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It’s is a special time of the year when trees burst into life, flowers bloom and early produce pokes its way up from the soil. There is a promise of transformation as winter moves into summer, and the sun’s warmth allows May blossoms to forgive the cold, teasing showers of April. This year, spring came early to Minnesota, and although we don’t officially get started for another month, Farmer’s Market in St. Paul was already busy with excited vendors and shoppers. One of the items that often appears early in this part of the country is asparagus, so in honor of the early spring, we decided to take the opportunity to use some early fresh produce to kickoff the month with a cocktail we call the Malodor Shoots.
Almost everybody is familiar with the sweet scent of sulfur that graces the bathroom after consuming a plateful of asparagus and plenty
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Assorted Syrups
One of the best gifts you can give someone interested in cocktails is booze. You don’t even have to break the bank (although you might reconsider picking from the bottom shelf) because it doesn’t have to be the rarest or the most expensive item in the shop. Pick a decent base spirit and you really can’t go wrong. For example, there’s no such thing as having too much gin for classic cocktails, and who would turn away a nice bottle of whiskey or rum? Certainly not me, so if you want a no-brainer gift idea that will be used and appreciated, look no further. The problem with this approach is that a bottle of alcohol may not be the most personal or creative gift idea. It will work as a last resort, but you can do better!
If a bottle of booze is the baseline, or
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With so many spirits and liqueurs to try, it’s easy to forget about flavored vodka. After all, most of what you can buy can be easily replicated at home. If you are just getting into cocktails, infusing vodka with some of your favorite flavors is an easy way to develop a taste for more diversity as you challenge yourself to try new things. Yet, despite how simple it is to make flavored vodka, I don’t always consider it. Then rhubarb appears and I remember how delicious it can be!
You may recall from a previous post exactly one year ago that it doesn’t actually take much to get a decent infusion, so long as you are using fresh rhubarb. My results are much better this year because I am using crisp, fresh stalks—about five per quart jar batch. Chop them
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A Fizz—that sounds interesting, but sloe gin? Isn’t that the sickeningly sweet red stuff from from when you were young and didn’t know any better? Well, yes and no. And, that’s a problem we need to overcome if we are to restore this drink to its rightful place as a refreshing classic. To get there, we need to understand a few things about our base spirit. Sloe gin isn’t actually gin at all, or rather, it isn’t gin anymore.
It’s supposed to start as gin, but during an infusion of sloe berries (from the blackthorn bush, related to the plum), sugar is added and it slowly transforms into a liqueur. That seems straightforward enough. The problem is that American manufacturers have cheapened the process over the years to the point that most of what you find on shelves today isn’t even made with gin. Untold artificial flavors and too much
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Sometimes I feature classics, sometimes a riff, and once in a while it’s an exotic Tiki. There’s not really a pattern to the Drinks Of The Week here at Summit Sips, but I do think it’s important to understand classic recipes and techniques. Over the past year or so, some of the recipes (including a few that don’t fall upon a Thursday) required a little more preparation to pull them together. Such cases usually involved preparing some homemade ingredient. That can mean making a better version of something you can find on shop shelves, or sometimes it’s an opportunity to create your own version of an ingredient that’s impossible to find anywhere. This week, I want to feature a recipe that relies upon a basic infusion for the base spirit. It’s the Riviera cocktail by Toby Maloney, a popular favorite from The Violet Hour.
I
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If life on earth started in the sea, it might explain why most of us consider food “unseasoned” without a little salt. It’s one of our five (six) primary tastes and it’s fundamental in the culinary world. Yet, not many cocktails embrace this flavor. Perhaps drinks are meant to be refreshing and thirst-quenching—a characteristic that is incongruous with salt. However, if added in small amounts, salt can enhance other flavors just like it does with food. Margarita fans recognize that salt tastes great with lime and tequila. Also, some muddled ingredients such as cucumber will benefit by adding a scant pinch beforehand. But generally speaking, salt is largely ignored in cocktails with only a few exceptions here and there that incorporate it nicely. When it is used, it’s often crystals on the rim of the glass or sprinkles upon a drink’s surface as a garnish. But what if you want
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As some of you may have heard, the Town Talk Diner is now closed for business. It’s no secret that I considered Town Talk one of the best places to find good cocktails. So, when I heard the news, I decided to reach out to Nick Kosevich who was the front of the house manager there for several years. He has won numerous awards including the first annual Iron Bartender Competition in 2009 and was voted Best Bartender by City Pages in 2008. It’s fair to say Nick has been one of the most influential figures in transforming the local craft cocktail scene. Given his history with the restaurant, I wanted to find out his perspective on recent events.
Leaving a five-year gig at Palomino to work with Tim Niver and Aaron Johnson, both of whom he considers some of the best restauranteurs in the area, Nick helped open the
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So, maybe you never made the tonic, or perhaps limoncello isn’t your thing. Did you at least make simple syrup? Here’s a recipe for something that’s really easy. It’s a delicious ingredient for tropical cocktails that you can buy, but it’s hard to find and making it only takes minutes. Chances are, the flavor will be better and you’ll have fun doing it.
Falernum is an exotic rum-based liqueur from Barbados that is infused with flavors of lime and spices. The simplest recipe comes from Rick at Kaiser Penguin, but I added some toasted almonds to the mix. He breaks it down into two basic steps. First, you prepare the rum infusion that sits overnight. Then, you prepare a rich simple syrup. Strained and combined, your falernum is ready to use.
Falernum Infusion: 8 oz overproof rum (or any rum you like) 8 limes, zest only
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Every once in a while something that sounds crazy in a cocktail actually works, if you are open to the idea. One such concept is Bacon Infused Bourbon. It’s seems ridiculous at first, but when you consider sweet caramel and maple syrup flavors sometimes characterize a good bourbon, you start to think about breakfast and how a side of bacon tastes so good next to your pancakes! Does it still sound silly? Well, maybe if I break it down a bit, it will make a little more sense. What we are talking about is neither sweet nor sour, not salty or bitter—it’s the fifth fundamental flavor that the Japanese call umami.
Umami, or savoriness, is considered by eastern cultures as an important component of taste in their cuisine. It is the flavor produced by amino acids such as glutamate that we normally associate with beef, mushrooms or that “rich” character
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Last year I infused some vodka with rhubarb and it turned out so good that it was gone too quickly. In fact, I believe this was the fastest we went through an infusion ever. I’ve done everything from chili peppers and pineapple to coffee and vanilla, but the rhubarb is my favorite. This year, I decided to try it again and I let it go a little longer to see how the flavor intensified. It turns out that the flavor of rhubarb develops very quickly and after only one day you can see a its gorgeous pink tint and smell the effects. This time I let it sit over the long holiday weekend, and I think I have another winner!
Infusing vodka is about the easiest mixology adventure you can take, and a great way to get started thinking about the flavors you can achieve in a cocktail. To do
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