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Sometimes we have to make tough decisions. For example, Derby Day or Cinco de Mayo? As a friend of ours recently said, you don't really have to make that choice—you can have a Mint Julep in the morning and Margaritas all day long! It's good advice, but instead of focusing on Kentucky or Mexico, we decided to break from tradition and feature a cocktail invented in Portland, Oregon with influences all the way from Argentina.
La Yapa is a wonderful whiskey cocktail based on a sour formula with a complex flavor profile. It was created by Jamal Hassan during his tenure at Whey Bar, boozy companion to Portland's Ox restaurant. Ox cuisine is Argentinian inspired, so it stands to reason that the cocktail program would have similar influences. More than one cocktail on the menu
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Anyone with a sustained interest in cocktails inevitably collects a few books. Some of us find pleasure in the obscure, letting a beat-up vintage tome transport us to another place and time. Such was the case last holiday season when we were presented a gift of several old cocktail volumes. One of them entitled Prelude to Pleasure by Ogden Nash was published in 1934 as a 1000 copy limited edition for the Continental Distilling Corporation of Philadelphia. What made this book so intriguing wasn't the poetry or the dated photos and kitschy line art—it was the handwritten recipe on the last page.
The rest of the book confirms some delightful classics that appear in other publications, but we wanted to know more about this personal notation. The book was purchased in a used bookstore in St. Paul, Minnestota, and a little research reveals that a Charles Nybeck did indeed live
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To change it up a bit this week, let's try an "inverted" post for our Drink of the Week. We'll give you the recipe and a photo. Then, it's your turn. You make the cocktail and tell us what you think in the comments! How about it?
We will say just a few things to get the conversation started. First, the Monte Carlo is a classic cocktail in the truest sense: spirits, sugar, water and bitters. In this case, a little license is given in that water/sugar takes the form of DOM Benedictine which will definitely add some interest to the whiskey. Think of a Manhattan, only instead of sweet vermouth, you have Benedictine. Now, go forth and try one, then let us know what you think in the comments below:
Monte Carlo 2 oz rye whiskey .5 oz Benedictine 2 dashes Angostura Bitters
Stir with ice. Strain into a
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Here's a nice cocktail to drink while curled up next to the fireplace. It's big and bold, salty and sweet, and a little bitter too. You could say it's everything but sour. It comes by way of Marvel Bar's Pip Hanson and appears in both The American Cocktail book and Northstar Cocktails. During the colder, darker months, it's hard not to get excited about cocktails like this one. It's also pretty easy to make for how complex it tastes, and it uses an ingredient we've never featured on Summit Sips until now.
The unusual ingredient is Nocino (no-CHEE-no), a dark Italian walnut flavored liqueur made from unripe green walnuts. The flavor is sweet, luscious and deeply nutty, but often still high in alcohol. We were first introduced to it a couple years back at the Bradstreet Crafthouse where it plays prominently in their Black Walnut Old Fashioned, a
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Some of you may recognize the name of this cocktail as another Brooklyn neighborhood. That's because it's one of the variations of the Brooklyn cocktail, one of several modern recipes following the tradition of the Red Hook. We have already covered that and the Greenpoint and there are still many more to enjoy. All of them are essentially Manhattan variations using rye as the base, but they each have their own twist, swapping one liqueur for another or exploring something creative with the vermouth.
This one takes the somewhat unusual approach of using dry vermouth instead of sweet. It was created by Chad Solomon, once a bartender at New York's Milk & Honey. The result is a lovely golden gem of a cocktail that remains true to the style.
So, here's the thing with this drink. It's strong.
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There aren't a lot of cocktails that feature Scotch as the base spirit, and because of that, you don't find very many here at Summit Sips. Over time, we'll slowly add to the list, but it's not the easiest spirit to pair with other ingredients. Besides, most folks that have Scotch like it the way they like it—on the rocks, neat, with water, etc.—and may not be interested in messing with their own personal traditions. Of course, that never stopped us. Let's see, we have the recent Saw Tooth, which is a wonderful way to use watermelon (who would have thought!), the Blood and Sand, an excellent classic, and there's the London Sour for a little Tiki action. But the most common cocktail is probably the Rob Roy, something we have never featured. That's
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Here's a great and somewhat unusual cocktail for those of you looking for a spirit-driven tipple that's a bit out of the ordinary. It comes by way of Ben Dougherty of Seattle's Zig Zag Café. It contains equal portions of bourbon, dry sherry and Ramazzotti, with a splash of Cointreau and a couple dashes of o-bits. Wait. Back up. Ramazzotti? I guess we couldn't slip that one past you. Like we said, this drink is a bit unusual, so it stands to reason that it might include an odd ingredient.
So, bourbon—no problem. Sherry isn't that common in cocktails but it's not unheard of. Cointreau and orange bitters—easy. But what's with this Ramazzotti? Actually, it's not that hard to find. It's another Italian Amaro, or potable bitters that happens to be a lovely aperitif. This one comes from Milan and it's not very bitter at
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It's one of several drinks by this name which shouldn't be too surprising. Plenty of cocktails are inspired by sporting men, the sports themselves and often the events that bring them all together. One of the more popular venues in bourbon country is the Kentucky Derby where the Mint Julep is king, but it's not the only thing worth trying. At least that's what somebody thought way back when this was invented.
This version comes to us from Trader Vic, but it also appears in Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh's Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. It's presented here as our Drink of the Week not because we recently watched the Belmont Stakes which reminded us of Churchill Downs, but because we read somewhere that it's Bourbon Day. We're not exactly sure this is an official holiday, but it's a good enough reason to mix up
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We have been enjoying the second season of Boardwalk Empire, the HBO television show set in Atlantic City during Prohibition. On the show there is a character played by Dabney Coleman who is called the Commodore. This reminded us of a cocktail we mentioned a few years ago. We suggested it as a classic recipe you could try that makes use of homemade grenadine, but we never actually reviewed the drink itself.
Whether you like the TV series or not, this is a delicious drink worth trying. It's based on a whiskey sour formula, but instead of using simple syrup to balance the lemon juice, the Commodore uses creme de cacao, a chocolate flavored liqueur that has appeared a few times before in the 20th Century, the Floridita and the Chimp in Orbit. It may not be the first time we have used creme de cacao, but it
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Every few years the first weekend in May brings a conjunction of two events—the Kentucky Derby and Cinco de Mayo. On some occasions the two events coincide on the same day. There are spans of time when that doesn't happen for over a decade, but every six years or so, May 5th lands on a Saturday. Each celebration is known for its respective cocktail. Derby Day's official drink is the Mint Julep, and what could be better for celebrating Mexican heritage than a Margarita? Even if thoroughbreds aren't your thing, it's hard to deny the luxury of sipping a Julep on a hot day in May, but you can say the same thing about the Margarita. So what's the solution? Make them both, right? In past years we have posted references and recipes commemorating one event or
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