Chef-Owner Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Blogger Heather Watson

Actually, as you can see there were no hogs involved in the Winedown event at Market, the Vancouver outpost of the Jean-Georges empire (unless you count the people who tried to scarf more than their share of the truffle pizza). It’s a strange fact but a fact nonetheless that now that I’ve got a blog with “food” right there in the name (scroll up and confirm for me that I’m not just hallucinating this, okay?) I get dozens of invitations to cocktail events and none at all to foodie events.

Fortunately for my liver, Market changed my luck with their invitation to the Winedown event, at which actual food was served. It still counts, even if the invitation came through the bartender, right?

There were cocktails served, too, and very tasty they were although I have to say the Palaciosour was something I’d order again whereas the Basablanca comes across as just a too-tart, much more labour-intense Tom Collins.If the lemons in yours were sharper than the lemons in the test batch as mine were, you were hooped unless you wanted to go back and ask them to splash in some simple syrup or something, which is a bit like sending your food back to get some ketchup on it. I know it’s heresy, but sometimes making drinks in a pitcher and sampling the pitcher before pouring is more likely to result in consistent quality. At a posh event, people want them made individually; the problem is, there’s no time to test them this way. One must strike a balance between practicality and pizazz.

The Palaciosour was a nice sour (and not too) but the float of rich, hemoglobinesque red wine completely made the drink. The interplay between the bitters, the citrus, the refined whisky and the wine added an almost electric dimensionality to the experience that made it something special. It also looks pretty wicked, as the Rioja remains floating instead of mixing in with the rest of the drink.

UPDATE: added the decimals into the recipes. Darn proofreading!

Basablanca

.75 oz Telmo Rodriguez !Basa” Rueda.

.5 oz Victoria Gin.

.5 oz St.Germain.

.25 oz Fresh Lemon Juice.

2 dashes Fee Brothers West indian Orange Bitters

combine ingredients and shake with ice

double strain into a coupe

*garnish with zested lemon peel

Palaciosour

.5 oz Alvaro Palacios !La Vendimia” Rioja.

1.5 oz Centennial Rye Whisky

.75 oz Fresh Lemon Juice.

.25 oz Fresh Lime Juice.

.75 oz Sugar Syrup.

2 dashes Fee Brother Plum Bitters

2 dashes Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters

combine Rye, citrus juice, sugar and bitters and shake with ice

double strain into an old fashioned glass

top with ice

float wine on drink surface

*garnish with brandied cherry on rim

And, didn’t I say something about food? The food was (as should be the case at one of Jean-Georges’ places) marvelous. Truffles don’t really float my boat, and thank GOD I finally found something expensive that I don’t actually adore, but the first item out of the kitchen was truffle pizza, and it had me reconsidering my truffle position. The truffle gave the cheese pizza an edge, a savory interest that wasn’t as overwhelming as truffles can be.

I remain, however, deeply skeptical of their celebrated truffle burger. I am a devoutly orthodox burgerologist.

For the second item, let me put this as simply as I can: the scallop sashimi with warm crispy rice and chipotle emulsion may just be the nicest thing I’ve ever had in my mouth, including my ex.

The Steelhead salmon sashimi with green chili, crushed pistachios, and mint (whatever happened to giving foods names instead of entire recipes?) was equally marvelous. It’s not easy to do foods that retain their individual component flavours while working together perfectly, and while this sounds strong, it was in fact subtle and perfectly-balanced.

The raw tuna with wasabi cream cheese and pickled ginger pizza was fresh and, again, well-balanced, but it made me wonder why some foods were sashimis and some were just pedestrian old “raw.” I suspect the salmon and scallops slept with the chef. The dish was radical, but very successful.

Rice cracker crusted tuna with a citrus-sriracha emulsion was my second-favorite of the night, even though I am allergic to the word “emulsion” outside of physics class. I’m a big fan of contrasting, bold flavours, and so was pretty much in heaven all night.

It was a good reminder that there is more to wine cocktails than sangria (or that lame excuse for white sangria that’s really just cheap white zin watered down with some orange slices in it, and Yaletown, I AM LOOKING AT YOU) and that less-alcoholic cocktails pair better with food, particularly after the second round.

Joan Rivers may have bent the elbow prior to this photo being taken

Joan Rivers is the latest celebrity spokesperson for vodka, taking up the mantle still worn by a no-doubt confused Diddy and Dan Ackroyd (“I thought we had this gig sewn up?”).

I am thinking it’s an improvement, actually.

Diddy, dude, when you distill grapes you get brandy and when you distill dead, post wine-making grape crap you get marc. It doesn’t matter how much you distill it, it doesn’t become vodka: no matter how long you bake a butter tart, it doesn’t turn into a custard tart. And we know you know your way around tarts.

It's crystal clear, my dear Watson

As for Ackroyd and his Crystal Head Vodka, I’ll let you in on a dirty little secret. Well, first I’ll avow that it’s actually not half bad. And it does come in one of the world’s great decanters. But it actually tastes pretty much or entirely indistinguishable from the much less expensive Iceberg Vodka (also produced in Newfoundland, and how many can there be, really?). Iceberg is a perfectly good mixing vodka, quite underrated probably because of the price, but it’s not exactly sippin’ likker. So, if you want to save money and pull an old trick from Prohibition, buy the Crystal Head and treasure the skull, but refill it with Iceberg.

Hey, I never said I was classy, but I never said I was rich, either, knowmasayin’?

A little tacky makes the cocktail go down better, as Tallulah Bankhead knew.

Now, speaking of tacky, we come to the above Joan, delightfully protean siren of stage and screen, all the way back to the days of zoetropes. Today, Joan came out with a Better Housekeeping Tip for the Ages, and not-incidentally tipped us off that she buys cheap vodka. Is she a skull-refiller herself? Who knows? But read on and file this away in your I Want To Be Betty Draper index card box.

“I always spray my costumes with vodka and water. It’s an old Broadway trick — two-thirds water and one-third vodka, spray your armpits and you’ll never smell again.”

via PageSix

And here’s Joan, fresh as a Daisy (a double, though) at an Aussie awards show.

BONUS TIP:

My friend, a cocktail fancier and pharmacist, suggested to me that if I can neither swallow the horse pills that my medicine comes in nor dissolve them in water, that I dissolve them in vodka instead. Yay, Science!

A guest post by intrepid reporter/photographer Leona Shanana, covering the launch of Voodoo Tiki Tequila at the Tiki-Fabulous Waldorf Hotel in Vangroover.

Voodoo Tiki Tequila at the Waldorf Hotel

Snazzy! It was really impossible to get a clear shot of the coloured glass inside the bottle due to refraction. No, those are not waterlogged gummi bears in there; they are little tiki gods in technicolour.

These are 3 stages of aged tequila. The bartender was mixing with the Platinum Silver; the Reposado is aged 6 mos and the Anejo one year. Massey also had another bottle secreted away under the table that was top of the line stuff – only 1000 bottles made a year, most of which get snapped up by the American market. I must have chatted up the right guy (not pictured) because I got  a taste of it! The Voodoo Tiki guys’ main point seemed to be that we haven’t had access to really good tequila in Canada up til now, except for Patron which is so costly [ed. note: and Don Julio]. So this tequila is intended to fill the niche between Patron and tequilas that are fit only to be tossed back fast and chased with salt and lemon to cut the sicky feeling. This stuff is meant to be sipped, like good scotch.

The Green Dragon is exactly like a lime margarita with no ice and really scrumptious actually; and the Private Collection 1000 bottles a year stuff I would describe as smooth drinking, sweetish and slightly smoky flavour. Gentler than scotch and it barely even tasted like tequila as we know it. It was almost viscous.

This is not a man to piss off

Here’s the guy who was chopping the tops off coconuts. I am kicking myself for forgetting his name. The bar must have gone through 100 coconuts. The way they worked it was, when you came in, you received your lei, green tiki shotglass and an ounce of Green Dragon, which is a blend of tequila, mandarin and lime (like a margarita with no ice). Once you had drunk that you got a coconut, and then you brought the empty coconut back and Shaun would fill it with a Diablo.

Ashlee & Anastasia, Waldorf hostesses

The charming hostesses/coatcheck girls, Ashlee and Anastasia. Anastasia is holding one of the green tiki god shotglasses we all got to take home (don’t worry, I grabbed you one [thanks! can you ever have enough?]). Eventually, Voodoo Tiki will market minis in bottles that shape.

mixing a Diablo at the Waldorf

Shaun (sp?) the handsome bartender, mixing a Diablo. This is Silver tequila over ice, house ginger beer (chunky!) and cassis. Really yummy! and once the bar had heated up and everyone was getting drymouthed, he switched to pineapple juice instead of ginger beer. Refreshing!

a Titch Too Much Voodoo Tiki tequila seems to have gotten to Mark here

Sometimes the morning after the night before begins before you’ve managed to get home. We feel your pain, Mark.

Voodoo Tiki Tequila Shotglasses

Cheers! A little mood music, anyone?

Oh, what the hell. Make it a double.

I’m in a celebratory mood lately, so I hereby declare that it’s time to catch up with our festive old pal and email buddy, and the sworn enemy of Champagne bottles everywhere, Matt Stache. We are reliably informed that this daredevil intends to make an assault on the world record for most Champagne bottles sabered in one minute, and we wish him well and we wish, further, to be on hand because yeah, that stuff doesn’t keep worth beans.

In any case, here he is attempting his sabrage with, sequentially, a cocktail glass and a god damned scythe.

Martini vs Champagne:

The Booze Reaper

Cheers!

I like their spirit(s)!

and going down, the hatch that is.

I know, I HAD to use it and I’m sorry already, okay?

Anyway, this is just a quickie cocktail post about my new favorite cocktail, which has actually usurped the place in my heart formerly held by my beloved Negroni.

As some of you may know, latterly my liver and I are barely on speaking terms, and I’m drinking less like a sailor than like a … I don’t know … I don’t actually have any cultural reference points for people who don’t drink like that. What can I say, I’m Irish! Anyway, I’m definitely preferring my cocktails on the lighter side lately, and this one has all the complexity and bittersweet charm of the Negroni, but without the vicious kick.

The Bon Marché cocktail was invented on a blustery night last week by my favorite bartender, Mr. Jay Jones, who’s newly installed as bar manager at Market by Jean-Georges in the Shangri-La hotel. Yes, in Canada we have our good restaurants in hotels. We just gotta be contrarian that way.

Anyway, it was invented specifically for me when I said I’d leave it up to him. “Sweet? Bitter? Creamy?” Bitter. Hey, I gotta be me. And so it was, and delicious it is, enough to make a whole blog post out of, trust me.

You make this just like a Martini, meaning you have to chill the glass, so do that first. I know you, you don’t store your glasses in the freezer, do you? Chuck some cubes into it and fill it with cold water while you putter around going “do we even HAVE orange bitters?” and it’ll be cold enough by the time the drink is mixed.

Bon Marché

• 1.5 oz Beefeater 24
• 0.5 oz Campari
• 0.5 oz Giffard Abricot Du Roussillon
• 2 dashes Fee Brothers’ West Indian Orange Bitters
• lemon zest

Mix over ice, stir until chilled, strain into a cocktail glass, garnish with lemon zest and yes, you squeeze it over the drink before you plop it in and if you’re in the mood, wipe rim the glass with the zest as well. Since this is a hot pink stunner of a cocktail, a clear glass is essential for showing it off, but cut crystal will bring out the tones better than a classically minimalist one would. Keep the purist glass for purist Martinis, and try this gorgeous, po-mo Wood Grain Martini Glass from that very po-mo collective, Waterford.

Tales of the Cocktail, Vancouver by Degen Beley

They call us Hollywood North, and soon they’ll be calling us New Orleans North, as Vancouver will host the first ever Tales of the Cocktail event outside of NOLA, from March 13-15th. I guess they picked it for the swamp-like conditions that prevail in March?

At the media launch yesterday they announced the winner of the contest for the Official Cocktail of Tales of the Cocktail Vancouver, and while I don’t currently have ANY of the ingredients, I’m looking forward to trying it ASAP: The winner was the Dalhousie Cocktail by Jonathan Smolensky from Brix and George (aka “that place with the Chihuly chandelier”) and it does sound delish:

Dalhousie Cocktail Recipe

Start by taking 6-8 Canada plums, which have been dehydrated in coarse sugar, and steep them in Gibson’s 18yr Canadian whisky for 4-5 days.

Then use these ingredients:

60 ml (2 oz.) Canada plum infused 18yr Gibson’s

15 ml (1/2 oz.) Domaine de Canton liqueur

10 ml (1/3 oz.) Zwack Unicum

1-2 dashes of high quality rendition of Boker’s bitters

Lemon peel

Chill a coupe glass and a mixing/Boston glass.

In a mixing glass, add the Canada plum infused 18yr Gibson’s, the Domaine de Canton, the Zwack Unicum, and Boker’s bitters. Stir until heavy and properly diluted.

Remove the pith of the lemon peel and rub the peel on the inside edge of the coupe glass, then toss the peel.

Double strain all mixed ingredients into the coupe glass and garnish with a small Canada plum fan.

Then, presumably, put on Barrett’s Privateers, don a festive toque (our Northern fez substitute) and enjoy. Yes, this is going to take some shopping. I think I’m all out of Zwack Unicum, and it takes time to give a unicorn a quality zwacking off.

Oh, Julian, hold me back!

I’m sorry to say, I’m always that guy at the annual Manolosphere holiday party, especially since I got the below for Christmas. Oh well, what happens on Mustique stays on Mustique, right?