Archive for September, 2008
September 12th, 2008
If you walk into Eastern Standard next week and wonder who that new kid is behind the bar, count your blessings. His name is Daniel Eun, and he works at PDT (Please Don’t Tell), a speakeasy-style cocktail bar in lower Manhattan. And if you’re wondering where Eastern Standard’s sweet-faced Kevin Martin is, don’t worry. He’s shaking up a few ES cocktails down at PDT. Yep, it’s a bartender exchange.
Jackson Cannon, bar manager at ES, and Jim Meehan, owner of PDT, are sending these two talented, young emissaries to each other’s bars for three nights: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. At PDT, Kevin will greet a clientele of in-the-know cocktail enthusiasts who enter the bar by ringing a bell on the wall of a phone booth inside a hotdog joint. At Eastern Standard, Daniel will tend to a sprawling mix of cocktail enthusiasts, businesspeople, baseball fans and tourists who enter the place through a clearly marked entrance in bustling Kenmore Square. Both bartenders will bring with them an abridged menu of drinks from their own bars. I, for one, am looking forward to meeting Daniel and ordering one of his cocktails. “He’s pretty feisty, they say. Young and gung-ho,” says Cannon.
Despite the two establishments’ differences, Cannon says that “bars are supposed to be like kitchens — there’s a common language. We’re putting that hypothesis to the test.”
The mastermind behind the bartender exchange is another NYC mixologist, Philip Ward of Death & Co. He helps coordinate the exchanges along with Rob Cooper, distiller of St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur, who as a goodwill gesture provides a small stipend to the bartenders for travel and lodging expenses. These two guys got wind of a “shot war” between Boston and New York bartenders who attended Tales of the Cocktail this year (the only war in which shots of Grey Goose are considered an attack), and figured they might as well nurture that rivalry. Good luck, Kevin and Daniel.
Tags: bartender exchange, daniel eun, eastern standard, kevin martin, pdt
Posted in Bartenders | 4 Comments »
September 9th, 2008
I don’t know — any bar that doesn’t completely skew to the jello-shot set is fine with me. But Boston.com asked me to suggest a few Boston bars for the over-35 crowd, and I obliged. Let the list-bashing begin (not to mention the criticism of my phone-interview grammar — eek).
Posted in Booze in the news, Boston bars, drinkboston in the news | 21 Comments »
September 9th, 2008
I’ve been meaning since I returned from Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans to write about the Ninth Ward, a drink that Brother Cleve created for the event. First, a little context. Cleve was supposed to be a presenter at this year’s Tales but wasn’t able to travel because of an illness from which, thankfully, he now appears to be recovering. His cocktailian friends from Boston (and around the country) were as sad as he was about this state of affairs. To cheer both him and ourselves up, we carried a framed photo of him wherever we went, taking snapshots of him ‘hanging out’ with us at the Napoleon House, the Absinthe House, the Carousel Bar, Vaughan’s, etc. As Cleve remarked when he saw the photo album, “Maybe Travelocity can get rid of that gnome and use me instead.”
In addition to taking the majority of the Cleve pics, Boston bar doyenne Misty Kalkofen graciously subbed for her friend at the Tales Cocktail Hour, introducing the Ninth Ward to spirits enthusiasts from around the world. The drink — a play on Boston’s best-known cocktail, the Ward Eight, and an homage to one of the NOLA neighborhoods most beset by Hurricane Katrina flooding — was a hit. It’s an unusual, sophisticated and damn tasty cocktail. The best thing for me to do is let Cleve tell you in his own words the story behind its creation.
“I wanted to create a drink for the event that would have some sort of New Orleans and Boston connection. As disparate as the cities’ cultures may be, I’ve spent a lot of quality drinking time in both. The Saturn Bar, in the Ninth Ward, is probably my favorite bar of all time — definitely my favorite dive bar. The owner-bartender, O’Neil Broyard, died not long after Katrina, which almost destroyed the bar as it did so much of the Ninth Ward. The Ninth Ward shares certain similarities with my neighborhood, Dorchester. While both are among the poorest and most crime-plagued areas of each city, there are also some spots of architecturally stunning homes in areas mostly revitalized by gays and artists.
“So my idea was to take the Ward Eight, the best-known drink created in Boston, and turn it into a tropical cocktail for New Orleans. The Ward Eight is bourbon, grenadine and lemon juice. First step, keep the bourbon. I used the Bulleit brand (known as a ‘frontier whiskey’) since the Ward Eight was a 19th-century drink, and Bulleit has the character of that era’s whiskies, sharp and smoky and not too sweet. I flipped the grenadine for falernum, since falernum is a Caribbean syrup and is found in many tropical drinks. Lime juice is also more ubiquitous in the tropics than lemon juice; almost all the classic Don the Beachcomber/Trader Vic concoctions use it.
“I added a new ingredient to the mix, the fab St. Germain elderflower liqueur. Even though elderflowers grow in the Alps, St. Germain is a French-produced beverage, and the U.S. bought Louisiana from the French. Plus, tropical cocktails almost always feature some form of liqueur, so here’s one for this drink. Then, to hold it all together, a few dashes of Peychaud’s bitters, which of course were created in New Orleans.
“I guess, as a postscript, one could also say that the politics of both Boston and New Orleans have historically always been corrupt. Let the good times roll!”
The Ninth Ward
1 1/2 oz Bulleit bourbon
1/2 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur
3/4 oz Fee Brothers falernum syrup*
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Shake well with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
* Cleve says, “I used the Fee Brothers falernum, which is non-alcoholic but works beautifully. I tried making the drink with Velvet Falernum, but it was too light. This is a problem with VF in most classic tiki drinks, as Ted Haigh has pointed out. (The VF is great in a Corn ‘n Oil or anything with black rum, like Gosling or Cruzan). The homemade (alcoholic) falernum syrup works just fine. I think this is probably closer in flavor/texture to the classic/discontinued Sazerac brand, which was probably used by Don & Vic in the ’40s. I’m sure there are some small Bermudian or Trinidadian brands that are not imported that may be closer to the Sazerac. Time for an investigative field trip!”
Tags: Brother Cleve, Bulleit bourbon, falernum, New Orleans, Ninth Ward
Posted in Cocktails, New Orleans, Whiskey | 8 Comments »
September 5th, 2008
I love local shellfish so much that I’d have a blog about it if I didn’t already have a blog about bars and drinks. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever met a lover of oysters, littlenecks, steamers, etc. who didn’t also like to drink. Booze and bivalves just go together.
If you subscribe to that belief, you may want to head over to the Boston Beer Co. (brewer of Sam Adams) in Jamaica Plain on Sunday, September 14 between noon and 5:00 p.m. for the first-ever Bay State Farmed Shellfish Shindig.
I usually herald the prime season for shellfish (fall and winter) at the Wellfleet Oyster Fest, but that event, while still great, has become popular to the point of overcrowding. So this year, I’m opting for the smaller-scale fest right here in Boston.
The $10 admission fee includes tastings of two Sam Adams beers ($25 gets you six) and the opportunity to chat with a brewer or two about shellfish and beer pairings. Meanwhile, growers along Massachusetts’ coastline — from Buzzards Bay to Cuttyhunk Island to Katama Bay on Martha’s Vineyard to, yes, Wellfleet — will sell several varieties of raw and cooked shellfish a la carte while talking up the importance of sustainable aquaculture practices.
Rowan Jacobsen will be on hand to discuss and sign copies of his book A Geography of Oysters, whose premise is that these creatures owe much of their flavor to terroir. And for those who max out on seafood, chef Will Gilson from Garden at the Cellar will be there with his grass-fed mini-burgers.
Co-hosting the Shindig with Boston Beer is the Massachusetts Aquaculture Association, on whose website you can buy advance tix. See you there.
Tags: boston events, sam adams beer, shellfish
Posted in Beer, Events | No Comments »
