Cocktailians

Gin Trivia! Part 4

As seen here earlier, Kerry Greene and I put together a trivia quiz all about gin last year. Here are the next few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there, and click on smaller pictures to embiggen them.

10.    Snoop Dogg famously drank gin & juice in the 1994 song. Name both brands of gin namechecked in this (NSFW, of course) excerpt.

Gin & Juice (redacted)

[Seagram's, Tanqueray]

The success of “Gin and Juice” reportedly led to a roughly 20% increase in the sales of [Seagram’s Gin]. In the words of tha D-O-double-G himself, “Gin is upper echelon. It's a step up. Because you just don't find — and no disrespect — regular winos just drinking [Tanqueray].” And Snoop did end up with a jobby job as a brand rep for [Tanqueray] Ten, and mixed up an enormous gin & juice with 180 bottles of Hendrick’s a couple years ago.

11.    Think fast! What gin-based liqueur is traditionally made by steeping the tart plumlike fruit of the wild blackthorn shrub in gin with sugar?

[Sloe gin]

There used to be so many crappy artificially flavored, cloying [sloe gins] out there, but good ones are thankfully easier and easier to find. Or, you can make your own! Damson gin is very similar and good as well.

You could do like the narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and use it as a dessert topping:

I’d like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing ‘What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue’ – all at the same time. Sometimes now I listen to Louis while I have my favorite dessert of vanilla ice cream and [sloe gin]. I pour the red liquid over the white mound, watching it glisten and the vapor rising as Louis bends that military instrument into a beam of lyrical sound. Perhaps I like Louis Armstrong because he’s made poetry out of being invisible.

 

12.    Gin from a certain town in England carried a geographical appellation — similar to Scotch whisky or Cognac brandy — until 2015. Only one brand of gin is made there now, and it's a unique style, distinct from the more common London Dry. This earthy, versatile gin has long been the tipple of choice for Royal Navy officers. It's named after the town in which it's produced; what gin am I describing?

 

[Plymouth Gin]

 

[Plymouth Gin] is great and very versatile for mixing. (The most recent drink I had was a [Plymouth] Martini, on the wet side, with orange bitters and a twist. Yum.) As The Gin Is In notes above, maintaining their geographical appellation for [Plymouth] would have meant that brand owner Pernod Ricard would have to disclose the exact recipe, so they decided to drop the appellation instead. Here are more details on [Plymouth]’s history and distillery. 

Gin Trivia! Part 3

As seen here earlier, Kerry Greene and I put together a trivia quiz all about gin last year. Here are the next few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there, and click on smaller pictures to embiggen them.

7.    Whose portrait is redacted from this bottle shot?

[Queen Victoria]

Bombay Sapphire is a relatively new gin, created in the ‘80s by Michel Roux (who died last April, and who had marketed Absolut Vodka out of obscurity) as an update on Bombay Gin, which was introduced in 1831 as Warrington Gin but rebranded in the ‘50s. The Bombay Gin bottle features the same portrait of [Victoria], but Roux added the iconic blue bottle and named the brand extension after the Star of Bombay, a 182-carat star sapphire given by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. to Mary Pickford, who bequeathed it to the Smithsonian. (Ironically, it’s from Sri Lanka and not Mumbai.) Bombay Sapphire was a monster success and is one of the most popular gins in the world today.

8.    What cocktail name has been redacted from this passage from Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye?

[Gimlet]

As Troy Patterson put it in Slate, “in 1952, with the first draft of The Long Goodbye already complete, the [gimlet] discovered the writer on an ocean liner and thus worked its way into literary history. No other drink has such a significant presence in such a great performance of American fiction.”

This is actually a crummy [gimlet] recipe, in my opinion: not only is Rose’s Lime Juice a not-very-good lime cordial loaded with high-fructose corn syrup and blue food coloring, but a [gimlet] demands both tartness and sweetness, and a 50:50 mix of gin and Rose’s is just way too sticky-sweet. A mix of just gin and lime juice, however, tips the balance in the opposite direction and is just too acidic and spiky for my tastes, requiring a sweetener. (If you take gin and lime juice and lengthen it with soda, you have a gin rickey, which is also refreshing.) There are lots of ideas on how to achieve the ideal [gimlet], but what I do is split the citrus component between fresh-squeezed lime juice and a lime cordial. I used to use Rose’s, but then I discovered the Employees Only lime cordial recipe (and the bottled version thereof.) I’m also told the Rose’s available outside the US is better and sweetened with sugar instead of HFCS.

(Marlowe goes back in Chapter 22 and orders a [gimlet] in memory of Lennox. “It was both sweet and sharp at the same time.”)

9.    The national and traditional liquor of the Netherlands and Belgium is a precursor to gin. It's often distilled from malt wine and can have a whiskylike character, especially if it's been barrel-aged. aka "Dutch courage" or "Hollands gin," what is the name of this spirit?

[Genever/Jenever/Geneva/Peket/Genievre]

Here’s a good primer on [genever] from Simon Difford. Korenwijn is another Dutch grain spirit but doesn’t have to be flavored with juniper...or any botanicals at all, for that matter. Akvavit is something else entirely, from Scandinavia, and is usually flavored with caraway (and sometimes dill.) And wacholder is juniper-flavored, but from Germany.

Gin Trivia! Part 2

As seen here yesterday, Kerry Greene and I put together a trivia quiz all about gin last year. Here are the next few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there, and click on smaller pictures to embiggen them.

4.    The first half of the eighteenth century saw London in the grip of gin mania with profound effects on its society, memorialized by what moralistic artist and social commentator in his Gin Lane?

[William Hogarth]

With the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the accession of Dutchman William of Orange to the British throne, tensions with France meant that the government moved to restrict imports of French brandy and instead encouraged gin production. The “Gin Craze” of the first half of the eighteenth century saw an explosion in British consumption of gin, and the societal effects of overconsumption led to a backlash. (It’s where we get the terms “Mother’s Ruin” and “Strip-Me-Naked”...more on that anon.) The Gin Act of 1736 effectively taxed legal gin out of existence and the illegally distilled gin which took its place was much more likely to be adulterated or downright toxic. By 1743, per capita English gin consumption was a staggering 2.2 gallons a year.

In 1750 in the St. Giles neighborhood of central London, over a quarter of all residences were gin shops, and other crime flourished. Enter popular moralist [Hogarth], who issued two cheap and popular prints, Gin Lane and Beer Street, in 1751, “calculated to reform some reigning Vices peculiar to the lower Class of People.”

As the BBC put it:

Gin Lane thrusts us into the abyss of the slum of St Giles north of Covent Garden, where alcoholic mothers pour gin into the mouths of their offspring. The central figure, a crazed, half-naked prostitute with syphilitic sores on her legs, is oblivious of her baby tumbling to its death.

Elsewhere, destitute gin drinkers are reduced to a brutal, feral existence. A carpenter and a housewife wearing ragged clothes desperately pawn their tools and pots and pans in order to fund their habit. Behind the parapet a boy competes with a dog to gnaw on a bone. The cadaverous ballad-singer slumped in the foreground is in a woeful state of ill health. His black dog symbolises despair.

Meanwhile, in the background, actual corpses are visible – including the hanged barber in the upper storey of a partially ruined house. In this section we are confronted by a frenzied crowd of drunkards, cavorting and causing havoc: one lunatic clutching a pair of bellows to his head even dances a jig while waving a spike upon which a baby has been impaled – a figment from a nightmare. This is a gin-fuelled, topsy-turvy world of mob rule, precipitating the breakdown of society in general – symbolised by the collapsing building at the far end of the miserable vista.

Beer Street, by contrast, is the heaven to Gin Lane’s hell. Set in Westminster, where trades and crafts are seen to thrive, rather than St Giles where the poverty-stricken residents are feckless and unemployed, it features healthy, well-fed labourers at leisure, enjoying large, frothing tankards of the national brew. A newspaper on the table reports a speech by the king recommending “the Advancement of Our Commerce and cultivating the Arts of Peace”. Nearby, fishwives with overflowing baskets suggest that a society based on solid, honest mercantile values – untainted by that foreign spirit, gin – will be rewarded with abundance and prosperity.

About a month after [Hogarth] released these prints, this response poem was published in a newspaper, amplifying his message. This is your brain on gin...any questions?

5.    One classic style of gin is often sweeter, more viscous, and less botanical in flavor than most of the dry gins that currently dominate the market. It was especially popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, and one account says that it was sold incognito under the sign of a black cat during the "Gin Craze" of the 18th century. What is the name of this style of gin?

[Old Tom]

Lots of spirits history is kind of fuzzy and sketchy, because by definition everyone who was writing things down had been drinking. Imbibe magazine did a good recap, though:

As with many lost liquors, the history behind [Old Tom] is a patchwork of partial facts, incomplete information, and the kind of yarns that provoke cocked eyebrows. Most of the tales involve a black cat—the [tom] in question. Hayman’s reports that back in 1736, one Captain Dudley Bradstreet lucked into both a piece of London property and a stock of gin. Bradstreet hung a sign depicting a painted cat in the window and let it be known that doses of sweet mother’s ruin could be had at the address. “Under the cat’s paw sign was a slot and a lead pipe, which was attached to a funnel inside the house,” reads a history put together by Hayman’s. “Customers placed their money in the slot and duly received their gin. Bradstreet’s idea was soon copied all over London. People would stand outside houses, call ‘puss’ and when the voice within said ‘mew,’ they would know that they could buy bootleg gin inside. Very soon [Old Tom] became an affectionate nickname for gin.”

6.    Hendrick's Gin has either one of the most unique tastes or one of the best marketing teams around. (Maybe it's both.) Name the two botanical ingredients, added as essences after distillation, that differentiate Hendrick's taste and are its claim to fame.

[rose, cucumber]

This article from Gin Foundry provides some good insight into the Hendrick’s production process -- interesting that they make two very different spirits in two different kinds of stills, then blend them and add the flavor essences before dilution and bottling. The Gin Is In has these detailed tasting notes and cocktail recommendations.

Gin Trivia! Part 1

Much like last week's spate of rum trivia questions, I co-wrote a quiz all about gin last year (with the super-smart gin fanatic Kerry Greene.) And if I was sharing the rum questions, why not give you last year's gin questions as well, along with my recap writeup of them? I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there. 

1.    Gin wouldn't have been carried throughout the world with such enthusiasm by the English without its ubiquitous partner, tonic water. Name tonic's antimalarial component, derived from the bark of the cinchona tree.

[quinine]

[Quinine], in addition to treating malaria, also fluoresces under UV light. (And while it is reputed to help with muscle cramps, you’d need much more of it than is present in tonic water.) A serious word of caution to those making their own tonic syrups: be very careful not to overdo the amount of [quinine], or you run the risk of poisoning drinkers with an overdose of [quinine], or cinchonism. Camper English’s CocktailSafe site has more detail.

2.    Given gin's origin in the Low Countries of Europe and its close association with the UK, it's somewhat surprising that approximately half the world's gin is consumed by a country so geographically far away from these. What is this country, whose tagay drinking ritual and culture is cited by one of its lifestyle publications as a key reason gin is so popular there?

[The Philippines]

[Filipinos] consume about 1.4 liters of gin per capita per year, approximately six times the amount of the average American. (This fascinating stat is from Tristan Stephenson’s The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace, citing the International Wine and Spirit Record.) Most of this gin is Ginebre San Miguel, which is the most popular gin in the world, moving some 11.3 million cases annually.

Here’s a good explanation of the tagay ritual, in which a designated pourer refills one communal glass, which each of the participants down in turn. And this slightly more scholarly look at the tradition notes that [Filipinos] don’t usually say “cheers”, because one person is drinking at a time.

3.    Orris root is an expensive botanical used in many gins, including Martin Miller's and Tarquin's. Although in powdered form it smells like violets, it is actually the root of what similarly colored flower?

[Iris]

Orris was widely used as a reputed fixative in perfumes (but it turns out that there’s no scientific basis for that.) Gin Foundry says:

Distilled, orris root retains its floral notes, but it also carries an earthy, dusty sweetness that falls somewhere in the middle of grass and hay. The nose is dry, sweet and clean, while the mouth is strong, sweet and woody – similar in taste to liquorice sticks. Much like liquorice, orris has cheek filling qualities and is capable of adding depth and texture to a gin.

[Iris]/orris is poisonous, so I wouldn’t use it as a garnish.

Rum Trivia! Part 4

As seen here earlier, I recently put together a trivia quiz all about rum. Here are the last few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there.

10.    I’m gently muddling a large sprig of mint with three-quarters of an ounce of simple syrup. I squeeze three-quarters of an ounce of lime juice into the glass, and add the spent lime hull and two ounces of white rum. I shake it, strain it into an ice-filled glass, and add two ounces of carbonated water. What drink have I made you?

[Mojito]

[Mojitos] don’t always have the best reputation among bartenders, but that’s a shame, as a properly made [Mojito] is an incredibly refreshing, wonderful drink on a hot day. (Even if Hemingway didn’t really drink them!)

11.    Rum can come from all over the world and not just the Caribbean basin. Name the two countries that the rums Stroh and Bundaberg originate from.

[Austria (Stroh), Australia (Bundaberg)]

This question originally asked you to name the countries of origin of Barbancourt (Haiti) and Zacapa (Guatemala) as well as Stroh and Bundaberg, but playtesters wisely advised me to cut this down to a smaller answer set.

12.    Perhaps the best-known item of liquor-brand swag is the distinctive red cap that is given away (never sold) by what Barbadian rum brand, to sailors in the regattas that they sponsor?

[Mount Gay]

I’m not really a sailor, but lots of sailors are really into the mystique and supposed cool of the [Mount Gay] regatta hats. I was hoping that “Barbadian rum brand” would lead everyone straight to [Mount Gay], as it’s by far the biggest brand from there.

The quiz originally included a couple more questions; as one tester pointed out, two questions were more about rum as a theme rather than as a topic, so they were the easiest to decide to cut. Here they are:

When comedian Morey Amsterdam visited Trinidad in 1943, he heard a calypso by Lord Invader that lamented US GIs debauching local women. Amsterdam brought it back to the US, removed most of its social commentary, and turned it into a chart-topping hit in 1945 by what familial singing group?  

Rum And Coca-Cola

[The Andrews Sisters]

This song spurred some interesting copyright history of its own; check out the cases of Baron v. Leo Feist and Kahn v. Leo Feist, Inc. as well as The Rum and Coca-Cola Reader.

Elmore Leonard’s 1992 crime novel Rum Punch was adapted into what film released five years later?

[Jackie Brown]

Quentin Tarantino changed the novel’s setting from South Florida to Los Angeles and changed the main character’s name from Jackie Burke to [Jackie Brown], echoing Pam Grier’s 1974 title role in Foxy Brown.

So that was the quiz. As I mentioned in my recap, there's a world of great information on rum out there, including from Eater, The Ministry of Rum, Flaviar, and other sources. I relied heavily on the work of Wayne Curtis, many of whose articles I’ve linked to above and whose book And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in 10 Cocktails was invaluable. I also used Dave Broom’s Rum: The Manual, Ian Williams’s Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776, and Tom Gjelten’s Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause. (And I’ll pimp a few articles I’ve written, too.)

Rum Trivia! Part 3

As seen here earlier, I recently put together a trivia quiz all about rum. Here are the next few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there.

7.    "Now there's a solemn old tradition for admission – or audition – to transition from a 'come-from-away' to be a Newfoundlander."

One has to make a short recitation, eat a piece of “Newfoundland steak” (aka bologna), kiss a codfish on the lips, and consume a shot of what Jamaican rum?

[Screech]

Dramatized on Broadway in Come From Away, a “[Screech]-In” ceremony involves the consumption of – besides bologna – a legendarily rough Jamaican rum, which had traditionally been traded for salt cod from Newfoundland. [Screech]’s website offers both an order of the ceremony and a downloadable certificate for those who’ve puckered up. (Don’t confuse it with the completely different and arguably far more disgusting “Sourtoe Cocktail” in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, 5300 miles away on the other side of Canada.)

8.    A spiced rum produced in the U.S. Virgin Islands is named for (the nickname of) the late tattoo artist Norman Keith Collins. What is its brand name?

 

[Sailor Jerry]

Norman Collins had an interesting life, and was called “perhaps the most influential tattoo artist of the twentieth century.” The Virgin Islands-produced spiced rum was introduced in the late ‘90s as an extension of a [Sailor Jerry]-branded clothing line by ad man Steven Grasse, who also is behind Hendrick’s Gin and the Art in the Age line of liqueurs.

9.    What name is shared by a.) a Cuban rum sold around the world (excepting the United States) by Pernod Ricard, and b.) a Puerto Rican rum sold in the United States by Bacardí?

[Havana Club]

[Havana Club] has a long and contentious history. It was designed for American tastes and produced starting in 1934 by the Jose Arechabala company, which had been distilling since 1878. After the revolution, the Castro government nationalized the company, seizing the distillery, and many members of the Arechabala family fled the country (for Spain and the US) or were thrown into prison. (The Bacardí family also fled Cuba after the revolution when their assets were confiscated...but prior to the revolution, worried about the Batista regime, they had moved their trademarks, recipes, and much of their assets to the Bahamas. They’d also built distilleries and other facilities in Puerto Rico and Mexico after Prohibition in the US, so they had longstanding footholds outside Cuba. The Bacardí company, the largest privately held family-owned liquor company, has been headquartered in Bermuda since 1965.) So the Cuban government had been producing [Havana Club], and started exporting it in 1972 – the Arechabalas hadn’t built plants outside Cuba and couldn’t re-establish the brand – and beginning in 1994, they entered into a joint venture with Pernod Ricard to produce and market [Havana Club] around the world, except in the US of course. It’s now the fifth-biggest rum brand in the world, moving 4.6 million nine-liter cases in 2018.

In 1973, the [Havana Club] trademark in the US was up for renewal, and the Archebala family, which had moved on to other businesses, decided to let it lapse under the mistaken belief that they had to resume making rum in order to renew the trademark, and that they might be heading back to Cuba to make rum at any time. In 1976, the Cuban government snapped up the lapsed US trademark – how revolutionary! – and hung onto it. In 1994, the same year as the Corporación Cuba Ron/Pernod Ricard [Havana Club] joint agreement, Bacardí bought the rights to [Havana Club] from the Arechabala family (or at least as many rights as the family still had), applied for the US trademark that the Cuban government held, and produced a very small amount of rum under the brand, which drew an immediate lawsuit from Pernod Ricard.

A pitched battle between the two liquor giants then commenced which is still going on: in 1998, Congress effectively invalidated Pernod Ricard’s standing by passing a law declaring that confiscated trademarks would be recognized by the US. (The two Florida senators, Connie Mack and Bob Graham, reached across party lines to add this section – the “Bacardí Amendment” – to an appropriations bill at the last minute.) This law then was invalidated by the WTO in 2002, because it singled out one particular country. (A separate round of litigation was also ongoing, based on the question of whether using “[Havana]” on the label of a Puerto Rican rum constituted a deceptive trade practice; Bacardí won this round in 2012 and Pernod Ricard announced plans to use the name “Havanista” to sell Cuban rum in the US and Bacardí announced plans to expand their [Havana Club] distribution throughout the US.) In 2006, the State and Treasury departments decided that the Cuban government’s writing a check for the trademark renewal fee would violate the sanctions and the Trading with the Enemy Act, and wouldn’t renew it. This case slogged through the USPTO until 2016, when the State Department advised the Treasury Department to let the Cubans and Pernod Ricard write the check in light of the thaw in relations under President Obama...which then landed the dispute over the trademark’s rightful owner in federal court. Bacardí has turned to the court of public opinion as well, staging a musical play in Miami to tell the story of the Arechabala family.

Rum Trivia! Part 2

As seen here yesterday, I recently put together a trivia quiz all about rum. Here are the next few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there.

4.    What is the national spirit of Brazil and the essential ingredient in a Caipirinha cocktail?

[Cachaça] (I also accepted aguardente, pinga, caninha, and marvada.)

[Cachaça] can be fiery and rough, or it can be mellow and genteel. It’s often slightly sweet, with a little bit of oily funk. When a Brazilian friend visited a few years back, he brought an entire suitcase full of the stuff, and I think we must have gone through ten pounds of sugar and several bushels of limes for the caipirinhas we threw back that week.

It was labeled as “Brazilian rum” in the US until 2013, when US regulations changed to include [cachaça] “as a type of rum and as a distinctive product of Brazil.” It also usually has a lower proof than the similar rhum agricole or rum distilled from molasses.

5.    What is the nickname for July 31, 1970 in the Royal Navy, marking the last day on which daily rations of rum were issued to sailors?

[Black Tot Day]

Sailors have long been associated with drinking; the Royal Navy issued daily rations of hooch to its sailors for centuries. At first, each sailor was issued a gallon of beer or wine a day, but after some storage difficulties, that was changed to a ration of the much more stable and transportable hard spirits: brandy in about 1650, and rum in 1687 following the 1655 British conquest of Jamaica. Enlisted men/junior ratings were allowed half a pint of neat rum twice daily, and boys got half that. The ship’s purser dispensed the rations, and over time (and through slurred lips, no doubt), “purser” became “pusser”...leading to the brand name Pusser’s Rum, which is a recreation of the blended high-strength rum that was once served to the Royal Navy.

But what do you do with a drunken sailor? Admiral Edward Vernon, hero of the War of Jenkins’ Ear and commander of the fleet‘s West Indies Squadron, was concerned with what he called “the swinish vice of drunkenness.” On August 21, 1740, he ordered that his sailors’ rum be watered down:

You are hereby required and directed ... that the respective daily allowance ... be every day mixed with the proportion of a quart of water to a half pint of rum, to be mixed in a scuttled butt kept for that purpose, and to be done upon the deck, and in the presence of the Lieutenant of the Watch who is to take particular care to see that the men are not defrauded in having their full allowance of rum... and let those that are good husbanders receive extra lime juice and sugar that it be made more palatable to them.

Over time, naval officials noticed that the West Indies Squadron‘s sailors were healthier than other sailors, and eventually ship’s surgeons discovered that the lime juice added to their rum prevented scurvy - thus the nickname “limeys“ for British sailors. (And if you’re keeping track, a “scuttled butt” is a barrel with one end removed, and you can see how gossip would spread among the men lined up for their daily ration of rum, thus the contemporary meaning of “scuttlebutt.”) Admiral Vernon’s nickname of “Old Grog”, after the water-resistant grogram cloak he habitually wore, soon became the name of the watered-down rum with lime juice and sugar. (Adm. Vernon was also George Washington's half-brother Lawrence Washington's former naval CO; Lawrence Washington named his family estate after the admiral, and George kept the name when he inherited the property. George Washington distilled rye whiskey there. History works in circles.)

After arduous duties or in celebration of a victory, sailors could receive an extra ration of rum. This became known in naval slang as “splicing the mainbrace”; in the days of sail, the mainbrace was a heavy piece of rigging vital to the ship’s steering, and fixing it was a difficult and crucial task. After the mainbrace was spliced, it was customary for captains to order an extra drink for the crew. These days, only the Royal Family or the Admiralty can issue the order to “splice the mainbrace”, generally after a fleet review or another special occasion.

Over the years, the strength and amount of the “tot” of rum was varied by the Admiralty, but enlisted men always got their daily ration. Each day at six bells of the forenoon watch (11:00 am for you landlubbers), the bosun’s mate would pipe “Up Spirits”, and the crew would assemble for their tipple and toasts to the monarch. Until 1970, that is, when concerns over impaired crew operating increasingly sophisticated warships led the House of Commons to abolish the rum ration.

This coming July 31st will be the fiftieth anniversary of [Black Tot Day]. Nine and a half years ago in Portsmouth, they re-enacted “Up Spirits” on the quayside, but if you’ve got money to burn, you can have a literal taste of history. The remaining stores of official Royal Navy rum sat in wicker-clad stone flagons in a bonded warehouse until 2010’s release of “[Black Tot]: The Last Consignment”: a bottle will run you £650.

(The Royal Canadian Navy had its [Black Tot Day] on March 31, 1972, and the Royal New Zealand Navy held out until February 28, 1990.)

(this writeup may look familiar; much of it is an update of this post, with linkrot fixed.)

6.    Of what drink is Ernest Hemingway writing, in this passage from Islands in the Stream?

[Daiquiri]

There are many, many wonderful things that one can do with the Holy Trinity of rum, lime, and sweetener – the Canchánchara, the Mojito (of which more anon), the Hotel Nacional Special,the Ti’ Punch, the Queen’s Park Swizzle, the Baguio Skin – but perhaps most elemental of them all is the [Daiquirí]. It’s a test of a bartender, as there’s nowhere to hide...and even famously cranky food writer John Mariani puts the recipe on his business cards.

It was supposedly invented in 1896 by an American mining engineer named Jennings Cox who ran out of gin at a party...but it’s more likely that the drink evolved from the supplies at hand. (See the “El Draque” from Sir Francis Drake, c. 1586, which also employed the Holy Trinity.) Less disputable is the small beach village of [Daiquirí], near Santiago de Cuba (and its Bacardí distillery) that’s the source of the drink’s name.

If you’re shaking them up yourself, don’t go overboard on the sugar. In Volume 2 of The Gentleman’s Companion: Being An Exotic Drinking Book, or, Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask, Charles H. Baker, Jr. opined that “a too-sweet [Daiquiri] is like a lovely lady with too much perfume,” and drinks writer David A. Embury agreed, writing in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks that “this is a cocktail that is difficult to improve upon. It is dry, yet smooth. The reaction time is short. The lime and rum blend perfectly.”

Which brings us to Havana’s venerable El Floridita bar, where “Rey de los Coteleros” Constantino Ribalaigua Vert presided and made the house [Daiquirí], serving it “frappéd”, or over crushed ice, with a few drops of Maraschino cherry liqueur. One day Ernest Hemingway wandered in, in search of a bathroom, tasted the house [Daiquirí], and said, “That’s good, but I prefer it without sugar and double rum.” This variation was christened the Papa Doble in honor of its originator and its strength, and Hemingway claimed to hold the record of sixteen of these doubles in one sitting.

Papa still sits at the leftmost end of the bar – in the form of a bronze sculpture, complete with book in front of him – at La Floridita, exactly where he placed Thomas Hudson in Islands in the Stream.

Rum Trivia! Part 1

I recently wrote a short trivia quiz on rum for my favorite online trivia league. (It's great! Generally it's six questions every weekday, and you play a different person each day, and there's a defensive element, and you get promoted or relegated, football-league-style, depending on how you do. If you're interested in playing, HMU for an invite.) The regular matches are general-interest trivia, but between seasons users are invited to write topical quizzes on diverse subjects. Last year, a friend and I co-wrote a quiz on gin, and this year I wrote a quiz all about rum. For each quiz, I also put together a longer recap with a lot more information, and – in the spirit of recycling perfectly good content across multiple platforms, which is the Internet Way™ – I thought I'd throw a few questions up here on the blog on successive days, as they might be of some interest to readers interested in matters bibulous. 

So here are the first few rum questions, along with my writeup discussion. I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there. 

1.    What is the name generally given to a particular style of rich, funky, smoky rum distilled in Guyana?

[Demerara]

[Demerara rum] isn’t named for the [demerara] sugar*, but is produced at Guyana’s only distillery, on the banks of the [Demerara] River near Georgetown. [Demerara] Distillers produces the excellent El Dorado line of rums (your smith is especially partial to the 12- and 15-year expressions), as well as Lemon Hart, Skipper, Wood’s, and rums that show up in blends. One unusual approach from [Demerara] Distillers is that they have six continuous stills, one of which is made of wood, and two wooden pot stills, so they can make a very versatile range of rums. I’m not aware of any other wooden stills in use anywhere else in the world.

(* or maybe it is – as it ever seems, more research has revealed conflicting statements.)

2.    What ingredient – used instead of molasses – differentiates rhum agricole, made on Francophone islands, from other rums?

[Sugarcane juice/raw cane juice/pressed cane juice]

Rhum agricole that’s made in Martinique is protected by an official French appellation, but it’s also made in Guadeloupe and Haiti. The characteristic flavor notes are vegetal, grassy, earthy, and sometimes fruity. It’s astonishing how much variation there is in rum, and rhum agricole can really bring forth the notion of terroir as it relates to spirits.

3.    What animal appears in Bacardí’s logo? They were found in the original distillery by Doña Amalia Bacardí and taken as a good omen.

[(fruit) bat]

Originally, this question read as “Bacardí’s logo depicts not a fighting bull, nor a Lamborghini, but what animal?” I worded it this way as a clue, as the Spanish word for “[bat]” is “murciélago”. Lamborghini has named many of its cars after famous bulls, and Murciélago was supposedly a famous fighting bull from 1879. This wording proved confusing, and I dropped it in favor of a streamlined version.

The [bat] logo has changed over the years but is still in use, adorning not only the bottles of rum but also Bacardí’s current and former buildings.

Highland Park Tasting

I had the great good fortune to be invited to a guided blind tasting of twelve different Highland Park whiskies the other day. I was the (lucky and grateful) guest of F. Paul Pacult, one of the greatest spirits authorities in the world (and B.A.R. partner, Spirit Journal maven, Ultimate Beverage Challenge impresario, &c), who led the tasting. I learned a lot, not least that I have very good – or at least very expensive – taste. There were some remarkable spirits here.

Paul started off with a brief, fun lecture on whisky, Scotch in general, and specifically Highland Park, noting that he's tasted and reviewed more than 31,000 spirits, and that Highland Park is his favorite Scotch whisky. He said that "if someone were to ask me today what is the most complex of all spirits, I believe it's Scotch whisky. . .next after that I'd say mezcal." He mentioned that Highland Park is his favorite Scotch whisky, and specifically singled out Highland Park 18 as his pick for "the world's greatest spirit." 

He went over the process of making whisk(e)y, touching on his six determining factors that affect its taste and the seven steps of production. (That's all fairly basic stuff for most spirits geeks, so I'll skip over this or put it in a separate post.) What makes Highland Park different from its Scotch brethren largely centers around its location and some of its process decisions. Highland Park's distillery is in Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney, the archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland. (The distillery is the northernmost malt distillery in the UK; it's half a mile north of the Scapa distillery, which makes some very different whiskies.) HP chooses to dry approximately 20% of its malted barley over peat, giving the finished product a little smokiness but by no means as much as some other malts (esp. those from Islay.) The Orkney Islands are windswept, low, wet, and almost entirely treeless due to the ever-present wind -- this means that the composition of the local peat is different than what you'd find in Islay or the Scottish mainland. It's heather, gorse, and other shrubby plants mainly, lending a floral note. HP peat is approximately 4,000 years old, formed roughly when the local Neolithic cultures built the breathtaking Ring of Brodgar not far away (Neolithic Orkney is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and there are several monuments built between 3180 and 2000 BC, about ten miles west of the distillery.) It's hand-cut from Hobbister Moor by the sea, where parts of the peat fields are around 9,000 years old. And, the water used for Highland Park all comes from Cattie Maggie's Spring near the distillery, which produces very hard, mineral water and gives the whisky part of its distinctive taste.

After having all that knowledge dropped on us, it was time to taste! All of these were blind to us while we tasted, and Paul told us what we'd had, after every few expressions. HP has an enormous line of whiskies, but here's a quick list of what we tried, along with age, alcohol percentage by volume (i.e., double it to get the proof number), suggested retail price, and some brief nose and tasting impressions:

• Highland Park Viking Honour 12yo, 43%, $55. This scored 96 out of 100 at the most recent Ultimate Spirits Challenge. Very consistent, tried and true. Fresh and slightly grassy nose, dry-ish like all the HP line but with a touch of sweetness, maybe some green tea in there. Full-bodied.
• Highland Park Viking Pride 18yo, 43%, $150. This has won back-to-back Chairman's Trophies at Ultimate Spirits Challenge and has been named Best Spirit in the World twice in Spirit Journal. Heathery floral honey, maybe a little toffee or cherries.
• Highland Park 21yo, 46%, $350. Aged in European oak and American oak casks, both seasoned with sherry. Pear, vanilla, tropical fruit. This was my favorite in the tasting until we got to whisky #5.
• Highland Park Viking Legend Valkyrie, no age statement, 45.9%, $80. This uses 50% peated malt instead of HP's usual 20%, making this the peatiest by far of the HP line. Not a smoke bomb, but it's there, and definitely peatier. A little oily with some citrus and some slight bitterness. Personal taste, but I'd probably skip this one.
• Highland Park 25yo, 46%, $750. Wow. Wow wow wow. (My notebook has stars and underlining on this one.) One of two spirits that unanimously got a perfect score from the Ultimate Spirits Challenge judges in 2013. Baking spices, dried tropical fruit (mango?), and sweet cream. At the end of the tasting, the guy sitting next to me at the tasting asked if I would reach over and grab the glass of this one from the empty place on my other side. I complied, but only if he'd agree to split it with me. Utterly delicious.
• Highland Park Twisted Tattoo 16yo, 46.7%, $100. Aged in casks seasoned with Rioja. Spikier and hotter than some of the others we've tasted to this point, but only slightly stronger in abv. Fruit, berries, tea, green tea.
• Highland Park Valknut, no age statement, 46.8%, $80. Aged in 100% American oak, sherry-seasoned casks. Nutty, sweet (bakery and candy-shop) nose, warming and darker on the palate with baking and candy-shop edges.
• Highland Park Full Volume 17yo, 47.2%, $100. Aged in 100% American oak ex-bourbon barrels. Vanilla, smoke, wood, maybe some lemongrass. Most HP is aged in sherry-seasoned casks and this feels like it's missing out a bit because it wasn't.
• Highland Park Fire Edition 15yo, 45.2%, $300. Aged in 100% ex-Port casks. Berries and red fruit, wood, very soft and buttery. A nice warming fuzzy hug. My second favorite of the tasting overall, and a bargain at less than half the price of the 25yo!
• Highland Park Ice Edition 17yo, 53.9%, $300. Aged in 100% ex-bourbon barrels. Nice, but obviously much higher alcohol than the previous expression, well before I knew the abv number. (I guess this might just be the same juice as the Full Volume but not proofed down to 47.2%?) This got the Chairman's Trophy at the 2016 Ultimate Spirits Challenge with 99 out of 100 possible points. Ginger, vanilla, some spices. Felt hot and spiky to me, but I liked it much better after adding just a drop or three of water.
• Highland Park The Light 17yo, 52.9%, $300. Aged in European oak ex-sherry casks. Really nice, and lighter in color than I'd have thought, given the age. Woody, fudgy, maple-like aromas but some stewed fruit to go in with the vanilla and oaky wood on the palate. As Paul said, "this one for me is just rub-it-all-over-your-body good."
• Highland Park The Dark 17yo, 52.9%, $300. Nicely floral nose with fruitcake, baking spices, toasty nuttiness on the palate.

We then finished up with a Rob Roy made with the HP 12, at Paul's preferred specs of 2 1/2 oz. whisky, 1/2 oz. Dolin sweet vermouth, and 2 dashes Regans' orange bitters. Delicious and went down a treat. I've never made a Rob Roy with single malt before, but this worked well!

So: what to make of tasting nearly three thousand dollars of whisky, assuming I'd bought a bottle of each of the above, for quite the mixed case? My top three:

1. Highland Park 25yo;
2. Highland Park Fire Edition 15yo; and
3. Highland Park 21yo. 

The only big conclusion that I can draw is that I really like the HP approach of using almost entirely sherry-seasoned casks, and didn't dig the few ex-bourbon-barrel-aged whiskies as much. (That Port though in the Fire edition...whew.) I like how floral the peat is, and how different the peatiness is from an Islay malt. (And that you're not sucking on charcoal like some other whiskies.)

Thanks once again to Highland Park and F. Paul Pacult for inviting me. This was an amazing tasting.

 

Higher tariffs coming on European wine, whiskeys, cheeses, and olives

I see, in a CNN article, that the US plans to impose tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of European exports, after a WTO decision allowing the US to retaliate against European subsidies for Airbus.

One of the alarming notes for tipplers like us is that among the categories of imports specifically targeted by the US Trade Representative's office for higher tariffs are several European food and drink items. Each of these categories is getting a 25% increase in import duties:

• Single malt or straight Scotch and Irish whiskies from the UK (so, Northern Irish whiskies e.g. Bushmills, not ones from the Republic of Ireland like Jameson, and almost every Scotch. I'm not sure if this includes blended Scotch whiskies like Dewar's or Johnnie Walker);
• Liqueurs and cordials from Germany, Ireland, Spain, or the UK (e.g., Bailey's, Jagermeister, Goldwasser, Drambuie, Fernet-Branca, Campari, Disaronno, Galliano, limoncelli, Aperol, Licor 43, et al);
• Wine from France, Germany, Spain, or the UK;
• Fresh cheese from Germany, Spain, or the UK;
• Other cheeses from several countries including Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK (e.g. Cheddar, Parmesan, provolone, Romano, Stilton, gorgonzola);
• Olives and olive oil from France, Germany, Spain, or the UK;
• Pork products including ham, sausages, and pork shoulders from Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy, the UK, or several other countries (e.g. Speck, prosciutto, Serrano);
• Butter, cheeses, and yogurt from several countries including Ireland (e.g. Kerrygold);
• Cherries from Italy, Slovenia, or several other countries (e.g. Luxardo cocktail cherries);
• Sweet biscuits, cookies, or wafers from Germany or the UK.

Interestingly enough, French cheeses don't seem to come in for additional tariffs, and of course because Switzerland isn't part of the EU, Swiss cheeses aren't affected either. (Swiss-style cheeses from other countries may be more expensive, however.)

The European Union has been levying 25% tariffs on US whiskey, which has caused American whiskey exports to the EU to decline 21% since the tariffs were imposed in June 2018, according to the Distilled Spirits Council. The group is denouncing the US retaliatory tariffs, arguing that they could cost up to 78,600 US jobs in the hospitality and beverage alcohol industries. According to Reuters, ancillary costs are mounting, such as for distillers who bought 700ml bottles to package their spirits for European sale in addition to the standard 750ml bottles used in the US.

The latest US tariffs on EU imports are slated to take effect on October 18.