Items of Interest

Gourmet has recipes for blue martini ice pops, strawberry margarita ice pops, and mango daiquiri ice pops.

Eric Felten traces the history of the Cape Cod cocktail, along with its derivatives the Sea Breeze and the Madras.

Colorado's Sunday alcohol sales ban law stopped this week. Congratulations!

A new book publisher, CocktailKingdom.com, has announced a ton of reprints of vintage cocktail books. I haven't seen the hard copies of the books yet, but the selection is marvelous.

Book Titles AVAILABLE NOW:

Bartender's Manual by Harry Johnson (an authentic reproduction of the 1900edition) with a new introduction by Robert Hess.

Modern Bartender's Guide by O.H. Byron (an authentic reproduction of the
1884 edition) with an introduction by Brian Rea.

American and Other Iced Drinks by Charlie Paul (an authentic reproduction
of the 1902 edition) with a new introduction by Dale DeGroff.

The Mixicologist by C.F. Lawlor (an authentic reproduction of the 1884
edition) with a new introduction by Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh.

Barflies and Cocktail by Harry McElhone (an authentic reproduction of the
1927 edition) with a new introduction by David Wondrich.


AVAILABLE IN SEPTEMBER:

The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks by David A. Embury with new introductions by
Audrey Saunders and Robert Hess.

How to Mix Drinks; A Bon Vivant's Companion by Jerry Thomas (an authentic
reproduction of the 1862 edition) with a new introduction and appendix by
David Wondrich.

And introducing: The Essential Bartender's Guide by Robert Hess.

Itemizing

I just learned that my 2,000 word story on scotch due next Monday was actually due yesterday, so posting may be a bit light for the rest of the week. Here are some things that caught my eye.

- San Francisco Brewcraft solves the lack-of-hops problem by introducing a Burningman Hopless Absinthe Ale brewing kit complete with wormwood, lavender, and anise. (What, no fennel?)

- Though they're advertising it as a beer pong ice rack, there is no need to limit its use to the "sport." Fill it with water and freeze it to keep ten plastic cups cold on the tray.

- Jay from Oh Gosh! tasted 23 orange liqueurs and has now summarized his findings into awards. I think he deserves an award for the effort.

- Seamus of Bunnyhugs lists some old-school genever cocktails to try out with the new genevers on the market.

- Imbibe Magazine (sorry I'm late with that scotch story!) lists some cocktailian uses for home-grown herbs.

Level III opening + a cucumber recipe

Friday night I attended the opening party for Level III in the JW Marriott, which, it turns out, was also the 7X7 Magazine Best of SF issue party.

It's hard to say what the place will look like when the party lights are off and the space returns to its normal hotel lobby look, but they did a terrific job of fixing it up for the event.

They served three drinks from the menu: The Shanghaied, Portman Cosmafornian, and Cable Car No. 2. They were all batch-made drinks for the big party, so they weren't a good indication of how the drinks might taste when made on the spot- we'll just have to see about that going forward.

The Portman Cosmafornian is basically a Cosmo with a sweet lime foam on top- without the foam the drink is nothing special but the sweet lime foam really works. The Cable Car No. 2 is full of tequila with a chili powder and cocoa rim. I really liked where it was headed, though I think I would swap chili powder with wasabi. (Mmm, wasabi.) I wasn't sold on the chocolate but I like chocolate less than the average person.

The Shangaied with Square One cucumber vodka, Canton ginger liqueur, and lemongrass syrup had great flavors (though it came out too sweet in the batching) and the lemongrass bits kind of get stuck to your lips, but it's worth it. This could be a great drink for summer. It contains just three ingredients, and if you batch the lemongrass syrup (or buy it from Monin), would make a great party drink.

And the Square One folks just gave me permission to print the recipe. At Level III we had this drink served on the rocks instead of in a cocktail glass as directed below.

Shanghaied
Created by H. Joseph Ehrmann, Mixologist and Brand Ambassador for Square One

2 ounces Square One Cucumber Vodka
1/2 ounce Canton Ginger Liqueur
1 ounce lemongrass syrup*
3 - 4 inch piece of lemongrass stalk for garnish

Combine in a mixing glass with ice. Shake hard for 10 seconds and strain into a cocktail glass.

*Lemongrass Syrup: Trim the stalk at the bottom and just past the heart of the stalk (4-5 inches). Save top half for garnish. Cut the heart lengthwise down the middle and with a mallet pound the lemongrass to break it up. Boil lemongrass in one cup of water for 2-3 minutes then add one cup of sugar slowly, stirring constantly to dissolve. Bring to a boil then simmer for 3-5 minutes until syrupy. Remove from heat and cool completely. Pour through a strainer and into a storage bottle. Refrigerate.

Green drinking

As I was picking the fallen houseplant leaf off the shag carpet, I wondered what it would taste like in a drink. (Who wouldn't?) I bit into it to find it reminded me of snap peas shells. Undeterred, I proceeded to experiment with a cocktail.

Intervention Inspiration
4 leaves of houseplant, with center veins removed
2 ounces cucumber vodka
1/2 ounce honey syrup
1/4 ounce lemon juice
pinch black pepper

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into cocktail glass.

The drink is disgusting, of course. And now I can't get the taste of houseplant out of my mouth.

Another absinthe cocktail

At the bottom of this absinthe story is a recipe for Neptune's Wrath from the Violet Hour in Chicago, containing gin, egg whites, lemon juice, absinthe, and flaming green Chartreuse. Sounds like my kind of drink.

Free money

Here are two free ideas:

1. Some bar should start a low-calorie cocktail list. You could sell low-calorie rum and Cokes using Diet Coke and half the rum as usual. And you could charge twice as much for it.


2. Why hasn't anyone invented a chocolate chip cookie dough martini? Oops, too late, they have.

Ambitious Cocktails

Greg Lindgren from Rye was cited in the Wall Street Journal this weekend, but unfortunately his cocktail recipe didn't get printed along with the others.

Perhaps the most ambitious entry came from Greg Lindgren, an owner of the San Francisco bar Rye. He proposed poaching quince in honey, water and mulling spices, and then using the warm fruity broth to flavor a glass of brandy. Very nice indeed -- if you succeed in finding fresh quince.

I asked Greg if he actually made the drink or just 'proposed' it. He said he did make it, in fact, and even sent Eric Felten a picture. I guess for Greg getting quince was not the problem- but I think ambitious is an appropriate term. Greg told me that it took almost three hours to poach the quince.

Sock Suckers

In Eric Felten's most recent Wall Street Journal article, he takes on bad, and badly-named drinks. He goes into one particular drink but takes an extra sentence to describe the name.

Popular in Australia, it seems, is a shooter made of Baileys and butterscotch liqueur. The drink's elaborate and unprintable title vividly describes a "cowboy" engaged in an activity the Supreme Court adjudicated in Bowers v. Hardwick. Frankly, I can't decide which is more distasteful -- the lewd logo, or a drink of Baileys and butterscotch liqueur.

That's a long way of saying "cowboy socksucker." (I'm replacing the 'c' with an 's', as I don't want to get this blog banned from too many more places.)

When I moved to San Francisco they made this drink (and I was quite fond of it at the time, but I was dumb and pretty then) but they just called it the socksucker.

Back in Boston we called it the butterball. I wondered how many other names there were for this drink containing all of two ingredients, so I turned to DrinksMixer.com. This database has so many repeated and wrong recipes that finding other names for drinks is about the only thing it's good for.

It turns out the drink of Irish cream liqueur and butterscotch liqueur is also called:

Bit 'o Honey
Butterbee
Butterscotch Bomb
Butterscotch Cookie Shot
Buttery Nipple
Buttery Nipple #2
Camel Hump
Socksucking Cowboy
Copper Camel
Cowboy Socksucker
Oatmeal Cookie #2
Slippery Nipple

Looking forward to purgatory

Doesn't this drink sound crazy? I need to get some Rittenhouse Rye just to try it out. The recipe comes from Gary Regan's cocktail column in the SF Chronicle.

Purgatory

Makes 1 drink

Adapted from a recipe by Ted Kilgore, bartender and bar manager at Monarch Restaurant, Maplewood, Mo.

• 21/2 ounces Rittenhouse 100-proof straight rye whiskey
• 3/4 ounce Benedictine
• 3/4 ounce Green Chartreuse
• 1 lemon wedge or twist, for garnish

Instructions: Fill a mixing glass two-thirds full of ice and add the whiskey, Benedictine and Chartreuse. Stir for approximately 30 seconds, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, add garnish.

The Cuke is Loose

Todd Smith published the recipe for Bourbon and Branch's famous Cucumber Gimlet (!!!), among other recipes. Read them here.

Wine and Gin?

Night Harvest wines recently hired H. Joseph Ehrmann of San Francisco's Elixir to invent five wine-based cocktails. He'll have one on the menu each season in the bar, but last night they were all available for tasting.

And when booze news breaks, Camper English is there to mop up the spill and drink from the bucket. I went to Elixir and sampled the selection.

Though wine cocktails are beginning to be popular, usually the wine is used in small amounts in place of vermouth or as an agent to smooth out the burn of high-alcohol/acidy citrus drinks. The drinks H invented are all wine-forward in volume and taste, and are some of the first non-champagne cocktails I've tried that are designed to highlight the wine.

The Stargazer is made with chardonnay and dark rum, the Yuletide Moon with merlot and bourbon, the Sunset on Dunnigan with Sauvignon Blanc and gin, The Red White and Night with cabernet sauvignon and vodka, and the Vinter's Nightcap with shiraz and coffee and cherry liqueurs. Don't they all sound terrible? It turns out they're not.

You can find some of the recipes here.

(Photo copyright Night Harvest .)

Mixing New Orleans cocktails

Thanks to Todd Price on eGullet who pointed out these videos. In them, Chris McMillian of the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans demonstrates how to make some famous local cocktails.



In the Ramos Gin Fizz video he tells us that some people add a couple of drops of vanilla to the drink, and also shows that for egg white drinks such as this one, you should first shake the drink without ice, then add ice and shake it more. Good info here.



In the Sazerac video we learn not just how to make it, but this piece of trivia I hadn't heard before: When absinthe was made illegal, it was also illegal to use the word absinthe on the bottle. Herbsaint, an absinthe substitute, is not coincidentally a near anagram of the word 'absinthe' (just with an extra 'r').

He also has videos up for the Pimm's Cup, Margarita, and the Martini.

Hot Cocktails

The Chicago Tribune ran a story on a new drink trend: using chilies in cocktails (free registration required). It includes several Chicago venue recipes, and oddly two different bartenders paired chilies with mango puree. Here in San Francisco, bartenders have favored using chilies on cocktail rims, though I had jalapenos both in a champagne drink and in an orange juice drink as well. I've enjoyed most of the combinations I've had- the only ones I didn't like where were the drink was too hot.

Pear Necessity

If you've enjoyed Alberta Straub's "Cocktails on the Fly" videos, make sure to check out the newest one, "Pear Necessity." Hilarious!

Serendipity

Most of yesterday's BevMo purchases were relatively uncommon aperitif wines, bitter digestifs, and other ingredients that I'll probably never drink straight except to try initially. One thing I picked up was Torani Amer, which I've been seeing used in some cocktail recipes lately and it was also in this month's great Imbibe Magazine story on vintage cocktail ingredients. Then today I found that coincidentally, the incredible Eric Felton wrote about the product in the weekend's Wall Street Journal, complete with a Basque cocktail recipe. What a lucky coincidence!

PICON PUNCH

2½ oz Torani Amer (or Amer Picon)
½ oz grenadine
¾ oz brandy

Pour grenadine and Amer over ice in a stemmed goblet and stir. Top with a float of brandy. Rub a twist of lemon around the rim of the glass, and then toss it in.

More Pisco Recipes

The problem with Pisco and Cachaca is that people haven't been very good at promoting recipes other than the pisco sour and caipirinha. Anyway, I found a few more pisco recipes in July's Food and Wine Magazine here.

All about Pisco

There was another wonderful Wall Street Journal booze article by Eric Felten on Pisco Sours this weekend. It's about the difference between the Chilean and Peruvian versions of the drink.

Chileans, you see, also claim the Pisco Sour as their national drink, though they construct it rather differently from their neighbors. In Peru, a Sour is made with pisco, lime juice, sugar, egg white and a few drops of Angostura bitters. In Chile, they use lemon juice instead of lime, often omit the egg white, and almost always abjure the bitters --though some top the drink with a dash of whiskey.

PERUVIAN PISCO SOUR

2 oz pisco
1 oz fresh lime juice
¾ oz simple (i.e., sugar) syrup (to taste)
1 fresh egg white (or 2 tbsp pasteurized egg whites)
1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake all but the Angostura vigorously with ice. Don't stop shaking -- the egg whites need to get nice and frothy. Strain into a short glass and garnish the foamy top with a few drops of Angostura.

CHILEAN PISCO SOUR

2 oz pisco
1 oz fresh lemon juice
¾ oz simple syrup (to taste)

Shake with ice and strain into a short glass.

My Cachaca Drink

My article on new brunch cocktails in the July issue of Out Magazine just came out. Pick it up! (And if you like it, feel free to write a letter to the editor as they kicked me to the curb.)

In the article I mention that the average Bloody Mary usually disappoints- not because it's a bad drink, but because it's hard to get right. Then I suggest a few alternatives. The Michelada is one, the Spanish Coffee, which is huge in Portland, Oregon, is another, and the third is a cocktail called the Mellow A.M..

They neglected to include that I invented the drink (at least I think I did- it's so hard to know if someone else invented the same drink independently), but that's okay because I get to share it with you all.

The Mellow AM
1 ounce Cachaca such as Boca Loca or Pirrasununga 51 (I tried other brands and these two were my favorites)
1 ounce Cranberry Juice
1 ounce Papaya Nectar
1 1/2 ounce Ginger Ale

Build in a tall glass over ice and serve with a straw.

The thing is, I've made the drink at home a zillion times and think it's fan-freeking-tastic, but I don't know of anyone else who has tried it. So if you happen to come across the ingredients, why don't you give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Nectarini

I decided to make myself an early afternoon cocktail, just because I can. And it turns out I made one that was actually good. Naturally, the photo turned out bad, but here it is anyway.

I had a nectarine that I was going to eat, but then I figured, why not drink it instead? I muddled it up as best I could (it was juicy but didn't produce a whole lot of juice so much as mush), added the juice of half a lime, an ounce and a half or so of gin, and a splash of simple syrup.

The drink is fantastic. Not cloying and sweet, but not too juice+boozy either. Do try this at home.

Unfortunately now I'm out of nectarines and I'm not in the mood for a leftover-Indian-foodtini so I guess I'll get back to work.

Open Source Soda

Color me clueless- I didn't know about OpenCola, a copyright-free recipe for Coke or Pepsi-like soda. Here's the recipe.

I'm not a fan of traditional sodas, but maybe you crafty barfolk can add this to your DIY selection of bar ingredients along with grenadine, bitters, tonic water, and limoncello.

Also on WikiHow, they have recipes for cherry soda, ginger ale, and root beer.

Angel of the Morning

A couple of years ago, I wrote that the Michelada was going to be the hot new beverage of the summer. In reality, not so much. But increased chatter about the drink lately by the likes of Jordan Mackay and The Spirit World and others makes me think its got a chance.

I make it like this:

Michelada
Salt the rim of a pint glass. Fill with ice, add the juice of half a lime, a few dashes of Tabasco sauce, one dash of Worcestershire sauce, and fill with Mexican beer such as Tecate.

I wrote about the drink again recently as something that should be served at brunch. Beer and juice over ice means that it's extremely low in alcohol so you can drink them early and often, and when I have a six-pack laying around I tend to go through about half of it making Micheladas instead of just one.

The reason I post this is to encourage people to try the drink at home and to request it at bars. It's a light and simple drink that deserves to be popular.

Recipe by Request

By Cior's request in the Bacardi post comments, here is a recipe that I think allows the flavors in the rum to shine through.

Generally, the lime juice + sugar+ booze recipe should do this also, whether that's in a gimlet (gin) or daiquiri (rum) or margarita (tequila), but I don't actually like gimlets or daiquiris. These recipes all add a touch of sweetness, fruit, and volume to dilute the spirit but shouldn't overwhelm it. Basically, they're filler. So is the Rucopi, a drink which must exist somewhere under another name but here's what I came up with:

Rucopi (RUm COconut PIneapple)
1 1/2 ounces rum (especially dark rum)
1 ounce coconut water (not coconut milk; available in Latino groceries and health food stores)
1/2 ounce pineapple juice
Shake all ingredients over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

In defense of Bacardi

Much like Smirnoff, the well vodka so maligned that even after the NY Times blind tasted it as superior to expensive brands it still doesn't get much respect socially, Bacardi rum gets no props.

I was at a barbecue yesterday at which I served my Summer Strawberry Wave cocktail of strawberry-infused rum, lemon iced tea, and ginger ale. It was well-received all around, as usual. (Honestly, it's a fricking fantastic daytime drink). Someone new came in as I was offering up another round and I described the drink.

"What kind of rum is in it?" asked the person pondering it.

Bacardi, I said, though this should have been obvious due to the Bacardi bottle I was holding.

"Oh, well, then no thanks. Bacardi is gross."

I resisted the urge to smack her. Clearly she wasn't a rum expert dissing Bacardi in comparison to better brands; she was dissing it because she had gotten too drunk on Bacardi and Whatevers in college and thinks of it as overly sweet, syrupy rum when that's the mixer she's actually remembering.

"Take a sip of it then tell me it sucks," I said, but she wouldn't. Typical.

A few weeks ago, a couple of friends were over for a mojito-making training session (by the way, I'm available to do mojito-making training sessions for groups and business networking events- email me). After we went through the basics of preparation, I suggested we then try different rums and make mojitos with them.

My friends were hesitant when it came to sampling the Bacardi we had already been mixing with, but then they tried it. "Wow! Who knew?" they said. ("It's probably best to suggest trying it after a few drinks," one added, acknowledging her prejudices.)

I think more than commonly consumed average-quality whiskies or vodkas or certainly tequilas, Bacardi is the most underrated yet popular spirit brand out there. For something that so many people buy and consume, most people think of it as a crap product.

If that's you, I want you to take a sip from the bottle in your cabinet right now. It won't taste how you think it does- unless you think it tastes like more like chocolate and coffee than syrup and candy. These flavors aren't overwhelmingly intense- that's why you've never noticed them before in a soup of pineapple juice and Coke- but they're there and worth knowing about.

Though I primarily use Bacardi as a mixing rum at home, like Julia Child with the cooking sherry, I'll have a little sip before I add it to the mixing glass, because it's fine and tasty on its own.

Don't let this happen to you

I was just hankering for a glass of water, so I poured myself one. Or rather, I:

Recipe for a glass of sparkling water

• Grab a pint glass
• In the freezer, do the daily ice rotation (throwing out the older ice, moving the new cubes to a fresh bag, and filling the trays with Britta-filtered water).
• Cut an organic lemon in half and squeeze a small amount of juice into the glass
• Outdoors, pick a few leaves of fresh mint from planter. Wash and add to glass.
• Add ice to glass, pressing on it to gently release the mint flavor while not pulverizing it.
  
• Add filtered water to 1-litre vessel, then carbonate using home soda making device
• Fill glass with sparkling water
  
• Add a straw and garnish with a lemon wedge

When making a glass of water takes ten minutes, you know you've crossed some kind of line.

Hip Sips

The book Hip Sips, by Lucy Brennan of Portland, Oregon's Mint and 820, is finally released. I've talked about the delicious beet-infused vodka martini I had there.

I got a review copy of the book a while ago and made the beet-infused vodka. I think I let mine infuse about one day too long, but it was still pretty tasty. (Though not as tasty as it was at her bar.) You can actually find the recipe for the Ruby and the beet infusion in the April issue of Wine&Spirits Magazine, where I did a tiny write-up of the venue as well.

Other drinks in the book include and Avocado Daiquiri and a Rhubarb Cooler- really unusual creations. Many of the drinks are labor-intensive (unless you already have fig puree around the house) but really unique. It's a nice alternative to books endlessly repeating classic recipes (Hip Sips lists 20 classic cocktails out of over 60 recipes) with impressive ingredients.

Drinking for Two

(In Today's San Francisco Chronicle)

Love Potions For Two

Dipping straws into a shared cocktail isn't the most romantic way to celebrate Valentine's Day, especially given the kitschy reputation of extra-large drinks. Yet some bartenders are trying to show that extra-big doesn't have to mean extra-bad.

The best known cocktail for two or (for the polyamorous) more is the scorpion bowl. The tropical drink, simply a fruit and rum punch in an oversized bowl with straws, is a popular leftover from the tiki food and drink fad that first swept America beginning in the 1930s. It's sometimes presented in a ceramic scorpion bowl with a volcano in the middle that's filled with a high-proof spirit and ignited -- a volatile combination that no doubt contributes to its enduring appeal.

The story goes on to discuss to origin of the scorpion bowl (Trader Vic's), what different people do with it, and why Forbidden Island does them right. We include the recipe for the popular Fugu for Two, shown in the picture.

Read the rest of the story here.

I wrote the story with Valentines Day in mind, and we made sure to include where else you can get shared cocktails. That way, you can skip the whole dinner aspect of the holiday, get drunk on jumbo cocktails, and go screw.

Double the pleasure

A few bars offering drinks for two or more:

Betelnut. Scorpion bowl. 2030 Union St. (at Buchanan), S.F.; (415) 929-8855.

Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge. Multiple tropical drinks. 1304 Lincoln Ave. (at Sherman), Alameda; (510) 749-0332.

Lingba Lounge. Bowl of Monkeys. 1469 18th St. (at Connecticut), S.F.; (415) 355-0001.

Luna Park, Volcanic scorpion bowl, Make Your Own Passion (Valentine's Day only). 694 Valencia St. (near 18th Street), S.F; (415) 553-8584.

Poleng Lounge. Emperor's Cup. 751 Fulton St. (at Masonic), S.F.; (415) 441-1710.

Ponzu. Godzilla. 401 Taylor St. (at O'Farrell), S.F.; (415) 775-7979.

Tonga Room. Multiple tropical drinks. 950 Mason St. (inside the Fairmont Hotel), S.F. (415) 772-5278.

Trad'r Sam's. Multiple tropical drinks. 6150 Geary Blvd. (at 26th Avenue), S.F.; (415) 221-0773.

Trader Vic's. Multiple tropical drinks. 9 Anchor Drive (at Powell), Emeryville; (510) 653-3400. 555 Golden Gate Ave. (near Van Ness), S.F.; (415) 775- 6300. 4269 El Camino Real (at Dinah's Garden Court), Palo Alto; (650) 849-9800.

Drinks to have and not have

Lately I've been having a lot of drinks out on the town with grapefruit in them. I think it's because grapefruit is a bitter flavor, and bitter drinks are all the rage these days. Bring on the Campari, amaros, and homemade bitters. I actually have three articles in different publications coming up that focus on cocktail bitters.

I've been playing with some grapefruit drinks lately with mixed success. Here is one that's just gross (found on DrinksMixer.com):

Petite Fleur
1 part grapefruit juice
1 part white rum
1 part Cointreau

Don't try this at home, kids! It's the essence of wrongness.

But then I tried this one:

Nevada Cocktail
1 1/2 ounce light rum
1 1/2 ounce grapefruit juice
1 dash bitters
1 ounce lime juice
2 tsp superfine sugar

I like the drink because it tastes simple and still. The bitters are so necessary and subtle they make a huge difference. The drink tastes to me well-balanced (surprisingly not too sweet) and also not too acidic.

My experimentation will continue, but tonight, I'll just have another.

*update* I had another and it wasn't anywhere near as good. I am the worst bartender in the world.