Chef and the Fatman

So last year at our first Tales of the Cocktail, we had the pleasure of hanging out in the Carousel Lounge of the Hotel Monteleone watching the live taping of a radio show called, Chef and the Fatman. Ok, it was a different experience considering it is a cooking show, on the radio. However, Kevin and Fred pull this thing off time after time and have some really good material and even better guests.

Fast forward to this year and of course they've made the trip again and are still being sponsored by one of my favourite bourbons, Bulleit. Surprise, surprise, this year they land the deal of the show and have none other than Danny DeVito talking about his new Premium Limoncello. The photos below are from our camera but I will let you know that our very own Carine was working behind the scenes for the show itself taking the official photographs and JT was running the video camera (yes it was a radio show but they wanted some footage of the event). If I can get my hands on any of the photos, I'll be sure to post them.

Marvelous Marvin Allen, the great bartender from the Carousel Bar starts the show by mixing up a special drink for the upcoming guests. It included Danny's Premium Limoncello, Bulleit Bourbon and Dubbonet I believe.

Tom Bulleit, founder of Bulleit Bourbon joins Kevin and Fred on stage as one of the sponsors of the show. Tom is a really great guy and you'll find more pictures of him in one of the other photo galleries.

Here is the guest of honour, Danny DeVito, introducing us to his Premium Limoncello. Talk about a guy with passion for a product. The story of his experience with Limoncello goes back to when he was a kid and those memories have lead him to produce his own brand.

This is Chef (Executive Chef Fred Genovese) creating a dish using the Limoncello. Yes, they do hand it around to the audience to try but unfortunately for me it was a shellfish and I couldn't try it. The feedback from everyone else was very positive though. Note the glass in front of Danny. Yes, he was enjoying his own spirits during the show.

The whole gang is on the set here. You can see Carine with the camera right in the front of the picture, Danny, Marvin and John Besh and Alon Shaya (John and Alon are pretty famous New Orlean's chefs that opened Domenica in the Roosevelt Hotel). Things were getting into high gear at about this time during the show with samples of Premium Limoncello and different food dishes being handed out every couple of minutes.

Perhaps one of the highlights of the event was this one. John Besh brought out a pair of gloves for Danny, handed him a steel bowl and proceeded to fill it with Danny's Limoncello. Add liquid nitrogen and you get the cool effect shown in the picture. The end result was a lemon sorbet that was cool, no I mean really cool. The liquid nitrogen made it so cold it burnt my mouth a little when I tried the sorbet. However it was well worth it.

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