Second Anniversary - Another Year of Booze Blogging

As per last year and in keeping with traditions, it seemed like a good time to reflect back on the previous year of blogging.

•I'm still really enjoying blogging, though there times when it feels like I've let its demands get ahold of me too much. It's funny, but I just don't drink fast enough or often enough. However, the liver transplant surgeons of the world would probably disagree with that assessment.
•It's amazing what a regular posting schedule has done for my traffic. It took about a year and a half to get my first 10,000 page views, but only four months to get the next 10,000. My one New Year's resolution was to post twice a week and I've pretty much stuck to that. And tried to make up for it when I've slipped. Hopefully I get can get to three times a week or more at some point, but there is that small matter of the rest of my life in the way. Time will tell.
•It's been very interesting dipping my toe into the world of whisk(e)y. From those first few tentative steps through rye and bourbon, I've since come to love grain-based spirits from across the globe. It's pushed me to think a lot more about the details of the spirits I drink, both on their own and in cocktails. However, it's also kind of an expensive hobby.
•On that note, it's been interesting to note the relative output of the cocktail and whisk(e)y blogospheres, as it feels like the former has been ebbing a bit while the latter picks up more and more steam. Admittedly there's a little confirmation bias there because I've been searching out new whisk(e)y blogs, which means they're more likely to be active, but the updates on the sidebar have definitely taken on a new pattern.
•With that said, tiki continues unabated (thanks, Doug). Sometimes with a vengeance.
•I've really enjoyed sinking my teeth into the world of rhum agricole. After a rough start, we are definitely good friends now.
•Still not much of a garnisher, but I'll dabble from time to time. Getting a channel knife for Christmas helped.
•Still enjoying making my own ingredients and looking forward to covering more of them in the future.
•Still thankful to the Horde for all the traffic and the booze conversation that comes my way via the OTAN.
•While there are some really excellent distilleries in the area, as I noted last year, some of the newer entrants are incredibly disappointing. I'm hoping they'll step up their game, but they're in a tricky position.
•I've found some great new places to get a drink and should be reviewing a few more soon.

Once again, thanks to everyone who's read my blog over the last year and here's to many more to come.

Making Fruit Tinctures

One of the fun things that you can do once you start getting into cocktails is making your own ingredients. Syrups like orgeat or lime cordial are pretty easy. A little up the difficulty scale are alcoholic infusions. The simplest are those like limoncello, where citrus peels are soaked in high proof alcohol, then diluted with sugar syrup. In the picture above you can see a couple of those in progress, with both lemon peels and grapefruit peels soaking in 95% alcohol. I usually buy Everclear because it's only $15 for a 750 mL bottle and it can be diluted down to whatever strength I want to use. While you can use 100-proof vodka or something like that in a pinch, the higher the proof of the alcohol, the more oils will be extracted from the peels. The same does not necessarily hold true for fruit infusions. The compounds that give fruits flavor are not necessarily as oily as the aromatic compounds in citrus peels. This means that different compounds will be extracted from the fruit depending on the alcohol concentration used to make the infusion. It's worthwhile to play around with the ABV of your infusion to see how this influences the final product. I usually let infusions sit for about a month, but you can make them go faster by giving the containers a swirl or a shake every so often to help the infusion proceed more thoroughly. 

To finally get into some real chemistry, there's a good reason why agitating your infusion speeds up the process - as compounds are leeched from the peels, the concentration of those compounds in the area directly adjacent to the peels will build up, which makes for a smaller gradient between the solid and liquid phases. Moving things around spreads out the dissolved compounds, reestablishing a stronger gradient and causing the oils to extract more quickly.

After your infusion is done steeping, you need to filter the liquid away from the solids. A mesh strainer is a good first step. If you're using fruit, you may want to squeeze it to get out all of the delicious liquid, but you can also use it for making pie. To further clarify the liqueur, a metal or plastic coffee filter is a good way to get more of the fine particles. Actual coffee filters will also work, but they will also absorb some of the liqueur. Personally, I usually just accept that there's going to be some leftover solids in my infusions. It's not going to hurt you.

Once you're filtered your infusion, you have two options - either dilute the liquid with sugar syrup to make a liqueur or keep the infusion undiluted. The first is more traditional and makes for a handy ingredient that can be drunk straight or added to cocktails directly. As long as the resulting liqueur is over 20% ABV, it should be stable indefinitely without refrigeration. A high sugar content will also help to ward off any microbial growth. I personally tend to lean towards the second option, because I'm rarely interested in drinking liqueurs straight. By leaving the infusion in an un-diluted state, I can easily swap out the syrups that I use to sweeten the drink, with some interesting results. Alternatively, as in the cocktail at the bottom of this post, I can use the tinctures as base spirits instead of as liqueurs.

Infusions will often change in smell and flavor, even after the steeping is over and the liquid has been filtered. While they're technically ready to drink as soon as you've got them filtered, another couple of months will probably help to mellow and integrate the flavors and smells. Additionally, if you take the route of leaving the infusions undiluted, it's normal that you won't necessarily be able to smell a lot from the infusion. The high concentration of alcohol solubilizes the aromatic compounds very effectively. When the spirit is diluted with water, the aromatics become less soluble in the liquid and are then more volatile.

Rangpur Bounty
1 oz gin
1 oz mango tincture
0.5 oz lime juice
0.5 oz grapefruit juice
0.25 oz passionfruit syrup
0.25 oz simple syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters

The sip leads off with a bit of syrupy sweetness, which resolves into the tropical fruits of the passionfruit syrup and mango tincture. Near the end, the snappier flavors of gin, bitters, lime and grapefruit lead into the finish, keeping the drink from becoming insipid. I really like how the flavors flow past either other, blending briefly before passing off to the next set. The bitters, as so often they do, seem to be key to really amping everything up. Finally, for being a rather spiritous cocktail (remember, the tincture is equivalent to more than 2x the volume of normal 80-proof spirit), it ends up being rather balanced and refreshing.

Overall, this is a drink that I'm rather pleased with given that it was mostly an effort to use up some lime and grapefruit juice that I had sitting in the fridge.

Homemade Lime Cordial

As we head into spring, it's going to be time for warmer weather cocktails again. Break out that bottle of gin that's been hiding in favor of richer spirits. And what better drink to make than a gimlet? But if you're going to make a proper gimlet, that calls for lime cordial. What's that? The nasty, HFCS-ladden monstrosity of Rose's Lime Cordial found on every liquor store shelf? Perish the thought.

Lime cordial began in the 19th century as a way for sailors to preserve lime juice that could be consumed on long voyages to hold off scurvy. In essence it was simply a mixture of lime juice, sugar and lime peels simmered briefly to make a syrup. It's relatively easy to make and adds a new dimension to a number of different classic and tiki cocktails. This recipe comes from Imbibe magazine's "Mix It Up" feature in their Jan/Feb 2011 issue.

Lime Cordial
6 limes (enough for 1/2 cup of juice)
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Zest the limes and save the peels. Don't worry about getting some of the bitter pith as it will actually perk up the resulting syrup a bit. Juice the zested limes and strain the juice into a saucepan. Add sugar and simmer for ~20 minutes. Let the syrup cool for 5 minutes, then add the lime peels and steep for 15-20 minutes. Strain the syrup through a mesh strainer into a clean container and store in the refrigerator. The cordial should keep for several months.

While a gimlet is the classic use for lime cordial, there are a number of other recipes that call for it, from the tiki-style Suffering, Dying and Dead Bastards, to classic drinks from the Cocktail Database, including this little number:


Limey Cocktail
1 oz light rum
0.75 oz lime cordial
0.5 oz orange liqueur
0.25 oz lime juice

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

While this drink calls for light rum, I decided to tweak it a bit by using the rather potent 100-proof rhum agricole blanc from La Favorite.

The nose is dominated by the vegetal funk of the rhum agricole, backed up by a bit of lime oil from the cordial. The initial sip is rather syrupy with hints of the orange liqueur, making it seem like the drink is going to be overpoweringly sweet. However, this quickly transitions to snappy lime juice and the alcoholic bite and funky pear flavors of the rhum. There's a bit of lingering bitter sweetness from a combination of the rhum and syrups, making it interestingly more-ish.

On the face of it, this is simply a rhum-based New Orleans sour, but the use of lime cordial makes for a more interesting drink than one would get with a more standard recipe.

Bénédictine: Subtle Magic

I fortuitously decided to take a trip across the state border to take a look at a couple of the liquor shops in Vancouver, WA over the Labor Day weekend. While the rather high liquor taxes did dissuade me from a number of purchases that I had considered, I did see some bottles of Bénédictine herbal liqueur on sale.

While not high on my list of things to buy, it is an ingredient in a number of rather intriguing recipes. A search through the Cocktail Database returns quite a long list of results.

Originally developed by Alexandre Le Grand and purportedly based off of a recipe made by a local order of monks, many have tried to imitate this liqueur but none have succeeded. As with many other herbal liqueurs, the ingredients that go into it are a closely held secret.

It's clear that this is a very complex mixture of ingredients. Neat, the nose I get includes grass, lavender, mint, violets, almond, lemongrass and a whole host of other smells that I can't quite put my finger on. The flavor is obviously sweet, leaning towards simple sugar. There is a burst of herbal, somewhat mentholic flavor and little to no finish.

High on the list of recipes I've been meaning to try is the Singapore Sling. There's quite a bit of debate over the "real" recipe, but Beachbum Berry has published what seems like the tastiest one.

Singapore Sling
2 oz gin
0.5 oz brandy
1 oz Cherry Heering
0.5 oz Bénédictine
1 oz lime juice
1.5 oz soda water

Combine all ingredients except for soda water and shake with ice. Strain into a chilled chimney glass filled with ice and top with soda water.

So far I've tried this one with either Hendricks alone, Aviation alone or a 3:1 Hendricks/Plymouth split.  I like the Hendrick's by itself best, but any gin that's not too juniper heavy will likely do well in this drink. Crisp and plays well with fruit is the key here.

Additionally, you can play around with the fruit liqueur a bit. A full ounce of Cherry Heering can overwhelm the drink, at least initially. I've also tried it with a 0.5 oz each of homemade raspberry and orange liqueurs, which let the gin shine a bit more while keep the fruity roundness of the drink.

Ultimately this drink is clearly made for long tropical days. While there's a lot of fruity sweetness going on here, it's balanced out by the crispness of the gin and soda water along with the sour snap of the lime juice. A quintessential long drink, it mellows nicely over time with the gin holding up even as the drink is diluted. The Bénédictine gets along well with the gin and adds a little somethin' somethin' to the drink. Do watch out though. While it doesn't hit you in the face, there's quite a lot of alcohol in the glass.

A Year of Booze-Blogging

Following the traditions of some of my betters, I wanted to look back at what I've learned in the year since I started this blog.

• It's really fun to write about something I enjoy so much and share it with the rest of the world
• I am constantly amazed by the awesomeness of other cocktail, liquor and booze bloggers. Seriously, if you enjoy this stuff at all, go read through the links on the left hand column. Just about everything I know comes from reading their delightful prose.
• While I started this journey with a strong appreciation for gin and tequila and a nascent interest in rum, tiki drinks have slowly encouraged me to build a love for brandy and whisk(e)y. Plus, you know, more rum. Everything has its place, even if you have to play around a bit to find it.
• Making good drinks for other people is incredibly satisfying.
• While I have yet to join the garnish crowd, some of them are really, really pretty.
• I really enjoy making my own ingredients. Some of my own devising, others from reputable sources.
• While I tend to make my own drinks at home rather than going out, there are some really excellent places in Portland for a good tipple.
•Getting readers requires putting yourself out there, both through commenting on other blogs and any other available channels (thanks, Horde!).
•There is politics, even in the world of cocktails.
•The Northwest is full of excellent distilleries, both old and new.

Overall I just wanted to thank everyone who has read this blog over the last year. Here's to many more tasty drinks and useful posts.

Homemade Gin

A few months back, I was kvetching about the lack of high-proof gins available in the US. While that still bugs me, I decided to take a page out of Jeffery Morganthaler's book and make my own.

My recipe diverged a bit from his, mostly because I was trying to make something akin to Plymouth Navy-Strength gin. There are seven listed botanicals in Plymouth and I was able to get all of them from without much trouble. For anyone in the Portland area, Limbo, off SE 39th & Holgate, is an absolutely fantastic place for getting herbs and spices.

Experimental Gin #1

400 mL 100-proof alcohol
1 cardamom pod
1/4 tsp coriander pods
1/4 tsp angelica root
3/4 tsp juniper berries
1/4 tsp powdered orris root
1 Tbsp orange tincture
3 Tbsp lemon tincture

Lightly crush all solid ingredients and add to liquid. Seal and store overnight, shaking occasionally. Filter through coffee filters until sufficiently clear.

For something where I was fudging a lot of the measurements, this turned out rather well. I probably could have filtered it a time or two more, largely because of the powdered orris root (I need to find it in unground form at some point), but it's no big deal. The orange and lemon tinctures were also shortcuts because I happened to have them on hand, but a couple of strips of orange and lemon peel (without any white pith) would work just about as well. This recipe used a mixture of Everclear (95% EtOH) and water, but 100-proof vodka will work too if you can't get your hands on the former. Ultimately I'd like to try making batches at different proofs to see how the flavor profile changes depending on the extraction efficiency of various flavor compounds.

Much like Morganthaler's recipe, this is entirely provisional. I was aiming for a particular set of flavors, but you should feel to adjust it to your own tastes. A lot of his suggestions for additional spices to try are good and I would add cucumber to that list if you happen to like gins such as Hendricks or 12 Bridges. Also, this wasn't a particularly juniper-forward gin, so if you want more of that evergreen snap, you should add some more.

In no small measure, my ultimate reason for wanting to make high-proof gins came from an article on Oh Gosh! about a gin-based tiki cocktail, the Winchester. Since it's a) hard to find and b) a bit spendy, I've yet to plonk down the cash for a bottle of Martin Miller's Westbourne Strength gin. While my own version doesn't have the visual clarity, it is certainly up to proof and then some. In trying to make my own Winchester, I had to make a few substitutions due to other missing ingredients, but the final product was pretty good.

Pseudo-Winchester
0.75 oz Ransom Old Tom Gin
1 oz Experimental Gin #1
1 oz Hendrick's gin
0.75 oz lime juice
0.75 oz grapefruit juice
0.75 oz Yellow Chartreuse
0.5 oz grenadine
0.25 oz ginger syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients, shake with lots of cracked ice and pour unstrained into a chilled single rocks glass or tiki mug.

If you haven't glanced at the original Winchester recipe yet, I'll fess up and point out that I had to sub just about every ingredient on the list, except for the juices and syrups. I also eased up on the Old Tom, both because of the higher proof of my experimental gin compared to the MMWS and because the Ransom Old Tom has an awful lot of cardamom, which can easily overpower a drink. I also don't have any St. Germain (yes, I am a terrible cocktail blogger). The Yellow Chartreuse was the most floral liqueur I had on hand, so in it went (probably bumping up the alcohol content of the drink a bit as well). Combined with the Hendricks, which is a rather floral gin, the overall flavor profile is hopefully reminiscent of, if not exactly the same as, the Oh Gosh! recipe.

This is quite a powerful drink, both in terms of alcoholic strength and flavor. There was still a lot of cardamom (I might bring down the Ransom a bit more and sub in some Plymouth if I was making this again), but the ginger bite, floral and herbal flavors from the gins and liqueur still made themselves known. I actually forgot to add the Angostura bitter straight off and had to add them later, but the drink has a fairly similar flavor profile even without them. The bitter simply accent what is already present and give the drink a bit more snap. The other elements tend to play supporting, but still important roles, with the grenadine and lime balancing each other and providing a nice fruity roundness and the grapefruit adding it's own bitter character to that of the gin.

It's been fun to explore the realm of non-rum-based tiki drinks and I'm hoping to get to more of it in the future. While rum will always be my main love, there's plenty of tasty drinks to be made with other base spirits.

Quick and Dirty (But Tasty!) Ginger Syrup

After trying a few different types of commercial ginger beer (I'm especially looking at you, Reed's Extra Ginger Brew), none of them really seemed to have the kick that I was looking for. I tried Jeffery Morgenthaler's method, which was good, but always seemed to have a yeasty taste to it. The standard method for making ginger syrup, simmering chunks of ginger in simple syrup and filtering the resulting mess, worked alright but seemed to lose its kick fairly quickly. I finally despaired and gave up hope for a while.

Then, as luck would have it, I stumbled upon Summit Sips. While browsing the archives, I came upon a new recipe for ginger syrup. This, folks, is the way to go. All the convenience of ginger syrup, which lets you make as little or as much ginger beer as you want, with the snappy tasty of Mr. Morgenthaler's recipe. Truly a gift from the gods, especially if one happens to have a bit of a sore throat or a stuffed up nose.

Finally, it'd be a shame to leave without a recipe using ginger syrup. While I quite enjoy it in a Bourbon Special, it plays a little more prominent role in another tiki drink:

Queen's Road Cocktail (from Beachbum Berry's "Sippin' Safari")

0.5 oz lime juice
0.5 oz orange juice
0.5 oz honey syrup
1.5 oz gold Puerto Rican rum
0.5 tsp ginger syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass.

Without the ginger syrup, this would be a passable but unremarkable cocktail. Some decent fruit flavor, the smooth sweetness of honey and gold Puerto Rican rum, which is usually good, but doesn't particularly stand out in comparison to Jamaican or Guyanese rums. The ginger syrup adds another new dimension to the drink, giving it snap and spice.

For those who like that ginger bite a bit more, you could easily bump the ginger syrup up to 1 tsp without disturbing the balance of the drink, though you might want to use a hair less honey syrup so that it doesn't get too sweet. Overall, it's a fairly simple but definitely tasty cocktail.

Orgeat Syrup Recipe

While I am far from the first person to venture into this realm, I wanted to add my fairly simple but tasty recipe to the crowd.

•2:1 ratio of blanched almonds to water, by volume
•1/4 tsp almond extract

Toast the almonds until fragrant, but not burnt. Blast the almonds into little pieces with a food processor. Simmer the almonds and water together at very low heat for an hour or two. By that point there should be an obvious layer of extracted oils from the almonds floating on top of the mixture. Strain the mixture through a tight mesh sieve or cheese cloth to remove the solids.

At that point, you should check to see how much volume you have. It'll probably be about half the volume of water you put in. Mix the almond milk you've just made 1:1 with simple syrup. Toss in a bit of vodka or grain alcohol if you like so that it will keep longer.

This syrup has a really great toasted almond flavor. Additionally, I find that it works well to smooth out rougher flavors and also gives just a bit of frothy head to shaken drinks. One drink in that vein is on Death & Co's menu. I had to guess at the proportions, but it turned out to be quite tasty.

Fix Me Up

1-1.25 oz Rittenhouse rye whiskey

0.5 oz Lustau Oloroso sherry

0.5 oz lemon juice

0.5 oz orange juice

0.25 oz simple syrup

0.5 oz orgeat syrup

1 dash Fee’s Old Fashioned Bitters

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass.

This is a great cocktail to sit and sip. Even with a fairly healthy dose of simple and orgeat syrups, it manages to be balanced, even edging towards being dry. The nutty flavor of the Oloroso sherry and the orgeat fit rather well with the spicy flavors of the rye whiskey. The herbal notes of the bitters also fit well with the rye grain flavors, while the juices give the drink a bit of snap. While I have no clue how this compares to the drink made at D&C, I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out.

Chocolate Spiced Rum

One of my first experiments in making my own ingredients was an attempt to make chocolate bitters. I was fairly excited to read about Fee's Aztec Chocolate Bitters and Bitterman's Mole Bitters. Unsweetened chocolate seemed like a perfect compliment for a lot of drinks, especially those containing rum or tequila. However, the reviews of the Fee Brothers product were less than stellar and the Bitterman's product runs $18/bottle, which seems pretty steep to me. Since my local store for spices, Limbo, carries cacao nibs, I decided to try making them myself. While I was less than impressed with the results, it came to me that the same flavors would also work really well as a spiced rum. So I tossed in some Appleton and let the mixture soak for a week. The results were fabulous. Deep chocolate flavors surrounded by a spicy kick. After that batch was finished, I made another batch with fresh ingredients. That worked out fairly well, though the chocolate was somewhat subdued and the chili flavors were more predominant. My guess is that because the spices extract at different rates, there was more chocolate than spice flavor left over in the once-used spices in the first batch. Either way, it's really tasty and featured prominently in the drink I made for the last Mixology Monday.

Chocolate Spiced Rum
12 oz Appleton V/X rum
5 oz cacao nibs
0.5 tsp chipotle pepper
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cloves
0.5 tsp black pepper

Combine all spices and grind lightly with a mortar and pestle. Infuse the rum for ~1 week or to taste. The spices can be reused at least once more after filtering.

Last, but not least, another recipe to highlight the wonderful uses for this spiced rum:

Spiced Shrubb
0.5 oz Jamaican rum (Appleton V/X)
0.5 oz chocolate spiced rum
0.5 oz Creole Shrubb
0.5 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz grapefruit juice
0.3 oz simple syrup (or less to taste)

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass.

This is a really tasty drink and a great one for the holidays. Imagine a chocolate-dipped spiced orange that's full of alcohol. The Jamaican rum adds some funk, the citrus juices keep it tart and the spiced rum brings a whole host of flavors. For a liqueur, the Shrubb is very fruity, but drier than one would expect. Depending on how sweet you like your drinks, the extra simple syrup may or may not be necessary. While other orange liqueurs won't work in quite the same way, something like Cointreau might be a decent substitute. No matter what, this is another example of how tiki-style drinks can take a fairly wide array of flavors and meld them into a coherent whole rather than a muddy soup.

The Joy of Cocktail Chemistry

As someone who loves chemistry and cooking, making my own ingredients was a natural step once I became more interested in cocktails. Basic elements like simple and ginger syrups were early first steps. Then came lemon, cranberry and grapefruit tinctures, followed quickly by orange-kumquat liqueur. Some of the recipes ended up being tweaked, such as using cachaça due to a lack of brandy and subbing some tangerine peel for orange peel in the orange-kumquat liqueur, Waiting while these various concoctions steeped on my hallway shelf was almost excruciating:

While I haven't always been thrilled by the results (limoncello was a bit less exciting than I hoped it would be), I've so far continued to make or start a new item every couple of weeks or so. The list so far includes:

•Chocolate bitters
•Falernum
•Cold process grenadine
•Hot process hibiscus grenadine
•Orgeat (almond milk)
•Spiced rum
•Home-aged rum

I'll probably do posts on these various ingredients some time in the future, as they each deserve their own story.