Alcademics.com

Cocktail Menu: The Churchill in Los Angeles

Mia Sarazen has taken over the cocktail program at The Churchill in Los Angeles. Her introductory menu launched last week.

“The Grand Alliance” : Plymouth Gin, Carpano, Campari, Maraschino
“Hyde Park Fizz" : Nolet's gin, Bonal Quina, honey, lime, cucumber, basil, soda
“Thirsty in LA” : Correlejo Reposado, Aperol, Ciociaro Amaro, mezcal rinse
“The Iron Mule” : Russian Standard, ginger, lime, soda, bitters
“Norman’s Cable Car” : Sailor Jerry Rum, housemade curacao, lemon, cinnamon&sugar rim
“The Churchill Old Fashioned” : Old Fitzgerald bourbon, house bitters, sugar
“The Statesman" : Famous Grouse, apricot, lemon, baked apple bitters, sparkling
“Baby’s First Bourbon” : Bulleit Bourbon, orgeat, lemon, dashes house bitters
“The Bulldog" : Milagro blanco, passion, pineapple, lime, jalepeno
“Rye 2 Ways” : Bulleit Rye, dry vermouth, grenadine, lemon, up. Or add Allagash White for Fizzy & Tall.
“The Grapes of Wrath” : Kappa Pisco, lime, pineapple, whites, bitters, cinnamon
“Amelia” : Kettle One, lemon, St.Germain,violet, blackberries

A Few Things Learned in the Agave Fields in Mexico

On my recent trip with the Tahona Society, we visited took ATVs into the agave fields and "helped" harvest some agave. 

There, Olmeca Altos tequila Master Distiller Jesus Hernandez filled me in on some details about agave I didn't know, so I thought I'd share them:

• The quiote, the giant asparagus-shaped sprout that shoots up from a mature agave plant in order to spread its seed, only comes from the female plant. This is nearly always cut soon after sprouting so that it doesn't drain energy from the agave heart.
• After the quiote sprouts, you have a year and a few months to harvest the plant - it can go through one rainy season after sprouting but not two.
• Only the male plants that do not sprout quiotes have a cogollo, a dense circle of leaves where the quiote would have been. Most quality producers make sure to cut out the cogollo when harvesting or before baking the agave, as this negatively impacts the flavor of tequila.
• Agave can be harvested year-round but they tend to harvest less/none in the rainy season. This isn't because the agave are waterlogged and therefore have a lower sugar-to-weight ratio, as Hernandez says that mature plants aren't effected so much by this, but because logistically it's hard to get the trucks in  and out of the muddy fields to collect the heavy agave after harvest. 
• Sometimes you'll see an agave field with the tips of all the spiky leaves cut off. Hernandez says that some producers think that this helps the heart of the agave grow stronger, but he doesn't believe this is true. However, he says it is common to cut off the tips of the leaves when they come through annually to apply pesticides and herbicides, just so that they can get through the dense rows of agave without getting cut on the leaves.
• The leaves of the agave plants grow and die annually and new ones grow above them, much like how a palm tree grows with rows of dead leaves left lower down. I always thought they were the same leaves just growing bigger each year!
• They apply pesticides and herbicides annually up until the year before harvest, as they don't want any of that residue around for harvest. 
• At the base of agave plants sprout rhyzomes, little baby agaves called hijuelos. These are cut and replanted after the mother agave plant is 3-4 years old.

I also learned something from Guillermo Sauza, distiller/owner of Fortaleza Tequila. 

• You can get huge agave hearts in the Lowlands, you just have to fertilize the fields. Sauza says that people don't usually do that in the area anymore since the current prices are so low for agave. 

Fizzy and Sticky: The Carbonated Liqueur Trend on Details.com

In my latest story for Details.com I wrote about NUVO sparkling liqueur and a couple of its modern spin-offs, the Timbaland-fronted Le SUTRA and the organic Prevu.

Is Carbonated Liqueur the New Cristal?
By Camper English 

There was really no way to predict that NUVO and its imitators would be more than a passing fad in U.S. bars and clubs. Cristal, Hennessy, Dom: Those kind of made sense when they blew up in pop culture over the years. They're luxury brands with luxury prices. The whole aspirational thing. But pink bubbly liqueur with a $30 price tag? What's more, there are at least two more NUVO-like products hitting store shelves this season.

How did this bizarre trend come to be?

 

I cover a short history of the brands and how they're being served at bottle service spots. 

Go read it!

Camper English to Receive Legends Award at San Francisco Cocktail Week

Well ain't I fancy! I'm happy to announce I will be one of the recipients of the Legends' Awards at San Francisco Cocktail Week on September 21. Scroll down for a big discount code to the awards ceremony.

The Legends Awards
Friday, September 21, 7:30-10:30 p.m.
Tickets: $85 in advance (booking a block of 10 will secure a table for groups) & $95 at the door

Location: The Swedish American Hall, San Francisco (2174 Market Street)
Tickets here. 

The second annual Legends Awards announces the recipients of the 2012 awards, going to the true innovators, influencers, mentors and historians of cocktail culture in the Bay Area. The 2012 award winners are:

• Trailblazer – Allison Evanow, CEO and Founder of Square One Organic Spirits, for her pioneering efforts in the development of high quality, organic spirits and green business practices in the industry.
• Mentor – Erik Adkins, Bar Director at Slanted Door Group, for developing pace-setting beverage programs and the skilled bartenders to execute them across multiple restaurants in the Bay Area over the last decade.
• Lifetime Achievement – Miles Karakasevic, 13th Generation Master Distiller at Charbay (pictured), for creating and building a family business that produces wine and spirits that attract worldwide acclaim and help to set a standard in craft production.
• Renegade – Martin Cate, Owner, Smuggler’s Cove, for being the torch bearer and leader for a new generation of Tiki cocktail culture and rum connoisseurship.
• Scribe – Camper English, Journalist, Alcademics.com, for his steadfast dedication to the craft of investigative journalism in spirits and cocktail culture, and his influence on the new generations of professionals and enthusiasts alike, seeking answers and debate.

I'm in some pretty good company there, right? 

Come bask in my glory at the awards ceremony - I'll make it cheaper for you to do so. What they haven't mentioned is that there will be food, TONS of drinks, blackjack tables, and 1960's style entertainment... including a Liberace impersonator! 

Use promo code LGNDS for a 20% discount on tickets to the Legends' Awards for Alcademics readers. 

I hope to see you there!

Drinking Pulque in Teochitlan, Mexico

If you've been following along, you know I'm in Mexico with the Tahona Society, a tequila education program sponsored by Olmeca Altos tequila. So far we had a cocktail contest and visited three distilleries plus a whole lot of bars.

Today after visiting a distillery, we went to learn some Mexican history. Near the city of Teochitlan are the ruins of Guachimontones, an Indian culture dating back to a hundred years or so B.C.. Up on a hill is the place where the royalty lived and worshipped. There were circular pyramids and a restored ball court.

Then we headed into town to try pulque. If I understand correctly (and I may not have so don't quote me) this traditional product is made by cutting off the flowering stem of an agave plant and scooping out the fermenting watery good inside.

At a little roadside bar we stopped for some. They were made by a proud woman who cooks in a traditional Mexican domed oven, and makes other pre-Spanish foods and drinks.

We tried several things:

• High-strength pulque, which was served in a tiny cup and tasted like vinegar and smelled like the devil.
• Flavored pulque, which is what they normally serve. For this she has clay pots full of flavoring ingredients including tamarind, guava, tomato, and oatmeal. To scoop of this in a glass she adds unflavored pulque to make the final drink. It is served with a plastic spoon in the glass so you can keep stirring it to keep it mixed while you drink it. I tried the tamarind and oatmeal and they were really delicious. (Not so much the aroma, but the flavor.)
• Traditional style pulque, which was chopped tomatoes, onions, and chilies with the high-strength pulque. It almost tasted like vinegar-based salsa and was surprisingly good.
• Sweet bread dessert roll baked using pulque in the recipe, I think in place of milk.
• Corn cooked in pulque, which was good but so flavorful I'd like it as a topping rather than a dish.

All told, a great experience, despite the generally unpleasant things you generally hear about pulque.

 

 

A Visit to the Sauza Distillery in Tequila, Mexico

Today on the Tahona Society trip to the tequila regions of Mexico we visited the distillery of Sauza. Yesterday's visit to La Fortaleza was an example of the most primitive/traditional production methods for tequila. Today at Sauza we say the most high-tech.

I last visited Sauza about a year ago, and that post on Alcademics is here, and probably a bit more thorough than this one. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures in most of the distillery, so mostly text will have to do.

Sauza uses what they call "soft extraction" of the sugars from agave plants. While almost every tequila maker bakes agave plant hearts (pinas) then crushes the baked plants to extract the fermentable sugars from the plants, at Sauza first they crush the plants then they cook the liquid.

The agave is first run through a big roller mill, and then a diffuser, a huge machine that specializes in getting the most of the sugars out of agave. Then this liquid is cooked at 120 degrees Celsius for 4-5 hours.

This sugary liquid is then fermented super fast- 24 to 26 hours- then it is distilled.

Distillation for Sauza products takes place first in a column still, where they distill up to anywhere from 24 to 35 percent alcohol depending on the product, and then in a copper-lined stainless steel still up to 56-65%.

An interesting fact I learned on this trip is about their mixto tequila - tequila distilled from the fermented sugars of at least 51% agave and 49% other sugars, usually sugar cane. However at Sauza, where they do use the minimum 51/49 percent ratio, the sugar used is corn syrup, not sugar syrup.

 

La Fortaleza Distillery Visit

Yesterday I visited the La Fortaleza distillery. This tiny distillery makes 100% tahona tequila, in the heart of the city of Tequila in the Lowlands.

The distillery was rebuilt in a 100 year old distillery site by Guillermo Sauza, 5th-generation Sauza family. His grandfather sold Sauza to the company who sold it to Jim Beam. Guillermo decided to return to distilling the traditional way.

The tahona is a volcanic stone wheel that is rolled in a pit to crush baked agave. Most distilleries use a diffuser, rollermill, or a combination of rollermill and tahona.

The fibers are removed and the sugary water and pulp remain. These are fermented in wooden fermenters.

Then they are distilled in the tiniest little pot stills.

The aging room is about as big as a two-bedroom apartment.

The view from the hill behind the distillery is amazing- they own 80 acres right in the city of Tequila.

There are caves underneath this hill. In the caves they've put a bar. We were in there for a good two hours.

Short blog post, but an amazing distillery and a great night!

 

The Tahona Society Cocktail Competition in Arandas Mexico

Tuesday night I helped judge the Tahona Society Cocktail Competition here in Arandas, Mexico. The competition (and the Tahona Society in general) was sponsored by Olmeca Altos tequila. My co-judges were Henry Bessant, who helped develop the Olmeca Altos brand, Charles Joly, winner of last year's competition and bar manager at The Aviary in Chicago, and Tomas Estes, owner of the Cafe Pacifico restaurants and Ocho tequila.

Eighteen bartenders from eleven countries competed in the event. What I liked was that nearly every competitor brought an ingredient from their home country to make their cocktails, from a smoky Ukrainian dried fruit syrup to Greek honey to Wisconsin cherry syrup.

Third place went to Sergey Nadson from Russia. He made a simple delicious cocktail, a Tommy's Margarita variation with fresh muddled lemongrass and black pepper.

Second place in the contest was Jason Xue Bin from China. His drink, which was presented on an elaborate tasting matt, was made with hawthorn infused tequila, apricot brandy, lemon and cranberry juice, and simple syrup. He made a cocktail that was truly better than the sum of its parts.

The competition winner was Heinz Kaiser from Austria (I met him at Diageo's World Class competition in 2011 where he took second place). He made a drink Manhattan style with reposado tequila, Cointreau, Carpano Antica vermouth, Damiana liqueur, Bob's Abbott's bitters, Mozart chocolate bitters, and it was presented in silver cups under a cloud of cumin-scented smoke.

For his prize Heinz will get to come back to Mexico and work at the distillery with the master distiller for a week. Jason will get to come back to this contest next year as a competitor.

Well done, all!