Summit Sips

Drink Of The Week: Chartreuse Swizzle

Frost adorns the Chartreuse Swizzle

A good friend of mine has been reading a collection of short stories by PG Wodenhouse about a character named Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves. He came across a passage in the 1924 classic “The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy” in which Bertie recounts his experience at an exhibition at Wembley in North London. There, he is drawn to a Planter’s bar where a man is mixing an unusual West Indian cocktail. Without going into specific detail, he simply states that the drink contains seven ingredients:

“A planter, apparently, does not consider he has had a drink unless it contains at least seven ingredients, and I’m not saying, mind you, that he isn’t right. The man behind the bar told us the things were called Green Swizzles; and, if ever I marry and have a son, Green Swizzle Wooster is the name that

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Cocktail on a Stick

Artist's rendering of the elusive "baton lele"

There’s a class of cocktails out there called the swizzle. They can contain any variety of ingredients but are often rum-based with a “Tiki” flair. A swizzle can be a Punch or something more akin to a Daiquiri, but they are served with crushed ice and usually find their origin in the Caribbean. What sets the swizzle apart from a Julep, for example, is the preparation. This is truly a cocktail-on-a-stick!

The Swizzle Method I was a little skeptical at first, thinking that this is really just a primitive blender, but using the proper technique and the appropriate tool, it’s possible to get a nice coating of frost on your glass while you super-chill the contents. Basically, you dunk the spoked end of a stick into your iced cocktail and with the other end sticking up out of the glass, you rub it

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How to make Falernum

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 50 cloves 1

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Drink of the Week: Vesper

This week I want to keep it short and sweet. The Vesper, or as some call it, the Vesper Lynd, is a drink named after a Bond girl. In fact, it’s the only drink ever invented by a fictional character named after another fictional character. If this is all going over your head, the Vesper is the martini that James Bond orders in Casino Royale, and he later decides to name it after his love interest. Indeed, this is the drink that inspired the graphics for Summit Sips.

Vesper 3 oz gin 1 oz vodka .5 oz Lillet Blanc

Combine in a shaker, add ice and shake to chill. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a twist of lemon.

Bond eyes his vesper.

For a completely fictional set of circumstances, Ian Flemming created a cocktail that is actually pretty good. As martinis go, this is

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Punch Drunk

I wanted to write a few words about my experiments with Punch. As the tagline suggests, Summit Sips is about exploring the mysteries of mixology. Whether or not you like the word “mixology”, I don’t advocate consumption of alcoholic beverages to get “drunk”. I see it more as a culinary pursuit to find a balance of flavors and to pair ingredients in unique (or sometimes classic) ways. Semantics aside, there’s always the benefit of five o’clock refreshment, and sometimes the goal is to lubricate the social gears of a party to stimulate mingling and conversation. In any case, Punch is a great way to explore exotic flavor combinations.

Punch is a borrowed word from the Hindi panch which itself came from the Persian word paantch meaning five, to represent the five typical ingredients in this early beverage: alcohol, sugar, lemon, water and tea or spices. It was brought back

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Drink Of The Week: Aviation

I have been waiting all year to post this cocktail because I wanted to do so at an appropriate time. I was going to wait until the Wright brothers’ anniversary of flight at Kitty Hawk, NC but that won’t be until December. Thankfully, in 1939, Franklin Delano Roosevelt established August 19th (Orville Wright’s birthday) as National Aviation Day. You are all encouraged to observe the day with activities related to aviation, or in this case, the Aviation.

I doubt FDR’s intent was to promote an interest in cocktails, but it’s a very good excuse to post the Aviation as the Drink of the Week. To a cocktail enthusiast, every classic is important because of what it represents in the world of mixology. Whether it’s a brilliant use of spirits or a unique and successful pairing of ingredients; classics are often foundational. Recipes evolve, but many of them stand the

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Bacon Infused Bourbon

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”

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Drink Of The Week: Gin Red Basil Smash

I simply couldn’t let the summer slip by without featuring my favorite summer drink, the Gin Basil Smash, but this time with a twist. I mentioned this drink last year, but for our Drink Of The Week, it’s different; it’s better—it’s RED!

The Gin Red Basil Smash is a drink from Le Lion – Bar de Paris, in Hamburg, Germany. Jörg Meyer has featured both the red and green version at his bar, but I find that many people don’t even realize basil comes in a red variety. Inspired by the Whiskey Smashes that he enjoyed at the Pegu Club in New York, Mr. Meyer brought the classic smash technique back home with him to Germany where they tried it with gin. Adding basil almost as a joke, and later, writing about the cocktail, word got around. Soon, the drink was being served at bars all over Germany to

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Squeezing Fresh Citrus

Making a great cocktail takes time, and if you have tried to recreate any of the recipes here, you know that the results are worth waiting for. But, during those moments when you have a guest waiting, you need a plan that makes the most of your equipment, your space, and your time. Although technique is important from beginning to end, I believe the biggest challenge comes when using fresh citrus.

It’s not that squeezing citrus is a big problem. It isn’t. In fact, if you aren’t using fresh juice in your cocktails it is by far the best improvement you can make. Yet, the moment you do start squeezing fruit, you quickly realize that the additional steps can slow you down, and if you are just a little bit clumsy, can result in a sticky mess all over the work area. Not everyone has the perfect space for

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Drink of the Week: Dark and Stormy

There’s a good reason I am not referring to the Drink of the Week as a “Dark ‘n Stormy®”—I’m using “and” in my drink name because because the “n” version is a registered trademark owned by Gosling’s Brothers Limited, makers of Gosling’s Black Seal Rum. Gosling’s is made in Bermuda where the this is their official drink, but it’s actually popular throughout the British Commonwealth.

It’s certainly not a complicated drink by any stretch. The official version requires that you add 1.5 ounces of Gosling’s Black Seal rum to a tall glass of ice and top with their brand of ginger beer. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with doing that. Nothing wrong at all. In fact, this official recipe is both simple and delicious. Even if you can’t get your hands on Gosling’s brand of ginger beer, Reed’s is always available at Trader Joe’s, and I expect others would

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