If there’s one thing I hate about living in the Pacific Northwest, it’s the stretch of time from late October until late June, when the sun makes only the most occasional of appearances. I typically pack on an extra 10-15 pounds during those rainy months, party due to over-consumption of wintertime drinks like dark beer, egg nog, hot-buttered-anything and wassail. I wanted a drink for the winter that I could add to my cocktail menu that was more like the light, café-style cocktails I typically gravitate to during the summer.
Jerry Thomas prescribed a drink called “sangaree” that, to the best of our knowledge was a colonial adaptation of the Spanish “sangria”. The recipe, which calls for anywhere from 1½ to 4 ounces of port, Madeira, gin or brandy dolled up with sugar and dusted with nutmeg in a glass sounded less than exciting to me, but the challenge of updating this old chestnut sounded like a fun January task.
We began with ruby and tawny ports but found both way too sweet. White port got us much closer to our target, but it wasn’t until a healthy dose of dry vermouth was applied that we knew we were on to something. To provide additional depth and hint at the drink’s colonial origins we sweetened with a maple-nutmeg syrup and finished the whole thing off with a teaspoon of allspice liqueur and orange oil.
The Dry Vermouth Sangaree
3 oz dry vermouth
½ oz maple-nutmeg syrup*
1 tsp St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
1 large strip orange peel
Shake everything – yes, even the orange peel – with ice until well-chilled and strain into a cold cocktail glass. Garnish with a fresh strip of orange peel.
*To make maple-nutmeg syrup, combine 8 ounces each of Grade B maple syrup and water, and 1 tbsp freshly-grated nutmeg. Simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Let cool, strain out solids, bottle and chill.
My problem with homemade tonic water has always been a flavor profile that was too esoteric for the general audience. This recipe takes some of the positive qualities people have come to understand from commercial tonic water and updated them with fresh ingredients.
One question I'm often asked is "Do you have any drink-related book recommendations?" Well, funny you should ask, I've compiled a list of the ten books every professional bartender or home mixologist should own. I keep every one of these close at hand and have read most of them several times. I suggest you do the same.
The problem with living in Oregon is the absence of little wooden shacks by the sea that sell cases of fresh ginger beer stacked on back porches. But with some readily-available ingredients, a recipe I've been revising for several years - and a few free minutes - I can easily transport myself to a little fishing boat on the ocean as I sip a Dark and Stormy made with fresh, house-made ginger beer.
It's always mojito season somewhere, so this advice is timely in your area about half the year. Wether you're making them or simply enjoying them, this advice will help you look like a pro in no time at all.
The flavors of the Richmond Gimlet are imbued with sunshine. Fresh mint mingling with the herbaceousness of gin and the tartness of lime have made this drink a Eugene classic for many years now.
You'll get a lot of snarky advice on this site about how to make a proper drink, but if you ever need to know what not to do, this is the video for you.
Not to be confused with the Spanish wine-and-fruit-based alcoholic beverage sangria, sangrita (meaning "little blood") is a traditional accompaniment to a tequila served completo; a non-alcoholic sipper that cleanses the palate between fiery doses of agave.
The world of booze can be mystifying to people that don't work in bars or around alcohol all the time. I hear a lot of assumptions about the industry I'm in that are - much like 90% of what you hear in bars - completely false. Here are a few you've probably heard yourself.
The debate rages on: Should we try to look cool and crack open the Boston shaker or be tidy professionals and use the Hawthorne strainer the way God intended? Be sure to leave your two cents in the comments section.
The traditional garnish for a Pisco Sour is a couple of drops of bitters in the foam, but I've never been particularly impressed with the way these few paltry drops of bitters sat in their little egg-white mattress and didn't play along with the rest of the drink. I envisioned a Pisco Sour with a uniformly-distributed bitters-scorched foam: slightly crisp as the fire burnt the sugars, and slightly warm as the foam insulated the rest of the frosty cocktail from the heat. A pisco creme brulée in a glass!
I get so many visitors looking for tips on how to write a bartending resume that I thought I should finally post a tutorial on how to write your own. Click the headline to read more.
I always love showing up to a party with a gallon jug of pre-mixed margaritas, so I've decided to share my recipe. This margarita recipe is the perfect blend of strong, sweet, and sour. But be warned: this recipe packs a serious punch.
There isn't much I can say about this video that hasn't been said already. If you've read anything I've written about cocktails, you'll understand why this video symbolizes everything wrong with the state of bartending in America today. Watch and learn, but be warned: this one isn't for the feint of heart.
About Me
My name is Jeff Morgenthaler and I'm the head bartender at Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon.
I've been tending bar since 1996 and writing about it since 2004. Mixing drinks has become something of a passion for me in recent years, and I strive to elevate the experience of having a drink from something mundane to something more culinary.
The writing I do here is intended as a work in progress. My recipes are like my opinions: they are constantly being revised and refined as I work them through my mind and my fingers. Comments and participation are encouraged, so please don't feel the need to tread lightly here.
All this talk of Chocolate Martinis is giving me diabetes. Sure, you can pour a bunch of sweet, creamy liqueurs into a glass and call it the Fine Art of Mixology, but you’d be missing the whole point. Why not try something that’s going to reward you from start to finish, a drink that packs the Bacchanalian punch of brandy with the delicate flavors of chocolate and cream?
The Brandy Alexander, popular during the first part of the 20th Century, was likely a derivative of the Alexander Cocktail, which uses gin in place of brandy. Both are wonderful concoctions, but the brandy version achieved greater fame in the pantheon of cocktail culture, possibly because of brandy being revered as a rare and sophisticated spirit and gin having a more pedestrian image pre- and during Prohibition.
Okay. On to the drink. It’s so worth it to find whole nutmeg in your grocery store and grate it yourself, rather than using the stale, pre-grated crap you’ll find.
1.5 oz brandy or Cognac
1.5 oz dark (or light, if you prefer) crème de cacao
1.5 oz cream
Shake well over cracked ice and strain into a chilled nine ounce cocktail glass. Grate fresh nutmeg on top of the resulting foam and serve immediately.
Comments
7 Responses to “Brandy Alexander”
09 Jan 2007 at 10:49 am 1. hilsy
Your recent writings regarding the true definition of a Martini got me to thinking about a variation I like to prepare for myself at home.
I replace the Vermouth with Cointreau. I typically use only enough Vermouth or Cointreau to coat the ice cubes and dump out any excess before adding my gin (preferably Plymouth, though I’ve been enjoying locally made Cricket Club lately).
Is this still a Martini or would you consider it to more strictly be a cocktail?
17 Jun 2008 at 3:19 pm 2. Jay
Wow. I mean, just wow, man. What an amazing drink.
I had a few of these a while ago, and they didn’t quite seem to be my sort of thing. They tasted a bit like Bayleys with brandy. I didn’t really know where I went wrong. I thought I should have used something better than VS Cognac. I was wondering whether twitching the ratios a bit would do any good. Maybe I hadn’t shaken enough.
But then I managed to find whole nutmeg. Jeff’s right, nutmeg is a make-it-or-break-it ingredient in this cocktail. I mean, this is what gods have after dinner. Just amazing.
26 Dec 2008 at 10:24 pm 3. BethAnne
You’re right about the nutmeg — I bought it this year for my egg nog. Heavanly!
26 Dec 2008 at 10:24 pm 4. BethAnne
You’re right about the nutmeg — I bought it this year for my egg nog. Heavenly!
That looks like the kind of sweet drink I could get behind! Much as I might like a spiked milkshake, too many dessert-ish mixed drinks (I wont say “cocktails”) are just… inane. Bunches of sugary liquor sloshed together at random.
This is a drink with class. Thank you, sir. Bravo!
06 May 2009 at 8:40 pm 6. Kateastrophe
Nothing says disaffected, sexually nebulous upper class youth like a Brandy Alexander. I feel an urge to read Brideshead Revisited.
But in all seriousness, the drink is a classic in a way no chocolatini ever will be.
20 May 2009 at 11:50 pm 7. Jim
I am glad I read this if only to discover a wonderful drink. The Brandy Alexander is now part of my home bar menu! Thanks!
I absolutely hate it when someone sends me a box full of sex toys in the mail. Sure, it might sound like fun to some of you (you know who you are), but receiving a big box of free sex is much more trouble than it’s worth. Believe me. So I get a [...]
09 Jan 2007 at 10:49 am 1. hilsy
Your recent writings regarding the true definition of a Martini got me to thinking about a variation I like to prepare for myself at home.
I replace the Vermouth with Cointreau. I typically use only enough Vermouth or Cointreau to coat the ice cubes and dump out any excess before adding my gin (preferably Plymouth, though I’ve been enjoying locally made Cricket Club lately).
Is this still a Martini or would you consider it to more strictly be a cocktail?
17 Jun 2008 at 3:19 pm 2. Jay
Wow. I mean, just wow, man. What an amazing drink.
I had a few of these a while ago, and they didn’t quite seem to be my sort of thing. They tasted a bit like Bayleys with brandy. I didn’t really know where I went wrong. I thought I should have used something better than VS Cognac. I was wondering whether twitching the ratios a bit would do any good. Maybe I hadn’t shaken enough.
But then I managed to find whole nutmeg. Jeff’s right, nutmeg is a make-it-or-break-it ingredient in this cocktail. I mean, this is what gods have after dinner. Just amazing.
26 Dec 2008 at 10:24 pm 3. BethAnne
You’re right about the nutmeg — I bought it this year for my egg nog. Heavanly!
26 Dec 2008 at 10:24 pm 4. BethAnne
You’re right about the nutmeg — I bought it this year for my egg nog. Heavenly!
04 Mar 2009 at 6:45 pm 5. Ross
That looks like the kind of sweet drink I could get behind! Much as I might like a spiked milkshake, too many dessert-ish mixed drinks (I wont say “cocktails”) are just… inane. Bunches of sugary liquor sloshed together at random.
This is a drink with class. Thank you, sir. Bravo!
06 May 2009 at 8:40 pm 6. Kateastrophe
Nothing says disaffected, sexually nebulous upper class youth like a Brandy Alexander. I feel an urge to read Brideshead Revisited.
But in all seriousness, the drink is a classic in a way no chocolatini ever will be.
20 May 2009 at 11:50 pm 7. Jim
I am glad I read this if only to discover a wonderful drink. The Brandy Alexander is now part of my home bar menu! Thanks!