Archive for the ‘Bartenders’ Category
December 7th, 2006
Bartender Profile
If there’s one thing 40 years of tending bar has taught Reggie St. Paul, it’s the importance of paying attention to customers — and I don’t mean listening for hours to some guy complain about his ex-wife. I mean picking up on little cues and treating people accordingly. For instance, though I’m only a sporadic Blue Room customer, he remembers that when I order a glass of wine, I never request a particular grape or brand; instead, I defer to the bartender’s suggestion. Reggie never has to think about it, he just selects a bottle, pours me a taste, and it’s always just right. He is also skilled at subtly imposing a standard of behavior. Once I saw a couple come in and brusquely order Jack and Cokes, saying they were in a hurry to catch a movie at the nearby theater. They fidgeted on their barstools, and the woman reeked of perfume. Without missing a beat, Reggie showed them how uncool they were being: he asked for ID, though they were well into their 30s.
Reggie started tending bar in 1965 to augment the meager salary he was earning as a high school teacher and soon abandoned the teaching gig altogether, with no regrets. One of his first jobs was at Lennie’s on the Turnpike, a legendary jazz bar in West Peabody where “15 bucks in tips was a good night.” Nice tradeoff, though — he got to see Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Stan Getz and Bill Evans, among other greats. Booze trends were a bit different back then. Reggie remembers preparing for an average shift by pre-mixing a couple gallons each of Martinis and Manhattans. Everyone drank gin and rye whiskey, no one drank vodka, and wine came in a jug. These days, when you go to the Blue Room, Reggie will offer to mix you his signature 5 Star Sidecar: Metaxa 5-Star Brandy, fresh sour, and Cointreau served straight up in a glass with a sugared rim. For my money, though, I’ll take the crisp, cool Martini he’s perfected over the past 40 years.
Hometown
Medford, MA
Past bartending jobs
Lennie’s, 1965-71; Casablanca, 1971-89; the Blue Room, 1991-present
First drink you ever had
Sloe Gin Fizz
Favorite bar in Boston other than your own
B-Side Lounge, Green Street
Drink you most like to make
5 Star Sidecar
Drink you least like to make
Old-Fashioned
What you drink at the end of your shift
Beer
If I weren’t a bartender, I’d be…
A teacher
A bartender’s best friend is…
His or her ability to improvise in any situation
A bartender’s worst enemy is…
Pre-judging his guests
Drink for a hot summer day
White Sangria
Drink for a cold winter night
Spanish Coffee
The best thing about drinking in Boston is…
2 a.m. closing
The worst thing about drinking in Boston is…
2 a.m. closing
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November 22nd, 2006
Our latest mission took us to two of the posh Charles Hotel’s watering holes: the bar at Rialto restaurant and the cocktail lounge Noir.
It had been quite a while since I’d ventured over to the elegant brick fortress in Harvard Square. I remember, when Rialto opened in 1994, how gaga everyone was about chef Jody Adams’ Mediterranean-inspired cuisine. The restaurant was a lot of people’s Special Occasion destination, including mine. Greater Boston has exploded with new bars and restaurants since then, and I have to admit that the whole Charles Hotel complex came to seem beige and corporate over time. Even a cool-looking, low-lit lounge like Noir had an uptight vibe to it. Then I happened to meet two barmen — one from Rialto and one from Noir — who said, “Come and check out what we’re doing.” Any iffy impression I have about a place gets shoved aside when I’m sitting across from a bartender who knows what he’s doing. So I headed to the Charles.
First stop, Rialto at happy hour. Trays of complimentary bruschetta with succulent prosciutto were being passed around the bar. Nice. Todd Maul, a North Bennet Street School grad who makes furniture when he’s not on the stick, handed us a cocktail menu. It featured stuff that is popular in high-end restaurants, drinks using ingredients like blackberry puree, pear nectar, and pomegranate juice that sound more complex than they really are. Todd told us about his mission to infiltrate the upcoming winter menu with a few interesting vintage cocktails, like the Gin Fizz. We tried one, and it was deliciously silky, thanks to egg white shaken up hard with dry gin, sour mix, sugar and a splash of soda. We also tried a Diabolique Bourbon Manhattan ($11) with locally produced Diabolique infused bourbon (Maker’s Mark with figs, cinnamon and vanilla), sweet vermouth, and fresh figs for garnish. This drink was spicy and rich, like hot gingerbread right out of the oven. I’d call it a perfect beginner’s Manhattan, since it lacked the hard edge of straight bourbon.
Todd has an easygoing, unphony but polite way with customers, who during our visit ranged from younger couples on a date to well-heeled, Martini-with-olive guys in town for the annual Harvard-Yale football game. Instead of stirring his cocktails, he gently shakes them until they’re nice and cold. The vibe in this bar was warm and friendly, and we’re looking forward to seeing what Todd has up his sleeve this winter, particularly in February when Rialto reopens after a month-long facelift.
We went to Noir on a Sunday to catch Ben Sandrof in action. Hired as a manager just six months ago, he’s only behind the bar Sunday and Monday nights. Too bad. He’s a suave guy, which I mean in the good sense, i.e. “effortlessly gracious.” And he’s passionate about mixology. Noir has one of the few cocktail menus I’ve seen that manages to please disparate constituents: people who like their drinks pretty and accessible, classic cocktail enthusiasts who like strong, vintage spirits (yeah, that’d be me), and those who prefer hybrid mixtures that combine new and old ingredients. My favorite drink of the evening actually fell into the last category: a concoction that Ben invented called the Chartreuse Basil ($12). When I saw the ingredients — green Chartreuse, fresh lime, basil and simple syrup, shaken and served straight up — I thought, ‘Oooh, that’s going to be too sweet. And possibly too basil-y.’ But I was wrong. It was well balanced, tasty, original and, like most good cocktails, more than the sum of its parts. Then there was the Champagne Cocktail. While the idea of paying $13 for a drink with no hard liquor in it gives me pause, this thing was damn good. ‘Just because you’re dumping bitters, sugar and lemon juice in it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use the Louis Bouillot Grand Reserve,’ is what I’ve always said.
OK, the Charles Hotel might still come across as a bit too slick, but I know I can get good drinks and friendly service there, and that’s enough to bring me back.
Posted in Bartenders, Boston bars, Cocktails, Gin, Liqueur | 1 Comment »
November 17th, 2006
Does this mean war? I hope so. In Boston Magazine’s November issue, Liquids columnist Anthony Giglio throws the glove down in “The Bitters Truth.” After a somewhat systematic evaluation of cocktails in Boston and Cambridge bars, he says, “I’ve come to realize that Cambridge is to cocktails what Berkeley, California, is to food — the little city in the big city’s shadow that’s the breeding ground for creativity, integrity, and dynamism. I’ve never met so many scholarly barkeeps in my life as I have in Cambridge. And after much scholarly research of my own, I can now say with absolute certainty that Cambridge makes better cocktails than Boston.”
Of course, this isn’t exactly news to us. Many of the bars and bartenders lauded on this site for their cocktail prowess are the same that Giglio cites in his article: Green Street (where drinkboston.com recently had its launch party), which boasts three of the Boston area’s best bartenders (Dylan Black, Misty Kalkofen and Joe McGuirk); B-Side Lounge, which, as a training ground for serious barmen and women, is to the local bar scene what Harvard Law is to the U.S. Government; plus Chez Henri, the Blue Room, etc. Giglio points out that “the great Boston exceptions — John Gertsen at No. 9 Park, Jackson Cannon at Eastern Standard, Nathan Bice at Beacon Street Tavern, and John Byrd at the Alchemist — all perfected their trade in Cambridge.”
So, what is it about Cambridge that nurtures a great cocktail culture? Cheaper rents and bar ownership by individuals rather than restaurant groups or hotels mean that bars can afford to make drinks with quality ingredients and take risks like not stocking Apple Pucker; a quirky, discerning population that appreciates variety and challenges to the palate; and the community of bartenders themselves, “a tight circle of avant-garde drink experts who pass down their expertise and help aspiring mixologists start out on their own,” writes Giglio.
What all this means, I hope, is that more Boston bars will get jealous of the praise being heaped on Cambridge drinking establishments and decide to rise to the challenge of making drinks that break out of the safe, chocolate-mint-martini mold. The prospect of a Mixologist War between Boston and Cambridge should have us all salivating.
Posted in Bartenders, Booze in the news, Boston bars, Cocktails | No Comments »
November 14th, 2006
Drinkboston.com lived its motto, “bars, bartenders and imbibing in Beantown,” last night at its launch party at Green Street in Central Square, Cambridge. Friends, bartenders and journalists packed into the bar area sampling vintage cocktails and snacking on Clams Casino. So many of Boston’s best bartenders were there that I got a little nervous about having all that talent gathered in one place should some freak disaster strike. Thankfully, we all made it through the night unscathed but for some light liver damage.
Four guest bartenders presented and served four different vintage cocktails: Jackson Cannon, the Jack Rose; John Gertsen, the Sazerac; Misty Kalkofen, the Widow’s Kiss; and Brother Cleve (cocktail historian, member of Combustible Edison, Ambassador of Cocktail Nation), the Millionaire. Dylan Black, owner of Green Street, was my co-host, and Joe McGuirk backed everyone up behind the bar. Stay tuned for more info, including recipes of the evening’s cocktails.
Posted in Bartenders, Events | 1 Comment »
September 11th, 2006
Bartender Profile
If you want proof that tending bar isn’t an entirely lost profession — that it isn’t just a temporary gig for any aspiring musician or lawyer who can combine vodka and tonic and say they know how to mix drinks — go to the bar at No. 9 Park and watch the John Gertsen Show. You will see a boyishly handsome, kind-eyed man nimbly corral a barful of demanding Beacon Hill types while mixing drinks with the same level of care that a great chef takes in preparing dishes.
Almost every bartender that drinkboston.com has profiled has spoken admiringly of Gertsen’s expertise. “He makes me look stupid,” said one colleague, himself no slouch behind the bar. A scholar of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century cocktails, Gertsen says his favorite drink to mix is a Ramos Fizz, a concoction of gin, lemon, egg white, and cream that, properly made, takes 15 minutes of shaking and chilling, shaking and chilling. To make sure he’s gotten a cocktail just right, he’ll draw a small sample into a straw and have a taste before he places the drink on your bar napkin.
Before he became a bartender, Gertsen trained to be a biochemist. He much prefers his lab behind the bar to a real one without any booze or hustle and bustle. He relishes both experimentation and tradition: he’ll dispense almond-flavored foam atop a newly invented cocktail while top-shelf bourbon sits on ice in a silver-plated cup long enough to yield the perfect Mint Julep. The only complaint you can make about Gertsen is that he hasn’t opened his own bar yet. [Note: Gertsen opened Drink in the fall of 2008.]
Hometown
I grew up in Hanover, MA.
Past bartending jobs
I first started tending bar at Salamander Restaurant in Cambridge.
First drink you ever had
My first drink was a sip of scotch on the rocks that I stole from my grandfather while we were watching The Price is Right. An absolutely horrifying experience for a seven-year-old at 11 a.m.
Favorite bar in Boston other than your own
Eastern Standard.
The drink you most like to make
Ramos Fizzes.
The drink you least like to make
The last one of the night.
What you drink at the end of your shift
As much water as possible and a Brooklyn Lager.
If I weren’t a bartender, I’d be…
A herpetologist.
A bartender’s best friend is…
Ice.
A bartender’s worst enemy is…
Broken glass in your ice bin.
People drink too much…
Artificial sweetener.
People don’t drink enough…
Egg whites.
Drink for a hot summer day
Mint Julep.
Drink for a cold winter night
Tom and Jerry.
The best thing about drinking in Boston
Spending the $30 that you would have spent on the Fung Wah [bus to NYC] on a meal to go along with your great cocktail here in Boston.
The worst thing about drinking in Boston
The silly tradition of “last call.” I feel that last call encourages overindulgence and irresponsible drinking.
Posted in Bartenders | 1 Comment »
