This morning the four finalists in each category of the Tales of the Cocktail 2014 Spirited Awards were announced.
As mentioned previously, your host Camper English (for Best Writer) and this website Alcademics (for Best Publication) were on the long list.
Alcademics.com has made it through to the four finalists for the Best Publication. Hooray! Not bad for a mostly-one-person operation.
The other finalists are Imbibe Magazine (for which I also write), Punch Magazine, and Ginger Magazine from France (which I can't seem to locate online).
The winner will be announced at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards celebration on July 19th.
In the Summer 2014 issue of Whisky Advocate magazine I have two articles.
This is a rye-themed issue and it's pretty great, so you should probably just get a subscription or run out to a retail store that carries it. They don't typically put anything from the print magazine online so that's the only way to read these.
Advanced-Level Barrel Aging – Of Cocktails
Bartenders are doing some amazing things with barrel aging. In the story I cite new/cool/innovated techniques from:
Tradition in San Francisco
Bergerac in San Francisco
Jamie Jones of Manchester
The Barking Dog in Copenhagen
Bon Vivant in Edinburgh
Manhattan Bar at The Regent, Singapore
Jack Rose Dining Saloon in DC
Liberty in Seattle
Pint + Jigger in Honolulu
Pomodoro in Boston
Half Step in Austin
Citizen Public House in Scottsdale
Ryan Chetiyawardana of White Lyan
Phew, that was a lot of bars to include in a one-page article.
The Rituals of Rye
Now that rye whiskey is back, what do you do with it? This story has a lot of new cocktails (like, a lot of cocktails), but I think the really interesting part is about which classic cocktails demand rye versus bourbon.
It includes recipes and/or quotes from:
Nathan Burdette of Los Angeles
Jonathan Smolensky of Canada
Vincent Toscano of Rye in San Francisco
Brad Peters of Hock Farm Craft & Provisions in Sacramento
Enzo Errico of Milk & Honey, New York City
Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club, New York City
Brian MacGregor of Wingtip, San Francisco
Chris Neustadt of Jimmy at the James Hotel in Chicago
Brian Means of Fifth Floor Restaurant, San Francisco
Anthony DeSerio of Splash restaurant in Guilford, Connecticut
Ted Kilgore of St. Louis
Andrew Freidman, Liberty, Seattle
Molly Wellmann of Japp's in Cincinnati, Ohio
Michael Callahan, Bartender-At-Large in Singapore
Abigail Gullo of SoBou in New Orleans
Tamir Benshalom, Bull Valley Roadhouse in Port Costa, California
Geof Anderson of Annunciation Restaurant in New Orleans
In the June/July issue of Saveur Magazine, I have a bunch of drink stories. The biggest, longest one, which took me a few months of research to put together, is on the Gin & Tonic.
It has a bunch of history, a bunch of recipes, and a bunch of tasting notes.
Saveur magazine has an insert in the June/July issue that is a mini-magazine called Drink. I wrote a handful of stories for it.
I'll post them as they show up online (get excited, ice fans!), but the first to appear is a story on ginger beer. It's a bit of history, a bit about the difference between ginger ale and beer, and several recipes for drinks that show how it goes with everything:
Audrey Saunder's Gin-Gin Mule (gin)
Erick Castro's Kentucky Buck (bourbon)
Horse's Neck (cognac)
Dark 'N' Stormy (rum)
El Diablo (tequila)
I'm not sure if the Chilcano (pisco) will appear anywhere, but that's a pretty easy one to figure out.
Today Tales of the Cocktail announced the top 10 finalists in all categories for the 2014 Spirited Awards.
This website, Alcademics.com has made the list for Best Cocktail & Spirits Publication.
Camper English, your host, has made the list for Best Cocktail & Spirits Writer.
Hooray!
Voting for the Spirited Awards is already complete – the voting panel doesn't revote on the finalists but just from the initial list of many nominees. The list of the top 4 finalists will be announced later, and then the winners will be announced at the awards ceremony in New Orleans in July.
The full list of finalists in all categories is here. Congratulations to all.
It covers the history of ice in cocktails from the first person to sell pond ice internationally through to today's booming cocktail specialty ice businesses.
In my latest story for Details.com (upgraded to a feature!) I wrote about pechuga-style mezcals.
These are mezcal redistilled with seasonal fruits and nuts, plus a chicken or turkey (or deer or rabbit or pig) hanging in the still.
I thought there were only a couple on the market, but there are at least 8 different brands available in the US. I looked into the origins/history of pechuga and how a few of them differ from each other.
I've been bursting waiting for the Saveur 100 issue to come out so I could write more about Gamsei, a bar I visited in Munich this fall and included in the January issue of the magazine.
Gamsei comes from Matt Bax, the founder/co-founder of Der Raum and Bar Americano in Melbourne and Tippling Club in Singapore.
From the write-ups of Gamsei, it sounded like a place with a lot of rules (you have to wear slippers inside, no sugar in the drinks, no photos allowed) but much of that was either incorrect or more like a general policy than a rule.
The seating in Gamsei is on bleacher-style steps on either side of the central "bar", which is more of a low counter like you'd find in a science lab. Those slippers are for people who sit on the upper levels, so their muddy/wet shoes won't drip on the people below them.
I had also heard all about the hyper-local vision of the bar but not about the high-tech aspect of it. I was expecting a simplistic Japanese take on in-season cocktails, so the rotovap and liquid nitrogen came as a pleasant surprise.
Really, what Bax has done is just taken the idea of preserving local bounty and given it an exciting update. The bartenders forage in the forests (he said he checks with a plant expert to make sure certain things aren't poison before using them) and buy stuff at farmers' markets in season and use them fresh or preserve them using old-world techniques like fermentation, syrup-making, kombuchas, drying, etc. as well as new-world techniques like running infusions through the Rotavap so that they never spoil and flash-freezing other ingredients with liquid nitrogen.
As mentioned in the story, my favorite drink was the Lindenbluten, a local "lime blossom" (not the citrus tree) leaf and flowers frozen into an ice cube, and that ice cube used to chill and flavor house-carbonated local vermouth. Simple, elegant, beautiful. (But a terrible picture, sorry.)
At service, you get a mix of simple-looking drinks as well as some of the tricks you might expect from Bax – liquid nitrogen, beer foam, a drink in a flask. I had one that came with a a puff of cotton candy ("candy floss" to our European friends) that you use to sweeten a cocktail made with caraway liqueur, brandy, and riesling.
That puffy thing is cotton candy that you add to the cocktail to sweeten it.
All-in-all, the philosophy isn't that complicated and the rules aren't that strict. It's a unique set-up for a cool bar concept. Absolutely worth a visit when you find yourself in Munich. (And Munich is pretty darn worth a visit on its own- I've gotta get back there soon.)
Here's the menu from that day:
The arrows direct you from lighter starter drinks to richer heavier ones.
This morning the four finalists in each category of the Tales of the Cocktail 2014 Spirited Awards were announced. 
