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

please report back
intrigued by thai ingredients cocktail
speaking of courtney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgOMPVTV0X4

OK i just watched that and now I feel like makig a
"coctail" makes no sense because clearly cocktail has not helped a courtney< I dont think

but this shit is middling so it is gonna end up shaken with coconut in fancy glass so sorry courtney, my drank better and sorry u

6 kaffir lime leaves
4x 1/8 inch slices ginger from double thumb size knob
scant tsp thin-slice lemongrass
1 "arm" from one star anise (no seed, just lil arm)
2 Tbs (1:1) simple syrup

muddled, then sitting while I figure out next move

next move will be vodka and coconut milk, proporions tbd, may be a tragic mistake, shaken and served up because I don't do ice in cocktils

To the above, I sloshed in some cocnut milk (the good brand not the knock of chockosn whateves brown an kind) and som vodka (titos), which Inever have because why vodka when good booze available)

shaky shaky shaky with ice then strained into a martin glass.

first sip was like "whoah this is like sauce from third rate thai take out

it tasted like blatant thai flavors

I added some fancy ass bitters that are allspicy and some pepper

Now is OK

G'night

ชนแก้ว

let's try 77 cocktails: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/cocktail-recipes/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/dining/sasha-petraske-dies-at-42-bar-owner-milk-and-honey.html

I searched this thread to share a recipe and feel weird about doing so directly after a link to the obit of the guy who's largely responsible for people thinking about cocktails more than they had prior to the late 90s but, well, lemme raise this outstanding drink to Sasha Petraske. It was a "I want a bourbon drink, what have I got lying around" attempt and it's kind of spectacular imo

1.5 oz + a little of good bourbon
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 shakes orange bitters
a few drops poured from a bottle of maple syrup

chill glass, shake everything together with ice, strain

I don't have a name for it, it's just really really good

love bourbon and maple, great combo. maple syrup in general is something where i'm always like why don't i use this more

http://www.theperfectlyhappyman.com/uploads/founders-canadian-breakfast-stout.jpg

hey who put beer in the cocktails thread!

yeah, i don't see maple syrup in a whole lot of cocktail recipes, but it does seem like a natural pair with bourbon. last time i used it, i think, was in a riff on the alpine rabbit, which is bourbon, carrot juice, lemon juice, walnut liqueur, and simple syrup. i replaced the last two ingredients with maple syrup, and it worked out pretty well.

actually, it would probably be really good with applejack/calvados, too.

I didn't have much around the house this week except bourbon, limes, and soda water (I was drinking a lot of mojitos because it's been so hot but then I ran out of rum) so I've been making bourbon rickeys and they are a tasty and very easy summer drink imo

lol carrot juice, i will have to try that

This sounds like the worst cocktail ever, and I'm not even sure it's intentional:

This is a delicate drink inspired by our generation’s most sensitive poet/rapper/singer.

3 oz Moët Rosé Impérial
1 oz Bud Light Lime Straw-Ber-Rita
1 5-Hour Energy (any flavor)
5 oz Sprite

1. Pour chilled rosé and Bud Light Lime Straw-Ber-Rita into a wine glass.
2. Add 5-Hour Energy and gently stir.
3. Top with Sprite.

http://luckypeach.com/recipes/drake/

lol

you think a drink with Bud Light Lime Straw-Ber-Rita in it.... might be accidentally bad?

How hit and miss are your cocktails? How often is something you dream up spot-on and how often are you like, “That’s so disgusting, no one’s going to drink that”?
[Laughs] Some time they’re too disgusting, but often—well, I wouldn’t put it in the book if I thought it was too disgusting. Although there are some I haven’t actually tried. There’re a couple that are just for laughs.

From the election thread:

The Short-Fingered Vulgarian:

1 oz Cranberry juice
2 oz vodka
1/2 oz Bud Lite
1/2 oz chocolate syrup
1oz lime juice
shake with crushed ice for 10 seconds, serve unstrained in a rocks glass emblazoned with the words "Who Farted?"
garnish with a glow stick

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, March 4, 2016 10:22 AM

I had a Cayo Romano last week (light rum, dark rum, ginger liqueur, fresh orange, fresh lime, angostura bitters, allspice dram, nutmeg grated on top) and it was the best cocktail I've had in forever. The only thing I don't have in the house to make my own is the allspice dram, so I started a batch of that yesterday.

oooh that sounds delicious! I'm recently back from Dominica with some local rums; they are not exactly sipping straight stuff, so working them into a nice cocktail will be U&K. How was the drink served--rocks, up?

I'm obsessed with celery/gin and dill/gin cocktails right now. PLZ TO SUGGEST THINGS

xpost
Up. The one I had was tiny and gone too fast, but multiples weren't in the budget that night.

1 oz. dark aged rum
1 oz. silver rum
1 oz. ginger liqueur, such as Canton
3⁄4 oz. fresh lime juice
3⁄4 oz. fresh orange juice
1 dash allspice pimento dram (optional)
1 dash Angostura bitters
Freshly grated nutmeg and superfine sugar, to taste

No sugar in the one I had, I'm glad to say. Enough sweetness in the OJ and allspice dram.

Yeah I feel like most rum reads sweetish to me anyway, no need for additional sugar. I avoid ice in my dranks so up is the best answer, always.

I'm obsessed with celery/gin and dill/gin cocktails right now. PLZ TO SUGGEST THINGS

― kurt schwitterz, Thursday, December 22, 2016 4:01 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i remember this being fun:

celeriac
2 oz Gin
3/4 oz Pineapple Juice
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz 2:1 Simple Syrup
4 dash Celery Bitters
1 Egg White

xxp hell yeah WmC, that sounds great

i picked up the smuggler's cove book more b/c it was cheap on amazon and seemed like an interesting read than b/c i planned on starting to make more tiki drinks, but it's got some really good practical guidance. in addition to the very useful approach to categorizing rum, it's the first book i've read that strongly advocates for the use of a drink mixer/spindle blender as both the original and correct way to make donn and vic drinks. i picked one up for about 25 bucks and it opens a lot of doors that a conventional blender doesn't imo.

oh cool. i have the book and have made a few of the drinks, but i feel like i'm still kind of an amateur when it comes to tiki, and part of that's not having the right equipment. like, with any recipe that calls for crushed ice, i just use mini cubes. glad that you've found the drink mixer to be worthwhile!

also, the rum categorization is interesting, though some of it feels counterintuitive to me. like, it's odd that appleton estate signature blend is in the same category as plantation 3 year, even if both are technically "blended, lightly aged" rums.

the idea behind the system seems super-useful, though. i found rum cocktails (not just tiki) kind of hard to get into at first because i never knew how important it was to have the specific rum a recipe called for.

yeah i feel like that's what they're trying to get around. i'm with you in that some of the rums that share a category don't really seem related (i'd never confuse appleton reserve and el dorado 12), but i do think it gives the knowledgable amateur ammo to go the store and pick a solid mid-priced rum in each category.

disclaimer on crushed ice, i've had and used the waring pro ice crusher the book recommends for years and apparently it's been discontinued which really sucks. for me, sticking the drink mixer right next to the ice crusher lets me handle the whole ice and mixing portion of the recipe in about a minute, and the cleanup is a world away from washing out an entire blender container because you felt like making one or two drinks.

I've held off on all this stuff because I don't love rum enough to buy four different expensive bottles upfront before I make anything

but I do like it when other people make me tiki cocktails :)

i don't make many original recipes since there are lots of great people who are paid to develop cocktails but tonight i did this:

2 oz. spiced rum (chairman's)
.75 oz. tawny port (warre's otima)
.25 oz. coffee liqueur (galliano ristretto)
dash angostura

stir and strain, orange twist would be the right garnish but i didn't bother.

i'm always looking for stirred rum drinks and uh this is a stirred rum drink.

sounds good!

the drunken dodo in the death & co. book is a pretty solid stirred rum drink. i also like the negroni-like ashtray heart.

yeah i like the drunken dodo a lot

speaking of which, i made a rhum-agricole-based Manhattan riff last night, which was excellent.

i saw that on your instagram! been thinking for a while about rhum agricole's potential in stirred drinks given how delicate and complex it can be.

lactart in the house. functionally it's supposed to be the same as acid phosphate.

i was skeptical but it's pretty cool how a tiny amount of this stuff can lift drinks made with like an ounce of drambuie or drinks made with literally no other sour/bitter components.

i've been digging into the dead rabbit drinks manual, which beneath its facade of ridiculously fussy recipes and dry irish humor is one of the few original approaches to mixing drinks in existence. i'm not sure if jack mcgarry qualifies as a genius, but damned if he wasn't way the hell out there. reading the book today comes with a bittersweet tinge as he's a recovering alcoholic and doesn't work behind the bar anymore.

basically the book is a baroque take on the formative years of mixing drinks where herbal flavors are punched up with housemade tinctures, spirits are infused as often as not (usually with teas), and sweeteners are replaced with fruity cordials. the basic approach is why use lemon juice and plain sugar syrup if you can use lemon juice and lemony sugar syrup? similarly soda water is out because flavored soda exists. the result to my palate is drinks that are tighter and more unified than you'd expect given the ingredient lists. there's a lot of flavor bridging at work and i have no idea how he figured some of this stuff out.

anyone who's done some reading on classic cocktails has run into the lion's tail, a humble and random mix of bourbon, lime, and allspice. here's mcgarry's version (this is also one of the easiest 2 or 3 drinks to make in the book):

2 oz. bourbon
.75 oz. white creme de cacao
.25 oz. allspice dram
.25 oz. creme de poire
1 oz. lemon juice
.75 oz. orange juice
3 dashes aromatic bitters (dead rabbit orinoco or angostura)

shake and strain over a small ice cube, garnish with grated nutmeg (oh yeah everything has nutmeg).

it sold me and now i have a bottle of mace tincture and some lemon syrup in the fridge.

I've been playing a lot with the gin martini lately, varying from the gin, vermouth and bitters. Best I've come up with lately has been

2 St George Terroir
1 yzaguirre white vermouth
These Tasmanian pepperberry bitters in blanking on the name of
Thin shave of lemon rind

Herby and delicious, not dry in the slightest but I'm OK with that.

I haven't yet tried paring the St George with Maidenii vermouth - could be great or could tip over into medicinal.

Non-dry (what's the word? sweet?) vermouth-forward cocktails are basically my favourite drinks.

I'm looking more for 'balanced' than sweet but yes vermouth forward is great and it's great that one can lay one's hands on such a diversity of vermouth. .

more dead rabbit:

1.5 oz. cognac
1 oz. bonal gentiane
.5 oz. anisette
.25 oz. amaro sibilla
4 dashes aromatic bitters (dead rabbit/angostura/boker's/whatever you have)
lemon peel

without getting into nonsense superlatives this is an incredible recipe; if you can find the things to make it you should make it.

i have a bunch of oranges that have been peeled for garnish and a bottle of famous grouse that i don't really want so i'm amusing myself trying to fix the blood and sand, which famously consists of 4 sweetish ingredients without contrast. neutral cocktail acids (i have lactart) were pretty much invented for doing this, so now it's about fixndng proportions and moving the result from pleasant to interesting. tonight:

1.5 oz. famous grouse
.75 oz. oj
.5 oz. cherry heering
.5 oz. dolin rouge
1/2 tsp lactart

this is fine! doesn't suck at all. i think a vermouth with more character, or added bitters, plus a smidge more acid could really work well.

What not to do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWeVRxR1qek

I present to you all tales of true disasters

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/your-saddest-desperation-cocktails-ranked-1825899419

i once did blue gatorade powder and bacardi 151 and just enough water to make it actually stay a mix, needless to say it was a disaster and ended with me pulling a strange couch into my backyard

that’s a great article. i did some stupid shit but probably nothing as creative as any of those.