"lenellitall" news and stories

Years ago I worked a bar that only had an ice machine that made soft, mushy pellet ice that was great for sodas, sweet teas and my mint juleps. However, this ice made slushy, watery drinks when shaken, especially with all the excess water that resulted from the pellets sitting in a steel ice bin. I would bring my own bag of cubed ice from the corner gas station to work every day. I never imagined years later, ice would become so controversial.

Now, you can stir your drink with an ice spoon, or pour your highball concoction over prepackaged ice cubes made from purified, distilled water that's supposed to make a clearer ice cube than your tap water in the old fashioned ice tray. Big, clear ice cubes do look good in a glass. You can spend hours at home with distilled water, boiled twice, agitated while freezing to release air trapped inside to make your own clear cubes, but I've not found this very exciting.

Nowadays your top bars may boast about their expensive ice machines such as Kold-Draft or Hoshizaki brands. These machines make square ice cubes measuring more than an inch around that have been touted to make your drink better. Some bars even take these cubes from the ice machine and put them in a deep freezer for "double frozen" ice.

Seattle bartender Evan Martin won $1,250 with his tiki punch that a group of four judges declared as the official cocktail of this year's Tales of the Cocktail July 21-25 event in New Orleans. Over 150 drink recipes were submitted. Who knows whether all 150 recipes were actually created and tasted as often times with these types of competitions a few eye-catching recipes are culled from submissions to make the competition a little easier on the judges.

Judge Jeff "Beachbum" Berry admitted judging so many drinks wasn't easy, saying, "Often it came down to the originality of the garnish..."


The winner dressed itself with a garnish that looked like a guy hanging off of the drink with a cherry head, pineapple leaf arms and citrus peel dangling legs.

By the time you assemble all these ingredients you may want to spear yourself as a garnish.

Find the winning Tales of the Cocktail recipe after the jump...

Have you ever been looking through old recipes and just got dumbfounded with measurement terms such as ponies or jiggers? Or when a recipe calls for a wineglass of a liquor -- what does that mean when you have a cabinet full of various wineglass sizes? Have you ever wondered exactly how much juice is meant when a recipe calls for the juice of one lemon? Never mind the fact that fruit today is often larger than it was a hundred years ago.

Sometimes trying to replicate a dish or drink from a really old book turns problematic when you can't accurately measure ingredients. It can all get even more mind-boggling when you learn that a British fluid ounce contains four-hundredths of an ounce more than the American ounce. What? If a recipe doesn't specify, the term "ounces" is an American measurement. At least we can count on 2 pints in 1 quart no matter whether following British or American measurements. Often the British measurement system is referred to as "imperial." Then the metric system adds even more complication to it all.

The Sazerac Company delighted fans of anise recently by resurrecting the original recipe first used by J. Marion Legendre for Herbsaint. Legendre had learned about absinthe while stationed in France during World War I. The original product was called Legendre Absinthe; however, just months after his product launch back in the 30's, the U.S. Government forced him to remove the word "absinthe" from the label despite the fact that his product contained no wormwood. His cleverness resulted in the moniker "Herbsaint." Soon his slogan "Drink Herbsaint wherever absinthe is called for" was followed by imbibers.

With the absence of absinthe, Herbsaint became the anise flavor in the beloved New Orleans cocktail called the Sazerac, NOLA's official cocktail by legislative decree.

How appropriate that The Sazerac Company bought the brand in 1949. Later in the 50's, the flavor profile changed giving more star anise power; yet, the actual alcohol power was lowered from 100 to 90 proof. Thankfully, the original recipe remained in the archives of Sazerac.

Coming of drinking age during the Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler craze, I don't usually associate elegance with a pre-mixed drink from a bottle. But the last decade has changed some of that, with the movement toward all-natural flavors with no artificial coloring.

Back when I first learned to mix drinks, I would still occasionally grab a bottle of Jose Cuervo margarita mix for a camping trip. This never compared to the freshness of using squeezed limes, but sometimes the convenience of a bottled margarita was just too tempting when you are feeling rushed or just don't want to be bogged own with several different bottles and the accoutrements for making the drinks from scratch. This was back in the day when I didn't pay attention to whether or not the mix had high fructose corn syrup or FD&C Yellow #5. Now with companies like Stirrings, you can grab an all-natural mix and add tequila and feel pretty good about yourself.

Charbay released all-natural aperitifs that are meant to just be poured and drank in flavors of pomegranate and green tea. Like everything this company does, the aperitifs taste fresh and are made with a lot of attention to detail.