Wrapping Up Portland Cocktail Week

What a fantastic trip to Portland, Oregon for the first Portland Cocktail Week and Drink.Write 2010! I had such a wonderful time exploring the food and drink in this city and can't wait to come back for another visit. For those of you not following me along my trip through Twitter (you've unleashed the havoc of THE FAIL WHALE if you didn't...but seriously, hilarious Twitter video linked up here), let me fill you in a bit on some of my happenings on my west coast adventure.

Drink.Write was two days jam-packed of lectures on a variety of industry-relevant topics: blogging ethics, increasing your readership and engagement, making your own ingredients, and website design only reach the tip of the iceberg. But what drew me to Portland was the Welcome Reception the CSOWG hosted on Wednesday evening for its members (they were kind enough to include me as well!) to usher in the beginning of the conference. Mandarine Napoléon sponsored the welcome event at Portland's Bluehour restaurant, a fantastic restaurant and bar where they've got a knack for craft cocktails. If you have a chance to visit Portland this fall, their seasonal cocktail menu boasts a great recipe called the East India Sour that was deeee-lish (Maker's, lemon juice, and house-made cardamom spiced caramel syrup)!

Back on track...Alan Akwai of Bluehour served up four Mandarine Napoléon cocktails to the delight of the crowd, including the Mandarine Sour, whose praises I've sung (well, spoken, you don't actually want me singing...) plenty before. We also served the TDN-inspired Lillet Tomlin (picture on the left from the Mixoloseum Facebook Page), of which I rather unsuccessfully attempted to recreate previously on my own...gosh, I can't believe I'm actually linking to this again!

We also served two other drinks that came out of the TDN hosted in May, the Mandarine Happiness and Napoleon vs. Wellington:

Mandarine Happiness (picture on right from the Mixoloseum Facebook Page)

• 2 oz rye whiskey
• 1 oz Mandarine Napoléon
  
• 1/2 oz Domaine de Canton

Stirred with ice and served on the rocks with a splash of ginger beer.

Napoleon vs. Wellington

• 1 oz blended scotch
  
• 1 oz Mandarine Napoléon
• 1 oz dry vermouth
• 1/4 oz maraschino liqueur
• 2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
  

Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

What a fun and unique way to kick off a weekend dedicated to craft spirits and original cocktail blogging! Thank you to CSOWG for including me in all the fun and thank you again to Bluehour for hosting our event in their beautiful private dining space.

Cheers!
SJ

Adventures Ahead in Portland, Oregon!

By the time you are reading this, I hope to be long on my way headed to Portland, Oregon. I have quite a few days of cocktail camaraderie ahead of me, hosted through the great efforts of the folks at the CSOWG (Drink.Write 2010) and the Oregon Bartenders Guild (Portland Cocktail Week 2010).

For me, the festivities start Wednesday night when Mandarine Napoleon welcomes CSOWG members and its guests (both local to Portland and visiting from around the country) with an evening of hors d'ouvres and, of course!, Mandarine Napoleon cocktails. I'll be sure to share the drink recipes and photos following the event. I've got Tommy Klus of BlueHour slinging drinks for us, so I know we'll be in good hands.

As for the rest of my trip to PDX? There's a great lineup of seminars on Thursday and Friday covering a great span of topics, ranging from offering strategies to make your own ingredients to covering blogging ethics and increasing reader engagement online.

For those of you not able to join the action in person, make yourself available on Thursday evening. The CSOWG will be hosting its weekly Thursday Drink Night LIVE in Portland. Never participate in TDN before? I've sung its praises before so log on, create a user name, and join in the cocktail party online.

I won't guarantee that my blogging will be on par with all the event coverage (I got behind during the US Drinks Conference as well, but more to come of that very soon!) so instead you should choose to follow the action on the two Twitter accounts.

More west coast action soon! Cheers!
SJ