checked out gather restaurant. had a ‘winter wonderland’ which was basically a sidecar with spiced syrup. really nice.
the bartender did something interesting: measured the citrus and the syrup, but free poured the brandy. i’m not a fan of the free pour, but this hybrid technique makes more sense. still inferior to a measured pour, of course.
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inspired me to make a sidecar of my own with the leftover five-spiced syrup. it decants nicely.
for my fam’s chinese new year dinner i decided to make a version of scott beattie’s awesome waverly place echo:
1 1/2 oz rum
1/2 oz mandarin-tangerine infused vodka
1/2 oz meyer lemon
1/4 oz lime
3/4 oz chinese five spice + kaffir makrut lime leaf syrup
muddled kumquat (seeds removed)
muddled tangerine slice
dash orange bitters
lemon twist
five-spice-makrut-leaf syrup
1 T five-spice
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
10 lime leaves, chopped
toast the spices over medium-low heat. add remaining ingredients, bring to a low boil. turn down to a simmer for five minutes. take off heat, let cool for a few minutes, strain out solids.
this drink is really excellent. flavors are well represented and balanced.
the five spice syrup would make a nice alternative to falernum.
been on a few social outings lately. difficult and rare, these days.
rickhouse:
blue and red smash – bourbon, lemon, red and blue berries. excellent.
kentucky buck – bourbon and ginger/ginger beer, other stuff. also excellent.
favela – cachaca, lemon, coffee. not very good.
some kind of sling – gin, cherry heering, other stuff. also not very good
then went to boot and shoe service:
fata morgana – bourbon, amaro nonino, dry vermouth, blood orange, cardamom. really excellent.
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some experiments:
1 oz bourbon
1 oz rye
1/4 oz lime
3/4 oz grapefruit-honey-maraschino mix
grapefruit bitters
grapefruit ribbon
grapefruit-honey-maraschino mix
6 parts red grapefruit juice
3 parts honey
1 part maraschino liqueur
cross between a manhattan and a hemingway. excellent. but i once again forgot: do not muddle seeds. never, ever.
also:
1 1/4 oz bourbon
3/4 oz vermouth
3/8 oz cherry liqueur
1/4 oz lime
basically a manhattan with citrus. very good.
i lost my bottle of angostura bitters. not sure if it can be replaced any time soon, as there is a shortage. 
…i started these experiments using some cheap bourbon and rye, figuring that i didn’t care and couldn’t tell the difference. but i found that i did care, and could tell the difference. i upgraded to bulleit bourbon and old overholt rye (according to the bevmo lady, rittenhouse isn’t making rye anymore). life is better.
went to beretta with the inlaws. got two cocktails:
il gitano (amaro, lime, pineapple gomme, grapefruit, bitters). excellent. interesting use of amaro as a base spirit.
the acadian (rye, sloe gin, lemon, honey, absinthe, rosemary). also great. delicate hand with the absinthe which can easily overpower a drink. i didn’t detect any rosemary. i need to find out more about sloe gin, taste it neat.
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a draft of randomcocktails.com is up. please check it out and provide feedback.
made some rangpur caipirinhas for a thing at my brothers house. i thought i would try swapping out some regular lime for the rangpurs. that was a mistake. lime pith is bitter and nasty. i should have just used the juice.
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jp asked for a light cocktail the other day. i put some pear liqueur, apple cider, and lime in a glass and that made her happy. here is a non-light adaptation, similar to previous pear liqueur experiments:
1 oz pear liqueur (J Pear, 60 proof)
3/4 oz cachaca
1/2 oz lime
1/2 oz apple cider
elderquat 75
1/2 oz gin
1/4 oz lime
1/4 oz ikea elderflower syrup
1/2 kumquat
2 oz champagne
seed and muddle the kumquat. add gin, lime, syrup. dry shake* and strain. top with 2 oz champagne. drop in a candied kumquat.
*i made and chilled a batch of the base mixture ahead of time.
the flavors were good but intense; maybe a 3:1 champagne:base ratio next time. where next time is tomorrow, since i have so much left over.
2 oz bourbon (evan williams, infused with citrus and vanilla)
1 1/2 oz apple cider (trader joe’s)
3/4 oz tawny port (whisker’s blake)
1/4 oz lemon
1 dash ango
version 1 made with 1/2 oz lemon. the above version is much better, and is quite delicious. i wanted to add muddled ginger, but there was none usable on hand. and turns out was probably not necessary.
i might add a little grated cinnamon tho.
this is for the family xmas eve party. the poirier’s have a tradition of reubens for xmas eve (?!). and so i am making the above cocktail and am also planning a french 75 variant of gin, lime, elderflower, kumquat, topped with champagne.
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coming soon to this blog: a page of cocktail basics. basically some of my early posts, updated, and made into a page that can be reached via sidebar link.
and if i can get my shit together, an automated, randomized cocktail creator web page.
hoping posting that im gonna do it, will motivate me to actually do it.
smugglers cove: got a ‘dead reckoning‘ (rum, lemon, pineapple, maple, tawny port, vanilla liqueur, bitters, soda). good but not as amazing as i’d hoped or expected. i didn’t get anything from the port or maple syrup or vanilla liqueur. ‘merely’ a delicious pineapple-rum drink.
incredible menu, and a fun, cozy space. i will definitely be back.
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boot and shoe service: the sequel to pizzaiolo. tried a new cocktail, ‘kushiel’s dart’ (rum, carpano antica, lime, grenadine). really excellent. the vermouth used as an accent/herbal notes. nice.
and the room is beautiful.
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what jen wanted was egg nog. but we had no eggs in the house, and she is off dairy right now. so i made a version of the japanese cocktail i got at p the other day.
yarou (japanese for ‘bastard’)
1.5 oz brandy
0.5 oz dark rum
1.5 oz almond milk (unsweetened)
1 T organic sugar
dry shaken first, then shaken with ice. top with grated nutmeg.
this could be a little sweeter, and jp would have preferred less boozy. so maybe something like 2 oz almond milk and 1.5 T sugar.
the japanese cocktail seems to be part of the family of:
2 oz spirit
1/4-1/2 oz syrup
bitters/other flavors
…which includes sazerac, mint julep, corn and oil, and old fashioned…
http://alineamosaic.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=838
la strega nuda – rum, strega, lime, orange, orgeat. an orangey, creamsicle version of the mai tai, with interesting accents from the strega.
nocino manhattan – as advertised, made with housemade nocino. tastes like a manhattan up front with walnuts on the finish. awesome.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/06/FDC61ASNSK.DTL
cuesa’s cocktail night. lots of ‘winter spice’ syrups. many interesting ideas: 15 romolo with some beautiful and delicious jello shots (lemon, lemongrass, lemon verbena, veev acai, thai long pepper, cardamom, grains of paradise), cut into cute little squares and discs and topped with whipped cream and candied zest. when i want a cocktail, i want a cocktail….but….i could definitely get excited about this as part of a tasting menu.
bourbon and branch presented an incredibly complex drink of gin, persimmon and pear shrub, lemon, grapefruit bitters, ginger beer and cinnamon. i eventually decided i didn’t like it. but it did take me awhile, and many brain circuits got blown in the process. i think i can’t accept vinegar in a cocktail, except maybe an aged balsamic.
another drink i admired came from the cat at jardiniere: scotch, lemon, date puree, thyme, bitters, egg white. i like trying scotch cocktails; they signify a brave, or foolish, bartender. i enjoyed the drink, but i admired it more than i enjoyed it.
but my favorite of the night was simple and easy to drink. because i am a simpleton whore. winter citrus smash from sauce sf: rye, satsumas, tangerines, kumquats, syrup, j. witty chamomille.
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range. i had a great time. the kokomo (rum, lemon, madeira, pineapple, benedictine, nutmeg) was superb. turns out, madeira is a criminally underused cocktail ingredient. i plan to acquire a bottle soon.
reading their COD blog for lo these many months, i grew increasingly sad that i don’t live closer so i could drink there every day. the COD on the night i went was ‘the downtowner’, rye, lime, pear, some other stuff i can’t remember, topped with brown ale. maybe a little overdiluted but the flavor was just right and outta sight.
[edit: got the recipe--
small chunk of pear (muddled)
1.75 oz. Old Overholt
0.5 oz. St. Germain
0.5 oz. apple cider
0.25 oz. lime juice
Top with about 2 oz. brown ale.]
i also ordered, and liked, the chili davis (tequila, punt e mes, mandarin napoleon, fresno chili, lime) though it was a more difficult drink to enjoy. not for chugging.
after that i was pretty wrecked, and so i asked for just a taste of their walnut infused bourbon, which opened the door for jeff to trot out some other house infusions and comparable products. i didn’t love the walnut bourbon; the nose was incredible but the taste was a little like raw cookie dough. jeff’s vin d’orange was excellent; it somehow produced a smell of bubblegum. jeff also gave me small pours of lillet to compare with the vin d’orange, and nocino to compare with the walnut bourbon. the nocino was pretty insane; it was more like a port than a nut liqueur like amaretto or frangelico.
a couple next to me was very friendly, struck up a conversation with me unprompted. from my fragmented eavesdropping, i surmised that their relationship was interesting and complicated. but i was too polite to ask about the complications.
i love the mission.
for thanksgiving i made, along with the blueberry thing, a batch of zombies. whereby i discovered that the santa cruz passionfruit nectar is superior to the ceres passionfruit nectar.
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berkeley bowl carries both toschi and fabbri amarena cherries, both approved by scott beattie.
i bought some ‘just blueberry’ juice from trader joes and found it fairly lame. so i (over) reduced it 4:1 with some sugar and ginger and its pretty rad.
2 oz vodka
3/4 oz lemon
3/4 oz rich blueberry-ginger syrup
5 mint leaves
gently muddle mint, combine all other ingredients, shake.
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japanese cocktail at pizzaiolo. delicious. like egg nog without the egg.
went to the independent spirits expo last week. at some point i got fed up with the crowds and left before i could taste it all.
some highlights:
loft liqueurs (deep, clean flavors)
j witty (like a subtle falernum variant)
pc7 (though i know nothing of scotch)
north shore gin no. 11
square one botanical (basically a light, modern gin)
hangar one spiced pear (i’m not generally a fan of commercial flavored vodkas, including most from hangar one, but this is a home run)
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tried out morgenthaler’s egg nog recipe, though used lighter milks and creams than the recipe called for, and have since cut it with milk and it’s just fine. i also used gosling’s dark instead of spiced rum. quite delicious.
http://caffeinatedcalm.blogspot.com/2009/03/tequila-beyond-frozen-margs-and-shots.html
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honey-paprika foam is delicious but doesn’t belong on a bloody mary, or maybe doesn’t belong in my mouth with a bloody mary, or maybe a bloody mary doesn’t belong in my mouth at all.
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i’m not sure what i’m doing with this blog, or this hobby.
some years ago, jp and i had a great first course at potager: some kind of delicious tomato tart that was savory, but sweet enough to be dessert. and so i have been wanting to try to make a tomato drink that captures that salty-sweet balance.
i thought i might first try to make a good bloody mary. i started with a recipe in food and wine cocktails 2009.
1 1/2 oz vodka
1/2 oz hendricks gin
4 cherry tomatoes
tiny blob of horseradish
1/8 of a lime
1/8 of a lemon
1 inch green onion
pinch salt
pinch pepper
this was ok. i’m not really a bloody mary guy so i’m not a great judge. next time i would use maybe a couple more tomatoes, and less onion, or maybe red onion. the original recipe calls for a jalepeno, i would normally like that but maybe not for this application. i might try adding tarragon. the salt level was good. might need more pepper.
my plan is to top it with a honey paprika foam (egg white, honey, paprika. foamed with ikea foamer). i will try that soon.
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this is a pretty good manhattan variant.
2 oz rye/bourbon combination
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
1/4 oz ikea blackcurrant syrup
1 dash/4 drops angostura bitters
go into a neighborhood bar, ask what the cocktail is. its described as: cachaca, lemon, lime, pear liqueur, bitters. i say ok. i watch as its made with seagram’s rum and no bitters. i ask ‘what kind of bitters’. bartender says ‘orange’ without batting an eye.
i don’t say anything about the rum. part of me prefers to not micromanage, let the man (or woman) do his/her job, evaluate the final product. should i have? apparently seagram’s rum is at least part cachaca.
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experiment:
2 oz bourbon
1/2 oz lemon
1/2 oz blackcurrant syrup from ikea
not bad, a pretty standard bourbon sour thing. could be better. the syrup is already pretty tart, next time i will try less or no lemon. maybe switch to rye. also i need to add bitters.
left: gladware 4-oz mini rounds (approx $2.50 for 8 at target)
center: beaba multiportion baby food freezer tray ($12 at babyearth)
right: tovolo perfect cube ($15 for two trays at amazon and most other places)
i changed my mind back, the 4 oz rocks are perfect!
sorry the photo sux. kaiser penguin i aint.
i made another batch of zombies, this time i made the passionfruit syrup by reducing the passionfruit nectar in half. this was not as successful; i prefer the uncooked passionfruit flavor.
i also started thinking about being more mathematical/systematic about making syrups. i figure that a cup of 1:1 syrup has 360 480 calories, 2:1 syrup has 480 690 calories. so one need only apply algebra to convert a juice to the desired caloric level by reduction/evaporation and/or by adding sugar.
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vodka watermelon. does this shit really work? are the results any good? intuition tells me its a gimmick, that it sounds cute but emotionally unsettling, like adopting a feral cat.
but here’s an idea, why not saturate the melon with a cocktail? maybe something like 4:2:1 vodka/lime/syrup? maybe infuse the vodka with tarragon, mint, or chipotle?
would the lime turn before the saturation is complete?
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the 4 oz gladware ice cubes are cute, but smaller than hoped. not sure why i expected otherwise. i’ve got 4 oz measuring cups and a pair of eyes.
related, this showed up in the house. would make a nice big-ice tray, yes?
