Unless otherwise noted, text and photos copyright © 2011 Michael Dietsch. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without prior consent.

Drink of the Week/Month/Year/Whatever: XYZ

Near the end of his Savoy project, Erik Ellestad featured the XYZ cocktail, a daisy/daiquiri/sidecar variant using rum. The drink sounded great to me, and while browsing through the comments, I saw that someone suggested using Banks 5 Island rum as the base.

The original, from the Savoy, calls for lemon juice, Cointreau, and Bacardi. Erik used Clement Creole Shrub in place of the Cointreau. The same person who suggested the Banks, though, also thought that maybe Cointreau or Combier might pair better with Banks because he found the cocktail a little dry.

I happened to have a bottle of Banks 5 Island, provided to me as a free product sample, and I wanted to try it in this cocktail. I love Banks. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a white rum, but it certainly doesn’t taste like one. It has a funky taste you normally expect from a rhum agricole. Banks is actually a blend of rums from five islands: Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, and Indonesia.

Wait. That’s a little misleading. Banks is actually a blend of rums from four islands: Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana, and Barbados. The Indonesian component is not a rum at all: it’s Batavia arrack, a pot-still distillate made of sugarcane. It’s similar to rum but it’s much funkier. It brings a unique character to Banks 5 Island that you can’t find in other white rums.

I find that Banks is great in cocktails. It blends exceptionally well with other ingredients without losing its own character. Unlike most white rums, though, it’s also wonderful sipped on ice or stirred into an old-fashioned.

I wanted to try it in the XYZ, though. I mixed it twice, over successive nights. The first time, I tried it with Creole Shrubb. Like Erik’s commenter Sam, though, I found it a little dry that way. So the next night, I mixed it with Combier and — oh my! — that was lovely.

Unless otherwise noted, text and photos copyright © 2011 Michael Dietsch. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without prior consent.

Odds and Ends

No one ever seems to blog much during Christmas week, and I’m no exception. Just wanted to drop a quick post linking out to a couple of other things I’ve been working on.

The biggest news is that I’m contributing to Serious Eats. I’m writing a weekly column for the next several weeks on basic cocktail techniques. Right now, I’m in the middle of a three-part series on party planning. Parts 1 and 2 are up, along with a recipe for a batched Negroni. Part 3 should be up next week. I still can’t believe people pay me to write about what I love.

I also have a recipe that’s part of a crowded field at Food52, competing for best Hot Toddy recipe. My entry, the Rum Tum Toddy, features baked apple and Smith & Cross rum. I love the drink and hope it has a chance, but we’ll see. Here’s a video of me flaming an orange twist to go atop the toddy. I sloppily managed to drop the twist pith side up, which irritates me, but I didn’t get a smudge of match soot on the peel, which would have vexed me even more. (Yes, that’s a box of wine behind me. Sigh.)

Unless otherwise noted, text and photos copyright © 2011 Michael Dietsch. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without prior consent.

Ads of the week: Pilgrim rum

Trying to get back into the swing of this. I recently came across a blog called Vintage Booze that’s doing the same thing I am, although they’re mostly covering ads from the 1960s onward. I’m interested in tracing brands that have survived to today and those that haven’t, while looking at the way alcohol branding has changed over the decades since Repeal, so I’m taking a deeper view. Besides, a good idea’s a good idea, and it doesn’t bother me that someone else had the same good idea.

Speaking of dead brands, here’s one that really interests me: Pilgrim Rum.

South Boston, Mass. That makes it a 20th-century example of a New England rum. That’s interesting enough by itself. The Felton family apparently started distilling in 1819. Writing in Rum: A Social and Sociable History, Ian Williams notes:

At the end of Prohibition, several companies tried to revive the centuries-old tradition of New England rum. One valiant effort was Pilgrim rum, whose efforts to evoke Yankee history did not work out in the marketplace…. By the modern age, only Felton was left of the New England rums. In 1983, the plant was sold and mothballed, and so ended the tradition.

The building still exists. Renamed The Distillery, it’s now an artists community. There’s a great and thorough history of the building on their website.

Here’s another great example of a defunct brand that I’d really love to try sometime, just because I’m so curious about how it tasted.

(Ads are from 1936-1937 issues of Life magazine.)

Unless otherwise noted, text and photos copyright © 2011 Michael Dietsch. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without prior consent.

Chairman’s Reserve Spiced Rum

My god, Tales didn’t kill me after all.

This rainy weekend saw Jen and me attending a couple of wine and spirit events down in Newport. On Sunday, we attended the Newport Wine Festival–three full tents of wine and spirits to sample. We weren’t too crazy about certain aspects of it, especially the way food was handled, but overall we enjoyed it. We went in part to see our old friend Jim Ryan, late of Dressler restaurant in Brooklyn, and now a brand ambassador for Hendrick’s Gin. I’ve seen Jim a couple of times at Tales of the Cocktail since we left New York, but Jen hadn’t seen him since the last time he sat a cocktail in front of her at the Dressler bar. (Disclaimer: Jim was able to procure tickets for us, so our entry was free. We paid for food and parking.)

(photo by Jennifer Hess)

Jim gave a condensed version of his talk at Tales, when he and Charlotte Voisey gave a presentation on the botanicals in Hendricks gin. Jim discussed the use of spicy elements in the Hendricks botanical base, and spicy ingredients in cocktails. One highlight was the La Luna cocktail, a blend of gin, lime juice, cucumber juice, jalapeno syrup, soda–a delicious drink that I tried in the Botanical session and was happy to see at Newport, because I knew Jen would love it. Jim also had an assistant pass around a tray of botanicals, tins of juniper berries and other spices, alongside vials of the same botanicals in distillate form.

Monday, I flew solo and attended the M.S. Walker Wine Experience, a wine-and-spirits tasting put on by M.S. Walker, a distributor in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. I focused mostly on tasting spirits since I knew there were a few new things I wanted to try. Chief among them was the new spiced offering from Chairman’s Reserve Rum, made by St. Lucia Distillers and imported into the United States by Team Spirits Imports Company. That latter group was repped at the show by its founders David Jones and Clyde Davis, and I had a chance to speak to David at some length about how the spiced is made.

First, I have to say this: I normally hate spiced rum, and David put a finger on why–it’s often overloaded with vanilla. And yes, I’ve found that to be true, but there’s more. I just don’t think the spices make any sense. I can rarely distinguish anything other than clove and maybe nutmeg. And the damn things are always so overly sweetened. Gross.

Chairman’s is taking a different approach. First, the base spirit is the original Chairman’s Reserve, not a “second” gussied up with caramel and vanilla flavoring. Second, they’re using spices and fruits that make sense for St. Lucia–products that are traditionally grown or consumed there. Bitter orange peel. Clove. Ginger. Coconut. Nutmeg. (What you won’t find is the Bois Bande that’s used in bottlings sold in St. Lucia. Its supposed aphrodisiac properties would have made it too hard–fnar, fnar–to pitch to the TTB.)

Man, I really loved this stuff. I told David it was like sipping a well-made rum old-fashioned. Or, even truer, sipping a pseudo-OF. One thing I sometimes enjoy is using a small bit of liqueur or other sweetening agent in place of sugar (or simple syrup) in an OF. So I’ll sometimes take 3 oz. of a good sipping rum, splash in about a teaspoon of Allspice (Pimento) Dram, and dash on some bitters. The Chairman’s reminded me a lot of that.

Now, the Team Spirits guys had the Chairman’s Spiced at Tales, from what I’ve heard, but the one time I saw it was in a Tasting Room, and their table was always so mobbed I couldn’t get close to it. Everyone there seemed to love it, too.

Look for Chairman’s Reserve Spiced Rum to come to market in September.

Unless otherwise noted, text and photos copyright © 2011 Michael Dietsch. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without prior consent.

Bacardi Ad: The Outsider

Number 4 in Bacardi’s series of short films/long ads has hit YouTube this morning. In the interest of disclosure, Think Espionage, the agency that produced these films, invited me to attend the premiere at Tales of the Cocktail on Thursday afternoon, while munching on tasty treats and sipping a Cuba Libre mixed by Bacardi Global Ambassador David Cordoba. Disclaimer aside, I enjoy the hell out of this ad. Filmed at a real bar in London (though the speakeasy front is a fiction), the film differs from the previous three in that it stars an actual bartender, Nicolas Saint-Jean.

[Click through to watch large, in HD.]

I expect this one to spark some comments and maybe a little snark. Bring it on.

Unless otherwise noted, text and photos copyright © 2011 Michael Dietsch. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without prior consent.

Bacardi ad: The Apothecary

Finally, the third in a series of short films (or long ads) by Bacardi. In this installment, our intrepid traveler enters a bar in what’s probably London. As with The Samurai and The Hummingbird videos, this film highlights bartending technique and skill. Take a look.

[As before, click through to watch large, in HD.]

Again, I want to point out some of the tools I covet. The handled jigger is awesome, but what I really love is the metal straw.

The firm that put these together, Think Espionage, is running a contest for the most original spin on a Mojito. The prizes are sweet: a first edition copy of the Savoy Cocktail Book (signed by Harry Craddock), a Yarai mixing glass, and a Japanese barspoon. To enter, though, you’ll need to be on Facebook. Go to the True Originals fan page and enter by posting your recipe on the wall. (If you’re not on Facebook, you can leave the recipe in the comments on this post. I’ll make sure it gets to Liana at Think Espionage.

Think Espionage is working right now on a fourth video, and I’ll have more details on that soon.

[In the interest of full disclosure: Shortly after the first video appeared here, Liana sent me a bottle of Bacardi's limited edition release of its original 44.5% ABV formula rum, which I quite enjoyed, especially in a classic daiquiri.]

Unless otherwise noted, text and photos copyright © 2011 Michael Dietsch. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without prior consent.

Ad of the week: Dagger!

Sorry I missed last week; a combination of real-life duties and a bad cold took me out of commission. But I’m back this week with a look at a vanished rum brand: Dagger. A product of J. Wray and Nephew, Dagger is sadly defunct. I say “sadly” because a fellow member of the Cocktail and Spirits Online Writers Gang managed to dig up a bottle and mixed it into Mai Tais, and it sounds fantastic. Hat tip to you, Tiare. Click over if you want to see what the bottle looked like in color.

Anyway, here’s a collection of Dagger ads from 1930s-era Life magazine. Enjoy!

Unless otherwise noted, text and photos copyright © 2011 Michael Dietsch. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without prior consent.

Winter 2009/2010 column is online

[Click to read onscreen. Many thanks, as always, to Chip Riegel for making the drinks look so damn good.]

Unless otherwise noted, text and photos copyright © 2011 Michael Dietsch. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without prior consent.

Bacardi ad: The Hummingbird

Back in mid-November, I linked out to the first in a series of “mini-movies” showcasing bartenders and Bacardi rum. “The Samurai” featured a Japanese bartender making a daiquiri cocktail for a mysterious gentleman. I mentioned that two more such videos had been produced and promised to link out to them when they were available.

The second video, the Hummingbird, is now up on YouTube, and it’s worth watching.

[As before, click through to YouTube to watch it in large HD.]

Again, I don’t think it’s practical to crack open a coconut in a busy nightclub, but it sure looks cool, doesn’t it?

I can’t tell for certain, but it sounds like the voice actor might have been recast. The actor who plays the bartender (who, if I may, is dead-sexy) was trained by Bacardi Global Ambassador David Cordoba. Her technique is great to watch, and I covet her barspoon.

Unless otherwise noted, text and photos copyright © 2011 Michael Dietsch. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without prior consent.

Bacardi viral ads

Last week, I was catching up on my RSS feeds, when I saw a post by Helmut Adam, of the German magazine Mixology, about a series of viral ads the Bacardi company is running. The series begins with an ad called “The Samurai” (running time: 1m:59s). A man enters a Japanese bar, while a voiceover tells us, “There’s only one bartender in the world that I’d have mix me this drink. He’s so in tune with his surroundings, he knows your drink before you do.” The man approaches the bartender, who bows slightly and says only, “Daiquiri?” The man nods.

Now, watch the video and pay attention to the bartender’s tools and his technique. Both are, from what I’ve recently learned, common among the best Japanese bartenders. But just watch. We’ll talk more when you’re done:

[or click, to watch it in large HD video]

Look at those beautiful bar tools! The beaker-shaped mixing glass, the tall jigger, the spoon with the fork at the end. Lovely. (And by the way, you can buy this stuff at my friend Greg Boehm’s website, Cocktail Kingdom.) Watch how gracefully but precisely he mixes the drink. Lovely. That’s just the kind of bartender I could watch all day. And yet, he’s an actor, trained by bartender Marian Beke of London.

London, by the way, is the source of this ad, which was created by a marketing firm called Think Espionage. And if you’ve fully read Helmut’s blog post by now, you’ll know there are two more of these videos on the way. Now, I enjoyed the first enough that when I read that, I was intrigued and wanted to see them all. To my surprise, the very next day, I received a nice e-mail from a Think Espionage employee named Liana Wilson-Fricker. She described the purpose of these videos and offered to send me links and passwords to watch the next two. Liana told me the same thing she wrote to Helmut:

To give it a bit of context, they aren’t ads but pieces of film content aimed at and created for the world’s top bartenders. It’s about celebrating the unique skills that each bartender at the top of the game possess.

Now that I’ve seen the other videos, I don’t think Liana’s bullshitting me. I mean, obviously, the videos are about promoting the Bacardi brand, front and center. But once you accept that, it’s easy to see that Bacardi and Think Espionage chose to do so in a way that also highlights the skills of great bartenders. In video 2, “The Hummingbird” (1:48), the man enters a busy club. A bartender nods at him and without speaking, puts ice into a glass to chill. She slices and chunks fresh pineapple, straight from the fruit and drops that into a mixing tin with sugar. She muddles that and then (get the fuck out) hacks into a fresh coconut and pours its juice into the tin. (Helmut’s right; this just wouldn’t happen at a busy club, but it’s so damn cool to watch, I’m happy to suspend disbelief.) On goes rum, then ice. She shakes the drink and straw-tastes it before double-straining it into a chilled glass with a slice of pineapple. (Liana told Helmut that the actor was trained by Bacardi Global Ambassador David Cordoba.)

Video 3, “The Apothecary” (2:12) is set in a bar similar to PDT or Milk and Honey. As the camera pans the room, you see a shelf of vintage cocktail manuals. (I saw an old copy of the Savoy and the Esquire Handbook for Hosts, but I can’t place the rest. And one of the volumes isn’t even a cocktail manual, so I assume there’s other “filler” there.) Then you see jars of spices before the camera settles on a bartender grinding spices with a mortar and pestle. The man asks the bartender to surprise him, at which point the bartender brings out trays of fresh herbs. As he works, you see flashbacks of the bartender smelling herbs, tasting tinctures, and taking notes. He pulls down a jar of eucalyptus-infused sugar and then muddles it with mint and lemon verbena. Then ice, rum, and a splash of soda.

It’s only in this final video that you clearly see the Bacardi marque and logo. In the first two, you can make out that the bartenders are pouring from bottles of Bacardi, if you pay attention, and when The Samurai video hit the web, viewers figured out this was some sort of Bacardi viral even before Think Espionage confirmed it. That seems to be the hallmark of a successful campaign: you can figure out the source if you choose to. I think Bacardi and TE have succeeded in two ways here; one, they’re getting people talking about the brand. I don’t even normally like Bacardi, but here I am anyway. And that’s specifically because they chose to highlight good bartending and found a way to convey the skills and talents of good bartenders.

When the Hummingbird and Apothecary videos are publicly available, I’ll link out to them. They’re fun to watch.