A (Belated) MCC Recap

So it seems to be my M.O. recently that some of my blog posts are a bit, well, overdue. Forget the fact that it is now June, a recap of the very successful Manhattan Cocktail Classic is in order.

The five-day event kicked off with the Opening Gala, a humongous party at the New York Public Library where 3500 people imbibed with specialty cocktails crafted by many of the industry's most influential bartenders and ambassadors. Up on the hopping third floor, Anne Robinson of PDT was serving up the Opera Cocktail, a Mandarine Napoléon twist on the 1914 recipe from Jacques Straub's manual "Drinks". Here's the recipe:

Opera Cocktail: (as adapted by Jim Meehan, General Manager, PDT)

• 2 oz. Beefeater Gin
• .75 oz Dubonnet Rouge
• .5 oz Mandarine Napoléon
• 1 Dash Angostura Orange Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with an orange twist.

I also had the opportunity to see Dushan Zaric (Employees Only; Macao Trading Co.), Aisha Sharpe (Contemporary Cocktails), and Gaz Regan (Ardent Spirits) present The Mindful Bartender. Even having seen them all just one month prior at Pioneers of Mixology, I again thoroughly enjoyed the presentation.

We also had a blast on Tuesday night as the festival concluded with a sponsors-only Cocktail Charity Challenge scavenger hunt through NYC. The Charity Challenge found ourselves frantically running through the city, out to accomplish tasks ranging from the mild (take a photo jumping in Times Square, pictured) to the more outrageous (proposing to a uniformed NYPD officer on one knee). There are plenty more photos uploaded to the brand's Facebook Fan Page, so I encourage you to visit the site and check them out for yourself. The party ended over in Brooklyn, where the party was brought to an end with shots and beer from the Heineken USA portfolio.

My many thanks again go to Mandarine Napoléon for letting me participate in many of the weekend's events. Can't wait to see what the team behind the festival has in store for the Big Apple next year!

Beer Cocktails

Great presentation by Stephen Beaumont on beer cocktails. Certainly a category we've heard a lot of talk about but Steve did a great job of presenting the category in an understandable way: they fall into three different types: 1) beer blends (e.g. black and tan which by the way is an American, not Irish invention), 2) Spirits, juice or wine with normal size beer and 3) Beer as flavoring agent in traditional cocktails. Some general guidelines Steve noted are that ales work better than lager in cocktails and bitter beers, especially IPA's take spirits better, especially rum. Lighter beers do well with fruit juice. One of the best combinations is Weissbier and fresh squeezed OJ.Regarding wine cocktails he advised that since hops are naturally tannic, so don't try to pair with highly tannic wines like Cabs. And when mixing spirits and beer, measurement is critical...absolutely do not free pour. One of the recipes we tasted was great, The Green Devil. 1 oz. Martin Miller's Gin, 2 drops Absinthe and one bottle of Duvel (he told us it's pronounced Du' vel)I asked Steve later for a recco with Heineken and he suggested trying something like Chartreuse and also maybe some light fruit juices.