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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I try to range around the country when searching for good new drinks, hitting up bartenders in Boston, San Francisco and New Orleans to get an idea of how things are working in other cities.

This means, though, that I’ve sometimes been guilty of ignoring what’s happening closer to home, with Seattle bartenders, and part of what I’m trying to do with this short-term obsessive blog project is to highlight drinks from a few folks around town who are doing wonderful things. I’ve already mentioned Jim Romdall and his take-no-prisoners approach to mixology; here’s a drink (a not incredibly recent one, though that’s my fault) from another excellent Seattle bartender whose work I don’t cover anywhere near enough: Zane Harris, from Rob Roy.

The last time I interviewed Zane for anything, it was about a year and a half ago, for a gin article I was writing for Imbibe. At the time, Zane was working at Vessel, and he gave me a couple of drink recipes that were dramatically different, but that were both incredibly engaging.

One of the drinks was the Stone Fruit Sour, a recipe that ran online but not in the pages of the magazine. A simple modification of a Corpse Reviver #2, the Stone Fruit Sour starts with the same model of equal parts gin, Lillet and fresh lemon, but in place of Cointreau Zane goes for the richness of apricot liqueur, and in place of the heady absinthe, a couple of dashes of peach bitters.

Stone Fruit Sour
by Zane Harris, Rob Roy

• 3/4 ounce dry gin
• 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 ounce apricot liqueur
• 3/4 ounce Lillet
• 2 dashes Fee Brothers Peach Bitters

Combine everything in a cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake well about 10 seconds; strain into chilled sour glass or cocktail glass.

Before I go any further, I should note that today is Mixology Monday, hosted by Chris Amirault at eGullet, and Chris’s chosen theme is “Like That? You’ll Love This!” — in other words, sharing gateway drinks that can help usher the non-cocktail people in your life into your way of thinking. The last time an event with a similar theme came up, the drink I suggested was the Corpse Reviver #2, a flavorful and, in my mind, very approachable drink for beginners and committed cocktail enthusiasts alike.

If anything, the Stone Fruit Sour is even more easy to love; richer and fruitier where the CR2 can be lean and rangy, the Stone Fruit Sour seems tailor-made for drinkers accustomed to sweeter, fruitier, juicier drinks without a strong taste of alcohol, while itself avoiding (mostly) all of those descriptors. Sweet? Not really, but the liqueur provides enough richness that it’s sweet enough to get you there. Fruity? Hell, yes, but not in a cloying way. Ultimately, it’s just a perfectly balanced drink that touches on the peach / apricot / lemon comfort notes, but doesn’t sag into sticky insipidity like so many other drinks that venture down similar avenues.

Zane gave me another drink recipe to run with the gin story in 2009, one which actually did appear in print: the Don Bruno. Made with dry gin (Martin Miller’s Westbourne Strength is what you really want here), St. Germain and Don Bruno Sherry Vinegar, the drink has a complex, deep, eye-piercingly sharp flavor that doesn’t seem like it should work, but the combination really comes through.

The drink also has a problem — or, more accurately, I have a problem. A few months after the story came out, a bunch of us were at a dinner at Elemental in Seattle, a meal that featured pairings in which each course was matched with a drink made with Dolin vermouth. The drinks were created by various Seattle bartenders, along with non-bartenders including A.J. Rathbun and myself, and kicking everything off was an aperitif cocktail from Zane. I can’t recall the name that was stuck on the drink, but it was absolutely fantastic, and incredibly simple: nothing more than a splash of Don Bruno Sherry Vinegar tossed into an ice-filled mixing glass, swirled around and then poured off, followed by Dolin Blanc vermouth, stirred and strained into chilled glasses. Something about the sherry vinegar / blanc vermouth combo made it perhaps my favorite drink of the night.

And the problem? Last spring and summer I found myself with a hankering for these drinks, but I got lazy about checking the recipe. In my thinking, every time I thought of Zane’s Don Bruno cocktail, I forgot about the St. Germain and instead substituted Dolin Blanc, inadvertently mashing the two drink recipes together. An error on my part, I admit — but as I found out as this drink made it into occasional rotation in my house, it was a tasty, tasty error.

Don Bruno (mistake version)

• 2 ounces gin (Martin Miller’s Westbourne – really, it makes a difference, but substitute Plymouth or another savory dry gin if you just can’t get it)
• 1/2 ounce Dolin Blanc vermouth
• 1/4 ounce Don Bruno Sherry Vinegar
• – lemon twist, for garnish

Fill mixing glass with ice, and add vinegar. Stir a few seconds to splash the vinegar all over the ice; strain and discard excess vinegar. Add the gin and vermouth, and stir well until chilled, about 30 seconds. Strain into chilled cocktail glass; squeeze lemon peel over the drink and use as garnish.

The mistake version lacks the extra sweetness of the original, which is a better foil for the vinegar, but Dolin blanc has its own grape-ey sweetness, and just enough heaviness on the palate to counter the vinegar’s crisp bite. You really need to employ a light hand with the vinegar (or be vigilant about shaking out the excess), as it can easily screw everything up, but with its inimitable accent in the glass, it’s like a whole other class of bitters that lends depth and roundness to the finished drink.

Anyway, there’s one beginner-friendly cocktail for Mixology Monday, and one resolutely not a starter drink, both gathered (very long ago) from Zane Harris. While you’re online, go check out the other drinks from this month’s Mixology Monday, and once you’ve stepped away from the computer, go visit Rob Roy to see what else they’ve been up to.

Tags: Drinks, Gin, Mixology Monday, Sixty in 30 by Paul
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