Looka!

An evening at Anvil Bar & Refuge, Houston TX.

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A five-hour evening, no less. It was an evening in which I thoroughly enjoyed every single minute, and the only bad part is that Wes wasn't there.

As you may have noticed from the video I posted the other day, it's a great space -- cozy and not too spread out, but it feels very open and inviting thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street. Plenty of seating at the bar, plus a big comfy sofa and a few tables make for a very comfy space. Anvil's owner/partner and head bartender Bobby Heugel greeted me warmly, immediately produced a pint of ice-water (which was refilled as soon as it was low for the entire evening) and presented me with their intriguing menu.

Coming on Sunday is a blessing, as the crowds were small (although steady), and I had plenty of time to hang out and chat with Bobby. The slight curse was that it was the end of the weekend and he was out of a couple of ingredients (herbs, primarily) that'd come in again the next day. No worries, though, as there was plenty of great stuff to drink.

First drink was The Haab, based on blanco tequila. The primary flavor moderator is Xtabentún, a liqueur from the Yucatán in Mexico that's based on rum and flavored with aniseed and fermented honey. The honey comes from the xtabentún flower, which means "vines that grow on stone" in the Mayan language. It's lovely stuff, and worth seeking out. The Haab is rounded out with pineapple and lemon juices, and finished with Anvil's wonderful house-made lavender-vanilla bitters, the next big batch of which you can see steeping in a big 3-gallon glass jar at the end of the bar.

Next was The Vanishing Act, which is kind of a cross between a gin sour and a violet fizz: 2 ounces gin, 1 ounce lemon juice, 1/2 ounce honey syrup, a barspoon of crème de violette and an egg white, shaken like hell and misted on top with Angostura bitters that had been loaded into a Misto sprayer. He uses this technique for several drinks, including their fantastic Pisco Sours, and it's beautiful as well as very aromatic.

Next was the most unusual cocktail on Anvil's menu, one Bobby recommends people work their way up to, and which he describes as their most intense:

Yep, you heard me. Room temperature. No chill, no dilution. Talk about intense. And it was ... intensely delicious. Very, very unusual, and Bobby said he'd recently been fascinated with the idea of room temperature cocktails. I absolutely adore all the Del Maguey mezcals, but I had never tried sotol before. It's made from a wild plant native to Chihuahua, Mexico, called the "desert spoon," or Dasylirion wheeleri, or simply the sotol plant. It's really good, and very interesting stuff -- smooth, herbal, a bit grassy and a bit smoky. I didn't taste much of it on its own, but as of today I have my own bottle (Hacienda de Chihuahua is the brand, and they make a plata, reposado and añejo as with tequila). The smokiness of the mezcal, the herbal qualities of the sotol, the bitterness of the amaro ... plus the wine glass increases the bouquet tremendously. Just a knockout.

Next Bobby made me a Hoskins, my signature cocktail, and let's just say that it was without a doubt the best one I'd ever had. (I really, really appreciated this.)

Finally, a bartender's choice to finish the long and very fun evening, and the bartender couldn't have chosen better. Manhattan, Rittenhouse 100 rye whiskey, Carpano Antica, bitters and a house-made, Bourbon-soaked spiced cherry. It doesn't get much better than that.

I met some very nice people, did some rather enjoyable cocktail evangelizing and got into a spirited conversation with a very nice but very drunk fellow about Hunter S. Thompson and the films of Terry Gilliam, and chatted with Bobby about room temperature cocktails, vintage Amer Picon, Texas rum, his ideas for a Texas gin (lots of juniper, citrus, lavender and all kinds of botanicals all over Texas) and had a stupendous time.

If you're in Houston, head down to the Neartown/Montrose neighborhood, have a terrific high-end Mexican dinner at Hugo's, then walk a couple of blocks down to Anvil for the best cocktails in the state of Texas.

Cocktail of the day: The 1820.

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Jeez, where did June go? Where did 2009 go, for that matter?! It's July already, Tales of the Cocktail is upon us in one week, and I'm so insanely busy getting ready for that and a wedding we're taking part in on Saturday that I might just go supernova.

Today's cocktail is outta da paper, rather than one I've had the time to research and make and photograph and such, but it looks like a terrific one I'll try at my earliest convenience. Speaking of the Del Maguey mezcals above, Gary Regan has a Cocktailian article in the San Francisco Chronicle about his change of heart regarding mezcal, and his appreciation for a lovely cocktail using it that he got from Misty Kalkofen of Drink in Boston. Read about it and have a go!

No time to mix tonight, but I think this'll be kicking off Cocktail Hour tomorrow night.

Finally getting to Anvil!

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Those of you who follow the Houston-based cocktail weblog Drink Dogma will have heard the good news that Bobby Heugel and his partners finally opened Anvil Bar & Refuge in Houston, a truly aptly-named refuge for cocktailians who for the most part have a difficult time finding a good drink in that city. I've been following their progress on their blog for months, and now that I'm in Houston for the next four days to visit family, a trip to Anvil is tops on my list (after playing with my nephew and niece, of course).

Here's a video report from Blockcast TV, who last month were making the rounds of Houston bars, and paid Bobby a visit at Anvil.

Anvil also got a nice mention in Gourmet magazine, too.

I'm due for my visit on Sunday -- with luck and a banishment of procrastination, I should have some great drink porn up by Monday.

Doc's book to be revised and re-released!

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Major huge big ol' cocktail book news, kids. The ever-amazing Ted Haigh, better known to the world of imbibing as Dr. Cocktail (cocktail historian, archaeologist, expert, teller of tales and epic drinker), wrote a book which was published in 2003 and quickly became indispensible. It is arguably responsible for the reappearance of a great number of truly forgotten (yet wonderful) cocktails in both homes and bars across our fair planet. Sadly, as great as it was, the book (as things happen) was not quite what Ted was hoping for. He didn't get to write as much history about each drink as he wished, due to short deadlines and huge projects in his day job as one of the best graphic designers in the moving picture biz. He had no control over the photography. Plus, it was a paperback that wouldn't lie flat on the bar (and you know how important that bit is). Then a couple of years ago the frakking publisher dropped it out of print! Very quickly copies started going on eBay for between $75 and $100 for what was once a $14 book.

Not long after he started talking about wanting to do a revised edition, and for that we were assured that we'd have to wait. Happily, the wait will soon be over. On July 1, 2009 (just in time for Tales of the Cocktail, coinkydinkally) we get the book back again, and then some. Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie, 100 Rediscovered Recipes and the Stories Behind Them will be better than ever.

Here's what Ted told us in email this week:

To which I can only respond ... holy bejeebies!

Hold onto your hats, folks -- this will be made of pure, unadulterated awesome.

(And I add that I am honored and humbled that Ted saw fit to include me in that new section about cocktails and the Internetss, and for that I thank him from the bottom of my heart and liver.)

Preorder now at the above link if you like, and it'll be there in less than two weeks!

Rachel Maddow makes us a Jack Rose.

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

You may have heard that Rachel's one of us -- an inveterate cocktailian. She's serious and she (mostly) knows her stuff. She's spot-on about not using the applejack-branded product -- use Laird's bonded apple brandy or else Calvados. (She even uses our house brand!)

But for ghawd's sake, don't use that grenadine-stuff from the bottle. Make your own. It's easy, cheap and a thousand times better.

It was bound to happen.

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

My newest blog discovery ... as I note that the percentage of my close friends who are Jewish but who also love bacon and pork products of all kinds is one hundred. Ladies and gentlemen ... it's The Baconjew. It's a swine of the times! It's Treyf-o-rama!

Cocktails of the day: Minty Goodness.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I got into a little online tête-à-têete with Chris Amirault of eGullet when he asked for suggestions for a mint cocktail he could have when he got home. "Don't say 'Mojito,' please," he added. I extended that to juleps too, since that's a bit obvious, and started mulling over the idea of a smash, a rum smash in particular. More on that in a moment.

I have a difficult history with mint in cocktails. I have come to love mint in its fresh form, yet continue to find most if not all mint-based liqueurs to be revolting. I even used to find mint juleps to be revolting, but that was because it was many, many years before I'd ever had a good one, and on a number of occasions I'd tried it I'd been served very poor imposters made with mint syrup (but, thank all the forces in the Cosmos, never an abomination like this).

All it takes, though is a good (or great) bartender to make you a proper mint julep, and the world of mint is your oyster. (Not only is this Cocktail of the Day, it's also Mixed Metaphor of the Day.)

Chris ended up settling on the Southside Cocktail, one that oddly enough I'd never had, and specifically the version made by Toby Maloney of The Violet Hour in Chicago. There are a number of various recipes for this drink, some calling for lemon (although most bartenders seem to use lime), and Dale DeGroff even calls for it to be topped with soda. I think I like Toby's version the best.

Toby participated in an excellent eGullet thread on the Southside a while back, where he explained the evolution of how he came to make the cocktail the way it is (including the non-traditional addition of bitters, which he quite rightly says goes with gin "like ham and eggs"). It's still a good drink without bitters, but with ... it is the yum!

Some recipes call for it with a splash of soda to top it off in a cocktail glass, others call for making it into a long drink, like a Collins with mint. One person on eGullet suggested making it from a fizz into a royale by topping it with Champagne instead of soda. Toby adds that if you do you use Champagne, "don't forget to bump the simple about 1/2 ounce for every 2-3 ounces of Champers, as Champagne dries cocktails out."

One of the eGulleters noted that this drink is a perfect way to get the ginphobic vodka crowd to drink a gin-bearing cocktail. I agree, and so did Toby -- he noted that when he put it on The Violet Hour's menu, they sold it as a "gateway" gin cocktail (which is exatly the term I like to use). He added, "Many times, when requested to make it with vodka the bartender or server would recommend that it be made with 'this great botanical, citrus infused vodka we had.' It would then be made with Plymouth gin. Always a hit." (Hah! "Great botanical-and-citrus-infused vodka ... I am so stealing that.)

I got myself all distracted with this lovely cocktail and had forgotten completely about my own suggestion, which I tried the next night. It's a variation on the venerable Whiskey Smash, with rum as the base and Créole Shrubb instead of cura¸ao, and is kind of a riff on Max's Creole Julep, the official cocktail of Tales of the Cocktail this year.

Hmm, not bad!

The genius that is Michael Ruhlman (and his genius son James).

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I'm really looking forward to Ruhlman's new book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking . I've enjoyed every single one of his books, and this one might just have the most practical uses yet. Ruhlman invokes one of his easy-to-remember ratios in describing the genius that runs through this family:

(I love this kid already.)

I agree with James. My sister does too, apparently -- she said, "Feel free to recreate this when you come to visit next week!" I think I shall.

The best button in the world.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Speaks for itself.

A friend of mine knew someone who took this image, had a bunch of stickers made up and put them on bathroom hand dryers everywhere he went. Brilliant (but inevitably leading to bitter disappointment of people who ... would eat bacon that was dispensed in a bathroom).

Geek Haiku of the Day.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

As seen on Think Geek, one of my favorite places to order toys and fun stuff (even useful stuff!):

Shiny.

Mixology Monday XL: Ginger.

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Good gawd, I cannot believe it's Mixology Monday again. Time is whooshing by so fast I'll be in the rest home before I know it. I'd better hurry up -- there's a lot of drinking to do before then.

The theme for this month's MxMo is ginger, and it's hosted by my good friend Matt, known to the drinking masses as The Rumdood. Matt specifies the theme and instructions thusly: "Find or concoct a cocktail recipe that uses ginger in one of its many forms as an ingredient. This can be muddled ginger, sliced ginger, ginger syrup, ginger beer (commercial or homemade), ginger liqueur, ginger candy, or pieces of a shredded photo of Ginger from Gilligan's Island."

I must apologize to my regular readers (all five of you!) for repeating a cocktail post a mere six months down the line, but I had one on hand -- an original, no less -- that fit right into the theme, and I was way too godsdamned ~~busy~~ lazy to invent another one this weekend. My rationalization -- this drink might get a bit more attention as part of MxMo, and get spread around a bit more. Yeah, that's it. I did managed to get this posted well before midnight, though (forty minutes to spare!), so Matt now won't get to taunt me for not participating. (<voice="Nelson"> HA ha! </voice>)

This was one that was created for the Los Angeles Downtown Sub-District Cocktail Contest, in which each of the 17 sub-districts of downtown Los Angeles was going to get its own cocktail. (I know, it's crazy, but we're a crazy bunch.) The Rules: A stirred cocktail using a base spirit, modifying vermouth, liqueur (i.e. Bénédictine, Curaçao, etc.) or sweetening agent, and some type of bitter. No citrus. (Citrus is plentiful in L.A. and it's too easy; we didn't want a whole bunch of sours either.) Also, ingredients had to be readily available, meaning no homemade ingredients or extremely, obscure hard to find ingredients. The idea was to be able to make these on a regular basis and promote making them around the city, or at least around the bigger downtown bars, so they should be somewhat approachable. Entrants were encouraged to do some research on the history of the district they were aiming for, to help the drink reflect both the past and present in that district

I decided to go for the Toy District, bordered by 3rd Street on the north and 5th Street on the south, Los Angeles Street on the west and San Pedro Street on the east. It's filled with myriad shops for inexpensive toys, trinkets, and you-name-it. It's also pretty bustling, at least during the day. For years one of my best friends lived in a loft in the Toy District, and there we did lots of eating, drinking and carrying on. (Good, good times.) Besides the personal inspiration, I did a bit of digging and found out some interesting things about the neighborhood.

Before the wave of immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and elsewhere in Asia arrived to make the Toy District into what we know it to be today, the neighborhood was "filled with the colorful sights and fragrant smells of old Greece", according to the Los Angeles Times, and was known as Greek Town. The city's first Greek restaurant was on 4th Street, with Kalamata olive oil importers a few doors down. There were 65 Greek businesses clustered in the area, although few remain today and all but two of the original buildings have been razed.

I chose one of my base spirits, Metaxa, to reflect the flavors of the community in old Greek Town, augmenting it with rye whiskey to give it balance, to help keep the very floral Metaxa from taking over (which it has a tendency to do), a sturdier backbone and to reflect my love of the downtown drinking scene (I like to drink whiskey in downtown bars). The bitter component is Amaro Ramazzotti, complementing the floral notes of the Metaxa with bitter orange and fragrant spice (plus, the Romans had pretty much all the same gods as the Greeks). Lillet is there to help bring the flavors together, and to reflect the presence of fabulous French dip sandwiches a few blocks away. A muddled slice of ginger, as well as the ginger garnish, reflects the current Asian population of the Toy District and gives the drink a bit of brightness and zing.

Okay, I'm being silly with some of the symbolism there, but I wanted a Greek spirit and thought it'd taste good with the Italian amaro (wonderful stuff -- I love amaro in cocktails, as you can probably tell), and the other ingredients were chosen for taste and balance. I worked on this for about three days, and Wes and I drank most of the not-quites. (Hence, we were fairly shitfaced on the Friday and Saturday of drink-testing weekend for the contest.) I'm pretty happy with the result.

I was wary of bringing in the Greek ingredient -- it seemed as if it'd have to be either ouzo (a bit too obvious, I thought) or Metaxa, and both of them can be too overpowering. I think this drink achieved what I was going for and managed a balance between some pretty strong flavors. Hope you enjoy!

Eek.

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Busy busy busy! Not what Bokononists whisper when they think about how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is, just me over the last couple of weeks. I have a backlog of stuff and I'll start trickling it out. I hope you haven't forgotten the blog exists. I know, 13 days is eons on the Internetss. Memes have come and gone during such relatively geological passages of time!

Bittermens Bitters are out!!

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Just in time for my return to weblogging is the huge news that the long awaited Bittermens Bitters are now officially released! And here's the surprise ... well, not too surprising, given all the trouble Avery and Janet have had with regulation of production and whatnot (apparently it's a lot easier to be a winery or even a distillery, but the governmental regulators seem to have NO idea what to do with bitters). It's being produced as a co-branded product by Stephan Berg & Co. at The Bitter Truth in Germany. I'm not sure what this will mean for availability, as TBT bitters still aren't the easiest to find in the States just yet, but you can mail-order them from Germany and a number of retail outlets have been carrying them (Bar Keeper in Silver Lake for L.A. folks, at DeLaurenti at Pike Place Market in Seattle, Cask in San Francisco, The Boston Shaker in Boston and I think one place in New Orleans that's escaping me at the moment.

There was mention in the press release that in the coming months there'll be worldwide distribution so that we'll see both The Bitter Truth and Bittermens bitters in retail shops and bars more readily. Until then ordering from Germany is your only recourse, with steep shipping (the package I just ordered, four bottles and a t-shirt, ran me €23, eep). For bitters freaks like me, though, it's very much worth it. And we all need our The Bitter Truth/Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters to make our Eagle Rock cocktails at the very least! Can't wait to try that in a Manhattan too, mmmm.

Congratulations Avery & Janet! And thanks Stephan & Alex!

P.S. -- The NYT link above includes a recipe for Regans' Orange Bitters No. 5 (the commercial product is No. 6), if you want to take a whack at making bitters at home. If you haven't done so, give it a try. It's relatively easy and fun, and might just spark your creativity to whip up an original house bitters recipe.

Rock 'n rye baby, on the tree top ...

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

OK, that's not how it really goes, but in my household it kinda did. I suppose I'm only speaking to those of us of a certain age, but ... remember rock 'n rye? It was available bottled from a number of spirits companies, and in its simplest form is just rye whiskey mixed with rock candy for sweetener. Why not just use simple syrup? Well, as Eric Felten notes in his regular Wall Street Journal column, using rock candy as a sweetener keeps the proof high, as the water in simple syrup would reduce it. Why not just use granulated sugar? Well ... um, because it's messy, I guess.

Rock and rye was also hailed (perhaps someone dubiously) for its medicinal uses as a cough suppressant. I can't vouch for any kind of medical research, but I can say from personal experience that when I was a little kid, keeping my parents up at night with coughing, my dad would fetch a bottle of rock and rye, pour a tablespoon or so of it, administer it to me and BAM! Before you knew it, I was snoozing soundly and not coughing. Miracle drug, that. (When rock and rye became less and less available, Dad switched to Southern Comfort. That's when it started to creep into the territory of Nasty Medicine.)

LeNell Smothers offers us her own recipe for Rock and Rye, which even includes a horehound herbal tea bag for actual cough suppressant value. I'm gonna make a batch of this very soon, both to relive my childhood and expand the horizons of my adulthood.

And it's so tasty, too! Just like candy! (I will definitely be one of the happy peppy people who will not pop out at parties, nor will I be unpoopular.)

May Looka! entries

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

have been permanently archived.

[ Link to today's entries ]

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Cocktail of the Day: Creole. I can hardly believe that it's been nearly six months since I've been home to New Orleans. No Jazzfest this year has left me jonesing, seriously. Since my last time home, a true cocktailian bar has joined the ranks of the Crescent City's finest drinking establishments. Knowledgeable bartenders, a great cocktail program, fresh juices, Kold-Draft ice and a great (non-smoking!) space ... I can hardly wait.

That'd be Cure, uptown on Freret and Upperline, residing in a renovated firehouse. Co-owner and head bartender Neal Bodenheimer, a native New Orleanian who lived as an expat in New York for several years and came home after Katrina, has done the city a service. Here's a video interview with Neal about his new bar:

Here's an example of their take on a classic cocktail from their menu. This is an old favorite, from a long line of Manhattan variations featuring some kind of bitter liqueur. Originally this drink was made with Amer Picon, and can still be made that way with the current incarnations of Picon if you can find them, with the mighty fine reformulation of Torani Amer, or with Jamie Boudreau's Picon replica. Cure spins it with a different amaro with fine results.

I hope to lead a few expeditions of bartenders and drinkers to Cure during Tales of the Cocktail in July ... just got our plane tickets, woo!

Mixology Monday XXXIX: Amaro -- The Roundup!

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Another Mixology Monday has come and gone, and now it's roundup time. Hoo, 35 36 drinks! I had a blast going through these, and now that I've gotten everyone together in one post I feel I can go back through everything again without speed-reading them. Great work all around, y'all -- so many great new drinks, plus reminders of classics and old favorites. Let's get going.

Paystyle at Umamimart was the first out the gate, bringing silver tequila (one of my favorite things) together with one of my favorite amari, Ramazzotti, with citrus, honey and herb for the Amaro Twilight, which looks to have a beautiful balance. Getting off to a great start already, and I can already see that my liver's going to go through the wringer trying all of these.

Tiare at A Mountain of Crushed Ice chimes in from Sweden with a drink in which she uses a mint version of Amaro Ramazzotti that I didn't even know existed. Oh dear, that's going to mean more expensive mail-ordering from Europe for me ... yay! The Menta Amaro is a simple but terrific-looking digestivo with this unusual amaro plus a bit of one more, given that two is often better than one.

Meaghan at Spirit Me Away offers us two drinks. First, a lovely "desserty" drink combining one of my favorite rums with Ramazzotti (lovin' all the Ramazzotti mixing going on!), coffee liqueur and cream for the Dolce Milano. Next she offers one based on Zwack liqueur, a re-branded lighter version of Unicum, Hungary's national drink and in its original version bitter as all get out. The newer "Zwack" (called "Unicum Next" in Europe" is a bitt less bitter with a cherry charateristic, and she combines that with Bourbon in the Zwack Morris (and was also apparently crushing on cute boys from "Saved by the Bell" back in her school days, apparently!).

Virginia Guilford, with whom I shared a lovely dinner at the home of Bistro 45's chef Damon Bruner and his wife Edith a while back, doesn't have a website of her own but was kind enough to contribute an original cocktail into the comments section. She created a Manhattan variation based on 3 whopping ounces of Woodford Reserve along with Amaro Montenegro, perhaps the gentlest amaro and what I've called a "gateway amaro," good for beginners. This drink has a lovely, gentle herbal flavor with only a touch of bitterness, and knocked us on our butts on Mixology Monday eve. Voilà, the Amaro Manhattan.

Jacob, a Portland bartender who writes at at Liquidity Preference, was inspired by one of my favorite cold evening dessert drinks (hot chocolate with a goodly shot of green Chartreuse) to make Menta e Cioccolato, swapping in Branca Menta. Oh boy, can't wait to try this one too!

Steve and Paul of Cocktail Buzz combined their MxMo drink with their entry for the Monteleone Hotel cocktail contest, striving to have it adopted as the hotel's signature drink while bringing more amaro to the masses. (It's a popular idea -- several Montelone entries I've seen, including mine, contain some form of amaro). Cognac and citrus are spiked with a dash of Fernet for the Steve's Monteleone contender.

Fred of Cocktail ~~Virgin~~ Slut wins the award for the most obscure amaro in the roundup, a Spanish product called Mandrágora based on mandrake root. (!) Some of its marketed properties (along the lines of pink elephants and making you a tiger in the sack) might be a bit exaggerated, but still ... given that ingredient's well-known magical properties, one has to wonder if the bottle screams when it's pulled from the bar shelf. Fred's offering is the Mandrágoni.

Maria The Bubbly Girl offers one both frothy and fizzy based on Aperol, another great gateway bitter that I love to see cropping up in more and more cocktails. Among many others, her MxMo offering, The Aperol Flip, will be featured in her forthcoming book From The Bubbly Bar: Champagne & Sparkling Wine Cocktails for Every Occasion.

Jeff at Undertaking the Bar found himself rapidly approaching the posting day without a big selection of amari in his bar, and went for what was on hand -- our old friend Campari, which seems to be the bitter a lot of us discover first, and one that's more of an aperitivo, slapping your palate to attention before dinner. In the Italian Sunset Jeff uses Campari to lend complexity to Cognac and citrus.

Dinah at Bibulo.us goes right to the jugular of the obscure, with a smoky rhubarb-based amaro called Zucca Rarbarbaro. (Dammit, more expensive bottle shipping from the U.K. for me now, arrggh!) Fortunately she offers advice on how to approximate the flavor with another amaro tarted up with rhubarb bitters and liquid smoke (!), which might have to do for now. Her Walla Cocktail certainly seems worth the effort to either make the replica or find the real deal (and I'm likely to go for the latter, since I'm a "truly comical amaro nerd" too.)

My dear friend Marleigh of SLOSHED! goes for the Cynar, another amaro that never lasts long at our house, and shares with us an original recipe from one of our very favorite bartenders, the charming and talented Vincenzo Marianella. The Norma Jean is an amaro-spiked gin sour that's really terrific. You can sample this and myriad other creations of Vincenzo and his crew at his new bar Copa d'Oro in Santa Monica, a ~~very dangerous~~ mere 7 minutes from my place of employment.

Blair, a.k.a. Trader Tiki, makes me seethe with envy for employing one of my most coveted Italian amari in his collection that has yet to make it into mine -- Amaro Nardini. Not only that, but he combines it with two other Italian amari in a nice big chewy base in what looks like a really exciting cocktail I can't wait to try, the Amici Cattivi (Bad Friends ... heh). Fortunately Blair's a very good friend, not the least of which for offering us this inky-dark, deliciously evil looking (in the best possible way) cocktail that'll be tops on my list once I get up off my lazy butt and grab me some Nardini.

Blair's also hosting a conribution from his friend and fellow Portland bartender David Shenaut of The Teardrop Lounge, whose drinks I've enjoyed from afar thanks to his generous sharing of recipes. I hope to be warming a barstool in front of him in due time, as we're OVERdue for a visit to Portland. David gives us the most entertaining drink name of the roundup, the tequila-based, Cynar-laced Nevermind the Bollocks with a couple more unusual ingredents I'm now gonna want to find.

Mike from A Dash of Bitters tries one of the newest amari in my own collection, the one in the sexy slender bottle called Amaro Mio from Lorenzo Inga Distillery in Piemonte. Gin, sloe gin and some gorgeous-looking lemon balm come together in the Bitter Wood Cocktail, which might just win today's award for prettiest garnish.

Jay of Oh Gosh! checks in from across the pond with two drinks, one from one of his favorite bartenders and another from one of mine. Although so far I haven't had the chance to see him in his home base of New York, I've gotten to spend some time with Chad Solomon in his visits to Los Angeles and to New Orleans during Tales and to enjoy his drinks as well. Jay shares one of Chad's the we make frequently at home, the Bensonhurst, as well as the other cocktail that got Wes and me tanked on the evening of Mixology Monday. Jay's featured several cocktails from Gonçalo de Sousa Monteiro of Berlin, and his Negroni variation called the Berlioni is a Cynar-y delight.

Craig, a.k.a. Dr. Bamboo, takes us on an exotic journey (and illustrates it with a guy in a blimp with goggles and a big moustache to help us feel the trip) with both Aperol and Cynar and a new (to me) Thai liqueur called Mekhong. I'd seen it in our local spirits emporium and was skeptical, thinking it a new marketing idea from a guy in a suit rather than a spirit that came organically from the culture, but I was wrong. There's some history behind Mekhong -- it's been around since 1941. Upon further reading I was fascinated by its base being both cane and rice spirits; its flavor is described as "spicy toffee with citrus and vanilla." Craig rather likes it, and bases his Blimps Over Bangkok with equal parts Mekhong and London dry gin. Sigh, more liquor to buy ...

Stevi of Two at the Most, whom I had the pleasure to meet and hang out with on our recent trip to Seattle (the first of many), reaches for one of my very favorite bitters, the Sicilian amaro called Averna (and the first Averna cocktail of the roundup!). This is a mid-range amaro, one to step up to after mastering Aperol or Montenegro, which you will most certainly enjoy as it helps lead you to the hard stuff (like Fernet). Her riff on the French 75 is called the Santo Spirito, a lovely name for a drink.

Now that Stevi has primed the Averna pump, it begins to flow freely. Bruce of World Wide Drinks brings it out for a citrusy fizz whose name is inspired by the biggest event in his hometown, the Indianapolis 500. If you're last in line to qualify and don't have a good enough time, you're "bumped." Ah well, the driver can always console him- or herself with Bruce's citrusy fizz called the Bitter Bump. (No permalink, but you shouldn't have to scroll back too far unless months have gone by as you're reading this ...)

My friend Andy at (dr)Ink Gorilla joins MxMo for the first time. Welcome, Andy! Watch out, it's addictive. He offers us a variation on the Fernet Cocktail, varying the bitters and syrup, and winning the award for today's heftiest dose of what's probably the heftiest amaro of them all (at least the ones we see on these shores). This one's for hardcore amaro-lovers.

Amari and other drinking bitters all tend to have a similar formula -- alcohol, some combination of herbs, sugar and caramel coloring (with a certain amount of color coming from the herbs themselves). There are of course countless variations in this formula, including the herbs which provide the bitter elements. Christian of Cocktailwelten decided to go for the herbal end rather than the bitter end, and offers us a B&B Collins. Sein Beitrag ist in Deutsch, so unless you read German you'll need to run it through a translator.

Jake the Drinksnob at Liquor is Quicker went for a product I've read about but have yet to try. China Martini ("china" is pronounced "KEE-na") is produced by Martini & Rossi and is a Calisaya-style bitters. Calisaya, china calissaia, cinchona ... all different terms for quinine, which is what provides the bitterness here. As I understand it China Martini is a liqueur at 31%, rather than the quinine-infused wines known as quinquina or chinato. I'd love to get my hands on some of this stuff, especially now that I'm inspired by Jake's purported hangover cure (which looks quite tasty) that he calls Il Cane Nero.

Ouroboros at Blotto, the Journal of the North American Booze Council (who sound as if they should be running the country) offers us yet another Portlander concoctaion using not one but two amari. Portland beckons me ... I like how they do things up there. I due amari marry rye (because what the world needs now is more rye cocktails) for the Cryptic Memo, which comes to us from Kelley Swenson, the head bartender at Ten 01. (Note to self: Add to list of Portland bars to haunt.)

Nat at The Alpha Cook offers an adaptation of the Black Manhattan, Averna-tinged Manhattan variation she first encountered at Bourbon and Branch in San Francisco. This version takes it a step further, spiced with Nat's own housemade Apple-Clove Bitters. (And yep, you get to learn how to make that, too).

Craig at Colonel Tiki's Drinks offers us his first drink using tequila, and it's a great month to do so -- I love how tequila marries with bitter ingredients. He's combined two amari also and some lovely ingredients for yet another that I can't wait to try, the Amaro Amigo. I've got a lovely cinnamon tincture at home (sticks of Indonesian, toasted and soaked in Wray & Nephew Overproof Rum for 3 weeks) that's crying out to go into this drink, yum.

Sonja of North Shore Distillery, who writes at Thinking of Drinking, is the only one to bring out the Amer Picon (yay!) and whips up two variations on a classic near and dear to my heart, the venerable Picon Punch, one of my most beloved bitter tipples, which is also incredibly refreshing. She uses the current version of authentic Amer Picon (the "Club" version, which is intended to be mixed with wine) as well as the American replica Torani Amer, recently reformulated to taste much like the original Amer Picon, before the proof was cut in half and the recipe changed into the Club and Bière versions.

Sam (a.k.a. Vidiot) writes about cocktails at the group blog Cocktailians, where I am also a contributor but feel horribly guilty for not having contributed anything in a while. (Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa ... *thump chest* ... ow. Believe me, I'm wearing sackcloth in penance as I write (and promise to get my butt in gear and contribute again soon). I feel even guiltier for having foiled his plans to work with rye and mole bitters by posting my own such cocktail early. (I wasn't emitting dastardly laughs, rubbing my hands or twirling my moustache, honestly. I don't even have a moustache.) Fortunately this spiked Sam's creativity and we get yet another lovely cocktail named for a New York neighborhood. The famous borough drinks, plus the Red Hook and Little Italy and Bensonhurst are now joined by The Astoria, with rye (yay!), Ramazzotti and three different fruit bitters by the dash. You knocked that one right out of Shea Stadium, Sam.

Contending for the final entry at 11:59:50 on Monday night, my friend Chris, an L.A. bartender who also writes about his craft and obsession at Blueprint Cocktail, went nuts with one of my favorites, Amaro Nonino, and had a long night of cocktail-creating fun, offering us three Nonino cocktails -- a tangy Friuli Fizz, a chamomile-scented, Nonino-spiked rye sour simply called the Nonino Sour and the Marmalady, which brings in a powerful smoky Scotch and kumquats ... wow. (Hmm, is it just coincidence or was Chris reading John Lennon's poetry when naming that last one? "He is putting it lithely when he says / Quobble in the grass / Strab he down the soddieflays / Amo amat amass; / Amonk amink amnibus / A marmalaidie moon ..." Sorry, my mind works in odd ways and that just popped out of it.)

But no, not to be outdone ... Paul Clarke of The Cocktail Chronicles, the guy who got the wacky idea to start this whole MxMo thing, makes it in quite literally at the stroke of midnight as the bells were still chiming, and like Steve combines his MxMo entry with his entry into the Monteleone cocktail contest. It's a superb-looking blend of rye, Aperol, vermouth, crème de cacao and Peychaud's bitters that I also can't wait to try, appropriately named the Two Birds, which is a great name for a drink (well, unless it ends up being called The Monteleone). He's right indeed, I am a bitter man -- well no, I'm a bitters man. I think you're beginning to get the idea that this is a good thing.

Then after Paul finishes at midnight come the procrastinators ... yes, my people!

My good friend Matt the Rumdood made it in at a respectable 12:18am on Mixology, um, Tuesday (and yes dude, I would indeed have teased you mercilessly had you not participated!) offers us a drink that was more than worth the 18-minute wait. Chris Hannah is one of the very best bartenders in the city of New Orleans, plying his art and craft at the French 75 Bar at the venerable Creole institution, Arnaud's Restaurant. The Bywater is quite possibly my favorite of Chris' drinks, for many reasons -- it's named after the old Ninth Ward neighborhood where my family is from, it's based on aged rum (coming from Matt I'd expect no less), contains a healthy dose of my beloved Chartreuse as well as one of my favorite amari that reflects the city's Sicilian population. All that and a pretty garnish too. I'm very glad Matt's helping this drink get more attention.

Mike of My Aching Head brings stumbled across a drink that seems to be longtime classic by its flavor -- how could this combination of ingredients not have been around for decades? -- and its popularity, but was in fact invented by Paul Harrington in the 1990s. Robert Hess was the first person I know of to begin popularizing this lovely tipple, the Campari-based Jasmine. Harrington's added some kind of magic to this drink too, an undefinable, non-tangible bit of something that makes it taste like it's been around for decades.

Finally, a brief re-mention of my own contribution, the Eagle Rock Cocktail, based on rye and featuring Amaro Borsci San Marzano with the forthcoming (July!) Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters. It's deep and dark and bitter and just slightly sweet with hints of dried fruit, cherry, spice and chocolate. I kinda like it.

Aaaaaand ... that's it! I think. Gabriel is threatening to add a post, although I haven't yet received it and don't think my title of God Emperor of Procrastination is in any danger. Well, actually ... I got this Gargantuan roundup posted only two days later. I might end up being a mere Sandtrout of Procrastination. Sigh.

[UPDATE on Mixology Wednesday!] Gabriel came through first thing this morning. We have a new God Emperor, and soon his entire skin will be covered with tipsy, hiccupping sandtrout. Unsurprisingly, it was worth the wait. Gabe, in weary traveller mode, wandered into San Francisco's Heaven's Dog, where bartender Erik Ellestad (whom I'm glad to see in this roundup, even indirectly) was asked to make something with Nonino, yet dry and refreshing. The resulting Upward Dog pleased him immensely, and sounds like one we'll return to at home.

Again, thanks a million to everyone who participated. I've got a frakload of drinks to make now.

Mixology Monday XXXIX: Amaro.

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Greetings, felicitations and welcome to MxMo 39! Entries are beginning to trickle in, and I expect a veritable flood of them as the day goes on. Besides posting your entry on your own blog, please post a comment to this topic (and as a backup, email me at mr.sazerac at gmail dot com), and please try to do so by midnight tonight -- well, at least in your time zone. I won't start doing the roundup until tomorrow, and I hope to have it up by Wednesday.

In case you missed the announcement post here or MixologyMonday.com, the theme for this month is amaro -- bitter liqueurs generally intended to consume after a meal as a digestive, typical of but certainly not limited to Italy, and the use of those bitters in cocktails. Why did I choose this topic? Because over the last several years I have become an amaro freak.

It's been a long journey since 2000, when I took my first sip of Fernet Branca -- such a baptism of fire for my first experience with amaro! Sadly, no camera was present to capture the look on my face after taking my first sip, nor was a recorder running to note what was certainly some choice language. In the ensuing years, after samplng more gentle amari and working my way up, I finally had my amaro epiphany, which was the day when I started drinking Fernet Branca not strictly for medicinal purposes after overindulging my tummy, but for pleasure and enjoyment. Now my amaro collection is pretty decent, if I do say so myself (and ripe for expansion): Amaro Abano, Amaro Cora, Amaro Meletti, Amaro Mio Lorenzo Inga, Amaro Montenegro, Amaro Nonino, Amaro Ramazzotti, Amaro di Santa Maria al Monte di NIcola Uignale, Amer Boudreau, Amer Picon Club, Aperol, Averna, Campari, Cynar, Fernet Branca, Gammel Dansk, Jeppson's Malört, Maraska Pelinkovac, Suze, Torani Amer, Underberg and Zwack Unicum ... plus one more which is my most recent acquisition.

Borsci Elisir San Marzano was one I'd seen passing references to but had never tried until a few bottles showed up at The Wine House, one of my two major spirits emporia and where a significant chunk of my paycheck is deposited every other week. I took it home, poured some into our nice little amaro sipping glasses, and lit up. It's on the milder end of the amaro spectrum, more hefty than Montenegro, which is my mildest, but one that I thought might be appealing to amaro newbies. The bitter herbs and sweetness are in perfect balance, but there's a lot more going on in this liqueur -- dried fruits, especially figs and plums, touches of chocolate and coffee as well. The liqueur's been around since 1840, developed in Puglia, Italy by Giuseppe Borsci in the tradition of herbal liqueurs developed by European monks.

I looked it up and found interesting recipes on Borsci's website, although none for cocktails, oddly enough. The first recipe (which I also found in its listing on LeNell's website was to soak fresh cherries in it, which sounds fantastic. Grapes were recommended for soaking in a simliar fashion, and there was a fascinating procedure for layering almond-stuffed dried figs with chocolate flakes in a jar, then filling with Borsci amaro. There was Borsci tiramisù, Borsci birthday cake, Borsci over strawberries and even over ice cream. All looked good, yet still no cocktails. I seem to have stumbled across my first dessert amaro.

However, it's recommended chilled or in long drinks as an aperitivo, plus at room temperature as an excellent digestivo, which after several such after-dinner tipplages I can assure you it is, although not as powerfully medicinal as some other amari. After my first sips, though, I started thinking about how I'd use this in a cocktail.

The first thing that came to me was a Manhattan variation. There are several such variations out there that feature various amari (The Red Hook and Little Italy, both favorites, to name two), but it seemed to me that this amaro would work particularly well with a powerful rye base. The hints of chocolate in the this amaro's flavor base led me to want to pair it with something similar, but by no means did I want this drink to be too sweet, or gods forbid, something desserty. Flavors that would lend itself to an after-meal cocktail, sure, or a lead-in to dessert, but not a "dessert cocktail" per se. Crème de cacao, even the less cloyingly sweet version from Marie Brizard, would be right out, and the only ingredient that seemed right was, oddly enough, something I had never tasted.

Those of us who are bitters fanatics have been waiting with bated breath for the eventual release of the products being developed and produced by the newest cocktail bitters company, Bittermens. They'd been working on a tantalizing and exciting range of products ranging from "tiki" bitters to grapefruit and pecan bitters, but the one that got my scalp tingling in anticipation was their "Xocolatl Mole" chocolate spice bitters. As they described them: "Inspired by the classic Mexican chocolate mole sauce, this bitters recipe highlights tequila, aged rum and whiskey cocktails. Try substituting these bitters in a Manhattan, or adding to a Margarita." Holy crapola. I was tremendously excited to hear about this, and disappointed to hear of delay after delay due, oddly enough, not to difficulties vetting them with the TTB, but with local and state health and production permits. And after tasting the Borsci, even though I had never tasted Bittermens Mole Bitters, I knew this was just what my tentative Borsci cocktail needed. (Unless I was completely wrong.)

To add to my frustration, Bittermens sent out a number of samples to bartenders (naturally) and to a few cocktail writers, none of which included me. (Well, other folks to get higher readership, so it made perfect sense.) That didn't help my writhing jealousy as I read my friend Paul Clarke's glowing review of his sample of these bitters a year ago January. I was Chartreuse with envy, but knew I just had to wait. Once my taste of Borsci came along, I must confess I grew more impatient -- this stuff would go great with Borsci in a cocktail, I just knew it. Bittermens posted periodic updates, and it looked as if we'd finally be able to get our hands on a fully released product a bit later this year ... but not in time for my idea for a drink that would be perfect for the MxMo topic I suggested for my turn to host.

Well, all ended well with Wes' and my long-overdue visit to see all our friends in Seattle in April, and Paul very graciously and generously offered me a small sample from his sample bottle of bitters so I could see if my idea would work. Y'know what? It worked. I'm just a lucky so-and-so ... thanks a million, Paul!

I was pretty happy with the drink as I had conceived it, but thought it neede one more little boost, just a tad of Cherry Heering to offer that compementary cherry flavor without making it too sweet -- we get more than enough of that from the amaro itself, and the vermouth. I'm pretty happy with this, and as the Manhattan got to be named after a borough in New York, and as I was lucky enough to get to create a drink named for part of Los Angeles a while back, I wanted to have one named after my own neighborhood.

So ... I must confess that it's a bit unfair that you can't quite make this drink yourself yet, unless you get to one of a number of bars that have Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters on hand (that'd be Zig Zag and Vessel in Seattle; Alembic, Absinthe, Coco 500 and Range in San Francisco; Death & Co., Milk and Honey, Little Branch, PDT, Bourgeois Pig, Mayahuel or Tailor in NYC; Eastern Standard, Drink, Hungry Mother or Craigie on Main in Boston; or Montgomery Place, The Lonsdale, Milk and Honey or The Purple Bar at the Sanderson Hotel in London) or unless you get invited to Paul Clarke or Robert Hess' house to name but two, you'll have to wait until July to try this drink the way I envisioned it -- that's when Bittermens plans to finally release their product (yay!). That's only six weeks away, though, and I think it'll be worth the wait. Don't worry, I'll noodge you again when the time comes.

Use a big rye for this. We're deeply, madly in love with the bonded 100 proof Rittenhouse rye, which is a fantastic product, priced between $16-18 and without a doubt the best rye value on the market. After that try Wild Turkey 101 rye, and we're even tempted to give this one a go with Thomas Handy.

I love one of these after work, and I also liked it after dinner, leading into a big chocolate dessert -- I thought it was a lovely transition. I hope you enjoy it too, once those bitters come out! In the meantime, maybe try it with a dash of Fee's Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters, but that cacao spice you get from the Bittermens really does make this drink.

To all the participants in MxMo Amaro, thanks for all your entries so far! We tried a couple last nigiht and got luxuriously toasted. Everyone else, please get your entries posted on your own sites with a comment here by midnight tonight, and I'll get to work on the roundup.

The Monteleone Cocktail Contest -- My entry.

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Well, here's hoping this drink gets to be called this for good. As you may recall from previous posts over the past couple of weeks, the Monteleone Hotel in New Orleans is hosting a cocktail contest for their new signature drink, in honor of the 60th anniversary of their legendary and venerable Carousel Bar. The competition will no doubt be as stiff as the drinks, so wish me luck!

While I wasn't really using the hotel's other signature drink, the Vieux Carré, as a jumping-off point, I did want to have rye as a base spirit. As it turned out, there's a slight similarity between the drinks in some of the proportions, but this goes off in a different direction, with a balance of bitter and sweet and spicy and malty that Wes and I both really liked. Here's hoping you like it too (not to mention the contest judges!).

The rye is there to provide a solid foundation of whiskey and spice, and is there for New Orleans. I was fascinated by the combination of whiskey and genever, which the malty, whiskey-like characteristic of this genever in particular. (My original idea was to try this with Ransom Old Tom Gin, a new barrel-aged Old Tom co-developed by David Wondrich, which I tasted in Seattle and went mad for, but it's not available yet.) I wanted an aromatized wine as a moderator, and the newly-imported Dolin Blanc is a fantastic product I've fallen completely in love with. It's a sweet white vermouth, along the lines of a bianco from Cinzano or Martini & Rossi but with a really tremendous flavor, and with the sweetness held back a bit. The Averna is because I love amaro, because wanted a pleasantly bitter element which the Dolin helps balance well, and also to honor the Sicilian heritage of Signor Antonio Monteleone, the founder of the hotel. Peychaud's for spice and for the city, and as I was trying out early incarnations and got close, we thought it needed one little extra bit of brightness, which the orange bitters provide.

Well, that's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

If it doesn't win I'll still keep making it, and it'll just get renamed. Maybe I'll call it the Antonio, after Signor Monteleone. But let's not get ahead of ourselves; I'd rather it be called the Monteleone.

UPDATE, 5/22/2009: Alas, another cocktail won the contest, but I think this drink is a keeper. It's being renamed the "Rue Royale." (Thanks to Wes for the name suggestion!) And congratulations to contest winner Brian Robinson of The Wormwood Society.