Alcademics.com

Shhh! It's a Secret

These are notes on the Shhh! It's a Secret seminar at the Tales of the Cocktail convention.

• For alcohol products you have to list your ingredients, method, etc. to the TTB before approval - the whole recipe, in gernal. This isn't the same for non-alcoholic products. 
• Lillet is in a category of tonic wine, rather than vermouth. 
• In 1886 John Pemberton released a syrup with cola nuts and coca- Coca Cola. But one year before that there was John Pemberton's Nerve Wine Coca, a "tonic wine". This was changed based on the coming backlash against alcohol.  In 1863 in France, Vin Mariani (containing both coca and quinquina/quinine) was also a tonic wine, that may have been the inspiration for Pemberton.
•  Before the discovery of the new world, Europe didn't have cinchona.  (Or phyloxera, but that's another story.) Tonics and medicines from local communities in both the new and old world start to become branded medicines/health tonics. 
• Cinchona name comes from the name of a Spanish governor to Peru, the Marquee of Quinquon (sp?) whose wife was ill and this tonic helped her. 
• Quinquina was a selling point for tonic wines. 
• Back in the day, Lillet made many products, not just the fortified wine we know today. 
• Lillet contains wine from 3 grapes, macerations of cinchona, sweet and bitter orange peels from Haiti, Morocco, and Spain, and several additional (SECRET!) Boredeaux fruits. There are ten  ingredients. 
• Jackie Patterson says you can see the size of the word "Kina" or "quinquina" getting smaller over the years in advertising. This indicates the brands coming into their own rather than advertising the base ingredient (so, similar to Pepsi-Cola becoming just Pepsi), so they promote the brand name versus the ingredient. 
• Rumor has it that Lillet has changed; that the quinquina/bitterness decreased when it changed from Kina Lillet to Lillet in name. Patterson says the blender says "it's never been a bitter, what it adds to the flavor of Lillet is something akin to roundness and depth."  That said, they aknowledge that the alcohol percent was lowered and it became less sweet. 
• To make Gran Classico, they pour alcohol over a big sort of funnel filled with herbs to slowly extract the flavors. It gets its color and flavor from percolation. Then it is lightly filtered and sugar is added. "This is very typical to what you would have tasted a couple hundred year ago."
• Fernet is a spirit category, not a brand name. 
• It is possible that fernet was originally created by one monk with a name something like Frangellino Fernet. 
• Fernet contains a mushroom that sucks the flavors off the trees that it grows on, usually larch trees. 

Laptop running out of power - I'll add more later!

Which Vermouth is Which?

In Friday's FineCooking.com blog entry, I have a little story about how I remember which vermouth is which: sweet, French, white, Italian, dry, red. I could never keep them straight until I came up with a mnemonic device.

Read it here.

Plus! There is also the recipe for the Bamboo cocktail.

Less Alcohol, More Trendy

My new story for the San Francisco Chronicle is online. 

 

Latest cocktail trend is low-alcohol drinks

Camper English, Special to The Chronicle
 Friday, September 17, 2010

Like a food menu, a proper cocktail list reflects a chosen theme while catering to a variety of diners. The low-alcohol drinks now showing up around San Francisco are designed to satisfy cocktail flexitarians who aren't avoiding alcohol but who don't want the calories, the rapid buzz or that full feeling.

For some drinkers, it's like small-plates dining.

"I like cocktails so much that sometimes I wish all booze was lower in proof because I want to drink more and not feel (the) effects as intensely," says Brooke Arthur, who placed two low-alcohol cocktails on the bar menu she developed for Prospect restaurant.

Go here to read the whole thing and learn about the forthcoming cocktail from Comstock Saloon that sounds ins-a-a-a-ane. 

(Photos by Michael Macor / The Chronicle) 

The New Bitter

With all the new bitter products on the market I was getting a little confused as to what's what, so I've made this cheat sheet for myself. 

Cocchi Americano: Quinquina, flavored with quinine; a Kina Lillet substitute

Gran Classico: A "Bitters of Turin" with wormwood and gentian; a Campari substitute

Calisaya: A brand of high-quinine elixir that was once a generic name for the category of quinquinas. According to CocktailDB: "Generic Spanish/Italian spirit-based beverage/digestive bitters of calisaya bark (quinine), herbs, and spices. Ferro China and china-Martini bitters are other forms of this product. Calisay is a liqueur which utilizes the same main flavoring ingredients."

Bonal: According to Paul Clarke in the SF Chronicle, "Produced in France since 1865, Bonal has a double-headed bitterness from cinchona and gentian. When combined with other ingredients in a base of mistelle - partially fermented grape juice mixed with higher-proof alcohol - its character is simultaneously juicy and bone dry."

Wayfare Tavern Cocktail Menu Preview

After nearly a year of no notable cocktail programs launching in San Francisco, they're coming fast and furious these days, with the Comstock Saloon, Burritt Room, Scott Beattie's program at Spoonbar in Healdsburg, Brooke Arthur's menu at Prospect, and The Bon Vivants at Wayfare Tavern.

What's that, you say? Didn't you just read in the Eater interview with  Tyler Florence about his restaurant Wayfare Tavern that he won't have fancy cocktails? Yes you did:

Can we talk about the bar program?

You know, there are some amazing consultants in the city, but I don't know if we're necessarily going to go there. We've got talented people here in house and it's really all about Martinis and Sazeracs. I think the craze of muddled, precious cocktails is kinda over. I don't think people want to pay for that or wait. So we're still putting the finishing touches on, but I promise it's going to be amazing.

How quaint! I had a little chuckle at that one.  

Luckily he changed his mind, because now Wayfare will have a cocktail menu created by The Bon Vivants, also known as Scott Baird and Josh Harris.

(The Bon Vivants. Photo by Liza Gershman.)

As usual with these two, the drinks are creative, chock full of hard-to-identify ingredients, and difficult to imagine by reading the menu how they'll taste. No doubt they'll taste delicious, as they always do. I am, of course, excited to try the black tea shrub. 

The days of precious cocktails is not quite over, I'm glad to say. Look no further than the  Granite Lady: That's an Old Tom Gin Martini with three kinds of vermouth. Hallelujah!

Wayfare Tavern Drink Menu - Subject to Change

The Leidesdorff
Buffalo Trace Bourbon, Benedictine, Royal Combier, Orange Muscat, lemon, egg white, cinnamon tincture.

Darkness at Noon
Bourbon Rooibos Wild Turkey Rye, Galliano l'Autentico, Floris Apple Lambic, honey, lime, angostura

Fort Vigilance
High West Silver Whiskey, Leopold Brothers Michigan Tart Cherry Liqueur, Hidalgo “Faraon” Olorosso Sherry, Aperol, Peychaud's

Occidental Sour
Macchu Pisco, St. Germain Elderflower liqueur, Mondavi Moscato d'Oro, caramelized pineapple syrup, lemon, lime, egg white, Peychaud's

Gravel & Gold
Cap Rock Gin, 42 Below Munukah Honey Vodka, R&W Orchard Apricot Liqueur, lemon, seltzer, egg white.

The Granite Lady
Hayman's Old Tom Gin, Cocchi Americano, Dolin Blanc, Sutton Cellars Brown Label, Grapefruit Bitters 

Dutch Plum Shrub
Bols Genever, Plum & Black Tea Shrub

(Image courtesy of Wayfare Tavern.)

Still Creamy?

This site features expiration information for food and more importantly, beverages.

StillTasty.com will tell you how long that Amarula cream liqueur will last once it's opened. Also, lime cordial, Margarita mix, mescal, port, sake schnapps, tonic water, and vermouth.

Cocktails for the Lazy: Saratoga

My favorite cocktails to make at home have a few things in common:

- Not many ingredients. If I want a fancy complicated drink, I'll go to a bar and be served by a professional.

- Easy-to-remember proportions so I don't have to look up the recipe. When I'm pulling out books to make drinks, it feels like work. 

- No fresh ingredients. I have nothing against fresh ingredients, it's just that I tend to run out of them. Even citrus, which I can purchase on a two-minute walk from my front door. But that would mean I would have to put on pants.

Drinks that qualify in this category include the Manhattan, Martini, Negroni, and drinks with bottled beverages like tonic and soda water, as I always have those around.

Long story finishing up: I found another one to add to my repertoire: the Saratoga. I tried one for the first time last night at the SF Cocktail Week closing party. While the Saratoga normally calls for rye whiskey (and it would, being a Jerry Thomas-era recipe), last night they made it with Yamazaki 12 year old scotch and it was delicious. Versatile, too? I'm in heaven.

Saratoga Cocktail

1 ounce rye whiskey (or scotch, it seems)
1 ounce sweet vermouth
1 ounce cognac
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Gifts from the Internet

Here are some things I liked reading.

The Washington post has a rare story on bars in DC- rare in that it reveals the profits of each bar.

Most people who collect wine probably have more than four bottles if they need a separate wine refrigerator, but you'd be pretty much the coolest cocktailian on the block if you used this under-cabinet wine cooler to store four separate types of vermouth.

The Boston Globe takes on one of the great questions of our times: is it a beer cozy or a beer koozie?

And here's a handy home craft for all those newly unemployed folks with too-much time on their hands: How to make your own cocktail umbrellas.