Income Tax Cocktail

13. June 2007 · Comments Off on Income Tax Cocktail · Categories: Cocktails · Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Income Tax Cocktail This cocktail is actually what led me into researching a somewhat distant variant, the Monkey Gland. I first came about them both in Dr. Cocktail’s very enjoyable book “Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails.” The ingredients for the Income Tax are easier to find, so it’s more likely you’ll be able to try one of these out with even a modest liquor collection.

The Income Tax Cocktail

1 1/2oz gin
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
1/2 oz dry vermouth
Juice of 1/4 orange (about 3/4 oz)
dash of angostura bitters

Shake with ice, strain into cocktail glass and garnish with an orange wheel.

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The Monkey Gland

13. June 2007 · 1 comment · Categories: Cocktails · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Stuffed MonkeyThis drink is worth making for its history alone. Still, we’ll start with the recipe and then move on from there.

The Monkey Gland

1 1/2oz (dry) gin
1 oz (freshly squeezed) orange juice
1/4 oz grenadine
1/4 oz Pernod

Shake over ice, strain into cocktail glass and serve with an orange twist. I’ve seen it made 1:1 gin:orange juice and served with no garnish, but if you’re getting the juice from an orange, you might as well use the peel.

As a quick aside, some folks substitute Benedictine instead of the Pernod (I think this was started when Absinthe fell out of favor).
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Simple Mexican Sangria

07. June 2007 · 2 comments · Categories: Cocktails · Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Sangria is one of those drinks with a thousand variations. While normally the drink is a bit like a red wine fruit salad, this version is much more pared down. I actually came across it in the Wall Street Journal of all places. Now, sangria isn’t my typical type of drink. Red wine and citrus fruits both tend to do bad things to my teeth, so I generally avoid them in any real concentration. This version doesn’t help that, but but one night’s indulgence was certainly worth it.

Simple Mexican Sangria

1 bottle of red wine, preferably Spanish
juice of 6 limes
zest from peels of 2 limes
4 Tbs of sugar

Mix them all together in a pitcher with ice. Wait for it to cool down and either serve as is or through a strainer to remove the zest (depending on how chewy you like your wine).

We forget the ice part, and just chilled the bottle first which was the wrong move. The lime and wine are a little to aggressive that way, but the sugar mellows things out enough to make this an enjoyable drink. As a note, we had medium-small limes, and the proportions came out just fine. Finally, it’s probably easier to zest the two limes first and then juice them as the juicing process tends to tear up the peel.

Bourbon Butter Pecan Ice Cream

30. April 2007 · 1 comment · Categories: Recipes · Tags: , ,

Jeni’s, an excellent ice cream creator out of Columbus serves a simply delightful ice cream which has Maker’s Mark mixed in with butter pecan. It’s heavenly, but the concept isn’t terribly hard to recreate even if you’re a few thousand miles away.

Bourbon Butter Pecan Ice Cream

Butter Pecan Ice Cream (Breyers is good)
A tablespoon (or three) of bourbon drizzled over the ice cream after serving.

It hardly warrants a posting, but since we’ve been enjoying it so very much, I might as well spread the word. I imagine Maker’s Mark would be an excellent choice for this as they’re bourbon is pretty sweet and mellow already. I just use whatever is handy (and cheap).

Bourbon Butter Pecan Ice Cream

Chilcano de Pisco

22. April 2007 · 3 comments · Categories: Cocktails · Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Picked up a bottle of Pisco to try a Pisco Sour and are now looking for other Pisco-based drinks to try? By a strange coincidence, I am as well! This is a much simpler drink, and not as fun as the Pisco Sour, but still enjoyable. I’ve also seen it referred to as simply a “Chilcano.”

Chilcano de Pisco

Pour a shot or two of Pisco over ice into whatever tumbler or highball glass you have handy. Fill with ginger ale. Add in a squirt of lemon juice and a shake or two of angostura bitters. Garnish with a slice of lemon.

As you can see, it’s an exact recipe. The core of it is Pisco and ginger ale similar to a rum & coke. In fact, I’ve seen some recipes that stop right there, and that’s an enjoyable drink. If you’re feeling like you simply must measure things, 6:1 ale to Pisco seems about standard. The lemon juice and bitters make it more fun, but it’s a subtle change. This is a summery drink, which Christy also enjoys sampling.

Bijou Cocktail

29. March 2007 · 2 comments · Categories: Cocktails · Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Dearest readers, my apologies for abandoning you for so long. I know that all three of you have been wading through posts on spring, squids (scary!) and samosas, tapping your fingers and waiting for the next cocktail. My apologies, but midterms were upon me, and they’re just not conducive to trying new drinks. However, I have a few hours this afternoon where I should be working on homework, and a possible trip to LA is still a few hours off, which really provides a golden opportunity. I’ve been wondering if I could try something with that dusty bottle of green chartreuse, and stumbled upon the Bijou Cocktail.

Bijou Cocktail

1 oz gin
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
1/2 oz green chartreuse
1 (or 2) dash(es) of orange bitters

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass then garnish with an olive and lemon peel.

That’s right, I said an olive. You’ll see recipes that call for a cherry, which was far less brain-bending to my mind, but this drink is all about the olive. Because, my friends, the Bijou Cocktail is a strange and delightful journey. The chartreuse is certainly present, as is the vermouth, as is the citrus, as is the olive. It’s like you invited one friend from each of your very different social circles, and now their all hanging out in your mouth having a delightful time.

Bijou Cocktail

Green Chartreuse is one of those things I’ve had around for years, and I’m always happy to find an excuse to use it. If you have some in your cabinet, then this is worth giving a shot. It’s certainly not something I’d have two of in one sitting, but I’ll be returning to it again soon. The only ingredient I didn’t taste in this was the gin, although I used Plymouth. I’m quite curious to try it again with something a little more aggressive, perhaps Junipero.

UPDATE: The Junipero was, in fact, a terrible idea. Plymouth gin is delightful, as is Beefeater. Christy finds the drink interesting as well, although probably wouldn’t make it through a whole one.

Shaken vs. Stirred: The Ice Melt Experiment

05. March 2007 · 6 comments · Categories: Cocktails, General · Tags: , ,

So I was stirring a martini this evening, and it occurred to me that I should really just go ahead and see if shaking or stirring a cocktail adds more ice melt. Ice melt is the amount of water added due to ice cubes melting during the mixing process. People often think that shaking will add less due to the fact that stirring takes so much longer. However, that’s theoretically not the case, at least according to bar tenders I’ve talked to and read posts from. I tend to think the bartenders are right, and certainly the texture is reason enough to make your martini stirred, but I decided to do a quick and dirty experiment to see if I could really see a difference. Here’s what I did:

  1. Made a martini. I’d been wanting to go back to the Junipero gin I picked up a few months ago, so I did. Still not a favorite of mine, but it makes a fun martini that certainly lives up to the “juniper” part of the name.
  2. Poured some water in a mixing bowl. The water was approximately room temperature, and then I let it sit for a while. I didn’t want the temperature to change between the two mixings.
    Bowl & Measuring Cup
  3. Ensured my shaker was dry from previous use…
    Shaker
  4. Carefully measured out 1/3 a cup of the room temperature water. This picture is a little blurry as it’s somewhat difficult to get a good shot of a clear liquid in a glass container.
    Water Pre-Shaken
  5. Added 4 ice cubes. For both the shaken and stirred I tried to use similar sized cubes, which meant a bit of eyeballing as well as removing areas where the water had sat over the dividing section and froze. Not particularly exact science here, but hopefully close enough.
    Ice
  6. Shook the mixture. I tend to want my drinks cold, so I shook it about 70 times. That’s more than normal, but I was exaggerating things a bit to hopefully produce a visible result.
  7. Dried the measure cup and poured the water back in. You can see that a fair amount of water was added:
    Photo 1: Shaken 1
    Photo 2: Shaken 2
  8. Then I dumped out everything, rinsed and let it sit for a while to return to room temperature. While this was going on, I dried the shaker.
  9. Repeat the process, but stirred 70 times. This took considerably longer, and I took my time since stirring should take longer. Here is the water before I added it to the ice in the shaker:
    Water Pre-Stirred
    It looked like possibly a hair more than what I used for shaken, but very close.
  10. When I measured the results, they were similar, but the stirred does seem to have less ice melt.
    Photo 1: Stirred 1
    Photo 2: Stirred 2

Conclusion
The main conclusion is that I need more precise measure instruments. That being said, it does look to me like stirring the drink adds less ice melt. This backs up the general consensus by those wiser and more experienced than I. Still, it’s nice to have confirmation. Even if it’s not terribly dramatic, the results are enough to satisfy my curiosity. In the end, the Junipero martini was tasty, so I consider the experiment a success!

Aviation

01. March 2007 · 4 comments · Categories: Cocktails · Tags: , , , , , , ,

This is the cocktail I most associate with internet drinks, mainly because cocktail bloggers and devotees seem to have revived it in the past few years. While I like an Aviation, it tends towards being a little too sweet or tart to be one of my favorites. Still, the drink is intriguing, so I find myself returning to it. I’ve heard that Maraska instead of Luxardo might alter it more to my liking, but for now I’ve only had Luxardo maraschino liqueur.

Which brings us to maraschino liqueur. If you haven’t before, it’s worth trying but it really doesn’t taste anything like those bright red “cherries” in a jar. There is some cherry flavor, but it’s subtle, and the liqueur is a clear syrup. It’s powerful stuff, which is why I tend to recommend it in moderation.

Aviation

2 oz gin
1/2 oz maraschino liqueur
1/4 oz lemon juice

Shake over ice, garnish with a cherry.

Now, a couple of notes:

  1. use a dry gin. Sapphire works just fine, and I actually like it better than Plymouth in this case. Save the aromatic gins for a martini, the maraschino is just going to fight with them.
  2. Go easy on the maraschino and lemon juice. I see both of those increased in some recipes, and I think they just take over at that point. The lemon juice should be softening and complementing the maraschino liqueur, but not a huge presence on its own. The maraschino liqueur, at least the Luxardo that I have, is powerful stuff. It can easily take over your drink, which really isn’t the point.

Aviation

Note that the above is me breaking a few rules. For one thing, that’s Magellan gin, which looks pretty cool but doesn’t work very well here. Since it works so fabulously in a martini, save it for that. Also, I added a lemon twist, which again isn’t as good as the original recipe’s call for a cherry.

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