Thursday, October 20, 2011

Cocktails, Conversations & Marrow

When I'm not in the kitchen whipping up one my many culinary masterpieces, I'm an event planner here in NYC.  Most of my clients are the much hated 1% population of this world.  I mainly stick to planning and managing large scale luxury weddings and producing celebrity charity galas and fundraising events. 

Recently a really good friend of mine asked me to team up with her create these monthly events centered around wellness for optimal health.  So for our first event we decided to keep it food centered to show people that they can still have great organic options for cocktails and pair them with some amazing small bites as well.  First order of business, to find a mixologist who is knowledgeable about organic spirits and who can also take those organic spirits and make them into something mind blowing in a glass.

We started at Employees Only  (and actually ended here too) Hands down one of my favorite speakeasies in the city.  The big draw to this place is the amazingly talented bartenders/mixologists.  Yes they have a full bar, yes they have a full cocktails/drinks menu but what makes them the best is that you can ask any of their bartenders what you are in the mood for, the flavors you like, the spirits you enjoy, the allergies you have and they will create something totally amazing.  I've never had a drink here I didn't like, men maybe, but not the drinks.  From there we explained to the head mixologist our event mission and he began to make us some amazingly crazy cocktails...don't ask me if I remember the names because it was a long night lol...


The 2 up first in our binge quest for the right mixologist was a lovely drink called the Amelia: Luksusowa Potato Vodka & St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur shaken with pureed Blackberries & Fresh Lemon Juice and the West Side: Charbay Meyer Lemon Vodka and Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice shaken with Fresh Mint, served straight up.
The Amelia was stunning to look at and even more amazing once in my tummy!  It has a rich burgundy velvet look and taste to it, sweet but not cloyingly sweet. 

The West Side was sooo refreshing!  Charbay is a company based in California that makes these infused vodkas that are really infused with real fruit and ingredients not like some others that pour in a flavor "extract" to make their product taste like it's been infused with a bitter note. 

Amelia Cocktail (taken from the net):



West side Cocktail (taken from the net):


We also had some of the food there too, you know to balance out the alcoholism going on.

First up: Bone Marrow Poppers (taken with my G2 phone camera, not too shabby no?): Essentially a piece of marrow tucked inside a light pastry shell topped with a little greens and bordelaise sauce.  I felt the sauce was a bit much for this dish, I would have been happier with the puff pastry with the marrow and maybe some fleur de sal instead, still marrow is heavenly no matter what :)





Next up: Crispy Skate Paprikas crispy buttery skate wing with spaetzle and a light crème fraiche and tomato sauce.  This was AMAGING.  The skate was fried golden but not at all greasy with the a perfect crunch and the spaetzle and cream sauce were just great delicious accompaniments




Overall a great night AND we found our mixologist :)  Event details to follow soon so stay tuned :)

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