Pimm's Highball Smash

I wanted something light and clean that I could drink this afternoon without alcoholic after-effects, so I turned to a couple of new acquisitions.  First, my dear friends Matt and Michele generously gave me a soda siphon for no reason whatsoever.  That was awesome.  Second, I bought a couple of bottles of bitters from the Bitter Cube guys I met at Tales of the Cocktail.  I decided to combine these with some mint, sugar, and Pimm's No. 1 to make an afternoon drink.

2 oz Pimm's No. 1 liqueur
1/2 teaspoon demarara syrup
2 dashes Bitter Cube lemon tree bitters
10 mint leaves
soda water

Muddle mint with syrup; add Pimm's and bitters.  Stir on ice, and strain into a highball glass filled with ice.  Top off with soda water.  Garnish with a sprig of mint.

Very light, very refreshing.  The mint really came through on the nose and the sip, and the Pimm's and citrus notes blended very nicely, even without actual citrus juice.  I would have liked a little more flavor, but the volume of soda I had to add diluted the drink a bit much for my taste.  I'll have to downsize my glass next time I prepare this one.

Amber Sunset

A friend asked me for a Mojito tonight, but I told her I thought that was boring, especially since I made her a Mojito the last time she was at my house.  The carbonated water in the Mojito reminded me of the Eastside, which Rhiannon introduced me to the other day.  It's essentially a Southside with cucumber and club soda on ice in a tall glass.  But I was out of cucumber.  So my tangential thought then led me to an as-far-as-I-can-tell unnamed drink that Kirk made me a few weeks ago.  He made me a dark rum sour with a rinse of creme de violette.  Since I have way too much creme de violette and way too few uses for it, I thought I'd pull it out.  I substituted raspberry syrup for simple syrup, and the result was the Amber Sunset (which hopefully hasn't been named something else previously)...

2 oz amber rum (Appleton V/X)

1/2 oz lemon juice

1/2 oz raspberry syrup

1 tsp creme de violette

Shake all but creme de violette with ice, and set aside.  Rinse a chilled cocktail glass or coupe with creme de violette, and discard the excess.  Strain the rum mixture into the coated glass. Spray a mist of creme de violette over the full glass, and serve with a smile.

Yet another simple variation of a classic formula, the raspberry syrup at once cuts the acidity of the citrus and adds raspberry-fruitiness.  The rum, of course, adds a beautiful buttery roundness to the mouthfeel, and is at the forefront on the sip.  The rinse of creme de violette is absent except for the gentlest floral accent both on the nose and the swallow.

Mississippi Punch

Flipping through Jerry Thomas's 1862 bartender's guide, one earns a new respect for punches.  They were the workhorse concoction for entertaining groups greater than just a few people, and the variety of recipes in use in the mid 19th century was enormous.  The vast majority, surely, never saw print and were the inventions of unnamed thousands of party hosts throughout this land and the British empire.

Since I'm I, I'll give you a bit of etymology.  Besides our English numbers and their closely-related Germanic counterparts, we're familiar with Grecoitalic numbers (wait for the figure...).  East of the Centum-Satem isogloss, numbers are different:

Whiskey Kiss

I went to a friend's rooftop party last night near the Quarter, and I was running a little early, so I decided to stop off at Tonique on Rampart Street. I met the good bartender, Murph, who was kind enough to chat with me for a bit.  Their menu (writ large on a chalkboard), included several classics and a couple of interesting variations.  Those included a cobbler style Old Fashioned (presumably the with-fruit variety), Caipirinha, Last Word, Pimm's cup, Aviation, and several others.  As you can tell, a good list.  Because I keep really wanting to like an Aviation but never have, I figured I'd try their attempt at it to see what happened.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  As they make it, it's 

1 1/2 Aviation gin

3/4 lemon juice

3/4 maraschino liqueur

~1 tsp creme de violette

Rinse the inside of a cocktail glass with creme de violette, then discard the excess.  Shake the other ingredients with ice, and strain into the prepared glass. 

This was what I've been waiting for.  For whatever reason, changing the proportions from my 2, 1/4, 1/3, 1/6 did the trick.  I was surprised that the equal portion of lemon and maraschino evened themselves out as seamlessly as they did.  Usually, equal portions of simple syrup and lemon juice is required for a straight "sour mix," and simple syrup is sweeter than maraschino.  But I guess the inherent sweetness of the maraschino combined with its funkiness balanced everything out. Good to know...

Anyway, after that, I decided to test their prowess with a non-classic cocktail that was on their menu, the Whiskey Kiss.  Now, I've recently profiled the close cousin of this drink, the Widow's Kiss. To me, this is an improvement.  Maybe it's just because I love rye...

1 1/2 oz rye
3/4 oz Benedictine
3/4 oz Chartreuse
3/4 oz lemon juice
2 dashes Fee's Old Fashion bitters


Shake; strain; cocktail glass; marasca cherry.

The sweetness of the Chartreuse and Benedictine tamed the lemon juice, and their herbal character showed through beautifully.  The liqueurs, together with the spicy rye, are obviously a wonderful combination, and did not disappoint here.  I believe this may become a regular drink of mine.

Widow's Kiss

Last week at Cure, I was in a very aromatic mood, so I ordered Ricky Gomez's Makeup. Because they were out of green Chartreuse (wait, I thought it contained yellow...), I decided to go with something which calls for yellow Chartreuse, a Widow's Kiss.

1 1/2 oz apple brandy
3/4 oz yellow Chartreuse (you can use green if you like a little more intensity)
3/4 oz Benedictine
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir; strain; cocktail glass; marasca cherry.

Flora Italia

My venture to Cure last night was unique because I couldn't get a seat at the bar for a couple of hours.  At first, I decided to bide my time and browse through rogue cocktails, the publication of Maks Pazuniak (formerly of Cure, now at the Counting Room in Brooklyn) and Kirk Estopinal.  After a long time, I decided to try Kirk's Flora Italia.

2 oz Pisco Italia
1/2 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur
1/4 oz simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
3 swaths grapefruit peel
2 drops rosewater

Frappe (pack with crushed ice) a rocks glass, and set aside. In another glass, stir Pisco, St. Germain, syrup, and Angostura with ice. Discard the ice from the chilled glass, and express the oil from two large grapefruit peel swaths around its interior. Strain the pisco mixture into the coated glass, and garnish with rose water.

This is an exquisite cocktail. It's extremely light and refreshing, fruity and floral.  It's delicate and subtle, as well.  This drink has pushed me over the edge regarding buying some St. Germain.  Thanks for another gem, Kirk.

The Georgian cocktail

While at the beach recently, I was considering new directions to go with bitters.  I've been serving so many Pimm's Cups and Juliet & Romeos lately that cucumbers kept coming to mind.  So I resolved to make some cucumber bitters.

In 6 oz grain alcohol, vigorously shake 1/2 of a skinned, thinly sliced cucumber.  Fine-strain, discard the solids, and repeat five times in the same 6 oz ethanol (total 3 cucumbers in the original 6 oz).  This will yield a murky, light green solution.  Cover the solution and allow it to rest for at least 24 hours in the refrigerator.  Decant the supernatant (the clear liquid on top), making sure not to pour off the green particles at the bottom of the container.  Combine this cucumber extract with a bitter root extract (I already have one ready to go) to taste.  (My rendition came to a ratio of 27:2.)  

With the cucumber bitters, I created The Georgian cocktail:

1.5 oz Aviation gin (you could use Hendrick's if you want more cucumber, Plymouth, or a clean London dry, but I like the floral notes in the Aviation)
3/4 tsp simple syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters
4 dashes cucumber bitters
1 small pinch of salt. 

Stir with ice, and garnish with a cucumber slice.

The cocktail is named for the Georgian architectural style, not for the State or for a living person. (Georgian was the name of the architectural style that was popular during the reigns of Kings George I-III of England.) The drink was named after this style because of its classic cocktail-symmetry and basic historicity, and because of the popularity of its form during the Georgian reigns.  To me, a gin Old Fashioned, with its simple and basic-but-classic design fits the namesake.  Gin makes the drink clean and light; Angostura adds to the complexity of the selected gin; the cucumber contributes to the lightness of the drink and adds refreshing flavor; and the salt and sugar round it out.  This is wonderful for a summer afternoon, especially for the gin-lover.

The Queen Caroline

Yet another hubristic friend has requested a namesake cocktail.  My neighbor, Caroline, brought home a pot of basil and wanted me to make a drink with it.  She said she thought lemon would go well with the basil, and so I decided to make a Southside variation with basil rather than mint.

2 oz London dry gin (Beefeater)
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp 2:1 simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
several fresh basil leaves

Muddle basil leaves with lemon juice and syrup, then add gin.  Shake with ice, and fine-strain into a brandy snifter (or cocktail glass if no snifter is available).  Float one rubbed basil leaf on the top.  Take another basil leaf and rub it around the edge of the glass; then discard it.

What can I say about the Queen Caroline?  So much of her...uh, I mean it...escapes articulability, but I'll try.  Tart; sweet; beautifully fragrant; sexy, even.  Obviously, then, I'm referring to the drink.