Drinks! (2012, part 2)

[evo-lution]

Enjoyed a couple of these cocktails last night and fully suspect I'll be having a few more in the very near future;

The Eager Beaver

30ml Tanqueray Gin

15ml Massenez Creme de violette

15ml Fresh apple juice

15ml Fresh lemon juice

Barspoon sugar syrup

3 Dashes Dandelion & Burdock Bitters

Fresh egg white

Method: Add egg white, lemon and sugar in that order then add remaining ingredients to mixing glass and dry shake for five seconds. Fill with cubed ice and shake hard for a further ten seconds

Glass: Coupette

Garnish: Rose bud

Ice: N/A

[KD1191]

Trying to find uses for the coconut distillate that I brought back from Ben Tre...started off thinking tiki, ended up going more straight up daiquiri. I used 3 different r(h)ums, so naturally I called it the 'Tre Daiquiri'.

1.25 oz Havana Club Blanco

1 oz Inner Circle Blue Dot

3/4 oz Lime Juice

3/4 oz 'Special Ben Tre Coconut Alcohol'

1/4 oz La Favorite Rhum Blanc

1/4 oz Demerara Syrup

15 Drops Bittercube Jamaican Bitters #2

This was shaken and strained, then topped with a few drops of Bittercube Jamaican Bitters #1.

A daiquiri with a well rounded sweetness and plenty of depth of flavor. The rough coconut funk peaks through at the finish.

[FrogPrincesse]

Japanese cocktail with homemade orgeat and a newly acquired bottle of Boker's bitters. It's a good thing that the bitters are exceptionally delicious because I suffered a major dropper disfunction and ended up with a rather massive amount of bitters in the cocktail.

[bostonapothecary]

gifford-wood flip

1.5 oz. macallan cask strength

1 oz. 10 year madeira "doux"

4 g. non aromatic white sugar

1 oz. fernet egg yolk liqueur (pasteurized yolk fluid gel!)**

**the egg yolk fluid gel is detailed here and was really easy to construct with the colloid mill.

the blue cheese heavy cream of a few days ago eventually separated and i think it needs to be a fluid gel instead of the dispersion i created. i will probably have to add carageenan if i want it to be stable similar to the heavy creams in the super market. i thought i'd try my foray into fluid gels with some simple yolks. serious success. the drink is over the top with elegant richness. the fernet provides lovely contrast for the epic overtone produced by the aromas of the whiskey & madeira.

between the fluid gel egg yolk liqueur and the homogenized coconut cream (which i think might also be considered a fluid gel), i think it would be easy for many large bars to justify a colloid mill.

[plattetude]

Off-the-cuff use of my new bottle of Bitterman's Hellfire Shrub:

2 oz blanco tequila (El Tesoro)

1 oz blanc vermouth (Dolin)

1/4 oz Cynar

12 drops Hellfire Shrub

Me likey.

[FrogPrincesse]

After the trying (and liking) The Left Hand, I tried The Right Hand. It's another Negroni variation with aged rum (1.5 oz), carpano antica sweet vermouth (0.75 oz), campari (0.75 oz), mole bitters (2 dashes). I used a nice rum - El Dorado 12 year. But I was disappointed as the rum got lost in the drink. The campari really dominated with the other ingredients only providing some (good) undertones.

mkayahara suggested, and I agree, that an aged rhum agricole or Smith & Cross may work better in this drink. The El Dorado 12 that I used is excellent, but simply not assertive enough for this drink.

[EvergreenDan]

Hmmm, according my Bittermen's reference, Matusalem Gran Reserva was called for. I would have thought that El Dorado 12 would have worked. That said I could really see Smith & Cross working. Maybe I'll try it tonight with Punt e Mes (which would lack the vanilla, of course, but it's what I have open at the moment).

Right Hand

by Michael McIlroy, Milk and Honey, New York, NY

2 oz Añejo rum, Matusalem Gran Reserva

3/4 oz Sweet vermouth

3/4 oz Campari

2 ds Bitters, Bittermens Xocolatl Mole

Stir, straight, straight up, cocktail glass.

[FrogPrincesse]

I was surprised too. The recipe on the Bittermens website only calls for 1.5 oz of rum so that's what I used. Maybe increasing the amount of rum would help, as in the version you posted.

[thirtyoneknots]

Luxardo Bitter is a nice Campari sub in a rum Negroni.

[FrogPrincesse]

Luxardo Bitter is a nice Campari sub in a rum Negroni.

How does Luxardo Bitter taste compared to Campari, Aperol, Punt e Mes, etc?

I am looking at my notes and there is a rum negroni that I liked much better recently.

The recipe was from Matt Robold/rumdood.

"Damnably Delicious"

3/4 oz each of La Favorite blanc, Dolin rouge, and Campari, 1/2 tsp petite canne syrup.

Stir, strain over rocks, orange twist.

La Favorite is extremely distinctive so it worked pretty well.

[EvergreenDan]

Luxardo Bitter is very similar to Campari. IIRC, I found it a touch more floral. I'd happily drink it, and it's cheaper than Campari, but I prefer Campari.

I did make a Right Hand with Smith & Cross using the recipe with 2oz of rum. First, 2oz of 114 proof rum is a lot. I'm lucky I can type. I'd go down to 1.5oz for sure. I also used Punt e Mes, which I realize misses the point of rum + vanilla. Those reservations aside, I loved the drink. So did my wife. Really, really good. But then I love Smith & Cross in general. It does need a long stir or some resting time to get the proof in check before it all comes together.

[FrogPrincesse]

I did make a Right Hand with Smith & Cross using the recipe with 2oz of rum. First, 2oz of 114 proof rum is a lot. I'm lucky I can type. I'd go down to 1.5oz for sure. I also used Punt e Mes, which I realize misses the point of rum + vanilla. Those reservations aside, I loved the drink. So did my wife. Really, really good. But then I love Smith & Cross in general. It does need a long stir or some resting time to get the proof in check before it all comes together.

Thanks for taking one for the team and reporting your results, I really appreciate it.

Based on your findings, I may give this drink another try. It's funny but I liked the bourbon version right away, it just worked for me. In general, I seem to have a hard time with rum + Campari combinations that also show up in some tiki drinks, for example the Jungle Bird, another drink I really don't care for. That puzzles me because I really like Campari and the Negroni happens to be my favorite drink!

[mukki]

West Side from "Speakeasy": Charbay Meyer Lemon Vodka, lemon juice, mint.

[FrogPrincesse]

That looks good, mukki. How do you like the Charbay meyer lemon vodka? I really like their blood orange vodka.

After all this talk about Negroni variations, I decided to take the classic route.

Junipero, Carpano Antica, Regan and Angostura orange bitters.

[FrogPrincesse]

I made him a Lion's Tail: bourbon, allspice dram, lemon juice, simple syrup, Angostura bitters.

[thirtyoneknots]

That looks good, mukki. How do you like the Charbay meyer lemon vodka? I really like their blood orange vodka.

After all this talk about Negroni variations, I decided to take the classic route.

Junipero, Carpano Antica, Regan and Angostura orange bitters.

Classic? Where's the Campari?

[FrogPrincesse]

That looks good, mukki. How do you like the Charbay meyer lemon vodka? I really like their blood orange vodka.

After all this talk about Negroni variations, I decided to take the classic route.

Junipero, Carpano Antica, Regan and Angostura orange bitters.

Classic? Where's the Campari?

The Campari is a given! It is hiding in the back between the bottles of gin and Carpano Antica.

[ChrisTaylor]

Shochu Old-Fashioned: a shiso-laced shochu I found at a Japanese deli, orange bitters and lemon twist. The citrus works really, really, really well with the shochu.

[thirtyoneknots]

That looks good, mukki. How do you like the Charbay meyer lemon vodka? I really like their blood orange vodka.

After all this talk about Negroni variations, I decided to take the classic route.

Junipero, Carpano Antica, Regan and Angostura orange bitters.

Classic? Where's the Campari?

The Campari is a given! It is hiding in the back between the bottles of gin and Carpano Antica.

Ok I was momentarily worried that you had used orange bitters instead

Carry on.

[mukki]

That looks good, mukki. How do you like the Charbay meyer lemon vodka? I really like their blood orange vodka.

I've only tried it in this cocktail (which is what I specifically bought it for), but it was an excellent drink.

[mukki]

Jack Rose: Laird's apple brandy, lemon, grenadine.

[FrogPrincesse]

Leap Year Cocktail: gin, grand marnier, sweet vermouth, lemon juice, lemon twist

[Katie Meadow]

Same here, only sadly, no grand marnier, so we used a bit of Triple Sec and a dash of orange bitters.

[haresfur]

I was given some home made nocello and Zubrowka vodka by some Polish friends. Decided the white Russian treatment was in order.

1 nocello

1 Zubrowka

splash heavy cream

Cuts the sweetness but keeps the walnut richness. It wasn't bad before adding the cream either. There has to be a clever name in there somewhere but I'm not sure where.

[ChrisTaylor]

White Russian ... nut liqueur ... Nutty Russian?