Archive for the ‘Cocktails’ Category
June 20th, 2006
It seems like Mimosas and Bloody Marys have been the only drinks available at brunch since about one million years B.C. That’s quite a rut. Even during a recent visit to the cocktail mecca the B-Side Lounge, these libations were all that our server could suggest as boozy accompaniment to our eggs and bacon. After downing a perfectly servicable Bloody, I asked for the cocktail menu. There had to be something different, but still brunch-y, there. Something with, let’s see, fresh-squeezed juice, but less sweet and more bracing than a Mimosa. A new item on the menu caught my eye: the Stork Club – dry gin, lime juice, orange juice, triple sec and Angostura bitters. Now that sounded liked the perfect brunch drink. I ordered one, took a sip. It was the perfect brunch drink! It had sunny citrus juices, plus a little extra orange flavor and sweetness from the triple sec. But the gin and bitters added a pleasant sting, like the flirtatious face-slaps in that old commercial for Skin Bracer aftershave. Unfortunately, most of the bleary-eyed brunch-goers at B-Side aren’t likely to have the acumen to examine a long list of cocktails and select an unknown, unproven one to start their afternoon. They need helpful suggestions from someone they trust, i.e. their bartender. That’s where a menu of new and interesting, but brunch-worthy, cocktails would come in handy. Let’s put the Stork Club at the top of that list.
If you want to see a menu of brunch cocktails that goes way beyond Bloodys and Mimosas, check out Eastern Standard‘s. They can take the credit for popularizing the Hemingway, or La Floridita, Daiquiri as a brunch drink in Boston. The thing that makes it a great brunch drink is that the bartenders serve the mixture of white rum, maraschino liqueur, lime juice and simple syrup over crushed ice, creating a refreshing, adult sno-cone. (If you’ve never had a Hemingway Daiquiri, note that it is hardly sweet at all, which makes sense when you learn that maraschino liqueur is the opposite of the liquid in the jar of cherries: clear and only semi-sweet.) Try this drink — you might find it more pleasant than sucking spiked tomato juice through a straw clogged with horseradish and peppercorns.
Posted in Boston bars, Brunch, Cocktails, Gin, Rum | No Comments »
June 10th, 2006
Recently, after a kindly bartender at Eastern Standard sent me home with a bottle of hard-to-find Peychaud’s bitters, I mixed my first Seelbach, a bourbon-and-Champagne-based cocktail born in 1917 at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. Oh my god, was it good. I assumed I would never encounter this rare drink outside my own living room. Then one night I met Scott Holliday, bar manager at the Cambridge restaurant Chez Henri. When he took my order, I simply told him that I liked whiskey drinks. A few minutes later, he placed a bubbly, reddish cocktail on my bar napkin — a Seelbach! I wanted to marry the guy. I’m a sucker for drinks that top spirits off with Champagne. Mysteriously, the bubbles both accentuate and mellow the bourbon and bitters, and as a whole the Seelbach conjures up dueling memories of wedding toasts and camping trips. Try this recipe:
The Seelbach (from Gary and Mardee Regan’s New Classic Cocktails)
1 oz bourbon
1/2 oz Cointreau
7 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
7 dashes Angostura bitters
5 oz Champagne
Pour the liquor and bitters into a Champagne flute and stir. Add Champagne and stir again. Garnish with an orange twist.
Note: I prefer to stir the liquor and bitters lightly over ice and then strain them into the Champagne flute before adding the Champagne. It makes a pleasantly chilled drink that is not so cold or watered down that it dulls the spirits’ character.
Posted in Boston bars, Cocktails, Whiskey | 4 Comments »
June 7th, 2006
Eastern Standard’s cocktail menu just keeps getting bigger and better. It now takes up a whole page and is divided into categories like Standards (which are actually newly invented drinks like The Rat — Fernet Branca and Coke, named after the beloved rock-and-cheap-beer joint that used to occupy ES’ spot on Comm Ave.), Coolers, and other categories based on the drinker’s mood or mealtime plans. One recently added classic cocktail is the Periodista (aka “journalist”): Myer’s dark rum, fresh lime juice, Marie Brizard Apry (apricot liqueur), and a dash of orange liqueur, perfectly chilled and served in a gorgeous, delicate, rounded cocktail glass. This is a drink that can class up any summer afternoon, transforming you from just another pale-legged Sox fan snacking on cod cakes before the game to a bon vivant in cool linen waiting for a beautiful, suntanned stranger to step through the door.
B-Side Lounge in Cambridge also does a nice version of this drink, and they get credit for being perhaps the first bar in greater Boston to serve this cocktail in modern times (as in post-1963).
Posted in Boston bars, Cocktails, Rum | No Comments »
May 21st, 2006
I had drinks at Bar Lola (160 Commonwealth Ave.) and Bar 10 (in the Westin hotel) this past week. At the Spanish-themed Bar Lola, I did not try the house cocktail, the Lolita: Stoli Perik (peach), Gran Torres (a Spanish orange-flavored cordial) and mango juice topped with cava and garnished with an edible orchid flower. It sounded like just another fruity vodka drink to me. Instead, I opted for the Don Quixote martini: tequila, Cointreau, lime juice, and sangria. I guessed that it would be the least-sweet cocktail on the menu. The drink was a beautiful reddish-purple color, and that’s unfortunately all it had going for it. It was too sweet and not very well chilled. It kind of reminded me of a summertime punch my mom used to make when I was a kid: Minute Maid lemonade and Welch’s grape juice. Now that was a good drink. And it didn’t cost $12. Next time I visit Bar Lola, I’ll stick to the sangria on its own, which was pretty good, or just play it safe and order wine or cava by the glass to accompany the tasty tapas.
Bar 10 describes its vibe as “casual sophistication.” I’ll go along with that as far as decor goes. The place has a polished, grownup, hotel lounge feel. The soft lighting and plush, semicircular booths make you feel like a fashionable urbanite, as do the gigantic martinis. The problem with gigantic martinis is — do I really have to state the obvious? — that drinking eight ounces of gin or vodka in one sitting is bad for your health. Even worse, the alcohol warms up before you finish the drink, which is as unpleasant as drinking lukewarm coffee. The Bombay Sapphire martini I ordered was not only automatically served dry (everybody just assumes you want a dry martini, because it sounds cool or something), but it wasn’t thoroughly chilled. If there’s any drink on earth whose quality depends on the proper temperature, it’s the martini. It’s pretty simple, yet very few bars get this. Moreover, I had read that Bar 10 was a good place to get a classic cocktail. Oooh, I thought, maybe they serve up a good Negroni or French 75. No such luck. This is one of the many places in Boston where vodka martinis and Cosmos constitute “classic” cocktails.
Posted in Boston bars, Cocktails, Gin, Tequila | No Comments »
May 19th, 2006
Fast Company’s May cover story is on food, which the magazine says “has become the great American art form — and a wildly innovative business.” There’s a thoughtful, thorough and positive article on Homaro Cantu, chef of Moto restaurant in Chicago, who cooks with liquid nitrogen and lasers and who “wants to use his strange brew of self-taught rocket science and professional culinary training to change the way the world thinks about food.” Cantu’s take on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is pictured; the sandwich filling sits atop a small rectangle of bread and consists of peanut butter encased in a “hemisphere” of frozen jelly. His restaurant features a grand tasting menu for $160 a head.
In the same issue is a funny, snarky one-page article called “Mix Mastery – The cult of the cocktail runs amok.” It pokes fun at the seriousness with which some have come to view the art of mixing a drink. “Handcrafted cocktails, once a lost art, have resurfaced as absurdist comedy, with top-shelf bartenders — ‘cocktail consultants’ in this brave new world — making thousands of dollars a day peddling the likes of the Earl Grey MarTEAni (tea-infused gin, egg white, lemon juice, and simple syrup) or the ‘sake martini with lychee puree and muddled cucumbers.’ The things fetch up to $20 apiece…”
I’ll be the first to agree that a $20 Earl Grey MarTEAni is a sucker’s drink. And I still have a hard time keeping a straight face when someone refers to a bartender as a mixologist. But then I got to thinking: why is it OK to get all gee-whiz over a celebrity chef and his “wildly innovative menu” but snicker at a “cocktail consultant” who’s doing something similar with booze — that is, inventing new and unusual drinks and earning fame and fortune in the process? Is a $20 cocktail any more “absurdist comedy” than a $160 tasting menu featuring liquid nitrogen-cooled PB&J?
Posted in Booze in the news, Cocktails | No Comments »
