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Seems to be an El Presidente kind of day! I noted this evening with interest that Splificator has an article in the latest edition (September/October 2011) of Imbibe that features that very drink and extolls the virtues of Dolin Blanc, a recent subject of discussion in another thread, in making the drink stand up and be noticed once again. I suppose a drink with an even less dry vermouth, which would of course be sweet vermouth, is a natural extension of this family after all!

Looks like the traditional El Presidente is made with dry vermouth. I did find this recipe on another website that is similar to the one above. 40ml Flor de Cãna 7 yr Grand Reserve 20ml Sweet Vermouth 15ml Cartron Curaçao 5ml Teisseire Grenadine 3 dashes of Orange Bitters It is a variation on the El Presidente called a Sin & Roses Think I might try to tweek it starting with this basic recipe and mix one up to see how I do!

A night out on the town last night for me. We started first at Three Blind Mice, a newish restaurant in Lilburn, GA and well off the typical restaurant path but supposedly does some nice cocktails and food. But we were there for the Sunday beer tasting. Wrong forum for much detail on that but thought I would note the beers for those of you who are "bilingual" (cocktails and beer) or even "trilingual" (cocktails, beer and wine!). Beers offered last night were: Founder's Brewing Co. Cerise Lagunitas Maximus and Doppel Weizen New Belgium Brewing Ranger IPA Great Divide Brewing Co Hoss Rye Lager (a bit disappointing) And another IPA that currently slip my memory. Then it was on to Leon's Full Service in Decatur for dinner and cocktails. They are known to have strong bar and cocktail menu so I was looking forward to dinner there. The first cocktail was called the "El Presidente #3". Not real sure what happened to #1 and #2... The Scarlet Ibis Rum (49% abv) - A pretty uncommon rum but as I said Leon's has a strong rep for cocktails Punt e Mes House curacao, grenadine and orange bitters - I presume this means house made but didn't think to clarify Lemon twist A strong but very nice cocktail to start the dinner off. I didn't inquire about ratios and not sure they give away their recipe anyway. This was followed up by a "Red Wing": Elijah Craig 12 yo bourbon Spiced Strawberry Shrubb - a house concoction. Not sure how it was made Aperol Carpano Antica Angostura bitters Lemon twist Very bourbon forward despite a couple of my favorite ingredients in Aperol and Carpano. Liked them both but I think the El Presidente was my favorite of the two. All in all a fun evening!

If you like to move the process along it is perhaps worth doing it the traditional way once as long as you are using the same brand until you see what is the dilution that gives the desired effect and taste. Then in the future if you don't have the time or inclination you will know just how much to add to get to the desired dilution more quickly! As noted if you change brands it is not always the same dilution so you have to titrate accordingly. For mixing with cocktails I have tended to use the Vieux Carre absinthe from Philadelphia Distilling (the same folks who produce Bluecoat gin). A bit easier to find and a generally a little less expensive to boot. And not bad on its own merits either to my own palate though I have admittedly limited absinthe experience. Has anybody tried Pacifique or Ridge absinthe? Both are newer US absinthe and seem to get good reviews. Not always easy to find either locally though.

So, with the Martinez popping up in the cocktail novice thread I decided to have one myself last night. Have always tended to go with the recipe I noted in the Martinez thread a while back that came from a local retaurant: But given the discussion on the origins of the Martinez and the original recipe being a bit more vermouth forward I decided to go 1:1 with Ransom and Carpano and used angostura bitters tonight. 1.5 oz Ransom Old Tom (45 ml) 1.5 oz Carpano Antica (45 ml) 1 tsp Luxardo Maraschino (5 ml) 1 "dash" Angostura bitters (my usual 0.7 ml as my dash measurement) A luxardo cherry for a bit of color I suppose I would have to try them side by side to be sure but I think I liked this better than the 2:1 ratio of gin to vermouth. Might also try the Fee Brothers barrel aged bitters next time.

So I finally took a few minutes to flip through the Gin Compendium and count the gins listed. If you count everything, to include the same brand at different proofs, I came up with about 62 gins, 8 genevers (including A. van Wees Roggenaer which I am going to try one day if I have to make a special trip to the Netherlands to do it!), 2 Old Tom's and 3 Plymouth gins if you count the sloe gin. That is a total of 75 gins. I still think they are close to 100 different brands/proofs at the present time that one could find with a little effort. It is clearly a fast moving industry and I could think of a number of other brands I have seen or read about like Brooklyn, Breucklelen, Monkey 47, the Botanist, Roxor, Corsair, Cold River, Blackwood's, South, Back River, Tru2, Blade and Rusty Blade (which I hope to add to my own liquor cabinet soon). Some of these are definitely too new even for this book and for all I know some of these have come and gone already. And of course the debate continues about whether some of these are truly "gin" or belong in the more nebulous category with Square One. So of the 15 gins (16 if you count Plymouth Sloe Gin) currently in my liquor cabinet (Aviation, Bluecoat, Bols Genever, Boomsma Oude Genever, Cadenhead’s Old Raj-110 proof, Citadelle, Citadelle Reserve, Hayman’s Old Tom, Hendrick’s, Leopold’s, Magellan, Plymouth, Ransom Old Tom, Tanqueray Rangpur and Tanqueray) there is only one that doesn't make the book, Leopold's. Still too small a player in 2009 I suppose? So better coverage but also gin focused and a a newer book. But also very different. KS2 provides a presumably independent review for each spirit included while the Gin Compendium is a bit more focused on a general description from the manufacturer with only the occasional independent review by the author or others. What sets this newer book apart, aside from its focus exclusively on gin, is the interesting commentary about gin history, types of gin, occasional personal musings and of course the collection of recipes at the end that helps make this a very different resource. Both seem to have their uses but time will tell as to which one proves more useful to me. At least I hope they prove useful because I could have bought 3 or 4 more gins with the money spent on them! And I know more gin would have been useful...

Yes, I recall the manager of my favorite story telling me something to that effect to explain why Bols genever was not currently available here. So I ended up getting a bottle on line. it is quite distinctive.

Can't speak to Rangpur, but the current Bols Genever was not available in 2007...I believe it (re)launched in 2009. In 2007, Leopold Bros. was still a very regional player, more or less only servicing the Ann Arbor, MI market. It wasn't until after they moved to Colorado in the summer of '08 that they really expanded their reach, and even now it's far from a mainstream product. Good to know and makes the reviews seem that much more complete, at least for my little collection. Was the Bols Genever around so that it might have been reviewed in its previous incarnation? Was hard for me to find much history behind it. I have thought Bols had been a genever producer for a long time at least in Europe if not here in the states.

So over the weekend I decided to look at the gins and genevers listed in KS2 to see whether I was just unlucky in the first few items in my liquor cabinet I tried to look up. There are only 13 pages and 51 gins listed in this edition of the book. This is compared to about 125 pages dedicated just to scotch whisky for example. No doubt there are many more brands and variations of scotch than gin but nearly 10 times as many? It is possible I suppose. The fact that there are over nine pages of Cadenhead's scotch whiskies listed would certainly suggest it is so! Or perhaps the author just likes to drink/review scotch more than gin! Not having the original I don’t know how many others gins were listed in the original edition that are not carried forward to this one. Unfortunately I also don’t have any accurate denominator data to tell me how many gins are currently made (or more appropriately were available in 2007) but a quick perusal of the internet finds about 100 different brands and variations within brands and so I suspect there were at least that many if not many more than that. I decided to not count the entire category of Old Tom gin which was presumably resurrected starting with Hayman’s Old Tom in about 2007. There were only 2 brands I knew of off the top of my head (Hayman’s and Ransom) but a brief search suggests there may be a few more around now. Since this book was being put together about the same time as this category of gin was being revived the fact that they were noted as being essentially “extinct” can be forgiven! But it does reflect in my mind just how fast the industry has been changing of late though. I then took a look at my own liquor cabinet which currently has 15 different gins and genevers. Excluding the two Old Tom gins I have and Citadelle Reserve which was not yet even available by the end of 2007 that leaves 12 fairly commonplace brands to try to find in the book. Turns out there were 9 of these 12 gins listed in KS2. In addition to Citadelle Reserve, Hayman’s Old Tom and Ransom Old Tom which I had initially excluded the three not listed were Bols Genever, Leopold’s and Tanqueray Rangpur. Tanqueray Rangpur was just released in February 2007 so on the one hand perhaps I should cut this one some slack. But on the other hand this was a new product released from a major player in the gin world so I think it would be reasonable to think it would get an early review from a leader in spirits reviews. Leopold’s had been around for a few years but would not have been in the first edition while Bols is also a pretty big name in the spirits world and I presume it has been available for some time. So I feel I should have a reasonable expectation that both would be listed unless perhaps Bols was found in the first edition. So I suppose 75% of my liquor cabinet is a pretty decent result especially if you presume the book only has at most about 50% of the brands of gins that would have been reasonably available at the time it was published. Since the brands in my modest liquor cabinet are pretty much common ones the focus of the book logically enough would appear to be on what is more commonly available. Still, I think at least two of the ones not present should have been there, if not all three. And I also tend to think of getting 75% as about a “C” average so it would at best get about three stars from me! Recommended but nothing out of the ordinary. That it is relatively unique in what it provides and that it covers many different types of spirits in a single volume is its best selling point I suppose. But does it compete well with a book that focuses on a single type of spirit for completeness in covering a single category? Perhaps not. I will have to see how Gary Regan’s ”The Bartenders Gin Compendium” holds up in a similar comparison to my liquor cabinet. Speaking of three stars I was curious to see that of the nine brands listed (Aviation, Bluecoat, Boomsma Oude Genever, Cadenhead’s Old Raj (110 proof), Citadelle, Hendrick’s, Magellan, Plymouth and Tanqueray) four of them carried 3 stars while the other four carried the presumably elusive 5 star rating. Bluecoat was the outlier with the somewhat controversial 1 star rating. Having tried Bluecoat for myself I have to conclude he had a bad batch as has been discussed here and elsewhere. But I also think he did the brand a disservice that ran contrary to his own stated philosophy. On page 4 in the section on “inputting” he notes that he will “sometimes return to a product if I feel that there’s a possibility that I’ve been overly harsh or euphoric”. Presumably being as plugged into the spirits review world he would have known that others did not find Bluecoat to be as execrable as he described it and would want to perhaps return to the product to be sure. There is no evidence that he did that as best as I can tell though. In any case it is certainly an outlier. I have no real idea what, if anything, any of this means. But it was an interesting diversion to me whilst consuming a cocktail or two! Might also try a similar comparison of tequila’s and mescals just to see how that turns out.

Not sure if this was addressed to me in regards to the "Dark and Stormier" or was just a general comment on the frustration with vague measurement instructions! I went with 1.5 oz of rum and Canton so I decided to use 3 oz of ginger beer according to my notes. My "squirt" of lime juice was a healthy 0.5 oz. Seemed to work well to me but haven't had a chance experiment with other quantities. Last night was my last Canton based drink for the moment. Jarnac ¾ Part Domaine de Canton 1 ½ Parts Partida Anejo (I used Dulce Vida Anejo which is 100 proof. That might have been a tad strong...) ½ Part Punt y Mes (The ever ready Carpano Antica filled in again) 1 Bar Spoon Fernet Branca 1 Dash Orange Bitters (Regan's) Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist. An Original Recipe by Kevin Diedrich - Kevin Diedrich it appears is (or was) a San Francisco area bartender/bar manager. One article suggested he is opening or has opened his own bar now. This seemed more a flavorful shot of tequila than a cocktail to me. And the Dulce Vida packed a punch! An ice cube and tincture of time helped it mellow a bit and made it much more enjoyable particularly if you are a fan of tequila as I am. But not one I would plan to break out at my next party as an opening cocktail!

Once more into the breach, dear Canton... Continuing the exploration of recipes on the Canton website. A few more left that sound interesting. Tonight something a little simpler that will also help use up the open ginger beer from the other night. Dark & Stormier 1 Part Domaine de Canton 1 Part Dark Aged Rum (Cruzan Blackstrap, not particularly aged but wanted to try it) Splash of Fresh Lime Juice Fill a collins or high-ball glass with ice. Fill 1/2 of the glass with ginger beer, and then add Domaine de Canton, dark aged rum, and fresh lime juice. Garnish with a lime. Found it to be quite nice. Between the Fever Tree ginger beer and the Canton it was quite spicy at the back end but tasty and smooth at the start to provide a nice contrast. Still a couple more recipes on the Canton website that I want to try before I move on to less gingery pastures.

one of my favorites. i'd say one of the greatest rums relative to price. for unaged fresh sugar cane rums, i think the most interesting are the rums of cape verde and the cachacas from salinas in minas gerais, brazil. the technique i endorse for learning about rum is just to buy one of each and clear out a book case. Jeez! You do know I am OCD right? Now I have another category to look for! Have been holding off on cachaça for the moment but I always like to have little oddities to add to my "collection" and a Cape Verde spirit might fit right in! The Depaz aroused my curiosity and so I may give that one a try. I think it had a decent review in KS2 as well although I still don't know quite yet whether my tastes are a particularly close match to the authors. The one thing I was surprised by about the book was not so much what was in it but what was not. With so many spirits out there you can't possibly cover everything but many things I looked for weren't in it. Perhaps I just have bad taste in what I choose to buy... Sounds interesting. I generally steer away from dark colas because I tend to avoid caffeine (which makes my recent acquisition of Kola tonic somewhat problematic although I still intend to try it at some point) but I do enjoy reposado tequila (usually Espolon is the "house" brand for this), lime juice and sprite as an easy but tasty drink. This should fit right in! Have Brugal but don't think it is the Añejo or Extra Viejo.

Willing to try out a true Rhum Agricole to add to my rum experiece. Locally so far I have only found Niesson blanc and St. James Ambre Rhum Agricole. Loooking for something to drink primarily as a sipper neat or with a bit of water or ice. So if I end up ordering one online I have a few more options. I know that each one likely has its own character and merits but if you were to suggest one which would it be? Several different blancs in addition to the Neisson (La Favorite, Duquesne) are available on line but if I am going to get a blanc I would probably try the Neisson that is readily available locally. Depaz Amber Blue Cane Rhum Agricole (750 ml) ~$32 Neisson Blanc Rhum Agricole (1L) ~$36 Neisson "Eleve Sous Bois" Rhum Agricole (1L) ~$43 Neisson "Reserve Speciale" Rhum Agricole (1L) ~$68 - Starting to get a little spendy! Rhum Clement Cuvee Homere Rum (750mL) ~$90 - Definitely a little spendy! Saint James Extra Old Rhum Agricole 750mL ~$45 Saint James Hors D'Age Rhum Agricole 750mL ~$56 Saint James Royal Ambre Rhum Agricole 750mL ~26 - Bargain basement! Might be a few other options but that seems like what is readily available from my usual sources `

For those in the Atlanta area interested in learning a little more about rum I posted about an upcoming rum tasting with Ed Hamilton here.

Just noticed on the Ministry of Rum website in the news section that there will be a Rum Dinner at Pura Vida in Atlanta GA on October 18, 2011. The announcement indicates the dinner will be hosted by Ed Hamilton of the Ministry of Rum (and an eG Forums member) and will include dinner, rum cocktails from Martinique and a bit of rum lore. Pura Vida is a Latin American tapas restaurant that was recently listed as one of the top 50 restaurants for 2011 in the August addition of Atlanta magazine. I have not been to Pura Vida before so this event seemed like a good way to merge two interests into one event! I have no affiliation with the Ministry of Rum or Pura Vida but have made my reservation and thought any other Atlanta area members might be interested as well. Click here for the terms under which this event is listed in eG Forums.

Going back to the Canton well this evening. Tonight it was the Eva Peron in preparation for our upcoming trip to Argentina. Eva Peron ¾ Part Domaine de Canton (1.5 oz) ¼ Part Fernet Branca (0.5 oz) ¾ Part Sweet Vermouth (1.5 oz)(Carpano Antica because that was the bottle that was open) ¾ Part Fresh Lime Juice (1.5 oz) Shake vigorously and strain over ice in a collins glass. Top with ginger beer (ended up using about 1 oz of Fever Tree ginger beer) and garnish with a lime. Drinks with Fernet can be challenge for me since it is such powerful stuff and I don't deal well with a really bitter drink despite doing my best to cultivate my palate for bitters and amaros. But I guess we need to get used to it now since it is a big drink among the porteños in Buenos Aires (mixed with cola apparently which I am unlikely to ever do!). Not sure I would have normally gone with the Carpano Antica but I think it proved to be a good choice. The drink needs something to stand up to the Fernet! Even that relatively small amount of Fernet tends to drive the bus here. But it proved to be a delightful bus indeed. I am going to have to add more limes to the shopping list as this is a drink I will want to try again and introduce to friends. Only down side is I don't care for drinks that require being "topped off" or need a "dash" of this or a "splash" of that as one of the ingredients. Probably just my own OCD but I like to have a specific measure to use to start with. For me a drop is a drop and one of the first things I bought were small dropper bottles to use. A dash I have decided is 1/8 of a teaspoon and my bar comes complete with a few syringes to measure that as accurately as possible. But I still haven't figured out a splash or in this case how much is enough to "top off the drink". The 1 oz of ginger beer seemed to work well but I suppose I will have to experiment some to see if more (or less) makes any difference. Looks like another sleepless night ahead as I ponder that one...

Was looking for a drink that combined Canton with dry vermouth as I thought that might be an interesting combination. Checked several sites with no luck before ending up at the Canton website. They had a number of recipes listed and while none had dry vermouth a couple sounded reasonably interesting. Many of the typical variations on classic drinks but the Dark and Stormier, Eva Peron, Golden Smoke, Japanese Courage (although a bit specific on ingredients), Jarnac, Manhattan East (I do have a nice dry saki in the bar) and Promissory Note all sounded interesting. Canton website recipes But I ended up with this one last night. East Side Press 1 ½ Parts Domaine de Canton 2 Parts Cognac (My house mixing brand was Chalfonte VSOP) 1 Part Fresh Lemon Juice 1 Egg White 4 Drops of Angostura Drops (although I have it I decided to try the Fee Bros Old Fashioned instead) 1 Tsp of Brown Sugar (I usually have brown sugar available but only had a "light" brown sugar handy this evening) Serve in a chilled martini glass. Garnish with 5 small pieces of fresh ginger and 2 pieces of candied ginger. Didn't have the fresh or candied ginger so I did without. No specific mixing instructions so I put all ingredients together and started with a good dry shake before adding ice for an additional shake. Expected it to be fairly sweet but wasn't as sweet as I thought it might be. Quite frothy of course and seemed like maybe half an egg white would have been enough. The Canton also did not seem to stand out here but rather played fairly nicely. A little more subtle than I might have thought but overall a pretty pleasant drink.

I finally managed to remember to take a picture of the Aalborg while I was in the store yesterday (still negotiating hard to figure out how to get Kuchan peach brandy to my local store!). According to the label it is imported to the US and then bottled here. I suppose this explains why the label is a bit different on the bottle than in Europe. It may also be why there may have been a brief pause in availability at one point. Not sure how it was handled in the past. Was looking for drinks to experiment with Canton last night. I wonder if the ginger would make a good combination in a drink with the strong caraway flavor of this akvavit?

Thinking about the El Dorado I recently aquired also got me to thinking about the Lemon Hart 151. Figured this question probably belonged in the rum thread. Now that the newest version of it is becoming more widely available and the previous bottling is essentially unavailable has anyone had a chance to compare the two side by side to see if they are still about the same? Lots of articles about what happened to result in the temporary absence of it but haven't found any one who has done a comparison yet. Didn't see anything over at the Ministry of Rum website yet. Was thinking of ordering a bottle for myself so if there is a comparison that has already been done that seems objective and unbiased would be delighted to have the link! Given that the price seems to have increased substantially it was be nice to know if what you are getting is at least as good if not better than what it replaced. Although I suppose in the end it doesn't matter. The former supply is essentially gone and the new one is what is!

I expect you would find one or two folks down this way who would happily argue that a vidalia onion is indeed the best of the best! Macon would get you close but you would have to slide another 100 miles or so down the road to Vidalia, GA to go to the Vidalia Onion Festival each spring. I believe one day I would like to have my own little festival in Spain featuring the very best and freshest jamón I can find to include at least a little bit of Jamón Iberico de Bellota before I die.

Good point! Although the occasional news report in recent months suggest there may be a few... My primary store had the Niesson agricole blanc but that was the only Martinique Rhum agricole in stock and indeed the only other brand of Rhum Agricole besides the Barbancort line. Probably good in its own right but I thought I would go with something that might be better for drinking neat (Although perhaps the blanc is perfectly adequate in that role?). They did have the Barbancourt 15yo but I decided to start with the 8yo and see what I thought first. There are several other stores in the area I can check with as well to see what might be readily available locally. I presume I will note some significant differences between the Ron Zacapa 23 and the El Dorado 15. I see many reviews note the RZ23 to be a bit on the sweet side and a few "accusations" made that it has been supplemented to boost sweetness. Obviously not a 23 yo rum but some also seem to dislike the Solera method feeling it is a bit deceptive to suggest it is aged that long as compared to rums which list the true age or go by the youngest rum in the blend like the ED 15yo. Doesn't matter so much to me as long as they are enjoyable to my particular palate. But given the RZ23 is the most expensive the contents will need to justify the cost compared to others for me to buy the next one. In fact I think the ED 15yo is the one I look forward to the most at the moment. Most reviews note it to be sweet as well but with a more smokey tone. That sounds like something I would like!

I think any self respecting pilot would be drinking his rum straight from the bottle! So should be a good day to break open my newest rum additions and take a swig or three! Particularly looking forward to trying the Rhum Barbancourt 8yo as I think it will be my first Rhum Agricole style that I can recall.

Thanks! Definitely a drink I will plan to check out soon.

Went with EvergreenDan's Dark and Orangy as planned. A nice drink but perhaps the Myers rum, which I usually use for tropical fruit punch mixes, isn't up to leading this dance? Might look for the Cruzan Blackstrap to try here which isn't available in the store I went to last night. I like the orange influence here and the Canton seems to also play well. Might be one that would be fun to play with by mixing with my Senor Curacao or Solerno in place of Cointreau, swapping lime juice for lemon and perhaps experimenting with Fee Bros orange bitters which to me seems the strongest orange of the three I have available (Fee Bros, Angostura orange and Regan's).

Would a basic Blood & Sand with mezcal to replace the scotch be a good idea? Have a bottle of Sombra I could use for a bit of experimentation. Guess I will have to give it a try and see. Seems like a natural with that whole bullfighting pedigree!