Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Cocktails and Chocolates in DC

I had the opportunity to present our spirits alongside some locally made artisan chocolates last night at one of DC's most intimate and esteemed cocktail bars, Wisdom.  The venue was amazing.  Wisdom is a smallish space, but sectioned off into small alcoves that afford its customers a measure of privacy and solitude.  The decor is old-world chic, overstuffed armchairs and settees, eclectic tables, and candelabra chandeliers.  I felt as though I had stepped into a club in early 1900's Paris.

The chocolates for the evening were creations by Merideth, owner of MC2 Confections, a local chocolatier who worked with me and Erik, the owner of the club, to create custom cocktails and chocolate pairings.  The customers were the beneficiaries of our experiments:

Lemon honey thyme chocolate paired with a hot gin toddy with green tea.

White chocolate raspberry paired with a forbidden fruit cocktail.

Peanut butter cayenne chocolate paired with Uncle Jessie's PB&J cocktail.

To name a few... You get the idea... delicious stuff!

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the night, capturing the mood and a few of the confections.  Makes me glad I live near Washington DC, where we have clubs like this.













On a technical footnote, I must mention that the venue was very challenging to photograph.  It was dark as a crypt in there!  To get some of these shots, I had to bring my fastest, best lens, an f1.4 50mm telephoto, and open the aperture wide up, and still use an ISO 1600 to capture the shots.  Autofocus was working poorly in the low light, so I had to manually focus most of the shots, and even still, I'd have to rest the camera on my knee to keep from blurring the photos.

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