Cocktailians

PDX (The "D" evidently stands for "drinking") Part 2: Clear Creek Distillery

More drinking in Portland! The day after our visit to Clyde Common, we embarked on a marathon of even more cocktailing, starting it off with a fascinating and informative tasting at Clear Creek Distillery. I'd had their fabulously bone-dry Kirschwasser at the Good Fork in Red Hook, and their Douglas Fir eau-de-vie at Pegu Club in Audrey Saunders' diabolically inventive Douglas Fir Gimlet. Due to what is apparently a recent change in the law (the Clear Creek "passport" in which you're encouraged to mark your tasting choices carries an appropriately snarky legend), each person can only taste five products. Fortunately, we were two, so we could taste ten of Clear Creek's 25 products between us. Retail manager Jeanine Koszalka took us through the lineup and dropped some serious knowledge on us.

Clear Creek specializes in eaux-de-vie: clear brandies made from fruit other than grapes. And, they really do a fantastic job of cramming what feels like an orchard's worth of fruit into a bottle. (Not kidding here: apparently a bottle of their pear brandy takes thirty pounds of pears to make.) All their fruit is from Oregon, so it's an intensely local product as well. When we visited, the distillery was especially excited about their blue plum brandy (aka slivovitz), which was recently certified as kosher. They'd had lots of requests for a kosher spirit, and it wasn't too much of a change in their operations. (Normally, they use the "heads" -- the undrinkable first part of a distilling run -- for cleaning, but this wasn't kosher. They had a rabbi ritually clean the fermentation tanks with a torch and an ash wash.) The distillery plans to expand its kosher line with future bottlings.

The first thing we tasted was probably Clear Creek's best-known product, its Pear Brandy.

PDX (The "D" evidently stands for "drinking") Part 1: Clyde Common

I recently returned from an all-too-brief sojourn to Portland, Oregon. Aside from enjoying a beautiful setting, nearby mountains, lush greenery, and workable public transit, the denizens of Portland seem to pay exceptionally close attention to what they put in their mouths. We had some stunningly good coffee  (double macchiato for me, cold-brewed iced coffee for my special lady friend -- both were fantastic and rich, and we're greatly enjoying the Burundi Bwayi beans we brought home) at Stumptown's downtown location (with a comically-hip magazine selection), some good microbrewed beer (Hogsback Oatmeal Stout at the Mt. Hood Brewing Company's Ice Axe Grill in Government Camp, LTD 02 at Full Sail in Hood River, and Golden Ale at the Lucky Lab in Portland), and even some wine.

But all of that, no matter how good it was, is well outside the mission statement of this here site. I am pleased to report that Portland treated us very, very well on the cocktail and spirits fronts. The first place I decided to check out was Clyde Common, run by the estimable Jeffrey Morgenthaler. (Jeffrey wasn't there at the time -- the guy unaccountably seems to get some days off once in a while -- but Shannon cut through the happy-hour crowd of braying hipsters and took good care of us.) The cocktail list there was fascinating and complex, and I wanted to try everything on the menu. 

We limited ourselves to one each, though, as we had other commitments later on. My girlfriend chose the One-Trick Pony (Pelinkovac bitter, Maraschino, house-made tonic, lime), which was very good. I hadn't heard of Pelinkovac before -- from what I could taste in this drink, it was reminiscent somewhat of fellow Eastern-European bitter Unicum -- but the idea of mixing a digestive bitter with Maraschino liqueur and bitter-ish tonic sounded yummy. The liqueur and tonic balanced out the herbal bitterness nicely, and it went smoothly down the hatch.

 The drink that I'd been itching to try, though, was the Barrel-Aged Negroni, which absolutely blew me away. I was very intrigued to read Jeffrey's blog post about barrel-aging finished cocktails, and his description of the Negroni was dead-on:

After six weeks in the bourbon barrel, our Negroni emerged a rare beauty. The sweet vermouth so slightly oxidized, the color paler and rosier than the original, the mid-palate softly mingled with whiskey, the finish long and lingering with oak tannins.

I also thought it smoothed out the bitter spikes that can come from the Campari, and basically mellowed the whole thing. The whiskey barrels gave it an oomphier flavor that melded well with the vermouth's spiciness, and added a complex richness to the drink. This was a great before-dinner drink that almost made me want to skip the dinner.

(Another installment of PDX cocktail-y goodness coming soon!)

Drinko de Mayo

Yes, it's May 5th today, so that means that for the past few weeks your hosts here at Cocktailians have been bombarded with press releases for seasonal drinks. Some holidays have natural cocktail themes -- Irish whiskey for St. Patrick's Day, et cetera -- but others don't. (You should see some of the more inane ones we get, like the red-and-blue Fourth of July cocktail with white fondant-icing cut-out stars oozing down the side of the cocktail glass, or the tragically misguided attempt at a St. Patrick's Day cocktail from a French vermouth concern, or the innumerable red and blue cocktails sent to us just before the last election.)

Cinco de Mayo works well, though -- it's a celebratory holiday that's pretty much an excuse for Americans to celebrate Mexican culture. (did you know that it commemorates the date of the Battle of Puebla, and is pretty much only celebrated around Puebla in Mexico? I'd thought it was Mexican Independence Day till I looked it up...turns out that's September 16th. Knowing is half the battle.) And the natural way to celebrate is with tequila and other mezcals -- definitely a subject worthy of attention and future research.

The obvious and classic drink to use is the Margarita, of course -- it's hard to improve on a classic New Orleans Sour family drink (as Gary Regan classifies it in The Joy of Mixology, New Orleans Sours are made up of a base spirit, lemon or lime juice, and an orange-flavored liqueur like triple sec or curacao. The Sidecar, Cosmopolitan, and Corpse Reviver No. 2 all fit into this category.) And I like the classic proportions of 3:2:1:

Margarita

1 1/2 oz. white tequila

1 oz. Cointreau

1/2 oz. fresh-squeezed lime juice

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. (Salt rim optional -- I don't like it, but some do. I'll sometimes toss a tiny pinch of kosher salt into the shaker in lieu of the salt rim. An ever-so-tiny pinch of salt can work well with Martinis too, by the by.)

It seems to be a trend lately to use agave nectar as a sweetener in this drink, and while I like the poetic nature of having agave supply both the base spirit and the sweetener, it's hard for me to move away from the wonderful orange flavor of Cointreau -- which is plenty sweet on its own.

Throwing a party? Jeffrey Morgenthaler has a good recipe for Margaritas by the Gallon -- I keep meaning to throw this together for a big shindig sometime.

Also, the good folks at Herradura sent over an interesting variation that they call the "Cincorita": a Margarita with a Chambord float on top -- just a half-ounce of the stuff, 'cause its flavor can kind of take over any drink. Looks nice, too. I'm not sure I'd go with the lime garnish (though it also looks nice) -- a good Margarita, more than most other drinks, is the effect of perfectly-balanced citrus/liqueur/base spirit alchemy, and I'd be worried that a lime wedge would tempt people to squeeze it in the drink, which would screw up the proportions. Maybe just a lime twist or curl instead?

There are other celebrations of the day: Astor Center is throwing an Agavefest that looks like fun (drat that my day job is in actuality an evening job, so I'll be slaving over a hot Mac while this is in session.) 

And I might not be able to look at this till I get back from work, but I also see that Cointreau is premiering the first installment today of a three-part short film about the backstories behind various Cointreau cocktails. The film stars burlesque queen Dita von Teese, who stars as socialite Margarita Sames, who supposedly came up with her eponymous cocktail in Acapulco in 1948. (This is just one of the five origin stories for the drink that Gary Regan has identified...but it was also substantiated by a 1991 article in Texas Monthly.) Actually, when I look at the press release in a bit more detail, it states "In a departure from her burlesque performances, Dita keeps her clothes on for Cointreau in this new video." Bummer.

You will note, of course, that I have avoided all mentions of "margarita mix" or frozen Margaritas up until now. This is entirely intentional. (Frozen Margaritas can be fun, but are better left to a bar with an industrial-strength blender. Pre-made "margarita mix" isn't worth it; stick to the good stuff, and it's not like limes are hard to squeeze. And good liqueur and fresh-squeezed lime juice beat artificial colors, sugar, and citric-acid powder any day.)