Summit Sips

Drink of the Week: Cin Cyn

Randy — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:10:40 +0000

In some respects, our Drink of the Week was an inevitable recipe. It’s analogous to the primordial soup of amino acids that first coalesced to create life—given the right conditions, it was only a matter of time before tiny miracles started to happen. Now, imagine you are a bartender (or a famous Italian chef) mixing a classic cocktail, the Negroni, time and time again. One day, as you reach for your ingredients, instead of grabbing Campari, you pull out a bottle of Cynar. It’s an easy mistake—they were sitting right next to each other. Suddenly, you are experimenting with reckless abandon, swapping this for that and thinking, “Hey, this just might work!” Put a few good ingredients next to each other along with a basic formula for success and you are bound to create some tiny miracles of your own.

The Cin Cyn isn’t

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Drink Of The Week: Leapfrog

Randy — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:20:47 +0000

We don’t often review books on Summit Sips. Sure, there’s the occasional mention when we consider it worthwhile or when we give credit for an inspiring recipe, but by and large, when we write about mixology we tend to stick to the mixing and drinking part of the craft and not the reading. That’s not to say you shouldn’t bother with books. On the contrary—it’s important to familiarize yourself with all of the great resources that are available. Just a few weeks ago we broke stride and wrote about the locally authored North Star Cocktails. But of all the books we have collected over the years, it’s Jim Meehan’s PDT Cocktail Book that is quickly becoming our favorite.

The Leapfrog cocktail was created in the summer of 2007 and in December of 2008 it appeared in the New York Times. Eventually, it found a home in this wonderfully illustrated book

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Spotlight: Georgian Coupe from AMC’s Mad Men

Randy — Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:05 +0000

The Georgian line of glassware has a look that’s fancy without being over-decorated. The distinctive “disc” stem is easy to hold and is as functional as it is attractive. Perfectly sized, they boast a historic style that works well for classic cocktails served “up” and for champagne. The coupes even recently made an appearance on AMC’s Mad Men.

Georgian coupes as seen on AMC's Mad Men

Georgian Coupe, 6 oz. Click to view in the store.

The Georgian coupes are available in several sizes, but the best are the 5 ounce or 6 ounce. Summit Sips often has a small stock of both!

Click the images to go directly to the store.

To view past Spotlight items, Click here.

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Drink Of The Week: Albert Park Swizzle

Randy — Fri, 04 May 2012 04:42:56 +0000

Every few years the first weekend in May brings a conjunction of two events—the Kentucky Derby and Cinco de Mayo. On some occasions the two events coincide on the same day. There are spans of time when that doesn’t happen for over a decade, but every six years or so, May 5th lands on a Saturday. Each celebration is known for its respective cocktail. Derby Day’s official drink is the Mint Julep, and what could be better for celebrating Mexican heritage than a Margarita? Even if thoroughbreds aren’t your thing, it’s hard to deny the luxury of sipping a Julep on a hot day in May, but you can say the same thing about the Margarita. So what’s the solution? Make them both, right? In past years we have posted references and recipes commemorating one event or

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Drink Of The Week: Between The Sheets

Randy — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 05:13:21 +0000

Here’s a cocktail that combines two base spirits, brandy and rum. It’s a prohibition era recipe that takes inspiration from the Sidecar, a delicious and flavorful drink that was itself the predecessor to drinks like the Margarita. That puts us squarely in the sour family, though there are differing opinions about how sour you should make it.

Whenever we make a sour style cocktail we are combining something sweet with something acidic. Like the Sidecar, the Between The Sheets cocktail plays lemon juice against Cointreau, though the lemon plays a less prominent role in this drink. And that’s where documented recipes and opinions differ. Most references position the orange liqueur at a ratio equal to half that of the combined base spirits, but the amount of lemon juice tends to vary. There are recipes that call for a mere dash,

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New Feature: Spotlight on Vintage Glassware

Randy — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:18:02 +0000

Vintage Glassware Collection

One of the problems with modern cocktail glassware is size. A few manufacturers are doing it right, but by and large, if you shop the typical retail channels you still find giant (10 ounces!) cocktail glasses—and good luck finding any coupes. This presents a problem for the home mixologist. Big glasses don’t match smaller classic recipes, and over-sized portions that might fill them take too long to drink before losing their chill.

Summit Sips solved this problem long ago by ignoring the marketing at big box stores and saving our dollars for genuine antiques. It makes sense that glasses were once made for the drinks of their day, and perhaps this trend will return. But nothing is more fun than a classic cocktail served in vintage glassware. As our obsession with glasses grew we realized that everyone should have access to them. So, last July, we

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Spotlight: V-Shaped Cocktail Glasses

Randy — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:15:22 +0000

Here’s a fantastic set of v-shaped cocktail stems sized perfectly for classic recipes. Imagine serving your Martini, Vesper, or any “up” cocktail in one of these. This iconic style looks classy, but these are also practical. The solid stems will hold up to abuse and the rolled lip protects against chips. These integrate nicely with a mixed set of coupes, or build a matched set!

Click the image below to go directly to the store.

Click to view in the store

To view past Spotlight items, Click here.

Drink of the Week: El Presidente

Randy — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:19:10 +0000

It may be long overdue, but we are finally getting around to posting about the El Presidente cocktail. We mentioned this drink way back in November 2009 but never provided a recipe. That’s because it was one in a list of several classics you could make with grenadine and we placed our focus on a homemade recipe for this wonderful syrup. It’s been a while since we’ve touched on this ingredient, and even though the El Presidente contains just a tiny portion of the stuff, there are plenty of other great classics that employ pomegranate syrup to sublime effect. Of course, you have to use the real deal, not an artificially flavored bottle of corn syrup. It seems appropriate to briefly revisit the details.

The sad truth is that the most common store-bought brand of grenadine is excruciatingly bad for cocktails. It’s supposed to be a syrup based on real

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Drink of the Week: Derham Dollie

Randy — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 06:54:58 +0000

This week we are featuring a drink you probably cannot make at home. It requires a visit to Lynden’s Soda Fountain located in St. Paul, Minnesota. It’s not like us to feature a Drink of the Week without posting a recipe, so we will obviously tell you what’s in the Derham Dollie, but we are so excited about the opening of Lynden’s that we simply had to share the details with everyone. It’s not every day that an ice cream soda shop opens in your neighborhood!

Lynden’s Soda Fountain is located at 490 Hamline Avenue just south of Randolph. If you are familiar with the area you will recognize that they are in the space right next door to The Nook restaurant across from Cretin-Derham Hall. And what a space it is! The moment you step into Lynden’s it’s like being transported back in time. The long, gleaming white

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North Star Cocktails

Randy — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 23:36:44 +0000

One of the best ways to try new drink recipes is to visit your favorite craft cocktail bar and order something new and exciting off of their seasonal menu. If it’s not that busy, you’d also have an opportunity to discuss the details of your selection with the bartender—many of whom are quite happy to share their knowledge. It makes sense. An informed customer is more likely to order something interesting and share the experience with others, often returning as a regular with new customers. Another great way to learn about cocktails is to find them in books so you can make them at home. Plenty of books are perfectly suited for this and are worth your effort and expense. But what if you could find a book that revealed details about original drink recipes from your favorite bartenders—drinks you remember from past visits and either loved or never

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Drink of the Week: Widow’s Kiss

Randy — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 03:30:20 +0000

There’s still a bit of chill in the air even though we have probably seen the last of winter. Even with warmer days, it can cool down overnight, so this cocktail seems appropriate. We could have put more focus on eggs or family gatherings this week, but we like the rich and complex herbal flavors in this drink so much we decided not to wait any longer to post it, especially as we begin our journey into the warmer months.

So, while it’s still a bit cool outside, here’s a wonderful spirit-driven recipe that pulls together a couple of our favorite components and uses a base spirit we don’t see very often. Calvados is French apple brandy. In most respects it’s similar to Applejack, but it has a softer, more refined flavor. That’s probably a good thing in this drink because there is already plenty going on with the other

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Elder Rose

Randy — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 04:11:05 +0000

Yesterday, we had a bit of fun with our post like we did last year. Today we set aside the pranks to feature two St. Paul destinations related to an original impromptu cocktail. The first is a fantastic little shop on Grand Avenue called Golden Fig, one of the Twin Cities’ top prepared fancy food shops. We use their their Vanilla Rose Syrup as inspiration for a cocktail based on a classic sour formula with a few twists. But, of course, we can’t really take credit for the recipe which leads us to our second St. Paul destination, Meritage. In addition to a delicious menu and great happy hour specials, Meritage calls itself “a little slice of Paris” and happens to be host to some of the best craft cocktails in downtown St. Paul. We were treated to this recipe by Rob Jones, the

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The Malodor Shoots

Randy — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 17:07:24 +0000

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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Drink of the Week: Champs Élysées

Randy — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:26:27 +0000

Here is an excellent tipple to add to your weekend repertoire. You might have seen this one appear on the menus at some of your favorite craft cocktail bars recently even though it’s more than 80 years old. It dates at least as far back as Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book. This is one of those rediscovered recipes that seems to have legs—bars that were once excited about the Aviation and later, the Last Word are putting this drink into rotation. And they should, because this is a wonderful cocktail.

Of course, the Champs Élysées name is a reference to the fashionable tree-lined avenue in Paris, possibly because of the French ingredients. Certainly, a good French Cognac is going to help the flavor of this drink to a point, but spending too much on the base

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Barrel Aged Cocktails Part 2

Randy — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 19:54:35 +0000

Click here for Part 1 to find out how this started.

Several weeks ago we featured a technique involving oak barrels and batched cocktails. In that post we described some of the details to help anyone get started aging their own cocktails in barrels. After many weeks of anxious anticipation (and a few sips along the way) we are finally able to share our results. Was it worth the wait? Are the cocktails really that good after sitting in charred oak barrels for over a month? Should you try this yourself? In a word, absolutely positively beyond-a-doubt YES.

You can see from the images that we reused empty bottles from the original base spirits and decorated them with the taped-on paper labels we made for the barrels while they were aging. We probably should grab a marker and write the dates that the barrels were opened

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Drink of the Week: Painkiller

Randy — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 01:25:44 +0000

We don’t post enough tropical Tiki rum drinks on Summit Sips. It’s not intentional—it just works out that way. With winter behind us now and the magnolias in bloom, we thought it might be nice to catch up on a classic that we mentioned back in April of last year. We may not be quite ready to kick off our sandals and relax in the luxurious sunshine, but this string of 70-degree days and thundershowers has us thinking maybe we should get few summer recipes prepared. The Painkiller is a perfect drink to put on the summer menu, and unlike a lot of Tiki tranquilizers, this one is easy to make.

In order to make the Painkiller, you need to gather a few ingredients, but it’s not nearly as difficult as you might think. First and foremost, you need coconut cream. Don’t worry, we aren’t

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Garnish

Randy — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:40:54 +0000

Over the past couple of years we’ve discussed recipes, spirits, commercial and homemade ingredients, technique and even our favorite tools—but a subject we haven’t spent a lot of time on is the cocktail garnish. We’ve shared a few details as recipes required, but we thought it might be helpful to compile a list of terms and techniques so our readers have a place to go for reference and suggestions. After all, the garnish is part the cocktail. Sometimes there’s flexibility and other times skipping or changing it can make or break the recipe. Why Garnish? It’s important to understand the reasons for a garnish because it will help you recognize when you might be able to get away with an adjustment versus those times when it’s absolutely crucial to nailing a recipe’s intended flavor profile. You may decide you cannot make a particular

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Drink of the Week: Algonquin

Randy — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 21:30:04 +0000

Named for the Algonquin Hotel on 42nd street in New York, this cocktail gained popularity after Prohibition as the hotel became known for the regular lunch gathering of Alexander Woollcott, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx and others. It’s still served at the hotel today, but you don’t have to go there to try one. Nor do you have to be a member of an exclusive roundtable lunch group. It’s a breeze to make and the ingredients are easy to find.

Algonquin 2 oz rye whiskey 1 oz dry vermouth 1 oz pineapple juice

Stir with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

According to David Wondrich, this drink is even better with a few dashes of orange bitters. He recommends Fee Bros. West Indian but also suggests using a squeeze of orange peel. There’s definitely an improvement with the extra kick of orange, but you also have to pay

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Drink of the Week: Toronto

Randy — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:00:18 +0000

The Toronto combines two things we love: rye whiskey and Fernet-Branca. Some accounts suggest that this drink was originally made with Canadian whisky which makes sense, especially considering that it’s called the Toronto cocktail. But there’s more to love when you make it with rye. We haven’t written too much about Canadian whisky. It’s a popular spirit, to be sure, represented by a multitude of brands in most liquor shops. We have nothing against the smooth flavor of Canadian whisky, but there’s a reason it doesn’t appear very often in recipes.

Canadian whisky (spelled without the “e”) is a blended product. Blended in this context refers to a spirit made by combining a pure distillate with neutral alcohol. For example, Laird’s Applejack comes in two varieties, a pure, bonded apple brandy and a blended version. The bonded Applejack is made entirely from distilled cider wine, whereas the blended version contains

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Mimosa

Randy — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:30:29 +0000

There’s nothing wrong with documenting the hunt for odd ingredients or describing exploits in the glass. We’ve waxed poetic about Italian bitters, extolled the virtues of herbal liqueurs, and even promoted the benefits of exotic rum. And while we may not inspire every reader to expand their liquor cabinet or cocktail repertoire, we continue to build a foundation of information that anyone can appreciate. It’s easy to get completely carried away with stuff many folks can’t find or won’t even try, so as much as we like the unusual and obscure, nothing gets us more excited than revealing details about something that is common, whether it’s mixing up delicious homemade ingredients, borrowing

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Drink of the Week: Leap Year

Randy — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:40:07 +0000

If we didn’t post something about this cocktail today we would have to wait four more years to get excited about it again. And you know what? It’s not a bad drink. Not at all. It comes to us by way of the Savoy Hotel in London. It was created by none other than Harry Craddock, author of the famous Savoy Cocktail Book. Craddock supposedly created it on February 29th back in 1928—exactly 84 years ago today—in order to celebrate Leap Day, although it would be another couple of years before the recipe saw print. We have seen 20 such days come and go since then, and today we have one more. Raise your cocktail to Harry Craddock and celebrate the 21st Leap Year since it’s creation.

Leap Year 2 oz gin .5 oz Grand Marnier .5 oz sweet vermouth .25 oz lemon juice

Stir with ice and strain

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Drink of the Week: Pendennis Club

Randy — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:21:26 +0000

Here’s a simple little cocktail that takes a bunch of ingredients we’ve described before and combines them into an unexpected party of flavors. Pooling dry gin with lime, liqueur and bitters isn’t new. We have seen this formula before with the Pegu Club cocktail, but the Pendennis is different. It’s—dare we say it—(sorry Doug) ~~better?~~ more interesting. To be fair, we can’t count how many times we’ve said that one recipe or another was our favorite. Ask us our favorite cocktail and we will probably ask you what base spirit you had in mind. So let’s give credit where credit is due and call this a Pegu Club variant, but one you really must try.

And like the Pegu Club which was named for the historic English gentleman’s club in Burma, this one references a similar establishment located in Louisville, Kentucky. The

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Barrel Aged Cocktails

Randy — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:39:31 +0000

All the cool kids are doing it, so Summit Sips couldn’t wait any longer. We just had to try our hand at barrel-aged cocktails. It sounds like a lot more work than it is, but of all the things we’ve tried, plenty of homemade ingredients and ice experiments have been a lot harder than putting cocktails into barrels. There’s absolutely no reason you can’t do this yourself, and that’s part of the appeal. Using simple techniques that anyone can master to create amazing, original results is exactly why we write this blog.

You may remember a post from way back when we first visited Portland, Oregon. A couple of drinks at Clyde Common were aged in oak barrels, a technique being pioneered at that time by Jeffrey Morgenthaler. A few months prior to our visit, he posted a short

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Drink of the Week: Iron Cross

Randy — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:21:09 +0000

Scan the liquor cabinet for base spirits and you might find a sad bottle of pisco that always seems to squeeze itself into the darkest corner. That’s a shame because there’s nothing actually wrong with pisco—it’s just that there are only a handful of cocktails you can find that use it. Of course there is the Pisco Sour plus old references to Pisco Punch, but aside from a few recipes that pair this clear brandy with Galliano, you just don’t see folks using it much. Just because recipes don’t exist in abundance doesn’t mean it’s not popular. The Pisco Sour is a fantastic drink and depending on what part of the world you are in, it can even be the most important cocktail on the menu. Having already covered it some time ago, we decided there’s no reason it can’t be used as

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Drink of the Week: Oliveto

Randy — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:55:46 +0000

Over the past couple of years we have listed some of the best places in the Twin Cities to get a great cocktail. Although we firmly believe that the top of that list should be your very own home, it’s not always convenient to invite friends over or to make drinks for large groups. Knowing how to make a few great recipes is one thing, but having all of the ingredients to make anything or to try something new is something else. Even the best home bartender can learn a lot by watching the experts. It’s also nice to have someone else take care of everything for you from start to finish. Although such places don’t always last forever, a professional commitment to skillfully crafted drinks seems to be a growing trend, not just in

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Happy 2012

Randy — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 02:00:29 +0000

After a short time off, we’re back! We hope you are all enjoying 2012. It has been an odd winter in the Twin Cities and perhaps the weather has been inconsistent in other places too. But no matter what’s going on outside, for the past two years running, Summit Sips has been dancing to a Drink of the Week every single week just in time for the weekend. Keeping that kind of momentum has been a blast even if it wasn’t always convenient, but we have certainly enjoyed the break. We will continue the spirit of the Drink of the Week going forward, even if our cadence shifts to a more manageable rhythm.

Something we have never really done here at Summit Sips is a retrospective compilation. We may be out of step with most of the “New Year’s Best Of” lists given that we are more than several

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Drink of the Week: Anodyne

Randy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 06:08:10 +0000

The Anodyne Cocktail—for whatever ails you. The name means something that alleviates or eliminates pain, so I guess it could apply to any drink, but in this case it was chosen for a medicinal combination of ingredients first tried by Wesley Moore in 2009 when it appeared on Chuck Taggart’s Looka! Gumbo Pages weblog. According to Chuck, the cocktail was inspired by the Perfect Martini which is a Martini made using equal portions of both sweet and dry vermouth.

The first thing you might notice is that this drink doesn’t use a typical sweet vermouth, nor a typical dry one. It wouldn’t be very innovative if it did. Instead, the substitutions are far more interesting and the proportions are such that they setup a wonderful balance between them. As simple as it sounds, it’s much more than a basic substitution riff. What we have with the Anodyne is another

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Drink of the Week: Volcano Bowl

Randy — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 03:28:40 +0000

I have to start with a word of caution. If you decide to make this Drink of the Week including it’s fiery presentation, proceed carefully. I have always been an advocate of responsible drinking and although that applies here too, there’s no reason to come this far only to let your hair catch on fire! That being said, there are alternatives if you don’t have the proper bowl or if you want to avoid the flames altogether. We’ll get to that, but first, let’s talk Tiki.

Over the years there have been several “bowl” style drink recipes that, for me, epitomize the laid-back attitude of tropical consumption. While I enjoy an outlandish ceramic Tiki mug filled with exotic juice and rum as much as the next beach bum, I also appreciate the idea that sometimes a drink is just so big (or so strong) that it needs to be shared

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Drink of the Week: Cherry Caiprissima

Randy — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 05:48:56 +0000

Muddling cherries and lime

This drink of the week is pretty easy to pull off. It’s a Caiprissima, which is like a Caipirinha only it uses rum instead of cachaça, and of course, this one also has cherries in it. According to my notes, I saw this somewhere back in June so it’s probably a summer drink. It’s been raining in December around here, so a summer drink sounds like a good drink in my book. This Caiprissima variation was created by Meaghan Dorman of Raines Law Room, Manhattan. If you are familiar with the Caipirinha, you know the drill—just use rum and throw in some cherries!

The process goes something like this: Take some pitted cherries and drop them into a shaker. Add your simple syrup (or just a couple spoons of sugar if you prefer) and muddle them into oblivion. Drop in

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Scotch Selection for 2011

Randy — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:35:53 +0000

It’s that time of the year again when my wife and I choose a bottle to add to our collection of Scotch whisky. Over the years we have pulled together a small selection of single malts—a process that continues to work well for us. We don’t drink a lot of Scotch throughout the year so bottles tend to last a long time. Rather than stocking a cabinet all at once, this technique allows us to be more selective as we slowly build an inventory without feeling the expense all at once.

In past years we have often tried to add bottles from distilleries familar to us by choosing a special bottling or a distiller’s reserve, but this time our apporoach was influenced by a series of events that we first read about in the New York Times. An article published back in July chronicled the story about how three cases

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