Archive for the ‘Cocktails’ Category
July 19th, 2007
Max Toste, bartender and co-partner of the Allston beer and cocktail bar Deep Ellum, is quite pleased when he tells me that he sells more sweet vermouth than Absolut, and more rye whiskey than Jack Daniels, as if all is going according to plan. Well, it is. When you put four different Manhattans on your cocktail menu, you’re going to go through some rye and vermouth. Here are the historically correct options under Deep Ellum’s “Manhattan 4 Ways”:
All of the below are 2 parts whiskey to 1 part sweet vermouth, except for the New School.
1930s – Rye (my fave)
Sugar cube muddled with 2 dashes Peychaud’s, 1 dash Angostura; twist
Stirred, straight-up
1950s – Bourbon (Deep Ellum uses W.L. Weller)
Angostura, bourbon-and-vermouth-soaked cherry
Stirred, straight-up
1970s – Canadian Club (Max’s grandfather’s recipe)
Angostura, twist
On the rocks
New School – Maker’s Mark
2 1/2 oz Maker’s Mark, 1/2 oz sweet vermouth; Angostura, cherry
Stirred, straight-up
And congrats to Max! He recently welcomed a baby daughter into the world.
Posted in Boston bars, Cocktails, Vermouth, Whiskey | 6 Comments »
July 10th, 2007
I was lucky enough to be present at a July 4 roofdeck party where Misty Kalkofen appropriately brought along a batch of Martha Washington Rum Punch. The stuff was to be admired on principle alone; picture our first First Lady serving the mixture to dignitaries at Mt. Vernon, probably using rum from the estate’s own distillery(!). Give it up for Martha and that badass husband of hers. But the punch didn’t just get by on its historic coolness. It was actually delicious. Misty writes about Martha and her punch, as well as re-creates the recipe, on the LUPEC-Boston blog. (For convenience’s sake, I’ve copied the recipe below. Frankly, I would call the grated cinnamon and nutmeg on the finished drink optional.) When I heard “nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves,” I thought, ‘Uh-oh, this is going to taste weirdly wintry.’ But the flavors of the spices, juices and rum were perfectly melded together to create an almost tea-like iced drink that was a thing unto itself — a dangerous thing unto itself, since it didn’t taste anywhere near boozy as it is.
Martha Washington’s Rum Punch
4 oz lemon juice
4 oz orange juice
4 oz simple syrup
3 lemons quartered
1 orange quartered
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
3 cinnamon sticks broken
6 cloves
12 oz boiling water
In a container mash the lemons, orange, nutmeg, cinnamon sticks and cloves. Add syrup, lemon and orange juice. Pour the boiling water over the mixture. Let it cool. Strain out the solids. Heat the juice mixture to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Let it cool and refrigerate over night.
In a punch bowl combine:
3 parts juice mixture
1 part light rum
1 part dark rum
1/2 part orange curacao
Serve the punch over ice. Top with grated nutmeg and cinnamon.
Champagne Juleps were simply something I discovered on cocktaildb.com. I happened to have a bottle of pretty good champagne on hand, plus a tall, vintage glass pitcher, and I wanted to serve a crowd-pleasing, summery cocktail to some dinner guests. Champagne Juleps were the answer. These are essentially Mojitos made with brandy and sparkling wine instead of rum and soda water, and served over crushed ice. I saw one of my guests the following night, and — mind you this guy rarely veers out of Guinness-and-Jameson territory — he said, “I can’t stop thinking about Champagne Juleps.” They were quite tasty if may say so myself. Here’s the cocktaildb.com recipe, followed by my modifications.
Champagne Julep
Build, fill glass 1/2 with crushed ice
1 1/2 oz brandy
1 tsp sugar, muddle with several mint sprigs in a splash of water (4 dashes)
Fill with Champagne
Add mint sprigs
Serve in a double rocks glass (12.0 oz)
I used superfine sugar, and a little more than half of the amount called for, which made the drink plenty sweet. I also only used about 2 mint leaves per serving. Since I was using a pitcher, I muddled the sugar, water and mint right in there, then added the brandy and stirred. The 40-lb bag of crushed ice I bought at Acme Ice was overkill, but I stuffed the rest of it in the freezer for future summer libations.
Posted in Brandy, Champagne, Cocktails, Rum | 5 Comments »
June 23rd, 2007
I saw Brother Cleve at Devlin’s in Brighton recently (he was playing with his band, Dragonfly) and mentioned casually that I was getting curious about tiki drinks. Like, what do you have to have on hand to mix them up at home? A couple days later, I got an email from Cleve with a long list of rums, juices and other ingredients, plus opinionated commentary on the do’s and don’ts of stocking your own tiki bar. It’s valuable advice, and I just had to share it. Warning: with what it’ll cost to buy all the ingredients below, you might as well shop around for a liquor license and open a bar.
How to Stock a Tiki Bar — by Brother Cleve
Well, you may hate me for this — cuz it’s not cheap to do your initial setup — but here’s a standard list of what you’d need to be able to flip open a Trader Vic’s guide and make a Polynesian drink. A lot of the mixers are available at Martignetti’s on Soldiers Field Rd., including Fee Brothers Falernum and also an alcoholic Falernum as well. Orgeat is best bought at an Italian shop like Capone’s, which has the real deal made without corn syrup (just like Mexican Coca Cola!). Good sources of odd rums include Wine & Cheese Cask, Downtown Wine & Spirits, Martignetti’s, Beacon Hill Wine, Atlas in Medford.
falernum
orgeat/orzata
grenadine (not Rose’s; pomegranate syrup from Middle Eastern groceries can work)
passion fruit syrup (difficult to find; available via mail-order from Trader Vic’s)
rock candy syrup (see above)
orange curaçao (Bols is best, followed by Marie Brizzard)
simple syrup
Angostura bitters
Pernod
Meyer’s dark (jamaica)
Meyer’s white – plantation style (jamaica)
Meyer’s Legend
Lemon Hart Demerara 84 proof (Guyana. There is a Jamaican lemon hart but very difficult to find)
Lemon Hart Demerara 151 proof
Rogue white rum (Oregon)
Clement rhum agricole (Martinique)
Cruzan 2 yr. old (St. Croix)
Mt. Gay Eclipse gold (Barbados)
Brugal gold (Dominican Republic)
Barbancourt, 3 or 5 star (Haiti)
Wray & Nephew Overproof (Jamaica)
Trader Vic’s brand white and gold
Pusser’s Navy rum (B.V.I.)
orange juice
pineapple juice
passion fruit juice
lime juice
grapefruit juice
coconut cream
When buying juices, go for the single variety rather than the blends. Goya brands are always a good bet. Beware many of the “tropical blends” such as V8 brand, as they contain carrot juice as well, which tends to curdle with rum.
Try to find orgeat without corn syrup. (Unfortunately, Fee Bros. brand has corn syrup in it.)
Some Polynesian cocktails also call for gin, brandy or scotch.
I find Bacardi pretty bland, but some of the other Puerto Rican rums are … well, they’re bland too, but they’re less than mainstream bland (such as Ron Rico). If you stumble across Ron de Barrilito, buy it.
Rums from the French West Indies are “agricole” or “agricultural” rum, made from sugar cane juice as opposed to molasses like all other rums. Tough to find here, although Clement and J.M are slowly appearing. A very different taste. Not essential for tiki drinks, but good to have on hand, and they do blend nicely with fruit juice.
Cane sugar syrup is good to have as well; not that easy to find here, but you can make it from brown sugar and water.
That’d make a good start!
(Um, thanks, Cleve. I think.)
Posted in Cocktails, Drinking supplies, Rum | 9 Comments »
June 12th, 2007
Yeah, it’s summertime, but that doesn’t mean you have to fight for sidewalk seating at a trendy Boylston Street restaurant and drink mango margaritas. Just find a dark, cool bar that stocks Fernet Branca and crushed ice and order a Fanciulli. This is the perfect drink to have when you quietly slip out of work at 2:30 on a sweltering afternoon to assume the role of an anonymous barfly in a film noir.
Fanciulli
1/2 bourbon
1/4 sweet vermouth
1/4 Fernet Branca
Frappé. (In other words, mix the ingredients together in a shaker and pour over crushed ice.) Tip: last Christmas, I received a Groggy ice crusher from Ikea; it’s a perfect home bar tool for frappé cocktails.
I found the recipe for this bracingly refreshing drink in that good, old yardsale paperback The Art of Mixing Drinks, based on the Esquire Drink Book, where I also found the Marconi Wireless.
Coming up … a back-of-the-napkin account of our recent trip to L.A.
Posted in Bitters, Cocktails, Drinking supplies, Whiskey | 9 Comments »
May 26th, 2007
The sun never sets on the British Cocktail Empire. It seems that every week there’s some redcoat cocktail consultant and/or liquor brand representative jetting into Boston and concocting drinks for a promotion party. In the past six months, I’ve met Jamie Walker, brand ambassasor for Bombay Sapphire, Angus Winchester, founder of Alconomics Ltd., and, now, Charlotte Voisey, “brand champion” for Hendrick’s Gin and company mixologist for William Grant & Sons USA. She was in town recently for a Hendrick’s party at OM in Harvard Square.
OK, I’m jealous. Charlotte is young and gorgeous, and she travels around the world promoting gin and mixing cocktails. How the hell do I get a job like that? Apparently by running cocktail bars in Barcelona, Buenos Aires and London, being named UK Bartender of the Year (2004), winning a silver medal at the World Female Bartending Championships (2006), and consulting on cocktail programs at London’s Dorchester Hotel and Manhattan’s Gramercy Park Hotel. That’s what Charlotte did before moving to New York for her current gig.
At the OM event, Charlotte struck me as someone who takes her job seriously but doesn’t take herself too seriously. She wasn’t swanning around the room talking up her brand — she was actually behind the bar mixing drinks with the stuff. Two of her Hendrick’s cocktails stood out for me: the Cucumber Collins and the Rose & Lychee Martini (see recipes below).
Afterward, Charlotte and I were part of a small group that headed downtown to check out the newly opened KO Prime (formerly Spire) in the Nine Zero hotel. We sampled a few nouveau cocktails, some of which were quite good (more on that in another post). Finally on to No. 9 Park, where John Gertsen mixed us up a tasty smorgasbord of spirits, including an elegant mixture of scotch, Lillet and Drambuie whose name escapes me. The drink was fitting, since Charlotte used to represent Glenfiddich and promote scotch-based cocktails. How does a woman represent a scotch brand? “Communicate in terms of flavour and allow for marketing that is not just about golf and celebrating bonuses,” said Charlotte in an Adams Beverage Group interview last year. Yep, she’s alright.
Cucumber Collins
1½ oz Hendrick’s Gin
3 oz cucumber puree
Shake and strain over fresh ice in a Collins glass, garnish with a long cucumber rod.
(To make a batch of cucumber puree: blend 1 cucumber with 3 oz fresh lemon juice and 3½ oz simple syrup.)
Rose & Lychee Martini
1½ oz Hendrick’s Gin
½ oz rose syrup
1½ oz lychee juice
¼ oz fresh lemon juice
Dash egg whites
Dash Angostura bitters
Shake very well and strain up into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with an edible flower.
Hendrick’s, with its delicate flavor and rose and cucumber notes, naturally works well in these drinks. I have no idea where to get lychee juice and rose syrup. I’d try Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, or Christina’s Spice & Specialty Foods in Inman Sq. Cambridge. Also, you might find lychee juice at Asian markets.
Posted in Boston bars, Cocktails, Gin | 4 Comments »
