MxMo: Rahasia

A hearty welcome back to Mixology Monday! Mixology Monday is a semi-regular event that has various cocktail bloggers creating a cocktail based on a theme. It's hosted by Cocktail Virgin Slut, and we appreciate Fred bringing it back. Past themes have included tiki and morning drinks. This month's theme is 'equal parts'. The idea is to create a cocktail that mixes equal parts of its component ingredients. Since fall is fast approaching, I thought I'd go with an anti-Negroni.

As opposed to the Negroni, which is bright and a little fruity, this is dark and rich. I was originally calling it the Inorgen, which is Negroni spelled backwards, but then decided that was dumb. I didn't think it was going to be much good -- it was pretty sweet and a little syrupy. But the addition of the grapefruit bitters transformed the drink. It's wonderfully complex, with some spiciness from the rye, some bitterness from the Averna, some sweetness from the Cardamaro, and some herbality (herbalness?) from the bitters. It's still very rich, but pretty good. Recipe after the jump.

The Sazerac

The former location of Peychaud's.

I've mentioned two of my favorite cocktails on here before, the Manhattan and the Negroni, but I haven't talked about my third, the Sazerac. Fortunately, today's post from Spir.it reminded me! The Spir.it describes the beginning of the cocktail:

The Sazerac is what is known as the first “original” cocktail, and rightfully so. As the story goes, in 1838 an apothecary owner in New Orleans by the name of Antoine Amedie Peychaud had a habit of making brandy toddies for his friends using his homemade “Peychaud’s Bitters,” made from a secret recipe. The toddies were made using a coquetier, which is a double-ended egg cup being used as a jigger. Coincidentally, this is where the word “cocktail” was derived from! So, the first cocktail came to be.

What they don't mention is that there is some dispute about this origin. The first mention of the word cocktail comes in 1798, a full forty years before the Sazerac, and the first definition (a drink of spirits, sugar, water, and bitters) was in 1806. It's unclear exactly where the word comes from, though it may have been slang for ginger. It certainly predated Mr. Peychaud's invention by decades. That being said, the Sazerac is still a wonderful drink.

At its base, the Sazerac is an Old-fashioned with a dash of absinthe. Most recipes have you swirling the glass with absinthe, then discarding (or drinking) the excess. Often, the bitters are added by soaking a sugar cube in them before adding rye whiskey. I use Pernod rather than absinthe, due to the expense of decent absinthe. In New Orleans, Herbsaint is typically used, though it can be hard to find here in the Mid-Atlantic. I also typically use simple syrup, as this is one of the booziest drinks I've had, and a little extra water helps calm things down. It's a great drink for when you want that one-two punch of anise and whiskey, and worth keeping a few extra ingredients around for. Recipe after the jump.

Casbah

Photo by John Holland, on flickr.

The Casbah is a bit of a variant on a Manhattan. Back when I was young, I took most of my drinking advice from a slightly older gentleman we nicknamed Jim "Beam". Among his drinks was a Manhattan, always with a splash of grenadine. I eventually moved on from those to different sorts of Manhattans, but the suggestion always stuck with me. So now that I have my own grenadine, it was time to play with it. Grenadine combined with sweet vermouth is just too sweet for me, but I figured I could replace the sweet vermouth, and it would be okay, so for my first recipe I got the following:

1.5 oz Rye
.5 oz Grenadine
3 dashes, Peychaud's bitters

It ended up very floral, since I added a bit more orange flower water to make the grenadine than may have been in fact ideal. It was somewhat sweeter than usual as well, and the Peychaud's seemed to aggravate that. It needed a different sort of bitters.

The second time I tried, I used 1/4 oz grenadine and added hellfire bitters.This version was much better and had a great finish. The third version I used Angostura bitters, and again, it was quite floral, though not exceptionally sweet. Not a bad summer drink for someone who likes brown spirits.

Mexican Manhattan

As part of my never-ending quest to find more uses for a bottle of mezcal, I decided to add some to a Manhattan and see what happens. Given the spicy smokiness of the mezcal, I used Punt e Mes to provide a bit more sauciness; I figured Dolin Rouge wouldn't stand up to the mezcal well enough. I also used the traditional rye instead of bourbon. I added Hellfire bitters, because once a drink is this spicy, what's a little more spiciness?

Unsurprisingly, going for the spiciest ingredient at each step makes for a very spicy drink. It blends together very well, each ingredient adding its own thing to the cocktail. There's definitely an underlying sweetness here, with a bit of fruit I didn't expect. It's quite good, though it might be worth trying with bourbon to tone down the sweetness. Recipe after the jump.

The Frisco

Golden Gate Bridge. Photo by Niall Kennedy, on flickr.

One of the features of the craft cocktail revolution that is intriguing to me is the search for the original recipe of a cocktail. Now, I'm not a fetishist for authenticity, either in my cocktails or elsewhere, so it's all a bit mysterious to me. But I admire their enthusiasm and dedication to tracking down the One True Recipe. This New York Times article actually provides a good example of trying to balance the quest for authenticity with the quest for a tasty beverage. Unlike noir classics, which start with a girl, this starts with a drink:

Last month I dined in a Los Angeles restaurant called Test Kitchen, which provides space for chefs from other establishments to try out new menus or put dishes through trial runs. On the night I was there the proprietors of Red Medicine, a progressive Vietnamese place that was getting ready to open, were introducing their food and cocktails, including a drink identified as the No. 15 and described as a mix of rye, Bénédictine and lemon. I had a No. 15 early in the seven-course dinner and several more as the meal unfolded because the drink so nicely matched the food and so beautifully hit the spot.

Of course, like any good journalist, Bruni needs to get to the bottom of this cocktail. He quickly found out that the No. 15 was a Frisco. Or like a Frisco. After a bit of research, he finds that the Frisco is spoken of in a variety of ways. The principal question is whether it's made from bourbon or rye.

The answer is vague and depends on how far you travel back in time. This I learned from Jim Meehan, a cocktail sage at PDT in the East Village. When I called him about the Frisco, he was immediately familiar with it, though like Ms. Saunders he went through a moment of rye-bourbon befuddlement, which he was determined to resolve.
“Call me back in 45 minutes,” he said.
That was all the time he needed to riffle through his research books and place a few strategic calls of his own. He said that a Frisco recipe from the early part of the 20th century mentioned whiskey without specifying what type, and Bénédictine. Frisco recipes from the 1940s, he said, specifically call for bourbon.

But it doesn't end there! Bruni tries a number of combinations of rye, bourbon, Bénédictine, and lemon juice,  and in his opinion, it's 1.5 oz of rye, 1/4 oz Bénédictine, and 1/2 oz lemon juice. Just for the ease of measuring (really!), I'm going to try the second suggested recipe of 2 oz rye, 1/2 oz Bénédictine, and 1/2 oz lemon juice.

What a great drink! The lemon juice, Bénédictine, and rye all blend together really well, with the lemon juice removing the sweetness of the Bénédictine, and the rye providing an excellent base. If I had any complaints, it would be that this drink is a bit acerbic. When I try it again, I might use Bruni's recipe, but switch the proportion of the Bénédictine and the lemon juice. Alternatively, you could try using Meyer lemons in place of the lemon juice.

Trinidad Sour

I recently made some orgeat, and in researching drinks to use it in, I came across a number of intriguing options. One of the most intriguing was the Trinidad Sour. You rarely see drinks that require any more than a few dashes of non-potable bitters, let alone a full ounce. There's a reason they're called non-potable! But I figured I should give it a shot.

It turned out really well. The sweetness of the orgeat compensates for the bitterness of the bitters, and the sourness of the lemon juice makes quite a complex drink. It tastes very herbal, with a sour aftertaste (but in a fun way!) A very nice drink, and a good change from the ordinary. Recipe after the jump.

Warduke

A post on Autarch's forums reminded me of the classic Dungeons & Dragons character Warduke. If you don't remember him from the game, you may remember him from the cartoon that aired in the early 80. Mostly, I remember a suit of armor with a large set of horns, glowing eyes reaching out from under his helmet. What a great inspiration for a cocktail!

I wanted something wicked, so Hellfire bitters were a necessity. I didn't think tequila was the right spirit; rye had the right sort of spiciness I wanted, but I wanted a bit more complexity. I thought about adding some lime juice, but somehow that just didn't seem right. Of course, a glass of rye, however tasty, isn't a cocktail. I figured I could add vermouth, but that would just make it a Manhattan. I thought I'd try adding some brandy, to give it a bit more complexity (like any villain ought to have). I figured using dry vermouth would keep it from being too sweet, and there you have it. Dry vermouth, rye, and brandy equals a Warduke.

The taste is difficult to describe. The Hellfire bitters definitely give it a spicy kick, but there's definitely an underlying complexity in the interplay between the rye and the brandy. I suspect it might be a bit better if I used bourbon instead of rye; the rye tends to overpower the brandy a bit. Not too much though. You really can taste everything in here. Recipe after the jump.

Picture by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid, laughingsquid.com.



Warduke
1 oz Brandy
1 oz Rye
.5 oz Dry Vermouth
Hellfire bitters
stir, strain into a coupe glass or a rocks glass neat, and serve.

Old Fashioned #34

Very brief, since it's Friday night, but I just made a variation on an Old Fashioned that was pretty good. I poured a dimple worth of simple syrup, about an ounce of rye, and about 3/4 of an ounce of Aperol (though none of this was measured.) It's tasty, though if I made it again, I might add some lime juice or soda water. Enjoy!

New York City can fuck off

I swear one of the cocktail blogs I follow (which you can see to the right) mentioned a drink involving Cocchi. I haven't been able to find it. But looking for it, I found an old post from We Love DC talking about a drink they called "Chokin' in Manhattan".

While I still like a well-made Manhattan, it just is not something I find myself ordering at a bar all that often any more. There usually has to be some kind of “hook” to get my attention on a menu – maybe they barrel-aged it or use some interesting house-made ingredients. In the case of Tryst and their Chokin’ in Manhattan, they add one of my favorite liqueurs, Cynar.

Cynar is a bitter Italian liqueur with a variety of botanical flavors, but predominately artichoke. It is bittersweet and vegetal and I am a total sucker for it. In the Chokin’ in Manhattan, it is used as the bitters component, and Cocchi Americano takes the place of sweet vermouth. The resulting drink is less sweet than some Manhattans – due also to replacing the cherry with a wee shrivel of lemon peel – and a pleasant and interesting twist.

Largely because I don't keep a lot of lemon peel around, I don't garnish. Following my ratio theory of cocktail building, I built the cocktail using rye, Cynar, and Cocchi Americano. I renamed the cocktail "Fuck Off New York," since it's a more bitter variation on the Manhattan, and I like the Matson Jones song. It's definitely bitter and vegetal. I'm glad I used the Rittenhouse Rye 100, since you need a really forceful rye to stand up to the bitters, but it really does come together well. Recipe after the jump.