THE NIGHT STUFF
Sip-slidin' away with a cocktail mixmaster
| • | Cocktail talk |
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer
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| Master mixologist Dale DeGroff preparing a cocktail at the Lewers Lounge last October. The world-renowned "King of Cocktails" is known for old school drink recipes ripe with fresh ingredients and flavors.
Photos by Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser Dale DeGroff Mixing at Lewers Lounge at the Halekulani 7:30-10 p.m. Saturday through Tuesday 923-2311 The Magnificent Martini cocktail seminar The Garden Terrace at the Halekulani 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday $40 931-5040 Reservations required; seminar attendance is limited to 20 |
He'd muddled fresh lime, whipped up a brown sugar syrup and poured cachaca, a Brazilian spirit distilled from fresh-cut sugar cane, for the first. Fresh lime and grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur went into the second. And for the third, DeGroff dramatically squeezed oil from strips of orange peel through a lit match, coating the inside of a martini glass with freshly flamed caramelized oil.
But my favorite creation from the renowned mixologist and — since last September — Halekulani director of beverage arts in residence? A rugged yet flavorful 19th-century New Orleans creation swirling VS cognac, rye whiskey, freshly made simple syrup and dashes of Angostura and Peychaud's bitters called a Sazerac.
"Don't be embarrassed to tell me if you don't like it. I'm waaaay over that!" said DeGroff, chuckling, behind the bar at the Halekulani's Lewers Lounge.
My stupid grin — like a kid given free rein in a candy store after hours — told DeGroff everything he needed to know. Everything he probably already knew, actually.
Rich with complex flavors, prepared with fresh ingredients (never mixes) and shaken (never blended), DeGroff's old-school cocktails danced across the tongue like the gourmet creations of a seasoned chef.
I slowly savored my cocktail while DeGroff explained his "passion about ice." Then I closed my eyes and dreamed of how everyone entering a bar in this town should have it so good.
DeGroff is sure to have even more cocktail stories to share over Sazeracs when he works the Boston shakers at the newly renovated Lewers Lounge for four evenings starting Saturday.
Besides overseeing the reimagining of the Halekulani's beverage services program, DeGroff was approached by the hotel for three main reasons.
The first was, well, because he is darn good at what he does. (More on that later.)
The second was to create a new cocktail menu honoring the pre-Prohibition "golden age of the cocktail," when bartenders made their own fruit juices, bitters and syrups, and used fresh ingredients, not mixes. His third, reinventing Lewers Lounge as a serious music and cocktail destination for Honolulu.
The refreshing results of DeGroff's guidance are just about all in place.
After two months of renovations, Lewers Lounge has a bold new layout, lighting and furnishings oozing coolly modern sophistication and cozy private corners. Entertainment has moved from the rear of the room to its center. And the lounge's behind-the-bar area and drink menu have been completely DeGroff-ed to Dale's satisfaction.
DeGroff earned his "king of cocktails" moniker with a 15-year tenure at high-end New York City restaurants Aurora and the 65th-floor Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center. Encouraged by his restaurateur boss, Windows On The World and Tavern on the Green founder Joe Baum, DeGroff developed a cocktail menu that moved forward by going back. Way back.
"The idea was to go back to the 19th-century, classic bar service with no soda guns, no premixes of any kind, all fresh ingredients, real recipes, great glassware and elegant service," said DeGroff.
By the time DeGroff left the Rainbow Room in 1999, he was being credited in some media with saving the great American cocktail from disgrace. DeGroff brushed off the compliment, but agreed cocktail craft had spent a half-century or so in libation limbo.
"The cocktail was dealt a severe blow by Prohibition (and) it never really recovered," he said. "Prohibition put an end to the bartending profession. There wasn't any skilled labor around. So (post-Prohibition) they started inventing all these artificial mixes that any dummy could use.
"Just put a mix in a shot of booze and you've got a drink ... instantly. And that's what we were left with right up (through) the '50s, '60s and '70s."
These days, DeGroff is an in-demand, globe-trotting consultant on all things cocktail related. His contract with the Halekulani is one of several he has with bar chains and hotel properties in the United States, Europe and Mexico.
DeGroff's Halekulani visits since September have also included beverage staff workshops on old-school mixing and the history of cocktails and spirits.
He's written an excellent book on mixing, "The Craft of the Cocktail" (Clarkson Potter, $35), and co-founded the Museum of the American Cocktail, which opened in New Orleans earlier this year.
"The beverage isn't necessarily an art but, to me, it's definitely a craft," said DeGroff. "It's in the culinary world. We're about recipe. We're about flavor. ... If you take it seriously, it is very similar to what happens in the kitchen."
DeGroff compared changes in attitudes about the cocktail in recent years with the interest in dining.
"It makes perfect sense that the same kind of explosion of interest in big flavor, fresh ingredients and seasonal menus would carry into the beverage world," said DeGroff. "That people would want to have a whiskey sour (without) some stuff that comes out of a bottle with artificial flavors and six words you can't pronounce as preservatives. What's wrong with the juice of a lime in your whiskey sour?"
Absoultely nothing, actually.
DeGroff will put in a "limited engagement" behind the Lewers Lounge bar, Saturday through Tuesday from 7:30 to 10 p.m. The Magnificent Martini, the first of three monthly DeGroff-hosted cocktail seminars, happens at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the hotel's Garden Terrace.
"You'll sit down to a martini when you arrive. I'll chat a little about the evolution of the martini and (its) history, bring some books, read a few excerpts," DeGroff said of his martini class.
The party officially becomes a mixer after that.
"You'll have cocktail shakers, and we're going to make some drinks. You'll learn how to shake. You'll learn how to stir. They'll be some hors d'oeuvres.
"It'll be fun ... like a little cocktail party."
Sazeracs and ice talk at Lewers Lounge afterward not included.
Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8005.
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DeGroff mixes it up on a few cocktail-related topics ...
Best city in the world for cocktails? "Right now, London. It has a pretty exciting, innovative, unusual-style bar scene. All fresh juices, exotic ingredients, spices, herbs and a lot of Eastern influences."
Honolulu's place on that best city list? "Huge in the tiki drink business. Hawai'i has cornered the market on tropical drinks. Nobody does them like they do here. You have the fresh fruit here."
Separate the sexes when it comes to cocktail preferences? "There used to be (a delineation between the sexes), but not anymore. You see just as many men drinking cosmopolitans — a pink drink — as you see women. Why? Because it's a pretty serious drink ... from a spirits point of view. Women are drinking martinis. Women are ordering single- malt scotches as much as guys are. The whole flavored- martini rage did it. That opened up the martini to both sexes."
What's your favorite drink? "I'm a huge gin martini drinker. I also like the Sazerac."
What's a sure-fire way to bring my home bar to your level of cool? "Don't buy any pre-prepared mixes! Trust yourself to use your tastebuds and fresh juices. Start with good recipes. My book wouldn't be a bad place to start. (Smiles.) And measure like you do in cooking."
What's your favorite bar joke? "A young polar bear goes to his mom and says, 'Ma, am I a polar bear?' The mama polar bear says (gently), 'Of course you're a polar bear, honey. I'm a polar bear. Your father's a polar bear ... I tell you what. Go talk to your father.' And so the young polar bear goes to his father and says, 'Dad, am I a polar bear?' And the daddy polar bear says (gruffly), 'What are you talking about? Of course you're a polar bear! I'm a polar bear, aren't I? Your uncle — my brother is a pol ... Whatsa matter with you anyway?' And the young polar bear looks at his dad and goes, 'Well ... it's just that ... I'm (expletive) freezin!' " (Believe us, it's all in the way DeGroff tells it, folks!)
