I’ll leave the political comments off of the blog, but I will say one thing: the next day is the election, so you can go to the Passenger, booze it up, go to work late the next day and tell your boss “I was voting”. I can’t do that, because I voted early, but if you also vote early, you’ll have the sticker to prove it!

I’m just saying.

(And a special hint: both Brown brothers are supposed to be behind the bar, along with JP Featherston and Alex Bookless, so really, get your butt in there and drink yo’ face off. IT’S FOR CHARITY!)

Second, in the spirit of giving, the Passenger hosted our five year anniversary party a couple of weeks ago. We raised a couple of hundred bucks for our charities (the Museum of the American Cocktail and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation) and had an overall great time. Many thanks to our sponsors: The Passenger, Chartreuse and Edinburgh Gin, Whisked Bakery, Diep 9 genever, Catoctin Creek, and Chairman’s Reserve Rum.

Now my drink came in second to Marshall’s in voting, but since Hurricane Sandy is about to give our area a punch to the nose, it seems appropriately named and timed for me to give you my drink.

Dark Storms Travelling Slowly
2 ounces Chairman’s Reserve Rum (gold)
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/4 ounce allspice dram
2 dashes Bittermens Hellfire Habanero Shrub
Shake ingredients together and pour into a highball glass unstrained. Top with two parts ginger beer, one part soda water. Garnish with a wheel of lime.

(Also see this news article for the origins of the acronym I used.)

Yes, it says “whiskey” here but they insist it’s “whisky”.

Third, also in the spirit of giving, thanks to Joe at Taylor Strategy I was sent a sample of George Dickel rye whisky. (No “e”! Except on the sample bottle. Oops!)

The aroma out of the bottle was nice. Kind of sweet. I poured some into a glass and tried it straight.

It’s … different than a lot of ryes I’ve had. My very first taste, I liked it at first, then the after taste I did not care for. However, my second and third tastes I liked a lot better, and got the impression it has a different over all “build” to the taste than a lot of ryes have. I haven’t played with it in a cocktail yet but I’ll probably make a Manhattan and/or a Sazerac at some point this weekend OH MY GOODNESS I FORGOT TO STOCK UP ON VERMOUTH BEFORE THE FRANKENSTORM I HOPE THERE IS STILL SOME TOMORROW AT THE STORE!

(Any rumors that I might have also done a “Gangnam Style” tasting, dancing around in my house with no pants on and listening to the song while drinking Dickel rye out of the sample bottle, may be completely and utterly true.)

So I’m off to finish preparing for Sandy’s vengeful wrath upon DC. Have a great weekend everyone! And hopefully see you November 5th!

Yes, tonight’s drink we go after what some might consider an easy target – Rick over at Kaiser Penguin.? If you’ve spent any time near him at all you know his love for Fernet Branca, and how could I make a drink named after him without using some?

This one does have a slight variation that I thought up but didn’t try.? But enough jibba jabba, let’s see the drink!

The lime wedge is a mighty orca amongst the ice flows inhabited by kaiser penguins.

Kaiser Penguin
2 1/2 ounces Bols Genever (alternate: 2 ounces Citadelle Reserve Gin)
3/4 ounce Fernet Branca
1/4 – 1/2 ounce simple syrup (depending on taste)
Shake over ice.? Pour directly – do not strain! – with ice into a glass half filled with smashed ice.? Add more smashed ice to fill.? Squeeze a lime wedge into it and put it in to model the mighty orca that gets savagely deprived of its food by the sitcom-esque antics of kaiser penguins.? Best served with a cigar, I suggest a Padron 3000.

Kaiser Penguin question for the comments: have you tried this with Citadelle Reserve?? What did you think?? Also, can you spare $5?? I need more Fernet.

[Ninth 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.]

The theme is “Superior Twists” – as you may have guessed by the title of my post.? What this means is not the usual garnish of an orange or lemon twist but rather a variation of a classic drink and one, that in the opinion of the blogger, works out better than normal.? He was also curious what our favorite song to do the twist to was, and upon thinking about it I have to say GWAR’s “Sex Cow”.? Now you know.? (And knowing is half the battle!)

I’m getting ready to move so I’ve started packing.? I started with a lot of my books and thus, all my cocktail related books – I thought – were in a sealed box.? Then I remembered my Museum of the American Cocktail pocket bar guide!? I thumbed through it for a few minutes while thinking of things I liked to make.? The first thing I noticed that really spoke to me is the Old-Fashioned Whiskey Cocktail.

The recipe in the book is listed like this:

Old-Fashioned Whiskey Cocktail
1 sugar cube (1 tsp)
1 tsp water
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 oz (60 ml) rye (or bourbon) whiskey
Muddle sugar, water, and bitters together until the sugar is mostly dissolved.? Fill glass with ice, then add the whiskey.? Garnish with a twist of lemon peel, or orange slice and cherry.? Serve with a swizzle stick or straw.

It’s then noted that it’s better to muddle a slice of orange peel so that you get the essential oils from the peel without getting the pulp.? I trimmed off some of the inner bitter pith before putting in a slice, did the muddling, then left in the orange while adding the whiskey and such.

It’d been a while since I had one and OOF!? I’d forgotten the hit that a drink like this will give you on first sip.? I let it sit for a while while I got out the ingredients for my superior twist (heh) on this drink while trying to remember who, exactly, inspired the variation I typically drink.

It’s really between two different sources.? One of them is our friend Jake, who I believe was the first person to initially suggest using the different spirit in an old fashioned.? The second is The Gibson, the popular bar down at 14th and U that had a drink I absolutely loved – the Malt & Hops.

Yes, I’m talking about making an Old Fashioned with Bols Genever.? Ever since I started making those I’d have to estimate that of previous bottles of Bols Genever, probably 90%+ was used in gin-based Old Fashioneds.? Here’s how I make them.

Bols Genever Old Fashioned
2-4 ounces Bols Genever
1 solid squeeze of demerara simple syrup
1-2 dashes Bitter Truth Repeal Day Bitters (or Marshall’s Moonshine Bitters)
Pour into a small glass.? Add several cubes of ice.? Stir in the glass for a few minutes, and if desired, add a twist of lemon or orange.

Maybe it’s just me, but this version is just so damn good it’s not even funny.? It’s smooth, it’s strong, it’s a bit sweet – I like a decent size squeeze of simple syrup in mine, and you don’t risk the granularity you might end up by using straight sugar cubes.? The flavorful and complex bitters adds another level to the rich, malty gin making this the kind of drink you can just sip on for hours – but have to be careful about, because it is damn easy to drink way too many of them!

So that’s all well and good but if you know us here in the Den you know that we don’t like to let a Mixology Monday slide by without a chance to throw in a bonus drink.? Therefore and thusly I flipped a page or two more in the book and saw the Picon Punch.

Just recently I’d finished making up a triple batch (oops!) of Jamie Boudreau‘s amer picon replica.? One batch went to the before-mentioned Jake; the other two batches I bottled up, with the majority of them going to other bloggers and people I know about town.

The night it was done I was looking for a drink to make with it and over in the Mixoloseum chat room Greg Boehm suggested that I make a picon punch.? The recipe he gave me was very similar to the one in the guide:

Picon Punch
2 oz (60 ml) Amer Picon
0.5 oz (15 ml) lemon juice
0.5 oz (15 ml) grenadine
4 oz (120 ml) soda water
Shake the Amer Picon, lemon juice, and grenadine with ice, and strain into an ice filled highball glass.? Top with soda.? Garnish with seasonal fruits.

Now, I’ll admit, I’m lazy, and didn’t garnish.? But I made it, and it’s not a bad drink, though sometimes drinks like this (and the Suffering Bastard variation that uses bourbon and gin) make me feel really lazy – I don’t want to shake, then strain, then top, etc. etc. etc.!

But I have other lemon-based beverages, and better yet, I debated how to use them to make the drink easier and faster to make – and perhaps tastier.

On the left is Simply Lemonade; for orange juice, I almost always buy the orange juice that they make and I’ll often have a bottle of the lemonade sitting around in case I have a hankering for it.? On the right is Fentiman’s Victorian Lemonade, a tasty dry lemonade that I picked up last weekend over at Ace and will post more about it later.

But there’s the thing – the former is sweetened while the latter is more complex and less sweet.? On the other hand, the Fentiman’s is also carbonated while the Simply Lemonade is not.

The answer, for me?? I used the grenadine with the Fentiman’s, but instead of using it also for the Simply Lemonade and risk it being too sweet, I used 100% pomegranate juice (here, POM).? Since the lemonades were replacing both the lemon juice and the soda, and I wouldn’t be shaking these, I altered the recipe a bit.

Amer Boudreau Scofflaw Punch
2 ounces amer picon (amer boudreau recipe)
0.5 ounce grenadine or pomegranate juice
6 ounces lemonade
Build over ice in a Collins glass, stir.

From left to right we have the Simply Lemonade/POM variation, the Fentiman’s & grenadine, and then the traditional (in the highball glass).? Notice I used Collins glass for the others.? I prefer that for this kind of drink, as a) they seem more like summer drinks to me and b) I think it makes it easier to enjoy the drink.

But that’s just me.

In tasting them, I used the traditional Picon Punch as the “standard”.? Personally, I like it, but not hugely so; I think it’s the soda water.? I’m using Stirrings Club Soda and it just doesn’t seem quite right to me.

The Simply Lemonade variation is still very lemonade-y (in the American style of lemonade sense) though with a backend of the pomegranate juice and not a lot of room for the amer picon to shine through (note that my amer picon is a bit light, it seems).? As a summer time drink it wouldn’t be bad at all though I might consider using something instead of amer picon in it – perhaps even a triple sec plus bitters or amaro.? It might be worth experimenting to see what’s good.

The Fentiman’s combination, on the other hand, really works for me.? I think it helps that the Victorian Lemonade is just a darn tasty beverage without being as cloyingly sweet as even the Simply Lemonade can be; and perhaps the Stirrings grenadine doesn’t hit as hard as the POM pomegranate juice.? (My next grenadine will be made from POM, after I move; that might give a better comparison.)

Give these drinks a shot and let us know what you think – and don’t forget to enter Marshall’s Templeton Rye contest!? Damn him, I’d enter it if I could!? GRRRR!

And thanks again to Tristan for hosting this month!? Can’t wait to see the round-up!

I really probably wouldn’t have thought of this as a big gin week except for two major things – one related to a certain gin cocktail, the other a gin itself.

First off, I was at Marshall’s and decided to have a negroni.? Now, ever since I did my miracle fruit tasting of Campari I’ve been in love with it.? A Hendricks negroni in NYC was quite wonderful, but we went more traditional at Marshall’s – just Plymouth, I believe.? The trick was the additional ingredient.

You see, Marshall had gotten himself a bottle of the new Fee’s Rhubarb Bitters and added that to the negroni.? WOWZERS.? That added a whole new dimension to it which I loved.? I’d planned on getting some from Kegworks but our friendly local liquor store said that he’d be getting some in soon so I decided to wait.? He’ll also be getting in some of their new cherry bitters.

The other big thing that happened this weekend was a new kind of gin.? One I should’ve been expecting but had forgotten about it.? Something that made me very, very excited.

See how excited I was?? Hayman’s Old Tom Gin!? HUZZAH!

The first thing I made with it was what Jay Hepburn over at Oh Gosh! recommended, which was Jamie Boudreau’s recipe for a Martinez.? That is:

Martinez
1 1/2 ounces Hayman’s Old Tom Gin
1 1/2 ounces Carpano Antica
2 bar spoons Luxardo maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Fee’s West Orange bitters
Stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.? Garnish with a twist of orange, if you have it, I didn’t, so whatever.

Wow.? What a great drink.? I made the second one with the Bitter Truth orange bitters and honestly, I think it made it better – I bet the orange Angostura bitters would work also.

The second drink I made with it was a Ramos Gin Fizz.? I used the recipe out of Gary Regan’s _The Joy of Mixology_.

Ramos Gin Fizz
2 ounces Hayman’s Old Tom Gin
1 ounce heavy creme
1 raw egg white
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/4 ounce orange flower water
club soda
2 half wheels of orange, for garnish
Combine everything but the club soda and garnish into a shaker with ice.? Shake for a long time.? Until your hands hurt and arms get tired.? Keep shaking.? Don’t be a wimp.? When you finally do wimp out, and you better have gone for at MINIMUM 60-90 seconds HARD, strain into two champagne glasses if you’re the kind of person who does that kind of thing, or just strain it into one white wine glass if you’re me.? Top with club soda (I used Stirrings) and garnish (I did not).

Wow.? That drink hit the SPOT on a Sunday afternoon!? It was fan-freakin’-tastic.? I can’t get over that, even if I did have to walk outside to shake it so I wouldn’t wake up the future sister-in-law from her nap.? One recommendation I’d make: maybe go a bit less than 1/4 ounce of the orange flower water.? That’s very potent stuff.? You might also want to measure out the creme last; it can coat the measuring cup and make it hard to see for other ingredients until you thoroughly wash it.

The final gin drink was actually a bit later.? I was walking over to a friend’s house to watch the ‘Skins-Cowboys game and wanted a drink for the walk.? I made a double (almost) Negroni, using Zuidam genever gin, added in a couple dashes of orange Angostura, and topped it with the club soda I had leftover from the Ramos Gin Fizz.? Ahhhh – a tasty travel drink that set up as a nice apertif for the dinner later.

If you have the chance, I highly, strongly, almost blasphemously recommend that you go find yourself some Old Tom Gin.? The Hayman’s that I have is fantastic, and now I want to get more kinds and try them out, too.

BUT! That doesn’t mean I didn’t constantly think of you dear reader. Well, okay, I didn’t, but I felt bad for not posting, especially since it seems that I’m always promising to post. So here is a post that gives you a good idea of what I’ve been up to for the last few weeks. I hope you enjoy! Plus, there are some recipes peppered throughout.

One thing that has been a constant here at the Den is lamenting the availability of certain spirits in the DC area. Whether it be because the Commonwealth doesn’t like to play ball with small producers or just the time and effort it takes for new products to work into this market, it can be a maddening waiting game. But there are those out there who listen to the cries of us cocktail geeks and work incredibly hard to bring tasty treats to our (my) thirsty lips.   One of these tireless workers is Eric Sneed of Haus Alpenz.  I have talked to Eric several times and he has been very informative about when and where I can get some of his tastey treats.  Hopefully, within the next week or two, I’ll have some bottles that, at least for us cocktail geeks, will be similar to Indiana Jones finding that little golden statue in the opening scenes of Raider’s of the Lost Ark.  [Little trivia for ya, Alfred Molina, Doc-Ock from the Spider-Man movies also played Satipo, Indiana Jones sidekick that took the golden idol and refused to throw Indy the whip in the beginning of Raiders.]  Keep your eyes open for my update once Eric’s goodies come in.

Of course, I also haven’t been sitting on my laurels.  Here are a few new things that I’ve added to the bar:

 This is a bottle of the Massenez Creme de Gingembre.  It is a ginger liqueur that smells and tastes just like fresh ginger.  Not quite sure what I’m going to use it in, but give me time . . .   

El Dorado 12 year old demerara rum from Guyana.  This is a delicious rum.  Sweet and smooth, it made a Bermuda Rum Swizzle taste like I was in the tropics.

 
Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur.  Quite possibly the best maraschino liqueur in the world.  Made from marasca sour cherries.  Ummmm . . . 

Clement Creole Shrub.  The Creole Shrub is something I have been dying to try for a long time.  It is an orange liqueur in the vien of Cointreau and Grand Marnier.  Except where the base spirit in Cointreau is neutral alcohol and in Grand Marier it is cognac, the Creole Shrub is a rum based liqueur.  The rums are steeped with bitter orange peels and the resulting liqueur is soft, sweet, orangy with just a slight burn/bite from the rum.  This stuff is delicious!

Zuidam Genever Gin.  This is an imported gin from Holland.  Genever is a style of gin that is distilled from malted grain mash, very similar to whisky.  This style of gin is a bit sweeter than the London Dry style and has a very soft, rounded mouth feel.  The Zuidam is a popular brand drank by many in the Netherlands.  My cohort 

runoknows

has already written a post about genever and includes a link to a recent article from the Washington Post.  I recommend you check this out.

I used the Zuidam in the “Next to the Last Word” cocktail.  

Next to the Last Word
1 oz Gin
1 oz maraschino liqueur
1 oz St. Germain Elderflower liqueur
1 oz lemon juice

Shake everything with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a lemon peel, or if you want, as I did, a flaming orange twist.

The drink was excellent.  The genever gin gave it a smooth round mouth feel.  Much different that a london dry, such as Plymouth, where the gin is strong lets you know right where it is.  This is a perfect example how one change in a drink, just going to a different style of gin, can change the character of the drink.  

The last two bottles I acquired are the Boomsma Jonge and Oude Genever gin.  You’ll notice the difference in colors between the two.  This is because the Oude is aged for at least one year in oak casks.  This is the original style of gin.  The gin cocktails that were being served in the 1800′s were using this style gin.  A real treat to actually be able to sample the flavors of history.

Of course, with all these new bottles, I have officially run out of bar space.  I’m thinking of getting rid of things such as “plates” in order to make more room for this hobby of mine.  Either that or I’m going to have to buy a huge cabinet to keep everything in.  Eh, what are you going to do!

But, if you’ve been a regular reader of the Den, you’ll know that I like to create things.  “Concoctioneering” is fun and if things work out, you’ll have a one of a kind cocktail that hopefully will inspire others and make you new friends.  Hopefully friends that will pay to drink your new cocktail, but, unfortunately, my friends are lazy, good for nothing mooches (I kid, I kid!)  . . . 

One of the things I’ve had it in my head to do is a bacon-infused bourbon.  There are many reasons why this crossed my mind.  First, I love bacon and I love bourbon.  These are two complemetary flavors that I wanted to see if I could work into a cocktail.  Then, I read some blog posts here (that unfortunately used Jack Daniels) and here, where Blair aka Trader Tiki was greeted with a “Maple Leaf” using a bacon infused bourbon.  Then I read this article in the December 2007 issue of Food & Wine magazine about Eban Freeman of Tailor in NYC.  The article discusses the method called fat-washing to infuse a spirit with any flavoring you can think of.  Hmmmm . . . bacon has fat . . . 

So here is what I did:

Started frying up some bacon . . . ummmmmm.

Once the bacon is cooked, you pour off the melted fat and strain it in order to get any crispy bits out of it.  Probably don’t have to do this, but I did.  I only used two cups of Maker’s Mark bourbon for this experiment.  In the picture below you can see the bourbon inside the container where the infusion will occur, a spoon and a glass to hold the melted fat.

I took the spoon and started stirring the bourbon to get a nice vortex down the middle.  The I slowly poured the melted fat into the bourbon to get it good and incorporated.  This is fat washing.  Then you let it set on the counter until the fat works its way through the bourbon and collects at the top.  At this point you put the lid on the container and stick in the ice box for 24 to 48 hours.  When time is up, take out the bourbon and you’ll see that the fat can congealed on top forming a protective layer.  Remove this fat and then strain the bourbon through a moist coffee filter (this gets rid of any little bits of fat that remain) and bottle.

The results were interesting.  The bacon gave the bourbon a smokey/savory flavor.  The inherent sweetness of the bourbon (especially a sweeter bourbon such as Maker’s Mark) was pushed into the background.  There wasn’t a flavor that I would call “bacon” but there was something there that was familiar to bacon.  That probably doesn’t make sense, but them be the breaks.

Here is the bottled bacon-infused bourbon with my new friend “Smithfield” that I, ummmm, acquired recently.  Is it twisted to name a wooden pig Smithfield and pose him with bourbon infused with his fleshy counterparts?  Yeah, probably, but I like it!

Well folks, I was going to continue and tell you about my pecan-rye and the drink that I came up with for it.  But it’s late and I’m really tired.  Check back in a day or two and that will be up.  As a teaser, the drink tastes exactly like pecan pie  . . .

It helps that it appears some progress is being made on bringing it back to the States.  Jason Wilson, the author of the article, says that Boomsma and Zuidam brands are in the US but hard to find, that other Dutch brands like Damrak are tailored to the American palette (which I wished he’d expanded on what that meant) and also mentions the Anchor Distilling‘s new Genevieve gin, which last I heard is pretty much restricted to a small part of the West Coast.

Since Mr. Wilson mentions David Wondrich’s quintessential book Imbibe! I decided that I would go to a part of the book that I could’ve sworn I remembered reading about – how to make your own genever gin, or, at least, a close relative to it.

Well it took some looking.  No offense to Mr. Wondrich, but the index in the book isn’t the greatest.  I thumbed through it and finally found his recipe for a not “particularly adequate” replacement was eight ounces of Irish whiskey (I would’ve probably gone with Jameson’s though I have a bottle of Power’s around here), 10 ounces of Plymouth gin (which I always keep around now), and 1/2 ounce of rich simple syrup.

And, in fact, I was all ready to make that.  In fact, that was the reason for my user icon – that’s how I was feeling when I was reading about this wonderful spirit that I couldn’t get.  Then the darnedest thing happened.

The Boomsma and Zuidam?  Found ‘em online.

Hooah.

What the hey, I threw in a four pack of Q tonic while I was at it – I really like the Stirrings tonic water that I have, but I’ve heard such things about the Q, and when throw into the three pack of gins – Boomsma Jonge, Boomsma Ouda, Zuidam genever – I figured what the heck.  (Ouda is the typical “Holland” gin like what we’re looking for — Jonge is more popular in the Netherlands, according to the WaPo article, and is more neutral but retains some of the flavors.)

What’s that mean to you, dear reader?

I said yesterday that I was going to start doing reviews.  You’ll see this review right quick like.  I’m going to sit down with all three of these and try ‘em out.  Anthony Dias Blue’s The Complete Book of Spirits has some hints on how to taste gin and what to look for.  He even provides some suggestions for food to go with them.  He basically says to taste the gin three times – once letting it sit in your mouth, once taking it straight down, and once with food.

I’ll definitely do the first two.  I’ll probably the third, but I’d also like to taste them in a gin and tonic, a process that means I’ll have to make sure to use the same tonic in all of them.  Given that it’s between that and the martini…I’ll definitely have to do martinis some time but that might not be right away.

I’m extremely excited about this.  I’m really hoping to make the reviews a regular feature of Scofflaw’s Den and, of course, you can probably guess that

tmfiii

will be there, too, since he’s a huge mooch fan of gin and a good helper in things like this.  We tend to notice different things about beverages.

If only someone could help with the Genevieve…or even a bottle of the Bols oude genever, the one that Mr. Wilson discussed at length in his article…