Shackleton's Scotch Replicated

Stranded out in the cold - frostbitten and hungry. With nothing to eat but dried seal meat, few supplies and ambitions dwindling. Nothing to drink but delicious scotch. Sounds like a hell of a good life, huh?

As a follow up to my previous post, more on Shackleton's Scotch below:

According to tasters of Shackleton's 100+ year old scotch, the frozen whisky was far from swill. In fact, it was delicious enough that the Whyte and Mackay Distillery has produced 50,000 bottles replicating its taste.

The "new" scotch is "well-balanced, with soft fruity characters and a touch of smoke." While it sounds like he's reading a cheap wine label, and 'smoke' is code for 'metal carboys' I'd drop a fair amount of money on a bottle of that in the event that they make more of them.

A Day of Rosiness - Midday Tincture

That's right, it's time for the second installment of rosy drinks to get you through the day. Hopefully your Morning Effusion has put you in a perfect place to appreciate your very own Midday Tincture:

This drink started its life as a Rosy Deacon, but quickly morphed into something different. At first taste, the Rosy Deacon is a little jarring to me. The gin and grapefruit juice certainly pair nicely, but the sloe gin is too sweet and thick in your mouth and throat. Instead of leaving you hungry for more, it almost makes you want to - gasp - clear your mouth with some water.

Rosy Deacon
3/4 oz Gin
3/4 oz Sloe Gin
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
Sugar to Taste

Rosy Deacon (Try 2)
1 oz gin
1/2 oz Sloe Gin
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
Sugar

For the second try, I went with frosting the glass with sugar rather than actually mixing any into the drink, as the original was more than a little too sweet. This one was better, but still not a cocktail I'd recommend. I liked the dryness of the grapefruit juice, but since I know I won't usually have grapefruit juice on hand, I tried out a new recipe that substitutes vermouth for the fruit juice. The result is a cocktail I could happily drink to keep me Rosy.

Rosy Layman
1 oz Gin
1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz Sloe Gin
1/4 oz Grenadine Syrup
Sugar

Once again, I frosted the glass with sugar, which was very successful. The Rosy Layman has a sour taste, but the sugar from the rim sweetens it up just a little bit. The combination of dry vermouth and gin are crisp enough that they cut through both the sloe and the grenadine. I was a little afraid that this would be little more than a gin martini, as the scent when I make it is very similar. That ended up being a totally unnecessary worry, and the Layman is its own beast.

Until Alpenglow, stay rosy.

A Day of Rosiness - Morning Effusion

In several parts, I would like to present to you a day's worth of cocktails that will keep you rosy. To start things off, we have the Morning Effusion, a Rosy Navel:

Morning Effusion:

Rosy Navel
4 oz Rosé Wine
1 oz Curacao
2 oz Orange Juice
Lemon-Lime Soda

Add the wine, curacao, and orange juice to a shaker half full with ice and stir languidly. Do not shake, as this will really mess up the taste from the rosé (unless you're throwing a party with this stuff and you've gone for box o' wine in which case who the hell cares if you shake it?) Pour into collins glass with some ice, then top with the soda. Garnish if you wish with a lemon wedge.

This cocktail is obviously light on liquor, which makes it perfect for an early start to the drinking day. A few glasses of this will add the requisite glow to the morning and get you ready for our Midday Tincture.

Barware - Citrus Squeezer

I recently bought my own hand juicer. For several years, I've always just used a knife and my hand to squeeze out the juice whenever I need fresh lemon or lime. I don't mind washing off the juice, and I enjoy the tactile aspect of squeezing fresh juice for a cocktail.

Recently, however, I have been using a borrowed glass juicer. While it is easier to get the juice out of the lemon/lime, in the end it works less well. I never used to worry about pulp - which is one requirement of not using a juicer, you must be okay with suspicious floaties in your final concoction. However, as I have played around some with the texture of various cocktails (see Demon of Destiny for example), I sometimes want to strain out all of the pulp.
With the glass one I am borrowing, that poses quite a task. I use the barspoon to lift out the bigger bits, and then try to strain it through the spoon as I pour into a shotglass to measure. I usually wind up with either a sticky counter or no idea how much juice I put in.

This hand juicer gives me the satisfaction of squeezing the crap out of something - and yet the juice just pours right out, free of pulp. I hold it right over my jigger, squeeze, and then pour into the mixing glass. It's as easy as that.

If you run across one of these and you don't currently have a juicer of any sort, it's a good purchase - I got mine for $10, not the $13.99 + shipping on Amazon. Happy mixing!