A few weeks ago I wrote about the classic Gin & Tonic and looked at one of its key ingredients, gin. At the time my choices for tonic water were limited to Schwepps and Canada Dry. Now both of those are pretty standard tonic water but, with the cocktail revolution in full swing, it would make sense that a number of boutique makers of tonic water would join the market. Luckily, I am happy to announce that Q Tonic has just released a batch of their Q Tonic tonic water. Currently it will only be available at select location in New York until the end of the summer, at which point it should be more widely available.

Hpnotiq is one of those modern liqueurs that graces the shelves of trendy bars around the world. It has an alluring, mystical blue color, and a sleek and sexy bottle. It has a unique brand name, and spelling, that hits the mark with younger drinkers. It also has the price tag to match. It is often enjoyed by those who like to be “seen”, it is hard to miss the person drinking this fluorescent blue liqueur in a bar. So the question is: Is Hpnotiq more style than substance?  Or is there something flavorful underneath all of the marketing. Did a good product get lost in the marketing hype machine?

When I get bored, I sometimes like to browse through the weblog my website generates and see where people are coming from and what they are searching for. Most of the access log is pretty boring, and repetitive, but scattered throughout the log are some interesting questions, that people type into their favorite search engine, and I get to see. Some are good questions, some are odd, and others…., well I’ll leave it at that. So, I’ve decided to answer a few of the questions here.

There are many styles of beer, there is American beer, German beer, Czech beer, Belgian beer and of course there is English and Scottish beer. Scottish beers tend to be ale's with a lot of character, much like the Scot's. They are warming beers for cold nights. Innis & Gunn have created a beer that is aged in oak casks. It was an accident, as many great things are, since the "beer" was originally used to impart a beer type flavour to a brand of scotch whisky, with the beer being thrown out. Eventually, some sympathetic workers realized that throwing away good beer was wrong and Innis & Gunn Oak Aged Beer was born.

There are lots of topics worthy of being posted on The Art of Drink, but many times there just isn’t enough content to make a post long enough to be interesting. So all those little pieces of information get squirrel away and lost. Some of these things are genuinely interesting, so I figured that combining them into one post would make sense. In this summary we’ll look at Tales of the Cocktail, some interesting new products from Forty Creek and some general blog happening and other worthy news bits.

It’s that time of year when we are assaulted with a new block-buster movie every weekend until the end of the summer. Many of the movies will be a waste of time because they lack character development or the story is covered up by special effects. But, there is one decent movie coming out, with a really well developed character, and that of course is Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. So what’s this have to do with drinking? Well rum drinks of course and real pirates had real drinks. Bumbo was a mostly forgotten drink until Captain Jack brought it back.

Some day's I like an ice cold beer. It is easy to make, especially when it is a twist top. Most of the beer I stock is microbrew, so it has flavour. After I came home today, I went to the fridge and popped the top off of a J.R. Brickman Pilsner and headed to the computer to read my email, news and the usual list of cocktail blogs I frequent. Then it occurred to me that it was Mixology Monday, because everyone is posting about Tequila. I didn’t want to waste my beer so I Googled “beer and tequila cocktail”. Voila, a drink that combines beer and tequila called The Bull.

As a bartender you are often confronted with requests to make a person “something special”. This is usually done by a girl, but on rare occasions men have been know to say similar things. Most men say make me something strong, not so much special. But when these occasions arise some bartenders, like myself, relish the challenge, other bartenders grunt and mix up a San Francisco. For those not in the industry, many bartenders have a single “go to cocktail” that is the answer to every “make me something special” request, a popular one being the San Francisco. As for me, I’ll make something off the cuff and on the fly.

As many of you know I’m currently not tending bar. This is the first time in about four years that I’ve had Friday and Saturday nights off, which is kind of nice, but I don’t know what to do with my weekends. Anyway, I’ve been browsing the “Want Ads” and there seems to be plenty of bartending jobs out there, just ones I’m not interested in. Yes, I’ve become fussy. I want to work at a place where I get to do what I do best, not what some high school drop out, who drinks too much, tells me what to do.

When you write a blog, you try to keep things interesting by writing about a bunch of different subjects. Most of the time I write about cocktails and drinks I like, or what’s popular. That can get old. So I decided that I should occasional write about things I don’t like and see what we can learn from it. Hence, the Cocktail Hall of Shame. This may become a semi-regular subject looking at bad cocktails and/or bad bartenders. These regular subjects really help when writers block or apathy set in.