An evergreen, bittersweet.

It's time once again for Mixology Monday. I skipped last month because Im terrible. This month its being hosting by Booze nerds, a blog near and dear to my heart. These guys are so serious! They geek out on subtle and weird ingredients, and are really into making lots of versions of similiar things and comparing which is best and if its worth doing the subtle variations. I really think they are awesome and you should check them out. I've seen their stuff on Liquor as well as their own site.


The theme that these nerds chose for this month was resin. Check out all the entries here: http://boozenerds.com/2013/11/21/mxmo-lxxix-resin-roundup/ It stressed me out a little but I like it. It's fairly limited but there is quite a few directions to go within that thematic parameter. My main thought was for resinous herbs, as I grow and love perennial fall favorite herbs like rosemary and sage. Loosely defined, resinous herbs generally have woodier stems, slowly release their flavors and have an almost musky taste compared to the lively, fresh taste of more tender herbs like basil, parsley or cilantro that you might add at the end of a dish.


So, for the past 2 weeks, I have been making old fashioneds and Oaxacan old fashioneds with different quantities of rosemary and sage; muddling, garnishing and making herb tea ice cubes, all to no particularly good effect. I felt like it was very difficult to find a proper balance where these strong flavored herbs were noticeable without being overpowering.


I was drinking one of these on my stoop with my dog yesterday because it is suddenly unseasonably warm in Philadelphia. I wondered if I would post a blog about my lackluster drink and explain my efforts and subsequent disappointments, just to have a voice in the conversation. Then I invited my neighbor to join my for some warm weather whiskey drinkin on the stoop. He came over with  a beer and I explained my situation; that I have blog, and I had cocktail homework. He is a food scientist of sorts and he was really into this.


We began talking about what pairs well with rosemary and how much he liked Victory's new beer, Dirtwolf. Its a whole hop imperial ipa and its really good. That got me thinking about beer cocktails and maybe using hops as the resin ingredient rather than rosemary. After about 6 cocktails, we tweaked out our recipe to something we both really enjoyed that included 4 resinous ingredients!! (maple, rosemary, mezcal{agave}, hops) It was truly a collaborative effort, with us arguing, tasting ingredients and remaking different versions of the cocktail until it was just right.


an evergreen, bitterwseet

10 fresh rosemary needles
1/2 oz maple syrup (grade b)

1 oz rye whiskey (bulleit)
1/4 oz mezcal (fedencio)
1 oz lemon juice
dash chocolate bitters (fee bros)

3 oz ipa (Victory Dirtwolf double ipa)

Muddle rosemary and maple syrup in a shaker. Add next four ingredients. Shake with ice, then pour into a collins glass with fresh ice. Top with beer and stir gently. Go easy on the rosemary or it can turn out real gross. The beer is crucial, you want a big citrusy hop flavor to bring it all together. We also made with Founders centennial ipa when we ran out of the victory jawn. It was different and still good but not as good.


I think this combo sounds a little strange on paper but it really is delicious and I urge you to try it. The maple is subtle enough to add sweetness but not be cloying. The rosemary is subtle enough to be herbaceous without tasting like hippy dish soap. The mezcal is super subtle and adds a hint of smokiness without overpowering. The lemon juice is fairly strong  but supports the fruity citrusy hops of this ipa perfectly. And the chocolate bitters still sounds weird to me but chocolate and lemon play well together and it was the clear winner after trying the 6 different bitters in my cabinet. It's the cherry on top, the final accent that brings it all together.

Please let me know what you think if you make one!

The Sfozando

 This month's Mixology Monday jawn is smoke. Its being hosted by Elana at Stir and Strain, check it out. For the smoke theme, I was thinking about cocktails made with Scotch or Mezcal. I tried getting weird and not using smokey booze but was mostly unsuccessful. I made a super gross old fashioned with barbecue sauce, a pretty decent manhattan with liquid smoke and finally an acceptable paloma with mezcal. My experiments that were actually drinkable just felt like normal drinks that were unnecessarily smoky, and while that wasn't bad it was no better than the original drink. So I starting looking through my cocktail diary for anything tasty I had made with Mezcal and found this recipe which I really loved.

Mezcal is the smokey cousin of tequila. Well, technically tequila is a kind of mezcal but to most people in the US anyway, mezcal is the weirdo, scotch-like relative of tequila. Both are made from the agave plant, but tequila is only from blue agave grown in Jalisco. Most mezcal Ive seen is from Oaxaca but Im under the impression it can be from any state. In that regard, it is similiar to brandy and cognac, with cognac having a protected desgnation of origin. The majority of Mezcal we can even find here in the US is made in the traditional methods where hearts of agave, a big sorta cactus like succulent desert plant, are roasted in smoldering pits for days?, maybe. This lends a very smokey character to the finished distillate. You can find unsmoked mezcals also though.

I never heard of this drink before seeing it in Mr Boston. It was conjured up by Eryn Reece, whom I know nothing about. It contains 2 of my favorite liquors, rye and mezcal, and uses weird bitters that I have, chocolate. The only references to it on the internet are to the Mr Boston cocktail book. Its really good though and you should make it.

The Sfozando

1 oz mezcal (San Perderra)
3/4 oz rye (Russels Reserve)
1/2 oz dry vermouth (Noilly Pratt)
1/2 oz benedictine
dash chocolate bitters (Fee Brothers)
orange twist

Stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with an orange twist.

I normally dont like chocolate and orange stuff. The combination of orange and chocolate are subtle, there is an herbal note from the benedictine, a spicy flavor from the rye and a smokiness from the mezcal. All together it makes for a deliciously balanced cocktail that I highly reccomend.