As I ponder how to best show it all off, I asked last week for some examples of your home bars, and I wanted to take a second to share the first of these with you.

First up was Joe Dalle Molle (Minneapolis, MN), whose collection was small but mighty, with a few stellar choices included. This actually kind of reminded me of how my collection started:

And to something a little larger, Fred Yarm of Cocktail Virgin Slut sends in this, which has apparently since grown to about 30 bottles larger:

And another look, at the collection disassembled:

I found some shelving units that I think I can probably build in perfectly.. just gotta wait until I get in the place. Until then, please keep pictures of yours coming! Send pictures (and counts) of your home bar to nick@cocktailsandcordials.com

Pretty cool, but not necessarily groundbreaking — Anyone remember Eben Freeman and Bacardi’s “Mojito of the future“? Any thoughts?

With that, I’m proud to present my cool find of the day: My Jello Americans. Eben Freeman, eat your heart out.

Check it out, and let me know your thoughts!

Leave a message below, or forward pictures of your collection to nick@cocktailsandcordials.com

From time to time, extraordinary individuals and causes will pop up from within this industry, and when they do, I’m very happy to recognize them. A while back, I posted about Doc Hendley’s Wine to Water program, and today, I’d like to focus on Tales of the Cocktail’s efforts to help aid with the oil disaster on the gulf coast.

In an effort to support a seafood industry that plays such a large role in the culinary traditions of New Orleans, The New Orleans Culinary and Cultural Preservation Society created a limited edition bar towels to commemorate this year’s Tales of the Cocktail event, with 100% of the proceeds from the sale of the towels to go directly to oyster shuckers who have recently been laid off due to the oil spill in the Gulf.

The cheque presentation will take place next Wednesday, August 25th at 10:00AM in New Orleans, and I’ll be happy to share information and photos with everyone after the event, so keep your eyes and ears open here. I hope you’ll take a second to consider donating — and if you’re interested, please email ann [at] talesofthecocktail [dot] com.

I could only manage a $100 donation, so please join me in sending a huge thank you to Darcy O’Neil ($200), Dushan Zaric ($500), and most recently Allen Katz ($500). We have 54 towels left to sell and would like to raise a total of $7,500.00 in funds for the employees of P&J Oysters.

Here’s a quick message from Sal Sunseri, Owner of P&J Oyster Company:

“We at P & J Oyster Company are truly blessed to have friends like Ann and the crew at Tales of the Cocktail. This fundraiser just gives you an idea about how much people really appreciate our food culture, history and the celebration of the finest seafood there is. Most all of our P & J working family, that are receiving this assistance through these extremely troubled times, have been with us for all of their work life. Some, over 30 years. Their livelihood has been put on hold, hopefully for a brief time. And we pray that we won’t be using the words “Aint dere no mo,” but more like ”Gotta be dere some mo,” when talking about our 134 year family tradition. Thanks to an incredible effort by Tales of the Cocktail.”

I’ll admit, it took me a while to get into ‘Mad Men’.. It usually takes a while for a drama to really warm to me. However, after seeing the abundance of booze and classic cocktails feature throughout the show, I found it pretty easy for the show to quickly take hold of me. I don’t think I’m the only one, either — I’ve seen Mad Men pop up in conversation from the likes of guys like Philip Duff rather regularly, too.

Building on the success of the show’s popular 3 martini lunches, AMC has just release the Mad Men ‘Cocktail Culture’ App via iTunes.

From AMC: “Think you can make an Old Fashioned as good as Don Draper can (or a Tom Collins as deftly as daughter Sally)? AMC’s Mad Men Cocktail Culture game challenges your skills at making popular cocktails of the ’60s. How much vodka do you pour in a Gimlet? Do you shake or stir a Martini? What glass do you use for a Blue Hawaiian? Get everything right, and Roger Sterling just may just invite you to his next party!

Once you’ve made your virtual cocktail, you can drink it yourself and also share your results with a friend. Just for fun or when getting ready for the next episode of Mad Men, this app lets you master the art of cocktail making — in Mad Men style.”

To get the full app, it’s gonna cost you $1.99, but you can also download a free trial of it from here.

Anyone else tried this yet? What do you think?

With the advance of social media tools like Youtube, brands have been able to broadcast their product’s imagery and messages to a more dedicated group of viewers, and are generating content that resonates with audiences. Of the many you can find online, below are just a few of my favourites.

1. Sailor Jerry – “The Old School Way” (2:12)
I was given a copy of this video a while back by my local Sailor Jerry rep, and it still remains one of my favourites. As of late, there’s been a bit of debate in some markets regarding Sailor Jerry’s “new school” recipe, which seems to contradict the image of honour, tradition, and backwoods / true to your nature of the brand portrayed below. Here in Ontario, we still enjoy the classic recipe, and either way, it’s still a fun video to watch.

2. Johnnie Walker – “The Man Who Walked Around the World” (6:27)
Anyone remember the Samuel Jackson movie Formula 51? I used to love that film, and I was stoked to see actor Robert Carlyle return in this longer ad from Johnnie Walker, detailing the long and rich history of the Walker family and their brand of scotch. This video’s been circulating for a while, but I still love it:

3. The Kraken Spiced Rum – “The Inquiry Into the Cloud of Darkness” (1:51)
There’s something about these ads from the Kraken Spiced Rum that remind (in a good way) of the Old Spice videos that have received so much attention lately – serious, fun, and lighthearted – not taking themselves too seriously… after all, their brand is based on a Mythical sea creature. I haven’t yet had an opportunity to try the product, but I love the ads, and these videos are reason enough for me to continue to seek out a bottle in my travels. View the rest of the videos here.

4. Art in the Age Root Liqueur – “The Story of Root” (1:45)
I posted about this one a little while back. While I only got my first chance to taste Root Liqueur at Tales a month or so ago, the brand’s involvement in a multitude of different social venues has made it one that’s pretty hard to miss. When I saw this little informational video on their website, I thought it was pretty hard not to love.

Any videos you think are worthy of sharing? Anything I missed?

In the latest video preview (displayed above), the Alinea team demonstrates the use of some of the newest Polyscience equipment, and how it works to superchill liquids to -6C, plus talks on how they can make the technology work with their coming arsenal of cocktails, and talks of tiki and blended drinks and the applications for those.

Molecular mix geeks.. eat your heart out.

You can follow the progress of Aviary intently (like me) via Alinea’s Youtube Channel, website, or through a couple of Twitter accounts. I’ll hopefully be down in Chicago by the end of the year.. you can bet that Alinea (and hopefully Aviary) will be on my list of stops.

For now, check out the image below, posted via Grant Achatz on YFrog.. a sign of some great things that are hopefully to come from Aviary — homemade celery, lavender, and orange bitters, plus a good handful of Chartreuse? Count me in.

After the success of last year’s competition in New York, it appears that Barenjager has opted to extend their annual mixoff to the rest of the country, and so far the response has been overwhelming. Mind you, how could it not be? This year’s grand prize is an all-expense paid trip for two to Oktoberfest 2010 in Munich, Germany and $1,000 in cash to sweeten the pot. Lucky for you, they’ve pretty much left the competition open to whatever creative cocktails the dark and creepy corners your bartending brains might just conjure.

Be warned, though — judges for this year include the likes of Allen Katz, Dushan Zaric, Phil Ward, Tad Carducci, and because I couldn’t resist quoting the press release, “Spirits and Cocktails Geek Gary Regan“. As determined by these guys, the competition’s six top entries will move on to the finals, held on September 20th in New York, where the chosen competitors will make their cocktails for the last round of judging. The 5 judges will sample cocktails and decide the winning cocktail and grand prize winner. In addition, media will sample all cocktails and vote on the audience favorite.

While the audience favourite might miss out on Octoberfest, an additional $1000 cash prize is on the line… so get mixing. We get Barenjager here in Canada, but us Canuck’s aren’t eligible, so it looks like I’ll have to resign to following the competition’s progress intently online.

Interested? Hurry up, the last call for entries is Monday, August 23rd… and believe me, Gaz isn’t particularly forgiving if you’re late on a deadline. Bad news, though — if you live in Texas, Washington, California, Tennessee, Alaska or Hawaii, you’re not eligible this time around.

Enter online at the Barenjager Website.

After all, how is it that we can justify the vast differences in price? From the $20 bottle of Prince Igor to the $60 bottle of Grey Goose, and triple / quadruple / seven times distilled, to diamond filtering, glacier filtered, handmade, and organic approaches (or whatever term a clever marketer comes up with next). How is it possible that the category has grown so large if it is based, essentially, on “nothing”?

Per Hamersson of Absolut Vodka agrees. He argues that if you want a “neutral” vodka, you should seek out Finlandia.. but they are one of few brands that can really say that they are that neutral profile we’ve become accustomed to attributing to the category. Instead, Per Argues that vodka is a quite complex spirit, with gentle subtleties and fuller mouthfeels that can rival those of any other category.

Throughout the Absolut Sensory Analysis seminar, Per educated attendees on how we taste and perceive spirits and guided us through a blind tasting of Absolut, Absolut 100, Ciroc, Tito’s, Smirnoff, and one more I can’t remember the name of. While not a direct advertorial for Absolut, Per walked guests through subtle grainy, bready, and fruity flavours you wouldn’t normally perceive from a non-flavoured vodka, and educating us as well on the comparatively huge mouthfeel and complexity of both Absolut offerings.

The cocktails served, one being Vodka, Campari, and grapefruit juice, and the other being Vodka, Blue Curacao, and orange bitters fell quite short of the rest of the presentation — but other than that, I’m quite impressed with the extent and quality of information that Absolut presented. I hope we can bring this seminar to Toronto and elsewhere in Canada very soon.

Combine all the above with the best swag of the entire week, and it’s easy to see why I think Absolut did such an exceptional job this year. Funnily enough, the other seminar that seems to have made waves at Tales this year was “I love Vodka, I hate vodka” — maybe the quality bartenders of the world are starting to come around to this spirit… what do you think?

Were you at the Absolut seminar as well? What other seminars ranked high in your books this year? Can anyone weigh in on the “I hate Vodka / I love Vodka” seminar too?