I’m back home after the burn and I’m exhausted, a little sick, and sunburnt, so the last thing I wanted to do was make a complicated cocktail. I have about a dozen limes at the house so I immediately thought of a daiquiri. The white rum I used is kind of astringent. I might try a nice dark rum next time for a bit of a sweeter finish.
When you read this I’ll be watching the effigy burn at Freezerburn, so I figured I’d do something in honor of the event. This is the first time I’ve made this drink at home, and the only substitution I had to do was Punt e Mes instead of Antica. Just reading the ingredients you know it’s going to be a bitter, bracing drink. It could work pretty well as an after dinner digestif.
I think that the proportions were off. Next time I may try equal parts of everything and see what I think.
I have had this bottle of Cachaça for several years. I had a Caipirinha in Key West and wanted to replicate it. I have not thus far successfully made a Caipirinha at home that I’ve liked, and I don’t know if the problem is this brand of Cachaça or what. It’s a strange liquor, very grassy and also kind of cloying, but it worked pretty well in this. The actual recipe calls for a barrel-aged Cachaça, which might cut the fresh notes down a lot. I guess this is almost a Daiquiri variant.
I got a new channel knife as you might be able to tell by my ridiculous garnish. It works VERY WELL. I’m glad to know that I wasn’t just incompetent at making twists and that I am able to do so with a good tool.
Since it’s the middle of winter, let’s have a tiki drink to remind us of the summer! This is one of my all-time favorites from Midnight Cowboy. I believe it was on one of their first menus. I’ve been working to replicate it properly for a while now, and I’m almost there. I think I added just a leeeeetle too much lemon this time. I had two lemons that were getting a bit old so I decided to use up both, and probably could have done with just one.
My mint plant is a little cold right now but still gave up a few tiny sprigs for the garnish here. The glass came from Texas Tiki Week this past year. (I’ve also got a pair from 2013, and will likely continue to grow the collection.) The vanilla brown sugar syrup is pretty fun to make: I cut open a vanilla bean and let it boil with the sugar and water. Mmm, vanilla.
I cannot for the life of me find a bottle of Lemonhart 151 in Texas. One time last year while visiting Atlanta I saw a bottle, covered in dust and on the back of a shelf, and I almost bought it to take home. Dane said it’d be too much hassle so I left it there and now I regret it. My understanding is that it’s a much smoother liquor than your typical 151 rum. One day I will find a bottle.
Muddle cucumber slices, then shake over ice with all ingredients. Strain into a rocks glass and garnish with another cucumber slice.
Wait. Have I somehow made it a full two weeks without a rum drink? Tonight we fix that. Here’s another from the Death & Co book, and yet another reason for me to practice my shaking. (I am extra terrible at shaking drinks.) The recipe calls for Cardamaro, which of course I didn’t have. I was reading up on it and as soon as I saw “artichoke” I thought: CYNAR! LET’S DO THIS.
This reminds me a lot of a Pimm’s Cup. I’m also starting to get over my fear of heavy-handed simple syrup use after these last two drinks. Generally I only use one or two barspoons of syrup because I don’t want my sweet tooth to oversweeten drinks for other people, but both of these drinks were well-balanced. I will definitely start playing with more syrups in addition to the heavily-boozy cocktails I often make.
William and I were running some errands to pick up supplies for Freezerburn this evening when I realized that I hadn’t done my drink for the day yet. Since he’s being a good sport and helping me out I wanted to make him something. He asked for a gin drink, so I flipped through the Death & Co book (yeah, you’ll be seeing a lot of recipes from there for a while) and found one where I had all the ingredients.
Their recipe calls for Old Tom gin, which I didn’t have, so I substituted Citadel. Presumably that makes for a bit of a drier drink than specified. I also initially balked at the amount of simple used here, but after trying it I am sold. This was so good I almost stole it from William! I love Aviations but haven’t had many lately, and this was a damn good variation on that theme. I really think the large amount of simple toned down the bitter/tart of the grapefruit, and the lime calms the floral of the Violette. I can see this becoming a standby for me.
Yesterday I went to the Death & Co book release tour at Half Step. Death & Co is a well-known bar in NYC that was featured in the documentary Hey Bartender, and I have also never been there. I had a couple of pretty damn good and interesting cocktails that I’ll have to try making later, and the book is beautiful. I thumbed through it this evening looking for a recipe and was unsurprised to find that I was missing at least one ingredient for most of the drinks I wanted to make. I did eventually find the Rusty Nail, which is a fairly well known cocktail that uses Drambuie. I originally bought a bottle of Drambuie for some other recipe and never could remember which one it was, so it’s been sitting unopened on the counter for several months now. I finally got to use it tonight!
The Death & Co recipe uses Springbank scotch and Bitter Truth aromatic bitters. The info I found online about Springbank oddly didn’t specify a region/style, so I had trouble determining what kind of substitute to make. I eventually settled on the Balcones Single Malt. Balcones has been my holy grail for a little while now and I somehow lucked into TWO bottles of it just this weekend, and flush with this bounty I felt I could spare a little for a cocktail. It’s a little peaty but with not as much iodine as an Islay, so I thought it would be a nice compliment to the Drambuie. As far as bitters go, I am finding more and more that I probably need another bottle of aromatics. Angostura is nice but it’s always obvious when you use it. The Nail could have used a more subtle touch, I think.
I’ve also noticed that my highball and rocks glasses all have a fair amount of calcium etching that becomes SUPER OBVIOUS when you take pictures using a nice camera. Anyone know of a way to resurface glasses to clear them back up?
Here’s another from Midnight Cowboy. I’m not entirely sure I’ve gotten the proportions right, but I think I’m getting close. The Byrrh gives this a medicinal bitterness that Dane absolutely loves.
I had some difficulty this time with the flamed orange. I think my orange was getting a little dried out. I did still manage a very small flame at least.
I came across this the other day when looking for tequila drinks, the first of which was Day 6. I was super surprised by this recipe, since I thought that sunrises were just tequila, orange juice, and grenadine. I thought it looked interesting enough to try. I added more club soda than they specified because it would have been a short drink in a tall glass otherwise.
This seems like a good drink for a hot day. It was fairly sweet, so next time I make it I’ll add more lime and decrease the grenadine.
Today I spent recovering from a truly epic hangover. I went to a Drunk History themed party last night and pre-made some cocktails to take with. One was a vodka drink, since I almost never drink vodka and have a ton of it in the house. I mostly drank bourbon all night but did have about half a glass of that vodka cocktail, and I really think that’s what did me in. I don’t think I’ll be using that brand again.
In any case, it should be obvious that I wasn’t really feeling like making a drink tonight. I decided I wanted to make something using the Rumble which I just acquired yesterday. Garage is a wonderful bar inside of an old valet station downtown. Their latest menu had the Black Manhattan, which has rapidly become one of my favorite drinks. Their recipe calls for rye, punt e mes, and Averna. The only rye I have in the house right now is Whistle Pig which I am loathe to use in mixed drinks too often (it’s usually more of a sipping whiskey), and I don’t have any punt e mes. So I substituted the Rumble and the Cocchi instead. The Rumble is nice in this drink, lending a bit more sweetness than a rye would. I definitely think I’ll make this variation again.
