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If you’ve ever had the pleasure to enjoy the culinary mastery of Chef Lenny Russo at the Heartland Restaurant in St. Paul, you might have also enjoyed an inspired beverage from their cocktail menu. It’s great to see that a kitchen capable of churning out an ever-changing array of local, seasonal masterpieces doesn’t completely overshadow its small but interesting list of mixed drinks. With names like the Jerry Thomas, Cardinal Kiss, and the Violet Beauregarde, there’s plenty to keep your interest. I also appreciate the fact that they feature a classic Negroni, an Amaro Manhattan and a collection of ingredients that combine unusual liqueurs, bitters, and distilled spirits from the local region.
But, the cocktail that seems to evoke the most curiosity may also be the simplest. The Rural Juror isn’t exactly a tongue-twister, but it’s impossible
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Ever since it appeared in the March/April 2008 edition of Imbibe Magazine, I have wanted to make the Edgewood by Greg Best, Holeman & Finch, Atlanta. I am not sure why I delayed. Perhaps it was because I rarely buy grapefruit, or maybe I was just waiting until I could get my hands on the right vermouth. In any case, I finally mixed one up tonight and as I expected, it’s a decent drink. The ingredients are not so obscure that it would prevent you from tracking them down, and even if you run into trouble with one thing or another, you can always make a few substitutions and still come away with a solid cocktail. I went ahead and made two versions (it was happy hour after all) and both worked nicely.
The Edgewood by Greg Best 1.5 oz dry gin 1 oz grapefruit juice .5 oz Punt e
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The Great Minnesota Get-together It’s that time of the year again when Minnesotans make their annual trip to the State Fair. It sounds so old fashioned, but if you live in the Twin Cities, you already know that folks around here take it very seriously. It’s not all pigs and agriculture, although they have that too. I tend to keep my distance from anything that smells like a barn, but it’s either that or the deep fat fryers. Everyone seems to enjoy something different at the Fair, and some of us just look forward to all of the food. Old habits die hard. For instance, every year, I make my way to Sweet Martha’s Cookies where I buy a bucket and walk it over to the “all the milk you can drink” stand. And every year, someone in the crowd says, “Whoa, what a great idea—chocolate chip cookies and
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David Wondrich calls it “New York’s answer to the Sazerac.” If you’re a fan of that drink, you probably know that it comes from New Orleans. A true cocktail in the original definition of the word, the Sazerac features whiskey, sugar, water and bitters, plus a little absinthe—a fantastic classic. And since New York was originally a Dutch colony, it makes sense that their version would involve gin—but not just any gin. If we stay true to the period in which this was created, that gin would have been Dutch genever. It would be fair to call this the Improved Holland Gin Cocktail.
Not long ago, we explored genever in the Bols Alaska cocktail, so here’s another fun way to use it. If you’ve been thinking about adding genever to your cabinet, let me tell you,
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Some time ago I wrote about St-Germain, the wonderful elderflower liqueur with a unique, fruity and floral flavor. Armed with this exciting new liqueur that showed so much promise, I felt that there was simply no end to the many ways it could be used successfully in a cocktail. However, since that time, most of the drinks I see on bar menus are variations on the original sparkling wine and vodka theme. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a nice way to use the stuff, but every time I see someone doing something unusual or unique with St-Germain, I take note. I am not alone. Jamie Boudreau created a growing list of St-Germain cocktails that all sound pretty interesting. Another fellow blogger and respected writer, Paul Clarke even posted one of his own experiments, wondering if his combination had been “done yet”. I tried
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One of the ways I like to keep momentum going at Summit Sips is to post a different cocktail recipe every week. If you follow this site via RSS feeds, Twitter or Facebook, that’s probably why you are here now. I don’t know if everyone out there appreciates it or not, but I also like to build upon the knowledge and ingredients I have described in previous posts. This is especially handy when I can refer back to something homemade. This week, I am featuring the Gin Gin Mule, a delightful cocktail for summer created by Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club in New York. My version of the recipe is translated to make use of homemade ginger syrup. You might be surprised how easy it is to make your own fresh sodas with fruit juice and syrups, and ginger beer is a perfect example. So, if you still haven’t Click here and take a bigger gulp of this article. . .
Here’s a cocktail that goes back to 1933. According to Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, it comes from an old pamphlet. As it’s presence in Haigh’s book confirms, the Communist is more of a forgotten cocktail than a classic, although with this name I am surprised it’s not well known. I suppose it might have been unwise for patrons to enthusiastically call out, “I’ll have a Communist, please!” if they wanted to avoid more than just a some strange looks over the years.
Since we are no longer living in the McCarthy era, I think it’s worth the effort to try making this. It’s also another good reason to get some Cherry Heering which may not appear as often as other liqueurs, but shows up in some fantastic drinks like the Singapore Sling and the Click here and take a bigger gulp of this article. . .
With well over a century under its belt, the Bijou cocktail already enjoys a long history. Yet, even though most bars will have all of the ingredients, you probably won’t find many bartenders that know how to make it—despite how simple it is. If you make a few cocktails yourself, you too might already have what you need. The most challenging part is getting your hands on some Green Chartreuse. If you don’t already have reason enough to own a bottle, here’s one more. Today, our Drink of the Week makes another wonderful excuse to own some, and for me, it represents the perfect all-spirit cocktail to transition into spring.
Bijou means “jewel” in french, and looking at the images of this cocktail, you can understand why it was called by that name. The recipe appears early in
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As any regular reader will attest, I am a fan of classic cocktails. It would be hard to write these posts if that were not the case, since even contemporary combinations usually find their roots if not their inspiration from the classics. I especially love it when fantastic flavors result from simple recipes. When such a recipe also happens to be versatile enough to yield multiple delicious variations—the cocktail is, well, the Bee’s Knees.
Tracing this drink’s origin puts it somewhere in the middle of Prohibition. It first appears in print in Bill Boothby’s World Drinks and How to Mix Them published in 1934. Sometimes called the Honey Bee, or the Honeysuckle, the basic format is a gin sour that balances the lemon with honey instead of sugar or simple syrup. Boothby’s version also had a spoonful of orange juice, but that disappeared from other references. The extra kick of
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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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Antique/Vintage Store Spotlight:
 Coupe, Knobbed Stem 7 oz |
 Coupe, Tall Faceted Stem 9oz |
 Irish Coffee Mug |
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