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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

brazilian – cachaca, st germain elderflower, lemon
williams margarita – margarita with pear brandy instead of triple sec

the williams margarita was a nice twist, and interesting. the brazilian, well, i won’t turn down anything with cachaca or elderflower.

they have a nice selection of late night bar snacks. i kind of felt like a sucker paying $6 for shrimp heads, though. that didn’t stop me from doing it, of course.

jp, kue, and i went to this place for dinner. i knew from a previous scouting that the cocktail menu was two parts boring one part nightmare: one of the drinks contains spiced apple puree (from a bottle no less) which, for reasons posted previously, i couldn’t bring myself to try.

i’ve been considering this place for employment because compared to other restaurant-bars i think i’d have more responsibility more quickly, and that they’d be more open to revamping the cocktail menu to my direction. it would be a case of walking-before-crawling, since i don’t really know anything. and as usual i could be wrong about everything.

but before i approached them i wanted to try the food first because, glancing at the menu, the food seems dated and lacks philosophy. but, as it turns out, is pretty good.

i also ordered a margarita. mine are better, but i’ve had worse.

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latest with the pear liqueur

4 oz pear liqueur
1 oz cachaca
1 oz lime
2 short drizzles of maraschino (prob 1/4 tsp)
2 dashes ango
1/4 tsp sugar

this was very good, but–i realize now–didn’t use the same proportions as before.

1/2 oz pear liqueur
1/4 oz cachaca
1/4 oz lime
#2: 2 drops ango
#3: short drizzle of maraschino

#2 needed a dash of sugar. #3 was balanced, though too much maraschino for my taste. probably just right for the sophisticated cocktail enthusiast.

ango and maraschino would probably work together.

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went to adesso for a couple of late night cocktails and the free spread. food was great, as usual, although they played a VERY CRUEL TRICK by swapping out a plate of roast pork piadina with identical-looking mushroom piadina.

the free food attracts young, hot, underfed students of both sexes. how did they manage to accomplish this, without also attracting chinese retirees with 30-year-old sweaters and untreated boils?

cocktails, i had a diablo (they call it diavolo) [tequila, lime, creme de cassis, ginger beer] and a grapefruit gimlet [charbay grapefruit, lime, agave nectar]. eh. what can you expect from free pouring.

ended up sitting next to, and chatting with, a guy who serves at an upscale restaurant in san francisco. kinda douchey (”i’ve been getting into cocktails as a hobby” “hobby?! where i’m from, we call that a drinking problem” heyyyyy! you’re hilarious), but effusive and superficially entertaining after my second drink. i asked what kind of $ he made, and was informed that he ‘pulls down six figures’ a year, and that that isn’t uncommon for servers.

i asked what he thought of this theory: that servers at really high-end places, like alinea, don’t necessarily make the most money because those places are often so labor intensive that although the tips are large on a per diner basis, they get sliced up many ways. and that servers at expensive-food-casual-vibe restaurants probably make more. he said that was definitely true, and claimed that servers at zachary’s can make almost 100k/year. (aka “they pulling three bills a night”–if i ever start talking like this please kill me)

maybe gotta rethink my tipping algorithm.

i would have thought that a server, especially one who decried the snobbery and pretentiousness of other servers, would be a better customer than he was. “what are the biggest oysters you have” bartender tells him, he orders a half dozen. after they arrive, he looks around for condiments, doesn’t see any. yells to/at bartender “hey can we get some salt and tabasco here?!” later “i thought these oysters would be bigger” and “can i get a………………” [bartender stands by while dude takes about 20 seconds to scan the menu]

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i wonder if that rickhouse yelp review makes me sound like a whiner. i wonder if i am a whiner.

gin and tonic

2 oz hendricks
2 oz fever tree

i wasn’t impressed with fever tree, cate’s tonic is far superior.

this drink was improved by a generous squeeze of lime (or two). without the acid its a cloying mess. will try again with less tonic.

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green chartreuse. smells like bouillon cubes. tastes like OMG WHAT IS THIS

last word

1/4 oz gin
1/4 oz lime
1/4 oz luxardo maraschino
1/4 oz green chartreuse

(small measurements because i didnt want to get too fucked up in the process of experimenting)

surprisingly delicious. the chartreuse and maraschino is prominent, but it all does work. next time i’ll try replacing some of the liqueurs with a little syrup, maybe boosting the gin a little.

bijou

1/4 oz gin
1/4 oz sweet vermouth
1/4 oz chartreuse
2 dashes orange bitters

a good vehicle for chartreuse. drinkable, but not my thing.

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first tried the cachaca and the pear liqueur on its own. then:

pear experiment (expeariment?)

1/4 oz cachaca
1/4 oz lime
1/4 oz j pear liqueur

aromas are insane. the flavor is a little acidic and boozy; needed a dash of sugar or syrup, or maybe just more pear. maybe a hit of maraschino. maybe a couple drops of ango. maybe brandy. wrong to mix brandy and cachaca?

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i found two more rangpur lime trees within a two block radius of home. plus about a dozen (meyer?) lemon trees. (kue likes to go on walks and so i have seen more of the neighborhood in the past week than i have in the past three years)

2 oz cachaca
half a rangpur lime, sliced
2 tsp sugar

muddle limes with sugar, add cachaca, shake with ice, double strain.

this is awesome. i would drink this all the time.

i also made a variant with a tiny bit of vanilla bean. i didn’t like it at first but now its growing on me. i’m thinking of maybe adding sichuan pepper, or dried red pepper, maybe as a rim.

re caipirinha, this post cracks me up. “it will not be needed again during the construction of this cocktail”, lolz. there is a decent chance we’ll be taking a trip up to eugene later this year, i am DEFINITELY gonna gay internet stalk jeffrey morgenthaler.

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another experiment with the classics, here is what i did with the sazerac (borrowing the rinse idea from scott beattie’s book):

2 oz rye
1 tsp sugar
3 dashes peychaud bitters
2 dashes ango
drizzle of sambuca

stir or shake all ingredients until the sugar is dissolved. stir with ice.

rinse the chilled glass with the sambuca and a little water, pour out excess. [note: ill try it without water next. or maybe will omit the sugar. or, just spring for a good bottle of absinthe] double strain the drink into the glass. garnish with lemon zest. very nice.

so i thought i’d plunge straight into the gaping, glucose-glazed maw of the beast: attempting to make a palatable version of the strawberry daiquiri. i simply started with a hemingway daiquiri (aka papa doble), and swapped out some of the sugar with muddled strawberries. [note: i should give mad props where mad props are due... i was turned on to the hemingway daiquiri because i'd had a superb one at eccolo. i would say that most drinks ive had there have been unimpressive (and small, and expensive). but that one was a home run.]

4 oz vodka
4 oz cachaca
4.5 oz grapefruit juice
1.5 oz lime
2 T (1 oz) sugar
2 small, very ripe strawberries (blue moon farms)
1/2 tsp maraschino liqueur
8 drops grapefruit bitters

[note: my version of the h.d. uses a higher grapefruit:lime ratio and a lot less maraschino than the interweb's version. but my version is great. so suck it, interweb.]

muddle strawberries with sugar. combine with all other ingredients and shake without ice until sugar is dissolved. then shake with ice, double strain, garnish with grapefruit peel.

i made a quadruple because that’s how much juice my one grapefruit produced.

i miscalculated how much sugar i needed in part because a) cachaca b) red grapefruit. still, definitely drinkable and delicious. next time 1 T sugar should be fine. obv strawberry ripeness plays a role.

…all this time i’ve been spelling it ‘dacquiri’ because i was thinking of ‘dacquoise‘.

i’m seriously considering looking for a job behind a bar somewhere. don’t care doing what. toweling glasses, serving water, being a eunuch.

i’m on drink detail and trying to come up with some sushi-appropriate cocktails.

idea one: vodka, cachaca, lime, honeydew syrup, shiso. maybe a drop or two of luxardo maraschino
idea two: vodka, gin, lemon, tea syrup, yuzu

i experimented with idea two tonight. i used darjeeling tea; this flavor combination was inspired by the charlie trotter desserts cookbook in which he has a recipe for a trio of tea sorbets, one of which is a darjeeling-lemon-pear combination. and so i muddled a quarter of a fragrant pear which i don’t think added much.

yuzu. i sprung for an expensive-as-fuck bottlette of the stuff. annoyed and seething with self-hatred for not buying and freezing a few fresh ones back when they were in season.

i added eight dashes of the juice which might have been enough were it not for the addition of muddled lemon peel which possibly overwhelmed the yuzu.

2 oz vodka
1 oz gin
1 1/2 oz meyer lemon
1 oz darjeeling syrup
yuzu juice

verdict, it works. i’m going to try again with green tea.

…both cocktails have a similar citrusy profile, if i had any balls i would make a sangria or some other kind of red wine based thing. red wine paired with salmon nigiri is delicious.

i’m toying with the idea of topping the yuzu drink with black asahi to make a sort of nipponese shandy.

mango-ginger-sesame-cachaca experiment

2 oz cachaca
1 oz lemon
2/3 oz sesame orgeat
1 oz mango
1 slice ginger

i may have lost all perspective, i can’t tell if this is any good or not. it is slightly oversweet, but its more like the problem is that there are too many sweet notes–the orgeat, the mango, and the cachaca. there’s enough lemon to balance, but it all still feels lopsided.

the sesame orgeat has a bitter “seedy” flavor which, i think, comes from the hulls. is there a way to infuse the sesame flavor and creamy mouthfeel while minimizing hull-violence? or, do we want this bitterness, does it add character?

either way, next time i will add even less.

i’m not an expert on liquor by any means, but this leblon stuff is pretty insane. it has a good, strong, sugar cane aroma (since that is what it’s made from).