KegWorks Blog

Autumn is upon us, and it’s the perfect season to update and reorganize your bar. We’ve got a lot of great ways to get your bar into shape, without breaking the bank.

Glass and Stemware Racks
Hang your glasses overhead, under your bar or on the wall. Whether you have 5 glasses or 500, our racks are customizable for a perfect fit. Try our single channel glass racks, which can be mixed and matched to fit any space. They’re perfect overhead or below your bar, and they save you a ton of cabinet space. Or, if you’re looking for a way to store bottles of wine and glasses together, check out our wine bottle and stemware rack. It mounts easily to the wall and gives you quick access to your wine and glasses.

Bar Caddies and Condiment Holders
Keep your bar surface organized and clear of clutter! Bar caddies neatly store your straws, napkins and stirrers. Plus, we’ve got a ton of different condiment trays to choose from, so your garnishes, like olives and cherries, are always readily at hand.

Liquor Bottle Shelves
These shelves are perfect on the back of your bar. They show off your collection of booze and make your bottles easy to find and grab. Bottle shelves come in all sizes, colors and types.

Bartending Kits
Get everything you need to be the best bartender on the block! The high quality items in our bartending kits are hand selected based on customer demand.

TAGS [ HOME BAR | GLASS RACKS | BAR CADDIES ]

Check out this video to learn the importance of using bitters in cocktails. Alberta does a fantastic job of explaining why bitters are used and some key differences between top brands.

TAGS [ BITTERS | COCKTAIL BITTERS | COCKTAILS ]

Ah, yes. We’re heading into my absolute favorite time of year. Preseason football is in full swing, and I’m just counting down til opening day. But, there’s no time to just wait around for September 9th to come. Now is the perfect time to upgrade your bar for the new season, and we have tons of simple and inexpensive ways to do it.

Cool New Additions:
Add this Wall Mount Stainless Steel Drip Tray	Try the Automatic Keg Meter Monitoring System
Replace Old Parts:
Tons of New Branded Tap Handles	Grab a New US Sankey Coupler
Upgrade Existing Parts:
Upgrade to a Perlick Tarnish Free Polished Brass Faucet Head	Or Get a Top Quality Perlick Stainless Steel Draft Beer Faucet Head

With our expanding inventory, KegWorks has got you covered for all of your home bar and draft beer system needs. From kegerators and keg fridge conversion kits to pitchers and pints, we’ve got what you need. Check ‘em out!

TAGS [ HOME BAR | DRAFT BEER ]

Day Three of Tales of the Cocktail began for us with a seminar entitled “Enter the Distologist.” The featured panelists came from widely varied backgrounds, but their stories converged with the desire to make the transition from ‘mixologist’ to ‘distologist.’ That basically means they went from mixing cocktails with other people’s spirits to distilling spirits of their own.

The ‘distologist’ who interested me the most was cocktailian chemist, Ted Breaux. Those familiar with the industry probably recognize his name, but it was new to me. Turns out he’s an actual scientist, presumably with Bunsen burners, test tubes, a laboratory - the whole nine. He spoke about the path he trod toward better cocktails through chemistry, culminating with a sampling of his latest creation, Perique, a tobacco liqueur. It’s named for the Louisiana tobacco from which it’s made, the most rare and precious tobacco in the world.

As the sample cup made its way down the aisle to me I imagined a flavor akin to drinking cheap liquor out of an old ashtray, complete with old cigarette butts floating in it. Such a description couldn’t be further from the truth. Think: grandpa’s aromatic pipe tobacco before he lights it, only in 62-proof liquid form. It was rich, distinctive and quite delicious. If not my favorite sample of the week, it was definitely in the top three.

The next session we attended, “South American Spirits,” highlighted the history, production and usage of its two native spirits, Pisco and Cachaça. Cachaça shares some qualities with rum and is the most popular spirit in Brazil. I had never tried either spirit before, but the opportunity arose when ‘Master Mixologist’, Junior Merino, guided us through the process of making a Caipirinha. It is the most popular Cachaça-based cocktail and is strikingly similar to a Mojito, sans the mint. I enjoyed the drink and would recommend it. If you’d like to try it, here’s the recipe:

Caipirinha
2 oz Cachaça
1 tbsp sugar
½ of a fresh lime, cut into small cubes

In a mixing glass, add limes and sugar. Muddle to dissolve sugar in the lime juice. Add Cachaça and stir well. Add ice, shake until can is frosty to finish dissolving the sugar. Pour into rocks glass with fresh ice. Garnish with lime wedge.

My first time using a muddler went fairly well, though I didn’t muddle quite as vigorously as some others at our table. I did, however, overhear an amusing exchange that included one guy, obviously a pro bartender, exhorting a fellow attendee to “Muddle it, don’t cuddle it!” Apparently that qualifies as bartender humor.

Our final seminar for the day was called “Aromatics and Their Uses in Cocktails.” Honestly, most of the discussion of tinctures, extracts and aromatics was over my head, but I did pick up a few fascinating revelations involving olfaction, taste and the human subconscious. Check it out, it’s really interesting.

That seminar concluded Day Three of the conference. Only one more day to go, so be sure to check back for the thrilling conclusion to our time at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans.

The first seminar we attended at Tales of the Cocktail was called “Rum’s Punch: A spirited view of rum’s rise, fall and return.” Rum aficionado Wayne Curtis, author of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails, moderated the session. He began by detailing the history of rum, including the widely varied processes of making rum from basic ingredients (sugar cane, molasses) to distillation.

Panelist Jeff “Beachbum” Berry then enlightened us on the rebirth of rum in the 20th century, mostly due to cocktail visionary Don the Beachcomber and the dawning of the Tiki movement. Rum is the main ingredient in Tiki drinks. I’ll get into more about Tiki in a future post, though I will say that for whatever reason Jeff Berry was my favorite of the “cocktail personalities” I met at the convention. Must be the laidback “Beachbum” attitude. Or maybe it’s because he appealed to my love of zombie movies by spending hours in a make-up chair for some sweet photos that appear in his new book.

The other seminar we attended on Thursday was called “Lost Ingredients: obtaining (or making) rare ingredients for even rarer cocktails.” Moderated by Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh, “Lost Ingredients” highlighted what he referred to as the “holy trinity” of rare spirits: absinthe (illegal in the U.S. up until very recently), Crème Yvette (a violet flavored liqueur), and Pimento Dram (rum and all-spice combination available only in Jamaica).

Panelist Chuck Taggart was the resident Pimento Dram enthusiast. He told the a humorous story of his introduction to the sweet Caribbean concoction involving Ted Haigh letting him taste it, savor it, and instantly get hooked. The punch line was Dr. Cocktail’s playfully mocking revelation that it is in fact a lost ingredient nearly impossible to procure.

An undaunted Mr. Taggart then embarked on a long journey full of trial and error in attempt to replicate the spice flavor that originally enamored him. He brought the fruit of his labor to the seminar for attendees to sample, garnering near universal approval.

If curiosity has gotten the best of you and you’d like to take a stab at making a lost ingredient, here’s Chuck’s personal recipe for Pimento Dram, which he distributed at the seminar and is also printed in the July/August issue of Imbibe Magazine.

Chuck’s Jamaican Pimento Dram No. 3

2¼ cups 151-proof Demerara rum
½ cup whole dried allspice berries, crushed
3 cups water
1½ lb brown sugar

Crush allspice berries in a mortar and place in 1-liter jar with rubber seal. Cover with rum and steep for at least 10 days, agitating the maceration daily. Pour through a fine strainer, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquor as possible, then pour the strained liquor maceration through another strainer line with a coffee filter (it will take a while).

Make simple syrup by heating water and brown sugar until sugar dissolves, then allow it to cool. When cool, combine with the rum maceration and age for at least one month. Decant and enjoy. This will fill two 750 ml bottles.

Check out Chuck’s website for a cocktail recipe specially crafted to take full advantage of his Pimento Dram’s unique flavor.

Other ingredients that were discussed in the session included Batavia Arrack, Amer Picon, and Falernum. Joe Fee of Fee Brothers spent some time discussing Falernum and his role in revitalizing the once-fading ingredient. He also took advantage of his time at the podium to introduce Fee Brothers new grapefruit bitters, eliciting a round of applause from the audience.

If the seminar taught me one thing, rare ingredients once thought to be gone forever probably won’t be lost for much longer due to the diligence, patience and resourcefulness of many in the cocktail industry.

This may not be an issue for some readers, but what do you do with a partial bottle of wine left over from dinner? I freeze it! Yes, I freeze it in ice cube trays and make wine cubes. Then next time you are cooking and need a quarter cup of wine to complete your recipe or to make a sauce, you can just reach into the freezer, grab a wine cube and throw it in the pan. You’ll save time and wine. Works great with both red and white wine, just watch out that you don’t mix up the white wine cubes for ice cubes.

Dave and I recently returned from our trip to New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail, a cocktail geek-fest and many people’s excuse to start drinking at 10 a.m. When I say geek I mean it in the most endearing way, as I too am a geek in my own right, just not a cocktail geek. I’m simply trying to convey how passionate these people are about cocktails.

Before I get into a series of posts detailing some of our adventures, let me reiterate I am a cocktail newbie. Normally, if imbibing I prefer a beer. Although that fact hasn’t changed since the trip, I did learn a thing or two about “mixology” and got to experience some new tastes along the way.

We arrived Wednesday afternoon and settled in at the historic Hotel Monteleone, which conveniently was also hosting the cocktail convention. We started with a round of Louisiana’s own Abita beer while circumnavigating the room at the hotel’s Carousel Bar (which, I was pleased to discover and you may have guessed, is a fully functional rotating carousel).

Check out the picture to get an idea of the ornate grandeur of the Carousel Bar. That’s me with Bombay Sapphire promotional model and former Buffalonian Jodie, a graduate student at LSU in Baton Rouge and still very much a Bills fan. Not pictured: my angry wife.

Our experience in the Crescent City really kicked off with a walking tour of the French Quarter, which took us down Royal Street, past Jackson Square and back up Chartres Street with many stops along the way. I especially enjoyed the tour because our guide shared a great deal on the rich history of the Quarter in the presentations he made at each stop.

One of the more interesting tales involved 19th Century French apothecary Antoine Peychaud. You may recognize that name from the bitters bearing his name, still available today. The story involved Peychaud unwittingly creating the original cocktail, the Sazerac. Served in a small eggcup called a coquetier (ka-kuh-tyay), some people believe the word ‘cocktail’ is the result of Americans mangling the French pronunciation.

Another stop afforded the opportunity to try the famed and mysterious Green Fairy cocktail. The knowledgeable bartender filled us in on the history and mystique of Absinthe, the much-maligned main ingredient in a Green Fairy. She even passed around wormwood samples to examine. For everything you could ever want to know about Absinthe, check out this comprehensive website.

Our final stop on the tour was a 200-year-old bar called the Napoleon House on Chartres Street. Dave ordered us a couple of Pimm’s Cups, the cocktail synonymous with the renowned bar. Here’s the exact recipe they use:

Fill a tall 12 oz glass with ice
Add 1¼ oz Pimm’s #1 and 3 oz lemonade
Top off with 7up
Garnish with slice of cucumber

Other recipes for the drink use club soda or ginger ale instead of 7up. Our tour guide explained that in New Orleans they use 7up for that extra touch of sweetness. It was a nice, refreshing beverage to combat the oppressive heat of New Orleans in July. The cucumber was an interesting flavor accent that really came through as you got to the bottom of the glass. Highly recommended.

That was day one. At this point, we haven’t even attended a seminar yet. Check back again soon for more highlights of our long weekend in New Orleans.