A Cocktail Book for Your iPad

Cocktails books can be frustrating. You're given the recipe and a few instructions, but that doesn't necessarily lead to a great drink. Much is lost or unspoken between the page and the glass. And how-to cocktail videos aren't much better, simply because they're not convenient. Who mixes a drink while sitting in front of a television or computer screen?

A new iPad book would seem to combine the pluses of these two formats and shed the minuses. I had a chance to browse through "Speakeasy Cocktails: Learn from the Modern Mixologists," and found it quite fluid and visually attractive. It was released on Aug. 11. Here's the article I wrote about it for the Times:

Mixing Drinks on Your Lap With No Spills

By Robert Simonson 

Now subway riders can use their iPads not just to catch up on the latest best seller, but to prepare for the cocktail hour that awaits them at home.

On Aug. 11, “Speakeasy Cocktails: Learn from the Modern Mixologists,” a cocktail book for the iPad, will be released by Open Air Publishing. It was created by the New York mixologists Jim Meehan (of PDT) and Joseph Schwartz (Little Branch); Rob Willey, a freelance writer who has written about drinks for The New York Times and other publications, and Jon Feldman, president of Open Air.

The book — which will be available for $9.99 through the iPad apps store — combines text with the how-to mixology videos. A reader can surf from a scholarly treatise on tequila to a list a tequila-based cocktails. Click on a specific cocktail and you’re transported to the recipe. With select libations, there’s an accompanying video of either Mr. Meehan or Mr. Schwartz building the drink at their respective bars. Specific techniques (how to stir, shake, cut a twist, rim a glass with salt, even how to adorn a Pisco Sour with a swirl of bitters) are covered in separate linked video clips.

“It’s a little bit of everything,” Mr. Schwartz said. “You get the recipe, but also someone making it, so you can see how it’s put together. And you learn the finer points of different kinds of ice, how to flame an orange peel — lots of different pointers that you can access piecemeal as you need them.”

“Speakeasy Cocktails” will feature more than 200 cocktail recipes. They are divided into four sections: “Master Drinks” (time-tested formulas that work with almost any base spirit); “The Canon,” which covers classic cocktails; “Rediscovered Classics,” including old drinks that have been resurrected in recent years; and “New Standards,” libations invented by today’s crop of ambitious mixologists, including Kirk Estopinal of New Orleans’ Cure, Jackson Cannon of Eastern Standard in Boston, and Kevin Ludwig of Beaker & Flask in Portland, Ore. There are videos for 15 bedrock cocktails, including the daiquiri, negroni and bloody Mary. “The drinks were picked not only because they were classic drinks,” said Mr. Feldman, “but because each had multiple components of technique to demonstrate.”

“I made a point of talking about every single thing I was doing,” added Mr. Meehan.

A number of drinks feature an “after” picture that can be rotated 360 degrees, showing how the completed drink should appear. “Some drinks look the same from every angle, like a sazerac,” Mr. Feldman said. “With the mint julep, Jim explains how you want the mint to be away from the nose. So a person making that at home can see what that drink should look like from the back.”

“In some places we wanted the text to function almost as the guy on the barstool next to you,” said Mr. Willey, “like, ‘See, you’ve really got to shake the thing.’ “

The Sipping News

New York cocktails crowd the $20 mark. While this is true at some new places, like the Lambs Club, the article—typical for the sensationalistic Post—is misleading. At most of the bars they mention (PDT, Pegu Club, Milk & Honey, etc.), the average price is still around $14. However, that is an increase from the $13 price tag that was the norm a year ago. [NY Post]

It also now costs more to drink on the Long Island Railroad. [Gothamist]

Another boast from the Post: Sherry is popular again. I wish it were so. [NY Post]

West Village cocktail joint Little Branch will be adding a cafe upstairs (aka street level). [The Villager, via Eater]

Jimmy, a new rooftop cocktail bar in the James Hotel, has opened in SoHo. This, unfortunately, is one of those places that offers $18 cocktails. Since it's partly founded by Hotel Griffou's Johnny Swet and Larry Poston, whose cocktails I've tasted at Griffou, I'm not sure the price is warranted. But I will reserve judgment until I try them. [Eater]

Japanese wineries (huh?) are trying to turn table grape Koshu into world-class wine. [Times]

Got a Neighborhood? Here's Your Drink

I started noticing the geographic specialization of cocktail names a couple years ago, when I read about the Red Hook, a seeming spin on the Manhattan that added Maraschino liqueur to the rye and sweet vermouth. Then I learned about The Slope, an invention of Julie Reiner. Another spin on the Manhattan, this one added apricot brandy. Hm, my reporter's brain hummed. A trend?

Little did I know. I suggested a story to Time Out New York about such locally named drinks and began to investigate. I found a Greenpoint, a Cobble Hill, a Bensonhurst, a Little Italy, a Brooklyn Heights, an East Village Globe Trotter. Someone said there was a Williamsburg (I never found it). Brooklyn, it seems, is running out of neighborhood to name drinks after, though, strangely, there is no Carroll Gardens cocktail, even though the nabe is surrounded by new cocktails on add sides (the Cobble Hill to the north, Red Hook to the south, The Slope to the east).

The wellspring of most of these concoctions, I learned, is Sasha Petraske's Milk & Honey, where a few years back all the bartenders decided to challenge each other to create new spins on the Brooklyn cocktail (rye, sweet vermouth, Amer Picon, Marascino liqueur). Enzo Errico was the first out of the gate with the Red Hook. The Greenpoint (created by Michael McIlroy), Bensonhurst (Chad Solomon) and Cobble Hill (Sam Ross) followed.

(My estimation that it was a riff on the Manhattan was wrong, but, hey, the Manhattan and Brooklyn are so similar is their bases. It was an easy mistake to make. I should have been tipped off by the name: Red Hook is part of Brooklyn, not Manhattan.)

It took a lot of doing, but I finally gathered all the threads together into an article, which Time Out has run today with a lot of pictures. Here it is:

Local flavor

By Robert Simonson

The New York bartenders of the 19th and 20th centuries showed their hometown pride by giving the world the Bronx cocktail, the Brooklyn, and most famously, the Manhattan. Mixologists of the aughts have gotten even more specific: Drinks are being named after Gotham neighborhoods at a furious rate—most of them descended from those granddaddies, the Brooklyn and the Manhattan (though the Bronx cocktail’s mix of gin, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth and orange juice was a sensation a century ago, it doesn’t seem to be inspiring many tributes these days). Of course, the whole idea of geographical cocktails is arguably a misapprehension. The Manhattan, after all, wasn’t named after the island, but in honor of a swanky club. The Bronx, one story goes, commemorates the zoo, not the home of the Yankees. Still, all that backstory doesn’t mean you can’t show your NYC pride by raising one of these libations skyward.

THE MANHATTAN

One of the most profound mixed drinks of all time, it was reputedly created at the Manhattan Club on Madison Square in the 1870s. By the next decade, it was ubiquitous and wildly popular. Virtually any competent barkeep can make one work; the Manhattan has never gone completely out of style. Try one in the dignified setting of Bemelmans Bar (The Carlyle, 35 E 76th St at Madison Ave, 212-744-1600; $16.75).

Recipe:

2 oz rye whiskey
1 oz sweet vermouth
Dash of Angostura's bitters
Cherry garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up (no ice) and garnish with a cherry.


LITTLE ITALY

A classic creation of Audrey Saunders, owner of Pegu Club (77 W Houston St between West Broadway and Wooster St, 212-473-7348; $13) and one of the high priestesses of the cocktail revolution. “I named it the Little Italy as I was using the Manhattan cocktail as a frame for it, and wanted to give a nod to the ingredient Cynar,” she says. This Italian-American Manhattan is bitter, sweet, classic and dramatic—like the people.

Recipe:

2 oz Rittenhouse 100-proof rye
1/2 oz Cynar
3/4 oz Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth
Luxardo cherry garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up and garnish with a Luxardo cherry.


THE SLOPE

“I love Manhattans, and am always playing around with them,” says Julie Reiner, Slope inventor and owner of Flatiron Lounge (37 W 19th St between Fifth and Sixth Aves, 212-727-7741; $13) and Clover Club (210 Smith St between Baltic and Butler Sts, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn; 718-855-7939; $11). “Not much of a story, but that’s it.” The Slope is richer than a Manhattan, owing to the apricot brandy and Punt y Mes—a liquid fruitcake (in a good way).

Recipe:

2 oz Rittenhouse rye
3/4 oz Punt y Mes sweet vermouth
1/4 oz Apricot brandy
Angostura bitters
Cherry garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up and garnish with a cherry.


THE BROOKLYN

“It first popped up in the 1910s, probably as a response to the Manhattan,” says cocktail historian David Wondrich. As for the drink, it’s like a Manhattan, just a bit rougher and more complex. Sort of like Brooklyn itself. The once-popular Amer Picon, a bitter-orange cordial, has sadly been off the American market for decades. Try the version at Weather Up (589 Vanderbilt Ave between Bergen and Dean Sts, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn; no phone; $11). There’s no Amer Picon, which results in a slightly sweeter drink. But three fourths of a good cocktail is better than none.

Recipe:

1 oz rye
1/2 oz sweet vermouth (early recipes use dry vermouth)
Dash Amer Picon
Dash maraschino liqueur
Cherry garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up and garnish with a cherry.


RED HOOK

The recent streak of NYC-named cocktails began in 2004, when Vincenzo Errico (Milk & Honey) concocted the Red Hook as a 21st-century answer to the Brooklyn. The drink so wowed other bartenders that they countered with their own riffs. The maraschino defines this one; it’s a Brooklyn with a cherry center. Try it at Little Branch (20 Seventh Ave South at Leroy St, 212-929-4360; $13) or White Star.

Recipe:

2 oz rye
1/2 oz Punt e Mes sweet vermouth
1/2 oz maraschino liqueur
Maraschino cherry garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up and garnish with a cherry.


GREENPOINT

Michael Mcilroy, a regular bartender at Sasha Petraske’s taverns, created the Greenpoint as a response to Errico’s Red Hook. The moniker plays on the hue of the chartreuse, which is the key to this beautiful creation, planting a core of herbal notes in a Brooklyn framework. Coincidentally, Mcilroy ended up living in the namesake neighborhood. Order it at Little Branch or White Star (21 Essex St between Canal and Hester Sts, 212-995-5464; $10).

Recipe:

2 oz rye
1/2 oz Yellow Chartreuse
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
Dash orange bitters
Dash Angostura bitters
Lemon peel garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up and garnish with a twist of lemon peel.


BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

Maxwell Britten, head bartender at Jack the Horse Tavern (66 Hicks St at Cranberry St, Brooklyn Heights, 718-852-5084; $10), was well aware of the Red Hook, the Greenpoint and every other borough-inspired drink out there when he invented this spin on the Brooklyn cocktail last year. “The idea came after many nights watching the seasons out the window of the bar,” he says. It’s a complex, yet calming wintertime treat, a Brooklyn edged by the bitter Campari and warmed by sparks of cinnamon and allspice coming off the Abano.

Recipe:

Campari in a spray bottle
1 1/2 oz Rittenhouse 100-proof rye
1/4 oz Luxardo Amaro Abano
1/2 oz Luxardo maraschino liqueur
1/2 oz Noilly Prat dry vermouth
2 dashes Regan’s orange bitters

Spritz glass with Campari. Pour remaining ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into a cocktail glass, serve up.

I Am in Love With This Spoon

Anyone who's interested in wine and spirits and cocktails, is interested in the equipment and paraphernalia that surrounds the creation and service of these libations. The more arcane and unique the tool, the brighter the gleam in the eye the drink nut.

The above is a spoon-straw. It was served with my Mint Julep during a recent visit to Little Branch. Said drink was piled so high wish shaved ice, a straw was the only way I was going to get at the Bourbon. I fell in love with it immediately. It's made of metal, in case you can't tell. The handle is hollow, opening at the top and behind the spoon. The thing is not only eminently useful, it adds a handsome accent to the drink.

I'll be honest. I was so enamored with the knick-knack I was ready to swipe it. Then I saw in the cocktail menu that the spoon-straws were for sale for the low-low price of $2. So I came by the item honestly and it now adorns my homemade Juleps.

One Derby, Three Juleps

I am back, readers, from my B.A.R. exam and I can't remember when I last felt so utterly exhausted. I'll have more to say about the experience in coming weeks, but for now let me talk about how, beverage-wise, I well honored the Kentucky Derby today.

I kinda like horse-racing, as sports go, but I do not get to the track very often. In fact, I've been to exactly one horse race, and that was harness racing, which, as I understand it, is an equine sport that slightly embarrasses true horse-racing fans.

BUT, I like the idea of the Derby. The pomp. The dressing up. The betting. The sporting life. And the iconic drink, The Mint Julep. Feeling like a more skilled drinkmaker after going to B.A.R., I made myself a Julep with a bottle of Buffalo Trace bourbon I just bought. I'm growing fresh mint in my window, so I'm well ahead of the game. I realize, however, that I'm not yet a master of the crushed ice needed for the drink. My cocktail seemed a little watery.

Later, while in Manhattan, I stopped by Little Branch in the Village. They were ready for me. The sharp barkeep offered to make me one of three different Juleps. I chose one called a Jersey Julep. It featured Apricot Liqueur. Apricot Liqueur has been on my mind since Tuesday, when Robert Cooper—who invented St. Germain elderflower liqueur, and who took the B.A.R. course with me—bought a bottle at Astor Place Wine and Spirits and gave me a sip. Yum. The drink was tasty, if a bit off-balance. The bourbon and apricot didn't quite meld. And the bartender knew his ice. The glass was topped by a veritable mound of shaved ice, which never melted!

On the way home, I stopped by Jake Walk in Brooklyn. I was shocked to heard from the Bartender that my Julep was the first that had been ordered that day. What is wrong with these people? I perfectly good excuse to drink a special cocktail and they blow it? They made it differently here, not building it, but gently shaking it, and serving it on the rocks. Still, it tasted as a julep should, and put my to shame.