Colleen McCarthy-Clarke waves at old friends leaving her Louisville-based bar, Martini Italian Bistro, and tells them to make sure they get tickets to the 16th annual Four Roses Rose Julep Cocktail Competition.
“All right, baby, I’ll see you later,” she calls to another patron, but whether he was a friend or not isn’t entirely clear. Award-winning mixologist McCarthy-Clarke’s outgoing personality is as memorable as the outstanding cocktails she creates.
The 2019 edition of her mixology skills for the Rose Julep Competition is called “It’s Sorreal,” and she felt it was her best one yet. The competition, one of the earliest events for the Kentucky Derby Festival, took place in March at the Mellwood Arts Center in Louisville.
“I never conceptualized cocktails until I came to this bar, and I’ve been bartending for 26 years, including bartending for 11 years in Manhattan,” said McCarthy-Clarke, who began working at Martini Italian Bistro eight years ago. “We have 60 handcrafted cocktails on our menu here. There’s a lot of talent in Louisville, and I think we do a really good job of keeping that talent modern and fresh, and we all support each other because we are a city that acts like a town.”
Many mixologists enter the Rose Julep Cocktail Competition each year, McCarthy-Clarke said. Some of them have become friends, and occasionally more than one bartender enters from one restaurant, as is the case with Martini. Martini’s Jason Stark also has created some award-winning cocktails, and McCarthy-Clarke said he would have knocked her out of getting into the competition this year were it not for her “secret” ingredient—a cherry preserve.
“At first, I knew Jason’s cocktail was better than mine, and then I found that preserve, and he was like, ‘Uh-oh,’ and I was like, ‘Uh-oh,’ ” she said.
But finding just the right ingredient is not always simple. McCarthy-Clarke knew she wanted to start with sorrel, a Jamaican juice typically served around Christmastime.
“It’s a derivative of a hibiscus flower, and so it’s pretty tart,” McCarthy-Clarke said, explaining that the sorrel also has ginger, cinnamon and allspice. “I didn’t put sugar in. I wanted something that would be tart, so I could build off it, so it wouldn’t be too sweet.”
She lacked just the right ingredient to add to the mix until about a week before she entered the contest. And then she had an epiphany at Kroger.
“I see these preserves sitting in front of me,” McCarthy-Clarke recalled. “I’m reading [about] this cherry preserve, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God. Are you kidding me?’ The cinnamon and the allspice and the ginger and the clove and balsamic vinegar in this cherry preserve I chose, it’s almost acting as a shrub. The shrub is when you use fruit and vinegar … So then I did a little tiki bitters to kind of brighten the spices in it, and then, of course, the mint and the bourbon, and it just came together. I think it’s a fabulous cocktail.”
The drink is pulled together with 2 ounces of Four Roses bourbon, the contest sponsor.
“I really like the small-batch Four Roses.” McCarthy-Clarke said. “It has a little more of a caramel essence to it. This drink is already pretty tart, so the caramel is going to kind of help round out the tart and help it become a well-balanced cocktail. The homemade sorrel is super tangy and tasty and gingeresque, with a little bit of cinnamon on the back end. Then I add three drops of tiki bitters and half-ounce of honey water. It’s so nice with this beautiful cherry preserve. It’s robust.”
The drink has depth, with tart hibiscus in the sorrel, complex bourbon and aromatic ginger, cinnamon and clove.
“You want to go back in and get more of the layers that are happening,” McCarthy-Clarke said. “It’s not too sweet, which I love. It’s got some of the same spices and nuances that are in the bourbon. I’m really excited about this cocktail, and I hope to have it on our menu this summer … Last year, it took me two tries, and I had my cocktail [for the competition]. This year, it took me probably 20.”
She noted that every good cocktail should be “balanced, without one flavor overpowering any other.”
McCarthy-Clarke’s first winner at the Rose Julep Cocktail Competition was the “Rosé Runner,” which took accolades in both categories of the 2015 contest—the Judges’ Choice and the People’s Choice. After that, she won the People’s Choice with the lavender-based “Petal Pusher,” which also was the official cocktail of the 2017 Kentucky Bourbon Festival after being named grand champion in that year’s Bourbon Festival Mixed Drink Challenge.
While dozens of bartenders enter the Rose Julep Cocktail Competition, only two are picked from each market—Louisville, Lexington and northern Kentucky—for the final round that includes about 1,000 guests for tastings.
Last year, mixologist Dane Durand of Proof on Main took home the Judges’ Choice award for his “Original Recipe” julep. McCarthy-Clarke claimed the People’s Choice title for her julep, “Two Peas in a Pod.” Bar chef Mark Corley of The Silver Dollar won the Social Media Vote for his “Vanilla Chai Mint Julep.”
Two Peas in a Pod was sugar snap pea-based and included a ginger lemon candy horse garnish made by Louisville’s Cellar Door Chocolates.
“You want to pick a main ingredient to build off of, so last year, I did sugar snap peas with lemon ginger, and we do a Granny Smith apple purée that we made from scratch,” McCarthy-Clarke said. “So I used the sugar snap peas as my base and built the cocktail from that. That’s kind of how we conceptualize drinks.”
McCarthy-Clarke works in a blur around the bar at Martini, striving to make everyone feel at home. Her job also entails making from scratch all of the ingredients that go into the restaurant’s craft cocktails. She was not always an expert: “The world of mixology didn’t really come to the forefront until about 10 years ago, and then it just exploded. Before that, it was a chosen few that had the craft, and now all of the sudden, this is what true bartending should be. And it just raised the bar. Similar to chefs.”
McCarthy-Clarke worked in New York City for an advertising agency when a friend told her about a bartending gig at an upscale French restaurant. A quick study, she soon was working for a James Beard Award-winning chef and was surrounded by people who taught her what she needed to know to be a mixologist.
“I think what’s cool about our bar is that we don’t make the word ‘martini’ taboo anymore. We make it approachable,” McCarthy-Clarke said, pointing out that the bartenders there also educate guests about cocktails. “There’s so much respect here for our craft bourbon in Louisville that I think we really put Louisville on the map together.”
Durand is another bartender busy putting Louisville on the map.
“The mint julep is the original Kentucky tiki drink,” Durand said, “so I just went full tilt with it and made it a super tiki drink. I feel like it hits the vibe of a hot day in May, kind of a swampy Kentucky thing. We take a drink that we’ve like tried to elevate a million times over … and I think it’s actually now not the most elevated thing. The drink is really high quality, but the presentation is fun and not pretentious.”
Durand’s approach to creating a cocktail is similar to McCarthy-Clarke’s.
“I either start with an ingredient or a flavor and build a drink around that, or I start with the concept already defined and try to get a drink to match the idea in my head,” he said, noting that he’s made many drinks that have flopped. “It’s kind of a requirement.”
His “Ken-tiki Julep” is not one of those flops. It invokes tropical vibes and is sweet and savory with a hint of spice. It’s fun, cold and refreshing.
“Some people told me not to do the dolphin,” he said of the drink’s dolphin-shaped banana garnish. “If he didn’t have eyes, he’d be creepy. He wouldn’t be a dolphin; he’d just be a banana.”
Durand said the competition is a chance for him to win some money if he’s successful, but mostly it’s an opportunity to get creative, source unusual ingredients and have fun.
Contest officials appreciate that innovation.
“Some of the most memorable cocktails I’ve seen are with items I would never think to add to a cocktail—sugar snap peas, beets, jalapeños and bacon,” said Jill Pendygraft, marketing manager at Four Roses Bourbon. “I’m impressed every year with the creativity and amount of time and effort these mixologists put into their drinks. I look forward to this event each year.”
Joe Daily, the director of mixology for Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits alcohol distributor, said he sees mixologists in Kentucky working on par with what he sees in major cities around the country. Daily is typically a judge for the contest, and Southern Glazer’s is the distribution partner. He also assists with coordinating the event and finding more judges.
“The cool thing about Louisville and Kentucky—I believe at one point, we had more eateries per capita than other states, so that’s a major driver,” he said. “I travel the country for work, and we are on par with every other major city that I drop into. We have creativity, variety … We have people using liquid nitrous in the competitions. The culinary aspect of what we do is in high gear.”
Daily said the cocktails are judged on creativity, taste and aroma. And of course, they must include a 2-ounce pour of one of the Four Roses bourbons.
“They typically go straight to Small Batch, and they’ll go all the way to Single Barrel,” he said of the contestants.
Pendygraft said Four Roses is perfect for such unique cocktails because of its 10 bourbon recipes.
“Mixologists are able to pair many creative ingredients to bring out distinct flavors,” she said. “Our Four Roses Bourbon has hints of fresh fruit, apple and pear on the palate, while the Small Batch offers more spiciness. The Single Barrel, at 100 proof with robust flavors of ripe plum and cherries, will definitely shine through most all cocktail ingredients.
“This contest gives them the opportunity to be as creative as they want with their cocktails, and some end up as permanent placements on their bar menus. I think guests that attend the Festival Unveiled Event look forward to sampling all the wonderful concoctions each year.”
McCarthy-Clarke is anxious to get It’s Sorreal on those eager tastebuds.
“I love this competition. It’s my favorite,” she said. “This is the one that we really throw down.”
Durand and McCarthy-Clarke beat out 16 other entrants from the Louisville market this year. Durand said the only thing that can derail mixologists is preparation.
“There are a lot of kinks you have to take into consideration when working off premise for events,” he said. “And most bartenders don’t have experience with that, and there’s really only one way to learn it. Even if you had a great concept, it’s difficult to execute. I’ve definitely lost some cocktail contests in spectacular fashion through little things like that—lack of preparation.”
He’s hoping that his cocktail will win some votes for its creative presentation, going “hard the other way” beyond the typical presentation of mint or a rose-shaped orange peel.