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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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’ve always had a soft spot for older recipes, even when they haven’t worked out. For every eye-opening moment I’ve had with venerable drinks such as a Brandy Crusta or an Improved Gin Cocktail, there’s been an awkward pause after taking a sip of a gin punch (a version that didn’t work so well — there are others that do) or a yard of flannel. Time hasn’t treated much of the drinks world so well, but that’s as it should be — some drinks just don’t taste very good, and were made to be forgotten. Are they interesting from a historical perspective? Sure. But do they taste good? Hell, no.

So it’s with some measure of caution when I venture into old drinks books, but I long ago learned not to take recipes quite so literally. Yes, I try to hew to the original formulation as much as I can, and I’ll usually mix an according to Hoyle version of an old drink at first just so I know what I’m dealing with. But if vintage drinks function as windows into a bibulous past, it’s important to remember why those drinks were initially formulated. Some were designed as tonics or restoratives, others as aids to the appetite or digestion. But overwhelmingly, every drink ranging from prehistoric punches to contemporary cocktails has been designed for a reason: because it tastes good, and because it’s a flavorful way to efficiently get liquor inside you.

One vintage drink book I haven’t worked with all that much — primarily because I don’t own a hard copy, and have to rely on the version from Google Books (and I’m a sucker for hard copy, especially when it comes down to trying recipes) — is Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks, by William Terrington. Published in London in 1869, Cooling Cups is of the same approximate vintage as that other leading text of classic mixology, Jerry Thomas’ Bar-Tender’s Guide. As its name implies, the book focuses primarily on that gauzy realm of drinks called “cups,” a category that calls punch its own but that also includes drinks made by flavoring and (sometimes) fortifying wine, beer and cider. While the book ventures somewhat into what we think of now as cocktail territory, with recipes for juleps, cobblers, a crusta and the like, we’re really talking mostly about larger-scale preparations.

As with any vintage drink guide, some of the recipes show their age, but you can see the underlying appeal of the drink through the creaky recipe. Here are two drinks that, as written, may not take you to many exciting places, but with a little fine-tuning, came out pretty well.

Let’s start with the easy one first: the ‘Tween Deck Cup.

‘Tween Deck Cup, or a Splitting Headache—

Put into 1/4 pint of rum 1/2 doz. crushed cloves, a little cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg; strain in an hour, with pressure; add equal quantities of lime-juice, and 2 quarts of bottled ale.

Simplicity was the main appeal to me here, plus I’m a little enamored with booze-beer mixtures that work well. I kept mostly close to the original recipe, with a couple of significant exceptions: first, four ounces of rum to two quarts of ale? C’mon — at that point it’s just a glass of beer with a “does this taste funny to you?” air about it.

For flavoring, I followed the directions, except I used a few good chunks of stem ginger in syrup in lieu of fresh or dried ginger (why? because it tastes good, plus I had some), along with some whole cloves, coarsely crushed cinnamon sticks and a grating of nutmeg, all soaked in Zaya for a couple of hours, then strained. I made the beer-flavoring into more of a cocktail-style drink by shaking two ounces of the flavored rum with the lime juice and a little maple syrup (the other change, because otherwise it seemed just too acidic) with ice, then straining into a beer glass (I used a pilsner glass, as it seemed about the right size), and topping with a rich dark ale — maybe 3-4 ounces of beer, total, so the rum was still at the forefront of flavor. For the beer, I used Samuel Smith Winter Ale, what with it being Christmas-time and all, and this being essentially a spiced-rum drink, and the beer being the only thing that fit the bill currently in stock at my local store. So, to clarify:

‘Tween Deck Cup (updated version)
(makes two drinks)

• 4 ounces rich rum – I used Zaya, but something like Zacapa or your other favorite big, dark rum should work well
• 6 chunks stem ginger in syrup
• 6 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Fresh-grated nutmeg – 6 scrapes or so, perhaps 1/8 tsp?
• 2 ounces lime juice
• 1/2 ounce maple syrup
• Chilled rich ale

Muddle ginger in a soaking jar. Coarsely crush cloves and cinnamon and add to the jar with nutmeg and rum. Let soak for an hour or two, then strain. Shake the flavored rum with the lime juice and maple syrup; strain into two chilled beer glasses. Top with about 4 ounces (each) of rich ale.

And the verdict? Way, way better than I expected. Really, I thought this would be kind of “meh” and I don’t want to overstate things, because this won’t be my favorite holiday drink or anything, but really, it came out surprisingly good. The fresh spices came through better than any commercially produced spiced rum I’ve had (including the good ones), and the beer really meshed well, making this into kind of a more mature spiced rum and Coke, if that makes any sense at all. Anyway, I liked it.

And that was the easy one. Here’s where things got a little tricky, with a drink that doesn’t even have a name of its own.

Cider Cup a la Ensor, No. 4

Infuse in a gill of brandy, or whisky, 1 scruple of the essence of jargonelle pear (acetate of amyl), 2 dessert-spoonfuls of guava jelly, or quince; slice of cucumber, if desired, for a cool taste; quart of cider, bottle of perry, sugar to taste; add 3 bottles of lemonade or soda-water; ice up.

Okay, the thing that really got my attention here is the mention of “quince”. Like certain other people, I’ve become a BIG fan of quince brandy in recent years; even though it takes me a year to make a batch (though you can probably get somewhere passable within a couple of months), the combination of cognac and quince is almost aphrodisiacal to my palate. But, look at that train-wreck of a recipe — where to start?

Okay, I lobbed the spoonfuls of jelly in favor of using quince brandy for the base (if you didn’t have the foresight to prepare your own starting this time last year, then go with regular cognac and a barspoon of quince paste), along with an equal measure of bourbon, for more oaky depth. Lacking essence of pear, I opted for a lovely, lush German pear liqueur from Pur Spirits — this is without a doubt my favorite pear liqueur, with the ethereal flavor of pear eau de vie and the sweetness of fresh pears, a delicate liqueur but still with enough gumption not to immediately fade in flavor when confronted with other ingredients; really outstanding.

I added a little lemon juice, to compensate for what was becoming a sweet drink, and used honey syrup in lieu of sugar; also, for a little touch of spice, I added two dashes of The Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas Decanter Bitters. Finally, after shaking all that with ice, I strained into a cocktail glass and topped with maybe an ounce of chilled dry cider — I used Samuel Smith (again — based on availability, not necessarily preference; would be curious to try with other styles) — so think of this as a distant autumnal cousin of the French 75.

This was the drink I served on Thanksgiving; I think it worked well, with excellent flavors of pear, quince and apple, and a nice seasonal flavor without going overboard with cinnamon and other baking spices. If anybody wants to go all the way out there and mix one, please do let me know what you think.

Cider Cup a la Ensor, variation

• 3/4 ounce quince brandy (substitute cognac)
• 3/4 ounce bourbon
• 1 barspoon quince paste (omit if using quince brandy)
• 1/2 ounce lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce Pur Spirits pear liqueur
• 1/4 ounce honey syrup (equal parts honey and water)
• 2 dashes The Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas Decanter Bitters (or substitute Angostura)
• – chilled dry cider

Combine everything except cider in a cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake well until chilled; strain into chilled cocktail glass. Top with 1-2 ounces chilled dry cider.

I’m guessing there are about two people on earth who might actually try these recipes (and that’s a fairly generous guess), but if you decide to give either or both a try, please let me know.

Tags: Bourbon, Brandy, Drinks, Rum, Sixty in 30 by Paul
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Writing about three drinks with a common element of French quinquinas may be leaping deep into cocktail geek territory, but hey — here, I’m among my people.

I’ve written in depth about the class of aperitif wines known as quinquinas a couple of times — here’s a piece from Imbibe, and another from the San Francisco Chronicle — so I’ll skip the long history lesson and get right down to the drinks.

Last spring, when Eric Seed’s Haus Alpenz began distributing two quinine-enhanced aperitif wines, much of the buzz in the blogosphere and beyond was about Cocchi Aperitivo Americano, long rumored in cocktail circles to be the best available substitute for the now-defunct Kina Lillet in drinks such as the Corpse Reviver #2 and the Twentieth Century. At the same time, though, Eric was also bringing in Bonal Gentiane-Quina; here’s what I wrote about Bonal in the Chronicle:

Produced in France since 1865, Bonal has a double-headed bitterness from cinchona and gentian. When combined with other ingredients in a base of mistelle - partially fermented grape juice mixed with higher-proof alcohol – its character is simultaneously juicy and bone dry.

If there’s a takeaway lesson I try to work in every time I write or talk about quinquinas, it’s that these aperitif wines are NOT simply a kind of vermouth. Similar, yes, in the way that Maker’s Mark is similar to Glenrothes in that they’re both grain-based spirits aged in oak barrels, but simply lumping Dubonnet or St. Raphael in with Noilly Prat is a disservice to both sides of the aperitif-wine equation, and can only be limiting when thinking about how to use these wines in a cocktail.

But instead of lecturing, as I have the habit of doing, let me show you what quinquinas can do in a cocktail, using Bonal as the running theme. We’ll start with the Bonal & Rye, from Todd Smith at Dalva in San Francisco, the recipe for which ran with my story in the Chronicle.

Bonal & Rye
from Todd Smith, Dalva, San Francisco

• 2 ounces rye whiskey (I like Wild Turkey 101 or Rittenhouse 100, if you’ve got a stash)
• 1 ounce Bonal Gentiane-Quina
• 1/2 ounce Cointreau
• 2 dashes orange bitters
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• – Orange twist, for garnish

Stir with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass, give it a good twist of the orange peel and use it as garnish

Between the Cointreau and the orange bitters (I used Angostura orange), this is like an uber-citrusy Manhattan. The difference, however, is that while a Manhattan would have a bit more sweetness and a herbaceous finish, thanks to the vermouth, Bonal brings its juicy/dry characteristic — it lends just enough bitterness to keep this cocktail on the dry side (even with the liqueur along for the ride), but it’s not an astringent bitterness — it’s akin to biting into a bunch of grapes, stem and seeds and all, so there’s a vibrant mix of bitterness and bright juice that makes everything balance out. A very worthwhile Manhattan relative (even if it’s a distant cousin, twice-removed).

I was in San Francisco in October, and while I didn’t have a chance to visit Dalva, I was introduced to another interesting Bonal drink by Jonny Raglin at Comstock Saloon. This isn’t on the menu (or at least it wasn’t at the time), and I’m not sure if it even has a name, but it’s basically a variation on a Brooklyn cocktail with a couple of little twists.

I’ve always been suspicious of the Brooklyn; for some reason, the mixture of rye or bourbon with dry vermouth has never seemed an auspicious pairing to me; the floral aspects of dry vermouth always seem discordant with the rich oakiness of the whiskey, and except for the Algonquin Cocktail (which complicates the matter with the addition of pineapple juice), I can’t think of another whiskey + dry vermouth drink I’ve particularly enjoyed.

Jonny remedied this clash by discarding the vermouth in favor of dry sherry — in his case, Lustau Palo Cortado, which is kind of a midway sherry between the bone-dry fino and the richer, nuttier amontillado. Also, since one of the Brooklyn’s signature ingredients, Amer Picon, is still a rarity in the U.S., Jonny swapped it out for Bonal and added a dash of orange bitters, so there’s still a little citrus ting to the drink along with a dry bitterness.

RECIPE NOTE: I didn’t get Jonny’s measurements from him, so I’m working with a classic Brooklyn recipe with the ingredient substitutions kept at the same proportions; it didn’t taste weird when I tried it, so hopefully I’m in the ballpark.

Brooklyn variation
by Jonny Raglin, Comstock Saloon, San Francisco

• 2 ounces rye whiskey (I used Wild Turkey 101)
• 3/4 ounce palo cortado sherry*
• 1/4 ounce Bonal Gentiane-Quina
• 1/4 ounce maraschino liqueur
• 1 dash orange bitters
• –orange twist, for garnish

Stir with ice, strain, twist & garnish.

* After 15 minutes of searching, I gave up on finding that bottle of palo cortado I bought and squirreled away somewhere, waiting for the right time to open it. Instead I used oloroso — I know, not the same, but hey — and the drink was still quite tasty, with more of that brown-butter nuttiness you get from the bigger-tasting sherry. In hindsight I should have mixed half oloroso with half fino, but I wasn’t really thinking at the time.

This Brooklyn variation is much more to my taste; the sherry’s nuttiness fits way better with rye than dry vermouth ever does, in my opinion, and the drink was dry but still rich-tasting, as opposed to a standard Brooklyn’s tangy florals. I’ll go with this version anytime.

One other drink I’d gathered for the Chronicle piece, but wound up not using for reasons of space, is an adaptation of a classic Quinquina Cocktail, the renovated version developed by Chantal Tseng from Tabard Inn in Washington, D.C. Chantal says she initially found the recipe in Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide from 1947, but that it also appears in “Cocktail Bill” Boothby’s World Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em from much earlier in the century. This tweaked version may be my favorite of the three drinks in this post.

Quinquina Cocktail (variation)
adapted by Chantal Tseng, Tabard Inn, Washington, D.C.

• 1 ounce brandy
• 1/2 ounce apricot liqueur (Rothman & Winter suggested)
• 3/4 ounce Bonal Gentiane-Quina
• 2 dashes Pernod (I substituted absinthe)
• –lemon peel, for garnish

Stir well with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass, give it the lemon peel treatment.

This is really, really good — the plushness of the brandy and liqueur are offset just enough by the dryness of the Bonal. The quinquina’s bitterness is almost completely dispelled by the other ingredients, except for a light, lingering back-palate finish that reminds you that you did, indeed, have some quinine in there somewhere. I’d like to try this with a good peach liqueur, or perhaps pear; perhaps once I’m done with this 60/30 thing, I’ll have time to take this kind of scenic detour.

Tags: Brandy, Drinks, Rye, Sixty in 30 by Paul
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Before I even asked Jim Romdall from Vessel if he’d let me rip off a couple of his recipes for this month-long blog frenzy, I knew whatever drinks he prepared would have some ingredient guaranteed to freak out about 90 percent of the drinking public. I mean, look at the facts: the man’s Twitter handle is @ardbegfloat, he entered a cocktail in a vodka contest that mixed the obnoxiously toothpaste-esque 42 Below Feijoa with (if my fuzzy memory serves) green Chartreuse and Bowmore (and actually made a pretty interesting drink out of it), and who’s been known to deploy both absinthe and Caol Ila in a gin-based cocktail.

Jim’s also a good sport and even after I told him that these drinks were to be featured on a blog, and not in print or anything real or sexy like that, he still played along. And while I was a little disappointed that no Islay malts made their way into the mix — really, I was fully prepared to exit Vessel smelling like my coat was on fire — Jim did indeed go there with the buckets-of-knuckles ingredients, preparing both drinks with Fernet Branca, and one of them with white dog.

Here’s where he went:

Industry Sour

• 1 1/2 ounces cognac
• 3/4 ounce Fernet Branca
• 3/4 ounce lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce lime juice
• 1/4 ounce agave nectar
• 1 egg white
• Angostura bitters, for garnish

Combine everything except the bitters in a cocktail shaker. Dry shake for a good 10 seconds to work up the egg white, then add ice and go at it again. Strain into chilled cocktail glass; drip Angostura atop the foam and swirl it into pretty pictures if that’s what you like to do with your time.

Jim actually prepared this for me using Calvados, which was an interesting detour but as he said and I agree after trying the drink again at home, you really want the soft, fruity richness of grape brandy for a platform upon which the Fernet and the citrus can play.

Speaking of the Fernet: as anybody who’s ever mixed a drink with it knows, putting Fernet Branca in a cocktail shaker with other ingredients can be the rough equivalent of feeding crystal meth to a pit bull and putting it in a room full of bunnies: the results are bloody, messy and frighteningly savage. There are a few things that can partially defang Fernet, though; one, as I’ve mentioned, is a whopping dose of vermouth, but others include egg white, which helps soften and spread out the bitter impact, and citrus — well, the citrus is like distracting the tweaking dog by hitting it with a pillow while the surviving rabbits run for cover: it doesn’t so much soften the Fernet’s bite as much as it provides another aspect of the drink that keeps the liqueur from fully dominating. Anyway, as might be expected, this is a big, bold, gnarly drink, but still pretty appealing if you’re into big, bold, gnarly things.

Vessel is right next to the 5^th Avenue Theatre, and right now, as the holidays approach, the theater is featuring A Christmas Story: The Musical, based on the “you’ll put your eye out” movie from the 1980s. In case you’ve somehow missed catching the movie during the holiday-season heavy rotation it’s enjoyed on television over the past quarter century, there’s a key scene near the end involving a Christmas turkey and a pack of the neighbor’s dogs. Always one to support the next-door theater as well as to celebrate bad behavior on the part of animals, Jim created the next drink in their honor.

Bumpass Hound

• 2 ounces rye whiskey (he used Pikesville)
• 1/2 ounce unaged (or minimally aged) rye whiskey
• 1/4 ounce Fernet Branca
• 1/4 ounce simple syrup
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• –orange twist, for garnish

Put ingredients in a mixing glass and yadda yadda if you’ve been to this blog before you know what to do. Up, cocktail glass, orange twist.

Jim initially tried this with an ounce of Headlong White Dog from the Woodinville Whiskey Co., which is made using a rye-free bourbon mashbill, and the new spirit was just too soft and sweet for this drink, so he started over with Wasmund’s Rye Spirit, cutting the dose back to 1/2 ounce compensate for the potency of this cask-strength raw whiskey (Jim says he’ll be using Corsair Wry Moon should this drink go into the regular rotation). If you’re playing along at home and don’t have any of these spirits, another (still somewhat obscure and kinda pricey) option is to use Old Potrero 18^th Century Style Whiskey, which is all rye, cask strength and very lightly aged.

Now this is something. The drink is basically a Toronto Cocktail with additional gaminess provided by the young whiskey. I have to confess to a bit of white-dog fatigue; sure, it’s interesting stuff, but I rarely find myself actually wanting it in my glass. But in this drink, the young whiskey really plays a good role: it takes the potency of flavor that’s so engaging in a Toronto, and adds another dimension, giving the drink a new identity. The young rye also lends support to the base of aged rye, waking up the whiskey’s flavor, and in the process it erects an obstacle to keep the Fernet from stealing the show.

Anyway, thanks to Jim Romdall for playing along with my little blog project. Go see him at Vessel and buy a bunch of drinks.

Tags: Brandy, Drinks, Establishments, Rye, Sixty in 30 by Paul
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