This summer marks five years since Imbibe magazine made its debut, which also means it’s been five years that I’ve been writing for them. To celebrate this milestone, the folks at Imbibe are holding a cocktail contest, with the winning drink taking prime place on the cover of the May/June issue of the magazine.

That issue also happens to be the one that will be distributed to thousands of attendees at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, and there’s a reason I’m bringing that up. Y’see, if your cocktail is selected as the winning entry, not only will your drink get the place of honor on the magazine cover, but you’ll win a Founder’s Day pass to Tales, which covers access to seminars, the cocktail hour, and a bunch of other things guaranteed to be fun and boozy. And since you’ll need a place to sleep it off, you’ll also get a four-night stay in a King Deluxe room at the Hotel Le Marais in the French Quarter, and you won’t even be forced to bunk with me.

To enter, you need to have your recipe finalized and submitted no later than March 10, 2011. The full details and contest rules are here; if you think you’ve got the winning drink, then get shaking and send in your recipe, and I hope to see you at Tales.

Tags: Events by Paul
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No, the blog hasn’t died, and I haven’t forgotten my WordPress password. Rather, I’ve just been deep in work and life the past, uh, couple of months, and the blog updates I do in my spare time have taken a hit as that spare time has become almost nonexistent. But in case there’s anybody out there still reading this thing, I do have a bunch of stuff coming up starting later this week — but before I get to that, I wanted to get in a quick plug for an event this weekend that I would absolutely be attending if I happened to be in New York.

I think it’s fair to say that there are very few people who have influenced the cocktail world in the past decade as much as Audrey Saunders. Owner of Pegu Club in New York and now my Seattle neighbor (if you consider living on the opposite side of town from me as being a “neighbor”), Audrey is one of the most talented, and professional, people in the industry. This weekend, Audrey is participating in a series of events at the Astor Center in New York, along the lines of “The Alchemy of Taste and Smell” — events ranging from a seminar on aroma and cocktails that Audrey is leading with Dave Arnold, director of culinary technology for the French Culinary Institute and evil genius behind the Cooking Issues blog, to an opening party and a closing dinner that features not only drinks from Audrey and Dave, but food from chefs including David Chang, Wylie Dufresne and Daniel Patterson.

If I didn’t happen to live about 3,000 miles away from the East Village, I’d be on this in a heartbeat. If you’re more conveniently located, and you’re a drink/food geek (and if you’re reading this blog, then GUILTY), then this should be your weekend priority (can’t make all the sessions? Then Friday’s cocktail party and Audrey & Dave’s session seem to be highlights for the mixo crowd).

And now, because I’m lazy, I’m copying and pasting session descriptions; follow the links to find out about booking tickets.

The Alchemy of Taste and Smell
Astor Center, New York City
November 12-13, 2010

Cooking is alchemy: the art of transforming raw materials into a perfected form. Cooking fuses taste and smell, emotion and memory, culture and nature. The work of chefs today is much discussed, but the process by which new dishes and flavor combinations are created remains mysterious. This event will explore creativity in cooking, the composite nature of flavors and the importance of aroma in food and drink.

The event commences on Friday evening, with a cocktail making demonstration, followed by a reception and cocktail party that will feature creative cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Saturday will have demonstrations and talks, followed by a meal.

Seven chefs will collaborate on the dinner on Saturday night. The seven-course meal (one course by each chef) will be experimental in nature, exploring new flavor combinations and making explicit the connection between what we smell and what we taste. For instance, a cucumber/melon salad served on a plate scented with mint essence, as a sensory sleight of hand where by the end of the dish the diner thinks that they have eaten the herb, even though they have only smelled it. Mandy Aftel will collaborate on the dinners. The dishes would be accompanied by appropriate wines.

PROGRAM

Friday Evening

5:00 p.m:
Dave Arnold and Audrey Saunders
Demonstration: Using Aroma in Cocktails (The Study, up to 36 people) $55

Dave Arnold and Audrey Saunders will demonstrate how they use aroma in cocktails, including distillations, essential oils and infusions.

7:00 – 10:00 p.m:
Opening Party (The Lounge and The Gallery, up to 250 people) $95
Creative cocktails by Dave Arnold and Audrey Saunders
Participating Chefs: David Chang, Alexander Talbot and Aki Kamozawa, Daniel Patterson, Nils Noren, Bill Corbett

The party will feature stations spread throughout the two rooms, with chefs and mixologists on display, making food and cocktails. There will be some passed food as well, and white and red wines will also be served.

Saturday Day

11:30 a.m:
David Chang, Wylie Dufresne
Demonstration: New Flavor Combinations (The Study, up to 36 people) $55

Chang and Dufresne will demonstrate some of the dishes that illustrate the strikingly original approach for which they have become famous.

1:00 p.m:
Harold McGee
Lecture: Thinking about Flavor (The Gallery, up to 100 people) $45

McGee will outline the chemical and biological nature of flavor. He will describe the molecules that stimulate our senses of taste and smell, how taste and smell work together to create the perception of flavor, and how that perception is influenced by past experience and by context.

2:30 p.m:
Daniel Patterson and Johnny Iuzzini
Demonstration: Flavor and Aroma (The Study, up to 36 people) $55

Patterson and Iuzzini will demonstrate dishes that focus on the interaction between taste and smell. They will each make dishes starting from the same flavor combinations, demonstrating a range of styles and techniques.

3:45 p.m:
Panel Discussion: Creativity and Flavor (The Gallery, up to 100 people) $35

Five leading chefs will discuss the process by which they create new dishes. The discussion will include the role of ingredients and technique, and how childhood memories and historical and cultural contexts influence the chefs. Moderated by Harold McGee.

5:00 p.m
Mandy Aftel
Demonstration: Creating with Aromas (The Study, up to 36 people) $35

Aftel will demonstrate the process of how she creates with scent — showing you how to orchestrate the interactions between pure and natural essences when blending a flavor or fragrance. The design concepts include register (top, middle, base), relative intensity, evolution, locking, and burying. This architecture of aroma will be illustrated graphically by smelling some unexpected combinations, over a range of concentration ratios. The goal is to produce beautiful and innovative aromas.

Saturday Evening

7:00PM
Dinner. The Lounge (40 people) $300

David Chang, Wylie Dufresne, George Mendes, Alexander Talbot and Aki Kamozawa, Nils Noren, Daniel Patterson, Bill Corbett. The chefs will each make one dish. Some of the dishes are in collaboration with perfumer Mandy Aftel using her essential oils. The price includes beverage and service.

PARTICIPANTS

Mandy Aftel (Owner, Aftelier Perfumes; Author)
Dave Arnold (Director of Culinary Technology, FCI)
David Chang (Chef/Owner, Momofuku, ** Michelin Stars for Ko, World’s 50 Best Restaurants #26 for Ssam Bar)
Bill Corbett (Pastry Chef, Coi)
Wylie Dufresne (Chef/Owner WD-50, * Michelin Star, World’s 50 Best Restaurants #45)
Nils Noren (Vice President of Culinary and Pastry Arts at The International Culinary Center)
Johnny Iuzzini (Pastry Chef, Jean-Georges, *** Michelin Stars)
Harold McGee (Author and NY Times Columnist)
George Mendes (Chef/Owner, Aldea)
Daniel Patterson (Chef/Owner Coi, ** Michelin Stars)
Audrey Saunders (Mixologist, Owner Pegu Club)
Alexander Talbot and Aki Kamozawa (Chefs and Authors, Ideas In Food)

Tags: Events by Paul
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Hey there – yes, you.

While it’s possible you may have stumbled by here while searching for cocktail recipes or some kind of history of drinking, it’s quite likely (considering what I’ve learned about readers of this blog over the past five years) that you’re somehow involved in the drinks industry. Perhaps you’re a booze blogger (howdy, comrade!), or a bartender or bar owner, or a PR associate for a firm representing a liquor brand or two.

If you fall into any of these categories, I’ve got two things to say to you: first, welcome; and second, if you’re surfing around the Internet looking for information on spirits and cocktails, then you need to come see me at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans so we can talk in more detail about this whole online side of the drinks world.

On Sunday, July 25, I’ll be moderating “Keeping Ahead in an Online World,” a Tales session designed to help decipher the ways online tools such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook can be used to promote your profile as a bartender, your talents as a blogger, and the merits of individual brands and bars.

If you made it to Tales last year, you may have caught a similar session I did with Steve Raye from Brand Action Team and Bobby Heugel from Anvil in Houston; during that session, we talked about the ways the boozy blogosphere has evolved, and how blogs can be essential tools at elevating the profile of a bar (and of individual bartenders), as well as ways liquor brands can effectively engage with bloggers and other online “tastemakers” (apologies for the marketing-ese) to promote a product. It was a sold-out session and from the responses I got, one that was helpful for many folks in the industry.

This year, we’re taking the topic a step further, revisiting the world of blogs and the ways they can be utilized to promote brands and careers (along with some examples of recent campaigns that have done it just right), along with ways bloggers can build a readership and get connected in this now-sprawling part of the drinks world. Beyond blogs, however, we’re also venturing deeper into the realm of Twitter, Facebook and all those other ways that people are connecting online and sharing information, and looking at the ways they play a part in the cocktail universe.

There’s probably nobody better suited to talk about this side of online media better than Lindsey Johnson from Lush Life Productions, my co-panelist for this session. Lindsey and her team have been among the most visible presences (both online and in real life) in the drinks world over the past couple of years, and there’s nobody more talented at creating and building an online audience for bars and brands.

Our session is on Sunday at 12:30pm in the Riverview Room at the Hotel Monteleone. I know a lot of folks will either be shaking off their hangovers from the Bartender’s Breakfast or preparing for the flight home, but if you’re involved in the drinks industry or you’re an interested observer as a blogger, take an hour and a half on Sunday afternoon to hear about how you can keep up in a rapidly changing online world.

“Keeping Ahead in an Online World” is sponsored by our good friends at The Dalmore.

Need tickets? Get ‘em here (and while you’re at it, head over to the event’s Facebook page and let us know you’re coming) – and I hope to see you in New Orleans.

Tags: Events by Paul
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For most of the five-plus years that I’ve been writing the Cocktail Chronicles, it’s been my pleasure to be joined in the boozy blogosphere by my good friend Jeffrey Morgenthaler.

On July 22, Jeff and I will shift our online cocktail musings into real life during a Spirited Dinner for Tales of the Cocktail, to be held at Jackson in New Orleans’ Uptown neighborhood, where we will be joined by our co-host, former Raines Law Room head bartender Jeremy James Thompson and Jackson chef John Hammond.

The full menu and details are below, but let me sum it up: a five-course meal at one of New Orleans’ best restaurants, along with six (six!) cocktails, all for $90 per person – plus, those drinks were developed and selected by Jeff, Jeremy and myself, and we’ll be on hand for your dinner-conversation pleasure. In today’s era of $15 cocktails and $30 entrees, a $90 cocktail-pairing dinner isn’t only reasonable – it’s a downright bargain.

Anyway, there are still seats available; please join us. Here’s the number for reservations: 504-522-5766.

And before we get to the menu, here’s one more pitch: a few months ago, the good folks at Imbibe Unfiltered ran “Five Things You Never Knew about Jeffrey Morgenthaler.” That’s a pretty good list; here are five more things about Jeff that, while maybe not unknown, at least bear restating:

1. Jeffrey Morgenthaler isn’t known as “the Jamie Boudreau of Portland” for nothing: y’see, Jeff’s not just a famous blogger – he’s also a phenomenal mixologist. If you join us for dinner at Jackson, you’ll see him mixologize the hell out of a bunch of drinks, and some of them even have names.
2. Not only is Jeff’s favorite movie The Sound of Music, but he can really rock the lederhosen.
3. While he lives the lifestyle of a globetrotting young man, next year Jeff turns 40. Forty! I know!
4. Jeff was inspired to start barrel-aging cocktails by London barman Tony Conigliaro, but the real reason he decided to bring barrels into the bar is so he can get away with repeatedly dropping references to his “wood” when talking to guests.
5. Yes, his hair is real. For now, anyway.

Thursday, July 22 – 8:00 pm
Spirited Dinner at Jackson, 1910 Magazine Street, New Orleans
Chef John Hammond; drinks by Jeffrey Morgenthaler, Jeremy James Thompson and Paul Clarke
$90 per person; reservations 504-522-5766

Aperitif

Alexei’s Pleasure Club (Thompson) – Dubonnet, Russian Standard vodka, Herbsaint, Scrappy’s Cardamom bitters

First Course

Endive with Roquefort bleu cheese & lavender honey

Paired with Yellowjacket (Morgenthaler) – Appleton Extra rum, lavender-honey syrup, fresh lime, housemade orange bitters, soda

Second Course

Watermelon Gazpacho

Paired with Tio Dobles (Clarke) – Don Julio blanco tequila, fresh grapefruit & lime, Luxardo maraschino and Hawaiian sea salt

Third Course

Locally caught Grouper encrusted with macadamia nuts, topped with a fresh mango-pineapple salsa

Paired with Third Course Cocktail (Morgenthaler) – Leblon cachaça, fresh lime, pineapple gomme, egg white, Luxardo amaretto, apricot preserves

Fourth Course

Ostrich medallion with fig & red wine reduction

Paired with Red Heering (Thompson) – Averna, Aperol, Cherry Heering, fresh orange

Fifth Course

Pavlova topped with sliced kiwis, strawberries & fresh whipped cream

Paired with Demerara Fizz (Clarke) – El Dorado 12-Year-Old rum, fresh lemon, simple syrup, egg white, soda, Peychaud’s bitters

Tags: Events by Paul
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I love it when someone lectures me about vermouth.

It’s happened a couple of times recently; a few weeks ago, when a guy sitting at the bar at Zig Zag decided it was his duty as a cocktail geek to put this random stranger sitting next to him (me) on the path to good drinking by relating that so many people — myself included — are ignorant of how to properly store vermouth and too lazy to figure out the differences between the different styles; and more recently, in the comments on last week’s martini post over at Serious Eats.

When I say I love being lectured about this, I’m not being facetious (well, not entirely). While I’ve written about vermouth and aperitif wines a few times over the years, and prepared a presentation on vermouth for last year’s Tales of the Cocktail, I appreciate it when someone offers up stray bits of knowledge about a class of drinks that, just a few years ago, nobody really gave a shit about.

Well, random lecturing strangers, let’s make one thing absolutely clear: I give a shit about vermouth and aperitif wines — partially because they’re delicious, partially because they’re an absolutely essential component in the cocktail world, but mainly because, when you come right down to it, aperitif wines are just so fucking cool — and, whether you’re a drink geek zapping out cocktails at home, or a bartender who likes to actually know the ingredients you’re working with and how best to serve them, a basic understanding of vermouth and aperitif wine is as important as knowing the differences between bourbon and rye whiskey or which drinks should be shaken and which should be stirred.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece for the San Francisco Chronicle about the class of aperitif wines known as quinquinas and chinati, which includes familiar brands such as Dubonnet and Lillet along with newer arrivals in the U.S. such as Bonal Gentiane-Quina and Cocchi Aperitivo Americano. To dig even deeper into the whole class of aperitif wines, liqueurs and cocktails, on July 24 I’ll be joined by Neyah the Great for our session, Art of the Aperitif, at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans.

Chances are, if you’re reading this blog (I’m assuming I still have readers after my recent shoddy blogging habits), you’re already familiar with the way a classic aperitif cocktail such as a Negroni can fire up the palate in preparation for a meal. But the world of aperitifs is wide, and especially today, with more aperitif wines and liqueurs coming onto the market, the time is ripe for really digging into the category. We’ll discuss some of the background of these different products, along with some classic ways of preparing and consuming them, but we also don’t want to get stuck in the mud of history — aperitifs are a living category of drinks, and they provide an exciting selection of flavors and character to introduce into new drinks, all designed to ramp up the appetite of your guests. We’ll be touching on some of the physical ways these types of drinks provoke the palate, and the way a good aperitif actually makes food taste better. And since these drinks are lower in alcohol, and are consumed at the start of a meal, good aperitifs can play a role in helping the business side of a bar or restaurant.

Anyway, those are a few things we’re planning on touching on during our session, along with pouring a couple of cocktails and tasting samples of aperitif wines including Noilly Prat Ambre vermouth and the new (to the U.S.) Martini Rosato vermouth. If you’re planning to find yourself in New Orleans next month, come check us out.

Art of the Aperitif: Exploring pre-prandial spirits, wines and cocktails
Saturday, July 24, 2010, 3:30 – 5:00 pm
Grand Ballroom South, The Royal Sonesta Hotel
300 Bourbon St., New Orleans
$40 (advance), $45 (door) – tickets may be purchased here

Tags: Events, Vermouth by Paul
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