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.

Maurin Quina is a liqueur with cherries, bitter almond and quinine. It isn’t very sweet but has a fantastic delicately bitter cherry flavor.

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.

Smokey, apple-y, sweet & tart, this is a great autumn cocktail if I do say so myself.

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

Sometimes an old favorite cocktail is just what is needed. Something familiar, comfortable, and preferably, easy to make. The other day I was in the mood for just such a cocktail. After a few moments of thought (which caused a bit of a sweat) I decided on a whiskey sour.

My normal whiskey sour is something like this:

2oz Bourbon (or Rye)
1oz fresh lemon juice
.75oz simple syrup

-Shaken, double strained and served up. If I give it a taste and the particular lemon I used is intensely sour, I’ll pour the drink over fresh ice in a rocks glass.

Ahhh . . . that hit the spot. But I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I am a big fan of Averna. If you attended the 2009 Repeal Day Ball, you probably already knew that. That’s all I’ll say because I have a constitutional right not to incriminate myself.

Moving on . . . I decided to play around with the basic whiskey sour and see if I could come up with something tasty using Averna. There were several attempts that just didn’t work – too sour, too sweet, strange finish, etc. etc. I soldiered on and after the kitchen drain was drunk from my toss-aways, I hit upon a formula that hit the spot. So I give you,

Whiskaverna Sour
1.25oz 100 proof Rye
.75oz Averna
.50oz fresh lemon juice
.50oz simple syrup
2 dashes orange bitters

-Shake, double strain, serve up with a lemon twist.

This combines the lovely sweet-bitterness of the amaro and the classic whiskey sour wonderfully. I would love to hear comments on the recipe or any tweaks you may have in the comments!

And I have the share my latest toy. While visiting my mother over the holidays, we went to several antique stores. Always on the look out for cocktail gear, I found some interesting items. There were some glasses, but compared to what I can get at Good Will, they were over-priced. There were a plethora of shakers. Most novelty shakers from the 80′s but a few from the 60′s and 70′s. Eh. They just didn’t catch my attention enough to buy any. But then! While walking through one store, I found IT!

An early 1900′s soda siphon! The gaskets on the inside are completely corroded so I’m pretty sure it is unusable. (If anyone out there knows of a way to restore this gorgeous thing, please let me know!) It weighs about 5 pounds, is double walled glass with what looks like a glass pipe in the chamber. The removable CO2 chamber is made of iron. It was part of an estate and the store owner said the syphon was found in a box in a barn. I gave the top a little elbow grease with some Bartender’s Helper and it shined up nicely. It’s a great piece and I just had to share.

Finally, I wanted to leave you with a final cocktail I enjoyed tonight.

Les Voûtes
1.5oz Rye
.50oz Sweet Vermouth
.50oz Yellow Chartreuse
1 barspoon of kirschwasser
2 dashes orange bitters

-Stir with cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Ummmm, delicious!

Way back in April I announced a little contest here at Scofflaw’s Den.   The contest was to celebrate Templeton Rye and share some of their lovely whiskey.  The rules were fairly simple; the main rule was entries had to be a spring-inspired cocktail with rye whiskey as the base spirit.  Now I fully admit that using rye as a base in a spring cocktail poses certain, shall we say, problems.  But that was part of the fun!

And yes, I realize that it is now June and spring and sprung and we are on the verge of summer.  Well, sue me.  But the good news is we now have the winners!!!

Before announcing the winning cocktails, a note about the grading process.  Each submission was graded on a ten point scale for the following categories:

-Does the cocktail have a spring theme?
-Is it a rye whiskey base?
-Taste
-Color/Presentation
-Uniqueness

Sean and I both tasted and judged the cocktails on the aforementioned scale.  This meant each cocktail could score a maximum of 100 points total.  When Sean judged the cocktails the only info he was given was the name of the cocktail and the recipe, he didn’t know who submitted what drink.  The combined scores determined the winners.

And now without further ado:

Third Place:  Prize – Recipe and photo featured here.

The Revivalist by Gabe Szaszko
2 oz Rye
.5 oz Tarragon-Bergamot Syrup*
.5 oz Amer Picon
.25 oz lemon juice
.25 oz Maraschino liqueur

Shake all and double strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Twist lemon peel over drink and garnish with a lemon peel

*Bring simple syrup (1:1) just to boil and remove from heat.  Add tarragon and bergamot leaves and leave to sit and cool in syrup for at least one hour.  Strain all into a sterilized container.

Second Place:  Prize -  Same as third place and a 50ml bottle of “Marshall’s Mountain Moonshine Bitters.”

The Capone Sour by Jeff Fulcher
1.5 oz Rye
1 oz grapefruit juice
1 oz brown sugar syrup
1 bar spoon orgeat
1 dash Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters (I used Angostura Orange)

Shake all with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

First Place:  Prize – Same as third place and a 100ml bottle of “Marshall’s Mountain Moonshine Bitters” and a bottle of Templeton Rye.

Jetpack by Craig “Dr. Bamboo” Mrusek
1 oz Rye
1 oz Zubrowka Bison Grass vodka
.5 oz Schladerer Kirschwasser (I used Clear Creek)
.5 oz simple syrup
.5 oz lime juice
1 dash Fee’s Mint Bitters

Shake all with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Congratulations to Craig, Jeff, and Gabe!!!

There you have it.  Mix up one or all of these drinks and let us know what you think in the comments.

Cheers!

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

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.