Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Drink Some tales from Tales of the Cocktail 2011
Posted by Besha Rodell @BeshaRodell on Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 10:11 AM
- Courtesy Tales of the Cocktail
- This is kind of how I vaguely remember everything looking at Tales of the Cocktail. Kind of. Sort of.
You make your way into the hotel and are confronted with an impossible to navigate labyrinth of rooms and floors and mezzanines and elevators. Yet somehow, this maze of booziness is made bearable. How? Because around every corner, in every hallway, up every staircase is a cocktail. On your way from the lower to the upper mezzanine you stop by a punch bowl filled with a summery tequila based concoction with fresh snaps of cucumber. In a room off to the side, people are mixing drinks that supposedly reveal the inherent sexuality of pisco. People are bleary, rowdy, happy. Conversations are struck up that would never happen in polite, sober company.
You find yourself in a seminar where mixologists and philosophers are earnestly discussing the burning question, "What would Aristotle drink?" After 45 minutes of philosophy theory, some of it way too dense for the average drinker, the leaders of the seminar come to a conclusion: "Aristotle would drink a dry martini." Why? You're not sure, except for some stuff about how a dry martini is perfectly balanced and Aristotle would appreciate that.
"Why wouldn't he drink a beer?" one audience member asks.
"Why a martini and not an old fashioned?" another demands.
"Can you live the Good Life and still go to bad bars?" yet another poses.
These are deep questions, folks. Perhaps the most interesting part of the discussion though is the part where the presenters describe in detail what it might be like to have Socrates visit your bar, which sounds to you like almost exactly what it is like to have Scott Henry visit your bar. All the while, cocktails are passed.
Afterwards in one of the hallways to the mezzanines beside a room where a gin-scented forest appears to have been built, you run into some acquaintances from Texas who pull you towards a party at another hotel that promises "the world's largest negroni." But the line is too long and so instead you walk to another party in a museum where three floors hold 60 bartenders serving drinks that are inspired by different countries from around the world. You get into an argument with one of them about whether a fig and chocolate bitters drink could really have anything to do with an Australian "bickie," which he says is Australian for biscuit, which it is but in Australia biscuit means cookie basically, and then you realize you're arguing with someone trying to hand you a drink and you shut up and go home for a nap.
An hour later you're at a dinner where some of the country's best barkeeps attempt to pair drinks with different courses, and you realize that it's way harder than it sounds. This penchant for vinegar in cocktails can easily go too far. Then afterward you're at a party at one of the oldest bars in the country being mixed a drink by legendary bartenders. At some point you're at a hotel bar with a jazz band going full tilt. At midnight you find yourself standing in the street with a crowd outside the Old Absinthe House, and some kind of toast is happening, and Greg Best is baring his chest tattoo while wearing a pink bandana wrapped around his head...
From there on out, things get a little fuzzy.
The next morning, you get up, shake it off, and do it all again.
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