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Zen and the Art of Bartending

This week I flew down to LA to attend the Pioneers of Mixology, a day-long seminar put on by Pernod-Ricard. We were given talks by Dushan Zaric (Employees Only, NY), Aisha Sharpe (Contemporary Cocktails), Gaz Regan (writer), Tony Conigliaro (69 Colebrooke Row, London), and Nick Strangeway (Hix, London).

Below are some of the take-home messages that I took home.

Gaz, Aisha, and Dushan kicked off the day speaking about Mindful Bartending. I'd describe the concept as happiness in your job as a bartender, reaching "the zone" feeling when you're in the weeds yet the drinks seem to mix themselves and you're smiling your way through it all- even when you're not slammed. 

Beyond feeling better about your work, you're a nicer person to your customers. So rather than specific mixological skills or particular elements of service, mindful bartending is about a positive attitude. Aisha said, "If the spiritual aspect of this is not important to you, think numbers." Basically, you'll make more money when you're nice to your customers.

Some of the ways to achieve this include:

• Doing a bit of meditation or breathing or some getting-psyched/calm ritual before the start of a shift.
• Healthy living- exercise and proper sleep.
• Thinking about someone you love or other positive thoughts when working. Infusing your drinks with good thoughts.
• Breaking patterns that build bad moods throughout the day.

I couldn't help but think about how I can use some of this philosophy in my own work, trying to find "the zone" when sending 6 hours worth of email and not writing anything. I think it's doable. 

The second talk was by Tony Conigliaro about scientific mixology. Some of the things he's been concentrating on lately include:

• In order to get the albumin egg smell out of egg whites, he rests eggs in a sealed container with some essential oils. As the egg shell is a permeable membrane, they end up taking on these scents.
• He has been studying the way scents work, with the lightest molecules reaching your nose first and heaviest later, clinging to the carrier. This is why in perfume you smell things like lemon and Bergamont, followed by rose, jasmin, and iris, with lingering notes of sandalwood or oakwood.
• He continues to experiment with his Buchi  roto-vap, low-temperature still. In England apparently it is legal to redistill something (he starts with neutral spirit and a flavor) but in the US it is not. Lately he has distilled flint stone and a barrel, and will soon write a food and drink manual to accompany the machine.
• He also distilled wood notes out of a Manhattan cocktail and then barrel aged it. His aged cocktail program is mostly bottle, rather than barrel, aging. He had his bottle-aged cocktails analyzed by gas chromatograph and you could see chemical differences between the aged and unaged Manhattan.
• He has been using the website www.FoodPairing.be, which lists which foods and drinks fit together chemically. The claim is that foods that have similar chemical structures work well together. So you might use this website to see some unusual pairings. Apparently fino sherry and peas go well together...

Last but not least was Nick Strangeway, who had the arduous task of trying to educate Californians about using local ingredients.

He made the excellent point that not only is going local ecologically good, it helps a bar center more on its local area, and hopefully restore some of the sense of the village pub as a local meeting house; the center of the community.

He talked a bit about foraging, "guerilla gardening" (spreading seeds in free space that's not your own), "yard sharing," community gardening, and made several suggestions for plants that grow well in California weather- many of them I've never heard of or seen used in a bar program.

But he also talked about preserving seasonal produce through several methods:

• Infusions and Liqueurs
• Jams and marmalade
• Shrub syrups
• Aged milk punch
• Sherbet aka oleo saccharum
• Freezing

There are tons of great books on preserving. Now I just need to plant some things that I can preserve after they grow.

All told, this was a great day of education.

The Missing Caipirinha

I've been writing for Fine Cooking magazine's website for several months now, and realized they don't have a recipe for the Caipirinha online. Shameful. So in my latest post I wrote about the drink, the base spirit cachaca, and some variations. Check it out.

Sponsor Shout-Out: G'Vine Gin Connoisseur 2011

You may have noticed the groovy new banner to the left. That's telling you about the G'Vine Gin Connoisseur 2011 contest to find the best gin bartender in the world. Click the banner or read below for more info on how it all works.

In addition to the trip to France for the 15 finalists from around the world, those lucky folks will aso get to spend five days there with *me* as I'll be there to report on the contest.  I'll make sure they show you a good time.

Even if you're not sure about entering the contest, you might want to register and do the online modules- at worst you'll learn more about gin.  

G'Vine Gin Connoisseur 2011

In 2010, over 300 bartenders from 29 different countries competed for the toughest, most prestigious title in gin bartending: The G'Vine Gin Connoisseur.

The G'Vine Gin Connoisseur Program (GCP) resumes with the theme for 2011 : "Traditionally Unconventional". The G'Vine Gin Connoisseur 2011 is the quest for the world's finest all-round gin bartender. As well as the usual contest elements of cocktail creation, the G'Vine Gin Connoisseur 2011 includes online modules, local contests in countries around the world, trainings, tastings, examinations, hanging out with Gaz Regan in the French countryside, and running your own bar at the G'Vine Summer Ball in Cognac! Chances to be the Gin Connoisseur 2011 are offered to every bartender across the world:

1. Each entrant must complete an online examination process including 3 interactive modules (Advanced Gin Cocktails, World of Bars, G'Vine Education). The exams are supervised and graded by the world-renowned expert, Philip Duff, an award-winning speaker, trainer, author and mixologist, and the owner of Liquid Solutions Bar & Beverage Consulting.

2. Any gin-loving bartender can attend the preliminaries held in March & April in Canada, Germany, Spain, UK and US, including Philip Duff's famous Prehistory & Evolution of Gin seminar, presentations by the World Finalists of the G'Vine Gin Connoisseurs Program 2010, a blind Gin Nosing & Tasting Challenge and a cocktail creation. Contenders must also create an original G'Vine cocktail and include it on their bar's cocktail list until the 29th of April.2b. If G'Vine isn't available in your country, or if it is available but no preliminary contest is being held in your country, you can still enter the GCP – as a Wild Card! You will have to make a short video making an original G'Vine cocktail and develop a unique interpretation of G'Vine's original catch phrase: "So Traditionally Unconventional." It could be in the form of any medium: a blog, a painting, a podcast, a videoclip, a photo, etc. These 2 challenges will be shared on youtube and facebook, and popularity (how many times it is "liked") is taken into consideration by the judges.

3. All the points for each challenge are tallied end of April and the 15 top-scoring bartenders will be flown to France in June for a week's worth of unforgettable GCP experiences: seminars with G'Vine's master distiller Jean Sébastien Robicquet, handpicking the vine flowers with bartending legend Gaz Regan, the opportunity to create his or her personal blend of G'Vine, speed drink-making contests, written examinations

Prizes :In addition to being granted the 2011 title of "G'Vine Gin Connoisseur", the winning bartender will receive over-the-top prizes including:  $3,000, the platinum Vine Flower pin, a year's supply of G'Vine for your bar and the Gin Connoisseur experience of a lifetime : the opportunity to choose an intercontinental bar tour in either London or New York, visiting some of the best gin bars in the world.

Register for the challenge here.

Speaking on Social Media at the WSWA April 12

I'll be speaking on a social media panel at the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America annual Convention on April 12. 

Last year I also attended the convention. I learned what the WSWA is and what goes on at the convention, with some notes about the strengths and weaknesses of the three-tier system. I also looked at how the convention is changing and plans for the future. 

Here's the tentative title and info:

Social Media Marketing:  It’s Not an Option, It's Mandatory

 Forget the theory and the lectures, this hard-hitting panel will give attendees the street smart perspective on social media marketing.  Whether you’re a supplier, wholesaler or retailer, social media marketing must be an integral part of your marketing strategy,  The panel will provide the straight scoop on:

-What does success look like?

-Case histories with lessons learned that you can leverage right now.

- What are the wrong ways to use Facebook and Twitter, and how do you handle temperamental bloggers?

-Why  social media marketing needs to be a core strategy- the liquid in marketing’s bottle and not the label slapped on top.

- Should your distiller be tweeting?

The panel was assembled and will be moderated by Steve Raye of Brand Action Team. Also on the panel are Alyssa Rapp of Bottlenotes.com, Kit Codik of Liquor.com, Camper English of Alcademics.com (hey, that's me!), and Vincenza Kelly of ItalTrade/Vino 2011.

This should be interesting because Steve Raye is a social media marketing consultant, Alyssa and Kit do websites but interact with brands throwing large and small events, relatively, Vincenza coordinated the social media aspect of an event from the front end, and I'm a blogger and journalist. We have different needs from brands and their social media marketing, and thus will have different perspectives on what brands need to do to be more effective in the socia media space. 

I'm looking forward to it, and if you're attending the WSWA in Orlando this April I hope you'll join us there. 

Some Prefer Dark Rum

In today's FineCooking.com blog post, I talk about how rum geeks get peeved when you say "dark rum" when you mean "aged rum."

The funny thing is, much "white rum" is also aged a little bit and I don't hear any complaining about that.

Rum lovers, you just can't please them, except with rum.

Also, there's a cocktail recipe for the Lime Bumboo by Jestset John Deragon. It uses a brown sugar syrup made with lime juice instead of water and aged overnight. Weird.

Cocktail Geeks Blogging Their Way Through Books

It takes a lot of ambition to make every drink in a cocktail book- not to mention a lot of booze- but more people are signing on for the task.

Erik Ellestad of the Underhill Lounge blog has made all 900+ cocktails in The Savoy Cocktail Book. The guy deserves a medal. But now he's gone on to attempt the rest of the drinks, and the poor bastard is currently on the non-alcoholic section. Then again, after 900 drinks or so it's good to have a glass of water.

Adam Elmegirab is working on The Jerry Thomas Project, in which he's making all the drinks in The 1862 book THE BARTENDER'S GUIDE - How To Mix Drinks: or The Bon Vivant's Companion. (I suppose David Wondrich did the same thing in his book Imbibe!, rather than in blog format.)

New Orleans-and-Tiki-obsessed Swede Tiare of A Mountain of Crushed Ice is working her way through Beachbum Berry's Grog Log.

Jeff Williams of San Francisco is blogging his way through Charles H. Baker's Jigger, Beaker and Glass: Drinking Around the World . Poor, poor soul. You know most of those drinks are kinda bad, right?

Is anyone else blogging a drink-through? Let me know.

The Scoop on 441 Jones in San Francisco

The former Club 441 is half a block from Bourbon & Branch, and is now owned by some of the B&B team. I checked it out the other day and got a tour from Justin Lew, Creative Director of the company. The bar is (temporarily?) named Mr. Lew's Win-Win House and Grand Sazerac Emporium after his Sazerac-themed 30th birthday party that was held there.

The space is pretty bare bones. After Lew removed the interior neon signage, there are a lot of bare walls. There's a pool table and some bar stools. That's about it... for now.

But remember how Bourbon & Branch began as just a two-room space and is now 4 rooms plus the basement, and how Rickhouse is about twice the size (and rumor has it, expanding) as Ginger's Trois that was there before it? They plan well: 441 has a large upstairs area that will probably end up becoming a balcony, as well as an entire large empty room beside it. When they decide what they want to do with it, they'll have plenty of space. (I just noticed that Cienfuegos in NYC is doing this as well- opening their third bar in the space.)

For now, it's being run as a dive bar with a small menu of classic cocktails and canned/bottled beers. You'll find John Ottman (of Rickhouse and Elixir) there most of the time, and bartenders including Jill Webster and various members of the Rickhouse/Bourbon & Branch crew.

Battle of the Tequileros at Tres in San Francisco

Last night was the Battle of the Tequileros at Tres Tequila Lounge & Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco, co-sponsored by Herradura. Ten bartenders entered but one was crowned winner and took home the $2000 prize. 

To see the bartenders, the drinks, and the winner keep reading below.