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

xpost thx dude

That's probably why I haven't seen it - not much of the Heaven Hill stuff is carried here. I'm surprised I didn't see it when I lived in Indiana, though, but that was right on the cusp of this whole cocktail revival, and maybe it just wasn't carried at my local store.

yeah i've never seen pikesville in a store up here--some bars seem to get it but that's it.

Batavia arrack is pretty terrible unless mixed but there are some good classic punch recipes with it

what's considered mid range rye? less than $40?

a step above that, i got High West Rendezvous and it's pretty great. i do hide it from the guests tho, ha

most ryes seem to be either 15-30 or 50+. i guess i don't know how much redemption is. the high west stuff is all pretty pricey iirc. baby saz can be over 30 at times and it's not really worth that.

Less than $25, I'd say, but I guess it depends in part on where you live. Old Overholt, Wild Turkey, Jim Beam, and Rittenhouse are all under $25 - and are all in about the same price range as other-spirit brands like Maker's Mark, Knob Creek, Bulleit, Plymouth, Bombay/Sapphire, Pampero, Barbancourt ... over $40 and you're in the same price range as the Thomas Handy releases and the Papa Saz.

But there is a weird middle ground too - I think Redemption is $30, Templeton and baby Saz and one or two Michters releases are all more expensive than those but cheaper than the Handys. Maybe that should be the "mid-price" range, but it would feel weird referring to the Rittenhouse group as "cheap ryes" - basically it's a small enough spirit category that there aren't any cheap ones unless you count Old Overholt.

I just realized I forgot to include Bulleit Rye, which might be mid-range too, but Bulleit is already such a high-rye bourbon that, I don't know, I haven't gotten very excited at the prospect of this one.

You basically can't buy a bad rye unless you get confused and buy Canadian. It's the opposite of rum.

oh yeah, forgot michter's. i wonder where that stuff is coming from these days.

the following are all made by lawrenceburg distillers int'l in indiana, for those who like to be up on such things (age difference noted, too lazy to find proof difference):

bulleit rye (4 years)
templeton (5 years)
redemption (2 years)
the young rye in the high west bottlings (2 years)

funny that, in such a small spirit category, going to the source (the distillery) makes it seem that much smaller!

Yeah, I wonder how much of that is because there seems to be even less of a market for white ryes than for white corn whiskeys - a new bourbon distillery can sell its white dog for a while to have a little revenue while waiting for its release to be ready, but it seems much more rare for a distiller to do this with rye. I was thinking Deaths Door did it, but just doublechecked, and no, the bottle I have is malted wheat.

o ya, i'd mentioned in the brown vs white liquor thread that i'd recently tried a white rye and thought it was nasty. i'm having trouble finding out what kind it is though

I love white whiskey in general, but don't think I've had a rye one (and realize that despite the media hoopla, I'm in the minority in liking any of them). It's got to be less sweet than the corn, I'd guess?

Oh, here's a bottle of Buffalo Trace white dog that's corn/rye/malted barley, but the 125 proof ends up being its most notable feature, so I have no idea what white-rye-specific characteristics I might pick up on it.

i knew i read recently about rye white dog, and it's coming from our friends at heaven hill:

http://www.drinkhacker.com/2011/04/04/review-heaven-hill-trybox-series-new-make-white-whiskeys/

basically it's white evan williams and white rittenhouse. interesting--you should see if they'll send you a sample!

Shit, I'll have to email them. I've been sitting on a multibrand white whiskey review for a year because all those articles on white whiskey came out, and I just sort of felt like ... I'd be contributing to the hype, without adding anything to the discussion. I mean, even though *I* like it, it's not the next big thing - a lot of the people ordering white Manhattans and whatnot are clearly just trying it out once, it's not becoming a regular order for them.

(I infused some of the BT with huckleberries. Blue Dog!)

The idea here was to do something gimlet-like with kabosu juice -

1.5 oz gin
1 oz kabosu juice
.75 oz simple
.5 oz douglas fir eau de vie

Definitely good, especially given how warm the afternoon is turning.

holy crap @ douglas fir eau de vie

http://www.clearcreekdistillery.com/other.html

It's so good but I'm really torn at whether I'll buy more when I run out. It's not that flexible a cocktail ingredient (the best is I think called a Shiver, with Campari and grapefruit juice), but if you drink it alone, it goes that much quicker, and it's $50/375ml. At that price I could get Chartreuse VEP.

Haus Alpenz imports a pine liqueur that must be somewhat similar. They are truly doing the lord's work.

The stone pine stuff - Zirbenz or something like that. It's a different kind of pine flavor, and sweeter, but yeah, each is definitely the thing most like the other.

clear creek is so cool--i love their pear eau de vie

yo just sayin:

1.5 oz. batavia arrack
.75 oz. lemon juice
.5 oz. Maraschino
.5 oz. simple syrup
.5 oz. egg white
2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
lemon peel for garnish

follow all standard egg drink protocol

Ha, right after getting on Bacardi's case, I heard about this: http://talesblog.com/2011/04/12/tales-of-the-cocktail%C2%AE-announces-official-united-states-bartenders-guild-bacardi%C2%AE-pina-colada-competition/

I know Tales has to pay the bills, but a Bacardi-sponsored Pina Colada contest, at the same event that's previously seen the return of Creme de Violette and Creme Yvette, the release of Legendre Herbsaint, etc? It's a couple weeks late for April Fools.

i think plain white bacardi still had its defenders among cocktailians. maybe they're few and far between, but they're out there.

i wonder what these pina coladas are going to look like--wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them included some aged rum along with bacardi.

btw bill do you have thoughts on:

creme yvette vs.
haus alpenz creme de violette vs.
parfait amour

esp. for use in aviations? i need to suck it up and get one of these because they're vital to that drink, but i've heard conflicting things about all of them.

There will probably be some caramelized pineapple infusions + coconut water and so on.

I haven't picked up Parfait Amour yet because I feel like I don't need it AND creme de violette, and haven't finished the creme de violette. I started drinking Aviations when they were still made just with maraschino, because violette wasn't available yet - the first time I had a Blue Moon, it was with violette from an ancient bottle I bought on eBay.

Parfait Amour also sounds like it has more going on than just the violet, the way Creme Yvette does. And Creme Yvette vs Creme de Violette is weird, because on the one hand I think I like the first more, but on the other, if I could only have one, I think I'd get the Violette. The Yvette is more *interesting*, I guess is what it comes down to - but as limited as they both are, the Yvette is probably even more limited because of those extra flavors. It's delicious, it's just not nearly as flexible as the other Cooper product, St Germain, and it costs an arm and a leg.

I would probably go through both of them faster if I drank less whiskey and less genever - they don't seem to work with either of those spirits, or if they do, they require some other ingredient bridging the gap, which I don't know about. I tried a touch of violette in a whiskey sour and it just didn't work - the combination of flowers and malt isn't a successful one, I think.

The sensible answer here is probably "buy whichever one you can get the cheapest." They're all well-made products - I'm sure that's true for the P.A. - so if they sell minis of any of them, you can probably get by with that. Barring a mini, I think the violette is more than $10 cheaper than the Yvette, and it's not worth paying $10 for some added orange peel and berries. Okay Jesus, I just checked DrinkupNY and they sell Yvette for more than twice what they sell violette for - that is nuts.

Whoa - an equal parts Smith & Cross / Angostura drink: http://cocktailvirgin.blogspot.com/2011/04/mentirita.html

Smith & Cross works really well with Bonal in equal parts, so it makes sense. I'm out of Ango or I'd be on this.

topped with coke! that sounds fun. i'll make if i remember to buy coke.

this was my favorite drink to make for a while

Gin Basil Smash
One bunch of fresh basil, save one leaf for garnish
1/2 of a lemon
2/3 ounce of simple syrup (sweeten to taste)
3 ounces of gin

Stuff a bunch of basil & half of a lemon cut into four pieces into a shaker. Add simple syrup and muddle the lemon and the basil, smashing the ingredients and squeezing all of the juice from the the lemon. Shake vigorously. Strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with a basil leaf.

apparently i accidentally cut the 'add gin to shaker' part

"set shaker aside, drink gin from a shot glass"

i'm going to try that when the farmers market starts back up and there's a lot of nice fresh basil available

hey, so i got a few fee bro bitters for xmas from a friend, but don't quite know what to do w/them. plum, grapefruit and aztec chocolate. i made this once. i thought it was pretty good (i think i went heavy on the bitters to really emphasize the chocolate). i don't think my friends liked it because they thought it was too strong, but they generally drink beer and wine and i like pretty spiritous cocktails and weird bitter flavors (the campari)

Bittersweet Autumn
1½ oz bourbon (or Basil Hayden’s)
¾ oz sweet vermouth
¾ oz Campari
2 dashes chocolate bitters
1 Drunken Cherry, for garnish

Sounds good - I like bourbon/Campari combos but haven't played with them much.

Caitlin went to a cocktail/science of taste event where they recommended using chocolate bitters with St Germain because of some similar flavor components. I keep forgetting to try it myself.

Have you tried the plum bitters? People have complained about some of the newer Fee's bitters not actually being bitters, but tinctures instead without any bitter components, and I figured the plum and rhubarb seem like the most likely culprits. Not that there's anything actually wrong with tinctures.

Grapefruit bitters, I would think Salty Dogs/Greyhounds, tequila, or those bitters-heavy drinks we were talking about upthread.

I'm getting a 14 pound box of fresh citrus from an orchard in a day or two, to grab the last of the fresh fruit while it's available - it'll be a mixed bag of whatever looked good to pick on Monday, probably a few lemons and a lot of tangerines and oranges, maybe some exotics. Thinking I should probably use some of them in cocktails, maybe freeze-concentrating them first.

i really like adding some bitters to g+t's--grapefruit bitters are a good choice for that. definitely tequila as well.

i don't know about the fee's but the bittermens mole bitters are awesome and useful in all sorts of stuff--old fashioneds, stirred drinks with aged tequila, drinks with dark rum, etc. etc.

o ya, i used the plum w/g+t's for a week when a friend randomly left some tonic at my house. the drinks seriously tasted like bubblegum.

where do i get all this bitters?

that bittersweet autumn sounds amazing today (stormy, rainy). want!

Housemade tonic seems to have become a thing at a few of the fancier local bars lately...anyone have a good recipe, or tried making their own? Kinda curious. Then again not really sure how one even goes about acquiring quinine, so..

http://www.feebrothers.com/Product.asp?Category=5

tehresa, as with most questions the answer in our area is Ace Beverage in DC!

between cocktailkingdom.com and thebostonshaker.com you should be able to order any bitters you can't find locally

haha i've googled a bunch of stuff and landed on their site a few times. must go at some point.
xpost

went to a supermercado catering to the hispanic population of my hood today and they had sugar cane and cheap mint and limes so i made mojitos. now chewing on the limey piece that did all the muddling and it is nom.

need suggestions for what liqueurs/mixers to get next. some things that have distinctive flavors but can also be used in a multiple of drinks.

i've got pimento allspice dram, roses grenadine, cointreau, pear eau de vie, raspberry liqueur, herbsaint, fernet, some coffee liqueurs, martini&rossi sweet vermouth (rosso). and a few bitters (listed above)

i bought a really tiny bottle of st germain. made a drink or 2 w/it but wasn't totally sold on it. a bit too sweet/girly.

should i get some sort of crème (cacao, menth, cassis)? benedictine? maraschino? lillet? a different type of vermouth?

ok this might end up being a couple posts long but to start:

from a classic-leaning perspective, the following will be most useful:

sweet vermouth
dry vermouth (buy the smallest bottles you can, seal them with a vacu-vin and keep them in the fridge. i like dolin sweet and noilly prat dry in terms of things you can find in half bottles)

cointreau (you got this covered)
maraschino (luxardo)
benedictine

grenadine - ditch the roses and seek out one of the many homemade grenadine recipes that exist. the easiest by far is to dissolve 1 cup of sugar in 8 oz. of POM juice over heat.

liqueurs after that:

chartreuse (both green and yellow tho green is more common and more versatile--the most expensive liqueur that's really in regular rotation but it's worth it)
herbsaint (for sazeracs, also as a quick substitute for drinks calling for pernod or even absinthe)
allspice dram - v. common in rum drinks
creme de cassis - is pretty great and you can frequently get a good imported one in a half bottle
apricot brandy - i like haus alepnz
st. germain - overused but works really well with whiskey and tequila in carefully-made recipes. see here: http://stgermaincocktails.wordpress.com/

I think the best sweet vermouth option for my palate is Punt e Mes - which is kind of unfair/misleading, because it's more bitter and flavorful than most vermouths, so is maybe more like "its own thing, but something you can substitute for sweet vermouth." I pretty much only use it in Negronis and Manhattans, but there's not much else I do with sweet vermouth anyway.

I would go with Cocchi Americano before Lillet Blanc. It definitely makes a better Corpse Reviver, and it's not expensive, especially for a newly available product.

The cremes can all be fun, but unless there's a specific drink you love - or a specific flavor you love that you want to build drinks around, which happens with me and Starbucks coffee liqueur - they're not essentially, especially since you have three fruit options as it is, so there's not an obvious flavor gap to fill.

Maraschino is probably the most canonical ingredient you're lacking, if only because the Aviation was emblematic of the cocktail revival for so long. I love it, and a drizzle of it can be good in a whole lot of things, but the main drinks that really require it are the Aviation and the Last Word (and its variants) - and for the Last Word you also need green Chartreuse. Cherry season is coming up in a couple months, though, and making your own maraschino cherries is easy enough.

Wait - you don't have Chartreuse? It's one of the most expensive of the bunch, but if you develop a taste for it it becomes essential.

xposts!

cosign on punt e mes as another s. vermouth option and on cocchi americano

oh bill! i now possess the dandelion/burdock bitters. will report back when i get around to playing with them.

I like all three of the Dolin vermouths, but really any of the better vermouths should be first on your list, they'll completely change your cocktails. Bitters are good buy beyond Angostura/Peychaud's/orange they're more variations than building blocks.

Maybe you just didn't list having it but Campari is a must of course! If you already have it then Aperol is great, especially with summer on the way. Cosign on Chartreuse, too.

so how do you deal with the fact that good vermouth supposedly does not keep well? i don't think i'd ever use enough of it fast enough to justify spending money. or do you guys think they do keep alright?

i think it was a jamie boudreau video i was watching that informed me the shelf life of vermouth is much shorter than i thought.