Archive for the ‘Cocktails’ Category
June 26th, 2008
The LUPEC Boston cocktail column in the Weekly Dig is slightly expanded for the annual Summer Dining issue, out this week. With the help of my fellow LUPEC broads, Hanky Panky and Pinky Gonzales, I (Barbara West) encapsulate the history of tiki drinks. We start out with this fact, which surprises a lot of people: the tiki bar phenomenon began in Hollywood, California, in 1934 — right after Prohibition. Also, as anyone over the age of 50 can tell you, there used to be a ton of tiki bars in Boston.
One of our sources, cocktail historian Brother Cleve, suggested a favorite tiki drink of his, the Shrunken Skull, as our featured cocktail for the column. He and his fellow tiki expert, Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, whose books reveal the original recipe for the Shrunken Skull and scores of other tiki drinks, are hosting a tiki block party July 19 in New Orleans at Tales of the Cocktail.
Check out LUPEC Boston’s blog post about where to get tiki drinks around eastern Mass., and enjoy shrinking your skull with this:
Shrunken Skull (adapted from Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log)
1 oz Cruzan Estate light rum (aged two years)
1 oz Demerara rum
1 ounce fresh lime juice
1 ounce grenadine
dash of Angostura bitters
Shake with ice and pour into a skull mug. Top with 1/2 oz club soda.
Shopping for rum and other tiki ingredients? Here are some tips.
Tags: tiki drinks
Posted in Booze in the news, Cocktails, Rum | No Comments »
June 10th, 2008
This post also appears on the LUPEC Boston blog as a companion piece to an article I wrote for the LUPEC Boston cocktail column in the latest Weekly Dig, which will be out in print tomorrow.
Which cocktails should be shaken and which ones should be stirred? If you’re a student of classic mixology, you might answer, “That’s easy. Drinks with eggs, dairy or fruit juices should be shaken, and ‘clear’ drinks made with only spirits, vermouth, etc. should be stirred.” OK, the first of those mandates is seldom disputed. Stirring an egg drink? Not gonna work. But shaking a Martini? James Bond has some surprising company here.
Take the respected Savoy Cocktail Book: its mixing instructions for clear drinks are all over the map; some recipes say “stir,” some say “shake.” New York Times restaurant critic William Grimes’ much-consulted book Straight Up or on the Rocks: the Story of the American Cocktail instructs you to shake a Martini. Even the “Professor,” Jerry Thomas, “couldn’t make up his mind whether the Cocktail is shaken or stirred,” writes David Wondrich in Imbibe! “His brandy Cocktail calls for the spoon, his gin and whiskey ones the shaker. Nor are his professional colleagues much help … Judging by the numerous depictions of ‘tossing the foaming cocktail’ back and forth in a huge arc, in the 1860s and 1870s consensus favored this method — or perhaps it was just the more picturesque one and hence was noticed more often.”
That consensus still holds in, like, 99 percent of modern bars. Most drinkers like the theatricality of a shaken drink, and most bartenders are happy to oblige, especially since it’s easier for them to employ only one mixing technique. Sure, your Grey Goose with olives will be cloudy with air bubbles, but it’ll be drinkable.
Is “drinkable” good enough when you’re paying $10-$15 for a cocktail? If you gravitate toward clear mixtures, as I often do, the answer is probably “no.” There’s something about a Martini, a Manhattan, a Saratoga or a Gin and It that has been deftly swirled over ice for a good minute, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass without a trace of agitation. What you get is a shimmeringly transparent drink that looks and tastes that much more elegant than its shaken sibling. And consider this: a bartender who takes the time to stir a cocktail is likely going to get its proportions and temperature right, too. Time to re-think your drink, Bond.
Tags: stirring vs shaking
Posted in Cocktails | 19 Comments »
May 21st, 2008
Another lost cocktail ingredient is being found around Boston: pimento dram. I was served two different cocktails containing the stuff in the span of 24 hours recently.
First up was the Passenger Pigeon. Cocktail enthusiast Fred Yarm invented this drink for, get this, his International Migratory Bird Day party. As if winning the Drinking to Obscure Occasions prize weren’t enough, Fred and his consort, Andrea, put together an astonishing list of 20 cocktails named after birds — all classics except for two that Fred created and one by Robert “Drinkboy” Hess. Since I had only tasted pimento dram, a liqueur of Jamaican origin, at the Lost Ingredients session at Tales of the Cocktail last summer, I went straight for the drink that featured it. “Ah, that’s one of mine,” said Fred.
Passenger Pigeon
2 oz Calvados
1/2 oz pimento dram
1 dash Angostura bitters
Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
Fred says, “The concept of the drink started as a rye drink with the pimento dram, but rye did not work well with the flavors as it was; perhaps some sweet vermouth could have rectified that. Instead I substituted the rich-flavoredness of Calvados to balance things out.” Not a bad drink at all. The Calvados dominated the first few sips, but the allspice flavor of the pimento dram intensified as the drink warmed a bit.
That’s right: allspice. Pimento is the Caribbean term for this clove- and cinnamon-like berry. But since North Americans think “olives” or “loaf” or even “cheese” when they hear the word pimento, the company that reintroduced pimento dram to the spirits market, Haus Alpenz, is calling it St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram. I think “pimento dram” is more poetic, but, alas, Haus Alpenz owner Eric Seed wants this product to appeal to a demographic beyond those who collect out-of-print bartender’s manuals and read Imbibe magazine. (See Misty Kalkofen‘s post about Seed on the Tales of the Cocktail blog.)
The next night, Michael O’Donovan of Highland Kitchen used the St. Elizabeth in a vintage recipe from CocktailDB:
None But the Brave
1 1/2 oz brandy
1/2 oz pimento dram
1/4 oz lemon
1/4 oz rum
1/4 tsp sugar
Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
“I think I’ve been making it with a touch more lemon, rum, simple [syrup], and have added bitters. It can, however, get overly sweet and allspiced very quickly,” said Michael. The drink he made me was good, and I’m certainly willing to participate in further experimentation.
If anyone knows the origin of this drink, please chime in, because I and others have come up dry. None But the Brave is the title of a 1965 movie, directed by and starring Frank Sinatra, about Japanese and American soldiers stuck on a Pacific island during WWII. But why would anyone dedicate a cocktail — especially one with these ingredients — to such a film? Anyway, it seems unlikely that a drink with such an unmodern combination of spirits would have been created as late in the 20th century as that.
The phrase goes way back, actually. “None but the brave deserves the fair” is a line in the 1697 John Dryden poem “Alexander’s Feast.” The poem depicts Alexander the Great celebrating at a victory banquet after conquering the Persian Empire in 331 B.C. The “brave” refers to the Greek king, of course; the “fair” refers to Thais, a famous courtesan who is Alexander’s date at the soirée. So, at least we’ve narrowed down the birth date of the None But the Brave cocktail to somewhere between 1697 and 1965.
Further reading:
Cocktailchronicles.com blogger Paul Clarke wrote recently about pimento dram in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Chuck Taggart, who writes the Gumbo Pages, came up with a good recipe for pimento dram a couple of years ago. He then created his own pimento dram cocktail, the Reveillon.
Boston mixologists, including Michael (above) from Highland Kitchen and Stephen Shellenbergers of Dante, among others, are making their own pimento dram.
And as more Boston bars stock this liqueur, you might want to order a …
Lion’s Tail
(from cocktaildb.com)
2 oz bourbon
1/2 oz pimento dram
1/2 oz lime
4 dashes simple syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters
Shake well over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
Tags: allspice, haus alpenz, pimento dram
Posted in Cocktails, Liqueur | 10 Comments »
May 16th, 2008
If you couldn’t get into the sold-out World Cocktail Day party at Green Street on Tuesday, I’m sorry to tell you that it was a ton o’ fun. In fact, it was an evening I was downright thankful for. It marked the end of World Cocktail Week, whose frivolity contrasted unavoidably with a coinciding spate of tragedies: the cyclone in Myanmar, the earthquake in China, tornadoes in the U.S. (not to mention the continuing grimness in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, etc, etc). I’m not trying to bring anyone down here. I’m just saying there were times during the evening when I paused, soaked up the good vibe among the crowd and thanked my lucky stars.
Our guest bartenders, four knowledgable and talented New England gentlemen, each mixed a vintage cocktail of their choice, then went from table to table recounting that libation’s origins and moment in history. They time-traveled from 1870s San Francisco to an 1880s bartender’s manual to the Spanish-American War (1898) to an early 20th-century obsession with songs about maidens. The cocktails (below) were accompanied by flatbread pizza, beef tongue tacos and other tasty treats from the Green Street kitchen. We started with an innocent-seeming Maiden’s Prayer and ended with a brassy Remember the Maine, at which point the joke was whether anyone would remember the Maine.
Maiden’s Prayer
by Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli of Eastern Standard
3/4 oz Plymouth Gin
3/4 oz white rum
3/4 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz Cointreau
1 dash orange bitters
Shake well over ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with a flower. Based on a variation (circa 1930) of the original (circa 1907), which may have been inspired by a hit piano tune of the late 1800s.
Nicol’s Secret Pisco Punch (without cocaine)
by John Gertsen of No. 9 Park
6 parts BarSol pisco
3 parts lemon juice
2 parts pineapple syrup
1 part water
Shake, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with pineapple. The recipe originated with Duncan Nicol, the proprietor of San Francisco’s Bank Exchange saloon from the late 1870s until Prohibition. The secret’s out: a wee bit of gum arabic (which comes in a white powder — get it?) makes this a silky sweet punch.
Bijou
by Brother Cleve, cocktail historian and mixologist
1/3 Plymouth Gin
1/3 sweet vermouth
1/3 green Chartreuse
1 dash orange bitters
Stir well over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry or a lemon twist. A Golden Age cocktail dating back to Harry Johnson’s Bartender’s Manual in 1882.
Remember the Maine
by John Myers, Portland, Maine-based bartender and cocktail historian
1 1/2 oz good rye whiskey or bourbon (i.e. Maker’s Mark)
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
1-2 tsp of cherry brandy
1/2 tsp absinthe or Pernod veritas
Stir well over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass with a lemon twist. Named for the rallying cry of the Spanish-American war, the cocktail is described in Charles H. Baker Jr.’s The Gentleman’s Companion (1939). Myers’ note: “Any absinthe substitute will work, but the ‘cherry brandy’ is up for some interpretation. Different drinks occur — but still work, so little is deployed — if Cherry Heering or maraschino are used.”
World Cocktail Day at Green Street benefited the Museum of the American Cocktail, which launched World Cocktail Week. Plymouth Gin, Maker’s Mark bourbon and BarSol Pisco were the evening’s sponsors. Many thanks to Green Street bar manager Misty Kalkofen, owner Dylan Black and everyone else in the kitchen, behind the bar and out on the floor for totally kicking ass.
Posted in Cocktails, Events, Gin, Pisco, Whiskey | 8 Comments »
April 28th, 2008
Look, a cool new event!
World Cocktail Day
Tuesday, May 13, 7:00 p.m.
Green Street restaurant, 280 Green St., Central Square, Cambridge
Tickets $35
Reservations recommended: call Green Street at 617-876-1655
This is gonna be fun. On Tuesday, May 13, drinkboston and Green Street restaurant will celebrate World Cocktail Day with a party to benefit the organization that launched the event: the Museum of the American Cocktail. World Cocktail Day is the culmination of a series of international festivities marking World Cocktail Week. We will join revelers in Aspen, Australia, Chicago, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis and Singapore.
The Museum of the American Cocktail established World Cocktail Week “to celebrate the rich history of cocktails and recognize the craftsmanship and skill of the bartenders who have been mixing them for over 200 years.” Established in 2005 and forced into limbo by Hurricane Katrina, the Museum reopens on July 21 (right after Tales of the Cocktail) in its original hometown, New Orleans. It will be housed with the Southern Food & Beverage Museum at the Riverwalk Mall, just outside the French Quarter. If you want rock-solid cred within the cocktail community, become a member.
Green Street’s bar manager, Misty Kalkofen, and owner, Dylan Black, and I have invited four notable bartenders to mix and discuss a vintage cocktail of their choice, with a range of styles and eras represented.
Brother Cleve, cocktail historian and mixologist
Bijou (gin, sweet vermouth, green Chartreuse, orange bitters), a Golden Age cocktail dating back to Harry Johnson’s Bartender’s Manual in 1882, and featured in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book of recipes served in London’s Savoy Hotel during American Prohibition.
John Gertsen, principal bartender of No. 9 Park and named one of America’s top bartenders by Playboy magazine
Nicol’s Secret Pisco Punch (pisco, pineapple syrup, lemon juice, water), created in San Francisco in the 1870s using Peru’s clear, unaged brandy.
John Myers, Portland, Maine-based bartender and cocktail historian and co-founder of the Museum of the American Cocktail
Remember the Maine (good rye or bourbon, sweet vermouth, cherry brandy, absinthe or Pernod), described in Charles H. Baker Jr.’s The Gentleman’s Companion, published in 1939. “Stir briskly in clock-wise fashion — this makes it sea-going, presumably!” wrote Baker.
Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli, bartender at Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks
Maiden’s Prayer (gin, white rum, lemon juice, Cointreau, orange bitters), based on a variation (circa 1930) of the original (circa 1907), which may have been inspired by a hit piano tune of the late 1800s.
To reserve tickets by credit card, call Green Street at 617-876-1655. Tickets are $35 and include four cocktails and passed appetizers. Green Street is accessible via the Central Square stop on the MBTA red line.
Thanks to the following Museum sponsors for their donations: BarSol Pisco, Cointreau liqueur, Depaz Rhum, Makers Mark, Pernod Ricard and Plymouth Gin.
Posted in Bartenders, Cocktails, Events | 2 Comments »
