Black/White cocktails

[gethin]

Hi

I need to produce a couple of black drinks and a couple of white ones to serve before a black and white dinner .

I'm planning to do a squid ink sour and something using Blavod black vodka (probably a Berlin Station Chief, using a peaty whisky and replacing just enough of the gin with Blavod to make it properly black).

I'm less sure about the white ones . I dont want to use milk/cream/cream liqueur as they are notthings most people want in a drink before a meal (or ever ). I'd rather avoid using egg white too, just because i dont really want to shake cocktails for 8 people- but may have to if I cant come up with a second white cocktail without doing so.

For the first of the white drinks I think i'll do something with orgeat and Pernod ( as i assume I can produce a milky white effect with these ) , probably with gin (eg a Gaby de Lys cocktail - i'll make a really floral orgeat with rosewater and orange flower water , and play up the floral notes using a orris heavy gin like Martin Millers).

I'd really appreciate other suggestions .

[EvergreenDan]

Riga Black Balsams is pretty darn black. I've never head squid ink vodka. Sounds interesting and a little scary.

Schwartzwald

by Dan Chadwick, Kindred Cocktails

1 oz Gin

1 oz Black Balsams

1 oz Amaro, Lucano

3/4 oz Lemon juice

Shake, strain, straight up, cocktail glass

Midnight Ruby

by Dan Chadwick, Kindred Cocktails

1 oz Gin

1 oz Campari

1/2 oz Black Balsams

1 oz Grapefruit juice

Shake, strain, rocks, low-ball

I like your idea for white, although pastis can be a bit challenging for some (not me).

[lesliec]

Hi gethin.

I take your point about pre-dinner milky drinks, but Ideas in Food has a White Chocolate Martini recipe you might like to look at. I found some baby milk bottles to serve it in; it looks (and tastes) great through a black cocktail straw.

For black, I forget the name but isn't there a Guinness/champagne drink? Black Velvet, perhaps?

Have fun!

[Sunny&Rummy]

I think Black Velvets are a great idea for the black drink. Or a Cruzan Blackstrap Corn 'n Oil made with a dark homemade demerara alernum.

For the white drink, I'm a huge fan of nigori (unfiltered cloudy) sake. I bet you could do something interesting with nigori and orgeat. maybe sub shochu for the brandy and add a bit of maraschino for a riff on the Japanese Cocktail?

Edited July 21, 2011 by Sunny&Rummy (log)

[gethin]

Thanks for the suggestions- i think we will have Black Velvet with at least one course of the meal itself- i'm trying to do a variety of spirit based drinks that can be served in smallish glasses before the meal, so everyone can try them all without getting to plastered.

I'll pick up a bottle of Riga Black Balsam this afternoon and experiment over the weekend.

As far as the squid ink sour goes , I'll use Tequila. lemon juice and fresh squid ink- (there's a squid stuffed with a ginger/chilli and squid ink pork stuffing dish on the menu so i'll hopefully get enough ink when prepping the squid- i've got a few sachets of the ink in reserve anyway).

The Blavod Vodka gets it blackness from Catechu - extracted from a Burmese variety of acacia tree apparently - not sure what its point is (though i dont really see what vodka's point is either) but it does come in helpful when faced with this rather silly task .

i'd really like to offer drinks that people might want to try just out of interested even if what's on offer is not restricted to drinks of particular colours.

[san]

We serve a sazerac variation called On The Night You Were Born. It's 2 oz. Wild Turkey Rye, .4 oz Dios Baco Pedro Ximenez (a particularly dark dessert sherry), 3 drops absinthe bitters and 6 drops Angostura bitters. Comes out pretty much black and drinks a little sweeter than a sazerac up front but with an incredibly long and complex finish.

Sandy Levine

The Oakland Art Novelty Company