Category Archives: Beverages

A Short, Pleasant Trip To Journeyman Distillery

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Expanding my knowledge about the growing number of craft distillers in the Midwest is one of my little passions. And I learned enough about Journeyman — a promising producer that opened for business last October — at Chicago Whisky Fest in March that I decided it would definitely worth the 80-mile drive to visit the distillery.

The trip Barb and I took Friday to Three Oaks, a tiny town in southwestern Michigan just a few miles over the Indiana border, would have been a pleasure just for the opportunity to spend an hour or so chatting with Bill Welter. The youthful founder and owner of Journeyman, Welter lived in Scotland for a couple of years to pursue his passion for golf and came back with a passion for making whisky.

Welter at the tasting bar with Journeyman's current line of gin, vodka, rum and whisky.

He also came back with a vision and a plan. Through a cooperative arrangement with Koval, a pioneering microdistillery in Chicago, Welter apprenticed while producing a small batch of rye whisky that he labeled Ravenswood (after the neighborhood in Chicago in which Koval is located). That is why Welter had a barrel-aged whisky to sell when Journeyman opened its doors to the public last fall, along with the unaged clear spirits, such as gin, vodka and white whiskey, that are the typical entry points for start-up distilleries.

There is a dedication to quality that shines through in each of the products we sampled (in appropriate taster-sized portions, because we also had to drive the 80 miles back to Chicago that afternoon). The wheat, rye and corn that are the major grains used here are organic; much of it is sourced from Michigan, and most of it comes from somewhere relatively nearby in the Midwest. The grain — including the 10 tons of wheat that was being noisily delivered during our visit — is ground on-site in a device that looks a bit like a mini wood chipper…

And the fermenters and stills are top of the line, new, German-made equipment.

All spirits come out of the still as clear liquid. Those that are intended to be brown liquor, such as aged whisky and dark rum, spend time in barrels like those in the following photo.

The Journeyman site also was designed to be a destination as well as a factory. The bar is open weekend evenings, serving designer cocktails, with a food menu to be added soon. And even if you don’t take a tour, you can get a good sense of how booze is made, as the distillery and barrel racks are in full view through floor-to-ceiling glass.

Journeyman products are currently in limited distribution at the distillery and at retail shops and bars in Michigan, Chicago and northwest Indiana. If you happen to run across a bottle and want to see how their craft-distilled product compares to what you’re used to drinking, it is definitely worth a try.

Chicago ♥ Craft Brews: A Day At The Beer Fest

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I’m a little tardy at posting by thoughts about Chicago Beer Fest. Okay, two weeks late. But when it comes to craft-brewed beer, it’s always better late than never.

It’s not surprising that there was a block-long line of craft brew lovers waiting for the doors to open for the three-hour afternoon session of the Chicago Beer Fest, held in the main hall of Union Station on Saturday, March 31.

The city’s long but once sepia-toned history of beer making has been revitalized in recent years, by the rise of the pioneering Goose Island “microbrewery,” and more recently by the rapidly growing field of competition that includes Revolution, Half-Acre, Finch’s and Metropolitan, to name just a few.

And taps around town have been taken over by craft brews from around the Chicago metropolitan area and across the country. These beers offers a palette of styles and flavors (and alcohol clout) as an alternative to the same-old, same-old of the mass-brewed American lagers.

The participants at Chicago Beer Fest, which concluded with a separate three-hour session that night, were a mix of local producers and national breweries such as Lagunitas of Petaluma, Calif., and New Belgium (maker of the popular “Fat Tire” brand) of Fort Collins, Colo.

I decided to focus almost entirely on beers brewed in Chicago or elsewhere nearby in the Midwest. One exception I made was for Lagunitas, because I like their beers a lot, and because I spotted that their regional brand ambassador, whom I’d met at some previous events, was pouring. My decision to include Lagunitas along with my lineup of local micros turned out to be unexpectedly prescient: Just this past week, news broke that the company is planning to build a new production in Chicago, which will be the city’s biggest current brewery upon completion.

Rule #1 of any “open bar” tasting event is to pace yourself. Still, I managed to squeeze 10 pours into the cute little 5 oz. plastic mug that each attendee was handed upon entry, which is the equivalent of three pint glasses, or four 12 oz. bottles or cans. So, you’ve got to be careful out there.

There’s Good, and Then There’s OMG! With so many well-established successes in the craft beer world, it seems to be getting harder and harder from anyone to make a really bad beer. So one of the best things about these sampling events is that the great beers stand out from the merely good.

I had sampled a couple of modest beers when I decided to take a quaff of the Dragon’s Milk Stout from New Holland, which is producing a fine line of beer and distilled spirits in Holland, Mich. This was a bit of a cheat, because I’d had Dragon’s Milk before at my favorite local tavern, and I’ve long been a fan of bourbon-barrel aging and the unique flavors that the wood imparts to beer.

But it was the comparison to what I’d already tasted at the beer fest (and most of what I tasted after) that made the Dragon’s Milk pop as my best in show. Rich, complex, with a great mouth-feel, New Holland’s description of this beer as its “crown jewel” is justified. A great sipping beer, which is a good thing, because at 10 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), it packs about twice the punch of the yellow beers most people drink by the gallon.

This undoubtedly gives away my preference for strong, dark beer, but my runner-up favorites were the Satin Solstice by Central Waters of Amherst, Wis., a beautiful, pitch-black Imperial stout (7.5% ABV) with a chocolate malt flavor profile, and the 5 Vulture Oaxacan-Style dark ale by the new (established 2011) and relatively tiny 5 Rabbit brewery of Chicago, a nicely balanced and subtly spicy beer with a copper-ruby color.

Uno Nuevo Cerveceria. Because the market is getting more and more crowded with microbreweries experimenting with different blends of hops, grains, spices, botanicals, fruit and other ingredients, it is becoming more of a challenge for them to claim their own niches. That is not the case for 5 Rabbit, whose claim as the nation’s first Latin American craft brewery has not been disputed.

In a phone interview a few days after the beer fest, Issac Showaki — a native of Mexico who co-founded the brewery with Andres Araya, a native of Costa Rica — explained there is no single Latin-style of brewing, but they are adapting ingredients common to regional cultures to their beer recipes. For example, the 5 Vulture ale I tried includes ingredients typical to the Mexican region of Oaxaca, such as dark-brown piloncillo sugar (which is used to soften the bitterness of the chocolate used in mole sauce) and a hint of ancho chile.

Showaki said that as 5 Rabbit seeks to establish itself and grow, its first target will be craft beer geeks looking for something new and different, but he says he and his partners see a long-term opportunity in cultivating the nation’s rapidly expanding Hispanic demographic, “because there is no craft beer for Hispanics.”

Was It Worth It? The event cost $40, so if you calculated the cost per amount consumed, it would have come to about $13 a pint (a very expensive glass of beer). But I got to sample 10 different beers; got some face time with brewers and their reps; and unexpectedly ran into a friend.

Of course, I could have brought down my per-unit cost by drinking a lot more. But that would have been wrong.

 

Going To Kentucky Bourbon Fest, Or ‘I Won A Major Award’

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OK, so I have one fewer thing to complain about. All my life, I’ve had a streak of appallingly bad karma when it comes to games of chance, which has rarely been broken and even more rarely in any memorable way. Until today… when, quite out of nowhere, I received notification that I had won an expenses-paid visit to Kentucky Bourbon Fest this September, having had my name picked in a drawing I entered last month at Chicago Whiskey Fest.

I borrowed this lovely photo of bourbon bottles from www.kentuckytourism.com. I didn't think they'd mind.

Granted, if your idea of a travel prize begins and ends with Paris or a tropical island, perhaps the thrill of a three-day trip to Louisville, Kentucky, might elude you.

If your idea of a major award is a lamp in the shape of a fishnet-stockinged woman’s leg, then you’ve just watched too many Yuletide marathons of “A Christmas Story.”

But for me, it would be hard to find a prize that measures up to today’s victory in terms of sheer appropriateness.

I became a serious student of American whiskey about a decade ago, about the time that I started making treks to Chicago Whiskey Fest. By continuing my intensive research during the long expanses between these annual events, I have grown confident enough in my knowledge to contemplate starting a sideline of bourbon tasting classes. And I certainly intend to apply what I know to my freelance writing on food and drink.

Moreover, having only been to Kentucky a couple of times in my life and having only visited one distillery there — the Buffalo Trace complex in the state capital of Frankfort — doing the “Bourbon Trail” already ranked high on my bucket list. The fact that the kind folks at the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau will be paying for our hotel, meals and event tickets for Bourbon Country’s annual blow-out is just awesome in my book.

Put another way, I always knew my decision to take up drinking bourbon as a hobby would pay dividends.

The way the sponsoring organization chose to notify me was amusing. At about a quarter after one central time on Monday afternoon, I opened what appeared an email ad that had the Bourbon Country logo, and began with a thanks for stopping by their booth at Whiskey Fest and a plug for visiting the Bourbon Trail. It wasn’t until I got about half way through that I noticed my name and city of residency were in big bold letters, preceded by the phrase, “Cut to the chase, right? Who won the Bourbon Country vacation?”

Given my history of not winning stuff, I reacted with the appropriate degree of total perplexity. I stared at the computer pondering, “Is this suggesting I won something? Something that I really wanted to win?” Then I re-read the note several times to make sure there wasn’t some tiny small print that said, “BOB BENENSON OF CHICAGO, IL, you didn’t get bupkis, but you’re still a winner to us.”

Having reasonable satisfied myself that the message really said what it said, I sent a note to the email address from whence it came, which read, “I just received your email promo, and if I’m reading it correctly, it appears that I have won the drawing for a Bourbon Country mini-vacation that I entered at Chicago Whiskey Fest. I hope I’m reading that right, because I’m usually luckless at games of chance, and this is one that I’d really be excited about winning. Please let me know if I’m right and, if so, how I go about claiming this prize. If I’m misreading it, please break it to me gently.”

A few minutes later, I received a response from the communications director at the Louisville tourism bureau. She wrote, “Congrats Bob! I thought you might enjoy learning the news via a newsletter that went to the more than 175 people who signed up that night. Your un-lucky streak has ended!”

She concluded, “And I know at least one person read my email! ;) ”

 

Chicago Whisky Fest — The Anniversary Edition

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Today, Sunday, March 25, is my 27th wedding anniversary and the first since Barb and I became full-time residents of Chicago. I haven’t been too terribly lucky at a lot of things, but I am very lucky with the one thing that matters most.

Now, one of the things about me that Barb has tolerated is the fact that I have over a number of years been building a rather broad base of knowledge about whisky in general and American whisky (mainly bourbon and rye) in particular. It would be much simpler to be able to say that drinking whisky is my hobby, but I’m loath to do so because that can really be taken the wrong way.

Nonetheless, this past Friday night, I attended the annual Chicago Whisky Fest, staged by Whisky Advocate magazine, for the eighth time in the past nine years. As has usually been the case, I was joined by Frank Hodal, a longtime D.C. friend (and northwest Indiana native) who introduced me to this event in the first place.

Unlike my previous Whisky Fest-ing, this year I went with a professional purpose.

I have always been a bit consumed by consumables. I have a lifelong fascination with food, have always done the bulk of the cooking in our household, have taken a number of cooking classes and have participated in a far greater number of food and drink tasting events.

In fact, I have said for years that the person I’d most want to emulate when I grow up is R.W. Apple Jr., a legendary journalist familiarly known as Johnny Apple. For years before he settled in for domestic assignments in a career capped by a stint as the New York Times Washington bureau chief, Apple traveled to hot spots domestic and international, providing excellent coverage for the paper and its readers. He was also famous for running up prodigious expense accounts dining and drinking finely on the Times’ dime.

The payoff came when he retired from hard news in the late 1990s and spent the last few year of his life touring the United States and the world to eat and drink, and produced some of the most evocative prose on the culinary arts that I have ever read. I remember reading one of his pieces, about the dining scene in Charleston, South Carolina, that not only described the food but the city’s ambience in exquisite detail, and feeling as though I had been transported right there.

So with Johnny Apple as my inspiration, I am trying to develop at least a substantial portion of my freelance career in the direction of food and drink, and am just starting an online course in food writing.

One of the areas I’m very interesting in exploring is the rise of microdistilling, nationally and around the Midwest where dozens of alcoholic beverage producers have sprung up in recent years. That is why I spent much of Whisky Fest in the microdistillers’ corner of the vast ballroom in the basement of the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Wacker, which was mainly dominated by big-name producers of long standing that are familiar names to even casual whisky consumers.

The rise of microdistilling is very recent, spurred by the repeal in many places of bans that dated back to the Prohibition era and earlier. In fact, one of the newer locally based producers, FEW Spirits, is sort of a back-handed reference to one of the long-ago leading citizens of the suburb of Evanston, where the distillery is located. F.E.W. were the initials of Frances E. Willard, a Northwestern University dean who for many years in the late 19th century was the leader of the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement.

Because they are generally so young, most microdistilleries have initially focused on clear liquors such as gin and vodka, which don’t age in wood and therefore spend a very short time between the fermenter and the bottle. I currently have in my cupboard a bottle of Wheat Vodka from the Grand Traverse Distillery, located in the beauty spot of Traverse City, Michigan and headed by Kent Rabish, a friendly gentleman who invariably urges folks to visit the distillery (something on which Barb and I hope to take him up this year).

A couple of examples of Midwestern microdistilling that have found their way into my kitchen: Wheat Vodka from Grand Traverse Distillery in Traverse City, Mich., and Distiller's Gin No. 9 from North Shore in Lake Bluff, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.

But we are starting to see an increasing number of stabs at bourbon, rye and even single-malt whisky, with many producers experimenting with smaller barrels in which the liquor matures more quickly.

One noteworthy example I tasted was the Ravenswood Rye produced by Journeyman Distillery, located in Three Oaks, Michigan, almost directly across the lake from where I’m sitting. Journeyman only opened its doors a few months ago but prepared by doing some production runs over the past couple of years at Koval, a pioneering local microdistillery that is not far from here, in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago. Journeyman’s Ravenswood won’t yet replace Van Winkle’s 13-year old Family Reserve Rye from Kentucky as my favorite brown liquor, but it drinks well and tastes like it has spent more time in the barrel than it has.

I will have more to say in detail about these products in months to come, as I plan to tour around to many of the Midwestern micros.

The Lake Shore View: Cozying Up To Glenmorangie

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First of all, it is snowing as predicted in Chicago this Friday afternoon. It started out conventionally moving in from the west, but now the snow appears to be blowing in from the east, suggesting that whatever lake effect we’re going to get is kicking in. So this is where it gets interesting.

The forecasters still think this won’t be a huge big deal here in the city, maybe 2 to 4 inches. But just about 30 miles away, normally within eyeshot of this 30th floor observatory in which we live, is a snow belt in northern Indiana, where they could get upwards of a foot if this develops as expected. That’s yer lake-effect snow for you.

Since it’s already a cold day, and bound to get much colder behind this little front that is causing the snow, it seems like a good time to talk about whisky. I had the pleasure last night of attending a lecture and tasting on Glenmorangie, a single-malt Scotch distillery that is well-known for using different kinds of barrels to create interesting riffs (known to whiskey-philes as “expressions”) on their Glenmorangie Original.

The event was staged at the supermarket-sized outlet of the big Binny’s liquor store chain, the one that is located at the southern end of the Lincoln Park community. (For those of you who are REALLY familiar with Chicago, this is the one near North Avenue that used be the anchor store for the Sam’s chain before it was bought out by Binny’s a few years ago.)

The lecture was conducted by Dr. Bill Lumsden, Glenmorangie’s head of distilling and whisky creation (who said his title comes from a doctorate in biochemistry). Speaking with what was clearly a Scottish accent but not one that required subtitles, Lumsden held everyone’s attention for 90 minutes, which is no mean trick when the event includes generous samples of seven different bottlings of whisky. It would have been fun to have brought a decibel meter to some of the tasting events I’ve attended just to record how the sound volume progressively increased with the consumption of each sample.

Lumsden dotted his talk with flashes of wit, as when he noted that whisky-making was affected positively by Scotland’s climate conditions, which he explained were “f***ing freezing all the time.” But most of the time he spent telling you just about anything you could possibly want to know about Glenmorangie’s whisky.

I have to disclaim here that I am not a total noob when it comes to Glenmorangie. I’ve sampled enough of their wares at past Chicago Whisky Fests and other events, and have had the occasional bottle in the house, to know that I have a generally favorable view.

So here’s what I learned last night…

* As suggested earlier, most of Glenmorangie’s expressions start out as Glenmorangie’s 10-year-old Original. If you are just getting a feel for single-malt Scotch, the Original is a good place to start.

One of the biggest differences among single malts is how much time the malted barley spends over peat smoke before going into the fermenter. (Peat, if you’re totally unfamiliar, is organic turf that is cut out of bogs in places like Scotland and Ireland and burned for fuel.) While the big smoky whiskies produced by a number of distilleries are an acquired taste and can be off-putting to newcomers, Glenmorangie is lighter and sweeter. If you find Glenmorangie is too strong for you, then you probably aren’t going to be a fan of single-malt Scotch in general.

* Like many Scotch whiskeys, Glenmorangie is first aged in American oak barrels that were used to age bourbon. (American whisky makers, to call their product “bourbon,” can only use barrels once to age the beverage.) But Glenmorangie’s claim to fame is that after several years in the ex-bourbon barrels, the liquid is transferred to barrels that were formerly used to age wine.

For instance, the Lasanta is finished in Spanish sherry casks, the Quinta Ruban in Portuguese port casks and  the Nectar d’Or in French sauterne casks. I’ve long been fond of the Quinta Ruban because it picks up some dark chocolate flavor characteristics during the aging process, and my opinion was confirmed at the tasting. That doesn’t mean you won’t like one of the other expressions better, as the taste and nose (scent) differences are for the most part pretty subtle.

* One of the reasons to go to tasting events such as this is that they often break out some of their higher-end stuff. I’m sure I was sharing space with some folks who can afford to drop a cool couple of Benjamins on a bottle of booze, but for me, it’s a nice opportunity to see what I might have been drinking regularly if I’d chosen a more lucrative career than journalism, something like creative destruction.

At the lower end of the upper end is this year’s Glenmorangie Private Edition, labeled Artein. This is whisky that is finished in barrels that previously aged “Super Tuscan” red wine from Italy. With a taste profile of berries and flowers and mint, this is a luscious glassful. Given that is it definitely sipping whisky that should last you a while, the $75 price tag that Binny’s was charging isn’t too severe. Availability is an issue, though, as these special productions tend to sell out fast.

I am very fond of older whisky, as I love that rich dark color and the caramel notes that the liquor picks up from spending a lot of time on wood. So the 18-year-old Glenmorangie, finished in sherry cask, is just my speed. Since it’s pushing $100 a bottle, I’ll put it on my “things to buy if I hit a jackpot” list, but if you want to impress someone with a special bottle for a special occasion, this is a nice choice.

And then there’s Glenmorangie’s expression for the 1 percent, known as Signet, which was going for $180 a bottle yesterday. It is made with a variety of malt known as chocolate malt, which is dark roasted like coffee, with the expectable result that the finished product, which also spends time in sherry cask, has profound overtones of dark chocolate and coffee flavored with caramel. Lumsden compared its flavor profile to that of tiramisu, which was pretty apt.

That’s all I’ve got. If you’ve tried Glenmorangie and would like share your thoughts, or want to weigh in with your favorite single malt, comment away. This is the first of what should be many such meanderings, given that Chicago Whisky Fest is just a month and a half away.

 

The Lake Shore View: No-Pocalypse

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I know my friends in D.C. have generally been experiencing weather that is close enough to late May to raise fears that we are about to experience the dire consequences of global warming. (Have a nice day!) But it also has been an exceptionally mild winter here certainly by Chicago’s standards.

Last year on this weekend, Chicagoans’ muscles were still recovering from digging their way out of nearly two feet of snow that hit a few days earlier. It was Snow-pocalypse, the Blizzard of the Century, at least so far. This year, there’s not a lick of snow on the ground.

Not that I have any problem with that. I had so many warnings from people when I preparing last spring to move here that I would so regret my decision in a few months. And since I plan to live here for the rest of my life, however long that is, I’m sure I’ll experience some winters that will justify those alarms.

Just not this year. While there’s still plenty of time for a late-onset cold wave, this winter is at least three months shorter than it coulda been.

If you need, however, to do something more tropical to get in the mood for summer, it’s blood orange season, and therefore is blood orange cocktail season. (In case you don’t haunt your supermarket’s produce section, a blood orange is somewhat tart, and gets its name from the fact that, while it’s outside is orange, its pulp is bright red.)

Here, as a favor, is a recipe I found yesterday on the Internetz. It is very easy to make, as long as you have something with which to squeeze fresh citrus fruit. But be warned, it’s so tasty as to be habit forming.

Here’s all there is to it. Pour 2 oz. of vodka over ice. Squeeze in the juice of 2 blood oranges (roughly 2 ounces of juice). Add a splash each of triple sec and simple syrup. Shake, and strain into a cocktail glass.

Now, I’m going to catch up on the Cooler on the Lake Shore Chicago vs. D.C. Weather Smackdown after this photo of a modest “God sky” out our western windows this afternoon.

In the Smackdown… according to Weather Underground…

On Wednesday, Chicago O’Hare reported a high of 46, a low of 34, and no precipitation. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 72 (!), a low of 48, and .02 of an inch of precipitation.

On Thursday, Chicago O’Hare reported a high of 44, a low of 33, and no precipitation. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 58, a low of 42, and .09 of an inch of precipitation.

On Friday, Chicago O’Hare reported a high of 40, a low of 33, and a trace of precipitation. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 52, a low of 37, and no precipitation.

Pretty obviously a three-day sweep for D.C.,  boosting its overall lead to 98-86.

The Lake Shore View: A Daiquiri Sunset in Chicago… in January

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When it’s January 30 in Chicago and the high temperature is 53 and you get yet another incredibly gorgeous sunset (see the photos below), you banish thoughts for the moment about whether this is all part of some global warming doomsday scenario. You just set aside the parka for as long as it last, and soak it in.

Today’s nice weather prompted me to make a drink with dinner (roasted turkey breast with roasted peppers and onions, thanks for asking) that we normally associated with more tropical climes… namely, a pineapple daiquiri. But not one of those frou-frou slushy frozen daiquiris, and most definitely not from a mix.

One of the things you realize if you do a fair amount of mixology — and don’t forget, I am a newly certified bartending school graduate, albeit without portfolio at the moment — is that there is really no reason to ever use a mix, since it is so easy to make your own, and it tastes so much better and fresher to boot.

Here’s all it takes to make a pineapple daiquiri on the rocks. Pour two ounces of rum over ice (note to microdistillery fans and Michigan friends: I used Michigan Freshwater Rum from the excellent New Holland distillery). Add one ounce of pineapple juice, the juice of one fresh lime, and a splash to taste of simple syrup (sugar water). Shake and serve, with a spear of pineapple as a garnish if you like.

Really tasty and refreshing. I may have another…

Without further adieu, here are those lovely sunset photos, and we’ll wrap by getting all the way caught up with the Cooler on the Lake Shore Chicago vs. D.C. Weather Smackdown.

In the Smackdown… according to Weather Underground…

On Friday, Chicago O’Hare reported a high of 43, a low of 33 and .02 of an inch of precipitation. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 62, a low of 41 and .63 of an inch of precipitation. Yes, that’s an amazingly spring-like temperature for January in Washington. It also poured rain. Point Chicago.

On Saturday, Chicago O’Hare reported a high of 33, a low of 26 and .03 of an inch of precipitation. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 55, a low of 33 and no precipitation. That’s a clear point for D.C.

On Sunday, Chicago O’Hare reported a high of 31, a low of 21 and a trace of precipitation. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 49, a low of 32 and no precipitation. Ditto for D.C., bringing its overall lead in the Smackdown to 94-85.

A Bartending Blitz Story That’s Sure To Make You Smile

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My awesome D.C. friend Frank Hodal posted the following hilarious story — about a restaurant opening gone wrong — as a comment to my story last week about passing the “speed drill” at the bartending course I was taking.

I am re-posting with permission, because it is simply one of the funniest bartending stories you’ll ever read. Enjoy. I know I laughed out loud:

Congratulations! Well done. Just remembering what goes into every drink is a tough hurdle to cross. I know.

I had just helped moved Louis from his restaurant in Calumet City [Illinois] to Crown Point [Indiana], and helped rewire the new two-story converted mansion and repaved the parking lot.

For some reason that gave Louis the idea that I’d make a good bartender/wine steward. Go figure. He’s French. Still, like you, it sounded like an interesting if not permanent career move, and so I said “yes.”

The problem, of course, was that I was a shot-and-beer man and only drank “exotic” cocktails like 7&7 at weddings and funerals. My learning curve was long and steep. I was sent to a bartending “school” and poured colored water into assorted glasses and, after about four hours, was more or less deemed bar worthy. Ha!

So, I’m setting up the service bar awaiting the Grand Opening, mixing drinks using the real goods, sipping what I mix not really knowing what they are supposed to taste like, and all the while trying to organize a la Mr. Boston how to keep all the drinks in my head.

Flash forward to the Grand Opening! So, we have 150 guests at one seating! I beg Louis to limit the bar to wine only and maybe one Champagne cocktail. I am overruled. We have to show the people what the Bon Appetit offers etc. etc. etc. Knife in the heart.

Our wait staff was new, too, with only one person possessing any experience. That experience was heavy on flirting and pushing wine and drinks, of course, aiming at the big tip.

So, 150 people show up, all excited and very thirsty, but Louis has this plan that will have the food coming out in many courses and I hoped that would slow the drink orders down. Except . . .

The huge, expensive, industrial strength stoves don’t light up! PANIC in the kitchen and word comes out: Take drink orders! In no time flat I’m swarmed by the rookie wait staff who have ignored my pleas and come to me with about 75 different drinks!

Some of them I couldn’t even find in old reliable Mr. Boston – don’t forget, this was about 1974. Were it to happen today with the explosion of (ridiculous) cocktails, I would have shot myself!

And as I’m ruining drink after drink I’m hating more and more people who aren’t satisfied with a shot and a beer! Or a 7&7!! Fuzzy Navel; Angel’s Tit; Fill in the blank Stone Sour; and one I’ll never forget, Smith and Kearns. Turns out it was some sort of milk-shaky kind of California libation. Hell, I thought it was the names of the people making the drink order.

I gotta tell you, Bob, it was a baptism by NO FIRE until the problem in the kitchen was fixed. Turns out the emergency shut-off switch was still shut off following inspection by the local fire department.

I was so happy when I eventually became the full-time wine steward and concerned myself with Bordeaux and Armagnac. No Grasshoppers, no Up Your Booty Thig-a-ma-jig, etc. It was all wine recommendatons and after-dinner suggestions and I loved it.

So, yes, I do understand how you have to appreciate the man/woman mixing one’s drinks and tip accordingly.

Enjoy the exercise. When next we meet I’ll put you through your paces armed with unheard of drinks and a stop watch.

Neat, With A Champagne Chaser

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There you have it, folks. Bob Benenson is now a certified bartender.

And what better way to celebrate that achievement with one of those Seelbach champagne-and-bourbon cocktails I was telling you about yesterday….

… or two. Dang, these suckers go down easy!

So, after all these years, I finally have a post-graduate degree. And in something completely useful!

As I suggested in yesterday’s post, I cleared the bigger hurdle when I passed the speed drill — 17 drinks in eight minutes — which a whopping four seconds to spare. The written exam tonight just proved that my brain is nicely maintaining its sponge-like quality: 98 out of 100.

More than three decades since I graduated from Michigan State University, and I’m still knocking down A’s. Spartans Will!

I don’t know exactly what I’ll do with this spanking new diploma, but tackling something new and mastering it still hasn’t lost its thrill. If I decide that mixology is a career option I want to explore, or someday decide to open my own place, I now have documentary proof that I can do it.

In the meantime, if you ever want to throw a totally awesome cocktail party, just give me a call.

The Lake Shore View: Remember To Hug (And Tip) Your Bartender

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Hopefully, by the end of the day tomorrow, I’ll have a new title to go by: Bartender Bob. I can now reveal a little secret. For the past two weeks, I have been taking an intensive class at the ABC Bartending School, located about a mile from our apartment in the Lakeview section of Chicago.

This new wrinkle is part of the Bob Benenson reinvention project that also includes learning how to play the guitar, writing this daily blog, ratcheting up my photographic skills, embarking on a new round of cooking classes and engaging heavily in event planning with the local affiliate of the Michigan State University alumni association.

I’m very proud of what I accomplished covering politics for many years at Congressional Quarterly, but for some strange reason it might have given some people the wrong impression that I am somehow a dull boy. I am trying, perhaps with a vengeance, to correct this misunderstanding.

I would have mentioned the bartending class before but for one thing: I wanted to make sure I could pass the crucial speed test, which requires each student to make 17 drinks, all appropriately garnished in the right glassware, with coasters and straws where needed (which almost all of them were) — in less than eight minutes.

This afternoon, I did it! By the skin of my teeth, mind you, completing the entire round with all of four seconds to spare (after falling about 20 seconds short on my first try). But consider that you have to be a human tornado to make that many drinks in that short a time without screwing up the ingredients, forgetting something important or disastrously spilling anything.

I have to admit, I felt a bit cocky walking home after that.

Here was the lineup of drinks I had to make in that eight-minute time frame. A Cosmopolitan. A Perfect Manhattan. A Long Island Iced Tea. A Tom Collins. A Sex on the Beach. An Amaretto Stone Sour. A White Russian. A Golden Margarita. A Vodka Gimlet. A Rusty Nail. A blue version of a Long Island Iced Tea that goes by a nasty name that abbreviates to M.F. A Cape Cod. A Madras. And four shooters of a drink called a Washington Apple.

So next time you’re in a crowded, busy bar, and maybe you have to wait a couple of precious minutes to get your drink order filled, be patient, and remember to thank (and tip) your bartender. The job ain’t easy.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with my diploma if I earn it by passing the written test tomorrow night. If I decide to make a full-time career of freelance writing, I’ve always had an itch to branch out into food and drink, in which I have a strong interest and more than a fair amount of knowledge. I’ve spent plenty of time on the customer side of the bar, but I figured if I ever want to write about booze, it wouldn’t hurt to know how it works on the other side.

Should I ever decide to use my bartending certificate to ever actually tend bar, one of the things that I learned from the speed drill is that working in a place with that intense a volume would get old pretty fast. But there are a lot of fancy cocktail bars where quality trumps quantity and the tenders are known as mixologists whose job it is to wow customers with marvelous new combinations and concoctions. Now, that sounds like something I might like to explore.

In the meantime, as a reward for your patience, I will give you the recipe for one of my favorite drinks, a champagne-and-bourbon cocktail called the Seelbach (for a famous hotel in Louisville, Kentucky), which I shared today with my bartending teacher and his class.

This beautiful piece of work is great anytime, and is especially good as a brunch-time alternative to other champagne-based drinks, such as the mimosa.

Very simple to make, too. Take a champagne glass (known as a flute) and pour in an ounce each of bourbon and triple sec/orange liqueur. Add seven drops each of two kinds of bitters: Angostura and Peychaud’s. Then fill to the top with champagne (or your sparkling wine of choice).

Meanwhile, the weather forecasters threw a chance of snow showers after midnight tonight to get all the snow lovers out there excited. I know winter in Chicago is supposed to be daunting, and we’ve had some chilly days already, but nothing but the occasional flake of snow so far.

Yesterday, according to Weather Underground, Chicago O’Hare reported a high of 34, a low of 25 and no rain. Pretty cold, but it sounds like D.C.’s weather was just awful: Washington Reagan National has a high of 60, a low of 37, and — what?! — 3.1 inches of rain. Win for Chicago in the Cooler on the Lake Shore Chicago vs. D.C. Weather Smackdown, bringing its overall lead back to 68-58.

Slainte!