TCGP S2 E17 - Chicago's Tropical Cocktailian with Kevin Beary

Transcription

00:00:00
            

Cocktail. Welcome to The Cocktail Guru podcast, a. Show about food, drink, and entertainment with. A tight focus on the good life. And all things delicious, luxurious, and fun.        

00:00:14
            

I'm Jonathan Pogash, bartender, author, TV personality, and founder of The Cocktail Guru. And I'm Jeffrey Pogash, wine and spirits, professional author, insatiable, collector of culinary, and so people tell me, an engaging and my dad.        

00:00:32
             

It's hot. I'm hot. I'm very, very warm. It's very warm where I am, too, but it's glorious because it gives us a tropical feel to this podcast. I'm in New England, you're in New Jersey, and there might as well be palm trees out.        

00:00:49
            

Well, it's around 90 degrees, so that's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty good. But I don't have a cocktail today because when it's warm outside and you're just kind of like you're lethargic yes. And you don't really want to do you just want to lounge around, and you don't necessarily want an alcoholic beverage. Yes.        

00:01:12
            

Plus, we're going away with the family this weekend to California. Oh. For those of you who are interested, I just completed a bar consulting project in Carlsbad, California, which is north of San Diego. It's called Alejandros. It's a new Mexican restaurant.        

00:01:31
            

So if you're out there, go and say that Jonathan sent you, and you can have a delicious Alejandros Margherita and some nice agave spirits. Well, John, I really got creative with this drink today. Normally, I don't I tend to follow recipes, and I don't necessarily come up with my own concoctions on a regular basis. But today, because this is polynesian, because it's tropical and we are both tiki people, you and I, I decided to really get creative, and I played around, and I read some recipes that our guest created for his bar, and some of the ingredients inspired me a bit. So what I did was I put an ounce and a half of an overproof rum into this glass.        

00:02:28
            

I mixed it with an ounce of white rum, an ounce of coconut spiced rum, and about a half an ounce of, believe it or not, chauthos. Can you pronounce it? Chautro? Chartreuse. Thank you.         

00:02:47
            

Chartreuse. And then I added another about a quarter of an ounce of slow gin. And I put some pumpkin spice, my gosh syrup, in here just to give it a little bit of sweetness, because I felt it needed a lot. That's a lot. And I topped it off hold on.        

00:03:10
            

I topped it off with some tonic. Yeah, tonic water. Garnish, for those people who can't see at home, is a hot dog. No, it's banana. Banana because that's what I had available at hand.        

00:03:26
            

I always have bananas. Okay, well, on a spear, we need to bring in our well, let me. Take a sip of this first. I was inspired when I went to visit his bar, Three Dots in a Dash in Chicago. I was inspired to mimic the garnish preparation at that bar because I believe I'm not mistaken, they do a really adorable dolphin garnish with a half banana and little flippers.        

00:03:57
            

And maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. But in any case, I think we should bring him in. What do you think, dad? Well, yes, but because this gentleman is. The.        

00:04:11
            

Director of Three Dots in a Dash, and he's also the beverage director for the Bamboo Room, which is part of Three Dots in a Dash, but that is the more rum centric portion of Three Dots in a Dash. Even though there's rum everywhere in the bar, they have an incredible selection, which I'm sure he will talk about. Three dots in a dash, of course. The name is, if I may say, inspired by Dom the Beach Comber. Our next guest has been in the bar business for a while, and he's been in the hotel business, and he is a consummate mixologist and bartender.        

00:04:54
            

His bar is part of a group called Let US Entertain You, which is a true restaurant and bar empire. And his name is Kevin Beary, beverage Director for Three Dots in a Dash and the Bamboo. And we're going to bring him in. We're going to bring him in in a quick second. In just a second.        

00:05:16
            

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00:05:44
            

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00:06:09
            

Kevin Beary. Welcome. Hey, guys. How are you? Fine, thanks.        

00:06:13
            

Thanks for joining us for all the way from Chicago. It's my pleasure. Thank you. And you've got a really nice background. It's the bar and your beautiful back bar with many different spirits.        

00:06:26
            

What do you have back there? Are those rums and agave? Yeah. Behind me currently is all rum. The top shelf is all independent bottlers, and then the bottom shelf is a mix of Barbados, Guyana, St.        

00:06:41
            

Lucia, a couple more independent bottlers. And we always ask our guests at the beginning of each session, what is Kevin, your desert island drink? Yeah, I think after all these years and all the cocktails, I think it's probably just a split based daiquiri of some sort. Definitely one portion of overproof rum. I think that I always picture a desert island being this idea, like, tropical place.        

00:07:11
            

So a nice strong rum daiquiri is kind of where I'm at. And split base. What is the other base for that? Yeah, no, that's a good question. I would say it's going to be all rum.        

00:07:21
             

All rum, yeah, exactly. Ideally, I'd probably do like, overproof Jamaican white rum and then probably some fresh cane juice rum, maybe a Marique rum agriculture or something a little bit on the funky side. Yum, that does sound really delicious. Kevin, how did you get into this wild and wacky business that we call hospitality? For me, it was going to school, going to college, needed a part time job, and when I was 18, I was in Philly, and at the time you could bartend at 18 in Pennsylvania.         

00:08:04
            

So got behind a bar and turned into more of a full time scenario and I never looked back. And here we are 19 years later. Yeah.        

00:08:15
            

And I'd like to focus in a little bit on rum and sort of the popularity. Agave is extremely popular, a bit saturated rum. What is your opinion on sort of where we are today in the bar world as it pertains to the category of rum? Yeah, I would say in the last ten years, it's really come a long way. It's almost night and day.         

00:08:43
            

I mean, the products that you see on your average back bar now from a rum perspective are completely different than you saw ten years ago, and mostly for the better, I would say, the verification of quality rum. You've definitely seen sort of this massive category of flavored rums on age. Flavored rum sort of fall off and we're finally really starting to see regular placements of good quality rum at a good value. Well, and you've got an incredible selection of rum. I just can't get over it.        

00:09:16
            

I was trying to call it up here because I did go over the whole list and it's divided between sugar cane based rums and molasses based rums and those that are column still or pot still created. It's really quite a sophisticated and extensive selection of what looks to be some fantastic rum. Yeah, and our focus has been on the quality. There was a while where we just would take every rum that was available and put it on the shelf and then the category has grown to a point that it just made more sense to focus in on rums we consider of quality. So there are certain categories we sort of just ignore and go a little bit deeper on others.        

00:10:03
            

But in general, sort of our mantra is that we carry rums of quality that we can be proud of and sort of leave everything else by the wayside. And going back to the traditions of Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomer, you have J Ray and nephew, 15 year old. Correct? We do. We have one bottle of J Ray nephew's, 15 year old.        

00:10:26
             

It is about to go on the menu in the Bamboo Room. What we're going to try to do as a very accurate 1944 style My tie. So ideally we would have the Ray Nephew 17, but it is so few bottles remain. And the same for the 15, but we're recreating the 44 my tie with the Ray nephew 15, as well as a bottle of curacao that we track down from the 40s. That's a nice dry French curacao.        

00:10:57
            

So I think we're going to come pretty close. We have twelve My ties to make sort of in the 1944 vintage style. And yeah, it's going to be pretty exciting to start putting those together. John, please book me a ticket to Chicago for this afternoon. Yeah, I'm booking it right now.        

00:11:18
            

I'm there. I'm serious. I really want to go to Chicago. Well, I was there to visit Three Dots in a dash, so I visited Three Dots. I don't remember what year you opened.        

00:11:28
            

Was it like 2014? Three dots opened in July of 2013. I came on board in 2015. Okay. Yeah.        

00:11:40
            

The Bamboo room 2019. That's right. Yeah. So I was there when Paul McGee was still there. Amazing human being.        

00:11:49
            

And I don't know if it was in the first year or the second year of opening, but I remember hearing that on weekends or on your busiest nights I don't know if this is the case anymore, and I don't even remember the exact number, but it was an insane number of cocktails that you churn out on any given busy night. Is that true? Yeah, I mean, definitely. The pace picked up a lot since those first years, but our highest selling days, we've done up to about 2500 cocktails. 2500 cocktails.        

00:12:25
            

And what is your system with cocktail making? Is everything done alamanut or there are some things that are batched.        

00:12:36
            

The full breakdown of the program. We have four fully batched cocktails that are prepared every morning and held on a nitrogen system and generally so that'll be just four cocktails there that are fully composed. And then from there we'll batch together the base spirits of the remaining cocktails. And that's just going to be spirit based. There's no sugar, syrup, cordial or juice sort of in that base, and then the cocktails are produced from there.        

00:13:08
            

So you have four fully batched and then there's another, including the large format drinks, another 25, 30 or so cocktails that are produced alamanute. We try to keep them in the range of under ten touches of cocktail, but tiki drinks can be fairly complex in composition. So really the batching is just to sort of speed things up and eliminate some strain on the bartender with those extra touches. Wow. And you are in the process now of revamping your cocktail list at the Bamboo.        

00:13:47
            

Bamboo Room just put out its summer menu just this past week. So really great menu. We worked on this one for a while, so some great stuff there. 310 will be featuring its new menu for the summer in May. This coming July is our 10th anniversary, so for our summer menu, where a portion of it is going to be sort of the greatest hits of ten years.        

00:14:13
            

So sort of a cocktail from each year of the program highlighting sort of what was popular at the time. So it's going to be a fun look back on many years of Three Dots. Wow. Congratulations. Thanks.        

00:14:25
            

How many bartenders do you have between the Bamboo Room and Three Dots? We keep anywhere between like, 1315 on the full time roster. Yeah, that's what I would think. That's an extensive crew you have there, for sure. Pretty deep crew, and I would think that is absolutely necessary, looking at the intricate and sophisticated, complex cocktails that you have.        

00:14:48
            

Yeah. I mean, at any given time, at really beautiful. At full peak, there is seven bartenders making drinks at the same time. Wow. What does your sort of training program look like for new hires?        

00:15:05

I would assume that you need to be pretty extensive and there needs to be a lot of practice and apprenticeship. And wait a second, Morse code is required, correct? Morris code is not a requirement. I mean, you got to know the basics to be able to explain the name of the bar. But yeah, training for us, we do have the luxury in that, the way our bar is oriented, we have a main bar in the front of the house that has three wells, three to four bartenders producing drinks, and then we have a two well service bar in the back of the house.        

00:15:38
            

So starting out bartending at Three Dots, while you're learning all your recipes and you're really getting all your motions down, you're able to do that without having a whole bar full of guests sitting in front of you, or in our case, standing in front of you shouting jerk orders at you. So that takes a little bit of the strain away. On getting started as a bartender at Three Dots, we'll focus, to begin with, sort of you got to get down all the cocktails that are on the menu. And then we dive into sort of the basics of rum. And then we'll get into a more advanced tasting of rum and then from there sort of trying to garner an understanding of taking tropical cocktail history and sort of how these cocktails are concerned and sort of increasing a bartender sort of rolodex of these off menu tropical cocktails they can go to.        

00:16:28
            

And your garnishes, I mean, I think you have pretty extensive garnishes. Was I correct when I said that you do a little dolphin garnish? Yeah, once upon a time we did, I would say till about maybe 20 late 2015, early 2016. We were making that banana garnish. So the dolphin is gone?        

00:16:51
            

Yeah, I don't know. I can't reveal too much yet. But you may be making a surprise appearance for our tenure anniversary venue. In the eight years that you've been there, Kevin, have you seen your guests tastes change or evolve since the beginning? Because when Three Dots opened, you were really one of the few resurgenced or resurfaced Tiki bars that kind of came on when the Tiki craze came back to us here in the States.        

00:17:23
            

And I assume there have been tastes that have evolved or devolved or what. But what have you seen with your guests? Yeah, I would say sort of when I came on board, the drinks were certainly very spirit forward and bold, and I think that was sort of our mentality for a number of years after that. And then I would say there was sort of an interest in maybe a little bit greater balance in cocktails and that the necessity for really spirit forward cocktails wasn't the primary objective. Once people really started getting adjusted to tropical drinks, I think they started to more so appreciate the nuance.        

00:18:07
            

We started to get more creative with bringing other flavors and influences into the framework of tropical cocktails. So there's no doubt been a huge evolution, and we're very much appreciating that as we're kind of looking through all the menus over the last ten years to come up with this greatest hit. It's pretty clear kind of how things have sort of evolved to a more balanced and delicious tropical drink over that time. And I think the interest in other spirits too. So many tropical drinks are focused on rum, but the consumer definitely has an interest in exploring outside of that.        

00:18:44
            

I would say we see the trends of the greater cocktail movement, sort of seep their way into tropical cocktails. So I think some of the current ones, like the big agave boom right now, is just as prevalent in our world that you have a huge segment of your consumer that is very interested in sticking with agave spirits. And we can make tropical cocktails with some agave spirits. So we're always sort of sprinkling in some of some current trends into sort of our vision of tropical cocktails. It seems to me that your cocktails, if I may be so bold as to say, are a subtler, more sophisticated version of Tiki cocktails.        

00:19:29
            

Yeah, no doubt. I mean, when you take all the learnings of sort of the modern classic cocktail movement and you sort of apply them into the realm of tropical cocktails, you come up with more balanced and nuanced results. There's no doubt. And I want to take a quick break and talk a little bit more about building blocks of Tiki cocktails when we come right back. Hey, everyone, Jonathan here.        

00:19:56
            

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00:20:16
            

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00:20:34
            

That's shop thecocktaguru.com 10% off with Code Guru 23. Cheers. And now we're back. Kevin, you were talking about how you see your guests being a little bit more experimental with Tiki cocktails and maybe changing out the base spirit here and there. Is there sort of a formula or a classic formula for Tiki cocktails?        

00:20:57
            

And what constitutes a Tiki cocktail? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of recorded recipes.        

00:21:08
            

The canon of Tiki cocktails and tropical cocktails is pretty well documented, right? So there's hundreds and hundreds of recipes, and I would say there are certainly some common threads through that. There's sort of this common, to an extent, a common palette of flavors and ingredients that you kind of see weave throughout. So, yeah, I don't know if that kind of answers your question. There's some standby techniques and ingredients and a lot of opportunities for sort of subbing in those new and interesting flavors and spirits.        

00:21:43
             

Yeah, I mean, you're kind of going as far as cocktail, the architecture, the building blocks of a drink. Tiki you're really starting off with, in a way, a classic rum sour. And then you're adding in another alternative tropical ingredient pineapple, guava, mango, whatever that may be. And not only the liquid portion of the drink, but also the ice, the glass and the garnish. Right?        

00:22:15
            

Yeah, for sure. And I think that's where you identify some of those building blocks, obviously. A lot of crushed ice, a lot of bright acids, a lot of tropical flavors from, like you were saying, passion fruit, guava, mango, sort of things. In that framework, from a garnish perspective, I think a well done tropical drink expresses its ingredients and its freshness through its garnish. So it's important to pick up on the flavors you're putting in the cocktail and its garnish.        

00:22:43
            

And then creative glassware in the form of custom ceramic mugs and sort of large and interesting footed and shaped glassware have sort of always been a standard. Dad, you and I love going to the MyKai specifically. Have you been? There, Kevin. The MyKai in Fort Lauderdale?        

00:23:05
            

Sure have. Yeah. And at the MyKai, that's like classic 1940s polynesian food and drink. And I just love that kind of vibe and the vibe of three dots in a dash for those people who aren't there. Can you kind of describe what that might be?        

00:23:29
            

I mean, I know that you have classic influences in there, but you have some New Age stuff. Yeah. So I would say Three Dots is very much a modern interpretation of all of those classic movements. It's taken design cues from that. But in a very I would say almost like, clean, more sophisticated way.        

00:23:47
            

And that, I think, goes into our menu design. It goes into the style of cocktails. Definitely. We take that influence. And you have the luxury of when you're evaluating such a storied piece of cocktail history, like kind of cherry picking the best parts and creating what you want the modern tropical bar to look like.        

00:24:08
            

Yeah. Something that has always bothered me. I never discussed with you about tiki. Yeah. It's an issue that I have read about, but I've never really discussed it, certainly not on the podcast.        

00:24:25
            

I have not even with you. And that's the concept of frozen cocktails. Frozen tiki cocktails. And the reason I bring that up is because I'm not reading about Tradervic and reading about Don the beach comr. There may have very well been frozen cocktails served in those restaurants.        

00:24:50
            

I don't know. What are you saying? Are you saying that you have not read any of any frozen cocktails at their places? No, I'm saying that I have. You have?        

00:25:02
            

Okay. It appears so. When reading Don The Beachcomer's Daughter's book on the subject, it seems as though there may have been some frozen cocktails or semi frozen. Yeah, I mean, Don the Beachcomer definitely had some recipes that were fully blended in a blender. They're often referred to as sort of like the flash blend.        

00:25:26
            

But I think one of the most popular examples is probably Missionary's Downfall, which was blended with freshman Pineapple green chartreuse. Well, green chartreuse is our addition, but it's definitely of a frozen consistency. Yeah. And the wearing blender had just come out recently. Yeah.        

00:25:46
            

No, I think you see examples of, yes, the immersion stick blender, but also sort of your more conventional bladed blender as well. I would say very likely. I don't think it was to the extent of the fully thick frozen pina colada coming out of a frozen drink machine, but I think there was definitely some fully blended elements in cocktails of the era. For sure.        

00:26:13
            

It's glad we got that straightened out. It's making me thirsty. I don't have a tiki drink in front of me, but okay. Thanks. Cheers.        

00:26:24
             

Cheers. A quick question for you, Kevin. With restaurants and hospitality opening back up and various challenges that operators are running into, is there any particular challenge? I know that some are saying that staffing is a challenge and retention and pay and all of that stuff, but is there anything that comes to mind for you going on these days? Yeah, I mean, honestly, a lot of those things have somewhat alleviated.        

00:26:56
            

Okay. I would say, from what I've heard, kind of in major cities, staffing is not too much of a challenge. I think workplaces have changed a lot, and if you haven't adapted to that through all of this, then I think, yeah, potentially you're going to have a harder time hiring staff. But luckily, we've seen a lot of that sort of resolve itself. I think a lot of lessons were learned.        

00:27:22
            

A lot of people did decide that it was a time for them to leave the industry and understandably so. But we're glad to sort of definitely be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And you guys sure food over there at three dots.        

00:27:42
            

I was looking at the beautiful dishes, photographs of them. There's a great looking poo poo platter. Yeah. Little small bites and dishes that are good to accompany strong cocktails is kind of the idea. But I also wanted to talk about quickly the fact what you were saying before of people wanting cocktails that are not necessarily as spirit forward as before.        

00:28:05
             

Do you think that is kind of just an overall moderation of alcohol intake and sort of obviously you've got the low ABV and no ABV trends. Is that kind of making its way into tiki, do you think? Oh, definitely. Even to the point that we always now keep an alcohol free cocktail on our menu and the popularity of it is staggering. Right.        

00:28:32
            

There's so many occasions where you're in a social setting with a group and for some reason or another, you just don't want to be consuming. And I think potentially, even as you get a little bit older, you have more and more of those circumstances pop up where just moderation is going to serve you well. And I think that sort of the younger guests that are coming in are certainly more conscious of that, but I think it's not limited to one sort of age range or generation. I think just in general, sort of the acceptability of being a little bit more moderate but yet still going out and having a good time and being social are definitely being embraced and I'm here for it. I think it's a great addition, especially in the world of tropical drinks.        

00:29:18
            

These drinks can be so strong and so overwhelming and overindulging on them can really be regrettable. So I'm definitely happy to see a little bit more moderation. Zombie, anyone? Exactly. Yeah.        

00:29:30
            

But if you have that spectrum, if you want to get ripped, this is the place to come. But I also want it to be a place that if you want to be a little bit more responsible, you can do that too. Do you have a limit on the number of zombies someone can order? I mean, we keep a close eye. I have a very talented and well trained staff, so we certainly know the signs to be looking out for because we don't want to see anybody get themselves in too much trouble.        

00:29:55
            

And there are drinks that just are overwhelmingly strong. And I think one thing about tropical drinks is they do a very good job of balancing those strong rums and spirits with these light and bright, delicious balanced tropical flavors. And they can really creep up on you sometimes. Yeah, it says only one per customer on this menu. Yeah, that was definitely sort of a classic tropical bar thing, was to sort of have these limits, I think somewhat served as a warning, but also somewhat served as a sales tactic.        

00:30:27
            

Right. You see that one. Of course you want more. Right? Well, unfortunately, at Don, the beachcomers place in Hollywood, howard Hughes had more than one overindulged a bit and got into a lot of trouble.        

00:30:48
            

Oh, boy. But we won't go into detail. No, I guess not. Well, even though I know the Gory okay. No, we're not going to go into that.        

00:30:58
            

But this has been a really nice, lovely conversation, Kevin, and we really appreciate your time. Thank you very much for joining us on the podcast. It was my pleasure. Thanks so much, guys. Thank you, Kevin.        

00:31:12
            

And there's a lot more to talk about. I know there should be a part too, because I have more questions I know that I haven't been able to get to. Well, you know where to find me. Yes, I do. Thank you.        

00:31:26
            

Tipple time is brought to you in part by perfect puree of Napa Valley. Jonathan here with another segment tipple time. Hope you've been enjoying this episode of the Cocktail Guru podcast. I'm joining you again here from my home kitchen. I thought I would make you a beer inspired cocktail.        

00:31:43
            

I love working with beer and cocktails. Obviously, beer is delicious on its own. Well, most beer, not all beer, but this will actually judge it up or jazz it up a little bit. Of course, using another one of my favorite fruit blends from Perfu Pure of Napa Valley, this is their mango passion. Oh, my goodness.        

00:32:00
            

It's so good too. And then I'm using a Lager style beer and that's it, ladies and gentlemen. That is it. I have my pint glass here and I'm going to add some ice to the glass. You'll see how simple this is in just a moment.        

00:32:14
            

And the mango passion from Perfect Puree will just go right in there. I'm just kind of eyeballing about an ounce and a half yum. And just topping it off with my Lager style beer and the Lager style beer and the puree together. Add this really nice well, a mango color. It's basically all I can say about that.        

00:32:40
            

And it looks really nice. It makes me want to drink it. And actually you'll be able to drink. A couple of these. It's low alcohol, low ABV.        

00:32:47
            

It's definitely a trend. And I've got a lemon wheel that I'm just going to place on top. Like this smell. You get the Lager, you get mango and passion and lemon. I love that.        

00:32:58
            

I love that combination. Cheers.        

00:33:03
            

What does that remind me of? That reminds me of, I don't know, like sitting down at an outdoor concert and enjoying the music and enjoying the weather and enjoying a nice ice cold beverage in my hand that has this sort of tropical beer. Notes to it. Well, that about does it. Cheers, everyone.        

00:33:22
            

Till next time. Tipple time is brought to you in part by Perfect Puree of Napa Valley.        

00:33:33
            

That does it for today's show. If you enjoy what we do, please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. You can also support the show with a small monthly donation to help sustain future episodes. Just click on the Donate button at the top of our website and choose your donation amount. To learn more about our guests, visit www.thecocktalgurupodcast.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok.        

00:34:03
            

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