Personalized Cocktails

This bartender will create a personalized cocktail just for you, based on what you tell him, and give it a snappy name. "As an addition, Paul can also be hired to attend any party or other occasion to demonstrate the cocktail and make the presentation himself." Something tells me Paul is a little bit desperate to pay off some gambling debts.

Museum

Finally, a museum in Las Vegas worth visiting. I mean, besides the Liberace museum.

Museum of the American Cocktail

Lively Liqueur

The other week I attended the launch of a liqueur. A liqueur, according to Wikipedia, is:

a sweet alcoholic beverage, often flavoured with fruits, herbs, spices, flowers, seeds, roots, plants, barks, and sometimes cream.

You can make liqueurs (also known as cordials) at home. Basically make a vodka infusion of something like apples and dump in a whole bunch of sugar and let it sit for a month. I have a book from the 1950's with a ton of recipes that I'll never make.

Liqueurs are sweet and I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so I generally don't love them. In a lot of cocktail recipes, liqueurs are used to give a new flavor (along with sugar) to the mix. Adding liqueur is probably a lot like adding simple sugar and fresh flavors to a drink, like you do in a mojito. (Note: I could be totally wrong.)

Anyway, the launch party was for Amber Liqueur, made by Scotch whisky brand The Macallan. And The Macallan is some damn tasty Scotch. (Their publicity people treat me very well, but that doesn't change my taste buds.) The liqueur is delicious as far as liqueurs go- not the sharp, sugary, fruit-type sweetness like in a pear or apple liqueur, but more like a dense, syrupy sweetness like maple syrup. (The bottle says the liqueur is 'balanced with natural maple and pecan.')

The Starlight Room's head bartender Jacques Bezuindenhout (who also consults for other bars including Tres Agaves, the new upscale Mexican restaurant specializing in tequila) invented some recipes that include the Amber Liqueur. One of them, I think the one called The Starlight Amber, was their featured cocktail but the one I liked the least. The cocktail, which contains mostly Macallan 12-year-old and accented with the liqueur and apple juice, has a strong maple syrup flavor undercurrent. It appeared to be the popular drink at the party, but when it comes down to it I don't like the taste of maple syrup. (For pancakes I prefer the artificially flavored, Mrs. Butterworth's-type stuff to the natural stuff.)

There were several other drinks on the menu, and I did find one I really enjoyed. But for the life of me, I can't remember what it was...

So far, the liqueur is only available in SF, Boston, and I think Minneapolis. Everyone else will have to wait.

Mix and Match

The other night I was experimenting with some harsh-flavors of booze: pepper, jalapeno, horseradish, when my friend called inviting me to meet him at my corner bar (Kilowatt) for a beer. So I did. Then he convinced me to continue drinking with him at Lucky 13, so I did. But I didn't want another beer, being too full of everything else. I thought, "What would fuse these tastes together?" and decided on whiskey.

That was the right decision for my drink, but after all of that can you imagine what my breath smelled like?

Cocktail Podcasts

Here are two cocktail-related podcasts I read about online:

http://www.martiniplace.blogspot.com/

http://soused.thepodcastnetwork.com/

Hall of Shame, Part II

Here is a part two to the Overpriced Cocktail Hall of Shame for New York bars. The winner:

The bar at the top of Hotel Gansevoort in the Meatpacking District should make your list. I ordered two Amstel Lights and a vodka tonic. It came out to 32 bucks and all were served in plastic cups. It was $9 each for the Amstels, and $14 for the vodka tonic (with house vodka).After we finished our drinks, we exited promptly. If we would have had parachutes we could have got out of there sooner. It was a bad recommendation from a coworker who makes way more than I do.

Ouch!