20070930

Rare whisky goes for $59,200

Every so often, it seems, a record is set for the price of a bottle of rare whisky.

The latest is $59,200, which a 157-year-old bottle of Bowmore single malt fetched at McTear's auctioneers in Glasgow, Scotland, on Friday. The winning bid was anonymous, and made by telephone.

The whisky was being offered by a private party. It is the oldest known bottle of Bowmore in existence. The distillery was involved in the bidding because it wanted to put the bottle on display at its new visitors center on the island of Islay.

The existence of the bottle has long been known. It was given in 1851 by the distillery's new owners to William Mutter who, with his twin, James, had founded the company. You'll note in the photo that part of the cork has dropped into the bottle, although the whisky has not been exposed to air.

Among huge whisky auction prices in recent times, a bottle of Glenavon Special Liqueur Whisky from the 1850s sold at auction in London for $30,274 last year.

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20070926

What will they think of next? (October edition)

Posh hotels need posh drinks. The ones you can duplicate at home are the best, so this month's collection of cocktails concentrates on that.


The glitzy 50-seat Seasons Bar at the Four Seasons hotel in in San Francisco (757 Market St., overlooking Union Square) has a raft of special drinks. This is its signature one:

Frost Bite: Made with Ciroc vodka, Inniskillin ice wine and white grape juice; you'll have to fiddle around a bit with the proportions to suit your taste. It comes with frozen grapes on the side.


The next one comes from the Fontana Bar at the Bellagio Resort & Casino in Las Vegas:

Autumn Dawn:
1 1/2 ounces Starbucks Cream Liqueur
1 1/2 ounces Grand Marnier
1/2 ounce DaVinci Pumpkin pie syrup
2 ounces freshly brewed chai tea (cooled)
Gingersnap crumbs
Cinnamon stick wrapped with orange peel spiral for garnish

Combine the Starbucks Cream Liqueur, Grand Marnier, pumpkin-pie syrup and chai tea in an ice-filled shaker. Shake, strain into a chilled cocktail glass rimmed with gingersnap crumbs. Garnish and serve.


And, this one from the Athaneum in London:

Apples and Pears:
Wyborowa Apple Vodka
Pear Liqueur
Lemon juice
Jonagold Apple Juice
Pear Puree

Combine to suit your own tastes, shake with ice, strain and pour into a chilled cocktail glass.

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Polish 'bargain' vodka hits U.S.

William M. Dowd photo

In an industry enthralled with premium-priced vodkas, Sobieski is looking to find a niche at the other end of the scale.

The vodka, named for Poland's King Jan III Sobieski (1629-1696), is made from Dankowski rye at a distillery dating to 1846. It will go on scale nationwide this fall at suggested retail prices of $10.99 for a 750ml bottle and $19.99 for a 1.75 liter bottle.

Speaking of the bottle, the fact that this vodka is packaged in a plastic bottle certainly helps with cost containment.

"It's time vodka drinkers knew the truth about vodka," said Chester Brandes, head of Imperial Brands Inc. which is the sole
importer of Sobieski Vodka.

"Consumers are spending between $30 to $60 a bottle for so-called super-premium vodkas. In essence, they are paying for fancy packaging and bloated marketing costs. It's time to get back to basics with an honest, premium vodka at a price that won't make consumers' heads swim."

Sobieski is entering an extremely crowded market. Last year alone, 60 brands of vodka were introduced, according to Adams Beverage Group which tracks industry activity.

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20070921

New Crown Royal has a touch of cognac

Crown Royal, furthering an emerging trend in the whisky distilling industry, has unveiled a new twist to its line of Canadian whiskies: Crown Royal Cask No. 16.

It's an ultra-premium whisky with a cognac finish. The distiller's master blender uses more than 50 different individually aged whiskies. All casks used in the making of Crown Royal Cask No. 16 are stamped “16” to mark their authenticity and place of origin. The blend then is aged in used Limousin oak casks that had held cognac.

More and more, we are seeing instances of finishing whiskies in used cognac or wine barrels, just as we are seeing some high-end wines being aged in used bourbon and whiskey barrels, creating a marriage of nuances that has created a whole new line of tastes.

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'Spirits of Mexico' competition results are in

Twenty-six entries earned gold medals from the judges in the first Spirits of Mexico Tasting Competition.

The event, held in San Diego, was organized by Dori Bryant of Polished Palate and drew 61 pure agaves -- 55 tequilas and six mezcals.

Best of Category awards went to:

Blancos/Silvers/Platinos: Milagro Tequila.
Reposados: Tequila Chaya.
Añejos: (tie) Chaya and El Agave Artesanal.
Extra Añjeos: Don Julio 1942.

Go here for a full list of awards winners.

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20070920

Washington state finally gets grain distillery

The state of Washington has gotten its first grain distillery since Prohibition.

Dry Fly Distilling, which plans to produce 5,000 total cases of vodka, gin and whiskey a year, is located in Spokane. Co-owners Don Poffenroth and Kent Fleischmann purchased a still from Christian Carl, the German manufacturer of all sorts and sizes of distilling equipment. The name of the enterprise comes from the partners' love of fly fishing.

Its products will retail for about $30 per 750ml bottle. The target for vodka and gin is October, with whiskey being distilled by 2009.

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20070918

Bacardi adds to flavor lineup

As if liquor stores don't have enough trouble trying to find shelf space for the numerous flavorod vodkas, rum distillers are demanding room, too.

The latest new flavor is from Bacardi. It's called Bacardi Peach Red, which brings to seven the number of rums in its line.

The 70-proof rum has a suggested retail price of $13.99 for the 750ml bottle, but also will be available to the market in 50ml, 200ml, 375ml, 1-litre and 1.75-litre sizes.

The other Bacardi flavored rums are Bacardi Limon, Bacardi O, Bacardi Coco, Bacardi Razz, Bacardi Big Apple and Bacardi Grand Melon.

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20070917

Tokyo expands its empire

A mere four months after what New York magazine refers to as "a renegade band of Angel’s Share bartenders" opened B Flat, their own cocktail lounge in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood, they're expanding.

The growth spurt encompasses a stree-level cafe called Tokyo Bar, as opposed to the sub-sidewalk location of B Flat. The walls and ceilings of the cafe at 277 Church Street (212-966-2787) are decorated with Japanese comic art, and the menu is referred to as Japanese comfort food.

But what of the drinks, which is what these entrepreneurs specialize in?

Think sake, shochu (a sweet potato vodka) plus such things as roasted chestnut coffee and a lengthy cocktail menu of alcoholic and non-alcoholic offerings (Safe Sex on the Beach is one of the latter).

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20070916

The latest word on absinthe, again

• One of the quirky debates in the world of spirits here in the U.S. these days is whether absinthe is legal. The legendary European spirit has long been banned if it contains more than 10% of the chemical known as thujones. Some had believed that most of the "lethal" absinthes did conform to the under-10% ceiling but testing the claim was difficult. So, for all practical purposes, absinthe was banned. Now that better testing is possible, however, absinthe is showing up in a few markets. Since this topic has been getting a bit more display online these days, it prompted me to re-publish the following column of mine that first appeared in print 3½ years ago.

As his charcoal stick danced across the cloth napkin, capturing the slants and curves of the nightclub dancers and their lusty followers, the little man in the bowler hat began working faster and faster.

His vivid portraits of freewheeling café life leapt off the impromptu canvas, at once bold and graceful, revealing and enigmatic, acting as a guide for his later versions done in colorful oils.

A body of work fueled by a creative fire, of course, but perhaps just as much by frequent sips of the pale green liquid ever present on his table.

Such is the legend of the tragic 19th century artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (seen above), portrayed as a brilliant artist but a tortured alcoholic in several "Moulin Rouge" films and countless biographies.

While the work of Lautrec (1864-1901) lives on, his drink of choice -- absinthe -- receded into dim memory after it was banned throughout much of Europe and the United States around the time of World War I.

Absinthe, an herb-infused alcohol that began as a medicine, had been blamed for bad judgment, poor health, even outright madness. Nevertheless, it was the drink beloved of 19th century Parisian cafe society, enjoyed by such writers and artists as Baudelaire, Lautrec, Picasso, Degas and Manet. In fact, in those times the cocktail hour was referred to as l'heure verte -- the Green Hour -- in honor of absinthe.

There are those who theorize that the anti-absinthe forces were funded by the wine industry, which was losing ground in the marketplace to la Fee Verte, the "Green Fairy," as the drink was known. Any link, no matter how tenuous, between evildoers and absinthe was loudly proclaimed until enough of the public grew fearful of its continued availability to demand a ban.

Absinthe began its comeback several years ago in England, where entrepreneurs discovered no legal ban remained in effect prohibiting sale or consumption of absinthe. Its availability has spread to neighboring countries and even to the U.S., although consumption here is limited by the federal government's guidelines against the original-strength version.

Ted Breaux, a New Orleans chemist and microbiologist, has replicated the recipe used by Edouard Pernod for the premier absinthe of that Parisian heyday. According to the chemistry newsletter from England's Oxford University, "Breaux has spent seven years studying absinthe ... (He) owns two bottles of century-old premium Pernod's, which greatly facilitated his efforts. Breaux's absinthe, soon to be commercialized outside of the U.S., is believed by many to be the finest the world has seen since 1915."

Absinthe is made by steeping dried herbs in ethyl alcohol, then distilling the liquor. The main herbs are nothing unusual -- anise and star anise, peppermint, wormwood, fennel, perhaps a few others, depending upon which recipe one prefers. Wormwood is the catalyst for a chemical change during the process that, combined with the very high alcohol content (usually in excess of 150 proof, or 75 percent), gives the drink its potency through release of the chemical thujone.

Absinthe today is manufactured primarily in Spain, the Czech Republic and France, the latter on a very limited basis. It also is a popular bootleg product in Switzerland, with an estimated 15,000 gallons turned out annually, virtually all for domestic consumption.

Hill's Absinthe, Deva Absenta and Pernod-Ricard, the great-granddaddy of them all, are the major brands. Although technically above the permissible U.S. strength, they are not impossible to buy domestically in very limited quantities. If you can't find them locally, you can always try ordering them through your favorite liquor store, or through an online source.

A no-strings-attached modern American version of absinthe is Absente, priced at about $40 and testing out at a comparatively moderate -- by absinthe standards -- 110 proof. It's also referred to as petite absinthe because of its lowered potency.

The federal government frowns on the original strength absinthe because it contains a high level of thujone. Thujone is believed to be the culprit in the bad things one hears about absinthe, although historically much of the mayhem and madness blamed on it doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

Wormwood itself is not inherently bad. It has been used as a medicine for stomach ailments and as an herbal dietary supplement. Its medicinal uses crop up regularly in the Bible. The problem comes with the concentration ingested.

The Absente brand maintains the distinctive flavor by using the milder southern wormwood, which has a much lower thujone content than the 10 parts per million maximum dictated by federal law. In its heyday, original-style absinthe measured in the range of 30 or more.

Whether excessive consumption of absinthe produces murderous rages, melancholy ruminations or just a mild dysphoria remains up for debate. Even one of its most ardent admirers, the Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), was ambivalent on the subject. As he wrote on two different occasions:

"A glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world. What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?"

And:

"After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world."

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20070914

Long Island vodka distillers to double ...

... all the way to two.

Since the much-lamented (at least by me) Peconika company that used Long Island potatoes but was distilled in New Jersey shut down its short-lived operation in 2005, only Hamptons Vodka has been made with local materials. It uses 20% local potatoes, but is distilled in the Midwest.

Now, a restored barn is being converted into the North Fork's first modern vodka distillery (seen here), called Long Island Spirits. It also will be the first company to actually make its products on the island. Co-owners Richard Stabile and Dan Pollicino hope to eventually have production tours and a tasting room.

Their first product is called LiV (for Long Island vodka), and rhymes with five. It will be made with a combination of local Marcy potatoes and upstate winter wheat. They're targeting a January retail store debut, offering both 750ml and 1L sizes.

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20070909

Adirondacks meets Vegas in a glass

PHOTOS BY WILLIAM M. DOWD
(Double-click to enlarge images)


CHARLIE'S RESTAURANT ON MAIN STREET, HOME OF T-BAR.

LAKE PLACID, NY -- Charlie Levitz has been working in this Olympian tourist spot for more than two decades. It's a mere 2½-hour drive from his hometown of Albany, but it's worlds away when it comes to the hospitality industry.

Levitz has cooked at or owned and cooked at a variety of spots here in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains, but his latest incarnation -- a four-pronged one -- may be the one that brings him more than regional fame.

Count 'em. He's the owner/overseer of the kitchens at both Charlie's and Chair 6 restaurants, he runs the region's largest catering operation, and he's the man who imported one of America's top cocktail impressarios to train his staff at T-Bar, located in Charlie's, in the right way to create drinks and memories for both locals and the pass-through tourist crowd.

That trainer was Tony Abou-Ganim, whose passion for cocktails combining top-shelf spirits, fresh fruits and clever ideas has made him a guru among the members of the cocktail set nationwide. Abou-Ganim, who is based in Las Vegas, has a touch of the Vegas performer in his drink preparations and serving showmanship. Some of that has been transmitted to the T-Bar staff.

In fact, the word is beginning to get around about T-Bar. Santé, the hospitality industry magazine, has just released its annual restaurant awards and T-Bar was given a regional award in the restaurant bar category.

I visited Levitz (right) and his staff at T-Bar, the Main Street lounge he opened nine months ago in space once occupied by Goldberries. The decor combines Adirondack rusticity in its carved wooden beams with some hip modern touches, such as the tortoise shelled acrylic bar, lit from beneath to create a warm, inviting glow.

But the most inviting thing about T-Bar is the cocktail menu: Only fresh fruits, juices and purees, house-infused vodkas served in infusion jars, cocktails whose recipes take advantage of seasonal ingredients, complemented by a special grill menu served only at the bar. There's a separate upscale menu for Charlie's, the 200-seat restaurant that surrounds it and looks out on Mirror Lake.

Consider: In addition to being able to whip out classic drinks as well as currently in-vogue creations, the possibilities range from an homage to the last great cocktail era (the Hemingway Daiquiri of the '20s, the Tom Collins of the '30s, the Bellini of the '40s) to such specialties as the Cable Car, which Abou-Ganim created at the renowned Starlight Room in San Francisco a decade ago.

"I'm very happy with what we've put together here," Levitz said. "It's a combination I think offers something special, something that's very welcoming whether you live around here or are just visiting."

I was particularly taken by the seeming ease of preparation the bartenders exhibited despite the complexity of many of the cocktails. And the fact that they're not slaves to what Abou-Ganim set up for them. The Gondolettes' Blackberry Caiprosca, for example, has been selling even better since bartender Laura Keaney switched it to a raspberry recipe to take advantage of the availability of plump local berries. It's a simple drink -- mudled fresh lime and berries with citrus vodka -- but provides a complexity of flavors.

I also sampled a lineup of other cocktails to test Laura's abilities: the Cable Car (Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum, Marie Brizard orange curaçao, fresh-squeezed lemon sour, wirth a cinnamon sugar rim), the Negroni (Plymouth English gin, sweet vermouth, campari, served up with a flamed piece of citrus), and the mojito (fresh mint muddled with rum and topped with a splash of soda and a mint garnish).

She gets an A+ for her work, as does Levitz and the whole T-Bar concept. When I mentioned this to Abou-Ganim, his response was typically modest: "I am sure Charlie would be thrilled, and I am very proud."

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20070908

Four Roses taking another giant step

When you have an enthusiastic audience, you might as well bring out your best. So, in conjunction with the annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival, the Four Roses Distillery will unveil its newest product to commemorate master distiller Jim Rutledge's 40 years in the industry.

Four Roses Barrel Strength Limited Edition Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey will be introduced Friday, Sept. 14, and will be available in retail outlets in Kentucky and metro New York. At the same time, the company will unveil new packaging and a redesign for its flagship Yellow Label.

The distillery is producing approximately 1,700 hand-numbered bottles containing 13-year-old, uncut bourbon. So straight-from-the-barrel that sediment might remain in it.

"It's a bourbon-lover's bourbon," Rutledge said. "Four Roses fans and bourbon connoisseurs alike will enjoy its uncommon character, smooth textures and mellow taste."

All this activity marks another step in Four Roses' domestic comeback. The Lawrenceburg, KY, line was a top-selling bourbon here from the 1930s through the late '50s, when owner Seagram switched it to overseas markets only. It quickly became the top-selling bourbon in Japan and a major seller in Europe.

Kirin Brewery bought Four Roses in October 2001 and, at Rutledge's urging, reintroduced it to America — starting in Kentucky. Four Roses Small Batch was introduced in 2006 and quickly sold out of its first bottling run, forcing a second run. Last April, Four Roses became available in metro New York. The company plans to launch it in New Jersey, Illinois and Tennessee later this year.

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20070905

Cuba gets '08 Pan Am cocktail test

The speculation and debates will be fascinating during the 12-month run-up to the annual Pan American Championship of Cocktails.

Reason: Cuba is scheduled to be the host country.

That was announced at the conclusion of the 11th annual event just completed in Barquismeto, Venezuela. Sixteen nations participated in that competition, organized by the International Bartenders Association.

Next year's event in Havana undoubtedly will elicit some negativity, based more on politics than on cocktail creation. But at least 10 countries already have promised to participate.

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20070904

Trade paper slams new Grey Goose ads

Since Bacardi took ownership of Grey Goose, the spirits industry has been waiting to see what sort of changes it might make in the marketing of the French vodka that had climbed to the top shelf of vodkas in a very short time.

Well, the new ad campaign has begun and Bob Garfield of the respected Advertising Age magazine and Web site is not impressed, Garfield, never known for pulling his punches, has this to say in his column headlined "Obnoxious Ads for Overpriced Vodka":

"Bacardi wishes to sell preposterously expensive ultra-mega-super-premium vodka to showoffs, wannabes and snobs. Hence a series of meditations "On Discerning Tastes" -- associating the brand with such sophisticated activities as sailing, jazz evenings and the U.S. Open finals.

"It's the hoariest gambit in the world: to flatter customers into imagining they are not conspicuous consumers but discriminating ones. That when they belly up to the bar calling for Grey Goose, they can tell the difference between it and Stoli and Absolut and the rail vodka, because they have rarified tastes that the mere hoi polloi could never understand. That they are, sniff, a cut above."

Read Garfield's entire column here. Accompanying it is a video of one of the ads which, I must say, doesn't look all that terrible to me.

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Courvoisier to release new cognac

PHOTO BY WILLIAM M. DOWD

Come October, cognac aficionadoes will have one more choice. That's when Courvoisier will release its new product, Exclusif, to retail shelves.

As always Courvoisier paid a lot of attention on its recent publicity tour to reach retailers and distributors who service the Asian and Asian-American markets since that is a major chunk of the cognac trade. Courvoisier, which is oned by Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc., is implementing a marketing campaign specifically targeted to the New York and Los Angeles Chinese markets.

(See "Shrinking the world via cognac")

The Beverage Testing Institute says of Exclusif: "Rating 88 (highly recommended). Brilliant copper color. Rich aromas of chocolate, nuts, and brown spice. A round supple entry leads to a smooth dry medium-bodied palate with brown spices, mineral, toffee, and pepper flavors. Finishes dryly with minerals, wood spice, and light dried fruit notes. A refined, nicely dry, woody VSOP."

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