Sauced

Tales from Tales II: Dispatches from the Center of the Mixed Drinks Universe

Chapter 2: In which we meet Movies, run into some Seattleites, and embrace St Germain all over again.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jul 22, 2010 at 11:00AM 2 Comments

The make-your-own-whiskey station.

So there have been many misadventures since last I checked in from New Orleans.

On my first day at Tales I met a crew of lovely local ladies in flowered dresses who called me honey and heaped piles of restaurant suggestions upon me, I saw Rocky Yeh wearing a lab coat with the words Hibiki 12 on the back—he was participating in a blend-your-own-whiskey class sponsored by the Japanese whiskey company Suntory (everything at Tales is very “sponsored by”), and taught by chief blender Seiichi Koshimizu.
Paul Clark was there too, he had just created his whiskey, which I sampled. Pretty good.

Sprawling over several suites of the massive and marbley Hotel Monteleone, the Tales of the Cocktail conference is giddy with the joy of booze and stimulating to the max, but I have to admit the streets of the French Quarter call me outward. I took full advantage of NO’s famous hospitality yesterday evening, hanging out around the Quarter collecting suggestions for jazz bars and gumbo joints. I spent a good chunk of time at a local dive where I talked films with an older gentleman who nursed a pretty fierce Hitchcock obsession. He I came to nickname Movies. Movies crushed on the bartender, a sweet curly-haired brunette. Unfortunately, the bartender’s love interest was also present, a fact that Movies found quite distasteful.

Truth be told, this bartender had some boy drama. At one point a lady in a belly shirt, her exposed torso splattered with tattoos, came by to beat her up! Apparently they had an ex boyfriend in common. After some negotiation this tattooed person left and we returned to our revelry.

But before all that, as I walked out of the Hotel Monteleone, I ran into Seattle’s own Jamie Boudreau. Boudreau is a rep for St Germain and he was in the lobby making drinks. I grabbed one on my way out and as I sipped it slowly through the streets, I was reminded how good an icy St Germain drink is on a hot day. Simple, French, lovely. I’ve included the recipe below, invite your friends over and serve them some of these and they’ll ask you when you got so dang classy.

2 shots of champagne
1.5 shots of St-Germain liqueur
2 shots soda or sparkling water

You mix the first two ingredients in a tall, ice-filled glass, top with soda or sparkling water and garnish with a twist of lemon.

An easy, delicious summer cooler.

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Tags: Seattle Bartenders, Tales of the Cocktail, Tales from Tales

Tales from Tales I: Dispatches from the Center of the Mixed Drinks Universe

Chapter 1: In which we start the trip with a $9 boozy slurpee and don’t regret it for one minute.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jul 21, 2010 at 06:49AM 4 Comments

Yes I like pina coladas, but a test tube shot? Only if the planet depends on it.

Good morning from New Orleans. I’m here all week reporting from Tales of the Cocktail, where, we hope, our own Murray Stenson will be honored with a top award.

I’ll be telling you about all the cocktail-related happenings as they occur, but my “work” doesn’t get underway for a few hours.

In fact, the only drink I’ve had so far in NO was a pina colada from one of those French Quarter tourist traps with a line of swirly machines behind the bar. Yes, I looked like a big honking tourist carrying that thing around the FQ, but I sucked shamelessly from the straw because it’s hotter than Johnny Depp circa Donnie Brasco down here and it was 10pm and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. My whacked out blood sugar levels had gone all action movie, pushing my sensible brain into the metaphorical passenger’s seat with a breathy “I’m in control now, Jacko,” gripping the (metaphorical) wheel resolutely as it slammed down on the (metaphorical) gas pedal and jerked the (metaphorical) car in the direction of the nearest (actual) swirly-machine bar.

Being the restrained individual that I am, even in my funny-blood-sugar-no-brain state I opted for a small beverage—approximately 26 ounces—instead of the two-foot bong you get when you order a large. I also declined a free shot of anti-freeze that came along with my drink, value meal-style, in accordance with my steadfast rule about never drinking anything out of a test tube.*

Anyway, check back here all week for updates on Tales of the Cocktail and your regularly scheduled Sauced programming.

*Exception to the test tube rule: It’s the future, and things are pretty bleak. The planet is lorded over by a species of supersized beetles (the insects, I mean, not the world’s most influential pop music band) who despite their larger size have retained the ability to proliferate at seemingly exponential rates. They have enslaved the surviving humans to create elaborate nests for their seething piles of offspring, murdering anyone who does not stud the debris beds with the appropriate amount of crumbs, tissues, and wadded-up newspaper. In a hidden lair that could, at any moment, be discovered by our many-legged overlords, a brilliant scientist has developed a formula that amounts to mankind’s only hope—imbibed, it gives the imbibee the ability to shoot Raid insect killer from the pores of her palms with the oomph and volume of a top-grade power-washing hose. It has been determined that I am the only surviving human whose palms are adequately porous. In other words, the fate of the planet depends on me. In this case, if the scientist poured the formula into a test tube and asked me to drink it, I would. Otherwise it’s not going to happen.

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Tags: Cocktails, Tales of the Cocktail, Murray Stenson, New Orleans, Tales from Tales

Zig Zag’s Murray Stenson Up for Bartender of the Year at Boozy Oscars

He’s also nominated for Lifetime Achievement.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jun 23, 2010 at 07:32AM 6 Comments

Murray Stenson

About a month from now, Tales of the Cocktail, an enormous and notoriously boozy cocktail convention, will begin in New Orleans. Like every good convention, Tales has an awards series, the Spirit Awards. Do I need to say that they are the Oscars of the cocktail world? Okay then, I will. They are the Oscars of the cocktail world.

And Murray Stenson of Zig Zag has been nominated for both Bartender of the Year and the Lifetime Achievement Award.

His competition for the first: Eric Alperin from youngin’ bar The Varnish in LA, and two New Yorkers: Kenta Goto of The Pegu Club and Sam Ross, Milk & Honey.

For Lifetime Achievement, he’s up against Brian Rea, Gary Regan, and Tony Abou-Ganim. The funny thing is that of these four guys, Murray is the only one who is just a working bartender. He may be a great freaking bartender, but that’s what he is. Not an expert speaker or the author who pops up on Amazon.com when you plug in “cocktail.” You won’t find his face on a line of bitters. I can’t think of a better lifetime achievement candidate than one who shows up to work everyday and just does his job awesomely, can you?

I’ll be reporting from Tales this year, and will let you know (probably via Twitter) as soon as the award is announced on July 24. Meantime, head down to Zig Zag and offer Mur the Blur your mazel tovs.

Side note: Not for the first time, Zig Zag made Esquire’s best bars list this year. “It’s one of the torches that sparked the cocktail revolution, and it doesn’t act like it,” wrote Esquire. You could say the same of Murray.

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Tags: Seattle Bartenders, Tales of the Cocktail, Murray Stenson

Local Bartender Wins Big Cocktail Competition

Evan Martin’s Death in the South Pacific is the official drink of Tales of the Cocktail 2010.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 01, 2010 at 07:38AM 1 Comments

Death in the South Pacific (Photo: Evan Martin)

I’ve known Evan Martin of Bellevue’s Naga Cocktail Lounge was creative with the drinks ever since he designed this Mad Men-themed cocktail featuring Pepsi ice cubes for Sauced. Cool drink, no?

So it makes perfect sense that an invention of Evan’s will be the official drink of Tales of the Cocktail 2010. But it’s still very exciting. Tales of the Cocktail is a massive bartender’s convention that takes place every year in July in New Orleans, it’s attended by drink luminaries across the land.

For this contest, bartenders around the country were asked to submit variations on a planter’s punch.

Evan’s recipe, purloined from the TotC web site, is below. Even if you don’t plan to make it, be sure to read Evan’s instructions for the garnish. I love a drink that doesn’t take itself too seriously. And then wins big. Go Evan!

Death in the South Pacific
0.75 oz. Appleton Estate Extra 12 Year Old rum
0.75 oz. Rhum Clement VSOP rum
0.5 oz. Grand Marnier
0.33 oz. Trader Tiki’s Orgeat Syrup
0.33 oz. Fee Brothers Falernum
3 dashes Absinthe
0.5 oz. Fresh Lime Juice
0.5 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice
0.5 oz. Fee Brothers Grenadine
0.5 oz. Cruzan Blackstrap rum
Add all ingredients except for the grenadine and Cruzan Blackstrap to a Zombie shell glass and fill with crushed ice. Swizzle the drink well to mix and frost the glass and then pour in grenadine. Overfill the glass with crushed ice and then pour in Cruzan Blackstrap.

Garnish
Take a bamboo skewer and put a brandied cherry through at the very top followed by 1 pineapple leaf (insert through the middle) and then cut off skin from 1 large orange slice and then cut the strips in half. Insert the ends through the skewer having them hang on opposite sides of each other. Then insert the straw through the loop in the bamboo skewer. It should look like a guy hanging off of the drink (cherry=head, pineapple leaf= arms, citrus peel dangling away from each other are the legs)

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Tags: Bellevue, Cocktails, Cocktail Recipes, Tales of the Cocktail, Evan Martin