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

The Prince of Cocktails

Three drinks in, and we have already arrived at what I'm willing to bet is the best drink in the book.  Maybe it's because "Aviation" anagrams as "I to Avani", or because the flavor text claims the drink makes you smarter, or because I simply can't resist a preserved cherry, but this is my current default drink to judge the quality of a bar. (My shitty-bar default drink is an Amaretto sour, mostly because it's one of the few drinks that I don't think can be made undrinkably bad.)

The new liqueur this drink introduced was maraschino liqueur.  I've been saying "liquor" generically on this blog up until now, but seeing maraschino liqueur written out forced me to look up the difference.  The consensus on the Internet seems to be that "liqueurs" refers to alcohols with added sugar whereas "liquors", while they may still be sweet, have no added sugar.  Cordials used to be in their own category, namely booze with fruit sugar added, but they've been subsumed into generic "liqueurs" over the last century.

Back to maraschino liqueur.  This is a clear, sweet liqueur that tastes faintly of cherries.  The liquid in your jar of maraschino cherries has no resemblance whatsoever to maraschino liqueur.  I've never had this happen to me, but the author of the book warns against telling a bartender how to make this drink if you don't see a bottle of actual maraschino liqueur on the shelf in case they decide to feed you cherry flavored corn syrup.

Drink #3: Aviation

Recipe from Cocktails:

• 1.5 oz gin
• .5 oz maraschino liqueur
• .75 oz lemon juice (about a half lemon)

Shake with ice and add a maraschino cherry.

I used Hendricks again because I still haven't developed a taste for dry gin (though I am working diligently to rectify this).  In case it's somehow still in doubt, I love this drink.  It's interesting without being in your face or requiring you to be in the mood for a complicated drink.  It's not too sweet, but it doesn't feel like it'll make you sprout a carpet of chest hair.  It's good on a hot afternoon, before a meal, after a meal, as a late weekend breakfast...

After I made this drink for the first time, I started ordering it everywhere I went.  My favorite Aviation to date has been at the Vespers bar at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas.  The Vespers bartender added in a few drops of Creme de Violette before adding a perfect preserved sour cherry.  Creme de Violette is what happens when you take ten meadows worth of violets, boil them down into a cup of goop, and let said goop ferment until it's ready to attack in full violet glory.  I made all of that up, but it's easy to overdo the Creme de Violette (I bought this one: http://www.alpenz.com/images/poftfolio/violettefacts.htm); I think a few drops make this drink just a little sweeter and more complex, but more than that and you'll have a mouth full of flowers.  Recently, we've taked to just swirling some in the glass and dumping it out before pouring the shaker in.  This gives a little less violet than I like but is foolproof for making drinks for guests.

Final Verdict:

I'm off to go make one right now.

The Early Minutes of the Cocktail Hour

Reading this book makes us long for the days when our friends lived closer and had stronger livers.  This drink is recommended to be served as a first drink pre-dinner, followed by something stronger before food, almost certainly to be followed with wine at dinner and one or more digestifs.

This drink also inspired us to stock more than just Angoustra bitters.  I had vaguely known that there were other types of bitters out there, but the variety was surprising, and there are still so many that I'm eager to try.  If you're curious, I recommend the book "Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, with Cocktails, Recipes, and Formulas" by Brad Parsons as a good introduction to the art of drinking and making all sorts of bitter-like concoctions.

Drink 2: The Astoria

2 oz gin

1/2 oz dry vermouth

dash of orange bitters 

Shake with ice and strain

This was definitely a light drink.  The bitters were not really noticeable, though that's partly because we used Hendricks, a very flavorful (and my favorite) gin.  We keep our gin in the freezer and chilled the glass, so the drink was very crisp and cold.  I've since learned that some distilleries prefer to serve base liquors at room temperature to showcase the flavor, but I'm so far unconvinced.  

  

Overall, I didn't like it very much.  If I want an apertif, I'm much happier with a small glass of Lillet Blanc than something that I have to take time to prepare.  I am making dinner, after all.  In a restaurant, I may order something like this if I had enough courses in front of me that a followup cocktail or two made sense.

Final Verdict

Educational for learning to use orange bitters, but unlikely to make again.

The Noble Experiment

A few months ago, Chris unearthed the book "Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century" by Paul Harrington, aka "The Alchemist", who earned his name writing a cocktail column for Wired in the 90s.
He was involved in the recent resurgence of classic cocktails and spent a considerable amount of time studying the history and variations of cocktails of the era before blended margaritas.

  While the book goes into length about barware and base liquors, the highlight is 64 pages of colorful recipes highlighting the full spectrum of "classic aperitif cocktails that was meant to give the reader a "wide breadth of experience." In this project, we will go through all 64 drinks and provide pictures and notes, along with any variations we discover are particularly good or, more likely, should be avoided at all cost.  

Without further ado, 

Drink #1: The Americano

• 1 oz Campari
• 1/2 oz sweet Vermouth
• Soda water

 Stirred, not shaken

 This was the first drink either of us had made that involved chilling the glass beforehand.  It's so easy: just a few minutes in the freezer makes all the difference in a drink that is cold and stays that way.   Unless I'm making drinks for a large crowd, I always chill my glasses now.

I don't really like either Campari or sweet vermouth, so I had my doubts about this drink, but it ended up being surprisingly delicious (at first: by the end the Campari in the bottom defeated me).  It was also very pretty in the sunlight, which the picture doesn't quite capture.  We definitely made the right decision when we threw out the bottles of Gallo vermouth that had been with me for my last 10 moves and spent the extra few dollars for Martini and Rossi.  The new vermouth tasted good enough on its own that I had some vermouth and soda as a refresher after we'd polished off the Americano.

Chris agreed that the top of the drink was refreshing, though the Campari at the end even got him.

Final Verdict: 

The Americano, mixed properly, would make a great summer drink.  Add more sweet vermouth if the Campari starts huddling in the bottom of the class.