'Old Shanghai on the Bowery' at Madam Geneva and talking ice with Mr. Ueno

Round 2! Tuesday night was "Old Shanghai on the Bowery" at Madam Geneva, the second event in the three-day line up for the New York City Cocktail All-Stars tour.



The cool surprise of the evening was Mr. Ueno showing off some of his ice carving. I cornered him after his time behind the bar to ask him a quick couple of questions (unfortunately, leaving Kenta Goto standing by holding a heavy bucket of ice and things. Sorry about that, Kenta...)

"Ice balls are popular in Japan, but ice companies started making them after they became popular," Mr. Ueno said, but nonetheless as a bit of eye candy, it's still a draw because, "It is something you can't create in your own home."

However, he added, "The main eye candy in a drink is the liquid."

Kenta chimed in, that the carved ice are part of the package of providing an experience for the guest. "People come into his bar looking for this experience."

I couldn't help but notice that Mr. Ueno wielded a small knife when carving the ice from it's base square shape. I asked him about this, since most people (OK, me) are probably more familiar with the ice pick.

"I haven't carved with an ice pick recently...maybe not for the last 10 years," Mr. Ueno answered.

While he still trains young bartenders to start off with an ice pick, he stopped using an ice pick himself because the results can sometimes be a bumpy surface.

As for the knife he uses, it's a folded iron knife, "the same material as a Japanese sword, so it's really sharp, but it also rusts really easily."

This means proper care, and making sure to wipe water off of the knife immediately after use.

Believe it or not, Mr. Ueno made this tool himself. It started off as "15 cm fruit knife," but through eight years of sharpening, he brought it down to its current 4-5 cm length.

Kenta explained that the ice Mr. Ueno uses is frozen about 2-3 days. At least three days being the optimal length of time. In Japan, ice is bought from a vendor who brings in blocks of the stuff.

"After three days there are no bubbles...the ice is harder and clearer and that is the ice he uses," Kenta said.

As Mr. Ueno explained, the ice is so clear that when in the glass, you should be able to see through to the bottom of the glass and read the logo of the bar on the napkin.



Mr. Ueno also shined light onto a diamond shaped ice he carved (it was shaped kind of like an old single cut, or the candy gem in a ringpop). This, he explained is also part of presentation.



"Like how a diamond is cut, the edges have a reflection," Mr. Ueno said, and explaining that with bars usually being dark, it's hard to see how beautiful the ice can be. So he helps demonstrate using a laser pointer or pen light.

A line up of 9 bartenders took turns serving their concoctions to a packed house.

COCKTAIL MENU
JIM MEEHAN
Parkside Fizz: Buddha's Hand vodka, lemon, orgeat syrup, club soda, mint

EBEN FREEMAN
Indochine: Aged rum, Domaine de Canton, pineapple, pastis, lemon bitters

NIKOLAJ BRONDSTED
Gin & Leaf: Vodka, sake, kaffir lime, yuzu, ginger, soda

MISTY KALKOFEN
Delhi Daisy: Tequila, elderflower, lemon, curry simple syrup, aromatic bitters

ALEX DAY
Tunnel Vision: Cachaca, sherry, lime, creme de peche, Angostura bitters

RYAN MAGARIAN
Pepper Smash: Gin, red bell pepper, lemon, mint, honey

HIDETSUGU UENO
Full Bloom: Scotch, cherry blossom liqueur, anisette

MARSHALL ALTIER
Trans Continental Clipper: Five spice Pisco, lemon, house made grenadine, Absinthe rinse

JACKIE PATTERSON
Buckshot: Bourbon, dry vermouth, orchard apricot, orange bitters

The theme of the evening seemed to be "BIG BOLD FLAVAH." Misty's drink had sweet and tangy amped up to an 11. The curry simple syrup added a little something without making the drink taste exactly like curry. Marshall's drink, on the other hand, didn't shy away from its spice base. It totally punches you in the face. The menu said "five spice pisco" but at the time I was getting more of a garam masala feel. I couldn't help but puzzle over this a bit. I finally figured out that when I read the "five spice" I instantly thought of Chinese five spice, but I was totally forgetting about panch phoron. How dumb of me. I need to ask Marshall this the next time I see him or over Facebook or something (or, I don't know, leave a comment. Hint, hint).








Did everyone agree to a dress code beforehand? All the folks scheduled to be behind the bar came in dressed pretty snazzily.

Epilogue: When I left Madam Geneva's I left with the fire of mezcal burning in my belly. Just as I was about to leave I was pulled into doing a shot of mezcal with Misty Kalkofnen, Alex Day and John Deragon.

This made me think. You know, I've been recently playing Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner on the PS2 (I sometimes like to kick it old school like that), and I'd forgotten how flippin' hard that game was. I couldn't walk even two or three steps before finding myself in a battle.

Wait, wait. I had a point in mentioning this...it waaaassss...oh! OK, so, yea, as I was walking away from Madam Geneva with mezcal heating me all up in my midsection like a boiler, I realized that bar events are like playing a RPG. The more you walk around without a glass in your hand, the more you're just asking to trigger a battle sequence, a.k.a., having a drink put in your hand.

I mean, the way that mezcal encounter went down it would've gone something like this:

Little icon of me wandering around a map, all of the sudden!

[Sonya encounters a band from the Order of Booze]

Oh, noooooo! I totally don't have the experience points to get through this AND I'm outnumbered.

[Dram of mezcal thrown!..-10 HP!...+10 STR! +10 MP!]

Because if anything, mezcal would probably boost your magic points/mana and overall strength, but with the unfortunate side effect of taking some health points/stamina, amirite?

I littered glasses all over the bar all evening since I couldn't juggle a drink and a camera. I'd put down a glass, only to have another one thrust in my hand just a couple of minutes later.

I have to admit, it's kind of freakin' awesome.

Eben Freeman brings "Cocktail All-Stars" to New York

or Eben Freeman has a posse



For three nights bartenders from around the world are gathering in New York to show off their stuff.

Last night was the first of these events, "Things Eurasian: Ancient Flavors, Modern Science at The Monday Room in NoLita," held at the Monday Room in Public with a food menu inspired by Asian flavors created for the event by Public's executive chef Brad Farmerie.

I hung around in the in between section of Public's dining area and the Monday room, where the cocktail station was set up.

"The idea was I wanted to show people what I'd been working on," Eben said when how this event came about.

As most of you probably know, Eben's currently based out of Asia at the moment, working with the sort of amalgamate of restaurant/bar consulting, repping and overall creative agency, Mangkut Group. Most of his work is now more along the lines of development and introducing Asia to what's been happening here in the United States with bars and cocktails.

Eben first started doing these All-Star events with Linden Pride in Asia. The first one was in Singapore, and from there to locales like Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, and basically wherever Eben happened to find himself and bringing in others to demonstrate as well.

Just as he brought his style of cocktails to Asia, Eben said he wanted to introduce New York to some styles from other places around the world. He also wanted to get New York acquainted better with bartenders not from city as well as get it reacquainted with people from here as well.

"We tried to bring in some of Boston, some of San Francisco," Eben explained. "We also tried to get some people who don't get the recognition they deserve."

For example, to introduce folks to other Cocktail scenes in Europe besides, say, London or Paris, Nikolaj Brondsted, bar manager for the newly opened MASH Steak House in Copenhagen, Denmark, was brought on board.


Ginger Passion

For the event last night, Nikolaj made two different cocktails. Ginger Passion (vodka, lychee, passionfruit, ginger, lime) and Peach, Plum and Harmony (Bird's Eye chili vodka, peach, plum, umeshu). I noticed vanilla bean pods in his vodka and asked him about this and Nikolaj said that for his chili vodka he usually uses a vanilla flavored vodka as a base because he feels the spiciness works well with the vanilla flavor.



Jackie Patterson from Heaven's Dog and Smuggler's Cover in San Francisco had three drinks on the menu. The Prenup (Buddha's Hand vodka, dry vermouth, whit teal liqueur, lemon and ginger beer), Fleur du Monde (blanco tequila, Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, Riesling) and the Spice Trade (aged rum, sweet vermouth, allspice dram and orange bitters).

Eben was mixing up two drinks. The Corn Flip (Hudson New York Corn whiskey, creamed corn milk, egg). The "corn milk" is regular milk infused with canned cream of corn, then strained. When Eben shook the cocktail, he added a shot of creamed corn for additional corn flavor boost. My impression of the drink was that it was kind of like boozy Corn Puffs. The Triad was made with gin, Shaoxing rice wine, elderflower liqueur, lemon and The Bitter Truth's Creole Bitters.



I was not expecting to see owner and bartender of Bar High Five in Tokyo, Mr. Hidetsugu Ueno, and had a little moment where I totally had a little geek freak out on the inside. Mr. Ueno made two drinks for the evening. A shockingly emerald green Japanese Garden (single malt scotch, green tea liqueur and honey) and the peachy, blushy United (aged cachaca, cherry blossom liqueur and grapefruit bitters).

At one point, I bumped into Dave Arnold, head of Culinary Innovation at FCI and beverage mad scientist at large, who was also contributing to the drinks menu that evening.

"We got the Rotavapor going in the other room," I overheard him say.

"Wha...what is this 'Rotavapor'?" I cautiously asked.

"Go on inside and you'll see," Dave answered cryptically.

So I set foot into the Monday Room and talked to Fabian von Hauske who was running the Rotavapor to make habanero tequila. Luckily, it was a familiar contraption, since I'd seen Dave demonstrate it at Tales last year.



So how it works is a mixture of pureed habanero and tequila are put in the Rotavapor. The glass bulb filled with the mixture rotates in a water bath which boils at a constant low temperature (usually around 50-60 degrees Celsius, and specifically 54 degrees Celsius when I looked at the machine that night). Dave told me to touch the glass that the mixture was in to illustrate how the mixture itself was cooler than the water bath it sat in. Dave changed the hardware up a bit to make it suit his distilling purposes, but more or less, before its Arnoldization, it's a contraption used for removal/separation of, um, things using evaporation. The additional distilling "hack" added to the machine helps pull the alcohol from whatever you put in the glass bulb in the water bath area and the resulting habanero tequila has all the floral notes and flavors of habanero with just a hint of heat (and curiously enough, none of the color). All the spiciness remains in the ominously red mixture left in the bulb. It reminded me of how nature usually uses bright colors and patterns to warn you, "Hey, this stuff right here will KILL you if you put it in your mouth!...Or at the very least, make your whole GI area feel all uncomfortable like."

I also got to talk with Stephan Berg of The Bitter Truth about a mysterious little box he had with him. It was the prototype packaging for a traveler's set of bitters that would be coming out. Stephan said the idea behind a small kit was for both bartenders and consumers. For the former, the "fun-sized" bottles would make it easier to carry a variety of bitters around and if you've traveled in the company of bartenders before, you've probably witnessed firsthand mysterious vials and small bottles of this and that.





I mentioned it's funny how he should say that, since it reminded me of Damon Dyer and his tiny bottles of stuff that he used to make drinks on the plane ride down to Tales two years ago and Stephan said, it was funny that I should say that, since Damon told him how enthusiastic he was about the idea. Hahahaha, ah, yes...hm...well, I guess you had to be there.

Anyhow, Stephan went on to say that the smaller size provides a way for consumers who are just trying out bitters or stocking their own home bar to own a variety of bitters without being straddled with huge honking bottle that just sort of sits around.

Currently the box just needs a bit more tweaking before being released.

Punches, acai and absinthe: Rare triple-header evening

I remember how I used to get so excited when I could go to two different events back to back. I felt like such a big kid back when I broke that personal record. Well, those days are gone, now that I've tackled the threefer. Especially more daring-do considering you've actually had event nights back to back.

So after whiskey night on the 24, on Monday I left work early to visit the Pegu Club. Dave Wondrich was giving his seminar on punches for Bols Genever. Some of you might remember the bitters presentation I went to a while back, which is also part of this educational series that Bols has been putting on.

As much as I tried to leave the office early-ish, by the time I was speed walking west on Houston I knew I thought I'd missed all the interesting bits and was going to just be there for the mingling portion. So imagine how pleased I was when I could hear Mr. Wondrich's voice as I climbed the stairs up to Pegu Club.

As I squeezed into an empty seat trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, Dave was explaining the Meriton Latroon's Bantam Punch, dating from 1668, which lists as one of its ingredients ambergris. Yes, ambergris. When I thought about it, it made sense, not just because of the whole whaling industry, but because what was ambergris used for historically? With fragrances and scenting. So it made me wonder how much affect it had on the scent and flavor of the cocktail, and I kind of wish I could taste a punch both pre- and post- ambergris addition.

Meriton Latroon's Bantam Punch (1668)
- Ambergris
- 2 oz. Demerara sugar
- 2 bottles Batavia Arrack van Oosten
- 2 16-oz piece of Gula Jawa, or Indonesian palm sugar
- 12 oz lime juice
- nutmeg
- water

Method: In a mortar or small bowl, muddle a piece of ambergris the size of 2 grams of barley with 2 oz. of Demerara sugar until it has been incorporated. Add 4 oz. Batavia arrack and muddle again until sugar has dissolved. Break up 10 oz. of Gula Jawa, or Indonesian palm sugar, put it in a 4-quart bowl with 12 oz. lime juice and muddle together until sugar has (mostly) dissolved. Add the Ambergris-sugar-arrack mixture and stir. Add 2 750-ml. bottles of Batavia arrack (minus the 4 oz. you have already removed to mix with the ambergris), stir again, and finish with 6 to 8 cups cold water, according to taste. Grate nutmeg over the top.

Dave, also explained of the use of a mixture of sugar and oils, oleo saccharum, in old cocktails. Citrus wasn't always a common commodity, and to stretch the use of citrus, rather than relying on just the juice of a lemon or lime, the peel, or zest, along with sugar was used to get maximum citrus flavor out of each piece of fruit you used. For anyone who's read Dave's "Imbibe!" this should be familiar in the use of rough loaf sugar in the old punch recipes he featured. These gritty pieces of sugar would be rubbed all over a lemon or lime to sort of grate the zest, but also absorb the oils, infusing the sugar with flavor and scent.

The Hot Holland Punch that Dave introduced next used exactly this technique. This punch also highlighted a shift towards the use of gin in cocktails rather and is actually adapted from a whiskey punch recipe. A combination of historical factors, such as the advances in Dutch distilling and William of Orange coming to power with his wife Mary during the Glorious Revolution, increased the distribution, if not popularity of gin in England.

Hot Hollands Punch (circa 1750)
- Peel of 8 lemons
- 2 lemons, sliced
- 20 oz. lbs. (an archaic measurement) Florida Crystals or other fine-grained raw sugar
- 2 liters or 2 1/2 750-ml. bottles Bols Genever
- spice mix: 1 teaspoon fresh-ground nutmeg to 1/2 teaspoon each fresh-ground allspice and cloves.

Method: Muddle the lemon peels in the sugar. Let it sit for an hour to wick out the lemon oil and muddle again (the oleo saccharum that results from this process looks basically like an syrupy oil). Add 16 oz. boiling water. Stir to dissolve sugar. Fish or strain out the lemon peel and add the Genever. To serve, put in crock-pot with 2 quarts water and lemon slices. Add spice mix sparingly to taste. Ladle out also sparingly.

Unfortunately, Dave is pretty much an unquenchable fountain of historical tidbits, cocktail tips and recipes, which means that while I'm incredibly impressed with the amount of info I got even after being pretty unfashionably late, I can't write it all out without slamming you with a wall of text, so time for Awesome Dave Facts Quickfire:

- Serving punch hot: While probably nice and bracing on a cold day during older times when there wasn't really central air/heating, but is yet another way to boost lemon flavor and scent up another level without adding more of the ingredient. In fact, another practical by product of this "making citrus go as long as possible" technique is it kept people from ingesting too much acids when people would gather around a punch bowl and just drink.

- If you're going to serve punch hot, just make sure the spirit you're using is pot distilled. Dave said that pot-distilled spirits have a certain "oiliness" to them that works better when heated. So for example, if you're going to use Scotch whiskey, use a single malt and not something that's blended. Though there are exceptions, like bourbon. But just make sure it's not "too woody" but "You and rich and oily".

Oh, and one tip from me. Try some palm sugar. Dave had a jar open on the bar and invited some of us to try it. I popped a hunk in my mouth, and that stuff is mad delicious. It's like Mounds, except, no chocolate, or the weird flavorless sawdust of shredded coconuts that's left in your mouth long after you've chewed out all the tasty juices.

One thing interesting about the threefer is how easy it was to see how the different worlds of beverage events. Beverage events work sort of like a Venn diagram. Basically, where all the circles converge, the point is heightened awareness of a product. You can argue and label that as simply marketing, but there's a difference between an event meant for people in the industry, versus those geared towards consumers. And even with the former, you could break that down further to events aimed at those generally in the industry and at the microscopic level, events for those directly responsible with putting drinks in front of a guest. Nonetheless the resulting diagram is messy because at any point it can look like the result of a circus performer who twirls multiple hula hoops at once. All things are constantly in motion with overlaps of varying and dynamic sizes.

After the Bols event I trooped on over to Yerba Buena (the one on Perry Street) for a USBGNY mixer. In between being informed about changes made to the USBG by laws and memberships (a tiered system that differentiates between say enthusiasts or people who actually work behind a bar), and a talk from the folks from VeeV, the general mood of the mixer was, well, a mixer. So far, nothing out of the ordinary right? Drink geeks and all that getting together to get to know each other and just hang? Lay down some knowledge?

But then came my final stop of the evening for Pernod Absinthe. If the Bols event had the feel of studying for a test with a group of friends, and the mixer was more like a dorm hall meeting where everyone on the floor are sophomores and juniors (not a bad comparison, just setting up the mood to better convey how different these events are), the Pernod event was like walking into one of those crazy-cool parties you always see in alcohol commercials. Like people throwing guerilla parties in subways or attractive people dressed in ironically unattractive outfits writhing away to house music in a basement somewhere. Add a dollop of a gallery opening to that, and that was the party, because, really it was a party. No polite terminology like "mixer" here.



You could tell the event was making modern ties to the historic relationship between the arts and absinthe. The event was called "Histoire Vertes," and was described as "a version of a Cabaret Nouveaux." A lady downstairs posed with an elaborate outfit of scintillating red that flickered like flames, the work of stylist Cynthia Altoriso. Pretty cool stuff actually. Some more of her work, but NSFW for artsy nudity here and there. Photographer David White snapped images of Cynthia's work creating a series of absinthe posters, one of which came as image used for the invite. There was a DJ, pieces of artwork all over the place (both including the obvious kind, and the kind where you can't tell if that's a display or someone's hat hanging from the corner of a shelf). There was even a barber doing his thing independently of the event. That was his work space, the organizers of the absinthe party asked him if he wanted to stay open during the event, so he did. So the result was you felt like Alice in Wonderland. You tumbled up a narrow flight of stairs, only to find yourself in a dimly lit bar area with platters of food scattered about, people hunched around lavishly set up tables, absinthe fountains everywheeeeeere...then you're standing around in brightly lit space seeing people getting their haircut. So you back yourself back into the bar/lounge area, find a set of stairs, walk down, and all of the sudden I'm at a fashion/art party.

It was fun seeing the familiar bartenders, brand reps and other writers thrown into the mix with unfamiliar people from the creative industry. It was a whole different kind of energy. When I heard Pulp's "Common People," I decided I should finish my second Pommes Dilettantes (Pernod Absinthe, Absolut Kurant, St. Germain, peach bitters, unfiltered apple juice, fresh lemon juice) and start heading out the door.

Tangent: I don't know, as much as I like Pulp, hearing "Common People" at parties always makes me think I should be heading home. I think it's because Pulp played in public locations that are not bars, your friend's car in an almost empty parking lot with all the doors opened or, I don't know, an actual Pulp show or something conveys to me the feelings of the last dying couple of minutes of a house party.

Let me set the scene. The few people left are taking way too long to gather their crap and go home. Friends are trying to wake up passed out compatriots because the host is trying to clean up around the bodies draped over random bits of furniture. Meanwhile, you've been wanting to leave since an hour ago, but you can't because your friend is vaguely explaining his feelings to the girl he's had a crush on forever by hijacking the sound system and earnestly explaining the significance of some band that he just started listening to that summer. You're seriously contemplating that maybe you should just ditch him, however, experience tells you this will not end well, and he's going to need a shoulder to cry on on the way home. When you all finally rally and leave, you and your group of friends will end up driving around singing along badly and loudly to Blur's "Girls & Boys" to cheer him up until you all decide you want food and end up in a Denny's parking lot with all the doors wide open blaring Pulp.

Whiskey night Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!!!

I got an invite from Skyy Spirits to come on down to The Back Room and meet some distillers for whiskey brands in their portfolio. I wasn't sure if I wanted to be going to an event on a Sunday when I knew I had to be in work early the next morning, however I reasoned, "Well, it's only a two-hour event. Even though it's starting at nine, it's supposed to end by 11. If I just go for a bit I can be home by midnight."

So I ask you, dear, reader, why was I at Nurse Bettie with Carmen Carroll, Jason Codd, Jonathan Forester, Abigail Gullo shooting pickle backs served to us by Moses Laboy? I mean, we just got out of a whiskey event for crying out loud. Who the does this kind of thing on a Sunday night?

To paraphrase a phrase so overused I really feel terrible even bringing it up again and I know this is going to be really groan-worthy, but: the alcohol industry is a hell of a drug.

As much as I treasured the last fleeting hours of the weekend, it seemed like a waste to lash myself to the mast of the comforts of my own home and resist the siren call of whiskey just because I didn't want to change out of my pajamas. And as I joked to Naren Young, whom I saw at the event when I finally did arrive there about an hour late, I'd kind of been decommissioned from scrabbling about events for too long. I thought whiskey would be a good way to get warmed up again.

As tucked away as The Back Room is in that New York-y speakeasy way, if this had actually been a party happening during Prohibition the place would've been raided within an hour of starting because I could smell all the liquor through the closed door...from about three feet away.

Now a tasting or industry meet and greet would probably makes one instantly think of rows and rows of stalls in a convention hall type setting, but the "bar collides with the library or drawing room of some landed gentry or the Drones Club" atmosphere of the Back Room was having none of that.

Instead, different brands reps were camped out, scattered around, mingling with everyone like your usual polite cocktail party. You didn't know who you were talking to from where until you sat down in a circle of chairs or accidentally bumped into somebody and noticed what bottles happened to be sitting on the table or in their hands.

That's how I found out I was sitting in front of Jimmy Russell, master distiller for Wild Turkey.

Mr. Russell obligingly posed for photos with people and chatted with everyone sitting around the table and poured them a nip from the different bottles sitting on the table. I'm not going to lie, Mr. Russell is everything you'd imagine a distiller from Kentucky to be and more. I just liked hearing him talk.

I also got to talk to Dennis Malcolm, master distiller and general manager of the Glen Grant Distillery Company. Besides patiently explaining and letting me try the Glen Grant 16-year-old single malt whisky, I also peppered him questions about the slightly (to me) nebulous nature of distribution. For one thing, the 16-year-old I was sipping on is just now available in the U.S.

So as I was asking Mr. Malcolm about different availabilities and whatnot, he mentioned that Glen Grant also produces a 5-year-old whiskey, only available in Italy. I asked him why that was, and according to Mr. Malcolm, that is because in the Italian market, clarity is highly prized, so the the clarity and color of the 5-year-old does really well. The more you know.

Auchentoshan's head distiller Jeremy Stephens told us what "Auchentoshan" means ("corner of the field," if you're curious and don't have Google handy), and it was kind of funny to have someone explaining their product to you, yet having it distinctly feel like you got pulled into a conversation at a friend's house party because you're all sitting on couches. Someone from Tullamore Dew slipped in a tray full of teacups to offer all of us a sip, setting off a playful "argument" about the merits of Scottish whisky and Irish whiskey.

The entire event was geared towards a sort of laid back, "come hang out, try out some of our stuff" feel. To highlight this, a table was set up where people could mix their own drinks and submit their recipe for a contest.

Abigail Gullo won, and I wish I could remember what was in the drink. My apologies to Abigail (let me know what was in it if you see this) but by that point in the evening, quite a few things in my brain had been compromised from concentrated drinking of brown liquor, which is exactly how you end up thinking that following people to a bar just a few feet away for some more drinks is a pretty good idea.

Angostura bitters rationing, scary headlines, cocktail trends and you

I almost wrote on Facebook "Oh nos!!!!!1 They're takin' our Angostura bitters away, hide the women and children!!!1" in response to a friend linking me to a Gothamist post basically similar to an earlier Eater post on the Angostura bitters shortage that was posted the day before. However, I've realized over the years that sarcasm doesn't really carry all that well on the internet sometimes.

At the end of a long work day the headlines were alarming since this is something threatening the supply a good cocktail. However, I still chuckled at William Tigertt's funny tweet: "Panic! Angostura bitter plant shutdown. NYC distributors rationing 3 bottles per account. Hording begins as cocktail doomsday clock hits 11."

Yes, if Angostura were to disappear off the face of the earth, it would be tragic, but luckily that wasn't really the story. Angostura bitters will not never exist, ever, you're probably just going to have to wait a bit for it. In fact, guys, it's January! The Bitter Truth folks announced that their line bitters will be available in the United States starting this month (and y'all can stop hitting up Stephan Berg).

Of course, I won't poo-poo just how much of a pain this is going to be for bartenders and managers. But at the same time, if you're a regular reader of Nation's Restaurant News (wink wink nudge nudge) when it comes to day-to-day operations, shortages, discontinuations, hiccups, or any number of things are all part of being in the industry and the controlled chaos that is the back of the house.

If anything, from talking with bartenders who work in the bars and establishments that a shortage of this nature would affect, I always got the impression they also juggle with this sort of thing all the time in different scales. Two words for you: seasonal fruit. In fact, if we want to start up some widespread rioting and the looting of fruit stands and produce sections across America in the impending Cocktailopocalypse, let's talk about cold weather in Florida threatening citrus crops. (My next blog entry title, "Yo Angostura, imma let you finish bringing the supply back up, but the lack of citrus due to unseasonably cold weather is what will clearly spell the doom of cocktails for all time. FOR ALL TIME" or "I have no lemons, but I must squeeze").

Though, honestly, with my years of watching horror and disaster movies, I'm going to have to take a quick break here to knock on wood simply because displaying this sort of naysaying is how most of these movies start: "Pffft, a volcano? In Los Angeles? Please, I'm going to go about my daily life despite ominous talking heads on the morning news warning me about...OH GOD I JUST STEPPED IN LAVA. WHY."

Joking aside, on a day-to-day basis, there are many things on cocktail bar's menu that can go wrong. Ever sit at one of the city's fine cocktail establishments and order a drink only to have your bartender tell you, "Oh, we actually didn't get [cocktail ingredient] today, but I can make you a variation using something else" or "We're out of [cocktail ingredient], but if you're interested in this particular spirit/flavor I can also whip something up for you."

Angostura is irreplaceable, of course, however, let's not forget that our greatest weapon in the fight to stave Cocktailopocalypse isn't any one ingredient or an inanimate thing. It's bartenders and their knowledge. You know, sort of like how the proverb goes: "Give a man a fish..." etc., etc.? Except, it's more like, "Well, who's going to fish the fish if there's no one around who knows how to fish anyway?" One of the things I've heard a couple of times is that one of the biggest hits to cocktail culture recovery after Prohibition was the diaspora of the skilled people who worked behind the bar. Not having good aged spirits around didn't help either, but even with great products we need those who know how to use it.

I truly do hope that bartenders will be able to get through the inconveniences and this shortage is only temporary.

At the same time, as we talk of bitters, we should also keep in mind that there are people out there who work hard to try and recreate incarnations of other bitters of the past and others experiment in creating bitters and flavorings all their own. So even in times hardship and shortages we also have people always working towards innovating and creating.

Manhattan Cocktail Classic Preview is looming on the horizon

As most of you probably know by now, New York finally has its own cocktail extravaganza.

Tickets for the Manhattan Cocktail Classic preview (Oct. 3-4) went on sale on Labor Day. According to Manhattan Cocktail Classic founder and director Lesley Townsend, tickets for Sasha Petraske's seminar on the home bar sold out in a blazing three seconds.

However, I've been hearing it through the grapevine that there are still some tickets available, especially with certain details got hammered out a little later than others. For example, tickets are still up for grabs for the late add-on barware seminar with Don Lee, Alex Day and Greg Boehm .

You can still buy tickets to pick Phil Ward's brains at Mayahuel, hear about Prohibition in cool accents from Charlotte Voisey and Simon Ford, and party and rub shoulders with folks at the Gala.

Seriously, though, three seconds? Even last week's much hyped pre-sale of tickets for the first of Pavement's reunion shows didn't sell out that fast.

"It was really really fun to watch," Lesley said over the phone about tracking ticket sales. "The first 10 minutes were absolutely ridiculous. I was laughing and screaming the whole time."

If you note, the word "preview" is in the title. So to alleviate any confusion that might still be out there, this is a preview of the Manhattan Cocktail Classic. The actual Classic is taking place May 14-18. Funny story: Lesley said that at first the plan was to make it a sister event with San Francisco's Cocktail Week, but too many people wanted to celebrate drinking and drink-making on both coasts, so the date was shifted by a whole week. There's still a small overlap, but enough of a buffer.

"I certainly didn’t think it’d get this much attention. The whole point of preview initially was to drum up media attention for the main event," Lesley said.

It's not hard to see why the preview itself is such a big deal. It's the anticipation. With the history and current cocktail and bartending millieu in New York, it sort of makes you go, "Why wasn't this organized before?"

Exactly the thought that Lesley had when she sent out an email about a year and a half ago, innocently asking the folks who now make up the advisory board why New York didn't have its own event like Tales of the Cocktail or San Francisco Cocktail Week. Next thing you know, a chain of emails started.

"Every time I saw any of them over the course of the next year, they’d kick me in the shins. And I finally just realized if I didn’t do it right now, it was going to happen. It was only a matter of time because there was such a desire and a need for this to happen," Lesley explained. "Truthfully the cocktail community in New York is so strong...for us to not have our own event? It was long overdue."

The preview is supposed to be a little taste of what the real thing will be like. It's a little bit of education and a little bit of the New York bar experience. There are seminars, but also several of the city's bars and cocktail lounges, like the Clover Club and Pegu Club, are part of "Stories from Behind the Bar." For the "Stories" series of events, people can purchase a ticket to hang out in some of the bars on Saturday afternoon to see the place when it's not packed and doing business and get a chance to talk to the people working there. And, of course, sip on some drinks.

The idea is not only to break down any preconceptions of exclusivity that might keep some people away from visiting these bars and encourage them to go out and enjoy the establishments in New York, but also to acknowledge some of the blurring of lines between the consumer and professional world when it comes to New York and cocktails.

"There will always be a big consumer aspect to this. In NY there’s this huge degree of overlap between the enthusiasts and the cocktail geek community," Lesley explained, and trying to separate the two is not a necessarily easy task. However, for the Classic proper there are still some plans in the works for more specialized skill and trade seminars to help further educate other bartenders in the city who want to learn more about their craft.

Gin and musing about cocktails and drinks in general

After Tales, I needed a break from the blog. A month-long one sounded about right. I guess most people announce they're going away for a sabbatical or some such, but that's if they decided ahead of time to take such a break. For me, it was more like I was simply elbow-deep in NRN.com as we continue to make things better and shinier for folks. Yes, some of you might forget I have a day job. Well, I guess this too is part of my day job, but I mean day job as in duties I handle proper when I'm not out there breaking it down on this blog with what's popping with cocktails.

It's events season. Is there really a season for events? I don't know, it certainly feels like it though. You kind of notice an ebb and flow of things.

For one thing, I've been in Madam Geneva way more times than you should be able to count in the past week. About two weeks ago, I met some folks representing Oxley gin, a new small-batch gin that is coming out. I couldn't help but note that it went back to the trends panel at Tales, where folks basically were talking about gin becoming the new vodka. More varieties, different producers and the like. And also, just how this sort of local, organic, whatever church of food you go to way of thinking that people have nowadays is also definitely making a mark on alcohol. People paying attention to more of the small-batch, independent or even local joints that are making their own thing.

You even see it in how some of the larger spirits brands are marketing themselves to consumers. They still highlight the beautiful young people living it up, but there's definitely a noticeable spin on that they're going for a certain image whether you want to credit that to the steady rise of craft cocktails, trying to convince people of something being worth a luxury during times when people are trying to spend less or the popularity of "Mad Men" and their retro drinking habits and tastes.

For example, Tanqueray has had new ads that both talk about the type of fun-seeking cosmopolitan sophisticate that would drink their product and also the crafted mix of botanicals and ingredients that go into their product.

Ketel One has its GQ-looking versions of the "dudes' night out" commercial trope that seem to be playing on a modern version of dapper "Mad Men" attitude.

Or how about Bacardi, which recently started airing commercials talking about the brand's place in history? Right down to the detail at the end with a beautiful bar with a marble top being tended by mustachioed gentlemen who is supposed to be the master bartender of yore, but in all seriousness looks like half the dudes I know working behind the stick.

These ads come about from trend spotters noticing which wave to catch that will grab the attention of those spending money out there. More people nowadays are aware of crafting sophisticated drinks. The bombs and kamikaze club crowd isn't going away any time soon, but there is a growing crop of sophisticated consumers with a certain edge to it. Beer geeks, cocktail geeks, whiskey afficionados, what have you. They're young DIY-ers expecting more and wanting to learn more when they walk into your bar, or quite possibly they're coming in already armed with some knowledge of their own.

The democritization of cocktail geekery isn't really new. Just tracking the careers of some of the folks in the game nowadays can show you that. People who had day jobs not having to do with bartending or the nightlife at all, yet are in the biz thanks to passion for the trade; the folks I've met when I started this thing two years ago that shot up into the stratosphere in that span of time easily; and even the constant waves of new people I meet. It's both exciting, and...just crazy how all of this is blossoming right before your eyes. The feeling that I can probably date myself to a "generation" of New York night life is just ridiculous to contemplate. Though I guess the people nowadays waxing nostalgic about Palladium and The Limelight and seeing James St. James guest on "America's Next Top Model" might not have anticipated this themselves in the 80s-90s.

And now I feel like there's a new generation coming up. Last night I was at Madam Geneva again. This time Tomas Delos Reyes, who recently started bartending there, sent me an invite for a Nirvino event sponsored by Tres Generaciones. Nirvino is basically a sort of community for drink and bar reviewing. The crowd was a mix of people in the biz and amateur afficionados.

As jokes passed around about having 50+ friends in common with people on Facebook and the idea of tweetups, all of the sudden I found it kind of funny I had started rereading "No Country for Old Men." I began to hear Tommy Lee Jones' voice in my head sounding something like:

I started writing this blog when I was 23. Just two years after Uncle Sam says you can start drinkin. But he was no uncle of mine. Got to know a lot of bartenders in my day. It's always been a community. A town of sorts that existed along the river beds of bar tops where booze flowed freely, but you needed to pay to get across for a sip. Like that Charon character I remember readin about in a textbook in the fifth grade. Had my first sip of gin then. Thought that was probably pretty close to what the Styx would taste like. But nowadays these kids got technology. I had a notebook and a pen. A digital camera if I was lucky. I guess luck had everything to do with it. I reckon though most people make their luck nowadays...

Not that I mean that I felt like I need to quit before I get shot in the back during a drug deal gone bad or a "get of my lawn" kind of way. It was more just the similar sentiment of awe in seeing a new model of doing things just unfold. It reminded me of back when I interviewed Dave Wondrich for a story in our NRN 50 special issue about food and beverage industry survivors. Talking to him about cocktails and how they've survived ups and down throughout the years, I had to ask Dave how he felt about the future of cocktails. He said (part of the quote ended up closing out my story) that sure, maybe the whole thing was trendy, maybe interest would cool a little, but it'd never go away. It certainly wouldn't disappear like it did during Prohibition. There's just too many people with the knowledge out there, and too many ways for people to share it.