Sauced

Tini Bigs Juices Up Its Cocktails

The watering hole known for unapologetically oversized martinis takes juice-based drinks in an un-citrusy new direction.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Feb 17, 2012 at 02:05PM 0 Comments

Savory juice meets booze at Tini Bigs. A carrot-lemon-apple juice is served with gin or tequila, the glass rimmed with dried carrot.

While Seattle bartenders’ affinity for freshly made juices can be traced back to (more or less) the 1990s, Tini Bigs is setting aside the usual fruity blends and launching a little cocktail program centered on more savory juices.

Each day, the lower Queen Anne cocktail lounge is crafting a new juice blend, offering two daily flavors. When I visited during the testing phase, bartender Shane Sahr had whipped up a carrot-apple-lemon juice, and a more herbal cucumber-lemon offering.

And what better way to consume such a nutrient-rich creation than with booze? Patrons can either name a base spirit, or take a bartender recommendation. That same carrot-lemon-apple combo tasted refreshing and balanced with gin, and darker and smokier with tequila.

The daily duo of juices will also become components of two different bartender’s choice creations. Sahr blended that carroty version with amaro, cynar, Aztec chocolate bitters, and Dolin Blanc vermouth. To garnish, a slice of slightly bruleed carrot. Too often juice-based drinks just taste like…juice. That was emphatically not the case with this particular concoction.

Tini Bigs owner Keith Robbins has been making juice at home for a decade, but says the idea of taking it in an alcohol-fueled direction stemmed from a conversation about creating cocktails from local ingredients, which is hard to do when you’re relying predominantly on citrus from Florida. The recent interest in juicing documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead doesn’t hurt either. The juice-based cocktails will use local produce when possible, though Robbins allows that such goals are tough this time of year. “Unless you want to spend $40 on a juice drink.” These drinks, for the record, are $11.

But do the health benefits of the juice get negated by the booze? Says Robbins, “It’s probably better than having a gin and tonic.”

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Tags: Tini Bigs, Keith Robbins, Shane Sahr

Tini Bigs Turns 15

Celebrate by drinking your way through the years with a bunch of the bar’s alums.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Jan 09, 2012 at 02:00PM 1 Comments

Tini Bigs: Occupying the corner of 1st and Denny for 15 years. Photo by Angie Norwood Browne.

When owner Keith Robbins opened Tini Bigs in 1996, Seattle was basically a beer town. And as was the national trend at the time, the bar served its cocktails in oversized 10-ounce martini glasses, a move that inspired the bar’s name and is still in effect today.

Robbins has weathered some tough moments since then, including the 1999 World Trade Organization protests, the ban on cigar bars, and the departure of the Seattle Supersonics, which robbed Tini Bigs of a major source of patrons. But through all this, the Uptown establishment also helped usher in a new cocktail-celebrated era in Seattle, and served as the proving ground for some of the city’s best-known bartenders.

On January 22, the bar will mark its 15th birthday by throwing one hell of a party. Tini Bigs is resurrecting 17 of its most popular drinks, each one representing a year between the bar’s opening in December 1996 and now, and each one going for $5. Robbins created this list by getting in touch with a bartender from each year and asking for a selection. The full list is below, and Robbins is in the process of confirming the evening’s guest bartender lineup. What is confirmed: all this madness begins at 6pm.

While the night will indeed be a fun one for us civilians, Robbins says he’s most excited to make the night a reunion of the bar’s many alumni, many of whom still make drinks throughout the city. He even set up an alumni Facebook page for the occasion.

Obviously the past 15 years have transformed Seattle into a town of cocktail devotees. “It’s good to have more people appreciate what you’re doing,” says Robbins. “In the past, it was just ‘give me a vodka cran.’”

When I stopped in to meet Robbins recently, he insisted we sample a few plates off the menu. I made some excuses about not being hungry and braced myself for some buffalo wings or somesuch. What I got instead: Some of the most impressive bar food I have experienced in this city, including pork belly and a cornmeal pancake, and a kale salad that rivals the epic one at Skillet Diner. Seriously…whoa. Robbins said he recently brought in a new chef, Paul Kreft, who previously cooked at Toulouse Petit, and Purple Wine Bar Blue Glass, Skillet and Local 360.

Here is the full list of libations on offer January 22, and the bartender alums who selected each one:

1996 Joe Jeannot – Smokey Bigs (Toulouse Petit)
1997 Jude Augustine – Jolly Rancher (Hawaii)
1998 Patrick Haight – John Wayne (Snoqualmie Casino)
1999 Kevin Stuart – Peach Tini (Cantinetta)
2000 Josh Cushman – Backyard (99-06) (Azul)
2001 Dennis Brand – Spanish Tini (Branzino)
2002 Ezana Petros – Dirty Girl Scout (Matador)
2003 Aaron Marshall – Pear-a-dox (Pesos)
2004 Bill Arvish – Playboy (Dahlia Lounge)
2005 Amon Mende – Aloe (Cantinetta)
2006 Kevin Parisi – Burning Man (Macleod’s)
2007 Mike McSorley – Spaghetti Western (India)
2008 Jamie Boudreau – Chet Baker (Canon)
2009 Brian Lee – West Village Manhattan (Canon)
2010 Jon Chistiansen – Immaculate Misconception (Monsoon Bellevue)
2011 Joe Zara – Wild Child (Tini Bigs)
2012 Shane Sahr – Na Zadrowie (Tini Bigs)

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Tags: Drinking Events, Tini Bigs, Keith Robbins