The results are in for the first round of this year's Drink Local Cocktail Contest. The judges expressed great difficulty in selecting just five contestants and an alternate. Here are the finalists in no particular order:

Jeff Boley (Paggi House)
Bill Norris (FINO)
Lara Nixon (Boxcar Bar)
Benjamin Craven (Perla's)
Garret Mikell (Some place that hasn't opened yet. What's it called?)

Alternate:
Nate Wales (La Condesa)

The contest takes place this Sunday, Dec 6 from 6pm-9pm at Palm Door, 401 Sabine in Downtown Austin. The event is open to the public. A suggested donation benefits Urban Roots.

Palm Door donated the fabulous event space, located at 401 Sabine (Dustin Meyer Photography. For his full photo coverage please visit his blog)

A great crowd showed up at Palm Door for Drink Local Night, part of the kick-off for Eat Local Week last week. We had a dozen or so Texas distillers and a great turnout for the Drink Local Cocktail Contest.

Bobby Heugel and Joe Eifler (Photo by Addie Broyles)

The Judges for the evening's competition:
Bobby Heugel (Anvil, Houston. Last year's contest winner)
Joe Eifler (TipsyTexan.com)
Addie Broyles (Austin American-Statesman)
Adam Harris (Maker's Mark)
Sten Lilja (Louis XIII)

1st Place winner Lara Nixon (Photo by Dustin Meyer)

First place went to Lara Nixon with her cocktail,
"We're in it for the Corn"
2 oz organic sweet corn infused Balcones Baby Blue Corn Whiskey
1/2 oz Velvet Falernum
1/4 oz Paula's Texas Orange
1/4 oz Del Maguey Mezcal-Chichicapa
Expressed orange peel seasoned cocktail glass. Stir ingredients, strain into cocktail glas (non-chilled) and garnish with Organic roasted sweet corn.

Lara's cocktail was cleverly garnished with a miniature 'corn on the cob'
Photo by Addie Broyles

(Dustin Meyer Photography)

Second place went to BIll Norris with his
Texas Campfire Flip
2 oz Baby Blue Corn Whisky
1 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
.5 oz Raw Sugar Simple Syrup
2 Bar Spoons Del Maguey Chichicapa
1 2 inch spring wild Texas rosemary + 1 2 inch sprig for Garnish
1 whole local farm egg
Angostura Bitters for Garnish

In a tempered mixing glass, place rosemary sprig in mescal. Carefully ignite the mescal to toast the rosemary and allow it to burn off.

Add Baby Blue Corn Whisky, lemon juice, simple syrup, whole egg and ice. Shake until your arms hurt and strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with additional sprig of rosemary and several drops of Angostura Bitters.

Third place went to Ben Craven of Perla's on S. Congress
The Sportswriter
1 oz. Balcones Baby Blue Whiskey
.25 oz Alamosa Wine Cellars (TX) Tempranillo and Meyer Lemon Gastrique
.25 oz Clove & Cardamom Turbinado Syrup
1 oz Plymouth Sloe Gin
Top with Mineral Water
Garnish--candied lemon golf tee

Our opening presentation was done by our alternate for the evening, Nate Wales, who works at La Condesa/Malverde. His cocktail was inspired by his mom's apple pie-scented holiday candles

(Dustin Meyer Photography)

Mom and Apple Pie
Base Ingredients:
Dripping Springs Vodka
Bretzen Apple Schnapps
1/2 Texas grown Gala apple
Round Rock Honey (i've infused with cinnamon and vanilla)

Pie Crust Garnish Ingredients:
Dehydrated texas gala apples
grahm crackers
turbinado sugar
add all items to spice grinder and blitz until fine
slice of fresh apple

Build:
take 1/2 apple and hand muddle to release fresh juices
drizzle a bar spoon of honey infusion
2oz Dripping Springs
.5oz Bretzen Apple Schnapps
add ice
Shake like you mean it.
Double strain(to remove apple bits) into Pie Crust garnished martini glass

We were out of town doing a two-night engagement at the Blue Javelina in Marfa this weekend and so we missed the Austinist interview that came out on Friday. (Marfa is known more for its broad horizons than for its broadband.) Tolly Mosely interviews David (Tex, me) on the subject of winter-appropriate cocktails. Tex debuts the Prefect Cocktail, which spell check keeps trying to make the Perfect Cocktail, which I am neither talented nor cocky enough to claim.

The Prefect
1.5 oz 100 Proof Rye Whiskey
0.75 oz Ruby Port
0.5 oz Averna
Barspoon Creme de Cassis
Dash Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters ( if you have them; if not, use Angostura)
Stir ingredients with ice to chill. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a real maraschino cherry.

There is also a brief discussion of how to employ the ice cream ball in adult holiday entertainment. Proprietarily known as the Play & Freeze Ice Cream Maker, the device works by filling one end with ice and rock salt, and the other end with your favorite ice cream recipe. This time of year, when the weather is right and mood is festive, we prefer to fill it with some member of the overly-sweet-and-creamy cocktail canon, of which we are shamelessly fond: a batch of Grasshoppers, Pink Squirrels, Banshees, Golden Sleighs or Brandy Alexanders, for example. Then you roll the ball around and shake it for about ten minutes, at which point you refresh the ice/salt and scrape down the sides of the ice cream canister. Seal it back up and play with it for another 5-10 minutes, and your frozen treasure should be ready. You could, I suppose, do this by yourself but it would not be as fun and your arms might fall off, kind of like if you tried to do a 6-minute Ramos Gin Fizz without shaking assistance. Some Grinchy-ass bastards might point out that you accomplish this in the blender in a fraction of the time, but those haters probably also prefer Slice n' Bake cookies and not mixing the Play Doh colors til they look like poo.

The long-awaited Tipsy Texan education & internship program is finally here. Beginning February 16 we will be teaching The History and Practice of Cocktail Mixology, a 12-week intensive academic program covering all aspects of recreational tippling. The course will be led by myself and Lara Nixon (Boxcar Bar). We begin with the origins of alcohol in pre-modern medicine, then travel through cocktail history from the golden age of the 19th century, to the “noble experiment” of Prohibition and its aftermath, finishing with the modern cocktail revival of the last decade. There will be a class on each major category of spirits, with a lecture on the history and styles of the spirit followed by a hands-on discussion and demonstration of cocktails featuring that spirit. Other classes will cover such topics as Molecular Mixology and Garden-to-Glass bartending. Participants in the full course will be treated to field trips, special lectures and workshops covering diverse topics in cocktail mixology and hostpitality. Classes will be taught by the team of Alan and Nixon with numerous special guests. Class size will be limited to twenty students. A limited number of interns will be accepted for enrollment in a specialized independent study track. Descriptions of the internship program follow the jump.

Details:
Registration begins online after January 1, and deadline for full program is February 15, 2010.
Regular classes will be held on Tuesday evenings from 6:00-8:00 at Twin Liquors Marketplace at Hancock Center
Student enrollment fee is $350 for the full course, $250 for members of the United States Bartenders Guild.
For students not seeking program certification, individual classes may be audited for tuition of $35 per class, when space is available.
“Walk-in” registration for single classes may be made up until noon of the class day

For more information email info@tipsytexan.com

Today there is a story in the Austin American-Statesman about how to ring in the New Year with a big bowl of punch. Since I knew that there would be quite a few Austinites and expatriate Longhorns in the Burnt Orange Diaspora who would be in need of a special beverage next week as well, I created a two-birds-with-one-stone Championship Punch. Fun enough for New Year's Eve, but strong enough to fortify our nerves for next week's football game.

Championship Punch
3-4 Tangerines, Meyer Lemons, Oranges, Lemons, mixed
24 oz (about 1 750ml bottle) Flor de Caña 4yr Aged Rum (or other aged rum, such as Mt. Gay or Texas-made Railean)
6 oz fresh squeezed Tangerine juice
6 oz fresh squeezed Meyer Lemon juice*
1/2 cup demerara sugar (or white sugar)
6 oz strong green tea
6-8 dashes Angostura bitters
1 oz St. Elizabeth's Allspice Dram (available at the Austin Wine Merchant and finer liquor stores)
Over a punch bowl or glass pitcher, remove the zests of several tangerines, meyer lemons, oranges or lemons, about 3-4 fruit total. Be careful to remove only the outer zest and not the white pith, which is bitter. Leave the zests in the bowl and add sugar and warm green tea. Stir to dissolve and allow to steep a few minutes. Add rum, fruit juices, bitters, and allspice dram. Strain mixture into a punch bowl. Add a large block of ice, which you can make by freezing water in a Jell-O mold, bunt pan, or half of a paper milk carton. A large block of ice will take several hours to dilute and so will not water down your punch as will regular ice. Makes about 12 4-oz servings.

*If you do not have access to Meyer Lemons, try an equal mixture of regular lemon juice and orange juice