Archive for the ‘Booze in the news’ Category
March 15th, 2007
Maine-based journalist Wayne Curtis is an understated and witty writer who can tell a solid yarn about a cocktail’s history. He wrote this article, about “tracking a lost Cuban cocktail to its lair,” for Lost magazine. Here’s the recipe for El Presidente, verbatim from the article:
Over ice in a tall mixing glass, pour:
- 1-1/2 oz. rum
- 3/4 oz. curacao
- 3/4 oz. dry vermouth
- 1/2 tsp of grenadine
Stir well with ice for three or four minutes, then strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange peel twist.
Posted in Booze in the news, Cocktails, Rum, Vermouth | 5 Comments »
February 7th, 2007
Today’s New York Times features a great, quote-rich article on London’s cocktail scene, The Best Town to Make an Upper Lip Stiff. I want to point to an excerpt that encapsulates the philosophy and mission of drinkboston.com:
Of course, lemon grass and ginger syrup in the hands of the wrong bartender can lead to disaster. Few people understand this better than Robbie Bargh, the creative director of the Gorgeous Group, the consulting concern behind many of London’s splashiest new joints. An ebullient, opinionated former mixologist and bar manager with 16 years’ experience, Mr. Bargh said he has no time for “egotistical demigods” behind the bar who don’t bother with the fundamentals.
“We’re going through a big backlash to over-mixology,” he said. “I think like a chef. Like a chef, you can’t deliver innovation without renovation. You can’t modernize without a basic understanding of what it takes to make a great classic drink — why a Negroni is so different made with Aperol rather than Campari.”
In short, if you go to a bar where the bartender doesn’t know how to make a Negroni but instead offers you an Earl Grey-Chocolate-Chipotle Pepper-tini, pause and ask yourself: would I spend my money at a restaurant where the chef could whip up all manner of trendy foams and sculptural appetizers but couldn’t grill a steak to save his life? If your answer’s no, then move on to the next bar.
Posted in Booze in the news, Cocktails | 1 Comment »
January 30th, 2007
In a nice alignment of the stars, both drinkboston.com and one of Boston’s best bartenders, John Gertsen, are currently featured on Playboy.com. John, principal bartender at No. 9 Park, makes Playboy.com’s list of America’s Top 10 Bartenders. Congrats, John! Well deserved. You can see this guy in action at drinkboston.com’s upcoming champagne cocktail party at Green Street.
Another article, Brew Romance, describes 10 top American microbrews selected from votes by a panel of beer experts. That panel included drinkboston.com’s publisher, me. Yep, that’s right — it’s not all about cocktails for this imbiber. You can find a few of the Ms. Mug columns I write for the beer newspaper Ale Street News here.
Posted in Bartenders, Beer, Booze in the news, drinkboston in the news | No Comments »
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 13th, 2006
On October 25, the Boston Herald’s “Food in Brief” section reported on a new website devoted to Boston bars and bartenders. Yeah, that would be this website, drinkboston.com. Note: the Herald’s recipe for the Marconi Wireless was a bit garbled in translation. Here’s a recipe that roughly follows the 2/3 applejack to 1/3 sweet vermouth ratio.
Posted in Booze in the news, drinkboston in the news | 1 Comment »
