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Jul. 23rd, 2008 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasA week ago, about, I posted my notes for the first panel I attended at Tales. Then the rest of Tales happened, and I had other things to do than be on the computer. So I'm now, finally, getting around to typing up my notes from the rest of Tales, and sharing it with you.
I'm also fighting off a mild cold, but, fortunately, as a bartender, I know what to do about that: whiskey, lemon juice, honey, ginger syrup, and boiling water. If it doesn't make you feel better (and, usually, it will), it will at least make you mind being sick less.
Come to think of it, why doesn't anyone actually make a cold medication that is based on that? The main problem that that style of drink tends to have is not enough bitters to balance out the other flavors. But acetaminophen, psudoephedrine, and the rest are all bitter. It should be possible to balance the active ingredients with those other ingredients and have a cold medication that's worth drinking.
'Course, there's the "moral hazard" argument: make the cold medicine tasty, and people will just go out and get sick. . .
Anyway, right, the panel.
The second panel I went to was called "Researching Cocktails and Collecting Cocktail Books." If you think there was ANY way you could keep Lis OR me away from a panel with that title, well, then you don't know us very well.<
The panelists were Jack Robertiello, a food and drink writer and occasional blogger, Jeffrey Pogash, a spirits writer and a brand ambassador for Hennessey, Jonathan Pogash, a mixologist and cocktail consultant in New York City, and the son of Jeffrey Pogash, Gregory Boehm, of Mudpuddle Books, which publishes facsimile editions of vintage cocktail books, and Brian Rea, who doesn't have a website I could find, and isn't any of the Brian Rea's who DO have websites.
Mr Rea introduced himself as "an 81-year-old unemployed bartender", but I swear, he doesn't look a day over 79. He's been a bartender since 1947, and, along the way, developed the the modern position of Beverage Manager -- before him, the duties of a Beverage Manager were spread out among lead bartenders, chefs, matre d's, hotel managers, owners, and so forth. He's the guy who really figured out exactly what needs to be done on the back end to make alcohol service work, and formalized it into a single job description. He also has the world's best collection of vintage cocktail books, ephemera, knick-knacks, and so forth.
The younger Pogash moderated the first half, and Mr Rea took over for the second half.
Jonathan started by talking about why he researches cocktails. For him, he's a cocktail consultant, so his job is to create menus for venues and events. So he uses them to get ideas to showcase specific liquors or liqueurs, to match with a theme, or to have things that are unique to a specific location. And he finds that researching old stuff helps give him inspiration. They help him figure out ideas for, besides spirits-based cocktails, also wine-based ones (including ones based on fortified wines, like port), and non-alcoholic "mocktails".
Some places that he looks to get ideas to research are old cocktail books (a big part of the whole process, which is why stuck both halves of the panel together), also old cook books and housekeeping books (like Mrs Beeton's), which often included sections on alcoholic drinks. And then you should also keep up with what other people are doing now -- look at current cocktail books and magazines, and visit other bars and restaurants to see what they're doing and use their ideas to spark your own ideas.
The panel then started discussing what to do with recipes that involve unavailable ingredients -- things that were made a hundred years ago, but aren't now, or are just hard to find. Brian said to just do the best with what you have behind the bar -- and if the lack of an ingredient makes a recipe impossible, research a different recipe. Jeffery said that you can often approximate and guess, and that, nowadays, a lot of the obscure stuff is available online. Also, he gets his orgeat syrup from his mother-in-law, which wasn't so helpful for the rest of us -- but he also said that you can get elderflower syrup at Indian grocery stores. Someone else said that Ikea actually often sells it, too, next to the frozen meatballs.
Jack said to be aware of regional differences. He said there was an ingredient which you could only get in Southern California, which I wrote down as "figoon", but I don't know if that's correct. It involved figs, somehow. He also mentioned that being aware of regional differences was important just in general -- there are parts of the upper Midwest United States, for instance, in which Manhattans are usually made with brandy, not whiskey.
Gregory seconded the mention of using the Internet to find stuff, and said that it's also possible to make stuff.
Brian mentioned that there are drink databases on the Internet, of totally unreliable quality. "It's overwhelming. It'll drive you to drink. . . thank God."
That was echoed by the rest of the panel -- no quality control on the Internet, but you can get inspiration. And you can find specific people who's knowledge you trust.
Then Brian took over for his half of the presentation, and my notes get real sketchy. He's a fantastic speaker, and I just sat there spellbound listening to him. Looking back over my notes, I found that the same thing happened at the other panels he was on, too . . .
His presentation was mainly a slide show of things from his collection, and I have a few scribbled notes, filling up less than half a page. He showed photos of his collection of books. He showed a couple slides of just pages from his catalog of books -- just the database printout. He used to collect HO scale train bar cars -- dining cars with bars in them. And HO scale liquor tankers.
Basically, I was drooling through his presentation too much to take many notes.
I'm also fighting off a mild cold, but, fortunately, as a bartender, I know what to do about that: whiskey, lemon juice, honey, ginger syrup, and boiling water. If it doesn't make you feel better (and, usually, it will), it will at least make you mind being sick less.
Come to think of it, why doesn't anyone actually make a cold medication that is based on that? The main problem that that style of drink tends to have is not enough bitters to balance out the other flavors. But acetaminophen, psudoephedrine, and the rest are all bitter. It should be possible to balance the active ingredients with those other ingredients and have a cold medication that's worth drinking.
'Course, there's the "moral hazard" argument: make the cold medicine tasty, and people will just go out and get sick. . .
Anyway, right, the panel.
The second panel I went to was called "Researching Cocktails and Collecting Cocktail Books." If you think there was ANY way you could keep Lis OR me away from a panel with that title, well, then you don't know us very well.<
The panelists were Jack Robertiello, a food and drink writer and occasional blogger, Jeffrey Pogash, a spirits writer and a brand ambassador for Hennessey, Jonathan Pogash, a mixologist and cocktail consultant in New York City, and the son of Jeffrey Pogash, Gregory Boehm, of Mudpuddle Books, which publishes facsimile editions of vintage cocktail books, and Brian Rea, who doesn't have a website I could find, and isn't any of the Brian Rea's who DO have websites.
Mr Rea introduced himself as "an 81-year-old unemployed bartender", but I swear, he doesn't look a day over 79. He's been a bartender since 1947, and, along the way, developed the the modern position of Beverage Manager -- before him, the duties of a Beverage Manager were spread out among lead bartenders, chefs, matre d's, hotel managers, owners, and so forth. He's the guy who really figured out exactly what needs to be done on the back end to make alcohol service work, and formalized it into a single job description. He also has the world's best collection of vintage cocktail books, ephemera, knick-knacks, and so forth.
The younger Pogash moderated the first half, and Mr Rea took over for the second half.
Jonathan started by talking about why he researches cocktails. For him, he's a cocktail consultant, so his job is to create menus for venues and events. So he uses them to get ideas to showcase specific liquors or liqueurs, to match with a theme, or to have things that are unique to a specific location. And he finds that researching old stuff helps give him inspiration. They help him figure out ideas for, besides spirits-based cocktails, also wine-based ones (including ones based on fortified wines, like port), and non-alcoholic "mocktails".
Some places that he looks to get ideas to research are old cocktail books (a big part of the whole process, which is why stuck both halves of the panel together), also old cook books and housekeeping books (like Mrs Beeton's), which often included sections on alcoholic drinks. And then you should also keep up with what other people are doing now -- look at current cocktail books and magazines, and visit other bars and restaurants to see what they're doing and use their ideas to spark your own ideas.
The panel then started discussing what to do with recipes that involve unavailable ingredients -- things that were made a hundred years ago, but aren't now, or are just hard to find. Brian said to just do the best with what you have behind the bar -- and if the lack of an ingredient makes a recipe impossible, research a different recipe. Jeffery said that you can often approximate and guess, and that, nowadays, a lot of the obscure stuff is available online. Also, he gets his orgeat syrup from his mother-in-law, which wasn't so helpful for the rest of us -- but he also said that you can get elderflower syrup at Indian grocery stores. Someone else said that Ikea actually often sells it, too, next to the frozen meatballs.
Jack said to be aware of regional differences. He said there was an ingredient which you could only get in Southern California, which I wrote down as "figoon", but I don't know if that's correct. It involved figs, somehow. He also mentioned that being aware of regional differences was important just in general -- there are parts of the upper Midwest United States, for instance, in which Manhattans are usually made with brandy, not whiskey.
Gregory seconded the mention of using the Internet to find stuff, and said that it's also possible to make stuff.
Brian mentioned that there are drink databases on the Internet, of totally unreliable quality. "It's overwhelming. It'll drive you to drink. . . thank God."
That was echoed by the rest of the panel -- no quality control on the Internet, but you can get inspiration. And you can find specific people who's knowledge you trust.
Then Brian took over for his half of the presentation, and my notes get real sketchy. He's a fantastic speaker, and I just sat there spellbound listening to him. Looking back over my notes, I found that the same thing happened at the other panels he was on, too . . .
His presentation was mainly a slide show of things from his collection, and I have a few scribbled notes, filling up less than half a page. He showed photos of his collection of books. He showed a couple slides of just pages from his catalog of books -- just the database printout. He used to collect HO scale train bar cars -- dining cars with bars in them. And HO scale liquor tankers.
Basically, I was drooling through his presentation too much to take many notes.