I repost this every year about this time, because I’m a man on a mission. You see, I love egg nog, but I can’t stand the thick, gelatinous goop they sell at the grocery store. Even if you were to cut it with alcohol, it’s still so overly-pasteurized and full of preservatives that it would be anything but enjoyable to slug down at a Christmas party. So I set about concocting the simplest, tastiest Egg Nog recipe I could, and here’s what I came up with.
In terms of cocktail history, Egg Nog is nothing more than a brandy or rum (or both) flip made with the addition of cream or milk. The 1862 Bar-Tender’s Guide by Jerry Thomas calls for a nog made up of a tablespoon of bar sugar, a tablespoon of water, a whole egg, cognac, rum and milk, shaken and strained, with some nutmeg grated on top. The problem I have with Thomas’ recipe is all the extra water that comes from the melting of the ice, not to mention that extra half ounce he calls for. Watery egg nog, anyone? Yeah, no thanks.
So I did a lot of research, in cookbooks and on the web, and tried a bunch of different recipes and methods. Some called for cooking the eggs into sort of a custard, but that’s a heck of a lot of work and results in a thick glop. Others required separating the eggs, beating them independently, and folding them together. But again, it’s thick and I’m lazy.
This is the recipe I devised. It can be made in just about any home or bar, since the ingredients are fairly simple. It can be done entirely in a blender, so there are no whisks or beaters or rubber spatulas or stovetops needed. It yields two healthy servings, so you can easily multiply it to serve more. It doesn’t use a ton of heavy cream, so it’s fairly light. In other words, it’s practically perfect.
2 large eggs
3 oz (by volume) granulated sugar
½ tsp freshly-grated nutmeg
2 oz brandy
2 oz spiced rum (I use Sailor Jerry’s)
6 oz whole milk
4 oz heavy cream
Beat eggs in blender for one minute on medium speed. Slowly add sugar and blend for one additional minute. With blender still running, add nutmeg, brandy, rum, milk and cream until combined. Chill thoroughly to allow flavors to combine and serve in chilled wine glasses or champagne coupes, grating additional nutmeg on top immediately before serving.
One note about blenders. This recipe works great in home blenders, but the commercial models are designed to heat whatever they’re blending, which can result in scrambled eggs by the time you get around to the sugar. If you’re using a Vita-Mix or similar commercial blender, cut that initial blend time down to a quarter minute or so.
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 Bel Ami in Eugene, Oregon.
I'm 36, I've been tending bar for 12 years and writing about it for 5. 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.
We’re fortunate to have some great minds in absinthe here in the Pacific Northwest, and on Sunday a few of them came together to share their extensive knowledge with the attendees of the Great American Distiller’s Festival in a panel titled “Q&A on Northwest Absinthe”
The panel featured Gwydion Stone, founder of the educational organization The Wormwood Society and creator of the soon-to-be released Marteau absinthe, Marc Bernhard, creator of the soon-to-be released Pacifique absinthe, and Rich Phillips from Integrity Spirits, producers of the first Oregon absinthe, Trillium.
I’ve done a fair amount of reading about absinthe and tried to learn as much as possible on my own, but the panel was still informative and provided me with some great facts to fill in for the gaps in my knowledge. I’ll recap here:
Absinthe was banned in 1912 by Food Inspection Decision 147 of the USDA. It forbade the manufacture, sale or transportation of absinthe. Several events contributed to our rediscovery of absinthe:
An understanding of the term “thujone-free”, which relies on a test that comes with a 10 ppm (parts per million) margin of error.
The discovery that real, legitimate, pre-ban French and Swiss absinthes often contained less than 10 ppm.
A greater amount of interest in classic cocktails and lost ingredients, which was certainly fostered by communication between enthusiasts on the internet.
I wasn’t aware that sagebrush is a member of the same plant family as wormwood (artemesia), and that culinary sage actually contains more thujone than wormwood.
I didn’t really know where the green color present in verte absinthes came from, and now I do: after the final distillation, hyssop, lemonbalm and Roman wormwood are macerated in the absinthe to provide additional flavor and a pale green color. There was no mention of what might produce a neon blue color.
This one I knew, but I’d like to reiterate it here: The ritual of lighting a sugar cube on fire and dropping it into absinthe is inauthentic, a recent invention, and a potentially dangerous ceremony centered around the consumption of illegitimate absinthes of inferior quality. As Marc so eloquently put it, “Friends don’t let friends burn absinthe.“
The Great American Distiller’s Festival was this past weekend, and I was there on Sunday to witness some of the action with my crusty sidekick, Scott.
The first event was a seminar titled “The History of the Cocktail“, led by Robert Hess. Robert jumped right in there with a crash course on spirits, theories about the origins of mixed drinks in general, and some basic drink etymology. The team from the Teardrop Lounge mixed Old-Fashioned Whiskey Cocktails while Robert demonstrated the simplicity involved in creating this, the original cocktail and a surprisingly complex little number considering its spartan ingredient list.
Robert then jumped into a brief history of aromatized wines such as vermouth, and their popularity in cocktails in the late nineteenth century. The team whipped up a batch of very large Manhattans while the crowd braced themselves for a 1PM rye whoopin‘.
And in a perfectly logical move, Robert demonstrated how the Martini grew out of the Manhattan and proved it by passing around his interpretation of the original Martini, made with Dry Fly gin, Carpano Antica Formula vermouth, and Angostura orange bitters. The crowd swooned as they took another brunch-sized blast of 80 proof liquor.
Things are really starting to ramp up for the 75th anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition on December 5th! Today I received a package from the folks at Old Forester bourbon, who are showing their support of my favorite day by releasing a limited edition Repeal Day bottling of their whiskey.
From the press release:
“Repeal Bourbon is bottled from a special selection of Old Forester barrels that exhibited a more robust character that is similar to the Old Forester that was bottled during Prohibition,” added Chris Morris, Master Distiller for Old Forester. “The flavor, presented at Prohibition’s required 100 proof, is a full, deep, charred oak character that will appeal to bourbon-lovers everywhere.”
Old Forester has long been one of my go-to bourbons, as it explores the savory side of whiskey without an overload of sweetness. I love using it in a Manhattan as it sets off the orange and caramel of a good sweet vermouth while providing a solid, spicy backbone.
Check out more information about the bottling (due sometime in late November or early December) here, and as always, visit the home of Repeal Day here.
For those of you not in-the-know, I’ll be heading to Berlin at the end of September to give a presentation at the BCB (Berlin Bar Conference). It’s an annual event put on by Mixology Magazine, which I’ve been contributing to for several months now.
Anyway, I’ll be delivering my presentation on the topic of “The Web’s Influence on the Global Bar Scene” on Tuesday, September 30th at 1:30 PM alongside the fabulous Helmut Adam.
Mixology.eu has been posting brief presenter bios on their blog all week, and today I’ve been given the spotlight. So if you’d like to know more about what we’ll be discussing, head on over to the site and be sure to see the list of other presenters (I’m in some quite amazing company)
And if you’re anywhere near Berlin at the end of September, be sure to come to the BCB!
I don’t know how food writers do it. Talking with Andrew tonight, he told us about their last-minute pairing dinners and the challenges of putting together an article the night before the Washington Post’s due date.
And so here I am, trying to write a simple blog post after six courses, complete with wine pairings and an after-dinner sampling of Blue Gin graciously brought to me by Matt Lanning and Chris Bailey.
(If you don’t know what dinner I’m talking about, hear me gush here.)
Anyway, I’m going to shoot off-the-cuff and put this thing out, grammar and prose be damned. Here’s my play-by-play of the dinner at Marché tonight.
I see a fair amount of liquor in my average day. I work in a bar and am surrounded by 200+ bottles of the stuff for ten hours a day. Liquor reps drop by the bar and leave me samples of new products on a regular basis. I get press releases, forwarded emails, RSS feeds, swag, and sometimes full-bottle liquor samples in the mail. And it seems to me that everyone wants to talk about the versatility of their product.
“Try this new absinthe! It’s $80 a bottle and doesn’t taste like anything. It’s very versatile, great in cocktails.”
“This vodka is different than all the others. It retails for $49.95, it’s distilled eight times from fresh organic kiwifruit. It’s very versatile.”
“The latest berry liqueur! It’s made from six types of berry and was developed by three out-of-work cocaine addicts. And it’s only $14.99 a bottle! It’s super versatile!”
Let me tell you something about a truly versatile liquor, the kind you reach for every day. The real beauty doesn’t come from the fact that it’s cheap. It isn’t brilliant because it mixes well with every kind of fruit juice you can throw at it. Versatility doesn’t happen when a liquor doesn’t taste like anything.
The greatest, most versatile products out there find themselves in my hands more often than not because they’re simply perfect and are priced with a tag we all can afford.
When I received this bottle of Matusalem Gran Reserva, I was naturally skeptical. But after blowing through an entire fifth of the stuff over the course of the past week, I can honestly recommend it - not just because it tastes great, and not because the price point is exactly where it should be, but because it is truly a versatile rum.
I poured it straight, I poured it on the rocks with a dash of orange bitters. I made mai tais, I made daiquiris, I mixed it with cane-sugar Coca-Cola from Mexico and fresh key limes. It was sensational in a Beauty Beneath, and it shined in a rum old-fashioned. It took everything I threw at it and asked for more. It’s got butter and vanilla up front, an understated mid-palate without a lot of heaviness, and a nice, quiet finish that begs for another sip.
I’m lucky: I get to buy bottles every week with someone else’s money. But I have this thing, this horrible, horrible thing that kicks in when I feel like I’m ripping someone off. And it won’t let me sell you a $10 shot that’s only worth $3, I just can’t do it. So finding new products in this sea of PR is kind of a nightmare for me.
And that’s why this rum is so versatile: it’s 35 bucks! You can buy it, you can use it, and you can pick up another bottle when you’re done. You don’t have to horde it, you don’t have to keep in hidden in the back of the liquor cabinet. It’s a truly versatile rum because you can actually use it.
I spent the week leading up to Tales of the Cocktail revisiting the Vieux Carré cocktail, which was created at the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone by bartender Walter Bergeron in 1938. I tried several of the recipe variations out there on unsuspecting customers all week long, perfecting the Vieux Carré before getting on the plane and heading to the Carousel Bar to have one for myself.
Okay, so the Vieux Carrés I found at the hotel weren’t that great. But the novelty of being able to walk into a bar and ask for this venerable old drink was enough to keep me satisfied.
One of the first things people asked me upon my return to work was, “How were the Vieux Carrés at the hotel?”
“Okay,” I’d reply, “but I think ours are better.”
My over-confidence came around and bit me on the backside when I realized that I hadn’t ordered enough Benedictine to make more than a handful of drinks that first night back. Fortunately I’m a resourceful lad from time to time, and I reached for the bottle of Strega to stand in for Benedictine. Switching out apple brandy for the cognac and some housemade cinnamon tincture in place of the bitters, I’d inadvertently built a drink for our coming fall drink menu…
I’m going to start breaking these Mixology Monday posts into two parts, the second half containing the bit about the actual drink (let’s see how that works). Continue reading below, or click here for the recipe.
Things are really starting to ramp up for the 75th anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition on December 5th! Today I received a package from the folks at Old Forester bourbon, who are showing their support of my favorite day by releasing a limited edition Repeal Day bottling of their whiskey.
From the press release:
“Repeal [...]
I spent the week leading up to Tales of the Cocktail revisiting the 