When you first arrive in a new country, even with only a few hours sleep, your senses are galvanised. Every billboard is read, mariachi songs in other people cars are overheard, every scent is inhaled and categorised. In Texas, it’s ‘fried food’; in Guadalajara it’s more of a ‘freshly grilled’. It’s more, much more, enticing. I’m here to eattheshitoutof any food I can get my hands on. It goes without saying; food lies entrenched in a Mexicans soul.

But I’m not necessarily here for the food, or the mariachi bands, or even the cheap ponchos and Luca Libre masks. I’m here for the Tequila. A spirit that to be honest with you, I don’t really get. I mean, I guess I like it. I drink a lot of it. But I just don’t understand the complete fascination bartenders have for it. I’m a Scotch guy. I don’t think there’s a spirit in the world that has as much flavour diversity. From the bacon-scented bad boys from Islay, to the neutral blends of J&B. I love them all. I drink them mostly, I’ve been to their distilleries, and I have them in my optic pourer in my living room. (Oban 14 and Johnnie Gold currently). I guess I am kind of bias to a certain extent. I’ve grown in hospitality around Scotch lovers. I was passionate about Scotch. Passionate not so much, about Tequila. Over the course of a week I was going to attempt to inherit this passion. With the help of some friends that make the biggest brand in tequila, Jose Cuervo, the people that make my most beloved brand, Don Julio and some friends that make one of the best up and coming brands, Calle 23.

Jalisco is the state, in which Guadalajara is the capital. Tequila is the town, an hour out of Guadalajara, where the majority of the action happens. An exact number of distilleries I’m unsure of. Conflicting figures from different sources means I estimate it at about 20-27 distilleries within this tiny village. These distilleries, combined with the ones in the highlands, and the other four states in Mexico legally allowed to make Tequila produce in total a staggering 1600 or so Tequilas. And it’s growing by the day. Tequila is a big, big deal.

But before I hit tequila town I had some “research” to do. Four days in Guadalajara to get to know the people, the bars, the culture and, unfortunately for me, the toilets. At least the spice here is keeping me regular. Our guide is Stefano Francavilla, A Milanese expat who has been eating, breathing, living and making Tequila for five years now. He’s an ex London bartender who came to Mexico for travel, fell in love with the country and a local girl, and is now proud to call it home. He is one half of the operation that founded the Calle 23 brand, along with the lovely, French-born, Sophie Decobecq. Like most northern Italians he’s covered in tattoos and full of cynicism. On meeting him, It takes roughly 4-5 minutes before he insults me. My type of guy.

He shows us to a local cantina that seems to predominantly cater for middle-age locals. We order a round of cervezas accompanied, of course, with Tequila. The 70ml servings of Tapatio blanco wash down trays of tacos we didn’t order. In his restaurant you don’t order food. They just bring it to you. When you are full, you tell them to stop bringing you food. But the food is quite hard to say no to. Eating food you didn’t order, in a country where you don’t speak the language means its quite a lucky dip with what you are eating. I’m surprised to find out I’m actually enjoying tripe for the first time. Albeit in the form of the filling encased in a crispy shell, covered in hot sauce. Tripe has always been the holy grail of me in terms of eating. Give me liver, kidneys, brain, testicles and hearts any day. Just don’t give me the stomach lining of a cow. Maybe next time it’s on a menu I’ll order it, and ask the chef to bust out the Old el Taco kit. A third of a bottle of tequila later, and three or four beers later, (shit, who’s counting?) we pay he bill and agree to a siesta to calibrate, then to meet again that evening for dinner and drinks. And no doubt more Tequila.

This day set the precedent for the following three. Wake up, wander around local markets, eat, get a beer, siesta, meet with friends, eat, drink tequila, eat again, and sleep. This routine was broken with a night at the Luca Libre, otherwise known as Mexican Wrestling. Great times were had, maybe on my behalf a little too enthusiastically.  Apparently I’m the first person Stefano has seen kicked out of Luca Libre. Whatever. It was onwards to Wednesday and our date with Mark and a tour of the home of the third biggest brand in booze, Jose Cuervo.

To be continued..

A strange thing is happening here in Sydney, Australia’s biggest city. It’s 4.1 million population is about to increase to a couple more. The arrival of Perth/Edinburgh/Melbourne/Singapore bartending legend Adi Ruiz, and his lovely wife Missy, are about to land smack-bang in the middle of a Sydney Summer. And they’re here to stay. If you don’t know him, check this out. (Mmmm, gotta love those “delicate aromatics”).

Adi is the newest Melbourne identity to move to Sydney in recent years. He follows in the footsteps of Shae Silvestro, Matt Barnett, Bondi-Robb Sloan, Jason Williams and Myself whom have all found the casual beach lifestyle appealing.

It’s making me think, Why though? For the international guest, the sun and beach life is exactly what you are after when you move to Oz. Sydney offers that. A big city, with a beautiful harbour, and a two month “winter”.

But what does Sydney offer to Australians, and Melburnians in particular in the way of a change of scene. First of all, the weather ain’t that much better than down south. It’s a fact that Sydney receives as much annual rain fall as Melbourne. If you want good weather. It’s hard to go past the seven-month summers of Perth.

Next, it can’t be cheaper. Rental in the popular eastern suburbs of Sydney is going through the roof. A typical room, in a share house with two others, in a nice-ish suburb will set you back at least $250 a week. More if you wanna live by those famous beaches.

Then again it can’t be the food can it? Although Sydney ranks among having Australia’s most three-hatted restaurants, bartenders don’t eat there. The cities posh eateries do not filter down the ranks, and have as many well-run and good value spots as its east-coast neighbours. Brisbane and Melbourne have an absolute abundance of single operator, quirky, and fantastic places to dine on the cheap. Now that’s more within my budget.

Last but not least, it’s certainly not the culture. Now I’m not talking about Museums, and galleries. Every city has those. In fact if you wanna get down and dirty I’d say The Art Gallery of South Australia has had the most interesting exhibitions in the past twelve months. I’m talking about street culture. Photographers, artists, buskers, and bands. These are the texture of a city. It’s lifeblood. These people give the city a heart beat. Not just a pretty background. For a big city, Sydney struggles to keep up with its Melbourne counterparts. I’m fighting myself to not say the most cultured thing in Sydney is its Yoghurt. I failed.

If it’s not any of those things it has to be something else calling bartenders around the country to move to Sydney. After living in Sydney now for over a year, I think I know what it is. Some call it money but I prefer a more romantic term. I call it hope. Sydney is a city of opportunities for anyone within the Australian hospitality community.

After ten years bartending guys like myself reach a point where they can go only a few ways in this trade. One is to get cynical, start hating customers, grow miserable, and bar-tend until your 70. No thanks, I don’t wanna be like The Maestro. If you’re the proactive type you can move into brands. Be a rep for a company you like. Or one you don’t like if you’re really over bartending. Stuff it, open your own bar! It’s a better bet it will succeed in Sydney. Melbourne currently has a Cocktail bar ratio of 1 per 1.2 people*. (*Ratio may be fictional)

At the end of the day Sydney is a pretty tempting destination. I guess the weather is usually pretty good (apart from this Summer), the rental is relative to earnings (I am earning more here), I have my good Cafe spots around town, and there is a pretty sweet Picasso exhibition on in Sydney at the moment!

You can’t  argue bartending traffic is coming into Sydney at a faster pace than it was five years ago. Bartenders are seeing possibilities that weren’t here before. More people, more tips, smaller bars opening, more like-minded operators. These all add up to Sydney yearning to returning to being Australia’s bar capital.

That’s if the guys from Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide,and Perth don’t have anything to do with it.

Cuba Australis!

 And it was awfully refreshing, so the bird ate another one. Then another. And soon, the bird started feeling pretty good about his life…pretty darn good, actually. After all, here he was, eating grapes on a warm, sunny afternoon and, what the heck, it was prehistoric times, so it’s not like he had anything else to do that day. SO he called his bird friends over to try these new grapes, and soon enough, they were full of good cheer, too, squawking and doing stunt cartwheels in the sky to impress some of the female birds who, having had a few too many grapes of their own, began flashing their plumage.

An ancient man saw this. And he saw that it was good.”

Exert taken from Alcoholica Estorica by Ian Lendler. 2005

If you don’t already have this book, get it.

]]> http://drinktheshitoutofit.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/the-birth-of-alcohol/feed/ 0 timdphilips ALCOHOL http://drinktheshitoutofit.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/competition-drinks-2-0/ http://drinktheshitoutofit.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/competition-drinks-2-0/#comments Mon, 26 Dec 2011 07:24:56 +0000 timdphilips http://drinktheshitoutofit.wordpress.com/?p=355 Continue reading →]]> A while ago I posted the first of my two drinks I made to take out the Australian Bartender Magazine Bartender of the Year comp. I promised I would post the other one, so here it is.

The initial thought behind this one was to really bring a show to the main stage at the final.  I wanted the drink to first-and-foremost taste delicious. Secondly I wanted to tell a story with it, and present it in a way that had never been done before. I wanted the judges to be truly wowed.

The drink itself is quite a simple one. Made up of one of the competition sponsors malt Whiskys (Oban 14y.o), orange and grapefruit juice and maraschino. When made this cocktail comes across quite sweet. It needed something to dry it out. That’s when I was reminded of my time in London a few years back…

Some former colleagues and myself used to go to a student bar in London’s Soho called The Roxy every Tuesday night. We would go there for a number of reasons. One, it played The Smiths and Joy Division (the only two bands my former bar manager, Fraser Chapman liked), also it was cheap. A double Vodka & Cola would set you back £1.60. The last reason, probably the most defining one, was that it was full of students. Hey, I was single then.

Drinking Vodka & Colas all night usually wasn’t my thing. If I’m in a dodgy nightclub my drink of choice is usually Bacardi and squash. In England they have no idea what “Squash” is. As well as that in our boozed-up state it was always easier to order the same rounds. Vodka & Cola was the only thing my colleagues would drink. To make the V&C’s palatible though we would buy Airwaves Cherry-Menthol Gum. It tasted good, and made the V&C’s taste like Cherry Coke, rather than shitty-flat-cheap-vodka-coke.

Chikky-cherry-cola....

Years later, when coming up with my drinks for the 2011 Bartender of the Year Comp, I asked myself if I could apply the same logic, create my own flavored gum, and alter the flavor of a cocktail whilst the, hopefully denture-free consumer, chews my gum?

Emails were sent to Wrigley, gum making procedures were obtained and thus saw the invention on Tim Philips’s Campari Hubba-Bubba!

My gum

So, when it came time to start putting my cocktail together on stage I explained all this to my judges, and gave them a pack with contents required when going out to a rowdy London student bar, including my gum, and £1.60 (the price of my drink).

The drink was served in a plastic glass mimicking the one’s used at The Roxy, and a final poem declaring my drink to be the Free Bird Cocktail was performed.

So why the Free Bird Cocktail? Well initially the drink was inspired from a vintage cocktail from the early part of the 20th Century. The Red Bird cocktail (which never took off really) is quite similar in make-up to the famous Blood & Sand Cocktail. My drink, a polished and contemporary take on the Red Bird was a way of setting that bird free. So the garnish for the drink ended up being the releasing of a bird. Turns out the bird (purchased from Pets Paradise) was too young to fly, and she struggled to take flight. Someone kindly recorded this, and can be seen HERE.

I’m pleased to announce Eleanor my bird, was unharmed, looked after, and later released back into the wild. From where she initially came from.

A manifesto given to the judges about the drink can be read below.

Anyway, I hope this has given you guys an idea of how much work went into my drinks for the comp. It’s really hard and stressful putting yourself through a comp like that. I feel privileged to be living in Sydney now. Not having to travel across borders to make the finals, along with the stress of not knowing whether you will make the top 10 means it a very hard task for any interstate competitors. My hat goes off to the guys from Melbourne who have won in the past. Hopefully in the next couple of years we can see someone from Brisbane, Perth, or Adelaide take it out.

And for me? Well I’m not sure i really want to compete anymore. It’s way too stressful. Just ask Linn, my girlfriend. As well as that I’d like to think now, after 10 years in the game, I have bigger fish to fry. The transition of bartender to bar owner is one im hoping to make in 2012. I’ll try keep you guys posted on any more developments.

For now though, I want to wish everyone good luck in 2012. Wether it be in cocktail comps, career transitions or life in general.

drinktheshitoutofit

FREE BIRD COCKTAIL

Whisky, cherry, orange, gum 

Red Bird Cocktail

1 wine glass whisky

1 pony orange

2 dashes kirsch

Tasty tipples and how to mix’ em (1912)

With elements inspired from the fore-mentioned drink, the Free Bird Cocktail goes about taking apart, and reconstructing a forgotten vintage cocktail.

Oban 14yrs, sweet and subtlety smoked whisky from Scotland’s west coast is perfect for this drink. It is shaken with freshly pressed orange juice, and a healthy dash of maraschino liqueur.

Once sipped this drink is not complete until a final, drier element is added to balance the acid and sugar of the citrus and maraschino.

Inspired by the lift Cherry/Mint chewing gum gives insipid Vodka & Cola, in dodgy East London pubs, this drink comes alive once combined with Tim Philips’ home made Campari “Hubba-Bubba-bubble-gum”

A textural difference like this in cocktails has never been attempted before, and it is my advice to you once gum flavour has diminished to swap with a fresh piece. OR imbibe your drink swiftly whilst flavour of the gum is still retained .….responsibly of course.

Say hello to our new bartender, Azo.

TP

This was the sarcastic response the maker of Chase, the English potato vodka, gave to some London bartending friends of mine when they visited the beautiful distillery in the English countryside. They were quizzing the makers of the spirit on why they wash the dirt off the potatoes when other potato vodkas don’t. Their ignorance was spawned from the sole piece of knowledge that “dirt” does not add any flavor to the final product.

You see it’s easy, when living in a city to lose sight of where all our produce comes from. Now don’t worry, I assure you this is not going to be another “fresh is best” post about how we need to only use seasonal, local products in our cocktails. In fact this post isn’t about cocktails at all. I’m a bit bored of booze at the moment. Well, maybe not bored, merely distracted.

You see I’ve been watching way too much River Cottage lately. I’ve been inspired by my newly acquired backyard in my new apartment block, and I’ve decided to start making and growing more of my own food.

This post is me ‘showing-off’ how I’ve done so far. This morning, after a few days of unseasonal rain, my parsley has sprouted on my balcony, and much to my delight my watermelon also. (Pictures below)

My greatest challenge however this summer will be to try master the art of baking my own sourdough. I have had my Mother-dough for a month now, and my first two attempts have been lousy. But with some advice of a master home baker (Linn’s Swedish older bro), I’m going to get there.

I’ll keep you guys posted on how I do over the Summer along with plenty more pics.

I guess I really do think it is important we always try to eat and live by the seasons. This most definitely applies to the world of cocktails. I’ve already yapped on about this on THIS post. It’s natural, varies our diets, and looks after our own countrymen and women. I think it makes our food taste better as well. Australian asparagus would not nearly be as special if I could get it 12 months a year. Only having a 8 week season allows to be to look forward, get excited, and binge heavily on the foods I love because I know there might not be any left in the fields the following week. The only downside to not eating and drinking seasonally? $100 cases of limes at the end of Spring. Shit.

By the way, before you say it, YES I know, My bread looks like crap. I don’t care. I MADE IT! And I’m working on it. I told you that.

eattheshitoutofit..

Everyone loves coconut water. Except the people that don’t. With that ‘lil factoid in mind you may have always wanted to know the best way to open a coconut.

Here is the American way VS the Trinidad way. Take your pick.

drinktheshitoutofit

The Time Out bar awards were last night. Although, not up for any awards myself it was none-the-less a great oppurtunity to catch up with industry buddies.

Myff, the Time Out resident foodie and boozie organized the show and I was well-impressed with the event. From Greg Fleet’s premature intoxicated ramblings as host to a whole pig on a spit everything was super slick.The fact that in an hour the whole 13 winners were announced was refreshing as well. No fluffing around, no bullshit, get the people in, get the awards handed out, get down to partying. I think other awards nights can take a leaf out of Time Outs book, (or magazine for that matter), and cut the amount of awards given out. OR do what the Oscars do and give the “Best White Wine under $12″ and it’s equivelant shit awards earlier in the week.

Obviously a tip of the hat goes out to all the winners. Go HERE for a list of all the winners. Special shout out to Eau De Vie for Dr Phil for hot new talent, and Eau De Vie again for Bar of the Year. The Shady Pines TEAM won bartender of the Year (?), and although I love them I feel Luke Redington was robbed. Meh, what can you do?

Here’s some pics of the night…

drinktheshitoutofit