Author: Matthew Arkin

Well, it’s party time.

Downtime Cocktails would like to formally invite our fellow honorees—Beyoncé, Bob Dylan, Jason Momoa, and Mike Love—to join us for a celebratory dinner in Los Angeles so we can all toast our being designated one of the “5 Celebrity Spirits That Are Actually Great” by Forbes magazine.

That’s right, Batch 22 is one of only five spirits that Forbes contributor, Erik Ofgang, included on his list of “Great Celebrity Spirits.”

What’s even better is that Ofgang not only considered celebrity spirits, but also weighed his final choices against non-celebrity spirits to make sure they stacked up to his quality standards. He writes, “The…5 spirits were my favorites after trying dozens of spirits from actors, musicians and TV personalities. They were also all in the top tier of my rankings when compared to non-celebrity spirits in their respective categories.”

Now, we don’t generally tout Batch 22 as a “celebrity” spirit, though we do have deep and longstanding roots in Hollywood. Because lots of brands with stars attached get a bad rap for being mediocre (many deservedly so), we prefer to let the complex and delicious liquid in our bottles do the talking for us. Oh, and we’re happy to let Erik Ofgang weigh in as well.

Read the complete article in Forbes

The season of thanks and giving is now upon us, and so is the season of giving back.

At Downtime Cocktails, we place a lot of value on “doing good” with Batch 22. As a spirit producer, there’s lots of demand for us to attend fundraisers and charity events, and we’re happy to do it as much as we can.  

In the past few weeks, we’ve been especially busy with charity events, so we wanted to highlight the organizations we’ve been helping. They all do wonderful work and are worthy of everyone’s support.

Our fundraising calendar began in earnest back in the first week of August, when we poured to raise money for the Living Coast Discovery Center “Farm to Bay” event in Chula Vista. These folks work to rescue wildlife in need and they provide a wonderful learning environment for families. More information here.

In September, we poured for thousands of attendees at the “Food, Wine, and Brew” celebration that raises money every year for the San Diego Zoo, which not only cares for hundreds of animals downtown, but also conducts critical research and care for a huge variety of species, many threatened or endangered. Check here for more information about the zoo and its many programs.

At the end of the month, we spent two days in La Jolla helping to raise money for the local school district by pouring at the La Jolla Art & Wine festival.  It was a total of more than 12 hours at the booth, but turnout was great and the festival was a huge success. Find information about next year’s event here.

On October 16, we joined our good friends from Fierce&Kind to support the first annual “Angels in Flight” golf tournament at the Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club. Along with our buddies from Tipsy Truck, we poured cocktails to raise money for breast cancer research through the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

On Saturday, October 26, we took the Batch 22 pop-up to the Bobby Riggs Pickleball Center in Encinitas where we provided cocktails to participants who were raising money for Angels Foster Family Network, which is dedicated to providing safe, stable, and loving homes for San Diego infants and toddlers. Look for more information about the great work they do here.

Still to come on November 4: Batch 22 will be slinging cocktails for golfers in Newport who will tee off for the Newport Harbor Athletic Fund, which raises money for athletic programs and injury rehabilitation at the local high school.

Of course, Downtime Cocktails will continue to maintain its strong support for our official nonprofit organization, Charity:Water, which has been providing clean drinking water to developing nations around the world for nearly 20 years. You can get more info and donate to our campaign here.

A delicious cocktail is one thing, but it’s made so much better by a great space in which to enjoy it.  That’s not to say your favorite wood-paneled neighborhood watering hole—dimly lighted with neon beer brands buzzing in the windows—doesn’t have its place. Comfort and familiarity are important attributes when they’re needed, but sometimes you want a setting so unique and exhilarating that the cocktails take a back seat to the surroundings. Here are three of those places. If you have a bucket list, we suggest you add at least one of them.

Icebar, Icehotel, Jukkasjärvi, Sweden

Here’s a destination you can literally call the coolest cocktail bar in the world. It’s located in Sweden’s famous Icehotel, in the northern town of Jukkasjärvi and was first opened in 1990. The entire hotel is made from ice and snow, and it’s the largest in the world, measuring more than 64,000 square feet. It uses nearly 1,000 tons of ice in its construction, must be rebuilt every year, and only exists between the months of December and April.

The Icebar is one of the signature features of the Icehotel, which also includes a church, a reception area, a main hall, and 55 guest suites—all formed from snow and huge blocks of ice harvested from a nearby river.

At the bar, guests are served cocktails in glasses made from ice— the chairs, tables, and the bar itself are also ice. Because of the unique nature of their serving vessels, cocktails served at the Icebar are all served “in the rocks.”

Subsix, Maldives

Niyama Maldives is one of the world’s most luxurious resorts. It offers guests private villas and pavilions situated on a group of the company’s private islands and is home to one of the world’s most unique bars. [The Maldives are a group of islands in the Indian Ocean about 400 miles south of the Indian mainland.]

Subsix is the underwater bar and restaurant featured at Niyama resort. Guests are brought to Subsix by speedboat and, upon arriving, they descend a dramatic three-tier staircase to an elaborate oasis below the waves. The unique space is lighted by Italian abstract chandeliers and features the swooping curves of a clam-inspired bar. Soft “anemone chairs” welcome patrons beneath an intricate ceiling draped with thousands of capiz shells.
 
Subsix offers Champagne breakfasts, subaquatic lunches (about $320 per person), gourmet dinners, and adults-only glow parties. A range of signature cocktails is available for $25, including the 75 Islands Martini, which is gin, seaweed vermouth, and galangal (a ginger-like root) & kumquat brine.

Rock Bar, Roack, Bali

Rock Bar Bali is one of the most stunning features at AYANA Resort and Spa in Bali and certainly one of the world’s most thrilling locations in which to sip a cocktail. Perched on a secluded limestone cliff south of Jimbaran Bay, the bar juts out over the pounding surf, almost 50 feet above the ocean.

Designed by renowned Japanese architect Yasuhiro Koichi, the Rock Bar features a minimalist design with an open-top platform that’s seamlessly built onto the natural cliff formation. Guests can get to the bar one of two ways: They can navigate a long flight of stairs along the cliff, or they can take a finicular, which delivers them to the bar’s landing. Ambient lighting and boat lanterns in traditional fishing boats below enable Rock Bar to offer a uniquely dramatic view of Bali’s famous sunsets.

Among the cocktail favorites are the Rock Bar’s martinis, many of which are blends such as Punch Rock, Rockberry Martini, and Spa on the Rock, which is made of vodka, blackcurrant liqueur, blueberry juice, and cranberry juice.

Before an American vodka producer from Austin, Texas (Tito’s) became the most popular brand of vodka in the world, Smirnoff held that title without challengers. And it had reigned for many decades previous.

Smirnoff vodka was first produced in Moscow, Russia, by Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnov (1831–1898). Today it’s distributed in 130 countries, and manufactured in many of those locations. In the United States, Smirnoff is produced in Illinois.

Pyotr’s product was first created in 1864, under the brand name PA Smirnov. It was distilled with a unique charcoal filtration technique that Smirnov pioneered in the 1870s. By 1886—after being the first to use newspaper advertising—it became the bestselling vodka brand in Moscow. It also was reputed to be the favorite of Russian royalty.

When PA Smirnov died in 1898, his son Vladimir took over the family business and succeeded in expanding their burgeoning vodka empire. By the turn of the century, Smirnov was producing more than 4 million cases per year.

Despite their great initial success, the early 1900s were not kind to the Smirnovs. In 1904, the Tsar nationalized the production and sale of vodka and Vladimir was forced to sell his distillery and abandon his brand. By 1917, as the Russian Revolution broke out, Smirnov and his family were forced to flee the country. By 1920, Vladimir managed to set up a new factory in Istanbul, Turkey, and then, four years later, moved to Ukraine where he renamed the brand “Smirnoff.” For the next decade, the vodka sold fairly well, but never attained the level of success it had in Moscow before the revolution.

In the 1930s, Vladimir met Rudolph Kunett, a successful Russian businessman whose family had actually supplied the Smirnovs grain in Moscow years before. Vladimir eventually sold the North American rights to his brand to Kunett, who then established the first distillery in North America, located in Bethel, Connecticut.

Sales after Prohibition could never quite keep up with the demands of the company, and, by 1939, Kunett sold his rights to John Martin, the president of Heublein, a successful liquor importer/exporter. Heublein’s board of directors thought Martin was insane for buying the rights to produce vodka. Americans at the time mostly drank whiskey and were unfamiliar with what this foreign spirit was. In a stroke of genius, Martin directed his company to market their vodka as a “white whiskey” that had the benefits of having “no taste, no smell.” Sales exploded virtually overnight.

Heublein was acquired in 1982 by RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company for $1.4 billion. RJR then became RJR Nabisco, which sold the liquor division to Grand Metropolitan in 1987. Ten years later, Grand Metropolitan merged with Guinness to form the global giant that is Diageo.

Ever since PA Smirnov opened his distillery in Moscow, vodka has been one of the most-consumed spirits on the planet. Today, the vodka segment of the alcohol market remains a multi-billion-dollar industry and—despite battling with giants like Tito’s and Absolut—Smirnoff remains one of the most popular and most recognizable brands in the world.

Since the launch of Batch 22 two years ago, we’ve been very fortunate to garner great reviews in the press and to win numerous awards. We gotta say, the praise and validation never gets old.

Most recently, Batch 22 won a gold medal at the 2024 New York World Spirits Awards. The competition defines gold-level spirits as, “Exceptional spirits that are near the pinnacle of achievement; these products set the standard for these categories.”

Not to brag, but this makes 10 total medals in the Downtime Cocktails trophy case. In fact, Batch 22 has medaled in every competition it has entered. [Ok, well, that’s a little brag, perhaps.]

The World Spirits competitions are hosted by the Tasting Alliance and are some of the largest and most prestigious in the spirits industry. They employ more than 80 judges from around the world, including Anthony Dias Blue, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, and Wilfred Wong, some of the industry’s most renowned critics.

The New York competition joined forces with the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, which was founded in 2000 and is the oldest and largest competition of its kind. In 2022, the event cemented its position as the largest spirits competition in the world with nearly 5,000 entries.