I went through a couple of my books, did some research online, and just looked around.  You have to remember the rules: it has to have the apricot brandy, it has to be fairly simple, and it has to be published somewhere (no originals).

So what happened?

I had planned on waiting until tomorrow and getting my co-conspirator at the Den to help me, but then I figured, what the heck, I think I know what I want to do.

I don’t have a lot of the really old cocktail books, but I saw four recipes in Ted Haigh’s _Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails_ and a number of recipes in Gary Regan’s _The Joy of Mixology_.

I skipped a number of them that had stuff like rum in them since I didn’t feel like dealing with rum this week.  I went through the rest and got rid of ones I felt were derivative of each other, or at least rather similar.

Finally I had one recipe and it was time to give it a shot – I wouldn’t make y’all drink something that I wouldn’t drink myself!  So I made one, and hey – not bad.  Then I realized it had Calvados in it, and that’s not exactly the most common ingredient in the world – I still get overly excited when I see a bar with it.

Thus I had to go with a different one.  It’s from the same book, but had what I liked – a nice clean taste, simple construction (no ambiguities), and best of all, I didn’t have to try to make a lemon twist or something (which I’m not very good at).

It had a nice tart taste to it – I’ll be making it again when we get up to Kentucky Derby time, since it’s named for a private club in Louisville.  I got it from page 102 of Haigh’s _Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails_.

Pendennis Cocktail
2 ounces gin
1 ounce apricot brandy
2 or 3 dashes Peychaud bitters
3/4 ounce lime juice

Shake in an iced shaker and strain into a cocktail glass.

My second place cocktail, with that whole Calvados problem, was this one from pages 38-39 of the same book:
The Golden Dawn
3/4 oz Calvados
3/4 oz dry gin
3/4 oz Cointreau
3/4 oz apricot-flavored brandy
3/4 oz orange juice
Shake and strain.  Drop a stemless cherry into it as a garnish.  Dribble some real grenadine into it (but don’t stir!).  (I can’t wait to try this one with applejack, but I see that even less in bars around the DC area than Calvados.)

Anyways, hope y’all enjoy.

 - SeanMike in the Scofflaw’s Den (East Falls Church outpost)

I was just excited to be in a contest with as esteemed people as this one.  But hey – maybe people will like my suggestions.

The “simple” part of the instructions gets harder and harder as your bar gets better and better, I think – heck, now that I can go to so many bars and say “eh, I’ve got better at home” I keep forgetting things like “oh, most bars don’t have Calvados”.

Anyways – I still have plenty of things I want to make for experimentation purposes – and to post on here!

Given that I fell on ice tonight and broke my laptop, and that it was a hellacious ride home – I had a nice sip of some Glenfiddich 15 year old.

What would you have drank?

tmfiii

pointed out, we did a pilgrimage to Schneider’s today.  I wish I could get out there spending less than three digits.

I actually would’ve today had it not been for one thing: Lucid absinthe.

I have kind of a “hate/hate” relationship with Pernod.  I definitely don’t care for it straight, even watered-down.  In most drinks I don’t really care for it, either, though it’s definitely needed in some.  You can’t make a Sazerac without a pastis, Pernod being the only one I own and what most people seem to use, and I like the drink on a whole.  I even recognize the contribution that the Pernod brings to the drink but I’ll be darned if I want anything more than the bare minimum amount of it in my drink.  Like Campari, it seems to be one of those things that can so easily take over a drink.

So we’re at the store.  I picked up a bottle of the Dekuyper Apricot-flavored brandy.  The current Raiders of the Lost Cocktail competition features apricot flavored brandy and suggests a couple of different kinds: Apry, for instance, Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot, and Giffard Abricot du Rousillon.

Unfortunately, VA ABC and Schneider’s both do not carry any of those, as far as I can tell.  I ended up with a bottle of Jacquins from VA and a bottle of the Dekuyper from Schneider’s.

But I’m not done there.  I came to a determination.  I will – catch this – make my own.  Yes.  I’m going to take some brandy, and some apricots, and see what I can do.

(I hit one catch while at the grocery store: tiny apricots were listed as $4.99.  Not per pound.  Scared, I only bought one, plus a can of dried apricots.  However, it ends up that it was per pound.  On the other hand, I’m not making a whole lot of it, so one should be fine for now.  I don’t know if I’ll risk using any of the dried ones to bring out more flavor.)

But that’s still in the future.  I have other things to think about, too, since the Raiders isn’t due until February 15th and the “Variations” Mixology Monday is coming up on February 11th.

I’m digressing completely here.  So I’m walking around Schneider’s with a bottle of apricot flavored brandy in one hand and a one liter bottle of Grand Marnier in the other (a birthday present).  Marshall gets all hot and bothered when he sees Lucid.  Seriously.  Between you and me, he was shrieking like a cheerleader and bouncing up and down flapping his hands yelling “oh my god oh my god oh my god!!!!”

(Note: that did not actually happen except in my head.  However, it was quite the entertaining mental vision.)

You see, I know jack about absinthe, as I’ve mentioned before.  I know I have Pernod, and I know I don’t like it that much.  So spending $64 on a bottle of Lucid just wasn’t doing it for me.  But Marshall was all excited about it, and they only had four bottles of it in.  The rest of the city had been sold out so far thanks to the restaurants buying it all up when it first came to town.

And if I am one thing, it’s a fairly obsessive collector type.  That was fine when it was (say) roleplaying games, but with a bar, well, it’s expensive.

I’m also the kind of guy who buys things so that he has it and others don’t.  I guess the official word for that is some sort of obscenity.  Oh well.

So we’re standing there, talking, and I just don’t see why he’s so excited.  I see Absente and I go “Ooooo!” because I had it in my head that it was like Pernod, but better.

It may be, but it was the same price as in Virginia, when you can find it, and I don’t need another bottle of pastis.  I still had no idea, really.

We’re getting ready to go and I say, you know what, screw it, if Marshall is so excited about the Lucid, and it’s so great and everyone loves it so much that everyone buys it all, heck, I’m going to get me a bottle of it.  What else am I going to use that money on?  Charity?  New cargo pants?  Cat food?  I think not.

So I buy it.  Half my bill for the day there was that single bottle.

On the way home Marshall explained to me how Lucid is actually absinthe, and not a pastis like Pernod.  He talks about the guy who made it, and stuff like that.  He explains how it’ll taste different than Pernod.  He goes on and on about things like that because, well, he’s Marshall, he’s the guy who knows all that stuff.

I mean, I know a lot of stuff, but he’s the one that remembers the details.  Maybe it’s the whole lawyer thing or whatever.  Whatever.

So now I’m home and the green cat eyes of the Lucid bottle are staring at me.  I want to put it next to one of my cats for a picture but they’re mad at me, so that might not be the safest thing to do with a relatively expensive bottle of liquor.

What I definitely will do is, at some point here soon, make myself a Sazerac.  I’ve just got to decide which rye to use for it: the Red Hook or the Russell’s Reserve.

Maybe I’ll end up making two.