I still can’t stand the fact that people who knows fuck all about mixing drinks have the audacity to make instructional videos on the internet. Usually I just ignore them, but sometimes they drive me mad with the amount of the shit they can come up with. This includes horrible drink recipes, bad…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk57WmewiRA
Don’t forget to add your Sprite!
No matter how hard they try, vodka will always be boring vodka.
Don’t sell vodka short. Plain old boring flavorless vodka is the aether of spirits; the medium that has no flavor, yet which carries and supports all flavors.
I like to play around with vodka Old-Fashioneds. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s actually really worth trying, since things that would only be background accents, like the bitters, or a citrus twist, become the central flavors. And the more unusual types of bitters, garnishes, or sweeteners you have, the more things you have that can play off each other, even if they would be lost or out of place in a drink with flavor-forward spirits.
So yeah, I could do without the flavored vodkas too, but regular vodka still has a place in the world. And as a message to the mixology world: you don’t need arcane ingredients or esoteric techniques to do interesting, innovative things; you just need to understand what you’re working with, and figure out how to make the most of it.
I didn’t have any rye to use my new bottle Peychaud’s bitters with, so I decided I’d try a Metropole instead.
A Metropole is kind of like a Manhattan, only it uses brandy instead of whiskey, dry vermouth instead of sweet vermouth, and orange bitters + Peychaud’s bitters instead of Angostura bitters.
The result is something that kind of resembles a Manhattan, especially in appearance, but has a much lighter flavor. A bit too light, to be honest, since the base spirit, the vermouth, and the bitters have all been swapped for something similar, but with a less intense flavor. It’s still a dry cocktail, though, and almost feels like a soft midpoint between two cocktails: it’s neither as rough and assertive as the Manhattan, or as sharp and biting as a Martini, though it’s similar to both.
If you like spirits and vermouth, but would prefer something more gentle and friendly than a Manhattan or a Martini, this might be the cocktail for you. As for me, I think I’ll work on getting some rye so I can head back into Manhattan town. Wherever that is.
Metropole
1.5 oz brandy
.75 oz dry vermouth
2 dashes orange bitters
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Stir everything together with ice, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Remark how the drink doesn’t really fill the glass, but that it doesn’t matter, since it kind of looks better that way anyway. Garnish with a cherry, or anything small, round, and red.
I sincerely believe that the tangelo, more that any other citrus fruit, has unsung cocktail potential. The flavor is so sharp and tart, yet sweet at the same time that it balances itself, and makes me wish I had cognac in a spray bottle every time I eat one.
what do you get when you mix alcohol and literature?
tequila mockingbird
Ernest Hemingway.
(via start-the-press)
Alright, so lately I’ve gotten in the habit of trying to improve drinks that I don’t like. That’s where this cocktail comes from.
There’s an existing drink called the Ward 8, made from whiskey, lemon juice, orange juice, and grenadine. I’ve got some problems with this. Namely, I think orange juice has a very weak flavor, and thins out cocktails more than it enhances them, and grenadine is one step away from sugary cough syrup.
Well, since grenadine used to be made from pomegranates, I took it upon myself to make a blood orange/pomegranate simple syrup. The blood orange is a bit more tart, and mixes well with the pomegranate juice. Using that as the sweetener, I went with bourbon and lemon juice, as well as egg white, to make a nice layer of foam on top of the drink. I decided to call this cocktail the Ninth Ward, since it’s like it’s one step above the Ward 8. Plus it shares a name with the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the cocktail capital of the USA, and by extension, the world.
Since there’s a white layer of foam from the egg white, I spelled out “9th” in grenadine drops on the surface. I also garnished with a cherry, the traditional Whiskey Sour garnish, on the rim. You have to put it on the rim, since otherwise it’ll sink into the drink, or mess up you “9th”.
Apparently, some other dude made a drink called the Ninth Ward for Tales of the Cocktail 2008. I looked it up. Mine is better. And makes more sense.
Ninth Ward
2 oz bourbon whiskey
1.5 oz blood orange/pomegranate syrup (3 parts blood orange juice, 1 part pomegranate juice, and 4 parts sugar, dissolved and brought to a simmer in a pot)
.75 oz lemon juice
1 egg white
Dry shake egg white and ingredients together. Add ice. Wet shake everything together. Strain into a coupe glass, making sure to let all the foam out. Using an eye dropper, write out “9th,” or any message, in grenadine on the foam. Garnish with a cherry on the rim and serve.
Well, we’ve all heard of a Tequila Sunrise. It’s not a very good drink. This here is a Tequila Bloodrise. It’s not really that different; I just used blood orange juice in place of orange juice, since I didn’t have regular oranges. And I had to give it a different name, because you can’t make a sunrise effect if you’re using blood orange juice, which is darker than grenadine.
I complain about these kinds of drinks sometimes, but it’s not really that bad if you want something simple and fruity. I mean, there are probably better fruity drinks, but as long as you’re not drowning out good tequila with grenadine (thankfully, I’ve got crappy tequila) it’s pretty harmless. It’s not unpleasant to drink, the way a White Russian is. It would probably be pretty refreshing in the Summer.
Note: You can probably use less grenadine than I used here; depends how candy-like you want your drink.
Tequila Bloodrise
2 oz blood orange juice
1.5 oz crappy tequila
.5 oz grenadine
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Build bitters, tequila, and juice in a decent sized glass. Stir with ice. Add grenadine to the top to watch absolutely no visual effect take place. Stir a little more. Drink.
Apparently the first day of spring commences “julep season,” so have at it.
Someone get me a tin cup.
Got my work for class done early tomorrow, but ended up staying late working on my cocktail guide pamphlet. I’ve got a sense of direction now that I’ve started talking to some people. Still going to need a ton of copyediting to make up for the 5 AM sprawling though.
I’d still say Elmer T. Lee is a better single barrel bourbon (and at a lower price point at that), but I could still see this one making it into my bar collection somewhere down the line.
Alright, so I don’t know how we got confused about this, but here goes:
If you’re going to stir your Old Fashioned with ice in a glass and strain it into a tumbler, then use one of those giant ice cubes/spheres.
If you’re going to build your Old Fashioned in a tumbler, then use ice cubes that you can actually stir the drink with.
I understand not wanting your Old Fashioned to sit around with a bunch of melting ice in it. But remember that water is still an ingredient in an Old Fashioned. The amount of ice that melts when you stir it initially is enough. You don’t need to leave that ice melting in the glass, but it’s advisable to give it a healthy stir before you chuck it or replace it.
Co.Design has this article up with “master mixologist” Gabriella Mlynarczyk, a bartender at Ink, up. It’s a good read, so you should, but here are our tl;dr notes:
1. Stay true to a formula: The ratio for developing a drink is 2:1:1 - 2 ounces liquor, 1 ounce tart, one ounce sweet.
2. Choose a base note that will complement your liquor. (In her case, a variation on corn: popcorn & unaged white corn whiskey)
3. Whiskey’s more diverse than, say, vodka.
4. Add bitters. “Technically, in the classic cocktail world, a cocktail is not a cocktail unless it contains bitters.”
5. Or add complexity through rinsing the glass — a la the absinthe in a Sazerac, or with something like rosewater.
6. Five ingredients is probably a good max.
7. “Attentuate potency.” What the hell does that mean? Water it down. Dilute the drink down with infused soda water, or champagne (bonus absurdity points for calling it “effervescents.”)
8. “Attentuate mouthfeel.” And what the hell does that mean? Make it interesting. Alter the texture with egg white, or gomme syrup.
9. Measure. Don’t be insulted when your bartender is pouring your ingredients into jiggers; it’s to your benefit. “Cocktail making is very much like baking in that you need to measure every little ingredient or your balance is going to get completely thrown off.”
10. Always remember: stir spirits, shake juices.
11. The massive ice cubes are for more than aesthetics: they melt slower, watering down your drink less.
12. Try mezcal. It’s worthwhile.
This past Wednesday my friend/liquor disciple, Kevin, made his first cocktail. It’s a Vieux Carre, pretty much by the book, only with no Peychaud’s bitters, and a dash of absinthe added.
He did all the work of preparing it himself, from measuring the ingredients, to stirring, to cutting the twist. His technique was sound, and the result was one of my favorite cocktails made well.
Next time I’ll make him figure out the ratios of ingredients for himself…
I originally made this Tumblr to follow one or two people, then it somehow morphed into a liquor blog.
I figured could either maintain it as a personal blog run by someone who really likes mixing drinks, or I could do some cleaning up and make it more formally boozy. I decided to go with the latter, so I’ve done some tailoring and started a second (technically third, after my movie blog I update during the summer) Tumblr just for my occasional reblogs and less on-topic thoughts.
That Tumblr is Miscellany Machine, the name of which I’m vaguely proud of. As far as I know, Tumblr doesn’t let you carry over posts from one blog to another, which kind of sucks, so any things that have disappeared from here are hovering in an in-between zone for now. I’ll work that out somehow. I don’t expect to be updating the new blog too regularly, but then again, I don’t update this one that often either, so you the reader lose nothing.
Anonymous asked: You are literally the worst kind of person. Kill yourself.
You know, you don’t need to ask that on anonymous. It’s not like I know who you are anyway.
I still can’t stand the fact that people who knows fuck all about mixing drinks have the audacity to make instructional videos on the...
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Forgive me for not smiling. I just went to the dentist and my face is numb. :3
: )
JUST ‘COS.
THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME THING IN HISTORY.
Oh, my god, I need to have these made up as prints!
