Breuckelen Distilling Company Starts Selling Booze Early; Plans Winter Gin

Last we checked in with Sunset Park's Breuckelen Distilling, they were set to roll out their new gin—the first gin made in Brooklyn since Prohibition—on Aug. 1. But a quick call by distiller Brad Estabrooke to the state liquor authority—in which he discovered he was good to go, as far as the state was concerned—resulted in the bottles going out a few days earlier that expected. One liquor store in Long Island already has the stuff, and NYC shops Thirst Wine Merchants, UVA Wine and Spirits and Dry Dock will be carrying it soon.

Kahlua to Get Even More Christmassy This Winter

Christmas is Kahlua's season, traditionally. It's when folks go out and buy a bottle of the Mexican coffee liqueur—one which usually lasts them until the next Christmas.

But this yuletide will be a particularly merry one for Kahlua, which will roll out another line extension, Peppermint Mocha Kahlua, to welcome the holiday. It will be the same proof as usual, with the flavor augmented by the traditional Christmas flavors of peppermint (as in candy canes) and chocolate (as in all those things made of chocolate you eat over the holidays). It will be a limited-edition product.

I've been trying to upload a picture of the bottle for days now, but without success. So just picture the usual Kahlua bottle, but done up in colors of silver and red (including a red cap), with green accents, and no images of exotic architecture. Looks like you could hang it on a Christmas tree. 

The Debut Menu for the Coffee Program at The Randolph

Never like Irish Coffee. And, hence, I tended to take a dim view of the idea of the "coffee cocktail." That is, until I sampled the quite wonderful inventions being served up at The Randolph. The Little Italy bar recently opened its doors to daylight hours, presenting what must be the most sophisticated line of coffee cocktails in New York. (There's regular coffee, too, but you know where my interests lie.)

I met with Troy Sidle—the newest member of the Alchemy Consulting team, which put together the program for The Randolph—and he led me through a tasting of several of the creations. I didn't sip anything I didn't like. You can read more about the place in this Diner's Journal item I wrote up for the Times.

Meanwhile, here's the opening menu:

Official Drinking Day du Jour: Scotch Day

Lately, it seems to me, the popular marketing device of the Official Drink Day has gotten out of hand. You can't rub your eyes and reach for your morning cup without soon discovering that the day dawning before you has been reserved especially to pay homage to some particular liquor or cocktail.

June 18, I learned, was National Martini Day. Why that day and not another? Why not? July 19 was National Daiquiri Day, causing Bacardi to send me a few helpful recipes. And this past weekend, on July 24, our nation observed National Tequila Day. (Or did it?)

Who decides these things? The President? Congress? A PR genius somewhere in Midtown Manhattan? Anybody? I don't know. I just read the emails that come through my computer. It's hard to ignore them after a while, so I've decided to create this new feature to mock celebrate these official days and keep my citizens attuned to what booze they should honor and when. After all, we can't have people drinking Daiquiris on National Martini Day, can we?

So take note, fellow Americans: July 27 is National Scotch Day. Please arrange your schedule accordingly. And would it kill you to have a Rob Roy? 

Absinthe Gets More Specific

It was absinthe expert Ted Breaux who gave the U.S. its first legal absinthe in nearly 100 years when he helped develop, with Viridian Spirits, the formula for Lucid Absinthe Supérieure, the by-now-familiar black bottle with the cats eyes on the front.  

You'd think that after getting a bottle of the green stuff on the market, Breaux would be satisfied. But no. He's only just begun. He's creating an absinthe line. Breaux, and Viridian Spirit’s Jared Gurfein are teaming up again to bring three new absinthes to the United States this summer: Jade C. F. Berger, Jade Esprit Edouard, and Jade 1901. 

All three have been available in Europe since 2005, and are replications of original 19th century brands apparently owned by Breaux, perhaps the foremost contemporary expert on absinthe in the world. "I set out to resurrect these exemplary original pre-ban absinthes after watching the industry clutter the European market with products that were big on claims and woefully short on historical accuracy and quality," said Breaux in a press release.

Mayahuel, Death & Co. Wins Spirits Awards at Tales of the Cocktail

The Tales of the Cocktail convention culminates every year in the annual presentation of the Spirited Awards. Last year, there was some carping within the cocktail community that too many of the winners hailed from New York, with bars like Pegu Club, Clover Club and PDT taking home prizes. To prevent that, the nominating committee has noticeably more people on it in 2010 that didn't hail from Gotham. And, indeed, there were a good amount of non-New York nominees. Places like The Varnish in L.A., the Rickhouse in San Fran, and Cure in New Orleans got nods. (The confusion-making hair-spitting among the categories—Best American Cocktail Bar, World's Best Cocktail Bar, World's Best New Cocktail Bar, World's Best Hotel Bar—rather makes my head swim, I must admit. Where's Best Doorman-ed Cocktail Bar?)

But, in the end, New York showed well again. Death & Co. was named the Best American Cocktail Bar, as well as nabbing the Best Cocktail Menu award. Mayahuel was called the Best New Cocktail Bar. And local boys Dale DeGroff and Brian Rea won laurels. It was nice, however, to see good old Murray Stenson of Seattle's Zig Zig Bar win for Best American Bartender of the Year.

Here are the partial results:


Best American Cocktail Bar
· The Clover Club, Brooklyn
· Death & Co., NYC
· Rickhouse, San Francisco
· The Varnish, Los Angeles 

World’s Best Hotel Bar
· The Artesian at the Langham, London
· The Bar at The Connaught Hotel, London
· Florida Room at The Delano, Florida
· Hemingway Bar, Paris

Mad Men and Drinking, Season Four, Premiere

It's November 1964 at the start of season four of "Mad Men," and a lot has changed in the world of the series' characters. But not the drinking. They're still drinking. And drinking the same stuff.

Ad exec and glamorous sphinx Don Draper has had some hard knocks during the first full year of the Johnson administration. He's his beautiful but infantalized wife, his two children, and the seemingly picture-perfect family life that went with them, and he's been reduced to living in a slightly shabby Greenwich Village apartment, relying on blind dates set up by pal Roger Sterling—and the occasionally S&M hooker—for companionship.

Furthermore, the newly minted Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce must make do with one cramped floor of the Time Life Building. But he still has his Canadian Club. There are bottles in his office and in his home. I may be imagining things, but the label looked different, the distinctive Canadian Club cursive bigger and bolder. He seems to have kept the same orb-like glasses from the old office as well.