At Tales of the Cocktail last month, an intriguing opportunity arose; would I like to attend the Beverage Alcohol Resource’s (B.A.R.) BarSmarts Advanced program in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or New York City this year? Why yes, thank you! I would! And so, having registered for the course, bought my tickets to New York City, and received my BarSmarts messenger bag with all of the knick-knacks and bar tools used in the course, I felt quite self-satisfied and began my studies. Soon after, I learned that B.A.R. would begin offering an online version of the course this month. So, no need for you to wait on an invite and book a flight and reserve a room 1000’s of miles away to enjoy the chance to increase your cocktailian knowledge and improve your bartending skills. You can do it from the comfort of your home in front of your screen…in your skivvies if you prefer. (though I do not recommend shaking drinks above your laptop, or your skivvies for that matter). For a $45 registration fee, here’s what you’ll get:

(click for a larger view)

• Access to a 4-week curriculum designed for professional bartenders by the likes of Paul Pacult, Steve Olson, Dale DeGroff, and David Wondrich including video content featuring David Wondrich,
• A BarSmarts branded messenger bag full of the necessary bar tools to study and complete the practical portions of the program,
• Hands-on exercises to study and perfect the “The classic 25 drinks every bartender should know” and evaluation using the BarSmarts Wired’s online “Drink Builder” application, and
• Certification by B.A.R. as “BarSmarts Wired Certified” allowing you to demonstrate your qualifications by adding “BSWC” to your title or on your resume.

According to Pernod-Ricard, who sponsors the program:

BarSmarts WIRED targets bartenders across the country by offering them the opportunity to participate in BarSmarts through a web-based education and certification program offered exclusively through password-protected entrance to the BarSmarts WIRED site. Unlike BarSmarts Advanced, which launched in October 2008 and includes LIVE training from all six BAR, LLC partners, WIRED is not an invitation only program. It is available to any bartender who is interested in learning the craft, advancing his or her career and becoming certified in advanced education. The BarSmarts WIRED on line course went live online on August 1 and will run through September 30.

If you’re a bartender or cocktail enthusiast who is unable to gain an invite or attend BarSmarts Advanced Live, I highly recommend BarSmarts Wired as a way to freshen up and revisit skills through content presented by some of the best in the industry. Everything from the history of distillation to achieving service and efficiency as a bartender to managing inventory control is touched upon. And, while not a Master’s class in bartending or bar operations, the course provides valuable insights into the bartending profession and I can recommend it to relatively new bartenders looking to learn more about the industry they’ve entered and increase their value to their business or to enthusiasts who have considered joining the ranks of those behind-the-stick and would like to get a glimpse of how the profession might suit them.

Hell, the bartending kit alone is worth the price of admission, so go for it¹ . And, you get to play with this; what more could you ask?

For a full-on marketing blast of a preview of the program you can view the Flash Demo.

1. though that julep strainer remains a glorious piece of shit, Blair [↩]

“What marketing budget?,” is the refrain. Time and again when talking to craft and artisanal distillers the question turns to “how do we get our product in front of the right people and noticed?” Ralph Erenzo of Tuthilltown Spirits, Sonja Kassebaum of North Shore Distillery, Lance Winter of St. George Spirits, and Rory Donovan of Peach Street Distillers all have answers. And, despite the fact that these aren’t the distillers of Copperhead Road, their passion, colorful approach, and war stories entertain, inform, and illustrate how nothing sells product better than the person who made it, the distiller.

“The story sells.” says Ralph Erenzo over the din that occurs when you get over 50 of the most innovative and passionate distillers together in a hangar doubling as a distillery. And, with Ralph, even then it’s hard not to hear him, “We had a group of potential investors in a couple of weeks ago…that argued that the story [of a spirit] was meaningless and that someone in Indiana or even Rochester or Buffalo wouldn’t buy it because of a story. I had just that morning returned, from Buffalo and Rochester, where I’d sold everything I had that was alloted, to people who’d never tasted it before.” From bringing bartenders and bar managers to your distillery and providing them a quick course in Distilling 101 to “[having bartenders] tasting it coming out of the still and having your product become theirs,” Ralph believes in sharing your products’ stories and letting that story sell for you. He’ll gladly tell you his.

Sonja, quick to make a cocktail for you and quick to tell you, “we’re a scrappy little distillery just north of Chicago,” emphasizes a different tack, that of credibility through cocktails.

“Everything [in our product] is hand-done and we’re really trying to appeal to the foodie audience and the cocktail audience. So, I’m a member of our bartender’s guild, I write a blog about cocktails, I was a cocktail nerd before I got into this and is partly why i got into this. So I try to do those things so that I can make a suggestion to a bartender and they’ll listen to me because I’ve earned some credibility with them….A lot of brands are just throwing out sugary schlock cocktails…on your website have current content and quality cocktail recipes that are really basic but have some pretty complex ones too….We have a monthly email newsletter that’s a great way to make people aware and excited about your product and be creative in your approach. [For example] we do cocktail pairing dinners and innovative stuff that demonstrates the quality of our products and ways to use them.”

And, once you’ve had some of Sonja’s cocktails, you’ll be excited about her products too. Until you sit down and talk to Sonja about North Shore’s Gin No. 6, you may not realize just how well lavender works in a gin, and why it does. Once you know that, though, you want to try their other products as well. But, aside from the product, there’s Sonja herself.

Running into Sonja Sunday night at Heaven’s Dog in San Francisco close to closing time and starting a conversation about the absinthes in front of you is like walking into a buzzsaw formed of equal parts excitement and knowledgeable appreciation. You can fully expect a night with Sonja to end with promises of future good times to be had, invitations to discuss your shared passions more, and a hearty hug. And once a distiller makes this connection with you, in the words of Erenzo, “you come out of the realm of the salesman and into the realm of craftsman.”

“If Rory were any more laid-back I think he’d be dead,” I overhear. Almost true. But, behind that laissez-faire demeanor lies a shrewd observer who observes, after a discussion about labeling and packaging of products, the importance of the initial roll-out and launch of a product. Rory’s cooly-delivered, if laser-focused, observation is:

“Take time to do it right the first time. Talking about redesign and the money you can spend you get anxious to get out there [telling yourself] ‘ok, I’ve been doing this for two-to-four years,’ your equipment is here and you’re ready to see something go out the door, and you’ll do whatever it takes to get some piece-of-shit label slapped on your bottle so you can get it on the shelf. And, you only get to roll-out once and your roll-out is your biggest moment. You can always come out with a new variety or brand and try and do it again but your first time is always the most important….whether it’s in your backyard or you’re moving into a new state or something, make sure you sit down and make a plan and do everything you can that first time because it’s your only shot.”

Later, Rory bluntly tells the audience, his peers, “Contests are bullshit…I mean, they’re great for the person who wins them.” And Rory’s approach is reflected in his products. From Jackalope Gin, to Jack & Jenny Pear Brandy, to their newly-released Bourbon, the first in Colorado, his products present a bold and honest approach to distillation and craftsmanship. As do almost all the products I tasted that weekend from these fine and brave distillers that pour years of their lives into their product. Take a moment, next time you see that bottle you don’t immediately recognize on the third shelf down and buried in the middle, to take a second look and consider taking it home and pouring it into your glass. Chances are, you won’t be sorry.

The story of Mud Puddle Books is the story of Greg Boehm. Greg was born , a poor black child into a family that published Salvatore Calabrese’s cocktail books under the Sterling Publishing label. “Each year I would go to London a few times and inevitably spend my evening sitting at his bar when he was at the Library Bar at the Lanesborough Hotel,” said Greg. “As my interest in cocktails grew, I started collecting old cocktail books. This was about 10 years ago.” Sitting across Salvatore Calabrese’s bar and learning the art and reward of fine drink would light a passion in the most stolid and steadfast of us, and, in Greg’s case, his passion took the form of locating, and collecting, one-by-one, the lost spirits and recipes for which he’d begun his exploration at the appropriately named Library Bar.

“The internet helped in tracking down these ingredients and recipes could be found for the ingredients that were not commercially available. My book collection grew steadily….When I finally gathered all the books in one place there were close to 2,000 books from 1940 and earlier. Now my collecting madness includes innumerable bottles of long discontinued booze.”

Then, something changed. Suddenly, Creme de Violette, Pimento Dram, and other long-forgotten cocktail ingredients, so many of which are required to faithfully reproduce the recipes in the vintage tomes Greg had assembled, began appearing on the market. And, likewise, a burgeoning community of cocktail enthusiasts were publishing, and promoting, recipes for lost liqueurs and spirits on the Internet and in mainstream magazines such as Imbibe. And Greg was sitting on an accidental Alexandrian Library of the Cocktailian Arts. “In other words, the books were now a living history and part of the cocktail renaissance that was in full force. And, once I decided to republish the books, they had to be as accurate as possible.”

But, how would the purists, the collectors who had been using out-of-print cocktail books as a commodity for trading as collector’s items, and the general reader receive these reprints? Fortunately, because these are not mere “reprints” but faithful reproductions of the original works, down to the paper’s weight, the book’s binding, the typeface, the embossing and imprints, and the dimensions, they have been widely welcomed. “The cocktailian community has been incredibly supportive of Mud Puddle’s cocktail book publishing program,” confides Greg with a mixture of pride and relief. “It has been incredible to see bartenders across the world re-creating old drinks and also creating new ones based on the old recipes form the books [and,] for the most part, cocktail book collectors are happy with the reproductions…luckily for [them], the reproductions seem to actually have increased the value of the originals. Perhaps more people are aware of the old books now.”

And so, from “Barflies and Cocktails,” a book in which Greg had to find, “…a printer that was wiling to go the extra step [of using] 3-piece binding that is never used today,” to “The Modern Bartender’s Guide” which has the original “blind stamping” on the front and back Greg has brought us Mud Puddle Books’ Cocktail Kingdom. The original books to publish were selected through the best possible means imaginable, “Bartender and fellow cocktail book collector from London, Jeff Masson and I sat down with David Wondrich and Ted Haigh at the French 75 bar in New Orleans during Tales of the Cocktail to discuss what books to publish next.” This organic process of selecting and reproducing classic and vintage books has been a boon for cocktail enthusiasts interested in the first recorded recipe for Parfait Amour as well as the casual reader wanting to enter into the world of better drinking with books such as Robert Hess’ “Essential Bartender’s Guide.”

In fact, so flexible and open-ended are Greg’s pursuits for the next cocktail classic reproduction that he relates how his latest project came about in this way:

“Mud Puddle is a small company and we are all very hands-on. It would be difficult to be as flexible as we are if the company was larger. For example, while in the Mixoloseum chat room last week it was suggested that we should republish “The South American Gentleman’s Companion” by Charles Baker. And, we started working on the project the very next day. Sterling Publishing was a much larger company and while we published cocktail books, they were a tiny part of the business. “

Greg freely confesses that it’s “by some miracle” that the Cocktail kingdom endeavor has stayed afloat. I highly recommend any of the beautiful reproductions but especially Embury’s “Fine Art of Mixing Drinks“, Jerry Thomas’ classic “The Bartender’s Guide: How to Mix Drinks: A Bon Vivant’s Companion” and Charlie Paul’s “Recipes of American and Other Iced Drinks“. Between these three vintage books you will find yourself immersed in the language and history of the American Cocktail and can appreciate its history, colorful contribution to culture, and keep yourself mired in long lost flavors for as long as your heart, and your curious mind, desire. Just be sure to keep the miracle alive and start building your collection today. You won’t be sorry.

This is a reposting of my work over at The Mixoloseum’s Blog, please take a look over there and what other great work you can find.

is vote for Jay Hepburn at Oh Gosh! for the 2008 Weblogs Awards’ best “Hidden Gem”.

Jay, in the past year-and-a-half has managed to assemble, publish, and maintain a blog that easily makes it into my Top 5 of cocktail blogs that impress me with their insights, thoroughness, and entertainment value. It’s also pretty damned easy on the eyes. So, click the “More” link and vote for him, he needs your support. You can vote once perday from the machine you’re currently using¹ until January 13th. After all, we can’t have a delusional rant-a-riffic horror of a Pro-Palin blog or a bland and lazy snippet-hogging liberal blog winning this thing. Cocktails are way more cool. Do the Internet a favor and vote for Jay; the poll is below the fold:

Read More »

1. wink wink, nudge nudge [↩]

If you don’t know by now, and really, you should, there’s a weekly online drinking event called Thursday Drink Night hosted by the indomitably-spirited Rick of kaiserpenguin.com at the Mixoloseum Bar. Now, normally, this is your run-of-the-mill affair whereby bartenders, enthusiasts, and mixologists get together and mix drinks that are submitted on-the-fly and put them through the gauntlet of criticism of the sort not seen since Baby Geniuses. Which is to say, unlike the movie, it’s an absolute blast.

So, “what’s special about this one?” you don’t ask? Well, firstly, it’s the first sponsored Thursday Drink Night the Mixoloseum will be having. The good folks at Leblon have seen fit to sponsor the event, take questions, and, hopefully, use the recipes we develop to solve the global financial crisis, reduce poverty by 45.71% and solve the looming energy crisis by using our drinks to catalyze cold fusion. As you can see, they got a hell of a deal.

Secondly, after much whining on my part about being stuck in Vegas sans my home bar, they’ve taken pity on me and kindly set myself and Rumdood (who will be joining me after a drive from L.A.)¹ up at a location on the Las Vegas strip where we, our laptops, and hopefully a small crowd of people will take part in TDN live and on-site at Trader Vic’s in Planet Hollywood. We will be there featuring Leblon in the drinks submitted by the online bar crowd, requesting the crowd or the bartenders submit drinks for TDN, or generally running up legendary bar tabs and ensuring the resulting mayhem and awesomeness doesn’t lead to a destroyed laptop or two.

So, if you’re in Vegas, come by and visit. We’ll be there around 6:00pm and would love to see you and, if the bartenders aren’t already sick to tears of us and giving those smoldering withering stares only barkeeps can, we may even buy you a drink. If you’re not in Vegas, join us at the online bar, pull up a seat, mix a drink with Leblon cachaca, and enjoy the show. It will prove to be a fun, informative (we’ll have Gerry and Steven from leblon on-hand to field questions and provide the edutainment of the evening), and lively time.

1. and yes, Matt, I will continue in my persistence that you live in L.A. [↩]

This particular Mixology Monday is hosted by Dinah at bibulo.us with the theme “19th Century Cocktails” and, I’ll admit, it was a bit of a daunting task trying to find something that was both eligible AND looked tasty. I tend not to go in for trying 20 things in the interest of curiosity. I’d rather find five cocktails that look divine and four end up earning time in the pantheon of cocktailnerd’s regular rotation than go through 20 as an academic exercise and come out wishing I’d just gone ahead and made another Dead Reckoning instead of feeling like I need to brush my teeth long and vigorously…like 20 times in a row. That being said, after a disastrous Morning Glory Fizz (from Harry Johnson’s Bartender’s Manual), with which I was sorely disappointed and will try again, Joana stumbled upon the Hendrick Cocktail and it hit exactly the right notes emphasizing how bitters, a slight touch of sweet, and slight touches of absinthe and citrus can be used to create a simple drink that invokes the style and tastes of the era. The Hendrick Cocktail also provides me a specious excuse to run through my new bourbons¹ for comparison. Read More »

1. Knob Creek, Blanton’s, Bulleit, Eagle Rare, Booker’s [↩]

The Richmond Gimlet has been well-covered, and deservedly so. But, when I approached our Man in Eugene, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, about interviewing him for a piece on the Richmond Gimlet for Oklahoma Magazine’s September issue he graciously obliged. It was the word count that did not. So, I am posting on the Richmond Gimlet, and the remainder of my interview with Jeffrey, here at cocktailnerd to promote a fine drink as well as satisfy my prolific hunger for adjectives. For a look at the original Oklahoma Magazine article you can register and login¹ and view it online² . I hope you enjoy the interview and the recipe: Read More »

1. login using – user: gabriel@cocktailnerd.com and password: forkboy10 to avoid registering [↩]
2. page 160 [↩]

As any bartender or cocktail afficionado will tell you, it’s death. And it finally happened to me-

I ran out of ice.

Run out of a spirit or liqueur? Fine, if you know your way around a bar you can get by with substitutions and adjustments most of the time to at least approximate a drink and please your guests. All your cocktail glasses are dirty? Hey, go the Julia Child route, act like nothing’s wrong, take advantage of everyone having developed a habit of defering to your mixological knowledge and simply claim, ‘Why, of course the martini was originally served in a rocks glass. What, you think they had the technology to mass produce cocktail glasses back then? Pshaw!,’ with a look of incredulous bemusement on your face. But, out of ice? Sorry Charlie, time to hang it up.

Such it was that one Sunday afternoon entertaining a few guests in a very Victorian Parlour¹ -esque fashion that, after a brief and warm welcome and many “How do you dooooooo’s” that I politely asked everyone’s drink preference and went to my ice dispenser in my refrigerator and heard the sad, slow, grinding roar of…nothing. No satisfying clang against the shaking tin nor brightly anticipatory clink of the glass. Nothing.

I was reduced to scraping remnants from that back shelf thingy behind the ice tray where stray ice cubes fall and sit slowly evaporating in the cold dry for months on end, pulling out the tray and detaching old off-tasting ice cubes from the sides of the bin, reducing the ice used in the shakers to pitiable levels chilling very little except my mood, and generally cursing my fate and my refrigerator as I was unable to do something in which I take great pride and number as one of the few things I do very well: mix a good drink for my guests.

I was pissed. Glaring sternly upon the waste that was my guests’ drinks and downtrodden and embarrassed glances I vowed, “Never Again.”

So, my wife, being her well-tuned, thoughtful, and well-adjusted self decided I should have a portable ice maker as a gift on my birthday, and allow me tell you how that’s gone. Read More »

1. see the ‘u’, that means it was fancy [↩]

Like Jeffrey Morgenthaler I really dislike Vodka on general principle; it’s Gin without pants on wearing tighty-whiteys, a party no one shows up for, a bar with flourescent lighting, and only people who think Greedo shooting first and replacing the Force-Ghost of Anakin at the end of RotJ with that Rat-tailed¹ assface was an improvement should drink it.² I recently read a book that said bascially, take any drink using vodka, replace it with gin, and you’ll have a much improved drink. And generally, I agree (except for the Moscow Mule – gin just makes it fussy).

So, all that being said and now that you and I understand one another, when a marketing firm, distributor, or producer contacts me with a request to try a sample, and it’s vodka, I usually decline. However, with ‘Pinky’ vodka, that it’s infused with roses and violets along with other botanicals caught my attention, especially given my pursuit, capture, and subsequent love of Creme de Violette anything with violet overtones was welcome. Read More »

1. yes, I know it’s a Padawan hair braid people – please don’t write me concerning this [↩]
2. ok, maybe I shouldn’t go to THAT extreme [↩]

For those of you not yet aware (yes, all 5 of you), David Wondrich has a new book out, Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to…(the longest subtitle this side of your 4000-level Sociology course), that traces the history of the cocktail and bartending through the life and times of Jerry Thomas and his creation of the original bartending guide. Wondrich is the author of several excellent books on mixology, with the most notable, thus far, being the difficult to get Esquire Drinks:…¹ .

David did a wonderful job, came across as winning and very sincere, and when able over Conan’s antics, knowledgeable. I saw the two goblets come out and said to Joana, ‘Is he going to make a Blazer?!’, and so he did (unfortunately the flames don’t come across in studio lighting at all, a drink made for darkened bars for sure). Other highlights are his making a Clover Club and discussing girly drinks with Conan (though I much prefer the Club’s cousin, the Pink Lady), Conan dissing the Clover Club² and mixing it with the Blue Blazer,  and, of course, the requisite discussion of absinthe and its legality. I was very happy to see David cross the Writer’s Guild picket line and have an opportunity to shine in a national forum³ as this is not the type of guest or subject frequently invited on such stages.

[Update: 2008]It’s been taken down off YouTube (it lasted only a few hours) so you’ll have to go to the MySpaceTV area of ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ to view it. Click the image below, click the video’s forward button three times (and sit through a blasted cruise line commercial after each click), and it should then load David’s segment. Worth the view and good to see him get the notoriety he deserves:

[Update 2009] And now, with the advent of Conan taking over the Tonight Show, it looks as if it’s been taken down from MySpace as well. I’ll keep looking and put a new link up here if I can track it down. Bloody networks.

1. somebody please reprint this dammit [↩]
2. it was voted one of the worst cocktails in history by Esquire in the 50s mind you [↩]
3. For the record, I support the WGA but a fortunate side-effect is a subject like Wondrich’s getting a window of opportunity for exposure [↩]