Wild Bill Turkey

Sliding doors for back-bar fridges also mean that you don't have the door swinging out into the tight space behind the bar and becoming an obstacle. If your barback is trying to get into the fridge to place glassware for you, he can slide it open and work without disturbing you, but if he has to swing open a door with hinges and corners, then either he can work back there or you can, but not both. Problem is most fridges with sliding doors have return springs to close the door by itself, which can make it a pain to hold open if you're trying to load it.

Bought some last week at Bevmo (California chain of liquor supermarkets) off of a fully stocked shelf.

I suppose it depends on who you're trying to talk to. Maybe everyone else here really does find it impossible to avoid thinking of "craft brewing" when they hear the word craft, but not me. Of course, I'm not a professional bartender, and maybe that's who we're trying to communicate to? I don't think that was Kent's original intent, but it seems like we're also on a quest to name our own interest. I doubt most people will think of craft brewing right away, but, like me, will think first of craftsmanship. Maybe you'll say this is still too agrarian for describing these modern cocktails, but I doubt any of the bartenders in question would bridle at being called a craftsperson, whereas, okay, I can see them rolling their eyes at being described as a "gourmet". "New Old School" doesn't sound very good to me, I have to say. A phrase like "Old School" sounds too much like contemporary slang to me for it to embrace the timelessness of the subject, and adding "New" to it to suggest an evolution just sounds slogan-y.

Craft cocktails: starting to sound like a winner Nostalgic cocktails: misses the point completely Chris'"ewww": made me laugh out loud in a room by myself.

Both neo-Classic and classic-inspired sound appropriate and, with hyphens, work as category names without requiring the use of quotation marks. Both terms exclude the classics, of course, but I doubt people would be confused enough to think you couldn't get a Manhattan at PDT.

Okay, so Gourmet isn't the word, and likely for the reasons I mentioned. Although in fairness, if I went up to the bar at PDT and asked for "one of those dandy "Classic Cocktails" you're famous for making", and used "air quotes" around "Classic Cocktails", my guess is that I wouldn't be anybody's favorite customer either. Maybe if they could tell I was spelling the phrase as "Klassik Kocktails"...

Please accept. Remember "America's Top Bartender"? The show was as bad as it could be, but what made it all so awful was the quality of the judges. How could you take a show like this seriously if you have no faith in the judges? The TV show had a gigolo and two hired escorts for judges, and the whole thing was a joke. Flair was valued as much as taste, and the contestants were essentially judged on their looks. TV entertainment requires a certain amount of sacrifice of quality in favor of showmanship, but ultimately, even on TV, you have to believe the judges have a clue about what's going on in the glass...

I'm also interested to hear what others have to say here, because I've had this question before as well. "Classic Cocktails" seems to be the shorthand people are using, but I agree that it isn't right, for a number of reasons. I'm tempted to pull an old advertising word from the 70s out of retirement: Gourmet. It's a word that doesn't mean much to us anymore, since the whole world went foodie back in the 90s. But "Gourmet cocktails" kind of says what we mean. Made by and for someone with a focus on taste, quality, and a level of sophistication. Likely to be a little more expensive than the average. The word "Gourmet" these days kind of works against its own meaning, like calling something "Classy". But its meaning is accurate, and maybe the word has been dead in advertising long enough that it could be returned to use in daily language?

Different, yes. Like apples & fish. I think the new one is much, much better, but they're so different that they're hard to compare as though they were from the same family. They're made by different hands, with different ingredients. Both distillers are skilled, all the herbs carefully chosen from good local sources on opposite sides of the ocean. The recipes may have been similar, but they're really completely different animals.

Two thoughts: On the amount of lime juice, Jeff Berry changed ONLY the quantity of lime juice in the"Trader Vic's" Mai Tai recipe between the publication of "Grog Log" (which calls for 1 1/2 ozs lime juice) and "Sippin' Safari" (which calls for only 1 ounce). Having always used the older recipe, which uses more lime juice, I've always been very happy with my results. But the Beachbum's changes to this recipe seem to indicate he agrees with you. The two-rum recipe seen in Jeff Berry's books, as well as others seems like the way to go for teaching a class about this tropical standard. After all, the practice of mixing rums for unique blends is central to the style of this category. I can't imagine teaching even a brief segment on the subject of tiki drinks without demonstrating the blending of rums, and it strikes me as odd that the Barsmarts course ignores this tradition (though, of course, who am I?)

Just had my first glass of the VEP (green) as a digestif after a great meal at Boulevard in San Francisco. I may have to sell my truck and buy a bottle of this...

Yes, please, post updates. I'm fixing to try my first infusion, and I wanted to do pineapple rum. I see this time you've switched out the overproof demerara for the W&N, and the blackstrap for Myer's. I would be very interested to find out if you found this year's recipe to be an improvement.

Actually, it IS on that website, under "P" for Pomegranate. The picture that comes up when you click on it shows the bottle with the French word "Grenade".

I would think that if a cocktail had been created to celebrate a painting, it would be created after the painting had been finished and displayed in a gallery, and I'd even say after it had been reviewed and had at least a little time to build up some celebrity. Cocktails were named for popular plays and musicals once they'd been open long enough to become the toast of the town. I'd never heard of the painting, but if it became a a big enough hit that it was famous at the time, then the cocktail might have been created anytime within a year or two after the painting was finished, so your 1914 date isn't inconsistent with your story.

The Bluecoat Gin bottle is not only beautiful, but very comfortable to handle and use as well. The Bulleit Bourbon bottle is another of my favorites. Not having a neck, it might not be as easy to handle in a speedrail situation, (I imagine) but when making drinks at home, the classic apothecary bottle, and the way you hold it, make one feel they're performing a little alchemy when cooking up a drink.