August 15, 2014
Even though it’s probably 10 degrees hotter in central Italy right now than in Seattle (where I’m typing this – not sure where wherever you are falls in the temperature spectrum, but wherever, it won’t make a different in how much you enjoy this drink), even though, I’d still at this particular moment rather be kicking it in my old Italian home (oh, hey, I used to live in Italy), with my dogs, sitting in the olive grove, having this very drink, which I came up with when living in Italy. It’s highlighted by the Italian liqueur Strega, which is one of my favorite things, a beautiful drink on its own, with herbal goodness and trademark golden hue (brought on by saffron), but also a fine player in cocktails. Have one of these with me, and we can both dream in Italian.
Ice cubes
1-1/2 ounces gin
3/4 ounces Strega
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1/4 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the gin, Strega, simple syrup, and juice. Shake as if you were rolling down a hill.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass or creatively cute wine glass. Drink while looking over the valley.
Tags: Among the Niccone Mountains, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, Strega, What I'm Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Italy, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
July 25, 2014
Recently, I was browsing again through Applegreen’s Bar Book, a book sized to fit in your vest or shirt pocket, by a guy named John Applegreen, printed first in 1899. I’ve gone through it many times before, but like a lot of old bar books, I still love looking it over. And sometimes I find gems I missed or didn’t make before. The McCutcheon Cocktail is one of those very gems.
It’s a gin-based drink, and I decided to go with G’Vine’s Floraison gin, which is a small batch gin made in the Cognac region of France, and crafted from neutral spirits distilled from grapes. The juniper is there, but subtle, and mingling with a strong grape-ness (in a good way) and other floral notes leading into spices (chamomile and ginger and a few more). It’s has enough going on that it can play well with other herbal mixers (though really, try it solo, too), which is why it seemed – and is – an ideal gin for this unburied treasure of a cocktail, a cocktail which also contain both dry and sweet vermouth (I went with Dolin for the dry, and Carpano for the sweet) and a bit of maraschino and orange bitters. I went with Scrappy’s on the bitters, in a local shout out. It’s a beauty of a drink, and here’s a toast for Mr. Applegreen for introducing me to it, at whatever afterlife bar he’s shaking and stirring at.
The McCutcheon
Cracked ice
1-1/2 ounces G’Vine Floraison gin
3/4 ounce Dolin dry vermouth
3/4 ounce Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
1 dash maraschino liqueur
1 dash Scrappy’s orange bitters
1. Fill a mixing glass or cocktail shaker halfway full with cracked ice. Add everything (be careful on your dash of maraschino, you don’t want to go too heavy). Stir well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Dream of the late 1800s, and France.
Tags: Applegreen's Bar Book, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, dry vermouth, Friday Night Cocktail, G’Vine Floraison Gin, Gin, Maraschino, Scrappy’s orange bitters, sweet vermouth, The McCutcheon Cocktail, unburied cocktail recipe, What I'm Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Recipes, vermouth, What I'm Drinking
June 6, 2014
Recently, I ended up with a bottle of Brancamenta via the post. Yeah, I have a good life. I did feel sort-of bad about it. See, it was part of the Brancamenta Mint Challenge (#brancamenta), where the fine folks at Fratelli Branca (perhaps best known for Brancamenta’s sibling Fernet Branca – hey, why not read about my Branca tour) send around some bottles to folks who like to make up drinks – like me! – and then we cut loose and see what happens. None of that was bad, however. The bad part was that after the bottle showed, I realized I already had a bottle of Brancamenta on the shelf. But, I suppose, as Shakespeare said, you can never have too much of a good thing.
And I did come up with not one, but two swell drinks using the minty-herbally-goodness that is Brancamenta. I’ll post the second one later, but first The Better Days cocktail. When I heard “challenge” I took it a little literally, and challenged myself to make a drink that would make people say “what, that can’t be right” when they saw the ingredients list, but then say “jump back! that is awesome,” when they took the first sip. I also wanted to keep the ingredients list slim, as a secondary challenge for myself. And have a drink that you could have early in the day. And yes, I managed to deliver on all three, if I can be so bold, cause The Better Days is tasty, good before noon, and deceptively simple.
The Better Days
Cracked ice
2 ounces gin (I used Voyager – stick with a nice juniper-y gin)
3/4 ounce Brancamenta
3/4 ounce Borghetti coffee liqueur (also made by the fine folks at Branca and a fantastic coffee-lover’s dream)
1. Fill a cocktail shaker or mixing glass halfway full with cracked ice. Add everything. Stir well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass.
Tags: #brancamenta, Borghetti, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, The Better Days, What I'm Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Italy, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
June 3, 2014
You know I love me some Peter Lovesey (British detective writer extraordinaire), especially his Peter Diamond series, but other stuff too. I figured, until recently, that I had or had seen the majority of his book. But then I was down at Powells in Portland (a bookstore of massive proportions) and they had a number of books by Mr. Lovesey that I’d never seen, including On the Edge, which I picked up and read and dug (well-plotted, nice post-war-London-ness, some scary ladies), especially for this quote, which highlights an old gin favorite:
He always whistled at the prices but it was the only pub in the district with carpets and soft lighting and barmaids who called you “sir,” and Antonia preferred it to anywhere else.
Today he offered her a Gin and It instead of the usual shandy.
She raised her eyebrows. “What’s this for, naught boy? No point in getting me sloshed if you’re going straight back to your boring students.”
“Is it no, then?”
“That’s a little word I never use.”
–Peter Lovesey, On the Edge
May 6, 2014
Every time I find a new Day Keene book, I’m a happy man (check out past Day Keene posts). Recently, I found a reprint book that contains not one, but two Day Keene amazements – and instantly became doubly happy. Put out by Stark House, who does a bunch of other classic pulp reprints, it contains Framed in Guilt and My Flesh is Sweet. Both are worthy reads, in the fast-paced, thrilling way Mr. Keene always played out his mysteries, thrillers, and pulpy goodnesses. The quote below is from the latter book.
After the air conditioned bank, the street was like an oven. Elena blew up a lock of hair the heat had plastered to her forehead. ‘How,’ she asked, unsmiling, ‘would you like to buy me something tall and cold and filled with gin?’
–Day Keene, My Flesh is Sweet
April 25, 2014
Don’t yell at me. Usually I stay away from blue curaçao, because it’s only blue due to some chemical additions, and not the addition of some secret herb only found hidden in the jungle. But here, it’s balanced out by true orange curaçao. And this drink tastes awesome, so screw it, blue curaçao. Also, I’ve heard this drink was created for an award given to the liner making the fastest Atlantic crossing; variously held by British, French, German, and U.S. ships. So, get out your white admiral’s yachting cap and white trousers for this one, friends.
The Blue Riband (from Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz)
Ice cubes
2 ounces gin (something sorta British is best, like Plymouth)
1 ounce Pierre Ferrand orange curaçao
1/2 ounce blue curaçao
Lemon slice, for garnish
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the gin, orange curaçao, and
blue curaçao. Shake well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the lemon slice if that will make your voyage more enjoyable. And it will.
Tags: cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz, Pierre Ferrand orange curaçao, The Blue Riband, What I'm Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
April 1, 2014
I’ve had a few Cocktail Talk quotes from Lawrence Block books before – I tend to like the older ones, some of which have awesomely been reprinted by the awesome Hard Case Crime folks. The Girl with the Long Green Heart falls firmly into the latter category, as it was originally published in 1955, then reprinted in 2005, and as it’s full of cons, dames (one real serious dame, really), back-dealings, and drinks. No foolin’, just check out the below quotes:
The maître d’ beamed his way over to us, and Evvie said something about Mr. Gunderman’s table, and we were passed along to a captain and bowed through a cocktail lounge and a large dining room into something called the Terrace Room. The tables were set far apart, the lighting dim and intimate. We ordered martinis. “You might as well order big,” she told me. “He’ll be unhappy if I don’t give you the full treatment. This is quite a place, isn’t it? You don’t expect it in Olean. But they have people who come from miles to eat here.” The martinis were cold and dry and crisp. We had a second round, then ordered dinner. She touted the chateaubriand for two and I rode along with it.
—The Girl with the Long Green Heart, Lawrence Block
February 18, 2014
There are a number of things we miss in the modern age: Myrna Loy, zoot suits, un-ironic swing bands, speakeasies that aren’t just trying to be trendy, and more. We also miss the chance to have “bootlegger” on our resumes. Ah well, at least the unmissable Compleat Imbiber # 2, itself a bit old (from 1958) lets us relive the bootlegging days in an essay it contains. An essay from which I present to you the below quote.
The first violinist, an expert chemist, skillfully diluted the contents of gin, rum, Scotch whisky, Bénédictine, and Cognac bottles which he bought at the crew’s fifty per cent reduction from the second-class barman. (In those days of Honesty, it was ‘second’ and not ‘cabin’ class.)
—Joseph Wechsberg, Confessions of a Bootlegger
Tags: Benedictine, Cocktail Talk, Cognac, Complete Imbiber, Confessions of a Bootlegger, Gin, Rum, Scotch whisky, The Compleat Imbiber
Posted in: Cocktail Talk, Gin, Rum
