The Slow Rise of Craft Cocktails in Paris by LINDSEY TRAMUTAFEB

The Slow Rise of Craft Cocktails in Paris By LINDSEY TRAMUTAFEB. 28, 2017 Sullivan Doh, owner-mixologist at Le Syndicat in Paris. In her new book, “The New Paris: The People, Places & Ideas Fueling a Movement” ($30, amazon.com), the writer (and T contributor) Lindsey Tramuta documents the creative and cultural shift she has witnessed in the city in recent years. Below is a passage on the rise of craft cocktails there. To say that cocktails are a new phenomenon in Paris is to overlook a culture of distilling liquors dating back to the 1800s, one that gained greater traction more than one hundred years later during American prohibition, when newly unemployed bartenders came to Europe in droves and landed in some of the continent’s best hotel bars. Then, there is the importance of two iconic bars that popularized the American- English cocktail tradition in the 1920s — Harry’s New York Bar and the Bar Hemingway at the Ritz Paris, renowned in equal parts for its creative cocktails, its literary and artistic clientele, and its star barman, Colin Peter Field, who revived the bar in 1994 after it went dormant in the mid-seventies. The Englishman and longtime expat in Paris has been called the “LeBron James of liquor, the Matisse of martinis, the Yves Saint Laurent of gimlets,” but he is, above all, instrumental to Paris’s presence on the cocktail map. It is a result of his skill and advocacy of bartending that the Ministry of Education began offering a formal degree in 2011 — a Meilleur Ouvrier de France program for barmen — meant to bolster the profession. However, to trace the democratization of craft cocktails as drinks accessible to all, we have to look to 2007 and focus on a trio of bon vivants with a vision — a vision whose impact reverberated widely and rapidly, ushering in a scene that was once relegated to luxury hotels and executed poorly by no-name bars. Romée de Goriainoff, Olivier Bon, and Pierre-Charles Cros of the Experimental Group (EG) were a bellwether to Paris nightlife and the first to move cocktails beyond their traditional codes in hotel bars with their first and most famous bar, the Experimental Cocktail Club. They offered prohibition-era tipples, using top-shelf ingredients and liquors that Parisians wouldn’t find in their local supermarket or corner store (no more Absolut! no more Jack Daniels!) and concentrated their efforts entirely on taste. Hard spirits, more popular at the turn of the century, became the foundation for their cocktails. They weren’t interested in replicating classic martinis, mojitos, and cosmos (although they wouldn’t refuse to make them if customers insisted). Instead, they pulled from what they learned, tasted, and experienced in Montreal, New York, and London, each with established cocktail cultures, in the early 2000s as young, impressionable, and most importantly, curious students. They wanted an environment that spoke to their generation — less formal and stuffy, more approachable — and drinks made with good products and offered at price points they could afford (ten to fifteen euros). They sourced the best-quality spirits and fruit, made their own syrups and bitters, and worked with the right designer to create an entirely new image of the cocktail bar. “Friends told us we were crazy, that Parisians didn’t drink cocktails, they drink wine!” says Bon. But all of that changed within six months of opening their first bar, and they’ve never looked back. From their contribution emerged an entirely new cultural cachet. Beyond a well- edited and masterfully executed menu, the Experimental boys knew how to create atmosphere. Their first space and those that have followed — Prescription Cocktail Club, La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, Beef Club, Fish Club, the Grand Pigalle Hôtel (their first foray into the broader world of hospitality), and Night Flight in the Hôtel Bachaumont — have a unique look and feel, with exacting standards of decor, and are big on mood with intimate lighting, laid-back tunes, and plush furnishings made for late-night lingering. “They brought a wave of fresh air to the city and [the Experimental Cocktail Club] opened on a dead side street off of the rue Montorgueil, which changed the neighborhood. And they gave us a modern cocktail culture: good drinks, quality spirits, fresh ingredients, and a fun environment,” says Carina Soto Velasquez, the first employee and manager of the Experimental Cocktail Club. They mastered their craft and have set their sights beyond French borders: the EG style can now be found in New York, London, and Ibiza, with more projects to follow. But perhaps their most enduring impact is the talent who graduated from their bars to launch their own unique spaces and concepts with a passion and creativity on par with that of the city’s best chefs. Velasquez is perhaps the most well-known Experimental Cocktail Club alum, having left to start a mini empire of her own with Americans Josh Fontaine and Adam Tsou. Their company, Quixotic Projects, is the force behind Candelaria, the city’s first Mexican taqueria. With its unmarked cocktail den specializing in agave spirits, the restaurant-bar has consistently been recognized as a must-visit destination by Tales of the Cocktail and World’s 50 Best Bars, which ranked it ninth in 2013, the highest showing for a French cocktail bar. They spun gold out of Candelaria’s success and went on to open Glass in 2012, a rock ’n’ roll cocktail bar in Pigalle inspired by the New York bars in which Fontaine and Tsou had worked years prior; then the seafood- and-cocktails small-plates restaurant Le Mary Celeste in 2013; and Hero in 2015, a Korean-inspired canteen with inventive cocktails near the once-seedy Strasbourg Saint-Denis neighborhood. More than cocktail creators, the three have proven themselves crafters of experience: Each of their locations has strong good-times vibes and an environment that keeps locals sidling up to the bar. Velasquez told me that one advantage to launching in the wake of an economic crisis was that longevity depended on exhibiting creativity in spades, and Quixotic Projects certainly excelled in that area. Only the people with the strongest ideas and the gumption to fight for them would find success. “Hospitality, gastronomy, and bartending have been part of French culture for ages. Today, we’re seeing a renaissance of artisanal professions that had been banalized for far too long,” she remarked. What’s behind the movement? In her book Paris Cocktails, author Doni Belau sums it up beautifully. “Take the locavore movement, the artisanal quest, the DIY urge, and an ever-increasingly sophisticated palate. Combine that in a cocktail shaker with hundreds of specialized small-batch products made in France, garnish with passion and artistry, and you’ve got the Parisian craft bar movement.” And it makes sense. After all, the movement wasn’t created in a vacuum; it came on the heels of a food movement that flipped dining and consuming on its head. “In France, we’re lucky to have all the best products (it’s one of our biggest strengths!) and it allows us to be super creative. And because we make our own syrups, we can talk to clients knowledgeably about what’s really in each drink,” Café Moderne’s owner and award- winning head barman Ahmed “Mido” Yahi, a self-taught mixologist who learned by letting his palate guide the way, told me over drinks in his bar. “Today, you can offer a tarragon-ginger syrup or a foie gras cocktail and guests won’t think it’s weird because flavor experimentation is more widely accepted, in both food and drink. Bars are basically like restaurants at this point; they use extremely fresh products.” Even better, he’s excited by the idea that today’s adolescents will grow up into an existing cocktail culture that is celebrated. “I already get fathers who come in with their eighteen-year-old sons for meatballs and cocktails; it’s awesome. Family bonding certainly isn’t something you’re likely to see in a nightclub!” More than ever, Parisians are more curious and willing to try new things, with a little guidance from the experts. “With Candelaria’s South American spirit, we, of course, incorporated tequila and mezcal in particular, neither of which had a market in Paris before we opened. Now, we sell more Del Maguey than anyone else in continental Europe,” Fontaine says. Because of that openness, there are fewer limits for the barman. Amaury Guyot of the whiskey-centric bar Sherry Butt and Dersou, for example, tailors his drinks to his partner Taku Sekine’s dishes, many of which rotate daily according to the ingredients available from small purveyors. When it comes to educating the cocktail-curious, a few people and places have made their mark on the industry, including Joseph Akhavan. As part of the team that opened Mama Shelter, the first of the Starck-designed boutique hotels, in 2008, and then as key recipe developer at La Conserverie, Joseph was part of the craft cocktail movement’s first wave in Paris. But he’s earned high marks in more recent years for his rum den and grilled cheese bar Mabel, located in the Silicon Sentier, the 2nd arrondissement’s tech hub, which he runs with his partner, Samantha Sanford. “We wanted to break the codes of rum bars, which are usually tropical or tiki themed. We take it somewhere different,” Akhavan told me as he prepared a drink for me to try. And it was certainly easy to do with a toolbox of more than 120 references and an intense passion for the product.

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