Bayou Harvest

This drink is from back in April for TDN Orchard, but as I've got some catching up to do, let's start with this one since it makes for a nice sipper now that the cooler fall weather is upon us, or will be soon.
The inspiration for this drink came from a cocktail I enjoyed at Beaker&Flask in Portland, which was called the New Vieux, a take on the Vieux Carré. Oh crap, I just goggled around as I'm composing this post to try to link to them and found that in fact the New Vieux contained "Rye, Apricot, Benedictine, Bitters." That's the same ingredient list as the drink I thought I came up with, but apparently just stole. I hadn't really thought about it and just remembered that apricot worked well in the New Orleans drink Vieux Carré and wondered how it might work as a sweetener in a take on the Sazerac. I suppose the proportions are probably different, and their drink was on the rocks and this is up, but credit where credit is due. In any case, I guess this was beaker&flask's concept, but damn if it isn't a tasty drink. I'll keep the name since this is definitely much more spirit forward than what they make, but the idea was theirs first.

Bayou Harvest

• 2 oz Sazerac Rye
• ½ oz Orchard Apricot
• 1d Angostura Bitters
• 1d Creole Bitters
• Bénédictine rinse

stir & strain into DOF, garnish with lemon twist

MxMo LIX: Beer! - Bruges Sling & Beer O'Clock

Fast on the heels of last's month's event (at least if you go by the pace of my recent blog posts), it's time for July's Mixology Monday, and this month Frederic from Cocktail Virgin Slut has chosen a theme near and dear to my heart. The topic? Beer cocktails! I'll let Frederic explain in his own words:

While beer being used as an ingredient in modern cocktails has gotten a lot of press as of late, this is not a new trend. Beer has played a historical role in mixed drinks for centuries...Bartenders are drawn to beer for a variety of reasons including the glorious malt and roast notes from the grain, the bitter and sometimes floral elements from the hops, the interesting sour or fruity notes from the yeast, and the crispness and bubbles from the carbonation. Beer is not just for pint glasses, so let us honor beer of all styles as a drink ingredient.

UPDATE: Frederic has the round up post up over at his site, go check out all the drinks.

Hmm, beer cocktails...this should be fun. Do also note his excellent mod of the MxMo logo above. Nicely done Frederic. Not coincidentally, last Thursday's TDN theme was beer, just to provide us with a little playground to tinker with ideas. Before I continue, I should mention last October's first annual Brewer’s Bash, the finale event of NY Craft Beer Week, held at Eleven Madison Park, where I probably had my favorite (and most numerous) beer cocktails to date. I truly hope there will be a second annual event, as if so I will surely attend.
But for MxMo, I like to concoct original drinks, and first I set my mind to incorporating a Belgian lambic into a cocktail. There were many ways to run with this idea, but my mind fixated on using a Kriek to supply both cherry flavor and carbonation to a drink, in addition to bringing the beer's tart and floral qualities to the party. I thought the Kriek might make an interesting sub for Cherry Heering and Soda.
Without endeavoring to enter the debate about which is the real, original, or proper recipe, I decided that some variation of the Singapore Sling or Straits Sling might fit the bill. (If you are interested in exploring the debate, you might also look here, here, here, or here.) So here's what I came up with:

Bruges Sling

• 2½ oz Lindemans Kriek Lambic
• 2 oz Bulldog London Dry Gin
• ½ oz Bénédictine
• ¼ oz Grand Marnier
• 1 oz lemon
• 2 dashes Regan's Orange Bitters No. 6
• 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Shake & strain all but beer, strain over ice, & top with Kriek. Garnish with pineapple sage & pineapple mint & lemon wedge.

For what it's worth, I based mine mostly on the Drinkboy Straights Sling, with a nod (Grand Marnier) and a glance (pineapple herb garnishes) toward the Singapore Sling.

I have to say, I found it pretty damn refreshing. Although it would veer further from its resemblance to its namesake, I foresee trying it out with a Pêche or other lambic in the near future.
Although I love the Bruges Sling, using a lambic felt a little too easy, almost like cheating. So I decided to try my hand at a second beer cocktail. To this end, I grabbed the hoppiest beer I had and concentrated it into a syrup, adding a touch of sugar to tame the bitterness. I went with a recent impulse buy, the Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA:

IPA Syrup

• 10 oz IPA (why only 10? you gotta have a swig for yourself 1st)
• ¼ cup sugar

reduce over low heat while stirring occasionally until down to 4 oz liquid. reserve in fridge.

I was totally winging it on this one, but it turned out to be quite lovely. In a way, it is kind of like the reverse of fermenting beer from malt extract, boiling off the alcohol and adding back the sugar that the yeast had turned into alcohol during fermentation. However, the key difference between this syrup and a malt extract ingredient to produce beer is that the syrup also contains the concentrated flavors and aromas that the (prodigiously) hopped beer captured during the brewing process.
Now, what to do with my bitter concoction? It's got to be Brown, Bittered, and Stirred; however I don't want the spirit to have too much going on to steal the spotlight. In fact, I'd like it to complement the syrup, so I chose to reach for an Aged Genever, whose malt flavors will echo the malt from the reduced beer. We also have bitterness inherent in the syrup, so we don't need something too bitter to tie things together, but some brightness might help. And what the hell, why not a bit more hops? Let's use Bittermens Hopped Grapefruit Bitters. I give you the Beer o'clock:

Beer o'clock

• 2 oz aged genever (Boomsma "Oude" Fine Old Genever)
• ½ o IPA syrup
• 2 dashes Bittermens Hopped Grapefruit Bitters

Stir and strain into chilled DOF; garnish with hop tendril nasturtium blossom to its boozy grave

What,you don't have hops growing in your backyard? Fine, just use nasturtium. Nope? Ok, a twist or something then. I would have used an actual hop cone, but they won't appear until later in the season. But it's really about the liquid gold in the glass. The aroma is distinctively that of beer, except perhaps more so, if that is possible given that it is lacking the carbonation to help deliver the smell. (Note to self: carbonating this would be a stroke of genius.) The taste? Also of beer, but concentrated. It is a contemplative drink that takes a while to wrap your head around the juxtaposition, but it provides an enjoyable journey.

 I'll leave you with some pics from my friend's hop harvest last year, which we used to brew some fine beer of our own:

MxMo LV: Some Like it Hot - Caramel Apple Toddy #2

Time once again for Mixology Monday, brought to us this month by Nancy The Backyard Bartender. Nancy proffers "Some like it Hot" as our theme for this go 'round. She calls for one simple rule: "make anything you want to, as long as it's served hot." Simple enough. Like last month's "See You on the Flipside" MxMo, I initially had designs to finally try my hand at making a Yard of Flannel, or more likely including rum, but like last month time grew short and my resolve proved insufficient, so I'm going with a simple, but tasty, Toddy variation. To begin I began by rereading the relevant chapter on Toddies, Slings, etc in Dave Wondrich's tome Imbibe!, which proved just as enlightening as the first time I read it. I had some Caramel Syrup I had whipped up a while back in the fridge, so set upon that to make a toddy using it and Laird's Straight Apple Brandy. I threw some Bénédictine in there as well just to add a little spice to the mix.

Caramel Apple Toddy #2

• 2 oz Laird's Straight Apple Brandy
• ¼ oz Bénédictine
• ½ oz Caramel Syrup*
• 3½ oz hot water
• cinnamon stick to stir and garnish

*For the Caramel Syrup, make a caramel by constantly stirring sugar in a heavy bottomed pot over med-high heat until it melts and then turns a deep caramel color. I like to add a dash of corn syrup as a cheat because I find the slightly different sugar molecule helps keep the sugar from crystallizing or otherwise acting up. Some recipes call for adding water, but that just makes you stir longer until the water evaporates so I don't do that. Once you get to the caramel stage add an equal volume (as the original sugar) of water and dissolve, the bottle and store in fridge.

I added the #2 because I noted "Caramel Apple Toddy" had been used in a previous MxMo back in 2007, and really didn't have a better idea for a name for mine. Despite the high water content, it's rich from the caramelized sugar and Bénédictine, reminiscent of a light mulled apple cider in some ways; it should do the trick to warm you up.

Even though I did not get around to fashioning a loggerhead with which to flash heat some ale for my drink, I find this a good opportunity to belatedly tell you who to look to to see how it should be done, for I witnessed the method back in 2009. I told you about and mentioned I would be attending the FCI Holiday Cocktail Course, but ashamedly neglected to blog about the excellent event. In any case, look no further than Dave Arnold and his Red Hot Poker(s) for the one true way. Read the articles at those links, and this is what I would have done had I the time:

Look at the fire:

UPDATE: Nancy has put up the roundup post, head over there to check out all the drinks while they're hot.

Vieux Szaffa Cocktail for TDN:Scaffa

Yesterday's TDN theme was "Scaffa".  What's scaffa you ask?  I too had no idea, but apparently it is simply a drink stirred WITH NO ICE.  Probably consisting of a spirit, a liqueur, and some bitters.  The liqueur is likely Bénédictine, but maybe Maraschino, or maybe Chartreuse.  Or perhaps something else, it's unclear.  But I was intrigued by the idea, and tried my hand.  I like what my hand did.  I opted to stick with the most traditional Bénédictine, which made my mind wander to the Vieux Carré.  I figured I'd use rye as the base spirit, but zigged to Cognac when I considered that a Brandy Scaffa is one of the most cited of the class of drinks.  I wandered into my office where I keep my Scotches, Amaros, and other sippers due to overflow of my main area, as I reached for my Cognac my hand grabbed the Calvados to move it out of the way, and I thought that it would make a nice addition to keep things a bit lighter and add an extra dimension of flavor.  In my mind, the Vieux Carré is closely associated with the Sazerac, and since Cognac was the original base of the latter dink, I thought I'd borrow some of its accouterments and make a Vieux Carré-Sazerac-Scaffa mash up.  Thus the generous Peychaud's and dash of absinthe.  I tasted it without the absinthe, and while not bad, the addition really tied it together and made it sing.

Vieux Szaffa

• ¾ oz Hennessy VSOP Cognac (or sub brandy)
• ¾ oz Calvados
• ½ oz Bénédictine
• ¼ oz Peychaud's
• dash absinthe

stir in cocktail glass, NO ICE

The drink surprisingly does not hurt for lack of ice.  Not that ice would be bad, but I was surprised I didn't miss it.  It was a nice sipper with deep flavors, some edgy notes from the large dose of Peychaud's, and a nice mouthful and warmth lent by the Bénédictine.

Scandinavia Sling

Last week's TDN was themed "Rumless Tiki" and I decided to try out a variation of the Singapore Sling for my submission, but using Aquavit and Kirsch instead of Gin and Cherry Heering.

Scandinavia Sling

• 1½ oz aged aquavit (O.P. Anderson)
• 1 oz cognac
• ½ oz kirsch
• ½ oz lime
• ½ oz lemon
• ¼ oz Bénédictine
• ¼ oz Grand Marnier
• ¼ oz TraderTiki Hibiscus grenadine
• 2 dashes angostura bitters
• soda to top

Shake and dump into tiki mug, top with ounce or two soda, mint garnish

I added the Grand Marnier and Grenadine to add some of the richness I lost when I swapped the clean kirsch for the deep Cherry Heering.  Those components added some depth, but the drink it still a bit lighter than the base drink.  It has a hint of bright cherry, and a different botanical background flavor due to the aquavit gin swap.  I found it light and refreshing, but still with some warmth from the herbal aquavit and Bénédictine.

Aspirin Tape

A couple weeks ago the theme for TDN was Coconut.  I sat out the week after, but its theme was crushed ice, which my coconut creation also would have satisfied:

Aspirin Tape

• 1 oz Smith & Cross Jamaica Rum
• 1 oz Rhum Clément VSOP
• ½ oz Lemon Hart 151° Demerara Rum (aka LH151)
• ½ oz Navan Vanilla Liquor
• ¼ oz Bénédictine
• 1 oz coconut water
• ¾ oz lime
• ½ oz pineapple gomme
• 2 dashes grapefruit bitters
• 1 dash angostura
• float of Trader Tiki Hibiscus grenadine

shake and strain over crushed ice into coconut cup, float grenadine, mint garnish, float lime shell filled with LH151 and set aflame, don't burn the umbrella, sip through straw (stolen from McD's on the walk home from work)

The name refers to the phrase "Tape an Aspirin to it" my dad oft repeated when confronted with all sorts of complaints from us kids.  And I'm not talking just about a headache or a sore knee, that was his default advice for a bloody gash, a broken toy, a flat tire, you name it.  It also is a glance toward the Painkiller tiki cocktail (and its namesake bar).  It also occurs to me it could be a tangential reference to the advice the doctor might give after you put the lime in the coconut and shake it all up, so take your pick.

I initially decided to try out mixing with the coconut water, nd then figured I might as well use the whole coconut.    Do you have any idea how hard coconuts are?  They are really damn hard; it took quite an effort to saw off the top with my crappy little hacksaw, but the effort paid its due dividend. 

I also decided to use, since pineapple and coconut pair well, the new pineapple gomme I recently got from Small Hand Foods (via The Boston Shaker), which I had previously only tried in this version of Pisco Punch.  The pisco didn't provide enough punch, so I swapped in the Clément.  Still needed more, thus the LH151 addition.  A couple more tweaks and I ended up with this 11 ingredient monster.  But after sawing off the top of the coconut in the NY heat wave, it proved quite refreshing.  I also like the use of the gomme here, which really does make a difference in texture, which might otherwise be a bit thin with the coconut water and the crushed ice.  I'd still give it a try with a pineapple simple syrup if you don't have the gomme though.

The straw is key.  The crushed ice is highly recommended, with the two overproof rums and the extra kick of the strong liquers, this is not a weak drink, but it doesn't taste too strong.  It just tastes good.

Frère Johnnie

Here is my second drink from this week's "Monks!" themed TDN, as in:

Anything created or originally developed by monks is fair game: Benedictine, Champagne, Chartruese, Trappist Ales, or any other odds and ends your research turns up.

Frère Johnnie

• 1 oz Johnnie Walker Black
• 1 oz Bénédictine
• ½ oz Fernet Branca
• 1oz oj
• ~3 oz tonic

shake all but tonic and strain over fresh rocks and top with tonic, garnish with orange twist

I liked the way the Scotch works with Bénédictine in a Bobby Burns, and with OJ in a Blood and Sand, and I went from there.  I started out without the Fernet, but decided it needed something extra, and remembering a drink I recently had off of the very original cocktail list at Casa Cruz down in Buenos Aires over the holidays, I reached for the trusty elixir to add that special something, and I think it worked.

For reference, here is the drink from Casa Cruz:

Nacho

• Fernet Branca
• jugo de naranja (orange juice, or muddled orange slices)
  
• tónica (tonic water)
  

I didn't get the proportions, but I think you can be quite flexible with the components based on how sweet vs strong you like it or are otherwise in the mood for.

This was a deceptively simple and tasty drink. The whole cocktail list here was quite inventive, or at least it seemed to be to me from the pieces of Spanish I could decipher.  I decided to go with this drink because they love their Fernet down in Argentina, and when in Rome...
In fact, cocktails, while becoming more common, are still not commonplace in  the country.  I believe the most common one consumed there is the Fernet and Coke, believe it or not.  I've never tried it, but the Nacho was quite good so maybe I should give it a try.  Here's how much they love Fernet, the biggest bottle I've ever seen, it's like a Jeroboam or something:

Hot Scotty

'Tis the season, so the theme for this week's TDN was Hot Drinks:

As the blood-cracked, icy fingers of winter descend upon the Land of Mixology, we turn to one final respite. One last hope to cope with the cold. Warm cocktails. Toddies, slings, butters, wrinkles, and hoozles. Bring your thermos and join the festivities!

Since I was at first having trouble coming up with something for this week, my mind wandered to my Montgomery Burns cocktail I had made last week and liked very much for the Allspice TDN.  Also it was fresh in my mind since I just got around to posting its write-up, plus one of the first drinks submitted last week using the Dram was hot and the spice worked well in that warm environment.  So taking my base recipe, while keeping the interplay between the allspice, scotch, and benedictine, I swapped the Vermouth for Honey Syrup more typically found in a Hot Toddy and give you the Hot Scotty:

Hot Scotty

• 2 oz blended scotch (Johnnie Black)
• ½ oz St. Elizabeth's allspice dram
• 1 oz honey syrup
• ¼ oz Benedictine
• 3 oz hot water

stir; lemon twist garnish

Montgomery Burns

This was my other drink for the Allspice Dram TDN last week.  Obviously based on the classic Bobby Burns cocktail, here I cut back on the vermouth and benedictine a bit to make room for the Dram.  I mixed this up completely on a whim, and was VERY pleased with the results.  It was surprising how well the spice played with the smoke from the scotch and the herbal flavors from the vermouth and benedictine, and the other ingredients had plenty of heft to not be dominated by a full half ounce of the St. Elizabeth's, which is more strongly flavored than most homemade Drams (I'm told).  This might even be an actual improvement on the classic it was based on.  The name derives from the name of the base recipe and the well known character from The Simpsons, Mr. Burns would be old enough the be Bobby's brother, or maybe even father, right?

Montgomery Burns

• 2 oz blended scotch (Johnnie Black)
• ½ oz St. Elizabeth's allspice dram
• ½ oz carpano antica formula vermouth
• ¼ oz benedictine

stir and strain; garnish with shortbread or butter cookie

Trebuchet Cocktail †

After much experimentation, I finally settled on the cocktail recipe to match the Pantagruel name. Given the etymology of Pantagruel, I decided to go with exclusively liquors from France, and, as predicted in my previous post, it's cognac based. Later, I thought better of naming a drink after myself, or at least my nom de plume, so I went with another, yet still appropriate, name, the Trebuchet. (In my defense if you think it was preposterous to consider naming a drink after myself, I will submit that at the time Pantagruel was just a word I liked in general, and the thoughts of it being a good name both for a cocktail and an alias were independent, so it was not an act of hubris, a trait I am hardly bereft of, if I do say so myself.) In any case, on to the drink:

Trebuchet

• 1½ oz Remy VSOP Cognac
• ¼ oz Calvados
• ¼ oz Cointreau
• ¼ oz Green Chartreuse
• 1 tsp Benedictine
• 1 dash Peychad's bitters
• 1 dash angostura

Stir and strain into chilled double old fashioned, lay siege with flamed orange twist to garnish. It's pretty hot and can do some damage, so don't be afraid to let it cook for a minute before pouring.

Since the timing was good and I thought it appropriate, I also submitted it to the guys at Thursday Drink Night: New Orleans last week. I thought it fit as similar to a Sazerac with the Peychaud's, especially with the other French ingredients and the fact that Sazeracs were originally Cognac based before tastes shifted and the Rye version became standard.

And because I had fun posting the last video, here's the flamed orange twist in (HD!) action: