An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

One of the problems with writing for two sites – as I’ve mentioned before, I also write for GamersInfo.net – is that sometimes your obligations for one prevents you from doing something you think would be really, really neat for the other.

Case in point: Last week was perhaps the last E3 ever. I was there to cover a good, solid hunk of the show for GamersInfo and that I did – I’m still in the process of writing up the nearly 30 games that I’ve been assigned to cover, not to mention all the other games that I only saw briefly and not enough to write anything worth reading about. (Some would argue that some of the games I did write up fall in that category, but whatever.)

But that meant I missed a few things and had to endure some others.

The big thing I missed, obviously, was Tales of the Cocktail. I read a good bit of the Tales blog today and I was really impressed with what went on there and very sad that I did not make it.

Something I missed just thanks to the fact that I wasn’t able to keep up with my normal newsfeeds (and my Wonkette addiction, specifically) was Wonkette’s “Create the Wonkettini” contest. The winning entry was basically the French Martini:

The Wonkettini aka the French Martini
1 1/2 ounces vodka
1/4 ounce Chambord
1/4 ounce fresh pineapple juice
Garnish with a twist of lemon peel

Shake and serve in a martini glass. Being Wonkette, feel free to add a dash of bitters (I might suggest orange bitters of some sort, or one of Fee’s fruit bitters), and garnish with two cherries tied together (to represent the ever-popular-on-that-site “Truck Nutz”) and/or an American flag.

For better or for worse, most of my drinking while in LA consisted of Miller Lite, and even more often, consisted of racing along with my buddy Dan to drink our Miller Lite tall boys before they all got warm. Yep, we were living it up. We did have three nights where we had something substantially different (at least, earlier in the evening).

The first and last night that we were in LA we went to Tom Bergin’s, an Irish place that has claimed (along with Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco which is its rival in this claim, to have brought the Irish Coffee to the United States. There we mostly drank Smithwicks, though the last night we each got an Irish Coffee.

The Irish Coffee was smaller and different than what I expected. It was nothing more than Irish whiskey and coffee, and strong at that, with some whipped cream on top. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but I’m used to have Irish creme in my Irish coffees. At least, that’s how we usually roll.

That was the good side. The bad side was at the actual E3 when I went to the SOE Reception.

Upon arriving, my editor told us to put away our pen and notebooks, grab a drink, and just relax. Having dropped our bags, I thought that they’d be doing specialty cocktails based off their games like other places have done in the past. Unfortunately, that did not appear to be the case.

Disappointed, I went with a Manhattan. They did have sweet vermouth but didn’t appear to have bitters – and thus, my Manhattan continued my disappointment. Also, it was Maker’s Mark, which isn’t really an overly assertive bourbon to begin with, mixed with Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth which I do not prefer in general. Sigh. But, hey, it was free, so I drank it while watching a preview of “The Agency” and switched to beer afterwards.

I’m glad I went especially if that was the last year for E3. But next year – I am DEFINITELY going to Tales of the Cocktail!

While most of the cocktail bloggers seemed to be having a joyous ole time down in N’awlins for Tales of the Cocktail (note: I haven’t actually read any of the blog posts, so maybe everybody came down with salmonella or something, not that I’d actually hope that’d happen but if something did happen and I’m sounding like an incredible jerkwad, well, uh, I’ve been fairly incommunicado all week) I got stuck with my usual July assignment – going to E3 on behest of the other site I write for, GamersInfo.net.

If you want my thoughts on the 28+ games I saw at E3, check out that site. If you want my thoughts on Irish Coffee, a bitters-less Manhattan, and other travesties of the LA bar scene, I’ll post on that later.

And then there’s the theme for this month: New Orleans. Or N’awlins, as I am wont to put it all the time whenever I’m writing out the name. I blame my psuedo-Southern heritage.

But what to make? The easy choice is the obvious one – the Sazerac. I do love me a Sazerac. But I didn’t want to do one of those, and though I briefly toyed with the idea of making my own version of the Hand Grenade I didn’t get around to doing any of those until too late, so I whipped out what I got, in other words, a couple of books, and decided to try a couple of cocktails that I hadn’t had before.

Because, you know, this is the Scofflaw’s Den, and even if I’m having to hand key in the HTML (and teach Marshall a bit about HTML) until we figure out why WordPress’s visual editor isn’t working, we’re still going to be doing multiple cocktails for MxMo ’cause that’s the way we roll.

First I went to one of the tried-and-true boosk – Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. There I read about the Vieux Carre’ (no, I can’t do the accent in HTML right yet), named after N’awlins’ famous French Quarter (i.e. “The Old Square”) and according to Dr. Cocktail, invented by Walter Bergeron in the soon-to-be (at the time) Carousel bar in the Monteleone Hotel. The drink reminded me a lot of the Cocktail a la Louisiane, for more than one reason.

Vieux Carre’ Cocktail
1 ounce rye whiskey (Wild Turkey Russell Reserve)
1 ounce cognac (Hennessy VS)
1 ounce sweet vermouth (Noilly Prat)
1/2 teaspoon Benedictine
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Shake and strain into a rocks glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon.

This reminded me of the previously-mentioned cocktail for a couple of reasons. For one thing, look at the list of ingredients – take out the absinthe, add in cognac, and you’ve got this one. That also goes for the second thing, which is that it tastes very similar, but to me the sweet vermouth really cut through everything else. That might be my choice of vermouth, but as I gave my Cinzano to my mom (awwww!) and I didn’t think to try the Vya, and I know that the Carpano might be even stronger, that’s what I’ve got right now.

All that being said, it wasn’t a bad drink, but I’d probably go with the Louisiane when going with this style cocktail.

At this point in the evening, I was sans eggs, necessary for the next cocktail. I took my Vieux Carre’ cocktail outside with me for the first cigar I’ve had since E3, where I proceeded to read my copy of Future Washington from cover to cover while smoking a La Gloria Cubana Serie R and later a Cavalier Cigar while sipping Miller Lite after finishing the cocktail. I am, after all, on a diet. Supposedly.

My brother finally got home with the eggs (along with a steam cleaner and other things, thanks to – well, I’ll talk about that later) and so it was time for my next drink: the Coffee Cocktail.

Coffee Cocktail
Take 1 tea-spoonful powdered white sugar
1 fresh egg
1 large wine-glass [2 oz.] of port wine
1 pony [1 oz.] of brandy
2 or 3 lumps of ice
Break the egg in the glass, add the sugar, then the port, brandy, and ice. Shake thoroughly and strain into a glass. Grate a little nutmeg on top.

I initially chilled a cocktail glass for this and realized belatedly it was too small, so it was another Jack Daniels rocks glass for me.

This was definitely an interesting cocktail. I used a Horton Vineyards 2000 vintage port – one of my favorite vintage ports, especially for the price. You could quite tell the taste of the port over the armagnac that I ended up using and the rest, but it was still a tasty beverage.

If you couldn’t tell from the formatting of the ingredients, despite the fact that it’s on the next page of Vintage Cocktails and Forgotten Spirits from the Vieux Carre’ cocktail I had no idea about the N’awlins connection of this cocktail until I saw it in David Wondrich’s Imbibe!, with proper credit to Jerry Thomas, and David mentions that according to rumor it came from N’awlins. I can definitely see it.

Unlike Dr. Cocktail’s recipe, I used the whole egg in this recipe, and it was definitely lush and luxurious. Very tasty, but definitely perhaps maybe more appropriate as a digestif than a “post-dinner, post-cigars, post-beer” drink. It did lead very nicely into the brie, dry salami, and baguette that Matt brought home with the steam cleaner.

But that’ll do it for this month’s Mixology Monday. It was definitely good to try some random cocktails that I might not have had an impetus to try without this theme, so I’ve gotta give the shout out to Paul at Cocktail Chronicles for hosting this month. Tomorrow, once I’m safely back on the taxpayer’s dime, I’ll have to catch up on what I missed at Tales last week, and think fondly of next year when I’ll definitely be there!

So I’ve had a Twitter account for a while and I’ve never really messed with it too much. Partly because I’m lazy and partly because I don’t want to pull out my phone and start typing while at a bar/house/party/inquisition/cook out/alien abduction etc. But I’ve seen how helpful it has been for Sean to send quick notes about what we’re drinking and when. Couple that with the soon-to-be acquisition of a new iPhone, I thought what the hell.

So anyway, if anyone is interested you can follow my stumbling-bumbling along at http://twitter.com/TMFIII

Cheers!

Ahhh, my first post at the Scofflaw’s new home. I’ve been sitting on a few reviews, waiting to get the new site up, and here is the first.

A few weeks ago, after a particularly long and stressful day at work, a co-worker asked if I was interested in going and grabbing a few drinks and some food. Sounding like just what the doctor ordered, I agreed and off we went. After a few false starts and trying to decide where to go, we decided on Rasika an upscale Indian restaurant in the Penn Quarter of DC. Rasika has great reviews of their food and I had heard really good things about their cocktails. I also knew that Gina Chersevani of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group had once headed the bar here.

When we arrived, the bar was busy, but not packed. We took a seat at a small table facing the bar. It would have been nice to actually sit at the bar, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible this night. Glancing over their cocktail menu I noticed a good mix of spririts – gin, rhum agricole, tequila, bourbon, and the requisite vodka. This was a good sign.

My first drink of the evening was a “Delirum.” It consisted of Hendricks Gin, Campari, dill and blood orange juice – shaken, served up in a cocktail glass. This was a really nice drink. It was on the sweet side but the campari added a very pleasant bitterness and a great color. The dill flavor was very light, almost imperceptable, but did seem to work well with the bitterness in the campari.

The next drink I ordered was as “Anasas Oasis” with fresh pineapple, pineapple sage and Niesson Rhum. They didn’t say whether it was the agricole blanc or one of the darker Niesson but from the color of the drink I’m guessing it was teh blanc. This had a very strong sweet smell, almost like the nose found in St. Germain. The taste was just as sweet. The pineapple was muddled. I’m not sure where the pineapple sage was – other than the garnish – but I certainly couldn’t taste any sage within the drink. I think there were some other things going on in the drink as well. First, I detected some kind of citrus – lemon juice most likely. Second, there was a noticible tingle on the tongue that seemed to be from soda water. Overall, it was a good drink but one that would have been improved by a double strain.

Moving down the cocktail list, I landed on a tequila offering titled “Cactus Bard.” This sounded very interesting with blanco tequila and strawberry-rhubarb-balsamic syrup. It was served on the rocks in a double rocks glass. The drink looked fantastic and tasted . . . eh. I expected much more from the strawberry-rhubarb-balsamic syrup. I got neither strawberry or rhubarb flavor or any tang from the balsamic. If the syrup had any flavor it was completely drowned out by the tequila. This drink tasted like a very pretty ruby red tequila on ice. Not my cup of tea.

To end the night, I wanted to try the “House Infused Bourbon” which the server informed me was Maker’s Mark infused with peaches and vanilla. Wow! This sounded like something that I would do backflips for. If I did backflips. Or any other kind of gymnastic type thingy. This was a hefty pour over copius ice cubes in a double old fashioned glass. The taste was reminisent of bourbon. That’s it. No peach. No vanilla. In fact, I found this pour to be much more rough than I’ve ever found Maker’s to be before. Even after allowing the drink to dilute for a few minutes, the bourbon stayed pretty rough. Eh, oh well.

For munchies, we ordered about five different appetizers and shared. Good grief the food was fantastic!!! Everything we ordered we loved. I had to restrain myself from licking the plates clean.

So there you have it. Two drinks out of four were fantastic. The food was wonderful and the ambiance was nice as well. I think their bar program has a little something for everyone yet a few tweaks that could be made – I would have liked to see the Oasis double strained to get out all the little bits of pineapple and the Cactus Bard and House-Infused Bourbon need to be reworked – would serve them well.

Rasika
633 D St. NW
Washington, DC 20004
www.rasikarestaurant.com

Cheers!