Sweet Vermouth II

Sweet Vermouth

Simmer, for 15 minutes, 1 cup dry white wine (from one bottle) with:

1 1/2 teaspoon granulated orange peel

1 teaspoon dried chamomile

8 cardamom pods

1 star anise

1 teaspoon dried lavender

1 cinnamon stick

1/2 teaspoon wormwood leaf

1 teaspoon galangal

1/2 teaspoon angelica

5 cloves

1/2 teaspoon coriander seed

 

Strain and add:

remaining wine from bottle

1/2 cup brandy

1/2 cup sweet wine (or 3 TBSP ruby port, 1 TBSP brandy, and 4 TBSP water)

 

Set aside.  Meanwhile, caramelize 1/2 cup sugar until deep caramel brown.  When sugar has cooled slightly, at 1/4 cup boiling water and stir over low to medium heat to dissolve caramel.  Combine caramel with wine mixture.  Chill.

Earl Grey Cooler

Made a pot of earl grey to experiment with. 

Shake over ice briefly, and strain into an ice filled Collins glass:
5 oz. cold earl grey tea
1.5 oz. Plymouth gin
1.5 oz. St. Germain
.5 oz.lime juice

Habanero Bitters for Vino Poblano

I mentioned that the Vino Poblano needed some spice.  I tried mixing one with sriracha, but it didn't really work.  So, taking a clue from Cocktail Hacker's coronal bitters, I made a batch of habanero bitters.  They are still steeping, but I'm excited to give them a try.  Recipe below.

Combine in a jar and let sit for 10 days:
1 lime, cut into eighths
5 habaneros, cut into quarters
1 Tbsp molasses
9 allspice berries, crushed
1/4 tsp. cinchona
3/4 c. plus 2 Tbsp 100-proof vodka (I used Smirnoff)
2 Tbsp plata tequila (I used Milagro)

Columbus

My brother brought back a bottle of Cruzan 9 spiced rum from his recent trip to St. Croix.  Used it to make some solid Painkillers and pseudo-Dark and Stormies, but I've been looking to try something that doesn't mask it quite as much.  Let's give this a shot.

Columbus
1.5 oz. Cruzan 9
1/2 oz. Curacao
1/2 oz. Bitter Truth Allspice Dram
1/2 oz. lime juice
1/4 oz. simple syrup

Shake and strain all ingredients.

Update (June 8, 2012):  Might be worth trying this with unspiced rum to really let the allspice shine.

More with shrub

I've been struggling with the purpose (and use) of my apricot thyme shrub.  Like pickling and other methods of preserving, it seems like a great way to use fruit when you have home-grown abundance, but is questionably writer when using store-bought produce.  Here is one recipe that might make me think otherwise.  As a background element, shrub adds brightness without citrusy acidity.

Your mother was a hamster
2 oz gin (I used Botanist)
.25 oz st germain
.25 oz apricot thyme shrub

Stir all ingredients over ice and strain.

Pantry Old Fashioned

There's a scene in So I Married an Axe-Murderer where Rose, the axe-murderer, asks Charlie, "What would you say to silver dollar pancakes, fresh squeezed orange juice, bacon, and Kona coffee?"  After Charlie accepts, the camera cuts to him eating cold cereal and Rose says "Sorry, I didn't have those other things."  That's how I felt when I went to make a old fashioned and had no oranges or cherries.  Even the grapefruit I had was moldy when I cut into it.  Turns out Cointreau and Heering aren't the worst substitutes. 

Pantry Old Fashioned
2 oz. bourbon
1 tsp. Cointreau
1 tsp. Cherry Heering
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes Orange bitters

Stir all ingredients over ice in an old fashioned glass.

Damiana Sour

Something of a shame that I only made this with most of the bottle done.  Its pretty delicious.

Damiana Sour 1.5 oz. gin
1.5 oz. Damiana
3/4 oz. lemon-lime juice
3/4 oz. water
1 tsp. simple syrup

Shake all ingredients over ice and strain.

Normandy Fizz

I gave a friend instructions for starting a home bar today and mentioned that you can make a fizz out of any spirit.  Took my opwn advice to use up some pear liqueur I got on our flight back from Paris.

Normandy Fizz
2.5 oz calvados
1 oz. lemon juice
1 oz. pear liqueur
1 egg white

Shake all ingredients over ice and strain into a collins glass.  Add 5 oz. club soda and fill the glass with ice.  Stir. 

Vino Poblano

Decided to use some leftover (i.e. not worth drinking) wine in cocktails.  This drink needs some heat.  I used Fee Brothers whiskey barrel bitters for spice but think habanero bitters or even sriracha would work much better.  It would also benefit from a heartier wine.  Preliminary recipe below.

Vino Poblano
1/2 oz. mezcal
1 oz. creme de cacao
2.5 oz red wine

Shake all ingredients over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Apricot Shrub and Apricot Cooler

Saw a recipe at my dad's house for apricot shrub and spring tonic from Flavor magazine.  Had to give it a try.  Modified recipes below.

Apricot Shrub
2 cups apricots, halved, pitted, and quartered (about 1 lb)
2 cups sugar
2 cups cider vinegar
10 sprigs thyme

Combine apricots and sugar and stir well.  Cover and allow to macerate in the refrigerator 1-2 days, until the sugar has drawn water out of the fruit and created a syrup.  Add vinegar and allow to come to room temperature.  Stir until sugar is dissolved and add thyme.  Cover and return to the refirgerator for 1 day.  Strain and keep refrigerated.

Spring Cooler
1.5 oz. gin
1 oz. apricot shrub
.5 oz. dry vermouth
6 dashes rhubarb bitters
3 dashes orange bitters
3 dashes peach bitters
2-4 oz. club soda

Shake over ice all ingredients except for club soda.  Strain into an ice-filled collins glass and top with club soda.

Cocktails at Fiola

Coventry and Bitter End.  Details to follow.

Update:
Great drinks at Fiola.  Their cocktail menu is my new to do list. 

Bitter End - gin, campari, cointreau, lemon juice, chocolate bitters
Coventry- rye, averna, maraschino

Seelbach

Made Seelbachs for my guests.  Great pairing of bourbon and bubbly.

Sweeet and Dry Vermouth

Kosher vermouth bring as difficult as it is to obtain, I was instantly taken in by DIY recipes for sweet (Serious Eats) and dry vermouth (Jan/Fen 2012 Imbibe).  They ended up tasting remarkably similar.  The sweet was not sweet enough with strong wormwood flavors coming through.  The dry was too dark, with plenty of bitterness from wormwood, cinchona, and gentian.  Both are certainly usable, though.  The sweet made a perfectly serviceable, if dry, Manhattan.  The dry is cooling in my fridge on its way to a Martini tomorrow night.  Recipes for my next attempt are below.

Dry Vermouth
Simmer, for 15 minutes, 1 cup dry white whine wine with:
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp sage
1/2 tsp chamomile flowers
1/2 tsp angelica
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp wormwood
1/8 tsp cinchona
3 black peppercorns
2 cloves
3/4 tsp granulated orange peel
1/4 vanilla bean

Allow to steep one hour.  Strain and mix with remaining wine from 1 bottle, add 3 oz water, 2 oz brandy, and simple syrup to taste.  Should be just sweet enough to balance the bitterness from the herbs and acidity in the wine.

Sweet Vermouth
Simmer, for 15 minutes, 1 cup dry white whine wine with:
zest of 1/2 orange
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon dried chamomile
8 cardamom pods
1 star anise
1 teaspoon dried lavender
1/4 teaspoon wormwood leaf

Strain and add:
remaining wine from bottle
1/2 cup brandy
1/2 cup sweet wine

Set aside.  Meanwhile, caramelize 1/2 cup sugar until deep golden brown.  When sugar has cooled slightly, at 1/4 cup boiling water and stir to dissolve caramel.  Combine caramel with wine mixture.  Chill.

Two Classic Drinks with Homemade Grenadine

Having read in a number of places that you really can't make a Jack Rose with fake grenadine (basically red syrup), I bought a bottle of pomegranate juice to make my own.

Grenadine (from Imbibe):
1 cup pomegranate juice
1 cup superfine sugar (which you can make in a food processor or blender)
2 tablespoons pomegranate
2 tablespoons vodka
1 tablespoon orange blossom water (I would dial this back next time)

Stir all ingredients until dissolved.  Refrigerate.

Oddly enough, the orange blossom flavor is very pronounced when the syrup is cold (and consumed alone), but much more muted when the syrup warms up.  It fades into the background when mixed, of course.

While I bought the juice for Jack Roses, I realized I had not applejack and settled on two other classic cocktails from Ted Haigh's Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, the Monkey Gland and the Scofflaw.

The Monkey Gland
1.5 oz. Bluecoat Gin (buy American!)
1.5 oz. fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tsp. Sambuca
1 tsp. grenadine.

Shake over ice and strain into a glass.  Add a few drops of orange bitters.  Nice and herbal and just sweet enough.


The Scofflaw
1.5 oz. rye (I used Redemption)
1 oz. dry vermouth (I used Martini and Rossi Bianco, which is on the sweeter side)
3/4 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice
3/4 oz. grenadine

Shake over ice and strain into a glass.  This one really lets the pomegranate shine through, but came out a bit sweet.  Would definitely make again, but recommend using the driest vermouth you can find.

More with my new bitters

We went to Acqua al 2 Monday night and had a great dinner and some tasty cocktails, including their take on a spicy lemon drop.  I didn't have any chili cordial to add heat, but the Rhubarb bitters certainly add depth.

Shake over ice and strain:

2 oz Plymouth gin

1 oz Cointreau

3/4 oz lemon juice

1/2 oz home made lime cordial

10 dashes rhubarb bitters

Add a few drops of meyer lemon tincture at the end.

Peach Pit

Went to the liquor store Sunday to pick up a bottle of Italian white to go with dinner.  Came home sans wine, but with a bottle each of peach and rhubarb bitters.

The bitters brought to mind receipe I saw last year for making amaretto by roasting peach pits and soaking them in cognac.

The Peach Pit
Stir well with ice:
1.5 oz cognac
1.5 oz amaretto
10 dashes peach bitters

When you don't have cloves...

I had some leftover pineapple juice Friday night that I wanted to use up.  I found a recipe for pineapple drink that calls for muddling cloves.  Well, I couldn't find whole cloves, but I did find a bottle of Fee's whiskey barrel bitters, which worked very well with the pineapple.

Shake over ice and strain:
2 oz. pineapple juice
1/2 oz. lemon juice
2 oz. rum (I used Barbancourt 4-star)
1 oz. St-germain
10 dashes whiskey barrel bitters.

Garnish with sage leaf.

Nutty Dove

New goal for February: drink half a bottle of amaretto.  I bought a bottle of it for a party years ago and it needs to get off my bar.  Though its pretty tasty, its sweetness and marzipan-like flavor makes it less than versatile.  Probably great paired with Middle-Eastern pastries, but otherwise I'm not won over.

The other ingredient I have on hand is a pile of grapefuits and grapefruits are the backbone of two of my favorite drinks.  The first is a paloma, a tequila highball made with grapefruit soda (though its much better with fresh grapefruit juice, syrup and club soda).  You can get a solid one at Bar Pilar, where I think they use Jones, or great one at Cafe Atlantico, where they use house-made soda, dress it up with cinnamon and call it a spicy dove.  The second is a bourbon punch which Gina makes.  Of course, neither of these include amaretto.

So, getting to my point...riffing on a paloma has two major upsides: grapefruit juice pairs will with bourbon, providing the brown liquor bridge to amaretto, and amaretto is super sweet so it can be subbed in for syrup, bringing us to the...

Nutty Dove
Shake and strain into a collins glass filled 3/4 with large ice cubes:
3 oz. bourbon (I used Rebel Yell, because it's $10 in MoCo)
1.5 oz. fresh grapefruit juice
1 oz. amaretto
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Top with club soda.

A Drink and a Smoke

I spent some time on Difford's Guide Friday afternoon looking for recipes that would help me use up a bottle of Pimm's No. 1.  It's not that I don't like Pimm's (actually it's pretty tasty, if a bit tame), it's just that it isn't that handy - that bottle is taking up precious real-estate on my bar that could be better occupied by any number of spirits or liqueurs.  In the process, I came across a recipe for the Breakfast Club cocktail.  The original calls for cold lapsang souchong (a smoked black tea), white rum, honey, and orange marmalade.  Lacking white rum and still possessing a bottle of quince syrup, I modified the recipe a bit to suit my pantry.

A Drink and a Smoke
Shake and strain:
3 oz. aged rum
1.5 oz. cold lapsang souchong tea
1/2 ounce quince syrup

The smokiness of the tea works beautifully with the aged rum, Barbancourt 3-star in this case.  The overall reduction in ABV and and the sweetness of the quince syrup bring out the vanilla flavors in the spirit.  This is perfect cocktail for someone who doesn't want anything too boozy.  While the smokiness of the tea and the viscosity of the quince syrup make this a wonderful winter cocktail, but I could drink these all summer served tall over ice.

Vin d'Orange

Lillet is a French, wine-based aperitif which I have never had the pleasure of tasting.  So, when I saw a recipe for vin d'orange - a supposedly Lillet-like infusion of wine, citrus, and spices - posted on Serious Eats, I filed it away for safe keeping.  Star.  Keep as Unread. Never got around to it.

When another vin d'orange recipe appeared on Imbibe, it really lit a fire under me.  After a vanilla-bean-, meyer-lemon-, and navel-orange-laden trip to Costco, I was on my way.  I had also recently purchased a case of budget-friendly, but slightly over the hill white and rose wines, so I had everything I needed.

I know a lot of time is spent talking about how important it is to use fresh, high-quality quality ingredients.  Not this time.  I used a vanilla bean leftover from roasting pears and the wine was not one I would generally serve to guests.  Regardless, the final product was delicious and a big hit out our recent Ottolenghi dinner - another story altogether.

Vin d'Orange
Place in a large jar, and let sit, covered, one week in a cool and dark place:
1 bottle dry rose wine
1 meyer lemon, quartered
2 navel oranges, quartered
1/2 cup vodka
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 vanilla bean
Strain after infusing.  Drink chilled.

UPDATE: works great in a Twentieth Century.