Umami Mart

If you’re daydreaming of lounging in warm, faraway places with a drink in hand, we have something for you: Tippleman’s Falernum. While it won’t physically take you away, adding falernum to your rum, tequila, or even bourbon drink will at least take your mouth on a tropical vacation. Just what is falernum, you ask? It’s a sweet, thick syrup […]

Although summer doesn’t technically end until the autumn equinox on September 21, New Yorkers generally regard Labor Day as the unofficial end of summer. This week’s cocktail, the Beachbum, is thus quite appropriate because I can’t think of a better way to bid adieu to beach season than with this tikified tipple. John Deragon, who […]

A few months ago, I designed a ceramic mug shaped like a monkey’s head, for rum-based cocktails… and no, it wasn’t for selling in stores. I don’t think it would be very consumer-friendly. Yet it had a purpose — the only tiki bar in Copenhagen, Brass Monkey had approached me to design a cup for their drinks. […]

In the past week there’s been a lot of buzz in cocktail circles regarding the outcome of a legal dispute between Pusser’s rum and Painkiller, a tiki bar in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It’s a story that’s led to a lot of anger among us folks in the cocktail biz, as it touches […]

*This post was updated on June 16, 2011, as it relates to Pusser’s vs. Painkiller. I’ve never been a big believer in alternative medicine. While there are centuries-old practices like acupuncture–and even relatively new ones like chiropracty–that seem to deliver on what they promise, I can’t really get down with all the new-age therapies that […]

The Mai Tai is one of the most important and enduring drinks in the continuum of the American cocktail–it is an indelible piece of the ever-changing mosaic called “Americana.” That it instantly conjures images of tropical sunsets, surfboards, and other props fitting for the mis en scene of Beach Blanket Bingo is the reason it […]