2 oz vodka
3/4 oz lemon
3/4 oz rich blueberry-ginger syrup
5 mint leaves

gently muddle mint, combine all other ingredients, shake.

…

japanese cocktail at pizzaiolo. delicious. like egg nog without the egg.

favorites:

green and orange (jackie patterson) – green chartreuse, lime, carrot, honey, cantaloupe, cilantro garnish. (if there was liquor other than the chartreuse she didn’t say.) [edit: recipe here] this was my favorite because not only was it delicious but it incorporated green chartreuse and carrot, two things that i think are difficult to use well in a cocktail, much less together.

tuscan smash (josh harris (?)) – fresh strawberries, roasted strawberries, balsamic vinegar, lemon, mint, sugar, galliano, rooibos bourbon tincture. whew! (here again, if there was a base spirit, it was not mentioned and i neglected to ask) the flavor was extremely complex, combining raw and cooked strawberries was genius. my main criticism is that it was too sweet and too viscous.

mountain peach (h. joseph erhmann) – square one botanical vodka, peach, lemon, lemon verbena. simple, and similar to another drink at the event, but this was perfectly balanced. [edit: recipe here]

howling mad (someone from bourbon and branch, forgot his name) – thai chili infused gin, thai basil, lemon, honey, ground coffee garnish. believe it or not, this all worked perfectly. the flavors were phenomenal. but a little too hot.

so, lots of fun, and lots to think about….

…

i’m really frustrated at my inability to ’stray from the script’. tonight, for example. i was giddy about the cocktails and intent on trying everything as expediently as possible, so i could revisit my favorites (not easy to move fluidly in that throng), and grab some of the passed-apps before depletion (which always happens, usually around 645). i was so focused on this that i basically blew off a couple people who tried to chat with me (both cuesa volunteers) and failed to seize the opportunity to chat with brooke arthur. this is sub-optimal on a couple levels, (a) sometimes chatting is fun, even for me (b), brooke would be a good person to know/impress. i wasn’t disrespectful, just taciturn. but that might seem impolite. or lame.

well, it might have less to do with an ethical epiphany and more to do with the discovery that ac transit runs more frequently than they did in my youth. it also turns out the 18 goes nearly door-to-door from my house to pizzaiolo.

drinks:

chinato speaker. barolo chinato, lime, benedictine, agricole rhum. i wasn’t familiar with barolo chinato, a delicious dessert wine/apertif/digestif. the drink was also delicious, a solid red wine base with lots of herbal notes. the lime more of a background, providing more clarity and lightness than tartness.

lavender willy. bourbon, lemon, lavender honey. as in the urb saint, bourbon and honey are perfect together. in injudicious hands, lavender makes desserts and candy taste like soap or shampoo. but cate (we are on first name basis now) infused the honey with just a hint of the stuff, enough to add flavor and aroma but not enough to be identifiable as lavender.

old haitian. can’t find a recipe of this online. it is basically a mojito but with dark rum and champagne. i love a good mojito but this is better. [note: its an 'old cuban']

monk’s garden. an invention of cate’s predecessor; a combination of gin, chartreuse, grapefruit, and not sure what else. really excellent. i’m starting to think that the combination of grapefruit and lemon or lime is the perfect cocktail acid.

…

i’m seriously one of the least judgmental people i know. but i believe it is wrong to order a pie at (a place like) pizzaiolo, then not eat the crust. when good crust goes uneaten, god smothers a puppy.

i figured out (took me long enough) another solution: sober up before driving. bring a computer, find wifi.

last night jp encouraged me to go cocktailing (i must be particularly mopey and pouty these days); i obliged, as obliging is my default behavior of late. and so i finally made it back to pizzaiolo. cate whalen was in the house, yay. i drank the following:
– italian 75 (gin, lemon, lemon verbena, aperol, prosecco)
– mai tai (rum, cointreau, lime, orgeat, mint garnish)
– martinez (rye, vermouth, maraschino, orange bitters) [note: online recipes say this is usually made with gin. coulda been. i can't remember.]

the italian 75 was really delicious. champagne cocktails bring to mind so many terrible mimosas so i often avoid them. but: can champagne cocktails be made simply by adding champage to a good regular-cocktail (with maybe a minor adjustment for very sweet or very dry champagnes)? colin macdougall served me a champagne cocktail with bourbon, whiskey bitters and apple liqueur which rocked the fn sockhouse. but it could have stood on its own without the bubbles.

the mai tai was great…the orgeat was lighter and more aromatic than–and far superior to–mine; possibly because of the use of apricot kernels instead of almonds.

cate chose the martinez as a pairing for pizza. though i shy away from spirit-heavy drinks like this (they scare me and often taste like cough syrup), this was a good choice to cut through the oil and cheese and tomato.

observing cate’s customer interaction made me think of david at west restaurant, for their similarities as well as their differences. they both have a high level of engagement (more so than most other bars and bartenders, maybe owing in part to a relatively small seating area), but are stylistically opposite. david is a maestro: mannered, deliberate, didactic, encyclopedic. his bar is a master class on alchemy. cate, on the other hand, is more like a peer, a chat-pal. her bar is like hanging out around a kitchen island with some of her other (cooler-than-you) friends. neither is better than the other, just different, and worthy of admiration.

addendum: from 530-645 bar seating was pretty readily available. by the time i left, at 7p, it was a madhouse inside and out.

- billionaire cocktail (whiskey, grenadine, absinthe bitters, lemon)
- fragola coppa (pimm no. 1, creole shrub, cucumber, strawberry, mint, limonata)
- pisco sour

all delicious. yes, they came up with a strawberry cocktail that bore only the faintest resemblance to a tgif-style daiquiri. and didn’t suck. yes. it can be done.

(cocktail program designed in part by this guy)

we also got a mixed pate platter and a mixed salumi platter. i liked the salumi more than the pate. the pates were refined, lots of flavor, beautiful texture–but the salumi was on another level.

(i have to say–i’ve given fatted calf a few chances, because i want to like them. but adesso does pork products right. and–i realize now–fatted calf doesn’t.)

adesso gives away a wide variety of free food from 5p-7p and again from 1030p-12a. it’s all really good. i can’t see how they can afford to do it. also, i would kind of feel like a sucker paying $20 for food at 7p if i could have shown up 5 minutes earlier and gotten it for free.

i’m super stoked about this place. unlike pizzaiolo, you dont have to show up at opening to get in.

i wish i lived on pleasant valley, between p. and a. i would be the biggest fucking boozehound.

the sesame orgeat i made (1/2 C almond milk, 1/4 cup seeds) was a little too overpowering of sesame, i also wish i’d used plain water the first time around. next time, a 3:1 or maybe even 4:1 ratio should be just fine. maybe i’ll try toasting the seeds, too.

the mango-sesame drink was good, but something was missing.

one nice surprise…the watermelon flesh, though bland when eaten off the rind, produced a bright and flavorful syrup (and eventually, cocktail). not sure how or why that happens. maybe it is the magic of sugar and alcohol.

big sis made the comment ‘its like an adult jolly rancher’. unfortunate but true. certain things have specific, unalienable connotations. like how adolf used to be a perfectly viable name for a boy. or like how i probably shouldn’t have used the term “unalienable”.

or, for example, cranberry and orange–this combination is reserved for thanksgiving. i would never put them in a cocktail. lemongrass–unless its background to other strong flavors, all i taste is froot loops. cherry–almost always a bad idea, thanks to cough syrup.

and, yeah, i think jolly rancher has staked a claim to watermelon. but that’s ok. jolly ranchers take me back to the days when twenty-five cents and a two-block scamper to 7-11 (”the sev”) was all what life was about.

and watermelon was always my favorite jolly rancher flavor.

mango-sesame alignment (draft 1)

2 oz vodka
1 oz lemon
1 oz mango
1 oz sesame orgeat

combine all ingredients, shake with ice, pour through fine strainer.

sesame orgeat

3-4 parts water
1 part sesame seeds
3-4 parts sugar
orange peel

process the seeds and water with a hand blender or similar. strain through a cheesecloth.

in a jar, muddle the peel with a little sugar. add the sesame seed milk and the rest of the sugar, shake until dissolved.

watermelon-lime alignment (draft 1)

2 oz vodka
1 oz lime
1 oz watermelon syrup (approx 3 parts juice, 2 parts sugar, shake to dissolve)
1 stem cilantro
3 mint leaves
soy-chili-sugar rim

muddle the herbs, combine the rest of the ingredients, shake with ice, pour through strainer. rim the glass with soy-chili-sugar.

soy-chili-sugar

6 parts sugar
1 part soy-salt
1 part hot chili powder

(soy-salt: combine in a bowl kosher salt and enough soy to soak up the salt. put the bowl in a 150F oven, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is dry.)

combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly, mashing with the back of a spoon, if necessary.

beau retard

2 oz vodka
1 oz lemon
1 oz 1:1 syrup
5-10 blueberries
1 coin ginger
2 mint leaves, 4 tarragon leaves, half a shiso leaf, or some combination

muddle the blueberries, ginger, and herbs. [note: muddle the berries well, the herbs very gently] combine other ingredients and shake. strain coarsely, pressing solids. add ice, shake, strain.

option: sugar+brown sugar+toasted pecan rim