“What’ll it be?” - the question every bartender the world over asks when patrons saunter up to their bar.  Show your drink preference with one of Buji Bijoux’s Gatsby Tag necklaces and never end up with the wrong drink again.

“Gatsby Tags,” Buji Bijoux designer May Chen took a quick turn to retool early 1900s liquor tags into brassy necklace charms.  Retail prices run from $206 to $313 and are available in some of the trendiest shops, stops, and boutiques around North America.

A resident of New York by way of New England, the Midwest, and the Far East, “Buji”—”chubby girl” in Japanese—was May Chen’s affectionate nickname as a toddler in Taiwan. It stuck long after May lost her apple cheeks, a testament to her enduring spunk.

Buji Bijoux is where East meets West, playfulness meets sophistication, and nature meets city chic. These unique juxtapositions lead to creations of palpable beauty.

Woodford Reserve scoured the country for the single-most well-crafted Manhattan in the nation. Just recently, Woodford Reserve bourbon and Esquire magazine have crowned Jeromy Edwards from Louisville, Kentucky and his “Cider Manhattan” as the “Master of the Manhattan” for 2009.

Seems only fitting that Jeromy is from Louisville - home to Woodford Reserve.

Jeromy’s cocktail was reviewed by a distinguished panel of experts along with the seven other bartenders creations from across the country. Edwards and the other participant’s cocktails were critiqued on creativity, ingredients, presentation and taste. The judges included Woodford Reserve Master Distiller Chris Morris, Executive Chef Christopher Lee, Mixologist Julie Reiner and Spirits Journalist Jack Robertiello.

The Cider Manhattan along with the other seven recipes will be featured in a Woodford Reserve advertisement in the January edition of Esquire, but you, dear readers, get a sneak peek at Jeromy’s Cider Manhattan:

Cider Manhattan crafted by Jeromy Edwards

• 2 oz. Woodford Reserve® bourbon
• ¾ oz. Cider Reduction
• ½ oz. Antica Vermouth
• Dash Angostura® bitters
• Grand Marnier flambéed cherry (preferably Rainier Cherries)

Flambée cherry in the martini glass, allowing it to caramelize. Place drink in shaker and turn - don’t shake. Pour into glass after it has cooled.

Much like fine wine, there’s a lot that goes into good bourbon, and it’s a pretty precise science.

Back in November of 2008 the fine folk at Maker’s Mark flew me to Louisville (Lou-a-vull if you want to pronounce it like the locals) and let me spend about 4 hours with Kevin Smith, the Master Distiller for Maker’s. The Master Maker if you will.

Maker’s Mark has a long and varied history starting shortly after prohibition in 1933.  One thing lead to another, and the Samuels family - the very same that owns Maker’s now - bought the brand in 1943.

In 1954, Bill Samuels Sr. started playing with ways to make the bourbon smoother around the edges, and replaced the rye with red winter wheat. After much trial and error, the formula that is today’s Maker’s Mark was born.

Bill’s wife, Marjorie (and this is one of my favourite parts of the story) has left her mark all over the Maker’s Mark bourbon - she was a fan of classic pewter pieces, which always carried the mark of their maker. This led her to create the SIV symbol, that stands for Samuels, 4th Generation, which is still used today. She also created the type face and was the one to begin hand dipping the corked bottles into red wax, which is something else that continues to this (day and it’s really cool to see).

By the fall of 1959, after a six year maturation, Maker’s Mark is finally available for market. The first bottle was  4 fifths of a quart and sold for $6.79 a bottle. In the first year, Maker’s sold 250 cases all of which happened to be in Kentucky. Too bad those prices aren’t the same today!

Kevin took me through everything there was to know about Maker’s Mark - from trying the neutral spirit, which essentially amounted to moonshine - all the way through dipping my fingers into the ageing bourbon.

We walked into the fermentation room, and all I could see were eight huge, open fermentation tanks, all seething and bubbling under a crust of yeast as the alcohol fermented. Kevin walked up to one of them, gestured for me to join him, and broke the crust of yeast, swishing his fingers around in the tub.

“Come on over here and try this! This one is about four days old.” All in all, I think I tried about 4 or five different ages of bourbon, all from 2 days old up to 6 or seven days old. It freaked me out at first to have him tell me just to shove my hand in there, but it was really freakin’ cool!

We stopped at the small building they print and die cut all of the labels for the bottles, and then onto where they hand dip every single bottle. They work in a team of four, and each person has a pretty distinct style, to the point where you can actually tell (provided you know the people and see the bottles often enough of course) which person has dipped which bottle.

The entire Maker’s Mark operation is - quite honestly - one big family. There’s not a ton of people working there, and everyone is friendly, joking and just plain fun.

If you ever get an opportunity to go to Louavull, make it a point of going to Maker’s Mark. It’s a gorgeous distillery, and you’ll get a tour like no other.

More images from the tour:

When I was in Seattle recently meeting Gary Vaynerchuk, I got to talking to my bartender. We talked cocktails, as is my wont, and he told me about this little place that I’d never heard of before. Called the ZigZag Cafe, it was apparently the place in Seattle for cocktails.

He told the story that these two young bartenders opened this place so that their friend, this older, rockstar bartender would have a place to shine. He told me that the ZigZag Cafe had, hands down, the most well stocked bar in the city.

I stopped in to check them out, and wow. I was stunned. Seriously stunned, and that’s not an easy feat.

Murray, the bartender, really is a rockstar. He moves so very fast that trying to capture a picture of him is nearly impossible.

I sat down at the bar, and Murray stopped moving, briefly, to ask me what kind spirits I liked. Clear or dark?

I told him that one of my favourite spirits was a good bourbon, and that I favoured Gentleman Jack over regular Jack Daniel’s. He nodded once, held up one finger and off he went.

He created a drink for me that I’ve never even heard of before - one that he knew from an out of print book called “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks” by David A. Embury. He even showed me his copy of the book, that I didn’t want to handle too much for fear of it falling apart.

The Toronto, not on the ZigZag Cafe menu, is a classic 1950’s cocktail, and one that the girl beside me called “not a girly drink”. (to which I replied, I’m not a girly girl. She grinned and agreed.)

A Toronto is a sipping cocktail for sure… it’s not a quick drink by any means. The next one he made me, which was another Murray creation, was the same. Another sipping cocktail, designed to be savoured.

He called it “Maria’s Manhattan” (Maria being the not a girly girl beside me), and brought out three shot glasses, poured about 1/2 an ounce of each ingredient into each glass and then proceeded to mix the drink.

It was fascinating to me to taste the separate flavours come together in the drink. I’d never had someone sit me down and show me the kind of thing Murray was showing me.

Murray is a true mixologist, one who understands the flavours he’s putting into your glass, and truly wants to offer you something you won’t forget,or get anywhere else. I’ve already told pretty much everyone I know that the next time they go to Seattle, they have GOT to make time to stop at the ZigZag Cafe. I’m trying to figure out exactly when I’ll be able to go back down, just so I can visit Murray. A trip to Seattle used to be for the outlet malls or Nordstroms. Yeah, not anymore. Now, a trip to Seattle won’t be the same without hitting the ZigZag Cafe for a snack and a Toronto, which may just have become my new favourite drink.

Toronto

1 3/4 oz Bourbon
1/2 oz Fernet
1/4 oz simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a chilled martini glass

Maria’s Manhattan

2 oz Woodford Reserve Bourbon
1/2 oz Antica Formula Sweet Vermouth
2 dashes Fee’s Whiskey Bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a chilled martini glass