[Pre-batching honey into bourbon (for a Gold Rush)]

The one cocktail that it seems like many of my friends share a taste for is the Gold Rush - we all like it. So it would be nice to be able to make it relatively quickly whenever we happen to have guests. I'm wondering if it would be possible to pre-batch the honey simple syrup into the bourbon, so that I could just pour 2.75oz of that mix into the shaker and add 3/4 of lemon. Would that be pantry-safe? I'd imagine that the proof should be high enough (at a ratio of 2:3/4, that's ~60 proof) to keep it from being unsafe, but does anyone know if it kills the flavor of the honey?

[Apricot Brandy: Apry, Etc.]

Blume Marillien has such a wonderful aroma...has anyone tried pairing it with different gins? What's your favorite gin to pair it with? It's so floral that I'd be tempted to try pairing it with a woodier gin (e.g. St. George Terroir or something), but maybe I should use a more neutral one and let it shine? 

[Cocktails I'm supposed to like, but don't]

Singapore Sling, Blood and Sand, Hemingway Daiquiri, ...*gasp* even the last Word.

 

Something about cherry liqueurs rub me the wrong way (especially Cherry Heering, I swear it's cough medicine...). I swear they don't taste like cherries. Someday I'll have to go to an Oregon farmer's market, make my own, and see if I actually like these cocktails...

[General guidance for a "newbie" making his own ingredients?]

If you live somewhere near good farmland (or in a big city with nice farmer's markets), homemade shrubs are ridiculously easy to make, and give you a fresh-muddled-fruit flavor without the annoyance of needing fresh fruit around (since the vinegar acts as a preservative).

 

I like 2:1:1 fruit:sugar:vinegar. You can play around with vinegars (champagne is nice and neutral, red goes well with dark berries, apple give it a big kick). Give it a stir every day for a few days, strain, bottle. You can replace parts of the acid and sugar in pretty much any shaken drink recipe. 

 

Not the best season to get started: citrus shrubs don't really pop, imo, although guava is nice. However, strawberry season is around the corner (or already starting, if you're someplace warm), and strawberry shrubs are heavenly.

[Cocktails with eau de vie]

I've become more and more averse to sweet things (I'm a grumpy old man, I suppose...) in cocktails, and I've recently fallen in love with eau de vies - they can add a dizzying amount of fruit aroma to a cocktail without adding any sweetness. For example, I tried an eau de vie variant of a daiquiri:

 

1 1/2 oz rum

1/2 oz raspberry eau de vie (st. george is nice, massenez' framboise sauvage is incredible)

1/2 oz lime

1/2 oz raspberry shrub (i did 2:1:1 raspberries:sugar:champagne vinegar)

1/4 oz Giffard creme de framboise

 

...somehow it tastes more like raspberries than raspberries!

 

Does anyone play around with eau de vies (the standards - poire williams, blume marillien, mirabelle - or the crazies - rowanberry, woodruff, sloe, etc.) in cocktails? What are your favorite recipes?

[Smoke]

My favorite, from Hiding in Plain Sight in Amsterdam. I was never sure of their exact measures, but I'm a fan of:

 

~1.5oz Ron Zacapa 23yr

~.5oz Kilchoman whiskey

~.5oz Pineau des Charentes (fortified sweet wine)

~barspoon Grand Marnier

 

Stir. Invert a brandy snifter over burning rosemary until it fills with smoke. Use a coaster to trap the smoke while you turn it right side up again. Strain into snifter.

[Suggestions for homemade boysenberry liqueur]

I got gifted something like a dozen quarts of fresh-picked boysenberries last month (my friend has like an acre of them on her property, so lucky...), and I've been soaking some of them in vodka for the past month and a half to make a liqueur. It's starting to taste pretty good!

 

I'm thinking that it will probably work well with any recipe that calls for creme de cassis, but I'm wondering if anyone has played around with boysenberries in cocktails before and has any unexpected suggestions! Thoughts?

[Best Manhattan variations?]

Tzatziki, is there a garnish on this?  I first tried it with a full oz. of Punt e Mes, but I'll try your original ratios next.  This is a nice one!

 

If memory recalls, there was a slice of orange peel floated in the drink (which was served up), but I could be mistaken - it's been a couple years.

[Non-citrus cocktails]

Whoa, Kindred Cocktails is awesome, definitely hadn't seen it before!

[Non-citrus cocktails]

spirits:

- rums (cana 4y, pyrat xo, barbancourt 5*)

- whiskies (four roses, rittenhouse, glenfiddich 18, balvenie 12, laphroaig quarter cask)

- gins (beefeater, hendricks)

- tequilas (espolon reposado, herradura anejo)

- mezcal (del maguey)

 

bitters: ango, peychaud, orange (fee, regans), peach, rhubarb, celery, grapefruit, chocolate

 

 

I'm definitely not averse to zest - I'm just not as much a fan of the sourness/acidity. All of my favorite craft cocktails I've had when I'm out and about have been whiskey-forward and bitter or herbal: Manhattans, Brooklyns, Red Hooks, Greenpoints, Vieux Carres, etc. What are some good cocktails with similar profiles (spirit-foward, bitter/herbal) based around rum, gin, or tequila?

[Non-citrus cocktails]

I'm looking to expand my knowledge/palate of cocktails without citrus in them. I've explored Manhattan variations to death (mostly because they're my favorite), but I've had few gin/rum/tequilla drinks that are citrus-less, nor whiskey drinks without vermouth. My bar has pretty much all the base spirits (except for vodka), plus the following:

 

 

- Carpano Antica

- Punt e Mes

- Cointreau

- Luxardo

- Cherry Heering

- Green Chartreuse

- Benedictine

- Creme de Cassis

- St Germain

- Falernum

 

I'm not opposed to adding to this collection, but working within it would be nice as well!

[Best Manhattan variations?]

My favorite is a cocktail I tried at Bourbon and Branch a year or so ago, that they call the "Agent Smith". There are a lot of flavors happening, and I haven't been back to SF in a while, so I have a hard time judging the correct proportions. I still mess around with them (and suggested modifications would be awesome!), but right now I lean towards:

 

- 2 oz rye

- 1/2 oz punt e mes

- 1/2 oz green chartreuse

- 1/4 oz maraschino

- 3 dashes chocolate bitters

[Help replicating a Bourbon and Branch drink ("Agent Smith")]

I went to Bourbon and Branch on a recent trip to SF, and had a cocktail I really liked, called the "Agent Smith", which seemed sort of like a mesh of a Red Hook and a Greenpoint. I recently added Green Chartreuse to my home bar, so I decided to try to duplicate this, but my first attempt fell flat. The cocktail has the following ingredients, and I tried using the ratios in parentheses, which were just my own guesses:

- (1.5oz) Rye Whiskey (I used Bulleit Rye)

- (.5oz) Green Chartreuse

- (.5oz) Punt e Mes

- (.25oz) Luxardo Maraschino

- 3 dash Chocolate Bitters

I fancied myself as having a good palate, but there's so much going on in this drink that I could not tease apart which ingredient was out of balance - all I can tell is that my attempt was vastly inferior to the one I was served.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with a little trial-and-error (my first instinct after tasting the above is to reduce the rye to 1oz and use 1oz of chartreuse), but before I power through my bottle of chartreuse while cringing at the price tag, I was wondering if anyone here had tried this drink or one like it, and has some notion of which measure of mine might be off.

[Maraschino proportion in Hemingway Daiquiri]

I've been playing around with Hemingway Daiquiris - because it's damn hot right now, and because they're delicious.

However, I'm kind of surprised at the ratios most recipes seem to use (2 rum : 3/4 lime : 1/2 grapefruit : 1/2 maraschino) - when I make them this way, the Luxardo dominates the flavor for me, and also makes it a bit too sweet. Does anyone else cut the maraschino to ~ 1/4 oz? Or could this be a consequence of not having access to crushed ice to serve it with?

[Drinks Using Cucumber]

My go-to cucumber cocktail - especially now that it's hot outside - is the Juliet and Romeo from Violet Hour in Chicago. Gin, Lime, Mint, Cucumber, Rosewater, Angostura.

Do you put salt in yours Tzatziki? I tried one a while back and it was wretched. Interested to know how to make it work.

If you're going off the original, I think that the biggest thing that can mess it up is using Hendrick's - it's tempting because the flavor profile is so similar, but it's really much better with a London Dry style (although I like it with Martin Miller as well). With the salt, I think the point is to coax water out of the cucumber, not to flavor the drink. You can rub salt on the cucumber, let it set for 10-15 minutes, and then brush it off before you mix it. Not sure if that's how it's done at the Violet Hour, but I've had it there and it's definitely not salty.

I have changed a few things from the original recipe, though. I use Persian cucumbers and leave the peel on, and balance that bitterness by cutting back on the Angostura. The bigger change I've made is to use substantially more rosewater - maybe a teaspoon worth, or a little less. Maybe TVH uses stronger rosewater or something, but I needed more rosewater for it to match what I remember.

[Cocktails without short shelf-life liqueurs]

I love mixing good cocktails, but I don't drink that often. I make maybe one or two drinks a week for myself and the same for guests. The problem is that while I love Manhattans, for example, it's entirely unrealistic that I'd make it through a bottle of Vermouth quickly enough (why Vermouth isn't sold in 375ml is beyond me...).

Of course I can always do the classic sours, etc., but I'd love to play around with some more complex cocktails as well. I'm thinking of picking up some Green Chartreuse and Maraschino Liqueur for Last Word riffs. What are some other cocktails whose liqueur ingredients have unlimited shelf-life?

[Drinks Using Cucumber]

My go-to cucumber cocktail - especially now that it's hot outside - is the Juliet and Romeo from Violet Hour in Chicago. Gin, Lime, Mint, Cucumber, Rosewater, Angostura.