An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

Ahhhhh . . . There’s a nip in the air and the leaves are starting to change color and drop to the ground. The night descends earlier (or is it faster) and the grip of winter is just around the corner.

It isn’t a secret that autumn is my favorite season. I love the cold air and early evenings. There is nothing better than curling up on the couch under a warm blanket on a cold day watching hockey, football, or hell, even reading a cocktail tome.

But another reason I love the fall is that it is my favorite cocktail season. Tiki drinks and refreshing gin cocktails are replaced with whisk(e)ies and bitter amaros. Pineapple and coconut are replaced with apple and cherry. Limes are supplanted by lemons as the citrus of majority in my fridge.

I mention apples and cherries in particular because I love playing with those flavors this time of year. I love mixing with calvados, Applejack, or maybe some Leopold Brothers apple whiskey or apple liqueur. Bringing some cherry to the party may come from Cherry Herring, maraschino, kirschwasser, or my latest toy, Maurin Quina.

Another thing I love to mix with is apple cider. We had an apple press growing up and every fall made our own fresh-pressed apple cider. It was fantastic! Unfortunately you can only find pasteurized cider for sale nowadays. But if you own a juicer, you can make your own! Lately I’ve been boiling apple cider down into a thick concentrated syrup. Amazingly, along with the concentrated appleness, it develops an amazing tartness. This really comes in handy it you don’t want to add lemon, but need that acidity to balance out your cocktail. To make it, simply boil down apple cider until it has reduced by 75%.

I decided I wanted to play with the cider syrup and thought it would play very nicely with scotch. So I pulled out my new bottle of Great King Street blended scotch from Compass Box and set to work. This is what I came up with:

Orchard Bonfire
1.5 oz blended Scotch
.5 oz cider syrup
.25 oz honey syrup (2 parts honey & 1 part water)
1 barspoon pimento dram
1 dash Whiskey Barrel Bitters

Shake & double strain into a cocktail glass rinsed with a smokey scotch. (I used Peat Monster.) Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

What do you like to drink when fall arrives? Leave a comment and let us know!

Cheers!

PS. Scofflaw’s Den celebrated it’s fourth birthday earlier this month. We thank all of our readers for sticking with us and we plan on providing a lot more content and recipes for you to enjoy for at least another four years. -Marshall

The Willett that I got from Schneider’s was $49.99 when I bought it.  The price hasn’t been raised if you’re thinking of getting it there; that’s the price for the 6 year old, and the older ones cost more.  Much more.

However, they are out of the 6 year old until some time next week, probably Thursday.

I hit the store today to stock up on a few things: DeKuyper Kirschwasser (to see if it’s better than the kind

tmfiii

got), another bottle of that same armagnac I already had, a replacement bottle of Redbreast Irish whiskey, two bottles of Schnoeur (I think that’s how it’s spelled) apple schnapps (one for me, one for a neighbor), and a bottle of Wild Turkey Russell’s Reserve 6 year old rye.  I wanted an “in-between” bottle between the Sazerac and the Red Hook, but didn’t really want to spend $80-100 despite the discount the whiskey guy at Schneider’s offered me.

I also looked for Clear Creek Apple Brandy (none, unfortunately), apricot brandy (they only had the DeKuyper, same as Virginia), and anything else random that looked good.  I think I spent enough as it, though I also did get a new kind of ginger beer, too…Stewart’s, rather spicy.

So after a trip to Schneider’s and World Market…

That’s a bottle of Punt e Mes, partly thanks to a WaPo article the other day, Schonauer apple schnapps, which is supposedly better than the other kind I usually get, some Heering cherry liqueur, and a bottle of Castarede XO armagnac that was on sale.  I also picked up a backup bottle of Laird’s Applejack.

We also hit World Market where I got some whole nutmeg plus some mixer:

That’s two kinds of ginger beer – Bundaberg and Fentimaan, plus Fentimaan “Curiosity Cola” and Stirrings tonic water.

tmfiii is probably coming over this way in a bit; we’ll get a chance to try some of this stuff out!