Cocktailians

Tonic Water Shootout, Part 2: The Results

If you'll recall from our last installment, we're investigating tonic water and trying to figure out which one is best. We've settled on a method, lined up judges, and introduced our contenders. Joanna, being a bona fide college professor and certified Smart Person, suggested that we taste the G&Ts made with the premium tonics first, then the mass-markets, and then the syrups, so our palates wouldn't get confused or lulled by an orderly progression from least to most robust. So, how'd they do?

Group 1: The High-End Sodas

Here are comments and tasting notes from judges, aggregated by each tonic. (As you'll recall, the judges didn't know which tonic was which until the end of the tasting, and were referring to cups marked with letters.)

• Q Tonic: "Not dry dry, but a different quality from the others"; "Almost chalky -- it draws the moisture out of my mouth like a very dry white wine. Is it alkalinity that I'm tasting? Very delicate flavor"; "It doesn't jump out much; any bite I'm tasting is from the gin, not the tonic."
• Fentimans Tonic Water: "Odd dry-acid aftertaste, but not unpleasant. Lemony."; "Quite dry -- not too acidic. Smooth and unobtrusive."; "More quinine than [Q Tonic]."
• Fever-Tree Premium Indian Tonic Water: "Sweet, kind of bland. Not much there. Closest to tonic off the gun."; "Citrusy, sweeter, but nicely balanced. More lime-y" than the others."; "Way sweeter, but the most tonic-y. What I think of as tonic."
• Fever-Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water: "Longer flavor, lime-ier."; "Very nice. The tonic flavor comes out fast, but doesn't linger. There's something almost herbal here."; "This tonic plays better, and the tonic flavors are integrated with its other tastes."

Then, we ranked our choices from most to least favorite:

• Sam chose Fever-Tree Mediterranean, then Fever-Tree Indian, then Q Tonic, then Fentimans.
• Joanna chose Fever-Tree Mediterranean, then Fentimans, then Fever-Tree Indian, then Q Tonic.
• Tony did exactly the same, and chose Fever-Tree Mediterranean, then Fentimans, then Fever-Tree Indian, then Q Tonic. He commented "My tonic should taste like tonic. If I want a gin and soda, I'll order it."

Fever-Tree Mediterranean was the first-ranked by everyone and thus the clear winner. We were impressed by the different approaches taken by the various premium tonic brands -- they certainly didn't march in lockstep like the mass-market brands -- and surprised by how different they all were from each other, with varying botanicals, acid and bitterness levels, and sweetener choice. Working with cane sugar and agave nectar for sweetening was a definite help. 

Group 2: The Mass-Markets

Once again, comments and tasting notes from judges, aggregated by each tonic:

• Schweppes Tonic Water: "Swimming-pool chlorine flavor. Chemical. Burny."; "Not as terrible as you describe...it's like gin & tonic next to a pool. This is doing a better imitation of a G&T."; Terrible. Serious chemical taste, almost like cleanser."
• Canada Dry Tonic Water: "Not terrible. Very average, but not bad."; "Not as terrible [as Sodastream.] Still a little fake tasting, but better balanced. It doesn't crush the gin, nor is it crushed by the gin, but it's one-note."; "Better than [Schweppes or Sodastream]. I can only taste it in the top of the palate. With this G&T, I can only taste juniper when I exhale through my nose."
• Trade Fair Premium Tonic Water: "There's not much there -- it makes gin less interesting."; "I can't taste the gin. Really floral and soapy."; "In this company, [Trade Fair] is the shining light."
• Sodastream Tonic Sodamix: "Big fake lemon + sugar flavor."; "That tastes a lot more like chemicals. The tonic isn't working very hard; I  can definitely taste the gin. It's like gin diluted with sugar water, but the sugar flavor is fake."; "This just tastes like a glass of gin with ice. Except that it's got a very Splenda/Lemsip flavor to it."

Then, we ranked our choices from most to least favorite:

• Sam chose Canada Dry, then Trade Fair, then Schweppes, then Sodastream.
• Joanna chose Canada Dry, then Schweppes, then Sodastream, then Trade Fair. (She singled out the soapiness she detected in Trade Fair as definitely sending it to the bottom of the list.)
• Tony chose Trade Fair, then Canada Dry, then Sodastream, then Schweppes.

As I'd kind of expected -- yeah, we're snobs -- the mass-markets performed poorly compared with the other categories. The three tonic waters were all sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, and there wasn't much distinctive about any of them individually or collectively as a category. I believe the quinine in all of these is artificially produced. The Sodastream tonic concentrate is sweetened with a sucrose/Splenda combination, which may have contributed to its low position in the rankings. (I bet they have to have Splenda in the mix to get it as concentrated as it is; one 500ml bottle makes 12 liters of tonic water.)

Group 3: Syrups & Such

Once again, comments and tasting notes from judges, aggregated by each tonic:

• Jeffrey Morgenthaler's Tonic Syrup recipe: "Rich, big, voluptuous. A very nice balance of bitterness, darkness, & citrus. Best in Show."; "I get ginger from this. Citrus and clove. Spicy. It doesn't taste a lot like a gin and tonic, but I like it a lot. It's herbal and assertive. Not classic, but very nice. Lovely."; "I'm speechless. It's got Christmas-y spices, and a definite nutmeg-ish note."
• Toby Cecchini's Quinine Syrup recipe: "Acidic. Bright lemon/grapefruit."; "Citrusy, but not a citric-acid flavor. Delicious, and mellower [than Morgenthaler's.]"; "I get oranges from this. I really liked it."
• Tomr's Tonic: "Yum. I get ginger, bitterness, and astringency. Balanced, but with a heavy bitter edge."; "Bitter. It starts a little fruity, then takes a left turn and crashes into a bitter wall. It's got a bark flavor and strong spice, and it may have overtaken [Cecchini's] in my ranking."; "Bitter. I'd put it up with the top two [Morgenthaler's and Cecchini's.]"
• Bittermens Commonwealth Tonic Liqueur: "Very floral, with higher alcohol. I don't like it much, though, as it doesn't mesh with the gin."; "Very bitter, and one-note bitter. It tastes like flowers gone bad."; "Very floral, like a dandelion salad. The gin still exists in the glass, but not as much."
  • UPDATE: Avery Glasser from Bittermens has been in touch, and asks if we perhaps goofed on the proportions, and mixed this G&T with as much as double the amount of Commonwealth that they recommend. This could easily be the case, and we will investigate, re-taste, and update our findings here ASAP.
  • UPDATE ON THE UPDATE: We definitely goofed on the proportions -- apologies. We made another G&T, in the same kind of glass, using the same amount of ice and the preferred recipe on the Bittermens website. However, none of the three of us really liked this one too much either, although it was better than the original one we'd tasted. The floral notes weren't nearly as overwhelming as in the first one we'd made, but the correct one was still extremely bitter and we didn't think it played well with the gin. Fair enough; the website does say that they like their gin and tonics "very bitter, very dry", and this totally qualifies. We then tried their "very well balanced variant" on their preferred recipe, which replaces a quarter-ounce of the cordial with simple syrup: while this was much better -- the best of the three G&Ts with the Bittermens Commonwealth we tried -- and went down easier, our consensus was that it was still way too bitter and unbalanced. So if you like a really bitter G&T, the Commonwealth may be for you. We're not saying it's a bad product, but its flavor profile does skew extremely heavily in that particular direction. (I haven't had any of the other Bittermens Spirits line, though I really do want to try their New Orleans Coffee Liqueur with its chicory notes.) And of course, we love their line of bitters.

Then, we ranked our choices from most to least favorite:

• Sam chose Jeffrey Morgenthaler's recipe, then Toby Cecchini's recipe, then Tomr's, then Bittermens.
• Joanna duplicated this exactly: first Jeffrey Morgenthaler's, then Toby Cecchini's, then Tomr's, then Bittermens.
• Tony switched up the first two and chose Toby Cecchini's, then Jeffrey Morgenthaler's, then Tomr's, then Bittermens.

We were expecting strong flavors -- and strong opinions -- in this batch, and we certainly weren't disappointed. The idiosyncratic approaches to tonic syrups mean that they diverge wildly. As you'll see above, there were many mentions of Christmas spices such as clove and nutmeg; those particular spices weren't in the recipes, but judges were picking up on the allspice that was in both homemade syrups. (Toby Cecchini's syrup had the addition of cardamom and lavender as well.) The homemade syrups clearly beat the packaged syrup and the liqueur, and our wonderings about an alcoholic tonic water skewing the flavor were mostly unfounded. One nice thing about making your own syrup is that you can tweak the recipe; as Jeffrey Morgenthaler suggests, you could increase the orange peel if you'll be mixing it with a softer, citrus-y gin such as Plymouth.

So: what have we learned here?  Each of the three of us picked a Best in Show: Sam chose Jeffrey Morgenthaler's Tonic Syrup recipe. Tony picked Fever-Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water. And Joanna equivocated a bit between the two positions: "Fever-Tree Mediterranean is the best for what I understand a Gin & Tonic to be. But both the homemade syrups make delicious drinks." I think she's getting at something here: the syrups do represent a very different approach to a G&T than a traditional bottled tonic water, and a drinker's expectations have to enter into it somewhere as well. One thing we all agreed on, as Tony put it, was that "Big-brand tonic is crap. I am amazed at the gulf between the various premium brands and the mass-market ones." 

We expected the homemade syrups to do well, since the ingredients are fresh and the syrups don't need to have preservatives or be shelf-stable. But what we weren't expecting was a clear winner in the boutique tonic brands, the brand-new Fever-Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water. A surprise, since this tonic was designed to pair with vodka! So: what about this tonic makes it go well with vodka, blank canvas that it is, and why did we like it so much with gin? Does the rosemary in the tonic hook up with the juniper in the gin and make sweet piney love? The herbal notes from the rosemary and the lemon thyme just really sang with the gin, and the combination of citrus and herbals was inspired. This may be an avenue worthy of further experiments with homemade syrups as well -- maybe add more savory herbs to the citrus and other spices in the recipe and see what happens.

Another important thing to note is that this was a head-to-head test, designed to highlight relatively small differences in the various tonics, in narrow categories. While most tonics that we tasted would beat a G&T put together by an indifferent bartender with well gin and tonic off the soda gun, the best Gin & Tonic is generally the one that happens to be currently in your hand, whatever the circumstances. For instance, Tomr's Tonic scored third out of four in its category in our tasting, but the Beefeater and tonic that brand proprietor Tom Richter mixed me at the Beagle was by far the best Gin & Tonic that I've ever had at a bar. The high-quality tonic syrup helped in that, for sure, but Tom's good-humored attention, concentration in his approach to the task, and passion for his work all translated directly to what I tasted in the glass. And, that attention and care can pay off for your gin and tonics at home.

Celebrating National Rum Day with Sailor Jerry

I wasn't expecting much from the Sailor Jerry's National Rum Day celebration at Mother's Ruin. They weren't launching a new product, just promoting some punches for the back end of Summer, and having a nice get-together for a few of their closest friends^[1].

Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins was a tattoo artist who served in the South Pacific before and during the second World War, where he developed his artistic style. He also played saxophone in various bands, hosted radio shows and gave lectures on tattoo art, and extended his tattoo brand into all kinds of ventures, most importantly (to us, anyway) to spiced rum.^[2]

Rum was one of the earliest distilled spirits to be grown in North America, and in the 17th and 18th century was drank by rich and poor alike, not just pirates and hoodlums. But when prohibition hit, bootleggers turned primarily to whiskey and gin to keep underground America lubricated. Rum managed to thrive as a niche drink from the Caribbean, that had developed a foothold in Cuba and the Antilles, but it's taken much of the last 75 years to regain a serious foothold in American cocktail culture.

That said, on to the cocktails themselves. My main use of Sailor Jerry is in Dark & Stormys, so while the rest of the world is used to citrusy rum concoctions, I was coming to this with a relatively clear palate.

Two of the samples really stood out. The Rowes Wharf Punch refreshes on a hot day the way a good punch should.

• 1 part blackberry grapefruit tea oleo syrup^[3]
• 1 part grapefruit juice
• 1/2 part lime juice
• 2 parts spiced rum
• 1/8 part Angostura bitters (or to taste; we like more)
• 2-3 parts ginger beer

Combine everything except the ginger beer into a bowl, add ice and stir, then add the ginger beer. serve over ice. Once you have the ingredients assembled, you can make these all day & night.

But the centerpiece of the evening was clearly the Wahine Pina Colada, a surprise to me as I have never been a big pina colada fan. Maybe people making them were trying to be too cute with the ingredients. This is a brute-force recipe that came out fantastic. Then again, I do love pineapple.

• 1 part fresh pineapple juice
• 1 part cream of coconut (two cans coconut milk + 2 oz. lime juice)
• 1 part spiced rum

Pour it into a hollowed-out pineapple, if you have one, and garnish it with coconut flakes, an orchid, or an umbrella, if you have them.

A Wahine is a Hawaiian female goddess, though my first thought whenever I see the term is the first song in this montage. Happy National Rum Day, everyone. If you missed it, make it up this weekend. Stay cool.

[1] or, in my case, friends of friends.

[2] One of Sailor Jerry's proteges was a young Ed Hardy, who learned some of the master's lessons very well, though his vodka is a stylistic mess.

[3] To make the oleo syrup: Brew a strong cup of English tea, and (separately) muddle a grapefruit peel and a handful of blackberries into a cup of cane sugar. (You can swap out other rinds and berries if you have them, as long as you have both.) This is a useful fruity syrup that works in a lot of other cocktails.

Tonic Water Shootout, Part 1: The Contenders

The Problem: It's still summer, and it can still be H-O-T out there.. And tropical levels of humidity demand something cool and refreshing. Maybe with bubbles and some lime, to cut the stickiness. In short, summertime demands a gin and tonic. And you want -- you deserve -- the best possible G&T, no? So how do you make sure you get the very best?

We need to determine the best gin and the best tonic, obviously. Scientifically, by making lots of gin and tonics, changing slight variables, and seeing what's best. Fortunately, the fine folks at the Ultimate Cocktail Challenge were on the case, and last year they evaluated dozens of gins and determined the best one -- not just by itself, but the best gin for various cocktails such as a Negroni, Martini, or Aviation. (I stopped by the cocktail judging last year -- here's my report for Cocktailians.) The judges have spoken: the best gin in a Gin & Tonic is Beefeater 24. 

Thus, it's high time for a Tonic Water Shootout to determine which tonic is best. It should combine quinine bitterness with citrus brightness, and mesh perfectly with gin to produce a delightful drink. Which tonic would emerge victorious?

The Method: We used 10oz plastic cups, filled them with equal amounts of ice, and added 2 oz. of gin. (We went with Beefeater as our gin of choice. It placed second in the Ultimate Cocktail Challenge for Gin & Tonic, three points behind Beefeater 24, and is both a fine London Dry gin and a real bargain.) We then added an eighth of a lime (unsqueezed) and filled the cup with the tonic being tested and gave each cup a quick stir. (For the concentrate, we followed the directions and used a capful of concentrate to flavor one liter of carbonated water. For the tonic syrups, we followed the directions in their recipes or on the bottle label. The tonic liqueur didn't have proportions recommended on the label, but we used the same proportions recommended by the tonic syrup.)

It wasn't entirely a double-blind tasting, but we did label each cup with a letter of the alphabet, recorded which tonic was which, and then set that log aside until after we'd tasted everything, discussed our tasting notes, and ranked our favorites. When tasting, we referred to the tonics by letter; it was pretty easy and fairly quick to forget which tonic corresponded to any given letter. (We were drinking, after all.)

The Judges: Much as in our evaluation of the cocktails of the Triple Crown, the judges consisted of Sam Meyer (yours truly), co-author Tony Hightower, and Special Guest Star Joanna Scutts, author of life.savour..

The Contenders: I tried to round up as many different kinds of tonic water as I could, and wound up with twelve, spanning the styles from store brand to premium tonic water brands. (I purchased all of the tonics myself, with the exception of the two Fever-Tree tonics, which were sent to me, unsolicited, by the brand's PR firm as samples.) We had a few tonic water syrups -- both store-bought and homemade -- and one alcoholic tonic liqueur. We felt that it would be fairest to test the tonics in groups roughly determined by their styles, and as luck would have it this shook out to three groups of four tonics each. Here are the groups in the order we tasted them:

Group 1: The High-End Sodas

These four tonic waters are premium boutique brands from soda and mixer companies who are trying to deliver a better tonic experience. They aim for an upscale, gourmet market, and were all packaged in small glass bottles. They are:

• Q Tonic: One of the first brands to offer an alternative to supermarket tonic waters, Q Tonic uses Peruvian quinine and Mexican agave nectar. The company started in Brooklyn, and the tonic is produced in Massachusetts. (Note: Q Tonic also comes in 750ml bottles, but I would think that would kill the carbonation.)
• Fentimans Tonic Water: This soda company was founded in 1905 in England, but their products for the North American market are made at the Lion Brewery in Pennsylvania. The tonic water incorporates milled quinine bark, an organic grain base, and Asian lemongrass, and is sweetened with cane sugar.
• Fever-Tree Premium Indian Tonic Water: Named after a local African nickname for the cinchona tree, Fever-Tree was started by Charles Rolls, former marketing director of Plymouth Gin, and luxury food marketer Tim Warrillow in 2005. Their cinchona comes from the Rwanda/Congo border region, and they boast that they use eight botanicals including marigolds (!) from Africa, lemons and lemon oil from Sicily, and hand-pressed orange oil from Tanzania. The tonic is sweetened with cane sugar.
• Fever-Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water: This brand-new offering from Fever-Tree claims to be the first tonic specifically formulated to pair with vodka. Its botanicals differ from the Indian Tonic Water, and include lemon thyme and rosemary from Provence, as well as citrus. It can be fairly difficult to find and isn't even listed on the Fever-Tree website yet.

Group 2: The Mass-Markets

Here we have the big two brands available at most supermarkets, as well as a store brand from a local grocery chain. If you go out in search of tonic water, one of these types of products is probably what you'll find fastest and cheapest. All three are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup and were packaged in one-liter plastic bottles, though small glass bottles of the big two brands are readily available as well. We also include a tonic concentrate designed to be mixed with carbonated water.

• Schweppes Tonic Water: One of the massive brands of beverage mixers, Schweppes was founded in Switzerland in 1783 and moved to London nine years later. After various corporate machinations, Schweppes is now owned by the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, which is headquartered in Plano, Texas, and also produces many other brands including Rose's Lime Juice, IBC Root Beer, Stewart's Fountain Classics, Vernors, and, surprisingly, the other big mixer brand, Canada Dry. 
• Canada Dry Tonic Water: Canada Dry was founded in Toronto in 1890, and launched its best-known product, ginger ale, in 1904. Canada Dry Tonic Water was introduced in the 1930s, when Prohibition demanded more mixers that could disguise the taste of bootleg and bathtub liquors. After similar corporate machinations, it was purchased in 1986 by Cadbury Schweppes and is now also owned by the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.
• Trade Fair Premium Tonic Water: Store brand from a local grocery chain in western Queens, New York. This bottle was purchased right next to corporate HQ in Astoria, NY, a three-minute stroll from Cocktailians HQ. And according to the label, the product contains not cinchona, not quinine, but "QUINNNE." [Sic] transit gloria mundi!
• Sodastream Tonic Sodamix: From popular home carbonator manufacturer Sodastream, this concentrate is part of their line of soda concentrates, which extends to over 60 different flavors of sodas, teas, and naturally-flavored drinks. The company was founded in Israel in 1991, and has been operating in the US since 2003. Unusually, the tonic sodamix is sweetened with a combination of sucrose and sucralose (aka Splenda), not with high-fructose corn syrup.

Group 3: Syrups & Such

This group is everything else: two different recipes for homemade tonic syrup, one commercially available tonic syrup from a small company, and an alcoholic tonic liqueur. The tonic syrup market seems to have greatly expanded in the past year or two. I'd like to try more tonic syrups, such as the offerings from John's Tonic, Liber & Co., or Jack Rudy, but either wasn't able to track them down in fairly limited time or wasn't able to get to where they were sold. Nevertheless, these four tonics represent an artisanal approach to tonic water, usually coming from very small operations or sole proprietors determined to make better tonic.

• Jeffrey Morgenthaler's Tonic Syrup recipe: Ace bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler needs no introduction, as he writes one of the best cocktail blogs around while also managing Clyde Common in Portland. This recipe combines the zest and juice of an orange, a lemon, and a lime, as well as allspice berries, fresh lemongrass, citric acid, and kosher salt, as well as the all-important cinchona bark. These are cooked with water, strained, filtered, and mixed with agave nectar to sweeten. (One note: the recipe specifies 3/4 cup of agave nectar for each cup of hot mix, but I found this way too acidic and not sweet enough. After adding more nectar to taste, I wound up with about a 1:1 agave nectar:hot mix ratio. I also added half an ounce or so of vodka to the finished syrup as a preservative.)
• Toby Cecchini's Quinine Syrup recipe: Toby Cecchini owned Passerby in New York, claims to have invented the Cosmopolitan, and pens the "Case Study" column on drinking in T, the New York Times' Sunday magazine supplement. He notes that while his syrups "can make some spectacularly interesting cocktails as a straight syrup, they produce curious G&Ts. Great for their odd, homemade quirkiness but maybe not for everyone." This recipe is pretty similar to Jeffrey Morgenthaler's above, but ditches the citrus juice, adds lavender and cardamom, and ups the amount of the citrus zest. (And instead of an orange's zest, it substitutes a Seville orange's, or a grapefruit's or a pomelo's. I used grapefruit.) This mix is sweetened with rich simple syrup, and similar to the other recipe I added a small amount of vodka to the finished syrup to prevent mold and spoilage.
• Tomr's Tonic: Made by New York bartender Tom Richter, whom I encountered at the Beagle in the East Village. His friendliness and enthusiasm put his tonic syrup on my radar. His syrup, which he describes as combining the best aspects of several different readily available recipes, is sweetened by organic cane sugar.
• Bittermens Commonwealth Tonic Liqueur: By the Bittermens duo of Avery and Janet Glasser, better known for their very fine line of cocktail bitters. They've recently branched out to some esoteric spirits that are interesting indeed. They write, "Our issue with the new garde of tonic waters is that they just aren't tonic-y enough. We figure that it's because there's only so much bitterness that you can extract without using a bit of alcohol." This liqueur is 21%abv and is, to my knowledge, unique as a tonic liqueur. (Though, of course, there are lots of wine-based quinquinas out there.)

The Results: Well, you're just going to have to wait for the next installment. Isn't this one long enough?

Drinky Linky: The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Happy National Rum Day! I wrote about it over at CNN's Eatocracy site. 

(Also recently, I wrote about National Daiquiri Day, National Tequila Day, and National Scotch Day. God bless this fine country of ours.)

There's lots of other interesting things I've found on teh interwebs lately:

• Jim Meehan picks his top ten new bars in the US. I would consider this a checklist: NoMad and Bellocq are both great, and I would love nothing more to go visit the other eight. Where's that Powerball ticket again?
• Todd Lipman of the Boston Harbor Hotel lists his top five refreshing summer cocktails;
• Here's a neat rundown of ice in America by CNN's Eden Pontz. With quotes from Richie Boccato, whose Hundredweight Ice adjacent to Dutch Kills may be worth a look.
• Food Republic brings us seven ways to drink Aperol. Besides the spritzer, that is. 
• And spritzers are apparently just fine at Bloomberg Businessweek...which news is prompted by
• The Economist's lament that people aren't drinking at work anymore;
• Nice profile of Julian Van Winkle by Wells Tower in Garden & Gun;
• Doug Quinn, late of P.J. Clarke's, is planning a comeback!
• Hey Mr. Mixologist: Did you have to go to college for this?
• Boozy sandwiches!
• Dale DeGroff introduces new pimento bitters. I am officially intrigued.
• Grub Street asked several bartenders at Tales of the Cocktail (yes, recap post(s) coming soon, I swear) about their predictions for the future of mixology;

So Yeah, It's Been A While

Which isn't to say that I haven't been busy. I've been writing a lot elsewhere, but will renew my efforts to keep up the ship here. For you. Yes, you. You're my favorite.

I've been writing for CNN:

• National Mint Julep Day;
• National Bourbon Day;
• National Dry Martini Day;
• National Anisette Day; and
• National Pina Colada Day.

And I've been reviewing new and new-ish cocktail bars in New York for Diffords Guide's CLASS Magazine, which has been tons of fun. Here are links to my reviews:

• October 12, 2011, when I reviewed Ai Fiori, The Lantern's Keep, JBird (the original location, before they decamped to the Upper East Side), White & Church, Theater Bar, and Rum House;
• November 29, 2011, when I reviewed On The Rocks, The Bar Downstairs at the Andaz, Bathtub Gin, The Tippler, Amor Y Amargo, and Lani Kai;
• February 28, 2012, when I reviewed The Beagle, Mother's Ruin, Prima, The Vault at Pfaff's, Silver Lining, and Whitehall;
• April 19, 2012, when I reviewed Booker & Dax, The Wren, The Wayland, The Shanty, Anejo, and Pulqueria; and
• June 20, 2012, when I reviewed Experimental Cocktail Club, Ginny's Supper Club, The Daily, The Library at NoMad, Demi Monde, and Madam Geneva.

More TK as I write 'em!

Six Seasons And A Movie: Coping With "Community"'s Hiatus The Best Way We Know How

If you're one of the seventy million or so critics and bloggers (or one of the nine Nielsen families) who are distraught about the hiatusizing of the sitcom Community, GOOD Magazine is here to help. And by help, I mean give you something to drink while we wait for some other NBC turd to get cancelled, so they can get the best sitcom since Arrested Development over the 88-episode threshold and into sweet, lucrative syndication.

You might want to cut back on portions for the Seven & 7, as their recipe is made to serve a few million people at a time. But the variation they call a Six Seasons And A Movie? Well, it might not be streets ahead, but it's certainly a nice Chang from the original. And the real cane sugar will make the drink really pop-POP!

Okay, I'm done. Apologies for the in-jokes, it's been a while.

I'll Make It A True Daily Double (Shot), Alex

We here at Cocktailians are as pleased as punch that one of our authors, one Tony Hightower, appeared on Jeopardy! this week, and downright surprised and tickled that he gave this li'l ole blog a shoutout in his chat with Alex. (Yours truly, the other co-author, was on the show some ten years ago, but didn't do nearly as well.)

It's been a crazy several months around here, and we have several posts in the pipeline, so stay tuned. But if you want to find out more about what we do, feel free to read, poke around the archives, and drop us a line. (And here are some links to some of our greatest-hits posts. and more info on Paul Clarke's great Mixology Monday, or check out the "MxMo" category here for our entries.) We hope you stick around.

Cocktail Costumes

Need ideas for your Halloween costume? Why not go as your favorite cocktail?  

Tequila (y Paloma) por Mi Amante

There are many wonderful books on drinking, some of which truly reside in the canon of greatness. Gary Regan's The Joy of Mixology, David Embury's The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, Harry Craddock's The Savoy Cocktail Book...but the most entertaining one, for my money, is Charles H. Baker, Jr.'s The Gentleman's Companion, originally published in 1939. Baker was a writer for cruise ship newsletters and Town & Country magazine, and he basically ate and drank his way around the world, and wrote about it as enthusiastically and winningly as anyone else out there. Shortly after I picked up a copy (the two volumes have been reissued, separately and under new titles, by Derrydale Press; you want Jigger, Beaker, & Glass: Drinking Around the World), I found myself reading huge chunks of the book aloud to anyone who would listen, for his wonderfully breezy, engaging style. From the introduction:

[Per] hour of elapsed time, man and boy, we probably have been happier when mildly looking into the ruddy cup than at other times. Even granting our lethal morning-after disease we question if willingly we would exchange even our hunting, fishing, or blue water sailing experiences for those mellow and gorgeously spiffed hours!

. . .how about the time after the Art Students' League Ball on 57th Street, across from licit Carnegie Hall, and we went with a girl who unexpectedly turned out to be painted half in gold and half in silver under her evening wrap; later ending up in our Arab Sheikh's burnous and red turned-up-toe shoes doing telemark turns through the snow to lace a pink satin corset on the front of General Sherman's statue at the Plaza? Does anyone dream that raspberry vinegar could produce a triumph like that?

No, I guess not. This easy recipe comes from Baker, and I first was pointed to it by the estimable Chuck Taggart, who not only pointed me towards cocktails but pointed me towards good ones and reliable sources. For years now, I've pored over his recipes, and was always intrigued by Tequila por Mi Amante, or "tequila for my beloved." Why'd it take me so long to try it?

The titular beverage is a simple infusion of strawberries in tequila...but oh, it's so much more. One fine day in early June, when the berries at the farmer's market were at their peak,  I washed, hulled, and halved a couple quarts of strawberries, covered them in a large jar with a bottle of reposado tequila (use the 100% agave stuff, and definitely go for the reposado -- you want something with a little age and character), and tucked them into the refrigerator for three weeks. Every day or two, I'd take the jar out of the fridge and gently shake it. Strain out and discard the berries, and you're done, though Chuck suggests letting it age in the fridge for another three weeks or so.

Baker says "This berry process extracts some of the raw taste, adds a rosy dawn touch. Our Mexican drinks it straight always. We opine that handled in the same way as sloe gin, discoveries would be made..." and what do you know, he's right. The finished product is a gorgeous red in color, "like a beautiful, brilliant ruby", and the tequila's acrid bite has been softened by the berries' fruitiness. It's good -- really, really good -- on its own with maybe a splash of lime, but Paul Clarke had an even better idea: use it to make Palomas.

The Paloma is already a fantastic warm-weather cocktail and, to my palate, even more refreshing than the usual Margarita. Here's David Wondrich's take on La Paloma:

[grapefruit soda is] sweet, but not very, refreshingly tart, and a little bitter. What it isn't, however, is alcoholic. . .So to make it Mexican, just pitch in a little tequila, right? Not quite. You know that business with the tequila, the salt, and the lime wedge? Pitch the whole thing in. Then you've got La Paloma, perhaps the most refreshing triple-H remedy ever created. Sweet, sour, bitter (a little), and salty, it's got all four taste groups, plus ice, bubbles, and hooch; what's not to like? We don't know who first assembled it or named it. . . But in the summer, in New York. . .we regard this unnamed genius as a benefactor of humanity up there with Albert Schweitzer and the guy who invented the deep fryer.

But if you sub out the regular tequila with the Tequila por Mi Amante? It sends your taste buds straight into orbit. This recipe looks simple and a bit obvious, I know, but damn if it isn't utterly perfect, especially on one of those triple-H (hundred-degree-heat, hundred-degree-humidity) kind of days.

Paul Clarke's description:

Strawberry tequila; lime juice; salt; grapefruit soda. I feel like I’m in one of those old Warner Brothers cartoons, in which I take a sip and then my eyes should start spinning like the dials on a slot machine until they come up “JACKPOT!” as bells start to ring, my hat flies off — not that I wear a hat, but stay with me for a moment — and steam blows out of my ears accompanied by a loud, “A-OOOH-GAH! A-OOOH-GAH!”

Yes, it’s that good.

It really is. Try it yourself. You can still get halfway decent strawberries, and six weeks later your tastebuds will thank you.

Tequila por Mi Amante

• one 750ml bottle reposado tequila (I used the very good -- and inexpensive -- Camarena.)
• 1 1/2 to 2 quarts fresh strawberries. (The more organic and in season, the better.)

Wash, hull, and halve the strawberries. Place them inside a large jar and cover with the tequila. (For me, the hardest part about the recipe is finding a jar big enough to let the full bottle of tequila cover the strawberries but that will still fit in my fridge.) Let the berries macerate for three weeks, and gently agitate the jar each day or so. After three weeks, strain out the berries and squeeze the remaining liquid out of them through cheesecloth. Discard the berries and strain the resulting liquid again to remove sediment. Let the infused tequila age for three more weeks or so in the fridge. Serve on the rocks, up, with a splash of lime, or in...

Paloma por Mi Amante

• 2 oz. Tequila por Mi Amante
• juice of 1/2 lime
• pinch kosher salt
• grapefruit soda (the Mexican-made Jarritos Toronja soda is the way to go here if you can find it, but otherwise try Squirt or Ting. Or make your own with grapefruit juice and simple syrup.)

Build in a Collins glass over plenty of ice, and top up with the grapefruit soda. Give it a quick stir, and stand back.

(Many thanks to Joanna Scutts for the use of her fine photo of the Palomas.)

Tequila por Mi Amante

• one 750ml bottle reposado tequila (I used the very good -- and inexpensive -- Camarena.) 
• 1 1/2 to 2 quarts fresh strawberries

Cocktail Culture, Examined In Rhode Island

I recently hopped a bus up to Providence to check out an exhibition at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. "Cocktail Culture: Ritual and Invention in American Fashion, 1920-1980" opened in mid-April and runs through the end of this month and is well worth a visit, especially if you're interested in fashion. But even if you're not -- no one who knows me or even sees me on the street would peg me as a snappy dresser -- there's enough here to warrant a trip. (I mentioned the exhibition in this space back in April, but wasn't able to get up to Rhode Island till now, and am glad I made the not-arduous-at-all trek)

The first thing you see on arriving at the exhibition's entrance is a well-edited montage of clips involving drinking in various movies. Lots of them were familiar to me, including scenes from "Auntie Mame" (passing along the old "bruise the gin" canard), "Casablanca", "The Thin Man", "Notorious", and others. But I discovered a lot more that I hadn't previously encountered, including this marvelous scene involving a jilted husband and his reactions, from Charlie Chaplin's "The Idle Class":

The clips set the scene nicely before one passes into the exhibition proper, which is arranged into nine themed sections and spans more than 220 objects drawn from the museum's own holdings and items borrowed from other museums and private collections. Cocktail attire, barware, glassware, furniture, and photographs all figure prominently, making for a nicely-balanced selection of artifacts that gives you a good sense of the culture surrounding the cocktail and how it changed over time. The museum refers to it as "the first multi-disciplinary exhibition to explore the social ritual of the cocktail hour through the lens of fashion and design", and delivers on this aim. (The exhibition's catalogue is worth picking up as well, with five meaty, detailed essays on how various factors -- from Hollywood to hats, Harlem, and postwar barware -- shaped cocktail culture and its visual expression.)

The first thing you see is the "Icons" section, which is meant to give the viewer some grounding in the basic look of the cocktail hour: glassware and shakers are presented, as is the truly iconic little black cocktail dress. (As I'd noted, I'm no fashion guy, but the 1954 Dior dress shown here is amazing in its alluring elegance; it highlights the shape of its wearer to arresting advantage, as it carves out three-dimensional space around the figure. All while remaining relatively demure!)

 

The elegance continues with Norman Bel Geddes' stunning Manhattan cocktail service, all sleek verticals and boxy forms: the bibulous equivalent of the RCA Building (completed a year or two before this was designed) in chrome-plated brass. This was what I coveted more than anything else in the exhibit, with its cool, unfussy Art Deco sophistication and clean lines.

Other sections covered Prohibition's pervasive influence: how it forced men and women together, did away with drinking as an all-male pastime, and mixed company as well as spirits. Prohibition also gave birth to the speakeasy, of course, which was different from pre-Prohibition saloons. The time was known as the Jazz Age, and the exhibition features several flapper dresses with their beaded fringes. (And it's neat to see actual flapper dresses and cloche hats from the Twenties, rather than inferior costume knockoffs.) Harlem's influence on cocktail culture is covered, as is the anti-Prohibition movement as shown by scarves and even needlepoint samplers -- apparently prominent members of the W.O.N.P.R. would make these to show their support for the law's repeal.

Prohibition also forced drinkers and bartenders to travel: steamship lines would advertise drinks such as the "Three Miler" or the "Twelve Mile Limit" (referencing how far offshore boozing would become legal), and bartenders such as the great Harry Craddock fled the dry shores of the United States for wetter foreign climes, resulting in the sublime (and beautiful) Savoy Cocktail Book. This section of the exhibition features lots of more casual, flowing cocktail attire, some gorgeous molded-glass Tiki stemware designed by "Trader Vic" Bergeron himself, a custom-made Japanese bar, sophisticated posters for French ocean liners, and more.

Other sections address wartime austerity, with its rationing of materials, and postwar prosperity, which set the style for how we experience the culture of drinking. As the exhibition materials point out, "cocktail culture as we have come to understand or visually interpret it today originated during this postwar period; the cocktail dress, combining the elegance of evening wear with the informality of the day dress, is the iconic look of this period and continues to define style to the present day." The exhibition continues tracing the history of cocktail fashion from the Fifties to the late Seventies, looking at crazy accessories, casual backyard get-togethers with their Modernist tone, and even clubwear.

I especially enjoyed the Eclipse glassware shown above, designed by industrial designer Russel Wright in 1957. They're fun, yet classy, and emblematic of the "New Casual" approach to the cocktail hour that emerged in the Fifties. By 1951, 70 percent of alcohol bought was consumed at home, according to a contemporary account by Walter Browden in Crockery and Glass Journal. The suburban cocktail party, scene of most drinking, emphasized the pursuit of leisure and fun (as seen in these 1950s exhibits at the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans, and see also the profusion of cocktail shakers bearing drink recipes, which emphasized to the suburban crowd how easy it could be to make a quality drink.) Russel Wright, together with his wife Mary, even wrote a book about casual living and home entertaining during the increasingly mechanized times. 1950's Guide to Easier Living (here's a nice article about it in the Times from last year), in the words of "Cocktail Culture" catalogue contributor Kristina Wilson, was "modeled on the decorating and etiquette manuals that had proliferated in the interwar years, [and] argued for a new approach to home life. . .an emphatic modernist respect for systems and efficiencies dominated the Guide to Easier Living. . .Not only was the atmosphere of the Wrights' efficient household more casual than previous generations might have aspired to, but it emphasized to the hostess and host the possibility of well-deserved relaxation." The exhibition even includes Hawaiian and other casual sport shirts -- one emblazoned with grills and other barbecue implements -- to underline this theme.

In short, this exhibition is well worth checking out, especially if you're interested in the clothing and fashion angle of the story of cocktails. (I understand that this was a fashion-focused event, and the non-clothing artifacts were very well-chosen indeed. However, I'd have liked to have seen even more items showing changing product design and marketing over the years. Perhaps bottle designs, advertising graphic design and other commercial art, and more glassware and barware would have fit in well.) The catalogue will serve as a useful reference and is a worthy addition to my cocktail library. And I even picked up some cocktail-themed encaustic pieces by Dorothy Imagire at the museum gift shop. (I also fell in love with this painting by Gregory Poulin, but couldn't quite afford it.) They'll go nicely over my home bar.

The exhibition's home page has links to lots of interesting media coverage, including a nice piece by NPR's Jackie Lyden. If you're thinking of going, hurry: it'll only be up through July 31st.

(Photos, except for the first one showing the exhibition's name, are all courtesy of the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Thanks to the RISD Museum's Lani Stack for her assistance.)