Content © 2009 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: csowg, drink.write, new orleans, tales of the cocktail

1. “All cocktail bloggers have an affinity for technology (sorry Dr. Bamboo), are video gamers, have played or still play roleplaying games, enjoy shows like Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, and Iron Chef, love good food and cooking, are crazy pompous about cocktails, and most importantly, are genuinely nice, fun, and great people (even Jamie).” This is absolutely true. Cocktail bloggers, as a rule, are feckin’ awesome.

2. Chuck Taggart does indeed have the lowdown on the best restaurants in the city. And eat the fries at Lüke. They’ll blow your mind.

3. I have not seen a blowjob in an X-ray before, but thanks to LeNell I have a new goal to achieve before Tales 2009.

4. All 10:30 seminars should be forbidden so that I can get some sleep between the hours of 3 am and whenever I feel sober enough to get out of bed.

5. Bring an extra bag and bubble wrap so that you can check in luggage that doesn’t clink when you put it on the plane.

6. Find Martin Cate’s house and dig in the backyard, because he buries jugs of punch back there! (Or maybe just get my lazy ass up north and go to his bar.)

7. Do not, under any circumstances, order a Vieux Carre from the Carousel Bar when it is crowded. You will get something that neither looks nor tastes like a Vieux Carre (and I’m still not sure what exactly it was other than dark red and sweet).

8. Don’t ride the elevators in the Monteleone unless you have an extra half hour to kill.

9. The Bienville House pool is open 24 hours. The Monteleone rooftop pool is not.

10. Monteleone wifi sucks, so head down to Decatur and get an awesome Bloody Mary at Attiki to go with their free (and fast!) wifi. (Side note: more bars need free wifi.)

Before I start my final post on Tales, I need to give a huge thank you to all the friends, old and new, who we spent time with in New Orleans. To the bloggers and bartenders who made up the majority of our crew, it was a treat to spend time with such a talented, friendly, interesting, fun group of people. I feel fortunate to know you and to have been able to attend Tales with you. To the Los Angeles bartending contingent, it was awesome to see you all in NOLA. LA represent! To Jeff and Blair, thanks for the gifts. I promise to reciprocate at some point in the future. To Ted and Charles Munat, thanks for including me in your book. It’s an honor to be printed among such great company. And lots of gratitude and love to our friends: Chuck and Wes, Craig, Ted, J.T. and Kate, Jeff, Zane, and our new friend Bob, we couldn’t have had such an amazing experience without you!

And now, on to the highlight reel: (...) Continue reading The Final Word

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Post tags: tales of the cocktail

The huge amounts of alcohol that one imbibes during Tales has turned me into a photo blogger this week. The short version of the last three days goes like this:

We started the day with a hilarious panel called Jerry’s Kids, led by David Wondrich, Ted Haigh and Brian Rea. It was a free-form discussion about famous bartenders that were not Jerry Thomas, full of fun anecdotes about “The Only” William, the second most famous bartender in America during the nineteenth century.

That was followed by a once-in-my-lifetime experience to have a Pousse Cafe made by David Wondrich with real Créme Yvette provided by Rob Cooper, the progenitor of St. Germain. The panel was composed (again) of Ted Haigh and David Wonrich as well as Rob Cooper, Chad Solomon of Cuff & Buttons and Joaquin Simo of Death & Co. You’ll all be happy to know that Créme Yvette will be making its way back to the market soon, and a new version of Forbidden Fruit will eventually be making its way back to the market.

After ogling (and sampling) some original Forbidden Fruit, we headed for Gary Regan and LeNell Smothers’ Essential American Whiskey tasting. It was amazingly entertaining and delicious, with the big surprise being the Evan Williams black label. I unfortunately prejudged the bottle based on the appearance of the label and was happily surprised with how delicious it was. We worked our way through some other very great whiskey—Old Fitzgerald, Bernheim’s, Rittenhouse and Elijah Craig—then each of us made the largest Old Fashioned ever. If you’re never been fortunate enough to see Gary or LeNell speak, I can’t recommend them highly enough. The seminar was informative, fun and, naturally, blue (in the best possible way).

When the seminars ended we gathered with all the other LA bartenders/writers/friends and had po’ boys at Mandina’s at Chuck’s recommendation. For those of you who have doubts about Chuck’s reliability as a food guide, allow me to tell you that I have experienced it first hand and he knows what he’s talking about. If he tells you to eat somewhere, eat there.

The next day we kicked the day off with more jocularity at the Potions of the Caribbean seminar, featuring Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, Stephen Remsberg (owner of the world’s largest private rum collection), Martin Cate of Forbidden Island and rum aficionado and writer Wayne Curtis. The Bum put together the single best PowerPoint presentation I’ve ever seen and we learned about the rather dubious ways that sailors acquired rum on the high seas (it involves pickled dead monkeys), the very storied role that Cuba played not only in classic but in tiki cocktails, the flavor profiles native to various Caribbean Islands, and tasted four great drinks, though two were absolutely fantastic: the Rum Pot and Jasper’s Jamaican Cocktail.

Afterward we wandered about town for a bit and went to see Robert Hess, Jamie Boudrea, Paul Clarke and Erik Ellestad discussing making ingredients at home. We tasted the ever-awesome Tequila de mi amante made with Partida, falernum, orgeat (props to Erik—this was great). We learned a lot about precisely how lazy Jamie actually is (answer: very) and had a special guest in the form of Daniel from PDT who discussed their process of fat-washing, which is how they create bacon-infused bourbon for their Benton’s Old-Fashioned.

We spent the night wandering along Frenchman Street and had a lovely dinner at Bennachin, where we enjoyed delicious Gambian and Cameroonian food from West Africa, then had a beer with Paul, Erik and his wife, Chuck and Wes and some other new friends, and rolled out of bed this morning in time for the 12:30pm seminar titled “The Flowing Bowl”. David Wondrich, Allen Katz and Phil Ward from Death & Co. treated us to a lively discussion on the history and application of punches, complemented by a very large bowl of punch which provided first and second glasses for a room full of people.

Phew. It was been a long, wonderful, entertaining, informative, alcohol-filled five days. I’ve had a great time and enjoyed all of the seminars immensely. It’s going to take me a week or so to recover, but now I’m going to spend some time playing tourist with my remaining hours in New Orleans. I may be back with more exploits of drunken cocktail shenanigans, but not until I’ve had some lunch…

Content © 2008 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: tales of the cocktail

The day started at Juniperlooza, the gin panel hosted by Ryan Magerian of Aviation Gin. Also on the panel were Phil Duff, bartender from Holland and our genever expert, Desmond Payne, master distiller for Beefeater, and Simon Ford of Plymouth Gin. We sampled eight various gins, from genever to Old Tom to New Western and everything in-between…plus four cocktails. The Improved Holland Cocktail was first and incorporated genever, followed by the Jasmine Cocktail, a variation of the Pegu Club invented by Paul Harrington, an absolutely delightful Singapore Sling and an Aviation-based cocktail called the Pepper Delicious.

We followed that up with the Cognac and Armagnac tasting, featuring liquors from Jerez, Cognac and Armagnac. The hosts, Edward and Deborah, walked us through tasting nine various liquors in a range of ages and styles. The highlight was tasting the Castarede Blanche, a completely unaged armagnac. Surprisingly (in my brandy ignorance), unaged brandy tastes exactly like pisco. It’s amazing to move through a tasting of the variously aged brandies and see what a few years in an oak barrel can do. Which statement sums up pretty much my fascination with liquor and leads us to the next seminar: Making Your Own Spirits.

Led by Matthew Rowley of San Diego (whom I met by happenstance on Wednesday without having any idea he was leading this panel), Mike McCaw and Ian Smiley joined him in a thorough discussion of the basics of the history and craft of home distilling. Unfortunately we were double booked and missed the Artisan Still Design seminar, but found the discussion of the various legal restrictions on distilling in America very interesting. Did you know you can lose your house for distilling liquor at home, but are allowed to produce up to 300 gallons each of beer and wine every year? Neither did I.

The glut of information was followed with a side-by-side tasting of Absolut vodka, Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon moonshine and Bar Sol pisco and the revelation that alcohol can ignite in the absence of oxygen. How that’s physically possible I’m not sure, but who am I to question?

After the last seminar it was off to the Diageo Cocktail Hour with Chuck Taggart and Wes where the David Wondrich made us a drink, then off to dinner with Dr. Bamboo.

After a beer and some delightful food at a little bar called Attiki (with the greatest Bloody Marys ever—no, seriously), we headed to the St. Germain suite to be treated to cocktails made by Marcos Tello and Eric Alperin, great guys and all-star bartenders from Los Angeles…not that I’m biased. Rob Cooper, Mr. St. Germain, even jumped behind the bar with Eric for a bit.

After hanging out with friends old and new (and really, really new), I had to pack it in at 2am to be up and at ‘em for this morning’s David Wondrich-Brian Rea-Ted Haigh seminar. More about that tomorrow, as it’s time for lunch and big ol’ Bloody Mary!

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Post tags: tales of the cocktail

It was a trip to finally put faces to all the names in the cocktail blogosphere—Paul of Cocktail Chronicles (our fearless leader and public speaker), Jeff Morgenthaler, Darcy of Art of Drink, Rick of Kaiser Penguin, Dr. Bamboo, Gabriel of Cocktailnerd, Jay of Oh Gosh!, Seamus of Bunny Hugs, Blair of Trader Tiki…so many people I can’t even keep track of everyone. Of course, Natalie the Liquid Muse is vlogging the whole event, so we’re all on camera being convivial.

Afterward we made off with the ever-awesome Chuck of Gumbo Pages (and Wes, even though he would prefer to remain anonymous) and headed to the beautiful Absinthe Museum for a tasting.

After a few glasses, we headed back past the Monteleone for the Palace Cafe and the Beefeater Welcome Reception. Everyone (at points it felt like everyone in the French Quarter) shared some lovely gin cocktails and mingled, until we decided that dinner was in order and wandered over to Lüke for some late-night refueling.

Now it’s off to do some tastings before Juniperlooza gets started…

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Post tags: tales of the cocktail

If you haven’t been keeping up with the Tales Blog, there are a whole passel of bloggers converging on Tales this year and we’ve been working hard to provide sneak previews of the great panels and events that are scheduled. I’ve managed to work out a pretty open schedule for my time, so I thought I’d post the places I’m most likely to be; I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone, so please say hi if you see me (I have a long list of people who I am hoping to run into, though I’ll probably wind up stuttering and looking like an idiot once I do).

We’ll be arriving on Wednesday after a brief visit with a friend in Texas, but I’ve worked out a rough itinerary—meaning these are the places I want to be when I’m not touring cemeteries or listening to jazz (or staggering around town drinking). (...) Continue reading TotC Countdown: 21 Days

Content © 2008 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: tales of the cocktail