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If you are a frequent reader of Summit Sips (and we really hope that you are!) you may have noticed that activity here has slowed down a bit lately. You may have also noticed that we recently made a long migration to the Pacific Northwest. Moving takes its toll on free time with a never ending list of projects. It's an unfortunate coincidence because we often have a lot to share at this time of the year. But now that we are finally getting settled, it's time to resume where we left off.
The Paddington cocktail is one that we have been meaning to make for a while. It comes to us by way of Jim Meehan's PDT Cocktail Book. This one was created by David Slape in the fall of 2008. It's another recipe that always makes the list of favorites from the book whenever you do a
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Nature is sometimes not without a sense of humor, or at least it appears that way when you consider the fact that citrus reaches its peak during the cooler months of the year. You might argue that the ideal time for lemonade or a refreshing Margarita comes during the hot summer months, but as far as the fruit is concerned, availability doesn't always represent quality. The best examples appear in October, November and so on. Refreshing sours are delicious when you are trying to beat the heat, but citrus season is just getting started when many of us would rather settle into a dark flavorful sipper to take the edge off a cool autumn breeze.
We tend to keep an eye out for white grapefruit when browsing the produce aisles of the supermarket. While the sweeter ruby variety is usually available year-round, the white
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For many people, September 19th is just an ordinary day. But for others, it is an anniversary or maybe even a birthday. Somehow, this day also became International Talk Like a Pirate Day. We've mentioned this in the past, and even wrote an entire post in pirate-speak. Today we are simply going to feature Navy Grog as our drink of the week.
There are as many Grog recipes as there are pirates with patched eyes. It seems that for every combination of rums there is some version of grog. One popular and historic Navy Grog calls for three types of rum: light Puerto Rican rum, dark Jamaican, and Demerara. It employs citrus in the form of lime and grapefruit juice and uses honey syrup to balance the sour.
Navy Grog 1 oz light Puerto Rican rum 1 oz dark Jamaican rum 1 oz Demerara rum
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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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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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You could slap a name on any unique combination of ingredients and call it an original cocktail, but if you create something from scratch that you want people to remember, the name can be pretty important. Of course, it also has to taste good, so by the time you're ready to pick the name, hopefully you've weighed your options. Memorable drinks of the past have celebrated geographical locations, an individual's name, and even popular events throughout history. If you want the name to stick, it helps if it's accompanied by a good story. As stories go, the one behind the Mexican Circus Tiger is pretty hard to beat.
This cocktail actually has two stories—mine, and that of the cocktail's creator. I'll start with mine since it's shorter and not as intersting. A few weeks ago, my wife and I found ourselves at Beaker & Flask, a fantastic cocktail bar
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We like vodka at Summit Sips. We really do. But over the years it hasn't shared as much of the lime light on these pages as other spirits. There are a few good reasons for that. One is that vodka was virtually non-exisitent in the US before the 1940s. As such, it's nearly impossible to find classic cocktails that use it because it doesn't appear in any of the old books. Of course, one can't ignore the the Moscow Mule, the Cosmopolitan, or even James Bond's Vodka Martini, but these are all relatively new ideas. Everything pre-prohibition would have contained gin, whiskey, brandy or rum; it may be hard to imagine, but vodka was unknown at that time.
Another reason vodka doesn't appear quite as often
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This week we finish up our short Caribbean series with a two-for-one daiquiri post.
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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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It's the last of the Halloween cocktails, and I am finishing with a good one, the Zombie. This is another Tiki classic, but like many others in its class, this drink is rarely made properly. There's a good reason for that: the drink's creator, Don the Beachcomber, kept his recipes a secret from the world believing his unique, tasty creations were vital to sustaining his business. Over the years, plenty of knock-off recipes have appeared, but the original remained a mystery until recently.
If there is an expert alive today that knows more about tiki mixology than anyone else, it's Jeff "Beachbum" Berry. His research, along with that of several others, has produced a growing compendium of tropical masterpieces along with a few surprises. One of these is the original Don the Beachcomber recipe for the Zombie which appeared in a New York Times article. The Beachbum acquired
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