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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Reflections on Tales of the Cocktail

Having spent a necessary few days detoxifying from Tales of the Cocktail, I once again raise the rhetorical question of why we so rarely see spit buckets at spirits events, when they’re de rigueur at wine tastings?

I attended this year’s event in the company of Stephanie Jerzy who manages social media marketing for spirits at BAT, along with my daughter Lindsay Raye who is a brand ambassador in the New York market.  We were also joined by several clients including Johnny Schuler from Pisco Portón and Marc de Kuyper, Albert DeHeer and Arno van Eijmeren from Mandarine Napoleón.  It was interesting to see the event through the eyes of these folks, several of whom were Tales virgins.

My observations, in no particular order:

-New Orleans was cooler than CT…figuratively and literally that week.
-You can’t walk five feet in the Monteleone hotel (or on Royal or Bourbon St. for that matter) without seeing someone you know and REALLY want to talk to.
-It’s great to meet people in person whom you’ve only met via blogs or online
-The camaraderie and sense of community was outstanding…and it’s pretty cool when regular consumers are so interested in our business that they pay to come to what’s really a trade event.
-I’ve GOT to get my partner Jeff Grindrod to attend next year.
-the Faulkner bookstore was a pretty groovy place (and I saw a real pirate in Pirate’s Alley)
-Paul Pacult is a great presenter and guide to tasting spirits in a manner that makes the subjective, objective.
-Paul Clarke really knows his stuff or did his homework…or both.
-Darcy O’Neil always brings something new and interesting to Tales (but he does have some pronunciation issues, and I’m not talking “aboot” the Canadian accent.)
-I missed Camper English’s social media session and really wished I’d made it. 
-Spirits blogging is evolving…rapidly.  It’s no longer just a singular channel; Facebook, Twitter and the plethora of new media coming down the pike are magnifying our reach.
-Johnny Schuler has really nice manners (he stands when a woman arrives or leaves the table), and his passion for Pisco is palpable.
-Marc de Kuyper is the 11^th generation of his family in the business, how cool is that!
-Francesco Lafranconi and Diego Loret de Mola are the Blues Brothers of booze, only wearing guayabera shirts and Panama hats instead of sunglasses and skinny ties.
-Sandro Bottega of Alexander Grappa is one crazy dude, and he makes some fabulous grappa.
-The Mixoloseum house was great fun, and having the shuttle van was a super idea.
-Tales is growing every year and more of the bigger brands and companies are exploiting it.  It will be important for the organizers to maintain the sense of fraternity and shared passion that has characterized the event in the past.
-Call me a Philistine and a Luddite, but I don’t think cocktails go with dinner.
-The Carousel bar at the Monteleone is a royal pain…it’s impossible to keep a conversation going when one person is moving and the other isn’t. (And the quality of drinks and bartenders there should really be top drawer at Tales showcasing what cocktails really can be and how they should be prepared and served.  I had too many mediocre drinks, but the Bloody Mary was killer.)
-I’d like to know who stole my bottle of Mandarine Napoleón XO from the Summer in Paris lunch at Antoine's. Sphere: Related Content

Tales Presentation: Blogs

Here's a link to the presentation on working with Blogs that I made at Tales of the Cocktail last month in New Orleans on the Panel moderated by Paul Clarke and Bobbie Heugel of Drink Dogma: http://www.slideshare.net/Steveraye/working-with-blogs-by-steve-raye-at-tales-of-the-cocktail.

The key strategy is:

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Tattles from Tales, Day 2

Thursday started out promising and we were sauntering off to the Royal Sonesta for breakfast with Camper English of Alcademics(who was nominated for best cocktail writer, but unfortunately didn't win)when we heard some honking and looked up to see a "honey wagon" spewing a fire-hydrant-at-full-blast volume of raw sewage onto the street and sidewalk. Luckily we didn't get hit, but when the stench hit us, Sam almost gagged, and we had serious doubts about being able to make it through the miasma to the hotel. We did persevere and so now "eau de New Orleans" is forever etched in our brainstems, right next to the smell of the first overdose of Tequila...blaawwwwwghhhhh!

We had some really good idea sharing with Camper on how we can help bloggers and particularly find ways to monetize their sites.

Lunch at Herbsaint on St. Charles was with Gabriel "Cocktail Nerd" and Joanna Szazko and Rick Stutz of Kaiser Penguin, board members of the OCSWG --they've GOT to come up with a better name--continuing the convo on how marketers and bloggers can work together for mutual benefit. (We've got lots of good ideas, but you'll have to hire us if you want me to share them.) The food was spectacular and we went on a streetcar ride
through the garden district for a real sense of the best New Orleans has to offer in terms of ambience and architecture. We were hot and sweaty, but according to the locals, only about 95, "but you should have been here last week...over 100...now THAT's hot!")

We got back too late to make the Leblon event, but I did sign the Declaration of Independence that Steve Luttman was carrying around to get the law changed to make Cachaca a legal category in the U.S.

We had dinner at Arnaud's, a sentimental site for me in N'awlins because it was my Dad's favorite and I had always hoped I'd be able to share dinner with him there, but it was not to be. Anyway, we had a fabulous time with Cheri Loughlin of Intoxicologist and her significant other Tory over crawfish and Cordon Rouge. We gave Cheri some ideas on site metrics and learned a lot about her blog.

Then it was back to the Monteleone for cocktails with Bob DeKuyper (yes, THAT DeKuyper...something like 8th generation and this pick was taken Tues of that week at PDT which went on to win the Best Cocktail Bar in America)Ivan Menting and Albert deHeer. Darcy O'Neil of Art of Drink joined us for a drink and he and I wandered back to the other theme subject of the event...is fructose (as in HFCS) pronounced "Fruck" or "Frook". The conversation was so boring that even our blogger friends turned their backs on us. Yikes, I just realized I'm a geek!

And so to bed. (and for those of you who get the reference to Samuel Pepys, you'd enjoy the comment that one of the seminar speakers was talking about "Peepies" diary. My mom kept one of those but now I'm potty trained.)

G'night y'all! Sphere: Related Content

Blogging, Forums and Journalism: Compare and Contrast

There's a fascinating thread going on at www.drvino.com regarding some apparently heavy handed editing at The Wine Advocate Bulletin Board edited by Mark Squires.
Schadenfreude acknowledged, but there's a legitimate debate here about journalism in blogs and forums/bulletin boards...do the same rules apply? And I'm talking not just about the core question of journalistic integrity and ethics, but the clear differentiation between fact and opinion. I posted a comment in the thread posing the question and I'm thinking about asking it again at the Tales of the Cocktail seminar I'm participating in...it'll be interesting to get feedback from real people as well as the blognoscenti.

I'm conflicted, how about you? Sphere: Related Content

Scientific American article on magnifying taste

For those who are really into Darcy's presentation on sensory perception at TOTC (which he's now posted on his site), here's the link to the SA article (August 08 issue) on taste: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=magnifying-taste Sphere: Related Content

TOTC Day 3 Working with Bloggers

Saturday was a day of blogger immersion. We had breakfast at Brennan's with Darcy O'Neil. Lunch at Bourbon St. with Gabriel Szaszko and his lovely wife Joanna, then dinner at Arnaud's with Jeff Morgenthaler and Jay Hepburn. Our objective was to get first hand input on how suppliers can work with bloggers...what their needs and interests are. Basically all gave the same answer...acknowledgement and respect. So many suppliers take the wrong tack in working with bloggers...mass mailings with samples of product supported with a lecture on how wonderful the brand is.

These guys (these guys?!....us!...I'm a blogger too!) undestand the commercial needs of business and want to write about brands. But just like old world journalists they expect brand and PR folks to do their homework. Read the blog to get an understanding of the interests and bias of the author. Participate in the conversation on an ongoing basis with comments, reciprocal links, and contributions that add value...not just talk about a brand. It's not a one night stand, it's a conversation.

Darcy's all about metrics...he's a chemist at heart and at work and while he acknowledges how widely read his blog is, he's really interested in just the facts. Gabriel's a journalist. Like me he keeps Strunk and White at the ready, appreciates it when people write in complete sentences and take the time to at least run spell check before asking for a favor. Jay's a brit that has signficant virtual presence in the U.S. but a very limited physical one. Just getting samples is a challenge. And Jeff? Well, Jeff's unique. When I asked what his needs are and ran down a long list of things we could do for him, his answer was "yes". Sphere: Related Content

TOTC Sensory Perception

Great presentation by Darcy O'Neil on sensory perception. I remember a lot of this from college, but clearly there have been advances in knowledge in the past 30 years. The fun part of the event was the taster evaluation. People fall into three categories: non-taster, normal, and super taster. All refer to the ability/senstitivity to taste bitterness. There is a chemical test strip we were handed to put on your tongue that made it pretty clear what category you fit in. The key point though is if you're a bartender, chef or someone whose palate is a judge for others...you have to know where your perceptions are before preparing for others. E.g. a super taster is very sensitive to bitters so would make a very different tasting Negroni than a non-taster. 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