An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

You may have noticed lately that your scofflaws are doing a bit more product reviews.

The thing is that we’re getting more attention from people who want us to try stuff – and, we feel like it’s our duty to try to help out our readers by trying new things, whether or not we like them, and give you the honest truth on it.

After my Sobieski post, I got a lot of other vodka companies pinging me, which I thought was funny, given our general attitudes towards vodka. We also ended up with a sample of Veev, an acai-based drink that is advertising itself as a “vodka-killer”.

I’ll be doing follow-up posts on the other vodkas, including a vodka battle (which I’m sure people in the Mixoloseum chat room will refer to as “poser fluid battle”) between the Sobieski, my usual Charodei, the Zyr that just showed up, the Ikon that’s on the way, plus a number of others I picked up in mini format at the ABC store, such as Skyy, Absolut, Grey Goose, Smirnoff, and Stolichnaya. (If you have a vodka you want included, you can contact me…my e-mail is on here.)

(Still, I’d prefer whiskeys or gins…or, really, ANYTHING other than a liquor that’s intended to be flavorless. Que sera sera, after all, and I know a lot of people out there LIKE vodka. I do, just not in cocktails – I like it for infusions, and I like it straight sometimes when I’m in that “mood”.)

As I said, however, some people out there are big vodka drinkers. My mom is one – well, maybe not big, but her drink of choice is often her version of a Cosmo. Hers goes:
Mom’s Cosmo
1.5 ounces vodka (currently: Smirnoff, formerly: Grey Goose)
3/4 ounce triple sec (currently: Bols)
1.5 ounces cranberry (currently: Ocean Spray light cranberry juice cocktail)
Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass.

On an ironic note, my parents’ oldest dog is named Cosmo – though he was named after Kramer in Seinfeld about thirteen years ago, well before mom started drinking Cosmos.

Last Saturday I took with me two bottles of liquor to their house – my bottle of Sobieski and my bottle of Veev. As far as I know, neither is available in Virginia yet, but depending on my mom’s reaction to the Sobieski I was thinking I might procure her some to replace her Smirnoff when it was gone. (A side note: she switched from Grey Goose to Smirnoff when a bartender convinced her that in a mixed drink they were the same. Since then, however, she has begun to recant.)

First up was the Veev. I’ve had the Veev straight and on the rocks. It’s got a floral quality that vodkas don’t have, since they strive for “flavorless”, and at 60 proof it’s a bit easier on the system than your typical 80 proof vodka. Dad made the cocktail the way she likes it and, noting the proof, appeared to add an extra dash of the Veev.

Mom liked it. In fact, she said she liked it a bit too much. The Veev made the cocktail almost too sweet for her and also made it much smoother, to the point that she was afraid if she’d made them exclusively with Veev she’d drink too many of them. Duly noted.

So the next one was made with the Sobieski. This, she felt, was perfectly “normal”. She couldn’t taste a difference in it versus her normal Cosmos.

When I do my vodka battle royale I planned originally on doing three things with them: the nose, straight without ice, and straight with ice. I’d like to do one cocktail with them but need advice on what to do with the cocktail. After all, with vodka based cocktails, it’s all about the quality of your additional ingredients, and doing something like a Vesper would be more about the gin than the vodka.

Right now I’m thinking I might do a round of “mom’s cosmos” and have people taste-test them, see if they can pick out any differences. But man, that’s going to be a lot of drink making!

Any readers have suggestions?

So after a couple of reminders and e-mails I saw this page over on the website for the restaurant “Mie N Yu”.

They’re having an event on “How to Make Exotic Cocktails” on September 9th. Cost is $50 and you can get tickets here. Phil Greene and friend-of-the-Den Derek Brown are putting it on, and Chris Kelley of Mie N Yu and Tom Brown of Cork will be making up some drinks.

It’s sponsored by the Museum of the American Cocktail, Mie N Yu, Depaz Rhum Agricole, Finlandia Vodka and Domaine de Canton French Ginger Liqueur.

Any of y’all out there in blog-o-land going? I haven’t bought my ticket…yet…but I’m thinking about it. I do have my trip to NYC the weekend after and an event Monday night.

Last Friday night Marshall and I met up with Derek Brown and our friend Roy to go out and hit a few places. We started off at Bourbon, down in the Adams Morgan district of Washington DC, and one of my favorite bars.

Because I’m just that kind of guy, I was at Bourbon early and ended up starting off with a Stone IPA (because I am an idiot and cannot order correctly) and then a couple of Racer 5 IPAs. I’m also the kind of guy who just can’t recognize people right away (this comes up later, trust me) and so mistook bartender Patrick for Owen.

Once the guys showed up Owen started off in proper style with a Scofflaw. Now that’s a drink that we’ve tried making here at least a few times but his was SO MUCH BETTER than any of mine have been. I am not at all afraid to be completely honest about that.

From there he next put up a very tasty Manhattan using Carpano Antica vermouth and rye whiskey plus an “Old Old Fashioned”. It was the first time I’d really had an Old Fashioned like that and it was very good.

Next up was a strawberry basil shrubb with a balsamic and champagne, an interesting drink that has made me once again think more about using balsamic vinegar in my drinks.

Next up was a “real” martini – i.e. like the ones I make only without the olive juice, and then a Martinez made with Anchor Genevieve gin. Wow. What a neat drink that was. I’m going to have to make one of my here sometime soon.

From there we went off to Urbana, where we said hi to Kevin Rogers. He sent us an Aperol spritzer and a Leap Year, while I ordered an Old Flame (Plymouth, Cointreau, Campari, sweet vermouth, orange juice, and bitters). Next up were some Papa Dobles like Marshall had – Mount Gay rum, maraschino liqueur, and Velvet Falernum.

Derek took us to Cork next to meet his brother Tom but Tom had left for the night. We got a “Washington Apple” from the bartender, hit the little boy’s room, and it was off to Bar Pilar where Adam Bernbach made us up another drink whose name I completely missed.

At that point I realized I’d left my briefcase back at Urbana, so I trekked back there, got it, then taxi-ed back to Virginia.

Flash-forward to last night.

A friend wanted to go out and have drinks with me to help celebrate my recent raise. After throwing around some places to go we decided to go to EatBar, a place I love but don’t get to nearly enough. We sat at the bar and my friend asked me if Gina (the fantabulous Gina Chersevani, a great local mixologist) was working the bar. I said no.

I was wrong.

After a beer, I ordered a St. Pete’s Denial – Skyy vodka, Godiva, Frangelico, and a blue cheese redux. Topped with chocolate shavings it was FANTASTIC. But I wanted one of those drinks Gina was making for the girls in the corner…

As she walked by I said hi and that Marshall said hi. She came out with one drink (sorry, no details for you on that one). Then a Miller High Life on ice with lime, and a ghetto mind eraser – Redbreast Irish whisky, High Life, simple syrup, and lemon. Oof!

So now it’s time for me to decide what to do with the rest of this evening – college football or more bar-hopping? It’s a hard life!

I don’t think it is a secret around these parts that I enjoy rum. By no means do I consider myself a rum aficionado, but I do appreciate all of its incarnations. So, recently, when I was offered the change to try a new rum, I thought, “Self, you should try this new rum.”

What I received was a bottle of Rubi Rey Reserve Rum. It is a white rum, clocking in at 86 proof. The main characteristic that sets Rubi Rey apart from other white rums is that it is a “single barrel finished white rum” being aged in white oak barrels.

Before going further, I think this “single barrel finished white rum” language is very important to parse and distinguish. The language the producers are using conjure up images of single barrel whiskeys and bourbons; Fine old spirits that are bottled from a single barrel after years of interplay between the spirit, the wood and the angels. Rubi Rey is aged in white oak barrels for two to three years before being blended into a final barrel. This is an important distinction because, truth be told, I cannot consider this to be a “single barrel” rum in the way their marketing touts. In my mind, a “single barrel” rum would be a rum that was aged in the white oak for two to three years, then cut to a desired proof and bottled. In contrast, Rubi Rey ages the rum in barrels and then blends them. This blend is placed in a barrel. The length that it stays in this finishing barrel is no where mentioned. This language concerned me because with the packaging (a pretty cool bottle – see picture below) and high-falutin’ single barrel talked screamed “expensive bottle ahead.” After a little internet searching, I found that Rubi Rey retails for about $20 per 750ml. Whew! That’s a price I can live with! But all this aside, how does it taste?

I first sipped the rum straight. It had a nice smooth mouth feel with a bit of viscosity with a bit of a tingle going down. The nose was of cut grass, caramelized sugar, vanilla and bannana with a bit of alcohol. The flavor was of a mellow white rum with a little spice, a hint of the vanilla and pepper and on the back end, that mellow oakiness I can only equate to a chardonnay wine. I then added a little ice and let the the rum cool down. This brought out the “rum” aroma much more than before but also took away the slight alcohol burn exhibited when drank straight. The oak was still there, but it too had mellowed.

On to a cocktail! I had just recently found the recipe for a cocktail called the Nacional. It called for white rum and apricot brandy. Well, I had the Rubi Rey, but alas no apricot brandy. But I did have pear brandy. So I made a bit of a substitution that looked like this:

1.50 oz white rum (Rubi Rey)
0.75 oz pear brandy (Rothman & Winter Orchard Pear)
1.00 oz lime juice
0.75 oz simple syrup
2 dashes peach bitters

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

I really liked this drink. The Rubi Rey gave a nice backbone to the delicate pear brandy and the lime juice gave it a nice bracing tartness. The peach bitters brought out the citrus I was detecting in the rum and highlighted the pear very nicely. It was a really nice drink. But there is a downside. Using Rubi Rey, the oakiness that is one of the hallmarks of the rum disappears completely. The oak flavor in the rum simply isn’t strong enough to withstand other strong flavors such as lime juice. My buddy Luke, who also tried the rum and really liked it, made a cocktail with lemon and lime juice, simple syrup, orange bitters and soda water. The Rubi Rey was very tasty in his experiment as well, but again, the oak was completely washed out.

So, enough jabbering Marshall, what’s the verdict? I do have reservations about the use of “single barrel” as a marketing ploy, as I think it leads to the wrong conclusions. But overall, I think Rubi Rey is a nice white rum. It seems to be too mellow and nuanced for a mixing rum though. There are other white rums on the market that provide a bigger flavor at the same price point (or cheaper) for you to use in mixed drinks. That said, I think Rubi Rey is much more suited as a sipper rum. If you haven’t tried sipping rums straight, Rubi Rey would be an excellent choice for the price – especially for a white sipper.