An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

This weekend, DC got another blanket of snow.  They say we’re supposed to get 4-6 inches, but we’ll just have to see what the total is tomorrow morning.  As I sit on my couch and watch the wind swirl the snow about and the slow growing pile of the white stuff growing on the balcony, the urge to have a warm beverage strikes.

Now, I know I missed this past Mixology Monday which was hosted by Fred and Andrea of Cocktail Virgin Slut.  Their chosen theme was tea and that sounded like the perfect way to begin my warm beverage.

I didn’t do any research before throwing this recipe together, so it is quite possible it’s already been done.  Whatever, it’s warm, tasty, sweet, and funky.  And it contains one of my favorite teas and one of my favorite spirits.

Celestial Warmer
5oz Mandarin Orange Spiced Herbal Tea
1oz Yellow Chartreuse
.5oz Batavia Arrack
2 tsp wildflower honey
Garnish with orange peel.

And wow, this hit the spot!  The orange and spice from the tea mixes with the yellow chartreuse to create layers of herbal citrus flavor bombs.  The honey adds an extra complexity of flavor and helps to heighten the flavors of the other ingredients.  Finally, the batavia arrack provides a little backbone and a heady aroma that wafts up with the steam.

One thing I love about warm drinks such as this is the almost infinite ways you can modify it.  Afraid it’s going to be too sweet?  Leave out the honey.  Don’t have batavia arrack?  Use rum (Smith and Cross Jamaican rum would be fantastic!), brandy, or even whisky!  Think yellow chartreuse is for pu . . . wimps?  Use green!  As a matter of fact, my next drink is going to be black tea, green chartreuse, Smith & Cross, and honey.  Or maybe a little vanilla sugar.  Or a splash of Trader Tiki Vanilla Syrup!

So what’s your favorite winter warmer?

It’s another Mixology Monday and this month we are hosted by that Pegu drinking wild man Doug over at The Pegu Blog.  Doug’s chosen theme is “Made From Scratch” wherein he instructs “mix up a drink which is produced with one or more ingredients that you make yourself, be it bitters, infused liquors, liqueurs, syrups, or even the garnish!”  Well, that is certainly something up my alley as much as I love to make syrups, tinctures, infusions and the like.

I looked around the kitchen at my sundry bottles and decided I wanted to use two homemade ingredients – one that everyone should have in their repetois and one that is more esoteric.  The two chosen made from scratch ingredients?  Grenadine and Swedish Punsch!

Let’s begin with the grenadine.  If you are used to Rose’s Grenadine, then you aren’t using grenadine.  What you have there is red-dye-number-5-colored-high-fructose-corn-syrup, most likely with some sort of artificial cherry flavoring.  Real, honest to goodness grenadine is pomegranate syrup.  Further, homemade grenadine is one of the easiest bar staples anyone can make.  There are tons of recipes for making homemade grenadine.  Don’t believe me?  Go ahead, google it.  I’ll wait.

See?!?!  A vertiable cornocopia of recipes.  To me though, everything can be distilled down to two basic methods – cold and hot.  The cold method is straight forward.  Equal parts pomegranate juice and sugar; shaken until the sugar dissolves.  That’s it.  Simple.  You get the fresh tart flavor of the pomegranate and the sweetening power of the sugar.

The second method, the hot method, is a little more complicated.  At its most basic level, you heat the pomegranate juice and sugar and stir to dissolve.  Some recipes tell you to reduce this down by a certain amount to make it thick and even more syrupy.  Some have you add orange flower water after everything is reduced and cooled.  The only thing I can tell you is to try out different recipes and find one you like.  The last recipe I used came from Food & Wine’s 2008 Cocktail Book.

This particular recipe says to simmer two cups of pomegranate juice with one cup plus two tablespoons of sugar until thick enough to coat a spoon.  Then add 1/8 teaspoon of orange flower water.  Bottle and refrigerate for up to two weeks.  I also add about an ounce of 100 proof vodka to the final, cooled, syrup to help with shelf life.  And I’ll tell you, this is some tasty grenadine.  Damn tasty!

The second “made from scratch” ingredient I wanted to highlight was swedish punsch.  If you aren’t familiar with this ingredient, don’t be surprised.  It comes up most often in old cocktail books and recipes usually dating prior to Prohibition.  After reading through several old cocktail books and online discussions (especially on eGullet) I turned to the recipe used by Erik over at Underhill-Lounge.  I won’t recreate Erik’s recipe here, but here is a link to his site.

The swedish punsch is some tasty stuff and personally, I hope I find more things to use it in.  Everytime I see a recipe, I copy it down, but unfortunately, tend to forget about it until I find my bottle of punsch in the cabinet.  Shame on me!  The mixture of tea, arrack, rum and lemon is fragrant, pungent and completely enrapturing.

Now to find a cocktail that uses both of these ingredients.  Whipping out my trusty Iphone, I started searching the Cocktails app for drinks contains swedish punsch.  As an aside, if you have an Iphone and are a cocktail geek, you really should have this on your phone.  It is by far one of the top three apps I have and worth way more than it cost.  Seriously, buy it.  DO IT!!!

Anyway, I found a drink that I had never tried before that used both grenadine and swedish punsch – C.F.H. Cocktail.  The app tells me it is from page 43 of Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book, circa 1930.  So that is where I turned.

C.F.H. Cocktail
1/6 grenadine
1/6 Swedish Punch
1/6 Calvados
1/6 lemon juice
1/3 Burrough’s Beefeater Gin

That is the recipe – no instructions given in the Savoy.  Luckily the Cocktails app instructs to shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  The other problem is the ratios – why can’t these guys use a standard measure?!?!  Sheesh!  Well, looking at the recipe we can see that each ingredient, except the gin, is exactly one-half of the measure of the gin (1/6 v. 1/3).  Knowing this, and not wanting to drink a humongous cocktail (at least not yet), I used one ounce of gin.  This provided the following drink:

.5oz grenadine (homemade)
.5oz Swedish Punsch (homemade)
.5oz Calvados (Clear Creek Distillery’s Eau-de-vie-de-Pomme)
.5oz fresh lemon juice
1oz gin

This is one tasty beverage.  Seriously, I was kind of surprised, but WOW!  It is just sweet enough and everything plays so nicely in the glass.  For the first one I made (and yes I made more than one!), I used Plymouth gin.  The second one I made, I used Aviation gin.  I was a little worried that the extra oomph of the Aviation would throw the drink out of whack.  I was wrong.  It adds an extra layer of flavor and really highlights the calvados and the punsch.  This is certainly a cocktail that requires a little bit of experimenting with using various gins.  Something I plan to do in spades!

I want to thank Doug at The Pegu Blog again for hosting this month.  This should be a great theme that will keep plenty of people in the kitchen for a bit.

Cheers!

While watching “Great Cocktails” from my DVR and working on Cathy’s virus-laden computer I got a beer from the kegerator (a Dogfish Head Shelter Pale Ale) and whaddyaknow, the keg died.

Time to make a drink.  A Pimm’s Cup and Fever Tree ginger ale wasn’t bad but I wanted one more.

A while ago someone responded to a post I had talking about Batavia Arrack and suggested a drink.  It was equal parts Batavia Arrack and lime juice with 3-4 oz. of ginger ale or ginger beer.

Whomever the friendly anonymous commenter was (I’m guessing Joe), he (or she) didn’t say how much of the Arrack and lime juice, so I went ahead and put two ounces of each into my collins glass.  I filled the rest up with some Bundaberg diet ginger beer.

(Why diet?  Because it’s the only ginger beer I have that has a resealable cap.)

My – that’s a tasty drink!  I probably should’ve gone with a bit less of the arrack and lime juice but I’ve topped mine off with the ginger beer as I drink it.

It’s a very interesting drink.

This month’s MxMo is rum; good thing our good friend

dan_oz

is coming up!

So on my last post, I told ya’ll that I would be posting some stuff soon . . . and that was a while ago.  I know you’re thinking “Damn you, you never post when you say you will!”  And yes, I agree with you, however, my absence was due to unforeseen circumstances.  Monday morning, my Aunt Linda, my Mother’s sister, passed away in her sleep, finally succumbing to the lung cancer that she has battled for over two years.  After making the appropriate arrangements at work, on Wednesday afternoon I drove down to southwest Virginia (near my old homestead) to attend the funeral with the family.  Wednesday night, one of my oldest friends graciously allowed me to stay with her and her family.  This morning I proceded the long drive back to DC.  We hate to see a family member leave us, but the peace that she has found soothes our hearts after a loss.  Now with that said, let’s continue with the fun and merriment (trust me, Linda would have wanted no less!)

runoknows

 mentioned in his post about our trip to Ace Beverage.  One of the first things I noticed when we walked in is the room.  There was plenty of space to walk around and you could see just about everything.  The spirits generally comprised the perimeter of the store with the middle devoted to Ace’s substantial wine holdings.  (As a complete aside, before going to Ace Bev, I had hoped that this place would be a great store.  You see, while I was a member of the Award-Winning Virginia Fighting Cavalier Indoor/Outdoor Precision (?) Marching Pep Band and Chowder Society Revue, Unlimited! my nickname was Ace.  Hence, a desire for greatness in all things named Ace . . . but I digress.)  A lot of the spirits are located behind counters, save a gorgeous wall of bourbon and whisky (insert drool here.)  Joe Riley, Ace’s Wine guru and resident spirit man extraodinary, was our contact and I have to say he was a pleasure to talk to.  He was more than willing to show us all the new goodies he had and talk to us about spirits, distilling, local bartenders and restaurants and cocktails.  

The biggest thing that struck me in our conversation with Joe, which lasted about two hours, was his honesty and willingness to help.  I’ve been to a lot of liquor stores in DC and VA and I can tell you from experience that Joe was the best person to deal with bar none.  For example, I asked him about the Laird’s Bottle-in-Bond Applejack that doesn’t seem to be sold in the DC area.  His first reaction was to call his Laird’s supplier and leave a message asking for the info.  Now I ask you, when was the last time you got that level of service?  When talking about a classic-style cocktail, part of the fun is the history and remembering a different time and place in our society.  Joe embodies this classic style of shop keeping – friendly, helpful and personal.  Personally, these are the types of attributes I look for in just about any place I’m spending my hard-earned money.  Joe and Ace Beverage are the epitome of this.  That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Now at this point you may be yelling into your computer, “BUT WHAT THE HELL DID YOU BUY???”  Well, first I would say you may want to quite yelling at your computer, it makes you look crazy.  Second, it needs to be noted that when I went on this trip to Ace I went specifically to buy items that Eric Sneed of Haus Alpenz has recently brought to the US market.  These items are pretty rare and a cocktail geeks’ wet dream.  Wow, I probably shared a little too much there, huh . . . anyway, the items from Haus Alpenz will have a “Haus” before the description.

On with the Haul:

This is the Kubler Absinthe.  This absinthe is classified as a ”white” absinthe because, unlike the “verte” or green absinthes, it has not been steeped in fresh botanicals a final time giving it a green hue.  It is as clear as gin.  As Sean mentioned, our friend Roy and I did an absinthe tasting, but seeing as that was last weekend, I can’t remember any detailed notes.  Hmmmm, sounds like a good idea for a post . . . 

(Haus)  This is the St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram.  It is also known to cocktail geeks, like yours truly, as ”pimento dram.”  The base of the liqueur is rum and if you’ve ever tasted allspice you have a general idea of the flavors here – clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper.  It is used in punches, tiki drinks and many classic cocktails.  Keep watching this space for recipes and cocktails using this and all the other goodies Sean and I talk about . . . damn, this is a tough job!
 

(Haus) This is the Batavia-Arrack van Oosten.  My understanding is that “Batavia” is Dutch for Jakarta and “Arrack” is the general eastern term for spirit.  Eric at Haus Alpenz gives a more detailed description here.  Considering this is an ingredient from the 1600′s on, this is the epitome of classic!

(Haus) “The Scarlet Ibis” is a mixture of three rums from Trinidad.  This rum was commissioned by a modern-day speakeasy in the Big Apple by the name of Death & Co.  They wanted a more flavorful, higher proof rum for their cocktails and Haus Alpenz was happy enough to oblige.  There is only 29 cases of The Scarlet Ibis, I consider myself very lucky to have a bottle in my collection.

(Haus)  This is the main thing I wanted to get on our little shopping trip.  Creme de Violette.  An essential ingredient for an Aviation cocktail.  I have to take a minute to talk about the Aviation.  If you do an interweb search for the recipe of an Aviation, most recipes you find will contain gin, lemon juice and maraschino liqueur in various proportions.  No mention of Creme de Violette.  So how is this an essential ingredient in a cocktial that doesn’t seem to call for it.  There are several theories on why this is the case.  Here is the one I believe:  In one of the seminal classic cocktail books, “The Savoy Cocktail Book” written by Harry Craddock 1930, the Creme de Violette was left out of the recipe.  Subsequent authors and practicioners followed Mr. Craddock’s path and continued to leave out the violette.  However, as early as 1916 in Hugo Ensslin’s book “Recipes for Mixed Drinks” the violette is front and center in the cocktail.  If someone out there wants to espouse other theories on this, feel free to leave a comment!

I have tried various recipes for the Aviation and found that the best one is as written here by Erik Flannestad of the Underhill Lounge.  His recipe:

Aviation Cocktail
1.5 oz Gin (Plymouth)
0.75 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 tsp. Marachino Liqueur (Luxardo)
1/2 tsp. Creme de Violette
1/2 tsp. rich simple syrup

Shake well and strain into chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a cherry.

Well, now what else do I have for you?  I’ve been talking alot about my infusions and concoctioneering.  One of the things I really wanted to try (along with the bacon-infused bourbon) is a pecan infused rye whiskey!

First I wanted to toast the pecans.  Use a dry pan and put the nuts on low heat.  Stir them frequently until they become fragrant.  BE CAREFUL!  The nuts have lots of oils (insert inappropriate comment here) and will burn very quickly if you aren’t careful.

After toasting my nuts (heh) I let them steep in a litre of baby Sazerac for 72 hours.  After the steeping, strain out the nuts.  If you want to get all the little bits and pieces [Jeebus, how many jokes can I make about this!!!!] you can strain the liquid through cheese-cloth or a wet coffee filter.  Bottle and enjoy!

After making the pecan-rye I decided I wanted to try some form of pecan pie cocktail.  I had in my pantry some Lyle’s Golden Syrup (a british product) that is a lot like karo syrup but sweeter and seems to have a deeper flavor.  I took some Lyle’s and mixed it with some hot water (the stuff is thicker than molassass) in order to get it to a pourable state.  This stuff tastes just like the sweet goo inside a pecan pie!!!

A Scofflaw’s Pecan Pie
2 oz Pecan-Rye
.75 oz Lyle’s Golden Syrup Syrup
3-4 dashes Fee’s Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters

Stir everything with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a whole pecan-half.

Alright folks, time for me to get some dinner.  Have a good night and I’ll see you at the bar!

Cheers!