Cocktailians

Brandy Trivia! Part 4

As seen here earlier, I recently put together a trivia quiz all about brandy. 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 images to embiggen them.

10.  The Spanish Brandy de Jerez is aged in oak sherry casks. The aging system involves filling bottles from the oldest of a range of casks, which are refilled with brandy from the next-oldest cask, which is refilled from the next-oldest cask after that, and so on, with new distillate placed in the youngest cask. In theory, traces of the very oldest brandy, and of all the ages, can be found in the finished product. In Sicily, where it’s used to produce Marsala, this system is called in perpetuum. In the Banyuls area of France, it’s called sostrera. What is this system called in Spain, where they also use it for sherry?

[SOLERA]

“The [solera] system of aging Spanish Brandy works so well because it marries younger, more vigorous spirits with older, mellower spirits in a deliberate process, thereby reaching a balance of virtues,” explains Paul Pacult, brandy expert and editor/publisher of Spirit Journal.)

I tried to explain the [solera] system in a clear yet succinct way, and the testers were very helpful in refining the wording. It’s most often encountered with sherry, but it’s an interesting approach to aging spirits as well - Zacapa 23 rum, Hillrock bourbon, and Glenfiddich 15 Scotch, among others, all use the solera system.

I need to get more familiar with Spanish brandy, as it sounds interesting and I am enjoying learning about sherry. Here are primers on Brandy de Jerez from Eric Twardzik of Bevvy and from Inka Larissa of On The Sauce Again.

11.  The Curaçao style of orange liqueur is based on brandy. One of the greatest is a blend of 51% Cognac and 49% house-distilled orange liqueur, bottled in pot-still-shaped bottles, and its most common expression is decorated with a red ribbon or cordon rouge. Originated by Louis-Alexandre M. Lapostolle in 1880 and named by his friend hotelier César Ritz, what liqueur is this?

[GRAND MARNIER]

The M. in Louis-Alexandre Lapostolle’s name stood for “Marnier,” of course. The Grand Marnier line of liqueurs is first-rate. (I once was lucky enough to get to taste the full line of their expressions, including the mind-bogglingly spectacular Quintessence, made with Cognacs ranging from 25 to 100 years old.) Mostly I use the much cheaper Cordon Rouge which is also pretty darned delicious.

The universe of orange liqueurs is pretty huge, and ranges from triple secs to Curaçaos to rum-based liqueurs such as Creole Shrubb. [Grand Marnier] is amazingly consistent, considering how much they make of it and that just over half of it is a careful blend of Cognacs, which can of course vary from batch to batch and with the vagaries of aging. (It’s downright astonishing, actually, that the various Cognac producers achieve such consistency and quality in their blends, given that everything they’re working with is a pot-still distillation, aged for varying lengths of time.)

The MCWA by far was the estimable Cointreau, which is delicious itself and arguably more versatile than [Grand Marnier] (I tend to use it in more mixed drinks than I do [Grand Marnier], unless I really want to play up the brandy and oak-aged vanilla flavors that [Grand Marnier] brings to the table.) Cointreau is a triple sec, and it’s based on neutral spirit distilled from sugar beets. (In an apparent nod to [Grand Marnier]’s success, Rémy Cointreau (formed in 1990 by a merger between the family companies that controlled Rémy Martin and Cointreau) introduced Cointreau Noir in 2012; it combines 70% Cointreau and 30% Cognac from the House of Rémy Martin, as well as some natural walnut and almond flavoring.)

(This question originally included this bottle shot, but I took it out because it was fairly easy without it and a downright gimme with it.)

12.  Applejack isn’t the only apple brandy out there. Some of the greatest comes from northwestern France, and it can include pears alongside apples (at least 30% pear content in the Domfrontais region.) When it’s made in Brittany it’s called lambig; what is the name – after the département where it’s produced – for apple brandy from neighboring Normandy?

[CALVADOS]

It seemed appropriate to wind up this quiz with a digestif, and what better than a [ Calva ]? The best apple brandies aren’t necessarily sweet, but have astonishing power, fruit aromas, and depth from careful aging. A recent trip to Brittany and Normandy was great fun - I sampled lots of cider, lambig and [ Calvados ], visited distilleries in both regions, and wished I could have carried many more bottles home. (I also hadn’t known that Calvados was a département until I saw it on a road sign.)

I had originally included the map found here of the [Calvados] growth regions, but it wasn’t necessary for the question.

Some extra questions cut from the first draft of the quiz:

X1.  The Old-Fashioned is typically a whiskey drink, except in Wisconsin, where the Brandy Old-Fashioned reigns supreme, especially in supper clubs. After the bartender muddles cherries and oranges with sugar and bitters, and adds a slug of brandy, patrons usually specify one of three styles for the drink: sweet (when it is finished with 7-Up), sour (when it is finished with sour mix or Squirt), and what third option, which is usually finished with half 7-Up, half club soda?

[PRESS]

The Wisconsin-supper-club-style Brandy Old-Fashioned is indeed a unique take on a drink, and the reason why so much California brandy winds up in the Upper Midwest.

But the “press” variation is apparently far less common than the “sweet” or “sour” styles, and this question was already dangerously far into YEKIOYD territory, as it was so regionally specific.

X2.  There aren’t a ton of cocktails that rely on crème de menthe. What crème de menthe and brandy cocktail’s name is redacted from the following passage? (Note: it’s not “Irving.”)

[STINGER]

The other crème de menthe and brandy drink is, of course, the Grasshopper, and the “Irving” references this hoary old joke. I added the reference when testers wisely raised concerns about differentiating it from the other drink with the insectoid name, but it was ultimately easier to get rid of it entirely.

The quote is from David Wondrich’s marvelous book Imbibe!, which goes on to note that the [Stinger] was the favorite drink of Reginald Vanderbilt (father of Gloria, grandfather of Anderson Cooper), who would mix them up for guests in his Fifth Avenue mansion, standing behind a marble bar he’d imported from a Norman coaching inn. Here are some variations on the classic recipe. [Stingers] have been enjoyed by high society types, but they've also been ordered by Cary Grant’s character in “Kiss Them For Me” and James Bond. (Much like Bond’s Martini, [Stingers] are one of the very few all-spirit cocktails (i.e., no juices) that’s shaken with ice rather than stirred.)

Brandy Trivia! Part 3

As seen here earlier, I recently put together a trivia quiz all about brandy. 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 images to embiggen them.

7.  Slivovitz, Țuică, eau-de-vie de Quetsche, and Mirabelle brandies are made from what fruit?

[PLUMS]

Fruit eaux-de-vie are a big part of the brandy universe, though grape brandies tend to get most of the attention. Central and Eastern Europe are especially known for their fruit brandies (though Oregon’s Clear Creek brandies are extraordinary - covered here several years ago), and other giants of the form include Poire Williams and Kirchwasser.

If you recognized the varietal names of Mirabelle or Quetsche [plums], this was an easy in, and slivovitz can be amazingly good. Țuică is [plum] brandy from Romania, and I still want to taste that sometime.

8.  What brand of Cognac does Jay-Z partially own, together with Bacardí? He reps it enthusiastically, drinking it out of a Grammy in 2013, and mentioning it in several tracks: (Note: NSFW lyrics)

Jay-Z Cognac montage

[D’USSÉ]

I wanted to include a question that touched on Cognac's popularity among the African-American community and specifically within hip-hop culture, and there are certainly a ton of Hennessy (and to some extent Rémy Martin and Courvoisier) mentions that seemed fairly obvious. I thought Jay-Z’s partial ownership of D’ussé (produced by Otard, a subsidiary of Bacardí), provided an interesting in, and he certainly has embraced the brand; here he is drinking it out of a Grammy as mentioned in the question.

The montage was fun to put together and consists of, in order, excerpts from Hova’s “Part II (On the Run)”, his verse on Justin Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie”, his “F.U.T.W.”, his verse on Beyoncé’s “Drunk In Love”, and his verse on Rick Ross’s “The Devil Is a Lie.” I tried to find lyrics that would lead you to “D’ussé” with the rhymes, assonance, or wordplay. (Here are just a few more mentions.)

9.  The Sidecar, a perfect marriage of Cognac, Cointreau, and lemon juice, is arguably the most famous brandy cocktail. An ancestor of the Sidecar, though, has been called “the absolute pinnacle of the nineteenth-century bartender’s art.” It’s kind of halfway between an Old-Fashioned and a Sidecar, and is possibly named for its glass’s sugared rim; what word has been redacted from the following recipe?

[CRUSTA]

The Brandy Crusta is a great drink that really lets the Cognac shine, but also accents it with the Cointreau and just a splash of lemon juice. The drink is from 1840 and Joseph Santini, manager of the City Exchange bar in New Orleans. The picture and recipe cited here are from the 1862 edition of The Bar-Tender’s Guide: How to Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant’s Companion by Jerry Thomas, the first bartending book published in America. The [Crusta] rates one of only a handful of illustrations in the entire book, no doubt because of its striking presentation with the full lemon peel and the sugared rim.

The quote dubbing it "the absolute pinnacle of the nineteenth-century bartender's art" comes from this great piece by drinks historian David Wondrich, the authority on pre-Prohibition drinks (and a good deal more besides), and it's worth reading in full. (And you can go here to watch Dr. Wondrich prepare a Brandy [Crusta], in a video from Google Play when they released an enhanced edition of Thomas's book with added commentary.)

Later on, the Sidecar would evolve - it’s something like a daisy, a sour with a liqueur added, but also something like the Fancy Brandy Cocktail, which was essentially an Old-Fashioned cocktail made with brandy, but in a fancier glass and with a piece of lemon peel added. The Sidecar increases the amount of lemon juice, and possibly borrows its sugared rim from the [Crusta].

But let me encourage you to try a Brandy Crusta if you haven’t had one, as they really are wonderful. (I think I’ve run across them on a menu in only a couple bars - it’s made my day each time.)

Brandy Trivia! Part 2

As seen here yesterday, I recently put together a trivia quiz all about brandy. 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 images to embiggen them.

4.  American apple brandy is often sold as “applejack”, which these days is a blend of apple brandy and neutral spirits. The largest producer is Laird & Company; the family-owned business claims to have produced spirits since 1698 and once provided their recipe to George Washington at his request. Laird’s distills in Virginia, but their aging, bottling, packaging operations, and headquarters are located in what agricultural state?

[NEW JERSEY]

This question originally sought the company name (with this redacted bottle shot), but testers pointed out that it really was deep into YEKIOYD territory, so I reworked it at one tester’s suggestion to ask for the state where they’ve been operating since 1698. The first federal distillery permit was issued to Laird & Co. in 1780, and the company is currently run by the ninth generation of Lairds to make apple spirits. Laird’s bought the former Virginia Fruit Distilling Company distillery in North Garden, VA in the 1940s, and wrapped up distilling in the [Garden State] in 1972 due to dwindling apple orchards.

Their facility in Scobeyville in [New Jersey]’s Monmouth County, just down Laird Road from Bruce Springsteen’s massive horse farm, has aging warehouses and bottling operations as well as the family house that serves as the company’s offices.

(They sell unaged apple brandy as “Jersey Lightning”; it’s soft and fruity and interesting, though I’m partial to their Bottled in Bond Straight Apple Brandy and their 7 ½ Year Old. Try an American Trilogy cocktail with the Bottled in Bond.))

5.  One country’s brandy industry was seriously disrupted during the pandemic when the government imposed four separate bans on the sale of alcohol. Producers affected included KWV and Van Ryn’s, which produce their brandy in the Paarl and Stellenbosch regions respectively. What country is this?

[SOUTH AFRICA]

[South Africa] is known for its wine industry, but less so its spirits; I think much of its brandy production is enjoyed locally rather than exported. And much of the brandy produced occupies the “value” category and is often drunk with cola. However, the longer-aged vintage brandies can be very good indeed, holding their own with those from Europe. (I sampled a flight of the Van Ryn’s expressions at their distillery, and especially enjoyed the 15 Year Old, and Roger Jorgensen’s 15-year-old Savignac brandy is downright special.)

The COVID bans really did a number on the country’s spirits industry, and I hope that it can recover, and I look forward to greater availability of vintage [South African] brandy in the US.

I mentioned the regions and the producer KWV to clue in oenophiles who may have recognized the [South African] names. (It makes sense that the Netherlands was the MCWA for this question, given the links between Dutch and [Afrikaans].)

6.  Unaged grape brandy from Peru and Chile is typically known by what name? It’s most commonly served in its namesake cocktail, a delicious classic sour with (in the Peruvian version) egg white and bitters.

[PISCO]

Both Peru and Chile insist that theirs is the true pisco, though there are differences in region, grape selections, and aging. Peruvian [pisco] tends to be more available, though both are exported. I remain agnostic, only choosing to enjoy the stuff in many forms, including the delectable pisco punch and the wonderful [pisco] sour, which can be made in a Peruvian or Chilean style.

Brandy Trivia! Part 1

Similar to the rum (parts 1, 2, 3, 4) and gin (parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) trivia quizzes I wrote for the world's best online trivia league in past years, I recently wrote a quiz on brandy. I figure readers might be interested in this, so I'll include the questions and my recap notes at the end.

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 small pictures to embiggen them.

Thanks to everyone - all 511 players! -- who took the quiz when it was on LearnedLeague last month, and it was especially fun to see participation from beverage-industry folks like Craig Ganzer (who won), friend of the blog Damon Dyer (who went 12 for 12, placing seventh) and Skip Tognetti (who did very well indeed, tying for ninth place.)

I'd be remiss as well if I failed to thank Ms. Franky Marshall, who was my first contact on beginning to smith this quiz when I was just kicking around ideas for questions. She is not only a mensch and a good egg, but a fount of wisdom about all things distilling, spiritous, and mixological.

1.  Actually, it's only Cognac if it comes from the Cognac region of France; otherwise, it's just brandy. But the Cognac region is divided into six growth regions for its grapes, or crus: Fins Bois, Bon Bois, Bois Ordinaires, Borderies, Grande ___________, and Petite ___________. What one word fills both these blanks?

[CHAMPAGNE]

Gotta start with the most famous brandy out there, bien sûr? (Plus it was easier than trying to write around “Cognac” for an entire quiz.)

The “Actually…” at the top of the question was, of course, trying to clue you into [Champagne]. (And in an early version of this question, showed me that the LL website doesn’t do strikethrough text, leading to some wacky formatting.) The sparkling wine is made in its eponymous region in northeastern France, east of Paris, while Cognac is made some 300-odd miles away, around the town of the same name in southwestern France...so what do they have in common? The brandy isn’t made from [Champagne] wine, but the two most favored crus of Cognac have chalky limestone soil that’s similar to that of the [Champagne] region. If you see “Fine [Champagne]” on a Cognac label, it’s a blend of brandies from the Grande [Champagne] (at least 50%) and Petite [Champagne] crus. (Rémy Martin is notable for producing only Fine [Champagne] Cognac.)

Much more on the various growth regions here from Simon Difford and here from Cognac Expert, and an excellent rundown of all things Cognac from Eater’s Jake Emen.

The original version of the question included this map of the regions, but some testers wisely pointed out that it wasn’t necessary.

2.  The French marc, the Spanish orujo, the Italian grappa, and the Hungarian Törkölypálinka are all brandies made by distilling the remaining seeds, skin, stems, and pulp after grapes are pressed for winemaking. What is the most common name for this residue?

[POMACE]

Not just the stuff between Lucy’s toes, [pomace] consists of everything left behind after the grape juice is drained off to become wine. Some wineries use it as animal feed or fertilizer, but as we see here it can be distilled into some interesting brandies. Grappa can be shockingly rough and fiery or refined and elegant, and makes a good digestivo or added to espresso for a caffè corretto. Marc is more often aged, and it’s used to wash the rind of the sublimely aromatic/stinky Epoisses de Bourgogne cheese.

I included a scoring note not to accept MUST or LEES as correct answers; must is the direct result of pressing grapes, with juice and all the solids included; the solids are the [pomace] and make up 7-23% of the must. Lees are sediment in wine, most of which are dead yeast cells left over from fermentation.

Like the first question, I originally included a picture of [pomace] for color, but it wasn’t necessary, so I saved it for the recap.

3.  The most famous style of French brandy is Cognac. What is the name of Cognac's more rustic cousin? It's also named after where it's made, in southwestern France's Gascony region. This grape brandy is distilled once (contrasting with Cognac's double distillation), and is usually bottled at a higher proof than Cognac.

[ARMAGNAC]

I like Cognac just fine, but I'm a big, big [Armagnac] fan. It just has so much character, generally from the single-shot distillation, the higher bottling proof, the use of different grapes, and the greater prevalence of vintage releases and smaller producers. More on the contrasts between Cognac and [Armagnac] here from Wine Enthusiast’s Tammie Teclemariam, and here from Cognac Prunier’s Alice Burnez, who also points out that Cognac is distilled with a pot still and [Armagnac] is distilled on a column still.

One of my favorite trips was just about four years ago, when I visited Gascony during the Armagnac distillation season and went to a brandy festival (where I was lucky enough to sample a hot Armagnac punch, watch a fistfight break out on the dais at the gala dinner, see mobile stills on trailers, and wander around with a glass around my neck and taste a whole bunch of interesting brandies.)

Considering RTDs: "The Perfect Cocktail?"

I haven't ventured out to very many liquor stores since the pandemic began - I certainly have a pretty good stash at home, and I haven't been doing much inessential travel, and only recently (and rarely) have I gone anywhere in Manhattan other than straight to the office and straight back home. (I did get to a VABC store on vacation, and managed to snag a couple extra bottles of Beefeater at the old 94 proof.) 

I spent a recent weekend in Connecticut, and hit up both a friendly small liquor store with a nicely curated selection and a location of the behemoth chain Total Wine & More, where I kinda went nuts, picking up some things I hadn't seen at my closest stores in Queens: Plantation Stiggins' Fancy Pineapple Rum, Cruzan Black Strap Rum, Ford's Gin Officer's Reserve overproof, and more fun stuff. (And some Maraschino. More on that anon.)

But one thing that caught my eye was the whole section devoted to ready-to-drink cocktails; the RTD market has been burgeoning lately, goosed by the pandemic no doubt. I've picked up some in the past: I'm fond of the small cans of Hochstadter's Slow and Low Rock and Rye — co-author Tony disagrees, calling them too sweet, but I'll occasionally lengthen them with some seltzer for a highball-ish kind of drink. (Together with the cheese tray from the cafe car, that's gotten me through several different Amtrak rides.) The Cutwater Spirits line of canned cocktails is enormous; I've enjoyed the Gin & Tonic and Rum & Ginger. Durham Distillery makes an excellent canned Gin & Tonic with their Conniption Gin, and Greenhook Ginsmiths makes a really nice one too. Less successful in my book were the On The Rocks entries I've tried; their Aviation had a little too much of the sweet-floral note that makes me think of my grandmother's hand soap, and their Mai Tai not only had coconut flavor (a dealbreaker!), but had way too much of it.

A standout approach in the RTD section at Total Wine on my visit was the line of cocktails by The Perfect Cocktail, from Italy - they're packed in small pouches, which might make them easier to transport (and conceal?) than the bulkier, heavier metal cans and glass bottles that pre-mixed drinks producers typically use. All the pouches were exactly 100ml in volume, so one could theoretically get these past a TSA checkpoint (though I note that federal air regulations prohibit serving yourself alcohol on flights; my inflight mixology several years ago was done with spirits bought from the airline and I only brought vermouth and bitters.) I didn't see any sharpened straw attached, to drink them à la Capri-Sun or juice boxen, but they do also have 3L bag-in-box offerings if you really wanna go nuts.

The Perfect Cocktail makes a line of ten different drinks, from the Dry Martini to the Daiquiri (and how do they do an Americano without bubbles?!), but only three are available in the US: the Manhattan, the Negroni, and the Old-Fashioned. Total Wine & More sells both the individual pouches and multi-pouch variety packs. (I should note that a Perfect Cocktail Manhattan ≠ Perfect Manhattan cocktail, which is a completely different thing.)

So how were they? I got together with co-author Tony Hightower and Joanna Scutts, and we poured each over a big rock and started tasting. (we served them on ice, as The Perfect Cocktail recommends, though of course we'd normally serve a Manhattan up. I think these all would have been infinitely better had we chilled the pouches first in the freezer for a while.)

Our first impressions were not entirely positive. As noted above, they were fairly warm and the big icecubes were working hard to chill them down to a more appropriate serving temperature. All of the cocktails were fairly sweet right out of the gate...not so much that they were cloying, but sweeter than I'd have typically made them. I was wondering if the Negroni was indeed made with equal parts vermouth/red bitter/gin. And all of them had an unusual mouthfeel, so much so that I wonder if/suspect that they use glycerin in their recipes; there was kind of a sweet gumminess to all three that reminded me of the Fee Brothers bitters line.

All three had lower alcohol levels than I'd been expecting, too; per Total Wine's site, the Old-Fashioned is 28% abv, the Manhattan is 25.5% abv, and the Negroni is 22% abv. This matters because a higher alcohol content brings — besides heat, general oomph, and tipsiness — more flavor. If I were making these drinks, my Old-Fashioned would be roughly 37.5% abv (2 ounces of 50% abv whiskey, a teaspoon/sixth of an ounce of rich simple syrup, two dashes or 2/41 ounce Angostura bitters at 44.7% abv, half an ounce of water from ice melt), my Manhattan would be 30% abv (2 ounces of 45% abv whiskey, 1 ounce of 15% abv vermouth, two dashes Angostura bitters, half an ounce water), and my Negroni would be 24.5% abv (one ounce 47% gin, one ounce of 15% abv vermouth, one ounce of 24% abv Campari, half an ounce water).

So the flavors weren't terribly strong, but they weren't bad: just not fantastic. The Negroni was the best of the three but didn't have that aggressive bittersweet slap with tons of herbal notes dancing around that I'm looking for in a good exemplar of the drink. The Old-Fashioned was, as mentioned, too sweet and didn't really have a strong bourbon flavor; in a drink that's meant to showcase good whiskey, you want to really taste it. And the Manhattan was kind of a mess and there was an artificial-cherry note in the mix. (No brand names were specified, by the way, except for Angostura bitters in the Manhattan and Old-Fashioned. I do wonder what kind of gin, "Kentucky bourbon", or vermouth they use.) So I'd give these a pass. It felt like a real step up when we'd finished our glasses and could refill them from the bottle of Willett Pot Still Reserve I'd brought along. (I like it a lot better than TikTok does.)

Cherry Bounce

Most summers, I try really hard to get my hands on some fresh sour cherries; I haunt the greenmarket and interrogate the farmers, trying to see when the season (which is about five minutes long) might commence. I lucked out a while back and got a ton of cherries (which ain't cheap!), and turned most of them into Maraschino cherries. But the rest I saved for Cherry Bounce, a very old liqueur.

How old? Well, it was first mentioned in print in 1681: a definition given for "confused" is "any Hotch-potch; or any mingled drink; as punch, cherrybouncer, &c." Many more citations follow throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. When ex-general and future President George Washington journeyed west across the Alleghenies to inspect his property in September 1784, he recorded in his diary that he carried, (along with two eight-gallon kegs of West India rum, "one of them of the first quality"), Madeira, Port, and cherry bounce:

Apparently a recipe for Cherry Bounce was found in Martha Washington's papers (though not written in her hand), and Mount Vernon has posted an adaptation on their website. It's one of several recipes I found, and they're all fairly similar; you mix cherries with sugar and liquor and let it sit for a while, then strain and decant. Culinary historian Joyce White presents this recipe, and I found others in Marion Harland's "Common sense in the household: a manual of practical housewifery," from 1873, and in Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes & beverages of the Old South," from 1913, among others. I went with one from the 1840 edition of the very popular "Directions for Cookery, in Its Various Branches," by Eliza Leslie:

Since Miss Leslie used a mix of Morello ("morella") cherries and "large black heart cherries", I used a mix of sour cherries and the cheaper & more easily findable sweet Bing cherries. After pitting them, I pounded them with a mallet to crack the stones, added demerara sugar, and added Rittenhouse and Old Overholt rye whiskey, and let it sit:

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I went for far longer than three months, on the idea that it would just keep getting better and better. After seven months, I tasted the Cherry Bounce and thought it very good indeed, and it had a nice bright red color. I wound up leaving it in the jar for another year, though, wondering if more prolonged aging would help it. I strained it through cheesecloth and a wire strainer (pressing as much liquid as possible out of the cherries' flesh) and bottled it; the color is darker after the extra year in the jar and not as transparent. I probably could filter out the tiny particles using a Büchner funnel and vacuum pump, but honestly didn't really feel the need. It's delicious, goes down incredibly easily, and tastes so strongly of cherries that I have to remind myself that this isn't artificial cherry flavor, a la cough syrup. I've so far had it straight up and chilled, but look forward to trying it in Blood and Sands, Singapore Slings, Daiquiri variations...and whatever else I can think up. 

It's fairly high-proof, as I made this with a mixture of 80- and 101-proof whiskies. So be careful. A memoir by a Confederate soldier describes the author's experience with some "innocent" Cherry Bounce, when he tasted it in 1862:

My hometown of Raleigh, NC even owes its siting to the wondrous properties of Cherry Bounce: in 1769, Isaac Hunter received a license to open a tavern at Wake Crossroads on the stage road between Fayetteville, NC and Petersburg, VA (the present Old Wake Forest Road.) He was famous for his Cherry Bounce, and it became a popular spot. In 1788, the North Carolina General Assembly was tired of meeting at various locations around the state, and voted to establish its "unalterable seat of government"...within ten miles of Isaac Hunter's tavern. Four years later, a committee of the General Assembly was looking to purchase land for the new city of Raleigh, and met at Hunter's tavern and stayed there for one night before moving to the nearby ordinary run by Col. Joel Lane, which was also popular and perhaps incidentally also served Cherry Bounce. They stayed at Lane's for eight nights, and wound up purchasing a thousand acres from him. Was Lane's Cherry Bounce better than Hunter's? We'll never know, but it's a pretty good bet that Raleigh owes its location and existence to this Colonial liqueur.

Pegu Club: An Appreciation

Every serious cocktailian in NYC and most around the world got some unwelcome news yesterday morning: Audrey Saunders announced that Pegu Club, closed since the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, wouldn't reopen. As Saunders put it in her detailed goodbye missive: "we knew the day would eventually come when we would have to say goodbye to her, but never did we ever dream that it would be under these conditions. Our lease was due to expire on October 31st, and we had every intention of staying put until then," going on to point out that "a soft reopening following NYC guidelines would not be enough to sustain us entering into the summer months," that summer business has historically been slow, and the added financial stresses of a rent increase, a PPP loan that couldn't be converted into a grant due to lower capacity and staffing, and even plumbing expenses..."so much tsuris!"

Of course the news rocketed around the cocktail world, from enthusiasts to bartenders to food media (Eater, the New York Times, and some especially affectionate remembrances from Grub Street and Imbibe's Paul Clarke.) Robert Simonson, who wrote the NYT story above, has nicely sung Pegu's praises over the years, described five years ago how it "forever changed the cocktail game", and devotes a chapter to the bar in his "A Proper Drink," his magnificent history of the cocktail renaissance:

Pegu was. . . the gelling of a scattershot movement, opening in 2005 at a moment when the whole cocktail thing was still a cool, insider secret, known and appreciated by only a relative few. It was something the media could latch onto with the seriousness it usually reserved for an important new restaurant, and it was fronted by an opinionated figurehead ready for her close-up. . .

After jettisoning a few other names for the bar (Sun King was an early candidate), she christened it after a favorite cocktail created in the early twentieth century at a British officers' club in Rangoon, a piquant mix of gin, bitters, orange curaçao, and fresh lime juice. It evoked an exotic, Charles Baker-esque world (he was the author of one of her favorite cocktail books), and it expressed her devotion to gin, a then-unfashionable spirit she would trumpet from the soapbox Pegu Club gave her. . .

The opening cocktail menu at Pegu was a call to arms. There was the namesake drink, redolent of history and botanical rebellion. The very wet, vermouth-heavy Martini. . . was there, renamed Fitty-Fitty, giving it some street swagger. Little Italy, a Manhattan laced with the obscure Italian amaro Cynar, was created for Pegu. Saunders's past creations, like the Gin-Gin Mule, Old Cuban, and Earl Grey Mar-TEA-ni, were given pride of place.

Nothing got onto the menu — classic or original — unless it survived Saunders's rigorous lab testing. . .an eighth of an ounce was the makings of a federal case in Saunders's world. There was perfect, or garbage.

Historical mixographer David Wondrich recalls Pegu Club's perfection in his writeup for Esquire's inaugural World's Best Bars in 2006; it's too long to quote here, but do go check it out and just imagine how this place landed in a city awash in shitty Cosmos and Heineken Light. In another tweet or two, he went on to note that "To me, it was always a classic hotel bar without the hotel. All were welcome, it was no secret, and the drinks were always elegant and eschewed trendiness. . . Always the place I met out-of-town visitors. Elegant, impeccable drinks, and big enough that you're not packed in. I like to get there early, right after opening, and snag one of the seats at the corner of the bar. Paradise."

In his "Spirit, Sugar, Water, Bitters", philosopher-barman Derek Brown recalls his first visit to Pegu Club:

I still remember the first time I walked in and how the smell of citrus and booze — now familiar in cocktail bars — overtook me. . . It was clean and busy. The bartenders were efficient and the drinks crafted to perfection. It did not just feel like a revival bar or speakeasy. It felt like a brand-new temple — one where we worship by the glass. 

Oddly enough, I don't remember my own first visit to Pegu Club. But I sure do remember my second, largely because I wrote about it as a nascent cocktailian. I'd been to Angel's Share in 2003(?) (2004?), the first place where I encountered a craft cocktail and started to glimpse the rabbit hole I was about to dive into, and started to gingerly build my booze collection. I discovered cocktail blogs, chiefly Chuck Taggart's estimable (and friendly) Looka and Robert Hess's enthusiastic (and authoritative) DrinkBoy, picked up a copy of "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails" by Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh, gobbled up Wondrich's writing in Esquire, and when I ran into a recipe in one of these places that looked intriguing, I'd test it out by going to one of the cocktail bars that were just beginning to emerge, and ask them if they'd mind going off menu and making it for me. 

(I first tested this approach out at my local divey Irish bar — where "jigger" is almost as dirty a word as "Yankees" — and...it did not go terribly well. Once I started going to the places that had heard of a Sazerac, it got better.)

But I remember Chuck's raving about a crazy drink with layers of flavor and a funny name, and asked for it on my second visit to Pegu Club. The Corpse Reviver No. 2 that arrived was a revelation, blowing my mind and showing me just how complex something with five ingredients could be when handled with care. My friend Tony got a Sidecar, and the bartender shooed the waitress away and shot Tony a get-ready-for-this look as he placed the drink in front of him, justifiably proud of the perfection of what he'd wrought. I will always remember that remarkable evening. 

I remember other wonderful evenings there -- the time I took a dozen or more visiting geeks and saw the largest number I've ever seen on the total line of a guest check, the early days when each round of drinks would arrive with a tiny tray of dropper bottles of Ango bitters, lemon juice, lime juice, and simple syrup, in case you wanted to adjust the balance of what you'd received (but you never, ever needed to), the time Kenta Goto blew my mind with his Kenta Menta Cooler (an improbably delicious concoction of bourbon, Southern Comfort (!), Branca Menta, and peppermint tea), the lagniappe bonus sidecar flask of extra Manhattan, carefully packed in finely-crushed ice, the romantic evening when my girlfriend and I saw a movie and decided to swing by for a Tom & Jerry afterwards, when no one else was in the place and the snow was falling softly outside, the time I met St. John Frizell behind the stick and spent about six hours there with three friends and yet the bill wound up being suspiciously low, the magical afternoons when I could get there right at opening time, by myself or with one other person and commandeer the best seats in an empty bar and watch the sun slant through the window grilles...

But really, it was magical almost all the time. (Except weekend evenings after nine or so, when the LBD and aggressive-hair crowd would pile in. That's fine. Gotta pay the rent.) That was one of the things I loved and respected the most about Pegu Club: it ticked along like a Swiss watch. Newer, flashier places opened, the craft cocktail boom exploded, one could no longer count on one hand the number of places that could be trusted to deliver a quality Old-Fashioned in Manhattan, and the trend spotlight moved away. But always, always, you could go through that door from Houston Street into a cozier, more comfortable world, skip up the stairs into a sexy, sophisticated room, and know that you would get perfect drinks turned out with utter consistency. It never, ever stumbled. And I always felt welcome there. It was never intimidating or too-cool-for-school (pace some of its downtown brethren), but friendly and approachable, and never taking itself as seriously as it took the drinks or the hospitality. As Robert Simonson wrote in his encomium to Pegu today in Grub Street, it was always good. "Much has been made of Pegu Club's influence on America's bar culture, but less has been said about its continued excellence as a bar on its own terms. I made it a point to check in with Pegu Club at least a couple times a year, even as it became impossible to make time for all the new cocktail bars that opened in New York City. It was like touching base, a reminder of how the cocktail revival had begun, and a refresher on the baseline standards that characterized the movement."

As Audrey told Amanda Schuster in her book "New York Cocktails":

. . . while knowing how to make a good drink is important, at the end of the day it's the level of hospitality you offer your guests that keeps them coming back. I strive for both. . . I look for individuals with a flicker in their eyes, who enjoy giving to others, who have a passion for learning and a strong commitment to excellence. . . When I look back on it, it was more about bringing their individual personalities together and forming a great rock band that jammed well together.

And what a lineup! It was always a Murderer's Row behind the stick, with the alumni not only including the aforementioned Kenta Goto, and St. John Frizell, but also pirate king Brian Miller, Jim Meehan, Jim Kearns, Sam Ross, Phil Ward, Chad Solomon, Toby Maloney, and the great Raul Flores. However, one of the times I'll cherish most was when I went there with a friend sometime in 2007, when we were among the only people in the bar and we were lucky enough to be served by Audrey herself. I ordered a Corpse Reviver No. 2 (this one) and as she placed it in front of me, she murmured "D'you know what your garnish is?" I was taken aback and wasn't sure where she was going. "Ummm, lemon peel? a Luxardo cherry?" I ventured. "No, it's your hangover," she quipped with an enigmatic grin before bustling away. I felt seen, and appreciated.

There are bars which push the envelope more with cutting-edge techniques, bars with menus that change seemingly weekly or with no menus at all, bars which specialize in one specific spirit or thing to the exclusion of others, but Pegu Club was always my favorite. (That banner image up there at the top of this page? A Cinnabar Negroni at Pegu Club.)

As Wondrich put it in another tweet yesterday, "The thing about institutions is you always take them for granted; they're part of the basic architecture of your days, even if you don't go all the time. Just knowing it's there means you're covered. Now I'm a little adrift." 

As are we all. 

Celebrate that we got fifteen years of wonderful times: change your Zoom background, or better yet, make yourself the namesake drink. And raise your glass to Audrey Saunders, her partners (Julie Reiner, Susan Fedroff, Kristina, Alex, and Kevin Kossi), and all the staff for making such a place possible. We'll miss it. 

Gin Trivia! Part 5

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.

These are some bonus (i.e., unused) questions that we cut from the initial lineup of the quiz, in favor of the ones you've seen throughout the week:

♦    One ingredient characterizes all gins, no matter the style -- as a matter of fact, it’s legally required to include it if you want to call your spirit “gin.” What piney berry is obscured from this gin flavor diagram?

[Juniper]

This seemed too easy, even for a first question. The diagram depicts the flavor of Beefeater, from gin-review blog The Gin Is In. I like how they break down the six main flavor dimensions of gins. (I view Beefeater as the quintessential London Dry gin, and marvels at how good and especially how consistent it is; I was once talking with Beefeater master distiller Desmond Payne, who spoke of having a portrait of Beefeater founder James Burrough looking down on him from his office wall, and knowing that he’d have to be utterly consistent in following the old recipe, and to only innovate on his own time...which is what begat the brand extensions such as Beefeater 24.)

[Juniper] is lovely, and contains all sorts of interesting flavor compounds. London Dry style gins tend to really emphasize the [juniper]. “New American”/”Contemporary” or other new gin styles often minimize it or use it as just one element among many botanicals. (Some “gins” almost do away with it entirely, and Ketel One is even doing “botanical vodkas”, which are basically gins without the [juniper]. After all, gin is essentially flavored vodka that includes a particular flavor.)

♦    Both of your quiz writers count a particular classic cocktail among their favorites - the Aviation, a beauty that makes you feel like soaring. The renewed availability in 2007 of what liqueur on the American market made the Aviation’s recurrence in North American bars possible?

[Crème de Violette/Crème Yvette]

Punch limns the history well:

Though typically referred to as a “forgotten classic” in the early years of its revival, the Aviation had never completely vanished, thanks to its inclusion in the oft-consulted Savoy Cocktail Book, published in 1930. However, when curious young bartenders commenced their spelunking ways in the 1990s, digging through libraries and used books stores in search of old cocktail manuals and the formulae they contained, the Aviation quickly became one of the prime beneficiaries of their research.

One of those drink detectives was San Francisco bartender Paul Harrington, who inserted the Aviation, as well as a history of the drink, into his seminal 1998 book, Cocktail. “I was not aware of anyone else making the drink at that time,” remembers Harrington. The drink was also featured in other influential volumes, including William Grimes’ history of the cocktail, Straight Up or On the Rocks (1993, reissued in 2001), and The Craft of the Cocktail by Dale DeGroff (2002).

Those books all featured the Savoy recipe, which called for only gin, lemon juice and maraschino liqueur. A sea change in the Aviation’s fortunes came when an earlier recipe was found in Hugo Ensslin’s 1916 Recipes for Mixed Drinks. That spec called for a fourth ingredient, the then-mysterious [crème de violette]. (Drinks historian David Wondrich, in the introduction to the 2009 reproduction of Ensslin’s book, memorably recounts how, in 2004, he nearly dropped his beat-up volume in a bowl of soup upon clapping eyes on the Ensslin Aviation.)

The new evidence arguably added to the drink’s mystique in the eyes of bartenders, and kicked its rise into high gear.

Morgenthaler first glimpsed the recipe in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh (2004). (Haigh advocates the Savoy version, but noted that the original recipe contained [violette].) He never cared for the drink, even then, finding it too sour and floral, but he understood why his fellow bartenders began to serve it.

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” says Morgenthaler. “It was purely because maraschino and [violette] were nearly impossible to find. It developed this almost mythological status among those of us who had never tried it.” Add to that its pre-Prohibition status and the then-aborning thirst for gin cocktails, and the Aviation had the goods in spades. It was primed to be belle of the bibulous ball.

♦    Monkey 47 is a super-premium gin from the Schwarzwald area of Germany. What does the 47 in its name refer to?

 

[47 different botanicals/bottled at 47% abv]

 

♦    One of the most common botanicals found in gin is a root also found in Chartreuse, Benedictine, and Galliano. The plant is known as hvönn in Iceland and Sonbol-e Khatāyi in Iran, but what is its English name?

 

 

[Angelica]

 

We had another question along the lines of “what’s this botanical called?”, and Kerry and I liked the other one better. We thought about putting in clues about how this wasn’t John Huston’s daughter or an art-house movie theater chain headquartered in New York.

 

♦    Gin starts out as unflavored neutral spirit (essentially vodka), and is most commonly made by redistilling this spirit with botanicals for flavoring. However, another method of making gin doesn’t involve distilling, and just combines the botanicals with the spirit and strains them out after they’ve added their flavor. What term describes gin made in this manner?

 

[bathtub gin/compound gin]

 

Most gins use the redistilling method, either with a “flavor basket” suspended in the still to hold the botanicals as the alcohol vapor passes through them, or macerating the botanicals in the neutral spirit for a while and then distilling it, or both. (Bombay Sapphire is notable for only using the flavor basket, which they place fairly distant from the heated still.) Some other gins will distill some of their components separately (London distiller Sacred does this, producing a distilled spirit for each botanical and then blending them together in various ratios to make their line of gins.) And some, like Sacred, Oxley, or North Carolina-based Durham Distillery, “cold-distill” their gins or elements of them, using a vacuum system to lower the boiling point so botanicals don’t taste cooked.

[Compound gin] is usually the cheapest possible gin and has a reputation for not being particularly good, but there are even artisanal [bathtub gins] on the market. (You can make your own!)

 

♦    Yes, a Martini is a gin cocktail. Make sure you include vermouth, and it’s traditionally garnished with an olive or a lemon twist. If you switch the garnish to a small pickled cocktail onion, what drink do you have?

 

[Gibson]

 

We had a ton of “what cocktail is this?” questions and we thought the gimlet one worked best. This is a pretty standard bit of cocktail trivia, too.

 

♦    A popular drink in Northern Italy during the late nineteenth century was the Milano-Torino, which combined equal parts of the bittersweet orange Campari from Milan and Martini Rosso sweet vermouth from Turin. A refreshing variation on this drink was the Americano, which lengthened the Milano-Torino with a couple ounces of soda water. Another variation achieved greatness in 1919 or 1920, when a nobleman asked a Florentine barman to “irrobustire” or “fortify” his Americano with gin in place of soda. What was the Count’s namesake drink, comprising equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari?

 

[Negroni]

 

♦   

“A dry martini,” he said. “One. In a deep champagne goblet.”

“Oui, monsieur.”
“Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?”
“Certainly, monsieur.” The barman seemed pleased with the idea.
. . . “This drink’s my own invention. I’m going to patent it when I can think of a good name.”

What name does James Bond eventually settle on for this variation on the classic Martini?

 

[Vesper]

 

Great passage (from Casino Royale, later used more or less verbatim in the 2006 movie), but it's not a great drink and as noted we had a bunch of "ID-the-cocktail" questions. An earlier version asked players to name the brand of gin called, and we didn't love that either.

 

♦    Whiskey that's bottled at a high level of alcohol (50% abv or more) is often referred to as "bonded" or "bottled in bond." High-alcohol rum is often called "overproof." What's the most common term for gin bottled at at least 57.1% abv?

 

[Navy strength]

 

We didn't want to have two questions referencing the [Royal Navy]. Also, "[navy strength]" is a relatively recent marketing creation from the '90s to sell overproof spirits.

 

♦    A classic cocktail that’s been described as “the evolutionary missing link between the Manhattan and the Martini” was possibly named after the county seat of Contra Costa County, California. Stir [Old Tom] gin, sweet vermouth, Maraschino liqueur, and bitters together over ice, serve up, and garnish with a lemon twist, and what do you have?

 

[Martinez]

 

I happen to really like this cocktail, and we liked the geographical angle, but it's another ID-the-cocktail question. (The quote comes from this Saveur article, and Imbibe had a great history of the drink.)

 

I hope you enjoyed the quiz; we used Richard Barnett's The Book of Gin: A Spirited World History from Alchemists' Stills and Colonial Outposts to Gin Palaces, Bathtub Gin, and Artisanal Cocktails, with Aaron Knoll's Gin: The Art and Craft of the Artisan Revival, Tristan Stephenson's The Curious Bartender's Gin Palace, and Dave Broom's Gin: The Manual in our research. 

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.