Quaff The Raven

Folks, it’s been two weeks since Tales of the Cocktail 2009, and I’m just now getting around to doing my wrap-up.  To be fair, I have officiated a wedding, started to move my apartment, decided not to move my apartment, and had to catch up with work.  Nonetheless, I have a great deal of things to relay to you, and I hope that my stories make you salivate and immediately book your trip for next year.  Every year, TotC hosts the Spirited Awards, in which such esoteric categories as “Best U.S. Bartender” and “Best Bar in the World” are awarded based on voting by visitors to the TotC site. (I am, of course, being facetious when I downplay the value of these awards, and if I ever make it to NYC I’ll be sure to visit P.D.T.)  In the spirit of the awards ceremony, I now present my TotC awards, in no particular order, and in the categories I determine to be awardable.

Best Session:

The title of Best Session or Seminar is given to the most interesting, well-presented, or otherwise notable event that is offered only to paying guests (as opposed to free events).  For the event to be considered, it must have been attended by the nominator (me, Dan, or Carine), which makes for a significantly shorter list than last year.  I won’t bother with nominees – the winner is: Tell It Like It Is!

This seminar, hosted on the last day by Francesco Lafranconi of Southern Wine and Spirits, was dedicated to the senses  of smell and taste, much to the confusion of the people who read only the title.  We were treated to a fairly scientific discussion on the sense of smell, which I promise I’ll go deeper into in a future post.  The best part of the session was the nearly two dozen olfactory samples provided for our perusal.  You might never appreciate how the scent of beeswax figures in to your favorite whiskey until you’ve nosed them side by side.  The end of the session was punctuated by a sampling of a product that I am very excited to be announcing, and it brings me to my next award:

Best New Product:

The Best New Product award is presented to a non-alcoholic product determined by Raven to be the coolest thing he saw that he’d never seen before.  This year there were two nominees.  The first nominee, and not the winner, is the Evolution Mobile Bar, which is a bar that fits into a case not much bigger than your standard suitcase, and which makes setting up a fully functioning bar possible almost anywhere.  Way too cool, if a little expensive, these things were everywhere at Tales.  Best for corporate-style events or really big parties; I’m not quite sure what you’d do with one in an apartment.

The winner of the Best New Product is Gläce Ice (pronounced ‘gloss’).  Gläce is blasting open the market for luxury ice, and is doing it with style. Roberto Sequeira heads up the company (follow him on Twitter @GlaceLuxuryIce); a great guy.  Gläce uses purified water, not artesian sources, to produce an absolutely flavorless ice cube.  I’ve misspoken, of course, because Gläce creates perfect spheres of ice.  Anyone who has ever had a cocktail ruined by ‘flavorful’ ice will appreciate that which Roberto and Gläce is doing for the world.  It’s a bit on the expensive side, but worth it for a special event.

Best Marketing:

Surely a strange category to give out an award for, but given so many examples of marketing (some good and some bad) at TotC, I thought it worth mentioning a particularly great campaign.  As a member of the ‘media’, I received many emails from various concerns prior to the event, but one particularly caught my eye.  There was no immediate mention of a product, just an invitation to tailor my experience at TotC for unimaginablele pleasure.  How does a red-blooded man not respond to that?

Long story short, I did respond, and was presented with a few choices of a gift to choose.  The email made sure that I stopped by the tasting room, which leads right into the next category:

Best Tasting Room:

When considering the options for Best Tasting  Room, I had to weigh many different facets – what criteria do you use?  Is the decor more important than the product?  Maybe the people – the ambassadors, marketers…the models?  In awarding this honor, I have decided to use the quantity of samples consumed by me as the deciding factor (though the models – and the marketing team – didn’t hurt).  The award goes to:

Xante.  This new-ish product (it’s been in Europe for ten years) is a blend of cognac and Belgian pears.  I’m going to keep my description short, as I hope to bring you a full review at a later date, but suffice to say that I had at least 6 ounces in the half hour I was in the room.

(For those that didn’t figure it out, Xante won the Best Marketing award too.)

Best Party:

This award is for the best invitation-only event.  Rather than waste a bunch of time on exposition, I’m just going to jump right in.  Benedictine turned the Broussard’s Restaurant into a monastery-inspired celebration, full of monks, alchemy, and chanting (mixed with lively, if disconcerting, dance beats.)  Though I had to leave my souvenir glass behind (too much weight in the suitcase), I was able to alight with a few tokens of alms that I was supposed to trade for a reading of my fate.  As party reviewing is not my forte, I’ll leave you with the knowledge that it was worth going to, and that you should try to get to Tales next year.

Most Amazing Product-Related Event:

This category is so-named because all of the other names I came up with would be better suited for future categories.  I’m going to include this particular event into my follow-up post, but it deserved a mention here.  The folks at Grey Goose offered a special tasting at midnight they called dans le noir or ‘in the dark’, because, well, it was completely in the dark.  The staff were all equipped with night vision goggles.  That’s how dark it was.  You’ve never enjoyed the scent of an alcohol until you’ve deprived your eyes of their use.  More later.  I promise.

Best Bucket List Check-off:

Folks, I got to cross something off my bucket list.  You know, those things that you just have to do before you die.  Well, I got to do one.  I got to  walk down the streets of New Orleans accompanying a funeral, complete with a brass band playing “When the Saints Go Marching In”.  I know that might seem a bit morbid to some people, but as a jazz enthusiast, the thrill of enjoying this microcosm of the roots of that great American music well outweighed the little fact that death was in the air.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that the deceased was none other than the Red-Headed Slut, the cocktail chosen by Tales-goers to be buried in 2009’s funeral.  If you’ve never heard ‘Saints’ on the streets of New Orleans, you haven’t lived.

Most Awesomest Experience:

This doesn’t exactly count as an award, and it’s an experience that is pretty much unique to me, but it is the kind of thing that can happen to you if you hang out long enough with cool enough people at Tales of the Cocktail.  Dan, Carine, and I were watching The Chef and the Fat Man show, when we were asked to film and photograph the goings on by none other than the Chef and the Fat Man.  If you listen to the first show from Tales (available on iTunes: go subscribe now!) you can hear the Fat Man give a shout out to lil’ ol’ me.

Now, I’ve never really been behind the camera (though I have been paid for it before) for a live event, but I was more than happy to join in the fun.  I don’t know if the footage will ever make it to the wide world, but I recorded the entire second show.  A most awesomest experience.

Best Dining:

In a city like New Orleans, awarding Best Dining is too much for one man, especially one as inexperienced as I, to attempt.  With all the things that go into great dining, I can’t hardly claim to have tried enough to make a comparison.  What I can do is tell you that Arnaud’s Jazz Bistro is worth eating at.  Right off Bourbon Street, Dan, Carine, and I joined Kevin Jenkins (Fat Man) at Arnaud’s for an amazing meal, followed by a once in a lifetime presentation of Cafe Brule.  I’ll grant you that I don’t drink coffee, but I enjoy watching fire run down an orange that causes cloves to glow red.  Trust me, you need to see it.

Well, y’all, this is easily my longest post yet, so I’ll stop now.  If I come up with more awards, I’ll put them up later.  Please enjoy that which I’ve put forth.  Please comment if you think I’m way off base, or if you like what I’ve said, or if you just want to say hi!