drinkboston.com

Things I learned this week:

1. Jeff “Beachbum” Berry’s Grog Blog features a post titled “Monks + Drunks x Sisterhood = the Pago Pago Cocktail.” It seems Berry made the acquaintance of some of the ladies of LUPEC Boston (that’s the Boston chapter of Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails) a couple of months ago when he was in town for the Sippin’ Safari. He became intrigued by the cocktails that LUPEC Boston and drinkboston.com created for a Chartreuse event at Green Street back in August.

“Inspired by LUPEC Boston’s creations,” writes the tiki guru, “we combed through our cocktail library in search of vintage tropical drinks that call for Chartreuse. In a 1940 book entitled The How And When, we finally found a good one: the Pago Pago. To make it, place 1 ounce of diced fresh pineapple in your cocktail shaker, then muddle the pineapple in 1/2 ounce fresh lime juice. Add 1/4 ounce white creme de cacao, 3 teaspoons green Chartreuse, and 1 1/2 ounces gold Puerto Rican rum. Shake well with ice cubes and strain into a cocktail glass.”

I have only tasted this drink in my mind, but it’s one of the most delicious imaginary cocktails I’ve ever had. I vow to mix one up for myself soon.

2. Blackberrying me from the bar at KO Prime, a friend of mine made me aware of the steak house’s “Retro Sundays.” He said he and his wife were drinking Pink Squirrels (creme de noyaux, creme de cacao and cream). Apparently, the bartenders robe up like Hugh Hefner, Chef Jamie Bisonnette parades around in a cartoonish toque, and the dinner menu includes old-school steak house specialties like all-you-can-eat prime rib, Oysters Rockefeller and shrimp cocktail. Cool.

3. Meanwhile, speaking of old-school … over at the Independent, bartender Evan Harrison is dreaming up a special menu of “cheap scotch cocktails.” It seems the bar has a surplus of Cluny blended scotch on hand (in 1.5 liter plastic bottles of course), and, well, Evan’s going to do his own version of your grandfather’s night out. I took a sniff from the Cluny bottle during a recent visit, and it smelled like … it smelled like the first time I ever smelled whiskey: dangerous and slightly sickening. I’m anxiously awaiting that menu. (Oh, and by the way, Evan also re-did the Indo’s website, and I think it looks damn cool.)

I attended a party recently that Beija Cachaca hosted at Eastern Standard. Cachaca is Brazilian rum. It’s made from sugar cane juice instead of the more common base for rum, molasses. Kevin Beardsley and Steve Diforio, the two fresh-out-of-college guys who started the company that formulated and now imports and markets Beija, declare that “in 2007 the U.S. government officially designated Beija as the World’s First Virgin Cane Rum.”

I wondered how “virgin cane rum” differs from 10 Cane, another new rum made from virgin sugar cane, or rhum agricole, or other cachacas, for that matter. Apparently, the designation hinges on the fact that the distillation process begins a mere 10 hours after the sugar cane is harvested and pressed. “Other brands allow their sugarcane to wallow in the sun for days before distilling it.” Horrors!

OK, despite the tone of the marketing kit (and the annoyingly predictable packaging featuring “an alluring female figure in profile”), the product is pretty solid. For an 80 proof spirit, it has absolutely no burn, especially compared to the harshness that I’ve heard is the defining characteristic of most cachacas available in the U.S. To me, Beija smelled a lot like sake and had a very soft, somewhat sake-like, dryly fruity taste.

Like most people, I had only ever had cachaca in a Caipirinha (together now, that’s “ky-pir-EEN-ya”), a refreshing mixture of cachaca and muddled lime juice and sugar over ice that is competing with the Mojito for Most Popular Latin American Cocktail. The whole idea of the event (besides getting people like me to write about Beija) was to try cachaca in ways that break free from the Caipirinha. My favorite among the cocktails that Jackson Cannon and his bar crew mixed that night was a variation on the Red Hook: 2 oz Beija (instead of rye) and a 1/2 oz each of Punt e Mes and Luxardo Maraschino. Really nice and mellow. A few of us also tried a Negroni with Beija substituted for gin. We agreed that it didn’t quite work; the Campari overpowered the softer spirit.

Other Boston bars serving Beija are Om in Harvard Square, District and the Vintage Lounge.

Drinkboston.com reader Adam Machanic emailed me recently with the results of some exhaustive mixological studies of apple-based spirits from Laird’s & Co., the oldest producer of America’s oldest native distilled spirit, applejack. In addition to applejack (a blend of 35 percent apple brandy and 65 percent grain neutral spirits that puts the “jack” in a Jack Rose), Laird’s produces Old Apple Brandy, aged in oak for 7 1/2 years, and 100-proof, bottled-in-bond apple brandy that’s also 7 1/2 years old. It takes about 20 pounds of apples to make just one of these bottles of pure apple spirits. Wow. Adam’s findings made me think, ‘Man, I’ve gotta get my hands on some of this stuff!’ and I wanted to share them:

“I ended up ‘experimenting’ my way through an entire bottle of the 7 1/2 year old brandy over the past several weeks, and I have to say, if science class experiments had been that fun I might have studied a bit more often. Seriously, though, it’s great stuff. Compared with the ’smooth blend’ version, it hits you quite hard in the nose with apple essence the moment you remove the cap. Straight, it has a bit of sweetness, and is exceptionally drinkable neat or with an ice cube or two. Color-wise, it’s light, golden and exceptionally clear. Excellent in a Marconi Wireless with some good vermouth — but much better with Vya than with Punt e Mes; the latter overpowers it. I also thought it was wasted in a Jack Rose — the drink tasted no different to me than with the normal applejack. I really enjoyed it as an Old Fashioned, with 1/3 tsp of sugar, two dashes of Regan’s orange bitters, and a dash of Angostura.

“I enjoyed my experiments so much that I placed a follow-up order and got my hands on some of the 100 proof, bonded stuff. This is an entirely different beast — the liquid in the bottle has an almost rusty tone, and is slightly hazy compared with the brandy. And as an added bonus, there are a few floating specks of something in each bottle, visible if you shake it up a bit. Who knows what’s in there. The apple sensation is huge and overpowering both on the nose and the tongue, but thanks to the increased proof there is also quite a bit of heat — I don’t like this one neat at all. On the flip side, it stands up to the Punt e Mes just fine in a Marconi Wireless, and can even be a bit overpowering. I haven’t had a chance to do a Jack Rose yet, but that’s next on the list — I have high hopes for its success there.”

Many thanks to Adam for putting his liver to the test for the sake of experimentation. Unfortunately, he had to order the specialty Laird’s items online; I don’t know of any liquor stores in the Boston area that carry anything other than the blended applejack. Please, correct me if I’m mistaken.

A recent email from a restaurant manager friend said, “We’re throwing an ’80s bash on New Year’s Eve in Sister Sorel and I’m trying to research what cocktails were popular at that time. I was thinking Sex on the Beach, Blow Job shots and White Russians, but that’s where I ran out. If anyone has any thoughts on this, please send them my way!”

Since, unlike my friend, I came of age in the decade that popularized blender drinks, wine coolers, DeKuyper Peach Schnapps and cocktails with sexual names, I readily responded to her first three stabs at drinks of the period. “Oh, yeah, those qualify. And don’t forget about Sombreros, Mudslides, Slippery Nipples, B-52s, Woo-Woos, Kamikazes, Alabama Slammers and California Root Beers.” Aaah, the sweet nectar of spring break — another ’80s phenomenon. (Yeah, I know, spring break has been around at least since Where the Boys Are, but it didn’t become a huge, regularly televised event until the MTV decade.)

In the ’80s, cocktails were climbing out of an era in which innovations in inebriation focused on drugs instead of booze. Courtesy of Ronald Reagan, it was “morning again in America,” and a new generation of young adults entered college with the intention of launching high-paying careers. They toasted to their bright future as yuppies with a new crop of appropriately cheerful (but naughty sounding!) drinks based on vodka, schnapps, Kahlua, Bailey’s Irish Cream and any other sweet liquor meant to be speed-poured into a glass a la Tom Cruise in Cocktail (”Where he pours, he reigns.”).

Those of you who remember the Decade of Dumb Drinks: What were your faves? Did the Sex on the Beach and its ilk pave the way for today’s candy-flavored martinis, or does every era simply have its own ridiculous cocktails?

So, Scott and I are at Sav-Mor Liquors on McGrath Highway in Somerville the other day, buying what we usually buy at this seedily lit booze warehouse — a hodgepodge of 2-for-$12 wines, cheap-ass beer in cans and a good microbrew (which, this time of year, tends to be Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale) — when the indifferent sales clerk throws a little booklet into our bag of merchandise.

Now, Sav-Mor is the kind of place that sells economy-sized jugs of Mudslide Mix on the low end and Chivas holiday gift sets on the high end, so when I get home and start to flip through the booklet, called the Guide to Good Hosting 2008, I’m expecting page after page of “martini” recipes like Lingonberry Allspice Cosmos or some such Martha Stewart-y thing.

Instead, I land on page 7 to find the Whiz Bang:

1 1/2 oz Johnnie Walker Red Label
1/2 Noilly Prat dry vermouth
2 dashes grenadine
1 dash Lucid absinthe or, if not available, use Pernod or Herbsaint
2 dashes Gary Regan’s Orange Bitters No. 6

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass.

Um… WHA?! A cocktail calling for not only scotch, but dry vermouth, orange bitters and absinthe “or, if not available, use Pernod or Herbsaint”?! Wondering if this throwaway little pamphlet was written in magic ink that somehow gleaned my drinking preferences, I read on. There were recipes for a Vesper, a Gin Sling and a Honeymoon Cocktail (1 1/2 oz Laird’s Apple Jack, 1/4 oz Benedictine, 3/4 ounce Hiram Walker Orange Curacao, 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice), among other respectable drinks. And not only were many of the called-for ingredients of some quality (Luxardo Maraschino liqueur anyone?), the following tips appeared in a section called “Home bartending - become a great mixologist at home”:

“Serve your cocktails icy cold. The colder the better.”
“Use only fresh fruit whenever possible.”
“When the ingredients are clear liquids, STIR for proper mixing.”

Whoa. Any novice who comes across this booklet and actually follows its recipes and advice stands the chance of making a decent cocktail for his holiday gathering — and thus exposing his friends and family to the concept of a well-crafted drink intended for adults. The Guide to Good Hosting 2008 is a Christmas Miracle for the Cocktail Revolution.

Turns out the Guide is put out by the Beverage Media Group, the longtime publisher of liquor-industry journals whose writers include people like Dale “King Cocktail” DeGroff. DeGroff, of course, is one of the leading lights of mixology and a founder of the Museum of the American Cocktail. Even if he wasn’t directly involved in producing the Guide, his influence is all over it. Now, if only the retailers who hand these booklets out — hello, Sav-Mor — would actually sell the ingredients in the recipes … Luxardo Maraschino, Regan’s Orange Bitters … hell, rye whiskey would be a good start. I’ll have to wait ’til next year for that miracle.

I tend to be skeptical of trendy new drink menus, especially those at trendy new restaurants that are obviously cashing in on a popular concept. In this case, I’m talking about the drink menu at Mooo, which joins KO Prime as Boston’s latest postmodern steak house. These aren’t your grandfather’s steak houses, with their dark, gentleman’s club decor. These are steak houses for today’s stylish man or woman susceptible to sleek, wink-wink design, like blurred photos of calves on the wall above your meat-laden table, and ornate chandeliers ‘clothed’ in cylinders of parchment. Mooo, which replaced the Federalist in the XV Beacon Hotel, is the latest ultra-high-end offering from celebrity chef Jamie Mammano of Mistral and Sorellina.

Luckily, there is a drink at Mooo that hits the right note of wit and taste without trying too hard, and that is the Lady’s Martini: Lillet Blanc, fresh lemon juice and hibiscus syrup, chilled and served straight up with a champagne chaser. I don’t know why it’s called the Lady’s Martini — maybe because it’s pink and relatively low in alcohol. It also happens to be gorgeous and delicious. Mooo serves the “martini” in a delicate, vintage-looking cocktail glass and the champagne chaser in a stemless flute, an aesthetic combination that makes you feel sophisticated just by sitting in front of it. But that’s not what we’re about, is it? We’re about flavor. And this cocktail has a layered, sweet-tartness that would satisfy even without the champagne. But when you put the bubbles on top of this little flavor lozenge, you suddenly feel like you’re wearing white gloves and smart hat.

All you men out there who appreciate a good cocktail: I urge you to be secure enough in your masculinity to give the Lady’s Martini ($13) a try. Or at least have your date order it, and taste hers.

Last night, the Boston Athenaeum, one of America’s oldest private libraries, threw a Roaring Twenties party for some of its members with the help of drinkboston. There was a password to get in (”Gatsby sent me”), a secret entrance to the Periodicals Room where the festivities were held, a jazz band, cucumber sandwiches and, naturally, vintage cocktails (see below). Also, every attendee was handed an antique playing card; the game was to find the other partygoer with the same card and write something down about that person in the guest book. In the end, a man in a smoking jacket tried to bribe the fuzz who raided the speakeasy, but nothing doing — they sent us off to where we belonged: the 21st Amendment.

The party was thrown for the Athenaeum’s “associate members” (aka members 41 and under), some of whom, like me, helped plan the shindig. Not surprisingly, I was in charge of making sure we had quality hooch. Enter some of Boston’s best bartenders — John Gertsen, Misty Kalkofen and Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli — and the signature cocktails they created just for the event. One of those drinks, the Red Rot Cocktail, was specially commissioned by the Athenaeum as an homage to book restoration. That’s right — many of the library’s old, red leather book covers suffer from “red rot,” a pinkish mildew whose remedy is a chemical solution known as “red rot cocktail.” The recipes below appear as I wrote them for the party’s program, in a style cribbed straight from Prohibition-era bon vivant Charles Baker, who wrote the Gentleman’s Companion.

The Athenaeum is trying to get the word out to potential younger members that you don’t have to be a Mayflower descendant to join. All you need is four references and $115 for a one-year associate membership. If you have even the faintest interest in history or are simply proud to say you live in Boston because of its intellectuals, join up and see how you like it. The recently restored building is gorgeous, there’s fine art all over the place, there are tons of events, and the items in the Special Collections are damned impressive. George Washington’s library? Yeah, it’s there. And they throw a smashing party, too.

Red Rot Cocktail, which Rather Resembles the Noxious Liquid Medicine for Moldy Red Leather-bound Books but Nonetheless Pleases the Palate

To one jigger of London dry gin add one half ounce each of St. Germain elderflower liqueur, Cherry Heering and fresh lemon juice, and two goodly dashes of Peychaud’s bitters. Shake vigorously with ice and turn into a champagne saucer. (Created by Misty Kalkofen of Green Street and Lauren Clark of drinkboston)

Foglia Noce (Walnut Leaves), being a Mixture Inspired by the Marconi Wireless and Evocative of Tuscan Autumns and Colonial Taverns

Into a bar glass turn two and one-half ounces of applejack, one ounce of Nocino and two judicious dashes of Fee’s Whisky Barrel Aged Bitters. Stir with lump ice, strain into a chilled Old Fashioned glass and finish with orange oil. (Created by John Gertsen of No. 9 Park)

Flowers for Murphy, being a Bracing and Bubbly Homage to Prince and Princess of the Jazz Age Gerald and Sara Murphy, who Inspired us with a Mixture Called the Bailey

Lightly chill one jigger of London dry gin, three-quarters ounce of simple syrup, a split of lime and grapefruit juices to equal another three-quarters ounce, and one-quarter ounce of green Chartreuse. Turn the mixture into a champagne saucer and top it with bubbly and a small mint leaf. (Created by Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli of Eastern Standard)

The first time I tried a Moto Guzzi, I had no idea that all it was was equal parts Booker’s bourbon* and Punt e Mes. I thought there were at least some bitters in there, or two kinds of vermouth. Nope. Turns out the Moto Guzzi is the White Stripes of cocktails: like the guitarist and drummer that make up the entire band, the two ingredients in the cocktail create something raucous, deep and compelling. You can find the complete recipe here.

Moto Guzzi is an Italian motorcycle manufacturer established in 1921. It’s famous for its eagle logo, its racing achievements, and its cool bikes. Kevin Montuori, a motorcycle enthusiast and regular at No. 9 Park, invented this cocktail with 9 Park’s principal bartender, John Gertsen. This is their story.

John: “One fuzzy night at the bar at No. 9 … Kevin Montuori and I were discussing the possibility of using Booker’s in a cocktail. Given the alcohol content, we discussed manhattans and the various ratios. It seemed like Booker’s could support as much vermouth as we could give it. With all that vermouth the Angostura bitters sorta disappeared. Enter, stage right: Punt e Mes. It was perfect. I was thinking of some Manly Italian Name, and Kevin is a motorcycle/scooter aficionado. Somehow Moto Guzzi was brought up. It probably sounded more like ‘mrtigtzy’ after all of that Booker’s. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

Kevin: “That’s it exactly. I always remember the amount of restraint it takes to make one: no bitters, no lemon oil spritzed over the top. Just the Punt e Mes and Booker’s. And it really was ‘mrtigtzy’ after a couple. The name was, if I recall, also influenced by the texture, which is sort of like used engine oil. Certainly one of my favorite drinks. Damn, now I’m thirsty.”

*From the Small Batch website: Booker’s is 6-8 year-old bourbon, 121-127 proof (uncut, straight from the barrel). “Big oak, vanilla, smoky charcoal” aroma. “Intense, fruit, tannin, tobacco” taste.

I’m guessing that the poor individual who inspired the name of a famous tiki drink is what the bar staff of Pho Republique felt like the morning after Sunday night’s wildly popular Beantown Sippin’ Safari with tiki guru Jeff “Beach Bum” Berry. The Bum came up from Asheville, NC, to re-introduce Bostonians to a genre of cocktail considered to be extinct except as a lingering artifact in those mausoleums of a lost era known as Polynesian restaurants.

And so it was that I had my first authentic Navy Grog (light and dark rum, fresh lime and grapefruit, allspice syrup), sipped through a straw stuck into a tall cone of crushed ice. The Bum gave an enlightening slide presentation of old menus, matchbooks and postcard photos from long-defunct tiki restaurants in eastern Massachusetts — I had no idea how many of these establishments there were — and Waitiki played trippy, sexy live exotica, which I had previously only heard on records at hipster cocktail parties.

The supply of crushed ice cones seemed endless, which was a good thing, because the place was packed. This might have had something to do with the fact that the admission price for the event, which started out at $75, was smartly dropped to zero. Someone calculated correctly that brisk sales of $9 tiki drinks would cover the costs of the Sippin’ Safari. The event revealed a surprising thirst for tiki, not only among Bostonians but among visitors representing a resurgence in this culture that has been going on for several years now. I met a tikiphile who flew in from San Francisco just for the event.

OK, so there might have been a few glitches. Maybe the bar neglected to order enough Bacardi 151, so maybe there weren’t enough Zombies to go around. And maybe the dim sum was passed around a little too late, given the strength of the libations. But there was plenty of Navy Grog. And I got to meet not only the Bum, but my fellow drinks blogger Scott Steeves of Scottes Rum Pages. All on a cold Sunday night in the middle of November. If the opportunity presented itself, I’d go on Safari again.

A while ago, in a post called Forgotten Boston cocktails, I promised to compile a list of cocktails that either originated in Boston or had ‘Boston’ in their name. I’m making good on that promise and adding two more pages to drinkboston.com: ‘Boston cocktails - old‘ and ‘Boston cocktails - new.’ I have been inspired to take on this task lately because of the recent proliferation of new Boston cocktails. Bartenders all over the city are flexing their mixology muscles and coming up with new recipes inspired by classics. So, even though the Ward Eight is still Boston’s most famous cocktail, who knows if that’ll be the case 20 years from now, when recipes for the Jaguar and the Shiver take the country by storm?

The Shiver is a brand new drink invented by Rob Kraemer, bartender at Chez Henri. Here’s how he describes the origins of his mixture of Campari, Eau de Vie of Douglas Fir and fresh grapefruit juice garnished with an orange twist:

“Called it that ’cause there was a few-week spell this summer where I would make it, or some variation of it, for the chef [Paul O’Connell] and me at the end of a night. Real hot few weeks. He’d been standing next to the fire of the grill all night, and the AC was barely winning the war in the bar, and we both wanted something super cold and clean to finish the night. Did them over crushed ice — which I think I should start asking people if they want it that way — hence the name Shiver.”