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During Drink.Write 2009, one of the sessions dealt with garnishing cocktails.? The panelists were Tiare Olson, Rick Stutz and Martin Cate.? The session was split into three sections.? The first was twists where we learned how to make twists using various citrus peels – thin tight twists, thick twists, etc.? The second section concerned fire.? We learned different methods of incorporating fire into a garnish.? The most interesting thing I learned during this section was the use of croutons soaked with pure lemon oil as the flammable material.? The is the method that Martin uses in his bars.? Definitely something for me to try!? And the third section was a free-for-all.? The panelists discussed other types of garnishes such as flowers (which may or may not be poisonous), cinnamon sticks poked through citrus peels, etc. – the point is you are only limited by your imagination, patience and materials.

During each section, we were tasked with completing a garnish to match that section.? The panelists walked around the room and judged each students garnish and the winner would get a prize.

If you’ve been following along at home, you should know that I love playing with fire.? AS A GARNISH!!!? Geez,? you people . . .? Anyway, I love garnishing with a flamed citrus peel (watch the video) or using a lime shell to flame some overproof rum.? In fact, I created one for Gina Chersevani of PS7 in DC and a week later she started serving a cocktail with the same garnish.? Not saying I had an influence, but . . . (Love you Gina!)

So I was pumped for the flaming garnish section.? I knew I would incorporate the lime shell.? But what else?? I needed a WOW factor.? I decided I wanted to try my hand at a volcano.? Using some of the very long swathes of grapefruit peel from the earlier section, I started playing around to get the best volcano I could.? I tried tightly rolling up the peel and then pulling the inside out to create a cone.? That didn’t work? – the walls would separate and the whole thing was unstable.? After a few more failed attempts, I tried making the volcano from the top down.? Worked like a charm!? I secured the volcano inside the lime shell with a piece of bamboo skewers I had soaking in water.? I then decided to add a sun over the volcano using a round of lemon peel.? Again this was secured by using a piece of waterlogged bamboo.

We were then served cocktails on which to adorn our newly created flaming garnishes.? Once the Pompeii garnish was atop the cocktail and a little overproof rum later . . .

As the tiki-gods shown brightly over me and after the panelists/judges walked the room to survey the fiery garnishes upon the table, Martin Cate announced that my Pompeii garnish was the winner of the flaming garnish section!? Woot!

As my prize, I received an antique postcard that Martin had purchased of Tujague’s Restaurant.? Now I just have to get it framed!

Cheers!

For pictures of a bunch of the garnished created by Drink.Write 2009 attendees, see this photo gallery.

While we were at Tales of the Cocktail this year, several members of the Cocktail & Spirits Online Writers Group rented out a Bed & Breakfast and it became “Blogger Central.”? In the evenings, we could retire to the house, hang out with anyone around, have some tasty vittles and mix drinks until the early dawn.?? The bar at the house had to number in the hundreds of bottles.? The cocktail knowledge of the writers, bartenders, and brand reps who filtered in and out assured everyone fantastic drinks.? The crazy array of tools behind the bar ensured that every type of drink could be made using the perfect and proper technique.? I’m confident that the Mixo House bar rivaled the best equipped bar in New Orleans.

One of the coolest activities being run out of the Mixo House was a silent auction.? The items up for auction included a hand lathed swizzle stick from Chris Stanley of Clover Club, a bourbon barrel top lazy susan, three small charred barrels for aging, a night with Camper English, and a traveling bar set from Uber Bar Tools.? Well, after a slight bidding war between myself and Gabe Szaszko, I won the traveling bar set.

As you can see from photo above, the tools are housed in a small metal suitcase.? It is very solid,? surviving being checked onto the United flight back to DC, and also has a shoulder strap.? The inside of the case contains thick and sturdy foam, much like what you would find in a gun case or maybe a camera case.? The foam has been cut so each tool has its own place and stays very secure in that spot.

The photo above is the top section of the case.? It contains a weighted bar spoon, a waiter’s helper corkscrew, a bottle opener, a cutting board, a peeler, a paring knife, and a zester/channel knife.

The bottom of the kit contains a muddler, a boston shaker, a hawthorne strainer, a julep strainer (inside the shaker), a fine mesh strainer, a juice press, a Pro Jig, and four Pro Flow speed pourers.? Throw in the set of mini bottles of Bitter Truth Bitters and I am ready to rock and or roll.

This is a really well put together tool kit!? You can see more details here.? Of course what this really means is that when people invite me over to their house for a party, I can’t really bitch about not having the proper tools to make drinks.? I guess this will also regulate me to making drinks for the crowd too.? Damn, why didn’t I let Gabe win?!?!?!? Oh well . . . .

Cheers!

Just a quick note.

I’ve finally got around to uploading my photos from Tales of the Cocktail 2009 into my SmugMug account.? As of now, I don’t have descriptions for everything, but should soon.

Anyway, here is the link to the gallery.? Hope you enjoy.

Cheers!

A few months ago, we got an email from the lovely Samantha Harrigan sending a missive to the motley crew of cocktail bloggers to ask if we would be interested in participating in a little contest.? Oval Vodka wanted new and interesting infusions.

The rules were pretty simple.? We had to create an infusion using Oval and come up with a unique cocktail using at least 1.5 oz of the infusion.? The infusions were to be judged during Tales of the Cocktail by Rick Stutz, Gabriel Szaszko and Chantal Tseng.? The judging criteria was based on infusion aroma, infusion taste, infusion creativity, cocktail taste, cocktail balance and cocktail creativity.? The winner of the contest would have two nights of their stay paid for by Oval.

It sounded like a lot of fun and I jumped at the opportunity.? But then came the “what-the-hell-do-I-make” panic.? I ended up with two infusions.? The first was a clementine infusion using fresh clementines.? The aroma and color was redolent of fresh clementine.? But, a basic orange infusion wouldn’t win on creativity and seemed to run of the mill.? I had been playing with coconut water lately as a cocktail ingredient and decided I wanted to use it as a mixer.

When I think of coconut, I think of tiki drinks, frozen slushy drinks, islands, the sea and Thai food.? Ohhhh . . . thai food.? That would certainly be original!? Next was to think of the flavors associated with thai food and island/Polynesian-type drinks.? Lime?? Ginger?? Spices?? Check, check, check.? But I wanted something a little more obscure.? Lemongrass!

So here is my infusion:

Thai-Spiced Oval Vodka
16 oz Oval Vodka
1 9-inch stalk of lemongrass, cut into small rounds
2 quarter-sized rounds of fresh ginger
peel of 2 limes
1 2-inch piece of cinnamon*
4 cloves

-Place everything in a container and infuse for one week shaking once a day. After a week strain all the solids and re-bottle.

*After the contest, I was speaking with Chantal looking for critiques and her main thought on my infusion was that the cinnamon was too strong.? I tend to agree with that assessment.? In the future, and if you’re making this yourself, I would remove the cinnamon and cloves after three days.

For the cocktail, I came up with:

Andaman Sun
1.5 oz Thai-spiced Oval Vodka
1.5 oz coconut water
1 oz Piloncillo** syrup (1.5:1 strength)
.5 oz fresh lime juice
.25 oz coconut cream

-Shake everything with ice and strain into a chilled glass.? Garnish with a lime wheel.
**Piloncillo is South American unrefined brown sugar.? You can find it in ethnic markets.? If you can’t find it, you can substitute simple syrup made from dark brown sugar (1.5:1 strength) or you can substitute .75 oz simple and .25 oz molasses.? It won’t be exactly the same with the substitutions but you’ll still have a tasty drink.

The contest judging occurred at the Mixoloseum house in New Orleans.? Each of the entries were made by Chris Stanley, a very talented mixologist at the Clover Club in New York City.? Chris worked behind the bar at the Mixo house several nights during Tales.? His drinks were some of the best I had during the entire week.

And the results of the contest?? I WON!!!!

Woot!? Thanks go out to Sam, Chantal, Gabe, and Rick!? And thanks to Oval Vodka for the opportunity! And a special thanks to Steve Raye who offered to pay for the entire cost of two nights at the condo, rather than just my half of two nights.? You can read Sam’s write-up of the contest here.

What a great event and a great surprise during Tales!? Cheers!