Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
July 9th, 2008
The limerick’s structure somewhat
necessitates *eloquent* smut.
If you haven’t the time
to learn meter and rhyme,
then don’t write them, you ignorant slut.
— From the top 150 limericks on LimerickDB
Finally, a contest for those yearning to combine their mixology and rhyming skills. The Hendrick’s Beantown Bartender Battle is putting out the call to all Boston-area mixologists — from those who pour booze for a living to those who have never mixed a drink outside their kitchen — for original recipes using Hendrick’s gin. Recipes can use up to six ingredients, but Hendrick’s must serve as the base. The cocktail also must highlight one of the 13 botanicals used in the gin: cucumber, rose petal, elderflower, chamomile, juniper berry, caraway seed, coriander, cubeb berry, orris root, lemon peel, orange peel, meadowsweat, and angelica. (Anyone who highlights cubeb berry should get extra credit.)
Submissions are due Wednesday, July 23, and should be emailed to Hendrick’s brand ambassador Charlotte Voisey at cvoisey@wgrantusa.com
Now for the fun part. Charlotte will select five finalists and invite them to present their cocktails to a panel of judges at Green Street (280 Green St., Cambridge) on Tuesday, August 5. The contestants can use only one five-line limerick to present, describe or announce their cocktails to the judges. The judges will, of course, consider the limerick along with the cocktail. First prize is a round-trip air ticket to anywhere in the U.S., and Hendrick’s promises other, “mysterious and unusual” prizes.
If you just want to be a spectator, no problem. Tickets for the event, which starts at 7:00 p.m., are $20. Charlotte and Green Street bar manager Misty Kalkofen will mix up four Hendrick’s gin cocktails, and there’ll be some bites to eat, too. To reserve your spot ahead of time, call Green Street at 617-876-1655.
Tags: bartending contests, Hendrick's gin, limericks
Posted in Events, Gin | 9 Comments »
July 2nd, 2008
If Monday night’s Flowing Bowl Punch Party, hosted by drinkboston at Eastern Standard, were a high-diving competition, it would score a perfect 10 for both execution and technical difficulty. I mean, how often do you walk into a bar and see 60-odd people holding decorative cups filled with punch made from 200-year-old recipes? How often are you served a drink that involves steeping three kinds of booze, multiple fruits and spices and green tea in hot water for several hours, adding milk, straining the curdled mixture through cheesecloth twice and chilling the finished product down with a massive ring of ice decorated with pineapple slices? And how often do you see bartenders ladling liquid out of large, flowing bowls instead of shaking cocktails?
Thanks to Jackson Cannon and Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli for concocting the four punches — all deceptively potent and enjoyably distinct from one another — from recipes in David Wondrich’s Imbibe!, the Savoy Cocktail Book and Martha Washington’s own notebook. And thanks to the rest of Eastern Standard’s staff for the charcuterie, deviled eggs, beef carpaccio and other tasty bites, and the gracious service.
Below is a list of the punches that were served, along with their key ingredients and bits of historical poetry revealing that odes to alcoholic beverages in America existed well before the Algonquin Round Table. To create these punches yourself, either consult the aforementioned sources or click on the links below.
Philadelphia Fish-House Punch
Toast of Schuylkill and to Independence!
Lemon juice
Cane sugar
Mixture of cognac, rum and house-made peach brandy
Cold water
Created by a colonial rod and gun club on the banks of Pennsylvania’s Schuykill River and remembered in modern times thanks to a recipe passed on by a Philadelphia lawyer, Charles Godfrey Leland.
“There’s a little place just out of town,
Where, if you go to lunch,
They’ll make you forget your mother-in-law
With a drink called Fish-House Punch.”
Martha Washington’s Rum Punch
Cheers to our first First Lady!
Juice of lemons & oranges
Spice mix of clove, cinnamon & nutmeg
Oranges
Curacao, light & dark rums
Water
This recipe is said to have come from Martha Washington’s own journal.
“This ancient Silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times,
Of joyous days, and jolly nights and merry Christmas Chimes
They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave and true,
That dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new.”
Chatham Artillery Punch
For soldiers young and old, men of action, brave and bold!
Pineapples, lemons, oranges & cherries
Native wine, rum & rye
Cherry nectar
Strong green tea & champagne
The house punch of the Chatham Artillery of Savannah, Georgia, formed in 1786. Recipe available in Imbibe!
“When you visit the town of Savannah
Enlist ‘neath the temperance banneh,
For if you should lunch,
On artillery punch,
It will treat you in sorrowful manneh.”
Milk Punch #1
Celebrate the wit and wisdom of Aphra Behn.
Juice and rind of lemons
Pineapple
Spice mix of clove, coriander, cinnamon & green cardamom
Brandy, rum & batavia arrack
Strong green tea, water & milk
Aphra Behn was a 17th-century English dramatist and novelist and the “first woman ever to earn her living solely by writing,” according to Imbibe! She is also credited with inventing milk punch, a drink that is “undeniably smooth, but not necessarily lush,” writes Wondrich. This recipe is the Milk Punch #1 from the Savoy Cocktail Book.
“If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink;
Good Punch, a friend, or being dry
Or least we should be by and by,
Or any other reason why!”
Tags: chatham artillery punch, martha washington's rum punch, philadelphia fish-house punch, savoy's milk punch no. 1
Posted in Brandy, Events, Punch, Rum, Whiskey | 11 Comments »
June 26th, 2008
You saved the date, but have you made reservations yet for drinkboston’s Flowing Bowl Punch Party at Eastern Standard this Monday, June 30? No? You were waiting to hear just what was going to be in those flowing bowls, weren’t you? Well, here are the goods. Jackson Cannon and his talented staff will mix four classic punches and serve them out of traditional bowls in the restaurant’s front lounge and porch area. The featured liquids are Martha Washington’s Rum Punch, Philadelphia Fish House Punch, Milk Punch No. 1 (from the Savoy cocktail book)* and … a mystery punch to be determined. You’ll just have to show up to find out what’s in that bowl.
Remember, this isn’t your grandmother’s punch (cheap champagne, ginger ale, orange sherbet). It’s your great-great-great-great-great grandmother’s punch (strong spirits, sugar, fresh citrus, spices). Rest assured that, while these mixtures contain plenty of rum, brandy and other bracing liquors, they are remarkably balanced and not overly sweet.
Don your party threads and commune with us around the flowing bowl. To reserve tickets by credit card, call Eastern Standard at 617-532-9100. Tickets are $30 and include servings of four different kinds of punch and passed appetizers. The party starts at 5:30 p.m. and lasts ’til the punch runs out.
Want to receive email invitations to drinkboston events? Send a request to drinkboston at comcast dot net.
* The recipe for Milk Punch No. 1 is complicated. It involves steeping brandy, Jamaica rum, Batavia Arrack, spices, lemon, pineapple and green tea in boiling water, then adding milk and more lemon, then straining the whole curdled mixture into a container and serving it cold. You have to try it to believe it.
Posted in Events, Punch | 2 Comments »
June 19th, 2008
One of Boston’s best bartenders, Jackson Cannon, is the subject of an admiring profile in today’s Boston Globe. Congrats, Jackson — well deserved. Careful readers will notice that one of writer Meaghan Agnew’s sources was … moi.
This is a good time to point out that Jackson and his hardworking, talented bar staff are currently doing some recipe testing for drinkboston’s Flowing Bowl Punch Party. The party takes place at Eastern Standard on Monday, June 30. Watch this space for more details as the event’s menu takes shape…
Posted in drinkboston in the news, Events | 1 Comment »
June 5th, 2008
“For nearly two hundred years, from the 1670s to the 1850s, the Kingdom of Mixed Drinks was ruled by the Bowl of Punch,” writes David Wondrich in Imbibe!, his book on “Professor” Jerry Thomas, bartending pioneer. For most modern-day people, punch is considered the tamest of drinks, involving roughly one part cheap champagne to 16 parts fruit juice, ginger ale and orange sherbet.
That is not the sort of punch that will be served at drinkboston’s Flowing Bowl party at Eastern Standard on June 30. No, we will offer up four different recipes of old-school — really old-school — punch, or, as Wondrich puts it: “A large-bore mixture of spirits, citrus, sugar, water, and spice that bears the same relation to the anemic concoctions that pass under its name today that gladiatorial combat does to a sorority pillow fight.”
More details to come, but put this on your calendar and start making your reservations:
Flowing Bowl Party
Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks
Monday, June 30, 5:30 p.m.
Tickets are $30, which includes four servings of punch and passed appetizers
For reservations call Eastern Standard at 617-532-9100
Hope to see you there!
Posted in Events | 2 Comments »
