Tabasco Sauce in the Applejack

All but the most degenerate boozers reach for some drinks before others. Nothing wrong with having our favorites, although the punctilious zealotry of the martini and mint julep crowds can get overbearing. Throw all the juices, syrups, tinctures, spices, and whatnot at the modern bartender's command into the equation and folks can get downright obsessive about what works in their cups and what doesn't. "Any guy who'd put rye in a mint julep and crush the leaves," wrote opinionated Kentucky bullshitter Irvin S. Cobb, "would put scorpions in a baby's bed." Exaggeration. Probably. Who knows? Cobb lied like it was his job. Because it was his job. But scorpions, though? Best to keep that old corn guzzler away from babies and not chance it.

Hot sauce is where I usually put on the brakes when it comes to cocktails. All things being equal, a dose of cayenne, chipotle, or tabasco peppers in the glass will generally make me pass. The heat's no problem. In fact, we bust out homemade hot sauces for weekend breakfasts and weeknight dinners often.  On a hot day, a round or three of micheladas hits the spot. When the temptation to mix chiles and liquor occasionally does strike, it's liable to take the guise of a Snapper, that vastly superior Bloody Mary cousin that replaces vodka with gin. We've used Cholula to good effect in a Caesar-type concoction titrated with the barest volume of absinthe. A sangrita with blanco tequila is not the worst option for daytime drinking. The common element? Tomato. Paired with and tempered by tomato, hot sauce might — just might — bring a drink together, but otherwise in most drinks the stuff is just gimmicky, an exercise in machismo, in how much heat one can handle. 

Or it's a prank. 

Back in Philadelphia, cheesemonger friends collected the oily drippings from fifty- and hundred-pound aging provolone cheeses in eight-ounce plastic tubs. After weeks or even months, they'd label the cloudy, yellowish — and pungent — accumulation Prank Juice. At some point, some jackass who needed taking down a peg was going to swallow that nightmare fluid. 

Hot sauce in so many drinks is kin to that South Philly prank juice. And the joke is old, old, old. From 1904 to 1908, cartoonist H.C. Greening penned a comic that featured Uncle George Washington Bings, Esquire, a literary descendant of cannonball-riding Baron Münchhausen and forefather of 1960's blowhard Commander McBragg. In the strips, Bings was a small-town braggart, forever telling tall tales about his exploits around the world. The Los Angeles Herald ran a six panel strip in 1905 which Bings belittles a fire-eater to villagers sitting around a bar's pot-bellied stove. "Why," he claims, "I could make that bluff look like a December frost." As he warms up to some choice braggadocio, the mischievous bartender dashes hot sauce in his applejack.

His reaction? Just about what you'd expect from anyone who'd been given a well-deserved dose of prank juice.

Too small? Click it!

Goes well with:

• Allan Holtz's thumbnail on Greening and Uncle George Washington Bings in Stripper's Guide.
• Clam Squeezin's, Absinthe, and the Bloody Fairy Cocktail — that Cholula thing I mentioned.
• Applejack in the church lemonade? Sure, why not?
• More apples. I wrote a piece on American apple spirits (including applejack, cider royal/cider oil, apple-based absinthe, and more) for Distiller magazine last Summer. Here it is.
• More properly meant for mixing with pulled and chopped pork, the North Carolina barbecue sauce we make around here is not much more than vinegar and ground chiles. Nevertheless, it's great on eggs, red beans, and even the occasional gumbo. You're on your own if you put it in drinks. Here's the complete recipe. 
• Historically, saloonkeepers and bootleggers might add hot chiles to alcohol to give the liquids a kick or bite and mask the taste of poorly made or adulterated beverages such as the swipes of 19th century Hawaii.

Distiller Wanted: Nevada

Whether you agree with the estimate of over 600 new distilleries either up and running or in the works from the American Distilling Institute or take the more conservative view from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (which puts the number a lot lower), there's no denying that the pace of American distilleries' growth is picking up. More are on the way and more state and local governments are cottoning to the notion that distilleries can be good for local economies.

Dramatic shot of the old flour mill for its 1978
National Register of Historic Places application 

Nevada is one of those places about to have a new distillery. Word has come that the San Francisco-based Bently Holdings will be converting an old mill — the Minden Flour Milling Company — into a new distillery called Nevada Heritage near Lake Tahoe. They'll need an experienced distiller.

Details to follow, but first a reminder: I have no connection to the distillery, Bently Holdings, or the Bently family. I am merely passing on the info, so please don't send me a resume or ask details about the job; I won't be able to help. Use the contact details in the link below; they're the ones to ping with questions about this job.

Now, then. Here's what the job announcement lays out. They're looking for someone with 5-10 years distilling or blending experience who holds a brewing and distilling MSc. certificate. Seems they'll want to make single malt whiskey, bourbon, absinthe, and gin. Furthermore,

The Master Distiller will be responsible for developing the Nevada Heritage collection, planning and executing distillation operations, overseeing production, and managing inventory. With support from Marketing and Sales teams, the Master Distiller will also showcase and advertise our spirits to raise brand awareness and build relationships with local and national media sources, all while complying with relevant federal, state and local regulations.

A more complete description of the post is here with directions for submitting an application.

Not So Fast: Barrel Aged Gin Hits a Snag

We cocktail types like the barrel aged gins that have been showing up over the last few years on the American market. Their oakiness with suggestions of vanilla, nuts, butterscotch, and other more ephemeral tastes and smells can add intriguing and pleasant notes to mixed drinks. Those aged gins, however, were never supposed to have been approved. Oh, sure, some slipped through the scrutiny of the TTB (the federal agency tasked with enforcing regulations on, among other things, liquor). But the days of barrel-aged gins — at least by that name — are over until federal regulations catch up with distilling as it is practiced among today's nimble distillers.

From the Summer 2013 issue of Distiller, here's my piece originally titled "Not So Fast: Barrel Aged Gin Hits a Snag."

* * * 

Once thought of as almost extinct, aged gins have begun a tentative reemergence in the American market. Some consumers are puzzled by shades of honey and amber in what for many is the quintessential white spirit, but vintage spirits enthusiasts and cocktail aficionados greet the category with enthusiasm. They work particularly well in mixed drinks such as Negronis and the Martinez. As distiller PT Wood explains, “Aged gin is something that not everyone is doing and people are looking for things like that. I, for one, think it’s a delicious spirit.” How they are permitted to describe such spirits, though, has taken a few distillers by surprise.

The US Code of Federal Regulations (27 CFR Part 5 § 5.40) forbids as “misleading” age statements for several beverages, including cocktails, cordials, and gin. Yet some brands plainly declare their gins aged. In 2009, for instance, the Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau approved Corsair Artisan Distillery’s application for Barrel Aged Gin aged 6 months in charred American oak. “We submitted, it passed. It was no big deal,” says Corsair’s Darek Bell. Within the next three years, Smooth Ambler received approval for Barrel Aged Gin, Roundhouse got the green light for Imperial Barrel Aged Gin, and others came to market. More recent applications, however, have been rejected for using the same language. The product itself is not at issue, but an effective ban on age statements has led distillers to invent creative circumlocutions.

“I didn’t know anything about the TTB’s latest stance until we submitted and got denied,” explained Rob Masters, president of Colorado Distillers Guild. Masters distills Spring44’s Old Tom Gin, sweetened lightly with agave nectar and aged in toasted Chardonnay barrels. His application to use the plain-language description barrel aged to describe the gin triggered a COLA rejection in 2013. “Our way around it was using the phrase ‘barreled in American oak.’” Likewise, PT Wood’s application for barrel aged gin was rejected. After consulting with TTB, the co-owner of Wood’s High Mountain Distillery chose Treeline Barrel Rested Gin. “We also tried ‘barrel conditioned.’ There was a whole litany of other options. We finally agreed that ‘barrel rested’ wasn’t an age statement so much as a process statement.”

Domestic producers aren’t alone in bringing aged juniper spirits to the American market. Cognac Ferrand’s aged French gin Citadelle Réserve is available in several vintages; the Dutch firm Bols sells an aged expression of their popular genever; and Beefeater releases Burrough’s Reserve this summer, an oak 'rested' gin.

At one time gin was aged routinely, if inadvertently, in wood because barrels were the most economical option for storing and transporting it. In The Practical Distiller, his 1809 manual for the distilling trade, Samuel M’Harry advised American colleagues seeking the custom of “respectable neighbors” to filter their juniper-flavored spirits through maple charcoal then put the spirits into “the sweetest and perfectly pure casks.” M’Harry counseled against new barrels because they would impart color and taste to this premium gin. One could take this to mean that gin — proper gin — should be as clear as spring water. A more nuanced reading reveals that, while respectable neighbors in the young Republic may have ponied up more for maple-filtered gin untainted by barrels, those who drank common gin drank spirits that smacked of wood. Barrel aging, one could argue, is not modern innovation, but a return to American gin’s roots.

The discrepancy between earlier COLA approvals for barrel aged gins and the TTB’s current position rejecting them does not reflect a change of regulations or any new interpretation of existing rules. In fact, the agency seems stuck enforcing rules its employees understand are not aligned with current industry practice or consumer expectations. Tom Hogue, Director of TTB’s Office of Public and Media Affairs, offers an explanation. “In 1999, we were seeing approximately 69,000 label applications. Last year it was more than 150,000.” Rather than nefarious intent, new rules, or inequitable application of regulations, Hogue attributes the discrepancy to human error.

“The regulation hasn’t changed,” he says, “and I don’t think the interpretation of the regulation has changed. With that volume of applications, as we go back through things and get fresh eyes on something, if we see something that’s not compliant, we work with the label holder on a case-by-case basis to figure out the best way forward in a way that’s appropriate and balanced.” He notes that the Unified Agenda, the semi-annual list of regulatory actions the federal government intends to take, will post proposed regulation changes specifically for distilled spirits. Though no timeline is set for a discussion of aged gins, once proposed changes are posted, the public is invited to comment.

Robert Lehrman cautions that waiting for changes to occur through Unified Agenda action, however, could take years. The founder of Lehrman Beverage Law in northern Virginia helps distillers navigate complex federal regulations, including label compliance. His take on the CFR regulation is practical: age or no age on a label is a simple matter of fact. “If it’s true, not misleading, and factual, the government needs to get out of the way.”

His advice? Craft producers who make aged gin should “band together to petition the TTB and say ‘This rule is against innovation, against high-quality product, and really it serves no one and benefits nobody.’” Rather than simply allowing or disallowing age statements, he proposes a middle ground that specifies how long and in what gin is aged. “And that conceivably could go through relatively fast.” Faster, presumably, than waiting for the comments phase of the Unified Agenda.

Now that TTB staff have cottoned to the age statements implicit in barrel aged gin, they are obliged to deny new applications for aged and barrel aged gins. Unless the regulation changes — or someone lobbies successfully to change it — distillers must instead propose workaround phrases that describe their gin’s time in wood. A frustration, undoubtedly, but whatever we call them, more aged juniper spirits are on the way — and that’s progress.

Goes well with:

• The current issue of Distiller has more on gin, distilling regulations, spirits judging, an article by Corsair Artisan Distillery's Darek Bell on incorporating smoke in vodka, gin, whiskeys, and other sprits, and other. Check it out here.  

Medals Awarded for ADI's 2013 Annual Judging of Artisan American Spirits

The American Distilling Institute announced medal winners in Denver this evening for its 7th annual judging of artisan American spirits. As in years past, I was one of those judges (see last year's winners here). 140 distilleries submitted a total of 317 spirits. The tastings were blind — that is, judges did not know who made the spirits. Each glass in each flight was labeled simply A, B, C, et cetera. Only at the end of the second day of evaluations, when each panel of judges was allowed to view the bottles, did we learn who made what.

Rum expert Martin Cate was on hand.

Smart judges who had taken note of their favorite A, D, F, or whatever samples during the tasting took even more notes on those bottles when we were let into the pouring room — and set out to find those bottles when they returned home. Below, you'll see some of those favorites for yourself.

Judging instructions for these spirits (almost entirely from American distilleries) are slightly different from those of other competitions. Part of the purpose of the judging of these spirits is to encourage American craft distillers, some of whom are accomplished, some of whom are still learning the business. In addition to numeric scores, judges give each sample additional tasting notes, suggest improvements, note what they like about the spirit, and — when appropriate — identify particular flaws such as high fermentation temperatures or scorched tastes that come in part from improper filtration. Understanding some of those specific flaws can help distillers improve their spirits.

While individual spirits are assigned scores on a hundred-point scale, medals are not strictly awarded according to that score, nor was the highest-scoring spirit in each category made the gold. Scores between 80 and 89 do not automatically yield, for example, silver medals, nor are those that score from 70-79 awarded bronze. Rather, the rubric the four panels of judges used for awarding medals took into consideration additional questions:

Gold medal — Would you happily buy this spirit for yourself?
Silver medal — Would you give this spirit as a gift to a valued friend or loved one?
Bronze medal — Would you be happy getting this as a gift?

Some classes didn't have winners of every medal. Some had multiple bronze or silver medals. So let's get to it. Here they are — the spirits the judges wanted for our greedy selves, the ones we'd buy our moms, and those worthy bottles we'd like someone to drop on our desks now and then.

First, the BEST OF CLASS winners:

Whiskey
Ballast Point Spirits - Devil’s Share Malt Whiskey
Gin
Valentine Distilling Co. - Liberator Gin
Rum
Balcones Distilling - Texas Rum
Moonshine
Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine - Apple Pie Moonshine
Brandy
Jepson Vineyards - Old Stock Mendocino Brandy

Now on to the categories, as broken down by ADI staff:

WHISKEY
Clear Whiskey
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Myer Farm Distillers - White Dog Corn Whiskey
Silver Medal
Dark Horse Distillery - Long Shot White Whiskey
Bronze Medal
Middle West Spirits - OYO Rye Whiskey
High West Distillery - Silver Whiskey - Western Oat
Indian Creek Distillery - Elias Staley
Cornelius Pass Roadhouse Distillery - White Owl Whiskey
Asheville Distilling Co. – Troy and Sons Platinum Heirloom Moonshine

Aged Corn Whiskey
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Balcones Distilling - True Blue

Bourbon (under two years)
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Yellow Rose Distilling - Yellow Rose Outlaw Bourbon
Silver Medal
Kings County Distillery - Kings County Bourbon
Bronze Medal
Rock Town Distillery - Arkansas Young Bourbon Whiskey
Cacao Prieto - Bloody Butcher Bourbon Whiskey

Straight Bourbon
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Balcones Distilling – Fifth-Anniversary Texas Straight Bourbon
Silver Medal
Dallas Distilleries - Herman Marshall

Rye Whiskey
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Grand Traverse Distillery - Ole George Rye Whiskey
Silver Medal
Mountain Laurel Spirits - Dad's Hat Pennsylvania Rye Whiskey
Bronze Medal
Distillery 291 - Colorado Rye Whiskey
Catoctin Creek Distilling - Roundstone Rye Cask Proof

Malt Whiskey (under 2 years)
Best of Category - Gold medal
Balcones Distilling – Texas Single Malt
Gold Medal
Deerhammer Distilling Company - Down Time Single Malt Whiskey
Bronze Medal
Long Island Spirits - Pine Barrens Single Malt Whisky

Straight Malt Whiskey
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits - Devil's Share Straight Malt Whiskey
Silver Medal
New Holland Artisan Spirits- Zeppelin Bend Straight Malt

Wheat Whiskey
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Middle West Spirits - OYO Wheat Whiskey
Bronze Medal
American Craft Whiskey Distillery - Low Gap Whiskey Single Barrel No. 1
American Craft Whiskey Distillery - Low Gap California Whiskey

Whiskey non-typical
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Glacier Distilling Company - Wheatfish Whiskey
Silver Medal
Rogue Spirits - Dead Guy Whiskey

Smoked Whiskey
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Corsair Artisan - Wildfire
Silver Medal
Corsair Artisan – Salamander

Hopped Whiskey
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Corsair Artisan - Demeter
Silver Medal
Corsair Artisan - Falconer’s Flight
Bronze Medal
Corsair Artisan - Centennial
Corsair Artisan - Pacifica
Corsair Artisan - Titania
Corsair Artisan - Amarillo

Flavored Whiskey
Best of Category - Bronze Medal
Sons of Liberty Spirits Company - Seasonal - 2012 Winter Release

MERCHANT BOTTLED WHISKEY
Straight Bourbon
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Cacao Prieto Distillery - Widow Jane Bourbon Whiskey
Silver Medal
Tatoosh Distillery & Spirits - Tatoosh Bourbon

Bourbon (cask finished)
Best of Category - Bronze Medal
Hillrock Estate Distillery & Malthouse - Solera Aged Bourbon
Bronze Medal
Big Bottom Whiskey – Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Zinfandel Cask

Straight Rye Whiskey
Best of Category - Silver Medal
35 Maple Street - Masterson's 10-Year-Old Straight Rye Whiskey

Malt Whiskey
Best of Category - Bronze Medal
Virginia Distillery - Virginia Highland Malt Whisky

GIN
Classic Distilled Gin
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Rock Town Distillery - Brandon's Gin

Classic Rectified Gin
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Captive Spirits Distilling - Big Gin
Gold Medal
Bull Run Distilling - Aria Portland Dry Gin
Silver Medal
Veracity Spirits – Vivacity Native Gin

Contemporary Distilled Gin
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Myer Farm Distillers - Myer Farm Gin
Silver Medal
Dancing Pines Distillery - Gin
Dancing Tree Distillery - Gin
Treaty Oak Distilling - Waterloo Gin
Bronze Medal
Corsair Artisan - Steampunk
Maine Distilleries - Cold River Traditional Gin
StilltheOne Distillery - Jarhead Gin

Contemporary Rectified Gin
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Valentine Distilling Co. - Valentine Liberator Gin
Gold Medal
Maison De La Vie - Golden Moon Gin
Silver Medal
San Juan Island Distillery - Spy Hop Gin
Bronze Medal
Sweetgrass Farm Distillery - Back River Gin
Southern Artisan Spirits - Cardinal American Dry Gin
Spring 44 Distilling – Spring 44 Gin

Genever
Best of Category - Bronze Medal
Oregon Spirit Distillers - Merrylegs Genever Style Gin
Bronze Medal
Corsair Artisan - Genever

Navy Strength Gin
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Few Spirits - Standard Issue Gin

Old Tom Gin
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Ransom Spirits - Old Tom Gin
Silver Medal
Downslope Distilling - Ould Tom Gin
Bronze Medal
Corsair Artisan - Major Tom

Barrel-Aged Gin
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Corsair Artisan - Barrel Aged Gin
Silver Medal
Wood's High Mountain Distillery - Treeline Gin, Barrel Aged

RUM 
White Rum
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Cape Spirits - Wicked Dolphin Rum - Silver
Bronze Medal
Dancing Pines Distillery - Rum
Donner-Peltier Distillers - Rougaroux Sugarshine

Amber Rum
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Ballast Point Spirits – Barrel Aged Three Sheets Rum
Silver Medal
Montanya Distillers - Montanya Oro Rum
Van Brunt Stillhouse - Due North Rum

Dark Rum
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Real McCoy Spirits - The Real McCoy
Bronze Medal
Turkey Shore Distilleries - Old Ipswich Lab & Cask Reserve

Overproof Rum
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Balcones Distilling - Texas Rum
Gold Medal
New Holland Artisan Spirits- Freshwater Superior

Flavored Rum
Best of Category – Silver Medal
Dogfish Head – Brown Honey Rum

Spiced Rum
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Dancing Pines Distillery - Spice

Merchant Bottled Rum
Best of Category - Silver Medal
35 Maple Street - Kirk and Sweeney

MOONSHINE
Clear Moonshine
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Dark Corner Distillery - Moonshine Corn Whiskey
Silver Medal
King's County - Corn Whiskey
Bronze Medal
Deerhammer Distilling Company – Whitewater Whiskey

Aged Moonshine
Best of Category - Bronze Medal
Fog's End Distillery - Monterey Rye

Flavored Moonshine
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine - Moonshine Apple Pie
Silver Medal
Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine - Moonshine Blackberry
Bronze Medal
Pinchgut Hollow Distillery - Captain Mick
Pinchgut Hollow Distillery - Rise N Shine

BRANDY
Pear Eaux de Vie
Best of Category - Gold Medal
McMenamin's Edgefield Distillery - Pear Brandy
Bronze Medal
Peach Street Distillers - Jack and Jenny Pear Brandy
Harvest Spirits - Harvest Spirits Pear Brandy

Eaux de Vie
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Coppersea Distilling - Peach Eau de vie
Bronze Medal
Bellewood Distilling - Apple Brandy Eau de Vie

Applejack/Brandy
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Huber's Starlight Distillery - Huber's Applejack
Silver Medal
Tom’s Foolery - Applejack

Aged Brandy (Other than Grape)
Best of Category - Silver Medal
Peach Street Distillers - Pear Brandy

Aged Brandy - Other
Best of Category - Bronze Medal
Dakota Spirits Distiller - Bickering Brothers Neutral Brandy

Grappa
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Peach Street Distillers - Muscat Grappa
Gold Medal
Maison De La Vie - Golden Moon Colorado Grappa
Bronze Medal
Peach Street Distillers - Viognier Grappa
Magnanini Farm Winery - Magnanini Grappa

Brandy (Aged less than 6 years)
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Huber's Starlight Distillery - Huber's Brandy - Reserve
Bronze Medal
Colorado Gold Distillery - Colorado Gold Brandy

Brandy (Aged more than 6 years)
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Jaxon Keys Winery & Distillery - Old Stock Brandy
Silver Medal
Jaxon Keys Winery & Distillery - Signature Reserve Brandy
Jaxon Keys Winery & Distillery - Rare Brandy

Flavored Liqueur
Best of Category - Bronze Medal
Sidetrack Distillery - Nocino
Bronze Medal
Cacao Prieto – Chamomile Liqueur
Bottle Tree Beverage Company - Hoodoo Chicory

Fruit Infusion
Best of Category - Gold Medal
Huber's Starlight Distillery - Huber's Raspberry Infusion
Silver Medal
Huber's Starlight Distillery - Huber's Blueberry
Sidetrack Distillery – Cassis Liqueur
Bronze Medal
Stone Barn Brandy Works - Quince Liqueur

Excellence in Packaging
Craft Distilled Spirits
Sidetrack Distillery - Cassis Liqueur
Merchant Bottled Spirits
35 Maple Street - Kirk and Sweeney Rum

Max's (Other) Mistake — A Tropical Drink With a Genever Twist

Genever is  — or used to be — a hard sell at the Whiskey Forge where the usual hangers-on prefer American whiskeys and rum. Nothing wrong with those two, but this knee-jerk mistrust of genever bothers me because the stuff is delicious and I'm a bit bummed to the be only one who regularly reaches for it. Genever (or jenever) is a grain spirit from the Netherlands and Belgium. A few varieties are available, some even flavored with citrus, but they all are flavored with juniper, those little blue-black cannonball berries that give gin its characteristic taste. Knowing their weakness for rum I found last night a way to sneak genever into my drinking buddies' cocktails; use it in a tiki drink that calls for gin.

The result? They used almost an entire bottle of Bols genever on multiple rounds of a drink that San Francisco barman Martin Cate dubbed Max's Mistake. I admit the response to the stuff was a little more enthusiastic than I'd hoped.

The original drink uses gin, but an elision to the Dutch stuff was a natural, and tasty, move. Here's Cate explaining the drink and how its name came about on his new cocktail series for CHOW (recipe after the video):

Max's Mistake  

Martin Cate 

Smuggler's Cove, San Francisco 

1 cup of crushed ice
2 dashes of bitters
1 oz passion fruit syrup
1 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz honey syrup (a mix of equal parts honey and water)
2 oz gin [Bols genever]
2 oz sparkling lemonade

Blend 2-3 second and serve topped with ice cubes and fresh mint.

Goes well with:

• Regular readers will recognize Cate as the mad genius behind the koi pond-sized flaming tiki punch at Tiki Oasis (pictures and scaled-down recipe here).
• Bitterballen, little fried croquettes quite similar to Cajun boudin balls, are classic Dutch bar food, perfect for a few shots of genever, even if it is all doctored up with fruit syrups and juices. Here's my recipe. 
• Americans used to have a great thirst for genever, also called Holland gin or, simply, Hollands. Here's Samuel M'Harry's 1809 recipe for making a semblance of the imported article from very local American ingredients. 
• Drinkupny.com has both Bols genever and the barrel-aged version on sale now. This is a good deal, but shop around; liquor regularly goes on steep discount during the 4th quarter and you may be able to find even bigger discounts. 
• Have you a glut of genever? Then consider whipping up a batch of kruidnoten liqueur, a Dutch recipe combining the spirit with...cookies. Those without so much to spare can swap vodka. 

Getting the Apple out of Apple Whiskey, 19th Century-Style

Among the papers of John Ewing held by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania lies an undated manuscript from about 1810. It describes a process for making a variety of ersatz liquors from a base of apple brandy, often called in early American idiom, apple “whiskey.” Once treated with charcoal and redistilled, such local orchard brandy could be made to seem like French brandy, Jamaican rum, Holland gin, etc. Emulating more expensive imported liquors using local goods was common throughout the colonial era, through the early Republic, and into the twentieth century. Time and time again, I come across recipes for faking one kind of spirit with another in household account books and recipe manuscripts. Though it’s less common these days, one still finds recipes to make, for instance, homemade gin from store-bought vodka.

From an unknown 19th century distiller, here’s

 To make gin out of apple whiskey

Fill hogshead of 100 or 120 gs. [gallons] with apple whiskey, into which pour a bushel of charcoal—stir the charcoal every hour for two days—stirring so often may not be necessary—then draw off whiskey and put it in a still—distill it and it will be found perfectly clear of the apple—In this state if mixed with French brandy, jamaica spirit or holland gin in the proportion of about one third whiskey to 2/3 of foreign liquors it will impart to the liquor any unusual taste or flavor. 

If in the distillation you add 15 or 20 lbs of juniper berries to the hogshead, it will make good gin. 

Before the still is filled 15 or 20 gallons of Water must be put in the still. 

 A 60 gallon still may be run out twice in the day—Charcoal must be made out of maple, chestnut or light wood—must never be wet—When taken out of the coal pit they should be put out by throwing dirt over it—burnt perfectly well—out at the top so as to let the smoke out—to be ground fine.

The manuscript goes on to calculate that the profit on 100 gallons of apple whiskey converted to gin is $16.30, or about $225 in today’s money. Not enormous profit, but if it were steady, one eventually could buy a house.
 
Me? I think it would be a shame to strip the apples from apple brandy, especially when so many good ones are coming back on the market. If you're curious about American non-grape brandies and happen to be in New Orleans next month, check out Paul Clarke's session Fruit of the Still at Tales of the Cocktail. 

Seamus Heaney's Sloe Gin

I detest poetry. Shameful for an Irishman to admit, but there it is. From Virgil's soporific arma virumque cano to the contemptible J. Alfred Prufrock, I hate it all. Even as I devoured all the pages of Tolkien when I was young, my eyes went dull when he dredged out those horrible, hoary short lines. Lovecraft, so gifted with language, was at his worst when he set to rhyming. It's not that I haven't been exposed to verse; I've translated Ovid and Beowulf, memorized German poetry (yes, there is such a thing), and had an appreciation for the structure of literature crammed into my head by well-meaning Jesuits.

Poetry, though, springs from some alien mindset I simply do not possess. Perhaps this is something diagnosable ("Patient's psychopathy presents clearly in his inability to appreciate neither iambic pentameter nor dactylic hexameter...") or perhaps it's somehow connected to my weird speech.

But ~ if the lines in question pertain to food or drink, I can put aside my revulsion for the genre long enough to understand that others may enjoy it. The barbecue poems of Jake Adam York, for instance. If my eyes glazed reading them, it was at least a tangy barbecue glaze. Give me barbecue over barbecue poems any day, but the world is big enough for both.

Then there's the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney. His poem Sloe Gin is one of the rare ones that caught my eye, if not my imagination. Sloes are tart, plum-like fruits culled from hedgerow bushes called blackthorn. In rural parts of the British Isles and isolated spots in North America, the berries are pricked (or sometimes frozen to break down cell walls), then immersed in sugar or syrup and gin, vodka, or other spirits for a long maturation. Regardless of the spirit used, the resulting cordial is a stillroom favorite always dubbed sloe gin.

Here's Heaney.

Sloe Gin

The clear weather of juniper
darkened into winter.
She fed gin to sloes
and sealed the glass container.

When I unscrewed it
I smelled the disturbed
tart stillness of a bush
rising through the pantry.

When I poured it
it had a cutting edge
and flamed
like Betelgeuse.

I drink to you
in smoke-mirled, blue-
black sloes, bitter
and dependable.

-- Seamus Heaney (1984) Station Island

If you've made it this far, pour yourself a glass of sweet sloe nectar and listen to the poem in Gaelic.

What is he going on about? Mortality? Sex? Lost love? Don't ask me; I just drink the stuff. 

Mixology Monday: Mai Tai Jellies

Sam Bompas and Harry Parr form the firm of, well, Bompas & Parr. Over in the UK, the two are a bit of media darlings. Even if you’ve never heard of the British duo, you perhaps have dabbled in their medium yourself. Sam and Harry, you see, work in gelatin. They have joined the ranks of those who traffic in whores, wars, fishes, and cheese. In their own words, they are jellymongers.

In a house free of children — and in possession of a full set of teeth — the preparation of quivering desserts and congealed salads made of brand-name gelatin does not occupy an appreciable amount of my time. But on rare occasions, I do use unflavored gelatin to stabilize some desserts and to make old-fashioned tea, wine, fruit, or cream jellies.

As pedestrian as the stuff seems today, there was a time when jellies were terribly fancy, palpable evidence that eaters were in the presence of wealth. To start, they were a pain to create; calf’s feet were most often called for in old recipes — hours and hours of boiling, simmering, draining, straining, and purifying (read: servants). Because jellies need to be chilled to set, one had to have either ice or refrigeration. Sure, fridges are ubiquitous now, but in 1790, 1869, or 1901, that was simply not true; great ingenuity and expense were required to get a jelly to gel in warm settings. Elaborate copper molds came into play, and shapes ranged from fanciful to downright architectural.

I’ve been pawing through the American edition of Bompas & Parr’s first book, Jellymongers, with an eye toward making a few jellies that are a step above the usual wobbly suspects. There are fresh citrus jellies, ribband (i.e., striped) and marbled jellies, gold-flecked, booze-spiked, and glow-in-the-dark jellies*.

My opportunity came when drinks writer Doug Winship offered to host this month’s Mixology Monday, the more-or-less monthly roundup of drinks on a changing theme. This month, it’s Tiki, a subset of drinks lashed with rum and laced with fresh fruit juices — and that regular readers may know is dear to my heart.

Tiki’s popularity has ebbed and flowed over the years since the 1930’s, but one of its iconic drinks, the Mai Tai, remains an immensely popular drink. Bompas and Parr know this and they’ve turned their limpid jelly eyes on that classic mid-century cocktail for inspiration. I’ve seen over the years many recipes for Mai Tai-flavored ice creams and sorbets, icebox bars, face masks (yeah, I wasn’t tempted), and more. Most of these recipes are for sweets and many of them omit an essential ingredient: orgeat.

Not these two. Their recipe includes the almond syrup called for in echt Mai Tais. For Winship’s Tiki Mixology Monday, I offer not a drink, but quivering, quavering, wobbly shapes: Mai Tai Jellies.

Mai Tai Jellies

Bompas & Parr use 5 sheets of leaf gelatin in their recipe, but I’ve converted their recipe to one deploying Knox powdered gelatin because that's what I had on hand when Winship emailed me. The London-based duo regard the powdered stuff in a dim light and prefer the leaf version. I've also rounded off their “scant ¼ cups” to 2 ounces. Note that a thin layer of almond oil or neutral vegetable oil applied with a pastry brush to the interior of the mold makes removing the Mai Tai jelly, once set, much easier. I used drinking glasses as molds to create about 5.5-ounce jellies. One could, in a collegiate state of mind, simply make these into several one- or two-ounce jelly shots.

8 oz medium Jamaican rum [I disregarded "medium" and used a mix of 5 oz Appleton Estate 12-year with 3 oz Smith & Cross]
5 Tbl orange curacao [Cointreau]
5 Tbl orgeat (see below)
2 oz 1:1 simple syrup
2 oz lime juice
2 packets (14g total) powdered gelatin [Knox; for a softer set, use 10-11g]
Mint leaves

Combine the rum, curacao, orgeat syrup, sugar syrup, and lime juice in a saucepan.

Sprinkle the gelatin evenly over the surface of the liquid. Leave the gelatin to soften for 10 minutes. Gently, gently heat the liquid (do not bring it to a boil), stirring constantly, until the gelatin is melted.

Once the gelatin has totally melted, pour the whole lot through a strainer and into a pitcher.

Pour this mixture into a prepared mold or glasses (see above) and set it in the refrigerator at least four hours, but 12 will give it a stronger set.

When you are ready to serve, unmold and garnish with the sprig of mint.

Next Thanksgiving, why not ditch the ribbed cranberry jelly and serve slices of these? Edit later that night: I don't usually just fire off a post here, especially one with a recipe, but time was tight and I broke with tradition in the interest of meeting the Mixology Monday deadline. Consequently, I didn't play with this recipe as much as I might normally do. Although we liked the softer set version of the recipe above, keep in mind that this is a lot of alcohol for what seems like a simple Jello-O type dessert. These would be absolutely fine as jelly shots, the purpose of which is to convey a bunch of booze at one go. Despite the inclusion of orgeat, though, one of the crucial ingredients missing here is ice. When drinking a Mai Tai, the dilution of slowly melting ice makes all the difference between a strong, boozy drink and once that soothes and relaxes. So, on a whim, one of the boys popped his Mai Tai jelly in the microwave for 25 seconds, just melting it without getting it too warm, then mixed in a handful of crushed ice. The result: a regular Mai Tai with an unexpected round mouthfeel. Next thing you know, two more glasses went in the machine. Stayed wholly liquid until the very last few sips.

Goes well with:

• Fortunately, orgeat is much easier to find now than a few years ago, thanks to syrup purveyor monger BG Reynolds. If you don’t see any locally, the company ships.
• *Glow-in-the-dark jellies? You bet. Ever been in a nightclub and notice that your gin & tonic glowed like a purplish blue beacon? The effect is caused when ultraviolet black lights hit quinine, an ingredient in the tonic water. Quinine fluoresces under UV. Bompas & Parr leverage this quirk of chemistry in the book to create glowing jellies with gin, tonic, rose water, and gelatin. Images of their SFMOMA glowing funeral jellies are here.
• Converting leaf to powdered gelatin recipes is tricky. Different grades and producers mean that there's no standard conversion for "x number of leaf gelatin = y teaspoons of powdered gelatin." But the good news is that converting to weights makes things easier and there's a detailed discussion over at eGullet that outlines how one goes about doing that. 
• Leaf gelatin's not at all hard to find; it's just that I had none on hand, am getting ready to head to Bourbon Country for work, and didn't have the time to fuss with having some shipped. If you want to try some, King Arthur sells good quality stuff here.

Harry Parr and Sam Bompas (2011)
Jellymongers: Glow-in-the-Dark Jelly, Titanic Jelly, Flaming Jelly
160 pages (hardback)
Sterling Epicure
ISBN: 1402784805
$19.95

Distillers to Gather Once More in Portland

Gather 'round, ye distillers of brandy and gin, ye wranglers of whiskey. This April, the American Distilling Institute holds its 8th annual Craft Spirits Conference & Vendor Expo in Portland, Oregon.

As usual, there will be tastings and judging. Vendors to the distilling industry will show off bottles, labels, yeasts, grains, and even barrels for stowing away slumbering spirits.

Granddaddy of the American craft distilling scene, Steve McCarthy (Clear Creek Distilling), Lisa Laird of Laird & Company (we absolutely adore her 100 proof bonded apple brandy, even though a bottle hasn't been seen on San Diego shelves since last year), and Henrik Mattsson, author of Calvados, will speak.

Bill Owens, president of ADI, also promises hands-on distilling classes at Portland distilleries: Whiskey at Bull Run Distilling, brandy at Stone Barn Brandy Works, infused vodka at New Deal Distillery, and gin at House Spirits Distillery (transportation and lunch provided).

Details:
ADI 8th annual conference
April 4-8, 2011
The Benson Hotel
Portland Oregon

For full information, see the American Distilling Institute's site.

Marshmallow, an Untraditional Collins

Whether christened Tom or John, the Collins family of drinks dates back to the early 19th Century. They are essentially individual servings of a cool gin punch made popular at London’s Limmer’s Hotel by headwaiter John Collins some 30 to 40 years before civil war broke out in America.

Nevermind that Collins didn't actually invent the punch (in his 2010 book Punch, historian David Wondrich gives that honor to Stephen Price, the American manager of London's Garrick Club). To this day, a concoction of gin, lemon juice, some sweetener, and cold sparkling water bears the headwaiter's name. Well, his surname, anyway.

Variations on the drink — Bootsy, Barnabas, vodka, and Michael Collinses — came later. To this august and suspect list, I add my own: the Marshmallow Collins.

Several months ago, I wrote about my experiments with marshmallow syrup using the shredded root of Althaea officinalis, that is, real marshmallow plants rather than candy marshmallows (see below for link). At the time, I wrote

The cut root I purchased was perfectly dry and felt like any other root or shredded bark. But wait. In water it became mucilaginous; a thick, colloid, almost ropy syrup formed as the infusion sat overnight. Dry, it had just the faintest musty smell. Once it got wet, the smell was, well, rooty. Seriously. Smelled like someone had been digging up the garden.

It's a difficult syrup to work with. Not because of its thickness and tendency to stick to itself — which, admittedly, is a little odd — but because of its inherently bosky taste and smell. I happen to like it, but I don't like the way it mixes with whiskey. Gin is another story.

So when one of the boys suggested a round of Marshmallow Collinses last night, I smiled and let him put together a batch. Here's how we ended up making them:

Marshmallow Collins

3 oz gin (we used Beefeater)
1.5 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz real (e.g., Althaea officinalis) marshmallow syrup
Cold soda water

Combine the gin, lemon juice, and syrup in a shaker full of ice. Shake to combine and chill. Strain into a tall glass full of ice. Stir briefly, top with soda water, and serve.

Goes well with:

• Real Marshmallow Syrup — my original post about my syrup experiments with the odd little root. Includes French sirop de guimauve recipes and my modern update as used above.
• David Wondrich (2010) Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl Perigee/Penguin Group, New York. Innumerable plaudits from drinking types have been written about Wondrich's book. I can only add at this point that I wish all drinks books were so well written — and researched. Wondrich's isn't the only book on punch I own, but it is the best.

Do it to Julia! Pink Cloves and Gin at the Chestnut Tree Café

Under the spreading chestnut tree

When I held you on my knee,

we were happy as can be

Under the spreading chestnut tree.

Under the spreading chestnut tree

I'll kiss you and you'll kiss me

Oh how happy we will be

Under the spreading chestnut tree.

~ traditional British song

Some months ago my friend Scott Heim asked me about pink clove cordial. He is, in his own words, a bit of a gin purist and his interest in this old obscurity was an outgrowth of his cocktail-centric tippling habits. I confessed I had none. We agree on the virtues of good gin, but I’m slightly leery about adding cloves to it. Since I had not seen the cordial in the US, I sent him for advice to London boozer Jay Hepburn writing at Oh Gosh!

Turns out that pink clove cordial is common enough in the UK where J.R. Phillips makes — among its several cordials — a 5.3% abv clove version. Of this one, cocktailingredients.co.uk writes it is “…still one of Devon's most popular imbibes. Pink Cloves adds a rosy hue and great flavour to punches, gin or vodka.” Seems most British online shops sell it for around £8/700ml.

I admit a certain degree of interest in the stuff, though — honest to god — a little clove goes a long way.

Scott’s question sprang to mind recently because I’ve been pecking at a first British edition George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four on and off for a few weeks. Because I like to attack a topic from a few angles, I also watched the 1984 film adaptation with friends. At the end of the novel, Heim’s gin and cloves show up as the habitual drink of protagonist Winston Smith. It’s a taste that’s been knocking around, it seems, since at least the middle of the last  century.

After Smith’s brutal torture in the bowels of the Ministry of Love, he settles in at the shabby Chestnut Tree Café, where broken traitors and thoughtcriminals go to eke out their days. In the film the café’s grubby and disinterested waiter delivers room temperature government-issue gin — and three dashes from a bottle. I expected the little dasher to be bitters at first, but the book reveals it’s “saccharine flavoured with cloves.”

Smith getting his dose of gin and cloves

In that dark and drab 1984 film version of the story, John Hurt plays Smith and Richard Burton plays his nemesis and savior O’Brien. It’s a harrowing view of humanity. You may or may not care for the Eurythmics musical score. But after reading the entire novel, Orwell’s original description of Smith in the café is chilling:

The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell on dusty table-tops. It was the lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music trickled from the telescreens.

Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass. Now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his glass up with Victory Gin, shaking into it a few drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork. It was saccharine flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the cafe.

By dragging Orwell into it, I don’t mean to suggest that Phillips’ pink clove cordial is anything less than good and wholesome. The serendipitous connection between Heim and Orwell — two writers I admire — amused me, is all. In fact, I hope to get my hands on several varieties of Phillips cordials one of these days for experimentation…and studiously to avoid any place even resembling the Chestnut Tree.

Goes well with:

• Jay Hepburn's site, Oh Gosh!
• Scott Heim's site
• Cocktailingredients.co.uk

Oh, rats. Do it to Julia.

For Valentine's Day, The Bijou Cocktail

Over the past two months, I've consumed a hefty dose of green Chartreuse, a half-ounce at a time, making Bijoux. That I am in thrall of a well-made Bijou Cocktail is not overstatement, but I'm beginning to wonder what the LD50 of that green herbal liqueur may be...

This baroque little jewel of a cocktail is one of the more underrated I've come across in the past few months.

Since both Erik Ellestad and Paul Clarke have written about it, I'll refrain from my usual essays. It's a potent little bugger, though, full of big tastes, and perhaps not for those who prefer vokda martinis, but if you're feeling the least bit adventuresome, grab a small bottle (even a trial size) and get mixing.

This version, lightly tweaked from Dale DeGroff's The Essential Cocktail, is what's got my motor revvin' this Valentine's Day.

Bijou Cocktail

1 ½ oz Plymouth gin
½ oz green Chartreuse
½ oz Italian sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
Dash of orange bitters (Angostura Orange or Regan's No. 6)
Lemon peel

Shake all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker (including lemon peel). Strain into a small footed glass and drink it while it's still smiling at you.

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Given a Glut of Grapefruit

Fruit experts disagree about the origins of grapefruit,
how it was named, and even what species it is,
but there is little debate
about how delicious grapefruit are
and how they perk up tired taste buds.

~ Alice Waters
Chez Panisse Fruit

Not long ago, I was blessed with a huge bag of grapefruit. More precise, perhaps, to say that my friend Carlo called to say I could harvest as many as I liked from his side yard. Otherwise, they would just be left, untended, unloved, on the trees. The thought of hundreds of orphaned grapefruit was almost more than I could bear.

It turns out that dozens of grapefruit also were more than I could eat. At the end of a week, some peel had been candied, some dried and powdered for marinades and stews, the flesh sliced into a bowl with oranges, bananas, maraschino, and mint for a fruit salad. There was sufficient grapefruit bitters to last through the summer.

Breaking out the reamer, I juiced the remaining fruit. The dozen or so fat yellow globes yielded a liter of strained juice. Tasty enough—if tart—to drink straight up. Better to hit it with a splash of seltzer. Better still to measure it into a cocktail shaker to perk up them tired cocktail taste buds.

For sipping tequila neat, I favor more aged selections, but inocente puts out a clean blanco, a triple-distilled 100% blue agave tequila that stands up quite nicely to puckery grapefruit juice. Out it came.

Both Marleigh Riggins at Sloshed! and Chuck Taggart on The Gumbo Pages have written about Eric Alperin’s tequila-and-Campari cocktail, the sculaccione. I enjoy it as well, but bitter is sometimes a hard sell around this house. Fortunately, the Italian amaro Aperol (flavored with orange, gentian, and rhubarb among others) plays bitter roles with great success. With the switch of spirits, I dubbed this one the

Gudageen

2 oz blanco tequila (inocente Platinum)
¾ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz fresh grapefruit juice
½ oz Aperol
½ oz simple syrup
dash Angostura bitters

Shake with ice. Strain into an old fashioned glass filled with fresh ice.

Given the hundreds of cocktails in Dale DeGroff’s The Craft of the Cocktail, a casual reader might be forgiven for skimming right past the salt-and-pepper martini. Me? I’m not an unbending martini purist, but the glut of chocolate martinis, appletinis, and endless what-the-hell's-this-itinis has made me leery of deviations from the classic gin-and-vermouth formulae, so it was a while before I sampled this grapefruit-spiked version. Plymouth gin is lovely in this one. Oh, if I could only have back those misspent days.

Salt-and-Pepper Martini

1 ½ oz. gin
¾ oz. lemon juice
¾ oz. grapefruit juice
1 oz. simple syrup
2 dashes of Angostura bitters

Shake all the ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled salt-rimmed martini glass.

.

M’Harry’s Holland Gin

In 1809 Pennsylvania distiller Samuel M’Harry published his Practical Distiller, a small tome intended to set forth, as plainly as the language of the time allowed, directions for American distillers using the materials available to them to create American spirits and, in some cases, to emulate spirituous liquors from abroad. The book was, in not very subtle ways, very pro-American.

At the same time, M’Harry sought to clear away the myths and secrecy surrounding distilling and to advance it as an understandable science rather than a mysterious process that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. His techniques and recipe styles—even if improved upon by later advances in still designs—informed American moonshining for the better part of two centuries.

His recipes for working with corn, rye, apples, and peaches would be as familiar to Appalachian moonshiners even into the 1970’s. They can be forgiven if his buckwheat spirits failed to continue in American folk distilling. I’m curious about it myself, but have not yet come across even modern home distillers who are experimenting with buckwheat. Perhaps it was a Pennsylvania thing.

His recipe for “Holland” gin—that is, the jenever or genever coming back into tentative vogue—gives an idea of how distillers these 200 years ago sought to emulate popular foreign liquors with very local ingredients (remember, Pennsylvania has long been rye country).

How to make a resemblance
of Holland Gin out of Rye Whiskey

Put clarified whiskey, with an equal quantity of water, into our doubling still, together with sufficient quantity of juniper berries, prepared; take a pound of unslacked lime, immerse it in three pints of water, stir it well—then let it stand three hours, until the lime sinks to the bottom, then pour off the clear lime water, with which boil half an ounce of isinglass cut small, until the latter is dissolved—then pour it into your doubling still with a handful of hops, and a handful of common salt, put on the head and set her a running; when she begins to run, take the first half gallon (which is not so good), and reserve it for the next still you fill—as the first shot generally contains something that will give an unpleasant taste and color to the gin. When it looses proof at the worm, take the keg away that contains the gin, and bring it down to a proper strength with rain water, which must previously have been prepared, by having been evaporated and condensed in the doubling still and cooling tub.

This gin when fined, and two years old, will be equal, if not superior, to Holland gin.

The isinglass, lime water and salt, helps to refine it in the still, and the juniper berries gives it the flavor or taste of Holland gin.

About thirteen pounds of good berries are sufficient for one barrel.

Be careful to let the gin as it runs from the worm, pass thro’ a flannel cloth, which will prevent many unpleasant particles passing into the liquor, which are contracted in the condensation, and the verjuice imbibed in its passage thro’ the worm.

* Yeah, yeah: the genever bottle label is from the wrong century. It's one I picked up for a pittance at a paper ephemera show a few years back. It is, however, the kind of label that would have been printed in bulk and slapped on—gasp—American emulations of foreign spirits.
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Earl’s Obituary

Earl (c.1994-2008), a grey domestic shorthair cat, was found dead Saturday, November 8th after a brief and wasting illness in San Diego, California. He is survived by Rowley and Morpheus, neither of whom particularly likes cats, but both of whom were inordinately fond of this one.

We picked up Earl at a Philadelphia animal shelter when he was about three years old and slated for euthanasia. For the next eleven years, he was our constant and pathologically affectionate companion who nosed his way into laps, onto chests, under blankets, and anywhere a warm body would tolerate him. He was practically a poster critter for the argument that—with attention and care in a good home—shelter animals respond with seemingly boundless love.

He was as dumb as a trunk of mittens. He cried incessantly in the morning when he wanted to be fed, even when his bowl held plenty of food. As often as not, he came away from the litterbox smuttynosed, with four or five grains of litter stuck to it. The pronunciation of his name bedeviled our friends from Colombia and Mexico who didn’t get the feeble and unoriginal pun of naming a grey cat Earl. At bedtime, he went completely apeshit, running through the house, sliding into walls and attacking feet, paper, and gym bags with his soft little clawless paws. The only trick he almost mastered was not to go outside when we left the door open.

But he was our cat and we loved him.

I’m writing this in North Carolina, en route to a two-week gig in Florida. The hours will be long and will not lend themselves to posting much here. Once I’m home and back to my bars, I’ll toast him with that New Orleans obscurity, the Obituary Cocktail. For this, I’ll finally crack open my single bottle from the first commercial run of Lance Winters’ St. George absinthe. I'd been saving it for a special occasion. Now seems right.

(Earl’s) Obituary Cocktail

2 ounces gin (Bluecoat or Plymouth, gins that won't fight the absinthe)
¼ ounce St. George absinthe verte
¼ ounce dry vermouth

Stir well with cracked ice until, like an earthquake, the drink turns opalescent; strain into a chilled cocktail glass. I don’t garnish much and neither should you. Certainly not here.

Failing that, I’ll go full-bore maudlin Paddy on him and break out the Irish, neat.

We miss you, old man.

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PluTonic Cocktail

Pluots, those succulent little plum/apricot hybrids, are still in season, so I snagged a half dozen or so of the mottled ones that show up at our local farmers’ market the other day. This batch is extraordinarily sweet and lends itself to eating out of hand. Is my mom around? No? Then I’ll clarify—eating out of hand over the sink.


But in a house where a battery of fantastic liquor seductively whispers your name every day, why not gild lilies? Philadelphia’s Bluecoat American Dry Gin whispered sotto voce so convincingly—and turned out an outstanding foil to the stone fruit; grapefruit bitters and tonic rounded out the drink nicely.

It’s not terribly strong (or, so it might seem at first), but this gin n tonic variant is perfect for a lazy Friday afternoon as the sun shimmies up to the horizon.

Rigid purists will tell you that the PluTonic cocktail, since it contains no citrus, dairy, or eggs, should be stirred or built rather than shaken. Meh. The pluot pulp is so thick that it ought not be built (i.e., all the ingredients assembled in the glass in which the cocktail will be served—who wants to pick all that pulp out of their teeth?) and stirring doesn’t commingle the ingredients as well as they deserve. Do as you like, but if you use a shaker, deploy a Hawthorn strainer when straining so the pulp doesn't clog your shaker.

I don't generally garnish my drinks, but feel free to use a pluot slice, a mint sprig, ramen noodles, or whatever it is the kids are using these days.

PluTonic Cocktail

½ pluot
2 oz gin (Bluecoat)
½ tsp grapefruit bitters*
Tonic (Fever Tree)

Muddle the pluot half in a shaker. Add bitters and gin. Shake with ice. Strain into a highball glass over fresh ice. Top with tonic and give it a swirl.

*A half teaspoon might seem like a staggering overdose of bitters, but Chuck Taggart's recipe (which I modify only slightly) is not as bracing as, say, Angostura, so a heftier dose is not as startling as it might seem at first blush. You might try Fee Brothers grapefruit bitters in their stead, but since I don't have a bottle on hand, I didn't use 'em.

.

Drinking in the Earthquake

…If there should happen to be an earthquake on when you are drinking it, it won't matter. This is a cocktail whose potency is not to be taken too lightly, or, for that matter, too frequently!

Harry Craddock
The Savoy Cocktail Book

Yeah, we had an earthquake today. Big whoop. After digging ourselves out of the rubble listening to the wine glasses clink a little, what could be a more appropriate than an Earthquake cocktail? This is, admittedly, an obscure cocktail, heavy on the asbinthe, and not tuned to everyone’s tastes. Dr. Morpheus, for instance, does not like absinthe, and would be tempted to spit this one out on the ground.

But are you still with me? Good.

I do like the green stuff, and was considering how I’d best like to use a bottle of Mata Hari, an Austrian absinthe I’d been given recently. Mata Hari doesn’t quite louche fully the way I’d expect, so I wasn’t planning on the classic absinthe drip (which is nothing more than sugar, cold water, and a small does of absinthe, prepared just so). For those who don’t count down every day to the green hour, the louche is what happens when iced water is added in small increments to genuine absinthes. The liquid goes from a clear translucent spirit to an opaque, cloudy, milky opalescence. It’s quite beautiful if you’re into that sort of thing.

If you ain’t into beauty, Mata Hari's 120 proof will backhand you off the porch. Something for everyone.

Back in the 19th and the first few years of the 20th century, a drinker could find absinthe in all sorts of cocktails. This one comes from Harry Craddock’s classic cocktail manual, The Savoy Cocktail Book. Craddock doesn’t specify liquors, so I dropped in those brands I was using.

I’m halfway through my first one. Morpheus is headed home from surfing, so I need to finish it and work on something a little less wollop-packing. Let’s hope I’m not passed out in an interior doorway when he gets here.

The Earthquake (an absinthe cocktail)

1 oz. gin (Bombay Sapphire)
1 oz. whiskey (Old Overholt rye)
1 oz. absinthe (Mata Hari)

Fill a shaker with 4-5 ice cubes. Add spirits. Stir until opaque and chilled (about 20-30 seconds). Strain into a cocktail glass.

Goes well with:

• I implore you not to make the Mata Hari Red Bull from Mata Hari's site, but do check out their recipe suggestions. As a cocktail component, this is not a bad spirit.
• Washington DC's premier seafood restaurant, Johnny's Half Shell, has been serving proper absinthe for the past few months. What a way to round out a meal. Oysters, crabcake, etouffee, and a dose of history. Way to go, chef.
  

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Satan's Bloody Whiskers

I've an educated taste in whisky and women,
waistcoats, and bills of fare.
Though I've had few chances to exercise it lately.
'Cause them that govern
spend all their time making up new laws
to stop men like you and me getting any.

~ Peachy Carnehan

Michael Caine made an indelible impression on me when I was a kid—not as just any character, but as ex-Army scalawag P.T. "Peachy" Carnehan in John Huston’s 1975 film The Man Who Would Be King. In their doomed scheme to become kings of remote Kafiristan during the time of the British Raj, Peachy and his compatriot Danny Dravot come across what they think are “blokes, twice as big as us” in the snow. He blurts out to Sean Connery’s Dravot “God’s holy trousers!” The phrase stuck and rattled around in my mind for decades.



It came back to me tonight. For the past few days, I’ve been hankering for a Satan’s Whiskers cocktail. The classic old gin drink has enjoyed an all-too limited renaissance lately among liquor geeks like me, in no small part to Dr. Cocktail’s take on it. It actually comes in two versions—straight and curled. No worries if you’ve never heard of it or its variants. The only difference between them is that straight calls for orange curaçao and curled calls for Grand Marnier (think of them as tricked out gins & juice).

There’s orange all over this thing; plain ol’ juice, plus orange liqueur and orange bitters. Squeeze the juice yourself and you also get orange oil expressed from the peel for a four-knuckled citrus whammy. Now, I like both versions, and fresh orange juice really does make a difference, so try it curled or straight; unless gin just skeeves you, you’re bound to like one of ‘em. But it’s the height of blood orange season in San Diego and, as I looked at a bowl of blushing little Moros on the counter, I could almost hear Peachy Carnehan’s staccato voice exclaiming “Satan’s Bloody Whiskers!”

Swapping out blood for navel or Valencia oranges gives the finished shaken cocktail a devilish crimson hue, but the ephemeral berry taste of blood orange juice comes on stronger as the drink slowly loses its chill. Moros are the variety you want, not just for their taste, but because they are often much smaller than navels and fit in a citrus squeezer nicely. Make these with regular orange juice and you've got a plain ol' Satan's Whiskers. Give it a shot either way.


Satan’s Bloody Whiskers (straight)

1 oz blood orange juice
1 oz gin
1 oz sweet vermouth
1 oz dry vermouth
4 tsp (20ml) Cointreau (just under ½ oz)*
1-2 tsp (5-10ml) orange bitters**

Shake over ice , strain into a large cocktail glass.

* for the curled version, substitute Grand Marnier.

** The Savoy Cocktail Book calls for mere dashes of bitters while Dr. Cocktail calls for a healthier dose. You could lay off the bitters some, but don't leave them out entirely. The most readily available in the US are Fee Brothers and Regan's. LeNell's keeps a great selection and may be able to hook you up with even more brands.


Goes well with

• The Man Who Would Be King
• The Savoy Cocktail Book

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