Hale Pele: Portland's Newest Tiki Bar

Earlier this year I was extremely disappointed to hear that one of my favorite watering holes, the tiki bar Thatch, was closing. However, I was quickly soothed when I learned that the space was being taken over by Blair Reynolds of Trader Tiki/B.G. Reynolds syrups fame. If anyone knows tiki, it's Blair, so I trusted him to do it up right.

Last night was the opening night for Hale Pele, as it has been rechristened. Blair has kept everything done right by the former owners and added some nice new touches to the place. The ambiance is perfect, with the tiny bridge over a water feature ushering you into a tiki wonderland.

The water feature abides

The main bar, overseen by the the three Marquesan Baby Eaters from the original Portland Kon-Tiki

Blair chats with customers

The tiki gods confab at the end of the bar

I got to the bar about an hour after the doors opened and it was already packed to capacity. The space is relatively small, with about a dozen seats at the bar and maybe two or three times that many in booths along the opposite wall. The size seems to be about right, as more seating would definitely strain the abilities of the two bartenders behind the stick to keep up with orders.

As a nice cameo, Martin Cate of Smuggler's Cove and tiki guru extraordinaire was there to help with the opening.

Thankfully I was able to nab a seat in a booth quickly after arriving. I settled in and glanced over the well balanced menu to see what was available.

After a bit of thought, I ordered a mai tai (the true test of a tiki bar). While it took a little while to get my drink (they were swamped), it was worth the wait. Blair has gone for the most serious Mai Tai possible, a 1:1 split of Smith & Cross Jamaican Navy proof rum and St. James Royale Ambre rhum agricole. This is a very rum-forward mai tai and a force to be reckoned with. It actually reminded me a lot of my personal mai tai recipe, though even more amped up.

While I only sampled a few of Blair's wares, looking over the back bar made me almost start drooling with the vast selection of rums and other spirits. There are some real gems on the top shelf, like Rhum J.M. VSOP and 1997, as well as a bottle of Clément XO that I really want to try.

The rum selection is... voluminous...

The people working behind the bar and the waitstaff did an excellent job given how full the bar was. Nathan and Mindy (I think that's her name) were putting out fantastic drinks along with Heather playing a bar-back roll (I think?). One sign of quality is that everything was being measured with Oxo measuring cups, meaning that the drinks were perfectly balanced and should remain so every time you order one.

Mindy rocks a serious Hawaiian shirt

Nathan in action

After the mai tai, I relocated to the bar and ordered a Jet Pilot. It showed up in 'reentry' fashion with a flaming sugar cube and a dash of cinnamon to give it real pyrotechnics. The drink was easily as good as the one I got at PKNY a few years back and half the price. It had a really excellent balance, with the strong flavors of Lemon Hart 151 just edging out the sweet, spice, and sour elements of the drink. They also have their blender technique down proper, as the drink started out strong to remind you just how much rum is in it, while retaining solid flavor as it was diluted by all of the crushed ice.

I finally departed after several enjoyable hours and rode home in the cool of the evening. I look forward to many more trips to Hale Pele and seeing how the bar evolves over the coming years. If you're looking for an enjoyable place to get a drink in Portland, I would put Hale Pele right up the with the other mixology heavyweights of our fine city.

Canadian Whisky Review: Crown Royal Black vs. Reserve

Crown Royal is one of the best known brands of Canadian blended whisky (Canadians use the e-less whisky spelling). The distillery was established in 1939 after a visit to Canada by the then King of England, George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth. Located in Gimli, Manitoba, Crown Royal is put together from five different types of whisky that are all distilled and aged separately before being blended to form the various expressions. Three of the spirit lines are 'rye', one is 'bourbon' (presumably this means that it contains a mixture of corn, rye, and malted barley), and one 'corn' (my guess is mostly corn, likely with some malted barley). The 'corn' line comes off the stills at very high proof - almost like vodka - and is aged in refill barrels to keep it fairly neutral. That is used as the 'base' whisky, which is then blended with more flavorful whiskies from the other lines.

Crown Royal Black

Nose: floral roses, light maple syrup and molasses, some corn/grain as creamy breakfast cereal, vanilla, some alcohol

Taste: light grain without much sweetness up front, shifts into molasses mid-palate, then a big burst of pepper, finishing with some grain/corn

Finish: grain/corn, residual pepper

In terms of flavor, this whisky seems like a mashup of some light grain whisky with a molasses-heavy Cuban style rum like Ron Matusalem. The use of refill casks really shows as there was a surprising lack of oak tannins in this whisky. Which makes sense, given that they're aiming for a lighter flavor profile. While I'm not sure this is something that gets me really excited, it does accomplish their goal of making a distinctly Canadian whisky with fairly robust flavors. However, it sounds like the feelings of long time drinkers are a bit more mixed.

Crown Royal Reserve

Nose: creamy grain with subtle rye, a hint of sherry fruit - mostly raspberry, maybe some maple syrup, floral. After dilution, there's more rye grain, drier, some breakfast cereal, a bit of bubblegum or floral sweetness

Taste: mildly fruity up front, segues into creamy grain, some pepper near the back, a bit of chocolate and bubblegum flavor. After dilution, there's more body and sweetness up front, but the flavors become flatter, with with pepper and bitterness near the back.

Finish: grain residue, cacao and rye bitterness, fades out into floral notes

The first time I tried this whisky, I made the mistake of tasting it immediately after the Black. While it holds up on its own, it didn't stand a chance against the heftier Black and seemed tepid and washed out. Sampled first it shows a much more robust and pleasant character that offers a different side of Canadian whisky - while lighter, there are more fruity and floral notes on the nose and palate. While I think it too could benefit from a higher bottling proof, that's not really Crown Royal's goal and it seems that they keep their customer base happy with a gentler spirit. Overall I would say that this is a very nice sipping whisky when you want something tasty but not overly complicated or challenging. The only major downside I can see is the price point, which sets it up against a lot of good single malt whisky. If you want something similar but a bit cheaper, Bushmill's Black Bush might be a good pick.

Tiki Classics: the Nui Nui

The Nui Nui presents what was one of Jeff "Beachbum" Berry's greatest challenges: determine the contents of the otherwise secret Don's Spices #2 and Don's Spices #4. Don the Beachcomber was notoriously secretive about the ingredients in his drinks, rightly fearing that they would otherwise be poached by other bartenders and owners in the cutthroat world of mid-century tiki-dom. The 'Bum relates in his essential tiki tome Sippin' Safari the extreme lengths that Don went to to keep his ingredients a secret:

“Ray would go to the Astra Company out in Inglewood to pick up #2 and #4,” Mike (son of a Beachcomber bartender) told the Bum. “A chemist would open a safe, take out the ingredients, and twirl some knobs in a big mixing machine, filling up a case …” Then they’d close the secret stuff in the safe. Ray (Mike’s father) took the bottles – marked only #2 and #4 – back to Don the Beachcomber’s.”

Berry was able to determine that #4 was cinnamon syrup via one of Don's early bartenders, Bob Esmino. However, #2 eluded him until he eventually sussed out that it was a 1:1 mixture of vanilla syrup and allspice dram. With that information in hand, the secret to the Nui Nui was finally unlocked.

Nui Nui
2 oz amber Virgin Islands rum
0.5 oz lime juice
0.5 oz orange juice
0.25 oz cinnamon syrup
0.25 oz Don's Spices #2
1 dash Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients with a handful of crushed ice, blend for 5 seconds and pour unstrained into a chimney or tiki glass with more crushed ice. Insert a long strip (6+ inches) of orange peel into the drink and let some of it hang out.

The nose is dominated by orange peel and rum. The sip starts smoothly from the sweet vanilla syrup, then transitions into citrus from the lime and orange juices, finishing with a bit of spiciness from the cinnamon syrup and allspice dram. Underneath it all, the rum provides support.

For appearing to be a relatively straight-foward drink, this one is a bit tricky. Specifically, it requires the right rum. Cruzan 2 Year is my go-to for this drink, but I hear that Don Q Añejo and Mt. Gay Eclipse also work well. I've tried it with a few other amber rums, but for whatever reason the drink just didn't come together with otherwise stand-up rums like El Dorado 5 Year. If you want to bump up the sweetness of this drink (I know I used to, until my palate changed a bit), bumping up the Don's Spices #2 is probably the best bet, as the vanilla and allspice will counterbalance each other fairly well, though if you have really strong vanilla syrup it can get into orange creamsicle territory.

Whiskey Review: Maker's Mark Bourbon

The history of Maker's Mark goes back to 1954 when the distillery was founded by William Samuels Sr. with the first bottle coming out of the plant in 1959. While the brand remained under family ownership until the early 1980s, it then passed through a number of hands before settling under its current owners, Beam Inc (via the now split Fortune Brands).

There are two main things about Maker's Mark bourbon that stand out - that it was the first brand to sell itself with the 'small batch' moniker (definitions vary, but MM has stated that they aim for batches of ~20 barrels) and that they are one of the few bourbons made with wheat as the flavoring grain rather than rye. The whisky (they use the spelling more traditionally used by scotch and Canadian whiskies) is bottled at a very respectable 90-proof with their trademark red wax seal.

Maker's Mark

Nose: mellow corn, sweet vanilla, some toffee/caramel, woody cinnamon, a hint of fruit. After adding a couple of drops of water, the whisky acquires a slightly artificial cast, with bubblegum sweetness and deeper vanilla notes, along with a tiny puff of wheat and raspberries, while the corn still peeks through and more oak emerges.

Taste: opens with mild sweetness and slightly thin flavors of corn, which carry through the palate, mild oak appears part way through, followed by a blossom of vanilla and dry cacao with a small prickle of pepper near the back. After dilution, the opening sweetness becomes somewhat cough syrup flavored, while the other flavors become somewhat flatter, with more bitter oak coming out at the back and continuing on into the finish.

Finish: corn, mild oak, very little burn, slightly bitter and peppery. After adding water, the cough syrup/bubblegum flavors come back in the finish.

While I don't find it to be a terribly compelling bourbon at this point, I do have to acknowledge a small debt to Maker's Mark. Back when I was an undergraduate, my college would regularly have a week or so during winter break when students and faculty could teach classes on just about any subject they liked. One student decided that he wanted to do a bourbon tasting. Out of curiosity, I decided to attend. Unfortunately I had almost zero experience with neat spirits at that point and most of the whiskeys just tasted like burning. The one exception was Maker's Mark, which was noticeably smooth and palatable, even after almost half a dozen, often barrel-strength, bourbons. It nurtured a small flame that I might actually like whiskey, though it took many more years before that dream was realized.

So ultimately, even though I think I'll be sticking with Weller Antique for my wheated bourbon needs, Maker's Mark has its place. Their bourbon is almost the definition of smooth, gliding across the tongue with barely a bump. Just don't add any water if you want the best of what Maker's has to offer.

If you're trying to introduce someone to bourbon who tends to prefer smoother whiskeys, this isn't a bad place to start. But once they've dipped their toes in, there are all sorts of more interesting bourbons to choose from.

Where I Buy My Booze

One of the things you realize fairly quickly after becoming interested in cocktails and spirits is that it can be rather frustrating to find everything you're interested in. Almost every country on earth seems to have some maddening law that makes getting your hands on that one last piece you need for the cocktail you read about or the latest fantastic spirit release. While Oregon liquor stores have a fairly good selection for being in a pseudo-control state (and have the small advantage of being able to view almost all of the stock within the state via Oregon Liquor Search), I'm not willing to buy an entire case whenever I want to special order something.

So what are you going to do? Personally, I often turn to ordering online. Sadly liquor laws are absurd and that's not possible in every state in the U.S., but a decent chunk of the country is safe.

Here are the online liquor stores that I have personally dealt with and can vouch for having good customer service. Note, I have not received any compensation for promoting these stores, I just want to bring more business to people who have treated me well.

Hi-Time Wine - based out of Costa Mesa, CA, this was the first place I ever ordered from online. They have an enormous selection and often rather good deals. Shipping isn't too bad (at least if you're on the west coast) if you're ordering a few things at a time, usually run me $4-5 a bottle for a 4-5 item order. Service has been extremely prompt and nothing has ever been damaged in shipping, even when I ordered an entire handle of rum.

DrinkUpNY - based out of Brooklyn, NY, I was initially drawn by the fact that the store had a deal where shipping was free on orders over $100. This helped to balance out slightly higher NYC liquor prices, so I was able to get some good bargains. However, that deal is no longer in effect, so shipping prices are now the standard UPS/FedEx rates unless you live inside the city. However, I can vouch for their extremely thorough shipping methods, which more or less guaranteed that nothing was going to break. As a nice bonus, they tossed in an issue of Imbibe for free. So while I'm extremely satisfied with the service I received from them, I have a feeling that the shipping costs will wipe out any savings I could get. However, if you live on the east coast, they're probably still a good source.

The Party Source - based out of Bellevue, KY, this store is one of the few I've seen in the U.S. that regularly brings in lots of independent bottlings and its own private selection bottlings. They also have a vast selection of minis, which can be a good way to sample new spirits. They also sometimes have extremely good discounts on spirits, but you often have to act quickly as stock can be run down with surprising speed. I actually got pipped on one bottle in my last order, which must have been pulled off the shelf by someone before the staff could grab it for me. However, they did act very quickly to refund both the purchase price and the shipping costs. With all of that said, their shipping prices are, at least to me, very high. If you live closer it'll probably be a better deal, but it's difficult for me to get the price down much below $10 a bottle. Sometimes the deals are good enough that it doesn't matter, but it is a little hard for me to swallow when I can potentially get liquor from the UK shipped to me for roughly the same price. So while I heartily recommend them and have had nothing but good experiences ordering from TPS, be sure to pay attention to the shipping before you hit 'confirm' on your order.

City Wine Cellar - based out of Staten Island, Ny, I bought whisky from this store for exactly one reason. They're the only place in the U.S. I've ever seen selling any of Diageo's 3x200 mL Classic Malts packs. As the alternative was buying them from the UK, I jumped on the opportunity. As they're in NYC, shipping was definitely a bit tricky to finesse, but I was able to find enough deals to make the numbers work out. Customer service was rather good, even when I was told that they were out of one of the whiskies I had ordered. I was able to make a substitution and everything ran smoothly from there. Packing was good and they were even nice enough to include the boxes that the scotch came in, which some stores won't do without any extra fee. Overall a good experience and if you're in the NYC area, it's probably worth taking a peek. They do have some deals that would be pretty good with minimal or no shipping and also a slightly surprising variety of older Diageo releases (Rosebank 21, anybody?).

Astor Wines & Spirits - based out of Manhattan, NY, this is where my most recent order came from. While they have a great selection and some decent prices, the shipping had always deterred me. However, they currently have a deal where shipping is free for first-time customers who sign up for an online account, so I was able to get some very nice prices without having to worry about any extra costs. Admittedly, this may be the only time I ever order from them unless their standard shipping ends up being not too bad, but it's worth taking a peek around their website right now to see if the free shipping is worth it to you. Much like TPS, their shipping on my order was impeccable, with the original packaging for all of my scotch included, plus individually wrapping both the bottles and boxes. Overall a very good experience.

There are also a number if stores that I've had my eye on, but haven't purchased from before. I'd love to hear whether any of you have dealt with them before and what your experiences were like.

Ludwig's Fine Wine - located north of San Francisco in San Anselmo, CA

Riverside Wine Merchants - located just outside of NYC in North Bergen, NJ

Master of Malt - located in Royal Tunbridge Wells, UK, MoM is famous among scotch aficionados, especially for their Drinks by the Dram sample program. I'm particularly interested in them because of their reasonable shipping rates.

The Whisky Exchange - located in London, UK, TWE has quite a number of the 3x200 mL Classic Malts packs that I covet, as well as one from Bowmore. Shipping prices seem to be a little high, but I might be able to justify an order.

Are there any other stores you've had good experiences with? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter as I'm always on the lookout for new places that might have good deals or items I can't get elsewhere.

New Tiki Classics: the Stormy Mai Tai

The Stormy Mai Tai comes from Guiseppe Gonzales, who revealed the recipe in Paul Clarke's post about the bitters-heavy Trinidad Sour, a drink that I reviewed a while back. Both of these drinks invert the normal ratio of spirits to bitters, using 90-proof Angostura bitters as a base spirit and liquor as an accent.

Stormy Mai Tai
1.5 oz Angostura bitters
1 oz lime juice
0.75 oz orange liqueur
0.75 oz orgeat

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, and strain into a chilled rocks glass full of cracked ice. Float 0.5 oz of light rum on top and garnish with a sprig of mint.

The nose is pleasantly funky from the float of Banks 5 Islands rum, with some background spices from the bitters. The sip begins with pleasantly nutty sweetness care of the orgeat and orange liqueur, then segues into a briefly sour interlude of lime, quickly transitioning to massive spice flavors of cinnamon and clove from the Angostura bitters. As the drink continues to dilute, the spice flavors become more integrated, spreading across the sip and joining up with hogo from the light rum float.

This may very well be my new favorite tiki drink. I think I'm going to have to stock up on Angostura bitters, because this is too delicious to not make again and again. While the flavors are massive, everything integrates beautifully, with tasty transitions that leave the finish pleasantly dry and more-ish. I'm a little bit sad that I didn't have any mint on hand to do this one up properly, but the choice of Banks 5 Island rum was a good choice, as it's hogo flavors mesh well with the Angostura bitters' spices. The combination of bitters and B.G. Reynolds' orgeat also give the drink an incredibly thick mouth feel, which is part of what makes this drink so great.

Rhum Agricole Review: Neisson Élevé Sous Bois

Neisson is one of the newer distilleries on the island of Maritinque, having been founded in 1932 by Jean and Adrien Neisson. Still under family ownership, it remains the smallest distillery on the island, with an output of only 400,000 liters a year (for scale, Glenfiddich distills roughly 10 million liters of scotch whisky every year). Their rhum is produced from sugarcane grown on their own 40 hectares of land, with all of the cane cut by hand. Juice is extracted mechanically from the cane, then fermented for 72 hours before distillation. The wash is distilled in column stills to ~70% ABV as required by the AOC.

Élevé Sous Bois roughly translates as 'raised in wood' and Neisson's ESB is aged for 18 months in large 20,000 liter vats (for context, a standard barrel used for bourbon or scotch is ~200 liters). This means that there is relatively little wood contact, so the edges are smoothed off the raw spirit without imparting too many woody flavors. The rhum is then brought down to 50% ABV for bottling.

Neisson Élevé Sous Bois

Nose: sugarcane, honey, a bit of vanilla and woody baking spices, green fruits (apples and pears), pineapple, funky esters, something reminiscent of a scotch whisky wine finish, red berries, cinnamon applesauce, vegetal, but overall a bit thin and somewhat sharp. After adding a couple of drops of water, the nose becomes reminiscent of a Speyside single malt, with more honied vanilla sweetness, while retaining some funky esters and vegetal grassy notes, overall becoming creamier but a bit flatter.

Taste: only slightly sweet sugarcane up front, with a bit of sharp acidic attack not far behind, some woody bittersweet chocolate and nutmeg comes in with an almost malty creaminess mid-palate, while vegetal flavors build towards the back, where winey brandy notes emerge. After adding water, the palate becomes sweeter with less acidic attack, overall becoming flatter like the nose.

Finish: clears quickly, with a bit of brandy residue and grassy oak

Neisson's ESB is an interesting contrast to the Rhum J.M. ESB that I reviewed earlier this year. While I would give a bit of an edge to the J.M., Neisson's offering does have a few things to recommend it. The slightly lighter flavors make it a bit more approachable and the honied, almost sherried character really does remind me of a Speyside single malt like Balvenie Founder's Reserve, overlaid on the traditional grassy, vegetal notes of a rhum agricole. I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of finish and how much it loses after dilution, but I suppose there's a good reason why it's bottled at 100-proof.

If you're a malt head looking to expand your palate to other spirits, this wouldn't be a bad way to dip a toe into the wild world of rhums. And while it's a bit on the expensive side for a rum, usually running into the mid-$40 range for a liter bottle, it's quite tasty and not too bad if you're used to single malt prices.

This rhum is not best suited to a daiquiri, unless you like 'em really funky. The lime seems to bring out the vegetal notes more than anything else, while the sweetness struggles to keep up. There some nice barrel spice notes, though the finish is a little rough. Unfortunately this is why I initially wrote Neisson off, as I was only interested in making cocktails and the daiquiri was my method for judging rums. So it was relegated to the back corner of my liquor cabinet, until I became more acquainted with neat spirits and decided to give it another go. However, with a little work, I think it can be made to fit reasonably well into a cocktail.

Neisson Negroni
1 oz Neisson ESB
1 oz Campari
0.75 oz sweet vermouth
0.5 tsp chocolate spiced rum

Combine all ingredients, stir with ice for 15 seconds, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The nose is fruity, funky, and bitter, reflecting all of the ingredients in turn. The rhum seems to drag out just a few more berry notes from the Campari and vermouth. The sip opens smoothly, but not exactly sweetly, segueing into the traditional Campari flavors, but with overtones from the rhum lifting the drink and adding some grassy funk near the swallow. The chocolate spiced rum isn't assertive, but adds just a bit more chocolate, spice, and pepper near the back.

I snagged this drink from The Speakista, with slight modifications. I don't have any chocolate bitters, but the cacao nibs in my chocolate spiced rum seemed like a respectable substitution. Overall I think it's a good match for the Neisson, which is just smooth enough to blend harmoniously with the other ingredients.