Drinks! (2012, part 2)

[Yajna Patni]

Hot Whiskey. My grandmothers cold cure recipe. Whiskey, Lemon, whole cloves, and sugar or honey, boiling water poured over. The most comforting Drink I know. I made it with Tyrconnell Whiskey.

[bostonapothecary]

1.5 oz. zapotan blanco tequila (a very cheap 100% agave)

.5 oz. vida mezcal

1 oz. yesterday's lime juice

1 oz. brandymel "limao"

most excellent.

believe it or not brandymel "limao" is not some invention of mine. a traditional liqueur that is found barely anywhere apparently has a special lime addition. it is pretty cool and the price was right at $12.99 retail. i think in portugal brandymel is thought of as a winter drink so a lime version is an attempt to make it more summery. i did not detect any added acidity to the liqueur so i suspect all they do is add lime oil.

i regard brandymel highly and believe it should be served everywhere. what other honey liqueur is fortified by an arbutus fruit moonshine made by old men?

[bostonapothecary]

copenhagen inspired

1 oz. thomas handy rye 66.2%

1 oz. very tired plymouth sloe gin

.5 oz. gammel dansk

dash peychaud's bitters

my older brother and a few of our mutual friends are obsessed with a no. 9. cocktail called the copenhagen that features gammel dansk. the original uses fighting cock whiskey and haus alpenze apricot liqueur instead of sloe gin and i think can be attributed to ben sandroff. i think no. 9 acquired the gammel dansk when they bought up all of a close-out (another importer ahead of his time!). once no. 9 ran out, my brother would bring them bottles from over seas when he traveled abroad. i was lucky enough to also be gifted a bottle of the magic danish elixir.

well this version is lovely, but i think the density of sloe gin overshadows delicious nuances more than a translucent apricot liqueur would.

[C. sapidus]

Maple Leaf:

Had a little maple syrup left over. An ingredient search on CocktailDB led to the Maple Leaf:

1 ½ oz. bourbon (Pikesville rye)

½ oz. maple syrup (less for me)

½ oz. lemon juice

Shake & strain

A maple-flavored whiskey sour, basically.

[bostonapothecary]

copenhagen inspired.

1 oz. barrel proof havana club 45%

1 oz. d'oliveira madeira doux

.5 oz. gammel dansk

bar spoonful brandymel "limao"

this is perfectly drinkable and likable, but it isn't exactly thrilling. i was also sort of let down by the havana club on its own; drinkable but ordinary and not worth the suitcase space. there just isn't enough wild contrast or tension in this drink. no facet ends up particularly attentional or unbalanced and off kilter. if vitality lies in the asymmetrical, there is none of that here. i think my cocktail skills are atrophying.

[campus five]

Inadvertently stayed up past midnight writing some stuff for my blog, and since it's now Repeal Day, I decided to pour myself a little something to celebrate before hit the sack.

~0.75 oz Laird's Bonded Apple Brandy

1.5 oz Rittenhouse BIB

0.5 oz Becherovka

0.5 oz Apry

2 dashes Miracle Mile Forbidden Bitters

Very "Fall" flavors.

I meant to use an ounce each of Laird's and Rittenhouse, but the bottle ran a little short.

Kind of cross between a park slope and an american trilogy and... something with Becherovka.

[rod rock]

Hot Whiskey. My grandmothers cold cure recipe. Whiskey, Lemon, whole cloves, and sugar or honey, boiling water poured over. The most comforting Drink I know. I made it with Tyrconnell Whiskey.

Simple, and this combination sounds very interesting. I never tried Tyrconnell whiskey but i will try with my favorite one - Jameson Irish whiskey. Thanks for the idea!

[KatieLoeb]

The Grandma Cold Cure Toddy is a favorite of mine, although I usually include some sort of tea with mine to stretch it and make it more flavorful. I've done it with Irish Whiskey, demerara simple and English Breakfast tea (a Belfast Cease Fire) and also with Cognac, spiced simple syrup and Tea Forte White Pear Ginger tea with lemon and orange zests.

[campus five]

Here's what I made tonight at home for Repeal Day

Sherry Cobbler

4 oz sherry (1 oz. Lustau 'los arcos' dry amontillado / 3 oz. East India) / 2 orange slices / .5 oz Ferrand Dry Curacao / crushed ice

Manhattan (from the Manhattan variation thread)

2 oz Van Winkle Rye / 1 oz Cocchi Vermouth di Torrino / 2 dashes Miracle Mile Forbidden Bitters / Lemon Peel

And for the wife

Aviation (basically PDT book spec, with just a touch more violette)

2 oz Plymouth / .75 oz lemon / .5 oz maraschino / .33 oz R&W Violette

Probably gonna sip on a little amaro to close things out.

[Yajna Patni]

the cognac with pear and ginger sounds really good.

[KD1191]

copenhagen inspired

1 oz. thomas handy rye 66.2%

1 oz. very tired plymouth sloe gin

.5 oz. gammel dansk

dash peychaud's bitters

my older brother and a few of our mutual friends are obsessed with a no. 9. cocktail called the copenhagen that features gammel dansk. the original uses fighting cock whiskey and haus alpenze apricot liqueur instead of sloe gin and i think can be attributed to ben sandroff. i think no. 9 acquired the gammel dansk when they bought up all of a close-out (another importer ahead of his time!). once no. 9 ran out, my brother would bring them bottles from over seas when he traveled abroad. i was lucky enough to also be gifted a bottle of the magic danish elixir.

well this version is lovely, but i think the density of sloe gin overshadows delicious nuances more than a translucent apricot liqueur would.

Tried this tonight. Lovely, indeed. That said, I'm not sure I've ever made a drink with ingredients that had traveled farther to be together. I ended up using my currently open bottle of Handy (2010, 63.45%), carried back from a trip Frankfort, a Vietnamese apricot liqueur (rice-based Son Tinh Mo Vang) acquired in Hanoi, and some Gammel Dansk I picked up in the duty free shop of an overnight ferry from Göteborg to Kiel. The running joke was that my drink needed a carbon offset.

Edited December 9, 2012 by KD1191 (log)

[Yojimbo]

I broke open the homemade Rock and Rye I've been steeping for 2 weeks, since we had friends over and one of them claimed he had a cold coming on . . . .sweet, and tastes like my best childhood memories of prescription cough syrup with lots of alcohol and codeine (the kind that almost made a kid look forward to catching a cold), it went down very easily.

Then went out to No. 7 in Fort Greene here in Brooklyn and had a Don Juancho -- aged rum, dry vermouth and maraschino, served with an orange twist. Delightful, and I must find out what rum they used -- I suspect Diplomatico -- which worked far better with dry vermouth than I ever would have guessed.

[EvergreenDan]

In the Campari thread, bostonapothecary revised Stew Ellington's Campari-heavy drink to be equal parts. That got me thinking about equal parts drinks that could be improved by adjusting each ingredient to the ideal proportion. So I made a Last Word with:

2 oz gin

1/2 oz Green Chartreuse (enough to come through, without overpowering the juniper)

1/4 oz Maraschino (just a hint, not enough to suppress the Chartreuse)

3/4 oz lemon (enough to push the balance from lightly sweet to solidly tart

If you enjoy sipping Chartreuse or Maraschino, this would probably not be an improvement. But it is for me.

[KatieLoeb]

the cognac with pear and ginger sounds really good.

It is. A thoroughly delicious flavor combination. The really good ginger-pear tea is crucial. I'm sure one could fake this up with either regular ginger tea and Belle de Brillet pear flavored cognac, or with a pear schnapps like Berentzen's and cognac instead if one couldn't source the Tea Forte. But the tea is SO good. It comes in gorgeous silk pyramid shaped bags. They make a lovely presentation even just on their own.

Edited December 10, 2012 by KatieLoeb (log)

[KatieLoeb]

Speaking of Rock and Rye, has anyone else tried the Hochstadter's Slow and Low Rock and Rye?? We have a bottle and I've been playing around with it lately. I made a batch of Calamansi-Cardamom cordial and have been making the following:

Rockn' Calamansi

1.5 oz. Slow and Low

1 oz. Calamansi-Cardamom cordial

.5 oz. Cardamaro

2 dashes orange bitters

Shaken, strained. Served up in a chilled coupe with a lemon peel expressed and dropped in. Looks and tastes like sunshine with a dark side...

[Hassouni]

In honor of hopefully finishing an evil, vile, soul-grating project for work, I made myself:

1. a Rittenhouse old fashioned, except with a mix of allspice dram and falernum instead of simple syrup

2. a Corn n' Oil with Cruzan blackstrap

3. a dram of Sea Wynde, neat. My god, what an absurd rum

[mcmmcm]

Nothing to beat a pina colada ..... I know I know ..... heavy and coconutty.... but superb!

[dml]

the cognac with pear and ginger sounds really good.

It is. A thoroughly delicious flavor combination. The really good ginger-pear tea is crucial. I'm sure one could fake this up with either regular ginger tea and Belle de Brillet pear flavored cognac, or with a pear schnapps like Berentzen's and cognac instead if one couldn't source the Tea Forte. But the tea is SO good. It comes in gorgeous silk pyramid shaped bags. They make a lovely presentation even just on their own.

I didn't have any pear-ginger tea, so I just went the high-proof route:

2 oz cognac

Pear liqueur to taste (1.25oz?)

a la minute ginger syrup (a bit of microplaned ginger, a spoonful of sugar, a bit of hot water; infuse ~2 min.) to taste

very good indeed.

[bostonapothecary]

carbonated to 7 g/l

.75 oz. lime juice

.75 oz. campari

.75 oz. brandymel limao

.75 oz. mezcal

shaken then strained into a 375 champagne bottle.

lately i've been playing with my new champagne bottle manifold which is the first product of the plastic foundry i started. the manifold allows you to connect a gas supply to a champagne bottle via cornelius quick disconnects. you then use a kitchen scale to measure the carbonation you add to the bottle. to achieve my 7g/l goal i aimed to add 0.9 grams to my 4.5 oz. volume of cocktail. because the champagne bottle wasn't full and the head space can hold quite a lot of gas i almost immediately added 3.5 grams to the bottle (65spi). after 15 seconds of shaking and 5 more of settling i released the pressure. the scale only read 0.9 which was my goal. apparently 2.6 grams fit into the head space!

i didn't really enjoy the drink as made and had to add another .5 oz of lime juice for it to feel harmonic. the pattern is starting to immerge that as carbonation increases so too does acidity. i think this rule governs the sparkling wines. champagne as opposed to prosecco, cava, and american sparklers has the most carbonation (12g/l) not because other can't get the gas in there but because they deserve it; they get the most acidity to justify it. somehow bitterness also has deeply rooted connections to carbonation. i don't really know how to articulate the relationship but i'm hoping that playing around with cocktails and this new precision tool will help reveal some insights.

if anyone wants to join the party, the next time you carbonate with whatever tool you use, drag out your kitchen scale. carbonation can most usefully be thought of in terms of grams per liter as opposed to temperature and pressure. it makes it much less confusing. i happen to be using a killer ohaus scale that can do 4 kilos by a tenth of gram! i've been accurately weighing the gas i add to magnums!

Edited December 13, 2012 by bostonapothecary (log)

[haresfur]

the pattern is starting to immerge that as carbonation increases so too does acidity

...

i happen to be using a killer ohaus scale that can do 4 kilos by a tenth of gram! i've been accurately weighing the gas i add to magnums!

CO2 + H2O makes carbonic acid H2CO3. In actuality most of it remains as dissolved CO2 and the final pH will depend on what else is in there to buffer the pH. Might be interesting to try to measure the pH as soon as you open it at different amounts of CO2 added.

...

Love my Ohaus triple-beam balance but I think I can only reach about 1.5 kg at that resolution.

[bostonapothecary]

the pattern is starting to immerge that as carbonation increases so too does acidity

...

i happen to be using a killer ohaus scale that can do 4 kilos by a tenth of gram! i've been accurately weighing the gas i add to magnums!

CO2 + H2O makes carbonic acid H2CO3. In actuality most of it remains as dissolved CO2 and the final pH will depend on what else is in there to buffer the pH. Might be interesting to try to measure the pH as soon as you open it at different amounts of CO2 added.

...

Love my Ohaus triple-beam balance but I think I can only reach about 1.5 kg at that resolution.

i think i might have stated that poorly. maybe i should say it backwards because it applies vice versa. in sparkling wines as acidity increases so to should carbonation to maintain harmony.

true dissolved gas lowers PH but its haptic sensory contribution is far more salient. if all these facets of the synaesthetic flavor experience compete for our attention i think we encounter a phenomenon where when we make both acidity and carbonation equally attentional we can tolerate huge concentrations of both where as one of the same concentration in the absence of the other would most likely seem dissonant.

[haresfur]

Ah, I see, like Coca-Cola

[thampik]

Not sure whether this is the best place to post, but.... this article in todays Telegraph has some interesting historical info on the origin of Cocktails.

The cocktail may be considered an American concoction, but its roots stretch back to 18th century London. Jared Brown reveals the drink's curious, homegrown origins.

Edited December 13, 2012 by thampik (log)

[FrogPrincesse]

Cool article, full of interesting facts. This is the second time that I read an article explaining that Harry Craddock may have been a British citizen later naturalized American.

[bostonapothecary]

final volume 4.5 oz.

carbonated to more than 7g/l

.75 oz. lime juice

.75 oz. d'oliveira madeira "doux"

1.5 oz. ypioca cachaca

dash peychaud's bitters

i thought for this sparkling sour i'd go really tart. i went 2:1:1 and contrasted the lime with something sweet but not liqueur or syrup sweet. in probably twenty seconds the small volume of liquid took on quite a bit of dissolved gas. when i released the pressure it looked like i ended with 1.1 gram of dissolved gas in 4.5 oz. which is over 7g/l. quite the sparkle. it rang in at 3.5 grams before pressure release.

well i love it. its dangerously seductive. there is a strange interaction of the acidity and the carbonation. i can't really say if it is easier to enjoy than a non carbonated version which would be extremely tart by the standards of what people mix up these days.

the attentional tension between the agricole aroma and the acidity and carbonation is pretty extraordinary.

the champagne bottle manifold i'm using to carbonate with never ceases to amaze me.