Mouthing Off

A Manhattan—always a classic. A martini—always a bit Roger Moore. A gin and tonic, on the other hand, might just be the chameleon drink of the cocktail world, one that varies vastly in personality depending on context. A default drink at a too-loud bar, and it's pedestrian; highball in hand while sailing in Maine and it's sublime (I say both from experience). But like everything else in the food and drink world, it's really the quality of the parts that determine the sum.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet Charles Rolls, who might be more of an expert on these two parts than anyone else. He's known for revitalizing Plymouth Gin, Winston Churchill's spirit of choice, a few years back, and this summer, he's rolling out Fever-Tree Premium Indian Tonic Water (plus other mixers like club soda, ginger ale, and bitter lemon) in the U.S. Its backstory sounds like the stuff of legend: The quinine used is from a cinchona (or fever tree) plantation in Rwanda, which Rolls claimed he stumbled upon during a volcano climbing expedition nearby.

As for the actual stuff? While I'd heard raves about Fever-Tree from Jim Meehan, F&W's spirits consultant, I got my first taste only very recently in our Test Kitchen, and again yesterday, in a tasting against other mixers in Riedel "O" glasses. As expected, the tonic water was super clean tasting, with a lovely bitter kick and no cloying aftertaste. There's nothing pedestrian about it, no matter the context in which it's drunk.

Want to test a bartender’s aptitude? Ask for a mojito. I’ve been served so many busted and butchered mojitos since the drink hopped on the fame escalator that I’ve formed some kind of psychosomatic mojito allergy. I cringe when I see bartenders pummel mint into mulch with their muddlers and turn green at every press release shilling a new mojito “mix” or mojito-themed product (gum, air freshener, perfume, action figures, you name it).

Oregon-based mixologist/blogger Jeffrey Morgenthaler feels my mint-in-the-teeth pain, and recently posted an excellent list of mojito dos and don’ts, which should be posted behind every bar in America, along with his recipe for a proper mojito (below), which has given me hope that the mojito still has a chance.

Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s Mojito (The Right Way)
Makes 1 drink
1 large mint sprig
3/4 ounce simple syrup
1/2 of juiced lime hull
1 ounce fresh lime juice
2 ounces white rum, preferably Bacardi
3 ounces sparkling mineral water
Crushed ice
Mint sprig, for garnish
In a highball glass, gently muddle the mint and simple syrup. Add the lime hull, lime juice, rum and mineral water. Top with the crushed ice and stir until the glass is frosty. Garnish with the mint sprig.

There's no lack of excellent bars in New York City right now—including the wonderful PDT, whose drinks list was masterminded by Food & Wine spirits consultant Jim Meehan, and Death & Co., whose devotion to bitters was just documented in the New York Times by another F&W cocktail guru, Rob Willey. But the country's most exciting bar right at this moment is the The Violet Hour which just opened in Chicago's Wicker Park. Toby Maloney, the mixologist, is a veteran of Manhattan's Milk & Honey, Pegu Club and Freeman's and, according to some experts, he's as good a bartender as there is anywhere. On a recent eGullet post, Maloney outlined his cocktail menu, which includes a Manhattan mixed with housemade peach bitters and a rinse of Laphroaig (he's reportedly adding eye-droppers of the single malt whisky to a few of his drinks). As if that weren't enough, The Violet Hour's bar-food menu was designed by Justin Large, who cooks at Avec, one of Chicago's best places to eat; I've heard stories about his insanely good deep-fried pickles and croquettes stuffed with chorizo. I wasn't necessarily looking for a new place to drink, but I do hear that Manhattan calling my name.

On Saturday night, Bond Street's Mercat—my favorite tapas spot of the moment—spawned Mercat Negre (or "Black Market"), a subterranean 30-seater accessible through the restaurant's back stairwell with some decidedly fresh takes on bar food. In the words of Mercat co-chef David Seigal, here's what to expect:

On fork- and spoon-free eating: "We don’t use utensils. We serve food on skewers (jamón serrano and pineapple) or on toast (tuna tartare with crushed chicharrones, or fried pork skin). We also have different gazpachos in glasses a bit bigger than shot glasses, but the idea is to tilt it back. We also make bikinis, or little three-inch by three-inch sandwiches that are like paninis, but they're thinner and smaller and made with white bread (though not Wonder Bread!) instead of crusty bread. The notion we're getting at is picar, or to pick around and graze."  

On prices: "All the food is $2 to $3."

On light summer drinks: "We have some housemade sangrias that won't be available upstairs, like the 1899 (named after the year Futbol Club Barcelona was founded), which is basically our own lemonade with cava and mint, and we also serve a blend of freshly juiced honeydew and Txacoli, a light Basque wine."

On the boarded-up feel: "Jaime [Reixach, the owner] brought back a huge stack of La Vanguardia, Barcelona's daily newspaper, from the pre-Franco years he found at an antique market outside of Barcelona. What we have on the walls are mostly front pages."

This morning, I received the following e-mail from a reader: “Hurry! Need answer by Friday night! Re: the Key Lime Pisco Sour [he’s referring to this recipe from this story]: Can I use powdered egg whites instead of egg whites to make the drink frothy? Of course I could experiment, but why waste all that fresh key lime juice?”

My answer: Sure—but why? Your chance of catching salmonella these days from a frothy cocktail is about as high as my chance of catching a cold from Katie Holmes. But if you MUST use powdered egg whites, substitute 2 teaspoons of the powder stirred into 2 tablespoons of warm water for every white called for in the recipe (do this in the cocktail shaker before you add the other ingredients). And don’t let the alcohol touch the egg whites until they’re reconstituted—or you’ll end up with egg-white gloop. I’ve actually never tried powdered egg whites in a pisco sour, but I have used them in a Ramos Gin Fizz, with passable results. I’ll try it with the pisco sour this weekend and let you know if there are any problems. Achoo!

An especially long week at work means I’m looking around for new ways to decompress. Luckily, an advance copy of Cocktail Therapy (Simon & Schuster), by Leanne Shear and Tracey Toomey (authors of the novel The Perfect Manhattan, the bartender's version of The Devil Wears Prada) arrived on my desk today. The book (out in August) matches your crisis of the day with a cocktail that will supposedly solve it (or help you forget it). Some scenarios I know well (“You wake up confused and disoriented…”, “Your tooth has been killing you for weeks…”), others are totally foreign (“You put your favorite cashmere sweater in the dryer,” “You get your period a day early and are completely unprepared…”). Today, I can especially identify with a crisis I found in the “Work Woes” chapter: “You’re stuck in a fluorescent-lit cubicle doing data entry for an entire day…” The remedy? An espresso martini, according to the authors (“It will refresh you and give you that competitive edge.”). Hmm. I just might have to try that.

Many of my puffy-eyed coworkers have returned to the office today after partying it up in Aspen this weekend. The consensus so far is that most of them drank way more than they ate, but at least they drank very, very well. Stuck here in New York with a friend visiting from out of town, I had no problems noshing widely this weekend; in fact, it’s one of the best food weekends I’ve had in a while. Inspired by the “Five Bites” series F&W contributor Amanda McClements includes on her Washington, DC, blog every week, here are my weekend’s best five bites (and slurps):

1. Tangy, spicy geoduck clam salad with intensely smoky oysters at Soto. When I was in Richmond, Virginia, last March reporting on Food & Wine Across America, chef Dale Reitzer of Acacia and his wife Aline told me that New Yorkers were about to be very lucky. “Soto’s coming,” they said dreamily. They claim that chef Sotohiro Kosugi, a previously Atlanta-based Best New Chef 1997, makes the best food they’ve ever eaten. With dishes like this one that just pop with flavor, I can tell you that they’re not exaggerating.

2. Wine-battered, crackly-crisp asparagus fries in the back garden of Barbone are always a must-order at this cozy East Village Italian restaurant.

3. Aperol, the Campari-like bitter aperitif, mixed with Prosecco and a few ice cubes looks like a cocktail Barbie would drink, but it tastes like one for her far more sophisticated Italian cousin. I’ll have one of these in my hands after work all summer long.

4. A place mat–size quesadilla stuffed with chorizo from the Martinez tent in Red Hook (great pictures here)  washed down with limonada. Even though I split it with my friend, the quesadilla was so filling that I couldn’t squeeze in a mayonnaise-slathered, queso-dusted ear of grilled corn. Oh well. There’s always next week.

5. Chocolate cupcakes with lightly salty pistachio frosting that were the happy result of an accident: When the pistachio macaroons from Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess cookbook didn’t work out, I topped some quickly baked cupcakes with the deliciously nutty buttercream filling.

Not surprisingly, the Food & Wine Classic comprises mostly of food- and wine-related seminars and tastings, but the event's singular spirits seminar was the most lively I attended this weekend. Yesterday afternoon in a jam-packed room at the Sky Hotel, tequila evangelist Steven Olson led a tasting of extra-anejo mezcal (mezcal is an agave-based spirit produced anywhere in Mexico; tequila is mezcal produced in one of five designated Mexican states), which included bottles that range in retail price from $175-$450 and are so scarce that mezcal geeks (a rapidly growing force) pay several times more online. The seminar was so sought-after that even legendary mixologist Dale DeGroff couldn't land a seat.
 
There was a huge mezcal buzz elsewhere in Aspen. Del Maguey, which produces several single-village mezcals, had one of the most popular booths at the Grand Tasting. Montagna sommelier, Richard Betts, who is a unabashed mezcal fiend, couldn't stop talking about the stuff. (Partly because he's launching his own mezcal label later this year). Betts, Olson and several other wine and spirits experts said this weekend that mezcal is the next big trend in spirits. After tasting about 20 fantastic mezcals this weekend, I think they're right.

For me, early June comes with two certainties: 1) I will buy way too many fresh cherries, and 2) I will bet—and lose—on horses. On Saturday these fates crossed paths: I found myself with a few pounds of perfectly ripe cherries and a stack of $2 betting receipts (I gamble like a miser) for the Belmont Stakes. As the horses were walked to the starting gate, I threw together a quick, cherry-inspired cocktail (see below). When my horse (Tiago) let me down, I drank it. Then I made two quarts of maraschino cherries (ridiculously easy bonus recipe, see below) and a giant cherry cobbler (I forgot to write down the recipe, sorry).

Cherry Smash
Makes 1 drink
This drink tastes like cherry soda mixed with whiskey, with a bonus prize (muddled cherries) at the bottom of the glass. If you don't have Cherry Heering (a Danish cherry liqueur), use maraschino liqueur or, better yet, the juice left over from your homemade maraschino cherries.
8 sour cherries, pitted
Ice
2 ounces bourbon
3/4 ounce Cherry Heering
Club soda
In a rocks glass, gently muddle the cherries to release some of their juices. Fill the glass with ice, add the bourbon and Cherry Heering and stir well. Top with club soda, stir again and serve.

Homemade Maraschino Cherries: These cherries are much, much better than the too-sweet, dyed-red variety you find in jars at the supermarket. Simply fill a sterilized jar with pitted fresh sour cherries and top with maraschino liqueur (such as Luxardo or Maraska brands). Place in the refrigerator and wait: The cherries will begin absorbing the maraschino flavor (and the liqueur will pick up a fresh cherry flavor) after a couple of days. Discard the cherries when they start to become mushy, about 2 weeks.

If you happen to be in Vegas on the first week of June, which isn’t likely for me, then you might be lucky enough to go to the launch party for Ocean's Thirteen. There’s plenty of reason to be there, beyond the obvious allure of Brad Pitt, George Clooney and the Vegas backdrop. Namely that Paul Liebrandt – who still hasn’t confirmed that he’ll be at the stove at Manhattan's Montrachet this fall, although he and Drew Nieporent are joined at the hip these days — will be catering both the intimate event for the cast and crew and then the big fat afterparty. There’s so much I don’t know, including what food will be served (Paul says the menu is ??????). But here’s what I do know: The party is at the Palms Casino Resort on June 6th, and Paul will be making amazing cocktails, some of them with liquid nitrogen so they’re dramatically smoky and nicely frozen, and some with effervescent tablets of homemade elderflower so they’re wonderfully fizzy. No matter how good a deal I get on my popcorn-soda combo, it still won't be the same when I see the movie in New York.