Our first foray into MXMO

Ok, so this is our virgin endeavor here, so bear with us. Here's the explanation from Cocktail Virgin(?):
"Tea has played a historical role in cocktails for centuries. Perhaps the best documented early example was its inclusion in punches as part of the spice role to round out the spirit, sugar, water, and citrus line up. Later, teas appear in many recipes such as Boston Grog, English Cobbler, and a variety of Hot Toddies. And present day mixologists are utilizing tea flavors with great success including Audrey Saunder's Earl Grey MarTEAni and LUPEC Boston's Flapper Jane. Now it's our turn to honor this glorious cocktail ingredient!"


First, we have a riff on a pretty common cocktail, the Blueberry Tea, which we'll call the Blue Monday.
.75 Earl Grey infusion*
.75 Lazzaroni amaretto
.75 Grand Marnier
.5 lemon juice
.5 honey syrup**
1 egg white
Shake and strain into a cocktail glass or something of the sort.

*1 cup of earl grey in NGA for 24 hours. Double strain.
**1:1 honey and boiling water.

And one more:
Hilltop Pearl
1 jasmine pearl infused viognier*
1 vodka (yeah, so what?)
.5 honey syrup
.5 lemon juice
Float with dry sparkling wine
Shake and strain into a brandy snifter. Float with dry sparkling wine.

*1 cup jasmine pearl tea in 750 ml viognier. Steep over night in cooler, then double strain and keep refrigerated.

Sorry for the bad pics...

1022 South

Wine List

The wine list at 1022 South is driven by the desire to bring excellent wines at a great price to the guest. Though our list is at present rather small, we hope to expand our offerings as public interest grows. Stop by on Tuesday nights to receive 50% off all of our bottle prices!

Admittedly, I have a bias toward European wines. That said, our most affordable bottles are from Mont Pellier in California. They produce one of the best “value” Pinot Noirs I’ve encountered, and a rather crisp Viognier as well. From the press kit: “This casual, light-bodied [Pinot] has bright cherry fruit on the bouquet and tangy berry flavors on the palate. Lively acidity gives zest and balances the fruit.
Tannins are moderate, and a hint of herbal complexity enhances the finish.” Of the Viognier: “Delicate aromas of white peach and apple with a hint of almond blossom.
It’s light-bodied on the palate and shows the creamy texture of Viognier with citrus accents and a pleasant crisp dryness on the finish.” These are both great ‘after-work’ wines, with fantastic prices to match. Regular price is $6/gl, $24/btl. We offer happy hour (4:00p-8:00p every day) pricing for these wines, at $4/gl.

Finding affordable Champagne can be a challenge, but there are plenty of reasonably priced Crémants from all over France, including Alsace, Bourgogne and Loire AOCs. From the Loire AOC, home of Chenin Blanc, we found a beautiful sparkling wine from Baumard, famous for making the very sweet Quarts de Chaume, an after dinner sipper, and Savennieres. The non-vintage Crémant, however, is quite dry. Mostly Chenin Blanc with a bit of Cabernet Franc, the wine is very pale in color with a fresh, nettley nose. The wine is balanced on the palate, between fruit and acid. Fresh apple and pear predominate with a dry, mineral finish. Nice, small bubbles here. We serve this one for $56, but on Tuesdays you can get one for $28. Irresistible, in my opinion.

One of my personal favorite varietals is Grüner Veltliner from Austria. It’s often quite dry and minerally, great for cutting through rich, fatty foods, and hence makes a wonderful cheese wine. A freshly opened bottle will also offer a hint of effervescence toward the finish, making it a refreshing summertime glass. We serve Lenz Moser’s Heuriger Grüner Veltliner, which is a young wine by classification. Huerigers are meant to be enjoyed during their first year in the bottle, keeping the fruit flavor bright and lively. This bottle in particular shows a stone fruit body with loads of white pepper on the nose, and a long mineral finish. The flavor is bold, yet balanced. Our price is $6/gl, $35/liter.

I decided to try some Chardonnay this winter, and so brought Joseph Drouhin’s Laforet on to the list. The Laforet wines are sourced from all over Bourgogne, and represent the front line bottles for their winery. This Chardonnay is quite simple yet elegant, and I’m almost certain that no oak aging has been used here. The flavors are apple and grape (weird, huh?) and a touch of almond. Our price is $9/gl, $36/btl. Except for Tuesday…

We’ve really been enjoying wines from Delas Freres the past few months and so managed to sell out of both their Côtes du Rhône and Côtes du Ventoux. Faced with these unfortunate outages, I replaced them with Perrin’s ‘Nature’ (organic) Côtes du Rhône. All three of these bottles comprise Grenache and Syrah grapes, but the Delas wines had a bit more Syrah than the new Perrin. In these blends, Syrah gives the wine excellent body and more sturdy structure than Grenache alone tends to offer. The Perrin ‘Nature’ comes off a bit lighter on the palate, but still delivers “red and black plum and berry on the nose that follows through in the big, chewy flavors with a rich core of fruit and leathery undertones.” (George Heritier, gangofpour.com) Try it with our goat cheese for $8/gl, $32/btl.

In my search to find a cheap and bossy Italian wine, I came across the 2008 Chianti from Antonio Sanguineti. The requisite 75% Sangiovese has been completed with a little Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo, and Colorino for structure and finish. This wine is TIGHT coming fresh from the bottle; be patient! Buy a bottle and have your bartender decant it. In a couple swirls the wine becomes full-bodied, with loads of dark red fruit, a touch of spice-box and that classic, leathery-tannic Chianti finish. Try it with our charcuterie plate and a couple of friends. $8/gl, $32/btl.
-Corey

January Happy Hour Menu

Our goal is to rotate through various cocktails on the happy hour menu. So, here is the first of the new year. While it's not noted on the menu, the Jack Rose includes clove/black walnut bitters.

Happy hour is 4 to 8 everyday and all day on Mondays for industry folks and all day on Thursdays for the ladies.

Happy Hour, Holiday hours

We haven't experimented with very many new concoctions lately as we've tried to dial in everything on our plate right now. However, a lull in the Saturday night found me experimenting with a few ideas that have been rattling around in my head for sometime.
First, we are so happy with how our pear bitters turned out, that I thought we might give a couple of other base flavors a try. Here's a quick list of what we're up to:
We bottled apple and sweet pumpkin in the last week and we'll add the spices and botanicals sometime after Thanksgiving.
Also, we are experimenting with a different version of our damiana infusion where we use a high proof rum instead of NGA.
Black walnut leaf, clove, and wormwood. Yeah, it's an anti-parasitic. I bet it ends up being tasty as well.
A variation on the saffron/cardamom bitters that includes a bit of quassia.
Coffee, cocoa, cloves, cinnamon, grains of paradise and galangal in NGA.

We will be closed on Thanksgiving, but we will be open the night before. Since we will be closed, we'll move Ladies Night to Wednesday where we will also debut our new happy menu. I'll post more about this menu later, but for now here's a look:

Coming Correct

Our party for the menu debut was a smashing success. I have to admit that I was a bit shocked by the amount of people. I wasn't expecting that...

There are a few other things that I wasn't expecting. I wasn't expecting people to be so adventurous with the apothecary section of the menu. But, what really surprised me both that night and since then was the reception of the Lord of Weather. I felt like this cocktail was an outlier, that it was the type of cocktail that I wanted to make but made it to the menu almost as a curiosity because of the vinegar content. Little did I know...

I should have expected. The first night that we bottled the fire cider, I posted (twittered) that it was done, and I had guests show up at a quarter till 2 looking for a shot. Since then, we have guests looking for shots almost everyday. So, again, I underestimated Tacoma's palate. I am really excited about this because I feel that the menus have been fairly conservative.

So, we're not doing drink specials anymore. Instead, we have two bartender's choice cocktails on the menu - the Liza Island and the Apothecary Cup. The former is a vodka-based sweet concoction that utilizes the bar without being too aggressive; and the latter is, well, an apothecary cup. That means that we experiment with the bitters and herbal elixirs. It also means that whatever new product that we find to play with will be showcased here. Look for more aggressive flavor profiles, experiments in molecular mixology, and experiments with bitters here.

Going forward, I guess we'll worry less about people not being open to ingredients, and we'll concern ourselves more with creating tasty elegant cocktails regardless of the ingredients.

Fall Menu

Thank you everyone who made it out last night. I know the drinks took a bit longer than expected, but I hope they were worth it. For those who were not in attendance, here's what the new menu looks like:

Did you know...

We're having a party? We'll here's the press release:

1022 South, a craft cocktail lounge in Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood, will debut the new fall menu Thursday, October 22 featuring over 40 innovative, delicious, and, in some cases, curative handcrafted cocktails.

Tacoma, Washington, October 19, 2009

1022 South will throw a cocktail party to debut the new fall menu Thursday, October 22. Featuring over 40 cocktails, the new menu showcases 1022 South's respect for classic cocktails, an enthusiasm for apothecary, and a few of the favorite cocktails from the original menu. In addition to craft cocktails and apothecary infusions, the menu will feature a variety of delicious small plate items. To celebrate, all menu cocktails will be specially priced at $6 the night of the party.

A cocktail lounge open since March 2009 in Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood, 1022 South creates craft cocktails from quality ingredients with a conscientious observance of the history and evolution of the mixed drink, and an acknowledgment that the distinction between bartender and apothecary was once only loosely made. 1022 South cocktails are made with a variety of housemade bitters and botanical infusions including herbs such as kava kava, valerian, chamomile, damiana, yohimbe, tulsi, and ginger among others.

The inventive, delicious, and potentially curative drinks at 1022 can address the stress of a long day, strengthen immune systems in cold and flu season, or enhance an evening with aphrodesiacs. Highly-trained bartenders look forward to sharing the new cocktails and relish the opportunity to experiment: let him or her know what you are in the mood for and they will  do their best to accommodate. As 1022 South incorporates many unconventional ingredients from botanicals and infusions, housemade sodas and tonic, to spirits, wines, and beers, questions are welcomed and humor and a sense of adventure are encouraged.
 
1022 South hours are Sun - Mon 4 -11pm, Tues - Wed 4pm - 12am, Thurs - Sat 4pm - 2am.
Happy hour: 4 - 8 everyday featuring $3 wells, $3 draft beers, and $4 glasses of wine.
Nightly specials for $6

Industry night Monday: service industry professionals get happy hour all night.
Wine night Tuesday: 1/2 off all bottles.
Ladies night Thursday: happy hour for ladies all night.

1022 South is located on South J. Street, between S. 10th and 11th Avenue. 253.627.8588. 1022south@gmail.com. www.1022south.blogspot.com.