More on Drinking Myths

In my Dec. 7 New York Times article about popular drinking myths, I was only able to fit a portion of the commentary I culled from mixologists, bar owners and distillers. To trim the article down to the necessary 900 words, I had to dispense with many a wonderfully tart remark. Many were too good to lose. So I've gathered them here, arranged by topic. Enjoy.

THE DRY MARTINI

Derek Brown, Washington D.C. owner of The Passenger and Columbia Room: "I make my Dry Martini fifty-fifty, or equal parts, which will shock people who consider 'dry' leaving out the vermouth altogether. To them, I apologize, because it's likely as surprising as finding out that Pluto is no longer a planet or the Triceratops is no longer a dinosaur. Historically, the Dry Martini was equal parts, 2:1 or 3:1. Some time in the 1940-'50s, 50 or 60 years after the Dry Martini's invention, people began passing on the vermouth. Why? Because of dipsomania, I suppose. Macho writers like Hemingway left it out in his famous Montgomery (15:1) to make a political point, but also because vermouth is the least alcoholic part of the drink. It became popular. People would order super-dry Martinis without thinking. But without vermouth it's no more a Martini than gnawing at the leg of a cow is a steak. It's unfinished, unmixed."

THE PREJUDICE AGAINST THE SWEET DRINK

Frankie Marshall, bartender at Monkey Bar, Manhattan: "I hear this all the time, almost solely from men who are worried if what they've described as wanting to drink is a 'girly.' 'Does it come with an umbrella?' 'Is it pink?' Insert self-conscious 'he he,' then they're still looking at me as if to say meekly, 'Well... does it?' A lot of males also have a problem with glassware: champagne flutes and martini glasses in particular. Ok, so you'd like a cosmo but want me to put it in a shot glass?"

Alla Lapushchik, owner of Post Office, Williamsburg: "What I find interesting is that when people say they don't want soothing sweet, when you recommend something less sweet, they order a sweeter cocktail for the second drink."

Greg Seider, owner of Summit Bar, East Village: "There's a kind of question of manhood if you order a drink that is not so spirit-driven. But it still could be an amazing drink. It's all proportional. It's not necessarily going to be sweet. It's going to be balanced. But any mention of something sweet will dissuade them from trying it."

Derek Brown: "Oh, I love this one too. It plays to that masculine concept of drinking. It needs too be dry and it needs to be strong. Pardon me, but what about tasting good?"

Liquor and Its Myths

If you cover the drinking world, you can't help but take note of the ludicrious notions and habits people pick up in regard to how they order, drink and think about liquor. As much as mixologists like to think of the modern bar as a classroom, few barflies learn their lessons. Instead they cling to myth, superstition, marketing notions, and stuff they learned back in college or on television. Recently, I collected a number of the misguided, but stubborn beliefs stubbornly held by the American drinker into an article for the New York Times, drawing on the experiences and viewpoints of a couple dozen notes bartenders and distillers (of which I managed to cite an even dozen in the piece). As expected, the feature got a strongly positive response from the bartending community. What the public thought of it, I do not know. But if I've caused just one person to stop asking about the worm in mezcal or order their whiskey based on the age statement, I've done my work.

The Myths of the Bar, Debunked

By ROBERT SIMONSON

EDUCATING the average drinker on the qualities of firewater, and how to best enjoy it, has been one of the central credos of the new generation of mixologists. “Knowledge!” they cry, as they throw back shots of Fernet-Branca.

But some booze-addled misconceptions continue to cling like vines to the lizard brain of the American tippler. An army of bartenders can protest that a wetter martini is both more delectable and historically accurate, but certain committed fanciers of the cocktail, channeling their inner Gray Flannel Suit, will still maintain the drink attains perfection only at its driest, when vermouth is banished from the barroom.

Such antiquated contentions are like “nails on a chalkboard,” said Eric Alperin, an owner of the Varnish in Los Angeles. “I think the reason people stand by those myths is because it is a sound bite they’ve acquired, and a bar is a place to feel confident with yourself and exude a little know-how.”

Many reinforce a drinker’s virility, particularly with regard to the most manly of spirits — whiskey.

Some of those idées fixes:

OLDER IS BETTER “It’s absolute nonsense,” said Ronnie Cox, director of theGlenrothes, a Speyside Scotch. “It’s not about oldness, it’s about maturity. Age doesn’t mean anything other than that whiskey’s been in that cask for that amount of time.” Making whiskey requires finding the right balance among myriad elements. A few whiskeys prosper with advanced age, but many fall off a cliff into sensory disharmony at a certain point. Rittenhouse Rye 100, from Kentucky, takes only four years to reach the chewy, spicy sweet spot bartenders swear by. But the Old Pulteney 21-year-old Scotch probably needed to attain drinking age to hit its briny perfection.

Tonia Guffey, a bartender at Dram in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, offered an anthropomorphic analogy. “Not every human hits their peak of beauty at the same age,” she said, “and neither does every spirit.”

WATER IS AN ABOMINATION John McCarthy, head bartender at the Lower East Side bar Mary Queen of Scots, thinks the aversion to diluting whiskey is a matter of machismo. “We’re American men,” Mr. McCarthy said, “and if it doesn’t hurt, it’s not good!” But softening the blow, said Franky Marshall, a bartender at the Monkey Bar, is far from a bad thing. “Adding a little water to whiskey serves to ‘open up’ the spirit, releasing an array of subtler flavors. It can truly show you a completely different profile of a whiskey.” It’s also what most Scots do, and they ought to know. Alla Lapushchik, owner ofPost Office, a Williamsburg bar with a vast whiskey list, offers water even when customers don’t ask for it. “You don’t put water in beer or wine, so it doesn’t occur to people to do it with whiskey,” Ms. Lapushchik said. “I’ve had people order Booker’s 127 proof neat.”

SWEET IS SILLY Another fallacy that hurts the pride of many a modern mixologist is the widely held belief that sweet cocktails are inherently insipid. “I think expectations are still informed by the cocktails of the pre-craft era, when people added sour mix and cranberry cocktail,” said Tom Chadwick, owner of Dram, who insists that all his cocktails, even the sweet ones — like the bar’s current Loose Noose, a mix of bourbon, sweet vermouth, amontillado sherry, and touches of cinnamon syrup and allspice dram — are balanced, with the spirit, citrus, sweetener and other elements cohabiting in the glass. “It’s a way of communicating that you’re sophisticated — ‘I don’t want a Mudslide. I want something complicated.’ ”

GIVE THEM THEIR PROPS The reputation and quality of tequilas and mezcals has risen recently. But drinkers fall back on frat-boy practices, like asking for a lime and salt, a ritual that dates to the days of lousy tequilas. “I say, ‘Whatever spirit I serve you is good, ” said Ivy Mix, a bartender at the Clover Club in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, “and you don’t need to cover it up.’ ” Then there’s the worm in the mezcal bottle. “It was created by Gusano Rojo in the 1950s,” said Steve Olson, an owner of the Lower East Side tequila and mezcal bar Viktor & Spoils, of the widely sold mezcal brand, “when the tequila market had boomed and left mezcal far behind, as an enterprising marketing attempt to get mezcal away from its image as moonshine.”

MISCELLANEOUS MYTHS Despite the avalanche of articles after absinthe’s reintroduction to the United States a few years ago, some ideas about it remain rooted in the 1890s. Customers “really hope they’ll hallucinate,” said Maxwell Britten, beverage director at Maison Premiere, a Williamsburg bar well stocked with absinthe. “I tell them, ‘If you drink enough alcohol of any category, I guarantee you will hallucinate.’ ” Karin Stanley, a bartender at Dutch Kills, in Long Island City, Queens, rattled off her litany of ripostes: “ ‘No, you aren’t going to see anything’; ‘no, you aren’t going to cut your ear off’; and ‘yes, it is supposed to taste like that.’ ”

Other delusions as tough as jerky: that vodka has no calories and is better for you, Ms. Stanley said; that “Jägermeister is made with deer’s blood,” offered St. John Frizell, owner of Fort Defiance in Red Hook, Brooklyn; and that Irish whiskey brands are Catholic or Protestant, depending on where they’re made. “If you look into the ownership, it’s all international corporations,” Mr. Frizell said. “I don’t think the Irish even care.”

Odds are, many misconceptions will survive. The bar has ever been a greenhouse of hyperbole, folklore and rumor. “I’d say a good 30 percent of what’s said over the mahogany is generally baloney,” said Derek Brown, owner of the Passenger and Columbia Room in Washington. “Why wouldn’t that apply to myths about alcohol, too?”

Kosher for Passover Gin

What is permissible to drink at a Passover seder is terribly important to me. Having a Jewish wife, I am assured of attending two seders every year, and something is needed to get one through those four-to-five-hour ceremonies. 

I don't think I alone in my desperation. Otherwise, why would people be inventing things like Kosher for Passover gin? Obviously, there's a call for such a product. And No. 209 gin out of California was the first to answer it. The new gin bows this year. I wrote about it for Tasting Table:

A More Spiritual Spirit

The drinking options at the seder table keep getting better and better.

In the dark ages, the only option was sticky-sweet Manischewitz. Then a quality revolution gripped the wine world, and the seder's ceremonial cups became less of a trial and more of a pleasure.

Now, thanks to Distillery No. 209's new Passover-friendly gin, spirits lovers have something to celebrate.

To make kosher gin a reality, master distiller Arne Hillesland replaced No. 209's usual base spirit with a sugarcane vodka from a kosher-for-Passover distillery in South Africa.

Hillesland further altered his recipe by replacing cardamom (a no-no for Passover, since the herb comes in a pod) with California bay leaf, which has a strong menthol flavor. The resulting gin is similar to the standard 209, but the kosher version has a slightly sharper flavor and more viscous mouthfeel.

The costly process of making a kosher alternative--which includes hiring a mashgiach (a kosher supervisor) to oversee production--raises the price to $39 a bottle, about $4 more than the regular No. 209. But so far people have been willing to pay the premium: Hillesland says sales have been brisk.

So this year, have a martini (or one of these cocktails) with your matzo brei. Just remember to mix it with kosher-for-Passover vermouth--yes, it does exist.

—Robert Simonson

No. 209's usual base is corn-derived.

To ensure that the California Bay Leaf Hillesland used in the gin was kosher, and wasn't touched by any suspect machinery, the distiller actually picked the leaves from the trees himself.

The Kosher-for-Passover No. 209 will only be available in New York, New Jersey and California this year. Hillesland made 800 cases. He thinks they'll sell.

Dry Dock Wine Shop to Open in Red Hook Tomorrow

Dry Dock, the new wine and liquor store on Van Brunt Street, in Red Hook, a couple blocks from Fairway, will officially open tomorrow, Feb. 11.

I got a sneak peak at the store today. Looks like they have a decent selection of wine; I'm guessing about 200 different labels, including at least one selection from the nearby Red Hook Winery. Reds dominate, with whites relegated to the back of the shop. The liquor selection, too, seems fairly broad. A wide selection of bourbons and ryes seems to indicate they are somewhat intent on filling the hole left by the late, lamented LeNell's.

It Came From Thailand

I first encountered Mekhong, the national spirit of Thailand, in a tasting room at the 2009 Tales of the Cocktail convention in New Orleans. I had never heard of it, and wouldn't say it was exactly love at first sip, but I couldn't get around the fact that I had never tasted anything quite like it. The flavor staid with me, and since then I've seen it put to good use in several New York cocktails. Here's an article I wrote about the spirit for the January/February issue of Imbibe:

A YEAR OR SO AGO, few had ever heard of the Thailand-made distillate Mekhong other than the Thais themselves, Far East tourists and fans of the Pogues. Yes, the Pogues. The spirit is mentioned on the Irish band’s 1990 album Hell’s Ditch: “She gave me Mekhong whiskey/Put me on a breeze to Kathmandu.” But the Pogues got it wrong. Mekhong isn’t whiskey, though its copper color might fool you into thinking so. What is it? That’s a little tricky.

Describing Mekhong as a spiced Thai rum would, perhaps, be easiest, but not very accurate, or fair. The spirit is, like some rums, primarily distilled from sugar cane, but it’s blended with a five-percent injection of rice distillate, giving the flavor a distinct, sake-like backbone. Add an infusion of native Thai herbs and spices and you get something that doesn’t resemble anything else on the back bar: a light (70-proof), vaguely exotic spirit smacking of toffee, citrus, nuts and
vanilla.

The initial U.S. marketing plan was to place Mekhong in Thai and Asian restaurants, where it would have a ready clientele. But when it was discovered that many of these places lacked liquor licenses, the company that owns the brand turned to the craft cocktail movement. Today, Mekhong is rolling out across the United States and already appearing on cocktail menus in New York, Chicago, Miami and Boston. Bartenders have found that it combines surprisingly well with other cocktail ingredients, from herbal Chartreuse to spicy ginger to rich chocolate bitters. “Mekhong mixes so well,” says John Freeman, head bartender at Elizabeth in Manhattan. “The reason you get a different flavor profile than what you might get from rum is because of that five percent rice.”

In Thailand, spirits don’t have the long pedigrees that they enjoy in, say, Scotland or Kentucky. Mekhong, in fact, is the country’s first domestically produced, branded spirit. The Sirivadhanabhakdi family created the spirit in 1941 and still runs the company today. They named their product after the Mekhong River, which flows along Thailand’s eastern border—a good choice, as shortly thereafter the French attempted to divert the river out of Thailand, and Mekhong sales were
boosted by a wave of nationalistic Thai pride. It quickly grew to 20 million cases a year during that period (today productions stands at 1 million cases a year).

Fortunately, Americans don’t need an international incident for an excuse to drink Mekhong. The exotic taste, and the novelty, are more than enough temptation.
—Robert Simonson

Red Stag Doing Just Fine

Jim Beam is doing just fine with its first major launch in Jim Beam Black—the black-cherry-infused bourbon Red Stag.

I figured the red stuff was performing all right; I've seen it in plenty of back bars around New York (more in standard taverns than in high end bars so far). But the people at Jim Beam recently told me that, in the four or five months since the product was introduced, it's moved 90,000 cases, making it what they call the biggest launch in whiskey ever. For now, the distribution is limited to the U.S, but with that kind of success out of the gate, that policy won't last long.

The mind behind Red Stag is one Tom Wilkins, who, if you believe the story, had been mulling over the idea in the back of his head for years before Beam finally took a stab at it. Many names were played with, but Wilkins' original one is the name they went with. Red Stag is made by infusing four-year-old bourbon with fruit essence; no actual whole fruit is used in the process. I asked the Beams folks about the phrase on the label, "Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Infused With Natural Flavors," and if they tussled with the government over the exact wording. No, they said. Surprisingly they had no problem whatsoever.

What's not on the bottle is the word "liqueur." For whatever reason, Beam seems averse to calling Red Stag a liqueur, though, technically, as it is alcoholic beverage that has been flavored and sweetened, it is by definition a liqueur. One of the Beam people explained to me that a liqueur bears the connotation of possibly containing suspect ingredients, but that doesn't really pan out. There may be some such liqueurs on the market, but there are also many, many, fine, upstanding liqueurs. Perhaps the word "liqueur" don't register as a positive with their designated target audience. Moreover, Jim Beam invented the drink to introduce non-bourbon drinkers to bourbon, not introduce non-bourbon drinkers to liqueurs.

Bad Liquor Advertising

After years of surveying liquor advertising in subways car and stations, on the sides of buses, on bus shelters and telephone booths, and on the side of huge buildings in Times Square, it is my general contention that most liquor advertising is mind-numbingly, sense-offendingly bad. The approach of most campaigns appears to be to play to the sense of screamingly bad taste that apparently living in the core of us all.

Vodka is the greatest offender. I can think of few vodka ads right now that don't cause me to involuntarily turn away in revulsion. Gin is usually on the more dignified side. Take this Tanqueray ad. There are no trashy women in sight, no tattooed men. And I can live with the slogan "Resist Simple," even is the word "Simple" is reverse mirrored version of itself.

But, "Depth Your Mouth Can See"? It's a sentence any self-respected English major (as I am) would rebel against on sight. That phrase has a few miles to go if it's going to see the city limits of clever. And, somehow, the word "see" and "mouth" in the same sentence makes my stomach flip a bit. If resisting simple means the embracing of incomprehensible sentiments, I'll take simple.