This month's Mixology Monday theme is "Ginger" -- what a good idea! Ginger's sweet, spicy heat figures prominently in many cocktails, such as the classic Dark 'n' Stormy or the true modern-day classic from Audrey Saunders, the Gin-Gin Mule. (Michael Dietsch is right on when he notes that wimpy, HFCS-laden "ginger ale" doesn't do the trick. You want a real ginger bite when you make one of those drinks. Ginger beer (or Blenheim Ginger Ale -- Vernors used to qualify, but they've changed it somewhat) is what's needed for the true amount of spice.) And of course, there are other options: homemade ginger beer, muddling or juicing a piece of ginger, Stone's Ginger Wine, and Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, just to name a few. I decided to go with the Domaine de Canton, simply because MxMo was a good excuse to pick up a bottle that I'd been eyeing in my local liquor store for a little while now.
Ginger's also a good remedy for upset stomachs -- candied or crystallized ginger is about as effective as Angostura in soda for soothing queasy tummies. Hmmm...maybe I should douse a piece of candied ginger with Angostura the next time I'm not feeling well. It's probably wishful thinking on my part, but I wonder if a ginger-based drink would leave the drinker less susceptible to that part of a hangover? Evidently more experimentation is needed.
Matt Robold, aka the RumDood, is hosting this month's MxMo. I hope he'll let me use a recipe without rum -- as he says it, "some people are fine with mediocrity"...ouch! I used tequila as a base spirit, since I wanted to use the Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters (more on those below), and I thought the slight bite from the Maestro Dobel might complement the ginger's subtle-sweet heat. And, once I'd decided on tequila, the Margarita was my natural starting point. As luck would have it, this one came together pretty quickly. (Thinking of Tequila por mi Amante, I also tried a variation with a teeny splash of some kickass Creme de Frais de Bois (wild strawberry) liqueur that I have, but it wound up a confused mess.) This is a very simple and not-terribly-creative drink that I'm offering this month, but I find that it goes down easily and is pretty refreshing on a hot summer's day.
Gingerita
1 1/2 oz. tequila (I used Maestro Dobel Diamond, a lighter-yet-flavorful tequila made from blended and filtered aged tequilas)
1 oz. Domaine de Canton
1/2. oz. lime juice
2 healthy dashes of Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters
Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a lime-wedge/crystallized-ginger flag.
The name is obvious, as this is essentially a Margarita with the Canton substituted for the Cointreau, plus a dash of the mole bitters. I was thinking of how much I like candied ginger dipped in dark chocolate, and thought I'd go for the chocolate note as well with this drink. (The Bittermens bitters are awesome, and the Xocolatl Mole and Grapefruit bitters are now finally available, produced by The Bitter Truth and sold in the US by The Boston Shaker! Go get some.)
There are perks to writing a cocktail blog. Not only do I occasionally get free bottles of booze sent to me (I have a big backlog of ingredients to write about), but there's also the odd party invitation now and then. One of the best, though, is getting to hang out with people like Dave Arnold and Nils Norén of the French Culinary Institute. (Remember Dave? He invented the Red Hot Poker.)
Besides teaching culinary technology and other things at the FCI, Arnold and Norén have a great blog about "tech 'n' stuff"; the "tech" part includes things like an exhaustive-but-fascinating primer on how to use a rotary evaporator to distill flavors, and the "stuff" part has all kinds of cool things, like The Skoal! Project, inspired by a badass 1967 photo of Max von Sydow shooting akvavit.
The upshot for the cocktailian reader? On June 12, Arnold and Norén are teaching a demonstration class on high-tech cocktails, and they were nice enough to give me a sneak preview. It began in typical mad-scientist freewheeling style, as Arnold told me that "everyone should have a carbonation rig." (I'd been looking at the Sodastream as an option, but Arnold waved that away and showed me his big CO2 tank he'd gotten from a welding-supply house.) First, Arnold and Norén -- wait a sec. You know, "Arnold and Norén" is good journalistic style, but this was a fun, goofy hour spent with a bunch of totally down-to-earth technical wizards. I'm gonna call 'em "Dave and Nils" instead. And that way I don't have to copy-and-paste that little accent over the E.
First Dave and Nils carbonated some water for me. Dave said "I don't drink flat water -- it's like bad seltzer." Fine, you say -- what's so impressive about fizzy water? Well, it was certainly fun to see made...the bottle is chilled and crushed (so there's minimal air inside), then attached to the CO2 line and the bottle inflates with a loud pop. Shake it a few times, and there's your seltzer. Dave then showed me water carbonated with nitrous oxide instead of CO2, which was interesting; the bubbles were smaller and less prickly-aggressive on the tongue, and the resulting seltzer was noticeably sweeter. Then, Dave and Nils carbonated some more water, mixing the gases (at about 75% CO2/25% N2O), giving me the FCI house blend of seltzer, which was very refreshing. This sold me: I'm totally gonna get me a carbonation setup...but Sangamon's Principle aside, I'll probably stick to the CO2.
Dave told me that he and Nils were interested in teaching the class June 12 because "it's a good way for us to show the stuff we're working on. We can't really do these things at the restaurant, so it's a good outlet for us." He then divided the techniques he and Nils would demonstrate into "reasonable", semi-reasonable" and "unreasonable" for the home cook, and said they'd show all three.
Dave, on using liquid nitrogen:
He uses it to chill glassware -- who has time to mess around with ice and water? You've got drinks to make!
Dave and Nils like to use pieces of pickled watermelon rind for garnishing cocktails...but they don't always have enough time to pickle them. So what do they do? They shave pieces of watermelon rind and "flash-pickle" them in a vacuum with lime juice and simple syrup -- the air is sucked out, and then when the vacuum seal is broken, the air forces the lime and simple into the watemelon rind, impregnating it with sweet-and-sour deliciousness.
You can do this with a vacuum pump, but the "semi-reasonable" solution for the home mixologist involves a large syringe, which can pull a vacuum enough to pickle the rind:
Dave and Nils also made me a refreshing "Gin & Juice" -- gin with clarified grapefruit juice (they add 1/2 % gelatin to grapefruit juice, freeze everything, then thaw it while straining through cheesecloth), then carbonate the whole thing. ("Gin loves bubbles", Dave told me. They also make their own tonic water with the carbonation rig.) The clarified grapefruit juice was interesting, with a very deep flavor but no pulp or traces of bitter pith.
I also sampled a solid Martini -- gin and vermouth mixed with liquid nitrogen to cool it, plus a dash of simple syrup and a pinch of salt. Pour the whole thing over a cucumber slice, then flash-pickle it in the vacuum pump, and you have a Martini-infused cucumber!
Nils then made me a "Swedish Chef", another intense, oddly refreshing drink with an unusual flavor combination. What, you want the recipe? Here you go: caraway-infused vodka (which smells exactly like good rye bread, confusing my nose), clarified apple juice (if it's not sour enough, they just add a dash of malic acid), a splash of St. Germain, a splash of Dolin dry vermouth, and a splash of cucumber juice. Garnish the whole thing with a slice of cucumber that's been flash-pickled with Plymouth Navy Strength gin.
This month's Mixology Monday theme is "Amaro", chosen by none other than co-author Chuck Taggart over at Looka. What an interesting topic; there are tons of amari, all different and many of them quite mixable. They range from light herbal vermouth-esque liqueurs to real monsters of bitterness, like Campari, Fernet Branca (the legendarily bitter drink that'd be a punchline more than a tipple if it weren't so complex and beneficial), and Malört.
I picked one somewhere in the middle -- Amaro Ramazzotti. (I also picked it because it's an ingredient in "Amer Boudreau", Jamie Boudreau's replication of the incredibly-hard-to-find Amer Picon. So if I make some of that, then I can have Picon Punches and Bywaters. I need to get on this, I think.) It reminds me of a good sweet vermouth, like a Vya or Punt E Mes, or Carpano Antica Formula, and that make sense -- it's Italian-made, intensely herbal, with a sweet note on top of all the bitter funkiness underneath.
My first thought was to try something with rye and Cherry Heering, as kind of a Manhattan variation. I was also thinking of chocolate-covered cherries, and kirsch-filled chocolate bars, and decided that it might be really interesting with the Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters (which are unique and excellent) but then Chuck posted the wonderful-looking Eagle Rock cocktail, featuring rye, sweet vermouth, amaro, Cherry Heering, and mole bitters. Foiled! It was time to regroup.
Casting an eye over the rack of bitters in my kitchen, I pulled out a few candidates, and after a few false starts and mishaps (like when the orifice restrictor in the bottle of lemon bitters came off with the cap, and I unknowingly poured about two ounces of bitters in my mixing glass -- gawp!), I came up with something I liked. I kept going back and forth about which bitters to use: was it better with lemon and rhubarb? Or with lemon and cherry? Cherry and rhubarb? Well, why not all three? (I'm sure the Fee Brothers would approve.)
And, if Chuck could name a cocktail after his neighborhood, then I can name one after mine. It's pan-ethnic, and a little bit spicy, much like my Queens nabe. (Yes, I know there's an Astoria cocktail in the Savoy Cocktail Book, but it's essentially a dry Martini. Good, yes, but not evocative of the place. Perhaps that Astoria cocktail is named after the Waldorf=Astoria hotel, and not so much my corner of northwestern Queens.)
The Astoria
1 oz. rye whiskey (I used the Rittenhouse 100; if you're using the baby Saz or another 80-proof, you may want to up the amount a little)
1 oz. Amaro Ramazzotti
1/2 oz. Lillet Blanc
2 dashes lemon bitters
2 dashes rhubarb bitters
1 dash cherry bitters
Stir with ice for at least 60 seconds until very cold. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a flamed lemon peel.
For what it's worth, which may not be much, the idea that being an avid Cockatilian is somehow incompatible with being body-conscious is a canard that's quickly losing steam. We're not all slovenly slobs & soused sots in search of some sweet slack. (Not, in case it needs be said, that there's anything wrong with that.)
In fact, combining an active lifestyle, or even a strenuous workout regimen, with an appreciation of fine imbibage is not only possible, but even desirable. All that you as a future fitness freak & festivity fetishist need to know is what drinks are better than others for filleting your form to its finest.
I always thought beer & liquor and wine were all pretty much the same in terms of effect and intake, accounting for the different portion sizes, but according to this thread on Google Answers, gin should be the imbiber's bevvy of choice. G&T's, it seems, are almost guilt-free! (Honestly, though, unless you're having like nine of these things a night, none of the choices seem like a huge nutritional investment. In other words, it's not the booze, it's what the booze does to you that screws you up. (Mmmmm, cheese fries at 2am.))
(Yes, I know the link is almost seven years old. Our parents weren't even born when that thread was posted, but I'm guessing the nutritional value of things hasn't changed that much since the Clinton era. I'm willing to go with it. Calorie King concurs, and throws sake in as another alternative, which I'm all for. And if you want to get your hands dirty in the whats and hows, MedecineNet goes into great detail about how various alcohols work on the body. If, however, you just want a straight-up chart, this British site is fairly good.)
We at Cocktailians always advocate staying in control, even if we don't always (or, well, frankly, let's face it, ever) practice it ourselves. And certainly, if you're a type who's got 2% body fat and are obsessed with your lats and splecs and delts and reps or whatever, we're going to be stuck in smalltalkville for a long time if we meet at the pub. But we strive to be a full-service site, and it's important to include the more buff of youse in our great cocktailian equation.
Just wanted to engage in a bit of shameless ego-boo; yours truly, along with abigbunchofillustriouscocktailbloggers, got quoted in this nice article about the drinkblogointerwebscape in the Telegraph of India. Thanks, Anindita!
The other night, co-author Tony Hightower and I were invited to the launch party that Pernod Ricard was throwing to introduce Beefeater 24, its newest offering. (Here's the press release.) A premium gin, Beefeater 24 has some unusual botanicals, chiefly its use of Chinese green tea and Japanese Sencha tea. There are also a lot of citrus notes; the other botanicals in the gin are grapefruit, Seville orange (much like regular Beefeater), lemon peel, licorice, almond, orris root, angelica root, coriander, and of course good old juniper.
We spoke with master distiller Desmond Payne, and he told us about the process of creating an entirely new gin: "It was about five years ago, in Japan, and I was drinking my favorite gin and tonic, but there was something different. They don't allow quinine in tonic water there, so I started using iced teas as a mixer." He went on to tell us that the lemon-flavored iced teas brought something new to the gin, and it got him thinking. After about eighteen months of tinkering in his lab (with a miniature still and gin production line -- and wouldn't that be fun to play with!), he came up with what would become Beefeater 24. The company "slightly bravely" convened tasting panels in New York and London, and solicited feedback from illustrious cocktailians such as Sasha Petraske, Audrey Saunders, and Gary Regan. The panels told him that it was missing a little something, and after some extra research Payne came up with Japanese Sencha green tea. It's named "24", Payne told us, because the botanicals steep in the neutral spirit for 24 hours before distilling. He said that scaling the gin up from his tabletop still also presented challenges, and that "exactly the same as the skill of making a good cocktail, you've got to keep it all in balance", likening it to spinning plates.
Payne also told us that it was a great pleasure to make his very own gin, noting that "all these years, I'd been making someone else's recipe." He's been in the gin-making business for over forty years, including time spent at Plymouth and Beefeater...so originality hasn't always been prized by his bosses as much as utter consistency: "In my office at Beefeater, there's a portrait of our founder James Burroughs on the opposite wall. staring down at me. And if ever I'm tempted to put in so much as an extra juniper berry, there's going to be thunderbolts."
Both Desmond Payne and Beefeater brand ambassador Dan Warner told me something I hadn't heard before and thought was interesting: Spain is the single largest per-capita consumer of gin -- more than the UK even. (The US buys more Beefeater by volume than anywhere else, however.) And it's not just sozzled British expats on the Costa del Sol drinking up all that gin; much like vodka is the trendy spirit in the US, gin is greatly favored in Spain.
But enough about that, though: how does the gin taste? I really enjoyed it; it's got a light attack, with a noticeable citrus nose off the top. I'm not a huge fan of regular Beefeater, with its almost kerosene-like sharpness. I found 24 to be very smooth, with a long finish redolent of the teas, coriander, and anise botanicals. The first drink I had with it was a gin and tonic (made with Brooklyn's own Q Tonic) was very citrus-y -- it'd ward off scurvy in a pinch. Good, but I tend to like more juniper flavor in a gin and tonic. (I'm not sure if it was the Q Tonic, or the very large orange and lime twists as garnish, or what led to such a strong citrus note. Stay tuned for a Tonic Water Shootout here at Cocktailians, as the matter is definitely worthy of future investigation.)
I then asked the hard-working bartenders for an ounce or so, shaken with ice and served up neat, so I could more closely examine the flavors. After that, I went with their "Beefeater 24 Martini", made 5:1 with Lillet Blanc and a healthy dash of Regans' Orange Bitters No. 6. This was a fantastic Martini, with the light Lillet mixing very well with the gin...and despite the oranginess of Lillet and of course the bitters, the citrus wasn't over the top, and the juniper and tea flavors of the gin really came to the fore. If I'd been making them myself, I might have gone with a 3:1 ratio, but this was a very nice drink. (I didn't taste Sasha Petraske's "Shifting Sands", made with equal parts gin and grapefruit juice, plus a touch of lemon juice and a couple barspoons of Maraschino, all topped with club soda, but Tony reports that it was a "citrus bomb." Maraschino's an interesting idea for a mixer, though.)
I look forward to mixing with Beefeater 24; I think the tea's slight astringency might make for an interesting Ramos Gin Fizz, and the Pernod Ricard PR rep described a tea-based drink (reminiscent of Audrey Saunders' Earl Grey Marteani) where you infuse a bag of Earl Grey tea into the gin and then mix with Peychaud's and Dubonnet. I think a Corpse Reviver No. 2 would be pretty good, too, given its Lillet and Cointreau and lemon components. Perhaps something with Aperol or Suze? Or a lightish fizz? This'll be fun.
He's invented a "Red Hot Poker" that's electrically heated to over 1700°F, which he then plunges into drinks, caramelizing the sugars and adding a toasty note to their flavors. Arnold told me in a recent interview that he's simply updating "the oldest boiling technology", pointing out that people originally boiled liquids in hollowed-out wood or clay pots by dropping heated rocks into them. (You see vestiges of this method in the superheated stone or iron pots used for Korean dolsot bibimbap.)
Arnold said that in the late 17th- and early 18th-centuries, a popular drink in what would become the US was a "flip" (no relation to the slightly-more-common "flip" style of cocktail with eggs, a sort of a creamless eggnog.) A flip consisted of ale, rum or brandy and sugar or molasses. The bartender would heat a "loggerhead" -- a tool consisting of a long pole with a ball on one end and a handle on the other, originally used to melt pitch -- in the fire and use it to heat the drinks. These flips were popular roughly until the Civil War.
After reading John Hull Brown's "Early American Beverages", Arnold became interested in flips and loggerheads, and decided to experiment with them. He first picked up some soldering coppers -- solid copper rods used in welding and soldering -- and heated them on the stove. Those infused a slight copper taste and "left little black flecks of metal in the drink", so they were unacceptable. He then built a small insulated box with a bendable heating coil inside, to warm a loggerhead-like poker...but that box got too hot: "We put a chicken heart in there, and it basically exploded." Vaporized poultry hearts aside, the iron poker also left a noticeable taste in the drinks. Next, he tried a high-temperature stainless-steel alloy, but that wasn't a terribly good conductor of heat, and it didn't heat the drinks with quite enough oomph.
So finally, he settled on an internally heated rod made from an esoteric nickel-based alloy, and he hooked it up to bendable heating coils and all kinds of thermocouples and other gear to control and monitor the temperature. When he demonstrated it to me, though, the equipment was recalcitrant, and he fought with it: first having to find a way to run it without blowing a circuit breaker, then discovering a short circuit and re-soldering it in front of me. The fixed version didn't have a working thermocouple on it, so the digital temperature display wouldn't be reliable. The indefatigable Arnold would have to gauge the temperature by eye. And monitoring the temperature is important: the Red Hot Ale cocktail he created ignites at 1700°F, the Red Hot Manhattan he also serves ignites at 1750°F...and the heating element burns out at 1800°F. Delicacy and a keen eye were going to be absolutely necessary.
(Before he got around to fitting the poker with a temperature display, Arnold had to learn what, say, 1700°F looks like. "The one reference we had", he said, "was 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.'")
So he set to measuring out Ommegang Abbey ale, Courvoisier Cognac, a bit of simple syrup (since the poker's caramelizing effect takes some of the sweetness out, he mixes the cocktails a bit sweeter than usual), lemon juice, and some Regans' Orange Bitters, stirred them, and set them alight with the poker. The beer foamed wildly as he agitated the poker, and when it was done he set the finished drink in front of me. It was yeasty, toasty, and slightly sweet -- and it was wonderful and like nothing I'd ever tasted before.
Next up was the Red Hot Manhattan, which he made with Sazerac rye, Dolin vermouth, and Angostura bitters. This time the flames shot even higher, and the resulting toddy-like drink was very good -- still recognizably a Manhattan, with noticeable sweet-vermouth notes, but with the feel of warm whiskey.
After wowing me with the Red Hot Poker, Arnold then showed me another toy -- his rotary evaporator, or "roto-vap." Arnold uses it as a vacuum distiller, and infuses neutral spirits (el-cheapo vodka, filtered multiple times through charcoal) or other liquors with whatever he can think up. (Unlike the Red Hot Poker drinks, he can't sell the results at the French Culinary Institute's restaurants.) The low-temperature distilling infuses the flavors into the spirit with a great deal of presence; I sampled a caraway aquavit with a very forward rye-bread flavor, a peanut-infused Scotch that was fantastically fascinating, and even vodka and Scotch infused with hops. ("Hops-Scotch", of course.) The roto-vap removed the hops' extreme bitterness but left their characteristic flavor. I wish this stuff were more readily available...hmmm...perhaps I'll have to start trolling eBay for a roto-vap of my own.
Arnold is working on opening a bar with pastry-chef pal Johnny Iuzinni of Jean-Georges, but until then, you can taste the Red Hot Ale and Red Hot Manhattan at L'Ecole, the French Culinary Institute's restaurant.
This month's Mixology Monday theme is "Ginger" -- what a good idea! Ginger's sweet, spicy heat figures prominently in many cocktails, such as the classic Dark 'n' Stormy or the true modern-day classic from Audrey Saunders, the Gin-Gin Mule. (Michael Dietsch is right on when he notes that wimpy, HFCS-laden "ginger ale" doesn't do the trick. You want a real ginger bite when you make one of those drinks. Ginger beer (or Blenheim Ginger Ale -- Vernors used to qualify, but they've changed it somewhat) is what's needed for the true amount of spice.) And of course, there are other options: homemade ginger beer, muddling or juicing a piece of ginger, Stone's Ginger Wine, and Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, just to name a few. I decided to go with the Domaine de Canton, simply because MxMo was a good excuse to pick up a bottle that I'd been eyeing in my local liquor store for a little while now.
