Ahhhh . . . Mixology Monday XLVI.  I’ve never been good at roman numerals, so I’m not even going to guess what that translates to in normal non-roman number type things.  Regardless, it’s that time again and this month we are being hosted by Sonja at Thinking of Drinking.  Sonja’s chosen theme is absinthe and a fitting theme she has chosen, especially since Sonja is the brain behind North Shore Distillery’s Sirène Absinthe Verte.  Sonja’s instructions:

The topic for February is Absinthe. That much maligned, misunderstood, mistreated spirit, suddenly plentiful again in the US and other parts of the world. Absinthe played a role, whether large or small, in a variety of great cocktails from the 1800’s and early 1900’s – the Sazerac, Absinthe Suissesse, Corpse Reviver No. 2… I’m getting thirsty. So let’s celebrate absinthe’s history, and it’s future, with all manner of cocktails using absinthe.

For this task, I turned to a myriad cocktail books to find a new drink to present to you good folks.  Looking through the 2009 Tales of the Cocktail Recipe Book, I found a very tasty looking tipple.

Green Fairy Sour
1 oz Absinthe (I used Vieux Carre)
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz mineral water (I used plain ole filtered water)
.75 oz simple syrup (2:1)
1 dash Angostura
half an egg white

Dry shake all nice a long.  Add ice and shake like a 19th Century absinthe addict.  Fine strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

First, I’d like to point out that this was the best foam I’ve ever gotten on a drink with egg white.  Woot!  Second, this is a fantastic drink!  It isn’t too sweet or too sour.  The absinthe is front and center but not overpowering by any means.  Honestly, I think I’d like to try it with a little extra absinthe in the mix.  Maybe another dash of bitters.  Regardless, this is a damn fine tasty drink.

I can’t wait to see what other beverages folks write about utilizing absinthe.  But, as is our want, we like to give you at least one more drink for your consumption.

So I’m going to use this opportunity to pimp my favorite cocktail yet again.  Plus there is the added benefit of having the New Orleans Saints as Superbowl Champions to celebrate while drinking this down.

Cocktail a la Louisiane
1 oz rye whiskey
1 oz sweet vermouth
1 oz Benedictine
.25 oz absinthe
3-4 healthy dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Stir all ingredients until frosty cold.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and twist some lemon peel over the drink.  Garnish with a maraschino cherry and a lemon twist.  Yes, I like both lemon peel and a cherry.  Sue me.

There you have it.  A few great uses for absinthe.  Thanks again to Sonja for hosting and I’ll see you at the bar!

Cheers!

I was unable to do August’s MxMo, thanks to my trip to South Korea.  Thanks to Tales, we didn’t have one in July.  So the theme for this week, thanks to our hosts at eGullet, is “Dizzy Dairy”.  This means anything dairy, or it seems, egg whites.

I’ve had a lot of debates over what to make for this one.  I also did a lot of searching for heavy cream in case I wanted to do that.  I had bad luck in that regard – I first went to Harris Teeter near me and they were out.  So I got home from work and went to the mini-mart in my building, but they did have Guinness (which I may be using).  Nothing.  Walked up to Courthouse Plaza and tried the convenience store there – didn’t see any, but they had that Bud Light Golden Wheat which I had wanted to try.  From there I went to CVS, but they had none of those things, so I went back to the convenience store, actually found a carton of cream I’d missed (whew!), bought the Bud Light, then went back to my mini-mart for a four pack of Guinness pub cans.

Now let’s see if I use ‘em – because as of the time I’m writing this, I still haven’t made a drink!

Let’s look at some ingredients first.

My first instinct had been to use Castries, a rum-based peanut cream liqueur.  I love this stuff.  LOVE IT IN THE FACE.  It is delicious.  Actually, I typically drink it straight.  Hmmmm.

Then it occurred to me (thanks to a fortuitously timed e-mail) that I also had a bottle of the limited edition Kahlua coffee cream liqueur in my fridge.  As you know, a White Russian is equal parts Kahlua, vodka, and cream, so the easy (and perhaps lazy) thing to do would be a version of that – say, adding vanilla vodka to a measure of Kahlua coffee cream liqueur – but I wanted to do something different.

Thus the Guinness.

Depending on who I end up going out drinking with there’s a good chance I end up with a car bomb at some point – usually made where we go with Bailey’s and Irish whiskey.  That gave me an idea, though using the Kahlua coffee cream meant I should use something like a Spanish brandy, I thought.  Alas, I didn’t have any, so I went with some Armagnac XO.

I'm glad someone reminded me that I had this!

I fiddled around a bit and came up with a drink that’s delicious whether or not you use the beer.  I thought about naming it something related to the car bomb but thought some people might not appreciate it so much – whatever, I know, but hey, let’s think up a different name.

Uhhhh…I hate thinking up drink names!

Anyways, here it is:

The Cross Hemispheres
1 1/2 ounces armagnac (XO if you have it – I used Castarede)
1 ounce Kahlua coffee cream
1-2 dashes Fee’s Aztec chocolate bitters
Add ingredients to a mixing tin with ice and shake.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Alternatively, strain into a chilled pint glass and top with Guinness.  Let the Guinness settle, give a light stir, and drink.  If you add the beer, call it a Cross Hemisphere Fizz.

nom nom nom

But you know what the problem is – here at the Den, we like to give you two drinks for your Mixology Monday fun!  I’ve come up with a brand new drink (I think) so this time I thought I’d take a look through my copy of The Joy of Mixology (as much because it happens to be sitting right next to me) to see if there’s a drink I’d like to make in there involving dairy.

Unfortunately, I failed to be inspired.

Then I remembered that I’d come up with some drinks for the Thursday Drink Night we did with Kahlua coffee cream.  It was during the Steelers-Titans football game and, unfortunately, the last game that the Steelers won, so my two drinks named after various Steelers players I decided to skip – especially as my last drink is a bit fuzzy in my memory.

But the first one had some potential, so it was time to tweak, rename, and try it again.  Originally it actually used two cream liqueurs – Castries and Kahlua.  I kept that, but tweaked the proportions on those and the bourbon, added a garnish, and renamed it.

Tastes great and wakes you up! Oops...

That TDN was really the first one I’d done since – well, longer than I could remember, thanks to Tales and Korea.  My first drink, therefore, was called “I’M BACK” and, well, I don’t think that is such a great name.  Therefore we have a new name for it along with the before-mentioned tweaks.

The Bloodhound
1 1/2 ounces bourbon (Willett Pot Still)
1 1/2 ounce Kahlua coffee cream liqueur
1/2 ounce Castries
2 dashes Fee’s Aztec chocolate bitters
Shake with ice, double strain into a chilled cocktail glass half-rimmed with ground espresso.  If desired, sprinkle some additional ground espresso on top.

Man, this drink came out good!  It’s waking me up a bit, not necessarily a good thing right now, but it’s darn delicious.

If you notice, I had the same bitters in both.  There’s two reasons for that.  One, I haven’t got the Bittermens mole bitters yet, so I can’t compare and contrast.  More importantly, however, is that the combination of flavors I feel like works really well with the Kahlua coffee cream liqueur.

I think that’s about all for tonight.  I want to thank the eGullet folks for hosting, and I should also thank Kahlua for providing me with the sample bottle of Kahlua cream liqueur.  (I should note, too, that this bottle of Castries was also a sample, but lord knows I’ve bought enough bottles of it already…)

Hee hee hee, that sounds so dramatic.

I shook my Manhattan variation.

He told me not to but I did anyways!

I was talking to Matthew Rowley earlier.  He’s moderating Day One at the CSOWG Drink.Write before Tales of the Cocktail, and I’ll be on a panel with Jay from Oh, Gosh!, Paul from Cocktail Chronicles, and Camper from Alcademics.  Thanks to generous sponsors Fernet Branca and Carpano Antica, we were trying to figure out a cocktail to saerve during our session.

Here’s my thought on that.

Matt-hattan
2 ounces bourbon (Bulleit)
1 ounce Carpano Antica
1/2 ounce Fernet Branca
2 dashes Fee’s Orange Bitters
Shake it with ice, strain it into a chilled old-fashioned glass, garnish with a brandy-soaked cherry.

You see, I like the ice shards in a drink like this, it works for me.  And honestly, this drink is being nice to me.

Whether or not we actually use it I’ll probably drink this more.  Note that you can easily use rye instead of bourbon; in fact, when using bourbon, stay with an aggressive bourbon such as Bulleit.  A meeker one like Maker’s Mark might be overwhelmed by the other ingredients too easily.

[Twenty-third in a series of drinks named after bloggers, mixologists, and random others who'll hopefully be at Tales. The first post in the series is here.]

This is actually Paul

You might not believe me, for good reason, but I have it on good word (mine, which I made up) that the original version of Paul’s website featured “The Cocktail Chronicles” with a huge BLINK tag (which I’m not even sure is supported these days) and multiple dancing baby GIFs, all of which modeled after him.

For example, look to the left.

Nowadays, of course, he shows a much more subtle and classy side, and we all thank him for it, because if you don’t like that, you always have me and Blair.

But what to make him?

When I asked one “prominent” blogger (prominent means you don’t update often) he suggested rye and absinthe.  Well, Paul is mad at me about setting absinthe on fire and using Mata Hari (though you’d think he’d like the fact that I set Mata Hari on fire) so I stuck with the fresh bottle of Rittenhouse 100 I picked up at Ace the other day.  From there, I debated, consulted with someone who actually gets paid to do this for a living (the lovely and talented Ms. Sergi), and we experimented a bit.

I did think about setting some Rittenhouse on fire but I was fairly certain if I did Paul would set ME on fire at Tales.

So then I ended up the Cocktail Chronic(-les).  And before you ask, yes, I’ve had the “Chronic(-les) of Narnia” stuck in my head for the past bit.

Not pictured: bitters

The Cocktail Chronic-(les)
2 ounces rye (Rittenhouse 100)
1/2 ounce dry vermouth (Dolin dry)
1/2 ounce Lillet Blanc
1 dash Fee’s orange bitters
Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a sarcastic comment and insightful commentary.

This makes for a pretty nice, surprisingly light cocktail.

If you try it and enjoy it, as usual, let me know.  Yes, this one is a bit late tonight but it’s the 21st one!  That means I’ve posted one drink every night – some of them more half-assed than the others (cough cough) but wow, it’s getting harder and harder to think up new ideas.  Lest I become Mike Rowe and start begging for new ideas for Dirty Jobs this site, please, if you have any for people not done yet (I’m looking at you Craig!) let me know!

As always – enjoy.

[Twenty-first in a series of drinks named after bloggers, mixologists, and random others who'll hopefully be at Tales. The first post in the series is here.]

No, wait, that’s not it.  I mean, it’s not NOT it, but it’s not it exactly but more because I have a view of a pool that’s getting a lot of use this summer.  (Take that sentence as you may.)

Instead, I think of the Lynchburg Lemonade, an enticing drink we used to make by the gallon, simply mixing Jack Daniels and lemonade.

But I’m still out of simple syrup, darn it!

My latest issue of Imbibe came and I saw that they had reviews of various lemonades.  They didn’t have my usual but they did have Nantucket Nectars which my little local convenience store carries.  I didn’t notice any artificial tastes in it to my palate, but it got me thinking.

We'll get to the name, trust me.

The Sylvania
2 ounces bourbon (I used Bulleit)
3/4 ounce St. Germain
4 ounces Nantucket Nectars lemonade (keep in mind this is not a very sweet lemonade if you use a different brand)
1-2 dashes Dr. Schwartz’s Cherry-Vanilla bitters (made for me by sylvan!)
1 sprig of mint
Shake over ice, pour – DON’T STRAIN – into a chilled old fashioned glass.

It’s kind of like summertime in a glass to me.  And why name it after sylvan?

Well, first there’s his bitters, and there’s also the dictionary definition of sylvan: pertaining to trees, glades, etc., and in literature it always seems to have a summer theme.  So, to me, it sounded pretty good.

[Seventeenth in a series of drinks named after bloggers, mixologists, and random others who'll hopefully be at Tales.  The first post in the series is here.]