EvergreenDan

Just for closure, here's what we came up with: Craft Cocktails The hallmarks of craft cocktails are: High quality spirits and liqueurs. Not Midori, Apple Pucker, most flavored vodkas, most cream liqueurs. Fresh and/or high quality mixers and flavoring ingredients. Not premade sour mix, drink mixes, most soda pop. Taste of alcohol and the flavors of the alcoholic ingredients. Not just of the mixers to cover-up flavors. Usually no more than slightly sweet unless Sweetness balanced with bitter, herbal, or complex flavors or Flavors combined in unusual or interesting ways or Intended as a well-crafted tiki, tropical, or dessert drink. [*]Use accepted preparation techniques. [*]Pedigree helps in borderline cases, such as being an accepted classic and a modern creation from a respected mixologist. No one like to have their cocktail moderated or unpublished, so we use our best judgment and discretion to try to keep our shared database a fruitful source of drink-making, reference and inspiration. The complete Kindred Cocktails Style Guidelines. Thank you very much for your help.

How about this one from the Beta Cocktails thread? No Mint Bittered Cynar Julep by Chris Amirault, eGullet 1 1/2 oz Rum, Matusalem Classico 1 oz Cynar 1/2 oz Branca Menta 1/2 oz Demerara Syrup (scant) 1 ds Angostura bitters 1 sli Lime (end slice, squeezed, turned inside out) Stir with ice and strain over fresh ice. Squeeze lime slice over drink -- like it's a twist, not a wedge, with skin out -- and drop it in. Very challenging drink to be savored. The original would be too sweet for me. Added 1/4 oz lemon and omitted the syrup.

Point Safari at Kindred Cocktails? For smartphone users, it will direct you to a streamlined version of your cocktail recipes.

Yes. And keep trying it every so often as your tastes change. Took me 30 years to finally like Campari. I'm a slow learner, apparently.

That sounds very, very good, although more "similar" than "Boulevardier." Might be name-worthy. Did it have one, perhaps?

Haresfur's post looking for ideas for his new amaro got me thinking. I have a number of "oops" bottles where the contents were both a surprise and a disappointment. I thought a thread about using (or using up) "mistakes" might be fun. Anyone have any ideas for Root? From the artisan-looking bottle and birch bark last on the ingredient list, I was expecting a complex herbal flavor with a hint of root beer in the background. Nope, smells and tastes like A&W. Any mixing ideas? And anyone have other challenges?

Maybe gin and either lemon or lime to echo the bitter orange and cut the sugar. But then just about anything sweet and bitter is good with gin and lemon or lime.... Or maybe with some dry vermouth for a Cocchi Americano-like idea?

Gee, I'm wondering if I come off as pretentious. I try within my extremely limited ability to pronounce foreign words in their native language. So it's "CHEE-lay CONE CAR-ne", rather than "Chilly caan CAA-ney". Now I might not say that at the greasy spoon in mid-Maine, but here in Boston ... sure. At a Tex-Mex joint (not that I'd order it there), absolutely. I may be over the line on this one.... I do get lazy. I believe Cynar is pronounced properly in Italian CHEE-nar-aye, with a very soft long-a at the end. I usually skip that, unless I'm speaking with my friend from Italy who speaks somewhat broken English. The first time I ordered it at a nice Italian restaurant, the waitress was polite enough to not laugh at my "SIGH-nar" "fox pass". I have another acquaintance from Argentina who insists on pronouncing Fernet as FER-nay. I've pointed out that it's Italian, to no avail. Spanish speaker mispronouncing an Italian word as a French word in an English discussion. Why not honor the word, culture, and object of discussion by trying to pronounce it as a native would? Now to catch a flight to LOS AN-hell-ayes.

On of my favorite party tricks is combining grapefruit sorbet with Campari in the food processor, then refreezing in small glasses. Serve with dark chocolate and a simple cookie. It would be fun to scoop frozen mixture into tonic as you suggest. BTW, Meletti and vanilla ice cream is also delicious.

I mixed it with cachaca and a touch of lime (mine was still a little sweet). The little bottle was soon gone. Also nice is plain seltzer.

1 juniper berry, muddled 1 oz New Amsterdam Gin 1 oz Campari 1 oz Punt e Mes Would that work? I've never tasted the stuff.

No accounting for my taste. I'd much rather have your Irish coffee in a whiskey glass, a coffee cup, and a dessert plate under some mincemeat pie. Or maybe use bourbon and some pecan pie. ;-) For the purposes of Kindred "Cocktails", I use the contemporary/casual historically-inaccurate definition meaning any mixed drink, rather than an old-fashion or cock-tail definition. I know, god kills a kitten every time I use it in that sense. ;-)

Was stocking up at the NH liquor store (Bulleit rye, yeah! Fernet at a good price. Whodathunk?). Had heard good things about Root. Artisanal-looking label. Birch bark listed last after many other spices. Expecting a complicated, herbal 80 proof liqueur with a vague flavor of root beer. Nope. Smells and tastes just like A&W. What am I going to do with 750ml of that? So I'll be putting scoops of ice cream in my drinks while the other Dan is playing with LH151.

It's not every day that David Wondrich says I'm not screwed after all. Happy Easter to me! So Irish Coffee is crafty, huh? Irish Coffee combines two things I love into one thing I don't. It's unsweetened and whiskey and coffee are both acquired tastes. It's stood the test of time (although I have no idea of its origin). It certainly can be made with very high quality ingredients. David thinks it's crafty. OK. As for Coffee and random-liqueur-from-dessert-menu-laundry-list? I hope not.

Maybe Juniper isn't called for (and I think there is already a lot going on in this cocktail). Same for white-dog, silver tequila, pisco, cachaca, whatever. Vodka is needed to have a satisfying alcohol component for flavor, mouthfeel, and alcoholic effect. My point is if it's OK to add syrup to XXXX infused in neutral spirits, then it should be OK to add neutral spirits (aka vodka) to XXXX infused syrup. Just because there's an opportunity to jam more flavor into a cocktail doesn't mean that the cocktail is better for it. In cooking, sometimes it's better to add water than chicken stock or cream. That said, I agree that this is atypical of a craft cocktail, and that Plain Flavor XXXX (Cranberry, OJ, Red Bull) + Vodka is a "marker gene" for a craptail.

From the reasonably-sized picture in the background reference, this must be a recipe for two drinks. The vodka doesn't bother me because I don't see a damning difference between limecello and the vodka+lime cordial. (Yes, peel versus juice, I know, but still...) Or jalepeno/pepper liqueur and vodka + pepper syrup. That leaves flavor. I don't know what icewine vodka is like, but I assume it's similar to icewine + vodka. The flavors sound interesting, if weird. The sweetness is an issue, unless the grapefruit juice happen to be particularly sour. It appeared in print. That helps tip the balance. I say craft, but borderline, absent actually making it and finding it lousy.

Wow, I seem to have left the pot boiling while I was away at the race track for a day or two! As many can probably surmise, my agendum is to devise a standard by which submissions to Kindred Cocktails may be curated for craftiness. I'm surprised there's been no analogy to pornography, but submitters should have some expectation that their cocktails will be acceptable beyond whether the curators "know a craft cocktail when they see one." I enjoy ambiance and showmanship but I judge cocktails and food by what's in front of me, not by the conceptualization, development, and implementation of the recipe. Yes, I'm interested in understanding the cocktail, its history, and the ideas it embodies, but my primary focus is what's in the glass. And I assume a priori that the bartending is well executed. Intent plays a part for recipe curation because I can't make every cocktail to judge it. If David and a college kid were to submit the same eyebrow-raising recipe, I may well accept the former and reject the later. And if Julia Child told me to put cream in my Tart Tartin, I might damn well try it. So while you can say that a craft cocktail recipe is one created by a craftman-mixologist, that's not helpful for my purpose. Analyzing the recipe against a standard can yield a yes/no decision, just as a diagnosis of, say, ADHD is made against a phychological standard. And in the gray areas, a curator relies on discretion and judgment. This may be hardest in the Tiki world and for vintage cocktails that are too sweet by modern tastes. Without curation Kindred Cocktails will degenerate into drinksmixer.com, rather than be a fruitful resource for drink-making, reference, and inspiration.

Certainly carelessness all but guarantees a craptail. And it's easy to recognize carelessness in preparation because there are a limited number of preparation techniques and they are more-or-less widely accepted. In some recipes, you can detect carelessness in the recipe itself, but it maybe harder to distinguish if a lack of care from careful, but poor mixology. I suspect that the creators of both drink 1 and 2 above created them with care. The former was good enough for Craddock to include it and the latter was posted with a specific rum and appropriate crafty instructions. Craft cocktail recipe creation requires both care and good execution. I'm hope to poke at a definition of good recipe creation execution.

Perhaps you could post up a craft tiki cocktail that has these characteristics, for the purpose of discussion. Here is Beachbum Berry's Mai Tai: Recipe: In your shaker pour 1 ounce each fresh lime juice, Rhum Clément VSOP Martinique rum, and Appleton Estate Extra dark Jamaican rum; 1/2 ounce orange Curacao; and 1/4 ounce each orgeat syrup and sugar syrup. Add at least 2 cups of crushed ice, then shake well for around 10 seconds. Pour unstrained into a double old-fashioned glass. Sink your spent lime shell in the drink, and garnish with a mint sprig. With equal parts lime and sweet ingredients, that seems to fit as a craft cocktail (which I think it pretty clearly is). Or here's the Soggy Dollar's Painkiller: 1 oz Rum (Brittish Navy) 1 oz Rum (151) 2 oz Pineapple juice 2 oz Orange juice 1/2 oz Coconut cream 1 pn Nutmeg (as garnish) Now there's no lime in this and coconut cream is very sweet. Still both fresh pineapple and fresh orange juice have some acid. It is more than "slightly sweet". I think this is probably a craft cocktail (when otherwise prepared well), even though it isn't my cup of juice. Maybe the way out it to allow "tropical" drinks to be "a bit sweeter" than would otherwise be allowed?

Ah. I can see that the Hoots Mon might be most accurately made with Cocchi Americano, rather than Bonal Gentiane Quina. That said, it was delicious with Bonal and Carpano Antica. Thanks Chris for the reference.

I'm rather fond of the Hoots Mon that I got from Chris Amirault (http://egullet.org/p1731534). Chris -- what's the origin / attribution of this? I also like an unnamed drink by Chowhound user 'pb n foie', which I jokingly named after him/her. Hey, the drink needed a name: Lead and Liver 3/4 oz Batavia Arrack 3/4 oz Cynar 3/4 oz Maraschino Liqueur 1/2 oz Bonal Gentiane Quina 3/4 oz Lime juice Shake, strain, rocks, lowball. Bonal is great stuff. Make a delightful aperitif. Here are some other Bonal Gentiane Quina cocktails.

David, I think I agree -- crap and crap. The Brandy drink is the Bengal from the '37 UK bartender's manual. The rum drink is a recent user-creation submitted to Kindred Cocktails which maybe needs curation. From the discussion above, here's a stab at a definition to spark conversation: Include only high-quality spirits and liqueurs (no Midori, MD 20/20, Apple Pucker, most flavored vodkas) Use only fresh and/or high quality mixers and flavoring ingredients Use accepted preparation techniques Be no sweeter than slightly sweet unlessbalanced with bitter or balanced with complexity or presents unusual flavor combinations, or intended as a dessert cocktail [*]Taste of alcohol, rather than just the mixers [*]Express (rather than suppress) the flavors of the alcoholic ingredients [*]Pedigree is helpful, but not essential: Be a classic -- a cocktail created long ago made and with frequency since or Modern creation from a respected mixologist or Modern creation from an unknown mixologist which presents interesting flavors or combinations Thoughts?

OK, for fun and illustration purposes, are these craft cocktail recipes? Drink #1 2 oz Brandy 1 oz Pineapple syrup 1⁄2 oz Curaçao 1⁄2 oz Maraschino Liqueur 6 ds Angostura bitters Drink #2 1 oz Blackstrap Rum 1 oz Peach liqueur 1 oz Orange juice 1 oz Pineapple juice Craft or crap, and why? (PS, I'm really concerned about the recipe, rather than the preparation technique. Assume the cocktails are prepared with care (fresh ingredients, good technique, careful measuring, etc.)

I think we all have our own "know it when we see it" definition, but can we do better? Any thoughts? Age and history help, but aren't sufficient. Having interesting / challenging flavors helps. Being balanced (esp not too sweet) helps. Tasting of alcohol helps ... and maybe it's necessary?

I recently found Chinotto in Boston at Martignettis on Soldier's Field Rd. That was the first that I've seen of it. It's certainly not kid soda. ;-) A bit sweet straight, I sometimes add some seltzer and maybe lemon or lime. Nice summery non-alcoholic drink. I'd be interested to hear any worthwhile cocktails that use it. You could obviously make a gin and "tonic" with it. It's a cousin of Sanbitter. The only cocktail that I know that uses Sanbitter is the Gunshop Fizz (which I love).