Month of brunches: Clover Club

March 15

Sadly I was felled by a cold last week and couldn't make it out to brunch this past weekend. Instead, here's a write up of my visit to the Clover Club the weekend prior.

It seemed like trains in and out of Queens were running on crack on the weekends the entire month of March. Who would've thought I'd find the G to be a more reliable method of transportation? Though that's a little harsh, I've heard on good authority that the G doesn't really deserve the bad rep it gets. My own track record with it hasn't been so great so I'm still going to say: Surprisingly, it didn't fail me as I had to make my deep into the heart of Hipsterburg/Williamsburg for the NYC Beard and Moustache Championships. Any of you following me on Twitter probably noticed that I spotted Bartender Beard Off commissioner Ty Baker, who competed in the full beard freestyle.

So when on Sunday morning I found myself needing to go into Brooklyn from Queens, I made the cumbersome three-train transfer and nodded on and off as the G rumbled me into Brooklyn.

I skipped towards Clover Club like some kind of boozy Disney musical number saying hello to Allen Katz as I passed him by, like Belle saying "Bonjour!" to the townspeople.

"Heading over to enjoy a cocktail?" Allen asked me.

"Indeed I am! I didn't recognize you without the beard," I cheerily answered back and with a twirl of my skirt continued on my way.

The thing about brunch at Clover Club is, it combines two great things. Daytime hours and a full bar. Not that other brunch spots don't have a full bar, but sometimes you feel like you have stick with the stayed Bloody Mary or mimosa. No longer do you have to feel like you're hiding your drinking under the guise of enjoying "brunch."

Some places might even encourage you with a "Endless Bloody Mary and Mimosas!" brunch specials. Nevermind everyone else is guzzling down their fifth Bloody Mary, but try ordering a martini at brunch and all of the sudden everyone at the table looks at you like *you're* the one with the problem.

On the other hand, this sort of thing is understandable since those drinks are more tied with brunch hours and you might find it to be an interesting adventure to order a Bloody Mary at non brunch hours. It also helps that those two are probably the easiest to batch. Especially, with brunch times being so hectic in New York, you feel like a total jerk asking for something off the menu when the bartender behind the bar is up to his/her elbow in bloody mary mix and trying to open a bottle of champagne at the same time.

At the Clover Club, not only are drinks available at a very friendly $9-$10 range, but the drinks list doesn't end with a half-page list of cocktails. Though you might notice the grouping is a bit different from the usual evening hours, at the same time, don't hesitate to ask the bartender what else he could rustle up for you, or order a favorite if you had one.

The first page of the menu to greets you with a couple of Bloody Marys and a bit of trivia and history as well. Thomas Waugh came up with the base for the Bloody Mary drinks. It's an eclectic mixture of several ingredients, like soy sauce, fish sauce and wasabi and horseradish.

The latter are really noticeable since there's a low-burning yet constant heat going on that's a little different from the spicy or peppery heat you might get elsewhere. Bartender Brad Farran said that it's better to described it as a melange of spicy ingredients.

I asked Thomas which Bloody Mary to try out and he suggested the Barman's Bloody. Rye whiskey, basil, Fernet Branca with tomato and spice. I have to be honest, considering my past brush with Fernet Branca it looked pretty intense to me. It ended up being quite tasty. As I told the drink's creator, Giuseppe Gonzalez, later in the afternoon, it had a strong bitter, herbaceous flavor going on that was very complex and made you smack your lips a bit. I've had experiences with Bloody Marys that start off OK, but something about it is almost too tomato-y and the drink gets sweeter with each sip until you feel like you're in ketchup territory. This was in no danger of crossing that line.

Besides the Barman's, you can also get a Bloody Mary with vodka, a Red Snapper (with gin), or the Bloody Maria (tequila).

Clover Club also features a section of champagne-based Royales, as well as Bracers and Pick Ups.

I asked Brad how the different categories were picked for brunch and Brad explained that they tried to keep with traditional daytime tipples, like the Bracers & Pick Ups section. It's a nod to the fact that in the 19th century, cocktails were actually drinks for the day to help perk you up. Then there are sections like Sours and Daises, and the Swizzles. Drinks that are lighter for people who don't want anything too heavy before 6 pm.

After my Barman's Bloody, I decided to try and keep with the rye whiskey theme and ordered a Blinking Daisy (rye whiskey, raspberry syrup and grapefruit juice) from the Sours and Daisies camp.

Of course, it'd be hard to expect anything less in the drinks department from a place like the Clover Club, but the brunch spread isn't too shabby either.

As per Thomas' suggestion, I tried out the Pork 'n Grits, a dish of braised pork served over cheddar grits with sunny side up eggs. It instantly reminded me of my early forays into fusion cooking when I was 13 and hungry, with nothing in the house resembling food. So I decided to cook up some grits, because they reminded me of Korean juk, and top it with a fried egg, some soy sauce and sesame oil.

Other dishes on the menu included baked eggs with chorizo and manchego cheese, ricotta pancakes topped with lemon-honey butter and a housemade apple compote as well as a bacon tasting with three styles of bacon.

Brunch hours are from 11-4 pm, and the kitchen shuts down for an hour before the place switches over to regular service. So keep that in mind if you plan on ordering food while there. The bar stays open during that hour, but if you want drinks at brunch prices, I'd advise ordering before 4pm rolls around.

Don Julio Bowling Tournament

November 24



Thanks to the fact that I seem to have a Whac-A-Mole like ability to pop up at various functions, a while ago Jim Meehan started a running joke with the PDT guys that an event isn't official until I showed up. So when I showed my mug at Lucky Strike on Monday for the Don Julio Bowling Tournament Daniel Eun spotted me and said, "Hey, I was wondering when you were going to show up and make it official."

While I protest that the rumors of my ubiquity are greatly exaggerated, I can concede to the fact that I suppose I show up in a random places quite a bit more than the average person. Though honestly, I've taken to the description of "annoying kid sister of the bartending world" that I gave to Jill DeGroff over anything too fancy, like "industry insider."

I managed to grab way more photos of bartenders hanging out and behind the bar rather than photos of them bowling. At the same time, can you blame me? It's bartenders and folks in the alcohol business! Besides, there was a whole cocktail contest component running in tandem with the bowling tournament. Teams participated with people ponying up a $50 entrance fee per person. For bars wanting to having their bartenders represent their establishment, they paid $150 in addition to the per person fee with all the money going to benefit City Harvest. The team with the highest bowling score would get to to visit the Don Julio distillery in Mexico, and the team with the winning cocktail would be treated to a nice dinner.



So as the teams bowled, those who were not bowling mixed drinks for everyone to sample. I tried to grab one or two and have a quick sip and prod some folks about what they made. I tried Dale Degroff's Spicy Abbey. James Menite of Porter House, who was on the same team with Dale and Dale's youngest son Blake, told me the drink was made with pepper jam, Don Julio Reposado tequila, lillet, lemon and lime juice and a smoked lemon peel.

"But you should check with Dale," he said, since it was Dale's cocktail. Darn, I'd just missed him.



Giuseppe Gonzalez was hanging out with Adam Harris of Maker's Mark. I'm glad the first photo didn't come out too well because the second one is hilarious.



Kenta Goto was there as part of Team Pegu Club with general manager James Tune and bartender Raul Flores.

The last time I saw Jim Ryan, he was in New Orleans and was the beverage director for Dresser, Dumont and Dumont Burger. Now he works for Hendrick's Gin. As an advocate for the promotion of dandyism and well put together personal style, I was glad to see he was still rocking the mustache hard and bringing it together with mustache-conscious outfits.



If you're a dandy-approving, facial hair aficionado, New York bartenders are totally the folks you should be hanging around. Observe the photo below of Thomas Waugh and Maxwell Britten.



I didn't get to try the Lily Pad Maxwell made with his team, but he told me it was a drink made with Don Julio Blanco, Apple Juice, Lillet Rouge, Lillet Blanc, fresh lime juice and agave nectar. It sounded good and I was sad I missed it.

Thomas was on a team with Allen Katz and Death and Co.'s Phil Ward. The cocktail they made used Don Julio Blanco, Lillet Blanc, celery bitters and a grapefruit twist.

I had to duck out early since I had to run back to the office and finish out my work day. Phil saw me scribbling in my notebook and asked me what I was doing. "Are you working??"

Yes, I'm still on the clock when I go to these things. In fact, I have to say that events like these really help me out. I can't go drinking in all the New York cocktail places to keep up with everyone all the time. This is a one person operation. Not that I haven't had friends offer to "help." Sorry, guys.

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.

Endnote to 'Allen & Delancey's new cocktail menu'

At some point in the evening as I was chatting with Alex Day, Thomas Waugh ambled in Allen & Delancey. For those of you who didn't know, Thomas, formerly of Alembic, recently relocated from San Francisco and currently works shifts at Death and Co (ask him to make you something with his banana chip infused rum). It's not his first time behind the bar there, since he previously participated in the bartender exchange. Nonetheless, he still had to wrestle with learning the huge now-not-so-new menu.

How'd he do it? While Damon (not at Death and Co. anymore, but working full-time at Flatiron Lounge, by the way) used flashcards, Thomas came up with a system. Like the Kumon of cocktailing or something. He decided to learn all the cocktails that were takes on classics first. As for the rest? Brute force memorization. Though he said learning the recipes was one thing. Getting used to the layout of the bar was entirely something else. The more you know (ding, ding, diiing.)

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.

Bartender exchange program

Exchange programs aren't just for students trying to expand their horizons. Joaquin Simo, bartender at Death and Company, spent a couple of days in February working shifts at the Chicago bar Violet Hour. In his stead, The Violet Hour's Kirk Estopinal manned the bar at Death & Company.

Doing an exchange isn't necessarily a publicity ploy, but more of an effort to widen experience and actually go see what else is going on out there in the cocktail world.

"In New York you get a lot of customers from other cities, and they say what’s going on in other cocktail lounges," Joaquin said.

But it's one thing to hear about what's going on elsewhere, and entirely another to go take a look in person. It's also a bit of a cultural exchange. Joaquin said he brought along some infusions and bottles of cocktail ingredients hard to find in Chicago, while Kirk brought some of his in gifts in the form of bitters from Chicago for Death and Company to play with.

As much as it is about exchange and taking part in something different from the usual local bartending scene, it also provides a chance for customers of the establishment to try something out of the ordinary.

As Joaquin put it, it "it's not interesting" for someone to come in to Death and Company and just recreate the same menu you can always get at Death and Co. So while in a way it's a chance for bartenders to check out and take in new things, it's also a little bit about showing off their stuff.

"If someone’s in town for three days...they bring their own bitters and syrups and we give them a shot for what they’re doing. We chat and learn about each other...but we're always making sure customers are being served."

For example, Joaquin said that while he was at Violet Hour, there were guests who came in wanting drinks they'd had at Death and Company while they'd visited New York.

So, how'd the exchange go?

"It was a very different experience than working in New York," Joaquin said. "[Violet Hour] has a really good group. There’s not a lot of places like Violet Hour in Chicago and it's a lot of the restaurants picking up the slack for things like cocktail pairings and infusions."

"I think the reaction to it, it went over really well...Part of the joy of it was being able to sit and chat with customers. I know our customers enjoyed have Kirk and Tom; they're both very versatile personable guys. They also brought a lot of bitters and syrups we haven’t played with and opened up our eyes...It's always fun to learn. You never really stop learning."

Joaquin said called it "a fabulous experience," but I was curious if there were any challenges of working in a new and unfamiliar space.

He answered that the only real challenge he had to deal with was the common challenge of the cocktail bar, and that would be the unadventurous customer.

"It's just trying to talk people out of that, and try to have something to broaden their horizons."

He admits having to be sneaky about it, such as sneaking in a citrus or botanical vodka into a drink or suggesting something like a Southside that has gin in it.

"You might say, 'I didn't think I liked gin,' and that's my job to teach you that you do."

In fact, Joaquin found people in Chicago to be very receptive and they liked the drinks that he made for them. He created some infusions and used the harder to find in Chicago items in his drinks and he found that people were very open-minded.

Currently Death and Company's head bartender Phil Ward is at San Francisco's Alembic, while Alembic's Thomas Waugh is in New York. Joaquin mentioned that Charles Vexenat from the Lonsdale in London will also make his way to Death and Company probably sometime in April.