Sloe Gin Fizz

Since my last post, I've had some amazing bar breakthroughs. I acquired a lovely 10 cubic foot refrigerator, located just a few feet from the bar that allows me to store all my supplies downstairs, which makes it far easier to prepare a drink without three trips up and down the stairs. I also found some amazing new liquors, so I've managed to swig back a couple new cocktails.

I've discovered a new love, the Sloe Gin Fizz. First of all, I know. We've all had a miserable experience with this weird cough syrup-like swill. I too had an unfortunate time with a bottle of De Kuyper's "Sloe Gin" shortly after the Jack White/Loretta Lynn song "Portand, Oregon" was released.

Anyway, it was 2004 and during those heady days, this weird faux sloe gin was all that was available, so I had one Sloe Gin Fizz (SGF) and a bottle of sloe gin that sat in my cabinet for approximately four more years before I threw it out.

Cut to this 2013 and I'm searching out vintage and curious cocktail recipes. In many of the new books I've gotten, sloe gin has popped up more than once and is always referred to as "Plymouth Sloe Gin." Interesting, as the only Plymouth I've ever seen is their spectacular regular gin. Their sloe gin has thus been on my shopping list for awhile, but until a few weeks ago, I hadn't been able to find it. We were in Madison, Wisconsin for an overnight trip and went to a liquor store there where, lo and behold, they had Plymouth Sloe Gin! It's not cheap (like $35), so I only bought one bottle. This past weekend, I wanted to try something new, so I found a recipe in The PDT Cocktail Book (I like this book, but many of the drinks are so complicated and call for such obscure ingredients that it makes Imbibe recipes look basic). There are a ton of different SGF recipes out there. Out of the books I have, maybe three of them include SGF recipes. All three of these are different. The PDT references a recipe from J.A. Grohusko in Jack's Manual from 1910, and because that was the oldest I saw, it won. A good friend had a good amount of Meyer lemons and she gave me some wonderful Meyer lemon simple syrup and I used it here (by the way, AWESOME). I've noted how I adjusted my recipe to account for this.

• 1 oz. Plymouth Sloe Gin
• 1 oz. Plymouth Gin
• .75 oz. lemon juice
• .25 oz. simple syrup (I used .5 oz. Meyer lemon simple syrup and .5 oz of lemon juice)
• 3 oz. soda water

Mix all ingredients except the soda water and pour into an ice-filled glass. Top with soda.

I am absolutely in love with this drink. The sloe gin is nice and fruity and not cough syrup-y at all. There are a lot of good articles out there about sloe gin (sloe gin at Wikipedia, how to make your own sloe gin from Gordon's, and the always-helpful Imbibe Magazine with Elements: Sloe Gin), so I won't get into all that. Just know that in England, sloe gin is one of those drinks like limoncello that people often make at home. This sort of explains why good sloe gin is hard to find, as there doesn't appear to be much of a market for it. I like this drink so much because it is incredibly drinkable. I think the mixing of regular gin and sloe gin kind of thins out the sloe gin and makes it more palatable. Additionally, the lemon adds just enough sourness to the sweetness of the sloe gin and simple syrup.

Even if you've had a bad experience with sloe gin in the past, give this a try. I'd love to hear of your past SGF indiscretions and current better experiences, so leave me some feedback in the comments section.

The Manhattan

It's hard to believe that we haven't blogged about the Manhattan yet--especially since it was probably my gateway cocktail to the world of other delicious cocktails. It's one of those drinks where you're likely to already have all the ingredients on hand (whiskey, sweet vermouth, bitters, and a cherry, if you like), but don't let the simple ingredients fool you into thinking the Manhattan is a simple drink. A good Manhattan is sweet, smooth, and vaguely herbal. It goes down too easy as many attendees of our annual February Doldrums Party can attest to. Some folks like them up, others on the rocks. Some shake a Manhattan, others stir. However, these are the finer points you can explore later.

The history of the cocktail dates back to the late 19th Century and is one of cocktails named for NYC's five boroughs. I just tried the Brooklyn and will be blogging about that experience very soon. And, of course, at some point the Bronx, the Queens, and the Staten Island Ferry will also be featured (although the Staten Island Ferry sounds retched, draw your own conclusions).

Although some prefer a perfect Manhattan (half sweet and half dry vermouth), I prefer mine with all sweet vermouth, Carpano Antica or Vya are delicious if you can get your hands on either. Also, I should confess that I like my Manhattan with bourbon--but, let's be honest, I prefer bourbon in every whiskey cocktail. However, a traditional Manhattan is generally made with rye or canadian whiskey (never brandy, Wisconsin, never brandy). For more history on the Manhattan, check out this little NYT article.

Ingredients:
2 oz whiskey (bourbon or rye)
1 oz sweet vermouth
2 dashes bitters (we used Fee Brothers, but orange bitters are also nice)
1 Luxardo cherry

Stir all liquid ingredients with ice and strain into a glass. Serve up or over ice and garnish with a cherry.

The Cardinal's Cocktail

Well, I did some drinking over the holidays, but I did not write anything. Suffice to say that my husband and I finally discovered what a difference homemade makes when it comes to eggnog. Husband made two batches of a somewhat famous recipe from an old Four Roses ad, and we were invited to share some of a friend's batch that had been aged for one year (Really! Alton Brown's recipe). The two eggnogs were different, but both were delicious and in no way like the stuff you buy at the grocery store.

Speaking of homemade being well worth the effort, a friend of ours gave us a bottle of homemade falernum and a bottle of homemade orgeat yesterday. I will write more about the falernum soon, but for tonight I tried the orgeat. Orgeat is a syrup made of almonds and a few other ingredients. Its most well-known use is in the Mai-Tai, but I wanted to try to find something different, so I consulted the CocktailDB and found this one that I had never heard of, called Cardinal's Cocktail. I have had no luck finding out any history of this one because most drinks I have seen called Cardinal involve red wine or Campari, for the bright red color. I'm not sure why this version is not better known, because it's really delicious. The only problem I could find with it was that it was all gone way too quickly.

Cardinal's Cocktail
1 1/2 oz white rum
3/4 oz lime juice
1/4 oz triple sec (Cointreau)
1/4 oz grenadine
1/4 oz orgeat

I have tried store-bought orgeat that was a "gourmet" brand and I didn't think it had much almond flavor at all, but this homemade stuff is terrific. It's thick with a pinky-beigey color, and you have to shake it really well but the flavor is sweet almond, like marzipan.

This recipe as written had 1 oz of lime juice, but it made more sense to me to cut it to 3/4 oz, to make it equal parts lime juice and sweetening ingredients. The balance came out just right, I thought. It definitely didn't need more lime.

If you don't know CocktailDB.com, definitely check it out. It's run by Martin Douderoff and Ted Haigh, aka Dr. Cocktail, the author of Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. Not only is it a great resource about recipes and ingredients, but also it features really fun photos of bottles from Haigh's personal collection.

The Gimlet

This is a little embarrassing to admit, but sometimes I get the idea that I just don’t like something about a cocktail, and I will never try one. I’ve never had a martini (shocking, I know), for instance, just because I have the idea that I won’t like it (why, I have no clue—gin, I like, dry vermouth, sure, so what’s the problem?). I don’t like olives, so I think that’s where my skepticism of the martini lies, but I am tempted to try one with a lemon twist rather than olive juice. I’ll keep you posted on that front, but another drink I’ve thought I won’t like is the gimlet. Once again, no idea why. It could be because I think Rose’s Lime is a weird color. Anyway, a few years ago, Darci tried to get a gimlet at a bar here, and the bartender had no clue how to make one. We sent the server back with a recipe, and the horribleness that came back was enough to turn us both off of gimlets for awhile. I’ve had a revelation, though, thanks to an article by Troy Patterson over on Slate. You should pop over to that site and check out the article; it was very informative and piqued my interest in the gimlet.

I try to keep my bar well-stocked, so I tend to buy lots of little add-ons that I might use in the future. Rose's Lime Juice is one of these things, so I've owned a bottle for probably two years now. It has never been opened, due to the previously-mentioned blah feeling I had about gimlets. After reading the Slate article, I knew what drink I would be making that evening. I came home and mixed up a glass, not using the Raymond Chandler recipe (half gin and half Rose's Lime and nothing else), but instead the recipe off the Rose's Lime bottle. I threw in some orange bitters and wow! I plan on knocking more than a few of these back, at least until I run out of Rose's Lime. The ingredients:

• 1 1/2 oz gin (I went cheap cheap cheap and used Trader Joe's Jail-House Gin, which is actually quite tasty)
• 1 oz Rose's Lime Juice
• 2 dashes Bittercube Orange Bitters

In an old-fashioned glass, add ice, then gin, Rose's Lime Juice, and the bitters. Stir well and add a slide of lime to garnish.

I was completely blown away by how tasty this gimlet is. It's refreshing and is very simple to make, two things I appreciate. Most of the cocktail blogs or recipe sites I saw are pro-Rose's and anti-fresh lime juice in the gimlet, although I bet they'd be really tasty if you made your own version of Rose's Lime (I think you could mix 1 part 1:1 simple syrup and 1 part lime juice to make a reasonable facsimile, but I'm sure someone else has already done this and has posted about it somewhere on the Internet). Anyway, read that Slate article, check out some other recipes, and mix up your own version of the gimlet.

The Bronx Cocktail and the Income Tax Cocktail

I recently bought a set of four Thin Man movies. For those of you who aren't familiar with the film series, just know that the first one was released in 1934, is based around a detective (Nick Charles) and his wife (Nora), and includes a LOT of references to drinking. I highly recommend it--it's an excellent cocktail movie. Anyway, at one point, Nick Charles is at a bar, talking to some bartenders while he orders a Martini. He instructs the barkeeps, "The important thing is the rhythm. Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now, a Manhattan you shake to fox-trot time, a Bronx to two-step time, a dry martini you always shake to waltz time." I'd heard of a Bronx cocktail before (I love a Manhattan), so I decided to mix up a few of these. 

There are a couple of theories about who came up with the Bronx. Some people think Joseph Sormani created it in Philadelphia around 1905. Other sources credit Johnnie Solon (a bartender in Manhattan), sometime around 1899-1906. Check out the Wikipedia page about this cocktail out; the Solon theory has an entertaining creation story.

I generally don't trust the cocktail recipes on Wikipedia, so I hit the cocktail books and found this in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. It was filed under a different drink, the Income Tax. One of my favorite things about cocktails is the history of the cocktail or how cocktails relate to each other. For example, the Manhattan (sweet vermouth and bourbon) became the Martinez (sweet vermouth and gin) became the Martini (dry vermouth and gin)...I just find this incredibly interesting (this is an excellent story about just this genealogy). From the standpoint of a very amateur barman, these connections make it easier to add drinks to my "memorized cocktail" list, just by slight adjustments. The Income Tax is just a Bronx, but with two dashes of Angostura bitters. 

The Bronx

• 1 1/2 oz gin (I used Gordon's)
• 3/4 oz sweet vermouth
• 3/4 oz dry vermouth
• Juice of 1/4 orange, freshly squeezed (This is obviously really vague. I used 1/3 of an oz.)

The Income Tax

• 1 1/2 oz gin 
• 3/4 oz sweet vermouth
• 3/4 oz dry vermouth
• Juice of 1/4 orange, freshly squeezed
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

I quite liked both of these drinks. I would call the Bronx a citrus-y cousin to the Manhattan--the orange mellows the booze a little, but it is still pretty strong. As for the Income Tax, the bitters add a little sophistication and a lot of depth to the drink. These are ingredients that are pretty common, so you probably already have everything to make them, so that's a nice bonus that rarely happens. 

Philadelphia Fish House Punch

This past weekend, we got an invite to a little pre-Thanksgiving pie party and I volunteered to bring a cocktail, because, well, it's kind of what I do. I did some digging around and settled on Philadelphia Fish House Punch. Imbibe Magazine did a good write-up of some of the history of the drink; make sure you click that link. The punch was created in 1732 (1732!!) in a Philadelphia fishing club, the State in Schuylkill. The father of our nation, one George Washington, was fond of the punch, and it's said that he once drank so much Fish House Punch that he couldn't write in his diary for the next three days. After this experience, I can't say I blame him.

I always feel like making a drink at a party without testing it out first is risky, but I flew by the seat of my pants with this one. The list of ingredients (peach brandy, rum, and brandy) led me to think that it would be safe, so I took the plunge. I got this particular version of the recipe from Bon Appetit magazine, but there are a ton of different versions out there, including one in that Imbibe article and one in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. The recipes are all fairly similar, with slightly different ingredients and ratios.

The recipe I made was (and you're going to need a really big bowl to mix this up):

• 1 1/4 cup of sugar (mix this 1:1 with hot water to make simple syrup)
• 1 liter of Jamaican Gold rum (I used Appleton)
• 2 cups cognac (Disclaimer: I know nothing about brandy or cognac, but I do know that cognac was way more expensive than brandy. I went with brandy, specifically Korbel XS.)
• 1 1/2 cups lemon juice
• 1 cup peach liqueur (I have no shame--I used Mr. Boston's Peach Schnapps.)

First off, you're going to want to make a big block of ice. We have a bunch of peaches in the freezer, so we put some in a Bundt pan with some thyme springs (the recipe called for this, I certainly didn't make it up), added water, and froze. This actually turned out pretty cool. Now that your ice is freezing, you can combine the ingredients. Add in the simple syrup, rum, cognac (or brandy), lemon juice, and peach liqueur. Throw in AT LEAST six cups of cold water. You could really probably add like eight or nine cups and it would not cut the strength of the punch. I have a Soda Stream, so I fizzed up a couple liters of water so I could use fizzy instead of flat water. I used about a liter and a half (about 7-ish cups if my math is right), but I should have put both liters in. The fizzy water was a nice addition. Stir everything thoroughly and carefully place the ice block in, peach side up.

This was a bigger hit than I was expecting at the party (these folks tend to be wine drinkers for the most part). The only real downside is that the punch is deceptively strong, it doesn't taste boozy at all. By the time I finished two small cups (approximately one cup each), I was pretty well drunk. The darn thing was just so tasty and I felt like the water didn't thin it too much (it was slightly syrup-y)--this is why I think more water would be a good addition, to make it less syrup-y and less potent. It was peachy and sweet and a tiny bit sour all at once. If you don't want to make a big batch, I bet there are recipes out there that cut it down to single-serving sizes.

The Seelbach

I'm from Kentucky, and around here, everyone starts talking mint juleps in May, at Derby time. I have never liked mint juleps, and frankly, I don't know many people who do like them, but we all drink them on Derby Day. A couple of times, I got by with putting bourbon and ginger ale in my julep cup, but then I discovered the Seelbach cocktail. This cocktail is named for the Seelbach Hotel, where it was introduced in 1917 at its famous bar.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was once kicked out of the Seelbach for having a bit too much bourbon, and Al Capone was a regular there, as well. Movie stars and presidents have stayed there, and it's on the National Register of Historic Places. I decided that the Seelbach cocktail is an even better tribute to the beautiful city of Louisville, where the Derby takes place, and considerably more delicious than a mint julep, so now that's what I drink on the first Saturday in May.

1.5 oz bourbon
1/2 oz Cointreau
7 dashes Angostura bitters
7 dashes Peychauds bitters

Stir with ice in a mixing glass, strain into a cocktail glass or a flute glass, and top with champagne. Garnish with an orange peel.

Yes, that's 14 dashes of bitters.

The Seelbach is probably my favorite bourbon cocktail, and one of my favorite of all cocktails.