Starchefs.com Rising Stars Gala Houston

Every year Starchefs.com, the online food gazette, hosts galas in four different cities to honor "rising stars" on the culinary scene. The locations vary; there have been events in New York, Seattle, DC, and San Francisco, to name a few. This year Starchefs finally recognized what you and I have known for a long time: Houston is a really great place to eat and drink. The recipients of Starchefs' very first Houston awards include chefs from some of the most talked-about restaurants in town, as well as Bobby Heugel, the genius behind Houston cocktail institution the Anvil. So when I was offered the opportunity to attend the gala and sample some of this marvelous grub as a guest of Highland Park Scotch Whisky, I was pretty psyched. To say the least.

Let's take a moment to dwell on how fabulous the location was. (It's okay for me to do that. I used to be an architect.) The rooftop pool deck at the four seasons was full of beautiful young people - very Gossip Girl. And there I was. I only regret that I didn't take pictures of the scene. After taking it all in, Lauren and I got down to the real business: eating and drinking. Here are some of the highlights.


First off: a sangria made with Spanish Rioja, grilled mangos, vanilla bean, and cinnamon. This delicious concoction is the brainchild of Sean Beck, the sommelier from Backstreet Cafe and Hugo's and one of the honorees for the evening. Grilling, he said, brings out new flavors in the mango. And new ideas in my sangria-loving mind. Can a smoky sangria be far away? The food: Oh sweet heavens, the food. I sampled so many wonderful dishes I can't possibly describe them all. Lauren and I both agreed that the sautéed shrimp with white cheddar polenta, from chef Jamie Zelko of Zelko Bistro, was our favorite. A close second: the roasted venison with sweet potato-brussel sprout hash, bacon confit, and pomegranate jus, from David Grossman at Branch Water Tavern. Yeah, just read that over again. It's okay to drool a little.

The best damn shrimp and grits you will ever eat.

The cocktails: There were a couple of cocktails being poured for the evening, so of course I had to have one of each. There was the Orkney Opponent, made from lemon, maple syrup, Highland Park's 12-year-old single malt, and allspice dram, and then there was my personal favorite, the Anvil Paloma, made with tequila, lime, and grapefruit beer. (Not quite sure what "grapefruit beer" is but I think I need one right now.)

The Orkney Opponent (l) and the Anvil Paloma.

For dessert: Something truly odd. And I liked a cocktail with balsamic vinegar, so for me to say that - it must have been very, very, odd. When you read about a dessert composed of carrot and grapefruit mousse, grapefruit marmalade, candied sesame seeds, hay sherbet, and clove meringue, what stands out to you? If you answered "the hay sorbet", then you win. Look, I consider it a part of my job to be open to trying unusual things. Even after seeing Lauren's face upon taking her first bite, I gamely ate this. I made sure to get a bite with a little bit of everything. And you know what? The flavors really complimented each other. I just couldn't get over the fact that it tasted like cow food.

I'm sure making this was a real culinary feat. I'm really not kidding when I say that it tasted just like hay. You know those buttered popcorn jelly beans? You bite into them, and you're thinking, no way a jelly bean could taste like popcorn. And then they do. They taste exactly like popcorn, and you respect the technology that must've gone into making that happen - but it's still kind of gross.

And after that: This post would be incomplete without a mention of Highland Park Scotch, and not just because they were my meal ticket for the event. Their 12, 15, and 18-year-old single malts flowed freely throughout the evening - the 12-year-old was quite good, but the smooth, smoky flavor of the 18-year-old was the high point of my night. And maybe my life. I've always loved scotch, ever since that one time at that one wedding - but I never dreamed it could go down this easy.*

*Highland Park also makes a 30-year single malt, available at Spec's for the modest price of four hundred thirty seven dollars a bottle. I'd like to get my hands on some of that.

Updated to add: click here to see more pictures of the event, including photos of all the featured dishes, and the totally bizarre hay sorbet.

Mojito MADNESS.

Some of you may not know this, but the mojito is really the drink that started it all. One summer night, circa 2008 - four good girl friends, a little bit of peppermint, a bottle of rum, and my first-ever batch of simple syrup came together to make some very, very delicious mojitos. And probably the most fun I've ever had on a week night. I was hooked. On mojitos, and on mixing drinks.


So, recently, I decided to re-visit the mojito. And, just to shake things up a little, to make a mojito variation with every kind of clear liquor in my kitchen. But first, I needed to establish a base recipe for the mojito. Now, I can be a little bit of a stickler for the rules. Especially when it comes to cocktails. I mean, classic is best, right? So I first turned to the oldest known recipe for a mojito, from a 1929 Cuban cocktail book called, appropriately, El Libro de Cocktail, and helpfully re-printed in Food & Wine magazine's "cocktails '09". Also helpfully reprinted right here:

The Original Mojito
8 mint leaves
2 oz white rum
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
1 oz simple syrup
1/2 oz chilled club soda


I made a mojito, just as the 80-year-old recipe said. It was pretty, to be sure. I took many pictures of it. But I tasted it and I was...underwhelmed. I longed to return the the mojito that first captured my heart that summer night. So I made another mojito, according to my old recipe. I took a sip...delicious. Feels like the very first time.

"What is the secret of this fantastic mojito?" - you must surely be asking yourself. Two things: 1. turbinado simple syrup. Just like it sounds - simple syrup made with turbinado sugar, 1:1. 2. peppermint. Spearmint is pretty much the gold standard for mint in cocktails - every bar I've ever been to uses it for their mojitos, so that's what I used to make the classic mojito. But the drinks from the infamous Night of the Mojitos were made with peppermint, which imparts a stronger mint flavor. For the recipe printed below, I used half and half, and the result was lovely. Where can one find peppermint? I grow mine myself. You can tell the difference between the two varieties by the shape of the leaves, and, of course, by the way they smell.

peppermint vs. spearmint.

Nancy's very special mojito
8 mint leaves (4 spearmint, 4 peppermint)
1.5 oz rum
.75 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice
.5 oz turbinado simple syrup
1 oz soda water

Place the mint leave in the bottom of a shaker, cover with the simple syrup, and muddle. Add the lime, rum, and 5-6 ice cubes, and shake and strain into a highball glass filled with crushed ice. Top with the soda water.

I'll be damned is this is not the best mojito I've ever had.

So now that we've established a basic recipe for the mojito, it's time to get crazy. First up, the mexi-jito - a mojito made with tequila. Luke, an inventive drinker and a particular fan of tequila, gave me the idea for this one.


Mexijito
8 mint leaves (half and half)
1.5 oz silver tequila
.75 oz lime juice
.5 oz agave nectar
1 oz soda water

Verdict: Oh, it's good. The combo of tequila and mint is wonderfully smooth, and almost, just a teeny tiny bit, reminds me of chocolate. Interesting and delicious and refrescante. Definitely worth a try.

Next: A mojito with cachaça. Since cachaça and rum are so similar, substituting cachaça for rum in a mojito seems pretty logical. Plus, the caipirinha, the most famous cachaça drink out there, is essentially just a mojito without mint, right?

Brazilian Mojito
8 mint leaves (half and half)
1.5 oz cachaça
.75 oz lime juice
.5 oz turbinado simple syrup
1 oz soda water

So...I now understand why the Brazilians don't put mint in their caipirinhas. It's because cachaça and mint is...well, kinda gross. The vegetal flavors of cachaça don't play nice with the mint like rum does. I still finished the drink -but it was my least favorite of all the alterna-mojitos. Since I played it safe with this one, next I decided to try something really unusual: a mojito with poire william eau-de-vie, a brandy made from distilled pears.


The Peppermint Pear
12 mint leaves (6 peppermint, 6 spearmint)
1.5 oz poire william eau-de-vie
1 oz lime juice
.75 oz simple syrup
1 oz soda water

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this turned out like a mojito...that tastes like pear. Actually, come to think of it, it's more like the other way around. Even with the amount of other ingredients increased, pear is the overwhelming taste sensation here, with the mint and lime as mere grace notes. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. Suffice it to say, though, that if you like pear, and you like mojitos...you will love the hell out of this. If you're not such a huge fan of pear, but you still happen to have the brandy around , try half pear brandy, half light rum.


What about...a mojito with gin? This is another Luke invention. Once, at a party, long ago, I was making mojitos when I ran out of rum. What to doooo? Luke suggested making some with gin. I remembered them being pretty good. I remembered right.

The Gin-jito
8 mint leaves (4 peppermint, 4 spearmint)
1.5 oz gin
.75 oz lime juice
.5 oz simple syrup
1 oz soda water

It's delicious and refreshing, in that very clean, juniper-y way that gin is. And lastly: an unusual combination that totally blew my mind. Alicia was the one who suggested making a mojito with mezcal - she had something like it at the Anvil once.


The Smo-jito (It's a smoky mojito. Get it?)
8 mint leaves
1.5 oz joven mezcal
.75 oz lime juice
.5 oz agave nectar
1 oz soda water

Oh. My. Gosh. Definitely my favorite of all the mojito variations. Nice strong agave flavor, delicious smoke making love to lime and mint. I don't know what I did to deserve this, but whatever it was, I must've been very good.

MxMo LV: Some Like it Hot: The Round-Up.

So when I cooked up (cooked up - see what I did there?) the idea for this month's Mixology Monday, Houston was in the grips of something curiously akin to winter. For a couple of weeks, the temperature dipped below forty degrees, and I laid low and drank hot buttered beer and dreamed of sangria.

Winter didn't last long, however, and now that Mixology Monday has come around it's a sunny 75 degrees, the blueberries are in bloom, and I'm thinking about planting tomatoes. Normally I love Houston's bizarre, balmy weather, but I have to say that today I'm a little jealous of those of you in the frozen north. What better pick-me-up on a cold day than one of these delicious hot drinks? I might even make one to enjoy by the pool.


For Elana over at Stir and Strain, hot alcoholic drinks conjure up memories of dad giving her hot whiskey for childhood illnesses. Love it. Her Hot Buttered Warm-Up is made with a cardamom, vanilla, and muscovado sugar butter (I started drooling when I read that) melted into black tea with bourbon, lemon juice, and amaretto. An unusual flavor combo, and one that I am dying to try.


Frederic of cocktail virgin slut reaches waaay back to a cocktail book from 1867 to bring us the Locomotive. As he says, "since these early railway vehicles used heat to generate steam to propel them, having a hot drink named after them was not very surprising". The recipe, though, is pretty surprising, at least to us moderns - it's wine, sweetened with honey and orange liqueur, and thickened with egg yolk. Given my affinity for bizarre combinations and old recipes, I'm happy to hear this one was a hit.

Jordan, from Chemistry of the Cocktail, makes a hot chocolate cocktail with dark chocolate and a chocolate and spice-infused rum. I'm just starting to experiment with spicy/chocolate combinations myself, and I have to say...this sounds amazing.


Rowen over at the Fogged in Lounge tries out the somewhat salaciously-titled Vanilla Whiskey Skin. It's a toddy made with rye, vanilla syrup, and lemon peel. Yum. Vanilla in a toddy...that opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. Also, I like your backdrop of classic novels.


Doug of the Pegu Blog offers up a Hot Buttered Mai Tai. The first time I opened this link, my response was something like...whaaat? The Mai Tai was one of the first drinks I ever made, and it's still one of my favorites. But hot? And with butter? Then I remembered that I had a similar response to the hot buttered beer, which turned out to be delicious. Thankfully Doug gives us detailed directions for making the most of this "cosmic convergence".


Speaking of hot tiki drinks...Layne over at the Ace Saloon brings us the Heaven's on Fire, inspired by a Don the Beachcomber recipe from 1937. And the ingredients do sound heavenly. Start with butter, honey and coconut...add rum, allspice dram, velvet falernum, and milk. Drool. (P.S. Layne says that he loves mulled wine, but his friends are sort of meh about it. You should meet my friends. They drink mulled wine like it's going out of style.)


Dave of the Barman Cometh makes some Glogg, the traditional Scandinavian mulled wine, to ward off an unexpected chill in San Francisco. (Because if anybody knows how to make a warming drink, it's the Scandinavians.) I've made lots of mulled wine but never glogg, and I'm dying to try it after seeing this recipe. Did I mention that it calls for lighting a Brandy syrup on fire? That is all kinds of awesome. And is that a christmas-tree garnish?


And while we're setting things on fire, there's DJ Hawaiian Shirt's Flaming Coffee Grog. So many things about this drink blow my mind - it's a tiki drink with coffee, for one. And then there's the part where you make a mixture of rum, orange liqueur, citrus peels, and cloves and set it on FIRE. You're supposed to spoon the flaming mixture into the coffee, "where presumably the flames will soon extinguish". So, so great.


Then we have Dennis, from A Drink on the Rocks. His contribution, the Pirate's Gold, is also tiki-esque, but with...a beer syrup? And chocolate bitters? How strange. How wonderful. Make me one, please.


Fearghas lives in Scotland and has tasted the Pimms #3, two reasons I am terribly jealous of him. He and his buddies have a whole blog about gin, and this is their very first MxMo. Welcome to the party! His contribution is, appropriately, a Hot Gin Toddy.


More hot gin! (It's not too often you get to say that.) Marc of A Drinkers Peace, faced with a winter snowfall and unfortunate case of the sniffles, turns to an 1888 recipe for a hot gin sling. Genever, sugar, fresh ground nutmeg, and lemon are warming and soothing.


Elizabeth over at Mix n' Sip is another first-timer. Welcome Elizabeth! She offers up her Devonshire Clotted Cream Tea Cocktail, an alcoholic twist on the traditional English afternoon drink, along with some fascinating history of the tradition of teatime.


Tony Harion and the Mixing Bar team came to this little party all the way from Brazil. Being that it's 95 degrees in Brazil right now, the team bends the rules a little and makes a hot drink, served cold. Their submission is the Maria Carioca, which is...a spicy tomato drink made with passion fruit. That's right - passion fruit. I am in awe. Also I need to be drinking one of these like, right now.


Ed of Wordsmithing Pantagruel makes a Caramel Apple Toddy with applejack, Bénédictine, and caramel syrup. Deeelish. He also offers up some links about flash heating ale with a red-hot poker, the legit, old-fashioned way to make hot drinks. I've always wanted to try this, although I'm a little worried that my fireplace isn't all that clean.


The Alpha Cook offers up the Bull's Milk, a hot drink with an off-putting name but a very appealing photo. Dark rum, cognac, vanilla milk, and maple syrup? I feel warm just thinking about it.


And finally, there's my humble submission...a spiced pear mulled wine. I aimed to make two different kinds of mulled wine, but then decided that the second one would be better off as a sangria. Fortunately, sangria season is about ten months out of the year around here.

Thanks to everyone who participated! Please please let me know if I left out your entry - my inbox is currently a smorgasbord of wild and wonderful hot drinks, and I wouldn't want anyone to have gotten lost in the shuffle.

Thanks also to Paul Clarke, our benevolent founder. See you all next time!

MxMo LV: Pear Spice Mulled Wine

Whenever I have parties and I do hot drinks, I always make at least one batch of mulled wine, and it's always a big hit. Since this month's Mixology Monday theme (selected by yours truly) is Some Like it Hot, I thought I'd take a stab at an original mulled wine.

At first I thought of doing an apple mulled wine, since apple and spices go so well together, but some poking about on the internets revealed that lots of other people had already beat me to it. So why not...a pear mulled wine?


Pear Spice Mulled Wine
1 bottle red wine
1/4 cup brandy
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 pear, cored and sliced
1/2 cup pear nectar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 whole anise star
12 whole cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
1/2 orange, cut into slices

Combine all the ingredients in an appropriately-sized pot. Cook over medium-low, stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes.

Verdict: Winner. Delicious, spicy, fruity. I found myself completely unable to stop drinking it. And after you've drunk all the wine, the pears make for a delicious and dangerously addictive snack.


And, just because I can't leave well enough alone, I decided to try something really innovative: a mulled wine with...balsamic vinegar? Yeah, you heard that right. Some cursory google searches indicated that balsamic vinegar, pears and cinnamon might be good together, so I gave it a whirl.

Balsamic Pear Mulled Wine
1 bottle red wine
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup eau-de-vie poire william
1 pear, cored and sliced
1/2 orange, cut into slices
4 cinnamon sticks

Verdict: This is really, really interesting, and not in an entirely bad way. The balsamic and pear flavors complement one another and bring out the nuances in each. I can't help thinking, though, that this would probably better as a sangria. As in, it smelled awfully good before I cooked it for half an hour. Come summer, you can bet I'll be trying this one again.

Winter White Sangria

A few weeks ago, Houston was in the sway of something resembling Winter - the temperature dropped below forty for almost two weeks, the sun did not come out, and a couple of days it even FROZE and everyone in our lovely city lost their collective shit. Of course I'm also a total wimp when it comes to cold weather, because hello, I live in Houston, so I stayed at home and drank hot tea and took long hot baths and dreamed of summer and sangria.


During which time I thought, hey, I don't think I've ever made a sangria with cucumber. It seemed like an interesting challenge - the savoriness of cucumber in a sangria. I though about the Mr. Stair, the pretty green pear sour that I had to puree a cucumber to make. With that as my inspiration, it wasn't long until...

The Winter White Sangria
A white sangria recipe with pear, cucumber, blood orange, and St. Germain elderflower liqueur.

1 bottle dry white wine (pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc)
1/2 cup eau-de-vie poire william (pear brandy)
1/2 cup St. Germain elderflower liqueur
1 pear, cored and sliced
8 cucumber slices
1/2 blood orange, cut into half-rounds

Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and chill overnight (or for at least 8 hours). (Most sangrias get better as you continue to infuse them, but you actually don't want to steep this one much longer than 8 hours or the cucumber will become too pronounced.) Serve in a glass over ice.

Verdict: I did done good. Beautiful and crisp and fresh, with a lingering sweetness. Just the thing to tide you over until spring.

5 Classic Cocktails to Order "Off the Menu" at the Anvil.

Since this is a blog about drinking in Houston, after all, and I've already reviewed bars in New York and Los Angeles, I figured it's high time I tackled the Bayou City's burgeoning cocktail scene. And where better to start than at that flagship of Houston cocktail dens, the Anvil? So, if you're from out of town, or you're one of the 5 Houstonians who haven't yet discovered the Anvil, here's what to expect.


The Ambiance: Dark but not too dark, noisy but not too loud, and not too many decorations besides the jaw-droppingly huge selection of booze lining the wall behind the bar. Just how a bar should be. I think my favorite thing, though, about the atmosphere at the Anvil is the smells. I try not to admit this too often, but...I love the way bars smell. And the Anvil has the best smell of any bar I've ever been to - like spices and bourbon and campari and maybe a hint of tobacco. (And maybe cheese? Kassie said it smelled like cheese.) Whatever it is, it's interesting and manly and delicious and I love it.

holy crap, look at all those bitters.

The Crowd: When people first told me about the Anvil, I envisioned it as a sort of exalted cocktail mecca, the kind of tucked-away place where serious booze enthusiasts would calmly but earnestly debate the relative merits of say, shaking vs. stirring, while sipping a sazerac. It was, indeed, a cocktail mecca, but I was little off base with "calm". Shortly after it opened, the Anvil was such a scene that even earlier in the week, it was a fight to get to the bar. It was also a little bit of a pick-up bar - the sort of place where a random dude and his friends would approach you and your friends, offer to buy you a drink, and ask you if you were going to Pub Fiction after this. No, I am not going to Pub Fiction. I am going home, because it is 11 PM. On a Tuesday.

Things have calmed down a little since then, but you still never know quite what you're going to get. There's still the occasional bunch of toolios who only want to drink absinthe and miller lite, but you're just as likely to run into 40-something businesspeople. (Not that I'm hating on miller lite. It's just that there's a time and a place for miller lite, and this is not the place. Now, absinthe and miller lite together...that could be interesting.)

Weekends are still pretty packed, so if you want to ensure yourself a spot at the bar so you can watch the magic, go early. Like, 7 on a Monday or Tuesday night.

The Drinks: Ohh, the drinks. When I first started plotting to do a post about the Anvil, long, long ago, they had a section of their menu with a list of "100 Classic Cocktails to Try Before You Die". Well, the 100 cocktails are no longer a part of the menu, although you can still see the list, posted in a rather inauspicious location on the far wall of the bar. (It's the wall opposite the door as you come in. Or you can view the list here.) They've been replaced with a rotating seasonal menu of original drinks developed by the Anvil staff, which are all very delicious. The good news is, you can still order all the old cocktails, as long as you know what to ask for. So if you're yearning for a classic, or you just want to feel like an insider for ordering off the menu - here's a list of my Top 5 Classic Cocktails to Order "Off the Menu" at the Anvil.

1. The Bramble
This is the first drink I ever ordered at the Anvil. I finished it in about 45 seconds, and then bad things happened. But I don't blame the drink, I blame me. Okay, I blame the drink a little. This combo of gin, lemon, and creme de muir (blackberry liqueur) is so delicious and smooth that it's easy to forget you're drinking something very powerful.

2. The Seelbach
Kassie gets credit for discovering this delicious and very unusual cocktail. The first time she ordered one it actually came with a warning from the bartender - there's a lot of bitters in this one. Are you sure that's what you want? Of course, Kassie is never one to back down from a challenge. The Seelbach tastes like no champagne cocktail I've ever had - it's a deep, rich, complicated taste that reminds me of a nice complex Napa cabernet. Thanks to the Ted Haigh book, I now know that this is because the recipe for a Seelbach involves: champagne, bourbon, cointreau, and seven dashes each of both peychaud's and angostura bitters. For those playing along at home: that is a whole, whole lot of bitters. Yet somehow it works.

3. The Mint Julep
On the seventh day, God rested, and on the 8th day he invented the mint julep. People sometimes ask me what my favorite cocktail is, and this is always my answer. The combination of bourbon, sugar, and mint is stupidly simple and stupidly good. And the mint juleps at the Anvil are a real feat of artistry - piled high with crushed ice like a bourbon sno-cone. I mean - I just said "bourbon sno-cone". What more could you want?

4. The Blood and Sand
This cocktail, named for a 1922 Rudolph Valentino film, is a relative rarity: a mixed drink made with scotch. The combination of scotch, sweet vermouth, oj and cherry brandy might seem a little unusual, but you will only think that until you take your first sip. It's perfectly balanced, not too fruity, not too scotch-y. (Although it's difficult to imagine how something could taste too much like scotch.)

the Blood & Sand.

5. The Zombie
Probably the most famous cocktail invented by Don the Beachcomber during the post World-War II tiki explosion. (I especially enjoy the phrase "tiki explosion".) There are a lot of bad zombie variations out there, but the Anvil has got it right. (And if the original version is a little too sweet for you, I've heard you can get one made with Fernet Branca. Iiiinteresting.) At least half the fun of ordering any drink at the Anvil is watching all the artistry that goes into making it, and this one is especially enjoyable, since this delicious, rummy bit of cocktail history contains about 52 different ingredients. Of course, since so much work goes into making this drink, if you order one on a busy night your bartender will probably hate you. Save this one for a weeknight. And don't forget to leave a nice big tip.

Coming Soon - Mixology Monday!

I remember my delight and awe when I first discovered there was such a thing as Mixology Monday. Browsing through the archives was as intimidating and exhilarating as standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. So many drinks. So little time.

This month, Mixology Monday is coming to the Backyard Bartender. That's right - a week from now, on February 28th, my humble little blog will be graced by the creations of elite mixologists the world over. The theme for MxMo LV will be "Some Like it Hot" - make anything you want to, as long as it's served hot. I'm sure this is tremendously seasonally appropriate in parts of the country that are not Houston, where it is currently 79 degrees. Don't pretend you're not jealous.

Here's how this thing works - if you'd like to participate, send me an email with a link to your post, or just post your link in the comments by midnight on February 28th. (Whose midnight, I always wonder? I will be generous. If you live in Hawaii - Hawaiian midnight.) Don't forget to include in your post a link to this blog, and a link to the Mixology Monday site. Don't have a booze blog? You can just email me a recipe (preferably with photos - photos are good) and I will happily guest-post it here.

Happy mixing! Can't wait to see your creations.