Camper English's Blog, page 64

Bugs & Booze & Things to Do with Ice: Camper's Talks at Tales of the Cocktail 2017

This year at the annual Tales of the Cocktail convention in New Orleans, I'll be giving two talks: One on New Ice Techniques and the other on Bugs and Booze.

If you have any related information to share on those topics, hit me up and I'll see if I can include it! 

 

Beetlejuice! When Bugs Meet Booze

Much of what we drink today is due to the pestilence of the past. The phylloxera aphid destroyed the European wine and grape brandy industry, but as a consequence helped popularize European whiskies and calvados, as well as forced American bartenders to swap out the cognac in their Sazeracs and Juleps for rye. Mosquito-transmitted malaria has plagued humankind for millennia, and its natural cure quinine bark wound up in our tonic water, aperitif wines, and amari. Fleas carrying bubonic plague are naturally repelled by juniper berries that made their way into gin.

In modern times we’re putting bugs back into drinks. Cochineal, an insect-based red food coloring, has made its way into a few new spirits. Bartenders keep trying to make us drink ants, crickets, and scorpions as rims, garnish, and infusions. They say insects are the future of food – will they be the future of drink too?

We’ll look at how insects influenced how we drink today and how they might impact what we drink in the future. 

Wednesday, July 19, 2017. 10:30 AM. 

 

New Ice Techniques, Tools, and Technology

We’ve come a long way, baby! Ten years ago there was one ice machine on the US market that could make decent-sized cubes, and a whole lot of hearsay on how to make clear ice. A decade later there is a range of new machines, a well-understood method for machine-free clear ice (‘directional freezing’ developed by speaker Camper English), and a rebirth of creativity in the industry to make ice… cool again.

The main part of the seminar will be a survey and slideshow of some of the most spectacular ideas in ice from the past couple years, including branding ice cubes, hacking Clinebell machines to freeze objects inside cubes, using robots to cut up ice blocks into different shapes, and much more. We’ll take a look at the new machines that can freeze not just water but alcohol or whole cocktails, and create new shapes and sizes of ice. We’ll study tools and techniques for breaking down blocks, including ban saws, chainsaws, hacksaws, and various knives and picks that different bartenders prefer. And we’ll look at low-tech tricks as well – how people are using directional freezing in fun and efficient ways for work or for home. Finally, we’ll look at the costs and practical considerations of implementing a fancy big ice program or ice delivery company, and a ton of hacks, kluges, and workarounds that smaller (or cheaper) bars use to implement better ice programs with budget and space constraints.

Saturday July 22, 2017. 

 

 

 

Drinking the Drinks at Double Back, the Temporary Bar Inside SF's ABV

Throughout this year, San Francisco cocktail bar ABV is rotating the concept in their balcony every three months. The balcony is called Overproof and the bar inside of it has just changed over from the rum-themed Flip Flop to the whisky-themed Double Back. 

My write-up of Flip Flop is here.

The deal is that you get five bites of food and five smaller-than-usual drinks for one price ($60), with no substitutions available. There are two seatings Thursday through Saturday, plus one seating Wednesdays. 

I had the opportunity to pop in and try the cocktails before their second night of service. Rather than go through them in order as served, I'll hit them from my least to most favorite.  But here's the order in which they were served:

Beginning at the last cocktail, the Red Eye uses Mosswood's Espresso Barrel Whiskey with Campari and Tempus Fugit's delicious Creme de Cacao. It tastes dense and bitter, making it a nice digestif (with a coffee picker-upper). 

 

 

The Drifter, the welcome drink, tastes like a Diet Old Fashioned in that it's lighter in body but similar in flavor to the classic. It has Japanese whisky, Amaro Nonino, blanc vermouth, and bitters. It's the one on the left in this picture. 

 

Next up is the confounding Longblood, which was described perfectly as, "looks like Sparkling rose, tastes like a scotch and soda." It has blood orange shrub in it, but the peated Longrow (get the name now?) scotch and soda steal the show. I am not usually that impacted by cocktail visuals, but it was surprising every sip. (Also, really delicious.)

This is one of two bottled-and-carbonated cocktails on the menu. 

 

 

 

I'm a total sucker for plum wine in cocktails, so I had a feeling I'd enjoy the Golden Gai-  and I was right. It's made with "typical Manhattan specs" so I'm guessing about 2/3 Willett Rye, 1/3 Plum Wine, and bitters. This is probably one we can start making at home, folks.

 

 

But my favorite cocktail of the night was the other carbonated number, the High Plains Highball. It's made with Japanese Whisky (Toki), Genepy, and rice green tea (which I just learned is called Genmaicha). It tastes like a green tea rice-popcorn whisky highball. They had a version of this highball on the opening menu at ABV, but I don't remember the green tea aspect in it. 

It's so good. They should put it on tap this summer.

 

 

That's my take on things anyway. Below are a couple pictures of the space. For reservations, start here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Gin, Tonic, Ice, and My Tombstone

I recently recorded a video with Cocktail Chemistry's Nick Fisher. Fisher has probably done more to raise awareness of my Directional Freezing technique to make clear ice than anyone, with a slick video he made last year showing the process that's now at nearly 1.5 million views.

Watch or just listen to his video interview with me below, in which I talk about bar trends, how I got into cocktail journalism, the Gin & Tonic book, and of course, big clear ice. 

 

New Cocktail Books: Beaches, Boston, Australia, Rum, and Moonshine

Here are the latest batch of booze books hitting store shelves and online warehouses and flying through the air as digital copies.

The descriptions below are from the publishers and are not reviews. 

 

Beach Cocktails: Favorite Surfside Sips and Bar Snacks

Cheers! Bottoms Up! It's time for a beach cocktail! Whether you are on the shores of a sandy beach or at home with a gathering of friends, serve up thirst-quenching flavored cocktails of the coast like Hawaiian Mai Tais, Cuban Daiquiri's, Key West Rum Runners or a Brazilian Caipirinhas!

Over the last 20 years Coastal Living has provided readers with the best of seaside life, and now with BEACH COCKTAILS they serve up delicious cocktail recipes alongside beautifully photographed coastal scenery to delight the casual reader, mixologist, or guest alike.

More than just a pretty cocktail book, BEACH COCKTAILS covers it all: learn the origin and key ingredients of tiki bar favorites, gear up with the 4-1-1 on must-have bar essentials, and refresh your bar-basics like making simple syrups, creating fun garnishes and learning to muddle! Whether you prefer a classic sip on the sand, a cutting-edge contemporary toddy, or a refreshing mocktail while watching the tide roll in, BEACH COCKTAILS is your thirst-aid kit.

 

A Spot at the Bar: Welcome to the Everleigh: The Art of Good Drinking in Three Hundred Recipes  by Michael Madrusan and Zara Young

 

What'll it be? Something light and refreshing, or big and boozy? Join the internationally acclaimed team from The Everleigh for an evening of good drinking, festive hosting and classic style. From an aperitif at sundown, a nightcap in the early hours, right through to a hair of the dog the morning after, we invite you on a wild and romantic journey in celebration of the golden era of drinking and entertaining.

The Everleigh, Australia's best cocktail bar, is about mystery and awe that builds anticipation and excitement about the evening ahead and then, ultimately, lives up to that expectation, every time. Michael founded the bar with the late Sasha Petraske, the man responsible for opening Milk & Honey in New York and thus forever changing the way bartenders throughout the world made drinks. The bar was designed to deliver detail-oriented, attentive service to focus on your experience, and their skill lies in making it a great one. From this it is easy to understand why The Everleigh is more than just a bar - it is an experience - and A Spot at the Bar: Welcome to The Everleigh is an invitation into their inner sanctum.

With more than three hundred recipes for fond and forgotten classic cocktails, including our favourite variations, A Spot At The Bar will transport you back to the golden era of elegant drinking. Tips and tricks for hosting the perfect soirée, what to pour into your punchbowl and how to dress with savvy style, round out a cocktail book like no other.

So, what are you waiting for? Time to find a spot at the bar...

 

 

Moonshine Mixology: 60 Recipes for Flavoring Spirits & Making Cocktails by Cory Straub 

Learn to make white lightning and delicious, down-home drinks!

Take a fun-filled adventure into making and partaking of mountain spirits with Moonshine Mixology. Beginning with a short, rollicking history of lightning in a bottle, ’shine expert Cory Straub details all the equipment you’ll need to brew it, offers an in-depth overview of the process, and shares recipes for creating delicious flavor bases and a bevy of tasty, tub-thumpin’ cocktails. Along the way, you’ll learn valuable tips on storing, packaging, and serving your hooch, plus fun facts and witty quotes that’ll have your granpappy slappin’ his knee.

 

 

The Curious Bartender's Rum Revolution by Tristan Stephenson 

Discover why rum is becoming the hottest spirit in the world right now with the latest and greatest offering from bestselling author and master mixologist Tristan Stephenson.

The Curious Bartender’s Rum Revolution is the fifth book by bestselling author Tristan Stephenson. Explore rum’s remarkable history from its humble origins to its status as life-blood of the Royal Navy and its love affair with Cuba. Discover its darker past, with tales of devils, pirates and its reputation as the revolutionary spirit. This fabled drink is in the midst of another revolution, transforming from uninspiring grog to premium product, with aged and spiced premium varieties leading the charge. Learn about how rum is made, from the science of sugar cane and molasses to distillation and unique ageing techniques. The Rum Tour will transport you to the most exciting rum distilleries the world has to offer, with Tristan’s signature tasting notes guiding you towards the right rum at the right time. Explore the legendary Caribbean home of rum to the pioneering rum makers around the world embracing dynamic new techniques and taking flavor to dizzy new heights. Finally, Tristan’s mixology skills will help you master jazzed-up versions of the Mai Tai and Mojito, perfect a Planter’s Punch and keep you on trend with Brazil’s famous Caipirinha and Batida cocktails, made with rum’s sister spirit, cachaça.

 

 

Boston Cocktails: Drunk & Told by Frederic Yarm

Boston Cocktails: Drunk & Told is the 5 year follow-up to the 2012 Drink & Tell: A Boston Cocktail Book. The first book was described as "a cocktail historian's tour of a city he knows and love," and this book continues on with that theme with over 850 novel recipes from over 100 bars and restaurants in the Greater Boston area.

In addition, there are essays on hospitality, cocktail trends, and tributes to Boston bartender greats to round out this love letter to the Boston drink scene. From famous bars and bartenders to lesser known establishments and drink slingers, this book captures the tapestry of what makes Boston truly a cocktail town.

Boston Cocktails: Drunk & Told is perfect for the home bartender, for the Boston barfly looking for a memento, and for the professional bartender seeking inspiration on improving their trade.

 

 

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Air-Conditioned Cocktail Bars in San Francisco

It's unusual to have air conditioned bars in foggy San Francisco, outside of hotels. So when it gets hot (if you don't live here, "unbearably hot" is 80F) people get weird and desperate. 

I decided to ask Facebook for advice: Which bars in San Francisco have air conditioning?  Here's what I've found so far:

Absinthe 

Bear Vs. Bull

Benjamin Cooper

Blackbird

Clock Bar

Forgery ("is nice and cool inside with or without A/C")

The Interval

Pabu

PCH

Rusted Mule

Rye ("We try to keep it at around 68/70")

The Saratoga

Let me know if you know of any more. 

Certainly more hotel bars will have a/c, so you're usually safe there. At least, safe that it will be cool, not safe that the drinks will necessarily be any good.

 

 

All About Ice in the Washington Post

I guess M Carrie Allan is becoming my personal biographer, because in addition to the story I posted yesterday on dangerous drink ingredients in Imbibe Magazine, her story with quotes from me about ice also went live in the Washington Post.

The story is called, You’ve made a good drink. It deserves the perfect ice.

 

It's an examination of different types of ice and my Directional Freezing technique that makes ice clear. It's good stuff. 

Maybe in the future Carrie will write about tonic water history, and then all my pet projects will be covered :)

 

Bad-Idea Cocktail Ingredients in the New Issue of Imbibe

In the new issue of Imbibe (US), M Carrie Allan has a story about dangerous cocktail ingredients in which I'm quoted. 

 

She covers things like tobacco, homemade tonic water, and marijuana; and has a sidebar of other potentially-dangerous ingredients worth knowing about.

As you may know, that's  been something I've been writing about for a few years. Here's the original post about the potential danger of homemade tonic water dating back to 2014, and here is Darcy O'Neil's post about the dangers of tobacco infusions from 2011.

Last summer, Avery Glasser of Bittermens Bitters and I gave a talk about dangerous cocktail ingredients. Avery is also quoted extensively in this story. For that talk Avery and I wrote up a Danger Guide that we're considering publishing in some form (probably an ebook) to have more information out there. 

Though Avery and I have been talking about this extensively, I didn't realize how many people have not heard about these issues, so I'm very grateful to Carrie and Imbibe for putting dangerous cocktail ingredients front and center in front of a new and larger audience. The reaction I've been seeing has been great. 

Give it a read, please!

 

 

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Mixer Picks 2017

Mixology Competitions at the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America Convention

Once again this year I attended the WSWA Convention, a convention for the nation's wine/spirits wholesalers (aka the distributors or the second tier of the three-tier system). The convention is a place for large wine/spirits brand owners to meet with all their distributors from around the country, and for smaller brands to try to pick up additional distribution. 

As usual, I helped judge a cocktail competition. In the past, that was always the Wholesaler's Mixologist competition, which is done Iron Chef-style with a couple of secret ingredients that the staff mixologists from wholesaler groups have to make using their spirits portfolios.

This year I judged the Call for Cocktails Competition instead. For this one, brands (often working with some of those same staff mixologists from the distributors) submit recipes online. Each recipe represents one brand. In the past, the drinks in this competition were submitted by brand owners and people who weren't the best mixologists, but that's changed significantly. 

The top 12 cocktails from about 100 submitted online were narrowed by a committee and then made/judged live. Because of the blind first judging, they didn't know that 6 of the final 12 cocktails to be made live at the event were all submitted by the same person: Troy Clarke, the director of mixology for Martignetti Companies and owner of Twelve24 Cocktails. 

So it should come as no surprise that Troy eventually won this competition, coming in both first and second place by himself. Smartly, I snapped a photo of his recipes. 

And this was how the cocktail was presented. It's an oyster on top of a coconut on top of a beet-and-lemon sugar dusted glass. 

The Kickback Sling, on the other hand, was presented simply with a mint garnish, but it was by far the best Singapore Sling I've ever had. 

 

 

 

The third place winner was a Jagermeister cocktail from Willy Shine, the new "Brand Meister" of Jagermeister. 

 

Special mention should also go to Troy Clarke (again) for this set-up: The drink was basically a Gin & Tonic, but served on a custom-made book with a pull-out draw holding all the botanicals in the gin, and on top a sample of the gin neat in a sake glass along with two cucumber sandwiches. Impressive.

 

Thanks for making drinks everyone, and congratulations to Willy and Troy for their wins. 

 

 

 

Product Trends Seen at the 2017 WSWA Convention

Once again this year I attended the WSWA Convention, a convention for the nation's wine/spirits wholesalers (aka the distributors or the second tier of the three-tier system). The convention is a place for large wine/spirits brand owners to meet with all their distributors from around the country, and for smaller brands to try to pick up additional distribution. 

The convention floor is filled with those brands looking for first-time or additional distribution into new states, so the products one tends to see are a mix of products in similar flavors/formats to current trends (there were ginger-flavored whiskies and mixers responding to the Moscow Mule craze as in previous years there were many cinnamon whiskies hoping to replicate the success of Fireball), along with entirely new unique offerings. 

So, what's happening with spirits at the WSWA Convention? Here's my take: 

 

Vodka "Science"

Several brands tried to promote a high-tech or sciency aspect to their vodka brands. These include:

Green Day Vodka:  "Vodka Green Day is produced according the new technology “Eco Technology” ™, that’s why it has 2.5 times lower aldehydes’ and fusel oils’ content, than it is required by state standards. It means that the buyers will have the good health after drinking!"

Bellion Vodka: "Bellion was developed using a proprietary blend of FDA approved ingredients called NTX. Spirits infused with NTX are made smarter without sacrificing the consumer experience. NTX is a technology that is integrated into spirits during the manufacturing process and is thus not able to be a standalone ingredient. Bellion Spirits, LLC is the exclusive outlet for products created with NTX Technology. Currently, NTX is only available in Bellion."

 

Chilled Dills Pickled Flavor Vodka: Had a pretty easy take on this, with a big sign saying, "ask about our ultrasonic infusion process."  For those nerds who want to know what that process is, it's Terra-Pure.

 

 

Deep Blue Russian Vodka: "Russian Ice Filtered Vodka" "GOVERNMENT STANDARDS FOR VODKA PRODUCTION IN RUSSIA ARE ONE OF THE MOST, IF NOT THE MOST STRINGENT IN THE WORLD. THE ESTABLISHED LIMITS FOR ALDEHYDES, ESTERS, AND FUSEL OILS ARE SET VERY LOW. DEEP BLUE RUSSIAN VODKAS ICE FILTRATION PROCESS MAINTAINS A LOW TEMPERATURE THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS AND YIELDS LEVELS OVER 60% BELOW THESE RIGID STANDARDS. THE RESULT IS A PURE AND SMOOTH VODKA, IDEAL FOR TODAY'S DISCERNING CONSUMERS."

 

Millennial Marketing

Never before have I seen spirits marketed so specifically to Millennials. In fact, the first work in HOLLA vodka's promo is "Millennial."

 

YOLO Rum, on the other hand, has a much less wild packaging (and website), but the marketing on-site at the convention made it super clear for whom this rum tolls.

 

 

Another brand on site, John Drew Brands, is branching out from a cigar business to a hip-hop focussed bold promotion of three new products: a rye whiskey, a rum, and a blend of rum and bourbon in one bottle. They had a DJ, live graffiti painting, and basically their booth looked like a cool sneaker store.

 

 

Hybrid Spirits

The snobs among us may scoff at the above John Drew Brands' bourbon/rum hybrid, or Vodquila (and now its spin-off Rumquila), but I think the industry is moving towards hybrids faster than everyone thinks.

My theory is that with all the barrel finishing used in the rum, tequila, cognac, and whiskey (and now sometimes vodka and gin)  categories, we're putting it into people's minds that you can have wine and whiskey, and rum and beer, and cognac and bourbon together in a product.  

Is it any wonder there is a company marketing IrishAmerican Whiskey? It's literally Irish whiskey aged in American whiskey barrels... which is how pretty how 95% of  Irish whiskey is made. And rum. An Tequila. It's not even a blend of Irish whiskey and American whiskey. 

Someone asked a question on the trends panel I spoke on about hybrid spirits and that got me to thinking that we'll see a whole lot more of these rather than less.

Box Vodka

I've not seen spirits in a box that I can think of in the USA, though on Martinique you can get 3- and 5-liter bag-in-boxes of rhum agricole. I'm not sure if they're the first [note from the comments - Fireball beat 'em to it], but a company called Famous Brands now offers Weekend Warrior vodka (in two packages - one flag-adorned and the other camouflaged so I guess you can take it along duck hunting) and an American whiskey. These are in 1.75 liter boxes. 

The back of the box illustrates that you can just pop the box open and fill it with ice to chill it down. Smart. 

 

I wouldn't exactly call that a trend, but I call it awesome. I wish major brands would come out with bag-in-box versions of their spirits to save on glass shipping weight. 

 

Anyway, that's my trend report from this year's Wine and Spirits of America convention. Hope to see you again next year. 

 

 

 

A New Wheyve of Milk-Based Gin and Vodka Hits the Market

Who knew there were so many vodkas and gins distilled from whey? Answer: Not me. 

Way back in the late 2000s I first tried Vermont Spirits' whey-based vodka, and now several others are appearing on store shelves.

Vermont Spirits' version is called Vermont White, and it's described as "Vermont White is distilled from whey, the natural sugar source found in cow’s milk. The Distiller introduces select nutrients and yeasts to create the lactose fermentation.  After distillation in the glass fractioning column still, Vermont spring water and a light charcoal filtration complete the process." Elsewhere they describe it as being inspired by "Tuvan milk vodka."

Later I tried VDKA6100 and don't think I even realized it was whey-based vodka, though I do remember thinking it was good. 

Since then other brands have popped up. A quick internet search pops up Hartshorn's Sheep Whey Vodka (they also make a whey gin). So there's is made from sheep's milk, which the company uses for cheese. 

The website says, "Ryan and his family run Grandvewe Cheeses in Birchs Bay located deep in Tasmania’s south. When making cheese, the whey is often discarded and put to little use. Ryan has spent the last two years discovering how to turn the complex sugars held within the whey protein and convert them into a basic sugars to then ferment into alcohol and eventually distill."

 

This story on TalesoftheCocktail.com lists a few other whey products, including Blackwater No5 gin (interesting that whey is not mentioned on their own website) and Bertha's Revenge, both from Ireland, and Cream Gin from England.

 

Canada produces its own whey vodka called bob's Super Smooth, in a fun bottle. It's "Made from whey and blended with the cleanest spring water on the planet."

 

In the US, Black Cow vodka has been making a big push in a few markets and should be soon hosting its first cocktail competition if the rumors are correct.

 

Last week I was at the WSWA convention in Orlando, and tried two whey vodkas there. The first is called Broken Shed and it comes from New Zealand. It tasted very structured and filtered; not super creamy as the other one I tried. 

The last thing I had at the convention was the amazing Lactalium vodka, made in Northern France. Instead of tasting just like vodka that's a little softer, this stuff tasted like it would rot if you left the cap open - sour and goopy and aromatic. Mmmm.

 

 

That's a lot more whey-based spirits than I expected to be on the market already, but I guess these milk-derived vodkas are the wheyve of the future. 

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

 

 

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