An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

As we mentioned in our write-up of Central Michel Richard, July was designated as the first annual “Rickey Month” by the DC Craft Bartender’s Guild. A number of bars around the area had their own variations of the rickey up on the menus.

The rickey originated in DC. According to the card that they were handing out last night, the recipe was first in the Washington Post back in 1889. The drink was named after a lobbyist whose last name was Rickey, though he ordered his with whiskey rather than the more traditional (today) form with gin.

I arrived in Adams Morgan a bit early so I headed over to Asylum for a couple of beers (a Sierra Nevada Summerfest and a Smuttynose IPA) while waiting for Marshall. Once he arrived we grabbed a couple of empanadas from Julia’s Empanadas (yummy) not realizing the full array of appetizers that would be laid out at Bourbon. Then it was over to Bourbon!

There were eight drinks to try. The contestants would work the upstairs bar, each making their own rickey, with one other barback there to handle other requests and dishes. The schedule looked like this:
6:00 – 6:30:
Owen – Key Lime Rickey
Kat – Haymaker Rickey
6:30 – 7:00:
Adam – “Bathtub Gin” Rickey
Chantal – Rive Gauche Rickey
7:00 – 7:30:
Kevin – Dupont “Gin” Rickey
Gina – Georgie’s Rickey
7:30 – 8:00:
Justin – Black Pepper Rickey
Dan – Berry Lime Rickey
After 8:00:
Traditional rickeys with the Brown Brothers

After saying hi to a few people, we got our bellies to the bar and grabbed one of each. I started with Bourbon’s own Owen Thomson and a Key Lime Rickey (Wild Turkey 101, Key Lime Juice, Coriander Tincture, Peychaud’s, Carbonated Coconut Water) while Marshall got a Haymaker Rickey (Old Overholt Rye, Brown Sugar Balsamic Simple Syrup, Ginger Ale, Soda Water, Limes) from Kat Bangs of Tabard Inn. (I had the first names and rickey names from the blackboard, and obviously, I knew some of the last names and where they worked – others, plus the recipes unless stated otherwise, I’m referencing from the DCist article last week.) Finishing those off we switched up and got the opposite ones.

The Key Lime was low key, not super heavy on the lime flavor. Of the two, I leaned towards Kat’s Haymaker more, as it had a bit more complexity to it and I really liked the brown sugar/balsamic simple syrup. The vinegar taste kind of jumped out at you which was something I like in a refreshing drink (as noted when we’d tried Justin’s black pepper lime rickey back in July).

Next up were Adam Bernbach of Bar Pilar and his “bathtub gin” rickey, so called because he made his own “gin” using botanical-infused souchu and finished the rickey with yuzu juice (whatever that is) and soda water. Marshall, unfortunately, didn’t manage to get one of those due to the fact that he was hanging up near the end of the bar with Rick Wasmund (of Copper Fox Distillery) and some others, while lines had spontaneously formed for each of the bartenders further down. I managed to get one, and then got back into Marshall’s good graces.

How? I went down, stood in line for a while, and got one of Chantal Tseng’s Rive Gauche Rickeys that she’s been serving up at the Tabard Inn. It has (to quote again from DCist): Aviation Gin, St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur, Lucid Absinthe, Limes, Charles de Fere Blanc de Blanc Sparkling Wine, Lavender. (We kept calling it prosecco instead of sparkling wine last night, oops.) I lost my lavender fairly quickly but once I got a straw (sipping out of the glass could just give you an overwhelming hit of sparkling wine) it was the winner for me of that half-hour. I couldn’t really pick up the absinthe amongst everything else, especially the St. Germain, but it was really good.

Next up for me was Kevin Rogers’ Dupont “Gin” Rickey. Kevin works at Urbana, a bar I’m not especially familiar with, but after having a good time talking and hanging out with him a bit later we’ll definitely have to trek over there. His was made with Knob Creek bourbon, had muddled ginger in it and a top of mint. I think that overall for the evening it might’ve been my favorite – not that any of them were bad!

Following that one up was Gina Chersevani’s Georgie’s Rickey. Gina is over at EatBar nowadays and we still do not get over there anywhere near enough. (Marshall: we need to fix that! Not tonight, though, I’ve got karaoke at O’Sullivan’s.) Hers had Woodford Reserve, lime juice, raw dark brown sugar, curry cherries, soda water, and microbasil (I do not know what that is). Check that out – curry cherries. Those things packed a punch!

I was sipping on my Georgie’s Rickey when Todd Thrasher (of PX and Restaurant Eve) walked by – he was one of the judges of the competition (along with John Wabeck, formerly of New Heights and now of Inox, Charlotte Voisey, the mixologist master of Hendrick’s Gin, and Eric Felten of the Wall Street Journal). We spoke briefly but as I started to talk, I took a drink, and one of those bits of cherry went down the wrong pipe. Oof! My eyes were watering, my voice was rough…it was worth it. That was a tasty beverage.

Finally (heh) it was to the last round of drinks. Moving around to Dan Searing’s line, of the Looking Glass Lounge, we grabbed two of his Berry Lime Rickeys, made with gin, berry compote (blackberries and raspberries), soda water, lemons and limes. Nice and fruity, it felt like the kind of summertime drink that a nice hot August day really deserved. We had skipped Justin Guthrie’s black pepper gin rickey because, after all, we’d had it before, and we wanted to make sure we tried all of them.

He joked that we’d said his drink tasted like “sour milk” which immediately flashed me back to college when an unsuspecting first year asked me to make him a “blue drink” – and in my drunken state I combined tequila, blue curacao, and milk. Never again was I asked such a question lest the “Blue Mexican” be made again.

It was time for the results of the competition. Before their shift at the bar each mixologist would make up a batch for the judges and (it looked like) talk to them a bit. The first announcement, from Derek Brown, was the results of the popular votes.

The winner was Justin Guthrie of Central Michel Richard! Derek stepped down and Todd came up to deliver the judges’ results. They agreed with the masses – Justin won again!

That having been said, everyone rushed to the bar to get one of Justin’s rickeys or to try one of the traditional rickeys from Derek (especially while Justin was getting videotaped). We snagged two of the black pepper rickeys to compare to the others and yep, of course, they were good. But as I said – there were no bad rickeys.

Of course, that wasn’t everything for the night. We had a chance to catch up with some people we hadn’t talked to in a while and to meet people we hadn’t met before, such as Kat and Chantal from Tabard Inn (and now I feel slightly guilty that I didn’t make it there for lunch yesterday, but me feeling guilty is not an unusual thing). Rick Wasmund and his friends were very nice, even though I’m often an idiot and stick my foot right into my mouth down to the ankle. Hopefully sometime soon we can make our way out to Sperryville and check out Copper Fox. I’m going to have to dig out my bottle of Wasmund’s Single Malt Whisky and figure out what batch I have.

There was hanging out with Heather (and making her feel old, I’m afraid), Joe, and Jake. Talking with Kevin, Dave & Liz (whom I had mistaken for, uh, someone else, please see above where I say “I’m often an idiot”), John, Owen, Justin, Adam, Kat, Chantal – I mean, seriously, everyone there was so much fun to hang out with and so cool. I managed to share with Charlotte that thanks to Hendrick’s, I know have a gazillion gins and drink way too much of it. I didn’t manage to eat any of the delicious looking appetizers except one deep fried thing on a stick.

We paid up our tab and went to leave but Marshall wanted to make his goodbyes. I helped with that by getting a “traditional” gin rickey from Derek. Marshall followed that up by talking to Bill, one of the owners of Bourbon, and there we ended up with a sampling of some Four Roses. That was exactly what we needed! A cheap cab ride back to Ballston later (man oh man do I LOVE the new meters in DC!) and an almost-as-expensive cab ride back to East Falls Church later (okay, I got too lazy to Metro) and I sat down at home with a La Aurora 1495 cigar and a bottle of Flying Dog Amber Ale.

What a day.

Let’s end this with a few shout-outs:
Big thanks has to go to the staff and owners of Bourbon for hosting this event – and specifically to Bill for introducing us to Four Roses (and, of course, almost undoubtedly assuring that we buy some).
To everyone behind the bar: Owen, Kat, Adam, Chantal, Kevin, Gina, Justin, Dan, Derek, and the guy from Bourbon whose name I never got.
To the people we met there for the first time: Dave & Liz, Rick, Chelsea, Richard, Kevin, Chantal, Kat and others I’m probably forgetting – rock on. Hopefully see y’all at the next event like this (or sooner) and send me that e-mail about the editorial Dave!
To people we’ve hung out with before even if just briefly: Joe, Jake, Heather, Derek, Justin, Adam, Gina, probably others I’m forgetting again: always good fun, especially for finally getting a chance to see Joe having a drink and not just selling them!

I’ll sign off with two quick thoughts: I’d have pictures, but Sprint is really annoying me today and I can’t get to them. And I should’ve listened to my brother and taken today off from work!

This is also my first time using the visual editor here on WordPress now that our very helpful friend Victor has upgraded it for us. I’ve had that weird kind of busy/not-busy time at work lately where I just never managed to get to it, but I also knew HTML much better than Marshall so being stuck with the HTML editor didn’t bother me as much. That’s what I had to code in the whole time I was in E3 for GamersInfo, after all. (EDIT: Hmmm, and I see I made a mess of my images…I’m going to try to fix them, but if they’re still ugly – uh – well, damn, I guess it’s all my fault.)

But one of the interesting things about moving to our own domain is the increase in visibility we seemed to have gotten from marketing/PR type of people out there. We welcome it – I’m going to be honest, I like the chance to take a look at new stuff and/or talk to people about it – but we’re always going to be completely up front and straight forward with our readers about our experiences. Y’all saw that with trips to places like Central Michel Richard and New Heights as well as when Bulleit Bourbon sent us some info and a bottle before the June Mixology Monday. And you’re going to see more stuff like that coming up.

A little while ago we got an e-mail from Martini & Rossi advertising cocktails based off Andy Warhol and etc. Now, there’s two things about that for me:
1. I’ve honestly never really known much about Andy Warhol nor have I ever really cared…and
2. I’ve bagged on Martini & Rossi vermouths more than a couple of times – and at the point that I was going into this, I owned no Martini & Rossi products.

Obviously, I knew a few things about Andy Warhol. I knew his phrase about fifteen minutes of fame, that he did iconic pop art such as the Campbell’s soup can and Marilyn Monroe. I knew he went to Studio 54 and what he looked like. I just, mostly, really didn’t care because, well, it never really came up.

I hit Wikipedia and read up on him, did some Googling on Edie Sedgwick.

I had initially thought “I’ll do the drinks that they list with whatever vermouth I already have in my bar” which means, basically, Noilly Prat, Vya, and Carpano Antica. But that didn’t seem like it’d be a worthwhile endeavour, and if one of their “key markets” that they’ll be rolling out these is our own Washington DC (you know, where we, like, live and stuff) I thought I should do it right.

I drove out to the ABC store and Harris Teeter. I went for the smaller bottles of the rosso and extra dry vermouth at the ABC store ($6.40 – Teeter didn’t carry them) and got a bottle of the Martini & Rossi prosecco at Teeter for about $13.99. I also stocked up on the few ingredients I was still missing, mostly mint, rosemary, raspberries, and orange juice (I’d drank up all the OJ during various hangovers). From there I headed over to Total Wine & More to buy a bottle of the bianco vermouth ($7.99 for a bigger bottle) and inwardly sigh when I saw the same size bottles of rosso and extra dry were only $4.99 there. I made up for it by buying copious amounts of beer.

The Martini & Rossi family of products for today

Now that I was stocked up, it was time to buy some ice – our lack of an icemaker means I was stuck with a 20 pound bag of ice sitting on my doorstep in 90+ degree heat until I could make all these drinks – and head home to get ready for round after round of drinks.

We got ourselves settled, and I made it a point to make at least a couple of them while Cathy was around because I know she likes wine-based cocktails. All of the ones in the “Gallery of Cocktails” document I was sent were vermouth based and only one had any additional liquor in it – I’d grabbed the Dewar’s White Label in minis that it asked for at ABC as well (if you didn’t know, Martini & Rossi is owned by Bacardi, which also makes Dewar’s).

The first drink up was the “Factory Martini”. Of course, it suffers from the fact that they insist on calling it a martini when there’s not even vodka, and most definitely not gin, in it. But at least versus so many martinis these days it has vermouth in it. The recipe was as follows:
Factory Martini
3 parts Martini & Rossi extra dry vermouth
1/2 lemon in wedges
1/2 part simple syrup
3-4 mint leaves
club soda, chilled
Muddle lemon wedges and mint leaves in the base of a shaker. Add MARTINI & ROSSI? Extra Dry vermouth, simple syrup and ice. Shake well and strain into a martini cocktail glass. Top with club soda. Garnish with remaining lemon twist.

The ingredients in a Factory Martini

Gah. Imprecise measurements. I hate that. You have “parts” instead of, perhaps, you know, ounces or whatever, half a lemon – however big your lemon might be this time – and, you know, three or four mint leaves. I like mint, so I went with four, and I counted a “part” as an ounce.

The Factory Martini ready to go

I even broke out an old school martini glass for it – one of the ones my friends from Georgia had sent me about a year ago. They are, I believe, around the same size or maybe a bit bigger than my usual cocktail glasses so I thought they’d work well. The first thing I noticed was that the drink was nowhere near as clear as the picture in the document. My simple syrup, however, is made from demerara sugar, so that might’ve been part of it – but it was just generally cloudy.

I enjoyed the drink a good bit. It seemed to me like it’d make a good apertif. It was light and delicate with much more of a lemon taste than mint. Cathy and Matt both thought it should be sweeter, to be more like “lemonade”, but I thought that the tart taste to it worked for it.

Off to the next drink…

Warhol Manhattan
1 part Martini & Rossi rosso vermouth
1 part Dewar’s White Label blended scotch
3 cherries soaked in premium orange liqueur

The ingredients for a Warhol Manhattan

Shake liquid ingredients with ice and strain into a martini cocktail glass or pour over ice in a rocks glass. Drop in cherries.
The big thing for me on this one was the cherries – I wasn’t going to soak fresh cherries in orange liqueur just for this, but I did have some I did in a combination of bourbon and Grand Marnier, so I figured those would work. I poured one and a half ounces (most of a mini) of Dewar’s in, used the same amount of vermouth, and lamented the lack of bitters in the “Manhattan” – which, being that it used scotch really should’ve been called a “Rob Roy”.
This drink sucked. I couldn’t drink it, I dumped it out – something I almost never do. The vermouth pretty much completely overpowered the scotch except for a dry taste left on the tongue, the lack of bitters really showed through (I think some form of bitters might’ve helped salvage this train wreck of a drink), and really – who shakes a Manhattan other than Dr. Cocktail? Seriously. You need a lot less vermouth (I tend to use 1/2 to 1/3rd as much vermouth as whiskey) and/or go with a more assertive scotch or with a sweet bourbon whiskey.

Blech. It was, however, maybe the closest cocktail I made to looking like the one in the picture. Hoorah.

That’s the lowest spot on the list, however. The next up was the Velvet Edie, named after the Velvet Underground and Edie Sedgwick.

The ingredients for a Velvet Edie

Velvet Edie
3 parts Martini & Rossi bianco vermouth
1 part lemon juice
1/2 part simple syrup
2 raspberries
2 mint leaves
In base of martini shaker, gently muddle one raspberry and one mint leaf with simple syrup. Add remaining ingredients and ice. Shake well and strain over cracked ice in decorative stem less glass. Garnish with quarter slice of lemon, remaining berry and mint leaf.

The big hit of the night, the Velvet Edie

This one really got us all good. It was a damn tasty drink. Nice and pink, it reminded me of pink lemonade, and both Matt and Cathy thought it was really good as well. Later, when my neighbor Conroy came up to watch football and Generation Kill, I made him one and he liked it a lot. The fact that it’s quite weak (come on, only 3 ounces of wine, basically) was a surprise to the drinkers, not that it tasted like alcohol, but they just liked it a whole lot. (Don’t worry, Conroy switched to Redbreast Irish whisky later.)

Okay, so we hit a good one. Next up was the Pop Art ‘tini…oh, come on! You don’t need to add “-tini” to freaking EVERYTHING! GAH!

Pop Art [redacted]
1.5 ounces Martini & Rossi dry vermouth (I’ve never seen just “dry” Martini & Rossi, so I assumed they meant the extra dry.)
2 ounces cranberry juice
.5 ounces pineapple juice
1.5 ounces top with Martini & Rossi prosecco
Fill mixing tin halfway with ice. Pour in M&R Dry Vermouth, Cranberry and Pineapple Juice. Shake with ice 8-10 times. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Top with M&R Prosecco. Garnish with a lemon and lime twisted together.

The Pop Art sans lime part of the garnish

Unfortunately for your humble narrator, I forgot to buy more limes at the store, so the garnish had to be a sole lemon twist. I really liked the look of the drink when it was done, especially the foamy pink head on the dark red beverage. I ignored the “shake 8-10 times” part, because that’s dumb, but I did appreciate the fact that it had actual real honest to god measurements for the cocktail.

The drink was tart but refreshing – I’d call it a good digestif, like the Velvet Edie, myself. Matt actually liked it too and the only bad part was that it led us on to believe that the Martini & Rossi prosecco wasn’t bad.

I’m going to be honest – the prosecco, like I’ve found with the rosso vermouth, I’m not a fan of. I’m not going to come out and say “it’s bad and here’s why” but what I am going to say is, honestly, I can not recommend them. I’d have to sit down with each and compare them to good versions to really break down the problems (such as Noilly Prat or Vya for the rosso vermouth (Carpano Antica being in a whole ‘nother category all together in my opinion) or the Vino Frizzante Prosecco dei Colli Trevigiani that’s sitting next to me as I write this) but I’ve come close to that for the vermouth already and I’m not really a wine guy in general. Maybe, if you’re lucky, and they’re around, one of the really smart wine guys who I know read this occasionally (looks around for Jake and/or Joe) can say “here’s why those two products aren’t so great”.

But the bianco and extra dry, on the other hand, were better than I remembered, especially in these cocktails. The next two feature rosso vermouth, unfortunately, so you can guess where it goes from there.

Ingredients for a Bohemian Cocktail

Bohemian Cocktail
1.5 ounces Martini & Rossi rosso vermouth
2 ounces orange juice
1 ounce cranberry juice
.25 ounces grenadine
Fill mixing tin halfway with ice. Pour in M&R Rosso Vermouth, Orange Juice and Cranberry Juice. Pour Grenadine down the inside of the drink and let settle to the bottom of the martini glass. Garnish with an orange wheel cut in half and placed on top of ice.

Yes, it’s called a cocktail but doesn’t have bitters. But if you see this in a restaurant, I’d have to say, for me, order it, because mine doesn’t look like the picture they sent me (but don’t order it if your tastes are exactly the same as mine, because I wasn’t the hugest fan of it in the world).

Well, that’s a dark drink. Where’d the grenadine go?

It wasn’t bad, per se, as the tart actually worked rather well with the rosso vermouth. But it didn’t help completely, and maybe that’s compounded by the fact that I also didn’t have any oranges and so I couldn’t add the orange garnish that might’ve covered up a bit more of the vermouth taste.

The other big thing is that if you read the instructions they appear – well – wrong. They’re kind of screwy compared to the picture that was provided. And in my picture, you can see how dark it came out, while in the picture they sent, it was a very clear yellow-ish drink that had the dark red of grenadine in the bottom. I have no idea what they did to get theirs to look that way but mine sure as heck didn’t do that.

It’s not a bad idea, maybe, for a sweet vermouth-based cocktail, but the implementation is still off. It could use some work.

Crushing Celebrities with Ingredients

The final cocktail on the list was the “Celebrity Crush”, which, like the Pop Art and the Bohemian Cocktail, had no little story along with it to describe things about it. But it did have rosemary. Lots of rosemary.
Celebrity Crush
12 each fresh rosemary needles
6 each fresh raspberries
.75 ounces simple syrup
1.5 ounces Martini & Rossi rosso vermouth
2 ounces cranberry juice
Muddle in a mixing glass: Rosemary, Raspberries and Simple Syrup. Fill halfway with ice and add: M&R Rosso Vermouth and Cranberry Juice. Shake with ice 8-10 times. Double strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with 3 fresh Raspberries speared by a Rosemary sprig.

The final drink of the night, the Celebrity Crush

That’s a lot to muddle but it works out okay. I wasn’t certain if it meant individual needles or the little clusters of needles for rosemary but I guessed on the former, and I had to laugh because I’ve never seen a recipe call for (to use an example) “6 old, stale raspberries”.

The rosemary, I felt, really helped the balance of the cocktail, along with the tart of the cranberry juice and the taste of the vermouth. Unlike some of the other rosso vermouth based cocktails in the list I didn’t feel like this one was worse off due to the presence of the specific brand of vermouth – instead, I would be more likely to say it’s not bad at all but not necessarily my cup of tea. If I knew someone who loved rosemary, for instance, and who was looking for a weak, fruity drink (say, one certain chef friend of ours in New York City, and no, I don’t mean your fiancee, ED), I would definitely recommend the drink.

That’s kind of one of the points overall for me. These are not bad drinks – with the exception of the one “strong” drink, the kind of drink we Scofflaws often prefer. In fact, I went into this whole exercise very skeptical that anything good could come out of it and I found a couple of drinks that I would not hesitate to make for other people.

Would I make them for myself? Uh, that’s a harder question. I’m saving what’s left of the prosecco (the “champagne stoppers” you can get at Total Wine are a god-send for saving sparkling wine) for maybe making more Pop Arts for, well, other people – and maybe me if I need something light – and I’m definitely keeping the bianco vermouth to make more Velvet Edies. In fact, I kept all the vermouths for now, where my original plan had to been to get rid of them, though I’m having a hard time thinking of a good reason to keep the rosso when I already have Vya, Noilly Prat, Carpano, and Dubonnet, except, perhaps, to do a taste test between them.

What this means for you is – keep an open mind. Everywhere out there, even in some of the most unlikely of places, there are good drinks, you just have to find them. Sometimes it means venturing out of your own comfort zone and doing something different. Honestly, if I’d seen a Velvet Edie on a bar menu, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but now there are four of us who have tried it and said “hey, wow, this is a pretty good drink!”

And you know what? Andy Warhol was actually kind of an interesting guy. The theories on his art work and how it relates to capitalism are something I’d like to look into a bit more. Then again, I am an unrepentant capitalist…but do not assume any politics on me due to that statement.

Ummmm, yeah. The title of the post isn’t really something I tend to think about when I’m mixing up cocktails. But the good folks at Kraft want you to consider adding a little Grey Poupon to your happy hour.

http://tinyurl.com/5k48nu

But this got me to thinking. I know, a dangerous activity at best. There is the dirty martini using olive brine, I’ve done my own bacon-infused bourbon, tried a mushroom margarita and have seen plenty other savory cocktails and garnishes. So maybe mustard in a cocktail really isn’t that big of a stretch.

So I ask you, dear Reader, what are your thoughts? Too weird? Natural progress? Would you give mustardy cocktails the ole college try?

Sound off!

Cheers!

This month our Mixology Monday is being hosted by Paul Clarke over at The Cocktail Chronicles. Paul decided that the theme would be New Orleans. Since most cocktail nerds attended Tales of The Cocktail 2008 (held in the Crescent City) many posts will contain delicious drinks from one of the wonderful sessions, some hilarious stories about drunken tom-foolery and possibly pictures of Jeff Morgenthaler camped out by the pool. (Seriously, did Morgenthaler really spend *that* much time by the pool?!?!?!?) Anyway, for those of us that weren’t lucky enough to attend this year, our instructions were to write about cocktails that originated in New Orleans or that are inspired by New Orleans.

The first drink I really wanted to make was a Brandy Crusta. A straightforward cocktail of brandy, curacao, lemon juice and bitters, the defining aspect of the Brandy Crusta was the garnish. We learn from Ted Haigh’s “Vintage Spririts & Forgotten Cocktails” that Joe Santini, a barman in New Orleans, invented the crusta style of cocktail. Taking a long strip of citrus peel and crusting the edge of the glass with sugar, a basic cocktail (spirits, water and bitters) was now something with a bit of flair and pizazz.

Brandy Crusta
2 oz cognac
1 tsp curacao
.5 tsp lemon juice
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Use a peeler and get a long strip of lemon peel. Moisten the rim of your glass with lemon juice and dip in sugar. Then roll the peel so it fits into the mouth of your glass. Shake all of the cocktail ingredients and strain into your prepped glass. Add one small lump of ice.

Again, this is a very simple cocktail with the garnishing really being with show-stopper. As for taste, it’s a bit like a Sidecar, although less sweet and with less citrus swinging about. This would be a great small cocktail to serve to someone who likes pretty looking things. But honestly, a bit too labor intensive to make a bunch. Just make a garage full of sidecars. An interesting note, both the Brandy Crusta and the Sidecar are within the family of cocktails named New Orleans Sours. Ha! Another New Orleans reference!!! This family includes margaritas, corpse revivers and cosmopolitans.

In keeping with tradition here at The Den, I wanted to leave you with another cocktail. If you have been following our exploits around here you know how much I love the Sazerac and how all seems right with the world when I’m drinking a De La Louisiane cocktail. But for this outing, I decided on another thoroughly New Orleans cocktail – Ramos Gin Fizz.

History tells use that the Ramos Gin Fizz was invented around the late 1880s by a New Orleans barkeep by the name of Henry Ramos. In The Joy of Mixology, Gary Regan tells us of how Mr. Ramos would hire multiple bar-backs to shake a single fizz, even to the point where it is reported that some customers would wait up to an hour to receive their drink! Well, I won’t make you wait an hour for the recipe, so here you go.

Ramos Gin Fizz
1.5 oz Gin (I used Plymouth)
0.5 oz Lemon Juice
0.5 oz Lime Juice
2 Tbls Cream
1 Egg White
0.25 oz Seltzer Water (to be honest, I didn’t measure this, just using a short burst from the iSi)
1 Tbls Powdered Sugar
4 dashes Orange Flower Water

Combine everything except the seltzer water into a mixing glass. Top with the mixing tin and shake, without ice until your arms hurt (or for as long as you can stand.) Then fill the mixing tin with ice and shake until the drink is properly chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe or wine glass and top with the seltzer.

The reason you do the first shake sans ice (also called a dry shake) is to emulsify the egg and achieve a nice thick foamy meringue that will eventually float on top of the drink. Speaking of the foamy meringue, once you strain about 3/4 of the drink into the glass, swirl the remaining inside the mixing time before straining it into the glass. This allows the remaining liquid to pick up the foamy meringue that has been sticking to the ice cubes inside the tin and will give you a better head on the drink.

Even though I wasn’t able to attend Tales this year, I’ve been reading everyone’s accounts and living vicariously. One of the sessions I know I would have loved was the one on garnishes. I like to think I garnish my drinks appropriately and with something my guests find interesting, edible or both. For this MxMo I wanted to do a little something special garnish on my Ramos Gin Fizz. Keep in mind that it is my first attempt and hopefully something that as I practice, I will improve. With that, I give you the MxMo Ramos Gin Fizz.

That’s it from this Scofflaw. Hope everyone enjoyed this MxMo. Thanks again to Mr. Mixology Monday himself, Paul Clarke.

Cheers!