Oser Communications Group

Special Feature C O C K T A I L S GOURMET NEWS NOVEMBER 2014 www.gourmetnews.com SPECIAL FEATURE 1 7 With New Year's Eve celebrations now just weeks away, it is time for home mixologists to dust off their cocktail shakers and pull out their best recipes for wintertime tipples. Wowing party guests with craft cocktails has perhaps never been easier, now that specialty food and drink companies are getting into the game, supplying everything from gourmet mixers to garnishes to rim- mers. Whether your customers are serving bloody marys, margaritas or martinis at their next soiree, help them out by providing them with the perfect specialty cocktail accoutrements. 1. Fever Tree A 2013 sofi Award winner in the Outstanding Cold Bever- age category for its Premium Sparkling Lemon, U.K.- based Fever-Tree makes tonic waters, soda waters and ginger ales that stand out among the competition. The company offers classic versions of these mixers as well as unexpected offering like elderflower tonic water and bitter lemon soda water. www.fever-tree.com 2. Hella Bitter Brooklyn-based Hella Bitter only has two products in its craft bitters line, but that is all you need to finish off a truly special manhattan or pisco sour. The company's citrus bit- ters provides a needed hit of orange to a classic old fash- ioned, while its aromatic bitters offers a stronger flavor that stands up to a bold, smoky bourbon. www.hellabitters.com 3. Jin + Ja A 2014 sofi Award nominee, new dragonfruit Jin + Ja is a perfect cocktail mixer. "Protect your organs while you drink – like a helmet on a motorcycle," joked CEO Reuben Canada. Canada chose dragonfruit as the newest Jin + Ja flavor because of its exotic nature, wonderful flavor, beautiful color and amazing health properties. www.drinkjinja.com 4. Kane Candy As America's best-selling specialty brand of chocolate party cups, Kane Candy continues to provide innovative and chef-quality products to the retail class of trade. Pair Kane Candy Dark or White Chocolate Cordial & Toasting Cups with any liqueur, port or dessert wine for a fun, ele- gant and tasty twist at your next dinner party. www.kanecandy.com 5. Luke's Heirloom Tomato Juice With so many craft bloody mary mixes showing up in spe- cialty stores today, it makes sense to choose the one that was a 2013 sofi Award finalist in the Outstanding Cold Beverage category. The company's Bloody Delicious Mary Mix is made from a combination of purple, red, orange, yellow and pink heirloom tomatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon and spices. www.lukespremierfoods.com 6. Owl's Brew A tea crafted for cocktails, Owl's Brew is an all-natural, ready-to-pour mixer that is fresh-brewed in micro- batches from whole tea leaves and spices. The company's blends are meant to pair with a range of spirits, beer and wine for cocktails with a fresh, light flavor profile. Owl's Brew is available in three flavors and two sizes, as well as in an 8-ounce sampler pack. www.theowlsbrew.com 7. Powell & Mahoney A well-known name and a pioneer in the specialty cocktail field, Powell & Mahoney has been crafting classic cocktail mixers for over 20 years. The company offers mixers for nearly every cocktail, including the margarita, bloody mary, bellini, mojito, cosmopolitan, dirty martini and more. Powell & Mahoney's new low-calorie margarita mixer has 70 percent fewer calories than a typical margarita. www.powellandmahoney.com 8. Royal Rose Want to impress your guests with a completely origi- nal cocktail flavored with lavender, rose, saffron or tamarind? Turn to the specialty cocktail syrups from Royal Rose. The company's syrups are made with 100 percent organic fair trade cane sugar, flavored with unexpected combinations of herbs, spices, fruits and flowers. www.royalrosesyrups.com 9. Salty Wahine Salty Wahine gourmet Hawaiian sea salts and cane sug- ars, which are perfect for meats, vegetables and desserts, have also become in-demand among mixolo- gists as terrific cocktail rimmers. The company's Li Hing Margarita Salt not only tastes great on the rim of every- one's favorite Mexican cocktail, it also features a bold, eye-catching orange hue. www.saltywahine.com 10. Stirrings From lemon drops to margaritas, many classic cocktails are not complete until the glass receives the perfect rim. Stirrings has that covered with a line of five specialty cocktail rimmers. The company also offers a wide array of cocktail mixers, liqueurs, bar ingredients and gifts. A Stirrings Mix & Shake Cocktail Set makes the perfect hostess gift this holiday season. www.stirrings.com Raise a Glass at Your Next Cocktail Party with Specialty Ingredients from These 10 Companies BY DAVID BERNARD Last month, as the St. Regis New York Hotel was busy celebrating the 80th an- niversary of the U.S. debut of the bloody mary in the hotel's King Cole Bar, a bar- tender at Todd English P.U.B. in Las Vegas was busy adding a skewer of corn dog pup and crispy chicken wing to a $35 bloody mary already stacked with a slider, chilled shrimp and pickled asparagus, among other garnishes. Still popular decades after its creation and continu- ously reinterpreted, bartender Fernand Petiot would no doubt be pleased with the legacy of the perennial cocktail classic he first mixed in Paris in 1921 before serving it at the St. Regis in 1934. Capitalizing on consumer hunger, a thirst for spice and the growing desire for healthy ingredients, retailers of all things bloody mary, including mixes, seasoning blends and rimmers, are finding a wealth of products to choose from and a strong mar- ket to which to sell. Retailers and produc- ers describe two distinct markets for bloody marys. Jerry Ciesielski, Fine Foods Buyer for Premier Gourmet in Buffalo, New York, noted that a lot of the store's older customers "stick with what they know," buying mixes that are more representative of the classic bloody mary recipe. "For the younger customers coming in, it's all about spicy hot," he said. Of the 16 brands of mixes sold in Ciesiel- ski's store, Tabasco Extra Spicy has become the second best-seller – up from fourth Murphy got the idea for The Murph's Hot & Spicy Bloody Mary Mix, which re- cently won a Chile Pepper Magazine award for Best Bloody Mary Mix, after attending a number of hot sauce trade shows. As a sponsor himself of the New York City Hot Sauce Expo, which doubled its attendance to more than 10,000 this year, Murphy has observed firsthand the trend toward spicy. "I have really seen, particularly among 21- 35 year olds, that it's all about hot sauce and different flavors of hot foods and sauces," he said. One of the country's top bloody mary seasoning producers, Demitri's of Seattle, Washington, happened upon its spiciest flavor, chipotle-habanero, quite by acci- dent. According to founder Demitri Pallis, the company, which has won 25 Scovie Awards since 2012, created the extra-hot variety as a "marketing stunt" for the 2010 Nightclub & Bar Show Convention in Las Vegas. "We kind of told the joke on our- selves," said Pallis. "The response came back so well that, while we didn't intend to actually put a label on it, we decided to go ahead and add it to our lineup." While the chipotle-habanero blend is too hot for most bars to stock as their house mix, it does very well on the retail shelf, just as has done another of Demitri's spicy offerings, Chilies and Peppers, which has increased in popularity in recent years. While some retailers stick to a two-fold offering of more traditional mixes in ad- dition to hot and peppery options, pro- ducers today are stepping up with unique flavors as well. Jason Poole, Brine Boss at Preservation & co. in Sacramento, Cali- fornia, recently turned a Dijon mustard- caper-balsamic-pickling-brine recipe he perfected as a bartender into a successful product sold in 150 California locations. (Expansion to surrounding states is in the works.) Developed for entry into the na- tional Absolut Vodka Bloody Mary Search contest, in which it took second place, the viscous mix also contains sriracha. "The thing that would really frustrate me about bloody marys as a bartender was that people would drink about three-fourths of their drink and wouldn't finish it, because, by the end, it would be too diluted and it wouldn't have the flavor it began with," said Poole. "Our goal was to create a drink where they could actually enjoy the whole thing." By making the mix thick and place. Tabasco Extra Spicy is followed by another spicy offering, the horseradish-fla- vored Mr & Mrs T Premium Blend. The top-seller at the store, as well as one of the leaders nationwide, is the medium-hot Zing Zang. Ciesielski said that customer re- quests, along with the trend toward spicy across many food categories, spurred the store's move to- ward spicier of- ferings. "I'm looking for more and var- ied spicy mixes," he said. The good news for retailers like Ciesiel- ski is that there is certainly no shortage of spicy bloody mary mixes on the market today from which to choose. The Murph's Famous Bloody Mary Mix, based in Long Island, New York, already had a successful, more traditional mix sold in 26 states when it decided to add a spicy version a year ago. "The response has been amazing," said Stephen Murphy, CEO of The Murph's Fa- mous Bloody Mary Mix. The new mix in- cludes cayenne, horseradish and black pepper. "When we did production runs ini- tially, we thought it out and made 70 per- cent of the original mix and 30 percent hot and spicy. Within six months, it was 50-50. And now we're 60-40 hot and spicy." Strong Bloody Mary Market Garnished by Spicy Heat and Unexpected Flavors Continued on PAGE 18

• Cover