There's a new face behind the bar at AMMO. Jonny Ericsen is a Portland transplant and Clyde Common graduate who will be taking charge of AMMO's cocktails (speaking of Portland mixologist moving to LA .. have you watched this Portlandia episode?)
A few of the cocktails remained from my last visit, but a number of new ones have popped up. The Currant Affair is a strong but sweet drink that's perfect to start the night off (Old Overholt rye, lemon juice, cassis, maraschino, Angostura bitters -$10)
I had a more aromatic beginning with the Copper Cup (Citadelle gin, Cynar, Dolin Blanc vermouth, orange bitters - $11)
Both drinks were well balanced and went down dangerously easy.
After a while, we started having Jonny play around with off-menu drinks, both classics and his own creations. The Van Cleef was a drink he made when he opened Little Bird in Portland. He calls it a "cowboy drink", made with scotch rinse, Buffalo Trace bourbon, and burnt orange oil.
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Part of this tour involved some confidential information like the machines they use etc so not many pictures, sorry! But I was surprised at what a big operation this really was, from machines that cut and knead the dough to packaging it. The end of the line was a favorite, of course, with the smell of butter and fresh baked bread wafting in the air.
After the tour, we went out to their back lot for lunch! They've called in some of LA's best food trucks that serves or uses King's Hawaiian products, along with a whole spread of their own desserts. Mark's daughter Courtney experiments with different recipe using the bread in the factory kitchen including things like white chocolate chip bread pudding and garlic cheese bread. Some of the desserts we had are served at their restaurant, and also their newer fast casual restaurant, The Local Place. The Tres Leches cake and the bread pudding was my favorite.
The Kogi Truck does their sliders using King's Hawaiian sweet dinner rolls. Both their short rib and tofu sliders were crowd favorites.
Buttermilk Truck's French Toast sticks also uses King's Hawaiian bread.
Ludo Truck serves their fried chicken with the dinner roll.
When we left, they told us they had a parting gift for us. I was expecting a bag, maybe one or two packages of their bread. But noooo. This is the Aloha spirit after all! Our parting gift was a huge box of goodies, so big that I needed help carrying it to the car! Enough bread to last me months, coffee, cookies, apron, gift card, etc ... Jealous? I bet. Want one? They're actually giving away a box to one of my readers too! The contents won't be exactly the same but you can be sure they will be as generous. Check back tomorrow for a new post for the giveaway! :)
