Q&A: Allen Katz

Allen Katz has a pretty nice job. He travels the world for distributor Southern Wine and Spirits, finding new products and developing the drinks that make them sell (i.e., sparking many of the drink trends that have swept the city's high-end cocktail scene). He also co-hosts The Cocktail Hour on Martha Stewart's Sirius station, teaching you how to mix like a guy in suspenders at an unmarked bar.

When we caught up with Katz between transatlantic jaunts, he let us in on the trends that have shaped the Second Golden Age of the Cocktail, and the ones we can look forward to (hint: bitters and genever).

What's so appealing about speakeasies? The secret entryways, the handlebar mustaches?
They're an homage to those Americans who created the bartending profession in the 19th century. For the first time in many years, when you tell someone you're a bartender, the reaction isn't, "Oh. But what do you want to do with your life?" It's a serious profession, and a viable one. This isn't taking a one-week bartending course—it's constant study and education and experimentation.

Where do you see cocktail culture in New York going over the next five years?
In New York, this has already started, but there's a great interest in authentic ingredients. The idea of using fresh juice is now practically ubiquitous. If they don't use fresh juice in a bar, it's frankly not worth having a cocktail there.

The other important trend is a continued look at the history of the cocktail. Some classic ingredients were banned and are now legal, like absinthe. Others fell out of favor and haven't really been around for decades, like genever. If you go back to the 19th-century cocktail books, a lot of them refer to "Holland gin." That's genever. And up until a year ago we never had it here, so we didn't know what these drinks were supposed to taste like. Genever is clear like gin and has juniper as a key botanical, but it has a mash build similar to whiskey, so it has a wheaty or nutty quality to it. When it's mixed in a cocktail, it's very soft.

Something else to look out for is craft distilling or micro-distilling. We're at a point where not everything is great, like when micro-brewing first started, but there are a lot of local, craft distilled products coming out that are really quite good.

What's a local micro-distilled spirit that you like?
I'm not sure that there's anything local that I'd say is terrific, but there's a wonderful distillery called Tuttletown that makes whiskey, vodka and some fruit liqueurs.

What up-and-coming cocktail trends are you excited about?
Well-made sour drinks. You only need three or four ingredients to make a great sour cocktail. The American consumer is maturing—drinking cocktails that aren't so sweet, which is where we've been for a while. A sour drink is refreshing and goes great with hors d'oeuvres.

The other big idea is the bitter cocktail. Some new bitters are coming out commercially, but some of them are being made in-house at the cocktail bars and restaurants.

So this summer people will be drinking a lot of fresh sour cocktails.
Absolutely. It's an inexpensive, wonderful drink. We can't ignore the economy, but I think we've gone far enough into this new "Golden Age of the Cocktail" that people aren't just going to revert to Budweiser.

Photo courtesy Allen Katz