Mustard Slap

When I taste a new cocktail, liquor, or wine, there are always a bunch of different things that go through my mind.  I've never bought into the whole arrogant, dismissive vibe that a lot of oenophiles and cocktail enthusiasts and douches seem to like - that anything you are imbibing for the first time must inherently be worse than what you've already encountered.  Instead, the three things that often go through my mind as a checklist of the quality of the potable are:

1. If I got really really drunk on this shit, and this alone, what would it be like?  Do I need to have an especially large/heavy/small/carnivorous meal before I imbibe it in order to appreciate it the most?
2. How big is the quality gap between the Nicolai and the Grey Goose, the Pépe and the Patrón, for this particular spirit?  I bought a bottle (or two) of "Hawkeye" bourbon in Iowa earlier this year - it's 80% grain neutral and 20% 36 month-old whiskey.  I sit it right next to my W.L. Weller to keep me honest in my taste assessment.
3. What would this mix well with?  What would it utterly fail with? When can I try it out?

Patrón

Pépe

With that in mind, I ask you to consider this new addition to my cocktail repertoire, the Mustard Slap.

Born out of a desire to have a powerful cocktail taste like a powerful cocktail without any alcohol taste at the end, I chose the ever-effervescent absinthe to mix with a "perfect" vermouth combo.  It has an abrasive opening taste, but fades quickly from the mouth, leaving you wondering if you got the taste quite right.


Mustard Slap
1 1/2 oz Bourbon
1 1/2 oz Vodka
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
3/4 oz Absinthe
Juice of half a Lemon (1 oz)

Shake and strain into a rocks glass.  Garnish with a lemon rind lightly coated in spicy brown mustard.  Alternately if you don't have a fresh lemon, just drop a tiny ball of mustard into the glass - be aware it's ugly, and don't drink it at the end :-)

Summertime Drinks

Sometime each spring there comes a day where everything idyllic about nature jumps into action.  The 65º heat combines with the returning sun to make for an afternoon that seems to stretch on until the wee hours. 

I have never been good at making drinks for that moment and the moments like it all summer long.  Maybe it's my love for bourbon, and maybe it's my background in White Russians, who knows.  I can't use the bourbon excuse because of the fabled mint julep, so I guess I'll have to go with the milk defense.  Sometime late this spring, just before I went away for the summer on various adventures, I decided that I wouldn't let fall arrive until I'd become at least passable at making frozen cocktails. 

This post isn't about my Daquiris - though they've gotten pretty good, they're still too simple for me to claim they're ready for some choice recipes.  This is about goal setting.  In order to be successful, you have to set goals, and then attempt to reach them.  Set big goals, small goals, and stupid goals.  In this case, I refer not to the self-help shtick, but to bar-tending and cocktail officianadoing. 

While my frozen cocktails are a long way from my top mixing skill, I can now put together a successful margarita, daiquiri, and frozen cooler using pretty much any spirit/fruit base.  It won't be the most inventive or nameable concoction, but it will be cold, delicious, and alcoholic.

My advice to you: go buy that bottle of whatever you've had in the back of your mind for years to try making, do some recipe trolling on google, and try a few recipes.  It's easier than you think.  Plus, if you spring $2-3 for some fresh citrus, it'll taste good almost no matter what you make :-)

From the Lab

At a party, most people see a bunch of liquor bottles and immediately clam up.  They resort quickly to shorthand recipes that taste mediocre no matter the quality of the ingredients.  Rum and Coke, Jack and Coke, Gin and Juice, Screwdriver, you get the idea.  None of these drinks will ever win a cocktail competition, but they will rule a party. 

Last weekend - before I sang a raucous ballad to the porcelain goddess - I was happy to observe this phenomenon in action.  With a beautiful menu, and a quite good spread of liquors at the party, I watched people prepare exclusively comfort cocktails that they knew.  I think most people would be much happier behind the bar if they just relaxed and realized that they can never make a drink as bad as the bankers drinks they had freshman year of college.  If people realized that - they might be a little less risk adverse when faced with the difficult task of constructing a cocktail given an unfamiliar liquor spread. 

With that in mind, here is a drink I just came up with a few minutes ago.  It stinks.

Curdled Juice:
Muddled Mango Pieces That Need to be Eaten Before They Go Bad
3 oz English Dry Gin
1 Dash Fee Brothers Orange Bitters
1/2 Tsp Raw Agave Syrup
1 1/2 oz Dubonnet Blanc

Shake and strain into small snifter.

Yuck.  The muddled mango and bitters gives it the complexion of curdled orange juice, while the dry gin and dubonnet are sour together without any positive interactions.  While I surmise the drink might have been less bad with a half ounce or so of fresh lemon juice,  I think I'll be inventing a new category of failed drinks to accompany "Dishwater" - "Curdled."

For every moderately good recipe someone comes up with, there are usually a half a dozen ones that rate only a hair above "double shot of bankers with a pilfered fountain drink chaser."  So next time you see a party spread, take heart, pour a crappy but creative drink, and if worst comes to worst, pawn it off on the drunkest guy in the room, they'll appreciate the kindness of a delivered cocktail as they swill it down.

Black Feather

Robert Hess is one of the big names in cocktails.  When he suggests a drink, I find myself inclined to believe it is very good.  So it was with the Black Feather.  After watching his video about it some months ago, I put it on my list to try out.

The Black Feather certainly does not disappoint - in fact, it is a surprising blend of flavors that is at once light on the tongue and yet flavorful!  With a unique taste, and a dryness that does exactly what he says (the vermouth sets the perfect balance between the brandy and the triple sec), it is quite a tasty cocktail.  Tasty enough in fact, that I had three or four before I even stopped for a breath.

Black Feather

4 Parts Brandy
2 Parts Dry Vermouth
1 Part Triple Sec
1 Dash Angostura

Stir with ice and strain

Yum.

You know you're a drunk when...

Your boss asks you to work overtime and you demand time and a fifth.

-FKR

A Shark's Tooth

Some days I find that every drink I mix comes out exactly as I imagined.  Whether it's an ingredient I've never used before, or one I'm deeply familiar with, there are days where I could plow through half a dozen new recipes without a bad one popping up.  Last week I had one of those days with margaritas and Sloe Gin. 

Those of you who know me are well aware that I love browsing in a liquor store.  I always feel I can get a sense both of the expected clientele, and the personality of the manager/owner of a store based on the layout and wares.  The "Wine Bazaar" a block from my house is a little confusing that way.  The guy who runs it is exceptional at pairing wines with housewives - most of their clientele is mothers coming in straight after buying groceries at the Stop & Shop next door.  I've been disappointed multiple times before at their liquor options, as the liquor seems to cater to the young and trendy crowd rather than the crotchety old man crowd that likes my kind of amber nectar. 

One thing they do always have is Eagle Rare at sale prices.  If you get a chance, it's buffalo trace's bigger, more mature older brother.

Back to the Sloe Gin - After asking several nicer liquor stores if they had some sloe gin in the last six months, I happened upon it in the "Wine Bazaar" purely by accident.  I'd listened to a podcast on midori and was willing to buy a bottle to try it, and right next to the midori was some sloe gin. 

After that successful night making a few sloe cocktails - expect a Satanic Cocktail coming soon with sloe gin - including improvising several delicious margaritas with sloe gin, tonight I decided to try the Shark's Tooth. 

Shark's Tooth
1.5 oz Dark Rum
.25 oz Lemon Juice
.25 oz Rose's Sweetened Lime
.25 oz Sweet Vermouth
.25 oz Sloe Gin
1 Dash Angostura Bitters

Shake and pour into snifter or cocktail glass

I found the original version to be way too sweet (admittedly, I don't have passion fruit syrup, so I substituted Rose's, and I didn't have gold rum, so I went with some Bacardi Select).  It had a nice taste, but way too much sugar.  Looking at the alternate version, I can see that someone else must have had that same opinion, as it switches out the sweet vermouth for dry vermouth.  I refuse to drop the bitters though...

Shark's Tooth Variation

1.5 oz Dark Rum

.25 oz Lemon Juice
.25 oz Rose's Sweetened Lime
.25 oz Dry Vermouth
.25 oz Sloe Gin
1 Dash Angostura Bitters

Talk about a transformation.  From a 'nice taste' but too sweet, to just plain colored dishwater.  I'm done with the Shark's Tooth.

Sloe Gin, however, I will keep sampling.

Sloe Gin - Not The Gin I Expected

You'd think with a name that included "Gin" there would be some simularity between gin and sloe gin.  Well, if you did think that (if, in the unlikely case, you'd ever heard of sloe gin before), you'd be wrong.

Sloe comes from sloeberry, but even with the 'berry' added in, Sloe Gin still sounds kinda like a mix of the sugar from candy-wrappers and bathtub gin.  I figured it would be brutal like bai jiu.

Well, it's not at all the gin I expected.  It took only one whiff of the 5$ bottle to determine that it was a sweet liqueur and not a hoary liquor.

As a replacement to sugar in my bourbon cocktails, it is changing things up.  It also plays a starring role in the last few margaritas I've had in the last two weeks.


If you're interested, take a look at the CocktailDB note on it or the Wikipedia article, both are useful.  At some point in the future, expect a detailed post where I make some homemade sloe gin!