An Introduction…

I suppose before I expand too much upon this blog, a short introduction as to who I am, and what my plans are for this blog may be in order.

For those of you who don’t know me, I run a fairly popular cocktail website, and am known in the ‘cocktailian’ community as "DrinkBoy". Despite this rather silly nickname, I take the topic and introspection of cocktails quite seriously. This nickname sort of serves as a constant reminder that we are, after all, just talking about cocktails.

I treat the cocktail as a form of cuisine, as an art form in which the artist carefully combines the various flavors at their disposal to create a sublime and intriguing elixir in which all of the components are carefully balanced. Far too many people think you can slosh some cold vodka into a glass and call it a cocktail, or worse… a Martini. In that, there is no art.

A "true cocktail" is all about balance. It is a way in which the ingredients are combined such that no single flavor takes command. For a Martini, this means that you take the base spirit (gin, which has a botanical flavor and a sharp spicy texture), and add enough dry vermouth (which has a herbal flavor, and a soft buttery texture) to balance out the flavors, and soften the sharpness. To this you add a dash or two of orange bitters (which has a slightly sweet and spicy flavor, and a lot of complexity) to properly join the flavors together. You don’t add so much bitters as you can actually "taste" them. They play the same role in a cocktail as salt does in a soup. While you can’t really taste it, if you left it out, something would appear to be missing. The fact that you don’t notice bitters missing in your cocktails, illustrates that there is more for you to experience.

This then is my mission. To challenge people to really understand the cocktail, and to help them realize that it is far more than just an alcohol delivery vehicle.

Assuming that I actually get into this whole "blog" thing, you’ll hopefully be able to gain some insights on the cocktail if you stop by every once in a while.

The Museum of the American Co… er… “Mixed Drink”

(Dang… it appears as though MSN "Spaces" is being a little over-protective regarding the use of word’s being used. Apparently "Cocktail" is being flagged as an offensive word. Hopefully this just means I can’t use it in the "title". If I can’t use cocktail in my postings themselves that’s going to greatly hamper what I write about!)

It’s all happened fairly quickly. It was just back in August when I was talking with Dale DeGroff and some others about their idea for creating a "Museum of the American Cocktail". We weren’t totally sure how it was going to take shape, but we knew we wanted to set it up in New Orleans, where many of the early foundations of the cocktail were formed.

Within what seemed like days (probably because it was) we had a team formed, a location arranged for, and a number of specific individual projects under way. We originally had anticipated doing a "road show" for about a year, taking a traveling exhibit which would include a historical retrospective of the cocktail, an exhibit of cocktail shakers, barware, along with seminars which would help people better understand the rich and robust history of the cocktail. But now that we actually had an exhibit space (to be borrowed from the "Pharmacy Museum"), there was no need to go on the road trying to drum up awareness of our project.

We had already arranged for a preview exhibit to make an appearance at the IBA (International Bartenders Association) annual conference, which just happened to be held in the US this year (Las Vegas), and so a few of us spent some time working with them on the various arrangments necessary for this, as well as lining up some exhbit materials and displays. This show is now complete, and it appears to have gone over quite well.

Our next milestone is the actual opening of the Museum itself, which is scheduled for January 12th, 2005. The location of the Museum will be on the second floor of the Pharmacy Museum, which is located at 514 Chartres St., New Orleans, just off of the infamous Bourbon Street in the French Quarter.

The actual schedule of events for this opening day are still being worked out, but I’m sure we will have several things going on throughout the day. I’ll try to post more information as it becomes available.