Back when I first started exploring cocktails, one of the most useful resources I had was Esquire Drinks and the accompanying Esquire Drinks Database, both written by David Wondrich. Along with the recipes and essays on drinks, the database had (and I’m using the past tense, because damned if I can find it after the redesign) a list of “The Rules” regarding the art and wisdom of drinking. The first, and if memory serves, last rules on the list were identical: There is no such thing as a Chocolate Martini.

Agreed, I say — but I also append the caveat that I think chocolate gets a bum rap. Chocolate was the first flavor I recall loving enough to identify as a favorite (thanks in large part to the generous hand with the ice-cream scoop deployed by my regular babysitter), and today single-estate, artisan-crafted chocolate ranks high on the epicurean scale.

But when it comes to the cocktail world, respectable uses of chocolate are in short supply. Sure, you’ve got the simple shot of green Chartreuse in a mug of hot chocolate — and if you haven’t gone that route, then you have no idea what you’re missing — and classics such as the Twentieth Century (there are others, but not many). Some contemporary bartenders are playing with chocolate — Daniel Shoemaker served me an amazing bourbon-based Last Days made with a house creme de cacao at Teardrop Lounge in Portland a while back, Jamie Boudreau has a brandy-based Green Glacier that’s pretty damn good, and I’ve heard rumblings of goings on in San Francisco — and in Boston, Avery Glasser is moving incrementally closer to getting the phenomenally good Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters onto the market.

These are good doses of chocolate love, but it’s only a start. I’m hoping to play around more with the flavor in the months to come (likely including forays into homemade chocolate liqueurs — pray for me, please) but here’s a drink I’ve been having some fun with lately.

Before I get into the recipe, an explanation: I’m trying to make this as user-friendly as possible, but for the handful of folks out there with a sample of Bittermens mole bitters and/or Jamie Boudreau’s Amer Picon replica, I used these in the original incarnation, in place of the mescal and Averna, respectively (though with a dash of the bitters instead of the teaspoon of mescal — but you probably figured that out already). Try out that formulation if you’ve got the goods; otherwise, here’s the –

Theobroma

• 2 ounces reposado tequila
• 1/2 ounce Carpano Antica vermouth
• 1/2 ounce Averna
• 1/4 ounce creme de cacao (I’m using Marie Brizard, as it’s the least execrable I’ve found)
• 1 teaspoon mescal

Assemble in a mixing glass and do that thing where you stir with cracked ice for 20 seconds or so. Strain into chilled cocktail glass; twist a piece of orange zest over the top and use as garnish.

This drink bears some relation to the Camerone. Tequila just works so well with chocolate, and in the original Picon version of the Theobroma, you have that bitter orange element playing off of — and subduing — the sweetness of the creme de cacao. The Antica contributes complexity along with a cinnamon / vanilla note, and in this version, the mescal lends a hint of fire and smoke, which gives that favorite kiddo flavor a hint of danger. At a quarter-ounce, the chocolate isn’t prominent, but neither is it hiding; with a standard cacao I’m reluctant to bump it any higher, but with something with a little more bitter-chocolate character, hell yes.

Anyway, give this a try if you have the fixins, and let me know what you think.

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, Tequila, Thirty in 30 by Paul
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While most of the online coverage I’ve seen regarding the new Food & Wine 2009 Cocktail Guide has been in relation to Eric Felten’s excellent Wall Street Journal piece, “A Welcome Sign of Vodka’s Decline” (though Anita also gives a good rundown of the book over at Married…With Dinner), I thought I’d dip into the book in search of some good recipes.

I only started picking up the Food & Wine Cocktails series a couple of years ago, so I don’t have much of a long-term perspective on how the drinks have changed over the years. But what I do find appealing is the way the current book is organized, with some themed chapters arranged by individual bartenders — such as the Aperitif section from Jamie Boudreau and the Seasonal Drinks section from Todd Thrasher — while other chapters were compiled by Jim Meehan and include drinks both classic and modern from a range of different bartenders and approaches to mixology.

I’ve already gone through the book and tagged a number of promising recipes with Post-It notes; here’s one that caught my eye: the Flor de Jalisco. Included in the Latin Drinks chapter that was arranged by Death & Co. bartender Joaquin Simo, this original cocktail by Simo is somewhat similar to another drink I really enjoy, Jamie’s Marmalade Sour. A basic tequila sour with a citrusy twist, the Flor de Jalisco seems like the kind of cocktail that’s inventive enough to appeal to a crowd of discriminating drinkers, yet easy enough to construct so it could be cranked out in quantity.

Flor de Jalisco

• 2 ounces blanco tequila
• 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce agave nectar
• 1 teaspoon orange marmalade

Combine ingredients in a shaker and shake well with ice. Strain into chilled coupe glass and garnish with an orange twist.

I used Milagro blanco, because they recently sent me a sample and I wanted to give it a test drive. I can see some real potential in this drink; when I make it again (and it’s good enough to break out a few more times), I might try using lime instead of lemon (though maybe I’m stuck in that tequila = lime mindset), along with a slightly larger dose of marmalade, as its rich citric jamminess is somewhat obscured by the acid from the lemon juice.

Anyone give this a try? Let me know what you think–

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, Tequila, Thirty in 30 by Paul
9 Comments »

Last week, I was hurting. Over the weekend, a stomach bug knocked out both me and the missus, and I spent the better part of two days flat on my back, trying to sleep so I wouldn’t feel like barfing. Tuesday was a lot better, though, and by Wednesday I was trying to get my system back in gear, eating food had made me gag only a couple of days before, and that evening getting ambitious enough to see how I might do with a cocktail in front of me.

In my delicate condition, I knew it couldn’t be just anything — something too bitter or sweet might spark the nausea that was still not too far behind me, and a power-blaster like a Manhattan might just kill me. No, I needed something medicinal, so I asked Murray at Zig Zag for his own take on the Penicillin.

As I mentioned when I first blogged about the Penicillin, it’s a fantastically tasty drink, and my main regret was that I’d let the recipe languish in my notebook for so long before getting around to trying it. After I wrote about it, however, Murray offered me his variation: while still very much in the character of the scotch-based original, this version is based on tequila, with agave nectar and a good splash of house ginger-beer concentrate in place of the ginger-honey syrup. I always manage to miss exactly what tequila he uses for the base, but I believe it’s a reposado; then, for the float, he typically utilizes several different reposados (though one night Erik Hakkinen used the fragrant silver Agua Azul from St. George as a float, to very good effect).

After I initially tried this version, I kept wondering how a mezcal float would work on the drink, so I started mixing them at home. Utilizing lime in place of lemon (because it’s tequila, and, y’know), I also took the pointer offered by that sage o’ the booze Sam Kinsey in the comments to my Penicillin post: instead of going through the process of making a ginger syrup, I simply cut a few good chunks of fresh ginger and muddled the hell out of them in the mixing glass. I’ve been using a fruity blanco for the base — recently the plata single estate from Tequila Ocho, because, well, they sent me a bottle and it works really well in this drink — and a float of Los Danzantes mezcal, which contributes an incredibly potent smokiness to the drink that is just mouthwatering.

This is one of my current favorite cocktails, and with the range of different tequilas on the market right now, I can see myself working through different variations with different styles of tequila. That’s a testament to the utility of the original Penicillin recipe: it’s so wonderfully versatile, you can keep coming back to it and discover something new each time.

Usually I just order “that Penicillin tequila thing” at Zig Zag, but since that’s kinda long and I don’t know if they’ve shortened the name in any way, I’m just gonna go with the Spanish spelling of penicillin for this post. You wanna make something of it?

Penicilina

• 2 ounces tequila (blanco or reposado, depending on your mood)
• 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
• 1/2 ounce agave nectar
• 3-4 thick slices fresh ginger
• 1/4 ounce mezcal or fragrant tequila, for float

Place ginger in a shaker or mixing glass and muddle into paste. Add tequila, lime, agave nectar and ice and shake like hell for 10 seconds. Double-strain through fine-mesh strainer into chilled cocktail glass. Float mezcal on top of drink, using a barspoon. Take a good whiff, and smile.

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, Tequila, Thirty in 30 by Paul
7 Comments »

Before I’m accused of being unspeakably lame for blogging about a cocktail that:

1. has been featured on the menu of one of the world’s most talked-about cocktail bars for the better part of a year, and
2. has already had more than its fair share of press coverage, and that going back nearly a year as well,

let me say in my defense that:

1. I live 3,000 miles away from said bar, and
2. OK, maybe I am that unspeakably lame.

But I’m bringing up this drink for a few reasons (more fun with bullet lists!):

1. it sounds (and is) really good, and I’ve had the piece of yellowing newsprint novelty-magneted to my refrigerator since the day I ripped the recipe out of the New York Times;
2. I finally got around to stocking one of the necessary ingredients, so making this drink is now possible in my home;
3. I recently made snippy comments about the Times‘ “Shaken and Stirred” cocktail column that appears in every other (or thereabouts) Sunday Styles section, prompting an e-mail from the incredibly talented, patient and polite columnist who was wondering why he’d incurred my passive-aggressive wrath, so now I feel like a schmuck and need to highlight one of the drinks he covered that I did find really engaging (see point #1, above); and
4. I have to — it’s Mixology Monday, our host Jimmy Patrick has chosen Variations as the theme, and this tasty, tasty concoction certainly fits the bill.

While it could be argued that the Oaxaca Old Fashioned isn’t actually a variation, since Old Fashioned Cocktails were originally made with whatever booze happened to be lying around, enough time has passed that the drink is now in the mixological lexicon as a whiskey cocktail (actually, so much time has passed that the Old Fashioned is now typically thought of as a whiskey / fruity mess / club soda cocktail, a point I’ve already bitched about but is one that still depresses me so thoroughly that I’m going to end that discussion right here).

I should also point out that the recipe below is actually a variation on a variation — hah, try to keep up with that! — in that I’ve taken D&C’s published recipe and tweaked it ever so slightly, deciding to supplement the Angostura bitters with a couple of dashes of the Bittermens‘ luscious Xocolatl Mole Bitters, which I just can’t get enough of.

Ooh, this is so good — the mezcal gives the drink a really rich smokiness, which the tequila kind of tempers yet maintains with its own gentle peppery character, and then the deep spice of the bitters just rattles around in the glass. The Old Fashioned is one of the oldest of cocktails, but with this side trip to Oaxaca, the old dog has learned a spectacular new trick.

Oaxaca Old Fashioned

• 1 1/2 ounces reposado tequila (D&C recommends El Tesoro; I’m using Don Julio)
• 1/2 ounce mezcal (they say Los Amantes Joven; I’ve got Los Danzantes)
• 1 teaspoon agave nectar
• Dash of Angostura (me: add to this two dashes of Bittermens’ Xocolatl Mole bitters)

Stir with ice then strain into ice-filled old-fashioned glass. Garnish with an orange twist — flame it if you know how.

No pictures, because tonight I’m running even later than Jimmy, but head on over to his joint for the roundup in the next day or two.

Tags: Mixology Monday, Tequila by Paul
5 Comments »

Just a quick word before I move on: viruses suck.

Now that I’ve explained my absence from posting for much of the past week, I’ll note that while I was under the weather the San Francisco Chronicle scooped me on a topic I’ve been really excited about: some excellent new small-batch bitters coming out of New York, traveling under the name of Bittermens Bitters.

I say “coming out of ” in a loose sense; you can’t buy this stuff yet. The makers are still working to obtain approval from the feds, and expect their bitters will be on sale in time for Tales of the Cocktail this summer. But their products — a spicy Xocolatl Mole chocolate bitters; a Sweet Chocolate bitters; a hopped-up Grapefruit bitters; and a rotating seasonal bitters (for the fall they had “Squirrel Nut” pecan-vanilla; winter has brought “Elemakule Tiki Cocktail” bitters, flavored with falernum-style spices) — are already popping up in some of the best bars in the country: Death & Company and PDT in New York, Eastern Standard and Green Street in Boston/Cambridge, Alembic in San Francisco and Milk & Honey in London. And now, thanks to a wonderful care package sent my way by the good folks behind Bittermens, their bitters can be found at Zig Zag Cafe and Vessel in Seattle, as well as in my kitchen (and, should you come across him around town, Robert Hess is also packing some samples).*

I’m always excited to see a new artisan cocktail product come out; unfortunately, however, I’ve learned to temper this enthusiasm, primarily because so many small-batch spirits, bitters and other creations have proved themselves interesting and unique, but not necessarily good.

So it was an even greater surprise to discover how delightful these bitters really are. Many small-batch bitters I’ve tried err in one of two directions: the flavor is either too delicate and fades the instant it’s hit with spirits; or the maker has overcompensated and bulked up some aspect of the flavor (usually bitter) in an effort to keep these fades from occurring. Bittermens Bitters manages to walk this fine line: the Xocolatl, especially, has a very complex balance of flavors ranging from the brightness of cinnamon to the spark of chiles to the depth of bitter chocolate, and when you throw it in a mixing glass with full-flavored spirits, it sails through just fine, with no loss to the balance.

Wanting to see how tough these bitters really were, I even tried a couple of the recipes from Bittermens website, that called for mixing one or the other of the chocolate bitters with full-force bittering agents such as Campari or Amer Picon, or with a full-flavored liqueur such as yellow Chartreuse. In each case, the bitters sailed right through, lending their distinctive flavor to the drink without taking over the show or losing their character.

I’m still in the early stages of using these bitters, but I see a lot of busy winter nights ahead. If you’re near one of the bars listed on Bittermens website, go see for yourself what these bitters are about. Or, if you manage to score a bottle, try a little experiment I’m calling the Camerone:

Camerone

• 2 ounces reposado tequila (I used Don Julio)
  
• 3/4 ounce Amer Picon (I used Jamie’s replica)
• 1/4 ounce Licor 43
• 2 good dashes Bittermens Xocolatl Bitters

Stir well with ice; strain into chilled cocktail glass.

The vanilla of the Licor 43 and the chocolate of the bitters work so well together; to keep it from getting too cloying, the Picon puts a nice orangey bitterness in the middle of everything, and it’s all set against the delicate lusciousness of the reposado.

* One more bar in Seattle will have the Xocolatl, once I finish the last of my deliveries.

Tags: Drinks, Special Projects, Tequila by Paul
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