After a week spent wandering the halls of Tales of the Cocktail in July 2008, sipping many finely stirred and shaken libations; I said to myself, "These special cocktails need to be shared with the world." So I bring you Cocktail Hour, a finer way to celebrate the end of the day; with these recipes. They have either been created specifically for Tales of the Cocktail, or re-designed for a new approach on the traditional version by some of the top Mixologists in the world. Many are being presented to the public here for the first time. Enjoy! La Florida Cocktail recipe after the jump.
I'm going to keep it brief this week. It's been hectic up here in Maine for me, and I am heading out for the weekend for a much needed vacation. Maine's nickname is "The Vacationland," so how come I feel like I need to get away to get mine? I thought I had a vacation early this summer around the Fourth of July, but it wasn't as relaxing as I needed. I was so set on relaxing that I never did. Then I was in New Orleans for eight days for Tales of the Cocktail, but that turned out to be hectic work as well. So I'm heading down to the Hampton's on Long Island in New York for the weekend. I'll be seeing some of my oldest friends who I have known since I was in my late teens. It's been a year or two since I last saw some of them and it should be fun.
So it's wine making time for us at Winterport Winery, and bottling time as well. We have been making blueberry wine this week. The wild Maine blueberries are in season and we are making the most of it. These tiny, low bush blueberries have an intense, sweet flavor. Much better than those giant blueberries you see most of the time in the supermarkets. We have had an order placed for a year waiting for harvest time and earlier this week we got our delivery of organically grown wild blueberries. Joan scooped up four quarts for me to take home and packaged up a many more for the rest of the crew. I figure I'll take mine to the party and make blueberry pancakes and preserves for breakfast.
As for bottling, our sparkling apricot wine, Fancy That, became the star at a bottling party Wednesday night. After closing for the day we sat down with a few pizzas and were joined by friends of the winery, come to add a few more pairs of much needed hands. To efficiently bottle the sparkling wine at any type of speed it takes us eight people. A few more would have been better, but at least we had the critical number. This is only the second time we have bottled a sparkling wine and while we have some equipment on order to make it easier, right now it's a pretty exhausting and frazzling process.I'm glad that it was only a couple of hundred gallons that had to be bottled.
Tuthilltown Spirits Old Gristmill Authentic American Corn Whiskey is 40% abv. / 80 proof and is an un-aged, clear, corn whiskey made from 100% Hudson Valley Grown New York State Corn.
Tuthilltown Spirits make a great line of premium spirits including whiskeys of several types, rum, and apple based vodkas. I've tried most of them at various events around the country, but this is the first bottle that ever made it home, and it was a close call this time as well. As you can see, the clear spirit is almost gone. This was from less than five minutes at a party I went to, where I mistakenly took the bottle out of my bag to show to my friend and fellow blogger, Joe Distefano. He grabbed the bottle and put it to his lips and took a sip, then way too loudly pronounced it excellent. Before I could get the bottle back in my grasp it had made a quick round of those in our vicinity, and the level had decreased precipitously by 3/4's. To make up for my loss I had a bit as well, and then greedily stashed it back in my bag out of sight. When I got home it accidentally ended up in my spirits storage area and lay forgotten until I ran across it last night. So I poured a nice glass on the rocks, which reminded me how much I like this spirit. Not just as a fan of fine distillates, but as a distiller as well.
I've visited Tuthilltown Spirits in Gardiner, NY and seen them make their spirits. They grind the corn (and other grains depending upon the product), add the clean, sweet, and pure filtered water from their well, heat it up to make a mash, add the yeast, and ferment it. Then they take the alcoholic mash and distill it several times to produce their wonderful whiskies.
Well, most folks have a dry job, but mine is wet. Making, serving, and enjoying fine libations is a hard and trying occupation. If you are one of those dry types, it just isn't your calling. Me, I like it wet. I lived near a dry county once. I shudder to think about it. Yup, I like it wet. But in some things moderation is key. Until recently I wondered what those things were. Now I know. Sometimes it can be too wet. I guess it's time to finally break out the umbrellas.
It's been a dreary week here in Winterport, Maine. Actually a dreary summer is more like it. The weather has been the same as far back as mid-June. Hazy, rainy, humid, hot, wet, yuch. I'm normally like a duck and love wet weather, but some times it gets to be Just Too Much.
One day last week the weather broke and it was a Beautiful Maine Summer Day. Yes, it has to be capitalized. Warm with Cool Breezes, Sunny, Occasional Puffy Clouds Decorating the Skies, the Smell of Green Growing Things All Around and the Scent of the Ocean on the Wind. Not too hot, not too cool, as Goldilocks said, "This is just right." Well, that lasted all of one day.
Building our brewery and distillery is much like building a wall. first you have to lay the foundation. Then the first course of bricks, then corners, edging, etc. If you goof up in one area, it affects the whole thing. So you have to tear it down, correct the problem or make the change, and start all over again. As you can see above, we are taking apart every piece of equipment, one by one, and cleaning sterilizing them, replacing any wort out or broken parts, and putting them back together.That specific piece of equipment with the parts laid out on the floor is the diverter and chilling plate. It's the arteries and veins of the whole brewery. By placing the elbow joints in various configurations we can send water or wort (freshly brewed but unfermented beer) to any piece of equipment such as fermenters, filters etc. and heat or chill it.
Well, this has been an intense week. As I mentioned, a few weeks ago we got out federal brewery permit, but the state permit is the one that makes us official. On Tuesday the state inspector came, and even though we still have lots of work to do before we can start brewing, we now have our state and federal brewery permits and are an official micro-brewery. Hooray! Now we just have to locate the rest of the equipment we need and finish putting it all together. Then we can work on recipes for our beers.
Once the brewery is up and running it won't take much at all to finish off the distillery. Of course the simple, small distillery I imagined at the start of this whole journey, is nothing compared to what is in store. One small still is rapidly becoming two, then three...
It's been a long week for me since I last wrote in my journal and Tales of the Cocktail beat me silly. I had a great time but got laryngitis and a cold, and my camera was acting up on me for a while, so I have only a few photos out of hundreds that I took. Finally, my travels home were a complete disaster. A half day trip turned into a multi-day epic. I was pulled off several planes because they broke down, had numerous ones rescheduled, sat on runways for hours, and didn't get anything to eat for 40 hours; just a few glasses of water. (The last is probably not a bad thing, in N'awlins overeating great food is easy.) There were a few times I wish I had Dorothy's ruby slippers because I wanted to be home sooo bad.
There is absolutely nothing worse than having to travel when ill, and then get rescheduled. Last time this happened I was quite ill after returning to the US from a voyage around the world. I got stuck in a blizzard and it took several days to get home, all the while shivering in unheated airports. I ended up losing my hearing for several weeks and so sick i was in bed for three months. Well, at least this trip wasn't as horrific; just maddening.
Usually I'm quite happy to receive lots of goodies at events, although it is starting to get a bit more difficult to impress me. Well, Tales of the Cocktail certainly did! Sadly, I got sooo much schwag that I had to give most of it away or leave it for housekeeping at the hotel. The above photo is less than one days worth of stuff! By the way, there is a difference between swag and schwag, and what I got was a nice mix of the two. I kept the Plymouth Gin tips clock, the cool tiki cocktail stirrers, a bunch of nice notebooks and cocktail books, cocktail kits, and the dozen Riedel crystal spirits glasses; which were a nuisance to get home but much appreciated.
As I wrote last week I had several friends in town on vacation. We traveled all over and ate our way up and down the coast. I ditched the camera for awhile so I could stay in the moment so I can't show you most of our meals, except for one day when we stuffed ourselves on local specialties. Maine Lobsters and Glidden Point & Pemmaquid oysters. I had a specific request from Joe Distefano for raw oysters, a favorite of his in hot weather, and it sure has been warm out the past week.
So we took off on a drive to get the best and freshest. We went direct to Glidden Point Oyster Sea Farm and picked up a dozen fresh Glidden Point's that had been in the water just a few hours earlier. Then to Oyster River Lobster Company for some Pemmaquid oysters and eight 1.5 lb. soft shell lobsters. (Remember Oyster River Lobster Company? I wrote about their famous Blue Lobster and their amazing Lobster Pies.)
When we got home I shucked the oysters and steamed up the lobsters and we set down to a feast. Just a word of warning. If you take several guys away from their girlfriends for a week, add in several bottles of cold and crisp white wine, and good food; it can get rather silly out.
Gallery: Diary of a Distiller: Chapter Nine - Lobsters and Oysters
They call New Orleans the Big Easy, but yesterday was big, but not easy, as I spent my first full day here, prior to the start of Tales of the Cocktail. I am one of the 24 judges for the 2008 Ministry of Rum Tasting Competition, a strict rum judging event coordinated by the Ministry of Rum at Tales. There was a long list of people who were considered as judges for this event and Ed Hamilton, the head of the Ministry, spent several weeks winnowing down the list to some of the top rummies around.
We met at the famous Arnauds restaurant for the event. As we chatted before the judging began it soon became evident just how knowledgeable this crew was. Rum distillers, importers, writers and bloggers, and of course rum collectors. I thought I had a nice collection of spirits with over 500 bottles, of which around 100 of them are exceptional rums. I've given away more than that of mediocre rums over the past year or three, saving just the best. One of my fellow judges has over 800 top of the line rums in his collection. The least of which makes my best look like a cheap $1.99 pint of generic white rumbullion. When you have pre-embargo Cuban rums and rums over 100 years old in your collection you're on a different level of connoisseurship than I. I just want to try some little 1/4 ounce sips of a few dozen of his collection one day and I'll be happy. Just the thought has me drooling like a drunk.
So I'm guilty of impaired riding. Carousel riding that is. Like many fans of the Cocktail, I'm down in New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail for the next week and having a blast. Within a few minutes of getting to my hotel in the French Quarter, the Hotel Monteleone, I was sitting on a carousel and bellied up to the bar all at the same time. The famous carousel bar in the hotel turns at a leisurely four times per hour, which is negligible at first, but seems to speed up as the drinks slide down. I ordered one of my favorite cocktails, a Vieux Carré, which was invented here by Walter Bergeron in 1938, and sat back to enjoy the ride. Every now and then a friend would stop by for a chat, having to do a side step shuffle every few moments to keep up with the stately procession of the Carousel. I came to call this the Vieux Carré Strut, and soon it became one of the most popular dances at Tales.
Vieux Carré is another name for the French Quarter, meaning "The Old Square," and this fabulous drink fits right in, no wonder Bergeron called it such. The decor in the Carousel Bar is a mix of a fine lounge and antique amusement park, with an elegant feel. That is until the whole crew descended upon the establishment. Then it became more like a cross between the Midway, and the Fun House. Now if only they had the carousel horses like in Mary Poppins. I can imagine my fine friends from Tales gallumphing off the Carousel and taking a turn 'round the Monteleone, refreshing themselves along the way as we stop hither and yon for fine cocktails. Then after making our way through all the laudatory libations, a few circuits of the Queen Anne Ballroom to the tune of a waltz, zig zagging among the masked dancers; before heading out onto the streets of Vieux Carré showing the world how to do Tales in style.
Recipe for the Vieux Carré Cocktail after the jump.
Since I last updated my journal I have supposedly been on vacation. Different groups of friends came to visit and so at first it was work, as I gave them in-depth tours and tastings at the winery and brerwery. I helped out a bit at the same time by doing some tastings for visitors, because everyone else was busy as can be. Mike, Joan, Jody, and Fred were making deliveries, bottling wine, disassembling and cleaning the new brewery equipment, researching what other odds and ends of stuff we need to replace, locating manuals and technical info on the brewing system, etc.
A few mornings I let my guests sleep in and helped tidy up the brewery/distillery. Mundane things like sorting through garbage for nuts and bolts, valves, gaskets, and anything else that might conceivably be of use. The previous owners of the equipment had to move everything out fast from the old location and some important odds and ends had somehow made it into garbage bags topped with refuse. I'm glad that we ended up with a few of the garbage bags, even if it it wasn't pleasant to dive into them, because solid stainless steel valves, tubes, etc. are quite pricey and it was worth it to save every one we can.
On Independence day my buddies Joe and Rob joined me for a weeks vacation, and we went in to Bangor to for the parade during the morning and the fireworks at night. I've been to quite a few great, small town parades since I moved to Maine a little over a year ago. This wasn't one of them. It was a bit mellower than I expected but still interesting. I always like to take some great photos of characters in the crowds dressed in weird outfits, or some candid shots of overwhelmed kids, harried parents, and calm seniors enjoying the sights.
Happy Independence Day Everyone, and X-mas in July too!
Well if it isn't one thing it's another. We have been at a standstill in building The Distillery, again. We've been back ordered for six weeks on delivery of a large, low pressure, multi-ring propane burner to heat the still. The large size we need limits us, and seems to be unavailable in the US, except from one company who imports them from overseas. I have been looking to order a smaller, temporary version that I hope to use for when we build the stills heating unit, called the firebox. It is going to be basically a brick oven that heats the still from below with a direct propane flame. Since we are a commercial space with an indoor set-up we want safety to be the #1 priority. So our firebox has to be well ventilated with an outside air intake and a flue to exhaust the unit up through the roof like a chimney on a fireplace.
I have also been searching like crazy on the Internet for stainless steel fermenting tanks and other pieces of equipment that I hope to get cheap. They're hard to find and expensive, and we need them so we can finish building the rest of the distillery, and maybe get a small bit of brewing done as well. Our brewery permit should come through in the next few weeks and we want to make a small batch of beer for the fun of it. We don't really plan on being a full scale brewery at this time because the equipment is so expensive. So we hope to pick up odds and ends, here and there, over the next few years. I'd love to have a full scale brewery as well as the distillery, but just don't see it happening any time soon.
Last week I was warned by my partners, Mike and Jody, that on Monday I had to have my camera and be ready for a road trip. They wouldn't say where or why, but that I could only make one phone call, if I even had cell phone service. Then they clammed up and wouldn't say more, letting me stew on it all weekend.
The floods in the Mid-West are causing a nationwide increase in food prices across the board. Corn and soy prices are increasing dramatically which means other foods that depend upon them are increasing as well. Expect to see many grocery items like meats, cheese, eggs, milk, oil, etc. increase in price.
I spent summers as a child in the corn fields of Iowa, many of which have become lakes, with the gently hills small islands. Now many of these farmers are calling it quits, selling off the farms and getting out of the business. Animals are being sold off, which means a short term meat glut, but a long term shortage. Don't expect prices to go down from the quick influx of meat, because the long term shortage is so visible that prices have to start reacting now.
This is going to have such long term effects that you can expect your Holiday turkeys and hams to cost quite a bit more than last year, and possibly even more the year after that.
Some times you need to work like mad, other times you want to just chill out and wallow around enjoying life and making a pig of yourself. Today started like the former, and ended up the latter. Or was it the other way around?
Since I last wrote in my journal it has been bottling time at the winery. We had several batches that were ready to go and so we decided to get as much done in one fell swoop as possible. I've bottled wine a few times here at Winterport. Usually Jody and I retire to the basement and work our way through a pallet or so of cases of bottles. This time it was a bit more systematic and speedy because Mike was on the bottling line with us. Mike and Jody have it down to a science. They are such good friends, and done this so many times, that they can anticipate each others thoughts and needs. So I have to try and fit into the scheme.
Today I worked the filling and corking stations. It starts at my left with a pallet of bottles where I would grab a case and quickly, but carefully turn them upside down on a wood counter. I was scared at first that they would break, but now it's no problem. The bottles end up standing at attention ready to grab and fill. I toss the box over to the end of the filling line, ready to pack up again later. Two more cases soon join the first ,and it's time for the next step. I grab a bottle in each hand, placing first one then the other top down over a air nozzle which blasts out any dust or glass chips. Then put them into the filler. Our bottle filler holds six at a time, grouped in pairs, and as a set are filled I pull them out, again one in each hand, and place them into the automatic corker machine. Finally I line them up so that Jody, who is to my right, can label them. It took a time or two for me to get smooth and efficient at this, but now I find that if I think about what I am doing, I get confused, and sometimes skip a step. So I go on autopilot and think about other things.
At the next station Jody quickly and smoothly feeds them into the label machine and pulls them out, lining them up to his right with the front label facing away. I asked if he wanted to switch stations for awhile but Mike warned me that he defers to Jody when it comes to running the labeler. It's a finicky machine and they told me that until you get real friendly with it, you stand a chance of getting your fingers caught in the rollers a few times, a painful experience. Knowing my luck it will be just moments before I get my fingers rolled for the first time. I'm a quick study and pick things up fast, but I also have a tendency to try to figure out better and more efficient ways to do things. Occasionally I find that the old way is the best way, usually by some minor but painful learning experience. I still have some cuts and scrapes on my hands and shins from my last learning experience, so I decide to wait a week or three before tackling the labeler.
I've been on a tear lately for hot dogs. I started asking around and doing some Internet research about hot dogs here in Maine. One place that came to my notice was Bolleys Famous Franks in Hallowell, ME; near the state capitol Augusta. I hopped in my car and drove the 80 miles to Hallowell to see what the fuss was all about.
I finally arrived at my destination and perused the menu. I asked a few questions of the counter girl and decided to order a dog with mustard and fried onions, a chili cheese dog with mustard, small orders of both fries and onion rings, and a large chocolate milk. My order was packed up nicely in a few styrofoam clam-shells and I headed outside to plant myself at a picnic table.
The fried onion dog was mighty tasty with a nice snap to it from the natural casing. The mustard was the typical boring yellow stuff, but the onions had a nice caramelized sweetness to them. The chili cheese dog was very good, with some of the best hot dog chili I've had. It was real chili with a nice bit of cumin and a little heat. Meat, beans, maybe some onions, in a dark red sauce. Instead of that faux cheese sauce squirted on top, there were some slices of white American cheese layered under the dog and starting to melt nicely.
Artisanal distilleries are exploding across the country, especially in Portland, OR. Exploding onto the business scene that is, since literally exploding distilleries is a bad thing. This confirms what I have been saying the past few years. Hand crafted spirits are getting HUGE. Just to give you some general statistics again: 20 years ago there were around five artisanal distilleries in the US, five years ago around 20, last September 90, right now 150+, a year from now 250+. That is some amazing growth, and you can expect it to continue to keep growing for the next decade.
Some parts of the country are moving along faster than others. Here in Maine there was one that opened for business three years ago, one this time last summer, and one this past spring, with mine in the next few months, and from what I hear on the grape vine there are several more lined up for the future.
But that's mild compared to what's going on in Oregon. There, according to this article in the Seattle Times the southeastern part of the city of Portland is starting to get nicknames like "Distillery Row" and "Libations Alley." There are at least ten artisanal distilleries in Oregon and that number is continuing to grow. Oregon is #2 in the nation for most artisanal distilleries in the state, with California #1 with around 22.
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
