Cocktailing for beginners Pt 1

A few people have asked me about getting started making cocktails, so here is a quick multi-part guide to getting going.

Equipment:- You don't really need anything. A cocktail shaker will make life easier later on but for now we can improvise.

Our first cocktail
The dry Martini.
Easy to make, tricky to perfect. Whole books have been written about the Martini, there is a whole lot of lore around it & it has a place in popular culture.

What you need
ICE
Gin
Vermouth (dry)
Garnish (lemon peel, olives, onions)

Ice :- all cocktails need ice, you'll probably find it easier to buy a bag of ice from a supermarket or similar. The most important thing is to have more ice than you think you'll need.

Gin:- Choose a good gin. Whilst its true cocktails in the prohibition era were made to disguise the awful home brewed spirits that's not the case any more. If you wouldn't drink it neat then don't put it in a cocktail. So which gin ? It's pretty much down to personal preference, but if you aren't sure get a half bottle of a recognized brand. (I tend to go for some of the big hitters, Bombay Sapphire, Tanquery et al).

Vermouth :- Get dry vermouth, Noilly prat is readily available and a good dry. In general French vermouths are dry and Italian ones sweeter. Some of the supermarket own label vermouths are fine for their price, again as with gin the quality is better.

If you have a shaker take off the top & put to one side, fill the tin with ice. If you don't have a shaker then a measuring jug will do just fine.
There is an awful lot of talk about making very dry Martinis using ever decreasing amounts of vermouth, but to start with we'll make something about standard. Normally I use proportions when giving cocktail recipes as that means you can match it to the number of drinks you are making, the size of your glasses and any other factors. In a dry Martini its 1 part (pt or p) of vermouth to 5 parts gin.

Measure it, or do it by eye, again what ever you are most comfortable with. Put the vermouth in first and then add the gin. Stir briskly for about 20-30s, the aim is to chill the drink & mix it, some of the ice will melt, taking the raw edge of the alcohol(*).
If you are using a shaker, put the strainer part of the lid back on, if you are using a jug a sieve or tea strainer will make pouring easier, but again you can improvise with a lid or a spoon. Pour into glasses (traditionally a v-shaped cocktail glass, but any glass with a wide rim will do) keeping the ice in the mixing vessel.
Time to garnish, the garnish adds to a Martini (and most other cocktails) you can use olives (green or black) or lemon peel to give a Martini or cocktail onions to make a Gibson. Drink it before it gets too warm (but don't just knock it back, you've spent some time making the drink, spend some enjoying it).

Try adjusting the proportions, the different garnishes, adding a bit more of the pickle juice or olive brine (this makes your Martini "dirty") until you get the taste you like.

Next week we'll add another ingredient to our drinks cabinet and see what options that gives us.

(*) There are lots of thoughts about the role of ice in mixing drinks, over the coming weeks I'll touch on theory & equipment, usually down here in the footnotes

Beef stroganoff

Ahh beef stroganoff, always a quick warming tea. I'm lucky to have a very good butcher at a farm shop. The beef is raised over the road, and looked after well either side of the knife. It means I can use pretty much any cut for the stroganoff. So I had a couple of left over rump steaks, some mushrooms & an onion. Oh & a bottle of the Beaujolais nouveau. Chop the onion & sweat down whilst slicing the steaks and mushrooms. Turn up the heat season with salt & pepper, throw in the steak. Flame off with some brandy (if you like) and seal. Toss in paprika to taste (I have some from Spain that has a variable heat), mushrooms. Add red wine reduce, stir in double cream (ok you can use single, just as long as it's cream) mix well & serve of plain rice. Oh help yourself to a glass of the wine you didn't use cooking




The Beaujolais this year has a strong vanilla note with very light tannins and red fruit on the finish. I'm not a big red (or even White) wine drinker, but this is rather tasty

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Accidental Manhattans

It's been a long week with a somewhat tedious drive at the end. It was a week that deserved a cocktail, but there are few things worse than getting a mediocre drink when you are looking forward to a relaxing end of week. The idea of a pre-mix is pretty much repugnant, but maybe putting together a manhattan might be possible. At the house of bols I grabbed a small bottle of original bitters, a half bottle of Jack & filling my flask with vermouth. A small jar took care of some maraschinos, looking good. It's quite easy to get a pint glass of ice from hotel bars, time for a bit of undercover mixology. You'll have to be resourceful or pack a shaker & strainer (stuffing a plastic tooth glass into the mouth of the pint pot works fine as a strainer, a stirred drink seemed easier than a shaken one). Here we go



Better than an overpriced badly made bar drink for sure. Slainte !

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Location:The Silverlink,North Tyneside,United Kingdom

A dry Gibson

I'm not a fan of olives, so I like my Martinis with a twist, I also Like them dry,very dry, so dry I'l need a drink afterwards. I've experimented with rinsing, with drier vermouths (Noilly Prat gets a lot of use, being dry & easy to obtain),misters, and homoeopathic techniques. I'm now a bit more sensible, but I still want my Martini to be dry (and vodka free).

Early on in my cocktail experience I found the Gibson, in which the olives are swapped out in favour of tiny pickled silverskin onions. It was some kind of nirvana and its a handy thing to order if you are unsure of the ability of the bar-staff.

Those of you who poke about in EXIF info will find out that this picture was taken on Xmas day 2008. I'd gone to Las Vegas for xmas & was determined to enjoy a few cocktails. Unfortunately I met with a lot of disappointments. We went to Wynn and got ourselves a grand table on the terrace. Unfortunately my Gibson was less than grand, merely OK (I make better at home).

Waiting around in the Hotel (the Luxor) I wandered up to the main bar (liquidity) and sat down to order a coke. The bartenders were mainly chatting & milling about and one asked me why I was drinking coke. Normally I'd give a bit of a snappy answer, what I drink is my choice. This time though I had a bit of time & was pretty relaxed so I started to discuss my cocktail experiences. The bar guy told me "I make seriously good Martinis",
"yeah you & every other bartender in this town",
"OK here's what we'll do, I'll make you, your Martini of choice. You don't like it you don't pay, you do like it you tell everyone"
"fair enough, one terribly dry gin Gibson please"

He went away rattling through the bottles of gin, vermouth, and collected up his tools. A mixing glass full of Ice went on the bar in front of me, and the Martini was stirred up there & then. Once it was done the bar (a couple more staff & a friend had joined in my now) fell quiet, punctuated of course by the quarter rattle of a large casino. I took a sip.

"so how much is a dry Gibson then ?"
"$10"
I put $20 down and spent a seriously happy 20mins chatting with the staff & my friends (the rest of the party turned up) drinking a Serious Martini.

Like the sound of it ? Gibson my way.

20 parts GOOD London gin (Tanqueray, Bombay sapphire, or the like)
1   part Dry vermouth
3 small silver cocktail onions
Lots of ice

Shovel enough ice into a Martini glass to give it a heaped fill, pour in water to help chill, Fill you mixing glass with ice, pour in a splash of Vermouth, stir it all round and drain the vermouth, put in your measure of Vermouth, and then add the gin, stir for 20-30s dump the ice out of the glass & quickly dry up any remaining water. Pour Martini into glass. On a cocktail stick skewer your 3 onions(*) stir the drink with them a couple of times & then serve.

(*)3 is the ideal number, I only have empirical evidence for this, so if you are after a good Gibson stick with3, if you are experimenting, good luck and take care.

Treacle tart a la hairy

Yup the hairy bikers do treacle tart to. Its as lot less forbidding than Heston's recipe, taking up  a mere half page of text. The pastry is a lot less rich too. As you can see.

I'm only going to use half that butter, so its a much more standard pastry making procedure, cold hands cubed butter, 15 mins rubbing in. We also get to skip the fridge hokey-cokey that the tart bases required in the perfection recipe. In fact its even suggested you make the filling first to give it time to soak into the breadcrumbs properly.

The pastry came together ok, but didn't fill the house with the wonderful scents from the perfection pastry, but then it didn't cramp my hands & lurk in the fridge either. Also when the hairies say enough for a treacle tart to serve 6, they are much closer than Heston's mass catering effort. My friends & neighbours won't be pleased though. I was planning on leaving the golden syrup unaged, till I found the tin on the back of the shelf which had aged quite nicely on its own, in fact it had aged enough to separate. That's an easy thing to take care of, just heat the syrup & stir. Heating the syrup is usually wise anyway coaxing a full tin of cold syrup out into a bowl is a real chore. Remember to loosen the lid though or you'll have to duck.

The internet solved the breadcrumb problem quite neatly. Behold the mini-chop. Whilst my kitchen is in need of the TLC only a partial rebuild can supply this is very useful, taking up very little space and being on hand for choppy jobs at a moments notice. I expect as we head toward the warmer time of the year it'll be pressed in to making curry  pastes and the like.
The filling was really simple, using a bit of lemon zest, rather than buerre nuisette from last time. The whole lot went into one blind baked case and into a slow oven for half an hour.
Onward to the bit you've been waiting for.

As you can see the filling is denser & deeper than the perfection tart. The pastry is probably a little better made than the perfection pastry, but that might just be the fact its a more standard short crust. What you can't tell is that it's no where near as fragrant as the perfection tart. It tastes like treacle tart, good treacle tart. Unfortunately it can't really measure up to the gold standard that Heston sets. That said this is pretty easy to make, and not much more than 2-3 pounds worth of ingredients. The perfection tart costs more to make and requires a much larger time investment, but the results are worth while. Keep this one for quick entertaining (or cynically guests you are less fond of) and break out the perfection tart when you have prep time and really want to impress

Smoked out

Following on from my MxMo experiments I found this post, being fond of Islays it gave me an idea. Hanging round in the globe o' booze there was the remnants of a half bottle of Caol ila. Infusing Lapsang into the whisky required a bit of tasting and tweaking. The result somehow flatten the iodine note from the ila & the astringency from the lapsang's pine smoke.

I took a sample to my favourite bar and we tried out a few ideas.

We used the whisky as a base, and then used some port to balance out the tannins, a bit of cherry syrup to balance the acidity and a splash of sweet vermouth to round out the body.

Up front was a smooth sweetness, the body was warm & round, but the entire drink was all about the finish, which was a massive blast of smoke. Smooth, sweet, fragrant smoke. Possibly this a one trick pony of a drink, but a whole bunch of ideas got discussed, and since there is more left, I think I'll try and put some of the ideas into practice.

MXMO round up

Its here, and makes some interesting reading. Some groan worthy punning names, some unusual ideas and some very good looking drinks.

If we are going on looks alone old town alchemy's iridescent has it. I might be trying my hand at one of those quite soon. They also went with a tea rinse, that's an idea I can get along with. I've given it a kind of try already. Not wanting to go to the length of making a cup of tea and then letting it cool enough to use I grabbed my earl grey gin and stirred up a very dry Martini, Garnished with just a lemon twist, the bergamot comes through right at the end in a ghost of citrus way.

Best/worst pun has to go to Kick my Assam, and I'm intrigued by the daiquiri stylings of  tea with Hemmingway.

If I've not mentioned you sorry but thanks go to everyone involved.

Tomorrow there should be something more foodie, but I'll be back on the cocktails over the weekend too as I've been inspired.

Crumpets v Pikelets take two

The last lot of Crumpets using the Hairy Biker recipe where good, they just weren't good enough. The purpose of crumpets (and pikelets) is to form a toasty matrix for holding molten butter. It turns out that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has a recipe (well more a sermon on tea-time treats). I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Thats the batter there, after the yeast has done it's work. The batter is a lot thinner this time round, more the texture of thin cream than the doughier batter of the Hairy recipe. Time to heat the skillet and find out what goes on. Hugh Suggests a test crumpet, which by tradition wil be sacrificed to Chef's privilege so I'm all in favour.

I was a touch sloppy getting all the batter into the crumpet ring, but the 2 important points are on display, 1 bubbles, and bubbles make holes, which is why we are making crumpets in the first place. 2 the batter is staying in the ring, its not oozing out of the bottom, so we've got the correct proportions. What follows is about an hour with the skillet & crumpet rings, but Hugh insists that pikelets are just flat crumpets (a position I've opposed for a long time, but since I've failed to find any evidence to back up my stance, I'm reluctantly agreeing with Hugh & others). This does though mean that I can get a nice system running where I alternate between crumpets & pikelets & get to clean the crumpet rings without wasting gas.

Well here they are pikelets, the store bought ones of my youth were actually a bit more circular & a little less rustic than these. Even so there is a good deal of promise being shown. At this point, if you've never enjoyed crumpets or pikelets you are probably asking yourself "Why is he so worked up about this ?". Well, pikelets have a different mouth feel to crumpets (in my opinion a superior one) that these experiments lead me to believe is due to their thickness. In both its possible for a hole to extend through the entire depth, of course with crumpets being several centimetres high, its unlikely, pikelets however are more in the order of millimetres thick, so it becomes highly likely, and when done right the majority of holes reaches the thin batter base. This provides for a much stickier eating experience, with pikelets trapping more molten butter. Here as inspiration is the bounteous harvest of teatime goodness

The humble potato

I love potatoes, roast are the very best, but baked are pretty high up on the list.
I have 2 top tips from cooks I trust. Heston recommends you oil the skin, this prevents the potato drying out. Nigel Slater recommends you give the potato a good karate chop on removing it from the oven, this allow the steam to escape in a rush fluffing your potato up. Anyone with any sense then works a good quality of butter in to the flesh. You can remove it all, mash it with butter and put it back into the skins, or you can just mash it in place. After that you can add the fillings of your choice.

They need to be cooked in an oven or a fire, either will do, it'll take about an hour, you can do what you like in that time (Today I took part in a readathon) after all the potato isn't going anywhere. Some argue this takes to long and use a microwave, I'd disagree, it tastes better the slow way.

A life of its own

The mixology monday tea theme has taken on a life of its own, in two seperate directions.
The obvious one is with tea infusions, I've been twiddling with the Lapsang & the smokier whiskies (mainly the islays (Its not heresy, its science)) and seem to have come up with a winning combo in the Caol ila and an hours infusion of the lapsang. It changes the colour of the malt from very pale to a deep amber, and at the same time smooths it out, you get big smoke up front and then a smooth finish with the sea notes that islays are famous for.

The less obvious one is boosting sections of the flavour profile, I'm restricting myself to florals at the moment, mainly because I really like them. This isn't going so well, here is the story of a failure.

The manhatten is a traditional whisky cocktail, and seemed right for what I was planning, a quick search of my bottles and a couple of questions to the web suggested that Glenfiddich might be a place to start. There are a few things I make at home as ingredients. Lavender syrup because I need some way of keeping it in check in the garden. Flavoured vodkas (I use boru, its 5x filtered and gives a nice clean base) usually fruits but also vanilla.Glenfiddich has vanilla & lavender notes, so this all seemed ideal.

Its not. The result whilst not undrinkable is an overpowering burn of alcohol, which when finished really doesn't leave anything you'd call flavour behind. I'll keep going though and hopefully some thing will drop out.