slkinsey

The point is, I think, that for the purposes of such an article, it should be understood that the bar staff won't look down on you or treat you like a rube if you want a Ketel One Dirty Martini. You'll probably get one of the best Dirty Vodka Martinis you've ever had. I think that we cocktailians talk a lot of smack about vodka and vodka cocktails, and a newcomer who likes vodka might reasonably think after hearing us carry on that he'd be treated like a jerk at one of these places. But the reality is that he wouldn't. It's one thing to bring your date to M&H and do a little nuzzling before paying the check and heading out the door to someone's place. It's yet another to get blitzed and explore the inner world of one another's tonsils (perfectly acceptable behavior in plenty of bars) in front of everyone, and yet another to go to the bar thinking you'll pick someone up.

Really, if you're sending a person who is a cocktail neophyte and totally unaware of the current cocktail renaissance, the list dwindles to Pegu Club and Julie's places (with the slight edge going to Pegu, IMO). I might take a cocktail newb to PDT, but I wouldn't send a pair of them to PDT by themselves. And I'd be unlikely to take one to D&C or to M&H (the former because I think it's too advanced/challenging overall for a complete beginner, and the latter because it's too expensive for a beginner, there's no menu and bartender interaction is limited).

While these places don't carry many different vodkas, don't tend to serve flavored vodkas, and don't feature vodka cocktails, all of them do, in fact, have vodka behind the bar. And, more to the point, all of them will be perfectly happy to prepare you a vodka cocktail or a vodka soda or a vodka on the rocks with not an iota of attitude. I remember talking with Audrey about this back when we were talking about how she was going to stock Pegu Club, and she said that she would only carry two or three brands of vodka and no flavored vodka. "Why not just carry no vodka at all," I asked. And she replied that, while they weren't "about" vodka drinks (although one of her signature cocktails, the Dreamy Dorini Smoking Martini, is a vodka cocktail), if someone asked for a vodka on the rocks, they would have a good vodka and would endeavor to make them the best vodka on the rocks they could offer. At the end of the day, its about service. Interestingly, I have once upon a time in the wee hours of the morning, sat in a booth of Mlik & Honey with Audrey and Sasha, drinking Moscow Mules -- vodka drinks. The last time I was at Flatiron Lounge, the talent behind the bar was as good as it gets.

You can order anything you want at Milk & Honey, and if they can make it, they will serve it to you with respect. Due to the space constraints, they can't make everything (they don't stock Lillet, for example). I would also suggest that the code-of-conduct stuff at Milk & Honey is not particularly burdensome, even for a general-interest place. The problem for you in writing about Milk & Honey for a general interest piece is avoiding the douchebag factor of publishing the number -- and without the number, it loses some general interest. If I were writing the piece, I'd probably write the piece mostly about M&H or Sasha's aesthetic in general, explain the semi-private number bit about M&H, and give contact and location information for Little Branch (which is, more or less, "general admission Milk & Honey"). Getting back to the code-of-conduct issue... One thing I would hope that such an article would point out is that cocktailian bars have an aesthetic and a purpose that is different from most other bars. Expectations as to modes of conduct, etc. are as different in these places compared to most bars as they are in Gramercy Tavern compared to Dinosaur Barbecue. None of these bars is the place to go if you want to pick up chicks or cruise guys, hoot and hollar, show off your nouveau riche broker money, wear shorts and a dirty t-shirt, groove to the music, dance on the bar (or anywhere), pound shots and get drunk, drink beer, see and be seen, snort coke in the bathroom, fight or make out. This is important, because the reality is that 95% of people who go to bars value things other than the culinary quality of the cocktails. And any "general-interest" article about cocktail bars will be read mostly by these people. So, if it were me, at least half the article would be explaining what a cocktailian bar is, and how it is different from a regular bar.

Again, I avail myself of off-menu and themed drinks all the time. What I take issue with are the ideas that (1) "off-menu" is the game and not a sideshow; and (2) that this is where the "true cocktailian's" interests lie. Both ideas, to me, represent a certain amount of poseurism along the lines of the internet foodie's fetishization of bacon (there was a time when anyone wanting to be taken seriously as a foodie had to prove his baconophile bona fides).

Heh. And, as chance would have it, I was editing in my parenthetical comments at the same time. That, to me, is where the poseurism comes in. It's people who get the idea that "going off-menu" is the end-all/be-all of a cocktail bar, that going off-menu is what the real cocktailians do, so thats how they demonstrate their cocktailian chops.

I guess the point I'm making is that one reads a lot of things that go like this: "I went to such-and-such bar. They had 28 drinks on the menu. They all looked awesome. I had the delicious Such-And-Such Cocktail, then I went off-menu for the next three drinks (implication: because I'm such a cocktailian, and everyone knows that's the real game). Great bar!"

I'm going to take a slightly contrarian position and say that I think "going off-menu" is far over-rated, and the "mania" for it smacks just a bit of the poseurism of the internet foodie fetishization of bacon. "Of menu" is the cockailian's "bacon tasting." Now... I like bacon and going off-menu at a cocktail bar as much as the next guy. But the reality is that the bartender is rarely actually "cooking up something brand new" for you. It's either a drink they already know, or something new they're working on. There are all kinds of tricks a bartender can use to convince a customer that something is being created all'improviso. I remember a conversation with a mixologist who shall remain nameless about the trick that goes something like this: mix the drink without the bitters, then do a straw tasting from the tin, look contemplatively upwards, glance at the bitters, choose one or two (the ones that you already know go in the drink) and dash them in, taste again, nod knowingly, proceed to finish drink. Customer has a "gee wiz" moment where he sees the Master Creating a Work of Cocktail Art for him. Pleasure enhancement ensues. Tips are increased. I love having guys riff new things for me. Part of that, however, is because I have certain relationships with certain bartenders, and I also have an intellectual curiosity in tasting the as-yet incompletely formed ideas they're working on. But, in all honesty, it is rare that a truly "off-menu" drink (i.e., one that never was "on-menu" or isn't a neglected classic) is on the level of brilliance attained by the cocktails on the menu which were refined through a thousand different tweaks and iterations. To me, the list is the thing. The riffs are gravy. I just think it often happens to be the case that we go to some places frequently enough that we've burned through everything on the menu and end up going off the menu so often for that reason that we start thinking the sauce is the meat. For me, when I go to a new-to-me place like Clover Club, I want to have everything on the menu that interests me before I start wandering off. With the size and breadth of the menu at D&C, if I didn't have the "let's see what you can pull out of your hat that's new and unusual" playful relationship with Phil of long standing, I'd probably never go off-menu there.

The reality of the situation is that, as interest in cocktails grows, poseur cocktail bars will proliferate. That's bad, but not entirely bad. The reason it's not entirely bad is that one real cocktail bar comes along with every ten poseur cocktail bars. If there are a hundred poseur cocktail bars, that makes for ten real cocktail bars. Not only that, but plenty of drinkers and bartenders graduate from the poseur places to the real places. Percentage-wise not that many, perhaps, but enough so that real cocktailian bartenders can make a living and real cocktail bars can continue to be profitable.

Whereas -- to state the obvious -- if Pegu has a temporary fallow period because of dilution of talent, you know it's going to bounce back, because unlike a place like Ellataria it has a genuine commitment to excellence in cocktails. Indeed. And even if there is a momentary "fallow period" where you are unfamiliar with the new talent and they don't know what you like, or they are new enough to the bar that they're not comfortable (or allowed) to go deeply off-menu... at the very least you know that all of the house drinks are still going to be made at the highest level, and were created at the very highest level.

Right. These places tend by nature to be moving targets. Brian left Elettaria, and it immediately slips from second tier to third tier. If, like me, you haven't kept up with the comings-and-goings at Elettaria, you can end up going there after the slide. This is one of the things that has generally kept me away from the second tier places. I simply can't be bothered to keep track of things such as whether Naren is going to be at Bobo on a certain night. There were any number of times I tried to go to Freeman's on one of Toby's nights only to discover that he had traded with someone else or was out of town or otherwise not there on his regular night. Eventually I stopped trying.

The problem with the lazy susan idea is that it creates incredibly inefficient use of space. I'm guessing you could fit at least 25% more liquor bottles into a cupboard without lazy susans. And, for most of us, that's the name of the game. I barely have enough room to cram in all the bottles I have in regular rotation, and that's not even accounting for the fact that I have at least ten bottles on my "need to buy" list -- some of which are real necessities (I'm out of Cuban-style white rum, for example).

I agree with your last paragraph, but take issue with the "take the money and run" characterization. Acting as a consultant doesn't mean you have control over decisions that management makes, including how to keep standards high and train staff. Every consulting gig is a "take the money and run" gig. That's the nature of the beast. That's what they are. It's no different for a mixologist than it is for a chef.

It's difficult to put this all in the proper context, and yet be sure to give Dale the huge credit he deserves... I imagine cocktail culture as being like an upward curve. When Dale started, it was at the very narrow part of the curve. There was practically no awareness or interest in cocktail culture. He created a lot of that in New York from scratch. But you have to remember that Dale's movement-starting turn in the Rainbow Room began twenty years ago! And he was already ten years into his bartending career. Blackbird was nine years ago, and the curve was still only a bit fatter than it was when he began. People like Audrey and Sasha and Julie were able to capitalize on the ground that Dale laid, and they had the advantage of working in a fatter part of the curve, and one that has curved upwards dramatically in only the last 3 years. At this point, however, it's a bit late in Dale's career for him to be owning/managing a bar and shaking cocktails several nights a week. As a father of the movement, he wasn't in a position to benefit from the resurgent interest in cocktails the way people like Audrey and Sasha and Julie have been able to do, because there wasn't anything to benefit from as yet -- they hadn't grown the curve sufficiently. So, at this point, the way to get some benefit is to do consulting gigs -- lend your name and expertise to places that want it, and then walk away with money in your pocket. The reality, however, is that places with consultant lists are usually not very good. They may have a few nice drinks designed by the consultant, but unless there is someone there who cares about the program, manages training and quality, ads to the list, and all those things, it's often a fairly rapid slide to mediocrity. In this sense, it's no different than restaurants that have a name chef come in who consults on the menu and then takes off shortly after opening to his next gig. For this reason, there isn't too much excitement when one hears about a place opening with a "Dale Degroff list and Dale Degroff-trained staff." This isn't a reflection on Dale at all, but rather a reflection on the nature of consulting gigs. I have no doubt that, were Dale to open a "signature Dale DeGroff bar" where he was there five nights a week personally managing, recruiting and training the staff, designing the list and mentoring his staff on their contributions, etc... there would be a great deal of interest among the cocktailian community, and I have no doubt that it would be a top cocktail spot. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely.

To expand a bit on Nathan's comments: Places like Bobo, Elettaria, etc. are places where you can go there on a certain night and avail yourself of a cocktailian heavy hitter (Naren at the former, Brian at the latter). Other nights, you must avail yourself of the list and hope that whoever is back there is going to make it properly. In general, with places with "consultant" cocktail lists, or where there isn't someone on-premises every night who cares about the cocktail program, there is a general decline from great at the start to not-so-great further down the line (e.g., 5 Ninth). Notwithstanding the foregoing, I would still "rank" these places higher than places such as the USHG or BR Guest places, because at least you can go to, e.g., Elettaria when Brian is there and experience the full monte with one of the City's best shakers. The USHG and BR Guest places often have cocktails designed by someone very good, but that guy isn't going to be in the house mixing the drinks and riffing up new ones. More to the point, that's not really the goal of the cocktail programs at these places. The goal is to have an offering of interesting-but-widely-appealing cocktails that play into the food menu and restaurant's theme. To make an example, let's look at Tabla. Here is their menu: Purana Fashioned Elijah Craig 12 year Bourbon & St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram Rye Smile Ginger Infused Old Overholt Rye, Fresh Lemon Juice & Soda Indian Sangria Red Wine, A Blend of Spirits, Fresh Fruits & Spice Thai Basil Bliss Sauza Blanco Tequila, Fresh Thai Basil, Pineapple & Sparkling Wine Hang Thyme Hangar One Buddha’s Hand Citron & Fresh Thyme Tabla Libre House Spiced Rum, GUS Dry Cola & Fresh Lime Watermelon Mojito Cruzan Light Rum, Fresh Mint, Watermelon & Lime Tablatini Skyy Citrus with Lemongrass-Infused Fresh Pineapple Juice Lots o’ Passion Passion Fruit Purée with Vodka & Lime Juice Masala Mary Spiced Tomato Juice with Ketel One & Chef Floyd’s Pickled Onions Pomegranate Gimlet Pomegranate Juice with Plymouth Gin & Fresh Lime Juice Tamarind Margarita Sauza Blanco Tequila, Luxardo Triplum, Tamarind, Fresh Lime & Orange Kachumber Kooler Green Chillies, Cilantro, Cucumber & Plymouth Gin This must be a fairly current list, because St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram hasn't been on the market that long. This is just not a menu that is interesting to a cocktailian, and none that I know would make a trip to Tabla to avail themselves of these drinks. I can't think of a single one of these I would order if it were on the menu at D&C.

Yea, you gotta move the wine glasses. You could have booze there! ShadowedOne has an interesting solution, but I think that only works if you want to have all your liquor bottles on permanent display and have the extra room for the shelving (neither of which is true for me). I sort-of end up with a "quadrant" system. If it's a short stubby bottle, it's going to be on the lower shelf to the right and so on.

Ya call that a liquor cabinet? Seriously, though... I haven't found that there's much you can do unless you have something more custom-designed. My solution is to have one "working" cocktail spirits cabinet with maybe 50 bottles in it -- then keep any duplicate bottles in the tool cabinet, any "mostly for sipping" spirits like single malt scotch, absinthe, Red Hook Rye, etc. in the bottom of the china cabinet, and any vermouth-type things in the refrigerator. Other than that, I try to keep the gin together, all the pisco together, and that sort of thing. Not very good at that, as you can see... and the annoyance of some bottles being extra tall and skinny with others being extra short and fat screws up the "system" a bit. One thing that I do find useful for home is that I put my "mixing kit" on a tray that I can slide out of the cabinet. This has my mixing tins, strainers, muddler, jiggers, bitters and that sort of thing. That way, when I'm ready to make drinks, I need only slide out the tray and put it on the countertop.

I am not aware of anything known as "dilution heat." In order for combining whiskey with water to cause the resultant solution to rise in temperature from, there would have to be an exothermic reaction. In consideration of the fact that the whiskey is already at least 50% water, I would say that this is impossible on a chemical basis. Well, it's been a long time since I took physical chemistry but I assure you it is possible. Because the weak bonds/interactions between highly polar water and less polar ethanol are different, you get changes in physical properties that are not strictly additive when the two are mixed. So you get a delta-H of mixing that is, um, I think positive and the temperature increases. The effect is really noticeable when you dilute nitric acid with water - it can get really hot. On the other hand if you mix acetic acid and water it gets cold because of the opposite effect on the bonding. I don't know the magnitude of the temperature effect in mixing alcohol and water or if it really has any effect on the resulting drink. It seems to me that the heat taken up by melting the ice is the same whether it occurs before or after the mixing. But as I pointed out thermodynamics is not always intuitive... Okay, maybe if you are mixing pure ethanol with pure water. But the point is that <100 proof whiskey is already mostly water!

If you want to get rid of all the fine particles, what you want to do is clarify your stock, not strain it. This is better, I find, if you do it before the reduction stage. To clarify, stir plenty of egg whites into cold stock, stir constantly as you bring it up to temperature, then stop stirring and allow the coagulated "raft" of egg whites to float to the top while you lightly simmer for 10 minutes or so. After that, gently strain through cheesecloth and you will have a crystal-clear stock.

What is meant by peperoncino in this context is crushed red pepper, aka red pepper flakes. If it specifies fresh peperoncino, then you can use something like ripe fresh jalapeño.

Think about it... considering that 100 proof whiskey is 50% water by volume, how could this possibly be true?

I am not aware of anything known as "dilution heat." In order for combining whiskey with water to cause the resultant solution to rise in temperature from, there would have to be an exothermic reaction. In consideration of the fact that the whiskey is already at least 50% water, I would say that this is impossible on a chemical basis. It's not a cocktail. It's "Whiskey and Water." A ratio of 1:2 or 2:5 doesn't strike me as all that unusual for whiskey and water. It just won't have that much alcoholic potency, is all. But plenty of highballs have a much larger ratio of spirit to (fizzy) water than what Suntory recommends. There are definitely certain flavors and nuances that will become apparent when the spirit is diluted like this that are obscured when the spirit is taken at full intensity

Bemelmans Bar (no apostrophe), even back in Audrey's day, was never a place where you could go "off menu" with the Union bartenders. They knew how to make Martinis and Vodka Tonics and that sort of thing, and they were trained to make Audrey's specialty drinks (some of which may have been batched for them), and that's it. I remember one of the first times I went there, I asked a bartender for an Aviation, and he politely but firmly replied that he'd be happy to make me anything on the menu. What made Bemelmans so much fun for me was that I made friends with Audrey there, and when we would visit the bar, Audrey would hang out with us at a table and also go back to make all the drinks for us. Sometimes she'd make up some new drinks based on the conversations we were having at the table. One that I still have in my book is the "Eric Malson Manhattan" that she made for Eric, who is especially fond of Booker's bourbon (2 1/2 Booker's, 3/4 sweet vermouth, 1/2 Punt e Mes, 1 dash Angostura). This sort of thing was possible because her responsibilities at Bemelmans were nowhere near what they are at Pegu today, and it's the one thing I really miss about the "old Bemelmans days." Anyway... I would assume that Bemelmans Bar works more or less the same way today, with the Union Bartenders making the usual hotel bar-type stuff, plus whatever specialty cocktails Brian Van Flandern has put on the menu. If the specialty cocktails are any good, it should be similar to the way the experience was in Audrey's day for people who didn't get Audrey herself. I don't know anything about his work, but haven't been too terribly excited about the Per Se cocktails I've tried -- although I don't know if those are his or not. From the looks of things he does a lot of consulting.

What do you mean? The list isn't that long. Maybe 15+ cocktails, and I'm guessing that 4-5 drinks have mint in them. I happen to like mint a whole lot but I recognize that not everyone does. Compare the menu now with back in 2005: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1001104 A lot of those drinks are still on the menu, whereas the newer places (Tailor, PDT, etc.) revamp their menus on a more regular basis. The last PDT changeover jettisoned all but one or two drinks, IIRC, which is more interesting to me. Anyway, I agree with Sneakeater. As usual. On most things. Part of the reason for this is because a lot of those cocktails are signature Audrey Saunders drinks that have, by now, entered into the canon of "modern classics." I speak of things like the Gin Gin Mule, Tantris Sidecar, etc. With all due respect to my talented bartender friends at PTD, etc. -- and I don't think they would disagree with me on this point -- this is something they simply haven't done as yet. Audrey is someone who is in the running for "most important mixologist of her generation." When customers go to Pegu Club, they expect to be see Audrey's famous classics on the menu. It's also a lot easier to completely tear down and rebuild a menu several times a year when you've got two to three bartenders serving a capacity of 35 than it is when the capacity is 150. That said, I do think the Pegu menu is due for some expansion and, now that Audrey and Philip Kirschen-Clark have revamped Pegu's food offerings into what the NY Times called "the most elaborate and successful in the city" I think she may look into revamping the cocktails menu. It's doubtful. Just about every top mixologist in NYC worked at Pegu during the early days. That's a difficult evaluation to make. There is a distinction to be made between "bartender" and "mixologist." There are some excellent mixologists that are so-so bartenders, and many of the city's most acclaimed and influential mixologists rarely if ever tend bar anymore. They're really focused more on "sipping spirits" and absinthe than cocktails, per se, aren't they?

Would you make the same claim about every place on your short list? With the possible exceptions of Clover Club and Flat Iron,* yes.** __________________________________________ * I hate to say anything bad about Julie, whom I adore, but I don't find she's as much of a maniac about staffing as the others. ** I haven't had the bad times at Pegu that others claim to have had. All cocktail bars eventually go through a lull as talent matures to the point where it moves on and new talent has to be developed. This hit both Flatiron Lounge when a lot of talent moved to Pegu, and it hit Pegu when a lot of their talent moved on to D&C and a few other places. The problem, more or less, was that there simply wasn't enough talent on that level in the city to go around. New talent had to be made. It hasn't happened to places like D&C or PDT yet, but don't think it won't. Eventually, for example, Brian and Joaquin (and maybe even Phil) are going to move on to their own places. By now, both Pegu and Flatiron have bounced back very well and have a good mix of experienced bartenders and young up-and comers. Clover Club, for example, has Giuseppe Gonzalez, Pegu Club has Kenta Goto, and the last time I was at Flatiron Lounge, Damon Dyer was behind the bar.