If you’re interested folks, the International Wine & Food Festival comes to DC this weekend. More info at the link.
Of special note to cocktail fans is the “Cupid’s Not Stupid” cocktail competition on Friday featuring Rachel Sergi, Gina Chersevani, Ben Wiley, Youssef, and Dennis Burns, along with Dan Searing signing his new book (which I recommend!) The Punch Bowl.
Check out a hint of what Rachel will be doing in this video clip:
International Wine and Food Festival Comes to DC: MyFoxDC.com
Annnnnnndddddddd . . . we have a winner! The rules were pretty simple. Tell me how you started down the cocktail path, the catalyst if you will, and tell me your favorite cocktail.
And the winner is Helena Tiare Olson from Stockholm, Sweden. Tiare is also the writer of A Mountain of Crushed Ice. And without further ado, here it Tiare’s story:
For me it started with a tiny mini bottle of El Dorado 15 year old demerara rum.
It’s a bit odd, I know but that´s what happened. I got that bottle from God knows where and drank a little bit of the rum and discovered that liked it, no – I mean really liked it. Its not the first alcoholic thing I had of course but it was the first alcoholic beverage that really opened my eyes and led me to discover the world of cocktails and this evolved to be where I am today.
This happened a couple of years ago.
So I tasted some of that rum neat and then I took the rest and mixed a ”tropical drink” having not much clue how to mix a proper cocktail – even though I had some vague idea still after my years in the restaurant business. But I threw together some fresh fruit juices, a little simple syrup and the rum with plenty of crushed ice and made some kind of elaborate fruit garnish. All happily served in a hurricane glass!
After that I got myself a big bottle of El Dorado and now I started to experiment more seriously.
I searched the net which eventually led me to tiki drinks,The Ministry of Rum and some of the cocktail blogs where I was a lurker for quite a while, without commenting – I didn´t dare to…but reading and absorbing everything I came over that interested me. I kept experimenting at home with cocktail mixing and ingredient making and garnishing. Eventually the whole thing grew to a lifestyle and I became a cocktail geek.
Then one day (a year ago) I started to write my blog, and the rest is as we say – history.
Today I’m much more into learning the classics, so i have started in a bit of an odd way, otherwise i believe tiki drinks is maybe not usually the first type of drinks you start with.
I will never abandon my first love – the Mai Tai, it will always be my favorite cocktail, but only if its made the way it should be and with good rum. The recipe I use is Trader Vic`s and I use either Appleton Extra, Havana Club 7, St James Hors d´age, Clemènt VSOP and various demerara rums.
Why do I love cocktails? Oh – its the craft, the art, the culinary and experimental aspect, and of course the aroma and taste – and then, they do look so beautiful! And a well crafted cocktail really is something very special.
When I think back I`m quite amazed myself how it all started with a tiny mini-bottle of El Dorado.
Mai Tai
1 oz dark Jamaican rum
1 oz Martinique rum
1 oz fresh lime juice (one lime)
0.5 oz orange curacao (or Cointreau)
0.25 oz each of orgeat and simple syrupMix all ingredients and shake with ice.Strain into a double old fashioned glass over crushed ice.Garnish with lime shell and a sprig of mint.Serve with 2 short straws placed near the mint.
Great story Tiare. Congrats on your win and I hope you enjoy the 2009 Tales of the Cocktail Recipe Book!
Cheers!
Amid all the hoopla surrounding Tales of the Cocktail, being with my fellow cocktail loving cultists, and my birthday fast approaching, I started thinking about why I love cocktails. The artistry in crafting a unique cocktail, the technical precision, the culinary aspect of cocktails, and of course, the taste, all combine into one hell of a great hobby. At a party recently, I was asked “Why cocktails?” and my answer touched on all of the above. I was peppered with questions regarding favorite spirits, favorite cocktails, beer, wine, etc., etc. I still vividly remember making a Cocktail a la Louisiane for our buddy Roy and upon taking his first sip, seeing his eyes widen and what can best be described as an enlightenment shine on his face. He then exclaimed that this is what he always imagined a cocktail to taste like.
Then I started thinking, why do other people love cocktails? Is it based on the same reasons I give? Is it simply that cocktails seem more mature to drink than PBR and a shot of Jack? Is it following a fad? Inquiring minds want to know!
Well, at least I do! So here is the deal, I want to hear your story. How did you come to enjoy cocktails? Was there one particular cocktail that gave you that enlightenment moment? Was there one particular bar or bartender that showed you the path? What cocktail is your version of cocktail nirvana?
What you do! (aka The Rules)
1) Email me your story. Include your favorite cocktail along with a recipe and a picture.
2) Please keep your story to 500 words or less.
3) The contest is open to anyone.
4) The deadline is midnight, August 31st.
What I do! (aka The Judging)
1) Which ever story I like the best will win.
2) I will be the only judge using a wholly unscientific analysis.
What you get! (aka The Prize)
1) The winner will have their story, photo and recipe published on Scofflaw’s Den. AND
2) Will receive a copy of the 2009 Tales of the Cocktail Official Recipe Book.
The recipe book is really neat. It is about 600 recipes from all of the participants from Tales 2009. Yours truly has a recipe published within, along with recipes from the best bartenders and cocktail writers on the planet. Many of the recipes were created for Tales and you won’t find them any where else. Truly a unique book!
There you have it. A simple contest with an awesome prize. If you have any questions, feel free to ask either in the comments or via direct email. I can’t wait to hear/read your stories.
Cheers!
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!
