in the 2k10 i am learning to make cocktails. this is my mixology thread

7-bottle shopping spree today along with what i had already equals enough for a working home bar. i've already done some research, i have most of the tools, i have just about enough of the time and money. i am learning to do this.

itt i will post recipes, observations, and pro-tips abt making drinks at home for you and the guests you may/may not have. bartenders, pro, ex-pro, and amateur, pls feel free to contribute.

First question, what booze do you now have in your home bar?

RECIPE ONE: negroni (with a wink and a smile at HI DERE)

of course this is a classic. i bought the stuff to make it today because they are delicious:

EQUAL PARTS gin, campari, sweet vermouth. add ice and stir; garnish w/orange.

mine was a little sweeter than i planned--may drop vermouth content ever so slightly to suit my tastes.

ok here is a rundown:

GIN tanqueray (wanted plymouth but could not turn down deal on tanqueray)

BRANDY laird's applejack (regular, not bonded--bonded seems to be preferred all around but i can't find it atm)

TEQUILA corzo anejo (this is a nice bottle that was a gift--not for mixing imo)

RUM appleton silver jamaican (from a few nights of mojitos a while back)

RYE old overholt, tuthilltown manhattan rye, sazerac 18-year

BOURBON michter's us1, four roses small batch, van winkle 12 year lot "b"

SCOTCH laphroaig 10-year

ABSINTHE lucid

VODKA i don't know, there's some around here somewhere

VERMOUTH martini and rossi sweet and also dry, lillet blanc

BITTERS angostura, peychaud, fee bros orange bitters

OTHER STUFF campari, green chartreuse, herbsaint, cointreau

this is a good idea imo ~ wish i had funds rt now 2 mix along w/ and learn sum - shd b st8 by spring/summer 2 copy sum lavish drinks tht hopefully f/ tiny umbrellas

yeah dude i am saving rum drinks for the summer because it will be more appropriate and also frankly that shit is really confusing

RECIPE TWO: marconi wireless

1.75 oz applejack
.75 oz sweet vermouth
2 dashes orange bitters

stir in a mixing glass with ice, strain, garnish w/lemon

first, i garnished w/orange because i was already in the process of destroying an orange. second, tbh, i fucked up the proportions by reading too fast--assumed it was 2:1 applejack: vermouth and ignored that extra .25 oz. so of course the drink tasted a little vermouth-y at first. however, it did mellow out to a pleasant apple/orange concoction.

INGREDIENTS UPDATE

so one day after bitching about being unable to find laird's bonded apple brandy, i found it. it's like 3 bucks more than the 80-proof applejack. it also has a much shittier label for whatever reason. quick taste test indicates it has more of an apple flavor than its little bro (to be expected) and enough alcohol burn that you would only ever use it for mixing. i will remake the marconi wireless with it sometime soon.

also grabbed a bottle of lemon hart demerara rum. all i really know is that it is the 151 proof rum that serious tropical drinks people use. it's also next to impossible to find around here, so i will stash this bottle for the summer. ironically, i finally got it at the second-closest liquor store to my house.

also attempted to make some grenadine today (the things i can accomplish when i take a week off). recipe:

16 oz. POM pomegranate juice
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vodka added after cooking to preserve

combine POM and sugar, bring to boil, simmer while covered until bored. let cool and bottle w/vodka.

for whatever reason this did not reduce and become as syrupy as i think it is supposed to. maybe i didn't boil on high heagt for long enough. i really have nothing to compare it to but it smells good.

excited for this thread - i would like to make a request that you try the nipsy russell at some point.

By chance I picked up some bottles on the way home tonight. As of now I have:

VODKA gvori
RUM el dorado 5 cruzan
GIN bombay sapphire
TEQUILA dos manos
OTHER cointreau, grand marnier, cherry heering, blue curacao, angostura bitters, grenadine, etc

I'm not much of a fan of bourbon, and I do 95% of the drinking around here, so I don't have it stocked as of yet.

that's the most booze it is possible to have in one place without anything i'd want to drink

john i am glad you are excited--have no way of pureeing a haberno at the moment but i will oblige at some point, i promise

i gotta get some cherry heering like hell, too

i want to go survey my liquor cabinet, but its all the way over there and i am lazy

RECIPE THREE: jack rose

another well-known classic.

2 oz. laird's bonded
.66 oz lemon juice
.66 oz grenadine

combine and shake w/ice, strain, garnish with lemon

laird's bonded already proving its worth--there is a distinct apple taste amidst the other fruits going on here. with my homemade grenadine this was really tasty tbh--fruity but not oversweet with nice strong citrus and apple notes. would make for anyone.

btw recipe for that was proportioned up slightly from the one in jimmy patrick's 101 cocktails iphone app--which in terms of providing an intelligent selection of recipes by someone who knows what they're doing is a real winner.

Good start so far w/ the ingredients, also the jack rose is probably the most overlooked classic cocktail.

I wouldn't use the applejack, even the unbonded, in recipes calling for brandy - it's a substantially different ingredient. You can get a brandy that's fine for mixing for cheap - I use Tres Cepas, a spanish brandy, which wasn't much over $10.

pro tips:

- Keep your vermouth in the fridge. It is a wine, though fortified, and will spoil after a few months, less if you keep it at room temp. A nicer bottle of vermouth like Vya, Carpano Antica, or, if you can find it, Dolin, is an absolute revelation, and so worthwhile for the number of drinks it's used in.

- Learn how to cut citrus for different garnishes. Twists, strips, thumbnails, etc. Learn how to flame a citrus zest - very impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsdgadp6NTU

- Pay attention to the bartender in that video and his blog - http://www.jeffreymorgenthaler.com/

good video, i dig that guy and his blog

also yeah i have no other brandy right now but am only using laird's products in recipes specifically calling for applejack. i'm planning on picking up some vs cognac soon for other brandy mixing. not sure what tres cepas is made of/if it's available here but i will look around.

RECIPE FOUR: corpse reviver #2

everybody on the internet swears by this cocktail

1 OZ. EACH gin, lillet blanc, cointreau, lemon juice
A TINY AMOUNT of absinthe (i used my 1/8 tsp measure)

shake well w/ice, strain.

sugg. garnish is a stemless cherry but i'm not going to bother with that given that i live alone and am watching the nba and posting to ilx right now. also i don't really like cherries.

you can see why people like this. the gin, lemon, absinthe, and cointreau are all clearly detectable and the lillet just seems to kind of hold everything together. the total package is pleasant and citrusy but ends on a more complex note (via the gin flavorings and absinthe afaict)

my pro-tip for recipes calling for whiskey (the scotch variety) - don't use a nice single malt like laphroig! that's for sippin!! buy a blend like johnny walker (or famous grouse, or bell's, or jameson, or etc)

also re gin - sapphire is garbage - tanqueray is yoga flame for all time

i just made a corpse reviver! FABULOUS

:D

hey friends back from a weekend away to continue makin drinks in the 2k10.

a visit to the new hampshire state liquor store didn't yield as much as i'd hoped. their selection of liqueurs is subpar and you only get really really great prices when they put stuff on sale.

so i settled for a bottle of courvoisier vs and a bottle of benedictine. why courvoisier? well, it was on sale, and my friend and i decided that their little logo looks like a gangster pulling a gun.

benedictine had been popping up in a few recipes i wanted to try; all i can say at the moment is that it tastes sweet and kind of weird.

RECIPE 5: diamondback

this was introduced to me by awesome local bartender j0sey p4ck4rd when i asked for an "intense" rye-based drink. (btw she appeared on rachel maddow's show a couple weeks ago; you can google it). i have been fucking w/the proportions and ingredients for a little while, but i am settling on the 3:2:1 measurements described to me originally:

1.5 oz rye whiskey
1 oz laird's bonded apple brandy
.5 oz green chartreuse

stir well over ice, strain into a small glass. no garnish you pussy.

this tastes really weird and is probably not for everybody. however, there is def. something compelling about how three strong spirits can combine into something that goes down pretty smoothly.

Tonight I am enjoying one of my very favorite drinks from the excellent Grog Log by Jeff Berry, which collects a bunch of "lost" tropical drink recipes from the 1940s-60s.

NEVER SAY DIE

.5 oz fresh lime juice
.5 oz orange juice
.5 oz grapefruit juice
.25 oz unsweetened pineapple juice
.5 oz honey
dash Angostura bitters
1 oz Barbados rum
.5 oz light Puerto Rican rum
.5 oz dark Jamaican rum

Heat honey until liquid, then blend with all other ingredients with 4 ounces crushed ice for 5 seconds. Pour into diamond plated goblet and roll a fat one - you're about to have a fine sunday niiiiiiight.

(recipe originally developed by the legendary Don the Beachcomber)

http://i50.tinypic.com/2a99r3a.jpg

fuckin' love this guy

z s that sounds excellent. did you just use a microwave to heat up the honey?

Yep, just 20 seconds or so works fine!

hey guys, i'm back from being sick and busy with some new stuff for you.

first, i remade the marconi wireless (recipe two above) with three key changes: correct proportions, lemon not orange garnish, and fresh vermouth. i straight-up did not know about vermouth freshness until my mans I DIED said something upthread. he's right. obviously. anyway, the remade drink is more balanced and a lot better--sweet and light, v. refreshing imo.

so i had been wrecking a lemon for garnish for a couple days and needed a good reason to juice it. this leads us to

RECIPE SIX: the frisco

2 oz rye
.75 oz benedictine
.74 oz lemon juice
garnish with a lemon twist

stir over ice; strain into a cocktail glass (tbh the recipe i used says to shake but this does not feel like a shaken drink to me, ymmv)

found this browsing recipes on cocktailchronicles.com; apparently there are many options for proportioning these ingrendients. hard to say what the desired effect is but this is a weird drink--the tartness of the lemon juice and the sweetness of the benedictine hit completely different areas of your mouth at the same time. the rye is just kinda there gettin you drunk. i would re-proportion, but honestly i don't totally know what i would do different.

LOL .74 ounces. that is .75 but you already knew that.

Learn to pour freehand. 1 (slightly generous) ounce is 3 seconds' pouring through most pro quality pourers (which are cheap). Practice with water in old bottles so you don't waste booze -- it's not just a show-off thing, your feel for mixing changes in good ways at the same time.

so for the frisco--i tried again with only .5 oz benedectine and it might be better that way. final experiment i think is to shake it--benedictine is really syrupy and heavy and def sank to the bottom of my glass.

so then it's time for a partial INGREDIENTS UPDATE:

FERNET BRANCA is one of those things that is quite polarizing. as a fan of bitter drinks in general i figured i'd like it. my friend zoe remarked that it tastes like toothpaste which is actually as good a starting point as anything. the fernet site recommends you take three slow sips to fully appreciate whatever the hell they put into it. good idea--the mouth-numbing bitterness goes away and you can detect more fruit and whatnot.

FEE BROS WHISKEY BARREL AGED BITTERS i see a lot of what i'd call "blog cocktails" that use these bitters. they kind of smell like cola.

ok, let's talk recipes:

RECIPE SEVEN: old-fashioned

this is essentially an economy/simple old-fashioned for the home bartender; though i've seen some v. reputable places use only these ingredients. old-fashioneds kinda fall into the orange/cherry or no orange/cherry camp--for reasons of taste, simplicity, and economy, i think you get a really satisfying drink without the fruit. the version with the fruit is good too though!

1 sugar cube
2 oz. rye
.25 oz water
A FEW DASHES angostura
lemon peel for garnish

put the sugar cube in the old-fashioned glass, dash w/angostura (just a few times till the cube turns reddish pink). add the water and stir gently. add the rye and stir gently again. add 4-5 ice cubes and stir one more time, twist the lemon over the drink and wipe it around the rim of the glass.

one cool variation i've seen basically hinges on your ability to get one large ice block or chunk to fill the entire glass. slower dissolution = a cold but not watery drink.

and RECIPE EIGHT: fernet old-fashioned

v. slight modification of a recipe by the guy who does kaiserpenguin.com--he is purportedly a huge fernet branca fan.

take recipe 7, substitute fernet branca for rye, orange bitters OR fee whiskey barrel aged bitters gor angostura, and orange garnish for lemon. if you feel fancy, grab a lighter and flame the orange oils.

i think this is an awesome drink--tried both orange and whiskey barrel bitters and i think i prefer orange on the balance, they seem to bring out the fernet's character a little more.

one cool variation i've seen basically hinges on your ability to get one large ice block or chunk to fill the entire glass. slower dissolution = a cold but not watery drink

For Christmas I got an ice tray that makes giant ice spheres:

http://i48.tinypic.com/1sobpt.jpg

The only problem is that I can never get them to come out as perfect spheres like the picture. For reasons too complicated and idiotic to discuss here, the tops of them are always cut off so they look like the Death Star. Still, worth picking up!

wow, that's awesome! definitely going to track it down.

<3 fernet branca! i'll try that version of the old fashioned

I had a couple Sidecars last Saturday will watching football. Excellent drink imo.

brownie what brandy did you use? while not having looked hard, it seems difficult to find consensus on good cheap brandies. or maybe you used a pricey one! in which case more power to you.

also, this is nice: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/fashion/17shake.html?ref=todayspaper

I don't know what kind of brandy! a friend whipped them up. I'm not too picky anyway.

I just made a drink with this:

- fresh squeezed blood orange juice
- gin
- cranberry juice

shaken over ice, lovely

xp yeah the overriding sentiment seems to be that any common vs cognac will do for mixing. one book i have gave remy martin a nice writeup so i may try that next.

tracer what were your proportions?

no idea - maybe something like:

3-oj
2-gin
1-cranberry

cranberry really just for a little hint of sweet-tartness

we should definitely not leave this one out:

Hey guys I invented a new drink in honor of tonight's results

THE COAKLEY

6 oz of your worst vodka

shake with ice cube, pour directly into mouth

― CATBEAST!! (Z S), Tuesday, January 19, 2010 7:16 PM

lolllllllllllll

i'm sorry guys! i drove way the hell out of my way to vote in this one, had dinner with my parents, came home and saw the results, and quickly made a sidecar in honor of brownie who is a cool guy UNLIKE THE VOTERS OF MASSACHUSETTS

Am I wrong in thinking that the resurgence in popularity of old fashioneds was almost entirely due to Mad Men, and that's when people generally started making them the "right" way again? A little ironic if that's the case, since the one time we see Don Draper make himself an old fashioned, he does it the "wrong" way (muddled cherry, soda, orange wedge). I assumed that was more accurate for the period, but maybe not?

They've been back for 20+ years, with the first wave of the cocktail revival.

yeah if anything mad men was nodding at the cocktail revival already in progress

ah that makes sense

I'm a Manhattan guy, and I recently discovered the Sour Cherry Manhattan. Luxardos and other fancy cocktail cherries have always been too sweet for me, and I like the contrast of the sour and sweet. Just get yourself a big jar of sour cherries from your grocery store.
2-3 ounces rye
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
1/2 ounce dry vermouth
Dash of orange bitters
Dash of Angostura bitters
1/2 teaspoon sour cherry juice
Stir with ice, then top with a sour cherry.

And regarding Negronis, I prefer Stanley Tucci's method of adding an extra shot of gin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srjk7qJ4PQ4

In the interests of full disclosure, for my Old Fashioneds I do put a small piece of orange in the glass and give it a single press with the muddler, mostly on the peel but a little on the pulp as well. I use demerara gum syrup instead of a sugar cube so there's no additional muddling involved. It's how I was taught the drink by a hotshot bar consultant when we were getting ready to open. I'm open to losing the orange piece but the regulars are very accustomed to it now.

I love orange with Old Fashioneds and with Manhattans. I use a mix of orange and angostura bitters when I make them at home.

I think the theory with using a sugar cube is that the distribution of sugar is less even, meaning (with a stirrer) the drinker gets to play with the sugar/booze mix as they drink. That could be a bug or a feature depending on your view.

In a bar setting, I can absolutely understand wanting to use simple syrup for the speed factor.

hi all

yeah I love stuff like that. it's why I like to use the one big ice cube, slowly changes/opens up the drink as you sip on it

Yeah big cubes are great.

I think an OF with a hunk of orange and even a cherry is drinkable, and I have drunk them including recently. I just think it interferes with the balance of the drink, which is delicate when done well. A small piece may be less intrusive, obviously.

Orange is interesting as a cocktail fruit because orange bitters and peels are important to lots of drinks, but actual orange juice is mostly useless except in glass-of-OJ drinks like screwdrivers. (Or mimosas I suppose, but let's just not talk about those.) It's just too mild, you need the boosted sour blast of lemon or lime to stand up to spirits. Grapefruit can add a nice layer, but it usually needs help — like in the siesta, where the grapefruit sits on top of lime juice.

Even a cynar julep, which is very grapefruit forward, uses an ounce of grapefruit juice revved up with a quarter-ounce of lemon.

Just to be clear, I'm for orange peel, not orange wedges.

Yeah a nice orange twist is great. I just object to pulp.

Anybody ever do flaming/sparking orange peels? It's fun, adds a little theater and a little caramelized flavor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc6WEdQjZiQ

Cynar negronis are the best.

xp yes that technique is delicious, I am usually too lazy but love it in a bar setting

and yes to Cygronis

Our little cocktail service worked a corporate thing a few years ago, pre-COVID, and we calculated that the state sales managers would be less impressed by carefully balanced drinks than by burning shit. So we did old fashioneds with the burnt orange, then some drink I don't even remember that we smoked with a cedar chip under a glass bowl, and the best was margaritas with flaming lime halves on top. They loved it.

Fire good.

Until it sets the bar on fire, catching various spilled spirits and menus ablaze - which happened in the presence of a former ILXor a few months back. The Instagram looked intense but apparently the bar and waitstaff got things under control fairly quickly.

We had an incident with Flaming Dr. Pepper shots last year but I put the spill out before the bar top or any people took damage.

Yeah you don't want to accidentally end up in the molotov cocktail thread.

OK, I'm back. Sorry for being tetchy the other day. I love reading about cocktails and cocktail history and was excited to share some of what I've come across while waiting for my Sunday morning bagel order to be ready.

I agree that a lot of it is hard to pin down, though I do tend to trust someone like David Wondrich simply because he does so much exhaustive historical research and brings a scholarly skepticism to his work. So if he says that he's "almost positive" about something cocktail-related, I figure that's the closest we're going to the truth. (I think his research on the origin of the word "cocktail" was done in the service of The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, which he compiled and finally published last year. Back in 2017 or so, I'd invited him to write a new "cocktail" article for Encyclopaedia Britannica, and he declined, citing the demands of the Oxford project.) Btw, he also has a fun podcast called "Fix Me a Drink" that delves into some of the mysteries he's investigated.

I guess wasn't aware that drink snobs ever looked down on the old-fashioned, maybe because I didn't get into cocktails until after the 21st-century renaissance was in full swing and it wasn't difficult to find a well-made old-fashioned at a decent bar. It's never been a favorite drink of mine, though I certainly respect it. If I roll my eyes at the dudes who order it as a default, it's only because it seems unadventurous (and boringly gendered). It is, however, a good way to taste liquor in a way that's relatively unadulterated. If I ever bought some really good bourbon (instead of whatever's decent enough to mix with), I'd probably drink them more often.

I had a classic Wisconsin supper club brandy old fashioned the other night and it was excellent.

xp FWIW, I also quoted Wondrich's "cocktail" definition in an article I wrote a few years ago, so I suppose I'm a little invested in it. :)

there's no better source on cocktail history than wondrich, idk why that would even be a point of debate.

i guess i'm still looking for a source on who was looking down on old fashioneds? i acknowledge that they went through a fruit-forward phase but it's not as though there were all these other incredible drinks around while that was happening.

I had a classic Wisconsin supper club brandy old fashioned the other night and it was excellent.

That sounds great. Yeah, I think there's a place for the Wisconsin brandy old-fashioned. The NYT drinks writer Robert Simonson, who's originally from Wisconsin, has written approvingly about it. And if you're at a supper club in the state, it seems like a real when-in-Rome situation.

Wondrich is great, I meant no impugnment. I don't feel like he totally cinched the "cocktail" case, but that may be because it's not as fun as other theories. Or maybe it's plenty fun, I don't know. The horse's ass part has resonance at least.

On the old fashioned, I just meant that wherever it was first documented, which Wondrich is probably right about, it was a drink long in circulation. It was a baseline mixed drink.

I was in Mexico and we went to a really nice restaurant that had old fashioneds on the menu. I was pretty astonished by it. Wound up ordering it because, if I didn't, who would? Anyway...it was okay

I actually just had a rum old-fashioned earlier tonight. That's practically dessert, but delicious.

OK this is pretty fascinating as the recorded history of angostura predates the Jerry Thomas book

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angostura_bitters

I mean

Originally used to help with upset stomachs of the soldiers in Simón Bolívar's army,

I love how many spirits and the like were issued for "health" reasons, or, at the least, hangover cures. Drinkers must have been drunk all the fucking time, no wonder they outlawed it.

The amount that average people drank during the day and often while laboring in the pre-modern era is kind of astonishing.

Before the Second Great Awakening just about every man, woman, and child in America was drunk. Water was uh rather unsafe.

What was drank so heavily in the old days was usually small beer (near beer, basiclly) or other very low proof alcohols.

unless you lived in the South

ok so I'm doing Woodford Reserve + bitters + a little simple syrup + a splash of water + 6 oz Squirt + some green olives and a little bit of the juice from the olive jar. oh and a big ice cube. dunno what it is but its good

Godspeed

The sugar-free beverages thread gave me an idea for a low-ABV long drink that really has to be called "Safe/Fake Grapefruit Soda" -- Aperol, lemon juice, club soda. Maybe a little simple syrup.

They say the sbagliato was the drink of the summer, bc apparently some tosser said so on a reality TV show.

I say it's a classic, and shouldn't be linked to a passing trend, like say the cosmopolitan. What do you think about this drink? (Prosecco, sweet vermouth, Campari).

would drink, imo that would be even better subbing Cynar for Campari

lemon twist either way

It's clearly a Negroni subbing Prosecco for gin, but I think that switch makes it a lot more refreshing and more aperitif-like

Hmm. For a more refreshing take on the Negroni I'd probably just offer Aperol spritz, though I suppose that's just one more step removed/simplified from the sbagliato. And lots of people find Aperol less bitter than Campari.

Aperol is definitely less bitter than Campari, but the problem is it's too sweet. There are Aperol substitutes like Select that are slightly less sweet but for me sweet vermouth fixes that problem conclusively.

Or rather the combination of Campari & sweet vermouth

cosmopolitans are classic

One of my favorite summer cocktails is similar:

Take 3 by Zachary Gelnaw-Rubin
2 oz Cynar
.75 oz St-Germain
.75 oz lemon juice
seltzer to top

Add the Cynar, St-Germain and lemon juice to a shaker with ice. Shake to chill, then strain into an ice-filled Collins glass. Top with club soda and garnish with an orange wedge.

It tastes like the best iced coca-cola you have ever had on a hot summer day.

Love a sbagliato.

My favorite spritz is a half-half combo of Aperol and Campari, cuts the sweetness but not as bitter as a Campari spritz. (I like all these spritzes tho.)

Tonight we made French 75s with cognac, a house favorite.