Mixed and Malted

Spirits of the West, Vol 10: Irish Whiskey (again)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:14:00 +0000

It's no secret that times have been a little tight the last year or so for many folks, the restaurant game is certainly no exception, and in an over-saturated market like Yaletown, the battle for butts in seats rages on.

HSG is not in a position to employ a 'shock and awe' campaign in this war, we're more of a 'special forces' kind of joint, we've got to get a lot done with limited resources.

'Spirits of the West' has been a great campaign over the past year in holding on to the hearts and livers that we've already got and hopefully corralling in a few more lost souls that may have otherwise spent yet ANOTHER weeknight parting with their hard-earned dollars in some cookie-cutter chain restaurant.

Irish Whiskey was the second installment of the event about a year ago and I was tickled to hear a few requests that I repeat the event this year. At first I was hesitant to start do-overs when I hadn't yet finished all that I'd set out to, but the people had spoken, plus I had all of the info upstairs anyway so what the heck?

The trick, as with last year, was putting together some decent cocktails. One of my favorite, and most straight forward starting points for a cocktail recipe is the season, and the week of the 17th was a beauty (unlike now). So spring was definitely in the air, and if ever there was a quintessential spring cocktail, the Mint Julep would be it, off to the races!

In spite of the ocean separating them, the difference between Ireland's finest malt beverages and Kentucky's are not as great as one might think, so I figured I'd just take a little Tullamore Dew, muddle some mint and a little sugar and be all set for one of the three cocktails, that is until I remembered one of my other favorite sources of mixicological inspiration; dust. That's right, I like a challenge...occasionally... and finding the bottle with the finest pelt of dust on it and concocting a tasty beverage with it is a most satisfying endeavor.

As I gazed down the back bar looking for that tell-tale fleece on a bottle, it became clear that Saint Patrick was smiling down upon my little event, because the dustiest, least used bottle of them all, was the Irish Mist, HA! Anyway using the honey-sweet liqueur in lieu of plain old sugar seemed worth a shot and the result was good, call it a minty, Irish version of a Rusty Nail or a honeyed version of a Mint Julep, either way, it worked!

With one 'original' out of the way, I figured I stick to the classics for the other two cocktails I'd promised. First, a straight-edged whiskey sour, made with Bushmill's 10 Year Single Malt, yum. Finally, a proper Irish Coffee, made with Jameson's and cream, hand whipped with Irish mist and honey. The coffees got good reviews, but the whipped cream was the hit, one distinguished guest actually requested to lick the mixing bowl...I obliged. Cheers!

P.S. Hope you like the name I settled upon for the julep.

Rusty Ryan

2oz Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey

0.5oz Irish Mist

3-4 mint leaves

In a mixing glass muddle the mint leaves in the Irish mist, add the Tullamore Dew, ice, and stir well.

Pour the whole lot into a rocks glass and enjoy

Whiskey Sour

2oz Bushmill's 10 Year

juice of 1/2 a lemon (about 3/4 oz)

1 oz simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water)

one egg white (really one egg white is enough for two or three drinks if you feel like setting it aside for the next round)

Add all ingredients into a mixing glass with ice then shake assertively

and strain into one of your nicer cocktail glasses, or a tumbler or and old shoe or whatever, it'll still be good.

Desperately Seeking the Sazerac Pt.2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:04:00 +0000

My main reason for heading to New Orleans was to reload for another year; I am struggling to keep up in the mixology arms race that Vancouver has become. Attending Tales of the Cocktail is like downloading a decade’s worth of dedicated and discerning ‘study’ of cocktails and spirits onto you brain in just a few days. For me it was also a chance to discover what was so special about the Sazerac once and for all.

The first thing I discovered is that it’s pretty easy to get a crappy version of any cocktail in the Big Easy, including the Sazerac. I was going to have to do a little digging and we definitely had to get off of Bourbon street before the fiancé and I start sharing a 2 litre Margarita and end up throwing beads at mid-western soccer moms.

Just a few steps down from the debauchery is the door to the French 75 bar at Arnaud’s restaurant where a fine native New Orleanian saloon keeper by the name of Jake made me my first real Sazerac and my eyes were opened. It wasn’t perfect, made with Old Overholt Rye and Herbsaint instead of Absinthe, you could tell that he’d hedged on the side of excess in his use of sugar but he’d balanced it perfectly with a healthy dose of Peychaud’s and the result was a slutty little concoction that revealed what this drink could be. Jake was also good enough to give us a taste of Herbsaint which, in New Orleans, has been the standard Absinthe substitute in the Sazerac since prohibition was repealed on everything but the Green Fairy.

Jake turned out to be a valuable resource and guided us on to our next air conditioned oasis from the Louisiana heat, the freshly re-opened Sazerac Room at the Roosevelt Hotel.

Closed for nigh on four years as a result of Hurricane Katrina, The Roosevelt is run by the stately Waldorf-Astoria group and judging by the gilded lobby, it measures up to it’s peers in the Big Apple. The Sazerac Room itself sparkled brand new, so new in fact that according to the bartender there were more than one or two finishing touches yet to be completed, but it looked ready to me, so I bellied up. We’d just come from French 75 bar and had their titular cocktail along with the aforementioned Sazerac, so for the sake of balancing the universe, our first round at the Sazerac Room was the titular cocktail and a French 75, your welcome universe.

Now, judging by the amount of gold-leaf in the lobby, I shouldn’t have been surprised that these were not going to be cheap drinks, and I wasn’t when my new bartender subbed Sazerac Rye for the Old Overholt that Jake used, and Lucid Absinthe for Herbsaint, and I shouldn’t have been surprised that the result would be different, but I must say, I was taken aback at the contrast. The spendier version was far more austere, no slut factor what-so-ever; still balanced, but definitely less sugar and bitters so as to more prominently feature the whiskey and very, very good. It was the perfect drink for that stage in the evening when the libations are slipping down a little too easy, it says ‘easy trigger, don’t forget, you’re drinking whiskey, not beer.’

Armed with a shiny new bottle of Sazerac Rye and a fresh supply of Peychaud’s, my own experimentation began in earnest once we arrived back in Vancouver: recipes vary, but the magic happened for me at the following proportions:

The Sazerac

Pack a small rocks glass with ice

In a mixing glass or another rocks glass add one teaspoon (or 1 cube) of sugar

Soak the sugar with about 6 good dashes of Peychaud’s bitters and muddle and stir until all the sugar is dissolved (if this seems to be taking too long it is forgivable to add a small splash of room temperature water).

Add 1 ½ ounces of Sazerac Rye Whiskey

Now dump the ice out of the first glass and gently drop in about ¼ ounce of Taboo Absinthe and swirl around the entire inside of the glass then discard any excess absinthe (I drink it, waste not want not right?)

Add ice to mixing glass with the sugar/bitters/rye mix and still until arctic cold.

Strain into absinthe soaked glass

Twist a healthy sized lemon rind into the result then discard the rind

The result is a perfect marriage of minty clean herbal aroma provided by the absinthe and bitters, with a spicy, strong, but not boozy base from the rye.

To accomplish this at home will take some commitment, Sazerac Rye is not a realistic option but Alberta Premium Rye is made from 100% rye grain and makes a very nice Sazerac, Taboo Absinthe is available at most liquor stores and Pernod is in all liquor stores if you want to save a few dollars, though I recommend easing off on the sugar a little bit as Pernod is noticeably sweeter than Absinthe. Peychaud’s is a tough one, you’re probably going to have to go to Seattle to get it, DeLaurenti Market at Pike Place always has some in stock. I know this seems like ridiculous lengths to go to for a cocktail, and it is but the good news is, you use it in tiny, tiny increments so a 300ml bottle will last good long while, and as a bonus you can zip down the stairs behind the market to the ZigZag Café to get a last minute example of how your Sazzy ought to turn out.

Those two Sazeracs were but a drop in my cocktail bucket for the week in New Orleans, but they provided some perspective, I get why the drink is such a hot button topic on the interweb, why so many professional and amateur mixologists have been seduced by old Antoine Peychaud’s concoction. It’s always been a moving target, from Cognac to Rye, Absinthe to Herbsaint and back again, Peychaud’s to…well, don’t use anything other than Peychaud’s. There’s always been a new way out of necessity, so there’s always been a debate over which was better, it’s the debate that has kept it alive, and kept people passionate about it.

Cheers.

Desperately Seeking the Sazerac Pt.1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:49:00 +0000

Ask ten of Vancouver’s better bartenders to name their favourite cocktail and you’ll likely get ten different answers, but ask them each to list their top five and I’d bet that only one will appear in all ten; the Sazerac.

I can’t remember where I first heard about this seemingly simple mixture of rye whiskey, sugar Peychaud’s bitters and absinthe, one of the oldest cocktails known. However, I do remember the dulcet quality of the name itself resonating with me. The Sazerac even SOUNDS good.

Over the years I’d ordered a few in bars around town only to be underwhelmed but not discouraged because no bartender seemed willing, or able as it turned out, to produce a version of the cocktail that actually adhered to the recipe. There always seemed to be one substitution or another; cognac or bourbon, or both for rye, Angostura bitters for Peychaud’s, Pernod for Absinthe. Even the presentation was a crapshoot, I’ve had ‘em from straight up in a martini glass with a lemon spiral, to on the rocks with no garnish at all. Yet, in spite of the obvious lack of consensus on the execution of this libation, it has still remained a darling of the mixology world both locally and in the ever metastasizing worldwide cocktail blogosphere. There was no doubt that all the cool kids were ordering Sazeracs, but I wondered if anyone locally could actually make one.

As it turned out, whipping up a Sazzy using local ingredients was no easy trick. First of all, the base spirit is ‘rye’ whiskey, which seemed easy enough, just grab some CC or Crown and away you go. The problem is; in New Orleans, where the Sazzy was born, rye whiskey doesn’t mean the same thing as it does north of the 49th. In the US of A, rye whiskey has legally defined specific characteristics; for one thing, it has to be distilled from a mash containing at least 51% rye grain, go figure. In Canada, ‘rye’ need not actually contain ANY rye grain; we call Canadian whisky rye because historically it did contain a good deal of rye because that was a plentiful crop kicking around the great lakes where a couple of behemoth distilleries happened to open up.

Still, nobody frets too much about which whiskey truly belongs in a Manhattan, we might have a preference, but whether it’s made with Jim Beam or Seagram’s, it’s still a Manhattan. The difference making ingredients in this, one of the greatest cocktails of all time are the ones that we use the least of to make one; absinthe and bitters. Absinthe has only been legal again in the USA for a short time so the venerable Sazerac spent much of its adult life being strained into a tumbler rinsed with a heavy handed and dull facsimile like Herbsaint (an anagram for absinthe) or Pernod, but people got by, and they drank a lot of Sazeracs.

The real problem in Vancouver was the bitters. For some reason Peychaud’s bitters seem to be prohibited in BC, and as far as I know all of Canada. Oh now and then there have been whispers of it appearing in this specialty food store or that, but I have yet to lay eyes on a bottle that has been for legal sale in the true north strong and free. Just how important were these particular

bitters to this cocktail? As it turns out, very.Now the Sazerac was invented by a 19th century pharmacist called Antoine Amedee Peychaud, sound familiar? Seem a bit odd that a pharmacist is responsible for one of the greatest cocktails of all time? It’s not a coincidence; back in the day pharmacists, then known as apothecaries, made their own medicine. Usually these medicines were derived from various botanicals and roots whose essences were extracted by maceration in alcohol. So, these ‘pharmacists’ always had a lot of hooch around which meant that they threw really, really good parties. Anyway, in the 1830’s one particular New Orleans pharmacist, Mr. Peychaud, took to serving his own ‘house’ bitters to his guests after the apothecary closed, mixed with sugar, absinthe and a popular Cognac of the era called Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils that was plentiful at the time in the former French Colony. A nasty bout of Phylloxera in the late 19th century killed many a French grapevine which choked off the supply of Cognac eventually dictating a switch to home-grown rye whiskey as the base spirit for Antoine’s Sazerac.

So yes, the Peychaud’s bitters (produced by the Sazerac Company) are essential to a proper Sazerac, they are not totally dissimilar to Angostura for instance, both have a bitter, fresh, medicinal flavour, but Peychaud’s are milder, have a definite anise note which plays very well with the absinthe in the cocktail, and perhaps most importantly, they are bright, cherry red. Besides, if you use Angostura, to make a Sazerac you come perilously close to overlapping the recipe for an Old Fashioned, then messing it up by sloshing some Absinthe around in it. Unfortunately, Peychaud’s, unlike Angostura, can’t seem to slip passed customs without being subject to the 117 or so percent duty the province applies to ‘potable’ spirits, so nobody has bothered to import it, but don’t quote me on that being the reason.

So seeing as how you’d have leave the country to scrape together half the ingredients for this damn cocktail, you might think this strange little mixture would be more trouble that in was worth, and if you tried some of the half-baked attempts at improvisation with the recipe that I have, you’d be right, but I was still smitten with this little beverage, whether it was the pleasing cadence of its title, its brazen scarlet colour, or just that I couldn’t accept that generations of more accomplished drinkers than I could be wrong. There was only one way to get to the bottom of this; I had to go to the source, New Orleans.

Spirits of the West Vol. 2--Irish Whiskey

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:18:00 +0000

Thanks to all who attended the second installment of my ongoing (hopefully) series of cocktail and spirit 'educational' events. Especially to Lindsay Ferguson of Bluenote Wine and Spirits for providing us with all that excellent Irish Whiskey from Cooley Distillery.

I just want to take a second and post the recipes for the cocktails we had with each whiskey. All three were stirred over ice and strained into chilled cocktail glasses.

First off:

Belfast Cocktail (Old Country Manhattan)

2oz Greenore 8 year old Single Grain Irish Whiskey

1oz Sweet Vermouth

1 dash Maraschino

1 dash Absinthe

1 dash Angostura

1 dash Peychaud's

Obviously inspired by the Manhattan, I hedged a bit toward the Sazerac with the use of Absinthe and Peychaud's.

The Greenore Single Grain (the grain being corn) behaves much like a cross between a Bourbon and a Canadian whisky, with notes of sweetness and vanilla. It really bears little resemblance to its Irish malted brethren BUT it is actually a component in it's distillery mate, the blended Kilbeggan Finest, a more traditional Irish Whiskey.

Anyhow the result reminded me a little it of a Crown Royal Manhattan, smooth, balanced, maybe a little too sweet for some in which case you'd simple back off a little on the Vermouth.

Next, the Tipperary Cocktail, it was St Patty's day after all.

1oz Tyrconnell Single Malt Irish Whiskey

1oz Green Chartreuse

1oz Sweet Vermouth

A shockingly tight little tipple, I must extend mad mixology props to Hugo R. Ensslin for being to first to put this little gem (an emerald perhaps) into print in his 1916 book Recipes for Mixed Drinks. If he's the gent who came up with it, I've no idea what common thread he thought would bring these three spirits together and in equal measure to create a harmonious concoction, but he did it. The herbaceous minty flavour of the Chartreuse sings on the finish in chorus with the Sweet Vermouth without masking the malty palate of the Tyrconnell, fascinating. Again, this could prove a slighty sweet recipe for the "wave the vermouth over the glass" set, so use your Cinzano judiciously.

and lastly, for those of you who remember your third cocktail:

The Gaelic Kir

I must cite Vancouver expat Jamie Boudreau for this little number though his is made with Scotch.

1 oz Connemara Peated 12 year Single Malt Irish Whiskey

1 oz Gehringer Brothers Cabernet-Merlot

dash simple syrup

1/4 oz Creme de Cassis

dash Peychaud's

dash Angostura.

Now, some might say that it's criminal to mix a three figure Whiskey with a one figure wine in equal measure, but this cocktail is all about the whiskey so I didn't mind using a wine whose character I wasn't worried about ruining. Herr Boudreau's logic is flawless when he points out that red wine in the guise of vermouth has been paired with whiskey for many moons and a drier Cabernet offsets the sweetness added by the cassis ans sugar. The funny thing about this one is, it still tastes like whiskey, in kind of the same way that a Negroni tastes like gin. The nose is almost erased by the wine so the peaty finish provided by the Connemara sneaks up on you a little bit, but if you liked the whiskey, you'll like the cocktail, and if you thought the whiskey was just a bit too much for you, you'll really like the cocktail because the wine and liqueur take all of the sharp edges off of the whiskey, but leave behind it's flavour components. Very satisfying.

Birth of a Legend?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:55:00 +0000

I LOVE cocktail competitions.

They have about as much objective integrity as the NBA slam dunk competition, but I love em still.

I've never even WON one, and still, I love.

Why?

Because it's an excuse to PLAY!!!!

AND...they somehow almost always birth a brand new cocktail, not not just a freestyle experiment that gets forgotten the next night, but a legitimately original cocktail with a precise recipe and even its own name. I dare say there must be at least a few modern classics that were born out of some lame contest or another.

The latest and greatest of these mixicological over indulgences was put on by the good folks at Grand Marnier via Diageo with the Grand Marnier and Navan Mixology Summitt. Unfortunatelty yours truly will not be jetting off the Vail in April, thanks to Lauren Mote of Chow, who did a fantastic job of brand evangelism for Grand Marnier and will be a great contributor to the summit in April.

I still must extend my appreciation to Grand Marnier for wining and dining me and the rest of Vancouver's bartending set, AND giving me a couple of sample bottles to play with, which is all they really needed to do to get me in their corner.

Sometimes, playing with booze an be a battle, as it was with the Navan Vanilla Cognac

and some other times, things just fall into place perfectly, as they did with the Grand Marnier.

Either way, the results never cease to amaze me, it's too bad that this wasn't actually a "mixology" contest, more of a brand loyalty one, because I think I've stumbled upon a couple of solid recipes.

As I mentioned, the Navan was a battle for me. The flavour is so distinctly raw vanilla bean that I found it was over powering any other ingredients I attempted to use. That all changed when a couple of the boys from George Ultra Lounge down the street came by and asked for a Primo Jalisco made with Sagatiba Cachaca instead of Tequila, and a the dim Edison era bulb above my head became a Vancouver Police Service ghetto bird flood light. If anything had the moxie to stand up to the Navan, it was Cachaca.

The rest fell into place quite nicely, with the Primo Jalisco as the inspiration:

The Celladhor

1oz Sagatiba Cachaca

1/2 oz Navan

1/2 oz Grand Marnier

juice of 1/2 lime

3/4 oz ginger syrup

dash Peychaud's bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass and shake. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a cube of candied ginger.

The name of the drink comes from an essay written by JRR Tolkien where he surmises that the phrase "cellar door" is one of the most beautiful sounds in the English language. My spelling is an attempt to approximate how "cellar door" might sound in his English accent.

My Fuzzy Valentine Cocktail

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:24:00 +0000

I'm not sure whether it was excess imbibery pent up by an ice jam of "recession" hysteria, or maybe just a fluke of ol' Pope Gregory's calendar, hell, maybe Cupid got laid off and Bacchus took his shifts, who knows? Whatever the reason, Valentines night was re-god-damn-diculous this year.

People came out in droves and, for once, they all seemed to want cocktails. Pisco sours in particular were flowing freely across the wood, with my usual encouragement, but I was pleased as punch (I know I know, obvious boozy cliche, but hey, it's appropriate in this case) to see all of the new cocktail list represented on the stack of chits that came in.

Eventually one pisco-fuelled gent requested a change of pace, his only guidance being his next drink be "sour and fuzzy". Sour I can do, but "fuzzy" required a minute of brow wrinkling, until my trusty (and dusty) little bottle of orange flower water caught my eye and inspiration struck. If ever there was a "fuzzy" drink, it would have to be Ramos' Gin Fizz.

Now I was psyched! First of all I could delay my first botox session a little longer as my forehead uncreased, and, as you will soon see, I was about to get a SWEET bicep workout in.

Also known as the New Orleans fizz, this most famous progeny of the Silver Fizz was fathered by Henry Charles Ramos, sometime around 1887 in his saloon at the corner of Gravier and Carondelet Streets in New Orleans. It was so popular in the Crescent City that at it's peak Ramos assigned each of his bartenders a "shaker boy" to shake the living daylights out of his fizzes, so as not to wear out the talent mid shift.

It was in that grand old city at last years Tales of the Cocktail that I learned how to shortcut around some of the brute force required for the RGF by 'dry shaking' cocktails that require a frothy consistency. Basically you shake the mixers without ice to hasten the frothing of the emulsifiable ingredients. Still, it was quite a production, and not the most elegant one, to see me wincing as the lactic acid, which could arguably be included in the recipe built up in my inglorious biceps. Thankfully the GF sends me off to the barber more regularly now so at least there was no lame Whitesnake head banger effect going on, but still, it became a bit undignified. The things we do for good hooch.

Anyway, the result is a glass of frothy, silky nostalgia, that reminds me -- in no specific way -- of childhood. No, I did not drink a lot of gin cocktails as a toddler, just try one, you'll see.

Ramos' Gin Fizz

1.5 oz Gin (Plymouth)

1/2 lemon

1/2 lime

1oz simple syrup

1oz half and half cream

1 egg white

3-4 drops orange flower water (seriously, a little goes a long way) Shot of soda Fresh grated netmeg

Dry Shake lemon, lime, cream, egg and sugar HARD for as long as you or your guests thirst can tolerate, add gin and ice, shake again, assertively, for a long, long, long...long...time. Strain into acollins aor better yet milkshakey type glass, charge with soda and grate fresh nutmeg on top. Now take your big-boy milkshake out to the hot tub and take a soak, you've earned it.

Drink delivered, I headed to the back room for some A535 on the ol' pythons and a shot of my inhaler -wheeze- and strutted over to the table to see how my efforts were going over, "Pretty good" the 19 year old (hopefully) who looked like he was psyched to be downtown without the parental units said, pretty good indeed, young man, pretty good indeed.

The Brandy Crusta and "sweet" drinks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:21:00 +0000

Every so often it occurs to (horrifies) me that most people don't fart around all day thinking about cocktails and mixology.

Last night for instance: I had just emerged from a three minute rage-blackout caused a customer returning a $12.00 cocktail that involved 6 different ingredients and flamed egg white in favour of a vodka with pineapple juice, because she had wanted "something sweet".

I took a step back and reassured myself that this poor girl would look back on the error of her ways and laugh, but right now she just wanted a nice glass of juice that got her a little buzzed, her and her pals Cosmo Girl and Sour Appletini chick just not quite ready to step off the Malibu train and join the cool kids at mixology station, but that's okay.

Actually, it's more than okay, I'm beginning to see it as a huge opportunity, I need to identify those perfect "crossover" cocktails. The perfect breadcrumb trail of ingredients that can lead the novice imbiber from Apple Sourz to Campari in a few easy steps.

My first favorite is the Pisco Sour, which is an effective romancer of manys the tentative tippler, but some people just can't get over the whole egg white thing. So my next experiment will be with the

Brandy Crusta (recipe plagarised almost directly from here)

1 ½ oz Brandy

¾ oz Grand Marnier

¾ oz fresh lemon juice
1/4 oz simple syrup
dash of maraschino liqueur

dash of Peychaud’s bitters

Shake and strain into a sugar-rimmed glass

Garnish with spiral of lemon peel

I figure that the sugared rim alone is a huge size 13 foot in the door with most ladies, plus the garnish looks really sharp, and this recipe is a little sweeter than the old Jerry Thomas version, never mind the fact that the Peychaud's makes the drink PINK, so that's another sweet little crouton along the trail.

I've been wrong before about what people want and the venerable ol' Hammy

isn't exactly a magnet for the more adventurous drinker...yet. Maybe high-fallutin pink drinks are the answer.

Living Up To the Name

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:05:00 +0000

The title "Mixed and Malted" took quite awhile to come up with and I was well pleased with myself when it came to me. I took more than a moment to pat myself on the back for conjuring up such a zingy little moniker for what I was sure would be the blog that took over the inter-web in just a few short postings (I've had to lengthen the timeline, but my intentions are still world domination).

Of course, there was just one minor glitch in the master plan, the 'Malted' part of the title implied that there would be a whiskey element to the blog and my whiskey knowledge is pretty average, at best, but I figured that eventually I'd just start buying Scotch and muddle through.

Now, here we are, a month into this thing and Buddha has provided. Last week, one of my friendly neighborhood wine reps stopped by the restaurant, with the global brand manager of Connemara Irish whiskey, and a recently uncorked bottle...or four.

What they uncorked was a unique spirit indeed, Connemara Peated Single Malt Irish Whiskey. Now I was under the impression that one of the easiest way to distinguish Irish and Scotch Whiskey was that the Scots used peat in their whisk(e)y making process and the Irish didn't. Apparently I was misinformed. The story is that the Irish traditionally used peat to dry the malted barley but switched to coal fires at some point in history when it became economical to import coal from Great Britain, Connemara is the lone exception.

Okay, down to the nitty gritty, honey caramel in colour, the nose of the whiskey is heavy with peat with more subtle elements of smoke and even trickier hints of fruit underneath. On the palate Connemara initially tastes more like a standard Irish Whiskey up front, smooth and sweet, but finishes with an eruption of peat and smoke. It was a very unique experience in managing expectations. I was warned about the peat but surprised at the smoothness and sweetness.

The bottom line is that Connemara is a nice experiment for the intermediate whiskey sipper, it's smooth, sweet Irish character make it approachable to all but the introduction of peat and smoke flavours and aromas hint at the Scotch single malts that are usually reserved for advanced drinkers.

Cheers.

Inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:03:00 +0000

I have often sat scratching my head as I read through another bartender's cocktail list, wondering where the hell this guy (or gal) came up with this combination of flavours? What would prompt a rational person to mix Tequila and Midori, and why? Or Tequila and Cassis, why didn't I think of that?

I think the most common way that is a new drink is born is called the 'substitution method', meaning you take an existing cocktail and start swapping out one ingredient for another and just trying things until you like one combination as much or more than the original. This is definitely the best way to start tinkering with your own recipes, it gives you an opportunity to benefit from the sense of balance of the original drink, you'll definitely notice if you throw a good drink off, but it's very easy to lose your way entirely if you start from scratch, I remember one of my own misguided attempts at originality involving butter ripple schnapps, vanilla liqueur AND sour puss, I think I still have a tartar deposit on one of my lower molars that is a direct result of THAT glass of crap.

The most important aspect of this method is to take note of the common thread of the ingredients in the existing drink and how your new one connects with this thread, then, you can begin to apply the 'philosophy' of your cocktail to a completely new one. Obviously there will always be an element of trial and error involved and some combinations might never work for you even though someone else has managed to get the ingredients/flavours just right so that it just barely comes off.

If you must begin from scratch, I will reveal to you a secret weapon that will allow you to at least marry complimentary flavours, then all you have to do it get the level of sweetness and strength right. I found this book as I was wandering Granville Island Market here in Vancouver looking for new ingredients to play with. I walked into the soon to be closed GI outlet of Barbara Jo's Books To Cook store, to check out their cocktail book section and saw, sitting out on the counter, a big thick, glossy book called The Flavor Bible, it is an amazing tool for a mixologist, I highly recommend it.

It's funny though, sometimes I've used both methods and arrived near the same place. This first drink is a direct substitution creation, I was tinkering with a drink from Salvatore Calabrese's Cocktails by Flavor that called for agave syrup, which I didn't have, but I did have a fresh batch of ginger syrup and I knew that the ginger would go well with the grapefruit in the drink so I gave it a shot, you should too.

Primo Jalisco

1.5 oz El Jimador Reposado Tequila

0.5 oz Campari

0.5 oz fresh grapefruit juice

juice of half a lime

0.5 oz of ginger syrup (to taste)

Shake all ingredients over ice and strain into an ice filled rocks glass, garnish with a lime wedge and candied ginger.

The next one started from an attempt to make use of a free bottle of Tuaca that had come my way. Tuaca is a mainly vanilla flavoured brandy liqueur that is about 38% abv so it makes a pretty good cocktail base for a liqueur. Problem is that it's still a liqueur so it's fairly sugary so I knew I'd have to do some bittering and figured that i might as well try Campari, it's Italian, as is Tuaca, and it adds some great colour to any drink it sneaks in to. A bowl of fresh oranges was staring me in the face as I was figuring this one out so I knew that orange goes with vanilla, and that orange peel is an element of the flavouring of Campari, so I squeezed a half an orange into the mix. Around the time that this drink was born, I was afflicted with a bit of an obsession with ginger beer/Moscow Mules, and it hasn't waned much since, so I just poured the Tuaca/Campari/OJ into a Collins glass with crushed ice, topped it up with ginger beer and sipped...and by God it worked, actually it worked really well, I'm craving one right now actually.

Tuscano Toro

1.5 oz Tuaca

0.5 oz Campari

juice of half a medium orange

top with ginger beer

Build all ingredients over ice and garnish with an orange slice.

Cheers

Mai Tais at the ZigZag

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:16:00 +0000

It was a dark and stoorrrmmy night...seriously, it was, and the universe had conspired to give me the opportunity to drink in Seattle, which is one of my favorite pastimes. I'd hoped to check out Vancouver expat Jamie Boudreau's new stomping ground Tini Biggs, but a freak snow storm in the Pacific North White kept me and the girlfriend pretty close to downtown, so we headed back to one of the greatest little cocktail bars anywhere, The ZigZag Cafe.

My man Erik was behind the stick on that sloppy Sunday night and I put my drink choice in his capable hands...I wish I could remember what he made me but the crap weather made the bar stools seem so comfortable that I couldn't't seem to leave until I'd enjoyed a couple too many, bah well, they were good anyway. Stacey, on the other hand been hankering to try a proper Mai Tai for a while so I encouraged her to put Erik's skills to the test, so he dusted off the orgeat and went to town. I was slurping away on my boozy concoction for what seemed like about two and a half minutes when she nudged me in the ribs and said "I know I said I was only having one drink, but I need another one of these."

I made sure to get a sip of the next one and wasn't surprised to find that it was a perfectly crafted Trader Vic Mai Tai, it featured and enhanced the flavours of the rum, I think Erik used Brugal, without being harsh or too strong, had the perfect limey acidity that compliments all rum so well, and very nice subtle nutty sweetness of the orgeat. It's got to be one of the greatest ways to drink too much. Though I cursed the name Trader Vic all the next day on my six our flight to Halifax the next day. Being hung over and flying really, really sucks.

Here's my attempt to repeat the ZigZag's greatness at home the other night, I think this is a damn good representation.

Mai Tai

2 oz Appleton Reserve Rum

0.5 Cointreau (actually I used Triple Sec because it was all I had)

1 tsp demererra sugar

0.5 oz Giffard orgeat

juice of half a lime

Mix all ingredients in a mixing glass and shake well over ice then pour, ice and all into a highball glass. Traditional garnish is a mint sprig, but who has mint laying around in January? So a lime wheel did the trick nicely.

Cheers

Home Made Syrups

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 05:09:00 +0000

Okay, I have a confession to make...sigh...I used to be a really, really, crappy bartender, and not just because I was new at it, I was crap for a long time. I NEVER tasted the drinks I sent out, I knew nothing about the ingredients I was using and I thought muddling was really really stupid, why muddle when you can just buy a premix? right? (insert vomiting sound effect).

Whew! It feels good to get that off my chest.

Anyway, after I came to my senses, one of the first mental hurdles that I had to overcome was the notion that I could make my own syrups for cocktails. Believe it or not, you don't need a factory and a sugar cane plantation to make a fancy pants syrup of your cocktails, or your coffees, your sodas, or desserts. My eyes were opened on this subject, as well as many others by Jeff Hollinger and Rob Schwartz's fantastic cocktail tome The Art of the Bar. They convinced me that I could, and should, make ginger syrup, which turned out to be easy. Ginger syrup lead to cocktails like the Ginger Rogers, hotted up Moscow Mules, and eventually brewing my own ginger beer.

You'll have to go buy the book to get the exact ginger syrup recipe but any flavored syrup is just infused simple syrup. The first one of my own that I tried involved one of the few fruits we had in the walk in that wasn't a lemon or lime, pears. The kitchen uses them in an awesome salad with stilton cheese and candied pecans, so I pilfered one and headed out front to the bar, hot plate and pot in hand.

Pear Syrup

2 cups white sugar

2 cups water

1 whole pear (washed)

Okay, don't jump ahead here, to make pear syrup, we must make simple syrup, which is, well, simple. Mix two cups of sugar with two cups of water in a pot and simmer and stir until all the sugar is dissolved, voila, simple syrup. Next, cut the pear into thin slices, try to keep them looking nice and uniform because we can use them later, and put them in the simmering simple syrup. Again, don't get ahead of yourself, don't cut the pear until you have the simple syrup ready or you'll end up with brown pear slices and dingy looking syrup AND, leave the skin on the pear, it'll give the syrup some colour.

Well, you're pretty much done, just let the pot simmer gently for half an hour or so then let the syrup cool and strain it into an old wine or booze bottle, keep it capped when not in use and it'll keep for a couple of weeks.

Now hopefully you didn't throw away those pear slices yet because we're gonna make garnish with them. If you are lucky enough to have access to a dehydrator, then just spread the slices out on the rack and press on, in a couple hours you'll have some tasty pear chips you can float on top of cocktails or perch in an egg-white foam, or you can just eat them. If you don't have a dehydrator then fear not. Just lay the slices out on a piece of foil or parchment paper over a cookie sheet and stick them in the oven on a very low setting overnight, this works just as well. If you're doing this in a restaurant/bar, just make sure you leave a note for whomever opens the kitchen otherwise they will crank the oven up to full as soon as they come in and you'll be left with little wheels of soot.

Cheers.

BT Appearance

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:38:00 +0000

Thanks to the crew at Breakfast Television, hope those cocktails didn't go to waste.

My night owl brain is still a little fuzzy from getting up at that ungodly hour but I figure I better get the recipe for the other two drinks up in case anybody wants em for tonight.

French Martini

1 1/2 oz Finlandia vodka

1/2 oz Chambord Liqueur

1 oz pineapple juice

Shake well over ice and strain into a cocktail glass

Candy Cane Martini

1 1/2 oz Finlandia vodka

1/2 oz triple sec

2 bar spoons diluted cranberry jelly

Shake over ice and strain into a sugar rimmed cocktail glass. Garnish with those left over candy canes

Sami 75

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:08:00 +0000

Another selection from the Finlandia cup. The Sami 75 is one of those "what if" concoctions: as in; what if, rather than gin toting Limeys sloshing their hooch in with some French bubbly and some citrus to birth the venerable French 75, it was a couple of Fins with a bottle of Vodka. Now, history tells us that the Fins fought everybody but the French or English in WW2, and the likelihood of a Sami being anywhere near a grapefruit, especially back then, is wellll, fairly low, to say the least, what can I say, I have a great imagination. Anyway it was the second favorite aperitif drink in the contest, so regardless of the name, it's tasty. Enjoy.

1 oz Finlandia Mango

3/4 oz ginger syrup

3/4 oz grapefruit juice

Korbel Brut

Shake all ingredients except the bubble, strain into a flute and top with champagne

Garnish with a grapefruit peel and a mint sprig. Cheers

The 1912 Reo

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:53:00 +0000

Those who know me personally have probably been bored to tears a few times by my self aggrandizing stories about riding my motorcycle from Halifax to Vancouver a few years back, well, even I have to admit that my trip pales in comparison to what freelance writer Thomas Wilby and driver/mechanic, Jack Haney accomplished. They drove Ransom E Olds' (yep, the Oldsmobile guy) Reo Special from Halifax to Vancouver in 1912! Read about the Journey.

Anyway, this drink was inspired by them, I put it together for the Finlandia cup this year with, obviously, vodka, but I like it better with whiskey.

1.5 oz Jack Daniels old No. 7

1/2 oz maple syrup

1/2 oz apple juice

1/2 oz walnut liqueur OR bar spoon of crushed walnuts

2 bar spoons cranberry jelly

dash whiskey barrel aged bitters

1 egg white (optional)

Shake extensively then double strain, especially if you've used crushed walnuts, into your fanciest glass. While you're at it, if you've got the walnuts, you might as well rim the glass with them then torch it with bitters flame, like so:

The Pisco Sour

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:27:00 +0000

Soon after my cocktailian 'rebirth', I figured that my first priority was to do my drinking homework. I'd drag my girlfriend around to the better cocktail bars in Vancouver and look deep into the list to see what 'vanity' listing the bartender had snuck on there. The kind of cocktails that the Sour Apple crowd wouldn't go near, but that cocktail nerds would eagerly lap up. One of our first safaris took us to the wilds of Main Street in Vancouver to the Cascade Room. There, stuck somewhere between Mojito and Margarita was the exotic-sounding Pisco Sour.

Honestly the notion of cheap Peruvian or Chilean brandy sounded fairly scary, cheap French brandy is bad enough, so it seemed unlikely that the addition of a little lemon and sugar could make this stuff palatable, plus the notion of raw egg in a drink was still a new one to me (oh how innocent I was).

However skeptical you are, a well made Pisco Sour looks amazing, a frothy head that cascades into a pale yellow, with the trademark three spots of bitters running slowly through the froth and settling on top of the body of the cocktail.

If you just slam one back, the flavours of the drink are fairly straight forward, like a really well made lemonade...with booze. Upon further analysis, the round, fruity, aromatic character of the pisco kind of wells up through the drink. I find that I perceive the aroma not while nosing the drink, but while actually drinking it. Anyway, the first one was nice, but nothing to write home about, but after trying a few other things on the Cascade's list, I found myself fully craving another Pisco.

Fast forward a few months when the Pisco Sour had been on my own cocktail list at the Hammy for a few weeks and suddenly these wayward souls would wander up to the bar sort of staring into empty, egg-encrusted glasses, dreamily saying; "I don't know what it is, but I had this here a few weeks ago and it's my new favorite drink".

One woman described her Pisco Sour as the "one perfect moment" of her vacation in Vancouver.

Here is the recipe I use for my

Pisco Sour

1.5oz Pisco Capel (it's the only one we can get in BC)

1oz simple syrup

juice of 1/2 a lemon (about 3/4-oz)

one egg white (about 1/2 an ounce will do if you use the pasteurized stuff)

3 drops Angostura bitters

Mix all ingredients except the bitters in a cocktail shaker and shake the bejeezus out of it with ice until the egg white is nice and frothy, then strain (I say double strain, all that shaking creates a lot of ice chips) into a small rocks, or parfait glass. Add the drops of bitters to the top of the foam and serve.

(a great trick for getting a really thick stiff foam is to "dry shake" the the lemon, sugar and egg white, which means to shake them without ice, the foam actually stiffens better in a warm environment, then add the pisco and ice and shake a little more).

Or if you like to play with fire, you must try THIS: How to Make an Angostura Scorched Pisco Sour

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:16:00 +0000

Why cocktails? Why now? Why does a 30 year old man who'd been slinging highballs and pulling pints for the better part of a decade suddenly decide to turn his 'job' into a 'profession'? Who knows? Maybe I'm just young enough to do something very well, but too old to start from scratch so I figured I'd just hit the ground running and get better at bartending.