I love the Appletini.

Mind you, I’ve never actually had one — not a “real” one, anyway, assuming you can call a drink that’s become an icon of all that’s saccharine and false about cocktails “real.” Even when I was younger and (more) stupid, when I was less picky about what went into my glass, a drink that both looked and tasted like Jolly Ranchers just seemed to be wrong, not only a fraudulent fake of a proper cocktail, but yet one more molestation of a natural flavor.

But as someone who makes his living writing about drinks, the Appletini has been a godsend, a useful tool for mocking all that’s wrong with bars, and an instrument of warning to those who are tempted to take the quick, easy way out. Plus, with the drink’s pioneering appropriation of the ‘tini suffix, the Appletini became a punchline in itself, a gaudy green scapegoat in a cocktail glass for craptinis everywhere. Long may it wave.

There’s a problem here, though. Y’see, for all its faults, an Appletini has one thing going for it: it tastes decent to a lot of people (so I assume — again, I’ve never had one, but it’s easy to come to that conclusion) — and why not? It tastes like apples (kinda, or at least what apples taste like as interpreted by food scientists), and apples are awesome. Even spirits actually made from apples don’t really, truly taste like apples (except on a certain ethereal, completely engaging level), thanks mostly to the effects of barrel aging — not that I’m complaining, of course. But, apples — why not? If you can take a drink that’s emblematic of all that’s fake in mixology, and render it in a natural way, isn’t that a worthwhile cause (or at least a potentially interesting way of spending a Monday evening)?

Fortunately, today is Mixology Monday, and as this month’s host Jacob Grier chose to frame it, this month’s event is themed “Retro Redemption.” Jacob’s challenge is to take a misbegotten concoction, preferably from recent decades, and tweak it into something appealing to the growing craft-cocktail crowd. And if ever a drink needed tweaking, it’s the Appletini.

So, here’s how I’m going to proceed: I’m going to take the Appletini at its most literal, and break it down by the constituent parts of its name — first, it has to have an apple influence; and second, it has to earn that ‘tini suffix.

My starting ground rule is that the drink’s base elements must be gin (vodka? really? are you in the right place?) and dry vermouth; bonus points if the orange bitters stay in the equation. And for the apple? It must be a natural component, something from an actual apple, not a mock-up of apple flavor or a processed apple product. Simply adding an ounce of apple juice or the like to the drink would be cheating on a certain level — my self-imposed rule stipulates that the drink must still be identifiable as a martini — but what if I process the drink through an apple?

We know from experience that apples and dry vermouth work fantastic together, as demonstrated in Audrey Saunders’ Eve — a simple five-day infusion of Macintosh apples in vermouth. Had I given this project much thought prior to the last couple of days, I might’ve smacked a bottle together, but by the time I started thinking about the apple + martini project earlier today, the infusion ship had sailed.

Or had it? No, I didn’t have five days for an infusion, but I had a few minutes — not to mention a couple of Granny Smith apples and an iSi cream whipper, which, by following the nitrogen infusion process first explored by Dave Arnold, was all I needed to do a flash-infusion of apples into my drink, and which hopefully would only bring the delicate, fruity notes of the fruit, without the darker, bitter flavors that come from oxidizing apples.

Okay, this post is way too chatty by this point — let’s get down to the recipe:

The Appletini is Dead! Long live the Appletini!
makes 3 drinks

• 6 ounces gin (I used Plymouth)
• 3 ounces dry vermouth (I used Noilly Prat)
• 1 large (or 1 1/2 small) Granny Smith apple
• 1 dash orange bitters
• lemon zest, for garnish

1. Core the apple and chop it, peel and all, into small chunks. Place the apple chunks in the canister of an iSi cream whipper, and add the gin and vermouth.
2. Seal the whipper, and get your stopwatch ready. Use a N2O charger to pressurize the whipper, and swirl the contents around for 30 seconds; at the end of 30 seconds, place the whipper on the counter and let it rest an additional 30 seconds.
3. Rapidly depressurize the whipper by placing a plastic container over the spout (to catch the spraying liquid) and squeeze the lever. Once the whipper is completely depressurized, strain the liquid into a large glass. Let it rest a few minutes before using — the flavor develops better with a little time.
4. Proceed as with a standard cocktail: place three ounces of liquid in a mixing glass, add a dash of bitters along with a bunch of ice, and stir until chilled. Strain into chilled cocktail glass; hit it with the lemon zest.

This worked out better than expected. The liquid went into the canister a light straw color (from the vermouth), and came out a delicate, chlorophyll green. At first sip, the apple was barely noticable — it was all martini, with a softer, rounder edge.

But after the liquid rested a bit more, the apple flavor developed; the drink was still no fucking doubt a martini, but it had a lightly floral aroma, and a lingering finish that was had the bright, acidic crispness and the very gentle sweetness of a fresh Granny Smith apple. You wouldn’t sip this drink and have “apple” immediately leap to mind, but the fruit gradually manifested itself as a welcome addition to the martini’s familiar flavor — as though the bright freshness of the fruit was one of the botanicals in the gin or the vermouth, pronounced enough to be identifiable as a flavor, and definitely lending a soft, fruity caress to the drink, but not attempting to seize control of the drink’s character from its spirituous base elements.

Does it taste like a “real” Appletini? Hell, no. That’s why I’m still drinking it…

Anyway, that’s my MxMo contribution for this month. Head over to Jacob’s place and see what others have got up to for this round.

Tags: Drinks, Gin, Mixology Monday // 5 Comments »

There are few compounds that are more sinful than the applejack of New Jersey. The name has a homely, innocent appearance, but in reality applejack is a particularly powerful and evil spirit. The man who intoxicates himself on bad whisky is sometimes moved to kill his wife and set his house on fire, but the victim of applejack is capable of blowing up a whole town with dynamite and of reciting original poetry to every surviving inhabitant.

– “A Wicked Beverage,” New York Times, April 10, 1894

You can learn a lot about a civilization by looking at what it drinks — and when that civilization is an early ancestor of your own, an exploration of the drinking habits can result in not only an interesting anecdote or two, but hopefully a better picture of who we are as a society.

In our early years, Americans drank pretty much anything that was available — but “available” is the operative term here. Our ancestors drank beer and wine, when it was available, which after the initial supplies ran out, wasn’t very often; soon, brandy and, more importantly, rum entered the picture, and eventually whiskey worked its way into the mix. But for much of America’s history, from the earliest Colonial days and for the more than two centuries that followed, Americans sated their thirst for beverages that conveyed a buzz mostly with libations that came from the fruit of the apple tree — primarily in the form of hard cider, which was EVERYWHERE and in tremendous quantities, but also in its harder, sharper and, at times, burly and boisterous relative: applejack, the distinctive American interpretation of apple brandy.

For a drink that so enamored our American ancestors (especially in the Northeast), we know awfully little about applejack and American apple brandy today. If your reading habits have brought you to this blog, you’re no doubt already familiar with Laird’s applejack and probably their bonded apple brandy, too, and you may even know of newer, small-scale producers somewhere (legal or, um, “artisanal”) who are making the stuff. But what else do you know about American apple brandy?

The answer, probably, is “not much.” A year or so ago, I was lamenting my own ignorance of a category that I still found pretty fascinating, so I started putting together bits of historical info that eventually made their way into my “As American as Apple Brandy” presentation at Tales of the Cocktail in July (where I was joined by another ardent fan of apple brandy, my good friend Misty Kalkofen, from Drink in Boston).

In case you missed my applejack schtick at Tales, there’s another opportunity coming up where you can see me get way too excited about this style of spirit that’s undergoing a bit of a comeback: on Saturday, November 19, I’ll be talking about American apple brandy as part of Swig Well: Seattle Drinking Academy, at Rob Roy.

Among the things I’ll babble about are bits of apple-brandy history such as:

• In 1830, near the end of the farmstead epoch of American distilling, there were 430 distillers operating in New Jersey. Even after liquor production moved primarily to large, centralized distilleries, there were still approximately 60 distilleries in southern New York producing apple brandy in 1890, and in 1892, more than 70 distilleries in New Jersey produced around 13,000 barrels of the stuff.
• Long ignored by the temperance movement, apple growers eventually came under Prohibitionist assault around the turn of the 20th century. The result? Thousands of apple trees were destroyed to disrupt the production of cider; facing this threat, apple growers embraced what became one of history’s most memorable marketing slogans: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
• In anticipation of the demand that would follow Prohibition’s repeal, Laird’s & Co. announced in October, 1933, that they’d begun production of 1 million gallons of apple brandy—“for medicinal purposes.”

Oh — and there’ll be cocktails.

This is my first scheduled class at Swig Well, and while tickets are limited, I want to make sure every seat is full. The class is an hour-ish long (I get chatty sometimes), and takes place on the afternoon of Saturday, November 19 (I don’t have a set start time yet, but it’ll be between noon and 3pm) from 1:30pm to 2:30pm; tickets are $75 each.

Check out my original post about Swig Well, then head over to their site to see the syllabus and to sign up for tickets (you’ll need advance reservations — like I said, tickets are limited). And, while you’re at it, check them out on your social-media platform of choice: Swig Well on Twitter, and Swig Well on Facebook.

Tags: Applejack, Events // 3 Comments »

If last night’s Twitter traffic is any indication, I missed a hell of a party.

That’s to be expected. I’m home in Seattle, while the party in question — that for the release of Jim Meehan’s The PDT Cocktail Book – was, obviously, in New York, the way many of the parties I’m really envious of missing seem to be.

But the celebration was certainly justified. In addition to being one of the world’s more talented and influential barmen, and co-owner of one of the core bars in the craft-cocktail universe, Jim Meehan is now author of a cocktail guide that’s bound to be so definitive of a mixological moment and so influential for bartenders current and future that I can only agree with Gaz Regan (while conveniently stealing his words) that the PDT book is “the best book of its kind to hit the shelves in the twenty-first century. The very best. Bar none.” (Thanks for the help, Gary!)

Okay, details: there are more than 300 recipes in this book, all sourced from assorted manifestations of PDT’s menu. There are a few familiar classics of the Monkey Gland and French 75 variety, but where Meehan’s book not surprisingly shines is in its wealth of contemporary recipes, many from Meehan and his colleagues and associates, for drinks such as the hibiscus-and-tequila Green Harvest; Don Lee’s Rite of Spring, made with pickled ramp brine; and the apple brandy and beer-based Great Pumpkin.

I first tried the Great Pumpkin at PDT three years ago, and I brought a happy, hazy memory of this rich autumnal drink home with me. I got a chance to run a recipe for this drink in the San Francisco Chronicle about two years back, and now that the stores are once again flooded with pumpkin ale –something I have a hard time getting too enthusiastic about, except when it’s a component in mixed drinks such as this one — it’s a suitable time to take a look at the Great Pumpkin again.

Great Pumpkin
created by Jim Meehan, Fall 2008

• 1 oz. Rittenhouse rye whiskey
• 1 oz. Laird’s bonded apple brandy
• 1/2 oz. grade B maple syrup
• 1 whole egg, as fresh as possible
• 2 oz. pumpkin ale*

Combine everything in a cocktail shaker and agitate to flatten the beer (it helps if you add the beer first, then splish it about to drive out all the bubbles so your shaker won’t pop open and spray booze and eggs all over the place). Shake well without ice to fully combine the ingredients, then add ice and shake like hell for 10 seconds. Strain into chilled fizz glass; top with grated nutmeg.

* Meehan recommends the pumpkin ale from Southampton; being in the PNW, I went with Elysian’s pumpkin ale, which worked pretty well.

The Great Pumpkin has a complexity of preparation that’s pretty much par for the course in the PDT Cocktail Book. While some of the book’s drinks call for bespoke ingredients — from simple preparations like house ginger beer or walnut-infused cognac, to more complicated items such as concord-grape shrubb, or tamarind puree — or for unusual ingredients that can take some work to track down, such as Boiron passion fruit puree or Abbott’s Bitters (though there are replicas now floating about), many of the drinks are relatively straightforward. Meehan frequently calls for particular brands of certain spirits or modifiers, which can be challenging if you intend to prepare that drink exactly according to the specifications, but if you exercise some flexibility with substitutes while keeping the drink’s final flavor in mind, a cocktail enthusiast with a reasonably well-stocked home bar should be able to tackle most of the book’s recipes.

And the drinks? Extraordinary. PDT has built a reputation as one of the world’s best bars not just because you have to go through a phone booth to get there and can get a hot dog with your Blood and Sand — the drinks developed by Meehan and his staff, which has included formidable talent such as Don Lee and John Deragon, are big in flavor, distinctive in character and reliably fantastic.

Here’s a very simple drink from Meehan that I mixed last weekend, and enjoyed very much: the Platanos en Mole Old Fashioned.

Platanos en Mole Old Fashioned

• 2 oz. Zacapa 23 Centenario Rum*
• 1/4 oz. Brizard Crème de Banane**
• 12 drops Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters

Combine ingredients in a mixing glass and fill with ice. Stir well until chilled, 20 seconds or so, and strain into a rocks glass with one large cube of ice. Garnish with a pinch of ground chili.

* Did I say be flexible? Zacapa works really well here, but if you absolutely have none in the house but you do have some Zaya lying around, it’ll get you there.
** More on flexibility—the only banana liqueur I have is Giffard Banane du Bresil, which ain’t too shabby and worked just great in this drink.

Anyway, I’m already running behind the release date on getting this post up, so I’ll can further chatter and leave it to you: grab a copy of The PDT Cocktail Book, and if you have particular luck with one or more of the recipes, let me know in the comments section.

Tags: Applejack, Books, Drinks, Rum, Rye // 3 Comments »

Drinking is easy.

Learning how to make a decent drink — well, that’s easy, too, but it requires a little more attention … attention, and resources, and most useful of all, some guidance from those who’ve ventured down the good-drinking path ahead of you.

For resources, you’ve got stuff like this blog, and this magazine, and these videos, and there’s a whole slew of other books, websites and whatnot that can teach you everything from which brand of bourbon to buy to how to clarify lime juice or break down a spirit into its constituent elements.

And now, if you live in Seattle, there are classes. Swig Well is a cocktail-education program (the preferred term is “drinking academy”, with all its intended unfussy “drinking-is-fun” implications) organized by Rob Roy mastermind Anu Apte along with business partner Hallie McGee. Like similar programs around the country, Swig Well focuses on teaching its “students” how to drink (and prepare drinks) better, and how to better understand the character of what’s in the glass.

Where Swig Well gets distinctive is in its approach: while Apte is teaching the inaugural class (this weekend!) along with other courses to come, she’s reaching out to the broader bar community in search of instructors and topics. As a result, sessions may be relatively simple (as with this weekend’s Halloween-themed class), designed to appeal to adventurous consumers, or the event can be an intensive look at aromatic compounds in cocktails or the science of shaking vs. stirring, designed for audiences of advanced cocktail nerds and longtime bartenders.

Most sessions will take place at Rob Roy and have an audience max of 10-ish, to provide a more intimate and interactive experience, though there will be some exceptions to both location and class size, depending on topic. Most classes will be in the afternoon (to work around bar opening times), largely weekends, though again, there may be exceptions. Class prices start at $75, which gets you a few drinks, an hour or hour-plus of a seminar by a learned professional, along with whatever swag that session may feature (there’s talk of Swig Well-branded Moleskine notebooks for participants, along with items liquor brands or other sponsors may offer).

Anyway, Swig Well’s first full-bore class is this weekend, the start of hopefully many more to come. For more info, swing by Swig Well’s site, or go all 2011 and “Like” them on Facebook and follow Swig Well on Twitter.

Tags: Events // 1 Comment »

Mornings? You can keep ‘em.

Even though I have all the daytime demands that come with being a middle-aged family man unburdened by independent wealth, I still prefer coming at the morning from the other side — seeing the sunrise as a tip that it’s time to go to bed rather than as the cue that it’s time to start making the goddamn donuts.

But, what can you do? Well, when the opportunity presents itself, you can start the day with a drink.

A disclaimer: I almost never start the day with a drink. When I stagger into the kitchen most days, it’s the coffee cup I’m reaching for to pull me out of my bleary haze; a drink at that hour? Might as well go back to bed, which isn’t a bad idea at all, but one that brings us back to those daytime demands I mentioned earlier. But sometime the day just swings that way; either it’s a special weekend or a holiday when you have the luxury of squandering an hour or so at the breakfast table or of slouching back to bed after tucking in to the bacon and brioche, or you’ve got guests, in which case you could use a damn drink to get everyone through the ordeal of beginning a new day together.

(Or, you could also be thinking of a breakfast drink because today is Mixology Monday, hosted by Kevin at Cocktail Enthusiast, and Kevin has chosen “Morning Drinks” for this month’s theme.)

Anyway, there are some grand morning drinks out there — think the Ramos Fizz, the French 75 or the Milk Punch – as well as the old standbys (the Bloody Mary, of course, and its frequent companion, the Mimosa) — and once you start thinking about it, almost anything can make a case for itself for winding up in your cocktail glass just as the toast is being buttered.

But, think carefully here: for all their beauty, the Ramos Fizz and the French 75 are perfect morning drink s only when prepared by someone else. Really, if you’re still waking up and possibly shaking off the effects of the night before, do you really want to commit yourself to compounding elaborate mixtures of ingredients and rat-a-tatting them in the cocktail shaker anywhere near your tender head? And as for the Bloody Mary and the Mimosa – well, they’re not bad, necessarily, especially if you’re using decent booze and good ingredients and take a little care in the preparation. But every time I drink a Bloody Mary or one of its kin — this is usually in the once a year department, typically on New Year’s Day — I find myself asking, “Is that all there is?” Ditto for the Mimosa, and the answer, of course, is “Yes — sorry.”

So — what’s tasty and fortifying, gentle on the head, palate and stomach and easy enough to prepare so you can mix yourself a drink with little fuss, or knock out a bunch for a crowd? Consider the Black Velvet. True, there’s no hard booze in there, but at this hour that can’t be considered a crime, especially when one of the ingredients is champagne, which makes everything in life just a little bit better. The other ingredient? Beer — stout, to be precise, and as any hangover survivor can attest, the bubbles and the barley are among the most useful curatives known to man (also on that list: champagne, which makes all of this absolutely golden). No shaking or cautious jiggering is required, and the only advance prep the Black Velvet requires is that you stick the beer and the wine in the fridge the night before.

The Black Velvet reportedly originated in 1861, at Brook’s Club in London, following the death of Prince Albert (at least, that’s what the Guinness website states — I’ve done exactly no digging to verify the claim). There’s another version of the drink in circulation, made with cider in place of champagne; I haven’t tried it so I can’t speak to its character, but if you’re looking for an excellent breakfast companion (especially if you’re mixing for friends), shell out the extra cash and go for the bubbly. There are also recipes that insist this drink be layered, a la a Pousse Caffe. Should your breakfast require a floor show or other dramatic effects, feel free to go that route; for me, I’m happier with the stout and the champagne joining each other on equal terms, the ferric tang of the Guinness finding its mate in the fruity snap of the wine, and the distinctive bubbles of each beverage brightening the outlook for the day ahead.

Black Velvet

• Guinness or other stout, chilled (but, really, Guinness)
• Brut champagne or other dry sparkling wine, chilled

Fill a champagne flute (fancy!) or a Collins glass (for more generous-size drinks) halfway with chilled champagne. Gently add the stout (careful, this can be a foamy production) to fill the glass. Give the whole thing a cautious stir, then proceed with the morning’s business.

That’s my suggestion for a decent drink to start the day — for more suggestions, head over to Cocktail Enthusiast to see what other folks recommend for morning drinks.

Tags: Drinks, Mixology Monday // 1 Comment »