La Amorita

It's hot in New Orleans these days, and the usual Sazeracs and bittered slings are yielding to lighter drinks, at least during the day.  Here, the Pimm's Cup leads the way as the most beloved drink that can cool you off, but drinks with a tropical bent are very popular, too.  In fact, the Tiki movement is in full swing.  

While I usually lean towards old classics like the Daiquiri (or new classics like the East Side Fizz) at times like these, I was feeling particularly exotic today.  Add that to my new acquaintance with tropical fruits, thanks to my Costa Rican girlfriend, and you have an inspiration for a cocktail that is cool, refreshing, delicious, and that makes your worries go away.

                                                         La Amorita

2.25 oz (75 ml) Cacique guaro

1.5 oz (45 ml) fresh coconut water (agua pipa)

0.75 oz (22.5 ml) fresh lime juice (jugo de limon)

2 tsp (10 ml) 2:1 demarara syrup

2 rings of fresh pineapple

1 pinch of salt

Combine ingredients and vigorously shake with ice. Strain into a rocks glass, and add shaved/crushed ice to the top. Garnish with a pineapple ring and/or other fruits in season.

Sip through a straw.

If you don't go to Costa Rica very often, you probably don't have guaro, so you can substitute a light rum, instead.  For the agua pipa, buy a coconut and make two holes (side by side) in the side of it using a combined back-of-the-hammer-to-make-a-notch and drive-a-screwdriver-into-the-notch approach, which seemed to work for me. Stick a straw into one of the holes, and leave the other open. You can drain your agua pipa through the straw. The rest is pretty straight forward.  I bored the straw though the strawberry from apex to base for the picture, 'cause I'm artistic like that.

New Loves Cocktail Party, Part 1: the Bramble

A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of preparing some cocktails for a party hosted by my good friend Kori.  Originally, the party was to be held on St. Valentine's day, but, because I had other things to do, it was delayed.  The theme was Valentine-y, though: New Loves.  The idea was to introduce some new cocktails which have been relatively recently invented but are as good as the classics.  In time, one or a few of these might come to mind when one contemplates the great cocktails, as perhaps the Daiquri or the Sazerac might to mind today.

In the next few weeks (or less), I'll introduce eleven drinks I served to a thirsty gathering last February 18...

To begin our run-down of the featured cocktails (and the evening's festivities), let's address the Bramble.

Our oldest player, this drink was invented in the 1980s by Dick Bradsell in London.  It's a rejuvenated sour (spirit+citrus+sugar) with the sparkling edition of blackberry liqueur (creme de mûre) for a fruity accent.  Although creme de mûre is not a commonly-used ingredient, it's well worth the cost of a bottle; if you like a fresh, sweet, citrusy drink for hot summer days, there's no better libation than the Bramble.

2 oz London dry gin (Plymouth)
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz creme de mûre
~1/2 oz simple syrup (to taste)

Shake with ice; and strain into an ice-filled glass.  Garnish with blackberries, and serve with a straw.

First of May, or the Abbott City

To commemorate the First of May, 2011 (and 1945), I created this bittered sling variant:

2 oz Death's Door white American whiskey
2 barspoons honey syrup (equal parts honey and water)
2 barspoons Campari, floated.

Stir the whiskey and honey with ice, then float the Campari, for effect.  Serve with a stirrer and a lemon twist.

White whiskey because it's clear and American.

Honey syrup because it's oh, so sweet.

Campari because it's bitter and blood red.

Justice is served.

Know Thyself

One of the reasons I haven't posted much on this blog in recent months is that I've not been inspired.  The more I drink, the more I realize that there are but a few truly exquisite drinks.  After that, there are thousands that are "really very good," but these never approach the others.  With a few exceptions, the best drinks are the simplest and the oldest.  So I've not been routinely inspired because it's a rare event that one encounters a brilliant new drink. 

However, I was inspired by Jamie Boudreau, who posted on his Old Fashioned, cubed and syruped last October, to fashion a complex drink on a classic framework.  The first iteration was amazing.  I then made the mistake of upgrading the liquors to premium grade (Rittenhouse and Martel VSOP); this mistake drowned out the subtlety of the original, so I dialed it back again...


skinny (slightly less than) 3/4 oz Sazerac 6 year rye
skinny 3/4 oz Cruzan Single Barrel rum
skinny 3/4 oz Paul Masson brandy
1 tsp 2:1 demarara syrup
16 drops Smith-house Berber bitters

Combine and quickly stir with ice, making sure not to dilute the mixture too much. 

This cocktail is worthy of consideration with some of the greats, and could fill in for a Sazerac, Old Fashioned, or Manhattan as your daily tipple (that is, if you make some of my Berber bitters for yourself). 

Berber bitters

In a previous post, I mentioned my first attempt at homemade bitters. The incarnated concoction was, at once, haphazard and finely tuned. The haphazard came at the beginning; the fine tuning came at the end. Let me explain.

A week before I left for Africa, I placed more-or-less arbitrary amounts of several common suprasaharan spices in 95% ethanol (Everclear), and I let these steep for about a month.  In general, I placed about 1 fluid-oz-worth of substrate in approximately 2 oz of Everclear, added a dash of water, and let it be.  Herbs and spices were cloves, coriander seeds, cinnamon sticks, cardamom seeds, whole and crushed peppercorns, whole cumin, ground allspice, and ground paprika.  When I returned from abroad, the solutions were ready for extraction.  

I assembled a homemade Buchner vacuum filtration apparatus to separate the liquids from the particulate matter, and I isolated the infused solutions.  Next, I had two considerations: first, the flavor profile I wanted to create by combining the solutions; second, the fact that I had severe tinkering limitations due to the finite (and small) volumes of the infusions.  

After a little experimentation, I set my course and settled on this ratio:

 

*The base of nearly all bitters is a combination of infusions created from bitter barks and roots. I use a solution created by combining equal parts of quassia, calamus, and catechu in 95% ethanol for 1 week.    

The result was a delightfully complex and flavorful bitter solution which solidly stands its ground against the traditional players. 

Coffee anyone?

Some time ago, I asked Rhiannon to surprise me with something old she's been thinking about, and she delivered the Coffee Cocktail which was first described in Jerry Thomas's work of 1882.

2 oz ruby port
1 oz brandy
1 egg yolk
2 tsp sugar syrup
1 dash curacao
 
Shake egg yolk and syrup; then add other ingredients and shake again with a few pieces of ice.  Strain into a glass mug, and grate fresh nutmeg on top.

This is a venerable old drink which, not surprisingly (considering the name), has a hint of coffee flavor.   Drink this after dinner, particularly in the winter.

Hot Toddy

Well, folks, chilly weather has set in (at least for the time being) in New Orleans, and, on cue, I caught a cold.  It's really just that I have a sore throat, a stuffy nose, and a headache; otherwise, I feel perfectly healthy.  So I have taken this opportunity to treat myself to a classic old remedy, a Hot Toddy. 


2 oz single malt Scotch
3.5 oz boiling water
1 cube (tsp) demarara sugar
lemon peel


Muddle the sugar and lemon peel in the bottom of an earthenware mug.  Add boiling water and stir to dissolve sugar.  Add Scotch and stir.

I know, this is technically a Scotch Skin since I added the lemon peel.  This is an old favorite of my grandmother (whose recipe used blended Scotch, hot tea, and honey) and my mother (who uses rum, hot tea, and honey).  What a soothing, warming drink!  The doctor in me knows that scotch, lemon, sugar, and water is no antiviral chemotherapy, but dangit, I swear I feel better.  I believe I'll have another, maybe with Jamaican rum!

Vermouth julep

For my second drink last night, I asked Rhiannon for another low-proof drink, and she served up a julep.  How, you might say, is a julep low-proof with all that whiskey?  Good point, but like I said in an earlier post, a julep is anything with a spirit, mint, sugar, and ice as its only ingredients.  Rhiannon made me a vermouth julep.

2 oz Carpano Antica Formula vermouth

1 tsp demarara syrup

several mint leaves

Rhiannon muddled the mint in the julep cup, making sure that all the sides of the cup were aromatized before discarding the mint.  She then added vermouth and sugar, stirred, and filled the glass with cracked ice.  The garnish, as you see, was a beautiful bouquet of mint.

If we're talking about making a drink with vermouth as a main ingredient, Carpano is the way to go without a doubt.  Its rich, herbal character sets it apart from the better known and cheaper brands.  I hate that it's $32 for a liter, but what are you going to do?  Beauty can be expensive.

Lillet cobbler

I've been away from this blog for a while, not for lack of drinking, though.  I don't know what I've been doing but I think it must've been fun.  

Last night, I was exhausted from work and lack of sleep, but I drug myself to Cure for 3 drinks, anyway.  What a horrible life.  

I wasn't interested in drinking much, for sure, and didn't even want to be able to feel it much, so I decided (as I have recently been wont to do) to go low-proof.  Low gravity, wine-based mixed drinks are a venerable bunch, and they've been much-neglected recently.  I asked Rhiannon for a cobbler of some sort, and she delivered with this:

This drink was awesome, and not just because it made me the guy with the best looking drinking vessel in the bar.  Cobblers, as I've posted before, are just a bit of wine (or a spirit), a little sugar, some fruit and some ice, served with a straw.  I presumed this would be a sherry cobbler, so i was surprised to taste how incredibly light the taste was.  In fact, Rhiannon made me a Lillet blanc cobbler.  I don't know her exact proportions or whether she added a small embellishment to the classic cobbler recipe, but I'm sure it was something like this:

2 oz Lillet blanc

1 tsp simple syrup

a slice or two orange

plus some cracked ice in a julep cup.

Garnish with fresh fruit and serve with a straw.

Harry Johnson's 1888 Bartender's Guide calls the Sherry Cobbler "without a doubt the most popular beverage in the country, with ladies as well as with gentlemen."  Deservedly so.  In the last half of nineteenth century, only the mint julep approached the cobbler's popularity.  It's also worth mentioning that the cobbler, according to David Wondrich, was the application which first fully utilized and popularized a new American invention, the drinking straw.

Vermouth cobbler

Like the julep, this delicious potation is an American invention, although it is now a favorite in all warm climates.  The "cobbler" does not require much skill in compounding, but to make it acceptable to the eye, as well as to the palate, it is necessary to display some taste in ornamenting the glass after the beverage is made.  We give an illustration showing how a cobbler should look when make to suit an epicure.  ~Jerry Thomas, How to Mix Drinks. 1862.

2 oz sweet vermouth (Carpano Antica)

1 barspoon sugar

1 orange slice

Shake with ice; garnish with berries in-season.

I met up with my friends John and Amy at Cure last week, and settled in for a night of tasting.  I had had in mind for a few days the desire to experiment with low-proof concoctions, mostly using a wine or fortified wine base.  Champagne cocktails, sherry cobblers, vermouth cocktails, and the like was what I was thinking. I asked Kirk to make me a drink from Jerry Thomas, and, without knowing the above considerations, made me a vermouth cobbler.  As you can see, he clearly takes Professor Thomas's statement about ornamentation seriously.  The Carpano's rich herbal tones made this a much more complex drink than it would have been with a more typical sweet vermouth.  What's even better, after I had this drink, I didn't feel a thing. I went on to drink two flips and a champagne cocktail with virtually no ill effects.  Cheers to new discoveries that let you drink all night without becoming an embarrassment!

Art of Choke

I have had a few great drinking experiences.  One came at the Violet Hour, where I met Kyle Davidson and Stephen Cole, two of the best mixologists and most gracious hosts I've had the pleasure of meeting.  One of Kyle's signature drinks (along with the Goodbye Marie [a.k.a The Davidson]) is the Art of Choke.  This is one of those inspired creations that rises above (way above) all those newfangled drinks to the level of modern classic.  This is easily on my list of 20 best drinks, and it may break the top ten overall.  If you're in the mood for it, it's a top 5 drink, in my opinion.  

In rogue cocktails, published my Maksym Pazuniak of The Counting Room and Kirk Estopinal of Cure, we can read this description of the Art of Choke: 

Picture yourself in the limestone-walled courtyard of an Italian villa off the coast of the Riviera. You are surrounded by fragrant herbs and flowers, and the sea air is blowing gently. The sun is bright, but it's not hot, and you have nothing to do all day but relax and savor the sensations all around you. Drinking this cocktail is kind of like that if somebody suddenly punched you in the stomach just as you were beginning to doze off in the sun. In a good way.

So how do you make it?

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.

The Libation Bearers Drink Database

I've found that my brain is not well trained to be a bartender.  The problem is that I can't immediately call to mind a large number of drinks that fit a person's request.  Rather, I can think of one or two at a time.  And since people's requests are often redundant, I find myself making the same drinks over and over, even though I am actually familiar with a lot more than that.  I've wanted to have some sort of a database which I could search using keywords.  For instance, it would be nice to search for refreshing, gin-based drinks which use raspberry syrup and to have a list of drinks generated for me automatically.  That would take the heat off of my beleaguered brain.

I haven't solved the problem completely, but I've taken a few steps forward with the development of The Libation Bearers Drinks Database. It's a growing list of recipes with keywords attached to each drink.  I (or you) can search by drink name, ingredient, or descriptor.  I have no intention of even approaching comprehensiveness; rather, it's a list of drinks that I can make at my bar with the spirits et al. that I routinely stock.  Use it if you please.  The link has been permanently placed at the top of the right-hand column.

The Relativist

I was talking to an old friend today, and she requested that I make a drink named for her.  Because of this hubristic request, I shall not name her here, but her initials are CZ.

The Relativist

2 oz Bulleit bourbon
1/2 oz Swedish punsch*
1/2 oz Becherovka

Mix bourbon and punsch over ice, and stir in an Old Fashioned glass.  In a brandy snifter, ignite the Becherovka, and, while lit, swirl and pour into the prepared Old Fashioned glass.  Agitate to mix.

This really encompasses the woman.  She was born of a Swedish mother and a Czech father.  Newly American, she's a lover of bourbon.  She's fiery and damned agitating when you're trying to debate her.  And, more than anything, she's a Protagorean relativist.  God save us/God be praised!

*For house-made Swedish punsch (thanks to frederic at Cocktail Virgin and especially to Max Toste), combine

3 parts 1:1 simple syrup
2 parts Batavia Arrack
1 part lemon juice
nutmeg (1/4 tsp grated to 500mL)
cardamom (8 pods to 500mL) 

The Small Aromatic-Sour Cycle

All this talk of Final Wards and Manhattans has brought me to consider cycles: those beautiful natural entities which give and take from their components to construct strangely opposite creations, only to continue the process back home.  To take three, let's consider the Citric Acid cycle, the pitch interval cycle, and the now-dubbed Small Aromatic-Sour cycle.  OK, maybe I'll allow Wikipedia to guide those interested in the first two, and I'll just tackle the drinks. 

What defines any cycle, i.e., the number and particulars of its constituents, is somewhat arbitrary, especially in systems with many potential players (such as biological molecular systems or mixology).  Just as there are a huge number of molecules floating around in a cell, there are hundreds of cocktail ingredients and exponentially more combinations of them.  That's a long way of saying that you could start with any drink and get to any other drink if you allow a large number of ingredient changes.  There is nothing ground-breaking about that, just as it's not terribly impressive to get from Tom Hanks to Kevin Bacon by using 100 degrees of separation. 

However, a particular, relatively small cycle continues to occur to me, and so I present it to you.

This small Aromatic-Sour cycle is made up of seven of my favorite cocktails.  Every time I drink one, I recall at least one or two of its neighbors.  Moreover, these drinks are either old-time or modern classics and are here to stay.  With only a few ingredients (rye, gin, maraschino liqueur, Chartreuse, sweet vermouth, sugar, bitters, lemon juice, and lime juice) one can create this cycle, and he or she might never feel the need to leave it, given the incredible range of flavors that it encompasses.  Are there two drinks more elegant than an Old Fashioned and a Last Word?  Are there two drinks more different than an Old Fashioned and a Last Word or a Bijou and a Whiskey Sour?  Yet they grow from and into each other seamlessly; and the intervening steps, themselves, are beautifully complex but balanced drinks. 

As I've said, there is a near-infinite number of cycles of which one might conceive, but to me this is a seminal one.  If any other small cocktail cycles occur to you, say so in the comments section below!

More Old Fashioneds

To follow my Final Ward, I decided to make an old favorite, the Applejack Old Fashioned.  I learned this recipe at Cocktail Chronicles and immediately fell in love.  Virginia apple plus Vermont maple syrup plus cinnamon courtesy of the East India Company...it's a Colonial masterpiece:

2 oz Laird's applejack
1 tsp genuine maple syrup
2 dashes Fee Brothers' Old Fashion bitters

Stir; Old Fashioned glass; rocks; orange twist.


Perhaps my favorite Old Fashioned variation.  If you have access to Laird's bonded apple brandy and you want to soar, substitute that for the (blended) applejack.  The next time the Applejack Old Fashioned leads off my night, I'll do the same.

The Final Ward

I've fixed myself a drink I've been thinking of for some time and never got around to making--the Final Ward.

3/4 oz rye
3/4 oz Chartreuse
3/4 oz maraschino liqueur
3/4 oz lemon juice

Shake; up; cocktail glass.

Like the Last Word, this is a mix of aromatic and sour cocktail genres, and it works incredibly well.  It's freshingly light, sharp, sweet, and herbal, all at the same time--it's the very incarnation of a balanced mixed drink.  I found the lush in me wishing for more rye, so next time I'll experiment with a slightly rye-heavy variant, but it's likely that any deviation will upset the balance.  We shall see...

This cocktail is the invention of Phil Ward, and was brought to my attention by Jay over at Oh Gosh!, to whom I am greatly indebted.

Saturday noontime drinks

Well, I have returned from my safari with virtually no physical and only limited psychological damage, and my parents are in town this weekend to welcome me home and to return my cats.

At lunchtime today, I offered my mom a rum drink.  I've only recently figured out what my mother's mixed-drink tastes are, and so I endeavored to make her a cocktail that she wouldn't hate.  (A tall order, I've found.)  So I made up a cocktail which will henceforth be called:

Mid-day in Georgia

3/4 oz light rum (Bacardi)
3/4 oz amber rum (Flor de Caña 7 year)
1/2 oz Jamaica rum (Myers)
1/4 peach, sliced
1/4 oz demarara syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters
2 dashes Fee Brothers' peach bitters
~1/8 oz homemade grenadine


Muddle peach slices with all ingredients except grenadine.  Shake with ice.  Double strain into a cocktail glass, and anoint the inside of the rim with a line of grenadine.  Garnish with a slice of peach.

Perfect for a warm summer afternoon.

And Mom loved it.  Whew.

Hasdrubal's Circuit

For me, mixing a new cocktail is not the hardest part of the creative problem.  Naming a cocktail appropriately is often a tougher task.  For that reason, I've decided to go at it in the opposite direction, i.e., come up with a good name and build a drink around it.  My first sojourn into cocktail creation via this method resulted in the
 

Rondo alla Turca 
 

8 parts Campari

5 parts Kirschwasser

1 part Raki

2 dashes Regans' orange bitters

1 pinch of salt.
 

Stir on ice. Strain. Cocktail glass. Orange twist.

OK, not everyone is going to like it.  But it's firmly built around its name.  Mozart's Rondo alla Turca or Turkish Rondo...now that's a good name for a drink.  Raki for Turkey; Kirschwasser for Austria/Germany; Campari for Italian influences in 18th c. music.

Next, I made the Sherman's March which will be here-documented shortly.

But what really started this off was the desire to create a drink named after my favorite battlefield tactical maneuver in Classical Antiquity, Hasdrubal's Circuit, which he executed at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC during the Second Punic War.  (For an explanation of the maneuver, go here and watch the 2:00:00 to 2:09:00 portion of my lecture.)  A cocktail of this name must have ingredients from western suprasaharan Africa (since Hasdrubal was Carthaginian), Spain (which was occupied by Carthage and was a staging ground for the transalpine invasion of Italy), and Italy (obviously for the Roman Republic).

Saturday 3pm drink

Jetlagged a few days after returning from Africa, 2:00 PM arrived, and I was exhausted but could not sleep.  Needing to be fresh for a 7:00 PM graduation event in which I almost certainly would need my wits about me, I resolved to try a comfort drink to slow my mind and help me take a mid-afternoon snooze.  My dad suggested milk; I was thinking booze.  Ergo:

Milk Punch

1 oz Cognac

1 oz amber rum

2 tsp simple syrup

Combine above ingredients with ice in an Old Fashioned glass and fill to the top with milk.  Shake.  Shave nutmeg on top.

I'll let you know if it worked.

Update: It didn't work.  Still couldn't sleep.

How to make clear ice in your freezer

Over several months, I experimented with methods of making completely transparent ice cubes at home. The problems with the process are that chemical impurities and/or dissolved gas (air) cause opaque ice and that ice freezes from outside in, so any dissolved gas is trapped.

I followed many recipes suggested on various websites, but none worked satisfactorily (often leaving a central area of opacity). Finally, after probably ten iterations of my own experiments, I arrived at an easy method of reproducibly making clear ice.

1. Acquire ice trays. I own four of these.
2. Buy distilled water (found at most grocery stores).
3. Acquire a food vacuum sealer that includes a marinating container like this one.
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4. Place ice tray in the bottom of the marinating container, but leave the lid of the container off.
5. Raise a sufficient volume of distilled water to a boil in a small saucepan. The scientific basis for doing this is the fact that dissolved air cannot exist in very hot water.  (That's why, as water on the stove heats up, little bubbles form on the inner surfaces of the pot even before the water boils.)
6. With a 60cc syringe (probably available at a decent pharmacy) or some other tool (turkey baster?), transfer boiling water into ice tray.
7. Seal the filled ice tray in the marinating container, and vacuum seal the container. (Note that the decreased air pressure makes the water resume boiling despite being off the heat.)
8. Immediately place the marinating container in the freezer.
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9. After 24 hours (or less), remove container from freezer and release the seal to reveal clear ice cubes.

These clear cubes are totally worth the effort and small expense.  Aesthetically, they truly add to the cocktail, making it a beautiful experience to the eyes as well as to the palate.  I constantly get unsolicited compliments (yes, sometimes I fish for compliments, but not in the majority of these cases!) when I serve drinks with these cubes.  I can't believe I lived without them for so long.  Now, I'm embarrassed to have opaque ice in my drinks.  Therefore, proceed at your own risk!

Tuesday night cocktail hour(s)

Last Tuesday night's cocktail hour(s) included some new guests, some regulars, some new drinks, and some old ones.  Here's what I served, some of which were served multiple times...


Mai Tai


1 oz amber rum (Flor de Caña 7 year)
1 oz Jamaica rum (Myers's)
3/4 oz lime juice
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz orgeat syrup
1/4 oz simple syrup
Shake, rocks.


Apple/Orange Mai Tai (my modification)

1 oz applejack (Laird's)
1 oz Jamaica rum (Myers's)
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz orgeat syrup
1/4 oz simple syrup
2 dashes orange bitters (Regans')
Shake, rocks.


Tom Collins

2 oz London Dry gin
2 tsp lime juice
2 tsp simple syrup
Shake all but club soda.  Strain into a Collins glass with ice.  Add club soda to the top, and agitate to mix.


Sherman's March (my invention)

1 oz bourbon (Knob Creek)
1 oz Southern Comfort
1 tsp grain alcohol or overproof rum (Everclear)
2 dashes peach bitters (Fee Bros.)
1 dash Fee Bros. Old Fashion bitters
Stir all but overproof spirit on ice; strain into a cocktail/champagne coupe.  Float overproof spirit on the top, and ignite.  Spray oil from a lemon peel twist into the flames.  Quickly drink after the fire goes out.


Cocktail a la Louisiane

3/4 oz rye
3/4 oz Benedictine
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
3 dashes absinthe
3 dashes Peychaud's bitters
Stir, strain, homemade maraschino cherry. 

Kenyan cocktails

As most of you know (by most, I mean all, since only my mother and I read this blog--Hi Mom!), I've been in east Africa for the last couple of weeks.  That little corner of the world is not known for its cocktails, so I stuck mostly to beer for its guaranteed sterility.  (Allow me to recommend Tusker Malt for those who may stumble across it.) My first night in Masai Mara, at the Mara Sopa lodge, I broke down and had an Old Fashioned because I saw that the bar...

...had Four Roses bourbon (the first non-Tennessee, non-Scotch whisk[e]y I saw in Kenya).


The next night, I approached the good bartender and university-trained mixologist, Wachira, who suggested that I order a Kenyan cocktail; I obliged and asked him to make me his best.  He obliged with the Sopa Special.


2 oz light rum (Kenya Cane)
~ 2 oz fresh mango juice
~ 2 oz fresh passion fruit juice
1 dash of grenadine


Combine, and stir.  Garnish with a lime wedge; serve with a straw.

Well, you really can't go wrong with rum plus fruit juices, and the fresh mango and passion fruit juices really bring the East African theme to the forefront.  This was a delicious drink that I will remember fondly.  Thanks, Wachira!

My favorite cocktails, part 7: the Mint Julep

I know of no mixed drink that causes as many arguments as the mint julep.  That history of controversy goes back a long way.  One old recipe book states:

Well, down our way we've always had a theory that the Civil War was not brought on by Secession or Slavery or the State's Rights issue. These matters contributed to the quarrel, but there is a deeper reason. It was brought on by some Yankee coming down south and putting nutmeg in a julep. So our folks just up and left the Union flat.

As my dear old friend, Dr. Herlitz, frequently says, "There are things about which intelligent men may disagree."  In the case of mint juleps, intelligent men may disagree as to the base spirit used.  They may legitimately use brandy, rum, rye, bourbon, applejack, or even gin or genever.  They may combine these, if they please.  As it turns out, most people, myself included, think that Kentucky bourbon whiskey makes the best mint julep.

There are some things, though, about which intelligent men may not disagree: namely whether one may add citrus juice, sour mix, a carbonated beverage of any sort, fruit, or any other contaminant to the sweet simplicity of a julep.  They may not.

To make a mint julep, combine bourbon (or whatever spirit or combination thereof pleases you) with muddled mint, sugar/syrup, and ice.  This is how I make mine:

Place 11 freshly picked mint leaves and 1 tablespoon of simple syrup in the bottom of a silver julep cup, and gently muddle to extract the oil from the mint leaves, taking care not to macerate the leaves.  Pour a small amount of Knob Creek bourbon into the cup, and swirl to dissolve the syrup.  Next, crush a few cups of ice, and discard the very small and very large pieces, leaving pieces approximately 1-2 cm in diameter.  Fill the julep cup with this ice, and pour in Knob Creek to the top (3-4 oz).  Taking care not to touch the frosted sides of the cup, agitate with a spoon to bring some syrup and mint to the top and to chill the mixture.  Garnish with a sprig of freshly picked mint.

As you can tell, it's a sacred moment.  If you don't believe me, believe the late Lt. Gen. S.B. Buckner, Jr. who said:

A mint julep is not a product of a formula. It is a ceremony and must be performed by a gentleman possessing a true sense of the artistic, a deep reverence for the ingredients and a proper appreciation of the occasion.

Or, just let the master sing:

Sip it, and dream.

My favorite cocktails, part 6: the Manhattan

It's hard to beat a Manhattan for several reasons.  First, they taste great.  Second, the ingredients are cheap and easy to find.  Third, they are easy to make (i.e., it's hard for you, your significant other, or your random bartender to screw one up).  Fourth, the template opens the door to a number of exquisite variations.

This recipe works beautifully:

2 oz rye whiskey
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Stir on ice, and strain into a cocktail glass. If you can find a Luxardo maraschino cherry, garnish it with that.

Substitute Punt e Mes vermouth to make a Red Hook.
Make it with Carpano Antica Formula vermouth, Fee Brothers Old Fashion bitters, and add Marie Brizard Apry (apricot brandy) and you have a Davidson or a Goodbye Marie.
Consider sherry, another fortified wine, or (now we're stretching it) an Italian amaro instead of sweet vermouth.
Add a little Benedictine or Chartreuse.
Some people prefer or have better access to bourbon, so they make bourbon Manhattans.
You like blended scotch better than rye or bourbon? Make it a Rob Roy.
Rum blends very well with sweet vermouth, too!

My favorite cocktails, part 5: the Sazerac

The Sazerac:
The most beautiful thing you can put in your mouth.
--David L. Smith, MD

Don't let anyone from New Orleans convince you that the Sazerac was the first cocktail.  That apocryphal story circles around this city like Achilles with Hector in tow, but it's not even close to true.  It is true that, in the 1850s, the owner of the Sazerac Coffee House combined Sazerac-du-Forge et Fils Cognac with absinthe and the bitters produced by New Orleans apothacary Antoine Peychaud for his signature cocktail.  In the second half of the 19th century, both Civil War blockade and French wine-country crop failures made Cognac scarce in New Orleans.  Thereafter, rye became the spirit of choice for this drinker's delicacy.

Three anecdotes:
a) I once had a cocktail party at which I served ten classic cocktails (in 1/3 proportions) to ten guests.  That makes 100 different drink experiences.  I took a poll that night, and every person thought the Sazerac was the best drink of them all.
b) A close (and very successful) friend once told me, in all seriousness, that my teaching him how to make a good Sazerac was "...one of the ten most important things I've learned in my entire life, maybe top five."

My favorite cocktails, part 4: the Brandy Crusta

The Brandy Crusta was one of several mixed drinks to grace the pages of the first printed bartender's manual, authored by Jerry Thomas and published in 1862.  It's a nearly forgotten drink today, and what a shame that is!  It's not a hard drink to make (I usually defer on the complex lemon peel garnish, but perhaps I shouldn't).  This is how you and I should make it:

2 oz Cognac (Martel VSOP)
1 tsp curaçao (Grand Marnier)
1 tsp Luxardo maraschino liqueur
2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 tsp simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Stir with ice, and strain into a sugar-rimmed wine glass.  Garnish with a whole lemon rind.

My favorite cocktails, part 3: the Improved gin cocktail

This time, we'll move to gin. I don't like gin straight, but I'll admit it's good for mixing drinks because it's very versatile. There was a point in my life when I was ready to give up on gin altogether and dedicate myself entirely to whiskey. I told Kirk Estopinal at Cure of my resolution, but I gave him (and gin) one last chance to convince me otherwise. Kirk brought his best and changed my mind with an Improved gin cocktail:

1.5 oz gin (Aviation)
1 tsp simple syrup
1 tsp Luxardo maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
2 dashes Regans' orange bitters
1 dash absinthe (I use 3 drops)
Stir on ice; orange twist.

This exquisite cocktail is the best gin cocktail I've ever had and could ever hope to have.

My favorite cocktails, part 2: the Sidecar

For no particular reason, the second entry in my list of favorite cocktails is the Sidecar.  If you read my first post, it may occur to you that a Sidecar is not technically a cocktail; it's a sour.  A sour is merely a spirit plus lemon or lime juice plus a sweetener.  That sweetener can be sugar, a syrup, or a liqueur.  In lesser bars or in the premade-margarita-mix aisle of your grocery store, you can buy "Sour mix."  Skip that, and take the time to make a crisper, cleaner sour mix as it was originally intended: equal parts lemon or lime juice and simple syrup.

This is a very popular family of mixed drinks with hundreds of variations.  Consider:

whiskey + lemon juice + syrup = whiskey sour

gin + lemon juice + maraschino liqueur = Aviation

light rum + lime juice + syrup = Daiquiri

cachaça + lime juice + sugar = caipirinha

tequila + lime juice + orange liqueur (eg. triple sec) = margarita

applejack + lemon juice + grenadine = Jack Rose

etc.

Thursday dinner at La Crepe Nanou

I intend for this blog to be a diary of my dining experiences as well as a chronicle of my drinking debauchery, and I've already mentioned Wednesday night's dinner at Clancy's.  Thursday (yes, the very  next day), I ate at La Crepe Nanou with Mackenzie. 

I had a baby spinach salad with crumbled blue cheese, succulent tomatoes, sliced avocado, with a vinaigrette dressing; then I had two whole grilled quail with a red wine reduction sauce, angel hair pasta with a light butter/oil sauce, and garlic/butter sauteed veggies.  I chose a Côtes du Rhône because I was at a French restaurant, not because I know anything about wine (I don't).  I was way too full for dessert.

There you go.

My favorite cocktails, part 1: the Old Fashioned

Many people ask me what my favorite cocktail is, so I thought that I would write a bit about that.  As it turns out, my favorite cocktails are everyone's favorite cocktails because, well, they are the best.  So I'll cover some drinks that are, to the cocktail cognoscenti, boring.  To them, I apologize for covering material that is covered ad nauseum elsewhere.

For the rest of you, over a few posts, I'll present several sublime mixed drinks in no particular order.  Most of them are "old."  Why is my list of favorites disproportionally populated by old drinks?  The good stuff sticks around by virtue of it's superiority and stands the test of time.  Just like the music of Palestrina, Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven has been renowned for its brilliance for centuries, the best cocktails have, as well.  In 300 years, they'll still be the best cocktails, and maybe a few newcomers will join them.  For now, just a few are and will remain my favorites.

We'll start with the Old Fashioned because it allows me to do some explaining.