Diageo has sought to take advantage of the continued march of the Chinese consumer by launching an offer worth up to £610m for a local white spirit venture in the Asian country.
The drinks giant said the full offer for the company, which is not expected until the second half of 2010, would give it a springboard to expand its share of one of the fastest-growing spirits markets in the world.
That’s a little over 900 million in US dollars. And yes, that’s the same Diageo that’s currently threatening to take its Captain Morgan production outside the US if taxpayers don’t pick up the tab for a new distillery in the Virgin Islands.
Additional reading: This paper [.pdf] from the Congressional Research Service provides the most thorough, balanced explanation and appraisal of the rum cover over that I’ve seen yet. This blog previously covered the Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands dispute here.
Upright Brewing, one of the best new breweries operating today, has an intriguing new beer coming out tonight: Oyster Stout. Made in collaboration with the soon-to-be-open Alchemy Brewing, the new beer is a traditional stout made with oyster liquor and fresh oysters cooked right in the brewing kettle. It sounds crazy, but this style of beer has been enjoying a small revival this year. Brewer Alex Ganum describes it as “a distinctly full-bodied and creamy stout with a touch of brine on the finish.”
The natural pairing with this beer is of course oysters. Oysters and stout go well together, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the brine in this beer matches them even better. If you’re in Portland you’ll have at least two chances to try it. Tonight is Upright’s release party from 4:30-9 in their tasting room at the Left Bank Project. Then on Thursday, March 4 at 7:00 pm, we’re bringing a keg to Branch Whiskey Bar on Alberta St. Branch will have fresh oysters, housemade sausages, and plenty of whiskey to go with the oyster stout. I’ll be working a guest shift behind the bar as well, serving up beer and cocktails for the first time since Carlyle’s closure. Both events should be a lot of fun, so I hope to see many of you there to try this unusual ale.
I get a lot of liquor press releases every day. Usually they’re about new products or horrible, horrible cocktails designed for marketing efforts. Today’s batch includes a release that’s all about trade and taxes:
MERCEDITA, Puerto Rico–Destilería Serrallés released the following statement from Roberto Serralles, Vice President, in response to a 13-page invective issued by Diageo yesterday claiming a conspiracy to “kill” the Captain Morgan Rum production deal between Diageo/U.S.V.I.
“Destilería Serrallés has consistently highlighted the dangers of permitting that unreasonable and excessive rum subsidies be given to any corporation. Our main focus has been, and continues to be, for Congress to hold hearings and to study the merits of HR 2122. This legislation seeks to responsibly regulate the rum cover-over program by placing an-across-the-board 10% cap on subsidies to the rum industry. This is exactly how Puerto Rico has self-regulated itself for over 40 years. All we are asking is that the playing field is kept level, that fair competition prevails, and quite simply, that everyone plays by the same rules,” said Roberto Serralles, on behalf of Destilería Serrallés. “Assertions to the contrary are just delusional conspiracy theories.”
This is the latest salvo in a long-running battle between industry giants Bacardi and Diageo and by extension Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Understanding the conflict requires delving into some bizarre aspects of the tax code, so let’s break it down. (And if you want to read Diageo’s lengthy statement, click here.)
For background, there are three main spirits industry players involved in this dispute. Destilería Serrallés is a Puerto Rican distillery owned by Bermuda-based Bacardi and best known for its DonQ rum line. Diageo is a British-based spirits company whose many brands include Captain Morgan spiced rum. Diageo contracts with Serrallés to distill the base spirit for Captain Morgan. The contract expires at the end of 2011 and Diageo announced three years in advance that it would not renew the contract. [Correction 2/25/10: Serrallés is independent, not owned by Bacardi. Bacardi's involvement is alleged by Diageo.]
Virgin Islands Governor John deJongh, Jr. successfully courted Diageo to open its own distillery on St. Croix. Among the incentives offered by the USVI are a brand new distillery funded by public bonds and marketing money to promote Captain Morgan; in exchange, Diageo promises to stay in the territory for 30 years and hire local workers. The Wall Street Journal places the value of these subsidies at $2.7 billion over the 30-year deal.
So far this sounds like fairly standard competition between jurisdictions to offer sweetheart deals to corporations, but it gets more complicated. At issue is a strange US tax provision called the rum cover over. This law requires that most of the rum excise taxes collected in the US be remitted to the governments of US rum-producing territories. They receive the funds in proportion to how much rum they produce. Importantly, it doesn’t matter what countries the taxed rum comes from. If you buy Puerto Rican rum, the revenue goes back to US territories. If you buy Jamaican rum, the tax money still goes to US territories. Territories benefit no matter where rum sold in the United States originates.
This is what has created such perverse competition between Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico knows it’s not going to be distilling Captain Morgan much longer, but where Captain Morgan ends up is of huge importance to Puerto Rico. If Captain Morgan goes to a foreign country PR will still reap the benefits of the rum cover over. But if Captain Morgan goes to the Virgin Islands, USVI will become a proportionally larger distiller and get a correspondingly greater share of excise tax revenues; this is the money USVI is counting on to pay back the public bonds it issued for Diageo.
It’s hard to put any of the parties involved on a pedestal. Serrallés itself receives significant subsidies from the rum cover over program, about 6% of Puerto Rico’s take (again according to the Herald). Nor is it really fair for Puerto Rico to begrudge the Virgin Islands greater allocation of excise tax revenues, given that the alternative is Puerto Rico taking lots of money for rum it doesn’t even produce if Diageo moves to a foreign country.
The real problem is our insane tax code that sends revenue to territories for rum they may not produce and with no strings attached. Thanks to the rum cover over provision, US taxpayers may soon be funneling their money through the Virgin Islands government directly to Diageo. If you’re Diageo you call that a “historic and innovative public-private initiative.” If you’re a libertarian you call it corporate welfare.
My inclination is to side with Bacardi/Serrallés on this one and support a 10% cap on rum subsidies. Or better yet, we could eliminate rum subsidies entirely, a proposition neither Bacardi nor Diageo is likely to support.
The topic for February is Absinthe. That much maligned, misunderstood, mistreated spirit, suddenly plentiful again in the US and other parts of the world. Absinthe played a role, whether large or small, in a variety of great cocktails from the 1800’s and early 1900’s - the Sazerac, Absinthe Suissesse, Corpse Reviver No. 2… I’m getting thirsty.
So let’s celebrate absinthe’s history, and it’s future, with all manner of cocktails using absinthe.
I tend to drink absinthe most often as an accent in cocktails rather than on its own and even then I don’t turn to it very often. So lacking inspiration this month I turned to Difford’s Guide #7, a massive book that includes recipes and photos for more than 2,250 cocktails conveniently indexed by ingredient. The drinks are of decidedly mixed quality but there are some gems in there, including the Atty cocktail:
2.25 oz Plymouth gin
.75 oz dry vermouth
.25 oz absinthe
.25 oz creme de violette
Stir (not shake!) over ice and optionally garnish with a lemon zest, though the aromatics of the absinthe and violette are strong enough that it’s not strictly necessary. The recipe is adapted from the Savoy Cocktail Book, which to my shame I don’t have in my library yet. Erik Ellestad posts the original recipe here.
The interplay of the absinthe and floral flavors is really nice here. It’s similar to the absinthe and lavender combination in Neil Kopplin’s Envy cocktail, though much more restrained. I like this drink a lot, and the color is fantastic (as you could see if I was a better photographer). Definitely recommended.
Incidentally, Difford’s Guide is available online as well, but the physical book is great to have on hand to browse through for ideas. The new edition #8 is available now.
Now, these spurts of [Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control] enforcement happen every once in a while and eventually things go back to normal after a quick flurry (i.e., bars make extra sure to have no drinks on the bar post 2AM, they watch out for stings with minors), but this time around, it was different. Maybe ABC workers are under pressure, maybe the state needs to generate cashflow, but whatever the conspiracy theory, it’s been more vicious than usual, especially among some of the city’s high-profile cocktail joints. [...]
… the one garnering the most outcry from the cocktail bars is the crackdown on elixirs, bitters, and similar infusions. Technically, it’s illegal to modify liquors, per a Prohibition-era law that was put in place to ensure the public that bars wouldn’t tamper with the alcohol, unbeknownst to the customer. Obviously, nowadays, pretty much all of the well-known “artisanal” cocktail places make their own house syrups and whatnot, and it’s unlikely that a yuzu bitter (or whatever is in that 10-ingredient drink) is misleading the public. It’s one thing to crack down on underage drinking, but it’s another to take aim at the outdated laws, which one bar owner described as the equivalent of issuing multiple jaywalking tickets all of a sudden. It’s salutary neglect, you see.
Details are scarce, but this looks like another example of archaic post-Prohibition laws failing to keep up with modern drinking culture. The law was probably written to prevent fraudulent practices such as refilling expensive liquor bottles with cheap hooch to fool customers, but applied literally it apparently also forbids the creative use of spirits as raw ingredients in infusions and such. Uses like these do not mislead or harm consumers in any way; only the government benefits from suddenly enforcing these old regulations by collecting the associated fines.
Writing in Slate today, Deborah Blum shines light on the little-known Prohibition horror in which the US government deliberately poisoned the nation’s industrial alcohol supplies:
Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people.
Read the whole thing here. Like Blum, this is an aspect of Prohibition I’d heard about but never read a full account of, so I’m grateful that she’s giving it the attention it deserves.
The wrong lesson to take from this is that we’re more enlightened now. Poisoning the alcohol supply was an egregious abuse, but it’s a small step from that to forcing terminally ill AIDS and cancer patients to give up the marijuana that suppresses their vomiting, to mention just one of the most tragic casualties in the War on Drugs. With prohibition of any kind, grotesque absolutism often leads the government to choose killing its citizens over letting them get high.
“Regulation of the Day” is actually Ryan’s bag, but alcohol is mine so I’m stealing his title just this once. This regulation is from Alabama, where brewpubs (restaurants that serve beer they make themselves) face many onerous requirements, including these:
Alabama law allows for this special class of breweries, but the legal restrictions on opening and operating these businesses are enormous. This is a large reason why Alabama has only two operating brewpubs while the states surrounding us have dozens.
Let’s take a look at the restrictions on brewpubs in Alabama:
1. Must be located in an historic building
2. Must be located in a wet county that had a brewery prior to 1919
3. You can ONLY sell the beer you brew in the brewpub. You can’t sell to wholesalers or stores
4. Must have a restaurant which seats at least 80
5. Must not brew more than 10,000 barrels of beer annually
There’s no sensible justification for limiting brewpubs to historic buildings in the counties that happened to have breweries operating in 1919. It’s just a very strange law in a state that has a decidedly mixed view of alcohol.
Fortunately Free the Hops, recently successful in bringing higher alcohol beers to Alabama, is on the case pushing the Brewery Modernization Act to improve the state’s beer culture. Read all about it here.
[Via Tom Pearson, aka the Pint Pundit, who will hopefully resume blogging more after getting an enormous flood of two or three new readers from this link back.]
By request, here’s the one recipe that was missing from my closing cocktail menu at Carlyle. (Yes, someone actually wrote in to request the recipe. I was surprised too!)
I came up with this drink for a tequila dinner hosted by Herradura a few weeks ago. They enjoyed a seven course tasting menu from our chef and along with it they requested cocktails made with each of the tequilas in their primary line: blanco, reposado, and anejo. A shot of each was paired with the cocktails, so as you can imagine it was a fun time for all. This was the reposado drink for the evening:
1.75 oz Herradura reposado tequila
.5 oz Cointreau
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz lapsang souchong syrup
Shake over ice and serve on the rocks in a salt-rimmed glass.
Lapsang souchong is a delicious Chinese black tea dried over burning pine wood. This distinctive process gives it a strong smoky aroma that lends itself well to use in cocktails. To make the syrup, simply brew hot lapsang souchong and mix with an equal volume of sugar. This is the same syrup I use to make extra smoky Swedish punsch; here it stands by itself to lend an extra flavor element to the traditional Margarita.
In the few days this has been on our menu it’s been competing with our token vodka drink to be our best-seller, a useful reminder that simple twists on popular cocktails can be a great way to generate interest in a bar program.
Nevertheless, on that fateful evening, an inspector from the New York City Department of Health cited Pegu Club, at 77 West Houston Street in SoHo, for serving the MarTEAni without telling the customer who ordered it that it contained raw egg. The notice said it was a serious infraction that required a court appearance.
Raw eggs are among the ingredients most fervently embraced by cocktail revivalists who have sought out new techniques and circled back to classic recipes. And the MarTEAni is a signature drink at a bar that is seen as a paragon of the new cocktailians.
Serving raw eggs in drinks is, thankfully, not illegal. You just have to tell customers that the drink contains them. A simple note on the menu serves as adequate warning. Unless a customer orders without looking at the menu:
The inspector reported that the customer who asked for the MarTEAni didn’t order it from the menu and that the bartender didn’t mention raw eggs were in it. But the bartender on the night of the inspection, Kenta Goto, said that no MarTEAnis were served while the inspector was present. The inspector who signed the violation sheet, Nathalie Louissaint, could not be reached for comment.
This puts a ridiculous burden on bartenders. How is one supposed to know if a customer has looked at the menu? If a regular comes in and orders the drink, must one warn him of the eggs every time in case a city inspector is watching? Rather than take these chances Pegu Club has taken the drink off the list, a loss to craft cocktail drinkers in the city.
As with many food dishes, raw eggs play an important role in giving cocktails texture. Sensitive buyers should beware and avoid egg drinks if they’re worried, just as they would avoid housemade mayonnaise or other products. For the rest of us a simple menu disclaimer should suffice.
If you’d like to try the drink in question, the recipe is here. Be sure to warn yourself about the raw egg before proceeding.
Blog pal Doug notes that one of the most useful products in the OXO line has been discontinued:
This little measuring cup is simply the best jigger out there. If you are making cocktails that require precision, or you are cooking and use small amounts of ingredients, these little cups, with markings as low as 1/4 oz. or 10 ml, are a very valuable tool. Tiara asks in her post what everyone’s favorite jigger is, and the hands down winner is the OXO. But Jim of Vessel alerts us in the comments that OXO has discontinued them!
I immediately called OXO to confirm this. The lady I spoke to had no explanation but did confirm that OXO no longer makes the mini measure. She also said that they had received a surprisingly large number of complaints, especially from bartenders and other cocktailians, about the move.
I think we need to encourage everyone we know to contact OXO and ask that they return the cups to production. They are tracking the response they get. To contact OXO, you can email them at info@oxo.com, call them at (800) 545-4411, or use their web contact page.
These aren’t the jiggers I use while working. For that I like the speed of a three jigger stainless steel set (1/2 & 3/4 oz, 1 & 1.5, 1 & 2). My one objection to using the OXO measuring cup in a bar context is that it needs to be held level to give a precise measurement whereas a traditional jigger can just be filled to the brim. But for home or travel use it’s absolutely the tool I go for, as it’s more convenient that keeping a set of jiggers clean.
If you’d like to pick a few up while they’re still available, click here for plastic or here for steel. (Note that the steel cup doesn’t have metric measures.) And if you contact OXO do me a favor and ask them to add a 3/4 oz marking — it’s a commonly used cocktail measure that the cup is currently missing.
I may have to make some changes as we run low on ingredients, but here’s the intended cocktail menu for our final two weeks, including three new additions. This will go into effect tomorrow:
Aquavit Hot Toddy – Krogstad aquavit, Swedish punsch, lemon, star anise $8
I’m in this MSNBC story by Eve Tahmincioglu talking about how cocktail blogging helped me land a job in Portland after my move from DC:
For mixologist Jacob Grier, his blog “Liquidity Preference” helped him land a primo bartender job at the Carlyle Restaurant in Portland, Ore.
Grier started blogging about making unusual cocktails two years ago as an outlet for his love of food and drinks. While working for a bar in Washington, D.C., he decided to move to Portland because of the culinary scene.
Thanks to the blog, he had already connected with two well-known mixologists in Portland. Those contacts ended up taking him to an industry event where Grier met the bar manager at the Carlyle, and the rest is history.
Yes, this is a bit ironic after just getting the news that my bar is closing. Time to start the search all over again, eh?
If you’re coming here from the MSNBC site, click here for cocktail posts. And if you happen to own a craft cocktail bar, let’s talk.
Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of being on the opening crew of several coffee shops and restaurants. Now it’s my turn to be on the closing crew. From Carlyle owner Bruce Goldberg:
Next month is Carlyle’s seventh anniversary. February also marks the end of our current lease. Both milestones are significant in that they factor into my decision to announce that Carlyle will serve it’s last meal on Sunday, February 14th.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the many loyal customers, employees, and friends who have made Carlyle special. Though saddened by the closing, I ’m comforted by wonderful memories, ,and the opportunity to have worked with some very talented people.
I hope that over the next two weeks you’ll make a point of joining us for dinner or a drink. In addition to some recent menu changes, Chef Martin will be presenting a special prix fixe dinner, offered on both February 13th and 14th, to celebrate Valentine’s Day, and to serve as our farewell.
I’m eternally grateful to Bruce and to Neil, who first hired me there, for trusting me with their bar program. It’s been a fun ride and great platform for me as a mixologist. I think we succeeded in turning Carlyle into one of the best places in Portland to have a cocktail. Unfortunately we’ve faced an uphill battle running a destination restaurant in a tough location and a down economy, so this closing is understandable.
If you haven’t been into Carlyle yet, do stop in soon. And if you’re among the many friends I’ve made while working there I hope I’ll see you at least one more time before we close. Last call is Sunday night, February 14. Fernet is on the rail.
[Photo courtesy of the unbeatable Mayor of Carlyle, Ron Dollete.]
Thursday night’s Iron Bartender competition was a great success and a ton of fun. I’m not sure how many people came out, but it was well over 200 and possibly closer to 300. The support for the Children’s Relief Nursery was phenomenal. And the fact that everyone got to contribute so much while drinking delicious cocktails made it even better; big thanks to House Spirits for making that possible.
Since this was all for charity, it doesn’t really matter who won. The important thing is that we all had fun and came together as a team… OK, OK, it was Evan Zimmerman. He kicked all our asses once again. The guy’s unstoppable. He’s one of the best bartenders in town and if you haven’t been to see him at Laurelhurst Market you’ve been missing out.
This post wouldn’t be complete without a cocktail recipe. It would be even better with two. The first is the one I served in the initial stage of the event, during which we all made drinks with Krogstad aquavit. The second is one I’d hoped to serve but couldn’t make work in this context.
First, the Scandinavian Sour:
2 oz Krogstad aquavit
.75 oz Swedish punsch*
.5 oz Zirbenz pine liqueur
.5 oz lemon
.25 oz Zwack
Technically Zirbenz and Zwack aren’t Scandinavian, but they’re from European and sometimes cold countries so I think that’s close enough! Shake all of the above over ice and strain into a cocktail glass for a complex, refreshing drink.
The next drink is an aquavit hot toddy. It’s a rather nice cocktail, but with no hot water at our venue it would have been very difficult to serve. It will find it’s way onto the Carlyle menu in a few days:
1.5 oz Krogstad aquavit
.75 oz Swedish punsch*
.5 oz lemon
3-4 oz hot water
Pour all ingredients into a preheated snifter and garnish with a star anise. Guaranteed to warm you up after a long day of going Viking.
*Click for my Swedish punsch recipe, made extra smoky by the addition of lapsang souchong tea.
My friend David’s method for creating a new cocktail:
1. Come into Carlyle and pick a drink on the menu that includes lemon juice.
2. Order that drink without lemon juice.
3. If the drink is served up, order it on the rocks.
4. Name the new drink after a Blazer.
5. Enjoy.
This method isn’t foolproof. Sometimes the results are, as one fellow drinker put it, “horribly unbalanced.” But sometimes it works. And one of those times is perfect for this week’s Mixology Monday, which is all about tea and hosted by Cocktail Slut:
Tea has played a historical role in cocktails for centuries. Perhaps the best documented early example was its inclusion in punches as part of the spice role to round out the spirit, sugar, water, and citrus line up. Later, teas appear in many recipes such as Boston Grog, English Cobbler, and a variety of Hot Toddies. And present day mixologists are utilizing tea flavors with great success including Audrey Saunder’s Earl Grey MarTEAni and LUPEC Boston’s Flapper Jane. Now it’s our turn to honor this glorious cocktail ingredient!
For a while our menu at Carlyle included an updated version of one of the first cocktails I came up with, a Pegu Club variation made with Earl Grey tea-infused gin. Putting this through David’s drink algorithm produces the Patty Mills:
2 oz Earl Grey-infused Bombay gin
.75 oz Cointreau
1 dash Regan’s orange bitters
Serve on the rocks with an orange zest. It’s a secret off-the-menu drink at Carlyle. But would Patty Mills himself approve? Only time will tell.
Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
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