Dallas Food Blog

​In the classic film Northwest Passage, Spencer Tracy plays the legendary Robert Rogers. For those who didn't waste a portion of their youth reading about the French and Indian War, Rogers commanded a band of soldiers who wore green uniforms and fought "Indian style" in the woods of New York.

The film is a fictional account of Rogers' Rangers and their 1759 raid against an Abenaki village. Early on, there's a scene where Tracy mixes up a pitcher of hot buttered rum at some frontier tavern.

That scene--a bowl of steaming water, jugs of rum and Tracy scooping out mounds of butter and brown sugar--made me a fan of the cocktail, even though I'd never tried it at the time. It evoked warmth and fireplaces, camaraderie and a good, solid belt of alcohol.

What could be better?

​Chip Tate and Stephen Germer for some reason decided the time was right for a craft Texas whiskey to hit the market. So they formed Balcones Distillery and set up along I-35, just south of Waco, amongst fields of heather and weathered peat bogs soaked by clear mountain springs...no, that doesn't sound right.

But they were right--a craft whiskey movement is brewing, with distilleries in Oregon, New York and several places in between turning out classic rye, soft corn whiskeys and American versions of scotch.

Balcones has two products on the market now--a blue corn whisky (they use the Scottish spelling) called Baby Blue and a curious not-quite-rum known as Rumble--with a single malt line on the way. The company was founded with a "why the hell not" attitude and a course of study in Scotland, but they've gone through the trouble of pounding out pot stills by hand and doing all the other things slightly insane and thoroughly committed craftsmen do.

Which is to say Germer was making the rounds introducing the brand and stopped by our office with a sample. So here's a look at what they've managed to accomplish in a few short years.

​Generally when people sit down to discuss whisky, the conversation settles around the single malts of Islay, Speyside or the rare and unique brands from Campbeltown. But the overwhelming majority of scotch whisky sold around the world consists of blends--up to 50 different malts making up a single bottle.

Indeed, the best known labels are blended: Ballantine's, Johnnie Walker, Teacher's, Dewar's, Famous Grouse and the like--which rather makes sense. Historian and novelist Reay Tannahill once pointed out that the desire not to displease was more powerful and profitable a motive than the desire to please and masters working for these big name brands work, year after year, to create a consistent, rather than a stand out, product.

Still, though single malt aficionados discount blends, there is a lot of skill involved. It's not easy, after all, to produce the same Dewar's--over and over--when the flavor of each malt changes with every batch.

​There's a good reason Blavod is hard to find--besides the fact that it's only purpose in life seems to be gimmick martinis and seasonal (meaning Halloween) cocktails: while in taste it compares well to Smirnoff and other modest brands, the bottle I found at Pogo's cost a grand total of $37.88, including tax.

Yes, I know you pay a little extra at Pogo's for the real estate. But I called four or five other stores before chancing on the Inwood and Lovers institution.

If you haven't caught on, Blavod is a black vodka, its hue resembling watered down squid ink. In fact, rumor has it that the color comes from a squirt of the natural smokescreen...although the company insists it is derived from bark of the catechu, a tree native to Southeast Asia long used to create dye.

​In my school of thought--and keep in mind, it's not a very well attended school--cocktails born in the heyday of gentlemanly drinking are to be revered. Drinks such as martinis, old fashioneds and the great sazerac came from an era when even the prettiest glass carried a big, stiff belt of alcohol and Singapore sling was about as silly as could get...well, except perhaps for the monkey gland.

The sidecar came along in the midst of this creative spurt. It started, most say, with a bartender in Paris at the end of The Great War, although stories also point to a guy in London or an American officer (who traveled by sidecar, of course).

But pursuing origin myths seems somewhat pointless. "It falls into the pantheon of great classic cocktails," says Charlie Papaceno of the Windmill Lounge--another way of saying 'who really knows just when and where it started.' More important, he says, is that the drink is "really simple but clean tasting. And it will knock you on your ass."
 

auntcrazy.com

​You still see a flaming shot every once in awhile. For the most part, however, bars wisely consider the close proximity of of fire and alcohol to be a generally bad idea.

Why? An Australian bar owner related a story about the time some riotous types ordered a round of B-52s and excitedly slammed glasses to the bar before drinking. The resulting fiery spray ignited bar napkins and a few nearby patrons. Local bartenders generally speak of incinerated eyebrows or other such minor disasters.

Even cooking with flame and spirits can be hazardous. Mark Cassel, chef at Park, tells me about the time he apprenticed at the Dallas Country Club. "It was the first time I had to flambee anything," he says. "I got the pan too hot and it erupted." Kitchen staff are not unfamiliar with fire, of course. But in those days, line cooks at the club wore polyester neckerchiefs...

"It was very dangerous," the chef points out.

Which reminds me: don't ever try lighting your favorite (or any) liquor at home, in someone else's home or--as we did--in your editor's office (tends to make him a bit upset if he arrives at work earlier than expected to find dedicated journalists involved in a serious experiment...that accidentally chars a stack of personnel reports).

​Great. The full force of Texas winter is upon us...for a day...in October.

Another month and Europeans will start seeing mulled wine stands open. Decades ago these probably held a big, steaming pot of red wine spiced with cinnamon, vanilla, cloves and other seasonings. Nowadays, of course, you find commercial-sized stainless coffee pots.

Not the same charm, but it's still good stuff: gluhwein in Germany, glogg in Scandinavian countries, svarak (pronounced sfarzhak) in the Czech Republic...

Other hot drinks come to mind, such as toddies, Irish coffee and hot buttered rum. But we're not really to that point yet. In fact, researchers suggest that most people no longer think in seasonal terms when it comes to drinking.

​We can all come up with a list of drinks we deeply regret trying. Some of them were probably part of our repertoire at one point in time. For example, back when I was a high school n'er-do-well, groups of us sneak bottles of Cold Duck or, worse, Malt Duck for weekend bashes.

If you're not familiar with either, be thankful.

There are also plenty of flaming things and silly dare shots. A bartender friend of mine experimented for quite some time until he perfected something that both looked and tasted like Scope. Don't know why, really--although he did take great pleasure in hooking customers with "wanna try our new shot? It's called the Mouthwash."

But there are regular, everyday liquors and mixed drinks that I just can't order. Rum and Coke, for instance--a great song by the Andrews Sisters, but as a boost to your blood alcohol count, plain old rum is much more enjoyable. Or the Cosmopolitan, just 'cause a certain television program made it off limits for insecure men.

That's just the start.
 

​This bitter liqueur has been produced in five countries, been purchased by a French enterprise and fought it out in court against its original owners--without the distillery ever leaving the town of Karlovy Vary.

Which means Becherovka is like a cork tossed around by modern European history. A brief history before we get on with the tasting: When Josef Becher first developed the secret recipe in 1807, the town was part of the Austrian Empire. Later came the Austro-Hungarian merger. The end of World War One brought Czechoslovakia into being...until Hitler made it a protectorate of Nazi Germany.

From the moment when Josef passed the business on to his son, Jan, through the end of World War Two, the Becher family had produced the liqueur. But the Czechs were a tiny bit annoyed by, oh, Reinhard Heydrich and his SS. So immediately after the war they forced everyone of German heritage out of the country.

But the Czech government kept Becherovka.

​Ah, the drink before dinner.

Yes, I'm guilty of slamming...I mean sipping...a martini or two while waiting for a table. But my behavior changes when I'm traveling through Europe. Instead of gin, I'll order sherry or vermouth, perhaps a Campari or Dubonnet.

Why I approach a meal differently has to do with the perception of time more than anything else. On vacation, you can embrace the setting with a drink that encourages you to anticipate dinner without rushing you toward it. Gentility, we used to call it.

Aperitifs are meant to awaken your palate without drowning it, to put you in a good mood without causing you to stumble on your way to the table. And I don't know why more of us here--including me--don't make them a pre-dinner ritual.

​Nothing against Victor Tangos. Their bartenders make very good cocktails and they steadfastly--last I checked--refuse to use the word "mixologist."

Their drink recipes, however, require precise measurements. Even though they wield this precision to create updated versions of the fizz, the Champagne cocktail and other classics, this puts them in the same league as those despised professionals mixing an ounce of pomegranate and two ounces of organic cane sugar syrup with...you know how it goes. Really I''m just using them as an example.

Modern signature cocktails almost invariably require the use of that two-faced tool of mixologists everywhere: the jigger.

As most of you know, the jigger is an instrument with a 1.5 ounce cup on one side and one ouncer on the other (generally speaking, the sizes can vary). It allows anyone to replicate a drink recipe with relative ease, and ensures you don't get cheated out of any precious alcohol.

Fine--but I've always been a fan of the free pour, and here's why:
 

​You'd think the world needs another vodka like it needs to see Karl Rove and Dick Cheney reprising the famous Britney-Madonna kiss on national TV.

Already at the premium level we have Grey Goose (distilled multiple times and cut with limestone filtered water), Effen (distilled five times and filtered through peat), Belvedere (four distillations) 42 Below (thrice distilled, cut with volcanic spring water, distilled again and run through more than 30 filters), XO (nine distillations and some micro-oxygenation)...and dozens of other brands.

Karlsson's Gold reads like the others, being distilled from seven varieties of Swedish new potatoes, including Solist, Gammel Svensk Rod, Sankta Thora...and so on--not that if you mixed Russets and Idaho Golds together the mashed potatoes would be much better.

But Karlsson's Gold is very different--and arguably much, much better than the rest.

Riedel tequila glasses.

​Years ago I took a glass tasting course from Riedel--which I'm sure you understand means I sampled wine from Riedel stemware.

It's an extraordinary thing: wine poured into a normal red or white wine glass tastes very different when served in one designed for the specific grape. In fact, the change in perception is so dramatic, you can barely tell each pour shares the same lineage, much less the same bottle.

They achieve this by allowing aromas to either collect or dissipate, and by directing the flow of liquid to one part of your tongue or another. Or, as Georg Riedel explains, "the difference between the scent of a rose petal and chicken shit is the molecule."

The idea is to get the rose petal molecule to beat the other to the right spot, or something.

After finishing out their line of wine glasses--designing stems for everything from the Amarone blend to Zinfandel (they even produced separate lines for Bordeaux and mature Bordeaux)--the Austrian firm turned their attention to spirits.

Earlier this week I tried out their tequila, Cognac and single malt glasses.

​Most people first encounter grappa in the form of a cheap, punishing brand--the taste of cleaning fluids and jet exhaust being the gentler characteristics.

Generally it's also their last encounter with the spirit conjured from the pulpy leftovers of wine pressings. That's right, the unique flavor of grappa (or marc in France) comes from pulverized grape skin, split seeds and the occasional scrap of bark or snip of grape leaf collectively called 'pomace' in the wine trade--and it can turn into a very harsh liquor. In fact, once when I ordered grappa at Arcodoro & Pomodoro, some guy twice my size standing at the bar backed away in abject fear.

Yet grappa can also be distilled and aged into something wonderfully complex--a foil for espresso and calming finish to a large meal. Oddly enough, a small operation in Portland, Oregon, has been doing just that for many years.

​I pointed out last week how, when I called for a Bombay martini, a waiter at Sevy's asked "regular Bombay or Sapphire."

​Since Sapphire hit the market in 1988 and began the upscale gin revolution, The Original Bombay (that's what it now says on the label) faded into near obscurity--at least in the minds of bartenders. The Sevy's guy may be the first service industry professional in Dallas since the mid-90s to utter the words "regular Bombay."

But what's the difference? Both brands share the same vapor infusion process and same base of ingredients--juniper (of course), iris root, licorice, lemon peel, almonds, angelica root, coriander seeds and cassia bark, in unknown (they won't tell) quantities. Sapphire merely adds two more...and a blue tinged bottle.
 

​I personally think zubrowka and aged genever are the finest spirits one can drink. But neither are easy to find, unless you travel.

Zubrowka is a flavored vodka generally associated with Poland, where they've been distilling and drinking it for a good six or seven centuries. Pale gold in color, it unfolds leisurely, with sensations of vanilla, heather, almonds and newly mown hay--a gorgeous experience that Somerset Maugham likened to music by moonlight. The floral complexities come from grass found in the Bialoweiza region and its ancient forest, known colloquially as 'buffalo grass' because a herd of European bison kinda like the stuff.

Of course, the U.S. government banned the import of zubrowka. Seems the grass contains a toxin called coumarin which can be released in small amounts into the distillate.

Ironically, the compound in large doses affects the liver.
 

​One of the bigger disappointments, when I returned from Europe, was the noticeably absence of Dalmore on liquor store shelves. Their 12 year Highland single malt had always ranked as one of the best value brands out there.

Of course, the distillery's "nose" (or master blender), Richard Paterson, says the idea that Scotch peaks at 12 years "is marketing shite"--he's Scottish--"that annoys me."

True enough.

The 'quality for price' target date varies from brand to brand, but no matter. Dalmore is just now hitting North Texas shelves again after some time off due to, well, business transactions. Don't want to get bogged down in the details, but United Spirits (of the UB Group) began a purchase of the Whyte & Mackay brand's U.S. distribution rights from Jim Beam Brands (of Fortune Brands) in 2007--or something like that.

Knowing Dalmore was leaving, JBB allow support to lapse. As a result, the barrel stock dwindled, at least according the the folks at Whyte & Mackay.

Anyway...

 Gary Shansby directed brands such as, oh, Clorox and Maguire's Car Polish. So what do he know about tequila?

Well, he knew Mexico's most famous legal export ranked as the fastest growing product in the spirit category and that American consumers led the way. He also had a pretty good handle on the nation's tastes. Otherwise, not much.

But he sent someone south of the border to investigate, worked a deal with an old agave farmer and set about distilling one of the best tequilas I've tried.

Patrick Michels

Lazare's mojoto lineup

This current generation of American drinkers couldn't really care less about tradition. They shirk the classic cocktails in favor of trendy new flavors: pomegranate martinis, green tea margaritas, acai vodka and tonics or whatever the anti-oxidant of the month happens to be.

Despite my frustration with such fads, I must admit to a quiet suspicion. Bartenders in the Gilded Age really didn't have bottles of pomegranate juice to play around with. Nor could they pour strawberry puree into a frozen drink machine so the Astors could enjoy a swirled margarita after the show. But who's to say drink mixers of the past wouldn't have succumbed to the same creative impulses?

Maybe--just maybe--mojitos were meant to be frozen and stirred with muddled berries all along.

Perhaps only gin has a more dubious reputation than rum--although to earn it, gin had to beat out rum's association with slavery, pirates and the rough drink known as "kill devil" preferred by islanders of previous centuries.

Hell, even the name comes from "rumbullion," an archaic British slang term for the kind of wild ruckus that generally occurred after the second or third bottle of the spirit distilled from molasses or other cane by-products.

At least, that's one version of rum's etymology.

The amber or dark aged rums found in liquor stores these days are, like scotch, more reflective, sipping spirits than the demons of the past. Many mature in barrels for eight or more years, developing refined and complex flavors. For comparison purposes...yeah, that sounds plausible, comparison purposes...I picked up bottles of Zaya Gran Reserva and Pyrat XO.

Ben Franklin and John Adams, possibly discussing where to go for booze, in 1776.

In the musical 1776, Stephen "Old Grape and Guts" Hopkins bursts into the Continental Congress' meeting room each morning demanding rum before getting down to the day's business. Of course, there may have been some license taken with his character, for John Adams claimed in later writings that the aged Rhode Island delegate never drank until 8 p.m.

His drink of choice? Well, the musical got it right: rum. "It gave him wit, humour, anecdotes, science and learning," Adams recorded--and thus Hopkins would keep the Congress talking until the late hours.

Simply put, the Founding Fathers enjoyed a good buzz. Thomas Jefferson was a noted expert on wine. In fact, he referred to it as one of life's necessities...a point he took so seriously that well over 1,000 bottles were consumed at Monticello in one two year stretch. George Washington brewed beer and distilled whiskey at Mount Vernon. And Adams himself guzzled hard cider before breakfast.

Brian Stansberry

Moonshine has a reputation not always deserved. Some people, after all, take pride in their craft, however illicit.

Yeah, some of it reeks of burnt quinine and poisonous residue. The word brings to mind hardened heroes like Junior Johnson and others hauling jars of dubious spirit. And it's difficult not to think of Ozark (or Appalachian) backwoodsmen lazing on a porch surrounded by jugs bearing that notorious 'XXX.'

Maybe I just learned too much from Looney Tunes...

But over the years I've sampled--if that's the right word--some rather intriguing (and at least one impressive) distillates.

At its best, moonshine is just an unimproved spirit. Where vodka makers distill multiple times to smooth out the character and boost the alcohol, where whiskey masters turn to barrel aging, 'shiners just let it drip.

Felix Kir: war hero, mayor and one of the few guys with a drink named after him.

With the occasional exception of Champagne, most Americans forgo traditional aperitifs before dinner.

OK, I can see waving away vermouth and some of the other ancient liqueurs. But in the right place--say a patio at happy hour or a table at some French restaurant--the seemingly forgotten Kir always calls out.

I say 'forgotten' because ordering Kir will either cause the server to nod into that puzzled George-W.-when-asked-an-unscripted-question look or to bring a Kir Royale to the table.

For some reason the scaled up version--the Royale, with sparkling wine as its base--lacks the vibrancy of regular old Kir. Perhaps something in the bubbles disturbs that looming copper color, like a sunset fading in the glass. Really, the simple mix of white wine and creme de cassis needs no improvement.

Handle The Proof is our weekly exploration of spirits, cocktails and the culture of fine drinking.

Despite the inroads of craft and single barrel brands, bourbon still suffers from somewhat of an image problem. Once when I ordered a round of Booker's in some Uptown bar, for example, a woman snapped her head around in disgust.

"Bourbon," she grimaced, "smells like old lawyers."

Kevin Smith, master distiller for Maker's Mark, understands the impulse for comments like this. In the years after Prohibition ended, a number of rough, unready spirits hit the market and America's taste for finer brands was slow to recover. Indeed, it wasn't until the last 20 years or so that single malt scotch found its way into the mainstream. For several decades, whiskey was understood in the light of moonshiners, hard drinkers and weary old lawyer types sitting alone in some dreary bar.

"But," he points out, "if you can get past the strength of the alcohol, it has the same complexity as wine."

There was a time when basic vodkas roamed the barroom earth. They came in normal bottles--real glass when you stepped up to the Smirnoff or Stoli level. Clean, but with a warming, alcohol burn, they mixed readily into orange juice or ginger beer or whatever.

But along came Bond (James Bond) and his "shaken, not stirred" vodka martini. Cocktails built around the odorless, colorless, tasteless spirit gained popularity about the same time. Suddenly--meaning over the next few decades--vodka stood at the top of America's liquor preference list.

Enter the premium vodka category.

An image-conscious nation, ever so willing to capitulate to brand identity, proved easy prey for the Grey Geese of the world. Distill grain or potato a few more times to smooth out the "flavor," package it in a pretty bottle and jack up the price--voila!--a generation ordering round after round of Grey Goose cosmos or Three Olives and Red Bull.

pdphoto.org

This is the sort of thing Dallas does to a margarita.

Bartenders should be allowed to tweak cocktail recipes. Creativity, after all, is what sets one place apart from another.

Thus when mixologizing a particular cocktail, some may prefer to make the drink stronger, some sweeter. One might add basil where the other chooses mint--all acceptable, to a certain extent. The mixed drink category is, however, susceptible to horrid shortcuts--particularly when it comes to that Tex-Mex staple, the margarita.

While the typical rocks margarita may look about the same, from bar to bar, the pale green liquid often hides such distractions as orange juice, sugar or a splash from the soft drink gun. Squirting orange juice into a margarita to round out its citrus flavor--well, I don't necessarily approve, but there's nothing wrong with it. Dumping Rose's lime juice, Sprite or sweet and sour syrup into the glass, now that's an abomination.

Mention a bout with mezcal and at least one of your acquaintances will fire back with the "did you eat the worm" question.

But insect larvae added to bottles of mezcal are a relatively recent marketing gimmick rather than some age-old tradition--an attempt to counter the spell its cousin, tequila, holds over the public thanks to laws granted to protect tequila's regional identity.

For, you see, both spirits are distilled from the heart of agave plants. Because of tequila's special designation, however, production is limited to primarily to the state of Jalisco by distillers using only blue agave. No such constraints govern mezcal, which may come from other species of the spiky shrub--including those growing wild. Otherwise, both categories support craft distilleries and mass producers...just that mass producers of shoddy mezcal lure consumers by dropping plump brownish worms in the bottle.

Genius.

Talking about gin, of course.

That so many people hate gin, love gin or can tolerate only one specific brand of gin says a lot about the spirit. Although bound together by juniper, the amount of this fruit and balance of other botanicals involved in distillation--as well as the distillation process itself--makes a big difference in how people react.

But much of this emotion is spent on one particular style of gin: London Dry, the bitter and strong spirit that emerged in the 1850s, after the frenzy when rotgut producers had Brits in poor neighborhoods pounding more gin than beer and guys like Hogarth painting scenes of alcohol-related sloth. It's said, however, that gin was introduced to England through the port of Plymouth--after British troops fighting in the low countries during the Thirty Years War first encountered barrels of "genever."

Genever (or jenever, if you prefer) was first distilled in Holland sometime during the 1400s as a cure for, well, all kinds of ailments--including sobriety, I presume. Where the Dutch often aged the stuff in barrels for a mellow, Scotch-like character, impatient Brits developed a taste for quick, more medicinal remedies. Companies in Plymouth, then London, began selling gin in the 1700s.

You can find decent sparkling wines pretty much anywhere. And it's no real drain on the bank account to try out, say, a bottle of New Mexico's Gruet.

Armand de Brignac Brut Gold

But the splurge bottles--the vintage Champagnes--can run close to $500. No problem if you're a basketball star treating the live-in who's name you can never remember to a celebration; for the rest of us, however, such once-in-a-lifetime purchases can be a bit like...geez, can't think of anything comparable. You know whatever you buy is supposed to be good, but it's impossible to know what to expect.

Really, the great vintage Champagnes are almost too subtle for beginners. Armand de Brignac's Brut Gold, for example, releases mineral aromas with a light scent of dried flowers. Its taste also contains mineral traces. But the rush of fruit and toasted bread strikes more noticeably--and lingers for a considerable time. The Oenotheque '93 from Dom Perignon offers a bouquet resembling dried flowers--clover in particular--and minerals, too, along with an constant background like field of cut hay. On the palate there's more of a cider-like experience backed by hints of citrus, vanilla and wet rocks.

If you know the taste of wet rocks, that is.

Few bartenders know how to make a decent mint julep and few people order the bourbon cocktail. There must be a connection.

But which came first? It's a perfect cooler for blazing summer days (which seem unlikely to arrive anytime soon)--icy fresh, with a wicked punch--and one closely tied to the American south. Not all that difficult to make, either...if you don't mind a little muddling.

The julep consists of sugar, mint and a lot of bourbon. Obviously it's similar in nature to the wildly popular mojito--and both probably derived from grog, the Royal Navy's issue of rum cut with citrus and sugar to its sailors during the old wooden ship days. Indeed, the first juleps were likely made with rum or rough whiskey. For a time, it was a morning drink then a symbol of the old south.

Nowadays, however, it's confined to Kentucky Derby day parties. The rest of the time, people wile away afternoons with mojitos.