Friday, July 24, 2009

Two Weeks after Tales of the Cocktail

Well it has been almost two weeks since Tales and I believe I have fully recovered.

The Vintage Bar Collectors Symposium went off without a hitch. We gave away bunches of cocktail shakers and bar ware. Well over the advertised $1000 worth.

There were collectors from all over the United States as well as a couple of foreign guest. It was a truly amazing time.

Stephen Visakay, Mark Bigler & myself gave our talks from behind a bar that was made in the mid 1800s. It was rescued from Lake Pontchartrain and is currently being restored for perminate display at The Museum of the American Cocktail.

Also, who knew that Cointreau and Peach Snapple would make a very tasty and refreshing cocktail.
They call it the Cointreau Kiss. There Slogan is Kiss & Tell.

It is very simple cocktail to make...1 1/2 oz Cointreau, 3 oz Peach Snapple.
Pour the Peach Snapple in a tall glass with ice and pour the Cointreau on top. How simple is that?

In days following our Symposium I attended several seminars like the History of Saloons in America with H. Joseph Ehrmann, David Wondrich, and John Burton. What many people don't understand about Tales is that it is not just a 5 day drinking fest. Oh don't get me wrong, plenty of cocktails are consumed but there is so much knowledge to gained at the same time from some of best and brightest mixologist and authors from around the world. Another example would be the seminar Cognac, from Vines to Shaker which gave a history of Cognac and explained some of the French laws that dictate how it is produced. That is one of the reasons Cognac is more expensive is because of government regulation.

Between seminars and all of the good food in the French Quarter, I tried to get some more Frequent Rider Miles at the Carousel Bar. Hey, if they served Vieux Carre cocktails on the Merry Go Round at the State Fair, I would ride it for days!
Well I guess I'm going to wrap this up for now, before I totally bore everyone to death. I just want everyone to think about attending Tales of the Cocktail next Year. It is an unbelivable time and you will not regret it....

Cheers

Friday, July 3, 2009

Tales of the Cocktail & The Vintage Bar Ware Collectors Symposium

Well, it is only a few days until the 7th annual Tales of the Cocktail kicks off in New Orleans and I can hardly wait!

As I have talked about earlier, I will be on the panel of The Vintage Bar Ware Collectors Symposium along with Stephen Visakay and Mark Bigler.
The event is being held at The Museum of the American Cocktail on Wednesday the 8th at 4:30. Mark your calender. This is one not to be missed.
http://www.museumoftheamericancocktail.org/

We got very lucky this year to have Cointreau, the legendary orange liqueur, on board to showcase their new, simple but inventive, lip-smacking libation - the Cointreau Kiss. On behalf of every guest who tries a Cointreau Kiss, Cointreau will make a monetary donation to the Museum*. So, after the talks by Stephen, Mark and myself & while showing off your vintage items and getting appraisals, pucker up and have a Kiss!

The guys at the museum are calling this "The Cocktail Shaker Roadshow"

We will be giving away over $1000 in Bar Ware. Everything from cocktail shakers to vintage Napier shot devises. Below is just a couple that I am putting up. We will aslo have an amazing collection of shakers on hand to view.



Also tomorrow I will be on "The Straight Pour" with Ann & Paul Tuennerman and a whole host of other guest, talking about cocktails, cocktail shakers and of coarse Tales of the Cocktail. So I hope you can tune in Saturday 7/14/09 at 10:00 am to to listen. You can get the streaming program at http://www.wistradio.com/page.php?page_id=8069


So I hope everyone can join us Saturday for The Straight Pour & next week for Tales of the Cocktail.