Summit Sips » vodka

Creative Holiday Gift Ideas

Randy — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 02:00:54 +0000

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,

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Drink Of The Week: The Strawberry Barb

Randy — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 04:27:28 +0000

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 into pieces and place these into the jar. Then,

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Drink of the Week: Cinquecento

Randy — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 02:23:19 +0000

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 is that by definition, it’s a flavorless spirit. Now, I realize, some of you will

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Using Salt In Cocktails

Randy — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 01:15:04 +0000

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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Pumpkin Spiced Cocktail

Randy — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:40:55 +0000

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

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Drink of the Week: Vesper

Randy — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:35:48 +0000

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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Make Rhubarb-Infused Vodka

Randy — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 02:44:10 +0000

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

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Kentucky Wrap Up: Rain Vodka

Randy — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:47:51 +0000

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

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Drink Of The Week: St-Germain

Randy — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:59:15 +0000

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

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Homemade Cranberry Liqueur, Part 2

Randy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:23:06 +0000

If you are seeing this for the first time, be sure to check out Part 1 for the first half of the story.

Straining the cranberries

With that out of the way, I want to repeat that this was an experiment. Why am I saying this again? Well, I guess it’s because my final liqueur ended up a little different than I expected. So, without further ado, here’s the rest of the story:

Strain, Filter and Repeat Whether I am making a liqueur such as my limoncello, doing a vodka infusion, or experimenting with some other unusual homemade concoction, I find that investing a little more effort in the filtration pays dividends in the quality and often clarity of the final product. The cranberry liqueur was no exception. Continuing where I left off, the next step in this process was opening the infusion jar and pouring the liquid

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Homemade Cranberry Liqueur, Part 1

Randy — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:30:53 +0000

Well, it’s that time of the year when apples start to replace the tomatoes at farmer’s market. Last weekend, a vendor was selling bags of fresh cranberries, so I decided to try to get a jump on the holidays by creating a cranberry liqueur.

I want everyone to know that this is an experiment. While I have made lots of liqueurs in the past, I have not made one with cranberries. For this reason, I cannot post a complete recipe which is why this is only Part 1. I will describe my process in detail here now so you too can get started if you like. If you’d rather follow a completed recipe, there are plenty of them online. I even found a commercial product called Boggs Cranberry Liqueur, but it seems Boggs is no longer in business. So, in the spirit of trying new and exciting things, and

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Make Red Currant Infused Vodka

Randy — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 08:03:40 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, while strolling through the local grocery store a few blocks away, I decided to take a quick look at the fresh berries. Nestled between some raspberries and blueberries was thin row of little clear plastic boxes of a fruit I don’t see very often. I took a closer look and saw that they were red currants. Of course, I knew what these were—I have an antique botany lithograph hanging in my kitchen of this fruit. But how often do you see them fresh in the grocery store? Then it hit me: I need to infuse vodka with these little babies!

I shoved a pint under my arm and headed for the register. I figured if my version came anywhere near Absolut Kurant, I’d be happy. The first thing I needed to do was to wash and de-stem the berries. At first, it looked

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A Moscow Mule with Grapefruit?

Randy — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:44:06 +0000

Some of you who watch the reality cooking competition show called Top Chef may have been enjoying this season which takes place in Las Vegas. Yesterday’s Elimination Challenge pitted the men against the women to provide food parings with cocktail shots at a bachelor and bachelorette party. One of the shots was a Moscow Mule.

First of all, is the Moscow Mule a shot? I suppose it could be, if you served a small portion in a shot glass. By that logic, I suppose anything could be a shot. How about a Cosmopolitan shot, or a beer shot? Be that as it may, my question isn’t about the size of the drink but that it was made using grapefruit juice. It’s not that I don’t think it would taste good—on the contrary—I think it could be a good combination. I just don’t think it’s a Moscow Mule.

Recently

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Infusion confusion? Not at all!

Randy — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:34:27 +0000

One of the easiest and most rewarding techniques to personalize your liquor cabinet is to do an infusion. Unless you have been living in a dry county for the past 15 years or you just don’t get out much, you have probably seen the multitude of flavored spirits grow to a bewildering selection. Specifically, many vodka distillers have used flavors to diversify their product offerings and to dominate shelf space. However, some of the best infusions are those you make yourself.

Vodka as a starting point Vodka, by definition, is a neutral spirit. That means it is supposed to be flavorless. Some folks argue that all vodka taste the same while others maintain that differences—sometimes dramatic—can contribute flavor characteristics and affect smoothness. In any case, vodka makes a great starting point for customization because it will remain neutral, allowing your fruit, spices or whatever you are using to be

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