Edible Communities, the group of magazines that includes Edible Austin, issues a set of Local Heroes Awards each year in a handful of categories. The categories are voted on by members of the community in which the individual magazines are published.

Here are the awards for Austin:
Farm: Boggy Creek Farm, Carol Ann Sayle and Larry Butler
Restaurant: Tie! Wink, Chef Mark Paul & Chef Eric Polzer and Eastside Cafe, Chef/Owner Elaine Martin
Food Artisan: Full Quiver Farms Farmstead Cheese, Michael Sams
Non-Profit: Urban Roots, a program of YouthLaunch

And most exciting for readers of this blog
Beverage Artisan: Tie! Zhi Tea, Jeffrey Lorien and Candice Oneida and Tipsy Texan, David Alan and Joe Eifler

We also received an honorable mention in the annual Eddy Awards for one of our editorial pieces.

Tonight we started out with a photo shoot for the spring issue of Edible Austin magazine. Not surprisingly the night (d)evolved into a Dale/David Project (D/DP) cocktail mixing session. We made quite a few cocktails. As it became apparent how things were going to shape up this evening, we called Tipsy, who was on his way home from work. He was instructed to pick up a fried chicken feast.

(Photos by Jenna Noel)

Since I can't stand to see to-go boxes on the table, and since we unanimously agreed that the mood called for fried chicken, and since we were too far down the cocktail mixing path to actually fry chicken ourselves this evening, Tipsy picked up some chicken and we transfered it to a vintage Corning "Cornflower Blue" dish. I have a lot of these, the full complement of small-d democratic homewares of 1960's-70's

Back to the cocktails: first up was the Fernet Branca Cocktail (D/DP #103), which is comprised, as its name may suggest, of Fernet Branca, sweet vermouth, and gin. That's it. Stirred with ice and garnished with a flamed lemon peel, the drink is menthey and refreshing, though not a particularly appropriate component of the fried chicken feast that we were putting together. It was saved for the end of the meal.

This cocktail was herbal and menthey and reminds me that I need to pay more attention to that bottle of Fernet Branca that has been sitting in my liquor cabinet

The Dubonnet Cocktail(D/DP #104) is made of Red Dubonnet and Gin, garnished with a lemon twist. It is served either on the rocks or up in a cocktail glass. I opted for the former, and found it not a bad accompaniment for fried chicken and biscuits.

For dessert, I decided we would enjoy a trilogy of Grand Marnier drinks, since there were three of us and since I hadn't mixed a Grandma drink in a while. But then as I began assembling them, I got hung up on the layered beauty of the B52 (shooters are in short supply at Tipsy Manor) and made three of those, on top of the two other Grandma cocktails.

The B52 (D/DP #105) is made with Kahlua, Bailey's, and Grand Marnier, layered in a cordial glass. Though the book does not specify, I believe the drink is taken as a shooter.

The drink in the cocktail glass is the Boulevard (D/DP #106), which according to Dale, comes "from G. Selmer Fougner of the New York Sun, 1935." I don't know who that is but the drink is a keeper. The other cocktail is called "Dale's Absolutely Guaranteed Aphrodisiac" (D/DP #107), a name much more complicated than the cocktail itself. The Aphrodisiac was created for a "Cocktail Challenge" article in New York magazine, date not given in Dale's book. However the challenged issued was to create an "absolutely guaranteed aphrodisiac" with "no fruit". An admirable challenge indeed. Dale's combination of cachaca and Grand Marnier: Good? yes. Guaranteed, well, not so sure, but I like where he's going. As Valentine's Day approaches and the flood of bullsh!t press releases pours in featuring chocolate- and raspberry- laden cocktails, it is good to know that at least one bartender out there thinks that a cocktail of busted South American rum and French orange liqueur makes for the sexiest drink imaginable.

I'm not sure where the Mudslide comes from. It seems like it could be the intellectual property of the Kahlúa marketing machine. Made of vodka, Kahlúa, Bailey's and cream, it is basically a White Russian with the addition of Irish Cream. If you don't have the energy to make this drink by hand, you can buy it in convenient ready-to-drink bottles at your friendly neighborhood liquor store.

A sweet dessert drink that maybe deserves consideration every other year or so.

According to the book, "This recipe has been on the back of the Marie Brizard Apry bottle for years, I just touched it up a bit." The cocktail is made with Gin, Marie Brizard Apry, and orange juice. The Dale DeGroff version has the addition of orange bitters and is garnished with the flamed orange peel.

This cocktail came off as being kind of one-dimensional to me. It has the apricot/citrus thing going on, but not much after that.

We pick up the Dale/David Project this evening with the Bramble. According to Dale, the Bramble was "created by the leading bartender in the UK, Dick Bradsell." It consists of gin, fresh lime juice, and creme de mure, with a little garnish of raspberries and lime wheel. The drink is supposed to be served over crushed ice, but our guest mixologist Jenna Lane did not read that far in the instructions. I was busy cooking patty melts so I didn't catch the transgression.

I am glad to see that the Bramble is starting to make its way onto a few cocktail menus here and there
Photo and improper presentation by Jenna--All agreed that this is not her best work ;-)

I stopped by the Hotel San Jose on Friday to drop off a case of Q Tonic, and had a nice conversation with Sarah Fisher who manages the hotel's small-but-hip bar. I tasted a sample of her Pineapple & Pepper Sangria, one in a series of sangria recipes that changes weekly. Fisher is working on a small book of sangria recipes from the bar. (The hotel has only a beer & wine permit, so cannot serve distilled spirits.)

iPhoto by Sarah Fisher for TipsyTexan.com (Since Tex's phone is too bootleg to have a camera)

I remember the first time we made Satan's Whiskers. It was at Tipsy's apartment downtown, before we merged our resources to create Tipsy Manor. We didn't like. And i wanted to make it tonight to see if we still felt the same way about it. We did not. Tonight I really like the cocktail, and I think it has to do with a dramatic reorientation of the palate after a couple years of drinking serious cocktails.

Consisting of gin, sweet & dry vermouths, Grand Marnier, fresh orange juice and Angostura bitters, Satan's Whiskers is a variation of the Bronx Cocktail. It was developed at the Embassy Club in Hollywood in the 1930's. It is a fabulous cocktail, but maybe not one for beginners.

Tonight we will be serving up classic and modern cocktails at Z'Bar, next door to Z'Tejas on 6th St. The Art of the Cocktail runs from 5-9p every Sunday. Great cocktails and half-price appetizers to ease you back into the week...

It has been a hell of a day for grub at Tipsy Manor. Tipsy's office was closed today (unlike me, he works one of those jobs where they actually take holidays) so he got up early and got to it in the kitchen. When I woke up, the coffee was made and an elaborate meal was in the works. For an appetizer, a homemade blueberry muffin with butter.

Tipsy grilled up a nice pork chop from Full Quiver Farms and made a pan of steamed cabbage and potatoes, which he then threw into the pork chop pan

Of course to make it breakfast he topped it off with some farm fresh eggs

For lunch, Tipsy pulled the meat off the bones of the pork ribs we made last week--Full Quiver Farms pork ribs smoked over coffee wood from Nicaragua. He created a tamarind-tomato glaze and put the meat on tacos with sliced cucumber, Amador Farms lettuce and Full Quiver's gruyere cheese.

Amazingly no cocktails have been made yet today, but stay tuned for this evening's Mixology Monday adventure

Each month, cocktail enthusiasts from around the world gather on the interweb to celebrate Mixology Monday, now in its 36th installment. The host of this month's event is Matthew Rowley of Rowley's Whiskey Forge and he has chosen a theme apropos of our difficult times: "Hard drinks for hard times."

The produce is dirt-cheap at City Market. I got all of this for $12.49.

MxMo participants have a great amount of leeway in determining how to conform their posts to the host's theme. I have chosen to take a signature cocktail that is delicious in good times and adapt it for these leaner and meaner times. Last fall there was a competition in Austin hosted by Flor de Caña rum in which contestants had to submit cocktail recipes featuring their 18 year-old rum. Those of us who participated in the contest were quite surprised by this choice, given a) the price tag on this product, which ranges from the low-$40's to the low $50's at liquor stores in Austin and b) the complexity of the 18 yr, which is a flagship product for them and seems an unlikely candidate for mixing. Alas, it was a requirement, and I was fortunate enough at the time to find a liquor store that had the bottle generously mis-priced at $28. (I bought all of them). I was also fortunate enough to win the contest with a drink that I created at the last minute, just like this present post, and which was really not all that innovative.

I wasn't kidding about my $12.49 citrus orgy. Here's proof. Thanks, Donna.

An important first step towards mixing cocktails in tough times is finding a cheap source for things to mix with. There are two grocery stores by my house that are worth going to. Central Market is the nice one, where the aisles meander hither and thither like the paths in a culinary park. Then there is City Market, where they have a notice on the door that there are plain clothes security guards on duty, and that sandals do not constitute safe footwear where liability is concerned. Needless to say that this latter locale is the place to find the bargains. Tonight for $12.49 I picked up 12 limes, 10 lemons, 10 oranges, 8 pears, 6 grapefruits and a pineapple.

Next up is the liquor. Whereas my signature cocktail requires 18 year old rum and Cointreau, the Stimulus Package version is made with Flor de Caña's perfectly drinkable 4 year rum and a locally produced orancello called Paula's Texas Orange. The price breakdown is quite alarming and makes me wonder why I've been serving so much 18yr rum at my house the last few months...

The Matagalpa Cocktail, consisting of Flor de Caña 18yr, Cointreau, lime and simple syrup, is named for a region of Nicaragua. But serving rum this luxurious in such tough times is like the bartending equivalent of buying an $87,000 rug.

Matagalpa Cocktail
1 ½ oz Flor de Caña 18yr
¾ oz Cointreau
½ oz fresh lime juice
½ simple syrup
Combine ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker and shake vigorously; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Cost Breakdown:
Flor de Caña 18yr ($47.99/ 750ml): $2.83
Cointreau ($33.67/750ml): $.99
Lime juice (Central Market 4/$1; 1.5 oz/lime): $.08
TOTAL COST: $3.90

At almost four bucks a pop, that is a lot of shekels to spend on a drink at home, especially if you roll with a TAK (tired-ass krewe) like mine. So I got to innovating and decided on the Manchaca cocktail, made with discounted versions of the Matagalpa ingredients.

Made with Flor de Caña 4yr and Paula's Texas Orange, the Manchaca cocktail is named for the busted up street that runs by my neighborhood.

Manchaca Cocktail
1 ½ oz Flor de Caña 4yr
¾ oz Paula's Texas Orange
½ oz fresh lime juice
½ simple syrup
Combine ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker and shake vigorously; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Cost Breakdown:
Flor de Caña 4yr ($16.58/ 1.75 l): $.42
Paula's Texas Orange ($21.77/750ml): $.64
Lime juice (City Market 12/$1; 1.5 oz/lime): $.02
TOTAL COST: $1.08
Holy Schmackerels! That's over three times as much for the authentic version as for the discount version. Hello, Manchaca Cocktail. Matagalpa, I'll see you when the recession ends (Actually, I'll see you this summer when we take our trip to Nicaragua that we won at the contest...if that's still in the budget!)

The Dale/David Project carries on tonight with the Absinthe No. 2. Dale adopted this drink from The Artistry of Mixing Drinks by Frank Meier, 1936. Usually with the old drinks that call for absinthe substitute I use actual absinthe. But this recipe was from a book that was written after the ban, so I figure it called for absinthe substitute in the original, and thus used Absente per DDG's instructions.

Consisting of gin, absinthe substitute and orange bitters, this is a nice little cocktail for a cool winter evening

This is the first cocktail in Dale's book and I don't know why we're just now getting to it. Perhaps because it's not all that exciting? Gin, Lillet, Orange Juice, and Angostura. It tasted really orange juicey to me and that is not my favorite flavor. (Dale actually recommends muddling a couple pieces of orange in the shaker before shaking the drink) The drink is then garnished with a flamed orange peel. I'm not sure where this cocktail comes from, but I will investigate that.

If Jerry Thomas were alive today, he may call this the 'Fancy Gin & Juice'