Baja California Food and Themed Cocktails at The Corner Door (Culver City)

This is bit of a late post, but a couple of months ago I revisited The Corner Door in Culver City, which is under the Umbrella Hospitality Group (Melrose Umbrella Company, LONO). I hadn't visited since Beau DuBois moved up north, but The Corner Door is still going strong under the direction of Liam Odien behind the bar and Executive chef David Lespron, who previously worked at various sbe establishments like Katsuya and Michael Mina's now-shuttered XIV.

The food at The Corner Door can be described as a Baja California menu. We started off with some fresh Shigoku oysters from Baja, served with "soft Aztec herbs" and citrus, $4 ea


For the cocktail, they're doing an Astrology themed menu. The menu is designed like an astrology chart with each drink for the twelve signs.
Being the clarified milk punch fan that I am, I started with Age of Aquarius (Real McCoy 3, Appleton rum, almond, aloe vera, clarified, glitter - $15)

It's got quite the presentation with the blue glitter! On the sweeter side, but again, I like milk punch so ..

Chef Lespron is doing some beautiful tacos with handmade tortillas here. We got the Fish tacos (wild Japanese yellowtail tacos, you can get this fried or grilled - this grilled one was amazing. $13 for two, but ours was plated separately). Is this not the most beautifully plated taco you've seen?

The taco was actually really good, better than what I had expected, from the tortilla to the texture of the yellowtail and the flavors.

Read more »

Where to Drink Cocktails in Long Beach: The Ordinarie

Long Beach was never a cocktail destination for me and I didn't know of good places for cocktails down in Long Beach. But recently I see that starting to change with my visit to The Ordinarie, a new-ish tavern in downtown LB.

I didn't try the food there (though they have a late night menu until 12:30 am) but we tried some of the cocktails, starting with The Pendennis (Botanist gin, Bitter Truth apricot liqueur, Peychaud's bitters, lime - $12)

This was a pretty nice, dry gin cocktail.

The dimly lit bar was pretty quiet on a Thursday night. They had live acoustic music, and overall it was a pretty chill place to hang out.

Lavender milk punch (clarified milk punch with Bols Genever, honey, lavender - $12)

This was our favorite drink of the night, but I've been known to love milk punches.

Read more »

Where to Drink Cocktails in Boston: Back Bay

Back Bay is a bit of a touristy area of Boston with Prudential Center, Copley Square, and more, but that doesn't mean there aren't bars worthy of your visit. Here are some of my favorite places to grab a cocktail in Back Bay.

OAK Long Bar + Kitchen

Oak Long Bar is the bar at the Fairmont Copley Square. Since it's a swanky hotel, so is the bar. The drink prices reflect that as well, but it's home to one of my favorite drinks in Boston: the Smoked Chai Manhattan. You can read more about the bar here.

Nahita

Nahita is worth a visit for the gorgeous interior alone, but fortunately the cocktails match the interior. The cocktail menu changes seasonally and there's usually a clarified milk punch on the menu (which is one of my favorite things!)

Read more »

Gin and Tonic Festival at The Bazaar at SLS Beverly Hills

I should've written this post earlier, but hopefully you caught my Instagram post about the Gin and Tonic Festival at The Bazaar that's going on for the month of April! If not, you still have a week or so to go check it out.

There are seven different G&Ts on the festival menu, the most impressive of which is the Vacuum Siphon ($40 and serves two). You can order this to custom make your own gin by choosing the botanicals, herbs and spices you want, but the bartender will also have suggestions as to what combinations would work well.

This is usually only available at the bar, where the gin will be made right in front of you using a siphon and dry ice. Basically, the gas created from the dry ice creates pressure that pushes the liquid to the upper chamber, where it is infused with the botanicals.

Read more »

Spring Cocktails at Accomplice Bar (Mar Vista)

Accomplice Bar in Mar Vista first made it onto the go-to list of LA cocktail lovers thanks to Gabriella Mylnarczyk's fun drinks. But even though she recently left the bar, the cocktail program is still going strong thanks to the great bartenders there that collaborated on the latest menu.

Some of my favorite drinks from the current menu include Matchamaker (rice washed Kikori whiskey, yuzu liqueur, coconut rum, matcha, aguafaba). It's a tropical whiskey sour that had a pretty complex flavor profile!

Red Hook (rye, punt e mes, maraschino) is a great drink for those who prefer a more spirit-forward drink. It's nicely balanced.

Read more »

Miracle Bar Pop-Up: Holiday Cheer Around the Country

When I first heard about the Miracle Bar pop-up a few years ago, created by Greg Boehm from New York's Mace, I wished I had been in NYC to experience it. The year after it also popped up in LA but I missed it again. Luckily, Miracle became so successful the pop-up keeps returning each holiday season and has expanded around the country.

Last year, they had the first Miracle Bar pop-up in the Boston area, and I gathered fellow cocktail lovers to try out the holiday drinks at the Kimpton Marlowe in Cambridge. The holiday themed bar is coming back on November 23rd to even more locations around the country this year, so I thought I'd do a recap of my experience last year.

Here are some of the drinks we had last year and an idea of what's to come this year:
Yippie Ki Yay Mother F**r (Barbados rum, cachaca, Trinidad overproof rum, purple yam coconut orgeat, pineapple)

This one's for the tiki lovers, and you have to get it just for the Santa mug, of course.

Read more »

Heritage Distilling's Brown Sugar Bourbon (Review + Cocktail Recipes!)

Bourbon is always a good intro to whiskey drinking, thanks to its sweeter flavor profile. I recently tasted Brown Sugar Bourbon from Heritage Distilling, a distillery in Gig-Harbor, Washington.

The Brown Sugar Bourbon, or BSB, is an award-winning spirit in the Flavored Whiskey category, having received the gold medal from American Distilling Institute and World Whiskies Awards.
The whiskey is a corn, rye, and malted barley mash aged for less than 2 years in new American oak barrels. After aging, natural brown sugar and cinnamon flavors are added.

It's rich and sweet on the palate, naturally with plenty of cinnamon flavors. I imagine drinking this neat by the fireplace in the winter. Or on the rocks by a campfire, either way. This flavored whiskey had enough going for itself that you really don't need to mix this with anything, but just enjoy it on the rocks. It's easy enough drinking on its own!

I got this around July 4, though, and I had a BBQ with friends in my "backyard" (it's basically a parking lot but whatever). I decided to make a cocktail for my friends using a grilled ingredient!

Read more »

Discovering the History and Intricacies of Madeira Wines

Now that it's just after U.S. Independence Day, I thought it's the perfect time to talk about madeira wines! Did you know Madeira was the wines used to toast the Declaration of Independence? Madeira was very popular with the founding fathers and others during that time. New York received half of the total exports of Madeira out of Portugal during 1785-1787. George Washington himself ordered 15 barrels of Madeira from 1759-1783.

Madeira wine comes from the island of Madeira in Portugal. The island sits on top of a shield volcano. Back in the old days, winemakers would add neutral spirits to their wines so they not spoil during the long sailing time to the New World. Some of the unsold wines are returned, and they found that the heat and movement had changed the flavors of the wines. They recreated this effect using the Canteira system, the traditional system of making Madeira wines. Instead of keeping the wines cool in a cellar, to make Madeira the wines are slowly heated.

Read more »

Don Papa Filipino Rum Launch Dinner in Boston

I love tasting new spirits, especially those that come from unusual places. Don Papa Rum is a Filipino rum from The Bleeding Heart Rum Company that recently launched in Boston.
Specifically, Don Papa comes from the island of Negros, which is also dubbed Sugarlandia. The province of Negros Occidental produces more than half of the country's sugar. About 100 years ago it was the largest sugar producer in the world.

I recently went to a dinner at Shojo to celebrate the launch of Don Papa's rums in Boston.

Don Papa is founded by Stephen Carroll, who was marketing director of Remy Cointreau. There are a number of rum distilleries in Philippines, but there are only two that export out of the country - Tanduay and Don Papa.
While rum is a popular spirit in the Philippines, a Filipino aged rum is a pretty rare proposition. But the Bleeding Heart Rum company had inherited a warehouse that happened to be filled with aged rums, and it started off the Don Papa line. Don Papa is named after Papa Isio, a leader of the Philippine revolution, and it is aged at least 7 years in American Oak. They also recently released the 10 year aged rum in the US market, which currently comprises of New York and Boston.

We started with a few Don Papa cocktails and a whole suckling pig.

Read more »

New Cocktails and Western Whiskey Menu at Bigfoot Lodge in Los Feliz

Bigfoot Lodge in Los Feliz didn't really have a craft cocktail menu - until now. Only for this bar, the 1933 Group has tapped Aidan Demarest and Marcos Tello's consulting company, Liquid Assets, to redesign the cocktail and whisky selection. Keeping in the theme, they've decided to go all Western for the whisky list - everything comes from west of the Mississippi.

Photo credit: Bigfoot Lodge

All cocktails are $11 and here are a sampling of them:
On Top of Old Smokey made Bainbridge organic whiskey out of Washington, honey, citrus juices, and "forest fire" which is a sprig or rosemary which they burnt upon serving, giving out a lovely aroma

Amazing how aroma could accentuate a seemingly simple sour!

Read more »

A Sauvignon Blanc Dinner with Brancott Estate at Soho House

Sauvignon Blanc makes up 70% of all the wines produced in New Zealand. Brancott Estate was the first to plant Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir grapes in Marlborough, back in 1975, and they seek to keep breaking ground with their new Chosen Rows Sauvignon Blanc. New Zealand sauvignon blancs are typically fruit forward and drank within the first 2 years. Their prices range no more than $30-35, in comparison to French sauvignon blancs which can go for $120-150. Brancott Estate and a few other pioneering wineries are now trying to make sauvignon blancs that are more about the structure and complexity, and can be aged, which is atypical for New Zealand.

I got to taste some of these wines and compared them to the French ones during a private dinner held at Soho House. Great food, great wine, and a beautiful view of Los Angeles.

2010 is the first vintage of Chosen Rows to be released to the world (it will be released this year), and as such, we compared them to all 2010 vintages of two other New Zealand and two French wines.

Photo courtesy of Brancott Estate

Read more »