The Best Cocktails in Seattle – A Nordo History
“Alcohol is good for preserving anything but secrets”
There is much to be said about wine, but this post is going to focus on the Nordo history of two special cocktails. You might say these beverages are the spirit of our brand –innovative cuisine that tells a story.
Coincidentally? These cocktails are available for your home bar through our Cocktail Kit Delivery Service. We’ll deliver them to your home, including recipe cards, with the option of adding on a cheese plate and charcuterie.
THE CRUMB BUM- from “Sauced” 2010
Step out of the Seattle rain, just off Main Street and the doors of the Culinarium will open. As your eyes adjust to the light, you make out your destination, the bar. Bathed in light, bottles shining. A man in a tailored vest polishes glasses, his eyes on his work.
The place is packed, but no one approaches the bar, it’s raised and separated, above the tables. It’s theatre. The other members of the audience nibble and sip.
Welcome to Nordo.
Once you tuck into your seat, the cocktail list of beverages mixed to match the world of the play is pointed out to you by your cleverly costumed server. “I’ll try the Crumb Bum and add the cocktail flight.” Your beverage is the password, providing entry into the story, the characters, and the concept.
It wasn’t always this way. Nordo’s first two shows and menus “The Modern American Chicken” and “Bounty: An Epic Adventure in Seafood” focused on your plate, with gorgeous wines to pair. No cocktails.
The Barrel’s Best Cocktail Kit.
The set of “Sauced”, 2015, by Terry Podgorski, photo by Bruce Clayton Tom
One dark and stormy night, creators Erin and Terry shared a drink post-show of Bounty. She had cooked for the audience, and he had ran the lightboard and bar backed, running wine to tables. They were exhausted, and exhilarated.
The actors changed out of costume, and joined them. A bottle of bourbon was revealed and passed, the cast and crew mingling and going over the highs and lows of the performance.
Someone jumped behind the translucent screens that enclosed the dining room. The theatre lights were dimmed and a charade of silhouettes was improvised with the bourbon bottle.
There were new faces laughing, audience members who stayed after the last plate had been cleared, thrilled by the concept and community of coming to table with strangers.
Erin and Terry cheered and led the fun, but spent most of the evening in a volley of conversation about the next big thing. That night in 2010, the idea to do a show about the history of the cocktail was born.
It was aptly titled “Sauced”.
Writer and set designer Terry Podgorski put those late night conversations into the pressure cooker of his writing room (The Waterstreet Hotel in Port Townsend), and added influence from his adoration for film noir and the writings of Dashiell Hammett.
He remembers how the idea of serving cocktails to pair with the dinner menu was formed, and the bartender who made it all happen.
“Sauced was set in a bar with the film noir as its model. And so we began to ask around for who could teach us the secrets behind great cocktails and over and over and over the answer was Murray Stenson. “
Terry and Erin found their answer at the place where most go for such things.
Murray Stenson
“Neither of us had been to the Zig Zag at the time. Murray had not yet won the Best Bartender in America award. That would come in a few months. Descending those stairs to the front door of the Zig Zag, bellying up to the bar, and asking Murray if he would take a moment to make us a cocktail and tell us all about mixology is one of the best Nordo memories I have.”
With a third production scheduled to take place at the warehouse behind the Theo Chocolate factory in Fremont, director and chef Erin Brindley dug in to the idea of a show focused on spirits. There would be four mini-cocktails included in the ticket price, with morsels to match, that told the story of the cocktail. She explained the concept for the show, and the script ideas Terry was working with, and the time period, pre-war 1930’s Seattle.
Terry recalls,
“If you know Murray you know how his eyes can light up and how fast he can talk while he moves about the bar, grasping at bottles, asking questions, his mind whirring. By the end of the night we asked if he would create the menu, and he said yes.
He was humble and never asked for anything. A few days later, we met for brunch and he handed us the menu. Simple and elegant. He said the best cocktails has no more than 3 ingredients, perfectly balanced. And each one was either a slight variant on a classic or an obscure and forgotten recipe he kept filed away in his head. If I remember correctly, the Crumb Bum was one of those obscure ones that he learned from a fellow bartender in New York City that he felt was under appreciated. We've enjoyed plenty since then. Thank you Murray.”
For more information about the show Sauced in its 2010 and 2015 versions, visit the archive.
“What happens when you push a man until the wall is at his back, and there’s nowhere to run?”
THE PINE BOX – Smoked, 2012. (Available in our “Going Clear” Cocktail Kit)
This is a very different sort of bar. The Sauget Ballet is full to the gills with expectant witnesses. There’s a hanging planned, and the small town is thirsty.
The set of “Smoked”, 2018, by Terry Podgorski, photo by Bruce Clayton Tom
You’ve got to elbow in and push past the swinging doors to claim your seat. You may marvel at how the Culinarium has changed since the last show you saw, Sauced. But likely as not, your eyes are feverishly reading the menu, to see what drinks are on tap.
After the collaboration with Murray Stenson on Sauced, Terry spent the next few shows making relationships with other Seattle bartenders, and as Nordo grew, hiring a few of our own. Always, the goal was to tell local stories with our suppliers and ingredients.
Your eyes rest on “The Pine Box”, a stiff gin, served up, with pine liquor. This place has a sense of humor.
Terry remembers how The Pine Box was born.
“Smoked was our third cocktail show when it opened in 2013. And I was on the hunt for interesting and new products for the menu when I heard about Brovo, an all women owned and run distillery that at the time was based in Seattle. They had five liqueurs. A ginger, a lemon balm, rose geranium, lavender, and pine. And all were made without additives. Real plants were used. It fit so perfectly in the Nordo ethos that we hunted them down for a tasting. And from there it was a no-brainer. An old west cocktail show and an all pine liqueur? They were made for one another.”