The Blackbird Bartender Atlas

Have you ever had a Blackbird? Do you know what goes into a Blackbird? Do you know who created The Blackbird and where?

Our Josh decided a while ago to do some digging about this ubiquitous Toronto Industry handshake. Over the course of 5 installments in this audio documentary he talked with dozens of Bartenders, representatives from brands, published cocktail historians and eventually...the creator of The Blackbird.

In this first episode we explain what we are trying to do here and also have a chat with historian and author Christine Sismondo. Josh wanted to ask Christine about the phenomenon of shots, cocktails or drinks that only exist in one geographical location and somehow they never travel from that city, or sometimes even that bar.

This is just the beginning though. For the next few weeks we will be releasing episodes detailing the evolution of The Blackbird.

The mic gets passed in this episode. You (well some of you) behind the bar have been making, selling and drinking The Blackbird, but aren't quite sure what it is you're serving, or at least have gotten the name wrong.

This episode exists to show that sometimes something can be so catchy that the substance gets misconstrued.

Over the course of about 2 years Josh asked dozens of bartenders about The Blackbird and got a wild variety of answers. If you hear your voice in this episode, please don't feel weird about it though. In the dozens of interviews done, exactly zero people answered all the questions correctly.

This is a great way to see what you might have already know and what you can learn about how drinks evolve over time.

If you have been listening along, by now you should have a good idea of what goes into The Blackbird. But what do you know about the ingredients?

So much of what we use on the bar everyday has a long and historically intricate history. To dip our toes into that history with Amaro Montenegro, we talked to Tad Carducci.

Tad has, over the last 36 years, held down a bunch of jobs in the drinks world. Running bar programs, educational programs, marketing programs (so many programs) and is now the Director of Outreach and Engagement with Gruppo Montenegro.

He gets into not only the history of the brand, but the ways it is enjoyed most often and what he thinks of people using Amaro Montenegro in cocktails.

On the last episode of The Blackbird we talked to Tad Carducci from Amaro Montenegro and this week, representing the other component of The Blackbird, we have Bruce Russell from Wild Turkey.

If the name sounds familiar that's because both his Dad (Eddie) and his Grand-dad (Jimmy) have been with Wild Turkey for decades. If you want to hear about the Wild Turkey story you will have to listen.

We get into whether or not Bruce has ever had a Blackbird and what he thinks of bourbon cocktails in general.

If you have been slacking on listening to The Blackbird, get it together.

You should have listened to all 4 previous episodes, but if you are one of those people that loves spoilers and reading the last chapter of a book first, this episode is for you.

Josh has a nice long chat with the creator of The Blackbird.

We hope you enjoyed this journey to the truth.