Neues aus Seattle

oder die Munats sind immer fuer einen Spass zu haben

so zu lesen vor kurzem in einer Gazette von Seattle:

Charles Munat is a collector of rare spirits and liqueurs and a frequenter of Seattle cocktail bars. In preparation for a move to Argentina, Munat has begun cleaning out his collection. How fun, Munat and I thought, to gather some of Seattle’s best bartenders, present them with these bizarre boozes—plus some unconventional pantry items—and see what they’d get up to.

On October 1st, we did. Bartenders Jamie Boudreau, Andrew Bohrer, Zane Harris, Paul Clarke, Philip Trickey, and Jay Kuehner gathered at Rob Roy. (Anu Apte, who owns Rob Roy with Harris, was there too, but she seemed to be actually working or something. Sadly we have no samples from her.)

Here’s what Charles brought the barmen:

Satoh Shochu (60% sweet potato/40% rice) from Japan

Tiffin Tea Liqueur from Germany

Tremontis Mirto myrtle berry liqueur from Italy

Red mung beans

Tapioca pearls

Wild hibiscus flowers in syrup

Organic creamy peanut butter

Munat also invited a rep from Corsair, a microdistillery in Kentucky whose bottles will soon to be sold in Washington.

The bartenders jumped right it—Boudreau showed he meant business by reaching for the mung bean jar, Bohrer started intently muddling sage with the wooden muddling stick he calls “Teddy.” It was Harris was who first picked up the peanut butter.

“Can we agree,” Harris said later, when it was all over and his bar was sticky with hibiscus syrup and littered with dirty coupe glasses full or warm drinks and wilted garnish. “That we should never make cocktails with peanut butter?”

In truth, the peanut butter drinks—a strange take on pb&J from Harris, a muddy mixer made with Polish porter by Bohrer, and some crazy-textured cocktail by Boudreau (it should be force fed to anyone who says the word “mouthfeel” too often)—were kind of dreadful.

But the rest? Delicious and impressive. I knew these guys were good, but these spontaneous mixers showed the breadth of their knowledge and creativity.
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Unfortunately, we were unable to photograph all the drinks from the day, including a surprisingly tasty mung bean drink from Jamie Boudreau (below) and two drinks from Jay Kuehner. I’m working on getting recipes for Kuehner’s cocktails.

Jamie Boudreau’s mung bean cocktail
1.5oz gin
.75 oz Lillet
8 barspoons mung beans, muddled
Dash of simple syrup (2:1)
Orange zest for garnish

also Charles give an Comment about this crazy Mixsession:

Nice article, Jessica. I had a great time. I should mention, though, that at the last minute rather than pull impossible-to-find liquors from my collection, I picked up the shochu, tea liquor, and myrtle-berry liquor online from DrinkUpNY -- all were suggested by one of their employees, and DrinkUpNY owner, Kamal, waived the overnight shipping charges to help out. I wanted to pick obscure liquors, but ones that readers could find if they wanted to reproduce the drinks. As for the Corsair products used in the drinks, they should be available in Washington state soon, I think. The other ingredients you can get at any good grocery store or in the International District. The peanut butter and Goldfish foam cocktail with stout beer in it that Andrew created was far and away the most horrifying concoction, but I actually liked a couple of the peanut butter drinks (though not as a regular thing). One tasted weirdly like liquid Butterfinger or something like that. We should make this a regular thing, but with different ingredients and a rotating cast of bartenders. And we should let people come watch and taste. The drinks really were spectacular.