The Carolina Dessert

I actually bartend exactly one time a year, for our company Christmas party. I got the gig because I like to mix drinks, and because the former bartender outranks me in the company. I don't mind, as it's a great way to see everyone at the party, but it's a bit against nature for me. A lot of my mixology and cooking interest probably comes from my fondness for chemistry, but chemistry is more task-oriented than your typical bartending gig. I like to mix drinks, and play with ingredients, but then some yahoo shows up and wants something to drink that I have no interest in making, and just because they have money, and my employer wants said money, I have pry myself away from a fascinating comparison of gins to take the cap off of your stupid bottle of–well, you get the idea.

Every year, I try to pack in a few things to not get bored. This year's crop of rum punch came in pretty well (I've been playing with hard ciders as my "weak" base for rum punches), and a few people discovered the joy of Old Fashioned with Rittenhouse rye and homemade brandied cherries (canned by Julie, using fresh Michigan cherries and Michigan brandy). Julie also provided the usual amazing array of Jello and pudding shots (which we're due to feature here again, at some point, methinks). There was some other combinatorial playing, but nothing too noteworthy

But the star of the evening is a story that starts in Atlanta, Georgia. My cohort in crime on this adventure was Dan, and we're doing the convention thing in downtown Atlanta. For dinner one night, we ended up at Sweet Georgia's Juke Joint, which met our four basic requirements for travel dinner:

• Walking distance there
• Staggering distance back
• Smells good from the sidewalk
• Open

I'm not proud, but I'm not apologizing.

Turns out, we went back again before we left, as the food was very good, and the drinks were equally excellent. Their menu breathlessly exclaimed "the only legal moonshine in Atlanta!" (no longer the case, but read on). The couple of drinks featuring "moonshine" were great–a dessert coffee drink, and a lemonade with soaked blueberries. After our first dinner, we asked to try the "moonshine" straight.

Okay, let's take a minute so that I can stop using the damn quotes. I KNOW that what they served was not moonshine. I know that what you buy in stores labeled moonshine is almost universally not moonshine. Moonshine is made in the backhills of Appalachia, bottled into repurposed 5-gallon tubs, using stills made from recycled automotive parts and scrap metal, and taking on the characteristics of the environment in which it is distilled (dirt, insects and Ford truck exhaust, mostly). I remain very interested in trying the real article, but I'm not going to type "diluted unaged commercial corn whiskey" when "moonshine" gets me in the general neighborhood with a lot fewer letters.

What we were served was Catdaddy–80 proof, cinnamon-infused, and my first taste of the sweetness and mellowness of corn whiskey. Purists be damned, I quite liked the taste, and have kept a bottle around the house ever since. And, for the holiday party, I was pretty sure I could find some others to enjoy it as well. Sure enough, the subject came up and the bottle was pulled out.

That said, I felt like playing a little bit, and decided to apply two additional flavors. For all the explosion in craft bitters, there's still a place on my shelf for the tried-and-true Angostura bitters, with its signature sweet citrus and herbal notes. But, my new bitters darling is Mozart Chocolate Bitters, which provides the clearest, cleanest dry cocoa note you can imagine. The Mozart has been a bit of an obsession for me, as I've been playing with it in the same way you'd use cocoa to darken and dimensionalize chili or apple butter. That said, it also seemed like a good fit for a spirit that starts as sweet and bright as Catdaddy does.

And oh boy, was the result good. Tasting it gave me that immediate rush of "this is a keeper recipe." It's simple–really only one alcohol and two bits of flavoring, and I apologize in advance for using an ingredient that is currently not commonly available in the U.S. Doesn't matter–find an importer, get a bottle of the Mozart bitters, track down Catdaddy (fairly widely available), and try this little concoction.

Carolina Dessert

1 oz. Catdaddy spiced moonshine (chilled)

2 dashes Angostura bitters

2 dashes Mozart chocolate bitters

Shake briefly with ice to chill. Serve in an apertif glass. 

The French Jewel

Everybody, meet Tamara.

She's a bartender on the Carnival Liberty, six weeks into a six-month stint onboard (many of the workers do six months on, two months off). This is her first bartending gig for the Carnival line, and she's still learning her way around her job. Her bartending requirements are no different than many others who work the job in a high-traffic situation–she's responsible for much of the bar service during the dinner seating, and interacts with waitstaff who employ a variety of ways to get her to work on their drinks first. Otherwise, she's assigned as needed to bar locations: I got my first drink of the cruise from here in one of the center interior bars (a great place to work: high traffic, people wants their first drink as quickly as possible, and everyone's in a good mood). Later in the week, she worked one of the back bars: busy during the dinner hours, and then very quiet thereafter. As there's a guaranteed tip assigned to each drink served, there is a definite advantage to having people ordering drinks from you.

I was on board for my job, if you can believe that. I was part of a team from our company running a Settlers of Catan tournament on the ship. Every night, we also participated in an open gaming session, where we could play whatever we felt like, and feel better about having a drink during working hours. (Justifying a drink is a very slippery slope on board a cruise vessel.) So, on this particular night, I'm playing a game, drink in hand, when Kim, our travel agent, bursts into the room. She grabs my hand.


"Come. With. Me."

Okay, another brief aside. Think about the limitations of tending bar on board a ship at sea. Space is precious, and the alcohols that you have on board are selected for maximum familiarity, variety of uses and ease of replacement. The craft cocktail craze has largely bypassed Carnival (they had one bar, The Alchemy Bar, that was exploring some less-traveled ingredients), but they sure do know their way around a fruity rum drink. As a vacation thing, it's easy enough to simply rationalize in your head that for the next seven days, your lot in life will be a parade of tropical flavors and a lot of hurricane glasses.

Okay, back to the distraught travel agent. I have no idea what she wants, but I gather there's some expediency in the matter, so I follow her out of the room and down the hallway to the bar. Tamara is behind the counter, and she has seven or eight patrons merrily keeping her company. Kim sits at the bar, and points to a pink drink in a martini glass on the counter. "Drink. That."

I'm beginning to suspect that the issue at hand is not so much a matter of urgency, but more a matter of "I've just had some drinks, and you need to do so as well." Tamara sees me smell the drink first, and smiles. "Are you a bartender?" I laugh a bit. The more I'm around working bartenders, the less I'm willing to claim the title.

The drink is comfortably in the wheelhouse of the tropical drinks on the boat, but not as sweet, and certainly a bit more subtle than most of what I've consumed on the trip so far. Another of the patrons wanders up to me. "I told her to make me a drink, and that's the best drink I've had onboard. I went to the Alchemy Bar, told them to make me a drink, and then I told them that there was a Czech bartender downstairs who was kicking their ass!"

"Would you be willing to tell me what's in the drink?" I ask Tamara.

She smiled. "Last day of the cruise."

For each of the next three nights, I came back to the bar and had a drink. One of the barstaff managers took an interest in her drink. Each night, a group of people joined me in searching her out and getting her to make us her drink. She was clumsily hit on, the target of the occasional sexist comment, constantly having to shift gears between her customers and the demands of the dining room waitstaff. And each night, her group of fans grew. As bartenders go, she did her job, and did it well, and my cruise was better for it.

Courtesy of Tamara, enjoy her drink and know that somewhere out in the Caribbean, there's a Czech bartender, new at her job but getting better at it every day, who has knowledge, a personality, a smile and a drink that's all worth spending some time with.

French Jewel (courtesy of Tamara, Carnival Liberty)

2 oz. vodka (Tamara uses Grey Goose)
1 oz. Malibu rum
.5 oz. pineapple juice
.5 oz. mango puree

Shake together with ice; serve in a martini glass with a sugar rim.

Oh Bother

The bartender gave me a half-smile, and shrugged. "Of course, you can't tell the customer no."

*****

Julie and I are in Chicago, and I'm vibrating with glee, as we're about to enter a tiki bar I've been waiting to enter for over a year–Three Dots and a Dash. It's off an alley behind another bar on North Clark (the also-tasty Bub City), and a short skull-themed stairway later, we're third in line to get in at opening time.

The Jet Pilot, it just wants you to be happy.
If by "happy," you mean "rollicking drunk."

We take a seat at the bar, and pick our drinks–she goes with their riff on the Painkiller, and I go with one of my evaluation drinks, the Jet Pilot. The Zombie is my first-choice go-to drink to compare a tiki bar to its compatriots, but at Three Dots the Zombie, although it looks pretty authentic from the menu, is also a $65 drink for 3-4 people. Another time, perhaps. We also tried several of the small plates offered (the tuna crisps, served with a quartet of sauces, was a nice, light counterpoint to the drinks ordered). The drinks arrived in their resplendent ceramic, and we were happy, happy patrons.

The bar filled up fairly quickly (it's a segmented single room, so it's not hard to do). Our first drinks went down at an efficient pace. so a second seemed a reasonable plan of action. The menu proudly touted its "Selection of Fine Rums," and perusing the shelves, it's hard to argue. Sitting on the second shelf, my current darling of the rum world proudly held court with its blue and silver label: Smith & Cross rum, which features prominently in earlier entries on this blog. I call the bartender over.

"So what are you using the Smith and Cross for?"

She looked at the bottle a bit quizzically. "I'm not sure. We use Appleton as our Jamaican rum for most of our drinks. I can ask someone, if you want."

"No no, that's fine. Would you be interested in making me something with it?"

She paused for a moment. We've talked a couple of times up to this point, the usual light chatter and customer check-ins that barstaff should do. "To be honest, I really don't know the rum. We're trained on the menu drinks, and the managers don't really like us to improvise a lot." She half-smiled, and shrugged. "Of course, you can't tell the customer no..."

I can't complain about the bar, the drinks, or the service at Three Dots–quite the opposite. I'm eager to go back and explore more of the drink menu as soon as possible. And, our visit was within the first six months of opening, which means that, although they've had a proper shakedown by the public (the first crop of staff who won't work out have left, and the ones that will work out have some experience with the menu), they're still new enough to be adjusting to what is a non-standard bar menu (the tiki drink set is going to be a departure from the bartenders who may be accustomed to expertly mixing a never-ending parade of rum and Cokes or Old Fashioneds).

But, truth be told, I've been a bit spoiled. I have bartenders locally (hi Ravens Club, hi Alley Bar, hi Last Word) who are endlessly inventive, mixing drinks based on experience, mood and the occasional challenge from me. At places like Frankie's Tiki Room or the Zig Zag Café, I've shown up on their doorstep on a mission, and they've waxed poetic about both drink and spirits recommendations. I am so very curious about this amazing hobby of mine, and I've been fortunate to run across a bunch of bartenders, mixologists and drinking companions that support me in the quest part of the experience (and the drinking part, too).

I am VERY mindful of when it is appropriate to be all "make me something bartender's choice blah blah demerara rum" up in here. If the place is rockin', with drinks flying across the bar, I know not to interrupt or even get too chatty; I always figure that if I try a "make me something" move when a place is busy, Ray Foley is going to magically appear and Gibbs-slap me. "Get there early, hang out a bit, then back off as the place fills up" works pretty well as an MO for me.

Still, if there's a rum sitting on a shelf at a bar, and that bar is a tiki bar proclaiming its specialization in rums, it's a bit of a disappointment that I can't play a little bit. For all of the Bud Lights and rum and Cokes that crossed the bar in front of me (and going to an amazing bar like Three Dots to order Bud Light ought to earn SOMEBODY a Gibbs-slap or two), you've got a rum on your shelf that I like, and I want to see what you can do with it. So, I loved the experience, I'm ready to go back–but if that bottle of Smith & Cross is still sitting there, someone's going to make me a drink using it. You Have Been Warned.