Welcome

Hello and welcome to a very late edition of A dash of Oh Gosh!. I can only apologise for the lack of updates at Oh Gosh! lately, but promise that there is lots of great stuff coming up over the next few months.

Oh Gosh! has been quiet lately as I've been rather busy travelling. April saw a tour of the West Coast of America, taking in the bars of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. I have been wanting to visit this region for a very long time, and they didn't disappoint - particularly in terms of bars. Expect to see plenty of West Coast bars on Oh Gosh! TV over the next few months, from the speakeasy vibe of The Varnish in LA to the tiki paradise of Smuggler's Cove in San Francisco.

Last weekend I was in Hamburg, Germany, to attend two very special evenings. On Saturday the last ever night at Le Bon Lion, Jörg Meyer's tiny bar above Café Paris, was held before it is knocked down to make way for The Cocktail Club. Mario Kappes provided the final cocktails - including the very appropriate Last Word - before we toasted the good lion and Jörg tore down the first bit of wallpaper from the wall. A very nice end to a wonderful little bar.

There was no time to dwell on the demise of Le Bon Lion however, for the next day PDT Hamburg - a temporary transformation of Le Lion, Crif Dog hotdogs included - opened for one night only. With Jim Meehan, owner of PDT, behind the bar and Crif Dog hotdogs served out front, it was combination that was hard to fault.

With barely time to unpack I will soon be packing for Cuba, where I will be attending the Havana Club Grand Prix cocktail competition, which this year has been revamped by Traveling Mixologist and friend of Oh Gosh! Michael Menegos. I will be blogging about the competition for Havana Club at Havana Cocteles along with the delightful Emma Davis, and will hopefully manage the odd Twitter update if internet access permits. And I haven't had too many Daiquiris!

Expect to see more on all of this, and more, on Oh Gosh! soon...

Cocktail News

New York's new Tiki bar Painkiller, from Dutch Kills’ Richie Boccato and Giuseppe Gonzales, finally opens this week, with The Dizzy Fizz and Camper English giving a sneak preview. Meanwhile in San Francisco Jeff Hollinger and Jonny Raglin's new bar the Comstock Saloon aims to evoke classic bar culture.

The Village Voice interviews Milk & Honey's Mickey McIlroy.

One of the hottest spirit categories right now has to be moonshine and unaged "white dog" whiskies. Stirred Not Shaken recently took a look at the White Manhattan while Atlantic covered the rise of hipster moonshine.

Star Chef's looks at bartenders shaker faces.

Got some news that A dash of Oh Gosh! readers need to know? Let me know.

Around The Blogosphere

Robert Simonson takes a look at an interesting vodka tasting ran by Absolut that pitted their vodkas against many other brands.

Matt Rowley uncovers an early recipe from at least 1758 for Stoughton's bitters, a long defunct classic bitters.

Ted Munat investigates how bars that are good don't let you get away from people...

Tiare reveals how she makes passionfruit syrup.

Until next time...

Cheers,
Jay Hepburn