The essence of the essence! the king of effervescence!

relief sculpture by Gustave Navlet in the Veuve Clicquot cellar (19th c)

The good ole boys in the US (I may start referring them as GOBs, just because) played with creepy cocktails this weekend. I went to Reims, where they used to crown all the kings back in the day, to learn something about champagne. Since my trip was subsidized, I didn't do much ordering of beverages, but here is an almost complete list of what we sampled (most are non-vintage/not cuvée unless noted):

Bollinger (x3)

Billecart-Simon

Veuve Clicquot (2002 reserve and La Grande Dame 1998)

Pommery, (cuvée Louis and nonvintage)

Moët & Chandon

Vranken Diamant

I know I'm missing some here, but at a point on Saturday, I lost track of what was handed to or ordered for me. I think my favorite of the weekend was the Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame, which had this incredible tart flavor that just rolled out slowly, like a lady in her finery taking a luxurious afternoon constitutional on your tongue. The Pommery cuvée Louis also made an impression on me. Of course, we didn't have a bad glass all weekend, so it's hard to play favorites.

The other surprise of the weekend was the bottle of French whiskey my friend's husband bought. It's from a distillery that was founded in 1998 in the woods of the champagne region called Guillon. It's definitely a French twist on the drink, with a lot of vanilla flavors that recall the other famous spirit from the region, cognac. I don't know if it's worth hunting down with large quantities of effort but if you saw it lying around and had the cash, it's a fun drink.

Now I'm home, nursing the kind of hangover and cold that can only come from a weekend of champagne, foie gras and oysters. I'm sort of wishing I hadn't needed to come back. And had more disposable income.

bisous,

plenty

The Devil came up to Michigan (and needed a sweater)

Two young men walk down a deserted road late at night. Slung across the chest of one is a small satchel holding a well-used shaker, a menagerie of bitters, and a bottle of rye. The other has an old ammo belt, repurposed to hold vial after vial of infused vodkas. Ahead of them, the road intersects another, similarly deserted road. At the crossroads, they see the man they expected to find, an older gentleman in a red suit with a posture radiating smugness.

"Sir, I believe we make the best punch there ever was or ever will be."

"Would you bet your souls on that?"

"You're damned right we would."

Our new acquaintance forfeited by not showing, but the theme was already set: The Devil's Punchbowl.

My punch did not start as a punch. I'd read good things recently about a very herbal drink called the chrysanthemum cocktail and I figured that I could shoehorn the white chrysanthemum/death link into a spooky drink for the holiday. The punch emphasis was a bit of a surprise, but I ran with it after reading a lot of older punch recipes.

Back in the day, punch recipes called for a lot of steeping and layering of flavors. Many of them would really be more like a sangria these days, though not too many contemporary folk are eager to put wines from Burgundy into a bunch of fruit. I hope not, at least. I took this inspiration and basically made a batch of chrysanthemum cocktails to taste and set it overnight with some lemon peel and then mixed it with a rather good dry French blancs de blancs from Grenoble whose name escapes me. The whole thing is nice, sort of a mellow herbal take on a kir. If I could inject a bit of grassy flavors, I think that would be nice as well.

White Chrysanthemum Punch

• 2 cups Dry vermouth (Noilly Prat)
• 1 cup Benedictine
• 1/4-1/2 oz Absinthe (Leopold Bros.)
• 3 strips of lemon peel
• 1 scant bottle dry white sparkling wine, chilled (of course)

Put the first four ingredients in a bottle, give the bottle a shake to mix, and refrigerate overnight. It should just about fill a 375 mL bottle, perhaps overtopping it by a smidgen. Right before serving, pour them together and keep chilled with a large solid chunk of ice.

For my second drink, I decided to do a takeoff of a Blood and Sand. Whenever I have a cocktail recipe with scotch that I want to pull in a different direction, I try añejo tequila. It has a robustness and smokiness that tends to take to the same solid structure created by scotch, but imbues the drink with a fruitiness that otherwise wouldn't be there. I'd like to try to pare this down a little bit, since I don't know if every ingredient is absolutely necessary. I do, however, know that this is a tasty drink as is.

The Beaches are Closed

• 1 oz. Añejo tequila (Don Eduardo)
• 1 oz. Sweet vermouth (Martini and Rossi, alas)
• 1 oz. Orange juice
• 1/2 oz. Campari
• 1/4 oz. Creme de cassis
• 1/4 oz. Orange flower water
• 2 dashes Regan's Orange Bitters

I recommend shaking this one. The flavors can use a bit of rounding from the extra water and the color is great when cloudy. It's a bit of a kitchen sink sort of drink, and I would be curious to try it without the cassis or the flower water. That drink might still hold its own, but perhaps with a bit less going on.

Just in time for Halloween

About a month late, I finally present my tiki drink cum Halloween-themed cocktail: The Elder Zombie. It may sound like a Magic card (Hey there, that's a challenge idea!), but it's actually a tasty beverage inspired by the classic Zombie, famous for having as much as three shots worth of booze in a proper pour.

The Elder Zombie

• 1/4 oz. lime juice
• 1/4 oz. grapefruit juice
• 1/4 oz. grenadine
• 1/4 oz. elderflower syrup

(You're probably thinking to yourself at this point "Christ, man, where's the alcohol?!" Admittedly, it does not share everything in common with its inspiration)

• 1 1/2 oz. rum, your favorite mix of light and dark.
• 1/4 oz. Campari
• Dash Angostura bitters

Mix everything together, imbibe and be merry.

I have to say, I'm proud that after figuring out this recipe I ran into a lime/grapefruit/grenadine/elderflower cocktail from one of the big cocktail bars in New York (PDT? Death and Co.? I think one of those). It didn't go the same direction with the bitters and such, but nonetheless it makes me like my intuition is moving in the right direction.

A Sexy Way to Cry

Tiki drinks are drinks people have in movies that suck. This is the definition in wikipedia. Perhaps in subconscious rebellion against this, or perhaps because Mr. Dragon is becoming a tiny adult, I became a towering child and took a literary approach to this challenge. In his novel Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov explores the trivialization of Russian culture, and the fundamentally populist (proletarian?) nature of bourgeois condescension. He also, as it turns out, lays out one hell of a cocktail recipe. At the anticlimactic party near the end of this book, the title character puts together a punch that the pitying guests really rather enjoy. Here is the passage:

"Drinks were to be represented by whiskey (Betty's contribution), ryabinovka (a rowanberry liqueur), brandy-and-grenadine cocktails, and of course Pnin's punch, a heady mixture of chilled Chateau Yquem, grapefruit juice, and maraschino, which the solemn host had already started to stir in a a large bowl of brilliant aquamarine glass with a decorative design of swirled ribbing and lily pads."

Chateau Yquem is a Sauternes, but more, all at once. It is THE Sauternes. I may like these people, but I figured I didn't need to spend $300 to make no point. So using a lesser Sauternes, I made the following:

Pnin's Punch

2 oz. Sauternes (I used 2001 Chateau Rolland)

.5 to .75 oz fresh grapefruit juice

.5 teaspoons maraschino

serve with a couple ice cubes.

This drink is wonderful. In this case it tasted distinctly of passionfruit, but passionfruit dissolved, rebuilt, and made perfect. May this drink recipe live on, fly on, in its reflected sky. It is a classic to me.

My second drink was decent, I thought, when I made it right. Unfortunately, I got a couple ratios wrong at the crucial moment and it ended up too sweet. The proper recipe is shown below. By reason of this mistake, and for the completely twisted literary vision of tiki-ness that it can conjure (think abused mentally retarded girl becomes pagan god and tears the heads off a thousand geese), I call this drink

Shame

2 oz. smooth, volatile rum (Barbancourt 5 star)

1/2 oz. Amaro Melletti

squeeze lemon

squeeze lime

This drink is about rum. It tastes like rum, deepened and stretched. If you accidentally double the amaro, then it tastes like amaro, so don't do that. You want it to taste like rum. Trust me.

Above is an artist's impression of Harry Potter looking at Pnin's Punch and wondering why Butter Beer (tm) sucks so bad.

you can keep your coconuts

My friends across the ocean are playing with rum and noix de coco and those other fancy colonial fruits, but screw them. Here in Paris we have walnuts. That's right folks: straight up, old-world noix.

I saw this bottle on the shelf of our neighborhood fancy bread/cheese/booze store, Juhlés, and quickly became obsessed. Some quick internet research told me that both walnut wine and walnut liqueur are actually quite easy to make, if you can get your hands on green walnuts and have time to kill. Of course, it's not the season for green walnuts, and we're out of our apartment in less than a year, so we don't really have either.

I was little over excited about the whole walnut thing and didn't read the bottle correctly. It's neither vin de noix nor liqueur de noix, but rather apéritif à BASE de vin et de noix, which means it's basically walnut-infused brandy. But fuck it, it's good. I don't know if we'll be using it on top of ice cream any time soon, but it's a lovely for a little nip. Think port, but with nutty overtones. It is an apéritif, that is for sure, and with the right snacks (probably some good strong cheese) will make the perfect sucré/salé opening act for a good meal. I'd like to see if I can get my hands on some actual vin or liqueur de noix for comparison.

On the agenda this weekend: La Maison du Whisky or maybe Lavinia (which sells a crème de rose that I've got my eye on. I imagine it will make bangin' kirs). I hope they fulfill all my fancy French booze fantasies, or have something that resembles reasonably priced bourbon, because stocks in the secret lair are running pitifully low...

Bisous,

Plenty

Ulaulekeahi, Strike Down My Foes!

What is the secret to a good cocktail battle? Fear. Fear sharpens the senses. Fear hones our judgement. Fear pushes everything else into the background, and puts survival front and center.

I don't think you could say that any of us are specialists in Tiki drinks. In fact, I'm not sure that all of us had even had a Tiki drink before. And what were we afraid of? Drinks that were too fruity. Drinks that were too sweet. Drinks that we wouldn't even recognize as cocktails. And I think that we came out ok. In fact, I think we stepped up our collective games, and did some of our finest work.

First, a traditional delight, the Nui Nui. I can't say I've done enough research to figure out just how traditional it is, but light Googling suggests it has an older history than the "Sexy Nipple on the Beach," or whatever the kids are drinking these days. It appealed to me because it didn't rely on exotic juices, which I knew I would only be able to get in highly adulterated forms. As interesting as the juicier drinks sound, I still live in The Middle, and it's not exactly Mango country.

I adapted the recipe from Webtender to fit the available ingredients:

Nui Nui

• 1/2 oz Lime Juice
• 1/2 oz Orange Juice
• 1/2 oz Combined Allspice Syrup, Cinnamon Syrup, and Vanilla
• 2 oz Dark Rum (Barbancourt Reserve Speciale)
• Dash Angostura
• No, I couldn't bring myself to add crushed ice

I think that "nui" translates as "much," and so "nui nui" translates as "very much."As you might guess, the active ingredient in this cocktail is the spice syrups. I burned... way too much time trying to get this right. I ran into a suggestion that one could achieve the effect of these syrups by microwaving the raw spices and simple syrup for a few seconds. This is, to put it politely, false. And it leaves some totally sweet grit in your drink!

I settled on three tablespoons of freshly ground allspice, 1 cup sugar, and two cups water. Bring just to a boil, then set on warm for about an hour. Then, try to strain it through a coffee filter. When it won't run through the filter, add water (1/2 cup at a time), heat till the sugar dissolves, and try again. The result is pretty tasty! As a bonus, you can mix it with soda water and make a nice drink for your pregnant wife. For example.

Cinnamon syrup is more of a pain. I tried following the plan above, grating (microplaning) three cassia sticks into a pan in place of the three tbsp of allspice. I think there's something about the cassia, maybe the cellulose, that turns into glue while the syrup cooks. It took a lot of extra water to get the syrup down to a consistency that would go through the coffee filter, resulting in a syrup that wasn't very strong. I'm working on a cinnamon infusion right now that maybe, just maybe, will get the flavor right. We'll see.

For my modern cocktail, I tried to come up with a super partner for the Nui Nui. I was also trying to think of something that would fit with the MxMo challenge of the week, "Dizzy Dairy." Hopefully this explains the name and the flavors:

Nuinuino

• 3/4 oz Dark Rum (Pyrat or Barbancourt)
• 1/2 oz Coconut Water
• 1/4 oz Creme de Violette
• 1/4 oz Lime Juice

I can't say that the color evokes a tropical sunset, or anything else particularly attractive, but I think it tastes pretty good. The coconut water gives it a nice nose, and a light funk that combines well with the violette. The lime juice helps to blend the flavors more than anything else. I tried this both with the Pyrat rum and the Barbancourt. If you like a sweeter drink, go with the Pyrat. It's really nice with the Barbancourt too!

Now, I don't know if this will make it on to MxMo or not. On reading the challenge, my first thought was "coconut milk is amazing!" Then I found out that the clear fluid that comes out of a coconut is actually coconut water, not coconut milk. And that it takes "more work" to make coconut milk. So I went with my original idea, which really doesn't have anything to do with dairy, but neither do eggs, right?

and for dessert...

It came to my attention that Mr. Blood and Sand and Mr. Gin had a bit of a Sauternes party last night, which made me insanely jealous (more for the steak and company than the wine, since we have plenty of it here). It also reminded me that I missed an excellent blogging opportunity last week.

Sauternes is a sweet white dessert wine from the Graves area of Bordeaux, and one of the few white wines I truly enjoy.* In my humble opinion, it is the ne plus ultra of dessert wines. Part of my love for it comes from the peculiarities of its creation. The short version is as follows: the region lies at the intersection of the Garonne River and its tributary, the Ciron. One is cold and one is warm, and when they cross you get a lovely mist which encourages the growth of rot that sucks all the water out of the grapes. These extra sweet grapes then make extra sweet wine. These grapes are extra delicate and need to be picked by hand. Plus, because of the dual combination of weather dependency and grapes with less water content, you don't get Sauternes every year. (You can get all the science-y details here.) They are mind-blowingly good with Roquefort (I like the sucré/salé combo). A nice foie gras is the classic companion.

So, last week, a French friend stopped by for drinks, and being a polite Frenchwoman, brought a bottle to share. This time it happened to be a lovely, sweet white Bordeaux. It was decidedly less sweet than the Sauternes I've had in the past, and lacked the intense dehydrated urine color and syrupy mouth feel. I'm a big fan of the turning it up to 11 effect Sauternes has on your tongue, and this was the perfect toned-down version of that: refreshing and sweet, perfect to share with friends over conversation. And, because the sugar content is not so intense, you can enjoy a second glass without disastrous effects the next day.

I stupidly forgot to write the name down or take a picture of the bottle (although, based on descriptions, I have a feeling it may have from from the Premières Côtes de Bordeaux appellation), but it's encouraged me to explore different Vins d'Or (or as the have rebranded themselves "Sweet Bordeaux") while I'm here.

Bisous,

Plenty

*I'm not a white wine fan due to the use of a really bad chardonnay as the weekly communion wine at my childhood church. I know you're asking yourself "white wine? for the blood of christ?" I don't understand either. But it's put me off anything oaky.

Fire goddess, walk with me

Our next battle is Tiki drinks, on Thursday. I was skeptical at first, but this one has lit my curiosity like Lucca (Willo) lights a flare. What constitutes a Tiki drink? I don't really know. I sure hope it isn't blended cloying horror, because I just don't do that. It definitely seems that rum is a nearly-sufficient ingredient, as is fruit juice of some sort. I mean, everyone knows that the ancient gods of long-displaced indigenous peoples liked their beverages light and refreshing, right? Of course not, that's stupid, and I say it only to waste words. Nevertheless, making pulque would probably not be appreciated.

It's kind of easy to forget the variety that exists in rum. Just in my cabinet, I have Barbancourt five star, from Haiti, which is light, smooth, dry, and volatile, as well as Pyrat, which is heavier and sweet with notes of orange. There is, of course, also Bacardi, which tastes mostly like vomit, and a good standby, Cruzan, which tastes okay and is pretty cheap. I believe that there is only one rum commercially produced in the continental US, which is Old New Orleans, and is a quite-good basic rum that isn't too expensive. Buying it also lets us feel good about our shame with regards to that city. Anyone I've known for very long at all has probably heard me talk of Tanduay rhum, from the Philippines and cost $0.50 for a bottle last I was there. It is superb. I refuse to buy anything called Captain Morgan's for reasons that should be obvious. Similarly, I've heard that some Spanish rum is really quite good, but the advertising on the internet annoyed me so much that I will not speak it's name. Harder to find in Michigan are some unique rums like Metusalem, which is a "cuban style" that is very rich in rum flavor, but still light in body, and the stuff from Bermuda that trademarked the name "Dark & Stormy." In addition to things actually called rum (for instance 10 Cane) there are things that are effectively the same thing but have a different name for reasons I can only ascribe to ancient politics (like Cachaca, most of which sucks). Some is made from molasses. Some is made from a different kind of molasses. Some is made from cane juice. Throw in the light-medium-dark and possibly blackstrap variation from each label, and potentially different levels of aging, and suddenly rum is looking like the most variety-filled base liquor of them all.

Have you ever had it straight? You should. Wait for a hot, hot, hot, humid night, sit outside, and pour some Barbancourt 5 star into a tumbler. No ice. Don't be shy. Sip it. Then drink it faster. Then pour some more. It burns like nothing else. It has a darkness that demands a particular mood, which it then twists and makes its own. It drives you crazy, but keeps you safe. Truly, to experience rum on its own terms is special. Pretty hard to do in Michigan, though. So go someplace hot, festering, stagnant, and do it right.

In which an apple competition becomes an applejack competition

Calvados tastes like apples. I think we can all agree on this. Also, it is delicious. And then there is its backwoods cousin, the one that watches NASCAR for the crashes and doesn't care for booklearnin', applejack. I am perhaps being cruel, since there is really only one company, Laird's, that makes applejack and they make only three products that I can find here. One they call applejack, one they call straight apple brandy (it doesn't have the neutral spirits that their applejack does), and one they call old apple brandy.

Of course, there's no intrinsic reason that Laird's wouldn't be as good and full of apple flavor as a calvados, but the fact of the matter is that it isn't. The apple is there, sure, but the barrel flavor competes with it instead of supports it. The trick to using the straight apple brandy, as I see it, is to fill in the bright apple notes that aren't present and to change the finish to something nicer than what is kindly supplied by the brandy.

Applejack comes up in plenty enough classic cocktails that it wasn't hard to find tasty-looking drinks. What became hard was finding drinks that I could make without going shopping. I eventually settled on a classic preparation called a Star Cocktail and adapted it slightly:

Star Cocktail

• 1 oz. Apple brandy (Laird's bonded)
• 1 oz. Sweet vermouth (Martini and Rossi)
• 2 dashes Peychaud's bitters

Stir with ice.

It's not something I'd pull out often, but it's actually not a shabby drink. That initial winey flavor in the vermouth sets a nice stage for the applejack and the finish is made markedly better by the Peychaud's. I'll be curious to do this again once I get a new bottle of Cinzano, since I think the vanilla in that will play even better with the apple.

My original drink went in a really different direction. For some reason, my thoughts immediately went to smoky flavors. I also expected that pomegranate and apple would go well together, so I had made some grenadine earlier in the week based on recipes seen online. I couldn't help but go with a not-terribly-original and far too cutesy name. Apologies.

Pomme-pom

• 1 oz. Applejack (Laird's straight apple brandy)
• 0.5-1 oz. Anejo tequila (Don Eduardo)
• 1/4 oz. Lemon juice
• 1/4 oz. Benedictine
• 3/4 oz. Grenadine (Put 1 c. pomegranate juice in a saucepan and reduce by half. Mix with 1 c. pomegranate juice and 1/2 c. sugar)

I actually recommend shaking this one instead of stirring, since I think the extra water helps the drink and the color is nicer when opaque.

The version of this guy that I first served was with only 0.5 oz. tequila. That drink had a bit more apple flavor, but I got some suggestions to bump up the tequila side of it. I went back and poured a bit more Don Eduardo in and came up with an arguably better drink. It may also want a dash more benedictine than I note here.

How 'bout dem apples?

This past Saturday we held our Apple Battle, with thunderous results. Were apples kicked across the room? Yes. Were said apples then split in half by Dances with Gin's trusty Bar Katana? Indeed. Did I prepare apple juice by headbutting a raw apple against a table? Perhaps.

My traditional cocktail this week is built on Applejack, specifically Laird's "Bottled in Bond 100 Proof" Applejack. My understanding was that this was a good choice, because it would be pure apple distillate, unadulterated by grain alcohol. This may or may not be true, but the bottom line is that it has, in this Dragon's opinion, a cough syrupy aftertaste. Not my fave. I wish I had sprung for the aged applejack, or just bought a better apple brandy.

Anyway, back to the cocktail, which this week is Fallen Leaves, not to be confused with Falling Leaves. The recipe is simple, and seems to be universally agreed upon:

Fallen Leaves

• 3/4 oz Apple Brandy
• 3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth
• 1/4 oz Dry Vermouth
• Dash of Brandy

Although Mrs. Dragon and I are not quite poor, we are cheap, and I wanted to play with applejack, so my version is slightly modified:

Fallen Leaves (a la Dragon)

• 3/4 oz Applejack
• 3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth
• 1/4 oz Dry Vermouth
• Dash of Slivovice

Brandy might be nice here, but the plum flavor from the slivovice very nicely complements the apple. For awhile I also thought I was out of dry vermouth, so I tried replacing it with equal parts Zubrowka and seltzer. I found some dry vermouth, and I think it worked better.

I'm not sure that what I added was Slivovice, actually. It's plummy, and Czech. The ingredient list includes water, alcohol, "Slivovice Distillate", and "Plum Macerate." The name on the bottle is "Chalupařska", which translates as "Cottage." Fortunately, it does not taste like a cottage.

Anyway, if you don't have time to run out to Olomouc to pick some up, maybe try Jelinek? I can't vouch for it either way. But the plum is nice.

For my modern cocktail, I put together two variations on a French 75. The idea was that if you take any cocktail with champagne, then replace the champagne with a decent hard cider, you'll probably get a tasty cocktail. For the French 75 at least, this is true. Of course, the devil hides in the word "decent" -- I tried a few ciders, and the only usable one I found was Scrumpy's, which has a lot of apple flavor without being too too sweet. It's a bit like the Dragon's Milk that I used when making the Black Velvet, in that it's a bit dull on its own (though still better than the other ciders I tried), but makes a truly awesome cocktail.

I actually came out with two tasty variations on the French 75.

French 69

• 2 oz Gin (Hendrick's)
• 1 oz Lemon Juice
• 1/2 oz Simple Syrup
• 3-5 oz of Hard Cider (Scrumpy's)

American 75

• 2 oz Rye (Rittenhouse 100 proof)
• 1 oz Lemon Juice
• 1/2 oz Simple Syrup
• 3-5 oz of Hard Cider (Scrumpy's)
• Maraschin-faux Cherry

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I added one dash of Angostura bitters to one or both of these, but I can't remember which. At this point I think of Angostura as a bit like pepper, so let me suggest that you add it to taste.

I was surprised to find that cider and gin worked together. I think with a non-Hendrick's gin one would have to be careful, since a sharper juniper flavor might clash with the cider. Dances with Gin pointed out that the American 75 is also closely related to a Manhattan, and he's absolutely right -- apparently hard cider ~ sweet vermouth, as well as champagne*. Truly it is a marvelous beverage!

*Perhaps we'll see if transitivity works for cocktail substitutions at a later date!

What if we all got jobs and got to bed before dawn?

Then we couldn't keep experimenting with the themes we like. I have been experimenting with the Picon Biere (a smashing success wrought by O'Booze & Gin). How on Earth? It's not like I have the stuff. I mean, I have the Amer Picon replica I made, but that stuff is hell of hard to come by to use it by the ounce in beer experiments. My substitute is still not easy to source in Michigan, but a whole lot easier than real Picon. Basically, I take beer, add a bit of Amaro Ramazzotti, a bit of Stirrings blood orange bitters, and a couple dashes of Fee Brothers orange bitters.

This is GOOD.

It works with most beers, but I find it is best with a good, balanced light-colored beer. The best one I have tried is Asahi. That is right: I HAVE FOUND A USE FOR ASAHI. You didn't think it existed. Much like the only market or Foster's being clever fools looking for the authentic Outback Steakhouse dining experince, I thought the only market for Asahi was people looking for strangely shaped cans with truncal adiposity, and possibly accidental purchases. It turns out that a benevolent force has kept it on shelves all this time that I might discover it makes a fine, fine Picon Biere with two readily available ingredients, and one that can be picked up without too much difficulty from the New York market.

Try it.

Gilding the Lily

There are a few things I love; here are some pertinent examples.

Good apples

Good calvados

Good fresh cider

If you mix the second two, an unsurprisingly good thing comes out of it: The cider cocktail. Also, linear algebra, but that is a story for another day. Add the first as a garnish and you've made it pretty. Rim the glass with cinnamon and sugar (sometimes called cinny in my house), serve it in Chimayo, NM, and you've got a Chimayo cocktail. Sometimes this is exactly what one wants. It happens to be one of those drinks where better ingredients = better drink. Linear algebra again, damn. So using peak-of-the-season cider and Germain-Robin apple brandy make a wonderful but horribly expensive drink. Taking this, using slightly less-good ingredients, and taking the New Mexico theme a bit further, I wound up with the following:

Chimayo II

1 oz. Laird's 7.5 year apple brandy

2 oz. Michigan apple cider

dash angostura bitters

1 teaspoon vodka infused with ginger (take vodka, chop up ginger and soak for a few weeks)

1 teaspoon vodka infused with medium hot pepper (take vodka, cut pepper into rings and soak for a few hours)

1 glass rimmed with cinny+ (couple tablespoons sugar, couple teaspoons cinnamon, fat pinch Chimayo chili powder, fat pinch table salt)

This is totally drinkable. Pretty good, even. I'm pretty happy with it. The ginger gets buried and just makes everything else shine a bit brighter. The cinny+ is pretty great, I might use it in other things. The pepper rings soaked in vodka are a great garnish, and add a crisp, wild spiciness that is quite suitable. The problem here is with gilding the lily. This is a lot of work, and the end result is but a pale shadow of any of my great loves. It's really quite poetic. What's my name? Oh yeah.

The second drink I made was even more work, and produced the most egregiously baroque lily I've ever seen. I put the recipe here only for academic purposes.

Appletini:

1.5 oz apple infused genever gin (chop up apples, soak in genever)

dash dry vermouth

dash apple brandy

dash ginger infused vodka

garnish with grape tomatoes soaked in vodka

This is drinkable, it just isn't anything good. The tomato garnish, on the other hand, is super-duper good, and I recommend making tomatoes like that and using them in everything.

You may ask, what the hell was I thinking? Well, here was the idea. I wanted something crisp and authentic to the experience of biting into a raw apple. The gin martini thing seemed ike a good starting point. What I really wanted was something to act like apple aromatic bitters would. Something to add a slash of apple smell and taste to an otherwise balanced, clean drink. The infusion, though, doesn't give this effect. The taste is muddy, and while it is possible to balance the drink overall, it doesn't really taste like anything. Interestingly, it doesn't even taste like gin, anymore. Who knows why that is.

Time to regroup, have some calvados, and stoke the competitive fires for next time.

A new dawn, a new battle

And as I prepare to enter tomorrow's guerre de pommes, I want to be aware of all the scars of battles past. There is a saying in kendo, Japanese fencing, along the lines of "There are three outcomes of any duel: you die, your opponent dies, or you both die. In two of the three, you die, so fight as if it were your last act." While the reasoning does not stand up to scrutiny and cocktail battles pretty much just end with everyone happily tipsy, the conviction is nonetheless a worthy approach.

As such, I want to get the synesthesia recipes out into the world, as they are some of my favorite original drinks. The theme — originally posed as creating the cocktail representation of favorite songs — was a tricky one, and more subjective than I realized at first glance. In fact, my two drinks interpret the theme quite differently. One is a punning exploration of a snapshot in time well framed by a particular song, the other is closer to the synesthesiac ideal originally intended.

Let's Make Out

This was a collaborative effort for Plenty and me, referencing a late night drunken subway station last summer. This was a time characterized by bitterness and whiskey, but it was also the turning point into something pretty damn good. It's a variant on an Old Fashioned, trying to use as many bitters as possible, but ending with a little love — Parfait amour, an orange liqueur with some floral notes to it.

• 2 oz. bourbon (Buffalo Trace)
• 1/8 T. Campari
• 1/2 T. Marie Brizard Parfait Amour
• 2 dashes Fee Brothers whiskey aged bitters
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• 2 dashes Regan's orange bitters

Brother Sport

The songs on Merriweather Post Pavilion have a tendency to somehow float lightly above one's consciousness, never staying in one place long enough to be pinned down. It's a bit sweet and the Creme de Violette makes the color a horrid gray, but the mix of flowers and vanilla held together by gin is a fine, fine drink.

• 3 parts gin (Boodles)
• 2 parts lemon (I used one lemon for 3 oz gin)
• 2 parts Lillet Blanc
• 1 part Creme de Violette (Lavender would be fascinating here or as an addition, I think)
• 1 part Elderflower Syrup (Perhaps St. Germain liqueur would work here, but I used an old bottle from a trip to Austria)
• The slightest dash vanilla extract

The last ingredient is totally the secret that brings it all together. While Animal Collective's music is bright and elusive, it is also rich. The vanilla cuts through the dancing flavors that come before it and pulls them along into a cohesive drink.

When "good" = "strong"

A few days ago, I went out looking for a bottle of Slivovitz, which turned into an excellent opportunity to explore the surprisingly numerous Eastern European markets in my new 'hood. I discovered two things: 1.) I have access to a wider variety of vodka than I have ever had before 2.) I need to find out if I can apply for grant money specifically for the purchase of exotic alcohol. In fact, a future post might be dedicated to all the wonderful things I want to try in a neighborhood cheese/liquor/wine store that I have fallen in love with but I cannot afford 90% of the booze they sell there. (Maybe I should set up a site for paypal donations....)

But I digress. This particular bottle of slivovitz, or сливова to be exact, as it is the Bulgarian variety, was found in a tiny, tiny Bulgarian store about a block and a half from my apartment. It is tended by a nice Bulgarian woman, who speaks French about as well asI do. Which is to say, fairly poorly. So as I'm inquiring about the difference between the many bottles of rakia on the shelf, anything that is said goes from my english --> my french --> her french --> Bulgarian and back again. I think many things got lost in translation. For instance, when I was trying to find out which was best value for the money, I keep being told the alcohol content of each bottle. Somehow "tastes good" kept ending up at "how strong." I never figured out if there was genuinely a misunderstanding about what was being asked, or if she was afraid I was going to drink the whole bottle, and end up passed out in an alley.

I asked myself: Was I performing some horrible breach of propriety by buying this stuff as a single lady? Or was it just horrible and not worth drinking?

At some point a man (her husband, perhaps?) came in, and seemed to have better mastery of the French language. At the end, he recommended this particular bottle, aged 3 years, for the whopping sum of 11 euro. I was both thrilled at the low cost and worried - was I purchasing something I can drink? Or is this going to taste like battery acid?

As I was leaving, he stopped to warn me that this is "very strong" (it's 40%) and I should be careful. We have a brief conversation about how it should be kept - fridge? room temperature? He suggests the freezer, furthering my concerns that I'd bought something that would be best be put to use as a cleaning solution.

I opened the bottle almost immediately after getting home, fearful and hopeful. But I'm happy to report this stuff is *surprisingly* good! It's a bit like calvados, but a bit lighter, and with a sweeter finish to it. At about 1/3 of the price, it would not be a bad substitute for calvo as a digestif (although I was told by the shop owner it's typically an aperitif, and often served with a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and bulgarian cheese). I imagine it would probably make for an interesting change in any cocktail that calls any sort of apple brandy, the sort the boys across of the sea are prepping right now.

And no, I haven't passed out in an alley, yet.

bisous,

plenty

Apple prequel. I mean prologue.

I am trying to prepare for Saturday's tournament of "apple." Like the Tsuki thrust in "Sword of Doom," I feel my preparation may be in vain, and the real battle fought elsewhere. Apples are seasonal, everyone knows that. It has only become obvious to me now just how seasonal they are. It is mid September, and all our apples are still from New Zealand. I'm guessing that in two weeks we won't be able to unbury ourselves from all the Michigan apples, and we will be drowning in their cider. Fruit drinks are not so much my thing, outside those liqueurs I made, and I worry about how to do this. What goes with apples? And don't say cinnamon. I love apple pie, but have zero, nay, less-than-zero desire to drink it. Also don't say caramel. Pork chops? I suppose, but there's always something better to do with pork, and I'm not making pork chops in my drink. The aspect of apples that I like is their crunch, and the flash of flavor you get when you just bite into them: they do this better than any other fruit. How to bottle that lightning? I can't say I know. You obviously can't put the texture of an apple into a drink, but maybe you can capture that feeling, nonetheless. Thus, I am currently soaking a finely chopped pink lady apple (from New Zealand) in some genever. I'm also taking a ginger-centered approach, in hopes that some of these dry, crisp spices may combine well with apple flavor from French brut cider, or American apple brandy. Good Calvados is too expensive to mess with. We will see where things go, or if I'm practicing this one move like a chump while the real melee is going on in some teahouse miles away between Mssrs. Gin and Dragon.

Look but don't taste

My assignment is simple: Try tasty and novel alcoholic beverages from the old world and report back to base, while (at the request of M. Dances with Gin) keeping my pants on, and not drowning. So far, the first part of this mission remains unaccomplished, with the exception of several enjoyable and dirt cheap côtes de rhônes and bordeaux that met their maker this weekend. However, while exploring my new secret lair, this was found in the liquor cabinet:

It seems to be plum brandy. Unfortunately, I think it's interdit to taste, as it is unopened. Curses! On the other hand, it may be easy to find in the neighborhood, considering there seems to be an enclave of eastern europeans down the street...and word from home says it's a good time to experiment with tree-borne fruit.

Bisous,

Plenty

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkling cocktails

My heart lies with whiskey, but I feel like I'm at my best with gin. It was, after all, my first crush in the liquor world.

We had decided upon cocktails that bubble. About a week earlier, I had stumbled on an idea that would be ideal for this. Among the tastiest drinks out there is a French 75: a shot of gin hidden in a refreshing glass of champagne and lemon juice. It's aptly named, since it seems classy from afar, but will quickly knock you on your ass like the piece of artillery for which it is named. Even tastier, though, is an Aviation: gin, lemon juice, maraschino with a hint of violet liqueur in a harmony that would be the envy of any barbershop quartet. You can see how there is some overlap here. I'm calling this an Ack-Ack, from the WWII anti-aircraft guns, and it is good.

The Ack-Ack

• 1 T. Gin (I used Boodles to decent results, but only because I was serving to a lot of people)
• 1 T. lemon juice
• 1/2 T. Maraschino
• 1/2 t. Creme de Violette (Rothman and Winter, natch)
• 2+ T. Prosecco, the dryer the better.

Nothing fancy about the preparation. Mix everything but the sparkling wine in a flute if you can, then top it off.

The one true vermouth

For about as long as I've been seriously into cocktails, I've been confused by the relative fates of sweet and dry vermouth. How many times have you been to a modestly stocked party to see gin, vodka, whiskey, some juice and sodas, and finally an untouched bottle of dry vermouth. People apparently think that since martinis have dry vermouth that dry vermouth is the important one. These people are missing out horribly. They are also not making the most of their drink-making opportunities, but that's a separate rant.

Sweet Vermouth as a theme was more of an ad hoc exhibition round for me, as neither of my cocktails were actually original — more French discoveries that I felt needed to be shared with my friends and ferric fellows of mixing.

The first was an accidental discovery while visiting Plenty over in Paris. I had brought with me a bottle of bourbon, as required by any international American traveller, and a bottle of bitters, as required by anyone who knows he is visiting a lover of Manhattans. This meant we needed to go to the grocery store to get some sweet vermouth, wherein we learned two things: vermouth is dirt cheap in France and Martini (euro-branded Martini and Rossi) came with a sample bottle of tonic water so that one could make Martini and Tonics. Not one to pass up a simple and interesting sounding idea, we made one according to the simple recipe on the bottle and took a sip. It was like noticing that a dusty old urn on the mantle, when cleaned, was a ming vase. As with water in whiskey, the tonic lets each of the myriad flavors in the vermouth have their fifteen minutes of fame on your tongue. And amazingly at the end, more than anything else, the flavor is BRIGHT. Sure, there is a slightly bitter finish (damn well had better be), but you approach it with a set of rich lemon flavors.

And that's just Martini. The truly fun part is that when you do this each different vermouth makes an entirely different drink. M Blood&Sand has tried it with more vermouths and amari than I have, but all I can say is that Martini is good, but heavy-handed and syrupy compared to Noilly Prat. Of course, why would you use Noilly when you could instead use Cinzano, which is full of rich vanilla flavors.

Oh yeah, here's how to make one:

Vermouth and Tonic:

• 2-3 parts vermouth of your choosing (experiment!)
• 1 part tonic

Put in a tumbler. For extra fun, place a slice of orange in your glass so it covers the drink.

The next drink involves a bitters called Picon Biere that you can't get in the US, as best as I know. It tastes more or less like an orange flavored Campari, though far less astringent, and is designed to be mixed with beer. Specifically, crisp and boring beers. We've tried a number of blondes and pale ales, but so far the best thing for it has actually been Yuengling. The Picon Biere is not the most interesting drink in the world, but it's very satisfying on a warm day.

Picon Biere

• A bottle of beer (Yuengling, 1664, or whatever you think would work)
• About an ounce of Picon Biere

Pour in the Picon, then the beer. Now go sit outside and enjoy some grilled meat.

The South may rise again, but not in a toast I make

Sometimes high concept theme ideas are brilliant, other times all the king's horses and all the king's men can't make heads or tails of them. "The South Will Rise Again," while it sounded good at first, was definitely one that fell off a wall.

Of course, this could be my fault. Everything I know about the south is some combination of mint juleps, seersucker suits on derby day, they were on the Bad side of the Civil War, New Orleans as presented in Preacher, and a vague notion that Georgia grows peaches. Turning any of these into cocktails was a conceptual doozy. What am I going to do, make some crawdad-infused gin to mix with cajun spice liqueur?

I'm guessing that there were some interesting things to do with rum, but none of those I thought of beforehand. Thankfully, we had agreed to do only one original cocktail, to be joined by a classic. The classic was easy, because one of the first and best cocktails ever is from New Orleans, the Sazerac. My standby recipe:

• 1 cube's worth of sugar
• 1 1/2 ounces rye or American whiskey (Sazerac makes an excellent one)
• 2 dashes of Peychaud’s Bitters
• Dash of absinthe
• Twist of lemon

Put ice and absinthe in the glass, swirl until it gets everywhere. Then toss everything else in, stir about twenty times in either direction, and enjoy. Easy peasy.

My original cocktail was high-concept fail on the smaller level. I wanted to play with the idea of sweet tea — not that I've ever actually had it — and do a whiskey-tea drink. There is a good drink to be made with this, but that drink should probably not be made on short notice by someone who only has nice Chinese black teas to use. I doubt sweet tea is traditionally made using organic black tea from Yunan.

I shall call it a Five O'Clock Tea

• 2 oz relatively strong brewed black tea
• 1 oz whiskey, preferably a rye
• 1 oz lemon liqueur
• A dash Fee Brothers Whiskey Aged Bitters

I used a Corsican cedrat liqueur for the lemon, but a limoncello would be far easier to obtain and probably better. A stronger tea than I used would work better, as would more tartness. It wasn't bad, but came off as mushy more than anything else. South, you may not have won the civil war, but you bested my cocktail-mixing efforts.

Battle Sage — Hajime!

The illustrious Stumbling Dragon came up with our first subject of Cocktail Kumite: Sage. It is a delightful aromatic leaf, one I highly recommend in this recipe for roasted/braised chicken, and just like mint, it seemed like a natural fit for cocktails.
It was not.
As Mr. Blood and Sand mentioned, the aroma is a small part of sage's flavor profile, with the rest tasting like you took a variety of shrubs and decaying leaves and blended them into a distasteful vegetal mess. The trick of any sage cocktail was to harness the good bits we know and love while masking the trash.

One of the drinks I made is lost to history, a fate it deserved. All I can say is that making a good sage syrup was harder than I expected.

My second concoction was considerably better. Inspired by sage in fruit desserts, namely its use with pear and apple, and the forehead-splittingly obvious mint julep, I made an apple-pear-sage julep. While it won't be served at Pegu Club any time soon, it does have potential:

Apple-Pear-Sage Julep

• 2 parts bourbon
• 1 part pear brandy
• 1 part applejack (this could be favorably replaced by calvados, if you had the resources)
• 2 or 3 medium sized leaves sage, plus one.
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar (or more)
• dash Benedictine
• twist of lemon

Put the sugar, maybe the Benedictine, and the sage leaves into a tumbler and muddle like there is no tomorrow. It's the only way to get any quality sage flavor out, as best as we found. Combine everything else in a shaker, mix until cold, and add to the glass. Take the extra sage leaf and rub it around the lip of the glass to get the sage aroma out and squeeze the drink with the lemon twist.

I think this actually has some merit, but as with pretty much everything else that all three of us created, it would have been better without the sage. Actually, no, the aromatic sage on the glass is a nice gimmick, but the muddled sage probably was more useful for inspiration than actual flavor.

As an aside, try to make the Tenochtitlan. It is amazing.

Synaesthesia: The Dragon Stumbles

I'm not going to say that my submission this week was "coherent." But if you say that it wasn't tasty, well, you're asking for a jigger in the eye. Anyway, here were the stray thoughts that I tried to pull together.

1. Maraschino Cherries. Of course, I wasn't able to buy decent Maraschino cherries, and in fact wasn't able to buy any Maraschino liqueur period. I was able to buy cherries, and other cherry-related paraphernalia (yes, it really has that "r"). I started from this recipe, and improvised a bit. Recipe below.
2. Egg cocktails. I was going to go with this for purely thematic reasons, then ran into this delightful treatise on egg cocktails.
3. I was in Chicago the week before, and made a trip to Binny's. So I had new toys. Of course, I lacked the foresight to get Maraschino liqueur.

Let's start with the cherries, since they turned out really nicely.

Maraschin-faux Cherries

Put these in a pan, boil, reduce heat

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1.5 oz lemon juice
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 nutmeg (seed? knuckle?), grated (my addition)

Then add 2lbs of cherries (pitted), and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat, then immediately add

• 1 oz Orgeat
• 1/2 oz Vanilla extract (my addition)
• 6 oz Walnut infusion (substitute for Maraschino)
• 1 oz Kirschwasser (also subbing for Maraschino)

Oh, did I not mention the walnut infusion? Crush walnuts, steep in vodka for several days, the result is nutty. Isn't Maraschino liqueur supposed to be nutty? There you go. Anyway, once everything cools, put it in a jar and leave it for a couple days.

Is it a couple of days later? Then you're ready to make a...

Bun in the Oven (Original)

• 1/2 egg white
• Juice from two slices of lemon (helps the egg foam)
• 1 oz Rittenhouse 100 proof Rye (new toy!)
• 1 dash blood orange bitters (new toy!)

It's an egg cocktail, so it's time to shake. A lot. If that 1/2 egg white sounds awkward... make two. But you're not done! Add...

• 4 dashes Angostura bitters
• 1/2 oz Becherovka (still delicious!)
• 1/4 oz Creme de Violette (new toy!)
• 3 tsp Stuff from the cherry jar
• 1 Marashin-faux Cherry

Then give 'er a stir. Why the two-step run around? Well, when I mixed everything together before shaking, it seemed like all of the delicate flavors got lost. I assume there's some magic involving the proteins in the eggs that binds and dulls. Or something. Stirring them in seemed to have tastier results, while maintaining the foamy texture.

Admittedly, there are more ingredients here than the resulting flavor profile would suggest. If your cocktail sense tells you which ingredient could be removed, feel free to let me know!

Anyway, it's an egg cocktail! And basically flesh-tone! With a surprise at the bottom! Thus the name. And it's appropriate because, yes, there's a Little Dragon on the way.

Synesthesia: It means the inappropriate mixing of sensory modalities

I was all busy-like this month, and two of my drink ideas just didn't pan out. We ended up just drinking the ingredients for those drinks, which was pretty good. Opinion was split on the drink I did submit to synesthesia night. The competition was constructed thusly: Present a drink, with accompaniment to a piece of music that somehow enhances the experience, informs the drink, or something else like that. This is what I did, and it is named after the song by Portishead:

The Rip

1 oz. freezer-cold vodka (I used Yuri Dolgoruki Kristal)

1 Tbsp. cucumber soaking with two cucumber slices (cucumber slices soaked a couple hours in a mixture of half-and-half vodka and dry vermouth)

1/2 Tbsp. Shoju (I used sweet potato Shoju)

Sweet Vermouth, Hidden Dragon

Sweet vermouth is taken for granted. Much-maligned, even. It turns out this is because WE ARE ALL PHILISTINES. On a total side bar, when I was little I got Philistines and Palestinians confused embarrassingly often. But now I know. "Philistines" is the thing that I was BEFORE SWEET VERMOUTH NIGHT. I will tell you why. Because Mr. Dances with Gin, at the demand of his lovely girlfriend from our European Bureau made vermouth and tonic with a number of different kinds of sweet vermouth. They are amazingly complex, unique things. He can talk about it more, if he likes, but I must say that I was stunned, and honored to be fighting such a worthy opponent. Since then I have empirically combined tonic with a number of different things, including Punt-e-mes vermouth, cinzano, all my amari (Lucano, Melletti, Luxardo Abano, Ramazzotti, Montenegro, and Fernet Branca), and have been discovering dimensions to these things I had never even guessed at.

Nevertheless, I fought. For honor.

My classic, served as an apperitif in the cocktail pump, was the Negroni:

Negroni:

1 part gin (Plymouth, please!)

1 part sweet vermouth (Cinzano, if you don't screw around!)

1 part Campari

My non-classic was an optimized Brooklyn. How does this count as my own? Because, in the process of making Brooklyn's beyond number, I discovered that the replacement of half the dry vermouth with sweet vermouth took the drink to dreamlike levels of yum. I feel that this is how a Brooklyn is supposed to be, and somehow it has been lost to history. As such, I keep its original name, and challenge all comers to prove that this is not the perfect drink.

Brooklyn:

1 1/2 oz. bourbon (Four Roses, again)

1/2 Tbsp. dry vermouth (I used Noilly)

1/2 Tbsp. sweet vermouth (Cinzano)

1/2 Tbsp. Amer Picon (as recreated by Jamie Boudreau, and made by me)

scant 1/2 oz. Maraschino

+/- dash orange bitters, per taste

Sparkling Drinks: Like Hell!

I would like everyone to know that I am WAY THE HELL TOO HARDCORE to play along with a theme like "sparkling," my love of cosmetic sparkles not withstanding. For this competition I made Kirs. Not Kir Royales, no sir. Kirs. But I served them in my sparkly new 1950s cocktail pump! It's like a pretty soap dispenser for booze!

Kir:

1 bottle Chardonnay (I used Artesa, from my wine club)

1/3 cup Creme de Cassis

Of course, I made another WEAK-ASS drink, too. It was surprisingly good. I want a name for it, but it's pretty much a cross between a champagne cocktail and a bellini, and those names don't really mix. For reasons known to those present, I may just call it Soo's Bane.

Drink, otherwise unspecified:

1 sugar cube

3 dashed Fee Brothers peach bitters

3 dashes Peychauds bitters

put in champagne flute, top up with good prosecco (I used Sommariva)

The South Will Rise Again

Being me, and thus afraid of The South, I had a hard time with this one. I had just made a growler full of creme de fraise from strawberries from the farmers' market, and wanted to incorporate that, since southern food is inextricably linked with ridiculously good and diverse seasonal agriculture. I couldn't escape the whole southern gothic thing, though, since a lot of my experience in the south involves poisonous snakes, poisonous bugs, alligators, New Orleans, Kevin Spacey, and being scared. I decided to combine my creme de fraise, which tastes more like fresh strawberries than the actual berries do, with the dark, vibrant, difficult to pin down flavors of green Chartreuse. It turned out pretty good, and I wanted to name it after it's inspiration Atropa belladonna, deadly nightshade (I was also reading a book about poisonous plants, and this seemed fitting), but some twit had already published an awful sounding drink involving vodka and three kinds of fruit juice he called the Belladonna, so I named it,

Atropa

1 oz. Creme de Fraise (see below, or buy in France)

1 tsp. green Chartreuse

chill in fridge or freezer, do not add ice.

Creme de fraise

2 lbs fresh strawberries, coarsely chopped.

1 bottle very neutral vodka (svedka or three olives are good and cheap-ish)

combine these things in a big jug and leave them sit, with occasional shaking for 2-3 weeks. Strain out the strawberries (throw them away, they are AWFUL, now), and add about 1/2 cup of sugar. Dissolve and taste. You may want to add more sugar, but I recommend minimizing it.

In this competition we introduced the now-cannonical form of the competition which was to make one made-up cocktail and also one classic. For my classic I made Cocktail a la Louisiane. Let me tell you: That thing is too sweet to drink. I modified the cannonical recipe for yankee tastes.

Cocktail a la Louisiane 2: The war of northern aggression

1 oz. rye whiskey

1/2 oz. Benedictine

1/2 oz. sweet vermouth

3 dashes absinthe

3 dashes Peychaud's bitters

Sage Battle Fragrant Transcendence

The first of the Cocktail Kumite series was held in a tall building on a sweltering summer night, and was held in honor of the typically poultry-associate herb, sage. It turns out that the taste we associate with sage is really only a small part of the flavor profile of the sage plant. The rest of that flavor profile pretty much tastes like garbage. How is this possible? Well, I think that in cooking it is 1) rare to use sage, 2) typical to use it in a context where only its aroma is important (roasting chickens with sage sprigs surrounding and inside, for instance), and 3) when the whole thing is to be tasted, only very young delicate plants are used. These notes of "rubbish" turned out to make this challenge harder than I thought it would be. Not only was it necessary to showcase the rangy, wild, delicate aroma of sage, but it was necessary to suppress the hell out of the godawful plant it happens to be embedded in. The way I did this (I believe the others did this as well), was to muddle it just a bit. Enough to release some aroma, but not enough to (mojito style, or caipirinha style) get wholesale plant destruction. The next step was deciding how best to showcase the aroma. I associate sage with two distinct cuisines and cultures: Italian (no need to specify further...) and the arid American west. Fortunately, I didn't feel too tied to these in detail, but tried to stick with their, ahem, terroir. The first drink was thus a nearly full-sweet, herbal, complex cocktail modeled after the Roman Holiday, which a cocktail I had tried at The Violet Hour, in Chicago. I called it "Il Brutto" after the bad guy in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, because it is unctuous and cruel.

Il Brutto:

1 oz. bourbon (I used Four Roses Small Batch)

1 oz. Amaro Lucano

1 oz. Amaro Melletti (notable tastes of honey and saffron)

1 squeeze lemon

3 muddled sage leaves

My second cocktail I wanted to be austere and unyielding. I wanted it to speak of ancient gods, unavenged blood, the savagery of nature, and an ability to level unsuspecting hipsters. There is only one base liquor that even comes close to this: unaged mezcal. In a fit of God-knows-what, I added some PX sherry, and it was almost there. The rubbishy finish of the sage still came through, despite the fascinating layers of grapes, smoke, agave, and desert herb that were there. Here is what worked in the end. This is, along with the Blue Hook, the drink I'm proudest of.

Tenochtitlyn:

1 oz. mezcal (I used Los Danzantes mezcal minero)

1/2 Tbsp. PX sherry

3 muddled sage leaves

1/2 tsp. Amer Picon (As reinvented by Jamie Boudreau: you have to make your own)

Oh yeah, and since I mentioned it, the Blue Hook. Sourcing these ingredients is HARD.

Blue Hook:

1 oz. Old Potrero 18th century style rye whiskey

1/2 oz. Manguin Liqueur de Lavande

1/2 oz. Punt-e-Mes

All of these drinks are best on the rocks.

The Story So Far: Stumbling Dragon

Although I consider myself a junior mixmaster, I've had a few successes over the past few months. These are my favorites:

Sage Battle: I tried to make a sage julep here. It wasn't particularly sagey, but it turns out that bourbon is delicious. I'd like to revisit sage in the future, but I found it to be tricky the first time around.

The South Will Rise Again: The idea with this drink was to capture the platonic ideal of "swamp," without actually tasting like swamp water.

Swamp Thing (Original)

• 3/4 oz Bourbon
• 3/4 oz Green Chartreuse
• Top off with club soda

Sparkling: My favorite this time was a traditional cocktail – Wikipedia claims that it was first invented in 1861. I think that choosing the right beer makes all the difference, although I suppose it would be more correct to say that it makes 50% of the difference. The recipe calls for stout, but since the stout is going to be mixed, I think that choosing one that is a bit more reserved is a good idea. I went with New Holland's "Dragon's Milk," which is technically not a stout, but is dark, malty, and a bit creamy. I prefer something a bit more bitter for drinking straight, but it worked well here.

Black Velvet (Traditional)

• 1 part Dragon's Milk
• 1 part champagne

Some recipes suggest that you should float the champagne on the stout. I think it's much tastier, and more attractive, to mix them.

Sweet Vermouth: I wound up putting together a variation on the Americano. Although this sounded pretty tasty by itself, I didn't have any Campari on hand, and wanted to try something a little different. I think the result is quite palatable.

Ceco (Original)

• 3 parts sweet vermouth
• 2 parts Becherovka
• dash orange bitters
• splash of club soda

If you're not familiar with it, Becherovka is a Czech bitters (thus "Ceco"). Actually, I would describe it as a clove liqueur, but the important thing is that it is tasty, and now not too hard to find in the USA. It's not nearly so aggressive as Campari, so the resulting drink is a bit smoother than an Americano. The orange bitters were suggested by my fellow mixmasters, and greatly improve the drink. No, clove+orange=tasty should not be a surprise. Both of the main ingredients are pretty sweet, so the club soda helps round things out.

What is Cocktail Kumite?

Earlier this summer, our long-running cocktail hour took a dangerous turn. Boasts were made, glares were exchanged, and an otherwise genial venue turned into a fighting arena.

Combat. Cocktail combat. Cocktail kumite!

We have settled on a simple format:

1. A theme is chosen.

2. Each mixmaster prepares a traditional cocktail in accord with that theme.

3. Each mixmaster presents a newly conceived cocktail, also in accord with that theme.

We haven't figured out how to determine a winner. Indeed, since every event involves six or more cocktails, it's fair to say that everyone is a winner. We've learned a few things along the way, and decided to share them here.