505 Food Fights: Cocktail Edition Round 1
Another mixology matchup in the wild west
There’s no question that Albuquerque is a growing gastroville. The food scene here is really starting to boom, with new kitchen talent flexing creatively and taking big brave strides away from the hometown heuristic of red & green chile spread over various manifestations of melted cheese, meat, and fried cornmeal.
And Chef Mike White of High Point Grill & Taproom is doing his best to crank the throttle on that progress. For the past 7 years, this hulking, tattoo-covered, well-seasoned kitchen veteran has hosted the annual 505 Food Fights—one of the region’s biggest foodie events of the year.
All for charity, this 20-week, winner-take-all culinary competition pits chef against chef in a brutal bracket series swathed in billowing aromatic steam and burncream for casualties of hot oil. Many of Albuquerque’s up-and-coming restauranteurs have donned clogs and aprons and mounted this sanctified stage, hoping to ladle in on the fame and recognition (not to mention the surge in guests at their home tables) promised by the later rounds of this fiercely local and much-acclaimed competition.
And this year, 505 Food Fights is adding a bartending component.
Line ‘em up
Though still recovering from my last cocktail competition, I agreed to take the first bracket slot on short notice. This comp would be different. For starters, no prep ahead of time. As it should be.
I showed up at the venue with nothing but my stepped jigger (which I prefer over the conical doublesided Japanese style) and met my competitor, a multi-award-winning oldtimer who cut his teeth in high-volume nightclubs and college bars in the early 2000s. We chewed the fat and surveyed our stations set up on low foldout tables in the front corner of the room, fetching towels and dump buckets and other missing elements from behind the venue’s bar.
As the audience slowly filled the place in pairs and groups, mastermind Chef Mike called us over to explain the rules and process.
“You’ll go two rounds,” he said, “both using tonight’s liquor. One can be any style, but incorporating a secret ingredient. The other is a classic cocktail, doesn’t have to use the secret ingredient.”
Any ingredients, tools, and glassware behind the bar were fair game. For each cocktail, we’d have 15 minutes to make 2 full size, full shebang for the judges…and then 20 tasters for the VIP-ticket audience.
Okay, I thought. Twenty drinks, keep it simple. No muddling limes or berries or anything messy and complex like that.
Start your engines
The microphone went hot, and the tattooed emcee of 505 Food Fights brought the crowd together and introduced this first round of the annual competition; the chefs gearing up in the kitchen, and the two bartenders kicking things off.
“First let’s find out tonight’s liquor,” said Chef Mike, hefting a taped box onto the table. “Even I don’t know what it is yet.”
He pulled the tape and opened the flaps, while the crowd craned watching.
Please not vodka, I prayed to the pantheon of cocktailia watching from the rim of the Great Crystal Coupe in the sky.
The emcee pulled a tall slender bottle from the depths of the box. “Rye whiskey,” he said.
Phew! Could be tricky, depending on the secret ingredient—but at least I knew our classic cocktail pick for the next round wouldn’t be Moscow Mule again.
“And the secret ingredient is…”
He reached into a paper grocery bag and produced a heavylooking cardboard box. Whose lid he lifted and showed us and the audience.
“Kumquats.”
Murmurs around the throng, here and there people googling the small pale-orange fruit.
Great, I thought. Basically just another citrus and versatile enough—but Kumquats are mostly seed…and the only way to use them à la minute is to muddle and hope for the best.
15 minutes and counting…
I bit into a fresh kumquat to assess the flavor. Acidic blast of citrus—so sour it makes the bitter peel taste sweet. I muddled a few and tossed in some whiskey to get a fix on the base profile.
Then I went back behind the venue’s busy bar to muse and ransack what I needed.
Across the room at our sidetable popup station, my opponent was busy with his own assembly, and we shared knife and muddler and worked on our creations as time ticked down.
10 minutes remaining
While the food part of the show kicked off in the kitchen, one of the co-hosts approached us bartenders in turn, aiming a camera at our faces and workspaces, asking what we were putting together.
After mumbling some inchoate and uncharismatic jabber about kumquats and cucumber, coconut and cinnamon, I tasted and tweaked and finalized my ratio (see recipe below) and got to work on the judges’ version.
10 down, 5 to go
At some point it came time to announce the second round of the cocktail competition. Chef Mike returned to the stage and commanded the room’s attention.
“Your liquor of course is rye whiskey,” the illustrated emcee said. “And your classic cocktail is…the Old Fashioned.”
Applause from the audience, a grin on my face. Old Fashioned is my jam. And there’s no better version than the true classic (pre 1960s version), soaking a couple raw sugar cubes with Angostura bitters and gently muddling it with both orange and lemon peels.
5…4…3…2…1
I added whiskey and ice and stirred my Old Fashioneds for the judges, as the final seconds rang out. The drinks were carried off, and then it was time to mass-produce the same two cocktails for the token-carrying audience members. Four small samples to a flight. Times 20.
I’ll spare you the grim and gory details of muddling all those kumquats and cucumbers…and I had to make the sampler Old Fashioneds with simple syrup of course—but the taster flights went out and the audience sat back to sip and evaluate, while watching the chefs in the kitchen do their thing.
And the winner is…
After the chefs’ plated dishes went out and came back clean; when all the results were in, the scores all tallied, the audience all slaked and sated…emcee Chef Mike called the crowd and contestants to order once more to announce the winners.
“Starting with the bartenders,” he said into the mic. “The winner tonight will go on to the second bracket round, after the next nine head-to-head matches are decided.”
Then he went through some acknowledgements, thanking his team, the venue staff, the charity, the community gathered; and he proudly proclaimed tonight’s magic number—almost $3000 raised for the kids.
“Okay so getting back to the other reason we’re all here,” he finally said, producing a thin sheaf of notecards from his back pocket with the scores. The audience leaned in. I held my breath.
“Heading to the quarterfinals, tonight’s winner of the bartending competition is…”
He paused dramatically for an unheard drumroll, and raised the handful of scorecards from judges and audience up over his head—
“Paul Blumer!”
Forget Me Kumquat
4-5 kumquats + 1” slice cucumber
Big barspoon coconut cream (e.g. Coco Lopez)
1.5 oz rye whiskey
.75 oz sweet white vermouth (e.g. Dolin Blanc)
.5 oz cinnamon simple
In a shaker, thoroughly muddle kumquats, cucumber, coconut
Add liquid ingredients
Add ice and shake hard
Strain over fresh ice in a hurricane glass (or Collins glass)
Garnish with a kumquat and cucumber coin (or horseneck)
Cinnamon Simple: Boil 350 mL (1.5 cups) water with 4 crushed cinnamon sticks. Remove from heat and add 350 grams (1.75 cups) sugar. Stir until clear, and let cool before straining out the cinnamon bits. Store refrigerated, 4-6 weeks.
Thought you’d like that 😁
The suspense!!