November 1, 2013
Here’s something you may not know: John Hanson, the first president of the newly independent United States under the Articles of Confederation, on October 11, 1782 declared that the fourth Thursday of every November was to be Thanksgiving Day. As I’m someone who likes Thanksgiving, well, this was news to me. And it led to me, when trying to come up with a new drink to have before Thanksgiving, utilizing Mr. Hanson’s name in the title. I also utilized a couple of awesome new Seattle-area products in the drink, cause going local is good, especially around Thanksgiving. The first was a shrub. I’m guessing you know I don’t mean the plant, but the colonial era vinegar-based cocktail-and-drink ingredient that’s making a comeback. You probably don’t know I used a Ludlow Market Shrub, made around these parts, specifically the Blackberry Sarsaparilla Vanilla variety, which is rich and tangy and fruity all at once. I also used the new Seattle Distilling Company Idle Hours whiskey (made on Vashon Island), which is an Irish-style whiskey with a hint of honey. All together, the Hanson Sparkler (there soda water which makes it sparkle) is an ideal pre-Thanksgiving drink, one that’ll whet your appetite without filling you up.
The Hanson Sparkler
Ice cubes
1-1/2 ounces Seattle Distilling Company Idle Hours whiskey
1 ounce Ludlow Market Blackberry Sarsaparilla Vanilla shrub
5 to 6 ounces soda water
1. Fill a highball or double-ish Old Fashioned glass with a four or five ice cubes.
2. Add the Idle Hours whiskey, then the shrub, then the soda water. Stir well.
Tags: cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Idle Hours whiskey, Ludlow Market shrub, shrub, Thanksgiving drink, The Hanson Sparkler, What I’m Drinkin, Whiskey
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Recipes, What I'm Drinking, Whiskey
October 29, 2013
Hello dear hearts. There’s time I think for one more quote from the The Compleat Imbiber #5, which we’ve been talking up here on the ol’ Spiked Punch due to it’s greatness and my love of The Compleat Imbiber series. This time, it’s from a piece called Four O’Clock at the Five O’Clock, by a gentleman named Hugh Massingham. It’s mainly a look at American drinking establishments by someone not native to this country, and is built off a stop at a spot in Denver (I wonder if it’s still there) called the Five O’Clock, which didn’t at first seem friendly, but which had, from the below quote, quite a friendly line up for the times.
Suddenly, behind the bar, artfully lit from below, is a blaze of welcoming friends. There is good old Johnnie Walker, as spry as ever. There is that authentic notes of Floreat Etona, Harvey’s sherry. There is historic Beefeater – the snob gin in the United States – and those two dogs yapping away on behalf of Black and White, and soft-tasting ding-dong Bells and kindly tempting Teachers and Cutty Sarks in full sail. There is bicarbonate of soda on draught and tots of Alka Seltzer – the necessities for a hangover morning, familiar sights in an English bathroom, but unknown in English pubs. True, there are a number of bottles that are strangers, and that wink away at you with the offer of novel and perhaps dangerous pleasures. Leroux’s ‘Ginger-Flavoured Brandy’ should surely tickle some secret spot hitherto unexplored by the milder and less adventurous brews of your native land? Then there is gay Dixie Rose, a cross, perhaps, between a Gone-With-The-Wind lady and a gypsy, who is offering for your relaxation in this subdued light a bottle of London dry gin. There is Hill Billy Reserve Whiskey, with its suggestion of some smoky still in a mountain chasm. There is Popcorn Straight Cut Whiskey, made, apparently – and yet can this be true? – from the same fat white salted ears piled up in the dish by your elbow. There is ancient Carstairs (established 1788) with his White Seal Blended. There is good old Thompson – don’t let’s forget his blended bourbon. And there is Vernon and Paddy and a bottle with a playing-card label, showing a King both face upwards and face downwards – delights still not tested after all these weeks of travel.
— Hugh Massingham, Four O’Clock at the Five O’Clock, The Compleat Imbiber #5
Tags: Bars, bars. whiskey, Beefeater, Bells, Cocktail Talk, Cutty Sark, Hill Billy Reserve whiskey, Johnnie Walker, lots and lots of booze, Popcorn Whiskey, Teachers, The Compleat Imbiber, White Seal
Posted in: Bars, Cocktail Talk, Whiskey
October 11, 2013
The Cocktail to Cocktail Hour episodes are coming with rare regularity so far in Season Four (but don’t expect miracles people – genius takes time). And for Episode 3, we have a special guest making his second appearance on the show – call us lucky – the mysterious and well-coiffed Stereolad himself, Mark Butler! In this episode he’s teaching us how to make the Horse’s Neck, and being generally awesome.
Tags: bourbon, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Cocktail to Cocktail Hour, Cocktail video, Cocktail Videos, Friday Night Cocktail, Horse's Neck, Mark Butler, The Horse’s Neck, What I'm Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Cocktail to Cocktail Hour, Cocktail Videos, Dark Spirits, Recipes, What I'm Drinking, Whiskey
July 2, 2013
I’ve mentioned Charles Williams on here before, but it’s high time he’s on here again, as he’s one of the pulpiest pulpers out there – at least from the books I’ve read, and I’m always looking for more. If you happen to have any old Charles Williams books, actually, and want to give them to me, I will buy you many drinks. Promise. Anyway, the book of his I’ve read most recently is called A Touch of Death, and was reprinted not long ago by the fine folks at Hard Case Crime. It features a guy who gets himself into all kinds of trouble, mostly due to a women that has been called “the toughest babe you’ll meet in fiction,” by Mystery File, and I couldn’t agree more. She is bad news, people. The below quote is good news, however.
We went up on the outside stairs at the rear of the building and in through the kitchen. She pulled a bottle of bourbon out of a cupboard and set it on the drain.
‘Mix yourself a drink, and go into the living room. Soda and ice cubes in the refrigerator.’
‘I hate to drink alone this early in the day,’ I said. ‘It scares me.’
She smiled. ‘All right. If you insist.’
–Charles Williams, A Touch of Death
June 7, 2013
My absolutely favorite thing in the world at this moment (well, outside of my dogs) is Meletti Anisette. I wrote about my trip to the Meletti Café (which was lovely), and having some of Meletti Anisette while there, and how great and perfect it was – but on some level, I always wondered if a little of that sentiment was due to being Italy. How to tell? Try some of the same here in the old U.S. So, I picked up a bottle, and you know what? It’s exactly as good here. It’s the tops, it’s the coliseum (as the song goes). Just by itself, with an ice cube or two, it makes me very happy. However, because I’m a tinkerer (not that I drive a wagon around fixing up pots and pans, but that I tinker with liquids), I’ve been wondering if it would also be great with things. And you know what (again, do you know what, or what)? It is! I kept my mixing really, really simple, cause simplicity is awesome and why mess around much, just adding some of the Meletti to another favorite, Woodinville Whiskey Company bourbon, in a classic 5-to-1 combo. Oh my! It’s delicious. I’m calling it (for obvious reasons) The West Coast of the Le Marche. Have one instantly. Or quicker. You can thank me later.
The West Coast of the Le Marche
Cracked ice
2-1/2 ounces Woodinville Whiskey Co bourbon
1/2 ounce Meletti Anisette
Ice cubes
1: Filled a cocktails shaker or mixing glass with cracked ice. Add the bourbon and the anisette. Stir well.
2. Fill an old fashioned or comparable glass (preferably a commemorative Nutella jar from Italy) with a couple fat ice cubes. Strain the mix over the ice. Relish the loveliness.
Tags: bourbon, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Meletti Anisette, The West Coast of the Le Marche, What I'm Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Italy, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking, Whiskey
May 10, 2013
Now and then, something shows up on your doorstep that just makes you shake your head confusedly. Maybe it’s a baby unicorn, maybe it’s a basket of bran muffins, and maybe it’s a bottle of Canadian rye whiskey combined with maple syrup. The latter happened to me recently (maybe you, too) in the form of Tap 357. At first, I was as mentioned shaking my head, being generally opposed to pre-blended flavored spirits. But I’m nothing if not adventuresome (with the scars to prove it), so naturally I tasted it. And then tasted it some more. And then a little more. And you know what – it’s pretty swell stuff. Not too sweet, not too maple-y, but with just the right amount of both. It’s nice to sip solo over a little ice, with a little of the trees and the fields about it, and a nice slow ending of grain and syrup. But I’ve also been playing around with it in cocktails, starting with something that seems like it would be just north of awful: a plain whiskey sour but with Tap 357. I keep my sours simple, and this was no different: Tap 357, lemon juice, ice. I figured the lemon and maple would butt heads, but you know what? It was darn tasty. The lemon comes in bright at first, then the whiskey notes, then that maple finish with a touch of tang. Good stuff. Now, if I could just figure out what to do with that unicorn.
The Canadian Sour
Ice cubes
2-1/2 ounces Tap 357 Canadian Maple Rye Whiskey
1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
Lemon slice, for garnish
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway up with ice cubes. Add the Tap 357 and lemon juice. Shake like a logger.
2 Strain through a fine strainer into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the lemon slice.
March 26, 2013
It’s nice to know that the classics were full of Cocktail Talk. And nice to know that I’m still tappng into those great books, the Compleat Imbibers, those British compendiums of drink, wine, glassware, poetry, and so much more that everyone should pick up if they ever get a chance. If you don’t get a chance, well, read this quote:
Drinkers, such as Horace, were regularly mentioned in the New Year’s Honours. Indeed, Horace’s great ode on the defeat of Cleopatra begins, symbolically, with the words ‘Nunc est bibendum’: ‘Now for a drink.’ It is as if some patriotic American poet, the late Robert Frost perhaps, were to have celebrated the annihilation of an infinitely seductive female Mao tse Tung by demanding a Manhattan.
–Peter Dickinson, Love, Liquor, and Classical Learning, from The Compleat Imbiber 6
November 27, 2012
I have to imagine there are people who miss the cold war. Old spies, counterfeit passport makers, marketers of microfiche. But most of us are probably pretty good with the cold war being far enough in the past that people under 20 probably don’t really know what the phrase means. However, you can still (if you are a you that looks for things like this) uncover books that fall into the cold-war literary genre. Not a big genre, but the one that Who Is Elissa Sheldon? by David Montross fits into. It’s a book where everyone is a double agent, many characters have multiple names, and “the Reds” is a phrase that doesn’t refer to a baseball team in Cincinnati. Not the best read, but fun in its double-dealing way. And, one of things that defined the cold war was fairly straight-ahead drinking, usually an Old Fashioned like in the below quote:
‘No, I waited for you.’ She didn’t look well, her eyes were heavy and her mouth dropped. ‘I’ll have an Old Fashioned if they can make it. That’s what she used to drink.’ Adam ordered for the girl and refused anything for himself. Then he sat back and studied her. The blue suit was wrinkled, and her blouse was wilted and greyish. There was a certain pathos in her, but his involuntary concern hardened because there was no remorse in her. The worse she looked, the better he liked it.
— Who Is Elissa Sheldon?, David Montross
