It’s certainly been a busy week for me. In addition to the recent coverage in Pulse Magazine, and the Niagara Falls Review, my most recent article for Taps Magazine just hit shelves here in Ontario. For those of you not familiar, Taps is the Canadian authority on beer, and the magazine gets published countrywide four times per year. For the summer issue, Taps wanted to take a refereshing look at what we could do with beer on the patios this year, and I recommended Beer Cocktails.

Putting together this article was a bit of a challenge for me, as I hadn’t really worked in depth with beer as an ingredient in cocktails before. In the end, I came up with a few accessible, easy to make at home cocktails using some of my favourite beers, and the reception has been incredible. Without further adieu, I present to you Taps Magazine’s Cool (Beer) Cocktails for a Hot Summer.

Innis & Gunn Hibiscus Manhattan

Nick Nemeth
Taps Magazine, Summer 2009

Summer’s here, and patios across Canada have already started to rock. In previous years, pomegranate cocktails were all the rage, citing their “anti-oxidant” benefits, and more recently, the Mojito has made it’s way to becoming the king of patio cocktails. Unfortunately for many of us beer lovers, spirits, liqueurs, and juices thus far have dominated the summer cocktail movement. It’s time to shake things up a little.

This year, why not throw a little beer into the mix? For years, the “Shandy” has dominated the beer cocktail market. It’s tangy, refreshing, albeit simple, mixture was served initially as a means of masking the quality of poor beer. By adding ginger ale, ginger beer, or lemonade to your lager, bartenders created an instant classic, and today, the possibilities for beer cocktails stretch about as far as the bartender’s imagination.

In recent years, the “Michelada”, and blend of beer, lime juice, and hot sauce, served in a salt-rimmed glass over ice has become another new favourite, alongside contemporary efforts like the Beer Margarita. Today we’re going to try something a little different. I’m proud to present to you my top five cocktails for beating the heat this summer. Be warned, though, these cocktails pack quite the punch! Cheers!

Nickelbrook Green Apple Pilsner – Green Apple Smash

Maple syrup in a cocktail? I know how weird it sounds, but for the longest time, this has been one of my favourite “secret ingredients”, and it lends a smoothness and unique flavour to cocktails which help round them out very nicely.

Pair that with apple, and you have a sure-fire winner. Nickelbrook Green Apple Pilsner blends natural apple juice with a hint of lemon to a light pilsner, making it a great beer to enjoy on a hot day, on its own, or in the Green Apple Smash.

Ingredients / Method
0.50oz Forty Creek Whiskey
0.50oz Galliano
0.50oz Maple Syrup
Build ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker, shake hard, and pour into pilsner glass. Fill with Nickelbrook Green Apple Pilsner.

Creemore Springs Premium Lager – The Creemore Caipirissima
For those not familiar with the term, muddling is the process of crushing the limes in the glass to express their juices and essential oils. This cocktail, an offshoot of the Mojito, adds elderflower cordial to sweeten it, and add a tropical depth which rounds out the drink very nicely. Creemore has long been a beer synonymous with summer to me, and this cocktail will surely be one I’ll be enjoying on the patio this year.

Ingredients / Method
1.00oz White Rum
0.50oz Elderflower Cordial (Available in most grocery stores)
½ lime, cut into quarters, muddled
1 teaspoon Raw Sugar
Fill with ice, top with Creemore Springs Premium Lager.

Alexander Keith’s Premium White – Keith’s Premium Punch

With the weather warming up, the “white” beers are already starting to dominate bars and restaurants everywhere. Traditionally served with citrus, the addition of Limoncello and pomegranate juice delivers a new depth of fruitiness to an already light and refreshing beer.

Ingredients / Method
1.00oz Limoncello
0.50oz Pomegranate Juice
Juice of ½ Lemon
Build ingredients in large pilsner glass, fill with Alexander Keith’s Premium White.

Innis & Gunn Original – The Innis & Gunn Hibiscus Manhattan

One properly made Manhattan is a cocktail I can sip on all night long, and when I tasted Innis & Gunn for the first time, I was instantly reminded of my favourite drink. Blending the two, with their smooth, oaky, and vanilla flavours was a no brainer, and finishing it with my “shock and awe” garnish, a candied hibiscus flower makes one pretty great cocktail.

Ingredients / Method
1.00oz Bourbon, preferably Makers Mark (I use a vanilla-infused bottle at home)
1.00oz Sweet Vermouth
0.50oz Hibiscus Syrup, substitute cherry juice if not available.
Build ingredients over ice in a large mixing glass. Fill with beer, and stir until mixed thoroughly.

Black Oak Nut Brown Ale – The Double Black

Kahlua is a liqueur that confuses many people, because most aren’t able to see past the overwhelming coffee flavour. Search a little deeper, and you’ll discover a deep chocolate, and vanilla flavour which pairs incredibly with fruit, such as the black currant found in Cassis. Follow that with a smooth, malty beer like Black Oak Nut Brown Ale, and you have a beer cocktail you can sip on all day.

Ingredients / Method
0.75oz Kahlua
0.25oz Cassis
Juice of 1 full lime
Build ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker, shake hard and strain into a chilled martini glass. Top with Black Oak Nut Brown Ale.

View photos of all these cocktails, and more at the Cocktails and Cordials Flickr photostream

To find a copy of Taps Magazine near you, click here (Canada Only).

Popularity: 42% [?]

When I got back from Tales of the Cocktail this year, I was fortunate enough to sit down with a local paper, the Niagara Falls Review, who managed to catch my excessive Twitter updating, and were curious to learn more about Tales of the cocktail, and where cocktails where headed in Niagara Falls. It hit the paper yesterday — here’s a quick peek. While I don’t think I would ever equate one of my cocktails to pepto bismol, on the whole I’m very happy with the way things turned out.

Copyright ©2009 Corey Larocque, Niagara Falls Review

Corey Larocque
Niagara Falls Review
Tuesday, July 28, 2009

“Sex and the City” made the Cosmopolitan a household word. But the vodka, triple-sec and cranberry-juice cocktails shouldn’t be candy-apple red the way Carrie Bradshaw drank them. They should actually be pinkish, like Pepto Bismol, says Nick Nemeth.

“The difference between the two is mind-blowing. The difference is like ‘why have I been drinking this for so long?’” says Nemeth, the bar manager at Johnny Rocco’s restaurant on Lundy’s Lane.

The 21-year-old St. Catharines man was the only Niagara participant at the recent “Tales of the Cocktail” convention in New Orleans in early July. It’s like professional development for 15,000 bartenders from around the world. He calls it “inspiring” to learn what’s going on in cities like New York, London, Amsterdam.

He got so excited, he posted Twitter updates from the convention every 20 minutes.

Now that he’s back, he is convinced Niagara bartenders should elevate their work like the region’s chefs and winemakers have over the past 15 years.

“Unfortunately, in Niagara we trail behind the world in where our cocktails are at and the importance that are placed on cocktails,” he said while mixing up a Margarita to show what it’s like with premium ingredients, fresh juices and a properly salted rim. Powdered mixes or pre-made syrups don’t cut it anymore.

A good bartender takes as much care behind the bar as a good chef does in the kitchen, Nemeth says…

To read the full article, visit: http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1674668

Popularity: 29% [?]

Every year, Niagara’s Pulse Magazine does an annual reader’s survey of the best in Food and Drink in southern Ontario. For 2009, both myself and Johnny Rocco’s were very fortunate to receive the top honours in a number of different categories, winning seven awards total. Here’s how we did.

Gold: Best Bartender
Nick Nemeth
Gold: Best Cocktail
Silver: Best Bloody Caesar

Gold: Best Italian Food
Gold: Best Pasta
Gold: Best Server
Alicia Esposito
Gold: Best Overrall Service

Overrall, it’s going to be quite the busy week for me with media appearances. I recently sat down with the Niagara Falls Review, talking quality cocktails and my recent trip to Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. This article should be in print for the paper’s Saturday, July 18th issue. Also, my beer and spirit cocktail article is set to appear in the Summer issue of Taps, Canada’s Beer Magazine, hitting newstands sometime next week. I’ll keep Cocktails and Cordials up to date as I receive each article.

Thank you so much to everyone who voted, I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me.

Popularity: 44% [?]

The ‘Most Spirited Event of the Summer’, Tales of the Cocktail came to a close this past Sunday, July 12th in New Orleans. Should you have been fortunate enough to find your way to the French Quarter’s Hotel Monteleone, upon entering it was hard not to be overwhelmed by the smattering of the cocktail world’s best: award winning bartenders, mixologists, spirit and liqueur makers and distributors, all coming together to celebrate all things ’spirited’.

The five day event combined educational seminars, workshops, tastings, dinners and more as a means for anyone passionate about great cocktails to network, and further elevate the craft of professional bartending.

In case you missed Tales of the Cocktail this year, here are my picks for the top 5 seminars, in no particular order, I was privileged enough to sit in on.

1) 21st Century Gin
Moderator: Charlotte Voisey
Panelists: Angus Winchester, Ryan Magarian, Jim Ryan

What made “21st Century Gin” one of my favourite seminars this year was how engaging it became. It exceeded, by leaps and bounds, any other seminar in facilitating discussion between both panel members and attendees alike.

Contemporary gins, such as Aviation, are a huge offshoot from the classic “London Dry” styles which consumers have grown accustomed to. With the typically predominant juniper nose found in classic gins toned down, these new gins tend to lend to the other botanical ingredients (ex. Cardamom, Angelica Root, Rosemary, etc) to shine through at levels on par with the juniper.

Do these new styles of gin require further distinction to the consumer? Or does the addition of a more specific category, such as “New Western Dry” within gin simply add confusion to an already complex category?

Ryan Magarian weighs in below (Please forgive the poor video quality).

Regardless of what you call these new styles of gin, they’re helping to advance a category that has remained fairly stagnant for many years, until now. Gins are making a comeback through popular cocktails like the Negroni, my personal favourite, and as the consumer becomes more and more sophisticated, the complexities of a spirit like gin are offering more to a more demanding palette.

2) The Fine Art of Banging Out Drinks Like a Maniac
Moderator: Philip Duff
Panelists: Dushan Zaric

Of any presenter at Tales, Philip’s enthusiasm, passion, and charisma is not easily matched. Luckily for me, I was fortunate enough to sit in on a few different seminars Philip presented this year, of those, ‘Banging Out Drinks..’ being my favourite. Joining Philip was Dushan Zaric, of Employees Only in New York City, a much larger, busier bar than Philip’s speakeasy, Door 74 in Amsterdam.

For any high volume bar or restaurant, pushing out enough vodka sodas to meet your volume can be enough of a challenge, let alone providing a superior cocktail experience, serving high-quality, labour intensive drinks. Should your bartender need to muddle, or fresh squeeze your cocktail, creation time of a drink goes through the roof. Both Door 74, and Employees Only have proven consistently that superior cocktail service can be done in volume, and can make your establishment a lot of money.

Just how fast can they bang out the drinks? Employees Only did $4.6 million in spirits revenue in 2008 serving 237,000 drinks (139,443 cocktails). Coming from the perspective of someone who will one day own his own bar.. that blew me away.

For more from this seminar, click here.

3) Innovation
Moderator: Eben Freeman
Panelists: Johnny Iuzzini, Dave Arnold

Over the course of the past year, I’ve spent a good deal of time (and money) exploring the area sometimes referred to as ‘molecular mixology’. I even wrote an article about it in Canada’s FoodService News.

It doesn’t take long once you start researching to come across Eben Freeman, from Tailor Restaurant in New York City. Eben, along with a handful of other noteworthy bartenders, have pioneered the concept of molecular mixology, drawing on inspiration from the bar’s culinary counterparts. While many have been eager to dismiss molecular mix as a “fad”, Eben maintains it’s important to think of it as a technique, not a gimmick.

The goal? Preservation of the craft of bartending through constant innovation. Eben, along with the help of Dave Arnold, and Johnny Iuzzini, both being chefs from New York City, served a smattering of innovative drinks, including Negroni ‘caviar’ (pictured), dehydrated foams, and draught cocktails. Ever had a gin and tonic from a tap?

4) The Bittersweet Truth of Starting A Bar
Moderator: H. Joseph Ehrmann
Panelists: Eric Alperin, Cedd Moses, Ricki Kline

‘The Bittersweet Truth.. ‘ was the first seminar I got to attend this year, and it was an incredible way to kick off the week for sure. While I’m sure it will be quite some time before I can step into a bar I call my “own”, to sit down and hash out facts and figures on the bitter and sweet of opening your own bar was both eye opening and inspiring.

H. Joseph Ehrmann, proprietor of Elixir Saloon in San Fransisco talked on the value of sweat equity and building your bar from the ground up. On the flip side, Cedd Moses and Ricki Kline, the financial backing and creative minds behind 14 Los Angeles bars spoke on the importance of making your vision reality.

Some tips? It’s your bar, featuring your cocktails. Build a business and brand through consistent routine and practice, and inspire your staff. Don’t underestimate the importance of a well-structured business plan and set up a realistic expectation of financing and sales.

5) American Whiskey Legends
Moderator: Paul Pacult
Panelists: Fred Noe, Harlan Wheatley, Bill Samuels, Tom Bulleit

Content aside, one of the greatest things about “American Whiskey Legends” was being able to see the sense of kin between four icons in the American Whiskey world.

While clearly in direct competition with one another, the men heading Maker’s Mark, Jim Beam, Buffalo Trace, and Bulleit Bourbon are very aware of the affect one another has on their industry as a whole.

It was refreshing to hear things like “When the tide rises.. all ships float higher” in describing both the influence of whiskey producers, and bartenders on the both the American Whiskey industry and the craft of professional bartending.

Tales of the Cocktail was a meeting of the minds for all things important to this craft. It was inspiring to be in the same room as people I know have directly shaped the industry into what it is today, filling the bartenders of tomorrow, like myself, with incredible amounts of drive and passion to see what comes next. As cocktail culture grows in importance worldwide, so too does Tales, and you can be certain that my love for this event will only grow after Tales of the Cocktail 2010.

Cheers.

Popularity: 11% [?]

While I have a few posts queued for the site, I’m holding off from posting in the anticipation of their value getting lost in the mess of excitement that is Tales of the Cockail.

In a little more than 24 hours, I will be boarding my flight in Buffalo to take me down to the Big Easy for my first visit to Tales. I won’t have access to my computer throughout the trip, but I plan on “tweeting” regularly throughout the trip from my phone. Follow the action here on my Twitter account. Don’t forget to search #totc09 to follow everyone’s Tales of the Cocktail ‘09 tweets!

Popularity: 12% [?]