EvergreenDan

Update: The Boston Shaker is out of Bittermen's Peppercake (ginger) bitters, and has been for a month or more.

Wow is Bittermens prolific. I'll try to snatch a bottle at The Boston Shaker if they still have any. Thanks!

I saw Kings Ginger in the store a couple of days ago, and there is a launch party tonight in Boston. Along the same lines, but without ginger, you might (bravely) try: Dirt in my Drink by Dan Chadwick, Kindred Cocktails 1 oz Batavia Arrack, Batavia Arrack van Oosten 1 oz Cynar 1 oz Prune juice 1/2 oz Rye 1/2 oz Lime juice Shake, strain, rocks, lowball

Sorry -- I meant lime, not lemon in the Arrack Attack. I just made two half-recipes. One as written (1/2oz each ginger and lime) and one with 3/4oz ginger and about 5/8oz lime. Other ingredients as posted on the site. I preferred the original more subdued ginger one. There is plenty of buttered stripper pole, but the extra ginger starts to come to the front. I think it is slightly more interesting with it lurking in the background, letting the arrack hit you and then the bitter of the cynar linger, moderated by the acid. That said, there's nothing wrong with bumping up the ginger if you want. It would be fun to try the new King's Ginger, too.

But puns are the highest form of a twit.

According to cocktaildb, gin+Lillet is a Richmond Cocktail. Who knew? There are three other similar drinks with either an inverted ratio or a dash of bitters. What else did you use in your Perfect Manhattan? Dry vermouth, I assume? (Otherwise I don't see the Perfect part)?

I can't wait to try Amere Nouvelle. Thanks Avery! I just made a batch of Amer Boudreau (but "diluted" with vodka to make the final proof more like the original 78*). I immediately made a Brooklyn using the Ted Haigh ratio of 2oz rye, 3/4oz dry vermouth, and 2 tsp each Maraschino and Amer. Sorry, but yuck. tasted like only Maraschino, and too sweet at that. I made it again with half the Maraschino and it was better, but not something that I would make again soon. Maybe it's just not my thing. I generally find that I need some acid to balance Maraschino, and I guess the dry vermouth wasn't enough for me. I tried both Dolin originally and Sutton Cellars Brown Label the second time. Seems very unbalanced to me. The Maraschino is so much stronger than the Picon in terms of flavor. I do like the Picon replica and hope to try it to better effect soon.

Look on twitter of the most recent Thursday Drink Night recipes (@mixoloseum). You'll find my Vlad the Imbiber (Rye, Campari, and Mirto -- a bit challenging) and a bunch of others. A fantastic idea from chowhound that I'm using this year is to garnish with a lychee stuffed with a maraschino cherry as an eyeball. Ghoulish without being too gross.

It could be a question of alternatives. For Apry, one can substitute the widely-available and excellent Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot. For Creme de Cacao, I'm not sure what alternatives are better than Marie Brizzard. Meletti Cioccolato, maybe? Godiva or Mozart dark chocolate liqueur? (I haven't had any of these -- anyone know if they are any good and if they are close to Creme de Cacao?) I'm also keen to try the Mozart chocolate spirit. I would be cool if that plus simple made Creme de Cacao. That way you could use it in cocktails and control the sweetness independently. I've yet to find it in the Boston area.

Apropos of your question about crap Creme de Cacao, you need good-quality grenadine. Using that cheap stuff will just ruin every drink it touches. If you can't find it locally, you can make grenadine pretty easily. Absent that, I'd substitute a touch of a deep red berry-like syrup. I can find good quality Sour Cherry syrup, which while not pomegranate, would be much better than day-glo red corn syrup. It also makes a good kids drink with some soda water and perhaps orgeat. Listen to your inner sugar-hater. Scale back the sweet ingredients or up the acid ingredients to your taste. Life is too short to drink cocktails you don't love.

Solid advice from haresfur. I think we have pretty similar tastes, and you are on a path similar to mine when I started getting more serious about cocktails. When you find a drink you like, look for other drinks that share the characteristics you like. For example, you like the gin-based Last Word? Try the rye-based Final Ward. Because of the ubiquitous use of sugar in liqueurs, there are very few truly dry cocktails -- cocktails without substantial sugar. The dry Martini, a dry Manhattan, whiskey highball, and ???. The Sour category -- drinks with substantial sugar balanced by substantial acid -- will become your friend. If a Sour recipe is too sweet, add more acid to your taste. Explore bitter. Bitter ingredients almost always come with tons of sugar because the are intended to be drunk straight too. Consequently, they require acid, either in the form of citrus or perhaps from an acidic wine (dry vermouth, fino sherry) or perhaps another acidifier (vinegar, citric acid, etc). These sweet/sour/bitter drinks are usually my favorite. There is a wide variety bitter liqueurs, hopefully some of which are available in Australia. Campari is king, by Cynar is probably queen. Aperol is accessible, if a touch milquetoast. You also need a pie-spiced brown amaro, like Ramazzotti or Averna. An orange-forward one like CioCiaro or Lucano is useful if you can't get Amer Picon. Feel free to substitute freely. No one has every single ingredient in every recipe. The drink may not be the same, but the concept will probably still hold up. No Benedictine? Use Yellow Chartreuse maybe. Out of rye? Use Bourbon or even Scotch. No grapefruit? Use a mix or orange juice and lemon juice, perhaps with a touch of Aperol or Campari. Be creative. It the result is disappointing, revisit it when you have the specified ingredients. And, last, a bit of self promotion. I think you will like many of the cocktails in Kindred Cocktails. If you find a cocktail you like, look it up and use the list of "Similar Cocktails" below it for inspiration. You can look at one and see its Similar Cocktails. These cocktails are calculated based upon the actual flavors in the drinks, not just identical ingredients.

Wow are they trading off the logo of Cointreau! I have found that small amounts of terrible liqueurs ruin a drink. I can't answer your Creme de Cacao question, but I'm still holding out for Marie Brizzard, which in this "flavor" is surprisingly hard to find around Boston, MA. To put that another way, I've done without for years because I haven't stumbled upon a good brand.

What didn't you like? I found it to be an inoffensive cocktail, and a good intro to whiskey for the non-whiskey lover. Here's the Ward Eight recipe I used. Good grenadine and fresh juices are important.

I think that's a great idea. I'll have to try it myself and maybe refine the recipe. With Creole Shrubb, the Angostura Orange is probably redundant. I think you want something with a stronger orange backbone like CioCiaro or Lucano, if you can find it. Absent that, I'd add some orange bitters of some sort, I think. I have a batch of Amer Boudreau cooking that's almost done, and I hear the new Bittermen's Amere Nouvelle is about to land at a Massachusetts distributor. It's already available at DrinkUpNY (which doesn't ship to MA). Last night for Thursday Drink Night: Halloween I made a Boulevardier riff with Mirto for sweet vermouth, a dash of Spanish Bitters, and a pair of lemon swaths. Nice. A touch sweet, so I might add a bit of dry vermouth next time. Called it Vlad the Imbiber for the red color. Mirto is nice stuff.

Minor quibble: Is not the melting point of ice in an alcohol solution substantially <0*C, motivating a discussion of entropy? It seems to me that large ice dilutes less because unless the cocktail is agitated more than with small ice, it will be warmer and have melted less. If the cocktail were stirred to the same temperature as small ice, then it would be more dilute because the core would be colder (having not absorbed heat from the drink). Therefore I think the best application is for drinks which either a) are already very cold before being put into the glass or b) where less dilution is preferable to a colder drink (scotch, perhaps). As an aside, I think big ice cubes/spheres are likely to come from a very cold freezer, whereas regular small ice tends (in most bars) to be warmer (0C) and probably very wet (surface water dilution).

+1 on the Last Word -- a fabulous drink. If you like that and want to use your rye, try Phil Ward's Final Ward -- the same drink but with rye. You have to love the name. If you find these drinks a little challenging, try them down with very cold ice. The drink will soften as you linger over it. I enjoy the transformation.

The Flash-based site is enough to turn me off. Due to terrible writing, the site actually implies it is $50 for 5 pieces, so $5 each must be a bargain.

Yajna - I'd be curious to know the recipe for the Washington Flip. It sounds like a nice autumn cocktail. Re anise: it should present but not dominant, I think. There isn't good consensus about what a "dash" is of something that doesn't usually come in a dasher bottle. Maybe the Green Street was a little too heavy-handed? Cocktail à la Louisiane by Restaurant de la Louisiane, New Orleans, LA 3/4 oz Rye 3/4 oz Sweet vermouth 3/4 oz Bénédictine 3 ds Absinthe 3 ds Peychaud's Bitters 1 Maraschino cherry (as garnish) Stir, strain, straight up, cocktail glass, garnish As for myself, I made the Trinidad Sour again. Really a nice drink, if a bit in-your-face. I think I should have bought the big bottle of Angostura when I replenished last time.

Maybe Aquavit and lemon with that tomato syrup? Actually, that sounds good with the celery too. Also, gin, celery, and maybe Pimm's or Cynar? I'm not a huge lover of floral flavors, but I wonder if Creme de Violette or Lavender bitters would work well with the celery syrup? Maybe something inspired by an Aviation? Let us know what you come up with!

Chris - Follow your taste. I think your gin choice (Tanqueray) is fine. Adding a white rum, a bourbon, and definitely an orange liqueur (Cointreau would be a great choice) are all advised. Assuming you bought the Campari because you like it, make a Negroni. If you like that, make a Boulevardier(after you buy that bourbon). After you buy the orange liqueur, sub Amaretto for Orgeat and make: Bitter Mai Tai by Jeremy Oertel, Brooklyn's Dram, NY 1 1/2 oz Campari 3/4 oz Jamaican rum, Smith & Cross 1 oz Lime juice 3/4 oz Orgeat 1/2 oz Curaçao Shake and strain into an Old Fashioned glass over crushed ice, garnish with a mint sprig. You can also make Martinis, Manhattans (both Canadian club and, better yet, bourbon (or later, my fav American rye)), an Old Pal, Gin- or Rum-and-Tonics, Old Fashioned, Tom Collins, Mojitos (best with your new white rum, although tasty with dark rum too), Daiquiris, Whiskey Sours, Sazerac (buy Peychaud's bitters and sub Pernod for Absinthe) and many more. I'm sure if you narrow your question a bit, you'll get lots more recommendations and suggestions. You can make a ton of cocktails with that collection. I don't think you'll find the Amaretto very useful and I probably would replace the Canadian Club with an American Rye when you finish the bottle. Keep at least the dry vermouth in the refrigerator with a Vac-u-vin (sold at any good liquor store). I'd put the sweet in there too. Some brand recommendations, collected from eGullet, Chowhound, and elsewhere.

Booby trap for spouse? Should be the same surface area and air in the bottle. I don't understand. A vac-u-vin is a minor inconvenience and seems to work very well at prolonging the life of perishable wines and such in the fridge.

I highly recommend Cocktail Virgin Slut. It's written these days by Fred Yarm -- fredric on this site. It's full of good cocktails and helpful descriptions. As for The Art of Choke, feel free to substitute ingredients more. No demerrera syrup? Just use simple syrup. Or honey syrup. Or whatever. A great many of us make liberal substitutions in order to make cocktails for which we don't have the exact ingredients specified. I might also recommend The Search for Delicious from Beta Cocktails. Go way easy on the salt -- you can always add more. No Punt e Mes? Use regular sweet vermouth. (That said, Punt e Mes is great stuff.) I'm also rather fond of Choke your Mother from Hungry Mother in Cambridge, MA. I'm not sure of the original recipe; the posted version is my adaptation. I'd be happy to post the authentic recipe if anyone has it.

Sprang this on Fernet-hating wife. Happiness ensued. 3/4 oz Wray & Nephew overproof white rum 3/4 oz Flor de Cana 7 year old dark rum 1/4 oz Fernet Branca 1/2 oz Cynar 1 oz orange juice (clementine in this case) 1/2 oz lime juice 1 orange coin as garnish

Chris, you might enjoy a Manhattan with that "rye" and bitters. Just buy a bottle of sweet vermouth. Good cherries (such as Luxardo) are with it, if you can find them. Otherwise I'd just skip the cherry. If you can find American Rye in Australia, it is quite a bit more interesting than Canadian Club. I'm guessing it would be expensive, though.

Fred - I'm 90% sure that I saw a (pretty dusty) bottle of Amaro Nardini at Gordon'sin Waltham on the top shelf (because the bottle is tall). I also think I may have seen a bottle at Ciracein the south end. They used to have a group photo of all their amari, but they redesigned the website and now (as usual) it's less useful and slower to access. The large bottle size and grappa base gives it a pretty high price tag. That and the mint in it made me pass, although I'd be interested now. (If you want to split a bottle, I'm game.)