The Faux Columbia Room

My fabulous sister arranged a special treat for me during my last trip to Washington, D.C. – she made reservations at the Columbia Room! Up to this point, what I had heard from her about the Columbia Room was that it was a “really swanky” place where they did a three course seasonal cocktail tasting menu. She was super excited about it, but made dinner reservations beforehand so that we would be able to enjoy our cocktails without any worry.

The Real Columbia Room Experience

After working a full day, I caught a late flight into D.C. and was able to drop my bag at the hotel just in time to catch an Uber to the restaurant where my sister made 10pm dinner reservations. Of course, when I looked up the restaurant in the Uber app, I discovered it was a mezcaleria, and I started to have doubts about how successful our plan for “eating” before the Columbia Room was going to be. As it turned out, my sister once did a mezcal tasting in Brooklyn with our youngest brother and his then-girlfriend (now wife!) and learned that she despises mezcal. She actually chose the place for its proximity to the Columbia Room and its great Mexican food.

We finished dinner about 30 minutes prior to our Columbia Room reservation, but we decided to head over there anyway. The walk was interesting, as it was about one block along the street and then one block down Blagden Alley. After that one block, the alley opened up into a parking lot sized area with bars and restaurants. The Columbia Room was tucked away in a far corner - a very simple black doorway with “124” over the door. Had I not been with my sister, I would have struggled to find it.

The host was stationed right at the doorway, and politely informed us that the Tasting Room was not ready for us yet. He then lead us up a fire escape style staircase through their lovely Punch Garden into the swanky Spirits Library. Not knowing any better, I thought we would be served our three course drink menu at our little table in the Spirits Library – and I would have been perfectly happy with that! But my sister told me that it gets better – that the actual tasting occurs in a super swanky bar area in the back.

Sure enough, after we finished the half glass of sparkling wine that was served to us, we were escorted through a door (or two?) into the gorgeous back bar. Our reserved seats were already prepared for us and our bartender was waiting for us to begin his spiel on the Fall 2017 Seasonal Tasting Menu “What Absence is Made Of.” I really won’t spoil the menu or the experience – in case any of my D.C. friends are considering going – but the menu was very well presented and the experience was phenomenal. The bartender was just the right level of attentiveness to my sister and me; I never felt intruded upon and I never felt ignored. And his pacing of the courses was perfect. Both our bartender and the lady bartender working with him were more than happy to answer any questions that we had about anything related to the drinks or the bar or pretty much anything we could think of. There were some people finishing up the five course tasting menu while we were there. That finishes with a coffee drink brewed by a most amazing coffee making contraption: the coffee siphon. After some “inspired” Googling, my sister and I actually found it on Amazon! So she and I asked some questions about that after the lady bartender finished up with her clients and we were the only clients remaining on her side of the bar.

Overall, the Columbia Room is a very unique once in a lifetime experience because of the atmosphere and the creativity of the cocktail menu. My sister would like to experience all four seasonal menus. I’m really happy that I accompanied her at least once on that quest because she was just so excited and into it. And I immensely enjoyed the experience as well. However, I also enjoy a really good gin and tonic with friends at a normal bar or restaurant too! Which I just happened to do the following night…

Planning for The Faux Columbia Room

While I was working on the Annual Recipes file for 2017, I noticed that I had a lot of terrific drink recipes in the file that I had said I would definitely try again and that I would definitely share with friends. And then I found out that my sister was coming to my parents’ house for about 24 hours on Thanksgiving. This gave me an idea: what if I put together a multi-course cocktail tasting menu using some of my favorite recipes and brought that to share with my sister for Thanksgiving? I could batch the cocktails in Mason jars at home, transport them to my parents’ house in the valley, and then serve them in some of my random fancy glasses. It felt like a great idea.

The first hurdle I had to overcome was fairly simple: how many people do I account for in each cocktail batch? At least my sister and myself, because she will not want to drink alone. But what about our mother? My plan was to start the cocktail tasting menu when my sister arrives from D.C., stay up late, and sleep late the next morning. I don’t know if our mother would want to hang for a session like that. But I could see my getting tired part way through and going to bed early. In that case, we would have to resume tasting around noon before the relatives arrived and our mother may want to join us. If I mixed for three, then we could offer her the option to join us, and just split the extra portion if she didn’t. But then would our father feel left out? If I mixed for four, the same thought process would come into play. But then if our tasting experience did not finish before the relatives arrived, should we be able to offer to include our aunt in the tasting? After running through all those scenarios, I figured I would use a quart Mason jar for each drink and mix five portions. We would then have enough to share or enough for generous portions or enough for second rounds or just some leftover.

The second hurdle was a more complex: what narrative did I want to craft with the cocktails? Did I want to select the narrative first and then choose the cocktails to fit that narrative, or did I want to choose the cocktails and construct a narrative around what I had selected? The major cocktail posts that I had written this year were about cava cocktails, cold weather whiskey drinks, summer spritzes, elderflower liqueur cocktails, odd ingredient cocktails, and flavored liqueur cocktails. I knew the whiskey cocktails were out because my sister isn’t as fond of “brown colored spirits” as I am. I also didn’t want to do more than one cocktail with sparkling wine because the Thanksgiving signature cocktail was going to be based on sparkling wine. And the flavored liqueur cocktails were out because I had used up all the flavored liqueur in the recipe testing. I could happily do the three good elderflower liqueur cocktails again, but that might be too summery for a fall tasting menu. But my favorite on the list – the Tiger Beat - used an odd ingredient from my fabulous liqueur cabinet, so I could incorporate that into a Fabulous Cabinet odd ingredient tasting menu. The two cocktails that I tested in July after my scavenger hunt through Total Wines – the Pimms Royale and the Aviation – would also be happy repeats that used odd ingredients from my fabulous liqueur cabinet. The only thing that made me a little concerned was that my tasting notes on the Pimms Royale observed that it was alcoholic tasting. But the notes also suggested that could be remedied by using bubbly sparkling wine instead of flat sparkling wine or by substituting ginger ale for the sparkling wine. With that issue under control, I had three cocktails and a theme! Of course, each cocktail was a different color – yellow, pink, purple – so I could also do a mini rainbow theme if I wanted.

Of course, there was a little hiccup in my plan as I continued to write my Annual Recipes file: I revisited the recipes from the Chiltern Firehouse cookbook as I added the content from the post about the cava cocktails. The two drink recipes using their blueberry lavender syrup sounded truly amazing from my notes. And I still had blueberry lavender syrup in my freezer! However, both recipes duplicated something that was already on my tasting menu: the Sex and Violets was a sparkling wine cocktail that kind of duplicated the Pimms Royale, and the Chiltern Aviation obviously duplicated the standard Aviation cocktail. But in my tasting notes for the Chiltern Aviation, I observed that it would be fun to try that drink alongside a standard Aviation cocktail to see which is better, so maybe this could be my opportunity. Besides, the Chiltern Aviation does use an odd ingredient (Maraschino liqueur) from my fabulous cabinet, so it fits seamlessly into the narrative.

Preparing for the Faux Columbia Room

After all that mental churn, I settled on the following tasting menu for my sister:

Thanksgiving 2017 Tasting Menu – “Colorful Oddities from the Fabulous Cabinet”

• Tiger Beat – Bright Yellow – Featuring Bison Grass Vodka
• Pimms Royale – Dark Red – Featuring Pimms No. 1 and Dry Curacao
• Standard Aviation – Pale Purple – Featuring Crème de Violette and Maraschino Liqueur
• Chiltern Aviation – Bright Pink – Featuring Maraschino Liqueur

The hardest part about mixing the cocktails was doing the math to multiply the ingredient quantities by five. In the end, I wrote all the measurements down on the back of an old receipt from a local Italian restaurant so that I wouldn’t lose track of them when I actually started mixing in my kitchen. Using the culinary measurement beakers that my youngest brother and his lovely wife gave me for a birthday would make it very easy to measure all the odd measurements – both in ounces and in milliliters.

Of course, when I stepped into the kitchen to actually start measuring into the Mason jars, I immediately noticed a potential issue. All of the recipes required lemon juice! So if I mixed them all in advance, I would have to keep them refrigerated until Thanksgiving to prevent the lemon juice from turning. And then, when I picked up my bottle of lemon juice, I was fairly certain that I didn’t have the 8-10 ounces that I needed to put at least two ounces of lemon juice in each jar. So I decided to riff on the original Columbia Room theme and think of my quartet as “Absence of Lemon Juice.” I planned to mix the cocktails into the Mason jar without the lemon juice, buy a container of lemon juice with my Thanksgiving shopping, and then add the lemon juice to the jar right before serving.

Once that decision was made, the rest of the project came together quickly and easily. I was correct in my assumption that the measurement beakers would have all the measurements that I needed – and I only needed to dirty three of the set! I did have to pause near the end to taste the blueberry lavender syrup to ensure that it was still good (it was well past the week that the book gave it). It was amazing! So the Chiltern Aviation happily stayed on the roster.

Because I used the blueberry lavender syrup in the Chiltern Aviation, I did end up storing the box of Mason jars in the refrigerator. Fortunately, there was space on the top shelf for it. All that was left to do was to acquire the lemon juice and to remember to bring the box with me on Thanksgiving.

The Faux Columbia Room Experience

I was so excited about sharing my efforts with my sister that I kind of overwhelmed her with my brightly colored Mason jars shortly after she walked through my parents’ front door. She couldn’t guess the missing ingredient, even after being explained what each jar contained.

We started with the bright pink Chiltern Aviation in my vintage etched coupe glasses from Williams Sonoma because my sister was intrigued by the color. I poured short over two or three cubes of ice because of the high proof of the cocktail. One of my tasters immediately pronounced that the cocktail tasted like medicine. I explained that means that she probably doesn’t like Maraschino liqueur, and should avoid any cocktails with it when eating out. The other taster said that the cocktail “almost takes you there but falls short.” I wasn’t sure what she meant, but was thinking that maybe it needed more blueberry lavender syrup. But she liked it better as the ice melted to chill and dilute the cocktail.

Since one of the tasting party also had fond memories of the Pimms Cup, we eventually progressed to the dark red cocktail in Mom’s frosted high ball glasses. I poured long over a glass full of ice and topped with diet ginger ale. My tasters unanimously enjoyed that cocktail and found it to be quite refreshing. In fact, we liked it so much that two of us shared the remains of the jar the following afternoon - over ice and topped with fresh ginger ale, of course!

After dinner, we finished with the bright yellow Tiger Beat in the etched martini glasses that Mom picked up for me at a thrift store. I poured short over two or three cubes of ice. Because that was a sweeter drink – it was made with both elderflower liqueur and Lillet – that met with unanimous approval as well.

Because one of our tasting party strongly disliked the Chiltern Aviation, we didn’t even open the light purple standard Aviation. Without the sweetness of the blueberry lavender syrup, it was likely that she would like it even less than the Chiltern Aviation.

The Verdict

Overall, I enjoyed developing and sharing the Faux Columbia Room Experience with my tasters. Although not all of my favorite cocktails were hits with the other two, getting together to taste and discuss them was a lot of fun. Especially where there was such good food to go along with it!

I might design another Faux Columbia Room Experience for when I go to Pennsylvania over the winter to help a friend sort through her belongings in her parents’ basement. There should be five of us total, so I could do the same tasting menu again. However, their tastes run more toward whiskeys like bourbon and rye, so that would be an opportunity for a whole new set of experiments: the New York Sour, the Manhattan, the Sazerac, the Boulevardier…