Seelbach Hilton
500 Fourth Street
Louisville, KY 40202
(502) 585-3200
www.seelbachhilton.com

“When you walk into a church, there’s a reason that it’s really high ceilings and stained glass windows. It tries to set you in the mood. And I think, if the mood is for cocktails, I think it’s nothing better to be surrounded by all this rich wood and marble.” – Jerry Slater

Opened in 1905, the legendary Seelbach Hilton has hosted gangsters, politicians, and celebrities for generations. Stories of Al Capone evading the law during Prohibition and F. Scott Fitzgerald drinking cocktails from the hotel’s luxurious bar have contributed to the place’s mystique. It’s the perfect environment in which to enjoy a classic cocktail and a taste of the past. But the Seelbach is also looking into the future. Director of Restaurants Jerry Slater is breathing new life into the drink offerings at this historic Louisville hotel. Jerry arrived at the Seelbach in 2001, bringing with him a passion for the history of cocktails, as well as a desire to break new ground. Working with the chefs of the hotel’s Oak Room restaurant, Jerry is constantly creating new drinks. He makes savory cocktails, using ingredients like basil and balsamic vinegar; he takes advantage of the subtle differences in different bourbons, highlighting their individual characteristics; and he is s stickler for fresh ingredients. The Seelbach Hilton may be a historic landmark, but it’s the place to go for contemporary cocktails.

EDITED TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Subject: Jerry Slater, Mixologist & Director of Restaurants, Seelbach Hilton
Date: January 16, 2008
Location: Seelbach Hilton Hotel
Interviewer & Photographer: Amy Evans

---

Amy Evans:  This is Amy Evans on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 for the Southern Foodways Alliance. I’m in Louisville, Kentucky. I’m at the Seelbach Hotel, just outside the Oak Room with Jerry Slater. And Jerry, if you would please state your name and your birth date for the record?

Jerry Slater:  Jerry Slater and born on August 17, 1971.

What is your title here at the Seelbach?

Director of Restaurants, whatever that means. [Laughs]

And if we could talk a little bit about your hometown and your background a little bit and how you got to Louisville, just kind of a condensed version.

We moved a lot as a kid but the family is originally from West Virginia, went to Northwest Indiana for steel mill jobs in [nineteen] ’79 with my dad, which weren't there anymore. But ended up staying there for quite a while, and I’ve been in Louisville for—it will be seven years in May. [Kentucky] Derby Week was my first week here at the Seelbach. Trial by fire. [Laughs]

So how did you get into the service industry and hone your craft as a mixologist?

I did this to pay the bills through college. I got a degree in English Literature and Philosophy and ended up, by the end of it, as opposed to pursuing a doctorate, wanted to stay. I like the aesthetic experience, and in college literature seemed more political anymore than aesthetic. And so when I finished my degree, I stayed in the service business. I had been working at a little place in Gary, Indiana, on the beach called the Miller Bakery Café and garnered some awards—kind of a big fish in a small pond in that area—and did that for one year as the GM [Genera Manager] and then went to work for Charlie Trotter [in Chicago] after that.

So can you remember and try and describe learning about cocktails and mixing drinks and kind of the craft of bartending and what you were attracted to in that part of the industry?

Well, you know, when I decided that I was going to stay in this industry, then it becomes learn as much as you can. And I had also worked in a kitchen in an Italian restaurant for a year, thought about going to be a chef, but by the age I had got to, I still needed to pay the rent, so I decided to just stay in the front of the house. And anything that I wanted to do, I just wanted to explore that deeper and started to realize there was kind of a history of cocktails, especially classic cocktails. So when you get to bourbon country and you have just a plethora of great brown spirits, you want to start to look into it a little bit more: how it’s made, why it tastes differently; if it’s just one category, like bourbon, why do I have sixty of them behind my bar here? But we can pick out several differences, nuances, histories, and so, you know, from base spirits, then you start to explore how people used to mix things, and there seems to be a bit of a renaissance right now in America with cocktails. So I started reading you know William Grimes and Dave Wondrich and Tony Abu-Gamin and Dale DeGroff—just started to explore these things and, you know, a lot of trial and error. Research and development is fun. [Laughs] So that’s how I got into it a little bit that way.

So is that kind of passion for the history and approach to research and really kind of trying to find the story behind a drink and behind an ingredient, is that an approach you would have in anything and everything that you do, or was there something specific about cocktails that kind of called you in that direction?

Well, I think I would do it about food, as well. …Recently, like I said, with this renaissance in cocktails—you know, there’s a couple of things that America has done right: Jazz and we’ve invented things that nobody else has done, and I think the cocktail is one of them. The bartenders when Prohibition hit all went to Europe because, just like Jazz musicians, Europeans couldn’t simulate what we were doing, and so they, you know, really loved what we were doing…I think we’re coming back to an understanding and appreciation of a cocktail.

Can you talk a little bit about, from a historical perspective, the origins of the cocktail and the importance of a place like Louisville in that context and New Orleans and how New Orleans came to Louisville and that kind of connection?

One of the stories I’ve heard from one of the old master distillers here is very interesting about the Louisville-New Orleans connection. They were sending whiskey down in barrels down the Ohio [River] into the Mississippi [River] and on to New Orleans. Well, they would get these telegrams back that said, “Send us more red liquor.” And they didn’t know what they were talking about. They said, “Well, we sent you good clear corn whiskey.” And so apparently, in the cleaning of the barrels—the barrels were used for everything: fish heads, hard tack biscuits, nails, whatever. To clean the barrels, you’d char them on the inside or try to clean the insides with fire. So they would put this clear corn whiskey in those charred barrels, put them in the bottom of a hot boat, rocking around for three months until it got to New Orleans, and they’d have this—it had picked up those esters, and it had gone through, basically, a whole season in three months, like it would be in a warehouse in bourbon country. And so they really got a taste for that. You know, it added sugars, it added color, it added characteristics that weren't just in the corn whiskey….Originally, you know, Sazerac and those types of cocktails were made from brandy, you know. It’s a very French influence in New Orleans and, you know, once wars and tariffs and everything started to happen, that was really replaced by rye whiskey from the east and bourbon from here in Kentucky. So there’s a long history.

And then what about the cocktails themselves like, you know, you mentioned the Sazerac. New Orleans has the Sazerac, and Louisville has the Old Fashioned. Can you talk about coming to Louisville and being introduced to that kind of mythology and history of a single cocktail in a single town?

Yeah, and, in fact, you know, here at the Seelbach, we have the Seelbach Cocktail, which is from like 1917 and so, you know, I think it’s wonderful that myths get built up around certain things. It’s one thing but it’s, for some reason, it’s stuck, and you know there are 1,000 bartenders a day making 1,000 different fruity drinks that nobody will ever remember, but somebody remembers the Old Fashioned. Somebody remembers the Seelbach Cocktail…And there’s stories behind these sorts of things. The one I heard about the Seelbach cocktail was down in the Rathskeller, a gentleman was making two drinks, an Old Fashioned, like you were mentioning, so it’s got that element of bitters in it; it’s got a dash of triple sec, as well, orange flavored liqueur and the bourbon. Well, then he went to pour a glass of champagne for the lady, and it topped over, you know. The bubbles exploded, and it went into the two drinks. Well, he had to start over and remake the drink but being like a good bartender, he wanted to taste his mistake, and that’s where the Seelbach cocktail was invented. Now whether that’s true or not, it doesn’t matter; it’s a great story and when you see historic old rooms like the Rathskeller, you want to drink one of those there. So yeah, I think the story of the Old Fashioned, for instance, created two blocks from us. There’s such a mythology about being invented at the Pendennis Club because the Old Fashioned is really meant to be an old fashioned whiskey cocktail or a whiskey cocktail made in an old-fashioned way: bitters, sugar, water, and whatever booze you were going to have. It was probably rye whiskey before that in it but…Colonel Pepper, who owned a distillery, took it to New York and, you know, prodded it around and said, “Hey, look at this. This is the hottest thing from my home city.” And it caught on and, you know, New Yorkers loved it and it probably entered magazines and everything else, and so suddenly, you know, it’s an Old Fashioned with a big “O”, as opposed to an old fashioned with a little “o”, you know.

Well do you think that, since you were talking about kind of a resurgence of classic cocktail appreciation in bar culture, do you think there’s a new drink now that kind of has that same staying power?

You know, and I’ve had one made well, I think the Cosmopolitan will do that. It’s a great name; it’s a little fruity for most people or for the—too fruity for the classics, but I don’t know; I think it has some staying power. You know, I think people have been so interested in revamping the older drinks or taking that fresh approach. Again, you know, when we make a whiskey sour here, it’s fresh lemon juice, it’s simple syrup made from scratch, it’s a big long lemon twist. And we’ve been concentrating on that. And then there’s the other element where people are like Ferran Andria, you know, with the—with the chemicals and additives and—and molecular, you know, you’ve got an element that’s going on that direction, as well, and trying to really push the boundaries. But it’s all with a nod, you know. One of the greatest things I’d ever heard about Picasso, you know, in his late years, it was just drawing lines, but he had to learn the classics….And so I think that most people who are doing cocktails well have gone through the steps to learn the history and, when they’re pushing the boundaries, they know why. There’s a gentleman at Bourbon and Branch in San Francisco, and he was making the Negroni. He was doing basically a gin martini and then little caviar spoons on the side full of Campari and sweet vermouth done, you know, with calcium chlorinate and auger and, you know, making little balls, little caviars out of those two liqueurs and you know it’s interesting. You know, is it the thing I want to go in and drink everyday? I’m more of a classicist, I think, but at least he knew where he was coming from with it.

-----

How then do you think that this kind of new trend and innovation in cocktails and appreciation of fresh ingredients and developing new ideas parallels the kind of celebrity chef culture that we’re so deep in anymore? Do you think that those things run parallel, or do you think that cocktail culture is kind of trying to catch up to that?

I think it’s there in some ways. I’ve heard people refer to themselves as bar chefs. You know, I prefer the term mixologist or just plain-old bartender. I think there’s something noble in tending a bar, if you do it really well. But people are trying to elevate it to that status, and you see it in magazines; you see it on TV and radio…And it’s a way for somebody who is not necessarily cooking to try to make a name for themselves, so I don’t bemoan it. [Laughs] But there seems to be a little bit of a backlash with the celebrity chef thing recently, and people want to just eat again. And so I hope it doesn’t take it to that level.

What about in developing new drinks and working to create savory cocktails and pairing cocktails with food and that kind of thing? Can you talk about that?

We do that a little bit here and, being in bourbon country, for instance, and having that many different types of brown spirits, you know. What makes the difference? And if you really think about it, you know, take Maker’s Mark, for instance. It’s made with winter wheat. It’s a sweeter bourbon, so we might hold off until dessert to pair those two together. Whereas like Woodford, for instance, has a lot of rye to it, so it’s spicier, so we’re going to use that for a cocktail maybe in the middle of the course or toward the entrée because it’s got a more savory element to it, as opposed to the sweet. The Van Winkle’s, you know, some of those you know, the twenty—twenty-three-year-old—it’s so rare you want to sort of almost save it for the end. And it’s maybe a piece of chocolate bites in a snifter. At the same time, you take their twelve-year-old—makes delicious cocktails, you know. You take some fresh berries and bitters and smash those together and add the bourbon and shake it—dash of ginger ale or something like that, it’s going to make a wonderful cocktail. There is a little bit of orthodox here, I think, about blending or mixing with brown spirits—just a splash of branch water, you know, that’s all you’re supposed to do, but [Laughs] no we sort of push it a little bit sometimes.

Well and Janet [a bartender at the Seelbach] was telling me last night about a cocktail that you make with Buffalo Trace [bourbon] that has balsamic vinegar and basil in it.

Yeah, that one is kind of fun. We took that to the [James] Beard House. When I went with [Oak Room chefs] Todd Richards and Duane Nutter, we did cocktails and the people at the Beard House were so used to drinking wine that we kind of shook them up a little bit. We paired cocktails with each course, and Todd did versions—really hyped-up versions of classic favorites, comfort foods, what have you, that really weren't classic comfort foods [Laughs] once he gets hold of them. But we did a drink called the Bufala Negra, black buffalo. That’s sort of somewhere between the fresh flavors of almost an insalata caprese [traditional Italian salad of tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella] combined with a Mint Julep and they sort of go together. You know, basil is in the mint family, so like a Mint Julep, we’ll take basil and a cube of sugar, and we’ll start to blend that together. I really love bitters in any kind of drink and so, instead of bitters, we’re talking basil and some balsamic [vinegar], which adds a little acidity to it, as well, which was nice, so you got the bitter and the acid. We grind those three things together, muddle them up; we add the bourbon and then top it off with ginger ale and all those flavors in the ginger is a little spicy to it, so you’ve—you’ve got sweet, spicy, savory—you’ve got all these elements pulling at you at the same time, so it turned out to be a pretty good drink.

-----

Tell me about some of the other cocktails that you’ve developed over the years.

Well, we do one called a Black and Blue and we take blueberries and blackberries and we—mostly blueberries. We muddle those together with a little bit of simple syrup and Peychaud bitters and we add Jim Black Label, like an eight year-old Jim Beam, and we top it off with a little soda water and you get—what sounds like somewhat of a foo-foo drink. It is actually quite savory, at the same time, and, you know, it’s served in a tall glass, and it’s a very cool refreshing summer drink. And again, you know, taking an eight-year-old bourbon and mixing it with fruit and bitters and, you know, really, it goes against that whole orthodoxy but, you know, it turns out to be lovely.

So how would you say that you developed your palate in bartending and your taste for liquors and combinations in developing new drinks?

Oh, lots of drinking, actually. [Laughs] Research and development, that goes without saying. No, I take the nuance. I have a memory for trivial stuff, you know, and—and people will call me and wonder, you know, who sang that song in 1978 or whatever all the time. So I guess my brain works in trivial ways but, for instance, they were doing a seminar on vodka at the Pendennis Club of all places. Dale DeGroff and Tony Abu-Gamin were doing it. And there were six vodkas and they said, “Well write down which ones you think they are, just blind—out of the clear blue.” We hadn’t really been talking about them. And, you know, they gave you which six they could be and just which ones, you know, you picked, you put those together. And I think I got four out of six; I just kind of mixed up two, and I don’t drink vodka—that’s the other thing. And so, but I know that this one has a profile of wheat, this one has a profile of grapes, for instance, this one has a profile, so you can sort of pick it out after a while and you know talking so—and having such a good relationship with the chefs that, you know, I can taste their food all the time. I go back and taste their ingredients just to kind of refresh my palate, so constantly thinking in combinations. And, you know, when you’re working with partners like Todd and Duane, you know their combinations—white chocolate and spaghetti squash together is a puree on one of our dishes right now, you know, so they’re pushing it so I have to push it, as well. [Laughs]

So you take cues from them then in some of the cocktails that you make. Do they ever take cues from you in integrating some liquors into what they’re cooking in the kitchen?

Yeah, I definitely think so. You know, we get things, we got a new gin about a year ago—well it’s been around for a while. But like Hendricks, for instance. It has elements of cucumber and rose hips and stuff, you know, so we might take that and make a dish out of it. Or I made a version of a cocktail for Audrey Saunders, the woman who started the Pegu Club. She did an Earl Gray Martini and, you know, it’s done with egg whites and Earl Gray tea, lemon. So they took that and did a variation because they loved the texture of it, and we would pour it tableside over a dish that we were serving with scallops, for instance. [Laughs] So yeah, we kind of play off each other that way.

So could you imagine that you would have an opportunity to have that kind of expression and collaboration in a place, being in this industry?

I don’t think I could be here, if I didn’t. You know, I’ve had good relationships with chefs in the past, but I think you know the combination with Todd and I, we were born about eight days apart. He’s originally from Chicago; I grew up in Chicago. You know, we never knew each other, but there’s something that just clicked…I left here, actually, for two years and then came back. I’ve been back to the Seelbach for about a year and where I’m going, he’s going, or vice versa so—. [Laughs]

-----

Tell me about being here at the Seelbach and the history that comes with the job and kind of nodding to that and also looking in your own direction.

Well, you know, the history is one of the things that attracted me to here….Louisville had this sort of historic appeal as you’re flying down I-65…and I think you always kind of want to know what you’re worth. So I sent a resume to a gentleman that was doing my job now, Director of Restaurants, here and offered me a job that was somewhat comparable in pay…And you know, it is kind of the big fish, small pond, but the historic aspects are one of the things that definitely drew me here. Like I said, the first week I was here was Derby Week [2001].

-----

So do you think cocktails and food taste different in a setting like this?

I think so; I think it helps. Like when you walk into a church, there’s a reason that it’s really high ceilings and stained glass windows. It tries to set you in the mood. And I think, if the mood is for cocktails, I think it’s nothing better to be surrounded by all this rich wood and marble. And, you know, the Oak Room itself was a gentlemen’s billiards room and, there’s these chandeliers hanging where each pool cue would have been. All my French red wine is stored in the original bar, which supposedly could spin around at one point because of Prohibition. There is a room in there that we use as a private room; it seats about ten or twelve people. It’s known to locals as the Al Capone Room and Al Capone was everywhere, from there to Florida to Chicago but supposedly—and I’ve seen the stairs because in the café below us there’s a little trap—what I’m getting at is, there’s a little trap door in there and it had a spiral staircase that you could go to, basically, underground. And I talked to the local Louisville Gas and Electric guy; you can still walk from here to the Brown [Hotel] underground, if you wanted, to the Brown Hotel, which is two blocks away. And I’ve actually seen the staircase coming out of the bottom of there when they were doing a repair in the café kitchen below us and so, you know, it’s marble and steel and they said there was a Prohibition wine cellar in there where things were kept…But, you know, there’s these cool elements that, if you know the stories and you walk in and you see all this great marble and wood, you want to have something more classic, I think.

So, being Director of Restaurants, do you get much opportunity to actually be in a bar and serve cocktails?

I almost force myself. It’s sort of the fun part. I could sit in front of a computer and forecast and schedule and all the stuff that makes me want to pull my hair out but, you know, like today I was re-cataloging—we have about 1,200 different selections on our wine list and we just had a sommelier leave, so I’ve been doing that and that—my mind sort of works that way sometimes. You know, I want to organize; I want to just get my hands on it, you know. It’s dusty and dirty, and I’m not wearing a tie today. But the same thing with the bar, you know, sometimes I just want to get back there and see the accomplishment of making something or making somebody happy or talking about it, giving a tour of the hotel that ends in a bourbon tasting of five different bourbons for instance.

-----

If you had to kind of project into the future of cocktails, is there any one thing you see or something that you want to do that hasn’t been done?

Hmm. Well, I want to take it to a bigger scale. I want more people to understand what we’re doing, as opposed to people are constantly—say, liquor vendors are constantly trying to buy you things that are newest, the hippest, you know, of every kind of flavored vodka. You don’t need to flavor vodka; vodka is a neutral spirit, and you flavor it with fresh ingredients like a pear. You don’t need a pear vodka. So I would like to see great base spirits turn people on that other bartenders were taking to a new level with interesting ingredients. Ginger syrup, lemongrass, something that’s going to interest me, I would like to see more of that. There is probably less than a handful of people I can think of in the city doing that currently. So the future, I want to see it on a bigger scale.

---

To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Use the search function below to browse the Southern Foodways site for oral history topics, people or places we've featured, or general information about your favorite foods and foodways.