I’m not really much of a writer. It takes me a long time, I have to constantly erase and re-write huge passages, and I’ve always, always, always got a case of writer’s block. So I was thrilled to come up with my latest-and-greatest blog post last week while I was in Germany : My Five Favorite Guilty Pleasure Drinks. I got started by writing a few notes and talking to others at the BCB about their favorite guilty pleasure drinks, and was moving along quite nicely with the outline of the blog post.

So I’m sure you can imagine my outrage when I found out that fellow Pacific Northwester Stevi Deter over at Two At The Most had the same idea with her theme for this month’s Mixology Monday: Guilty Pleasures.

Actually, I was pleased as punch. Two birds, one stone, I love it when a plan comes together.

I’d like to preface this post with two important reminders:

1. These really are my favorite guilty pleasure drinks, I’m not making any of this up. You can offer me any of these drinks at pretty much any time, and I’ll gladly accept. I just feel a slight-to-great amount of shame at the time.

2. This is not an open invitation to the manufacturers, promotional departments, public relations firms or distributors of every crappy flavored liqueur in the world to send me samples of additional hideous products. These are my guilty pleasures, I’m happy with them, and I don’t need any more.

So without further chatter, here are my guilty pleasure drinks:

1. Vodka

I badmouth the spirit in private and trash it in public. I grimace every time you order a vodka martini – “Shaken, up, with three olives” – at my bar. For all of the shit I’ve talked over the years, vodka is my number one guilty pleasure drink – I will always accept a vodka on the rocks after work. I’ll drink a Screwdriver at the airport, and a Greyhound when I get on the plane. And if you’ve got a bottle in your freezer, you’ll catch me stealing straight shots right out of the frosty bottle neck. I love the stuff.

But I still hold it with a reasonable amount of contempt because I know vodka’s dirty little secret: it’s all the same. I won’t ever spring for the $50 bottle, and quite frankly neither should you. When I’m bellying up to the bar after a long night, I usually order a mid-priced vodka like Stoli or Smirnoff, and they both taste great.

Because after a long night of making – and tasting – drinks full of ingredients like single-malt Islay scotch, housemade Madeira cask-aged bitters and various bitter Italian liqueurs, I get a little tired of flavor. So I order a vodka, and I almost always accompany it with a…

2. Crappy Beer

Speaking of being tired of flavor, I could really go my whole life without having to choke down another smoked mocha porter, cardamom stout, or quadruple-hopped 3-hour IPA. I don’t drink beer for the flavor (sorry, Beaumont), I drink it for the beer.

But rather than being a purely reactionary choice, crappy beer is a true guilty pleasure: I like the taste. Sure, you won’t catch me dead wearing a beer logo-emblazoned trucker hat, but I’ll happily swing a Bud longneck with you, or help you finish that pitcher of Miller High Life so we can roll down the street for dollar Coor’s Light pounders.

Because that’s the way Dad rolled, and that’s how I roll, too.

3. Anything with Baileys Irish Cream

I will drool like a dog at the mere mention of Irish cream. I’ll take it in my coffee, I’ll drink a B-52, and if you buy me an Oatmeal Cookie shot I’ll slam it before the toast is over. I even use those little International Flavors non-dairy Irish creamers in the morning. I’m ape-shit for Irish cream and I don’t care who knows it. Hell, I even make my own when I’ve drunk the liquor store dry.

If you asked me what I thought the two miracles of modern civilization were, I’d have to name: the internet, and Bailey’s Irish Cream, both circa 1974. I shudder in horror when I think about what life must have been like before email and BFKs, and I thank my lucky stars every day that I only had to endure three miserable years before all was right with the world. In fact, there’s only one Irish cream-based drink out there I won’t stand for, and that’s a Cement Mixer. Blasphemy.

4. Jägermeister

I know it’s a frat boy drink, but unless you’ve had it coming out of your nose at 4 in the morning and can’t physically drink the stuff, there’s no way you can look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t like Jägermeister because you’re a liar and I won’t believe you. Shoot it, sip it, I’ll take it any way I can get it. I even had my eyes opened one late night at Simon Difford’s house (hi, Simon!) when David Cordoba mixed up one of his famous Jägeritas and I practically begged him for the recipe. And here it is:

The Jägerita

2 oz Jägermeister awesome German liqueur
1 oz Cointreau
1 oz fresh lime juice
½ oz simple syrup

Shake ingredients over cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

5. Piña Coladas

I love Piña Coladas so much I want to marry them. I know that some of you in Hawaiian shirts will turn down your noses at me, all “How dare he suggest it’s shameful to drink a Piña Colada! It’s a time-honored classic, an archetype, Hemmingway drank them for God’s sake!”

Bullshit. It’s made in a blender, and it calls for cream of coconut out of a can. Enjoying one is the guiltiest – and the most pleasurable – of guilty pleasures.

So there you have it, internet pals. My five dirtiest secrets. But I’ll leave you with this one caveat: there might be a lot of cocktail übersnobs out there, but I guarantee you that I’ve shared each one of these guilty pleasure drinks with at least one of them. And we smiled and clinked glasses as we felt the guilt. Those of you who don’t believe me, are cordially invited to suck it.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

My Five Favorite Guilty Pleasure Drinks

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.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: New Orleans

For the benefit of the newcomers, I feel I should explain how things work around here. A few years ago, this guy named Paul Clarke had a great idea: let’s get all of the cocktail bloggers out there to get together and write about the same thing for a day. So one website becomes designated as the “host” and chooses a theme that everyone adopts and writes about, and then the host donates a summary of all the day’s events. (I even tried to host last December, but decided to blow the whole thing off and fly to New York to celebrate Repeal Day with my friends from Dewar’s scotch instead.)

So here I am on Sunday, having my whole day off ruined yet again as I wrack my brain trying to think of something to write about, and honestly getting quite frustrated. So, a solution: I’m going to make something using only the ingredients in my liquor cabinet and try a previously untested recipe from one of my many books on the subject of cocktails.

When I think about rum, I think about Trader Vic. And when I think about Trader Vic, I think about dusting off my 1947 edition of Trader Vic’s Bar-Tender’s Guide and looking for a recipe I’ve never tried. So that’s exactly what I did. On page 209, he gives us the recipe for a Beachcomber Cocktail, calling for light rum, lime, Cointreau, maraschino liqueur and a Waring blender – all of which can be found at my house on a standard Sunday in May.

At first glance, this looks suspiciously like the poorly-translated recipe for the La Florida Daiquiri #4 found on page 215, with the substitution of Cointreau for sugar. But cocktailian tradition dictates that by changing one or more ingredients in a cocktail, we’ve created a new drink altogether, so let’s forge ahead:

Beachcomber Cocktail (Trader Vic’s Version)

2 oz light rum
½ oz Cointreau
Juice ½ lime
2 dashes maraschino liqueur

Mix in Waring mixer with shaved ice; pour unstrained into chilled champagne glass.

The verdict? It’s gross. First of all, we’ve got two ounces of light rum, which is a big speed bump of alcohol to try to climb over. Next, the drink is blended, which to me always calls for some big, bold flavors since things tend to get lost among all of that blended ice and water. A scant tablespoon each of lime and orange liqueur, spiked with maraschino liqueur doesn’t strike me as bold, so I’m going to recommend bumping up the proportions and selecting some brands.

Right off the bat I’m going to suggest using something other than the Myers’s Platinum I used at home. Try a Puerto Rican like Bacardi, 10 Cane from Trinidad or St. Croix’s Cruzan Estate Light, which is aged for two years. Each of these rums is going to provide a slightly sweeter base with less of the acids that I find to be the hallmark of Jamaican rum.

Next, let’s use ¾ ounce each of lime and Cointreau – enough already with this “juice of ½ a lime” business. As for the maraschino, let’s try a half teaspoon if using a sweeter liqueur like Maraska, and a quarter teaspoon each of simple syrup and maraschino if using a heavier version such as Luxardo.

Beachcomber Cocktail (Adjusted)

2 oz light rum
¾ oz Cointreau
¾ oz lime juice
¼-½ tsp maraschino liqueur
¼ tsp simple syrup (optional)

Blend well with ice and pour into a chilled champagne coupe.

This seemed to work better with my palate, but I tend to like drinks that taste delicious. To read about a whole bunch of other tasty beverages, head over to my friend Trader Tiki’s website for the complete wrap-up of this month’s Mixology Monday, along with more rum and Tiki information than you can shake a swizzle-stick at.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: Rum

Just to warn you before you invest too much personal (or work, heh) time, there are no fruit liqueurs used anywhere in this post.

There is a liqueur made from flowers, which eventually turn into berries. But flowers aren’t a fruit. There is wine, which I guess comes from fruit. But I boil the booze out of it and add a bunch of sugar, so it’s not really a liqueur, it’s a fruit syrup. Sorta.

But I really, really wanted to share this drink with you, because it tastes incredible and it embodies the sort of building-layers-of-flavor thing I’ve been working on lately.

When I found my first bottle of St. Germain elderflower liqueur last year, I was – like many of you – inspired by its unique flavor and wanted to use it in a cocktail. I mixed it with vodka, I mixed it with gin, I mixed it with lemon juice, and I sweetened it with simple syrup. And everything I came up with ended up being remarkably similar to this drink, which – while delicious – lacked the complexity I was looking for in a drink to put on my cocktail menu.

Enter Sweet Cheeks Winery. Their 2006 Estate Pinot Gris has something you won’t find in too many Oregon wines: big, ripe, juicy white peaches on the palate. And when I tasted it, I knew I had to find a way to work this baby into a cocktail.

East of Eden

1½ oz Bombay gin
1 oz fresh lemon juice
¾ oz pinot gris syrup*
½ oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur

Shake ingredients over cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. No garnish is necessary, as it will just get in the way of the luscious aromas rising from the glass.

*To make pinot gris syrup, simmer one bottle pinot gris (or try experimenting with other local white wines – this is one drink that can evoke a sense of place) over medium heat until reduced by half. Add 12 ounces sugar and stir until clear. Bottle and chill until ready for use.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: Fruit Liqueurs (Kinda)

Bartenders are a surprisingly rare breed in this little cocktail blogger community of ours, so he and I are often awash in a sea of pundits. Sometimes I need to write to Jimmy and ask, “How are we supposed to make 100 of those on a Friday night?”, or “What the heck are they talking about?” when something is too difficult for me to grasp either technically or intellectually. Jimmy also took over my duties when Dewar’s scotch called on my Mixology Monday and told me to pack my bags for a 10 AM flight to Manhattan the next morning. I love Jimmy Patrick.

But I’m especially enthusiastic this month because Jimmy has chosen the theme of variations for his Mixology Monday. The idea really spoke to me, because it sums up exactly what I’ve been obsessing over for the past four weeks at my new job: the makeover of Bel Ami’s cocktail menu.

Taking over an existing drink menu is a bit of a balancing act. While we didn’t want to alienate our customers and servers by jettisoning drinks that had been a part of their experience for many years, we felt that the cocktails needed a facelift. So in the end, we came up with variations of some of the house drinks as a way of introducing a bar program that focused on fresh ingredients, culinary technique, and classic proportions. I’ll illustrate this today with three cocktail case studies.

Case Study #1: The Ginger Lemon Drop

The beautiful, expensive decanter of booze labeled “Ginger-Flavored Vodka” was like a bright red flag to me, and I knew that in order to set the tone of our new cocktail program, this would have to be the first drink to go.

This was the original recipe:

1½ oz Yazi ginger-flavored vodka
¾ oz triple sec
1 oz lemon juice
splash simple syrup

The biggest problem with the Yazi ginger vodka was that it didn’t taste like fresh ginger, which wasn’t going to work with our new plan. So to create something new while still offering a comparable experience, we presented the Gingered Honey Sour: Oregon’s Crater Lake vodka, freshly-grated ginger, honey syrup and fresh lemon juice.

Gingered Honey Sour

2 oz Crater Lake vodka
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz ginger-honey syrup*

Shake ingredients over cracked ice and strain into an old-fashioned glass filled with ice. Garnish with a thin slice of fresh ginger.

*To make ginger-honey syrup, peel and grate 1 ounce (by volume) fresh ginger. Add to 8 ounces honey and 8 ounces boiling water. Let steep for at least one hour, strain through cheesecloth, bottle and refrigerate.

Case Study #2: The Rude Cosmopolitan

A tequila Cosmopolitan is like a raspberry Mojito: it’s a really unimaginative way to spice up what has already become a tired, pedestrian and often poorly-made cocktail.

Here’s the original recipe:

1½ oz well tequila
¾ oz triple sec
splash lime juice
cranberry juice

The Rude Cosmo tasted like it sounded: a well-tequila Cosmopolitan. To impart a more intense, fresher cranberry flavor we made a cranberry gastrique, which is a traditional French fruit-and-vinegar sauce commonly served with meats.

We tried a number of tequilas with our gastrique, and settled on Sauza Hornitos for its sweetness and that unmistakable tropical fruit flavor on the palate. Adding some fresh lime juice back in to the cocktail rounded it out nicely.

Flor de Baya

2 oz Sauza Hornitos tequila
¾ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz simple syrup
2 barspoons cranberry gastrique*

Shake ingredients over cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lime.

*To make cranberry gastrique, boil 1½ cups white vinegar with 1½ cups sugar, 10 oz fresh cranberries, the juice and zest of 1 lemon, 1 star anise and 4 cloves for 20 minutes, using a wooden spoon to help break up cranberries. Strain mixture through cheesecloth, bottle and refrigerate.

Case Study #3: The Sazerac Manhattan

Shaking Sazerac whiskey with a splash of well vermouth is a lot like shaking a baby: first there’s going to be a lot of foam, and then you’ll be staring death in the face. Finishing the job with a maraschino cherry is quite literally adding insult to injury.

The original recipe:

2 oz Sazerac 6-Year rye
Splash sweet vermouth
Dash Angostura bitters

We updated the Manhattan by swapping the rye for a much bolder Rittenhouse 100-proof, bumped up the vermouth and switched to Carpano Antica Formula, added a dash of our housemade orange bitters, and finished the drink with a housemade brandied cherry. The name comes from the fact that the bar is located in the Midtown Marketplace.

Midtown Manhattan

2 oz Rittenhouse 100-proof rye
1 oz Carpano Antica Formula vermouth
Dash orange bitters
Dash Angostura bitters
Brandied cherry*

Stir first three ingredients gently with cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Finish with brandied cherry.

*To make brandied cherries, strain a 16-ounce jar pitted cherries and reserve syrup. Reduce syrup by half in small saucepan. Allow to cool. Add ½ cup brandy and two tablespoons Maraschino liqueur to cherries along with reduced syrup. Refrigerate for one week before serving.

So there you have it. Cocktail menus like the one I inherited can be found all over the country these days, but they’re never beyond repair. It just takes a few fresh and natural ingredients, simple culinary techniques, and some very basic mixological proportions to give a drink menu a makeover.

Thanks for hosting, Jimmy. This was my favorite Mixology Monday so far.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: Variations (Mix-treme Makeover Edition!)

I love brandy. I love to consume it, I love to sell it, and I love to mix with it. A few months ago, someone suggested I come up with a great Oregon cocktail, and as I scanned the backbar at work my eyes landed on one of my most beloved Oregon spirits, Clear Creek Apple Brandy.

If you come to Oregon for the first time, you’ll likely land in Portland. And while spending some time exploring that great city of ours should be one of the first things on your list, please take a day to explore an area nearby that is often overlooked, even by Oregonians.

From Portland, take Highway 84 east for about an hour and a half, following the breathtaking Columbia River valley to the town of Hood River. After lunch, take some time to explore the valley south of town. It’s a luscious region that lies in the shadow of Mount Hood, full of apple and pear orchards, and little family farms selling fresh berries on the side of the road. You can still buy a Coke in a glass bottle at the general store here, and spend hours exploring as you sip. It’s an incredible little place to lose yourself in during those perfect Oregon summer days.

This wonderful setting is where Clear Creek grows the apples used in their apple brandy. This drink is my humble tribute to that place.

The Cascade Crush

2 oz Clear Creek apple brandy
1 oz lemon juice
¾ oz simple syrup
1 tsp Marionberry jam

Shake ingredients over cracked ice until combined. Strain over ice in a double-rocks glass. Garnish with fresh Marionberries when in season, or with lemon peel during the cold, rainy months when you long to return to that little valley on a warm summer afternoon.

I love this drink. Thank you for reading.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: Brandy

This being my first ever time hosting Mixology Monday, I’m a little nervous. So bear with me. Also, my schedule has taken a turn for the busier… I’m leaving tomorrow morning to celebrate Repeal Day with the folks from Dewar’s scotch in New York City!

As Repeal Day is coming up on the 5th, I thought we should all get in the spirit by mixing our favorite Prohibition-era cocktails. On to the entries!

Getting an early jump on the competition was Anita at Married… with Dinner. On Friday, she posted a delightful concoction from the Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book called the Ampersand.

Shawn over at Rejiggered gives us an original cocktail, the Snowbird Rum Runner, which Shawn informs us was inspired by the rumrunners of the Prohibition era.

My good friend Erik Ellestad put together a thread at the eGullet forums, with several people contributing cocktails. Thanks, Erik!

Scomorokh over at The Science of Drink showed up with The Angel’s Tit. I don’t normally go for that sort of strong language, but the drink looks interesting – to say the least. I’m going to have to try this one out at work tonight.

Chip and Andy at Chip and Andy’s Universe burst through the door with the Maiden’s Kiss, another sexually-charged cocktail that they’re using to kill two birds with one stone, Mixology Monday and Raiders of the Lost Cocktail. Nice work!

Dinah at MetaGrrrl showed up with a little something called the Ruby Cocktail that she found in a book from 1908 called The World’s Drinks And How To Mix Them by William “Cocktail” Boothby.

Marshall at The Scofflaw’s Den came through with the Star Cocktail, which he found in Mr. Wondrich’s new book Imbibe!

And speaking of Scofflaws, SeanMike at the Scofflaw’s Den went with the Scoff Law Cocktail and the Jack Rose, with a Vesper as a chaser. Ambitious!

Bunnyhugs brings us a lengthy and well-informed post about the Pisco Punch, one of my favorite cocktails. I hadn’t had the pleasure of visiting Bunnyhugs before, but this sort of writing reminds me why I love our ever-growing community.

Our friend Chuck Taggart at the Gumbo Pages went above-and-beyond the call of duty, cracking open his copy of The Saloon in the Home, or A Garden of Rumblossoms, by Ridgely Hunt and George S. Chappell from 1930. The drink is called the Hunting Horn, and the post is full of Chuck’s usual style of valuable information. A must-read.

If you like complex cocktails, you’re going to love Craig’s post at The Brotherhood of If, a drink called Everybody’s Irish American.

Robert over at Explore the Pour is a lot like me. He loves eggs in cocktails and wrote about ten pages explaining his fascination. He brought his ovoid love to the table with the Morning Glory cocktail. Another drink I’m going to be trying out tonight.

Despite my very Teutonic last name and a year of German classes in college, I still don’t speak a lick of German. But that won’t stop me from trying Christian at Cocktailwelt’s Bijou cocktail. Now to find a metric jigger…

My fellow Oregonian Blair at Trader Tiki wrote a nice piece about the history of Prohibition in Portland, and submits one of my all-time favorites (and yours, I hope) the Monkey Gland.

Thanks to everyone who participated. If I somehow left you out, just leave a comment in the comments section and let us know – I’ve got to go pack my bags!

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: Prohibition

I have been given the honor of hosting next month’s Mixology Monday here, and since it is in such close company with December 5th, which is Repeal Day, I’ve decided to try to combine the two and have a little fun with it.

So, for this round of MxMo, you’re going to need to write about a pre-Prohibition-era cocktail, tell a Repeal Day story, create an original drink inspired by Prohibition, etc.

So crack open your new copies of David Wondrich’s Imbibe!, plan a Repeal Day event, or reach deep into your inspiration well and come up with something to wow the world with. We’ll all meet back here on Monday for the round-up.

Update – the folks at Dewar’s scotch sent along this video to help get the juices flowing:

That is all. Carry on.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

December 3rd is Mixology Monday, December 5th is Repeal Day

I wrote to my friend Jimmy Patrick this morning and asked him what he was going to do for this month’s entry. He wrote back:

A rum drink with Bacardi in it. Any guesses?

And I asked, “Are you doing a Cuba Libre?”

What? No. What kind of idiot puts gin in a Cuba Libre?

“Um, I do.”, I sheepishly replied.

But then I thought to myself, “Hey, self, why do you put gin in a Cuba Libre?” and I set out to find out why.

I guess I’ve been thinking about the Cuba Libre a lot lately, because over at The Art of Drink, Darcy has been doing a lot of wonderful and in-depth writing about rums and Coke.

But while the most bartenders will tell you that a Cuba Libre is just a Rum and Coke with lime, I’m going to disagree with that dismissive statement and try to convince you that the Cuba Libre can be elevated to new heights by the addition of gin.

The Cuba Libre was reportedly created sometime during the Spanish-American war, when America was helping Cuba fight for its independence from Spain. Coca-Cola was a hot new beverage in the States, limes practically grew on trees, and Cuban rum was actually available to Americans. (Yes, this was quite some time ago.) The Cuban and American soldiers toasted the future of a free Cuba (Cuba Libre) with their new concoction, which they drank and drank.

After Prohibition, when rum was again (legally) plentiful in this country and Americans had a fever for all things Carribean, the Cuba Libre enjoyed widespread success. The drink even spawned a hit song by the Andrews Sisters, which helped further the public’s awareness of this hot new drink:

If you ever go down Trinidad
They make you feel so very glad
Calypso sing and make up rhyme
Guarantee you one real good fine time

Drinkin’ rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin’ for the Yankee dollar

But there was trouble in paradise, as some folks weren’t too enamoured with the drink’s syrupy-sweetness. Charles H. Baker writes about the drink on page 27 of his Gentleman’s Companion of 1939:

The only trouble with the drink is that it started by accident and without imagination, has been carried along by the ease of its supply. Under any condition it is too sweet.

Not too worry, however, the ever-opinionated Baker offers a solution:

The improved Cuba Libre consists of 1 big jigger of Carta de Oro Bacardi, the juice of 1 small green lime, and the lime peel after squeezing. Put in a Tom Collins glass, muddle well to get oil worked up over sides of the glass, add lots of ice lumps, and fill up with a bottle of chilled coca cola. Stir up once, and salud y pesetas!

Sure. Drink’s too sweet, so let’s add a bunch of fucking lime juice and muddle the peel so the bitterness overpowers everything. It’s a nice thought, but an amateur move. How about we try something a little more elegant?

Paul Harrington, in his 1998 book Cocktail – The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century also grappled with the sweetness of the drink, and laid part of the blame on the now-sanitized formula of Coca-Cola…

Coca-Cola no longer contains exotic ingredients, but we’re still convinced that the soda made in South America tastes better than that mixed elsewhere.

…and offered his own gin-spiked solution:

Whenever we consider the Cuba Libre our best option at a given bar, we remind ourselves that this drink was once viewed as exotic, with its dark syrup – made, at that time from kola nuts and cocaine. A few American drinkers had hoped that this wonder … would go on to compete with the great bitters of Europe. The drink, when worth drinking, contains 2 to 3 ounces of the new far from exotic soda, the juice and hull of ¼ lime, 1 ounce of rum, 2 dashes of bitters, and ½ ounce of gin. (The last two ingredients are our own additions.)

An elegant solution, with an eye on former production methods, an attentiveness to modern palates and a sharp degree of sophistication. Take that, Baker.

Isidro Gutiérrez, a bartender at Town at the Chambers Hotel in New York City, offered up a strikingly similar recipe to the New York Times in 2002:

Mr. Gutiérrez cites a 1952 article from a Cuban newspaper suggesting that some turn-of-the-century Cubans drank a Cuba Libre with a decidedly different kick, one including cocoa beans, gin, bitters and a splash of cocaine. (In its early days, Coca-Cola also contained trace amounts of cocaine.)

So Mr. Gutiérrez, who fancies himself something of a drink historian, decided to bring back that type of Cuba Libre — minus the cocaine, of course. He also dropped the cocoa beans after he discovered they were a bit too bitter.

Cuba Libre

Adapted by Isidro Gutiérrez for Town at the Chambers Hotel

3 ounces Coca-Cola
1 ounce rum
1/2 ounce gin
2 dashes bitters
1/4 lime
Dash of club soda

Mix the Coca-Cola, rum and gin in a highball glass. Add the bitters, and squeeze in the juice from the lime. Top off with the club soda to add bubbles.

As a side note, I would like to remind you, the reader, that gin and white rum have a very similar flavor profile, an as an experiment suggest you try substituting white rum for gin in your favorite gin cocktails. You’ll find that a whole new world of interesting (and yes, potentially disgusting) mixological options awaits you.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: Gin

To be honest with you, I didn’t really have much of a chance to prepare for this month’s Mixology Monday. In fact, when Natalie emailed me a reminder earlier today, my first thought was, “Oh, f*ck!”. And as much as I loves me some Mixology Monday, I’ve been a little out of the loop this week. There are a few reasons for this:

1. I’ve been very busy with the bar.
2. I’ve been very busy building websites.
3. Today is my birthday.

However, I was able to put something together on the fly while making dinner tonight. This might come as a shock to some of you, coming from a lowly barkeep and all, but I’m actually a fairly adept cook. So while I was putting together dinner, I whipped up a cocktail with some of the ingredients I had in my liquor cabinet. And to my surprise it turned out pretty okay. In fact, I think this would be a wonderful first course.

The food:

Butter Leaf Salad

With buttermilk-tarragon dressing, late-summer tomatoes and country bacon

¼ cup buttermilk
¼ cup sour cream
¼ cup mayonnaise
1½ tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp freshly chopped tarragon

Whisk ingredients together in a non-reactive bowl. Cover and chill in a refrigerator for one hour to meld flavors.

Meanwhile, slice ½ pound bacon into thick chunks and cook over medium-high heat until fat is rendered and bacon is near crisp. Drain of fat and pat dry with a towel.

Seed tomatoes and dice. Let drain and set aside.

Toss washed butter leaf lettuce with dressing. Garnish with tomatoes and bacon.

Herbsaint-Scented French 75

With Beefeater gin and organic lemon juice

3 oz dry sparkling wine
1½ oz gin
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz simple syrup
Herbsaint

Rinse chilled champagne flute with Herbsaint or other anise-flavored liqueur. Combine gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and sparkling wine and stir with cracked ice until chilled. Strain into flute and garnish with lemon twist.

I liked the idea of the lemon juice and sparkling wine cutting the fat of the dressing and the bacon. I went with the Herbsaint because I thought it would pair well with the anise notes of the tarragon, and given that Herbsaint is one of the drier absinthe substitutes out there I think it pairs really well with this particular salad.

Try it for yourself and let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks for reading, and thank you for hosting, Natalie!

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: Food Pairings

I had originally planned on doing a post about one of my cocktails that uses orange bitters. However, I figured that many of my fellow internet drink dorks cocktail enthusiasts would be doing the same thing, so I decided to change it up a bit.

I hear a lot of positive feedback at work whenever I garnish a drink (I’m looking at you, Negroni) with one of my big orange ribbon twists. So, here’s a big first for me: an instructional video.

If you’re reading this in an RSS reader, you’ll have to come over to the site to see the video for yourself.

Enjoy, dorks friends!

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: Orange (Video)

But it’s a great idea: we’re all going to try out recipes that we’ve seen on each other’s sites, and report on our findings.

Because we’re bloggers.
And we have love.
Blog love.

Got it?

Originally, I wanted to pick up my very own iSi whipper and make Jimmy Patrick’s cassis foam as Jimmy’s skills have been a great source of envy for me for a long time, but I settled on something I’ve been keeping quiet about for a long time, the Bramble.

I learned about the Bramble from my friend George Sinclair’s website a few months ago, and I’ve been making them for a select few customers at the bar ever since. I like to call it “the best-kept secret in town”.

Here’s a little history from George:

The Bramble is a cocktail that has seen its way onto almost every UK cocktail bars menu, And although a correct recipe is not always used, it is still a testament to its excellence, of both flavour, and memorable naming, that others are continually trying to improve its simple formula.

Created in the mid-1980s by Dick Bradsell at Fred’s Club in Soho, London

So, in short, the Bramble exemplifies everything I strive to do with my cocktail menus. Time to rip it off!

The Bridgeport Bramble

I didn’t have a bottle of Plymouth gin on hand when I started exploring this drink, so I substituted Portland, Oregon’s own Aviation gin. It’s similar to Plymouth in its herbaceous nose and creamy mouthfeel, and since blackberries grow wild in Oregon, this seemed like a natural choice.

1.5 oz Aviation gin
.75 oz lemon juice
.5 oz simple syrup
.75 oz creme de mure (blackberry liqueur)

Shake the gin, lemon juice and simple syrup with cracked ice and strain into a double rocks glass. Top with crushed ice and gently float creme de mure on top. Garnish with a skewer of four wild, organic Oregon blackberries.

This post wouldn’t be complete with a fair amount of gushing on my part, so if you’re not already in-the-know, let me be the first to introduce you to George Sinclair, the Thinking Bartender. Now, I consider myself to be a cocktail history buff. I have a good-sized library of books (original editions of The Gentleman’s Companion and the South American Gentleman’s Companion, anyone?) and I consult them every time I’m looking to explore a new cocktail. But George puts my knowledge and adherence to classic methodologies to shame. His relentless quest for perfection stands, to me, as an ultimate goal and a reminder that while the cocktail renaissance here in the United States is just getting underway, it has been in full swing on the other side of the pond for a good long time.

So, thanks, George, and here’s to many more brilliant posts.

Oh, and check out Phil at Lamb Martini, who has a new-found love for the Richmond Gimlet, and Chris at Nonjatta who, through a trial-and-error process, discovered that a Tomato Daiquiri beats all other fruit daiquiris!

Thanks for hosting this one, Paul.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: The Bramble

I did some advance planning (a first) and started working on this recipe last month. The theme of this Mixology Monday is cocktails that use cream-based liqueurs, but I’m going to go out on a limb and show you how to make your own Irish Cream instead.

I cobbled this recipe together from a variety of online sources, and then tweaked the recipe to satisfy my palate and the palates of those I work with and serve. I think it’s a success.

Irish Cream

1 cup half-and-half
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1.75 cups Irish whiskey
1 ounce strong brewed espresso
1 ounce chocolate syrup
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract

Mix ingredients together, bottle and refrigerate. Should stay stable for at least a month.

Thanks to Anna at Morsels and Musings for hosting this month’s Mixology Monday – be sure to head over to check out her round-up of the other entries!

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: Cream

Since I manage a Latin-American restaurant bar, I have a special place in my heart for tequila. However, you don’t find too many drinks in the book other than margaritas, El Diablos, Brave Bulls, Dirty Mothers and tequila gimlets. Now, considering half those drinks are nasty, half never get ordered, and the other one is a margarita, I thought I’d come up with something else.

I’ve always liked the flavors that grapefruit contributes to silver tequila, and I had recently been playing with making my own grapefruit bitters. A silver tequila collins is one of my favorite summer coolers, so this seemed like a happy little marriage to me.

Santa Carla

I originally named this drink Santa Cruz after the city near where I grew up, but after checking the CocktailDB, I discovered that a Santa Cruz is a similar drink made with white rum. So I made like the producers of The Lost Boys and renamed it Santa Carla. Try making this one by the pitcher this summer. Sprigs of mint would make for a beautiful (and flavorful) garnish.

2 oz silver tequila (I’ve been using Corzo)
1 oz fresh lemon juice
.75 oz simple syrup
3 dashes grapefruit bitters

Build drink in a 14-ounce collins glass filled with ice. Top with sparkling water (I like to use San Pellegrino) and garnish with a lemon wheel and mint sprig (optional).

Thanks to the good folks over at My Bar, Your Bar for letting me participate in this, my first ever Mixology Monday!

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Mixology Monday: Tequila