A couple of weeks back, after I documented my experiment with making my own falernum, a very kind visitor to this site who happens to also live in Seattle contacted me by e-mail and offered me the remainder of a bottle of Velvet Falernum, so I could compare the commercial product to my home-made variety. Tonight I sat down and put the falernums through their paces; here’s how it turned out.

Test #1: Falernum, neat, in snifters

I poured small amounts of each of the falernums–the homemade, in the bottle on the left, and Velvet Falernum, on the right–into snifters (well, sherry glasses really, but they’ll have to do).

The homemade version had a much more subdued smell, with the mild aroma of cloves and lime, but with a certain fresh fruitiness to it. The Velvet Falernum, on the other hand, was much brighter and aromatic, with a more assertive fruit fragrance, yet the fruitiness seemed a bit more synthetic–not as fresh as in the homemade. (I should point out two things here: first, Velvet Falernum contains lime juice, while the homemade does not (I was afraid that adding fresh juice would compromise the falernum’s shelf-life); second, Velvet Falernum lists an ABV of 11 percent; I don’t know offhand what my homemade weighs in at, but I’m pretty certain it’s less than 11 percent. The increased alcohol content could play a role in the assertiveness of the aroma).

When tasting them neat, I noticed the homemade presented it’s sweetness first, with a gentle spicy finish, and a faint hint of fresh lime at the end. Velvet Falernum was a bit more savory (while still tasting just as, if not more, sweet as the homemade). The VF was tangier, but still had a fruitiness that seemed “fake” to my palate, as compared to the fresher-tasting homemade.

Test #2: Corn ‘n Oil

I previously mentioned my first experience with Corn ‘n Oil, a drink made of equal parts rum and falernum, with a dash of bitters, stirred with ice & then strained into an ice-filled glass. The C&O seemed a good candidate to let each of these falernums demonstrate how they play with others. For both drinks, I used Mount Gay Eclipse rum and Fee Bros. Old-Fashioned Aromatic Bitters.

In the Velvet Falernum C&O, the fruity flavor was dominant–there was no trace of the Cuba Libre-like taste I’d mentioned in my initial trial with this drink. The 1:1 ratio of falernum to rum still made a very sweet drink, but there was a more pronounced spiciness, I assume brought out by the bitters. Even with a full-bodied rum like Mount Gay, the falernum was dominant in the glass.

With the homemade falernum, I detected a deeper, smoother sweetness. The taste was more complex, and the flavor of the cloves in the liqueur seemed to marry with that of the spices in the bitters more thoroughly.

Test #3: add fresh lime juice to the Corn ‘n Oil

Since my homemade version doesn’t contain lime juice, I decided to level the playing field a bit by squeezing a lime wedge into the C&O containing my stuff; after tasting them side by side, I’d then add the same amount of fresh lime to the VF version.

That was it–the fresh juice brought the C&O with homemade falernum to life. The fruitiness I’d detected in the Velvet Falernum became apparent, but brighter and fresher, as you’d expect using a fresh lime. When juice was added to the Velvet version, it improved the drink, but the commercial falernum was still dominant, and at this point, not in a good way.

Test #4: blind taste test with an unsuspecting family member

Concerned I might be biased in favor of my homemade falernum, I presented the two glasses to my wife, who had no idea what was going on. After tasting each Corn ‘n Oil, with lime juice added, she pronounced the one made with domestic stuff to have a smoother sweetness to it, while the Velvet variety was more flavorful but not as pleasant, with a bitter edge to it.

Conclusion

I’m not going out of my way to shop for Velvet Falernum. Instead, I’ll be sure to give a small squeeze of lime juice to drinks I make with my homemade, to bring out that bright freshness it lacks. And, the next batch around, I’ll also add more cloves to the mix, and maybe some grated ginger, to ramp up the spiciness angle just a bit more.

Questions?

Technorati tag: cocktails

Tags: Falernum, Special Projects by Paul
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For rabid cocktail geeks such as myself—our bookshelves filled with yellowed old copies of Thomas, Boothby, Bergeron and Baker (and less-tattered though no-less-loved editions of Wondrich, Regan and Haigh); our kitchen cabinets sagging beneath bottles of assorted Italian bitters and an array of obscure liqueurs; our maddeningly circuitous internet debates about what makes a martini a martini and how many bottles of vermouth can dance on the head of a pin—for those of us who would walk barefoot through a blizzard for a bottle of pre-Prohibition rye, Seattle’s Zig Zag Café is one of only a handful of establishments in the country, and probably the world, worthy of calling itself a true cocktail bar.

Think of it as you would a restaurant: there are places you go for your typical, day-in day-out meals—that’s like your local or your favorite weekend spot, and while they may aspire no higher than to pour a decent beer and a shot (or a plain old vodka tonic), the world would be a much sorrier place without them. Then there are the places where you may go less frequently, where the quality (and price) is typically higher, and you’re certain to leave satisfied, though usually unsurprised—these are your higher-end hotel and restaurant bars and ambitious cocktail bars, and I’m pleased to have a drink in most any of them at any time. Then, though, there are the paradigm-shifters: the places that carefully sit you down while they very pleasurably rearrange the circuitry in your brain regarding everything you thought you knew about food (or, in this case, drink) so you walk out the door with a slightly different worldview than you had when you walked in–places that combine a deep understanding of basics and a mastery of craft with genuine touches of artistry. These places, which are happily growing in number, prepare the meals and drinks you remember years later, giving you new baselines against which all future meals and drinks will be judged.

The latter is the category, in my estimation, where Zig Zag belongs. (And unlike restaurants such as The French Laundry, where having your perspective adjusted will set you back several C notes, Zig Zag has a $5 happy hour.) I’m not alone in having this viewpoint, of course: no less an authority than Robert “Drinkboy” Hess counts Zig Zag among his favorites; the bar was recently selected by Seattle magazine as the best cocktail bar in the city; and one of our normally stodgy local dailies recently profiled Zig Zag’s master bartender, Murray Stenson.

Owned by bartenders, and staffed most weeknights by Murray, Zig Zag draws heavily on the classic bar manuals, using time-tested recipes (and adapting new drinks) that are rooted in complexity and balance, rather than novelty and whimsy. Consider this one, that I sampled last week:

Orange Blossom
(I failed to ask Murray for the proper recipe–or for its origins–but based on its flavor and aroma, I’d guess this recipe would be a good starting point):

• 2 oz gin
• .5 oz Cointreau
• dash orange bitters
• 2-3 drops orange flower water
• small dash Pernod

Serve straight-up with a long strip of orange peel.

The orange flower water gives the drink a distinctive perfume. It reminded me of pleasant summer afternoons, like attending a friend’s wedding in the bride’s parents’ garden, with the smell of flowers and the glow of gentle sunlight.

A search through the literature doesn’t turn up anything like this mix (the Orange Blossoms to be found in books such as The Stork Club Bar Book and Patrick Gavin Duffy’s Standard Bartender’s Guide are composed of simply gin and orange juice–nowhere near the flavor complexity of Zig Zag’s version), but the drink’s layers of flavor and heady, perfume-like aroma make me think of something from The Gentleman’s Companion (though I found nothing in there, either).

Even if this is a house creation of Ben, Kacy or Murray, the thought and understanding that went into its development evince a thorough familiarity with the cardinal rules of fine mixology. It’s a drink that I was still thinking about when I left the bar, and that I find myself mulling over several days later, weighing the different proportions in my head and trying to figure out how the taste remained so bright and dry while the fragrance proved so engaging.

Clearly–clearly–more research is needed.

Technorati tag: cocktails

Tags: Drinks, Establishments by Paul
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We each have our own personal heat misery index. Here in Seattle, it seems like most people have theirs tuned to around 85 degrees Fahrenheit–at least, that’s where the thermometer is hanging when you really start to hear the bitching. After seven years here, I’m becoming more susceptible to it myself. I’m forgetting how miserable a summer day can sometimes be, like when I lived on the East Coast and the subway tunnels functioned like pizza ovens in the middle of the night, when the temperature and humidity were duelling to see which could hang on to 100 for the longest (I know, it still happens–it is happening–just not in my life, not right now). I’ve grown soft.

Still, there are days when the heat makes things uncomfortable, even in Seattle, and on the roughest of those days, I turn to this great heat-misery obliterator, a tried and true summer cooler that predates air-conditioning: the Gin Rickey.

Gin Rickey

• 2 ounces gin
• 1/2 lime, washed
• club soda

Squeeze the juice from the lime into a highball glass; toss in the spent shell. Add the gin, and fill the glass with ice. Top with club soda (a spritz from a chilled soda siphon makes preparing this drink extra-satisfying). Stick in a straw, and go sit on the porch.

The rickey’s pedigree as a heat-buster is indisputable. In one of the great tomes of mixology & mixological history, Old Waldorf Bar Days (1931), Albert Stevens Crockett credits its origins to a bartender at a place called Shoemakers, in Washington, D.C.–and DC is no slouch in the heat index department. Shoemakers, Crockett writes, was a favorite watering hole for lobbyists and members of Congress back in the day, and one of these lobbyists was known as Colonel Joe Rickey. During an exceptionally hot spell, one of the bartenders made a new drink by simply squeezing lime juice into a glass containing gin, then hosing it down with the soda siphon. Rickey just happened to be the first patron to try the new drink–says Crockett, “Colonel Rickey was ‘agreeable.’ He quickly tossed off the offering, smacked his lips, announced that it ‘hit the spot,’ and demanded another. Whereupon the barman denominated the drink the ‘Gin Rickey.”

The Rickey’s name and simple ingredient list make it sound like one of your grandfather’s drinks. But this is a time to honor your elders–back in the days before AC, when a little internal temperature control was needed, curious minds came up with great things, and this falls into that category.

One note about the Rickey: some recipes call for sugar to be added to the drink. The writers of these recipes are well-intentioned; they also happen to be wrong. The Rickey needs no sweetener (though, on special occasions, adding a small dash of maraschino liqueur to the glass produces not disagreeable results)–the lime’s tartness is tempered by the gin, and a good dose of seltzer takes the edges off everything. Besides, on a hot day, you want something dry and crisp, that’ll put you back in fighting condition before the next August morning rolls around.

Technorati tag: cocktails

Tags: Drinks, Gin by Paul
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