King Cocktail Dale DeGroff, Photo by George Erml

Even with Thanksgiving approaching, we all seem to be wrapped up in cold blankets of fearful thoughts and somber outlooks. Perhaps the best way out of the gloom, think I, is to introduce you to one of the sunniest people I know, master mixologist, King Cocktail, Dale DeGroff.

The London Tribune has described Dale as the “Billy Graham of the holy spirits.” It is right, as always.

Dale DeGroff is to cocktails as a hand to a glove. They fit. He also is the 2009 James Beard Wine & Spirits Professional Award recipient, the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from Nightclub & Bar Magazine recipient, the 2008 TOTC Helen David Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, and was named the 2007 Cheers Beverage Industry Innovator of the Year with his partners, for Beverage Alcohol Resource (B.A.R.) seminars. Not surprisingly, Dale is a co-founder of the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans.

For 12 years, Dale ruled the luminous Promenade Bar at the Rainbow Room in Manhattan. He says, “I fell in love with bars because of the uninhibited, disordered, and surprising way life unfolds at the bar. The only logical progression in my life has been the wealth of characters that have crossed my path. I don’t know how Muhammad Ali felt the first time he climbed into a ring, or how Louis Armstrong felt the first time he picked up a trumpet, but for me, I knew I was standing in a very familiar and cozy place when I was standing behind a bar for the first time, I knew I was home.”

Dale took a journey back in time to hone his craft. He used only freshly squeezed juices and natural ingredients and figured out how to achieve just the right balance of sweet and sour, strong and weak. He searched for out-of-print recipes for cocktails everywhere he could find them, in garage sales and rare book collections. He experimented with hundreds of recipes, adjusting them to the modern palate and today’s larger portions. (The modern palate doesn’t have as sweet a tooth as once it did.)

He soon discovered something that bakers have long known: he couldn’t simply increase the quantities and hope to get the same result as when he mixed drinks individually. He had to adjust and balance the ratio of acidic fruits to various other components of the cocktail to achieve the results he was seeking.

Dale urges bartenders to attend cooking school in order to get a feeling and respect for composing the many elements and flavors of the ingredients that make up a good recipe. He also encourages an understanding of using correct techniques. He often says, “Watch how chefs use their tools. Collect your own specialty tools and treat them with respect.”

When asked where he got started, Dale answers, “I learned about cocktails much the same way I learned to tend bar–through research and experience and talking to connoisseurs. My fellow bartenders taught me about life, and my mentor, the great restaurateur Joe Baum, sparked my curiosity to find out what makes a great cocktail.”

If you feel the same joy of being behind the bar that Dale described, if you dream to follow in Dale’s steps, but don’t how to begin, may I suggest one of Dale’s excellent online barsmarts seminars or the purchase of one of his instructional bartending DVDs.

If you simply want to learn how to make the most sublime Sazerac ever sipped, begin with Dale’s Craft of the Cocktail.

And now, I hope you will enjoy Cocktail Jerez*, an original Dale DeGroff cocktail that is just right to share with friends and family at Thanksgiving and beyond the last drop of the last leaf.

In Dale’s words, “it is like the fall season in a glass.” Cheers!

COCKTAIL JEREZ*

Ingredients

1 1/2 ounces Jameson
1 ounce Lustau dry Oloroso sherry
1/4 ounce Lustau Pedro Ximenez Sherry
Dash Angostura Bitters
Flamed orange peel garnish

Stir the first four ingredients well with ice and serve strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a flamed orange peel and zest.

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The Rainbow Room Atop Rockefeller Center, New York, New York

Stand at the famous ice-skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza in the heart of New York City. Gaze up at those silvery spires that scrape the sky. At the top of the tower, on the 65th floor, you will be able to imagine the glittering Rainbow Room. It no longer glitters. They’ve turned out the lights.

Forty-two employees were thrown out of work when The Grill at The Rainbow Room recently closed in January. Who would have thought the most secure of jobs, the wait staff positions, would suddenly become vulnerable? Who would have thought a landlord, (in this case, Tishman Speyer), could and would demand a rent increase to $8.7 million a year? Who can calculate how many meals must be served to come up with such a stratospheric rent?

The Rainbow Room was built in 1934 during The Great Depression. But like a great film star, its glamour and radiance sadly faded over time. The legendary restaurateur Joe Baum restored it to its original grandeur in 1988. Imagine: three restaurants, a floor full of banquet facilities and meeting rooms and an exclusive members-only club. But Joe lost the lease  to the Rainbow Room in 1998 when he declined to meet the demand for $4 million annual rent.  Joe served more great meals to more people than anyone in the history of gastronomy.

Joe would say: “You must show your people that you love them and appreciate their work. We have to learn to deserve our staff. People don’t come to a restaurant because they’re hungry. They don’t come to be fed.  They come to be served. They come for fun, for the pleasure of being together.” Being laid off might be the worst thing that could happen to a waiter — or the best thing.

The wait staff who suddenly find themselves on the street have to rethink their options. Gone now are the shared family meals before service. Gone are the tips. Gone are the couple of beers at the end of the evening shift.

But what is one person’s catastrophe can be another person’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. No more working every evening. No more working every holiday. No more being nice even to guests who ask silly questions like: “Is the fish fresh? Can we share the calamari? Can I have the sauce on the side?”

Here’s the chance to see what’s around the corner. A lost job in Manhattan could provide the needed impetus to move to Hawaii or Paris or Thailand. We have embassies in every major city in the world. All these embassies invite guests to parties. All need wait staff. Luxury private yachts and ocean liners like the Queen Mary need wait staff, and employment three miles off shore means no taxes, no car payments, no mortgage or rent to pay — and many new people to meet every night.

There are so many prospects lying at all our feet. We just have to choose one, and bend down to pick it up.

A waiter who loves music can work in the dining room at a concert hall. A sports fan can wait in the sky box dining room for  football, baseball, hockey, tennis or whatever game is in town. There are corporate dining rooms and country clubs to consider. And museums. And retirement villages. These foodservice facilities seem mostly to have weathered the economic storms and a full-time staff position often comes with enticing perks.

Caterers are always on the lookout for caring and competent servers. Some specialize in weddings, parties for politicians, and private dinners, large and small, for stars of the stage and screen.

If you can rustle up and graciously serve some bacon and eggs and you know how to make a bed, you might consider opening a bed & breakfast. If you would prefer to work regular hours, you could think about applying for a teaching position at one of the 600 professional cooking schools in America alone. There, you can teach front of the house and other management skills.

If you can match your hobby, your passion, your special interest to your talents as a professional waitperson, you’ll never look back. You will wonder why you didn’t make the move earlier.

My tip is: Explore all your options and all the possibilities that are just waiting for you, and boldly take the first step.

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