Drinks! (2011–2012)

[bostonapothecary]

2 oz. berkshire mountain distiller's corn whiskey

scant spoonful non aromatic white sugar

4 dashes angostura bitters

barspoonful of yellow rose water*

i'm not the biggest fan of the BMD corn whiskey but here it makes a lovely drink. *i legally distilled the rosewater from roses donated from a friends hedge. she wanted to use her share for making lip balm and hand cream. yellow roses yield a very peachy smelling water which is a perfect foil for the young whiskey.

1.5 oz. los abuelos blanco tequila

.75 oz. lime juice

spoonful non aromatic white sugar

barspoonful of yellow rose water

this is a great basic sour. the fruitiness of the rose water gets somewhat lost beneath the lime juice, making it not as salient a feature as we had hoped. eventually we added a tiny dash of tabasco to make the simple drink more compelling.

i would really love to try the rosewater with some cognac next...

[Zachary]

I've been playing around with pineapple syrup for a while, so I give you the Flowering Fields:

1 1/2 Bulleit Rye (or other high rye % rye)

1 oz pineapple syrup (1 pineapple, in chunks, covered w/ 1 c. white sugar. Let sit overnight. Make 1 c 2:1 simple, add to pineapple, blend everything, strain through cheesecloth)

1/2 oz lime juice

1/8 oz Elixir Vegetal de la Grand Chartreuse (or 1/4 oz regular green Chartreuse)

1 barspoon Absinthe

2 dashes Regans' Orange Bitters #6

Add lime shells to tin, fill with ice, add ingredients. Shake, double strain, garnish with a thin lime slice.

There's a nice play of sweet and sour between the lime and pineapple, and the rye, EV and absinthe provide spice,green notes and the finish.

Thanks,

Zachary

[haresfur]

Widow's kiss. Hmm, maybe I've been hanging out with the wrong women... Lovely stuff. But the apple notes of the Calvados seem lost to me.

[bostonapothecary]

1.5 oz. gin

.75 oz. lime juice

.75 oz. muscat grape syrup (aka mistelle)**

dash angostura bitters

1.5 oz. los abuelos blanco tequila

.75 oz. lime juice

.75 oz. muscat grape syrup**

the mistelle here is 68 brix muscat grape concentrate diluted 1:1 with vodka to reduce the sugar content and to act as a preservative. the word mistelle sometimes refers to 68 brix grape concentrates and also sometimes to categories of spirits diluted with juice like pineau des charentes, pommeau, or floc des gascones. at 34 brix, the syrup has about 390 g/l of sugar but it also has a nice amount of acidity making the perception of sweetness i'd say most comparable to a triple sec (250 g/l).

next up i'd love to try the syrup in a satan's whiskers swapping it for the orange liqueur.

[KD1191]

1.5 oz Leopold Brothers Gin

1 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth

.5 oz Peach Heering

Stirred and strained into a glass very lightly rinsed with St. George Absinthe.

I'd be struggling to find exceptional uses for the vintage Peach Heering. I thought the flavor was nice and quite interesting on it's own, but it wasn't really contributing much when mixed. This was the first time I think it really made an excellent contribution to a finished product...it's sort of Corpse Reviver #2-esque in the glass, but with a fruity nose and no real acidity to speak of. I'm not at all fond of the Dolin Dry, but this makes it quite palatable.

[bostonapothecary]

1.5 oz. bully boy 40% alc. white whiskey (made in boston!)

.75 oz. moscat grape "mistelle" (cut to 390 g/l sugar)

.75 oz. lemon juice

dash angostura bitters

an excellent sour powered by an exciting new distillate.

[bostonapothecary]

2 oz. los abuelos blanco tequila

.5 oz. danzig goldwasser

.5 oz. averell damson gin

1 oz. lime juice

this was the first attempt at a damson gin cocktail. unfortunately the most significant attentional feature of the drink is by far the tequila. los abuelos blanco is abnormally pungent. if i re-rendered this drink i'd change the tequila to an odd 1.5 oz. measure.

the averell damson gin is cute. the price was only $29 retail. the aromas are very similar to tawny port and there seems to be a murmur of an overshadowed gin-like aroma.

next up

.75 oz. don cesar pisco "italia"

.75 oz. damson gin

.75 oz. dry vermouth

.75 oz. yellow chartreuse

.75 oz. lime juice

dash peychaud's

(stirred)

this drink loosely follows a pattern first used in the "satan's whiskers" and is very lovely. the most significant attentional features are the yellow chartreuse followed by the the damson gin. the aromas are very hard to parse but the pisco seems to add its strange sort of olfactory tension. don cesar is the most intense of the common piscos on the market; my favorite.

[haresfur]

1 Lazzaroni amaro

1 pimento dram

couple dashes Regan's orange bitters

build over a little ice

The amaro and the dram are strong enough to hold up to each other, although the result is pretty sweet. You could make this a highball with Chinotto instead of the amaro. Anyway I thought it was an interesting combination.

[EvergreenDan]

I'd add rum or cachaca, acid, and maybe seltzer. Sounds very interesting. I like the idea of orange + allspice.

[haresfur]

I tried some Cointreau but it added even more sugar. Some acid would probably help. I was trying to keep the alcohol low so relied on the dram for the rum.

[bostonapothecary]

1 Lazzaroni amaro

1 pimento dram

couple dashes Regan's orange bitters

build over a little ice

The amaro and the dram are strong enough to hold up to each other, although the result is pretty sweet. You could make this a highball with Chinotto instead of the amaro. Anyway I thought it was an interesting combination.

my favorite ways to test interesting combinations like that:

1 oz. spirit (fresh sugarcane rum?)

1 oz. lazzaroni

1 oz. pimento dram

1 oz. acidic fruit juice (lemon, lime, sour orange)

dash X

if the result is boring proceed to add a float of lemonhart or other such 151

or

1 oz. spirit

1 oz. dry vermouth or dry sherry

.5 oz. lazzaroni

.5 oz. pimento dram

as EvergreenDan points out, cachaca is an awesome orange & allspice aroma partner.

[rmillman]

A loud bar and a mistake in hearing lead Kevin at Eastern Standard to make me:

Muddled mint and cucumber with Bluecoat gin, shake with ice and top with ginger beer: hit the spot, refreshing yet spicy.

[Sparafucile]

I found this yesterday while cruising cocktail web sites, and made it for last night's cocktail:

Orange Bloom Martini

2 Oz. Gin

1 Oz. Cointreau

1 Oz. Sweet vermouth

2 Dashes Orange Bitters

Shake. Serve in chilled Cocktail Glass with a maraschino cherry for garnish

Not at all bad

[Tri2Cook]

Started with a Green Ghost and, since the gin and green chartreuse were already out of the cabinet, I followed it up with a Rubicon. Watching the evening re-broadcast of Stage 18 of the Tour de France since I'm at work in the morning and they were working so hard on the climbs that I thought I better drink something refreshing to help them out.

[Adam Thornton]

Bitter Brooklyn: 1.5 oz Rittenhouse, 3/4 oz. Cocchi Americano, 1/2 oz. Amer Picon (Jamie Boudreau's recipe, more or less, little heavier on the orange tincture), 1/8 oz. maraschino. Garnish with brandied/maraschinoed cherry (no fresh cherries right now, so Trader Joe's morellos in 1/2 maraschino, 1/2 cheap brandy). Not bad although the Amer is powerful funky.

Adam

[Sunny&Rummy]

Japanese Cocktail: 2 oz. Brandy, 2 tsp. Orgeat (homemade), 1 tsp. Lime Juice, 1 tsp. Maraschino, 1 dash Angostura Bitters. Shake well on ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

[scubadoo97]

A a pour of William Larue Weller that was mighty tasty.

[mkayahara]

Japanese Cocktail: 2 oz. Brandy, 2 tsp. Orgeat (homemade), 1 tsp. Lime Juice, 1 tsp. Maraschino, 1 dash Angostura Bitters. Shake well on ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

That's a rather idiosyncratic recipe for a Japanese, isn't it? What's your source?

[Sunny&Rummy]

It is a bit odd, isn't it?

This version is the results of a lot of iterative tweaking. It starts as an amalgam of Jerry Thomas original and Harry Johnson's modification (the maraschino addition), with the lime juice addition being something that has crept up in a few iterations such as here and here. I agree with those that think that the lime and orgeat combo that works so well in the mai tai also adds depth here, but more than a tsp. annd I think it gets unbalanced.

Ango is a fallback here for lack of a more historically appropriate product, so I keep it at a single dash.

Edited July 22, 2011 by Sunny&Rummy (log)

[mkayahara]

Interesting. I guess my gut reaction is that it should be a Japanese Cock-Tail, and citrus juice is just as out of place here as it would be in an Old Fashioned. Not that I doubt that it's a tasty addition, but it's probably worthy of a new name at that point... maybe a Japanese Crusta?

[mukki]

"Ti Punch"

I use parentheses since it doesn't match what I understand a real Ti Punch to be. Nevertheless, it's based off the Ti Punch recipe in The Joy of Mixology, so that's what I'm calling it:

1.5 oz. Appleton Reserve*

3/4 oz. lime juice

1/3 oz. falernum

1/3 oz. Demerara sugar syrup (1:1)

Shake with ice and a drop of water.

*I've tried both Appleton Reserve and Appleton Extra and prefer the former.

Edited July 24, 2011 by mukki (log)

[Tri2Cook]

"Ti Punch"

I use parentheses since it doesn't match what I understand a real Ti Punch to be. Nevertheless, it's based off the Ti Punch recipe in The Joy of Mixology, so that's what I'm calling it:

1.5 oz. Appleton Reserve*

3/4 oz. lime juice

1/3 oz. falernum

1/3 oz. Demerara sugar syrup (1:1)

Shake with ice and a drop of water.

*I've tried both Appleton Reserve and Appleton Extra and prefer the former.

Might give that one a try myself but it will have to be with the Extra or the VX. The Reserve was skipped over at this point in the interest of getting more variety in my cabinet.

[KatieLoeb]

Tonight's libation:

Smoked Peach Bourbon Smash

half an applewood smoked peach (and a bit of the juice from the container)

1 oz Mint simple syrup

2 oz. 1792 Ridgemont Reserve Bourbon

.75 oz. fresh lemon juice

Muddle peach half in mint syrup in bottom of shaker until well destroyed. Add bourbon, lemon juice and ice and shake vigorously. Double strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass. Sip and enjoy.

I smoked a couple of peaches a few days ago and had let them sit in the fridge in a small container. They'd given up quite a bit of juice in the interim and disintegrated a little bit but still smelled and tasted smokey. Since I had the mint syrup it seemed like a natural marriage of all those flavors we know go together with the added dimension of the smokey undertone. Really delicious when finished and went down way too quickly. Next time I think I'll try tossing in a dash of bitters of some sort too, just to wake it up a little. This one will definitely be staying in the summer rotation.

[Tri2Cook]

Sounds tasty Katie. I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I fire up the smoker.

Last night I went with the Leg Before Wicket...

2 oz gin (I used Broker's)

1/2 oz Dubonnet Rouge

1/4 oz lime juice

1/4 oz Campari

Shake with ice, strain, lemon twist.

[Tri2Cook]

Already did a tiki drink after dinner then made my daily pilgrimage to the Cocktail Virgin-Slut blog only to find the Drink of Laughter and Forgetting. With a name like that, I had to try it.