The last six weeks has been the tipsiest period I can (almost) remember. The time since the last week of November seems like one continuous cocktail party. This is, I suppose, what you would call a "good problem."
First there was my birthday, number 30, which is as good a reason as any I can think of to start drinking. (Actually, a few days before my birthday was Thanksgiving; at about 11:00 on that day Joe's dad asked, while supervising the frying of the turkey, "Is it too early for a martini?", to which I responded with a hearty "No!", and headed for the wet bar. I suppose that was the first domino in the last month and a half of inebriation)
I historically have had low expectations when it comes to birthday presents, but Joe really knows how to shop for me. At Tales of the Cocktail last summer, we found out about a ton of cool new products, but the one that stood out the most was St-Germain, an elderflower liqueur made in France. Of course it is not available in Texas, and the little airplane minis that they handed out at the tasting seminar were only good for about one drink apiece. Even though I greedily pocketed as many as I could get my hands on, only a limited amount of satisfaction was possible from such a minimal quantity. Being a cheap bastard, I have not been able to bring myself to pony up the dough to have the stuff shipped. But on my birthday, my ship finally came in. Of the many wonderful presents that I received, this is one that stands out the most:

Joe got me not one but four bottles, wrapped up in a suitcase

In just a matter of seconds I went from having a memory of St-Germain to having a motherload. (Well, okay a case would have been the motherload, but four bottles was a surprise indeed). I have made a few drinks with it but the one I like the most so far is the St-Germain Cocktail, which was created I believe by Simon Difford:
St-Germain Cocktail
2 oz. Champagne or Dry White Wine
1 1/2 oz. St. Germain
2 oz. Club Soda
Stir ingredients in a tall Collins glass filled with big ice, mixing completely. Garnish with a lemon twist.

A week after my birthday, and a verrry long week before finals began, was graduation. If you graduate in the fall, the ceremony is before finals, which is a big tease, the last day of finals dangling in front of you like a martini on a stick as you cross the stage and collect your fake diploma. For all of the anxieties I had about graduating from college at the ripe age of 30, I realize that there are a handful of benefits, the most obvious of which being that at 30 most of us know how to party in a more sophisticated manner than we did at 22 (another being that at 30 we realize that life is too short for us to hang on to that tacky polyester cap and gown and that those must be discarded upon leaving the ceremony.) I was fortunate enough to have my party hosted by Paula Angerstein and her husband Paul, of Paula's Texas Spirits. If there is any place that would be ideal for throwing a party, a distiller's residence must be at the top of the list. Especially if the distiller has such fabulous taste as Paul and Paula. Perched on a hilltop overlooking the lake, their house is a beautiful place to celebrate, and they are incredibly gracious hosts. They made a great spread of snacketizers and mixed up several of their signature cocktails. Real Ale Brewing donated a keg of their Full Moon Pale Rye Ale, and I brought a bottle of St-Germain and a bottle of Lucid Absinthe to share with the guests.

We didn't have the equipment to properly "louche" the absinthe, but you can tell by the expression on my happy ass face that I didn't mind. It was fun partaking of the green fairy, and sharing the quality product with uninitiated friends and family who had either never had absinthe, or had only tasted the electric green mouthwash that they drank after dousing a flaming sugar cube in Prague, or what have you. I myself had never tasted the artisanal absinthe until I attended the lecture by Ted Breaux at Tales of the Cocktail last summer. Since then, I have been dying to get my hands on a bottle. Even though it has been legal for a while for exportation to the United States, there has been a shortage of supply of quality absinthe. Most of what is available is crap. In Texas, we just recently got Lucid, one of Mr. Breaux's formulations, a bottle of which I procured for this special occasion. Once I recovered from graduation weekend, I had just enough time to study for finals, after the last of which it was time to start getting tipsy all over again.

The tipsy holibirthuation days continued after graduation as we prepared for the Christian holiday, which I do not celebrate but which my other half does, and of course I always appreciate a day that involves me not having to work.

One of the interesting things about growing up in Austin is that at this moment in time a lot of the people who live here aren't from here. So during the holidays the friends I have made since high school take off to their respective homelands and many of my old friends from school come back home from wherever they have moved off to. There are a lot of impromptu reunions during this time. One night a couple of vagabond classmates came over on a particularly cold evening and we decided to build a cozy campfire in the backyard and enjoy a tipple

In the current issue of Edible Austin magazine there is an article about a woman who lives in East Austin and finds comfort in building a fire out in her backyard, relaxing with a glass of wine, and taking a little mini retreat right in the middle of her urban environment. Inspired by this story, we decided it would be nice to make a little boozy adult hot chocolate: bring milk to a simmer in a heavy-bottom sauce pan, stir in chocolate chunks until melted, to taste. Let the mixture cool slightly and add Patron XO (tequila-based coffee liqueur) and Praline liqueur to taste. Pour into a cute earthenware pitcher and mugs. We were feeling particulary luxurious, so we topped the cups with whipped cream, then took our pitcher outside and sat by the fire and talked about old times and future times. It wasn't too long before the highway noise dropped out of the background and all we could see was the fire and the almost full moon in the clear sky. And the Festivus lights on my patio cover.

Tonight we decided to make a pot of chicken tortilla soup. This required a run to Central Market to pick up a chicken and a few other supplies. As is often the case, we got carried away in the beer department, and we left with about ten different bottles of specialty beers. Back at home we were reminded that our refrigeration capacity is not as grandiose as our beer-buying ambition. Something had to go from the fridge so we could make room for all this beer. Joe (Tipsy) grabbed the bottle of Stone's Original Green Ginger WIne, saying something to the effect of, "Let's get this out and try it, that way if it's nasty it won't be taking up valuable real estate."

We poured a glass first without reading the serving instructions. We were not in love with it served neat. Topped with a spritz of charged water, it was more drinkable.

The instructions in my home kitchen journal* said explicitly that after the chicken hits the pot, "Make a stout margarita. Or two." At that critical point in the recipe I was struck with an inspiration: I realized that the Stone's would fit in perfectly with this Texmexican feast. Tipsy set to work squeezing some tangerines that we got at the farmers market last weekend. I began gathering the liquid ingredients.

The Stone's Gingerita.
4 oz. Cuervo Tradicional or other 100% agave reposado tequila
2 oz. Paula's Texas Orange
2 oz. Stone's Ginger Wine
2 oz. fresh-squeezed tangerine juice
2 oz. fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 piece fresh ginger.
Measure ingredients into shaker. Using a ginger grater, grate fresh ginger into shaker, allowing the juicy pulp to get in, but keeping the stringy stuff behind. Shake vigorously. Strain over ice in 2-3 rocks glasses, or pour into a small carafe. Top cocktail with a floater of Stone's.

*We keep a detailed journal of what we cook or mix at the house. That way if something spectacular comes out of it, we will be able to recreate it. It is a tragedy when you spend all night tweaking a cocktail recipe, experience a victorious breakthrough in cocktail perfection, then forget it all given the intoxicating nature of your quest, and the drink is lost forever. On the other hand, it is important to keep track of things that really don't work. On Elvis's birthday I was determined to make a Pink Cadillac, and the notes next to my early drafts reflect my tasters' comments: "Kool Aid" "Cough Syrup" "Nope!"

Just when I thought I could finally say goodbye to the holiday season, I received a phone call last Friday from one of the owners of Real Ale Brewing. On Sunday, it turns out, they were having a small celebration of beer and smoked meat, a holiday party of sorts situated in the middle of January so as not to conflict with anyone else's holiday party. We drove out to Blanco, pecan tart in hand, and arrived just in time to grab a pint of beer before the meat cutting began. It should go without saying that when a group of professional brewers have a party, there is going to be a considerable amount of beer (the brewers at Real Ale are a very generous lot-I attended their annual anniversary party last summer and was pleasantly surprised to learn that each party attendee received free tickets for four glasses of beer and a plate of food.) What I was not prepared for, however, was the incredible variety of beers. I tasted everything from Real Ale's current tap selections to variations on some of their popular beers; a slew of vintage Barleywines including some aged Real Ale Sisyphus; home-brews by employees of the brewery, as well as homebrews that fans of the brewery had dropped off over the year; fabulous, fantasy beers that the brewers had picked up on travels to far-off brewing destinations; and most significantly a brew from Austin's fabled Bitter End brewery that has been closed for a number of years.

The area around Blanco is still somewhat undeveloped. It looks a lot like the outskirts of Austin looked when I was a kid. A beautiful place to drink beer.

It was awesome being in the presence of so many of Texas's brewing talents, being able to talk about beer with the people who have been making some of my favorite brews of the last ten years.
When we first arrived we drank a few pints of beers from the half dozen or so kegs that they had tapped, a mix of their standard brews and the current and upcoming seasonal beers. My clear favorite in this category was the Phoenix ESB, which will be on tap around Austin soon. I also got to try an unusual variation on Real Ale's runaway hit, the Fireman's #4 Blonde Ale. This one was a cask conditioned version, brewed w/ Summit hops. I don't know enough about hops to know why this makes a difference, but it did. Whereas I usually don't prefer the Fireman's over the other Real Ale brews that I think are more interesting, this one had a big hoppy flavor and also had a unique mouth feel since it was an unfiltered beer.

Why is Joe's glass empty? It's not like there was a shortage of beer. Oh yeah...he had to drive us back!

One of the brewers "led" (in as much as one can lead a group such as this) a tasting of Barleywines, the so-called "pallet-bruisers" of the evening:
2002 Real Ale Sisyphus
2004 Real Ale Sisyphus
2002 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot--I didn't think this one was nearly as good as the Sisyphus of the same vintage, but I felt the same way about the same beers of the 2007 vintage. (When I returned to Austin I went to Central Market and bought a half dozen bottles of 2007 Sisyphus, we'll see if they survive long enough to do such a "vintage" tasting.)
In this run we also tasted the 2005 Old Stock Ale from North Coast Brewing in Fort Bragg, CA. They are also the makers of Brother Thelonius which we tasted at another point in the evening.

In the homebrew category, we tasted a Carob Porter and an ale called "Hazel Eyes" made by one of the Real Ale brewers, and some bizarre wormwood beer dropped off at the brewery by a fan.

While the kids toasted marshmallows, I toasted the good life (and got toasted in the process)

The most exciting beer of the night for me was from the Bitter End Brewery, which was an early pioneer in the now-bustling-at-the-seams warehouse district. A few years ago, the place suffered a big fire and was shut down, never to reopen. It was a real tragedy for Austin beer drinkers, and still evokes the occasional eulogy from a sympathetic imbiber. What I did not know about the Bitter End fire is that not all of the beer was lost, that the brew crew rescued a handful of kegs from the smoldering remains of their building. When I found out last year that former Bitter End brewer Brian Peters had become the brewer at Uncle Billy's on Barton Springs, I went over quickly to try his new beers. At the time it never crossed my mind that I would have the opportunity to taste an actual Bitter End brew again, though I had heard rumors here and there that there were surviving kegs.

One of the beers they made from time to time was a Scotch ale called Prescot’s Wee Heavy; they also did a version called “Wee Woody,” which was the Wee Heavy, rested in a retired Jack Daniel's barrel. As it happens, a barrel of that beer was rescued from the fire by Tim Schwartz and Brian Peters, kegged and stashed away. On Sunday I met Ty Phelps, who is the head brewer at North By Northwest, and he had a growler of Wee Woody that he filled a couple of months ago from Peters' keg. Though the beer had lost most of its carbonation, it had not oxidized and had an incredible, subtly vanilla-infused flavor. It was such a trip tasting that beer and reminiscing about the Bitter End, really a once-in-a-lifetime experience for an old tipsy Austinite such as myself.

Though the Bitter End indeed met a bitter end, its memory lives on like the lingering taste of Wee Woody, which I droolishly hoovered up last weekend...

The one day of the week when I am most likely to look at the paper is not Sunday, although we do have a ritual of spending a couple of hours drinking coffee, eating breakfast, and reading the Sunday Times (which the cat will inevitably sit on).

Wednesday is the day that I most eagerly await, to see what the Times has published in the Dining section. Today's section was a superlative specimen. To begin with, there was a 2/3 page cover shot of fondue, with is like a sexy centerfold if you appreciate cheese-as-porn, as I do. Then below the fold there was the headline "At Last, A $20,000 Cup of Coffee." Since I work in coffee, and appreciate coffee as cheese, that is, as porn, I was intrigued by this article. It seems that a Japanese company has created a high-tech siphon machine called the "Siphon Bar" which they sold to a San Francisco cafe for an astonishing $20k. For those fortunate few who have tried coffee from the Clover, which I wrote about here last summer, this is an interesting development.

The Clover was the first revolutionary coffee brewing system in a long time. I actually couldn't think of a technological development as unique as the Clover, except for perhaps pulse brewing, by which coffee brewers meter out water in "pulses", or mini batches--allowing the coffee to "bloom"--instead of dumping the water on top all at once. It is interesting that the Siphon Bar is bringing a unique machine to market so quickly after the Clover. (Of course, the NYT is a year or two late in reporting the arrival of the Clover, so I don't actually know how timely their reportage of the Siphon Bar is...).

Photo by Peter DaSilva for the NY Times (Used without permission. Thanks NYT!)

The Siphon Bar works as halogen lamps heat water in a globe; gas expansion forces steam into the upper chamber where water and coffee grounds are stirred with a bamboo paddle, creating a vortex (this is apparently the step that most challenges the barista's skills); when the carafes are removed from the heat, gas contraction creates a vacuum in the bottom globe, drawing the coffee back through, leaving the grounds and sediment behind. This method of brewing is common in its variations (coffee aficionados will recognize the globes as being similar to the Bodum "Santos"), though it seems this machine is the first to do it so scientifically, with heat provided by halogen lamps, and meters to measure time and temperature. I suspect that the Siphon Bar, while being an exciting and flashy addition to barista's tool shed, will not become exceptionally widespread unless the cost comes down considerably. What is most significant about the arrival of machines such as the Clover and the Siphon Bar is not that you will see them any time soon at your neighborhood coffee bar, but that they signify (one may infer) that brewed coffee is on the rise again. That is to say that coffee in one of its purest forms is taking a stand for itself in a market that has been dominated by the postmodern percs characteristic of the Starbuckian Era: oversized, oversweet, overmilky, overpriced 'coffees' that have nothing to do with coffee.

If you search "siphon bar" you will find many posts at tech and coffee sites, with the commentors wildly praising and criticizing this new device.
Click here for the NY Times article

Have you ever wondered about the viability of time travel? Did Doc Brown's "flux capacitor" turn you on in a way that movie props generally don't? If you, like I, answered yes to these two questions, then you will be really excited about this post. While I will not take you back to 1985 Hill Valley, I will take you back to 2007 Tales of the Cocktail, the annual culinary & cocktail festival in New Orleans. From deep in the Tipsy Texan archives I found this un-posted post from last summer, which I am posting now because it involves the work of a world-renowned cocktail expert, and because the subject matter is still as pertinent as ever, for reasons that I will now explain:

At a bar downtown on a recent evening, I ordered a classic gin martini from the girl behind the bar, with whom I have had numerous discussions about the merits of the classic gin martini. She knew how I liked the drink, and proceeded to pour it. The manager of the bar, who was sitting right next to me and who is, incidentally, and good customer of mine, proceeded to instruct her, and me, that "That's not the way you make a martini! Your supposed to rinse the glass with vermouth and then dump it out!" Since the man is a business acquaintance and friend, and I am prone towards nonviolence, I decided to settle the matter academically and not physically. I spent the next fifteen minutes giving him an abbreviated version of the history of the martini, explaining how I in fact had ordered a proper one. I made sure to periodically sip my cocktail, so as not to let the potion become warm. When I got home I remembered that I had taken extensive notes from Mr. Hess's lecture, and that perhaps it was an appropriate time to make them available to the public, in the hope that at least one more soul, like this unfortunate restaurant manager, would be converted. Let the time travel begin:

Today we attended a seminar called "The Art of the Martini," given by cocktail historian Robert Hess of drinkboy.com.
The event was sponsored by Plymouth Gin and Fee Brothers which meant that we got one of our first great pieces of swag, a free shaker! It is in Robert’s favorite style, the “Parisian Shaker”—works like a boston shaker but both parts are metal. (The rest of these notes are more or less Mr. Hess's words, except for my notes in parentheses.)

The Martini has become extremely popular since the 1980s, though it began regaining popularity in the early Bond days.

Where did it come from?
Origins of the Martini: ca 1895
Prevailing theories:
The drink got its name from the Martinez Cocktail—the Manhattan (F) and the Martinez (M) are the parents of the martini. The Martinez is not really a martini. The Manhattan, like a black widow, mated with the Martinez, and the Martini is the offspring. Originally made with gin and sweet vermouth. Italian/Sweeet/Red vermouth was the original vermouth. In old cocktail books, if vermouth is not specified, it means sweet. Occasionally the Martinez had orange curacao or marashchino, but originally had equal parts sweet vermouth, old tom gin, and orange bitters.

There are also stories/myths that the drink got its name from the Martini rifle which, like the cocktail of the same name, had quite a "kick." The foundational myth that Hess believes holds the most water is that the drink was named after the eponymous vermouth of the The Martini & Rossi company. He warns that all of these stories are to be taken with a grain of salt. (The veracity of much of early cocktail history is at best difficult, and in many cases impossible, to determine.)

The Sweet Martini Cocktail needs to be rediscovered, as a wonderful example of a gin cocktail. It addresses all angles—the "Bond" image for men, sweetness for women, though it is not cloying.

Bars as a culinary institution: bars are the original chef’s table, where customers are watching not just their own drinks being made, but also everybody else’s drinks.

Regarding Martinis on the rocks: Originally all drinks were served up; in the latter half of 19th century ice drinks come into being. Ice makes martinis taste less boozy, as the water brings about balance. (In an article on his own website, Hess gives an excellent explanation of the importance of ice in cocktails in that they release needed water into the drink; and why storing booze in the freezer is stupid.) Why do Americans love ice, as opposed to Europeans? Perhaps because water was perceived as dangerous in Europe, as the continent became overpopulated. The American perception of ice is that it is pure and clean.

Prohibition: did a lot of really bad things for cocktails. It was a period of time where the general public, bartenders, and restaurants had a cocktail lobotomy. The drinks of prohibition were vile drinks. Bartending became illegal, as Prohibition was meant to be a forever thing. Some of the best left the country, and the rest went out of business.
After Prohibition, bars became coed. Prior to Prohibition the only women in bars were working, in one way or another. Many municipalities had laws on the books prohibiting women from going into bars. During Prohibition, bars became coed as speakeasy owners sought revenue from whoever would come--the idea was to make money as fast as possible. Because women were present, bars upscaled regarding atmosphere and décor.

Before Prohibition, most bars were not cocktail bars. They were like setup bars. Cocktails were primarily available only at the hotel bars.

The Dry Martini
The challenge is to find a ratio of gin to vermouth that suits your pallet. Originally the designation "Dry" was meant to denote Dry as opposed to Sweet vermouth. Now "Dry" is misunderstood to mean "less vermouth." The last 50 years has witnessed a significant decrease in the amount of vermouth in martinis, to the point that many bartenders either "swish and dump" or put no vermouth at all into their martinis.
A ration of 3:1 gives it great balance. 50/50, properly chilled, is also an excellent dry martini. It has bounce, does not slap you in the face with Christmas tree flavor. He says the chamomile-like quality of good vermouth balances out the juniper and pepper aspects of gin; water from ice tones down the heat from the alcohol.
Drinkers experiment to find their “tipping point”--the place where you can't tell the difference between where vermouth stops and gin begins.

Bitters are the most over-looked aspect of the martini. Bitters, by definition, are an essential ingredient in any cocktail.

Garnish
Originally was a cherry for the sweet martini; w/ dry the lemon twist and later the olive. (ca late 1800’s)
Modern maraschino cherries are product of prohibition; prior to prohibition, marasca cherries were soaked in maraschino liqueur.
(Later on Hess suggests that contemporary bartenders can update the martini without denigrating it. For example, use a piece of raw salmon as a garnish in a classic martini, incorporating leftover trimmings from the kitchen in this function.)

Dry vermouth comes out around time that (dry) London Gin comes out. Old Tom gin was previously dominant style. Disappeared 80-90 years ago. Sweetener was a masker of poor distillation from early days. With Plymouth Gin, a new style emerged without sweeteners. Advent of Dry Martini cocktail. Like Sweet Martini cocktail, sub dry gin, dry vermouth. Sometimes more vermouth than gin, lending validity to the M&R theory—ca 1906 M&R ran ads featuring the martini cocktail, though there were earlier mentions in print.

Vermouth poses a problem to martinis, because it is wine-based and it will spoil on counter. However it is aromatized and fortified, which menas it is shelf-stable. Though the need to refrigerate vermouth is not imperative, it is there. It will not spoil as fast as wine, but will lose freshness. Should be stored in Fridge. One of the reasons why there is public resistance to vermouth is likely that people have had experiences with "spoiled" vermouth that sat, opened, at the back the liquor cabinet for years on end.
The atomizer bottle is always a bad idea, because it is a tool of the "less vermouth is better" crowd.

The big change in martini happened after Prohibition...

Last night we decided to celebrate the final State of the Union Address of the Bush presidency. I called up a few like-minded friends and told them that I thought that it was worth toasting that we would never have to hear G-Dub give another such address; and I lured them with the promise of games and cocktails.

For entertainment, and to make sure that everybody was paying attention to W's talk, I made up Bush Bingo cards with keywords that I thought the President was reasonably likely to say: evil, economy, climate, God, Taliban, Amurrikah, etc. There were a few words that I had not thought of such as "empower" and "trust" that the Prez said about fifty times each. Another one was "Veto" which I thought he used with almost reckless abandon, given his relatively restrained use of the power (in reality the Signing Statement is W's preferred method of circumventing the will of Congress, but that is the business of a different blog than this one.) We all had placed personal wagers on how many times W would say "Nukular", and though the word appeared on only a couple of the Bingo cards, everybody cheered the first time he said it.

If it weren't for this glass of whiskey, I don't think Phil would have made it as far as he did on this Bingo card

For cocktails, we created the "State of the Union," a libation crafted entirely from domestic ingredients, of course. I chose Rye and Applejack because of their historical significance and seasonal appropriateness. (However last night we were experiencing something more like a Hot Summer Night than a typical January evening; my friend Mike and I sat around the fire ring out back, though we didn't light it) I also figured that the drink should be strong, given the famous closer that it seems every president must use some permutation of.

Did you know that the State of the Union Address is Constitutionally mandated? I did not know that until one of our guests, a history professor, Philled us in...

The State of the Union
1 1/2 oz. Laird's Applejack
3/4 oz. Wild Turkey Rye
1/2 oz. Simple syrup
Dash Peychaud's Bitters
2 Dashes Fee's Orange Bitters
Stir cocktail until well chilled and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Try not to choke on it while you listen to the president say things like "Purveyors of false populism in this hemisphere..."

Mike showed up with his "Texas Travel Kit," which consists of a pile of meat from Smitty's BBQ in Lockhart, a jar of pickles, and a travel-size bottle of Maker's