Dusty Backbar?

I've mentioned in the past I have a collector's mentality. I like to collect things. There generally isn't anything wrong with that, but it is an aspect of my personality I try to keep in check. Aside from cocktails, one of my favorite hobbies is board gaming. I fell into that hobby pretty much by accident in the late 1990s, and now my board game collection requires so much shelf space that IKEA sends me Christmas cards. Recently, I've begun to realize I may be hitting a tipping point, where amassing more stuff for that hobby will require either (a) a bigger house, or (b) some judicious pruning. If something new comes in, something old needs to go. That sort of thing.

I'm also realizing it's possible reach a tipping point with cocktails. Most people just don't have bars big enough to house endless bottles of alcohol, and I'm no exception. Also, it just isn't realistic to have every type of alcohol on hand at all times--even for a large, commercial bar. 

In one of my earlier posts, I recommended MixologyTech's "PDT" iOS app, which is a great, handheld database of 400 cocktail recipes from the Please Don't Tell speakeasy in New York City. The app has some really cool features that play havoc with my need to collect all things. In addition to an inventory feature to track the contents of your home bar, it also matches your inventory to the included recipes and tells you (1) how many cocktails you can currently make, (2) how many cocktails you could make if you purchased just one or two more ingredients, and (3) what bottle you should buy next to have the greatest impact on (1) and (2). Super helpful and, for a person like me, also super evil. Having apps like these is like having a little, boozed-up devil sitting on my shoulder, whispering into my ear.

"You really need to buy a bottle of Gürztraminer. Otherwise, you will never know what the 'Idle Hands' cocktail tastes like."


"You can only make 97 of the 400 cocktails I could show you. If you buy a bottle of Fernet-Branca, you could make a smooth 100."


"100 is only 25% of my known cocktails." 


"..." 


"Oh. And you need more board games..." 


One would think it is insanity to buy a new bottle of liquor for just one cocktail, but I have done it. Multiple times. I recently visited a liquor store with a friend, and I walked out with a bottle of Cynar (an Italian digestif I wanted to use in an "Heirloom" cocktail, though I am still trying to source a bottle of Aftel Anise Hyssop Essence). He mocked me a bit and suggested I was the only person to buy a bottle of Cynar from that store in years, which may have been accurate (it was a pretty dusty bottle). But, I just smiled back and assured him this bottle was important. And maybe it will be, someday. For now, it sits unopened at the back of my bar, getting dustier.

This kind of behavior has resulted in a liquor cabinet I am proud of, but also a growing number of bottles accumulating a similar amount of dust. They will last, so that's not a problem, but I still feel the need to occasionally seek out new cocktails to give the MVPs of my bar a little break and shine some light on the less-celebrated players. That is the genesis of this week's cocktail:

The Drink:  South Slope

Ingredients Used:

• Plymouth Gin - 0.75 oz
• Aperol - 0.75 oz
• Lillet Blanc - 0.75 oz
• Pierre Ferrand Ancient Formula Orange Curaçao - 0.5 oz
• Lemon Juice - 0.5 oz

Recipe Courtesy of:   Michael Madrusan, Summer 2007 (PDT Cocktails Companion App)

This cocktail, conceived by Michael Madrusan (founder of PDT and Milk and Honey in New York) while living in Brooklyn, looked like a great way to explore two little-used ingredients in my bar--Aperol and Lillet Blanc.

Of the two, Lillet Blanc gets a lot more use in my house. But "a lot more use" than Aperol is still not very much use. A fortified wine similar to vermouth but much sweeter and with more pronounced flavor, it is an ingredient in one of my favorite cocktails: the "Corpse Reviver No. 2." If you've heard of Lillet, you're probably a James Bond fan. In the book Casino Royale, he ordered a modified martini that contained gin, vodka, and Lillet, and the resulting cocktail (dubbed a "Vesper" after his lover, Vesper Lynd) experienced a surge in popularity after the film version of Casino Royale was released in 2006. Like vermouth, Lillet is available in both white (blanc) and red (rouge) varieties, and this week's cocktail uses the white version.

Any time I'm able to use Lillet in a cocktail, I am happy to do so. I like what it brings to cocktails, but I'm even more motivated by the fact that it expires much more quickly than distilled spirits. It is fortified, but it is still wine, and it needs to be used relatively quickly after opening. Without a doubt, sherries and wines are the most annoying bottles to try to keep stocked in a home bar. 

This is a group of bottles that just screams "TASTY."

I've had a tougher time getting much use out of Aperol. Bright orange and appealing in color, it is part of a family of Italian apéritifs (which is French--I don't know why it isn't an "aperitivo," if it's Italian) that are quite bitter and very strong in character. Designed to stimulate the appetite before a meal, apéritifs are low in alcohol content, but they are still used in small amounts in cocktails due to their intense flavor. Campari is another, more bitter, example of an Italian apéritif, and it is called for much more often than Aperol, in my experience. 

Nonetheless, I picked up a bottle of Aperol quite some time ago for a particular cocktail, and I hadn't used it since, so I was very happy to use it in something new. 


The Prep:

No real trick to mixing this one. Simply pour each of the ingredients into a cocktail shaker, add ice, then shake it up. Alternatively, given the very small amount of lemon juice, I don't think anyone would blink if you preferred to stir your South Slope instead of shaking it. I don't recall if I've mentioned it before, but the accepted rule of thumb is that clear drinks should be stirred, and opaque drinks (especially those with fruit juices) should be shaken. Stirring mainly keeps the mixture from getting frothy, which is less desired in clear cocktails. 

Let's be honest, though. No one really cares that much, probably, unless your cocktail is one that absolutely needs shaking (something with egg white or lots of fruit juice, for example). Even James Bond is out there shaking the crap out of clear martinis, though we should acknowledge that, if you actually have a license to kill people, bartenders probably don't give you any lip when you offend their sensibilities. 

After a good shaking, pour the contents into a chilled coupe and garnish with a lemon twist. 

A little bit bubbly on top, because it is shaken, not stirred. <cue theme song>

The Verdict:

First off, I just have to say I love the color of this cocktail. With summer on the way, the bright orange screams warm weather and begs you to find out what it tastes like. 

For fun, compare to one of my failed cocktails from February, the "Purple" Rain:

Hideous.

So, the good news is I can achieve colorful cocktails when necessary. 

As for taste, the South Slope is a great little drink. With substantial amounts of citrus in the ingredient list (including Aperol, which is flavored with orange peels), it is probably no surprise that the primary takeaway from this drink is its orange flavor. I used Plymouth Gin because it is a great, dry gin with orange notes right up front, and it married very will with the curaçao, lemon, and bitter Aperol. Behind the blossoming orange, the juniper from the gin adds just the right amount of floral to the mix, and the finish is pretty nice. 

If I had one complaint, it would be that the curaçao was a little too heavy. With all of the orange going on, I wanted the gin to be a little more pronounced. I will be tempted to reduce the curaçao to a 1/4 oz next time, though that would probably also require the Aperol to be reduced to keep its bitterness in check. Ultimately, I'm just nitpicking here. I liked the drink, and it was the first cocktail my wife enjoyed that involved a bitter aperitif.  

By the way, I am introducing a rating scale with this blog post. I tend to enjoy most of the cocktails I try, so I think it may be difficult for readers to tell which cocktails really knock my socks off. It's pretty clear when I don't like something, but I fear the good-to-great cocktails may just get lost in a jumble if I don't have an at-a-glance rating system. While such ratings may be of limited utility in many ways, I think they capture the intangibles I am not likely to touch on in the text. 

That said, I give the South Slope a solid...

Rating:  

3.5 out of 5

 

In Which He Returns after a Very Long Absence...

Image courtesy of DeviantArt user "t0xiCSn0w," © 2010

Wow! So, I've been a bad blogger for at least a month now. I kicked off this whole thing promising myself I would write up a blog post every week, and then I fell off the face of the planet after only a month. Such is my work ethic, I suppose. For the fourteen of you checking in on a regular basis, mea culpa. For the rest of you, welcome to my blog! Please drop me a line to let me know which search engine misdirected you here. And stick around, if you want--I try to make it fun. Plus, history now teaches you may not get another opportunity for a month or more. (And, spoiler: there is no way fourteen people are checking in on a regular basis.)

In all seriousness, I had good reasons for losing my stride, initially. After that, it just kind of... lingered. I could have returned sooner. It became sort of like that thing you don't want to do because you haven't been doing it and continuing to not do it is easier than tackling the idea of doing it again after not doing it for so long... or something. Like when you missed Monday and Tuesday back-to-back in 3rd grade because you had a fever, and then Wednesday literally seemed impossible. Or when you were behind on a project in high school and didn't even know where to begin catching up. Or, something very similar to both of those hypotheticals but which has nothing to do with school. For whatever reason, my anxiety exemplars are all about grade school.    

...anyway. I'm back, and I will try to do better. The good news is I've built up a small backlog of things to write about--drinking is easier than writing a blog, so I've kept up with that end of things. From the Rye Negroni that fascinated (and incapacitated) me early in the month of March (pro tip: never overindulge in spirits as aggressively distinctive as Campari), to the various tiki drinks and flavorful punches I explored as the cold weather began to wane, there is a lot to choose from. And I'm sure I will share all of the highlights, at some point--there were a lot of really good ones in the month of the lion and the lamb, including the best MaiTai recipe I've ever tried.

But, I'm going to go a different direction for this post, because I'm not yet in the mood to really dig into a classic cocktail and try to relate what makes it tick. Instead, I'm going to share two very different cocktails (because two makes me feel better about being away so long), one of which I really detested, and one of which I really liked. The first one probably doesn't deserve to be called a "cocktail," actually. It is something more along the lines of what our good friend Pooh Bear is enjoying up at the top of this post, in an odd mix of pop art-ish commercial branding and weird, copyright-infringing appropriation.

With an introduction like that, I'm sure you won't be able to resist:


The Drink:  Fireball & Cream Soda

Ingredients Used:

• Fireball Cinnamon Whisky - Desired Amount
• A&W Cream Soda - Desired Amount
• Whipped Cream (optional)
• Cinnamon (optional)

Recipe Courtesy of:   A kid in middle school

Before I lose all credibility, allow me to state at the outset: This cocktail was not my fault. The only reason I became aware of it was my 14-year old son, who does not drink and whom I am not in the habit of getting drinking advice from. However, he is aware of my fervor for cocktails, and he was certain the new craze he had seen on YouTube would be right up my alley. (Btw, YouTube, we need to talk...)

The Fireball & Cream Soda is more properly described as a shot, I guess. And there is nothing about it that sets it apart from the other horrible concoctions people have dreamed up in an effort to get Really Drunk, Really Quick (never mind the fact that Fireball Cinnamon Whisky is actually pretty low on alcohol content, at just 33% ABV). Inventing weird, new shots is currently the party game du jour, and the rules are simple: (1) choose a random spirit, (2) mix it with juice, soda, or gelatin, (3) give it a catchy name based on food or sex, and (4) post an overexposed photo of your creation on Instagram. It's all in good fun, and it's mostly harmless, as long as you are not visiting your mixology crimes on otherwise-good alcohol. [Crime Scene Photo #1: Pooh Bear--I don't know anything about the artist as a person, but I do know he is wasting Cointreau. "You know nothing, t0xiCSn0w."]

Fortunately, Fireball Cinnamon Whisky is not good alcohol. Visit whatever sins and blasphemes you wish upon this demon-festooned bottle, for it cannot be worsened. 

Imagine a sickeningly sweet dram of thick, viscous cough syrup, then add a tongue-numbing dose of artificial cinammon flavoring, and you have a rough approximation of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky. For a closer approximation, refer to Rheanna O'Neil Bellomo, who likens it to "red hots soaked in water," or alternatively, "Big Red gum soaked in pee." It is thoroughly unpleasant, and nothing about it really suggests "drink me." 

The Prep:

Making a Fireball & Cream Soda shot is simple work, at least. Pour your desired amounts of Fireball and Cream Soda into a glass (n.b.--For best results, the "desired amount" should be zero ounces each). Then, throw it back and try to get it over with as soon as possible. 

I chose to add ice in an effort to soften the experience. Epic Fail. Just shoot it and be done with it.

It really does look like pee.

The Verdict:

I've since learned some people enjoy adding whipped cream and actual cinnamon to the top of this gnarly beverage, and in that guise it is known as a "Cinnamon Roll Shot." That is a better name, but I don't imagine the drink would be much improved by adding dairy. It is already intensely over-sweet and cloying, and if I'm going to have a dessert, it won't involve any products previously recalled due to an alleged similarity to anti-freeze.

Some shots are fun, some are tasty, some are neither. Some are so bad you write scathing blog posts about them. But then you also blog about a tasty drink to avoid wasting everyone's time: 

The (Tasty) Drink:  A Flambeau Wedding

Ingredients Used:

• Green sugar for rimming
• Belvedere Vodka - 2 oz
• Disaronno Originale Amaretto - 3/4 oz
• Simple Syrup - 1/4 oz
• Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice - 1/2 oz
• Pineapple Juice - 1/4 oz
• Green Chartreuse - 1/4 oz
• Prosecco - 1/4 oz 

Recipe Courtesy of:   Emeril Lagasse, 2017

While funky shots, disgusting or otherwise, are one way to get a party started, they are not my usual go-to. I ran across the recipe for A Flambeau Wedding while hunting for a great Mardi Gras cocktail back at the beginning of March. Along with a few other options featured at emerils.com, this seemed like a really great way to celebrate such a flamboyant holiday, and it also seemed like a great drink to feature on my blog. Fun ingredients, nice to look at, and lit on fire. That's blog-worthy.

It would have helped if I actually blogged about the drink in time for Mardi Gras, but... well, we've already covered that. 

I'm not sure how the name for this cocktail came about. A flambeau is the torch used in Mardi Gras parades to light up the street ahead of the parading krewes, but what that has to do with a wedding is entirely unclear. Nonetheless, it's kind of a great name for a cocktail, so I won't complain. One more note before we get to mixing: This recipe includes two spirits I want to devote more time to in the future--vodka and chartreuse--but I'm going to avoid a deep dive, for now. This blog post is already feeling very long, so a full discussion will need to wait.   

The Prep:

A Flambeau Wedding is prepared in a standard martini glass. First, moisten the rim with vodka, then twirl it in a shallow dish filled with green rimming sugar. Once you have a properly rimmed glass (and a poorly composed photograph of said glass), carefully measure out 1/4 ounce of Green Chartreuse and pour it into the glass. I say "carefully" because Chartreuse is powerful stuff--both in flavor profile and alcohol content. In this case, the flavor profile does add to the drink, but due to the small quantity called for by the recipe, I assume it is mainly added for the alcohol content. Because the next step is to light a match and set that beautiful green aflame, like so:

Once the Chartreuse is lit, pick up the glass by its stem and lightly swirl it around. This will coat the inside of the glass with wonderful Chartreuse flavor, and it will also astound your friends and family. Alternatively, it will spill and catch your house on fire. So, be careful.    

While the flame is still going, add all remaining ingredients except for the Prosecco to a cocktail shaker, add plenty of ice, then shake vigorously for about 15-20 seconds. Once suitably shaken, pour the contents of the cocktail shaker directly into your flaming glass, dousing the flames. Like so:

Pay no attention to those pesky limes. The limes were used for a different cocktail--like I said, it was a party!

The final step is to float the 1/4 ounce of Prosecco on top of the cocktail by pouring it slowly over the back of a small barspoon, then enjoy! 

The finished cocktail,  partially consumed. Also, cornbread.

The Verdict:

I'm always a little bit leery of cocktails that make the rounds online as great "party drinks." Many of them are outstanding, but a lot of them underwhelm. I tend to enjoy strong cocktails with a real focus on their base spirits, and vodka + various fruit juices is usually an equation for "meh," in my opinion.

Luckily, this cocktail was a great surprise. Not only is it a showpiece, literally on fire, but it tastes wonderful. The amaretto and hint of Chartreuse are just enough to punch up the non-flavor of the vodka, and the relatively heavy amount of juice and syrup doesn't dilute the drink to the point where it feels watered down. It is sweet, tangy, and smoothly appealing. A definite keeper.

Recommended! Even if you're not having a party.