Tiki Nights at Polite Provisions

Getting a strong drink in San Diego has always been as straightforward as walking into the nearest bar. In a town where many equate strong with good, however, finding well-balanced cocktails still takes some footwork. Fortunately, the odds of tracking down a good mixed drink has shifted in the last eight years since bars such as Lion's Share, El Dorado, Craft & Commerce, Prohibition, and the Grant Grill at the US Grant Hotel have stepped up the game. What we don't do particularly well (except for individual bartenders at certain bars on particular nights) are tiki drinks.

Schooners: good for bar fights and Prohibition hijinks 

Erick Castro hopes to raise our town's tiki profile a bit with a new tiki series at Polite Provisions, the Normal Heights bar he opened this year with the partners of Consortium Holdings. The second Tuesday of every month, Castro plans to host a Tiki Takedown. Or maybe it's a Tiki Tuesday. He seemed flexible on the name when I dropped by last week. The concept, though, is solid: on that second Tuesday, regular and guest bartenders will riff on classic polynesian-pop cocktails and serve contemporary drinks in the tropical style.

Helping to launch the series, Marcovaldo Dionysos is coming from San Francisco bar Smuggler's Cove next Tuesday, May 14th. Does that name ring a bell? I once asked Marco — to my mortification — for a Guatemalan Handshake. He was kind enough to give me what I wanted rather than what I requested.

Expect plenty of rums, fresh citrus, and lashings of spice. Named after a boat in George R. R. Martin's Games of Thrones series, Castro's Cinnamon Wind uses Jamaican rum and spike of Becherovka, a bitter Czech herbal liqueur with a cinnamon backbone that doesn't get the play it deserves.

Cinnamon Wind

2 oz Appleton Estate V/X
.75 oz fresh lime juice
.5 oz Becherovka
.5 oz cinnamon gomme*

Shake with ice ice cubes and pour — ice and all — into tiki mug. Garnish with freshly spanked mint (don't just fluff it; spank it!), then grate a cinnamon stick with a microplane over the whole thing.

*If your week's plans don't cover making cinnamon gomme, try BG Reynold's cinnamon syrup (see below for a link).

Tiki nights at Polite Provisions (4696 30th Avenue, San Diego, CA 92116) run from 7pm-2am on the second Tuesday of every month. The kickoff is next Tuesday, May 14th. If I get out from under a cascade of deadlines, you may see me there. If not, raise one for me. Either way, break out your finest Hawaiian shirts and dresses.

Goes well with:

• Tiki mugs. If no tiki mugs are handy, a heavy glass schooner is fine. No schooners, either? Sheesh. Get off the pot. Do as I did: get some from Tiki Farm (maybe the new Onigaw mug styled after a Japanese gargoyle) or Munktiki (I'm a fan of both the Stinkfish and hideously adorable Mermaid mugs). 
• This is not the first we've heard of Tiki Tuesdays.
• BG Reynolds' cinnamon syrup runs about $5 at okolemaluna.com.

Jesus Juice Sorbet

For decades, Spaniards have indulged in iced calimocha, a simple drink that is about as easy as an on-the-go drinker could want: equal parts red wine and Coca Cola. Nobody is about to win any bartending awards with this thing, but what it lacks in sophistication, it makes up for in tastiness — sweet, slightly bitter, and about 7% alcohol, but it's easy to take along to the beach, a picnic, or a fútbol game.

The drink is not unique to Spain and it travels under a number of names wherever one finds wine and soda. American wine coolers, for instance, clearly are in the same family. In fact, if you think of it as a sort of bare-bones, stripped-down, single-chromosome sangria, calimocha's flexibility becomes manifest.

Jake Godby and Sean Vahey, founders of Humphrey Slocombe ice cream shop in San Francisco, seem to have recognized this and have given the wine-and-cola combo a Neverland twist as a sorbet. "Michael Jackson died suddenly on the afternoon of Thursday, June 25, 2009," they write in Humphrey Slocombe Ice Cream Book. "Before his corpse was cold and the Botox wore off, we were working on a new flavor to pay tribute to the fallen icon." Jesus Juice — reports vary on the variety of wine and how, precisely, soda was incorporated — was Jackson's name for the concoction of wine and soda he favored around the ranch.

For the end of summer when nights are cool enough for blankets, but the days are hot as blazes, here's Godby and Vahey's recipe for Jesus Juice sorbet. The duo caution, however, that it may cause inappropriate touching.

Jesus Juice Sorbet

1 cup sugar 
1 cup water 
1 cinnamon stick 
2 cups cola [Mexican Coke]
1 cup good-quality dry red wine 
2 Tbl red wine vinegar 
1 tsp salt  

In a large, heavy-bottomed, nonreactive saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar and water and stir to dissolve the sugar. Drop in the cinnamon stick and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

Stir in the cola, wine, vinegar, and salt and remove from the heat. Let cool completely, then cover the bowl tightly and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour or preferably overnight. When you are ready to freeze the mixture, take out the cinnamon stick, transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker, and spin according to the manufacturer's instructions. Finish freezing in freezer. Stare approvingly at the Man in the Mirror. Eat immediately, or transfer to an airtight container, cover, and freeze for up to 1 week.

Jake Godby and Sean Vahey (2012)
Humphrey Slocombe Ice Cream Book
144 pages (paperback)
Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452104689
$19.95

Goes well with:

• Gift of the Negi. Wine-and-cola is not unlike the 19th-century port wine concoction known as the Negus. Recipes here include one for children's parties from Isabella Beeton (Jackson would approve, I'm sure), a 38-gallon Negus made for England's King George IV, and (no surprise) an effervescing Negus made with soda water. Some things never get old...

Mexican Chocolate Pudding with Dark Rum

This summer, noted one of my young friends, has been so hot that you've got to take your shirt off just to think. Certainly, it's been so hot that we keep the stove off as much as possible, lighting it maybe once a day to bang out a few things at once, things  that will keep; iced tea, for instance, or a quick vinegar dressing for cole slaw.

And pudding.

I've never enjoyed particularly intricate desserts. As  demanding as I can get in my cocktails and liquor, my tastes for dessert are decidedly straightforward — pies, cakes, ice cream, brownies, cookies. That sort of thing. Wholesome, uncomplicated, good ol' 'Murcan food.

Except, of course, if you've visited here before, you know that I don't live far from downtown Tijuana and my tastes reach far beyond our American shores. Yes, I like simple desserts, but they may be flavored with vanilla, pandan, cardamom, kafir lime, lemongrass, a range of flavors from homey to exotic. Mexican chocolate is one of those tastes I like and I deployed it this weekend in a simple pudding. This type of chocolate comes in dense discs laced with sugar and canela. Canela is the soft, fragile, true cinnamon (Cinnamomum zelanicum) from Sri Lanka that is ubiquitous in Mexico. What Americans know as cinnamon is actually the dried bark of the more strongly flavored and sturdy cassia (Cinnamomum cassia), a species of laurel tree whose dried, clove-like buds are called for in a number of old bitters recipes.

Right. Enough of botany. Ibarra and Abuela are two readily available brands of Mexican chocolate sold in American grocery stores. If you can't find them, you can follow the directions below using bitter or semi-sweet chocolate and a bit of ground cassia (or, better, if you've got it, canela). It's not necessary to pulverize the chocolate completely, but do break it into small pieces so it melts more readily. Use a box grater, a serrated kitchen knife to shave off pieces, or — as I do — show it who's boss with hefty butcher's cleaver.

An 8.5" cleaver makes short work of Ibarra chocolate discs.

Mexican Chocolate Pudding with Dark Rum

½ cup sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
Pinch of salt
2 cups whole milk
1 cup cream
3 tablets (6 oz total) Mexican chocolate, chopped
¼ cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 Tbl dark rum
1 tsp pure Mexican vanilla extract

In a medium metal mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Add the milk and cream (or use all milk) and whisk briefly until thoroughly combined. Make a double boiler by placing the bowl over a pot of simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water.

Stir occasionally with a spatula, scraping the sides, for 15 to 20 minutes, When the pale mix is thick enough to coat the back of the spatula, add the Mexican and semi-sweet chocolates. Stir only enough to assure the chocolates are melted and thoroughly combined.

Remove from the heat and stir in the rum and vanilla. Pour immediately into serving cups or a single one-quart/liter dish. Cover the surface of the pudding with plastic wrap (unless you prefer a skin over the top, in which case, don’t let the plastic touch the surface), let it cool a bit, and then refrigerate an hour or two to chill.

Serve plain, with whipped cream, or a few fresh gratings of canela (the softer, more fragile, "true" cinnamon sold in Mexican markets). Or all three.

Goes well with:

• The San Diego Tribune ran a piece on modern desserts this Spring. Asked my opinion on who makes the best local examples, I went on a bit of a rant. "Few things depress me more," I wrote, "than the freakish curiosities of pastry chefs who’ve abandoned familiar forms in a misguided rush for the sublime." More here.
• The chocolate/canela combination plays out often in Mexican cookery. Champurrado, a hot drink made with the same Mexican chocolate and thickened with corn, is common around here, but better suited for cooler weather.
• Straight-up chocolate pie is a great thing to have around. Here's a version I made with dark chocolate, Nabisco's nearly black Famous Chocolate Wafers, and a healthy dose of Dos Maderas PX rum.

Shake Dem Bones

This weekend, I stopped by Pigment, a neighborhood store specializing in...well, green hipness, perhaps. I drop in about once a month to paw through birthday cards, books, and design-heavy preciousness. Sometimes I buy things, sometimes not.

There are art tomes aplenty, a selection of cookbooks for  urban homesteader and DIY kitchen crowds (though, oddly, not even one DIY distilling book), whiskey rocks, thick felt drink coasters, letter press greeting cards, cool kids' toys, garden seedlings, ceramics, heirloom produce and flower seeds from Baker Creek, odd hand towels, and loads of eco-globes and wall-mounted terrariums.

Lots of knickknackery I may want, but nothing I truly need. In other words, it's fantastic place to find gifts for someone else.

This Sunday, a set of ceramic salt and pepper shakers shaped liked stylized bones caught my eye. With two salt cellars and a workhorse of an old pepper mill at home, I have no use for something like this, but the set of shakers (made by California designer Chris Stiles) called to the mischievous meat eater in me. I may just have to reconsider the salt cellars and slide back over there before the week is out.

Hang on, though. Now that I...yeah, now that I think about it, I may just need a cinnamon shaker for those tiki punches we make around here...

Pigment
3827 30th St
San Diego, CA 92104
(619) 501-6318
Mon-Sat 11-7, Sun 11-5

Stiles in Clay salt and pepper shakers: $32 for the set.

Goes well with:

• Should you find yourself with a batch of actual bones, I suggest you roast them and  feast on them.
• And if you're in San Diego, check out The Cookbook Store's going out of business sale. Word is, it'll all be gone before Christmas.

Taking a Tiki Shortcut with Simbre Sauce

Last summer, I uncovered a stash of underpriced Zaya Gran Reserva rum in a coastal mom and pop liquor store. I rolled away with a single drink in mind and half the stock in my trunk. This aged rum from Trinidad and Tobago is big-flavored, slightly sweet, and a lot of my friends use it as a sipping rum. In my book, though, Zaya shines as a mixer, especially when it’s one of multiple rums in a drink. In fact, the odd snifter and Mai Tai aside, we’ve used almost all of it mixed in a Depression-era tropical concoction: The Nui Nui.

The drink dates back to the late 1930’s and is credited to legendary self-promoter and tiki forefather Don The Beachcomber. How much do we like the Nui Nui? So much that we’ve downed three bottles of Zaya since this summer — and each drink, the way we make it, calls for only an ounce. The other ingredients are just fruit juices, Appleton rum, and a syrup we’ve dubbed Simbre Sauce.

We came up with Simbre Sauce because of the sheer volume of Nui Nuis we were downing. The sauce has perfectly legitimate non-boozy uses and sometimes gets drizzled on ice cream or yogurt and granola around here. But its real purpose is to cut down the time it takes to make a drink. Rather than pouring the various syrups and tinctures called for in the original recipe every time we wanted a batch, our friend Douglas pre-batched them as a single syrup to streamline the process. I dubbed the result Simbre (SIM-bray) Sauce after an old name in his family.

Simbre Sauce

350ml cinnamon syrup
175ml vanilla syrup
175ml pimento dram (an allspice liqueur)
5ml Angostura bitters

Mix, bottle, and store under refrigeration.

Ingredient notes: I use homemade syrups in the concoction above, but Trader Tiki’s range of tropical syrups make blending something like this a snap. If you do use Trader Tiki syrups, be aware that the cinnamon is strong and you may need to use a little less. This is good: it leaves more to go around. If you want to make your own, add 6 4” cinnamon sticks to 2 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar in a pot, simmer about 2 minutes and allow to cool before straining and bottling.

Trader Tiki himself crafting Nui Nuis

For the pimento dram, unless you're the sort to make your own, use St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram. Eric Seed of Haus Alpenz has been importing the stuff and since I bought my first bottle, I’ve never been without some.

And now, the Whiskey Forge variation of this old tropical drink. It lacks the traditional long orange peel and uses block ice rather than crushed ice. If you want to make one that adheres to the old method, see Kaiser Penguin’s take on it below.

Simbre Nui Nui

3 oz Appleton Estate V/X
1 oz Zaya
1 oz fresh lime juice
1 oz fresh orange juice
1 oz Simbre Sauce

Combine the ingredients in a shaker and shake with ice. Strain into ice-filled mugs. Sip. Smile.

Goes well with:

• RumDood looks at Zaya
• I show a few ways to make vanilla syrup.
• Trader Tiki’s Hand-Crafted Exotic Syrups
• St Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram at DrinkupNY
• Kaiser Penguin’s take on the Nui Nui 
• Beachbum Berry's Tiki+ App is Back

Don’s Mix and the Wood Eye Cocktail

“Would I? Would I?”
“Pegleg!”

~ punchline to a 2nd grade joke

The thing about making mixtures, tinctures, decoctions, and infusions for particular drinks at home is that doing so encumbers one with, frankly, an overabundance of mixtures, tinctures, decoctions, and infusions. In a bar, such things could well be consumed over the course of a single shift. Not so much at home—even my home.

This is not frustrating per se, but when the siren call of beverages calling for yet more homemade ingredients becomes irresistible, it seems a bit…excessive. Other than butter, ginger, a tin of Rougie foie gras, and tubes of Hungarian paprika paste, my refrigerator door is filled to capacity with such bottles. Simple syrup, palm syrup, mint syrup, syrups of ginger, black pepper, mango, and demerara.

But the one labeled Don’s Mix I keep refilling.

Don’s Mix, as revealed by tiki master Jeff Berry, is a 2:1 mix of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice to cinnamon syrup used by Donn “Don the Beachcomber” Beach in his seminal 1934 Zombie Punch. It is a disarmingly simple, but fantastic cocktail ingredient for mixing in a variety of rum drinks, but it’s best used within a day or so ~ a week at the very outside. My solution? I make a big batch and give some to folks I know will make quick use of it, then several little batches using additions of fresh grapefruit juice to the more stable cinnamon syrup.

After my friend Carlo hooked me up with a glut of grapefruit, I made a batch of cinnamon syrup, then started mixing. So far, we’ve made 1934 zombies, Donga Punch, and—among other trials—a potent little experiment I dubbed the Wood Eye Cocktail that brings together three different rums, a dose of lemon, and a few of those bottle contents. Careful, though: despite its diminutive size, too many of these will leave you feeling a little wood-eyed.

Eye Wood. Wooden Ewe?

Wood Eye Cocktail

1 ½ oz Jamaican rum (Appleton V/X)
¾ oz lemon juice, freshly squeezed
½ oz orgeat
½ oz Don’s Mix (see below)
½ oz Pusser’s rum
a float of Lemon Hart 151 rum

Shake all but the Lemon Hart over ice and strain into your favorite tiki mug or an old fashioned glass with fresh cubes. Carefully float enough Lemon Hart 151 on top to give it a discernable layer about as thick as two American quarters or, for our British friends, a one-pound coin. Sip the drink through the top layer and repeat as necessary.

Don’s Mix

2 parts grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed
1 part cinnamon syrup (below)

I like Dale DeGroff’s take on Don’s Mix in part because his recipe for the cinnamon syrup that goes into it yields an even liter (despite his note that the recipe yields 2 cups) that actually holds its own for several weeks under refrigeration.

Cinnamon Syrup

5 cinnamon sticks, each about 2 inches long
20 ounces bottle or filtered water
1 quart sugar

Break the cinnamon sticks into pieces to create more surface area. But the cinnamon, water, and sugar in a large saucepan over low heat. Stir until all the sugar is dissolved, and then returns the heat to very low simmer for 30 minutes. Let cool completely, then fossil; keep covered in the refrigerator for up to one week.

Oh, and, uh, bad ol' Cashmere.
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