USBG Cocktail World Cup with 42 Below, U.S.A. National competition

March 7


1000 bartenders nation-wide competed in regional competitions. From those competitions, two bartenders were picked to represent each of the cities, and on Sunday night 26 bartenders competed in Liberty Hall at the Ace Hotel to determine the final three bartenders who would go on to represent Team USA at the USBG Cocktail World Cup 2010 in New Zealand later this month.

Since the competition is sponsored by the New Zealand-based vodka brand 42 Below, the contestants all made a signature drink using one of 42 Below's vodka for the judges. Founder of the Bartender's Academy of New York, Charles Ohlbaum, King Cocktail himself, Dale DeGroff, and chef Sam Talbot.



One thing I noted besides the variety of cocktails using eggs was the pretty phenomenal array of garnishes and drink accoutrement throughout the competition.

Team Denver's Adam Hodak, bartender at Osteria Marco and beverage director for Bonanno Concepts used a hollowed out bit of lemongrass as a straw for his drink, Exposed Passion of Simplicity (42 Below passion fruit vodka, Domaine du Canton ginger liqueur, his own lemongrass tonic, fresh lime), and even flamed the drink with a spritz of his passion fruit bitters mad with 42 Below.

Jess Hiller of the Sunset Lounge at the Mondrian Hotel in Miami dipped his glasses in molten beeswax infused with ylang ylang to rim them for his drink (42 Below Manuka Honey, New Zealand thym and honey simple syrup, yuzu juice, passion fruit flesh) and also floated a honeycomb for additional decoration.



Charles Gilbert, from the Gold Room in Atlanta, made a lollipop from sugar cane, kiwi and cilantro to garnish his drink (muddled lime, serrano peppers, cucumber and cilantro-cucumber syrup shaken with watermelon, 42Below Kiwi and Dolin sweet vermouth).

There were also plenty of references to New Zealand in the different drinks. Most obviously, kiwi was one of the repeats in the different recipes. Others used the name of their drinks to reference back to either New Zealand or the product.

Philip Greene of Team D.C., who interestingly enough works for the Pentagon during the day when he's not making drinks at The Passenger, named is drink The Cook Strait Sling, after strait that cuts between the northern and southern islands of New Zealand.

Jason Brown of Sensing in Boston named his drink Mr. Robinson, after Jackie Robinson who famously wore the number 42.

As much as it was about the drinks and showing one's personality and technique through the drinks, some bartenders played up showmanship. Team Chicago's Lynn House from Graham Elliott and Jennifer Contraveos from Mercadito and Double A were the only ladies in the competition. They showed their solidarity and represented their city by starting their portion of the competition with a "Blues Sisters" act, complete with Blues Brothers outfit and "Can't Turn You Loose" playing as their background music.

Daniel Victory from Twist and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New Orleans opened up by asking the DJ to play something different. After throwing out a couple of CDs, he finally pulled out a Jimi Hendrix record, and took off his jacket to reveal colorful Jimi Hendrix shirt. He also provided popcorn for the judges.

After over 3 hours of cocktail making, the three chosen to represent the United States were:

Sean Hoard of PDT, who represented NYC with Thomas Waugh, with the Wellington Fizz (42 Below Kiwi vodka, lime juice, orgeat syrup, passionfruit puree, heavy cream, egg white, club soda). Sean said that his inspiration for the drink was a Pavlova, a dessert item popular in New Zealand and Austrlia (with bit of contested history as to which country actually can lay claim to the dessert's creation, though plenty sources seem to credit the birthplace of the pavlova to be Wellington, New Zealand.)

Mark Stoddard, bar manager of Happy Bitter Bar in Denver, created a whole three-course like experience with his South of Brooklyn with caviar and a fanciful honeycomb side dish of sorts. The drink itself was made with 42 Below Honey Vodka, of rye whiskey, his own homemade of Amer Picon bitters, of Maraschino liqueur.

And last but not least, Todd Thrasher of PX, Restaurant Eve and The Majestic in Northern Va. (representing D.C.), rounded out the three with his drink. Todd should've also won any alternative awards for his cocktail's name. The appropriately long and expository "I have too much Thyme on my hands right now at this point in my life." It's like an E. E. Cummings poem.

The "I have too much Thyme..." is made with 42 Below vodka, Cynar, of lime and thyme syrup, home made apple bitters and a garnish of compressed apple thyme balls. The garnishes were made by vacuum bagging, then sous-vide cooking the apple balls with thyme and apple bitters.

Todd said his inspiration for the drink was from a dish he tried at Alinea that used apple, thyme and artichoke (hence the Cynar in the drink).

My friend Marc Almandarez was on-hand as my plus one and photographer. I've asked him for his services before considering he's way better at this picture taking business than I am.

If you want to see some photos besides the ones below, and in a larger size too, check out Marc's Flickr set for the event.

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."