An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

I’ve rallied my (internal) troops to overcome my “blech” feeling today and get ready for the dinner.

If you’re looking to follow along, I plan on Twitter blogging as much about it as I can.  Make sure to let us know what you think!

if you know how we roll here in the Den – and if you’re reading this, you might quite possibly understand – we tend to do two things for every month’s MxMo and I, at least, tend to post on Sundays because I can never guarantee getting one out on a Monday.  A big “hooah!” out to Trader Tiki for hosting this month.

As I’d mentioned previously, my plan had always been to get my friend

dan_oz

to help me pick out rum drinks.  Unfortunately (or not), that didn’t happen.  Not only did we not make it to the kickball party I’d been planning on going to but we just hung out with our friend Roy and my brother Matt at our house and at the new local bar Dogwood Tavern, drinking copious amounts of beer.  I did manage to give him his bottle of Scarlet Ibis and I can’t wait to hear what he thinks of it.  Still, I’m not a huge rum guy.

Today, after a brunch downtown at Kramerbooks, I was talking with my cohort

tmfiii

and we remembered MxMo (which I had completely forgotten):

[17:35] T. Marshall Fawley III (Talk.v104DAA3B7B8): after dinner, I need to figure out mxmo . . . doh
[17:36] seanmike: oh crap
[17:36] seanmike: hey it’s rum

Notice the blistering level of discourse that goes on behind the bar in the Scofflaw’s Den.

But I’d talked about something yesterday, hadn’t made it, and so now it was time.

Before that, though, it was time for dinner.  We cooked up some steaks, corn on the cob, some green beans, but in the kitchen, because, well, the weather…

(Not pictured: rain pouring down)

Let’s try the other side of the house.

Feh.

Trust me, it looked more rain-ful in real life.

While cooking, I decided to make a drink before we hit the true “Mixology Monday” drink of the night.

Dark and Stormy
3 ounces Goslings Dark Seal Rum
8 ounces ginger beer

Mix in a tall glass, garnish with a wedge of lime.

(Recipe from a card deck called “Classic Cocktails” from Barnes & Noble.)

I’m not huge on exact proportions for things like this…

That’s a 9.8 ounce bottle of ginger beer, but I stuck with the 3 ounces of rum.

(And no, that’s not my broccoli in the background.)

Refreshing.

We had a tasty dinner, watching that Mother’s Day marathon of “The Deadliest Catch”, and despite the rain I thought I’d have a cigar.  I didn’t get one last night and appropriately enough I had one perfect for this month’s MxMo.

It was time for a Ti’ Punch.

I’ll quote from the Caribbean Spirits little recipe card I got at the rum tasting the other month…

Ti’ Punch
Traditional Recipe

• Splash of Petite Canne Sugar Cane Syrup
• Slice of lime rind
• Rhum Agricole Blanc
• Stir, Add ice

Now, this recipe suggests using the Neisson Agricole Blanc, which I have a bottle of, but I have to be honest, I use it more as a mixing liquor rather than a drink it nearly straight.  I wanted to use the La Favorite Rhum Agricole Vieux, which is whisky and bourbon barrel aged, so I did.  I did the following proportions:

2 ounces La Favorite Rhum Agricole Vieux
1/2 ounce Petite Canne Sugar Cane Syrup
etc.

I mixed it up and pulled out my cigar accoutrements.  It was time…time for the La Aurora Rum Barrel Aged cigar!

Told you it was appropriate.

I have to tell you what – I really, really liked that ti’ punch.  It was sweeter than the one I had at Bourbon lo those many months weeks ago, and I just enjoyed the heck out of it.

The cigar itself was also extremely good.  As I’d been warned by a coworker you need to let it go for a minute or so first to get the taste right up and I enjoyed the heck out of it all the way down to the end.

So that’s it for me tonight.  Two very simple rum drinks – but both quite good in their own way, and, I think, a good way to show off that rum doesn’t have to be just in tiki drinks.

Arggghhhhh, Matey!  I guess’d ye be searchin’ for a cuppa grog . . . or maybe ye tongue wants to lash at a Zombie or a Mai Tai . . . ye look like scurvy dogs from down here in ye old Scofflaw’s Den. 

But AYE!  It be yet another Mixology Monday hosted by the esteemed Trader Tiki.  The poison this Cap’n of the High Seas has chosen is that nectar of Aphrodite, that elixir that keeps a Scofflaw’s tongue whetted . . . RUM.

Alright, so a full post in pirate talk would be a bit much and I’m about ready to kick my own ass if I keep this up much longer. 

I love rum.  There isn’t any other way to say it as clearly as that.  I love it.  This has also been a pretty hectic weekend for me and unfortunately I’m afraid it is going to have to infringe on my MxMo day.  But I don’t want to make a bunch of excuse, lest you make me walk the plank.

When I started thinking of what to write, I decided to first take stock of what rum I had in this Scofflaw’s Bar.

From left to right I have:

Ron Zacapa 15yr
Depaz Blue Cane Rhum Agricole
Dogfish Head Honey Brown Rum
El Dorado 12 yr Demerara Rum
Mt. Gay Rum
Cruzan Black Strap Rum
The Scarlet Ibis Rum
Dogfish Head Wit Spiced Rum
Neisson Rhum Agricole Blanc

After I took stock, I felt completely overwhelmed.  I guess I should take a perverted sense of pride in this feeling.  Most folks probably has a bottle of rum . . . maybe two.   I also wasn’t sure of what to do for a cocktail for you good folks.  Should I go tried and true tiki?  I love me some tiki (as I have said over and over), but think a lot of folks will do traditional tiki drinks.  One I idea I had, and will do eventually, is a tasting of Rum Collins – try each of my rums with a squeeze of lime and some tonic water.  Sounds like a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon if you ask me.

So I turned to the books.  Again, tons of rum drinks and none that really grabbed my attention.  Maybe it was the feeling of rushing around and I was trying to force something . . . not allowing the spirits (heh!) of those by-gone Pirates flow through me and give me inspiration when I needed.  I needed the spirit of William Dampier to infuse my soul with a yearning to find something new. 

So when all else fails, pick something at random!!!

I chose the Tahiti Club from Gary Regan’s Bartender’s Bible.  It goes something like this:

Tahiti Club
1 oz light rum
1 oz dark rum
1 oz pineapple juice
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz lemon juice
1 tsp maraschino liqueur

Shake, strain over fresh ice cubes in a rocks glass.

As you can see from the picture, I used the Depaz and the El Dorado.  Just a quick note to say that I really love the Depaz Blue Cane Rhum Agricole.  It smells of sweet grass, fresh sugarcane and has almost a whiskey/bourbon undertone as well.   It is also one of the few (maybe the only one?) rums to receive the Appellation d’Origine Controlee from the French Government. 

The cocktail was good – but very tart!  For my tastes, I think the tartness hid some of the nuances of the Depaz and the El Dorado.  I think a dash of rich simple syrup would really bring the inherent flavors of the rums from behind the juices.  The maraschino liqueur lent an interesting funkiness to the nose of the drink, but worked very well with the fruit juice flavors.

Hmmm . . . now that my whistle was whetted, I wanted to do a little concoctioneering.  Actually, I was going to use this space for a drink I came up with while over at Sean’s Friday night, but he beat me to it and posted it here.  That scurvy bastard . . .     So check out his post for an extra-special-hey-look-there-is-an-extra-chest-of-booty-type rum drink from your’s truly.

So yeah, concoctioneering.  I had some coconut milk left over from some coconut sticky rice I made a few days ago.  I decided to try and use that in a drink.  This isn’t the pre-sweetned Coco Lopez stuff, rather it is what you find in the Asian section of your market.  For help using it, I turned to some notes I had written one afternoon playing with some coconut water.  The water is the clear juice that is inside the coconut right when you open one up.  One of the recipes I had tinkered with was the following:

2 oz rum
2 oz coconut water
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz falernum
.25 oz grapefruit juice
.25 oz raspberry syrup
1 dash maraschino
1 dash absinthe

I really liked this mix.  It was boozy, sweet and had flavors and aromas coming out of the waa-zoo.  For me, definitely a keeper.  But at some point I’ll need to name it . . . .  But this was the launching pad to use the coconut milk.  What I came up with was this:

2 oz rum
1.5 oz coconut milk
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz falernum
.25 oz Aperol –> I ran out of grapefruit juice and wanted a substitute for the bitterness in grapefruit.
.25 oz raspberry syrup
.25 oz grenadine
1 dash maraschino
1 dash absinthe

Now to be honest, the drink came out looking kind of funky.  It was a creamy dark pink color.  Not unappetizing by any stretch, but just not a color that I normally associate with drinks.  It kind of looked like the pinkish hue you find on seashells.  Hmmm . . .

The taste was also something I wasn’t expecting.  It was much more tart than anticipated.  It was creamy, sweet and tart.  The rum gave it a good backbone (I used the Mt. Gay) and the Aperol tamed the sweetness of the syrups.  (If anyone out there tries their hand an making this, please, please let me know what you think . . . any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated!)

Alright, I think it’s time for me to bring my MxMo post to an end.  Again, I want to thank Mr. Blair Reynold’s, aka Trader Tiki for allowing us on deck for this rum soaked episode of Mixology Monday!

Cheers!  

IF YOUR NAME IS DAN OZDOWSKI DO NOT READ THIS UNTIL 5/11 OR LATER!

Just kidding.  I’d be shocked – shocked, I tell you, shocked! – if you actually had the opportunity to read this before you show up tonight.

They say a good salesman can see a sucker coming a mile off, and in my case, that is perhaps not inaccurate.  (I definitely don’t not love me some double negatives, too.)  Or maybe it’s just that I’m special but not the kind of special that necessarily requires a helmet.

I had a very specific goal in going down to visit Ace Beverage again today.  One of my best friends, the quiet-as-of-late

dan_oz

, is in town and will be coming by my place later tonight.  His birthday was the other week so I needed to procure him a present.

I wanted to get him something that he couldn’t get down in smelly ole North Carostinkylina.  Given the fact that he’s a huge rum nut (rummy?  Rumsfeld?  rumoholic?) I thought that a good gift would be a bottle of the Scarlet Ibis rum.

Having that in mind, I also decided that I would like to get myself a bottle of the La Favorite Rhum Agricole Vieux.  That’s the whisky and bourbon barrel aged rum that I tasted at Bourbon a few weeks ago.  Given that I got a couple of the rum barrel aged cigars this week I really wanted to make a ti’ punch with it.

This is what I ended up with when I got home today:

We have, from top to bottom: a fifth of Maker’s Mark and a bottle of Drambuie (both bought at VA ABC), a bottle of Petite Canne Traditional Martinique Sugar Cane Syrup, the Scarlet Ibis, Bloodys by Buz Full Flavor Original Bloody Mary mix, Green Chartreuse, Damrak gin, the La Favorite Rhum Agricole Vieux, and a bottle of Black Bottle five year old blended Scotch (that Master Shake is attempting to taste).

Let’s go over each.

Maker’s Mark – my standard mixing bourbon, especially for the always popular bourbon and cokes and for mint juleps.  My brother Matt wiped out my bottle recently so it was time to replace it.  I thought about going for the liter bottle but the price point per liter in Virginia is almost the same between the fifth and the liter.

Drambuie – I thought that it was the same price in Virginia as it was at Ace.  Unfortunately, it was $5 more.  I was already stuck though with either getting it in Virginia or going back out, and I didn’t feel like doing the latter, so here we are.  I first tasted Drambuie a few weeks ago after kickball one night and I quite enjoyed it.  Given the Scotch, I wanted to try a Rusty Nail at some point as well.  In general, I feel like you can’t have too many liqueurs of this sort because they’re really quite very tasty especially after dinner while smoking a cigar.

Petite Canne Traditional Martinique Sugar Cane Syrup – whew!  When I mentioned to Joe that I was going to make a ti’ punch with the rum, he asked me if I was going to use sugar cane syrup.  Slightly befuddled, I responded that I usually use rich simple syrup.  He poured me a taste of this stuff, adding that it made him think of pancakes, and it was “BIFF BAM BOOM!” right to my head.  Damn good stuff.  It’s simple syrup on crack.  (Actually, I think Joe said “simple syrup on steroids” but that makes me think of Jose Canseco making simple syrup and my brain cries a little bit.)

The Scarlet Ibis – this is the rum formulated specifically for Death & Company in NYC.  I haven’t opened my bottle yet but everyone seems to rave about how good it is and thus I figure Dan will get a big kick out of it.

Bloodys by Buz Full Flavor Original Bloody Mary Mix - According to my mom, I make really good bloody marys.  My granddad agreed.  However, mom always insists on using Clamato, and seriously, clam juice and tomato juice is just not a combination that makes me a happy camper.  I thought about buying a bottle of clam juice so she could just bring regular tomato juice, or maybe juicing my own clams (JUST KIDDING) but both thoughts made me unhappy.  Joe had highly recommended this mix, and, well, you know what, I just looked at it and saw that it had clam juice in it, so maybe it’ll make mom happy.

And maybe I should be careful about adding horseradish infused vodka to it.  Ingredient List: Tomato Puree, Water, Horseradish, Clam Juice, Sugar-based non caloric Sweetner, White Distilled Vinegar, Mustard Seed, Anchovies, Tamarind Extract, Buz’s Full Flavor Original Spice Mix, Sodium Benzonate, Potassium Sorbate added for freshness.  I bet it’s the Sodium Benzonate that really makes it sing!

Green Chartreuse – Chartreuse is one of those expensive liqueurs that’s needed in so many drinks.  Ace had a good price on it so I went ahead and pulled the trigger on some.  They only had green, however, so I’ll still need to find yellow somewhere.

Damrak Gin -

tmfiii

was over last night and between beers, an unexpectedly shaken Sazerac that I made (oops), and the very very good Padron Anniversary Edition cigar I smoked (did I mention very good?), I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about his bottle of Damrak Gin.  Seriously.  I’m a little disturbed by how fixated I was on it.  I didn’t mention it to him because, I don’t know, it might seem creepy or something, but there it is.  And now here it is.

In honor of last night, here’s a recipe Marshall pulled out of the air:
Marshall’s Randomass Tiki Drink
2 oz. pineapple juice
1 1/2 oz. gold rum
1/4 oz. brandy (he used the E&J brandy I had that is slightly infused with apricot)
1/4 oz. maraschino liqueur
5 solid dashes Regan’s Orange Bitters
1 dash Angostura
1 big dash rich simple syrup (my bottle, she is very big, and pours quickly)

(Master) Shake with ice.

Strain and drink and pontificate.

La Favorite Rhum Agricole Vieux – Obviously, I’ve talked a good bit about this one already.  Is it time for me to go outside and drink it?  Maybe if I can just shut up on here!

Black Bottle Five Year Old Blended Scotch – Just as I was about to leave I asked Joe about a good mixing Scotch.  I’d tried Pinch before and it had seemed to work but I trust other people’s impressions.  The thing is that you can always mix with single malts, but, I’ve found, they’re so different in tastes between bottles that it can take a lot of guess work in how something will work with one versus another.  This was a good deal so I had no problems giving it a shot.  It appears to be the same company that also makes/distributes Deanston, Bunnahabhain, Ledaig, and Tobermory Scotch.

So that was my unexpectedly expensive liquor run for today.  If you’ll excuse me, I’m finding that sobriety is become more and more of a chore on this lazy Saturday afternoon, so in the words of a wise man: “Screw you guys, I’m going home.”