March 15, 2013
In honor of Umami Mart’s sixth anniversary/ lease-signing and the Japan Week celebration in NYC, this month we spotlight the Japanese Cocktail for Happy Hour. We will review the cocktail’s origins, its ingredients, and offer an improved adaptation that pays homage to Japan.
Cocktail historian David Wondrich gives a through history of the libation in his book Imbibe! From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, A Salute in Stories and Drinks to “Professor” Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of he American Bar (2007).
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February 8, 2013
“Champagne for our real friends and real pains for our sham friends.”
- A toast from Harry’s Bar in Paris circa 1920
This Valentine’s Day, make sure your pre or post-romantic dinner drink is the classic champagne cocktail. The French 75 is the grand dame of champagne cocktails and has been the basis for dozens of delicious variations. Basically, it is a sour (spirit, lemon, simple syrup) plus Champagne, which was most likely inspired by a Collins or Fizz recipes.
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January 11, 2013
Minty, refreshing, and undeniably potent, the Stinger cocktail is part reviver, part ultimate nightcap. The cocktail originates around the fin de siecle, but was not memorialized until Tom Bullock’s Ideal Bartender (1917). The Stinger was a favorite of the high society set who regularly had a brandy digestif after supper. The classic recipe is one of the only all booze cocktails that calls for shaking.
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September 18, 2012
This past July, the culinary and spirits festival Tales of the Cocktail (a.k.a. Tales) celebrated its 10th Anniversary. The world’s best craft bartenders, taste makers, brand ambassadors, cocktail bloggers, liquor sponsors, and cocktail aficionados plus a legion of media and public relations people descended on the Crescent City for a week of booze filled seminars, “Spirited Dinners”, tough talking competitions, liquor tastings, and brand sponsored parties.
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June 6, 2012
“Now, alcohol makes a big man small and can lead to life of crime.
Drinking rum makes you skin-and-bone, and you cash in before your time.
Bootleg gin for your Mickey Finn till you don’t even know your name.
You’re a basket case right on your face, there’s only one guy to blame.
Oh Mister Booze, Mister Booze, Mister B, double O, Z, E, …”
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May 2, 2012
The Kentucky Derby unites classic fashion style, 19th century cocktails, gambling, and an age-old sport of kings in a quintessentially American event. The fellows suited up in seersucker, ladies in elegant straw hats, red and white colors abound, as do bourbon mint juleps in icy beaded silver tins. Crowds lining the ground and grandstand making 20:1 wagers on a horse named Stay Thirsty will be par for the course during the greatest two minutes in sport.
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April 3, 2012
“The [Westies are the] most savage organization in the long history of New York street gangs.”
- Rudolph Giuliani, former Mayor of New York
Hyperbole aside, The Westies were a notorious gang of mostly Irish wise guys that ran the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood on the Westside of Manhattan from the 1960s until the late 80s. In the 1970s and 80s, The Westies used to hang out in Hell’s Kitchen watering holes and long-gone dive bars like the Sunbrite, 596 Club, and The Skyline Motor Inn Lounge.
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February 28, 2012
“Made of Win”
Bourbon is one of my favorite spirits to make and drink cocktails. Sadly, it is not used in many pre-Prohibition recipes due to rye whisky’s popularity during the golden age of cocktails. After Repeal, bourbon gained popularity as it became more available but was often just substituted for rye whisky in the Old Fashioned or Manhattan as the public’s taste for the milder Canadian ryes waned.
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January 26, 2012
Let’s face it, mid-winter is almost upon us and there is not a ground hog is sight. It is getting downright tundra cold out there and Mother Nature is sure to unleash a deep freeze. Some say one should think of a warm place like a tropical island when winter’s freeze is cutting through your bones. Others hope a St. Bernard will come dashing around the bend with a neck barrel full of warming brandy.
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December 23, 2011
Winter is coming. The leaves are long gone; stark bare branches and the increasing chill in the air are all that remain of autumn. The sun’s attempts to warm its subjects get undermined by the biting wind. Perfect time to duck into your favorite watering hole and defrost with a winter libation. Keeping with my philosophy of seasonal cocktails, a drink to get you through the frigid weather should be a hearty concoction that warms the body and spirit.
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