A Half Century of Heineken

I love Tommy Rowles, the bartender at Bemelmans Bar on the Upper East Side. With 51 years of experience, he a living repository of New York drinking history. But I can't fathom his seeming lack of interest in what he does or makes. Half a century making mixed drinks, serving the elite and at one celebrated moment working alongside Audrey Saunders, and he still things Heineken is a good thing to drink and that a good Martini has no vermouth in it. I guess it's a simple case of a old dog having learned his tricks long ago, when Martinis were preferred super dry and Heineken was an exotic foreign beer.

Anyway, at least he's honest and free of pretense. Here's an interview with him in today's New York Times:

Drinks for Truman, a Beatle and the Next Guy In

It was the year the Brooklyn Dodgers split for Los Angeles. The year “Gigi” swept the Oscars. The year American Express introduced its charge card. The year the young Dubliner Tommy Rowles went wandering into Bemelmans Bar, looking for a bathroom and ending up behind the bar. Fifty-one years later, Mr. Rowles, 69, is still at it, pouring drinks at the chic Madison Avenue boîte in the Carlyle, under the New York whimsicalities of Ludwig Bemelmans, the artist who created Madeline. Mr. Rowles drives in daily from Pearl River across the Hudson. His shift: 11 a.m to 6 p.m.

Who comes into a bar at 11 o’clock? Oh, this is the Carlyle. We don’t talk about our guests.

Favorite libation: All I drink is Heineken.

Easiest drink to make: A martini. Just don’t use vermouth.

The road to the bar exam: I came here in ’58, with $80, from Dublin. I was 18. I left school at 14. My dad died when I was 2, my mom cleaned houses. She was educated. She taught English literature, but they paid her more to clean houses than to teach. In The Irish Echo I found a room for rent on Madison and 96th. I was looking for a job in an Irish bar, but I walked down Madison. There were no bars on Madison. I had to go to the bathroom because I had been up late drinking beers. I walked into the Carlyle. A guy said, “What do you want?” I said: “Mind your own business. I want an Irish bar.” We talked. He said, “Do you have black socks and black shoes?” I said, “Who doesn’t have black socks and black shoes?” He said, “Come in tomorrow.”

Most memorable moment. My fourth customer was Harry Truman. He came in and asked me, “Go outside and tell me what you see.” I looked outside and I saw six guys with cameras, four guys with microphones and a reporter with a pad and pen. He said, “If you had to walk 15 blocks with these guys following you, you’d need a drink too.”

Best tip: A wedding party finished and came in here. They drank and gave me $500. I said, “Excuse me, no, this is hundreds.” They said, “It’s O.K.”

Echoes of Camelot: I served Bobby and Teddy, but not Jack. When they know they’re running, they don’t go into bars. Jackie came in. She was not a drinker. She was class.

Happy hours: The friendliest person I ever served was Paul McCartney. And Jack Lemmon. Remember him in “The Apartment”?

Greatest sorrow: My wife, Elizabeth, died on New Year’s, five years after a heart attack and two massive strokes. We married in ’68. We met at the City Center Ballroom. She had a white dress on. I said, “I’m going to marry you.” She said: “In your dreams. In your dreams.” I knew when I met her, but it took me a long time to persuade her. The only way I’d get married again is if she was reincarnated.

Greatest joy: My girl, she’s 37. She’s having a baby. I hope it’s a girl. Girls are great for dads and granddads.

Hobby: [He makes a beer-drinking motion.]

Where you’ll find him at his hobby: Doyler & Dunney’s in New City. You go in there, the bar is good, the service is great, the food is great.

Exercise secrets of a bartender: I’m a walker. If you drink beer, you have to walk. I walk four miles weekdays with a partner.

Most amazing revelation: There’s no recession on the Upper East Side, I can tell you.

Fernet Branca Love on Rise in New York

The other day I went to my local Brooklyn liquor store for a bottle of Fernet Branca. I needed it for research; I was testing some drinks that were to be included with a coming article of mine. I don't typically buy Fernet for pleasure. Don't get me wrong. I've got nothing against it; I love many an Italian amaro. But I appreciate Fernet more than I actually enjoy it.

Anyway, when I was at the checkout, the cashier mentioned how they had had trouble lately keeping Fernet in stock. At one point they had run out and had to quickly order a new and larger shipment. This surprised me. Fernet's always been an acquired taste, and San Francisco acquired it long, long ago. But New York's never been know as a Fernet town to my knowledge. I consulted with Damon Boelte, the bar manager down at Prime Meats. Damon likes Fernet, both the regular and the Menta, and I know that he showcases a couple Fernet based drinks at his joint. I asked if he shopped at the liquor store in question. He affirmed he did, and probably contributed to its depletion of stock. But, I wondered, is that all? Or is there more to the story?

I contacted Laura Baddish at the Baddish Group, which reps Fernet Branca in the U.S. to see if sales of the bitter had spiked in New York. Eureka! Indeed they had. Baddish said sales of Fernet Branca had increased in the New York metro area by more than 50% since January 2009. That's some climb. She said the increase is due to the number of outlets buying the product (on and off premise), and the amount being sold by those who buy is increasing as well.

It could very well be that a lot of overzealous, inventive, amaro-loving bartenders are mainly responsible for the uptick in Fernet sales. But I suspect it's a little more than that. As far as I can see, people seem to like the Fernet-based drinks going around. And once you develop a taste, you may ask for it at another place, which is then forced to carry Fernet; or you just bring the Fernet home and drink it there. But 50% is 50%. Something's going on.

So, as a Fernet-loving city, does this means we're all sophisticated and stuff?

The Situation at Summit

The new East Village cocktail bar Summit has gotten a lot of press in the few months it's been open. I'm going to give it a little more.

I paid my first visit a few days ago and was waited upon by owner Greg Seider himself, a friendly fellow with a laid-back mein who eschews arm garters and vests for a white t-shirt. The debut menu was still be handed out to customers, but Greg informed me that the winter menu would be unveiled the next night. Though I was a day early, he gave me a sneak sip of two coming attractions. I am writing this post because one of the drinks was incredibly good, simply one of the best new cocktails I've had all year.

It's called, queerly enough, the Situation, and one could be in worse situations. It sits upon a base of raisin-infused Rittenhouse rye. To that is added caraway seed-infused agave syrup. (Seider swears by agave as his sweetener of choice.), lemon juice, Fee's whiskey barrel bitters, and a combo of Fee's and Regan's orange bitters. It's shaken and poured over ice. To this frothy end are added a sprinkling of rye-saturated golden raisins, which makes for a nice little dessert at the bottom of the glass.

Now think about those ingredients: rye, caraway seeds, raisins. What do they remind you of? That's right. Raisin rye bread. That's the idea Seider began with. Not that the drink tastes like something you want to wrap around a piece of pastrami. But it's an ideal, warming winter drink. It's goes down like a dream, no flavor out of place. Seider admitted is was one of the favorite drinks he had ever come up with.

The other drink was called She Loves Me, She Loves Me not. Unsurprisingly, rose petals play a part. They're muddled into the Pisco-based cocktail, which is served up and topped with a couple edible pedals. It was a sight to see Greg pull out a plastic contained filled with fresh rose petals from the fridge. Now there's an ingredient you don't see every day. And he had buckets of them, in different shades, too. The petals give the drink a pink hue, which will undoubtably appeal to the ladies. Folks, your Valentine's Day cocktail has already arrived.

I'd like to also say that it's nice to see a New York bar owner actually behind the bar for a change.

Top of the Morning to You!

Sometimes my job treats me very well.

For a recent article in the New York Times, I was forced to explore at various bars in Brooklyn and Manhattan the world of morning and afternoon cocktails. I drank Clover Clubs and Ramos Gin Fizzes and Bourbon Milk Punches and Corpse Revivers and many another drink you've never heard of, all while munching of various comestibles, which only rarely didn't feature bacon. Decadence was never so civilized.

It's been a pleasure in recent months seeing some of the best cocktails bars in New York City throw open their doors before the sun goes down. And it's been a convenient pleasure, since more of the trailblazers in this movement—Clover Club, Ft. Defiance, Prime Meats—are an easy walk from my home.

Here's the article:

The Final Frontier? It’s an Eye-Opener

By Robert Simonson

ON a recent Sunday, at Clover Club, six young women giddily compared impressions of their mixed drinks. Nothing unusual in that. People come to this tavern in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, expressly to indulge in finely honed cocktails. But the sun, slanting brightly through the front windows, glinted off the iced glasses. And at the next table a young couple coddled their newborn. It was noon.

Drinking at brunch is nothing new, of course. But brunching at places where people go mainly to drink is.

Clover Club is one of several bars known for alcoholic alchemy that are exploring daylight drinks that go beyond the bloody mary and the mimosa.

At Fort Defiance in Red Hook, Brooklyn, you can begin your weekend with a New Orleans-style bourbon milk punch. A meal baptized with a Breakfast Cocktail, made of Old Tom gin, dry vermouth and orange marmalade, is available at noon Saturday and Sunday at Henry Public in Cobble Hill. And Mayahuel of the East Village has decided that many of its tequila and mezcal-based concoctions are well suited for brunch.

Among the bars letting the sunshine in out West are the Alembic in San Francisco and the Hungry Cat in Los Angeles. At both you are on sound footing ordering the ornate Ramos Gin Fizz, arguably the most storied of the forgotten morning drinks and certainly the most complicated (it has eight ingredients, including orange flower water).

“I found that cocktail-wise, there was a lack of variety” during the day, said the Clover Club’s owner, Julie Reiner, whose trailblazing brunch is a favorite of brownstone dwellers as well as bartenders. “People focused on having a great bloody mary, but other than that, there wasn’t much.”

The shift in hours has been driven by both passion and necessity. “Everybody always talked about brunch as a reason to go drink early on Sunday,” said Phil Ward, owner of Mayahuel. “But most places I’ve ever been, they’ve never had anything I wanted to drink.” Mr. Ward conceded, however, that he had another motivation. “The more you’re open, the more profit you make.”

Establishing a brunch trade often requires a few new hires because most bartenders, like vampires, are not morning people. “My night staff, heaven forbid they should ever have to work brunch,” Ms. Reiner said, laughing.

The notion of sunrise tipples is an old one. In the 19th century, it was not unusual for a gentleman to begin his day with a bracer at a tavern. “You always read about these ‘eye-openers,’ ‘fog-cutters,’ ‘phlegm-cutters,’ ‘morning glories,’ ” said St. John Frizell, who owns Fort Defiance. “They were arguably more popular than cocktails at night.”

But as the 20th century rolled along, a stigma was attached to daytime drinking. Perhaps because of this, “eye-openers” are among the last classic drinks to be resurrected by the current cocktail renaissance. “It’s kind of the last frontier for cocktails,” Mr. Frizell said.

What makes a morning drink? The category can be divided into two families: the nutritional and the effervescent — these drinks either feed you or wake you up. The nutritional contain ingredients associated with breakfast, like eggs (the Ramos Gin Fizz), milk (Bourbon Milk Punch), coffee (Irish Coffee) or juice (the bloody mary). The wake-ups take on a dose of Champagne (the mimosa or French 75) or cava (used in Phil Ward’s Agridulce Royale), or just plain seltzer (as in the Italian Fizz — a Fernet-Branca and sweet vermouth mixture — at Prime Meats in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn). Otherwise, said Ms. Reiner, daytime drinks veer toward “lighter liquors,” like gin, or “lighter flavors,” like lemon juice.

As bar owners loosen their twilight image, so are their customers loosening their inhibitions. “They don’t feel that there is any taboo anymore,” said Tim Staehling, the general manager of The Hungry Cat, which also has a bar in Santa Barbara, Calif. “It’s ‘Bring it on.’ ”

While the revolution has begun, the old guard hangs in. Most bar owners admit that half their daytime drinks are bloody marys, although they offer three or four versions. The mimosa, though, has been blackballed. “The thing with a Champagne drink in the morning is the effervescence of the wine helps to clean out your mouth of that layer of gunk from the night before.” Mr. Frizell said. “When you add orange juice, you’re just adding a new layer of gunk.”

F. Paul Pacult Founds "Ultimate Beverage Challenge"

Hot of the Heels of New York getting it's own cocktail convention in the new Manhattan Cocktail Classic comes news that New York will in 2010 play host to a new wine and spirits competition.

Called Ultimate Beverage Challenge (UBC), it was founded by well-known spirits journalist, author, educator and critic F. Paul Pacult (above), wine and spirits publishing industry veteran David Talbot, and Spirit Journal managing editor Sue Woodley. The trio will be tacking not only spirits, but wine and cocktails in a three-tiered event stretched over four months.

The first competition will be the Ultimate Spirits Challenge, which will test all distilled spirits categories, including shochu. It will take place March 1-3, 2010. The second chapter is called the Ultimate Cocktail Challenge, in which spirits will be judged on how well they perform in classic cocktails. That occurs on April 12-14, 2010. Finally comes the Ultimate Wine Challenge, for the evaluation of fine still, sparkling, and fortified wines, which will be held on June 7-11, 2010.

Like the Manhattan Cocktail Classic, all the competitions will take place at the Astor Center in the East Village.

The new competition is setting great store by a new method of judging liquor, and a new way of approaching award-giving. Many competitions have recently come under fire for the profligate way they doll out medals (notably in a recent, lengthy article in Malt Advocate in which Pacult was interviewed). If fact, at many bouts, it's hard for a bottle to walk away without a medal, rendering the awards nearly meaningless as consumer yardsticks.

In a press statement, David Talbot said, “We’ll be using a unique multilevel scoring system, designed for UBC by Paul, which is based upon the 100-point scale. UBC results will more consistently and accurately recognize benchmark and superb products, setting them apart from the merely average. Producers will gain the maximum benefits for products that win high scores because those products will have earned authoritative accolades rather than ubiquitous medals.”

The UBC plans to be very precise in its judging. Spirits will be "served in proper glassware at ideal serving temperatures. Vodkas will be served to judges chilled. Cask strength whiskeys will be judged both with and without water dilution.” The cocktail competition, meanwhile, will "evaluate spirits categories in the context of how they taste in representative cocktails," Pacult stated. "For instance, gins will be tasted in five classic gin cocktails against other entered gin brands. So, one gin might be recognized as the “Best Gin in a Gin & Tonic” while another might garner “Best Gin in a Dry Martini” honors and yet another might win as “Best Gin in an Aviation” The wine contest, finally will accentuate "the ever-expanding list of wine regions, nations and terroir influences as well as grape varieties and varietal combinations."

Judges will include many of the names that often pop up in places where people get together and talk seriously about booze, including Jacques Bezuidenhout, Tad Carducci, Charles Curtis, Dale DeGroff, Doug Frost, Ethan Kelley, Don Lee, Jim Meehan, Steve Olson, Nick Passmore, Gary Regan, Julie Reiner, Audrey Saunders, Andy Seymour, Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan and David Wondrich, and more.”

If you wish to have your intoxicant judged by these worthies, however, you will have to pay for the honor. As with other wine and spirits competitions, there are fairly hefty entry fees: $445 each for 1 to 5 spirit products from one company entered at one time; $395 each for 6 or more spirit products from one company entered at one time. All fees must be paid and all products must be entered with proper classification code two weeks (Monday, February 15, 2010) prior to Ultimate Spirits Challenge. One can apply online, by mail or by fax beginning January 4, 2010.

To find out more, check out www.ultimate-beverage.com.

An Alternate Theory on the Origin of the Term "Bourbon"

Why is called Bourbon called Bourbon?

The assumed information has always been that it was because the whiskey was primarily producer in Bourbon County, Kentucky. Even today, you'll meet people who insist that Bourbon can only be made in Bourbon County. That's not true and hasn't been for some time. What's more, there are actually no Bourbon distilleries inside the borders of the modern Bourbon County. That's partly because the Bourbon County of today is hardly the Bourbon County of yesteryear. The modern county is a farily dinky thing, where the old Bourbon took up geography now divided up by 34 counties. As Chuck Cowdery wrote in "Bourbon, Straight: The Uncut and Unfiltered Story of American Whiskey":

When American pioneers pushed west of the Allegheny Mountains following the American Revolution, the first counties they founded covered vast regions. One of these original, huge counties was Bourbon, established in 1785 and named after the French royal family. While this vast county was being carved into many smaller ones, early in the 19th century, many people continued to call the region Old Bourbon. Located within Old Bourbon was the principal Ohio River port from which whiskey and other products were shipped. "Old Bourbon" was stencilled on the barrels to indicate their port of origin. Old Bourbon whiskey was different because it was the first corn whiskey most people had ever tasted. In time, bourbon became the name for any corn-based whiskey.

Chris Morris, master distiller at Woodford Reserve, has come upon another theory as to Bourbon got it's name. Morris is a smart guy who does a lot of independent historical research out there in Kentucky. On a recent visit to Woodword, he caught my dear when he began talking about some siblings called the Tuscara Brothers, who controlled the flow of river traffic along the Ohio River back in the early 1800s. I couldn't gather the whole gist of his argument at the time, so I asked him to e-mail the basic theory to me:

Before 1803 travel/commerce west of Louisville was non-existent because Spain/France controlled the territory. Therefore barrels of whiskey were not being shipped down the Ohio River, nor east upriver and over the mountains. There were no barrels of whiskey (a general statement) because the whiskey tax (1791 - 1802) taxed spirit directly off the still - so it was sold and consumed immediately. Once the world changed in 1803 (Louisiana Purchase and tax repeal) distillers began to barrel whiskey for shipment west - ultimately to New Orleans and on to the East Coast markets. Every barrel of whiskey had to pass the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville (named for France's Bourbon King). Distilleries were located in many of Kentucky's original counties - among them Jefferson, Nelson, Woodford, Lincoln, Fayette and Bourbon. Barrels from each county ended up at the Falls, were transferred around the Falls, and loaded on new boats to travel west. So why did this unique Kentucky type of whiskey come to be called "Bourbon" instead of "Woodford", "Jefferson", etc? Simple - the Falls of the Ohio were controlled by a community of French ex-pats. A community of 300, called Shippingport (now part of western Louisville) controlled by the Tuscara (sic) Brothers. They were loyal to the then exiled House of Bourbon and chose the promote the name "Bourbon" out of a sense of French pride.

Jefferson, Nelson, Woodford, Lincoln, Fayette and Bourbon countries were indeed among the original Kentucky counties, all founded between 1780 and 1789. (Jefferson, Lincoln and Fayette were the original three counties.) I will take his word on the idea that distilleries were found in many of these counties; he's a precise man not given to comments that haven't been well thought out beforehand. Also, to give credit where credit is due, Morris say his info is a collaboration between Mike Veach of the Filson Historical Society and himself. The Filson has been collecting and preserving stories of Kentucky and Ohio Valley history and culture since 1884.

Could the Bourbon name simply be an example of French chauvinism? I'm no expert in Kentucky history. Anyone out there care to weigh in?

The Sipping News

There's something about the lowly Wisconsin classic, the Brandy Old-Fashioned, that make cocktail writers want to pen essays in its honor. I wrote my own lordly take on the peculiar refreshment in Imbibe magazine earlier this year. Now I see Mssr. Toby Cecchini has composed an ode in none other than the New York Times. Was there ever a local speciality more reviled, yet celebrated? Toby! Fellow Wisconsinite! We should meet for a round of BOFs. I'm buying. [NYT's T Magazine]

The new web-zine Liquor.com has been publishing for a week or so now. On the last day of November, Camper English weighed in with a primer on bitters. I hate him, however, for recommending Bitter Truth's Celery Bitters when it's currently impossible to get them in New York.

The pissant, parvenu, party crashers who tactlessly invaded Obama's first White House state dinner also own a bankrupt Virginia winery that uses plastic cups in the tasting room! [Dr. Vino]

Shane C. Welch, the owner of Six Point brewery in Red Hook, grew up in Milwaukee. I like his beers even more now! [NY Times]

Jamie Goode's decided Nebbiolo is a wonderful grape. He's just finding this out?