Archive for the ‘Bartenders’ Category
August 12th, 2008
One of the first “best Boston bartender” profiles I did on this site was of Scott Holliday, who then worked at Chez Henri. In addition to being a fine bartender and an intelligent guy, Scott is a founding member of the Jack Rose Society, a mini-guild of Boston-area bar professionals serious about resurrecting vintage cocktails and superior, non-preening service. (Scott could be described as the anti-Tom Cruise.) The JRS’ research into historic recipes, ingredients and techniques, in fact, guided the creation of some Boston-area cocktail menus — those at Eastern Standard and Green Street, for example — that are considered standard-bearers of classic mixology nationwide.
After a nearly two-year sojourn in California and Montreal, Scott is once again tending bar in Cambridge. Hallelujah! He is no longer at Chez Henri, where the estimable Rob Kraemer assumed Scott’s duties on the stick, but at Rendezvous, the Western Mediterranean-inspired restaurant that chef Steve Johnson opened a few years back. Scott is weaving his knowledge and skills into the drink program there, so pay him a visit and enjoy an evening at yet another Boston-area bar out to make a name for itself.
Posted in Bartenders, Boston bars | 6 Comments »
August 8th, 2008
Photos by C. Fernsebner
Joy Richard, bartender-manager at Tremont 647 and Sister Sorel in the South End, also known as Bourbon Belle of LUPEC Boston, won the Hendricks Gin Beantown Bartender Battle at Green Street on Tuesday night with her recipe, Nobody’s Darling, and the limerick she wrote to describe it. Congrats to Joy; she gets to fly anywhere in the country on Hendricks’ dime. Her drink, which will soon be on Tremont 647’s cocktail menu, was a most unique mixture starring the flavor of celery (one of the dozen botanicals used in Hendricks).
Parked at the bar for most of the evening, I was like the misbehaved kid in the back of the classroom ignoring the lesson, so I don’t have much color commentary for you (check out C. Fernsebner’s captioned photo gallery on Bostonist for an idea of how the battle went), but I did manage to track down all five finalists’ recipes — which only the judges got to sample that evening — along with Joy’s winning limerick.
Nobody’s Darling
by Joy Richard
2 oz Hendrick’s Gin
1/2 oz yellow Chartreuse
1 oz angelica root-infused honey
3/4 oz fresh celery juice
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
Place all ingredients in iced cocktail shaker, shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
An elixir of cucumber and rose
With a scent that amuses the nose
Angelica-honey we’ll pair
Then some celery sounds fair
Yellow Chartreuse, lemon juice and there goes!
The Seersucker
by Chris O’Neil of Upstairs on the Square
2 oz Hendricks Gin
3 oz chamomile syrup (chamomile, orange peel, honey, sugar)
Dash of lemon juice
Mint sprig to garnish
Shake first three ingredients in an iced cocktail shaker, pour into a highball glass, top with mint sprig.
Hendrick’s Tea
by Claudia Mastrobuono of Highland Kitchen
1 1/2 oz Hendricks Gin
1/2 oz orange peel-infused simple syrup
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
3-4 oz chamomile iced tea (enough to top off the highball)
Shake all ingredients in an iced shaker, pour into a highball glass and garnish with a candied orange peel (the candied peel is a by-product of the simple syrup — just roll the peels in sugar and let them dry out).
Boston Tea Party
by Jeff Grdinich of White Mountain Cider Co.
2 oz Hendricks Gin
1 1/2 oz chamomile citrus tea*
1/2 oz Demerara simple syrup**
1/4 oz lemon juice***
1/2 to 1 barspoon Fernet Branca***
* Infuse 1 bag per 8 oz water for 5 minutes.
** Dilute 400g Demerara sugar in 1000 ml water.
*** Amount of lemon juice and Fernet varies based on tea infusion. Start small.
Place all ingredients in an iced cocktail shaker, shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Note: In the spirit of the competition, which required highlighting the botanicals used in Hendricks, Jeff put one hell of a garnish on his cocktail: a toasted brioche and cucumber sandwich brushed with butter that had been infused with most of the Hendricks botanicals. If you simply must have the recipe for that, email me.
Captain Kidd Cup
by Justin Falcone, freelance bartender
1 1/2 oz Hendricks Gin
1/2 oz pimento dram (St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Liqueur)
1/2 oz Pimm’s
1/2 oz lemon juice
Shake all ingredients in an iced cocktail shaker and pour into a highball glass. Top with ginger beer and garnish with lemon wedge and cucumber spear.
Tags: contests, hendricks beantown bartender battle, Recipes
Posted in Bartenders, Events, Gin | 1 Comment »
July 5th, 2008
Boston bartenders made an impressive showing in a recent St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur mixology contest at Employees Only in New York City. Congrats to No. 9 Park barman Ben Sandrof for taking first prize, which came with a bounty of $5,000. Ben schooled competitors from some of the country’s best cocktail bars, including Bourbon and Branch in San Francisco, the Violet Hour in Chicago, Dressler in Brooklyn and Seven Grand in L.A.
“I’m totally honored. The amount of talent in that room was pretty remarkable,” he says.
Another Boston competitor, singled out by contest judge and “King Cocktail” Dale DeGroff for her original St. Germain cocktail, was Misty Kalkofen of Green Street. She summarized the competition, which she said “was nerve wracking”:
The first round involed a “written test about spirits. The second round we were presented with four bottles marked A, B, C and D. We had two minutes to taste them and guess what they were. We then had five minutes to pick one of them and make an original creation for the judges. That was tough. Then the last round was building the cocktail you had submitted.”
The last round almost did Ben in. Curdled cream and a broken glass tripped up his first two attempts at mixing his Sureau Fizz within the time limit, but he managed to twist an orange peel over his third attempt just as the horn blew. Nice work, Ben and Misty. You made us proud.
Here’s the recipe for Ben’s winning cocktail, the Sureau (that’s French for elderflower, mes amis) Fizz.
Sureau Fizz
2 oz Beefeater gin
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
1 oz St. Germain
3 drops orange blossom water
1 1/2 oz heavy cream
1 fresh raw egg white
1 oz soda water
Method: Shake all ingredients for 10-12 minutes and pour into a collins glass. Top with soda water. Garnish with orange oil.
And here’s the recipe for Misty’s drink:
Summer of Sureau
1 1/2 oz St. Germain
1/2 oz Batavia Arrack
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/4 oz pineapple syrup*
3 dashes Bittermans Boston Summer Bittahs
Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. *Pineapple syrup: pass fresh pineapple juice through a fine strainer lined with a cone filter (a coffee filter would work, too). Then take the pineapple water and make a syrup that’s two parts pineapple water, one part sugar.
Posted in Bartenders, Liqueur | 9 Comments »
April 28th, 2008
Look, a cool new event!
World Cocktail Day
Tuesday, May 13, 7:00 p.m.
Green Street restaurant, 280 Green St., Central Square, Cambridge
Tickets $35
Reservations recommended: call Green Street at 617-876-1655
This is gonna be fun. On Tuesday, May 13, drinkboston and Green Street restaurant will celebrate World Cocktail Day with a party to benefit the organization that launched the event: the Museum of the American Cocktail. World Cocktail Day is the culmination of a series of international festivities marking World Cocktail Week. We will join revelers in Aspen, Australia, Chicago, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis and Singapore.
The Museum of the American Cocktail established World Cocktail Week “to celebrate the rich history of cocktails and recognize the craftsmanship and skill of the bartenders who have been mixing them for over 200 years.” Established in 2005 and forced into limbo by Hurricane Katrina, the Museum reopens on July 21 (right after Tales of the Cocktail) in its original hometown, New Orleans. It will be housed with the Southern Food & Beverage Museum at the Riverwalk Mall, just outside the French Quarter. If you want rock-solid cred within the cocktail community, become a member.
Green Street’s bar manager, Misty Kalkofen, and owner, Dylan Black, and I have invited four notable bartenders to mix and discuss a vintage cocktail of their choice, with a range of styles and eras represented.
Brother Cleve, cocktail historian and mixologist
Bijou (gin, sweet vermouth, green Chartreuse, orange bitters), a Golden Age cocktail dating back to Harry Johnson’s Bartender’s Manual in 1882, and featured in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book of recipes served in London’s Savoy Hotel during American Prohibition.
John Gertsen, principal bartender of No. 9 Park and named one of America’s top bartenders by Playboy magazine
Nicol’s Secret Pisco Punch (pisco, pineapple syrup, lemon juice, water), created in San Francisco in the 1870s using Peru’s clear, unaged brandy.
John Myers, Portland, Maine-based bartender and cocktail historian and co-founder of the Museum of the American Cocktail
Remember the Maine (good rye or bourbon, sweet vermouth, cherry brandy, absinthe or Pernod), described in Charles H. Baker Jr.’s The Gentleman’s Companion, published in 1939. “Stir briskly in clock-wise fashion — this makes it sea-going, presumably!” wrote Baker.
Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli, bartender at Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks
Maiden’s Prayer (gin, white rum, lemon juice, Cointreau, orange bitters), based on a variation (circa 1930) of the original (circa 1907), which may have been inspired by a hit piano tune of the late 1800s.
To reserve tickets by credit card, call Green Street at 617-876-1655. Tickets are $35 and include four cocktails and passed appetizers. Green Street is accessible via the Central Square stop on the MBTA red line.
Thanks to the following Museum sponsors for their donations: BarSol Pisco, Cointreau liqueur, Depaz Rhum, Makers Mark, Pernod Ricard and Plymouth Gin.
Posted in Bartenders, Cocktails, Events | 2 Comments »
March 6th, 2008
If you’re a fan of Esquire magazine drinks writer David Wondrich, and you bought his recently published book, Imbibe!, perhaps you’d like to get the book signed by the author himself. On Monday, March 10, Wondrich will be in Boston signing copies of his biography of Jerry Thomas, the father of American bartending. The signing happens from 12:30-2:00 at Stir, chef Barbara Lynch’s demonstration kitchen and cookbook library. Wondrich will join John Gertsen, who works with Lynch at the famed No. 9 Park, later in the evening to teach Stir’s monthly cocktail class. This installment of the class, Winter Warmer Cocktails (aka Who Needs Ice?), is sold out, but there are plenty more in the works — just click on “Calendar” at the Stir website.
Tags: David Wondrich, Imbibe, Jerry Thomas, Stir Boston
Posted in Bartenders, Books & resources, Events | 1 Comment »
