It’s come up from time to time that I have a taste for absinthe. If you’re in Seattle this Sunday, March 7, you can join me for a glass or three at an Absinthe Soiree at the Sorrento Hotel, starting at 7pm.

We’ll be in the Fireside Room, and I’ll be in the company of fine folks such as Robert Hess (now, without facial hair!) from Small Screen Network, Gwydion Stone from Marteau and the Wormwood Society, and Marc Bernhard from Pacific Distillery. In addition to the absinthe tasting there’ll be French cabaret music, an absinthe-cocktail cash bar, some food to keep you steady while you have another taste of absinthe, and a bunch of folks who are similarly more interested in the green fairy than the Oscars’ red carpet. Tickets are only $20, and you can buy them here.

Hope to see you there.

Tags: Absinthe, Events // 1 Comment »

Hot on the heels of one of the most well-attended Mixology Mondays yet, the March round of MxMo could be even bigger. Hosting the March round (that’s Mixology Monday #47 if you’re counting) is Mike at Hobson’s Choice, and for this round Mike has chosen Punch as the theme. Here’s how Mike suggests participants approach the topic:

There aren’t really any specific limitations on this month’s subject. I emailed David Wondrich to ask if he had any pearls of wisdom for us as we take on the punch challenge. This was his response: “The thing I like to keep in mind while making Punch is that it is, as the London Physician Nicholas Falck defined it in 1779, ‘an extemporary kind of wine.’ It is not, in other words, simply a large cocktail. Like wine, it should be balanced, not too pungent, not too strong, and preferably not decked out in all sorts of gaudy frippery like something participating in the retail sex trade.”

Keep in mind that we are at that time of year when there are some wonderful citrus varieties available at the market. And in the warmer climates, we are already seeing the first of the Spring berries.

Those of you who are friendly with the bartender at your favorite punch-serving watering hole, it would be great if you could get him or her to share the house recipe. If there is something your family has been serving at parties for generations, go with that. Let’s have some fun with this and see how many different recipes we can find.

Once you have settled on a recipe, make the punch and then post the recipe, a photo, and your thoughts about the punch on your blog or on the eGullet Spirits and Cocktails forum.

Include in your post the MxMo logo and a link back to Mixology Monday and this [original announcement] post. (And once the round-up is published, it would be great if you could update your post with a link to that summary post.)

Good lord — “punch” as the theme. With all the ways this can be approached, and with all the crazy delicious fun that can be had with punch, this month’s MxMo could be one for the ages.

To participate, simply have your recipe (and photos, hopefully) posted on your blog or at eGullet by the close of March 22, as described by Mike, above. Be sure to let him know that you’re participating by dropping a note and link in the comment section to the announcement post, or by e-mailing Mike at hobsonschoiceinfo at gmail dot com.

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As I mentioned yesterday, tonight I made my cocktail-related small-screen debut — no, not that one, the other, old-time small screen — on KING-5’s Evening Magazine. I was prepared to see me make a total ass of myself, but fortunately the show let Cary Grant and Erik Hakkinen do the important talking (and mixing), and just in case there was a bad taste left on anyone’s eyeballs, they followed the piece with another segment that focused on Tavern Law, one of my favorite Seattle bars.

Anyway, here’s me looking like hopefully not too much of an idiot on Evening Magazine; but trust me, you didn’t want to taste that mangled Police Gazette Cocktail I made, or the Last Word I’m mixing and pouring during the segment:

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A few years ago, after I did my first newspaper interview as a booze geek (for a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story on rye whiskey, if memory serves), I noted that item on my About page along with the quip, “I’m not convinced it’s a good thing when one’s drinking habits attract media attention.”

Tomorrow night, I’ll get a fuller picture – pun intended – of how good or bad media attention can be when a television segment focusing on me, my booze-geekery and my liquor closet (pictured at right, with cameraman) runs locally here in Seattle on KING-5’s Evening Magazine.

The show starts at 7:00 pm Pacific on Wednesday, March 3, and my segment will go up on Evening Magazine’s website around that time (I’ll link to it once it’s available). So tomorrow night, you can watch me mangle quotes, try to look sincere as I “read” a book during a voiceover, and mix possibly the world’s worst Police Gazette Cocktail or Last Word (while standing behind the bar at Zig Zag, no less), all up there on your flat screen. I’m certainly not a natural in front of the camera, so on Wednesday evening I’ll be crossing my fingers, mixing a drink and hoping like hell that I didn’t make myself come off too foolishly (seriously, it’s insane to try to make a decent drink when you have to keep adding booze & ice for the camera shots, and trying to pretend that every slosh or barspoon fumble isn’t going to make you look like an idiot).

Anyway, tune in on Wednesday, or check out the online video – and a huge thanks to the folks at Zig Zag Café for letting us take over the bar for an hour (especially to Erik for keeping a straight face while I butchered a couple of drinks for the camera), and for letting me stand in Murray’s spot during the segment so that I could absorb some of the awesomeness.

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Way back in aught-six, when I first posed the notion of this regular little drinkfest we call Mixology Monday, the first theme picked for the event was pastis. Why pastis? Because that lovely anise flavor that so many have such a love/hate thing for is called for in countless classic cocktails – not that you frequently, or ever, see the word “pastis” in a vintage bar guide like George Kappeler’s Modern American Drinks or Harry Johnson’s Bartender’s Guide. No, in those books and others of their vintage, you’ll see the flavor called for as “absinthe”, the precursor to pastis and, some would argue, a vastly preferable ingredient.

But back to that first MxMo round: in 2006, absinthe wasn’t available in the U.S., or much of the world for that matter, unless you made your credit card weep by ordering a bottle from France – don’t get me started on the whole Czech thing – or if you cobbled together an alembic in your kitchen and set to work on your own. But here we are in 2010, and this month’s Mixology Monday theme is absinthe (hosted by Sonja at Thinking of Drinking, who ironically did put together a still and make her own), which can now be purchased at most well-stocked liquor stores all across the country.

Folks, please: a quick toast to the times we live in.

As I’ve mentioned at least a couple of times in the past, absinthe has a rich history as a cocktail ingredient. From the enrapturing flavors of absinthe-heavy drinks such as the absinthe cocktail or absinthe frappe, to the use of absinthe’s potent character as a punctuation mark in drinks such as the Morning Glory or the Cocktail a la Louisiane, absinthe can push a cocktail from mundane to superstar faster than just about any other ingredient in the liquor cabinet.

Here’s one example: the Modern Cocktail. I fetched this recipe out of Modern American Drinks, by Hugo Ensslin, published in 1917 (not saying that’s the first appearance of it, because I haven’t bothered to look – but while browsing through Ensslin this weekend I saw the recipe and started feeling thirsty). I’d come across this (or similar) recipes before; while the recipe listed in Ensslin takes the tack of older, spirit-forward drinks such as the Improved Gin Cocktail and the Police Gazette Cocktail, in which the base spirit (scotch whisky, in the case of the Modern – I used Famous Grouse) is lightly adorned with dashes of other ingredients, other recipes for the Modern have amped up the ancillary ingredients to teaspoons and quarter ounces. While I certainly see the reason for doing this in some cocktails, when such a powerfully flavored spirit as absinthe is among the list of ingredients, the effect is akin to playing piano with a sledgehammer – it’s just too much of a flavor bonanza for the cocktail to handle while remaining palatable.

When made with a light touch of absinthe, orange bitters, lemon juice and Jamaica rum (I used Smith & Cross, which you should, as well, due to its extra oomph of rangy flavor), these ingredients sooth the sometimes surly attitude scotch takes on when it enters a mixing glass. In a dash, the absinthe isn’t obvious to the drink – there are no fingers of anise aroma creeping out of the glass, and the dense flavor of absinthe doesn’t sock you in the gut when you sip the cocktail. Clearly I need to visit other versions of the Modern (as well as ol’ Doc Cocktail’s adaptation of the drink, the Modernista), but I didn’t find a damn thing wrong with the version in Ensslin’s book. It tastes old timey, that’s for sure, but sometimes that’s exactly what I’m looking for.

Modern Cocktail
Adapted from Recipes for Mixed Drinks, by Hugo R. Ensslin

• One drink scotch whisky (1 1/2 ounces, or 2 if you’re thirsty)
• 2 dashes lemon juice
• 1 dash absinthe (I used Vieux Carre, as it was what I had in the dasher bottle)
• 2 dashes Jamaica rum
• 1 dash orange bitters

Shake well with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Ensslin recommends serving with a cherry, which I ignored.

I know, the theme is absinthe and I use one damn dash. Sue me, or better yet, head over to Sonja’s place to see what other absinthe-fuelled drinks folks came up with for this Mixology Monday.

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