- Ellen Across America
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Local Libations
- October 2007
- Heather Muse
- It was about 200 years ago that thirsty people looking for a good time first started mixing up cocktails. But no one is quite sure how the term was coined (hey, it was a long time ago). According to The Museum of the American Cocktail, the term may have first been used in The Balance and Columbian Repository newspaper in which the editor wrote, "Cock tail, then is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters it is vulgarly called a bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head." Of course, today, there are thousands of head-fuddling recipes, but some of the most enduring and famous drinks are ones named after (or deeply associated with) specific places. Check out this list of cocktails and our suggestions the best places to order them (not all at once, please).
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- FOXLIFE
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Tipplers Toast the Cocktail on Its 200th 'Anniversary'
- May 22, 2006
- Sara Bonisteel
- May marks the 200th anniversary of the mixed drink, or at least the first published definition of the mixed drink. And though martinis and cosmos can be found in bars from London to Tokyo, it turns out the cocktail is as American as apple pie.
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- A LA CARTER
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Raising a glass to the cocktail
- May 17, 2006
- Sylvia Carter
- Imagine walking around a museum while sipping a well-chilled dry martini.
The current New York City exhibit of The Museum of the American Cocktail is one show where such behavior is not only permitted, it is encouraged.
The exhibit, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the cocktail, opened on Saturday night at The Balance, a space above a club called The Nest, at 215 W. 28th St. at Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. Some of New York's top bartenders mixed Rob Roys, Manhattans, Aviations and more modern drinks.
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- RESTAURANTS
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Bicentennial, On the Rocks
- May 15, 2006
- Robin Raisfeld & Rob Patronite
- Get out your swizzle sticks: May 13 marks the 200th anniversary of the cocktail—or at least the first recorded mention of the word. And to celebrate, you can visit the Museum of the American Cocktail, the new New York satellite of a high-spirited institution that opened in New Orleans and currently resides in Las Vegas. This modest hub of cocktail geekiness—think musty books, vintage shakers, and witty tributes to barmen and saloons of yore—is ensconced on the second floor of Balance, a nightclub in Chelsea, and curated by cocktail historian David Wondrich, who took a break from his scholarly pursuits to enlighten us on the cocktail’s exalted past and promising future.
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- An ISANTE Exclusive Story
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Historic New Orleans Cocktails
- May 2006
- Garrett Peck
- Museum founding member Phil Greene led the evening’s festivities, mixing drinks while reciting cocktail lore and telling stories about Antoine Peychaud, the inventor of Peychaud’s Bitters, an indispensable ingredient for the Sazerac, perhaps the Big Easy’s most famous cocktail.
- National News
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Bottoms Up: The Cocktail Turns 200
- May 13, 2006
- Associated Press
- Spearheaded by the Museum of the American Cocktail, parties across the United States, as well as in Europe and Australia, will honor the various delicious, and often intoxicating, cocktails of the past and present.
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- AFTER FIVE
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Our kind of tipple has turned 200
- May 7, 2006
- Linda Barnard
- Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of the cocktail. And while the concoctions doubtless existed far earlier than the name, May 6, 1806, marks the first time the word appeared in print — in a newspaper, of course, as befits our hard-drinking, ink-stained heritage.
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- FOOD
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Perfecting the art of the cocktail
- April 26, 2006
- Susan LaTempa
- RIGHT now, we're in a golden age of American cocktails. More and more, bartenders at the best lounges and bars are offering lists of aperitifs, small-plates drinks and after-dinner drinks that sparkle with sophistication and creativity. And the cocktails created by some of the mixologists involved in the Museum of the American Cocktail are among the best. One frequently cited jumping-off point for even these most modern of cocktails is the classics.
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- FOOD
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The golden age of cocktails
- April 26, 2006
- Jenny Hontz
- LAS VEGAS -- The name itself evokes the clink of ice in a glass. So it may seem fitting that a museum celebrating the history of the cocktail has just moved into town.
And really, the location couldn't be better. Visitors to the Museum of the American Cocktail can sip a classic or cutting-edge drink as they check out the collection of historical cocktail memorabilia, because exhibits are on display in a room at Commander's Palace restaurant in Aladdin Resort & Casino.
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- CULTURE
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Mixology course stirs the spirits
- July 25, 2005
- RON GIVENS
- Teach people how to fish, and they can feed themselves for a lifetime. But on a hot, muggy day, striped bass won't quench your thirst. For that, you need a cocktail expert to teach you how to shake it like a Polaroid picture.
Last week, with the temperature and humidity both oozing past the 90 mark, a group of 27 people gathered at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in midtown to learn how to turn out killer drinks.
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- duly noted
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Liberal Libations
- A Master Mixologist Gives His Tips On Creating the Perfect Summer Sip
- July 25th, 2005
- SARA BONISTEEL
- Mixologist and former Windows on the World head bartender George Delgado knows the good from the great. "A good bartender can make a drink by the recipe consistently," he says. "A great bartender can tweak the recipe ever so much for whomever he’s making the drink.
Delgado shared his wisdom last week at the Museum of the American Cocktail’s first summer seminar, "Tomorrow’s Classics: Creating Your Own Cocktails." The event gave drink enthusiasts an opportunity to mix a drink like a professional. Mixing a drink, Delgado says, is more than following a recipe. Good bartenders know their ingredients and how they’ll play off one another in a cocktail. That means ditching store-bought mixers for fresh squeezed juices and choosing not to scrimp on the alcohols that you use for that special kick. Fresh-fruit garnishes and proper drinking glasses also add to the visual appeal.
- CL RECOMMENDS
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Cocktail Culture
- Spring 2005
- Laura Vogel
- New Orleans boasts a treasure trove of cocktail history. America’s first mixed drink, the Sazerac, was invented in the French Quarter in the l830s. One of the oldest bars in the country, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, circa 1770, still exists on Bourbon Street. And to this day, a "go"-cup of hurricane cocktails can be found clutched in the hand of most every Mardi Gras celebrant. Famed mixologist Dale DeGroff (aka King of Cocktails, who has shaken and stirred at New York’s Rainbow Room and Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel) recently decided to make this official with the opening of the Museum of the American Cocktail. It charts the 200-year history of liquor in America with vintage bartending books, cocktail shakers, and barware, and features rotating exhibits and special events by top mixologists. Temporary home is at the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, 514 Chartres St., www.museumoftheamerican cocktail.org
- Drinks, Etc.
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Cocktail Culture
- March 2005
- Andrew Knowlton
- No disrespect to baseball, but when it comes to American icons, well take the cocktail. Honoring its place in history, The Museum of the American Cocktail opened this year in New Orleans, the birthplace of the cocktail as we know it. The permanent collection features rare books, vintage shakers, and other memorabilia. Co-founder and mixologist Dale DeGroff will team up with local bars to host an ongoing series of classes and seminars, Also, the museum will publish a quarterly journal, Mixologist: The Journal of the American Cocktail, for armchair tipplers. Good news, because unlike most masterpieces, the cocktail is a work of art we can all re-create. (514 Chartres Street in the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum)
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All You Can Eat!
- March 11, 2005
- with Bob & Lorin Gaudin of New Orleans Magazine
- Guests: Matt Murphy, Chef de Cuisine – Victor’s Grill; Phil Green, Co-Founder – Museum of the American Cocktail
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- TRAVEL
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Cocktail history shaken and stirred
- New museum delves into higher mixology
- February 28, 2005
- Associated Press
- NEW ORLEANS -- Start with hundreds of antique liquor bottles. Add Art Deco cocktail shakers, vintage swizzle sticks and Tiki cups. Mix well. Serve inside an 1823 French Quarter town house.
The result: The Museum of the American Cocktail.
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- Weekend Edition - Saturday
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New Museum Charts the History of the Cocktail
- February 26, 2005
- Scott Simon
- A passionate coalition of bartenders is establishing the world's first museum devoted exclusively to high balls, low balls, fizzes and other mixed drinks.
The Museum of the American Cocktail now occupies space inside the Pharmacy Museum in New Orleans. It traces the American cocktail from its birth in the early 19th century through its "golden age" in the early 20th century, up to its revival in the 1990s.
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- RESTAURANTS & FOOD
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New Orleans museum traces the history of the American cocktail
- February 22, 2005
- Doug Simpson (Associated Press)
- NEW ORLEANS -- Start with hundreds of antique liquor bottles. Add Art Deco cocktail shakers, vintage swizzle sticks and Tiki cups. Mix well. Serve inside an 1823 French Quarter town house.
The result: The Museum of the American Cocktail.
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- TRAVEL
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New Orleans Is Stirred, Not Shaken, by a New Cocktail Museum
- Sunday, January 23, 2005
- Wayne Curtis
- Two blocks from the nonstop frat party of Bourbon Street, a more genteel form of social drinking is explored at the new Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans. "We want to show the cocktail in the light it should be shown in," said Dale DeGroff, one of the museum founders. "Not as a way to misbehave, but as a way to behave.
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Museum News Magazine
- January/February 2005
- Brimming with beignets, pO- boys, and crayfish, New Orleans builds on its Epicurean flair with the addition of three new museums.
As the purported birthplace of the American cocktail, New Orleans is a fitting home for the Museum of the American Cocktail, which opens in a temporary space in the French Quarter's Pharmacy Museum in early January. The museum's extensive collection of rare books, vintage cocktail shakers, gadgets, memorabilia, and Prohibition-era literature and music will find a permanent home in September 2005.
- FOOD STUFF
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Rich and Illustrious History of Booze
- Wednesday, January 12, 2005
- Florence Fabricant
- After a preliminary introduction in Las Vegas a couple of months ago, the Museum of the American Cocktail is set to open tomorrow in New Orleans. Its displays will cover cocktail history and milestones, like the first time the term was used in print to refer to a mixed alcoholic drink, in 1806. The museum will occupy the second floor of the Pharmacy Museum, in a 19th-century building at 514 Chartres Street in the French Quarter.
New Orleans is the home of cultured drinking — think of the Sazerac, the pousse-café, the Ramos gin fizz — but you could also have done it in New York or San Francisco," said Dale DeGroff, a founder and the president of this nonprofit institution, which eventually hopes to find a permanent home. In addition to exhibits of cocktail shakers and such, the museum also plans monthly seminars and classes.
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Home of the cocktail
- Traveling exhibit hopes to settle down in the Crescent City
- Friday, January 07, 2005
- Pableaux Johnson
- Some people look at a well-poured cocktail and see the obvious -- a drink that satisfies a thirst, pleases the taste buds and takes the edge off a long day at work.
Ted Haigh can gaze into the same glass and see 200 years of history.
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What's Cooking?
- New schools, food museums are on tap for 2005
- Thursday, January 06, 2005
- Judy Walker
- Jan. 12: Wednesday, the Museum of the American Cocktail will have its grand opening above the Pharmacy Museum, 514 Chartres St. One of the founders, Seattle resident Robert Hess, whose drinkboy.com chat room is one of the origination points for the concept, said the exhibits were developed by a Hollywood set designer and the collections are "extraordinary."
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