March 8th, 2007
Thanks to all you pisco-loving fools who ventured out into the arctic air last night to join drinkboston.com at the Alchemist Lounge for pisco cocktails and Peruvian dance beats. There was a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on behind the bar as John Byrd and Nicky Poirier whipped up nine(!) different drinks using pisco from Macchu Pisco, a small producer of the grape-based spirit. My fave mixtures were the nicely sweet-n-sour Peruvian Americano (pisco, apple liquor, falernum, lemon), the elegant and refreshing Cucumber Pisco Martini (pisco, cucumbers, simple syrup), and the Pisco Punch (see recipe below), which was as soft and sweet as a spring breeze — something we all longed for last night.
Thanks to DJ Brother Cleve for the excellent tunes and to Alchemist owners Relena Erskine and Lyndon Fuller for offering up their lounge as the evening’s venue. If you want to get on the mailing list for drinkboston.com events, email drinkboston (at) comcast (dot) net.
The Pisco Punch recipe, direct from John Byrd: “We took 2 bottles of pisco, 1 can of pineapple juice, .25c of simple syrup, 1 whole pineapple chopped and one big splash of falernum. We let it sit for 4 hours and shook [each serving] up with an egg white. After the party we added grape halves & some very inexpensive California champagne, and that was very good!” Served in a double rocks glass over ice.
Permalink | 6 Comments | Filed under Events, Pisco |
March 6th, 2007
When Esquire drinks writer David Wondrich made a guest appearance behind the bar at Eastern Standard a couple of weeks ago, he mixed a drink I’d never had before: the Saratoga. Equal parts cognac, rye and sweet vermouth, the Saratoga is one of those cocktails that flies in the face of the number-one rule you were taught during your formative drinking years: do not mix your spirits. Cognac and rye? Mixed together in the same glass? Run and hide!
No, don’t. Try it. It’s one of those drinks whose seemingly simple ingredients and proportions form something eye-openingly new. Here’s the recipe, along with the brands of liquor Wondrich used that evening. Note: he colored outside the lines with the bitters he used — a Peruvian brand that Eastern Standard happened to have lying around. They were a bit funky.
Saratoga Cocktail
1 oz cognac (Hine)
1 oz rye (Rittenhouse 100-Proof)
1 oz sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
2 dashes Angostura bitters or other aromatic bitters, such as Fee’s Old-Fashioned
Stir well with ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and twist a lemon peel over the top.
If you order this in a bar, be sure to specify that it’s the above version you want. There are several other cocktails named Saratoga, and they tend to involve maraschino liqueur and/or pineapple syrup.
Permalink | 1 Comment | Filed under Brandy, Cocktails, Vermouth, Whiskey |
March 1st, 2007
In certain Boston bars, if you see a group of people drinking shots of brown liquid poured from a dark green bottle, the people probably work in a restaurant and the liquid is probably Fernet Branca. Fernet (fer-NETT), as devotées call it, is among the broad range of intense, botanical-infused spirits classified as bitters. These include highly concentrated potions administered to drinks by the drop (Angostura, Peychaud’s, orange bitters) and herbal spirits that you can drink straight or base cocktails on (Campari, Aperol, Jägermeister, Fernet). Fernet is made in Italy with 27 different herbs (one of them, gentian root, will be recognizable to anyone familiar with Angostura bitters or Moxie) and is aged in oak casks for a year.
Fernet most often gets compared to Jägermeister, the German bitters that became so popular 15 or 20 years ago that it marketed its own chiller-dispenser to bars (yeah, it’s that rectangular metal box with the stained plastic tubes sticking out of it, right next to the Apple Pucker). However, it makes the sweeter, slightly lower-in-alcohol Jägermeister seem suitable for children. Jackson Cannon, bar manger at Eastern Standard, calls it “Jäger for men.” The first time you taste Fernet, it literally assaults your senses. It’s intensely bitter, peppery and mentholated. ‘I can’t believe I just swallowed that,’ may be your first thought. But, intrigued, you try it again. You like that cleaned-out buzz, that feeling that your insides have been sandblasted. The next thing you know, you’re working in a restaurant.
Why do waiters, bartenders and chefs gravitate toward this stuff? Well … It’s a badass drink that very few people know about, much less like. Drinking it conveys both that you have an advanced palate and that you embrace the ridiculous. And it’s the antithesis of all the insipid Cosmopolitans and Grey Goose martinis that restaurants churn out to earn their rent money.
I’m not sure when Fernet became the de rigueur libation among restaurant industry personnel and their companions. Many drink trends move from the West Coast to the East Coast, and San Francisco is by far the U.S. capitol of Fernet consumption. Check out SF Weekly’s detailed treatment of San Fran’s Fernet obsession, “The Myth of Fernet.”
Bostonians appear to have entered the race, though. Eastern Standard, Green Street, the Independent and Deep Ellum all serve cocktails made with Fernet. Jackson claims that Eastern Standard is the leader in sales. “It’s impossible that another account in Mass. is even close to ES!” I’m not going to argue with him; I was at Eastern Standard recently with a group of bartenders for whom mere shots of the liquor wouldn’t do; they ordered a whole damn bottle. Granted, they shared it with the kitchen staff.
Permalink | 9 Comments | Filed under Bitters |
February 23rd, 2007
First, it’s pronounced “pees-co.” Second, it’s the national drink of Peru and Chile, and the two countries are fighting over its appellation (this BBC article will tell you what you need to know). Third, it’s a clear, grape-based spirit, or unaged brandy, made famous in cocktails like the Pisco Sour, Pisco Punch and Piscola (OK, that’s just pisco and coke over ice, but what fun to say).
On Tuesday, March 6, Alchemist Lounge bartenders John Byrd and Nicole Poirier will mix these classics, along with a special menu of new pisco cocktails they created. International DJ Brother Cleve will spin 1970s Peruvian funk and soul, and the kitchen will whip up some Peruvian- and Chilean-style snacks for the occasion.
A new company called Macchu Pisco (the name is a play on Machu Picchu, the ancient city in the Andes Mountains of Peru) will supply the pisco for the evening’s cocktails. The company’s Peruvian brandies are Macchu Pisco, a mixable spirit made with quebranta grapes, and La Diablada, a super-premium pisco made with muscatel and italia grapes that can be sipped neat, like a good cognac. Macchu Pisco’s owner, Melanie da Trinidade-Asher, was born in Peru and has ties to the Boston area; she formulated her company’s plan at Harvard Business School.
The party starts at 7:30 p.m. Pisco cocktails are $8 each. No cover charge or tickets, but RSVP to the Alchemist at 617-477-5741. Groovy music. Yummy snacks. Bring your friends.
To get on the email list for drinkboston.com events, email drinkboston at comcast dot net.
Permalink | No Comments | Filed under Events, Pisco |
February 23rd, 2007
By Scott N. Howe
It’s not quite Coke, it’s not quite root beer, and it’s not quite good. “It” is Moxie, and if you grew up in New England, you’ve no doubt sampled this dark, bitter, medicinal soda — and you probably didn’t like it. To be sure, Moxie is an acquired taste, but a few more folks may acquire it thanks to a new cocktail at Allston’s Deep Ellum. Last night, barman Max Toste turned me on to the Black Water, a new Moxie-based concoction they’ve added to their interesting and ample cocktail menu. (“Moxie,” Max explained, is a Native American word for “black water.” I took his word for it.) The drink is simple: Moxie on the rocks, mixed with rye and garnished with a lemon slice. What you get is, depending on your perspective, a loving update of New England traditions or a Jack and Coke for the highly ironic. Either way, it’s damn tasty, and, at $6 a pop, it’s priced to make even the thriftiest New Englander smile.
Permalink | 6 Comments | Filed under Bitters, Cocktails, Whiskey |
