This is actually Paul

You might not believe me, for good reason, but I have it on good word (mine, which I made up) that the original version of Paul’s website featured “The Cocktail Chronicles” with a huge BLINK tag (which I’m not even sure is supported these days) and multiple dancing baby GIFs, all of which modeled after him.

For example, look to the left.

Nowadays, of course, he shows a much more subtle and classy side, and we all thank him for it, because if you don’t like that, you always have me and Blair.

But what to make him?

When I asked one “prominent” blogger (prominent means you don’t update often) he suggested rye and absinthe.  Well, Paul is mad at me about setting absinthe on fire and using Mata Hari (though you’d think he’d like the fact that I set Mata Hari on fire) so I stuck with the fresh bottle of Rittenhouse 100 I picked up at Ace the other day.  From there, I debated, consulted with someone who actually gets paid to do this for a living (the lovely and talented Ms. Sergi), and we experimented a bit.

I did think about setting some Rittenhouse on fire but I was fairly certain if I did Paul would set ME on fire at Tales.

So then I ended up the Cocktail Chronic(-les).  And before you ask, yes, I’ve had the “Chronic(-les) of Narnia” stuck in my head for the past bit.

Not pictured: bitters

The Cocktail Chronic-(les)
2 ounces rye (Rittenhouse 100)
1/2 ounce dry vermouth (Dolin dry)
1/2 ounce Lillet Blanc
1 dash Fee’s orange bitters
Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a sarcastic comment and insightful commentary.

This makes for a pretty nice, surprisingly light cocktail.

If you try it and enjoy it, as usual, let me know.  Yes, this one is a bit late tonight but it’s the 21st one!  That means I’ve posted one drink every night – some of them more half-assed than the others (cough cough) but wow, it’s getting harder and harder to think up new ideas.  Lest I become Mike Rowe and start begging for new ideas for Dirty Jobs this site, please, if you have any for people not done yet (I’m looking at you Craig!) let me know!

As always – enjoy.

[Twenty-first 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.]

Oklahoma.  What do you think of when you hear that word, assuming you’re not Rick and thinking of the musical?  I think of dusty plains, tumbleweeds, and ¹possums.

Needless to say, I was quite taken aback ² when a friend told me that it’s as much raccoons and armadillos!  And he’s from there HE MUST KNOW.

Clearly, if I’m talking about Tales of the Cocktail, cocktails in general, and Oklahoma, I must be talking about your friend ³ and mine ⁴ cocktailnerd aka Gabe. ⁵

I really wanted to make a drink with poser fluid ⁶ for him but alas, it was a combination of laziness and ⁷ respect that stopped me.  But the idea of making an Oklahoma Squirrel ⁸ rang with me, only getting slightly dented when I realized Gary Regan ⁹ already had one with rye and called it something like “Maryland”.¹⁰

Talking to an old friend of mine ¹¹ broke me through to the other side and ta-da, here’s the drink. ¹²

It's pink, an added bonus!

The Oklahoma Squirrel ¹³
1 1/2 ounce rye (Rittenhouse 100)
1 ounce Zirbenz stone pine liqueur
1 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1 dash Peychaud’s
Shake over ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a whiskey soaked cherry.

And there we go! ¹⁴  Enjoy, and if you try it, let me know what you think. ¹⁵

[Twelth 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.]

And yes, I realize that it is now June and spring and sprung and we are on the verge of summer.  Well, sue me.  But the good news is we now have the winners!!!

Before announcing the winning cocktails, a note about the grading process.  Each submission was graded on a ten point scale for the following categories:

-Does the cocktail have a spring theme?
-Is it a rye whiskey base?
-Taste
-Color/Presentation
-Uniqueness

Sean and I both tasted and judged the cocktails on the aforementioned scale.  This meant each cocktail could score a maximum of 100 points total.  When Sean judged the cocktails the only info he was given was the name of the cocktail and the recipe, he didn’t know who submitted what drink.  The combined scores determined the winners.

And now without further ado:

Third Place:  Prize – Recipe and photo featured here.

The Revivalist by Gabe Szaszko
2 oz Rye
.5 oz Tarragon-Bergamot Syrup*
.5 oz Amer Picon
.25 oz lemon juice
.25 oz Maraschino liqueur

Shake all and double strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Twist lemon peel over drink and garnish with a lemon peel

*Bring simple syrup (1:1) just to boil and remove from heat.  Add tarragon and bergamot leaves and leave to sit and cool in syrup for at least one hour.  Strain all into a sterilized container.

The Revivalist

Second Place:  Prize -  Same as third place and a 50ml bottle of “Marshall’s Mountain Moonshine Bitters.”

The Capone Sour by Jeff Fulcher
1.5 oz Rye
1 oz grapefruit juice
1 oz brown sugar syrup
1 bar spoon orgeat
1 dash Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters (I used Angostura Orange)

Shake all with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The Capone Sour

First Place:  Prize – Same as third place and a 100ml bottle of “Marshall’s Mountain Moonshine Bitters” and a bottle of Templeton Rye.

Jetpack by Craig “Dr. Bamboo” Mrusek
1 oz Rye
1 oz Zubrowka Bison Grass vodka
.5 oz Schladerer Kirschwasser (I used Clear Creek)
.5 oz simple syrup
.5 oz lime juice
1 dash Fee’s Mint Bitters

Shake all with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The Jetpack

Congratulations to Craig, Jeff, and Gabe!!!

There you have it.  Mix up one or all of these drinks and let us know what you think in the comments.

Cheers!

I have all that stuff but good day in the morning, am I lazy.

You might be surprised to hear that because if you’ve been reading the Den in the past week or so I’ve been coming up with a new drink every night to name after people going to Tales even including one that already had ginger liqueur in it.  I had already figured on combining Mixology Monday with my perhaps Quixotic quest but when Marshall pointed out how much he liked ginger I thought, hey, I should name one after him.

I wasn’t happy with how it came out.

That’s not entirely true; it wasn’t bad, it just didn’t seem the right drink for my cohort in crime drinking cocktails so I debated what to do next.  As I gathered up the fixin’s for a cigar a name popped into my head.  Sure, it’s not perhaps as custom as some of the drinks I’ve made, but when I got it right it felt like you could drink a lot of these, and that’d get you pretty sloshed.

Stop making fun of my pictures or I'll take pictures of you and make fun of them.

The SLOSHED
2 ounces rye (Rittenhouse 100)
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce Dr. McGillicuddy’s Vanilla Liqueur
1/2 ounce Domaine de Canton
1-2 dashes Dr. Schwartz’s Cherry Vanilla bitters
Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice.  Shake, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a whiskey soaked cherry.

It’s not a bad drink at all.  I ended up using vanilla liqueur for two reasons: 1, I didn’t want to use vanilla vodka, and 2, I didn’t have any vanilla simple syrup.  Had I had the latter, I would’ve considered also cutting up some fresh ginger and muddling it in the vanilla simple syrup.  I also did completely ruin one cocktail by forgetting the bitters, generously given to me by sylvan, didn’t have a “dasher” thingamabob in the top of it.  OOPS.

If you try it with the G.E. Massenez, I think it’s also good, and this drink could definitely use some tweaking.  I’d love to hear if you tried it, and if so, if you tweaked it at all!

[Eighth 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.]