EMBURY COCKTAILS

Spirited Pride: Porchlight's Mimi Burnham

Continuing along with my Spirited Pride Series in collaboration with Campari America, I sat down with spitfire Mimi Burnham. Mimi's has been bartending around Long Island, Queens and New York City since the 1980s and has seen the evolution (and decline) of nightclub culture and the rise of craft cocktails. She was part of the opening team at Porchlight in far, far West Chelsea, the only bar from Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group. The aptly named bar is probably the Westernmost cocktail spot in Manhattan, a block from the river at West 26^th street, a notoriously underserved area for those in search of a proper drink, and Porchlight has been that much-desired haven.

As we chatted in the back area of Porchlight we realized we'd both spent many late nights there in the late 80s and early 90s in its incarnation as Tunnel Club.

JR: I remember seeing Nina Hagen down in the VIP Lounge in the late, late 80s.

MB: Yeah, I used to hang out with her there!

JR: Let's start with your history of bartending in New York.

MB: I started at the North Shore Yacht Club in Sea Clff, and bartended around Long Island bars for years, including at the gay bar Chameleon Club. In New York City I bartended at Danceteria at the roof bar [for the unititated, Danceteria was the early 80s club where Madonna is seen dancing to “Into The Groove' in “Desperately Seeking Susan”. I was at Palladium in the Michael Todd Room [the star-heavy VIP lounge] for about 3 months. That was fun—don't remember too much of it. Edelweiss, too. At that age, you bounce around, that's part of the experience. It was kind of rare to see a young bartender stay in the same spot, and it's still important. You're on a fast track when you're starting out and you don't know your groove yet, and each place, even if they have a similar program, you've got different people and you're gonna learn different things at each place. And sometimes it's not even apparent right away. But it forges you into the bartender you will become. There's going to be different people that influnce your style and in the end you're a collective of all the these different bartenders who have influenced your life

Later on I was at Pappazio Restaurant in Bayside, Queens, in 2012 & 2013, where we won a lot of the “Best of Queens” awards over that time--”Best Bartender, Best Happy Hour, Best Martini, Best Mojito”.

JR: How did you transition from nightclubs and more party-type bars to the more craft cocktail world?

MB: When I moved over to restaurants after years of late night bartending, I went first to Italian restaurants, because they seemed to be on the same page of exploring flavors and more complex drinks. Then I picked up a copy of Dale DeGroff's “The Craft of the Cocktail” and that really opened things up for me. I joined the USBG: NYC and that was a great investment for me, opened up so many doors and opportunities. I found out about spirits master classes offered by the brands there, and really dove into those and I highly recommend those for bartenders just getting started, they are great educational opportunities. And I still attend them. Occasionally it will be about a category rather than one specific brand, and those are my favorites. But even if it's brand specific there are going to be 3 or 4 expressions you get into, with a tastings, lectures, and sometimes a test—which really keeps you on your toes. . I think of it as: if I'm a painter and I'm going to use my paints, don't I need to know what they are made of, and what goes into them? So when I start making a cocktail I'm often thinking of all the elements that go into the spirits in it and how it will affect the cocktail.

I joined the USBG for a lot of reasons but one big one was to connect and network with like-minded people, and I've met so many people who've influenced me, and who've become allies, and friends, and it's good to see each other once a month, and just hang out with all these like-minded geeks. They just raised the membership fee, which they haven't done in years, so it's $125, which is tax deductible, you easily make it the back on the master classes, and you get that money back time and time again. I mean, the value you get is far beyond that fee.

Also, getting people to be on your side and be advocates and allies for you is incredibly helpful. Pam Wiznitzer, President of our USBG: New York Chapter has been a real champion of mine over the years and it's been fantastic to count on her as such a good friend and mentor.

JR: Tell me about what you guys do at Porchlight.

MB: It's funny because a lot of people see Danny Meyer's name and they come in expecting a restaurant, and we are a bar first, with fantastic bar style food. We're a collective of different styles of bartending and as a team we are really collaborative. We just launched the summer menu and we all had a hand in it. There's one drink where all 8 of us worked on it and there's a component of each of us in there, it's neat when that happens. We're very imaginative with our cocktails but not fussy or precious—we call it “crafted cocktails without pretension.” Approachable cocktails.

A huge part of what we do is the hospitality we offer. When someone comes into the bar, you make eye contact with them right away, you say hi, good to see you, good to see you again, even if I can't get to you right away I'll let you know I know you're there—hold one finger up.....(laughs) If you see one finger up you know it's gonna be five, but I'll make sure you get a glass of water in the meantime! That's important. You can be so good at making cocktails but if you miss that human component you're shortchanging the customer, it's not going to be the same experience.

JR: I've got a friend who's turn me onto rose spritzers, and I've been crushing those this summer, with a good rose you still get the complexity and minerality coming through the sparkling water, but you're at such a low proof that you can go all afternoon and totally maintain. And I know spritzes and low ABV drinks are really coming up—are you seeing that at Porchlight?

MB: Absolutely, a lot of the thirtysomethings and below seem to have gotten the memo about going easy and being able to maintain throughout an evening. When this cocktail rennaissance came along it was so focused on stronger stirred cocktails but you can't really drink those all night and keep it together. I think that message has gotten across to the younger drinkers and I'm seeing a lot of them ordering drinks like our “Take It Easy”. I really like to have you sit at my bar and have a good time and leave in good shape and I pay close attention to that, so I'm happy to see these kinds of drinks really catching on.

JR: Have you felt homophobia or discrimination in the bar world?

MB: For a woman to enter the craft cocktail world is very difficult, it just is. Look, If there's one job opening and there's a hundred applicants it's probably gonna be the man who gets it, that's just the way it is. It's a hurdle, but you can't let it get you down, when one door closes, two doors open, I really believe that, I'm an optimist. But it's getting better, there's some support now, Girls with Bols has been really great, Speed Rack helps with visibility, these both are helping give women the ability to be confident in the industry. They are definitely pushing the women forward.

JR: How about homophobia.

MB: Sure, sometimes, you get a little sense of something. But it's changed a lot. Actually there's story that comes to mind—and I don't know if this is homophobia or sexism or what to call it. I was when I was working at the tranny* bar Edelweiss in the early 90s in the deserted far west 40s. I was working out a lot then and was really jacked, and I worked there for a few months until someone kind of figured out that I was an actual woman—I wasn't trying to deceive anyone, and I'd worked at gay men's bars plenty of times, so I thought that it was just that kind of deal. But apparently it wasn't and I got sent on my way. Fun bar, though.

*Editor's note: The term "tranny" seems to have been designated as offensive or un-PC recently--just ask Kelly Osbourne-but that's what this bar was referred to as at that time, including by it's staff and guests, so we're gonna go with it.

 

TAKE IT EASY

1.5 oz Pinot Grigio (Porchlight uses Channing Daughters)

1 oz Aperol

1 oz Cocchi Americano

4 dashes Teapot Bitters

Garnish: Orange twist, expelled and included.

Glassware: Rocks.

2012 Key West Literary Seminar Cocktails: The Neurogibson

I've spent the first couple weeks of this year working on cocktails for the many parties of the 30th annual Key West Literary Seminar. Team Embury and I made drinks in honor of several of the attending speakers including Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, China Miéville and William Gibson. The pickled scallions in the above photo were used as an onion sub in the Neurogibson, inspired by both Gibson's book "Neuromancer" and Jonathan DeLeon of Sorella's Flying V, where the idea for this recipe oringinated. We departed quite a bit from his original formulation but the principles remain similar--gin, picked green onions, an herbal liqueur and Sriracha Bitters. Jonathan went lean and mean for his Gibson riff, tapping Death's Door Gin & Cocchi Americano.

THE FLYING V

2.5 oz Death's Door gin
1/4 Cocchi Americano
Splash scallion pickling liquid
3 dashes Sriracha bitters
Pickled scallion (pickled with rice vinegar and aromatics, mostly ginger).

Rinse a large chilled glass with the Cocchi Americano. Over ice,
combine gin and pickling liquid. Stir well and strain into the chilled
glass. Finish with Sriracha bitters, garnish with the pickled
scallion, and serve!

Once I had the William Gibson/Gisbon name connection light bulb moment I instantly wanted to start with Jonathan's elegant creation and take it someplace a little more far flung, unexpected and audacious-- hopefully something like Gibson's bold work. Briney, piney Tanqueray, herby, swampy Yellow Chartreuese, a little lime juice, even less simple, the nub of a pickled scallion stalk and a dash of the pickling juice. The heavy ginger in the pickles is a nod to the Asian element in Gibson works and indeed in cyberpunk as a whole--I was thinking of Beat Takeshi in the Gibson film adaptation "Jonny Mnemonic", as well as the strong Chinese and Korean elements in the not-too-distant-future of other KWLS guest Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story." 

NEUROGIBSON

1 1/4 oz Tanqueray Gin

1/4 oz Yellow Chartreuse

1/2 oz lime juice

1/4 oz demarara simple syrup

1 bar spoon pickled scallion pickling juice

In a pint glass take 2 leaves of lemon balm (I pulled mine from my host and KWLS Board Member Nancy Klingener's garden, check out her blog here) and lightly tap, adding all elements and topping with plenty of ice, shaking vigorously and strain into a rocks glass ( we used stemless wine glasses), topping with a couple drops of Brooklyn Hemispherical Sriracha Bitters to add a little apocalyptic heat.

The resulting cocktail was pretty damn cool, but not one you'd drink all night unlike many that we made for other parties.These considerably more approachable ecipes to come this week. 

Krimko on Wine (And Cheever)

(Editor's Note: This piece from Embury Wine & Food Editor Stuart Krimko has been amongst a backlog of posts I've had piling up to due to chronic modern urban distractedness and terrible sloth on my part. How backlogged? Check the original title: Back to School cocktail reading and listening. A thousand apologies to Krimko, whose other fine pieces can be read here. J.R.)

I've got some good drinking stuff on my to-do list for the upcoming school year.  Several of you have asked me to recommend wines from Trader Joe's, which is a noble task that I have been postponing for too long; I'll get to it soon, but in case you're thirsty this moment and reading this on your smart phone in the booze aisle of your local TJ's, pick up a bottle of VINTJS Sauvignon Blanc.  This is some of the best less-than-eight-dollar-a-bottle white wine I've had in some time, and I've had it several times since realizing this was so.  If you need more convincing, I'll do my best in my next post.

Now, onto slightly more literary topics.  Over the past few months I've enjoyed making my way through the New Yorker's podcasts.  They've set up a nice format: a writer who has published a story in the magazine chooses a story that another writer published in the magazine to read aloud.  The first in the series is John Cheever's "Reunion," read by Richard Ford, in which a boy named Charlie meets his father in Grand Central Station for an afternoon of Beefeater Gibsons.  I love Beefeater martinis, but I prefer mine with olives––I was going to say I prefer mine up with olives, but I've recently been delighted by Beefeater martinis with olives on the rocks.  Will martinis on the rocks come back into fashion soon?  Were they ever in fashion? 

Cheever, not Krimko

"Reunion" is heartbreaking and hilarious.  Richard Ford does a wonderful job of switching back and forth between the voices of the meek, embarrassed, wistful Charlie, who narrates the story, and his drunk blowhard of a father.  The story takes no more than a few minutes for Ford to read, but Cheever has packed much into those few minutes: underage drinking, the proper ratio of gin to vermouth, the echoing splendor of Grand Central Station, the everlasting battle between obnoxious customers and exasperated wait staff, and the distressing vagaries of the father-son relationship.  When Charlie tells us, at the end of the story, that this was "the last time I saw my father," we want to pat him on the back and pour him another drink.S.K.

New Yorker podcasts on iTunes

Happy Birthday Mr. Embury

 

David A. Embury's, author of the seminal 1946 cocktail text "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks", would have celebrated a birthday on November 3rd, were he still alive. He'd be 124, but even in his advanced state he'd surely be stationed at a really good bar somwhere, quizzing the bartender on the details of the drinks he was making and the reasons behind the choice of ingredients, ratios and techniques. Embury compiled the best overall compendium of cocktail knowledge that someone not in the liquor game ever made, certainly. A traveling businessman with an insatiable curiosity for how drinks were made and an apparently unquenchable thirst, Embury stationed himself at bars around the world and drank in knowledge and cocktails with equal avidity. "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks" was published in 1943 and Embury's steel trap mind and martini-dry wit immediately made it an indispensible guide for both pros and enthusisatic home bartenders.

When I picked the name "Embury" for this site I'd just discovered the book and was quite taken by Embury's voice and the audacity it took for a non-bartender to craft such an in-depth survey of spirits and cocktails. At the time I was a lapsed bartender myself and just getting into writing about cocktail culture, and the man was a real inspiration and the book an invaluable resource. After naming the site I began to apprehend the extent of my audacity--the man is a hero to subsequent generations of cocktail enthusiasts and experts and name-checking him so visible took balls, or a little ignorance in my case. At any rate, once we got rolling it was too late to turn back, and  as we prepare to relaunch the site and take it from blog to a properly functioning site, we'd just like to acknowledge the both the man's epic achievement as well as his epic cool, neither of which we pretend to even begin to approach.

We'd also like to direct you to where you can get the book--at Cocktail Kingdom, Greg Boehm's haven for cocktail knowledge, tools, including an assortment of bitters that outflanks even the mighty Kalustyan's. Cocktail Kingdom HQ in the Flatiron District has a room filled with vintage spirits, obscure cocktail implements, all sorts of arcanae and and a collection of archival cocktail books that makes the place a sort of Library of Alexandria of drinks for the drinking set.

The collection of  loving reprints of classic cocktails books published under Boehm's Mud Puddle Books imprint is marvelously useful and they are all naturally quite stylish, and "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks" is the jewel in the crown. (Atlhough my advice is to remove the faithfully reproduced but unexcitng dust jacket and display it with the more vintage looking hard cover.) This edition includes introductions by Robert Hess and Audrey Saunders, and at $29.95 may be the best  investment for your home bar you'll ever make.

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