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!