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First Round is On Me: An occasionally interesting, often irreverent look at cocktail culture.
Echambers
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My two favorite consumables are cigars and cocktails. If youre like me, please feel free to post your favorite cocktail recipes here. Ill start.
Last year Jules and I went to Portland to celebrate her 40th birthday. We stayed in a funky little condo at the eastern most end of Hawthorn Street right across from the Sapphire Hotel. The Sapphire is an interesting place: At the turn of the century it was a seedy hotel inhabited by sailors, travelers, and ladies of the night. Just about what you would expect from a place that rented rooms by the hour, I suppose. We got there just as happy hour started and found an intimate table for two near the window.
I ordered something, and Jules ordered a drink called the Cherry Blossom Girl, a tipple of their invention. This is my interpretation.
The base of the drink is cherry-infused bourbon. You need to start this at least a month in advance by infusing about a pound and a half of cherries in a bottle of bourbon. You dont need top shelf bourbon for this drink but please dont pull from the bottom shelf either shoot for something eye-level if you can. The simplest way to infuse bourbon is to dump a pound and a half (or so) of cherries in a big enough jar, cover with bourbon, then stick the jar in a dark closet and wait. How long should you wait? That depends. If you make it with frozen cherries a month is fine. If you make them with fresh sour cherries or sweet cherries you need to add another month to this if you leave the cherries whole -- and by God, you should leave them whole so youll have a real cherry to garnish your next Manhattan instead of a rubbery, day glow abomination. Of course you should taste the bourbon along the way and use it only when there is a pronounced cherry flavor. Next, I soften the bourbon with a little cherry herring and then slap it around a little with a bit of homemade (of course) sour mix and a dash or two of bitters. While there is a broad range of bitters available across the county and most any will work in this cocktail you should try to get your hands on a bottle of Fee Brothers Cherry Bitters. You wont be disappointed.
How would I describe the Cherry Blossom Girl? She is sweet, of course but not too sweet. She also has a bit of a naughty side too, and that is what will keep you coming back for more.
Here is how I make mine:
1 ½ oz of cherry-infused bourbon
½ oz Cherry Herring
1 oz of homemade sour mix
A dash or two of bitters
Soda
Add bourbon, Cherry Herring, sour mix, and bitters to a high ball glass. Stir. Fill glass with ice and top with soda. Garnish with a cherry and serve with a straw if you like.
Last year Jules and I went to Portland to celebrate her 40th birthday. We stayed in a funky little condo at the eastern most end of Hawthorn Street right across from the Sapphire Hotel. The Sapphire is an interesting place: At the turn of the century it was a seedy hotel inhabited by sailors, travelers, and ladies of the night. Just about what you would expect from a place that rented rooms by the hour, I suppose. We got there just as happy hour started and found an intimate table for two near the window.
I ordered something, and Jules ordered a drink called the Cherry Blossom Girl, a tipple of their invention. This is my interpretation.
The base of the drink is cherry-infused bourbon. You need to start this at least a month in advance by infusing about a pound and a half of cherries in a bottle of bourbon. You dont need top shelf bourbon for this drink but please dont pull from the bottom shelf either shoot for something eye-level if you can. The simplest way to infuse bourbon is to dump a pound and a half (or so) of cherries in a big enough jar, cover with bourbon, then stick the jar in a dark closet and wait. How long should you wait? That depends. If you make it with frozen cherries a month is fine. If you make them with fresh sour cherries or sweet cherries you need to add another month to this if you leave the cherries whole -- and by God, you should leave them whole so youll have a real cherry to garnish your next Manhattan instead of a rubbery, day glow abomination. Of course you should taste the bourbon along the way and use it only when there is a pronounced cherry flavor. Next, I soften the bourbon with a little cherry herring and then slap it around a little with a bit of homemade (of course) sour mix and a dash or two of bitters. While there is a broad range of bitters available across the county and most any will work in this cocktail you should try to get your hands on a bottle of Fee Brothers Cherry Bitters. You wont be disappointed.
How would I describe the Cherry Blossom Girl? She is sweet, of course but not too sweet. She also has a bit of a naughty side too, and that is what will keep you coming back for more.
Here is how I make mine:
1 ½ oz of cherry-infused bourbon
½ oz Cherry Herring
1 oz of homemade sour mix
A dash or two of bitters
Soda
Add bourbon, Cherry Herring, sour mix, and bitters to a high ball glass. Stir. Fill glass with ice and top with soda. Garnish with a cherry and serve with a straw if you like.
-- "There's something that doesn't make sense. Let's go poke it with a stick."
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Use one glass
2 ice cubes
fill the glass 3/4 full of Stranahan's Whiskey
Drink
Repeat a number of times
Marry Xmas
But anyway, back to the drink, it was an orange flavor that looked a lot like orange soda but taste was out of this world. it was served with lemon sorbet in a frozen lemon rind garnished with sugar. Just amazing. I can't find the right recipe, most of the ones online are slightly different.
Ice, 2-3 Seconds pour of Vodka, 1 second pour of Triple Sec, Cranberry to taste, and squeeze of lime. Shaken and poured.
1 sugar cube
A dash or two of bitters
A half a slice of orange
A couple of cherries
1 1/2 oz Burbon
Soda
Another slice of orange and a cherry to garnish.
Drop the sugar cube in the bottom of an Old Fashion glass, pour the bitters over the sugar cube amd let the bitters soak in for a minute. Add the orange slice and cherry and muddle. Fill with ice, pour in the Burbon and top of with soda water. Garnish with the orange and cherry.
. Also make a holiday version with a teaspoon of cranberry sauce in place of the cherry in the muddle. But you have to use home made cranberry sauce not the canned variety.
For my easy winter cocktail, I submit for your approval, the Hot Buttered Whiskey.
Ingredients:
1 sugar cube or 1 1/2 tsp brown sugar
2 oz Bourbon or Rye (Sweet or Spicy)
Pat of unsalted butter
dash of Cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
dash of clove
Place all ingredients in an 8 oz mug, muddle if using sugar cube. Top with boiling water, stir once and enjoy.
Lime juice, sugar, mint, white rum, and club soda.
I rarely order them out though, bars/restaurants are always f**king it up. I've been served mojitos with no lime juice, no mint leaves, and even once was served one that was made with vodka instead of rum. YUCK!
Only found 1 restaurant that makes them consistently good....
But in the warmer months I'll make them at home all the time.
Some fresh mint from the garden, and our lime trees now mature and should start producing good fruit again when it warms up. mmm, yum.
Other than that....give me an old fashioned, or a manhattan - hard for bartenders to mess those up.
* I have a new address as of 3/24/18 *
I'm going to make this for sure!
What you will need:
1 jar candied cherries (I like Luxardo, but use your favorites)
Southern Comfort
Absinthe
Heavy Whipping Cream
Confectioner's Sugar
Dark Rum
Vanilla Ice Cream
Coca Cola made from cane sugar. Usually in your Mexican foods aisle.
Pre-work:
Take cherries and dump in a 1 pint mason jar. Fill remainder of jar with Southern Comfort and shake until well mixed. Store in fridge for at least a week (month prefered), shaking daily.
Morning of:
Make Whipped Cream following normal recipe, substitute 1 oz of Absinthe for every teaspoon of Vanilla you would normally add.
Now to enjoy:
Take a nice frosted mug, fill with 2 oz Rum and 8 oz Coca Cola. Float one scoop of the Vanilla Ice Cream and 1 oz more rum. Top with a generous dollop of your whipped cream and a SoCo cherry from your jar. Add straw and enjoy with your favorite ISOM.
Any recipe that uses alcohol containing a psychotropic substance is right up my alley!! James, I'll definitely give this a try!
My first batch was watered down, I used less water and more sugar the second time, but it still wasn't sweet. I also saw some recipes that used maple syrup and ginger liquer... may have to substitute some ginger beer for the water.
I had more hotel than I needed, especially now that I was most assuredly sleeping alone, and more money than common sense.
I was drinking a cocktail called a Sea Breeze which is a slightly bitter cocktail made with vodka, cranberry juice, and grapefruit juice served over ice in a tall glass. I admit this only for the sake of historical accuracy. I suppose if I were sitting on the beach and a tropical sea breeze was blowing through my hair this might have been a good drink to have in hand but in a hotel bar in the heart of the Nations Capital, it was silly.
The bar was crowded for 3 oclock in the afternoon and as we all know there are few things more lonely that being alone in a crowded bar. I was just about to order another drink when a woman twice my age leaned over and whispered, Why dont you let me buy you a real drink? The idea of free booze was enough to make me overlook the fact that she likely had kids my age.
What she ordered was this: Chivas, neat, with just a space of water.
In the world of cocktails, vodka rains supreme, followed by rum, and gin. Very few mixed drinks are made with scotch--after all, cocktails were invented to tame rough spirits and scotch aficionados would suggest that good scotch doesnt need to be mixed with anything else. Of course nowadays you could make that argument about any premium spirit: good tequila, for example, doesnt need a margarita to find fulfillment.
Ill end this part of the story here, if for no other reason then to save the reputation of a women who is most likely a grandmother by now and get back to the point of the story which was to share my recipe for the Penicillin Cocktail
The Penicillin is one of the few scotch-based cocktails of merit. Its made with a both a blended scotch (like Chivas) and a single malt (like Laphroig, though really any single malt from the Island if Islay would do just fine), lemon juice, and a simple syrup made with honey and ginger. Here is how I make mine:
Start with the simple syrup: bring 1 cup of water, 1 cup of honey, and three or four healthy slices of fresh ginger just to a boil of medium heat, stirring constantly. Simmer for a few minutes until the honey and water are completely integrated. Let cool with the ginger still in the pot. Once cool remove the ginger and store in a clean bottle in the refrigerator. This will keep indefinitely but my guess is you will be making this often.
2 oz. blended scotch
¾ oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
¾ oz. honey/ginger simple syrup
¼ oz. single malt scotch
Add the blended scotch, lemon juice, and simple syrup to a cocktail shaker full of ice and shake until frost starts to form on the outside of the shaker. Strain and pour into a rocks or old fashioned glass. Pour the single malt over the top of the cocktail so that it floats on the top. Garnish with a slice of candied ginger if you must.
Ingredients:
1 oz Blended Scotch (I use Monkey Shoulder)
1 oz Blood Orange juice (Fresh squeezed is the way to go on this, don't skimp)
3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth
3/4 oz Heering Cherry Liqueur.
Place everything into your cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake until well chilled (about 10 seconds). Pour into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with cherry and a twist of that blood orange.