Tales of the Cocktail: Thursday, 7/17/14 – Day 3

After a long day yesterday, I decided that it would be better to pass on the Absolut Bloody Mary Bar Orleans Coffeein favor for coffee from Orleans Coffee Exchange. That was probably a good choice!

Wine educational programs

Quite possibly the most accomplished person in the wine industry is a gentleman by the name of Doug Frost. He recommends 2 different programs to pursue, each with a different focus.

• Court of Master Sommeliers– An examination body, not an educating body that focuses on testing one’s knowledge on the world of wine with a focus on the hospitality industry. There are 4 levels and each level must be passed in succession to move onto the next one. He stressed that it would be impossible to achieve the highest level of Master Sommelier if you are not working with wine in a restaurant setting.
• Institute of Masters of Wine– Once again an examination body and not an educating body that focuses on the ability to blind taste, understand the production of wine and sales. While the Sommelier title is more focused on service, a Masters of wine has a much broader focus on the overall wine industry, the 30,000 foot view as he calls it.

The next person that spoke was Cicerone Anne Becerra. A Cicerone is someone who focuses on understanding the world of beer. Some of the material a candidate must know is the history of beer, service, different regional styles, identifying flaws in beers and food and beer pairings. Once again this is an examination body and not an educational system. A few resources that Anne recommended were Cicerone.org, Siebel Institute, and Micromatic

Steve Olson was one of the pioneers of BAR, or the beverage alcohol resource along with Doug Frost, Dale Degroff and a few other industry leaders. The BAR focuses on educating bartenders about spirits. You will learn everything from history to tasting notes on many different styles of alcohol. They offer online training for their entry level program BarSmartsWired and is a prerequisite for their BAR 5 day training and testing in New York.

Pamela Wizniter also outlined one last resource that focuses on the food element of hospitality. This is a traditional educational program offered as a Masters Degree in Food Studies from New York University. For those looking to continue their formal education, this sounds like an amazing option.

Last Stop of the Day: Discovery by Hennessy

Hennessy hosted an event that was part entertainment & part education. I was able to meet with one of the members of Hennessy’s Tasting Committee to taste four different cognacs of varying ages & styles. He talked about the affects of age, different woods and affect of the Angel’s share on the distillate.

Key points:

• Used oak will allow the distillate to express more floral qualities
• New oak gives the distillate tannins and structure.
• Angels Share, or the amount of alcohol or water that is lost through evaporation during barrel aging helps to concentrate the flavors of the alcohol and develops into a very rich and powerful expression of the distillate
• Most Cognacs are blends of many different ages of distillates, and different varietals of grapes. They are blended together like ingredients when cooking to increase complexity, mouth feel, and overall identity to the spirit.

Drink Tally:

Note: Most drinks are tastings or small pours – don’t try this at home!

Chris: 21

Julia: 11

Win it all!

Comment on Posts in the “Tales of the Cocktail 2014” series to enter!

(Day 1, Day 2 & Day 4)

You can comment once per post and each is a new entry – we’ll pick someone randomly on Monday, July 21st August 4th! (Extended!) We’ll announce the winner here and mail them all the swag!

Congratulations to Sharon!

You won the drawing – we’ll email you to send you the schwag!