An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

Well, we’re in it again.? Today started the beginning of a huge snow storm blowing over DC and the surrounding areas.? As of 10pm, we are under a blizzard warning until 10pm tomorrow Feb. 6 and they are saying we could get up to 30 inches of snow or more.

Snowfall as of 9pm

Now I love snow.? And truthfully, I’m excited to be in my first blizzard warning.? Of course I want everyone to be safe and warm all that jazz, but this is just cool.? And obviously, this kind of weather calls for more warm beverages . . . preferably those of the alcoholic variety.? In my last post, I gave you the Celestial Warmer.

Non-Union
5.0 oz African Roobios Tea, hot
1.5 oz Mezcal, I used Ilegal Mezcal
0.5 oz agave syrup
1 very long strip of grapefruit peel

Pour syrup and mezcal into a glass or mug and stir to combine.? Brew the tea and pour into your container of choice, stirring to combine.? Cut a long strip of grapefruit peel over the glass and throw it in.? Enjoy.

Finally, I’ve had some folks ask me about how much snow we’ve had so far in DC.? I decided to take a little video and share it with everyone.? This video was taken on my balcony around 11pm Friday, Feb. 5 2010. The noise you hear in the video is the wind.

Tomorrow I’ll post another video that shows the overnight accumulation. And, of course, another warm drink!

Cheers!

Once again, it’s Mixology Monday, and for the first time in a while, I’m actually participating.? AREN’T YOU SO EXCITED?!? I KNOW I AM.

Sorry.? Got a little excited with the caps lock key there.? Don’t think that it wasn’t anything like that you dirty dirty person you.

Anyways, this time it’s hosted by Frederic and company over at Cocktail Virginia Slut.? (What?!? They’re blog isn’t named after our precious commonwealth but is actually “virgin“?? Well, fine.)? (Actually I knew that, but typo-ed, and thought it was funnier that way.)

So today’s is tea.? And also today is Robert Burns Day, which means you should be drinking Scotch and eating haggis.? Not that I’ve done either one (…yet) but it seems like despite my initial choice to find that mini of chai cream liqueur and dump it into some tea (which was also negated by it being gone, probably for almost six months now, oops) and avoiding using delicious, delicious Castries because TDN this week is “Nuts” (hee hee hee!) I figured I should do a tea/Scotch drink of some sort.

When I was a kid, my mom taught me how to make iced tea.? She’s a Southerner, so it was sweet tea (and not that damned bastardization of “oh, we’ve got unsweetened iced tea and sweet & low NO THAT IS NOT HOW SWEET TEA WORKS) and my tea was what a friend of mine called “tea-flavored sugar sludge”.? If I didn’t drink it quickly enough – and to be honest, I usually drank it at room temperature – it’d mold up something fierce.

Now today in DC might have been weirdly temperate, but I also wasn’t feeling great most of the day.? (To continue over-using parenthesis, it was one of those “24 hour stomach blech” kind of days.)? Thus, I figured something with hot tea.? And sweet.? Admittedly, it took until – oh, what time is it now – about 10 PM at night to be working on it, which means caffeine late, but fortunately for me a) I’m mostly able to ignore caffeine these days and b) I’ve got some stuff that will take care of that problem.? So off I went.

I usually use Black Bottle blended Scotch for my drinks using that spirit but this time decided to use something with a bit more character to it and thus chose the Highland Park 12 year old.? I’d bought a bottle of the 15 year old for my grandfather, who is also a Scottish Rite Mason – I’m not Scottish Rite yet but as a Mason I’d planned on joining once I remember to, you know, go to meetings and stuff – so I thought it’d be good.

As for tea, I had a variety pack from Twinnings.? Earl Grey, Lady Grey, and English Breakfast Tea seemed too – well, English for a drink with Scotch, so I grabbed Irish Breakfast instead, bolstered by the fact that it’s the strongest tea in the pack.? No, that doesn’t necessarily make sense (other than the “strongest tea” bit) but shut up.

Boiling water, five minutes steeping, let’s pour that into a bigger mug, and we need some liquors and sweetener.? Hey, a friendly PR company sent me Barenjager!? Now I’ve got some ideas…

Now that’s a “get you up and get you going” drink!

Ad Hoc Burns Night Tea Drink #1
1 1/2 ounces Scotch (Highland Park 12)
1 ounce Barenjager
2-3 dashes lemon bitters
Irish Breakfast tea
Brew a mug of black tea like your mom – strong and hot.? In another mug, pour in the other ingredients.? After the tea finishes steeping, pour it over the other ingredients and stir until blended.? Drink, but not at 10 PM at night unless you have a desire to avoid sleep like the plague.

I don’t normally put lemon in my tea but I had the thought it might help, so I used some Urban Moonshine lemon bitters that they sent me (there you go FTC, yuk it up why don’t you).? They also sent me maple bitters and I’m kind of wishing I’d used those instead – yeah, sure, I could make another drink, but I really don’t need one, especially as I have another idea I want to play with first.? I might also have considered using the Fee’s Rhubarb Bitters (which I paid for thank you very much) or even regular aromatic bitters.? THE POWER IS YOURS TO CHOOSE.

Let’s get back to delicious sweet tea.? That’s all about the summer time to me so it’s time to get rid of the Scotch.? Sorry, Scotch, you’ll have to wait until my next cigar, or next time I hang out with my grandpa.? (And then I can finally share that mini of Highland Park 18 with him too, yummy.)

I thought about making something using Castries, that delicious, delicious Castries, and maybe some of the Chairman’s Reserve Rum (the former I’ve bought a number of times but got a single free bottle of and the latter I’ve already given away bottles of because it’s well priced and delicious and I’m in no way shape or form trying to influence Clyde into hosting a TDN) (maybe), but this week’s TDN is nuts, as I said before, and I’m basically repeating myself.

But sweet tea…

Last year it seemed like sweet tea vodkas were a huge thing, perhaps because, uh, they were.? Maybe not as much in the “cocktail” world, because we can be some snooty bastiges when it comes to stuff like that, but I remember having bartenders telling me how quickly they were selling out of it.? I did a taste test of the Firefly (regular) sweet tea vodka versus Sweet Carolina and the Firefly won by a huge margin.? Let’s put it this way: Firefly is made in South Carolina near a tea plantation.? Sweet Carolina is made from Maine.? One of those tastes like chemicals, and to give a hint, it’s not the one called Firefly.? I haven’t tried the flavored sweet tea vodkas but I can’t be bothered to pay my money for more variations of the same thing, and I haven’t tried Jeremiah Weed for the same reason, but I will admit I do like the Firefly.

And it might not be summer but it hit at least 61 degrees today (seriously, y’all in SoCal, just don’t even say it) so I want a sweet tea drink and I don’t feel like making my own sweet tea because I am very, very lazy.

For a summer type drink, though, I think I need citrus with my tea.? Thus, we have my:

The Citrus-tea
1 1/2 ounces Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce triple sec (Combier – also, again, a freebie)
2-3 dashes Bittermen Bitter Truth Grapefruit Bitters
Shake and double strain into a chilled cocktail glass.? Garnish with a twist of orange peel.

I don’t know what I think of this drink yet – it’s fun, but I think it needs some work, and I think it needs to be in warmer weather.? If it’s warmer for you, give it a shot!

Thanks again to Frederic and Cocktail Virgin Slut for hosting, and as always, Paul Clarke for doing MxMo.? Cheers y’all!

In case you missed Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night, Jim Meehan of New York’s Please Don’t Tell, and awarded “American Bartender of the Year” at this past Tales of the Cocktail, was on mixing up a Tea-quila Highball.

For some reason the embedded video I had here was screwing up the formating, so instead here is the link for the video.

Tea-quila Highball
3 oz. In Pusuit of Tea brewed Lemon Verbena Tea
1.5 oz. Blanco Tequila
.25 oz. Agave Nectar (or simple syrup in a pinch)
.25 oz. St Germain Elderflower Liqueur

Build all of the ingredients in a highball glass filled with ice. Garnish with a twist of lime. Can serve hot or cold.

Cheers!

First off – happy belated two year anniversary to us!? I admit we maybe haven’t been blogging perhaps as much as we should be, and I’m trying to get off my tookus and do more.? Tales of the Cocktail and that trip to Korea broke my rhythm!? But the good news is that I’m finally working things out right again.? I think.? Ask me that again in a week.

Second off – Phil Greene alerted us to this post covering the cocktails from the DC bracket of the Domaine de Canton competition.? I know I’ve tried a couple of those – the Domainatrix by Rachel Sergi, now over at Againn, and the Thai’s the Limit by Gina Chersevani of PS7 (which also features your Scofflaws in the Washington Post video about it).? I want to say I’ve tried the Owen Thomson (of Bourbon) Jack O’ Ginger but I might just be confusing it with another drink.

So – now to drinking and reading.

When I moved into my current apartment my parents commented on how it seemed like all the boxes I brought in had one of two things in them – either books or liquor.? Well, duh, I thought – what are my hobbies?? Cocktails and reading!

Them's a lot of words!

As I settled down recently to reread a ten part alternative history by Harry Turtledove (the Timeline-191 series, if you must know, where the South won the War Between the States thanks to not losing Lee’s Special Order 191 to McClellan), I did it my usual way – most of the time outside, on my balcony, drinking a beer and smoking a cigar.

mmmm, beer and a cigar

As I read through the first book How Few Remain that was mostly fine, but then I got into the Great War series with American Front.? That series introduces what has to be my favorite character in the entire series, Quebecois farmer Lucien Galtier.? Unlike most of the characters in the book (slight spoilers here, I’m afraid) his life doesn’t entirely suck.? In fact, his often humorous sections really help out through the grimmer parts of the series.

It was also his sections quite a while ago that got me introduced to Calvados.? Calvados is an apple brandy produced in France, and while the character drank basically a moonshine variation of it – after all, he’s a farmer in Quebec, not in the Calvados region of France, and it’s so often wartime with occupation forces etc yadda yadda yadda – that I had finally managed to get a bottle a few years ago.

I still remember the first time I actually tried Calvados.? It was on a date at a place called Sonoma here in DC and I was so excited to see it on the menu that I spilled red wine on my shirt.? (Hey, that was like over 2 years ago!? I had no idea what I was getting myself into.)? I didn’t care for it much straight, and the bottle I had tended to only be used in cocktails for a number of years (that number being two).

As I started rereading the series, I thought, hey, I should drink appropriately for the books.? Cigars are fine, a lot of the characters smoke them though the US characters will remind you repeatedly that their cigars are bad compared to Confederate ones (the Confederacy, in these books, own Cuba as well as the prime tobacco growing parts of North America).

At first this started with sipping on Calvados while reading them, which helped with the Galtier parts to feel more “into it”.? Depending on night of the week and compunction, I started adding in other things.? Whiskey, for instance, is an easy choice for a lot of the characters, as well as beer – which I had before, naturally – and occasionally for the characters from Sonora and Chihuahua some mezcal, specifically, Del Maguey crema de mezcal.

Of course, you can’t keep up with the characters in the book, but on the other hand, keeping it close to what you’re reading helps a lot.? I feel an urge to read The Great Gatsby again, since I think it’d fun to drink appropriate cocktails to that – though it is kind of funny to try to figure out what to drink while reading my Warhammer 40K novels.

Right now?? Well, I’m reading The Space Wolves Omnibus and therefore drinking ale.? In fact, I started tonight with a Sam Smith Yorkshire Stingo.? Sure, I probably should drink something more viking, but they drink ale in the books, and I don’t have any Skullsplitter.? A lot of the characters drink amasec in 40K, and the description of that seems to be “brandy” as it’s distilled wine.? Hey, I’ve got plenty of brandy in my house…

What do you drink while reading?