After nine years (yah, I actually had to go back and check—hard to believe) we’ve decided to give the blog a name change and give it a new URL. The new site is MolecularDrinking.com. All nine years of posts have been moved to the new site. While this site will continue to exist, new posts will only be on Molecular Drinking. Thanks for reading CocktailsWithM. We hope to see you at our new digs.
Cheers,
M&B
With the start of the new year, it’s time to resume blogging. Last year was not an epic year for the blog, though we had some good moments. To kick the new year off, I decided (B actually told me) to change the theme. We’ll see if this one has legs. I also realized that probably the very first cocktail I found to make for B hadn’t been blogged about, a Satan’s Whiskers. I first ran across this one on Robert Hess’ DrinkBoy.com site. He subsequently made a video as part of his Cocktail Spirit series for SmallScreenNetwork. At some point (can’t remember exactly where) I ran across a quote of him saying something to the effect that the Satan’s Whiskers is a great cocktail to introduce people to real cocktails who aren’t familiar with them. It’s quite a bit of complexity balanced with a hint of sweetness from the orange juice so that it doesn’t put people off the way other cocktails might. It’s definitely good enough that every once in a while we still get a yen for one.
The Satan’s Whiskers is included in the 1930’s reprint of the Savoy cocktail book that I have, so it’s a least that old. Other than that, I don’t have a lot of backstory on it. Gary Regan did a nice write up on it for the San Francisco Chronicle, though. It’s also interesting in that it requires orange bitters, which now easily obtained, was until recently unavailable.
Satan’s Whiskers
3/4 ounce gin
3/4 ounce dry vermouth
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
1/2 ounce orange juice
1/2 ounce Grand Marnier
1 dash orange bittersShake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
Here’s to an entirely enjoyable new year.
Cheers
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,900 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 32 trips to carry that many people.
Labor Day has decide to turn up the heat here and I decided something need to be done (and hopefully in a way that would result in a post). I to thinking about who does heat and holidays better than anyway and I immediately thought of Brazil, which in turn caused me to think our friend Karen who has spent more time there than was probably good for Brazil, but hey, it’s a big country. She was the one who taught me how to make and pronounce the “National Drink of Brazil” (sorry, I am pretty sure you can’t write about it without saying that at least once. I think there’s a governing board or something). Anyway, this is one of those incredibly simple drinks that reminds you of the magic of a good cocktail. At the core is Cachaça. It’s Brazil’s version of rum and is a bit like light rum meets clear tequila. It definitely has a funkier more herbal note due to being made from sugarcane juice rather than molasses. It’s also a different way of putting a drink together in that you muddle and shake but then don’t strain.
Caipirinha
- 2 oz. Cachaça
- 2 tsp. superfine sugar *
- 1/2 lime, quartered
Muddle the lime chunks and sugar. Add the Cachaça and ice. Shake the cocktail and pour directly into a rocks glass. A couple of small straws work well as a garnish.
This is one of those festive refreshing drinks that are really fun to make and to drink. I think it’s definitely found a spot in our regular rotation.
Tim tim!
*Superfine sugar is made by running a cup or so of regular sugar through your food processor until it becomes much finer and easier to dissolve, say a minute-ish.
Devotees of the blog will doubtless know the esteem in which I hold the Manhattan, which is why we rather assiduously avoid frivolous knockoffs. Devotees, however, will also know my predilection for quirky and esoteric booze, hence the conflict. B & I wound up with a bottle of Torani Amer, a version of the original French Amer Picon that is currently unavailable, at least here in the States. It’s a sufficiently worthy ingredient consider a Manhattan riff. Torani is a orange bitter liqueur that is a bit like Curaçao, but bitter rather than sweet.
We found The Liberal in Ted Haigh‘s Vintage Cocktails and Forgotten Spirits, who appears to be rather enthusiastic about finding this cocktail, but a little vague on the history. He claims to have found it buried in a version of the Waldorf Astoria Bar Days from the early 1930’s. A bit of further searching turned up a post on Birth.Movies.Death. blog by Bill Norris who found a reference from 1895 in Modern American Drinks by Gabe Kapler. Well this is better. A bit of history and pedigree. His blog post has a number of version of the cocktail, including the one from 1895. In the end we decided to go with Robert Hess‘s version from The Essential Bartender’s Guide.
The Liberal
- 1 1/2 oz. Rye Whiskey
- 1/2 oz. Sweet Vermouth
- 1/4 oz. Torani Amer
- 1 dash Orange Bitters
Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a twist of orange.
This is a really great (and entirely respectable) alternative to the classic Manhattan, a feat akin to covering the Rolling Stones–something most should really avoid attempting. The discovery of Torani Amer is also a very fortuitous find. Unfortunately, it apparently has a rather limited distribution, limited mostly to California.
Cheers.
Summer is the season for festive and refreshing (if slightly frivolous) imbibing with great friends. I originally made this frivolously festive tipple a couple years back for the adherents of the Bacchic Villa after finding the recipe in an issue of Imbibe Magazine. Apparently this marvelous potation is the creation of one Joy Richard, a member of some standing of an even more fantastic society, LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails).
Unfortunately, when I made it, I was in no fit state to take a picture of the creation for the blog, so it fell last weekend to two of the four high priestesses of the Bacchic Villa, Chelsea and Amy, to pick up the slack and take over it’s preparation. Their efforts were sufficiently successful, that I wound up only remembering to take a picture after dark, but at least it’s recorded. I can also add, that should LUPEC be in search of subscribers for a west coast branch of their society, they could hardy do better than Chelsea, Amy, Brenda and Briana (the hostess for our festivities).
So without further ado…
Champagne Whiskey Punch
1 750 ml. bottle Champagne (or other sparkling wine)
4 oz. rye whiskey
2 oz. fresh lemon juice
2 oz. simple syrup (1:1) *
4 oz. strawberry syrup
Ice ring (freeze ice in a bundt or ring pan)
Tools: punch bowl, spoon, ladle
Glass: punch cups
Garnish: strawberries used to make the syrupMake the strawberry syrup in advance by quartering a cup of strawberries. Bring 1 c. of sugar and 1 cup of water to a boil. Pour the boiling syrup over the strawberries. Let stand about six hours. Strain out the berries and reserve to garnish the drink.
Combine lemon juice, whiskey, strawberry syrup. and simple syrup* in the bottom of a punch bowl. Place ice ring in the punch bowl. Add Champagne, Using a ladle, circulate the punch over the ice ring to chill and mix. Add the strawberries used to make the strawberry syrup and ladle into cups.
We actually found the simple syrup tended to make the punch run a bit sweet, so we left it out. If it’s too tart after mixing, you could either add more of the strawberry syrup or the simple syrup at that point. Also, 6 ounces (instead of 4) of the rye didn’t go amiss either.
This is a great and versatile punch, going equally well with summer or winter holiday entertaining.
Cheers.
It has been a bit hot here lately. And by a bit, I mean “cook you brain/even the cactus looks PO’d hot”. So when B & I were thinking about what to drink, it had to be something on the lighter side, but as it was evening, we wanted something a with a bit of complexity as well.
This leads us to our third of four installments where we try out the winners of Imbibe Magazine’s “Simple 4 Ingredient Cocktails” challenge. So far we have taken the High Noon and The Graduate for a spin and both were impressive. This time we decided to try the Django Reinhardt, a creation of Erick Castro of Polite Provisions in San Diego.
The choice of dry vermouth as the main ingredient played off of the citrus is a pretty unique idea.
Django Reinhardt
- 3 oz. dry vermouth
- ¾ oz. fresh lemon juice
- ¾ oz. simple syrup (1:1)
- 2 slices fresh orange
Gently muddle the orange slices in the shaker . Add the remaining ingredients and fill with ice cubes; shake until chilled, about 10 seconds. Fine-strain into a rocks glass filled with fresh ice; garnish with a slice of orange.
This is an interesting drink. The large amount of aromatic infused wine in the vermouth instead of a hard liquor base leaves the drink a bit lighter than many on this blog. So while always important, the freshness of the vermouth is even more critical for this drink. Also, it’s probably best to make sure the slices of orange are pretty thin or the drink can incline toward the overly sweet. All in all, it’s a very nice, lighter summer evening drink. A fact made even more impressive considering it’s made vermouth and orange juice; two ingredients that would cause lesser bartenders to blanch.
Pip-pip.
As even the occasional reader of this blog can attest, we generally are a bit circumspect when it comes to newly minted cocktails. When we were reading Ti Adelaide Martin and Lally Brennan’s book, I the Land of Cocktails, and they described being at Lally’s house for the first Marti Gras after Katrina and wanting to make a new cocktail and enlisting the help of Ted, “Doc Cocktail” Haigh to come up with one, we thought this should definitely merit an exception. As an aside, in addition to the cocktail having respectable amount of hooch in it, Nellie Valentine was their grandmother, so the Whoa, Nellie! is apparently also an homage.
Whoa, Nellie!
- 1 1/4 oz. rye
- 3/4 oz. dark rum
- 3/4 oz. Cointreau
- 4 dashes Angostura bitters
- 1/2 oz. lemon juice
- 1/2 oz. grapefruit juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup.Shake and stains into a chilled cocktail glass.
We added the twist of lemon as a garnish. I normally would not go fiddling with a cocktail from such an exalted cadre of creators, but since I used Patrón Citrónge as the curaçao instead of Cointreau and a different dark rum that was a bit sweeter (but more flavorful in my opinion) than their original Meyers, we decided to back off the simple syrup to 1/4 oz. I realize this is a bit of hubris, but we did the experiment, starting with no simple syrup and going up to the full amount. That’s always an interesting thing to try; you really do find a magic spot where the flavors come alive but the cocktail isn’t sweet. A little and the cocktail is cloying.
This is one both B and I really enjoyed and will likely find a spot in our regular rotation.
Cheers.
The last post on the blog, Intro to Aperol, by Audrey Saunders at Pegu Club, got me thinking about the name sake of that establishment: the orginal Pegu Club, in Burma.
The 1930 edition of Harry Craddock’s The Savoy Cocktail Book (I have the reprint edition) describes it as “The favorite cocktail of the Pegu Club, Burma, and one that has travelled, and is asked for, round the world.”. Well, who am I to question Harry Craddock.
Pegu Club Cocktail
- 2 oz. Dry Gin
- 1 oz. Curaçao
- 1 tsp. Lime Juice
- 1 dash Angostura Bitters
- 1 dash Orange Bitters
Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
If you have really great friends, use a Martiki glass. Otherwise, go with a regular cocktail glass.
This is another one of B and my favorite cocktails. It really is one of those “tastes of summer”. You can see why it would be popular among the denizens of the Pegu Club in Burma.
B & I were looking through the liquor cabinet in search of inspiration this Sunday and came across our bottle of Aperol. A quick perusal of our blog revealed an omission of a really great cocktail gem. Although not, in strictest terms, a vintage cocktail (originally being published around 2009, according to DrinkBoy.com), its existence is flows directly from the utterances of one of the deities of the vintage cocktail movement, Audrey Saunders of New York’s Pegu Club—a fact that also makes this tipple unique in the pantheon of cocktails, a verifiable provenance.
As the name suggests, this cocktail is a great introduction into the world of amari. Aperol is milder and lower in alcohol than may of the other members of this family of liqueurs. This cocktail also has it as the foremost ingredient.
Intro to Aperol
- 2 ounces Aperol
- 1 ounce gin (Beefeater)
- 3/4 ounce lemon juice
- 1/4 ounce simple syrup
- 1 dash Angostura Bitters
Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. At the Pegu Club, it’s garnished with a flamed orange peel.
The citrus flavor of the Aperol along side the lemon juice make for a light and fresh cocktail. It really works well for those summer cocktail hours.
Cheers.
