Kiwiberry sidecar

Kiwiberry Sidecar

1 3/4 oz kiwiberry infused brandy
3/4 oz cointreau
1/2 oz lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a shaker tin and shake with ice. Strain into a coupe. Sugared rim is optional and even less necessary than a traditional sidecar.

This is so good! It has a really mysterious tropical flavor from the combined lemon/orange/kiwiberry profile. It tastes like passionfruit or some fruit you've never tried but would come from an island.

I have a big kiwiberry vine growing at my parents house. It takes over a fence every couple years and needs to be hacked back. Last year I made some jam from them and infused some brandy with them as well. The main thing we like to drink with brandy is the sidecar so this made sense to try. Sidecars are a classic sour, made much like a margarita, with ingredients varying slightly between recipes. I usually make them 3:2:1 but for this infused version I bump the brandy a little more to increase the kiwi flavor.

Mocktails

3 oz Kombucha
1 oz blackberry shrub
1/2 oz lemon

This doesn't have a name and its only sort of a recipe, more of a suggested guideline perhaps. The proportions really depend on the flavor and intensity of your ingredients. Over the winter I've been brewing kombucha until its super sour then cutting it with sweeter fruit juice or ginger beer or anything else I can find. On this occasion, I took some kombucha before it was fully fermented, so it was sour but also still sweet. I made a shrub over the winter with some random cheap out of season berries. I don't know what recipe I used or if I messed it up, but it is also sweet and sour. Shrubs should be but this one is really sweet with a hint of tartness. So this recipe works really well for the ingredients I had but may not be reproducible. 

Kombucha in mocktails works very well because it is so intensely flavored. It has the oomph that a soda or fruit juice is lacking. I've been using club soda to stretch out the flavors if I use other intense ingredients like lemon or lime. I'll also use sparkling wine if its for someone that drinks alcohol but doesnt want a big drink.

Gold Rush Cocktail

Gold Rush Cocktail

2oz bourbon
3/4oz honey syrup*
1/2oz lemon juice

Pour all ingredients into a shaker tin. Add ice, shake and strain into a coupe or a rocks glass with a big cube. No garnish.

{*to  make honey syrup, use 2 parts honey to 1 part water and stir or shake in a sealed jar until dissolved}

This is a really delicious drink. It is sweet and tangy but still boozy, especially if you use 100 proof bourbon, which you should.

Surprisingly, it was only invented recently. It is one ingredient swap away from several classics like the bee's knees and brown derby but somehow no one ever came up with honey, lemon and bourbon, or at least never wrote it down. Sam Ross created this at Milk & Honey in Manhattan in the past ten years or so.  I don't know which he made first but it's also like a simplified penicillin cocktail.

North & South

I missed this months mixology monday but I made a maple pecan old fashioned. I had infused pecans in bourbon after seeing a post about it awhile ago on the Post Prohibition Blog. This was the best thing I've made with it so far.

North & South Cocktail

2oz pecan infused bourbon
1/2oz maple syrup (2:1)
Angostura bitters
Maple bitters
Whiskey infused pecans for garnish
Lemon peel for garnish

Stir with ice. Strain into an old fashioned glass with a big rock. Wipe the peel around the rim and toss it in.

I love this. Neither flavor overpowers the drink. It is still very spirit forward even with the maple. I even bump up the maple flavor a bit with maple bitters (but only because I happen to have them, they are not as crucial as angostura) The pecan garnish is also incidental. I still had some left in the fridge so I used them to add more pecan aroma. They were still soft from being full of booze, so they skewered easily. The lemon peel brightens the heavy whiskey and sweet maple flavors and should definitely be used.

Moscow Mule

The Moscow Mule is a classic highball made fancier by having its own special glass. So far I have always made them in collins glasses but I finally got some copper moscow mule mugs and made them up properly. The copper mug is able to hold temperatures better than glass, resulting in a colder cocktail for a longer time with less dilution. They are certainly delicious in any glass but these mugs are gonna be a game changer in the summer.
 So before we get into the simple recipe, a mule and a buck are the same thing. They are both highballs involving ginger ale/ beer. The gin buck is what I am most familiar with although I have heard of gin gin mule as well and I dont know why the are different. Perhaps they are not and buck is classic terminology and it got renamed after the popularity of moscow mules? That popularity began in LA in the 50's as a bit of marketing for the new on the scene russian vodkas. You don't really need a recipe for this, you can do it to taste. Keep in mind, you don't want too much soda because there will be some dilution from the ice and the whole point of naming it a mule is that its got some kick to it. Here's how I usually do it, with some citrus adjustment based on brand of ginger beer. (Reeds is way more citrusy and requires less):::::::::::::

Moscow Mule


2oz vodka
3oz ginger beer
1/2oz lime juice

Fill copper mug with ice. Add vodka and lime and stir. Top with ginger beer. Add more lime wedges to taste. Unless I've already squeezed a lot of lime juice, I usually just ream half a lime into the glass then throw in the entire half peel.

Tequila also makes a fine substitute at the same proportions....

Martinez

This is the original old school grandfather of the dry martini that we know today. It is anything but dry. When vermouth came on the scene in America in the late 1800's, it was often predominant in mixed drinks not merely a modifier of a stronger liquor. There are recipes for manhattans which have similar flipped (to our modern sensibilities) ratios, as well as other less popular heavy vermouth based drinks. Although I dont care much for ridiculously dry martinis, this other extreme doesn't suit me either. It starts to be interesting at a 2:1 ratio of gin to vermouth for me. Here goes the classic from Jerry Thomas:

Martinez

2oz sweet vermouth
1oz old tom gin
1tsp maraschino liquer
dash bokers bitters
garnish: lemon peel

Stir with ice in a mixing glass. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon peel. Bokers is an old brand of bitters that has recently been recreated by Dr Adam Elmegirab's. I used Angostura. Old tom gin is a slightly sweetened pre prohibition style of gin which is gaining some popularity. Several brands are available. Maraschino liquer is not the gross red liquid from around neon red corn syrupy cherries but rather a delicious cherry, cherry pit and almond based liquer from Italy made by Luxardo. It is called for in small amounts in lots of classic cocktails. In the few decades leading up to prohibition it was commonly dashed into drinks along with absinthe and together they play quite nicely. Coupes are way classier than pointy martini glasses...

Ginger Kumquat Caipirinha

This months Mixology Monday isn't hot drinks for some reason. I keep waiting for warm cocktails to be a theme but all my toddy practice is just for me. Apparently, not everyone is drinking hot cocktails because their city is ridiculously cold and getting tons of snow. Luckily it only takes one warm cocktail to get comfortable inside and then you can make drinks with ice again. So the theme this month is sours. It's being hosted by ginhound and you can check out all the entries here. A broad, classic category, better suited for warmer weather imo, but a fine collection of cocktails nonetheless. Now, how can we mix things up a bit? Kumquats are sour.


I love weird produce. Kumquats are silly. They have a foolish name, a ridiculous strong flavor that is a combination of most flavors and so tiny for a citrus! They are made backwards also. The skin is sweet and the inside is sour and somewhere its bitter too, I suppose the pith, like normal. At the grocery store I enjoy making people try them for the first time. It's like making a baby eat a lemon. Hilarious!

So I bought some while they're in season and local produce is nearly non existent anyway. Problem is, I never really want to eat more than one. So that tiny pint takes forever to finish. So I thought I should try making some drinks out of them. My search was lazy and all the drinks seemed dumb that I came upon. I just searched for kumquat cocktail though. I considered making a kumquat simple syrup because a sweet/sour/bitter syrup seemed like something my fridge was missing and then they wouldn't all go bad at least.

forgot the lime for the pic

Then when I was about to make the syrup, I realized that the lazy version of that syrup was to just muddle them with sugar and make a caipirinha. I could call it a kumquaipirinha and be ridiculous with portmanteaus as I love to do. I can't call it that of course because no one ever searches the internet for kumquaipirinha and my slow building knowledge of search engine optimization suggest I should label things with titles that people will look for or no one will ever find my blog. Anyways, I thought I was so clever, how was I the first to think of this? I wasn't, obviously. There's plenty of recipes that seem better than my first attempt; so now Im going to have to try to tweak my recipe even though I liked it.

super juicy after muddling

Oh yeah- Cachaca is a Brazilian sugar cane syrup liquor that is barrel aged. Its a little funky, especially for being a sort of light colored rum. Although I am somewhat ignorant, I think Cachaca is closer to Batavia Arrack than rum. Rum is usually made from molasses not cane syrup. Even the clear jawns are usually molasses based and then distilled until they are clear. The only cachaca I ever see in Philly is Pitu. I bought one in California called Ypioca and its good. Also, funky rum is delicious and you should open up to it. (Thanks Smith & Cross!)

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Ginger Kumquat Caipirinha
2 1/2 oz cachaca
1/2 canton ginger liquer
2 tsp sugar
4 kumquats
1/4 lime

Muddle kumquat, lime and sugar in a mixing glass. Add canton and cachaca and ice. Shake vehemently for a bit. Strain into an old fashioned glass with ice. Garnish with a sliced kumquat on the glass or a lime twist or a lime wedge or some candied ginger, as suits your fancy.

Or if your lazy or into sloppy boy cocktails, muddle the whole thing in the glass and add ice. After all, caipirinha translates as country bumpkin/ hillbilly/ redneck; its not supposed to be fancy. For real though, if you own a mixing glass and a strainer it will be greatly improved if your drink isn't all pulpy and gross.

This is super seasonal and a different twist on a sour because its bitter. It is well balanced by sweet and sour but the bitterness adds an interesting complexity to the drink. You should try this all while you can still find kumquats, if you can find kumquats at all. The season is over soon and I think turning them into a drink is one of their best uses. It looks like orange juice but tastes like funky/ sour/ sweet/ bitter/ interesting deliciousness.

Vertigo Cocktail

I've begun exploring amaro's lately. These are a family of Italian digestifs, most of which have been made for at least 150 years or so. Their original purpose was for sipping after dinner to settle the stomach. The mid to late 1800's seems like it was a popular time to create an amaro brand for some reason. They vary by brand but are all blends of different herbs, roots and seeds. Most have some serious bitterness to them and a sweetener to balance it out. Anyway, modern bartenders have been experimenting with them in lots of cocktails. They are often substituted for some or all of the vermouth in a recipe to add a different herbal profile.

This vertigo drink is just a simple highball not a complex mixological creation but it is delicious. I generally love anything with ginger beer and Im always interested in learning there are more variations on a ginger beer highball. All the recipes Ive found on the internet attribute this recipe to Duggan McDonnell, with some recipes calling for floating the averna and others calling for lots of garnish. The averna is heavy and syrup and as such doesn't float well. So even if you float it, it doesn't last very long and I say its unnecessary. Some call for more citrus garnish than others but I think that depends on the ginger beer brand you employ. Reed's extra ginger brew is quite spicy but really sweet and citrusy too. If I used Fentiman's, I could see using a few citrus wheels

Vertigo

1/2 oz lemon juice
3-4 oz ginger beer
2 oz Averna
lime wedge for garnish

Stir in a highball with ice. Add garnish.

The bitterness of the Averna is really well balanced by the citrus and sweet ginger flavors. I think this is a really good drink to serve with some spicy food. It is lower in alcohol than most cocktails so try a few with your next stir fry!

Asian Pear Liquer

My mom's friend has an asian pear in her yard. She gave my mom a huge shopping bag full. This is what i made with some of them...

no good pics of liquer, syrup or drink... here's a pear

Asian Pear Liquer

First, infuse rum with the pears.
Chop any amount of pears and place in a large jar, crock, vessel, whatever.
Cover completely with rum.
Shake every day.
I think I might have done 6-8 pears in my 2 cups of rum.

then make simple syrup by heating equal amounts of sugar and water on the stovetop.
I had leftover spiced syrup from a cranberry sangria I made for Thanksgiving

2 C sugar
2 C water
8 allspice
6 cloves
3 star anise
3 cinnamon sticks

This was from a Jose Garces recipe on Chow. Bring to a boil stirring regularly. Take off heat and let spices steep til cool. Strain, bottle, and fridge.

I had several different fruit infusions I had made but the pear worked great with this spice combo.
I ended up with this ratio:

2 C pear infused rum
1 C spiced simple syrup

Now this is really tasty but my plan kind of backfired. I don't really drink liquers straight and I dont have many recipes wanting spiced pear liquers. Plain old pear rum night have been better for mixing. The inital fruit infusion is going to lower the abv a bit but Im not quite sure how to accurately calculate it. Cutting the infusion with simple syrup at a 2:1 ratio cuts the proof in half. So, at most it is 20% abv, but really probably more like 15%. Tasting tiny sips while making it this seemed fine but in retrospect and in mixed drinks this is a bit too sweet. I decided to try it out for making hot buttered rum, since that is spiced and sweetened, and my concoction would take a step out of that recipe. It was tasty but too sweet. Here's what I ended up using it for:

Hot Pear Pie

4-6oz boiling water
1 oz asian pear liquer
1 oz smith & cross rum
thick pat of butter (1tsp- 1Tbl)

Boil water and pour it in a glass, start with 4 oz. Add booze and butter. If it's too boozy add a little more water to your taste. Garnish with a cinnamon stick if you like.

Butter sounds gross in a drink but wait until its super cold out and then it will all make sense.Rich, warm and comforting. Smith & Cross is a funky, high proof Jamaican rum. It tastes like fermented magic, not like the sweetish liquor that rum usually is. Its high proof and its weird funkiness really helps to balance out the super sweet pear. It's really good altogether. You could probably make other fruit flavored hot buttered rums with different liquers, using that Smith & Cross to balance it out.

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!

Grand Autumn

Here is my favorite new fall drink! I found it on St Germain's facebook page. It seems weird that they are a real company and dont have a website, just facebook. But whatevs, I learned this great recipe from them and saw a few more that looked promising.... I know this doesn't sound that autumnal but it does have a nice leaves-changing-colors kind of look to it.

Grand Autumn

2oz Rye (Russels Reserve)

1oz Elderflower liquer (St Germain)

3/4oz Lime juice

3oz Ginger Beer (Reeds)

2 dashes Angostura

Shake Rye, St Germain, lime with ice. Strain into a collins glass with ice. Add ginger beer to taste and bitters on top. The bitters are a great addition. Sweet/ sour/ floral/ spicy. Excellent.

{I do love all things involving ginger beer. I pretty much always use Reeds extra ginger. Its very spicy, pretty sweet, and very citrusy.}

Melancia

Melancia is Portuguese for watermelon. Agua fresca is Mexican. Cachaca is Brazilian, where they speak Portuguese more than Portugal. Why does any of this matter? Cocktails, duh.

First of all agua fresca is delicious and refreshing if you did not know. Its basically lemonade using other fruits. Water, fruit, sweetener, citrus, sometimes herbs. Its less sweet and more refreshing than plain old juice and it stretches your produce into more drinks. When made out of cucmbers and mint and lemon I've heard it called cucumber water. However, watermelon water sounds stupid. Watermelon agua fresca sounds delightful though. I made it like this:

Watermelon Agua Fresca

10lb watermelon, rind cut off, chopped coarsely to fit in a blender
4 C water
1 lime
6 Tbl Agave nectar

This is a monster batch. My watermelon didnt even seem that huge to me but when I weighed it the scale said ten pounds. It filled the blender 4 times! I did a quarter of the water melon, 1/4 lime, 1 1/2 tsp agave for each batch. My watermelon wasn't amazing and this was a great use for it but if I had an amazing watermelon it would be even better and maybe not need quite as much sweetener. I strained it through a mesh strainer and then washed away the foamy pulpy stuff. I filled 4 quart jars when I was done. When it sat in the fridge for a day, it separates into fine fruit pulpy solids and more clear liquid but a quick shake and its back to normal. Now what? Drink it as is, or over ice with mint leaves and lime slices added top the glass or make a cocktail:

Melancia Sour

recipe adapted from Kevin Deidrich of the Burritt Room, SF; via the internet.


1 1/2 oz Cachaca
1/2 oz lemoncello
1/2 oz lime juice
1 1/2 oz watermelon agua fresca

Stir with ice, then strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

I adapted the recipe only because I didn't have the necessary ingredients for the original but I thought my version was really tasty. Cachaca is like the funky Brazilian cousin to rum. It is made from cane syrup rather than molasses and it is aged in wooden barrels for a year or more. It's pretty interesting if you can find it. If I didn't have Cachaca but I did have Smith & Cross Rum, I'd probably make it with that and be intoxicated more quickly but the flavor profile would be similar.

Pegu Club Cocktail

This one is apparently from a country club in Burma originally. It is virtually unknown in Myanmar today, according to wikipedia and there happens to be a bar in New York currently which stole the name. Its an old school classic dating to at least the 1920's and its basically a gin margarita. I'm not sure why people don't make these more often. Its different but very good.

Pegu Club Cocktail

2 oz gin
1 oz triple sec
1/2 oz lime juice
dash Angostura bitters
dash Orange bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.


This drink follows the 3:2:1 formula that I enjoy for sours, like margaritas and sidecars. The addition of 2 kinds of bitters got me thinking of variations. While there are still peaches in season, heres what I got:

Peachauds Club Cocktail

2 oz bourbon
3/4 oz peach schnapps
1/2 oz lime juice
dash Peychauds bitters
dash peach bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
I made the first drink with Cointreau.
The peach schnapps had to be reduced slightly for a balanced drink.

Jalapaloma

This month Mixology Monday is being hosted by Feu de Vie. Check out all the fiery entries here: fire drinks The theme is fire and it has me a little indecisive. Do I infuse something with chilis? Do I go over the top and make a drink that you ignite before serving? Do I go super subtle and just use bourbon, because it is aged in charred oak barrels? Do I infuse a smoky ingredient rather than a fiery ingredient like black cardamom or lapsang suchang tea? Uggh.

           

My wonderful girlfriend reminded me that I made a chili version of a Paloma last week that we both really enjoyed. So that's settled. When I made the original drink, I used jalapeno tequila made by Karen at Little Baby's Icecream. They were experimenting on a weirdo ice cream flavor, as they always do, and it didn't pan out and they had left over booze. I bake cookies for them and Karen knows I like making cocktails so she gave me what they had left over.

I looked up some jalapeno infused tequila recipes/ recommendations on the internet and I didn't believe them. However, I think they were right. I ended up testing a batch which was 1 small jalapeno, sliced  crosswise then infused in 1/2 C tequila for 30 mins. It was so incredibly spicy!!! Not unbearably so, but so much more than I expected. Most infusions (except tea) I do for days if not weeks so 30 mins didn't seem like much. Half a chili in a cup of booze is what Id recommend. Or use more chili for less time. Or if you like heat, do it the way I did and add a little more lime and salt to help balance out all that spicy. {But I don't recommend it, I prefer the more subtle spiciness.} And my camera died while procrastinating my cocktail homework so here's just a pic of chilies infusing....

Jalapaloma

2 oz jalapeno infused tequila
4 oz grapefruit soda
wedge of lime
pinch of salt

Build in an ice filled collins glass. Squeeze the lime, throw it in and stir.
To make jalapeno infused tequila, leave half a deseeded jalapeno in 8 oz tequila for 30 mins.
You can rim the glass with salt if you love salty things, but at least throw a pinch in the drink, its really nice. 

Benedictine

Benedicitine is a french liquer traditionally made by monks. It is a cognac base infused with a blend of herbs and sugar. Its in a few classic drinks, so I finally bought a bottle. Most of the drinks I've made call for it in very small amounts, but they wouldn't be the same without it. (Actually they all call for 1/4 oz which is a tricky measure with a jigger. I usually do 2 barspoons or try to eyeball half of my 1/2 oz jigger if Im already using it.) If anybody has made any other good drinks with it, please let me know! First up is a cocktail whose name I've been familiar with, although I've never ordered one at a bar, the Singapore Sling. This drink goes back to at least the early 1900's, although the recipe has changed slightly. Here's how I made it:

Singapore Sling


2 oz Gin
1/2 oz Cherry Heering
1/2 oz Cointreau
1/4 oz Benedicitine
2 oz pineapple juice
3/4 oz lime juice
dash Angostura bitters
splash club soda

Shake everything except the club soda.
Strain into a Collins glass filled with ice.
Top with soda.

Its pretty good. I recommend it if you have all those ingredients at your house...



I had never heard of this next one, even though its made with very normal ingredients. Except for Benedictine, which I forgot was in the drink until I saw this picture. I found this recipe in Gary Regan's Joy of Mixology. This is one of my favorite cocktail books. (The Sling recipe above is his as well...) Regan delves into the history of a lot of the drinks in this book. Unlike some cocktail tomes, this book doesn't have that many recipes. The drinks that are presented are well explained and really well organized. I liked it okay when I made it with Bourbon and Martini Rosso. It was even better when made with Carpano Antica.



Preakness Cocktail

2 oz Bourbon or Rye
1 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/4 oz Benedictine
Angostura Bitters
Lemon twist

Stir with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with twist.








The Vieux Carre is a New Orleans classic. It is booze forward without actually having that much booze in it, compared to say an old fashioned, which I usually make with 3 oz of bourbon. It is kind of like a more complex whiskey old fashioned. I love it. Its an easy to remember recipe and it has rye in it. This recipe is from the newest Mr Boston, which is great because it has pretty much every drink worth making in it.

Vieux Carre

3/4 oz Rye
3/4 oz Brandy
3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/4 oz Benedicitine
dash Peychauds bitters
dash Angostura bitters

Old Fashioned Dead Guy

Rogue is a great brewery from Portland, OR. They've been running a distillery as well for the past 10 years. They do cool stuff like grow their own barley and hops for some of their beers. They make a chipotle stout thats really weird and rad.

Its really hard to find their booze in Philly. I bought some while I was in California. They distill the wort used to make Dead Guy Ale. Which makes it a somewhat unusual whiskey. Its not bourbon or rye but all barley instead. Unlike scotch whisky though, it is not at all smokey. I made an old fashioned with it like this:


Old Fashioned Dead Guy
3oz whiskey
Orange slice
Maraschino cherry
1 tsp cane sugar
Angostura Bitters

Muddle orange, cherry, bitters and sugar in a rocks glass. Add whiskey and stir. Add ice and stir. Sip slowly while the ice melts in.

Ooops

I don't read directions sometimes. The mixology monday guidelines said to swap 2 ingredients. So, against my better judgement and sobriety, I re made my julep using Rye whiskey, Anise Hyssop and simple syrup. It was still delicious, but the Rye's spicy character was able to subdue the anise/fennel/licorice flavor of the herb more than the Bourbon did.

Anise Hyssop Julep

I decided to tryout a new made up cocktail for Mixology Monday (Hey cocktail virgin). {heres the roundup of all the drinks that month, linked ultra late..}The theme was flip flop, in which you substitute one or two ingredients in a cocktail recipe and make a new drink. This was appealing because I had just picked some herbs from the garden (and chard but it didn't cross my mind to make a drink with that.) This summer was the first time I truly appreciated both Mint Juleps and Mojitos. Last week I made a Gin Basil Smash for the first time, and it was so good. And I have so many herbs growing!

One of the odder herbs we have around various gardens in Kensington is Anise Hyssop. They all came from the Frankford Garden, its in the mint family and reproduces prolifically. It grows out of cracks in my sidewalk now, with the marigolds, and the violets, and the strawberries. It is native to the great plains region of the U.S. and was used medicinal by Native Americans, although it doesn't seem to hold great importance in their pharmacopoeia.

It tastes like a sweet fennel and makes great tasting tea. It is good in blends and by itself. I think most of the mint family (Lamacieae) plants combine well with true mint and this got me thinking about Mint Juleps. I tried, earlier in the summer when my mint was sparse, to make a Julep with Lemon Balm and it was crap. Not this time....


Anise Hyssop Julep

3 oz Bourbon
2 oz Simple syrup (1:1 <cane sugar>)
3 stalks of Anise Hyssop
ice cube tray of ice crushed in a blender

Take a few leaves of Anise Hyssop off of the stalks. Muddle gently in the bottom of a Collins glass. Fill glass 3/4 with crushed ice. Add whiskey and syrup. (1 oz syrup much if you don't like sweet things but I think it goes nicely with the herb and offsets the strong amount of booze in the drink) Stir until glass is frosted. Top with more crushed ice. Insert herb and a short straw, so you smell a face full of herb every sip. Don't forget to eat dinner.

Raspboozy Donuts

I've been making donuts a lot lately. I am trying to get a recipe down that yeilds super poofy, tender and delicious donuts but also isn't too fragile and fussy when raising the dough and getting it into the oil. I really like the ease and results of Wayne Schmidts recipe, and all his thorough research. However, it is heavily yeasted and the dough is so airy that it inevitably begins to fall before it even makes it into the oil. The slightest jostle deflates them. The recipe is very quick though....

Another recipe I've made a few times is from Sherry Yards in her book The Secrets of Baking.  It is for a brioche donut. It is super rich and not sweet. Also it is built very slowly with only a small amount of yeast to start. It takes 3 times as long to make but part of me really enjoys the process and flavor of slowly risen breads. For this recipe, you must first make a sponge. This is a wet starter that allows the yeast to easily multiply before slowing it down with salt, butter and eggs.

Brioche Donuts


Sponge

2 1/2 tsp yeast
1 Tbl brown sugar
1/2 C milk
1/2 C flour

Whisk together and then cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let sit for 30-45 minutes. 

3 C flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp cinnamon
4 eggs
1/4 lb  butter



Add flour, salt and spices. 

Beat eggs seperately and add to dough. Add butter 2 Tbls at a time. 

Knead forever if making by hand, until smooth and shiny. 

Cover bowl and let raise until doubled, about 2 hrs. Punch down, cover and raise again for 45 minutes. 

Roll out to about 1/2 inch thick. 

Cut with 2 1/2 inch donut cutters (or a tin can and a soy sauce cap!) and deep fry about 1 minute for each side. 

after sitting an hour out of the freezer

I've been making the dough up until it is ready to fry and freezing it. This recipe takes far too long to make for breakfast but they can be thawed and fried in an hour or 2.









Glaze
raspberry infused vodka
powdered sugar

Whisk until you get a good thick dipping frosting/glaze.

Chairry Cookie

When I bake, I use a scale. It ensures accuracy of the recipe and it ensures consistency every time. Texture and flavor are preserved. When I first try out recipes, they are usually written in volume. I will measure by volume while I have the measuring cup on a scale and a notebook on the table. From there, I slightly modify the ingredients until I am most pleased with the results. One recipe leads into another and yet another varies from that...
This recipe started with a snickerdoodle; devolved into a sugar cookie; adjusted into a chai snickerdoodle; and, seasonally apporpriately, morphed into a chai flavored cherry cookie.

Chairry Cookie (Chai/Cherry)


123 g butter (or earth balance margarine)
8 g chai spice (or if, like normal people, u don't make yr own chai spice for baked goods in bulk, perhaps 1/2 tsp cardamom, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp clove)
182 g cane sugar


216 g flour 
2 g baking soda
1 g salt

12 g brown flax seed
47 g Cherry Herring
4 g vanilla
4 g vinegar

10 fresh cherries

Cut Cherries in half, pit and dust with cane sugar. 
Let sit in a small bowl while you prepare the dough.
In a small bowl, whisk flour baking soda and sea salt. (maybe about 1/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp of soda?)
Cream spices with butter in a large bowl.
Cream sugar into butter.
Make vegan eggs in a small bowl.
-grind flax seeds super fine in a coffee grinder
-whisk flax seeds with liquid for about 30 seconds
--for the liquid; strain out the cherry/sugar water from the fresh cherries into a measuring glass and then add Cherry Heering to make 47 grams
Beat fleggs into butter/sugar jawn.
Stir in vanilla and lastly vinegar.
Preheat oven to 350.
Line half sheets with ripped in half parchment.
Scoop cookies using a number #20 ice cream scoop and youll get about 15.
Use a tablespoon scoop or actual spoon and youll get about twice as many. (10-12 min bake)
Space cookies about a dozen/ half sheet and theyll bake in 15 mins or so.
You want the edge to be just barely golden.
Let cool on the pans on a wire rack at least ten minutes.

The bigger size is more appropriate for half of a cherry.