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.

Mixology Monday: Preserves

This months Mixology Monday theme is preserves and can include anything that has been preserved not just jams and stuff. I had so many ideas but I've been working a lot this week and didn't get to try most of them. Perhaps I'll try to do more experiments and update this post throughout the week. This month is being hosted by Craig at A World of Drinks. I am posting this super late after work and hope he still includes me, we'll see....

I have several jams, a couple shrubs, some syrups and dried herbs that all wanted to be used in a drink this month but I decided to go with raspberry syrup. It's a classic cocktail ingredient that is rarely used these days. The traditional way to make it would be to make a simple syrup and put some raspberries in it, wait a couple days and then strain the fruit out. My parents have a big raspberry patch and they make jelly every year. My dad gave me some jelly that didn't set up properly. The pectin didn't work and it never jelled. So it is syrup. Useless for toast but perfect for cocktails. It is made from sugar, raspberry juice and (worthless) pectin.

Bramble in the Rye

2 1/2 oz Rye whiskey
1/4 oz Benedictine
2 barspoons Raspberry syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 dash Orange bitters

Stir with ice and strain into an old fashioned glass with a large rock.
Adjust to taste depending on the sweetness and the raspberriness of your syrup.

I really like this one. The rye gives it some weight and some spice, the benedictine brings some sweet herbal notes, the syrup brings a fruity sweetness and the bitters bring the bitter complexity. I've made it using less raspberry syrup and a little simple syrup but I cant decide which way I prefer it. Even with 2 barspoons of my raspberry syrup it isn't too sweet nor overwhelmingly fruity. The photo looks much more red than the real thing because it was backlit by a beautiful day.

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.

Tiger Woods Cocktail

Since this blog focuses on all my food hobbies, you may not know that I really like video games. I have 11 consoles, hundreds of games and an enormous trash picked tv that a wealthy person owned in the 90's. They are mostly all older but I do have a Wii. The new Wii was just released last year and the new xbox and ps were just released, so now everybody is trying to get rid of all the old jawns fast and for cheap. So I have been stock piling all the interesting Wii games I can find, generally at $10 or less.

There was a time in the early 2000's when my friends and I were all really into Tiger Woods golf for playstation 2. In my opinion videogame golf is far superior to real golf. On the environmental level golf is one of the worst sports for the planet. So much water resources and obscene amounts of chemicals are used to keep those well manicured lawns looking their best, sometimes even in the desert. How absurd! It's also a sport for rich people to impress their friends mostly. The egalitarian, environmental sound way to enjoy this game is through the magic of videogames.

I recently got a new (to me) version of Tiger Woods golf for Wii. It came out years ago but has a billion courses, an insanely detailed create-a-golfer and really accurate swing control with the Wiimote. The game is really fun even though i go to unnecessary lengths to justify it. I always over analyze things. Fake sports make really fun videogames for playing with friends and hanging out. Bowling fits perfectly in this category as well. One person plays at a time. Everyone else sits around with a drink waiting for their turn, feeling the pressure of their rivals amazing shot or learning from their terrible mistake.

Perhaps this is all way too much background for a simple drink but it was created for a reason and tastes especially delicious when drank in this context. Also it's Mixology Monday time again and Joel from Southern Ash said he hoped his simple theme of highballs would bring out some background stories along with some simple barely-even-a-recipe recipes. A highball is a tall icy cocktail consisting of a spirit, a mixer and sometimes a garnish. {Think rum and coke or gin and tonic, or blank and blank, etc.}



Tiger Woods Cocktail

2 oz black tea infused bourbon
3-4 oz San Pelegrino Limonata soda
lemon wedge garnish

Fill a highball with ice. Add bourbon and then soda. Stir gently to combine.

To make some tea flavored bourbon for this drink or old fashioned's or anything else you can do a cold infusion. Add 4 tea bags (I used Irish breakfast because that's what I have for making kombucha) to 2 C of bourbon. Let sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. Squeeze out the tea bags and discard.

San Pelegrino is an Italian mineral water company. They also make sodas with real fruit juice and cane sugar. I found tiny little 6.5ish oz bottles which are great for mixing because they don't get flat like huge bottles that sit in the fridge for a week. If you can't find the soda, you could make a similar drink using club soda, simple syrup and lemon juice. That's how I first made it but then I found this soda and it is easier and as good if not better. Try .5 oz each simple syrup and lemon juice with 3 oz club soda to start and adjust to your liking if necessary.

This drink is simple and absolutely delicious. It's like an Arnold Palmer only made out of boozy tea and soda-y lemonade. Perfect on the green or on the couch.

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.

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. 

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.