Bet you thought I’d forgotten about it, huh?

No, just running behind on getting the details together — but never fear, there is a September Mixology Monday coming along soon — September 28, to be precise. The hosts for this round of MxMo are the good folks over at eGullet (led by group manager Chris Amirault), and the topic Chris has chosen is Dizzy Dairy. In his words:

Any drink using a dairy product is fair game: milk, cream, eggs, butter, cheese, yogurt, curds, you name it. Given the importance of dairy products in drinks dating back centuries, there are lots of opportunities for digging through vintage receipts for a taste of the past, and as always innovation is highly encouraged.

We hope that you’ll measure out your portions as best you’re able: better to indicate a tablespoon or ounce of egg white, for example, than to say “egg white.” In addition, be sure to share any tips and techniques that benefit your booze — “dry” shaking without ice for a good meringue, say, or stealing Society member Dale DeGroff’s whipped cream trick for Irish Coffee. Disasters as well as successes are heartily encouraged. Finally, prepare to respond to the anti-dairy lobby by giving us reasons why your libation is just this side of mother’s milk.

To participate, have your entry posted on your blog (or, appropriately enough for those non-bloggers among us, on the eGullet thread for this MxMo) by midnight on Monday, September 28. Notify Chris by posting a link to your entry in the eGullet MxMo thread, and photos are strongly encouraged.

What’s that? You’re not a member of eGullet? No problem — you can join up right here. Or, if you’re really not a joiner but want to play along with MxMo anyway, you can simply e-mail your info and a link to your post to Chris at camirault [at] egstaff [dot] org.

I’m kinda curious to see if anyone attempts a quark cocktail or a drink made with a rich Stilton (as for my drink, I think “Fernet Eggnog” has a ring to it). Even if those don’t come to pass, be sure to raid the dairy section at your local grocery store (vegans: if you’ve got a compelling drink with rice milk or the like, then go for it), and have your drink ready by September 28.

Tags: General by Paul
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I blew it, but let me explain.

Every July for the past three years, I’ve volunteered to host Mixology Monday, which has usually occurred just before or immediately following Tales of the Cocktail. And every year, once the bustle and liquored-up frenzy of Tales rolls around, I ask myself, “What the hell was I thinking?”

The same goes for 2009. Too busy preparing for Tales to adequately promote it, Mixology Monday caught up with me while I was still trying to recover and get caught up from the event. And so it rolled on by….

Anyway, apologies to all for the MxMo-free July, but I’m thinking it might not be such a bad idea to take July off in the years to come.

And so, moving into August — here comes MxMo XLI. Our kind host for the August 10 edition is Amelia at Felicia’s Speakeasy, and for this round the topic is — ready for it? — VODKA IS YOUR FRIEND. Yes! We’ve dismissed it, we’ve disdained it, we’ve smeared its name across the Internet; now it’s time to take a step back and see what we can do. As our host explains:

The theme of August 10th’s Mixology Monday is “Vodka is Your Friend.” The recent high profile bashings of vodka interspersed with a few weak “yeah, buts…” left me wondering, is vodka the axis of evil, our most dangerous enemy? While it may not be the life of the party, experts agree: Vodka’s obituary does not have to be written just yet.

So suck it up, people, and let’s see if we can make something respectable out of the best-selling spirit in the U.S. (and, I dunno, probably lots of other places as well). Here’s how to participate:

Find or create a cocktail that contains vodka as one of its ingredients.

Email the host a link to your post before midnight on Monday, August 10 (amelia AT atomicloungeithaca DOT com) –or- post a link to your blog as a comment on the host’s announcement post.

Post your recipe and reasonings on your blog along with a drink photo. Make sure to include a link to Felicia’s Speakeasy (our host) and Mixology Monday, as well as the MxMo logo.

See you there–

Tags: General by Paul
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Before I commence with my full-on, panicked rush toward Tales of the Cocktail, I wanted to drop a few quick notes out there–

• First, the first piece I’ve written for Wine & Spirits magazine is now on the newsstand, in the August issue. Titled, appropriately, Tequila Cocktails, the story briefly touches on the work of bartenders such as Phil Ward at Mayahuel in New York, Julian Cox at Rivera in LA, and Casey Robison at Barrio in Seattle, who are helping to pioneer the relatively unexplored terrain of tequila mixology.
• Second, in Wednesday’s Washington Post, Jason Wilson extensively riffs on the Negroni, at one point mentioning Bastian Heuser’s sublime Agavoni and my recent blog post about it over at Serious Eats.
• And while I’m clearing out stuff I was too busy or lazy to post earlier, here are the two latest pieces I’ve written for the San Francisco Chronicle: an article on the growing trend of trans-city bartender exchanges, from May 24; and a more recent piece on specialized and high-quality bar tools, from June 14.

Tags: General by Paul
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Almost a year and a half ago, after straying across a mention of a prototype spicy chocolate bitters at Cocktail Virgin Slut, I dropped a message to the bitters’ creators to see if somehow, some way, I could take a sample through its paces. Four sample bottles and a couple of explosively good cocktails later, I found myself a Bittermens evangelist, telling every cocktail geek I came across about the durable and versatile flavor of the Xocolatl Mole bitters — I mean Jesus, this stuff was MADE for tequila and rum — and about how the hops in the grapefruit bitters gave the flavor an amazing hang time in a cocktail. (And it wasn’t just me going on about the bitters — the San Francisco Chronicle picked up the story at about the same time.)

The one thing I couldn’t pass along, however, was instructions on how people could try these bitters — Avery Glasser, the creator of Bittermens, was working through the regulatory process, and as the months passed it seemed that Bittermens might never make it to market.

Well, guess what? Here they are. Working in partnership with Stephan Berg and Alexander Hauck at The Bitter Truth — whose bitters I’ve also gushed about before, and who cap the package by being really great guys as well — Bittermens is putting their Xocolatl Mole and Grapefruit bitters into commercial production; the official release is in July, but you can place pre-orders now through The Bitter Truth’s online store. Soon, hopefully, you’ll soon be able to pick up a bottle at a store near you — TBT has been expanding their distribution most impressively — but for now, grab a bottle online so you can try out a Camerone or a Theobroma for yourself — or, maybe, a Bittermens drink created by an actual, y’know, bartender.

It’s about time for these bitters to hit the market — I’m down to my last quarter-ounce of the Xocolatl, and was really getting worried about what I’d do once they ran out.

Wait — you’re still reading? Go on, ORDER ‘EM–

UPDATE: U.S. customers wishing to purchase only a few bottles can avoid paying overseas shipping charges by purchasing from The Boston Shaker (I believe wholesale orders must still go through Germany).

Tags: General by Paul
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Sure, I ignored posting much of a self-congratulatory note on May 16th, the fourth anniversary of starting this blog — but if you’d just written 30 blog posts about 30 drinks in 30 days, wouldn’t you? But now that I can stand to see the inside of WordPress again, and before it completely fades from my memory, I should note that as of May 16 I’ve been running this little contraption for four circuits around the sun, thanks in small part to my stubborn nature but in much, much larger part to the kindness and patience of all the people who’ve stopped by to read, subscribe, comment or poke fun at me over those four years. A sincere thanks to you all, and I hope to meet many more of you in person in the year to come.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s the real business — Thursday morning (that’s tomorrow), at 10am, I’ll be a guest on Weekday, broadcast by Seattle’s NPR affiliate KUOW, where I’ll be joining host Steve Scher to talk about the humanitarian crisis in the Swat Valley, what Sonia Sotomayor could bring to the bench as a Supreme Court justice, and about North Korea’s nuclear test.

Wait, sorry — I read the e-mail wrong; I’m actually there to talk about booze.

What kind of booze? Local booze, summer booze, fun with booze — you know, the usual. If you’re in the Seattle area, please tune in to KUOW 94.9FM at 10am; if you’re not local, or if you’re tethered to your computer and are radio-free, head over to the main Weekday page where you’ll be able to hear the broadcast live or download it to listen to at your leisure (note: that link is only valid for the day of broadcast, as you may have figured out if you visit it today and see a photo of Gary Snyder — I’m not quite that old or grizzled, yet; I’ll post a link afterwards for the show archives).

And even better, you can join in: call-in numbers are 206-543-KUOW, or 800-289-KUOW.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a link to the show I did with Steve in January — it’ll sound something like that, except summery.

So listen in, and please give a call if you have something interesting to say–

Tags: General by Paul
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