Bong Souvenir

Bong Su restaurant has produced mini recipe booklets as souvenirs featuring their cocktails. I'm not sure when they're available and whether or not they're free, but they do intend to make them available to the public. I think this is a great idea- it reminds visitors of where they got that great drink they liked, and allows them to (try to) make it at home. And they did a nice job with these booklets- they're spiral bound with thick laminated pages.

And chances are, they were made at a discount. Brands used in the recipes are listed as sponsors on the back. Clever!

So, so many muddlers

If you have anything to do with the booze industry, you're probably drowning in muddlers right now. I brought home seven from Tales of the Cocktail, and over the past month I've been averaging one new muddler every week. Not on purpose.

With so many muddlers (and so few friends to give them to) one needs to find other uses for them. Here are some suggestions:

Muddler Dominoes

Muddler Toe Separators for Pedicures

Muddler Jenga!

Muddler Faux-Native Jewelry

The Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards

It became clear at Tales of the Cocktail that the amount of swag was going to be unmanageable, so I started declining freebies unless I was prepared to lug them home. Not everything made it (hope the hotel maid likes vodka!) and I still had two additional pieces of luggage on the way back.

My end tally was 9 pens, 6 keychains, 4 bottle openers, 2 shaker sets, 11 pieces of glassware, 4 DVDs, 4 CDs, 5 mini-bottles, 7 muddlers, 4 books, and a heck of a lot of miscellaneous. And I now present:

The Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards

• Most over-gifted swag category: muddler
• Best muddler: Plymouth Gin's long unfinished wood mallet
• Most unnecessary swag category: keychains
  
• Most unexpected item: Twelve ounces of Dancing Goats coffee, not ground
• Best item for brownosing journalists (tie): Bombay Sapphire reporter's notebook and Ciroc light-up pen
• Most practical item I didn't already own: jigger (unbranded, donated by Barsol Pisco)
• Biggest missed branding opportunity: see above
• Most practical item I didn't know I wanted: Rums of Puerto Rico cocktail apron
• Most expensive swag: set of 9 Riedel spirits tasting glasses
• Most unwieldy swag: full-sized bottle of Absolut New Orleans vodka
  
• Best use of brand name in swag item: Rain Vodka umbrella