Archive for the ‘Liqueur’ Category
May 12th, 2007
Scott Holliday, former bartender at Chez Henri and an honorary member of our Best Boston bartender list, wrote me recently about a trip to the Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle (Scott moved to Sacramento last year but will soon relocate to Montreal). His account made me want to hop on a flight to the West Coast immediately:
“Had the very good fortune of hitting the Zig Zag Cafe while in Seattle and sitting at Murray Stenson’s bar for a spell. (Actually, Kacy Fitch and Ben Dougherty are the co-owners. As bar owners willing to have Murray take the spotlight, they are as rare and gracious as their star employee — and both damn fine bartenders themselves.) He’s a great bartender, amazingly gracious and inspiring. That bar, for me, was more exciting than Pegu, Flatiron or Milk & Honey. They put out some amazing drinks (with amazingly rare ingredients) without making it an exclusive or precious experience. All drinks $8.25 and most menu items $12 or so.
“Murray gave us tastes of liqueurs from a French company, Giffard — both the ginger and an Indian-spice blend called Mangalore. Both were beautifully pure and balanced. Murray and Kacy said anything they’ve tried from Giffard was excellent, though sadly it’s not available in the U.S. Also, just to satisfy my incredulity at what ingredients sat before me (see photo), they poured us tastes of Suntory Hermes Violets (you know, the nearly unobtainable descendent of dead-and-gone Creme Yvette) and, from the Firenze distiller L’Officina Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, Elisir di Edimburgo (a bitters) and Alkermes (an ancient medicinal bitter and supposedly the predecessor to Campari). And then for comparison an Alkermic made for Murray in San Francisco. All the while I watched Murray and Kacy carefully mix drink after drink, and with few exceptions consistently reaching for one of the Zig Zag’s impressive collection of bitters and herbals including Zwack Unicum, Torani Amer, both Amer Picons, Cynar, Fernet Branca, Branca Menta, VEP and yellow Chartreuse, and multiple Absinthe substitutes …
“Then we started on cocktails. I know, I’m a name dropping bore, but I’ve been so starved for the talk and craft of good drink I can’t help myself.
“It was on my second visit that I had the chance to chat with Ben Dougherty, and he introduced me to the Creole (variation). If I had the ingredients at home, or if they existed anywhere in Sacramento (gingerale isn’t even stocked in the bars here — if you order whiskey and ginger you get whiskey and 7up with a splash of Coke), I’d probably be half fluent in Creole by now or at the very least constantly slurring, ‘Laissez les bon temps roulez.’ It was also he who handed me Ted Saucier’s ‘Bottom’s Up’ to show me the recipe, essentially making me about $50 poorer by pointing out yet another void in my library. Hello eBay!”
Keep in touch, Scott.
Posted in Bitters, Cocktails, Liqueur, Seattle | 9 Comments »
March 27th, 2007
If you’re curious about absinthe, aka the “green fairy,” check out the Virtual Absinthe Museum. You could lose an afternoon there as easily as if you were actually drinking the stuff.
“It’s the fruit of many years’ research and is the largest and most authoritative site on the internet devoted to the history and lore of absinthe,” says David Nathan-Maister, who publishes the site and runs Oxygénée Ltd., a U.K.-based business devoted to all things absinthe, including both new and vintage bottles of the storied herbal spirit. The company takes its name from a poster advertising Cusenier’s Absinthe Oxygénée, “one of the greatest brands of the era” — the “era” being the time before absinthe was banned in 1915. The ban (which has been lifted in Europe but not the U.S.) and lots of other fun facts are covered in the site’s Absinthe FAQ. And you can buy nice, Art Nouveau posters there, too.
Posted in Absinthe, Books & resources, Liqueur | 3 Comments »
February 14th, 2007
What better way to spend a Monday night in February than at a cozy neighborhood restaurant drinking champagne cocktails mixed by some of Boston’s best bartenders? That’s the sound reasoning that brought 60+ people to Green Street last night for drinkboston.com’s sold-out champagne cocktail party. Misty Kalkofen of Green Street and the B-Side Lounge, Ben Sandrof of Noir, Dylan Black of Green Street and John Gertsen of No. 9 Park mixed four distinctive classic cocktails using champagne: the Diamond Fizz, the Black Velvet, the B2C2 and the Seelbach (recipes below). Not only that, they visited each and every table in the room, explaining the drinks’ origins (or alleged origins, given that the history of cocktails is usually as unverifiable as the provenance of traditional folk songs). The evening was festive and informative — well worth the price of a small headache on Tuesday morning.
To get on the email list for future drinkboston.com events, email drinkboston at comcast dot net.
The cocktails
B2C2
1 oz each of brandy, Benedictine and Cointreau shaken over ice and strained. Top with champagne.
Misty learned of this drink from David Wondrich’s Killer Cocktails: An Intoxicating Guide to Sophisticated Drinking. It was “created by American intelligence officers at the end of WWII. They had all of these wonderful goods that had been looted from the French by the Germans and then left behind during the Germans’ retreat,” she says. Luxurious bubbles.
Diamond Fizz
2 oz gin, 1 oz lemon juice and 1/2 tsp powdered sugar shaken over ice and strained. Top with champagne.
A dressed-up gin fizz (which uses seltzer instead of champagne). Also similar to the French 75, only it contains less sugar and no garnish. The Cocktail Database recipe calls for a highball glass with ice, but we served it straight up in a saucer. Delicious either way.
Black Velvet
1/2 stout and 1/2 champagne in a wine glass or flute.
Said to have been created at London’s Brooks Club in 1861 during mourning over Prince Albert’s death. Also called the Bismarck, as the drink was a favorite of German statesman Otto von Bismarck. Dylan used Mackeson’s Stout for this drink. Dark and rich.
Seelbach
1 oz bourbon, 1/2 oz Cointreau and 7 dashes each Angostura and Peychaud’s bitters poured into a flute and stirred. Top with champagne.
Invented at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, circa 1917. The recipe was lost, probably during Prohibition, until being rediscovered by the hotel in 1995 and later printed in Gary and Mardee Regan’s New Classic Cocktails. This is one of the great whiskey drinks.
Posted in Bartenders, Beer, Brandy, Champagne, Cocktails, Events, Gin, Liqueur | No Comments »
January 3rd, 2007
I discovered a great way to make a resolution: on New Year’s eve, introduce yourself to a cocktail you’ve never tried before, and vow to drink more of it. I was drinking a Green Ghost when the fireworks went off over the Charles at midnight on January 1, 2007. Gin, green Chartreuse and fresh lime, chilled and straight up. Both the color and flavor of the cocktail were otherworldly, sending a chill up my spine while stopping me in my tracks. I promised myself more Green Ghosts in 2007. Then I broadened my scope — more Chartreuse cocktails in 2007. Given that there are 121 recipes for cocktails containing either green or yellow Chartreuse on the Internet Cocktail Database, I’ve already got nearly half the year covered.
Speaking of Chartreuse, have you ever tried the really good stuff, the stuff that’s aged in oak and comes in the bottles with the plain-looking labels? I was at Green Street (do you sense a theme here?) a couple of nights before New Year’s and got to try side-by-side samples of regular (about $45/bottle) and aged ($95 or more) green Chartreuse. Now I get why people spend the big bucks for the latter. Somehow, the herbaceousness and strength of the aged liqueur were both subtler and more intense, giving the sensation of a vapor rather than a liquid. Strange, wonderful stuff.
Posted in Gin, Liqueur | 5 Comments »
December 4th, 2006
Are you whiskey-curious? Want to experiment with the amber liquor but aren’t ready to bear the full brunt of its kick? Try a Frisco: 1 1/2 oz rye, 3/4 oz Benedictine and 3/4 oz lemon juice shaken over ice and strained into a stemmed glass. Its prominent citrus and herbal flavors tame the rye into submission, making the Frisco the perfect drink for preliminary explorations. Indeed, this golden cocktail was my first love, a tasty gateway to subsequent adventures with Manhattans, Red Hooks, and Sazeracs. I still love the Frisco and regularly recommend it to all whiskey-curious people I meet. Since the drink has long been on the B-Side Lounge’s comprehensive cocktail menu, and since many bartenders in Boston and Cambridge have completed a stint there at some point in their careers, finding this drink in a local bar isn’t as far-fetched as you’d think.
Note: As is the case with many cocktails, the recipe above (which is the one B-Side uses) is one of many that list varying proportions of rye, lemon juice and Benedictine. Early recipes appear to have only called for a lemon twist. In any case, the recipe here is damn tasty and probably the most user-friendly for the beginner.
Posted in Cocktails, Liqueur, Whiskey | 1 Comment »
