Littlefeather

October 9, 2011 //

Things that I do four times a year: update the cocktail menu, wash the dogs, and reinstall Windows. So goodbye light, fruity, rum-soaked summer. Hello bourbon and rain. Time for drinks that go well with the smell of the furnace being lit for the first time this season.

I hope someday to make it to The Varnish in LA. Eric Alperin seems to be doing some magic there, so my ears perked up when he shared a recipe on the Dinner Party Download a while back. I wrote it down, then forgot about it. It popped up a few weeks ago when I was editing the recipe database. Finally got around to making it.

Here’s my new favorite rye cocktail.

Littlefeather

1 oz Old Overholt Rye
1 oz cognac (I used Chalfonte)
.5 oz amaretto
.5 oz dry vermouth (I used Dolin dry)
float of Islay whiskey (I used Ardbeg – about three dashes)

Combine everything but the whiskey (or whisky, if you will) in the shaker. Ice and stir. Strain into a rocks glass with no ice. Turn the barspoon upside down over the drink and pour the whiskey on top. Garnish with an orange wedge and a couple of brandied cherries on a pick. Think about visiting LA for a conference later this month. Remember living in LA. Go back to drinking.

The brandied cherries seem pretty important here. That tiny bit of boozy juicy goodness that seeps into the drink really brings everything together.

Stock up the liquor cabinet. More fall cocktail menu selections to come.

Categories Cognac, Rye, Scottish Whiskey

Basic Cocktails #4: The Manhattan – and Vermouth-a-Palooza

October 1, 2011 //

Three years ago, I considered vermouth to be something that sat in the back of the liquor cabinet, simmering with jealousy for the base spirits, and dreaming of a martini that would never come. Now I have five sweet vermouths, and two dry.

If you don’t like vermouth, it’s probably because, like me, the only stuff you’ve had was poured from an ancient opened bottle that’s been on the shelf for years. Vermouth is a fortified wine. If you leave opened wine on the shelf for more than a couple of days, you get a mouthful of vinegar. Opened vermouth needs to go in the fridge and get used in a reasonable amount of time.

Vermouths can also be as different as wines can be. The acquisition of the fifth sweet vermouth today demanded a taste comparison.

In first position: the new kid on the block, Perruchi. It’s a Spanish vermouth with a very light body. Cherry on the nose, then a sip of lemon and cardamom, followed by a slightly bitter finish. I’m going to have to think on the right cocktail for this.

In second position: our old French favorite, Dolin Rouge. It’s got perhaps a bit of walnut on the nose, sips with a strong cherry, and finishes with a bitter hint of anise. This is our house vermouth and gets used in almost anything that might get clobbered by Carpano.

In third position: Cocchi di Torino. Oh, how fond I am of this one. I could use it just for sipping. It starts out with a sweet, peppery nose. One sip and you’re in the world of ruby port, with a little bitterness thrown in. And the finish has a bit of marzipan / anise going on. I use it in one of the cocktails I’ve published here, the High Tea.

Lastly, the champ, Carpano Antica Formula. Pralines on the nose, caramelly anise in the middle, and a nice burnt sugar finish. This makes a hell of a Martinez. It goes well with many classic cocktails, as long as you don’t mind the fact it’s going to kick your drink’s ass. It refuses to be subtle.

The Manhattan is the classic sweet vermouth drink. I went to Canon – Jamie Boudreaux’ new place – for the first time last week. They had a selection on the menu that was actually three drinks: Manhattans, each made with a different vermouth. They had the Dolin, the Carpano, and a Barolo Cocchi. (The Barolo is wicked expensive, and I ain’t opening it for mixing.) Since we need to include a drink recipe here, it’s time to do a classic Manhattan.

Manhattan

2 oz rye (I used Templeton. Nom nom nom.)
1 oz sweet vermouth (I used the Perruchi – it’s new and shiny)
two dashes Angostura bitters

Combine everything in the mixer, ice it, stir it, strain it into a frosty cocktail glass, and drop a brandied cherry into it. The original Manhattan is made with rye, but if you use bourbon, no one’s going to take away your birthday. Easy to make, but a very different drink each time, depending on the kind of rye / bourbon and vermouth you use.

Categories Rye, Vermouth

Basic Cockatils #3: Perfect Piña Colada

September 23, 2011 //

Floating near the top of our priority list whenever we’re out of state is a pilgrimage to the local booze shop. Yes, we’re those people. Cut us a little slack. Until recently, the liquor selection in Washington State was about as good as the condom selection at the Quickie Mart kitty-corner from the Vatican. Balashi beer was the big drink among the Aruba locals. But you can’t make piña coladas with that, can you?

Behold, the rum of Aruba: Rum Palmera.

The price on it is in Aruban florins. It translated to maybe $14. We stocked up. It’s a helluva good rum. Only 70 proof, so it has lots of flavor, with not so much heat. Vanilla nose, sweet spice notes, and a long sugar cane finish. I think the only way you can get it is to go to Aruba, so we’ll be conserving this stuff.

We stayed at the Divi Phoenix, which I highly recommend. Among the many things to love about the place are the full kitchens in each suite. Kitchens. With blenders. Oh yeah. Every day was a two-piña colada minimum. We went through about a fifth of Palmera.

Ever since we got back, I’ve been trying to re-create the yum of those vacation-soaked tropical waist-wideners. But the Palmera, alas, is now just for sipping, and the pineapple juice and coconut available here are just not the same. After many fails, I submit to you this variation:

Perfect Piña Colada

3 oz amber rum (I used Rhum JM, but any good medium-bodied amber should do)
1 oz unsweetened pineapple juice
three tablespoons coconut cream
.75 oz simple syrup
three dashes orgeat (I like Trader Tiki’s)

Combine everything in a blender. Scoop in about two and a half times as much ice as liquid. Frappe the hell out of it. Pour it in a frosty rocks glass. Garnish with two brandied cherries and a pineapple leaf, if you like the look in the picture. Realize that this makes enough for two people. Hide the remainder in the fridge. Hope no one finds it before you’re finished with your first one.

The quality of the ingredients is very important here. Don’t make the mistake of buying coconut milk. You need coconut cream. Decent Asian grocery stores will have it. And be sure to find unsweetened pineapple juice. Knudsen’s does a decent one. That Dole crap will just have you drinking syrup. You can leave out the orgeat if you like, but I’m finding that it really brings everything together.

The first person to make a comment that alludes to the Piña Colada Song gets it in the face.

Categories Rum

Lazy Day

September 18, 2011 //

The only thing that got us off the couch today was going to the new premier liquor store in West Seattle. I thank our state legislature overlords for allowing us now to have more liquor choices. Here. Have some more tax money.

I’d been wanting a bottle of Gran Classico for quite some time, and I scored. It’s very similar to Campari, but a bit lighter and less bitter. Brandon at Needle and Thread once used it and Cocchi Americano to make something incredible for me, but I couldn’t remember what the hell he put in it. So I made something up.

Lazy Day

1 oz dry gin (I used Beefeater – Aruba wasn’t cheap)
.75 oz Cocchi Americano
.5 oz Gran Classico
dash lemon
dash absinthe

Combine everything in the shaker with ice and stir. Strain into a nice coupe, if you’ve got one. Take half of an orange slice and warm / burn the rind with a gas burner, or just a lighter. Float it on top of the drink. Go drink it on the couch. Watch reruns of reality TV. Consider going to the gym. Fall asleep.

Zzzzzzzz.

Categories Gin

Caprioska? I Hardly Know ‘Ah.

September 15, 2011 //

A Dutch woman gave me the lowdown on the caprioska while we were sitting at the swim-up bar, drinking caipirinhas, at a resort in Aruba last week. Yes. Swim-up bar. Aruba. Perfect caipirinhas. Dutch people who earned a fortune making vacuum-sealing machines and now live in Bonaire. I guess that’s how you make a lot of money when you suck.

Our bartender for the week, Lito, had learned how to make caipirinhas from an uppity Brazilian guy who once corrected his technique. We were praising his skills, tipping well, getting free drinks, and being fat / dumb / happy. Then the nice Dutch woman said we should try a caprioska.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a caipirinha with vodka instead of cachaça.”

Oh shit. She said the V word. Now I have to plaster a dumb smile on my face and pretend I’m interested. But then we remembered. A very generous friend had gifted us with a bottle of bison grass vodka for our last big party. We had our doubts, but after a sip, we were sold. Do I know what the hell bison grass is? Fuck no. But it makes a damned tasty vodka. It’s got a subtle vanilla flavor, is very smooth, and feels more like a sweet (Old Tom) gin to me. Only problem is that other than sipping, we didnt’ know what to do with it. The delicate flavor just gets wiped out with mixers.

Caprioska

3 oz Bak’s Bison Grass Vodka
Half a lime (sliced crossways into six pieces)
4-5 rough-cut cubes La Perruche white sugar

Put everything in a cocktail shaker. Muddle the hell out of it. Stompity stomp stomp stomp. Shake it hard with ice and pour the whole thing into a rocks glass. Stick a couple cocktail straws in it. Tip your bartender. Surruptitiously pee in the pool.

If you can’t get the La Perruche sugar, plain old sugar cubes are ok. If you can’t get the bison grass vodka, for chrissakes, make a caipirinha.

Categories Vodka

High Tea

September 1, 2011 //

Y’all know I love me some weird-ass bottles of liquor. And I love Cocchi Americano. Maybe because it’s also a weird-ass bottle of liquor. So when I saw a bottle of Cocchi Vermouth de Torino at DiLaurenti’s, it went in my basket faster than a greased gerbil at the local meeting of the Richard Gere fan club.

The red Torino Cocchi is a nice counterpart to the dry Americano. It has kind of a stone fruit sweetness going on, very deep, like a ruby port, but with a slightly bitter finish. I’d hit that just for sipping. But I had to figure out what it might mix well with. Several failures later:

High Tea

2 oz Earl Grey Tea-infused dry gin
1 oz Cocchi di Torino (substitute ruby port if you have to)
.5 oz Luxardo Cherry liqueur (Cherry Heering would do fine, as well)
5 drops Bittercube Jamaican bitters #2

If you’re not lucky enough to have the Bittercube bitters, a dash of Angostura would be better than nothing. Ice it, stir it, strain it, garnish it with some delicious brandied cherries. Think of England, even though you don’t know who’s on the team.

Earl Grey tea-infused gin, you say? Oh my. I can’t do that. Oh wait. I can. Get a bottle of dry gin (plain old Beefeater will do). Pour a bit out. Or save it for later. Or just drink it. Whatever. Put half a cup of Earl Grey tea in the bottle. Wait about 30 minutes. Strain it out. Oh look! Earl Grey infused gin!

This one’s got a lot going on. There’s the floral nose from the Earl Grey, some depth from the Cocchi di Torino, and a little bitter / sour from the Bittercube bitters. It goes from a light and fluffy nose to HELLO, I’M GIN, then to cherry / caramelly goodness, then heads right to the Islands for a little sweet spice finish.

Next up: we goin’ old school Tiki shit.

Categories Gin

The Edgar Martinez

August 15, 2011 //

I go through new favorite cocktails quicker than Charlie Sheen goes through enough rock to decorate a small aquarium. But the Martinez. Oh, how I always come back to the Martinez. Ransom Old Tom, Carpano sweet vermouth, Regan’s orange bitters, and a dash of maraschino… oh yes. That’s my favorite liquor pron.

Once a year or so, we buy tickets to the Mariners’ Diamond Club. It’s an ultra-swank adventure that involves paying an appalling amount of money up front to dine hours before the game in a private club, sit right behind home plate, have everything you could possibly want brought to your seat, and attempt to eat and drink the cost of the ticket. (Good luck.) Last year, Edgar Martinez was hanging out in the club, hawking his new mezcal, El Zacatecano. FREE SAMPLES! Aw yeah.

So I don’t know what the hell to do with mezcal. I picked up a bottle of El Zacatecano Jovan (the cheapest stuff) to play with. I am no Andrew Bohrer. It’s been sitting up in the cabinet, enviously watching the tequila go out on the occasional date, refusing to stop smoking, and beating the crap out of the French liqueurs for the lulz.

We went to Tilth last week for our friend’s birthday. They’re known well locally for creative, high-quality organic cuisine. In other words, I was thinking yeah. It’s a wine night. But surprise! Their cocktail menu was interesting. And lo and behold, the Edgar Martinez. A Martinez with Edgar’s mezcal! Brilliance! Even more brilliance after you’ve had a couple!

I can’t say I’ve really figured out what they did. Their drink was a bit lighter than this one. I’m pretty sure they didn’t use Carpano, and they probably used the aged mezcal rather than the Jovan I have. But screw it. I love Carpano. Adjust this one to your liking; it’s as close as I’m getting for now.

The Edgar Martinez

2oz El Zacatecano Jovan mezcal
1 oz Carpano sweet vermouth
two dashes Regan’s orange bitters
two dashes maraschino liqueur

Combine everything in a shaker with ice and stir. Strain into a coupe. Flame an orange peel over the top of it. Pretend the Mariners don’t still suck this year. Convince yourself again that it will get better next year. Start thinking about how much it will cost for your share of the season tickets again later this year. Make two or three more drinks.

Video this time (click eet!), because we got hold of a good orange to flame. (I know. I should be using a proper lighter. Sue me.) If you don’t know how to do this, learn. It’s easy. It’s fire. People will go OOOOH. What’s not to like?

Cut a circular wedge of orange peel from a firm, thick-skinned orange. (Sounds dirty.)
Heat the circle by exposing the orange-colored side to the blue part of the flame.
Grasp the circle by the edges with your thumb and forefingers, orange-colored side out.
Light the flame in front of it, over the drink, and squeeze.
Call the fire department if you were keeping your overproof rum too close.

Oh yeah. Do this at your own risk. Or don’t. Because it would make an awesome segment on 1,000 Ways to Die.

Categories Mezcal

The French Oaxacan

August 13, 2011 //

Birthday joy: getting taken out to Needle and Thread for my birthday. Double birthday joy: having Brian make a fuss and create something even more special than usual. With $20-a-shot mezcal.

We’d gone out a few days ago to Tilth for another friend’s birthday. Their cocktail menu featured something called an Edgar Martinez – basically, a Martinez made with mezcal instead of gin. It warmed my Martinez-filled little heart, and I’m still working out the proportions for how to re-create it. (Stand by.) So I asked Brian what proportions he’d use. That somehow ended in me getting an original concoction that proved both his mixology skills and the point of paying for good booze.

Brian mentioned something called a Oaxacan Old Fashioned, which sounded interesting, so I looked it up. Hmm. Just mezcal, reposado tequila, agave nectar, and Angostura bitters. Sounds kind of like sweet tequila, to me. But whatever. I gave it a shot today. And yes. It was sweet tequila. Bleah.

This is what I did to avoid throwing away good liquor.

The French Oaxacan

1.5 oz reposado tequila (I used Cazadores)
.5 oz mezcal (I used El Zacatecano, Edgar Martinez’s brand, cuz I’m cheap)
.5 oz Dolin blanc
.25 oz agave nectar
2 dashes Angostura bitters
one dash mole bitters
10 drops Bitters Old Men “Smoke Gets in Your Bitters”

Put everything but the smoke bitters in a shaker with ice and stir. Strain into a cocktail glass. Float a thin orange wheel on the top and drizzle the smoke bitters. Think about how lucky you are that this didn’t end up tasting like brown crayons.

The smoke from the mezcal is still there, but I think next time I’d do 1:1 reposado to mezcal. (The smoke bitters were an effort to ratchet it up; you could probably leave them out if you went even bigger with the mezcal.) The Angostura gives it a bit of spice, and the Dolin blanc makes for a kind of sweet, floral finish, which oddly works. The mole bitters carry the middle with a bit of creamy chocolate. Or all this could be bullshit. What do I know? I wouldn’t throw it out of bed for eating crackers.

By the way, the Smoke Gets in Your Bitters is something new I found. It’s mostly Lapsang Souchong tea. Drizzling a few drops of this, brewed very strong, would probably work, too.

I’m still working on that Edgar Martinez, and I’ve also been fooling around with an Earl Grey tea-infused gin, courtesy of the wonderful Gregg at Knee High Stocking Company. More when I recover from all this tequila.

Categories Mezcal, Tequila

Let’s Pretend We’re Somewhere Else

July 31, 2011 //

It’s sunny in Seattle! Mostly. All that’s missing now is white sand, azure seas, and fruity rum drinks. Well, crap. One for three. Better than the Mariners, at least.

This one comes to us from the most excellent Dinner Party Download podcast. Every week, they help you look witty at your weekend dinner party by talking about off-beat news items, interesting people, stuff that’s happened this week in history, and most importantly, the cocktail of the week. This one’s from Meaghan Dorman at Raines Law Room in NYC.

Cherry Caipirissima

2 oz white rum (Cruzan works great)
Half a lime, cut in quarters
Three pitted cherries
.75 oz simple syrup

Muddle the cherries, limes, and simple syrup. Add the rum. Shake, then pour the whole darned thing into a rocks glass. Close your eyes and dream of white sand beaches. Chase the knowledge that there are no cherry trees on Caribbean islands out of your head.

I’ve used both Bing and Rainier cherries on this one. Both are acceptable, although I like the color and stronger flavor of the Bings better.

The drink is perfect for alcohol-squeamish friends who favor vodka / rum and coke. It’s simple, a bit sweet, fruity, and not too spirit-forward. And cheap to make, too. Do your civic duty, people. Friends don’t let friends drink Cosmos.

Categories Rum

The Violet Beauregarde

July 16, 2011 //

We headed out to Liberty Bar a few days ago. Their cocktail menu looked pretty adventurous, and their Charlie Don’t Surf was listed in the Seattle Times recently as one of ten must-try cocktails in the city. (Mango, ginger, Pommeau de Normandie… nice balance of flavors.) I then saw the Catfish Blues, which features bourbon, Amaro Nonino, Aperol, and fresh blueberries. Yeah, let’s do that.

No seats at the bar, so I had to crane my head a bit to watch the bartender put it together. I’m waiting for the fresh blueberries. There’s two for garnish. But what’s this? A frickin’ jar of Bonne Maman blueberry preserves? Honestly? You’re putting that in a drink?

After I got over my WTF moment, I started thinking… why not? You could totally use jam in a drink. You’d just have to make sure you cut other sweet ingredients accordingly. And strain the hell out of it. That means you’d have viable fruit drinks of all sorts even in winter.

So I picked up a jar and started mucking around. The first experiment actually turned out pretty damned good.

Violet Beauregarde

2 oz Appleton Estate Jamaican rum
.5 oz lemon
.5 oz John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum
two barspoons Bonne Maman blueberry preserves

Shake everything with ice and double strain into a cocktail glass. I used a mint garnish for the color, but I really think this would do better with a lemon or orange twist.

Categories Rum