Results tagged: Cocktails

The Manhattan Cocktail Classic, New York City's first ever multi-day event celebrating the history, contemporary culture, and artful craft of the cocktail will take place on October 3rd and 4th. Part festival, part fête, part conference, part cocktail party, the event brings together the unparalleled talents and opportunities of the bars, bartenders, and restaurants of our great city for two days of activities, both educational and celebratory in nature, championing the common ideals of authenticity, equality, sustainability, service, and pleasure. Laren Spirer spoke with cocktail historian Dave Wondrich to learn about what's in store for the event.

Laren Spirer: How did you get involved in the Manhattan Cocktail Classic?

Dave Wondrich: As soon as I heard about it, it was clear that it was something that I was interested in. This was back when Lesley, our fearless leader, floated the idea over a year ago. It sounded like fun and we had a "shoot-the-breeze" session about it and came up with some ideas for a title and so forth. We've been in the planning stage for a while so it's good to see it coming to fruition.

Why do you think the time was ripe to bring a cocktail event to New York?

New Yorkers have long believed that our fair city is the center of the universe. We've got arts, culture, amazing restaurants and some of the most groundbreaking and influential cocktail bars in the world. Why, then, hasn't there been a groundbreaking and influential cocktail event here? Several industry leaders were wondering the same thing, so they put together the Manhattan Cocktail Classic, a multi-day celebration/conference/festival, scheduled to take place during World Cocktail Week in May 2010. But since New Yorkers are also dreadfully impatient, they're bringing us a preview on October 3rd and 4th.

The preview weekend is jam-packed with seminars, intimate events at the city's best bars, a pop-up bar at the Astor Center with rotating guest bartenders, and a gala event Sunday night. Tickets for individual seminars are on sale now. A full listing of seminars follows after the jump.

Want a little technology with your cocktail? If so, be sure to stop by the bar at L'Ecole, the restaurant of the French Culinary Institute, where techno-genius Dave Arnold works side by side with beverage-master Alexis Kahn to create cocktails on the cutting edge.

Laren Spirer: L'Ecole is the restaurant of the FCI, run by students in the Career Culinary program. As such, does your approach to creating the cocktail list differ in any way from a traditional restaurant?

Alexis: The front of the house is run by professionals so the students are just in the back. So in a lot of ways we set up the cocktail program just like any other restaurant. I think what's different is that we have access to a lot of people like Dave and to students who are very interested in cocktails so there's a lot more brainstorming and fresh ideas being circulated than in a regular restaurant setting. We're trying to have a balanced list with seasonal ingredients with cocktails that'll be interesting to people, but there's a little more innovation and creativity. We also change our list more than a lot of other restaurants - every couple of weeks, when we come up with something new.

LS: How did the two of you meet and decide to create the Tippling Brothers?

Tad Carducci: We took a class about three years ago - the first ever BAR (Beverage Alcohol Resource) class - and we met there and instantly kind of clicked. We have similar sensibilities, and we realized that we had a very good friend in common. Since that class, we immediately started talking about this idea - wouldn't it be great if we could take the passion and the knowledge and start our own thing?

Paul Tanguay: Start educating, start teaching, start spreading our knowledge.

TC: A few months later, we both quit our jobs and did it. Obviously we had lined up a few clients, and since then we've been going at it. Tippling Brothers has its own life now; it has grown faster than we anticipated it would.

By Laren Spirer

Don't let Brian McGrory's charm, Scottish lilt, and good looks fool you -- he's a man on a mission. His mission? To get you to love gin. As the Beverage Director at Double Crown and Madam Geneva, Brian has one of the city's most extensive gin list at his disposal, as well as several other tricks up his sleeve.

How did you get into the cocktail business?

I got into the business by default. I was in San Francisco during the whole dot com crash and I couldn't get any work whatsoever. I was unemployed and ended up bar backing at this great music club called Café Du Nord for about eight months. We had the most amazing old school bartender who was so into classic cocktails, his bitters, and little mixtures. He actually taught me everything - all the basics of bartending. It wasn't this huge luxury establishment, but it was an institution. He was very passionate about freshness and balance and drinks tasting how they should be - sugar/acid balance and presentation and all that.

// This Week on Savory Cities //

Please allow us the pleasure of introducing our newest contributor, Mr. Jiggers. This debonaire man about town is one of New York City's most passionate devotees of the classic cocktail. A man of impeccable good taste and well informed opinions, he'll be joining us regularly to share with you the finer points of how to get a good drink in this town. First up, Mr. Jiggers implores you to Drink Gin, Dammit.

Also on Savory Tidbits this week:

• Old School v. New Skool: How to Cook the Perfect Egg
• Find out which NYC restaurant was the first to pass the Lemonade Test.

Can't get enough of that fancy social media? Neither can we. Check us out on Flickr and Twitter?

// This Week's Restaurant Reviews //

• NY Times: Frank Bruni reviews Scott Connant's Scarpetta giving the Meatpacking Italian 3 of 4 stars. "He brings back an appetizer of creamy, cheesy, buttery polenta with morels and preserved truffles that's one of the best, most decadent things ever to happen to cornmeal. He brings back an entree of baby goat, predictably meaty and reliably musky but much more tender than most chefs manage to make it." Dining Briefs visits Hundred Acres and Curry-Ya.
• The Wall Street Journal: Raymond Sokolov writes about counter dining at Momofuku Ko in the East Village and Jose Andres's Minibar in Washington DC. At Ko, he finds the experience to be uncomfortable and doesn't exalt the experience the way other local reviewers have done, "Ko is a place defined by the word "lacks." It lacks any sign or other indication of its existence outside. It lacks a menu. It lacks bread. It lacks comfort altogether, what with us perched on backless stools for two-plus hours. It is, however, an ingenious jumble of things, most of them served in bowls."
• The New York Post: Steve Cuozzo doesn't like Scarpetta as much as Frank Bruni does, "Fennel and tomatoes can't rescue black cod from overworked mediocrity. And dreamy pasta like meat- and fonduta-stuffed agnolotti arrives less than hot. It's reassuring to see Conant in the house, but his firm hand doesn't always show up on the plate."
• The New York Sun:Paul Adams is disappointed with the food at Talay. "It seemed a reasonable hope that Mr. Phojanakong (Kuma Inn) and Phet Schwader, who shares equal billing at the new restaurant and who has worked with Patricia Yeo and Laurent Tourondel, might bring some downtown-style freshness to the fast-developing strip."

// Blogs, Newsletters...etc. //

• GQ Forked Blog: Alan Richman reviews Forge and heralds Marc Forgione's (son of the famous chef Larry Forgione) cooking. "Forgione's polished cooking is admirable, and most of his combinations are intelligent and sumptuous, although the opulence can be excessive. A small appetizer of fettuccine carbonara comes with an oversized chicken yolk plopped in the center when a quail yolk would have been bountiful enough. An over-and-under pasta dish had lobster on top, lobster inside, chanterelles scattered about, and cream sauce all over, wonderful but exhaustingly rich."
• Grub Street has a tip about a "Modern Italian Prodigy" who is gaining attention at the East Village restaurant, Perbacco (N.B. the only comment on our site would have you believe otherwise).

// In Other News //

In this week's Off the Menu Florence Fabricant published a helpful list of restaurants who are taking summer break or renovating:

• Adour, 8/17-9/2
• Daniel, 8/4 - mid-Sept
• Gilt, 8/15-9/2
• Grayz, 8/8 - 9/3
• Kefi, 9/1 - mid-Sept
• La Grenouille, 8/4 - 9/9
• Masa, 8/24 - 9/7
• Momofuku Ssam Bar, 8/25 - first week Sept
• per se, 8/4 - 9/19

The Brooklyn Paper reports on the closing of Blue Pig Ice Cream, Oven and Busy Chef in the wake of Dan Kaufman being taken into custody for fraud.

Crain's has the story on Wild Edibles, seafood retailer and purveyor to some of the city's better known restaurants, filing for Chapter 11 on the heels of labor disputes.

// Upcoming Events //

Plan ahead for a farm to table shopping and dining experience with Chef Saul Bolton of Smith Street's Saul restaurant. Says the sponsoring Greenmarket, "enjoy an illuminating tour of the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, followed by a mouthwatering, Greenmarket-inspired lunch at Saul." Sept 13th starting at 10:30am. Tickets are $125.

As previously reported on Grub Street, Philip Ward, head bartender at Death & Company, recently launched a first of its kind exchange program to swap talent amongst a handful of pioneering bars around the country. Dave Mclean, owner of San Francisco's The Alembic, let us know via email late last week to keep an eye out for Thomas at Death & Co starting last night.

We stopped in yesterday to try out a few Alembic cocktails and enjoyed a smoky sweet Macanudo (partida anejo tequila, apricot eau-de-vie, qi smoked black tea liquer and a dash of agave nectar) and a delightful Bees Knees made with lavender honey flown in by Thomas from SF. We asked Thomas how it was to be working as a guest bartender and he said that aside from learning the layout of the bar, all that's needed was a fresh supply of ingredients, which were to be found at Dean & Deluca, Whole Foods and a few other spots around town. He also reported that a mid-day stop at everyone's favorite noodle bar was required eating.

Thomas will be behind the bar tonight and tomorrow before heading back to the West Coast. Ask for a copy of The Alembic bar menu (you can find a preview on The Alembic web site) a choose between "Canon" and "New School," or simply do what we did and ask for the bartender's choice. You won't be disappointed.