Well, that’s a whole lotta sodas!

I don’t remember when I stopped mixing with sodas for the most part, but by the time we started this here site I didn’t really do it a lot. That doesn’t mean others don’t – my brother, for instance, and my dad are big fans of it. I’ve also tried to cut back on most of my sodas with the whole “diabetes” thing I’ve gotta deal with.

The other night one of my friends I play Borderlands 2 with online asked about what to mix with his bottles of Bulleit and Eagle Rare. “Don’t mix the Bulleit!” I cried, but he pointed out that he wanted something he could drink for a while. I thought about it a bit and said, hey, this could make a post.

Let’s break them down a bit by types of soda, really.

Ginger Beer – man, I do love me some good ginger beer. Bourbon and ginger beer is a great combo, in my opinion. Obviously, the traditional however is rum and ginger beer (plus a bit of lime, and you’ve got yourself a stew a Dark and Stormy). With vodka, that’s a Moscow Mule, and if you’re a type of drinker who doesn’t dig on the taste of alcohol that might be the way to go – or use a lighter ginger beer/ale, like Q.

Cola – There are so many colas out there that this can be problematic. The Fentiman’s CherryTree cola is dying for some rye, in my opinion, but I don’t know if I’d mix their Curiousity Cola (I do like to give it to non-drinkers, as it’s quite delicious). Obviously, the “…and Coke” combo is a common one, and unless you’re still in college, I don’t want to hear about vodka and Pepsi. I would consider white whiskey and RC cola, but only if you eat a Moon Pie with it too (which I have done). Fernet and Coke is a popular South American combo.

Root Beer and Cream Soda – Spiced Rum. Or most kinds of rum.

Various specialty sodas – Now here’s where it gets fun. Vanilla bean soda? I’d do bourbon, or dark rum. Victorian lemonade? Bourbon for a riff off the “Lynchburg Lemonade”. Cola made with coffee? Spiced rum or maybe tequila or Mezcal.

Sprite or other lemon-lime sodas – Well, you can make SpriTequilas, but you better be good at your mixology game. Also try gin, Pimm’s and gin, or Calvados.

Soda water – Don’t make me punch you in the throat. Really. Asking me a question like that. Just add bitters to it, I GUESS.

What combos do you like? Comment to me on Facebook or on Twitter!

On Sunday, I helped Beuchert?s Saloon with an afternoon media event at their East Oaks farm located in Poolesville, Maryland. Two punches supplied the cocktail element for guests at the farm. One in particular (which we will simply call the ?St. Lucian Brunch Punch? for now) utilized an ingredient I?d never heard of before: fish pepper.

Fish peppers have an interesting history. According to owner Brendan McMahon, these peppers were particularly popular among African-American farmers in the nineteenth century. They were used predominantly in seafood houses along the mid-atlantic coast. The flavor of the pepper lends itself nicely to fish and shellfish.

The ingredient is said to have lost its popularity. Lately, according McMahon, it has been making a comeback.

The McMahon family, which owns the farm, planted the peppers this past season. The crop grew enough for harvest just recently. Some peppers were planted from seed while others were transplants that were grown in another location and transferred to the farm. The transplants, it seems, have been growing with considerable success.

The look of the plant in the field, McMahon says, reminds him of Christmas trees due in part to the distinct white, green and reddish coloration in the leaves and peppers themselves.

The punch itself involved a balanced mixture of Chairman?s Reserve St. Lucian Rum, fish pepper syrup,?fresh lime juice, Angostura bitters, and sprigs of fresh mint. The syrup is simply a one-to-one blending of sugar and water which was then infused with the peppers. Many of the participants at East Oaks said the flavors were rounded and refreshing. Some even said they found hints of spices they would expect to find in Bloody Marys which seemed fitting for the restaurant’s off-site afternoon event.

What makes my job fun at Beuchert?s Saloon is the involvement of East Oaks farm in not only the food but also the cocktails. The numbers vary but generally sixty-to-seventy percent of the produce used in the saloon?s food comes from East Oaks. That means day-to-day availability and variation of ingredients can be head-spinning. Yet, the end result is particularly rewarding when all of these elements come together to produce a drink the guest truly enjoys.

Sample 10+ rums from the Caribbean and Latin America, including aged rum and the exotic cachaca. A full lunch will be served as well, the perfect accompaniment to your trip to the tropics.

The event is from 1:00 – 3:00 pm and is $85/person.

To register, email Christina@passionfoodhospitality.com or click here.

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!

Like many of you, I’ve been glued to the (sometimes crappy) coverage of the Summer Olympic Games in London. I really enjoy the Games and have to say I get an up-swell in national pride watching the United States compete against the other nations of the world. Last night we had some friends over to hang out, have some grub, watch the Olympics and, of course, have a few drinks.

For the first drink, I found a tasty punch in the Cocktails+ iPhone app. I changed the recipe a bit so I’ll give you the original first and then my tweaked version. Unfortunately, in all the fervor of the games, I forgot to take a photo of the punch.

Roman Punch
1/4 oz sugar
1/2 oz raspberry syrup
2 dashes lemon or lime juice
1/4 oz curacao
2 oz brandy
1/2 oz Jamaican rum

Build over ice; garnish with various fruits in season and serve with a straw.

(Adapted from Harry Johnson, New & Improved Illustrated Bartender’s Manual. [Author, 1888] p. 166.)

And here’s the version I made. As you’ll see, I multiplied the ingredients by 4 in order to help take this from a single serve cocktail to a group beverage.

Roman Punch No. 2
1 oz simple syrup
2 oz raspberry syrup
Juice of half a lemon
1 oz Mandarin Napoleon
6 oz brandy
2 oz Applejack
2 oz Scarlet Ibis rum
16 oz sparkling water

Stir everything with a few ice cubes to well chill. Serve in small glasses over fresh ice and garnish with mint.

My version of the Roman Punch, although even with the addition of sparkling water, is a boozy punch. You can definitely taste the brandies and rum. Surprisingly the curacao comes through pretty strongly as well. All-in-all a tasty punch for a night of the Games.

The second drink I made is an original creation. I wanted something boozy and stirred with an international feel. You would think with the Olympics being held in London I would grab some gin. And oddly, once the drink was tasted, two out of the three tasters thought the base spirit was, in fact, gin. However, I actually grabbed mezcal. To be specific, I grabbed my bottle of Fidencio Sin Humo. The Fidencio mezcal is an unaged spirit and for a mezcal is very light on the smokiness that is a hallmark of mezcals in general. Upon reflection, an aged mezcal would provide a more golden color, but I would be afraid of too much smoke throwing off the balance. Of course, this is just fodder for more experimentation!

After grabbing the first ingredient from Mexico, I went across the Atlantic ocean to France and grabbed my bottle of Yellow Chartreuse. Ohhh, golden and delicious! Finally, I wanted to give a little bit more sweetness and a rounder flavor so I hopped over to Italy for my bottle of Maraschino. Mexico, France, Italy. Mezcal, Yellow Chartreuse, Maraschino. International ingredients for an international cocktail to enjoy during the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Gold Medal
1.5 oz Fidencio Mezcal
.5 oz Yellow Chartreuse
.25 oz Maraschino
2 dashes grapefruit bitters

Stir with ice and serve up. Squeeze lemon peel over top of drink and garnish with peel.

With a slightly golden hue and an herbal-berry roundness to the flavor, this drink soars like the gold medal athletes it celebrates.

Regardless who you are rooting for during the Olympics, give this drink a try and let me know what you think in the comments.

Cheers!

My excuse, if I really have one, is actually two excuses: 1, I’ve been moving, and that’s taken up a lot of time in the April time frame, and 2, I’ve been doing a lot of CSOWG work, which takes up my online/cocktail energy, leaving me to barely be able to crawl to the bar for a Fernet-filled pineapple.

But that’s two for excuses (times two!) so I’ll shut up on that now. And try to do better in the future.

Of perhaps more relevant information to y’all in the DC area…

It’s DC Savor Beer Week out there right now. Last night I wandered over to Jack Rose Dining Saloon to check out their collaborative tasting/pairing of cigars from W. Curtis Draper and beers from Victory. And what an event it was.

The menu for the night

You had a choice – three full size drafts of Victory beer plus one cigar for $25, or 10 taster pours plus three cigars for $35. I went ahead with the latter option, knowing I could always order extra tasters at $2 if I needed them.

The first pairing was a La Aurora Preferido #2 Maduro cigar, in the traditional “flattened football” shape of La Aurora, matched with Victory’s Hop Devil, Headwaters, and Hop Wallop beers. The latter beer was also paired with a small pour of Pampero Anniversario rum. I ended up getting another taster of Hop Wallop to go along with it, as the combination was delicious. (Later that night, I ordered the Headwaters after finishing my cigars, and think I preferred it on my own.) I’m a big fan of doing both a liquor and a beer as I smoke a cigar, so the rum was good – though I’d be curious to pair it with some of the rums I have, such as El Dorado 12 or 15 or Chairman’s Reserve.

The second pairing was a La Flor Dominicana 2000 #3 with the Helios, Mad King hefeweizen, and Golden Monkey tripel. I definitely liked the last two beers, and this cigar was so mild and light compared to the La Aurora. It might have helped to do it first, but at the same time, seemed like a good travel cigar to me.

Rum, beer, cigar, yum.

The third pairing had the cigar I was most eager to try – El Triunfador #5 (made by Pepin Garcia for Tatauje). It was paired with Prima Pils, Altbier, and St. Boisterous. The cigar itself was delicious (even my non-smoking companion loved the smell of it when it was fired up) and definitely worked well with the beers.

I’d forgotten how good Victory beers could be. I’ve got to start including them more often in my repertoire. I’ve also now got some new cigars I need to head up to Draper’s to pick up!

There are events going on all week, so make sure you check ‘em out if you’re into beer.

AND I PROMISE TO POST MORE!

(Probably!)

Time to make my triumphant return to Mixology Monday and what better MxMo to jump back onto the horse (just not the wagon) than Tiki MxMo hosted by my friend Doug over at the Pegu Tiki Blog.

I’ll admit, I love tiki drinks. In the oppressive heat and humidity that can easily overtake our nation’s capital, a frosty fruity rummy tiki drink immediately takes you to a better place. Somewhere you can hear the ocean waves breaking against the sand or a bubbling brook and waterfall hidden away in a tropical forest.

While trying to decide what recipe to share with everyone I really wanted to go outside the tiki drinks I usually drink or ones I commonly see on menus.? I believe the recipe below really hit that nail on the head.

The drink comes from “Beachbum Berry Remixed” by the Don of Tiki, Jeff Berry.

Ankle Breaker
1oz fresh lemon juice
1oz Cherry Herring
1oz amber 151-proof rum (such as Cruzan, El Dorado or Bacardi)
.5oz simple syrup

-Shake well with crushed ice and pour un-strained into a double rocks glass. Garnish with a lemon twist

I can certainly understand where the name came from! This is tart, sweet and rummy and incredibly deceptive in strength. The only thing that keeps me from gulping the entire thing down in one swallow is the crushed ice. It keeps you from gulping for fear of choking or brain freeze. Good thing though because if this drink was slammed and you stepped awkwardly, then . . . well . . . you may break an ankle. (Check out Jeff’s book for the real story behind the name of the drink!)

Thanks again to Doug for hosting this Mixology Monday. Aloha!

Sigh.

Sad story #2: Last year I was ambush marketed! No, really!

You see, I went to this tasting on “Irish whiskey”. It was supposed to cover the depth and breadth of Irish whiskeys.

And it did! If they were Pernod Ricard products. Bushmill’s, Connemara, John L. Sullivan, others – they didn’t exist.

Didn’t expect to get hit by marketing like that!

Of course, that was an OFFICIAL Tales event, so I guess it wasn’t ambush marketing. We were just the clay pigeons in a skeet shooting competition.

You see, I figure this would be a great time to strategically use all this combined creative and crafty brainpower to build up a list of recipes to keep me loaded up on flips the entire year.

So I did some poking around. Paul Clarke (he who done gone and created Mixology Monday, amongst other accolades and general Internet sexiness) wrote an article for Serious Eats about flips. In it, he mentions some other ones created (thus seeing my idea of a Fernet Branca flip is already done) but mentioned this about modern flips, something I took to heart:

Contemporary flips are relatively simple: a base of spirit (preferably dark & rich), a little syrup and/or liqueur, and a fresh egg, all shaken together and served with a little nutmeg grated on top.

Okay, enough of the blockquotes.

Here we go Steelers Here we go

I’m lucky enough that my favorite NFL team, the Steelers, is going to the AFC Championship next week. My idea initially was to use Fernet as the “black” in a Black & Gold Flip, but as I just mentioned, the Fernet Flip has been done. I thought about using Averna, in a bit of honor to Dr. Bamboo, but decided against it. Still: what would be an appropriate Pittsburgh area liquor?

Ahhh, screw it. Let’s Google “Pittsburgh Steelers liquor”, look at the first few liquor pictures that show up in the image search, and see if I’m inspired. A few clicks, avoiding stories about Santonio Holmes throwing liquor at someone, and there we go – Kraken black spiced rum and Strega.

Oh. I can work with that.

I love the idea of whole eggs in drinks anyways, so now it was just time to tweak proportions. I think what I came up with is pretty good, and a bit of a solid drink, if I do say so myself.

Black & Gold Flip

The Black & Gold Flip
2 ounces Kraken spiced rum
1 ounce Strega
1 whole egg
Put the ingredients in a glass with a bunch of ice. Shake for 60-90 seconds. Strain into a chilled glass, top with some fresh grated nutmeg.

Ahhh, delicious! If you’re feeling really ambitious, try topping it with some brown ale or a black stout and give it a quick stir. I haven’t tried it yet, though I was thinking of giving it a shot with some Guinness or Bell’s Hell Hath No Fury beer. But first, I’ll finish the one I have.

Cheers folks, and thanks again to Josh for hosting!

Lifestyle drinks of the coughing and congested

I’d had ideas for a variety of posts.

For instance, I got an iSi Gourmet Whip Pro for Christmas, and I’m very excited about doing tons of stuff with it!

But…holidays…and then, like everyone else in DC, I got sick.

Blech.

So while watching the end of the football games today I decided what I really needed was a hot toddy.? It’s kind of just something I threw together so what the heck.

Hot Toddy
One cup decaffeinated Earl Grey tea
Honey
Half a lemon, squeezed
2 ounces Chairman’s Reserve rum

Mix in a cup.

Well, heck, it’s making me feel better.? Might need some more.

Once I figure out my Tumblr issues, and feel a bit better, we’ll get ya some more substantive posting.? Promise!