drinkboston.com

I want to like the bar/lounge that is part of the nouveau steak house KO Prime and used to be part of the restaurant Spire, in the posh Nine Zero Hotel (90 Tremont St.). KO Prime is in a great, history-saturated part of Boston — near the Common, the State House, the Athenaeum, the Parker House, Locke-Ober and the Old Granary Burying Ground, where Paul Revere and Samuel Adams are buried. Not bad company. My first visit was promising. I ordered the rum-based Tea Party Cocktail, which was smartly served in a plain white chilled teacup. The rum, spice and citrus flavors evoked a really good colonial-style rum punch. I also sampled the One Hot Minute, a mixture of tequila, agave nectar, lime juice and Lillet Blanc with a few drops of jalapeno Tabasco sauce, served on the rocks in a short glass. Sounds odd, but all the ingredients balanced one another out and constituted a nicely layered, zesty drink.

Unfortunately, the sleek, characterless look of the bar isn’t much changed from the Spire days — though the cowhide covering the low lounge chairs is a colorfully kitschy new touch. In the restaurant itself, the recessed ovals in the ceiling display — inexplicably, but what the hell — details of Grant Wood’s famous painting American Gothic.

Admittedly, KO Prime is about the food. We’re talking about Mr. KO, or Ken Oringer, of Clio fame, and rising young chef Jamie Bissonette, formerly of Eastern Standard. But … the bar happens to come with the place. Some time and effort were obviously put into the list of newly created cocktails. I revisited the Tea Party Cocktail and the One Hot Minute on my second pass through KO Prime. They weren’t as good as previously. The rum came through too bluntly in the Tea Party, and the One Hot Minute was served in a bigger glass. This helped throw the balance of ingredients off so that the drink tasted a little too tequila-y and a little too sweet. I mentioned to the bartender that the drink had been served in a rocks glass previously, and he said he put it in a highball glass because, basically, ‘more is better.’ With a gin and tonic, maybe, but not with a more complicated mixture.

I’m guessing Oringer and Bissonette wouldn’t be so cavalier about changing the proportion of ingredients in one of their dishes. Is it being too nitpicky to ask for consistency in the quality of the cocktails? This would make the bar at KO Prime worthy of its owner’s culinary reputation and its location’s luster.

A friend of mine recently asked me to create a cocktail for her wedding. I was honored. I immediately began imagining cognac and champagne mixtures with fresh citrus and exotic liqueurs. Then my friend forwarded me the contract from the bartenders she had hired for the occasion. That brought me back to reality. How do you create a festive, wedding-worthy cocktail out of the raw materials found in the standard Marital-Industrial Complex bar setup (a phenomenon that persists no matter how fancy or distinctive the wedding)? You break out the bitters, that’s how.

You know the kinds of booze I’m talking about: Canadian Club, Seagram’s VO, a couple types of vodka, and liqueurs that were big in the ’80s, i.e. Peachtree Schnapps. No bourbon, no cognac and, obviously, no fresh citrus juice. There’d be gin and champagne, though, so I decided to work around those. My friend loves French 75s, after all.

I realized that the cocktail would have to be very simple, given that I would need to batch up the spirits beforehand and transport them to the wedding myself in my Executair 101; there was no prayer that the speed-pouring M.I.C. bartenders would follow a recipe, even if I supplied the called-for ingredients. I could only rely on them to chill the spirit mixture and top it with champagne. Since I love the combination of bitters that make another champagne cocktail, the Seelbach, so distinctive, I thought I’d use two kinds of bitters to bring my gin-champagne mixture to life. After a few experiments, I settled on a 2:1 proportion of Regan’s orange bitters and Peychaud’s bitters.

The bride-to-be sampled my creation and proclaimed it worthy of toasting her union with a man named Jones. I think it’s pretty tasty. See for yourself:

The Mrs. Jones Cocktail
makes 2 drinks

1 oz gin
1 tsp simple syrup
4 dashes Regan’s orange bitters
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Champagne

Shake first four ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and strain into 2 champagne flutes. Top with enough champagne or sparkling wine to make the cocktail light pink. Drop a very thin slice of lemon into each glass.

Endnote: I went to cocktaildb.com, and the only other drink I could find that combines orange and Peychaud’s bitters is:

The Metropole Cocktail

1 1/4 oz cognac
1 1/4 oz dry vermouth
1 dash Peychaud’s bitters
1 dash orange bitters
Add cherry

Stir in mixing glass with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

If you just can’t wait for the LUPEC Boston Tea Party (scroll down), and you’re dying for a tasty vintage cocktail that’ll help Boston-area women, you have until the end of September to visit some of the restaurants participating in LUPEC Boston’s “This One’s for the Ladies” drink promotion. Be sure to ask for the cocktails those establishments chose to raise money for Jane Doe Inc. (the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence). Examples: the Pegu Cocktail at the Independent, the Hanky Panky at Eastern Standard and the Barbara West at Green Street.

I have to admit I’m partial to the latter, because … well, every LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails) member has a cocktail alias, and Barbara West happens to be mine. Not only is this dry, appetite-whetting drink delicious, it reminds me of those two great “forebroads” I knew as my grandmothers: one was named Barbara, and the other (Marion) drank sherry. Here’s the recipe for the BW, from Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails:

Barbara West Cocktail

2 oz. gin
1 oz. sherry (preferably amontillado)
1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
1 sm. dash Angostura bitters

Shake in an iced cocktail shaker and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

As a member of the Boston drinking community who’s making every effort to repopularize vintage cocktails, it’s only natural that I fell in with a group proclaiming its dedication to “breeding, raising, and releasing nearly extinct drinks into the wild.” The group is the Boston chapter of LUPEC, or Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails. A group of boozin’ broads (yes, “broad” is how LUPEC members refer to one another) in Pittsburgh founded LUPEC in 2001, and there are now chapters in Denver, New York, Philadelphia and Phoenix, in addition to Boston.

The history of cocktails and the stories of our forebroads who sipped them are only part of the LUPEC Boston mission. The other part is raising funds for organizations that benefit Boston-area women. The LUPEC Boston Tea Party, a coed, 1920s speakeasy-inspired event, will benefit Jane Doe Inc. in recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month (October). The October 7th party takes place on the Boston Sailing Center’s permanently docked Louisiana riverboat at Lewis Wharf in the North End from 7-11 p.m. For your $50 ticket, you’ll get cocktails (served in teacups — shhh, don’t tell the cops), hors d’oeuvres from top Boston-area restaurants, live music, dancing, entry to raffles and a chance to wear those vintage cocktail party clothes you bought at the Garment District. The LUPEC Boston Tea Party only has room for 100 guys and dolls, so purchase your tickets now (in person, in cash — hey, it’s a speakeasy) at either Green Street in Cambridge (280 Green St.) or Toro in the South End (1704 Washington St.).

I present to you something that’ll make imbibing in Beantown a little easier: a Google map of best Boston bars. Happy wandering.

Anyone out there good at map mashups? I’d love to put best Boston bars and the MBTA on the same map. If you can make that happen, I will personally buy you a drink at the Boston-area bar of your choice.

After I learned from my more with-it colleagues in drink that obscure cocktail ingredients could be found at BRIX Wine Shop in the South End, I ventured over there with notebook and camera in hand. I just had to interview Carri Wroblewski and Klaudia Mally, the two self-described “chix” who own the place, and find out what they were up to.

If you’re used to the typical Massachusetts package store with its motley hodgepodge of wines o’ the world and dusty bottles of Leroux cordials, you might walk into BRIX and think, ‘Ooops, wrong tax bracket!’ Each bottle here seems to occupy its own special place on the sleek shelves, the way individual sweaters are displayed in high-end clothing boutiques. But take a closer look, and you’ll find reasonably priced wines along the bottom shelves, just like in any other liquor store. Luckily, these wines have been certified Not To Suck by Wroblewski and Mally, who forsake the usual suspects in favor of offbeat stuff they truly like, culling their selection from 39(!) different distributors.

The ladies are industry veterans — Wroblewski worked for J. Lohr Wines and Frederick Wildman & Sons importers, Mally waited tables at Grill 23 before working in mergers and acquisitions for a software company — and they’re all about education and service. They hold weekly public tastings and offer private ones by invitation or appointment. And they network with influential people in the Boston bar industry to stay on top of in-demand but hard-to-find spirits like Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, Amer Picon, Van Winkle bourbon and Peychaud’s and orange bitters. If you can’t find some oddity necessary for an obscure cocktail, BRIX will do its best to special-order it for you.

If you, like me, are closer to downtown Boston than the South End, you’re in luck — Wroblewski and Mally are opening a new store on Broad Street in October. It will look similar to the four-year-old mothership, but it’ll have a private tasting room for events. If you want up-to-date info on tastings and special offers, get on the BRIX mailing list. Oh, in case you were wondering, “brix” is the name of a scale used in winemaking to measure the sugar content in grape juice.

Calling all winos — have you been to Bin 26 Enoteca yet? I checked it out for the first time recently and, I have to say, “thumbs up.” This place has been open for, what, a year or something, and it has received tons of good press. Once I wrapped my head around the extensive wines-by-the-glass menu and realized that the prices were fair (especially for Beacon Hill), I leaned back in my cool seatbelt-weave chair and let our doll of a scruffy-haired waiter take over. He was the embodiment of Bin 26’s mission to replace wine appreciation’s tweed blazer with a Ben Sherman track jacket.

Some observations:

The 250 ml portion of “wine by the glass” equals over eight ounces and can easily be split by two people. Prices for 250 ml start at $11. You can also get portions of 100 ml, 500 ml (about two-thirds of a bottle) and 750 ml (a whole bottle).

The bathrooms are decorated with upside-down wine bottles (see photo).

The beef carpaccio with aged parmesan and arugula appetizer ($11) is tasty, and so are the risotto balls stuffed with pecorino cheese ($8).

I got the impression that the staff can both banter with the connoisseur and guide the uninitiated.

The Thunderbird and Night Train listed on the first page of the wine menu: refreshingly irreverent or trying too hard to be hip? You make the call.

An “enoteca” in Italy refers to “a place where one can find simple foods to accompany the wines served there,” according to Bin 26’s website.

Man, I have really dropped the ball. It has been over a year since I dissed vodka. It’s time, then, for part 3 of drinkboston’s Vodka R.I.P. series. In part 1, I talk about how the ubiquity of this colorless, flavorless spirit has dumbed-down mixology. In part 2, I investigate how this state of affairs came to be. Here, I present evidence that knocks vodka down a few more pegs.

I know, I know. You’re a bartender, and you’re saying, “I have to keep my customers happy! Vodka’s what they want to drink. If I put a bunch of gin and whiskey cocktails on my menu, people will freak. That stuff scares them.”

Here’s something that’ll scare them even more, or at least kill their buzz:

“Achieving the ‘purity’ so essential to the spirit is almost impossible on an artisanal pot still. Making pure ethanol is what industrial stills do best, which is why two of the … major players producing vodka in the U.S. are Archer-Daniels-Midland and Grain Processing Corp. of Muscatine, Iowa. ADM sells its 190-proof beverage alcohol (product code 020001) packaged one of three ways: ‘Bulk Truck, Bulk Rail, Tank.’ Cut it with water … bottle it, and you’re in the vodka business,” writes Eric Felten in the Wall Street Journal (”Make Mine a 020001,” 9/1/07).

Bulk Truck! That’s going to be the name of my new premium vodka. Does it get any more obvious that the path from America’s largest agricultural processor to a $40 bottle of Grey Goose is paved with marketing wiles and consumer gullibility? Bartenders, if a vodka-drinking customer remains unfazed by this fact and says, ‘Who cares? I like the smooth taste of Brand X,’ you might run another Felten tidbit by him:

“I went to a vodka tasting hosted by the head of a prominent luxury liquor house. After being walked through the vodkas on the table with elaborate descriptions of the characteristics of each, I found myself hard-pressed to discern much difference. So I asked the executive to demonstrate the differences by tasting the vodkas blind. He couldn’t even identify his own flagship brand.”

I’m not saying that some gins, rums, tequilas and other big-name “premium” spirits aren’t produced in industrial quantities. But they aren’t as dependent as vodka on high-falutin’ claims of purity and sophistication. They have distinguishable flavors that come from their base ingredient, i.e. sugar cane or agave, or from botanicals like juniper, or from barrel aging. Vodka doesn’t. Claims of purity and sophistication are all it has. And now that the vodka market is so crowded, marketers are trying to set their products apart by, for example, touting earth-friendly distillation methods and packaging (360 Vodka) or organic ingredients (Square One Organic Vodka).

One way that vodka makers have been trying to wring money out of the category for years now is through flavors. You know, vanilla, raspberry, orange (or “oranj” if you’re Stoli — ooh, such stylish spelling!), etc. I recently sat down with a PR woman for the Van Gogh vodka brand at the South End bar 28 Degrees. She gave me samples of several Van Gogh vodkas, including pineapple, acai-blueberry, chocolate and espresso. She wanted to know what I thought of them. I told her that the flavors were authentic enough — the pineapple tasted like pineapple, the espresso tasted like espresso — but that they were not at all interesting for someone like me, who actually enjoys the taste of spirits and seeks out drinks whose ingredients form an actual Cocktail, as opposed to something that merely mimics another food or beverage.

On occasion, people say to me something like, “So I have a pomegranate vodka martini and I enjoy it. So what? No one gets hurt.”

Right, no one gets hurt. Except for the people who are desperately seeking a drink that tastes like a drink and not like a dessert or a cup of coffee or a glass of fruit juice. And with a lot of vodka mixology, you’re lucky if you get even that. The one cocktail that I sampled at 28 Degrees, the Prosciutto and Melon, was not even as mildly pleasant as I thought it would be. I was imagining a drink that tasted like spiked fresh cantaloupe. Instead, the drink tasted strangely metallic. And the kicker was the garnish. The strip of prosciutto that was wrapped around the ball of melon left little beads of animal fat floating atop the puréed cantaloupe-melon vodka mixture. Ick. Is this really the sort of drink people want to pay $12 for?