The One-Eyed Gypsy Bar | downtown L.A.

A full rundown of what you need to know about the new, kind of 30s-carnival-themed bar/performance venue from the woman behind Villains Tavern (compliments of Thrillist.com):

• Though thematically similar, each room is decorated in its own style, with unique adornments like hand-drawn wallpaper featuring tiny pictures of Medusa, chandeliers made of Bedouin jewelry imported from Egypt, and a stage with a crescent-shaped Austrian curtain that looks like a waterfall when it opens.
• Scattered around the bar are old-school games the owner’s collected, including a Big-style fortune-teller, a love-o-meter, and two skee ball machines that distribute tickets redeemable for drinks & food.
• Because fairs traditionally have the best food, they’re got the Brite Spot guy slinging an extensive fried menu (corn dogs, sweet potato tots, funnel cakes, deep-fried Chocodiles, etc.) as well as share-eats like a reuben pizza with sauerkraut, corned beef, and thousand island.
• You can wash down those Chocodiles with drinks like a sloe gin float with cider/sweet & sour, and the vodka/red wine/blood orange/lemon & lime/bitters Riddler’s Punch from a dude who’s done time at Villains Tavern & 7 Grand.
• There’s never a cover for the entertainment, which’ll include up-and-coming indie rock bands (one-off 45s will be specially pressed for the show!) to ukelele players and magicians.

One Eyed Gypsy
901 East 1st Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 | MAP

Introducing the Grilled Cheese Martini, a comfort food cocktail that counts grilled-cheese-flavored vodka as its main ingredient, available off-menu now at Beecher’s.

Let’s begin with some seemingly arbitrary numbers: 37. 24. 1.

37: tries it took a team of bartenders to successfully fuse vodka and grilled cheese.

24: hours that the sandwich is left to sit in a vat of vodka.

1: amount of times before tonight this has been served on American soil.

To sample this once-in-a-generation scientific spirit breakthrough, head deep down into the Cellar at Beecher’s, a fortress of glass, steel and aging cheese. Once inside, grab a server and tell them you require a sandwich. On the rocks.

What happens next can only be described as a deft blend of magic, lunacy and lunch. Into a cocktail mixer go vine-ripe tomatoes, muddled basil, tomato juice and a healthy pour of that double-filtered grilled cheese vodka.

Then there’s shaking and stirring, a martini glass is rimmed with house-reduced balsamic and crispy bits of Surryano prosciutto, and the entire concoction is poured over a giant tomato juice ice cube.

As for the taste, well, it’s exactly like grilled cheese.

Grilled Cheese Martini
available in the Cellar at Beecher’s
900 Broadway
(at 20th St)
New York, NY 10003
212-466-3340
http://www.beechershandmadecheese.com/Locations/NewYork.aspx

Barrel Aged Gin

It’s time to reconsider what we know about gin, starting with the color.

Disregard any rules about the spirit being exclusively clear, because distillers around the country are putting their gins in barrels, resulting in tawny beauties that marry botanical nuances with warm and round notes akin to whiskey. With the best of both worlds in a single bottle, the mixing opportunities are endless.

Oregon-based Tad Seestedt put the wheels in motion two years ago when he first released his Ransom Old Tom gin. Meant to replicate the Old Toms of the 18th and 19th centuries (when all liquor was stored in barrels), the gin spends six to seven months in neutral French oak.

In San Francisco, distiller Davorin Kuchan will release his second batch of Rusty Blade gin this fall, and we can’t wait. He ages it for just under two years in the same French oak barrels that he uses to age Zinfandel wine for his eaux-de-vie (which, in a full-circle effect, form the base of the gin). The resulting liquor has alpine notes with the mellow, honeyed tickle of a Cognac.

Colorado-based distiller Ted Talmer was inspired to barrel his gin after tasting an aged genever in Holland. After several months in new American oak, his Imperial gin channels bourbon. And in Nashville, the folks at Corsair Artisan Distillery increase the juniper levels in their traditional gin before putting it into barrels that previously held spiced rum.

Brown gin in hand, start your mixing with a Martinez. The kissing cousin of the Manhattan, it’s the ideal platform for a gin with whiskey envy.

Martinez
Recipe adapted from Misty Kalkofen of Drink, Boston
Makes one drink

Ice
1¾ ounces barrel-aged gin (preferably Ransom Old Tom)
1 ounce sweet vermouth (preferably Cinzano Rosso)
¼ ounce maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas Decanter bitters
Thin slice of lemon

In a mixing glass, combine all of the ingredients except the lemon. Stir and strain into a coupe. Garnish with the lemon slice.

- from TastingTable.com

Some Drinks I’ve Enjoyed Recently:

Mezcal con Pepino: La Sandia, Santa Monica

Figgy Smalls: The Spare Room @ The Roosevelt

The Angry Kiwi: Tavern, Brentwood

Smoking Pistola: The Spare Room @ The Roosevelt

Frangria: Mon Ami Gabi, Las Vegas

Joe Jost’s
2803 East Anaheim Street
Long Beach, CA 90804

The bartender’s tasks: pouring drinks, cleaning glasses, making sandwiches and peeling hard-boiled eggs.

The bartenders at Joe Jost’s, in Long Beach, peel a lot of eggs.

That’s because this bar, one of the oldest west of the Mississippi, is far more famous for its pickled eggs ($1 each) than for its handful of beers on tap.

Opened in 1924, as a barbershop, the bar has been a mainstay of Long Beach life since long before you heard Snoop Dogg or Sublime for the first time. It may be called the LBC now, but back then, Long Beach was home to so many Midwestern immigrants, it was known as Iowa-By-The-Sea; Joe Jost’s encapsulates that history.

The pickled eggs—punchy orbs full of the tang and heat of vinegar and yellow pepper—are one of our favorite bar snacks in the Southland. Served in a twist of deli paper, with a pile of pretzel sticks and a heavy-handed showering of black pepper, they’re tailor-made for timeless bar snacking.

The bar’s trifecta of pickled eggs, a “special” ($3)—soft rye bread slathered in mustard and wrapped around a Polish sausage, a pickle and a slice of cheese—and a schooner ($5-$6) of literally ice-cold beer, is far more than a meal.

Joe Jost’s, 2803 East Anaheim Street, Long Beach, CA 90804  joejosts.com

Bar Toscana

Bar Toscana has a refreshingly different cocktail list; its drinks follow the Italian ethos of fresh, high-quality ingredients treated simply. In the Speziato ($14), for example, Aperol and pisco turn toward the savory, thanks to the addition of red pepper and basil (click here to download the recipe).

Perbellini would prefer not to make Bellinis until he has fresh white peaches on hand, so he’s offering a pear-driven drink, the Pearbellini, as a distraction. It’s an apples-and-oranges comparison, but one that works surprisingly well when pear and vodka are spun around bracing lime and the floral kick of St-Germain. You’ll gladly wait for peach season after a sip.

Snack-wise, we kept circling back to the delicately vanilla-scented fennel that accompanied pale pink slices of prosciutto ($11; pictured), while the thin sheets of music paper—a delightfully named Sardinian bread—made effective scoops for a cold lobster salad ($14).

To ignore the stuzzichini menu is to forego one of the best bar menus in town.

Bar Toscana, 11633 San Vicente Blvd., Brentwood; 310-826-0028 or bartoscana.com

(Source: jasonz)

GO Burger
6290 Sunset Blvd (at Vine)
Los Angeles, CA 90028
323-327-9355
http://www.goburger.net/

GO Burger, a bastion of burger innovation here to bring you spiked milkshakes and melted gruyère, opening Monday at the corner of Sunset and Vine.

It’s a bright, modern corner spot from the beef artisans behind BLT Steak, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto one of Hollywood’s busiest intersections―an easy spot for a quick work lunch, or a burger date before or after a movie at the ArcLight.

To start: you can’t not try the UltiMELT, a giant burger topped with bacon and caramelized onions, with two gruyère-on-rye grilled-cheese sandwiches for buns. Supplement it with Fried Dill Pickles or Duck-Fat Fries. Or even a salad (yes, they have them).

If you want your booze in a milkshake, try the Aztec Mocha (it’s tequila, coffee ice cream, chocolate syrup and cayenne pepper). But if you prefer your cocktail in cocktail form, go for the Brown Derby, made of rum, lime and maple syrup.

Barbacoa from Rivera in L.A.

A Sexy, Smokey Cocktail

Barbacoa Recipe:

½ ounce lemon or lime juice
½ ounce homemade ginger syrup* (recipe follows)
¾ ounce simple syrup
½ teaspoon chipotle puree (canned chipotle is easiest to puree)
3 small lime pieces
3 small slices red bell pepper
2 ounces Mezcal
Beef jerky

*Ginger syrup: Juiced ginger is the most accurate way to make the syrup, but you can blend ginger if you don’t have a juicer. Add 2 parts water and sugar (50-50) to 1 part ginger juice.

Muddle first 6 ingredients. Add mezcal, shake and pour into rocks glass. Garnish with additional lime, bell pepper and the beef jerky.

More recipes from Rivera’s Julian Cox HERE

(Source: jasonz)

Drink: The Next Level

@ La Descarga: 1159 N Western Ave / Koreatown - LA, CA / 323.466.1324

The hidden-entrance’d Cuban bar just added this frigidly unique drink to its menu: two kinds of high-end rum, coconut water, lime juice, and sugar cane, all served up via a top-secret method in a one-of-a-kind ice sphere shaped like an egg.

Umami Manhattan: made with shiitake-infused bourbon and Carpano Antica sweet vermouth

Dirty Sicilian: martini full of garlic and market olives

Roquette (pictured): made with muddled arugula

———————————————————-
Roquette Recipe - Makes 1 drink

• Small handful of wild arugula
• ¾ ounce simple syrup
• ¾ ounce fresh lime juice
• 2 ounces gin, preferably Hendrick’s
• Ice
• Micro arugula, for garnish (optional; available at
local farmers’ markets)

In a shaker, muddle the wild arugula with the simple syrup and lime
juice. Add the gin and shake. Strain into an ice-filled rocks
glass and serve. Garnish with micro arugula.
———————————————————-

Library Bar: Situated just off the lobby of the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, this tiny lounge—with its faux zebra stools and sexy leather couches—is the last place you’d expect to find some of the most unusual cocktails in town.

Barmaster Matt Biancaniello’s taste veers savory, so don’t be surprised to find balsamic vinegar, saffron-infused gin, and vodka spiked with chipotle peppers on the back bar. All are used in simple concoctions, usually balanced with agave syrup, berries, citrus or herbs.

Made with shiitake-infused bourbon and Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, the earthy flavors of the Umami Manhattan ($15) just beg to join a thick, juicy grilled steak. Full of garlic and market olives, Biancaniello’s Dirty Sicilian ($15) couldn’t be dirtier.

He even smashes arugula for one of the prettiest and most refreshing drinks, The Roquette (pictured, $15). It’s a cross between a mojito and lunch (click here to download the recipe); you can practically get two of your five daily servings in one round.  Read entire article @ TastingTable.com

Library Bar, 7000 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; 323-466-7000 or hollywoodroosevelt.com

Essex Public House
6683 Hollywood Blvd
(E. of Las Palmas)
Los Angeles, CA 90028
323-460-6608
www.essexhollywood.com

Essex is a casual gastropub laser-focused on its menu and beer list, with two distinct interior sections designed by the Kitchen 24 dude: a patio-looking entrance room w/ red-brick floor, exposed-duct ceiling, and two monstrous chalkboards w/ food and drink menus, while further inside’s

an oak-topped, wrought-iron-bottomed bar, surrounded by high-top black leather banquettes and mismatched light fixtures. Food’s from a former Asia De Cuba chef, and spans all sorts of gourmetness: “Figs in a Blanket” w/ La Quercia prosciutto & goat cheese fondue; yam gnocchi w/ smoked duck confit, pea tendrils, and hazelnut sauce; and chicken and biscuits w/ sweet English peas & natural gravy. Brew’s from the ubiquitous “Beer Chick” (The Library Bar, Father’s Office, etc), who put together a 50+ list including specialty draughts like Lost Coast Raspberry Wheat, Bruery Black Orchid, and Alesmith Nautical Nut Brown, bottles like Green Flash Le Freak Belgian IPA, Chimay Blue, and Hitachino Nest White Ale, and even hard-to-find and vintage bottles like the dense, dark Harviestoun OLA Dubh, which was aged in a whiskey barrel for at least 30 years.

Essex also has beer cocktails. Start with the Drunken Malum, with Floris Apple beer, bourbon, diced apples and a streudel-rimmed glass.

The Tar Pit / 609 N. La Brea Ave / Los Angeles, 90036 / 323.965.1300 / www.thetarpitbar.com

The Tar Pit’s an intimate, ivory-toned ’30s/’40s-style cocktail-and-small-plates bar with dangling chandeliers and art-deco booth partitions, all from the Campanile guy, who decided to get into the cocktail biz after learning about mixology from his daughter, who’s obsessed with drinking in NYC. Bartenders hail from vaunted local spots like the Edison and equally reputable East Coast drinkeries like Milk & Honey, and go through a rigorous 3-week “bartender boot camp” in order to properly put together schmancy libations like “The Old Cuban” (aged rum mojito w/ Angostura bitters, topped w/ Champagne) the “Flame of Love” (invented for Dean Martin; bay leaf-infused vodka w/ fino sherry, and a flaming corkscrew orange peel), and the shaken, orange bitters and lemon-twist topped, 1/2 gin, 1/2 vermouth “Fiddy-Fiddy,” which apparently has given up on that bottle full of bub, mama. Food’s all shareable small-plates, with pairings recommended for each by the staff; options include pickled deviled eggs w/ Smithfield ham, a seared pave of salmon, and duck sliders w/ orange gastrique

This is a true dopplebock and Dark Horse Brewing Co’s only publicly distributed lager.  They use fare trade organic coffee from their friends at The Ugly Mug Cafe in Ypsilanti, MI

They did a lable contest and opened it up to the public for this beer. They had so many great entries that they couldn’t just pick one winner so they have 2 different lables that they stager in the six packs.

- @jtothez

Hennessy Privilege Tamarindo

2 oz. - Hennessy Privilege VSOP
1.5 oz simple syrup
1 oz. Tamarind puree 
Splash fresh lime juice 
2 oz Club Soda 
Brown sugar and cinnamon mixture (rim) 
Cinnamon stick

Pour Hennesy Privilege VSOP, Tamarindo puree, simple syrup and lime juice in a shaker with ice and shake. Strain into an ice filled glass rimmed with Brown sugar and cinnamon mixure. Top with Club Soda. Garnish with a cinnamon stick.

Ingredients

• 2 ounces dark rum
• 1 teaspoon superfine sugar
• 6 to 8 ounces milk

Glass Type: Collins glass

Instructions

Stir well with cracked ice in a chilled cocktail shaker, then strain into large goblet or Collins glass. Sprinkle with nutmeg, if you like nutmeg. You don’t have to make this with rum, of course: Any of the dark liquors (whiskey, brandy) will work just fine (just don’t try it with tequila — or do; what’s it to us?). For Bull’s Milk, use 1 1/2 ounces brandy flavored with 1/2 ounce dark rum.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/drinks/milk-punch-drink-recipe#ixzz0X8vdYLPZ