June 24, 2016
Sometimes, one gets cravings (I’m no fortune teller, but I’m seeing that in everyone’s future, they’ll get cravings, too), of all sorts, I suppose. Example A: the other day, I had a swell drink made with maraschino (the most misunderstood of all liqueurs, historically, or at least the last, let’s say, 40 years of history, because too many think it’s sickly like those sick twisted things that pass as maraschino cherries in mass market grocery stores, when it’s not, at all, instead being dry and a hint nutty, being made from the pits of the marasca cherries and all), and that swell drink made me crave more maraschino drinks. And so I went for the Sweet Pie, a cuddly classic-y number, where the always tasty and reliable Luxardo Maraschino shines alongside gin and sweet vermouth, and a smidge of simple syrup comes along for the ride to round the edges in a cuddly – as mentioned – manner. Dreamy deliciousness.
Sweetie Pie, from Good Spirits
Ice cubes
1 1/2 ounces gin
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
3/4 ounce Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur, and simple syrup. Shake well.
2. Add the cherry to a cocktail glass or pretty cordial. Strain the mix into the glass.
PS: Sometimes this is garnished with a Maraschino cherry. But sometimes I want to skip the fruit. You go as you go.
Tags: cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Fright Night Cocktail, Gin, Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, maraschino liqueur, sweet vermouth, The Sweetie Pie, What I’m Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Good Spirits, Italy, Liqueurs, Recipes, vermouth, What I'm Drinking
June 10, 2016
As any truly worthy encyclopedia tells us, poets love gin. I mean, poets (most poets) love drinking most anything. Trust me, I’ve known my fair (or unfair) share of them. But gin is up there with things they love. Which is why having a Poet’s Dream on World Gin Day, which is tomorrow, makes lyrical sense, both for those of you that are poets (like Ed Skoog), and those who like a little poetry now-and-again, and those who really just want a good gin drink to celebrate the day. I’m having mine today, along with one tomorrow, because I’m on the ball. Or because I just can’t wait!
Oh, this liquid quatrain of a cocktail dates at least to The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book, one of the true legendary drink manuals (by Albert Crockett, and originally published in 1935), which is where I first found it. There are, in a sorta rarity, three ingredients in it in equal amounts. To make it work, you must have a gin with a lot of flavor and one that’s nice and dry, or the Bénédictine and French vermouth push it around. I’m using Cadée Gin here, and if you can get it, get it. If not, find another sturdy gin. Oh, and don’t forget the twist, or my “liquid quatrain” line above doesn’t work, and we wouldn’t want that.
The Poet’s Dream
Cracked ice
1 ounce Cadée gin
1 ounce Bénédictine
1 ounce French (aka Dry) Vermouth
Lemon twist, for garnish
1. Fill a cocktail shaker or mixing glass halfway full with cracked ice. Add everything but the twist. Stir well.
2. Strain into a cocktail shaker, and garnish with the twist.
Tags: Benedictine, Cadée distillery, Cadée gin, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, dry vermouth, French vermouth, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, The Poet’s Dream, Washington distillery, What I’m Drinking, World Gin Day
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Distillery, Gin, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
May 13, 2016
This drink has one of the truly adorable classic-y drink monikers in my humble opinioning. Well, the original does, meaning Maiden’s Blush, the first. That coy cocktail (if you don’t know) features gin, orange curacao, grenadine, and lemon juice, and is a mixture surely fit for most maiden’s a-blushing. Which may be all, as I think maidens and young ladies (and perhaps not-as-young) do blush a little, even in these rough-and-tumble days. However, my lords and ladies and maidens and non-maidens, today we are sipping on, and blushing about, the lesser-known Maiden’s Blush #2. Actually, I think the name is just as good, as it calls to mind that second maiden, the one that’s a tad overlooked at first, because she’s a bit bookish, and not so la-de-da, and she wears her hair back, and her gown isn’t cut up the thigh, and she has a pair of cat’s eye glasses on. I sorta like her. And I like this drink, though admittedly it’s not for all, due to the decent-sized dollop of Pernod in it, alongside the gin and grenadine. It works, though, if you sway towards things like Pernod, as long as you use decent (and by that I mean: homemade) grenadine, which has a tangy berry-ness that balances everything. If all that wasn’t enough, the famous Harry Craddock (famous in an early-19th-century-bar-star way, plus the author of the Savoy Cocktail Book) said about this drink, “on the principle that if you first don’t succeed, cry, cry again.”
Maiden’s Blush #2
Cracked ice
1-1/2 ounces gin (I say use Seattle Distilling Company gin)
1 ounce Pernod
3/4 ounces homemade grenadine
1. Fill a cocktail shaker or mixing glass halfway full with cracked ice. Add everything. Shake well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Begin the blushing.
Tags: cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, grenadine, Harry Craddock, Maiden’s Blush #2, Pernod, What I’m Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
April 22, 2016
Don’t, I tell you, don’t take the name of this drink overly seriously – if you’re not finished by midnight, it’s not like you’ll turn into a gin-y pumpkin, or a lovely stepsister, or a candle nearly burnt out. But hey, sometimes the midnight oil doesn’t need to be completely burned out, right? And really, just start earlier!
I started here with the new (if you haven’t seen my drink An Elusive Memory, and my write up on Boodles gin proper, don’t miss it. Don’t, I tell you) Boodles Mulberry Gin, which I’ve heard is the first mulberry gin to reach the shores of the U-S-A. More of a standard in Britain, mulberry gin (and of course sloe gin liqueur, a sort-of relative) is a UK standby, a little more light on its feet usually than you’d believe with some of the syrupy fruit liqueurs you may have grown up imbibing before you knew better.
Here, the Boodles Mulberry is quite delicious, made with natural mulberries and other natural things, and the end result is more dry-ish than expected, but blooming with flavor, berries, currents, and the gin’s rich botanicals. It’s nice and complex, and worth sipping over an ice cube or two all by itself. But it makes a dandy cocktail ingredient, too. You don’t need too many dancing partners (or other ingredients). No need to weigh things down if you want to make it to midnight – or beyond.
Finished By Midnight
Ice cubes
1-1/2 ounces Boodles Mulberry gin
1 ounce La Quintinye Vermouth Royal blanc
1/2 ounce Pierre Ferrand orange curaçao
Wide lemon twist, for garnish
1. Fill a cocktail shaker or mixing glass halfway full with ice cubes. Add the Mulberry gin, blanc vermouth, Pierre, and set the clock back an hour (haha, kidding). Stir well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with twist – wide if you can.
Tags: Boodles Mulberry gin, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Finished By Midnight, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, La Quintinye Vermouth Royal blanc, Pierre Ferrand orange curaçao, vermouth, What I’m Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Liqueurs, Recipes, vermouth, What I'm Drinking
April 15, 2016
Some days, some nights, some mornings even, you just want a good drink, like you want to see an old friend, to just talk happily with, without getting all serious and pompous and braggy and posturing and . . . oh, all that stuff that old friends don’t usually do, but so many people do, sadly. The Negroni, now, of course is a superstar, with many variations that are boringly named (really – people, we don’t call the Negroni a Gin-icano, or a Gin Americano, etc, etc), and people all over-board and over-boorish about it. But to me it’s still comfortable like an old friend, and some days, like today, I just feel like sipping one, without all the accompanying sass.
The Negroni
Cracked ice
1 ounce gin
1 ounce Campari
1 ounce sweet vermouth
Ice cubes
Orange slice, or twist – go crazy
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with cracked ice. Add the three amici. Stir well.
2. Fill an Old Fashioned or comparable glass three-quarters up with ice cubes. Strain the mix over the glass. Garnish away. Enjoy, yo.
PS: Some people serve a Negroni up. I wouldn’t turn that down. However, I often want it over ice, the way you’ll get it in the Italian countryside.
Tags: Campari, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, sweet vermouth, The Negroni, What I’m Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Italy, Recipes, vermouth, What I'm Drinking
March 25, 2016
Okay, let’s start with another drink – the Martini. Don’t worry, I’ll get to widows. But recently I received (poor me!) a bottle of Ransom Gin and a bottle of Ransom dry vermouth in the mail. If you don’t know (and, if so, why don’t you?), Ransom is a farm-to-glass distillery and winery in Sheridan, OR, started up by owner and distiller Tad Seestedt. With the f-to-g earlier, you can probably guess that they use local ingredients by the bucketful, including in the gin alone, hops, marionberry, coriander, fennel seeds, and chamomile all produced on the Oregon farm where the distillery is, which is fantastic. And the vermouth also features wine and brandy made on the farm, using OR ingredients, too. That’s pretty darn awesome, and means these old pals (gin and vermouth, that is), in this situation are old, old pals, down to the ground. So, when one (if you’re one like me) gets a bottle of gin and a bottle of vermouth from the same spot and sharing the same agricultural legacy, the first thing that happens is opening the bottles. Then making a Martini, of course.
Mine are made in old school style, 2-1/2 parts gin to 1/2 part vermouth, with a twist of lemon. The end result here – darn delicious. Hints of herb and spice, but with a really lovely smoothness overall. Everything, as you’d expect, plays so nicely together. Of course, me being me and all that, I couldn’t just try the Martini, I had to push the envelope beyond the obvious with a lesser-in-the-road’s-middle cocktail. And that cocktail was the Merry Widow, which I’d recently re-discovered (I can’t remember if this is where I saw it first, honestly) in a fun book from 1936 called Burke’s Complete Cocktail and Tastybite Recipes – a fine read if you can find it. Anyway, the Merry Widow lets the vermouth shine a bit more (which is good here, because the Ransom vermouth is very drinkable all alone, with an balanced herbal, citrus, combo), and also introduces just a hint of a few other players, all of whom played well. Give it a whirl, and see if you can taste that good Oregon terroir coming through. I served a round to some pals, and they all could – and thought the drink would make any widow get up and dance.
The Merry Widow
Cracked ice
1-1/2 ounces Ransom gin
1-1/2 ounces Ransom dry vermouth
2 dashes Absinthe
2 dashes Benedictine
1 dash Angostura bitters
Lemon twist, for garnish
1. Fill a cocktail shaker or mixing glass halfway full with cracked ice. Add everything but the twist. Stir well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Now, bring that twist to the OR party.
Tags: absinthe, Angostura bitters, Benedictine, Burke’s Complete Cocktail and Tastybite Recipes, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, Martini, Ransom dry vermouth, Ransom gin, The Merry Widow, vermouth, What I’m Drinking
Posted in: bitters, Cocktail Recipes, Distillery, Gin, Liqueurs, Recipes, vermouth, What I'm Drinking
February 26, 2016
I tend to make up, uncover from old books, try out, play around with, guess at, and just generally have a fair amount of cocktails. And usually when making them up, or trying to modify up an older recipe found in a deliciously dusty tome, I have good luck from the get-go. Which of course makes me cocky, and probably annoying to friends and family and dogs. However, fairly regularly I get reminded that I make lots of mistakes, too, and sometimes just can’t find that right proportional mix no matter what. Recently, I went through an evening like this, where I was (gasp!) throwing drink and drink out cause they stunk and I stunk. Finally, I just went to what I knew would come together nicely, and quit the wacky experimenting, and that’s gin and Aperol. Easy, friendly, and with a little Blanc vermouth and Scrappy’s orange, the savior of my night and ego. Of course, it helped that the gin was from local stars the Seattle Distilling Company, who make a darn fine gin (and whiskey, coffee liqueur, and vodka). Sometimes, when the night is stormy (even metaphorically so), it’s good to have friends around.
A Fool’s Paradise
Cracked ice
1-1/2 ounces Seattle Distilling Company gin
1 ounce Aperol
1/2 ounce La Quintinye Vermouth Royal blanc
1 dash Scrappy’s orange bitters
1. Fill a mixing glass or cocktail shaker halfway full with cracked ice. Add it all. Stir well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Be humble.
Tags: A Fool’s Paradise, Aperol, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, La Quintinye Vermouth Royal blanc, Scrappy’s orange bitters, Seattle Distilling Company, Seattle Distilling Company gin, What I’m Drinking
Posted in: bitters, Cocktail Recipes, Distillery, Gin, Liqueurs, Recipes, vermouth, What I'm Drinking
December 25, 2015
Looking for a nice drink to have today, after opening all those presents (or while, as the case may be). Try out this nicely-named-number, which not only is strong enough to balance out the sometimes hectic holiday days, but also has a healthy helping of orange juice, making it both a good breakfast drink and a boon in the cold and flu season. Just consider the suggestion my holiday gift to you! You can thank me later.
The Abbey Cocktail
Ice cubes
2 ounces Kur gin (if you have it! If not, be sad and use another awesome gin)
1-1/2 ounces freshly squeezed orange juice
2 dashes Scrappy’s orange bitters
Maraschino cherry, for garnish
1. Fill a cocktail shaker or mixing glass half full with ice cubes. Add the gin, orange juice, and bitters. Shake well.
2. Strain through a fine strainer into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the cherry. Have a happy holiday!
Tags: cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, Kur gin, orange juice, Scrappy’s orange bitters, The Abbey Cocktail, What I’m Drinking
Posted in: bitters, Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
