Evolution resolutions: Annual barstool musings at the dawn of the new decade

By Xania Woodman

Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2010 | 7:31 p.m.

The year in my glass? It was arguably good in there cocktail-wise, mostly full when compared to the world outside that glass, which stayed pretty consistently in the proverbial crapper.

“Vegas gets picked on, bashed,” says BarMagic of Las Vegas’ Tobin Ellis, just one of my many go-to cocktailians when bar expertise is required. And yet, despite Vegas’ reputation as the capital of Patron shots, Red Bull Vodkas and drinks by the yard (and bad ones at that!), mixologically speaking, we still came out on top in nearly every major cocktail competition in 2009.

Don’t believe me? Just look:

• At Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans this July, BarMagic won the Tru Spirits Barmade Bitters competition.

• Also at Tales, Andrew Pollard of Noir Bar and in association with BarMagic, won the USBG Leblon Caipirinha Competition. Pollard also just won November’s regional Domaine de Canton Bartender of the Year competition; he goes to the St. Martin finals this spring.

• In August, Southern Wine & Spirits’ Armando Rosario went all the way with the International Bartenders Association’s 35th annual World Cocktail Competition, first taking the United States Bartenders Guild’s regional and national wins before finally being named the Best Bartender in the World.

• Wynn/Encore Property Mixologist Patricia Richards surpassed stiff competition to win Santé magazine’s grueling Iron Bar Chef competition on her first try at Santé Symposium in October.

• Rhumbar’s Jason Hughes took first place in the nationwide finals of the 2009 Cocktail for a Cure competition in October.

• And of course, just this November, Vegas once again played host to LXTV’s bartending reality show On the Rocks, filmed at Planet Hollywood with a judging panel that included Ellis and last year’s $100,000 winner, America’s Top Bartender, Amanda Gager of Stripsteak.

Okay, so Vegas didn’t take the win on that last one in ’09 ... Still, “It was a really good year for Las Vegas cocktail culture,” says Ellis, also noting that Downtown Cocktail Room made it into both Imbibe and Food & Wine magazines. In all, Vegas took “pretty much every major, legitimate competition there is.”

So why the abuse? The USBG is based here! Some of the most revered of the top mixologists are based here: Tony Abou-Ganim, Francesco Lafranconi—here! And yet I am reduced to drinking vodka sodas everywhere except a tiny list of places in town and even then “my guy” (or gal) has to be working that night.

At BarMagic’s second annual Repeal Day party, Ellis had wished for each of us that night a “palate epiphany,” a moment when the planets aligned and we saw clearly the connection between what was in our glass and on our plate. My own palate epiphany came a few weeks later, though it was of the more generic ah-ha! variety.

I went to New York to hit up all the mixology dens I’d heard so much about—and to see what’s missing from our cocktail culture. “Whadda yous got that we ain’t got?” I wanted to ask each smug, mustachioed, dandy barman.

What they “got” is a cocktail subculture substantial enough to support the ever-increasing ranks of mixology bars coming online. Bartenders there barely make rent, sell a kidney to open their own joint, then work their own bar only to break even for their passion and be heavily rewarded in print and awards. Try that in Vegas—try hiding a bar, running an all-fresh program, banning flip-flopped tourists and still make a profit after paying casino tenant rent. Noir tried it; no dice.

We lack consistency. We have sparks of genius, while other cities have whole bonfires. We have great mixologists that can be found at certain bars. But you have to get the right cocktail from the right bartender on the right night. Those planets must once again align. What Manhattan lacked was personability—sadly, bland service was the norm. “It’s about you and the cocktail,” says Downtown Cocktail Room’s Tom Kunick. “I think some people forget that.”

Well, me and my cocktail love to travel, but I’d prefer to come home to a cocktail culture befitting of our competition prowess, our pantheon of resident cocktail deities and our limitless budgets that produce these glittering monuments to nightlife—no more vodka sodas in 2010! Too much to ask? Each year I give a cocktail luminary the last word on Vegas’ progress towards equality. Luminary to the luminaries, Abou-Ganim gets 2009’s: “There’s been an evolution; it’s time for another evolution.”