Mixology Monday does shots.

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.

Mixology Monday gets festive

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.

MixMo follow-up

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.

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.