Going to the Dogs: Cocktails in Honor of Westminster

One of my favorite convergences occurs this week: the fantastical worlds of New York Fashion Week and the Westminster Dog Show. Gorgeous Rodarte-clad creatures are stalking Lexington Avenue.

Gorgeous sighthounds, wearing the style of millennia past, are lounging off Seventh.

There is best at the show at Marc Jacobs, and there's Best in Show at Madison Square Garden, and it all calls for a toast. Helping us with our theme, we can turn to The Cocktail Bible: Traditional and Modern Cocktails for Every Occasion by Linda Doeser which contains a whole page on canine-named cocktails.

The Cocktail Bible builds on the Greyhound foundation—vodka and grapefruit juice with a lime wedge. Pictured here, straight up with a salted rim, the drink becomes a Salty Dog, and there are many more variations on the motif.

There is The Great Dane:

2 oz. gin
1 oz. cherry brandy
1/2 oz. dry vermouth
1 tsp. kirsch
Fill cocktail shaker with ice. Pour all ingredients and shake until frost forms on the outside of the shaker. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon peel.

There are also recipes for the Beagle, the Bloodhound, the Black Dog (no relation to the ubiquitous Black Dog of Martha's Vineyard), and the Mad Dog, which, of course, is every dog in the ring who doesn't end up with that little liver treat.

There are many great recipes for a Westminster party in The Cocktail Bible, but one of my favorite canine drinks can be found in Jeff Hollinger and Rob Schwartz's The Art of the Bar—The Salty Poodle. An adaptation of the Salty Dog, this drink sidles over into welcoming margarita territory.



The Salty Dog

1 oz. silver tequila
3/4 oz. fresh lime juice
1/2 oz. fresh grapefruit juice
1/2 oz. Cointreau
1/4 Fee Brothers falernum
dash of creme de cassis

Combine all the ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake until frost develops on the outside of the shaker. Strain into a salt-rimmed cocktail glass. Await blue ribbon.

As we celebrate the final announcement of Best in Show, a word about Fee Brothers is in order. A Rochester, New York company, Fee Brothers has a history that would rival the American Kennel Club in breadth and depth. Their bitters selection, especially orange, is an absolute necessity when attempting to slog one's way through all the lovely cocktail books on the market now. The falernum named in the above recipe is a cocktail mixer with Caribbean flavors of lime, ginger, and almond.

As the judge is about to place an overly large ribbon on someone's best friend...Forget the mixed drinks! Open up that bottle of Oban Scotch. Hickory, the beautiful Deerhound, has just won. Take that, all you lapdogs. Sighthounds rule!

Originally published on Blogcritics
Photos: AP

A Manhattan in Manhattan

Walking into T-Bar Steak & Lounge on the Upper East Side of Manhattan is like walking into a Noel Coward play – or rather walking into a Woody Allen movie describing a Noel Coward play: "someone should be mixing martinis."

Instead they were mixing Manhattans. Seemingly appropriate except…

Is a Manhattan made with Canadian Whiskey a Manhattan – even if it's made in Manhattan?

Maybe it should be something like a Saskatchewan? But that's hard to order after a couple of drinks.

Commonly made with Canadian Whiskey because that's what is at hand, Manhattans if at all possibleshould be made with rye. Accompanying the rye will be the requisite short dash of sweet vermouth and the picturesque maraschino cherry. Occasionally you will come across a Bourbon Manhattan, but that sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it?

There's some dispute as to the origins of the name Manhattan for this strong, masculine drink – whether it is for the borough itself or a derivation on the name Martinez for the vermouth – but there's no argument that this is a cocktail your grandparents made by the pitcher. At 4 p.m. Manhattans were put in the fridge. At 5 p.m., they were consumed.

T-bar is a steak house with more fish and vegetarian courses than steaks. The menu is for the Upper East Side type – you know – the larger the Manhattan apartment, the thinner the occupant. With my steak (seeing as how I neither have a Manhattan apartment nor am thin), I ordered a jalapeno margarita. T-Bar was T-short on anything but sweet cocktails on their signature menu, so I thought the jalapeno concoction would be a nice balance to my carnivore leanings. It was.

Jalapeno Margarita

- El Tesoro Platinum Tequila
- Triple Sec
- A healthy portion of sliced jalapenos
- Fresh lime juice

And instead of the sickeningly sweet simple syrup you might find in other margaritas, T-Bar used Sprite because "it's a natural!"

It took a couple of sips to get past the pepper shock, but by the end of the drink and the middle of the steak, it was a drink and dinner made in heaven.

T-Bar is a very noisy bar, not like a Noel Coward play at all, now that you mention it. All the bon mots are lost in the din. You'll need to learn to lip read. But there's probably an app for that now.

The end.

La Paloma, La Philomena and Arthur Guinness

Another great place for the solitary woman to sit at the bar is at North Square on Waverly Place. Actually the restaurant is on Waverly, the lounge is accessed on MacDougal St.. Don't be afraid. It may look like you're walking into a residential building, but it's the Washington Square Hotel, and there will be a nice man to point you to the lounge.

I was early for a show at Manhattan Theatre Source down on MacDougal. The North Square was perfect for waiting. I could sit at the bar and have a chopped salad and a La Paloma in perfect peace. Plus they played Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Perfect Skin: "at the age of ten she looked like Greta Garbo and I loved her then but how was she to know that..." Perfect.

The La Paloma. Cabrito Blanco Tequila, Agave Nectar, lime juice and pink grapefruit juice - muy bonita.

Back to 59 East 59t Theatre bar, the Flagrant Philomena awaits. Created by Alberto for the Rough Magic Theatre company and their production of Improbable Frequency: rum, vodka, blue curacao, and tonic with a twist of orange. The imbibing of this blue concoction with frequency is improbable.

And finally, a toast to Mr. Arthur Guinness, whose concocted 250th anniversary was this past week. All cocktails raised to the stout!

An Irishman's Margarita

Last week-end, there was a long line at Magnolia Bakery again. The only line I would stand in would be to enter Bar Centrale. Just to have a chance at those tiger-striped bar stools. That's worth standing - to have a seat.

Jeff Riedel for the NYT

Here is a lovely picture of Maureen Dowd, sitting comfortably at the Bar, wondering if men were indeed necessary. See? Single woman at ease, alone at the bar. This is a true test. Can you go there alone?

Yes, you can. However, Ms. Dowd does look like she could use a cupcake.

Confections aside, bartender Paul O'Halloran recommends his margaritas, made with Sauza Hornitos Tequila."We Irish know our tequila more so than the Mexicans...." he said with a wink and then gave us some El Tesoro Platinum Tequila for sipping and blurriness ensued....

The wasabi peas just weren't enough to balance out the alcohol. Thank goodness we had a designated driver.