THE COCKTAIL LOVERS
INGREDIENTS FOR MORE THAN GREAT DRINKS THE COCKTAIL LOVERS.COM AUTUMN 2022
ISSUE 42
ISSN 2052-059X
The Storytellers…
In praise of the people who bring the brands and bars to life in our imaginations PAGE 26
Message in a Bottle…
Unravelling the compelling tales behind five distinct drinks labels PAGE 40
The Boomerang Book…
The tome that’s destined to become an important part of cocktail history PAGE 54
Are you sitting comfortably? It’s the
STORY TELLING ISSUE
used with h ab
on
inf
ro
bourb
ane b
a
don’t saddle for anything less. 1 2
@horsewithnoname
Enjoy responsibly.
horsewithnoname.com
WELCOME
hello cocktail lover! I didn’t always write about drinks. Back in the day, I covered a range of subjects – all lifestyle – from theatre, food, and fashion to travel and beauty, plus the occasional real-life story in between. Then cocktails happened. And it was a revelation. All credit to Gary for introducing me to them – he’d long been seduced by the glamour of Thirties’ films such as The Thin Man and classic TV series like The Avengers and, as a former ad man, had carved out a role for his alter ego, which revolved around sipping Martinis in fancy hotel bars. Me? Sure I loved the glamour, who doesn’t? In truth though, I was first drawn to the stories. That was the reason I went into this writing malarkey in the first place: To hear and retell stories and, believe me, bartenders are natural born story tellers. Over the years I’ve witnessed this innate skill manifest in numerous ways, from creative and downright funny Instagram reels through to Oscar-winning performances in cocktail comps. Then there are the stories they share in their always imaginative menus and cocktails. The gift of captivating communication extends to other areas of the drinks space, from the bar and brand owners to the brand ambassadors and marketeers. Fresh, fabulous and downright inspiring stories are everywhere. This issue shines a light on just a few of them. I hope you enjoy the read.
MS S
I’ve always loved stories. As an eight-year-old I adored the melodious tones of Miss Jones, my Welsh school teacher, as she held a class of 20 children spellbound and silent as she brought to life the worlds of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Stig of the Dump, or Treasure Island. A little older, I discovered even more worlds: The imagined futures of H.G. Wells; the political warnings of George Orwell; the satires of Evelyn Waugh; the historical imaginings of Peter Ackroyd; and the daft, divine escapism of P.G. Wodehouse. Around this time I also discovered cocktail stories. In fact, so fascinating were the stories behind the drinks, they were amongst the reasons I fell in love with these alluring libations. While the cocktails were invariably wonderful in themselves, I found myself increasing seduced by their stories. Historical, apocryphal, or myth; constant or changing; from around the world or around the corner, the stories made sipping the drinks more pleasurable, profound, and life-affirming. So, it is with immense pleasure that we invite you, dear reader, to mix your favourite cocktail, sit in your most comfortable chair, and read some of our favourite stories of people, places, bars, brands and very much more. Let’s begin…
MR G 3 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 42
NEWS, VIEWS, REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS & HOW-TOS
The PEOPLE Thinking Drinkers
Individually, Ben McFarland and Tom Sandham are two of the UK’s finest drinks writers; together they are the Thinking Drinkers. Often described as the pioneers of alcohol-based comedy, they share their razor-sharp observations and knowledge of the drinks industry in rip-roaringly funny and incredibly informative stand-up shows. Your mission? To keep a straight face as they take to the stage for their new UK tour, The Thinking Drinkers Pub Quiz, which runs from October 2022-March 2023. Visit thinkingdrinkers.com. For more people who share tales about drinks, turn to page 26.
8 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 42
APERITIVO
THE NEXT BIG THING
Bar carts are soooo lockdown. These days the best-dressed homes are sporting bar trunks. Get yours now! luxdeco.com
BRUM, BRUM! BIRMINGHAM CALLING Three very different, much-anticipated bars opening this Autumn
AFFORDABLE LUXURY
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
Notable Nibbles
HIGH-ENERGY
Passing Fancies
Atelier Robert Wood
The Cocktail Club
You know that fun, frisson and special camaraderie you only get when you hang out in the kitchen at house parties? That’s the feel they’re going for at Passing Fancies. Located in the former Bird’s Custard Factory in Digbeth, this 54-seater space is the latest from Tommy Matthews, Matt Arnold and Eve Green – all renowned for big-time fun, conviviality and crowd-pleasing cocktails. passingfancies.com
More than a bartender/owner, Robert Wood is an artist who brings his many ideas to life through drinks. Think of Atelier as his new playground. Part workshop, part cocktail bar, the new space is housed in a restored factory in Birmingham’s famous Jewellery Quarter, where the team will showcase a limited-edition cocktail menu for a limited run to a limited number of guests. atelierbyrobertwood.com
This is big. Huge. We’re talking two floors, three rooms and a no-messing-around 450 capacity. The team may have dropped ‘London’ from their brand, but the signature antics, are still here: cocktails served at speed, swinging lights, bartenders jumping on the bar top and Happy Hour until 8pm every night. Unashamedly high energy, this ain't for you if you’re after a low-key affair. thecocktailclub.com
9 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 42
CARTWRIGHT & BUTLER ROQUEFORT CHEESE MELTS
’Scuse us, our mouths are full! We can’t stop eating these cheesy bites of deliciousness. As fab as they are on their own, they’re even better paired with a Martini (or any drink for that matter). Our verdict? Roquefort Cheese Melts for the win. cartwrightandbutler.co.uk
APERITIVO
SIX QUESTIONS for… MONICA BERG
Campari Academy’s Creative Director on her love of learning
No 1 in Drinks International’s Bar World 100, Monica co-owns Tayēr + Elementary with Alex Kratena – voted Best International Cocktail Bar at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards and N02 on The World’s 50 Best Bars
and documentary producer. She made the award-winning BBC documentary, My Stolen Childhood; Understanding the Trokosi System, and one reason it’s so powerful is because she was in control of her personal narrative.
ONE
TWO
How important is storytelling in your work? It’s important for me to give people with a story to tell the opportunity to control their narrative and express their voice. These very important details make such a big difference to understanding the complexities of individual experiences. I had the privilege to meet Brigitte Sossou Perenyi, a wonderful storyteller
You adore books – what’s new to your library and why? Kiyosi Seike's The Art of Japanese Joinery. I love wood and woodwork, and I’m especially interested in Japanese carpentry, as it’s such a beautiful craft.
THREE
Why has Campari Academy founded a Book Club? The Book Club is the brainchild of Campari’s Jessamine McLellan and Anne-Louise Marquis. It’s a wonderful initiative to get bartenders to read more books, and we will soon have something similar on CampariAcademy.com.
FOUR
Campari Academy events include books as giveaways for guests – how do you choose them? Knowledge is the most beautiful gift – it only grows the more it’s shared. It’s important to me that bartenders are given the tools to achieve what they want. A book is about the knowledge you take from the pages, and what you create with that. The books I choose for the Academy have all influenced me over the years, and hold a lot of value to me.
FIVE
Which book have you learned the most from? The dictionary, as I use it every day – although it’s the online version now. Despite learning English from a very young age, when I moved to London from Oslo it took me years to find my “English speaking self” and to express myself the way I wanted to. I realised that even if the delivery is not perfect, the idea can still be really good. That’s why it’s important not to underestimate someone based on their verbal skills, but to understand what they are trying to communicate.
SIX
Which books do you recommend to pro and home bartenders? Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table for professionals; Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s Bar Book for home, and Dave Arnold’s Liquid Intelligence if you’re advanced.
12 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 42
The PLACE
The Sazerac House If you’re a cocktail-loving history buff, The Sazerac House should definitely be on your radar. Yes, it’s in New Orleans, and yes, it celebrates all things about the history of the mighty Sazerac, but as ‘Nawlin’s’ is the birthplace of many a classic cocktail – including the Brandy Crusta, Ramos Gin Fizz and Brandy Milk Punch – there’s plenty of stories about them as well. Visit sazerachouse.com. For more on the cocktails of New Orleans, see page 62.
CREATE A STIR! 23 SEPT-22 OCT
Libra
The astrologer’s guide to Autumn/Winter signs’ favourite tipple
23 OCT-21 NOV
22 NOV-21 DEC
Scorpio
Sagittarius
A perfect recipe for the natural diplomat of the zodiac.
Puts some zing in the sting of lusty Scorpions pursuing their prey.
Something spicy to bring the heat that Saggies need in their relationships.
The Diplomat
The Ginger Snap
The Apple Pie
Method: Shake the first five ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker. Strain into a Coupe glass and top with ginger beer.
Method: Combine the whisky and vodka directly in a Highball glass. Gently heat the apple juice in a heavybottomed saucepan until warmed through and pour over the alcohol. Garnish with sliced apple.
120ml dry vermouth 120ml sweet vermouth Dash Maraschino Twist of orange peel, to garnish Method: Shake ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker. Strain into a chilled Martini glass and garnish with a twist of orange.
30ml Scotch 15ml gin Dash Angostura bitters 15ml ginger liqueur 15ml lemon juice Ginger beer, to top
60ml Fireball whisky 60ml vanilla vodka 120ml cloudy apple juice Sliced dried apple, to serve
From Cosmic Cocktails – A Guide to the Mixology of Astrology by Lydia Levine (Summersdale, £7.99), out 22 October 2022.
13 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 42
PEOPLE
THE
PEOPLE
&
CARE
WHO
SHARE GET
THE
STORIES
OUT THERE…
SHINING A LIGHT
STORY TELLERS ON
26 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 42
TELLING STORIES
The writer/historian/ broadcaster David Wondrich David Wondrich gives a mighty good read. Dubbed ‘a living iPod of drink lore and recipes’ by the New York Times, whether he’s uncovering the truth behind a historical fact or extolling the delights of his favourite cocktail, his tone is informal, entertaining and engaging. But behind the chatty style and good humour there’s authority, which no doubt comes from his former occupation as an English professor. But the proud Brooklynite swapped Shakespeare for spirits and hasn’t looked back since. “When I started writing about this stuff in 1999, my friends were asking me, ‘Why are you doing this?’ And I said, ‘Well, I want to be able to go into any bar in the country and get a good cocktail.’ And then I’d laugh and they’d laugh because that was never going to happen. Back then, there were just a few little hipster revival bars.
Now every city in the US has at least one and sometimes as many as 50 or 100 bars making great cocktails.” His audience back then were readers of Esquire (where he was assigned to rewrite a book and commissioned a regular column), “and anyone who read about cocktails on the internet. These days it’s as likely to be hoodie-wearing guys through to sophisticated ladies – the audience is very diverse. This cocktail thing has become semi-mainstream and a lot of people are paying attention.” With that attention comes a thirst for the stories behind the people and products that Wondrich shares through his award-winning books, Imbibe!, Punch! and probably his most ambitious project to date, The Oxford Companion To Spirits & Cocktails (p. 20). He writes columns too, for the likes of The Daily Beast, Punch and Imbibe Magazine.
SELLING STORIES
The PRs Alexandra Chatwin and Alexandra Irving, LXPR With what seems like a gazillion brands and businesses all vying for attention and column inches, how do you cut through the noise to get your story heard? That’s where Alex Chatwin (left) and Alex Irving (right) come in. Since launching their agency, LXPR, in 2018, they’ve become the go-to for discerning bars and drinks brands. Before we get to the how, let’s start with what PR is. “It’s super varied,” Irving says, “however, at the crux of it is storytelling. It’s up to us to take our client’s stories – whether drinks brands, events or bars – and work out the best way to communicate that to the target audience. This could be through working with journalists to place coverage, to coordinating the right brand partnerships and events that convey what the client is trying to do and say.” Why hospitality? “A few reasons really,” Chatwin says. “The fact we’re partial to a cocktail being one of them!” she laughs. “In all seriousness though, a large part of it is the people. Even though the drinks industry is spread across the world, there’s a strong sense of community and we feel really lucky to be able to work with so many amazing people.” Irving agrees. “It’s such an interesting space for collaboration, innovation and creativity. There are so many great stories to tell – whether it’s an established brand with its own rich history, someone launching something completely new, or a bar team continuing to push boundaries and innovate with their cocktail menus. What happens in the food and drink space is always a reflection of wider cultural movements and it’s really interesting to see how historical influences still have an impact today. No matter who we work with they all will have a story of how they’ve got there and what has inspired them and being able to take that and communicate it to a wider audience is a real privilege.”
27 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 42
MYTHS
E
ven before that fateful day in 1779 when Betsy Flanagan created the cocktail by stirring a drink with a rooster’s tail feather in her tavern in Yorktown, Virginia (a fiction by James Fenimore Cooper in his 1821 novel, The Spy), drinking culture had its myth creators. Including the following:
The Daiquiri
How has the world believed that American engineer Jennings S. Cox Jr arrived in Cuba in the late 1800s and invented a drink the locals had been drinking for over 120 years? Jump back to 1762 when the Royal Navy captured the island of Cuba as a British colony for 18 months. As far as we know, before then, the Cubans had no tradition of combining rum, lime, sugar and dilution. After that, the canchanchara became the island’s signature sip until it was renamed the Cuba Libre in 1868 by an American journalist covering the early skirmishes that would become the Cuban War of Independence (1895-1898). It was canchanchara that was drunk with a rebel yell, and not rum-and-cola drinks, which were likely born in Jamaica. The Lo Mismo was another popular drink in those days: Americans overheard their Cuban hosts ordering drinks and then returning to the bar for lo mismo or “another”. Drinks writers of the time spread the name up and down the Eastern seaboard, blissfully unaware of the phrase’s true meaning. But what of Jennings S. Cox, Jr? Has anyone tried his recipe? It calls for crushed ice, soda water, and lemon – not lime – in the shaker.
The Pina Colada
The origins of the Piña Colada? 1954: The Caribe Hilton, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Years ago, we interviewed the bar manager, Ricardo Gracia, and one of the
COCK AND BULL STORIES Historians Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown debunk the myths behind a selection of classic drinks last surviving barbacks from those days, Hector Torres. Coco Lopez cream of coconut, an essential ingredient of the Piña Colada, was introduced there, so the story makes sense, but we found one inconsistency. Gracia assured us all their Piña Coladas were blended, but Torres said, “There were 49 bar staff, three blenders, and at least one blender was broken at any time. So, we figured out how to make the same drink by shaking with crushed ice… But if you’re speaking to Señor Gracia, please don’t tell him we did that.” Of course, there were earlier Piña Coladas. Back in 1920s Cuba they were just shaken pineapple juice, which is what piña colada means, or a cocktail of pineapple juice, rum, and lime.
Espresso Martini
British bartender Dick Bradsell could not recall where the stories began that he had invented the Espresso Martini for Naomi Campbell (or Kate Moss, depending on who was telling the tale). He’d heard both when he wrote, signed and dated his version of the fateful day a young model walked into the Soho Brasserie and asked him for a drink that “would wake me up and fuck me up.” He had no recollection who she was, but said she was American. The drink he made her was not the one known and loved around the world today, but a Vodka Espresso served on
39 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 42
the rocks. He didn’t serve it ‘up’ until he started at Match EC1.
The Manhattan
It was drinks historian David Wondrich who debunked the birth of the Manhattan. New York socialite and mother of Winston Churchill, Jennie Jerome, supposedly invented it in 1876 at a party for presidential candidate Samuel Tilden. Even though she was in England having young Winston baptised at the time! Perhaps the greatest modern myth was the Seelbach cocktail, invented in the mid-Nineties but given an origin story dating to 1912 by its creator, mixologist Adam Seger. Its ancestry was written up by Gary Regan in New Classic Cocktails and Ted Haigh in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails before Seger shocked everyone by admitting the hoax in a 2016 interview with The New York Times. The other thing is, writers tend to drink and then write. But in 1886 was the writer or printer drinking when he set the type for the first-ever appearance of a Martini recipe, which reads “equal parts gin and orange bitters”. They left out “vermouth and a dash of”. Pity the guest whose bartender serves that recipe. While such myths and hoaxes are the bane of drinks historians, they bring unique flavour to what they describe.
SLUG HERE
MESSAGE IN A
BOTTLE
Obsessions, myths, celebrations, searchings and new kinds of experiences: the stories within five very different bottles Photography Stylist
Jamie Lau Scott Bentley
The Spirit of the Night Seventy One Sit back… An internationally acclaimed fashion photographer, Mert Alas is obsessed with creations that are strange and beautiful. His obsession led him to reconstruct the idea of what gin means today. Using the techniques of perfumery, the science of distillation, and the craft of blending, he has balanced the classical and contemporary. Resting botanical elements for 71 nights in oak casks and including the rare Queen of the Night cactus, which blooms just once a year, he created Seventy One, The Spirit of the Night. …and savour
Late at night, neat, on the rocks or in a Naked Martini. seventyonegin.com
40 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 42
PHOTOSTORY
41 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 42