Considering Zaddy's Canned Cocktails

One of the great joys of cocktails is the making of them--a tiny bit of precision, a whole bunch of taste, quality ingredients, a modicum of physical effort. Bonus points for any witty bartender banter. Boom, you've made people pleased in less than 10 minutes. How often does that happen?

So I guess I'm not the audience for canned cocktails, and based on Zaddy's website that's certainly true--I go there and feel late Gen X old in a nanosecond. That said, the cartoon skeletons featured on their Corpse Reviver are right up my Halloween loving alley, so I have to admit they've got marketing down.

As for the drinks, they aren't bad, particularly if you aren't hoping they nail a full flavored, just shaken version. The 100 calories bit is appealing but not half as much as the 4% ABV. Sure, these aren't as flavorful as a regular cocktail, but they are playing one with mighty fist of alcohol tied behind their backs. Think of them as delightfully refreshing midday sippers that are easy to take to the beach or on a hike. Or just to your "why is it still so warm" backyard.

My vote would be for the Gin(ger) Fizz first, and not just because I'm a sucker for ginger's sweet tang. It works in a register that one could easily confuse for hard seltzer or kombucha, if not for that background hum of juniper thanks to the gin. And, yes, it's the Corpse Reviver I like the least, only because I'm so partial to the real one and there's no skimping on all its moving parts, even with fennel subbing for Pernod/absinthe. 

Genever, With Your Orange Hair, Genever, With Your Green Eyes*

Which came first, the genever or the gin? Wait, you don't know genever? Well, then you should have been on the Zoom tasting I was part of on Monday, all about genever, America's Lost European Spirit (which as a tag line is brilliant marketing, no?).

So it's simple (unless you're trying to distill a good one)--genever, originating in the 1500s in Holland (well, The Low Countries, back in the day), must have two things: malt spirit + juniper berries. Like gin, which it preceded, it's usually got botanicals, sometimes of the "if I told you I'd have to kill you" variety. It can be aged or un-aged, in oak or not. It can have added caramel color to suggest it had been aged (kind of a reverse Grecian Formula for spirits). It's got a great history, helping create the term "dutch courage" and being connecting to William of Orange--when he married into English royalty, genever and gin came with him.

And this is way too late in my post to add the most important thing, it's damn delicious, in lots of different styles. Sarah Lawson-Stopps, bartender at Wildhawk in San Francisco and a genever brand ambassador, took us through the evening, a tasting of five different expressions showing the ranges within the two basic styles. The first, the old style, is darker and with more malt (15%-100%) and makes one think of whiskey, the second, the young style, is lighter, brighter, and more like a dry style gin (with a malt percentage under 15%). 

That younger style is a bit more in ascendancy now, as genever is still recovering from its near fatal moment during U.S. Prohibition. But mixologists of the past 10 years or so find it fascinating for its backstory and versatility, so get used to seeing it more frequently behind your favorite bars. Why not, given Bobby's Schiedam Jenever you could easily assume was just a dry gin, but then its Indonesian botanicals sneak up on you--lemongrass, cardamom, ginger. Or when you could drink Rutte Old Simon Genever, 40% malt, so brilliantly complex, even more so with its additions of celery, carob, and a distillate of roasted hazelnuts! How convenient that along with our sample bottles (nowhere near the gorgeous full 750 ml bottles most genevers sell to the public in) we were sent snifter packets of classic botanicals to snort. Makes a Zoom event a lot more sensory.

And then there's the origin of a shot and a beer, which goes back to genever. Kopstootje is the Dutch term for this special ritual, and it translates as "head butt." So if you want to be a mating ram at your bar, get them to pour a healthy shot of genever into one of the classic tulip classics that match the spirit and have your beer ready to go. And by healthy shot, I mean one that almost over pours--the goal is to have an arcing meniscus of genever above the glass, the rainbow for you to wish the exciting future of your night upon. Then you lean in--I mean, you aren't trying to pick up that close to an overflowing glass--with your hands behind your back and sip deep. There's even a crazy method where you lip-lock the tulip into your mouth and toss it back that way, but I'm too old for that kind of uncouth thing. Even if the genever itself has a good four centuries on me.

*OK, this title doesn't really make sense, but I just really like this Eurythmics song, sorry.

Piperis's Perfect Potent Potables

Repeal Day is one of those odd negative holidays--hooray, we're not getting beaten anymore!--but that said, aren't you happier you have a glass of something in your hand right now? Even if you don't drink, I hope the notion of Prohibition, saying you legally can't do something that's not morally wrong, should rankle. Well, December 5th was repeal day, the 85th year of the return for legal drinking (and producing and selling) in the USA. And there's just one MAGA I support: Make America Grape/Grain Again.

All that's prelude to getting the chance to sample the latest cocktail creations for the fall-winter season from one of our town's masters, George Piperis, at the Finch & Fork at the Canary Hotel this December 5th. I've had the luck to drink with and write about him before, but he's the kind of talent that lands drinks in Imbibe Magazine and geeks out on his milk punch project, which he talks about like making boozy cheese in reverse, and along the way points out Benjamin Franklin did it first. Hoping to have it ready for Christmas, he concludes, "I could do an eggnog, but that's so boring."

Boring has no room in a Piperis menu. The current one carries over some of the previous's greatest hits, from the delicious AND gloriously goofy Barbie's Bath Bomb to the old fashioned with the very new wrinkle--he washes the bourbon in duck fat. But it's the new creations I want to highlight, as in their breadth and depth they astound at every turn. Take the You Got Chocolate in My Peanut Butter, a nod to the old Reese's ad, but Reese's never tasted this good.

(Note these images are all on the fly iPhone photos--follow Piperis on Instagram to see them photographically pimped out.) This time it's Toki Japanese whisky that gets the wash treatment, but with peanut butter. The chocolate comes from Tempus Fugit créme de cacao and some chocolate shavings across that lush peanut butter foam that's so rich and flavorful you'd order it on its own. Despite that creamy top, Piperis asserts (rightfully), "It's not just a dessert cocktail--the most masculine man can drink it." Well, as long as he has some taste.

Then there's the Tryna Send It, which he calls one for the kids who work with him. At this point I felt truly old, but fair enough, I don't know snowboarders yell encouragement by screaming, "Send it!" Piperis wanted to make a "good Long Island Ice Tea," is how he put it, and that's a challenge, as the usual LI Iced Tea is simply "how many alcohols can we mix in one drink and make it sweet enough you want another?"

His drink still delivers a boozy punch, but does so with velvet-gloved elegance, starting with the garnish of candied ginger heavily-dusted with his own fermented spicy pineapple sambal--he warns me to mix it moderately into the drink, as it does have quite a kick. The drink is composed of pineapple juice, Casa Noble blanco tequlia, The Funk rum, and Singani 63, a Bolivian unaged brandy Piperis calls "real trendy." 

One of my personal favorites now on the list is the Captain Jack Sparrow, as I'm not trendy at all. I'd like to think of as more a Keith Richards than a Johnny Depp drink, myself, full of depth, unflashy skill, and surprisingly well-aged. It kicks off with Jack​ Daniels rye, off course, but earns its buccaneer bona fides in several ways, starting with Chairman’s Forgotten Cask rum (turns out Chairman's actually found a barrel and no one knew what production it was from). To tease out rye and rum flavors in some of their most varied directions there's Tempus Fugit banana liqueur and a roasted banana slice for garnish, and then a few shots of both blackstrap and tobacco bitters, the latter, oddly enough, not made with any tobacco but with bacon fat and coffee. (Beware, vegetarians!)

Piperis compares the drink in composition to a Boulevardier, but think a boulevard in Barbados, maybe. And no, it's not too banana in the slightest--it's a drink where all the parts add up to one lovely sum.

It's a fascinating companion to another more classically-conceived drink I don't have a photo for, Hayden on Holiday, named not just for the Basil Hayden in it but also a friend of Piperis who is always on vacation. (And given the season and our location, how do you not do a "holiday" named drink?) Definitely a drinker's drink (you know who you are) the namesake bourbon get the smoky punch of mezcal, too, plus Sfumato, an Amaro made from artichoke that's lighter and smoother than the better known Cynar. Add in some Cocchi Teatro Dopo and Thai bitters, and help people realize casks add coconut notes by drizzling coconut oil on the one big rock in the double highball glass, so the ice looks like it has a snowy cap, and the smell hits you as you go in for every sip. This is a deep drink, one worth much slow consideration.

If you want to go with what seems to be a very Santa Barbara drink, it's hard to pass on the Daughter of Man that, with its eucalyptus bitters and eucalyptus leaf tied alongside, Chryss joked, "Smells like a koala's butt." Having not been upclose with those Australian critters I can't say for sure, but the drink itself brings together Copper & Kings brandy, honey crisp apple, a black currant reduction with red wine, honey, and those bitters into a refreshing very unusual drink perfect for this time of year. Sweetish, without being sweet, fruity, but not too.

Then there's version 2.0 of last menu's In the Pines, this time featuring Death's Door Gin, a sure way into this gin-lover's heart. (1.0 had mezcal.) Of course the gin is pine-y to start but it gets extra pine power from Zirbenz, a stone pine liqueur from the Alps, plus an at the table dusting of pine pollen, fragrant as a field of Christmas trees, and supposedly an aphrodisiac to boot. Add some Cardamaro (Piperis likes those cardoon-artichoke Amaros) and Cocchi Torino and you have a drink deceptively smooth for all its gin.

Piperis sums it up this way, "It's an aggressive menu for this market but I'm just proud of it." And he should be, as it's playful, powerful, challenging, comforting, and most of all downright delicious.

Speaking of, Peter Cham, the executive chef, has the kitchen firing on all cylinders right now too. For example here's the most lovely of scallop dishes I've perhaps ever-eaten.

Perfectly seared to be nearly crunchy on the outside and just-cooked but cooked inside, the scallops sit atop a rich brown butter cauliflower puree. Then the plate is artfully strewn with romanesco, roasted to just the right toothsomeness, pickled kumquat, as vividly tasting as they look, crispy capers, and enough edible flowers to make you feel you're eating at a florist. Gorgeous plate of food. (And a great pairing with the Tryna Send It.)

Same with the trout, again showing off Cham's skill with brown butter, this time made with toasted hazelnuts. That's buried in broccoli florets, more toasted hazelnuts, and the most eye-catching of greens. And along with the brown butter, it sits atop green goddess dressing that will make you think young you might have been onto something liking even the blandish bottled versions of it (I'm remembering you, Seven Seas), and warm multigrains to give the dish yet more crunch. Eat it with an In the Pines and you'll feel like you're out fishing on a tranquil Eastern Sierra stream.

All Ginned Up

Despite the lyrical wisdom of Pink Floyd, we do need an education, especially when it’s a Gin Education Dinner. Just ask craft distiller Ian Cutler of Cutler’s Artisan Spirits, who is willing to be our teacher for the evening on June 12. “As opposed to whiskey, when it comes to gin, it’s still a mystery spirit to many people,” Cutler opines. “They often don’t even know what the key flavor is, let alone there are multiple styles.”

So think of the dinner/tasting that Cutler has developed with Phil Wright at Bar 29 as a way to lose your ginnocence, so speak. After a three-course meal paired with cocktails featuring jenever/London dry, Old Tom/barrel-rested, and New Western/sloe gin, you’ll know all about that key ingredient juniper (the taste gin-o-phobes often call Christmas tree), plus a whole bunch of history. Along the way you’ll have eaten a strawberry goat cheese salad, a Wagyu beef slider with bacon onion jam, lemon aioli and garlic fries, and sesame-ginger flat iron steak lettuce wraps with peanut sauce.

Cutler, always for “getting more knowledge out,” has often had a hand in public events, and when recently talking to Wright mentioned he hoped to do a gin dinner. Before he knew it he was pleased to have a partner, for as he says, “They’ve got some classy cocktails at Bar 29.”

Cutler – who currently only makes a New-Western style gin (that is, not just a slap of juniper, but something a bit more floral with some distinct citrus notes) – sums up the evening this way: “I’m just trying to fill that information gap about gin. It also helps me get out in the community, not just to get people to know my products but to know the more global sense of gin.”

4-1-1: Don’t end up under the host at Cutler’s Artisan Spirits Gin Education Dinner, Monday, June 12, 6:30 p.m. at Bar 29, 1134 Chapala St. Tickets are $65 per person, plus service fee (inclusive of tax and gratuity). For tickets and more information nightout.com/events/bar29gindinner/tickets.

Sip This: Bluecoat Gin

If you’ve been looking for a way in to gin but don’t appreciate the fresh smack of pine many can provide, Bluecoat could be the spirit for you. Of course, its main botanical is juniper — it is a gin, after all — but Philadelphia Distilling has opted to go for a less piney juniper berry....

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Again and a Gin (TOTC 2016, Day 3)

If you're going to do a conference, you have to do panels, and day 3 was just such a day. Of course, most conferences don't offer you a cocktail or spirit sample or six, so there's that. So to prepare for sitting and drinking, we Sweat Socialed again. And this time afterward and safe in the Monteleone we got to visit a juice bar, hosted by Tanqueray. Yummy watermelon etc. juice topped with Tanqueray No. 10 gin--not a bad reward for a 5K of oozing our way through the French Quarter. Even better, people make extra room for you in line when you stink a bit, even in the South in summer where a bit of musky scent is as expected as a love of grits. Even best, there was a Kick Start Coffee Bar, too, so we got to latte just for having those bracelets. Gotta keep all the crucial bodily fluids balanced at something like Tales of the Cocktail.

We wanted some ballast, too, so after showering, which is more a reset than anything even slightly lasting in that humidity, we went to the nearby Cafe Beignet, which I remembered fondly from our previous visit. This time, not so good--if you can't nail your namesake you've got a problem. These beignets weren't puffy enough or fresh enough. Really are only food fail all week, though.

We checked out shops, including the Cocktail Kingdom pop-up shop. We wanted many things. Of course one of the draws of cocktail culture are all the nifty gadgets and tools that harken to days when design was something. That history, that continuity, that artful line. And sometimes a personal one, like Wyborowa Vodka serving kielbasa with their cocktails, and making me feel like a Slovak kid in Scranton PA again. It's odd how much stuff kept taking me back to my pre-drinking days (and there were some, if long ago and hard to recall).

Somehow it was already lunch time and we visited one of the few vegetarian-friendly spots in town, Green Goddess. Not that you can't get meat, but most items are prepared with and without an animal protein. Chryss went for the Vegi Cuban Luau (they could at least spell veggie correctly, but that's really my only complaint), made with kale, arugula, Manchego, Creole pickles, etc. and I had a special crabmelt, and our only regrets were we didn't return for the rest of our trip to try more. Why can't a place in Santa Barbara do such a cool menu?

After lunch was Panel 1, "Big Gin, Small Gin," where everyone made nice and the big producer, Bombay, insisted despite the volume, it was still a small batch process. The moderator Raj Nejera, House of Bombay Global Ambassador, opened saying, "Gin is cool, it's hip, it's fab, we have the fucking martini for fuck's sake!" and everyone in the audience exhaled a happy, Vermouth-scented gasp in agreement. Let's face it, Bombay products are tasty, and you can't evade the conglomerates easily if you want to be seen in public.

That said, the smaller distillers were doing some cool things. Mike Enright from Gypsy Distilling and the Ginstitute (I went to the wrong college), poured his Portobello Road, an on-the-nose London Dry that made you thirst for quinine. Even more impressive were the two gins from New York Distilling Company, repped by co-founder Allen Katz, who looks like he should have starred in Hal Hartley movies. One was Dorothy Parker, and she showed up herself! [Sorry it's taken so long to get a photo into this day's blog!]

Yes, she recited "after four I'm under the host." The top gin for me turned out to be New York Distilling's Perry's Tot: at 114 proof it's Navy Strength. (PS, don't mess with sailors, evidently.) Katz's line when we tasted it, "No one coughed, that's all I care about." And it is sneaky smooth for its power, a historic style brilliantly revived.

We learned more about gin, but I don't want to bore you. Take me out for a martini and I'll tell you the rest.

The second panel was titled "The Bartender Spy: Frank Meier." It kind of lied as there's no definite proof that Meier, who was the head bartender at The Ritz in Paris for decades, actually did help the Resistance during WW II, but he's a fascinating character to hear stories about for an afternoon. David Wondrich from Esquire was one of the head sleuths on the case as to what Meier was, and an academic historian would love his manner, with lines like, "He was the first, not really the first," as he offered ad re-thought in front of us. Plus we got to drink a Bee's Knees (gin, lemon juice, and honey) that was all the elegance of The Charleston in a glass.

Somehow we also squeezed into the last half of an engrossing demo called "Herbs, Spices, and Secrets: Explore the World of Amaro Montenegro." Not only did it feature this cool box that seemed designed by a soused Joseph Cornell

but then they wanted you to make your own cocktails at the tables you were sitting at. Hence my quote of the day, "I wanted to play with those tools." No, not the gorgeous Italian men who seem to market all Italian distilled spirits, but the barware at each table (see earlier paragraph about shakers and shot glasses and strainers).

Perhaps there was a nap. There was definitely a stay at the event billed "Discover the Legendary Elixir" at SoBou. While the promised Polish soothsayer never materialized ("your future will contain less saying of sooth"), and we waited out the Zubrowka rep till she gave us free drink tickets (the media wristband could be a plus, indeed), and we watched dancers with prosthetic ears (vodka makes you grow pointy ears? perhaps only if you're a fairy?)

the best part of the event were the two bartenders. One, the woman in charge as she heads the SoBou program, was Laura Bellucci. Coolest thing about that was she was a roomate of our daughter in college. Kids these days! She was featuring a drink with smoked rhubarb that was one of the cooler things I had all week. The other bartender was Ty Izquierdo, who happens to be a Gaucho. Even won the Independent's readers poll best bartender vote back in the day. So this world was very small, but very warm and fuzzy for a bit, and not just because of the alcohol. Here's Ty.

That's all just prelude to the official Welcome Reception thrown by Absolut Vodka at the ACE Hotel. A huge brand on its own, Absolut is now owned by even huger multinational Pernod Ricard, so that means there's a ridiculous pile of dough waiting to throw you a party. It's also funny they don't tell the media the dress code is white, so we're very easy to spot, the dirt amidst the gussied up snow storm of the paying guests.

Absolut totally delivered, though, with each room its own mythic, immersive world starring two cocktails and a model/actor it wasn't clear you were supposed to interact with, as they tended to be serious/fierce/imposing. Enough to scare you into drinking. Like, perhaps, test tubes of Bloody Marys from the steps on which Bloody Mary stood. (Each room had its own cocktail delivery system, too--no simple glassware here.)

And then there was Oak guy. The drinks weren't as tortured as he appeared. And you know us, we like our smoky. Not something you usually get in a vodka.

Finally, we were pretty glowy our selfie selves.

But so was the town. Although this could have been a different day--such is Tales, when time stands still, reoccurs, moves forward for you to ride its hip pocket.

Craft Distillers Push to Overturn Prohibition-Era Sales Laws

While Ian Cutler, the man behind Cutler's Artisan Spirits based in Santa Barbara's Funk Zone, started his business "to revive a long family history in the California spirits industry" -- his grandfather ran a moonshine operation in Oakdale -- he wishes history didn't hold such a strong grip on his current operation.

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

Sip This: Nolet's Silver Gin

Nolet’s Silver Dry Gin: Since juniper is the only thing a spirit has to be flavored by to be billed gin, the way to go different is to add to that perfectly piney taste. Enter this gin, for people wanting to wander gin’s edgy perimeters.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.

Sip This: Beehive Jack Rabbit Gin

Beehive Distilling Jack Rabbit Gin: Rose is a rose is a rose is a gin is one way to think of this small batch product from Utah, the first legal gin from the state in almost 150 years.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.

Re:Find Turns Wine into Gin

Turns out you can crush a grape and get gin. There are a few steps involved, of course, so don't try this at home, but that's where Paso Robles' Villacana Winery and its distillery arm Re:Find step in. Forget about recycling, this is a project that's keyed to re-using a part of the winemaking process that often is just poured away.

Villicana originally just made wine, but Alex and Monica Villicana eventually realized what seemed like a waste product--the juice from the first light press and de-stemming of grapes--might be used for something. "A lot of boutique wineries will extract a percentage of that free run juice from red grapes," Monica explains, "as the color, flavor, and personality comes from the skins. At that point if we lower the percentage of juice going into fermentation, it actually concentrates our wines."

Want to read the rest then do so at the KCET Food Blog.

Wishing I was Clever Enough to Make a Good Joke about Big Star's "India Song" and This Post

Summer (at last it's summer here in Santa Barbara, and sorry, rest of the country already broiling, burning, and droughting) has arrived, which calls for long drinks and afternoons on the porch with good books after a morning at the farmers' market. Hence the re-invention of a classic above, what I dubbed the Green and Tonic. And I realize the blog has been a bit obsessed with cocktails lately, but there are a few excuses for that, not the least being writing about cocktails seems easier to do quickly. And, we head off to New Orleans next week for the Tales of the Cocktail, and I'm slowly trying to ramp myself up--it's like training for a marathon, and I haven't found the running shoes that fit my liver yet. In the meantime, this drink....

Green and Tonic

(makes two tall drinks)

1/2 a small cucumber, not peeled, cut in thin slices
1 lemon
8 sprigs lemon basil
4 oz. Hendrick's gin
tonic water (will be less a can)
two cucumber wheels
two flowery tops of lemon basil

In a cocktail shaker, combine the cucumber slices, 8 sprigs basil, and juice the lemon. Muddle thoroughly--really break-down the cucumbers and get the basil to extrude its oils. Add the gin. Muddle a bit more, but watch splashing. Add ice cubes and shake shaker. Evenly divide the contents of the shaker into two tall glasses--it's best to strain as you pour to avoid getting seeds or torn basil into the drink. Top with tonic water to about 2/3 full. Add crushed ice to fill (you do have an ice crusher, don't you? I go with a hand-cranked one, as I can feel even more virtuous having had to expend a bit of effort). Garnish with a cucumber wheel and a flowery basil top per drink.


As you can see, it makes for a lovely color (especially through a frosted glass). then when you go to drink, the aromatics of the cucumber and basil garnish right next to your nose really wake you up. The taste, too, is sublime. Here's a soundtrack for the drink, too: