MxMo LXVI :- It ain't easy being green

 Gosh its been a while, and summer has passed (mainly in a damp whimper round here ). Anyway Ed at Wordsmithing Pantagruel decided on MxMo LXVI. Now I've taken a pretty loose interpretation because I was focussing on the whole end of summer thing. To the extent I was down at the allotment on a frosty October morning & realised that the Fennel needed to be dealt with before the frost turned it to rotting mulch.

Now there were a few bulbs of fennel left, too many to use in one dish. So out came the Kilner jars & the vinegar. I added a strong dash of Chartreuse Elixir vegetale to the pickling mix and let the whole lot stand for a while.

Then came time to turn it into a cocktail.

Pickled Fennel Sazerac

So with it being Autumn I wanted a warming drink, not a long cool fruity drink and the sazerac seemed ideal, the fennel adding a last hurrah of Summer in the background.  Now there are arguments about whether a sazerac is made with rye or cognac. I tend to settle them using a 50-50 mix.

3-4 pieces of Pickled Fennel
1/2 barspoon of pickling liquor
4 dashes Peychaud's bitters
1pt Rye whiskey
1pt Cognac

Muddle the fennel, pickle juice & Peychaud's in the bottom of a mixing glass, add a couple of cube of ice, the rye & the cognac & stir down. Double strain into a chilled glass, add an ice cube or two & a couple of fennel fronds as garnish. Sip in front of a roaring fire

Mixmo LXII :- The Hard stare

Well its another Mixology Monday and this time the theme of Morning drinks has been chosen by Kevin at the cocktail enthusiast.

I went with a breakfast drink rather than a pick me up/hair of the dog. Taking inspiration from Harry Craddock and a rather famous bear we get the Hard Stare.

1 Good large measure of dry gin
1 barspoon of marmalade
a large dash of orange bitters
Shake very hard over ice, single strain & serve

Normally I'd double strain a clear shaken drink, but with this you want the marmalade fragments in the glass as they provide a sparkle. As you can see from the photo I've used shredless marmalade, it makes a better looking drink. Also the orange bitters I use for this are quite odd, they are more of a bitter orange liqueur, that comes in at 20% abv, so I use almost a spoon full rather than the more traditional dash. They replace the lemon juice (which turns the drink cloudy) in Harry's original recipe.

As an aside I tried to order this drink for breakfast a couple of times in Las Vegas, unfortunately they don't seem to keep marmalade behind the bars out there, so I had to go with out.

Forgotten ?

Forgotten cocktails, the latest Mixology Monday offering, set by rock & rye 

I have apparently forgotten to include this in an earlier blog post which is a massive oversight on my part. The Claridge from the Savoy Cocktail book is practically the house cocktail. We found it after being presented with a bottle of apricot brandy. I've shown it to a couple of bartenders who haven't seen it before, so I think it counts as forgotten.

So what is it beside apricot brandy ?

2 pts Gin
2 pts Dry vermouth
1 pt   Triple sec
1 pt   Apricot brandy

Stir it down over ice & pour into a well chilled glass.

The apricot, orange & vermouth work really well together, the gin provides punch and the apricot lingers nicely. I don't normally garnish it, but a twist of orange or lemon won't hurt. Its pretty versatile, you can twiddle the proportions to make it drier or sweeter depending if you are serving before or after food.

Mixmo Lime

It's MixMo time again, and Limes have been chosen.

I find Lime to be quite a tricky ingredient, it's acidity can be too overpowering at times, so I keep lime drinks for before dinner.


I think this is an underrated lime cocktail :- The Stiletto

Ingredients

 1 part fresh lime juice
 1 part ameretto
  4 parts Bourbon.

Juice the lime, I tend to use this as my base measurement, in general unless the lime is elderly it'll yield enough juice for two drinks.

Pour it into an iced bar glass, add in your ameretto and your bourbon. Shake, strain & pour.

This is one of those magic cocktails where all the parts harmonize with each other & you don't get too much of any one flavour. I'm always surprised that when DiSaronno are advertising this drink never comes up as it shows off very well indeed. I guess if you aren't a marzipan/almond flavour fan then this will look like a nightmare, however whilst the almond note is still present, it is fairly subdued. Give it a go, if you don't like it then don't order another. Maybe though you'll be pleasantly surprised.

The Stiletto

Mixmo:- Brown,Bitter and stirred

Mixmo, Manhattans, Interesting.

A number of writers place the Manhattan up with the Martini, a couple even give it the crown as the king of cocktails. In short it has a reputation, one which for once is richly deserved. Every now & then a bit of a tinker with it is in order, what makes the Manhattan's magic ? For one drinker I know its all about the cherry. With that in mind, I went all out for the Cerise Manhattan.

Simply I swapped cherry brandy in for the vermouth and Kirsch in for the bitters so

45 ml Bourbon (drinkers choice)
15 ml Cherry Brandy
2 dashes of Kirsch

Stir over ice, strain.
Lift a maraschino cherry with your barspoon & drop it (with attendant syrup) through the drink.

This was a massive DRY cherry hit. I was using home made cherry brandy, so that wasn't as sweet as the commercial stuff (I'm stingy with sugar) which might have made some of the difference. However I think that cutting the cherry brandy with half red vermouth might well produce a more balanced drink.

I guess I'm just going to have to keep experimenting till I find an acceptable cherry Manhattan, could take me a while, but I'll sacrifice myself like that since it's unlikely that I'll mix up anything utterly unpalatable.

MixMo Absinthe

It's mixology Monday time again and our hostess thinking of drinking has picked the bad boy of the drinks cabinet :- Absinthe. To be truthful, I use absinthe frequently, I just don't use a lot, it's place is in drops, dashes & rinses. I just wasn't that inspired, but hang on, this is the green fairy, Van gogh, Lautrec, and Paris. The more I thought about it the more I started leaning towards doing something a little bit different, sure I could mix up something playing to the strength of Absinthe, maybe a Ultra-dry Martini I like to call "Death right now" in punnage to Hemingway, or to play with that wonder drink the "Corpse reviver #2" , but different was where I wanted to go. Here then is a bit of a story and a cocktail to go with it.

It was February the 26th 2008, I'd been reading "Last of the mohicans", but it was time to sleep, I turned out the light. I was rather rudely awoken by a roaring noise & the bed shaking. I rolled out of bed onto the floor & back under the bed, it was an EARTHQUAKE ! About here I need to point out I live in the UK in the Midlands, earthquakes aren't that common, but I'd just been woken up with a depth charge of adrenaline, so rolling under the bed seemed reasonable. A couple of seconds (or more subjectively a lot of seconds) later and calm had been restored. For those who've never experienced an earthquake they are pretty loud and of course anything jigglable has been set making a noise too. I flipped the computer open & attempted to log on to the BGS to find out more, I also fired up a chat window to talk to some friends who would be awake in a different time-zone.

Then I thought maybe a nightcap would help settle everything down.

Quite what possessed me to open the savoy cocktail book I'll never no, but the redoubtable Harry Craddock had just the thing, an earthquake cocktail. Its not a drink for the faint hearted, in fact it's pretty ferocious.
1/3rd Gin
1/3rd Whisk(e)y
1/3rd Absinthe

Apparently it'll make you forget you are drinking through an actual earthquake, a claim I can well believe. It's shaken hard with ice. Unsurprisingly the main flavour is aniseed, the Whisky & Gin having been bullied out of the way. They do however calm the bitterness down (I've tried it made with pastis & it's almost sickly sweet) and take away the burn of the alcohol. Refortified I went to see what the BGS were saying about matters geological. Not a lot, most of the UK was hitting the site, so I checked a few other places and found that it was magnitude 4-5 tempting me to play "Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskala" by Einstürzende Neubauten, but my neighbours may have managed to get back to sleep and it is somewhat raucous. After 45 minutes or so the drink & friendly banter had done their work and I was beginning to feel sleepy once more.

The earthquake turned out to be a mild 4.7, did no visible damage to my home, but was the topic of conversation for a good week. Before finding out that MixMo was absinthe I'd pretty much ignored the Earthquake cocktail, and making one to photograph and get tasting notes for reminded me why. Its a very strong drink, with one overwhelming taste aniseed, although it is quite well balanced, taking away some of the bitterness and burn. If you like the taste of absinthe & are looking for something different to the usual give it a go.

If you are caught in an earthquake of the smaller kind with little danger to life & limb get one mixed up and embellish the story, telling how you let the quake shake the drink for you and how you downed 2 or 3 straight to calm your nerves.

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.

Tea for two

Ok this is my first stab at mixology monday. This time round the host is cocktail virgin with a theme of tea. Whilst I do enjoy the Capt Picard (A martini of Earl Grey infused gin, with a touch of lemon juice) I wanted to do something different. I have a bit of an odd relationship with tea, possibly due to an unfortunate encounter with Bewley's Breakfast blend brewed terrifyingly strong at an early age. I do however like that most maligned of teas Lapsang Souchong. I also like whiskey (& whisky) I tend to go for the big smokey blends, in fact the more it tastes as if it was wrung out of a peat sod the more likely I am to give it shelf space.

Oban is a place I visited a few times and they make a fine malt, that sometimes gets called an island due to the saltiness of having you distillery on the sea front. The tasting notes for the Oban are smoke,honey,salt,orange in no particular order. This and a recent reading of Embury gave me an idea, could I boost the flavours & smooth out the alcohol ?

Ingredients, The Oban 14yr old, its quite easy to find as its one of "the six classic malts". I find it a gentle whisky that won't really offend or scare anyone. A medium lapsang (this is actually from a Dutch tea merchant :- Simon Levelt ,who als supplied the smoked Earl Grey for the Picard). Some local honey. Hoppe's orange bitters.Finally some good sea salt (I think this is Kosher salt for US readers).

Since  I drink a fair amount of loose tea I have tea filters (DIY tea bags) around, that makes the infusion a bit easier. The colour of the Oban doesn't really change dramatically during the infusion, so keep an eye (and a taste on it, we don't want it to get bitter). The lapsang and the Oban go well together the earthy lapsang is up at the front, the whisky filling in the body behind, but still on the fierce side. How though would it be best to bring it together. My first thought was a Manhattan variation, since it's a versatile classic, but I was worried the vermouth would overpower the notes I wanted. Then it dawned on me, bitters, sugar & whisky, that is an old-fashioned.

Tea for two a modern twist on an old fashioned.

A couple of flakes of sea salt go in the bottom of your glass (I couldn't resist the glass tea cups, sorry). (as an aside, I'm quite sensitive to salt, you might want to up to maybe a half pinch) Put a half bar spoon of honey in & then add a couple of spoons of orange bitters, stir/muddle the salt & honey into the bitters, splash in some of the tea infused whisky & a couple-3 ice cubes. Stir/muddle till everything is dissolved. Add more whisky to the depth you or your drinkers enjoy, stir a bit more and then remove the ice cubes. Put a fresh ice cube into each glass, pare off a bit of orange zest and then squeeze (flame if you like or are trying to impress) to get the oils onto the surface of the drink, and drop into the glass as decoration.

What you should get is a boosted Oban that is smoothed out and notched back from its usual fierceness.