Cocktails At 80

Zombie Punch

2010-11-29T18:54:00.000-08:00

Summary - we take a drink recipe - Donn Beach's Aku Aku Zombie - and convert it into a punch bowl of ...wow

yes, the cauldron is bubbling...

Rest of Post

The zombie

Once upon a time there was no such thing as a Polynesian restaurant or a tiki drink.

That changed in 1934 when one man started a restaurant fad that lasted for over 40 years. That man was Donn Beach, “Donn the Beachcomber”, and The Zombie was his most famous drink.

His bar wasn’t just the first Tiki bar, it was the hottest bar in Hollywood with a 90 minute wait for a spot at the bar - every night. It was where Orson Welles drank next to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Joan Crawford.

Donn’s place was famous for the drinks, so naturally competitors would try to steal his recipes - by hiring his bartenders. Donn had to keep drink recipes secret, even from the bar staff. A recipe might call for a ½ ounce of “bottle #4”, or a spoonful of “Donn’s mix”, and only Donn knew what went into those bottles. Since the Zombie was so famous, as famous as a Cosmopolitan or Pina Colada or Mojito - every Tiki bar had to serve some drink called ‘the Zombie’. There was even a “Zombie Hut” in Oakland and “Zombie Village” in Sacramento. And of course you could get a drink called the Zombie at Donn’s most famous competitor, Trader Vic’s! But no one but Donn knew what the real recipe was, and most of the imitations were awful.

Donn died in Honolulu in 1989, but thanks to the research of Jeff “Beachbum” Berry five of Donn’s Zombie recipes have come to light: the “original” 1934 recipe, the 1950 “Spievak” recipe, a 1956 “Waikiki” recipe, and the 1959 recipe Donn created for the Aku Aku Restaurant at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. Donn never stopped working on, and improving his recipes.

Why is so hard to get a good Tiki drink? It’s too much work. The recipe we are serving tonight, “Aku Aku”, has 8 ingredients, requires juicing 2 kinds of fruit, and making two syrups. At the height of the Tiki Bar Craze, a restaurant would have as many as 20 bar staff working in assembly line fashion to turn out hundreds of drinks a night. Except for us amateurs ( and a handful of revival Tiki Bars like Smuggler’s Cove) these drinks are history.

What is a Zombie?

This recipe is Donn's fourth* Zombie Recipe, From Beachbum Berry Remixed.

Lime juice

White grapefruit juice

Cinnamon infused syrup

Dark Jamaican rum

Gold Puerto Rican Rum

Demerara Rum (151)

‘Zombie Mix’

[Absinthe, Curacao, Falernum, Grenadine]

Are they strong? YES! They are about 13.5% alcohol – 27 proof (most beers are ~5%, wines ~12%) That’s why we are served them over ice in a 5 oz cup

Don’t forget, if you drink too many, you will leave your body, and it will be claimed by the undead.

*our least favorite of the four, good, but not great

Coming soon! Mixology notes: converting a cocktail into a punch recipe

Rum Tropical (punch)

2010-09-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

I've found that at large parties its much easier to make a large bowl of punch than to shake (or blend) endless cocktails, so we've been shopping through our punch recipes. Martha Washington's Rum Punch was a big hit at our last party, this time I didn't have much time to prepare so I grabbed my copy of Beachbum Berry Remixed* by Jeff "Beachbum" Berry, which has six recipes. One of the things that I like so much about Jeff's book is that he tried all the recipes - and threw some out! [One gets tired of trying recipes that are so bad you wonder why (or how) they were included in a book.]

Anyway, page 114 lists "three quick and easy punches", Rum Tropical was the easiest:

32 oz unsweetened pineapple juice
4 oz fresh lime juice
2 oz Falernum
1 fifth gold Puerto Rican Rum (we used Flor de Cana Gold)

We had sliced pineapple on hand and some very ripe cherries which I pitted, halved and tossed in. The rum soaked fruit was great to eat.

As Jeff said, certainly easy to make - pour, stir, chill. Normally I make my large ice cube the day before, in this case I filled the tupperware container with ice cubes, topped with water and froze. It became solid in just a couple of hours, however it seemed like melted much faster too!

This is very nice punch. But its not a headliner or soloist, its a "hey, great barbeque. Oh, yeah, the punch was nice, too!"

If I had to do it again, I would get try something other than John D. Taylors Velvet Falernum Liqueur - it doesn't have a lot of character (or perhaps my bottle is too old). I'd try making Paul Clarke's Falernum #8

* If you don't have this book, buy it. It is the tiki drink recipe book.

Mint Julep for Derby Day

2010-05-02T00:45:00.000-07:00

Today is the Kentucky Derby, so it's the day for Mint Juleps.

We were invited to a ball for a charity for which we volunteer. As it happens, the women who taught me to make Mint Juleps were there, so I made a batch and brought them over.

I've had good luck with infusing the mint in the bourbon for several hours in advance - several hours as in "more than two".

In this case, I started with Paul Harrington's recipe:

3 oz Bourbon
2-4 Teaspoons of simple syrup
4 to 6 sprigs mint

In this case, I made 6 drinks, so I started by putting 18 oz of Maker's Mark into a mason jar that was about half full of mint leaves.

If you read about mint, you'll find a lot of conflicting information about muddling, not muddling, etc. I tend to agree with the folks who say that if you crush the leaves you'll get bad flavors along with the good. So I very lightly bruise the leaves - lay them on my palm and slap them.

O doesn't like her drinks too sweet - at 2T simple syrup per drink, that would be 4 oz of simple syrup - so I only used 2 oz simple syrup.

I also wanted to add some other flavor notes, so I added some peach brandy* - 3 oz - which is also pretty sweet stuff - but not as sweet as syrup.

Anyhow, my ratios turned out to be a lucky guess. Not too dry, not too sweet. O said she couldn't really taste the peach brandy, so next time I'd add one more ounce of peach brandy and see if that note comes out more.

As always, serve over crushed ice, and stir the drinks well before serving to get some of the ice to melt and dilute the bourbon - it really opens up the flavors. Garnish with a mint sprig, and remember they are STRONG** - you are pouring three ounces of Bourbon into each glass.

*I've seen some old recipes calling for peach brandy, but I think that meant a dry, high proof brandy made from peaches - I don't know if anyone makes anything like that now. I used DeKuyper - didn't have time for a liquor store run to see if I could find something from Marie Brizard or Mathilde, etc.

**The last time we served Mint Juleps was in 2006. People grew sufficiently intoxicated that there was very naughty behavior after we left the party.

Bay Area Cocktail Spots: Grand Tavern

2010-03-28T21:50:00.000-07:00

Summary: Excellent drinks, great food, moderate prices, friendly people. Its our new go-to spot for a drink in Oakland - The Grand Tavern

Rest of Post: What do you get when some serious foodies with locavore tendencies hire mixological heart-throb Jennifer Colliau* to train their bar staff and design their cocktail list? You get the place where you'll be seeing us and our friends - The Grand Tavern on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

You know you are a mixophile when .... you are sitting in a bar and you notice how long (and how hard) the bartenders are shaking.

These folks shake long and hard. (Why does that sound like part of a dirty joke?)

Then Jasmin, our wait-person, told us they use Small Hand syrups in all the drinks and we threw caution to the wind and ordered a Mai Tai. I'm sure you've had any number of sickly sweet Mai Tai's. This was not one of them - delightfully dry - excellent nose - there is good rum in this drink - OK, the sprig of fresh mint may not be orthodox - but it was nice, and it was listed on the menu.

We also had an Old Cuban - rum, mint, lime juice, organic gum syrup, sparkling wine served in a flute with mint.

That is a fine drink. I could just breathe that one. Sharp, balanced, crisp.

Jasmin stopped by to ask about the drinks, and immediately we got technical. They make their own simple syrup (smart) and their own ginger syrup for their Dark & Stormys, and she told us about Jennifer leading them through gin tastings on the first day of their training. We also found out its a family affair - Mom is the chef, her brother Temoor is the owner, she (Jasmine) runs the floor, her boyfriend is behind the bar.

We had originally been on our way to Barney's in Piedmont for a burger - but the line was out the door, and the other two places we tried were closed on Sunday. So I had the Grand Tavern burger - organic beef - provolone - it was excellent and it came with their Social Skin Fries - which are homemade potato chips - slightly thick sliced - dusted with a very mild paprika.

Addictive.

Oceana had the fried Cornish hen - deep fried - the oil must have been quite hot - the breading was cooked dark brown and the flesh was not oily at all.

We were enjoying ourselves so much that Temoor, the owner, sent us over a house speciality - his invention - "The Smokey Wall" . Without spoiling any secrets I will say it was a unique taste, complex, well balanced and tasty! We had a lot of fun guessing what was in it - we only made one major miss.

We didn't really want dessert, but how do you say "no" to blackberry & blueberry reduction sauce over premium vanilla ice cream on top of pound cake.

We were there on a Sunday evening, it wasn't crowded and the service was prompt. There is an outdoor patio and two indoor rooms in addition to the bar itself. There is a happy hour - 4? to 7? (better check on that) when cocktails are $2 off their normal $12 price. Parking is easy - lots on Grand Avenue and they have their own lot.

I think $10-$12 is becoming pretty standard for a first rate cocktail - we certainly didn't mind getting the happy hour discount.

Downsides? Well, this is a pretty small point. They've got one of those Kold-Draft machines and they've clearly been drinking the Kold-Draft Kool-Aide, and like every Kold-Draft owner, they've got to talk about it. Those very very cold square cubes certainly don't hurt anything, and given the good training, high standards (measure every ingredient, every time), good ingredients, good recipes - the drinks at the Grand Tavern are going to turn out very well no matter what ice they use. And I remain skeptical of the value of an eight thousand dollar ice making system.

*OK, I confess. I've never met Jennifer, and aside from her numerous professional skills and her willingness to work really really really hard I don't know anything about her. But I've had her Orgeat Syrup, and it doesn't get any better than that.

Bay Area Cocktail Spots: A Return to The Slanted Door

2010-01-12T21:52:00.000-08:00

Summary: After an afternoon of wandering up and down the aisles in the Ferry Building, you can sit at the rail in the wine bar and watch the people go by, or you can grab a terrific cocktail in The Slanted Door. Or, if it is Christmas, you can do both*. That's what we did. We've done very well at the Bar at The Slanted Door

*When given a choice between two good things, "both" is better.

Rest of Post: Since we've enjoyed ourselves so much previously, we thought we'd check and see what new drinks were on the menu. We tried three and had two appetizers.

The Last Word: Miller's Westbourne Gin, Luxardo Maraschino, Green Chartreuse and lime juice; served up - recipe from the Detroit Athletic Club

Vieux Carré: Dudognone Reserve Cognac, Rye whiskey, Benedictine, Sweet Vermouth, Peychaud's and Angostura bitters, served up

The Last Word is a clear "A List" drink. Not hard to predict given how much we love Aviations (gin, maraschino, lemon), and Southsides (gin, lime, mint, sugar). The Last Word has a soft nose, hint of maraschino, and then there layers in the flavors - gin, maraschino and then a burst of lime. The menu says the recipe is from the Detroit Athletic Club, on a hunch I pulled down my copy of Ted Saucierʼs Bottom's Up (1951) which I'm guessing is the source of the recipe. This is our second "A List" drink from Ted - another blogger pointed us to the Diamondback, and I'm thinking Ted's book - famous for its lascivious illustrations - may require some serious study - the recipes, I mean.

The Vieux Carré is a very famous old New Orleans drink - the name means "the old quarter", it is thought that the drink was invented in the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans in the 1930s. This is a completely decadent drink for people who love the taste of hard liquor, which isn't really me.

Sazerac - no photo - it wasn't on the menu, but O wanted something solid to anchor after the Last Word, and given the Rye Bee is on the menu, the bartender quickly brought her a very very nice Sazerac (rye whiskey, absinthe, simple or gomme syrup, peychaud's bitters, angostura bitters).

I tried a [no photo] Hot Winter Cider: Pappy Van Winkle 12-year-old Bourbon, St. Elizabeth Allspice, The Apple Farm juice, star anise, vietnamese cinnamon. It smelled good, a very pleasant, very smooth hot drink that grew on us as we slowly drank it.

While we drank we ate the excellent slanted door spring rolls with shrimp, pork, mint and peanut sauce (we ate one before taking the picture) and then the intensely good barbecued Willis Ranch pork spareribs with honey-hoisin sauce - the sauce is very strong, and you just can't get enough of it, but you know there will come a moment - if you eat too much - when you won't want it again for weeks.

And here is O, with The Last Word.

Quick and easy Eggnog (from Jeff Morganthaler )

2010-01-05T17:10:00.000-08:00

Summary: What to do when one needs eggnog in a hurry? My "grand mal" recipe takes hours, a sturdy mixer, and a light hand. This one is quite good and takes much less work - you can put it together in a bit over an hour - and most of that is time for it to chill in the fridge. All it takes is a quick trip to the supermarket and a blender. Thanks for Jeff Morgenthaler for working out this recipe!

Rest of Post - We do a lot of searching and reading on the internet and in the blogosphere. One of the sources we trust is Jeff Morgenthaler's Blog, which we read regularly. So when Jeff said he had spent time experimenting and liked his results, we thought we ought to give his recipe a try. Since we are always pouring for a crowd, I plugged his recipe into my spreadsheet and made 3x the amounts, however here is the starting point:

2 large eggs
3 oz sugar
½ tsp freshly-grated nutmeg
2 oz brandy
2 oz spiced rum (Sailor Jerry’s)
6 oz whole milk
4 oz heavy cream

Beat eggs in blender for one minute on medium speed.

Slowly add sugar and blend for one additional minute.

With blender still running, add nutmeg, brandy, rum,

milk and cream - blend until well mixed

Chill for at least an hour. You want it to be (1) cold and (2) to let the flavors combine. I've always been skeptical about this (2), but since my experience with Jasper's Jamaican Planter's Punch I've become a total believer.

Serve in chilled wine or champagne glasses, sprinkle additional nutmeg on top before serving.

Compared to what I've been making previously, this eggnog is rather thin - low on body and "mouth feel", but long on taste. In researching this I've seen a LOT of recipes that call for mixing egg yolks with warm milk or doing a very limited amount of cooking of the egg yolks - I didn't find many specifics on increase in thickness / body, but the photos made it look thicker - and more yellow.

This recipe yields a nog that is warm brown color (not yellow), and smells good, flavors are rummy and buttery, People said it was "gorgeous", "good blend of alcohol and flavor," "quite lovely", "almost pepperminty."

We really liked Jeff's recommendation of Sailor Jerry's spiced rum - somehow the whole drink had a nice buttery flavor, and it was more pleasant than Captain Morgan's - which has always seemed fine previously. One thing we did discover this year is that Applejack blends extremely well with eggnog, in fact its fairly hard to taste in eggnog, so if you are looking to spike your eggnog in a very subtle way*, get a bottle of Lairds, or preferably Laird's Bonded.

We have four related research projects for next winter - November / December 2010 - stay tuned!

Eggnog recipes which involve cooking of some kind
Tom & Jerry - strictly speaking, not eggnog
NSFW!!!! Jeff's Clyde Common Eggnog (this is a link to Playboy.com). Same recipe as above, but a different combination of liquors
Aging Eggnog! Check out Old but not Lethal and Science Friday on Eggnog (and the Rockefeller Institute)

*We believe in alerting our guests to the alcohol content of our drinks and punches. The math isn't hard, especially if (like me) you use a spreadsheet. Also, alert people when there is something about the drink (like high fat content, or gomme syrup) that will slow down the absorption of alcohol - you want them to make the best decisions about how much they want to drink.

Grand Mal Eggnog

2009-12-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

Summary: 'Tis the season for indulgence, and here is the fruit of our research - our seventh annual Eggnog. Starting with two quarts of heavy cream and a dozen eggs its one of the richest, most luxurious things we've every had in our mouths. Requiring several hours to prepare, I can guarantee that your guests will be impressed.

Rest of Post: I love eggnog, even the commercial stuff. Around Thanksgiving I start checking in at Peet's to see if they have started serving their Eggnog Lattes. Another chain of coffee shops makes them too, but they use a much poorer brand of eggnog and aren't worth drinking.

One winter's days in 2002 when I was paging through the "Joy of Cooking" - looking for something - I saw their eggnog recipe - eggnog in bulk. How bad could homemade eggnog be?

Of course the Joy of Cooking recipe makes over a gallon, so I made it for our next party. It was a smash. It was thick and rich, it had a two inch layer of soft rich almost chewy foam on top, and it was addictively good. Recognizing it as an A1 Coronary Clogger, we immediately made this into a "once a year" event, and each year around Halloween we'd start talking about which party we would throw, or to which party we would bring it.

Our eggnog recipe, prowess, and dare I say, reputation grew year by year. In 2007 I made a chance discovery. My mother, who lives in Kennebunk, Maine, is a devoted reader of the New York Times. While we were visiting for Christmas, I picked up that day's paper that had a reprint of Craig Claiborne's 1958 recipe for Eggnog. 1958 was a very good year (the year of my birth, of course), and having grown up reading the Times I assumed Craig's recipe was to be counted on. So last year we made it.

This made an eggnog so light it was like eating a cloud, so firm you could only eat it with a spoon. The Claiborne recipe is very similar to the Joy Of Cooking Recipe, almost identical ingredients, different procedure.

However, Craig's recipe called for only two cups of booze - only one cup of Cognac and one cup of Bourbon. This came through far stronger than the six cups of booze (rum, brandy, bourbon, peach brandy) I normally used. People complained how strong Craig's eggnog was!

So this year we went back to using my recipe with Craig's method.

And The Research Team said this year was the best, ever!

So, here we go!

Separate one dozen eggs [I get the largest ones I can find]
Beat the egg yolks while slowly adding 1 pound confectioners sugar [I used turbinado sugar]

While beating, add very slowly

Four Cups of Strong Liquor and One cup Peach Brandy

Here's what was in my liquor cabinet

One cup Lemon Hart Demerara Rum,
One cup Maker's Mark Bourbon,
One cup Brandy
One cup Whalers Rum
One cup Peach Brandy

Refrigerate (covered) for at least one hour - this diminishes the 'eggy' taste

Add 1/2 tsp of salt to the egg whites, beat until stiff
Whip 2 quarts of heavy cream until stiff
Fold the whipped cream into the egg yolk mixture
Fold in the egg whites
Grate nutmeg over the eggnog
Chill for an hour

Serve from a punchbowl, garnish with fresh nutmeg.

Adding the (sweet) peach brandy seems to take the hard alcoholic edge off the eggnog. With 5 cups of liquid (booze) added, the eggnog is a thick slurry, yet it doesn't separate* If you want eggnog that is really pour-able, you could add either add one or more cups of booze, or a cup or more of milk. Less booze and it gets fluffier and lighter. Next year I might replace two cups of the dark rum with one cup of Goslings 151 - same strength, but I expect the result will be a bit drier and lighter.

Most importantly of all, enjoy your loved ones, your health, and your holidays.

Merry Christmas!

and

Happy New Years

On a related topic, A Dash of Bitters had a post about Aging Eggnog linking to a quick study at the Rockefeller Institute did - on salmonella in eggnog - they found that after deliberately adding salmonella to their eggnog, the alcohol killed it sometime after between one and three weeks of aging in the refrigerator.

Next year we'll try aging a batch.

* it didn't separate for 5 days

Bombay Government Punch

2009-09-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

Remember making punch?

For me it conjures up a visions of college when alcohol was scarce, and money was scarcer¹.

Shudder.

But it wasn't always like that. Once upon a time, a punch was an elegant thing.

In fact, before there were cocktails, there were punches.

Punches were mixed drinks. But instead of mixing one glass, they were made in large quantities, served in big bowls.

A drink for a group.

A communal drink.

Oxford English Dictionary, dates the word "punch" to 1632. The OED believes it derives from the Sanscrit "paunch", meaning “five,” a reference to the original five-ingredient recipe: spirits (rum, brandy, or arrack); sugar; water; citrus; and spice (usually grated nutmeg, but sometimes green or black tea).

Punch was popular in England from the 1600s to the 1850s. Because punch was made with imported ingredients like citrus and spices, and it was made in large quantities, it was too expensive for the lower classes. “It was a gentlemanly drink,” says cocktail historian David Wondrich². It was one of the few things a man would prepare himself and not trust to the servants. It came with the English to Colonial America, where it was served in taverns and at parties in private homes.

Why did punch fall from favor? It seems there were many factors, not the least of which was that there was more money to be made by selling drinks by the glass, not by the bowl. However, today, serving punch by the bowl is making a comeback, and it one of the latest things in today’s cocktail scene - here in San Francisco you can get punch by the bowl at Elixir, or The Rickhouse (for example).

Today’s recipe comes to us via David Wondrich, and the proportions are taken from the 1694 regulations the English government put out for Bombay punch houses³: “if any man comes into a victualling house to drink punch, he may demand one quart good Goa arak, half a pound of sugar, and half a pint of good lime water, and make his own punch.” Goa arrack (the local hooch) was made from coconut-palm sap, but sugar-cane arrack (from the next archipelago over) and then rum were natural substitutes. The addition of a water or tea is also traditional (and very sensible.)

Batavia Arrack is made from sugarcane and fermented red rice, and is only manufactured in Java, Indonesia. Between the flavor of the red rice and aging it in teak, it develops a distinct flavor. And smell. But this is a good thing.

Batavia Arrack is one of the so-called “Lazarus Ingredients” – unavailable for decades, formerly famous, but until recently only known in old books and old recipes. Batavia Arrack has been made continuously, but was not imported into the United States for over half a century(?). Fortunately, with the renaissance of classic cocktails, Batavia Arrack is again being imported, and readily available at stores here in the San Francisco area, one of the epicenters of the cocktail renaissance.

Eric Seed who imports Batavia-Arrack into the United States, says, “It marries especially well with spices and fruit, yet it has a back-palate effect similar to that of dark chocolate.” Because of its unique flavor profile, he says, most of the sales today are to European chocolatiers. “You can use it in lieu of a vanilla,” Seed says.

The preparation of punches is usually quite straight-forward, although it is best to prepare them at least a couple of hours ahead of time to let the flavors marry, and to give it time to chill. I made our punch at 11:00 am to serve at 6:30 pm and our cocktail research team commented on how well integrated the flavors were.

Bombay Government Punch

Mix 2 cups Demerera sugar in water, heat gently and stir until completely dissolved
Mix in 12 oz lime juice
add 16 oz Batavia Arrack & 32 oz Dark Rum ( I used Coruba and Lemon Hart)
Add 6 cups water or tea (I used a mild green tea)
Stir and Refrigerate
1/2 hour before serving add large ice cube (mine was made in a 2 quart tupperware container)
garnish with grated nutmeg

This punch is about 18% alcohol (~ 36 proof).
That’s more than three times the strength of beer, and 50% stronger than wine.

Rating

The punch was very popular - it was, as Eric Seed posted on Chanticleer, "a crowd pleaser". O thought this was an "A List" drink, while Millie⁴ thought it would only be so for those whose palates enjoyed the taste of alcohol.

Note

A punch is a lot less work for the host of the party than shaking drinks. However, people seem to drink a lot more punch than they do cocktails. Or maybe its just that they drink more of my punches .... In any case, I'm very specific about posting signs prominently that give the strength of the drink - ever since I started serving 'Fish House Punch'. But those stories will have to wait until the postings about Lady Chatterley's Mixologist.

¹ Of course there was the time in college when we made a fruit punch using a bottle of 96% ethanol (food grade). It was completely tasteless, and by 8:30 pm the party was over and the room was filled with sleeping people. The things you learn (and try) in engineering school.

²I've seen several references on the internet, notably Chowhound, suggesting that this recipe is from David Wondrich's excellent book Imbibe, the 2008 winner of the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Book About Wine and Spirits. However, I can't find the recipe in my copy.

³I found references on the net suggesting that “punch house” may be (or was) a euphemism for ‘brothel.’ Hmmm ...

⁴ Definitely a goddess, but which one? We think she may be one of the Norns

Three times nine girls, but one girl rode ahead,

white-skinned under her helmet;

Cocktails 102 at The Beverage Academy at Bourbon & Branch

2009-09-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

On September 8 I attended “Cocktails 102” at the Beverage Academy at Bourbon & Branch. This turned out to be the first time the class has been offered.

It was taught by Jon Santer, one of the founding bartenders of Bourbon & Branch. Again, the table was set for 16 students – sixteen complete bar setups – and the class was full.

Like Cocktails 101, there was a PowerPoint presentation with some history, the recipes, a tablespoon of drink theory, and some information about the pioneers of the cocktail revival.

For each recipe, Jon described a particular technique, then talked us through the recipe, then he made the recipe, then we made it.

Jon said that in contrast with Cocktails 101, this class would focus more on mechanics, and would move faster. And that while most people can make good drinks, the goal of the class was to make perfect drinks. This is exactly what I want - I make very good drinks, but rarely with the elegance and impact of the drinks I've had at Bourbon & Branch.

Unsurprisingly, its all about a lot of small details. Measure carefully. Shake the same amount of time. Chill your glassware. Store your fresh cut mint in water until you use it.

We made three cocktails* – the Gin Gin Mule (from the Pegu Club Bar in New York), a Martini, and a Gin Fizz Tropical (a Charles Baker recipe). As always, the ingredients provided were first rate – Fever Tree Ginger Ale, Small Hand Syrups, Martin Miller Gin*, Vya Vermouth. We were again treated to a fervent sermon on the Gospel of Kold Draft Ice.

We had a lesson in stirring – how to use a bar spoon to cool and mix a drink to the proper dilution, but without introducing air bubbles – air bubbles make a drink cloudy, and lessens the silken texture. Lesson, as in:

"everybody hold your hand up.....spread your fingers like this .... put the spoon through your hand like this ... now move your wrist .... not that, like this ... good, good .... now practice stirring your mixing glass (full of water & ice) while I describe the next recipe."

This was 100% different from what I've seen in bar books - rolling the bar spoon between your palms so it acts like an egg beater. The secret lies in use of the wrist. Unsurprisingly Jon could stir amazingly fast. [Note to self: next time we have martinis, stir one each way, and see how different they are visually and texturally.]

Egg white drinks - I've had them many places, and made them many times. At home I use a blender. Honestly.

I've tried shaking them by hand, but I don't have that much time and that much shoulder.

Well, we shook for 22 seconds - two measured steps - dry shake, then a precise number of ice cubes, then hard shake. It was the best fizz I've ever made, and I wish I'd taken the photo before I drank the first sip. Jon said he's tried the 'use the spring from the hawthorne strainer' trick, and it doesn't make any difference.

As before, the class was FUN - lots of laughter. Imagine my delight at sitting between two stunningly beautiful women - that was icing on the cake!

What were some of my 'take aways'?

“The best sip is the first sip” - I've seen the same said in wine tasting (and in diet books). I've noticed that when I eat or drink something, I pay less attention to each subsequent bite. I think double straining makes the drink more consistent - you remove the little flakes of ice that will quickly melt and change the dilution of the drink - so the drink will taste the same whether you serve it 10 seconds or 100 seconds after you shake it. [Obviously if you wait too long it will warm up.]
Build it dry, then add ice. It makes sense that putting the ice in the shaker first would result in more dilution. See here for an excellent write up of research on the topic of dilution with actual data on temperature, shake time, and dilution. Let's do more research here!
Plastic squeeze bottle for egg white - how obvious (but only in retrospect)! What a great idea!
Small Hand Syrups – oh, my! It has become my habit to taste each of the ingredients separately - Ivan got me in the habit of doing that - and I have become very curious about Small Hand syrups based on the great praise I've seen for them on the blogosphere. Having made my own Orgeat Syrup, which I thought was the 'bee's knees", I have to say Jennifer's* leaves-mine-in-the-dust! Hers is light and fluffy (!?!) and not overly sweet. I can't wait to taste her grenadine.
"If it doesn't go bad, don't eat it." Applies equally to twinkies and high fructose bar syrup.

The modern history information was very interesting. Yeah, I knew Dale DeGroff was a key figure in starting the cocktail revival, but had no idea who Audrey Sanders and Sasha Petraske are, and what roles they played. I'd like to figure out where Paul Harrington fits into this picture.

Criticisms, suggestions?

Well, not much.

I would suggest stirring a martini the right way and the wrong way to show the difference. Shine a light through them to show the difference in clarity?
~~Since you all love to talk about ice, I noticed you don't talk about how you filter your water before you freeze it~~ .... Jon emailed me to let me know that the Kold Draft includes a reverse osmosis filter, so the water is clean!
And I thought you were a little over the top in omitting Elixir from the list of San Francisco Bars
Mr. Skeptical Engineer lived in Japan for three years and has a third degree black belt so he has a great deal of respect for Japanese attention to detail and likes Japanese tools, but he thought 'Japanese food grade steel' sounded a lot like 'super premium vodka.'

The Last Word: Schedule more classes, please!

*A couple of days after the class we were emailed all the recipes.
** It turns out that Jon is some kind of brand rep or brand ambassador for Martin Miller’s - it sounded like he liked their gin so much that he started working for them, and he wanted to be up front with us about it.
*** Jennifer Colliau is the owner/proprietor/Chef of Small Hand Foods. I hope to meet her someday.

Bay Area Cocktail Spots: The Slanted Door

2009-09-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

One of our goals is to try all the hot bay area cocktail spots (and write them up).

For my 51rst birthday, O organized a 'research trip' to The Slanted Door. Unfortunately, some idiot (which would be me) left the camera in our car. Art saved the day - Thank you so much Art!

The Slanted Door is in the San Francisco Ferry Building. If you haven't been to the Ferry building, go! It's your basic "run-down-historic-building-redeveloped-into-an-incredibly-chic-collection-of-trendy-food-spots" - kind of like a "Food Court of the Gods of San Francisco."

One of the great things about the Ferry Building is that you can take a Ferry to get there. Remember we are very very careful about drinking and driving, so having BART or Alameda Ferry driving us is great!

From Jack London Square its about a half hour ride, and its very pretty - especially after dark. Unfortunately the last ferry back on a weekday is at 8:20 pm. The Ferry building is an easy walk to the BART if you miss the last ferry.

After many a low-light dive bar, or the semi-darkness of Bourbon & Branch, The Slanted Door is bright! You can easily read the menu - what a concept!

Stylistically, sort of a contemporary version of "the Jetsons." Importantly for us, the bar area is large, seating 24 at the bar and 30 in the cocktail lounge area. There is a bunch more seating to the left of the benches in this photo.

We arrived around 6pm on a Tuesday night and had no trouble getting seating for our party of seven, the bar was full twice during the next two hours, but never that crowded. The service was excellent, our handsome wait person was very friendly, although each round he brought us a drink we hadn't ordered. (Hey, we like you, you are fun, could you write our order down next time?*)

The team:
A few of the 'hard core' members of the cocktail research team - The Polynesian Princess, her consort Ivan, and Gregoire. O is, of course, a founding member of the team - in fact the inspiration for this entire effort. Also present old friends Z and Art and myself.

It really was Gregoire's "fault" we went. He pinged me on Facebook asking where we were going for my birthday - last year we reserved a room at Bourbon & Branch .... Thanks for getting us into gear, Gregoire!

The cocktail menu is a reasonable length - 15 drinks - so among the seven of us we covered what seemed to be the most interesting drinks in two rounds, but stayed for three.

The evening featured serious discussions ....

Friendship

Lots of laughter,

lots of love ...

So what did we think?

Rye Bee: a dry, elegant drink, as good as it sounds
Pisco Sour: fine, but not much character
Corpse Reviver #2: O loved these, I thought them too dry and not that flavorful. You can find this at many bars now, so they are a great point of comparison. We serve them every Halloween.
Zora: excellent. I'm not a big tequila fan, and I recommend these - the last note of the drink (as you swallow) is tequila.
Sidecar: let's go off the menu and order a standard - O said "a solid sidecar, but didn't blow me away"
Shanghai Buck - very fun ginger / ginger ale, made me want to learn about this archaic class of drinks
Summer on the Danube - ???? (no notes taken. oops!)
Hotel Nationale - rum with a spicy cayenne-like note in the middle, 3 levels of taste. A winner.
Indian Summer - I love grapefruit, and this melds well with elderflower
Royal Pimms Cup - bitter elegance. "An elegant drink from a more civilized age." Art's comment (below) pointed out that this was the drink that arrived with a forest of basil, not the Rhum punch.
Phantasm - Oceana thought it was one of the more elegant drinks
Pisqu - the most unremarkable drink of the evening
Agricole Rhum Punch - nah!

The food:

We ordered a bunch of appetizers - the wood oven roasted becker lane tea smoked pork belly was "out of this world" (and its a heart attack worth of cholesterol in every bite, melt-in-your-mouth tender), the ribs (not on the menu?) more like Chinese than bbq, they were great and went fast, and the spring rolls - veg and non-veg - they were good, but unremarkable

The Verdict

We had a great time, the bar service was reasonably fast, for us the location is great. In most parts of the world, $10 a drink is a lot, not here in the bay area.

I have to say that I thought the drinks were, on the balance, quite good. However, this is San Francisco, so the competition is fierce.

Most of the drinks were very good but not great, and I didn't have that "how did they do this?" / "Oh my god" reaction I've had in some places. The one recipe I wanted is the Hotel Nationale Special - here is a recipe on Small Hands Foods.

Overall, by SF Snob standards, we are talking "B+". Would we go back? Absolutely!

The Ride Home (ie the after-party)

* This is an example of using what we call 'the training cycle.' It's a method of telling people what you want in such a way that they can "win" every step of the way. It's yet another thing I learned in a class called Basic Sensuality.

Homemade (Housemade) Orgeat Syrup

2009-08-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

I've been reading lots of posts about making one's own syrups, mostly skeptically. However, after tasting the difference between commercial bar syrup and cane sugar simple syrup at The Beverage Academy at Bourbon & Branch, I've gotten more and more interested. As it happens, I read a couple of blog posts about making Orgeat, at least one mentioned Mai Tais - which stuck in my memory.

Saturday was 'International Tiki Day' ..... when it comes to Tiki drinks I'm pretty much what Hawaiians would term a Haole (foreigner), although I aspire to be kamaaina.

Anyway, here I am thinking, "we should have a party Saturday night and serve a tiki drink, is there something I could write up for my blog", and I came up with the idea of trying homemade Orgeat. A quick blog search turned up several well written recipes:

Art of Drink Orgeat Recipe
Trader Tiki's Orgeat Recipe
Kaiser Penguin's Orgeat Recipe

They are all quite similar. And I realized I didn't start the process twelve hours in advance ....

Fortunately, we have a restaurant here called "Cafe Gratitude" which specializes in very good raw foods, even if they have a kind of off-putting "Stepford Wives" cheerfulness. And they make kick a** almond milk. Oceana sez so, and she used to make it every week, using a recipe quite similar to the ones I showed her from the above list.

So I bought an 8 oz bottle, which I warmed and mixed with 12 ounces of organic raw cane sugar (2::3 ratio) until it dissolved. Then I let it cool, and added a 1/4 teaspoon of Monteux orange flower water, 1/4 teaspoon of Carlo rose water, 1/4 teaspoon of Whole Foods almond extract (which is bitter almond in glycerin), and two tablespoons of vodka (for shelf stability).

It smelled incredible and tasted overwhelmingly sweet - if I make it again I might reduce the % of sugar.

Well, the proof is in the drinking. Last night we had Mai Tais with The Polynesian Princess and her consort at their new abode, and we used the Monin Orgeat. Tonight, we had Mai Tais in the back yard at 80 - tiki torches blazing - and both Oceana and I pronounced these better - more complex taste and more interesting bouquet - and the unmistakeable almond oil aftertaste.

So my bottle of Orgeat is back in the fridge, and our next project is to make the Japanese Cocktail!

The Mai Tai

2009-08-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

History and Context

This world famous drink was invented right here in the east bay*. Victor Bergeron, known to the world as ‘Trader Vic’, created the first Mai Tai in at his Emeryville restaurant at 65th & San Pablo Avenue.

“In 1944, after success with several exotic rum drinks, I felt a new drink was needed. I thought about all the really successful drinks; martinis, manhattans, daiquiris .... All basically simple drinks.

I was at the service bar in my Oakland restaurant. I took down a bottle of 17-year old rum. It was J. Wray Nephew from Jamaica; surprisingly golden in color, medium bodied, but with the rich pungent flavor particular to the Jamaican blends.

The flavor of this great rum wasn’t meant to be overpowered with heavy additions of fruit juices and flavorings. I took a fresh lime, added some orange curacao from Holland, a dash of Rock Candy Syrup, and a dollop of French Orgeat, for its subtle almond flavor. A generous amount of shaved ice and vigorous shaking by hand produced the marriage I was after.

I gave two of them to Ham and Carrie Guild, friends from Tahiti, who were there that night. Carrie took one sip and said, "Mai Tai - Roa Ae". In Tahitian this means "Out of This World - The Best." Well, that was that. I named the drink "Mai Tai."

Our Opinion

You can have a Mai Tai almost anywhere. Most of them are terrible.

When Trader Vic (and Don Beach) started out, their recipes were their trade secrets, closely guarded even from their bar staff. So if you went to Terry's Tiki Tower in 1946 and asked for a Mai Tai, the bartender there would ask you what it tasted like, and make a guess as to what to use. If you liked the drink, then that might become the house Mai Tai recipe, although it might have nothing in common with the original recipe. Thus, the drink that launched 10,000 recipes. After the Tiki craze died down, the folks at Trader Vic's published their recipe - that's how we got it (its on their website). However, the damage was already done.

So our experience is that many people have tasted this drink, but few have had a well made one. With the right ingredients it truly is ‘out of this world”, and its an education in rum.

In addition to being easy to make, this drink is a 'crowd pleaser'. And you can add that extra touch with the story about how "this is the real recipe ...."

Bartending Notes

OK, this drink is rum, curacao, lime, sugar (simple syrup) plus orgeat (almond). So its a Rum Margarita with almond. How exotic is that?

I think one of the things about the Mai Tai is that it highlights the strengths and wide varieties of Rum. So you want to use the specific kinds (Jamaican, Demerara) that are recommended, even use the specific bottlings we suggest - they aren't that expensive.

• 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice (2 to 3 halved limes)
• 3/4 ounce Cointreau
• 3/4 ounce Orgeat syrup (we had been using Torani, now we make our own!)
• 1 ounce Coruba Dark Jamaican rum
• 1 ounce dark Lemon Hart & Son Demerara Rum from Guyana

We've been happily making it with a mix of Jamaican Coruba Rum and Lemon Hart Demerara rum for years.

One of the things we recommend when one is studying cocktails is to taste each ingredient separately, and then imagine how that might fit into the whole. If you've never had 'real' dark rum, the first time you smell Coruba, you are in for a treat. And then the Demerara rums are a whole different experience. My previous experience of rum was limited to the most famous brand, a wonderful product from Puerto Rico that might be described as 'rum flavored vodka' that comes in two colors. So trying Coruba was an eye opening experience.

As Tiki drinks go, Mai Tais are easy - the only fruit juice you need is lime juice, orgeat syrup is relatively easy to find. So its easy to experiment - what happens if we use Myers Dark Rum? Or Goslings? Or 12 year old El Dorado Demerara Rum?

As it happens, our latest experiment is to use 3 rums, which makes for a drier drink:

.75 Coruba
.75 Lemon Hart
.75 El Dorado 12 year
.75 Curacao (Cointreau)
.5 Orgeat**
.25 Simple Syrup
.75 Lime

I find that you must be somewhat cautious about dilution, so if you shake this drink for 20 seconds, I'd fill the glasses with ice cubes, not crushed ice***. Try it both ways ....

At Trader Vics, here is what they now call "the original" Mai Tai:

• 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice (2 to 3 halved limes)
• 3/4 ounce Leroux Orange Curacao
• 3/4 ounce Trader Vic Formula Orgeat syrup
• 1 ounce Coruba Dark Jamaican rum
• 1 ounce dark Lemon Hart & Son Demerara Rum from Guyana
• and pineapple chunk, maraschino cherry and mint for garnish.

Fill a wide-mouthed glass with crushed ice. Squeeze the juice from the lime halves. Reserve one squeezed lime half. Pour in the lime juice, Leroux Orange Curacao and the orgeat syrup. Pour in the Jamaican rum, followed by the Guyana rum. Dump the contents of the glass into a cocktail shaker and shake vigorously for 30 seconds. Pour everything back into the glass, and garnish with a chunk of pineapple and a maraschino cherry skewered on a swizzle stick. Drop in the squeezed lime half and add a sprig of mint. The hand-squeezed lime is crucial to the flavor. The mint doesn't affect the flavor as much as the bouquet, which is part of the Mai Tai experience.

*There is a historical dispute between Donn the Beachcomber and Trader Vic as to who invented the Mai Tai. Who invented the Mai Tai? I don't know. The story I've repeated above is a great story, which doesn't mean its true. The one Donn Beach recipe I've seen for a Mai Tai is for a completely different drink - its in the Little Hawaiian Tropical Drink book. I look forward to being edified on this topic.

** I'm quite surprised (and, honestly, pleased) how much difference homemade ("housemade") orgeat makes - see Homemade Orgeat Syrup for the 'how to.'

***If you are really curious about shaking and dilution, read this post about The Science of Shaking

Cocktails 101 at The Beverage Academy at Bourbon & Branch

2009-07-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

Monday night I went to our favorite bar for a cocktail class at The Beverage Academy at Bourbon & Branch, on the edge of the Tenderloin in San Francisco.

In case you are wondering, Bourbon & Branch is where I have had the best mixed drinks of my entire life. [So far] Their recipes are well thought out, and often incredibly elegant, and the drinks are well built - hand shaken*, one at a time. While I don't love every drink they make, it is quite common that I'll order their take on a drink that I know well - like the French 75 - and after a sip I'll think "how did they do that!" and "how could theirs be so much better (when mine are excellent)?"

There is no sign for Bourbon & Branch at the corner of Jones & O’Farrell, but you can see the ‘San Francisco Anti-Saloon league’ sign as you walk up O'Farrell.

The bar has no windows and the unmarked heavy oak door has bars over the tiny peephole. You knock, are asked for the password, then you enter into darkness.

Bourbon & Branch is a recreation of a prohibition speak-easy, in the location of an actual San Francisco speak-easy. The beautiful period interior is dimly lit so that you can’t recognize the people at the next table, nor they, you. Those who have been here before will bring tiny flashlights** so that you can read the extensive drink menu.

Arriving early, I was instructed to wait at the bar, when the room was ready the maitre d‘ opened a (no kidding) secret door and led us into the Russell Room. There under a shiny stamped tin ceiling was a long high table set with 16 mixing stations and 16 bar stools, above the bar at the end of the room was a screen, and in the middle of the table on a platform was a projector and laptop. Our teacher was Erick Castro, Erick greeted us warmly, and introduced the class and shepherded us through making our first drink. He assured us that he would be far more entertaining after we’d started drinking***. As we sipped our first creation - 'the Democrat' - he had us introduce ourselves briefly and say why we'd come - there were about a dozen of us - a surprising number of guys were there at the request of their lady to learn to make better cocktails for their parties! An eclectic mix of pleasant music played through the evening – mostly music from the 20s, 30s, and 40s, I only recognized Frank Sinatra and Django Reinhardt.

The class, Cocktails 101, is geared towards people who have never handled a cocktail shaker before. Everything was explained clearly: via lecture with PowerPoint, then demonstrated by Erick at the bar, then we did it. As we made the drink Erick and another of the Bourbon & Branch staff were on hand to answer questions, offer advice, etc. We muddled, we stirred, we shook, we strained. We made three kinds of drinks: a swizzle – stirred then packed with crushed ice; a sour – shaken and double strained; and a spirituous cocktail – stirred with large cubes in the shaker and poured through a julep strainer into a chilled cocktail glass.

Down the center of the table in front of us were full bottles of excellent liquor – Martin Miller Gin, Rittenhouse Rye, Bulleit Bourbon, Heering Cherry Liqueur, a bitters bottle full of Lucid Absinthe, a quarter carafe of Carpano Antica formula – and everything else we needed - a plate of halved lemons (to squeeze for juice), a whole lemon to peel for garnishes, bottles of syrups, a bar towel, a bar spoon, a lemon squeezer, etc.

For each drink, in addition to the recipe and brief history, there was some discussion as to why a particular brand or type of spirit was chosen, and there was a quarter teaspoon of drink theory – for example, this spirit is the base, this one is the modifier, this is the accent. There was a lot of discussion of many small points – or perhaps I should say “fine points” of making excellent drinks. Measure each ingredient. Shake hard. Use the correct amount of ice. Use good ice****. Etc. Etc. Etc. None of it rocket science, but taken together one can see why the drinks at Bourbon & Branch are so consistent.

Erick talked about learning to make cocktails starting with some of the great classics – like The Sidecar – and learning some of the major drink families. After mastering these fundamentals, one can easily move on to more advanced topics.

The class was quite easy and very fun. There was lots of laughter among the students, and Erick took good care of both the beginners and more experienced students. It was quite luxurious – the staff cleared our places and washed our glassware, shakers, measures, etc., and re-stocked our setup while we sipped and listened and learned.

I’d say the thing that stood out for me the most was when they passed five different types of sugar syrup around the table for us to taste. The first was commercial bar syrup, and compared to the homemade syrup that followed it, it had almost no taste at all! It made a believer out of me - I don't want to ever use high fructose corn syrup again!

The confirmation email stresses that you should not plan on driving, this is very wise advice. I came via BART - its a easy walk from the Powell Station, after drinking some portion of the three strong, excellent cocktails I was glad my route home involved only "go straight and turn right at Powell."

It was a beginner's class, and because I've had such good teachers a lot of what Erick said was 'preaching to the chorus'. What I did learn was valuable to me, and the class was very fun. Everyone seemed happy when they left.

The last word? I’m enrolled in Cocktails 102 in August.

See you there?

*and they even hand shake the drinks with egg whites! And do it well!

**you will be the envy of every other patron, however please use them discretely in keeping with the atmosphere of privacy.

***Not every teacher hands his students a straight line like that, but when you meet someone who believes in using gomme syrup in a Sazerac, you have to cut them some slack. And, its true.

****I think if Erick was any prouder of their $17,000 (?) Kold Draft ice making system he would have burst.

Pisco Punch - the Party

2009-07-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

History and Context

It was invented in 1887 in San Francisco at the site where the Transamerica Pyramid now stands, it was famous across America in its day, if not the world. A tart drink made with pineapple and Peruvian brandy, there was something very unique about it that left a lasting impression. The recipe was lost in 1929, and rediscovered in 2007, tonight we serve the most famous Barbary Coast drink of them all.

Duncan Nicols behind the bar at the Bank Exchange

Rudyard Kipling said it was:

“compounded of the shavings of cherub’s wings,
the glory of a tropical dawn,
the red clouds of sunset
and the fragments of lost epics by dead masters.”

The roots of tonight’s drink lie deep in San Francisco’s past. The discovery of gold on January 24, 1848 brought about 300,000 people to California, about half by sea. Part of San Francisco transformed overnight into a collection of bars, brothels, and gambling dens known as “The Barbary Coast” where miners could drink and spend - creating a ready market for alcohol in all forms. Ships from the east coast would sail around Cape Horn, then north along the coasts of Chile and Peru up to ‘Alta California.’ Stopping for provisions, the ships would also pick up goods for sale in San Francisco, including famous Peruvian brandy – Pisco.

In addition to bringing Pisco from Peru, the northbound ships brought many Peruvians to California – both miners and settlers – who brought their foods, recipes and culture. Two Peruvian drink recipes are of interest to us: a drink called ‘las once’ – Pisco, lime, sugar, and water; and “chicha de piña” – a mild fermented drink made from pineapple rinds. [Pineapples originated in South America and are grown in Peru]

All of this came together at the Bank Exchange and Billiard Saloon. Founded in 1853 at the corner of Montgomery and Washington, it was one of San Francisco’s most luxurious bars. From 1887 to 1919 it was owned and run by Duncan Nichols, and it was famous through out the Western world, and Pisco Punch was the house drink.

All in all, Pisco Punch is a very pleasant drink, but what about it induced the rhapsodies from Kipling and others: “one glass of punch will make a gnat fight an elephant” and “floating the drinker in the region of bliss of hasheesh and absinthe”.

Duncan Nicols was emphatic about a ‘one drink per customer’ policy when it came to the Pisco Punch – however a six ounce glass would only contain about one shot of alcohol. He was absolutely paranoid about the recipe – he never told the recipe to any of his bar staff, or even his wife. In the last years of his life he told his associates that a key ingredient was no longer available, and upon his death it was widely assumed the recipe was lost forever.

Researcher Guillermo Toro-Lira makes a strong case for the identity of that missing ingredient. May we recommend that you read his book "wings of cherubs" and find out his theories?

It is likely we will never know for sure what the missing secret ingredient in the Pisco Punch was, but we can enjoy both its taste and its history.

Our Opinion

The drink is a mild 'sweet / tart ' drink - like a margarita or daiquiri. Pisco has a distinctive character that is clearly tasted through the pineapple. This punch is very easy to drink, but otherwise not that remarkable.

I have to confess that I didn't taste, or notice, the gum arabic - which is supposed to add a silky mouth feel. I did notice, however it really does slow down the absorption of alcohol - I felt very little effect of the 4 or 5 cups of punch during the first two hours - we threw the party at our house, so I knew I didn't have to drive. We had 5 oz punch cups, and we told people at the party "maximum of two drinks per customer." It would be very easy to drink a pint or more of this, and then be disastrously intoxicated three or four (?) hours later.

As far as I know, the Guillermo Toro-Lira recipe isn't published online, so I'm not going to disclose it.

Pisco [Peruvian Brandy]

Pineapple

Lime Juice

Sugar

Gum Arabic*

*Gum Arabic is the dried sap of the Acacia tree, it has been used for centuries in foods and drinks. It is the ingredient that makes ‘gummy bears’ and jelly beans soft and chewy. “Gomme Syrup” or “Gum Syrup” is another recently rediscovered / reintroduced “lost” ingredient from classic cocktails.

Bartending Notes

The recipe provided in the book is somewhat complex - it involves 6 bottles of ingredients - one is a bottle of pisco, the 5 others are made of the pineapple, chicha de piña, and syrups. I think the recipe in the book makes enough for a couple of gallons of punch. I'd suggest that you work out all your proportions and ingredients well in advance - you must make the recipe at least 30 or so hours in advance - I'd suggest that you make your gomme syrup two plus days ahead, and mix that with the simple syrup the next day - ie one day ahead. I did not observe any signs of fermentation in the Chicha de piña at all, I'm not sure if I should have allowed it another day or added some source of yeast - like some whole grapes - which I could have removed a couple of hours later.

I mixed the complete punch and put it in a pitcher, so that during the party I would pour 2 oz of the punch into each of a dozen punch cups, then add 3 or 4 ice cubes - so it was very easy and I was able to spend time at the party entertaining two very beautiful women.

Hemingway Daiquiri

2009-06-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

History and Context

In 1932, in the depths of prohibition, Ernest Hemingway moved to Cuba. Famous, and financially independent from the success of his second novel “A Farewell to Arms”, Hemingway spent much of his time in Cuba fishing and writing.

And drinking.

It was his quest for drink that led him to meet bartender Constantino Ribalaigua and today’s drink.

Cuba offered a welcome oasis to thirsty Americans during prohibition, and rich Americans went there in droves. Irving Berlin’s song put it this way:

So let us leave our cares and troubles behind,
And tell 'em our new address
Is where they stay up late and drink till they're blind?
Blind, but nevertheless, they're glad to see you in C.U.B.A.*

Havana was full of bars, from the swank Jockey Club to the American hangout Sloppy Joes, but for the cognoscenti, there was “La Cuna del Daiquiri” – the cradle of the daiquiri - the bar El Floridita - owned by bartender Constantino Ribalaigua, the ‘king of the daiquiri’.

Ernest Hemingway at the bar with Constantino Ribalaigua

The Daiquiri – rum, lime, and sugar - was invented in Cuba sometime between 1895 and 1905, perhaps by an American mining engineer Jennings Cox. We are not certain, but it is likely that Constantino Ribalaigua created the first frozen daiquiri, a drink made with shaved ice and blended by being tossed back and forth between two cocktail shakers. Later, with the invention of the blender, they were made with electric drink mixers.

“What he did not invent, he perfected” Havana Bartender’s Guild

Constantino Ribalaigua had his own recipe for the classic daiquiri and three variations. Daiquiri Number three – white rum, lime, maraschino liqueur**, grapefruit juice - would probably have been lost to us, except Hemingway loved it. He liked his drinks without sugar, and slightly tart. It was renamed “the Hemingway Daiquiri” in his honor, and a double is called a “Papa Doble.”

Most mornings found Hemingway in his regular seat at El Floridita at 10 am, where his driver brought him his morning paper. He often brought his friends to El Floridita – among them Jean Paul Sartre, Tennessee Williams, and Spencer Tracy.

------------------------

Our Opinion

From our first sip the Hemingway Daiquiri has been one of our summer favorites, and it is one of our first “researched drinks.”

We went through my library of over 60 cocktail books (and numerous websites and many cocktail blogs) and came up with 8 recipes for the El Floridita #3 including Constantino’s original recipe. They all have all the same ingredients but in different ratios. People’s tastes – their preferences for tart and sweet - vary, and have changed over the years. Working with our tireless research team we tried them all.***

Today’s recipe was the unanimous favorite of the research team:

White Rum 1.5 oz
Maraschino Liqueur .75
Lime juice .75 oz
ruby (red) grapefruit juice .25

Bartending Notes

In making pitchers of these, I noticed that the recipe worked very well for quantity four, but by quantity 8 the Maraschino and Lime were a bit overstated, so for eight it was more like rum 12, maraschino 5, lime 5, grapefruit 2 - however in the heat of the party I didn't make notes of my experiments.

I made these in a blender - measure rum, maraschino, lime, grapefruit - blend for 2 or 3 seconds, then add ice. I started with about 3 parts drink, 2 parts ice, then I moved on to 1 part drink 1 part ice. I tried to refrigerate the rum beforehand, but we overloaded the fridge and blocked a vent, and nothing got very cold. In the future I would definitely chill or ice all ingredients that are going into a blender.

We are saddened to add that over the years we have stopped using the famous Bacardi Rum. We aren't sure, but it seems that because of the huge popularity of vodka, the folks at Bacardi have changed their product so that it will appeal to vodka drinkers – they removed most of the flavor, the flavor that made their rum famous. We started out using our 'standard white rum' - Myer’s Platinum Rum, and experimented with Flor de Caña Extra Dry [recommended by author Jeff “Beach Bum” Berry, quoted here in Erik Flannestad's blog]. The Flor de Caña was a clear home run, adding substantial flavor to the drinks. Jackson's Wine & Liquors has it on sale for $8.90 a bottle at the moment. In fact, we like the Flor de Caña so much, we are going to make Bacardi Cocktails ...

For this recipe, we use Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

* ”I’ll see you in C.U.B.A.” music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, 1920
**Maraschino liqueur is made from sour cherries and has nothing to do with those cherry-shaped red objects occasionally found in cocktail glasses

Selected Links and References

Drinks After Hemingway's Own Heart - NPR - listen to Phil Greene, of the Museum of the American Cocktail, meets us at a watering hole in downtown Washington, D.C., to tell us about the drinks Hemingway wrote about, especially a unique version of a frozen daiquiri.

The Old Man and the Daiquiri - A pilgrimage through Hemingway's Havana, from Atlantic Magazine

Bay Area Liquor Stores

2009-06-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

Ledger's Liquors - 1399 University Avenue at Acton, Berkeley, CA 510-540-9243
- truly amazing selection of beer, especially Belgian beer, and just about every liquor you've ever heard of. Very eager to special order things for you. The owner is also a beer brewer, and very friendly guy. Competitive pricing.

Jackson's Wine & Liquors - 3524 Mt Diablo Blvd, Lafayette, CA 94549 (925) 284-4100
- each of the staff here have an area of expertise - stunning single malt collection - and they often carry bargains on high end booze - 20 year old rye whiskey - Competitive pricing - if you need a 1.75 of Myers Platinum Rum or Bacardi - same price as Bevmo or a penny less. One of the few places that Oceana trusts the wine recommendations.

The Jug Shop - 1590 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco, CA 415.885.2922
- mostly a wine store? Many very unusual things, but not comprehensive, one of the few places that carries syrups from Small Hand Foods (Berkeley)

Cask - 17 Third Street at Market, San Francisco. 415.424.4844
- Who carries two different bottlings of Parfait Amour? They do. They are very focused on the mixologist / classic cocktail market. They also carry Small Hand Foods syrups, and a good selection of cocktail books, new and vintage. They've had problems with their phones, don't take it personally. When they first opened they seemed quite pricey, but on my last visit it seemed the prices were normal.

John Walker - 175 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 800.350.5577
- Higher end liquors, Napa Creme de Noyaux, exotic Tequilas. Can be pricey.

Bevmo - A beverage supermarket, the Concord store has a great beer selection. Everyone in the bay area checks and matches their prices. Often very convenient. Frequent buyers get 5% discount coupons after every $250 in purchases.

Trader Joes - this is just my opinion - we shop there all the time, and its where I buy dozens of lemons and limes every month. This is just my experience, but unlike most other products they carry, be careful about buying wine or beer there. Aside from "two buck chuck" don't buy wine there unless you know what you are doing or need 6 bottles of Yellow Tail. Many of their beers are terrible. They have Trader Joe's label beer that would appear to be made for them by Gordon Biersch and Unibroue, and these are, in my humble opinion, second or third rate beers from two of the best beer makers in North America.

Online Cocktail Resources

2009-06-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

Webtender - one of the two online cocktail recipe databases I'm always checking. I refer to their bar measurements page (how many teaspoons in an ounce?) frequently enough that it is on my browser toolbar.

Savoy Cocktail Book

2009-06-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

Coming soon

Brief discussion of this important cocktail book, excellent drinks I've tried from it, the interesting system of measurements, and Erik Flannestad's blog - he is making every drink in the book

Sloe Gin Fizz Cocktail - the Gloss

2009-06-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Sloe Gin Fizz

Dating from at least 1898, the sloe gin fizz is a cocktail that has led several lives. Before prohibition it was famous for its sweet – tart flavor, then it came back in the 70s as a low-rent, cheap thrill. Now its reborn in its original form.

Sloe gin is made from ‘sloes’ – the hard, tart, ruby colored fruit of the blackthorn - similar to cranberries. It comes from the UK, but few companies make it because everybody’s aunt makes their own by steeping sloe berries in a bottle of gin. By contrast, what has been made and sold in the US for the past 50 years is a very sweet cheap synthetic product.

The Plymouth Sloe Gin you’ll be tasting tonight is the real thing, made using an 1883 recipe and real fruit. I’ve been looking for a year, but only saw my first bottle of it in the US eight weeks ago.

Fizzes are one of the oldest forms of cocktails, dating from at least 1866. Your “Plain Gin Fizz” is gin, lemon, sugar, and seltzer water. For a sloe gin fizz, replace some of the gin with sloe gin. And then there’s egg white.

The use of eggs in drinks is also very old – from at least the 1690s - but sometime in the late 1800s people stopped stirring eggs in and started shaking them. A silver fizz is a gin fizz with egg white, golden fizz is a gin fizz with egg yolk, and royal fizz is a gin fizz with both parts of the egg. So you might say that we are having tonight is a “silver” sloe gin fizz. But no one calls it that.

In a properly prepared cocktail, raw egg white adds a light creamy texture, somewhat like drinking a cloud. I can still remember the first drink I ever had with egg white – a silver fizz - in the bar at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong in 1986. Ironically, it is likely that the reason eggs disappeared from cocktails is that it is hard work to properly shake a drink with egg white – it needs to be shaken, hard, for at least one, but preferably two minutes. Before prohibition, the Ramos Brothers in New Orleans employed 35 muscle men a night to shake the famous Ramos Fizzes. Tonight, we will rely on a blender.

Most people are shy of raw eggs, fearing an unknown texture, salmonella, or perhaps that famous scene in the Japanese film Tampopo. However no one is afraid of eating cookie dough – unless they fear the calories. Most cookie dough contains raw eggs – which should give you an idea of the level of risk.

Tonight’s choice of drink inspired in no small measure by the desire of The Polynesian Princess. Also, it is the first time that we have tried to make cocktails with egg white on this scale, so please bear with us if we take a few minutes with each round of drinks. And don’t forget to read about tonight on our blog,

“Cocktails at 80”

Being a Philosophic Inquiry into the Application of the More Philosophy of Responsible Hedonism to the Enjoyment of All Aspects of Cocktails

Http://cocktailsat80.blogspot.com

Sloe Gin Fizz Cocktail- the party

2009-06-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

Friday night we had a Sloe Gin Fizz party here at '80'.

In my classic cocktail research, I'd tried a few cocktails made with Sloe Gin: The Millionaire #4 (Savoy Cocktail Book), The Blackthorne, the San Francisco - and they weren't very good. When I saw the PR surrounding the new release of the Plymouth Sloe Gin* , I went back and tasted the sloe gin I'd been using and realized it is terrible. How did this stuff get to be associated so heavily with sex? "Sloe comfortable screw"? "Panty Dropper?"

Inspite of the PR from Plymouth, for over a year I couldn't find any Plymouth Sloe Gin. So when I visited London I went to Gerry's and bought a bottle of Lindisfarne Sloe Gin**, which is remarkable stuff.

Finally, Plymouth Sloe Gin arrives. It is available in a couple of stores here in the bay area (Ledger's Liquors in Berkeley is my 'go to' liquor store). The fellow at the Jug Shop in San Francisco told me its only available in New York and San Francisco.

We picked the Sloe Gin Fizz at the request of The Polynesian Princess. For these drinks we used our 'rings' glasses which hold a 5 oz pour - we believe in small glasses - chilled (of course). Oceana did most of the set up and Kate did the food table and was our food waitress, O helped me with the pour and then walked the tray of drinks around. Meira kept on offering to help and like a dope I didn't accept.

We had some hot appetizers from Trader Joes which were a big hit - puff pastry kinds of things. It seems like our regulars are getting have figured out how we work - we had a dozen people here by 6:40 (the party was 6:30 to 8:00)

How could we have made it a better party? In our world, this means how could it have been more fun for us, cause if we had more fun, you too would have had more fun!

First, we did the big no-no of not doing a research group to proof and finalize the recipe. In this case, it wasn't a big deal, but it added to the tasks I had to do, and added to my level of stress. If we'd done this, I would have had the famous recipe spreadsheet* all ready to go, and might have bought a second bottle of sloe gin after I did all the math. FYI, we served about 40 drinks.

Second, we didn't have people signed up for clean-up - if we'd had someone who was bussing [collecting empty glasses, trash, etc.] it would have taken them 15 minutes over the course of 90 minute party - not an onerous task. The other thing we could have used was some heroic individual who would have washed about two dish drainers full of dishes - mostly from the food prep. [I always wash all the cocktail glassware myself]

Third, we didn't have a designated photographer. Ruth, our Ansel-Adamsette, wasn't expected, but did arrive a few minutes before the end of the party. I'm hoping for one good photo of Oceana with a drink in hand.

*especially since we like Plymouth Gin

** I asked the fellow at Gerry's if they had Plymouth Sloe Gin and he said "yes, and I have something that is better." He was right.

***OK, how do I post a spreadsheet in blogger?

Pisco Punch - the research phase

2009-06-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

What sort of research goes into preparing for a party?

Sometime it involves buying and reading reference material. In this case, there is only one book [Wings of Cherubs by Guillermo Toro-Lira]. In addition to the book, there is an article. There are, of course, many websites, however most of what is online also traces back to the article I link to below.

When someone writes a book with a sub-title like "The Saga of the Rediscovery of Pisco Punch, Old San Francisco's Mystery Drink", you know they aren't going to be making any money - that it was a labor of love. But at the same time, what student of cocktails could resist the lure of knowing the true recipe, long sought, often copied, never equaled.

There are not too many books or articles like this - the cocktail equivalent of a "who-dunnit". There is the story of the search for The Zombie Recipe by Beach Bum (Jeff) Berry in his book "Sippin Safari", the rediscovery of the Seybold Cocktail recipe, and this.

The book itself is fun - I've posted a longish review on Amazon dot com and a slightly more technical one on the Chanticleer Society - so no need to go into that here, but there are a few points that interest me.

Recipe Format: There are three pages that explain how to make the punch, clearly laid out with lots of photographs. To me it looks just like a bar set-up from a Tiki-bar - the recipe for the bartender is “this many ounces from bottle one, and this many ounces from bottle two, etc.” Then there is the recipe for bottle 1, the recipes for bottles two, three, four, and five. "Mix one part of bottle #3 with two parts of bottle #4 and one part of fresh lime juice." This is the way you do it when you don't want your bar staff to know your recipes, lest they go to work for your competitor across the street. I'll have to go back and read the book again to see if this format is historic or supplied by the author.
Duelling recipes: the author gives a list of reasons why he believes it is likely that the the “John Lannes” recipe revealed (published) in Bronson's 1973 “Secrets of the Pisco Punch Revealed” article is not likely to have been the famous, authentic recipe, but a competitor's best attempt to copy the real article. Based on the arguments on paper and reading both recipes, I lean to the Cherub recipe, but I think we'll have to make them both and see! They differ in that Lannes calls for lemon, Cherubs for lime, the ratios of ingredients differ, and the Cherubs recipe has a more detailed method of preparation. The Lannes recipes is somewhat vague on quantities, whereas the Cherub recipe is much more precise.
Secret Ingredients: While discussions of secret ingredients on the internet center on 'gum arabic' which Bronson believed to have been the missing link, the author reveals that there was another ingredient. There is a reasoned but entirely speculative discussion of what the ‘secret ingredient’ actually might have been which is highly entertaining.

I'll talk more about recipe research in another post, and our concept of a 'researched drink'.

Secret? What secret!

well, come to the party, and maybe we'll spill the beans - don't you know there is no such thing as a secret in a morehouse?

(At least, not for long!)

Tiki Cocktails - Brown Bag for an Ice Crusher

2009-06-05T17:39:00.000-07:00

There are lots of ways to get things. You can buy them. People can give them to you. You can find them.

We are interested in getting an ice crusher - for all those drinks that are served over crushed ice. If we are going to throw a party - in the back yard around the BBQ - it would be quite easy for us to serve 40 to 60 drinks in 2 or 3 hours, so it seems like a machine would do the trick.

Another thing to note is that we live communally, and my experience has been that groups are incredibly hard on appliances - much harder than a business would be. A business might use a machine for many hours a day, but usually only certain people operate it, and sometimes they are trained and feeding of a machine, and they know they need the machine to work to get their work done. In a communal kitchen, you don't know if the next person to use something will be 6 or 60 (or 75) and you don't know what they'll use it for - someone might try using the ice crusher to shred carrots. Notice I said "try". There is no malice, just a spirit of adventure, sometimes with a big ladle of naivety. Vic used to say that anyone who really wanted something tested and rated should send it to a Morehouse*

Anyway, what this means for us is that we have a kind of a two fold approach - either cheap (disposable) or expensive (restaurant or commercial grade). For toasters and juicers we go cheap - we beat the toasters to death in 3 or 4 months, for those $19.95 juicers they inexplicably last until we lose some piece (usually) or the plastic gears strip (much less often). We have "a real mixer" - its at least 15 years old and still going strong. Interestingly, no one knows how we got it!

So we want to try the high end approach for an ice crusher. Towards that end I did a lot of research [on amazon.com, etc.] and decided to take a chance on a Waring IC-70. I found this incredibly helpful post - I don't know if this link will work - http://chanticleersociety.org/forums/rss.aspx?ForumID=46&PostID=3743
which talks about the exact model I was thinking of getting. Reading his excellent post, I'm thinking I should look at the next level up in function (and cost).

Ah, cost. Where will the money come from? Well, I'd like to tell you about a somewhat unique institution we have, we call it a "brown bag." When you want something you don't have the money for, you can try to raise it. You get a brown bag - like a paper lunch bag, or larger - and you walk around - preferably with a buddy who supports your goal - and you ask people if they would throw money into the bag. By custom, one doesn't look to see how much a person is throwing in, or the giver can hold the money in their hand and put their hand into the bag so that you can't see. Whatever amount is given, the team thanks the donor and moves on. Often you get lots of change, but we've often seen people raise hundreds of dollars this way for rent or a medical bill or whatever.

So we are running a 'brown bag' for our ice crusher. In this case, we've gone a little upscale and used a box and covered it in wrapping paper - cause we want to put it out at parties and want it to look nice. But we still call it a 'brown bag'.

Here is what the sign on the box says:

Brown Bag for Ice Crusher

Would you like to have Tiki Drinks and Tropical Drinks at 80 this summer? Right here in our own back yard- with tiki torches!

We are planning on throwing BBQs and cocktail parties in our backyard this summer. I’d like to serve
Mai Tai’s, Zombies, Fog Cutters, Hurricanes, Singapore Slings etc. What all these drinks have in common is that they are served over crushed ice.

So we’d like to get a restaurant grade ice crusher. Would you like to “chip in?” If so, please throw some money in the box. We are looking to raise about $100.

*We'd be delighted to test products for you. And review them. Email me.

Small Cocktail Glasses!

2009-06-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

Fortunately we are amateurs, and are not driven by the whip of commerce to super-size everything in an effort to persuade that big is better.

We are big on small glasses for a lot of reasons.

Almost everyone has to drive after a party, so we want everyone to try and taste, but no one has to get drunk to sample everything.
A small drink gets consumed sooner, so it stays cold for more of its short life, retaining that 'smiling at you' experience of the tiny flecks of ice in the (shaken) drink, rather than melting into one of those watery margarita-flavored slushies those 24 oz Tex-Mex restaurant Margaritas turn into.
Most of the experience of taste is in the first sip or two. Even at a tasting, how much attention are people paying to the drink after the initial delight or initial dismay?
If you serve more than one kind of drink, you want everyone to be able to try all of them [which means max. of maybe three different recipes per party]
Even the largest shaker holds only so much liquid, and you might not enjoy the evening if you spend the entire the time shaking - with glasses as small as I use, I can shake a dozen drinks at once. That means I can pour a tray full and then go talk to my guests.
Vintage glassware was smaller than most contemporary glassware - I have some 5 oz Martini classes from the 30s, and art deco Collins glasses that are 6 oz. Small glasses are part of the retro / vintage effect. I do admit that the 3 oz MiniMartini glasses are smaller than vintage.
The mini-martini glasses are elegant
Booze is expensive and the costs add up. We've never had the gumption to put out a 'brown bag' or a kitty at a party for liquor- that's too declassé for us. One of our frequent guests made himself even more welcome when he left us a $10 Bevmo gift card - that was really a really classy move by my buddy from Bolete Blvd. You can bet they are invited to every party.

Preview of Coming Cocktail Attractions - Pisco Punch

2009-06-01T21:29:00.000-07:00

In my introduction I mentioned that I'd heard that the way to have the most fun is to enjoy something "before", "during", and "after"

So this post is some of "before"- before the event, before it happens ... so this party is still just an idea, a concept. We can think about the party - the recipe, the guests, the glassware, the smell of the ripe fruit - a whole ripe pineapple - we can think about all that now, enjoy all that now. We may wait until later to have the drink, but we can have some fun right now just thinking about it - No cost, no calories, just fun. Your body can't (always) tell the difference between real and conceptual thought - I can't stop smelling that pineapple - its so ripe.

Now.

You know, it could happen that after we research, formulate, and taste this drink, we decide not to serve it at a party - not to put the "George and Oceana imprimatur" up on it - so this could be a cliff-hanger!

I just received my copy of Wings of Cherubs, The Saga of the Rediscovery of Pisco Punch, Old San Francisco's Mystery Drink, by Guillermo Toro-Lira.

I've only read enough to be sure that the recipe Guillermo presents is different from the one(s) commonly available online.

This is a drink that was indisputably invented in San Francisco - at the south-east corner of the intersection of the Montgomery and Washington streets, in the Montgomery Block building, where the Transamerica Pyramid now stands. It was famous across America in its day, if not the world, Mark Twain praised it, and Rudyard Kipling said it was “compounded of the shavings of cherub’s wings, the glory of a tropical dawn, the red clouds of sunset and the fragments of lost epics by dead masters.”

How can you not be excited about that!

So for all you localvores out there, its a "local recipe".

Its from the 'Barbary Coast' of Old San Francisco
People really loved this drink, so I'm hoping it has stood the test of time.
The recipe has many steps and takes a day or two to make - so if it is special, it will be a rare and unusual experience.
Its an opportunity to learn all about gum arabic and gum syrup / gomme syrup - in fact I have a pound of gum acacia powder sitting by my desk and a rather expensive bottle of gomme syrup from Small Hand Foods

And, who doesn't love a treasure hunt - Raiders of the Lost Cocktail Recipes: the Saga Continues (cue the trumpets ....)

In Episode 1,
our hero Beach Bum Berry
finally uncovered the secret of
the mysterious Zombie ...

Episode 2 takes us to a jungle
called the Barbary Coast of San Francisco
where liquor was cheap, and life was cheaper .....
and one man,
Duncan Nicol,
mixed a legend.
His recipe, kept secret, was claimed by the sands of time.

Or was it .....

An Amateur's Take on Glasses and Glassware

2009-05-31T17:39:00.000-07:00

We throw lots of parties with 10 plus people - at least one a month. So we want glasses that are multi-purpose, durable, inexpensive, and elegant.

Many of the old cocktail books have pages with pictures or silhouettes of many different shapes of cocktail glasses. Wow. Who can afford that? And who has space to store that? If you throw a party for 10 people, are you going to wash, dry, and chill the same glass two or three times during an evening, or are you going to keep dozens of matching glasses in stock? Do you care if your glasses match?

We have four kinds of glasses. We have:

Oceana's anniversary glassware - art deco glass from the '30s and '40s, which is only used for special occasions
Random assorted glassware that has, at least for the moment, survived life in a communal kitchen. This is what we use daily when a bottle of wine is opened, etc.
3 dozen Libbey 3oz mini-martini glasses that I use for parties.
2 dozen 'rings' glasses that I can cast in a multitude of roles.

We love the mini-martinis. They are 3 3/4 inches tall, and you can do a 2.5 oz pour - I've included a shot glass to give you an idea of the size

I buy them by the dozen - they are about $3 a stem, I've broken 3 or 4 in three years - they are durable.

I've saved the boxes,the glasses live in the boxes between parties.

Notice the label has a picture of the glasses on it? My basement is full of stacks of boxes. After one afternoon hunting through those boxes, I came up with these labels - I cut and pasted an image from a website into a word document.

What about our Collins glasses, Old Fashioned, Hurricanes, etc. etc.?

We have 2 dozen 'rings' glasses that are all of those, all rolled into one. Its the one on the left, the smallest of the three in this picture - they are 7 oz, about 4 inches tall. Most 'tall' drinks call for ice (cubed or crushed) so you are looking at a 3~4 oz pour. For 'straight up' drinks - like a Sazerac - do a 4 oz pour and the glass is more than half full and looks fine.

I want to throw a lot of parties. So it has to be fun for me (and my co-conspirators) every step of the way. If its a lot of work, then I'll get tired, and I won't have energy to have fun with my guests. So I've spent a lot of time thinking about different aspects of throwing parties and looking at how others do it. And glassware is one piece.

We spent time not only finding what we think is great glassware, but its cheap enough that I don't have a fit if some drops a tray of them - I can relax and they can relax - so they are happy to help. And the glasses have a place to live, everyone knows what they are, whose they are, what they are for - so anyone who sees the box knows to ask me if its OK to use them for .... whatever. No one throws the empty boxes away by mistake or puts 6 cases of canned pineapple juice on top of a stack of glassware.

I can also tell at a glance if we've broken a glass or two, so I can pick up spares or order another case.

We believe very strongly in chilling our glassware before using it, so it's good if the glasses have a certain amount of mass - so they stay cold for more than a minute after they are filled. The more solid they are, the less likely they are to break.

[We are 'brown bagging' for an ice crusher - walking around with a bag asking people if they'd care to throw anything in towards the cause - care to throw some money in our bag? (contribute)]

I've found the most pleasurable thing for me is to get the glassware washed at the end of the party, before I go to bed or on to my next cycle. If the clean up for the party happens pronto, then there are no unhappy people the next morning looking at a clean up job for a party they might not have attended. No unhappy people means everyone is up for whenever/whatever the next party happens.

"Homemade" Maraschino Cherries

2009-05-31T16:53:00.000-07:00

I read about this a lot of times before trying it, then we were at Flora in Oakland - and one of our drinks came with an infused cherry - and we were sold. There are a lot of recipes out there, many of which involve cooking. This one couldn't be simpler.

Get ripe cherries, or almost ripe cherries
Clean a glass jar with lid - I use mason jars.
Wash, de-stem and pit the cherries - eat any that are bruised
Fill the jar with pitted Cherries - discard the pits.
Top off with maraschino liqueur - we are big Luxardo fans
Wait 2 to 3 days (this is the hard part)
Take a clean coffee cone* and paper filter, put it over another clean jar
slowly pour the liqueur and cherries into the funnel
Let the majority of liqueur drip off the cherries
Eat the cherries - they'll keep for about 7~10 days in the refrigerator.
When the liqueur has finished dripping through the filter paper, put a lid on it and keep it for the next batch

*Any coffee cone you've ever used for coffee will add a coffee taste, so buy one - a big one - to just use for kitchen alchemy and don't store it with your other coffee supplies. Once you've succeed at making one thing like this, you are doomed to the slippery slope of infusions and concoctions - rosemary infused vodka for your Christmas Cosmo.

Coffee filters (filter paper) is incredibly fine, so it always takes forever - go make a cocktail while you wait.

If you don't wait long enough, the cherries won't taste much like booze
If you wait too long, the cherries will turn brown and mushy, they'll still taste good but they will look repulsive and the texture goes quickly too. Brown or washed out cherries are really a hard sell with your guests.

We first did this last year. We tried a couple of different kinds of liquor and liked the maraschino liqueur the best. I'd like to try Kirschwasser or another brand of maraschino liqueur. We tried sour cherries, but they didn't taste very good.

If you don't strain the liquid every time, you'll wind up with bits of cherries decomposing at the bottom. Each time you use the liquid it gets slightly more dilute from the water in the cherries, and eventually when the alcohol level is low enough it will start to ferment. So far I've used this liquor about 5 times.

Orphan Bottles - Aquavit (and Kummel)

2009-05-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

We all have these bottles on our shelves. You see a recipe that sounds so good - like the Silver Bullet - gin, kummel, lemon juice - and between the photo and the name you think "what the hell, I'll buy a bottle of Kummel, there will be other recipes ...." And then there aren't, and it turns out that you have 3/4ths of a bottle of caraway liquor, collecting dust. You, of course, already have a bottle of Aquavit, which is a subtly different form of ... caraway liquor.

So when you see the cocktail column in the Chron with a recipe using Aquavit, and you already own the rest of the ingredients, the little light bulb goes off - now you have the means, the motive, and all you need are the opportunity, and of course, the victim(s).

Unbeknownst to me, Oceana had decreed a cocktail hour to follow our Monday night house meeting - I live in a communal household, and we've been focusing on having our meetings be both fun and short - so all I needed was a bag of limes from Trader Joes and to pop the ingredient ratios into the recipe spreadsheet. Here is the Vessel (Seattle) recipe for The Hemingway Solution

1.5 oz. aquavit
1 oz. lime juice
.5 oz. maraschino liqueur (Luxardo)
.25 .oz simple syrup
3 small sprigs of fresh thyme
2 mint leaves.

I quadrupled the recipe, used Aalborg aquavit, and I didn't have fresh thyme so I put a big pinch of dried thyme into the cocktail shaker along with cutting up 4 mint leaves (our mint plants are just getting established), and shook hard for ~ 10 seconds, and poured into chilled glasses. Some of the glasses had flecks of thyme in them, so I shook thyme lightly over all of them as garnish.

The first sip and you realize that this wonderful drink is an aquavit version of the Aviation (gin, lemon, maraschino) - very perfume-y, refreshing, cool. The caraway is subtle, so you get a mix of the caraway, thyme, hint o' mint, and the sweet of the maraschino - that Luxardo magic. We've tried Aviations with a spectrum on gins, including Genever, and I have a still unopened bottle of Old Tom to try. So Aquavit is just a bit further away from juniper, but fits right it.

Another time I'll try this again with the Kummel - first I'll taste a 1/4 teaspoon of each of the Kummel and Aquavit to get their flavors, I'll use more mint and I'll try and find fresh thyme.

And I'll look for a different name - the Urban Dictionary says "the 'Hemingway solution' is to commit suicide with a gun in the mouth", and google gives me: a heavy metal band, a poem, a recently published novel, and a song title.

My Goals for this blog

2009-05-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

Helping Others Get Started

When I started making cocktails, shaking cocktails, in 2001 I had no idea of what I was doing. Searching libraries and the internet, I learned so much, but found few books that were really what I wanted. The great exception was Paul Harrington's book Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century, regrettably out of print.

Sharing the enjoyment (and pleasure) this hobby provides

I've made a bit of a study of pleasure - I'm a responsible hedonist - and one of the things that I learned was that the most enjoyment comes from enjoying something before, during, and after. In this case, before includes the research (books, recipes, history, philosophy, cocktail auditions), during is the making, the tasting, and the party (and I have some ideas for how to do this in the most enjoyable way), and after (remembering, blogging, posting photos, updating recipe logs)

A philosophical inquiry about living deliberately

Let cocktails and cocktail parties be my laboratory for this ongoing experiment