I was unable to do August’s MxMo, thanks to my trip to South Korea.? Thanks to Tales, we didn’t have one in July.? So the theme for this week, thanks to our hosts at eGullet, is “Dizzy Dairy”.? This means anything dairy, or it seems, egg whites.

I’ve had a lot of debates over what to make for this one.? I also did a lot of searching for heavy cream in case I wanted to do that.? I had bad luck in that regard – I first went to Harris Teeter near me and they were out.? So I got home from work and went to the mini-mart in my building, but they did have Guinness (which I may be using).? Nothing.? Walked up to Courthouse Plaza and tried the convenience store there – didn’t see any, but they had that Bud Light Golden Wheat which I had wanted to try.? From there I went to CVS, but they had none of those things, so I went back to the convenience store, actually found a carton of cream I’d missed (whew!), bought the Bud Light, then went back to my mini-mart for a four pack of Guinness pub cans.

Now let’s see if I use ‘em – because as of the time I’m writing this, I still haven’t made a drink!

Let’s look at some ingredients first.

My first instinct had been to use Castries, a rum-based peanut cream liqueur.? I love this stuff.? LOVE IT IN THE FACE.? It is delicious.? Actually, I typically drink it straight.? Hmmmm.

Then it occurred to me (thanks to a fortuitously timed e-mail) that I also had a bottle of the limited edition Kahlua coffee cream liqueur in my fridge.? As you know, a White Russian is equal parts Kahlua, vodka, and cream, so the easy (and perhaps lazy) thing to do would be a version of that – say, adding vanilla vodka to a measure of Kahlua coffee cream liqueur – but I wanted to do something different.

Thus the Guinness.

Depending on who I end up going out drinking with there’s a good chance I end up with a car bomb at some point – usually made where we go with Bailey’s and Irish whiskey.? That gave me an idea, though using the Kahlua coffee cream meant I should use something like a Spanish brandy, I thought.? Alas, I didn’t have any, so I went with some Armagnac XO.

I'm glad someone reminded me that I had this!

I fiddled around a bit and came up with a drink that’s delicious whether or not you use the beer.? I thought about naming it something related to the car bomb but thought some people might not appreciate it so much – whatever, I know, but hey, let’s think up a different name.

Uhhhh…I hate thinking up drink names!

Anyways, here it is:

The Cross Hemispheres
1 1/2 ounces armagnac (XO if you have it – I used Castarede)
1 ounce Kahlua coffee cream
1-2 dashes Fee’s Aztec chocolate bitters
Add ingredients to a mixing tin with ice and shake.? Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.? Alternatively, strain into a chilled pint glass and top with Guinness.? Let the Guinness settle, give a light stir, and drink.? If you add the beer, call it a Cross Hemisphere Fizz.

nom nom nom

But you know what the problem is – here at the Den, we like to give you two drinks for your Mixology Monday fun!? I’ve come up with a brand new drink (I think) so this time I thought I’d take a look through my copy of The Joy of Mixology (as much because it happens to be sitting right next to me) to see if there’s a drink I’d like to make in there involving dairy.

Unfortunately, I failed to be inspired.

Then I remembered that I’d come up with some drinks for the Thursday Drink Night we did with Kahlua coffee cream.? It was during the Steelers-Titans football game and, unfortunately, the last game that the Steelers won, so my two drinks named after various Steelers players I decided to skip – especially as my last drink is a bit fuzzy in my memory.

But the first one had some potential, so it was time to tweak, rename, and try it again.? Originally it actually used two cream liqueurs – Castries and Kahlua.? I kept that, but tweaked the proportions on those and the bourbon, added a garnish, and renamed it.

Tastes great and wakes you up! Oops…

That TDN was really the first one I’d done since – well, longer than I could remember, thanks to Tales and Korea.? My first drink, therefore, was called “I’M BACK” and, well, I don’t think that is such a great name.? Therefore we have a new name for it along with the before-mentioned tweaks.

The Bloodhound
1 1/2 ounces bourbon (Willett Pot Still)
1 1/2 ounce Kahlua coffee cream liqueur
1/2 ounce Castries
2 dashes Fee’s Aztec chocolate bitters
Shake with ice, double strain into a chilled cocktail glass half-rimmed with ground espresso.? If desired, sprinkle some additional ground espresso on top.

Man, this drink came out good!? It’s waking me up a bit, not necessarily a good thing right now, but it’s darn delicious.

If you notice, I had the same bitters in both.? There’s two reasons for that.? One, I haven’t got the Bittermens mole bitters yet, so I can’t compare and contrast.? More importantly, however, is that the combination of flavors I feel like works really well with the Kahlua coffee cream liqueur.

I think that’s about all for tonight.? I want to thank the eGullet folks for hosting, and I should also thank Kahlua for providing me with the sample bottle of Kahlua cream liqueur.? (I should note, too, that this bottle of Castries was also a sample, but lord knows I’ve bought enough bottles of it already…)

While most of the cocktail bloggers seemed to be having a joyous ole time down in N’awlins for Tales of the Cocktail (note: I haven’t actually read any of the blog posts, so maybe everybody came down with salmonella or something, not that I’d actually hope that’d happen but if something did happen and I’m sounding like an incredible jerkwad, well, uh, I’ve been fairly incommunicado all week) I got stuck with my usual July assignment – going to E3 on behest of the other site I write for, GamersInfo.net.

If you want my thoughts on the 28+ games I saw at E3, check out that site. If you want my thoughts on Irish Coffee, a bitters-less Manhattan, and other travesties of the LA bar scene, I’ll post on that later.

And then there’s the theme for this month: New Orleans. Or N’awlins, as I am wont to put it all the time whenever I’m writing out the name. I blame my psuedo-Southern heritage.

But what to make? The easy choice is the obvious one – the Sazerac. I do love me a Sazerac. But I didn’t want to do one of those, and though I briefly toyed with the idea of making my own version of the Hand Grenade I didn’t get around to doing any of those until too late, so I whipped out what I got, in other words, a couple of books, and decided to try a couple of cocktails that I hadn’t had before.

Because, you know, this is the Scofflaw’s Den, and even if I’m having to hand key in the HTML (and teach Marshall a bit about HTML) until we figure out why WordPress’s visual editor isn’t working, we’re still going to be doing multiple cocktails for MxMo ’cause that’s the way we roll.

First I went to one of the tried-and-true boosk – Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. There I read about the Vieux Carre’ (no, I can’t do the accent in HTML right yet), named after N’awlins’ famous French Quarter (i.e. “The Old Square”) and according to Dr. Cocktail, invented by Walter Bergeron in the soon-to-be (at the time) Carousel bar in the Monteleone Hotel. The drink reminded me a lot of the Cocktail a la Louisiane, for more than one reason.

Vieux Carre’ Cocktail
1 ounce rye whiskey (Wild Turkey Russell Reserve)
1 ounce cognac (Hennessy VS)
1 ounce sweet vermouth (Noilly Prat)
1/2 teaspoon Benedictine
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Shake and strain into a rocks glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon.

This reminded me of the previously-mentioned cocktail for a couple of reasons. For one thing, look at the list of ingredients – take out the absinthe, add in cognac, and you’ve got this one. That also goes for the second thing, which is that it tastes very similar, but to me the sweet vermouth really cut through everything else. That might be my choice of vermouth, but as I gave my Cinzano to my mom (awwww!) and I didn’t think to try the Vya, and I know that the Carpano might be even stronger, that’s what I’ve got right now.

All that being said, it wasn’t a bad drink, but I’d probably go with the Louisiane when going with this style cocktail.

At this point in the evening, I was sans eggs, necessary for the next cocktail. I took my Vieux Carre’ cocktail outside with me for the first cigar I’ve had since E3, where I proceeded to read my copy of Future Washington from cover to cover while smoking a La Gloria Cubana Serie R and later a Cavalier Cigar while sipping Miller Lite after finishing the cocktail. I am, after all, on a diet. Supposedly.

My brother finally got home with the eggs (along with a steam cleaner and other things, thanks to – well, I’ll talk about that later) and so it was time for my next drink: the Coffee Cocktail.

Coffee Cocktail
Take 1 tea-spoonful powdered white sugar
1 fresh egg
1 large wine-glass [2 oz.] of port wine
1 pony [1 oz.] of brandy
2 or 3 lumps of ice
Break the egg in the glass, add the sugar, then the port, brandy, and ice. Shake thoroughly and strain into a glass. Grate a little nutmeg on top.

I initially chilled a cocktail glass for this and realized belatedly it was too small, so it was another Jack Daniels rocks glass for me.

This was definitely an interesting cocktail. I used a Horton Vineyards 2000 vintage port – one of my favorite vintage ports, especially for the price. You could quite tell the taste of the port over the armagnac that I ended up using and the rest, but it was still a tasty beverage.

If you couldn’t tell from the formatting of the ingredients, despite the fact that it’s on the next page of Vintage Cocktails and Forgotten Spirits from the Vieux Carre’ cocktail I had no idea about the N’awlins connection of this cocktail until I saw it in David Wondrich’s Imbibe!, with proper credit to Jerry Thomas, and David mentions that according to rumor it came from N’awlins. I can definitely see it.

Unlike Dr. Cocktail’s recipe, I used the whole egg in this recipe, and it was definitely lush and luxurious. Very tasty, but definitely perhaps maybe more appropriate as a digestif than a “post-dinner, post-cigars, post-beer” drink. It did lead very nicely into the brie, dry salami, and baguette that Matt brought home with the steam cleaner.

But that’ll do it for this month’s Mixology Monday. It was definitely good to try some random cocktails that I might not have had an impetus to try without this theme, so I’ve gotta give the shout out to Paul at Cocktail Chronicles for hosting this month. Tomorrow, once I’m safely back on the taxpayer’s dime, I’ll have to catch up on what I missed at Tales last week, and think fondly of next year when I’ll definitely be there!

One they mention in the article is ginger, lemonade, and cognac.

I’ve made more than a few cognac cocktails, though I often use armagnac instead.

What do you think would be a good one for ‘em?

(Yes, I have

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and my orange liqueur tasting notes here at work with me – I’ll get to them, I promise!  I’ve just had, you know, actual work to do!)

Cherry Smash
by Julie Reiner via Imbibe! by David Wondrich

1 1/2 ounces Courvosier VS cognac (I used the Castarede XO armagnac)
3/4 ounce orange curacao (Cointreau)
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce cherry heering
Muddle four brandy soaked cherries in the bottom of a mixing glass.  Add the other ingredients and shake.  Strain into a cocktail glass and add two more cherries.

He liked it a lot; the big thing was that it was a bit strong in normal for what he usually drinks (as a note: he showed up drinking Jameson’s in a glass filled with ice – so it’s not a completely weenie drink that he’s looking for).

I didn’t try it, because he was sick, but I’m thinking of making one for myself.

I made myself a Rochester Cocktail, from Robert “Drinkboy” Hess in Imbibe!.

Rochester Cocktail
2 ounces rye whiskey  (I polished my old bottle of Sazerac rye.)
1 ounce Dubonnet (rouge, I assumed)
1/2 ounce Licor 43 (Cuarenta y Tres)
1/4 ounce absinthe (Pernod)
Stir, up, garnish with a lemon twist

I still suck at doing lemon twists but goshdarnit, I’m sure I can figure it out at some point.  Still, this was a good lush drink.

After he finished his cherry smash, I made my neighbor a Winter’s Touch:

Winter’s Touch
2 ounces bourbon (Maker’s Mark)
3/4 ounce vanilla vodka (Absolut Vanil)
1/2 ounce rich simple syrup (I put in 3/4 oz.)
2 dashes mint bitters
Shake, strain into a cocktail glass

I figured it’d be too much for him but he liked it – it was just strong.

But that led to me wondering: for someone not used to cocktails the way WE like cocktails, how do you inch them into cocktails that may be a lot stronger than what they’re used to?  I know I’ve made ones for other neighbors and my brother that they’ve liked – but they always comment on how strong they are.

Any thoughts?

However, they are out of the 6 year old until some time next week, probably Thursday.

I hit the store today to stock up on a few things: DeKuyper Kirschwasser (to see if it’s better than the kind

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got), another bottle of that same armagnac I already had, a replacement bottle of Redbreast Irish whiskey, two bottles of Schnoeur (I think that’s how it’s spelled) apple schnapps (one for me, one for a neighbor), and a bottle of Wild Turkey Russell’s Reserve 6 year old rye.  I wanted an “in-between” bottle between the Sazerac and the Red Hook, but didn’t really want to spend $80-100 despite the discount the whiskey guy at Schneider’s offered me.

I also looked for Clear Creek Apple Brandy (none, unfortunately), apricot brandy (they only had the DeKuyper, same as Virginia), and anything else random that looked good.  I think I spent enough as it, though I also did get a new kind of ginger beer, too…Stewart’s, rather spicy.

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.

But that’ll come later.  It’s Mixology Monday time!

Brandy, brandy, brandy.  Brandy really wasn’t a spirit I thought much about until just recently when I’ve started becoming enraptured of its possibilities.  It’s such a wide variety of stuff, too: from just “brandy” to cognac and armagnac to Calvados to applejack to pisco.  I’d hoped to get some brandy de jerez – my parents had some when I was down in Richmond for Thanksgiving and I found it very pleasant – but I haven’t been able to find any in VA ABC stores in my area.

Oh well.

The first thing I needed to do was look over my brandy selection.

From left to right: E&J VSOP brandy, Captain Apple Jack, Laird’s Applejack, Arrow Coffee Flavored Brandy, Hennessy XO, Macchu Pisco, Clear Creek Apple Brandy, Castarede XO armagnac, Busnel Calvados, Remy Martin VSOP cognac.

The coffee flavored brandy is kind of funny.  I read an article about it that was also discussing alcoholism in Maine.  A common drink is, apparently, coffee flavored brandy plus milk.  One wag interviewed in a bar called the drink “fat ass in a glass”, referring to the weight that women (the more common of the drinkers of that particular concoction) put on when drinking too much of it.  Said interviewee, if I remember correctly, had a drink dumped on him by a woman drinking one of those.

The Clear Creek apple brandy is good stuff.  I got it from Schneider’s on Capitol Hill, where you can’t buy individual minis so I had to buy a bunch of them.  I really need to get a full sized bottle of it.

I’ve also been wanting to get a different kind of calvados for comparison purposes and buy a second bottle of that armagnac.  You can see a bit of the flowery cap on it; when I bought it, unfortunately, the cork was gray and disgusting, and had actually separated from the cap itself.  The armagnac appeared (and tastes) fine, so I just used one of my future sister-in-law’s wine stoppers.

So I had lots of choices.  I thumbed through some books – Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails had a few I found interesting, but I decided to stick with a recipe or two (actually three) from The Joy of Mixology.  To make it up to Dr. Cocktail, two of the drinks I picked out were by him, and the third was by David Wondrich, author of Imbibe!.

First, though, I’d cleared out my fridge of my old fruit juice and so went back to laboriously squeezing a bunch of lemons and limes for fresh juice.  This isn’t the most fun task in the world, and coupling it with my broken thumb on my dominant hand meant I was literally the embodiment of masculinity and virility while doing it.

Damn, I really gotta get the doctor to sign off on letting me work out.

If you’re curious, the beer next to me is Dogfish Head Shelter Pale Ale, and the shirt is one that Lusk got me from Miche Tavern down in Charlottesville – which I, incidentally, never visited in my ten years in C’ville and however many gazillion trips up the mountain right past it.

Alrighty then – what’s first up?  Why, it’s a CEO Cocktail, which Gary Regan adapted from Ted Haigh (aka Dr. Cocktail).

CEO Cocktail
2 ounces brandy
1/2 ounce Chambord or creme de cassis
1 ounce Lillet Blonde
2 dashes orange bitters
1 lemon twist, for garnish

I went with the E&J – which I’d originally primarily bought for the purposes of marinating cherries – as well as creme de cassis, since while we do have Chambord, it is literally the only bottle in the house I didn’t buy.  Also, I have a rule: if making a recipe from Gary Regan, you use Gary Regan’s bitters if possible.

Marshall caught me mixing:

EXCITING!

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

Because, you know, Dr. Cocktail shakes ALL his drinks.

I’m focused.  Also – I need to work on that chin.  Yikes.  And my gut.  DAMMIT.

I tried to do the twist myself but with the brace and a right-handed channel knife it just made a mess.

It ended up being just “ok” but at first the creme de cassis was just  too much.  Perhaps Chambord wouldn’t be so overpowering, or I needed a stronger brandy.

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sez:  I remember that the first one tasted “off” because of the prevelance of the cassis.

While I sat back to enjoy my cocktail, Marshall got to work on his East India cocktail.  Of course, he’ll post about that one, and he has my notes on it.

Next was the cocktail by David Wondrich: the Gotham Cocktail, which according to Regan he created in 2001 for the debut issue of Gotham magazine.  I’ve never read it – but, then again, I’ve only been to NYC once.  This one seemed similar to the CEO and so I was interested in how they’d compare.

Gotham Cocktail
2 ounces cognac
1 ounce Noilly Prat dry vermouth
1/2 ounce creme de cassis
2 dashes fresh lemon juice
1 lemon twist, for garnish

STIR vigorously with cracked ice.  STRAIN into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the lemon twist.

I tried to crack some ice, really I did!

I think I have really hard water.

Get it?

Hard water?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Okay, okay, maybe Marshall was right and I shouldn’t have bothered with that joke.  BUT I DO NOT CARE!  PUNS == FUNS!

Anyways, back to the drink:

I let Marshall do the twist.

I really liked this one; compared to the previous drink i was incredibly balanced.  I do wonder about trying it with different ingredients.  For instance, using the armagnac instead of cognac.  Whenever I read any recipe that specifies a brand while making it I also wonder what other brands they prefer.  Obviously,  this one calls specifically for Noilly Prat dry vermouth, which is the only kind I own (I don’t count the Lillet obviously).  But what kind of cognac?  What about creme de cassis?  I have a feeling I’m using pretty cheap cassis, so I wonder how a better bottle of it would change the drink – would the cassis become more or less pronounced?  What if I used Chambord?  Maybe this is a better discussion for another MxMo…

tmfiii

sez: The second was sweeter and the cassis highlighted the other flavors without overpowering them.

I promised y’all three, and I still owe y’all one more from Dr. Cocktail over the residual guilt from not using any from his book (and also from realizing I didn’t tag it with his name specifically in my

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blog on it).  If you haven’t figured it out by now, I go around with a lot of guilt usually.

Haymaker Special
2 ounces calvados
1/2 ounce Dubonnet Rouge
1/2 ounce triple sec
1/2 ounce grapefruit juice
1 lime spiral, for garnish

I decided on this one for a number of reasons: I like calvados a lot, it seems.  I’ve wanted to make more drinks with Dubonnet in it.  Also, I’ve had that grapefruit juice for a while and wanted to use it.

Works for me, eh?

Again, Marshall made the spiral lime thingie.

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

I also really enjoyed this one a lot, too.  Again, it was very balanced, though you could still taste the calvados past everything else.  This is the kind of drink that now that I’m writing this I’m thinking “Why am I not drinking another one right now?“

And the answer to that, ladies and gentlemen, is easy: laziness.

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sez:  I’m not even sure I tasted that one.

runoknows

sez:  yeah ’cause we talked about the taste of calvados in it

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sez:  well then . . .

tmfiii

sez:  still don’t remember

So much for that experiment!

It was an interesting experience through three different forms of brandy.  If I get myself really worked up tonight (therefore: doubtful) maybe I’ll make myself a “fat ass in a glass” and report back on it.  Don’t know how good it’d be on top of that beer I’m drinking right now, though…

I actually already put my stuff away, so no pictures from my haul, which included:

Noilly Pratt Sweet Vermouth
Liter of Maker’s Mark
Rittenhouse Rye (80 proof)
Rittenhouse Rye Bottled in Bond (100 proof)
Massenez Creme de Cassis
Junipero Gin
Castarede XO Armagnac

I also picked up some Stirrings Tonic, a bottle of Fentimaan ginger beer and Curiosity Cola.  Some Lyles Golden Syrup (to play with as a simple syrup substitute,) demerrara sugar cubes, nutgeg, star anise and vanilla beans.  Gotta start making syrups tomorrow!!!

Oh and I tried the Curiosity Cola with lunch . . . damn!  Best soda I’ve had.  But I’m not a big soda drinker (at least straight) so maybe my palette isn’t the best for it, but to me, damn tasty!!!

What’s on tap:  I think tomorrow I’m going to do an inventory of my bar.  I know Sean did one a few posts back, but I think I’s my turn.  I’ll take some pretty pictures for you folks too.  Plus, syrups . . . well probably just one, a vanilla-cardamom syrup. 

Cheers!

That’s a bottle of Punt e Mes, partly thanks to a WaPo article the other day, Schonauer apple schnapps, which is supposedly better than the other kind I usually get, some Heering cherry liqueur, and a bottle of Castarede XO armagnac that was on sale.  I also picked up a backup bottle of Laird’s Applejack.

We also hit World Market where I got some whole nutmeg plus some mixer:

That’s two kinds of ginger beer – Bundaberg and Fentimaan, plus Fentimaan “Curiosity Cola” and Stirrings tonic water.

tmfiii is probably coming over this way in a bit; we’ll get a chance to try some of this stuff out!