USBGNY: Story time with Gary Regan that makes us think about customer service

March 23

Last week I stopped by the World Bar at Trump World Tower to attend the USBGNY monthly mixer. I'd come just in time to hear Jonathan Pogash make a couple of announcements about upcoming contests and events.

For those attending the NY Bar Show, USBGNY will have a huge presence there this year with its own separate area.

It was the usual thing you'd expect at a meeting like this of this sort, a gathering of industry folks to talk about industry related matter. Except we got to have that there were plentiful booze, mainly in the form of Old Fashioneds made with Pierre Ferrand Cognac Ambre.

And like any proper meeting, we had a guest speaker speak to us about something relating to industry matters, except our speaker wasn't just any speaker. It was the always entertaining, yet insightful, and delightfully salty Gary Regan.

Reading from a sheaf of paper that he said was part of a work in progress memoir that he was working to get published, he began to tell us a bit about his life, and in particular, about his parents. He began his story explaining how he was brought up in the pub business. For a period of his life, his father owned a pub located in a lower class neighborhood near a council estate (public housing in the United Kingdom).

Gary had everyone's attention in the room as he told us tales with relish about the pub's house band. Or how as a youngster, he fell into a group of older boys and would go drinking. How his father "a regular superstar" of the council estate would get up on stage to sing. And he told us of the neighborhood tough guy, "the toughest motherfucker in town" as Gary described him, who'd come in twice a year just to sing "Danny Boy."

While everyone listened to the hilarious and heartfelt stories that Gary told, it became obvious that he wasn't just telling these stories because they were good stories, but he was actually trying to explain to us how deep the relationship between customer and bartender (or in this case, pub owner) can go.

Gary said that his father was almost like a father figure for the council estate through the relationships built with those that came into his bar and through caring about the people living in the neighborhood his pub was situated in, his parents weren't just the pub owners, someone one people could go to whether it was late night phone calls or a need to borrow a little money. Gary didn't find that his mother had slipped cash to those who needed it until 2001, a year after her death. He had no idea that his mother had provided some money for a barmaid whose daughter needed medical attention.

The magnanimity and hospitality his parents provided to those in the neighborhood created a sort of "fierce loyalty'

"He didn't want to fuck up in the last place in town where he could take some stuff off of his chest," Gary said of the tough guy who could intimidate the entire room into silence when he walked in, never caused any trouble for the pub.

"The most important part of being a pub landlords is that they must truly care for their customers...they must care in a very real sense on a very personal level," Gary said about what his parents taught him about the bar business. "Because nobody goes to a bar for a drink. They go for conversation, for company...to cry on somebody's shoulders. And such is the path the bartender must walk."

For those who know Gary or at least have read his book, the message isn't new. Even in the age of bartending being sexy, with people trying out different techniques, new ingredients, old ingredients that are new by virtue of having been forgotten, Gary still preaches the importance of the customer and bartender relationship.

As Gary put it, it's not just about "making a great drink or creating a masterpiece," and that bartenders should remember, "He who chooses a life behind bars, chooses a life of service."

Blue Blazer Mix-Off at Pegu Club

(videos near the end of this post)

Oct. 27

"...90 percent of the reason I'm here is because I want to see fire," I said to Alex Day as I nursed a Whiskey Smash.

The setting? Pegu Club. Six contenders were set to duel in their mastery of the most basic of elements required for human life. Fire and alcohol.

To kick off Slow Food NYC's first annual "Slow Drink Week," Audrey Saunders was hosting the launch reception at Pegu. Slow Foods NYC announced last week that several restaurants and bars in the city would be participating this week with their own menu of "slow" cocktails.

Pegu was serving its own list of slow cocktails that evening with a list of hors d’oeuvres.

(Part of the proceeds from Slow Drink Week, as well as the ticket sale for the opening reception, will go to benefit Slow Food NYC's Harvest Time Program, including Good Food Education, a Youth Farmstand, and Edible Schoolyards at schools in East Harlem and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

For a list of participating locations and dates provided by Slow Food NYC, click here.)

Earlier in the evening I greeted Eben Freeman, Alex Day and Joaquin Simo at the door of Pegu as we got ready to enter. I was asked how my cocktail education with Eben was going. I answered that it wasn't going too bad, but practicing with the shaker wasn't going too well because, "it sounds like nothing."

"It's all right as long as it sounds like a good nothing," Eben said with a smile.

Wait, was he just messing with me or did he just drop some kind of Yoda-like aphorism that I needed to get to be the best cocktail shaker EVER? I decided to go with the former to make it easier for everyone involved.

Upstairs the crowd was pretty big, but it wasn't too packed, which was nice. Pinballing around I found myself bumping into folks like John Deragon, Phil Ward, Jim Kearns, Don Lee and Naren Young. I spotted Dale DeGroff in his snazzy red jacket and Dave Wondrich's top hat teetered around in the crowd.

Now that I was feeling better, I figured I could slowly wade back into drinking, but was still mildly worried about my body taking terrible offense to that. I sipped at a French Pearl that went unclaimed. Just then Gary Regan walked by me and cryptically warned, "You behave yourself now."

Though I knew he said that independently of what I was debating in my head, I couldn't help but reluctantly put down the half-empty glass.

After a few words from Audrey Saunders and the drawing of straws, the Blue Blazer Mix-Off started with Dave Wondrich and Jim Meehan. They went for a historical and patriotic theme with their presentation of Jerry Thomas' Spread Eagle Punch. The liquid was Blue Blazerfied then poured into glasses with a gelatin (I didn't catch what was in it, if anybody could let me know what was in the gelatin, that'd be awesome).

The second group to go was Gary Regan and Phil Ward. The two warned that they had not practiced their Blue Blazer beforehand, but had a "special ingredient" on hand that they said was a tip of the hat to Eben Freeman. After a couple of false starts, Phil fortified the mixture a bit more and Eben jumped in to offer the service of a blow torch.



The third team was Dale DeGroff and Kenta Goto. With a recipe concocted by Kenta with the help of Audrey, Dale showed off his liquid fire taming skills as Kenta added some (literal) flare to the presentation by tossing cinnamon powder into the line of fire to create sparks. Instantly, the place was filled with the scent of what seemed like apple pie. The drink was then poured into cored apple halves.

Though these were the three teams announced to compete, Audrey announced yet another surprise team that would be participating.



Johnny Iuzzini and Dave Arnold tried their hand at competing with a more of a "scientific" approach. Dave utilized a kinda sorta technically illegal ingredient of a 120 proof tea-infused vodka of sorts for a Blue Blazer twist on a tea and lemonade drink. Then using a hypodermic needle, the liquid was shot from across the bar into a caraffe/pitcher held by Johnny Iuzzini. His forearm caught on fire. And while it was insanely cool to watch, it did smell like burnt hair at the bar.

But before I go on, I'd like to apologize for my unsteady camera hand and lack of lighting. I'm still not used to capturing video and it was dark in that bar to better capture the flames. Kind of lame excuses, but what can you do. Hey, I'm the one providing a service here with a video for those who couldn't attend. Also, this is a hardy drinking group. There might be some blue language. Maybe not R, but perhaps a PG level. If salty language is not your thing...I really don't know what to tell you.



I didn't stick around to see who ultimately won, because in my mind everyone's a winner...or something like that. Instead I headed over to Death and Company to bug Alex Day (he had to leave in the middle of the Blue Blazer Mix-Off to start his shift) and Thomas Waugh for a bit. I tried to get a head start on trying some new drinks for when the menu update rolls around. Out of the couple I tried, Thomas' Strange Brew won me over. With gin, pineapple juice, lemon juice and falernum it didn't seem like the usual drink I'd go for unless I was in the mood for something light. However, Thomas topped it with a bit of Hop Devil IPA that gave it a hoppy kick. I have to say, the guys at Death and Co. have been doing a pretty decent job of helping me get over my fear of sweet drinks.

Tales of the Cocktail 2008: "I love it that we have the country's best pastry chef cutting fruit"

or Apprentices, the people responsible for you having your drinks at Tales

[Note to Don Lee: Thanks for acting as copy editor/fact checker on this entry.]

Thursday night, Muriel's was the setting of "Desmond Payne's Ruby Jubilee" to honor Desmond Payne, Beefeater's master distiller.

While the party went on in the second level of Muriel's, I found myself outside on the balcony suffused with the sound of muffled revelry leaking out into the evening. Drinks sweated profusely in the thick sticky night as I sat in a group that included John Deragon, Don Lee and Daniel Eun of PDT, both Ebens Klemm (B.R. Guest) and Freeman (Tailor), Ryan Fitzgerald of Beretta in San Francisco and Dave Arnold, director of culinary technology at The French Culinary Institute. The group grew and contracted throughout the evening as other bartenders came and left.

I was discussing with Mr. Lee about not wanting to appear like a self-important writer who wrote about bartending because they couldn't. Not that I was being all presumptuous that I could actually bartend, but I really wanted to be serious about the bar trade so as not to waste the time of bartenders I talked to. And I wanted a bit of better understanding about what I was writing. I felt like I lacked in the experience department and was toying with the idea of how to get that.

"You know, like something like street cred," I said, not realizing that I'd inadvertently created a running joke that'd follow me the next couple of days.

"You want bartender street cred? You come juice some lemons and limes in the juice line in the kitchen," Don said. "If you're looking for stories that's the untold story of Tales right there. I've got a pirate-like crew of people working several hours a day."

Don and John were helping Phil Ward (Death and Co.) in a ragtag group of bartender "apprentices". It was kind of an interesting title choice once you saw the caliber of bartenders in the kitchen. They were responsible for batching and creating pretty much all the cocktails served at Tales related events. And if they weren't in the kitchen, they were in the seminar rooms or behind a bar at some event mixing and shaking.

My ears pricked at this suggestion. As informative the seminars had been, to be honest, I could only sit through so many of them and was starting to get a bit of first-timer burnout. At the same time I felt obligated to attend as much as possible to cram knowledge into my head, but it came at a cost. My butt was starting to get tired from sitting and my hands were itching from hearing about all the techniques and recipes.

"Really? I can do that?" I asked.

"Hey John, Sonya's gonna come down to the kitchen tomorrow to get some 'street cred' with us," Don said, the scare quotes practically etching themselves into the almost solid, humid air.

But then I remembered a press event I RSVP'ed to go to the next morning. Could I come in to help an hour in the morning?

"No." John and Don both said.

"You're either in it all the way or you're not," Don said. "The juice line doesn't work that way."

"Oh, come on," I protested. "It's not like I don't want to help. I just have a prearranged engagement tomorrow morning."

"That's called wussing out."

"No, that's called being responsible," I said.

My protestations were soon lost when Dave Arnold said he'd jump in the line and the conversation devolved into an impromptu event to set up a juice-a-thon between Ryan Fitzgerald and himself. Rules were written, and abandoned in the same breath and much smack was talked until Leo DeGroff made an appearance and showed interest in the wager. Apparently Leo's juicing skills is the stuff of legend and something meant to be discussed only in hushed tones of reverence. Ryan, the group's favorite, was quickly displaced by the Prince of Cocktail.

All Friday morning I found myself preoccupied with whether or not the showdown had happened between Ryan and Dave as I sat through a seminar on bitters after a media breakfast held at Brennan's. I wanted to go peek in to see what happened, but feared that I was banned from the kitchen thanks to my wussing out.

After the seminar I ran into LaTanya White, owner of the cocktail catering company 71 Proof in Tallahassee, Fla., as well as one of the apprentices. She said that it should be fine if I go down to the kitchen and helped now. With almost three hours free until I had to be at another seminar, I let Don know I was present to help. Alex Day pointed me to a box of latex gloves. I pulled a pair on and got to juicing. I was going to prove that I could do it and I wasn't just some soft doughy writer sitting in front of a computer who...

"Just wait one goddamn second," I thought an hour and a half later when I realized I had been juicing what seemed like a never ending flow of limes.

OK, maybe, just maaaaaaaayybe Don did Tom Sawyer me into helping out by insinuating both my mettle as journalist and a basic human being weren't up to snuff if I did not participate, but the man had a point about this being hard work. If you didn't see it just walking into hectic kitchen, you certainly knew it after changing gloves for the third time because the juices would penetrate through the latex and make your fingers sting and feeling the your shoulder muscles stiffen from using a a manual juicer, or, as I saw with Alex, having an electric juicer snip at your fingers if you weren't paying attention.

I wasn't the only one pressed (ha!) into service. Dave Arnold, who to his credit did show up at 8 a.m. to help juice, returned to juice some more. Even Jean-Georges pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini, who was attending Tales, popped into the kitchen to see how things were going and offer some morale. But that was his mistake because he also got pointed to the box of latex gloves by Alex. Johnny tried to laugh it off, but you don't joke about the juice line. So he too pulled on a pair and joined Joaquin Simo at his side to help cut limes in half to be juiced.

"I love it that we have the country's best pastry chef cutting fruit," Joaquin later commented.

And if for whatever reason you decide that your life is not complete unless you see someone halve lemons and limes at inhuman speeds, call up Johnny Iuzzini. That man goes through a crate of limes like...like...some kind of...lime cutting machine that cuts super fast.

Don pressed upon me several times that he was not joking about the group being like a pirate crew, and as I stood there listening to the orgeat syrup-like musical stylings of Curtis Mayfield coming out of on iPod dock, taking swigs out of a communal bottle of Rittenhouse and taking in the frequently salty banter of a group of hard working and harder playing bartenders, Don's comparison was ringing pretty true.

(A scene from the kitchen: Photo of Ryan in his "I Hate Cocktails" shirt taken by Camper. Not pictured? The back of the shirt. I'll just leave it at saying that several times on Friday when I'd unwittingly look in Ryan's direction when he had his back to me I'd burst out laughing. Maxwell Britten also gets honorable mention for his "Brown and stirred, bitches" shirt.)

So at 7:55 a.m. on Saturday I was back in the kitchen asking what I could help with. Don said it was a bit easier that morning and I made some lemon twists and orange zest and skipped off to another seminar.

It's kind of hard to see the scale how much these guys did even when you're in the thick of it producing gallons of juice or cutting 350 lemon twists because it becomes repetitive and downright inevitable in some ways. However, once out of the kitchen and throughout the day, I'd spot a lemon twist or an orange twist floating in a cocktail that looked oddly familiar or see how many times lemon and lime juice would come up in a recipe presented during a seminar as people sipped the samples, and speaking of which, how about all the math Don and John were doing to make enough cocktails for a 100 people with a recipe made to serve one? It was pretty insane to realize just how much work these guys were doing.

Don caught me in the hallway of the Hotel Monteleone a little later in the day and said that there was a last minute juicing emergency and I should get in the kitchen if I wanted to help.

Thomas Waugh (Alembic) and Joaquin were busy trying to get wheels and wedges out of limes so they weren't ready for juicing so I got to helping with some lemons.

Death and Co. owner Dave Kaplan made the same mistake Johnny did the day before and got put on the juice line for a while.

Eben Freeman came down to help and was soon organizing people and delegating tasks. Seeing me slooooooooowwwwwly cutting lemon twists (in my defense, I did just learn how to do it that morning) he told me to grab a free juicer to help with the limes while he got on the lemons to get the amount of twists needed and was soon getting them ready to be juiced.

All of the sudden it was like the juicing All Stars. Leo DeGroff showed up and proceeded to own everyone in the kitchen as he deftly manhandled an electric juicer and some unfortunate limes with a two-handed technique that I'm pretty sure broke several rules of physics.

"I give up. There's no way I'm keeping up with that," Daniel Eun said and relinquished his manual juicer and moved over to the lemons side. He wasn't an apprentice and was at Tales to hang out, but he also had been helping out in the kitchen whenever possible.

"Holy crap," I thought as I stared slack-jawed with a look that bordered on abject terror.

"I feel pretty damn useless next to you," I told Leo and was about to give up and go help where my help was actually needed, but he picked up a hand press and showed me.

"Just do it like this," he said and then proceeded to squeeze out a shot of juice that splashed me like I was in the splash zone at SeaWorld. Easy enough for him to say, he's been doing this since he was, like, 16 or something. He handily filled up the 1/3 full container to the brim in a matter of minutes before leaving.

For a few minutes I found myself juicing limes next to Gary Regan and it turned into a Christmas miracle. We thought we needed three more gallons of lime juice, but with the intervention of Saint Gary, when Eben decided to double-check we found out we just needed to top off the one container we were working on. There was more to be done, but at least a majority of the juicing was over with, so I went ahead to go get ready for the Tales of the Cocktail Spirit Awards.

"Thanks for the help," Phil Ward told me on Sunday before the start of a punch seminar he was chairing with Allen Katz and Dave Wondrich.

"No, thank you. It was a learning experience," I returned, and I meant it. Zesting an orange? I mean, I know how to grate, but I don't really do it all the time or anything like that. But thanks to talking to bartenders for so long, I now knew about pith. How else would I have found out that a dampened paper napkin lining the bottom of a container for twists, as well as covering them with another dampened paper napkin would keep them from drying out unless Dave Arnold told me? Sounds like common sense, but I never had to store 200 lemon twists and I don't know if I ever will. Using a peeler to get lemon twists was infinitely easier after Ryan fixed something as simple as where was placing my forefinger. And how would I have picked up the handy tip of soaking some cool limes that had been sitting in a walkthrough in warm water before juicing unless I'd watched Eben Freeman do exactly that?

That's pretty much what I wanted. I wasn't looking for some kind of macho respect when I said street cred, I just wanted to learn how things were done in the day-by-day. I could ask all the questions I had when I visited bars or read all the books I wanted, but what I wanted to know was what was habit to these guys.

"It's stuff like this that's what street cred's about," Don told me one evening. "It's not about who's got the best technique or who's making the best recipes. It's who's staying late to work on the garnishes or staying late to clean up."

So anyways, much kudos to the apprentice program guys. I know I didn't get to meet all of you, but great working with you (and please let me know if I've missed anybody in this list or got anything):

John Paul Deragon
Don Lee
Armando Archundia (the dude came all the way from Switzerland)
Joaquin Simo
Maxwell Britten
Alex Day
Jacquelyn Leon
Rhiannon Enlil
Catherine Fellet
LaTanya White
Ryan Fitzgerald
Chris Hannah
Thomas Waugh
Jim Kearns
Josephine Packard
Kimberly Patton-Bragg
Peter Vestinos

P.S. Thomas Waugh spilled about a pint of lime juice on me. Don and John, you derided me for not having capped him back with my juicer, but I just want you all to know, that's all part of my strategy. Oh, I'm going to get him all right. One of these days. He just doesn't know when or where.

Tales of the Cocktail announces Spirit Awards Nominees

(Note: Photos courtesy of Tales of the Cocktail)

May 12

The place was spookily calm and quiet when I arrived at the Flatiron Lounge for a Tales of the Cocktail event compared to the last time I'd been there for a Tales event.

I sipped on a Punch & Judy, the winning cocktail for the Tales of the Cocktail Official Cocktail Competition, and talked a bit with Francis Schott as well as Hanna Lee of Hanna Lee Communications Inc., whom I run into often and finds it ridiculously cute that I speak Korean. I mostly knew Mr. Schott through emails about drinks that I regularly receive from Stage Left Restaurant, and we talked about his podcast radio program, "The Restaurant Guys," which he hosts with his partner Mark Pascal.

Then all of the sudden the doors burst open and it was instant chaos. The bartenders had arrived. They were returning from a croquet tournament that started at 11 in the morning.

I said hello to Mr. Dale DeGroff and spotted Gary Regan who looked (awesome) like a weathered Texas Ranger out of a spaghetti western version of Gandalf the Grey with his long coat, hat and flowing locks. This means that so far I've seen Gary Regan in three different incarnations.

There was a lot of new people meeting. Jonathan Pogash was there. I hadn't seen him since the Grand Marnier summit in Vail, Colo. There was also Maxwell Britten, who you can find behind the bar at Jack the Horse Tavern in Brooklyn. I didn't really get to talk to him when I saw him previously at the Rhum Clement event, so I was glad to chat. I finally met the other half of the Tippling Bros., Paul Tanguay, as well as the third founding member of Contemporary Cocktails Inc. who was always mysteriously absent, Kristopher Karr (he explained that he had been out of sight because he was working with a bar out of the country for the past 14 months).

As more people pressed in I was soon buffeted about like I was inner tubing down some rapids made out of people and bar fixtures. I tried very hard to stay out of the way, but that wasn't happening anytime soon. I even found myself cornered into a pocket created entirely by people and was trapped. Several times I landed myself in spots briefly enough to talk to people, but I was starting to get claustrophobic.

Throughout all this, I noted that the interesting thing about both times that I went to a Tales of the Cocktail Event at Flatiron Lounge is it feels very different from other events I go to. You feel like the bartenders and mixologists know they can let their hair down.

(l-r: Julie Reiner, Charlotte Voisey and Ann Rogers)


I finally rooted myself in a spot long enough to hear Ann Rogers, founder of Tales of the Cocktail, announce the Official Cocktail Competition winner and runners up. Charlotte Voisey, who won $1,500 for her winning Official Cocktail entry, said during her acceptance speech that she would be giving her prize money back to Tales of the Cocktail.

Nominees announced were for categories of:

Best Drink Selection
Cantina - San Francisco, USA
Death & Company - New York City, USA
Der Raum - Melbourne, Australia
Doheney - Downtown Los Angeles, USA
The Merchant Hotel - Belfast, Northern Ireland
Salvatore's Bar at Fifty - London, England
Trio Bar - Berlin, Germany
Matterhorn - Wellington, New Zealand

Best Classic Cocktail Bar
American Bar - Connaught Hotel, London, England
Bramble - Edinburgh, Scotland
Death & Co. - New York City, USA
Dukes Bar - Dukes Hotel, London, England
Experimental Cocktail Club - Paris, France
Flatiron Lounge - New York City, USA
Milk and Honey- New York City, USA
Bar Le Forum - Paris, France
The Merchant Hotel - Belfast, Northern Ireland
Montgomery Place - London, England
Widder Bar - Zurich, Switzerland

World's Best Cocktail Bar
The Flat Iron Lounge - New York City, USA
Le Lion - Hamburg, Germany
The Lonsdale - London, England
The Merchant Hotel - Belfast, Northern Ireland
Milk & Honey - New York, USA
Milk & Honey - London, England
Paparazzi - Bratislava, Slovak Republic
Salvatore at Fifty - London, England
Star Bar - Ginza, Tokyo, Japan

Best New Cocktail Bar
Bar Milano, New York City, USA
Beretta, San Francisco, USA
Death & Company, New York City, USA
Le Lion de Paris, Hamburg, Germany
02 Lounge, Ritz Carlton, Moscow
PDT (Please Don't Tell), New York City, USA
Ruby, Copenhagen, Denmark

Mixologist/Bartender of the Year
John Gerstern - No.9 Park, Boston, USA
Kenta Goto of Pegu Club - New York City, USA
Charles Joly - The Drawing Room, Chicago, USA
Duggan McDonnell - Cantina, San Francisco, USA
Erik Lorincz - Purple Bar, London, England
Jim Meehan - PDT, New York City, USA
Ago Perrone - Montgomery Place, London, England
Sam Ross - Milk & Honey New York City, USA
Nick Strangeway - Hawksmoor, London, England
Charles Vexenat - The Lonsdale, London, England
Philip Ward - Death & Company, New York City, USA

Other categories included Best Cocktail Writing, Best New Product, Best Cocktail Menu, Best Drinks Brand Representative/ Brand Ambassador. New award categories were also announced along with the nominees. There was the Best New Cocktail/Bartending Book Category and the Helen David Lifetime Achievement Award.

Here are the recipes from the Official Cocktails Competition:

Best of Show
Charlotte Voisey, mixologist, Hendrick's Gin brand champion

Punch and Judy
1 oz Martell VSOP
1/4 oz Old New Orleans Crystal Rum
1/2 oz Hendrick's Gin
1/2 oz Bols Orange Curacao
2 oz pineapple juice
1/2 oz freshly squeezed lim juice
1/2 oz orange juice
1/2 oz Partida agave nectar
2 dashes Angostura bitters
4 mint leaves

Second Place
Debbi Peek, master bartender, The Drawing Room at Le Passage

Nola's Nectar
1/2 oz Martell VSOP
1 1/2 oz Old New Orleans Amber Rum
3/4 oz Partida Agave Nectar
1/2 oz fresh grated ginger
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz water

Third Place
Kristi A. Svane, bartender, Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa

Big Easy Milk Punch
3/4 oz Martell VSOP
3/4 Old New Orleans Amber Rum
3/4 brown sugar simple syrup
2 oz milk
2 dashes cinnamon
1 dahs nutmeg
1 slice orange
1/2 oz fresh squeezed orange juice (no pulp)

Honorable Mention
Erana Hardy, bartender, Cafe Giovani

Hardy Punch
100% Blood orange juice not from concentrate
1 shot Old New Orleans Amber Rum
1 shot Martell
5 oz Mereo Red Wine