I’ve been sitting on this recipe for a while.

This drink initially caught my attention last winter, while working on the (aborted) 60/30 thingy in which I tried to revive my own interest in this blog by writing about a whole hell of a lot of stuff. Writing about 60 drinks in 30 days over the busy holiday season proved to be, well, a stupid idea — but this drink, that I was holding in reserve but never got around to posting? Pretty much the opposite of a stupid idea.

The Weissen Sour comes from Kevin Diedrich, late of the Burritt Room in San Francisco; the drink appeared on an early menu for the bar, and during the course of talking to Kevin about other stuff I was writing last fall, I asked if it’d be okay to run the recipe for this drink. Kevin’s moved on from Burritt Room now (heading to Jasper’s Corner Tap & Kitchen, according to Paolo Lucchesi), and considering the beer-forward nature of the new place, this drink that combines bourbon with brew seems particularly fitting.

(Fitting for what? Well, today is Mixology Monday, an online cocktail thingy that’s been going on for more than five years now — anyway, this month’s event is hosted by Fred at Cocktail Virgin Slut, and for July’s theme, Fred chose Beer Cocktails — so, now the whole thing hopefully makes sense.)

When you come right down to it, the Weissen Sour is an amazingly simple drink: just a basic whiskey sour with the tweak of adding orange marmalade (if you’re playing along with the name game, I suppose that’s a tour through the Omar Bradley with a tip of the hat to the Marmalade Cocktail, though now it’s getting complicated) and orange bitters, then tossing the thing in a highball glass (with ice? I neglected to ask Kevin, so I went for it, though in hindsight it might have worked better with crushed ice rather than big cubes), and finishing it with a punch of chilled weisse beer.

As anyone with an occasional (or frequent) boilermaker habit can tell you, bourbon loves the hell out of a cold, crisp beer, and as we head into mid-July, few beers are crisper or more appealing than a decent weisse. For this drink, I used Maker’s Mark (wheated bourbon, wheat beer…) and Ayinger Brau-Weisse for the beer. I’m not sure if I wound up trampling all over Kevin’s original recipe for the drink, but I’m pretty pleased with the result: the gently sweet fruitiness of the marmalade is a great bridge between the richness of the bourbon and the flowery aromatics of the beer, and the mixture is simple enough that you don’t feel anything is going over the top.

Weissen Sour
from Kevin Diedrich

• 2 ounces bourbon
• 3/4 ounce lemon juice
• 1 barspoon orange marmalade
• 2 dashes orange bitters
• chilled weisse beer
• small piece of lemon, for garnish

Combine everything except beer and garnish in a cocktail shaker; smush the marmalade around to help it dissolve in the liquid, then fill shaker with ice and do what comes natural. Strain into highball glass (I filled mine with ice, but give it a try without if the idea of pouring beer over ice skeeves you out), and top with chilled beer.

And that’ll get you through a warm July evening.

That’s what I’ve got for this round of Mixology Monday. Be sure to head over to Fred’s place and see what other drinks folks have come up with this month.

Tags: Bourbon, Drinks, Mixology Monday by Paul
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This could be the summer for pisco.

I’ve been hearing for years about how the revival of this South American spirit was right around the corner — about how pisco and cachaca (which is also made in South America, but beyond the matter of geography and color has pretty much nothing in common with pisco) are ascendant and just waiting for their breakthrough moment. And I look, and I wait, and…well, I can’t say “nothing” because that’s not the case, but for an alleged revival, it’s certainly been slow to come about.

But really, this time it could happen, and it might be happening now.

Consider: six or so years ago, when I purchased my first-ever bottle of pisco, there were maybe three brands in the Seattle liquor store I visited (two, if you discount the one in the goofy novelty bottle), and those were all Chilean. Nothing against Chilean pisco, mind you, but the bottle I bought (and the others I subsequently tried) were, well, lackluster. So unimpressive, in fact, that I still have that damn bottle of pisco, somewhere at the back of the liquor cabinet, about three-quarters full and gathering dust.

But now, pisco’s popping up everywhere, and this time it’s not just mediocre brands that are coming into the store. Campo de Encanto, which is coming this way from Peru via San Francisco, is easily one of the very best piscos I’ve tried (and during a visit to Lima in February, I tried way more than my fair share), and other very good Peruvian piscos are popping up in bars and liquor stores right now, and — by not being crap, and not costing $40 a bottle — they’re convincing bartenders and cocktail geeks to actually try playing around with the stuff, breaking out some old classics as well as experimenting with new pisco cocktails.

So, as I said, maybe this summer is it.

Since tomorrow is the first day of summer (and today is Mixology Monday, hosted by Filip at Adventures in Cocktails, with the theme of “Niche Spirits,” which is a realm pisco falls into here in the U.S.), here’s a pisco cocktail that’s especially alluring: the Pisco Bell-Ringer.

I’ve tried this drink before, with the aforementioned crappy pisco, so I’m especially relieved now to mix it again with a decent representative of the pisco class. As Dave Wondrich notes in Esquire Drinks (and on the website), this little ditty goes back to 1903, when it appeared in Jim Maloney’s How to Mix Drinks. While there are Bell-Ringer drinks (defined, apparently, as drinks served in a glass rinsed with apricot brandy) in Maloney’s 1900 book, The 20^th Century Guide for Mixing Fancy Drinks, pisco didn’t make the cut in that round. That’s unfortunate; pisco and apricot are absolutely bonkers for each other, with the round, flowery richness of pisco providing a perfect platform for the lush fruitiness of apricot liqueur; really, everything else in the drink just keeps it in balance so these two flavors-in-love can go at it like rutting weasels.

A version of this drink made its way onto the cocktail menu at Clover Club a while back, and that came out in Dale DeGroff’s The Essential Cocktail; in this version, Julie Reiner tinkered with the formula slightly, adding an egg white and tweaking the bitters approach while adding an extra half-ounce of aged rum, which gives a little vanilla-ey woodiness to the mix; it’s nice, certainly, but for tonight I’ll stick with the earlier formulation (with one caveat: I’m bumping up the lemon and simple syrup, for a little better sour/sweet balance) rather than distract the pisco and apricot from their flavorful amore.

Pisco Bell-Ringer
(adapted from Wondrich’s Esquire Drinks)

• 2 ounces pisco (I used Campo de Encanto acholado – stick with Peruvian for this mix)
• 1/2 ounce lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce simple syrup
• 2 dashes orange bitters
• 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
• Rinse of apricot liqueur

Combine everything except apricot liqueur in a cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake well until chilled, about 10 seconds. Strain into chilled cocktail glass that’s been rinsed with apricot liqueur. Garnish with lemon wheel.

Mmmm, pisco. C’mon, summer of 2011, let’s see what we can do with this stuff.

That’s my drink for this Mixology Monday; be sure to head over to Filip’s place to see what everyone else has been up to.

Tags: Brandy, Drinks, Mixology Monday by Paul
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The world needs more Chartreuse-based drinks.

True, the French herbal liqueur is splashed about a bit too liberally nowadays; so many ambitious bartenders and home mixologists handle Chartreuse much the way they once did St. Germain, pouring it into more cocktails than they should while seeking to give their bespoke drinks what they hope is the Last Word kind of treatment.

But you can’t blame Chartreuse for its current overexposure, and the cocktail world would be a lesser place without drinks like the Diamondback or the Pago Pago Cocktail, to say nothing of the extraordinarily tasty Chartreuse Swizzle, in which Marco Dionysos built a drink around the liqueur’s robust herbaceousness, matching it with the tropical brightness of pineapple and the sweetness and spice of falernum.

I first read about the Beuser & Angus Special a couple of years ago, on Jay Hepburn’s Oh Gosh blog (and if you want to see a lovely photo of this drink in action, click on that link — my lackluster skills as a photographer have doomed this drink tonight, and besides, Jay’s photos always look so delicious). Developed by German bartender Goncalo de Sousa Monteiro, and named for Traveling Mixologists Bastian Heuser and Angus Winchester, the drink is, like the Chartreuse Swizzle, built on a powerful foundation of green Chartreuse. While a liqueur, green Chartreuse is remarkably dry (owing in part to its whopping 120-proof potency, as well as to its botanical blend); combined with fresh lime juice, the mix needs a counterbalance of sweetness, which comes from maraschino liqueur (right now you’ve got three-quarters of a Last Word, though in different proportions) and a touch of simple syrup. Fresh egg white lightens what could otherwise be an assertively heavy mixture, and when topped with orange flower water, the finished drink has aromatics that wave their wispy fingers at you from across the room.

Between the herbal green Chartreuse and the orange flower water, the drink has a distinctly floral element – making it appropriate for this month’s floral-themed Mixology Monday, hosted by Dave at The Barman Cometh. Here’s my contribution to the online cocktail party; head on over to Dave’s place to see what others have come up with.

Beuser & Angus Special

• 1 3/4 ounce green Chartreuse
• 3/4 ounce lime juice
• 1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 1 egg white
• 5 dashes orange flower water

Combine everything except OFW in a cocktail shaker and shake well, without ice, until drink is well mixed and foamy. Add ice and shake again until chilled, about 10 seconds. Strain into double old-fashioned glass filled with crushed ice. Dash OFW atop drink.

Tags: Drinks, Mixology Monday by Paul
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Please excuse the dust — it’s been a while since I’ve been around these parts, and I haven’t had a chance to clean up.

On what’s become a typical Monday night, I’d be perfectly content to continue ignoring this blog in favor of frittering away my time on even less productive pursuits, but today is Mixology Monday (chapter 56, if anyone’s keeping count), and considering that last month was the first time in what’s now five years of the event (happy anniversary!) that I missed posting a drink for a MxMo (thanks to a busy travel schedule and my own unshakable laziness), I thought it best not to make that a habit, as well — and so, here we are.

Not that it’s an easy theme this month. As chosen by this month’s MxMo host, Chris at Spirited Remix, the theme is “Your Best” – as in, what’s your very best original drink that you’ve ever put together. And for me, at least, the only correct answer is: I have absolutely no idea.

When it comes time to mix a cocktail, an overwhelming majority of the time, I’m totally happy to follow a beaten path — timeworn classics like the Manhattan and the Old Fashioned (along with their extended families) are such frequent visitors around my place that they have their own keys for the front door and keep a toothbrush in my bathroom for overnight stays; and I’ll occasionally host old friends like the Daiquiri (which also usually brings its large clan for its warm-weather visits) or newer ones like the Revolver, and I’ll just keep going back to these familiar drinks rather than start fiddling with something new.

When I do go in my own direction, it’s usually just riffing on a theme — such as last summer’s tinkering with single-serving punches — or plugging different elements into familiar patterns, such as taking David Wondrich’s model of 2 parts spirit / 1 part fortified or aromatized wine / 1 tsp. liqueur / 1 dash bitters and pulling out different things from the liquor cabinet that otherwise would be neglected and sad. I do have a few originals that I like — the Duniette, which I don’t mix very often because I’m kind of tired of St. Germain, but otherwise is a lovely cousin of the Jasmine; and the Theobroma, which I still think is kinda rockin — but really, there are others who spend far more time working out new combinations than I do, and I’m happy to be a spectator.

But mentioning the Theobroma reminds me of some experimentation I was doing a couple of years back, when I was really enjoying the interplay of a few favorite flavors, based around the perfect-to-me combination of bitter orange and chocolate. I’ve riffed on these quite a bit, using Amer Picon (and replica) or Ramazotti or another orangey amaro with creme de cacao, chocolate bitters or cacao-nib tincture, and deploying these in a base of tequila (as with the Theobroma) or whiskey. But chocolate also has an intense affinity for Chartreuse, as well as for the richness of vanilla; and one night, while trying to figure out some way to combine these flavors, I came up with something I kind of really liked, a drink I’ll call the 11:59.

Before I get to the recipe, an explanation: I originally made this with Jamie Boudreau’s replica of Amer Picon, which is absolutely delicious, but I’m not using it here — because frankly, it’s a pain to make and keep around. For this round, I’m substituting Punt e Mes, which will bring a bitter note without the sweetness of a liqueur; if you try this drink and it’s not quite to your liking, I’d suggest substituting Amer Picon or a replica (if you have it), or Ramazzotti with an extra dash of orange bitters. For the vanilla element, I’d initially tried using Navan in a tequila-based cocktail, but that was getting too sweet and fussy; instead, for that big vanilla flavor without added sugar, I went with Angostura 1919 rum for the base spirit, since it’s the most intensely vanilla-ey rum I can think of. (Plus, it’s my firmly held opinion that there are WAY too few spirit-forward drinks that use rum as a base — c’mon, it’s delicious, we’ve gotta figure out how to use it more.) With those two together, it was just a matter of knocking in the other ingredients to get a drink that features the flavors of bitter orange, chocolate, Chartreuse and vanilla, yet isn’t tooth-achingly sweet. Here y’go–

11:59

• 2 ounces Angostura 1919 rum
• 3/4 ounce Punt e Mes
• 1/4 ounce green Chartreuse
• 1/4 ounce white creme de cacao
• 2 dashes orange bitters (I used Angostura orange)
• – orange peel, for garnish

Pour all ingredients into a mixing glass and fill with ice. Stir well until chilled, about 30 seconds. Strain into chilled cocktail glass; twist orange peel over drink and use as garnish (and now that I think of it, a flamed orange zest wouldn’t be out of place right about now).

I’m sipping one right now — hang on — and it’s pretty good. Is it my best? Really, I dunno — on certain nights, I’d prefer the Theobroma, on others I’d rather go with some freestyle punch or riff on an improved whiskey cocktail, but really I’d like to think that “my best” is still ahead of me somewhere. The search for that will keep me interested for a good while, I hope, and it may even excite me enough that I come back around to this blog again before the dust builds up too deep on the dashboard and all signs of life flicker out of The Cocktail Chronicles. We’ll see.

(Oh, and the name? I’m in the habit of putting off my Mixology Monday contributions until the very latest that one could still consider the day “Monday”, and tonight looks like it’s no different — so I’m naming this drink after the time that I usually finish up and hit “publish”, just before the calendar slips into Tuesday…)

Anyway, head on over to Chris’ place to see what everybody got up to this month.

Tags: Drinks, Mixology Monday, Rum by Paul
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Yes, yes, the first post in a month, and for all the good intentions with that whole 60/30 effort, I managed to squeak out just shy of 40 drinks before succumbing to work / laziness / holidays / post-holidays laziness. But, the final 20 drinks are to come over the next week or so, once I break my self-imposed drought — let’s just forget about that 30 day thing, huh?

But while I haven’t had a drop to drink since New Year’s Day — my liver is a very loyal and supportive part of my anatomy, and following the annual holiday excesses, I like to give it a little vacation — today is Mixology Monday, and while I’m occasionally racing the clock to get a post finished in time (as I am tonight), I have yet to miss one. Anyway, this month’s event is sponsored by Josh at Cocktail Assembly, and Josh has selected Flips as the theme.

I’ve been down the flip road before, including at least once for Mixology Monday. Four Januarys ago, when MxMo was hosted by Imbibe Unfiltered, I prepared a classic hot Rum Flip, aka a “Yard of Flannel,” a tankard of richness that with its funky base of steaming beer and lathery heaviness left me uncertain of how the drink ever caught on in the first place

Ah, but flips made their way in the world, eventually being compressed to just liquor (or port or sherry), sugar and an egg, with a little nutmeg on top to add a dainty touch. A perfectly pleasant mixture, if you’re into that kind of thing, but it could use a little excitement — which can be added, for example, by swapping out the sugar for liqueurs, as in the Colleen Bawn, or for an alternative sweetener / liqueur combo, as in the Fort Washington Flip, or by scrapping the whole liquor/sugar thing and just plunging ahead with a bitter liqueur, such as in the too-damn-tasty Cynar Flip or in the weirdly alluring Fernet Flip.

Here’s one flip variation that I tried around the holidays and found not too shabby: the Japanese Flip. Okay, I just made up the name, kinda — really, this drink is a slightly tweaked Japanese Cocktail with an egg thrown in. By “tweaked,” I mean I’m knocking back the brandy to 1 1/2 ounces to keep the overall quantity under control, and bumping up the orgeat from a 1/2 ounce in the original to 3/4 ounce for the flip, as a whole egg is mighty effective as a sweetness buffer, and you might want a little added syrup so the ethereal nuttiness of the orgeat remains a prominent player in the drink.

I mixed this drink with Boker’s Bitters a la the Japanese Cocktail, but to be honest I think they got lost in the richness of the flip; if you still want the added dimension, I’d recommend a spicy aromatic bitters such as The Bitter Truth or Fee’s Whiskey Barrel Aged bitters, or just axe the bitters entirely because, y’know, this drink is all about the cognac and the orgeat in a plush kind of environment.

Japanese Flip

1 1/2 ounces cognac or Armagnac
3/4 ounce orgeat (I used Trader Tiki’s)
1 smallish egg, very fresh
2 dashes bitters (optional; see note)
–fresh nutmeg, for garnish

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake well, without ice, until well combined, about 10 seconds. Add ice and shake again with a hell of a lot of vigor for around another 10 seconds; strain into a small goblet or cocktail glass, and grate some nutmeg over the top.

OK, perhaps not the most imaginative twist on a flip, but isn’t simplicity a wonderful thing? Besides, the Japanese Cocktail is always a winner with me, and in a flip environment I find the brandy/orgeat combo just as appealing.

Anyway, that’s my post for this Mixology Monday. Be sure to head over to Josh’s place to see how everybody else flipped out this month.

Tags: Brandy, Drinks, Mixology Monday by Paul
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