EMBURY COCKTAILS

Open Bar: First Round

Ed Note.: This is will be the first of weekly round-ups of cocktail writing around the web. Look for them every Thursday.

We missed Barbot 2010 (photo at top) in SF but the idea of cocktail mixing robots actually sounds kinda good. Sure, you'll never get the human touch, but later on in the party it would  be nice to have one of these  artificial bartenders on hand. Check out an elaborate and thoroughly conceived and executed cock' 'bot here at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

-Over at the the BOOZE blog at Forbes.com Eric Arnold assesses the box wine from Matthew Cain, the Yellow+Blue Sauvignon Blanc. Verdict: "good-really good".  (His headline, "It's My Blanc in a Box", is really good, too. ) I've been seeing Y + B p0p at gallery openings and casual gatherings and can attest to both the "ooh.." factor it delivers and to the red's virtue as well.

On Forked & Corked, GQs food and hooch blog, Jim Meehan of PDT writes a little love letter to The Gaz Formerly Known As Gary (Regan, above) and his game changing book, The Art of Mixology. The universal admiration for Regan in the cocktail scene is both about his profound skills and ability and willingness to impart  cocktailing knowledge and principles, but also for his unfettered & free-spirited manner. Regan reminds you that being cool is about being yourself--by extension this makes Johnny Weir the second coolest dude on the planet (first being Regan)

-Everyone seems to be very hot on Sean Muldoon's stainless steel Drinksology Station, which is pure pornography for the home bartender who likes everything in its right place (cue Radiohead).

-Adam Pash at Lifehacker shows how to transform a cupboard door into a charming serving tray.

 

And Liquor.com serves up a useful guide to stocking a bar with your basic array of spirits, courtesy of Aisha Sharpe of Contemporary Cocktails. If you haven't already you should really sign up for Liquor.com's daily emails.

Cheers!

J.R.

Krimko On Wine: Birthday Flask, Legend Of Zelda

No wine this week friends.  Rather, in celebration of my own birthday, a snapshot or two of this lovely stainless steel flask, gifted to me by my even lovelier girlfriend.  I suppose one could put wine in the flask, but why would one do that?  As gifted, this flask came with some single malt scotch inside, the perfect tonic for a cold, clear night in Joshua Tree National Park, which was where I was when I received it.  Unfortunately the batteries in my camera were kaput, so we will have to put up with these pics taken at my workaday desk, but still, it is a pretty object, isn't it?  Kind of reminds me of something a magician would use to carry a magic potion.  Wouldn't be out of place in The Legend Of Zelda, maybe something you'd buy from a merchant in one of those secret caves.  I know that the flask comes from Bar Keeper in Silver Lake because Brigid and I had a conversation about the place a few days before my birthday.  Great store.  Lots of reasonably priced and stylish bar accoutrements.  Cheers to me!  Cheers to you! S.K.

 

For readers in the Los Angeles area, Stuart with be reading from his collection of poems, "The Sweetness of Herbert", this Saturday, February 27th, at 7:00 p.m, at the David Kordansky Gallery. Further info here

All Krimko posts here

Bar Keeper

42 Below Cocktail World Cup Round One: New York Snapshots

The New York section of Round One of the Cocktail World Cup was held in the wraparound penthouse of the Cooper Square Hotel last night, where ten local bartenders mixed up cocktails that used 42 Below Vodka for 3 judges. Some quick shots from the competition and the accompanying party.

 

Buettler shakes up The Carouac for the judges. Mark demoed the drink at Embury HQ [video here].

Backstage.

Sean Hoad of PDT

 

Hoad with Buettler. Without doing a poll of competitor's ages I can't be sure, but Hoad was probably the youngest one there, in addition to which it was his first cocktail contest. He was quite surprised when he was announced as one the two finalists

 

Cocktailognescenti.

The ladies, the ladies!

 

Very fraternal vibe--not so much a competition as a summit.

Competitors jumped behind the bars after their presentations and served up shot-glass size portions of their entries.

 

Which were then passed around for tastings-in the Carouac's case, with little shortbread garnishes.

Competitors with the Gaz formerly known as Gary (Regan). Winners hold their trophies: deluxe mixing sets.

 

42 Below Vodka: Good Enough To Drink Straight From The Bottle.

 

A very Dr. Fink of Prince & The Revolution circa "When Doves Cry" look.

Buettler & Wife.

The party just rolled on after the winners were announced. 

 

Coming Next Week: "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" Cocktail Contest

We're very excited to announce that we'll be holding our first cocktail contest for Embury readers. We couldn't do much better than to take our inspiration from the ingenious, resourceful and charming Fantastic Mr. Fox, whose spirit of endeavor and play well matches the essence of creating new cocktails. The winner will receive a Blu-ray or HD DVD of the marvelous film, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox. Details to come next week. And if you haven't seen the film yet do try to get to it while it's still in theaters--it's quite magical. J.R.

Bardolino: Gloom, Perfume, and a little Xavier Renegade Angel

Why Italians Love to Talk About Food is a lovely book recently translated into English.  It's written by Elena Kostioukovitch, a Russian who has lived in Italy for many years and who translates Umberto Eco's books into her native language. Accordingly, it's wonderfully literary, so much so that I'm a bit saddened that FSG chose to produce and market it in a way that would convince some purchasers that it might be a cookbook or a coffee table book.  Yes, the color photographs of idyllic Italia are nice, but this is a book meant to be read more than looked at, and it's a little too square (shape-wise, not attitudinally) and glossy to be curled up with on the couch.  After all, Kostioukovitch peppers her short chapters on each of Italy's culinary regions with quotes from, and references to, Goethe, Stendhal, the Futurists, the Old Testament, and renaissance and medieval records.  These chapters are separated by short essays on miscellaneous topics including pasta, the Jews, Slow Food, and an incredible litany of 'preparation methods' worthy of Georges Perec.

            I bring up the book in this forum because it's got me hungering for all morsels and gulps Italian.  Last night I happily re-heated a Trader Joe's Quatro Formaggi pizza––made in Italy!

            I've long been a fan of the drinkable and mineral-driven wines from the Veneto, so I was pleased to read that Kostioukovitch describes Venice in the following way: 'Indolence, elegance and gloom: these legendary traits of Venetian life, celebrated in British, American, and Russian poetry, are reflected in the city's characteristic cuisine.'  If that's what the food is like, imagine how the booze must taste.

            Not only did I imagine it, I experienced it first hand the other night with Corte Gardoni's Le Fontane, a nice bottle from the Bardolino D.O.C. in the western part of the Veneto.  Red Bardolino is made of grapes similar to the more familiar Valpolicella (there are white and rosé versions too), but it's usually done in a lighter style.  This Kermit Lynch import was most remarkable for its perfume: both ethereal and slightly musky, it reminded me of drawing rooms, spring, midnight, and gently-rolling hills, in no particular order.  Its light body makes it good partner with all kinds of food; I was lucky enough to drink it with fava beans and feta cheese over barley with sausage, along with roasted beets and tender black kale grown by the South Central Grower's Co-op (all prepared, I must say with some pride, by my girlfriend Brigid). 

            The label depicts a beautiful landscape reduced to an arrangement of flat rhomboid and triangular shapes. It instantly reminded me of the first hilarious episode of Adult Swim's Xavier Renegade Angel, in which Burbury, Connecticut contracts a computer virus, rendering the entire town and its inhabitants, well, an arrangement of rhomboids and triangulars.  Unlike our hero Xavier, at least we haven't reduced ourselves to swallowing the stuff the Burbury ruffians spit at us. Stuart Krimko

  

Corte Gardoni, Le Fontane, 2008 Bardolino. $11.75 at your favorite enlightened wine shop.

Why Italians Love to Talk About Food

Xavier Renegade Angel

Adult Swim

Jurassic Whiskey

Mackinlay's Old Scotch backed an expedition to an  Antartica to retrieve cases of whiskey that Ernest Shackleford's team abandoned after a failed expedition to the South Pole. Funny, it seems like that's the kind of situation where you'd feel like polishing off several cases of whiskey, but I supposed past a certain point you can't really erase the sting of extreme low temperatures, even with a lot of scotch. Mackinlay hopes to replicate the explorer's whiskey, reverse-engineering from these bottles.   [Aolnews.]

World Cocktail Cup Entry: The Carouac

Mark Buettler from Dressler came over to Embury HQ and made us his entry for the Cocktail World Cup  hosted by 42 Below Vodka in New Zealand this March. Mark used the Manuka as base--this vodka infused with the honey native to New Zealand is one of the more improbably delicious spirits I've come across in a while, and this cocktail mines its desert-like qualities J.R.

THE CAROUAC

 

3/4 oz Caraway Infused Manuka Honey 42 Below Vodka

3/4 oz Kummel

3/4 oz Split Fresh Lemon & Orange Juice

1/2 oz Star Anise Syrup

Caraway and Granulated Honey Shortbread Cookie Garnis

Further Literary Cocktails: Sand Paper Press, The Montana Jar & The Red Band Punch

 

Photo: Sharon McGauley

The wide world, happy and sad, held and dropped,

experienced and dreamed; drugs taken, sober

days spent happy too, in a house beside 

a bar, beaming, waiting for friends...

This passage from "The Landline", a poem from Stuart Krimko's collection "The Sweetness Of Herbert", seems to capture the mood of a reading held here in New York the other night. "Sweetness" is one of a trio of books from Sand Paper Press, a self-publishing unit conceived of and realized by Arlo Haskell, Shawn Vandor & Krimko, who also happens to be Embury's Wine & Food Editor (all his posts here.)  The fellows held a reading last week at the Max Protech Gallery in Chelsea and I'd volunteered to do a punch in honor of the event. I reached out to the folks at Milagro Tequila who had helped out with the Verdita party that Stuart and threw some time back  and they generously donated 6 bottles of Añejo for the party. That then put me in the position of coming up with some spectacular tequila punch w0rthy of the occasion. As it turned out the evening had a sort of charmed, instantly nostalgic glow around it, due in varying degrees to the diffuse light story at Max Protech, the gathering of friends on a cold winter's night to listen to the guys' laudable achievement of self-expression, the surprising frisson of a number of guests who seemed to come from nowhere and who knew no one central to the reading, and the sort of instantly dreamy-making effect of one kick-ass punch.

 

Up until the afternoon of the reading I was still playing with ideas when I recalled a recipe that Jonathan Borin from Highlands had shared with me that I thought could be adapted for a punch. His recipe started with Centennera Reposado, but I substituted the Milagro Añejo and added a touch of Fee Bros. Rhubarb Bitters, our obsession of the moment over here at Embury HQ.

RED BAND PUNCH (Respect to Jonathan Borin)

2 parts Milagro Añejo
1/2 part Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
1/2 part grapfruit juice (Jonathan called for fresh grapefruit but given the quantity I went with deluxe store bought--Westside Market Pink Grapefruit juice--the pink pushed Jonathan's original recipe in a rowdier direction)
1/8 part lime juice
1/2 part agave nectar
2 giant ice cubes (I used Stonyfield Farms Lowfat Yogurt containers to make ice in; adding it to the mix only when I'd arrived. In truth an additional giant cube would have been good, and allowing the ice to melt for the duration of the the cab ride over probably would have been a good idea, given its potency.)
About 10 dashes of Fee Bros. Rhubarb Bitters.

I'd already departed from Jonathan's recipe by using Añejo but the light smokiness of Milagro and its very refined, very filtered quality worked quite nicely. Following the proportions fairly closely I built the punch in my new great find, the Anchor Hocking Montana Jar. Conceived of a storage bottle, it also works as a portable, splash-free 2.5 gallon punch bowl. With a lid. This is a genius solution to the ongoing challenge of what to make punch in, to transport it if necessary, and for serving--and it's only $20. The handsome Montana fulfills all these needs, and walking into a party with a jar of pink, boozy punch is a great way to make an entrance.

I'd intended to dub this the Sand Paper Punch, but after experiencing firsthand its power (I'd had to sample a fair amount as I mixed it up, and it added and extra, shall we say, glow to my evening) I decided to call it The Red Band Punch, in honor of it's reddish hue and the anything goes, unabashed nature of red band movie trailers (like this one for "Hot Tub Time Machine".) The Red Band will accelerate a party into high gear, and fast. It's deceptively citrus-y and delicious--and yet it's mostly tequila. Be warned, and enjoy.

Many thanks again to Milagro for hooking it up!

Milagro Tequila

Sand Paper Press

Photos: Sharon McGauley and Jason Rowan, collage by Greg Needham

Literary Cocktails: Molé Margarita Punch

For the final party at the Key West Literary Seminar we decided to pull out the stops and make a really dazzling, seemingly improbable cocktail as the grand finale. Over the 3 days of the Seminar our little cocktail table had gained something of a faithful following, with repeat visitors who sought us out and even one group that referred to themselves as our "groupies", which was flattering. I was struck by how this sophisticated, literate crowd of (as I like to refer to them) lifetime New Yorker subscription holders found the notion of specialty cocktails to be quite novel. It's easy living in New York and being within this whole cocktail scene to forget that this boozy renaissance has not quite hit outside of urban centers--there are certainly exceptions around the country, little bars and restaurants that take the craft of the cocktail seriously, but there's plenty of room for education and better libations.

So when we began serving the molé margarita minds were promptly blown.

It's gone by different names since Mark Buettler created it in the fall at Dressler, after challenging himself to find a way to use Ovaltine in a cocktail. When German bitters outfit Bittermans came out with their Xocolatl Molé Bitters, he saw a way to crack the code. The resulting neo-margarita was called Puebla on the Dressler menu, but I called it Y Tu Molé Tambien when I first wrote about it. We re-dubbed it the  Tarnished Halo at a party for James Rosenquist where Mark did the cocktail catering and renamed the drink after one of the artist's pieces. But for for the purposes of the party I simply referred to it as a "molé margarita"....and the crowd went wild. I'd batched it by sense rather than measurements---I had the luxury of having had many, many of the originals from Mark's hands. And in lieu of using store bought Orgeat Chris Otten of Bad Boy Burrito made a batch from scratch, toasting almonds for a couple hours, then cooking them down with a quite a lot of dark agave nectar--he did it using his considerable cuisine kung fu, dispensing with anything resembling a recipe, so I can't tell you what he did. But Torani makes a perfectly fine Orgeat (here). Like with the Bennett punch we made a big batch, shook individual drinks with ice and strained into glasses, topping with the bitters as a final touch. These glasses were rimmed with the crowning touch--a combination of Ovaltine, almond flour and Murray River Flake Salt. I'd recommend starting small and making individual drinks before jumping up to the punch version--get to know the flavor and you'll be able to tweak the big version to your taste. Here is the original recipe:

Y TU MOLE TAMBIEN/TARNISHED HALO

1 1/2 oz blanco tequila

1/2 oz fresh lime juice

1/3 oz dark agave nectar

1/3 oz Orgeat

Shake Strain into a Double Rocks Glass rimmed with Ovaltine/Almond Flour/Sea Salt

Add Fresh Ice

Top with 4 Dashes of Bittermans Xocolatl Molé Bitters

Give a Slight Stir to Incorporate the Bitters and Serve....

Rim Mixture:

2 parts Ovaltine
2 parts almond flour
1 part sea salt (Mark used  Fleur de Sel de Guerande, we used Murray River Pink Flake Salt)

Happy literati, suffused in a molé and tequila glow.

Torani Orgeat

Bittermans Bitters

All Mark Buettler posts and videos 

Krimko On Wine: Back To California, Perfecta

After a productive, energetic, and exhausting two months on the East Coast, I'm back in Los Angeles. Good to go away, and good to come home.  One of the highlights of my time in New York was the Sand Paper Press book release party––I've got a new book of poems out from the Key West-based independent publisher; the reading we did was fun, but what pushed the evening over the edge was Embury Cocktails' tequila punch. I'm sure your fearless editor Jason Rowan will fill you in on its makeup in due time.  All I know is that my mom hadn't had tequila in some time, and one was enough to make her quite happy.

Anyway, back to sunny California.  Went by my local standby Silverlake Wines yesterday, in search of something cheap.  Being in and out of New York for eight weeks has a way of draining the pocketbook.  I found this Perfecta stuff, an Arroyo Seco red made up of mostly Grenache, and some Syrah.  Southern Rhone blend, over 14% alcohol.  At only $8, I wasn't expecting much.

I used a little of it to mix with a few tablespoons of miso paste and made a glaze for some chicken quarters that I roasted in the oven.  When they were finished and we sat down at table, I remarked to my cohorts as I tasted Perfecta, 'This isn't bad, for California.'  They laughed.  'We see you're ready to abandon France,' they joked.

No, France is still the standby for me for cheap, distinctive wine, but this stuff is good.  Jammy, perhaps a tad larger than its French cousin might be, but imminently drinkable and even (gasp) unique.  It tasted like earth, such a rare thing for New World wines, especially cheap ones.  Not sure about the Mucha-like lass on the label, but hey, could be worse.  Kind of fetching, draped over her bike like that.

The chicken quarters glazed with miso and Perfecta were quite good.  I also made some oven-roasted, thinly sliced potatoes and green beans.  Drizzled chicken fat over the potatoes.  Good to be home. S.K.

2006 Perfecta Arroyo Seco Red Wine, $8 at Silverlake Wines.

All of Stuart Krimko's wine writing here.