Drinks! (2012, part 2)

[bostonapothecary]

1 oz. blood orange juice

1 oz. sweet vermouth (m&r)

1 oz. luxardo sangue morlacco

1 oz. villa rosati grappa from moscato

expressed peel of blood orange

this was a nice take on the blood and sand. my co-worker is obsessed with eating blood oranges and keeps us well stocked at the work. interesting tonality. it is a challenge to avoid "medicinal" proclamations whenever concentrated cherry aromas are involved, but this somehow does it. i think acidity is key and the expressed oil of the peel.

[msiferllc]

I would like to say a 6 pack of Bud or Keystone, but it wouldn't be on topic

I'm going with Black Velvet and Coke. Actually not that bad!

[Dan Perrigan]

I've been on a drinks-with-egg-white kick recently. So tonight it was the "Great Pink Lady and Clover Club taste-off". The recipes I used were:

Pink Lady

1 1/2 oz Gin

1/2 oz Laird's Bonded Apple Brandy

1/2 oz Lemon

1/2 oz Grenadine (homemade)

1 egg white

and

Clover Club

(Same recipe, except use 2 oz Gin and no applejack)

Lots of half-sized drinks later, the results are:

The Pink Lady needs a gin that is not too juniper-forward. Broker's was too much. Plymouth was just about right.

The Clover Club was the exact opposite: Plymouth got lost in there. Broker's was very nice. The juniper goes well with the grenadine and doesn't have to fight with the applejack.

Next steps (for another night) are to try each with a completely different gin (like Hendrick's) and with a Pisco instead of the gin.

Dan

[FrogPrincesse]

On the Cynar thread, Kerry Beal mentioned the Little Italy and I don't remember ever having one. So I decided to try it tonight.

What a beautiful cocktail. Smooth like a great Manhattan, with some wonderful herbal/bitter flavors from the Cynar at the end. A new favorite for sure!

[ChrisTaylor]

Punt e Mes Manhattan w/ Wild Turkey rye. Now I get this drink.

[ChrisTaylor]

Decided to check out the Leap Year. It's okay. Nothing special. My girlfriend seems to think it's too bitter.

[EvergreenDan]

Which Leap Year Cocktail? This one doesn't seem bitter at all:

http://www.gumbopages.com/food/beverages/leap-year.html

Perhaps she meant sour although Chuck's version looks a touch sweet to me. Telling me a drink is too bitter is like telling a 2 year old, "don't touch that!"

[thirtyoneknots]

Craddock's Leap Year, while a perfectly charming drink, is one I think would probably get little notice if it were named for most anything else. But yeah, I never would have thought it particularly bitter.

[plattetude]

Negroni -- Ransom Old Tom, Luxardo Bitter, and Punt e Mes (equal parts). Really nice, rich variant on the standard.

Christopher

[ChrisTaylor]

An Old Fashioned with Thomas Handy rye. If you can find it here, the stuff is 300AUD. Which is basically 300USD. Good but not $300 worth of good. I hate being pillaged due to geography.

[scubadoo97]

An Old Fashioned with Thomas Handy rye. If you can find it here, the stuff is 300AUD. Which is basically 300USD. Good but not $300 worth of good. I hate being pillaged due to geography.

Average price in the US $70.

[tanstaafl2]

An Old Fashioned with Thomas Handy rye. If you can find it here, the stuff is 300AUD. Which is basically 300USD. Good but not $300 worth of good. I hate being pillaged due to geography.

Average price in the US $70.

If you can find it! Probably not a lot easier to find here in Atlanta than it is in Australia. Generally have to know somebody that knows somebody to get on the list when they are released each year.

That said, it is a shame they jack the price up that much on you as it is a lovely whiskey. I was able to get the whole Buffalo Trace Antique Collection for not much more than that.

[haresfur]

An Old Fashioned with Thomas Handy rye. If you can find it here, the stuff is 300AUD. Which is basically 300USD. Good but not $300 worth of good. I hate being pillaged due to geography.

The pricing here is really odd and not really related to US prices. I think it must have to do with the distributors. Russell's Reserve, my current favourite bourbon in the house is much more expensive than it should be as is Rittenhouse rye. If it isn't a Jim Beam or Wild Turkey product you are going to pay a lot. Personally, I think they should reduce the tax on high-end booze so that the young binge-drinkers will at least develop good taste.

[ChrisTaylor]

An Old Fashioned with Thomas Handy rye. If you can find it here, the stuff is 300AUD. Which is basically 300USD. Good but not $300 worth of good. I hate being pillaged due to geography.

Average price in the US $70.

I paid a fair bit more than that to get some Rittenhouse. Which, too, was hard to find. The only readily avaliable ryes in Australia--and only larger bottle shops stock these--are Wild Turkey and Jim Beam. The range of American whiskies avaliable to us has increased dramatically in recent years (i.e. a lot of the Jim Beam and Jack Daniels small batch stuff, like Basil Hayden and Booker's and etc), but it's one of those situtions where you have (ignoring the fact that Booker's will set you back $90) lots of options but little choice. I can go into Dan Murphy's and find only two ryes but lots and lots of bourbon: almost all of which are bottom to medium shelf. I can go to the rum section and despite there being easily over a dozen bottles (ignoring the cans of pre-mixed rum and Coke/rum and ginger ale), there are maybe two styles of rum represented. Three if you count cheap spiced rum. And even then, your entry-level Captain Morgan-type stuff will set you back the best part of $40 (possibly even a little more in some other suburuban bottle-os).

Incidentally, if anyone is flying to Melbourne in the next few months as part of a holiday, well, you and I, I think we can do business.

[FrogPrincesse]

For me, a Martinez with Hayman's old tom gin, Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, Luxardo maraschino, and Dr. Adam Elmegirab's Boker's bitters.

For him, a Black Walnut Manhattan with Rittenhouse rye (2oz), Averna (1/4 oz), Charbay black walnut liqueur (1/2 oz), and Bittermens mole bitters.

For the black walnut Manhattan, I was trying to recreate a drink that we had years ago at Modus supper club, a now-defunct San Diego restaurant. It worked quite well.

[haresfur]

You aren't helping me resist the urge to buy a bottle of Averna!

[FrogPrincesse]

You aren't helping me resist the urge to buy a bottle of Averna!

You really need one... It's great stuff!

[tanstaafl2]

Last night I attended a drink making class at Holeman & Finch Pubic House hosted by two of the pubs partners-bartenders, Andy Minchow and Greg Best. H&F tends to get excellent reviews in the Atlanta world of cocktail geekdom. In addition to snacks during the 2 hour class we were treated to their house burger and 4 different cocktails while getting tips on tools to use, how to mix drinks and a bit of insight on creating drinks. This was the "intro" class and the plan is to have more detailed classes over time where bartenders from other Atlanta bars will be invited to offer their insights and make drinks.

Started the evening with a fairly classic Sazerac using Rittenhouse BIB rye, Peychaud bitters, simple syrup and a Herbsaint rinse (actually an atomizer was used). H&F also adds a couple of dashes of Angostura to their house recipe for the Sazerac.

No, the drink wasn’t this small! Quite the contrary actually. But I kept forgetting to take a picture until after I had tried the drink. Nearly finished this one before I remembered to take a picture! I thought it made for a very nice drink and did not find the Angostura to be a problem at all.

Next up was an Aviation. H&F refers to it as an Aviation #1 and chooses not to use Crème Yvette or Crème de Violette. Otherwise it was a pretty straight forward recipe. Although their recipe card called for Aviation gin this evening they were using Beefeaters.

Very well done but I confess I am an admirer of Mademoiselle Yvette and rather missed her presence.

Next up was a new drink to me, La Paloma. Their recipe was as follows:

1.5 oz blano tequila (Cazadores I believe)

1 oz fresh grapefruit juice

0.5 oz fresh lime juice

0.5 oz simple syrup

Splash of soda water and a pinch of kosher or sea salt as garnish

Combine the tequila, juices and syrup in a Collins glass and stir vigorously (not shaken). Then add ice, top with soda water and gently stir again. Add salt and serve.

Tasty but a very light and summery kind of drink. Of course it wasn’t really summery weather so this one perhaps deserves further consideration as the temperature begins to rise.

The evening conclude with perhaps my favorite cocktail of the group. This was the Suppressor #7 and was created by Andy there at H&F. Apparently there was/is an effort to create a family of drinks that originate with the various bartenders across Atlanta and this was H&F’s submission.

1 oz Pommeau de Normandie

1 oz Cynar

1 oz sparkling wine - Not sure what they used. Might have been something like Gruyere but that of course is a cheese! Probably not a big deal as long as it is a nice dry sparkler.

This was a fabulous close to the evening and since I have all the necessary ingredients one I hope to share with friends at some future gathering.

All in all a very pleasant evening!

Edited March 5, 2012 by tanstaafl2 (log)

[plattetude]

1 oz sparkling wine - Not sure what they used. Might have been something like Gruyere but that of course is a cheese! Probably not a big deal as long as it is a nice dry sparkler.

Gruet, maybe? The best New Mexican bubbly you'll find. (Actually, really good. Particularly good for cocktails.)

Christopher

[tanstaafl2]

1 oz sparkling wine - Not sure what they used. Might have been something like Gruyere but that of course is a cheese! Probably not a big deal as long as it is a nice dry sparkler.

Gruet, maybe? The best New Mexican bubbly you'll find. (Actually, really good. Particularly good for cocktails.)

Christopher

Yep, that is probably it! Mind you I was 3+ drinks in at that point...

[Tri2Cook]

Went with the Penguin In Bondage as my post-work relaxer, anything with that much Fernet gets my attention every time...

1 oz Cruzan Blackstrap rum (have to sub Gosling's here)

1 oz Fernet Branca

1 oz Falernum

1/3 oz lime juice

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake with ice, strain over fresh ice, top with 3 oz ginger beer.

The small amount of lime to sugar scared me a bit and it is on the sweet side but the spice from the Falernum, the bite of the ginger beer and the menthol bitterness of the Fernet seem to conspire to push the initial sweetness out of the finish and leave the palate feeling clean and refreshed between sips. I really enjoyed it and will be enjoying it many times to come in the future.

Edit: I tried to link the drink name to the source for credit but for some reason I can't get the page to open and the full URL isn't displayed in the search results so... I got this one from the TDN: Rick Stutz Dance Party Wrap Up at the Mixoloseum blog.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Tri2Cook (log)

[mkayahara]

That's a remarkable-looking drink. What's the source?

[Tri2Cook]

That's a remarkable-looking drink. What's the source?

Sorry Matt, I edited in an explanation for that. I keep getting a "can't open the webpage" message when I try to go to the page I got it from so I listed the source as an addition to the post.

[ChrisTaylor]

Some new acquisitions open up a lot of options. I'm sampling my new bottle of Sazerac rye in a Sazerac. Very nice dram, that. Too, I reckon I'll check out the Lillet I finally got around to buying. Maybe a Vesper.

[tanstaafl2]

Some new acquisitions open up a lot of options. I'm sampling my new bottle of Sazerac rye in a Sazerac. Very nice dram, that. Too, I reckon I'll check out the Lillet I finally got around to buying. Maybe a Vesper.

Because of the reduction in quinine in Lillet Blanc from the original recipe in Kina Lillet some have found that Cocchi Americano makes a better substitute in a Vesper and other recipes that used Kina Lillet as noted here.

Of course if you don't have access to Cocchi Americano it doesn't help you much!

I would be curious to know if there are a few good recipes formulated with the new Lillet that would work better than they might with Kina Lillet or Cocchi Americano. I am sure there are many.

One I know of that I have enjoyed with Lillet blanc is the Fashionably Lillet.

1 cube natural sugar

1 orange slice, halved (divided use)

3 dashes aromatic bitters (I typically use Angostura but others would work)

1/2 oz rye or bourbon (I like Rittenhouse BIB for this)

2-1/2 oz Lillet blanc

3 oz soda water

brandied cherries, for garnish

Fill a highball glass with ice, arranging half of the orange slice among the cubes; set aside. In a mixing glass, muddle the sugar, half of the orange slice, and bitters together. Add the rye and the Lillet, and top with ice. Stir until well chilled, then strain into the prepared highball. Top with soda, and garnish with brandied cherries.