Parched Rose

On Thursday a few weeks back the Mixoloseum hosted TDN: In With Bacchus in honor of Scott from the In With Bacchus blog.I think he mostly got the honor because he offered prizes, but other than that, it was a wide open theme. I wanted to play around with my bottle of Suze, so I threw this luittle number together.

Parched Rose

• 1 oz mezcal (Chichicapa)
• 1 oz Suze
• 1 oz Fino Sherry
• ¼ oz Maraschino
• ¾ oz lemon
• 1 dash Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters
• 1 dash Boker's bitters

shake&Strain into chilled cocktail glass, garnish with rosemary sprig

The garnish was the biggest contributor to the drink's aroma, and I think went well with the vegetal notes from the mezcal. The mezcal also contributed its smoke of course. Between the lemon and the sherry, the drink was actually quite dry, and because of the dryness and the aroma, Parched Rose was the first name that popped into my head, and I needed one on short notice to submit it for TDN.

MxMo LVIII: Niche Spirits - Sourvit and Pisco Shenzhen Cocktails

Mixology Monday is here again, seems like the last one was so long ago, around the time of, well, my last post. I may be neglecting the blog, but the MxMo monthly gathering gives me a deadline that keeps me on my toes. And in any case, I've got a good excuse for the blog neglect, being a new dad and all. This month's theme comes to us via Filip at Adventures in Cocktails, and he has called upon us to celebrate Niche Spirits:

Junes theme will be “favorite niche spirit”, so any cocktail where the base ingredient is not bourbon, gin, rum, rye, tequila, vodka etc would qualify.  So whether you choose Mezcal or Armagnac get creative and showcase your favorite niche spirit.

UPDATE: Check out the recap post here.

One of my favorite classics it the Pisco Sour, a drink which itself already uses the niche spirit Pisco. The simple yet elegant recipe lends itself easily to successful tinkering, which I've done before, and will now do again. I first tried swapping the Pisco for Aquavit, a spirit close to my heart and if not a niche spirit I don't know what one is. While the simple substitution made for a delightful enough drink, I decided to dress 'er up a bit more, adding Celery bitters, which I find go well with Aquavit. Then I used Maraschino in place of some of the simple, rounding out the flavor and adding a bit of funky fruit in the finish to follow the herbal notes on the sip. An improvement, certainly, but I wasn't finished. Why not add a second niche spirit? I cut back on the Aquavit and added a nip of Mezcal, adding it's distinctive smoke, a yet rounder flavor, and perhaps even a hint of rebellion. (Though not to imply the Del Maguey line is something one needs to be dared to drink; it's fine stuff.) After all this, I give you the Sourvit, or "Sour of life", if you will:

Sourvit

• 1 oz Aquavit (Aalborg Akvavit)
• ½ oz Mezcal (Del Maguey Chichicapa)
• ½ oz Maraschino Liqueur
• ½ oz simple syrup (1:1)
• ¾ oz fresh lemon juice
• 1 oz egg white
• 1 dash Celery Bitters (Scrappy's)

Dry shake, shake, double strain, top foam with a few extra drops of Celery Bitters. Sip poolside whilst the sun slips slowly down the sky.

Since I've been delinquent in posting recently, and it fits the bill, I'll leave you with a bonus Niche cocktail (and another Pisco Sour variant) I came up with back in March for TDN:Citrus. (nb this was certainly more than inspired by the tangerine pisco I had seen on cocktail virgin slut days before.)

Pisco Shenzhen

• 2 oz Pisco
• ½ oz TraderTiki (oh, wait, I mean B.G. Reynolds) Orgeat
• ½ oz five-spice simple syrup (1:1)
• ¾ oz fresh lemon juice
• 1 oz egg white
• 1 dash Peychaud's Bitters
• A.B. Smeby Nasturtium-Cumin bitters to top

Dry shake, shake, double strain, top foam with a few drops of Nasturtium-Cumin Bitters. Sip whilst saluting TraderTiki and cursing Trader Vic.

Let me tell you, it was real torture methodically taste testing all the iterations. It is a fine drink with lime as well, but I had a slight preference for the lemon version, contra one of my guinea pig taste testers.



Hope you enjoy 'em, and stay tuned for Filip's roundup of all the entries in a few days. Though I'll be in Ireland, so I will have to wait 'til I return next week to peruse. Sláinte!

Dundee to Islay

This week's TDN theme was Scotch, which while an ingredient dear to my heart, at first left me a bit disconcerted because I had used Scotch in several of my recent TDN drinks for other themes.  I persevered however, and this is what I came up with:

Dundee to Islay

• 1 oz Laphroaig 10
• 1 oz mezcal (Chichicapa Tobala, or sub more Islay)
• ½ oz Domaine de Canton
• ½ oz lime
• ¼ oz honey syrup
• 2 tsp Bonne Maman Orange Marmalade
• 1 dash Peychaud's
• pinch salt

stir or muddle everything without ice to dissolve marmalade, then shake&strain and garnish with flamed orange twist

A big component of this drink is obviously smoke, but there's other stuff going on to keep it from dominating too much, although it srely pushes to the forefront of the flavor profile.  You probably won't be able to pick out the Canton, but you'd miss it if it wasn't there (I did before I added it to the mix, anyway) but it adds a subtle spice and richness and bumps the sugar content a tad to balance the acid from the lime, as well as the marmalade which is more tart than sweet.  The salt makes the whole drink more round in flavor, and the Peychaud's not only gives a touch more bitterness and complexity, but brighten's the color of the drink as well.

el elevado

For last week's TDN the theme was, well, there was no theme, it was a free for all where you could use any ingredients.  It was called "Retro", I gathered because back when they first started before I began playing along they had no themes.  Here was my first offering:

el elevado

• 2 oz crema de mescal
• ½ oz aquavit
• 1 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
• ¾ oz fresh lime juice
• ½ oz Cointreau
• ½ oz yellow Chartreuse
• 1 dash celery bitters
• celery stalk for garnish
  

shake and strain into Nambé Tilt DOF Glass over fresh (large) rock(s), garnish with celery stalk

I based this on the excellent Loop Tonic by Phil Ward of Mayahuel.  (Although I'm ashamed to admit I've not yet made it there, and in fact had the drink at Momofuku ssäm bar, where I am not ashamed to admit I go quite often, and which now has a very nice cocktail program including not only superb new concoctions such as the celery&nori (nori-infused laird's applejack, celery syrup, celery bitters), but pays tribute with some highlights from other notable dens, as well as properly crafted classics.)  The "Loop" reminds me of Chicago, which made me think of the El trains, and the mescal is Mexican, which is how the name el elevado found its way to my mind's egress.  From the link above:

Loop Tonic

• 2 oz Heradura Silver
• 1 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
• ¾ oz freshly squeezed lime juice
• ½ oz simple syrup
• ½ oz green Chartreuse
• Dash of the Bitter Truth celery bitters
• One celery stalk

Combine all the liquid ingredients in a shaker. Add about 5 ice cubes and shake vigorously for 5–10 seconds. Strain into a highball glass filled with ice. Garnish with the celery stick.

The final version of mine didn't land as far away from the Loop Tonic as I had intended and would have liked.  I was hoping I could cut out the simple and dial back the chartreuse and use the 10% agave in the crema and addition of aquavit to achieve a similar balance of sweetness and herbal complexity, but it needed further tweaking and this is where it led me.  Other than the smoke from the mescal, it has only very subtle differences from the Loop, with perhaps a bit more richness.  But that said, the Loop is great, and smoke is nice, so a smoky Loop is not so bad, just not as original as would be ideal.

Pink and Smoky

For my second drink for this week's grapefruit themed TDN I decided to try my hand at mixing something up using Ting*, since I used grapefruit juice for my first submission. 

Pink and Smoky

• 1 oz Appleton extra 12 year rum
  
• 1 oz mezcal
• ½ oz J. Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum
• ½ oz cinnamon syrup (1:1)
• 3 dashes Peychaud's bitters
  
• Ting*
  

stir and strain over crushed ice and top with ting; mint sprig and cinnamon stick to garnish

* Ting is a Jamaican carbonated grapefruit soda, that I only tried recently but is pretty tasty. It can be hard to track down, try hispanic markets, or I got mine from amazon.

I can't explain the inspiration for this drink, as it is just an amalgamation of several linked pairs of ingredients or flavors that I've seen used together in the past. The name however is a play on the Dark and Stormy, since I saw someone somewhere compare JWray and Ting to a Jamaican version of that drink.  But this is not dark, it's pink from the Peychaud's.  And it's smoky from the mezcal.  And you can figure it out from there.  I'm not in love with the name but that's what I went with.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Another month, another Mixology Monday. This MxMo's theme is still Vermouth, hosted by Vidiot at Cocktalians. This is my second drink for this month's MxMo, using Italian vermouth this time as opposed to my first, the Green Lantern, which used Dolin Blanc. Both of these are doing double duty in another way, since I mixed them up for recent TDNs.

I came up with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for the rather wide open category of Thursday Drink Night: Clear Spirits several weeks ago. I was lucky to have procrastinated posting it, because now I get to use it for MxMo as well.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

• 1 oz gin (Bulldog London Dry Gin)
• 1 oz mezcal (Del Maguey Chichicapa)
• 1/3 oz Velvet Falernum
• 1/3 oz Fernet Branca
• 1/3 oz Carpano Antica Formula vermouth
• 2 dashes Xocolatl Mole bitters

Stir and and strain into cocktail glass.

When I initially presented this drink it was met with much skepticism due to the admittedly scary looking combination of several very boldly flavored ingredients, which do not at all obviously look like they would go well together. Thus the name. But once a couple guys got over their apprehension and tried it most quite enjoyed it, even extolling others to try it because despite its daunting recipe it is "actually good - honest. You should try it. Really." Although it did make one guy sneeze. Never found out if that was bad or a positive endorsement. Anyway, I enjoy it, and I liken it to a smoky manhattan.

Anyway, on to the discussion of the vermouth. Carpano Antica is still a sweet, or Italian vermouth, but it's made from a base of red wine as opposed to the more typical white. In addition, it is spicier and more robustly flavored than your typical Italian vermouth. And just plain better, it's great stuff. I mentioned at the most recent TDN that it was my default and the response was that it should be everyone's. I think the Carpano is key to making this drink work as the dude who ties all the other guy's big flavors together and keeps them all in line.

Another note about vermouth in general: unlike liquors, it goes bad, so take steps to preserve it. At the very least, reseal it and keep it in the fridge, but I go one step further and use Private Preserve to replace the oxygen laden air in the bottle with inert gasses, to great success. Highly recommended, and for leftover wine as well. (Also at amazon.)

And note, I am well aware that the movie is pretty bad but I quite enjoyed watching it, it's in my wheelhouse, like almost all vampire stories, except of course Twilight which I have not seen but I'm quite sure is utter garbage.

Speedy Gonzales Trap

For TDN a few weeks ago, the theme was tequila, here's my first one:

Speedy Gonzales Trap

• 1 oz blanco tequila
• ½ oz mezcal (Del Maguey Chichicapa)
• ½ oz Solerno blood orange liquor
• ½ oz Aperol
• ¾ oz lime juice
• 1 tsp luxardo maraschino
• 1 tsp pomegranate molasses
• 2 dashes grapefruit bitters

Shake and strain, garnish with lime wheel and a few pomegranate seeds. I thought the seeds would float, but they didn't, but it was kinda fun to crunch them at the end. Substitute cointreau for solerno if necessary, not sure how widely available it is currently.

Chameleon

I'd been working on this for a while and just finalized it so I threw it out for TDN as well.

Chameleon

• 1 oz jalapeno infused blanco tequila
• 1 oz green chartreuse
• ½ oz mezcal
  
• ½ oz fresh grapefruit
  
• ½ oz fresh lime
• 1 tsp agave nectar
• 2 dashes Angostura orange

shake and strain into salt rimmed coupe, garnish with orange twist