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

RECIPE THIRTY: le coquetiez du lion

(from somewhere in germany by way of ohgosh.tv)

50 ml lillet blanc (sorry this is in metric. 50 ml is just about 1.5 oz afaict)
30 ml dry gin (just a tiny bit under 1 oz.)
2 dashes peychaud's bitters

stir over ice, garnish with a lime twist.

an inverse gin martini with lillet. simple and elegant, this is a grown-up drink.

RECIPE THIRTY-ONE: ruirita

(from the guy at adashofbitters.com)

2 oz. blanco tequila
.5 oz. cynar
.5 oz. lime juice
.25 oz. simple syrup
3 dashes fee's rhubarb bitters
2 drops orange flower water (for rinsing)

shake and strain all except the o.f.w., which you just used to rinse the glass

too pungent at first; this mellowed out nicely in the glass. will i ever use those rhubarb bitters again?

RECIPE THIRTY-TWO: the mai tai

but enough of these weirdo drinks, right?

1 oz. aged rum 1
1 oz. aged rum 2
.75 oz. lemon juice
.5 oz. triple sec or orange curacao
.25 oz. orgeat
.25 oz. simple syrup

shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice. garnish with a mint sprig and a lime husk.

i'm using cheap orgeat (fee bros because most good liquor stores have it) but pretty good rums. one common rec for mai tais is an aged jamaican rum (easy enough to find an appleton product, i'm using their v/x) and an aged martinique rum (tougher, i've seen saint-james and clement and today shelled out for clement vsop). but i think you can experiment as much as you want. soooooooo good.

DAMMIT, lime juice

think i'm over my campari aversion (ie drinking negroni as intended as we speak). that was fast!

glad 4 u! last time i went out to a mediocre bar i got them to make me americanos the whole night.

we're doing manhattan variations until further notice.

RECIPE THIRTY-THREE: manhattan

2 oz. rye
1 oz. sweet vermouth
2 dashes bitters

stir over ice and strain. some people use cherries but not me. i go with lemon twist.

i've been assembling ingredients for manhattan variations for a while, capped off by today, when i finally bought some affordable high-proof rye (wild turkey's 101 proof rye, which is very nice stuff).

RECIPE THIRTY-FOUR: red hook

2 oz. rye
.5 oz. punt e mes
.5 oz. maraschino liqueur

stir and stain, garnish w/a cherry

sweeter, more upbeat manhattan. for the uninformed, punt e mes shares the same sweet qualities as my beloved carpano antica, but with a less complex finish. not really like other sweet vermouths at all, a fact which extends to its location in the liquor store: sometimes it's near the vermouths, but today i grabbed it from a shelf it shared with the amaros and other italian specialty liqueurs.

RECIPE THIRTY-FIVE: little italy

2 oz. rye
.75 oz. sweet vermouth
.5 oz. cynar

stir and strain, garnish with a cherry.

a real winner if you, like me, are an amaro fan.

That sounds good.

I am a big amaro fan - I like trying different recipes w/ an amaro subbed for vermouth. Ramazzotti manhattans are great!

Speaking which, the weather's getting warm enough to switch to my simple summer patio standby of last year, Ramazzotti and soda on ice. Tastes like an adult cola, nicely deep and bitter but refreshing and not too boozy.

man that sounds excellent, going to make one of those in a min

ramazzotti and soda was an excellent suggestion, i enjoyed those v. much that night.

my life is insane right now and i haven't even been drinking much nevermind making manhattan variations. but i do have a pause for a couple of drinks tonight.

RECIPE THIRTY-SIX: peralta (1)

there's an alternate peralta recipe too, but i'm making the one from drinkboston.com. developed by a bartender at deep ellum, an awesome bar in my nieghborhood that i don't go to nearly enough.

1.5 oz. rye
.5 oz. cynar
.5 oz. green chartreuse
.5 oz. grapefruit juice
1 dash grapefruit bitters
1 dash orange bitters

shake and strain, garnish with a grapefruit twist.

i've never seen ramazzotti in london but it sounds like just the kind of thing i like. enjoying cynar + soda tho

successfully signed a new lease yesterday, figure i deserved a bottle of st germain for that:

http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/cocktails/images/bottle-greybackground-300_000.jpg

as you may have noticed this stuff is in a lot of drinks these days. i had never been able to isolate the flavor in cocktails on my own, so being able to take a sip of it is helpful. the trick is that it tastes like fruit, not flowers or anything else. mostly like a mild lychee imo. i'd venture that it's been so successful because the amorphous "fruitiness" it adds is pleasant without evoking any one thing.

RECIPE THIRTY-SEVEN: boutonierre

invinted at rendezvous, central sq, cambridge, ma

2 oz. applejack
1 oz. dry vermouth
.5 oz. st germain
1 dash peychaud's
1 dash orange bitters

stir and strain, garnish with orange.

a really good introduction to st germain in a classically-proportioned drink. it's easily detectable here while enhancing some of the other flavors that are going on.

RECIPE THIRTY-EIGHT: shaddock

invented at trina's starlite lounge, also in cambridge

.75 oz. each genever, aperol, st. germain, lemon juice.

shake and strain, no garnish.

another riff on the 4-equal-ingredients formula, this one is pretty smooth and sweet with an awesome orange-pink color. each ingredient pops out at different times.

RECIPE THIRTY-NINE: one-armed french hooker

1.5 oz. genever
1 oz. grapefruit juice
1 oz. st. germain
2 dashes peychaud's

shake and strain, top with sparkling wine (i omitted this).

st. germain and grapefruit seem like a natural combo, so i've been looking all over for recipes that use them both. this is nice, the genever is a supporting player only with the main flavor being sweetened citrus.

what is the consistency/color on simple syrup supposed to be

simple made w/regular sugar should be clear. consistency will depend on the ratio of sugar to water.

a 1:1 syrup will be a little thick but not super-thick

ok, i made 1:! with cane sugar and it's sort of like sugar water? attempting to make mint julep fwiw

when i made grenadine with sugar and pom juice i thought it was p. watery at first, it actually thickened up after chillin in the fridge for a bit

ok, that makes sense

yeah you're probably ok

RECIPE FORTY: spiced tea cocktail

2 oz. absolut boston
.75 oz. lemon juice
.25 oz. simple syrup
.25 oz. allspice dram

shake and strain, garnish with a lemon twist.

i guess this is a cad original--the absolut boston (which is tea- and elderflower-infused if u didn't know)/lemon/sugar combination is obvious in a way, but i felt it needed something to take it over the top. the bottle of allspice dram i picked up last week really did the job.

RECIPE FORTY-ONE: william of orange

1.5 oz. bols genever
.5 oz. aperol
.5 oz. punt e mes
.5 oz. benedictine
2 dashes orange bitters (regan's #6)

stir and strain into a chilled rocks glass, garnish w/an orange twist.

no ingredients subs on this one imo--i made a version of this a while ago and it was not good enough to post. but this is.

RECIPE FORTY-TWO: daiquiri no. 1

2 oz. white rum
.75 oz. lime juice
1 tsp superfine sugar

shake and strain

nothing need be said.

RECIPE FORTY-TWO: hemingway daiquiri

2 oz. white rum
.75 oz. lime juice
.5 oz. grapefruit juice
1 tsp superfine sugar
scant 1 tsp maraschino liqueur

a smoothed-out sweeter version of no. 1. err on the conservative side with the maraschino.

RECIPE FORTY-THREE: ramos gin fizz

havin a lazy afternoon atm, so the least i could do was whip up one of these labor-intensive beasts:

2 oz. gin (old tom preferred, or plymouth)
1 oz. cream
1 tbsp superfine sugar (or 1 oz. simple syrup)
.5 oz. lime juice
.5 oz. lemon juice
1 egg white
3-5 drops orange flower water

shake the living hell out of this with no ice. then do the same with ice. like, a minute or more for each. shake until your arms hurt and your hands go numb.

strain into a tall glass with a couple ice cubes in it. top with an oz. or less of soda water. give it a quick stir and add a straw. a delightful thick foam will appear on top of the drink.

i forget where i read this but the i like it: the r.g.f. should taste like drinking a flower. in a good way.

i had a ginger lime gin fizz the other night and it was freaking amazing. it tasted like lime sorbet.

also had a gin & tonic with wine soaked strawberries which was also delightful

fancy!

yeah it was a fancy place that we only went to because it was a special occasion -- bartender was all talking about infusing his own syrups and what not -- one drink on the menu featured "jalapeno simple syrup" which i was curious about bcuz i like spicy drinks, altho at that point you're really stretching the "simple" part of "simple syrup"

eh not really--just about every infused syrup is the same: 1:1 or 2:1 sugar/water plus a bunch of whatever flavor you want it to have. i made cinnamon syrup last week and except for the annoying and messy filtration process it was no prob.

RECIPE FORTY-FOUR: the art of choke

from the betacocktails.com ppl

1 oz. cynar
1 oz. white rum
.25 oz. green chartreuse
.125 oz. lime juice
.125 oz. 2:1 demerara syrup (or any sugar syrup)
fresh mint

muddle all ingredients with a couple mint sprigs, then stir with ice. strain into a rocks glass with fresh ice and garnish with more mint.

weird and impossible to categorize, i'll leave it to the now unavailable rogue cocktails book:

"Picture yourself in the limestone-walled courtyard of an Italian villa off the coast of the Riviera. You are surrounded by fragrant herbs and flowers, and the sea air is blowing gently. The sun is bright, but it's not hot, and you have nothing to do all day but relax and savor the sensations all around you. Drinking this cocktail is kind of like that if somebody suddenly punched you in the stomach just as you were beginning to doze off in the sun. In a good way."

what is cynar?

it's an amaro (bittersweet italian liqueur) made with a base of artichokes. it's dark and syrupy and <20% alcohol iirc.

that sounds v. interesting. I don't think I've ever had an artichoke in my life - only artichoke dip.

reminds me, I had my first negroni of the summer the other week. I had to teach the bartender how to make it :/

RECIPE FORTY-FIVE: jet pilot

an authentic tiki drink 4 u:

.5 oz. lime juice
.5 oz. white grapefruit juice
.5 oz. falernum (fee bros. is readily available in liquor stores)
.5 oz. cinnamon syrup (recipe below)
.75 oz. gold rum (puerto rico or similar)
.75 oz. demerara 151 proof rum (lemon hart)
1 oz. jamaican dark rum (myers, appleton)
6 drops herbsaint, pernod, or absinthe
1 dash angostura

technically this is a blender drink, but you can also shake with crushed ice and pour unstrained into a rocks glass or tiki mug. add straws.

cinnamon simple syrup:

3 sticks cinnamon
1 cup water
1 cup sugar

put the cinnamon sticks in a plastic bag and beat the hell out of them with the kitchen tool of your choice until you have mostly small pieces. bring all ingredients to a simmer over medium heat. cover and simmer for two minutes, then let the mixture rest for about two hours. strain and bottle. keep in the fridge (i added a little 151-proof rum to preserve).

to strain: get a funnel and a bunch of coffee filters. pour a little of the syrup into the filter resting in the funnel, then close the filter over and twist/squeeze the syrup through. this is messy and tedious, but what the hell.

hmm for straining the cinnamon syrup perhaps you could try using an aeropress?

http://broadripplecoffee.com/brcc/images/aerobie_aeropress.jpg

huh, yeah that would probably work really well

actually fuck it, every mixology straining thing calls for coffee filters or cheesecloth, but why couldn't i use my french press? u r smart dyao.

haha I dunno if I would use a french press - metal filter is not the same as a coffee filter. plus the cinnamon oils would get left on the metal sieve whereas it migth be easier to clean an aeropress.

i've never used an aeropress--but you can wash the french press filter so

my french press is old and scummy anyway

hah then clean it pretty well before using it - you might get rancid coffee oils in your syrup...

yeah--i think your average flavored syrup is robust enough to hold up to a clean but old metal filter ::shrug emoticon::