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April 19th, 2008
Save the date: drinkboston and Green Street are getting ready to throw another cocktail party. On the evening of Tuesday, May 13, we’ll celebrate World Cocktail Day, the culmination of a worldwide slew of festivities marking World Cocktail Week. Proceeds from our event will support the Museum of the American Cocktail, which established World Cocktail Week “to celebrate the rich history of the cocktail and recognize the craftsmanship and skill of the bartenders who have been mixing them for over 200 years.”
Green street bar manager Misty Kalkofen, owner Dylan Black and drinkboston have invited a group of notable bartenders, including Museum co-founder John Myers, to mix and discuss a historic drink of their choice, with a range of cocktail styles and eras represented. We’ll be part of an international party, with other World Cocktail Week events happening in Aspen, Australia, Chicago, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis and Singapore, to name a few.
The Museum, which is always seeking new members, will reopen this July in its original hometown, New Orleans. It’ll be housed with the Southern Food & Beverage Museum at the Riverwalk Mall, just outside the French Quarter. Museum curator Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh (author of Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails) has designed an exhibit encompassing 200 years of cocktail history that includes vintage cocktail shakers, Prohibition-era literature, music, and cocktail memorabilia from the collections of the Museum’s founders. The Museum will also offer monthly seminars.
Watch this space for more details about World Cocktail Day at Green Street in the coming week or so — and if you want to receive an invite via email, contact drinkboston at comcast dot net.
Posted in Events | No Comments »
April 15th, 2008
Scott and I went to Miami Beach for the first time recently. The weather was beautiful. The beaches were beautiful. Some of the people were beautiful; most were trying too hard to be. Miami Beach is a place where people go to inhabit their own reality show. All the city’s a catwalk for people to strut around wearing their giant Dior sunglasses. Palatable food and drink is the last thing on their minds. We had some idea of what we were getting into before we booked our flight, but we were unprepared for the volume of vanity and overpriced mediocrity — it was up to 11. Yet we found a few genuine nuggets amidst the fool’s gold. Here are some snapshots.
Ocean Drive, South Beach: Silly us, we imagined this neighborhood was a bit too posh to attract the spring break herds. Wrong! This was ground zero for collegiate bacchanals. Girls in tight shorts that were unzipped to reveal their bikini bottoms, packs of guys doing the one-fingered cellphone hold, wearing wife-beaters or novelty t-shirts with sayings like ‘I love boobs’ and ‘Money makes me high.’ After we paid our $95 tab for a couple of appetizers and four drinks at some faceless spot on Ocean Drive, I overheard two spring breakers in the bathroom getting psyched up for their night out. One of them worried that she was spending too much money. Her friend’s response was, basically, Suck it up, this is Miami Beach. Magical.
The obligatory bar at a grand old hotel: Like a lot of bars in old hotels, the Corkscrew Bar at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables (pictured right) is dark, oak-accented and plush. Our bartender was an Irishman who’d come to Miami from Boston about 16 years ago. He mixed us a Manhattan and a Negroni (our grand old hotel stand-bys) and asked if the Big Dig was finished. Pretty much, we said. He didn’t display much of an urge to head back north and admire the results.
Nikki Beach (top photo): This is an indoor-outdoor restaurant, lounge and nightclub that, according to its website, “always lives up to it’s reputation as a party playground for jet-setters, celebrities, VIP’s…” and anyone else who doesn’t mind unnecessary apostrophes. The servers here wear, over their white linen clothing, a special wide leather belt that holds corkscrews, bottle stoppers and other implements of the exclusive bottle service trade. You can park yourself on one of the cushy outdoor couches or lounge beds nestled among the sand and palm trees, and spend and preen in very high style. This is a beautiful club in a beautiful spot, and the mojitos (made with 10 Cane Rum) were perfectly fine. Mind you, we didn’t visit the place at night, when the club-goers take over. I imagine it’s intimidating as hell.
Abbey Brewing Co. (pictured left): After a few days of wallet-emptying bar tabs, we were fortunate to find this brewpub only a few blocks from our condo. No bottle service or Dior sunglasses in this dark, tiny, smoky (yeah, you can still smoke in bars here) place — just a few cheap snacks (sliders!) and a decent mix of house-brewed and imported Belgian beers. If you find yourself in Miami Beach and are trying to keep it real, go here. Or to the place below.
The Purdy Lounge: On the west, or bay, side of South Beach, away from the hoi polloi, is this laid-back hipster lounge with kitschy living-room decor, a pool table and a nice, long bar. One of Purdy’s claims to fame, apparently, is “strong drinks.” Our Manhattans were as strong as … well, Manhattans. And they were served nice and cold. You’re not going to find any obscure old-school drinks here, but you’ll find a welcome respite from the crass South Beach reality show.
Joe Allen Restaurant: This American-style bistro is one of four, with additional locations in London, New York and Paris. Like its neighbor the Purdy Lounge, Joe Allen-Miami Beach is somewhat hidden away in a non-picturesque, non-touristy part of town. The lively crowd in the minimalist, “tropical-deco” dining room was there for good conversation over non-fussy, reasonably priced, fine food. No one was standing around doing cell-phone poses. We sat at the bar (duh), which was cheerily decorated with carousels of colored, hard-boiled Easter eggs. A perfectly chilled, perfectly balanced Beefeater Martini and a fat cheeseburger, served by a bartender who genuinely seemed to care about our well-being, made me extremely happy.
The Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotels: We tried to go to these “MiMo” (Miami Modern) icons to soak up a little Rat Pack history, but it was too late. They were both being gutted and turned into jet-setter-approved resorts with VIP-pleasing spas. So we headed to the Bass Museum, where we saw interior photos of these once-swingin’ hotels. The pictures were part of an exhibit called “Promises of Paradise: Staging Mid-Century Miami.” Through architecture and the decorative arts, the exhibit tells the story of the very deliberate way in which Miami became a mythical, modernist paradise starting in the 1950s. It explained a lot. It also, in light of the above, seemed quaint.
Tags: miami beach bars, south beach
Posted in Miami | 1 Comment »
April 11th, 2008
Established: 2002
Specialty: Beer
Prices: Moderate
Atmosphere: Beer-loving ladies and gents congregate here en masse for top-notch Belgian and other artisanal beers, a friendly vibe and a choice of two bars adorned with authentic Belgian taps and brewery decor.
See Best Boston bars for address and contact info.
If the ho-hum lager Stella Artois is what you equate with “Belgian beer,” then get yourself over to the Publick House in Brookline (1648 Beacon St.) ASAP. As you confront the beauty of a complex Trappist ale or bottle-conditioned saison (the Champagne of the beer world), you’ll realize what you’ve been missing.
The Publick House has so successfully schooled Boston-area residents in Belgium’s myriad beer styles that David Ciccolo, who owns the pub with his wife, Ailish Gilligan, was knighted in that country. Seriously. Shortly after opening the Monk’s Cell, a tap room adjacent to the Publick House, in 2007, Ciccolo traveled to Brussels to be inducted into the Chevalerie du Fourquet des Brasseurs, or Knighthood of the Brewer’s Mash Staff. Formidable! I’m guessing the fact that he used to be an actual brewer, at the defunct Tremont Brewing Co. in Charlestown, didn’t hurt.
The Publick House’s beer menu leans heavily toward Belgians (roughly 100 of them), but it has a very respectable selection from the best American craft breweries (Allagash, Sixpoint, etc.), plus the occasional tasty treat from elsewhere in Europe. Belgian breweriana decorates the walls, and the proper glassware is used. I loved my Atomium Grand Cru in its wide-mouthed goblet emblazoned with the beer’s namesake: Brussels’ kitschy monument to molecular science built for the 1958 World’s Fair. Naturally, there are mussels and frites on the menu, along with several dishes in the gastro-pub vein. And one of my favorite bartenders, Matt Tremblay (pictured above) — whom I’ve known since he worked at the Cambridge Brewing Co. back in my brewing days — is the top tap man there. His attitude echoes that of the Publick House as a whole: respectful of good beer without being snobby about it.
Beers range from $4 to $8 (and more for the rare stuff); dishes from roughly $8 to $20. Astute barflies will remember that the Publick House originally opened under the gaelic name Anam Cara. Naturally, confused patrons would walk in expecting an Irish pub. Ciccolo says that was an “admitted mistake,” and changed the name. The most frequent complaint about the Publick House is that it gets too crowded. “I don’t understand why more people aren’t doing what we’re doing,” Ciccolo says. Not surprisingly, he has plans to expand his empire, which now includes not only the Publick House and the Monk’s Cell, but Publick House Provisions (1706 Beacon St.), a specialty grocery store that features the beers on the Publick House menu, cheeses, Belgian chocolates, etc. Personally, I’m lobbying for a Belgian tap room in the Cambridge-Somerville area.
Posted in Beer, Boston bars | 7 Comments »
April 3rd, 2008
If you attended LUPEC Boston’s Ladies Night at Toro on Sunday, it’s entirely possible that the sea of bodies filling the room prevented you from noticing that the Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails were selling a book. That’s OK, because for $15 you can still get a copy of the Little Black Book of Cocktails: Namesake & Favorite Recipes by LUPEC Boston.
It’s a great-looking little volume, and it’s for a good cause. Cambridge photographer Matt Demers took photos of all the Ladies as part of what he calls his “pearls project” — portraits of a variety of women he knows, inspired by the iconic Eugene Richie portrait (below) of 1920s film actress Louise Brooks. Damned if that Matt doesn’t have a way of making everyday gals look like glamour-pusses. We (yes, I am a founding member of LUPEC Boston) were so pleased that we decided to put our photos together in a book, along with cocktail recipes, and give the proceeds from the books’ sales to an organization that seriously helps women feel better about their appearance. That organization is the Friends Boutique at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which provides wigs, prosthetics, scarves and other items to people dealing with the side effects of cancer treatment.
Each portrait in the book is accompanied by recipes for the subject’s namesake cocktail (mine’s the Barbara West) and two favorites (I chose the Jaguar and the Maharaja’s Revenge, by two of Boston’s best bartenders). The book contains roughly 40 recipes, all classics or inspired by classics.
Instructions for ordering the Little Black Book by mail are on the LUPEC Boston blog. And starting this weekend, you can purchase a copy at Magpie (617-623-3330) in Davis Square, Somerville, or Buckaroo’s Mercantile (617-492-4792) in Central Square, Cambridge. But give these places a call first to make sure they’re not sold out.
Tags: LUPEC Boston, photography, Recipes
Posted in Books & resources, Cocktails | 1 Comment »
April 1st, 2008
Drinkboston contributor Scott Howe was trying to explain Tales of the Cocktail to his fellow office workers, most of whom have never sampled a Sazerac, never mind traveled to the Deep South in midsummer to discuss the history of the Martini. The notion of a “cocktail conference” wasn’t quite registering with them. As they gave him quizzical looks, he hit upon an analogy. “It’s like MacWorld for drunks.” They nodded in understanding.
Tales isn’t just a conference. It’s a giant, week-long, educational cocktail party in the birthplace of the cocktail, New Orleans. And it’s a pilgrimage that every Craft Cocktail Convert in the nation makes at least once to anoint him/herself with Peychaud’s bitters. Where else can people attend classes where the instructors serve drinks and don’t assign homework?
Tickets for Tales of the Cocktail, which takes place July 16-20 at the Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter, go on sale today. If you’re thinking of going and want to stay at the hotel, book your room ASAP — attendees get a special rate of $99/night. All the info you need about seminars, events, dinners, hotel reservations, sponsors, etc. is on the Tales website.
Oh, and for the first time this year, there’ll be a group blog, Blogging Tales of the Cocktail: 2008, where drinks bloggers from around the country (me included) review seminars and discuss their experiences, among other topics. In case you missed my impressions from last year’s TOTC, click here.
Posted in Books & resources, Cocktails, Events | 4 Comments »
