Just over a year ago, in an article in the New York Times Magazine, Ted Haigh–otherwise known as “Dr. Cocktail”–made a pronouncement with such certainty and determination that I had no choice but to take it as gospel. While sorting through the contents of his extensive liquor cabinet, Haigh walks the writer through some of his most significant holdings.

…Doc has over the past decade and a half steadily amassed a library of some 900 spirits and liqueurs, most of them old, many of them long defunct. They include a pre-1913 bottle of Pernod absinthe that would sell for thousands of dollars today; a 1970′s bottle of Jamaican allspice liqueur (“the most important liqueur in the world!” Doc declared); and a Prohibition-era bottle of nonalcoholic gin that had given rise to a menacing blob of phlegmy hate floating near the bottom. [emphasis mine]

[click here for Doc's site, which contains a link for a PDF of this article]

Well, if you were a cocktail geek like me–and if you’ve read this far, then you probably are–then what would you do? You’d try to find some goddamn allspice liqueur, that’s what.

Problem is, this rare Jamaican product is not currently imported into the U.S. And since a trip to the Caribbean just isn’t in my immediate future, it looks like I’m completely out of luck.

Well, almost. True, obtaining a bottle of the authentic Wray & Nephew stuff doesn’t seem like it’s happening soon, but last February, Chuck Taggart listed a recipe for a homemade version on his site, the Gumbo Pages. (Chuck also refers to it by its other common name, Pimento Dram–pimento, of course, being the term for the allspice berries which give the liqueur its flavor, and having nothing whatsoever to do with those red things that stare up at you like the pupils of fish-eyes in your martini).

And so, after putting the project off while dealing with other mixological matters (falernum, gomme, several yet-to-be-posted experiments with ginger beer), last month I finally got the goods together and set forth to prepare my own batch of the elusive pimento dram. Here’s Chuck’s recipe, which I followed pretty much verbatim (though I did cut it in half to make a smaller amount):

Pimento Dram (a.k.a. Allspice Liqueur)

• 2 1/4 cups 151 proof Lemon Hart Demerara rum
• 1/2 cup whole dried allspice berries
• 3 cups water
• 1 1/2 pounds brown sugar

Using a mortar, coarsely crush the allspice berries and place in a jar. Cover with the rum and seal tightly. Let the mixture steep for at least 10 days, agitating it daily. [Warning: if you open the jar and sniff it at some point, you may have the urge to chuck the whole foul-smelling mess. Resist the urge--it gets better later on.]

Pour the mixture through a fine strainer, pressing on the solids to extract as much rum-spicy goodness as you can. Pour the liquid again through a coffee filter.

Make a 1:1 simple syrup using your brown sugar and water, heating and stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Let the syrup cool, then add it to your infused rum. Bottle it tightly in a clean, sterilized bottle, and let it rest for at least one month. [note: if you get curious while you're bottling it--and you will--the young mixture will still taste a bit odd, with the "heat" from the high-proof rum seeming to make the mix pretty rough and unbalanced. Patience.]

After waiting a whole freaking month for the stuff to be ready, you can finally break into it and taste. Wow. Zig Zag Cafe‘s archbishop of bartending, Murray Stenson, referred to pimento dram as “Christmas in a glass,” and he’s completely right–not only does the warm gentle flavor of allspice bring back just about every delightful childhood memory of the holidays, but the aged mixture tones down the rum’s rough edges, so you have a delightful spiciness with a smooth, brown-sugary base and the twinkle of hearty rum in the aftertaste.

The next step, of course, is to explore cocktails with the new creation. CocktailDB.com has ten or so, at least a couple of which I intend to try as soon as this head cold that’s been mucking up my sense of taste for the past couple of days clears up. But otherwise, I’m open for ideas.

Suggestions?

Technorati tag: cocktails, rum, liqueur, pimento dram

Tags: Pimento Dram, Special Projects by Paul
11 Comments »

Another mystery drink. Earliest known reference is in Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts, from 1949 (though over at the Esquire Drinks Database, David Wondrich says Murdoch Pemberton originally wrote it up in Esquire in 1937, but since copies of that issue don’t seem to be floating around much anymore, I’ll say 1949 is the earliest printed version you’re likely to come across.)

No matter. It’s a delicious cocktail, and quite easy to make. Be sure to use a decent rum–the 1949 recipe calls for Bacardi, which is servicable I suppose, but I like these with the richer tasting Flor de Cana Extra Dry, which manages to provide a firm foundation to the bossy taste of Grand Marnier. (If anybody happens to have some Havana Club on hand and gives this drink a spin, I’d love to hear the outcome. The Batiste just has Cuba written all over it.)

Batiste

• 2 ounces white rum
• 1 ounce Grand Marnier

Stir with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Technorati tag: cocktails,rum

Tags: Drinks, Rum by Paul
3 Comments »

Origins? Dunno. History? Beats me.

Thanks to Ben down at Zig Zag Cafe for turning me on to this one. I was looking for another good calvados cocktail, and this one fits the bill perfectly. Ben used a nice French calvados that gave the drink the taste of fresh fruit; at home, I tried it with Clear Creek’s Eau de Vie de Pomme, which is somewhat drier, but still gives a nice, layered experience.

Ante

• 1 1/4 ounce Calvados
• 1/2 ounce Dubonnet rouge
• 1/4 ounce Cointreau
• dash Angostura

Stir with ice; strain into chilled glass; figure out the rest.

Technorati tag: cocktails

Tags: Calvados, Drinks, Vermouth by Paul
1 Comment »

On February 7, 1882, a former hod-carrier and assistant plumber from Boston named John L. Sullivan met Paddy Ryan in a bareknuckle heavyweight bout in Mississippi City, Mississippi. Sullivan was a rising star in boxing–having gone pro in 1877 after knocking celebrated boxer Tom Scannel into the orchestra pit at Boston’s Dudley Street Opera House, and having scored a legendary knockout against John “Bull’s Head Terror” Flood during a match on a floating barge in the Hudson River just a year previous.

But in 1882, Ryan was the champ–until February 7. The fight, which had initially been scheduled to take place in New Orleans until the governor issued a proclamation against it, was a London Rules, $2,500 winner-take-all bout, and Sullivan owned it from the beginning. By the ninth round, Sullivan’s relentless attacks had withered Ryan’s defenses, and after a glancing right to the jaw, Ryan hugged the mat and Sullivan took the title (informal as it was in those days) of heavyweight champion of the world. It was a position he’d hold for the next ten years.

Bartenders in that era knew a thing or two about bareknuckle boxing. Ryan had first established his sparring reputation while running a saloon in upstate New York. And Sullivan had more than a passing knowledge of such places; he spent his teenage years looking for fights in Boston barrooms, and late in his life, he was fond of saying that the only fighter that ever beat him was whiskey. Indeed, many sportswriters of the era cited Sullivan’s indulgent lifestyle as a key factor in his 1892 loss of the championship to Jim Corbett.

Mississippi Punch is a bareknuckle bout in a glass. A solid four ounces of liquor goes into one glass of punch, with just a light touch of lemon and sugar to take the edge off. Despite its fearsome strength, Mississippi Punch is quite a tasty tipple–the blend of brandy, rum and bourbon roughhousing about in the glass, but still all working together, like the defensive line on a football team.

First appearing in print in Jerry Thomas’ landmark The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, or The Bon-Vivant’s Companion, Mississippi Punch is a formidable concoction, yet one worth getting to know. Just make sure you call it “sir.”

Mississippi Punch (Thomas’ recipe)

• 1 wine-glass of brandy [2 ounces]
• 1/2 do. Jamaica rum [1 ounce]
• 1/2. do. Bourbon whiskey [1 ounce]
• 1/2 do. water [ignore this if you like--your ice adds what you need]
• 1 1/2 table-spoonful of powdered white sugar [do yourself a favor and cut this back to 2 teaspoons]
• 1/4 of a large lemon [1/2 ounce]

Fill a tumbler with shaved ice.
The above must be well shaken, and to those who like their draughts “like linked sweetness long drawn out,” let them use a glass tube or straw to sip the nectar through. The top of this punch should be ornamented with small pieces of orange, and berries in season.

Technorati tag: cocktails

Tags: Bourbon, Brandy, Drinks, Gettin' Jerry With It, Rum by Paul
No Comments »

It’s been a busy couple of weeks around here, and the future doesn’t look much better. Between family obligations, household issues and other life matters that deserve no further attention in this space, there hasn’t been much time to ponder vital Cocktail Chronicles-type questions–such as, “how much Benedictine do you really need to use in a Derby?,” or “what happens if you soak a vanilla bean in Lemon Hart Demerara overproof for a week, then add muscovado syrup to bring it down to a reasonable proof and let it age for a month?”

A hectic time, as you can tell.

But even on hectic days, thirst comes calling. And the busier and more stressful the day (or the slower and lazier–funny how much those sometimes have in common), the more pressing is the need for a straightforward, no-nonsense chin-bracer–the sort of drink that requires little to no effort to make, but offers unparalleled excellence in its ability to moisten the clay with the utmost efficiency and style. On these sorts of days, only one drink will do: the Old Fashioned.

True to its name, the Old Fashioned is a reaaally old drink–it predates Jerry Thomas, stretching back into the Dark Ages of American mixology. But I’ll spare you the historic details–did I mention I’ve been busy?–and get right down to business.

There are several ways to make an Old Fashioned; most of them, unfortunately, are wrong. While I usually try to steer clear of the ideological arguments that frequently break out over various cocktails, the Old Fashioned is such a key weapon in any mixological arsenal that I feel it’s important to make an exception and throw down the Cocktail Chronicles’ guidelines for making a proper drink. To wit:

• No water or soda water shall be added to the drink (aside from the few drops–DROPS!– necessary to dissolve the sugar). If you’re a simple syrup-type person, first, recognize you’re not being completely authentic–then, pull out a rich 2:1 demerara syrup, or an old-style gomme syrup, if you’ve got any on hand. Whatever you use, use it sparingly–the Old Fashioned is not meant to be overly sweet.
• No fruit shall be muddled in the drink. Following on the above rule, an Old Fashioned is about whiskey, unsullied and undiluted–mashing up a bunch of oranges and day-glo cherries in the glass before adding the spirit is, in my humble estimation, a crime against nature. I know, everybody does it that way now, and it’s hard to order an Old Fashioned in a bar without getting a bunch of fruity goo floating in a sea of whiskey-flavored seltzer. But shouldn’t it be possible to create some sort of upswell of support where we restore the default on the Old Fashioned to the no-soda-no-muddling side? I mean, it can always be added to the drink for those who lack the intestinal fortitude to consume a real cocktail, but in the name of good whiskey and educated drinking, couldn’t the baseline be the good version, as pure as mother’s milk, saving the watery slime for those who actually like it enough to ask for it?
• Break out the good stuff. Not the great stuff–what, are you nuts?–but use a decent whiskey in the Old Fashioned. Recently I’ve been enjoying the bonded Old Granddad in these–it seems fitting, somehow–but I’m also fond of Old Fashioneds made with Wild Turkey 101, Weller 12-year-old, Knob Creek and Maker’s Mark. The drink is quite good with rye, too (another point in the OF’s favor), but you want one with a little assertiveness to it, such as Wild Turkey Rye or Van Winkle Family Reserve (I’ve heard the bonded Rittenhouse is excellent, though I have yet to lay hands on a bottle).
• For garnish, all you need is a strip of orange or lemon peel (if you just can’t get past the smushing-the-fruit thing, toss the peel in the glass when you first start out with the sugar, water and bitters, then work it out of your system through the honest labor of muddling). If you’re a bartender and you serve an Old Fashioned to me with full fruit regalia, I won’t make a fuss–add the orange wheel and cherry if you feel the need, but just place them on the top so I can flick them aside once you’ve turned your back.

Is creating a by-the-books Old Fashioned, sans fizzy water and fruity muck, the most important thing in the world? Of course not. But when you’ve had a bitch of a day, and a look at the calendar reveals a whole sequence of them still ahead of you, it can sure seem that way.

Old Fashioned

• 1 smallish sugar cube (or 1/2 to 1 tsp sugar, to taste) OR 1-2 tsp gomme syrup
• 2 dashes Angostura or Fee’s Old-Fashioned Aromatic Bitters
• a few drops of water
• 2 ounces bourbon or rye (or 3–what the hell)
• strip of orange or lemon peel

Place the sugar in an Old Fashioned glass, moisten with the water and bitters then muddle until dissolved (chuck the fruit peel in, if you like–I don’t). Add the whiskey, give it a quick stir, then add a big chunk of ice or two and stir again. Hit it.

Technorati tag: cocktails

Tags: Bourbon, Drinks, Rye by Paul
9 Comments »