I’ve been in a rut. Aside from Mixology Mondays, I haven’t written straight-out about a cocktail since the holidays.

There’s a reason for that, mostly — I’m usually motivated to write about new drinks I’m playing around with and enjoying, but over the past few months those drinks have primarily been things I’ve been working on for an article, and so I keep them to myself until the story comes out; drinks I’ve been playing around with for Tales of the Cocktail-related events, so ditto on keeping them close to the chest; and new drinks I’ve tried out that, well, weren’t really worth going on about. (Plus, your standard, run-of-the-mill too-lazy-to-post factors in there somewhere.) In between, I fall back on the standard comfort-food cocktails, with little variations — I’ve grown really fond of knocking just a few drops of Jade’s Eduouard absinthe into a Rittenhouse Manhattan or an Old Fashioned made with W.L. Weller or Buffalo Trace bourbon, and the drink I continue to be astonished that nobody has added to their bar menu, the Police Gazette Cocktail, remains a soothing standard for those times when I’ve been disappointed by lackluster recipes I’ve taken for a spin.

But it’s time to snap out of it. In getting serious about jump-starting my jaded tastebuds — and with them my enthusiasm for digging up old recipes — I’ve reached for the a volume on my bookshelf that’s unlikely to let me down: The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. David Embury not only knew his spirits and cocktails backward and forward, but he was also highly opinionated, and not afraid to share his thoughts on a drink with his readers. While relating a recipe, Embury occasionally indulges himself with a backhanded remark that makes it clear, “Your guest may want one of these — but you certainly shouldn’t.”

After flipping around a bit, I settled on this to help get my pistons firing again (I translated Embury’s recipe from parts to ounces):

Honeymoon (a.k.a. Farmer’s Daughter)

• 2 ounces applejack (I used Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy)
• 1/2 ounce lime juice
• 1/8 (3/4 teaspoon) ounce curacao (Marie Brizard)
• 1/8 ounce Benedictine

Shake with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Why this one? It’s been my experience that little touches of Benedictine work wonders for surprising the palate, and right now, mine could use some surprising. Plus, there’s the apple brandy factor — I don’t break out the Laird’s that often, and if nothing else, it’s something different.

And “different” certainly describes this drink. Embury’s taste skews to the dry & tart, so I wound up doubling the liqueurs to about 1 1/2 teaspoons of each to keep the lime juice subdued. Also, Laird’s bonded apple brandy just has a more “apple-ey” taste than does their applejack (though back in Embury’s time, Laird’s applejack was made purely from apples, whereas today the apple distillate is mixed with grain alcohol, so the bonded version may be more in line with what Embury had on his shelf).

The Honeymoon takes a few sips to grow on you, and it’s still a bit wooly around the edges, but it’s an agreeable enough concoction. And when you’ve been in a rut, “agreeable enough” is still pretty good.

UPDATE: Except when it’s not. After clicking on the little “publish” button and sitting back with my Honeymoon, I found its flavor less and less satisfying. By the time I was 3/4 of the way through the drink, I was ready to toss it and give Embury another stab at redemption.

Since I already had the apple brandy out, and still had 1/2 a lime, I decided to play it safe and go with this one:

Supreme

• 2 ounces apple brandy
• 1/2 ounce lime or lemon juice
• 1/4 ounce orgeat
• dash grenadine

Shake with ice & strain into chilled cocktail glass.

“Play it safe,” because I’m a total sucker for orgeat — I’ll forgive most second-class recipes as long as they give me a little hit of that ethereal almond experience. True, I found it necessary to bump up the orgeat to somewhere around 1/3 ounce, but this one is much more of a winner — the almond and the apple play very nicely together, and the little touch of grenadine adds an additional fruity note, while everybody is kept on their toes by the tartness of the lime.

Honeymoon is over; go for the Supreme.

Tags: Applejack, Drinks by Paul
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As Michael pointed out this weekend, Imbibe magazine has now passed the one-year milestone. That’s a big deal, folks — around 60 percent of new magazines fail in their first year (and I’ve seen other figures that peg that closer to 90 percent), so Imbibe is really bucking the trend. Having been a contributor to the magazine for almost every issue, it’s been really exciting for me to hear people talk about it and to see it mentioned in online forums, and to know that it’s really getting some traction among people who give a damn about what goes in their glass. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe, and for those industry types out there — c’mon, people, I know you’re reading this, I see your domain names flashing past — buy a freaking ad, already.

This month’s issue contains a salvo from Dr. Cocktail on what’s possibly my favorite summer cooler, the gin rickey, and a step-by-step from Robert Hess on how to make his house bitters (which I’ve got to try again sometime, having somehow screwed up my last batch through a measurement misinterpretation). It also has a profile I wrote of Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, the reigning king of the tiki bar and the author of three tomes of tiki drinks and cuisine, Grog Log, Intoxica! and Taboo Table. I’d been looking forward to working on this article for quite a while, not only because of the wonderful experience I had interviewing Jeff in New Orleans last summer during Tales of the Cocktail, but also because his new book, Sippin’ Safari, is coming out in June, and I had the chance to take a peek at a few of the chapters.

From my reading of these sample chapters, Sippin’ Safari promises to take the extensive research Jeff has done for books such as Grog Log, and present it in a longer-form, much more detailed package. For people who like to know a little bit about the history behind their drinks and the people who first created them, this book fits the bill in spades. And since secrecy about recipes was held to such importance among the owners and bartenders at the old tiki bars, Jeff didn’t have much printed material to work with — instead, he had to rely more on extensive interviews with bartenders, gradually working to gain their trust so they’d share the old stories and, most intriguingly, the old recipes. Of the 67 recipes in Sippin’ Safari, 46 have never before been printed, and from the few I saw and put together myself, they include some of the very best drinks to have come out of the old Polynesian palaces from the 1930s onward.

Sippin’ Safari comes out in June; you can pre-order your copy from the publisher. I can’t wait to read the full book once it’s released.

Imbibe’s one-year anniversary and a new book from the Bum — that’s a lot to celebrate at one time.

Tags: Books, General by Paul
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The thing that always surprises me about champagne cocktails is the underlying nefarious nature of many of these drinks. You look at a recipe, think, “oh, it’s just a glass of wine, same stuff you use to toast at weddings and on election night last November — look, there’s only a smidgen of booze in the glass, it’ll be lighter than your run-of-the-mill highball,” then mix up a couple and, boom — your ears are feeling fuzzy. The thing I always forget is that champagne isn’t simply a substitute for seltzer; while it prances and fizzles in the glass, it’s actually getting the gin in that French 75 or the bourbon in that Pendennis all excited to come out of the glass and down your gullet, where the real fun begins. But even though I always underestimate them, each time I start to fiddle with champagne cocktails, I resolve to do it more frequently.

This break for bubbly was prompted by Anita and Cameron over at Married…With Dinner, hosts of this month’s Mixology Monday. Champagne cocktails seemed an apt theme, given that it’s tax day (considering that the final calculation of my return reversed a substantial debt and turned it into a small refund, I’m in the mood to celebrate), and that this month marks the first anniversary of Mixology Monday events. Oh, what a year it’s been — from pastis to exotica to whiskey, to a shooter event that fizzled — ah, memories. Okay, I’ll stop — on with this month’s drink.

I decided to use this month’s theme to dig into one of the few remaining recipes in Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails that I have not yet tried: the Crimean Cup a la Marmora. Actually a punch, the Crimean Cup dates back (in print, anyway) to Jerry Thomas’ The Bar-tender’s Guide, from 1862. While several of the old drinks listed by Thomas lack the pizzazz you find in more modern drinks, the Crimean Cup is a happy exception. Mixing rum, brandy, lemon juice, maraschino and orgeat with champagne and soda water, the cup is a surprisingly light and even-handed punch. From the recipe, it looks rather sweet, but between the champagne and the soda, the sweetness is easily leavened. If you’re not convinced, simply reduce or eliminate the added sugar, or add a touch more lemon juice. This drink is reason itself to keep a bottle or two of bubbly on hand.

Crimean Cup a la Marmora (makes 2 drinks)

Muddle 2 broad slices of lemon peel with a teaspoon of sugar and 1/2 ounce dark Jamaican rum (Haigh suggests Myer’s; I used Appleton V/X, with good results). Add:

• 1 ounce brandy
• 1/2 ounce Maraschino liqueur
• 1/2 ounce Jamaican rum (Appleton again)
• 2 ounces orgeat
• 1/2 ounce lemon juice
• 4 ounces soda water

Stir vigorously and pour into a goblet with 2 or 3 large pieces of ice. Add 3 ounces chilled dry sparkling wine (I only had cava on hand, but it worked well)

Head on over to Anita & Cameron’s place to see what other folks are posting.

Tags: Brandy, Drinks, Gettin' Jerry With It, Mixology Monday, Rum by Paul
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In case you haven’t strayed over to the Tales of the Cocktail website recently, tickets are now on sale for the mightiest cocktail event of the year.

I know that cost can be an issue, but consider this: you can stay at the Hotel Monteleone, one of the city’s most elegant and historic hotels, for just $95 a night, and you can select from a range of packages and individual ticket options so you can create the kind of stay you want to have — from attending all the panel sessions, tasting events and cocktail parties you can cram into your day, to hand-picking a few things (including the Lost Ingredients and Cocktails and the Blogosphere panels, of course) and leaving ample time to sip and dine your way through New Orleans.

I promise you that many events will sell out, and ticket prices will increase on May 15, so it’s a good idea to make your arrangements now. And keep an eye on the Tales website — in early May, you’ll be able to purchase tickets to one of the Spirited Dinners on Thursday, July 19, a key part of the Tales experience.

Hope to see you there.

Tags: Events by Paul
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During a recent quiet afternoon — something that’s been very rare around here for the past six weeks or so — I decided to do some busywork I’d been meaning to tackle for some time, and cataloged the contents of my liquor cabinet.

The move was at least partially motivated by my occasional frustration in mixing a drink, when I have a yen for a particular cocktail and I’m starting to put things together, only to realize that, DAMMIT, a month or so previous I finished off the bottle of gin / rum / liqueur that is a vital component in the drink, and I forgot to pick up a replacement at the liquor store. (And yes, I could use a replacement brand, but if I’m hankering for a Plymouth martini or a bonded Rittenhouse Manhattan, then subbing Bombay Original or Van Winkle Family Reserve — as pleasing as the result may be — just isn’t the same thing. And don’t even get me started on the time when I had a visceral longing for a nice, chewy Sazerac, only to find my bottle of Peychaud’s was running on fumes.)

Rather than write all this down only to lose the piece of paper a week later — a regular occurence in my house — I thought I’d post it here, both so I’ll always know where the list is, and so I can field questions or relate commentary on particular brands and spirits. I’ve put the list on its own new page, a link for which is in the top menu bar (and right here).

Keep in mind a few things: first, this is my home bar, funded by my own spare change and without assistance from corporate budgets, liquor distributors, or any other source that people use to amass tons of free booze. Unlike some alcohol websites and blogs, I don’t solicit free samples from marketing people, and I can’t recall ever responding to offers of free liquor samples (though at least a couple have inexplicably shown up by UPS anyway) –mainly because I have little to no interest in 99 percent of the products that I’m offered. The exception to this rule is samples I’m sent either in relation to an article I’m writing for publication (for products I can’t obtain in my area), or to use while researching drinks for an event such as Tales of the Cocktail. Not that I sneer at the offer of free booze, or at those who accept it, but a vast majority of the marketing e-mails I receive are for things that would just waste my time. If I get an offer to sample a genuinely interesting product, I might go for it.

The selection is also a bit idiosyncratic — I’m sitting pretty when it comes to rye, and the rum selection is getting a bit unruly, but if you’re coming over to my house with a thirst for tequila or a nice single-malt Scotch, you’d better bring your own bottle. It’s not that I don’t like those things — on the contrary — but with my interests and my booze budget, I’m much more likely to pick up two $25 bottles of good mixing rums than one $50 bottle of fine anejo. Hmm, why don’t I get offers of freebies from the marketing folks at Laphroaig or Zacapa?

Finally, the list doesn’t reflect empties. I say this in anticipation of the comments or e-mails along the lines of “you haven’t tried Knob Creek? What the hell kind of booze geek are you?” The list only details what I have now (and I plan to update it on something of a regular basis).

I’d like to do more tasting notes in the future, so this list will blossom with links at some point (right now I just have the rye notes, and I haven’t even linked those yet). Maybe down the line.

So, here’s what I got. And you?

Tags: Spirits by Paul
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