What's New

More new spirits and associated liquor products are introduced at the annual Tales of the Cocktail convention in New Orleans than at any other place. This year was no exception. I think I tasted more new things this past July than at any previous Tales. Here are a few of the libations that will soon find their way onto the shelves of your local liquor store.

• Fee Brother Black Walnut Bitters: Joe Fee always arrives at each Tales with a satchel full of bottles of the company's latest invention. This year's addition: Black Walnut Bitters. Not sure of the applications, beyond offering a nice change-up for Angostura in an Old Fashioned. I'll wait for mixologists to figure that one out.
• Lillet Rose: Building on the Lillet line of white and red aromatized wines by 50% is the new Lillet Rose. It is made by blending the wines that form the base of Lillet Blanc and Lillet Rouge, and infusing it with "Bordeaux fruits." You won't be able to get this in the U.S. until April 2012.
• Pierre Ferrand 1840 Original Formula Cognac: According to the Ferrand people, this new iteration of their Cognac was inspired by an old bottle of original Ferrand that was bought at auction, and was selected (from among many such old bottles) by Ferrand cellar master Christian Guerin and cocktail historian David Wondrich as being the best and closest example of the sort of spirit that was put out in the 1800s. The more questions I posed as to how such a guess at the formula was hazarded, the less I understand the process. But this much is clear: it is bottled at 90 proof, higher than most Cognacs, and in keeping with the proofs observed in those times; it is fully intended to be a mixable Cognac, to be used in cocktails; and it tastes quite good. 
• Drambuie 15: This ancient Scottish liqueur has been trying to find a place for itself in the new drinking world for a few years now. They redesigned their bottle a couple years back, making it look less like Drambuie and more like a Scotch vessel. Now they've come out with the first-ever new expression of the producer. To appeal to Scotch fans who find old Drambuie too sweet, they've devised a drier expression that uses less honey and only employs whiskies 15-years-old or older. They're going to market it the way you would a Scotch, and are pushed a drink that uses half Drambuie and half Drambuie 15. There's a way to move product!
• Hochstadter's Slow and Low: This is the latest from Rob Cooper, the man people who brought the people St. Germain and Creme Yvette. It's his take on an old-style Rock & Rye, which is to say, Rye whiskey sweetened with rock candy syrup. All the famed 19th century American mixologists mention this potion it at one point or another. Slow and Low uses six-year-old rye, infused with citrus, honey and horehound, and bottles at 98 proof. It could be argued that this is basically an Old Fashioned in a bottle, though much hotter and much sweeter. It's made in Philadelphia. Unlike the high-toned St. Germain and Creme Yvette, the rauchy marketing for Slow and Low aims low. (Check out the name.) No gracious sipping here. Straight shots—the "full pull" mark on the souvenir shot glass I was given was at the 2 1/2 ounce mark. 
• Merlet Liqueurs: The Cognac-based Merlet clan has been making liqueurs for 150 years. Their line is just now reaching out shores. I tasted through their line, and found not a dud in the bunch, with the rich, dense, bright Creme de Framboise and light, but strong Creme de Poire standouts. The Creme de Cassis is infused with the same fruit twice, with the result decidedly potent.
• Brugal 1888: The latest from the venerable Dominican rum distiller. It’s a blend of rums aged 5-14 years, first aged in American white oak and then in Sherry Oak casks from the same source that The Macallan Scotch Whisky uses in Spain. In case you're wondering, yes, Macallan and Brugal are owned by the same corporate body. 1888 is being marketing as a premium sipping rum. It certainly is a smoothy, all caramel, oak and vanilla and just a little spice. 

Lemon Hart Goes Red

Next time you go searching for the always-hard-to-find Lemon Hart 151 rum (a critical ingredient in many tiki drinks), don't look for the familiar bright yellow bottle. The sought-after product has a new importer, and they have changed the label. The new red look was displayed at the recent Tales of the Cocktail convention in New Orleans. Can't say I like it better. But can't say I like it worse. One definite improvement: the "151" is good and prominent, rather than hiding in the corner, as it did on the old label.

The World's First Porn Star Rum

What can one say about Ron de Jeremy Rum, the first rum named after an adult film star? Well, it's the first rum named after an adult film star. 

The initial quality in its favor is it hands you a laugh. Every double-entendre word on the bottle tells you the project has a knowing sense sense of humor about itself. It goes by the title "The Adult Rum" and is described as having "long, smooth flavor." There's also a pseudo-serious portrait of Jeremy on the label, looking wistful, and vaguely Christ-like. At any party, it will do its job as an ice-breaker.

Also in its favor is its skilled creator, 72-year old Cuban Master Blender Francisco “Don Pancho” Fernandez, who has worked at Havana Club, Zafra and Abuelo. Finally, it's a decent rum, a 7-year-old Panamanian which will not change your life, but is quite likeable, medium-bodied, and caramel-vanilla pleasant. I wasn't blown away sipping it straight, but I found it mixed rather well. I made a fine Daiquiri with it. And it's only $30.

Black Tot Day, 40 Years On

Every new liquor released these days comes wrapped in a yarn. Black Tot Rum has one of the best around. I've tasted this twice, always in miniscule amounts, of course, given its scarcity and price. It was not what I expected (but, then, what could I expect, having no experience of 40-year-old Navy rum?), but it was singular. Those tiny tastes will have to last me. $1,000 to spare I have not. From the Times:

40 Years After the Royal Navy’s Last Call, Its Rum Is for SaleBy ROBERT SIMONSON

By Robert Simonson

Starting this week, diners at Greenwich Village’s Minetta Tavern can drink like a sailor. But they’ll have to spend like a sailor to do so.

Minetta Tavern recently acquired four bottles of what is being billed as Black Tot Rum. Black Tot Day was the name attached by Royal Navy men to the dark date of July 31, 1970, when British sailors were accorded their final daily “tot,” or ration, of rum. The tradition went back centuries, but was discontinued as it fell out of favor with a more censorious public, as well as the crewmen themselves. Sailors wore black armbands when the sun rose on that last day of on-deck drinking. On the H.M.S. Fife, docked in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, there was a 21-gun salute, according to Wayne Curtis’s history, “And a Bottle of Rum.”

Mount Gay Is Latest to Revamp Bottle

Nobody, it seems, wants to look like old fogey on the back bar. With new products sporting sleek packaging arriving every day, all the old standard booze brands are rethinking their bottles. And they all seem to want to look like, well, Scotch. Take the Mount Gay rum redesign. If that doesn't look like a bottle of single malt, I don't know what.

Official Drinking Day du Jour: Rum Day

I thought Aug. 16 was just another Dog Day Monday. But the folks at Koloa Premium Hawaiian Rum have shown me how wrong I was.

August 16th is actually much better known as National Rum Day. This has been going on for a few years, apparently. How have I missed it?

What greatly surprises me is it comes just a month after National Daiquiri Day, which ought to have provided enough rum celebrations to last the summer. But whatever. When's National Mai Tai Day?

Cienfuegos' Rum Punch Bar "Cocteleria" Has Soft Opening Tonight, Opens Thursday

The rum punch bar faction of Cienfuego—the new East Village, Cuban food-and-drink place fostered by downtown cocktail mogul Ravi DeRossi (Mayahuel, Death & Co.)—will have its soft opening Monday night, April 26, working toward an official opening on April 30, manager Miguel Calvo told Off the Presses. It's name: Cocteleria! The Cuban sandwich shop section of the two-floor complex, called Carteles, opened earlier this year at 5 Avenue A, near E. 6th Street.

The Rum They Drink in "The God of Carnage"

"The God of Carnage," the Yasmina Reza comedy of bad manners about four adults behaving like children, has been a hit on Broadway for a year now, and I've wondered for some time why the rum industry hasn't taken advantage of the fact that, in this high-profile production, the characters partake very liberally and vocally of a bottle of high-end rum.

The exact rum in question is English Harbor Reserve 10 Year Old, an Antigua rum that everyone in the play roundly praises as nectar from the Gods. According to the Internet, a bottle of the stuff, which is a blend of 10- to 25-year-old rums, goes for a whopping $177.

Liquor makes regular appearances in Broadway plays and musicals. As a plot furtherer, there's nothing like it; people tend to do things and say things while under the influence that they wouldn't otherwise. But rum is a peculiar choice. Reza's play was originally set in France (the playwright is French), where, perhaps, rum is a more popular drinking choice than it is here. But in the U.S.—and the Broadway production of "Carnage" is set in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn—when someone pulls out a fancy bottle for straight sipping, it's usually Scotch or Bourbon. Maybe Cognac, if the drinkers are more old-school dignified. But rum? Who does that, except the most schooled liquor enthusiasts?

Given the uniqueness of the situation, I advise the rum industry to make hay of the situation, before the play closes and the moment is lost.

Rum and Punch: Two Trends for 2010

I was at an industry event for the Guatemalan rum Zacapa, talking over the cocktail scene with a couple collegues. We were discussing how it seemed that, after gin and absinthe and tequila had all recently gotten their moment in the spotlight, it now appeared to be rum's turn. "Yeah," said one man, "I wonder what will be next?" We thought for a moment. "Nothing," another finally said. "Rum's it. It's last. It's the last major liquor category to be rediscovered."

Late last year, the New York Times ran a big feature story on how rum had come of age in America, and was being newly rediscovered by U.S. drinkers and drink makers. The piece focused mainly on west coast places like Martin Cate's Smuggler's Cove in San Francisco and Audrey Saunder's Tar Pit in Los Angeles. But the article's looking pretty prophetic as far as New York is concerned. 2010 is not even two months old and we have already learned that, before spring is over, we well see Painkiller, a new tiki-rum place on the Lower East Side run by Richard Boccato and Giuseppe Gonzalez of Dutch Kills fame; and, as part of the new East Village Cuban restaurant Cienfuegos, two rum bars overseen by mixologist Charlotte Voisey. No longer can anyone say, "Why isn't there a decent rum bar in New York?"

To my mind, part of this gravitation toward rum is an either intentional or subconscious desire to chill out a bit. The cocktail scene can get rather arch sometimes, with it's insistence on the right way of doing things, its ingredient and behavior snobbery and its sometime rococo new cocktail creations. Rum is all about relaxing and taking it easy.

Both of these new bars also seem to tangentially embrace what I feel is another dawning trend of 2010: Punch. Now, I know that a lot of cocktail geeks out there will balk at that statement, saying "Punch was so 2008." True, Death & Co. and Clover Club have been doing punches for a couple years now in New York, and Prime Meats serves a different punch by the glass every day. But the punch thing never really took hold. It was an isolated, intermittent side show, found only in the most fanatical corners of cocktaildom.

This year may change that. One of the rum bars at Cienfuegos will focus on rum punch. And Painkiller is going to have a Scorpion Bowl menu. That would all be fine and good, but the real clincher to this being a punch year is the arrival of David Wondrich's new book on the matter. Wondrich created quite a stir with his last opus, "Imbibe!," basically an exhaustive history of cocktails in 19th-century America. Fans will be waiting anxiously for his next volume. (I don't know what the title is yet, but I'm guessing, maybe, "Punch!").

Wondrich recently gave a little preview on what the book will contain during a well-attended lecture at Pegu Club on Jan. 25. He had just turned in his manuscript two days beforehand.  He talked about the history of the brimming bowl, and made a few sample punches (there's one below), including one made with ambergris, which anyone who has read "Moby Dick" knows is a once-treasured byproduct of sperm whales. Though something in me tells me that punch will be a harder sell to the general public than individual classic cocktails were (it's labor intensive, requires special equipment, and you need to lay out a fair amount of money to make a good-sized bowl), I'm still betting that the book will inspire plenty of bars to start offering punch.

New Rum Bar at Carteles to Focus on Punch

The rum lounge attached to the new East Village sandwich shop Carteles will focus on rum punch, Charlotte Voisey, the mixologist who will be charge of the drink menu, told Off the Presses. "It's about showcasing great rums that work in great punches." 


Furthermore, there will also be a rum cocktail bar downstairs, to be opened later on. Taken together, the three parts of the enterprise—Carteles, cocktail bar, punch lounge—will go by the name Cienfuegos. At present, the upstairs rum punch lounge—which will have 60 seats and emphasize table service—does not have an independent name.


Voisey expects the new bars will help school New Yorkers on the world of rum, which, to many drinkers, doesn't extend much beyond Bacardi. "The attention spent of rum should certainly provide an education yes," she said. "And in terms of rum events and a home for rum in New York City, yes that is what we hope to provide." 

The Sipping News

Sasha Petraske to open a cocktail-jazz joint at 39th and Lex. I've been saying Midtown needed a decent cocktail place for years. And, to tantalize me further, he mentioned the words "Mad Men." [Fork in the Road]

Eben Freeman is all about cocktail carts, saying the "future is tableside." [Fork in the Road]

Freeman also announced the line-up of his "Cocktail All-Stars" thing,  which runs Feb. 8-10. Evening will focus of Eastern influences to drink-making and there will be an "Old-Timers" night, just like, you know, they do for baseball. [Grub Street]


Ravi DeRossi's Carteles will have a Rum Bar upstairs, with Charlotte Voisey in charge of the menu. [Grub Street]


The Way of Tiki Bars in NYC, Back When. [Diner's Journal]

Some Planter's Punches

Recently, I spoke to Stephen Remsberg, the courtly New Orleans lawyer and rum collector. And whenever I think of Remsberg, I think of Planter's Punch, which he has called his favorite drink. I remember well a witty, and self-deprecating demonstration he once gave on how simple it was to built a glass of this tasty punch.

Over the past few evenings, I've tried a few version of the drink, which has as many interpretations as there are days in the year. I began with a recipe attributed to Dale DeGroff, then moved on to the Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide, publishing in 1972. Vic offered four different formulas, including two attributed to himself. Lastly I gave a whirl a version published by David Embury in 1948, republished in Wayne Curtis' book "A Bottle of Rum." Here are the recipes, and what I found.

DALE DEGROFF'S PLANTER'S PUNCH

1 oz. dark rum
1 oz. light rum
1/2 oz. curacao
2 oz. orange juice
2 oz. pineapple juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup
1/4 lime juice
1 dash grenadine
1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake all ingredients well with ice and strain into iced Collins glass. Top with small amount of soda. Garnish with orange slice and cherry.

TRADER VIC'S PLANTER'S PUNCH—1

1/2 lime
1 dash rock candy syrup
1 dash grenadine
1 oz. lemon juice
2 oz. dark Jamaica rum
2 oz. soda

Squeeze lime juice over ice cubes in a planter's punch glass; save lime shell. Add remaining ingredients. Stir. Decorate with lime shell, fresh mint, and a fruit stick.

TRADER VIC'S PLANTER'S PUNCH—2

3 oz. dark Jamaica rum
1/2 oz. grenadine
Juice of one lime
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon bar sugar
Soda

Stir all ingredients except soda thoroughly with ice cubes. Strain into a 12-ounce glass filled with shaved ice. Fill glass with soda. Stir gently.

DAVID EMBURY'S PLANTER'S PUNCH

3 oz. Jamaica rum
1 oz. sugar syrup
2 oz. lemon juice
2-3 dashes Angostura bitter
Soda

Shake the ingredients vigorously with crush ice and pour, without straining, into a tall glass. Pack the glass to the top with more crushed ice, fill to within one-half inch with soda water, then churn with a bar spoon until the glass starts to frost. Decorate with fruit.

DeGroff's punch is probably the outright tastiest. Irresistible, really. No surprise there, since, to Dale, a top priority is always that a drink should taste good. The addition of pineapple juice and curacao do the trick in spades.

Trader Vic's version No. 1 I found the most disappointing. An outright failure, actually. Much too much lemon juice, and too little sweetener, make this cocktail too acidic, while the meager measure of rum and too ample contribution of soda water down its impact.

Vic's version No. 2 is much better. More rum, more sweetener, less lemon juice—it's all to the good. And the additional grenadine give the drink a pleasing ruby hue.

Embury's I would call a classicist's Planter's Punch—nice and simple. The large dose of dark rum and 1 ounce of syrup easily take on the 2 ounces of lemon juice, and the hearty spurt of Angostura lends a nice edge. I'd put it up with DeGroff's in palatableness, though the taste profile is quite different. It also gets points for being terribly easy to make at home. But, really, all except Vic's No. 1 are worth a try.

Lemon Hart, Ahoy!

Renowned Tiki drink master Jeff "Beachbum" Berry is a lovely fellow, but he has one annoying habit. He'll be schooling you on the make-up of some wonderful, forgotten tropical drink from Tiki's storied past, and when he gets to the rum component, he'll say, "Now, the best rum for this particular drink is Lemon Hart. If you can find it, use it. Of course, you can't find it."

After this observation, the sound of teeth grinding can distinctly be heard.

I have been searching for an opportunity to taste Lemon Hart from the first time Berry mentioned the name of the old rum. There is a Demerara version, in 80 and 151 proof, and a Jamaican version. Lemon Hart, if you can believe it, is actually a guy's name. (What mother names her son Lemon?) Way back in the late 18th century, he became the first supplier of rum to the British Royal Navy—which I'm betting was a pretty lucrative gig.

The Demerara rums can be pretty readily found in the U.S—so I'm told. But either I'm blind or they ain't on the shelves of the liquor stores I frequent (and I frequent good liquor stores). So, when I heard last week that there would be a rum tasting event at the New York Yacht Club, I asked, "Will you have Lemon Hart there?" Yes was the answer, and I signed on.

c entering the grand Model Room at the NYYC, which its Hall-of-the-Mountain-King fireplace and soaring ceilings, I, like a heat-seeking missile, whisked past the Bacardi, the 10 Cane, the Mount Gay, the Cruzan, to a table in the corner that seemed to be serving only one thing: Lemon Hart Demarara 151 proof rum, by itself or in a punch. "The bartenders stole all the 80," shrugged the man behind the table.

He offered me a glass of punch he had made from the Lemon Hart. No, no, no, I said. I want the stuff straight. OK, he replied, but be careful, it's strong. He wasn't kidding! The 151 is lethal. Hot. Very hot. But great, with flavors of burnt caramel and (am I dreaming this because of the name?) lemon. Then, I tasted the punch, which was excellent, telling me that Lemon Hart makes for a great mixing rum, as Berry had indicated.

Lemon Hart's Jamaica rums were not on hand, and remain the Holy Grail. For some reason, they can only be had in Europe. (Who makes there weird decisions?) Looks like I know what to do on my next trip at a London or Paris Duty Free shop.

A Drinking Man's Guide to Passover

If you or your spouse (or both) are Jewish, and you observe the traditions of Passover (as we do in my home), you know that the preparation for the eight-day holiday involves ridding you home home of Chametz. Chametz means bread, grains, corn, all sorts of starch.

(The drinking reader here takes a moment to consider this before light finally breaks. "Wait a minute?" he cries. "That includes most of my booze!")

That's right, imbibers. Passover is basically the enemy of cocktails, and most straight liquors in general. Kiss your scotch, bourbon, rye, gin, tequila and vodka goodbye. Even if you're pretty sure that your vodka is solely distilled from potatoes (which are OK for Passover), if it doesn't have "Kosher for Passover" printed on the label, a lot of Jewish households are going to let it in the door. And it goes without saying that your old friend "liquid bread"—beer—is banished for the duration.

So how do you get through such an ordeal? (Besides cheat, and get your drinks outside, which I'm not saying I've done, and not saying I haven't done.) Well, of course, there's wine. And, as I've stated before (though people still don't seem to get it), there are many, many good Kosher (and Kosher for Passover) wines out there. I had a few during the first and second seders, including the Capcanes Peraj Petita from Montsant, Spain, which was excellent. But there are plenty of disappointments along the way as well. I had a fairly old kosher Bordeaux which I thought would be a treat, but turned out to be tight and nondescript. I also sampled an honest-to-goodness Kosher for Passover Vintage Port, which I was very excited about. But it was disappointing, rather insipid in flavor and lacking in depth or real character.

There are increasingly some odd exceptions on the liquor market. Carmel make a KFP vodka. Many Slivovitz brands (plum brandy) pass muster, because, for some reason, religious Jews can't get enough of this paint thinner. KFP tequila would have been unheard-of a few years ago, but now there's Casa Vieja, both Anejo and Blanco, which goes for $49 and $39, respectively. That means—yes—you can have a Kosher for Passover Margarita. Now, there's a seder enlivener!

And there's also Flor de Cana Gran Reserve 7-year-old Rum, the only rum with a Kosher certification. I'm fudging a bit by including it here, since it's not Kosher for Passover, but, for less exacting households, it might be perfectly fine. Why Flor de Cana went to the bother to get this certification, I don't know. But it certainly sets them apart.

The 7-year-old is a sipping rum, with a caramel nose. The taste is smooth and silky, with a candied beginning, followed by caramel, vanilla and wood. My main complaint about it is the finish, which just drops off. But otherwise, it's quite pleasurable.

"Mad Men" and Drinking, Part IV

"Mad Men," having established early on in the first season that its character drink copiously, and free of care, litters latter episodes with less alcohol. Still, the references to booze and cocktails get increasingly more detailed and specific.

The character of ambitious secretary Peggy Olsen shows her sophistication in Episode 11 by ordering a Brandy Alexander—though her reaction that it's not as sweet as it should be perhaps shows she does not drink them as often as she boasts. The cocktail is appropriate. A young Brooklyn girl like Peggy would probably go for a classic "girl's drink" like the Brandy Alexander, and they did remain popular in the 1950s and 1960s. (The Beatles drank a lot of them.) Peggy's date, meanwhile, orders a nice glass of Reingold beer.

Later in the episode, Peggy is seen at home having a glass of red wine. It's Chianti, as we can tell by the pot-bellied bottle bound in straw casing. These bottles of cheap Italian vino were ubiquitous at the time. (They would become a laughable cliche, code for bad red wine, in the years to come and, then, in the 21st century, be reborn as retro hip.) It's likely that the average New Yorker would not have access to a great variety of fine wine in 1960. Chianti was an available option, and a cheap one. Peggy only makes $35 a week.

Episode 12 is entitled "Nixon vs. Kennedy," and its centerpiece is an office party in which the staff watches the election returns and generally behaves badly. These office antics are, of course, fueled by liquor. The moment the bosses are on the elevator, the workers push out a cart topped with many bottles, included a generically labeled "Vodka" bottle that the "Mad Men" art department keeps dragging out. The booze, however, quickly runs out, and the executives ask office manager Joan Holloway what stores lie in the supply closet. Actually, they ask, "What do we have too much of?" She replies, "Rum, Creme de Menthe."

Eeesh. Well, they take what they can get and it all goes into a water cooler dispensing vile green elixir.

It's no surprise that there's a lot of rum left in the supply closet. The tiki drink craze was still in full force in 1960 (though waning), so rum would be around, but the Sterling Cooper men are basically either Martini or Whiskey drinkers, with the lightweights going for beer and sometimes vodka. They don't go for Navy Grogs or Zombies.

At one point, copywriter Paul says he has a bottle of absinthe stashed in his office. It's acknowledged that it's illegal by one character. Still, it's highly unlikely that Paul would have gotten his hands of some absinthe, 45 years after it was banned in the U.S. In fact, it's doubtful that anyone in the office would have even remembered what it was, any more than they would have been going around ordering Old Tom Gin and Brandy Crustas. This could be chalked up to the fact that Paul is a would-be writer and more than a little pretentious. Or—my guess—the writers of "Mad Men" had been reading too much about the absinthe rebirth and were desperate to sneak in a reference to the old alcohol.

One last note: In Episode 10, Roger Sterling mentions an offer to take mistress Joan to The Colony. I love how dedicated "Mad Men" is to evoking the glory restaurants of New York's past (place both still living and dead). So far, characters have made visits to the Four Seasons, Rattazzi's, P.J. Clarke's and Toots Shor. So far, no one's mentioned The Stork Club, which is probably for the best; the famed nitespot was past its prime by 1960.

Rum and Punch

I had planned to begin my TOTC day with the "Lost Ingredients" seminar and listen to the likes of Joe Fee and Paul Clarke explain how and why they had brought ingredients like Falernum Bitters and Creme de Violette back from the dead. But, egad!—the time had been changed from 10 AM to 2:30 PM, and I was faced with the sudden choice of "The Cocktail's Family Tree" in the conference room La Nouvelle West and "The Importance of Ice" in La Nouvelle East.

As much as I cotton to borderline, almost-no-topic topics like ice and its use in drinks, I opted for the "Family Tree," figuring I would beef up my cocktail knowledge more appreciably. David Wondrich manned the panel which included John Myers, James Meehan and Ryan Magarian. We were first taken a journey by Myers back to Colonial days and the drinking habits of the Pilgrims on forward. We learned of rum, Shrubs (acid fruit drinks) and Possets (hot drink made from milk curdled with ale, wine, or other liquor). Wondrich then told us of the world of punch as it traveled from merry old England, where they liked a bowl of it, to the New World, where they were always on the go and preferred a glass, and how it underwent a series of transformations. There was talk of sours, fizzes, shooters, and many other liquid combos that are tossed in glasses and given names.

Quite frankly, it was a lot of information and my head began to swim after a while. There's a reason they stretch out U.S. History over a couple years in high school.

"Rum's Punch" came next (same room). Wayne Curtis, author of "And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails," was joined by Mr. Tiki Drink, Jeff Berry, and Stephen Remsberg, an astounding gentlemen. This native New Orleanian has amassed a collection of 800 bottles of Rum, many rare. Mr. Remsberg has a future as a Bob Newhart-style comedian, should he wish it, his sense of humor is so dusty dry. Though absolutely passionate about his rum hobby and his favorite drink, Planter's Punch, he subtley sent up the topic by painstakingly setting up what he obviously considered to be the so-simple-a-monkey-could-do-it recipe for the punch.

"You will have to make a serious investment of time," he warned, speaking slowly and deliberately. "The first think you will need to get is a spoon." He held one up. "Then, you will need a jigger. This will set you back a buck and a half. Now, here's the hard part. You will need a glass. This is a 10-ounce highball. A 12-ounce will do. So will a double old-fashioned glass."

It was a good act. I was entertained. He told an interesting story of a career bartender who worked at the now-gone Bay Rock Hotel in Montego Bay (Jasper LaFronde, but don't trust my spelling), and who had come up with a slightly different version of Planter's Punch which Remsberg loved and has committed to memory. He made in front of the crowd. Only the two "civilians" in the crowd got to try it.

Berry discussed Don the Beachcomber and the amazing rum concoctions he created, drinks which saved rum was ignominy in the 1930s. And Wayne told the early, grizzly part of the rum story, all about industrial-waste molasses, drunken sailors and the sweet, flat mixes made out of the once-standard rum punch mix of "One of sour (cirtrus), two of sweet (sugar), three of strong (rum), four of weak (water)." The saying makes for a good memory tool; not such a good drink.