(Note: The Statesman has been good to me personally and professionally over the years and I don't mean to imply otherwise in the tirade you are about to read. But the article that this letter is written in response to has no business in the pages of Austin's most influential media outlet)
Today this article appeared in the print and online versions of the Austin American-Statesman. The Statesman has never been much on covering the trending topics in cocktails and spirits, but has made some strides in recent months with Emma Janzen's well written piece on Mezcal (though for some reason the Statesman editors insisted the spirit be spelled "Mescal", in spite of its more common spelling with a "z"); Beth Goulart's piece just yesterday on Punch; and the tremendously ambitious Austin 360 Cocktail Database that they launched last month, in which they graciously allowed me to blab on for minutes on end in a series of cocktail instructional videos. Whereas the Statesman usually takes the approach of simply omitting cocktail coverage (such as their review of Annie's on Congress, in which my award-winning bar program completely escaped mention), they have taken the bizarre step today of publishing a hackishly written slam piece that would be more appropriate for a high schooler's or insufficiently talented college kid's blog.
Not only is the piece horribly written, it insults a community of bartenders who have made enormous progress in the last few years, quite literally putting Austin on the map. This week, three industry luminaries of national and international renown were in Austin: Charlotte Voisey, who was in town training the staff at the W; Raj Nagra, who was here to announce that Austin is a qualifying city for the 2011 Cocktail World Cup; and David Nepove, who is the president of the United States Bartenders Guild, and who was in town addressing our local chapter. It causes me considerable pain to think that before these individuals boarded their planes today, they could have picked up a copy of Austin 360 and read this hateful piece, exposing how poorly at least some members of our local media community think of all that we have accomplished.
I attempted to leave a very long comment explaining all of the things wrong with this piece (though a full report would have been longer than the actual article), but was thwarted a by a character limit on that site. I encourage anyone who takes cocktails seriously to comment on the Statesman article and to email the paper's editors demanding that they start taking this subject seriously, and stop leaving coverage of it in the hands of people who know no more about the topic than the paper's readers do, who come to such articles seeking informed coverage. Other than the piece I wrote two years ago, and the recent Mez(s)cal piece, I cannot recall a single article about cocktails, bars, or spirits that was written by someone with more than superficial training in this area.
The full text of the comment I wanted to post at Statesman follows the jump (Note: Comments cannot be posted on Tipsy Texan at this time due to a glitch that we can't figure out, but any comments are appreciated via email, info at this url):
Cocktail mixology is a uniquely American cuisine and was the first culinary export of this fledgling nation to the world. It is a trade with hundreds of years of heritage. You insult both this heritage and its practitioners here.
As a founding officer of the Austin chapter of the United States Bartender's Guild, and as its current president, I take issue with this article, in more ways than I can enumerate in the comments section, but here is a start:
1) This article appears to confuse the "latest cocktail craze" and the "cocktail rebellion" with cocktails that are simply bad. Both of these things exist, but they are not the same. Any cocktail that requires the use of a toothpick afterward is a poorly made cocktail, as is anything that is “mildewed” or that tastes like “watered-down Jagermeister”. To lump in a badly made cocktail with a movement that celebrates excellence in cocktails is to expose a profound ignorance of the nuances of this subject.
2) It seems that there is some confusion between the "latest cocktail craze", in which we see a return to craft techniques and quality ingredients, with the PREVIOUS cocktail craze, which was the Cocktail-as-Martini craze of the late 1990s, in which an assortment of ingredients served up in a conical stemmed glass was called a "martini", and which tragically lives on at two of the recommended spots in this article. We are encouraged here to "snub" this craze and pursue something simple, like a plain old Martini or a Manhattan. The point this author fails to recognize is that the "rebellion" she speaks of (it is more appropriately called a "revival" or a "renaissance") is about exactly that--a return to a simply and elegantly made classic cocktail, such as the traditional Martini.
3) This article contradicts itself. It says to snub the complicated cocktails and go for something simple, then praises the "frou-frou martinis" at both Trifecta and Brown.
4) I don't get the impression that this writer has the credentials to recognize a well-made cocktail. She says that Brown Bar “specializes in martinis”, and then describes the 007 as the “most classic” on the list. A classic Martini is made with Gin and Vermouth, or maybe Vodka, and sometimes orange bitters. But the lemony, not-cold-enough mix mentioned here, while it may taste fine, is not “classic” at all. The Manhattan from Clive is featured here, including a picture of it in the article. I love Clive, I drink beer and whiskey there often, it has a great atmosphere and they are courteous, quick, and professional--but I would not order a classic cocktail there. Though a cocktail may taste great in this author's opinion, if someone doesn't know the objective standards upon which a classic cocktail should be judged, that person is not qualified to pronounce it great. It is the difference between Food Bloggers and Food Critics. If this was an op-ed piece or a personal blog post, then that would be appropriate, but not in a piece presented as journalism in a respected news outlet such as this one.
5) The biggest thing happening in the culinary arts right now, second only the Farm-to-Plate movement, is cocktails. It is one thing to dislike artfully prepared drinks and to favor something simple. That is a drinker’s prerogative. (I think this author might be surprised to find out that most craft cocktail bartenders, such as myself and the members of the organization that I am honored to lead in Austin, prefer to drink simple drinks most of the time. We have a few cocktails to be sure, but are just as likely to kick back with a beer or a glass of neat spirits.) It is another thing entirely to imply, as this article does, that “something’s missing” from the art and craft that we have devoted our professional lives to fine-tuning. There is something missing—it is this author’s knowledge of the subject matter at hand.
The uninformed arrogance of this piece reflects a tremendous disrespect for this movement and all of the great strides this community has made in the last few years, and also shows how profoundly out of touch this institution is with one of the biggest movements in gastronomy in decades.
Respectfully,
David Alan
USBG Austin, President
TipsyTech.net
TipsyTexan.com
