An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

No, not a new dance craze or an alternative lifestyle establishment. The Twist & Sparkle is a home carbonation contraption that allows you to carbonate four cups of water or three cups of any other kind of beverage.

The GF gave me a twist & sparkle for my birthday. (Oh, I can’t believe I just typed that! Perverts!) Now I have an iSi sofa siphon that I use to make soda water and I really enjoy it. The T&S allows me to carbonate other delicious drinks. I think you know where I’m going with this.

Last weekend while hanging out at a friend’s house who has a T&S, we carbonated several batches of pisco punch. Other than the carbonation, the flavor of the punch was slightly altered. Basically, the flavor was a bit muted. We added a little extra lime juice to punch (get it?) up the tartness and the second batch came out great.

Another great benefit is making homemade sodas. And the first think I had to make was ginger beer! I used Morgenblogger’s recipe. It’s a very simple recipe and tasty to boot.

As I investigate more fun uses I’ll report back.

Cheers!

If you are a regular reader of the Scofflaw’s Den, you probably already are familiar with Thursday Drink Night (TDN.)  For those who aren’t, here is a little primer.

Every Thursday night (officially) beginning at 7pm EST, cocktail enthusiasts, bloggers, writers, bartenders and other sundry forms of riff-raff gather at the online Mixoloseum Bar.  We usually have a particular theme and everyone throws out recipes utilizing that particular themed ingredient.  Some drinks work, others get tossed down the sink never to be thought of again.  The fun is trying new things and occasionally hitting upon an undiscovered gem.

I’ve been lucky to co-create two drinks that have turned out to be favorites.  The first was way back in December when Rick of Kaiser Penguin and I collaborated and came up with the . . .

Cilician Voyage
1oz Citadelle Reserve Gin
1oz Strega
1oz Lime Juice
.50oz Grapefruit Juice
.50oz Cinnamon Syrup
1 dash Fee’s Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters
1 dash Fee’s Grapefruit Bitters
Ginger Beer to top

Build everything except ginger beer in a rocks glass filled with crushed ice.  Give it a good stir and top with ginger beer.  Garnish with a cinnamon stick and a lime twist.  Rick likes to throw a few strands of saffron on the top to gild the lilly.

Thanks to Rick contacting the good folks at Citadelle Gin, they tried it and loved it.  In fact, they liked it enough to send Rick and I a bottle of Citadelle Reserve for our efforts.  Keep your eye on the Den for a write-up on Citadelle Reserve.  It is a fantastic gin!

This past Thursday, TDN was sponsored by Mata Hari Absinthe and we were lucky enough to have a live outpost at the Tabard Inn here in DC.  Gathered at the Tabard’s bar were Sean and I, Rick of Kaiser Penguin, Nathan, a cocktail enthusiast from Pittsburgh, PA, Sam of Brand Action Team and Owen our videographer for the evening.  You can find Sam’s post on TDN here.  Chantal Tseng, head bartender at Tabard Inn was graciously making our drinks as we wrote down the recipes that came across the computer screen.

For my drink, I gave Chantal a list of five specific ingredients and asked her to find a good ratio.  The ingredient list consisted of brandy, amaro nonino, Mata Hari Absinthe, sherry and bitters.  The drink that was invented was . . .

The Bitter Industry
1.5oz Brandy
.50oz Amaro Nonino
.50oz Amontillado Sherry
1 dash Mata Hari Absinthe
2 dashes orange bitters

Stir in a quadrangular motion with cracked ice and strain with the flick of the wrist into a chilled cocktail glass.

And what do you know, The Bitter Industry won for best cocktail of the night!  A platitude I am more than honored to share with Chantal.  If you are interested in reading the full write up of this past TDN, you can find it here on the Mixoloseum blog.  For the brave of heart, there is also a link to the full transcript of the nights festivities at the end of the write up.

Give both of these drinks a try and let me know what you think!  While you’re at it, stop by the Mixoloseum Bar and chat for a while.  And please join us Thursday nights for a great night of recipe collaboration.

Cheers!

It’s that time again – the time when Mixology Monday raises its head and we have to say “What’s up for this month?”

Well, Stevi Deter over at Two At The Most picked this month’s topic and it’s “Guilty Pleasures”.

What’s a guilty pleasure?  Well, according to Stevi, it’s basically the cocktail equivalent of comfort food.  What do you end up with when you’re not drinking a “good drink”?

Good question, Stevi, and it’s one I’ve been wrestling with for a while.  It’s a hard decision to make.  I mean, seriously?

I answered my own question yesterday with my latest purchase.

On the right, you see my usual guilty pleasure.  As of today, our kegerator has a keg of Dogfish Head’s 60 Minute IPA.  When I’m feeling lazy, or just wanting to relax, I’m a big fan of beer.  After all, it’s tasty and it’s good.

On the left, however…

I’d just heard of this stuff this week.  It’s called Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka and it comes from South Carolina.  It’s vodka infused with what they say is the only tea grown in the United States, grown less than five miles from the distllery (I’m reading from the back of the bottle).

It’s 70 proof, but really, it tastes exactly like sweet tea except that it has a bit of an alcohol burn on the end of it.  I can drink it just straight, though they suggest on the bottle that you drink it cut with water.

A local restaurant called BreadSoda had an idea for a “hard Arnold Palmer” type drink – basically half Firefly and half lemonade.  That mix kicks butt, and I also tried mixing it with ginger beer and found that worked very well, too.

Another concoction I’m thinking of trying with it, and please keep in mind that this is only in theory so far, is…

…ahhh, you know what?  I’m not going to tell you.   Not yet.  Come by Thursday Drink Night, maybe I’ll have it ready by then, if I’ve survived the perils of this upcoming week by then.

And just when you turn around, it’s another Mixology Monday.  This time around our host is Anna over at Morsels & Musings.  Thanks Anna!

For this months MxMo, Anna has selected “Fruit Liqueurs” which is kind of funny since Sean and I just finished an orange liqueur tasting not long ago and so I had to think of something different flavor-wise to use.  Unfortunately my homemade tangerine ratafia is still aging and it won’t be ready until June 1st.  But it is spring and the weather is beginning to turn sunny and warm again (at least here in Northern Virginia) that a fruit liqueur theme should not be to difficult.

Well, those are famous last words.  I began by looking through the bar at what I had – various orange liqueurs already mentioned, creme de mure (blackberry), limoncello, creme de casis, frambois, creme de peche, cherry heering, calvados, applejack, maraschino and apricot eau-de-vie all begging to be used.  But thoughts turned to one of my favorite fruits – the humble delicious peach.  My first thought was to work on a riff of peach tea.  I have some newly made swedish punsch with it’s lemony, rum and black tea flavors that would play very well with the creme de peche.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite come up with a drink that made me completely satisfied.  I’m sure there is a drink in there somewhere, and I aim to find it, but that shall be a project for another day.

The next day, I was pouring over some books, trying to find some recipes that I can tinker with when I decided that I needed something nice to sip on.  It was this past Friday night and it was a very warm day but around 10pm a quick and strong thunderstorm came through.  At that point I decided a Dark & Stormy would be the perfect fit for the evening.  The sweet dark Goslings and the biting fizzy ginger beer certainly hit the spot.  Then a light went off in my head.  I was holding the basis for my MxMo drink at that very moment.

I quickly ran to the bar and begin playing.  The following drink was the results:

A Georgia Thunderstorm
2 oz Goslings Black Seal
1 oz Messenez Creme de Peche
.25 oz St. Elizabeth’s Allspice (Pimento) Dram
2 dashes Angostura bitters
4 oz Ginger Beer (I used Regatta and then Bundaberg – both with excellent results)

Build everything in a chimney glass filled with lots of ice.
Garnish with mint sprigs and a straw.
Sip slowly until the dark sky passes.

The drink is spicy, peachy and fairly sweet.  It may even be too sweet for some folks, but if you’ve ever had really good authentic southern sweet tea, you’ll get this drink.  It is meant to be sipped slowly letting the fragrance of the mint hit you before the ice cold liquid caresses your lips like the fuzz of a ripe peach.   On a hot summer evening when the clouds break and the rain showers everything around you, this will be a fantastic beverage.

Of course, this wouldn’t be the Scofflaw’s Den if I didn’t give you at least one more recipe.  The following recipe is an original creation that I submitted to a local cocktail competition.  I won’t know how I did until the end of the month, but I thought I would share it with y’all anyway.  I really enjoy this drink and certain ingredients are adaptable to whatever you may have in your home bar (or for a bar that may not have certain name brand spirits for that matter . . . it pays to know your audience I guess!)  And unfortunately there are no pictures of this drink.  When I created it, I wasn’t thinking of putting it in this post and when I did decide to do so, I didn’t have the main ingredient.  Oh Well.  Without further adeu . . .

De Lente Smash
4 medium ripe strawberries
5-6 medium basil leaves (or 3-4 very large leaves)
2 oz Genever style gin (Boomsma, Zuidam Holland or Damrak) OR 1.5 oz London Dry Gin (Plymouth)
.75 oz Rich Simple Syrup
2 dashes Peach Bitters

In a mixing glass, muddle the strawberries, basil leaves and simple syrup.
Add gin and bitters and pour all into an iced shaking tin.
Shake until the tin frosts.
Double strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  (I used the hawthorne strainer in the tin and a fine mesh strainer over the glass.)
Take one small basil leaf and smack it with your hand.  Float the bruised leaf on top of the drink and garnish with a sliced strawberry.

Well, there you go.  Thanks again to Anna and I hope everyone has a great MxMo. 

Cheers!