January 9, 2015
A classic cure for gastronomical distress, I’ve featured this favorite on the Spiked Punch blog before. But as it’s such a fine remedy for curing your post-holiday internal ills, and as one or two of you may have missed the earlier post, here it is again, starting your new year off in a fine, tasty, gut-happy way.
The Stomach Reviver
Ice cubes
1 1/2 ounces brandy
1 ounce kümmel
1/2 ounce Fernet Branca
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with cracked ice. Add everything, and stir well.
2. Strain the mix into a cocktail glass. Think less full thoughts.
Tags: Brandy, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Kummel, Peychaud's bitters, The Stomach Reviver, What I'm Drinking
Posted in: bitters, Brandy, Cocktail Recipes, Italy, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
October 31, 2014
It’s Halloween, dontcha know. Which means it is time for the Warlock, and the Warlock video. The spookiest Halloween cocktail video ever. The scariest cocktail video period. Ever! Bwahahahahah.
Oh, also, it contains brandy, Strega, limoncello, orange juice, and Peychaud’s bitters. And will turn you into a zombie magician. So, there’s that, too.
Tags: Brandy, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Cocktail video, Dark Spirits, Friday Night Cocktail, Halloween cocktail, Halloween cocktail recipe, limoncello, orange juice, Peychaud's bitters, Strega, The Warlock, What I'm Drinking, zombie magician
Posted in: Brandy, Cocktail Recipes, Cocktail Videos, Dark Spirits, Italy, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
October 24, 2014
Somehow I came up with this when reading J. Robert Lennon stories. And it’s a darn good drink. A wee sweet, but well-balanced by the richness of the egg and the kick of the brandy. Dang, that’s sorta like Lennon. Maybe? Maybe. You read him and find out and let me know. One thing that’s totally for sure (like, for sure), is that if you want to create a drink this amazing, you’d better delve into the J. Robert Lennon oeuvre. You’d better.
Underlined Passages, from Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz
Ice cubes
1-1/2 ounces brandy
1 ounce Navan vanilla liqueur
1/2 ounce Dumante Verdenoce pistachio liqueur
1 egg white, preferably organic
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the brandy, Navan, Dumante, and egg white. Shake exceptionally well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass.
Tags: Brandy, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Dumante Verdenoce pistachio liqueur, egg white, Friday Night Cocktail, Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz, Navan vanilla liqueur, Underlined Passages, What I'm Drinking
Posted in: Brandy, Cocktail Recipes, Drinking Writer, Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
October 10, 2014
This drink sounds ominous. Who is the they here? Aliens? Dogs? The people of Prince Namor who live under the sea? That young couple that lives up the block and gets just a little loud with their parties sometimes? I mean, jeez, it’s a residential neighborhood people, we don’t need to hear your love of Katy Perry at midnight, do we? And could you clean up those cans of cheap light beer for gawd’s sake. Make this cocktail instead. Trust me. It’ll make your eventual rule of earth much tastier.
They Shall Inherit the Earth, Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz
Ice cubes
1/2 ounce Cointreau
1/2 ounce Bénédictine
1 ounce brandy
1 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the Cointreau, Bénédictine, brandy, and lemon juice. Shake well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass.
Tags: Benedictine, Brandy, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Cointreau, Friday Night Cocktail, They Shall Inherit the Earth, What I'm Drinking
Posted in: Brandy, Cocktail Recipes, Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
September 23, 2014
I recently picked up a couple Trollope books I hadn’t read before (which is rare – if you don’t know of my Trollopean love, go check out past Trollope Cocktail Talks), thanks to Powell’s, and as long-time readers of this here blog could guess, I was super excited to find them. Both because I could happily read Trollope all day long, and because the books tend to contain a nice bit of Cocktail Talk, too. For example, one of the books was Ralph the Heir, about a somewhat ne’er-do-well running into trouble before some inheritance kicks in, along with being about his much nicer cousins, and how they all end up and with who. It’s fantastic, really. But having a ne’er-do-well means, naturally, that there’s some time spent in clubs and bars, which leads to the below quote – one of the best about how service is sometimes driven.
Mrs. Horsball got out from some secluded nook a special bottle of orange-brandy in his favour – which Lieutenant Cox would have consumed on the day of its opening, had not Mrs. Horsball with considerable acrimony declined to supply his orders. The sister with ringlets smiled and smirked whenever the young Squire went near the bar. The sister in ringlets was given to flirtations of this kind, would listen with sweetest complacency to compliments on her beauty, and would return them with interest. But she never encouraged this sort of intimacy with gentlemen who did not pay their bills, or with those whose dealings with the house were not of a profitable nature. The man who expected that Miss Horsball would smile upon him because he ordered a glass of sherry and bitters or half-a-pint of pale ale was very much mistaken; but the softness of her smile for those who consumed the Moonbeam Champagne was unbounded. Love and commerce with her ran together, and regulated each other in a manner that was exceedingly advantageous to her brother.
–Anthony Trollope, Ralph the Heir
Tags: Anthony Trollope, Brandy, Champagne, Cocktail Talk, Moonbeam Champagne, pale ale, Ralph the Heir, sherry and bitters
Posted in: Anthony Trollope, Brandy, Champagne & Sparkling Wine, Cocktail Talk
July 15, 2014
I don’t know much about Mary Collins, outside of that she wrote 6 mystery books set in Cali in the middle part of the last century. The only one I’ve read is Death Warmed Over, and it’s worth tracking down. It’s mostly set around this Los Angeles boarding house during the war, where people keep getting knocked off, and has a plucky heroine who decides to do some detecting. But best of all, at one point our heroine is hanging with another LA sweetie, and they’re drinking B-and-Bs (or, brandy and Bénédictine). I love that (not so much the pre-bottled version, but the make-it-your-self version). Then they switch to brandy and soda! Neat. Check it all out in the below:
“Naturally,” she said, standing up. “Look, Janey, do you want some more B-and-B or would you like a nice plain brandy and soda?”
I said brandy and soda would be wonderful. When Jewel came back from the kitchen, we drank our drinks with unseemly speed. That’s the trouble with good liquor. It tastes so nice that a girl is likely to forget that aside from the taste, it also contains alcohol. With a few minutes we had drunk another brandy and soda.
—Death Warmed Over, Mary Collins
April 18, 2014
I’ve taken a lot of flak for my love of Stingers. “That’s a granny drink,” behatted bronc-busters have bellyached, while tight-jeaned fillies laugh, joking, “You’re a fogey for drinking brandy,” and everyone would cackle at my black-and-yellow bee suit (worn in honor of the Stinger). But those people are idiots. IDIOTS. If you don’t also want to fall into this category, then Stinger up. You’ll be happier, too. Trust me. You can trust me, right?
The Stinger (from Dark Spirits)
Ice cubes
2-1/2 ounces brandy (or Cognac, if you’re feeling it)
1/2 ounce white crème de menthe
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the brandy and crème de menthe (be sure it’s the white kind, ’cause green gets icky). Shake, while proclaiming your Stinger affection loudly.
2. Strain the mix into a cocktail glass, being sure not to spill any on your bee costume.
Tags: Brandy, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Crème de menthe, Friday Night Cocktail, The Stinger, What I'm Drinking
Posted in: Brandy, Cocktail Recipes, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
April 23, 2013
Hey, readers of this blog, you should know this: I’m a big fan of Charles Dickens. Heck, there are a couple Charles Dickens Cocktail Talk posts on here already (as well as a few other odds and sods related to him). He had the stuff, in my opinion. And, so I regularly re-read him, and recently did such with The Old Curiosity Shop. Not my top Dickens pick – not sure what is, really – but still awesomely awesome (I wonder what he would say if someone referred to him that way, way back when). And full of the lovely cast of Dickensian characters, good, bad, really bad, silly, stupid, wonderful, and tipsy. Of course, the latter are what we’re focusing on here. And the book is so filled with good drinkerly quotes that we’re gonna do a whole week of them! Or more. Who knows? Only me, Dickens, and the pony. This first quote’s from the early parts of the book, and makes some true points on soda water and human hair.
He began by remarking that soda-water, though a good thing in the abstract was apt to lie cold upon the stomach unless qualified with ginger, or a small infusion of brandy, which latter article he held to be preferable in all cases, saving for the one consideration of expense. Nobody venturing to dispute these positions, he proceeded to observe that the human hair was a great retainer of tobacco-smoke, and that the young gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after eating vast quantities of apples to conceal any scent of cigars from their anxious friends, were usually detected in consequence of their heads possessing this remarkable property.
–Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop
