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Wine On The Half Shell: Oyster Happy Hour

Oyster Happy Hour at The Urban on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester, MA

Oyster Happy Hour At The Urban on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester, MA

“Happy Hour: A period of time in which an on premise establishment offers reduced prices for certain beverages.” Use of the term in Massachusetts has been illegal until very recently. Happy hour was banned in 1984 after a person was killed by a drunk driver coming home from happy hour.   But in 2013 the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission (ABCC) changed the restriction on use of the term in an effort to give establishments a fighting chance against casinos that give out free alcoholic beverages. Mmmm, OK, a little slack is better than none at all. Creative and industrious restauranteurs, like Ian Nal at The Urban Kitchen and Bar, have slowly begun to capitalize on the small change by offering steep discounts on certain appetizers at the bar in an attempt to put the happy back into happy hour. The thing that makes me happiest of all, it involves oysters!

I am a bivalve addict. Without some self-restraint, I could easily slurp down 100 oysters in a sitting and then have a few dozen more for dessert.  There are very few places outside of 10 miles from the coast I would trust to put out a perfectly cleaned, shucked, and brimming with brine half-shell. Worcester now has two and The Urban is one of them. Deliveries are made several times a week, thus the raw bar menu changes on a daily basis. They source the oysters from a local company with exceptionally high quality control standards. As a result, oysters can be a pricey appetizer for someone like me. Normally, prices range from $2.25 to $3.00 per oyster, but not during happy hour. Every day from 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM in The Urban’s Bar, oysters range from only $1.00 to $1.75. I tried them all and I even found a new favorite.

Oyster Happy Hour at UrbanNamed for the area where they are harvested each “brand” exhibits distinctive flavors and textures which are unique to the environmental conditions in and around the beds where they are cultivated. Nothing shows “terroir” more consistently than oysters, not even wine. Of course, while you’re at the bar you will want to pair the oysters with a beverage that will not overpower the range of delicate flavors. My knee jerk wine pairing for oysters is always Chablis, for others it is oysters and Guinness. Nal says, “I just don’t get the oysters and Guinness pairing. The flavor is just too overpowering.” The best way to find the perfect paring is to break away from what is expected and experiment! I selected the Plum Island Belgian White from Newburyport, MA. The wine was Roth, Sauvignon Blanc, Alexander Valley, CA. The cocktail, Nal suggested, a grapefruit shrub.

I will start with the grapefruit shrub since I had never had one before. I found the drink to be a very good cocktail companion for oysters. Refreshing grapefruit aroma and effervescence are balanced perfectly with rum and a hint of vinegar. Yes, vinegar, this is what makes this cocktail work so well with the oysters. The cocktail provides the balance of citrus fruit and savory notes which highlights the complimentary components of the clams. The cocktail worked particularly well with the Pemaquids from Demariscotta River, Maine. Large, plump, little oyster steaks with a complex, lemony brine that needed a hearty beverage as a partner.

The Belgian White displays a brilliant straw yellow, intensely aromatic floral hops, lemongrass, earth, mushroom, and yeast with a light, creamy body. While a suitable companion for the Pemaquids it was a match made in heaven with the Blue Points from Long Island Sound, Connecticut. The Blue Points were exceptionally salty and sweet with compact, firm texture. The creamy, refreshing effervescence toned down the salt to reveal the satiny flavors and texture of both bivalve and beer.

The wine was the most complimentary companion across the board for all of the oysters I enjoyed at happy hour. In addition to the oysters I mention above, I paired the three beverages with Daisy Bays and Summersides from Prince Edward Island, Canada and Wellfleets from the Cape. All were beautifully presented, clean, and unique in flavor. I never expected to find a new favorite but I think it had a little help from the Roth Sauvignon Blanc. Powder Points, Duxbury MA were the reigning champion for my palate until I had the opportunity to try Thatch Islands from Barnstable, MA.   The pairing was profound. The wine exhibited a high, juicy, acidity, and medium body harmonized beautifully with the plump, firm texture of the wine. Tropical aromas in the nose and citrus on the palate made a spritz of lemon completely unnecessary for the oyster. Clean, crisp, complex, happy!

I can understand why the great state of Massachusetts is against happy hour. Discounting drinks might make people go overboard which is a dangerous thing. However, discounting oysters is never a bad thing. If you aren’t into mollusks, The Urban also offers shrimp cocktail during happy hour. If shellfish isn’t for you the creative cocktail menu, craft drafts, and wine list should be enough to entice you into the vibrant, upscale, and comfortable bar scene. Happy hour sure beats closing time.

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Vodka: Clear Winner

Core Vodka

Moscow Mule Vodka DrinkThese days it seems like the large spirit companies are producing every kind of flavored vodka you can imagine, from citrus to chocolate flavored vodkas. Some companies are even producing whipped cream flavored vodka…which, when you think about it, I’m not even sure that makes sense to me yet. To produce these flavors, companies are introducing all kinds of arificial chemicals and chemical extracts into the spirit, which, as a craft bartender, seems to go against everything that I believed in…which is using fresh ingredients and staying away from any artificial flavors and additives. To say that I had been turned off from vodka over the last ten years would be an understatement. Inevitably, someone would come into the bar and request the latest whipped vodka flavored cranberry and peach crazytini they had at their favorite college bar. As I would sit there and try to explain that we didn’t carry any flavored vodkas and we only carried fresh squeezed fruit juice, their eyes would glaze over and then they would mumble under their breath, certainly cursing at me or calling me “old”, among other unmentionables.

Core VodkaThe truth is, vodka does have its place at the bar, and as recently as 2012, vodka accounted for as much as a 34% share of the overall spirits sales in the United States. The next closest was rum, coming in at 13% and American whiskey at 10%. So, as much as I despised (and still do) the artificial flavored trends of the vodka distributors, the spirit cannot be ignored. Vodka does indeed have its place at the bar, and used in the right cocktail, or in the right context, can be fantastic. We’ll talk about some of these cocktails in a moment, but first, what is vodka and how did we get here?

Vodka is odorless, colorless, and nearly tasteless neutral spirit that can technically be distilled from just about any material. The key is that the distillate must be at or above 190 proof and then reduced to not more than 110 proof by one of three methods so that the resulting product would be ‘without distinctive character, aroma, or taste” Furthermore, federal regulations state that the “distillate, after treatment, must be stored in metal, glass, porcelain, or paraffin-lined tanks”. So while vodka can be distilled from anything, some of the more common materials used are corn, rye, and potatoes.

So we know what vodka is, but how is it made? There are three main stages of producing vodka and these include Mashing, Distilling, and Filtration/Purification. Mashing is the first step in the process and involves combining the grain (or vegetable) of choice with water and yeast. The quality of the water here will certainly make a difference when considering the after effects of consuming vodka (insert bad hangover story here). The mixture (known as wort) is allowed to ferment for various amounts of time.

Once the mixture has fermented long enough, and the yeast has done it’s job by breaking down the natural sugars into alcohol, the distillation process can begin. The distillation process can happen for as many 6 times, and in fact, many brands tout the number of distillations on their label, portraying a cleaner, more drinkable vodka. Impurities and portions of the liquid are discarded during each distillation to improve the spirit. Multiple distillations can, in fact, produce a vodka that is almost pure ethanol (180-190 proof). Of course, this must be diluted with water to make it drinkable, which seems almost counterintuitive (first they remove water and then add more water back in?). You can see here why it would be important to use only the purest of water if you’re adding it back in to the distillate.

Once distillation is complete, we move on to the final stage of producing vodka, and that is purification. Purification, or filtering, can give vodka some of it’s uniqueness from brand to brand. Some brands prefer to purify the liquid by rapidly cooling it and allowing the impurities to sink to the bottom where they can be discarded. Other brands prefer to filter the distillate through such mediums as charcoal or other materials.

With so many steps being taken to reduce the amount of impurities in vodka, you can see there is a lot of room to cut corners. In this case, cutting corners reduces production cost, and allows cheaper vodka to hit the market. Out of the major spirit categories, I would caution that choosing a cheap vodka will come back to you ten-fold, and not in a good way. It’s extremely important to choose quality over quantity in this case. And surprisingly, vodka’s drawbacks of being odorless and virtually tasteless, turn out to be one of it’s greatest strengths.

Vodka is actually one of the most versatile and customizable spirits on the market. It is a great medium for creating your own at-home infusions and cocktails. With a little bit of time, quality vodka will take on the flavor profile of just about anything you can put in there. One of my favorites that we used to work with at Still & Stir turned out to be a jalapeno infused vodka that provided just enough heat to the cocktail. Now that we are fully into Spring, I would encourage you buy a quality bottle of vodka, get some fresh fruit or herbs from your local farmer’s market, and create a couple of infusions. Store a couple at your house and you’ll have a wonderful base to create some delicious cocktails all season long. Cheers!

Limited Batch of Core Vodka

Moscow Mule

  • 2 oz vodka
  • .5 oz simple syrup
  • 4 – 5 mint leaves
  • 2 – 3 wedges of lime
  • Ginger Beer
  • Combine vodka, simple syrup, mint leaves, and squeezed lime juice in glass (lightly press mint leaves to release oil). Shake briefly to incorporate ingredients and top with ginger beer.

 

Cosmopolitan

  • 1.5 oz vodka
  • .75 oz Cointreau
  • Spoonful of fresh lime juice
  • Spoonful of cranberry juice
  • Combine ingredients in shaker and shake vigorously. Pour into martini glass, garnish with orange zest, and serve