First time at Tales?

There are a couple of great resources on the web providing tips for first-timers to Tales. Last year, I highlighted first-timer herself The Dizzy Fizz’s blog post. I also mentioned on Twitter a post from Tales vet Fred Yarm that offers more than enough strategy for tackling Tales (or, the "multi-ring circus" as he refers to it!).

This year, I was privileged that Geoff, editor of DrinkSpirits.com, asked for my insights to before heading to New Orleans, as this will be my first return to the city since last year’s Tales. Check out his blog post on the Tales blog for my tip, along with other fantastic advice for industry vets returning for another year of cocktail camaraderie – and perhaps debauchery – in New Orleans.Yes, I'm included among the likes of Tony Abou-Ganim - wow!

Here are a few items of note on my calendar for this week:

• Seminar – The European Bartending Perspective. I just recently wrote about this seminar sponsored by Mandarine Napoleon, so please refer to the previous blog post. Or read the great interview that Doctor Bamboo conducted with moderator Jonathan Pogash.
• Spirited Dinner – We selected a Spirited Dinner this year that I am very much looking forward to attend. Jonathan Pogash and Hal Wolin together are Exploring Whiskies in Cocktails, in collaboration with William Grant.
• Not-to-miss-party – Bartender’s Breakfast. Following the Spirited Awards ceremony on Saturday night, this Pernod Ricard event is the final hoo-rah for most of the Tales participants for the year. I unfortunately had to bail out of this party on the early side last year so am looking forward to celebrating to its fullest extent this time around and catch all the great bartenders in action!

I look forward to seeing many familiar and new faces in NOLA this week. Definitely feel free to shoot me an email so we can try to cross paths, or follow my action via Twitter at both @stephaniejerzy and at @drinks4thehouse.

All About: The Vieux Carre

Tales of the Cocktail gets underway later this week, where cocktail ambassadors, bartenders and enthusiasts alike will gather for five days in the American birthplace of the cocktail, New Orleans.

Imbibe Magazine reminded me of one of the city's most quintessential drinks by posting a link via Twitter to the Vieux Carre recipe. The drink recipe utilizes rye whiskey and is made in a style that is unique to US cocktail history.

As such, a variation on the Vieux Carre will be among the two recipes featured during the upcoming sold-out Tales of the Cocktail seminar, The European Bartending Perspective. The seminar, to be moderated by Jonathan Pogash and feature European panelists Simon Difford, Nicolas de Soto and Dushan Zaric, is designed as an open forum for discussing impressions of the American cocktail scene and how it may - or may not! - be so different from bartending across the pond.

The Vieux Carre recipe designed for the seminar does vary slightly from the traditional 1930s recipe by removing the cognac and instead swapping in the cognac-based orange liqueuer Mandarine Napoléon. This will give the Vieux Carre a slightly sweeter taste, but still stay true to the American classic. Here's the variation:

Vieux Carre:

• 0.5 oz Mandarine Napoléon
• 1 oz Sazerac Rye Whiskey
• 1 oz Dolin Sweet Vermouth
• 1 dash Benedictine
• 1 dash Peychauds Bitters
• 1 dash Angostura Bitters

Mixing Technique: Stir and garnish with a luxardo cherry.

To see more of where seminar sponsor Mandarine Napoléon will be during the week of Tales of the Cocktail, follow the brand on Facebook or Twitter.

Cheers!

Icon of an Emperor

We're starting today's blog post with a bit of a history lesson. For those of you history buffs out there, listen up!

On this day in 1812, a turning point occurred during the Napoleonic Wars as Napoléon himself led the campaign to invade Russia, later crippling his army. Perhaps just remaining at home, drinking his mandarin orange liqueur, would have been the wiser choice. Oh, how hindsight is a beautiful thing...

I was reminded of this event in world history upon reading The Daily Sip email yesterday from Bottlenotes, a fantastic resource in the wine community online. The Daily Sip editors steered away from wine for an afternoon and decided to look at cocktails instead - more specifically they reviewed the Napoléon Cocktail.

What surprises me about the two versions of the Napoléon Cocktail that I have found adapted online is that while both recipes call for either Grand Marnier or Cointreau in some regards, neither recipe mentions Mandarine Napoléon as the orange liqueur of choice in the recipe. Seems somewhat surprising to me given that the spirit is in fact the product of Napoléon working with a chemist, Fourcroy, in the early 19th century to develop a liqueur of a cognac base with the maceration of mandarin oranges otherwise known as tangerines.

Perhaps Mr. Craddock, author of the Savoy Cocktail Book didn't have access to Mandarine Napoléon even though the recipe was commercialized and bottled starting in 1892, before Savoy was released. So today, over 200 years later, I will repost the Napoléon Cocktail recipe here, along with another lovely Mandarine-Dubonnet combination cocktail adapted by PDT's Jim Meehan. Give both cocktail recipes a try this weekend!

Cheers!
Stephanie

Napoléon Cocktail

• 2 oz gin
• 1/2 oz Grand Mariner (or might I suggest Mandarine Napoléon)
• 1/2 oz Dubonnet Rouge

Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Napoléon's Opera (pictured above)

• 2 oz Beefeater Gin
  
• 3/4 oz Dubonnet Rouge
• 1/2 oz Mandarine Napoléon
• 1 Dash Angostura Orange Bitters
  

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with an orange twist (adapted by Jacques Straub, Drinks, 1914).

The Bar and Wine Show, 2011

If you ever happen to check out my column over at Bar None Drinks (in the great company of other columns from my other fantastic colleagues on there, as well!!), you may have noticed in my May column that I alluded to taking on a role this year at the Bar and Wine Show, a trade event for food and beverage professionals at NYC’s Jacob Javits Convention Center.

Well, the gig is up now! The printed leaflet landed on my desk late last week, so I guess there’s no backing down now ;)

My colleague Anthony King and I will be making a presentation at this year’s Bar and Wine Show and, I must say, that I’m excited for the opportunity. Our discussion on Social Media Marketing is all about “Putting Things in Perspective”. As we live and breathe social media in the beverage industry daily, our goal is to show demonstrable online successes of brands engaging in social networks, blogs, forums and ecommerce platforms. It is our goal to educate and (hopefully!) see more brands interacting with their consumers where they spend so much of their time – online.

“Social Media Marketing – Putting Things in Perspective” is slated for 1:00 pm on day one of the Bar and Wine Show, Tuesday, June 28. You can view the entire schedule of seminars, clinics, competitions and tastings by visiting the Bar and Wine Show online.

If you’ll be in New York for this jam-packed two-day trade event, I would be excited to say hello while at our seminar (I’m sure I could use the pep talk!!) or while roaming around the exhibition floor. As always, please reach out to me over Twitter at @drinks4thehouse or @stephaniejerzy.

It's Gruner Time!

We've been saying it for years but Austrian wine has arrived. Check out Gary Vaynerchuk's Daily Grape episode June 11 on Gruner Veltliner.

One of the things I really like about Gary's democratization of wine tasting ("give it a sniffy sniff") is to give us permission to personalize our palate. He gives a great taste analogy of minerality that really demonstrates that you don't need to use traditional wine wonk words to describe what YOU taste. He compares it to a time when he was a kid and got smacked in the mouth with an aluminum bat....THAT's what minerality means to him.

Check out the vid, then head out to your nearest wine store for the Loimer Kamptal Gruner Veltliner or the Stadt Krems Kremstal GV, both imported by Winebow. And a big thank you to Erin Grace and Jodi Stern of Winebow's Austrian Portfolio for facilitating the samples.

Here's a link to the review on Snooth with some links to e-commerce sites where you can order the wine if it's not available locally (and the Loimer in particular should be...it's one of the best-distributed Austrian GV's out there.)