Zach Fowle

Last time we talked with Micah Olson, he was mixing drinks and running the wine program at Jade Bar, Sanctuary on Camelback's acclaimed cocktail lounge. He's now part-owner of the new Italian eatery Crudo.

What's different about this place?
Well, I'm the owner, so there's that. Compared to Sanctuary and Merc Bar, this place is a little calmer and definitely more of a focus on the cocktails compared to everything else. Like at Merc Bar, it's kind of like a club/lounge, and a lot of people still drink vodka Red Bulls -- you get the people who want to hang out at a cool cocktail lounge as well as the people who just say, "I want to get drunk." Jade Bar had a focus on driving numbers -- it was very corporate for not being a corporate hotel. They're not as worried about putting out a good cocktail as they are about meeting numbers. I look at the bottom line as well, but as long as there's enough money to pay the bills and I'm putting out great cocktails, I'm happy.

Is this a better environment for you?
I really enjoy it. This is week three now, and I still haven't made a Lemon Drop or a Cosmo yet.

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thrillist.com

May 5: Big day this year. While Cinco de Mayo -- the yearly celebration of the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces in 1862 -- lands on the same date annually, only occasionally does it also match up with the Kentucky Derby, held the first Saturday in May. The combination of these two events means you have a lot of options in your Saturday bar-going. Here are our top choices for drinking this weekend, whether you're into sombreros or seersucker. (Or both.)

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Zach Fowle

On Thursday, we told you about the PDT Cocktial Book, the awesomely illustrated, if overly complex, book of recipes from PDT owner Jim Meehan. Today, we'll share one of our favorite recipes from the book: Benton's Old-Fashioned, which combines three of our favorite ingredients: maple syrup, bourbon, and bacon.

Created by Don Lee, a former bartender at PDT, the drink is made using a technique called "fat washing," in which swine fat is fried and poured into containers holding bourbon. This concoction is chilled in the fridge, which makes the fat rise to the top and solidify. The solid is then scraped off, and the liquid is strained, leaving bourbon with a slight yet unmistakable hint of pig.

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Generally, cocktail books are easy. Slap a few recipes together, pair each one with a drool-inducing photo, put out a few thousand paperback copies, and you're bound to make some cash. Providing value -- and doing it stylishly -- is another task entirely.

The PDT Cocktail Book was released in late 2011 to much acclaim -- it was called "the book of the decade if not more" by mixologist Dale DeGroff. After sitting down for a chat with its author, Jim Meehan -- who, as the behind-the-bar owner of New York speakeasy PDT (short for Please Don't Tell), has been responsible for many of the trends that influence cocktail culture in the Big Apple and, as a result, the rest of the country -- we picked up a copy.

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Yesterday we met Rob Samuels, grandson of the creator of Maker's Mark Whiskey and current chief operating officer of the distillery. You would expect a family with such a rich, bourbon-soaked history to know a few good whiskey recipes -- and you'd be right. Rob's father, Bill Samuels Jr., perfected his Mint Julep recipe over years of experimentation. The recipe below serves 14-16 people and is perfect for a Kentucky Derby party (which is coming up on May 5). Make sure you get to work on your Juleps a day before you want to serve them -- the recipe takes more than a day to make, but the drink is worth every second.

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Zach Fowle

Rob Samuels, maker of Maker's Mark

Rob Samuels comes from a long line of whiskey-makers -- the Samuels clan has been distilling as far back as the 1500s in Scotland and was making whiskey in America before the country was founded. Bill Samuels Sr. (Rob's grandfather) began producing Maker's Mark in 1954, and Rob took over as chief operating officer of the distillery about a year ago (that's his signature on the side of every label). We met him for a weekday cocktail at Scottsdale's Culinary Dropout.

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malibu-rum.com

Yesterday we told you about our experiences with coconut shampoo rum and the surprisingly similar Malibu Red, a blend of coconut rum and tequila. Dedicated tasters that we are, we tried the drink in many forms: neat, on the rocks, mixed with coke, and in the many cocktails posted on malibu-rum.com. Some of them were horrific (Malibu Red and tabasco?!), but many were actually pretty good. The Red Hot Explosion was our favorite. Combining coconut, orange and grenadine, it reminded us of a visit to the tropics. More »

malibu-rum.com

Tequila + coconut rum: not as gross as you'd think.

Years ago, I went on a spring break cruise with a group of my hard-drinking friends and, broke college kids that we were, we dedicated the days leading up to the vacation to finding every possible method of smuggling booze aboard. Clear plastic water jugs, giant blue containers of Listerine, bottles meant for shampoo and conditioner -- out went the product, in went the liquor. The strategy worked pretty well for us. None of the stuff was confiscated, and we drank like kings.

BUT. There was a day near the end of our trip when supplies were running low and we decided to pop open a shampoo bottle that had been filled with rum. Mixing the stuff with Coke, I appreciated an extra flavor of coconut. "Greg," said I, "what kind of rum did you use in this? Malibu?"

"Umm, no," he responded. "Bacardi, I think."

"Coconut Bacardi?

"No, just plain Bacardi."

Know those scenes in movies when a character thinks the meat he's eating is delicious, then suddenly finds out the natives are feeding him cooked swamp rat? Our reaction was like that. We spat out what was in our mouths and dashed over to the offending shampoo bottle. Sure enough: coconut-scented. We'd been drinking shampoo rum.

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Yesterday we discussed Pisco (the Peruvian and Chilean liquor made from distilled grape juice) in the general, and Pisco Porton (the most recent addition to the range of Piscos available in Arizona) in the specific. Today we show you the best possible use for Pisco Porton -- the Pisco Sour.
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piscoporton.com

It would seem from looking around the shelves of bars or liquor stores that Europe holds a monopoly on the production of spirits made with grapes. France gives us Cognac and Armagnac; Spain produces a fair amount of brandy; Italy has its grappa. But drinkers do themselves a disservice if they ignore the fruit's other iteration, made on the other side of the world: Pisco. More »