Umami Mart Gift Guide
The PDT Project

The PDT Project: Bee's Knees

About a century ago, to call something "the bee's knees" meant you considered it to be of top notch quality. It's an apt name for this week's cocktail, a simple combination of gin, honey, and lemon juice that proves sophistication...

The PDT Project

The PDT Project: Beer Cassis

A simple blend of Byrrh (a fortified aromatized wine similar to a sweet vermouth with quinine), Crème de Cassis (a black currant liqueur), and soda water, the Byrrh Cassis was among a number of light aperitif style cocktails that...

The PDT Project

The PDT Project: Beachbum

Although summer doesn't technically end until the autumn equinox on September 21, New Yorkers generally regard Labor Day as the unofficial end of summer. This week's cocktail, the Beachbum, is thus quite appropriate because I can't think of a better way...

The PDT Project

The PDT Project: Aviation

The Aviation is one of the last great cocktails created before Prohibition, having been invented just a few years before the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. It made its first appearance in print in 1916 in Recipes for Mixed Drinks by...

The PDT Project

The PDT Project: Archangel

The Archangel cocktail was created in 2006, and is the collaborative effort of bartenders Michael McIlroy and Richard Boccato of Milk & Honey fame. After an enthusiastic discussion about soccer legend Gabriel Batistuta, the two bartenders came up with the...

Event Recap: Japanese Whisky Tasting (SF)

Photos by Erin Gleeson Please excuse my great delay in writing this post -- I have not had a chance to write much but I have been thinking about you all and have lots to talk about. Back in June, Umami Mart helped host...

The PDT Project

The PDT Project: Apple Daiquiri

When it comes to knockoffs and variations, perhaps no cocktail has been the subject of more unflattering imitations than the classic Daiquiri. As with most cocktail crimes, the origins of these transgressions trace back to Prohibition, when an...

The PDT Project

The PDT Project: Algonquin

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy." --Dorothy Parker The Algonquin Round Table is the popular name of a small group of young writers, actors, and comedians in New York City who met daily at the