Ever since information broke this previous Friday that bartending legend Murray Stenson had died earlier that day, social media and Seattle media have been crammed with tales about his life, and concerning the connections he shared with buddies and acquaintances around the globe.
Murray would have hated the limelight half. The numerous tales from buddies, although—these, he would have liked.
I knew Murray for shut to twenty years, and I used to be a devoted common at his bar for a very good chunk of these, notably throughout the decade he spent at Zig Zag Café, close to Seattle’s iconic Pike Place Market. Zig Zag had debuted on the daybreak of the brand new millennium, and the founding house owners, Ben Dougherty and Kacy Fitch, didn’t simply need to open an awesome bar—they wished to determine a spot the place Murray, their mentor, would really feel at residence.
On the time, he’d been working the bar at Il Bistro, a restaurant simply up a couple of flights of stairs from Zig Zag. Throughout his a few years there, he’d turned the bar high in entrance of him right into a de facto bartending faculty/job useful resource workplace for different bartenders round city. Whether or not they’d been working behind the bar for a couple of weeks or for a few years, bartenders (together with Fitch and Dougherty) would gravitate to Murray’s bar to style spirits and cocktails they might by no means have heard of, and to observe and be taught from a grasp bartender at work.
Murray had a technique of types whenever you sat throughout the bar from him. Even when each seat was full, he’d discover a second to cease in entrance of you, and lean over to test in. He’d put his elbow on the bar and his hand towards his face to speak for a second, share a chunk of reports, ask for any gossip, and to inquire what you have been within the temper to drink. And each visitor at that bar on that night time would really feel like they have been basking in his full consideration, his eyes gleaming at them over their full-to-the-brim Martinis as he juggled orders and blended cocktails and grabbed bottles to pour little tastes of issues he thought this visitor or one other would discover fascinating.
Sure, there have been the cocktails. Once I interviewed Murray greater than a decade in the past for a profile in Imbibe, he shared that his cocktail explorations had been each pushed by his want to maintain friends glad (and, sometimes, by necessity, whereas working in a poorly stocked bar), and by his personal style and curiosity. He collected classic bar manuals like David Embury’s The Wonderful Artwork of Mixing Drinks, and incessantly bought a number of copies in order that he might cross one alongside to a promising new bartender who’d proven an curiosity in bettering their craft. And he grew to become synonymous with the Final Phrase, having dug the recipe out of Ted Saucier’s 1951 e book, Bottoms Up, and reviving it for an early menu at Zig Zag. I believe the drink appealed to him due to its strangeness—on paper, the recipe is mindless, with full measures of two potently flavored liqueurs squaring off towards gin and lime juice—but in addition due to its use of inexperienced Chartreuse, which match into Murray’s personal fondness for highly effective, take-no-prisoners flavors.
Unusual or not, the cocktail took off, and the Final Phrase grew to become the cocktail that put Murray, and Seattle, on the worldwide mixology map. Between his mastery of hospitality and his cocktail proficiency, Murray helped place Zig Zag at a sophisticated place because the twenty first century cocktail renaissance blossomed. Bartenders from New York, and Australia, and Berlin, and past, would pull up a bar stool subsequent to native bartenders to observe and be taught from Murray at work.
And whereas he appreciated their curiosity, the accolades that inevitably adopted didn’t fairly go well with his type. In 2011, when he was a finalist for Bartender of the 12 months at Tales of the Cocktail’s Spirited Awards, he selected to not go to New Orleans. He requested me to attend the ceremony in his place, and after his title was introduced and I took the stage to simply accept his award, I stepped out into the hallway to provide Murray the information. It was a Saturday night time, and he was at residence; his girlfriend answered the cellphone. I excitedly instructed her what had occurred, listened as she shared the information with Murray, and heard the murmur of his reply. She got here again on the cellphone and requested, “May you inform him about it tomorrow? We’re in the course of watching a film.”
In case your social media feed is something like mine, then you definitely’ve scrolled by means of and clicked on numerous posts the previous few days, from bartenders and Murray’s regulars around the globe. In these posts, they’re all sharing their love for him and their unhappiness at his loss, and passing alongside their very own tales from the time they spent with the person.
Everybody who ever sat down at his bar seemingly has a Murray story. I’ll shut this with one in every of mine.
In 2007 or so, I got here into Zig Zag for one in every of my common Wednesday night time periods with Murray. After a little bit banter, he requested me what I used to be consuming that night time, and I requested for a Boulevardier. Even a yr earlier than, that cocktail was nearly totally extraordinary; it wasn’t till Ted Haigh—“Dr. Cocktail,” a cocktail historian and Imbibe’s first common columnist—revived its recipe in one in every of his columns that the drink as soon as once more entered the cocktail vernacular.
Murray had blended me my first-ever Boulevardier quickly after that column appeared, however like many others, he used an Americanized pronunciation of the title: Boulevar-DEER. And that’s the best way everybody referred to it, till I sat down on that exact Wednesday and, having not too long ago been corrected on the title (the cocktail originated in Paris, in spite of everything), I requested for it utilizing its French pronunciation: Boulevar-DEE-AY.
Murray leapt again in comically exaggerated shock, his eyes open vast. “Did you hear that?” he requested Kacy Fitch, who was standing close by, laughing. “Boulevar-dee-ay,” Murray repeated, stretching out the phrase and making a trilling, smoothing gesture along with his hand to emphasise the luxurious fanciness of the French pronunciation. “We might’ve been charging $2 extra!”
Relaxation in peace, outdated good friend.
