RIP, Ryan McGrale, Beloved Boston Bartender.

Photo courtesy of The Improper Bostonian

By now you’ve probably heard that Ryan McGrale, beverage director at Tavern Road, passed away suddenly, unexpectedly this weekend. The news left me stunned: I'd sat countless times at his bar at No. 9 Park (a late-afternoon weekend ritual for my wife and me for years), the Flatiron Lounge in Manhattan, and finally at Tavern Road. I cannot add much that has not already been said in the recent online outpouring of shock, grief and celebratory remembrances of this extraordinarily talented bartender, genuinely caring hospitality pro, and uncommonly vivid force of nature.

But I did get to feature him in my April 2014 cover story for The Improper Bostonian on Boston bartenders, entitled "Pouring Reign". (I so love his front-and-center badassery in Adam DeTour’s awesome cover photo, right.) In this piece, I talked with a dozen local pros I admire: six promising newcomers, and six talented veterans whom I felt didn’t get the press attention they deserved, in which latter company I firmly placed McGrale. I had to edit the interviews heavily for length, which left too many colorful, telling reflections from my subjects on the cutting room floor. One small thing I can do in Ryan’s memory is present his unexpurgated comments here.

Thanks, Ryan. You left a huge mark on a legion of patrons and industry colleagues. I will never forget your incredible energy, riotous good humor, fantastic cocktails, and above all, your dedication to making your customers feel loved and well cared for. RIP.

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MC Slim JB: Measure or free-pour?
Ryan McGrale: Mostly measure, but free-pour occasionally.

MC: Drink that you wish more customers would order?
RM: I wish more customers would order gin cocktails (e.g., "Gin doesn't agree with me!")

MC: Drink you wish customers would forget existed?
RM: Wish customers forgot about a Margarita WITH SALT.

MC: What is your most prized bartending accoutrement, e.g., spoon, ice tool, ice mold, shaker, mixing glass, knife, Lewis bag, cocktail book, serving glass, other piece of barware or glassware, etc.? (Could be a work piece or something on your home bar.)
RM: First-edition “Bon Vivant’s Companion” by Jerry Thomas.

MC: Most annoying customer behavior?
RM: Yelling drink orders at the bartenders while we are either making drinks, taking another drink order, or interacting with another guest.

MC: Every bartender has a collection of Fiasco Moments, e.g., the tray of glasses smashed into the ice bin, the flyaway tin that resulted in a guest wearing a shakerful of cocktails, the strangers you introduced at your bar that ended up in a murder/suicide, your proud original creation that customers hated, etc. What’s a particularly egregious / entertaining one of yours?
RM: My last bar shift in NYC. The bar was getting slammed around 10 pm. In NYC, that's early. This bar also does some of the most cocktail volume in the country. So things were getting pretty stressful. I had a guy from Jersey waving his credit card and cash at the opposite end of the bar. My nearest bartender was just getting stomped on with no end in sight. I looked down to check on her and locked eyes with this guy waving his credit card and cash in the air. I said, "We'll be with you in a minute." He continued to wave and be animated, insisting someone come up to him and take his order despite us politely saying we’d get to him in a moment. He thought we were ignoring him and started *snapping his fingers* to get anyone’s attention. I hate when anyone does that. So I figured I’d go out in a little blaze of glory for all the rough nights the Jerseyites had given me over the years, especially as a Bostonian. So I got down on all fours, walked down the bar, jumped onto the bar in front of the guy, crouched down, put my hands on his left and right cheek, and licked the left side of his face. The crowd was now seeing what was happening. I said, "We are here to serve you as best we can. We are people, not dogs. Don't you ever dare snap at anyone who serves you!” loud enough for people around him to hear. I hopped off the bar and took his order. The crowd started cheering like crazy! He smiled and said "You’re right, I’m sorry, never again in this or any bar!" Then he and I had a shot together and the night continued as it started.

MC: Spirit (or wine varietal/region or beer style) that more customers should be trying, and your favorite cocktail or bottling to introduce a newbie to it?
RM: Sherry. "Perfect Bamboo" cocktail: Amontillado Sherry, sweet and dry vermouth, Angostura and orange bitters.

MC: What’s the best day of the week and time of day for a customer to engage you in a leisurely, educational five-minute conversation about drinks?
RM: Any day at start of service except Fridays and Saturdays.

MC: You may have seen this article on the in-house lingo of certain NYC bars: What’s one of your house’s code words/phrases for intra-staff communication in front of customers? 
RM: I worked at Clover Club when it opened, then went to sister bar Flatiron Lounge after. I still use NYC lingo at my bar now. I use "Staff meeting" and "Point." Lately we use the phrase "Bar tool!" Imagine what I’m referring to.

MC: What’s your typical end-of-shift drink?
RM: Usually a cold beer accompanied by an amaro (but not Fernet-Branca.)

MC: What’s a great book / film / record / play / TV show you’ve consumed recently and recommend?
RM: Been catching up on film, especially after the Oscars. I really liked "Gravity", saw it in IMAX, very gripping and suspenseful. I strongly suggest it.

MC: Do you have a guilty-pleasure drink, the kind of thing you wouldn’t want your peers or customers to catch you drinking?
RM: I'm an open book. Not ashamed about letting people know what I drink, especially when they think we drink cocktails or craft beer every chance we get. I do enjoy a NASCAR Spritz: Bud Lite Lime with a shot of Aperol in it and a lemon twist.

MC: What’s the last astonishing restaurant meal you had other than at your place?
RM: Erbaluce! By far one of my favorites, if not the favorite restaurant in Boston. Classic rustic Italian, amazing homemade pasta, awesome wine list and stories for days from owners Chuck and Joan!

MC: What are a couple of dives you favor on your own time?
RM: I love a good dive bar. Delux was one of my favorites until it closed recently. [N.B.: it has since reopened under new ownership.] I love Anchovies in South End and The Field in Central Square.

MC: Dr. Bartender, what’s the best cure for my hangover?
RM: Either Gatorade or a shot of whatever your last drink was the night before. If you were drinking beer all night and still got drunk, sadly, a good shot of whiskey with a hit of bitters.

MC: Most interesting current trend in cocktails (or beer or wine)?
RM: Mists and foams.

MC: Most ridiculous / overhyped / bullshit trend?
RM: National and local cocktail competitions (except for the Cocktail Wars and World Class competitions.)

MC: As a bar customer yourself, what’s one aspect of Boston’s bars that you wish more operators would do a better job of? 
RM: Teaching humility.

MC: What Greater Boston bar (besides your own) is absolutely killing it right now? Of all their qualities, what’s the single standout attribute that makes you want to drink there?
RM: Blue Dragon. Somehow flying off the radar, though they have an amazing program of sprits, cocktails and beer, and a great meal at the bar to top it off. They are always busy and ready to show you a good time atop their knowledge and friendly service.

MC: What are the top two or three (or four or five) destinations on your Bars of the World Bucket List?
RM: Harry's New York Bar (Paris), The Aviary (Chicago), Tiki Ti (LA), Bar High Five (Tokyo), The Merchant Hotel (Belfast).

MC: What’s the most ridiculous thing a Yelper (or other amateur reviewer) has ever said about you or the place you work?
RM: I'm a very energetic and excited person, especially when I’m in the zone behind a bar: more than most, I can say. A Yelper once said that I had to be on drugs to like my job this much: literally on drugs. She was seriously saying that I was under the influence.

MC: What bartender or bar manager, currently working or retired, is your first-ballot lock for entry into Boston’s Bartending Hall of Fame? 
RM: Tom Mastricola.

MC: Offer a sentence or two of advice to aspiring bartenders.
RM: It’s not about the drink. It’s about the WHOLE experience you provide them. Also: having respect and humility will lengthen your bartending career.

Photo courtesy of The Improper Bostonian

MC: Say a few words about your most influential bartending mentors.
RM: I have many mentors that have gotten me to today. It’s a tie between two. My first was Tom Mastricola: the reason there are fresh-juice programs in Boston pre-cocktail culture and the classic cocktail movement of the early 2000s. The second was when I worked in NYC: Julie Reiner. She helped take my game to another level that I couldn't have gotten to if I’d stayed in Boston. Living legend. One of the reasons we do what we do today behind cocktail bars. Overall badass! xoxo

MC: What’s the most surprisingly useful life skill that bartending has taught you?
RM: Again, humility!

MC: What question do you think I should have asked? Answer it. 
RM: I would have asked "Greatest Bartending Moment? Was it career-defining? Guest you took care of? Personally life-changing? Wake-up call?" Answer: Introduced two strangers to each other at a bar I worked at: two single people and I was talking to each of them then decided to have us all in one conversation because we were all talking about similar topics that they seemed to have some things in common and needed a companion that evening. They later started dating and then married. Six years later they had their first child, and his middle name is Ryan.

"Pouring Reign (The Director's Cut)", Part VI: Moira Costello Horan of The Franklin Southie

Moira Costello Horan of The Franklin Southie
Photo courtesy of Moira Costello Horan

In April 2014, I wrote a cover feature for The Improper Bostonian entitled “Pouring Reign”, in which I interviewed twelve Boston bartenders I admire. Six are veteran talents I felt had been overlooked by local media; six are newcomers promising enough to get themselves situated in some of our top bar programs. All had many more interesting things to say than I could fit in the space allowed.

How many more? My initial draft ran to 10,000 words, but the feature was allotted 2500; I begged my editors for more room, and they generously let it swell to 3500, a very long feature for the publication.

As happy as I was with the piece (and especially the gorgeous accompanying portrait photography by Adam DeTour), a lot of great material got left on the cutting-room floor. I got permission to run the unexpurgated interviews here.

Here’s number six, my unedited interview with Moira Costello Horan, whom I first ran into at Union Bar & Grille in the South End, later at Local 149 in Southie’s City Point neighborhood, and later still at The Franklin Southie, where she is currently the bar manager. Here are Moira’s original, unvarnished words.

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MC SLIM JB: The life of a professional bartender is a vampiric existence, in the sense that you don’t see a lot of daylight. Plus there’s that pesky requirement to work weekends and holidays, times that many professions enjoy as time off. How do you manage to work a social life, let alone a romantic life, around these constraints? Aside from the professional compensations, are there other advantages to the night owl’s existence that civilians aren’t aware of?

MOIRA COSTELLO HORAN: It is a vampiric existence, but there are many advantages to it. I'm never stuck in traffic, there's never a line at the supermarket, the days I have off are slow ones at bars and restaurants. Restaurants become your family, so holidays are spent with the people you love and care about. I honestly don't have a lot of friends who aren't in the industry because it just doesn't make sense. My boyfriend is a fellow bartender, so we understand each other's schedules. Being so social as a profession makes me want to just stay home on my time off. There is no better place than my couch and being quiet. 

MCSJB: Measure or free-pour?

MCH: Measure cocktails, free-pour mixed drinks.

MCSJB: Drink that you wish more customers would order?

MCH: Gin martinis with a twist. They're delicious. 

MCSJB: Drink you wish customers would forget existed?

MCH: Dirty vodka martinis. They're disgusting.

MCSJB: What is your most prized bartending accoutrement, e.g., spoon, ice tool, ice mold, shaker, mixing glass, knife, Lewis bag, cocktail book, serving glass, other piece of barware or glassware?

MCH: I have lots of tools, but don't particularly feel like the tools make the bartender. 

MCSJB: Most annoying customer behavior?

MCH: Don't wave in my face, don't interrupt me when I'm talking to someone else, don't give me a drink order when I ask you how you're doing.

MCSJB: Spirit that more customers should be trying, and your favorite cocktail or bottling to introduce a newbie to it?

MCH: Gin is one of my favorite spirits because it’s so versatile. People have so many negative thoughts about gin because of one bad experience in their youth. Screw vodka: I like to get every vodka drinker to at least try gin because essentially it's just flavored vodka. Start with something simple like a Tom Collins, because who doesn't like a Tom Collins? 

MCSJB: What’s the best day of the week and time of day for a customer to engage you in a leisurely, educational five-minute conversation about drinks?

MCH: On a quiet night when it’s slow. Ask if I have the time first. I will always try to find the time to talk cocktails.

MCSJB: You may have seen this NY Times article on the in-house lingo of certain NYC bars. What’s one of your house’s code words/phrases for intra-staff communication in front of customers?

MCH: Two words: “bar meeting”.

MCSJB: What’s your typical end-of-shift drink?

MCH: Beer and a shot: Rittenhouse straight American rye and a Notch Pils, please.

MCSJB: Do you have a guilty-pleasure drink, the kind of thing you wouldn’t want your peers or customers to catch you drinking?

MCH: A piña colada. That love came from when I used to live and bartend in Puerto Rico. The difference is now I can use quality ingredients, none of that frozen nonsense. 

MCSJB: What’s the last astonishing restaurant meal you had other than at your place?

MCH: Sarma. Delicious. Great staff. I can't wait to go back.

MCSJB: What are a couple of dives you favor on your own time?

MCH: Tom English's on Dot Ave. Whitey's. Delux Cafe before it closed. 

MC, aside: Happily, the Delux Café has since reopened under new ownership.

MCSJB: Dr. Bartender, what’s the best cure for my hangover?

MCH: Hair of the dog. Pedialyte and Green Chartreuse.

MCSJB, aside: I assume that’s a sequence, not a cocktail.

MCSJB: Most interesting current trend in cocktails?

MCH: Amaro-based cocktails are the jam right now. 

MCSJB: Most ridiculous / overhyped / bullshit trend?

MCH: Yeungling. Who cares?

MCSJB: As a bar customer yourself, what’s one aspect of Boston’s bars that you wish more operators would do a better job of?

MCH: Vermouth in the well.

MCSJB: What Greater Boston bar is absolutely killing it right now? Of all their qualities, what’s the single standout attribute that makes you want to drink there?

MCH: Tavern Road, because every bartender there is amazingly talented. They make you feel like family as soon as you walk in the door. That's my kind of bar. 

MCSJB: What bartender or bar manager, currently working or retired, is your first-ballot lock for entry into Boston’s Bartending Hall of Fame?

MCH: Peter Cipriani [currently at The Franklin Southie]. He is the whole package. 

MCSJB, aside: I'm a big fan of Mr. Cipriani, too.

MCSJB: Offer a sentence or two of advice to aspiring bartenders.

MCH: Try and find the balance between hospitality and knowledge. 

MCSJB: Say a few words about your most influential bartending mentor.

MCH: Tom Mastricola [most recently of Commonwealth Cambridge, currently preparing to open Café Artscience]. I met him over three years ago and he's been my go-to guy since. He's legendary and has helped me become the bartender I am today. 

MCSJB: What’s the most surprisingly useful life skill that bartending has taught you?

MCH: Patience. 

MCSJB: Compose the question you think I should have asked, and answer it.

MCH: “What do you love the most about bartending?” Giving the best possible guest experience, making people smile, and learning.

"Pouring Reign (The Director's Cut)", Part III: Dan Valachovic of Vee Vee

Dan Valachovic of Vee Vee, Jamaica Plain, MA
Photo courtesy of Dan Valachovic

In April 2014, I wrote a cover feature for The Improper Bostonian entitled “Pouring Reign”, in which I interviewed twelve Boston bartenders I admire. Six are veteran talents I felt had been overlooked by local media; six are newcomers promising enough to get themselves situated in some of our top bar programs. All had many more interesting things to say than I could fit in the space allowed.

How many more? My initial draft ran to 10,000 words, but the feature was allotted 2500; I begged my editors for more room, and they generously let it swell to 3500, a very long feature for the publication.

As happy as I was with the piece (and especially the gorgeous accompanying portrait photography by Adam DeTour), a lot of great material got left on the cutting-room floor. I got permission to run the unexpurgated interviews here. Here’s the third one, my unedited interview with Dan Valachovic, co-owner of Vee Vee in Jamaica Plain. I included Dan because of his intent focus on local craft beers, a real plus at an already great little indie neighborhood place that I originally reviewed back in 2011. I’m glad to be able to publish his thoughtful answers here, which had to be cut severely for publication.

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MC SLIM JB: Vee Vee is a neighborhood joint leaning local, seasonal and sustainable, with a bar focus on small, local craft brewers. A lot of newcomers seem to be copying your template. Meanwhile, Bostonians have gotten geekier about beer, and their options in like-minded bars have expanded greatly. You were ahead of that curve: what changes have you seen in your customers, suppliers?

DAN VALACHOVIC: The biggest change in the customers has been in trusting what we are putting on our draught list. There are so many new breweries in the area just in the last several years, and many new options for consumers. Our regular customers have come to respect and trust my palate and style of beer that I gravitate towards, and seem happy to try whatever new offering might be available. 

MC: How has it changed your philosophy (if at all) and product mix? What does that rising tide mean for your bar program going forward?

DV: I have found myself digging deeper with specialty distributors and importers in an effort to keep things fresh and current. We are also in talks with JP's Streetcar Wine & Beer shop about collaborating with local breweries for one-off brews. Establishing personal relationships with the local brewers is very important to me and a key to staying on top of things.

Moving forward, I actually like the idea of paring back rather than adding more. We have only four draught lines and about 20 bottles on our list; it's a fun challenge to curate those lists in a way that is interesting and exciting. No fluff or filler.

MC: Beer that you wish more customers would order?

DV: I recently added a rare Belgian beer called De Dolle Arabier to the bottle list. While all of the other beers on the list contain descriptors conveying style and flavor profiles, I simply describe this as "Dan's favorite beer in the world". It's been very interesting to see regulars as well as first-timers order it and monitor their reaction. I've yet to encounter anyone that hasn't thoroughly enjoyed it (or, at least anyone willing to tell me they haven't enjoyed it!)

MC: Drink you wish customers would forget existed?

DV: Any of the mass-produced yellow lagers. On the rare occasion that someone asks for one, we point them to a can of Notch Session Pils. It's probably a little hoppier than they are expecting, but most are satisfied.

MC: What is your most prized bartending accoutrement, e.g., tool, book, glassware, etc.?

DV: I built myself a keg fridge in my cellar at home. It's very satisfying to have your favorite beer readily available on demand.

MC, aside: I am green with envy!

MC: Beer style that more customers should be trying?

DV: I really enjoy beers that are fermented with Brettanomyces yeast. When properly used, it can give a beer a tropical, funky complexity that you wouldn't otherwise see.

MC: What’s your favorite example to introduce a newbie to it?

DV: Orval is a Belgian Trappist ale that is fermented with a traditional ale yeast and then re-fermented in the bottle with a slight amount of Brett yeast. So if you try a young bottle next to one that has aged for several months, you can begin to see its effect on the flavor profile. Belgian beer bars often offer different vintages of Orval on their menus: I've been thinking of adding this option as well.

MC: What’s the best day of the week and time of day for a customer to engage you in a leisurely, educational five-minute conversation about drinks?

DV: Tuesday nights either between 5:30-7:00pm or 9:30-10:30pm.

MC: You may have seen this article on the in-house lingo of certain NYC bars. What’s one of your house’s code words/phrases for intra-staff communication in front of customers?

DV: We don't have any of our own, but after that article ran we adopted the "I need you to bar back seat six for me" as a way to retrieve the forgotten name of a regular customer.

MC: What’s your typical end-of-shift drink?

DV: Whatever Trillium beer is currently on tap. Last night was their American Blonde ale, Pocket Pigeon.

MC: What’s a great book / film / record / play / TV show you’ve consumed recently and recommend?

DV: Nothing Can Hurt Me, the Big Star documentary.

MC: Do you have a guilty-pleasure drink, the kind of thing you wouldn’t want your peers or customers to catch you drinking?

DV: Nothing beats a shandy at the beach. Last summer I bought a case of Leinenkugel’s version, but rumor has it that Narragansett and [RI frozen lemonade maker] Del’s will be teaming up this year, which sounds awesome.

MC: What’s the last astonishing restaurant meal you had (what and where) other than at your place?

DV: Last week I stopped off at Eventide Oyster Co. in Portland, Maine for a quick lunch and had a fried oyster bun and an Oxbow Farmhouse Pale Ale. The sandwich perfectly balances the airy softness of the Asian-style bun with the crunch of the fried oyster and tanginess of tartar sauce and some pickled onions. That lunch is crave-worthy and worth the trip.

MC: What are a couple of dives you favor on your own time?

DV: The Galway House on Centre Street in JP is a go-to for a post-shift beer and bar pizza. J.J. Foley’s Fireside Tavern near Forest Hills is the place to go when we feel like darts. Pleasant Cafe is a dependable old-school classic out in Rozzie.

MC: Dr. Bartender, what’s the best cure for my hangover?

DV: I keep it pretty simple: a greasy burger, plenty of water and Advil. And a nap.

MC: Most interesting current trend in beer?

DV: Beer brewers experimenting with slight variations on a style. Trillium Brewing and Mystic Brewery are two locals that I see tweaking a standard of theirs just slightly to emphasize how a different hop, grain or yeast can affect the final product.

MC? Most ridiculous / overhyped / bullshit trend:

DV: Yuengling.

MC: As a bar customer yourself, what’s one aspect of Boston’s bars that you wish more operators would do a better job of?

DV: Listing serving sizes and ABV of beers on beer menus. It's important to know, especially if you have a long night ahead.

MC: What Greater Boston bar is absolutely killing it right now? Of all their qualities, what’s the single standout attribute that makes you want to drink there?

DV: State Park. The whole place was designed around having fun and that's exactly what they've accomplished.

MC: What are the top destinations on your Bars of the World Bucket List?

DV: There's a year-old place in Austin, Texas that I've read about called Craft Pride. They have 52 lines of Texas-only craft beers and park a bacon food truck in their back patio. I look forward to spending an afternoon there some day educating myself on all things Texas beer.

MC: What’s the most ridiculous thing a Yelper has ever said about you or your place?

DV: I stay away from reading Yelp. Not much good can come from the anxiety it brings on.

MC: What bartender or bar manager, currently working or retired, is your first-ballot lock for entry into Boston’s Bartending Hall of Fame?

DV: John Gertsen. He has been a class act innovator for as long as I've been going out in Boston.

MC: Compose the question you think I should have asked, and answer it.

DV: "What are your top three most inspirational beer bars?" 1) The Other Side, Boston (RIP). I had my beer “Aha!” moment there many years ago when I ordered a Duvel with my lunch. That was the moment I realized there was a lot more to beer than I had thought. 2) Spuyten Duyvil, Brooklyn. They only have a handful of draught lines but the selection is so well thought out. It feels like a funky European cafe inside and all of the furnishings and art and knickknacks are for sale. 3) ‘t Velootje, Ghent, Belgium. I was there is the middle of the winter-- the place has no heat, just a fireplace that the owner feeds rubbish into over the course of the night. There is no beer list, he just pours you what he happens to have that day. Somehow it is just the most wonderful place to enjoy a few beers.

"Pouring Reign (The Director's Cut)", Part II: Will Isaza of Fairsted Kitchen

Will Isaza of Fairsted Kitchen, Brookline, MA
Photo courtesy of Will Isaza

In April 2014, I wrote a cover feature for The Improper Bostonian entitled “Pouring Reign”, in which I interviewed twelve Boston bartenders I admire. Six are veteran talents I felt had been overlooked by local media; six are newcomers promising enough to get themselves situated in some of our top bar programs. All had many more interesting things to say than I could fit in the space allowed.

How many more? My initial draft ran to 10,000 words, but the feature was allotted 2500; I begged my editors for more room, and they generously let it swell to 3500, a very long feature for the publication.

As happy as I was with the piece (and especially the gorgeous accompanying portrait photography by Adam DeTour), a lot of great material got left on the cutting-room floor. I got permission to run the unexpurgated interviews here. Here’s the second one, my unedited interview with Will Isaza of Fairsted Kitchen, an independent restaurant in Washington Square, Brookline. I first got to know Will as I was researching my review of Fairsted for The Improper, where he impressed me as a relatively new talent.

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MC SLIM JB: Will, you've probably seen my Improper Bostonian review of Fairsted Kitchen, in which I note its extraordinary hospitality ethos. You may have read my essay about the importance of hospitality to the bartender's game. Is hospitality something that can be learned, or is it purely innate? Did you come in with that inclination already built-in? How does Fairsted cultivate that attitude in the staff?

WILL ISAZA: I think that if someone wants to make a career out of this industry, hospitality should be the first priority. We are in the business of satisfying people through food and drink, but having that little extra flair to make a guest smile I don't think can be taught. I've always loved meeting new people and interacting with many different personalities, it's pretty cool to have a job where I can do that on a nightly basis. My bosses; Andrew Foster, Steve Bowman, and Patrick Gaggiano, have instilled much of that philosophy at Fairsted. They want everyone who walks through the door to feel as though they're at home having dinner/drinks amongst family. Of course that only works because of the staff, we all kind of have that family sense as a staff including management and ownership, therefore that is reflected when we are in the middle of service. Being a small staff helps a lot, but we all genuinely like each other and I don't think that was a mistake. Those guys just really enjoy creating a home style environment and having a great time with guests, which not many places in Boston can do. 

MC: Measure or free-pour?

WI: Mostly measure.

MC: Drink that you wish more customers would order?

WI: Vieux Carre.

MC: Drink you wish customers would forget existed?

WI: None, they all should be consumed by those who love them!

MC: What is your most prized bartending accoutrement, e.g., spoon, ice tool, ice mold, shaker, mixing glass, knife, Lewis bag, cocktail book, serving glass, other piece of barware or glassware?

WI: Just give me ice and a Boston shaker and I'll figure out the rest. I'm not really one to be picky about that stuff.  

MC: Most annoying customer behavior?

WI: To quote Mr. [Andrew] Foster, "Never really had annoying guests, just people who don't know what they want". And that's what we're here for. 

MC: Every bartender has a collection of Fiasco Moments, e.g., the tray of glasses smashed into the ice bin, the flyaway tin that resulted in a guest wearing a shakerful of cocktails, the strangers you introduced at your bar that ended up in a murder/suicide, your proud original creation that customers hated, etc. What’s a particularly egregious / entertaining one of yours?

WI: Back when I first started tending bar, I was working a busy Friday night service bar, and the guests in front of me got into a really huge argument and proceeded to start their divorce as they had dinner. I gave them a couple shots and told them to love each other, the woman involved immediately started crying and left the bar. Whoops. 

MC: Spirit, wine or beer that more customers should be trying?

WI: Rum or rhum [agricole]. You would think people drink more of it, but they really don't. 

MC: Your favorite cocktail or bottling to introduce a newbie to it?

WI: It all depends on the individual and what flavors they naturally enjoy. Everyone is different. I never really have a "go-to" recipe without interacting with someone. 

MC: What’s the best day of the week and time of day for a customer to engage you in a leisurely, educational five-minute conversation about drinks?

WI: I would say Mondays at around 6pm or Tuesdays at around 5pm. 

MC: You may have seen this New York Times article on the in-house lingo of certain NYC bars. What’s one of your house’s code words/phrases for intra-staff communication in front of customers?

WI: "Getting Crowed" is unique to Fairsted Kitchen. We treat our VIP guests to a fantastic shot of Old Crow Reserve. 

MC: What’s your typical end-of-shift drink?

WI: Whisky or whiskey, that's it.

MC: What’s a great book / film / record / play / TV show you’ve consumed recently and recommend?

WI: Esquire's Handbook for Hosts (1953). An awesome handbook on how to be the life of any party. 

MC: Do you have a guilty-pleasure drink, the kind of thing you wouldn’t want your peers or customers to catch you drinking?

WI: Daiquiris all around, please. Guests seem confused when I tell them that, but most of my peers share my affinity for daiquiris -- don't you?

[MC: Yep.]

MC: What’s the last astonishing restaurant meal you had (what and where) other than at your employer's?

WI: In Boston I haven't really had time to go out and about because of work, but on vacation, Sylvain in New Orleans was the last great memorable meal I had and would recommend in a heartbeat. The meal was solid from start to finish and the one dish that stood out the most to me was a braised Wagyu beef belly on a bed of toasted parsnips. Just saying it makes me want to go back! 

MC: What are a couple of dives you favor on your own time?

WI: Sligo in Davis Square has always been great, but recently, O’Leary’s on Beacon Street in Brookline has slowly but surely become a black hole of greatness. 

MC: Dr. Bartender, what’s the best cure for my hangover?

WI: Cure? The key is to never go to sleep. 

MC: Most interesting current trend in cocktails, beer or wine?

WI: I would put bottled cocktails and beer cocktails at the top of the list for current trends. 

MC: Most ridiculous / overhyped / bullshit trend?

WI: Bars calling themselves "craft cocktail bars" as opposed to just bars. Over-hyped and bullshit. All great bars should be able to make you a great cocktail and tell you everything you need to know about the ingredients used. 

MC: As a bar customer yourself, what’s one aspect of Boston’s bars that you wish more operators would do a better job of?

WI: As a guest, I wish that bartenders would focus more on helping me have a great time, rather than just feed me information on what I'm drinking. Most of the times I go to bars to drink, eat, and have a good time, not to be educated.  

MC: What Greater Boston bar is absolutely killing it right now? Of all their qualities, what’s the single standout attribute that makes you want to drink there?

WI: I think Boston as a whole is killing it right now. It's really tough to single out any one bar. 

MC: What are the top destinations on your Bars of the World Bucket List?

WI: Bar High Five in Tokyo is definitely up in my Bucket List. The Floridita in Havana and Bodeguita Del Medio in Havana, which I have had the pleasure of attending were the two bars that I really wanted to go to for a long time. I remember the bartender at Bodeguita Del Medio looked at me and said, "Here is the first mojito you have ever had, all the rest have been merely an imitation". Paired with a handmade Cohiba, it was by far the best bar experience I've ever had. 

MC: Offer a sentence or two of advice to aspiring bartenders.

WI: I would tell an aspiring bartender to always keep in mind that your job is to make other people happy, not just yourself. And to enjoy every moment behind any bar, because if you don't enjoy what you’re doing or where you work, then what’s the point? Cocktails, beer, wine, etc. can always be taught and you will only learn as much as you allow yourself to learn.

MC: Say a few words about your most influential bartending mentor.

WI: The first bar manager I ever worked for definitely showed me the ropes and gave me a chance when a lot of people wouldn't. I would say that my style of tending bar was greatly influenced by what he taught me. Also my brother, Moe Isaza, currently a manager at Grafton Street, always pushed me to try new things, and from him I learned the most important thing of all: if I'm not having fun while I'm behind a bar, the people I'm serving won't be either. 

MC: What’s the most surprisingly useful life skill that bartending has taught you?

WI: Communication in every aspect has definitely been the most useful life skill that tending bar has taught me. You would be surprised how many people start problems and/or misunderstandings by simply not being able to communicate.

"Pouring Reign (The Director's Cut)", Part I: Ezra Star of Drink

Ezra Star of Drink, Boston, MA
Photo courtesy of Ezra Star

In April 2014, I wrote a cover feature for The Improper Bostonian entitled “Pouring Reign”, in which I interviewed twelve Boston bartenders I admire. Six are veteran talents I felt had been overlooked by local media; six are newcomers promising enough to get themselves situated in some of our top bar programs. All had many more interesting things to say than I could fit in the space allowed.

How many more? My initial draft ran to 10,000 words, but the feature was allotted 2500; I begged my editors for more room, and they generously let it swell to 3500, a very long feature for the publication.

As happy as I was with the piece (and especially the gorgeous accompanying portrait photography by Adam DeTour), a lot of great material got left on the cutting-room floor. I got permission to run the unexpurgated interviews here. Here’s the first one, my unedited interview with Ezra Star of Drink, one of my personal favorites among an absurdly talented staff at one of Boston’s most popular and acclaimed craft cocktail bars.

======

MC SLIM JB: Drink (the bar) is arguably Boston’s most nationally-famous craft cocktail destination; it’s been a while since I’ve been by when there weren’t dense crowds and a line out the door. How do you balance the demands of high-volume service with the ideal of a personalized cocktail experience?

EZRA STAR: Balancing the demands of high volume service and individual attention can be very difficult especially in a place that doesn't have a menu. The first way I deal with this is to not think about making drinks. We have to make a ton of drinks, but the more focused I can be on the people at my bar the better. I rely on creating and refining systems that allow the team as a whole to execute and refine the standards of Drink.

MC: Measure or free-pour?

ES: Drink uses OXO stainless steel cups for measuring, which I find to be very quick and easy measuring tools. The problem with them, though, is that as you use them, the numbers eventually wear off, so essentially we are free-pouring our drinks. My personal preference is to free pour, but I trust myself when I make a drink. At this point I have made at least ten thousand cocktails and know by sight and feel generally what a quarter-ounce, ounce, or whatever is when it comes out of a bottle. When I go out, unless the person seems as though they know what they are doing, I prefer to see them measure.

MC: Drink that you wish more customers would order?

ES: I would love to see people ordering more brandy-based drinks, especially women. Nine times out of ten, if I have someone who claims to not like whiskey or dark alcohol, I can always surprise them with a brandy-based drink and they love it.

MC: Drink you wish customers would forget existed?

ES: The Long Island Iced Tea. I love them, but come on... I know you want to get drunk; let's be a little more aggressive. How about a 151 all-dark-alcohol Long Island?

MC: What is your most prized bartending accoutrement, e.g., spoon, ice tool, ice mold, shaker, mixing glass, knife, Lewis bag, cocktail book, serving glass, other piece of barware or glassware?

ES: My most prized bartending tool is my ice saw. I love the thing, I even engraved some stars on it to make it known to whom it belongs. Plus it looks pretty bad-ass sticking out of my bag when I'm walking to work. I feel like an Edo-period samurai walking through the city.

MC: Most annoying customer behavior?

ES: Asking about my tattoos, or grabbing my arms while I'm making drinks to ask about my tattoos.

MC, aside: Kids, remember the ice saw.

MC: Every bartender has a collection of Fiasco Moments, e.g., the tray of glasses smashed into the ice bin, the flyaway tin that resulted in a guest wearing a shakerful of cocktails, the strangers you introduced at your bar that ended up in a murder/suicide, your proud original creation that customers hated, etc. What’s a particularly egregious / entertaining one of yours?

ES: I had been working for about ten days straight and had just finished making six Ramos Gin Fizzes when on my seventh, the shaker slid from my hand and went into the lap of the person across from me at the bar and covered her in cream and egg. She was really nice about it (though I don't think she'll ever order another one), but I was pretty embarrassed.

MC: What spirit, wine or beer should more customers be trying, and what do you suggest to introduce a newbie to it?

ES: Armagnac, grappa, Cognac, anything made from grapes. A great introduction is Pierre Ferrand Ambre Cognac. I love it so much I actually have a habit of signing the back of every bottle I see.

MC: What’s the best day of the week and time of day for a customer to engage you in a leisurely, educational five-minute conversation about drinks?

ES: I am always down to talk about booze and making drinks, but because of how busy we get, I tend to ask people to come in early on Tuesday, Wednesdays or Thursdays (and by early, I mean when we open at 4pm).

MC: You may have seen this article on the in-house lingo of certain NYC bars. What’s one of your house’s code words/phrases for intra-staff communication in front of customers? 

ES: My favorite one is "In the pool", as in someone who is only getting water or is too drunk to have drinks.

MC: What’s your typical end-of-shift drink?

ES: Pierre Ferrand Ambre Cognac in a glass.

MC: What’s a great book / film / record / play / TV show you’ve consumed recently and recommend?

ES: House of Cards for a show, but I have been reading this amazing book called What the Nose Knows by Avery Gilbert and it has been blowing my mind.

MC: Do you have a guilty-pleasure drink, the kind of thing you wouldn’t want your peers or customers to catch you drinking?

ES: Apricot Sour: 2 ounces of Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot liqueur, half an ounce of simple, and half an ounce of lemon. It is so good, so sweet, and so wrong.

MC: What’s the last astonishing restaurant meal you had other than at your place?

ES: I recently went to Fairsted Kitchen and was blown away by what they are doing over there!

MC: Dr. Bartender, what’s the best cure for my hangover?

ES: An Italian Greyhound cocktail and pho. Recently after an incredible night of birthday drinking, I had to come in at noon hungover to cut some ice. The salt rim of the Italian Greyhound and the soup were the only things that got me through it.

MC: Most interesting current trend in cocktails, wine or beer?

ES: Loire Valley reds seem to be popping up all over the place. Love it!

MC: Most ridiculous / overhyped / bullshit trend?

ES: Drinking orange bitters.

MC: As a bar customer yourself, what’s one aspect of Boston’s bars that you wish more operators would do a better job of? 

ES: Good sound. So many places have shitty sound systems or sound proofing.

MC: What Greater Boston bar is absolutely killing it right now? Of all their qualities, what’s the single standout attribute that makes you want to drink there?

ES: Sarma. Amazing food, wine and cocktails. I love what these guys are doing, just wish I lived a little closer to them.

MC: What are the top destinations on your Bars of the World Bucket List?

ES: Happiness Forgets (London), Artisan (London), Callooh Callay (London), William and Graham (Denver), Honeycut (LA), Experimental Cocktail Club (Paris), The Black Pearl (Australia), Alembic (San Fran), Rick House (San Fran), Trick Dog (San Fran), Anvil (Houston).

MC: What’s the most ridiculous thing a Yelper (or other amateur reviewer) has ever said about you or the place you work?

ES: "They have a line to get in. Why don't they just let more people in?"

MC: What bartender or bar manager, currently working or retired, is your first-ballot lock for entry into Boston’s Bartending Hall of Fame? 

ES: John Gertsen and Misty Kalkofen

MC: Offer a sentence or two of advice to aspiring bartenders.

ES: Work hard, read everything you can about what you do, forget what you read, find a person who will yell at you to forget, then look at the people on the other side of the bar and get to know them.

MC: Say a few words about your most influential bartending mentor. 

ES: I have had the privilege to work for some of the industry's most amazing people, and I am still blown away by Scott Marshall [formerly of Drink, now at 22 Square in Savannah, GA.] The things I learned from him are still echoing in my mind to this day.

MC: What’s the most surprisingly useful life skill that bartending has taught you?

ES: Learning to listen to other people.

From the Archives: Five-Drink Minimum at Vinalia

Once again, I'm reprinting an ancient piece of mine from Boston's Weekly Dig that disappeared when its online archive went kablooey sometime in the summer of 2007. Five-Drink Minimum is an annual Dig feature series that sends local writers to one or more Boston bars to document a brief binge. 

My assignment in March, 2006 was to bottom-up five drinks – one of the bartender's choosing, the rest mine – at Vinalia, a bygone, fairly fancy restaurant and wine bar in Downtown Crossing that sat in the spot currently occupied by Petit Robert Central.

I think this piece demonstrates that our drinks scene has made some progress in seven years: few Boston bartenders in 2013 at this price level would have no idea what American straight rye whiskey is, and the Sex and the City-style oversized cocktail glass is thankfully on the wane.

FIVE-DRINK MINIMUM: VINALIA RESTAURANT, LOUNGE & WINE BAR 
By MC Slim JB
101 Arch Street, Downtown Crossing, 617.737.1777, www.vinaliaboston.com 
From the March 15, 2006 issue of Boston's Weekly Dig

Vinalia is determinedly modern, chicly spare and hard-edged, a polished black-granite bartop reflecting a glowing, cobalt-blue wall. Bartender Christine says, “Vinalia gets insanely packed on weeknights with after-work Financial District types. We pour many specialty cocktails, but we’re a serious wine bar. Weekends are calmer, mostly couples on dates and event groups.”

Drink 1, Christine’s choice: dreading the kind of candy-flavored fauxtini they concoct for rookies, I’m relieved instead to get a Sidecar up ($9), a grownup’s drink. Successful Sidecars hinge on fresh lemon juice: fortunately, the centerpiece of Vinalia’s bar is piles of fresh fruit. Yikes, is that a 14-ounce cocktail glass? Five of these will coldcock me.

Drink 2, (the rest are my choices): Manhattan up ($9). At most joints, asking for rye – the original Manhattan base, not bourbon (look it up) – creates confusion. “I don’t think we stock rye,” says Christine. “Canadian whisky* comes close,” I offer. “Use Crown Royal.” The result sports just the right Angostura accent: smooooth.

Drink 3: Time to switch to wine, or I’ll be stumbling into the path of a Silver Line bus. The by-the-glass list is diverse and sensibly priced for a bar this swanky. Feeling magnanimous after two birdbaths of fancy hooch, I order a 2004 Contratto Panta Rei Barbera d’Asti ($11), a complex, hot Piemontese red served in a quality balloon wineglass. Under the eerie blue lighting, it looks like chocolate syrup. Drinking rich sure is easy when the boss is paying.

Drink 4: The bar is full of witty, gorgeous young devotees of Bacchus, or so the knots of friends at the lounge tables appear to my lubricated senses. I’m ready to jet to Tuscany with a 2004 Villa Vignamaggio Chianti ($10), from a winery I once visited on a holiday stopover in Greve, the very spot where Mona Lisa sat for Leonardo. Overcome with nostalgia and the realization that I haven’t had a real vacation in years, I decide this wine is both awesome and a little sad. 

Drink 5: The homestretch calls for something short and sweet, an Austrian dessert wine, a 2005 Weinlaubenhof Alois Kracher Beerenauslese Cuvee ($11), which I mistakenly fancy I can actually pronounce. It’s a viscous, flowery, golden little cup of nectar, and I feel ever-so-worldly for knowing about it. Pretty soon it’s done, and so am I. I grip the handrail tightly on the long escalator ride down and out of the bubble of ease and savoir-faire that Vinalia creates, emerging unsteadily into the windblown trash of Downtown Crossing.

* I included this aside to my editor: “Please note the spelling ‘whisky’ (no ‘e’) for Canadian and Scotch, not ‘whiskey’, the spelling used for the American and Irish spirits.” He ignored me.

Green Street in Cambridge, MA: Sterling Cocktail Craft in a Plain Brown Wrapper

[This is a reprint of a piece I wrote for Serious Eats, originally published on May 23, 2011. All photos by MC Slim JB.]

Acolytes of Boston's craft cocktail revival periodically bow in the direction of Cambridge's bygone B-Side Lounge, which in 1998 debuted the area's first modern bar program focused on lovingly-made pre-Prohibition cocktails and modern drinks inspired by them. Equally significant, the B-Side trained a generation of bartenders that have since fanned out to evangelize the craft cocktail movement at bars all over the city. One of its first true progeny was Green Street, a venerable old haunt in Cambridge's Central Square that B-Side alumnus Dylan Black bought in 2006 and thoroughly reinvented. Green Street still attracts a local crowd that reflects the remarkable diversity of its Cambridgeport neighborhood, but also now ranks as one of Boston's foremost places to get a serious drink.

Green Street's weathered brick façade nestles between an ancient Greek-American club and a featureless parking garage on a nondescript block just off Mass Ave. Nothing about its exterior suggests it might compete with swank Boston craft-cocktail kingpins like Drink and Eastern Standard. Granted, its current interior is handsome compared to its prior incarnations: the funkily run-down bar / live-music venue / tropical-food joint Green Street Grill, or the gritty workingman's tavern Charlie's Tap. But it still has the casual, inviting feel of a local hang: a long, narrow, dimly-lit bar that leads to a bustling open kitchen at the back, with a quieter, more spacious dining room a few steps up and to the left. At its face, you'd never guess its bar program might be remarkable. Ask the barman for a bourbon cocktail, watch him stir up a beauty like The Hague ($8.50: W.L. Weller Special Reserve, green Chartreuse, French vermouth), and you might start to wonder otherwise.

Another reason that Green Street flies under the radar is that craft cocktails aren't its only draw. The kitchen turns out a popular menu of mid-priced, updated New England cuisine with plenty of local seafood ($8-13 starters, a terrific $11 burger, $17-24 mains.) There are also fine simple bar snacks like housemade potato chips and dip ($4). The geeky beer list favors small artisanal producers: ten on tap ($5.50-$7) and another couple dozen in bottles and cans (mostly $4-$6), including some large-format and high-ABV entries ($10-$21). Wines are well-suited to the straightforward food: four whites and four reds by the glass ($8-$10), a dozen whites and another two dozen reds by the bottle ($31-$56), plus a few sparklers and dessert wines. Green Street wants all comers, not just the cocktail nerds.

But cocktail aficionados will quickly notice the presence of craft touchstones like the 30s-vintage Zombie, an authentic Tiki drink, and the Golden-Age classic Monkey Gland ($8.50: gin, absinthe, fresh orange juice, house-made grenadine). Cognoscenti know to ask for the "Big List", which features 100 entries. (Changed a few times a year, it's actually a subset of an even-larger master cocktail list.) The range here is staggering, covering the length of the quality-spirits waterfront, showcasing Black's globetrotting interest in rum but also touching every of-the-moment craft-bartending staple.

There's pure-agave tequila and single-village mezcal; American straight rye, bourbon and applejack; British gin and blended Canadian whisky; monastery cordials and bracing bitters; interesting aromatized and fortified wines. There are hot drinks, Champagne-topped drinks, and drinks with raw eggs, like the refreshing fizz that is the Taxco ($7.50: silver tequila, fresh lime juice, agave nectar, orange bitters, egg white and seltzer). The Big List runs the gamut from the Colonial period through the Golden Age right up to the modern moment. It's a wonderland, an imbiber's amusement park with too many rides to explore in a month, let alone a weekend.

In addition to simpler snacks, the bar menu reflects the old-time kitchen craft of the gastropub, as evidenced by nightly-changing $5 plates of offal (like one evening's Buffalo-style fried chicken livers) and charcuterie (like gorgeous pork rillettes with rhubarb chutney). As important as quality drinks and food, Green Street embodies a humble hospitality ethos that makes it an excellent venue for introducing the uninitiated into the sometimes daunting world of craft cocktails. For example, it carries a decent selection of vodka, a hugely popular spirit that many craft bartenders sneer at as too featureless to merit shelf space. You can peruse Green Street's short cocktail list in a couple of minutes, finding plenty of accessible if not familiar choices, like the Bohemian (gin, St. Germain, fresh grapefruit, Peychaud's bitters), Stone Fence (bourbon, cider, Angostura bitters), and Aqueduct (vodka, apricot liqueur, Cointreau, fresh lime juice). Non-beer-geeks can comfortably order $3 Buds and High Lifes.

Even the most pedestrian cocktail order is filled with precision, quality spirits and fresh ingredients, as in the Margarita Bermejo ($8) of pure-agave silver tequila, Cointreau, and fresh lemon and lime juices. Green Street's bartenders are serious and scholarly, but they won't try to shame you out of your regular tipple, or regale you with an unsolicited lesson in cocktail history. This is first and foremost a neighborhood bar; it just happens to select and pour its drinks with extraordinary care and creativity, as in Avery's Arrack-Ari ($8.50: Batavia arrack, fresh lime juice, simple syrup, and a rinse of Talisker 10-Year-Old single-malt Scotch.)

You don't have to be a connoisseur to appreciate this place, but there's a reason you'll spot many of the city's best bartenders drinking here on their own time. In creating a bar program that is at once ambitious and highly accessible, Black had done both the neighborhood he grew up in and his B-Side roots proud. Cloaking its reverence for cocktail craft in unpretentious conviviality, Green Street is slyly advancing the movement, reaching a cross-section of customers that might never patronize its tonier peers across the river. It's a lively tent-revival meeting, not a grand cathedral—a welcoming place to bring your cocktail-skeptical pals, where Green Street's gifted staff can work their understated, friendly proselytizing. Say amen, somebody.

Green Street
280 Green Street, Cambridge, MA 02139- (near Pearl Street; map)
617-876-1655; greenstreetgrill.com

The Bar at Clio (Boston, MA): Todd Maul's Cannonball in the Craft Cocktail Pool

[This is a reprint of a piece I wrote for Serious Eats, originally published on February 28, 2011. All photos by MC Slim JB.]

For over ten years, I'd been dropping by the small, handsomely modern bar at Clio Restaurant in the Back Bay and thinking, "What a waste! Here's celeb-chef Ken Oringer's flagship restaurant, serving some of the most beautiful New French food in the city. There's Uni Sashimi Bar downstairs, one of the great joints of its type in town. So why does the bar feature these horrible Sex and the City flavored-vodka cocktails?" Mercifully, change finally came last year, in the form of a largely unheard-of, self-effacing, enormously talented new bar manager by the name of Todd Maul.

Maybe Oringer got tired of customers asking why Clio's bar was so feeble while Toro and Coppa, his terrific mid-priced South End restaurants, had strong cocktail programs. Whatever the reason, he lured Maul away from Harvard Square's Rialto, another fancy hotel restaurant. Maul had certainly flown under my craft-bartender radar. Unlike many of his more-celebrated peers, he hadn't passed through Boston's No. 9 Park or Cambridge's bygone B-Side Lounge. So when he debuted a mammoth, ambitious new menu of pre-Prohibition classics, Tiki cocktails, and high-craft originals accented with fillips of molecular gastronomy, it was like a cannonball in Clio's sleepy pool, and I didn't see the splash coming.

American rye, gin, applejack, cognac? Interesting vermouths, bitters, monastery cordials and housemade Swedish punsch? Smoked ice? Hallelujah! Essaying the ten-chapter list is initially daunting, but a good springboard for the evening is the Tiki Drinks and Daiquiris section. This honors the recent revival of traditional Tiki cocktails pioneered in 1930s Hollywood by Donn Beach at his seminal Don the Beachcomber.

Dr. Funk's Cousin ($13) mixes Gosling's dark rum, fresh lemon and lime juices, housemade grenadine, simple syrup, soda, and fresh ground cinnamon. Stirred over ice and served in a retro moai ceramic mug, it embodies the classic rum/lime/sugar combination central to the authentic Tiki canon. Aside from its potency and the kitschy serving vessel, this drink is impossible to confuse with the fake-Tiki dreck served at suburban Polynesian restaurants and student hellholes like Cambridge's Hong Kong.

Having a second cocktail without some food would be a mistake. Now might be a good moment to order some of Clio's exquisite bar nibbles, like salt cod croquettes ($11) with black-garlic aioli, and from Uni's menu, a sashimi of Maine lobster tail ($16): gorgeous, delicately rich in flavor, a bargain.

While awaiting these snacks, you might scan the Aperitif section and land on the New Amsterdam ($13): Bols Genever, Averna (a bitter yet sweetly syrupy Sicilian amaro), fresh lemon juice, Bitter Truth celery bitters, and salt. Shaken over ice, strained into a coupe, it impresses with the clear, malty flavors of genever, not unlike an unaged whiskey, with restrained sour and savory elements. It's beautifully balanced: a proper aperitif.

Moving on to the Non-Thirteen Dollar Drinks section, you might note how Maul takes liberties with a Great War vintage classic like the gin-based French 75 ($10). Says Maul, "I've never seen a Frenchman drink gin", so he switches in Cognac alongside the traditional mix of Luxardo Triplum triple sec, fresh lemon juice and Champagne. The result falls somewhere between Sidecar and a Champagne cocktail—a refreshing and attractive update.

Beyond cocktails, there's an extensive list of wines by the glass ($10-$28) and a shorter sake list. The globetrotting bottled beer selection surprises with three Southeast Asian lagers—Lao, Chang and Saigon—at the sweet, sweet price of $3 a pop. A long list of whiskeys favors pricey single-malt Scotches and boutique bourbons. As Clio and Uni are among Boston's costliest restaurants, the crowd runs older, conservatively well-dressed and prosperous. Rest rooms are hidden downstairs off the hotel lobby; you might want to map out the twisting route to them before your third round.

Throughout, Maul works more cleverly with cane spirits than many bars that boast about them, studiously avoids cliché, and trains his lieutenants so well you don't need to skip his nights off. He still has room to grow: hardcore cocktail geeks could wish for more whole-egg drinks, hand-carved ice, and larger-format punches (though he pours some fine two-handers, like a swinging Singapore Sling for $25) Regardless, he merits a fat gold star for lifting the bar at Clio out of that deep, sorry trough of upscale Boston watering holes with three yards of glittering vodkas and zero precision, cocktail scholarship or passion. In short, he has utterly remade it into something worthy of Clio and Uni's extraordinary food and service. With gratitude, all I can say is, "It's about bloody time."

Clio Restaurant
Eliot Hotel, 370A Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215-2801 (Near Massachusetts Avenue; map)
617-536-7200

My Debut as Boston Cocktail Writer for Serious Eats

I'm thrilled to announce my first contribution to Serious Eats as a writer covering the Boston cocktail scene. It's a review of one of my favorite craft cocktail bars of the moment: the bar at Clio Restaurant and Uni Sashimi Bar in the Eliot Hotel in Boston's Back Bay. I chose it for my Serious Eats debut because as wonderful as it is, the bar and its gifted manager Todd Maul tend to get overlooked even by serious cocktail aficionados who follow more celebrated local bartenders at better-known venues like Drink, Eastern Standard and Green Street.

Writing for Serious Eats is seriously exciting for me: it's the single biggest, most influential blog in North America focused on the enjoyment of food and drink, both out on the town and at home. Based in New York, with great content on the New York scene, it's the home of one of my favorite food writers, the food scientist, gifted chef, recipe maven, Boston ex-pat and MIT alumnus J. Kenji Alt-Lopez. Plus it dives deeply and nerdily into specialty areas like hamburgers, pizza, and recipes for home cooks.

I'm honored that they asked me to make the first Boston contribution to their new Drinks section dedicated to beverages of all stripes, including coffee, tea, beer, wine, spirits, soft drinks, drink-making techniques, books and equipment, food/drink pairings -- and of course, quality cocktails and the bars and bartenders that serve them.

Here's an example of how influential this site is: a year ago, Serious Eats picked up "27 Really Terrible Boston Restaurant Names", a piece I wrote on this blog that satirizes Boston restaurants with less-than-great names. On a typical day, my blog gets a few hundred hits. After Serious Eats linked to it, it got thousands of visits a day for a week, and the essay inspired similar pieces in several cities around the US. Their readership is huge and loyal.

I expect this will be the first in a series of reviews of my favorite places for a well-made drink in Greater Boston. I hope you like it, and I look forward to writing more!

From the Archives: Five Reasons to Dine at the Bar

I'm republishing a piece here from June 2005 that hasn't been available online for years. This one is special to me: it's the first food/drinks story I ever published professionally, a cover feature for Stuff Magazine (then known as Stuff@Night) on why bar dining is often superior to a table in the dining room. See if you think it still holds up.

FIVE REASONS TO DINE AT THE BAR
by MC Slim JB
[originally published as the cover feature of the June 9, 2005 issue of Stuff@Night]

As a longtime Bostonian who loves to dine out, I struggle with conflicting goals. I want to eat well, but can’t afford to patronize luxury establishments every week. Fast food is cheap and tasty, but I hate the nausea and regret a half-hour later. One of my best strategies is to frequent mid-priced places and dine at the bar. It’s low-fuss, you often get better food and service, and it’s friendly and fun, especially if you’re dining solo.


My Belly Doesn’t Need Ms. Right; It Needs Ms. Right Now

There are few civilized pleasures as sublime as the two-hour-plus weekend prime-time dinner. Consider Union Bar and Grill, one of the South End’s sleeker, more well-oiled dining entertainment machines. Sliding into a glossy banquette for a Friday 8pm reservation, the four of us are a little dressed up and a lot revved up. We kick off with expertly-made cocktails, dulling the keen edge of hunger with the gratis cornbread and excellent butter.

We uncork a Chianti Classico to go with appetizers of short ribs, beet salad, and chorizo-and-corn risotto. Next, we attack entrees of lamb rack, pork tenderloin, roast chicken, and codfish. We pause a bit to take in the scenery before lingering over a five-item cheese plate with perfect accompaniments, washed down with a couple of glasses of port and an espresso or two. By the time 11pm rolls around, we’ve passed an entire languid evening of very pleasant food and solicitous service, amplified by a little hot-spot atmosphere, for a mere $350.

While lovely, this pricey scenario doesn’t quite play on Wednesday night, when it’s just two of us wandering into Union at 9pm, looking not quite daisy-fresh in rumpled work clothes, feeling irritable with stress and hunger. This moment calls for our light, tight, weeknight strategy:

1. Pass on the hosts’ offer of a ready dining room table in favor of bar seats.
2. Get a beer, a glass of wine, and two sandwich plates – a hefty Rueben and an Andouille-flecked hamburger with excellent frites. Appreciate the real care in the preparation (a burger actually cooked medium rare as ordered, and mmm, those frites).
3. Wrap it up in under an hour, for about $50 including tax and tip.
4. Feel good about minding our mid-week budget, avoiding delivery of bad Chinese or pizza, and not dreading the alarm-clock detonation we face in a few hours.
5. Congratulate ourselves on being frugal, canny urban diners-at-the-bar.
   

My Folks Told Me Never to Talk to Strangers

There seems to be an unwritten rule at fine dining establishments in this town: you don’t chat much with nearby tables. Near as I can tell, there are two exceptions: 1) wishing someone a happy birthday or whatever occasion was just signaled by a candle-lit dessert (and hopefully, not a song); and 2) asking them what enticing plate just arrived at their table, so you can order it, too. At best, any other topic is likely to get you a look of polite forbearance that is clearly two seconds from curdling into disdain. We don’t mind looking at the pretty strangers next to us, we just don’t want them talking to us.

If you crave a little bonhomie with your steak-frites, you’ll have to dine at the bar. (This also applies to the comparatively rare communal table, but we’ll save that one for another time.) Maybe it’s that you are sitting close, or have better access to the social lubricant of alcohol, but bar diners converse far more easily than their dining-room counterparts.

Consider my recent visit to Dedo, a year-old little sleeper of a New American restaurant near Park Square. I come looking to sample the cuisine of its new chef, Jason Santos, whose work I admired at Tremont 647. Dedo serves some great-looking small plates in the bar, but not in the dining room. I love the Spanish custom of nibbling tapas early in the evening, so I opt for the bar.

It isn’t long before the parade of little bites I’ve ordered gets my neighbors sharing dining-out stories with me. Everyone oohs at my “cappuccino” of sweetbreads and black truffles in a stiff sauce and a blanket of chestnut foam, served in a china latte cup. Despite the precious presentation, it’s a rocking little stew, a minor symphony of richness and slightly spongy textures. I marvel at the deviled eggs (here, done with tuna sashimi for filling, with nary a hint of mayonnaise), and recall other favorite versions (Mom’s, which hews to the circa-1960 Good Housekeeping canon, and Oleana’s, which adds poached tuna and olives to the filling.) A businessman from L.A. boasts of the dining palaces out West he’s visited while chasing the perfect poke (pronounced “pokey”), a raw tuna salad of Hawaiian origin – he rates Dedo’s very highly.

While we talk mostly of food that night, the scenario echoes a thousand similar moments I’ve enjoyed: a few strangers holding a friendly debate over dinner on the finer points of baseball, movies, music, drinking, and/or the attractiveness of the bar’s other patrons. What’s nearly taboo in the dining room is welcome in the bar. I’ve made many pleasant acquaintances and business connections this way, enjoying what might otherwise have been a dull hour or two. Actually interacting with your fellow man: it’s one of simplest and most accessible pleasures of dining at the bar.


The Best Server in the Room

In a handful of places in Boston, the bartender is such a multi-talented, genial host that you hate to hazard the dining room. Joe Carbonaro at Caffe Umbra is one of these, the rare barman who can deftly juggle responsibilities -- mixologist, wine steward, waiter, busboy, raconteur, and confidante -- and make it look easy, with grace and aplomb, like a professional athlete.

I rate him the best pure bartender in the South End (no faint praise -- there’s a lot of talent with shakers nearby): he just plain pours a beautiful drink. He crafted the restaurant’s signature cocktail menu, placing his own stamp on the classics, like a Negroni punched up with Punt e Mes. He’s on intimate terms with the wine list, quick with thoughtful food-and-wine pairings, slow to push the most expensive stuff, able to hold forth on esoteric dessert wines. That’s in between making drinks for everybody in the place, and serving dinner in the bar.

Joe approaches the food side of the job with similar seriousness and relish. He’s a subtle and effective salesman for Laura Brennan’s innovative rustic Italian and French cuisine, telling you exactly what he loves about each dish. He shows a Sicilian-American’s appreciation of the simple, beautiful ingredients on most plates here, like the asparagus shoots that accompany a torta appetizer. Despite a trim frame, he affects a gourmand’s lust for the pastry chef’s work. “You didn’t order this, but you have to – it’s off the charts”, say Joe of one of several nightly homemade ice creams, a melon-Sambuca number. We trust him, despite the unseemly combination. He’s right: it is spectacular, with a big upfront melon zing that fades almost completely to make way for an extended anise finish. Strange and utterly wonderful. Thanks, Joe!

Not to knock the dining room staff at Caffe Umbra; I’ve eaten in the back many times, and they too are skillful, polished and personable. But they’re not as much fun to watch work, and aren’t in the same position to regale us with stories about neighborhood goings-on. The wait staff doesn’t have the dedication to the art of tippling to solicit patrons’ opinions on the latest crazy super-premium liquor to hit the market (anyone for a sample of the new cherry-flavored rye?). If it’s Joe’s night off, or there are no seats at the bar, we head someplace else. We can barely imagine eating any other way there anymore.


The Food Here Sucks, Let’s Eat at the Bar

My beloved is giggling at a laptop in the next room. “What’s so funny?”, I call out. “Oh. My. God. Have you seen the glamour photos of Todd English on toddenglish.com?” “Yeah,” I reply: “Don’t hate him because he’s beautiful. Hate him because he’s too busy flogging his latest casino venture to stand at a stove in the town that put him on the map.”

Maybe that’s not fair; Todd probably does don a toque occasionally hereabouts, but I know few once-rabid fans like myself who aren’t in mourning for the days, now more than a decade past, when he was the deserving, white-hot focal point of the Boston fine-dining scene. The Charlestown Olives created some of the most exciting food I’d ever seen, and served it up with real verve, the kind of experience for which we’d tolerate a hateful no-reservations policy and two-hour waits in the packed bar. Currently, that kitchen cranks out obviously premade, not-always-fully-reheated appetizers to a crowd of undiscriminating tourists. Latecoming locals must wonder what all the fuss was about.

Worse still are lackluster outliers of the English empire like Bonfire, a steakhouse that has Todd’s brand but none of his formidable virtues (I’m talking about cooking, not marketing.) My several underwhelming meals here have featured grotesquely oversized slabs of over-charred pork and beef, brought by staffers who seem mightily self-impressed for no reason related to their actual service skills. I think the dining room looks fantastic – I’ll admit to a soft spot for that Phillipe Starck-designed bordello vibe -- and I admire the wine list’s South American depth. But the food regularly disappoints, at really high prices. I just kind of hate it.

But I join Bonfire’s often-lively bar scene on occasion, resisting the staff’s insistent promotion of their over-sugared travesty of a Caipirinha. To my bemusement, the same kitchen that fails in the dining room succeeds in the bar, where it serves up lip-smacking tacos and small plates like tempura green beans. Even better, you can get these nice-priced gourmet snacks at an hour when few places in the Back Bay are still hopping (till 1:30am Wednesday through Saturday).

I haven’t forgiven Todd for big-timing his local former devotees. But late-night grazing at Bonfire’s bar does help me to forget for a moment how success spoiled a one-time favorite. “Gimme an El Tesoro Plata margarita straight up, please, and some smoked-duck taquitos -- hold the Vanity Fair spread.”


Don’t Look at the Pitiful Lonely Freak -- Maybe He’ll Go Away

Business travelers, stop me if you’ve heard this one: after a long workday in a strange city, you let your hosts go home to the bosom of their families for dinner. You’ve done enough homework to dodge the room-service turkey club: trusted local sources have pointed you to some worthy restaurants. A quick taxi ride later, and you’re greedily surveying an interesting menu, proud to be an intrepid, globetrotting epicure.

But before the appetizer arrives, you notice the unwelcome glances. That mooning, hand-holding couple across the aisle give you matching tight smiles that say, “Someday, modern medicine will cure your scrofula or whatever it is that keeps you in your sad prison of one.” The wary glares from the next booth’s klatch of sharply-turned-out young professional women send a rather different message: “Look at us again, pervert, and we’ll stone you to death with our teeny cellphones”. Mercifully, you have a paperback to bury your nose in, thus avoiding further eye contact.

Now the weird part: the next time you’re out to dinner in Boston with a group of your attractive friends, you espy some poor benighted soul at a table for one. And despite having walked several miles in those moccasins, your first thought is, “Oh, the poor leper! Why didn’t the maitre’d just lead her quietly out back where she could shoot herself?” Remember this moment the next time you’re out on your own. Preserve your dignity, and avoid harshing the buzz of diners who are trying to share laughter and witty conversation as well as fine food and drink. Eat at the bar. You already have enough other good reasons to do so. FIN

N.B. After this was published, women friends of mine pointed out that solo bar dining doesn't work nearly as well for women as men -- that unwelcome attention from boys on the prowl is often an unfortunate consequence of sitting at the bar without a companion. Shame on me for not considering this issue and mentioning it. (It was my first feature.)

N.B. 2 Special thanks once again to Scott Kathan of Stuff@Night for plucking me from the ranks of amateur reviewers on Chowhound.com and giving me my first shot at writing professionally! I've published hundreds of pieces since, and now write food/drinks features and two Boston restaurant-review columns (On the Cheap and Food Coma) for The Boston Phoenix and Stuff Magazine. See my blog for links to most of my professional work.