curiosity.

The rub of aging cocktails in a glass bottle is that the whole premise is built upon subtlety, as we know that spirits aged in glass or steel do so at an unremarkable pace. Being from the United States, where – as everyone is aware – bigger equals better, I pondered the following question: what if you could prepare a large batch of a single, spirit-driven cocktail and age it in a used oak barrel?

A hundred some-odd dollars in liquor later, I was nervously pouring a gallon of pre-batched rye Manhattans into a small, used oak cask whose previous contents were a gallon Madeira wine. I plugged the barrel and sat back in anxious anticipation; if the experiment was a success I’d have a delicious cocktail to share at the bar – if it was a failure then I’d be pouring the restaurant’s money down the floor drain.

Over the next several weeks I popped open the barrel to test my little concoction until I stumbled upon the magic mark at five-to-six weeks. And there it was, lying beautifully on the the finish: a soft blend of oak, wine, caramel and char. That first batch sold out in a matter of days and I was left with a compelling need to push the process even further.

We procured a small number of used whiskey casks from the Tuthilltown distillery and proceeded to fill them with a large batch of Negronis; and that’s when the magic of barrel aged cocktails grabbed our attention. After six weeks in the bourbon barrel, our Negroni emerged a rare beauty. The sweet vermouth so slightly oxidized, the color paler and rosier than the original, the mid-palate softly mingled with whiskey, the finish long and lingering with oak tannins. We knew we were on to something unique and immediately made plans to take the cask aging program to the next level.

Negronis are now prepared in five-gallon batches and poured into multiple bourbon barrels. Robert Hess’ ubiquitous Trident cocktail is currently resting inside single-malt barrels. The El Presidente (à la Matt Robold), Deshlers, Remember the Maines, they’re all receiving the oaked treatment in a little storage room in the basement of the restaurant that I refer to as my “office”.

Once the cocktail is aged long enough for my taste, I then drain the bottle, straining out any charred bits of wood, and bottle the contents for use by my bartenders. To order, the cocktail is then measured out and poured over ice in a mixing glass, stirred, strained into a cocktail glass, and then garnished with the appropriate garnish. It’s quick and simple, as all of the real work has already been done by the barrel.

Anyway, on to the recipes. As simple as it seems to do, I figured not everyone is going to want to do the math to get started on some of these recipes, so here are a few I’ve figured out:

Negroni

Makes Three Gallons

128 oz (approximately five 750ml bottles) dry gin
128 oz sweet vermouth
128 oz Campari

Stir ingredients together (without ice) and pour into a three-gallon oak barrel. Let rest for five to seven weeks and pour into glass bottles until ready to serve.

Manhattan

Makes Three Gallons

256 oz (approximately ten 750ml bottles) rye whiskey
128 oz (approximately five 750ml bottles) sweet vermouth
7 oz Angostura bitters

Stir ingredients together (without ice) and pour into a three-gallon oak barrel (I prefer a barrel that has previously stored sherry, Madeira, or port wine). Let rest for five to seven weeks and pour into glass bottles until ready to serve.

Trident

Makes Three Gallons

128 oz (approximately five 750ml bottles) aquavit
128 oz dry sherry
128 oz Cynar
7 oz peach bitters

Stir ingredients together (without ice) and pour into a three-gallon oak barrel (I prefer a used single malt barrel). Let rest for five to seven weeks and pour into glass bottles until ready to serve.

And be sure to check out this video of the barrel-aged cocktail process, courtesy of our friends Grant Achatz, Craig Schoettler and Josh Habiger at Alinea in Chicago:

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Barrel Aged Cocktails

Little did I know, after announcing that I’d be bringing a pitcher of sangria to the Tex-Mex dinner party last weekend, that every single person in attendance was recoiling in horror at the thought of having to choke down a big heaping glass of red syrup. But much to their surprise – and my relief – what I showed up to the party with was fruity, spicy, and dry enough to pair with food.

Sangria recipes are like censored old pairs of sneakers: everybody’s got one, and most of them stink. While sangria is nothing more than a lightly sweetened wine-based punch typically consumed during the summer in Portugal and Spain, the garbage you’re going to be served in the average Mexican-American restaurant is syrupy and spiced beyond belief in an attempt to cover up the rank of cheap red wine.

So in an attempt to help promote what can be a delicious summer or fall party beverage, I’m offering up a few tips, with a recipe to follow.

1. Do use an inexpensive, dry yet fruit-forward red wine in your sangria, preferably something from the Rioja region of Spain.

2. Do not think that spending $5 on a bottle of wine is going to yield delicious results.

3. Do use fresh fruit and fresh fruit juice in your sangria.

4. Do not use anything from a box, carton, jar or can in your sangria. If you don’t think you can spare the ten minutes to juice fresh oranges, pick up a six-pack of beer instead.

5. Do use decent-quality orange liqueur in your sangria. Remember, garbage in, garbage out.

6. Do not believe anyone who tells you that there is one specific recipe for sangria and that anything else isn’t real. The only requirement to making sangria is that it contains wine. Everything else is based on your personal preference.

7. Do try making your first batch with the following recipe. It’s a solid, basic recipe that you can then play with and make your own.

Sangria

1 750 ml bottle red wine
¾ cup Grand Marnier
1 cup freshly-squeezed orange juice
1 oz 2:1 simple syrup, or 1½ oz 1:1 simple syrup
1 tsp Angostura bitters

Mix ingredients together in a large pitcher. Add pieces of fresh seasonal fruit and serve in goblets over ice. Makes 8 five-ounce servings.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Make (or, not make) Sangria

As many of you might know, this week is the annual cocktail geek gathering in New Orleans known as Tales of the Cocktail. Every year, bartenders, brand ambassadors, and cocktail enthusiasts from all over the world come together to celebrate, learn about, and embrace the cocktail renaissance.

Coincidentally, Tales falls almost five months to the day after International Bear Rendezvous in San Francisco. Every year bears, cubs, and daddies from all over the world come together to celebrate, learn about, and embrace the bear culture.

And while the two festivals may have different purposes, they do share a common theme: liberal cities full of large, bearded men getting together and sweating profusely while consuming lots of alcohol. So in the the spirit of celebrating our collective alternative lifestyles, I present to you this photo quiz: let’s see if you can tell the two events apart.

1. Start with an easy one. Cocktail geek, or “bear”?

Big guy, full beard, collared shirt, lanyard. That’s classic cocktail geek getup right there, folks, in the form of top cocktail geek Rick Stutz, AKA Kaiser Penguin.

2. Okay, this one’s a little tougher. Cocktail geek, or “bear”?

Big guy, full beard, no shirt, no lanyard. You’ve got yourself a bear in the wild right here.

3. Answer this one quickly: cocktail geek, or “bear”?

Smaller guy, full beard, no shirt, but standing in front of the Hotel Monteleone at four in the morning? Unfortunately for some, public nudity is a very real part of both events. And while your initial response might have been “bear”, this is actually cocktail geek and Chicago bartender Brad Bolt.

We would have also accepted “cub”.

4. Okay, let’s go. Cocktail geeks, or “bears”?

Two men: one bearded, one goateed. Both are wearing polo shirts, and both are understandably drinking beer from plastic cups. Ready? Bears.

I warned you, this isn’t always easy.

5. Now try this. Cocktail geeks, or “bears”?

Again, two men, one bearded, one goateed. Both are wearing Hawaiian shirts and inexplicably drinking Velvet Falernum from the bottle.

Cocktail geeks. Always. These bears are actually a special subset of cocktail geeks known as tiki nerds. The nerds in this instance are Matt “RumDood” Robold and Craig “Dr. Bamboo” Mrusek. Only a tiki nerd would drink Velvet Falernum straight from the bottle.

6. An important part of bear culture is the notion of “cubs”; younger men who identify with the culture and often accompany older men. Here are four pictures of younger men accompanying older men. See if you can pick out the one couple of cocktail geeks from the group.

Photos C and D are of bears and cubs.
Photo A is Seattle cocktail and spirits writer Paul Clarke, and San Francisco bartender/brand ambassador Neyah White.
Photo B is an intentional trick: Star Trek: The Next Generation actors Jonathan Frakes (as Commander WIlliam Riker) and Wil Wheaton as (Lieutenant Wesley Crusher) are huge icons in the bear/cub community.

Sadly I can’t be there in New Orleans this year with all of my cocktail nerd brothers and sisters, as I came down with a wicked case of pneumonia earlier in the week. But if you’d like to follow along with all of their exploits, be sure to check out the Tales Blog for all of the juicy bits.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Quiz: Cocktail Geek, or “Bear”?

Today, on April 15th, while the United States is busy mourning Tax Day, the Argentineans are celebrating Bartender’s Day. Here’s the story as related to me by my friend Federico Cuco:

Sixty-nine years ago today, a group of young bartenders from Buenos Aires met for a dinner hosted by the magazine The Barman (the first ever Spanish-speaking bar trade magazine, founded in 1936). It was at this dinner that they decided to form the brotherhood of Argentine bartenders, baptized with the name ‘AMBA’ (Association Mutual Barmen Argentinos). A friend of the group’s designed the rooster logo (which, obviously stood for the cocktail) on a shaker with the initials of the association. Several years later, in 1947, the boys from AMBA bought a house in the neighborhood of San Cristobal that remains today as a gathering place for all Argentinean bartenders.

In those years, a boy named James Policastro, who they called ‘Pichin’ won a radio contest called “Cocktail of the Day” that aired on Sundays after football in a bar near Avenida Corrientes. The kid was fashionable, trendy, and always rocked a winning smile and an impeccable white coat. The local prize was a trip to Europe, and he later returned with a first prize trophy from the competition in Bern, Switzerland, which had been organized by the IBA (International Bartenders Association).

Upon his return to Argentina he donated the trophy to that little house in San Cristobal and urged his colleagues to connect Argentina to the rest of the worldwide comminuty and join the IBA. In 1956, Argentina entered into the IBA and we were the first country outside of Europe to be part of it, and the twelfth country in the world to join.

In the words of my friend Federico:

And that’s what we celebrate today. The friendship, which led to a group of young Argentines, to unite and try to be every day a little better in their profession. But today we celebrate all the bartenders, who work behind the bar, with pride and humility. So as we say in Spanish, “Feliz dia del barman, amigos.”

Happy Bartender’s Day, Argentina.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Feliz Dia del Barman, Amigos

Hey Bartender

My South Side Irish Chicago Dad always told me that Jameson was the Catholic whisky and that Bushmills was the whiskey made by “the damn Protestants”. Now this character I met at the bar is trying to tell me it’s the other way around. Help! Who do I believe, the man who raised me, or some drunk I met in a bar? You can see why I am confused.

School Marm

Hey Marm

I was wondering when someone would ask this question. The truth of the matter is, the age-old faux-pas of ordering Bushmills for fear of supporting English aggression and offending the Republic of Ireland is about as Irish as corned beef – which is to say, not very Irish at all but rather Irish-American (Sorry, kids, corned beef is a Jewish invention).

Anyway, both of your sources are wrong, but at least your father got the order right. The widely-accepted Irish-American version is that Jameson is Catholic whiskey and Bushmills is Protestant whiskey. But that’s merely based on geography: Bushmills is from Northern Ireland (a predominantly Protestant region) and Jameson is from Cork – Catholic country.

Jameson was pretty much founded in 1780 when John Jameson – a Scottish guy – purchased the Bow Street Distillery, which at the time was one of the biggest distilleries in Ireland. Now, it’s important to note that the Scottish Reformation occurred in 1560, so odds are in favor of the founder of the Jameson distillery, being Scottish, was a damn Protestant.

Bushmills, on the other hand, was officially licensed in 1608 by King James I (of Bible fame) and despite of its location deep in the heart of Protestant country (and this next bit is straight from my local Bushmills rep, so take it or leave it) has a Catholic as a master distiller.

According to everyone I’ve spoken with on the subject, you only really find this debate in the States, where Irish-American support of the Republic can sometimes be blind and often fueled by the very product we’re speaking of. But none of it means much, anyway: both distilleries are owned by huge international entities: Jameson by French liquor conglomerate Pernod-Ricard, and Bushmills by the English firm Diageo.

As for my preference, I tend to like the lighter Bushmills as it’s the first Irish whiskey I discovered years ago, and I’ve certainly enjoyed my share of Jameson from time to time. But my personal preference is Redbreast, a twelve-year pot still Irish whiskey produced at the Old Midleton Distillery and a real delight to sip while enjoying a late-night Irish breakfast of sausage, egg, pudding and soda bread. Delicious.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Ask Your Bartender: Protestant vs. Catholic Whiskey (Repost)

This appalling affront to the craft that so many of us have worked hard trying to restore over the past fifteen-plus years has been making the rounds on Twitter, but I thought I’d share it here with all of you. Browse at your own risk, my advice is to keep a bucket handy.

Oscar Party Cocktails! 10 Tipples Inspired By the Best Picture Nominees – ”Semi-Homemade” star Sandra Lee shakes up some tantalizing recipes to help you toast your favorite contenders.

Some highlights:

1. The Avatar: “…the citrus vodka honors that beautiful tree of life.” – I’m not sure how citrus vodka honors much of anything other than a can of Red Bull.

2. The Blind Side: “When her son wins the football game, God bless, she gets to go home and have her cocktail.” – With a whopping 2¼ ounces of half-and-half on top of that Irish Cream, you’ll look like Sandra Bullock in no time.

3. District 9: ”Like the movie, this drink is a little gritty.” – Enough said.

4. An Education: “Grand Marnier is sophisticated and it kind of goes with the theme of the art galleries and the different places that he took her that really wooed her.” – I don’t know what the Blueberry Smirnoff is a reference to, but I’m guessing it’s underage drinking.

5. The Hurt Locker: – “I did not see this movie — but I saw all of the big bombs and the car blow-ups.” – As someone who creates cocktails from time to time, I’m not sure I’d want to admit this to the people writing my check.

6. A Serious Man: “With a little bit of bitters and some pineapple juice to top it off, this is a beautiful, masculine drink. Or a very sexy woman’s drink.” – Either, or. You pick.

7. Up in the Air: “There are so many jobless people right now that I should come up with a cocktail to suit them. But this [is a drink] for George Clooney.” – I should really… enh, fuck it. Here, George Clooney, drink this.

8. Precious: “There’s so much abuse and violence in this movie. I think that any adult who watches that movie should have a cocktail.” – You know what dulls the pain of watching a young girl being abused on your 52″ flat-screen TV? A Chi-Chi with a squeeze of lime.

9. Up: ”The half-and-half and the milk are supposed to represent the beautiful fluffy clouds and the sky.” – If you haven’t started dry-heaving at the thought of two types of dairy products shaken with Sambuca and Tanqueray gin at this point, my hat is off to you.

10. Inglourious Basterds: “The garnish is not very guy-y. But the gin definitely makes this a guy’s drink.” – The only reasonable drink in the lot, a modified Negroni with a splash of orange juice, smudged by the term ‘guy-y’. If anyone needs me, I’ll be cutting my genitalia off with a rusty steak knife and burning my website to the ground.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Vomit on Your Keyboard Ten Different Ways

To get to the town of Cognac, France, you have to fly into the airport at Bordeaux, nearly two hours south. You spend a good hour on the freeway, which looks pretty much like any freeway in the world, until eventually you see an exit marked “Cognac”. You then make your way from the main artery, away from the large billboards, away from the big trucks, and slowly the usual trappings of a big, busy road are replaced with things like vineyards and the small houses that dot hills that were previously unnoticeable.

The road winds through little collections of buildings almost too small to be called villages, taking a hard left here and a ninety-degree right there, following the signs to Cognac. Soon you crest a hill, large-ish for the area, and sprawled out in the tiny valley below is the town itself. At night, from above, the lights help register this as a populated area, but during the day the stone buildings blend in almost imperceptibly with the color palate of the surrounding landscape.

My journey to Cognac began, oddly enough, with a visit to a gin distillery. Just a few minutes southwest of central Cognac is the G’Vine gin distillery in Merpins. And this was a perfect beginning to my journey into the flavor of Cognac, because G’Vine gin and Cognac brandy are made from the same grape.

Ugni Blanc is one of the more prolific white grapes in Europe, often blended with others in its family to make, well, usually pretty unremarkable wines. In Italy, the grape is known as Trebbiano and accounts for a large part of the blended white wine produced there, and a lot of it is fine stuff. But in France, the grape doesn’t take quite as well and is primarily used either for blending, or for the production of Cognac.

G’Vine uses Ugni Blanc as a spirit base (much like Ciroc vodka, which is made at the same distillery), but then they also take the plant’s flowers and soak them in the neutral spirit before adding the other usual gin botanicals to the mix. The effect of this floral soak in the finished product is a richer mouthfeel, a young floral fruit component, and a slightly peppery edge to the gin. But the spirit, when tasted after the flowers are added and before the gin botanicals are soaked, well that’s just a pure expression of the flavor of the grape. And I have to admit, it’s absolutely finish-your-sample-glass divine.

Armed with the raw flavors of the Ugni Blanc grape still dancing on my tongue, I made my way to the Pierre Ferrand estate in Segonzac, southeast of the town of Cognac, to further my education of Cognac and the pervasive Ugni Blanc grape. It was there in the main distilling room, buried under the weight of little sleep and the humidity and dull hum imparted by nearly a dozen Charentais stills, that I first tasted the brouillis, the first run-off of the still at around 30% ABV (alcohol by volume) that will – after a secondary distillation – become Cognac.

The brouillis is cloudy, rich, and full of that huge, fruity, floral Ugni Blanc flavor I’d discovered at G’Vine only hours prior. This is the white dog of Cognac, and I think it’s the best way to discover what a Cognac is destined to become. Ferrand runs their first distillation on the lees, which means that rather than filter the yeast out of the wine used to distill the brandy, they leave it in, which results in an added layer of richness, freshness, complexity and depth to the final product.

The second distillation at approximately 70% ABV is what ultimately lands into the barrels, either Limousin or Tronçais oak barrels, or both. The wider grain of the Limousin oak lends a softness and an oak expression that doesn’t come as easily from the tighter-grained Tronçais. But regardless of the oak used, one could say that aging is what puts the finesse into Cognac – or any other aged spirit.

The process is simple, and somewhat strange. Put simply: take a bunch of new spirit, straight from the second run of the still (where the “heart” of the distillate is captured) and let it sit until it’s done; two years for VS, four for VSOP, and six for XO or Napoleon. The strangeness is the little ecosystem that thrives in the aging cellars; you see, there is a loss due to evaporation that Cognac endures at the rate of about 3% per year, known lyrically as “the angel’s share”. This evaporation inside the cave feeds a black mold found only in Cognaçais cellars; it very literally exists because of the Cognac fumes. Tucked up into that mold are centuries worth of spiders’ nests, which are left to further scary-up the cellars because the spiders will in turn eat their favorite meal: a type of worm that feeds on oak barrels. Left unchecked, the worms would devour the barrels and expose the Cognac. However, thanks to the microsystem inside the cellar, the worms are harvested by the spiders and the Cognac is safe, resting comfortably for up to (but generally no longer than) 55-70 years in its gently-toasted French oak chamber.

Overseeing much of this process is the BNIC, the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac – my hosts for the week. Born out the Ministry of Agriculture in 1946, the BNIC is the governing body that handles all things Cognac – from protecting the A.O.C., to regulating the labeling (VS, VSOP, XO, etc.) practices, to working with the growers, winemakers, distillers, blenders and bottlers from the first step of the process through the last.

The BNIC also orchestrates the event that the sixty of us bartenders and journalists traveled from all over the Western world to participate in, the International Cognac Summit. For four long days, we studied, tasted, toured and created cocktails using Cognac. I was truly privileged to be included in this lineup of some of the greatest minds in the industry, and am even happier to have a new-found appreciation for a spirit that, quite frankly, I always found to be enshrouded in mystery.

So as I boarded that bus for the last time and slowly made my way back to Bordeaux on the last day of the Summit, I peered out the window and watched the sun slowly make its way down below the vine-covered hills, my eyes scanning everything they could before we rediscovered the soulless highway that signaled the end of a rewarding and eye-opening trip.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Cognac

If there’s one thing I hate about living in the Pacific Northwest, it’s the stretch of time from late October until late June, when the sun makes only the most occasional of appearances. I typically pack on an extra 10-15 pounds during those rainy months, party due to over-consumption of wintertime drinks like dark beer, egg nog, hot-buttered-anything and wassail. I wanted a drink for the winter that I could add to my cocktail menu that was more like the light, café-style cocktails I typically gravitate to during the summer.

Jerry Thomas prescribed a drink called “sangaree” that, to the best of our knowledge was a colonial adaptation of the Spanish “sangria”. The recipe, which calls for anywhere from 1½ to 4 ounces of port, Madeira, gin or brandy dolled up with sugar and dusted with nutmeg in a glass sounded less than exciting to me, but the challenge of updating this old chestnut sounded like a fun January task.

We began with ruby and tawny ports but found both way too sweet. White port got us much closer to our target, but it wasn’t until a healthy dose of dry vermouth was applied that we knew we were on to something. To provide additional depth and hint at the drink’s colonial origins we sweetened with a maple-nutmeg syrup and finished the whole thing off with a teaspoon of allspice liqueur and orange oil.

The Dry Vermouth Sangaree

3 oz dry vermouth
½ oz maple-nutmeg syrup*
1 tsp St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
1 large strip orange peel

Shake everything – yes, even the orange peel – with ice until well-chilled and strain into a cold cocktail glass. Garnish with a fresh strip of orange peel.

*To make maple-nutmeg syrup, combine 8 ounces each of Grade B maple syrup and water, and 1 tbsp freshly-grated nutmeg. Simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Let cool, strain out solids, bottle and chill.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Dry Vermouth Sangaree

While this is a topic that has been covered by pretty much every cocktail blog under the sun, I haven’t yet written about it. Why? Well, for one, I’m lazy and never got around to it. But after having made various versions of grenadine for years at my bars and after doing a little research on the web recently, I’ve wondered if the topic of homemade grenadine couldn’t use a little revisit.

There are a few key problems with a lot of the house-made grenadines out there. The first issue you can see immediately: the color is all wrong. Grenadine isn’t brown, and the good stuff, the real grenadine won’t make your El Presidente look like mud. Grenadine also isn’t pale pink, and it shouldn’t turn your Jack Rose grey. Grenadine is a vibrant shade of magenta, a rich syrup that brightens every cocktail it touches with its sweet, slightly tart, beautifully bright, rich, deep and lightly floral flavors.

A lot of grenadines call for an inordinate amount of work for very little payoff. This recipe is going to take you all of five minutes to prepare and – I promise you – will taste better than anything else you can buy in the stores. Because if there are two things you really need to know about me, it’s the following: I’m lazy and I like stuff that tastes good.

Some recipes are going to tell you you need to remove each individual seed from the pomegranate (a long, painful and finger-stainingly messy process) and either simmer them in water over heat or steep them in water overnight to extract the juice. I’ll tell you what, you want to extract the juice from a pomegranate? Do what I do: cut that puppy open like a grapefruit and press it with your juicer. Done and done. And the resulting juice is far more intense and flavorful than anything you’re going to get from those other methods that employ a bunch of water, believe me.

So now that you’ve got a bunch of fresh pomegranate juice – each full fruit should yield approximately one cup of juice – it’s time to turn it into grenadine. Many of the recipes you’ll see out there are going to tell you to boil the juice until it’s reduced by half, under the guise of concentrating the rich, fresh flavor of the pomegranate. I find this to be an unnecessary, time-consuming process that results in an end product that’s about as delicious as boiled orange juice. My solution is to heat the juice just enough to melt sugar, well below the point of boiling. You’ll still retain the fresh flavor of the pomegranate without having to do all the work of a cold-process grenadine, an ordeal that requires ten minutes of shaking until the sugar is dissolved.

You can do this in a small saucepan, but I just throw it in the microwave for a minute or two, because that’s exactly what microwaves are good for.

Heat your juice up and stir in an equal amount of unbleached sugar. I start with two cups of juice and dissolve two cups of sugar into it, stirring until the mixture is clear. Now what you’ve got is a pomegranate syrup, but not quite yet grenadine. The next step will add the depth of flavor you’re looking for, and for this you’re going to need to make a trip to your local Mediterranean or Latin American market for pomegranate molasses and orange blossom water. I add two ounces of the molasses and a teaspoon of the orange blossom water to my warm mix and stir again until everything is dissolved.

The only step left is to add one ounce of vodka – if you like – this is an optional preservative. If you’re not planning on using your grenadine pretty quickly, like over the span of a month, then add it. But if you’re serving it in a bar and plan on going through it pretty quickly, like I do, then you can just skip it.

Grenadine

2 cups fresh pomegranate juice (approximately two large pomegranates) or POM Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice
2 cups unbleached sugar
2 oz pomegranate molasses
1 tsp orange blossom water

Heat juice slightly, just enough to allow other ingredients to dissolve easily. Stir in remaining ingredients, allow to cool, and bottle.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Make Your Own Grenadine

For many years before this whole cocktail thing really took off, I worked in dive bars. Really crappy dive bars where people would visit – often nightly – for what appeared to be the sole purpose of getting very, very drunk. These bars were loud, they were obnoxious, and at times they could be very dangerous.

We could cut people off as an act of self-preservation. Sometimes it was because we didn’t want to fined by the state liquor control board. Sometimes it was because we didn’t want a particularly drunk patron scaring away other, big-spending customers. And sometimes it was because we were genuinely concerned for our safety.

Which could backfire. I remember one night in college when, after refusing to serve an especially drunk redneck, he announced, “I’m getting in my truck, going home, grabbing my shotgun, and coming back here to blow your head off.” I locked the door and called the cops, who greeted him outside the bar about a half hour later.

And there came a breaking point, when I didn’t want to do that anymore. So I made the conscious decision to try to get jobs in better bars, where people didn’t behave like that as much. Which might be why you’re reading this now, because I devoted myself to learning how to make good drinks and do something more than sling cheap beer and cut people off. Starting this website was part of that process.

But just because now I’m charging eight bucks for a drink doesn’t mean that I’ve found a magic clientele paradise where everyone orders expensive cocktails and nobody gets drunk. It does mean, however, that I’ve had to take a different attitude to service that doesn’t include drawing a line across my throat with my forefinger to indicate that a guest was no longer allowed access to the alcohol.

But as I was trying to illustrate with my earlier story, telling someone “No more” can lead to an uncomfortable situation. So that’s why I now try to approach the denial of alcohol from a hospitality-centric perspective: I’m the one who helped get you into this mess, and now I’m going to be the one who helps you get out of it – a bartender in every sense of the word.

So you have to inform your guest that you can’t serve them any more liquor. It’s a delicate situation, but the most crucial part of the rest of your time together. There are a few points that you need to convey:

1. You’re not comfortable serving them any more alcohol. This is important because it places the weight of the decision on you. Why are you uncomfortable? Because you’re concerned about their safety. Because you want to make sure they get home safely. Because they’re your guest and you genuinely care about the direction the rest of their night takes.
2. You want your guest to continue enjoying their time at your bar. Offer them a coffee, offer them water, and if you can swing it, some food from the kitchen on the house. It makes such a big difference and shows that you actually care about their time spent at your bar.
3. You want them to come back. It’s embarrassing to get cut off at a bar, it makes you reconsider visiting again. I like to tell people that their first drink on their next visit will be on me. It’s a hospitable way of saying, “This isn’t a personal issue, and I look forward to spending more time with you in the future.”
4. You need them to get home safely. Offer to pay for a taxi home. Help find a ride from a sober friend. I’ve even known bartenders who have personally driven people home while the other bartender covered the bar in their absence. This is the very definition of hospitality.

This is merely a primer and my hope is that all of you will chime in to the comments section and share your thoughts on how best to handle a delicate situation. Personally, I plan on not getting to the point of being cut off this Repeal Day, but if I do, I hope I’m in the competent hands of a caring bartender at the time.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Cut Someone Off

Wow, I apparently thought it was still late-October or something, because it came as a complete surprise to me today that my favorite drinking holiday in the whole world is next weekend. I guess that between keeping my nose to the grindstone at work and traveling extensively lately, it was bound to happen. Then I found this email in my inbox:

Jeff,

What do you have in store for Repeal Day? It’s only 2 weeks away and you’ve been as quiet as a church mouse!

All the Best,

Kris

Gulp. Well, Kris, I’ll tell you. But first, a short primer for those who might not know what Repeal Day is all about. A few years ago, I wrote a piece on this website urging people to embrace a new celebratory holiday: the day Prohibition was repealed, December Fifth. It was something I’d been celebrating in my bars for years, but just threw up onto my blog for a lark. Well, the Internet went for it in a big way and suddenly people were taking Repeal Day seriously.

And so, to answer Kris’ question, I’m headed back to Washington, D.C. for the nation’s largest, most boisterous, celebration’est Repeal Day party, hosted by the DC Craft Bartenders Guild. Here’s what they themselves have to say about the shindig:

“The DC Craft Bartender’s Guild (DCCBG) is holding the Second Annual Repeal Day Ball on December 5th from 9 P.M. to midnight, celebrating the 76th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Attendees will enjoy craft cocktails from the city and country’s best mixologists and food from renowned chef Peter Smith while dancing along to the Prohibition-era sounds of the Red Hot Rhythm Chiefs. The ball is black tie and will be held at PS7’s restaurant at 777 Eye Street, NW.

This year’s ball location is across from historic Calvary Baptist Church, the first national convention site of the Anti-Saloon League, which launched the legislative agenda for Prohibition. Of course, the DCCBG is pleased to announce our own agenda–to have fun! We will celebrate our freedom in style and have dubbed this year the “Spirit of 76” to commemorate the freedom to drink as adults, featuring our “Founding Drinkers” dressed as the founding fathers.

Come celebrate too with cocktail creations from local favorites Gina Chersevani, Derek Brown and Todd Thrasher, to name a few, along with special guests–bartending legend Dale DeGroff, nationally-renowned bartender Tad Carducci, and toastmaster Jeffrey Morgenthaler. We will also feature top spirit brands and a special rum and cigar lounge.

Tickets are $100 for general admission ($150 for VIP) and can be purchased online at www.dccraftbartendersguild.org. A portion of the final proceeds will go to benefit the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Repeal Day is December Fifth

Well, folks, it’s time of year again. I repost this recipe every year because I’m a man on a mission. You see, I love egg nog, but I can’t stand the thick, gelatinous goop they sell at the grocery store. Even if you were to cut it with alcohol, it’s still so overly-pasteurized and full of preservatives that it would be anything but enjoyable to slug down at a Christmas party. So a few years ago, I set about concocting the simplest, tastiest Egg Nog recipe I could, and after many trials and errors, here’s what I came up with.

In terms of cocktail history, Egg Nog is nothing more than a brandy or rum (or both) flip made with the addition of cream or milk. The 1862 Bar-Tender’s Guide by Jerry Thomas calls for a nog made up of a tablespoon of bar sugar, a tablespoon of water, a whole egg, cognac, rum and milk, shaken and strained, with some nutmeg grated on top. The problem I have with Thomas’ recipe is all the extra water that comes from the melting of the ice, not to mention that extra half ounce he calls for. Watery egg nog, anyone? Yeah, no thanks.

So I did a lot of research, in cookbooks and on the web, and tried a bunch of different recipes and methods. Some called for cooking the eggs into sort of a custard, but that’s a heck of a lot of work and results in something that can only be described as thick glop. Others required separating the eggs, beating them independently, and folding them together. But again, it’s too thick and I’m too lazy.

This is the recipe I devised. It can be made in just about any home or bar, since the ingredients are fairly simple. It can be done entirely in a blender, so there are no whisks or beaters or rubber spatulas or stovetops needed. It yields two healthy servings, so you can easily multiply it to serve more. It doesn’t use a ton of heavy cream, so it’s fairly light. In other words, it’s practically perfect.

2 large eggs
3 oz (by volume) granulated sugar
½ tsp freshly-grated nutmeg
2 oz brandy
2 oz spiced rum (I use Sailor Jerry’s)
6 oz whole milk
4 oz heavy cream

Beat eggs in blender for one minute on medium speed. Slowly add sugar and blend for one additional minute. With blender still running, add nutmeg, brandy, rum, milk and cream until combined. Chill thoroughly to allow flavors to combine and serve in chilled wine glasses or champagne coupes, grating additional nutmeg on top immediately before serving.

One note about blenders. This recipe works great in home blenders, but the commercial models are designed to heat whatever they’re blending, which can result in scrambled eggs by the time you get around to the sugar. If you’re using a Vita-Mix or similar commercial blender, cut that initial blend time down to a quarter minute or so, or if your blender is multi-speed, set it to the lowest possible setting.

Clyde Common Egg Nog

Our tequila-sherry egg nog at Clyde Common has been so overwhelmingly popular that I figured I’d share the recipe here. It’s based on my original egg nog recipe from years back, just slightly modified to incorporate the lower-alcohol sherry into the mix.

Añejo Tequila and Amontillado Sherry Egg Nog

12 large eggs
18 oz (by volume) granulated sugar
3 tsp freshly-grated nutmeg
12 oz anejo tequila
15 oz Amontillado sherry
36 oz whole milk
24 oz heavy cream

In a blender or stand mixer on low speed, beat eggs until smooth. Slowly add nutmeg, and sugar until incorporated and dissolved. Slowly add sherry, tequila, milk and cream. Refrigerate overnight and serve in small chilled cups. Dust with fresh nutmeg before serving.

Makes one gallon.

The Video

on Small Screen Network

My friends at Small Screen Network and I made a little video about the Clyde Common Egg Nog in my apartment a while ago, for a series we’re calling The Morgenthaler Method. Click below to watch the video:

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Egg Nog

I’m back from Europe and getting ready for Art of the Cocktail next weekend. No, I’m not talking about the book by Philip Collins. Nor am I talking about this blog by Darcy O’Neil. I’m also not referring to Anthony Caporale’s long-running video series.

No, this Art of the Cocktail is a new cocktail-centric event in Victoria, British Columbia. Distillery ambassadors, representatives and lounges will be offering tastes of their products or creating sophisticated cocktails for sampling. Wander around the Tasting Room sampling the cocktails that appeal to you while catching tips from mixologists (I guess this is where I come in), authors and reps. Take in ongoing demonstrations on the side stage that will run throughout the Tastings. One-dollar-each tasting tickets may be purchased on the website and are only available in advance – no tickets will be available at the door.

I’ll be there teaching you how to make your own cocktail mixers like ginger beer and tonic water in person, so if you’re in the Pacific Northwest please do stop by what promises to be a great event. Oh, and I’d be remiss not to mention the immense involvement in this event by the hardest working bartender in the business, Mr. Shawn Soole. Try to watch this video of my friend Shawn, if you can get past the fake English accent:

See you at the show.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Art of the Cocktail

I’m leaving in about an hour to head to the airport and ship off to Europe, so if you have any interest in learning more about what a small-town bartender does from hour to hour as he stumbles across a continent in search of the perfect cocktail, then please by all means follow along with my Twitter feed.

I’ll be trying to make it to London in time to meet up with legendary bloggers Chuck Taggart of The Gumbo Pages and Jay Hepburn of Oh Gosh! for cocktails, and then mixing up tasty drinks with Boca Loca cachaça at RumFest UK all weekend.

From there I’ll head to Finland to talk about Boca Loca and demonstrate its tasty versatility in Helsinki for two days, and hopefully search out legendary Finnish bartender Timo Siitonen for a cocktail or two.

And finally, we’ll wrap things up in Paris by visiting even more bars, haggling for Tintin memorabilia, and sobering up before the long flight home.

Now, all of this is predicated on my finding a reasonable deal on a European SIM card for my phone, but assuming all goes well I will be posting regular updates to the account.

Oh, and if you’re in Portland this weekend, be sure to check out the Great American Distillers Festival, featuring a mixology competition sponsored in part by the Oregon Bartenders Guild. I’ll be missing my chance to cast judgement on the entries alongside Robert Hess, but I’ll be there in spirit as I sip cane spirits with some of the finest bartenders in Europe. See you all when I get back!

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Follow Along with My European Misadventures

You may or may not have known this, but I like making cocktails out of wine. Or things that were once wine. Or things that were made from wine. However you want to say it, I like making cocktails out of wine. So when I saw that there was a cocktail competition coming up that called for the use of sherry (a type of wine made from white grapes grown around the town of Jerez, Spain and fortified with brandy), I was like, “I’m all over this.”

So I reached for the Morgenthaler Standby Formula book and grabbed this old chestnut. First, I bolstered the sherry with something bitter, put in a touch of something sweet, and finished it with something absinth-y. Then I dumped that one down the sink and tried about ten other combinations. The result is this cocktail, The Solera Club.

I like wine-based cocktails, because they don’t punch you in the face the way, say, a 94-proof gin-based cocktail is going to. This means these drinks are going to be more versatile, and drinkable on more occasions than a big spirit-driven monster. A lot of my customers like to end the night with one of these low-proof sippers, but I take a more European tack myself and delight in them during the late afternoon, noshing on Marcona almonds and watching the sidewalk traffic without getting falling-down drunk.

So in the spirit of early autumnal afternoon sipping and enjoying the sunshine while it still lingers, here’s the recipe:

2 oz sherry (cream for a sweeter, rounder drink, dry sherry such as an amontillado for a more drier, more austere drink)
1 oz Cynar
½ oz creme de peche
1 tsp absinthe

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. If you’re going the cream sherry route, I’d recommend garnishing with a lemon twist as I’ve done here. If you’re using the drier, nuttier sherries, try using an orange twist.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

The Solera Club

Hey Bartender

I went to the bar last night with a coworker, whom I was treating to drinks on my tab. When we got the bill, it was very high, so we asked to have an itemized list of the drinks we were charged for. That’s when another bartender told us that some girl had been charging Jack and Cokes on my tab, without my knowledge.

Well, long story short, our bartender, a young girl, came right back WITHOUT an itemized list, but with a smaller bill, excluding the Jacks, I guess. While outside, her friends said, “Do you think that girl (me) knows that we drank on her tab?”

So, now I am very leery of starting tabs, especially at my local, favorite bar. Got any suggestions to prevent this from happening in the future?

Thanks,

Kat

Hey Kat

It sucks, doesn’t it? When you enter into a trust-based relationship with a professional, there is an unspoken agreement that, to me at least, feels somewhat binding. What you’re saying, in effect, when you hand your card over to a bartender at the beginning of the night is, “Hey, bartender. I promise not to get so wasted that I leave this bar without signing my tab, stiffing you on the tip, or arguing about every single drink I promised to buy.”

What the bartender is saying is this: “Hey, customer. I promise not to be a gigantic motherfucking douchebag and charge you for a bunch of shit that you didn’t ask for.”

Kat, my dear, your bartender reneged on the contract. So, yeah, I’ve got a couple of suggestions to prevent this from happening to you in the future:

1. Don’t ever set foot in that bar ever again. I’m serious. A bar that can’t be trusted with a simple thing like your tab can’t be trusted with your safety. If they can’t keep a girl from charging her drinks to a stranger’s tab, do you really think the bartenders at this establishment are vigilant enough to prevent someone from slipping something in your drink, diffusing a potentially dangerous confrontational scene or handling any of the other potentially scary situations that can present themselves to female patrons in bars? My advice is to steer clear of this joint, and any other establishments owned by the same proprietors.

2. Only carry cash and never run a tab. Yeah, it sucks. Never mind the fact that you have to find an ATM, you also have to be walking around with a bunch of cash in your pocket. But think of it this way: even if you were to be robbed of your sixty dollars, or even if it fell out of your pocket onto the street or bar floor, wouldn’t that one time still be cheaper than letting everyone in the bar walk all over your tab?

3. Print this post out and hand it to the bartender in question. Then I’ll address the bartender personally. You ready? Okay, here we go:

Dear Bartender I’ve Never Met:

Hey, dumbshit. Some of us are trying to make a career out of this. And you’re fucking it up for the rest of us who actually take our jobs seriously. Did you really think it was okay to just throw a bunch of shit on my friend Kat’s tab without checking with her first? Do you think that anyone else, in any other business in the world, would let that kind of shit slide?

Here’s what advice I’m giving Kat: First, I’ve suggested that she never, ever set foot in your bar again. You’re reckless, unsafe, and a disgrace to the profession. However, if she decides not to heed my advice and does happen to pop in for a drink, I’m recommending that she pays for each drink, with cash, each time. And when she does, I want you to know that she’s only doing it because she doesn’t trust you.

Good luck to both of you. My readers and I all know you’re going to need it.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Ask Your Bartender: Running a Tab