The Beachbum’s site is getting a makeover to prepare for the publication of his newest book, Beachbum Berry Remixed. New features and revamped favorites are coming soon. In the mean time, the Bum will continue to post new blog entries in his usual untimely manner.
The Bum has one thing in common with the U.S. Congress: neither of us can get anything done. But the denizens of the Washington, D.C., cocktail circuit appear to have the opposite problem. They’re addicted not to alcohol, but to accomplishment.
Exhibit A: Eric Felten, author of the book How’s Your Drink? Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well. Currently he’s a radio host on Voice Of America. And writing a weekly column for The Wall Street Journal. And recording and touring with his jazz orchestra. Oh, lest we forget: he’s also writing another book. Since the Bum can barely chew gum and drink at the same time, he was curious how Eric can function with so many deadlines competing for his attention. Eric’s strategy: “I panic early.”
Somehow he found time to lunch with the Bum at Rasika (pictured above), a downtown D.C. restaurant that also serves craft cocktails. Between bites of Raan-E-Rasika (lamb seasoned with saffron, black cardamom, and dark rum, served with a side of tomato-ginger-raisin chutney), we sampled a drink called the Crimson Delirium. Rasika barman Jason Strich’s sly twist on the Negroni mixes gin and Campari with blood orange and dill; it’s actually the least exotic of Jason’s concoctions, which call for such ingredients as sweet potato, fennel pollen, roasted marshmallow, and applewood smoked pear.
After lunch, the Bum joined Phil Greene (pictured below) to prep for “Happy Birthday Mr. Daiquiri,” a Museum Of The American Cocktail seminar celebrating the drink’s centennial. Phil serves as Treasurer of the Museum. He also has a full-time job as a patent lawyer, and another full-time job as Brand Ambassador for Domaine de Canton liqueur. Instead of sleeping, he creates and produces monthly cocktail seminars — and these are not exactly off-the-cuff. For the Daiquiri tribute, Phil assembled a thoroughly researched Powerpoint presentation of the drink’s history, complete with rare vintage photos of Hemingway drinking Daiquiris at Havana’s storied La Florida bar. Phil even managed to scare up a real live admiral from Washington’s Army-Navy Club, where Lucius Johnson first imported the Daiquiri from Cuba back in 1909.
In the audience was yet was another cocktail achiever, Mark J. Plotkin. He’s a tropical drink connoisseur who spends most of his time in the tropics, conducting ethnobotanical research in the jungles of Suriname. That is, when he’s not campaigning to save the rain forest as President of the Amazon Conservation Team. Or making films and writing books about how to cure disease through the centuries-old knowledge of South American tribal shamans.
Hobnobbing with Messrs. Felten, Greene, and Plotkin threw the Bum’s own entropy into question. He even began entertaining thoughts of trying to do something with his life. This simply would not stand. The only solution was to drink heavily, but D.C.’s star bartenders offered no respite.
Apparently, none of them is content to run just one bar: The Gibson’s Derek Brown has just opened a second place, The Passenger, while Jon Arroyo does double-duty as chief mixologist for Farmers & Fishers and Founding Farmers restaurants. Todd Thrasher out-machos them both as bar chef for three Alexandria establishments, PX, Restaurant Eve, and The Majestic.
This was all too much activity for the Bum to process, so he prevailed on D.C. tikiphile Vern Stoltz to map our bar crawl. First up was PX, which Vern had selected as the best of the three venues to sample Todd Thrasher’s cocktails.
We arrived early, before the pirate flag above PX’s unmarked door unfurled — the equivalent of the Bat-Signal for Beltway cocktailians, announcing to those in the know that the speakeasy is open. We waited out the clock down the street at The Hour Cocktail Collections, a store selling Kennedy-era barware that all looked stolen from the set of Mad Men. The only thing not vintage was the prices, which averaged $100 for a set of six highball glasses. If you frequent thrift stores you’ll find the same stuff at one-tenth the price (on the other hand, we doubt that D.C.’s cocktail achievers have time to frequent thrift stores).
The flag flew, and we ascended the stairs to PX. The room was perfect: serene, intimate, and almost pitch black, its dark wood walls lit by antique fixtures. Barry Lyndon would feel right at home amid the 18th-century trappings; we could easily imagine him cheating at cards with Patrick Magee in the lounge (pictured above). Even the view out the window fit the theme: when we leaned a little to the left on our stool, we could frame out the cars and see only the faux gaslight on the sidewalk of Alexandria’s Old Town.
Mr. Thrasher, who happened to be behind the bar that night, told the Bum: “I go to sleep at night thinking about drinks.” Makes sense, as his creations have a dreamlike, ethereal quality. If they were paintings, they would be the work of De Chirico, Chagall, or Delvaux. The drinks we sampled were transcendent, variously incorporating walnut water, apple bitters, tobacco, Madeira fig jam, and a house-made tonic water that is to tonic water what Château Lafite Rothschild is to grape juice.
One drink particularly compelled attention. Melanie’s Pisco Pipe Dream fused pisco with coconut milk, lemon, citrus vinegar, and black pepper to create a flavor that was sui generis, with a mustardy nose that presaged a garden of savory delights.
Our next stop was Farmers & Fishers, where D.C. tropaholic Brian Lopina had reserved a private dining room for the local Tiki community. With midcentury Exotica music piping through the room’s speakers, courtesy of dinner attendee Johnny Dollar’s iPod, we worked our way through the restaurant’s slate of Tiki drinks: Zombies, Mai Tais, Singapore Slings, Hurricanes, and Navy Grogs (the last pictured below). They were all spot-on, and the ideal accompaniment to ahi tuna rollups and Hawaiian marinated ribeye. But what really made the meal were Jon Arroyo’s original signature drinks. The Señor Arroyo zestfully combined fresh pineapple, jalapeño, thyme, and tequila, while the Mule de Fresa was a vibrant mix of fresh strawberries muddled with tequila and sugar, topped with ginger beer — and 6 drops of mezcal, for a subliminal layer of smoke.
As the only joint in D.C. serving haute Tiki drinks, we were inclined to linger at Farmers and Fishers. But Vern would have none of it. Off he whisked us to The Gibson, for a taste of Derek Brown’s customized pre-Prohibition classics. Head bartender Tiffany Short warranted Vern’s sense of urgency. She made us, quite simply, the best Daiquiri we have ever had: a generous measure of Martinique rhum agricole, perfectly offset by the Gibson’s house ratio of Luxardo maraschino liqueur to fresh lime juice. If there is a golden mean for cocktails, Derek has found it.
His Daiquiri — along with every other cocktail we quaffed in our nation’s capital — once again left us wondering if achievement weren’t such a bad thing after all. It was at this moment that we knew we had to get out of D.C. Either that, or run for Congress.
In her new book, Lush Life: Portraits From The Bar, self-described “saloon artist” Jill DeGroff has captured the personalities of the cocktail world — bartenders and barflies alike — in living watercolor.
But she doesn’t stop there. As you would with a well-mixed drink, Ms. DeGroff balances sweet and bitter by pairing her subjects with anecdotes chosen in opposition to the tone of their portraits: the text informs the art, and vice versa.
To take one poignant example, New York bartender Giuseppe Gonzalez’s broadly smiling caricature accompanies his stinging memory of a father who “didn’t really like me until I could have a drink with him.” On the flipside, Maine mixologist John Myers’s rather forbidding stare counterpoints his hilarious tale of a quadriplegic customer, born “severely edited,” who hounded a pushy liquor sales rep out of Myers’s bar thusly: “Yes, I know all about your latest stupid vodka … yes, I know it will not give me a hangover, especially since I will not drink it.”
As an added bonus, Lush Life pairs each portrait with a drink created by its subject. Myers’s alone is worth the price of the book. Here’s his Touchable: Into your shaker pour 1 ounce each B&B, gold rum, and dry vermouth, followed by 1/2 ounce each fresh lime juice and pure maple syrup; shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a cinnamon stick.
If you’d like to win a copy of our upcoming book, Beachbum Berry Remixed, we hereby hip you to cocktail blogger Kaiser Penguin’s new drink contest: create an original Tiki drink, post it on his site, and you just might end up among the three winners.
The Beachbum is not one of the judges (as a bum, he prefers to judge not lest he be judged). But while he won’t be signing off on the winners, he will be signing copies of the winners’ books.
Click here to get started:
“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern,” wrote Samuel Johnson over two centuries ago. A recent trip to Dr. Johnson’s home port suggests that if he were alive today, he’d be wearing an aloha shirt: London now has more good taverns than ever, and many of them are serving Tiki drinks.
The reason for our visit was the U.K. Rumfest, an annual convention bringing together rum distillers and rum drinkers. It’s a tropaholic’s dream come true: entertainment imported from Trinidad, seminars by rum raconteurs like Angus Winchester, and free samples of brands unavailable stateside — including a gold rum from Mauritius, and a Cayman Islands rum aged 20 feet under the sea (the motion of waves on the barrels is said to abet maturation). We were particularly impressed with a hearty Demerara called Skipper Rum, a luscious white Jamaican from the new Smatt’s label, and dazzling limited-edition agricoles from Rhum J.M. and Clement.
But Rumfest’s highlight had to be the Tiki Face-Off, a contest pitting London’s Tiki bartenders against Manchester’s. London started strong: carnival dancers shimmied onstage bearing a giant cocktail glass full of macerated fruits, which the bartenders set aflame and stirred into a vat holding the world’s largest colada. Not to be outdone, Manchester entered the arena carrying a coffin, out of which popped a go-go dancer in zombie makeup, holding a bottle of rum in each hand — which she poured into the mouths of the audience as the team converted her coffin into a punchbowl, filling it with ice, rum, fruit juices and Pernod, topped up with an entire bottle of orange bitters. The judges (including Chester Browne of Mount Gay rum, Peter Holland of The Floating Rum Shack, and yours truly) all agreed that it was bound to taste horrible, but the finished coffin cooler actually balanced out quite nicely.
The trophy went to Manchester, and the Bum went to seed. Our bender began at Cotton’s Rum Shack, owned by Ian Burrell (pictured above). They call Ian “The Rum Ambassador” for good reason: not only does his restaurant stock a dizzying array of rums (250 at last count), he also produces Rumfest. He produces festive cocktails too. Witness the Beachbum’s Arrival, which Ian improvised from scratch when the Bum shouldered his way through Cotton’s packed bar. Recipe: In a shaker pour 25 ml (5/6 ounce) each gold Damoiseau rum, Bacardi 8 rum, Wray & Nephew Overproof rum, and fresh lime juice; 50 ml (1 2/3 ounces) lychee juice; 12.5 ml (a hair under 1/2 ounce) coconut rum; and 10 ml (1/3 ounce) orgeat syrup. Ice, shake, and strain into a Tiki mug filled with fresh ice, then garnish with a flaming slice of fresh pineapple dredged in brown sugar.
The caramelized pineapple is the coup de grâce: the best garnishes aren’t just for show; they’re ingredients that add an extra layer of flavor and aroma, “finishing” the drink. (We certainly finished ours quickly enough.)
Our next stop was the luxe Mahiki nightclub. A throwback to the glamorous beginnings of Tiki, when Marlene Dietrich frequented Don The Beachcomber’s and Queen Elizabeth dined at Trader Vic’s, Mahiki is catnip for London’s paparazzi: Madonna, Paris Hilton, and the Royal Family are regulars (Prince Harry reportedly ran up a £22,000 tab in one night). But proprietor “Papa Jules” Gualdoni is the perfect host whether you’re a prince or a pauper.
He also understands the concept of the cocktail as conversation piece: the Bum sampled drinks served in a treasure chest, a deep-sea diver’s helmet, a flaming volcano bowl, and a frozen pineapple. Ian Williams, Rumfest attendee and author of Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776, was not amused. “Grown people do not drink out of pineapples,” he announced in no uncertain terms. Heeding Ian’s words, the Bum ordered his next drink served in a mug shaped like a monkey’s head.
Mahiki’s drinking vessels — and its interior (pictured above) — were designed by the Bosko of Blighty, Jamie “Cheeky Tiki” Wilson, whose work references Witco and other high-style midcentury exotica designers. Jamie recently outfitted three other nouveau Tiki bars, Kukui in Oxford and Sugar Cane and Kanaloa in London. How to account for England’s Polynesiaphilia? “We’re an island people too,” suggests Pocketiki magazine publisher Trader Jim.
A few blocks from Mahiki, at Mark’s Bar below Hix Restaurant, we found still more exotic drinks — and still more Rumfest attendees, And A Bottle Of Rum: A History Of The New World In Ten Cocktails author Wayne Curtis and his wife Louise. Bar-hopping with Mr. and Mrs. Curtis is highly recommended, because their mere presence beside you guarantees you will be served A-game cocktails. Even before Wayne had fully seated himself at Mark’s, the bartender was upon him. “I read your book,” he said, admiringly but not obsequiously, demonstrating a sense of proportion that carried over into the drinks he began swiftly slinging our way.
Among these was a heavenly Rum Shrubb (you’d never guess that scalded milk was an ingredient) and a gonzo masterpiece called Guy’s Punch (pineapple-infused Demerara rum, brandy, spiced sugar syrup, lemon sherbet, and Guy knows what else). These drinks were originated by head mixologist Nick Strangeway, but bar manager Ladislav Piljar also proved himself a formidable alchemist with his Mark’s Mansion — an empyrean punch that he contrived for us on the spur of the moment, like a liquid jazz improvisation, out of rose hips syrup, saffron gin, Somerset cherry-infused gin, dry vermouth, lemon juice, green tea, and soda.
After conspicuously consuming most of the drinks on Mark’s menu, the Bum’s waistline felt like it had grown double-wide. Appropriately enough, since his next stop was Trailer Happiness. With its Tretchikoff prints hung on wood-paneled walls, op-art fabrics, and white Naugahyde chairs, Rikki Brodrick’s Notting Hill lounge (pictured above) looks like a mashup of a 1959 Butlins holiday camp, a 1968 Modesty Blaise comic strip, and a 1972 Radley Metzger porn set. In other words, our dream Airstream.
As if that weren’t enough, Rikki and his assistant bar manager, a jovial fellow by the name of Jacques James Marcel Bernard Wynn-Williams, make Tiki drinks. Good ones. A flaming Tropical Itch particularly impressed, as did a Dry Daiquiri that goosed the usual lime, sugar, and rum formula with Campari and passion fruit. Add to this finger food like hoisin duck mini-wraps, smoked salmon with sour cream and caviar, and classic British bangers, and you couldn’t pry us out of the place with a crowbar. But Mike Streeter of Rum Connection managed to remove us non-violently, with news of yet another bar serving Tiki drinks — right around the corner.
That bar was Portobello Star, proprietor Jake Burger’s valentine to past masters like Jerry Thomas — Burger makes his own Boker’s bitters so that he can serve Thomas’s 1887 Brandy Crusta — and Don The Beachcomber, whose Zombie and Missionary’s Downfall also adorn the erudite, historically scrupulous menu. Soon after ordering, the Bum was chatted up by a pretty (and pretty drunk) girl in a pink party dress. Then his Missionary’s Downfall arrived, in a tulip glass with an orchid garnish. “Oh,” she said, “I didn’t realize you were gay.”
“My drink is gay?” asked the Bum. “That,” she answered, “and your facial hair.”
Curiosity got the better of us: “What’s gayer, the beard or the drink?”
“Your beard.”
No wonder Mrs. Bum insisted we grow it.
You find cocktail evangelists in the strangest places. Case in point: the mountains of Buncombe County, North Carolina, where the twin peaks of local culture are bluegrass music and craft beer.
While Asheville radio personalities Micah Hanks and Chris McCollum are no strangers to either, they’re preaching about the cocktail renaissance on their new podcast, Culture Of Spirits Radio.
The Beachbum dropped by their studio last night to talk Tiki, and had a great time. The conversation ranged from Wisconsin Bloody Mary garnishes (such as the salami and cheese number pictured above) to Presidential cocktails (Chris informed us that Reagan liked Gin Blossoms, while Clinton is partial to Snake Bites). You can eavesdrop here: