Cambridge photographer Matt Demers, whose fabulous work made the LUPEC Boston Little Black Book of Cocktails possible, took some terrific photos of drinkboston’s World Cocktail Day party at Green Street on May 13. Here are a few highlights. You can view the rest of the photos on my Flickr site. Thanks again to everyone who came by to celebrate!
Tags: green street photos, matt demers
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If you couldn’t get into the sold-out World Cocktail Day party at Green Street on Tuesday, I’m sorry to tell you that it was a ton o’ fun. In fact, it was an evening I was downright thankful for. It marked the end of World Cocktail Week, whose frivolity contrasted unavoidably with a coinciding spate of tragedies: the cyclone in Myanmar, the earthquake in China, tornadoes in the U.S. (not to mention the continuing grimness in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, etc, etc). I’m not trying to bring anyone down here. I’m just saying there were times during the evening when I paused, soaked up the good vibe among the crowd and thanked my lucky stars.
Our guest bartenders, four knowledgable and talented New England gentlemen, each mixed a vintage cocktail of their choice, then went from table to table recounting that libation’s origins and moment in history. They time-traveled from 1870s San Francisco to an 1880s bartender’s manual to the Spanish-American War (1898) to an early 20th-century obsession with songs about maidens. The cocktails (below) were accompanied by flatbread pizza, beef tongue tacos and other tasty treats from the Green Street kitchen. We started with an innocent-seeming Maiden’s Prayer and ended with a brassy Remember the Maine, at which point the joke was whether anyone would remember the Maine.
Maiden’s Prayer
by Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli of Eastern Standard
3/4 oz Plymouth Gin
3/4 oz white rum
3/4 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz Cointreau
1 dash orange bitters
Shake well over ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with a flower. 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.
Nicol’s Secret Pisco Punch (without cocaine)
by John Gertsen of No. 9 Park
6 parts BarSol pisco
3 parts lemon juice
2 parts pineapple syrup
1 part water
Shake, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with pineapple. The recipe originated with Duncan Nicol, the proprietor of San Francisco’s Bank Exchange saloon from the late 1870s until Prohibition. The secret’s out: a wee bit of gum arabic (which comes in a white powder — get it?) makes this a silky sweet punch.
Bijou
by Brother Cleve, cocktail historian and mixologist
1/3 Plymouth Gin
1/3 sweet vermouth
1/3 green Chartreuse
1 dash orange bitters
Stir well over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry or a lemon twist. A Golden Age cocktail dating back to Harry Johnson’s Bartender’s Manual in 1882.
Remember the Maine
by John Myers, Portland, Maine-based bartender and cocktail historian
1 1/2 oz good rye whiskey or bourbon (i.e. Maker’s Mark)
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
1-2 tsp of cherry brandy
1/2 tsp absinthe or Pernod veritas
Stir well over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass with a lemon twist. Named for the rallying cry of the Spanish-American war, the cocktail is described in Charles H. Baker Jr.’s The Gentleman’s Companion (1939). Myers’ note: “Any absinthe substitute will work, but the ‘cherry brandy’ is up for some interpretation. Different drinks occur — but still work, so little is deployed — if Cherry Heering or maraschino are used.”
World Cocktail Day at Green Street benefited the Museum of the American Cocktail, which launched World Cocktail Week. Plymouth Gin, Maker’s Mark bourbon and BarSol Pisco were the evening’s sponsors. Many thanks to Green Street bar manager Misty Kalkofen, owner Dylan Black and everyone else in the kitchen, behind the bar and out on the floor for totally kicking ass.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"Lauren Clark takes readers on a supremely sudsy tour of New England ales, lagers, pilsners, and porters. This is the New England the Puritans warned everybody about, but few have chronicled."
– Wayne Curtis, And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in 10 Cocktails
Drink sites
For club kids
Friends
LUPEC Boston (invented for the 2007 Boston Tea Party)
1 3/4 oz Plymouth gin
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
3/4 oz Wu Wei tea-infused simple syrup*
dash of Peychaud’s bitters
Shake all ingredients over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
*Wu Wei tea-infused simple syrup: heat 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water and 1 tbsp Wu Wei tea in a saucepan until all the sugar dissolves. Pour into a container and let cool. Store in fridge.