The Silent Symphony
Sweet, sour, and definitely green, this cocktail will help launch the drinker into the St. Paddy’s celebration.

1.75 oz Hendrick’s Gin
1.5 inch piece of half shaved cucumber
Half a kiwi muddled, with a tsp of sugar
0.75 oz fresh lime juice
2 pinches of salt
1 pinch black pepper
½ oz sweet and sour (equal parts fresh lemon, lime and sugar syrup), spiced with a pinch of wasabi

Muddle and stir all ingredients together in a mixing glass. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with a wheel of kiwi or cucumber.

Mr. Pickles
For something really unusual, try Mr. Pickles. The mixture of Chartreuse and honey may elicit a true Irish jig!

2 oz Hendrick’s Gin
0.5 oz Honey
1 tsp Green Chartreuse
1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar

Ice and stir well into a chilled glass (a coupe is suggested). Garnish with a thin slice of black radish and if you really want to kick things up a notch, include a demitasse spoon with a little caviar on it.

In the spirit of Hendrick’s, just a friendly reminder that the next round of Iron Bartender, sponsored by Hendrick’s Gin, takes place on Tuesday, March 23rd at Johnny Rocco’s St. Catharines. Competing that night will be bartenders Wes Galloway (Black Beans Steakhouse and Lounge, Port Hope), and Ashley Gendron (Johnny Rocco’s Italian Grill, St. Catharines)

The competition strove to not only test gin-inclined bartenders, but also to educate on things like gin history, production, cocktails, marketing, and of course, the G’Vine brand. After the first round of education received such an overwhelming response, with more than 300 participating bartenders worldwide, the initial deadlines were extended. That gave G’Vine the opportunity to bring in one of the forth-most authorities on gin: Gary Regan.

Well, it appears that G’Vine has finished marking the first round of entries, and they’ve selected my 17 page submission as the first one to be featured! To see my submission, along with comments and critiques from Gary Regan (last page if you want to skip to it), click the following link:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27055177/Gin-Marketing-in-the-21st-Century-Defining-a-Brand-Through-Marketing-by-Nick-Nemeth-Canada-and-Comments-by-Gary-Regan

Iron Bartender kicked off this past Tuesday, February 23 with our first event sponsored by El Jimador tequila. Our featured bartenders were commissioned to created two El Jimador cocktails, the first featuring the spirit and any additional ingredients they wanted. The second cocktail was done blackbox style, with our bartenders limited to El Jimador and the following ingredients.

I was joined by local bartender Sonia Fillion, and in the end, a random selection of judges deemed my ‘Strawberry Passion Awareness’ (I know, I lost points on originality) cocktail — a blend of El Jimador, Galliano, Nutella, Lime, Strawberry, and simple syrup, the winner. I’m not quite sure how I feel about winning my own cocktail competition, but it was a ton of fun.

The next night, at our Iron Bartender event at Johnny Rocco’s Niagara Falls, we were joined by bartenders Troy Dowhaniuk (Jack Astor’s Hamilton) and Shawn Murphy (Artisanal Palate Catering) in an event sponsored by Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum. Same format, same group of random ingredients, but this pairing of bartenders gave us much different results, with a much more creative use of the mystery flavours. The voting was very close, but in the end, Troy’s drink was declared the winner. His cocktail, “Grandpa Jack’s Cider” combined Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, Galliano, peach juice, cinnamon, and chai tea. Troy scored extra points on presentation, with his rim of cinnamon and blackberry jam.

Troy will move on to compete in the semi-finals in St. Catharines on April 27th (sponsored by Campari), and I will move on to the Niagara Falls event on the following day (sponsored by Sarpa di Poli Grappa).
The next round of competition will be March 23rd and 24th with events sponsored by Hendrick’s Gin, and Woodford Reserve bourbon, respectively.

Thank you so much to everyone who came out, and to the sponsors who have helped us make this event happen!

To see the rest of the photos, click here.

In addition, you’ll get a sneak peek as to what you can expect from this year’s Tales of the Cocktail event – I’ll be hosting a seminar entitled “Social Media: Creating Cocktail Legends” alongside Brian Rea and Camper English, and Darcy has a few, much more intelligent, seminars he’ll be presenting as well.

The show starts at 11AM EST, and you can tune in at http://www.wistradio.com. And yes, this mean’s that the downtime around Cocktails and Cordials is finally over.

At the slowest of times, that can be a serious challenge. To keep up with the likes of Camper English’s Alcademics, or fellow Canadian Darcy O’Neil, and his Fix the Pumps project, can be an uphill battle for sure — throw in the hundreds of other full time cocktail blogs spanning the internet, and Cocktails and Cordials quickly falls to the wayside.

But my greatest challenge, in my opinion, is the cause of an advantage that most cocktail bloggers have neglected — I’m a full time bartender and Bar Manager here in Niagara Falls. Why don’t you see this website updated nearly as often as the others? I’m so incredibly lucky to spend 60 hours per week in a bar still, 40 or so of those hours being behind the wood full time. Over the course of the past few weeks my time for Cocktails and Cordials has drastically declined, and I’m only just beginning to find more time to devote to online cocktails.

What’s taking up my time now? After an exhausting few months of setbacks, delays, and disheartening slowdowns with construction, we are getting very close to launching the second bar and restaurant for Johnny Rocco’s Italian Grill (if you’re American.. Carabba’s is a very similar concept) here in St. Catharines, Ontario. The next few days will be devoted to unpacking countless cases of glassware, and receiving a $50K wine and liquor order, and I couldn’t be more excited.

I’m going to do my best to keep you posted with our progress, but for the time being.. thank you so much for your patience. I have plenty of very exciting news to share with you over the next couple of weeks, so please stay tuned!

He goes on to describe the bartender as “hapless”, and the discouragement to the profession has left more than a few bartenders feeling more than a little upset, but does he raise a good point? How many extraordinary bars or bartenders have you heard of within Canada? Sure there are a few Canadian headliners, but compare that to the news coming out of New York, or San Fransisco, we don’t even come close to the same notoriety.

Bartending in Canada can be significantly more difficult than in other parts of the world, for many different reasons — the most significant of these reasons being our government. Unlike New York State, whose Liquor Authority, which deals with license issuing, and Liquor Store Association, which oversees liquor retailers, each Canadian province has their own, government-run liquor store. What this means to bars and bartenders is that any product introduced to Ontario is subject to the approval of the Ontario government. The result of this is a market dominated by the brands with the biggest budgets, leaving little room for the smaller spirit and liqueur companies to make headway.

How long have Domaine de Canton and St. Germain cocktails and competitions been making news across the United States now? We still don’t have those products here in Ontario. The only reason I have them, along with products like Cherry Heering, G’Vine Gin, and Maraschino Liqueur is that I smuggled them back into Canada when I was at Tales of the Cocktail this summer.

With that said, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) is the single-largest purchaser of wine and spirits in the entire world.. yet our variety and our quality offerings are minimal. Hell, the only spirit-based bitters you can purchase in Canada right now are still simply Angostura Aromatic. Head on over to Liquid Revolution and ask Shawn Soole about the nightmare he’s had trying to set up “House of Bitters” as a Canadian bitters supplier.

So what does it take to succeed as a bartender, especially in Canada? A whole hell of a lot of passion, and a persistence and commitment to the craft that’s sure to drive everyone around you nuts. Anyone can make drinks – it takes very, very little to stand behind the bar and pour wine, beer, and rum and cokes all night. To take that step beyond, requires more than a head full of drink recipes, and a cocktail shaker at hand. How you progress beyond that point depends directly on what the National Post suggests Canadians don’t do – care about what you drink.

Help us prove them wrong.

In case you missed the post on my facebook profile, here’s a copy of my response to the editor of the National Post.
My name is Nick Nemeth, and I’m an incredibly passionate bartender from Niagara Falls, Ontario. Recently, one of my peers from New York City pointed out one of your articles that, even now, I find difficult to craft the appropriate response to.

Besides myself, across Canada there are an ever-growing number of bartenders building a career out of providing exemplary service and quality cocktails to our guests. With that said, there are a good number of us that feel Adam McDowell was phenomenally out of touch with his article discussing a recent tequila tasting, published in the “Happy Hour” section of your newspaper…. See More

Speaking as one of the so-called “hapless” bartenders that Mr. McDowell refers to, I find it incredibly discouraging to think that someone in an influentially significant position like his would talk down about a career that so many of us are working so hard to elevate.

The “great” cocktail cities like New York, San Fransisco, and London (among others) cast a fairly large shadow on the beverage industry, often eclipsing the talent of many equally talented Canadian bartenders. Pair that with the legal red tape and limitations our government-run liquor stores impart on us, and it’s very difficult for an upstanding Canadian bartender to succeed.

Be that as it may, there are a rapidly growing group of professionals across Canada who have built careers out of tending bar. We’ve found much more within that glass of tequila than simply a shot to suck back, and there are a good number of us who are baffled as to how a beverage writer could be so ignorant to the quality cocktail culture flourishing around him.

In February, Spirits Canada announced that, for 2008, Whisky was the largest spirits category in Canada. Of those sales, three quarters belonged to Canadian whisky and Rye, accounting for approximately 3.6 Million cases sold in 2008. These kind of numbers aren’t without their consequences.

Most recently, Canadian Whisky makers “Gibson’s Finest” announced a looming shortage of their 12yr Old product. Shelves across Canada may already be finding themselves light for the holiday season, but supply of Gibson’s flagship “Sterling Edition” Canadian Whisky won’t be affected this year. In an effort to not compromise the quality and flavour Canadian’s are accustomed to, Gibson’s has no desire to rush the next batch of their 12yr Old Whisky. Instead, fans of the product will just have to wait until the whisky in the casks fulfills all of Gibson’s age standards.

What else can we expect? As the whisky market in Asian countries begins to surge at an uncontrollable rate, the demand for 12yr or older whiskies is putting the pressure on distilleries worldwide. In 2007, Singapore alone saw a 121% surge in imports, and as drinks like green tea and whisky become the norm in Chinese and Japanese clubs, we can only expect the demand to surge further. For bartenders, what this means is that, assuming we can get ahold of enough of the product, the prevalence of neutral spirits like vodkas, which once dominated the market, are being forgotten in the consumer’s search for quality within their cocktails.

Viva la revolution!

If you’ll be anywhere close to the Washington, DC area, join Jeffrey Morgenthaler and bartending greats Todd Thrasher, Dale Degroff, Tad Carducci, and more for the Second Annual Repeal Day Ball, held by The DC Craft Bartender’s Guild (DCCBG) on December 5th, from 9PM to midnight.

Tickets are on sale now, $100 USD for general admission, $150 for VIP, with a portion of all ticket sales going to help the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans.

I don’t know yet if I’ll get a chance to make it to Washington, but I’m doing everything I can to re-arrange my schedule to let me go. Wherever it is you end up on Repeal Day, raise a glass of thanks to the right to drink legally, and celebrate all things great and inspiring about our craft.

Tickets to the Repeal Day Ball can be purchased online through the DC Craft Bartender’s Guild website at http://www.dccraftbartendersguild.org/

Because of this, a simple listing of cocktail ingredients will no longer suffice in selling your creations.

For food, a simple listing of ingredients still has a place, as the average customer has a fairly complex understanding of the flavours of many culinary ingredients. How many of your guests have tasted Green Chartreuse and Galliano together before? Have they even heard of both liqueurs? The name of ingredients becomes less important in describing cocktails as guests will more easily recognize the flavours of herbs, spices, anise, and vanilla.

Quality cocktail lounges are rare in the world, and so too are the guests who will have a deep understanding of the quality ingredients us bartenders are working with on a regular basis. Sure, the cocktails on my menu contain Rhubarb, Celery, and Boker’s bitters (and of course, Angostura), but they have no place on a cocktail menu where their appearance would simply confuse my guests.

If the guest is curious to learn more, the bartender would be more than happy to go further into depth about our ingredients and our approach to creating quality cocktails, but for the ones who stick strictly to reading the cocktail menu, here are a few tips to put the romance back into your cocktails.

Emphasize flavours, rather than names of products. As I stated before, your guests are more familiar with flavours then they are with specific spirits and liqueurs. It may be very easy for them to recognize vanilla flavours, but they might not have ever heard of Navan before.

Offering something unique? Tell me About it. Maybe your bar has begun to explore the caviars and foams of the molecular mixology world. Great. Does your guest know what you’re talking about when you say “topped with raspberry caviar” ? If I think you’re talking about fish eggs, that sounds pretty repulsive to me in a cocktail.

There’s a specific opportunity in cutting edge techniques that requires you to go further in depth in explanations, and even embellish. Try,

“To finish your cocktail, our bar scientists have worked tirelessly to trap fresh berries in spheres that burst with flavour in your mouth”

I think that sounds a lot more enticing in the description of that cocktail.

Does calling by name and listing ingredients serve your best interest? While flavours are the most important in romancing your cocktail, if you’re offering a unique or rare spirit or ingredient in your cocktail, it’s presence in the description makes it just as important. By remaining vague on other ingredients, it leaves you open to tinker and perfect your cocktails as time passes, without the need to reprint.

If the cocktail’s good enough to make it on a list, be proud of it. Gloat. Your guest has chosen your bar for a specific reason, and it could very well be that your “Cara Mia Strawberry Sour” is the best cocktail they’ve ever had. If you are confident enough to put a particular cocktail on your menu, your description of that cocktail should mirror that confidence. It gives your guests piece of mind when choosing their drink, and your bartender’s a level of excellence to aspire to.

For an example of cocktail romancing in action, I’m very proud to present Johnny Rocco’s New Cocktail Menu.

For the bars that don’t employ these experts, what will typically end up happening is either the owner will be in charge of wines, or the bar manager – who, like me, could likely have very little formal experience with wines. But that doesn’t mean your wine list will have to suffer.

As I’ve worked on our wine and cocktail program over the past few weeks (and indeed it has taken more than a couple weeks to put together a quality list), I’ve developed a few questions for you to ask yourself when it comes time to update your own wine program.

1) Who are your guests? (Regions & Varietals)
It’s been no secret in business for years that to be successful, you must understand, anticipate, and then meet the customer’s needs. I think it’s fair to say that most bars have almost completely thrown this advice out the window over the years. Instead, items appearing on both cocktail menus and wine lists have been generalized as a means of serving the lowest common denominator, rather than instead tailoring things to what the guest really wanted.

It’s not just your proximity, price point, or service that help your guest determine where they want to eat. The theme, atmosphere, and the style of cuisine offered are where more guests place their value when determining their bar or restaurant choice. If you’re an Italian bar or restaurant, serving exclusively Italian cuisine, why are half of your wine offerings Australian? If your guests are visiting because they want to eat Italian food, it only makes sense to place more value on the wines that compliment your style of cuisine.

In addition, should you be located in a tourist destination (for example, here in Niagara Falls), it’s important to think locally, if possible. We’re located in a rapidly growing wine region, and we attract millions of tourists every year, many of which take the opportunity to visit some of our local wineries. It doesn’t make sense to not put a focus on some of the outstanding local wines from Niagara. For the tourists, the type of cuisine isn’t the most important – they didn’t come to Niagara Falls to eat Italian food. They came to Niagara Falls to experience everything we have to offer, including our wines, they’ve just been kind enough to stop in our restaurant to explore the local options we have. Keep that in mind.

2) What do your guests already know? (How to overcome big-brand domination)
In fear of trying something new, the dominant Yellow Tail-type brands of the world prosper in bars and restaurants because many wine lists will exclusively offer what they know is already selling, regardless of where it’s from, or the quality of the product.

Most guests can recognize the name “Yellow Tail” on a wine list, and will order it – not based on quality of the wine, but on the name the brand has established for itself through worldwide marketing, and a distinctive yellow label. Maybe they’ve never had a great Syrah, or South African Shiraz – the onus should be on the establishment to help introduce them to it.

The big name brands have a place on wine lists, but should be there as a means of offering guests an “easy way out” if they’re intimidated by the wines you offer. The discount brands should then be offered, bottle only, at a premium, as a means of driving sales back to the superior, less expensive, house wines. By focusing on quality rather than brand name, you can increase the perceived value and the return on your wine list.

3) What level of quality is your clientele willing to pay for? (Pricing)
Pricing can be a very difficult area to approach when it comes to wine. Industry standard is about 200-250% markup on wines, but I’ve worked in places it reached upwards of 300%. Currently our highest markup is about 100% at Johnny Rocco’s, with most wines being substantially less than that. If your establishment has high turnover, making $15 – $20 off of a bottle might be all that you need, but for many it’s much higher than that.

Because of this, it’s important that your house pours represent a good range of varietals and prices. To some, the motivation in choosing a glass of wine could very well be exclusively focused on the price, and that works for you in both ways. Some guests will automatically opt for the least expensive option, not focused on the type of wine but instead choosing something that’s going to be easy, and cheap to sip on for the night. Inversely, there are also the guests for whom quality is synonymous with price – the most expensive wine is the best on the list, and again without any attention to varietal, is the wine they’ll drink all night.

Between these highs and lows is where you’ll find more room to play with a range of varietals. A range of 6-7 reds by the glass and 5-6 whites can often carry most of the major wine varietals, and can satisfy the requests of most wine drinkers at your bar. Providing a range of options to your guests ensures that you are able to satisfy needs with quality, rather than just brand name.

4) Who’s working for who? (Working with sales reps and suppliers)
Finally, a little bit of the “what’s in it for me / the bar”. There’s plenty of great wines to suit your bar, and most of those wines are likely accompanied by a local sales rep, willing to work with you to get as many of their wines as possible on your list. Generally speaking, the more product from a particular distributors portfolio that makes it onto your bar means the higher incentive that you receive in return. But do you really want your list to carry all 20 of the Wolf Blass line of products? Probably not.

It’s important to work with many suppliers, working out the best products and the best deals you can manage in order to bring your bar the biggest return. But before you commit to a wine, even if you’re not pouring it by the glass, taste it! My wine collection has nearly tripled in the past few weeks because of the number of tastings I’ve sat through with my bar’s reps. Regardless of the marketing, or cash incentives a particular product is offering, if you don’t like the taste, there’s no reason it should be offered within your bar. Likewise, if your sales rep can’t bring one bottle that you are potentially going to sell cases of, why should you deal with that wine, or that rep? They want your business, not the other way around.

When it comes time to launch that list, your rep better be making an appearance to walk your staff through tastings, and educating them on how to properly sell their wine. Regardless of whatever deals your reps are offering, it’s important to remind from time to time that their product’s place in your bar is a privilege that can be revoked at any time for any reason, especially if it’s not moving fast enough.

So what do you take away from this? Taste everything, provide your guests with value, and build relationships on both sides of the bar that will help sustain your list in the long run, and I promise you’ll be successful.

If you have experience on setting up your own wine list, I would love to hear from you below. If you’re within Ontario and interested in learning about the reps that we work with at Johnny Rocco’s, I would be more than happy to send some information your way! Our new wine and cocktail list launches Monday, December 7th, 2009.