"Bar Month" at OnMilwaukee.com is back for another round! The whole month of February, we're serving up intoxicatingly fun bars and club articles -- including guides, bartender profiles, drink recipes and even a little Brew City bar history. Cheers!
If you haven't yet elevated up to the top floor of 177 N. Broadway to check out Cuvee Champagne bar, the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre combines with Cuvee owners Kris Gorski and Kim Floyd to present the perfect lure.
Cuvee created a pair of drinks to complement "Crime and Punishment," which opens tomorrow at the Chamber Theatre, 158 N. Broadway. One of those drinks, dubbed "The Perfect Crime," includes a shot of Domaine de Canton, a ginger-flavored brandy that is otherwise unavailable in Wisconsin.
"We were investigating ideas on the Internet and we were really intrigued by it," says Floyd. "There were a lot of recipes that included Champagne."
So, they contacted their distributor, who nabbed them a single bottle of Canton, which Julie Lawrence and I sampled this week.
With a mix of vodka, Canton, ginger ale, Champagne, candied ginger and the added flourish of a jack fruit garnish, The Perfect Crime ought to be bubbly and crisp, but instead this high-octane ginger ale is sweet and smooth with barely a trace of that carbonation (where did it go?).
"Nobody has it (Canton), so that's the perfect crime," says Gorski. "Nobody can duplicate it."
At least not for now. Thanks to Cuvee's request, more bottles will arrive there soon and the rest of Milwaukee will be able to order the Domaine de Canton, too.
The second drink is a red citrus knockout called "The Punisher," which marries gin, vodka, triple sec, rum, Grenadine, lime juice, bar sour and Paringa -- a sparkling shiraz from Australia. With all that booze in there, you'd think this one would reek of alcohol, but it doesn't. But, be forewarned, it's one of those drinks that will fool you and land you on the floor if you're not careful.
"This one is just punishing," quips Gorski, on the origin of the name.
The drinks are available at Cuvee throughout the run of the show, which ends March 9. Those with tickets to the Feb. 29 performance of "Crime and Punishment" are also invited to a leap year celebration with MCT at Cuvee that night, beginning at 6 p.m. and continuing after the show.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
