The Kevin "Smush"

We wanted to call this a Kevin Smash, but he said something about "nomenclature" and "disappointed" and decided we needed to name it something else, so...

The Kevin "Smush"

• 3/4 oz. bourbon
• 3/4 oz. maraschino liqueur
• 3/4 oz. Galliano
• 3/4 oz. Malort

There's gotta be a better name for this.  I also made it with Tanqueray gin instead of the bourbon, and I think it's a little heavy on the maraschino since they were a little tough to tell apart.  I'm thinking an ounce of the base liquor, Galliano, and Malort each, with a real maraschino cherry, should do the trick.

Celebrating One Year of BLtB: The Scottish Wedding

My good friend Ted developed a wicked version of a martini that he called the "Scottish Wedding", utilizing gin, scotch, and Malört.  As he described it, it's got "pine and smoke, with bitterness to follow."  Like the marriage following a wedding.  Get it?  Anyway, I didn't have exactly the ingredients he described, so I came up with this one on my own.

The Scottish Wedding

• 3 oz. Death's Door gin
• 1.5 oz. Dewar's 12 year old Scotch
• 1.5 oz. Jeppson's Malört
• 2 dashes lemon bitters
• Shake over ice, serve up, with a twist of lemon.

As you would expect, it's pretty devious and complex, and a worthwhile experiment in discerning what might be called "flavors of bitterness" ... smokey, piney, citrusy, medicinal, and others.  It's infinitely more interesting and surprisingly more palatable (to me) than a standard dry martini, although I don't expect these will catch on as well as martinis have.  Ted, I think you might be on to something here!

Autumn Leaves

The Autumn Leaves

• 2 ounces rye whiskey.
• 1/2 ounces orange liqueur
• 2 dashes orange bitters
• 2 dashes black walnut bitters
• 1 bar spoonful maple syrup
• Stir with ice for at least two minutes, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass

I used Jim Beam Rye.  I think as a general rule, if you make a drink with whiskey, you should use one you enjoy, and I enjoy Jim Beam Rye.  But I don't think there's any reason to bust out your Templeton for a drink that has sugary mixers.  Same goes for the orange liqueur.  You could use Cointreau but I just don't think there's any reason for it; I would have used our orange Curaçao but I found Triple Sec first.

The keys to this drink are the bitters, and the real maple syrup.  Real maple syrup is incredible, tastes almost nothing like Mrs. Buttersworth on pancakes, and is really expensive.  So get a small bottle and use it for recipes like this.  Black walnut bitters are also incredible, and impart a nice nuttiness to anything like coffee.  This is the only cocktail I've found that uses black walnut bitters but I'm going to try to find more because this cocktail is fantastic.  It tastes just like fall.  I wonder how it would work with a cinnamon stick garnish.

The New Englander

Probably not all that surprisingly, when I'm traveling I enjoy taking in the local tastes; when we were on Cape Cod last year, I found myself some Moxie, which purports to be an example of an early soft drink.  It's a bit like a cola, but a bit like Dr. Pepper in that it seems to be made with a whole bunch of botanicals and herbs that give it a spicy, bitter character not dissimilar to Jägermeister.

I came home with a two-liter of it, but didn't want to drink it as I don't have a reliable supply.  That is, until my brother and sister-in-law visited her grandma a couple weeks ago in Chatham, and brought me back a half case of the stuff.  Jackpot!  It's time to try a Moxie cocktail!  With that, I present...

The New Englander

• Ice in rocks glass.
• Add 1.5oz. gin (I used Plymouth.  It just seemed the right thing to do.)
• Top with Moxie.
• Float a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce.

I often think that New Englanders and Chicagoans are kindred spirits.  Our propensity to engage in quixotic fan behavior for long-unsuccessful sports teams is one reason. Our mutual distaste for and borderline obsession with New York City is another.  But I think the most important similarity is that we wear our mutual sufferings of some truly terrible winter weather like a badge of honor.  That's this drink.  It's a whirlwind of flavors in a glass that would make a lesser breed cringe.  It's vegetal and sweet, but not enough to overpower the bitterness, which isn't strong enough to counteract the savoriness.  It's a strange drink, for a strange people.  I'm proud to think I'm the right kind of strange.

Plymouth Gin and the Vesper Martini

I have been by no means a connoisseur of martinis, and it's not the gin.  A gin and tonics was my very, very first mixed drink I had ever had, when I had just turned 21 down in Champaign-Urbana and was hanging out with Toby, Richard and Jacqueline, transfer students from the University of Sheffield, England, who accurately (to my limited palate at the time) described a gin and tonic as described as "drinking Christmas".  So I was pretty well used to the unusual juniper quality of gin pretty early in my "career".  I also learned pretty quickly that every gin is a little different, and that, for my taste, I preferred, for instance, Tanqueray to Bombay and the like in a gin and tonic.  The G&T remained my "go-to" cocktail for a number of years, but, to be honest, even despite becoming increasingly interested in expanding my palate for cocktails, the venerable martini never really piqued my interest.

I can't say I'm more or less likely to try more of them now, but having developed a serious taste for vintage cocktails lately, I was delighted when Kelly returned from a trip to Binny's with some St. Germain, Pimm's No. 1, and a bottle of Plymouth Gin.  Having never tried Plymouth, I decided the best way would be to throw myself into the deep end -- mixing it into a martini.  But not just any martini; I also wanted to try my hand at making perhaps one of the most famous martinis, the Vesper.

The Vesper

• To ice in shaker, add
• 3 oz. gin (I used Plymouth Gin),
• 1 oz. vodka (I used Smirnoff 80),
• ½ oz. Lillet Blanc,
• Shake until cold and strain into chilled cocktail glass,
• Express with lemon peel, and garnish.

This is a classic James Bond martini, first ordered by the main character in the Ian Fleming classic Casino Royale but with different, now unattainable ingredients.  You can't get, for instance, real Kina Lillet anymore.  (Kina, derived from the French word for "quinine", I suppose used to be quite substantially bitter than our Lillet Blanc, which is still a concoction of French wines and citrus liqueurs which has made its way into a surprising number of my recipes lately, but which lacks the quinine which might have given Mr. Bond's drink a bit more complexity than mine.)  Gordon's, the brand of gin specified by Mr. Bond, is actually a top shelf distillate in Great Britain but is a much maligned facsimile here, more on par with "rail" gin.  So in order to make a Vesper, one has to be forgiving of oneself, while attempting to pay homage to the spirit of the cocktail. 

And what a cocktail it is.  As my introduction into Plymouth Gin, I am impressed.  It is certainly the cleanest and simplest gin I think I've had, unencumbered as seems to be with a large number of citrus botanicals that seem to be in vogue at present.  It's hard to tell where the gin stops and the vodka begins, it's so smooth.  That's not to say it has no flavor, though; juniper is present, as is a very gentle citrusy character.  When combined with the Lillet and the lemon, the hints of citrus and dryness are peeled back and there's a really subtle but identifiable peppery finish right at the tip of the tongue.  

I don't know if the Vesper converted me to martinis, but I know that Plymouth is going to remain in my stable for a long time.

Adventures in Whiskey Drinks

Saturday, Kelly and I were doing some experimenting in obscure whiskey drinks.  My friend Wyl has recently decided to give whiskey another go, so I wanted to see if a number of distinguishably different  whiskies could be used in ways that would nuance and understate, rather than amplify and highlight, those highly distinguishable profiles.  The results are below:

The Leatherneck

• Ice in shaker,
• 2 oz. blended Canadian whisky (I used Canadian Club),
• ¾ oz. blue Curaçao (I used DeKuyper's),
• ½ oz. freshly squeezed lime juice,
• Shake into chilled cocktail glass,
• Garnish with lime wheel.

The photo doesn't even do this drink justice.  The Leatherneck is a gorgeous teal color, and tasted surprisingly light.  (Probably was the use of blended Canadian whiskey, which I find to be not as complex as American rye whiskeys or even Bourbons.)

The Fred Collins

• Ice in shaker,
• 2 oz. Bourbon whiskey (I used Four Roses "yellow label"),
• ½ oz. simple syrup (I had to make this.  I put about a shots-worth of water in the microwave for two minutes, then added several heaping tablespoons of sugar to the mixture and stirred until it dissolved.  I don't know if this is necessary, to be honest.)
• Juice of one lemon, freshly squeezed, 
• One splash Cointreau
• 6 oz. lemonade (re: the simple syrup above.  See what I mean?)

This recipe made way, way too much for even two drinks, but, once again, for a whiskey drink, it was surprisingly tart and refreshing.  The Bourbon's oakiness shined through, though, lending a complexity to this drink that would have been altogether different, if not lost entirely, if a fruity or citrusy gin (or, goodness forbid, vodka) had been used.

The Scofflaw

• Ice in shaker,
• 1½ oz. rye whiskey (I used Bulleit rye),
• 1 oz. dry vermouth (I used Martini & Rossi Extra Dry Vermouth),
• ¾ oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice,
• ¾ oz. pomegranate grenadine (I didn't have this, so i used Rose's "nuclear red" grenadine.  This may have been a mistake),
• Shake into iced cocktail glass.

A great drink with a great name, I decided to really punch it up to the max with Bulleit, my spiciest rye, but it remained refreshing and tasty without it becoming overpowering.

All in all, before Saturday I thought whiskeys should be constrained to cocktails where their most potent flavor profiles would be on display (old fashioneds, Manhattans, Sazeracs, and the like).  But as these experiments show, whiskeys can stand up on their own in a number of fashions, lending their characteristics in a number of ways that don't need to be on display to be delicious.  I'm impressed.

The Pegu Club

Since my first military history classes in college, I've had an interest in the history of Empire.  I've gotten my bachelor's degree, my master's degree, and about half of a doctorate primarily from studying the history of "High imperialism", that era between the mid-1880s and the early 1940s when Europeans (and to a lesser extent Americans) carved up much of Asia and almost all of Africa to conquer and exploit for themselves.  For the most part, this was rationalized by all forms of technological, cultural, pseudomoral, pseudoscientific, and, when all else failed, militaristic methods.  And, as is often the case throughout human history, it was done without really much consideration as to mitigating the negative effects that this might have on the people who lived in those places. 


While it's not generally thought of as a high water mark in terms of humanity's decency toward other people, I still derive a great deal of pleasure learning about Empire, and one of the biggest reasons for this, I think, is that the forms that European colonial empires took contained many trappings that touch on a number of nerdy interests I have, including transportation infrastructure (like steamships and railroads), flags, maps, architecture, and alcohol.

Alcohol?

Absolutely.  Someday I hope to finish my dissertation or publish a book on the topic, but the importation, production, sale and consumption of booze helped grease the wheels of the Imperial project.  Think about it.  There would be no India Pale Ale without the uniquely colonial set of economic and logistical problems that created it.  Without the need to imbue European settlers with the unpalatably bitter anti-malarial agent quinine, we wouldn't have the Gin and Tonic.  From Orange Curaçao to Singapore Slings, from Imperial Stouts to Cuba Libres, the supplies and demands created in the imperial exchange between colonial periphery and metropolitan center created tastes and spawned libations were a product of a distinctly imperial era.  Some even survived those times -- wars, decolonization and modernism -- to be transported (some more or less unchanged!) to your  neighborhood bar and into your glass.  It's those drinks that help give us an actual taste of that completely different era (but, this time, without all the guns, wars, and domination) that I'm particularly interested in.

Witness the Pegu Club.

The Pegu Club

• Shaker with ice,
• 2 oz. gin (I used Tanqueray Rangpur, whose extra citrus flavor is caused by the introduction of rangpur, a hybrid of oranges and lemons),
• ¾ oz. Grand Marnier (you can also use Cointreau or clear Curaçao, but I find that the complexity of Grand Marnier helps keep this drink from becoming too fruity.  Try it both ways to see how you like it!)
• ¾ oz. freshly squeezed lime juice,
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters,
• Stir until chilled, and strain into pre-chilled cocktail glass,
• Garnish with lemon twist.

Named for a popular nightclub and expatriate officers club in Rangoon, British Burma, during the height of the Raj, the Pegu Club combines familiar and exotic ingredients into one amazingly refreshing cocktail.  Sipping one of these on the patio on a stiflingly hot and humid summer's day, it's not difficult to imagine oneself at the European Club amongst the characters of George Orwell's Burmese Days, set during the zenith of British power in the sub-continent.  Or at least I do.  Without romanticizing imperialism, I think that creating a visceral, sensory experience is an important way to understanding the beliefs, points-of-view, and actions of historical peoples.  Besides just being a delicious and refreshing cocktail, the Pegu Club is a flavorful recreation of a glimpse into a long lost world.