Cheers is dedicated to delivering hospitality professionals the information, insights and data necessary to drive their beverage business by covering trends and innovations in operations, merchandising, service and training.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/458161
www.cheersonline.com 33 January/February 2015 • makes for great cocktails, too. At the Yardbird in Miami, the Porkchop cocktail plays on classic ingredients often paired with pork—apples and mustard—and mixes bour- bon with a house Dijon simple syrup, cider and thyme. GIN UP Gin is the latest alcoholic beverage to have its moment in the sun. New York's Gin Palace offers only gins and gin-based cocktails with more than 70 varieties available to sample, plus the house specialty: Gin & Tonics on tap. Spaniards are obsessed with their Gin Tonics (as they call them). Special bars dedicated to the drink have sprung up all over the country—each one mixing up custom Gin & Tonics with obscure tonics and artisanal gins. (For more on gins—and tonics—see page 10.) THAT'S QUITE A PACKAGE Restaurant and wineries are getting creative and having fun with wine presentation. Wine bottled in 1-litre, old fashioned milk bottles? Yes please! That's how Vaso di Marina, made by Portalupi Winery, is packaged. The wine can be found at Duboce Park Café and Precita Park Café in San Francisco. Wine fl ights are served in test tubes at Wine Lab in Costa Mesa, CA, which is a fun nod to the bar's scientifi c name. And wine labels with bold creative names like WTF Pinot Noir and GR8 Cabernet Sauvignon will continue to rise in popularity, taking the snobbery out of wine drink- ing often associated with the Boomer generation. THE TRIPLE D: DRAMATIC DRINK DELIVERY Restaurants and bars are sharing moments of delight and spectacle as they up their drink delivery game. Gaspar Brasserie in San Francisco, for instance, offers the Cafe Brulot, a classic New Orleans after-dinner drink; it's served tableside, where it is set afl ame before being extinguished with coffee. The Library at NYC's NoMad Hotel is taking bottle service to the next level. Bottles ar- rive on a custom-designed bar cart with three premixed cocktails and all of the fi xings. For example, a bottle of gin comes with the ingredients for a Negroni, a Southside and a Gin-Gin Mule. You also receive cocktail tools, ice and a plethora of bitters, ver- mouths and sweeteners if you'd rather go freestyle. ON THE VINE—WINE WORLD TRENDS Sustainability is going mainstream: Virtually every win- ery and vineyard is continuing the movement toward a more holistic approach to growing grapes and making wine. It's a practical movement to adapt to changing con- ditions in both the economy and the environment. Blended wines will continue to gain popularity and see double-digit sales growth. And easy-drinking wines from Portugal (vinho verde) and South America will continue to grow in popularity in the coming year. FINESSE THE FROZEN DAIQUIRI The Island Oasis machine meets the artisanal movement. Bartenders are creating house-made mixes with locally sourced, seasonal ingredients and loading up the machine for positive profi t margins and crowd-pleasing slushes. What's a Caribbean- infl uenced restaurant without frozen drinks? At Brooklyn's Battery Harris, the slushy machines are pumping out Dark and Stormys made with toasted fi ve-spice ginger reduction. Palm House in San Francisco offers a rotating seasonal frozen house spe- cialty cocktail. You can add a dark rum fl oat if you're feel- ing extra decadent. INTO THE NITRO The next big thing in coffee is nitrogen. Flash-brewed ice coffee is placed under nitrogen to enhance its natural sweetness while diminishing its acidity. When poured, the resulting nitro coffee delivers a stunning cascading effect and rich, creamy mouthfeel. You might even mis- take it for Guinness stout until you taste it. We're seeing this trend in third-wave coffee houses across the country, including Stumptown in Portland, OR, San Francisco's Coffee Bar (which serves Mr. Espresso coffee) and Minneapolis's Spyhouse. Andrew Freeman is president of Andrew Freeman & Co., a boutique hospitality- and restaurant-consulting fi rm based in San Francisco. MARKETING MATTERS PHOTO CREDIT: MAYA PLACIDO Gaspar Brasserie in San Francisco serves the Cafe Brulot after-dinner drink tableside, where it is set afl ame then extinguished with coffee. Palm House in San Francisco offers a rotating seasonal specialty frozen cocktail.