Bars stay open until 5 a.m. throughout Alaska, which is probably a little risqué for people in June, when the sun stays out for nearly ninety days. Which reminds me of a great joke: “So a salmon and a bear walk into a cocktail...”
Alaska
Alaska is one-fifth the size of the Lower 48, and “America’s Last Frontier” is mighty impressive for its sheer area alone: 571,951 square miles. Did you know there are more than three million lakes in Alaska? And that there are more than one hundred volcanoes there? And think about this: You could fit the state of Rhode Island into Alaska 425 times. Great gobbledygook! Mt. Denali, the highest peak in North America, is 20,320 feet high. That’s a lot of steps on your Apple Health program. Take a stroll through Glacier Gardens and behold one of the most curious sights around, that of hundreds of upside-down spruce and hemlock trees, the result of a landscaping mishap, but a beautiful accident nonetheless. Yes, the wild forget-me-not is the state flower, which would be a great name for a cocktail if cocktails in general were better at helping to improve our memory.
Alaska has come a long way since drinking evergreen shrubs (a local mixture of evergreen, sugar, and vinegar imbibed for its medicinal properties), Labrador tea (a medicinal herbal infusion made from the shrubs of evergreens and conifers, no doubt originated by the First Nations and Inuit people hundreds of years ago), and, eventually (I’m sorry), Duck Farts—a hypnotic and unwelcome shot mix of Kahlúa coffee liqueur, Baileys Irish cream, and whiskey. Some tales point to this shot originating at the Peanut Farm in Anchorage, and though that is debatable, one fact remains: Duck Farts somehow exist, and we are all worse for it.
Though gold is the official state mineral, you can’t talk about Alaska without celebrating moose, wolves, bald eagles, beluga whales, grizzly bears, and salmon. The Alaska Distillery apparently agrees about the last item in that list, anyway, finding a way to infuse its potato vodka with wild smoked salmon, which is an eye-opening ingredient to add to your Bloody Mary. That’s a vast improvement from when gold miners used to put unwashed foot rags into their mash when making whiskey.
There has never been a better time to be a bartender. Advances in production, packaging, distribution, and storage have improved the quality and safety of our ingredients. But perhaps more important, bartenders have an increased awareness of which methods should be unsentimentally left behind and which should be preserved, unaltered, for posterity.
—From Meehan’s Bartender Manual by Jim Meehan
Cocktail bars in Anchorage and Fairbanks are sprouting up left and right. Whiskey fans should try the Spenard Roadhouse, or have a cask-aged Old Fashioned with the talented staff at Simon & Seafort’s Saloon, and don’t miss Tequila 61°, because if I’m going to freeze to death, I’m going to do it drinking mezcal and beer, and ideally I’m going to do it on Taco Tuesday; otherwise I have failed in this life.
Alaska Beverage
For those of us willing to subscribe to Let Your Freak Flag Fly Magazine, I give you the Sourtoe. Since 1973, the good people of the Yukon Territory in Dawson City have been serving one kick of a tradition: They have a dehydrated human toe they use to garnish a drink of one’s choosing. There have been numerous toes used in this process, starting with one from a legendary rum runner named Louis Liken, who lost his frostbitten appendage in the 1920s (Prohibition-related, perhaps?) and preserved the toe in a jar of alcohol. It was found fifty years later by Captain Dick Stevenson, who brought the toe over yonder to the Sourdough Saloon and challenged wayfaring miners and mountaineers to drink their beverages with the toe floating in their glasses. Hence, the Sourtoe cocktail was born. It lasted long enough for someone to have a baker’s dozen of Sourtoe Champagne cocktails, and on the thirteenth cocktail, the drinker fell back on his chair and swallowed the original toe. The owners have now decided a fair price of toe consumption should be $2,500. Know this: “Toe time” is between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., and there’s one consistent rule: “You can drink it fast, or you can drink it slow—but the lips have gotta touch the toe.”
Alaska Bucket List Bar
The Salty Dawg Saloon was first built as a cabin, and served the citizens of Homer (the “cosmic hamlet by the sea”) as a school, post office, railway station, and grocery store until 1957, when the building was turned into the Salty Dawg Saloon, and here is where the locals descend for a healthy pint, hearty conversation, or the signature cocktail, the—wait for it—Salty Dawg Martini, a vodka and grapefruit mixture shaken and served up with some salt on the lip of the glass. The ceiling and walls are covered with countless dollar bills; long ago, a customer visited the saloon and left money for a friend who would be arriving later so they could buy them a drink. It’s humbling to know of places where people continue to congregate, in hopes of connecting with friends, new and old, and leaving a little something for them, whenever they may arrive. Bonus humanity points for the Salty Dawg, as well: Each year, most of the dollar bills are removed and donated to charity.
BAR SNACK
Hooch is a word for illegally made or low—quality liquor. It was introduced to the United States by miners coming back from the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1800s and was ashortened form of hoochinoo, a Tlingit word for rum and molasses.
Alaska Cocktail Bar
THE Speakeasy is a (surprise, surprise) hidden gem inside the Williwaw, a multifaceted gathering spot in downtown Anchorage. Once inside, there will be house cocktails waiting, but I have a soft spot for any menu featuring an actual Blue Blazer cocktail, a pre-Prohibition Intro to Bartending Theatrics, which is prepared by taking Scotch whiskey and boiling water, lighting it on fire, then mixing that arc of fire back and forth between two metal mugs (you know, like they taught you in third-period junior high science class). Featuring a properly made Blue Blazer on any menu is paying homage to the man who invented it, “Professor” Jerry Thomas, who knew a thing or two about showman-ship, spirits, and decorum—but he also knew you probably shouldn’t try this cocktail on your own at home, old sport. Let THE Speakeasy ride the lightning.
BAR SNACK
An Alaskan icehouse is a common space for fishermen to keep warm from the frigid Alaskan air, but the icehouse, where ice was kept cold before there were electric freezers, is also an integral part of our cocktail history. Ice started to make its way into American drinks and bars in the early nineteenth century, courtesy of Frederic Tudor, a New England entrepreneur, and even then, ice was usually only available in port towns, larger cities, and for the wealthy, as it was difficult and expensive to obtain and keep. Ice was frowned upon by nineteenth-century dentists, as they claimed it was bad for the teeth, which is fine, because someone then invented the straw, but then, later, we all invented ways to destroy the environment, so we stopped using straws—or at least plastic straws. Right? (Please don’t use plastic straws. Use metal or biodegradable straws, or do what they did back in the day: Sip from the glass.)
Alaska Spirit
Located in a former army outpost, Port Chilkoot is a good enough excuse to pull the car over and taste true small-batch, artisanal spirits being made with local herbs and house-milled organic grains. Head distiller Heather Shade is not only gifted at making spruce sing inside the bottles of juniper-forward gin, she is the founding president of the Distillers Guild of Alaska, and responsible for 50 Fathoms gin, which received a double-gold medal at the World Spirits Competition in San Francisco.
Alaska’s Oldest Bar
B&B is actually a tiny little watering hole on an island, featuring cold bottled beer, salty regulars, drink specials, a pool table, and fishing antiques, and it’s open late. There may be boats parked nearby waiting to participate in the next Deadliest Catch, but there’s nothing that can take the pole position of sitting in the oldest bar in Alaska and seeing the bar rules listed on the mirror: (1) Know what you want, (2) Cash only, and (3) No whining.
STATE FACT
Vegetables in Alaska are enormous. Though they see only one hundred days of sunlight per year, the best days receive over nineteen hours of sunlight, which results in cabbages that look like Cadillacs.
The Alaska
This pre-Prohibition drink was not created in Alaska, but it was created in homage to Alaska becoming a part of the United States. The original recipe appeared in 1913 in Jacques Straub’s Manual of Mixed Drinks and later in The Savoy Cocktail Book, and most recipes call for Old Tom gin, which was unavailable in the United States until recently, but Old Tom is a sweeter gin, and since yellow Chartreuse is also sweet, I volunteer a citrus and cardamom-forward spirit as a base, like Amass gin from California. Or best me by combining two different American gins and see where the botanical experiment can take you. Who knows? You might strike gold.
2 ounces Amass gin (or 1 ounce each of two American gins)
½ ounce yellow Chartreuse
½ ounce amontillado sherry 2 dashes Regan’s orange bitters
Garnish: lemon peel
Stir the ingredients with ice until chilled; strain into a chilled coupe glass and serve up, garnished with the lemon.
When I take a sip, I always think of the Velvet Underground’s “Stephanie Says” and its hypnotizing coda: “It’s such an icy feeling... it’s so cold in Alaska.”
—Brad Thomas Parsons, author of Last Call, Amaro, and Distillery Cats, on the Alaska cocktail from his first book, Bitters
Gold Rush
On a tip from fellow prospector Robert Henderson, a sourdough (aka a prospector) named George Cormack and his two Native American brothers-in-law, Skookum Jim and Dawson “Tagish” Charlie, found gold in Alaska’s Klondike River valley at Bonanza Creek on August 17, 1896. As the Gold Rush was a keystone movement involving the sourdoughs of yesteryear, so too was this Whiskey Sour variation, created by T. J. Siegal in the halcyon days of New York’s Milk & Honey. “Claim your stake” with a dash of Angostura, if you’re feeling lucky.
2 ounces bourbon
¾ ounce fresh lemon juice
¾ ounce rich honey syrup (recipe follows)
Shake all the ingredients with ice until chilled; strain over fresh ice in a chilled rocks glass.
Rich Honey Syrup
Makes approximately 1½ cups
1 cup honey
½ cup water
Heat the honey and water in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the ingredients have integrated. Remove from the heat, let cool, then transfer to a tightly sealed container and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.