Internship of a Doctor

left, Joe Danno, the legend; right, Crème Yvette, the defunct

by Dr. Cocktail / Ted Haigh

I was, I must admit, depressed.

Charlie, had suggested the night before that “It” might be the place for me. I was eager to give it a shot, but good ole Charlie couldn't remember the name or address of This Particular Joint.

“Old stuff, Ted,” he’d said. “He has lots of old bottles, old liqueurs, and I heard he makes some of his own. It’d be just the place for you. I think it’s on Belmont, just east of Cicero....it’s the Blood Bucket....Bucket O’ Blood....Bucket something” he said helpfully, scrawling down that information on a cocktail napkin.

In the old days, I was a constant and enthusiastic habitué of the Ambassador East, home of the Pump Room, where Sinatra held court – or relaxed – as mood dictated, when he was in Chicago. I was a fixture, and Charlie…Charlie was the most celebrated of Pump Room bartenders. Outside of Charlie, though…finding a real cocktail in Chicago in 1988 was no easy task, not even for a guy who would someday be known as Dr.Cocktail.

Now it was midnight a night later and, without exaggeration, I’d been into or past a good twenty little neighborhood bars that could’ve--but didn’t--fit the bill. In the latest incorrect venue, I disconsolately ordered a Martini. The bartender nodded, walked over to the booze selection, and stared at it for a little while. I leaned over the bar. “What are you looking for?” I asked softly.

She gazed at the liquor, and back at me. “mar-tee-nee?” she said, smiling shyly, looking for a bottle that said it on the label.

“I’ll help” I sighed wanly. I leaned over the bar. “Take that bottle of gin and....” but it was no use. There was no dry vermouth in the house – none. It might’ve been the 80s, but dammit if I’d wanted a shot of gin….

I trudged out. Not a one of them was the Bucket anything; not on the street, not in the whole Chicago phone book. I had one more bar, right smack on the corner of Belmont and Cicero. Had you been there that night 20 years ago, you might’ve seen me through the window, slumped like a disaffected refugee from an Edward Hopper painting. I was nursing a gin & tonic with my head in my hands. The bartender and owner of the place were my sole company. They looked quite ready to close, and with that, the best lead I had would snap shut, over and out, like the click of a lock tumbler at my back. I shared my lament with the two, as I had done so many times before that night as I turned to go.

“Oh,” says the owner, “you mean the Bucket O’ Suds. That’s right around the corner, three doors down, just South of Belmont on Cicero.” Charlie had transposed the streets.

I thanked them, skeptically feeling my anticipation level rise again with every step closer to the Bucket’s affirmed address. My reserved reverie was short-lived. The entire block was dark. Nothing looked remotely like a bar in business. I craned my neck and, in the gloom, grimly noted a sign; a rusty pre-neon light bulb production. It read “Bucket O’ Suds” and looked as though it hadn’t been lit in years. Below, the door and windows of the shabby building were dark, covered over with newspapers from the inside. The door was locked.

Ah, rhapsody on a windy night; the last twist of the knife. I turned away, but I paused. There was an eerie sense of motion, of illumination, hazy through a chink in the door’s yellowed news. Hesitating a moment, suddenly sober with unease, I knocked. After interminable seconds, the door creaked open a face-width. An old man peered out at me sharply.

“I’m sorry, you’re closed.” I blurted out.

“No.” he said, as though by suggesting such a thing I was challenging him.

This was going well. I regained my breath. “You were highly recommended to me by Charlie at the Pump Room,” I said. “I’m an aficionado of obscure liqueurs.”

The door swung open wide and the man’s face lit up in unison. There were late ‘50s cool jazz horns leaking out onto the sidewalk.

“Well, well. Come on in” he chuckled.

Hundreds and hundreds of old dusty bottles lined the wall on the right, continuing along the length of a sagging bar that looked to be sixty feet long. Row upon row of cobwebby translucent receptacles were packed into every possible space. Several other people sat at the bar, leaning earnestly over the uneven counter; it was a place for disciples. The old guy owned the place and his name was Joe Danno.

I was utterly beside myself. Now I looked like the subject of some saucer-eyed Keane illo. This was Ali Baba’s treasure-trove. For a time I could do nothing but squint and stare into the murky mysteries behind the bar. I wondered how long some of those bottles had been there. I wondered at their contents. I wondered what he would serve and what he would not. I was somehow certain I would taste things that, before, I had only read of... and dreamed about.

I was afraid to ask.... did he have any.... Parfait Amour? My heart pounded. Joe beamed.

“I have not only have it, I have the rare Garnier RED Parfait Amour!” he said with an almost grateful pride that suggested to me that he didn’t get too many cocktail historians in the Bucket. It was an old, oddly shaped bottle, and at that time, I had never seen another like it. Its contents were indeed red. I inspected it as he poured some out for me. My first taste of Parfait Amour brought associations of muddled fruit, marshmallows, and vanilla. I savored the liqueur and with it, the serendipity that brought me here. I grew bolder and my excitement mounted. People were beginning to notice my ill-concealed intensity.

“How about Crème Yvette; do you have any Crème Yvette?

“You know,” he said seriously, “they don’t make this stuff anymore,” as he pulled out a hidden bottle of transparent lavender liquid. Once again, he poured me a glass.

Crème Yvette was everything I had imagined it could be: delicate, ethereal. It had a floral scent and the violet flavor of pastilles. I shook my head in a sort of out-of-body experience. I viewed myself sitting there in the movie my memory was making.

At my third wish, Joe Danno furrowed his brow discouragingly. The potion that, so many years before, had first kindled my interest in the cocktails of the past was named, appropriately enough, Forbidden Fruit liqueur.

I know from books that Forbidden Fruit had been made from shaddock, honey, and brandy; that shaddock was a kind of grapefruit, that this Victorian cordial was presented in a glass orb with ornate metal filigree. You couldn’t make a Tantalus Cocktail without it (and consequently, I’d never had one.) Forbidden Fruit had ceased production years before. Its demise invalidated seventy-five years of accumulated drinks calling for it. Decades have passed since this unique American cordial last saw the inside of a glass.

“Forbidden Fruit?.... I dunno...” Joe muttered, poking around behind a bottle of nineteenth century grenadine. He then deftly pulled out the only full-sized bottle of Forbidden Fruit that I had ever seen. It was a regal orb indeed.... full of transparent golden liquid. Only from research did I know this bottle. Now I knew it personally. At this point, everyone in the bar was rooting for Joe to let me behind the bar to explore. My poker face must’ve slipped, I guess. I finished this, the first of many long wonderful nights inspecting the back bar’s wealth, at Joe’s gracious invitation, at the Bucket. My magic toy store, that’s what The Bucket o' Suds was, an enchanted portal where anything was possible. Of the Forbidden Fruit… I still can’t describe the flavor.

Eventually, Joe made me the owner of that bottle of Forbidden Fruit, just for being such a goofy illustration of boundless rapture.

I was a committed young man with a lot of quirky dreams, some including cocktails. Twenty years is a long time to hold lovingly onto a complex cocktail of wonder and memory. The road from the Bucket to this point was a maze of paths that led apart before twining back together again in a different world. The Bucket is long gone, Joe long dead. In a way, he made me the Doctor I am today.

FURTHER READING:
Parfait Amour cocktail
Tantalus cocktail
Crème Yvette
more remembrances of Joe Danno and the Bucket o' Suds.

~

The Dr. is in

Our dear old friend Ted Haigh, also known as Dr. Cocktail, has been saddled with the burden of birthing more books. Two contracts in fact, and the hi-jinks behind them are worth a third book alone. But now that the toxic stuff of dealing with publishers is largely behind him, he can set off working on time-killing projects to interfere with his projects of substance.

One such time killer would be this blog, and we'll have a post or twelve from America's most beloved erudite toper soon.

More stuff Americans hate

Following proudly in the footsteps of my mentor and roll model Punxsutawney Phil, Your Doctor once again is making his presence known.

Initially let me say, drinking is getting constantly more exciting and if you’ve been considering taking it on as a hobby, the market is primed. There is an exquisite new Elderflower liqueur named St. Germain from the classy, cocktail-historic folks at Jacquin et Cie. From the freethinking mind of friend and co-conspirator Ted Breaux, there is a– no kidding – tobacco liqueur; Perique, flavored with the so-named leaf variety peculiar to Louisiana. Fee Brothers, the scrappy bitters magnates of Rochester, New York, have placed a tiny selection of their Old Fashion Aromatic Bitters on the market, in a special bottling of the cinnamony stuff substantially aged in charred oak Bourbon casks. I’ll review these products soon enough, but they all deserve mention here and now because they are excellent, all of them, simply excellent.

Now, though, at Joe Mailander’s request, I want to talk about genever: Dutch gin. Hey, it wasn’t a hard sell. I was always a proud iconoclast. When other kids were reading Superman, I was dreaming about Captain Marvel…the similar hero DC sued out of existence in the 1950s. When all of the cocktail elite were tooling around in Rolls Royces, I wanted a Bentley. And when I read about a kind of gin that Americans generally hated for just being what it was…well!

I won’t belabor you with but so much history of genever but what follows are the basics necessary to grasp this really interesting spirit. It was the first gin. It was made in pot stills, a type of distillation largely reserved for brown spirits in the current day, and proudly touted by Cognacs and Armagnacs to flash a little bibulous bling.

Pot stills are what one pictures when one pictures one’s own mental image of a still. Even if the image in your head is of a moonshiner, it is still a pot still you are picturing.

For just a sec, let’s quickly go over the TYPES of gin that there are (or were.) Genever, Old Tom, Plymouth, London Dry, and the new Hendricks model – which would include Aviation Gin. So here is the 30-second history: 1st gin: genever. Low temperature, inefficient distillation that emphasized both the juniper and the maltiness. (Think of a kind of a wine character. Think of a Martini with quite a bit of vermouth.) Add a certain vague smokiness. Think 3 parts gin, 1 part blended Scotch, 1 part vermouth. This is a horrible way to characterize the original genever but, like Latin, we must start somewhere because nobody we know speaks it anymore. So far we are residing in the late 17th century heading into the 1700s. Cut to 1832 and a clever guy named Coffey developed the eponymously named Coffey Still AKA the continuous column rectifying still. You’d lynch me if I made the slightest attempt to explain this still to you, but suffice to say, all the vodka you heathens love (gin too) is made today in such stills. It’s very efficient and it produces extremely clean spirits.

Too clean.

As of the 1830s, the drinking public was used to the slightly sweet, malty-charactered genever (the name of which was a bowdlerization of the French word for juniper) but as of the Coffey still, they could instantly have what we now know as London Dry Gin…and that was just all too strange for them. So then, as now, what do you, Mr. Liquor Producer, do to dumb down the new spirit? Of course. You sweeten it. Thus was born Old Tom Gin. Eventually the public trended into the flavor and feel of dry London gin. The Plymouth differentiation was a difference in technique that originally created a powerful, differently flavored gin. It is now certainly a London Dry. It is still excellent. The newest gin type is what I call the Hendricks model. London Dry gin is supposed to emphasize the juniper as gin lovers and haters all expect it to do, but though they have skated on this point so far, Hendricks does NOT emphasize juniper. Nor does the excellent Aviation Gin made by my buddy Ryan Magarian. Hendricks has a rose petal frontal approach, which itself is astounding since thanks to 20th century “advances” all early hand lotions were scented with rose and most alcohols flavored with rose taste, in a Pavlovian sense, soapy or like lotion. Hendricks (and Aviation – which is superbly flavored with lavender) really create a new and inspired gin category. Oh, before vodka made its late American entry in the early 20th century, the gin guys did do flavored gins. Orange gin. Lemon gin, Mint gin. Sound familiar? They weren’t all that good – much like many of their vodka counterparts, so I am ignoring them.

But in the early days of the cocktail, early to mid 1800s, genever is all there was.

Modern genever is divided into two types: jonge (young) and oulde (I’m sure you can figure it out). Most are in the jonge category. These, these days, are clean, crisp, and quite junipery. They are both dry and weirdly richer than London Dry and they can be as abrupt in a cocktail as Rhum Agricole in a Mai Tai. The oulde is quite mild and a little caramelly – both in flavor and color. It is very pleasant simply sipped neat or on ice. If you’ve ever tried Linie Aquavit, it has a similar character, minus the caraway. If you’ve ever had marc, that sort of flavor, but not as sweet, not as thick. Both varieties are lovely, really. You may have seen them (especially the jonge) in the past: a tall smokestack-like terra cotta bottle. That would be the Bols product, and they’ve been doing it since the beginning, which is to say, hundreds of years.

What of the original genever? Is it still the same as in those pre-column still days? Well, yes and no. If you want to taste gin as gin was originally, the product (and it is Bols) is now called Corenwyn. I asked quite specifically this question of Piet Schreuders, the longtime master distiller for Bols-Netherlands. I proposed this theory of genever and he utterly agreed. So…up for something different? Genever. As far as Corenwyn (which, Bols allows, is made generically in the Netherlands as “korenwyn”) is concerned, if any of you ever entertained asking Dr.Cocktail what his favorite spirit is, that is the answer; the original gin: Corenwyn.

Don't get your hopes up

I won’t be here for long. The adventures of balancing the glamorous Hollywood film life with the globe-trotting debonair charms of being Dr.Cocktail frankly leave me a tad weary. I must so very shortly retract my head again into my warren until such time as I again detect a brain cell blinking dimly in my head.

Yet some things just won’t wait, and plagiarism is one of them. Yes, yes, I could simply link to the article in citation, but it’s just so damned good I must reprint the entire thing here.

Great Caesar’s Ghost, how did we ever attain such perspective previous to the intarweb? Junk mail? Perhaps grasshopper, perhaps.

To wit:

Kalimotxo

Kalimotxo is one of the most popular drinks (in the Basque Country at least) to take in industrial quantity and the best drink at all for playing drinking games. It is always present in summer feasts, in bars and taverns and in any place people meet to drink around a table.

It is a cheap drink, to take in great quantity, that causes important headaches.

It has about 5 ~ 6 %Vol alkohol.

Also called “Korea” in other countries.

Ingredients

Kalimotxo is a mix of red wine and Coca Cola.

Wine must fulfil following conditions:

It has to be bad wine and this is fundamental, because kalimotxo with good wine tastes worse and you are wasting a good wine, intended for being drunk alone.
The wine should be bitter, because Coca Cola is sweet enough and the mix has to be compensated.
Packed in brik. It is very confortable and the best wine for kalimotxo is usually in brik, because bad wines are the only ones packed this way. It is also important that the brik contains 1 l. and calculating the mix becomes easier.
You should buy bad wine, but this is not the same as shit-wine. Don’t buy she-ass urine to spare some (euro-)cents.

Coca Cola is very important:
First of all, it has to be Coca Cola, Coca Cola. Not Cola Pumba or Super Cola, if you really want to drink the kalimotxo. Other brands’ colas have a too sweet taste that destroys the mix, it is very easy to recognize them.
If you don’t have Coca Cola (I know that it isn’t always there when you need it), there’s Pepsi as the last remedy, it is not the same but also not as bad as other colas. The bigger problem is the great amount of bobbles in the new formula.
Better in 2 l. bottle, very handly. There aren’t 2 1/4 bottles any more, they were very good for mixing.
Coca Cola light is twenty times sweeter as classic one although it hasn’t got sugar. Kalimotxo doesn’t taste good, too sweet.
Pepsi Boom is really bad for mixing with wine.

Preparation

Kalimotxo has to be prepared with care, to avoid loosing gas and to succeed in mantaining full flavor.

At the beginning we have a 2 l. Coca Cola bottle and 2 briks of bad wine as described above, you have to follow these steps:

You need a recipient for mixing, depending on the moment it may be:

A bottle of mineral water, if you have bought the liters in a supermarket for making a little party. It is very important to remember this and not repenting of later.
A jar or empty bottle if you are at home preparing the party.
If you have forgotten to buy the water bottle and you also don’t have a jar, just use your illusion. Plastic bags, empty briks or any other recipient which may be used for putting one liter of cola. Other remedy is to empty 1 l. of cola, but this means 2 l. less of kalimotxo.
First of all you should fill with more than the half of the cola the empty water bottle or the jar. You put the liter of wine of a brik in the cola bottle and fill the rest of this bottle with the cola in the water bottle.
After closing the mix, it has to be turned 4 times, not by shaking it, but with care, so that it get perfectly mixed without loosing the gas. You can open the stopper after turning the bottle to let the bobbles get out, always handling the bottle with care. The kalimotxo shouldn’t flow out if it has been done well.

Now, one of the kalimotxo bottles is ready for drinking.

The second one is prepared similarly, but you have to wait for the first bottle to be emptied, in the case you don’t have any empty bottle.

It is very important to put wine before cola in empty bottles, because in doing it other way all the gas would go out.

Traditions

Kalimotxo is drunken in the Basque Country since immemorial times (I don’t remember) so you have to respect all the traditions associated with it.

Original receipt must be keeped.

In our days is very common to “paint” the kalimotxo with fruit liquors like strawberry, green apple, peach… that give the mix a slightly different flavour. This is only a small fault.

A more important fault is to shake the bottle of kalimotxo instead of turning it with care, until it looses all the gas inside and tastes like a soup, especially if it’s warm.

The tasting of the kalimotxo is important. Everybody can recognize a good mix after practicing a bit:

You have to smell slightly the kali, so that you can apreciate if the wine is bitter enough and in the right quantity.
Then you take a small draught, just to check if the cola is good mixed and to verify that it is CocaCola and that it isn’t a sweet cheaper mark’s cola. Try to appreciate the taste of the whole.

After the tasting you should share your opinion about the mix with your friends, mainly with the one who mixed the kali. This is very good to correct errors in future drinking meetings.

Pitilingorri

This is bitter variant of the kalimotxo explained above. It is bitter and not so popular.

Pitilingorri has 5 ~ 6 %Vol Alkohol.

It is made with bad rose wine and lemonade.

Many times it is bought in the supermarkets because red wine is already sold out and there is no way to make a good kalimotxo. This is very frequent where I live.

You may know that rose wine makes the stomach a little “unstable” ,so notice that pitilingorri also isn’t your stomach’s best friend. Don’t drink too much for the first time, at least until you have felt the effects by yourself.

Sangaree

Dangerous mixing of wine, lemonade, fruit juice and fruits’ pieces without an exact receipt.

Alkohol amount in the mix depends on the wine you have put, in the sodas… but be sure you’ll finish alkoholized if you eat all the pieces of fruit.

Sangaree tastes strangely between sweet and bitter, it can be drunk fast without noticing anything, although its alkohol has quite important effects, maybe because of the fruits.

It is sold in briks, already mixed, prepared for drinking directly, but it doesn’t taste like the real home-made sangaree, although the flavour isn’t bad at all.

I have never suffered the hangover of the sangaree, so tell me about it if you have been more “lucky”.

Rose wine

This is the best drink for the basque tradition called “poteo”. The “poteo” consists in meeting with some friends (this is an only-men tradition) and visiting all the bars and taverns in one or more streets drinking a small glass of rose wine (it can also be red wine) in each bar. You can’t stay for too much because many bars should be visited.

This activity is not bad or reprochably, it is an old tradition of our basque ancestors and it has to be keeped. You have sure been teached that there’s always something to learn from older people, this is one of the things I’ve learnt.

Choose one street with many taverns and go up to the end taken a rose wine in each bar, with calm, chattering with your friends.

At the end of the street you’ll probably feel not right at all, just see your friends and you’ll notice this is totally normal.

Rose wine has more than 10 %Vol alkohol.

Get advised that rose wine is a bomb for the stomach and it also causes great hangovers.

Zurrakapote

Very strange mix, between kalimotxo, sangaree and different kinds of wine.
Normally you don’t know what you’re really drinking, and you shouldn’t ask. If you want to drink more, it’s preferable not to know the receipt.

It is given for free in some summers feasts. Normally drunk in “porrones”, a kind of wine bottle with a long side spout, or in small leather wine bags called “botas”.

Not very defined flavour, noticed it is wine with many sodas and lemonades.

Alkohol rich, of course, about 10% Vol.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ahem. Dr.Cocktail again. Have I made my point? Drinking beyond human ken. Drinking related with such fervent sincerity and neoeloquence….Sir, Ruben P., I personally bow to you.

We all obviously have much to learn.

See you again soon.

–Doc.

Barbados in a Bottle

Having survived whiskey, punch, cocktails, and pomegranates with me, shall we have a look at another funky syrup? Falernum; it’s a dual darling both of traditional Bajan drinks (and those native to the surrounding tropics) and also of the mythic and lush tiki drinks of the mid century. This spicy syrup is gaining stature in the larger cocktail revival as well.

Falernum is a subject about which I am not exactly an impartial observer, but about which I have done a great deal of research nevertheless. I will admit any potential conflicts of interest as they pop up.

I can tell you that there is disagreement as to when Falernum was “invented” and by whom. It’s easy enough to imagine that it, like orgeat, was once a home made potion - a folk recipe if you will. How it came to be called Falernum is anyone’s guess. The only previous use of the term historically was for a particular growth of the grapes of “falernian” wine, a famed and ancient Roman wine made near Campania. Falernum was the name of the lowest growth grapes – at the foot of the hill. How a flavored sugar syrup of the West Indies assumed this name, hundreds of years later, we just don’t know.

Currently in the United States, there are three competing brands of Falernum, the syrup: John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum, Fee Brothers West Indies Style Falernum, and DaVinci Caribbean Falernum. This was not always the case. As recently as 2000, there was none to be had. As to how and when Falernum came to be commercially marketed, there is the Taylor’s stance (disclosure: when Dale DeGroff initially was involved in its importation and marketing, he came out to LA for his book signing in 2002 and presented me with a lovely bottle of Velvet Falernum about which he was justifiably proud - as was I to receive the bottle from his hands) which is as follows: “This famous Bajan ‘Gold Medal’ beverage and mixer, with a uniquely refreshing flavor was developed by John D. Taylor of Bridgetown, Barbados in 1890. Born and bred on the island of Barbados, this slightly alcoholic sugar cane based liqueur is a staple of every Bajan’s bar. Its special taste comes from a refined infusion of lime laced with fine cane syrup and ‘botanicals’ including almonds and cloves.” This was from the product website. By the way, Velvet Falernum is actually made by R.L. Seale & Co. Ltd. of Barbados, makers of some really world-class rum. In the States it is marketed at 11 percent alcohol, or 22 proof.

I spoke to Sir David Seale, the owner and grandson of R.L. Seale by telephone in Barbados. Apparently namesake John D. Taylor was a “provisioner;” a sort of general store keeper and spirits seller. Falernum was his only invention says Sir David, who is 69, and remembers drinking it on crushed ice as a child. Many companies made it, and it was native to Barbados. Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions were produced and still are, even under the Taylor brand. I personally have both alcoholic and non-alcoholic bottles of Taylor Falernum. The 1923 and 1980 gold medals depicted on the bottle label were from local Bajan agricultural exhibitions. Sir David describes Velvet Falernum as a lime juice, sugar, spice, and Angostura Bitters cordial which, owing to its low price and alcohol content was termed the “Poor man’s cordial” 60+ years ago. Of the 50/50 rum and Falernum on crushed ice drink, the “Corn n’ Oil,” “going to heaven without dying” was what used to be said of it, in his childhood, by Planters for whom the drink was a favorite. Taylor went out of business many years ago, having sold the recipe and company name to one entity, and it in turn to another, and another as the years passed before being picked up, secret Falernum formula and all, by R.L. Seale, Ltd. in 1993. Whatever original history is left of this ancestry is locked in a safe at the feet of Sir David Seale.

Most cocktail researchers like myself became acquainted with Falernum in the 1980s and ‘90s through a product, labeled “The Genuine Falernum” “…Prepared and bottled from an original Barbados, BWI formula as under the supervision of A.V. Stansfeld…” This is the product that was called for in any tiki drinks requiring Falernum 1940s-1990s and was distributed in the States at some point by the Sazerac Company.

I tracked down the successors to A.V. Stansfeld, Stansfeld-Scott, Inc. now headquartered in Clearwater, Florida, but with a subsidiary in St. Michael, Barbados. I spoke to the owner, Brian Cabral.

Stansfeld Scott, Inc., traces its origins back to the Bajan company, Stansfeld Scott & Co. Ltd. which was founded in 1935 by Arthur V. Stansfeld and Donald V.S. Scott. Stansfeld Scott’s initial trade was in blending and bottling their own rum, Cockade, and what they claim to be the original Falernum. Mr. Cabral’s accountings of the origins (and tribulations) of Falernum differ markedly from those of Sir David Seale.

According to Cabral, Arthur Stansfeld invented Falernum in 1935 to, in his words, “make a buck!” Sazerac became the importer & distributor in the U.S. Subsequently, at some point in the early 1990s, through an oversight, Stansfeld-Scott allowed the Falernum trademark to lapse. Sazerac, Cabral said, quickly registered trademark in the United States for themselves. As of 2002 when I spoke to Mr. Cabral, he believed that Sazerac still held the U.S. trademark for Falernum. He and Sir David concurred about the other companies in Barbados now producing Falernum - but not to the respective recipes each company claims as original. Mr. Cabral asserts he has vintage A.V. Stansfeld documents which list the ingredients in his Falernum formula, but he admits are not strictly a recipe.

My own in-depth research has not turned up a single document before the 1930s regarding the syrup, Falernum. Since Sir David’s earliest memories are 60 years in the past, it could be that Arthur Stansfeld concocted the original. Let us assume in the interests of harmony that both companies are correct, and that Stansfeld’s Falernum may have been the original Falernum made to his own popular formula, and that John Taylor developed the original Falernum, so-named, 45 years earlier. As of the 1940s and the ascendant tiki craze, it appears certain that Stansfeld’s Falernum was the one in use in the States. As it is, the Sazerac-Stansfeld Falernum is no longer produced at all.

The DaVinci product was the result of a Seattle restaurant that had been using the Sazerac-Stansfeld Falernum to make cocktails with, and when they ran out and couldn’t get it anymore, they talked a local coffee syrup company, DaVinci, into making it for them. DaVinci has since become a national force in syrups and they deserve credit for producing a product that, in 2000, could not otherwise be obtained in this country.

This is where Fee Brothers Falernum comes in, and here comes my second disclosure as well: I am one of a very few people still in possession of bottles of the Sazerac-Stansfeld Falernum. The Fee family and I jointly developed the flavor of their Falernum to match as exactly as we could that of the Sazerac-Stansfeld product. Most dyed-in-wool tiki fanatics after much debate came to the determination that Fee Brothers Falernum was truer to the character and balance of their beloved tiki punches, though that debate never truly ends.

This says two things to me: 1) the origin of a thing is different than its heyday. 2) If you can conceive of owning two different Bourbons (or Cognacs, or vodkas) is it such a leap to keep two different brands of the same type of syrup? I don’t think so. I’m intimately acquainted with both products. Heads of both of these companies very amicably spent time with me, divulging historic, product, and company details that, frankly flabbergasted me with their candor. Bottom line: when I make tiki drinks, I use Fee Brothers West Indies Falernum. When I make traditional Swizzles, Slings and recipes genuinely native to the Islands, I insist on John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum. Why choose?! –Doc.

Bar advice redux

The Divine Miss Marleigh has an occasional cocktail blog in which she has stated in a heroic post her advice for a great personal bar. She then made the inexcusable mistake of telling me she posted it. My response (after ignoring the “be gentle” part) is almost as long as the original subject so I thought, why waste this in a comment form? I mean I get paid by the letter at Martini Republic, so why not take the cheap shot where it’ll do the most good?

Read Her post here and then my comments follow below:

OK, I feel entirely empowered to quibble as I have taken you out for said drink, and I may not be the expert I am either, but close.

Quibble #1: Spending money on a bar. Oh, nonsense. One simply requires 4 to 5 old tires (per side, depending on tire size) and several planks of indeterminate wood and/or salvaged laminate. You can hold the planks together with duct tape. You can keep the laminate firm to its particle board (since days and weeks in the alley can promote de-lamination) with duct tape. Then you get some filing cabinets from the alley or behind Goodwill. You’ll store your hooch in them. Top drawer whiskey, next tequila, next grain neutral spirits…get the idea? The genius is the other inhabitants of the flop house would NEVER go anywhere NEAR a filing cabinet. It would remind them of their mothers’ weeping - of who they could have been. Make sure you secure the filing cabinets to the wall - it’s earthquake, hurricane, flood, fire, and civil unrest season. Or you might just stumble, lose your balance, and imagine the mess. I recommend duct tape for this purpose. Some might say a filing cabinet drawer isn’t tall enough for your hooch bottles. Balderdash. Always buy everything in pints. They are easier to transport in case of earthquake, hurricane, flood, fire, or civil unrest. Electric extension cords help supply cozy illumination if your neighbor happens to have electricity.

Quibble #2: Whiskey. Rubbing Alcohol is underrated. Oops, sorry that’s for another section. Bourbon: Regular old 1.5 liter Even Williams is even cheaper and in a blind test is generally thought to be much more thoroughly aged than it really is. It’s good, really. In order of price, my Bourbons always on hand: Evan Williams Black Label, Old Charter 12 year, Woodford Reserve. Rye: Old Overholt rules, you be affirmed. Consider Sazerac 6 year too. Inexpensive and tastes EXACTLY like pre-Prohibition rye. That’s enough unless you get really frisky and track down some of Fritz Maytag’s 120 proof Potrero rye. So smooth you can drink it straight - and at $80+ a pop you’ll want to. Canadian; Bleh. CC, I suppose. You don’t need blended whiskey at all. Just mix cheap vodka and Evan Williams if you get a craving. Irish: I’m a Black Bush feller and I’ll brook no comments. Always have a bottle of good ole skunky John Power too; why? ‘Cause it’s the workin’ man’s Irish wuskeh, whot? Scotch: Pinch, Grouse, Macallan, Balvenie, and Cardu! It really isn’t a quibble at all, just advice.

Quibble #3: Gin. You need 3 different kinds of London Dry if you expect to gain the respect of your world-class alcoholics: Dry and light of juniper (Bombay, Beefeater) dry and heavy of juniper (Boodles,) sweet and heavy juniper (Tanqueray.) Why no sweet and light of juniper? That’s WINO gin, young’n. Then you’ll need Plymouth for total satin, and Hendricks for “look at me I’m dancing around in half a horse costume! It’s the front half!” Then you’ll need Dutch gin. Actually you won’t. It’s like aquavit: unnecessary, but fabulous (UBF). I like to keep Bols Genever (jonge genever) and Bokma (oulde genever) sa-mooth, baby!

Vodka. No quibble there, ya gotta have it. It’s the cheapest, swankest way to clean nasty cuts. Best not to let those things fester. That’s what happened to Jack Daniel and he’s DEAD. You must choose carefully. Avoid Aristocrat vodka. It’s a tad sweet and will attract ants to the wound. Ketel One is especially soothing on abrasions, whereas I prefer 100 proof Smirnoff for lacerations. Stay away from the French Brands: the terrorists clear THEIR cuts with THEM.

Quibble #4: White rum - see vodka. Unless it’s Havana Club Blanco, in which case, see my liver. Mount Gay: Good, try Brugal from the Dominican republic. Amber fabulocity - and cheap! Bacardi 8 is from Bermuda and beriberi nize. You need a Jamaican dark rum, preferably not Myers’s, but lacking any others, Myers’s. Good ole Myers’s. I just like writing s’s.

Huh?: Are you saying it is now legal to produce spirits under the Tequila name that are not Cuervo Gold? Golly.

Liqueurs: You’re right don’t need anisette for much, but it ain’t a pastis anyway: Pernod is, Ricard is, Herbsaint is, etc, etc and Ricard coined the term. Pastis is an absinthe substitute, anisette is a mere anis liqueur.

Benedictine - right ON, and you can make your OWN B&B in like 5 milliseconds with 1\2 shot of Hennessy, 1/2 shot of Benedictine. WAY better than bottled.

Bitters aren’t liqueurs but since we are storing our hooch in filing cabinets I’ll let it go. Add Peychaud to the list, and Fee’s Peach bitters too! Cheap Cognac-Hennessy ok and though in the 30’s they called ‘em liqueur brandies, that didn’t make ‘em liqueurs, same as blow jobs rarely require expelling air forcefully from one’s mouth.

Calvados is a must-Trader Joe’s has it once a year at $10 a pop., applejack, an utter must.

OK, Campari: this is an aperitif bitters: wanna be a sophisticated tosspot? Campari.

Cointreau: what she said.

Cacao: what she said. In the 112 years I’ve been practicing medicine without a license, I don’t think I’ve EVER touched the dark cacao.

Scroll from Creme de Menthe to Grand Marnier: yep, inclusive. Very insightful.

Heering: Yep, or cherry-flavored brandy. No “schnapps” and kirschwasser is a dry distillate of cherries. It is dead clear, completely devoid of sweetness, akin to moonshine and will knock you on your ass. It is NOT a liqueur substitute, but you want it anyway. Eau de vie de woo hoo!

Maraschino: Correctamundo.

Pimm’s: On its own with 7-Up IS a Pimm’s Cup - though it becomes incredible with spicy ginger beer. Mix it with any sparkling non-alcoholic mixer no darker than Scotch and it is STILL a Pimm’s Cup. Mix it with Coca Cola it’s called a Regurgitation.

Sloe Gin: Did you know that there are winos who insist on Slow Gin? It’s true, and if it’s good enough for discriminating winos…well, there I am! Best is Plymouth brand. You can really taste the sweet/tart flavor of the blackthorn plums. Let’s try and force them to export it to Bushrovia!

Syrups: Make that POMEGRANATE Grenadine (I know, that’s like saying pomegranate twice, but if you don’t say it you’re getting cherry cough syrup - and not the good kind, either.) Yes, yes, raspberry a must, just as important as grenadine -Smucker’s or Knott’s Berry Farm, please. Simple, orgeat - you bet, add falernum.

OK, we’re down to vermouth so I cry HALT! Here are the other liqueurs you’ll be glad you’ll have: Apricot (flavored) brandy: Marie Brizard Apry is best. Orange Curacao: way orangier than Cointreau or Tripe Sec: I bet you thought that was a typo. Again Brizard is good; I like Bardinet, but then I ordered it from Germany. And you MUST have at least one Chartreuse. If it is new to you, make it the yellow. It isn’t cheap, but it keeps forever, you’ll only use it as a small portion of a bunch of cocktails, so drink by drink it is quite cost effective. These additions are, to my spongy mind more important that creme de menthe. Also you’ll want either Amaretto or creme de noyeau, they are both almond. the former is more expensive and better as a sipper, the latter is cheaper and suited just fine to cocktails. And a coffee liqueur: I haven’t tried the Starbucks entry into the market, but otherwise I prefer Tia Maria to Kahlua - and I like that both are rum-based. Speaking of rum based, my FAVORITE orange liqueur is the rhum-based Clement Creole Shrub. Available in the U.S. after a long hiatus, it is el superbo. That’s Spainish. Sexy No?

Vermouth: Our dear correspondent, Marleigh is again exactly right on again. An additional bottle of Carpano Antigua Sweet Vermouth is ample indication that you are a farce to be reckoned with.

Oh one more thing about the bar. Some may say cinder blocks stolen from a construction site make a far classier bar. I say have you ever tried to ROLL a cinder block? Besides, you need the cinder blocks to crack nuts on. –Doc.

Hey Ho, it's Cocktail200!

Are you all set to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the cocktail, defined?

Too bad. So sorry to hear that. You missed it. Well, not the whole year, but if you did not look heavenward as you drained your glass on Saturday, you missed the moment. You see, on May 13th 1806, the cocktail got its first explanation in a New York newspaper. Oh, the word had appeared before, back into the 18th century, usually as a description of a type of horse, and even once in 1803 as a drink, but this use was in a narrative penned by a young callow good-for-nothing reprobate (probably an ancestor of Alex) – exactly the sort that did enjoy cocktails in those days – and he just mentioned it in passing. Unless you too were a miscreant of the period, you’d never know what the hell he was talking about. Again, on May 6th 1806, the Editor of Hudson, New York’s newspaper, the Balance & Columbian Repository, mentioned our fledgling cocktail obliquely in a snarky aside regarding a local politician:

“….a certain candidate has placed in his account of Loss and Gain, the following items: –

LOSS:

720 rum-grogs
17 brandy (ditto)
32 gin-slings
411 glasses bitters
25 (ditto) cock-tail
My Election.

GAIN:

NOTHING.”

Well. One week later (it being a weekly newspaper) the Balance ran this exchange:

To the Editor of the Balance.

Sir,
I observe in your paper… the account of a democratic candidate…under the head of Loss, 25 (ditto) cock-tail. Will you be so obliging as to inform me what is meant by this species of refreshment?”

To which our fearless editor replied:

“ Cock-tail… is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters –it is vulgarly called a bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said also, to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because, a person having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.”

No reference to the name of the poor Democrat was ever recorded, or is to this day known.

But there you have it; an etymologist’s wet dream: a new word meaning, defined in print. As I say, cocktails were quite bad form in those days, not only because they were consumed in the morning to stave off the effects of the night before, but also because they contained bitters.

“And what is wrong with bitters?” You might be so unwise to ask me. Well, in 1806, the cocktail was new. No cocktail glasses, no cocktail napkins, no cocktail lounges, no cocktail bitters. Putting bitters in your drink in 1806 was akin to stumbling to your medicine cabinet, grabbing the convenient bottle of Paragoric and dumping it into your hangover drink. Bad show, old chap, bad show indeed.

200 years later to the day, simultaneous celebrations for the now rather more gentrified drink form were held around the world: London, New York, Las Vegas, Sydney (Germany, Holland, Austria and Switzerland)… I attended the Las Vegas event, (at The Museum of the American Cocktail) which was simulcast with the New York one (at a bar with a satellite exhibit – a bar named, oddly, the Balance.) I gave a little speech, conducted tours and interviews, and drank. And ate. And drank. There’ll be more on that later. And drank.

At the event, the first annual The American Cocktail Awards™ (the Olives) were presented by the USBG (the United States Bartenders’ Guild) for the best drink. A little number named the “Wet Spot” won.

–Doc.

Doctor Cocktail's Sabbatical

Since January, I’ve been on so-called sabbatical from Martini Republic in New Orleans. You may remember, I was last there a week and a day before Katrina swamped the city at the end of August, and January 2nd displayed a city only just coming fitfully to consciousness. Dale DeGroff, Martin Doudoroff, Phil Greene, and I trekked down to pack up The Museum of the American Cocktail exhibit on the second floor of the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum (which, fortuitously, sustained no damage) so to transport it to its new temporary home in Las Vegas, in a banquet room, in the satellite Commander’s Palace Restaurant, in the Desert Passages shopping mall of the Aladdin Casino resort. This was at the invitation of Ti Martin and the Commander’s Palace Group. Ti is still camped out at her Café Adelaide while the original New Orleans Commander’s Palace remains closed, its roof breached by Katrina. Once the Museum artifacts were carefully swaddled, Dale and I drove them to Vegas in a U-Haul truck. I had earlier stated flatly that I wouldn’t trust shipping companies (especially in the January chaos of NOLA basic services infrastructural repair) to safely transport such treasures.

Dale and I had several offers to film the journey, as though we were Thelma & Louise; as though we would pull into towns along the way in tuxes, breeze into swank cocktail venues, wittily tipple Martinis and hit the road again. We declined. As Dale would say, “why ruin a good story with the truth?”

New Orleans has always been a city symbolic to the rest of the country. To many, New Orleans seemed somehow frivolous with its year-round festivities, its embrace of hearty drinking, and its odd culture of accents, sensibilities, and cuisine. Even worse than the artificial, history-faking Sodom and Gomorrah image that has long tarred Las Vegas, New Orleans just seemed silly to a lot of people. Katrina changed that impression but not the judgmental attitude; you either “get” New Orleans or you don’t. Me? I was captivated, from my first visit in 1993, and the love compounded in my heart with every subsequent arrival.

It was emotionally difficult to move the Museum to Las Vegas. I’m less charitable with my impressions of that burg (though I adore its gin-loving Mayor.) That it was Commander’s Palace (my favorite NOLA restaurant, by the way) offering us space gave me the necessary umbilical cord to the Crescent City to curtail despair. As I’ve said in interviews, Vegas IS becoming a more substantial destination for fine dining, drinking, and the arts – for those like me who disdain gambling. There too, the stereotype of the place is both incomplete and out of date.

Having deposited the artifacts into temperature-controlled storage, I headed directly back to New Orleans to assume the position of Graphic Designer for the first movie to be filmed there post-Katrina. This gave me four months to view the city’s progress and tribulations, all while slurping Sazeracs, Vieux Carrés and Milk Punches. Every Friday evening I’d return to Las Vegas to oversee the installation of custom-designed display cases and to mount the new Museum exhibit. Every Sunday I’d return to New Orleans.

There is no need to relate oft-told vignettes of devastation, but the January views of burned out crushed minivans in parking spaces next to the humdrum vehicles of the workaday world is not one I’ll ever forget. The seeming acres of car-husks lined up beneath bridges and overpasses heading from the intact French Quarter and Garden District into the newly minted wasteland were a vacuum of life and spirit. The city rebuilds, slowly, in agonizingly small increments – and the wear was evident in the faces and words of its residents. Yet traffic lights, comatose since the storm, one by one, would go from black to blinking. The telling carcasses of cars would disappear with the debris extending inexorably the living perimeter of the city.

While there I did radio, magazine, and newspaper interviews. I held a seminar entitled “The History of the Cocktail in 7 Drinks & 7 Plates” at Café Adelaide at the behest of dear, dear friend Ti Martin and it was the best calculated pairing of cocktails and food I was ever involved in or, in fact, had ever encountered. I invented several new cocktails on that fertile ground and I’ll be back there in July for the annual weeklong Tales of the Cocktail event to try it again. Comfortable back in Los Angeles after months of hotel life, I miss that fitful, hopeful city already.

I'm very bitter.

I was asked to be a part of a recent seminar on the subject of cocktail bitters, and it was suggested that I initiate the discourse with the words, “Hi, I’m Ted Haigh, and I’m very, very bitter.” I was only too glad to oblige.

Historically, a cocktail would never have been a cocktail without bitters. I could write a book on the subject, turn your ear to mush, and still have enough hot air left to go around the world in 80 days. So I won’t tackle the whole thing here, but perhaps just a short overview.

Bitters fall into 3 broad categories: Aromatic, fruit, and aperitif bitters. The most famous brand, Angostura (and I’d link to their website if it weren’t so bombastic) is an aromatic bitters. Aromatic bitters could weigh in at up to 100 proof and yet were still sold during Prohibition because they were considered “non-potable alcohol” which in this case meant they were simply too bitter to drink straight – or even in more than scant dashes. The same was (and is) true of fruit bitters.

Dubonnet, Fernet Branca, and Malort (more correctly Malört) are all aperitif bitters. This means that, though bitter to one extent or another, they were dilute or balanced enough with sweetness to be consumed straight – to promote appetite before a meal. Even vermouth falls correctly into this category.

Fruit bitters, the real subject of this column, are by their nature generic and so are identified by the specific fruit that informs the flavor of each. There were mainly just two; peach bitters and orange bitters. I am personally responsible for the fact that we can obtain peach bitters at all, through my collaboration with cocktail mixer producers Fee Brothers over a decade ago. I’m at least partially responsible for the growing popularity of orange bitters too. When half-century old recipes initially piqued my interest in the subject, there were simply none to be found – not in 1991. Having searched far and wide, I ended up on the phone with the chairman of Angostura International in Trinidad and through him was eventually guided to a small century-old family business in Rochester, New York: Fee Brothers. They made products largely for a regional market and one such product was orange bitters. By the time I became the cocktail & spirits maven for AOL four years later, I was all too happy to share this information, resurrect long-fallow drinks that called for the ingredient, and generally extol its many virtues. News spread rapidly among cocktail devotees.

But now I’m bitter. Why? Because the bitters revolution is moving too slowly for my impatient ass. Manhattans, Rob Roys and Old Fashioneds should never be made without bitters, yet often still are. All of you mid-century moderns should be mixing your classic Martinis with a traditional dash of orange bitters, but you aren’t because they remain perplexingly hard to find.

Note well, however, they are much handier now than when I went a-stalking them. Back in the days before, during, and directly after Prohibition, there were dozens of orange bitters brands. No liquor store would be without them. Consumers had their favorites, because even with a product so seemingly simple as orange bitters, different brands had widely varying nuances. Famed author of 1947’s The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (as well as the basis for my notorious Mixilator,) David Embury endorsed a long-departed British brand, Field’s. When eventually I was able to obtain vintage orange bitters, my favorite became the equally defunct Schiefflin’s Old House Orange Bitters. Just knowing that Fee Brothers still gamely sold the stuff freshly bottled was no small comfort. Interest in orange bitters (and bitters in general) has grown nimbly in the intervening years. There are now not one, but five brands of orange bitters on the market, though not all are available to everyone. Please meet the contestants:

Fee Brothers West Indian Orange Bitters: These, while being thoroughly (and appropriately) bitter, have the flavor of candied orange. They integrate well in sweeter, fruitier drinks that sorely need balancing. Fee’s is the best-known orange bitters brand currently made and is available via the Web, in Los Angeles from Surfa’s Restaurant Supply, and in New York at a store I will reveal shortly.

Regans’ Orange Bitters #6: These are the brainchild of my dear friends Gary and Mardee Regan and are produced by the historic Sazerac Company. I designed the label for this brand. Theirs is the most complexly flavored brand on the market. The subtle orange underlies tones of cardamom and coriander. It works well in aromatic drinks with dark spirits, wines, and vermouths where the orange character needs to bloom incrementally and through other flavors – as crocuses bloom through humus in early spring. Sazerac has excellent distribution and hopefully this brand will be more widespread in the future. It can be ordered via the Web via Sazerac’s subsidiary, Buffalo Trace. It is also available in New York at a store I will reveal shortly.

Hoppe Orange Bitters: This is a Dutch brand in a large bottle. A brand representative promised to send me some a year and a half ago but never did. When I was in England touring with Plymouth Gin, I picked up a bottle and from my taste test, surmised they felt discretion was the better part of valor. While orangey, it is rather dilute and with little concentrated bitterness; almost an orange aperitif bitters. Of these, half an ounce is interesting in tall drinks like a Tom Collins or inventive highballs, but I cannot recommend them to be used in the manner of traditional orange bitters. They are prevalent throughout Europe and England, but not available in the States.

Stirrings Blood Orange Bitters: The authors of these bitters come not from the liquor industry or its adjunct devotees. As such, they take some self-aware liberties with the chemistry that they mightn’t if they had more of a history with alcohol. As they put it, this is “a modern interpretation of a classic.” Flavor-wise (and again as the creators are obviously aware) this is spicier, more overtly orangey, and very diffuse in bitterness. Oh, the slight bitter gentian sneaks up in the aftertaste, but it has largely lost its aperitif effects in classic dash-and-drop bitters doses. It works well, though, as do all aromatic bitters, as a burst of flavor. The opportunities most importantly missed in these bitters are two, and they are interrelated: First, they are nonalcoholic. While this allows bitters use by an alcohol-free audience (a very good thing) it also misunderstands the reason for alcohol as a base. Alcohol adds zing, punch, and kick, true, but so does the citric acid they use instead. The problem is that alcohol is also a preservative, and citrus is not. You can’t keep a bottle of this, unrefrigerated, behind a bar for all too long I suspect. It, like old Rose’s Lime Juice Cordial, will simply go bad. Unfortunately, bitters DO stay behind the bar for quite some time, and a product long comatose like orange bitters, well, it might be back there quite a while. I’ve walked into bars had had ‘em serve me orange bitters in excellent cocktails where the bitters bottle had been behind the bar for 20 years, but they contained alcohol. While no bitters maker wants their product to sit around that long, that’s the way this trend is going to start – slow. These aren’t the first orange bitters without alcohol, just the first since Prohibition. I recommend Stirrings Blood Orange Bitters in nonalcoholic sparkling cider and in true cocktails where bitterness isn’t an issue but a bolt of flavor is. Keep this brand refrigerated. And Nantucket Off Shore? I highly recommend experimenting with (horrors) an alcohol base. I’d requested a line up of brick-and-mortar stores across the country that sold this product, but at this point your best bet is online.

Hermes Orange Bitters: Produced in Japan by Suntory producers of the popular Midori. This brand is the closest on the market to the flavor of 1930s orange bitters. It is overtly orangey with spicy undertones. It would be my choice in a 7 to 1 1950s-style gin Martini. Crank up the Stan Kenton and go. Up to a year ago, this brand might’ve required a trip to Japan to obtain, but for one little store in Brooklyn, New York.

Okay, okay, I’ll tease you no longer. The store is a unique little spirits shop run by an exceedingly charming woman who calls her business and herself LeNell. Tonya (LeNell) Smothers has a formidable knowledge of spirits – especially of bitters. Her website displays as exhaustive a list of currently made bitters as exists outside of my own head. She misses only the Hoppe product. Dear readers, if you live where you cannot obtain the bitters of your desire, I recommend you email or call LeNell. Suddenly, the bitters world just got a lot smaller, by which I mean closer, by which I mean happier.

The amazing dichotomy here is how fast these bitters, all orange bitters, all entirely individual, have created this new market while still being so relatively unknown in the larger world of bars and cocktails. I’m not playing favorites here either. Frankly, a committed Mixologist could stand to have each available brand on hand, so different are they. Your Doctor can personally demonstrate cocktails that show each to its best advantage, for which use of the others would be a compromise. That better drinking establishments can’t manage to stock even one makes me very very bitter. Between you, these forward-looking purveyors, and me that may well soon change.

It's all true.

It’s true. It’s the multi-belief-system holiday season again. Time to reflect/give gifts/remember/get revenge/blow people up, as one’s personal-yet-codified dogma dictates. One thing is for certain, though, as was so eloquently expressed by our liege, J. Mailander, there’s punch.

One of the best explanations of the overriding importance of punch is in this book: “Mixologist; The Journal of the American Cocktail.” In it, David Wondrich, Esquire Magazine’s drink maven, takes us through what punch was when punch was king, and what punch was, was pretty specific. Punch had (and meant) five ingredients. This would’ve been around, oh, the 1630s. The five ingredients were: citrus fruit, cane sugar, water, spice, and number five: arrack. Of these, in Europe, all were arcane except water. Now, all are common except arrack. Arrack, while strange to Western ears, is a name well known in the Middle East. It’s an anise-flavored spirit, and an acquired taste. In the 17th century, it was mainly just a word for liquor.

A hundred years later, punch was the monarch of drinks, and monarchs drank it – as did everyone, from cups ladled from large bowls just as we’d expect. They even upended the bowls in a traditional round robin toast of greeting and kinship. And punch could be served hot or cold as the season dictated. By now, however, the arrack in the best punches had become more specific, and the best of it was known as Batavia Arrack, an odd combo of rum distilled with fermented Javanese rice. This was obviously close kin to rum but it had a better reputation owing to the Dutch influence (they were instrumental, through their colonizing, in its European introduction) and to it’s use in the trendiest punches. Sophisticates went to great lengths to distinguish their punches from anything containing rumbullion. As with all things, eventually punch’s star declined. This happened as it always does – through the chemical process of bastardization. First, of course, they’d sneak rum in. Just in time for Gin Lane, well looky, it’s a gin punch. And hot whiskey punch was the direct ancestor to the Hot Toddy, Mr. Wondrich posits.

As punch became old-hat, more than just the ingredients were bowdlerized too. The extended-family conviviality of the punch bowl gave way to the greatest outrage of all: the single serving punch. Oh, flasks of brandy, mugs of beer, spiced mugs of hot beer presented with a fireplace poker, were served singly, but punch…punch was the glue that bound society together, and it was coming apart. Religious reactionaries will speak of the dissolution of the nuclear family and point to liberal, evolutionary, immoral, secular ideas as the culprit. Historians and sociologists who are a little more thoughtful nod toward the Industrial Revolution and the tight packing of human beings into steamy terrariums called “cities.”

In fact, it was punch. The dissolution of the family began when punch ceased, in the main, to be shared. The slow, incremental movement of focus from the communal to the individual began here.

The offspring of the single serving punch was, of course, the cocktail.

By the time the first cocktail recipes saw print in 1862, punch still abounded as an also-ran. It became a thing of events, commemorations, and holidays. It has, today, turned into a chimera, inhabiting the silhouette of punch but really being something else, something less. No one takes punch seriously anymore.

The punch I served lucky guests at Casa de Cocktail was a rum punch from the early 19th century that, with slight variations, was christened “Columbian Punch” in 1893 to honor the quadricentennial-plus-one-year of Columbus’ New World frolic. The year-late World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois was the first World’s Fair. The punch was this:

Columbian Punch*

1 quart of Jamaican rum,
1 pint of brandy,
the juice of 2 lemons and 2 oranges,
1 pint of freshly brewed oolong tea,
2 sherry glasses (4 oz.) of green Chartreuse.
Sweeten this mixture to taste,
pour into a large punch bowl,
add ice (a bag of ice from the store is about right)
and pour in a quart of Champagne (750ml is fine)
Stir and ladle.
(*) From “Beverages And Sandwiches For Your Husband’s Friends”
by One Who Knows. ©1893.

It was a serious punch and a fleeting glimpse at the fine thing punch once was.

Happy multi-belief-system holiday everyone!
The elves are weeping.

The Fruit of the Dead.

OK, so you’re dead, and Charon is ferrying you across the river Styx to your new digs on the Isle of the Dead,. Kinda thirsty? Have we got the thing for you! It’s pomegranate, the official Olympic Committee-sanctioned Fruit of the Dead, and hoo hah it’s popular.

Pom, the newish juice wunderkind has given good old morbid moribund pomegranates a new lease on death, errr…life. Suddenly the pomegranate is cool, and we see this reflected in products and marketing, thanks to Pom.

What you may not know, if you are woefully undereducated, is that the great classic use of pomegranates for at least the last couple hundred years is in grenadine. In fact, the word “grenadine” is French diminutive for “pomegranate” like “Yo! The Pomster!”

Now, if you feel you are experiencing a cultural disconnect, your Doctor is not surprised. You thought they’d taken all the surplus cheap cough syrup at the bottom of the vat (not the good druggy kind) and bottled it with a grenadine label. .Of course you did. Almost all grenadines of current manufacture contain little if any real pomegranate juice or syrup. Some of the better ones like Fee Brothers American Beauty Grenadine contain a commercially produced pomegranate extract, but the popular-by-default Rose’s Grenadine contains no pomegranate at all; they told me.

Given this state of affairs, there’s little question why grenadine is considered merely a sweet colorant for chick drinks. Of course, with the phoenix-like ascension of Pom, you can just imagine what nifty things are happening in the grenadine industry can’t you? You can’t? That’s because NOTHING is happening. Oh, Sonoma Syrup Company is producing a wonderful “pomegranate simple syrup,” and it and they are definitely up-and-coming. What makes this not a grenadine? Honey doll, you’ve got me. Maybe the grenadine moniker has been so devalued by crap that the name has no value anymore, or maybe Sonoma just wants the name to tie into all their other syrup products. Regardless, theirs is my current choice for quality cocktails calling for grenadine – and these cocktails stand proudest with real tart/sweet pomegranate flavor. To this I might add that Angostura makes a grenadine with real pomegranate flavor which is semi-hard to find, and that Trader Vic’s makes a very passable one also. These and Fee Brothers are all quite acceptable (unlike Rose’s or the local bar brand) but the Sonoma product is a cut above, cowardly naming convention or not.

To test it in a real drink (as opposed to the ones merely requiring a sweet colorant) try a Jack Rose.

1-1/2 oz. Applejack
Juice of 1/2 a lime (say about 3/4 oz.)
And 2 or 3 dashes of Sonoma “don’t call me grenadine” pomegranate simple syrup.
Shake in an iced cocktail shaker
Strain into a chilled, stemmed cocktail glass.

Now that is good.

As I said, despite grenadine’s exile from the party, pomegranate is the new kicky thing, so when I received a liquor company offering of a box set of Pama, a red pomegranate liqueur in a sleek designer bottle nestled in red confetti beside a red cocktail shaker, well, I was excited as one can get over pomegranates. I mean years ago they used to put about 1.5 to 3% alcohol in some grenadines and that’s what you’d call preservative-strength alcohol. Maybe, just maybe they were taking the next logical step and making a grenadine liqueur, as it were. That is, until I read the cover letter. Pomegranate liqueur, blended with “imported Tequila and super-premium Vodka.” I immediately wanted to triangulate my way to any handy vomit bags.

Well. Twas only fair to taste it. It….was good. It was good just like I would hope a grenadine liqueur would be. Note well, marketing staff – note well brand managers…it was good in spite of the Tequila and the vodka (the flavors of which were entirely undetectable.) Ergo, except for bragging rights they could’ve saved their vodka/Tequila money, used grain neutral spirits (which is exactly what vodka is, minus a little charcoal filtration) and sunk their money into a mammoth product launch. It’s 34 proof. Water, and sugar will smooth those rough edges.

Note to brain trust: Look. At. Pom. As is, the money line is and will be: “This pomegranate liqueur is honestly pomegranate-flavored, well balanced, and persuasively packaged. It ought to be a hit and I recommend it as an alternative to grenadine in drinks that call for that.” Mainly, combining winning trends may sound good in a meeting but be wasteful in what you need to accomplish for your product. As is, when it appears in limited release you should try it. You could probably even cut Sonoma Syrup’s Pomegranate Simple Syrup with it for a balance between sweet/thick/strong/thin.

Consider it Your Doctor’s prescription.

A Cocktail Dictionary

Translations for the Trade

Alcohol: A foul-tasting byproduct of trendy (which see) drink creation.

ATF: John Law with a speech impediment; a mean drunk (which see).

Bartenders are all using….: Barkeeps without pesky scruples being paid by the brand marketing dept. as shills to promote your trendy (which see) product (which see) in a new (which see) beverage.

Blank-blank cocktail news story: (vis: “drug cocktail,” “biodefense cocktail,” “Molotov cocktail.”) Reportage of any mixture of chemicals to create a desired effect for an intended purpose; see trendy and promo.

Champagne: Like spackling compound, a light sanding, and a new coat of paint.

Classic: Served in stemware (which see).

Cocktail bling: See schmuck

Cocktail revival: Served in stemware (which see).

Colorful cocktail(s): Cool (which see) new (which see) classic (which see) yet trendy (which see) drink you’re bound to love (which see).

Cool: Idiotic.

Drinking less but better: You’re raising prices across the board.

Drink responsibly: A benediction at the foot of all product (which see) advertising; (vis: “Have a good day.”).

Drunk: Noun: Valued product (which see) patron. Verb: See drink responsibly.

Enchant, enchanting: Girly drink (which see).

Ewww, I don’t like it: You can taste the alcohol (which see); opposite of new (which see) and trendy (which see).

Exclusive: If you’re reading it/getting into it, it’s over.

Girly drink: Any new, (which see) trendy (which see) drink.

Hip, hippest: You’re a writer who wouldn’t know a trend if it bit you on the ass.

‘Ho: The dignified purveyance of your estimable product (which see).

Kicky: Description of a girly drink (which see).

Latest: If you’re reading it/drinking it, it’s over.

Market coverage: Periodicals and websites created and maintained to ‘ho (which see) your product (which see).

Marketing Department: An orgy, on so many levels.

Marketing Rep.: You have a BA in business, it’s all about the ka-ching, so let’s rev up sales (which see) for the trend-setting (which see) product (which see) to which you’ve been summarily assigned. PS: You’re good-looking and horny but (somewhat) selective.

Mmmmph, mmmph, murph, murph, -gak- huuuawwpp: Office party with trendy cocktails.

New, newest: vodka with a diabetes-inducing dose of trendy (which see) liqueur and juice added to it.

Not for everyone: Ouch! What did you do to get assigned to THIS account?

Not just for Margaritas anymore: Another ephemeral attempt to increase Tequila sales by putting it in cocktails no bartender will make.

Popular: Was trendy (which see) but is now trending off (which see) and bartenders just have to suffer through it.

Press Release: Premature ejaculation.

Pricey cocktail: Another idiot is throwing schmuck (which see) in the bottom of an otherwise mediocre drink.

Product: Cowry shells and mirror bits, traded for gold and virgins.

Promo: What’ll it take?

Return of the cocktail: See cocktail revival.

Rev up sales: Big marketing push on this brand – which you’ll drop like a pump n’ dump stock next season.

Schmuck: German for jewelry; American for anyone who buys a pricey cocktail (which see) containing schmuck.

Sophisticated cocktail: “That’s awful; throw some Champagne (which see) into it.”

Stemware: Instant sophistication; often associated with Champagne (which see).

Style: Old hat.

Taking the brand upmarket: You’re not limiting your advertising to the African American and/or Hispanic consumer anymore (on this product).

This product has legs: 1: TWO seasons of revving up sales (which see).
2: Product (which see) has an unexpectedly addictive component. Also see promo.

Trendiest, trendy, trend-setting: This product/cocktail is so superficial it’ll last a week and a half before everyone realizes how wretched it is. See rev up sales.

Trending off: The public has begun to realize it’s swill; the gig’s up.

Vanilla brandy/”Cognac”: You haven’t taken this brand upmarket yet.

Versatile: A word rarely used when describing trendy (which see) cocktail ingredients because even brand marketing reps feel token shame.

What’s old is new again: Beating a dead horse.

Whiskey, cherry: You haven’t taken this brand upmarket yet.

Wow, that was a GREAT drink!: Not an industry term; perhaps a foreign language?

Yapping, trouble-making curmudgeon: See zealot.

You’re bound to love…: This cocktail/liqueur/spirit is so sweet and candy-like a six year old will like it, and you fit the bill.

Zealot: Nut case whose entire worldview is through a glass. Mea culpa.

Cocktail's bastard stepchild

The grand (and not-so-grand) giggle water drink resurgence has seen substantial maturation in step with its ongoing human audience. As might be expected, with so many venues, online and off, extolling the virtues of ever-more rarified and specific modes of imbibing, the trendy socialite is finally getting a head on her shoulders. Can she leap the terrifying gulf that now confronts her?

Don’t mistake my meaning; knowing how to hold a glass and muse wistfully at bygone oak is a fine thing, but true continental savoir vivre forces your Doctor to rip the lid off a repressed, ugly secret:

Vermouth.

Yes, both sweet and dry, red and white, Italian and French. Vermouth. Stop covering your ears. Go the last mile (before you go off the deep end, with bitters, as I have.)

My partner in CocktailDB, Martin D. just hosted an homage to vermouth and other aperitif wines. (Vermouth as an aperitif wine; see? It’s sounding better already.) Although the event occurred last Monday in New York, I co-authored a small-but-enlightening guidebook on the topic for the event worth reading. I’d certainly mail it to all of you faithful readers, but the USPS would surely confiscate it and throw me in the hoosegow — it is, after all, vermouth we are talking about here.

So to help you along in your oh-so liberal education, download or view a PDF of the file right here.

And be brave.

A curator's work is never done

….at least when it involves a fledgling start-up museum, however serious.

My initial curatorial duties on behalf of the Museum of the American Cocktail were to augment the temporary display area in the room designated for us on the second floor of the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum. I turned built in bookshelves into displays and filled low, Victorian-era display cases. I designed freestanding partitions to create more wall graphic display space and to make three areas out of one. I designed all of the graphic captioning that told the major story and I wrote the narrative sequence that WAS the story, 1806 to present. I wrote the scores of little captions that graced specific displays, and I oversaw the printing/cutting/mounting of all of this. I subdivided the real estate and created islands of information, like a timeline, and unpacked and arranged the hundreds of contributed artifacts into their respective areas.

All of this work occurred in December here in Los Angeles and between January 3rd and 12th in New Orleans where the planning and designing gave way to installation. The display is a sort of a preface. It is a temporary exhibit meant to raise awareness of the organization, to convince the Press that it was no silly joke - that the history and our treatment of it was a serious and consequential endeavor, to promote monetary contributions from spirits companies and the memberships of others, to augment seminars given under the Museum banner, and mainly, most urgently, to provide a taste of what might be accomplished given our own homeplace - a bit of real estate finagling needing to be scheduled before the end of September when we lose the space the Pharmacy Museum so kindly provided for us.

We believe we have now found such a space. While the specifics are under wraps as details are hammered out, contracts drawn up, and final negotiations completed, the museum board feels assured enough that it is time once again for me to go into design mode. Unlike the current display, there is no "repurposing" display cases and book shelves. All must be built anew to match the pristine restored space into which all will be installed. While this is additional work, it allows and presumes display areas suited perfectly to the story we are telling. The additional space allows us the luxury of instilling quite a bit more design drama to the presentation as well.

All of this begins Monday when I fly into New Orleans for three days to photograph, measure, and extrapolate the space and its potentials. I’ll be back there in August as an author for Southern Comfort’s Tales of the Cocktail, (a yearly event, also of three days, that celebrates the cocktail by importing those who are celebrated for writing about it - and giving the public access) and then at the end of September when all the artifacts must again be packed up, transported, and arranged in their new home. I’ll update everyone here as plans progress, and suggest checking out museumoftheamericancocktail.org occasionally for additional info.

The Modern Drunkard Convention: not the reportage you were expecting

It was Friday the 13th. I was slated to speak from stage to sundry drunken throngs on Sunday, but wanted to get the whole experience. I was sitting in row 13 as my flight swooped into Denver. I knew it would be special.

Modern Drunkard Magazine had me picked up at the airport by one of their (almost all) part time staff. "I’d do anything for Frank and Christa" Frank Bell told me cheerfully as we headed downtown. Mr. Bell had been designated the driver of the Drunk Bus which carted the horde of Drunkards from venue to venue to hotels for the 1st convention last year in Las Vegas. In fact he drove the bus there from Denver. It was that sort of unmitigated loyalty that I’d see repeatedly from the MDM staff during my stay.

All my hotel arrangements, likewise, seemed (rather counter-intuitively) to have been performed by a sober person; I was expected, and all was in order. At 7pm I strolled over to the Ogden Theater which turned out to be purely a rock & roll venue, not unlike the Hollywood Palladium. Things were already in full swing. Frank Kelly Rich, the human embodiment of Modern Drunkard Magazine and the brain behind the convention was onstage introducing his staffers to thunderous applause. It looked like the three bars and 2 large kegs were at full steam, as was Frank.

The performances during the three day event were an odd mix of Cirque de Solé, burlesque, lounge, rock, comedy and country thrash. Then there was me, but that comes later.

Frank was somewhat the worse for wear by the time he caught sight of me. "DOCTOR Cocktail, I am soooo glad yrrrr here!" he slurred with a giant grin. And that is really what this is all about; the cult of Frank. Everybody loves Frank Kelly Rich. He’s disarmingly sincere. In this case, a fearsome percentage of attendees wanted a personal drink with the Man. He was not fain to turn any of them down and he’d had a lot more to drink than showed. His stamina was truly awesome. He kept this up all night and, having reached this fairly early plateau of mildly slurred speech maintained that level, juggernaut-like for the unreeling hours of love. Despite the few dander-raising issues in his life (Jack Daniel’s lowering the proof of their whisky without telling anyone and THEN continuing to piously claim tradition is one, Denver Sunday Blue Laws - backed by Big Beer, he says - is another) Frank is a bona fide people lover, and it shows. When, that night, the boozing finally began to take its toll, his wife Christa was by him, head to head stroking his blond hair, and shortly thereafter they disappeared. Though, by special arrangement with various venues (including a former synagogue,) the partying would go literally all night, I also hightailed it back to the hotel full of amusement and Maker’s Mark - both on Frank’s tab.

Denver has a lot of bars, especially down on East Colfax Ave. I mean a LOT of bars. The bars are what pay for Modern Drunkard Magazine through their ads and the magazine repays them in kind with free copies, fresh humor and alcoholic insights monthly. that’s the other thing about Frank…. he’s really very smart. He’s written four novels…. fiction potboilers, and does the best of the writing for the mag and website. He has a new book deal with a major publishing house for Modern Drunkard-branded wisdom. Frank and I share literary agents, so I am bound not to reveal his advance, but if you were there and saw a couple marbles rolling around on the floor, thank you for not stepping on them - they were my eyeballs.

Which brings us to the little teapot tempest between MDM and Martini Republic before my tenure here. Editor Joseph handed MDM a backhanded compliment by directing readers to MDM’s Bill W. (A.A.) story - while opining that the writing from a grammarian point of view was, well, beneath MR’s standards. I suppose he had to say it; MR’s many viperous antagonists would surely have had a field day connecting this blog, which revels in its virtuousness, with the Drunkards’ rabble. And to be fair, when Modern Drunkard inte