The Handy Snake

I'm such a cliche.

2007-06-27T17:17:00.000-05:00

Truely, friends, I am deep into the worst part of my work year. That isn't remotely a sufficient excuse for my complete absence here but I haven't abandoned this endeavor no matter how bad it looks. It may be mid/late-July before I'll be free enough to post semi-regularly again but the fat lady hasn't even hit the stage on this little blog-style vanity project. It ain't over yet.

So, to those of who still stop by looking for something new I thank you. Please keep me bookmarked at least a little longer.

If you didn't see it below a visitor name Jeffrey commented under one of my Alberta Straub posts to point out her new online show. It's a boss little thing she calls Cocktails on the Fly and you should check it out. It's the essence of Alberta in vastly entertaining little video snippets. Sure, it's not quite like sitting across from Her Geniusness at The Orbit Room and being served actual cocktails but it's pretty cool nonetheless.

Damn. Time flies.

2007-05-04T17:47:00.000-05:00

Wow. I knew I was long overdue to post something new here but I hadn't realized just how overdue. I'm still up to my neck in work so I've got nothin'. I hope you'll check back in a couple weeks.

Thanks for stopping by.

A Drive-By Update

2007-03-30T16:06:00.000-05:00

Hey, all. If you've stopped by lately looking for a new post I'm sorry to have wasted your time. This post sure as hell won't make up for your efforts but I just wanted to let you know that I most definitely haven't abandoned this little project. It's simply been set aside like so many others due to the vagaries of life, work, and procrastination. I've got a few unfinished posts that are sorta almost nearly ready to go. Hopefully I'll get my write on and put the polish to one or two of 'em shortly. If you check back later next week I think you'll find something new.

Cheers!

Mixology Monday does shots.

2007-03-13T15:14:00.001-05:00

I was a little surprised by the topic for this month's MixMo. I know all too well that shots remain a staple of the bar biz but they simply don't rate very highly in my particular cocktail-snob aesthetic. It's stupid to dismiss a category of drinks out of hand but I'm not sure what I might be forgetting. Pousse-cafés, maybe? I'd rather thwack my forehead with a barspoon than pour booze lightly over the back of it into a tall shot glass or, worse, to drink the sickly sweet result. So, me, I got nothin'. I hope to be pleasantly surprised by what other MixMo bloggers come up with but I won't be holding my breath.

Is my lack of interest in shots due to what some might call "maturity"? I dunno but, honestly, I no longer see the point. Sure, there's the camraderie thing and there's also the "get drunk faster" thing. I'm no teetotaler. I've done far too many shots for both of these ridiculous reasons and it's not remotely my place to lecture you on the evils of over-indulgence. But, ya know what, I can't for the life of me remember why my friends and I used to be in such a big goddam hurry. The liquor sure as hell wasn't going anywhere. Oh, well, youth wasted on the young. If that's "maturity" I guess I have a teeny bit.

Really, though, if the booze isn't worth sipping why should I spend good cash money on it only to toss it back before I can taste it? How about instead we order a nice glass of something and enjoy it? Or, if it's something the bartender has to put together like, say, a Kamikaze* or an Alabama Slammer*, well, why don't we just have a nice cocktail? It's no more work for the bartender except maybe for the little effort required to chill a cocktail glass.

On the other hand, all that being said, when I started this post the weather was terrible. It was very cold here in Chicago and had been for weeks. I was thinking that if there's one half-way respectable reason to get loaded it's cabin fever. Not that drinking to excess is necessarily a good idea when one's stuck indoors but it is one way to pass the time. Of course, now that the time has come to post this it's absolutely gorgeous outside. It was in the 60s yesterday and it's above 70 today. Apparently we'll be closer to normal by the weekend but it's a little hard for me today to think about sitting around with a bottle of booze and a shot glass whiling away the hours and avoiding the frozen outdoors.

However, when that thought was crossing my mind I learned of a holiday that suits the cabin-feverish mind particularly well. It's called Northern Hemisphere Hoodie-Hoo Day and it's held out of doors on February 20th. I don't know exactly where it's commonly held--"northern hemisphere" isn't exactly specific, is it?--but there's no reason not to start your own tradition next February. According to Frank Kelly Rich , founder of the adolescent but generally damn funny Modern Drunkard Magazine, "At high noon everyone yells 'Hoodie-Hoo' to chase away winter and usher in spring." Why not run outside right now and holler out a belated "Hoodie Hoo!"?

Mr. Rich offers up this shot as an additional means of celebrating this day:

Crazy Swede
1 oz ouzo
1 oz vodka
1 tbsp cinnamon schnapps

Shake with ice, strain, shout "Hoodie-Hoo" and shoot.

A little googling didn't turn up anything on the Crazy Swede outside of its inclusion in Mr. Rich's article nor did visits to some of my favorite bookmarked cocktail recipe sites so I'm guessing that the Crazy Swede is Mr. Rich's own concoction. My liquor cabinet is short two of the three items so I can't vouch for it but knock yourself out. If you insist, well, okay, a shot of John Powers Irish goes might nicely with a pint o'Guinness. You'll have to forgive me for nursing it though.

Cheers!

* I realize the linked recipes are for full-size cocktails but I've never come across them in a bar in anything other than shot glass and, to be frank, I wouldn't drink them any other way. To my mind these are not well suited to sipping. If you disagree I hope you'll leave a comment.

Great minds?

2007-03-07T17:02:00.000-06:00

Well, slap my ass and call me Shirley. This new post at SpiritWorld.net looks mighty familiar.

I don't think for a second that cocktail evangelist and Museum of the American Cocktail mover & (cocktail) shaker Robert "Drinkboy" Hess reads this blog or even knows of its existence so it's damned unlikely that he's taken to plundering little-known blogs for ideas. Kinda weird coincidence though, ain'a? It's not like The Liberal is the hot "new" drink that's sweeping the nation, the one on every "Martini" menu from coast to coast and in the hand of every supermodel.

Now there's a thought. Can you even imagine a world where the "new Mojito" or "new Cosmopolitan" is a rye whiskey cocktail made with bitters, vermouth and Torani Amer? I think perhaps only children and the mentally ill have the unlimited imagination to dream of such a wonderful world as that....

Cheers!

The Ten Ton Cocktail (or is it Tenton?)

2007-02-27T13:07:00.000-06:00

[Revised slightly 3/2/2007]

Here's one I tried last weekend. I had a nice grapefruit that needed using before it headed south so I juiced it and hit CocktailDB for ideas. I was in the mood for something with rye whiskey and CocktailDB turned up the Ten Ton Cocktail (or Tenton Cocktail).

Ten Ton (tenton) Cocktail

1½ oz rye
½ oz dry vermouth
½ oz grapefruit juice

Shake in iced cocktail shaker & strain. Add cherry.

There seems to be some confusion about this one and it goes beyond whether there's a space between "ten" and "ton". CocktailDB also has a Ten Ton Cocktail #2 which features gin and kümmel rather than rye and grapefruit juice. Mixology.com lists this gin/kümmel version as the Tenton Cocktail. So I dunno what to think and Googling didn't turn up much else. I prefer "Tenton" because I don't see how "Ten Ton" fits this drink. Even had I made it with 100 proof rye it's not exactly a drink that hits you like a ton of bricks. It is light and dry and extremely refreshing.

As for "tenton", well, your guess is as good as mine. Is it a town? Is it a bartender, actor, bar, hotel, city, racehorse...? I dunno. CocktailDB doesn't often include the provenance of its cocktails so I don't even know what book this came from. I checked a couple older ones and came up empty. Lemme know if you can shed any light. Meanwhile, I guess I'll call it the Tenton Cocktail but, by any name, two parts rye to one part dry vermouth and one part grapefruit juice is a very, very nice, very simple cocktail.

I used Old Overholt rye, Noilly Prat dry vermouth and fresh-squoze grapefruit juice. I skipped the cherry though I suppose one of my rye-soaked beauties might have made a nice addition. I chose Old Overcoat thanks to Sam Kinsey's "research" in rye whiskey. Sam (aka slkinsey) is one of the big guns in the eGullet drinks forum. He's not a pro--that is, he doesn't tend bar or write cocktail books--but his posts at eGullet show that he most definitely knows his way around a liquor cabinet and knows his cocktail history. That he's also "in" with the NYC cocktail elite--Wondrich, Saunders et al--only adds to my estimation of the man as a font of cocktail wisdom. So, when Sam posts that Old Overholt is his preferred rye in The Blinker I listen. And when an Old Overholt Blinker (the raspberry syrup version) turns out to be surprisingly tasty--unlike my less-than-memorable previous attempts made with the generally superior Rittenhouse rye--well, it's the kind of lesson that sticks.

Oh, yeah, and one more thing: I made several of these over the course of last weekend and, as a member of the "everything's better with bitters" school of cocktail geekology I thought for sure that the drink could be improved with a dash of something or other. It turns out that neither Peychaud's bitters or Regan's Orange bitters were an improvement. In fact, what they added was an off-note that threw off the balance of the drink. I also tried one with a dash of Angostura bitters. This didn't make for a better drink either but it wasn't necessarily any worse, just different. I can say, though, that all Tenton cocktails in my future will be sans bitters.

The 1794

2007-02-22T12:26:00.000-06:00

There's a thread at eGullet discussing various cocktail joints in San Francisco. Recently one post mentioned a cocktail that can be found at two of San Fran's more chi-chi, de rigeur, yadda yadda cocktail lounges, Bourbon & Branch and Range. The cocktail is called 1794. It's a rye whiskey cocktail with Campari and sweet vermouth and it's garnished with a flamed orange twist*. If I understand correctly the cocktail's creator, Dominic Venegas, works at both establishments.

1794

1½ oz Rittenhouse Rye
¾ oz Campari
¾ oz Vya Red vermouth

Stir with ice, strain, garnish with flamed orange peel. [If the word on the street** is to be believed Range subs Old Overholt for the Rittenhouse and Cinzano Rosso for the Vya.]

Once again, if you'll indulge me, I'll point out that this is pretty solidly in the Manhattan family as I've outlined it here and here. There's whiskey, sweet vermouth and a bitter component of some sort. I guess one could argue that I'm stretching things a bit as, in this case, the vermouth and bitters together equal the amount of whiskey in the recipe rather than half of the whiskey. So be it. I'm a cocktail lover not a fighter.

Frankly, I think the next time I mix one up I'm going to use a more traditional Manhattan-style ratio--maybe 2 oz rye to a half-ounce each vermouth and Campari. While I enjoyed the 1794 there's just something about what Campari brings to the table that stops me short of really loving this drink. I will say, though, that the 1794 is a more appropriate summer drink than the Manhattan Special. I prefer Torani Amer to Campari so I'm more likely to stir up a Liberal but either would be a nice turn off the path beaten down to the dirt with Gin & Tonics and suchlike.

Hey. Hey, you. C'mon, eyes right. I'm talkin' here. Okay, that's better. As I was about to say, Campari is a bitter liqueur from Italy. So, it's not a concentrated bitters like, say, Angostura or Regan's Orange. It's a "potable" bitters that is beloved by Europeans as an aperitif. As you can see in the photo I've "borrowed" from the 2007 Campari catalog it's also molto sexy (or, in Ms. Hayek's case, muy sexy). Of course, just about anything is sexier by definition when done in an Italian cafe or restaurant. Whether that be drinking sparkling water or enjoying a bitter, herbal libation that gets its bright red color from bug shells that's just a fact and we Americans have no choice but to accept it.

[I wonder if power tool and auto parts companies have tried claiming their catalogs featuring scantily clad women are simply a "European" style of advertising? The 2005 Campari catalog is even more "artistic".]

I've had some success in getting used to the unusual flavor of Campari but I'm far from being a full-fledged convert. I've made a couple Negronis that I didn't particularly enjoy (though I later learned that the Negroni is kinda like jumping into the deep end of the Campari swimming pool). I think my first was the standard 1:1:1 version. I don't remember the details of my second attempt other than that it wasn't exactly my cup of herbs and bug shells either. The only drink, so far, in which I truly and completely like Campari is in a highball with fizz-water and lime. Somehow Campari and lime together taste like grapefruit. That discovery was kinda weird but this, friends, is a beverage that is cool, refreshing and very lovely in the glass.

The 1794 is, as I said, pretty darn close to completely succesful. I certainly enjoyed it enough that I will make it again and, if it is true that Campari is an aquired taste, it may well become a regular in the summer rotation if I manage to fully acquire it.

* Ah, the flamed orange twist. I had been meaning to try this little trick for a long time but somehow hadn't gotten around to it. I'm proud to say that the occasion of mixing up this 1794 was my first attempt at flaming a twist and that I was wholly successful. I surfed a bit hoping to find some video of this technique for you but came up empty. I did, however, find a nice set of instructions in an article on King Cocktail, Dale DeGroff. Here's what Dale has to say:

The aroma and flavor in citrus fruits is concentrated in the oil cells of its peel. Chefs and bartenders often extract this oil along with the juice to add the essence of the fruit to various dishes and drinks. In cocktails, the oil in the citrus peel provides an additional advantage because it can be flamed.
Always use firm, fresh fruit; the skin will have a higher oil content.
Use large, thick-skinned navel oranges.
The twists should be 3/4 inch by 1 1/2 inches long. The peel should be thin enough that the yellow shows all around the circumference with just a small amount of white pith visible in the center. Cutting uniformly sized, thin oval peels that flame up well takes control, concentration, and practice.
Hold a lit match in one hand, and pick up the twist in the other very carefully, as if holding an eggshell; if you squeeze the twist prematurely the oil will be expelled.
Hold the twist by the side, not the ends, between thumb and forefinger, skin side facing down, about four inches above the drink.
Don't squeeze or you'll lose all the oil before you flame.
Hold the match between the drink and the twist, closer to the twist. Snap the twist sharply, propelling the oil through the lit match and onto the surface of the drink.

** Considering that my cyberpal and fellow Wisconsin ex-pat Erik is playing the role of Huggy Bear in this case I'd bet the house that the skinny he's providing here is on the money. Erik, by the way, is currently working his way through an early edition of Harry Craddock's The Savoy Cocktail Book in a blog-as-forum thread called Stomping Through The Savoy. It's chock full o'great info. If you've ever leafed through an old cocktail book and wondered how some of the old drinks might taste, well, Erik's actually doing this drink by drink(!). He's knowledgeable in the realms of cocktail history and spirits but even if the only thing you take from his efforts is which old drinks are best left to history you'll consider your time reading his thread as time well spent. [I edited this post to add a link to the cocktail menu at the Range website. It includes the ingredients for the 1794 just as Erik listed them at eGullet. I told you he could be trusted.]

Happy New Year!

2007-02-09T18:17:00.001-06:00

Damn! This post has been "in progress" since early January. Regardless, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's still early enough in the new year to wish all y'all a Happy New Year. That's exceptionally lame, I know, but I hope you'll cut me some slack.

I have absolutely no idea how many of you are out there but I appreciate your taking the time to stop by. I hope you've found something useful or at least moderately entertaining in my ramblings over the last couple months. I also hope you had a swell time on New Years Eve. If you had a particularly fine cocktail on NYE please take a moment to tell me about it in the comments section.

I spent New Year's Eve in San Diego. It was a pleasant evening with the galfriend's family and it concluded a fine trip out west. The evening, however, was unfortunately cocktail-free. While I don't consider it a requirement to get all liquored up on New Years I do think a few cocktails make for a more festive evening.

Fortunately the evening was not alcohol-free. There was Full Sail Pale Ale from Oregon and Karl Strauss Amber Lager from San Diego and we had a couple bottles of sparkling wine: Gloria Ferrer Brut and Korbel Extra Dry. I think Mike's Hard Lemonade was also consumed (but not by me).

I liked both microbrews and both sparklers. Neither beer was a life-changer but both had plenty of the fine beer flavor found in all good microbrews. I thought the Gloria Ferrer was a particularly nice champagne, especially at $13. I don't drink much champagne so I won't pretend to know what I'm talking about but I can say that the GF struck me as very fresh and light and delicious. I'd definitely buy it again and I wouldn't feel remotely embarrassed or self-conscious taking it to a party. How's that for high praise from the ignorant?

The highlight of the trip was probably the seals and sea lions at La Jolla Cove. It's "pupping season" for the seals so the adult seals are spending a lot of time on the beach or on rocks near the shore with the seal pups. Fortunately, there's a seal/sea lion protection group with members who watch over the beach and keep folks from getting too close. Considering how adorable those sleeping seal pups are that's a good thing. As they lazed on the rocks even the big, fat and hairy sea lions looked as if they wanted their bellies rubbed. A quick trip over the sand to cuddle one of the far more adorable seal pups was nigh on irresistible.

The sea birds were interesting too. We didn't see any pigeon-eating pelicans but the local fliers are weird enough to this midwesterner's eyes. It's uncanny how ungainly they are while walking around but how graceful they are in the air. Egrets, we saw a few, but, then again, too few to mention... ba dump bump. Okay, so they were probably cormorants but there's no Sinatra joke to be made from "cormorants", is there?

The other excitement to be had on the trip was buying booze that can't be had for love nor money in the great state of Illinois.

Laird's Straight Apple Brandy (100 proof). Delicious. Like drinking good whiskey in an apple orchard. It's so delicious, in fact, that I contacted Laird's in the hope of learning something about one of their other products, Captain Applejack. The Captain is also 100 proof but until Laird's got back to me I didn't know much else about it. What I learned from the sales staffer who replied is that they're the same product but the Captain Applejack label is used in the Carolinas and Virginia (and, apparently, Illinois).

I assume Laird's bought the Capt. Applejack name at some point and, as apple brandy has long since fallen out of favor in the U.S., it's not much of a stretch to think that Laird's simply decided to use the Capt. Applejack name to sell their product in the area where that name was familiar. But I'm just guessing.

Junipero gin. According to the guy at Sam's Junipero won't be available in Illinois for at least another few months. It's an incredibly rich, potent juniper-heavy gin. Alberta Straub gave us a taste when we were in San Francisco last fall and I thought I might have found a new favorite Martini gin. I've tried it in a 4:1 and a 5:1 Martini so far and both were very good but Plymouth gin is still my first choice. [Note: thanks to my inability to get this posted I've learned that Junipero is now available at Sam's.]

Plymouth gin for $10.99!! And speaking of Plymouth, I would have preferred to find room in my suitcase for something else unavailable in Chicago but I couldn't pass it up at this sale price. This is half what I pay locally.

I also picked up mini-bottles of the following:
Schladerer kirschwasser
Jameson's and Bushmill's Irish whiskey
Myers's dark rum
Unicum
Pere Magloire calvados

Kirschwasser (aka kirsch) is kinda pricey and I've never tried it so I haven't picked up a bottle. The Schladerer is supposed to be good so I was happy to pick up this mini even if it was the most expensive of the bunch at $6.50. The others were picked up for taste-testing purposes. It's been years since I've had Myers's rum and I've been meaning to do an Irish whiskey head-to-head (to-head-to-head) competition between the two best known Irish's and my prior and current favorites, Tullamore Dew,and John Powers, respectively.

Wow. Did this really need a five-week gestation period?

Mixology Monday drinks whisk(e)y.

2007-02-06T16:33:00.000-06:00

February is as good a month as any to celebrate the blessing that is whiskey. In fact, let me go waaaay out on a limb and state that any month is a good month to celebrate the whiskey/whisky family of spirits. I see no need to push those bottles to the back of the liquor cabinet when the weather turns warm but I won't deny that there's something a little more inviting about your brown liquors as temperatures drop. And considering the absolute bitch of a cold spell we're experiencing over a sizable chunk of the U.S. right now I'm happy to use MixMo XII as an excuse to recommend a new favorite, The Liberal.

Liberal Cocktail

1½ oz rye or Bourbon whiskey (rye for me, thanks)
½ oz sweet vermouth
¼ oz Amer Picon (or Torani Amer)
1 dash orange bitters (3-4 dashes for me*)

Stir in mixing glass with ice & strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The Liberal, as you may have noticed, is just another take on The Manhattan. Sure, I've already done a Manhattan variation and a couple Old-Fashioned variations (here and here) and, yeah, maybe this is a sign of my limited imagination. I won't argue. But I think the more important lesson is that the world's great drinks--The Manhattan, The Martini and The Old-Fashioned, for example--are a solid foundation that allows anyone and everyone to create a delicious cocktail without requiring a huge liquor cabinet or even any real experience making cocktails.

Let's look at the Manhattan. It couldn't be more simple: two parts whiskey to one part sweet vermouth plus a dash of aromatic bitters, usually Angostura. That's three ingredients that can be had for under $20. Add to that a mixing glass, a long spoon (hell, a chopstick will do), ice, a straining device of some sort and a suitable drinking vessel and you're moments away from an excellent cocktail. If you have a lemon or orange handy for twists, all the better.

Add a couple more bottles to your cupboard and the sky is the limit. There are hundreds of whiskeys to choose from and fine Manhattans can be made with most of them whether it be a Bourbon, rye, Tennessee or Canadian whiskey. Upgrading from your every day Martini & Rossi or Cinzano or other inexpensive sweet vermouth also allows for further experimentation. Or you can use a dry vermouth to make a Dry Manhattan or use both dry and sweet vermouth for a Perfect Manhattan. You may hear arguments against both of those cocktails but you won't hear them from me.

Bitters are another variable. You can stick with Angostura or another aromatic bitters like the Fee Brothers Old Fashioned Aromatic Bitters or you can give orange bitters a try. I haven’t made a Manhattan with Peychaud’s bitters but that doesn’t mean you can’t.

Or you can tweak the bitters component the way the creator of The Liberal did. Switching from aromatic bitters to orange bitters reduces the bitter component sufficiently to allow for another ingredient to provide some bitterness as well. Amer Picon (or, in my case, Torani Amer) will do this and since it isn’t concentrated like Angostura more of it is needed and because it provides an herbal quality too it only makes sense to reduce the amount of sweet vermouth. Plus, the Amer Picon also has orange notes that are perfectly complemented by the orange bitters. Et voila, The Liberal. Try one, won't you?

Assuming, that is, that you can find either Amer Picon or Torani Amer. I've never seen Amer Picon and I'm not sure it's currently available in the U.S. It's my understanding, though, that while the Torani Amer isn't a perfect replacement for Amer Picon it's actually a better choice when making drinks originally calling for Amer Picon. Apparently the makers of Amer Picon have made some changes over the years and what was originally a 78 proof liqueur is now 42 proof. That's never a good sign. Unfortunately, Torani Amer isn't much easier to find. It can't be had in Illinois for love nor money. I bought mine in California last summer.

The good news, though, if you've been paying attention (and if you haven't already moved on to the next MixMo blogger) is that you can pick up any bottle of amer/amaro and come up with something in the Manhattan family that is very likely to be delicious. I recently had a drink made with Amaro Nonino that was fantastic. The next time I'm in the mood to spend $30 on a liqueur the Nonino is at the top of the list. And in my own ridiculously over-stocked liquor cabinet is an unopened bottle of Amaro Ramazzotti that's destined for this type of experimentation. With The Manhattan as my prototype I'm sure I can make an excellent drink with it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers!

* Dr. Cocktail (aka Ted Haigh) has actually tasted the original 78 proof Amer Picon. He once wrote the following:

"...The Picon has more of a bitter orange character, and for want of a better way to describe it, the Torani leans more toward celery. That's why when I make Picon Punches for a bunch of guests and I must use Torani Amer, I add a dash or two of orange bitters to each drink - which to my mind moves it a little closer back to the original Picon product...".

Taking his lead, when using Torani Amer I always add a couple dashes of orange bitters whether the recipe calls for it or not.

CocktailDB also lists a variation on The Liberal which I haven't tried (and which has a duplicate entry where it's called the Picon Whiskey Cocktail). This version skips the vermouth and bitters and uses only equal parts whiskey and amer plus a little sugar. I dunno. Maybe I'll mix one up at some point but I can't say it strikes me as a particularly balanced cocktail. Might make for a nice cooler in the summer though if built in a highball glass and topped with some sort of fizz water.

Time flies.

2007-02-02T18:20:00.000-06:00

Hey, all (however few of you that may be). I've had a few posts in the hopper for the last few weeks but haven't been able to put the final polish to 'em. I hope to get them posted shortly but as I've been saying that to myself for a couple weeks I thought I'd take a few seconds to say "hey".

I know that I check in on any number of blogs with some regularity so if you've been so kind as to put The Handy Snake on your list I wanted you to know that I haven't given up or gotten bored or any of the usual reasons bloggers let their sites get stale. If you stop back by the middle of next week, say, Feb. 7th or so, you should find a new piece or two.

Thanks!

Alberta Straub redux

2007-01-05T18:30:00.000-06:00

Hey, all. A couple posts back I wrote about the mixological wonder that is Alberta Straub. I just heard from Alberta and it seems that she is more anxious than ever to move to Chicago. She doesn't have any solid plans but she's asked me to spread the word. I'm just a cocktail geek with a little-read blog so it's unlikely that my doing so will be of any use to her but I would be thrilled if she started doing her thing someplace that I could visit without having to buy a plane ticket. So, here goes. If you own a bar or know someone who owns a bar, or even if you just know someone who tends bar at a joint where a charming, talented, supremely inventive bartender would be welcome and appreciated please let me know. Leave contact info, questions or comments in my comment section and I'll make sure that it gets to Alberta.

In the meantime, to learn more about the woman the San Francisco Chronicle called "The Alice Waters of Booze" just plug her name into your favorite search engine. She is not your average, every day beer-slinger. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of beer slingers and I'm a big fan of dive bars and beer joints but if you want your bar or cocktail lounge to stand out from the crowd you need to hire someone like her. There are places in Chicago to get a well made cocktail but I can't think of one place that has anyone remotely like Alberta. Read a little about her to see just how creative mixing drinks can be.

The St. Dominic's Preview

2006-12-22T18:00:00.000-06:00

The Gumbo Pages is a site "dedicated to the preservation of new orleans culture." It's put together by Chuck Taggart, an ex-pat New Orleanian living in L.A. Not only is Chuck the man behind a great box set of New Orleans music, Doctors, Professors, Kings and Queens,
he's also quite knowledgeable in the area of booze. Here's one of Chuck's originals, The St. Dominic's Preview. He based it on a cocktail called The Preview. The story, according to Chuck's source, is that The Preview was Peter Lawford's favorite drink. I have no idea whether this is true. Those Rat Packers sho'nuff did love the booze though so who knows. I haven't tried The Preview yet but Chuck's take on it is terrific.

St. Dominic's Preview

2 ounces Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey
1/2 ounce Grand Marnier
2 dashes orange bitters
Few dashes Herbsaint, Pernod or other pastis
Orange peel

Shake a few dashes of pastis into a rocks (Old Fashioned / whiskey) glass, then swirl around to coat. Pour most of it out, leaving a little puddle of it in the bottom of the glass. Combine the whiskey, liqueur and bitters in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice, stir for no less than 30 seconds and strain into the coated glass. Twist the peel over the drink and garnish with the peel.

There aren't many cocktails using Irish whiskey but this is a very fine example. I had the Tullamore Dew on hand so I used it but I'm sure the drink would be just as good with Jameson's, Bushmill's, Tullamore Dew or John Powers. I didn't have an orange, though, so a lemon twist had to do. Fortunately it made for a reasonable substitute.

Another substitution was made possible by my pal Desmond who provided a bottle of La Fée Bohemian Absinth* for us to experiment with. It worked exceptionally well in its role in the St. Dominic's Preview. I wouldn't say that it was a huge improvement over what my $17 bottle of Herbsaint would have provided in its place but used in this way it was excellent. It's amazing, really, just how little absinthe or pastis is needed to be noticeable.

So how is the La Fée on its own? Um, hmmm, I'm not sure. I tried it straight and with water and found it "interesting". I certainly didn't love it but I guess I can't do much more than damn it with faint praise. This particular style is glass cleaner-blue and 140 proof. The color is disconcerting but the high proof is probably the main reason for my difficulty. To my surprise I didn't find the alcohol to be too much but the flavors were very strong. Adding water really opened it up. It was simply too concentrated at 140. I'm very interested in trying other absinthes, particularly the absinthes made by Ted Breaux of Jade Liquors.

Here's the recipe for The Preview if you'd like to give it a try:

The Preview

1-1/2 ounces gin.
1 ounce Cointreau.
1/4 teaspoon of Ricard, Pernod or Herbsaint.
Pour the Ricard (or Pernod or Herbsaint) into a chilled cocktail glass and swirl to coat the inside of the glass; shake out the excess. Place the rest of the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice, shake and serve straight up in the coated glass, garnished with a long, curly twist of orange peel.

Merry Christmas everybody!

* There's no "e" in "absinthe" in the Czech Republic.

From the La Fée website:
La Fée Bohemian Absinth re-creates the traditional Bohemian drink that was produced in the 1920s, with subtle herbal undertones of fennel, mint and rather less aniseed than that absinthe produced in France at the end of the 19th Century. Bohemian tastes have always meant that less anise is used in the drink's production, and explains why Bohemian Absinth does not turn milky ('louche') when water is added.

Whereas the heavy aniseed flavour of La Fée Parisian Absinthe is often not suitable for use in cocktails, La Fée Bohemian Absinth has a refined subtlety, whose distinctive flavour is a mixologists dream.

Alberta Straub

2006-12-18T19:02:00.000-06:00

I've mentioned mixological genius Alberta Straub before. I don't have time to relate the story of the evening the galfriend and I spent at The Orbit Room in San Fran sipping the fruits of Alberta's brilliance but you can hear an interview with Alberta on a KQED radio show called The California Report. Find a link to the show here.

Thanks to Jimmy's Cocktail Hour for the link.

Mixology Monday gets festive

2006-12-08T21:55:00.000-06:00

I don't have much interest in wassail bowls, mulled wines, nogs, buttered rums or other hot drinks for the cold days and nights of winter. I'll try some of them eventually but M² has come upon me too quickly to even begin thinking about upgrading my spice rack or working up an egg nog or Tom & Jerry batter. Maybe I'll get around to it in January or February when there's little else to do but drink. Boredom + Chicago winter + booze might well lead to killing some time separating eggs and whipping and recombining the results, etc. Then again that could also lead to experiments in home-brewed mead and marathon sessions watching the director's cut editions of the Lord of the Rings dvds. Pray for me, friends.

Instead I present to you the Manhattan Special. It may not be particularly "festive"* but it's an excellent cocktail for a chilly night and is sure to be accepted with pleasure by any guests you may be hosting this holiday season--those guests who drink the brown liquor anyway. It doesn't matter in the least that this is a chilled drink. Between the whiskey and the Benedictine it's sure to warm what needs warming and to cure what ails you. For the full restorative effect I recommend my version. I don't think the 1.5 ounces of whiskey in the Cocktaildb.com version properly takes care of business. I like 2.5 ounces in the first one if I'm having more than one. 2.0 ounces is plenty for any that follow.

The Manhattan Special

2 - 2.5 oz rye whiskey
.5 oz sweet vermouth
.5 oz Benedictine
2 dashes of Angostura bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a small rocks glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a cherry.

Famed bartender Harry Craddock wrote that one should drink a cocktail "quickly while it's still laughing at you" but as you can see I prefer my Manhattans on the rocks. A Manhattan served "up" is traditional and is perfectly nice and you are, of course, welcome to make this drink however you choose. I wouldn't dream of making a Martini on the rocks but for some reason I prefer to linger over Manhattans. Even using a well chilled cocktail glass I usually find that a Manhattan served up will warm up before I want it to and so I make mine a little larger and a little stronger and strain them over fresh ice. Et voila, there's no need to throw it back in a big hurry. This also happens to be how my dad enjoys his CC Perfect** Manhattans. I'm sure that has something to do with my preference but I think it's mostly because for me whiskey is a, shall we say, more contemplative spirit than gin.

Tweaks: A slight alteration turns the Manhattan Special into a Preakness. The Preakness calls for .75 oz of sweet vermouth, .25 oz of Benedictine and a lemon twist as the garnish. I'd recommend the lemon twist with either version if forced to choose between the twist and a waxy, artificially flavored and colored store-bought maraschino cherry but my cocktail cherries are homemade*** so I use them without hesitation.

Benedictine, like Unicum, is another ingredient where a little goes a long way. If you're not overly fond of it you may want to start with the Preakness' ratio. I think the Manhattan Special is the better drink of the two but I certainly recommend you pour that half-ounce of Benedictine carefully. This is particularly important if your tastes lean towards milder whiskeys because the Manhattan Special is best made with a whiskey that'll put hair on your chest. Wild Turkey rye or the 100 proof Rittenhouse rye are ideal. Booker's would be a fine choice if you wanted to make this with bourbon.

A less in-your-face bourbon like Basil Hayden though, would, I think, require a substantial reduction in the amount of Benedictine used. It's smooth and tasty but if Booker's is John Wayne in Red River then Basil Hayden is Montgomery Clift. Sure, Clift is cool and all and he's the hero of the film but, dudes, seriously, what's up with that long scene with Clift and John Ireland where their characters compare six-shooters in what can only be viewed as a courtship ritual of some sort?

Ahem.

Happy Mixology Monday, folks.

* Other than nutmeg, perhaps, none of the spices used in the making of Benedictine are strongly affiliated with the various December holidays but the whiskey and Benedictine combo certainly strikes me as an ideal accompaniment to a roaring fireplace. See the new issue of Imbibe and the two dozen other M² submissions for some great new, officially "festive" cocktails and punches.

** A "Perfect" Manhattan is made with a half-ounce each of sweet and dry vermouth whereas a standard Manhattan calls for one ounce of sweet vermouth. Embury prefers to call the two vermouth Manhattan a "Medium" Manhattan. I suppose that makes more sense but I'll stick with "perfect". It's the term I knew first and most bartenders know what it means. If you run into a bartender who tells you that every Manhattan he makes is perfect, well, be kind and explain what you mean. If he's grateful you've done your good deed for the day, boy scout. If you get attitude just stiff the ingrate.

You may have noticed that the Manhattan Special is nothing more than a Perfect Manhattan with Benedictine substituted for the dry vermouth. If not, well, now you know. And if you haven't already figured it out a Dry Manhattan calls for only dry vermouth. Natch. Also, as for my pop's CC Perfect Manhattan: CC = Canadian Club.

*** eGullet has a good thread covering cocktail cherries. Please feel free to ignore the inane ramblings in my posts. Or you can skip all that and go directly to the recipe I used for my current batch of cocktail cherries. Check out that recipe here. Essentially it's dried cherries reconstituted in water and sugar with lemon and orange zest and vanilla. The cherries don't look like much when they come off heat but they continue to plump up nicely overnight. I add about half the cherries and most of the syrup to yogurt and the rest go into a clean, air-tight jar with rye whiskey. I'd use maraschino liqueur but I'm too cheap to use Luxardo and I'm very happy with the cherries soaked in rye.

If by whiskey...

2006-12-06T16:56:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Martini Republic for the link to a 1952 speech by a young Mississippi lawmaker, Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat, Jr., on the subject of whether Mississippi should prohibit or legalize alcoholic beverages:

If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.

But;

If when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

Well said. A toast to our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm!

Repeal Day

2006-12-05T13:54:00.000-06:00

Repeal Day is here. The Volstead Act (aka Prohibition) was officially repealed seventy-three years ago today. "Designer, blogger and mixologist" Jeffrey Morganthaler suggests that we celebrate. Count me in.

Check out a couple old newsreels about the end of Prohibition: here and here. Thanks to the Museum of the American Cocktail's blog for the links.

The Magyar Old-Fashioned

2006-11-29T21:08:00.001-06:00

I just finished rereading David Embury's The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. It's one of the more highly regarded tomes in cocktail geek land. It's also out of print and sells for outrageous sums at eBay. I somehow managed to get my copy--a paperback edition--from an Australian eBay seller a couple years ago for a far more reasonable cost . Maybe the overseas location scared off the other bidders, the poor schmucks. I think I paid about thirteen bucks or so including shipping from Oz. At the time I'd seen copies sell for over $50 on a regular basis so to say that I was geeked when that auction ended is true according to a couple definitions of the word.

Anyway, at one point in the book Embury mentions that brandy and Unicum* go well together. He doesn't offer any drink recipes that include Unicum but as I have a dusty bottle of the stuff from a friend who spent a few years in Hungary I thought I'd rescue it from the Cupboard of Misfit Booze and put Mr. Embury to the test. Forgive my immodesty but I think I hit a home run in my first at bat:

The Magyar Old-Fashioned

2.5 oz brandy (or cognac or armagnac)
.25 oz Unicum bitters
.25 oz simple syrup

Build in rocks glass. Stir. Add large ice cubes to fill. Lemon twist.

Unicum is no shrinking violet flavor-wise so you may want to use it exactly like Angostura or other non-potable bitters and add just a dash or two or you could increase the simple syrup to around a half-ounce. That might help to take the edge off it a bit. For me, though, I'm pretty damn happy with my recipe as it stands. It's hardly mixological genius on par with the work of, say, the brilliant Alberta Straub** but I think it's a nice solid example of how new drinks can be created based on the frameworks of old ones.

I made three of these over the course of the pre-holiday weekend and used three different brandies. The first was made with E&J VSOP brandy. Very nice. The modest quarter-ounce of Unicum grabs the brandy by the lapels and gives it a good shake but the sweetness of the brandy and the simple syrup (2:1 turbinado) balance the pungent herbal bitterness of the Unicum quite well.

For round two I used Chateau de Laubade Bas Armagnac VSOP. I don't know much about armagnac (or cognac for that matter) but I can say that I think Wine Enthusiast is right in calling this a best buy at $25. I like it a lot on it's own and it made for a better drink. That it's a little drier than the E&J, I think, allowed for the Unicum to come through a little more forcefully. While this was noticeably better than the E&J version I wouldn't say it was significantly better.

On Sunday I made another. This time I used Chalfonte VSOP cognac and I was surprised to find that this is the version I liked the best. It could be that it's a more perfect match with the Unicum or that a couple days time had dulled the memory of the previous two drinks or it could be that I was just that much more accustomed to the peculiar flavor of the Unicum. Regardless, the Chalfonte Magyar O-F was quite delicious and, as the Chalfonte is a very modestly-priced cognac I couldn't be more pleased.

*Unicum is a Hungarian bitter herbal liqueur kinda like Jägermeister. Both are almost exclusively drunk straight in their home country where they're considered aids to digestion after dinner (digestifs, if you'll pardon my French) and both are commonly recommended as hangover cures the morning after. Unlike Jägermeister, though, the only college students doing shots of Unicum are in Hungary. It's not exactly something you sip and savor. If I remember correctly it's pretty much a down-the-hatch deal even in Hungary and that's where they actually like the stuff. I imagine the number of people who like it the first time they try it is pretty small.

What does it taste like? Unfortunately, I'll have to cop out. It's said to be made with over forty herbs and I simply don't have the palate to describe it. Also, frankly, I've only managed to drink it straight a couple of times. Stephan Berg at The Bitters Blog has said that Unicum's predominant flavor is cardamom. I'll have to take his word for it.

** Check out the current issue of Imbibe magazine (Nov/Dec 2006) for an article on Alberta. Following the link actually gets you a preview of it. In a future post I'll have to tell the story of the evening the galfriend and I spent sampling a sizable number of Alberta's very original and very delicious cocktails at the Orbit Room (1900 Market St., San Francisco). She's an amazing bartender and an exceedingly charming and funny woman. In the Imbibe piece she mentions that she's thinking of moving to Chicago and opening a bar. That would be amazingly kick-ass.

MixMo follow-up

2006-11-29T16:03:00.000-06:00

Okay, so much for my plan to post something on a more or less weekly basis. Where was I? . . .

. . . I suppose now that I've made my case for the Fancy Gin Cocktail with Peychaud's I'll mention a few drinks that also place an even greater emphasis on cocktail bitters. These were new to me though a two of the three have been around for ages. I used Plymouth gin and I served them "up" in a chilled rocks glass.

The Angler Cocktail
from Vintage Cocktails by Susan Waggoner/Robert Markel
2 oz gin
3 dashes Angostura bitters
3 dashes orange bitters
2 dashes grenadine

Stir and strain.

Pink Gin
2 oz gin
6 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir & strain. [I've also seen recipes for this served neat, served up and also on the rocks. Stirring seemed to me to make the most sense but you're welcome to follow your heart (or fave cocktail guru) on this one.]

Derby
2 oz gin
2 dash peach bitters
2 sprigs mint
Stir & strain. [Or shake & strain into chilled cocktail glass].

I liked all three but I think the Derby is the only one I'm likely to make again. The combination of peach and mint seemed promising and it did make for a pleasant drink. Fee's Peach Bitters are very mild and I was concerned that they would be overwhelmed by the mint and the gin so I used three dashes instead of two. To my surprise, however, while I've found that peach bitters are sometimes lost in a whiskey cocktail they held up just fine in this very simple gin cocktail. I think two dashes would have been better. The peach flavor may have been just a touch heavy.

I felt that all three drinks could have benefited from the addition of another ingredient. Dry vermouth or Lillet would certainly have improved the Angler and the Pink Gin. I did like the Pink Gin more at the end of the drink than at the beginning though. I suppose I might make another some time. The Angler was okay but I never got past the feeling that it was missing something. I can't say as I'll ever make it again--certainly not as is. It's a nice start to a cocktail though. Adding, say, maraschino liqueur and/or vermouth might lead to something more memorable.

And, finally, one more recipe from Dave Wondrich, this time one of his own inventions. I haven't tried it yet but I thought I'd include for any gin-haters who may be reading. It's essentially an Old Fashioned Vodka Cocktail so it should look familiar. It might make a nice change of pace when you vodka fans are out of tonic or in the mood for something a little different.

The Delancey
2 oz vodka
½ teaspoon Demerara simple syrup (2:1)
1 dash orange bitters
1 dash Peychaud's or Angostura bitters

Combine in a rocks glass, stir well. Add 2-3 large ice cubes, stir some more and twist a swatch of thin-cut lemon peel over the top. Let sit for a couple of minutes before drinking.

So, if you don't have any bitters at home, grab a bottle of Angostura the next time you're at the grocery store. Even if you're not a big cocktail drinker you can use them in cooking or to flavor your favorite carbonated beverage. Try a couple dashes in a nice cold glass of seltzer or club soda or in your next gin & tonic or Greyhound. You may even want to try a stronger dose if you have an upset stomach. Most if not all bitters were initially developed as stomach tonics or general health tonics.

Mixology Monday does bitters.

2006-11-13T23:01:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my tiny corner of the web Mixology Monday fans. I've followed M² since its inception but this will be my first as a participant. I've been keeping a low profile since I started this blog a mere week or so ago. I wasn't quite sure how I felt about joining the cocktail blognoscenti but it turns out that outing myself as a cocktail geek was fairly painless. Sure, nobody's been watching so far but, really, if M² is what brought you here I don't imagine you're here to cast aspersions. And if you are, well, let he who is not a cocktail geek cast the first stone.

Now, on to the topic at hand: bitters. Bitters are a largely forgotten part of the cocktail world despite their immense importance. I've seen the role of bitters in cocktails compared to the role of salt in cooking and I think that's particularly apt*. In cooking, for example, salt is often called for in recipes in which a salty flavor isn't required or desired. Most cookie recipes call for a small amount of salt, right? Nobody wants a salty cookie and, thankfully, that's not salt’s role in a cookie recipe. What the salt does is to somehow make the other ingredients taste better, in fact, to taste more like themselves. Cocktail bitters play essentially the same role in cocktail recipes.

It depends on the type and amount of bitters used in cocktail recipe, of course, but as a rule bitters serve to bring the other ingredients together and/or to somehow emphasize a certain aspect of the drink. In a Manhattan, for example, I can't say that I pay conscious attention to the flavor of the Angostura bitters in the drink but it's a fact I've never been wrong when I've taken a Manhattan back to the bartender and asked if he had added bitters. There's just something about the addition of a couple dashes of bitters that makes it easy for me to notice when they're absent. Whiskey and vermouth go well together but they simply go together better when with a couple dashes of bitters added.

The good news is that bitters are making a comeback. Angostura bitters remain the best known and easiest to find (even if too many bartenders never heard of 'em) but its no longer impossible to find Peychaud's bitters and, can you believe it, we're living in a time when two--TWO!--companies are making orange bitters in the United States. This is down from the dozens available in the early 20th century but it's two more than existed just a few years ago. That's progress, friends.

So, assuming you have more than Angostura on hand, what can you do with the other types of bitters? One suggestion I'll make is the Fancy Gin Cocktail and it can be made with either Angostura or Peychaud's. This is a matter of personal preference, of course, but I've tried both and for me it's an easy choice. Using Angostura makes for a fine drink but using Peychaud's makes this one of my very favorites. Here's the recipe for the Old Fashioned Gin Cocktail. The Fancy Gin Cocktail is a slight variation.

Old Fashioned Gin Cocktail (Esquire Drinks Database)
½ tsp sugar (or one lump)
2 dashes bitters (Peychaud’s or Angostura)
1 tsp H2O
2 oz gin (Jonge, or “young” genever if available)

Dissolve sugar in a rocks glass with the water and bitters. Muddle until sugar dissolves. Add gin, stir well, and add 2 large ice cubes. Let it sit for a couple minutes before drinking.

First, skip the "dissolve sugar..." part. Use about a teaspoon of simple syrup and save yourself the hassle. I've been using a syrup made with two parts Demerara sugar to one part water. Next, note that this one calls for genever or genever gin, the Dutch style of gin sometimes also called Dutch or Holland gin. I’m aware of only two brands currently available in the U.S., Zuidam and Boomsma. I have a bottle of the Zuidam. I can’t tell you how it compares to other genevers but it’s really terrific.

Here’s some info from a Zuidam press release:

"For the Zuidam Genever Gin, we start with a whiskey-like base, and add the botanicals in one distillation,” explains Patrick van Zuidam. “For our Genever we use juniper, licorice root, vanilla, aniseed and marjoram. Zuidam Genever is more refined than most Genevers. It is elegant and provides a very different gin taste that is decidedly sweeter, yet still refreshing, with a malty undertone. Unlike some Genevers, Zuidam Genever Gin is crystal clear.”

Sound interesting? Here are a couple variations on the Old Fashioned Gin Cocktail (also from Esquire):

Fancy Gin Cocktail
Same as above but with one additional step. Take a big lemon twist, squeeze it over the glass and rub it around the rim. The twist adds a little tartness that makes a very good drink a great drink. If you have a lemon in the house use it.

Improved Gin Cocktail
2 oz gin (pref. Jonge, or "young", genever, eg. Zuidam)
½ to 1 tsp simple syrup (made 2:1 w/demerara sugar)
½ to 1 tsp liqueur (G.Marnier, Maraschino or Cointreau)
2 dashes bitters
1 dash absinthe (or substitute a pastis such as Pernod or Herbsaint)

Add all to lot of cracked ice in a shaker. Stir vigorously & strain into chilled glass. Squeeze a big lemon twist over the glass and rub it around the rim.

David Wondrich, the excellent writer on booze for Esquire and the author of all the material at the Esquire Drinks Database, put out a fine book in 2005. In it he included a revised version of the above recipe which he called the Improved Holland Gin Cocktail. The stuff in bold is what he changed or preferences he specified in the book (and/or on-line in the eGullet and DrinkBoy cocktail forums) and that's how I made this. I prefer the Fancy but this one is also very good. I haven't tried it yet with Grand Marnier or Cointreau but I'm curious if using either would change my mind.

*It turns out that Robert "Drinkboy" Hess reprises some of his thoughts on this in his newest piece at The Spirit World. Check it out.

The Monarchist

2006-11-07T12:38:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend Nishla responded to my post at eGullet regarding her accidental discovery. The name for her new cocktail is The Monarchist . She wrote:

I looked into what the term "royalist" means, and generally it's someone who supports a monarchy. In particular, it can refer to supporters of the House of Bourbon, which originally ruled in France (thus, the dry vermouth). Since gin is often associated with Britain, maybe we can call the gin version a Monarchist, which refers to supporters of the British monarchy.

I think that's pretty clever. I checked a few recipe sites and turned up no other cocktails with this name, so The Monarchist it is.

Royalist Cocktail--the update.

2006-11-02T11:45:00.000-06:00

Okay. Turns out that Nishla misread the recipe for The Royalist at CocktailDB. It's not 1.5 oz of gin it's 1.5 oz of dry vermouth that the recipe calls for. So, the Royalist is sort of a "reverse" Dry Manhattan Special instead of the unique concoction Nishla posted at eGullet.org. I managed to misread the recipe myself when I looked it up but I'm not embarassed or upset because Nishla's version appears to be a brand new cocktail.

I used the kick-ass search function at CocktailDB and checked a few other drink recipe sites and found nothing that resembles what Nishla and I thought was The Royalist. My search was hardly exhaustive so please be sure to pass along any gin + bourbon + Benedictine recipes you come across. I did find a few recipes with gin, whiskey and pastis. Pastis ain't Benedictine but it is an herbal liqueur so I think it's close enough for jazz. We can certainly consider these to be related to the (Not a) Royalist*:

Eau de Nil 1.5 oz gin, .5 oz rye or bourbon, .25 oz pastis, .25 oz grenadine
Bunny Hug 1:1:1 gin, rye or bourbon, pastis (1 oz of each)
Earthquake 1:1:1 gin, rye or bourbon, pastis (.75 oz of each)

Note that the Bunny Hug** and the Earthquake are the exact same drink. Each has a 1:1:1 ratio of the three ingredients. Only the size of the drink differs. My guess is that the Earthquake came about after a revolt by Bunny Hug lovers who got tired of taking crap from their friends and bartenders. Seriously, who coined the name Bunny Hug for this manly and potent potable? And why? Any way you slice it, knocking back a mixture of three full-strength boozes diluted with only a little water by stirring or shaking, well, it doesn't exactly conjure up thoughts of fuzzy little bunnies. Maybe if it had been created by a bartender at one of the old Playboy clubs I could understand calling it the Bunny Slap In Face.... Ba dump bump.

Absente, Herbsaint, Pernod, and Ricard are the most common pastises (sp?) but I'm not really up to speed on the pastis family. I know they're intended to be an absinthe substitute, that their primary flavor is anise and that a little pastis goes a long, long way. I have a bottle of Herbsaint but, if memory serves, I've only used it in Sazeracs and Corpse Reviver #2s. Both are Hall of Fame-level cocktails but neither requires more than a dash or so of pastis. In Europe pastis, pastis & water, and various pastis cocktails are fairly common aperitifs. I'm not sure that I want a nice cold glass of liquid licorice before dinner but you knock yer bad self out, Pierre.

-------------------------
* I've left a post at eGullet asking Nishla what she wants to call her accidental creation. I'll post another update when she responds.

** Aha. It turns out that the Bunny Hug was named after a suggestive dance from the early part of the last century. Thanks to Andy and Erik at eGullet for the info and the link.

The Royalist Cocktail

2006-10-31T14:32:00.000-06:00

All right, enough already with my "blogosophy". Here's a drink that Nishla posted at eGullet and a slightly revised version of my reply:

Royalist Cocktail (W.J. Tarling)
1.5 oz gin
.75 oz bourbon
.75 oz Benedictine
1 dash of peach bitters

Stirred and served in a cocktail glass.

Nishla used Plymouth gin and Maker's Mark bourbon and extrapolated the measures from the CocktailDB recipe which indicated "parts"*. I used the same amounts but used Gilbey's gin and Old Fitzgerald's 1849 bourbon.

This is a very nice drink. I liked it quite a bit but I'd have liked it even more with only a 1/4 or 1/2 ounce of the Benedictine. It worked for me because I like Benedictine and bourbon together (see The Manhattan Special for an excellent example) but this recipe didn't strike me as particularly well balanced. The Gilbey's is a nice junipery gin (particularly good for the price) and the Old Fitz is eight years old, 90 proof and full-flavored so I don't think the Benedictine's dominance was a matter of using wishy-washy spirits but YMMV.

Another change I made was to shake it instead of stir it. I noticed that the recipe at CocktailDB called for shaking so that's what I did. I'm not sure why shaking was called for but as the only real difference should be the texture I took the easy route.

Thanks to Nishla for pointing this one out. I'll be adapting W.J. Tarling's recipe to my tastes but it's definitely a keeper.

********************

*I don't understand "parts" recipes that also include a specific amount for one ingredient. It's one thing to say that The Royalist should have two parts gin to one part bourbon and one part Benedictine. This allows the drinkmaker to make as large or small a drink as he wants. He can use 1.5 oz gin like Nishla and I did or he can use 3 oz (or 5 or 10 oz for that matter). It's only important to add half that amount of both bourbon and Benedictine to complete the recipe. But Tarling specifies a single dash of peach bitters.

A single dash was sufficient for the size drink I made but if I had doubled the booze the single dash wouldn't have been enough. So, why not specify how much of each ingredient matches up with that single dash of bitters? Or maybe just indicate "peach bitters to taste"? I dunno but the only course of action is to use what you know about cocktails and go from there.

I assume Nishla decided on 1.5 oz gin because 3 oz of booze plus an ounce or so of melted ice fit her cocktail glass or maybe Nishla figured this cocktail came from a time period when drinks were much smaller than they are now. I can't be sure but it's a fact that in the days before the giant, overpriced, under-chilled Vodka Martini the ingredients added up to around three or four ounces in most recipes (pre-stir/shake). It's also a fact that peach bitters are very mild compared to Angostura or Peychaud's bitters. I knew that single dash would disappear if I chose to make the Royalist any larger.

Speaking of peach bitters, if you're lucky you can find them at the liquor store or maybe a gourmet grocery store. If not, follow the link above to the Fee Brothers website. I've never ordered from Fee Bros. but I understand their customer service is excellent. Their Old Fashion bitters and orange bitters are well worth having on hand too.

So, what's the point?

2006-10-31T12:52:00.000-06:00

A blog, by definition, is the work of any faceless doofus running his random scrawlings up a flagpole hoping someone will salute (...putting 'em out on the front porch hoping the cat licks 'em up, throwing 'em against the wall and hoping something sticks, etc. You get the picture.). So, telling you that I'm just gonna wing it from here on should really go without saying.

I plan to take a relatively serious approach on occasion but, really, how serious can one get when the subject is drinking, booze and the stuff you can make with booze? I hope to write the occasional essay on--um, hell, I dunno, lemme get back to you on that--but mostly I'll be posting drink recipes, insipid booze reviews, links to far better blogs and forum threads, maybe the occasional bar review and other crapola like that. I don't expect that anything here will change your life but, then again, if you've never had a Sazerac or a Corpse Reviver #2 or Fancy Gin Cocktail or if you wouldn't have found The Esquire Drinks Database or CocktailDB without my link, well, you may well find your life to be slightly improved after a visit.

I can honestly say that my quality of life has improved after exposure to the work of Dave Wondrich and Ted Haigh (respectively, author/Esquire 's dean of drink and author/co-founder of CocktailDB) and, Jack Lord, man, if you've never had a cocktail that pre-dates the Cosmopolitan you should do so leave work immediately--you are reading this at work, right?--and get your bad self to a decent liquor store to pick up a couple things you probably don't have at home.

Sure, you can clear your head with exercise or free your mind with yoga. Knock yourself out. Sometimes, though, only a crisp, clean 5-to-1 Martini made with Plymouth gin and garnished with a slice of lemon peel the size of a silver dollar will do. Hopefully, The Handy Snake can help you with just those times.

Here's how.

2006-10-30T13:32:00.000-06:00

Another blogger going on and on about cocktails, drinking and booze is exactly what the world needs. That's what I'm telling myself anyway. If you found your way here via a link or a web search maybe you agree.

If you're like me you have dozens of cocktail-centric blogs bookmarked even though only a handful of the blogs update frequently enough or offer enough knowledge or insight to be worth your time. You also have several booze-centric online forums bookmarked but the activity at the forums ebbs and flows too so, if you’re like me, you get a little frustrated when you check in and there's nothing new (or if a post is something you already know or know is wrong or simply disagree with....). Not to mention that the discussions at a couple of those forums are almost always unsatisfying (though I'll admit some of the ignorance and lunacy can be entertaining).

If that sounds familiar I welcome you to The Handy Snake. I hope that at the very least you’ll find this nape of the woods/neck of the wape to be an agreeable stop-gap when Paul at Cocktail Chronicles or Rick at Kaiser Penguin or Darcy at The Art of Drink are between updates and things are slow at eGullet’s cocktail forum and MSN’s DrinkBoy forums. If I can provide more than a stop-gap, well, I’ll drink to that.

As for the rest of you, I can only assume that you’re an indulgent friend or family-member checking in out of kindness or a sense of obligation or maybe you’re a web-surfer who has lost his way while searching for the easiest way to fix a clogged drain. Regardless, I hope you’ll take a look around and that maybe you’ll find something of interest. If not, thanks for stopping by. You have my word that I will not put you on the spot by asking your opinion on my latest blog entry.

Nope, I understand completely that my interest in booze and cocktails is not for everyone. I even understand that the extent of my interest might strike even those similarly inclined to be somewhat obssessive. So, don't sweat it. You go on back to your daily life and feel free to shake your head at the thought of my ridiculously over-stuffed liquor cabinet and my ever-increasing collection of books on drink, drinking and the stuff what gets drunk. That's more than okay by me. On the off-chance, though, that you find yourself in the mood to see what's up in one man's world of drink, well, this is where you'll find me.

And, so, with no further ado, if you’ll be so kind as to join me in a cyber-toast to the launching of this silly enterprise, “Here’s how!”