Imbibist

Beautiful line up, in a city that celebrates drinking.

Latin Manhattan. Happy Thursday.

We just can’t get enough.

Fantastico. If that’s a word. In Italian.

While it’s easy enough to get a drink in a Las Vegas casino, you never know exactly what will be delivered to you. Hi-balls are a popular choice. But while one manager wants to get you drunk and sloppy, another is squeezing pennies and watering down. I’ve come to learn the Crazy Horse Bar in the MGM Grand makes a good and consistent Martini. And if I’m ordering from the blackjack table, I’ll stick with beer or a premium spirit, either neat or on the rocks. Finding a well made craft cocktail in a casino is an impossible task. Or is it? The rebirth of classic ingredients like bitters and fresh juices has found its way to a handful of Las Vegas casino bars. But can they execute? In the spirit of sacrifice and discovery, your favorite amateur cocktailian ventured out to Sin City in search of answers.
 

MGM Down
 

A recent trip to Vegas exposed my girlfriend and I to the two ends of the specialty cocktail spectrum at MGM Mirage properties. In case you’re not up on your Vegas corporate knowledge, MGM Mirage owns roughly half the megaresorts on the Las Vegas Strip (Caesar’s Entertainment owns the other half – yes, two companies control nearly the entire Strip). Their newest offering is CityCenter, a 9+ Billion Dollar complex featuring five distinct properties that are decidedly bland by Vegas standards. Anchoring CityCenter is Aria, a 4,004 room resort and, strangely enough, home to CityCenter’s only casino. Overly anxious to end our January detox, and curious to see what $10 Billion gets you these days, we left our modest South Strip digs and trekked up to Aria.
 

Aria at CityCenter Las Vegas. Courtesy of ChrisYunker via Flickr.

The first lounge we encountered, The Deuce, seemed a bit too “ooncha-ooncha” for our taste. The drink menu, however, left us both surprised and encouraged, as it boasted the use of fresh juices and – get this – specialty bitters. Yeah, I even spotted celery bitters on there. Whoa. Someone here either cares about the drinks, or the suits in Marketing noticed the term “bitters” trending higher on Google searches. Regardless, we moved on to City Bar, a more-inviting-yet-still-swanky casino bar situated in the middle of the action. Standing front and center on the bar was a bottle of Peychaud’s and, to its right, Fee Brothers. Whoa, again. My buzz quickly crashed into bewilderment, however, after I noticed the menu’s definition of a Manhattan: Bourbon and Sweet Vermouth. No bitters. What the hell is going on here? I figured it was time for a test.
 

Me: I’d like a Manhattan, but can I get it with Peychaud’s bitters?
Bartender: Sure. Wait, did you say Payshods?
Me: Yeah, Peychaud’s bitters.
Bartender: OK, sure, no problem.

The place was very busy, and I could not see him during the entire process. I did notice him checking the bitters bottles; apparently he didn’t yet know Peychaud’s is the small bottle with the white label. What was delivered to me was very pink. “How much bitters did he put in there,” I wondered. And upon tasting, I discovered he used much. I also found he used the wrong ice in the shaker, as the drink was watered down to children’s strength. I was very disappointed, and the color and the taste didn’t make any sense. My palate was out of shape from the detox month, and this hurdle had me perplexed.
 

Aria's Manhattan. Or Sazerac. Or neither.

“Just what in the hell am I drinking? It’s too bitter, but I knew that from the color. It’s watered down to all hell. It almost tastes like a Sazerac sans absinthe. Wait, it’s not sweet. It’s not sweet at all. Bingo.”

He left out the vermouth. He thought I wanted Peychaud’s in lieu of vermouth. And he used small ice, rendering the final product as flavorless as daytime television programming. Additionally, bitters is used in a number of house cocktails at City Bar, but not the Manhattan. What was it my Little League coach used to preach to me? Fundamentals first. Yes, that’s it. Fundamentals first. Fail.
 

MGM Up
 

The following day we found ourselves meandering further up the strip. We dodged the rain, gambled sporadically, played Drink Arbitrage at the video poker bars, just doing the Vegas thing. Eventually we found ourselves at another MGM property, The Mirage. Twenty years ago, the Mirage was the toast of the town, with its volcano and white tiger shows. It’s still a respected property and, in my opinion, more enjoyable than the $10 Billion behemoth down the Strip. I digress.
 

Upon entry we encountered Rhumbar, a clean and modern lounge specializing in – drumroll please – rum drinks. I’d read some good things about Rhumbar somewhere – I cannot recall where – so it was imperative we check it out. Some prominent features at Rhumbar are a bank of daiquiri machines and beautiful-yet-dingy girls ordering mojitos. These are not necessarily bad things, but I do not find them reassuring either. We pressed on to find an intimidating array of rums. As a self-professed amateur, I must confess I know little about rums. Indeed, I’m still working my way through whiskeys and gins. But I know a Hemingway Daiquiri is a good thing, and upon finding it on the menu, I made sure the bartender put one in my hand in short order.
 

The Latin Manhattan at Rhumbar

You’ll have to forgive me, as I didn’t take good notes here. I cannot elaborate too much on the two drinks I had, except to say they were both delectable. Perhaps a little on the sweet side, but strong and flavorful nonetheless. The Hemingway Daiquiri was delicious, and unlike its ungodly cousins, it did not come from one of those slush machines. My second drink, the Latin Manhattan, was a delight: Rum, vermouth, bitters, maraschino liqueur, and “Caribbean Spices”. I asked the bartender to elaborate on the Caribbean Spices and his response was an unsure, “Uh, Angostura, you know.” Outside of this deer/headlights moment, the experience was overwhelmingly positive. We would have opted for another round, but the sun was still up, and a strong buzz was festering itself upon us.
 

MGM Again?
 

It’s nearly impossible to avoid MGM properties while perusing the Strip, so the Vegas traveler will find him- or herself ordering a drink at these resorts at some point. The $15 price point on City Bar’s Testament to Confusion warrants avoidance for a good while. Rhumbar is worthy of a return, however. Even if the bartenders aren’t cocktail experts, they execute well on good recipes. But to emphasize the obvious, casinos simply aren’t craft cocktail destinations, regardless of their efforts. A shame, considering the strides they’ve made in the restaurant realm. Sorry MGM, but for now, the most luxurious room in Vegas is still at the Four Seasons, and the top destination for craft cocktails remains the Downtown.

Latin Manhattan at Rhumbar, Mirage, Las Vegas. Damn good for a casino.

Silicon Valley is known worldwide for a number of subjects: semiconductors, venture capital, the dot-com boom and subsequent crash, to name a handful. Culinary Excellence, unfortunately, is not one of them. Indeed, there is a dearth of good eating establishments in the South Bay Area, as banal strip malls and national chains dominate both the landscape and the local palate. Naturally, it follow that there are few good drinking establishments. Sure, it’s not hard to find a good selection of scotch at an upscale eatery, but try ordering a Sazerac at these places and you will be met with a look of wonder and confusion.
 

Suze Liqueur. Courtesy of Guillaume Brialon via Flickr.

You could imagine my surprise when I spotted a bottle of Suze through the window of a local pseudo-French restaurant (I say “pseudo-French” since their French cuisine simply isn’t that good. Or French). We immediately seated ourselves at the bar and inquired about the bottle. To our non-surprise, the bartender had been working there for three years and had only poured it for one customer, who ordered it as a shot. Despite the bartender’s lack of knowledge of classic cocktails, he was well aware of the subject and was quite receptive to our stories and questions. I told him of our experience with Chris Hannah at French 75 in New Orleans, and how he made a Last Word with Suze replacing the Maraschino. He agreed that this sounded like a fine cocktail and proceeded to make us a round. Yes, here we were, reliving one of the more sublime cocktail moments of our latest New Orleans trip, amongst the vodka-and-sugar swilling wannabe-sophisticates of Silicon Valley. So bizarre, yet so satisfying. Upon finishing, the bartender agreed to hide the bottle for us. A nice gesture, in an establishment that, previous to this experience, I completely despised.
 

Yes, pleasant surprises always come in the most unlikely settings. What is the name of this pseudo-French restaurant that houses such a rare bottle of liqueur, you ask? Sorry, that is for me to know and for you to find on your own. Happy hunting.

Corn n Oil at Sidebar. Downtown Las Vegas.

Thanks to a good friend who also happens to be a New Orleans local, I was able to get an introduction to Chris Hannah, bartender at Arnaud’s French 75 Bar in the French Quarter. Arnaud’s is a storied restaurant opened in 1918 by Count Arnaud Cazenave. Given Chris’s reputation as one of New Orleans’ top bartenders, it’s only fitting he run the bar of such an establishment.
 

My inclination was to order some classic New Orleans drinks – Sazerac, Ramos Gin Fizz, and the like – from a local maestro.  However, my buddy had a simple and better suggestion: let Chris do the driving. He is the master, after all. Not surprisingly, this proved to be the superior path.
 

The Last Word

My girlfriend and I arrived at French 75 on a Friday evening and took a seat at the bar. We chatted with Chris for a bit, and then told him we’d like him to drive us through three courses of drinks. After asking us of our mood and our plans for later – he didn’t want to get us trashed, as it was still early and our last night in town – he started us with his variation of The Last Word. The Last Word is a prohibition era cocktail, using equal parts of gin, Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and fresh lime juice. Hannah’s version, however, replaced the maraschino with Suze, a French liqueur flavored with gentian root. Not knowing what the hell Suze or gential root was, Chris gave us a short shot of the liqueur so we could taste it straight. We both found the smell metallic, but the flavor quite floral. The cocktail itself was fantastic, a perfect balance of botanicals, citrus, sweetness, and alcohol.
 

Suze Liqueur

Our second course was a mix of gin, dram, and Cynar. The name of this drink, well, I’m not so sure. Phonetically, the name of the drink is “Tamerus.” Chris explained that “Tamerus” (Tmolus, perhaps?) was a figure from Greek mythology who, due to some type of conflict, became quite bitter at his adversary. I’m not going to butcher the name of the drink or the ancient tale any further, but do understand the character’s bitterness is reflected through the use of Cynar in the cocktail. Clever.
 

Perhaps more interesting than the root of the cocktail’s name was the dram, made by Chris himself. Standard dram is made by steeping allspice berries in rum, and then mixing with simple syrup. An even easier “recipe” is to buy a bottle from the liquor store. Hannah’s dram involved steeping cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice in rum, which was later added to hibiscus syrup. Again, Chris gave us a short shot of the dram to taste alone. Light on alcohol, but rich in flavor, the dram countered well against the bitterness of the Cynar without overwhelming the gin.
 

Our final course brought us back to a citrus cocktail. This was part of Hannah’s plan to keep us from getting completely wasted, as the previous drink consisted of purely alcoholic ingredients. Chris called this drink The Movie Goer, and it was made of Orange Curacao, gin, Averna, and fresh lemon juice. While this drink certainly didn’t look light, it was actually quite refreshing after the previous round.
 

The Cocktail with the Unknown Greek Name

There were two things I took away from our trip to French 75. First, Chris Hannah operates on a different space/time continuum than your standard bartender. This is reflected in the ingredients selected and the patience he displays while mixing each drink. His dedication to precision is demonstrated by his use of a small measuring cup. Yes, he measures out each ingredient with incredible precision, so if you go, please don’t be in a hurry.
 

The second point I took away is a testament to the first point. You see, my girlfriend is an avid vodka Martini drinker, but she dislikes gin Martinis. In other words, she’s not afraid of the taste of alcohol, but doesn’t care for the taste of gin. As all three of our courses were gin based, she continued to shake her head in disbelief. She verbally attested to liking them all, and repeated more than once, “I can’t believe I actually like a(nother) gin drink.” Apparently the right mix of ingredients can win over even a skeptic.  Congrats, Chris Hannah, on helping convert my girlfriend to gin. Now it’s my duty to keep her along that path, until our inevitable return to New Orleans.

Live from the Carousel Bar, at the unmistakable Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, Louisiana. Classic mixes from Marvin. Details at eleven.