Alcademics.com

Shhh! It's a Secret

These are notes on the Shhh! It's a Secret seminar at the Tales of the Cocktail convention.

• For alcohol products you have to list your ingredients, method, etc. to the TTB before approval - the whole recipe, in gernal. This isn't the same for non-alcoholic products. 
• Lillet is in a category of tonic wine, rather than vermouth. 
• In 1886 John Pemberton released a syrup with cola nuts and coca- Coca Cola. But one year before that there was John Pemberton's Nerve Wine Coca, a "tonic wine". This was changed based on the coming backlash against alcohol.  In 1863 in France, Vin Mariani (containing both coca and quinquina/quinine) was also a tonic wine, that may have been the inspiration for Pemberton.
•  Before the discovery of the new world, Europe didn't have cinchona.  (Or phyloxera, but that's another story.) Tonics and medicines from local communities in both the new and old world start to become branded medicines/health tonics. 
• Cinchona name comes from the name of a Spanish governor to Peru, the Marquee of Quinquon (sp?) whose wife was ill and this tonic helped her. 
• Quinquina was a selling point for tonic wines. 
• Back in the day, Lillet made many products, not just the fortified wine we know today. 
• Lillet contains wine from 3 grapes, macerations of cinchona, sweet and bitter orange peels from Haiti, Morocco, and Spain, and several additional (SECRET!) Boredeaux fruits. There are ten  ingredients. 
• Jackie Patterson says you can see the size of the word "Kina" or "quinquina" getting smaller over the years in advertising. This indicates the brands coming into their own rather than advertising the base ingredient (so, similar to Pepsi-Cola becoming just Pepsi), so they promote the brand name versus the ingredient. 
• Rumor has it that Lillet has changed; that the quinquina/bitterness decreased when it changed from Kina Lillet to Lillet in name. Patterson says the blender says "it's never been a bitter, what it adds to the flavor of Lillet is something akin to roundness and depth."  That said, they aknowledge that the alcohol percent was lowered and it became less sweet. 
• To make Gran Classico, they pour alcohol over a big sort of funnel filled with herbs to slowly extract the flavors. It gets its color and flavor from percolation. Then it is lightly filtered and sugar is added. "This is very typical to what you would have tasted a couple hundred year ago."
• Fernet is a spirit category, not a brand name. 
• It is possible that fernet was originally created by one monk with a name something like Frangellino Fernet. 
• Fernet contains a mushroom that sucks the flavors off the trees that it grows on, usually larch trees. 

Laptop running out of power - I'll add more later!

Visiting Trinidad: Doubles, Butterflies, Sharks, and Parties

Luckily on my recent trip to Trinidad we didn't spend the whole time inside the distillery. We took our rum to go and this is what we did.

The only bar I was able to visit was Shaker's, on my first night on the island. It was an indoor/outdoor place with lots of Angostura branding and food.

One street food in Trinidad is Doubles: taco-sized bread with Indian chic peas. I added hot pepper sauce to mine - and every time after that. So good.

The night after our distillery visit, we went to a welcome party at Wayne Yip Choy's little house by the water.

There they gave us a Carnival preview with stilt-dancers,

India-meets-Africa professional dance troupes,

and the requisite bevy of beautiful babes in butterfly wings.

The next day the journalists took a trip to the beach. Trinidad, unlike most Caribbean islands, doesn't need your tourist dollars: it is an oil-rich nation. Port of Spain is the large city on the island, and all the big hotels are business hotels, not resort hotels. Residents of Trinidad (at least where we were) live in the city then head to the beaches on the weekends. 

On the way there we stopped at a coconut stand to drink fresh coconut water from the shell. They split it over with a machete then hand you a straw. After you drink the water they'll split the coconut open you can eat the white meat. I tried it and the texture was very clingy and slimy like an oyster.

When we got to the ocean - a little under an hour drive over a windy mountaintop road- we had a great time by the ocean. We were at Maracas Beach, apparently one of the most popular. The waves are really fun to bodysurf on.

The local delicacy is Bake 'N Shark, pronouced like "bacon shark" and sometimes called Shark 'N Bake, but meaning fried shark. Shark apparently is an inexpensive fish so this is a cheap-ish snack. You eat it like a hamburger with a big station of sides and sauces.

As a vegetarian I did not partake of this delicacy. Most of the time I ate roti and other Indian foods, which were available at pretty much every meal. But one snack I tried on the beach was this fresh pineapple in a mild pepper marinade sauce. It was amazing and I want to learn to made the marinade at home.

Later that night we took in this massive steel drum competition called Panarama. It was in a giant stadium and the bands were massive - the "medium" sized bands probably had 50 people in them.

After the Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge competition the next day, we went to a pre-Carnival party at Brian Lara's house. Brian Lara is a famous cricket player from Trinidad, and from the size of his house and property a very rich one too. There things just got goofy.

And then it was time for me to leave early the next morning. Thanks much to Angostura for hosting a fantastic trip. When you invite me back (hint, hint) I'll make sure to stay for Carnival. If it's anything like the warm-up, that is one heck of a party.

Angostura Rums Distillery Visit

In my last post I talked about the history and production of Angostura Bitters. In this one I'll talk about the history and production of Angostura Rums. I visited the distillery on Trinidad in March 2011.

History of Angostura Rums

The House of Angostura was in the bitters business since 1824, but didn't enter the rum business until after their move to the island of Trinidad in 1875. At first they were dealing with bulk rums rather than distilling their own, but in 1945 they purchased their own distillery. It wasn't until the 1960s that the profits from rum outsold those of bitters. In 1973 they purchased the Fernandes Distillery located next door and incorporated those brands (including Vat19) into their production.

According to the film we watched at the distillery, in 1991 they had a production capacity of 22 million liters of alcohol per year. According to their website, it's now 50 million liters. Wow! The distillery takes up 20 acres of land. They make both their own brands, rum for other people, and sell bulk rum. More on the other brands later.

Production of Angostura Rums

Currently all the products are made on enormous column stills. They say they've been experimenting with some pot still stuff, but they're not making anything yet.

No sugar has been produced on the island since 2003, so all the molasses to make these rums is purchased on the open market. (10Cane, which is also made on Trinidad but I don't believe at this distillery, uses some fresh local sugar cane juice in their rum blend.) We tastes molasses off the grate where it is poured into the system- it reminded me of old-style black licorice.

(Grate through which molasses is poured.)

For different rum products made at the distillery they use different strains of yeast. Their barrels are ex-bourbon barrels. These are reused to age rum three times before they're discarded or recycled. We weren't allowed to enter the aging warehouse as they said it's a bonded property. From outside, it didn't look nearly big enough to age all the rum produced here, but they said it's their only aging warehouse it turns out they have five other aging warehouses also.

For further reading, I suggest Ed Hamilton's write up on MinistryOfRum.com. 

The Line of Rums

After the distillery tour we did a tasting of some of the rums with Master Distiller Jean Georges. Oh, by the way, the line of Angostura rums is finally coming to the US soon, and they are tasty. 

The 3-year reminded me (keep in mind my tasting notes aren't supposed to make sense to anyone but me) of the insides under-ripe banana peels, with a soft creaminess that wasn't too vanilla-y. 

The 5-year, interestingly, is actually filtered to remove some of its color. It has the caramel-vanilla notes you'd expect from a rum of this age, but with a nice fuzzy texture. I was also picking up a lot of notes of liquid limestone. The finish had some mint/oregano spice to it and it was just a touch tannic. 

The 7-year rum is actually the 5-year rum which is blended and then put back into casks to marry for 2 years. The nose is all warm caramel apple and cheesecake pie crust on this one, with a spicier mouth with notes of peppermint. It's also oily in texture and slightly ashy. 

One thing Jean Georges said about all of their rums is that they have a short finish. "None of our spirits overstay their welcome. They do their thing and move on, leaving you to want another sip."

I am not sure if their "single barrel" is coming to the US or not, but I enjoyed drinking that during my visit. Most of the time I drank that or the 7-year-old. When I wanted a mixer, I'd mix it with their soft drink Lemon Lime & Bitters, locally known as LLB. (Note to Angostura: you should consider bringing this to the US also in select markets.)

Angostura also produces Zaya rum, The Kraken spiced rum (according to MinistryOfRum), Vat 19, and White Oak (which is very popular in Trinidad).

 

The History and Production of Angostura Bitters

In March I visited the Angostura distillery in Port of Spain, Trinidad. They make not only Angostura Bitters here but also the line of Angostura rums and rums for several other brands. In this post, I'll focus on the bitters. 

The History of Angostura Bitters

Angostura Bitters were created in 1824 by Dr. Johann Siegert. They were originally called "Dr. Siegert's Aromatic Bitters" and later renamed Angostura Bitters. (The folks from The Bitter Truth Bitters have some interesting information about a lawsuit over the name "Angostura" between these bitters and Abbott's Bitters.) 

(One of the other Angostura Bitters bottles from around the world on display at the museum.)

The bitters were created for tropical stomach ailments in Venezuela, as Dr. Siegert was the Surgeon General of Simon Bolivar's army.  In fact the town of Angostura is now called Ciudad Bolivar. The bitters were first exported to England in 1830.

(Simon Bolivar)

According to this good history on Angostura's website, Siegert's son exhibited the bitters in England in 1862 where they were mixed with gin. Thus the Pink Gin was born.  

(Angostura used to produce Pink Rum - rum laced with Angostura Bitters.)

After Dr. Siegert died in 1870, his sons relocated the business from the politically unstable Venezuela to Trinidad in 1875. The company was renamed Angostura Bitters in 1904. Sometime shortly after this,  the son in charge of Angostura lost all of his money in bad business deals and Angostura was taken by his creditors.

Why is the Angostura Bitters Label Too Big for the Bottle?

For a competition of some sort, one brother designed the bottle and another brother designed the label. By the time they figured out they should have consulted each other on the size of each, it was too late to change. On the advice of a judge in the contest, they kept it as their signature. Here, our tour guide does a better job of explaining it in this 1-minute video.

 

How Are Angostura Bitters Produced? 

The secret ingredients for the bitters are shipped from wherever they come from to England. There the ingredients are put into coded bags and shipped to Trinidad. I believe they said they have a long-standing arrangement with customs that the bags are not inspected when they arrive in Trinidad to maintain their secret.  

At the distillery, there are five people known as "manufacturers" who prepare the ingredients. They weigh out the relative quantities of each in a room known as the Sanctuary. The ingredients are then dropped into a crusher that crushes them all together as they fall into the room below - the Bitters Room. 

At the base of the crusher are carts that hold the ingredients. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the room due to the high-proof alcohol vapors (but later did of the bartenders there), but we did get to peak into the crushed herbs. I remember seeing largish chunks of something that looked like gum arabic, and a lot of rice-sized grey grains about the size of lavender seeds, though I doubt they were because there was a lot of them. (There you go: gum arabic and lavender- make your own Angostura at home :) )

The crushed herbs then go into a "percolator" tank with 97% alcohol to extract their flavor.  After this infusion is done, the liquid is then transferred to another tank where brown sugar and caramel color are added. Then the liquid is transferred again and distilled water is added to bring them down to the 44.7% alcohol level for bottling. 

This is all done in a relatively small room with a bunch of tanks in it. It's impressive that the world's supply of Angostura Bitters is made here. 

Later that day, they did publicity shots with the bartenders in the Bitters Room. They let the professional photographers take photos and let me take them without flash. As you can see the bitters tanks have the bottle labels on them. Except in this case, they actually fit. 

Report from the Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge

Last week I went to Trinidad to report on the 2011 Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge. They flew in bartenders representing North and South America, Australia, the Caribbean, Europe, India, Asia, Nigeria (though he had visa issues and couldn't attend), South Africa, and Trinidad & Tobago.

I got a chance to sit down with most of the contestants for a quick interview to learn a bit about their drinks and their countries.

Andy Griffiths from Cookie in Melbourne, Australia eventually won the day, and the $10,000 check.

He told me that down in Melbourne they're working with barrel aged drinks now (but the barrels are much harder to get than in the US where they're everywhere) and he's aging a Rum Negroni with chocolate bitters. Lately he's been using Chartreuse in drinks a lot, as well as doing more food and cocktail pairings. 

Each bartender prepared two drinks in the contest. His first was an aperitif-style cocktail made with Bunnahabhain scotch (owned by Angostura), Yellow Chartreuse, Madiera, muddled cherries, bitters, and salt. An interesting thing Andy told me is that any drink with fresh fruit and sugar can use a pinch of salt to bring out the flavor. 

His second drink (one had to be made with Angostura rum;  both had to include Angostura bitters) was inspired by a Trinidanian dessert. It's a flip with rum, eggs, sesame seeds, treacle (molasses), chocolate liqueur, and bitters. 

Mariano Ramirez from Buenos Aires, Argentina is a consultant. He told me that the most popular drinks there besides the typical daiquiris and fruit drinks are Fernet and Coke, and that they also drink a lot of vermouth. I asked him where I should go for good drinks if ever in Buenos Aires and he recommended 878, Mundo Bizarro, Danzon, and Olsen. 

His first drink was made with rum, apple juice, lime, honey, cinnamon, and bitters. Sounds like a nice set of matching flavors. His second was made with gin, basil, red pepper, simple syrup, grapefruit juice, and bitters, served highball -style. He said he focussed on easy-to-get ingredients made for the international palate - not in the dry and bitter style favored in Argentina. 

(He's not actually startled, that's him doing goofy-face.)

Jamaal Bowen works at the Sandy Lane on Barbados. As I've actually been there, I asked him about the wonderful juices they have. He said the Bajan cherry juice, golden apple juice, passionfruit juice, and coconut water sometimes make it into drinks, including their welcome punch at the hotel.  He says on Barbados people often mix fresh coconut water with dark rum or with Johnnie Walker Black. I forgot to try rum and coconut water while I was there, oof.

His first drink was made with Hine cognac (also owned by Angostura), passionfruit, thyme, simple syrup, orange and regular Angsotura. His second was made with Angostura 1919 rum, basil, simple, lime, elderflower, and bitters. Sounds like he likes some herbs. 

Daniyel Jones is from Trinidad and works at Martini Makers doing special events. He says that people are appreciating fresh ingredients more in local bars, but then again they drink coconut water with their whisky so they're used to a certain amount.

His first drink included rum, jackfruit, spices and bitters. His second used caimate fruit, which is says is a fruit with a delicate flavor, and used Angostura rum to infuse orange peels, seasoning it over a saucepan before adding them- and the rum- to the drink. 

Kurt Schlechter works at Circle Bar in Johannesburg, and is also a bartender trainer.  He says Johannesburg is known for having the best clubs, while the cocktail bars are more centered in Capetown. (He cited Asoka Son of Dharma and Cubana as examples.) 

Kurt noted that in South Africa, beverages must be 43% alcohol (as opposed to 40% US) to be pure spirits. This leads to a lot of problems with importing spirits, but some just change the labels - I believe he said Absolut comes in as a "spirit aperitif," for example.

His first drink was made with Bunnahabhain scotch, gingerbread syrup, cream, milk, and Amarula liqueur to throw in some local flavor. He said this drink was inspired by Angostura bitters on top of vanilla ice cream. His second drink was a fizz made with rum, passionfruit, egg, soda, and honey. 

Wolfgang Mayer works at the Widder-Hotel in Zürich, Switzerland.  He says the bar carries over 1000 bottles, including 100 tequilas (that's a ton for Europe). He says he's been experimenting with German stomach bitters in cocktails, and actually used them in a drink here.

 His first was a classic Manhattan with Angostura and the German stomach bitters. His second cocktail was a version of a daiquiri made with sage and peach puree and of course, bitters. 

Michael Schaus works at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. He says lately he's been getting into using fresh ginger, St. Germain, and Canton. 

His first drink used Wild Tukey American Honey, creme de cassis, raspberries, bitters, and ginger. His second used rum, fresh sweet and sour, orange zest, and bitters. 

Yangdup Lama is a bartender trainer in New Delhi. He says of the Indian palate, "The drinks have to be very full-bodied, like the food. Nobody would like a really Dry Martini but everyone wants a sweet Appletini." He says that in some creative mixology happening in India they're using spices like curry, corriander, clove, and cinnamon, but in general the young drinkers don't yet appreciate quality ingredients in spirits. 

His first drink was made with Bunnahabhain  scotch, toffee nut syrup, and bitters, served up. His second was made with Angostura 1919 rum, paan (a minty spice mixture), apple juice, orange liqueur, and bitters.

On stage at the event, he made a point to remind the audience that he is handsome and also single.

The only bartender I wasn't able to interview was Nor Salinah Binti Syed Osman from Malaysia, who works at Twentyone Kitchen+Bar in Ipoh, Perak. (I think she said her nickname is "S" which is a lot easier.) At the contest she made one drink with 1919 rum, sweet vermouth, cassis, and bitters, garnished with apple slices. He second drink was made with a yellow lime (producing yellow juice), lime leaf, red plum, simple syrup, rum, and bitters. She rubbed the lime leaf around the rim before serving it, which would be cool to try with life leaf here. 

Judges included Dale DeGroff, Colin Apiah, and the previous Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge winner Jamie Stephenson.

Congratulations to all the contestants and I know you all had a great time during the rest of Carnival in Trinidad!

Tripping in Trinidad

Hello from Trinidad! I'm here with the Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge - an international bartender competition. 

I'll post more about Angostura, the rums made here, and the brand history on another blog entry when I get time. (But if you have any questions put them in the comments below and I'll try to get answers on Sunday.)

Yesterday we toured the distillery and went to a party at Angostura's CEO's massive house on the water. (It has excellent parking spaces for one's yacht.)

Just a quick note: I spoke with Angostura's new US importer for the bitters and am happy to report that they're keeping tons of stock in several warehouses in the US so there shouldn't be another shortage in the foreseeable future.      

(A rare photo opp in the Bitters Room at Angostura.)

Alcademics in Limbo

Actually, that should be Alcademics in Trinidad, where the limbo was invented. Also from Trinidad: steel pan drums, calypso music, and Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul. Oh yeah, and that's where they make Angostura bitters.

As this message is sent through the internet hopefully I'm on the plane on the way to Trinidad, where I'll be witnessing (read: drinking along to) the Angostura Cocktail Challenge. 

Stay tuned for updates!

A Meat Cocktail with a Vegetarian Option

In a quick ditty for Tasing Table, I wrote about Gitane's La Convivencia cocktail by Alex Smith, made with your choice of bitters: Chorizo or SoyRizo.

As a vegetarian I only smelled the meat version but tasted the vegan one. The Chorizo reminds me of Slim Jims; the SoyRizo of soy sauce. Both add another savory accent to the drink in addition to the sherry.

Read the piece here.