The Hidden History of the Harvey Wallbanger

First of all, I should say that I never intended to uncover the history of the Harvey Wallbanger. The journey by which I became obsessed with discovering the origins of the popular 1970s cocktail began when, in last 2010, an editor at The Daily, the now-defunct tablet newspaper, contacted me and asked if I had any "interesting" angles on cocktail stories. I thought for a bit and said I had always been curious about the little-known 1950s-1960s bartender Donato "Duke" Antone. If you believed what you read, he was the author of the Harvey Wallbanger, the Rusty Nail, the White Russian and many more. Yet, no one really knew anything about him. And now (at least at that time, a year and a half ago), the Wallbanger was beginning to enjoy a rebirth. Why not profile Antone? They bit.

So I started my research and soon learned that—beyond the Harvey Wallbanger's Wikipedia page—there wasn't much out there about Antone. I quizzed several knowledgable bartenders. They said they assumed Antone invented the drink in the 1950s, but admitted they didn't know much beyond that. I then contacted the people at Galliano. They were interested in Antone as well, but, amazingly, had no records regarding the history of their liqueur's greatest claim to fame. I began to suspect that I was on a wild goose chase, that Antone was yet another cocktail myth cooked up a bar somewhere in the misty past and given the weight of truth through constant retelling.

Then I happened upon an obituary of the man, published in the Hartford Courant. This proved Antone had lived. It led to several other articles in the Courant. Soon the trail grew hot and I began to piece together a history, both of the bartender and the drink. My article was no longer about Antone, however. I was determined to get to the bottom of the Harvey Wallbanger story. And—with a graceful assist late in the game from David Wondrich (who had begun digging into the Wallbanger story in summer 2011)—I think I have.

There was a problem about getting the story out there, however. By the time I had my copy ready for publication, in late February 2011, The Daily was having problems. My editor hemmed and hawed but finally cut me loose, saying they didn't have the money for the piece. (The Daily ceased publication on Dec. 15.) I turned to a well-respected, historic food magazine, whose print version ended a few years ago but which lives on as an on-line presence. I had enjoyed the depth and breadth of its articles in the past. They happily seized on the article and sent me a contract—and then sat of the piece for ten months. My original editor left. Another one came in, edited the story with me, and then left as well. Finally, a third editor casually informed me that the article would not run due to "space limitations." (On-line publications do realizes they are afforded infinite space, don't they?)

Again, I scramble to find Harvey a home. To my lasting gratitude, the fine folks as Saveur gladly took it on and published it Dec. 14. You can read the article here. However, it is in a slight truncated form. If you want to get the whole story, here is the copy in its unabridged form:

Mixologist of the Month: Mike Lay

The "Mixologist of the Month" columns in Wine Enthusiast often cause me to chat with bartenders I wouldn't otherwise. Which is a good thing. For this edition, I found out a thing or two about the way Mike Lay does business at Restaurant 1833 out in Monterey. 

Bill's Reborn as...Bill's

I was among those who were not thrilled when the landlord of the midtown Manhattan building that held the old bar Bill's Gay Nineties decided to end the owner's lease, cutting down the former speakeasy's 88-year life at a New York watering hole. Bill's Food and Drink, the much tonier replacement, opened for business this week, following an extensive renovation of the old townhouse. It's not Bill's Gay Nineties, but is does retain some aspects of the old joint, as I found in this New York Times "Starter" column:

Boite: Dear Bushwick

The Thursday Style section of the New York Times has a lovely running column called "Boite," in which a new bar is profiled in a series of piquant bullet points. I've always admired it. Recently, I got to write one. Here it is:

Thanksgiving Cocktails—Not So New an Idea

I used to think that the notion of a pre-feast Thanksgiving cocktail was a relatively recent notion, the product of our cocktail-crazy times. Not so. Doing some research for this article turned up a number of old articles that proved that the question "What to drink before Thanksgiving?" was a question mulled by Americans as far back as the late 1800s. One pre-Prohibition article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer stated "Of course you're going to have a cocktail at Thanksgiving!" Such confidence. Here's my article in the New York Times.

Fall's Flavors Come in a New Glass

By ROBERT SIMONSON

THANKSGIVING and cocktails are not as odd a match as you might think. Both are distinctly American, and have been long thought so.

Back in 1929, a reporter for The Chicago Tribune, waxing indignant at the notion that the French had invented the cocktail, wrote, “Every one knows that it is as authentically American as griddle cakes and sweet ‘salads’ and pumpkin pie.”

Still, downing a bluntly spiritous drink just before you sit down to that pumpkin pie or other heavy holiday fare is not a smart move. Bright and balanced is the order of the day.

And it is one easily filled by today’s generation of mixologists, who regularly compound ingredients to harmonize with a specific occasion and season.

Seasonal is an important idea. A pre-turkey tipple ideally performs a secondary function as an aesthetic, sensory signpost, instilling all the flavors associated with fall and harvest into a single cup.

That symbolic function was partly on the mind of Julie Reiner, the owner of Clover Club on Smith Street in Brooklyn, when she recently created the Crystal Fall for the bar’s autumn menu.

“I wanted it to be the quintessential fall cocktail, the kind of thing with all the flavors that you just expect this time of year,” Ms. Reiner said. “Apple, spice, ginger.”

To portions of toasty Cognac, rich Demerara rum and nutty sherry, she added fresh apple cider, lemon juice, ginger syrup, sugar and bitters. Served over a tumbler of crushed ice, the drink is simultaneously warming and cooling, and, despite the fairly heavy liquor payload, surprisingly light.

At Clover Club’s neighbor, the JakeWalk, the bar manager Timothy Miner achieved his particular liquid orchard by using as a base Laird’s bonded apple brandy (perhaps one of the most American of spirits, if using domestic produce on the fourth Thursday of November is important to you). He added cinnamon syrup, lemon juice, Galliano liqueur and a couple of dashes of allspice liqueur. The drink is topped with freshly ground nutmeg.

“I grew up in New England,” Mr. Miner said. “I have a strong affinity to apple-picking and all that. I thought, ‘I wonder if I can make apple pie in a glass.’ ”

The drink, called Mr. October, tastes not only like apple pie, but apple pie à la mode, thanks to Galliano’s vanilla notes.

If these drinks seem a bit too complex, or modern, you can go Colonial and surpassingly simple in one stroke by pouring a Stone Fence. This centuries-old concoction is nothing more than two ounces of whatever dark liquor you choose (rye, bourbon, Scotch, applejack, rum) filled out with hard cider and served over ice. Easier than gravy.

Genever by the Barrel

Cocktail bars that have their own private barrel of whiskey, personally selected by the owners from a distillery in Kentucky, have become a dime a dozen. But if you suddenly start seeing bars with their own barrel of genever, you can blame Boston-based mixologist Jackson Cannon. Cannon is a persistent fellow. After years of nudging the uncomprehending Lucas Bols, he got them to part with one of their casks. He know uses the juice to make drinks in his three Boston bars. As a result of determination, Bols has seen the light. They company is now open to rolling out personal barrels for other receptive taverns. Here's the story:

Drinking History

I am a considerably more educated man today than I was a month ago, when I started doing research for this article. Since that time, I've sampled a 1950s Chartreuse, a few blended Scotches from the 1960s, a few gins from the 1940s and '50s, a Cognac from the '60s, a Creme de Menthe from the 1940s, Bourbons from the '60s, '70s and '80s and even an aged vermouth.

Conclusion of all this learning: the old saw that spirits don't change once bottled is nonsense. They grow softer, more rounded, more integrated. Even more untrue is the notion—put forth by nearly every liquor company on earth—that they have made the same product year in and year out. The assertion is not only improbable, but impossible. Improbable, because recipes alter with changing times and changing tastes, not to mention adjusted quality standards. Impossible because no company has consistent access to the exact same grains and botanicals.

We live in a time of great, across-the-board quality in spirits. Still, based on what I sipped, it does seem that some things were done better in the past. The creme de menthe did not taste chemical, as its counterparts of today do. It was fresh and clean. It tasted like something, well, you'd want to drink. I like Gordon's Gin. It's a fine workhorse London Dry gin. But the specimen from the '50s I had was fuller and much more interesting. And the '60s Hennessy I savored had a restraint and dignity that one no longer finds in the sugar-bomb, major-label Cognacs of today. I wish I could drink more of this stuff. But, at $150 a drink, it's a pricey habit.

Here's my article from the New York Times:

A Cocktail Fundraiser for Murray and Sandy

The cocktail community is a generous and industrious one.

When it became known that esteemed Seattle barman Murray Stenson was ill and needed surgery, bars instantly began organizing fundraising events. Among these was Audrey Saunders' Pegu Club. Then, when Hurricane Sandy laid waste to the east coast, bartenders and bar owners went at it again, putting together a new slew of money-making events. 

Saunders had scheduled her Murray fundraiser prior to the arrival of Sandy, choosing Nov. 11 as the date. Post-Sandy, she reconsidered, and decided that half of the money raised would go to Stenson, and half to Sandy relief. Here's the announcement I wrote in the Times:

Bartenders Pitch In for Pegu Club’s Storm Benefit

By ROBERT SIMONSON

Pegu Club, the SoHo cocktail bar, will hold a “50/50″ fund-raiser on Nov. 11 to benefit two causes. Half the money raised will go toward Hurricane Sandy relief. The rest will aid Murray Stenson, a veteran Seattle-based bartender who has a heart ailment that requires medical attention. Mr. Stenson’s plight has inspired a Web-site and fund-raisers across the country, with more to come.

To work the bar during the benefit, Pegu Club’s Audrey Saunders has drawn from the cream of the New York bartending world. Among the mixologists expected to put in shifts are Richard Boccato of Dutch Kills; Meaghan Dorman of Raines Law Room; Brian Miller, formerly of Death & Co. and Lani Kai; Ivy Mix of Clover Club; Toby Maloney of Pouring Ribbons; Del Pedro of Tooker Alley; Julie Reiner of Clover Club and Flatiron Lounge; Dushan Zaric and Steven Schneider of Employees Only; Giuseppe Gonzalez of Mother’s Ruin; the bartending legend Dale DeGroff; and Pegu Club’s own Kenta Goto, Raul Flores and Timon Kaufmann.

Each bartender is expected to offer a specialty drink. Drinks will be full price. Doors open at 5 p.m. The event runs through 1 a.m.

Ms. Saunders is also adding a new drink to the cocktail list called the Sandy Relief Cocktail. It will be priced to move ($10), and all the money it brings in will go to the Red Cross and other charitable organizations.

Post script: The event ended up raising more that $17,000, meaning more than 1,300 drinks were consumed over the evening's eight hours. That's not counting tips, of which I'm sure there were many. 

Hemingway, the Drinkingest of All Writers

Last May, I attended a seminar called "Do Not Resuscitate." The subject was classic cocktails that did NOT deserve to be revived. Among those that took a beating at the hands of the historians on the panel was the Papa Doble, better known at the Hemingway Daiquiri, a drink of great strength and little compensating sweetness. According to a couple of the speakers, when it came to mixing drinks, the sugar-averse Hemingway "always got it wrong."

Well, maybe those panelists didn't try every drink Hemingway advocated. For he liked a lot of different liquids. In his breezy new book, "To Have and Have Another" (great title!), Philip Greene takes a look at every one of them. The ones Papa drank, and the ones his characters drank (which were almost always also one that Papa drank). That's more than fifty separate libations. Take a look:

How to Drink Like Hemingway

By ROBERT SIMONSON

Even a casual student of the novelist Ernest Hemingway knows the man liked to drink. But a quick skimming of Philip Greene’s new book, “To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion,” reveals exactly how much the man enjoyed his cups.

Each chapter of the book, due out in November, is dedicated to a libation that either Hemingway or one of his characters (or both) tipped back. There are more than 50 chapters, and the drinks are listed alphabetically; you reach Page 70 before you get past A, B and C.

“I don’t know if there’s enough critical mass for a Faulkner or Fitzgerald book,” Mr. Greene said. “I think I could put together an anthology of other authors combined. But I don’t know if there’s another writer with that wide a palate.”

Mr. Greene’s interest in the Hemingway began as a teenager, when he read the short story “Big Two-Hearted River.” It first occurred to him to make a drink from one of the author’s books in 1989, when he was visiting in-laws in Florida who had a lime tree and a coconut palm tree in their yard. He took the ingredients on hand and made a Papa invention called a Green Isaac’s Special, which appears in the pages of “Islands in the Stream.” (The recipe is below.)

“I think my in-laws thought I was a little crazy,” Mr. Greene said.

If you’d rather make like the characters in “The Sun Also Rises,” the applejack-based Jack Rose is recommended. “A Farewell to Arms”? Champagne cocktails. “To Have and Have Not”? An Ojen Special (that is, if you can findojen, a sort of Spanish absinthe that is no longer made).

If you want to approach the thing from the opposite direction, just have a whiskey and soda. Someone drinks one in almost every book Hemingway ever wrote.

“Certainly, the protagonists drink drinks that he liked,” said Mr. Greene, whose day job is as trademark counsel to the Marine Corps. It follows that the chapters on the daiquiri and martini — Hemingway favorites — are considerably longer. (Mr. Greene also dispels the widely held belief that the sugary mojito was the author’s favorite.)

Incidentally, Hemingway would have known how to ride out a tussle like Hurricane Sandy. In the book, Mr. Greene, quoting the Hemingway biographer Carlos Baker, describes a sailing trip in Key West, Fla., that Hemingway went on with his editor, Maxwell Perkins. They were caught in a storm and had to spend several days marooned at Fort Jefferson, in the lower Keys: “First they ran out of ice, then beer, then canned goods, then coffee, then liquor, then Bermuda onions, and at last everything but fish. Ernest did not care. He said he never ate or drank better in his life.”

A New Malört for Chicago

I've tried for years to write about Malört, the bitter Chicago curiosity, pitching the story to various publications. But none bit. Not even Edible Chicago, for God's sake! (If any food/drink magazine needs to weigh in on Malört, it's that one, but the editors didn't seem to get it.)

Perhaps part of the problem was that the niche market for the oddball liqueur was a static one. For decades, there was but one brand of the stuff: Jeppson's Malört. But now, suddenly, there has been a 100% increase in selection. That's right: there are now two Malörts on the Chicago market. The second is being made and sold by a bartender at The Violet Hour cocktail bar, in collaboration with a local distiller. It is called R. Franklin’s Original Recipe.

Then again, maybe there is still only one Malört. When writing this piece for the New York Times, I tried to contact the Jeppson's people. They did not get back to me until after the item had ran. Patricia D. Gabelick, president of Jeppson's, had this to say: "what Leatherbee is planning on producing is not a Malört. A true Swedish Malort cannot be over 80 proof. With all the additives and the high proof it certainly sounds like an Absinthe." 

Here's the article: 

Vintage Vodka

"Vintage Vodka" is one of those word combinations you can't help but laugh at the moment you hear it. An oxymoron, no? What spirit is further from expressive whims of the seasons than the hyper-processed vodka? 

Karlsson's, the very serious Swedish vodka producer, however, is not laughing. They consider their experiment in vintage vodkas to be a worthy one. I will admit that there are differences between the 2008 and the 2009, the two vintages that have been released. But you have to pay close attention to notice them, and paying close attention to what they're quaffing is not a quality associated with vodka drinkers. Furthermore, if you chill your vodka, as most do, the differences diminish. And if you mix, as many more do, they are hardly discernible. But, what the hell? Vintage vodka. Why not, if the people want it? (And they seem to. The first vintage is all but sold out.) Particularly if the vodka is of as high a quality at Karlsson's. 

Vintage flavored vodkas, however, is where I am going to draw the line!

Here's my article: 

Vodka That’s No Small Potatoes

 By ROBERT SIMONSON

Vintages and vodka would seem to be mutually exclusive drinking concepts. Vintages belong to the world of wine, where weather and growing conditions can alter what ends up in the bottle from year to year. Vodka, meanwhile, can be distilled from any number of source materials, anywhere at anytime, and sold almost immediately. Nature’s many variables are not a big factor.

Karlsson’s, a boutique vodka company in Sweden, intends to give these preconceptions a good shake. The company has already earned a reputation for putting out an unusually distinctive vodka, one that tastes markedly of the potatoes from which it’s distilled. Now it has begun releasing “vintage” vodkas, each one distilled from a single potato variety, grown on a particular farm during a single season. No one, to the company’s knowledge, has done this before.

“The idea behind the company from the very beginning was to see if we can say something about what’s inside the bottle rather than what’s outside the bottle,” said Peter Ekelund, who founded Karlsson’s in 2007. “Will a vodka taste different if you pick different types of potatoes in different places?”

The company has built up a “library” of distillates, Mr. Ekelund said, each derived from different potatoes reaped from individual harvests. “We started with 30 different potatoes,” he said. “We found 15 were useless for making vodka.” The others were tested, experimented upon and cataloged. Just as with grapes, the company found that hot or wet weather can create distinct taste characteristics in potatoes.

The 2008 vintage, which sold briskly when it was released this year, used a hearty russet-skinned tuber known as Old Swedish Red, which, Mr. Ekelund said, was popular in Sweden a century ago. The 2009 vintage, to be released in November, was made with the Solist potato, a small, round, yellow specimen. (Both types are used in the seven-potato blend that constitutes the company’s standard vodka, Karlsson’s Gold.)

Jim Meehan, the cocktail authority who owns the East Village bar PDT, had a chance to taste the entire range of Karlsson’s vintage vodkas. “They’ve captured the nuances of each vodka’s terroir and typicity like a great winemaker does,” he said.

Though the variations in taste between the two vintages would probably vanish if either were mixed with tonic or soda, sipped neat they are apparent. The 2008 is earthy and robust, while the 2009 has a softer, more mellow flavor. (The company is rolling out the 2009 only now for reasons unrelated to aging, which has no effect on vodka unless it is barreled.)

Because of limited quantities — the 2009 will be released in an edition of about 1,980 bottles — the vodka does not come cheaply. The 2009 is priced at $80, which is $45 more than Karlsson’s Gold.

Mr. Ekelund hopes the vintage products will convince his countrymen to think more favorably of the lowly spud. “In my country, we have kind of looked down on potatoes as a source of food,” he said. “But it’s in the eye of the beholder.”

What Would Keats Drink?

Probably nothing, he was sick so much of his short life.

But that sad fact is no reason to get in the way of so silly an idea as a commemorative cocktail to mark the centenary of Poetry Magazine. (These days, it seems every event, no matter in what field, has to have a signature cocktail.)

Here's my account of the oddball libation:

Ode to a Cocktail

 By ROBERT SIMONSON

What would Keats drink?

On Thursday, at a celebration in Chicago honoring the centenary of Poetry magazine, guests will raise a cocktail created especially for the occasion. Named the Hippocrene — the mythological source of poetic inspiration — it is the work of Brian West, a web developer at Columbia College Chicago and cocktail enthusiast, and is primarily inspired by John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale.”

Mr. West became interested in mixology during the three and a half years he worked as Web producer for the Poetry Foundation, which publishes the magazine. When he was asked to create the drink, he said in an e-mail, he looked at the myth around the Hippocrene spring and the Pegasus, but also at a few lines from “Ode to a Nightingale.” As the tale goes, Pegasus — the winged horse that has long been the symbol of Poetry magazine — struck the mythical Mount Helicon, a peak sacred to the muses, and out gushed the Hippocrene.

The fountain is invoked in many poems, including “Ode to a Nightingale.” The lines Mr. West focused on came from the second stanza:

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

“It was obvious that we needed a sparkling wine,” said Mr. West, pointing to those “beaded bubbles winking” in the stanza’s seventh line. “I was also inspired by the line, ‘Tasting of Flora and the country green,’ to add some herbal notes with gin, mint, ginger and basil,” he said.

He found both Prosecco and Korbel Extra Dry performed nicely as the sparkling wine in his concoction, and for the gin — given Keats’s British heritage, what other base spirit would have been appropriate? — Mr. West thinks Ransom Old Tom Gin, Farmer’s Gin and Small’s Gin work best. The ginger in the drink comes in the form of ginger liqueur, and the mint arrives as mint tea. The drink also includes lemon juice, grapefruit juice and grapefruit bitters. (With so many glories of the garden in this concoction, surely Wordsworth would have joined Keats in a glassful.)

The event, where the cocktail will be unveiled, will also commemorate the publication of “The Open Door,” an anthology of 100 poems collected from Poetry’s archives, published by the University of Chicago Press. The magazine was founded in Chicago in 1912 by Harriet Monroe.

Japanese Whiskeys on the Rise

It was my first sip of Hibiki, the blended whiskey from the powerhouse distiller Suntory, that first opened my eyes to the possibilities of Japanese whiskey. That was back in 2010. I had tasted few whiskey blends that had as much flavor, depth and appeal. It remains my favorite of the Suntory products on the American market, but I've come to appreciate all four, as well as the two Nikka whiskeys that arrived late this year.

I realize that this half dozen is just the tip of the iceberg. While researching this article for the New York Times, I tasted samples of many more. (A favorite: Chita, Suntory's grain whiskey, which serves as the base of Hibiki. Unfortunately, it's not sold commercially.) I've rarely seen such consistency of quality in any liquor category the world over, not to mention elegance. Brandy Library's Flaven Desoblin was right on target when he said "Japanese whiskeys are very much the fine-wine-drinker’s take on whiskey."

Here's the article:

It's Fall in New York; There's Drinking to Do

The New York Times has done a fall restaurant preview for eons. This year, they decided the bar scene deserved its own article. It was my privilege and happiness to construct the inaugural specimen. Here it is:

Old Tom—New Again

I confess that I didn't drink a lot of Old Tom gin before researching this article for Imbibe magazine. I vaguely considered the resurgence of this forgotten, 19th-century liquor category of gin the twee offspring of niche-obsessed cocktail geekery, and a product of limited application. I was quite wrong. Every Old Tom recipe suggested to me produced delicious results. But if I only ever use the stuff to make Tom Collins in the future, that alone will justify its place in my bar.

Here's the piece:

New Orleans Already Bountiful Bar Scene Expands Further

Bartenders from around the U.S. have been making an annual summer journey to New Orleans for ten years now—ever since the liquor convention Tales of the Cocktail began in 2003. So it's only natural that some of them would get stuck on the place. With it's rich history of creating classic cocktails and plethora of beautiful old bars—not to mention the general joie de vivre of the place, New Orleans is made for the mixologist's temperament. The past years have seen the emigration of several notable mixers and shakers to the Crescent City—from New York, Minneapolis, Asheville and elsewhere. The direct and/or indirect result of this influx is a batch of new and worthy cocktail bars. In 2012, choosing where to drink in NOLA just got that much harder.

I wrote a roundup of a few (but not all) of the new places for The New York Times, visiting them all during the course of this years TOTC. I recommend them all. Here's the article:

Dale DeGroff Release Own Brand of Bitters

Branding bitters is not new. Writer Gary Regan started off the trend with his ground-breaking orange bitters several years ago. Now, legendary barman has followed his lead. Following a two-year effort, he has produced his own brand of cocktail bitters. I don't expect he is the last contemporary figure in the cocktail world who will slap his name on a bottle. Simon Ford, who recently left the employ of liquor giant Pernod-Ricard USA, will soon release a gin bearing his name. And I know of one bartender is in talks to lend his name to a new amaro. 

Here's the story I wrote on the new product for the Times: 

Bringing Back a Bitters With a Twist

By ROBERT SIMONSON

When Dale DeGroff, the pater familias of the craft cocktail movement, was working regularly behind a bar decades ago, he liked to use a strong, spicy liqueur called Pimento Dram to accent his drinks. But in the 1980s, the liqueur, made by the Jamaican rum distiller J. Wray & Nephew, disappeared from shelves in the United States.

“When they pulled it off the American market, I just couldn’t find anything like it,” Mr. DeGroff said. “I had to leave that flavor out of drinks.”

Now he has brought it (or something like it) back, but in the form of a bitters. After two years of work with the American-born, French-based distiller and chemist Ted Breaux — the man largely behind the absinthe revival of the past five years — Dale DeGroff’s Pimento Aromatic Bitters is finallyon sale online.

The past few years have seen a bitters boom. Where there were once two reigning products, Peychaud’s (needed for a sazerac) and Angostura (needed for almost everything else), there are now dozens, with a dizzying variety of flavors that lend themselves to very specific applications. That sort of narrow profile wasn’t what Mr. DeGroff was after.

“What I was looking for was a real versatile bitters,” Mr. DeGroff said. “It’s a combination of all those baking spices that you find in Angostura Bitters — which is to say ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove — along with just a touch of anise. And there’s a touch of dried orange peel.”

On his Web site, he suggests several cocktails, original and classic, into which a dash or two of Pimento Aromatic Bitters might be dropped. He even boldly suggests that it could supplant Peychaud’s in a sazerac. (“I offer this variation with humility and reverence for the original drink,” he writes.)

For now, curious drinkers can order only a 250-milliliter collector’s edition bottle, priced around $19. Standard 150-milliliter bottles will be available for sale online in September for $10. The bitters are currently made by Mr. Breaux at the Combier distillery in Saumur, France, but production may be moved to the United States in time, Mr. DeGroff said.

The feeling of punch-drunk absurdity that sometimes overwhelms my senses at the Tales of the Cocktail convention came on most strongly this year when I interviewed the dignified Count Branca, owner of Fernet Branca, and actor Ted Lange, the "Love Boat" star and author of one of television's most famous depictions of a bartender, on the same morning. It was a dizzying trip from high to low culture. Both men couldn't have been nicer, and Lange, to my surprise, knew a fair share about the bartending art. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find out what the man who was Isaac liked to drinks. Having been flown in by Disaronno, he was duty bound to declare the liquor he favorite tipple.

Here is my account of the two meetings in the Times:

Peru and Chile, At It Again

If you ever thought the rivalry between the Pisco-producing nations was a lot of hype, attending the Tales of the Cocktail seminar "Pisco Wars: Peru vs. Chile Since 1633," disabused you of that notion. Unlike many Tales panels, the event featured a minimum of brand tub-thumping, and actually featured some healthy debate, and not a little veiled animosity. Of the two parties, Charles de Bournet, representing Chile, was the more conciliatory. By the end of the talk, he was extending an olive branch to Peru, saying history was not as important as agreeing that both countries made fine Piscos, but of a different sort. Historian Guillermo Toro-Lira, arguing Peru's side, was having not of it. "Our stance is that there is only one Pisco," he said. When moderator Steve Olson challenged anyone to tell the different between Chilean Pisco (in which water can be added) and Peruvian Pisco (where water is forbidden) in a blind taste test, Toro-Lira said, "I'll take that challenge."

Here's my write-up for the New York Times:

Cachaça Looks to Its Future

Like a lot of people in the liquor world, I haven't spent a lot of time lately troubling my mind about the fate of Cachaça. Sure, it was fun falling in love with the Caipirinha several years ago. It was delicious and easy to make, and vaguely exotic. But the Cachaça folks haven't given us much of a follow-up thrill since then, and the industry battle to have the liquor recognized as a separate category by the American government (and not as "Brazilian rum") grew rather tedious after a while.

However, that campaign eventually succeeded. By summer's end, Cachaça will have gotten the respect from Washington D.C. that it so long desired. In other news, Diageo got into the Cachaça game, buying the huge Ypióca brand for $470 million. Clearly, Diageo things the sugar-cane booze has a future. Given those events, I felt it was time to reappraise the status of Cachaça in the United States.

Here's the story I wrote for the New York Times: