Sauced

Barrio Intros Cocktail and Spirits Classes

Beginning this month, barman Casey Robison schools Seattleites in the art of mixing drinks.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Aug 11, 2011 at 10:10AM 0 Comments

Casey Robison and hat decorate a cover of Seattle Times insert “NW Ticket & Movietimes.”

Photo: Barrio via Facebook

Seattleites love to nerd out on the stuff they love. Why buy a jar of jam when you could spend the entire weekend chopping and boiling strawberries? Why just eat gnocchi at an Italian restaurant when you can attend a six-hour, $300 master class on how to make it? Shamanic journeying, Flirting 101, Inexpensive Global Volunteering, Intro to Fly Fishing, Herbs in Topical Skin Care: If it exists, Seattle has a class for it. That’s just how it goes around here.

Cocktails are no different. We don’t just want to drink them, tip the bartender, and be on our way. We want to explore the intricacies of their ingredients, fill notebooks with pro tips on how best to prepare them. We want to infuse, muddle, stir, and shake as if it was our job. That way, when we go back east for Thanksgiving, our sisters can make loud snoring noises as we explain what a Lewis bag is, or why this Islay scotch is smokier than that one from the Lowlands.

And now, finally, we arrive at the point of this post: Barrio bar manager Casey Robison sends word that beginning August 27, the bar will host a five-part series on cocktails and spirits. The classes cost $50 each (attend all five for $225), and each begins at 2pm and lasts between 60 and 90 minutes. Robison—great depth of knowledge, zero pretension, tattoos—teaches; if the series is a success there will be more in the future, he says.

Here’s what will be covered: 08/27: Latin Drinks; 09/10: Spirits I (gin, vodka, and brandy); 09/24: Spirits II (whiskey, tequila, rum); 10/8: Classic Cocktails (1805-1930); 10/22: Contemporary Cocktails (1950-present).

The classes are limited to about 16 people, call this number to reserve a space: 206-838-3853.

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Tags: Booze 101, Capitol Hill, Seattle Bartenders, Seattle Cocktail Classes

Free Cocktail Class at Licorous this Saturday

A whiskey-focused lesson served gratis to the bar’s first 30 guests.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on May 19, 2011 at 03:52PM 0 Comments

Licorous, now with free cocktail classes.

On Saturday, May 21 Licorous, the sister bar to Lark restaurant on Capitol Hill, is hosting a free cocktail class that focuses on whiskey and how to use it winningly in your mixed drinks.

The class runs from 4 to 5pm. You don’t have to sign up in advance but the bar can only accommodate the first 30 people that show up.

I have a call in to Licorous to learn just who exactly will be running this here class.

Will update as soon as I hear back.

UPDATE: GM/owner Michelle Magidow and lead bartender Jeshua Madden are teaching.

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Tags: Booze 101, Capitol Hill, Whiskey, Seattle Bars, Free Cocktail Classes

Benefit for Japan: Reps from Suntory and Maker’s Mark Talk Whiskey

Proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 21, 2011 at 08:00AM 0 Comments

Photo: Amos Morgan

Kentucky or Kyoto? Learn your whiskys at the Sorrento’s upcoming class, a benefit for Doctors Without Borders.

“Japan and Kentucky, a Conversation, with Whiskey” is the next class in the Sorrento Hotel’s Drinking Lessons series, to be held in the hotel’s penthouse at 7pm on March 31.

The price is $25, buy tickets here.

Presiding over the gathering will be San Francisco bartender Neyah White, who is a brand ambassador for Suntory (Hibiki, Yamakazi), and Cody Rossen of Maker’s Mark. If you’ve ever been curious about Japanese whiskey—or how whiskey varies from region to region—here’s your chance to bone up while contributing to an urgent cause. And while drinking delicious, delicious whiskey.

Side note: A lot of industry folks are suggesting we invest in Japanese whiskeys and sakes as a way of stimulating the Japanese economy. If you want to contribute in this way, you can find Suntory whiskeys at state liquor stores or go by Sake Nomi, an excellently stocked Pioneer Square shop that regularly holds sake tastings and other educational events.

Side note to the side note: Sake Nomi is planning a benefit for tsunami victims, a tentative date of April 1 has been set. I’ll update with details when they are available.

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Tags: Tastings and Classes, Booze 101, Drink booze, do good, Whiskey, First Hill, Japan Relief Efforts

Want to Learn Wine Blending?

…Or just taste a bunch of food and wine? Check out the Blend event on September 12.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Aug 10, 2010 at 10:06AM 0 Comments

Learn the art of the blend for the bargain price of $15.

Reps from 40 wineries will show up at the Bell Harbor Conference Center on Sunday, September 12. The occasion is Blend, a wine-and-food-pairing extravaganza. The food is provided by chefs at hotels and event spaces managed by Columbia Hospitality. Fortunately for you, one of those hotels is the Inn at Langley, and the chef there, Matt Costello, makes awesome food.

The munch and sip takes place from 4 to 7:30pm and costs $59.

But here’s the part that I find the most intriguing. (I’ve definitely buried the lede here): You can attend one of two, 90-minute wine blending seminars for the bargain price of $15. The seminars go from 2:30 to 4pm. Sign up to learn how Chateau Ste Michelle does its red blends or learn how Bordeaux-style blends are made from a Columbia Winery rep.

Either way, you get to taste what you create. Sounds like a great opportunity for wine nerds.

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Tags: Booze 101, Wine Tastings, Wine and Food Pairings

Tricky Booze Words

Some beverages have hard-to-pronounce names. Here’s help.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Aug 01, 2010 at 10:40AM 2 Comments

A little while ago, I started collecting difficult-to-pronounce cocktail vocabulary—mostly words I myself mispronounced until some kind soul gently corrected me—with the intention of aggregating them into a blog post.

Kauffman has a series called “Don’t Sound Like a Tool” on the SFoodie blog—each post includes audio recordings of difficult-to-pronounce vocabulary from the culinary world. This June he did a two-parter featuring booze words.

Of course, part of mastering pronunciation is learning not to pronounce words too well. No one wants to hear you say “champahhhgne” like Christopher Walken in his SNL skit “The Continental.” That’s just creepy. And, although the SFoodie guy pronounces “genever” as “yenever,” I won’t be doing so. Too much.

A final note: The word orgeat is not on the list, but it is super-easy to butcher. Say “or-zha.”

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Tags: Booze 101, Behind the bar

Tequila Class at Barrio Bellevue with Mark Sexauer

Learn the ins-and-outs of blue-agave beverages at this September seminar.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jul 30, 2010 at 11:59AM 0 Comments

Learn the ins-and-outs of blue agave beveys at Barrio Bellevue

Last year, Barrio Bellevue’s Tequila seminar sold out. So if you want to experience their in-depth class this year, reserve early. (Call this number to reserve: 206-838-3853.)

Taught by Barrio bartender Mark Sexauer, the class runs from 2 to 4pm on September 11 and costs $40. Sexauer will introduce students to the various types of tequila and explore best ways to mix them into cocktails. Barrio will provide snacks to pair with your drinks.

I don’t know about you but I love, love, love boozy seminars, and look forward to this one. Now I just need to work out a ride home from Bellevue.

Thanks to Wasabi Prime, whose Tweet tipped me off to this class.

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Tags: Booze 101, Seattle Bartenders, Tequila

Beer School at Shultzy’s Sausage

This Wednesday, local brewsky luminary Mike Baker talks pale ales and IPAs.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 01, 2010 at 07:47AM 0 Comments

University District brews-and-brats bar Shultzy’s has introduced a monthly beer education class. This Wednesday, March 3 the subject is pale ales and IPAs. Your teacher is Mike Baker, who helped start local microbrewery Baron Brewing (he has since sold his share) but now toils for Pacific Beverages and is one of the four members of Seattle Beer Collective—the group that organizes Seattle Beer Week.

Classes are held on the first Wednesday of every month at 6pm and are limited to 25 people, so to attend you must reserve and pay the $20 tuition in advance. If you can’t go this month, sign up for a class on German beers in April or weisse beers in May.

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Tags: Booze 101, University District, Beer

Five Questions for the (Visiting) Bartender: Neyah White

Legendary San Francisco bartender Neyah White will be in town next week to teach Drinking Lessons at the Sorrento. Get to know him now.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Feb 15, 2010 at 10:21AM 0 Comments

Neyah White comes to Seattle February 21 and 22 for Drinking Lessons.

It’s a Five Questions first, everybody. We’re talking to a bartender from San Francisco.

Specifically, we’re talking to Neyah White. He’s the bar manager at San Fran’s Nopa where his housemade bitters, tinctures, and liqueurs have earned him love, fame, and all the perks that come with being a rock-star bartender in a city so obsessed with food and drink it puts Seattle’s own food and drink fetishism to…let’s just say it gives us something to which to aspire.

Together with fellow SFer Duggan McDonnell, Neyah White comes to Seattle on February 21 and 22 to host Drinking Lessons at the Hunt Club. Don’t miss it.

Here, five questions for Neyah White.

What is the most underrated spirit?

I am actually going to go with a wine rather than spirit and say vermouth. The 50s and 60s were not very kind to vermouth and it is really a shame. We abuse it by storing it wrong, pouring it wrong, and just plain not understanding it. I challenge everyone reading this to open a fresh bottle of any vermouth (well, almost any) and pour a little over ice with an orange slice. It’s delicious.

What’s your favorite Seattle bar?

I haven’t been to Seattle a whole lot in recent years, but there sure are some great folks working in your town. I get teary-eyed when I think about Murray Stetson [ Zig Zag], jealous when I think about Jamie Boudreau [ Knee High], nostalgic when I think about Eric Carlson [ Moshi Moshi] and Nate Weber [ Tavern Law, I think], and just plain happy when I think about Anu Apte and Zane Harris [ Rob Roy].

What drink do you order at that bar?

I am a big proponent of being a good guest by enjoying what is being offered. I like to drink whatever is most appropriate: Beer in beer halls, wine in wine bars, Scotch every chance I get.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen someone do in a bar?

I work very hard at forgetting stuff like that. Alcohol brings out the best and worst in people, getting $100 tip and getting stiffed on a $200 tab come pretty much from the same place.

Name three reasons you like to visit in Seattle.

1. The sun is evil and must be avoided at all costs. 2. They say the human body is made up of about 60 percent water. In me, 50 percent of that water is coffee, and Seattle is fine place to refuel. 3. I look good in a scarf.

GET TICKETS TO DRINKING LESSONS WITH NEYAH WHITE HERE.

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Tags: Cocktails, Booze 101, Wine, Behind the bar, Five Questions for the Bartender, Drinking Events, Scotch

A Stupid Question for a Sommelier

Seastar’s sommelier tells us when we can (and can’t) send the bottle back.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 25, 2010 at 01:00PM 4 Comments

Yashar Shayan says you can send a bottle back if you don’t like it, but he himself employs a wait-and-see approach.

The questions in this new series aren’t really stupid. But the whole wine thing can be so (unnecessarily) intimidating. Good thing for you I have no shame.

This week’s expert is Yashar Shayan, a sommelier at Seastar Restaurant and Raw Bar (Bellevue, South Lake Union). Shayan says he loves the way wine allows you to “experience the world’s cultures and history one glass at a time.” Another reason he became a sommelier: “I thought it would make me look cool.”

When he’s not at Seastar, Yashar helps out in the cellar at Woodinville winery Efeste.

Here, a stupid question for Yashar Shayan.

When I order a bottle of wine, can I send it back if I don’t like it, or only if it’s bad? Also, how can I tell if it has gone bad?

Many restaurants will take the wine back simply because you don’t like it. We won’t force you to pay for, and drink, a wine that you don’t like, because we like our guests to enjoy their dining experience.

Personally though, when I have wine, I don’t really analyze it on that first taste. I don’t look at color and legs, or consider things like complexity. When I get the first pour, I smell it and make sure it’s drinkable, meaning it doesn’t have any off smells or serious faults like TCA (a compound present when a wine is “corked,” more on that below) and oxidation. From there, I’ll take my time and examine the wine over the entire course of the meal, see how it opens up and how it interacts with various foods. I’m almost always surprised how a wine that may not have really grabbed me at the beginning has me wanting more by the end.

The main reasons a sommelier pours you that small taste of a bottle before serving it are: 1. TCA (I think we should stop calling it “corked” and figure out a new, more accurate name for it) and 2. oxidation. Corked wines, which smell like moldy newspapers or damp basements, get that way when chlorine (specifically a group of chemical compounds known as Chlorophenols) interacts with fungi found in nature to produce the compound 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, or TCA for short. Though the cork is the most common carrier of TCA, it can lurk on a variety of surfaces porous enough to grow fungus. I’ve had shoes with “corked” soles, I’ve eaten carrots and scallions that were tainted with TCA (or something like it), and even been served corked water at restaurants. This means that wines using cork alternatives—yes, even screwcaps—can be tainted if they pick it up from a bad barrel or another source before bottling, but that’s far less common.

An oxidized wine is exactly what it sounds like, a wine that’s gone bad due to overexposure to oxygen. To me, oxidized wine smells like vinegar or an apple that was peeled and left on the counter for a day or so. That vinegar smell is caused by acetic acid, which you’ve smelled in your bottle of vinegar at home. The old apple smell I typically associate with Acetaldehyde. If you find your wine is oxidized when it’s freshly opened, it could mean that the cork was bad in the sense that it didn’t seal perfectly. Screwcaps can also fail here if they were damaged or crushed during assembly or shipping. I have opened several bottles of the same wine and found they all seemed bad, which led me to think they were oxidized before being bottled.

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MORE STUPID QUESTIONS!
Dawn Smith explains what to do when a sommelier hands you a cork.

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Tags: Bellevue, South Lake Union, Wineries, Booze 101, Wine, Sommelier stuff, A Stupid Question for a Sommelier

A Stupid Question for a Sommelier

Purple’s wine expert tells us what to do with the cork.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 15, 2010 at 10:00AM 4 Comments

Heavy Restaurants Group’s Dawn Smith says a funky cork isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but make sure it’s moist.

Okay, the questions in this new series aren’t really stupid. But the whole wine thing can be so (unnecessarily) intimidating. Good thing for you I have no shame.

This week’s expert is the lovely Dawn Smith, the Wine Director for the Restaurants at Bellevue Towers: Purple Café and Wine Bar, Barrio, and a third top-secret project she’s not allowed to talk about.

“I came to wine through food,” says Smith, whose first-ever instructor (at an International Sommelier Guild class) was Shayn Bjornholm, then also the wine director at Canlis. “I continued my wine education with more advanced classes and about a year-and-a-half later Shayn called and asked me if I would apply for a floor sommelier position at Canlis. Crazy! I got the job.” The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

Here, a stupid question for Dawn Smith:

Why does the sommelier hand me the cork after her or she opens the bottle of wine I ordered, and what am I supposed to do with it?

“The primary reason a sommelier hands you a cork,” says Smith, “is so that you may inspect that the wine has been stored properly." The older the vintage, the more important that it’s been stowed right: "on its side, away from light, vibration, and at a constant temperature of 55-58 degrees.”

A moist cork means your bottle has been sitting pretty, but you might also want to smell it to check for taint. (Stop giggling). “The cork from a ‘corked’ wine will smell of cork taint—often described as damp cardboard or wet basement,” says Smith. But, she says, “this is not really the most reliable way to judge the soundness of a wine. Corks, particularly older corks, can smell a bit funky even though the wine is pristine. Most sommeliers will smell the bottle or actually pour a small taste of the wine to confirm the quality before offering it to the guest. Gratefully, most faults in wine are detectable on the nose so you never have to experience the foul taste.”

You can also inspect the cork to make sure you get what you ordered. “Most corks will have the producer and vintage of the wine branded onto the portion of the cork that is within the sealed bottle.” When the sommelier brings the bottle to the table, he or she should show you “the label and state the vintage, producer, name of wine and area of production,” but inspecting the cork is your final chance to ensure you’ve got the right juice.

So there you have it: when it doubt read the cork, make sure it is moist, and smell it, if you are feeling saucy. Then, drink up.

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Tags: Bellevue, Booze 101, Wine, Sommelier stuff, A Stupid Question for a Sommelier