Cognac

The Blue Heron

A couple of week’s back we had the pleasure of dining with some good friends D. and D. G. at the Blue Heron at the Lake of the Ozarks. The Blue Heron is a 5 star dining establishment and we have had the pleasure of dining there many times, however this was not the high point of this night.

You may recall the blog post, The Toast, and yes the Blue Heron was the dining establishment where Central Patti discovered good Cognac.

Now back to the present:

We finished dining with our friends and paid the bill and were on our way out the door when we stopped to pay our respects to the owner Joseph H. Boer (Joe) Our friends knew Joe and for the life of me and as many times as I had dined there I could not remember him. We told Joe we had enjoyed the meal and I made an off handed comment about a story I had written (The Toast) part of which centered on his house blended Cognac. Before we knew it he had reached into the liquor cabinet in the lobby and pulled out a very large glass flask and said follow me.


Joe, D. and D. G., Central Patti and Me 

He led us into the adjoining lounge and almost magically 5 very large brandy, warmed snifters appeared. Joe proudly poured each of us a very generous portion of this special liquor and I believe it is safe to say we sat there stunned for a second.

Well as you can imagine the Cognac was excellent and Joe began to tell us the story of blending it himself, finding just the right mixture that we were enjoying this fine evening. Joe continued with other stories of his years in the business and people (good and bad) that had worked for him. 

D. (not D.) told Joe again about my blog and Joe kept asking me what bar I owned. I explained that I wrote a blog called MySideOfTheBar and again reiterated about the story The Toast.


Joe and Me 

Joe continued his stories and let us pour our own second round (Actually D. did the pouring D. not D.) We sat and enjoyed both the libation as well as Joe’s stories, but the drinks and the stories were not what made this a great evening (although both were great) it was the hospitability of a long time restaurateur and his willingness to share his very special blend of Cognac and also share so much of himself.


Post Script:
I know what you are thinking, how much was this Cognac we enjoyed? To be honest I do not know or care, it was one of the most enjoyable evenings we have every experienced at MySideOfTheBar. (May be once in a lifetime)

Post Script II:
He is to hoping the Blue Heron will be around for many, many years even though there is a rumor it’s time has come.

Post Script III:
I could not resist the picture. They have a unique way of pouring wine














 Cheers
The Professor

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 18, 2011 at 10:20 AM

    You forgot to add the price of the Louis XIII Cognac from the vintage menu.....

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Riding the Rails, Clickety Clack

Image
A few weeks back we took the Amtrak from K.C. to Naperville Ill. and as usual we had a great time. If you have never taken the opportunity to travel by train you do not know what you are missing. I recommend for your first trip nothing over four hours just in case you may not enjoy train travel. Also this will keep the price at a minimum and I recommend choosing your travel dates that are not during the peek seasons. (From around June 15th to August 15th.) to avoid high ticket prices You will be pleasantly surprised by the size of the train cars and the size of the seats. The cars are two levels with the lower level where you put your luggage when boarding, handicap seating and the rest room/changing rooms. We generally sit in the club car (now called the observation car) where they have many booths and seats and then entire care is plexieglass so you can see the beautiful sites as you travel. You can even carry on your own food and drinks and yes this means you can carry on your own...
Read more

The Key West Cocktail Challenge

Image
Recently we were on the road with MySideOfTheBar in Key West with a couple of "Unusual Suspect" friends of ours. As you might expect we were in a bar when A.S. found a brochure for the Key West Cocktail Challenge. Also as you might expect we took up the challenge. The premise was easy, visit 6 participating bars, enjoy their signature cocktail and you get a T-Shirt. You can visit them in any order and take as long as you need to. (you could even do it in 6 days, but...) I am not going to try to describe each bar as you can follow the links to see and learn more. The first stop was The Green Parrot Bar . The Green Parrot is an open air old school bar that I absolutely loved. Their signature drink was Root Beer Barrel and at least two of us liked it ;) Stop two took us to Charlie Mac's and beside the great Signature Drink, it is also a BBQ joint. We only had the chicken wings, however they were awesome. The drink here was the Huckleberry Lemonade and I have to ...
Read more

A Spittoon and a Blanket

Yes, what I really meant was a chamber pot; however at one in the morning staging down the long dim hallway with the creaky wooden floors and facing the long stairway down to the bathroom spittoon was all I could think of. The evening started innocent enough as we were traversing the interstate from K.C. MO to NW Iowa for a visit. I did not have a drink until after 5:00 and I was not driving, but as usually I never went anywhere without my trusty ten shot flask. That day it was loaded with Buffalo Trace Bourbon. By the way it had been awhile since I had imbibed in Buffalo Trace and I had forgotten how good it was. We arrived at the farm and continued happy hour. As the night progressed I opened the new bottle of Four Roses (the official Bourbon of MySideOfTheBar) that Central Patti had purchased as part of a case and kept drinking throughout the night. As the night progressed and the bottle emptied we headed up the afore mentioned stairs and to bed. I woke a couple of hours later a...
Read more