http://www.jsonline.com/features/dining/87347092.htmlDon't let the flocked wallpaper fool you. The paneled bar, multicolored fish in the tank behind the bar and the penchant for velvet at Bryant's Cocktail Lounge make it look like a throwback to another time.
Except Bryant's, 1579 S. 9th St., is so retro it's current. There are bartenders who sling Jack and cokes, and there are mixologists like Chad Doll at Bryant's who craft cocktails that owe as much to the culinary arts as they do the distilled arts.
It's the same for Ira Koplowitz and Nick Kosevich of Bittercube, who brought their knowledge along with their homemade bitters last month to Bacchus, 925 E. Wells St.
They are alchemists of spirits and flavors. It was an inevitable next step for the American palate after years devoted to wine snobbery followed by craft-beer snootiness, said Robert Hess, who serves on the board of the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans and is author of "The Essential Bartender's Guide."
"Cocktails for a long time had just kind of been alcohol delivery vehicles," Hess said. "People were drinking screwdrivers. Martinis were made improperly."
A craft cocktail revival has been a decade in the making, with "small pockets here and there" devoted to rekindling well-made drinks, Hess said. Minneapolis, Chicago, New York City, Seattle - where Hess lives - and Los Angeles have all embraced libations that are shaken and stirred with unique and often oddball-sounding ingredients.
Highball appreciation may have been slow getting here, but the resurgence is hitting Milwaukee like a late-season winter storm.
Next Friday, Bacchus is hosting a specialty dinner in which cocktails are paired with the courses served. Bryant's stages intimate specialty cocktail events once a month. At the Iron Horse Hotel, 500 W. Florida St., mixologist Clint Sterwald created the Honeydew - a rosemary-and-honey-infused bourbon drink with a touch of sweet vermouth and a dash of bitters. Behind the bar, the Iron Horse also infuses brandy with Door County cherries for the Iron Horse Old Fashioned. At BYO Studio Lounge at 2246 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. in the Bay View neighborhood, the Art of the Cocktail hour includes fresh-squeezed fruit in the glass and fresh art on the walls.
The name game
At the monthly Sporting Fraternity session at Bryant's, Doll, an award-winning bartender, serves up elaborate concoctions, many of them referencing Tom Waits songs. For instance, "Diamonds on My Windshield" is a scotch cocktail blending Earl Grey-infused Famous Grouse scotch, house-made tamarind syrup, lemon juice, Peychaud's bitters and seltzer. "A Toast to Susan Michelson" gets its kick from bacon-infused Bulleit bourbon, maple syrup, Benedictine and Angostura bitters with an orange twist.
Other drinks use winter-based fruits and root vegetables when possible. At one Sporting Fraternity seating, Doll stepped from behind a bar laden with fresh-cut produce and advised patrons to try something they wouldn't ordinarily drink to "step outside your comfort zone."
At Sporting Fraternity events, the cocktails, chosen from a thick menu of 16 drinks, are served like a meal: aperitif, a main-course and a dessert cocktail.
Clever names have long been a part of the cocktail lore. Downstairs at Bryant's main bar, they serve the Kismet, a drink that's been on the menu since original owner Bryant Sharp started concentrating on the cocktail menu - three years after Bryant's opened in 1938. The Pink Squirrel, an ice cream drink with a sweet, nutty flavor and a pink hue, was invented there, said owner John Dye.
At Bacchus, the Bittercube guys have trained the crew and also pour craft cocktails from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. You can tell it's the winter cocktail menu by ingredients such as blackstrap rum in a drink called The Fall of Temperance, or apple cider and maple reduction in one called First Winter.
Clever names and fresh ingredients aren't the only things that make a drink a craft cocktail.
The server has to wear a professional-looking "vest," said Bittercube's Nick Kosevich. He's kidding, although he is wearing a vest.
Kosevich learned his culinary cocktail ways at Town Talk Diner in Minneapolis before partnering with Koplowitz, formerly of the trendsetting Violet Hour in Chicago, to form Bittercube. They consider cocktails a blend of science and flavor. They are not, they insist, soda-gun slingers.
They point out that culinary bartending is not to be confused with flair bartending, made famous in the Tom Cruise movie "Cocktail."
Not that they can't shake it up. Koplowitz will stir, shake vigorously and taste the drink using a separate straw each time to dip in the beverage then drop on his tongue. He's persnickety enough to go through an entire glass of straws in an evening's work.
He thinks the return to cocktails as craft is part of the farm-to-plate movement - in this case the garden-to-glass movement - using homemade syrups and local produce when possible. Winter flavors include apple cider, a winter-spiced syrup and sometimes call for hard-to-find birch extract.
The idea is to touch all the senses, including the obvious ones of taste and smell.
Back to where it once belonged
Craft cocktails signal a return to bartending as it was intended.
From the late 1800s to the 1900s, bartenders were equal parts inventors, chemists and headwaiters, said Dale DeGroff, a founding member and board president of the Museum of the American Cocktail and the author of "The Craft of the Cocktail" and last year's "The Essential Cocktail."
"We were a beer and highball country in the 1950s. We didn't drink wine," said DeGroff, who worked at New York's Rainbow Room, famous for its craft cocktails.
As Americans rediscovered their love of flavor and turned chefs into rock stars, they inspired young bartenders to treat the bar as their personal kitchen.
DeGroff also credits women - and specifically the thirst for "Sex and the City"-inspired Cosmopolitans - for driving what had been a focus on wine and beer toward the cocktail.
"They read the menu," he said.
The experts such as DeGroff and Hess say the next big cocktail trend is a return to tiki bars and drinks such as a Singapore sling, rum punches and others that rely on fresh fruit juice for taste. Think Trader Vic's and tiny umbrellas.
Those blended drinks that have been derided for years are also likely to make a comeback, said Hess. He says he is "getting into fun things" like a perfectly blended piña colada, a daiquiri or the once-dismissed frozen margarita and "realizing I can have fun with my cocktails."
Even when he's just making them.
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Sporting Fraternity
Bryant's Cocktail Lounge owner John Dye took the name to give the illusion of turn-of-the-century ruffians who enjoy cocktails and drinking. The cocktail event is a little less brassy. Reservations are taken for groups of 12 in three settings - 7, 9 and 11 p.m. - one Thursday night a month. Sporting Fraternity events are held in the flocked-wallpaper Velvet Lounge, where tea lights and streetlights provide the only illumination and a waitress with Betty Page hair takes your order.
Chad Doll, who competes in bartender competitions (he won a national one for Drambuie and has placed on top in others), is the drink master. Patrons choose one from the appetizer drink menu, one from the main drink part of the menu and one from the dessert part of the menu. Tickets are $35 for three drinks and include food and sparkling water. During our visits, The National provided a selection of quesadillas, hummus, pita bread and cheese spreads. Reservations are required.
Bryant's, at 1579 S. 9th St., is open from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. Sundays. Call (414) 383-2620; see
www.bryantscocktaillounge.com or follow on Twitter at twitter.com/bryantslounge.
Special events include the Blind Pig Speakeasy, open every Monday at 9 p.m. and featuring specialty cocktails in the Velvet Lounge. Patrons should enter through the back door.
Bacchus
Bittercube mixologists blend neo-classic and classic cocktails Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays starting at 10 p.m. through 1 a.m. The restaurant, 925 E. Wells St., also features a small-plates menu.
Bacchus and Bittercube will host the first cocktail dinner with small portions of five classic cocktails matched to five courses of chef Adam Siegel's cuisine next Friday. Kosevich and Koplowitz will explain the origins and preparations of the cocktails. The cost is $85 per person. Reservations are required. Call (414) 765-1166. See
www.bacchusmke.com or
www.bittercube.com.
Other craft cocktail spots
Branded in the Iron Horse Hotel, 500 W. Florida St.
The martini and cocktail menu features drinks made with house-infused ingredients such as Door County cherries or a house-made pomegranate reduction. Call (414) 374-4766. See
www.theironhorsehotel.com.
BYO Studio Lounge, 2246 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
Ken Yandell is working on a spring menu using fresh fruit and other ingredients to go in this dual-purpose art gallery/cocktail lounge. The lounge opens at 5 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Call (414) 699-7033. See
www.byostudio.com.
Comet Café, 1947 N. Farwell, serves up classic cocktails such as the Rob Roy for $3 on Tuesdays and takes $1 off the price of craft cocktails made with booze from small distilleries (many of them in Wisconsin) on Fridays. See
www.thecometcafe.com/COMETdrinks.html or call (414) 273-7677.
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On the bar menu
Here's a sampler of the culinary cocktails being served up around town:
From the Iron Horse: The Melegrano pairs house-made pomegranate reduction and Grey Goose vodka, citron, Cointreau and lemon curd.
From Bittercube at Bacchus: The First Winter blends Old Weller Antique Bourbon, apple cider and maple reductions, Demerara (raw cane sugar) and Bittercube handcrafted Bolivar bitters.
From Bryant's Sporting Fraternity (which is a made-up name having to do with good sports rather than actual sports): Whistlin' Past the Graveyard, a cognac cocktail blending Courvoisier VS; Green Chartreuse; Luxardo Amaro Abano, a medium bitter; Angostura bitters; and Peychaud's bitters.
From BYO Studio Lounge: The spring menu includes Gallery No. 4 with Rehorst gin, Berentzen apple schnapps, fresh lemon juice, basil-sage syrup and half-egg white. It's topped with seltzer.
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Psst . . . nostalgia sent me
Why the obsession with Prohibition- and Depression-inspired names?
The revival of craft cocktails with exotic bitters and fresh ingredients has inspired some creativity in the naming department. Bryant's Cocktail Lounge touts the Depression-era cocktails that have been served there since 1938. Every Monday, the lounge hosts a Blind Pig Speakeasy, owing its allegiance to the speakeasy style during Prohibition (1920 to 1933) which overlapped with the Depression (1929 to 1939).
The Bittercube consultants play on a temperance theme for their cocktail names.
One reason is that Prohibition forced individuals to make their own liquor, often lower quality than anyone was used to. Drinks were made, well, drinkable with the addition of sodas for taste. Author Robert Hess calls this period "the great cocktail lobotomy."
