It's not May flowers as much as May showers, if I look out the window at Cocktailians HQ — remembering to move the bottles on the windowsill full of various infusions — but it seems as good a time as any to check in.
The winners of Saveur.com's Best Food Blogs Awards have been announced, and DrinkDogma takes the Best Cocktail Blog award. Huge congratulations to Bobby and the Anvil/DrinkDogma team for their good-looking, solidly-written, well-photographed site. I'm humbled and honored that Cocktailians was nominated, especially in such august company, and everyone that voted for us has my utmost thanks. All of my fellow nominees do quality work, and you should check them out — Alcademics, Kaiser Penguin, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, and Cask Strength. (Shame on me; I hadn't been familiar with Cask Strength until his nomination. Andrew Bohrer's a hilarious, passionate writer, and I'm pleased to add him to the blogroll. (To my further shame: I need to update the blogroll one of these months.))
Here's what else has been catching my eye on my traipses around the interwebs of late:
- Are you familiar with "wiking"? The combination of wine-tasting and hiking is apparently big. (Next up, if I can figure out how to keep everything cold, is my company which will outfit and lead people on "walktails.")
- Jeremiah's Vanishing New York finds beauty in Sardi's and its swizzle sticks;
- More white dog/new make unaged whiskey is hitting the market! Yeah, it's trendy, but it's an interesting trend;
- Can cocktails improve your complexion? Frank Bruni investigates. (I'm glad he did and not me, as Provocateur sounds like a perfectly horrid place…part and parcel of why Team Cocktailians tends to avoid the meatpacking district.) One would think that if booze really makes one's skin better, Bompas & Parr's 2009 experiment with alcoholic gin mist would've tightened wrinkles all over SoHo;
- Does the "perfect bourbon" exist? Buffalo Trace thinks so, and is trying to narrow down exactly what that might be;
- Dean Martin's recipe for bourbon burgers;
- and to complete the bourbon trifecta, a look at bargain bourbons that are still worth drinking;
- Toby Cecchini's recipe for lime/ginger cordial looks really good. Your gimlets may thank you;
- If you're interested in synesthesia, how better to investigate the phenomenon than by visualizing the flavors of cocktails?
- I like me a Negroni, and it's always easy to talk most bartenders through one. Frank Bruni pronounces the Negroni Sbagliato at dell'Anima a drink for an imperfect world. I'm not sure I'd go that far — gin is lovely, after all — but it's good addition to the palette. I'd be remiss if I didn't note that Cocktailians visited dell'Anima a few years ago, and it appears that their current Negroni Sbagliato is an evolution of their earlier Roasted Orange Negroni, which went down very nicely indeed;
- Amor Y Amargo. A "bitters tasting room", run by the Bittermens folks. Interesting;
- "A swirl of gin, and just a hint of tonic." Anderson Cooper introduces his "white bread ripple";
- Derby Day wasn't long ago, and Saveur presented some variations on the classic mint julep that may be of interest as the summer unfurls;
- CitySip profiles five New York hotel bars;
- and Auntie Beeb names America's best cocktail bars;
- a primer on the Margarita;
- the Piri Pressure sounds really good;
- a lovely post on the Americano;
- "Do You Need to Think When You Drink?" Robert Simonson recaps a discussion on mixological historicism, in the Times;
- So last month I mentioned the various royal-wedding-themed drinks out there. (And I'm still getting them in the mail! Cunard's line of themed Bombay Sapphire cocktails looked good.) But apparently what the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge prefer is the "crack baby": the oh-so-PC mix of passion fruit, champagne, and vodka. But if Big Willie and Babykins' (see? The things you learn from Radar magazine…) favorite cocktail isn't frightening enough…then check out this amazing picture of Kathie Lee Gifford trying one out. (Previous actual royal cocktails include the Prince of Wales cocktail and the Queen's and her mother's well-documented love of gin and Dubonnet.)
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