{"id":1375,"date":"2014-05-17T11:56:51","date_gmt":"2014-05-17T15:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/?p=1375"},"modified":"2014-05-17T11:56:51","modified_gmt":"2014-05-17T15:56:51","slug":"mcc2014-ill-take-manhattans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/?p=1375","title":{"rendered":"MCC2014: I&#8217;ll Take Manhattans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My first event of the 2014 Manhattan Cocktail Classic was <a href=\"http:\/\/kingcocktail.com\" target=\"_blank\">Dale DeGroff<\/a>&#8216;s lecture on the history of bitters, titled &#8220;I&#8217;ll Take Manhattans!&#8221; at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macaonyc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Macao Trading Company<\/a> in Tribeca.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.barscrawl.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/mcc2014-day1.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"mcc2014-day1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.barscrawl.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/mcc2014-day1.gif\" width=\"800\" height=\"529\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bitters were essential to the invention of cocktails. The first reference to the term, in a newspaper article from 1806, explained: &#8220;A <em>cock tail<\/em> is a stimulating liquor, composed of <em>spirits<\/em> of any kind, sugar, water, and <em>bitters<\/em>.&#8221; So without bitters, we don&#8217;t have cocktails!<\/p>\n<p>Other tidbits from Dale&#8217;s talk:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bitters were patented as a as a digestive aid in 1690.<\/li>\n<li>They were sold as medicine, mostly because taxes were cheaper that way, but they also got sold as snake oil cure-alls.<\/li>\n<li>Angostura bitters are named after the town in Venezuela, not after the angostura tree.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And at each table there were five different kinds of aromatic bitters: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barscrawl.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/mcc2014-bitters21.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"mcc2014-bitters2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.barscrawl.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/mcc2014-bitters21.gif\" width=\"800\" height=\"441\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So we tasted each of them! Some notes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.angostura.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Angostura<\/a> has a lot of baking spices &#8211; allspice and cinnamon notes<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/abbottsbitters.com\" target=\"_blank\">Abbott&#8217;s<\/a> is even more bitter, but with some hints of orange<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/the-bitter-truth.com\/bitter\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bitter Truth<\/a> has a licorice flavor<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kingcocktail.com\/bitters.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Pimento<\/a> is <em>super<\/em>-bitter! DeGroff joked that one bartender is using just a single drop of it in his Manhattans<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.feebrothers.com\/products\/bitters\/whiskey_barrel-aged_bitters.php\" target=\"_blank\">Fee Brothers<\/a> had a sweet, cinnamon flavor, like a Red Hot candy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And then everybody got a full-sized Manhattan, each made with the bitters of their choice.<\/p>\n<p>But really, my favorite part may have just been DeGroff telling stories about his life as a bartender. If you don&#8217;t know &#8211; he&#8217;s the founder of the craft cocktail movement. Basically, he was the first guy in the modern era to think &#8220;Hey &#8211; maybe cocktails should actually taste good!&#8221;\u00a0 But his vision of a bartender isn&#8217;t just a guy who knows drink recipes:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.barscrawl.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/mcc2014-degroff.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"mcc2014-degroff\" src=\"http:\/\/www.barscrawl.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/mcc2014-degroff.gif\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My first event of the 2014 Manhattan Cocktail Classic was Dale DeGroff&#8216;s lecture on the history of bitters, titled &#8220;I&#8217;ll Take Manhattans!&#8221; at the Macao Trading Company in Tribeca. Bitters were essential to the invention of cocktails. The first reference &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/?p=1375\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-1375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bar-scrawl","tag-mcc2014"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1375"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics.billroundy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}