The Great Cocktail Caper

Last year about this time, new neighbors moved in across the alley from us, we’ll call them Matt and Amy.  They seemed friendly and fun, Matt was into backpacking and other outdoor activities.  We had them over a couple of times, they had us over for dinner (Matt is an amazing cook it turns out), which confirmed our initial impression that these people were going to be fun friends, and a great addition to the alley.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, Amy came to our back door and explained that they have a family tradition of a cocktail competition on New Year’s Eve, and would we like to participate.  We said yes, even though we’re not really cocktail people, because Matt and Amy are so fun that we figured it would be a blast. Plus, we didn’t have to worry about drinking too much, as long as we could navigate getting across the alley and down our driveway.

I tend to want to make a solid showing when I do something, which posed a dilemma for this situation.  We had ever attended, so I had no idea what to expect, and there wasn’t any way to research past events.  In retrospect, I probably could have checked some Instagram postings and gotten some sense.  All I knew is that there would be food (another reason to say yes), and that we had to make 8 servings of a cocktail for the judges.  It was slightly intimidating, since I only know how to make one cocktail (not counting Aperol Spritz).

But the one cocktail I know how to make, a Grapefruit Vesper Martini, is a good one.  Not just to my untrained palate, but also to others over the years.  The only reason I even know how to make a grapefruit vesper martini is due to the tutelage of the master entertainer Donna Hernandez, at whose home we’ve been blessed to attend a couple of group dinners over the years.

With nowhere to research, I had no idea about what we were in for; dress code, procedure, order of events, etc.  So on the evening of December 31, I put on my 40-year old classic tux, and we walked across the alley with our supplies.  This tux, which I bought at Men’s Warehouse, has a per-use cost of about $2.45.  I put down the $100 deposit when I got measured, and the charged the rest on my Visa when I picked it up all those years ago.  But the second charge never cleared.  I went into the store and explained this to the manager, he said not to worry about it.  So I ended up with a $100 tux that I’ve gotten a fair amount of use out of in the intervening decades.

Amy kindly offered to let us use a special set of martini classes that have a freezing gel in them to keep the drinks at optimum temperature.  We walked across the alley with our fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, our Deep Eddy Grapefruit Vodka, a bottle of Lillet Blanc, and our honey simple syrup.

We discovered the cocktail contest, now in its 6^th year, has become pretty sophisticated.  There is a procedure for establishing the order of contestants, there’s a multi-part ballot for grading, and of course prizes, with the first prize being a trophy that I can best describe as a gold nude man that looks like he just nailed the dismount from a parallel bars routine.  New for this year, you even got to pick walk-on music!

I was little nervous, being a first-time competitor walking into an unknown situation.  But the tux definitely set the tone.  When our turn arrived, I proceeded to walk to the kitchen island to the James Bond theme.  I explained that the grapefruits fresh-squeezed for this cocktail came from Kings River Ranch.  In 1853, William and Mary Hazelton arrived in the California Central Valley and started ranching cattle.  In 1866, upon returning from driving some cattle to Mexico, William brought back saddlebags filled with oranges as a special treat.  Mary, being thrifty, saved the seeds after they savored the citrus, and in the spring planted what became the first two orange trees in Fresno County.  They started planting citrus, and from those first two orange trees, the Kings River Ranch, now farmed by the eighth generation, has grown to a leading citrus grower and packer.  

For the honey simple syrup, I explained that we transported artisanal spring water all the way from Texas, which we had traveled to the month before.  The rain in the Texas hill country falls upon classic karst topography, which means the water filters through the dolomite and limestone layers, and collects in underground caverns.  The natural filtering produces pure water with the perfect pH for cocktails.  We sourced the honey from friends who have a marine salvage yard in San Pedro, California.  The hives are scattered among the 100-yr old ship parts, deep within a heavy industrial area.  So these are tough bees.  They have to fly a long way to the coastal sage for the pollen to make their honey.  The resulting honey has a no-nonsense robustness that reflects their extra effort.

For vodka we prefer the Deep Eddy Pink Grapefruit Vodka.  It is made in Austin Texas, so it pairs nicely with the artisanal spring water in the simple syrup.  As I told the story, I was measuring ingredients into the shaker, adding ice, shaking and dispensing.  The resulting martinis were amazing, not just to my untrained palate, but apparently to the judges as well.  The scoring of the ballots was of course secret, but one of the judges let slip that the vesper martinis won by a wide margin, and there was a big gap before the clustering for second through fourth place.

As a result, the, ah, interesting trophy now resides in our home for the next year.  Francie made me take it off the mantle after the first day, and reserves the right to put it inside a cupboard if people we don’t know are coming over.  Since I made the only cocktail I know, I’ve already started the research for next year.  We had such fun, and in reflecting back, I realized there were some great takeaways.

Be Welcoming: As we walked back across the alley after the event, giddy with our new trophy, Francie whispered “HONEY!  I didn’t know it was just family!! How did we get invited?”  We were honored to be included, and it reminded me to look for opportunities to reach out and pull others into our orbit of fun.

The Advantage of Surprise: Going in blind to a situation can of course be a disadvantage.  However, this worked in our favor because we had the element of surprise.  Matt and Amy already decided that next year is going to be black and white dress.  And people who went after us made an attempt to come up with a story for their drink.  So for this year, we’ve lost the element of surprise.  Everyone will be dressed up, and everyone will have a story. Next time you’re headed into a new situation, consider that it may just be to your advantage!

‘Level Up’ the Situation: Because we didn’t know any better, we added classy dress and compelling storytelling to our cocktail presentation.  As a result of our presentation, the entire contest will be leveled up next year.  In life, I want to be someone who levels up any situation that I’m a part of.  I’m an introvert engineer, so it’s not going to be with great jokes or conversation.  Maybe to some situations we bring new ideas, creativity.  Maybe we bring a level-headed calmness that enhances relationships and increases solutions.  Whatever our gifts and abilities and skills, are we using them to level up when we show up?

Sometimes One is Enough: I only know one cocktail.  It’s been years since I even drank a cocktail.  Conventional wisdom would say that placed me at a severe disadvantage in a cocktail competition.  But, as is sometimes the case in life, one is enough.  I knew one cocktail, it was a good cocktail, and I enhanced it through the presentation.

Dress for Success: Dressing up is seriously out of vogue today.  Okay, I’m old, but I’m a fan of dressing up a little.  Today you will usually find me in my Eddie Bauer pants and my alpaca hoodie, but when I worked, I wore a suit every day, conspicuously different from the majority of my peers.  Like it or not, we all judge all the time, and most of our information we take in is visual.  Sure, you still have to do the work, make the contribution, but showing up well-dressed is a good start.  It shows people that you’re taking the opportunity seriously, and that you respect them enough to bring your best.

Ingredients Matter: As an engineer, I’m somewhat predisposed towards attention to detail.  My wife can tell you, this is not always a favorable attribute.  However in some situations it can pay dividends.  Before the event, we bought two different kinds of grapefruit, and two kinds of grapefruit juice, and did blind tastings to figure out the best one for our debut into the world of competitive cocktails.  When your cocktail only has four ingredients, it makes sense to make each of them the best you can source.  In life, we can only do so much, so it makes sense to look for critical components that we can improve on.

Presentation Counts: I was speaking recently to a group of young people for a major beverage company.  I advised them to sign up for Toastmasters.  I don’t think you can beat the bang for the buck of the Toastmasters program for public speaking and leadership, especially for us introverts.  I’m a little rusty now, but it gets you in the mode of looking for opportunities to present.  I saw the cocktail competition as an opportunity to present a story, and I think that was a big part of our success.