Bibulo.us - We plead the 21st.

Nightjar

A subterranean den of warmth, music, and drink, London’s Nightjar is our favorite new bar of 2011. At the helm is Marian Beke, formerly of Montgomery Place, whose skill, charm, and astonishing memory (we hadn’t had a drink from him in two years, and still...) place him among the best bartenders in the world.

Befitting the underground feel, the cocktail menu is replicated in the form of a custom deck of playing cards, which double as coasters.

All of the drinks were great, but the standout was The Name of the Samurai: Nikka Whisky, vanilla sugar, fresh lavender, ginger and raisin sake, and lime. This is, like many of the drinks on the menu, is an original creation of Mr. Beke. And like many of the drinks on the menu, it had an unusual garnish: here, a small green tea shortbread cookie served across the top of the glass

We hear that Nightjar usually has music, though there wasn’t anyone booked the night we were there a few weeks after they opened.  But a friend of the owner -- a tall, languid, central-casting Oxonian -- had a splendid go at some piano rags while we were there, and we can only imagine what the space would be like filled with the “red hot dark dirty swing” promised by one upcoming band.

If you find yourself in London, Nightjar is on the must-visit list.

Comstock Saloon

Comstock Saloon – established in 2010 in the flavor of a century or more before – is one of our favorite bars in San Francisco. It provides for all our needs: culinary, cocktailian, and musical.

The interior is 1890s-y without being pushy about it.  Our favorite element, of course, is the statue of notable local Emperor Norton presiding over the bar. This establishment is a major improvement over the space’s former inhabitant, the San Francisco Brewing Company (which served acceptable beer but always seemed to smell like cleaning fluid). The bar pleases from any seat, whether in a booth or perched on one of the fiercely-footed stools. The dining room provides delightful views of both the lively menagerie of North Beach and the frequently meaty goings on in the kitchen. The bar does have the advantage, however, of greater proximity to the consistently excellent musicians in the second-floor gallery.

The food is unusually good for a place that could be so deservedly known for its drinks.  We usually get the picnic plate and a pot pie. (As our Foursquare tip says: “The pot pie, Sir. The pot pie.”)  But we’ve yet to find anything on the menu that isn’t good. Particularly notable is the Pig in a Biscuit, which is (and we mean this as a very, very positive thing) like a McDonald’s Sausage Biscuit with a master’s degree.

The drinks would really have to try hard to rebel against the positive influence of their parents, saloon keepers Jeff Hollinger and Jonny Raglin. Mercifully they are obedient, strong, beautifully-mannered children who would make anyone proud.  Unlike most children, they frequently arrive in lovely antique glasses.

We have not noticed a decline in the quality of drinks since Jonny removed his moustaches.  We will, however, continue sampling vigilantly. 

You Can't Copyright a Cocktail

Bibulo.us is on vacation, running around Europe, at the moment. But we had to share this post on copyright in cocktails by Chris Sprigman and Kal Rautsiala from the New York Times Freakonomics blog.  The post argues that, like dishes, cocktails aren't and shouldn't be subject to copyright, because the incentive for innovation is sufficient without the need for intellectual property rights. 

Joe is pleased to be in the assuredly narrow slice of people to have had cocktails with both Eben Freeman (whose desire for IP rights in his innovative techniques gave rise to the post) and Chris Sprigman (who Joe worked for during law school).

Review: NewAir Ice Maker from Air & Water, Inc.

Air & Water Inc. was nice enough to send us a review unit of their NewAir Portable Ice Maker, model AI-100SS. It's a luggable, countertop ice maker that takes water and electricity and outputs ice cubes.

Or should we say, ice thimbles. The machine works by chilling nine short rods in a water bath, cold enough that ice forms around the rods.  When time's up, the machine ejects the resulting ice into a hopper.  The hopper is cleverly positioned over the water reservoir, so as the ice melts, it gets recycled into new ice.

We started up the ice maker and let it run for a few hours. It produces nine cubes every 10 minutes or so, making about a pound of ice every hour. The first few sets are pretty anemic; the cubes didn't get to full size until the fourth or fifth set. 

We tried the ice (on the "large" setting) in a stirred drink, a shaken drink, and as crushed ice.

For our stirred drink, we chose the Liberal. (It was appropriate for the evening, since I was sorting through the San Francisco election materials while waiting for the ice.)  Here are the results.

It's perfectly nice ice. Not particularly big or particularly dry, but better than your average sopping wet party ice.  The thimble shape gives the cubes a ton of surface area, so the stirred drink came to temperature pretty fast.

For our shaken drink, we chose the Last Word. (We also, by the way, chose CapRock gin for this which makes a fantastic Last Word. Our new go-to for this cocktail).

As you can see, the shape of the ice made it break up into tiny pieces almost instantly. 

The drink was great, without a lot of ice flecks making it through the strainer. We usually like to see bigger pieces post-shake, but the drink didn't suffer.

For the crushed-ice drink, we chose the  . . . well, never mind. (We didn't have the necessary ingredients for any crushed-ice drink we like.) But we crushed the ice anyway, and it turned out perfectly nicely.

So, in all, a pretty nice ice maker.

Does this have any utility for people with a refrigerator ice maker, or those who like big cubes and use Beaba trays? No, the ice it makes is smaller and wetter than that.  

Can it make enough ice to keep a party going? A small party, sure, but not the kind of parties we throw. (This machine can make a bit over a pound an hour; we routinely blow through about 100 pounds of ice at a party.)

But it would be really handy out on a deck for making a round of cocktails every once in a while, or on a boat or in an RV or any place else with electricity that's far from a freezer. It would be just the thing for your camp at Burning Man, for example. (As it happens, we don't have a deck, a boat, an RV, or a love of dust storms in the Nevada desert.)

While it doesn't make much sense as a kitchen appliance for anyone with a freezer, it can provide a renewable supply of fresh ice anyplace you have electricity.

Masters of the Universe

Another original, designed for plotting and planning with dear fiends.

Friends! We mean friends.

 

Masters of the Universe

2 oz Cocchi Americano
1 oz Beefeater 24
2 dashes Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
dash orange bitters

Stir with ice, serve up, or over an ice cube with an orange slice.

 

Yessss. Everything is falling into place perfectly...

Judge Walker

Photo by Derek Powazek (all rights reserved), used by gracious permission.

A new cocktail in honor of the taste of sweet justice.

 

Judge Walker

.75oz Dewar's 12yr Scotch
.75oz Old Overholt rye
.25oz sweet vermouth
.25oz Dolin Blanc vermouth
quick dash of Angostura aromatic bitters
quick dash of Angostura orange bitters

Stir with ice, serve up in a chilled glass or on the rocks.
Garnish with 2 good cherries and cut a coin of orange peel, squeeze it over the glass, touch the glass rim and stem and discard.

 

Ideal for soothing the stresses of wedding planning.

Death's Door Spirits

Sometimes what you really need is a blaze of white.

The Classic and Vintage Roadshow bringing together a variety of distillers at Nopa in March also gave us the opportunity to sample the lovely range of clear spirits from Death's Door of Madison, Wisconsin. We've previously enjoyed their excellent gin in an Old Fashioned mixed by Kirk Estopinal at The Violet Hour – a recipe we don't normally associate with gin, but a truly fine spirit like this demonstrates exactly how that simple foundation is strong enough to hold up the whole modern edifice of cocktails.

Death's Door's vodka is a perfectly delightful example of the species, but vodka is never our first choice of ingredients, so we moved quickly on to taste their white whiskey. This chameleon spirit has been showcased for us in cocktails recently by the Nopa team, but it was fascinating to try it on it's own. White dog whiskey is young, but not too hot and brings a range of subtle notes ready to be amplified by the other ingredients in a drink. Paul Clarke has compared this spirit to Dutch genever with its rich, malty flavors.

We enjoyed spending a few minutes chatting with Death's Door president and distiller Brian Ellison and sampling his beautiful, small-batch products, all of which we recommend you seek out for your own enjoyment.

The Bitter Truth Creole Bitters

We had the tremendous pleasure of getting an early taste of these new bitters at a visit from Stephen Berg and Alexander Hauck of The Bitter Truth as part of the Classic and Vintage Road Show last month. At that time they were still in the approval process for U.S. sale and the latest word is that they are expected to be available here later this year. That's good news for those of you not in Europe where they're already out, because there's no way you're going to be able to pry our tiny sample bottle away from our tight grip.

This tribute to the spice and complexity of Creole culture is beautifully crafted with vibrant color and fantastic taste. These are a well-balanced bitters which fill an important void in the landscape: sweet red spice with significant complexity on the tongue evoking fennel and flowers.

Sorry, Peychaud's; we love your history, but this is how this variety of bitters should taste.

Recommended test drives: Old Fashioned, Sazerac, Vieux Carré.

Echoes of Prohibition

    At an innovative and acclaimed restaurant near you there is a jar of house-made brandied cherries at a dessert chef's prep station which are used to create a delicious chocolate-cherry bread pudding. Ten feet away on the restaurant's bar is a similar container of brandy with cherries in it. That bottle is intended for the dessert's companion cocktail. Between the two stands the bar manager – but not the pastry chef – being cited for violation of California law.

    The scene is fictional, so far, but the legal discrepancy is all too real. In the state of California the health and safety of the public as it relates to booze is the charter of the department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. By their definition – as issued in a May 2008 industry advisory, which was largely ignored – the process of changing the character of an alcoholic beverage through maturation, as in the case of the cherries sitting in the brandy, or fermentation, potentially by something like adding citrus and sugar to vodka to create limoncello, is considered “rectification” and as such is not permitted without a Rectifier’s license. Here’s the catch: no one who serves these beverages is allowed to get one.

    What could this mean legally? According to the ABC, no bar would be permitted to do anything but “the simple mixing of alcoholic beverages with other ingredients for immediate consumption.” For fans of infused spirits, classic cocktails, or the current bartending renaissance in general, it’s as if all a foodie’s favorite restaurants were told they could only serve raw food. Salad and sushi are nice and all, but some of us would like a broader spectrum of choices. For once the vodka advocates and the artisanal cocktail snobs are marching arm in arm together in indignation.

    However, once you dig deeper than the ABC’s own statements the situation is clearly more complex than it has been painted. According to the statutory definition in section 23016 of the California Business and Professions Code, a “’Rectifier’ means every person who colors, flavors, or otherwise processes distilled spirits by distillation, blending, percolating, or other processes.” There is no reference to any exemption for immediate consumption. Without that exception, unless this section is understood to refer only to those who rectify for the purpose of resale not for the purpose of consumption, then all cocktail making is illegal. Without that exception and unless it only applies to rectifying for resale, anyone who blends distilled spirits is rectifying and must be therefore be licensed, but as other parts of the law clearly state (see tied house laws like sections 23368, 25500 and 25505) those who serve can’t be rectifiers. Clearly that over-reaching result was not the intent or the state would never get any revenue from cocktail bar liquor licenses. Rectification regulations must refer to the act of rectifying for resale and not to bar service, but the legal challenges to defend this position and remove the ABC’s “immediate consumption” interpretation have not yet taken place.

    For the moment we are left with the ABC’s current “loophole” of immediacy and its side effect of chilling legitimate, long-time bar practices that have not been demonstrated to pose a public health risk. From its beginnings the craft of good bartending has included knowledge of spirits, responsible hospitality, and a prodigious memory for recipes, but it has also called for a deep understanding of all the ingredients of a good drink and the ability to create variations on them. That the exercise of this knowledge results in exceptional experiences is a matter of ample evidence; just look at any recent list of not-to-be-missed intoxicating beverages in our fair city and you’ll find examples which are prohibited under the current state interpretation of the law because of their extremely local, hand-crafted ingredients. This despite the probability that those bartenders most likely to be crafting such things are also those most likely to be following the precepts of a San Francisco bartender of over 100 years ago, the honorable William “Cocktail” Boothby, whose Ten Commandments for mixologists included “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Not bad for a guy working in the late 1800s. Combine his philosophy of care toward your bar’s patrons with modern knowledge of health and safety practices and you’ll find Bay Area bartenders producing safe ingredients to support the ‘quality over quantity’ drinking style they encourage and which in a sane world one would expect to see supported by those intending to protect the public from abuses of alcoholic beverages.

    So what to do to solve this problem? As ever, drink responsibly and speak out in favor of businesses, organizations, and laws promoting safe fun. While you can, enjoy the most creative creations of our city’s talented bartenders and brace yourself for the possibility of a stretch of simpler drinks while we wait for the legal wrangling to resolve itself into better policies.

    There is a merciful exception to all this hard liquor news; bitters – crucial ingredient of many fine drinks – from what we can see, are not subject to this prohibition. According to the state Board of Equalization, who managed alcoholic beverage matters prior to the creation of the ABC in 1955, “Angostura bitters used as flavoring is too concentrated to be fit for consumption as a beverage. As such, Angostura bitters is not ‘fit for beverage purposes’ under the definition of an alcoholic beverage.” It seems unlikely that other bitters – be they Abbott’s, orange, or chocolate-chili – would be treated any differently. So take heart, cocktailians, all those former infused vodka drinkers are going to be searching for a new taste sensation. Should we tell them that the trendy “new” recipe they’re sipping had its origins in San Francisco a century ago? Shhh, no need to rectify that mistake.

Spread Eagle Punch

When you love your guests and want them to know it, make this powerful and premium punch. It's yet another winner from Jerry Thomas's 1862 How To Mix Drinks by way of David Wondrich and was featured in the December 2009 issue of Esquire magazine. (Do go subscribe; they really have been keeping the quality very high lately and we often read it cover to cover).

One key to this punch is the oleo saccharum – the potent oil which lemon peels will give up to sugar after half an hour or so. There was no liquid in the pot shown in the picture on the right when the peels and sugar were first stirred together. It's magic! (Well, fine, it's osmosis, but that's as good as magic).

As with all good punches, freeze up a big piece of ice using a small bowl 48 hours before you'll be serving.

On the day of your party, peel 1 dozen lemons, getting as little pith as possible. Put them in 2 or 3 gallon pot and muddle them with 1 cup sugar. Leave them alone for 30 minutes and then come back to marvel at the delicious lemon oil exuded.

Add 2 bottles of a nice smoky single-malt Scotch – we recommend Laphroaig – and 2 bottles rye whiskey – Wondrich was right about how wonderful Sazerac is here. Stir, then put in 1 gallon boiling water and stir to dissolve the sugar. Cover and let cool.

When you pour it over your big ice block in your punch bowl later, add 4 thinly sliced, de-seeded lemons and grate half a nutmeg over the top.

Stunning. Possibly literally. This is a 44 proof punch. Put out the small glasses.