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

maybe my ice cubes are just lower quality or something (or maybe they're smaller) but i havent had this problem - i can tell that i'm getting some dilution just cuz when i'm stirring i notice the ice:liquid ratio changing. i definitely know what you mean abt getting some water in yr drink being important tho... i used to keep my gin in the freezer but once i stopped doing that it made my martinis taste a lot better, brought the flavours out a lot more.

hey cad if you feel like nerding out abt this - http://www.painkillernyc.com/category/research/experiments

(altho its abt shaken drinks rather than stirred)

thanks, that is really interesting and i'm going to need to read it a couple times for it to sink in! he mentions dave arnold and cooking issues in there--they have some fantastic posts on this stuff. i'll put them here when i'm home tonight.

att cad - i made this over the wkend + it was awesome -

CHARTREUSE SWIZZLE
2 oz green Chartreuse
1 ½ oz pineapple juice
1 oz fresh lime juice
¼ oz falernum

thats the most chartreuse ive ever had in 1 drink but it worked so so well

and after making it i saw that there were some recipes w/ diff proportions but by then i had finished off my bottle of chartreuse so i havent got to try them

oh nice! v. cool-looking recipe.

i'm always hesitant to crack those little 6 oz. cans of pineapple juice because i never use a whole one but this looks like it would be worth it.

i've made this before--it's basically a riff on the last word but it was nice:

beuser & angus special

1.75 oz. green chartreuse
1 oz. lime juice
.5 oz. maraschino
.5 tsp sugar
1 small egg white

shake and pour over crushed ice, top w/5 drops orange flower water.

i find crushed ice, egg, and the o.f.w. to be a bit confused-sounding and i think i made it without the egg.

yeah i know what you mean, using pineapple juice is kind of awkward. man i need to get more maraschino as well....

don't know if this has been discussed, but i just read in the current issue of bon appetit about how to make SMOKED ICE. their suggestion was to serve a whiskey/sherry/lemon drink over it. i really want to try this but i think it would make my house smell like camp because we have no good way to let out exhaust.

Glad just sayin pointed me here. I've been playing around with cocktails a lot in the last six years, and it looks like we've covered a lot of the same ground. I don't have much to add beyond a general "thumbs up, I dig your style," etc., except:

RECIPE THIRTY-EIGHT: shaddock

One of my favorite drinks, and the one that made me love genever (though there's nothing wrong with Death in the Gulf Stream either). But I end up making it with slightly different proportions. Sometimes I leave out the St Germain altogether (use twice as much Aperol instead), simply because it's one of the more expensive liqueurs and I don't use it for many drinks, so if I run out I don't always replenish it right away. But even apart from that - I bump the genever up to 1.25, even 1.5. The maltiness really comes forward.

Also a big fan of Gunshop Fizz type drinks - I use the basic blueprint of the Trinidad Sour (1.5 bitters, 1.5 sweet, 1 sour, .5 spirit) for all sorts of things until the Ango runs dry.

Also also - if you love chartreuse like I love chartreuse, Elixir Vegetal is worth having. You may have mentioned it already, I don't know - it's a long thread to take in all at once. It's like a concentrated, bitters-esque form of chartreuse.

hey thanks dude! really nice of you to say :D

i had never heard of death in the gulf stream--that's a deadly serious-sounding drink. i am out of genever but that's going to cause me to go buy some for sure.

i don't have elixir vegetal either--i've noticed it on cocktailkingdom but they sell a lot of odd stuff so i never investigated further. what do you find yourself doing with it?

and pls feel free to add recipes and whatnot to this thread if you feel like it btw!

Yeah, a lot of the bitters on Cocktail Kingdom a) aren't even bitters, they're tinctures (no bittering agent involved, but "blueberry flavoring" doesn't sounds as 2k11-sexxy as "blueberry bitters") and b) aren't legal in the first place. They're legal to possess, but most of the small bitters companies haven't gone through the cumbersome process of having their product approved for sale. But that tempts me sometimes, because I think, shit, maybe I should pick up some of the odder ones before they get caught.

So mostly I get celery bitters, chocolate bitters, orange bitters, and Peychaud's, which isn't carried here. I really want to try the Dandelion & Burdock bitters, but keep putting it off.

The Elixir Vegetal I've used in two ways - one, adding a few drops to anything with Chartreuse (a Last Word, etc), to boost the ... chartreusiness. Two, it really adds some complexity to simple drinks that already have a little bit of herbal character, like a gin and tonic, or a Dark and Stormy. And man, it smells good.

since i just got a new 1L bottle i thought i could use up the rest of the one i had w/ one of my favourite drinks -

intro to aperol
2 oz Aperol
1 oz gin
.75 oz lemon juice
.25 oz simple syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters

like bill and i were saying on the other thread, aperol is such a nice drink, really deserves to be more popular imo, esp w/ summer coming

it sounds so medicinal
i like that

If you want medicinal and Aperol, there's the 2 to 2, too -

1.5 oz Aperol
1 oz absinthe
1 oz lemon
.25 oz simple
dash orange bitters

... which can make that "this will last forever, I just need an occasional rinse for Sazeracs and Corpse Revivers and whatnot" bottle of absinthe go pretty quick.

that sounds so delicious! man.

want

yeah, both those recipes sound excellent. maybe i need to replenish absinthe too.

bill, i didn't realize the elixir vegetal was actually like a concentrated chartreuse from the same producer! that's really cool. and i'm pretty curious about the dandelion and burdock bitters. i did buy the boker's that that guy makes, and while i obv can't comment on "authenticity" (unlike the smug dudes who make the bitter truth stuff and were happy to do so) it is pretty good stuff--i spent like two weeks just making martinez variations using the boker's/

Nice! Yeah, what's his name who does the Boker's etc SOUNDS like he knows his stuff. And ultimately, the taste is more important to me than the authenticity - a revival of authentic Roaring Twenties gins and whiskeys is not something anybody really wants to see, after all.

Have you had Dandelion & Burdock soda? (I don't think you're British, but I don't know anybody anymore, so who knows.) It's kind of sort of root-beer-ish, which has me stumped for what I would end up doing with the bitters. I love Root - kind of sort of root-beer-inspired liquor, but it's base liquor strength, not a sweetened liqueur - but it's not very flexible.

oh wow, no not british and i didn't know it was a soda flavor. i am going to have to seek out a bottle though.

Along similar lines as Aperol, I think Pimm's is a barely-bitter liqueur that could be played with a lot more. Or I'm talking myself into thinking that, anyway, because I have a few bottled citrus juices (sudachi, yuzu, kabosu) I need to play with for my blog, and since I've got my girlfriend's birthday, visiting friends, and two weeks unpaid vacation all in the near future, I don't really want to go out and buy any liquor right now ... even though I'm out of Aperol, Creole Shrubb, and down to my last shot of maraschino, all of which would make sense to use with citrus.

So I'm looking at the citrus-friendly liqueurs I do have, and the amaros (amari if you're like that) are mostly going to overpower exotic citrus. I mean, even Chartreuse - when you taste the lime in a Last Word or the lemon in a Final Ward, part of that's your mind filling in the blanks because lemon and lime are familiar flavors. But something unfamiliar, especially bottled, so that none of the oil is involved - I don't want to cover it up too much. I want it to be present enough that there's a reason to use sudachi instead of lemon. St Germain will be fine I'm sure, and Canton if I have any, stone pine, creme de cacao, maybe violette (maybe) ... but yeah, I think Pimm's could be interesting.

So that's what I'm drinking this weekend, whatever comes out of that train of thought.

what's your blog (if you don't mind sharing)?

http://okaycheckitout.blogspot.com

I just didn't want to mention it all over the place and look like I'm plugging. The cocktail content waxes and wanes, there's cooking stuff too.

nice! i am, um, checking it out (first observation--i live relatively close to you)

I'm in Nashua (NH, home of the liquor stores) - my girlfriend lives in Boston so I spend a lot of weekends there. There's so many higher-end cocktail bars in Boston that I keep meaning to check out, but man ... it just always seems cheaper to make drinks at home and spend the money on Korean ingredient shopping or something instead.

pimms is definitely great! i guess i just dont think of it as being underrated since im living in the uk, altho tbf it does only get used in pimms cups + nothing else + i can see what you mean that it could be used for much more

Exactly - I think it could be used in a lot more drinks. I've mostly seen it in Pimm's Cup variants where it's still the main ingredient - I don't know, maybe there's a reason for that and it'll turn out that the flavor disappears if you mix with it in other ways, but it's worth trying.

do you guys get the pimms winter?

Not in NH, and not at the place in New York I mail-order stuff from - I think some states get it, though. How different is the flavor?

i don't think we do, no. if so it's extremely rare.

pretty different iirc, i havent had any for quite a while tho, but its brandy based and the spices are just more 'winter-y' (not v helpful i know), at pubs they would serve it warm w/ apple juice

its sad they phased out all the other ones

Is the UK having the kind of cocktail revival we've had here? Even here it's not very big - the market for appletinis and jello shots will never dwindle - but it still led to a lot of things like creme de violette, pimento dram, bitters, etc., either being brought back or more widely distributed. (Although I think candy-flavored vodkas and rums are still the biggest-growth categories.)

hmmmm i would say no? i mean i'm in london + there are some high end cocktail bars but as far as ingredients go it seems like the US is doing everything. i cant even get hold of this rum - http://www.alpenz.com/images/poftfolio/smithcross114rum.htm which is apparently bottled here

and there's only a few liquour stores where i can buy stuff like aperol, despite italy being right there

Oh Lord, Smith and Cross is good stuff. Yeah, we benefit from Haus Alpenz working hard to import things here - a lot of the "revival ingredients" have come through them, without having the sameyness of tasting like they all came from the same guy. (Their violette is SO sweet, though.)

Smith and Cross is like ... I don't even know how to describe it. Any time Caitlin and I make something with it, we just sit there going "holy shit, THIS RUM." It's like if other rums are Campari and Aperol, this is the Fernet of rum. ... if bitterness were rumminess. It's not a great analogy.

haha oh man you've sold me on it. i emailed my liquor store the other week (these guys - http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/) who are pretty good for everything + theyve said they're trying. it still just seems so weird to me that i cant get it.

It IS weird. I'll never understand liquor distribution/availability - it's still bizarre to me that you can get multiple kinds of absinthe in New Hampshire but only one kind of rye whiskey, just for one thing.

First Pimms experiment, built on the Corpse Reviver #2 -

absinthe rinse
1 oz yuzu juice
1 oz Pimms
.75 oz gin
.75 oz Cocchi Americano
And a couple Coca-Cola-infused cherries - absinthe-soaked or straight-up candied cherries might make more sense, I just saw these first and realized I hadn't used them in ages.

It's good! It's surprisingly bitter - the yuzu is contributing to that in part, I think. But I have the door to the deck open, I've got my shoes off, I've been alternating between work and the Red Sox - it's working for me.

I'm in Nashua (NH, home of the liquor stores) - my girlfriend lives in Boston so I spend a lot of weekends there. There's so many higher-end cocktail bars in Boston that I keep meaning to check out, but man ... it just always seems cheaper to make drinks at home and spend the money on Korean ingredient shopping or something instead.

― Bill, Saturday, April 9, 2011 1:09 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i am in somerville. does the nh state store system special order stuff? you probably have scouted your fair share of stores in the boston area but let me know if you're looking for anything special--i have a pretty good mental list of what is available where for some weirder stuff.

re: boston cocktail bars--there are only a couple that are worth going out of your way for if you're a prolific amateur (maybe eastern standard, craigie on main, and drink in fort point). a lot of places have some nice drinks on the menu nowadays but by and large it's stuff you can make v. well at home.

Have you been to Deep Ellum? We pass it on the bus a lot, so I'm always like - hey, we could go there. But Eastern Standard is supposed to have an excellent burger, so that's also on our list.

New Hampshire won't special order anything unless it's something sold at another NH liquor store, i.e. something already in the system. They require a product-specific permit that has to be approved at a liquor board meeting - so if you're Uncle Ted's Vodkaplex with 32 flavors of vodka from acai-goji to zubrowka, you have to submit 32 different packets of paperwork. I can always tell when a new product has serious marketing money behind it, because that's the only time when something new shows up in NH within a couple months of its release. (Lucid absinthe, for instance, and anything from Captain Morgan.) You also need a special permit to ship liquor to NH, which is only supposed to apply to vendors - most places don't have it, so anything weird and regional is usually something I can't order - but I've actually been scolded even for having free samples shipped to me, which I think is actually legal by the letter of the law.

It's this whole big thing.

The other side of the coin is that domestic product that is carried here is usually pretty cheap! Maker's Mark regularly goes below $15.

My best Boston cocktail-related purchase: Becherovka! At Bazaar, the Russian grocery (which is an amazing place tout court). I haven't actually done much liquor shopping in Boston yet - I love Central Bottle but we were basically there for cheese; I know there's a place called the Cocktail Shaker or something like that but haven't been there yet, I'm afraid of how much I may spend. It's easy to limit how much I spend on bitters when they're mail order and there's no instant gratification, but taking a bag full of bitters home ... oh man.

oh yeah deep ellum is rad! i used to live near it. good food, good beer selection, very nice people, and their cocktails well-made. some different stuff on the list since i was there last. i'm not seeing the 1970s manhattan which, in addition to being funny (it was a canadian club manhattan on the rocks) was really tasty!

Okay cool - Caitlin lives in Allston so it's right nearby.

This isn't a Pimms concoction but I need to test these juices out - kind of a Last Word variation and definitely the best mezcal drink I've made -

1 oz St Germain
1 oz kabosu juice
3/4 oz black raspberry infused mezcal
1/2 oz Chartreuse
pinch of citric acid

The St Germain pretty much disappears completely - not in a bad way, but between the citrus and the black raspberry, it just blends in. What's nuts is how little the Chartreuse shows up - I didn't want too much of it because I didn't want to overpower the kabosu, but the mezcal plows through everything. It's a really good drink, but the kabosu is probably totally unnecessary - I should probably make a lemon or lime version for comparison.

So you wind up with this smoky tart raspberry drink with some herbaceousness buried in there somewhere. I'm definitely drinking it pretty quick.

bill are you using fresh yuzu or out of a bottle? i only have the latter

Bottle - I've used fresh yuzu before and would again, but that's partly because I make marmalade after juicing them. Bottled seems pretty decent so far!

yeah i have no point of comparison so was just checking

yr cola infused cherries have reminded me - do you think that ramazotti has some sort of cola flavour happening? i havent mixed it w/ rum but am thinking abt it

yeah i def get a cola thing from ramazotti

3/4 oz black raspberry infused mezcal

yeah def curious about how long you infused this

I haven't had Ramazotti! It's on my list of things to buy from DrinkupNY this year - barring financial calamity, my goal is to try all of the amaros they carry that NH doesn't (having already tried the ones carried here, i.e. Campari and Aperol). So I've got Meletti, Cynar, Fernet Branca, Cardamaro, Del Capo, and Rarbarbaro Zucca, and then a bottle of Becherovka at Caitlin's place. Oh, and Averna.

The black raspberry infused mezcal is very cool. I was all excited about mezcal, and then when I finally got a bottle, it was SO smoky. I mean, tequila itself isn't exactly subtle, but have y'all had mezcal? Shit. That smoke eats everything you throw at it. But I had a bunch of frozen black raspberries that I'd ordered because the farm stands here have stopped selling black raspberries, and there's been so much housing development that my mother no longer has a bunch of forest with wild black raspberries behind her house. So I was missing em.

Only it turned out the black raspberries I got weren't the ones I missed. There are two kinds of black raspberries - the little wild ones thimbles could wear as hats, and larger softer darker ones. The little ones are nice and tart; the big ones have no tartness, but a sort of wineyness.

So they didn't fit my craving at all, and they're tricky to use in pie because they're just so sweet. And my freezer is sort of ridiculous even when black raspberries aren't in there. So, two birds - after I'd made a batch of black raspberry bounce (raspberries, whiskey, sugar, couple months infusion) I made black raspberry mezcal (raspberries, mezcal, no sugar, probably about two months). It's very dark and winey looking even after you've mixed it into a drink, and the raspberry definitely comes through.

Please don't be enormous, Flickr -

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5063/5604456083_2d5dd972bc_z.jpg

nice! i like mezcal but it's easier to use in like half ounce accents than as the actual base of a cocktail.

(meant to say, if you're hanging out in allston you are v. near blanchard's liquors and the only stock of laird's bonded apple brandy i've ever seen)