This Wednesday I'll be doing a live Facebook chat with Tracy Stuckrath of  thrive! meetings & events.

Stuckrath has a history as an event planner now with a specialty in allergen and food sensitivity awareness, working as a consultant and speaker and continuing to assist with events.  

It should be an interesting talk as I don't know much about food allergies outside of cocktail ingredients, and with an increasing demand for specialty cocktails at events such as those she and I both assist with, we need to translate that awareness into cocktail allergen labeling - tricky when liquor brands legally don't have to disclose their ingredients!  

Please join us for the chat if you can. 

Join the chat on the Thrive Facebook page  on Wednesday May 27th at 9AM Pacific/noon Eastern. 

Camper English of CocktailSafe.org will be speaking at this year's Bar Convent Berlin. 

Details are Here: 

COCKTAIL SAFE! DANGEROUS OR ILLEGAL DRINK INGREDIENTS AND TECHNIQUES, AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM

We’ll cover the most misused ingredients at the bar including tobacco, activated charcoal, cinchona bark/tonic syrup, and essential oils, and the techniques that can get bartenders into trouble, including fat-washing and liquid nitrogen. Along the way we’ll cover bitter almonds, calamus, copper, vintage tiki mugs, wormwood, tonka beans, and more.

Tuesday, 08.10.2019

17:00 - 18:00

Mixology Main Stage

photo credit: Britney Townsend

CocktailSafe founder Camper English will be speaking at the Toronto Cocktail Conference this August. Tickets are on sale now. 

Cocktail Safe

This seminar from the founder of CocktailSafe.org will explore safety in cocktail ingredients and techniques. We’ll look into the common sources of faulty information including “detox” websites and vintage cocktail books (I’m looking at you, Jerry Thomas), before getting to the good stuff, or rather, the bad stuff. We’ll cover the top misused ingredients at the bar including tobacco, activated charcoal, cinchona bark/tonic syrup, and essential oils, and the techniques that can get bartenders into trouble, including fat-washing and liquid nitrogen. Along the way we’ll cover bitter almonds, calamus, copper, vintage tiki mugs (bad news about those), wormwood, and tonka beans (good news about those… for Canadians). Finally, we’ll touch upon allergenic and drug-interacting ingredients and the bartender’s responsibility for labelling cocktail menus accordingly.

The talk is August 12th at 2PM. 

There is also the opportunity to sign up for a mentoring session with Camper English - see this page for details. 

CocktailSafe founder Camper English will be speaking in Canada (at least) twice this summer, at the: 

Invasion Montreal cocktail conference

and 

The Toronto Cocktail Conference 

The two talks will address CocktailSafe content in different ways. While the Toronto talk details are still being nailed down, in Montreal Camper will be using the sponsoring vermouth and amari brands as a lead-in to ingredients used in them that are regulated. 

Invasion Montreal: 

Delights and Dangers in the Cocktail World

This seminar will pair information about controlled ingredients and risky techniques used in the bar world with a tasting of delicious Italian liqueurs and vermouths. Many of these products contain limited ingredients including wormwood, quinine, and/or rhubarb that will serve as jumping off points for discussion about what plant products are safe, how much of each can be used, and where information about their legality is found. We’ll also discuss ingredients not in these spirits but sometimes used in the bar including tobacco, activated charcoal, and sassafras and whether they’re illegal or just ill-advised. We’ll talk about some risky techniques like foraging, fat washing, and chilling with liquid nitrogen, and finish with a discussion of allergen-activating and medicine-interacting ingredients like orgeat and grapefruit that are only a problem for some. Come sample safely and learn about danger!

More information here. 

Toronto Cocktail Conference tickets go on sale May 21, so please check in with the website closer to the date.