Cocktailians

MxMo LXXV: Oh Mai

Can you believe that Mixology Monday is 75 installments old this month? Paul Clarke's fantastic idea has sparked tons of creative cocktail recipes and writing over the years, and I really should participate more often -- the deadline and structure are wonderful for getting lazy bloggers like me a-tinkering, and it's always neat to see tons of riffs on the same basic theme. This month's host is book-writin', cocktail-creatin' machine Frederic Yarm over at Cocktail Virgin Slut, and he's set for us the theme of "Flip Flop": "Find a recipe, either new or old, and switch around at least two of the ingredients to sister or cousin ingredients but holding the proportions and some of the ingredients the same. The new recipe should be recognizable as a morph of the old one when viewed side by side."

One drink I've been enamored of this summer has been the classic Mai Tai. Great tiki drinks don't have to have a bajillion ingredients to dazzle you, as long as they're chosen with care and expertly balanced. (Even though there are a bajillion different recipes for a Mai Tai, without even getting into all the variations from different ingredient brands, or all the ways it can be screwed up.) And, given that you can really change up a drink by subbing out an ingredient or two, and given that Sours seem especially given to experimentation in this way since the drink's structure is so robust, the Mai Tai seemed ripe for a flip flop. (Also ripe for a flip flop? The ones I found in the bottom of my closet the other day. But that's some funk that we don't want to taste.)

As Jordan Devereaux notes at Chemistry of the Cocktail, "what's amazing about the Mai Tai is how adaptable it is to other spirits." If you use bourbon instead of rums, you can get a Honi Honi, for instance. However, one distinctive feature of the Mai Tai recipe is its combination of two different rums to achieve the desired effect. (This strikes me as a classic Tiki technique.) This blending approach pays off when you shake up the spirit selection. So if you take that Honi Honi and split the bourbon called for there into equal parts bourbon and bonded rye (and switch the lime to a more bourbon-friendly lemon), you get a Bluegrass Mai Tai, which sounds like a much more varied, richer drink. A Mai Tai made with tequila (or is it a Margarita spiked with orgeat?) is a Pinky Gonzalez, invented by Trader Vic in 1964. And, our host this month even raised the bar with a Sherry Mai Tai, employing an Amontillado and a Pedro Ximénez -- I can't even picture this one and want to take a whack at it.

I attended a Tiki Monday a while back that was sponsored by Brooklyn Gin, and I was looking forward to the possibilities of more gin tiki drinks. Of course, Tiki Mondays impresario Brian Miller created the fantastic (and fantastically complex) Winchester, which he characterizes as "a gin Zombie." Miller and this blog's favorite bartender, Brooklyn Gin's Damon Dyer, served up all sorts of interesting drinks, and I had enough of them that, well, I don't really remember what I had. But it did inspire me to try my hand at mixing several different gins together in a quest for a juniper-y Mai Tai. After some trial and error, I landed on this combination of malty Bols genever, citrusy Brooklyn Gin, and a rum-based orange liqueur. And the name? That comes from what I said the first time I tried this.

Oh Mai

• 1 oz. Bols genever
• 1 oz. Brooklyn gin
• 1/2 oz. Creole Shrubb
• 1/2 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 oz. orgeat (I use B.G. Reynolds)
• two drops orange flower water (if using the B.G. Reynolds orgeat)
• 1/4 oz. simple syrup

Shake with ice and pour unstrained into a double rocks glass, and sink the lime half in there. Garnish with a freshly spanked sprig of mint, stand back, and say...

MxMo Submission: The Star Cocktail

This Mixology Monday was a tough one for me -- not because it was difficult to create a new cocktail, or find a sufficiently interesting drink to write about, but rather because the theme was so goshdarned big. How could I narrow it down to just one drink, when there are so many wonderful cocktails out there containing vermouth? The first cocktail I really enjoyed was a Manhattan, after all, and the category is wide open. As I mentioned in the announcement post, the aromatized-wine family covers vermouth, quinquina like Dubonnet and Lillet, aperitif wines, and lots more.

I initially considered a "Vermouth Cocktail", which dates all the way back to 1869 and consists of simply a couple ounces of sweet vermouth, a tiny bit of ice, and a twist. (There's also the "Fancy Vermouth Cocktail", from the 1887 edition of Jerry Thomas's How to Mix Drinks, which adds a couple dashes of Angostura bitters and a teaspoon of Maraschino, and changes the garnish to a lemon wheel.) Straight vermouth makes an excellent aperitif, whetting the appetite with its wonderful combination of sweetness, spice, and slight bitterness, and preparing the palate for savory delights to come. Dry vermouth on the rocks is a great summer drink, too, and the light herbaceousness can be very refreshing. As Chuck Taggart points out, Lillet on the rocks with a slice of orange "is the favorite drink of one Dr. Hannibal Lecter", and it's good with a flamed orange peel as well.

You don't have to be a cannibal to enjoy Lillet, though -- this is one of my very favorite ingredients, with its sweet citrus flavor tempered with herbs and its slightly viscous, ice-cube-coating texture. It's essential, of course in what I'd probably pick as my favorite cocktail, the Corpse Reviver No. 2 (you'd most likely have to hold a gun to my head to get me to pick a favorite cocktail, but if you did, I'd probably go for this one.) Lillet also figures prominently in the Corpse Reviver No. 2's cousin, the Twentieth Century. Invented about forty years later (and named for the famed and equally elegant express train from New York to Chicago), the Twentieth Century is an amazing drink best described by Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh in Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails as going down "like light, zingy lemonade, but in the aftertaste there is an ethereal sense of chocolate." In Chuck's post here about the Twentieth Century, he asks "Is it too early to create a Twenty-First Century Cocktail?" Not at all, and as I discovered in a visit to the Pegu Club a while back, there already is one. Invented by Jim Meehan of PDT, it's a wonderful balance of tequila, crème de cacao, lemon, and Pernod...but since it doesn't have an aromatized wine in it, it doesn't work for this post. (There's also a Nineteenth-Century Cocktail, invented by Brian Miller of Death & Co. and shown to me by St. John Frizell -- it's bourbon, Lillet Rouge (not the usual Lillet Blanc), lemon, and crème de cacao.)

As David Wondrich notes in his book Imbibe, the introduction of the Manhattan really got the vermouth revolution going, and bartenders around the turn of the century used it in almost everything. In the April 2009 issue of Esquire, Wondrich offers a great formula for inventing new cocktails: two ounces of base spirit, an ounce of a fortified wine, a teaspoon of liqueur, and a couple of dashes of bitters. This formula's easily as useful as the classic 2:1:1 or 3:2:1 ratios of spirit:liqueur:citrus for making Sours sweetened with liqueurs -- and note that fortified-wine recommendation!

I considered a few other cocktails, which I'm noting here because I want to get around to trying them: Dr. Cocktail's CEO Cocktail and Gary Regan's Delmarva Cocktail No. 2 (itself a variation on an original from Dr. Cocktail.) Also, if I ever want to crack open the Noilly Ambre that was a very, very generous gift from the estimable Jay Hepburn, the Amber Room looks fascinating as well.

But for today, I wanted to go farther back, and try a cocktail that was briefly in vogue in 1895. I have a bottle of Laird's Bonded Apple Brandy (which goes into their applejack, which is a blended product with water and neutral grain spirits), and while I do love the Jack Rose, the prospect of another cocktail using Laird's was too good to pass up. 

Star Cocktail

• 1 1/2 oz. apple brandy
• 1 1/2 oz. sweet vermouth (I used Punt E Mes, for maximum cider-y spice)
• 3 dashes Angostura bitters
• 1/2 teaspoon gum syrup (which I omitted, at Wondrich's suggestion)

Stir, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and serve with a twist.

This is an interesting taste -- at first the vermouth's bittersweet spiciness is reminiscent of a Manhattan, but the apple brandy's mellow flavor is different from rye's peppery bite. And, of course, the bitters tie it all together. Angostura is good in this one, but I think I might try the Fee's Whiskey-Barrel-Aged Old Fashioned bitters in this next time.

Announcing MxMo XLIII: Vermouth

The intrepid cocktailians participating in Mixology Monday have tackled some interesting things: spice, guilty pleasures, 19th-century cocktails, strong drinks. They've even asserted that vodka is your friend...something that can be a stretch for many cocktail aficionados.

Well, it enjoys a somewhat better reputation among the cocktailian cognoscenti than it does among the greater public, but vermouth is similarly (and unfairly) maligned by many. There's the infamous "Churchill Martini", the invention of one Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, et cetera, who really should have known better. It consists of a glass of very cold gin, an olive or three, and a bow in the direction of France (or a glance toward the bottle of vermouth, or some other foofaw involving not actually putting it in one's drink.) There are the protestations from friends and fellow barflies that they don't like vermouth, and I can say I really don't blame them...if your sole experience is of vermouth from dusty, warm half-empty bottles that have moldered away on a back bar since the Carter Administration, you aren't going to like vermouth very much. One can even buy ridiculous products to atomize it in your drink. But that's not necessary, and if you go down that road, you're missing out on a great ingredient.

As cocktail chronicler (and MxMo organizer) Paul Clarke points out in the San Francisco Chronicle,

When the trumpets sound and Judgment Day comes, we mortals will have plenty for which to account. While it falls many points below unforgivable crimes such as destruction of the rain forest, global warming and the green-lighting of "The Love Guru," the decline in vermouth's fortunes from 19th century dandy to outcast of the speed rail certainly ranks on the list of modern offenses. . .

"Bartenders are taught to treat (vermouth) like toxic waste," says cocktail historian David Wondrich.

Wondrich notes that vermouth revolutionized mixology when it entered heavy usage in the late 1880s, and vermouth-heavy drinks of the era - such as prototypes of the martini and the Manhattan, which were made with twice as much vermouth as gin or whiskey - earned the cocktail a new level of sophistication. "By the 1890s it's like every drink has vermouth in it," Wondrich says. "They were completely crazy about this stuff."

As well they should be; quality vermouth stored correctly is a complex, aromatic, flavorful ingredient that adds a lot to a base spirit. (Go read the rest of Paul's article right now if you haven't already; it's a fantastic primer on vermouth -- how to use it, its history, some tasting notes, and even some recipes.)

So: your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to present a delectable vermouth cocktail for us all to drool over. Sweet/Italian or dry/French vermouth are fair game of course, as are quinquina, aperitif wines like Pineau des Charentes, or for that matter any fortified, aromatized wine such as Lillet (red or white), or Dubonnet (ditto.) Have fun, and leave the link in the comments to this post by midnight PDT (no, not this PDT) (3am EDT) Tuesday, October 27th. In other words, you have a little over a week to get it done, and as long as you submit it sometime by Monday, you'll get in under the wire. I look forward to the results!

MxMo Submission: The Japonais

This month's Mixology Monday is hosted by Amelia over at Felicia's Speakeasy (hailing from Ithaca, NY, home of my alma mater.) This one's a bit of a challenge, but a challenge is good every now and then. Why's this one particularly tough? I'll let her elaborate:

The theme of August 10th’s Mixology Monday is “Vodka is Your Friend.” The recent high profile bashings of vodka interspersed with a few weak “yeah, buts…” left me wondering, is vodka the axis of evil, our most dangerous enemy? While it may not be the life of the party, experts agree: Vodka’s obituary does not have to be written just yet.

Incidentally, none other than LeNell Smothers agrees, stating in her very-good-sounding recipe for a Rock and Rye Cooler that:

Yes, it does have vodka in it. You cocktail geeks who roll your eyes at the mention of vodka need to get over yourselves. Vodka does serve a purpose in the cocktail kingdom as a good workhorse spirit to cut stronger flavors or to just add a kick of spirity fire to juice. . .Vodka has been a beloved spirit for hundreds of years. Stop the eye rolling and start the chilling out. We all need to relax and love a bit more.

I couldn't agree more. That said, however, I must admit that I very rarely use vodka, since I prefer to focus on spirits with more...assertive flavor: your gins, your whiskies, your brandies, et cetera. I was at a loss over how to proceed, but my girlfriend Bari helped out quite a bit with this one. She's been drinking a lot of green tea lately as part of an effort to eat healthier (dear reader, I'm trying too, but that's a challenge in and of itself.) Inspired by some Trader Joe's Cranberry Green Tea that we enjoy, we took a trip to the health-food aisle of the grocery store, then played around with several different flavors and proportions before we came up with:

The Japonais

• 1 oz. Lillet Blanc
• 3/4 oz. green tea vodka
• 1/2 tsp. cranberry juice concentrate
• 2 tsp. agave nectar

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a lemon twist and dried cranberry.

When we were in the health-food aisle, we noticed some unsweetened cranberry juice concentrate that's very strong; the directions call for you to mix one part concentrate with five parts water and sweeten to taste. We also used agave nectar, which isn't as sweet as simple syrup. I made the green tea vodka by infusing four ounces of good vodka (I used Cape North) with two green-tea teabags for 15 minutes or so. (In retrospect, you probably don't need to use more than one teabag for this.)

The name for this drink was decidedly more difficult to come up with than the recipe was. We thought of -- and fortunately discarded -- some truly horrendous ones, such as the "L'il Cran-Teani", the "Jersey Lillet" (since we talked out the idea of green tea-infused vodka and cranberries while riding a bus on the New Jersey Turnpike), the "Don't Stop Tea-Leavin'", and (worst of all) the "Cranheim Tearoller." This was one of the few names we came up with that didn't make us cringe, and is a nod to the Japanese green tea and the very French Lillet.

MxMo Submission: The Litigious Bastard

UPDATE: I've changed the drink's name.

This month's Mixology Monday theme is "Ginger" -- what a good idea! Ginger's sweet, spicy heat figures prominently in many cocktails, such as the classic Dark 'n' Stormy or the true modern-day classic from Audrey Saunders, the Gin-Gin Mule. (Michael Dietsch is right on when he notes that wimpy, HFCS-laden "ginger ale" doesn't do the trick. You want a real ginger bite when you make one of those drinks. Ginger beer (or Blenheim Ginger Ale -- Vernors used to qualify, but they've changed it somewhat) is what's needed for the true amount of spice.) And of course, there are other options: homemade ginger beer, muddling or juicing a piece of ginger, Stone's Ginger Wine, and Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, just to name a few. I decided to go with the Domaine de Canton, simply because MxMo was a good excuse to pick up a bottle that I'd been eyeing in my local liquor store for a little while now.

Ginger's also a good remedy for upset stomachs -- candied or crystallized ginger is about as effective as Angostura in soda for soothing queasy tummies. Hmmm...maybe I should douse a piece of candied ginger with Angostura the next time I'm not feeling well. It's probably wishful thinking on my part, but I wonder if a ginger-based drink would leave the drinker less susceptible to that part of a hangover? Evidently more experimentation is needed.

Matt Robold, aka the RumDood, is hosting this month's MxMo. I hope he'll let me use a recipe without rum -- as he says it, "some people are fine with mediocrity"...ouch! I used tequila as a base spirit, since I wanted to use the Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters (more on those below), and I thought the slight bite from the Maestro Dobel might complement the ginger's subtle-sweet heat. And, once I'd decided on tequila, the Margarita was my natural starting point. As luck would have it, this one came together pretty quickly. (Thinking of Tequila por mi Amante, I also tried a variation with a teeny splash of some kickass Creme de Frais de Bois (wild strawberry) liqueur that I have, but it wound up a confused mess.) This is a very simple and not-terribly-creative drink that I'm offering this month, but I find that it goes down easily and is pretty refreshing on a hot summer's day.

Gingerita Litigious Bastard

• 1 1/2 oz. tequila (I used Maestro Dobel Diamond, a lighter-yet-flavorful tequila made from blended and filtered aged tequilas)
• 1 oz. Domaine de Canton
• 1/2. oz. lime juice
• 2 healthy dashes of Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a lime-wedge/crystallized-ginger flag.

The name is obvious the name has been changed, but this is essentially a Margarita with the Canton substituted for the Cointreau, plus a dash of the mole bitters. I was thinking of how much I like candied ginger dipped in dark chocolate, and thought I'd go for the chocolate note as well with this drink. (The Bittermens bitters are awesome, and the Xocolatl Mole and Grapefruit bitters are now finally available, produced by The Bitter Truth and sold in the US by The Boston Shaker! Go get some.)

MxMo Submission: The Astoria

This month's Mixology Monday theme is "Amaro", chosen by none other than co-author Chuck Taggart over at Looka. What an interesting topic; there are tons of amari, all different and many of them quite mixable. They range from light herbal vermouth-esque liqueurs to real monsters of bitterness, like Campari, Fernet Branca (the legendarily bitter drink that'd be a punchline more than a tipple if it weren't so complex and beneficial), and Malört.

I picked one somewhere in the middle -- Amaro Ramazzotti. (I also picked it because it's an ingredient in "Amer Boudreau", Jamie Boudreau's replication of the incredibly-hard-to-find Amer Picon. So if I make some of that, then I can have Picon Punches and Bywaters. I need to get on this, I think.) It reminds me of a good sweet vermouth, like a Vya or Punt E Mes, or Carpano Antica Formula, and that make sense -- it's Italian-made, intensely herbal, with a sweet note on top of all the bitter funkiness underneath.

My first thought was to try something with rye and Cherry Heering, as kind of a Manhattan variation. I was also thinking of chocolate-covered cherries, and kirsch-filled chocolate bars, and decided that it might be really interesting with the Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters (which are unique and excellent) but then Chuck posted the wonderful-looking Eagle Rock cocktail, featuring rye, sweet vermouth, amaro, Cherry Heering, and mole bitters. Foiled! It was time to regroup.

Casting an eye over the rack of bitters in my kitchen, I pulled out a few candidates, and after a few false starts and mishaps (like when the orifice restrictor in the bottle of lemon bitters came off with the cap, and I unknowingly poured about two ounces of bitters in my mixing glass -- gawp!), I came up with something I liked. I kept going back and forth about which bitters to use: was it better with lemon and rhubarb? Or with lemon and cherry? Cherry and rhubarb? Well, why not all three? (I'm sure the Fee Brothers would approve.)

And, if Chuck could name a cocktail after his neighborhood, then I can name one after mine. It's pan-ethnic, and a little bit spicy, much like my Queens nabe. (Yes, I know there's an Astoria cocktail in the Savoy Cocktail Book, but it's essentially a dry Martini. Good, yes, but not evocative of the place. Perhaps that Astoria cocktail is named after the Waldorf=Astoria hotel, and not so much my corner of northwestern Queens.)

The Astoria

• 1 oz. rye whiskey (I used the Rittenhouse 100; if you're using the baby Saz or another 80-proof, you may want to up the amount a little)
• 1 oz. Amaro Ramazzotti
• 1/2 oz. Lillet Blanc
• 2 dashes lemon bitters
• 2 dashes rhubarb bitters
• 1 dash cherry bitters

Stir with ice for at least 60 seconds until very cold. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a flamed lemon peel.

MxMo Submision: Aviation

Welcome, n00bs: this month's Mixology Monday theme is "First Time."  To wit; what cocktail does one serve to someone who's never had a cocktail before?  You want to whet their appetite for future cocktails (while simultaneously wetting their whistle), but you don't want to scare them off with tons of ingredients or acquired-taste flavors.  As our fine hosts at LUPEC Boston put it:

What drink do you suggest for the delicate palate of the cocktail neophyte? Something boozy and balanced, sure - but one wrong suggestion could relegate the newbie to a beer-drinker’s life. To which go-to cocktails do you turn to when faced with the challenge?

This probably isn't the place for love-it-or-hate-it flavors like anise, so I wouldn't go with something like a Monkey Gland.  Nor would I go for, say, something with a pretty unusual flavor profile, like a Blood and Sand.  But how to initiate the cocktail virgin into a lifetime of bibulous enjoyment? 

Well, the first real cocktail I ever ordered -- aside from the Lemon Drop that a cousin foisted on me on my 21st birthday -- was a Manhattan. I was in a hotel bar in Los Angeles on a business trip, and wanted something interesting to drink that had whiskey in it.  I knew what was in a Manhattan, but I'd never had one. As luck would have it, the bartender at the Radisson Downtown made a perfectly creditable specimen, and I was hooked.

The Manhattan was my go-to drink for quite a while, and when I discovered what bitters brought to the taste, it was even better. I branched out a little here and there -- I was well on my way to becoming a cocktail dork when I had a superlative Sidecar for the first time -- but it was an encounter with a Corpse Reviver No. 2 that really showed me what a cocktail could be.

But, I don't think a Corpse Reviver is the right drink to intiate a cocktail newbie -- you've got to measure everything carefully and make it just right in order for it to be balanced, or else you wind up with junk. And that could easily strike the neophyte as just too fiddly to bother with. Let them work up to it.

Rather, what I'd recommend for a first cocktail is something that's simple and balanced, and will hopefully provide a revelatory new experience, with a bit of elegance to boot. Something like the Aviation.  It only has three (or perhaps four) ingredients -- more on that momentarily -- but offers a wealth of interesting tastes.  There's sweetness and acid, fruit and herbaceousness, all working together and giving way to each other.  The gin ties the drink together (but no, this isn't a Caucasian), the Maraschino adds the fruit as well as some earthy and nutty notes, and the lemon gives you acid and those wonderful citrus oils. You can taste each individual ingredient without too much effort, and yet you get the synergy of a well-balanced drink. What better way to get someone interested in the possibilities of cocktails?

I also like my Aviations with a teeny splash of Creme de Violette, as has become possible once again in the past year or so, but sometimes adding the floral note just seems like (ahem) gilding the lily. Better not to hit our cocktailian-in-training with too much at once.  (But if they like that, by all means go ahead and introduce them to the pleasures of the Blue Moon.)

From there, it's a natural step to explain how sours work, and show the various other family members (e.g., Bacardis, Margaritas, Kamikazes/Cosmopolitans) and how they fit together, and hopefully you'll have a cocktailian on your hands before too long.

Aviation

• 2 oz. gin
• 1/2 oz. Maraschino
• 1/4 oz. lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a homemade Maraschino cherry.

MxMo Submission: Tippecanoe Sparkler

This month's Mixology Monday theme is "Spice."  Craig at Tiki Drinks & Indigo Firmaments is hosting, and says "Spice should give you plenty of room to play - from the winter warmers of egg nog, wassail and mulled products to the strange and interesting infusions of pepper, ceubub, grains of paradise, nutmeg — what have you!"  And, as Craig notes in his first examples above, December is an excellent time for drinks flavored by spice. 

'Tis the season for eggnog and mulled wine or cider, after all, so that was where I gravitated first.  But why limit ourselves to eggnog or cider, when we can have both?  As chronicled by ur-bartender Jerry Thomas in his 1862 magnum opus How To Mix Drinks, or The Bon-Vivant's Companion, just such a combination was favored by William Henry Harrison:

(See, Arnold Palmer wasn't the first person to have odd mixtures of beverages named after him.) 

"General Harrison" was of course President Harrison as well; and it's only fitting that he be remembered by a drink:  during his 1840 campaign, a Democratic newspaper editor said that Harrison would rather sit in his log cabin drinking hard cider than run the country. Harrison's campaign ran with this image -- contrasting it with opponent Martin Van Buren's supposed effete tastes for Champagne and Madeira -- and immediately produced all manner of log-cabin- and hard-cider-themed merchandise. (Incidentally, what was called the somewhat inebriated campaign of 1840 was the first to use modern image-making tactics; besides the log cabin and hard cider images, the Whigs also produced the first campaign slogan ("Tippecanoe and Tyler Too") and many campaign songs.)

So, General Harrison's Egg Nogg combined cider and eggs in a most novel way.  But since this MxMo is all about spicy flavors, I decided to up the ante a little bit with some aromatic bitters (for a cinnamon-clove note) and allspice dram.  I also added some brandy and rum -- traditional additions to eggnog -- and some grated nutmeg, both for its traditional garnish for eggnog and its historical place atop cocktails of all kinds.  And, finally, the festive holiday season seemed to demand a sparkling drink.  Here's what I came up with:

Tippecanoe Sparkler

• 1/2 oz. rum
• 1/2 oz. brandy
• 1/2 oz. allspice dram
• 1 large egg
• 2 dashes bitters
• sparkling cider

Shake all ingredients except the cider with ice, and strain into a chilled flute. Top up with cider and stir gently. Garnish with grated nutmeg and/or star anise.

Note:  I made this with Pyrat XO rum, Fee's Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters, and Martinelli's sparkling cider.  Because I was using a liqueur and since the cider is so very sweet, I skipped the sugar called for in Jerry Thomas's original recipe for General Harrison's Egg Nogg.  I'd like to try this with a drier cider (like Samuel Smith's Organic Cider) or a spicier rum, too.  I also used a cobbler shaker rather than my usual Boston shaker, just so I could make sure I got the egg well-mixed.

MxMo Submission: Manhattan with Fig Bitters

The Mixology Monday theme this month is "Made From Scratch" -- Doug over at Pegu Blog is inviting participants to come up with drinks which include ingredients that they've made themselves.

And I have a confession to make:  Due to poor planning and MxMo's tendency to sneak up on me, I'm currently several hundred miles away from my home computer, which of course contains recipes and further details of the ingredients in question for this month's submission.  I hope to update this entry and add some specificity (and some pictures.)

A post of Chuck's from a few months back got me thinking about fig-infused bourbon and how good that'd be.  So I got some fresh Mission figs and some dried ones, cut them up, and stated infusing a bottle of Bulleit.  But I had lots of figs, and suddenly the idea of fig bitters came to mind.  After doing a bit of research (hat tip especially to Jamie Boudreau's theory of making separate bittering and flavoring agents, and combining them to taste), and using Chuck's Taggart Bitters No. 3 as a starting point for my shopping list, I headed down to my local weird-spice supply store.  I got gentian, mace blades, allspice berries, wormwood bark, cloves, cardamom, and nutmeg, toasted them all briefly in a skillet, crushed them with a mortar and pestle, and then steeped them for ten days or so in some 140-proof poteen that a generous friend brought me from Europe.  I also infused a bunch more of the fresh and dried figs in some Rittenhouse Bottled in Bond 100-proof rye, also for about ten days.

When I tasted the bitter blend, it was -- no joke -- the bitterest thing I've ever tasted.  One drop was enough to make my salivary glands kick into overdrive and snap my head back with the sheer bitterness of it all.  The fig-infused rye was mellow and sweet, and the most difficult thing there was successfully filtering out all the tiny fig seeds.  I blended several tablespoons of the bitter blend with the fig-infused rye, and I was set.  All that was left was to heat some more figs in some water, reduce that water down to concentrate the flavor some more, and add that water to the bitters to lower the alcohol level a bit.

I think the fig bitters came out fairly well, although the flavor isn't quite as robust as I'd hoped it'd be.  There's an initial burst of figgy sweetness up front, and then the spicy bitterness hits your palate.

However, a couple good-sized dashes are a nice addition to a cocktail, and I especially like the homemade fig bitters in a Manhattan.  Lately I've been making them like this:

Figgy Manhattan

• 1 oz. rye whiskey
• 1 oz. fig-infused bourbon
• 1 oz. sweet vermouth (I like Vya)
• several healthy dashes fig bitters.

Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a homemade Maraschino cherry.

(Want to try a sample of the fig bitters?  Drop me a line.)

MxMo Submission: Careful, Man, There's A Beverage Here!

The Mixology Monday theme this month is "Guilty Pleasures."  Like it or not, many cocktailians (including , um, yours truly) raise their noses in the air. It can be part of truly appreciating what you've spent a great deal of time contemplating, but it can also come across as base snobbery.  As host Stevi Deter puts it, "in the world of cocktail bloggery, we are often pronouncing certain drinks, categories of drinks, and even an entire base spirit to be the sign of a poorly educated drinker’s palate. There seems to be no room for comfort cocktails."  Well, I think this one definitely qualifies as a comfort cocktail.  It's sweet, has cream in it, and the base spirit is vodka.  What could be more self-indulgent?  It's even identified with the ultimate slacker touchstone, "The Big Lebowski," spawner of fan fests and souvenir products.  (Say what you will about Achievers, at least it's an ethos.)  The movie, which was released ten years ago this week, was described by the BBC as "two hours of wild self-indulgence", and clearly the "Caucasian" is a drink that fits the bill.

The White Russian is a simple cocktail, with just three ingredients; its origins lie in the even simpler Black Russian.  Invented by Gustav Tops, a bartender at Brussels' Hotel Metropole in the late 1940s, the Black Russian consists solely of Kahlúa and vodka over crushed ice.  (Tops concocted the drink to honor U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg (and society hostess) Perle Mesta, who also inspired the Irving Berlin musical "Call Me Madam.") The White Russian simply adds cream, though the Dude was known to occasionally take his with half-and-half. (During the movie, he drinks nine White Russians -- and drops one, though that one had a Mickey Finn as the unauthorized secret ingredient. I don't recommend adding that to your recipe, though it may result in vivid dreams and cab rides involving the Eagles.)

Proportions of the ingredients vary all over the place: the IBA and Wikipedia specify five parts vodka, two parts Kahlúa, and three parts cream, but I prefer the more common proportions from DrinkBoy and elsewhere:

White Russian

• 2 oz. vodka
• 1 oz. Kahlúa
• 1/2 oz. cream or half-and-half.

Build over ice in a rocks glass, floating the cream on top. Abide.

The bums may have lost, but they have a hell of a drink to console them.  And I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that.

UPDATE:   The roundup's been posted over at Two at the Most.  Thanks to Stevi Deter for hosting!