Tasting Ransom Old Tom gin is like sipping history. That’s because Old Tom gin had largely disappeared from the U.S. market by the 1940s, so there wasn’t much to go by when Oregon distiller and winemaker Tad Seestedt decided to make one. “I didn’t even know what Old Tom was,” Seestedt told me in October.… Continue Reading
The martinez is an almost mythical cocktail, given that it was impossible to order one until recently. My first sighting came in 1995, while reading Barnaby Conrad III’s The Martini. The book includes this recipe from the 1887 edition of Jerry Thomas’s bartending guide: “Use small bar glass, one dash of bitters, two dashes of… Continue Reading
There were only two kinds of punch in my young adulthood. The sweet and fizzy kind served at church basement receptions or the trashcan mix of college parties. I have since learned that real punch is a more storied affair. It is, in the words of David Wondrich, nothing less than the foundation of the… Continue Reading
Think you make a good Manhattan? The enter Woodford Reserve’s Craft the Ultimate Manhattan contest. The brand’s teamed up with Esquire Magazine to find the bartenders who make the best, but the contest is also open to wanna-bes like me. Rules and the entry form are online; the deadline is Nov. 30. So what makes… Continue Reading
It’s funny what you find while digging through old computer files. In this case, it was a column I wrote for the Kansas City Star after the 2009 Greater Kansas City Bartending Competition that, thanks to some editing snafu, never ran. But there it sat, quietly waiting for me to start blogging. So here it… Continue Reading