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Posts Tagged ‘Cocktail’

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Cocktail Hour: Whoa Nellie!

Posted by Arctic Wolf on March 30, 2016

I stumbled upon this recipe when I was looking for a nice rye-based cocktail I could add to my repertoire. Two things attracted me to the libation which caused me to give it a long look. The first was the combination of rye whiskey and dark rum which is an unusual combination to say the least. The second was the relative simplicity of the serving. So many of the modern cocktails require exotic liqueurs and syrups which, either are not available to the home bartender, or require too much effort to find (or make) for the sake of a single cocktail. This modern creation however uses a mix of ingredients (Rye Whiskey, Dark Rum, Orange liqueur, Lemon Juice, Grapefruit Juice, Bitters and Sugar Syrup) which are all easy for me to work with.

Whoa Nellie SAM_2399

The bar drink was apparently put together by Lally Brennan and Ti Adelaide Martin (In the Land of Cocktails) with the assistance of Ted Haigh (Dr. Cocktail) when they were gathered at Lally’s House to celebrate the first Mardi Gras after Hurricane Katrina. The name is an homage to Lally’s and Ti Adelaide’s grandmother, Nellie Valentine.

Whoa Nellie!

1 1/2 oz Rye Whiskey (Sonoma County Rye)
1/2 oz Dark Rum (Coruba Dark Jamaican Rum)
1/2 oz Orange Liqueur (Cointreau)
1/3 oz Grapefruit Juice
1/3 oz Lemon Juice
a few dashes of Bitters (Fees Cocktail Bitters)
1/3 oz Sugar Syrup
Ice
Grapefruit Twist

Add the ingredients into a metal shaker with plenty of ice
Shake until the outside of the shaker begins to frost
Strain into a cocktail glass
Garnish with a twist of Grapefruit

Please Enjoy Responsibly!

And if  you are interested in more recipes, please click this link (Cocktails and Recipes) for my mixed drink recipes!

Note: My review for Coruba Dark Jamaican Rum will publish tomorrow, and my review for Sonoma County Rye will publish two days after that.

Chimo!

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Cocktail Hour: 1878 Gin Crusta

Posted by Arctic Wolf on March 20, 2016

Bols Genever is based upon a recipe which Lucas Bols introduced in 1820. The spirit is produced from malt wine distillate which is made from long-fermented rye, corn, and wheat which is triple-distilled in copper pot stills. This malt wine, is then infused with a carefully selected distillate of botanicals and brought to 42% alcohol by volume. The manner in which this spirit is produced pre-dates the advent of the Coffey still, and as such it represents a very early style of gin.

It occurred to me that Bols Genever may be the ideal spirit for me to explore early gin cocktails from the nineteenth century. To that end, I have reconstructed an early Gin Crusta recipe from that era which is found in the Bartending Manual written by Leo Engels, (American and Other Drinks) and published in 1878.

1878 Gin CrustaThe formulation provided by Engels is rather hard to follow because it bases its construction upon another early recipe,  the Fancy Cocktail, which in turn bases its construction upon a more generic serving which Engels simply calls the Gin Cocktail. Weaving my way through the tangle of recipes, I have brought forward Leo Engels’ Gin Crusta from 1878. (The cocktail was a favourite of my tasting group at a recent tasting I held where we were comparing both different styles of gin and different gin cocktails.)

1878 Gin Crusta

2 oz  Gin (Bols Genever made with recipe from 1820)
1/4 oz Lemon Juice
1/8 oz of Orange Curacao
1/8 oz Sugar Syrup
1 or 2 drops of Angostura Bitters
1 or 2 drops Fees Cocktail Bitters
1/3 cup cracked ice
Lemon Spiral (paring from half a lemon)
Lump of Ice

Rim a wine glass with a lemon slice
Dip the glass in powdered sugar
Pare 1/2 a lemon and place the paring inside the wine glass
Place the ingredients in a tumbler and strain into the wine glass
Add a small lump of ice

Enjoy Responsibly!

If  you are interested in more cocktail recipes, please click this link (Cocktails and Recipes) for more of my mixed drink recipes!

Note: My review for Bols Genever will publish tomorrow.

Posted in Cocktails & Recipes | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Cocktail Hour: The Brooklynite

Posted by Arctic Wolf on March 14, 2016

The Brooklynite Cocktail comes to us from the Stork Club Bar in Manhattan, New York. (It appears in the 1946 edition of the Stork Club Bar Book.) It is a simple cocktail, basically a daiquiri made with dark Jamaican Rum, lime juice, and honey. At least one source I researched (The Internet Cocktail Database) adds bitters to the recipe.

Brooklynite SAM_2426

Today, I have switched out the dark Jamaican rum for a lighter bodied, but more fully aged column distilled rum from Columbia (Dictador Amber 100 month Aged Rum). I have also used honey syrup rather than straight honey in the recipe. These changes result in a different final cocktail. This is because Jamaican Dark Rum has strong molasses flavours which dominate the original cocktail. The lighter bodied Dictador Rum creates a lighter bodied cocktail and the less sweet honey syrup allows us to enjoy the subtle flavour nuances of the well aged Dictador rum .

Brooklynite

2 oz Dicatador Amber 100 Month Aged Rum
1/2 oz Honey syrup (1:1 ratio honey and hot water)
1/2 oz Lime Juice
dash of Angostura Bitters
ice
Twist of Lime Peel

Add the four ingredients into a metal shaker with ice
Shake until the outside of the shaker begins to frost
Double Strain into a cocktail glass
Garnish with a twist of lime

If  you are interested in more cocktail recipes, please click this link (Cocktails and Recipes) for more of my mixed drink recipes!

Note: My review of Dictador Amber 100 Month Aged Rum will publish tomorrow.

Chimo!

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Cocktail Hour: The Doctor’s Orders Gimlet

Posted by Arctic Wolf on March 11, 2016

The Gimlet is perhaps my favourite gin cocktail. This simple serving though, is not without its share of controversy as over time a growing group of ‘cocktail police’ have insisting that the libation must be made in a particular way in order to properly be called a Gimlet. Any other construction they insist is not a proper Gimlet. At the center of this controversy is a lime cordial called Rose’s Lime, which according to those aforementioned protectors of the cocktail must be used in the bar drink’s construction rather than sweetened lime juice. (My own point of view is that although Rose’s Lime certainly shares a history with the Gimlet, it is not an essential agreement, and may be replaced with alternative lime sweeteners at the bartender’s discretion. I feel we should embrace evolution not stagnation.)

I did a bit of research and found that the controversy over the Gimlet stretches back to at least 1953 when a description found in the Raymond Chandler novel, The Long Goodbye, stated:

“a real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s lime juice and nothing else”

The fact that this statement made it into Chandler’s novel indicates that bartenders of the time were already arguing over the proper form of this simple cocktail, and it very well could be that this controversial statement has fueled the  belief amongst some cocktail purists that this is the only construction that should be considered.

However; we can go back in even further in time (all the way to 1928) and find a very different point of view put forward by D.B. Wesson in his book, I’ll never be Cured, where his description of the Gimlet is:

 “gin, a spot of lime, and soda.”

Apparently, in this earlier time in the cocktail’s development, the recipe for the Gimlet was more generic and even included soda as the sweetener. I suspect the popularity of Raymond Chandler as a novelist and screenwriter contributed greatly to the false narrative that a proper Gimlet must be constructed with Rose’s Lime; however, when a recipe formulation exists twenty-five years previously, I think assumptions must be reassessed.

Doctor's Orders Gimlet SAM_2386 The truth is that no definitive starting point for the recipe we call the Gimlet is known for certain. It is also true that almost all bar servings evolve over time as better ingredients are discovered, and newer versions of servings are put forward. Even the word ‘cocktail’ has evolved over time from its beginnings when the term referred to a very specific style of bar drink to the present when it now refers to a large variety of bar drinks.

I say, let the evolution continue!

Here is a wonderful Gimlet recipe which uses both Doctor’s Orders Gin and Shadow in the Lake Vodka in conjunction with fresh sweetened Lime Juice. And yes, even though the serving contains both gin and vodka, and lime juice rather than Rose’s Lime Cordial, I will continue to call this serving a Gimlet!

Doctor’s Orders Gimlet

1 oz Doctor’s Orders Gin
1 oz Shadow in the Lake Vodka
1 oz Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 oz Sugar Syrup (1:1)
Ice
Lime Slice

Add the first four Ingredients into a cocktail Shaker with ice
Shake until the outside of the shaker frosts
Strain into a chilled cocktail glass
Garnish with a Lime slice
Enjoy Responsibly!

If  you are interested in more of my original cocktail recipes, please click this link (Cocktails and Recipes) for more of my mixed drink recipes!

Note: My review for Doctor’s Orders Gin will publish tomorrow!

 

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Cocktail Hour: The Paper Lion

Posted by Arctic Wolf on March 8, 2016

This genesis of this recipe can be traced all the way back to 1933 when Arthur Tarling created a simple gin recipe which won a cocktail competition in jolly old England (Source: 1937 Café Royal Cocktail Book, Coronation Edition). The recipe he created, the Red Lion, mixed equal parts gin, orange liqueur, and a combination of lemon and orange juice. In most recipes I have seen, a dollop of grenadine is used as the sweetener which gives the cocktail a pale red hue. Tarling’s recipe has stood the test of time, and it can usually be found in the gin section of most good cocktail books.

Last year, I tweaked the Red Lion Cocktail, changing the ratios slightly and swapping the grenadine for simple syrup. Of course the cocktail lost its pale red colour and the name no longer suited the cocktail. Thus I renamed my tweaked version, The March Lion and published the recipe as part of a gin review at the beginning of March when the real March Lion (the constellation Leo) was beginning to dominate the southeastern sky each evening. (This spring if you are star-gazing, take note of the very bright star just under the March Lion. That bright star is the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, and this spring and summer the gas giant travels with the Lion across the sky.)

Paper Lion SAM_2383This spring I bring you another “Lion” recipe using that same combination of gin, orange liqueur, lemon juice and orange juice. However, this year I wanted to rein in the flavour of the gin without taming the cocktail. In the manner of James Bond, I swapped a portion of the gin for vodka thus retaining the alcohol punch, but bringing the firm gin flavour down a notch. My new construction deserved it own name, and after giving things a little thought, I decided upon the Paper Lion.

(If you are wondering about the James Bond reference, take a little time and research the Vesper Cocktail. In a manner of speaking, I have “Vespered” the Lion.)

The Paper Lion

1 oz Death’s Door Gin
1 oz Death’s Door Vodka
1/2 oz Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Orange Juice
1/4 oz Sugar Syrup
ice
Lemon slice for garnish

Add the first six Ingredients into a cocktail Shaker with ice
Shake until the outside of the shaker frosts
Strain into a chilled cocktail glass
Garnish with an orange slice

And of course enjoy responsibly!

If  you are interested in more of my cocktail recipes, please click this link (Cocktails and Recipes) for more of my mixed drink recipes!

Please note: My gin reviews continue tomorrow with Death’s Door Gin.

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