Tales of the cocktail announces official cocktail: The Creole Julep

In the annual Official Cocktail Competition finals that took in April. Maksym Pazuniak, mixologist at Rambla and Cure, snagged the honor of creating this year's official cocktail for Tales of the Cocktail.

Creole Julep
Created by Maksym Pazuniak, Cure/Rambla

2 1/4 oz. Cruzan Single Barrel Estate Rum
1/2 oz. Clement Creole Shrubb
1/4 oz. Captain Morgan 100
2 dashes Fee Bros. Peach bitters
2 dashes angostura bitters
8-10 mint leaves
1 Demerara Sugar Cube

Muddle sugar, Creole Shrubb and bitters until sugar is dissolved in a 10 oz. tall glass. Add mint and press to express oils. Add cracked ice. Add Cruzan and Captain Morgan 100 and stir until frost appears on outside of glass. Garnish with mint sprig.

In second place was the Joie de Julep, created by Corey Bunnewith of Drinkin. And awesomely enough, third place went to the Ginger Peach Julep, created by Wayne Curtis, a freelance journalist. One for the writers!

Judges included Author David Wondrich, Mixology Research Engineer Robert Hess, TV Personality, Lorin Gaudin, Yuri Kato, Editor of CocktailTimes.com and Chris Hannah of Arnaud's French 75 Bar.

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.)