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. 

Syrups

Sugar is used in nearly every mixed drink in one form or another, whether by itself or incorporated via a liqueur, etc. In the distant past, it would be combined in its solid form with spirits and water. Unfortunately, our granulated sugar doesn't dissolve very readily in cold spirits with very little water, so syrups are widely utilized.

I nearly exclusively use syrups over granulated sugar (with exceptions including a sugar cube for a champagne cocktail or a sugar rim coating in a brandy crusta). When I make drinks with clear spirits, I usually use simple syrup; with brown spirits, I often use demarara syrup; and grenadine and raspberry syrup find their way into many recipes. These latter demonstrate that you can flavor your syrup with anything you want: cf. Berber syrup. You can make syrups with whatever ratio of sugar to water you want, but if you go much higher than 2.5:1, the sugar will precipiate into crystals at the bottom of the container. Go any less than 1:1, and the mouthfeel is unpleasantly thin. That said, this is how I do it:

Simple syrup

1 cup granulated sugar
100 mL (seriously) water
Combine in a saucepan. Raise to a boil while stirring; boil for several seconds. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to several weeks.

After Wednesday dinner

After dinner, which Rich and I shared with Admiral Rick while sitting at the bar, a few others joined us for drinks. Watching Rick sip a very good tequila and a simultaneous brutal lapse in judgment lead me to order a Tequila Old Fashioned.

2 oz of a good tequila (I think I watched a Don Julio go in my glass)
1 tsp simple syrup (use agave syrup if you can find it in your international foods aisle)
2 dashes Angostura bitters (The Bitter Truth Xocolatl Mole bitters would be interesting, here)
Stir; rocks; lemon twist.

An Old Fashioned is any spirit treated with sugar and bitters over ice. By the 1880s when its title became more or less standardized, this was the old fashioned way of preparing a cocktail (as opposed to newfangled concoctions such as the Martinez, Manhattan, or Tom Collins). So a tequila old fashioned is totally legitimate. I chose it last night because
1) I'd never had one
2) I don't own any tequila good enough to sip
3) I suffered that judgment lapse.
Actually, I shouldn't sell this cocktail short. I didn't finish it more because it was late and I don't love tequila, not because it wasn't an excellent drink. I was very pleasantly surprised how nicely the sweetness of the syrup tamed the (to me) normal unpleasantness of the tequila. The bitters, as always, added character and depth to an already flavorful combination. Plus, the tequila was of excellent quality, so that was key. Will I order this again? Probably not. But this experience has influenced me to buy a good bottle of tequila and be prepared to serve a Tequila Old Fashioned to any tequila lover that ventures into my living room.

Wed dinner at Clancy's

I spent about 7 hours on Wednesday in the car, driving half-way to Birmingham to make an illicit-appearing cat exchange with my father in the median of the interstate in rural Mississippi. On the way home, Rich called to complain about getting back from vacation and wanted to use serial maneuvers of yoga and alcohol to outflank his bad mood. We therefore resolved to eat and drink at Clancy's.

I walked in and took a seat in front of Garth, Clancy's venerable barkeep. I asked Garth what he was making these days, and the reply was, "Same old crap." So I figured I'd show him the Juliet & Romeo. I ordered dinner (chicken/andouille gumbo, arugula salad with vinegrette, and halibut with garlic/butter sauce and topped with crawfish tails, plus fried potatoes and asparagus). During dinner, I decided to get another drink, so I ordered a Last Word. I don't know why I did, but I did.

3/4 oz London dry gin
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
3/4 oz green Chartreuse
3/4 oz Luxardo maraschino liqueur

The Last Word is an excellent and very interesting drink. The combination of chartreuse and maraschino in such large volumes is a little scary on paper, but it works. The Chartreuse's usually-dominant piney/herbal flavor is gently cut by the maraschino (which is generally added to a drink by the teaspoon). The two combined balance the tartness of the lime which, with the gin, make this a surprisingly light drink.

Also, and this is in no wise directed at Garth, these equal-part recipes are convenient to have in mind when you find yourself before a bartender that you don't trust to make you a good drink. It's hard to mess up equal parts (although I have had this very drink massacred when someone substituted Pernod for Chartreuse). I'm sure I'll write about a few more as time passes.

Tuesday night cocktail hour(s)

After a slow start, I hosted another successful Tuesday Cocktail Hour(s).


Amanda showed up first and, newly armed with the recipe for the Trouble & Desire (thanks to Mike Yusko), I made her a T&D. Of course, I don't have all of the specialty ingredients (especially the Carpano Antica Formula vermouth), so I substituted for a less-sublime cocktail as below:

2 oz Flor de Cana 7 year rum
3/4 oz Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth
1/2 oz Licor 43
1/2 oz Myers's Jamaican rum
Stir; rocks; orange twist.

The Flor de Cana is a bit less smooth than the originally intended El Dorado 5 year demarara rum, and the Martini & Rossi has a different flavor profile than the Carpano, so on the sip there was a little less character than the original, but still excellent and smooth. This was my first use of Licor 43, the flavor of which I lost in this rendition. In the end, my cheap T&D is a very good cocktail, but not nearly as excellent as Mike's version. Without the intended ingredients, I'd probably just as soon drink a Cruzan Single Barrel Old Fashioned/treacle, but try it for yourself and see what you think.

Tuesday night cocktail hour(s) (cont.)

Matt and Michele came over, and she ordered the Sazerac d'orange as her single allowed drink (lest she start catfights with the other women there). I developed the Sazerac d'orange to make a respectable cocktail for my Sazerac-averse then-girlfriend, Julietta. It's just a Sazerac with the addition of Regan's orange bitters and an orange twist instead of lemon. Because I'm trying to utilize my Berber syrup, a simple syrup combined with a number of indiginous north-African spices, I made a

Berber Sazerac

1 oz Sazerac 6 year rye
1 oz Wild Turkey 101 rye
1/4 oz Berber syrup
1 dash Peychaud's bitters
1 dash Fee Bros. orange bitters

Combine, stir with ice, and set aside. Rinse/coat a chilled Old Fashioned glass with absinthe or absinthe substitute (Herbsaint or Pernod) and discard the excess. Strain the rye mixture into the coated OF glass. Add a twist of orange peel and mosten the glass's rim with the orange oil, too.

Berber simple syrup: Combine oh, I don't know, a tablespoon each of cracked black peppercorn, coriander seeds, and cardimom; maybe 3 inches-worth of cinnamon sticks; a teaspoon or two a paprika; a dozen whole cloves; a couple teaspoons of allspice; a teaspoon or so of cumin seeds; a couple cracked star-anise pods and roast in a sauce pan for a few minutes. Then add 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water and raise to a boil. Then remove from heat. Strain the solid components from the solution (think coffee filter) and refrigerate the syrup for up to a few weeks.

This cocktail was (predictably) spicier than it's Sazerac base, and that in a pleasant, interesting way. Was it better than a Sazerac? Of course not. But was it a fun supra-Saharan sidetour? Yes.

Tuesday night cocktail hour(s) (cont. ii)

Rehema joined in the fun with her old standby,

Tom Collins

2 oz whatever my well gin is
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 (2:1) simple syrup
Shake; strain into a Collins glass with rocks; top off with club soda and agitate to mix.

A refreshing, trusty classic.

Tuesday night cocktail hour(s) (cont. iii)

Natalie hadn't graced Tuesday Night Cocktail Hour(s) since the very first event, and so I was especially excited to have her over.

She asked for something light and refreshing and mentioned that she'd been drinking Pimm's Cups recently. The Pimm's Cup's cucumber reminded me of the Juliet & Romeo, which matched her request. The Juliet & Romeo is the signature cocktail of The Violet Hour which, in my opinion, is by far the best bar in Chicago.

2 oz London dry or Hendrick's gin (I used Plymouth)
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
3/4 oz (2:1) simple syrup
a pinch of salt
3 slices of peeled cucumber
several mint leaves
Muddle ingredients, then shake over ice, and double strain into a cocktail glass. Lay a rubbed or slapped mint leaf on the surface of the drink and place 3 drops of Angostura bitters on the surface, as well. Garnish with a cucumber slice.

One always gets lots of compliments on fabulous cocktails, especially if the drinker has never heard of it. No difference here. Natalie's eyes widened with pleasure on her first sip. Then, over the next few mintues she said that it was her new favorite cocktail and (I think) that it was the best cocktail she's ever had. She ordered a second when she finished it. I wasn't surprised that that reaction. It is an amazing drink. Thanks to David Wondrich at Esquire for introducing me to it.

Tuesday night cocktail hour(s) (cont. iv)

Mackenzie showed up FINALLY, and I started manufacturing the Ramos Gin Fizz which I promised her earlier in the day. Having never made one before, I was interested to see in what noodle-like state my arms would be after I was done with it. I used the recipe I found in one of my old New Orleans cocktail books:

1 egg white
2 oz heavy cream
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz (2:1) simple syrup

3 drops vanilla extract 

Combine and shake like the dickens for at least a minute. Then add
2 oz gin (I used Old Tom this time, but would usually use a London dry like Plymouth)
3-4 drops orange flower water (Which I did not have. For kicks, I substituted 3 drops of creme de violette and 1 drop of Fee Bros. orange bitters)
Shake like the dickens for another minute or until your actin, myosin, and kinesin apparati are done broke; strain into a tall glass; and add a straw.

I was pleased both with the flavor and texture of my first Ramos Gin Fizz, and I think that Mackenzie, the queen of the RGF, herself, was, as well. I was displeased with my cardiac conditioning and the stength and conditioning of my arms; but that will surprise no one.