An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

The joke is probably about my photography skills.

Well, just in time, I got back from Orlando for Repeal Day!  HUZZAH and stuff.

This year Gabe from cocktailnerd.com joined Rick from kaiserpenguin.com in joining us here in DC.  Unfamiliar with the protocols of renting a tuxedo, you can see in the picture to the left that Gabe went for the redcoat outfit.  Rick rocked out the Watson look while Marshall – well, what can I say?  The guy just is a snazzy dresser.

Me, I rocked the same tuxedo as last year, but my pics (that I remembered to take) don’t have me in them because, uhh…well, you know, I took them.

After a Friday night hitting a number of places (PS7, Proof, Poste, The Gibson) then playing Rock Band 2 until 4:30 AM and torturing Rumdood with my singing, we hit 2 Amy’s (I’d never been!), Ace Beverage (of course), and a costume store, plus Goodwill, before having a couple of pre-event cocktails.  From my house we met up with Sylvie, Kelley, and JR at Eatonville, then to the party.

The party was fantastic.  Lots of spectacular mixologists served up an array of delicious beverages in rooms themed to decades.  Rachel Sergi did a clementine based one, while Adam Bernbach and JP Fetherston did a Mad Men room with sloe gin fizzes and martinis.  Jess Crandall and Jason Strich rocked out with lemon drops in the ’80s, while nearby Owen Thomson and Gina Chersevani had on jumpsuits and bubble-wrap in the future.

David Wondrich, Dale DeGroff, and Tal Nadari

Not everyone was DC-based.  Jeffrey Morgenthaler from Clyde Common in Portland, OR, shared a table with local Chantal Tseng of the Tabard Inn – him with his amazing eggnog and her with a killer bathtub gin punch.  Other great folks in the cocktail world such as David Wondrich, Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, Dale DeGroff, and Tal Nadari were there.

And, of course, there were all kinds of folks from around town – I mean, honestly, if you’re not working that night, you needed to be there.

I made it about 15 minutes, maybe, into the after-party before I needed to leave.  Same as every year, I’m lame, whatever.  I can always make up an excuse for each year.  I have a great one for this year!

Next year I’m hoping to see even more of our blogger brethren there.  You should start planning now!

If you did go, what was your favorite drink?  (And don’t say what was in people’s flasks!)

13 days ago, I was frantically doing laundry and packing.  Suddenly I hit a point where all I could do was wait for an hour or so; I’d just gotten a five pack of bitters from Bitter End Bitters in Santa Fe, New Mexico, so I threw together a drink using a pineapple that I didn’t want to have to throw out before my trip.

So we’ll start with that:

The Express
2 oz Cruzan blackstrap
1/2 oz Flor de Caña 4 yr old
1/2 oz Wray & Nephew
3/4 oz orgeat
1/2 oz  lemon juice
1 oz lime juice
1 dash Bitter End Bitters Thai Bitters

Shake with ice, pour unstrained into a cored out pineapple.  Garnish with a bit of mint if you’d like.

From there it was time for my trip.  I was off to Portland, Oregon, for Drink.Write 2010, our CSOWG conference, coinciding with Portland Cocktail Week and the Great American Distillers Fest.  I’d never been to Portland before and I was very eager to experience it.

I’m going to put it in short: it was awesome.  Hanging out with Darcy O’Neil and Ryan Magarian at the Driftwood Lounge, which turned into a visit to the House Spirits distillery; seeing Jeffrey Morgenthaler in his native Clyde Common slinging drinks; hanging out with folks like John The Bastard, Stevi Deter, Rick Stutz, Matt Robold, and Gabriel Szaszko; meeting tons of new folks (too many people to list here), and in general, I had some of the best drinks, food, and fun I’ve had in a long, long time.

Who are those sexy people? HINT: ONE IS ME

(Picture stolen from the Mixoloseum Facebook page.)

All kinds of folks gave lectures – Erick Castro, the aforementioned Rumdood, Morgenthaler, Darcy, the ever-fabulous Camper English, Craig Hermann, and, of course, Blair “Trader Tiki” Reynolds.  I could go on and on and on about the in-jokes, the fun, how to make ingredients, but hey.  I did name one drink after Craig, and I have an idea for another one; once I dig them both up, I’ll post them on here.  Just to warn, the first one is named “The Grapefruit Fleshlight” (please don’t Google “fleshlight” from work) and the other one is similarly mature.

Unfortunately, I had to leave on Saturday to fly to Orlando, Florida, for work, where the best I can say (drinks wise) is that I explored almost the entire Scotch selection at the Doubletree Resort – though I did have dinner one night at a place called Hannibal’s, and the wine there was very tasty.  I was at the IACP show, then by Wednesday I could head back to my home just outside of Washington DC in Arlington, VA.

Saturday, of course, there was a ton of Halloween parties out and about.  I went to my co-blogger’s house and he had a a whole menu worked up with the Halloween theme.  Hopefully he’ll be posting those on here soon.  Sunday I spent a good bit of time wandering Clarendon with a friend before watching my beloved Steelers lose.

So now I’m back home, watching Monday Night Football.  I’ve got a brain full of ideas that I need to get articulated and out onto the blog.  Repeal Day is coming up on December 4th, and of course, your Scofflaws will be there along with an all-star cast such as Derek Brown, Gina Chersevani, Todd Thrasher, David Wondrich, Beachbum Berry, Jeffrey Morgenthaler (man, that guy gets around!), Dale DeGroff, and possibly, quite possibly, some other cocktail bloggers.

Maybe.

Me, right now, I’m finally feeling like I’m home for a while – and I’ve got entire WEEKS before I have to travel again.  I’m sipping a Tempranillo that I used to wash down my porterhouse and baked potato, thinking about having a cigar – I’m running low again finally, and realized I won’t be able to go to the Rocky Patel event tomorrow at Virginia Pipe & Tobacco in Seven Corners – and thinking about working with some of these new bitters to come up with some more drinks.

What have y’all been up to?  Have any good cocktails lately?

Yeah, believe it or not – it’s just me.  I know I haven’t been around a lot lately, and I’m not going to make excuses for that.  From now on my goal is one post a week!

Feel free to chuckle or what have you.

Obviously, I was posting pretty hardcore up until Tales last year.  Then we hit Tales, then soon after that I was sent to Korea for a month, and then…well, it’s been busy.  However, I’ve been redoing a few things the past few weeks, one of which means cleaning and redoing a lot of my apartment (thanks to mom and dad a lot for that) and it’s made it much easier for me to cook and make drinks in my place.

Thus, right now, I’m sipping a freshly made mai tai while smoking a Rocky Patel Edge Lite on my balcony.  Why a mai tai?

I’m using the Mr. Boston recipe for it, not the original Trader Vic recipe: 1 ounce each light and gold rum (I used El Dorado 3 year old and Scarlet Ibis), 1/2 ounce orange curacao (Creole Shrubb), 1/2 ounce lime juice (fresh squeezed mojito lime from Wegman’s), and 1/2 ounce orgeat, shaken, topped with one ounce of dark rum (Coruba) and garnished with a maraschino cherry (Luxardo – mine didn’t go bad like Marshall’s did).  But it’s the orgeat that made the drink for me.

For Christmas I bought myself (and Marshall) a selection of Trader Tiki‘s syrups.  He’s even having a TDN using the syrups February 11th – be there, or be square, or something like that.  Oh shoot – I’ll be in San Francisco that week!

Trader Tiki, of course, is a friend of the Den and a member of the CSOWG, and so when I saw he was making the syrups, I had to get some.  Also, the only orgeats I’ve had were from Fee’s, and I really wanted to try someone else’s.  I had bought some almonds to make my own but hadn’t gotten around to doing it yet.

Well, tonight I decided I wanted a drink with orgeat in it.  A mai tai came to mind, and a mai tai I did make it.  It wouldn’t fit in a lot of the smaller, vintage cocktail glasses Marshall got me for Christmas but that’s okay.

It’s still quite delicious.

Other than that I haven’t done much non-beer home drinking.  I’ve gone out to the Passenger a few times – and Eventide a few times, PS7 once or twice.

Repeal Day was at the beginning of December and if I thought last year’s was good, this year’s was even better!  Jeffrey Morgenthaler was the MC for the event, we had drinks from all over DC – and bartenders from all over the country – making fabulous drinks, great food from PS7, I wish I’d written this earlier so I could remember more of it.  One of my favorites was a thick, scotch-based drink with oats and I can’t remember what all else, made by the kilt-wearing Dan Searing (and which went great with my cigar from Curtis Draper in the heated cigar tent).  All in all, it’s a night that you shouldn’t miss.

I was also happy to introduce people to stuff that I can get readily in the DC area lately.  I gave my buddy Dan a bottle of Chairman’s Reserve rum, which is a great, well-priced rum that just hit the market (and for the next few months, a portion of its proceeds will go to help Haiti).  My granddad got a bottle of Highland Park 15 year old Scotch which it sounds like he’s enjoying a lot, and I gave my parents a couple of nifty bottles.  That’s my favorite thing about this whole hobby, to be honest – introducing new people to all the stuff that’s out there (like getting my brother hooked on Dark & Stormy-s) that they might not have known about.

I’ve also got a bunch of samples I really need to work up write-ups about, so hopefully you’ll see some of that coming up.  That being said, let me make sure I caveat something just in case you didn’t realize, and also to help cover our butts with the FTC.

From time to time, marketing folks like to send people free samples.  For the most part, we accept almost any samples, though Marshall is a bit pickier than I (and I still feel really guilty about drunkenly making fun of one offered sample back to the marketing person involved – I mean, I just feel bad about that, that’s unprofessional, though “unprofessional” is not an uncommonly used adjective around me).

HOWEVER, a sample does not mean we will necessarily cover it unless we specifically agree to ahead of time and NEVER means we agree to give it a good review.  We will review it as we find it.  We will review stuff we buy on our as we find it.  We will talk about drinks and products from bars, people, etc., that we get, no matter how it’s gotten, truthfully.  The advantage of us accepting samples from marketing folks is that it gives us more of a chance to tell you, our readers about it, and also to use our own money to “fill in the gaps” as it were.

And sometimes it’s also a second chance to try something we might not have wagered the money on again.  I’ll use Bulleit bourbon for an example.  I’d only tried it straight, from a mini bottle, and wasn’t impressed with it.  Mike Manning hooked me up with a sample of it, and I experimented a bit more and found it rather useful in a number of cocktails thanks to its flavor profile.  It’s not a straight-drinking bourbon, it’s a mixing one, but it works well as long as you keep in mind that it’s also not a SWEET bourbon.  The folks representing Bulleit have been very nice and generous, but if someone asks me for a bourbon to drink on the rocks, I’ll be suggesting something else.  If someone asks me for a bourbon to use in a Suffering Bastard, though, or a bourbon that likes to act like a rye, then I’ll say Bulleit.

Okay, enough of that.  It’s making me thirsty for whiskey.  What time do the Saints play?  That sounds like a good time for some Sazeracs…

Sean, Rick, myself, Jeffrey

Celebrating 76 years since Prohibition, the DC Bartenders Guild is throwing the 2nd Annual Repeal Day Ball on December 5th.  This year the festivities are being held at one of the Scofflaw’s favorite haunts, PS7 from 9pm til Midnight.

Last year’s Ball was a blast with Repeal Day founder Jeffrey Morgenthaler, Lenell Smothers, Tony Abou-Ganim, and the best bartenders DC has to offer.  I think last year’s Ball was the largest Repeal Day celebration in the U.S.  and this year’s looks to be even bigger and better – with (hopefully) a few surprises along the way!

The DC Craft Bartender’s Guild is holding the Second Annual Repeal Day Ball on December 5th at 9 P.M. to midnight for general admission and 8 P.M. to midnight for VIP ticketholders, celebrating the 76th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition. Enjoy craft cocktails from DC’s best mixologists and food from renowned chef Peter Smith while dancing along to the prohibition-era sounds of the Red Hot Rhythm Chiefs.

This year’s black tie Repeal Day Ball is at PS7′s restaurant, across from the historic first meeting place of the Anti-Saloon League, which launched the legislative agenda for prohibition. We are here to announce our own agenda–to have fun! We will celebrate our freedom in style and have dubbed this year the “Spirit of 76,” featuring our own “Founding Drinkers” dressed as the founding fathers.

So put on your tuxedo or gown and indulge in cocktail creations from the city’s top bartenders such as Gina Chersevani, Derek Brown and Todd Thrasher, to name a few, along with special guests–bartending legend Dale Degroff, Tad Carducci and toastmaster Jeffery Morgenthaler.

Tickets can be purchased here. There are two levels of tickets, $100 general admission and $150 VIP admission.  The VIP admission gets you into the Ball 1 hour earlier, at 8pm, heavy hors d’oeuvres, a first release copy of The Lush Life: Portraits from the Bar by Jill Degroff, and access to VIP after-parties at some of DC’s top cocktail bars.

No, the tickets aren’t necessarily budget friendly, but believe-you-me, this is one party that is a can’t miss.  If you are in the DC metro area and love a good cocktail or a great party, this is it.  If you aren’t in the DC area – get your butt to PS7 on December 5th.

Question for readers – Did you go to last year’s Repeal Day Ball?  Tell us about your experiences in the comments!