An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

This past Friday I happened to be in DC and I decided to drive up to this little store on 14th St., NW that I had heard about over the Tweeters called Smucker Farms. The store sells products from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and many of the producers are Amish and Mennonite families. Although not very big, the store contains mainly food products from Lancaster County. Now to be honest, one of the main reasons I went to Smucker Farms was in the hope I would find a Shoo Fly Pie.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find any Shoo Fly pie but I did find a few interesting things that will lend themselves to cocktail making very well. First was the jams and jellies. Tons of flavors and all looked delicious. Jams and jellies are a great way to add flavor, sweetness and texture to cocktails. The best thing I found though were shrubs!

A shrub is usually the juice of a fruit mixed with an acid and sugar. Most of the time the acid is vinegar. The Tait Farms Cherry Shrub I bought is made with cherry vinegar, lemon juice and cane syrup. On the first sip, you get a burst of fresh cherries. Then, on the back end, your lips start to pucker and your tongue will tingle from the acidity.

For a great article on shrubs and how to make them, check out the Serious Eats article.

I picked the Cherry Shrub because right now, DC is in the middle of the famed Cherry Blossom season. As a result, I’m constantly thinking of a way to create fantastic cherry cocktails. This shrub definitely made a great addition to the following cocktail. It’s sweet, tart, refreshing and has a pleasant cherry flavor.

District Cherry Blossom
1.5 oz London dry gin
1 oz Cherry Shrub
.5 oz simple syrup
.25 oz maraschino liqueur
.25 oz lemon juice
2 dashes Bittermens Burlesque Bitters

Shake all ingredients with plenty of ice. Strain over fresh ice in a chimney glass and add seltzer water. Stir briefly to combine and garnish with mint.

I’m curious, what are your favorite cherry flavored cocktails? Let me know in the comments!

Ahhhhh . . . There’s a nip in the air and the leaves are starting to change color and drop to the ground. The night descends earlier (or is it faster) and the grip of winter is just around the corner.

It isn’t a secret that autumn is my favorite season. I love the cold air and early evenings. There is nothing better than curling up on the couch under a warm blanket on a cold day watching hockey, football, or hell, even reading a cocktail tome.

But another reason I love the fall is that it is my favorite cocktail season. Tiki drinks and refreshing gin cocktails are replaced with whisk(e)ies and bitter amaros. Pineapple and coconut are replaced with apple and cherry. Limes are supplanted by lemons as the citrus of majority in my fridge.

I mention apples and cherries in particular because I love playing with those flavors this time of year. I love mixing with calvados, Applejack, or maybe some Leopold Brothers apple whiskey or apple liqueur. Bringing some cherry to the party may come from Cherry Herring, maraschino, kirschwasser, or my latest toy, Maurin Quina.

Another thing I love to mix with is apple cider. We had an apple press growing up and every fall made our own fresh-pressed apple cider. It was fantastic! Unfortunately you can only find pasteurized cider for sale nowadays. But if you own a juicer, you can make your own! Lately I’ve been boiling apple cider down into a thick concentrated syrup. Amazingly, along with the concentrated appleness, it develops an amazing tartness. This really comes in handy it you don’t want to add lemon, but need that acidity to balance out your cocktail. To make it, simply boil down apple cider until it has reduced by 75%.

I decided I wanted to play with the cider syrup and thought it would play very nicely with scotch. So I pulled out my new bottle of Great King Street blended scotch from Compass Box and set to work. This is what I came up with:

Orchard Bonfire
1.5 oz blended Scotch
.5 oz cider syrup
.25 oz honey syrup (2 parts honey & 1 part water)
1 barspoon pimento dram
1 dash Whiskey Barrel Bitters

Shake & double strain into a cocktail glass rinsed with a smokey scotch. (I used Peat Monster.) Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

What do you like to drink when fall arrives? Leave a comment and let us know!

Cheers!

PS. Scofflaw’s Den celebrated it’s fourth birthday earlier this month. We thank all of our readers for sticking with us and we plan on providing a lot more content and recipes for you to enjoy for at least another four years. -Marshall

Yep, it’s that time of year where our weekends (and the occasional weeknight) are filled with Holiday parties and merriment.  The Christmas Spirit has hit me pretty hard this year.  I’ve been watching Christmas movies and singing carols.  I have my first live tree whose named Elmer.  Now all I need is some snow and I’m going to be as happy as an Elf on the North Pole.

One aspect of this season in particular is that a lot of people ask for cocktail ideas or the contribution of a beverage or two for their party.  Of course I’m not one to turn down either and I’m more than happy to contribute to the quality quaffing of the season.

Obviously there are several usual suspects when it comes to Holiday drinks – Hot Buttered Rum, Mulled Wine, Spiced Apple Cider, & Egg Nogg just to name a few.  And while all of these are great options I wanted to add something else to the list.

This past Saturday Sylvie and I went to a Soup & Cookie holiday party at our friend Josh’s house co-hosted by his lovely gal Jenny.  I was tasked with bringing Egg Nogg to the party and I was happy to oblige.  My go-to Nog is the easy-as-pie recipe from Jeffrey Morganthaler. But being a Scofflaw, I couldn’t just leave it at one drink.  I wanted to come up with an original cocktail that was boozy, non-too-sweet, and really made me think of Christmas.  Even further, I wanted a cocktail that brought the flavors of what I feel are Victorian-esque Christmas desert flavors.  So what could that be?  Plums!  Fruit Cake!  Spices!  Brandy!  Oh for the love of Santa Claus, FIGGY PUDDING!!!

Now just to turn these ideas into a cocktail.  Here’s what I came up with:

Christmas Pudding
1.5 oz Brandy
1 oz White Port
.50 oz Bonal quinquina
.25 oz Cointreau
.25 oz Allspice Dram
.25 oz Trader Tiki’s Cinnamon Syrup
3 d Fee’s Plum Bitters

Stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with an orange peel and maraschino cherry.

Before you say anything, yes that’s lemon peel as a garnish in the picture.  I didn’t have any fresh oranges on hand so I used what I had.  Sue me.   To me, the flavors that combine in this drink really hit all the high notes of what I was looking for.  It’s boozy, that’s for sure.  But you also have the spices, citrus, and a bit of a dried fruit character from the white port and the Bonal.  The Plum Bitters adds another layer of fruit and helps to marry the sweetness and spiciness from all the ingredients.   I definitely want to give this recipe a try with a tawny port in place of the white port.  I think that will heighten the dried fruit flavors even more.  If you try it, let me know the outcome.

So tell us what your favorite Christmas cocktails are!  Do you have a unique recipe or an old standby?  Leave us a comment and share.

Cheers!

Well, it’s been a while, but it was time for Mixology Monday again!  This time it’s being hosted at Rock & Rye by Dennis.  Thanks, Dennis!

The theme is “Forgotten Cocktails”.  Given the resurgence in cocktail culture, and my relative lack of scholarship done “on my own”, I did what I figure most folks would – grabbed my copy of Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails (2nd edition, natch) and started thumbing through it.

I didn’t have to thumb through it for long.

Bourbon has always been a passion of mine.  Lately – and I blame Harry Turtledove’s “American Empire” series of books for this – I’ve been on a Calvados kick.  I don’t make a lot of drinks using Calvados because I tend to drink it straight (and usually while smoking a cigar) that doesn’t mean I avoid Calvados cocktails.

Speaking of sexy, it's Trader Tiki stuff!

The Avenue is one of the first cocktails in the book.  Immediately I noticed the bourbon and the Calvados, but what really got me interested was the third ingredient listed: passion fruit juice (or nectar), which Dr. Cocktail suggests can be replaced with passion fruit syrup.

Why, I have passion fruit syrup – the ever-so-delicious Trader Tiki variety – and I even have Trader Tiki grenadine!  Let’s see here.

The Avenue
1 ounce bourbon
1 ounce Calvados
1 ounce passion fruit juice (or nectar)
1 dash real pomegranate grenadine
1 dash orange flower water
Shake in an iced cocktail shaker and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with a carnation boutonniere.

Sorry.  I ain’t got no boutonniere, carnation or otherwise.

Oooo, golden! But no flowers.

The book suggests that you replace the grenadine with a dash of lemon juice if you use passion fruit syrup.  I really wanted to use the hibiscus grenadine, so I used a dash of it ANYWAYS and DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES.  Actually, I also added a dash or so of lemon juice, too.

The drink ended up still a bit sweet but tasty.  The texture is actually quite silky and I’m really digging it.

In fact, I’m very happy with how this drink came out!  It’s a departure from what I usually look for in a cocktail – it’s not bitter, for one – but on a cool fall evening, it works well.

I’m glad I went looking for a new forgotten cocktail, and I guess that means I have to thank Dennis for hosting this month’s MxMo!  I’d thank Paul, too, but don’t want it to go to his head too much.

What little-known or forgotten cocktails do y’all like?