Mixology Monday- Hard Drinks for Hard Times- Beer and a Shot

This month's Mixology Monday is hosted by Matthew Rowley , who chose the theme of "Hard Drinks for Hard Times". I couldn't imagine that the American economy would tank like it has, or that we would roll back 30 years of progress in the name of "stimulus", but thanks to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid I think we might be screwed. We're nationalizing banking, there is talk of new WPA programs, and welfare reform, well, thats dead and gone. Being a capitalist with strong libertarian leanings, you could say that its dark days right now for me. If anyone needs a drink, its me every time I hear Chris Dodd open his mouth or watch the Republicans crumble and give up their core beliefs. Am I the only person that believes that government, the same people who brought you the department of motor vehicles and the IRS, is not our savior? Am I the only free market capitalist left? The old adage that "Everyone is a capitalist on the way up and a socialist on the way down" seems to be ringing true. I need a drink.

Timothy Leary talked about "set and setting" being important in his experiments with LSD. For this month's Mixology Monday, I think set and setting are vitally important to exploring this theme fully. As it is, you can readily gauge my state of mind, or "set", about the state of our nation from some of my comments above. Next, "setting" becomes important. Beers and shots hardly have the connotation of hard times if, for instance, you are knocking them down at Le Bernardin. In fact, for this exercise, only one type of watering hole is appropriate, a blues bar.

My favorite blues bar in the world is a little hole in the wall in Sacramento, California. Known from "Maine to Spain", the world famous Torch Club is a Sacramento institution. A hangout for politicians, boxers, ne'er do wells, musicians and bikers, the Torch is the kind of place that you go after a hard day to get a shot of whiskey served in a dirty glass and a beer back. I've spent many nights in the old Torch, one of my old mentors, Moose Morante was a legendary bartender there. You can always count on two things at the Torch, a good stiff drink and a great band. There is no better place in the world to be when you are down on your luck and times are tough.

Unfortunately, I don't live within driving distance of the Torch, so I had to make do. I had a tall boy of Miller High Life in the fridge, in better times it would be referred to as "cooking beer" in our house. The champagne of beers rarely makes it down my throat, but for this evening, I thought it was appropriate. Next up, unfortunately without the dirty glass, is a shot of vanilla infused Jack Daniel's. Why JD? Well, its the best selling spirit in the State of Oregon, and I got it for free. Why vanilla infused? Because I got a deal on vanilla beans from a spice shop that just closed down in this economy and I was looking to smooth the JD out a bit. The vanilla actually really works well with the whiskey, just rounding it out and providing a bit of vanilla on the back of the palate. It matches nicely with the cold High Life, enough so that for at least a few minutes, I'm not completely depressed about the state of our nation.

It might not solve my problems, but for a few minutes at least, a beer and a shot is exactly what I need during hard times.

MxMo XXXV: Broaden Your Horizons Longrow Gaja Barolo Finish

I know, I know, I'm doing Mixology Monday a week early. I'm actually not confused by the due date (I know its the 19th, not the 12th or the 29th as have been misreported), but I saw peoples posts going up today and thought to myself, 'Why wait until the last minute?".

As you probably already know, I'm only a "sometime" participant in Mixology Monday. That is, I participate when my schedule allows and when I'm inspired by the topic. I appreciate the concept of Mixology Monday but to be honest, as a working bartender , there are times when the last thing I want to do on a Monday is think about liquor. However, when I saw that the Scribe over at A Mixed Dram had chosen to broaden everyone's horizons, well, I couldn't resist. As he describes this months theme;

Hello everyone, and welcome to A Mixed Dram. I’m hosting this month, and I think you will enjoy our topic this month. I know that we tend to do what is familiar to us, and I am no less a victim of this than anyone else, often even more. My first several cocktails were basically sours, and then my next several were little more than old fashioneds. Well, today I issue you a challenge: Try something new!

Hmm, try something new huh? There are plenty of things that I still haven't gotten around to playing with either on this blog or in RL (including some new toys I just purchased from Harvard Medical School). Still, I really wasn't sure about what to do until I sat down last night and had a wee dram of Longrow Gaja Barolo Barrel Single Malt Scotch. I loved it, and I even threw up a quick post to tell people how much I enjoyed it, but I don't think I was being upfront enough. So, in the spirit of trying something new (this is the newest liquor in my collection), I thought I'd review this amazing product right here during Mixology Monday.

Ego nunquam pronunciari mendacium! Sed ego sum homo indomitus! (I never lie. But I am a savage)- Mel Gibson, Braveheart
, 1995

If ever there were a single malt that was more savage and vicious than Longrow Gaja Barrel finish, I haven't seen it. Not the brutes from Islay, let the Ardbegs and Laphroaigs alone, not even they are this savage. This is a knife fight on your palate, brutal, and yet at the same time amazingly beautiful, like watching two aces dogfight in a deadly ballet.

Longrow is produced by the Springbank distillery (one of my favorites and a continual favorite amongst single malt fans), along with Hazelburn. Three malts emanating from one distillery is a pretty unusual occurence. A Campbelltown malt, Springbank's 3 styles are all unique, Springbank featuring a medium peatiness, Hazelburn an unpeated malt and Longrow a heavily peated malt. Add to this heavily peated malt an 18 month stay in old Gaja barolo barrels (a huge Italian wine, big and tannic with a taste of tar and rose) after 5 1/2 years in old bourbon barrels and you've got one unusual single malt.

Upon opening the bottle, there is a pronounced winey aroma to the nose, reminiscent of an old vinegar barrel. This is a hot and tight liquor at 55.8%, but upon putting one ice cube in the glass, the Longrow began to give up aromas of leather, cedar and pine needles. This is an oily, almost viscous malt, coating your tongue almost instantly. On the palate, wine notes attack the peat with all its got but the peat puts up a great fight. Smoke is everywhere, punching your tastebuds and fighting to stay at the forefront. I found that this malt takes a good 10 to 15 minutes to open up completely, but half the fun is sipping this and seeing what craziness shows up next. I didn't know single malt (or anything for that matter) could do something like this to my tastebuds as flavors dance and attack, feinting and ducking then reappearing. Rich, big, smoky, tannic, before this malt opens its flavors are quite literally at war with each other, but the crazy thing is, it works. I absolutely love this bottle, but unfortunately, there were only 1200 bottles of this ever made. I do hope they attempt to recreate this malt again, but the weather in Scotland can be fickle and I don't know if they could ever recreate what is in this bottle. All I can say is that the distillers at Springbank are evil geniuses. It becomes readily apparent when the malt finally does open up, revealing a big, peaty well balanced malt. A certain sweetness begins to emerge and is tempered by the oak barrels only slightly. If anything, this is a dizzying ride for your palate. It may not be for everyone, but luckily I'm not everyone and I love this bottle.

Highly Recommended

Mixology Monday- Guilty Pleasures

So this month's MixMo subject is Guilty Pleasures. Hosted by Stevi Deter over at Two at the Most, this subject has already gotten Jeff Morgenthaler to admit to his secret love of vodka, and a number of other great bartenders and bloggers are probably about to make similarly embarassing admissions.

Before I start teasing anyone else though, I have a bit of an embarassing admission to make myself. I used to live the thug life before I reformed and started making more respectable cocktails. Sure, I wasn't slinging rock on the mean streets of Oakland, nor have I ever once sported colors, and any gang sets that I have ever thrown are more likely the result of a hand cramp than any actual serious attempt at those contortions. That said, I have worked in some of the finest hip hop clubs in California, slinging drinks to the rich, the poor and everything in between. I've used a bottle of Galliano as a baseball bat during a riot in a club, seen police panic and release their dogs on an unsuspecting (although rowdy) crowd after we've locked the doors after hours, and been downwind of more pepper spray than I'd like to admit. Back in the day, it was just part and parcel of the game.

Y'all gon make me lose my mind
Up in here, up in here
Y'all gon make me go all out
Up in here, up in here
Y'all gon make me act a fool
Up in here, up in here
Y'all gon make me lose my cool
Up in here, up in here - DMX, "Party Up"

While I did work in some of the finer hip hop establishments on the west coast in the mid 1990s, unlike most videos you see, we didn't exactly sell lots of Cristal and Louis XIII. Instead, the middle class hip hop afficionados preferred strawberry daiquiris, the ubiquitous gin and juice, and of course, the subject of tonight's post, the Hennessey Separator.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Separator, its essentially a white russian (vodka, half and half and kahlua) with brandy or cognac standing in for the vodka (Sorry Morgenthaler, I don't think you'd like this one). Now, in my experience there are only two ways to make a Separator. The poor mans way is just to ask for one and you'll get something nasty like E&J Brandy, or there is the playa's way, which is to walk up to the bar and order a Hennessey Separator. I swear, in all the years of slinging drinks in hip hop clubs, I never once made a Courvosier Separator. True gangstas understand that while Courvosier is a nice cognac, only Hennessey is the proper choice for a well made Separator. It seems to be some sort of unwritten rule in the clubs, one that I personally agree with.

Separators were a mans drink back in the day. Delicious, strong, creamy and sweet, Separators have enough punch to be effective, and yet enough sweetness to cut the fire of VS level cognac. I developed a taste for them early on in my career, and drank them through my entire club career.

I rarely drink Separators anymore. I've never made one at home, nor have I ever ordered one in Oregon. It seems like this is a drink that isn't just a guilty pleasure for me, I need a certain set and setting to truly enjoy one of these. I need to be in some divey California club, where the glasses are sticky, the crowd rowdy and the doormen just ready to snap from roid rage. I don't end up in places like this very often, but when I do, nothing like a Hennessey Separator hits the spot.

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta
Feedin the poor and hepin out wit they bills
Although I was born in jamaica
Now I'm in the us makin deals
Damn it feels good to be a gangsta
I mean one that you dont really know
Ridin around town in a drop-top benz
Hittin switches in my black six-fo
Now gangsta-ass n**** come in all shapes and colors
Some got killed in the past
But this gangtsa here is a smart one
Started living for the lord and I'll last- Geto Boyz "Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta"

MxMo- Local Flavor

Well, I've been in and out of Mixology Monday for a while now. I like that it encourages my creativity as a bartender, but, to be honest, I'm doing that 3 nights a week already. I think the #1 thing that I get out of MxMo is simply additional perspectives. Other times, I look at it and, well, I just can't get into it. I particularly liked Kevin at Save the Drinkers idea, local flavor. Why? Well, I do live in Portland Oregon. I've got more "local" choices than about the rest of the country combined when it comes to distilled spirits. This should be a cakewalk for someone with spirits like Aviation gin, Trillium absinthe, and Sub Rosa vodka in his backyard. And yet, to be honest, I'm no Jamie Boudreau (or even a Jeff Morgenthaler or Jimmy Patrick either). I don't hail from beautiful Montreal. Instead I'm from one of the ugliest towns on the west coast, little Turlock, California, where black jeans still pass for formal wear and home to exactly one teeny tiny bar in the entire village. Unless I was going to make a Jack Daniels and Coors Light cocktail, Turlock is out, so I'm running with my adopted hometown of Portland on this one.
I decided to use one of my favorite spirits distilled here in Portland, Clear Creek Distilleries' Pear brandy. I use this to mix all the time, usually with great results. Today, I decided that just one Oregon spirit just wasn't enough so I hit the liquor store at lunch and grabbed a bottle of Dolmen Worker Bee Honey Spirit, thinking that honeyed notes would play well with the pear brandy. By the time I actually had gotten home, I'd also decided to work some Sake One G Joy into the drink to round it out a bit and add a little more complexity. Choosing an acid was easy, lemon juice just lends itself nicely to all of these flavors. Once home from my soul crushing corporate job today, I got to mixing.

East of Beaverton Cocktail

2 oz Clear Creek Pear Brandy
1 oz Dolmen Worker Bee Honey Spirit
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz Sake One Joy G Sake

Chill, stir and serve up.

It was almost everything that I'd been hoping for. A taste of Oregon Summer in a glass. Two dashes of the Fee Brothers orange bitters and a splash of Clear Creek's Pear liqueur it it was perfection in a glass. I took my glass outside and enjoyed the warm summer evening, sipping my cocktail as I inspected my garden tonight. Perfection doesn't taste much better.

Mixology Monday- The Screen Door Cocktail

I know that I've been MIA for the last couple of MixMo's. My schedule has been completely crazy recently, with my consulting for a restaurant that just opened, helping to open another one due mid-July, my day job, etc etc. I could make excuses all day, but when I saw that the fine gentlemen at Scofflaw’s Den had chosen to host Mix Mo with a Bourbon theme, well, count me in. I'm probably missing some other deadlines somewhere, but I had to be a part of this.
Recently, I've been experimenting with a lot of Jerry Thomas' old drink recipes, especially a number of the ones featured in David Wondrich's great book, "Imbibe! From the Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash..". I've been interested in incorporating modern ingredients or styles into classic recipes. If you look past the unusual preparations on some of these ingredients, you'll see that this is simply a Fancy Whiskey Cocktail, nothing more, nothing less.
I also need to add a caveat to this cocktail. I'm using a bacon bourbon for this cocktail, and, while I would like to take credit for bacon bourbon, I actually saw Jim Meehan and Don Lee do this at the Grand Marnier Mixology Summit in Vail this year. I had been experimenting with fat washing before, and I am bacon obsessed, so when I tasted their bacon bourbon, I knew I had to attempt some of my own. For this batch, I used Bulleit bourbon as I felt both the flavor profile and the price point lent themselves to fat washing, and I'm very happy with the result.
In order to make your own Bacon Bourbon, the process is really pretty simple. Get some good bacon (I bought a pound of bacon at Whole Foods), cook it off, reserving the bacon fat, let the fat cool (but do not let it solidify), add to a fifth of bourbon, cover and keep in a cool dry place for 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, place the container of fat/bourbon in the fridge overnight, then strain the bacon fat out from the bourbon using a coffee filter lined chinois. Voila! You've got bacon bourbon, and thats the basic idea behind any fat washed liquor.
I was inspired to create this cocktail after a visit to the Screen Door, a wonderful restaurant here in Portland that makes a praline bacon with brown sugar and pecans that is to die for. Its one of the greatest bacons that I've ever eaten, and I wanted to take some of the qualities from this bacon (sweet, smoky, pecan) and translate this into a drink.I already had the bacon bourbon, so I had to find a way to get some smokiness into the cocktail. While a classic Fancy Whiskey Cocktail uses plain gum syrup, I decided to smoke some brown sugar, turn it into a simple syrup (1-1) and cold infuse it with toasted pecans to try to achieve the flavors that I want to create. Hot smoking the brown sugar isn't the easiest thing to do, but after 3 hours of hickory smoke, I had a large, rock hard cake of brown sugar with a heady barbecue aroma of hickory smoke. I shaved the cake of sugar back down into granules and made a 1 to 1 simple syrup to which I added some toasted pecans, and then did a 2 week cold infusion in my refriegerator in order to extract as much flavor as possible from the pecans. I will add one caveat to anyone attempting to recreate this simple syrup. However many pecans you decide to toast, double it. You'll thank me, as the cold infusion takes a lot of toasted pecans (I used 1 c pecans to 1 1/2 c simple) for the flavor to pull through.
Lets get to the recipe shall we?

The Screen Door Cocktail
2 oz Bacon infused Bulleit Bourbon
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
1/2 tsp Citronege
1 tsp Hickory Smoked Pecan Simple Syrup

garnish with a lemon peel over the top of this cocktail

I felt like this cocktail achieved what I was setting out to do. I didn't end up with a cocktail that was sickly sweet, instead, its a balanced cocktail with depth from the smoke and pecans. The lemon oil really seems to brighten some of the background flavors. Overall, I'm really happy with this one. I drink this and imagine myself sitting outside on the porch, somewhere on a humid, August night in Mississippi (I lived there once), watching fireflies dance in the air and listening to the symphony of cicadas as the sun slowly sets. Some drinks are just evocative of a time or a place, and for me, the Screen Door Cocktail has done just that.

Thanks for reading.

Mx Mo- Rethinking the Hurricane

Kaiser Penguin is hosting this months Mixology Monday, and the theme is "Limit One". Essentially, it calls for either drinks that are all alcohol (i.e. a Manhattan) or drinks that contain at least 3 oz of 80 proof alcohol. When I saw the theme, I was reminded of my days working at the Hard Rock Cafe in Sacramento. HRC used to sell a hurricane with a collectable HRC glass for something like $20 back when I worked there. I remembered that at the time I worked for HRC, the hurricane recipe was 3 kinds of Bacardi (light, dark, 151), orange juice, passionfruit juice and pineapple juice and a little grenadine. I made a call down to Sacramento to confirm the recipe, but apparently HRC has changed their recipe to mango puree, oj, pineapple juice and 3 kinds of Bacardi. Neither option sounded like what I wanted to make for MxMo, so I started scrounging the internet, looking at Pat O'Briens recipe and others. The only constant that I found among all the recipes was fruit juice. Beyond that, the recipes were all across the board. I remembered that I had recently been in the Kiknbaque lounge and I'd overheard a discussion between the owner and some patrons about the regional differences between what gets labeled as a Hurricane, but I hadn't given it any thought since then. Perhaps there are signifigant regional differences between what constitutes a Hurricane, its not something that I've had time to research. What I did decide was that with as many variations existing of the Hurricane, I could take this drink and remake it to my tastes. What follows is my version (and quite a tasty one at that) of the Hurricane.

Hurricane Cocktail

1 oz Goslings Black Seal Rum
1 oz Old New Orleans Amber Rum
1 oz 10 Cane Rum
1/2 oz John D Taylors Velvet Falernum
1/2 oz Trader Tiki's Primativa (or use Forbidden Fruit Liqueur)
3 oz orange juice
3 oz pineapple juice
1 oz apricot nectar
1 oz papaya juice
2 oz guava juice
2 dashes Regans Orange Bitters
1 oz Grand Marnier

1) Take all ingredients except grand marnier, build over ice, stir vigorously, add float of Grand Marnier.
2) Enjoy

This makes a very tropical drink, sweet, but not toothachingly sweet as you might expect. This drink does have quite a kick, the rums take on a nice background role so its easy to get lulled into complacency with this but one of these gave me quite the buzz.

MxMo Variations and the OBG

Ok, I admit, I'm not the most technical person you'll ever meet. For the life of me, I still can't figure out how to save that MixMo logo and embed it into my posts, al la Jeff Morgenthaler. For now, please bear with me (someday I'll figure out how to get the pics into the body of my post too, but thats for another day). Anyway, as you probably know, the immensely talented Jimmy Patrick is the host of Mixology Monday this month and the theme is variations. In addition to my own variation (pic 1 above), I'm also going to offer up some interesting variations on cocktails by some of my fellow members of the Oregon Bartenders Guild. Before I get into the cocktails, let me say that I am proud to be a member of the only independent bartenders guild in the United States. We're doing some exciting things and if you are interested in some of our discussions and such, you can access our forum here. But I digress, lets move on to the cocktails shall we?

The first picture above is my creation, the Spagnuolo, one of three variations on the Negroni that I'm sharing in this post. For my variation, I substituted Aperol for the Campari, being sister products I thought it would be interesting to note the differences that occured in the cocktail. While Campari has quite a bit of bitterness, I knew that I'd be losing some of that bitterness with the substitution of Aperol. To try to maintain the balance of the cocktail, I used Punt E Mes, which I find very bitter, and Aviation Gin by House Spirits, mainly because I love their gin and didn't want to drink anything else. I also added three dashes of Fee's Lemon Bitters as a small variation. While it just isn't fair to compare the Spagnuolo to a classic Negroni, the resulting cocktail was quite pleasant, with very pronounced notes of bitter orange. The Punt E Mes was the right call to maintain the balance in the cocktail and the Aviation mixed, as usual, like a champ. Who knows, I might just throw the Spagnuolo cocktail on the menu as a special soon, it would be particularly nice during the spring. One note, the cocktail was made with a 1-1-1 ratio and 3 dashes of lemon bitters.

Next up, we have an entirely different variation on the Negroni from my friend and fellow Oregon Bartenders Guild board member, David Shenaut of the TearDrop Lounge. While David didn't give a name to his variation (his is the second pic above), lets call it the OBG #2. While the Spagnuolo really explored the fruit nuances available in a Negroni variation, David's OBG #2 traveled down a much more savory path. Composed of 1.5 oz Aviation gin, 1.25 oz Carpano Antica, 1.25 oz Campari and 20 drops of the TearDrop's notorious Chipotle- Chocolate bitters and finished with a twist of lemon. I was lucky enough to have David make this for me on my last trip to the TearDrop and I was thoroughly impressed by the spicy, savory notes that he was able to bring out in this cocktail.

Moving on, and not pictured above, but definitely worth mentioning is another variation on the Negroni created by yet one more Oregon Bartenders Guild board member, Kevin Ludwig. Kevin makes a Norwegian Negroni with Krogstad Aquavit, Cynar and Carpano Antica. I didn't have time to whip one up, but if you are a fan of Robert Hess' Trident cocktail, then the Norwegian Negroni should be right what you've been looking for.

3 variation on the Negroni from the Oregon Bartenders Guild? What, do we have some sort of a groupthink mentality? Actually, its just a bit of a strange coincidence (although I am praying that Jeff Morgenthaler's post isn't a variation on the Negroni). Thank goodness we're finishing up this post with Daniel Shoemaker. Owner and creative force behind Portland's best cocktail lounge, the TearDrop Lounge with his partner Ted Charnak, Daniel offers us his variation on the classic Japanese cocktail, aptly named, "The Cyclone Ranger" (last pic above). 2 oz of Barsol Quebranta Pisco are mixed with 3/4 oz of the TearDrop's own filbert orgeat, a dash of angostura bitters and 4 drops of their house Chipotle-Chocolate bitters. Daniel serves this up in a coupe garnished with catlike dexterity (I know, catlike dexterity? Daniel was recently written up as catlike in a recent review, so I've got to continue teasing him) with shaved Scharfenberger chocolate.

In the future, you may continue to see drinks and ideas here from my fellow OBG members. I think its a great exercise to do collectively, and as you can see, 4 bartenders came up with 4 completely different variations this time. Perhaps our next project should be creating punches for Tales. Too bad Old New Orleans Rum isn't exactly easy to come by in Oregon. But thats a subject for another post. Thanks for reading and giving me the opportunity to share some of the talents of my fellow members of the OBG.

Follow the rest of the variations here at Mixology Monday.

Mixology Monday- The Plagiarism Cocktail

This is my first attempt at the internet sensation known as Mixology Monday. This session is hosted by Marleigh over at Sloshed and the theme this time is brandy. We're lucky enough here in Portland Oregon to have the premier distiller of eau de vie ("water of life") style artisan brandies in the United States, Clear Creek Distillery which is a mere 2 blocks from the restaurant that I bartend at, Meriwethers . While I definitely enjoy the breadth and depth of brandies, a quick perusal of my liquor cabinet revealed a bottle of 1982 vintage armangac, some Remy Martin VSOP and a bottle of Clear Creek's Pear Brandy. I didn't want to sacrifice the armangac and the Remy just didn't appeal to me for some reason, so I went with the pear brandy. Additionally, my friend JT has developed a recent fascination with chartreuse, so I wanted to incorporate some chartreuse into my cocktail and the pear seemed like a good match for the herbal notes in the chartreuse. A little tinkering around in the bar, adding some fresh squeezed Meyer lemon juice (I love Meyer lemons) and some St Germain Elderflower Liqueur, and a few dashes of grapefruit bitters and I had a delicious, complex and well balanced cocktail. Without further ado, here is the Plagiarism Cocktail

2 oz Clear Creek Brandy
1 oz St Germain Elderflower Liqueur
1/2 oz Green Chartreuse
1 oz Meyer Lemon Juice
2 dashes grapfruit bitters

Chill and serve up, garnished with one lightly bruised sprig of thyme to release some of the essential oils.

So why would I name a cocktail after plagiarism? One of the great things about food and cocktails is that there are no copyrights on a particular dish or recipe. This is a good thing, it encourages people to recreate and improve upon recipes and allows talents and techniques to be shared. I can make Jeff Morgenthaler's Richmond Gimlet behind my bar without worries about a lawsuit, and while some bartenders may try to lay claim to others creations, I always try to give credit where credit is due, attempting to educate my guests about the history behind the cocktails they are enjoying.

While food and cooking are one thing, plagiarism in the world of writing is anathema. It is a sign of intellectual laziness and dishonesty. I've recently had my first magazine article published in the January/February Issue of Imbibe Magazine (yep, thats me on the Elements page), and I understand the hard work it takes to craft an article for publication, or even how hard it can be to craft a coherent blog (which, in the interests of full disclosure, I write without revisions). Unfortunately, here in Portland, there is a chef at one of the newer restaurants in town who has just been caught plagiarizing from others works on a scale that I've never seen before. Since this is the hot topic du jour on Portland restaurant boards, I thought I'd name my cocktail after this scandal. Oh, and if the chef in question (or anyone else for that matter) happens to read this little posting, I'm giving up all copyrights on this particular posting in perpetuity. Feel free to plagiarize this all you'd like. After all, it was Pablo Picasso who said, "Bad artists copy, good artists steal".

And the journey continues... Enjoy the cocktail, its a true original and delicious to boot.