An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

Yes, your humble scofflaw is back off to New York City!

It ends up some friends of mine from various parts of the country will all be up there at the same time, so it’s a good chance to meet up with a lot of people whom I profess to like (and vice versa).

Given that this isn’t like last time – i.e. a specific mission of cocktails – I’m having a few tonight, one last night, and I’m hoping against hope we can make it to Pegu Club and/or Death & Company. I think Pegu would be a big hit with a number in our group, and I’d love to say hi to Audrey again.

Last night, while over at Marshall’s, and having my first chance to try Fee’s Rhubarb Bitters (yummy), I had a Revival, from Food & Wine’s 2008 Cocktail book, and thankfully one that didn’t require specialty ingredients:

Revival
2 ounces rye (Rittenhouse 80 proof)
1/2 ounce Benedictine (the one, the only)
1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur (Luxardo)
2 dashes absinthe or Pernod (I used Pernod)
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
Shake and strain, garnish with lemon twist

I actually liked this a lot; it was kind of dry but it was honestly probably the best drink I’ve had with maraschino in it so far.

Tonight, a coworker came by, and I made him a drink passed on to me by a friend I’ll just call “Martini Con Queso” – yes, the liquors ARE specific:

Sacre Blue
1 1/2 ounces Bombay Sapphire
3/4 ounce Lillet blonde
stir and strain; traditionally it should be garnished with a cube of blue cheese on a toothpick but I use a blue cheese-stuffed olive

As we sat and gossiped about work I made myself the traditional (for me) Sazerac from Gary Regan’s _Joy of Mixology_.

Sazerac
3 ounces rye (Rittenhouse 100 proof)
3/4 ounce simple syrup
2-3 dashes Peychaud’s
Fill a rocks glass with ice and absinthe (Lucid). Stir drink, toss out ice and Lucid, and strain; garnish with lemon twist

Mmmmm.

So now I’m on the chat room. And I don’t understand what’s going on, but I come up with a drink that needs a name:
2 ounces cognac (Hennessy)
1 ounce sweet vermouth (Carpano Antica)
1/3 ounce Benedictine
2 dashes celery bitters (Bitter Truth)

Stir and strain.

Later, it was a cocktail that I came up with just, well, to be annoying:

2 ounces Veev
1/2 ounce green Chartreuse
1/2 ounce simple syrup

Hmmm, we need to work on that one.

Later came a rye one that was well-received:
1 1/2 ounce rye
3/4 ounce Benedictine
1/4 oz absinthe
1/4 oz Fernet Branca

Finally, I’m ending with some kind of tiki drink:

1 1/2 oz dark rum (Gosling’s)
1 oz coconut water
1/2 oz pineapple juice

Oof. I’m going to say that’s the one that got me.

With that, I am off – check my Twitter feed (I’m HighwayStar on there) for anything interesting (or not) on that trip!

Back to gin…

When we went to New Heights Restaurant last week, I had a lot of fun.  Marshall wrote up his long post on it but I wanted to touch on some of the points of my visit.

Like I said, I had a great time.  Everyone was very friendly there.  I felt a bit bad for our bartender, Chris.  He was a pretty nice guy but was almost overwhelmingly slammed a good bit of the night.  Two different tables ordered brandy alexanders!  There were a lot of no-reservation walk-ins for both the dining room and the bar thanks to a convention and the article in the WaPo (I heard them say).

Marshall is s-m-r-t … errr… smart.  When we first walked in it was fairly empty so we took seats right at the very end of the bar.  That kept us from getting surrounded when the large group came in.  I still got jostled a lot by one of the first guys in from that group.  I was convinced that they were going to be quite annoying but in fact they were very polite and when they realized they were running into me made it a point to be careful about it.  You know what?  Thanks!  Honestly, I appreciated their concern and effort to be conscientious bar-neighbors.

(Compare that to the other night at Bailey’s when the guys next to me – even a few chairs down – seemed nice at first but quickly grew annoying, to the point of having my chair stolen when I was in the bathroom and smoke blown at me.)

For the most part that night I stuck with gin and tonics.  My reasoning – which seemed to be accurate – was two-fold.

First, that’d provide a consistent tasting amongst the different gins.  To be completely consistent I should’ve stuck with the same tonic all the time.  They had a list of tonics and how to pair gin with tonic so I stuck with those guidelines.  At home I tend to stick to one kind of tonic.

Second, it would be easier for the bartender.  That it was – I definitely got drinks faster.

It looks like I didn’t manage to Twitter EVERYTHING…oh well.  I definitely had a gin and tonic to start, I just don’t remember which one!  Andrew (our original bartender) made us an Aviation with Aviation gin.  I liked it more than previous ones I’d had, though Marshall does have that creme de violette fetish.

Next was the #24.  They had a couple of these “numbered” drinks and I neglected to ask what was up with that naming schema.  This one was, according to my Twitter, G-vine gin, St. Germaine elderflower liqueur, Peychaud’s bitters, simple syrup, kaffir lime leaf, lime juice, Schweppes tonic.  I’d never heard of G-vine gin before that night and they had sent the pastry chef out to buy some more of it.  It’s a French gin and I actually found later in a gin and tonic that I liked it a lot.

Next up was another gin and tonic.  This time I tried the Old Raj, blue label, with the Fever-Tree tonic.  That was quite good.  There’s another label (red, I believe) of Old Raj, but the blue is stronger and I wanted more of the taste to shine.

Around this time we got our food.  The ham & cheese croquettes were awesome, as were the truffle fries.  I also got the pickled herring (MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE) and I loved it.  Honestly – I think it was the best pickled herring I’ve had.  To be completely honest, I’ve only had it a couple of other times but I think it was better than it was at Aquavit.

I threw Chris a curveball for the next drink.  Let’s avoid the gins and hit the classic – a Sazerac.  It’s always interesting how other people make it.  He used St. George absinthe, for one.  Due to the expense of St. George, as he pointed out, he doesn’t just toss it out as you’re supposed to do with the pastis.  He just pours a little bit in.  Then there was a sugar cube, both Peychaud’s and Regan’s bitters, and Russell’s Reserve rye.  That rye is one I use a lot in Sazeracs.  It was quite tasty, if not as sweet as I tend to prefer mine.

Next was back to the gin and tonic.  I knew I needed something big to cut through the remnants of taste in the Saz.  I went with the G-vine and Fever-Tree bitter lemon tonic.  That was a SPECTACULAR choice.  I’m really digging the G-vine.

Jake had been hanging out with us and had been waiting on a complimentary Aviation for a while but finally needed to leave.  Just after he left it came up so Marshall and I polished it off.  I’d had a Rogue Spruce gin and Schweppe’s before that and needed to clear some of the taste out of my mouth; it wasn’t that bad but it wasn’t something I particularly go for.  Kind of like how a really peaty Scotch might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

The final drink of the bar for me was a martini – I’m a huge martini fan, I’ve found.  And it was good.  Marshall had a champagne cocktail of some sort.

We went home after that.  Just as I got home some friends of Cathy’s were coming in for the birthday of one of her really good friends.  Cathy wanted a drink and surprisingly enough, not a champagne drink like she usually has.  I ended up drinking the Kir Royale made with sparkling shiraz (not the best drink ever) while I thought up something.  I called it the Cathy Cocktail:
3/4 ounce Hendrick’s gin
1/2 ounce creme de cassis
1/4 ounce simple syrup
dash of Regans bitters

Shake, pour over ice in a collins glass, top with Sprite.

Later her friends and I did an absinthe tasting between the Kubler and the Lucid.  While tasty, it was not what I needed at that point in the evening…it definitely led to a rough morning when I had to get up early to take care of the block party!

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!  

This was a hard one!

So I was debating for a while about what constituted a “strong” drink.  Is a Manhattan a strong drink?  it’s definitely not a “one and out” kind of drink, but at the same time, what about a Sazerac?  Especially with one made with a 120+ proof rye like Red Hook?

Fortunately I own a copy of The Joy of Mixology, and while skimming through it over at the abode of

tmfiii

 , we figured out what I should make.  I’m going to be honest here – this is not an “everyday” drink or even a “once in a while” drink – it was completely new to me, since a) when I’m drinking strong drinks, well, you’ve seen what I already mentioned and b) usually, I’m trying not to have that strong of a drink most of the time (more so than usual), not to mention c) I need to blog about Long Island Iced Teas anyways and Mr. Penguin forbade those explicitly.

The Earthquake – or, more accurately, the Tremblement de Terre.  I’ll let Gary Regan phrase it better than I can:

A drink mentioned in Absinthe: A History in a Bottle, by Barnaby Conrad III, but without measurements.  This was apparently a cocktail favored by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a French artist who died in 1901, at the age of thirty-six.  Consider yourself fore-warned.

It’s a pretty straight forward drink:

Tremblement de Terre (Earthquake)
2 1/2 ounces cognac
1/2 ounce absinthe substitute
1 lemon twist, for garnish

STIR AND STRAIN into a chilled cocktail glass.  Add the garnish.

Personally, I used armagnac and Lucid for the ingredients.  Also, I’m getting better at doing twists.

Oh wow that was a strong drink.  Kubler might’ve done it better – i.e., less absinthe taste – but it was still a good, if “pow!” kind of drink.

I’d definitely only have one of those.

(And since I’m working my way through the Lucid, to help justify buying the Kubler, that’d help, at least 1/4 ounce at a time — too bad it was over at Marshall’s when I drank it!)