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The Eugene Cocktail Summit

Sometimes living in Eugene, Oregon means that you have a smaller circle of people who share similar interests as yourself. Driving an hour and a half to Portland is always an option, but sometimes you just wish you could play at home. A select few of us local cocktail enthusiasts gathered today to experiment with | Read More

The Great American Distillers Festival

Yesterday my co-pilot at El Vaquero, Scott, and I made our way up to Portland at nine in the morning for the Great American Distillers Festival – a feat not easily accomplished by two bartenders who had closed the bar the previous night. The list of products available for tasting was short – this ain’t | Read More

Join Me at the Great American Distillers Festival!

For those of you in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, this weekend is the Great American Distillers Festival [PDF at rogue.com] in Portland. I’ll be hanging out and blogging the festival all day on Sunday, so if any of you want to meet up and tour the booths with us, drop me a line and let | Read More

How to Make an Angostura-Scorched Pisco Sour

I’m a big fan of Jamie Boudreau’s website Spirits and Cocktails. The writing is engaging, the photography is brilliant, and his techniques push the boundaries of mixology. So when I read about how Jamie would brulée brandied cherries with a Misto filled with 151-proof rum and Angostura bitters, I was inspired. And I immediately thought: | Read More

Mixology Monday: Orange (Video)

In case you’ve missed all the hoopla, it’s time for another Mixology Monday! This month, we’re being hosted by Gwen over at Intoxicated Zodiac. Gwen has chosen orange as the theme for the month. I had originally planned on doing a post about one of my cocktails that uses orange bitters. However, I figured that | Read More

Summer’s Here, Can You Smell The Reruns?

I’ve been stricken by writer’s block this summer. And who cares? People tune in to their TVs to watch a bunch of re-hashed crap every summer, right? If it’s good enough for major multi-million-dollar TV networks, it’s good enough for me. Here’s what you may have missed on the Jeffrey Morgenthaler Network last season: Remember | Read More

What’s In My Liquor Cabinet?

From time to time, I’ll pop in to Paul Clarke’s liquor cabinet to see what I should have to drink. The only problem is, he lives several hundred miles away and I can’t actually have any of the goodies located therein. However, I can post a list of what’s in my liquor cabinet so that | Read More

Those Other Drink Bloggers Get to Have All the Fun

For the past few months, I had my heart set on attending Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. However, after weeks of painful deliberation, the Girl and I decided to stay home and focus on domestic matters. So I sent out my heartfelt regrets to all of my so-called friends and told them I | Read More

The Latest Imbibe Is Here!

My friend Paul Clarke just published a fantastic article about bartenders making their own liqueurs in the latest Imbibe magazine, and El Vaquero has the honor of representing falernum. We’ve been making a variation of Paul’s falernum recipe for a few months now, to great reviews. When you’ve wrapped up reading his article in Imbibe, | Read More

My Top Ten Favorite Drinks

Stephen Beaumont once referred to my “borderline obsessive list-making“, and although this post certainly won’t help my reputation in that area, I’ve wanted to do it for a while now, and I think it will be good times for all. Now, people ask me all the time what my favorite drink is, but it’s hard | Read More

The Spirit and Cocktail Advertising Network is In The House!

Over the past few weeks, my friend Darcy over at The Art of Drink has helped lash together the rafts and bring together the best in spirit and cocktail writers (for some reason he felt I could be included in that category) and create a new form of advertising superpower: the Spirit and Cocktail Ad | Read More

Nonjatta

Quick! Can you name the five main whisk(e)y-producing countries in the world? Scotland? Check. Ireland? Mmm-hmm. Canada? Yep. United States? Definitely. But then you’d go, “Five?”, and I’d be all, “Yeah, five!” And then you’d be all, “Like, where else?” And then I’d be all, “Japan, dude!” And you’d be all, “No way!” And I’d | Read More

Enter the Ultimate Bar Chef Competition!

I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that my dear friend (and one hell of a bartender) Sean Bigley over at Ultimate Bar Chef is hosting a cocktail competition this summer and he wants you to participate. And, if you win, you can take home a cool $1,750. Here’s | Read More

If You Don’t Have Enough to Do, You Can Always Read This

Loathe as I am to suggest that you read anything other than the gospel that I hand down to you at three in the morning twice a week, I should admit that another one of my favorite blogs is Cocktails with Camper English. Here’s Camper in his own words: Camper English is a cocktails and | Read More

Ask Your Bartender: Sour Mix in Two Parts

Sour mix is a gateway drug. It can lead you down a very dark path, or it can open up a new world of fresh flavors or ingredients. As proof of this, I submit to you two examples: One scenario involves the novice bartender using prepackaged mix as a medium for all sorts of vile | Read More