Chuck Cowdery on Non-Distiller Producer Whiskey

B&E:
Blended, not distilled,
by St. George Spirits

Non-distiller producer whiskey — NDP whiskey to those in the abbreviation-prone trade — has been around a long, long, time. Non-distiller producers buy bulk spirits and resell them under another label. It's a completely honorable business model. Regardless of the abuse that model sometimes suffers by resellers of rum, whiskey, and (notoriously) vodka, some very nice spirits are sold by people who do not operate the stills on which it was made. They may — or may not — blend, age, or flavor the bulk spirits. Regardless, they are not the distillers of that particular booze.

You may sometimes hear such spirits referred to as "found" whiskeys, as if some Kentucky distiller rounded a corner in an unused part of a rambling old rickhouse and ran smack dab into a forgotten lot of barrels just a'settin' there. It's a disingenuous term, "found" whiskey. NDP is clunky, but more accurate. The reason it is interesting from a consumer's point of view is that, in general, brands would rather not have buyers know that the distillery named on the bottle may not in fact exist. Whiskey writer Chuck Cowdery calls brands that go to great lengths to craft images of these fictional distilleries "Potemkin distilleries." It's a good term.

But how are consumers standing there in the liquor store to know which whiskeys are made by distillery on each label and which are not? In a blog post today, Cowdery proposes that genuine, actual, echt craft distillers develop common language that Potemkin distilleries cannot truthfully use...and then plaster it on everything. As an example, he cites copy from one of our favorite of America's newer distilleries, Balcones Distilling in Waco, Texas:

100% of Balcones whisky is mashed, fermented and distilled at our distillery. We never resell whisky from other distilleries or source aged whisky barrels for blending under the Balcones label. This is authentic craft whisky.

Language like that would go a long way to letting drinkers who actually makes their spirits. Read the rest of Cowdery's three-point proposal here.

Goes well with:

• Here's Cowdery on why "Potemkin" is a fitting term for non-distiller producers who pretend to operate actual distilleries. 
• As I mentioned, buying whiskey from actual distillers and reselling it is, in and of itself, an honorable practice. Some such bottles we like — with varying degrees of transparency among them — include Bulleit bourbon and rye, Whistlepig rye, and Breaking and Entering bourbon from St. George Spirits. 

Homemade Marshmallow Creme

Sticky, fluffy marshmallow creme — sometimes dubbed marshmallow topping or "cream" — can be whipped together in less time than it takes to make a decent cup of hot chocolate. And then, hey, boom, spike that drink with a little whiskey or something stronger and you've got something to put on top of it.

We've discussed real marshmallow syrup before, using actual and esoteric marshmallow plant, but spooning globs of this fake stuff onto hot chocolate, ice cream, milkshakes, or Sundaes is a lot more familiar to...well, nearly everyone.  Legions of American children grew up eating fluffernutter sandwiches, a combination of peanut butter and marshmallow creme, in their school lunches. Some home cooks deploy it as a binder in puffed rice squares and popcorn balls, to add bulk and sweetness in sauces and fudge, and as the base for cake frostings and whoopie pies.

Here's what most home cooks don't do, though: make it themselves and change the base flavor. Vanilla extract is the common flavoring, but why not use mint extract, rosewater, or orange flower water? Pomegranate molasses adds a bit of color and a pleasant bitter note to the sweetness of the glossy white confection. And don't forget liquor: bourbon, absinthe, apple brandy, and dark rums are just the beginning. Admittedly, absinthe-flavored marshmallow creme may have limited uses, but that cup of hot chocolate is a good place to start.

This marshmallow topping can be cobbled together from just a few ingredients common to both bartenders and moms; syrup, egg whites, confectioners' sugar, a pinch of salt, and some kind of flavoring. If you happen to be making ice cream, you may well have those egg whites on hand already. Some confectioners cook a syrup that's a mix of sugar, water, corn syrup, and cream of tartar. You could tie your shoes with gloves on, too, but why make this harder than it needs to be? Let's drop any pretense of this being at all healthy and use straight corn syrup. See below for notes on flavorings.

Homemade Marshmallow Creme 

2 egg whites
1 cup corn syrup (310g)
1 cup confectioners'/powdered/10x sugar (110g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or other flavoring: see note below)
a knifepoint of salt — no more than 1/8 tsp

In an electric stand mixer (such as a KitchenAid) beat the egg whites and corn syrup with the ballon ship attatchment for a few minutes until the mixture is stiff and white. Stop the mixer. 

Add the powdered sugar in three stages. Add the first third, turn the mixer on low, then increase gradually to the highest speed until all the sugar is incorporated. Turn off the mixer. Add the second third of sugar and repeat until all the sugar is fully incorporated and the mixture is solid white, glossy, and thick enough to hold thick ribbons that plop off a spoon or spatula.

Add vanilla (or other flavoring) and salt and mix until well blended. Transfer to a one-quart container and store covered in the refridgerator; it will keep for up to three days.

A note on flavorings: A half to a full ounce (1-2 tablespoons) of most spirits should suffice (unless they are strongly flavored — use your judgement), a teaspoon of most baking extracts or cocktail bitters, and just a few drops for strong essential oils such as mint or neroli.

Goes well with:

• Chartreuse Hot Chocolate. When you don't feel like mucking about with flavorings and just want to dollop flops of this stuff on hot cocoa, why not this stuff?
• Smith & Cross pot-still rum-flavored marshmallows. Because they're easier to make than you think they are.
• Still on a marshmallow kick? Try a boozy marshmallow collins (no, not with this stuff — with real marshmallow syrup).
• Want more candy recipes? Try three variations of the classic Philadelphia springtime candy, Irish Potatoes (note: most Irish Potato recipes lack actual potatoes).

The Wu of Maker's Mark

For what shall it profit a man 

if he shall gain the whole world, 

 and lose his own soul? 

 ~ Mark 8:36

Never mind whiskey aficionados; tongues on even vodka lovers were wagging earlier this month over a rare public relations stumble in Kentucky. Rob Samuels, COO of Maker's Mark, announced that the alcoholic strength of the company's signature bourbon was to be lowered from 90 proof to 84 proof.

The company had announced, quite literally, that it was watering down the product.

The ensuing uproar was immediate, vocal, and sustained. On Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, indignant fans deplored the decision and excoriated the firm. Bartenders who prefer overproof spirits that can stand up to the dilution of mixers and ice in cocktails bemoaned the new direction. Users howled indignation and pundits prognosticated the future of the brand (opinions ranged from “I’ll never buy Maker's again” to “In a year, who will even remember?”). It became a national story. Up in Vermont, WhistlePig vowed to increase the proof of its rye whiskey. I stayed mostly mum on the topic. Regardless of what others recalled next February, I would remember who did this.

I was struck immediately by the resonance of Samuels' announcement with Philip K. Dick's 1962 novel The Man in the High Castle. The book depicts a world in which Germany and Japan emerge victorious in World War II. Between them, they conquer and divide a disgraced former United States. I must have been ten when I read it first, but Dick's depiction of wu — a slippery concept applied to handcrafted jewelry in the book, but applicable to whiskey here — has stayed with me for more than thirty years.

It wasn’t indignation over the decision to dilute the whiskey or even anger, really, I felt. Rather, it was sadness. Another layer on our ever-thickening patina of loss. True, Americans have experienced great gains in recent decades in fields such as medicine, technology, and publishing. But we have suffered a concomitant erosion of our greatness. Heroes once idolized have been exposed as flawed — sometimes deeply flawed — humans; OJ Simpson, Lance Armstrong, Joe Paterno, John F. Kennedy, Michael Vick. Endless obstructionist caviling among our politicians have led many to despair that we will ever be better off than our parents.

Our entertainment has grown recursive; witness the remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Arthur, The Karate Kid, or Gus Van Sant's scene-by-scene reshoot of Pyscho, movies that did not need to be remade, that arguably should not have been remade, that do not leave the world a better place in their passing. Our homes, by and large, are not built as well as those of a hundred years ago. On it goes. NASA's space program: gutted. New Orleans: flooded and nearly lost to us. The lunacy of creationism taught as fact to defenseless children who will be unable to compete for jobs as adults because they simply will not understand how the natural world works as well as their grandparents did.

Into this morass steps Maker's Mark with another assault on our faith in the goodness of humanity. And why? Why reduce the proof of this iconic whiskey? Profit. Global thirst for American whiskey has grown steadily in recent years and supply has not consistently kept pace with demand. Maker's in particular has experienced shortages, despite a 2012 expansion that increased production capacity by some 45%. Watering the whiskey was seen as a way to increase almost instantaneously the available inventory by 6%.

Deplorable things happen. Every day. Drove my Chevy to the levee and all that. But it's not all odious Kardashians, pedophile priests, and watered down whiskey. Not even close. There are good things as well. Whether it's the residuum of my midwest upbringing or a Catholic education that drives me to be what the Jesuits dubbed a man for others, I choose to spend time making and pursuing things that make the world better. As the California designer Mike Monteiro writes in Design in a Job, "[Y]ou are responsible for what you put into the world...and you can only stand as proud of the work as its benefit to society entitles you to." Amen, brother. Whether it's websites or whiskey, we shoulder a moral responsibility for what we bring into the world.

For the past twenty years or so, there's usually been a bottle of Maker's knocking around the house, but when Samuels made his initial announcement, my thought simply was to abandon the label quietly. No point in making a fuss. I'd never tasted the lower-proof version and the erosion of quality is arguable. We were assured the taste was nearly identical. That was beside the point. For decades, Maker's has presented itself using the language of heritage, tradition, and craftsmanship, a brand — a family — hitched to the yoke of history. Through it all, that squat bottle with its red wax top remained unchanged. The trope of Maker's as custodian to an unbroken legacy of quality suffuses marketing materials, bottle design, and even the grounds of the distillery itself which in 1980 was declared a National Historic Landmark. Your haircut, your president, and your wife may change, but Maker's would always be Maker's.

Until the day it wasn't, the day we were told it was to be cheapened for the masses. And that brings us back to Dick's novel. In The Man in the High Castle, Robert Childan, a dealer in historic Americana — Colt revolvers, Buffalo Bill's head in a jar, Civil War recruitment posters and the like — has presented a piece of modern American jewelry to Paul Kasoura, a wealthy young Japanese civilian newly stationed in occupied San Francisco. Kasoura secretly laughs at Childan for presuming to present such a piece, but soon develops an unexpected attraction to it.

"Here is a piece of metal which has been melted until it has become shapeless. It represents nothing. Nor does it have design, of any intentional sort. It is merely amorphous. One might say, it is mere content, deprived of form.”

 He goes on.

“Yet,” Paul said, “I have for several days now inspected it, and for no logical reason I feel a certain emotional fondness. Why is that? I may ask. I do not even now project into this blob, as in psychological German tests, my own psyche. I still see no shapes or forms. But it somehow partakes of Tao. You see?” He motioned Childan over. “It is balanced. The forces within this piece are stabilized. At rest. So to speak, this object has made its peace with the universe. It has separated from it and hence has managed to come to homeostasis.”

“It does not have wabi,” Paul said, “nor could it ever. But—” He touched the pin with his nail. “Robert, this object has wu.”

Wu, Dick tells us though Kasoura, is a quality that allows us to experience a tranquility associated with holy things. It is not necessarily apparent, even to its maker who may recognize only that the object satisfies, that it is complete. By contemplating such things, we gain wu ourselves. Kasoura is profoundly moved by it. With subtle discomfort, he informs Childan that an associate wishes to replicate the piece in plastic or base metal — tens of thousands of units — for sale to the poor and superstitious in Latin America and Asia. The deal, he confirms, would be worth a great deal of money. “What about wu?” Childan asks. “Will that remain in the pieces?”

Kasoura is silent, but we know the answer. It will not.

Childan could take one of two paths. One could make him immensely wealthy. The other is less clear. He seizes the decision to meet the exporter. Then, in a moment of clarity, he realizes the trap.

Whole affair a cruel dismissal of American efforts, taking place before his eyes. Cynicism, but God forbid, he had swallowed hook, line and sinker. Got me to agree, step by step, led me along the garden path to this conclusion: products of American hands good for nothing but to be models for junky good-luck charms.

Which path does Childan take? Read the book.

Maker's Mark, however, made the honorable choice. Chairman emeritus Bill Samuels, Jr. joined Rob Samuels in a conference call to confirm that fans' protestations were heard loud and clear. Geoffrey Kleinman relates their conversation here at DrinkSpirits.com and confirms that, after just a few days of online furore, the whisky will return at 90 proof.

Well, I'll be damned. Turns out there's room on my shelf for Maker's after all. And if, from time to time, it's not available, that's ok.

Goes well with:

• Mike Monteiro's 2012 Design is a Job is ostensibly selling design for web designers, but it's a practical little manual for creative types of all stripes — and those of us who work with them.
• We also disdain watered down bacon. Maynard Davies aims to show how bacon was done the old way. 
• Don't know Dick? You may know more than you think. His stories have been made into movies such as Minority Report, Blade Runner, Total Recall, and A Scanner Darkly. Pick up a copy of The Man in the High Castle at your neighborhood bookstore or online here. 
• Got a thing for Dick? You may also enjoy these Charles Bukowski postal stamps. 
• David Toczko's 2012 book, The Ambassador of Bourbon: Maker's Mark and the Rebirth of America's Native Spirit, presents over 250 photos of the Maker's Mark distillery, including fermenting mash, barrels in the rickhouse, hand-dipping of the those red wax seals, and some archival material. Introduction by Bill Samuels, Jr. and foreword by Rob Samuels. Pick up a copy here. 

A Swift Kick from a Kentucky Mule

I am aware, in some vague sense, that a mule is a type of shoe, although I am fairly certain that I don't own any. More familiar to me is the proper dead mule, a symbol deeply entwined in — and arguably a signifier of — the literature of the American South. But it is the Kentucky Mule, that bourbon-fueled harbinger of excess, that has kicked off many an evening with friends and family around the Whiskey Forge.

Everything tastes better through a grunge filter

Some history: Around the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, vodka was an obscure spirit in the United States, small potatoes, nothing like the cash cow it is today. The Moscow Mule is the drink that changed that.  That original mule, a vodka-and-ginger beer highball, was made famous at the Cock 'n' Bull Tavern in Los Angeles. By the time Elvis sang his way through Blue Hawaii twenty years later, the drink had become a classic. In Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, Ted Haigh reports that a girlfriend of Jack Morgan, the Cock 'n' Bull's owner, had inherited a copper goods business. She presumably was the source of the squat copper mugs that remain to this day de rigueur for serving the drink.

Vodka, though, is not everyone's first choice when it comes to making and downing mixed drinks. Nor are copper mugs. Enter the variations. Tweaking the basic idea of a spirit, lime, and ginger beer leads to regional and topical versions of the drink; the Mexican Mule (tequila), Caribbean Mule (rums), the Blackberry Mule, and Audrey Saunders' Gin-Gin Mule. Most of them benefit from a dash or two of cocktail bitters. Classically, that has meant Angostura bitters, but when we swap bourbon for the vodka to yield a Kentucky Mule, I've found that Fee Brothers' old fashion aromatic bitters is the better choice. Use what you've got.

American-style ginger ale doesn't have the backbone this drink requires. Instead, use the more fiery ginger beer. A Cock 'n' Bull brand does exist. We've used that as well as Bundaberg from Australia and the fearsome Blenheim's from South Carolina (I quite like that one, but it's a bit strong for some). We've found that Gosling's sells a reasonably-priced, all-natural ginger beer for making a Dark 'n' Stormy, but it's our favorite of the lot for this drink instead: light fizz, well-balanced ginger taste and aroma, not overly sweet. A liter runs less than $3. No, Gosling's didn't send me any. We just like it a bunch. Get some.

Kentucky Mule 

2 oz good (but not your best) bourbon. Buffalo Trace is great here.
Half a small lime
4-5 oz ginger beer (Gosling's if you've got it; if not, use your favorite)
2 dashes aromatic bitters (Fee Brothers, Angostura, or dealer's choice) 

Build the drink on ice in a highball glass. Squeeze the lime into this and drop in the shell. Dash in the bitters and give it a quick stir. If you're a stickler for tradition, use copper mugs rather than glass. Some folks garnish with mint and lime wedges, but then some folks listen to Nickleback and dabble in crossdressing. To each his own.

Goes well with:

• The drink's versatility should be apparent and the template works with lots of iterations. Using pisco could result in a Peruvian (or Chilean) Mule. Applejack could yield a New Jersey (or an Orchard) Mule. You get the idea. Use gin, swap in tonic for the ginger beer, and lose the bitters...holy cow, it's a Gin & Tonic. 
• The truth of food and drink origin stories are so often obfuscated by good stories. Eric Felton takes a closer look at the origin of the Moscow Mule and Cock 'n Bull's head bartender, Wes Price. Felton's version putting Price as the originator feels like a better fit. 
• I like ginger. There's always some around. Here's what I do with it. 
• We did overindulge in mules last year. I'm pleased to be making them again, but one of the drinks we started making when we grew tired of so much ginger beer was the Punky Monkey cocktail with Buffalo Trace bourbon and Scarlet Ibis rum. Good, good stuff. 

The Purpose of Good Liquor

My brother drinks coffee; I drink tea. He and I are two strikingly different men with divergent tastes in everything from politics to pets. He’s nearly a decade older than I and, except for our eyes, our laughs, and general build, there’s no reason to think we are related. Few things to my mind illustrate this more than our tastes in alcohol.

He likes white wines while I prefer reds. He detests gin; I dote on it (and its more aggressive Dutch cousin, genever). I’m a confirmed bourbon drinker, but Scotch is his go-to beverage. The list goes on and on. Somewhere near the bottom of our pro/con t-chart is tequila, the one spirit on which we agree; we like it. A pessimist might conclude that we’re doomed to dislike everything about one another. I prefer to think that when we put our minds to it, there’s nothing we won’t drink.

For his birthday, I sent him my Scotch. Not all of it, by any means, but some choice bottles; a single bottle of big-shouldered, peaty Ardberg and three lovely Macallan bottles: 12-, 15-, and 17-year old. Why? Would I not drink them? Yes, eventually, of course. But he’ll derive so much more pleasure from them than I could — and what, after all, is the purpose of good liquor, if not to share?

If you run into my brother, tell him I like Willett, Van Winkle, and Booker’s.

Bourbon Women to Gather at Maker's Mark

I once teased Hollis Bulleit, asking her what sort of woman drinks bourbon. “Sassy broads,” she informed me, “drink bourbon.”

I've found that generally to be true. I do like the company of sassy broads, especially with Hollis in tow. Vodka drinkers fade into the background, but  a woman who orders bourbon right out of the gate has my immediate attention.

Clusters of such bourbon-drinking women sometimes gather to guzzle, sip, or otherwise imbibe that "true and uncontaminated fruitage of the perfect corn" as Irvin S. Cobb put it. What's not to like?

Victoria MacRae-Samuels

Next Thursday, July 12th, Bourbon Women will convene at Maker's Mark distillery for a behind the scenes look at the distillery (which is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark) led by Victoria MacRae-Samuels — "the only female Vice President of Operations in the bourbon industry."

That last bit seems more of a strange marketing angle (I wonder if the ranks of America's nearly 400 craft distilleries were polled for the stat), but if I qualified for membership and were in Kentucky, I know where I'd be next Thursday.

Details for the four-hour tour are on Bourbon Women's site.

Goes well with:

• A look at Gerald Carson's 1963 classic, The Social History of Bourbon.
• Senator Tydings and the Kentucky Breakfast, in which Maryland senator Millard Tydings holds forth on how to make a proper Kentucky breakfast, bourbon included.

Why So Spunky, Punky Monkey?

We get into cyclical ruts around the Whiskey Forge — watching a month’s worth of Tosh.0 in one sitting, for instance, reading everything a particular author published, or tucking into the glazed pork belly time and time again from our favorite neighborhood joint, Carnitas’ Snack Shack.

And drinks? Ah, man. There, too. We make a drink we like and that’s it. That’s what we drink. We got so stuck on Kentucky mules last year that I can barely stomach the thought of one more. Gallons, literally, of Buffalo Trace bourbon went down our throats on that one cocktail. Anyone who came over was offered a bourbon-and-ginger-beer combo. That’s not to say I’m sick of bourbon, that I grew weary of the bitters in it, or that the mule is a bad drink. Far from it. I just wanted a break from the monotony of it.

Enter the Punky Monkey, created by Joaquin Simo of New York’s Death & Company, to shake me out of our cocktail doldrums. Jeff Berry laid out the drink in his Beachbum Berry Remixed. At the bar, Berry reports that it’s on the menu as the Kerala. Regardless of the name, it’s a great little cocktail that relies on not just bourbon, but — in an uncommon and, in some quarters, controversial move — bourbon and rum in the same glass.

The rum is The Scarlet Ibis, a 98 proof blend of Trinidadian rums made specifically for Death & Company. Imported by Eric Seed of Haus Alpenz, The Scarlet Ibis is available commercially, though in limited quantities. In a pinch, Berry suggests, one could substitute either Sea Wynde or Santa Teresa 1796. When I cranked out a round of apricot-colored Punky Monkeys last night, I had no Buffalo Trace on hand, so mixed equal parts Wild Turkey 101 and Bulleit bourbons. What the hell: I was already putting blended rum in the glass, why not blended whiskey?

Purists be damned, this was a delicious drink.

Joaquin Simo’s Punky Monkey

1 oz Scarlet Ibis rum (see above)
l oz 90-proof bourbon (Buffalo Trace preferred)
½ oz sugar syrup
½ oz fresh lemon juice
½ oz fresh pineapple juice
Dash Angostura bitters
Dash Peychaud's bitters
5 green cardamom pods

Lightly muddle the cardamom pods. Add all other ingredients, then shake well with ice cubes. Strain through a fine-mesh wire sieve into a champagne coupe.

Note: If you scale up, go easy on the cardamom. A little goes a long way, so if, say, you quadruple the recipe, maybe only double the spice.

Goes wells with:

• In San Diego? Drop by our favorite neighborhood joint, Carnitas' Snack Shack. Pork belly, stellar burgers, foie gras different ways, steak sandwiches, poutine (alas, no poitin, but the pulled pork topping softens that particular blow). Our first week in the new house, we got takeout from this little North Park gem four times. 
• In New York? Mosy on by Death & Company to whet your whistle. There's a no reservations policy, but get in early and you should be fine.
• Looking for a birthday present for me? Aw, how sweet. I'll take some Scarlet Ibis. Go ahead and get one for yourself, too, at K&L.

So Who Makes Costco's Kirkland Signature Bourbon?

Costco, the large American members-only shopping club, carries house brands of hundreds of items ranging from paper towels to medicines. Add to that vodka, tequila, Scotch whisky and, now, bourbon. These spirits are made by other firms and bottled for Costco under its Kirkland label. I hadn't seen the bourbon until a few days ago when my local store put out a pallet of $19.99 liter bottles. Naturally, I grabbed one. This is a good deal for a good bourbon.

Regrettably, it wasn't a good deal.

The Kirkland Signature Premium Small Batch Bourbon is aged 7 years and comes in at 103 proof (51.5% abv). Disregard "Premium" and "Small Batch" as marketing terms; they don't mean anything definable. It still sounds promising, no? I thought so. We tried it straight. We tried it with a splash of water, with ice, in a Manhattan. It's not the worst liquor I've ever had, but it may just be the worst bourbon I've ever purchased. I was so disappointed.

Three grown men, whiskey drinkers all, could stomach no more than a total of about 6 ounces of the stuff. At first sip, I glanced sideways at one of my cohorts only to find him doing the same to me, each of our faces frozen in disgust. The third wasn't so subtle: he actually reared his head back, grimaced, and pushed the glass away.

This was a bad bourbon. Harsh, acrid, hard to get down. But there were familiar notes to it, some that hinted at the decent drink it could have been. Although there's no indication on the label of who made it other than a reference to Clear Spring Distilling, I suspected I knew who was actually behind it. Paul Clarke, one of the editors of Imbibe, put me on to the answer — and the familiar notes made immediate sense.

According to the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (the TTB), Costco's bourbon is made by Jim Beam (see the TTB certificate of label approval here). What a shame. I actually enjoy some Beam products. The regular Jim Beam, for instance, I buy by the handle as a general mixing bourbon. There's always some around the house. And, of course, I like the Red Stag — again, as a mixing whiskey — even though most flavored whiskeys are a turn off. 

But the Kirkland brand bourbon? Try it if you want; maybe you'll like it. Me? Costco has a good returns policy. I'm thinking about bringing the mostly full bottle back.

Goes well with:

• Beam's Red Stag. I Confess, I...I Kinda Like It. Don't mistake the above disappointment for disliking Beam. I don't. In fact, the 1.75 liter handles at Costco, while not examples of the best whiskey in the world, are a solid deal for $19.99. When Booker's or Stagg comes down to those prices, I'll gladly wallow in them. Until then, there's JB.
• In addition to his gig at Imbibe, Paul Clarke writes, among other places, at The Cocktail Chronicles. He's worth a read.

Gretchen Worden’s Fish House Punch (and a Funky Manger)

My first encounter with a bowl of punch — not the frat house version slopped together from whatever alcohol is cheap and plentiful, but a more stately Philadelphia Fish House Punch — left me positively besotted.

Gretchen Worden was a friend, but she was also director of the Mütter Museum. Housed in Philadelphia’s College of Physicians, the Mütter is a museum of medical history and pathological anatomy. I’d moved to Philadelphia as a young curator with a few freshly minted anthropology degrees for the opportunity to work with that collection.

Just before Christmas 1996, Gretchen hosted a gathering at her home for friends and employees. Our holiday chit-chat was less about Santa and his elves than disease and deformities. At this party in her home were two things I‘d never encountered. The first was a little manger scene that had grown over the years to spread over most of her fireplace mantle. In addition to the traditional stable, shepherds, wise men, and whatnot, it included toys ranging from a dollhouse refrigerator and microwave to Star Wars action figures. There were plastic fly larvae (“Gift of the Maggots,” she wryly quipped out of the side of her mouth. Leaning in closer, she placed her hand on my arm and confided: “They glow in the dark.”). Joseph was holding a camcorder, R2D2 had joined the shepherds’ flock and I think — though certain memories of the evening are less reliable — that the manger itself was occupied by either Yoda or one of the brown-frocked jawas.

The other thing I’d never seen before was a big bowl of Fish House Punch, a compounded drink that dates back to Philadelphia's colonial past. I didn’t realize anyone made it anymore, but it turned out that for years Gretchen had been whipping up and aging batches of it using an 1950’s recipe. The technique isn’t what you might see in high-end bars today, but the effect is no less potent. She advised serving it very cold so that one did not have to dilute it with ice. Wicked, wicked woman.

As an experienced homebrewer of beers and ales, the tiny punch cups (little more than demitasses, really) that accompanied the bowl seemed, well, stingy. Used to quaffing homemade beverages in great quantity, that’s exactly what I did. Frequent refilling required us to gather around the bowl. As a result, the conversation flowed like punch.

I do not recall how I got home.

I do not recall whether any Fish House Punch was left.

I do not recall whether I dreamed of baby Yoda or glow-in-the-dark Yule maggots.

I do not recall, most pointedly, wanting another drink for several days.

Gretchen’s recipe is not a wholly authentic recreation of 18th Century Fish House Punch, but it is sly and potent. The peach brandy I used to make it was sheer bootleg — and really good — but drinks writer David Wondrich has suggested elsewhere that a 3:1 blend of bonded applejack to “good, imported peach liqueur” might work as a substitute. You may try commercial examples from Peach Street Distillers or Kuchan Cellars.

From my 2007 book Moonshine!, here’s

Gretchen Worden’s Fish House Punch

1 quart lemon juice (about 4 dozen lemons, squeezed)
1 ½ lb sugar
1 pint curacao, tangerine brandy or orange flavored liquor
1 pint dark rum
1 pint Benedictine
1 quart peach brandy
1 gallon bourbon
1 pint strong cold tea.

In Gretchen’s precise words, “Put the above gut-rot in a three-gallon jug and shake the hell out of it. Place the jug in a cool place and shake it once a day for at least three weeks; two months is better. Do not cork it tightly and keep it cool or chilled or else the lemon juice will cause the whole thing to go off. Serve chilled, not over ice.”

I might add: serve it in small cups.

Beam's Red Stag. I Confess, I...I Kinda Like It

Let me be quite clear: I do not, in general, approve of commercial flavored whiskeys. That’s not to say they don’t have their place. Leopold Bros, for instance, make a Georgia peach-flavored whiskey I like having around. And there are plenty of worthy infusions made in homes and bars across the country.

The problem with most whiskeys that come out the bottle pre-flavored, on the other hand, is that their tastes are artificial, their sweetness cloying. I’d no sooner pour one of these for guests than I would spit in their drink.

Yet at 9am Sunday morning, I stood in line at a local drug store with two bottles of Red Stag, a new(ish) cherry-flavored whiskey from Jim Beam. I blame The Tractor Room for this…uncharacteristic move.

We like to hit The Tractor Room for breakfast on weekends. The full cocktail list — one of San Diego’s better drinks menus — is available even at that early hour. Several weeks ago, we sat on the deck, powering through rabbit, biscuits & gravy, and a fried chicken benedict and basking in the mid morning sun. As the sun climbed in the sky, my habitual iced tea just wasn’t as cooling as I liked. So I ordered a snowball. A boozy one.

The Tractor Room’s snowballs are coupes of shaved ice, blessed with alcohol, that change as the menu switches out. That day, the offering was a cherry snowball made with Red Stag, housemade cherries, simple syrup, and lemon zest. What the hell, I thought. Let’s get one. I’d been seeing Red Stag around for the better part of a year, but my prejudice against flavored whiskeys stopped me from buying any.

It turned out to be surprisingly tasty. Red Stag is by no means a sophisticated sipping whiskey — it’s just not in the same league as Booker’s, Old Fitzgerald 12 year, George T. Stagg, or any of the van Winkle offerings. But as a mixing whiskey, I’m beginning to like the way it enlivens some drinks with dark cherry notes. From now until New Year’s, liquor will be on sale at heavy discounts. Red Stag retails for around $20/750ml. I’m not particularly interested at that price — for that, I can get 1.75L of regular Beam at Costco — but when it’s on sale at $13 and some change? I’ll lay in a small supply on a Sunday morning.

The Tractor Room staff make enhooched cherries in house for their cocktail menu. Sometimes the drink comes with lemon zest, sometimes not. It's better with. The fire engine red maraschino cherries so readily available aren't the same. If you don't have any, here’s my recipe for making them over at Tuthilltown Spirits.

Tractor Room’s Cherry Snowball

2.5 oz Red Stag cherry flavored whiskey
.75 oz boozy cherry juice from house made cherries
.25 oz simple syrup
2-3 house made boozy cherries
Lemon zest
Crushed ice

Fill a shaker with ice cubes and shake the whiskey, cherry juice, and simple syrup in it. Mound crushed ice in a coup, then slowly pour the iced mixture over it. Garnish with house made cherries and a few strands of lemon zested right over the stop. Serve with a short straw.

Purely on a whim one night, we swapped out Red Stag for the bourbon we’d normally use in an Eastern Sour. Hey, we’ve got to do something with it, right? The Eastern Sour was one taught to me by Jeff Berry at this year’s Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans and I’ve been making them on and off ever since. It's one of the few tiki drinks not made with rum. According to Berry, it's a 1950's recipe traced directly back to Trader Vic. Red Stag lends an additional layer of exotic-seeming fruitiness while still making sure there’s a definite whiskey kick. From Jeff Berry’s Beachbum Berry Remixed, here’s a twist on the Eastern Sour.

Cherry Eastern Sour

2.5 oz fresh orange juice
.75 oz fresh lemon juice
.25 oz orgeat
.25 simple syrup
2 oz Red Stag (original calls for bourbon or rye)

Shake with plenty of crushed ice. Pour unstrained into a double old-fashioned glass or short-stemmed goblet. Sink spent orange and lemon shells into the drink.

The Tractor Room
3687 5th Ave
San Diego, CA 92103-4218
(619) 543-1007
thetractorroom.com


Jeff Berry (2009)
Beachbum Berry Remixed: A Gallery of Tiki Drinks
248 pages, paperback
SLG Publishing
ISBN: 1593621396
$24.95

Bookshelf: The Social History of Bourbon

My father is a Kentucky Colonel. It is with deep regret that I understand this bluegrass mantel is not hereditary, that if I wish to attain that rank, I must do so on my own paltry merits. I try in other ways to promote the Commonwealth, most notably by pouring for my guests that amber fruitage of Kentucky corn so praised among the world's drinking classes. Like my grandfather before me, I drink bourbon.

Before my lips ever touched homemade liquor, I knew the aroma and taste of Kentucky bourbon. The copper-topped dry sink at which my grandfather mixed his nightly Manhattans now stands in my living room, where it never truly runs dry. As a child, when I grew tall enough to see over its top, I would occasionally snag a boozy cherry while he wasn’t looking. I am convinced that he doubled up cherries in his drink because he knew exactly what I was doing.

So it is with pleasure that I note that the University Press of Kentucky has re-released Gerald Carson’s 1963 book The Social History of Bourbon. If I didn’t already keep a first edition on my desk, I’d say this was cause to raise a glass.

This isn’t a review. This is just a few words about a book I really like. I admit right up front that in many places, it reads like a promotional piece for the distilleries themselves. So be it. Caveat lector. In addition to tracing the origins and trajectory of our native spirit, it’s got moonshine, applejack, Prohibition, and Civil War doctors drinking all the spirits they could seize under the guise of medical need. It goes into the families and personalities of bourbon’s early history and does so with humor at turns both subtle and broad.

Carson, like so many before and after him, can’t seem to talk about this most famous of Kentucky beverages without turning a bit poetic. Consider the following passage:

The judgment of some of the old taste-testers bordered upon the miraculous. They have been known to name the country, the exact valley, the creek bottom, in which an aromatic bourbon was made. What they knew came not out of books but out of bottles.

What they knew came not out of books but out of bottles. I love this line. It raises these old taste-testers from mere men who drink too much to connoisseurs of almost mythic stature.

I’ll raise a glass to the Kentucky Colonels tonight, but most especially to my father, who remains a man of almost mythic stature.

Goes well with:

• The Social History of Bourbon. Amazon’s got the paperback reprint at 33% off.
• The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels mission is here. 
• Try to Drink Some Kentucky Bourbon Now and Then, in which I am stopped by a Kentucky TSA agent carrying an empty bottle of, ahem, New York bourbon. 

An Evening with Hollis Bulleit

Sassy broads drink bourbon

~ Hollis Bulleit

Dressed to the nines, a line of Los Angelenos was already snaking from the velvet rope outside the bar into the nearby alley. The companion on my elbow strode confidently to the front of the line in a 1920’s style flapper outfit and feathered hat. As she handed her card to the doorman, I caught a flash of a familiar burnt orange logo. Moments later, one of his colleagues rushed to the door sporting a well-cut shirt and one of those scarves adopted in recent years among the self-consciously hip in Los Angeles and New York. “Well,” he exclaimed, “I thought I was fabulous…until you showed up.” With that, the rope was drawn aside, the line left behind, and we were whisked into the iron and velvet bosom of the underground bar within.

Hollis Bulleit had arrived at the Edison.

Tonight was the once monthly Radio Room at one of Los Angeles’ destination cocktail bars and even with the crowd dressed in their interpretations of Prohibition-era couture, Bulleit stood out. She alone, of all the patrons, rocked the flapper look like she was born to it. Hollis and her father Tom are those Bulleits — the family that makes frontier whiskey — and she was holding court tonight with a large table of friends. The waitstaff brought out sliders, grilled cheese sandwiches, even milk and cookies (Hollis had ordered one of everything), but the Edison crafts some of the better drinks in Los Angeles and I was there to see what they were doing with the Bulleit family’s bourbon.

See, Bulleit isn’t just any bourbon for me: it’s our house bourbon. At any given time, I’ll have dozens of bourbons around the house, from a variety of Four Roses offerings, handles of Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark to Booker’s, Evan Williams 12-year, and a host of corn-heavy sipping whiskeys aged in charred oak. Bulleit, with its hefty dose of rye in the grain bill, has a mellow bite that lets it mix well in a lot of cocktails. But perhaps one of my favorite ways to enjoy it is on its own with maybe a single ice cube or a splash of water, especially if I’m retiring to the patio for cigars and the day’s papers.

Testament to our fondness for the bourbon, many of the homemade syrups, tinctures, and pre-batched cocktails around the Whiskey Forge are put up in old Bulleit bottles. With its distinctive oval footprint, the bottle looks almost like an oversized hip flask. Hollis tells me that the design was inspired by bottles found on antiquing trips with her father. Me? I like their old-timey look and especially the satisfying tttthhhwunk each time I prize out its cork.

As an ambassador for the family’s bourbon, Hollis is on the road about 180 days a year. Occasionally, she gets to appear with Tom, but tonight she’s solo. Her father’s popularity, she tells me, means that he gets to travel to Las Vegas while Hollis works Reno. “But they love me in Reno,” she beams. I can see why. I’m starting to myself.

Earlier that evening when I asked her to tell me about the bourbon market out West, she eagerly broke out a pen a paper and began constructing an xy axis to place Bulleit in a dreamcatcher graph of competitors’ bourbons. “Here it’s hot and spicy.” She writes in two well-known brands. “But these are more mellow at this end.” Maker’s Mark goes there. More points get filled in. I ask her about Bulleit. Veering from the bourbon data points I suspect were provided by the marketing team, she looks up with a quick smile, then back down almost bashfully. “Bulleit is somewhere,” she says, “between Mae West and Marilyn Monroe.”

“So women drink bourbon?” Two can tease. I know full well women drink bourbon. My own mother taught me how to craft a Manhattan when I was just old enough to know such things.

“Of course!” Her eyes flash.

“What sort of woman would do such a thing?” We’re on a roll.

“Sassy broads,” she informs me, “drink bourbon.”

I’m no sassy broad, but some of my best friends are. I’m seeing Hollis again this week in New Orleans during Tales of the Cocktail and I’m eager to see the sass she and her father have cooked up.


Bulleit Frontier Whiskey
$19.99/750ml at Trader Joe’s in San Diego (higher elsewhere)

Try to Drink Some Kentucky Bourbon Now and Then

Today’s the last day of the American Distilling Institute’s annual conference in Louisville, Kentucky, home of horseracing and whiskey. Naturally, I wasn’t carrying any horses (that’d be just silly) but airport security stopped me for the other thing.

See, not only do I like Tuthilltown Spirits, I like the distillery’s packaging—squat, thick-glassed, cork-topped little 375ml bottles. Of course, I prefer the bottles full (or almost so), but even empty, they’re great containers for the odd little infusions, macerations, decoctions, bitters, syrups, and other cocktail weirdness around the Whiskey Forge. So, I snagged an empty Manhattan Rye before it was thrown out after tasting.

I’m not the only one who likes them. In a surprise category, the judging panel for this year’s conference awarded the New York state distillery its best packaging award for its Manhattan Rye Whiskey.

That is what stopped the security line. Again. After inspecting the offending bottle to assure it was indeed empty, the TSA agent inspected the label as well. “Gardiner, New York, eh? Man, if it’s bacon or bourbon, I want it. Of course, I like to support the local boys as much as I can.”

He repacked my New York whiskey bottle, zipped my carryon, and looked up at me, suddenly stern. “Let’s try to drink some Kentucky bourbon now and then.”

Yes. Yes, indeed. Let’s.

Senator Tydings and the Kentucky Breakfast

As a meal familiar to bartenders around the world, Maryland Senator Millard Tydings (1890-1961, pictured left) offered his recipe for a Kentucky breakfast in Frederick Philip Stieff 1932 recipe collection Eat, Drink and Be Merry in Maryland.

Under the heading “The Reminiscent Toddy,” Stieff relates the Senator’s instructions precisely calibrated to each individual diner’s tastes, a recipe within a recipe:

This potation, to be thoroughly enjoyed, should be prepared in the following manner:

Supply each guest with a glass containing about one-half inch of water and one-quarter teaspoonful of sugar, and a spoon.

All should sit comfortably and stir the sugar until it is thoroughly dissolved. The host should tell the following story in a low voice while the sugar is being stirred:

"Have you gentlemen ever participated at a Kentucky breakfast?"

The answer is likely to be in the negative.

Then some guest will probably ask:

"What is a Kentucky breakfast?"

At this point the sugar is completely dissolved. The host passes around a bottle of Bourbon and each person pours into his glass, containing the dissolved sugar, such amount as suits his inclination. This is stirred for a while, during which time the most replies:

"A Kentucky breakfast is a big beefsteak, a quart of Bourbon, and a houn' dawg."

One of the guests will then ask: "What is the dog for?"

The host then replies: "He eats the beefsteak."

Ice water is then passed around in a silver pitcher to dilute drink to meet the requirements of the discriminating taste of each. A part of the Kentucky breakfast is then consumed.

(In order to extract the nth power of enjoyment from this receipt, when stirring the sugar and water, each should sit on the very edge of his chair or sofa, rest his arms on his knees with a slightly forward posture. Unless this is done the train will taste just a little less good.)

It takes no great imagination to adjust the recipe to one's circumstances, leading, perhaps to a Kentucky brunch, teatime, coffee break, or luncheon.

Order up!

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Cantaloupe Bourbon Milk Punch

Anyway, it's hot here, it's hot.

That's all I gotta say.

~ Morcheeba
Let it Go

New Orleans isn’t as hot as last week they tell me, but Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse still has a sign on its revolving doors reminding patrons to use the side doors “due to weather conditions.” Fortunately, there’s no shortage of cool marble counters, air conditioning, ceiling fans, and whiskey. At Bourbon House, all of them came together yesterday (with a dozen palliative St. Bernard Parish dozen oysters to wash down my Galatoire’s lunch).

Regulars know that the house drink— made with Old Forester— is a frozen bourbon milk punch. On a muggy New Orleans day, it’s a grownup’s answer to the frozen daiquiri slushies one finds in other frozen hooch parlors and drive-troughs in the area. Somewhere between a milkshake and a smoothie, this comes with a bourbon kick that just hits the spot on days that’d wilt frail constitutions.

During Tales of the Cocktail, attendees are in for a treat. Bartender Patricia O’Neil has been adding fresh cantaloupe puree to the mix and she plans to have them new version around for a while. Now, there’s no denying the drink is on the sweet side, and I wouldn’t want to knock back four or five of them, but when the thermometer creeps higher and higher, the icy melon goodness hits the spot.

As of yesterday, the recipe was only one day old. It might be named something else by the time you belly up—but they'll know what you mean if you ask for a frozen bourbon milk punch with melon.

Bourbon House
144 Bourbon Street (about a block from the Hotel Monteleone)
New Orleans, LA
70130
504.522.0111

MxMo XXVI Hard Drinks for Hard Times, A Savings in Two Parts

Hard Drinks for Hard Times: Part I

Bad news, everyone: I’ve been laid off.

Damn. Advertising exec was one of the coolest jobs I’ve ever held. Smart coworkers, great clients, challenging and rewarding work, right on the coast—almost a dream job. Until clients’ advertising budgets started circling the drain, that is.

The layoff isn’t the morale-crushing, bank-busting defeat it might seem. I’ve been boning up on Spanish; refamiliarizing myself with French, Dutch, and German; traveling; giving talks; learning basic HTML; reading voraciously; and working on a new book (three, actually—two have legs and one is a back-burner vanity). Freelance gigs the pay the bills. I’m concerned, but not panicked.

The effect is, however, increasingly evident in our cocktail hours. And so, as an experiment for the 36th Mixology Monday and its hard-times theme, I’ve stopped buying liquor.

That’s right: In the last two months, I haven’t bought a single bottle of liquor other than a liter of Bombay Sapphire at the Tijuana duty-free shop. Instead, I’ve tapped our sizable collection of rums, whiskeys, brandies, and miscellaneous spirits, finishing some bottles and cracking open others I’d been hording. For war, apparently, or perhaps another Prohibition. In more ways than one, the layoff has forced me to take stock of what I’ve got and to use it.

I haven’t drunk so consistently well in years.

If getting laid off sparked this experiment in liquor frugality, a Buddhist cook inadvertently shaped it. See, there’s nothing particularly hard-times about the ingredients themselves for this month’s contribution, the North Park Cocktail. It’s how they came together once I was laid off that resonates with the theme.

This Buddhist cook once explained that he began each day by emptying all his kitchen cabinets and cleaning every single bottle, jar, and bag. This daily tedium served two purposes. Obviously, the regular wipe-down kept his larder organized and clean. The underlying benefit was that, by handling every container every day, he maintained a precise mental inventory of quantities, conditions, and patterns of use.

Turns out that this is a rewarding way to approach liquor cabinets.

Pulling everything out every day would be a little OCD, but once a week, I pick up each bottle of rye or absinthe or gin or apricot brandy or whatever and give it a dusting. Of our hundreds of bottles, those dwindling past half-capacity get earmarked for accelerated consumption. I can tell you exactly what we have, where it is, and how much there is. Cocktails suggest themselves much more readily when I know without looking what’s available.














Last month, I turned that gimlet eye to the refrigerator. Although the fridge was jammed with bottles of homemade syrups, jams, marmalades, and other creations intended for the cocktail shaker, I’d forgotten making more than a few. Once forgotten, they languished. Those that had lost their scents, their taste, their oomph I pitched. I consolidated others, cleaned the shelves, and can now see the back of the box. Every bottle and jar is getting used now, if not in cocktails, then as ingredients and condiments for meals.

Without spending an additional dime, I’ve made smarter use of existing resources by knowing exactly how much of what I’ve got. Vermouth, in particular, gathers no moss around here. The cocktails have been fantastic: bijoux, Hoskins cocktails, dozens of tiki drinks, Martinez cocktails, cocktails that incorporate generous doses of herbal concoctions such as Benedictine, Chartreuse, and Averna. Absinthe cocktails. Sours and highballs and squirrels.

I wouldn’t say thank you for laying me off, but better understanding the riches we do have makes me perversely happy.


Hard Drinks for Hard Times: Part II

Now, despite my general affection for cocktails, it’s not for nothing that this blog is called my Whiskey Forge. I’m a fan of whiskey and of those who make it openly or in secret, but the world would be a darker place without bourbon. Booker’s, Old Fitzgerald, Evan Walker, Four Roses—all fine or even sublime in their own right and all are getting tapped as we systematically work through the shelves.

One of the most consistent Kentucky values out there, though, is Bulleit Bourbon. At 90 proof, it’s what I drank to assuage the pain of lopping off chunks of my fingers, it goes into my mom’s Manhattans when she visits, and if I had a dollar for every bottle I’ve bought…we’ll, I’d score a few more bottles once I start buying booze again. F. Paul Pacult over at the Spirit Journal gave it a “superb” rating and I’m right behind him. The grain bill’s high rye proportion is part of the appeal to me, but the sound of the cork popping out of its bottle always brings just the barest little smile of anticipation.

It also doesn’t hurt that while other California stores sell Bulleit for $23-26 per 750ml, good ol’ Trader Joe’s sells it every day for $19.99. That’s a deal whether you’re fully employed or—like me—willfully misapplying a little zen to the world of liquor.

A bittersweet cocktail, swimming with heady notes of orange, corn, rye, and spice. Get you some.

The North Park Cocktail

1 oz Bulleit bourbon
1 oz Aperol
½ oz sweet vermouth
½ oz dry vermouth
¾ oz Don’s mix

Shake with ice and strain into an old fashioned glass with 2-3 fresh cubes. Garnish, if desired, with a single whiskeyed cherry.

Notes—The name comes from my neighborhood in San Diego where I've only recently discovered little gems that had been here all along. The Bulleit was free (thank you, Tom, Mike, and Gillian); the Aperol had been hidden in the fridge; both vermouths were open and would fade if left unused; for the Don’s Mix, the grapefruit was a gift and the fragrant cinnamon sticks were bought way cheap in bulk from a nearby Middle Eastern grocer last Autumn; and the garnish is from a batch of cherry bounce I put up more than a year ago with about two gallons of, yes, Bulleit.

Total 2009 cost? $0.00.

Suck it, Wall Street.

.

Two Loves Don't Equal a Happy Marriage

A few weeks back, I mentioned that, unlike other cocktail enthusiasts, I declined to contaminate my finest bourbons with bacon.

Odd, right? I mean, I dote on bacon. In fact, tonight's dinner will be BLT sandwiches since the local tomatoes are still good. Hell, I've even cured my own bacon. And bourbon? Don't get me started. It ain't just patriotism that keeps me stocked up with a robust inventory of that most American of commercial spirits. You'd think the two would go together like a hand and glove.

No.

On seeing Don Lee's video of making a Benton's old fashioned, Morpheus said "Man, that sounds delicious." So, in a moment of weakness, and in the spirit of experimentation and camraderie, I snagged a bottle of Four Roses yellow label Straight Bourbon and cooked off a batch of some of Allan Benton's sublime bacon. Following Lee's instructions, I made a batch of bacon-infused bourbon.

I feel like I've woken in a stranger's bed, one arm pinned beneath a smokey, booze-breathed hound sawing logs, and uncertain of how to extricate myself. Brother, I'm here to tell you, don't believe the hype of bacon-infused bourbon. The saddest part of this errant tale is that a perfectly good bottle of bourbon was ruined.

I admit that I liked the second sip more than the first. But as a thumbnail sketch of a choice between two evils, sip #1 and sip #2 do just fine.

However, all is not lost...the entire bottle of Four Roses was not graced with the porcine kiss: I decanted about six ounces before introducing the bacon fat. Had some straight, some over ice, some with a splash of water, and some, gloriously, in a proper old fashioned. For those who know 4R as a low-end bargain brand, the spirit seems to have undergone an upgrade in the last few years.

Now, it's true that I keep a lot of bourbon around. But there's always one or two bottles of what I consider the current "house" bourbon that balance drinkability and price for overall value. Over the years that's been Maker's Mark, Bulleit, and Eagle Rare. Four Roses, you have earned the place of honor. What a delicious whiskey. And at $19.99, it's worth snagging a bottle for cocktail experimentation.

Just keep it away from the swine.

The cheapest I've seen this whiskey is Hi-Times Wine Cellar.

.

Wake Up, It's Time for a Brandy Milk Punch

[Spent a week recently back in one of my favorite cities in the world. Here’s the first of occasional post-New Orleans notes.]

In the wake of Katrina, New Orleans remains a broken, dysfunctional city—but, then, it was always dysfunctional and I mean that with a great deal of affection: it's a sultry, nearly tropical, city unlike any other in the nation, the social fabric heaving with open secrets and local scandals, an entrenched food culture that has lent any but the most incurious citizens a sophisticated and educated taste in bills of fare, and a climate that, for several months out of the year, practically demands alcohol at nearly any hour of the day just to escape hot air so freighted with water that might burst into rain if a door so much as slams shut.

Perfect weather for rum, bourbon, and brandy. Yes, even with breakfast, a habit in which I almost never indulge anywhere but there.

Now the city is growing, well, less broken, if not actually fixed. Houses are still abandoned, neighborhoods gone, shipping containers parked almost permanently on some streets packed with the contents of houses as yet unrepaired, and some restaurants may not stay open as late, or as many days, as they used to. But construction crews are everywhere; houses being re-sided, new roofs going up, sidewalks and driveways being relaid. The food is as good as it ever was. No, it ain’t back to business as usual. But it is coming back.

I’ve been coming to New Orleans for nearly twenty years. And I’ll keep coming back, for my friendships there are as thick as the air.

On a morning like today’s, when I’m still pulling kittens out of my mouth but have yet to get to the farmers’ market to lay in supplies for the family dinner tonight, a New Orleans breakfast drink is called for. I did say “almost” never for breakfast…

Ladies and gentlemen, Dammen und Herren, madames et monsieurs, I give you:

The Brandy Milk Punch

2 oz brandy
1 ounce simple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (genuine, high-proof stuff)
1 1/2 ounces milk
ice
Freshly grated or shaved nutmeg* for garnish

Pour brandy, simple syrup, vanilla, and milk in a cocktail shaker or mixing glass and fill with ice. Strain mixture into a rocks glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with nutmeg and serve immediately.

* I shave my nutmegs with an old microplane that bigger-than-life Shirley Corriher gave me years before anyone else outside woodworking knew what they were. It gives a nice, almost filigree, texture that otherwise only the finest-grain graters would yield.

Goes well with:

• Chris McMillian, plying his trade these days at the New Orleans restaurant MiLa, made a series of great videos for nola.com. In this video, he demonstrates a BMP. The man's a pleasure to watch in action.
• My buddy Pableaux Johnson kicked in a recipe for LSU Tiger's [sic] milk punch for a Times-Picayune piece a while back. For when just one won't do, here's a bourbon-based version that, with ice, yields about a gallon. Hmmm...maybe that's not a sic, after all. Maybe it's just one hammered tiger...In any event, here's his slightly different take on his own blog, Bayoudog.com.

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Mint Abomination

I no longer doubt the existence
of the human soul
because I just felt mine shrivel and die.

~ Kat, commenting on JeffreyMorgenthaler.com

Ok, I have seen horrible things done in the name of making drinks (remember, I am, quite literally, the guy who wrote the book on moonshine). But the video here has got to be one of the most horrific.

Of course I made juleps on Derby Day. Lots of people do when they're playing the ponies. Around our house, though, juleps happen to be one of our regular year round drinks, but especially in the summer. I was nosing around, seeing what my friends and colleagues had to say on the matter, scanning an old postcard, researching julep cup prices and availability, digging up yellowed articles when I found How Not to Make a Mint Julep on Jeffrey Morgenthaler's blog.

Now, admittedly, tempers and voices have been raised over the years concerning the proper constitution of an authentic mint julep. But all those sparring colonels, newspapermen, and expatriot Southerners would have to concur: This is no mint julep.




In fact, the drink this poor girl makes is such a shudderingly bad misrepresentation of what a mint julep is that it approaches kitsch. The first time I watched, I was quite literally speechless. Limes? Rose's? Sprite? Just awful. And what a waste of bourbon! Call it something else—an Eight Belles Down, for instance—but salve me from benighted bartenders.

Next time you feel like ordering one of these out (an iffy proposition), do what I do and say, in a nonthreatening and noncommittal way, "Tell me about your mint julep." If it's not what you want, order something a little less controversial. Like an old fashioned.

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Dr. Noggin Cocktail

(In which Rowley vents on vodka and christens a new cocktail)

"Dr. Cocktail hereby announces:
Henceforth [the excessively fruity version of an old fashioned cocktail]
will never again be served!
The second version, with 2 dashes of bitters,
1/2 teaspoon of sugar, a few drops of water,
and a lone broad swathe of the orange peel ONLY,
muddled to express the orange oil,
and combined with good rye or Bourbon—
this drink is henceforth known EXCLUSIVELY as the Old-Fashioned
... See? World peace can be that easy."

~ Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh
Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails

Vodka, apparently, makes me angry. Oh, not in a bloody Mary, of course. And there’s certainly a place for lemon drops in any mixer’s toolkit, especially when less seasoned drinkers are about and you serve ‘em crusta-style with a glittering rim of sugar hardened on the glass's rim and a fat lemon peel collar.

But when I go to a bar serving $11 cocktails that’s got more vodkas than all species and brands of whiskeys combined...sigh. I don't know if it's the Irish in me or the fact that I'm a leo (which gullible people take to mean I'm determined to have things my way), but I just start to sulk.

The neighborhood joint we visited last night had more Canadian whiskies, even, than bourbons. No rye to be seen. What the hell? I secretly suspected the owners were Canucks. Or Kennedys. Fancy vodka drinks filled the menu, with a smattering a gin and rum concoctions. I wanted to like it, honest I did. But the greenhorn bartender was nearly in the weeds just making our two drinks—from their menu, mind you, not some convoluted Jerry Thomas baroque masterpieces that I requested just to break his stones—well, after the first drink, my own mother could have served me chocolate cake on my birthday and I would have been pissy.

So after the first round of their new-fangled cocktails, I ordered an old fashioned from the bar manager. We talked about what I wanted and how it should be done. I watched as he muddled the orange peel with bitters and sugar, drop in ice, and reach for the bourbon. Turned to my friends, Dr. Morpheus and Dr. Noggin who had just joined us, for a beat to admit as they teased me that, yes, I should just have the recipe printed on the back of my cards, then looked back just in time to see him drop it all in a shaker and shake the bejabbers out of it.

Damn it.

This led to a lesson on why not to shake (in short, shaking ruins this particular drink by creating loads of tiny bubbles, making it almost effervescent plus cheap low-density ice-machine ice dilutes the drink way too fast). From the get-go, it tasted spent and watery. Hey, he asked why I wasn’t drinking it, and insisted I tell him.

So he re-made the drink. Less ice, no shaking. Nirvana. In a moment of inspiration, I dropped a half-ounce float of St. Germain elderflower liqueur into the glass. Then we did another that way. The doctors approved. And you know what? I wasn’t pissy any more. The guy salvaged the night for me with a dose of whiskey and professionalism. I’ll still give all that vodka the hairy eyeball, but for his eagerness to get the drink right and for being genuinely curious about why I thought the first version was bad (he agreed), I’m giving him a big thumbs up. And I’ll be back.

In the meanwhile, I'll probably be making more cocktails I've named after the neurologist. With apologies to Dr. Cocktail for gilding the lily, here's


The Dr. Noggin Cocktail

Use a vegetable peeler to get a single, wide piece of orange peel (just the zest, mind you—no white pith or pulp). Because the St. Germain is sweetened, you might back off the sugar called for in Haigh's old fashioned cocktail.

1 broad swath of orange peel
¼-½ tsp sugar
2 dashes of Angostura bitters
2 dashes of water
3 oz bourbon
½ oz St Germain elderflower liqueur

Muddle the orange peel with the sugar, water, and bitters in a rocks glass. Put one or two large lumps of ice in the glass. Pour on the bourbon and give it a brief stir. Add the half-ounce of St. Germain to the top of the drink and enjoy. Repeat as necessary.

Goes well with

• Renewing an Old Fashion, a thorough review of the literature by Robert "DrinkBoy" Hess (in which I was tickled to see we had similar experiences with unsure bartenders) on the origins and variations of the old fashioned cocktail
• Mister Mojito (David Nepove) sells hardwood muddlers in maple, cherry, walnut, and plastic (plus a smattering of other bar supplies worth checking out)