chili southside

1 1/2 oz Ancho Reyes Chile Liqueur
1/2 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz Mint Syrup
1/2 oz Lime Juice

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail coupe.Two Wednesdays ago, I was near the Financial District in downtown Boston, so I stopped into Daiquiris & Daisies for a drink. From the menu, the Chili Southside caught my eye, so I asked bartender Tommy for one. From the menu description, it seemed to be a chili liqueur for gin version of the South Side, but Tommy mentioned that there was dry vermouth in the mix and that the mint syrup worked as a cooling counter to chili's spicy heat. Once prepared, the Chili Southside welcomed the nose with a mint, lime, and an almost cucumber vegetal bouquet. Next, a lime-driven sip led into roasted vegetable, dried fruit, and chili spice flavors on the swallow ending with a cooling mint wave. On Instagram, a friend commented that it was a lot of Ancho Reyes, and I replied, "I heard a brand ambassador mention that it was 80 proof and low in sugar, so it could sub in as a base spirit or split spirit instead of being just a modifier." Until this ounce and a half measure, the largest that I had tried was a full ounce in the Battle of Puebla and the Subtly Sinister, but most uses have been a half or quarter ounce.

derby cup

1 1/4 oz Four Roses Bourbon
3/4 oz Mint Syrup (*)
1 1/4 oz Pimm's No. 1
3/4 oz Lemon Juice

Shake with ice and strain into a Collins glass containing 2 oz soda water. Top with crushed ice and garnish with a mint sprig and borage flowers. Floating a barspoon of funky Jamaican rum like Wray & Nephew or Smith & Cross would not be out of place here (originally intended but left out of this drink of the day recipe).
(*) Here, a tea made from a steep with hot simple syrup, but muddling mint sprigs in simple syrup and straining will work well.
For my drink of the day at Loyal Nine two Sundays ago, I decided to make a mashup of two popular summer drinks -- namely a cross between a Mint Julep and a Pimm's Cup. From the Julep, I kept the Bourbon, mint, and crushed ice aspects and I considered floating a barspoon of Jamaican rum which is a technique called for in a few late 19th century drink books (I left it out since I figured that the extra ingredient would confuse the verbal description of the drink by servers at the tables); and from the Pimm's Cup, I kept the Pimm's, lemon, soda, and borage flower garnishes. The combination of Pimm's, Bourbon, and lemon worked rather well in the Hungry like the Wolf, but this combination went in a different direction with the mint and without the ginger beer and elderflower liqueur.

pencil thin mustache

1 1/2 oz Leblon Cachaça
3/4 oz Fernet Branca
1 1/2 oz Pineapple Juice
1/2 oz Lime Juice
1/2 oz Mint Syrup (*)

Shake with ice and strain into a rocks glass with ice. Garnish with a sprig of mint.
(*) Recipe provided was 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, 1 cup mint, 1/4 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, let simmer 30 minutes, and strain. I did a scaled down version (1 cup:1/2 oz) in a coffee mug in my microwave.

At the Daiquiri Time Out event at Tales of the Cocktail, I got a Daiquiri variation at the Leblon Cachaça booth and picked up a copy of their The Art of Cachaça recipe book. Two Mondays ago, I reached for it to make the night's libation and found Dustin Olson's drink, the Pencil Thin Mustache, from Cannibale in Calgary and Forrest Point in Brooklyn. At first, I figured that it was a direct tribute to John Waters and all that rock out this look, but it is probably named after the Jimmy Buffett song that honors this style.
The Pencil Thin Mustache under my nose provided mint and menthol aromas. A creamy lime and pineapple sip showed off the Fernet Branca's caramel notes, and the swallow offered grassy cachaça, mint, and menthol flavors.

good cuban

1 oz Plantation 3 Star Rum
1/2 oz Lime Juice
1/2 oz Mint Demerara Syrup
1/2 oz Kina L'Avion d'Or
1 dash Bittermens Mole Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Top with 2 oz dry sparkling wine.
The libation that Andrea started with at Steel & Rye was the Good Cuban. Bar manager Ted Gallagher described how it was his take on the Pegu Club's neo-classic, the Old Cuban. Once mixed, the lime paired elegantly on the nose with the mint's greenness and spice. Next, a citrussy wine sip led into a swallow that shared a glimmer of the white rum's character but mainly the mint and the Kina L'Avion's herbal flavors. Definitely on the lighter side of the spectrum from the one Eastern Standard makes with aged Barbancourt.

julep en fuego

2 oz Booker's Bourbon
3/4 oz Smith & Cross Rum
1/2 oz Mint Simple Syrup
1/4 oz Angostura Bitters
1 dash Cholula Hot Sauce

Muddle 10-12 mint leaves in a Julep cup. Add rest of ingredients and crushed ice. Stir until the cup is frosted over, and then top with crushed ice. Garnish with mint sprigs and hot pepper rings, and add straws.

For my second drink at No. 9 Park, bartender Ted Kilpatrick bounced a few ideas and the one that appealed to me was a spicy and flavorful Julep that he had made for Noel, one of the regulars. When he made this drink previously, he had included orgeat in the ingredients; however, this time, he decided to leave it out in favor of more overproof spirit. Ted was unsure of the name and mentioned that Julep Agresivo and Julep Peligroso were in the running to warn people of its potency and spice, but he later liked my suggestion of Julep en Fuego.
The Julep's aroma was a combination of the herbal mint and the sweet, vegetal red pepper slices that were garnishing the drink. The Bourbon flavors were strangely constrained to the sip for me, while the Smith & Cross Rum and Angostura Bitters filled the swallow. Lastly, the Cholula came across as a lingering light level of heat, and I was quite pleased that it did not inflict the suffering that the phrase "...and a dropper of hot sauce" can sometimes accompany. I had to agree with one of Ted's observations; Ted found it interesting how the Cholula interacted with the Angostura Bitters: while the pepper made the mouth water, the bitters countered it by drying the palate.

new sensation

1 1/2 oz Bols Genever
3/4 oz Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
1 barspoon Mint Simple Syrup
1 handful Mint Leaves

Muddle the mint, shake with ice, and double strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a mint leaf.
After getting dinner at Trina's Starlite Lounge, Andrea and I headed up the street to Bergamot to catch a nightcap. When I asked bartender Kai Gagnon about the New Sensation on the menu, he described it as the Bols Genever version of a classic gin cocktail, the Sensation. Neglecting the malt content of the Genever, the recipe reminded me of a minty and Violette-less Aviation or perhaps a lemon for grapefruit Seventh Heaven, albeit one with even more of a mint signature. The New Sensation began with a mint- and maraschino-laden nose. While the sip was lemon and malty, the swallow was a funky and fresh combination of the Maraschino and mint elements. In the end, I do regret not asking whether Kai and bartender Paul Manzelli were big enough INXS fans to name the drink after one of their song titles.

the native rose

1 1/2 oz Berkshire Mountain Distiller's Greylock Gin
1/2 oz Royal Combier
1/2 oz Mint Syrup
1/2 oz Lime Juice
5 drop Rose Water

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Top with sparkling wine and garnish with a mint leaf.

Last Wednesday, Andrea and I attended a cocktail-paired dinner at Lineage in Brookline. The bartender line-up included not only Lineage's Ryan Lotz, but the Franklin/Citizen's Joy Richard, Eastern Standard's Kevin Martin and Jackson Cannon, and the future Island Creek Oyster Bar's Bobby McCoy (presently still at Eastern Standard). The drinks that night were all made with Berkshire Mountain Distillers products -- their gin, vodka, rum, and corn whiskey; distiller Chris Weld was there as well, and I had a chance to talk to him about his distillery and future projects including their Bourbon that has been aging in barrels for a few years now.
The drinks that night started with a Rooibos tea-laden punch that Jackson Cannon whipped up. It was the perfect thing to take the edge off of my post-drive angst -- the traffic was pretty horrific as gamenight travelers to Fenway tied up the roads until we finally made it into Allston. After a bit of mingling with the other dinner guests, we took our seats for the food was going to be served soon. The first dish was late summer melons from Stillman's Farm served with sheep's milk feta, radish, and Thai basil. Joy Richard matched this dish with a cocktail using Berkshire Mountain Distiller's Greylock Gin. The Native Rose started with a mint aroma with floral hints. The sip was crisp, citrusy, and slightly herbal such that it matched the melon appetizer quite well.

gin julep

1 tbsp Sugar
2 1/2 tbsp Water
3-4 sprigs Mint
3 oz Gin (Boomsma Jonge Genever)

Add sugar and water, and stir until sugar is dissolved. Add mint and lightly muddle to extract the oils. Strain into a julep cup (here, rocks glass) filled with crushed ice. Add gin, top off with more crushed ice, and garnish with a fresh mint sprig. Add drinking straw.
After thinking about the gulab sharbat cocktail that I had at Rendezvous, I remembered how the modern julep was derived from this Middle Eastern concept. While gulabs are made with water and rose petals, as the drink migrated to other parts of the world, more indigenous aromatic plants such as mint were used. And with the changing of botanicals, the Persian word gulab was converted into the French word julep. According to David Wondrich in Imbibe!, the first mention of an alcoholic mint julep in America was in 1802 in a letter from a William and Mary student who thought his fellow classmates indulged in them with excess. Jerry Thomas' The Bartender's Guide provides several recipes for juleps and the one that caught my eye on Monday night was the gin julep. In Jerry Thomas' day, the gin julep would have had Holland gin in it (first noted in 1828) which I interpreted as a Genever style and used our bottle of Boomsma's Jonge Genever accordingly. The mint for the drinks was harvested from the migratory mint colony that has sprung up twelve feet or so from the original mint patch.

The drink as one would expect was quite refreshing. The Genever gin added an interesting funkiness to the drink with its juniper-maltiness and slight harshness (relative to bourbon). Indeed, the gin-based julep is a very different creature from the more traditional bourbon one in some ways, but the sugar, ice, mint, and ritual do link the two together.

mint fizz

grappa
lemon juice
mint-infused simple syrup
egg white

Add a spray of soda water while pouring over ice. Drip orange blossom water onto the foam, garnish with a mint sprig.

This was... an interesting drink. I felt like I was having it two months early! It was a really awesome blend of flavors, apparently one of Tommy's originals. Really refreshing, and not so much lemon that this old lady couldn't enjoy it. It'll be a really lovely thing to enjoy on a sweltering August night.