We all know Arturo Vera-Felicie is a good bartender. Now the folks at Sazerac do, too. Vera’s Chambeli Cocktail topped The Gran Gala Shakedown, adding another title to his resume and earning him $5,000. Vera’s drink combines Gran Gala, Aperol, gin, bitters and lemon juice for a balanced and subtle drink that wowed judges like… 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
We drive over to Manhattan, Kansas, perhaps a dozen times a year, but have somehow never made it to 4 Olives Wine Bar—until last weekend. We had a rare night away from the kiddos and so headed to the west end of Anderson in search of good food and good cocktails. We found ’em. Scott… 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
Last Friday’s Aperol experiments yielded a winner: the Bluegrass cocktail. I adapted it from a recipe found on Difford’s Guide, a voluminous yet easy-to-use online cocktail guide that allows you to search by ingredient. It turned up this drink, credited to Hayden Lambert at Merchant Hotel in Northern Ireland. Aperol combines nicely with Maker’s Mark,… Continue Reading