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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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Assorted Syrups
One of the best gifts you can give someone interested in cocktails is booze. You don’t even have to break the bank (although you might reconsider picking from the bottom shelf) because it doesn’t have to be the rarest or the most expensive item in the shop. Pick a decent base spirit and you really can’t go wrong. For example, there’s no such thing as having too much gin for classic cocktails, and who would turn away a nice bottle of whiskey or rum? Certainly not me, so if you want a no-brainer gift idea that will be used and appreciated, look no further. The problem with this approach is that a bottle of alcohol may not be the most personal or creative gift idea. It will work as a last resort, but you can do better!
If a bottle of booze is the baseline, or
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With so many spirits and liqueurs to try, it’s easy to forget about flavored vodka. After all, most of what you can buy can be easily replicated at home. If you are just getting into cocktails, infusing vodka with some of your favorite flavors is an easy way to develop a taste for more diversity as you challenge yourself to try new things. Yet, despite how simple it is to make flavored vodka, I don’t always consider it. Then rhubarb appears and I remember how delicious it can be!
You may recall from a previous post exactly one year ago that it doesn’t actually take much to get a decent infusion, so long as you are using fresh rhubarb. My results are much better this year because I am using crisp, fresh stalks—about five per quart jar batch. Chop them
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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 considering the momentum surrounding classic mixology these days
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If life on earth started in the sea, it might explain why most of us consider food “unseasoned” without a little salt. It’s one of our five (six) primary tastes and it’s fundamental in the culinary world. Yet, not many cocktails embrace this flavor. Perhaps drinks are meant to be refreshing and thirst-quenching—a characteristic that is incongruous with salt. However, if added in small amounts, salt can enhance other flavors just like it does with food. Margarita fans recognize that salt tastes great with lime and tequila. Also, some muddled ingredients such as cucumber will benefit by adding a scant pinch beforehand. But generally speaking, salt is largely ignored in cocktails with only a few exceptions here and there that incorporate it nicely. When it is used, it’s often crystals on the rim of the glass or sprinkles upon a drink’s surface as a garnish. But what if you want
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A few weeks ago, I received an email from a reader seeking ideas for a pumpkin cocktail. Kim Reynick, a friend of my brother’s who lives in San Francisco, was putting together a cocktail menu for an upcoming event and wanted to feature a pumpkin drink for guests. After exchanging a few emails discussing some options, she came up with a recipe that I wanted to share with everyone.
Inventing a cocktail completely from scratch can be a challenge, especially when there are specific constraints. Often, time is your biggest enemy, preventing you from testing long infusions or obtaining hard-to-find ingredients. Other times it’s the guests themselves that pose the greatest challenge. You could create something mind-blowing and unique, but it has to have crowd-appeal if it’s going to be a success at an event. If boozy flavor profiles, bitter aperitifs and esoteric liqueurs might alienate your guests, you would
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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. For a completely fictional set of circumstances, Ian Flemming created a cocktail that is actually pretty good. As martinis go, this is an
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Last year I infused some vodka with rhubarb and it turned out so good that it was gone too quickly. In fact, I believe this was the fastest we went through an infusion ever. I’ve done everything from chili peppers and pineapple to coffee and vanilla, but the rhubarb is my favorite. This year, I decided to try it again and I let it go a little longer to see how the flavor intensified. It turns out that the flavor of rhubarb develops very quickly and after only one day you can see a its gorgeous pink tint and smell the effects. This time I let it sit over the long holiday weekend, and I think I have another winner!
Infusing vodka is about the easiest mixology adventure you can take, and a great way to get started thinking about the flavors you can achieve in a cocktail. To do
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Up on the column of the Rain Vodka still.
I thought I would post a final wrap up regarding my recent trip to Kentucky. I know everyone out there has been clicking “refresh” waiting for the next posts, so I figured a nice conclusion was probably in order. I also wanted to say a few words about another product I brought back home with me from the Buffalo Trace Distillery.
It’s one thing to take a long weekend and go for a drive. It’s something else to set a destination that is 4 states away and takes a full 24 hours to get there and back. Yet, despite the long time spent behind the wheel, Louisville is definitely within reach by car from the Twin Cities. I know the area has a lot more to offer visitors than we had time to see but we focused on the Click here and take a bigger gulp of this article. . .
This week, I am doing something a little different. I will give you the recipe for a cocktail to enjoy, but St-Germain isn’t the name, it’s an ingredient. Although it has been around for a few years now, I find that most people have still never heard of it—unless you are a cocktail geek like me.
So, what is this St-Germain stuff? Magic Elixir? Nectar of the Gods? Secret potion? Actually, you might say it’s all of the above. St-Germain is a new liqueur made from fresh elderflower blossoms. The elder, or more specifically, the European Black Elder grows throughout Europe, northwest Africa and southwest Asia. From the foothills of the Alps, the spring flowers are hand-picked and brought to the distillery where a secret process is used to extract their essence. The production of the liqueur combines old world techniques and ingredients with new processes that ensure quality and consistency.
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Antique/Vintage Store Spotlight:
 Decorated Coupe, Grapes Pattern, Fluted Bowl |
 Goblet, Deep V-shaped Cut Crystal Stem |
 Decorated Coupe, Rye Pattern, Flared Rim 7 oz |
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