Ragtime!

Before I even moved up to the northern Virginia area, I knew Ragtime – it was the bar we always seemed to end up at in Courthouse around 1 AM, just before last call, with a “surprise” tray of shots and a hangover the next day. Indeed, that reputation stuck with me for a while after moving to NoVA, mostly courteous of one friend who was always giving his number to the servers.

When I moved into Courthouse, though, I discovered that it’s actually a fantastic bar – not just because it’s a WVU Mountaineers bar (which made my parents happy when we went there just after my move) but because of a great staff and a constantly improving beer selection. I’ve been there hundreds of times (according to Foursquare, nearly 400 times) and probably had just about everything on the menu.

The one thing I never really drank, though, were the mixed drinks, with just two exceptions. One was when they did a martini night, and I could get a nice big glass of cold gin with extra vermouth for cheap. The other was the infamous (to us) pomegranate martini, which despite being called a martini was based off tequila. We (we being the guys) would go to Ragtime claiming girlfriends/wives wanted the pomegranate martini, but really we’d end up drinking lots of them. They were kind of addictive.

The latest restaurant by the same owners had a more focused cocktail program and Ragtime went through a time of doing flavored liquors, but still I was surprised recently when they announced their new cocktail program, focusing on classic drinks and fresh ingredients, including squeezed to order juices and housemade syrups such as orgeat. I, of course, needed to check this out as soon as I could, on a night when I wasn’t doing something stupid like drinking two or three pitchers of Blue Point Toasted Lager.

Death in the Afternoon

Fortunately, I got my chance last night finally when I was meeting a friend there (like I’m going to drink all nine cocktails in one night!).

The first thing that really surprised me was the cost of the drinks. The most expensive drink on the menu was $10, and most were $7-$8. In this town that’s a steal! But still, I’d have to try them first. Just to note: I wasn’t sitting at the actual bar, but at a high top near it. I could see the bartenders making my drinks, but I did not notice brands being used.

Death in the Afternoon – $8 – absinthe, lemon, simple syrup, champagne. I’ve had these before and never been a huge fan, but this one hit me just right – the absinthe taste was prominent, and I’m not a fan of absinthe for the most part, but the combination worked out really well. It was served in a traditional champagne coupe (see right) and was exactly the drink I needed to start off the night.

Vieux Carre

Vieux Carre – $10 (only $10 drink on the menu) – rye, cognac, Dolin Rouge, green Chartreuse, Angostura, Peychauds, lemon. First off, I was glad to see Dolin listed! That’s my favorite vermouth. As you can see in the picture, it’s served over one large ice cube and felt like a substantial drink (I did not measure, so that’s why I said “felt like”). I sipped off the top first and wasn’t impressed but liked it more as I drank out of the straw. For me, personally, it could’ve used a bit more bitters in it, but I also know the environment they’re working in – a super-bitter drink probably ain’t gonna work in a sports bar. (Really, the fact that they’re doing this menu at all is amazing and exciting to me, and makes me even more excited about football season!)

Unfortunately, they were out of mint, so the?mint julep and the?Queen’s Park Swizzle weren’t available (the latter being my next choice). So let’s stick with Hemingway!

Hemingway Daiquiri and Pimm’s Cup No. 1

Hemingway Daiquiri – $8 – white rum, maraschino, grapefruit, lime, simple syrup. This came out well-balanced as well, with a solid taste of maraschino in the back end that I thought brought the whole thing together nicely. My companion didn’t agree, as she felt it tasted more alcohol-y, but I’ve grown an appreciation for the taste of maraschino recently. It’s very easy for maraschino to overwhelm a drink so someone newer to those flavors might be hesitant at the flavor but I think after a drink or two they would really enjoy it.

My friend got a Pimm’s Cup.

Pimm’s Cup No. 1 – $7 – Pimms, rosemary syrup, lemon, ginger beer, garden garnish. Yes, technically the “Pimm’s Cup No. 1″ is the name of the liqueur in the drink, as Pimm’s makes a few varieties (which you really can’t get any but #1 in the US). I’ve never had one with rosemary syrup in it and at first was hesitant, but I grew to like it – it gave it a dry herbaciousness (is that a word?) which I think would make it more easily drinkable in quantity on a hot summer day than a sweeter version may be, though it still had a sweetness to it.

…and with that, I switched back to Toasted Lager, because I didn’t really need more liquor.

Tomorrow (Friday, May 30th) at 7 PM in the back bar they’ll be releasing some barrel-aged cocktails: Basil Hayden Manhattans and Makers 46 Sazeracs. I’m going to try to swing by because I’d like to see how they come out, so say hi if you see me!

– ?SeanMike

Yes, I came up with a drink that when I made it tonight I thought “this had none of the original ingredients I thought to associate with Marshall but I think it works!”? Helped by the lovely and talented Ms. Sergi, we even came up with how to vary it up a bit.

So enough jibba jabba, let’s see the drink.

Another fuzzy pic, another lazy photographer moment

The TMF-aye-aye-aye
1 1/2 ounce cognac (Chalfonte VSOP)
1 1/2 ounce amer picon (Boudreau recipe, made by me)
2 dashes Marshall’s Moonshine Bitters
San Pellegrino Aranciata
Stir the first three ingredients over ice.? Strain into a double old fashioned glass and top with the Aranciata.

The amount of aranciata will determine the drink.? If you use the whole 6.75 bottle you get a nice, light drink, great for hot summer nights.? Use less – like half the bottle, for instance, and you get a stronger drink, with a stronger bitter component and something more of a sipper.

[Fifteenth in a series of drinks named after bloggers, mixologists, and random others who'll hopefully be at Tales.? The first post in the series is here.]

Tonight, as is usual on Thursdays, is Thursday Drink Night over in the Mixoloseum chat room.? The theme is “muddled drinks” and the other day I had an inspiration.? Like last night, it’s a chance to kill two birds with one stone, as the saying has it – this time, to present a new drink for TDN as well as to make one to honor somebody locally, Mr. Derek Brown.

The drink basically jumped almost fully formed into my head.? I just made one, after posting it in the chat room, and people seem to like it!? Kaiser Penguin was even kind enough to take a picture of it and let me use it:

Pretty, ain’t it?

The Derek
3-4 leaves of mint
1/2 ounce Domaine de Canton
3 ounces Dolin Blanc
1 dash orange bitters (Regans #6)
Lightly muddle the mint and Domaine de Canton in an old-fashioned glass.? Add the vermouth, bitters, and ice.? Stir gently to mix.? Garnish with a fresh sprig of mint.

In my opinion, this is a nice, sweet, light drink.? I think it’d make a wonderful digestif or apertif.? Someone else who made one (Chris aka DJ HawaiianShirt) said that it worked well with a “past its prime bottom shelf bottle of French vermouth”, so you have that, too.? Others who thought it was too sweet (such as JohnTheBastard) I suggested additional bitters, though he went with a bit of tonic syrup and something else (I believe club soda).

Enjoy!

[Fourth in a series of drinks named after bloggers, mixologists, and random others who'll hopefully be at Tales.? The first post in the series is here.]

Cognac, I feel, is often a misunderstood liquor.? People have an impression of it that it’s only for the rich, while that’s not true; on the other hand, when introducing people to the subtypes of brandy that are available, or even for other drinks, cognac is often easily used as an example because people are familiar with it.? All cognacs are brandy; not all brandies are cognac, it depends on where they come from.? (There are other requirements, too, but that’s the big one, at least, in my humble opinion.)

And where cognacs come from is the French area known as, well – Cognac.

I won’t get into Wikipedia-esque detail on VS versus VSOP versus XO, or the other different types.? The important thing to remember when using cognac in drinks, in my opinion, is to remember that while cognacs vary, you can use a cognac to replace a brandy but not vice versa.? Cognacs, in my experience, tend to be richer, and often sweeter – in my opinion – than other brandies from similar areas.? Armagnacs might be able to replace a cognac, but really, if a drink is so specific to request a cognac you should use it.

Not that many do.? You might see a “special” version of a drink using cognac that has it instead of brandy, but only a rare few use cognac as an ingredient, and there’s one in particular that I know catches more than a few eyes.

I know this because on the last, admittedly hazily remembered, night at Hummingbird to Mars I was offered one – and the bartender (I want to say it was Owen) I seem to remember was surprised that I knew what it was (and drank it anyways). ? If you’ve got the Regan’s The Joy of Mixology you might already know where I’m going…

Tremblement De Terre (Earthquake)
2 1/2 ounces cognac
1/4 ounce absinthe
1 lemon twist, garnish
Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.? Add the garnish.

Now, I’ve had that drink, and it’s a killer.? Not bad whatsoever, in my opinion, but oof!

My favorite cognac right now is Chalfonte VSOP.? I just got word that it’s back at my favorite liquor store, Ace in DC, and that makes me very happy.? It’s not expensive but it’s quote luscious in its taste.? My goal is to make sure I have a bottle of two to enjoy in the snow, around a big bonfire, with family and friends next winter.? It was that goal last winter but never happened.

Still, I need a drink for a blogger or mixologist for tonight, and I thought of that drink and Stevi’s blog name.? Hmmm.? It seems to insinuate that you can only have two of her drinks in a night, and what’s a good drink to base that off of, in addition to her love of Peruvian horses, I thought – oh.? I know.

Two At The Most
1 1/2 ounces cognac (Chalfonte VSOP)
1 ounce pisco brandy (Macchu Pisco)
1/4 ounce + 1 dash absinthe (Kubler)
1/4 ounce simple syrup
1-2 dashes Peruvian bitters
Stir and strain into a cocktail glass.? Garnish with a brandy soaked cherry, which sinks to the bottom, and a lemon twist.

Yummy!? But that’s quite a bit of booze there, so be warned – you won’t want to have more than two at the most!

[Third in a series of drinks named after bloggers, mixologists, and random others who'll hopefully be at Tales.? The first post in the series is here.]

For this year’s party, I decided to print up a cocktail menu.? The reasons were simple.? First, I didn’t want to end up making forty-five different drinks or deal with the inevitable “Make me something fruity.”? Number B, I didn’t want drunk people rummaging around my hooch.? (Wow, that sounds kind of scandalous and dirty.)? Finally, I wanted to have a little something for everyone in addition to wine, beer and non-alcoholic drinks.

Here is what the menu looked like:

Once opened, guests were treated to six possible drinks, the non-alcoholic options mentioned above and, for the brave, a traditional absinthe drip.? (Or as traditional as I can get without having the huge water faucet drippy thing.)? Below are the drinks, their descriptions as printed on the menu, and the recipe.

Devil’s Daughter
Sugar and spice and everything nice with a heart as black as the night.
Vodka, Lemon, Lime, Egg White

This cocktail is actually a riff on Eben Freeman’s Bazooka Bubblegum Cocktail served at Tailor.? You can find the original recipe here. I followed Eben’s recipe to the letter, except I replaced the regular vodka with Blavod.? The resulting cocktail was dark violet in color but tasted just like bubblegum.? It was a hit with everyone who tried it.

Corpse Reviver #2
The dead will rise over this little refresher.
Gin, Cointreau, Lillet, Lemon, Absinthe

This was the basic Corpse Reviver #2 recipe.
Corpse Reviver #2
1oz Gin
1oz Cointreau
1oz Lillet Blanc
1oz fresh lemon juice
2-3 drops of absinthe

Shake everything with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.? Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Murderous Manhattan
Reportedly the very recipe drunk by David Berkowitz after each kill.
Bourbon or Rye, Vermouth, Maraschino, Bitters

The twist on this Manhattan was that I used Bianco vermouth and added a barspoon of maraschino to the mix.? I also used some cherry bitters and aromatic bitters.? Here’s the recipe:

2oz Bourbon or Rye
1oz Bianco Vermouth
1 barspoon maraschino liqueur
dash of cherry bitters and aromatic bitters

Stir over ice, strain and garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Ignis Fatuus
The hellish flames found in the dark deadly swamps.
Chardonnay, Cognac, Pumpkin, Cider

This is another borrowed recipe.? This time from that crazy Canadian media hound Jamie Boudreau.? His original recipe is here.? This is another cocktail that went over really well.? A few months ago, our friend Roy tasked me with finding a cocktail using pumpkin.? His wife Danielle loves pumpkin and he wanted something that he could make for her.? At the time, he wanted me to use this “Pumpkin Spice Liqueur” that will remain nameless.? But you know what I’m talking about.? Yes, you do.? Well, I toyed around with playing with an actual pumpkin and doing an infusion of some sort, but then Jamie came along with this little number.? I’m still planning on doing a pumpkin infusion this fall/winter (keep your eyes peeled!) but Jamie’s creation was spot on.? Great drink.? Go to his site and see how it’s done.? You won’t be sorry.

Charon’s Dingy
Only the most damned have to cross the River Styx in this leaky vessel.
Brandy, Amaro, Lemon, Cinnamon, Honey, Bitters

This was actually a renaming of a drink I created during Thursday Drink Night at the Mixoloseum.? I based the drink off a standard Sidecar recipe – with a few tweaks of course.? First, I substituted the Cointreau with Ramazzotti Amaro.? Then, to compensate for the lack of sweetness, I added cinnamon and honey syrups.? I also guilded the lilly with whiskey barrel bitters and a flamed lemon peel.? I called the drink “A Sidecar to Milan” to highlight the origin of the Ramazzotti.? For the Halloween party, I simply renamed the drink.? Charon ferried the dead across the river Styx and I thought what would the the sidecar equivalent to a ferry?? A dingy!? So you’ve got Charon’s Dingy.? Here is the recipe (and the original name):

Sidecar to Milan
1.5oz Brandy
1oz Ramazzotti Amaro
.75oz fresh lemon juice
.50oz cinnamon syrup
.50oz honey syrup (or can substitute rich simple syrup, but may need to adjust proportions)
2 dashes whiskey barrel bitters

Shake everything with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.? Garnish with a flamed lemon peel.? After flamed, rub peel around edge of glass and drop in.

Luckily, one of my guests, Victor, brought along his video recorder and through the magic of the interwebs you can see the flamed lemon peel.? And before any of you say it, I was using plastic cups for the cocktails.? I don’t have enough nice glassware for everybody and plastic is a lot easier to get rid of.

Halloween 2008 from Marshall on Vimeo.

Kill-Devil Punch
A misnomer: The Devil will kill YOU over this punch.
Rum, LIme, Pineapple, Bubbly

I found this recipe at Epicurious and it turns out to have been supplied by Phil Ward of Death & Co.? Everyone seemed to really like this punch and by the end of the night I had gone through an entire bottle of prosecco.? The recipe makes enough for six drinks.

Kill-Devil Punch
9oz Rum
6oz Pineapple Juice
5oz Simple Syrup
4oz Fresh Lime Juice
5oz Champagne/Cava/Prosecco

Combine everything except the bubbly in a container and chill in the fridge for a few hours.? Pour over ice and top with the champagne/cava/prosecco.? Garnish with lime wheels, frozen raspberries, blackberries or other fruit.? Or garnish as I did, with a stick of sugar cane.? One note regarding the recipe, depending on how sweet/dry your bubbly is, you will probably want to adjust the amount of simple syrup.? For a dry champagne, leave at 5oz.? If using a sweeter sparkling wine, you may want to use less.

There you have it.? My Halloween 2008 cocktail menu.? Give these drinks a try and feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think.

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

tmfiii

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!)

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!)

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?

tmfiii

.

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.

tmfiii

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

runoknows

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.

tmfiii

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

runoknows

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

tmfiii

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…