Manitoba/Caribou - Up in Flames

Dan Snaith’s first album, Start Breaking My Heart (2000), is usually categorized as folktronica or intelligent dance music (IDM), in the vein of Boards of Canada and Four Tet. Samples are precisely calibrated and meticulously arranged in exact sequences. It is an appropriate sound given Snaith’s academic background: a B.Sc. from Toronto and a Ph.D. from Imperial College, both in mathematics; his father and sister are also mathematicians. In contrast, his sophomore album, Up in Flames (2003), is a messy, vibrant, wall-of-sound that wears its bliss on its sleeve and smacks of instant gratification. It is shocking to discover that both albums were similarly composed on a computer; Snaith cooks up a delightful smorgasbord of echoing vocals, punishing drums, animal sounds, organ blasts, and strummed guitar. Serving suggestion: enjoy with headphones on a sunny, carefree day.

The jumble of samples and vocals (including a cough) in the opening section of “I’ve Lived on a Dirt Road All My Life” is swept aside by enthusiastic drums and brass; imagine the aural equivalent of having all your friends show up at once in a noisy clatter. “Skunks” is anchored by a keyboard motif, and builds towards a saxophone solo and huge thumps of bass.

“Hendrix with KO” and “Jacknuggeted” find Snaith collaborating with fellow Canadian electronic musician Koushik Ghosh, whose touch shines through in sunny woodwinds, handclaps, and vocal nonsense. With lyrics and some semblance of structure, these two tracks are the strongest singles on the album. “Hendrix with KO” relies on a steady drumbeat, and “Jacknuggeted” anchors itself around an acoustic guitar and a single chord on the organ that precedes the chorus. Both songs dissolve into codas featuring electronic blips that bear the fingerprints of Snaith’s previous musical efforts.

After the fuzzy, palate-cleansing “Why the Long Face”, a twinkling glockenspiel at the start of “Bijoux” hints at musical wordplay. These gems shatter moments later, sending a kaleidoscope of sounds through the air. “Twins” begins with electric guitar, a descending bass line, and a perfect fifth before the percussion takes over. I miss hearing this song live – the ferocious sound from the two drum kits that were standard in Snaith’s tour lineup never failed to impress the crowd. “Kid, You’ll Move Mountains” takes it down a blissful notch, with recorder and vocals floating above layers of glock, knob noise, and insistent drums. The ear-worm melody on glockenspiel in “Crayon” never fails to uplift; the barking dogs and breaking dishes are an added bonus. “Every Time She Turns Around It’s Her Birthday“, one-fifth of the album’s length, is a microcosm of the album itself: a swirling, breathing mass of electronics, drums, and vocals, and it closes with a chant that I imagine is produced by girls skipping rope.

One could criticize the album as formulaic: a disparate collection of sounds contracting and swelling for forty minutes; however, it is executed with such genuine, organic enthusiasm that it is hard to fault the final product.

NB: The music videos, directed by Irish animation collective Delicious9, are brilliant visual accompaniments.

My first link with New Order was forged by my brother, who, like many others, had a soft spot for “Bizarre Love Triangle”. My first serious listen of their catalogue occurred in 2008, when I dived into PC&L and their first collection, Substance. PC&L was a summer 45-minute running companion, its manic (“Age of Consent”, “The Village”), downtempo (“We All Stand”, the beginning of “5 8 6″), and steady (the last half of the album) parts together furnishing a mix of pacesettings. The album still sounds novel and innovative – one can detect the band’s growing confidence with its technique (six-minute tracks with lots of repetition), its aesthetic (Peter Saville’s iconic cover image and colour coding), and its existence as an entity separate from its previous incarnation. Even when sandwiched between the releases of the now-legendary “Temptation” and “Blue Monday” (which are featured back-to-back as tracks 3 and 4 on Substance), PC&L holds its own, worthy of consideration as the band’s pioneering statement.

A great quantity of music of the past decade bears the fingerprint of New Order’s influence – the synth is now ubiquitous in many genres of pop, and a listen to some of its original marriages with the guitar, with Hooky’s bass as minister and Stephen Morris’ kit as witness, is didactic. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys give an excellent summary of New Order’s place in the history of pop music at the NME Awards in 2005 (take note of the bit about students, football hooligans, and dancefloor ecstasy):

The cover of the final track of the original album, “Leave Me Alone”, was tasked to Destroyer. This is a shrewd choice, as Destroyer’s acclaimed 2011 release, Kaputt, drew some of its sonic inspiration from the seminal new wave band and even references them (“You terrify the land / You’re pestle and mortar / Your first love’s New Order” on “Blue Eyes”). “Savage Night at the Opera” prominently features a synth line that shares melodic genes with Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1. Bejar is a songwriting chameleon (contrast the “musical subversion” of Kaputt and the more straight-laced Destroyer’s Rubies) and a brilliant lyricist (Kaputt was apparently influenced by the book of the same name). His tracks on New Pornographers albums remain standouts (“Jackie”, “Jackie Dressed in Cobras”), providing enough idiosyncrasy to prevent 12-14 tracks of relentless power-pop from becoming too monotonous.

Perhaps drawing inspiration from wordplay with the song’s title, Destroyer’s cover is almost the same length as and is musically faithful to the original, though with more volume in the guitar amplifier and Bejar’s added mumblings in the intro and “ooh-ooh’s” in the coda. Depending on whether one prefers their cover artists to be faithful or to run amok with the original material, this may come off as disappointing or positive. The biggest surprise is Bejar’s voice. Sumner’s voice is a blank slate, an inoffensive vector for his dark and often nonsensical lines; Bejar is in the company of Craig Finn, having a voice that polarizes listeners, but that is essential for the delivery of his esoterica. Here, Bejar’s delivery is smooth and hazy. The contrast is most apparent on the high notes: Sumner’s vocal effort betrays a sort of romanticism, while the echo from ’80′s like-processing leaves Bejar’s voice with a sheen of detachment.

A notable difference: in the original coda, Sumner’s restless conjunct motions drop out, deferring to Hook’s perfect fifth (and Morris’ hi-hat) for the last word. Destroyer’s cover ends with the electric guitar triumphantly reaffirming the tonic, with a long fade.

The cover:

The original:

Working at the intersection of Constructivism, Bauhaus and Dada, some common themes develop among the work. Much of it is propagandist and populist — heralding “worker as hero” — and much of it relies on repetition — a sort of play on strength in numbers and in a shared commonality. There are many large format posters and the text — usually short rally cries or slogans — is done in visually appealing and uncommon (at least to this viewer) Cyrillic and German fonts; almost all the work falls under the category of “blickfang,” a great term which roughly means “eye-catching.”

Take, for example, two lithographs by Gustav Klutsis from 1930. We Will Repay the Country’s Coal Debt features three stolid miners in large scale and was designed to be hung three or more abreast to create the impression of a wall of workers. Another poster, Worker Men and Women: Everyone Vote in the Soviet Elections uses repetition within the work by overlaying many copies of the same raised hand. Both use a red, black and white palette typical of Klutsis’ work and they are striking in their straightforward, yet grand imposition.

Gustav Klutsis, We Will Repay the Country's Coal Debt, 1930 (left) and Worker Men and Women: Everyone Vote in the Soviet Elections, 1930 (right)

Working primarily with photography and photomontage, John Heartfield carried these same ideas along designing a number of covers for AIZ (Workers’ Illustrated Magazine) throughout the 1930’s and his arresting poster The Hand Has Five Fingers (1928). My personal favorite from Heartfield, however, is his 1920 Self Portrait. The small-ish photo had been cut from a larger one and shows tape residue from when it was previously mounted in another setting for use as a book illustration. Such small details really accentuate how these guys worked on the practical (instead of fine) side of the art world.

John Heartfield, The Hand Has Five Fingers, 1928 (left) and Self Portrait, 1920 (right)

Perhaps conceptualizing their role as “designer” over “artist” more than any other work is El Lissitzsky’s The Constructor. (1925) A double exposure photomontage, the work is a self-portrait of the artist combined with a drafter’s compass and designer’s type. The work could be seen as reflective of all the men featured here.

El Lissitzsky, The Constructor, 1925

The exhibition presents a style of art I don’t know much about from from a time and place pretty different from my own. In some ways it was this freshness and unfamiliarity that initially pulled me in, but because the artists are placing themselves firmly among their audience, the work in other ways comes off as quite familiar. Two seemingly competing ideas that, like the combinations of photos the artists assembled, can actually come together in a powerful and persuasive way.

The exhibition runs through October 9, 2011.

The group is economical with its sound. At four members, things are full but restrained and the players glide through a wide spectrum of instruments, each perfect for the three bars it appears and then seamlessly gone. This perhaps culminated best with the band’s haunting reworking of “Giving Away the Bride,” the lead from the band’s most recent album, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers. As they played it, I realized I was grinning nearly uncontrollably, the gorgeous, yet rough and harsh piece unwinding, following the shape I knew from the album, but growing organically before me into something fuller. It certainly stands as one of the top single song performances of this year.

The opening band was Bloodiest, a group that was metal, but not quite. They initially peaked my interest with their first song which built up a sonic wall, growling and growing but always seemingly held back on a tight leash. Unfortunately, the rest of their set struck me as generic. Whereas Califone is sparing, Bloodiest seemed sprawling and too large for it’s own good. The group returned to the stage during Califone’s set for an improvised track and it was here again that I got that sonically restrained surge. I suppose it is a testament to Califone’s own technical prowess that they can perform a better Bloodiest than poor Bloodiest can.

Despite being a local Chicago band, Califone hasn’t played much recently and this set seemed to be a one-off. I braved a ridiculous commute and a very ,very late Sunday set time to see these guys, so I was a bit disappointed when the band wrapped after little more than an hour. It’s hard to reconcile the high level of rigmarole I went through with the meager payoff, but I can say with confidence that when they were on, they did not disappoint. Perhaps like everything else with their music, this was just another example of a quick, flickering grace note… economical and delicate then gone.

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Etoh

Shake with ice:

• 1.5 oz North Shore Aquavit
• 0.5 oz lychee syrup
• 1 oz watermelon puree

Strain into a cocktail glass. Add 1 oz Lindeman’s framboise lambic, mix with two strokes of the flat end of a bar spoon. Top with 3 drops orange flower water. Garnish with an orange peel spiral.

Lychee syrup

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 lb lychee

Bring the water to a boil and add the sugar. After it has dissolved, place pot on warm setting of stove. Peel each lychee, cut a portion from the fruit and remove the seed, then squeeze the flesh to add juices to the syrup before adding the fruit itself. Let sit a few hours. Strain into bottle.

The idea of doing a beer cocktail had been dormant for a while until about a month prior to Four Eleven. I purchased a few bottles of Lindemans for a games night, and the idea for a light, fruity (but not too saccharine) lambic cocktail germinated. I wanted to keep the texture and flavour of the drink light, so I used watermelon as the main component and added lychee for its mild sweetness. I intended to add a small amount of yuzu juice to the drink for its unique citrus qualities, but after scouring a few places, had no luck finding it.

I had decided on aquavit or vodka as the base spirit, and after some testing, we discovered that aquavit imparted a complexity to the Etoh that was missing in the vodka version. It comes across as a note of wheatiness when the drink first hits the tongue. I initially thought the lambic component was overly dominant; this problem was resolved by a small amount of mixing. We also discovered that the drink changes nicely as it is allowed to sit.

Note: I later discovered a similar drink currently exists on the menu at WD50 in New York City, profiled here.

High School Sweetheart

Shake with ice:

• 1 1/2 oz rose-infused gin
• 1/2 oz St-Germain
• 1 tsp Rothman & Winter crème de violette

Strain into a flute or coupe glass. Top with sparkling wine, and mix with two strokes of the flat end of a bar spoon. Top with 2 dashes of rose flower water. Garnish with an orange peel spiral.

For a while, I wanted to do a drink that was entirely floral. As I am clueless when it comes to plants, the rose was the first flower that sprang to mind. I found some with a strong scent, and let the petals sit in Beefeater gin for a few days, though I’m sure there are more effective infusion methods. St-Germain and crème de violette have strong notes, and are also important components for their sweetness and colour, respectively.

I had a strong negative reaction on the first tasting, but I think the drink needs time for the bubbly to do its work. The taste is delicate, but appreciable compared against just sparkling wine. Unfortunately, the High School Sweetheart died a tragic death before she could live up to her potential: at the party, we made the first order with three-day old bubbly that had lost a good portion of its effervescence, and as a result, the drink didn’t catch on.

The Embargo

Quick, hard shake with ice:

• 2 oz Havana Club Añejo Reserva rum
• 3/4 oz John D. Taylor velvet falernum
• 1 tsp Galliano
• 1/2 oz coconut water
• 1/4 oz apricot syrup

Strain into a highball filled with ice. Top with a dash of club soda.

Apricot syrup

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 3-4 apricots

Bring the water to a boil and add the sugar. After it has dissolved, place pot on warm setting of stove. Cut up apricots in small chunks. Add to syrup and let sit for a few hours. Strain into bottle.

Note: it may be beneficial to juice the apricots before adding them to the syrup.

My family had brought back a few bottles of real Havana Club from Cuba in 2006 that were never opened (Havana Club sold in the United States is different). The Añejo Reserva is golden and excellent for mixing, with a smooth taste that is not overpowering; it plays well with the other ingredients in the mixing glass. Falernum is a popular partner to rum, and coconut and apricot sprang out of the jumbled sea of possible flavours in my mind. Finally, I enlisted Galliano to serve as a certain je ne sais quoi for the drink.

The final recipe required quite a bit of tweaking. It was initially too watery due to an enthusiasm for club soda, which should add just a touch of carbonation to offset the smoothness of the drink and to bring out the apricot, the anise of the Galliano, and the nuttiness and spiciness of the falernum. The John D. Taylor brand of falernum is quite sweet, so we reduced the amount of apricot syrup in the drink, but this can be adjusted depending on brand choice.

The Embargo was well-received by a wide variety of drinkers at the party.

Henley

Add to mixing glass and highball filled with ice:

• 1/16 cucumber (slice in half through its cross-section, and then slice each half lengthwise, then slice in wedges, as if one were coring half a cucumber)
• 2 slices Asian pear
• 3 blackberries

Add to mixing glass and shake:

• 2 oz Pimm’s Cup No. 1
• 1 oz Bombay Sapphire
• 3/4 oz lemon juice
• 3/4 oz simple syrup
• 2 dashes Fee’s orange bitters

Strain through julep or hawthorne AND mesh into highball glass. Garnish with sprig of mint.

North American summers need more Pimm’s and less Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Ice, and light beer. In England, the canonical addition to Pimm’s is English lemonade, which is sweet and sort of like 7-up. I wanted to do a Pimm’s cocktail that did not overwhelm the subtle, herbal liqueur. Cucumber is a traditional addition, and I thought Asian pear also fit this requirement.

Unfortunately, the first two trials were bland, unmitigated disasters. The cocktail needed strength in both alcohol content and flavour. Adding a strongly flavoured gin, Bombay Sapphire, solved the first problem. The second was ameliorated with the addition of some blackberries, which are less forward than other commonly available berries. I also caved and added lemon juice and simple syrup. The citrus really does wonders for bringing out the other flavours. I suppose there’s a reason why Pimm’s and lemonade is a classic.

A Peruvian in Italy

Shake with ice:

• 3/4 oz Campari
• 1 1/2 oz Peruvian pisco
• 1/2 oz Bénédictine
• 1/2 oz dandelion-chrysanthemum syrup
• 1/4 oz lemon juice

Strain into rocks glass with ice. Garnish with a lemon peel.

Dandelion-chrysanthemum syrup

I adapted the recipe from this site.

• 1 cup water
• Two chrysanthemum teabags
• A few handfuls of yellow dandelion flowers
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 oz lemon juice

Immediately after picking, place flowers in water and bring to a slow boil. Boil for about a minute, and remove from heat. Add teabags. Remove teabags after a few minutes, and let sit at least a few hours. Discard flowers, add lemon juice and sugar, and simmer until sugar is dissolved. Strain into bottle.

Campari had long been on our wish list. A fantastic cocktail of potable bitters that my friend had ordered on a recent post-concert trip to the cocktail temple that is The Violet Hour inspired me. I wanted this drink to be strongly herbal and somewhat challenging because of the bitterness. I didn’t want to do a copy or variation of the Negroni, so gin was out, and I discarded the idea of using any strong liquor that would swamp the Campari. Going through a mental checklist of our stock, I remembered the bottle of pisco a friend had graciously bestowed unto us, and together with another layer from a small addition of the description-defying Bénédictine, the Peruvian began his trip to Italy.

Two childhood memories were jogged while I was thinking about additions to the recipe: my puzzled reaction at my best friend (who is Italian) telling me about his family’s use of dandelions in salad, and the particular sweet-sour combination of boxed chrysanthemum tea I drank as a kid. Thus, the Peruvian completed the transatlantic voyage.

We didn’t expect it to be a hit, but we received quite a few orders.

Note: again, I discovered later that the Papa Ghirardelli, a drink with similar alcoholic components, was recently invented for the 2010 San Francisco Cocktail Week.

For our Summer 2011 Four Eleven, we chose to push ourselves further than we had before by developing a wholly original menu. We have independently and collaboratively created drinks before, but with the goal of eight to ten quality original drinks, we were nothing if not ambitious. As has been touched on in this blog before, the drink development process is challenging; successes and failures are often equally surprising and cocktails usually need testing and revision before they really shine. We spent a few weeks brainstorming then testing drinks and I think we are both proud of the great menu we compiled. Our guests enjoyed themselves and really complimented us on many of these creations. Maybe we do have a knack for this after all!

In this first post, mccowan discusses his contributions to the menu, while in the second post, knowb talks about his. Both authors graciously thank Mandy McGee for photographing the event and allowing us to reproduce her pictures here.

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I find it interesting that knowb and I differ in our cocktail creating methods. He has the stronger palate and so tends to start by suggesting flavor profiles or combinations, even if he’s not sure yet how to bring it all to the glass. This flavor mentality comes in handy, too, when a drink isn’t right; he often has the first suggestions for additions and can pull drinks in unexpected directions. I, on the other hand, feel much more comfortable working from an existing template and twisting it to my own. I might take a classic cocktail or family and swap one ingredient for another, modify the sweetner, and add something totally different to really bring it home. Knowb gets impressed that my ideas always come with the proportions roughed out, but I think it’s generally a blend of our two styles that really works best.

I brought four drinks to the menu. Three were original, but not necessarily exotic, while the fourth was my attempt to work well outside the traditional cocktail bounds.

Burban Garden

Chicago has a local spirit called hum which has a rhum base and is flavored with hibiscus and kaffir lime. It’s a great spirit that’s showing up on a lot of menus recently, but the stuff’s pretty expensive. When my girlfriend suggested that I do a hum-based drink for another occasion, my mind started to work on ways to replicate the flavor profile without splurging quite so much on liquor.

This drink is versatile (it works as a long drink in a highball or as a short drink on the rocks) and balances the flavors really well. I wanted this drink to have a strong bourbon character while still being crowd-pleasing, so I settled on Old Heaven Hill, a 100 proof straight bourbon that is sturdy whiskey that isn’t too sweet (like Maker’s Mark is) and is a fantastic value for the price. Another key was to mirror the flavors on palate and nose. Shaking the mint and ginger with the rest of the ingredients really perks up these flavor which the drinker is reminded of by the garnish.

• 1 1/2 oz bourbon (Old Heaven Hill recommended)
• 3/4 oz hibiscus syrup
• 3/4 oz lime juice
• a few sprigs of mint
• a few small chunks of fresh ginger
• ginger beer (to top)

Shake the ingredients (except the ginger beer) and strain into rocks glass with with fresh ice. Top with ginger beer and garnish with a ginger slice and a mint sprig.

Hibiscus syrup

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• dried hibiscus leaves

Bring the water to a boil and dissolve the sugar. Add the dried hibiscus leaves (I was able to find some nice dried leaves prepared as a tea by looking in Chinese groceries and herb shops) and allow to steep for 10 minutes. Remove the leaves and strain if necessary.

New Orleans 75

The French 75 is a classic, with a heavy pour of gin, but an effervescence from sparkling wine that lightens the feel considerably. I had this in mind, but rather than just swap brandy for gin, I also wanted to blend in some flavors from another classic, the Sazerac.

This drink took several trials to work out. I was tepid at first, but I learned that the drink needs to have a heavy dose of booze for the backbone. The lemon is a splash only (a touch of sour, with any more becoming overpowering) and the sparkling wine needs to be just a quick top-off; the effect is to add a bit of fizz without much flavor.

• 2 oz brandy (a sweeter cognac like Courvoisier VS will work well)
• 1/2 oz simple syrup
• 1/4 oz lemon juice
• 3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
• a few dashes of absinthe
• sparkling wine (to top)

Add a few dashes of absinthe to a champagne flute and rotate to coat the inside. Discard any excess. Shake the remaining ingredients (except the sparkling wine) and strain into the absinthe-rinsed flute. Top with sparkling wine and garnish with a lemon peel spiral.

Cherry Season

People sometimes ask me what my favorite drink is, and despite the flair that I might show in creating drinks, I generally stick close to the classics: Old Fashioneds, Martinis and especially Manhattans. It was this last classic that I tried to riff on here by building around a gastrique.

A gastrique is a vinegar and sugar reduction that adds a strange, but not unpleasent acidity to drinks. In this case, the gastrique also thickened up the mouthfeel quite a bit — an unexpected, but appreciated trait. With orange zest in the gastrique, orange bitters in the mix and a flamed orange peel garnish, that fruit came out stronger than the cherry in the final drink, but c’est la vie.

• 2 oz rye whiskey (I used Rittenhouse 100)
• 3/4 oz sweet vermouth
• 1/2 oz cherry gastrique
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1 dash orange bitters

Shake the ingredients and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a flamed orange peel.

Cherry gastrique

• 1 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 lb pitted cherries
• 1 Tbsp orange zest

Bring the white wine vinegar to near a boil and add the sugar until it dissolves. Add the cherries and diced orange zest and stir with a wooden spoon, crushing the cherries completely. Simmer (or allow a low boil) for 15-20 minutes, stirring and tasting continuously. At first the mixture will be quite strong from the vinegar, but with time, the reduction will develop more pleasant flavors. Strain the liquid through a mesh strainer to keep out the solid components. Optionally, you may add an ounce of vodka to improve shelf life.

Sup // Sip // Chase

This “drink” evolved quite a bit over the menu-planning process and I think that unfortunately it wasn’t quite there the night of the party. We wanted — neigh needed – a tequila drink on our summer menu, but neither of us really had strong ideas for one. I thought to do a savory Bloody Mary-type drink (which I abandoned as it didn’t taste “complete”) and failed to get very inspired for a take on the Margarita. To  the pile of mismatched ideas, knowb suggested “Thai” as a possible theme via lemongrass and Sriracha and I kept coming back to sangrita, the traditional Mexican chaser made of either tomato or orange juice with chili peppers.

With no clear cocktail emerging, I began to deconstruct and compartmentalize things. If the ideas could not blend, then why not keep them separate? My mind began to form a picture of three shots served together, all tequila-themed but each unique.

We chose as our three components a serving of Margarita-infused melon, a lemongrass-infused tequila and an original take on the Sangrita chaser. Unfortunately, the final iteration we served was sloppy. Fruit was handed out large cocktail glasses, the tequila infusion was rather weak, and the components came out in courses rather than all at once.

Sup

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4-1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup tequila
• 1/4 cup triple sec
• melon cut into small cubes or balls (e.g. watermelon, honeydew or cantaloupe)
• lime wedges
• coarse salt

Boil the ingredients (except the melon) to create a syrup and soak the cut fruit in the syrup for at least one hour. (Adapted from here.) Arrange the melon balls in a shot glass or small coupe. Rim the glass with coarse sea salt and spritz a lime wedge over the fruit.

Sip

• 1 1/2 oz lemongrass-infused tequila

To prepare lemongrass-infused tequila, peel and coarsely chop lemongrass stalks and allow to steep in a quality blanco tequila for a week or until the taste is sufficiently concentrated.

Chase

• 1/2 oz orange juice
• 1/2 oz pomegranate juice
• 1/2 oz grapefruit juice
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 3 dashes Sriracha Thai Chili Sauce

Chill the ingredients ahead of time and stir to combine them. Serve in a shot glass. (This is an original adaptation based on Jeffery Morganthaler’s sangrita recipe here.)

This topic continues here with commentary from fellow bybe author/bartender, knowb.

Not without controversy, the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year was awarded to The Tree of Life, the fifth film in nearly forty years by American director Terrence Malick. As the title suggests, The Tree of Life attempts to relate our cosmic origins, the mundane and sometimes tragic occurrences of our lives, and aspects of our emotional and spiritual selves like love, redemption, and forgiveness. Without too much spoiler, the anniversary of a tragedy necessitates a phone call between father and son. Most of the film is spent on a journey through the son’s memories and thoughts on existential questions that are ultimately raised when one recalls an event of this enormity, as if the viewer were privy to the flashbacks and mental images behind the closed eyelids of a person deep in recollection. As such, The Tree of Life is impressionistic and not strictly temporally ordered, which may alienate filmgoers – it continues to polarize critics after Cannes.

But what a stunning collection of images. Malick is apparently not a fan of CGI, and brought Douglas Trumbull (Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, to which most critics compare this film) out of a twenty-year hiatus to direct the special effects. There are depictions of dinosaurs, cellular processes, and primitive life-forms. NASA was consulted on footage of the early universe (e.g. structure formation) and of various astronomical bodies like nebulae. It’s fair to say that not all of the aforementioned footage is necessary or sensical, but Malick’s intention was not to make a coherent film. Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men, The New World, Malick’s previous oeuvre) does sublime work behind the camera. I’m not a connoisseur and I don’t have a great memory for movies, but Lubezki’s cinematography on Children of Men was marvellous, especially the car scene for its technical prowess and the battle scene for its length and the subtlety with which the camera captures minute differences in shades of grey. Here, he reinforces the idea that the viewer is watching fragments of memory. The camera roves, shooting from unorthodox angles and highlighting saturated colours and shadows, capturing a rare sense of intimacy.

Bob Mendello of NPR summarizes it perfectly: “There’s not a frame of The Tree of Life — not one — that I wouldn’t love to have hanging on a wall in my home. And there are relatively few frames of The Tree of Life that I’m sure I entirely understand.” The images are coupled with a soundtrack of classical music (including some original pieces by Alexandre Desplat) over which Malick likely had considerable say. As Ross states in his article, the film’s music is especially important in light of the father’s background. I was familiar with a few of the pieces, and the use of Smetana’s Moldau was most striking to me — the freedom of the flowing waters of a river translated to the freedom of the seemingly infinite possibilities in childhood. The “Lacrimosa“, sung by a soprano, is heard during some of the spoken narrative, as the mourner’s cry often accompanies the big question of, “Why?”

The main portion of The Tree of Life is essentially autobiographical. Malick is famously reclusive, but an article in Vanity Fair contains some details regarding his personal history. The disciplinarian father and the idealized mother seem to mirror his view of his parents, and both families have three sons. Malick had “terrible fights with his father, often over trivial issues”, and did not “allow [his mother] to read the script of The Thin Red Line because of the profanity”. The film erects a layer of emotional protection around the mother, and devotes considerable screen time to the fraught relationship between Mr. O’Brien and his eldest son, Jack. The first voiceover makes this polarization clear, but I think there is justification. Although we may enjoy movies with complex, grey characters, our memories of people close to us, especially those who have a significant effect on who we are, can be biased and more aligned along the axis of “good and bad”. The viewer may not sympathize with Mr. O’Brien, but Brad Pitt does an excellent job of showcasing the multiple facets of the patriarch. Jessica Chastain effectively communicates the ethereal “grace” of Mrs. O’Brien, mostly through her physical performance.

Hunter McCracken’s portrayal of Jack is one of the highlights of the movie. Through minimal changes in facial expression, he displays the spectrum of emotions of a son trying desperately to live up to his father’s expectations, a teenager wrestling with angst, and a sibling looking out for his younger brothers. One particular combination of scenes between Jack and the youngest brother was exceptional. The first involves a game of trust and a BB-gun, but it has no ominous music or close-ups of fearful eyes. The downplay of dramatic tension renders the fraternal tenderness and sense of absolution in the reconciliation of the second scene all the more remarkable and poignant. In the context of Malick’s personal history, this second scene may be the most important of the film.

Ultimately, The Tree of Life asks us to love. A simple request, and if it sounds overly earnest and cliche, one might want to wait for another day to watch the film. Some questions linger in my mind. What really drove Malick to make this film, why did he shoot it in this manner, and what did he personally get out of the project? Perhaps it was simply a sense of guilt and things left unspoken, and this work is an expression of his love. Unfortunately, the answers will likely remain as unknown as those to the larger questions asked in The Tree of Life.

Allegri’s Miserere (Psalm 51) ranks as one of the prime one-hit wonders in musical history for the magnitude of its longevity and popularity. This storied piece occupies a special place in the repertoire of Renaissance polyphony and is performed during Holy Week for Tenebrae on Wednesday and on Good Friday. It is said that transcription of the piece was forbidden on the pain of ex-communication by the church, but one musician was impudent and brilliant enough to memorize the piece by ear and later reproduce it for publication by an English historian. The teenage Mozart was subsequently summoned by the Pope. As Mozart continued his prodigious output into his thirties, one can guess that no grave punishment befell him. Instead, the Pope praised him for his musical talent, and the ban on publication was lifted. This is as if Julian Assange was brought to the Oval Office to be given a pat on the back and a friendly “How’d you do it?” from President Obama.

The piece is approximately ten minutes in length and calls for two spatially-separated choirs: a “main” choir of five voices and a “solo” choir often comprised of four choristers. Its structure is simple: the choirs alternate verses, which are separated by brief sections of chant sung by a tenor. The verses sung by the main choir are based on the original Gregorian chant, while the solo choir sings a more elaborate response. Each verse of chant is set to one stanza of the Latin version of the psalm.

The description seems simple, but the effect is pure magic. Tension builds throughout the verses and is abated by the stoic sections of chant. The choir begins verses with a chant-like recitation of multiple syllables on one chord, like the outpouring of the confessor to the priest. The vocal ornamentation in the verses of the solo choir break up the monotony of a descending melodic line or add colour to a suspension. Harmony is unconventional for the period: a dominant seventh in the lower voices sets up the legendary, high ‘C’ that recurs in the solo choir verses, mimicking a desperate cry directed to the heavens. Relief arrives in the stunning final stanza, sung by both choirs. At last, the choir elongates the first syllables, and the chord is broken by the descent of the alto line. The soprano line floats above the arrangement with minimal fluctuation while the alto and tenor carry most of the melody. As the verses are musically repetitious, dynamic and stylistic changes are key to emphasizing the text: the music is a blank canvas, but the work of art as exhibited by the choir can evoke despair, plaintiveness, or contrition. The performer must balance constancy of tempo, pitch, and other basic elements necessary for musical fidelity with variation to bring out the emotion in what is, in essence, a penitent cry. Compare two performances by King’s College, Cambridge (with trebles and no spatial separation) and the Tallis Scholars (with sopranos and spatial separation), and note that both occur in large churches. This piece takes full advantage of the unique qualities of these sacred spaces, transforming acoustic reverberation into emotional resonance.

Despite its specific religious origin, Miserere belongs to the category of rarefied compositions that triggers a sort of universal spiritual experience in listeners – just read the YouTube comments.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

Two good friends of mine are engaged to be married and asked me to create an original cocktail for their wedding. They are getting hitched at an outdoor ceremony in May just outside of Chicago, so they were looking for a cocktail that had a lightness and floral flair evocative of spring, but with a distinct Midwestern twist. From a practical point of view, it would also need to have to have wide appeal – it will be the only cocktail on the menu – and be simple enough to be made by a bartender who will have to sling dozens of these all night.

After a month or two to myself, I had worked up over three pages of ideas ranging from rough sketches to tested, complete cocktails and sliding in difficulty from simple highball constructions to Angostura art-topped egg white foam intricacies. Pulling down to a shorter list, we met one evening to mix, drink and adjust. A stand-out emerged with all the components I was looking for and, more importantly, it was quite tasty. But, as is often the case with these new creations, what they tasted was not quite the drink I had in mind when I started.

Three pages of ideas... picking and choosing cocktail fates

My original take was a harder version – a riff on an Old Fashioned – with a new twist: grapefruit. American whiskey and grapefruit is a combination I’ve only seen in practice a few times, but is one of those blessed unions that boggles the mind when you first put them together. On my first attempt I realized I was on to something, but the drink was missing a nice finisher… a taste I could add that would be masked at the start, but emerge in a later wave, a sort of  an “ah-ha” to punctuate the drink. The mellow citrus and dark flavors of the whisky led me to pick up my bottle of crème de cacao and splash a little in as well. “Ah-ha,” indeed!

Of Grapefruit and Grain
-1 1/2 oz rye (I used Rittenhouse 100 proof)
-1 oz grapefruit juice
-1/4 oz simple syrup
-2 dashes orange bitters
-1/2 oz dark crème de cacao
SHAKE and STRAIN into a rocks glass with ice, GARNISH with a grapefruit peel

The drink is dark in color and flavor due to the rye, but the sweeteners and especially the grapefruit really mask the alcoholic strength of the drink. The crème de cacao plays nicely with the whisky and generated what the groom-to-be called “brown sugar notes”, but ultimately, it just doesn’t have enough wide-ranging appeal for the wedding, at least not as the only offering.

To lighten it up a bit, I swapped the rye for a white, unaged whiskey, specifically Koval’s Chicago Rye. This spirit has wonderful and vibrant notes of fruit and grain and even touches of spice, but is clear and light enough that I often try to put it in where a recipe calls for something like a gin or vodka. It is complex and full so that it can come through even when mixed with several other ingredients, but it presents itself as being delicate and plays well with other delicate ingredients. Looking to work this specific point, I swapped out the boring simple syrup for St. Germain elderflower liqueur and, with a few more slight adjustments, the wedding cocktail was born.

The Wry Pamplemousse
-1 1/2 oz Koval Chicago Rye Whiskey
-3/4 oz grapefruit juice
-1/2 oz St. Germain
-1/3 oz dark crème de cacao
-2 dashes orange bitters
SHAKE and STRAIN into a rocks glass with ice, GARNISH with a grapefruit peel

Again, the crème de cacao comes out on the end as a great finish whereas the body of the drink is much lighter and fresh, very much in line with the spring feeling that I had hoped to capture. The complexity of the Koval Rye comes through here as well, and lends, in a very subtle way, that Midwestern-ness my friends were looking for.

This drink is poised to get a lot of traction. Besides being featured at the reception, the couple plan to have a unity cocktail portion to the ceremony; the groom will mix the stronger alcohol components with the sweeter ingredients lent by the bride and the official will add two dashes of bitters to represent the glue that unites the whole affair.

I’m happy to have created something special for my friends and to have expanded my own cocktail creation repertoire. With practice comes confidence and I’m finding that my own intuition is beginning to guide me more steadily. Original flavors, the harmony of that perfect combination, the light in the eyes when you know you’ve got it… It is deeply rewarding when it works!

A good friend and fellow whisky enthusiast joined me again this year in celebrating WhiskeyFest Chicago, a gathering of nearly every major whisky brand and distillery in one spot for three hours of samples and conversation. With over 275 different spirits on hand this year and three sessions of seminars, there was a lot to take in and we adopted the pinball method of just bouncing from table to table without much plan. If my hazy memory serves me right (and it may not) we were able to smash last year’s record of about 25 pours with an astounding 34 this time around.

We decided to lead off the night with something new to us both and turned to two bottlings from Macallan. The first was the Macallan 17 yr Fine Oak which is a vatting of whisky aged in American oak ex-bourbon, American oak ex-sherry and Spanish oak ex-sherry casks. This was a solid whisky, but one that I found un-remarkable. It was well-rounded and smooth, but there were no stand-out points to it. This is, I admit, a weird qualm to have, but I like a bit more character to my whisky. The second pour was the Macallan 18 yr Sherry Oak. Again this was clean and well balanced, but this time the 100% sherry casking lent a much more resounding note to the whisky and so we both left enjoying this one more. At $125 and $160 apiece, I don’t think I’ll be going out of the way with these, but for those who like the classic style, I understand the appeal.

Our next stop was Bulleit. This brand has had a much lauded bourbon on the market for awhile, but we stopped in to try the new Bulleit Rye (which I haven’t seen in stores yet). Wow! This one surprised us both. The initial wave is flavorful, but not in the usual rye way. It of course has the spicy and peppery notes of most ryes, but there was something else there, that sadly I couldn’t describe at the time and is now lost to me.  I need to try this one again! As much as I love the rye style, I liked this precisely for the fact that it was atypical. At the end of the night, both of us pointed to this as one of our stand-out finds of the evening and we expect this to be very affordable when it is released.

Across the aisle, we found Diageo’s Classic Malts line. With ten standard offerings representing all styles of Scotch single malt whisky, we had a lot to choose from, but decided on three. We began with Lagavulin 16 yr, a brilliant smoky Islay dram aged in sherry casks and smoothed to perfection. We’ve both had this one before and both love it, so this was a comfort dram, not an adventurous tasting. Next, we tried the Talisker 175^th Anniversary Edition. The standard Talisker 10 is often promoted as an excellent entry Scotch as is has some smokiness to it, but not an overwhelming amount and it’s balanced with a sweetness and pepperiness. This special edition had all those same quantities, but seemed to have been aged a bit longer giving it a smoother quality. Finally, we tasted the Oban 14 yr. This whisky is a classic lightHighland with beautiful and delicate floral notes. I think this would make an excellent easy drinking everyday whisky and I’ve added this to my future purchases queue.

At Anchor Distilling we tried both the curious Junipero Genevieve Gin and the Old Potrero Straight Rye. Genevive is a sweet Dutch style of gin which is made from a rye mash and has been much talked about in the cocktail community. It is considerably more flavorful than mostLondon dries and, really, is so different as to be gin in name only. I had been anxious to try it and now am anxious to get a chance to play with it more in the future. The rye was, like the Bulliet, memorable for several interesting flavors which made it unlike your standard rye.

In the craft distillery corner, we first tried WhistlePig 10 yr Rye and then Angel’s Envy Port-Finished Bourbon. Both have been abuzz with praise on the internet, but while we felt the support was justified in the first case, it was overblown in the second. WhistlePig is a classic rye whiskey, done as well as can be hoped for. It is spicy, peppery and bold, but the age rounds the corners just enough so that there is kick without burn. The Angel’s Envy, on the other hand, has lost its edge. I love port and found the sweet, tawny finish on this to be good (my friend disagreed), but the whole thing was too soft. For those who are tepid about bourbon, this might be up their alley, but it felt too refined-away for us.

Moving from one disappointment to another, we next tried our only Irish entry, the newly rebranded and overpromoted Michael Collins 10 yr Single Malt. Bah! The rebranding was necessary since the whiskey can’t stand on its own. We did not return to try their blend. However, we did reawaken our palates with a fine bourbon. The 1792 Ridgemont Reserve is a great 8 year small batch poised to compete against Woodford Reserve. It had some heat and was just overall an impressive and nice whiskey.

Tuthilltown Spirits makes the Hudson line of craft spirits and recently gained notoriety as the first American craft distiller to be acquired by one of the big boys, William Grant & Sons who also own Glenfiddich and Balvenie. I really enjoyed the New York Corn unaged spirit which is very sweet and wildly different than the subtler Koval unaged spirits I usually think of in this category. We next tried the Baby Bourbon, aged in very small casks. It was incredibly corn-forward (almost too much) giving it a taste a bit different than most bourbons. I liked it, though I think I’d need another deeper taste before I’d consider buying it.

After the fest closed, we took our victory lap with one more round at Bar on Buena where I satisfied my Springbank craving (we just missed the final pour there) by trying their 15 yr Marsala Finish. This is a Campbeltown single malt Scotch with beautiful salty and slightly smoky flavors. I want to keep diving into the Springbank line to find more of their great stuff.

So many good whiskies! So many more bottles added to the “to-buy” list! So many more to go!