Drinks! (2007–2009)

[bostonapothecary]

there was only one lime left and i had to make it count...

1 oz. lime juice

1 oz. taylor's velvet falernum

.5 oz. batavia arrack

.5 oz. kirshwasser (hiram walker)

.5 oz. berkshire's "ragged mountain" rum (the must have of all local distillates)

.5 oz. del maguey "chichicapa" mezcal

dash peychaud's bitters

the spirits side of the drink, though elaborate, seems to work. a pretty cool collage. but over all things seem too extracted. i think the falernum is probably too intense and next time i will use half as much and a scant spoonful of sugar.

[KD1191]

I loved this, my wife thought it was too bitter:

1 1/2 oz. Reposado Tequila

3/4 oz. Sweet Vermouth

1/2 oz. Cynar

Mezcal Rinse

Float a thin slice of cucumber on top of drink

The aromatics of the cucumber with the Cynar, Vermouth and Mezcal is really wonderful

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They are combining tequila and cynar in the Lipspin (Blanco Tequila, Sloe Gin & Cynar) at Mayahuel. Have had a similar drink and I think the combination deserves further examination.

Did you think the reposado was right in the above? Or, would a younger product have worked better with the vegetal notes?

[Chris Amirault]

Wow. Do you have Lipspin ratios handy?

[David Santucci]

Did you think the reposado was right in the above?  Or, would a younger product  have worked better with the vegetal notes?

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I thought it made some sense to have some wood in there to deepen everything and tone down the sweetness. That said, I think the Blanco option could be good too, perhaps push it in a little more Summery direction.

The Lipspin sounds like it has a very different structure, with all the acidity from the Sloe Gin. I'll have to try it (or, at least try to approximate it). Do they garnish it with anything?

[KD1191]

Haven't actually had "the" Lipspin...just heard of it (and it's on Mayahuel's menu on their website). Someone made me a drink that was similar after he'd tried the original, though I'm not sure he had the ratios for the original either. I don't recall the garnish, if there was one.

[KD1191]

Paper Airplane

1 oz each of Lemon Juice, Amaro Nonino, Campari and Elijah Craig bourbon, shaken and strained into a chilled coupé.

This is a riff on Sam Ross's Paper Plane, which called for Aperol and (I think) Buffalo Trace. Ira Koplowitz at The Violet Hour introduced me to Elijah Craig in this drink, and it knocks it out of the park. Smoky, sweet, bitter and quite mysterious, I can never put this down.

Edited August 10, 2009 by KD1191 (log)

[thirtyoneknots]

Playing around with Cynar at work today:

1 oz Cynar

1 oz Martini & Rossi Bianco

1 oz Blanco Tequila (Cuervo La Familia)

Stirred with ice and strained into glass, lemon twist garnish.

Not a drink that is going to work for everyone, and to be honest it could probably use some tweaking, but man it had some serious mojo going on in the flavor dept.

[plattetude]

Playing around with Cynar at work today:

1 oz Cynar

1 oz Martini & Rossi Bianco

1 oz Blanco Tequila (Cuervo La Familia)

Stirred with ice and strained into glass, lemon twist garnish.

Not a drink that is going to work for everyone, and to be honest it could probably use some tweaking, but man it had some serious mojo going on in the flavor dept.

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Closely related: use an anejo tequila, sub a 1/2 oz of fino sherry for the vermouth, and dash in some orange bitters and you've got a Choke Artist (via The Art of the Bar), a very nice drink indeed.

Christopher

[thirtyoneknots]

Playing around with Cynar at work today:

1 oz Cynar

1 oz Martini & Rossi Bianco

1 oz Blanco Tequila (Cuervo La Familia)

Stirred with ice and strained into glass, lemon twist garnish.

Not a drink that is going to work for everyone, and to be honest it could probably use some tweaking, but man it had some serious mojo going on in the flavor dept.

←

Closely related: use an anejo tequila, sub a 1/2 oz of fino sherry for the vermouth, and dash in some orange bitters and you've got a Choke Artist (via The Art of the Bar), a very nice drink indeed.

Christopher

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Yeah I was thinking that an aged tequila might work better next time but that for this drink the bianco is clutch, adding some complementary funk. The Choke Artist is a cool-looking drink though...it is intended to be served at room temp, is it not?

[plattetude]

Closely related:  use an anejo tequila, sub a 1/2 oz of fino sherry for the vermouth, and dash in some orange bitters and you've got a Choke Artist (via The Art of the Bar), a very nice drink indeed.

Christopher

Yeah I was thinking that an aged tequila might work better next time but that for this drink the bianco is clutch, adding some complementary funk. The Choke Artist is a cool-looking drink though...it is intended to be served at room temp, is it not?

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All references I'm seeing for it (I don't have the book myself) call for it to be stirred with ice and served in a chilled snifter. I might be curious to try it less chilled, but it could be a bit harsh....

Christopher

edited for quote tag correction

Edited August 11, 2009 by plattetude (log)

[thirtyoneknots]

Ah very well, didn't read carefully. I had thought it might be similar to The Brave from Anvil in Houston: Sotol, Mezcal, Averna, Curacao, bitters, flamed orange in a wineglass...no ice. Awesome drink. I bet something similar could be done with the Choke Artist if the sherry were a sweeter variety.

[plattetude]

Maybe even a splash of Cointreau to tie it all together (I find Cointreau and Cynar are pretty darn good together).

Christopher

[David Santucci]

Maybe even a splash of Cointreau to tie it all together (I find Cointreau and Cynar are pretty darn good together).

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I may try this to make my drink a little more of a crowd- (or, at the very least, wife-) pleaser.

You guys should try the slice of cucumber, it is really cool.

[vice]

I loved this, my wife thought it was too bitter:

1 1/2 oz. Reposado Tequila

3/4 oz. Sweet Vermouth

1/2 oz. Cynar

Mezcal Rinse

Float a thin slice of cucumber on top of drink

The aromatics of the cucumber with the Cynar, Vermouth and Mezcal is really wonderful

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Gave this a shot last night, David. I think it's right on. The one thing I'd try next time is adding a slice of cucumber to the tin before stirring to get a bit more of its flavor. Definitely not in need of any more sweetness for my palate - a great drink.

[FireAarro]

Drinking a Tip Top right now- Noilly Prat with a dash of Angostura and Benedictine, and a lemon peel. Tastes exactly as you'd expect. Light, herbal, slightly funky. Goes down very easily due to low proof.

On a side note, how long do you think vermouth can keep in a fridge before it goes off?

Also, I had an idea on the train back home; if people are making tequila old fashioneds, how about a tequila crusta? I'm not likely to have Anejo tequila in my house any time soon, though, so anyone wanna give it a shot? I'll admit I've never tried anejo tequila so my thoughts might be far off. Say, two ounces of tequila, a splash of lime (and grapefruit?) juice, dash of maraschino and cointreau, grapefruit bitters? garnish with a grapefruit spiral?

[bostonapothecary]

corn'n oil

muddled lime (hoping for an ounce of juice)

1 oz. taylors falernum

2 oz. el dorado 5 year

dash angostura

crushed ice treatment

float of over proof goslings to make it more oily.

grated nutmeg.

i think i took the drink in a more acidicly structured direction than what is classic but thats how i roll. quite refreshing. after a long day of roughnecking i'd take one of these over a beer.

[Chris Amirault]

Grabbed a bottle of Real de Magueyes anejo mezcal today and started fiddling around with it. I was going to make The Racketeer from the Rogue book, but then found this intriguing post from December:

so i've been starving for something really exotic lately and have been unfortunately back to drinking wine... but john at Drink in southie came to my rescue with his own mezcal milk punch...  it seemed to be in more of the preserved punch format.  i think he boiled the milk to remove the fats.  there was also pineapple and mace.  the end result was amazing flavor contrasts.  the recipe seemed to add up to alcohol of about 20% but the diluted mezcal brought awesome aromas with a particular smokiness that seems more fun with fruit than those of the scotches.  the milk contributes a delicate "lactic" character that is definitely strange but alluring.

this was by far the coolest thing i've had to drink in a while...

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I've never had the Drink drink, but the first few tastes of the RdM mezcal got me thinking that Milk Punch would be interesting to try out. Following Jerry Thomas via Dave Wondrich, I tweaked the classic Milk Punch a bit to get this:

1 1/2 oz cognac (Landy VS)

1 1/2 oz rum (Cruzan Single Barrel)

1/2 oz RdM anejo mezcal

1 oz 1:1 agave syrup

Shake and strain into Old Fashioned glass with cracked ice. Fill with milk and stir. Grate nutmeg over the top.

It needs work, maybe an egg or a yolk, and a pineapple/demerara syrup or dulce de leche syrup would be very interesting. But I'm understanding what bostonapothecary meant: this stuff has a haunting quality that's hard to describe.

[KatieLoeb]

I'm sipping a great big 'Ti Punch with a splash of pomegranate juice in it. Delish!

[brinza]

I just had a Curaçao Punch as revitalized in the new edition of Dr. Cocktail's VS&FC. I can't believe I never made this before. Really nice on a hot night. When I made it, I didn't use any of the sugar called for. Two ounces of orange curaçao! That made it sweet enough. Granted, I only had DeKuyper's which is going to be sweeter than higher-end curaçaos. I also took the Doctor's advice and used additional lemon juice (I used a good splash rather than the "2 or 3 dashes", although a full half-ounce wouldn't have done any harm). And for a little pizazz, I added a few drops each of Fee's Lemon and Orange bitters. I used Fee's Orange since this is a punch and I wanted the fruitier, rather than the spicier accents of Regan's or TBT. While even these few drops of bitters quelled the sweetness just a bit, next time I'm cutting the curaçao to 1.5 ounces.

I'm thinking though, what about 1 ounce orange curaçao and 1 ounce limoncello?

Edited August 14, 2009 by brinza (log)

[KatieLoeb]

I'm thinking though, what about 1 ounce orange curaçao and 1 ounce limoncello? 

Report back. That sounds like it could be interesting. I'd be curious to see if the limoncello plays nice with the other ingredients. Speaking as one who mixes with limoncello with some frequency, it can be a bit overwhelming at times. That can be a good thing, when you really want a big punch of lemon flavor, but can be a bad thing when you can't taste anything else.

[brinza]

I'm thinking though, what about 1 ounce orange curaçao and 1 ounce limoncello? 

Report back. That sounds like it could be interesting. I'd be curious to see if the limoncello plays nice with the other ingredients. Speaking as one who mixes with limoncello with some frequency, it can be a bit overwhelming at times. That can be a good thing, when you really want a big punch of lemon flavor, but can be a bad thing when you can't taste anything else.

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You might be right. Since I had already though about reducing the amount of curaçao, maybe it would be better to start with 1 oz. curaçao and 0.5 oz. limoncello. Me and my big mouth--now I'm gonna have to go out an get some actual limoncello . . .

[Vieux Carré]

My daughter gave me a present of Suze and so I've started with a Suze extrême from the Suze.com website (1 part Suze, 3 parts gin ( I used Tanqueray), over ice). I liked it, but decided that it might work very nicely with genever rather than London dry so I tried the same proportions with Boomsma Oulde and find that working very nicely.

For those of you who have not tried Suze, but know something about teas, Suze reminds me a bit of Pu-ehr teas--the same "basement" or "rotting leaves" taste. If, like me, you like pu-ehr, you'll like Suze; but if you do not like pu-ehr, stay away.

[bostonapothecary]

1 oz. lemon juice

1 bar spoon of sugar

2 oz. plantation 1990 guyana

dash peychaud's bitters

poured over shaved ice

unfortunately the sour components didn't do much to elevate the rum. good but in no way worth the extravagance. i wonder if lime would have been a better foil.

i just bought a commercial ice shaver for my kitchen. i thought it would take some of the labor out of making drinks for the rest of the summer. simply pour liquids over a glass full of snow. let it dilute elegantly. my frequent guests can make their own drinks and stop bothering me. 2 oz. spirit, 1 oz. citrus, heaping spoon of sugar, random bitters. we are slowly drinking through the massive collections i've inherited from various events. i've found that if i add batavia arrack or kirshwasser to all spirits i deemed boring like georgian raisin brandy they become quite amusing.

[Yojimbo]

Last night it was a quick rum thing with:

1 1/2 oz. Cruzan guava rum (yeah, yeah, it's cheap stuff, but I *like* guava, and it's easier than keeping a can of guava nectar in the fridge)

1/2 oz. Gosling's

1 healthy dash maraschino

2 oz. OJ

1/4 lime, squeezed

Angostura, well shook over the top, on ice.

Tonight my kids have a sleepover so I have to wait a bit longer until I hit the bar, it's either dark rum, neat, or an improved gin cocktail with Genevieve (oh, how I love her!)

[Chris Amirault]

It's over 80F inside, so: Old School Daisy tonight with Broker's gin, dash of simple, Maraschino, and Creole Shrubb, lemon, soda. Might need two.