Entries associated with the tag "cocktails":

One of my favorite recent books is Dale DeGroff's The Essential Cocktail: The Art of Mixing Drinks, a lavishly photographed how-to by "King Cocktail," who probably more than anyone is responsible for the current cocktail renaissance. So I jumped at the chance to shake the legend's hand at the local launch party last night at the Violet Hour.

There was a set drink menu for the occasion, five from the book, including a classic Manhattan, the perversely named Monkey Gland, and yes, a Cosmo, which DeGroff didn't invent but helped to popularize before it was adopted by Carrie Bradshaw and company. "This is the only time you'll be able to get a Cosmopolitan at the Violet Hour," cracked a VH bartender. One of the nice things about DeGroff is that he isn't some reactionary cocktail snob, and like it or not the Cosmo has its place in history.

You know those dramatic flaming citrus peels they do over some of the drinks at the Violet Hour? DeGroff reintroduced that too around the time the Cosmo was taking off ("He also created the orange," deadpanned another wacky barkeep).

What you see in the warm VH gloom pictured above is DeGroff's Manhattan East, a horrible sounding but quite tasty potion of bourbon (not rye), dry sake, the ginger liqueur Domaine de Canton, and orange bitters. With the sake standing in for the standard vermouth it isn't nearly as sweet as a regular Manhattan. It gets the flaming peel treatment at the finish. For me, the aroma of the burnt citrus oil settling over the glass makes feel like I can slip out of the straitjacket and into some slippers.

Cheers!

"In the spirit of camaraderie and cocktail appreciation," Manhattan's Death & Co. and our own Violet Hour are embarking on an interesting four-night experiment beginning Sunday. Alchemy Consulting duo Jason Cott and Toby Maloney have written to tell us of the first-ever bartender exchange between the two cocktail oases. D & C's Joaquin Simo will come to Chicago, while the Violet Hour's Kirk Estopinal heads east.

It's "not simply a bartender vacation," writes Cott, "but a focused idea to share and exchange new techniques and recipes from some of the top cocktailians in the world." Both bartenders are toting their own syrups and bitters, and customers will be encouraged to take advantage of the fresh talent. 

No word on whether Simo will have any foie-gras-infused bourbon on hand for his Loosey Goosey.

We'll let up on our blanket coverage of the Violet Hour after today's fifth and final Cocktail Minute. Here the intrepid barkeep mixes a Whiskey Smash, an old and elementary concoction of muddled lemon, simple syrup, bruised mint, and whiskey. Maloney adds his house-made lemon bitters and, like all the whiskey-based drinks on the bar's menu, uses rye instead of bourbon. That's because he prefers to control the sweetness in a drink himself, and rye's dryness provides a cleaner palette to build upon than an inherently sweet spirit like bourbon. 

That gigantic iceberg in the rocks glass is the infamous chunk, hand hewn by a woodcarver moonlighting as barback. Those things melt slower than a polar ice cap. 

Now sober up!

The Violet Hour's version of the pisco sour, called the Iron Cross, is a bit more complicated than the traditional South American brandy drink in both execution and ingredients. In addition to Chilean pisco, egg white, lemon juice, simple syrup, and Angostura bitters, Maloney adds orange flower water and his own summer bitters, flavored with grapefruit and lavender.

The shaking method Maloney and all his bartenders employ is one of his own invention also. Instead of using the more common Boston shaker--a glass beer pint fitted into a metal shaker--they use a smaller metal shaker on top which, unlike glass, doesn't retain heat after washing, and gets cold faster. It also provides a better grip, and if it does slip it won't ever shatter in the well ice. Maloney says he came up with this in the late 90s, and subsequently Milk & Honey owner Sasha Petraske dubbed it the "Toby Shake."

Tomorrow's final Cocktail Minute will feature the Whiskey Smash. 

Did I mention we have a story about the Violet Hour in Restaurants this week? Here, Toby Maloney mixes his version of the negroni, one of the more dramatic preparations at the bar. It's two parts Beefeeater gin, one part Campari and Carpano Antica red vermouth, almost three dashes of house-made orange bitters, and a spectacular finish.

The supercold ice cubes Maloney uses in this one are made by the bar's Kold-Draft machine, which he calls "the Ferrari of ice machines," not just for its excellence, but for its temperament. "Every one is different," he says.

Coming up Monday: the Iron Cross.

Toby Maloney's influence is already spreading beyond his dark Damen Avenue lair. He and Alchemy Consultants partner Jason Cott recently designed a drink menu for the bar at Blackbird (that restaurant's Donnie Madia also has a stake in the Violet Hour). Eight classic cocktails with new twists may be rolled out as soon as Saturday according to Blackbird co-owner Rick Diarmit, who notes ruefully that he tried to introduce the same thing years ago--cocktails with quality bitters, fresh ingredients, etc.--but "nobody got it."

Today we have Maloney mixing a Southside, one of the simpler drinks on the Violet Hour menu--Beefeater, lime, mint, and Angostura bitters. There has been some chatter about the Southside having a Chicago origin, an idea that was scornfully dismissed last weekend in the Wall Street Journal. Note, the big finish on this drink is known as "spanking the mint." 

After a rough patch in the road, I've become a huge fan of the Violet Hour, Wicker Park's cocktailian oasis. At $11 per, the drinks are stiff in both senses of the word, but to sit at the bar and observe the skill, precision, and yes, love that goes into them, you quickly realize that these fully organoleptic potions are oceans away from the sugary, unbalanced (but comparably priced) splashtinis sloshed together in innumerable fancypants boites. You take your first sip and realize you could be standing on the precipice of a dangerous habit.

There's a story coming up in this week's restaurants section about how Alchemy Consulting partners Toby Maloney and Jason Cott came together, and eventually created one of the most exciting things to happen to drinkers in this city since the passage of the 21st Amendment. During the course of my um, research, I videotaped Maloney mixing various cocktails from the bar's summer menu (soon to be supplanted by the fall's), which we'll be posting over the coming days. Since I volunteered myself for quality control you may notice a progressive decline in camera control, but you'll still get to see Maloney mix his magic. In today's video he makes a Dark & Stormy, a spicy, visually stunning concoction of Matusalem rum, fresh squeezed lime juice, and house-made ginger syrup, topped off with dark Cruzan Black Strap rum. Prefer whiskey to rum? Ask for a Presbyterian.

Imbibe, a cute new bimonthly magazine out of Portland, Oregon, that I picked up at In Fine Spirits this weekend, may be the best entry I've seen lately in the growing subgenre of drink porn. The lavish, glowing full-page spreads are quite catholic in scope--the March/April issue includes features on coffee, sake, tequila, juicers, a truly fascinating look at organic herb-infused beers, and a kinda pedestrian primer on wine tasting. But what really impressed me was the editorial reverence for the art of the cocktail. And while I'm a teeny bit scared that this could, in some sort of double-super-secret manifestation of retro-ness, signal the resurgence of the cocktail nation, an article on Prohibition-era cocktails of the sort made glamorous by expat Scottish mixologist Harry MacElhone left me thirsty for a Boulevardier--basically a Negroni with bourbon instead of gin.

The Boulevardier

1 1/2 oz. bourbon
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. sweet vermouth
Stir long and well in a mixing glass with ice.
Strain into cocktail glass.
Garnish with orange, lemon twist, or cherry.