1/4 oz real grenadine (small hand foods makes a nice one)
angostura bitters & a few dashes of peach bitters
rinse the inside of the glass with the douglas fir eau de vie. muddle the ginger in the oat whiskey using ½ inch cubes (as much or as little as you prefer…. but i suggest you muddle at least 2 cubes), sieve into your shaker with the rest of the ingredients. shake, serve & garnish with a cube of fresh ginger root.
as promised, here are the two cocktails i created for the Wildflower Craft Cocktail and Twilight Tour at the San Francisco Botanical Garden last week.
1. zenzerosa
muddled ginger (2 to 4 half inch cubes depending on your love of ginger; muddle in the bourbon, then sieve it into your shaker with the remainder of the ingredients)
1½ oz bourbon
1 oz japanese plum wine
½ oz cocchi americano
creole bitters & peach bitters
garnish with a chunk of candied ginger.
2. wiggy #2
muddled rosemary (a few thick sprigs, muddle quickly in the whiskey and sieve into your shaker so as to the release a bit of the oil without adding too much chlorophyll)
hey, bay area people, cocktail lovers and botanigeeks; i’ll be creating & serving a couple of cocktails using garden-sourced ingredients at the San Francisco Botanical Garden on april 18th at 7PM. it should be a gorgeous evening so buy your tickets now as they’re selling a very limited number. hope to see you there.
last week i had the honor of creating two cocktails for a friend’s wedding. one representing the bride, and one the groom. alas, vodka was a requirement for one of the cocktails so i had to make do with that, but ALL of them were consumed so i am content to believe they were both hits.
ok, here they are; the sea cucumber and smokey & the bandit:
The Sea Cucumber (based on the blockbuster song & video by the bride, ariela morgenstern and animated by the ridiculously talented groom, marc wilson):
1½ oz vodka (as vodka goes, karlsson’s gold is pretty nice and actually has some sort of flavor)
1 oz dry vermouth
½ oz grenadine (i prefer to use the real stuff, so i chose small hand foods)
¼ oz orgeat (i also used small hand brand)
¼ oz lemon juice, fresh squeezed
muddled cucumber
fee’s rhubarb bitters
thoroughly muddle several thick slices of cucumber in the vodka. strain into your shaker with a fine wire mesh. add the rest of the ingredients, shake over ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a ¼ cuke slice.
for best results, watch the video below whilst enjoying your sea cucumber.
Smokey & the Bandit (turns out the groom has some deeply bromantic feelings for burt reynolds. who can blame him?):
1½ oz bourbon (i used old forester)
½ oz mezcal (i like embajador blanco, but vida or sombra will do just fine)
½ oz real maple syrup
¼ oz lemon juice, fresh squeezed
fee’s black walnut bitters
peaty single malt rinse
candied ginger chunk garnish
rinse the inside of a chilled cocktail glass with a peaty single malt whisky like ardbeg, laphroaig, smokehead, or bowmore. shake ingredients over ice, strain into the peat-rinsed glass, and plop a chunk of candied ginger in there.
oh… and here’s your soundtrack.
lately, i have been infusing a shitload of spirits and have been trying for a while to arrange the perfect marriage between dill & hazelnut. i was pleasantly surprised to discover that christian bros. frost white brandy ($10) takes flavors exceedingly well. the brandyness graciously stands aside and allows whatever you infuse it with to assert itself. since my local farmer’s market had plenty dill available i made a batch of dill brandy. here’s a cocktail.
2 oz dill-infused brandy
½ oz frangelico
1 oz coconut milk
½ oz orgeat syrup
¼ oz lime juice
float a wee sprig of dill on top
shake vigorously with ice & serve in a cocktail glass. float a small sprig of dill for garnish.
last night i stumbled upon the bottle of BT white dog that i dropped some vanilla beans into a month or so ago, and stuffed behind a bunch of other bottles on my counter. needless to say the vanilla flavor was DEEP after being in the bottle for so long. i’ve sampled my fair share of white dogs, and most truly live up to their name (they bite!). buffalo trace’s mash #1 is boozy (125 Proof) & delicious. there’s also high west’s silver OMG rye and oat whiskeys which are smooth & sippable on their own. try this;
2 oz vanilla-infused buffalo trace white dog mash #1 (split & drop a couple vanilla beans into a bottle & let infuse for a week or two)
last weekend i finally trucked out to the tenderloin and visited ex-garçon bartender brian felley’s new bar, big (which, square footage-wise, is anything but). big is my kind of bar: it has no set menu and brian prefers that you just name your spirit and some flavors and allow him work his magic. the spirit selection is fine-tuned and unpretentious, and lots of fresh ingredients and home made shrubs & syrups are on-hand. i showed up with a bottle of my favorite sotol, don cuco suave, and challenged brian to sample it and then create something for me. as with when he was behind the bar at garçon he came through with a delicious cocktail, which coincidentally turned out to contain several of the same ingredients as a recipe i came up with a while back (below).
sotol — this fantastically complex spirit has yet to find its way to the bay area in any significant sense — thankfully, mosto has a nice selection, but it’s really the only place i know of in NorCal that has any. i’ve been relying on the kindness of friends that live in SoCal to purchase & haul some up here for me whenever they visit. but that’s not going to be sustainable. i’ve been relentlessly pestering the don cuco guy on Facebook, and have also enlisted amanda & amy from cask to do the same, but either due to them not being able to produce enough of the stuff to serve another large market, or just laziness, it hasn’t happened yet. but it will.
if you live in the bay area, love great cocktails, and haven’t yet visited big, i recommend you do so.
ok, here’s that sotol cocktail…
2 oz sotol blanco (don cuco suave is what i recommend)
½ oz aperol
¼ oz fresh lime juice
¼ oz ginger syrup (make your own, or pick up some from the ginger people)
here’s a seasonal cocktail made with stuff from my local farmer’s market. and brandy.
homemade carrot brandy.
2½ oz carrot brandy *
½ oz tangelo juice
¼-½ oz fresh pressed ginger juice (add a bit more if you enjoy the tingly burn like i do)
¼ oz honey syrup (1:1 h20 -> honey)
fee’s orange bitters
carrot brandy
1 750ml bottle of christian brothers frost white brandy
fresh carrots, sliced thin (~ <3mm). enough to fill a mason jar 1/2 full.
1 large (1 qt) mason jar
slice the carrots and toss them into the mason jar. cover to the top with brandy. let sit in a cool, dark place for 2 weeks & give the jar a good shake daily. bam. carrot brandy.
lately i’ve been reading up on what people distill & consume across the globe. i found this table on wikipedia (oh, how i love tables) listing all the world’s counties and how much alcohol each consumes (measured in liters of pure ethyl alcohol consumed per capita in a given year). most notable, uganda consumes the highest percentage per capita of “other” (non- beer/wine/spirits), which is probably mainly in the form of waragi (which is a blanket term for a handful of distillates, of which bananas & palm are a common source).
south korea leads the world in spirits consumption by a surprisingly large margin (mainly soju, a sweet potato, barley and/or tapioca distillate), but if there were an official alcohol consumption olympics, moldova would go home with the lion’s share of the medals. moldovans consume beer, wine & spirits in roughly equal amounts (lots & lots). conversely, it’s no surprise that several middle eastern islamic states have the lowest overall consumption. and apparently, we americans like our beer, though i personally can’t stand the stuff (tastes like liquid bread… but i will partake in the occasional belgian ale).
it’s also interesting to dig deeper & learn about what the principal crops are that are grown in different regions of the globe, as well as factors like geography, climate, economy, and what the people who live in each region have done with those crops in re; distilling alcohol. some distilling traditions go back almost 10 centuries, as with the cultures that inhabit(ed) what’s now the US southwest, mexico and parts of central america.
sotol is a magical liquor. i’ll write about it more in-depth soon. for now, here’s a recipe.
D. Wheeleri
Sotol is a distilled spirit made from the Dasylirion wheeleri (commonly known as Desert Spoon or, in Spanish, sotol), a plant that grows in the wilds of Northern Mexico, New Mexico, West Texas, and the Texas Hill Country. It is known as the state drink of Chihuahua, Durango and Coahuila. There are few commercial examples available. It is produced in a manner similar to the more common artisanal mezcals of central Mexico.
At the Fate Bell Shelter, which is on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, sotol is depicted in paintings on the rock walls. Sandals, baskets, ropes, mats, and many other items of sotol fiber show it was a highly important resource to Ancient Pueblo People of the Basketmaker culture. These artifacts date to around 7000 BCE.
A humanoid figure with a spray of spiky leaves for a head and a black stripe down the middle of its body may represent the magical spirit of sotol. Sometimes it appears in connection with hunting scenes. Sometimes it appears surrounded by orange ochre flames and black smoke.
it's pronounced "chee", but your classy, cultured ass already knew that.
i picked up some of st. george’s qi black tea liqueur when i toured the distillery a few months ago, and didn’t immediately find a use for it in a cocktail. it’s powerful, smoky, almost savory stuff.
given that the darjeeling tea component seemed to work nicely (albeit subtly) in my last attempt, tonight i decided to replace the darjeeling from version #1 with some qi, and swap out the bonal with some good old carpano antica.
i think this one’s a definite improvement over version #1. the smoke adds a completely new dimension, the earthy tea flavor plays well with the dry, peppery gin, and lingers for a long, long time. i may definitely need another one before the night is through.
2 oz st. george dry rye gin
1 oz carpano antica (note: i still think the bonal might work slightly better as it’s a bit less sweet. i generally prefer less sweet, but your mileage may vary)
¼ oz qi black tea liqueur
¼ oz luxardo
fee’s west indian orange bitters
angostura bitters
assemble – shake – strain & serve in a cocktail glass or coupe garnished with an orange or lemon twist.
i’ve recently been revisiting some classic cocktails and decided to take a swoop at re-architecting a few of them, while attempting to preserve the soul of the original. first up; the martinez. i used bonal in place of sweet vermouth, opted for the heavily juniper’d, black peppery goodness of st george’s dry rye gin, and added a spot of darjeeling tea for good measure.
The exact origin of the martini is unclear. Numerous cocktails with names and ingredients similar to the modern-day martini were first seen in bartending guides of the late 19th century.[6] One popular theory suggests it evolved from a cocktail called the Martinez served at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco sometime in the early 1860s, which people frequented before taking an evening ferry to the nearby town of Martinez. Alternatively, the people of Martinez say the drink was first created by a bartender in their town.[7] Another theory links the first dry martini to the name of a bartender who concocted the drink at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City in 1911 or 1912.[8]
dry shake everything but the apple brandy & marmalade vigorously for 30 seconds, add the brandy, marmalade & ice and shake again, strain & serve. garnish with an orange peel.
scrappy’s chocolate bitters (ditto above: and FYI, this is a straight cacao bitter, unlike fee’s aztec chocolate or bittermen’s xocolatl, which have some added spiciness)
