#cocktailians

[dermodernealchemist]

Today having a chilled Sunday with an Strawberry-Rhubarb Gin Tonic. Fruity Strawberries paired with sweet and sour of the rhubarb, mixed with a pink berry Gin and an Indian tonic. 6 cl homemade strawberry lime 6-8 cl Pink Gin (I used @lariosgin_es ) 12 cl Indian Tonic (@fevertreemixers ) Fill it up with rhubarb lemonade (@dm_deutschland ) Some slices of lime Add everything into a chilled glass on ice and mix it together #sunshine #sun #summervibes #sunday #cocktailian #cocktails #cocktail #drink #drinkstagram #gintonic #tonictomygin #mixology #mixologist #cheers🥂 #dermodernealchemist #ginporn #gin #larios #fevertree #dm #rhubarb #tonic #bar #lime #lemonade #strawberry #fruity (hier: Bonn, Germany) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQWPp_CIYHy/?utm_medium=tumblr

[printchangedeverything]

“If there was a bartending mensa, you'd probably be the president. “

10/10. Seems obvious, it’s my job after all. 

[darin-k]

City Pages Cocktailian - Photos for City Pages Minneapolis 12/5/2019

instagram // twitter // facebook // darinkamnetz.com

[cocktailbarhires-blog]

Bartender

There's also Wintersmiths, who asserts its $140 The Phantom Ice Maker and its patent-pending structure can detach and empty air pockets and dirtying impacts, keeping the squares — state it with me — totally clear. Contract a mixed drink barkeep The cooler arranged device produces "ultra-thick" 3D squares (huge and standard) and circles, similarly as precious stones and even ice spears fit for highball glasses. It's to some degree greater than True Cubes and OnTheRocks (and a gallon of solidified yogurt), anyway conveys an increasingly critical yield of ice.

Generally prominent and most exorbitant is another FirstBuild thing, directly open for preorder, anyway holding off on transportation until the pre-summer of 2020. If Opal was a "sensible luxury," the Forge Clear Ice System is to some degree less thusly, and altogether logically highfalutin in appearance — if you've anytime seen a Sharper Image-checked speaker, you're bound for progress. The $1,499 device is said to convey the "most excellent level" of ice for whiskey fans, a market FirstBuild is apparently looking for after substantially more so than cocktailians. Cocktail Bartender Hire

 A relative multi-chambered, directional-cementing ice advancement, OnTheRocks, raised over $110,000 on IndieGogo in 2016 and now sells for $65-90. While True Cube just offers ice shapes, OnTheRocks additionally offers the ability to make totally clear circles and valuable stones. (The two things advance being about the size of a gallon of solidified yogurt.)

Like Opal, Forge is an edge thing that doesn't require using your cooler; it makes its squares of "gem shaped" ice in around four hours (other blended beverage ice systems may take as much as 30). To make the precious stones into totally clear circles, you essentially slip them into a warmed press; it takes about a minute to convey each circle. There are other extra things as well, like tongs to empty your ice like an insane guinea pig managing uranium or a $299 custom brand for adding your man-cave logo to every 3D shape. Before you know it, you have a $2,000 bit of advancement associated proper by your bread holder yet inadequate mates around to drink the Negronis it yields.

Having said that, it's hard to be a committed home bartender and not want the thing just a bit, as I obviously do. It's essentially so common, anyway obviously, it is basically making ice.eaching people how to design dinners at home has transformed into a tremendous industry. There are classes offered on the web, on TV and in print, similarly as dinner movement benefits that go with rules and fixings.

 In any case, the demonstration of mixology has for a long while been an arcane craftsmanship, ordinarily confined to the association of talented bartenders working behind the stick at watering openings and blended beverage lounges. Liquor Lab, a New York City-based guidance business that has starting late reached out to Nashville as its ensuing city, is planning to democratize blended beverage course of action by offering a movement of hands-on, canny claim to fame ale, wine, spirits and blended beverage classes to bring the contraptions and frameworks of bartending into the home.

[paenniiie-blog]

Weil er nicht nur über den Köpfen des guten Alkohol wacht, sondern weil er das Zeichen der Walrus Bar ist. Insbesondere weil er auch das Gefühl von Heimat in sich trägt, Hamburg eben, Digga. Nur die Beste hat gefehlt bei der Mezcalation. #walrus #hamburg #negroni #mezcal #Mezcalation #vidamezcal #cocktails #gepflegttrinken #besttown #bestefreundin #liebe #neuegesichterwiederliebengelernt #manwirdgeliebt #barmaids #cocktailians

[geographicusrareantiquemaps]

The unassuming entrance to Omakase + Appreciate, cool hidden speakeasy in Kuala Lumpur. A haunt for sophisticated cocktailians and map collectors alike. #maplife #omakaseappreciate #geographicus (at Omakase + Appreciate)

[coldclodzonkpony-blog]

The Moscow Mule Cocktail - - The Moscow Mule had been invented circa 1941, and although Martin often said that he and Jack Morgan, owner of the Los Angeles British pub Cock ‘n��� Bull, created the drink, such might not actually be the case. According to a 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal penned by the reliable Eric Felton, the Cock ‘n’ Bull’s head bartender Wes Price also laid claim to the recipe. And I’m inclined to believe a bartender over a marketer… - What we do know for certain is that Martin had bought the rights to Smirnoff for Heublein in the late 1930s, but he was having a hard time convincing Americans to drink the stuff. Vodka wasn’t very popular in the States back then. And it’s well-known that Morgan had ordered far too much ginger beer for his bar and was also having trouble getting rid of it. - Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh, in his book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, adds another relevant fact to the story: Morgan apparently had a girlfriend who owned a company that made copper products, so the copper Moscow Mule mugs were relatively easy to come by for him. - Though the Moscow Mule might not be a cocktailian masterpiece, it can be (provided you use a good, spicy ginger beer) a refreshing quaff, indeed. And according to Price, it entered the world in a very honest way:  “I just wanted to clean out the basement,” he said. - - - 2 oz vodka @smirnoffus 3 oz ginger beer @jgascoitaliandrinks 1/2 oz de Limon Juice 2 Lime wedges - - - #nationalcookieday #bar #bartenderlive #bartenderlive #endprohibition #cocktail #drink #drinks #barman #bartender #cocktailtime #drinkup #bartenderstyle #bartenderlove #cheers #bar #dreams #friends #recipes #spirits #julito_bartender #moscowmule #cocktailrecipe #cocktailsofinstagram (en Flores, Distrito Federal, Argentina) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5tTaixFVrk/?igshid=1citfmzae6rs

[middletuna7-blog]

Dabbling In Taste Of Sydney, 2018

This year the Taste of Sydney food festival moves to Barangaroo's Cutaway. It is now mostly undercover with a revolving range of chefs and dishes across the 4 day festival.

It has been many years since I visited Taste of Sydney. And they seem to have heard the feedback from punters. The general admission price is now $15 and there are no longer the need to buy "crowns" (which would inevitably mean that you'd end up with crowns leftover and you couldn't cash them in).

This year's Taste of Sydney is designed so that you may want to come more than once. Each day's line up of chefs and their dishes changes although the stallholders around the perimeter and in the centre are there for the duration of the festival.

I arrive at 6pm on the opening day. This Thursday there is a mix of Sydney and Melbourne based chefs. My sometime vegetarian friend Laura and I go for a walk around to gauge where we want to eat. There are 8 chefs and restaurants that rotate in the two square shaped collective kitchens in the centre. The lines are manageable and the food comes out in a timely manner for most of them (although this is a relatively quieter night). There are two items from each chef available and each is $12.

Comté Donut from Ester $12

Our first stop: the Comté donut from Ester which I didn't want to miss out on. It's also the place that has the longest queue. The donut defies description. It's like a potato scallop but light as air. Although the nutty flavour of Comté isn't readily apparent, it's very tasty and so light you could almost convince yourself that you aren't eating a deep fried donut.

Blue Swimmer Crab Congee from Bennelong $12

The next stop is around the corner at Bennelong with chef Rob Cockerill. His choices are a salad of spring asparagus, stracciatella and tomato chutney and a blue swimmer crab congee. Laura and I both love congee so we order this. It's delicate and all about soft gelatinous textures with a crunch on top. It's probably the only way you'll get to try a Bennelong dish for that price too.

We are off to a cocktail making class next. Tanqueray gin has its own cocktail making session where everyone makes one of two cocktails for $12 a person. Krystal Hart the Tanquerey ambassador gives us a bit of a chat about the gin before we get our hands wet. I'm making a Tanquerey No. Ten Elderflower Collins finished with basil while Laura makes a Sevilla Sunkissed Spritz.

Both cocktails are very easy to make and we both covet the other's cocktail so we swap. "You can put two olives if you want," they say but Laura being extra goes for three. The only thing is that you can't take your cocktail to their gin lounge which is where you want to naturally head after you make it. And if you want to take it away you have to put it in a paper cup which isn't as nice as drinking a cocktail in a nice glass (they are super apologetic and explain this is a Taste of Sydney rule, and not theirs). There does need to be more seating so people can sit down and eat or drink (this has always been a problem here).

Clockwise from bottom left: Bush's Best soft shell taco, jambalaya croquettes, Beans on toast and Sticky, Smokey Cola Rib n Beans in a Can by Nighthawk Diner

Carrying our cocktails in paper cups, we are off to Bush's Best Beans next who have partnered with The Nighthawk Diner's Al Fogg to produce four items using their Tennessee beans. They have their own seating area and it's very busy.

The four items are: "Beans on toast" aka Southern cornbread with beans, vegetarian Creole jambalaya croquettes with chipotle ranch dipping sauce, a Cola pork rib sticking out of a tin of beans with cheese sauce (beans and cheese sauce-yum!) and a Cajun fried soft-shell crab in a blue corn tortilla. The jambalaya croquettes and the rib in the cheesy beans are my favourite and I wish all beans came with a cheese sauce.

Then we head back to the collective kitchen area and try one of the two Melbourne restaurant offerings. Ides in Collingwood has a barramundi dish baked with sweetcorn and black garlic as well as a slow cooked lamb neck with mustard seed dressing.

Lamb Neck from Ides $12

We go for the lamb neck which is gorgeously soft and sweet glazed and topped with fresh peas.

Marta is next and there is a bit of a delay with the food as things get busy with the crowd in full force. We've ordered one of each of their dishes. The gnocchi fritto is for Laura since she can't eat the other.

Gnocchi fritto from Marta $12

The Gnocchi Fritto are soft pillows of deep fried gnocchi covered in pecorino and black pepper (one of my favourite flavour combinations) that melt in the mouth. The other item is the Risotto alla Amatriciana, a combination made with one of my favourite classic Roman sauces of Amatriciana with crispy crumbs of guanciale, tomato, chilli and pecorino. This is nice but I always think there needs to be more guanciale because guanciale is life.

Risotto alla Amatriciana from Marta $12

It's 8pm and time for our next appointment and that is at Taste Residence tent where chef Mark Best and "Cocktailian" Lauren Mote from Canada are serving us a two course meal with matching Singleton whisky for a one hour dinner. MCing is GM of Momofuku Seiobo Kylie Javier Ashton.

Mark is cooking on Thursday and Friday and on Saturday it is Scott Pickett while on Sunday it's David Thompson. Tickets are $95 per person or you can also buy the Residence Pass for $130 at the door and that includes festival entry, two $12 dishes and one beer or wine from one of the vendors.

There are no menu details so we are excited to see what is being served (although I'm not sure how they handle dietaries). We take a seat and are served a Duke of Dufftown Aperitif made with Singleton whisky, Fino sherry, lemon juice, apple juice, tonic water and Lem-Marrakech bitters that is delightful.

Crab with Almond Jelly and Corn Custard from Mark Best served with Domain Aureillan Provence Rosé 2017

The first dish is crab with almond jelly and corn custard. It's a mild tasting dish more about textures with an almost marshmallowy textured almond jelly and subtle sweetness of corn custard. There's also a bit of caviar for a salty pop. The two courses are also served with two rosés from the Vins de Provence Rosé stand outside.

Murray Cod "Three Rivers" by Mark Best served with Lumiere Provence Rosé 2017

Diners are encouraged to ask Mark some questions and he answers these as well as demoing the next dish. The Murray Cod "Three Rivers" which is a luscious melting fillet of Murray cod topped with semi cooked Chinese style potato straws with Szechuan numbing pepper on top. I like the boldness of this dish and the texture of the potatoes which I haven't really seen much here and have only tried in China. And to top everything off is a dessert cocktail, a Lallans Coffee Cocktail with Singleton Of Dufftown 12 year old whisky, red vermouth, dried banana, banana liqueur, cold brew coffee and Moondog Latin American Bitters which is a sweet, intense number.

Lallans Coffee Digestif

Most of the stands look like they've run out or are closing down by 9:15pm but we buy a couple of desserts from Stokehouse. There's a rice pudding made with tonka bean, almond and apricot and a Neapolitan with a chocolate and vanilla mousse and native hibiscus. They're nice enough desserts, the rice pudding the better of the two although I think I was expecting something a bit different.

Rice Pudding and Neapolitan from Stokehouse $12 each

So tell me Dear Reader, have you been to a Taste festival before or Taste of Sydney? Which dish did you like the look of? And do you like it when they revolve chefs and dishes?

NQN was a guest of Bush's but all opinions remain her own.

The Cutaway, Barangaroo from November 8th-11th 2018 sydney.tastefestivals.com/

Source: http://www.notquitenigella.com/2018/11/10/taste-of-sydney-2018/

[be-a-better-bartender-blog]

RT @selenawrites: The latest The Cocktailians Daily! https://t.co/5zhmYXaceG Thanks to @allanvkatz @akawinegeek #cocktails #whisky

[dermodernealchemist]

After a long way home and an odyssey in cologne I need something strong tonight. So here is another alcohol with alcohol mixing session. I wanted to try something new and so have a classical Vesper a special twist by using a Wheat Pale Ale instead of Lillet. The pale has a great richness of flavors and add some freshness into the Vesper while adding bitter notes. For the alcoholic part I use @ferdinandsgin ,a German Dry Gin which is infused by Riesling. It's a perfect match to the Black Forest white Riesling Vermouth. 4cl Ferdinand's Dry Gin 4cl white Riesling Vermouth Wheat Pale Ale to fill up Mix Gin and Vermouth with plenty of ice in a mixing glass, and stir well. Strain that mixture into a chilled cocktail glass. Fill it up with the Pale. For garnish I used some carpers. #gin #vermouth #beer #paleale #cocktailian #cocktail #cocktails #mixologist #mixology #dermodernealchemist #cheers #bar #bartender #drink #drinkstagram #gintonic #ginporn #ginfluencer #gintomytonic #tonight #cologne #alaaf #yummy #delicious #homemade #travel (hier: Cologne, Germany) https://www.instagram.com/p/B80l5wgoPlY/?igshid=1v599jbafbuvl

[infamouslyjohnny]

We're headed back to Durham, North Carolina this MONDAY to guest bartender at a charity event. The lovely folks @alleytwentysix are hosting a dinner benefiting the @usbg and we are overjoyed to use our talents for an amazing cause. #GentleLadySips Hope to see you there! https://m.bpt.me/event/3330896 Photo by @joevisualss Hair @quaniquestudio MUA: @itsjohnmickal Blue top: @escapadaliving Frames: @fendi Jewelry: @croghans #cocktailbandits #cheers #southernlibationist #celebrate #curlyladieswhotalkcocktailsdaily #usbg #charityevent #frames #sips #glasses #charleston #durham #willtravelforbooze #browngirls #booze #drinkpics #alleytwentysix #cocktails #cocktailsdaily #lushlife #drinks #fendi #Croghans #cocktaillife #cocktailian #goldbug #wearecharleston (at Alley Twenty Six)

[waikiki-cocktail-catering-blog]

Hallo liebe Cocktail Fans Vergangenen Freitag durften wir vor einen Tanzlocal in Bad Schallerbach unsere Cocktails anbieten. Wir nutzen die Chance unseren Brandneuen Trailer einzuweihen. Hier seht ihr ein Foto unserer kleinen rollenden Cocktail Bar. Wir freuen uns auf den nächsten Einsatz und sagen danke an alle die an uns glauben. #waikiki #waikikicatering #catering #cocktailian #cocktail #bartender #bar #instagram #instagood #austria #vienna #barkeeper #trailer #foodtruck #drink

[thedukegin-blog]

| BASIL BEAUTY | @bechergold did get esthetic preparing a bunch of gin basil smashs with garnish & label --> Limited THE DUKE Gin Art Edition Basil Smash, Cheers! #thedukegin #theduke #dukegin #gin #ginbasilsmash #basilsmash #thedukeginartedition #thedukeginkunstedition #munichdrygin #bechergold #mixology #cocktailian #cocktails #barkultur #kupferedition

[wineanddinosaur]

In a Post-Covid Era Fueled by Nostalgia, Will We See the Return of Fern Bars?

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, drinkers were beginning to eschew the buttoned-up, somewhat pretentious, neo-speakeasy style of bar that had defined the early stages of the cocktail renaissance. Comfort, friendliness, and simply having a “good time” were suddenly starting to become more important for everyone. In Columbus, Ohio, two offbeat bartenders decided to take that ethos to the next level.

It was 2019 and Beam Suntory was looking for a way to get craft cocktail bartenders to start acknowledging DeKuyper, its low-brow liqueur brand, which had certainly seen better days. So the company approached Historic Revelry, a Columbus-based creative agency run by local bartenders Joshua Gandee and Chris Manis. Always up for playful ideas, the two realized there was only one way to truly celebrate DeKuyper.

“Let’s reintroduce it the way people already know it,” says Gandee. “At a campy, chain restaurant — and through the forgotten cocktails of the ’80s and ’90s.”

While the running trend had been for many top-50 bars and bartenders to spend less time running their own joints and more time doing high-brow, high-dollar pop-ups across the globe, Gandee and Manis decided that they’d launch a pop-up — the Royal Fern — designed to recall a simpler, cheaper, and, yes, cheesier era.

“But I hadn’t been to those restaurants in a really long time,” says Gandee, who notes his first-ever job was as a busboy at Red Lobster when he was 15. “So it’s like looking at photographs, and you wonder if you really have a correct memory or you’ve just memorized the photo.”

The Royal Fern would hope to mimic a time from the late-1960s up through the ’90s when so-called “fern bars,” literally decorated with ferns, started attracting singles looking to mingle. (The original fern bar, according to The New Yorker, was TGI Fridays, which was joined by many competitors. These venues evolved into neighborhood “bar and grill” concepts.) Adopting the personas of “Chris Royal” and “Josh Fern,” the two visionaries aspired to start transforming their city’s most esteemed cocktail bars into these “bar and grill” chains that dominated the landscape a few decades ago. But with the coming of Covid, that vision was put on hold.

But as the pandemic stretches on, and as a massive recession is all but guaranteed on the other side, I’ve begun to wonder if the bars that reopen might follow the model that the Royal Fern had already laid out in the “before times.” As drinkers and diners look for comfort and nostalgia, fern bar-like concepts may be even more relevant moving forward than they were pre-Covid.

Designing a Modern Neighborhood Gathering Place

So what will it take to create a comfortable, welcoming bar in the post-pandemic future?

The first step for Manis and Gandee was creating a restaurant mascot, since in their minds all ’90s chains had some goofy character associated with them. They settled on “Fern,” an anthropomorphized, frond-mustachioed Polypodiophyta, wearing a suspendered flowerpot as shorts. They would print coloring page placemats and oversized laminated menus. They’d offer plastic souvenir sippy cups “for the kids.” For food items, or “bites,” nachos and loaded potato skins were a must, and they would all need to have over-the-top names to let you know how massive the quantities were. “It should feel like [such] a Sisyphean task that you’ll never finish them,” says Manis.

Drinks-wise, they would serve items like a spiked root beer float, an Amaretto Sour, and a Blue Hawaiian, made with déclassé stuff like Watermelon Pucker, sure, but also featuring modern improvements like fresh juices and high-quality modifiers. Gandee and Manis also knew that back then, there was one cocktail that defined chain restaurants more than any other: Sex on the Beach. Their modernized riff would be called Transparent Bathing Suit and it’d be elevated by the use of a makrut lime-infused vodka and bitters, along with the traditional Peachtree Schnapps. Even if it tasted much better, the cocktail certainly wouldn’t have seemed out of place at a Ruby Tuesday or an Applebee’s circa 1992.

“It’s kinda tough to say what we borrow from what,” says Manis. Based on the name, you can tell they definitely wanted to offer a nod to those original fern bars of the 1970s, like TGI Fridays. “A lot of those restaurants from that era were all so similar.”

Still, they were most inspired by Max & Erma’s, known in its heyday as “The Neighborhood Gathering Place,” a chain that started in Columbus in 1972 and eventually spread to dozens of locations in the Midwest. It became famous for its serve-yourself sundae bar set inside a converted bathtub. Both Gandee and Manis have a great nostalgia for Max & Erma’s, but recognize that might’ve only been on account of their naiveté in youth.

“When I grew up that was just the normal place you went to. I think we went there almost every weekend,” says Manis, who grew up in the Columbus suburbs. “Until I got older, and got into fine dining, that’s just what I thought restaurants were supposed to be.”

Ironically, the Royal Fern’s first pop-up event would be held at the site of the original Max & Erma’s, in Columbus’s German Village neighborhood. That location closed in the summer of 2017 and was later taken over by a cocktail and pierogies spot called Wunderbar, which also closed before Gandee and Manis came along. Conveniently for the Royal Fern, the space had retained a lot of Max & Erma’s decor, including the stained glass Tiffany lamps hanging over every booth. The only accoutrements Gandee and Manis needed to add for the Royal Fern were their own placemats and some hanging ferns.

“It confused a lot of people in the neighborhood,” says Manis. After printing their menus off, a worker at OfficeMax congratulated them on opening a new restaurant. “And a little old couple came up to me complaining that no one had come to the hostess stand to seat them, [asking,] ‘Is this under new management?’”

The crowd for that first night was mostly service industry people, many of whom came after their own shifts ended. These cocktailians really got into the satire of the whole pop-up, eventually calling for off-menu drinks from that era, like Flaming Dr. Peppers. One of the area’s top bartenders, Greg Burnett, handled them with aplomb. Once people saw how fun the first event looked on Instagram, a packed second event was all but guaranteed.

The Royal Fern’s second pop-up in Columbus was four months later, this time at The Bottle Shop and the concept really came into focus. The bartenders, like Barbara Reynolds, wore green dad hats and thick red shirts, with their pants held up by tri-colored suspenders with Chotchkie’s-like flair on them. Drinks were even more chain-friendly with blended Strawberry Margaritas and Cosmo Jell-O shots. A third pop-up would follow on Halloween, at Antiques on High, Seventh Son Brewing’s sour ale and hazy IPA brewpub.

“They understood the Royal Fern completely,” explains Gandee. “Everyone was in a jovial, costumey mood. They realized that they got to essentially play a caricature of themselves. It made for a super-fun environment.”

Reinventing the Chain Bar for the Post-Pandemic Future

Unfortunately, the fourth Royal Fern pop-up and its biggest event yet had to be canceled at the last moment due to Covid-19. Set to be held on St. Patrick’s Day 2020 with a new sponsor — Patrón — the “El Helecho Real” (Spanish for royal fern) concept was going to be really weird. The concept was, basically, what if a chain Mexican restaurant like, say, Chi-Chi’s, decided to put the bare minimum effort into celebrating the Irish holiday?

“We really wanted to push it to see if fans of the Royal Fern could understand the joke — and if we could take it to an even further level,” says Gandee. As yet, that question goes unanswered.

Credit: Nathan Ward

Like all bartenders, and bar-goers, the duo hopes to be back in the bar soon. In these turbulent times, Gandee and Manis believe there’s something really comforting about the chain restaurants of decades past. Maybe we’ll even start seeing a rise in fern bars and other nostalgia-based concepts once people start going out again?

If so, Gandee and Manis are ready to help, and they won’t even need to travel to your city. They consider the Royal Fern the first-ever pop-up bar that’s based on franchised restaurants. Similar to the Miracle pop-up bars that are now all the rage around Christmas, Historic Revelry can supply a complete “party in a box” with menus, flyers, employee clothing and merch, their song playlist (which sometimes includes the sounds of “sizzling fajitas” coming out of the kitchen), recipes for the cocktails, and more. You, too, could host your own Royal Fern event, even if you aren’t exactly a lover of chain restaurants.

“We are absolutely lampooning them — they weren’t good,” says Manis. “But that doesn’t mean the party shouldn’t be good, shouldn’t be fun, [or] that the drinks shouldn’t be good. Maybe they weren’t highbrow. You should still have a blast.”

“All our memories of that time,” he says, “weren’t about having terrible meals — they were about having a great time with our family and friends.”

Once we get through all this, we’ll all be looking for comfort — and this is one bar concept that over-delivers.

The article In a Post-Covid Era Fueled by Nostalgia, Will We See the Return of Fern Bars? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/post-covid-nostalgia-fern-bars/

[johnboothus]

In a Post-Covid Era Fueled by Nostalgia Will We See the Return of Fern Bars?

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, drinkers were beginning to eschew the buttoned-up, somewhat pretentious, neo-speakeasy style of bar that had defined the early stages of the cocktail renaissance. Comfort, friendliness, and simply having a “good time” were suddenly starting to become more important for everyone. In Columbus, Ohio, two offbeat bartenders decided to take that ethos to the next level.

It was 2019 and Beam Suntory was looking for a way to get craft cocktail bartenders to start acknowledging DeKuyper, its low-brow liqueur brand, which had certainly seen better days. So the company approached Historic Revelry, a Columbus-based creative agency run by local bartenders Joshua Gandee and Chris Manis. Always up for playful ideas, the two realized there was only one way to truly celebrate DeKuyper.

“Let’s reintroduce it the way people already know it,” says Gandee. “At a campy, chain restaurant — and through the forgotten cocktails of the ’80s and ’90s.”

While the running trend had been for many top-50 bars and bartenders to spend less time running their own joints and more time doing high-brow, high-dollar pop-ups across the globe, Gandee and Manis decided that they’d launch a pop-up — the Royal Fern — designed to recall a simpler, cheaper, and, yes, cheesier era.

“But I hadn’t been to those restaurants in a really long time,” says Gandee, who notes his first-ever job was as a busboy at Red Lobster when he was 15. “So it’s like looking at photographs, and you wonder if you really have a correct memory or you’ve just memorized the photo.”

The Royal Fern would hope to mimic a time from the late-1960s up through the ’90s when so-called “fern bars,” literally decorated with ferns, started attracting singles looking to mingle. (The original fern bar, according to The New Yorker, was TGI Fridays, which was joined by many competitors. These venues evolved into neighborhood “bar and grill” concepts.) Adopting the personas of “Chris Royal” and “Josh Fern,” the two visionaries aspired to start transforming their city’s most esteemed cocktail bars into these “bar and grill” chains that dominated the landscape a few decades ago. But with the coming of Covid, that vision was put on hold.

But as the pandemic stretches on, and as a massive recession is all but guaranteed on the other side, I’ve begun to wonder if the bars that reopen might follow the model that the Royal Fern had already laid out in the “before times.” As drinkers and diners look for comfort and nostalgia, fern bar-like concepts may be even more relevant moving forward than they were pre-Covid.

Designing a Modern Neighborhood Gathering Place

So what will it take to create a comfortable, welcoming bar in the post-pandemic future?

The first step for Manis and Gandee was creating a restaurant mascot, since in their minds all ’90s chains had some goofy character associated with them. They settled on “Fern,” an anthropomorphized, frond-mustachioed Polypodiophyta, wearing a suspendered flowerpot as shorts. They would print coloring page placemats and oversized laminated menus. They’d offer plastic souvenir sippy cups “for the kids.” For food items, or “bites,” nachos and loaded potato skins were a must, and they would all need to have over-the-top names to let you know how massive the quantities were. “It should feel like [such] a Sisyphean task that you’ll never finish them,” says Manis.

Drinks-wise, they would serve items like a spiked root beer float, an Amaretto Sour, and a Blue Hawaiian, made with déclassé stuff like Watermelon Pucker, sure, but also featuring modern improvements like fresh juices and high-quality modifiers. Gandee and Manis also knew that back then, there was one cocktail that defined chain restaurants more than any other: Sex on the Beach. Their modernized riff would be called Transparent Bathing Suit and it’d be elevated by the use of a makrut lime-infused vodka and bitters, along with the traditional Peachtree Schnapps. Even if it tasted much better, the cocktail certainly wouldn’t have seemed out of place at a Ruby Tuesday or an Applebee’s circa 1992.

“It’s kinda tough to say what we borrow from what,” says Manis. Based on the name, you can tell they definitely wanted to offer a nod to those original fern bars of the 1970s, like TGI Fridays. “A lot of those restaurants from that era were all so similar.”

Still, they were most inspired by Max & Erma’s, known in its heyday as “The Neighborhood Gathering Place,” a chain that started in Columbus in 1972 and eventually spread to dozens of locations in the Midwest. It became famous for its serve-yourself sundae bar set inside a converted bathtub. Both Gandee and Manis have a great nostalgia for Max & Erma’s, but recognize that might’ve only been on account of their naiveté in youth.

“When I grew up that was just the normal place you went to. I think we went there almost every weekend,” says Manis, who grew up in the Columbus suburbs. “Until I got older, and got into fine dining, that’s just what I thought restaurants were supposed to be.”

Ironically, the Royal Fern’s first pop-up event would be held at the site of the original Max & Erma’s, in Columbus’s German Village neighborhood. That location closed in the summer of 2017 and was later taken over by a cocktail and pierogies spot called Wunderbar, which also closed before Gandee and Manis came along. Conveniently for the Royal Fern, the space had retained a lot of Max & Erma’s decor, including the stained glass Tiffany lamps hanging over every booth. The only accoutrements Gandee and Manis needed to add for the Royal Fern were their own placemats and some hanging ferns.

“It confused a lot of people in the neighborhood,” says Manis. After printing their menus off, a worker at OfficeMax congratulated them on opening a new restaurant. “And a little old couple came up to me complaining that no one had come to the hostess stand to seat them, [asking,] ‘Is this under new management?’”

The crowd for that first night was mostly service industry people, many of whom came after their own shifts ended. These cocktailians really got into the satire of the whole pop-up, eventually calling for off-menu drinks from that era, like Flaming Dr. Peppers. One of the area’s top bartenders, Greg Burnett, handled them with aplomb. Once people saw how fun the first event looked on Instagram, a packed second event was all but guaranteed.

The Royal Fern’s second pop-up in Columbus was four months later, this time at The Bottle Shop and the concept really came into focus. The bartenders, like Barbara Reynolds, wore green dad hats and thick red shirts, with their pants held up by tri-colored suspenders with Chotchkie’s-like flair on them. Drinks were even more chain-friendly with blended Strawberry Margaritas and Cosmo Jell-O shots. A third pop-up would follow on Halloween, at Antiques on High, Seventh Son Brewing’s sour ale and hazy IPA brewpub.

“They understood the Royal Fern completely,” explains Gandee. “Everyone was in a jovial, costumey mood. They realized that they got to essentially play a caricature of themselves. It made for a super-fun environment.”

Reinventing the Chain Bar for the Post-Pandemic Future

Unfortunately, the fourth Royal Fern pop-up and its biggest event yet had to be canceled at the last moment due to Covid-19. Set to be held on St. Patrick’s Day 2020 with a new sponsor — Patrón — the “El Helecho Real” (Spanish for royal fern) concept was going to be really weird. The concept was, basically, what if a chain Mexican restaurant like, say, Chi-Chi’s, decided to put the bare minimum effort into celebrating the Irish holiday?

“We really wanted to push it to see if fans of the Royal Fern could understand the joke — and if we could take it to an even further level,” says Gandee. As yet, that question goes unanswered.

Credit: Nathan Ward

Like all bartenders, and bar-goers, the duo hopes to be back in the bar soon. In these turbulent times, Gandee and Manis believe there’s something really comforting about the chain restaurants of decades past. Maybe we’ll even start seeing a rise in fern bars and other nostalgia-based concepts once people start going out again?

If so, Gandee and Manis are ready to help, and they won’t even need to travel to your city. They consider the Royal Fern the first-ever pop-up bar that’s based on franchised restaurants. Similar to the Miracle pop-up bars that are now all the rage around Christmas, Historic Revelry can supply a complete “party in a box” with menus, flyers, employee clothing and merch, their song playlist (which sometimes includes the sounds of “sizzling fajitas” coming out of the kitchen), recipes for the cocktails, and more. You, too, could host your own Royal Fern event, even if you aren’t exactly a lover of chain restaurants.

“We are absolutely lampooning them — they weren’t good,” says Manis. “But that doesn’t mean the party shouldn’t be good, shouldn’t be fun, [or] that the drinks shouldn’t be good. Maybe they weren’t highbrow. You should still have a blast.”

“All our memories of that time,” he says, “weren’t about having terrible meals — they were about having a great time with our family and friends.”

Once we get through all this, we’ll all be looking for comfort — and this is one bar concept that over-delivers.

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