A Dutch Point of View

I’ve been in Holland for a few days for meetings with our client Canei wine and next week with the folks from deKuyper.

Jean Erickson and I did some busman’s holiday work and checked out a bunch of retail wine and spirits stores as well as on premise accounts for a sense of what’s going on here.

Door 74 looks like it would be at home on the lower East Side, 

Door 74.  We were directed (actually got a great cocktail bar recco sheet from the Bols Experience, see below) to one of the top cocktail bars in the world, right here in Amsterdam.  Door 74 was a finalist in last year’s TOTC best international bar competition, and now that I’ve been there…I’d have voted for them. It's got a PDT-like vibe in that the entrance is an unpreposessing door, with no signage to indicate what's there.

We met mixologists Remco Babay and Bas Verhoeven and partner in crime Frederico Fusco

Simon Difford doppelganger Bas Verhoeven

and had a couple of wonderful evenings talking bidness.  First item was my request for somethign special with Mandarine Napoleon.  Remco did great, but for the life of me, I can't remember the recipe.

Bas explained a drink concept he came up with for one competition that involved real smoke, wood chips and shaved chocolate in a two layer glass…it takes molecular mixology to a whole new level.  He also treated me to his signature drink, the Martila:  

½ shot Reposado Tequila

1 Barspoon of lemon rind scrapings (not a zest, but scrapings with a serrated knife)

2.5 Barspoons of Maraschino Liquor

1 shot of dry white vermouth.

Stir, garnish with lemon twist and voila…

We talked at length about Pisco which they were somewhat familiar with.  I gave the 5 minute version of  Pisco 101, told them all about Pisco Portón and the mosto verde process, and promised to get them the first bottled that exports to the Netherlands. (Johnny and Andrea…you’ll have to help me with delivering on that promise)

The Wine Side

I’ve seen more presence of Chilean and Argentinian wines than I had anticipated.  I expected to see French/Italian and Spanish wines, which I did, but there is surprisingly noticeable distribution of New World wines, according to my unscientific retail review in Amsterdam, Delft and The Hague.  Pricing seems to be a bit lower than the U.S. and in fact I saw a bunch of entry level wines at the €6.99 /€7.99 level…translated into dollars that’s still below the $10 price point.  Valdivieso from Chile was especially noted as having good floor stacks in stores that had very limited real estate allocated for displays.  Canei was pretty well distributed by commonly on the bottom shelf with just one or two facings.

Spirits:

We had stopped by the Bols Experience, a mini-exhibit that was very well done.  The location can’t be beat…right across the street from the Van Gogh museum.  There were some good displays of atomizers with flavors used in their liqueurs and real samples of the various botanicals used as well.  They end the exhibit in a real bar (albeit stocked only with their products), but you can design a drink or choose one of their cocktails and have it hand-made and served with a flourish by bartenders trained upstairs at the Bols Bartending Academy.

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Tales of the Cocktail Day 1

Wow! TOTC is back, bigger and better. There are thousands of people in sweltering NOLA to engage, celebrate, sample and converse on a common theme...cocktails! Seemed like half the people on the plane down from NY were attending the conference. I made the mistake of consuming a bit too much alcohol at a dinner Tues. nite with some friends from Holland and it took all of yesterday to recover. Not the best way to start a week of drinking.

HQ for the event is the historic Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter, and if you just stand in the lobby of the hotel long enough, you'll see EVERYONE in the business pass by. My day started with lunch with Paul Clarke, Darcy O'Neil and some of the folks from Vessel in Seattle. I'm speaking on Paul's panel on blogging on Friday and we mapped out a plan for the presentation...it's sold out and the room holds 250 people. Darcy and I sort of geeked out the geeks on cocktail arcana and ended up engaged in a fascinating conversation that bored everyone else to tears.

I'm here with our spirit SMM guru, Sam Harrigan and we spent the afternoon looking for some ingredients for a recipe contest review we were holding later in the evening.

It's great fun running into folks from all over the world who share the same interest...Tiare Olsen is in from Sweden, Jay Hepburn from London, our Dutch friends are here, the Chartreuse people are in from France, Mike Ginley was here with clients from Japan.

First official event was the Tito's Vodka tasting...Tito Beveridge (yes, that's his real name) has done an awesome job of breaking the rules and making new ones on the way to bringing his artisanal vodka onto the national stage.

We attended the TOTC opening reception sponsored by Beefeater...what a blowout. Kudos to Shawn Kelly and Marissa Frisina of Pernod Ricard...they pulled out all the stops. Then it was on to the CSOWG (Cocktail and Spirits Online Writers Guild) house on Rampart Street where many of the bloggers gathered for some break time and where we selected the winner for the OVAL vodka infusion contest. Way to go Marshall with a honey, cilantro infusion! Some 50 or so spirit bloggers were in and out including Camper English, Matt Robold, Gabriel Szasko, Darcy, Sean Mike, Marshall Frawley, Stevi Deter and...and...and. Oh, and Gabe's wife Joanna did some spectacular hostessing...those burger were fabuloso!

Lindsey Johnson and Leo Borovskiy of Lush Life NY hosted a "Tweet Up" just down the street at Bar Tonique which attracted an really interesting mix of folks. Again, all shared the same interest of connecting via Social Media to share the enjoyment of cocktails and spirits. Lindsey's doing some real groundbreaking SMM marketing stuff especially with video and Twitter, and we're looking forward to working together with her.

On the way back to the hotel I was pelted by beads from a balcony tossed by(no I didn't take my shirt off) Mike Ginley and the folks from Suntory Yamazaki Single Malt. And so to bed. Sphere: Related Content

Tales of the Cocktail Day 1

Wow. What a concept. This is one of the most unusual industry get togethers I’ve ever been at particularly because it’s such an interesting mix of attendees…brand owners, distributors and assorted other industry folk were complemented by a ton of bartenders (according to Jeff Morgenstern’s Twitter tweat there must not be a bar open in SF, they’re all here!). Also present in great numbers (total attendance approx. 1,000!?!) were regular consumers. Well not regular. These folks are passionate about cocktails and incredibly knowledgeable. John Pellaton of Hine Cognac (John, I told you I’d give you credit) summed it up well…it’s like the Sundance Festival for the spirits industry. The key question I keep hearing is, who came up with the idea of N.O. in July…it’s hot and humid. Sphere: Related Content