Alcademics.com

Party Tips from Esquire

I think it's a little odd to put your New Year's party tips in the January issue of a magazine instead of December, then to give away all the content online before it's even January, but that's why I'm not a rich and famous magazine editor.

Nor am I a David Wondrich, who wrote all the booze stories for the issue. They include:

Esquire's Guide to Hosting

A complaint about oversized Martini glasses

And batch-sized recipes for party drinks: the Gin Daisy, Manhattan, and an original drink called the Saint Valentine (umm, wrong month again?) that includes rum, port, Grand Marnier, and lime juice.

Out of the Bathtub and Into the Kitchen

Gourmet.com has a recipe for making gin out of vodka by infusing it with herbs and berries. I can't wait to try it.

I also think this would make an excellent gift for the gin lover in your life: Hand him or her a bottle of vodka to make them squirm, then in the card that comes with it have all the herbs and the recipe in the envelope. Tee hee!

Pisco Punch, By the Bowl

Check out this recipe for a relatively easy (no gum Arabic required!) bowl of Pisco Punch by the Pegu Club's Audrey Saunders. The recipe if for a bowl of punch but with the way it's put together you could make individual portions. It''s part of a series of holiday punches from New York Magazine.

Mmm, Holiday pisco.

The Searchable Savoy

Conventional cocktail book indexes are poor substitutions for databases, because in very of few of them can you look up a drink by ingredient. And when you can, it's only by base ingredient- gin, vodka, etc., instead of the mixer or modifier. I often want to look up drinks with ingredients like grapefruit juice or Creme Yvette, so this doesn't help.

Most online drink databases, on the other hand, are easily searchable but have too many drinks and no credits attached to the recipes. So you get 300 versions of the drink but don't know if someone just made it up or if it comes from a reliable source.

In one case, anyway, there is a good solution. All the recipes from the Savoy Cocktail Book can be found in a very simple searchable database here. We owe this to the efforts of Jimmy Patrick- bartender, blogger, and apparently secret programmer, and to Erik Ellestad who scanned in the whole book in order to work on his Savoy Cocktail Project.

Unlike most drink books, the Savoy has wonderful illustrations throughout the text that make it a must-own for all serious cocktailians. I don't feel guilty sharing it, as this database is more of a searchable accompaniment to the beautiful hard copy, which you can find in reprint.

What would be cool for modern cocktail books is if they had online searchable databases that didn't necessarily return the whole recipe, but told us the page number that the drinks were on so we could look them up in our hard copy. That would combine the convenience of a database without any income loss for the author. Hmmm, project!

Make Your Own Cocktail Ingredients

The SF Chronicle lists recipes for homemade Clementine Bitters, Orgeat, Gomme Syrup, and Grenadine. 

Wild Tofurkey

It's almost Thanksgiving, and that means all the booze news is full of stories on what to pair with your turkey. Phooey.

As you know, the entire staff here at Alcademics HQ (me) is vegetarian, so I don't play that game. But I do like Thanksgiving, as it's a holiday centered around pigging out and drinking, followed by loafing around until your stomach stops hurting.

I like to participate in my own special way, by enjoying a healthy vegetarian meal of Wild Turkey bourbon. And this year, I thought I would pair it with food, and then I thought, why not enjoy it as food?

I made three styles of Wild Turkey marinade for tofu, then cooked them all.

Marinade 1: A Bourbon Sazerac, dumped into a bowl

• 3 ounces Wild Turkey 101
• 1 sugar cube
• dash of Pernod Absinthe
• 3 dashes Peychaud's bitters

Marinade 2: An Old-Fashioned, dumped into a bowl

• 1 tsp orange marmalade
• 2 maraschino cherries, muddled
• 1 sugar cube
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• 3 ounces Wild Turkey 101

Marinade 3: Bourbon Marinade

• 1/2 cup Wild Turkey 101
• 1 tbsp powdered ginger
• 1 tbsp vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (next time I'd go lighter on this)
• pinch black pepper
• 1/2 tsp sesame seeds

Marinate pressed (water squeezed out) tofu overnight. Bake on lightly oiled cookie sheet at 300 degrees for 30-40 minutes, turning at least once. Remove from oven before it starts to look crispy or charred. If I had to do it again, I would make thicker slices and cook it on the lighter side, as the less it's cooked inside the more bourbon flavor is retained.

Results

The Sazerac Tofurkey was not so great. I didn't like the baked minty-ness that I think came from the absinthe. The Old Fashioned Tofurkey was delicious, as was the regular Bourbon Marinated Tofurkey.

I'd make this again in a heartbeat- and probably will tomorrow for actual Thanksgiving. I may also experiment with a Manhattan Marinade and a Bourbon Sour Marinade. Why not? The best part about this is that after you're finished, you can drink the leftover sauce.

Glossy Booze: November Edition

Glossy Booze is a round-up of cocktails and spirits stories in magazines.

Men's Journal has this story on the increasing popularity and price of bourbon, along with some recommendations by Wayne Curtis, a few recommended brands of merlot, and a review of The Wettest County in the World.

The December issue of Men's Journal is also out, and has a recipe for the Midnight Manhattan,  a mention of Palo Santo Marron as a good winter brew, an endorsement of Three Thieves Bandit wine in the box as "adventure-ready wine," and a list of "Top Shelf Hooch" including Bluecoat Gin, Vodka 14, Nouvelle-Orleans Absinthe, and Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey.

In San Francisco's 7x7 Magazine, Jordan Mackay lists some steak-pairing red wines, and feature's Jennifer Colliau's Small Hand Foods, her vintage syrup business.

In Details, Rob Willey has a story on eggnog, with some recommended products to put in it- Remy Martin CROP cognac, Old Forrester Signature 100-proof bourbon, Brugal Anejo rum, and El Dorado 15-year-old rum.

Esquire is also on the rum kick, with David Wondrich telling us about how rum ages faster in the hot environments, and recommends a few to try: Clement Cuvee Homere, Angostura 1824, and English Harbour 10-year-old Reserve.

And finally, Bon Appetit has a slew of stories: A recipe for the Algonquin Bar Punch, some suggested champagnes, a fun list on what drinks cost around the world, a recipe for Christmas Caipirinhas (with ginger, ginger beer, and mint added to the usual mix), and a whole vintage cocktail party feature with food and old-style drinks.

Also from the Bon Appetit website, check out these pictures of bartenders in New York making the Blue Blazer.

Felicitations Jackie P

Jackie Patterson of the newly-opened Zinnia won the West Coast Marie Brizard Cocktail Challenge, and will be headed to Bordeaux, France to compete again. Congrats!

Jackie's recipes,which are simple enough to duplicate at home, can be found here.

More Cachaca Recipes

I think the cachaca category is too tied to the Caipirinha, but I probably think that because the Caipirinha is a lousy drink. There I said it.

But I love cacacha and am always thrilled to see something other than the Caipirinha made with it on drink menus. Coming to my rescue is Naren Young, a New York-based writer/bartender. He wrote this little ditty on the Top Five Cachaca Cocktails.

Included in the list is the Caipirinha de Uva, a drink I've had and loved several times in different places. There is also the Pearl Button by John Deragon, which sounds easy and delightful, and a version of the Bloody Mary called the Bloody Carioca. I had a different version of a cachaca based Bloody Mary, which sounds disgusting- and I loved it.

I just wanted to draw your attention to these other options because I'm so very glad to have them myself.

Icefusions

Gourmet.com has a story about a bartender making ice infused with herbs and spices like dried cherry, cardamom, and clove, which open up in cocktails and add new flavors to the drink as they melt.

I've had ice made from coconut water and bitters-infused ice before, but this is a new idea to me. Think of the possibilities!

No seriously, bartenders- go think of the possibilities and I'll be happy to sample your experiments.

Cocktails worthy of a trip to Nicaragua

A few weeks ago, Todd Smith and Luis Sivira won trips to Nicaragua as part of Flor de Cana's cocktail contest in San Francisco. Sweet. Here are the recipes for the drinks that won.

Cafe de Caña
by Todd Smith, Beretta Restaurant
1.5oz. Flor de Caña 18 year rum
1oz. fresh lemon
.75oz. Averna Amaro
.5oz. honey
.5oz. egg white (optional)
Garnish: "Coffee dirt" (ground Nicaraguan coffee beans & dark cane sugar)
Method: Combine ingredients in mixing tin, shake hard. Serve in well
chilled cocktail glass top with "coffee dirt." If no egg white is used rim
1/2 of glass with "coffee dirt"


Caña Brava
by Luis Sivira, Metro Lafayette
2oz.  Flor De Caña   18 yrs.  rum
1/2  oz. Sugar cane syrup
1oz. White cranberry juice
1 oz. Fresh Orange juice
Splash  Campari
2 Orange wedges.
Shake all ingredients (including orange wedges)  with ice and serve up in
cocktail glass.

Congratulations, and remember to smile next time- you're going to Nicaragua you lucky bastards!

Agricole Mule recipe

Oh look, Jordan Mackay's story on ginger in drinks is online.

That means the recipe for Beretta's Agricole Mule is also online. It's a cross between between a Mojito and a Moscow Mule, and it's delicious.

Go make one.

 

Is it December yet?

These days it's not unusual to receive a press release about a new cocktail on the menu at a bar, and I applaud this. That's why I go to bars, after all, and tempting new drinks are tempting. But last week I received a release from Clock Bar in San Francisco that's odd because:

1. The full recipes are included.
2. None of the drinks are on the menu yet.
3. One of them won't be on the menu until December, when blood oranges come into season. And of course it looks like the one I most want to try.

The press release clearly states of the recipes  "you are invited and welcome to share and publish." So I guess I will.

CUNNINGHAM by Marcovaldo Dionysos
In memory of Johnny Cunningham (1957-2003)
    1 1/2 oz. Johnny Walker Black
    1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
    1/2 oz. fresh blood orange juice
    1/2 oz. Benedictine
    1/4 oz. cherry brandy
Shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with brandied cherries and a flamed blood orange twist.

"Johnny Cunningham was one of the finest fiddlers the world has ever  seen. Some say he played so fast only dogs could hear him. This is my tribute to him."

Maybe it's just the Benedictine/cherry/scotch combo getting me stirred up, but the drink sounds bananas. I can't wait to try it. Could someone please hurry up with the global warming thing so that the blood oranges come earlier this year? Thanks.

Sinfully delicious

In last week's Wall Street Journal story on the Planter's Punch, Eric Felten wrote of the accolades it received in the press. One such quote was:

In July 1906, the Washington Post recommended Planter's Punch as "something cool, something novel enough to excite interest, and above all something that will quench thirst."

In my insomniatic state, I read that as "something novel enough to excite incest," which would be one heck of an endorsement.

I love how tiki bar menus usually come with a description like, "The Monkey Cooler will have you swinging from the trees- have two and you'll go bananas!" It would be funny (in the how-to-run-your-bar-into-the-ground sort of way) if a place labeled their menu along the lines of my misreading of the Planter's Punch recipe, like :

• The Goggle: Lock up your sister, because this drink will make any woman irresistible!
• The Smoker: A cocktail so high in proof, you can dowse your neighbor with it and light him on fire!
• The Bull Lima: A cream-and-pisco drink you can take by the horns- it tastes as good going down as it does coming back up!
• Pousse Galore: A layered drink that will have you licking your cat!

This post may not seem as funny when I wake up in the morning.