Coqktail Club

I apologize for the spelling in the title.  This site has a profanity checker that doesn’t allow certain words in certain places and apparently Cocktail is a dirty word!  And just think it is printed on menus all over the world!  Amazing! :-)  Okay, enough of that – can’t do anything about it for now let’s just move on….

With the success of our Cooking Club I had been mulling over a way to include more people and expand our events.  In Fall of 2004, I came up with an idea for a Cocktail Club based on expanding knowledge of and techniques for creating cocktails.  The club would have more members (ten) and be much more informal than the cooking club.  Each month, a host and co-host would select and create two cocktails and all other club members would bring an appetizer.  We’d decide as we went along about posting recipes, etc. 

I had eight of the ten people lined up before the holidays and was working on the last two.  I was trying to get a good mix of male/female and various age groups to create an interesting group. We had an initial "administrative" meeting so everyone could meet each other and to draw names for the rotation.  I had planned to add the last two prior to the first official meeting.  Then the holidays hit, everyone got busy, including me so I slacked off on filling the last two spots.  Then a couple people decided to opt out having taken a more realistic look at their schedules.  One couple had a new baby, someone had a soccer league conflict, etc.  So now we were down to five.   

I just didn’t have the energy to fill five spots prior to the first meeting, so I suggested a new idea, at least for the time being.  Instead of doing the at-home thing, we’d just pick places that seemed to serve interesting cocktails and meet there.  People could invite others, opt out for a meeting or two, drink whatever they wanted, etc. 

People liked the idea, especially just coming off the hectic holidays.  Last month we met at Zig Zag, so that we could get off on the right foot by watching Murray at his craft.  It was a good idea, except we picked a night Murray wasn’t working!  Oh well, the new bartender Stan also treats cocktails as craft so it worked out okay. 

Last night we met at the Lobby Bar in the "W" Hotel.  They have a nice selection of specialty cocktails.  My only complaint is that they lean to the sweet side, but there are tarter options if you take your time looking.  I’ve been there several times over the years and I can’t say that many of their bartenders think bartending is a craft – most think it’s a way to pay for school. :-)  (And it is a great way – bartending was part of my higher education experience, too.)  So, some do better than others but in general they do a decent job of making their specialty cocktails.

When I woke up this morning I started thinking that I should take notes on our experiences and what we drink where and report all that back to you.  So next month I’ll be better about recording the "meeting minutes" and giving you some information on the state of Cocktails in Seattle.