rickshaw

1 oz Applejack
1 oz Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur
1/2 oz Orange Juice
1/2 oz Lemon Juice

Shake with ice and strain into a sugar-rimmed cocktail glass. Garnish with a large pickled ginger slice (bottom of glass). Measurements were estimated due to free pouring.

On the walk home from Andrea's birthday dinner at Dalí on Tuesday night, we stopped in at Highland Kitchen for a nightcap. They updated their menu to have a lot more classic cocktails (including the De La Louisiane) and fewer vodka drinks (down to 3!). Instead of one of the classics, I went with a newer one (perhaps a house recipe?) and asked Claudia Mastrobuono to make me a Rickshaw. The ginger from the Domaine de Canton worked rather well with the citrus flavors. The drink was slightly on the tart side which could be quenched at will with the glass's sugar-coated rim. I let Andrea have a sip and she thought the drink had some honeydew melon notes. As I drank more of the Rickshaw, it began to get increasingly spicy. Turned out that the garnish was not a citrus peel or an apple slice but a piece of pickled ginger (not thin or pink like the sushi type); the infusion it generated was indeed a nice touch.

demerara smash

2 oz Renegade Guyana 16 Yr. Rum
1 oz Yellow Chartreuse
Lemon Wedges (~1/3 lemon)
Lime Wedges (~1/2 lime)
Mint

Muddle lemon, lime, and mint. Add rum and Chartreuse with ice and shake. Double strain through regular and tea strainer into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with mint, and add a pair of straws.

On Monday night, Andrea and I decided to go out to Eastern Standard after figuring that Sunday would be too crowded most places due to the holiday and thus stayed in. For one of my cocktails, I asked Nicole Lebedevitch for a drink with the Renegade Rum that Hugh had introduced me to last time. We eventually came up with the idea of a rum-Chartreuse smash which Nicole seemed rather excited about making.
The drink had a lot of mint aroma hovering over the top from the garnish. Tastewise, the rum provided a pleasant funky and smoky flavor with the right amount of hogo notes from the pot stilling. The complex rum was aided by the botanicals in the Chartreuse which also served as the main source of sweetness for this rather dry drink. The equal parts of lemon and lime gave some extra depth than either citrus would have alone. Moreover, the citrus worked well with the Chartreuse liqueur and provided a crisp bite that faded on the sip.

old new york cocktail

1 1/2 oz Genever Gin (Boomsma Jonge)
1 oz Dry Vermouth (Noilly Prat)
1/2 oz Rhubarb Syrup (see recipe below)
1 dash Fee Brothers Peach Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime twist.

Last night, I wanted to make use of the rhubarb syrup that I had made the day before. One recipe that stood out was posted on the Chanticleer Society forum by Ciaran Wiese of Barrio Food and Drink in Tucson, AZ. The drink, the Old New York Cocktail, appears on their summer menu.

The Old New York Cocktail was a delight to drink on our deck last night. There was a nice scent from the lime oil, and this was followed by the rhubarb and peach flavors which made for a rather good combination. The gin's botanicals were softly evident on the swallow, and the bitter notes of the rhubarb and the dry vermouth complemented each other rather well.

To make the rhubarb syrup, I modified a recipe I found on Chow. Total time to make this recipe is under an hour:

Rhubarb Syrup
• 1 stem Rhubarb
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 5/8 cup Water
• 1/2 oz 80 Proof Vodka (optional)
Slice the rhubarb into 1/2 (or less) inch thick pieces (should be around 5 oz by weight, a cup by volume). Add to a covered pot along with the water and sugar. Bring up to a boil and then simmer covered for 30 minutes. Stir every 5 or 10 minutes (feel free to mash up with a fork once the pieces begin to soften). After 30 minutes, let cool (still covered). Strain through a fine sieve; use a spoon to mash up pieces and extract the remaining liquid from the pulp. Pour into a sealable bottle. Optional: add 1/2 oz vodka to stabilize the mixture for longer storage (~5% alcohol final). Keep in refrigerator.

two birds

2 oz Rye (Sazerac 6 Year)
3/4 oz Aperol
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth (Dolin)
1/4 oz Creme de Cacao
2 dash Peychaud's Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
On Friday after dinner, Andrea wanted to try Paul Clarke's new cocktail that he crafted for his entry in the Hotel Monteleone Cocktail Contest. The drink was perfect for the contest because the taste combination of rye and Peychaud's immediately screamed New Orleans to me when I sipped it. The Peychaud's complemented the light bitter notes of the Aperol on the swallow rather well. Andrea's comment was that the "aftertaste is spectacular -- rather chocolaty"; the quarter ounce of the creme de cacao was at a perfect level to add flavor but not dominate the drink. Paul's rationale for the cacao notes in the recipe was how well they pair up with orange flavors which appear here in the Aperol and in many sweet vermouths.

cat's pajamas

1 oz Gin (North Shore Distillery #6)
1 oz Campari
1/2 oz Green Chartreuse
1/2 oz Orange Juice
1/4 oz Maple Syrup

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Flame an orange peel over the top.

Last night while making dinner, I decided to make a cocktail from the current issue of Imbibe magazine. One that stood out was the Cat's Pajamas created by George Austin Sproule who bartends at Las Vegas' Downtown Cocktail Room. Besides the intriguing combination of Campari and Chartreuse, the recipe was attractive as it provided a good excuse to try out the North Shore Distillery gin that Andrea brought back from her recent trip out to Indiana.

The drink was definitely very Campari-driven but the Chartreuse lended a lot of surrounding flavor. Moreover, the Campari and freshly squeezed orange juice complemented each other rather well. The drink had the right degree of sweetness with a hint of the maple flavor appearing in the first part of the sip. Perhaps the flavors of this cocktail were a bit too intense to fully appreciate the new gin; however, there were no other regrets in making this tasty cocktail.

[pineapple martinique]

2 oz Rhum JM Blanc
3/4 oz Pineapple Juice
1/4 oz Clove-Demerara Sugar Syrup
2 dash Sasparilla Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass (this one looked like a sherbert glass).

For my second cocktail at Drink, I waited until most of the tingle of the Tabasco was gone before asking Sam Treadway for recommendations for my second drink. The topic of the sasparilla bitters that the bar received came up. One Drink bartender I saw at Eastern Standard a week or two ago inquired if they were mine; while they are in the same bottles that I use, they were not and Sam informed me that they were from another Drink patron, Craig. I got to try the bitters themselves and they did taste very much like sassafras with perhaps a bittering agent or perhaps solely the root's bitterness itself. Sam could detect vanilla notes, but perhaps my palate was a little shot from the Mexican Love Affair. From there, I asked what Sam could do with them and rhum agricole and off he went with an idea.

In this drink, the rhum agricole and pineapple worked together well to produce a great dry Tiki-like taste. In addition, the light clove and sasparilla flavors mingled quite nicely with the hogo notes from the pot-stilled rum. Overall, a great palate cleanse from the heat and spice assault from the previous round, and otherwise a tasty and refreshing drink to boot.

mexican love affair

1/2 oz St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
1 oz Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur
1 oz Pierre Ferrand Cognac
1/4 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Honey Syrup
1 dash Tabasco Sauce

Shake with ice and strain into a parfait cocktail glass.

On Sunday late afternoon, I went to Drink and showed up at the cusp of the first wave there. I found a seat at the very edge of the center bar and was greeted by Sam Treadway. He was about to make a spicy cocktail for another patron who had come up with this drink a previous time there, so I jumped aboard the shaker order. The drink had a pleasant richness from the honey and brandy. The spice from the ginger and allspice liqueurs appeared on the swallow followed by the heat from the Tabasco. While the chili heat built up over time on my upper lip, the rest of my mouth was fine. Strangely, the heat detected at the back of my throat at the swallow quickly dissipated each time instead of lingering and intensifying. The drink was enjoyable to sip with the heat level not being overwhelming; however, it did leave making the next drink choice a challenge. I ended up opting for waiting it out with my Kingsley Amis' Everyday Drinking and my water glass before moving on to my next beverage selection.

mandragroni

The theme for this month’s Mixology Monday (MxMo XXXIX) is "Amaro" as chosen by Chuck Taggart of the Gumbo Pages blog. The concept was to make a drink with "Amaro, which refers to the bitter liqueurs usually drunk as an after-meal digestive, either alone (neat or on the rocks) or in some kind of mixed drink or cocktail. They tend to all share certain characteristics -- drinking bitters are generally made of alcohol with any number of herbs, plus sugar and some kind of coloring. The word "amaro" means bitter in Italian, and although the more famous drinking bitters tend to come from Italy our amaro theme this month is most certainly not limited to that country. Amaro, amer, amargo, what have you. Italy, Spain, France, America, Serbia, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland ... wherever somebody drinks a bitter liqueur, that's a source for your drink this month."

While thinking about this topic, I was considering going out and buying a new amaro, such as Mirto, to play with and to add to our collection of Chartreuses, Averna, Becherovka, Amer Picon, and others. However, there was one on our shelves we had never even opened -- a bottle of the Spanish mandrake liqueur Mandrágora. We had received this bottle as a gift from a friend who was really into pre-legal era Absinthes and ordered this similarly forbidden liqueur before a health condition befell her that forced her to give up drinking alcohol permanently. What I could find about it was the lore, "This Liqueur is made through a maceration of various herbs, and eucalyptus honey. The Mandrake root is a well known plant since ancient times for its hallucinogenic properties. In the Middle Ages, so the legend says, witches used to drink the mandrake in liquor or as an infusion, so that they could communicate better with the spiritual world." While that marketing attracts many people to this bitter liqueur, people generally seem greatly underwhelmed by the hallucinogenic effects (similar to thrill seekers drinking Absinthe) as well as by any aphrodisiac quality associated with mandrake root.
Tasting it straight to figure out what to do with it, the only botanical of the eight I could identify was something in the mint family. The other flavors which predominated besides the muddled bitter notes were the eucalyptus honey used to sweeten this liqueur and a whiskey sort of base spirit. I figured that using it in a Negroni variant would be a good first step and it would give me an excuse to try our new bottle of Dolin blanc vermouth. My other idea was to make it in a Toronto variant called the Toledo (which is about 300 miles away from where the Mandrágora is made); however, the liqueur falls rather short of the also minty/mentholly but rather overwhelming Fernet-Branca found in the Toronto. Indeed, the Mandrágora seemed more like it would play well with a gin rather than a rye, although it might give a Mint Julep effect to whiskey.

Mandrágroni
1 oz Mandrágora
1 oz No. 209 Gin
1 oz Dolin Blanc Vermouth
1 dash Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Bitters
Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Overall, the Mandrágroni was a pleasant sipper. Its botanicals worked well with those in the gin and the vermouth, but the drink itself was no thing of beauty like the Negroni or some of the other variants I have tasted. Then again, the liqueur was not created to be a cocktail reagent or digestive, but more likely as a flavor blend to mask the mandrake's taste. Well, at least my curiosity about this once dusty bottle on my shelf has been quelled and perhaps I will get around to buying that bottle of Mirto the next time I see it after all.

the bosc word

3/4 oz Beefeater Gin
3/4 oz Lime Juice
3/4 oz Mathilde Pear Liqueur
3/4 oz Aperol

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

For my last drink at Rendezvous on Thursday, I spotted the bottle of Mathilde pear liqueur on the shelf and was curious what Scott Holliday could do with it. We eventually got on the topic of what it would be like in a Last Word variant but we needed a bitter liqueur to round out the quartet. I suggested Aperol since it seemed gentle enough to go against the pear liqueur. In the drink, however, it seemed to require perhaps a slightly stronger bitters like Chartreuse or Campari to add some extra zing characteristic of the Last Word, so perhaps Scott's first thought of yellow Chartreuse would have been better. Otherwise, the lime-pear-rhubarb(from the Aperol) gave an almost papaya like flavor to me and a watermelon like flavor to Scott. The latter observation made Scott think of trying the combination next time with tequila. Whether or not tequila would be tasty in this, the gin did work well with the combination though, and Beefeater's juniper notes stood out quite nicely in the drink.