Each class is $45 per student and will be limited to 6 to 10 students depending on space.  Payment for classes will need to be made prior to class in order to reserve your spot.  Cost of consulting services will be based on your individual project and goals.  Classes will be held at Last Exit and the schedule will be announced as a post here on the Den and on the Scofflaw’s Den Facebook page.  If you are interested in setting up a class or tasting at your home, we can arrange that as well.  To sign up for a class or consulting service, please email Marshall@ScofflawsDen.com.

For more details on individual classes, new classes and consulting services, please check here.

Our Bitters class will be offered on February 12, 2012 at 5:30pm. Come learn everything you wanted to know (and probably more) about bitters! An essential class for anyone interested cocktails.  This class also makes a great early Valentine’s Day gift for that cocktail lover in your life.

Where: Last Exit, 3155 Mount Pleasant Street, N.W., Washington, DC
When: February 12, 2012 @ 5:30pm
Class is limited to 10 people, so sign up early!  Email Marshall@ScofflawsDen.com

Hope to see you on February 12!  Cheers!

The pictures above are the most visible portion of my home bar. The first picture was taken inside the kitchen looking into the living room. You can see the bottles on the bar top (more on those in a bit), the stemware holders above the counter and various tools strewn about. The second photo is of a bookshelf in my living room.

The first thing I recommend when organizing and cleaning your home bar is to keep a list all your bottles. This could be done on paper, on a computer, or, like I do, in a note-taking/to-do app on my iPhone. However you decide to do it, make sure it is backed up or saved in case something happens. There is nothing worse than typing in 250 bottles only for the computer gods to treat it as a sacrificial lamb for their nourishment and eat the file forcing you to begin all over again. Not that that ever happened to me . . .

As you are writing everything down, look at what categories in which your spirits fall. Put the gins together, the bourbons together, the rums together, etc etc etc. If you have something you absolutely hate, toss it in the bin or give it away to a friend who will enjoy it. If you have a bottle that you love that has a very small amount, make yourself a cocktail to enjoy while organizing. The goal is to streamline as much as possible with minimum waste.

Give some thought on how you want your home bar organized. If you spend any time on a bar stool at a craft cocktail bar, you will notice the bartender’s movements are very precise. They have their mis en place and tools within arms reach. Many base spirits, syrups and bitters are also within arms reach of their station. You can easily do the same thing at home.

Look at the first picture above. When I make drinks for my guests, my station, if you will, is to the right of the sink. This is what is directly in front of me.

From left to right you can see paper towels, cocktail napkins, bar spoons, garnish picks, stirrers, mixing glasses, jiggers and mixing tins. On the wall directly to my left are strainers, bottle opener, conical strainer, muddlers and the wall o’ bitters.

Behind me and to the right is the refrigerator/freezer containing my syrups, vermouths and ice. All the tools I need are within arms reach.

I also suggest giving a thought on how you store your bottles. In my setup, the bar top contains all base spirits. (See, told you I’d come back to it.) Liqueurs and modifying spirits are kept in the cabinets above the stemware holders. The bookcase from the second picture hold less-used spirits and extra bottles of base spirits.

My bitters collection was a special consideration. I have over forty different types of bitters and the collection continues to grow. [Shameless Plug: If you make bitters and would like to send me a bottle, I'd be more than happy to add them to my collection. Maybe you'll even get a bottle of my Barrel Aged Mountain Moonshine bitters in return. Just shoot me an email.] Ahem . . . so where was I? Ah yes, the Wall o’ Bitters! Because the bitters were taking up so much counter space, I moved them on the wall. Some relatively cheap Elfa shelving and that was it. It has turned out to be a great way to use underutilized space and keep the bitters organized and within reach.

Now I haven’t really mentioned cleaning. As you organize, dust off your bottles; wash any sugar residue off the necks; dust and wash the bar top and shelves; wash your stemware. It doesn’t take a lot of effort and makes your home bar look great.

So that is how my home bar is setup. How about yours? Do you have any bar organization tips or tricks? If so, let us know in the comments.

Cheers!

It isn’t a secret that autumn is my favorite season. I love the cold air and early evenings. There is nothing better than curling up on the couch under a warm blanket on a cold day watching hockey, football, or hell, even reading a cocktail tome.

But another reason I love the fall is that it is my favorite cocktail season. Tiki drinks and refreshing gin cocktails are replaced with whisk(e)ies and bitter amaros. Pineapple and coconut are replaced with apple and cherry. Limes are supplanted by lemons as the citrus of majority in my fridge.

I mention apples and cherries in particular because I love playing with those flavors this time of year. I love mixing with calvados, Applejack, or maybe some Leopold Brothers apple whiskey or apple liqueur. Bringing some cherry to the party may come from Cherry Herring, maraschino, kirschwasser, or my latest toy, Maurin Quina.

Another thing I love to mix with is apple cider. We had an apple press growing up and every fall made our own fresh-pressed apple cider. It was fantastic! Unfortunately you can only find pasteurized cider for sale nowadays. But if you own a juicer, you can make your own! Lately I’ve been boiling apple cider down into a thick concentrated syrup. Amazingly, along with the concentrated appleness, it develops an amazing tartness. This really comes in handy it you don’t want to add lemon, but need that acidity to balance out your cocktail. To make it, simply boil down apple cider until it has reduced by 75%.

I decided I wanted to play with the cider syrup and thought it would play very nicely with scotch. So I pulled out my new bottle of Great King Street blended scotch from Compass Box and set to work. This is what I came up with:

Orchard Bonfire
1.5 oz blended Scotch
.5 oz cider syrup
.25 oz honey syrup (2 parts honey & 1 part water)
1 barspoon pimento dram
1 dash Whiskey Barrel Bitters

Shake & double strain into a cocktail glass rinsed with a smokey scotch. (I used Peat Monster.) Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

What do you like to drink when fall arrives? Leave a comment and let us know!

Cheers!

PS. Scofflaw’s Den celebrated it’s fourth birthday earlier this month. We thank all of our readers for sticking with us and we plan on providing a lot more content and recipes for you to enjoy for at least another four years. -Marshall

Always have a palate rinser when tasting - Miller Lite

A while ago, I responded to an offer to try Crown Royal Black. It’s a new variation of Crown Royal, it lists on the back about being aged in charred oak and blended to a higher proof than regular Crown Royal – 90 proof rather than the usual 80.

A lot of cocktail folks, myself included, tend to decry Canadian whisky. (AUGH NO “E” MY SPELLCHECKER WILL HATE ME.) In fact, just today Robert Simonson wrote an article in the New York Times about how the industry is trying to redeem itself of the reputation as “the vodka of whiskey”. (If you’ve used up your free clicks on the Times site, you can read a version of it on his site.)

For me, though, I also have my family, and certain members of my family are big Crown Royal fans. I thought I should give it a shot – after all, I did doctor up a Crown & Coke recipe for my brother’s wedding. (You can find that in my previous MxMo post here.)

My plan was set: I would introduce the Crown Royal Black to my brother and my dad, and then I’d make I’d a drink with it commemorating the Steelers Super Bowl win. That was a plan doomed to failure if I’d remembered how the Steelers would probably play.

Sigh. At least I’m not a Redskins fan.

So I hesitated but I consider this a good thing because of the NYT article – and I did introduce it to them.

My first impression of it compared to “regular” Crown Royal was that, yes, this is more whisk(e)y-ish. It’s hotter, but it’s got more of a depth of flavor to it than regular CR which just comes off as sweet to me. My dad, tasting it straight, responded immediately with “Yum!”

In a Crown & Coke – well, you can’t tell the different, I’m afraid.

I poked around with some ideas for a drink. None of them really gelled, I’m afraid – perhaps mostly because I was trying to think of something with Strega or yellow Chartreuse to be “black and gold”. You can use the CR Black much more like you could American whiskeys because unlike the basic Crown Royal, it doesn’t immediately disappear in a cocktail, it can actually stand out.

It’s not the most subtle of spirits, but to be honest, it’s a step in the right direction for Canadian whiskys. (Whiskies? Gah. That looks worse.) At $2 a bottle more, I think it’s definitely worth the extra couple of bucks (come on, in Virginia if I remember correctly you’re talking about $24.95 or $26.95 – get the extra taste and proof), but what I’d be most curious about is how Diageo and Crown Royal push this. Can they make a Canadian whisky that balances sweet and spicy, and make it at a good price point?

Hmmm. I have a sudden urge to make an orange juice drink with this. (Runs into kitchen). Want an experiment?

Experimental Crown Royal Black Cocktail:
2 oz Crown Royal Black
2 oz orange juice
3-4 dashes orange bitters
Shake, pour straight into a high ball glass.

Thoughts? Does it deserve a name? Will Gabe make fun of me for using OJ?

My normal whiskey sour is something like this:

2oz Bourbon (or Rye)
1oz fresh lemon juice
.75oz simple syrup

-Shaken, double strained and served up. If I give it a taste and the particular lemon I used is intensely sour, I’ll pour the drink over fresh ice in a rocks glass.

Ahhh . . . that hit the spot. But I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I am a big fan of Averna. If you attended the 2009 Repeal Day Ball, you probably already knew that. That’s all I’ll say because I have a constitutional right not to incriminate myself.

Moving on . . . I decided to play around with the basic whiskey sour and see if I could come up with something tasty using Averna. There were several attempts that just didn’t work – too sour, too sweet, strange finish, etc. etc. I soldiered on and after the kitchen drain was drunk from my toss-aways, I hit upon a formula that hit the spot. So I give you,

Whiskaverna Sour
1.25oz 100 proof Rye
.75oz Averna
.50oz fresh lemon juice
.50oz simple syrup
2 dashes orange bitters

-Shake, double strain, serve up with a lemon twist.

And I have the share my latest toy. While visiting my mother over the holidays, we went to several antique stores. Always on the look out for cocktail gear, I found some interesting items. There were some glasses, but compared to what I can get at Good Will, they were over-priced. There were a plethora of shakers. Most novelty shakers from the 80′s but a few from the 60′s and 70′s. Eh. They just didn’t catch my attention enough to buy any. But then! While walking through one store, I found IT!

Les Voûtes
1.5oz Rye
.50oz Sweet Vermouth
.50oz Yellow Chartreuse
1 barspoon of kirschwasser
2 dashes orange bitters

-Stir with cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.