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.

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 Woodcuts of Loren Kantor

When I first started carving woodcuts, 

every portrait 

oddly seemed to resemble 

Steve Buscemi.

~ Loren Kantor

Unlike sculpture, it's easy to pack a lot of works on paper — prints, posters, drawings, and like that — into very little space. And so I do. Of all these flat bits of art, I've been mesmerized by woodcuts since I was old enough to turn pages. Old anatomy diagrams, Albrecht Dürer's famous rhinoceros, early 20th century German prints, the Malleus Maleficarum (I was a precocious reader), Hatch Show Prints, and more. Even as a kid, before my parents deemed it wise to allow me access to woodcarving tools,  I learned to make simple prints with crudely carved potatoes and finger paint; flowers, animals, movie monsters, Latin and Cyrillic letters — whatever struck my meandering and occasionally morbid imagination. Alas, as I grew older, I turned to bending copper rather than carving wood.

But I never lost my fondess for those woodcuts. Lately, I've been taken with Loren Kantor's contemporary examples. Kantor lives in Los Angeles and the influence of cinema both old and new shows clearly in his work. His Absinthe is inspired by a 1913 silent film of the same name, an early bit of temperance propaganda.

Food, drink, and mania show up elsewhere in his prints; there's the ruined mug of Charles Bukowski, a bespectacled Colonel Harlan Sanders, the panic-struck face of Peter Lorre from Fritz Lang's 1931 classic M, and Gary Busey who, wild eyes notwithstanding, gets a sympathetic presentation.

Kantor presents these and more on his blog, Woodcuttingfool. Most seem to be about 5" x 7" — a good size for a desk or that blank spot on your office wall. Me? I'm trying to decide between Absinthe, Colonel Sanders, or the Richard Nixon print which uses an actual slogan from his 1972 reelection bid: “You Can't Lick Our Dick.”

Ahem.

Of course, if Halloween is as big a deal around your house as it is in ours, the Boris Karloff print may be just the thing for you.

Email him for pricing and shipping. Absinthe, for instance, is $35 and will ship for $3 in the United States. Loren Kantor: lorenwoodcuts (at) gmail (dot) com

Goes well with:

• Mikey Wild (1955-2011), a nod to Philadelphia institution Michael "Mikey Wild" DeLuca whose art, while very different, I hold onto with great affection. 

Remember the Maine? Hell, I Barely Remember the Walk Home.

Treat this one with the respect it deserves, gentlemen.

~ Charles H. Baker, Jr.

Charles H. Baker, Jr. — bear with me, drinks people; I know you know this, but others may not — is a towering figure in cocktail literature. His 1946 two-volume The Gentleman’s Companion was one of the first serious cocktail books I bought almost twenty years ago. Because bars sometimes base cocktail programs on his recipes more than half a century after publication, a passing familiarity with them helps tipplers navigate options at bars that trade in old-school drinks.

This weekend in Portland, I was pleased to recognize Remember the Maine, one of his classics, featured at Teardrop Lounge. It's not unlike a Manhattan, but with an absinthe kick, you wouldn't mistake one for the other. The drink's name refers a popular slogan that decried the sinking of the battleship USS Maine in Havana's harbor, thus sparking the 1898 Spanish-American War. Baker invokes the slogan in his typically florid and heavily-capitalized prose: 

REMEMBER the MAINE, a HAZY MEMORY of a NIGHT in HAVANA during the UNPLEASANTNESSES of 1933, when EACH SWALLOW WAS PUNCTUATED with BOMBS GOING OFF on the PRADO, or the SOUND of 3" SHELLS BEING FIRED at the HOTEL NACIONAL, then HAVEN for CERTAIN ANTI-REVOLUTIONARY OFFICERS

His original recipes reads: Take a tall bar glass and toss in three lumps of ice. Onto this foundation donate the following in order given: one jigger good rye whiskey, ½ jigger Italian vermouth, one to 2 teaspoons of cherry brandy, ½ tsp absinthe or Pernod Veritas. Stir briskly in clock-wise fashion -- this makes it sea-going, presumably! —turn into a big chilled saucer champagne glass, twisting a curl of green lime or lemon peel over the top.

That "cherry brandy" has caused some confusion — or at least room for interpretation — among bartenders since both Cherry Heering (a dark, sweet, cherry-infused brandy) and Kirsch or Kirschwasser (a clear distillate of cherries, nearly double the proof of Heering) may be used. I find the lower-proof Heering rounds out the drink nicely, but feel free to experiment. The drink doesn't call for much absinthe, but tread lightly if you're unsure whether you enjoy the taste; its presence is not a subtle one.

Remember the Maine (modern adaptation)

2 oz rye
.75 oz sweet vermouth
2 bar-spoons Cherry Heering
½ bar-spoon absinthe

Stir briskly with a bar spoon in a mixing glass with ice. Strain into another glass and serve up.

Goes well with: A stop at Teardrop if you're in Portland. In fact, it's one of the reasons to visit.

Teardrop Lounge
1015 Northwest Everett Street
Portland, OR 97209-3117
(503) 445-8109
http://teardroplounge.com

My Very Own Death in the Afternoon

I said goddamn!

~ Mia Wallace

The lighthearted 1935 cocktail book So Red the Nose (or, Breath in the Afternoon) featured cocktail recipes contributed by well-known authors of the day. Ernest Hemingway, no slouch in the drinks department, came up with one of his own: Death in the Afternoon.

Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.

I know now why the drink is called Death in the Afternoon. It's not just an homage to Hemingway's 1932 book of the same name about bullfighting. It's the effect (on me, anyway) of launching into Sunday brunch with champagne and absinthe. Truth be told, there was whiskey and gin involved as well, but I lay blame for my deathlike afternoon  nap squarely on the milky green greenness of Moet & Chandon and Philadelphia Distilling's Vieux Carré Absinthe Supérieure.

Mardi Gras truck bed drunkard (not Rowley)

National Absinthe Day: The Start to Finish Cocktail

March 5th, for those who mark such things, is National Absinthe Day. This is not, you understand, an official American holiday so much as an informal recognition of the four years that proper absinthe has been once again legally available in the United States.

As the Wormwood Society puts it,

No regulations have changed. Prior to May 2007 it was not widely known that the tolerance for official method of thujone analysis—10ppm—is such that it effectively legalizes many European absinthes. This was a major breakthrough. It also means that a number of pre-ban era absinthes would be legal in the US by modern standards, including the definitive premium absinthe brand, Pernod Fils.

Official holiday or not, the fact that Americans can now legally buy a range of imported and domestic absinthes does seem reason to raise a toast to that green fairy. And because I’m headed to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, I’ll let a New Orleans bartender give a recipe for a mixed drink. Rhiannon Enlil from the Uptown cocktail bar Cure created a cocktail that’s a really nice play between bitter and sweet across the palate, truly a taste for adults.

The Start and Finish

1.5 oz Averna
.5 oz Lillet Blanc
.5 oz dry vermouth
.5 oz Pernod absinthe
1 dash orange bitters

Stir ingredients over ice, strain into a chilled rocks glass, and garnish with a lemon twist.

If you’re in New Orleans, do try to stop by Cure. I don’t make it Uptown absolutely every single trip, but when I do, I drop by this former fire station for some great cocktails and late-night bites.

Goes well with:

• A visit to Cure at 4905 Freret Street in New Orleans. Give 'em a call (504) 302-2357 or check out the website.
• Another visit — to the Wormwood Society’s FAQ about absinthe. You’ll hear a lot of hooey and misinformation about absinthe, but these guys are some of the most trusted voices out there. You can read what users have to say about Pernod and many more brands, extinct and extant. 
• Bookshelf: A Taste for Absinthe, a rundown of R. Winston Guthrie and James F. Thompson's 2010 book on the spirit and cocktail recipes that call for it.

Bookshelf: A Taste for Absinthe

In the mid-1990’s, resources for drinkers were nothing like what’s available today. Unless you were a collector of out of print booze tomes and bartenders’ guides, Mr. Boston’s little red book was about as good as it got. If your tastes leaned to the esoteric — moonshine, say, or absinthe — you were especially hard-pressed for reliable information in the United States. At least good moonshine could be found. Recipes for making ersatz absinthe, on the other hand, yielded universally wretched results.

I know. I tried as much of both as I could get my hands on. Most of the moonshine I kept. Most of the absinthe I gave away.

Now that absinthe is once more readily available in the US, it’s been showing up for the last several years in homes and bars that value in well-crafted cocktails. Some serve venerable cocktails, culled from the pages of pre-Prohibition bartenders’ guides. Others also pour more recent creations. R. Winston Guthrie and James F. Thompson’s A Taste for Absinthe examines them both and starts to answer the unasked questions: what the hell is this stuff and what do I do with it?

Guthrie is an absinthe expert and founder of Asbinthe Buyers Guide (see below). The book holds little new information for absinthe aficionados, but for curious novices it's accurate and truthful. Don't dismiss the value of that. With absinthe largely unavailable to them for most of the 20th century, Americans lost what little we knew about the stuff. As remaining stocks dwindled, myth and misinformation took hold. It was, rumor said, a poison. It caused hallucinations and madness.

The truth is far more mundane. Levels of thujone, the chemical said to drive men over the brink of sanity, were claimed by prohibitionists to have been outrageously high in pre-Prohibition absinthes. Modern forensic analyses of unopened bottles show that they weren’t. Whether or not thujone broke minds, it wouldn’t so do in the concentrations found in either classic or modern absinthes. The authors write:

In extremely high doses, thujone is dangerous, but the concentration of thujone actually found in the beverage absinthe is nothing to worry about. You would need to drink seven liters [!] of the undiluted spirit to have any adverse effect directly from thujone. The alcohol, and even the water [if you diluted it] would kill you before!

After dispensing with history, defining characteristics, tools and accoutrements, A Taste for Absinthe dives into 65 recipes of old and new drinks featuring the green fairy. The book wraps up with a buying guide — somewhat dated, but still a good place to start — for brands widely available to American shoppers.

Its recipes come from professional bartenders such as Jason Littrell, Neyah White, Daniel Hyatt, Eric Alperin, and Jeff Hollinger. You’ll find suggestions of mixing absinthes with mezcal, Lillet, fruit juices, egg whites, rum, honey, bison grass vodka, vermouth, rye whiskey, genever, gin, apricot brandy, bitter orange marmalade, and even sweetened condensed milk. Ok, I erpped a little at the last one, but, honestly, if Jason Lograsso mixed a Strutters’ Ball and put it in front of me, I’d give it a go.

Meanwhile, I’m mixing just enough absinthe with some of the newish 45 proof Crown Royal Black into a whisky cocktail the authors dub North of the Border.

North of the Border
.5 oz simple syrup (1:1)
.5 oz fresh lemon juice
.5 oz fresh orange juice
.5 oz absinthe
2 oz Crown Royal Black
Angostura bitters

Pour the simple syrup, lemon juice, orange juice, absinthe, and whisky into a cocktail shaker. Shake well, and pour the drink into a Collins glass filled with crushed ice. Add two dashes of bitters, and serve.

R. Winston Guthrie with James F. Thompson (2010)
Photos by Liza Gershman, foreward by Dale DeGroff
A Taste for Absinthe: 65 Recipes for Classic and Contemporary Cocktails
176 pages, hardback
Clarkson Potter Publishers
ISBN: 0307587533
$24.99

Goes well with:

• Absinthe Buyers Guide, Guthrie’s website with history, articles, and reviews of absinthes both for the US and international markets. 
• Amazon sells A Taste for Absinthe here

Ungarnished: Beachcomber’s Gold

I often dispense with garnish in food and drinks. In the case of a little parsley sprig on my steak, it's a matter of no significance whether it's there or not. In drinks circles, especially among the tiki crowd, some regard omitting garnish as heretical. For them, the garnish is itself part of the point of the drink. Those tropical drinks in particular can take on such decorative excess that they bring to mind birds of paradise, a Wal*Mart dressing room disaster, or Carmen Miranda's botanical headgear.

Beachcomber’s Gold with ice shell

Sometimes garnish — say, freshly spanked leaves in a mint julep — does make a real difference to the drink. When you bury your nose into a bunch of mint leaves, the aroma of mint is unmistakable. And pleasant, as long as you like mint. But so often, chunks of fruit are merely dropped in the glass with no thought of what they're supposed to do. Pineapple and maraschino cherry on a toothpick? Gives you something to munch on, but doesn't have much impact on the drink itself. Likewise, the unsqueezed lime wedges slipped into undistinguished rum-and-Cokes don't contribute to the taste of the drink. Squeezed, though, to get that lime juice and all-important lime oils in the glass, and now you've got a nice Cuba Libre. I don't drink rum-and-Coke, but I do like a Cuba Libre now and then.

To my mind, garnishes look pretty but ingredients actually contribute to the taste and smell of a drink. Consequently, visitors find very little garnish around at the Whiskey Forge; no Thai orchids, no spears of pretty but practically odorless pineapple leaves, no little fez-wearing plastic monkeys capering on the edge of their glasses.

Beachcomber's Gold sans ice shell

So when I saw the recipes for Beachcomber’s Gold in the Tiki+ app calling for re-frozen crushed ice formed into a sort of shell-like overhang, I knew I wouldn't be doing that. I'm not saying I'd never make one — just not for the first time I'm taking a new drink out for a spin. The Beachcomber’s Gold can be made a few different ways depending on which recipe you follow, but the one below is my favorite. The bitter Pernod and unmistakable almond extract with a trio of rums make it a complex mix of homey and exotic tastes. Now that we've made it once and I know it's worth adding to the Whiskey Forge drinks opus, I'll give it a shot with the ice shell.

The original 1937 Don The Beachcomber recipe from Jeff Berry's Tiki+ app follows. To make it my way, eliminate the pre-formed shell and blend it a bit longer.

Beachcomber’s Gold

1 oz gold Puerto Rican rum
¼ oz gold Jamaican rum
¼ oz dark Jamaican rum
½ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz sugar syrup
6 drops Pernod
4 drops almond extract
2 oz (¼ cup) crushed ice

Put everything in a blender. Blend at high speed for no more than 5 seconds. Strain through a fine-mesh wire sieve into a saucer champagne glass lined with an “ice shell” forming a hood over the glass. Serve with short straws.

ICE SHELL: Place a generous amount of finely shaved ice in the center of a chilled glass. With the back of a spoon, slowly press the ice up the sides of the glass, forming a hood that projects over the glass. Freeze glass overnight.

Did I type out that recipe? I did not: I emailed it to myself directly from the iPhone application. Nice feature. The illustration is a screen grab from the app that I cropped on the phone with Photoshop. And for the record, I actually love little fez-wearing monkeys. Just not so much in my whiskey.

Goes well with:
I talk smack about garnish, it's true, but that doesn't mean I hate it and turn my nose up at drinks that have...decorative touches. Some blogs where the writers aren't afraid to spend a little time purdying up their dranks that are definitely worth checking out:

• A Mountain of Crushed Ice
• Kaiser Penguin
• Sloshed!
• RumDood

See if any of them will do that monkey thing for you.

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.

.

Monday Roundup: Moonshine, Grappa, Absinthe, and Scotch

The production of grappa is part of northern Italy's social and cultural tradition and is carried out in the Alpine regions by hundreds of families, as it always has been.

~ Senator Sergio Davina
arguing for legal home distillation of grappa

I've been offline for a few days, but the world of booze just keeps rolling on. Some of the highlights from the last week include—

• Writing in Esquire, David Wondrich demonstrates the correct way to serve absinthe (note there are no flaming sugar cubes which translate into ruined absinthe spoons and little globs of caramelized sugar arc-welded to the sides of your glass). He also includes thumbnail reviews of the brands he considers The Five Best Bottles of Absinthe.

• Let's hear it for Italian moonshine; Italian senators Enrico Montani and Sergio Divina have proposed in a recently submitted bill that Italians be allowed to make up to 30 liters of grappa for home consumption. Home distilling is legal or tolerated in so many parts of Europe, why not in places where it's been practiced for hundreds of years? Predictably, the grappa trade is none too pleased with the proposal.
  

• Our friend and all-around great guy Ian Smiley is in the news. Ian has been working with Michigan enterprise LS Moonshine to develop a distillery in China for producing unaged corn whiskey. Seems the Chinese have a taste for young corn liquor. I do remember a tale of a family member drinking shots of corn liquor with a Chinese general and breaking protocol by not allowing the general to win that little competition. Maybe Ian can help me steer my way through Chinese drinking protocol...
  

• Speaking of China, seems there's a (gasp) serious problem with counterfeit goods the producers of genuine articles are trying to combat. Diageo has rolled out an anti-counterfeiting measure with their Johnny Walker scotch. In some markets (e.g., India) about half the scotch is counterfeit and, from what some distillers have told me, the figure is much higher in Pakistan where the scotch is not only fake, but very expensive. Like, someone-is-going-to-hell-for-this-scam-expensive. Diageo's solution? Make a bottle that can't be resealed to look new once it's been opened. According to Australian Food News,

Caps on Johnnie Walker bottles will now not return to their original position after opening and a permanent gold band appears at the top of the neck of the bottle upon opening - effectively eliminating the prospect of a disguised refill.

And for today, that's all the news that's fit to drink.


.

Clam Squeezin's, Absinthe, and the Bloody Fairy Cocktail

Kevin Kelpe over at Save the Drinkers has thrown down the latest challenge to drinks bloggers who participate in Paul Clark's (more or less) monthly cocktail throw-down, Mixology Monday. Today’s MxMo has a theme I can snuggle right up to: local flavor.

And, unlike recipes in a lot of my cocktail posts, you can use moonshine or home-distilled neutral spirits easily in this one. Come on, it's MxMo XXX. With those triple-x's in the very name, how could I not post a cocktail recipe fit for home distillers?

Kevin explains today’s theme:

Option 1: Gather ingredients that are representative of the culture/geography/tackiness of your respective cities and make a drink with a truly place-based style. For example, huckleberries are native to the geographical area where I live, as are elderflowers, potatoes, and extremely conservative, closet-case politicians. (I’m just saying!)

Option 2: Dig up an old drink that came from your city and revive it! If you can find the original bar, that would be even more interesting.

Since sun-splashed San Diego is home these days, and there is so much cross-border traffic and influence upon and from Baja California just 15 minutes away, I decided to go local with a drink that’s not indigenous, but has adapted to the local climate: the Bloody Mary.

Obviously, the Bloody Mary didn’t originate here. For that, we’d need to turn to 1920's Paris when Russian émigrés were downing prodigious amounts of vodka, then an obscure Eastern spirit rather than the ubiquitous global powerhouse that it is now.

But just try to go to a Sunday brunch or a daytime pool party in Southern California where the host doesn’t serve the tomato-based cocktail. Nothing’s stopping you from having one as a nightcap or even dinner, but in general, it’s not a late-night drink. Instead, it’s meant to be consumed as a palliative, a hair of the dog, or just a way to greet an undemanding day.

Morpheus and I tested a lot of Bloody Mary variants using blind tastings, commercial mixes, built-from-scratch versions, various salt, lime, and chile rims, and assorted accompaniments. In the end, we settled on a fairly standard recipe, with two nods to San Diego’s heavy Mexican influence—and an inspired twist.

The Mexican elements are Cholula hot sauce (which is made from pequin and arbol chiles and doesn't quite have Tabasco's vinegar bite), and Clamato, a proprietary blend of tomato juice and clam broth that seemed called for since tomato-and-seafood cocktails are popular in these parts. If you detest clam broth, use plain tomato juice instead, but consider: In blind taste tests professed Clamato-haters preferred Clamato variants hands-down.

The twist? Absinthe. While we were picking apart our favorite Bloody Mary version, my eye fell on a dasher of absinthe I use for adding very small amounts to cocktails. Also once popular in Paris, but before the vodka years, the high-proof spirit was known as la fee verte (the green fairy). In it went. It’s something you can leave out, of course. I wouldn’t, for instance, go out and buy a whole bottle just for this. But if you happen to have some around, just a few drops transforms a very tasty Bloody Mary into a more complex, suave, and seductive drink: The Bloody Fairy.

Unlike its stature in the history of cities such as New Orleans or San Francisco, absinthe has no claim on the soul of San Diego. But if by “local” Kevin also means as local as my patio, it’s very characteristic of this place.

Be warned, though: too much absinthe ruins this drink and, in this instance, too much can be the matter of a single drop. Titrate to find the perfect balance for your taste by adding a drop, tasting, and adding another drop if the drink will bear it. You could do as I did and repeat until you destroy the drink. But after repeated tastings, I’ve found that five drops is the absolute threshold: more than that makes this cocktail too bitter in an unbalanced, kinda nasty way.

Bloody Fairy

1.5 oz vodka (or your best 40% abv neutral home-distilled spirit)
4 oz Clamato
¼ oz fresh lemon juice
4 dashes salsa inglesa (Worcestershire sauce)
2 dashes Cholula hot sauce (Tabasco or Crystal works, too)
Dash of salt
4-5 heavy grindings of black peppercorns (around ¼ tsp)
3-5 drops of absinthe (or Herbsaint)

Combine in a 12-oz glass, add ice, and stir to mix. Garnish with a celery stick and/or a few slices of pickled jicama.

.

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.
  

.