I will confess that I’m missing bartending at Number Ten and helping guests expand their cocktail experiences by trying some drink they’ve never had, or, of course, just doing the…

The Fifteenth Number Ten Symposium TalkTails: The Martini—Forward into the Past took place on Monday, February 17, 2020, at Number Ten, 10 Castle Street, Great Barrington, as one of a…

The Number Ten Fourteenth Symposium TalkTails took place at Number Ten, and the event was a different approach than usual, with the usual being tasting different whiskeys or exploring categories…

We had a nice, albeit smaller than usual group for the Number Ten whiskey/cocktail tasting and talk, this past Monday, November 18, 2019, at Number Ten, 10 Castle Street, Great…

The use of eggs—either whole or parts thereof (such as egg white)—have been part of cocktails for nearly four centuries, if you go back to the days of adding an…

The first of the new season, Number Ten Eleventh Symposium TalkTails: More Manhattan!, was held on Monday, September 23, 2019, at Number Ten (10 Castle Street, Great Barrington, MA). We…

Monday, June 10, 2019, had a full house for “Number Ten Tenth Symposium TalkTails: These Are Some of Our Favorite Things,” well, which largely turned out to be some of…

No, I’m not in prison, unless an obsession with American Whiskey counts as such. At the “Number Ten Ninth Symposium Whiskey Tasting: Now Serving Ten-to-Twelve,” we tasted older Bourbons and…

Actually, getting to know cocktails that have the ingredient of Green or Yellow Chartreuse means everyone wins. Charteuse is a distinctly flavored liquor from a secret formulation of 130 herbs…

On Monday, February 11, 2019, at Number Ten, New Orleans cocktails were celebrated. Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Jazz Town… New Orleans knows pleasure, and the number of terrific cocktails that…

Another second Monday and another Number Ten Whiskey Tasting Symposium.  On Monday, January 14, 2019, we explored taste profiles within a particular distillery product line and compared two different distillery…

Number Ten, where I tend bar, hosted TalkTails Symposium Number One: Essential Cocktails and Essential Vermouths, on Monday, December 10, 2018.  Helping others enjoy vermouth is a topic that is near and…

The second Monday of November saw another Number Ten Symposium, and this time we explored the new ways that both blending and second barrel finishing of American whiskeys are changing…

It was back to Bourbon for the Number Ten Third Whiskey Tasting Symposium, and a different format: The Blind Tasting.  I presented a range of Bourbon from the moderately priced…

The Number Ten Second Whiskey Tasting Symposium, A Wry Old Rye and Other Tales of Aging took place on Monday, September 10, 2018, as I ramp up the tasting program now…

On April 30 (2018), the first whiskey tasting took place at Number Ten, as part of an open-ended Number Ten Symposium series.  The first one was called Number Ten First…

Chilling. Chilling cocktails. So many have fallen in the great craft cocktail wars due to this one simple task: making the cocktail cold. I was at a very nice hotel…

I put a lot of work into the inaugural American Whiskey List for Number Ten.  For instance, I had to research availability, which, as the robustly active Bourbon and Rye…

An obvious but essential part of making good cocktails: Have a well that is good and choose great premium stock. Also, use fresh fruit and daily fresh-squeezed lemon and lime…

We’ve been hard at work transforming Castle Street Café into No10, and part of that work has me building an American Whiskey list that should delight any American whiskey lover,…

Some drink recipe sites offer—I’m not kidding—over 50,000 recipes.  That sort of site is to be rigorously avoided, although, frankly, I can’t say one way or another if that’s because…

The bar I’m managing at Castle Street Café has been shaping up, but work continues as we approach a short shutdown for some physical renovations to the bar and room…