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 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 half of a lime cut
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 The name may not inspire you, but this drink actually surprised me. If you dig around in old cocktail books for this recipe you find that they are all different. Flipping through the pages of the Savoy, for example, you find a recipe that lacks the Applejack and has no citrus. It doesn’t sound like something I want to try. You can find versions that add brandy to the mix and even some with cream. One might specify lemon while another will call for lime. It seems that darn near anything that had a light pink hue was once called a Pink Lady—a name you could just pass by thinking it’s a girlie drink before you started comparing vintage recipes. Even Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh goes to great lengths in his Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails to avoid revealing the name of this drink until you turn the page. But looking
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 There’s a reason we have so many delicious cocktails that are related the the Manhattan. Because of its simplicity, the Manhattan formula lends itself to a variety of substitutions that can transform what is already a perfect classic into something unexpected and wonderful. It doesn’t happen every time, but when it does, it’s worth the effort. Here’s one example. When it was first created by Vincenzo Errico in 2004 at Milk & Honey in New York, the Red Hook which is named for the New York neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough quickly spun-off a number of variations from its admirers.
A Manhattan is typically two parts whiskey and one part sweet vermouth. It’s fair to say that the vermouth is the dominant flavor. Instead of vermouth, the Red Hook calls for the complex and bitter Punt e Mes. Even at half the volume, Punt e Mes exerts its personality
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 As far as I am aware, there’s nothing truly oriental about the cocktail this week. It appears in the Savoy, not some asian bar manual. It is accompanied by a story that mentions the Philippines—do we really believe that? It may be an early 20th century recipe, but unfortunately it’s not a very popular one. That’s a shame because it’s a decent drink.
I’ll try just about anything that has rye whiskey, especially if it also has sweet vermouth. But the Oriental also has lime and curaçao which takes the flavor in an unexpected direction. I guess that sorta makes it a Manhattan Sour.
Oriental 1.5 oz rye whiskey .75 oz orange curaçao .75 oz sweet vermouth .5 oz fresh lime juice
Add ingredients to a shaker with ice, shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino or brandied cherry.
Is it perfectly balanced? Not necessarily,
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When fresh cherries are in season, it’s time to make a delicious cocktail garnish. I have a strong opinion that you should take advantage of every opportunity to avoid using those glow-in-the-dark cocktail cherries you normally find on store shelves. Don’t be fooled by their unnaturally bright red coloring or their artificially preserved snappy texture. They are not fruit—the sad shells of what used to be cherries have been completely purged of real cherry flavor, totally robbed of natural color, only to be resurrected in a sinister soup of chemical syrups and artificial flavors and colors. They are the zombies of the preserved fruit world—Frankenstein’s monsters of the cocktail garnish tray. Of course, you can find good cocktail cherries, (I like to use Amarena cherries) but these options can be few and far between. The solution: just make your own.
I used to be a fan making spirit-soaked
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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
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 A few weeks ago, someone mentioned the Boulevardier cocktail in a comment. It’s a drink that I first read about in Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, and one I knew I would eventually feature as a Drink of the Week. There are so many drinks that can be described in terms of another one, and the Boulevardier is no exception.
Take a Negroni and substitute bourbon for the gin and you basically have a Boulevardier. But to put it like that, despite it being a wonderful and delicious libation, is to deny our cocktail its due. Long before most Americans would have even heard of Campari, this recipe appeared in 1927—some twenty years before the Negroni saw print. I might venture to argue that the Boulevardier is also the better drink. Now, I know some of you will take offense to that statement, but for those who
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 STEP.HEN, keepin' it real, Yo.
Imagine my delight to find out that my brother-in-law enjoys the exact same vodka martini that I do: Ketel One with a twist. It’s so simple that when I thought about posting something about it today for his birthday, I decided to take a more inspired approach—one with a few more “steps”.
Eleven months ago my wife and I visited the man of honor in San Francisco where there’s no shortage of great cocktails. During our visit, the better part of one evening was spent hanging out in the loft we rented, dancing and drinking Whiskey Sours. We also laughed about what our names might be if we were rap musicians.
Ok, so none of us is about to make it big in the music industry, but there’s no reason we can’t enjoy another cocktail dreaming about it, right? I decided to dedicate
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 We had some fun here at Summit Sips with the last post for Talk Like a Pirate Day. I hope you all gave that one a try, or at least gave talking like a pirate a try. Pirate grog, or Bumboo is pretty basic, and it’s probably easier on your throat than growling like Bluebeard all day. This week I decided to hang on to the nautical theme and feature something similar, only our Drink of the Week uses bourbon instead of rum. It also requires you to make Passion Fruit Syrup.
I’ve made plenty of flavored syrups in the past, but never passion fruit until recently. I could buy passion fruit syrup, but I held off because I wanted to make it myself. However, fresh passion fruit or its juice is pretty hard to find. It turns out, much of the passion fruit juice that’s out there is grape or apple
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 As the summer fades, here’s a wonderful cocktail to help you hang on to just a little more fun in the sun. It’s usually regarded as a Tiki drink which always reminds me of warm tropical places—as it should. However, instead of rum, this one has two base spirits: gin and bourbon. What could be better than that?
I love the name of this drink partly because it’s actually a nickname. Most cocktail gurus agree that this drink was once referred to as “My Suffering Bar Steward” which seems to recall a time before ice machines and soda dispensers. Imagine a poor, suffering assistant scurrying to and fro to keep the ice bin full and to retrieve ingredients for the barman. Plenty of drinks are named for the men behind the stick, but it’s not unreasonable to believe that in a loud, crowded bar, someone might fancy a misheard
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