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

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.

Yuck. Didn't they just recently rank two ingredient cocktails? Along those lines, I picked up Robert Simonson's 3-Ingredient Cocktails book. Some good stuff in there, some twists as well as old standards.

friend and i split a bottle of vodka and cherry kool aid once.

but worst drink was probably "turbo diesel"

Tennent's Super lager (9%)
Frosty Jack's Cider (7%)
Blackcurrant
Vodka

My dad used to make snakebite out of Tennents Super and Ice Dragon. Ice Dragon is one of the most revolting white ciders I've ever drank, although tbh all white ciders are pretty revolting. I used to favour "British fortified wine" i.e. sherry for bargain boozing. I think white cider is the most ABV/£ though.

Happy are the days when I can afford to get pissed on Polish lager instead of that shite

You can't beat a good old 4-pack of Tyskie

You can, you can have a 4-pack of Warka Strong, Okocim Mocne or Zubr!

I used to often see groups of Polish workers coming off the nightshift at the britvic factory and supping something looking quite strong at 6am. respect!

Xmas presents included Amy Stewart's great The Drunken Botanist and the Dead Rabbit Drinks Manual, and now all I want to do is make tinctures, cordials, liqueurs and such. I barely drink and the bar shelf in my pantry keeps crowding out actual food.

i've made several of the dead rabbit tinctures. the mace one is pretty cool.

I'm getting better at this! Still bad though, especially at stirring. Dilution is hard.

Last night I made a white negroni with 1.5oz gin, 1oz Dolin Blanc, 1oz Suze - promising for a first attempt, I'll keep tinkering with the proportions.

what kind of vessel and ice do u use for stirred?

my basic outline for stirring is: mixing glass chilled in freezer, cracked ice topped off with full cubes, stir for longer than you think.

i'm loving this dead rabbit sazerac variation using a split base of good brandy from spain and france (they name specific brands but i'll genericize the ingredients where i can):

1 oz. premium cognac
1 oz. long-aged spanish brandy
1 tsp pot-still or blackstrap rum
1 tsp simple syrup
1 tsp creme de cacao
1 dash aromatic bitters
4 dashes peychaud's bitters
oil and peel from two lemon coins

stir all that with ice and strain into an absinthe-rinsed glass

A trip to Manhattan in January inspired this marvelous purchase last Friday:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41nl8vrpreL._SY445_.jpg

i just got a bottle of that stuff! i haven't figured out its full implications but as a big fan of floral/herbal modifiers it's really compelling.

At Dante the bartender added it to a Negroni. Yesterday it substituted for vermouth (a splash) in my martini -- marvelous.

it's definitely a natural partner for gin

What a coincidence, I was just messing with fresh bergamot tonight. Dehydrated the peel of 2 fruit and started a tincture on Everclear, and had a drink of 2 parts gin to 1 part fresh bergamot juice, with a bit of Aperol for sweetness. I have about 4 oz. of juice left to play with.

while this is bumped, anyone got some good recipes for pisco that isn't a pisco sour? I have a bottle of the Peruvian stuff (aged in glass, not oak like the Chilean version) and I am just not a sour fan.

Ha, Alfred, I love that you're into Italicus. I have a bottle myself. Great mixed with prosecco.

Actually, the main reason I have it is that as soon as it was introduced, my wife fell in love with the Art Deco bottle, and so that was an easy birthday present. To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out how best to use it, too.

Also, the super-crazy thing about this thread revive is that I was just about to post here about how *I'm* enjoying a Dead Rabbit cocktail tonight:

1.25 oz Smith & Cross rum (used Doctor Bird)
0.5 oz Zapaca 23 rum (used Plantation 5 Year)
0.25 Cruzan blackstrap rum
0.25 oz Benedictine
0.25 oz PX sherry
0.25 oz allspice dram
3 dashes Orinoco bitters (used Angostura)
3 dashes mole bitters (used 2 dashes Aphrodite bitters + 1 dash chocolate bitters)

That sazerac variation sounds good, tho. CAD, what kind of Spanish brandy do you use? Torres? I'm totally unfamiliar with the style.

they use torres 15 year old but i can’t find that in mass. i’m using cardenal mendoza gran reserva which is really tasty stuff. nothing at all like cognac so it’s a nice blend of flavors.

Ha, Alfred, I love that you're into Italicus. I have a bottle myself. Great mixed with prosecco.

― jaymc, Monday, February 25, 2019 11:52 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Actually, the main reason I have it is that as soon as it was introduced, my wife fell in love with the Art Deco bottle, and so that was an easy birthday present. To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out how best to use it, too.

― jaymc, Monday, February 25, 2019

Yes! I bought Italicus because the bottle was a beautiful blue, then I figured out what I'm supposed to do with it.

italicus experiment:

1.5 oz. plymouth gin
1.5 oz. dolin dry vermouth
.25 oz. italicus
dash bittermens burlesque
lemon twist

decent start, i wanted the italicus to be an undertone but still prominent if that makes any sense. needs a little more body, prob a different gin and different proportions.

btw sleeve i'm sorry i can't think of a pisco recipe that isn't on some kind of sour template. i scanned the death & co. book index and it seems like your best bet would be to pair it with stuff like blanc vermouth, cocchi americano, and st germain--basically light-colored, herbal, sweet things. i can repost a couple specific recipes but don't want to assume what the rest of your liquor cabinet looks like.

thank you! good excuse to get some cocchi americano, I only have dry + sweet vermouth. I could see using a splash of St. Germain and maybe mint? I'll experiment.

italicus experiment:

1.5 oz. plymouth gin
1.5 oz. dolin dry vermouth
.25 oz. italicus
dash bittermens burlesque
lemon twist

what I mixed on Sunday without the lemon -- I figured it was too much?

Cocchi Americano is a great sub for Lillet Blanc in a Corpse Reviver No. 2.

i know some would disagree with this but cocchi renders lillet irrelevant, it's the exact same thing with significantly better depth of flavor.

That italiccus bottle is so beautiful.

Tried out a manhattan last night that subbed in Cynar 70 for vermouth. Not bad.

happy to report that 2 oz Peruvian pisco, 3/4 oz cocchi americano, 1/2 oz St. Germain, and an orange garnish is an excellent combo, thanks cad!

awesome! glad to hear it.