It’s been a long Mother’s Day weekend, a busy work week is just a few hours off, and I’m really not in the mood to get all fancy with the liquor cabinet — the couch and the remainder of the Sunday paper just look too inviting. But I’m 23 drinks into this thing, so I can’t stop now.

Nothing I had planned to write about is really grabbing me right now, so here’s a drink I’ve been thinking about recently, being blogged about on the fly; let’s see how it plays out:

The Home Stretch

• 1 1/2 ounces gin
• 1/2 ounce fino sherry
• 1/4 ounce pear liqueur*
• 1 dash Regan’s orange bitters

Stir, strain. That’s it

* for the pear liqueur, the Rothman & Winter Orchard Pear is lovely and light; slightly richer is Xante, a relatively new cognac-based liqueur (disclaimer: a sample of Xante was provided for review).

I love the taste of pears, but have been disappointed with many pear-oriented cocktails: some pear liqueurs taste tinny and artificial, whereas the liqueurs that actually taste like pears are very gentle, and the flavor is easily obscured by other ingredients.

For this drink, I used Hendricks for the gin — thinking its delicate nature might prove a good foundation for the pear — Lustau for the fino and Xante for the pear liqueur.

On first try, I like it — perhaps I’ll bump up the sherry in future versions (I finished the bottle while making this one), but it’s a good balance between the bone dryness of the gin and sherry combo and the richness of the pears. My jury is still out on Xante; the first taste I had of the liqueur turned me off as slightly artificial, but subsequent experiences have warmed me to it, though I’m still having a tough time imagining many cocktails that would use it to good effect. In this drink, its richness isn’t shining through, so the Rothman & Winter may be a better bet for future versions .

All in all, a respectable effort — not dynamite by any means, but not a sinker either.

Has anyone tried working with pear liqueurs to good effect? I’d love to have some ideas to work with.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Drinks, Gin, Thirty in 30 by Paul
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Before I move away from my last post about a drink created by London bartender Dick Bradsell — and a drink made with blackberry liqueur, at that — I wanted to dig into one other cocktail that shares these characteristics: the Wibble.

As if the use of blackberry liqueur wasn’t distinguishing enough, the Wibble builds much of its flavor on the tart crispness of Plymouth Sloe Gin. Toss in some grapefruit and lemon to round out the tartness, with an ounce of gin for power and balance, and the Wibble is surprisingly engaging, one of the better sloe gin cocktails I’ve come across.

A couple of notes about the recipe: I’ve seen several versions of this around, and while George Sinclair was kind enough to drop by in the comments section on the Bramble to note that the recipe I listed was the one used by Dick, I honestly have no idea what the original recipe for the Wibble is. I first heard of the Wibble last summer, from a Shaken & Stirred column in the New York Times, by Jonathan Miles. In that column, Miles used a recipe provided by Naren Young at Bobo in New York; Naren substituted creme de cassis for the creme de mure (presumably for the reasons I listed yesterday: creme de mure just ain’t all that common in US bars and liquor stores), and relied on the liqueur and the sloe gin to sweeten the drink (by the way, that version is quite lovely as well — if you don’t have blackberry liqueur on hand, you can still get an idea of how this cocktail works by using a decent creme de cassis). Later in the summer, while working on a sloe gin story for Imbibe, I talked to Marcovaldo Dionysos from Clock Bar in San Francisco; Marco named the Wibble as a favorite, and the recipe he gave me for the story used creme de mure for the sweetener. And just to round out what’s become a confusing paragraph, I did a quick Google on the Wibble and found a couple of recipes that called for a small amount — 5ml, or a teaspoon — of simple syrup to be added to the mix. The drink in front of me, that is rapidly disappearing as I type, was made using the recipe below, without the addition of simple syrup. To my palate, it works, but if you still find it too tart, you may wish to add a bit of sugar, and do so in good conscience.

Anyway — here it is:

The Wibble

• 1 ounce gin (Bradsell recommends Plymouth)
• 1 ounce Plymouth Sloe Gin
• 1 ounce grapefruit juice
• 1/2 ounce lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce blackberry liqueur

Combine ingredients in a shaker and fill with ice; shake well and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Drinks, Gin, Thirty in 30 by Paul
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Another oldie — if you consider a drink that’s of the same circa vintage as Thriller and Return of the Jedi “old” — but one you don’t see all that often in U.S. bars. While this Dick Bradsell creation was long a staple of UK cocktail bars (and may still be, for all I know — I really need to travel more), American bars haven’t really picked this up in large numbers.

The reason probably has a lot to do with the availability of creme de mure, a blackberry liqueur. Sure, you can find it in some markets around the country, but in others you might as well be looking for Swedish punsch. (And a quick note — you can often see bottles of “Blackberry Brandy” on the bottom shelf of the liquor store. No, it’s nothing like what you’re looking for here — just please for the love of god, no.)

I finally picked up a bottle of Clear Creek Distillery’s Blackberry Liqueur, though “finally” is a bit misleading — it’s not as though Clear Creek has been making their liqueurs for all that long, maybe a couple of years, and I believe the blackberry is one of the more recent additions to the product line. Anyway, it’s fantastic in this drink, which at its simplest is a gin sour over crushed ice with a float of liqueur, but when viewed from a wider perspective is inherently satisfying on a number of levels. It’s got the basics of strong, sour and sweet, but the little dribbles of blackberry that follow the crags of the ice bring this to another level; the drink seems simple and obvious at first, but grows with complexity as you work your way down the glass and the heavy liqueur retreats to the bottom, leaving dark purple stains in the ice as it goes.

I mucked up the ice and liqueur for my photo round, so you won’t see the drink pictured, but on a second round, with more ice in the glass — and you want to fairly pack it — it works beautifully.

Bramble

• 1 1/2 ounces gin (Plymouth is the recommended brand)
• 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce simple syrup
• 3/4 ounce creme de mure (blackberry liqueur)

Build the gin, lemon and simple over crushed ice in a whiskey glass and briefly stir. Float the liqueur atop the ice, and garnish with blackberries and a slice of lemon, if you got ‘em.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Drinks, Gin, Thirty in 30 by Paul
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There are several essential rules everyone should know when navigating the contemporary world of bars, cocktails and mixology:

1. If Chris Hannah at Arnaud’s French 75 bar offers to make you something he’s been working on, don’t ask questions — just say yes.
2. If you step into Flatiron Lounge or Clover Club and find the bar absolutely packed on a weekend night, don’t complain that the drinks won’t be up to par because the place is so busy. You’ll be served a cocktail so unerringly perfect that you’ll feel ashamed for even having thought such a thing.
3. Rule #1 applies to pretty much every craft bartender you’ll come across, but really, Chris rocks.
4. If Jeff Morgenthaler asks you to pull his finger, don’t.
5. Never, ever underestimate what Daniel Shoemaker has in store for you.

Every time I walk into Teardrop Lounge in Portland — or recently, when Daniel was guest bartending at Vessel in Seattle — I almost expect to hear Barry White on the house stereo system and to see Daniel wearing a smoking jacket and an Ascot, sprinkling rose petals on top of the bar and preparing to romance the palates of his guests while their taste buds giggle in anticipation.

Now that you have that visual in your mind, let’s get down to one of the first drinks I was served at Teardrop, and that I’ve ordered (I think — things get kind of hazy, for obvious reasons) every time I’ve been back.

Unlike many of Daniel’s drinks, the Empyrean can actually be recreated at home, without starting the preparation process several months in advance in order to make the bitters, tinctures and other specialized house ingredients that work their way into so many of Teardrop’s drinks. Rich from the amaro and maraschino and with a bracing smokiness from the mescal, the Empyrean hits so many parts of the palate in quick succession that the effect would be overwhelming if it didn’t work just so damn well.

I’m typically either too shy, forgetful or tactful to tease recipes out of bartenders; fortunately, Ted Munat has no sense of tact — or of shame, for that matter — and regularly nags bartenders into spilling their professional secrets, which he then publishes for the world (or at least the 500 or so people who receive a copy of the book) to enjoy.

Last summer’s Left Coast Libations (which Ted is following with a newer, expanded, more official version, I’m told) contained Daniel’s recipe for the Empyrean. After knocking off a drink based on Angostura last night, I’m kinda up for something bold; this should do the trick.

Empyrean
(adapted from an original recipe by Daniel Shoemaker)

• 1 1/2 ounces Sazerac 6-year-old rye whiskey
• 1/2 ounce lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce Ramazzotti
• 1/2 ounce Del Maguey Chichicapa Mezcal (I subbed Los Danzantes, as it’s what I had on hand)
• 1/4 ounce Luxardo Maraschino (I used Maraska, for reasons ditto)

Shake well with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Flame an orange peel over the top of the drink and use as garnish.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Drinks, Rye, Thirty in 30 by Paul
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I just realized I have no real way to categorize this drink, other than to start a new category titled “Holy Hell.”

I read about this drink in March on Lauren’s blog at Drink Boston, and on Frederic’s blog at Cocktail Virgin Slut, and both times I recall thinking, “That sounds awesome, but scary. I’m not sure whether I should mix one or run away.” Tonight, after browsing my drinks list in search of a suitable 30/30 post, I came across the Trinidad Sour again, and realized that no matter how fast you run, you’re never going to escape the perverse appeal of a drink that contains a full ounce of bitters.

While it’s big news among the cocktail crowd in Boston, the Trinidad Sour is actually the creation of Giuseppe Gonzalez, a bartender at Clover Club in Brooklyn (and starting this week, apparently, at Dutch Kills in Queens). An inversion of the standard cocktail formula, the Trinidad Sour tries to take the edge off the mighty ounce of Angostura by hitting it with an equal amount of orgeat, and then poking it with a dose of lemon juice and a half-ounce of Rittenhouse rye just to keep the bitters distracted enough so they don’t take your arm off at the elbow. Lauren describes the taste as being like a medicinal Sweet Tart, and I can understand that comparison; deeply garnet, the drink has the appearance and aroma of cherries, but the flavor is fruity and dense, with an aggressive yet approachable bitterness that not even an ounce of orgeat can contain.

I’ll be damned if this isn’t one of the most complex and intriguing — not to mention counterintuitive — cocktails I’ve ever had. I’m really into this one, and I can see breaking this out for guests just to blow their minds, as well as turn them on to something new. Give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Trinidad Sour

• 1 ounce Angostura bitters
• 1 ounce orgeat
• 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce Rittenhouse 100-proof rye (can sub Wild Turkey 101)

Combine in a cocktail shaker and shake well with ice. Strain into chilled coupe, and stand back.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Drinks, Rye, Thirty in 30 by Paul
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