Bibulo.us - We plead the 21st.

Our 'Best of 2013' List

This year's categories for the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards—the cocktail world's premier honor—have been announced and the nomination form is open, reminding us to share our favorites from the last year.

Though we've been enjoying fantastic drinks and great service for years, 2013 marks a new high in the availability of a quality cocktail experience. Bartenders and—significantly—entire bar teams around the world are doing some of the best work we've ever seen. It is a second golden age of the cocktail, which we encourage you to get out and enjoy!

Pleasing as all those top-notch options are, they do make picking favorites very, very difficult. We are definitely not in 'if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all' mode here; omission does not imply a lack of recommendation. Even with that caveat, we throw up our hands in defeat at naming best bartenders. Bravo to all and carry on.

With regard to bars we are slightly more opinionated. In the past, there have often been clear standouts, but now so many bars are operating at such a high level (and we've been fortunate in the past year to visit so many of them), that the choice of a winner has begun to rely on a broader set of criteria. Without breaking a sweat we could name a dozen world-class bars, but to distinguish between them requires consideration of more than the quality of the drinks, the skill of the bartenders making them, and the look and feel of the space. In choosing the best this year, our deciding factor was the often unsung part of the team: the barbacks, hosts, and other service staff who quietly keep everything moving smoothly. Our two winners exemplify this, which is why they're also our nominees for the new Spirited Award (great minds think alike?) for Best Bar Team. From the moment we walk in the door and at every interaction the full team of these bars makes us feel welcome, personally appreciated, and incredibly well cared for. They embody the finest tradition of bartending in their warm hosting, leaving even the most physically beautiful of bars with gliding, silent, supermodel servers rather chilly in comparison.

Best American Cocktail Bar: Comstock Saloon, San Francisco, California
Best International Cocktail Bar: Le Lion Bar de Paris, Hamburg, Germany

It was a busy travel year, so we can report that menus and execution in hotel bars in general are improving. Likewise the options at many airports. Above this general good news, the top hotel bars are displaying glorious style, creativity, and in our international winner's case, a huge sense of fun.

Best American Hotel Bar: Lantern's Keep, Iroquois Hotel, New York, New York
Best International Hotel Bar: Artesian, Langham Hotel, London, England

This year we can commend this nominee not only for the way their publication has entertained us, but also for its usefulness as a research tool, very handy in our work on The Art of the Shim.

Best Cocktail & Spirits Publication: Imbibe Magazine

 

As we're competitors for the Best New Cocktail/Bartending Book category we are not making a nomination here, but do encourage everyone to check out the finalists for this and past years. The cocktail renaissance is on the printed page as well as in the glass!

The Mint Julep

The best mint julep we've had in our lives came in a plastic cup not a silver chaser. The ice wasn't crushed, but just ordinary lumpy old restaurant ice. The setting not a dark & soothing old bar or a shady front porch, but on conference room chairs amidst rows of tables facing the front of a room that surely has seen more than its share of Powerpoint presentations.

But that perfectly mixed drink, quickly prepared by the hands of real New Orleans bartenders for the dozens of us in the room, sipped while watching Chris McMillian recite fine old poetry as he crafted himself the drink the old slow way in a real julep cup, still refreshes in our memories.

We are delighted to learn that Chris McMillian and Phil Greene have taken this presentation, which we saw at Tales of the Cocktail in 2008, on the road and the fine folks at the Smithsonian have captured some of its magic to share with you. Did New Orleans Invent the Cocktail? No. Does it matter? Not a whit.

The Mint Julep

a dozen or so fresh mint leaves, plus a sprig to garnish
1oz rich syrup (or food writer extraordinaire Pableaux Johnson suggests peach syrup, like Monin)
2.5oz bourbon 

Place mint and .25oz syrup in a julep cup or large old-fashioned glass.
Bruise the mint leaves with a wooden muddler or barspoon, pressing them against the sides of the cup.
Loosely pack the cup with finely crushed ice, then pour in the bourbon.
Drizzle .75oz syrup on top and garnish with a spanked mint sprig. (That is, place the garnish in the palm of one hand and slap it with the other once to bruise the mint and release the oils).
Use a dry julep strainer to lightly dust the mint with superfine sugar.

You can also see Chris speaking in 2007 about the Mint Julep here in this video which was part of the New Orleans' Best Cocktails series. This gives more history, physics and biology of the drink as well as an uninterrupted rendition of the lovely poem the "Zenith of Mans' Pleasure", written in the 1890s by Kentucky newspaperman J. Soule Smith. This video is also an excellent illustration of the classic style of bartending and makes it quite clear where the honorific "Professor" arose for those particularly good at their craft.

Daniel Shoemaker

We knew we were in the right place the moment "house-made dry vermouth" passed his lips, but when it was followed by "and our take on Amer Picon" the deal was clinched. Our kind of bartender.

Daniel Shoemaker is a devotee of fine drink creation and understands the role that the flavor profile of the ingredients of the time play in forming the intended mood of a given cocktail. To achieve - or recreate - that particular effect, he chooses his ingredients with care, making his own as needed. On our visit to his bar in July 2008 we sampled house versions of orgeat, Amer Picon, falernum, dry vermouth, and Kina Lillet, as well as various bitters & tinctures.

A migrant to Portland from San Francisco, he is bringing his devotion to quality ingredients and classic experiences to the Pearl District in the carefully designed bar he founded with Ted Charak in 2007, the Teardrop Cocktail Lounge.

We also had the pleasure of Daniel's company at Tales of the Cocktail shortly after our visit, and, though we missed the thrilling competition, we were unsurprised to hear of his victory in Jeffery Morganthaler's first annual Swag Off, with his drink, the "Seat of the Pants". Video footage may be enjoyed in this episode of the Liquid Muse's Tales of the Cocktail report starting at the 3:44 mark.