As we promised yesterday, our photos from Cocktail Camp 2012 are now online, as well as the recipes for everything served during our three social hours. Your event program contains recipes for the lunchtime and afternoon bars, and now you can get the morning bar recipes as well.

The video is not ready yet, but it will be posted as soon as we have it.

Rather than rambling on about it any longer, I’ll let you take a look for yourselves:

Cocktail Camp 2012 photos and recipes here

While we were at it, we made a page for Cocktail Camp 2011 photos and recipes as well. Check it out for even more great stuff you can make at home.

And for those of you who didn’t make it, enjoy the recipes and please join us for more next year!

We had a great time at the third annual Cocktail Camp last weekend and we hope everyone who came out did as well. We know the beautiful weather and other events happening that weekend were almost as compelling, so we really appreciate everyone who made it.

We especially want to thank our generous sponsors: New Deal Distillery, Campari, Stone Barn Brandyworks, Bendistillery/Crater Lake, The Boozeniks, and, finally, Stevens IS for printing up the great programs for us.

We also want to thank everyone else who help to make this happen, from our wonderful speakers to our bar staff and everyone else who helped out during the day with one thing or another.

We’ve gone over the feedback from the survey we sent out and wow, you guys loved Stuart Ramsay! So did we, and I can’t wait to hear him speak again somewhere, anywhere. If you got an email about the survey but haven’t taken it yet, please take a moment to do so. Your feedback will help us understand what you liked and also to find areas that need improvement for next year.

Speaking of which, we’d like to acknowledge that not everything went off smoothly this year, most notably our scheduling and lines at the bars. We had a few issues related to staffing and some missing cocktail ingredients and we regret the late start that cascaded through the rest of the day, and also for the lines that many of you waited in so patiently. Lessons learned, and we’re already talking about how to make sure this doesn’t happen again next year.

We have tons of pictures and will be creating a permanent page here on the Cocktail Camp web site for this year’s event. This page will be up soon and will include our photos and video, information about the talks, and recipes for everything we served, including the cocktails served at our morning bar that were not included in your program.

Thanks again for all your support, especially those of you who have been coming to Cocktail Camp every year. We hope to see you all again in 2013!

Photo by Diana Athey.

Cocktail Camp is just three days away! We’re as excited as you are, so we’ve put together a short list of things you might want to know as you get ready for your day.

Getting There

Urban Studio is located in Portland’s Pearl District at 935 NW Davis Street, right on the corner of NE 10th and Davis. Here’s a Google Map to help you find us.

We encourage everyone to drink responsibly, so avail yourself of Portland’s great public transit if you can.

Food and Drink

Well, drink is the whole point, right? If you’ve been following along on the Cocktail Camp blog, you already know about our cocktail bars and social hours. Here’s a brief reminder:

• 10:30 – Stone Barn Brandyworks Meet & Greet and morning social hour
• 1:00 – New Deal lunchtime social hour
• 3:00 – Campari afternoon aperitivo hour

Each cocktail hour will actually run for 90 minutes and will each feature cocktails showcasing some of the sponsors’ products. Six drink tickets are included with your entry price and if that’s not enough, additional tickets are available for only $2 each (cocktails are half-sized, so don’t worry about having to skip some).

With all that going on, you’ll definitely need to eat something. Food will be available from the Urban Studio kitchen, which will be open all day for everything from coffee to sandwiches, salads, and plenty of non-alcoholic drinks.

Social Media

We love social media! Everyone is encouraged to live-blog, live-tweet, or whatever else they want throughout the day.

• Use the #ccpdx hashtag on Twitter
• Tag your Flickr photos cocktailcamp and cocktailcamppdx
• Add your photos to the Cocktail Camp Facebook page

And if you post your writeups or photos anywhere else, tell @CocktailCamp via Twitter and we’ll make sure everyone else sees them. And be sure to follow us!

Afterparty

It’s an annual Cocktail Camp tradition – a bunch of us met up at Clyde Common for a sort of unofficial afterparty once things wrap up for the day. It’s almost as much fun as the event itself, so let’s do it again this year. They don’t know we’re coming, so we won’t have reserved tables or anything, but it’ll be early enough that fitting in shouldn’t be a problem. See you there?

Thank you

Finally, be sure to introduce yourself to the Cocktail Camp staff on Sunday. We love meeting the people who make this all possible. We couldn’t do it without you.

… but not for long! After two sold-out years, we’re just a small handful of tickets away from selling out again this year. You can buy your tickets here for only $40, which gets you a full day of discussion panels featuring our hand-picked experts, spirit and cocktail tastings during sessions, plus six complimentary cocktails during the three social hours we have scheduled throughout the day.

These social hours are hosted by Stone Barn Brandyworks, New Deal Distillery, and Campari, with cocktails created by some of Portland and San Francisco’s best bartenders: David Shenaut (Rum Club, Beaker & Flask, Teardrop Lounge), Lydia Reissmueller (Central), Stuart Green (San Francisco’s Bourbon & Branch), and Allison Webber (Irving Street Kitchen, Bourbon & Branch).

And to recap our session lineup:

The Art of Tasting – House Spirits distiller Colin Howard and Tony Devencenzi from San Francisco’s Bourbon & Branch will teach you proper techniques for tasting spirits, which will help you refine your preferences, plan better pairings, and create your own fantastic cocktails.

Scotch: It’s easier than you think – Scotch doesn’t have to be intimidating. Whiskey expert Stuart Ramsay and Kask’s Tommy Klus will discuss the varieties of Scotch, the effect region has on their flavors, and why learning about it is not as hard as you might think.

The Perfect Host – Last year you learned that yes, you can entertain. Now put that knowledge to use. Cocktail consultant Morgan Schick will teach you the skills of cocktail party menu planning and how to accommodate your guests on any budget.

Introduction to Aperitifs – Aperitifs aren’t just for pre-dinner happy hour. Neil Kopplin, creator of Imbue Vermouth, and Patrick Taylor will discuss their history, use, and the variety, and get ideas on how and why to incorporate them into your home bar.

Convinced? You should be. Buy your tickets now! (while you still can)

Our third and final social hour announcement is about the first one of the day. We’re happy to welcome back Stone Barn Brandyworks as host of our morning meet-and-greet social hour.

Those of you who came to Cocktail Camp last year will remember the founder of Stone Barn Brandyworks, Sebastian Degens, who took part in our discussion of New American Whiskeys. During that talk, we sampled some of their unique unaged rye and oat whiskeys. This time around, they’ll be providing us with morning cocktails featuring some of the brandies they’re famous for.

During this morning social hour, we’ll be served from a cocktail menu created by Allison Webber and Stuart Green, from San Francisco’s Bourbon & Branch (although you may also remember Allison from when she was behind the bar at Irving Street Kitchen here in Portland). The menu is a surprise, but it’s sure to please. Check back here for the recipes after the event.

Space is running low so if you don’t have yours yet, you should get your tickets now.