An Interlude - The Pennsylvanian Devil

I recently bought a dear friend of mine a giant box of alcohol for her wedding gift.  Since she's a fellow Pennsylvania native, I wanted to be sure to include something local.  I went with ROOT, which is made by a small distillery in Philadelphia using ingredients from 19th century root tea, which was the original alcoholic precursor of modern root beers.  As someone who can't stand root beer, I was very surprised to like this stuff so much!     

When I first discovered it, I made a drink called a "Pennsylvanian Devil."  I'd like to link somewhere, but the Internet has failed me, so this is based off of drunken notes.  If you know where this drink is from, I'd be happy to credit! :

The Pennsylvanian Devil (A not-brandy, not-Alexander)

(I don't have a picture of the drink because I'm currently a long way from my full bar.  The things I do for science... )

• 1 oz. ROOT
• 1 oz. med-dark rum (Bacardi 8 is fine, but this is a fun place to experiment)
• .5 oz. cream liqueur (I use Coole Swan, but the recipe originally called for Crema de Alba, which does actually have brandy in it)
• .5 oz simple syrup
• 1 oz. cream
• fresh nutmeg

Shake all of the liquid with ice, strain into something that approximates a brandy snifter, and grate nutmeg over the top as desired.  If you think the ROOT is overpowering, add a bit more cream.  Enjoy!

(Almost) Too Horrid to Post

Hi, I'm Chris. I'm told I should write something on my blog, not make Avani do it all while simultaneously working on her thesis. So here I am.

Spaghetti with tomato sauce and clams is pretty good, but how about a cocktail based on it? Canadians apparently love it and ask for another. I must respectfully disagree. Well, maybe not too respectfully, I mean come on, clamato juice?

I'm tempted to skip the recipe this time to reduce the risk that some of you will actually try this but I think Avani still wants it included so here you go:

• 1.5 oz vodka
• 4 oz clamato juice
• 1 dash Worcestershire
• 2-3 dashes horseradish
• 1 pinch of salt and pepper
• celery salt
• celery stalk

Shake everything up through the pepper with ice and strain into a chilled pint glass, coat the rim with the celery salt, and garnish with celery and lemon. Then hand it to someone else and pour yourself some whisky.

Sobriety is overrated

Sorry again for the time between posts!  I was away doing field research for this blog by spending a week and a bit at a beach party in Kill Devil Hills while almost constantly drinking and making drinks for others. Look at how hard I'm working for you people.

I'm not sure I'm ready to drink again for a few years, but luckily I have a nice backlog of drinks to blog about :-)

This next one is a simple drink that can be thrown together after work without slicing fruit or digging for the asbestos gloves.  The Bronx is a hipster dream.  It's from the golden age of American drinking, so it starts cool.  It was mocked in its time until it went all the way to "so bad it's good," so the street cred is almost built in.  All you need now is to make certain you're using locally sourced sustainably grown organic heirloom oranges (Seville, if you prefer to go by the book) in your juice and you're good to go.

Drink #8: The Bronx

• 1 oz gin
• 1 oz orange juice
• 1/2 oz sweet vermouth
• 1/2 oz dry vermouth

Shake with ice and add a cherry.

The picture above isn't mine (it's courtesy of klad.com).  Chris's camera has gone missing, and I have little desire to recreate this drink, so you'll have to believe me when I promise that ours looked just like that minus the giant slice of citrus that is hanging ungainly off the side.

Edit: Found our picture!

It's a nice easy drink, but it just didn't feel well balanced to me.  We used Martini and Rossi vermouths, which I've since learned are low to mid tier for good mixed drinks.  It could also perhaps be better with a less flavorful gin than Hendricks.

Final Verdict: 

Boring but easy

Procrastination

For the unlikely minority of you who don't know me IRL, I'm a late-stage grad student (I'd make a joke here about how I'm close to terminal, but that's probably in bad taste).  At this point, my day consists of picking tasks that best let me put off all other tasks while producing the least guilt.  Sometimes, that task is making and writing about drinks.  Other times, such as when the drink involved has "asbestos gloves" in the equipment section, reading 23 year old computer science papers merits a position of the utmost importance.  With my paper stack empty and class prep done, however, it's time to stop putting off writing about this next drink.  

First of all, here is some fire:

The drink in the suspiciously colorful picture above (Credits: Tony Cenicola/New York Times ) is the Blue Blazer. This drink was invented by Jerry Thomas, who was a bartender in San Francisco during the Gold Rush.  He also published one of the earliest mixing books, The Bar-tender's Guide, which I now have on order.  His other book, The Bon Vivant's Companion, is free on Google Books (link) and is an entertaining read.  For the Blue Blazer, the book considers it "the nectar for Pluto rather than for Bacchus," and proceeds with recommendations to practice tossing water back and forth between mugs to avoid burning.

  Even the drink's creator seems to have been a little afraid of this drink and rarely made it: it was purportedly served only when the temperature in San Francisco was at or below 10ºF (which it may never have been; the coldest recorded SF temp was 27ºF in 1932) or when the customer had the flu (which, in the mid-19th century, tended to mean they were not in bars).

Drink #7: Blue Blazer

•  4 oz scotch
• 4 oz boiling water
• 2 tsp honey

Wear asbestos gloves (we didn't).  Mix the honey into the boiling water and dissolve.  Simmer the scotch in a chafing dish (we used an Indian frying pan/spoon hybrid).  Ignite.  Use 16oz pitchers (we used Pyrex measuring cups), pour the flaming scotch into one pitcher, the water in the other.  Pour the scotch into the water and pour back and forth until the flame goes out.

Our cameras were not awesome enough to get a good picture, but we did end up with a surprising amount of fire. Even though the scotch barely ignites, the act of pouring it back and forth between pitchers acts as a bellows to increase the flame.  It's pretty damn cool.  

As for the taste, the fire burned off the alcohol in the whiskey, so what was left tasted very mild, bordering on watery.  We used Balvenie, but I think next time a big peaty Islay scotch (Laphroaig, maybe?) would do this drink more credit.  Also, instead of honey I want to try ground turbinado sugar to better approximate what would originally have been in this drink.

Final Verdict

Will try ordering at every bar from now on, just for the show. 

A Cocktail for Prince Albert

The Black Velvet was originally put together as a tribute drink on the death of Britain's Prince Albert.  It is recommended for occasions where "champagne is in order, but seems a bit too formal." (like, say, getting a Prince Albert...)  I think this makes a fantastic morning after drink, especially since it's about the easiest possible mixed drink to make.

  There is a version of this made with cider known as a Black Adder.  

Drink #6: Black Velvet

• 1oz chilled bubbly
• 1oz chilled Guinness

Add first champagne, then Guinness into a chilled flute.  

We went with the book's suggestion of dry champagne, though I may have liked this better with prosecco.  I'm not entirely sure the drink is worth making unless you have company over.  Maybe you're throwing a bachelor party or the sort of baby shower where the women disappear off and leave the men in the kitchen to chat awkwardly over finger food. If you're alone, it's not a huge improvement over a cold Guinness and isn't worth opening a bottle of champagne for unless you have a stomach of spandex and can really get down a bottle of champagne and an equal part of Guinness.  If you do have a stomach of spandex, post a picture in the comments.

Final verdict

Perfectly fine, not going to go out of my way to make again

A Learning Experience

The flavor text for this drink begins: "Tradition dictates that any variation in the Bellini's recipe is a bastardization best shunned."  Given the amount of work we've put into finding the correct liquors, glasses, etc. for the rest of this project, you'd think that upon reading that we'd take extra care to make the Bellini exactly like the recipe called for.  You would, of course, be wrong.

The Bellini was created by the proprietor of Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy.  Legend has it that Cipriani, the proprietor, put together this drink and found the color reminiscent of the robe of a saint in a painting by Giovanni Bellini.  While the Internet is unclear on which painting it is, my best guess is the Madonna and Child with Saints Peter, Catherine, Jerome and Lucy, which is near the altar of the San Zaccaria in Venice.  The kneeling saint, if she is indeed a saint, has a robe that is close to the bright pink color of a correctly made Bellini.  The painting is arranged so that at particular times of day a beam of light hits each saint's robe in turn (cite), so it is easy to see how this would have left an impression on a Venetian bartender.                                     

Drink #5: Bellini

• 4 oz prosecco (an Italian sparkling wine)
• 1 oz white peach puree

Peel and puree 3-4 white ripe peaches, mix with 1oz simple syrup and strain, chill.  Pour 1oz nectar into chilled champagne flute, top with prosecco.

The astute among you will notice that we didn't quite make it to saint's robe color.  Our first recommendation for this drink is to make it when peaches are actually in season and you don't have to choose between unripe fruit from Chile and a can.  Secondly, yellow peaches, even organic ones, are not a recommended substitution.  Finally, puréeing and muddling are really not the same thing, no matter how much you don't want to clean the blender.

The end result was that while the prosecco was delicious on it's own, the drink as a whole was a flop and borderline undrinkable. 

Final Verdict 

Worth a re-try using the proper recipe during peach season.

Accept No Substitutions

The main problem I have with today's drink, the Bacardi Cocktail, is that after the Aviation it is a significant letdown.  There is nothing wrong with it, and I'd feel comfortable ordering it at a bar in some sunny place where I just want something cool and slightly inebriating.

There is also some interesting history: apparently during prohibition this drink, whether or not it was actually made with Bacardi, was insanely popular.  The basic drink is just a daiquiri, which though delicious is rarely anything to write home about.  Grenadine started to become popular on mainland America (the "pink" daiquiri), and the Bacardi name ended up stuck to the drink. The Bacardi family had earned a level of notoriety for producing rum for the Spanish court and then using the proceeds to fund Cuba's independence movement.  They had enough clout on the US mainland that they convinced a New York appellate court in 1936 that the Bacardi cocktail could only be made with authentic Bacardi rum.  It may still be illegal: I'd love to hear if anyone has ever ordered this and had it made with another rum.

Drink #4: Bacardi Cocktail

• 1.75 oz Bacardi light (Wiki recommended superior)
• 1 oz lime juice
• .5 tsp simple syrum 
• dash grenadine

Shake with ice and strain.

The handsome man in the background is our friend Shamik, who was over and helping us taste.  Since we'd already gone through a round of Aviations, we decided that this made an acceptable second drink.  

I have has rum on my mind recently after having tasted a wonderful spread of rums last weekend.  Now that I've has some more interesting rum, I'm more and more convinced that crossing the Bacardi family is necessary to enjoying this drink.  We had some rums that tasted like scotch and smoke and some that tasted like candy.  Some of the complex candy rums (Matusalem, in particular) would be delicious in this, as I bet a real Cuban rum would be (but, of course, we would know nothing about real Cuban rum).  

Final Verdict

Boring with Bacardi, possibly tasty with something more complex