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.

Winners of The Drunken Botanist (with Five Recipes)

“Do you know of this?” my friend EJ emailed. 

“I just stumbled upon it and think I am going to pick one up.” 

The link in his note was for Amy Stewart’s new book 

The Drunken Botanist. 

Within seconds I typed back: 

“Buy it immediately.”

Last week, I heaped a bunch of plaudits on Amy Stewart's new book The Drunken Botanist. Her publisher, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, offered to send five copies of the cook to readers of the Whiskey Forge. Rather than simply send a copy to random commenters like those who flock to any and all online giveaways, I put a twist on the rules and stipulated that those who wanted to throw their hats in the ring must also provide recipe in the comments to qualify. To keep it, in other words, among us booze geeks. I want to read about, I wrote,

...your favorite alcoholic drink that relies on plants to give it some distinguishing character — a cocktail, a homemade cordial or bitters recipe, your grandmother's amaro or your college roommate's homemade absinthe. Whatever. But it's got to have booze, beer, or wine (nothing against tea, but tea hardly makes botanists drunk) and it's got to demonstrate some distinctive plant characteristic. What that means is up to you: I want to see what you've got.

The results are in. Thank you everyone who sent in recipes — I'm working all weekend, but my mind keeps coming back to the new drinks I want to make. Five comments (selected using The Randomizer) came up winners. Those five should email me (moonshinearchives at gmail dot com) with mailing addresses ASAP.

First up is Sam K with his recipe for the Pennsylvanian/Lithuanian specialty, Boilo:

Always served warm, it is a soothing companion on a cold winter's night.

4 oranges, peeled
2 lemons, peeled
1 cup honey
4 cups water
1 cup raisins
1/2 tsp cloves
1 Tbsp caraway seed
1 Tbsp anise seed
4 cinnamon sticks
2 750 ml bottles decent blended American whiskey (Four Queens if you can find it)

Take all ingredients except whiskey and bring to a slow simmer for about a half hour. I prefer to peel the citrus to avoid leaching the more bitter oils into the potion. Allow to cool slightly and strain. Add the blended whiskey just before serving.

This will keep for some time. The blended whiskey is the main traditional ingredient here, really, and though I've read that the cheaper it is, the better, that's crap. There really is a substantial difference between, say, Fleischmann's and Four Queens (which has a slightly higher percentage of actual whiskey and is bottled at 100 proof). I know...I've ruined en entire batch by using Fleischmann's.

I suppose you could do even better by using three parts vodka and one part bourbon, but the miners always called for blended, and who am I to argue with tradition? That, plus they'd kick my ass! Second, Nick in Chapel Hill gives his take on a jalapeno honey-spiced Brown Derby:

1.5 oz rye (Knob Creek rye)
1.5 oz of fresh grapefruit juice
.5 oz jalapeno honey (To make: combine 14 oz local NC honey with fresh sliced jalapenos (2) - lightly sauté to release oils. Combine seed and fruit into honey in mason jar; let sit for 5 days prior to use)
.25 oz simple syrup
Splash soda water (or more, depending on tolerance for spice!)

Add rye and honey. Stir to loosen. Add grapefruit. Shake. Serve with crushed ice in rocks glass OR in chilled champagne coupe. 

From the cane fields of south Louisiana, John Couchot contributes his Rum Rickey Gone Local. the flavors of US sugarcane, he writes, "truly shine in this combination."

1 shot Rhum Agricole
1/2 shot of Louisiana made small batch cane syrup
fresh squeezed lime juice
splash of soda
garnish with a lime twist

Sylvan presents a slight twist on Sam Ross' new classic, the Penicillin Cocktail. This is my variation on Sam Ross' wonderful 'cold Scotch toddy'. "I never have 'ginger-honey syrup,'" he writes, "so I usually make honey syrup to order (no need to let it cool) and muddle fresh ginger."

Fresh ginger
2 ounces blended scotch (typ. Famous Grouse or Ballantine)
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
3/4 ounce honey syrup (1:1 honey/water)
1/4 ounce smoky Scotch (such as Laphroaig)

Slice a few (to taste) 1/8" slices of ginger and muddle in a mixing glass. Add blended Scotch, lemon juice and syrup, fill with ice and shake well. Strain into an ice-filled rocks glass or a chilled cocktail glass and float Islay scotch on top.

Finally, Lucas chimes in from snowy Toronto with his Garden Caesar (that's a Bloody Mary with a dose of oyster liquor or clam juice to us Yanks). He eyeballs the proportions.

Homemade vodka infused with Persimmon Tomatoes (using ISI Whipper)
Tomato juice (boughten is fine)
Oyster liquor
dash or two celery bitters
Fresh grated horseradish from the garden.
a couple of drops of homemade chili oil.
Rim the glass with lime and serve with a plate of oysters.

Setting aside the ambiguity of whether the vodka itself is homemade or just the final infused product is, I like the way you think, Lucas. Not just that ambiguity and the plate of oysters, but the nitrous-charged tomato vodka. This is a technique that didn't start getting traction until the last year or so, although it's been known for several years. Lucas uses the technique laid out in the Cooking Issues blog, but explains further:

I do a rough dice with the tomato, making sure to add the juice to the whipper as well. Seal it up, pressurize with two cartridges, wait a minute, depressurize and strain. I like the persimmon tomatoes because they have tons of flavour and live about ten steps away from the bar.

Cheers! Remember, you five, to email me with a shipping address for your copy of The Drunken Botanist and I'll pass it on to the publisher.

For the rest of you, a lot more recipes (worthy entries, one and all) are here in the comments section. Although the giveaway is closed, feel free to chime in with your own, even if they involve frozen squid swizzle sticks (ahem, Greg).

Mexican Pickled Carrots (o: zanahorias en escabeche)

The radishes that appear on the table at chips-and-salsa type Mexican restaurants appeal to some, but the more common pickled jalapenos and carrots are my own weakness. Give me that, a continuing supply of cold beers, and no particular place to be and I don't care how long it takes for lunch to come.

My regular eating buddies have dainty and tepid appreciations for chiles, so the bowl invariably is left to me alone — and it always gets emptied, leaving just a little pool of oregano-flecked juice at the bottom. Sometimes the chiles are shockingly hot; other times, they're duds, no hotter than a garden-variety bell pepper. Part of the fun is finding out which kind I just popped in my mouth. Whether you know them as pickled carrots, Mexican carrots, zanahorias en escabeche, or (upping the chile quotient) chiles encurditos, know this: they're simple to make and they go fast.

For the vinegar, you can use the plain white stuff or a mix of half white and half rice vinegar, Filipino cane vinegar, or homemade pineapple vinegar.

Mexican Pickled Carrots

24 oz/750ml water
24 oz/750ml vinegar (see above)
1/3 cup/80ml canola or corn oil
5 bay leaves
1 Tbl oregano
1 tsp crushed black pepper
1 head of garlic, halved across the equator
2 lbs/1kilo carrots, sliced diagonal
4-5 jalapeno chiles, sliced diagonally
1 small red onion, peeled and sliced thinly

Bring the carrots and enough water to cover them by a finger width or two to a boil in a large pot. Cook at a low boil for 5-8 minutes, until tender but still with a bite. Cooked them too long? They're mush now? Feed them to the dog and start over.

Drain the carrots and give the pot a quick rinse. Mix the remaining ingredients except chiles and onion slices in the pot and bring to a boil. Add the drained carrots, the onion slices, and the uncooked chiles. Return to a boil, then take the pot off off the heat, cover, and let it rest overnight.

Pack into clean jars and store in the fridge.

Makes about 1.25 liters/5 cups.

Goes well with:

• Pork tenderloin in peanut sauce. It comes as a surprise to some Americans and Europeans that not all Mexican food is hot (though it was with glee that I saw a Frenchman clamp his hand to his mouth in shock and pain after sampling what I considered a mild table salsa). The recipe in the link above for filete de cerdo en cacahuate is one I adapted from Larousse de la cocina Mexicana.
• I make watermelon pickles with lemon and ginger. You should, too.
• Small batch half-sour pickles, a quick and simple recipe for making New York-style pickles when you don't feel up to cranking out a whole barrel of them or traveling to the city to enjoy them in situ.