Amber Waves of Grain

While it's arguable that rum was America's first national spirit, these days whiskey is likely to be the first drink that they associate with the country. It didn't take long after settlers began moving west, especially once they had crossed the Appalachian Mountains, for them to realize that it was much more efficient and profitable for them to turn their grain into whiskey and sell that than it was to sell the grain itself. It didn't take long before America was a nation of whiskey drinkers and boy did they know how to put it away. By the early 1800s there were about 14,000 distilleries in the country producing millions of gallons of whiskey [1]. The average American drank roughly five gallons of absolute alcohol in a year, translating roughly into a normal bottle of 80-proof booze a week. Given that it was also a time of religious revival and a not insignificant portion of the population were tee-totalers, that average hides a rather bimodal distribution with a relatively small number of people consuming most of the alcohol.

American whiskies have generally fallen into two categories: bourbon and rye. In each case, this is primarily determined by the mash bill, with bourbon containing more than 51% corn and rye containing more than 51% rye. In both cases they are usually a mixture of corn, rye, barley and sometimes wheat, though there are a few 100% ryes on the market right now. Also, both types of whiskey must be aged in new, charred oak barrels (this creates a ready supply of used bourbon barrels that are often used to age rum). While the flavor is largely influenced by the mash bill, the barrel aging also rounds off some of the sharper edges of the spirit and adds vanilla, caramel and wood flavors to the mix.

Bulleit Bourbon

© Four Roses Distillery

On a whim I decided that I should finally get around to trying some whiskey, as it was one of the spirits that I hadn't tried. After poking around some of my favorite booze blogs for recommendations, there seemed to be a consensus that Bulleit was a really great value. I'll have to admit that my initial impressions were not overwhelmingly positive. Despite being a reasonably stiff spirit at 90 proof, it just wasn't punching through drinks in the way I expected it to. Compared to my usual base liquor of choice, rum, bourbon doesn't have quite the same heft. But after a little playing around, I finally figured out how to make it work well.

Bulleit Bourbon has a higher proportion of rye in the mash bill than a lot of other bourbons, which gives it a somewhat spicy and snappier character to counterbalance the smooth caramel sweetness that one normally finds in bourbon. All in all, this is a great spirit and a fine bridge between traditional bourbons and rye whiskies. And it makes a mean tiki drink.

Bourbon Special (adapted from Beachbum Berry Remixed)

1.75 oz Bulleit Bourbon
0.5 oz lime juice
0.25 oz simple syrup
0.25 oz dark falernum
0.25 oz ginger syrup
one dash Angostura bitters

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

The original recipe called for ginger beer, but I prefer a bit more snap from ginger syrup made with fresh ginger juice. All of the spicy ingredients play nicely with the bourbon without completely obliterating it. The extra oomph that Bulleit brings to the table helps to give the drink some backbone. All in all, a great drink.

Rittenhouse Bottled-in-Bond Rye Whiskey

© Heaven Hill Distillery

 Normally, I have a hard time trusting liquor that comes with a plastic screw top. Even the metal ones are a bit better, but corks can't cost that much more and just look classier. But Rittenhouse Bonded is gold in disguise.

As noted above, rye whiskey takes the normal bourbon mash bill and more or less inverts it. So there's a whole new layer of flavors riding on top of the sweet-ish corn and caramel flavor of bourbon. There's a lot of spice, primarily cinnamon, grainy rye, a bit of wood and a touch of pepper. Together, the result is fairly dry but quite balanced. Surprisingly for being 100-proof, there's almost no alcohol flavor and very little burn. The best thing I can say about this whiskey is that it has depth. Which is probably why it's currently a darling of mixologists. Some liquors won't assert themselves very well when you want to pair them with other strongly flavored ingredients. Rittenhouse will easily hold its own without completely dominating a drink. And for something so distinctly American, it also works rather well in tiki drinks.

Monongahela Punch

1.5 oz Rittenhouse Bonded Rye

1 oz grapefruit juice

0.75 oz lime juice

0.5 oz cinnamon syrup

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

This is a simple substitution into the Donga Punch, but it works just as well as the original. I suspect that this is partially because many varieties of rhum agricole clock in at 100 proof as well, so the recipe is made to balance with a strong base liquor. Subbing in cognac works well too, which is part of why I still wish that I could get some Force 53. Rittenhouse works perfectly here, both because of its strength and because the spicy flavor of the whiskey synchronizes perfectly with the cinnamon syrup, while both are balanced by the acidic and bitter citrus flavors. If you enjoy whiskey at all, you owe it to yourself to go pick up a bottle of Rittenhouse (if you can find it). At roughtly $20, it's pretty hard to beat in terms of value.

[1] Watman, Max. Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine. 2010.

Hot Chocolate Spiced Rum

Much like Doug, I'm not usually a big fan of hot alcoholic drinks. They're pretty much always either cold and alcoholic or hot and non-alcoholic. Neither the 'twain shall meet. Or something like that. But this for this week's Mixology Monday prompt, those two things are the only requirement. So I decided to try something that seemed like a logical pairing, but hadn't been put together before. That is, hot chocolate and the chocolate spiced rum I have sitting on my shelf. Pretty simple, but it was pretty tasty.

Hot Chocolate Spiced Rum
1 oz dark chocolate (TJ's Pound Plus Dark works well)
6 oz whole milk
1 oz chocolate spiced rum

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, add the milk and whisk the two together until reasonably warm and homogenous. Add spiced rum, give a quick stir and enjoy. A cinnamon stick might make a good garnish, but it's not strictly necessary.

Thanks to Nancy over at The Backyard Bartender for hosting this one.

Help From the Hive Mind

While I've enjoyed immersing myself in the world of cocktails over the past year, there are times when my searches for particular bits of information come up flat. so I turn to you, mighty denizens of the Internet and Cocktail Blogosphere to see if you can provide some insight.

© Louis Royer

High Proof Booze

While searching for a good mixing cognac, I stumbled upon a discussion on the ever-useful eGullet forums. One of the commenters mentioned Louis Royer Force 53 Cognac as one of the more spectacular options currently available as it clocks in at a burley 106 proof (hence the Force 53 moniker). Spurred by a glowing review by Paul Clarke at the Cocktail Chronicles, I poked around for a way to get my hands on a bottle. While I came up with a few hits, with the already steep price point combined with shipping liquor from the East Coast, what I could find was far beyond my limit for untried booze. Since Paul was able to get his hands on it out in Seattle, I presume there must be some decent source for it. Anyone have a hook-up that they can clue me into? Alternatively, does anyone have suggestions for other high-proof brandies that would work well in 19th-century cocktails?

© Plymouth Gin

Another high-proof item I've been looking for is a stronger gin. I'd love to get my hands on some 114-proof Plymouth Navy Strength Gin, but as far as I know it's not sold in the States. On the other hand, the people at the Clover Club can apparently get their hands on enough to serve it to customers, so maybe there is a way. Another possibility is the slightly less potent 102-proof Seagram's Distiller's Reserve, though the reviews have been slightly mixed. Martin Miller's Westbourne Strength is also frequently noted in discussions about higher proof gins, but that one doesn't even crack the 50% mark. However I'm also less of a fan of London dry style gins, so neither of those options is super appealing. Anyone know how to get the Plymouth NSG or have other suggestions?












Forgotten Spirits

© K&L Wines

I finally put my hands on a copy of David Wondrich's Imbibe! and have been poking at it whenever I have a spare moment. One of the ingredients that he bemoans the loss of is aged peach brandy. After some poking around the internet, it's clear that some craft distillers are starting to put out new products in that vein, but they're also not cheap, especially once shipping is factored in. There's an unaged peach brandy from Koenig Distillery in Idaho listed in the Oregon directory that I might be able to "age" with oak chips. However, the problem is twofold. One is that I can't even find any reviews online, so I have no idea if it's any good to begin with. Secondly and more importantly, it's not listed as being stocked anywhere right now, so unless I'm lucky enough to stumble upon a store that miraculously has some, that's not a viable option. So once again, if any of you have better ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Local Flavor, Pt. III: Sound Spirits

© Sound Spirits

As per usual, I took a few days off to go visit my family in Seattle over Christmas. On Boxing Day we all decided to try the city's first distillery, Sound Spirits. Noticeable only because of the tentacles painted on the wall, the distillery is tucked in between two other businesses and is somewhat easy to miss while driving down W 15th Ave.

Started by Steve Stone about three years ago due in part to the fact that Steve met Christian Krogstad of House Spirits. After putting together a business plan, acquiring space and the necessary permits, the distillery is now up and running. So far he has put out a barley-based Ebb + Flow vodka and is also doing an Ebb + Flow gin, which was completely spoken for by the time we got there. The gin was, incredibly good and smoother than any other I've tried. While I like drinks a lot, straight liquor usually makes me sputter a bit, but that gin had barely any burn at all. The particular batch we had (the first production run) clearly still had some rough edges to work off as it was a bit cloudy, probably from the citrus oils coming out of solution when the gin was brought down to proof. But I'm not one to care so much about appearance, especially when the flavor is good. The E+F gin is definitely in the New West mold, with subdued juniper and a fairly citrus-heavy flavor profile. While none of the other botanicals jumped out at me, it seemed to be a nice and balanced mix. This is something that I could easily imagine drinking with a couple dashes of bitters and nothing else. While I'm normally loath to make the "this is too good for cocktails" claim, any drink you put it into would be better off highlighting the gin rather than swamping it.

We also got to try an experimental herbal liqueur that Steve described as harkening back to spirits like Chartreuse or Benedictine, so it's distinctly sweet, floral and herbaceous. While I didn't hear anything about a release date, I'm really looking forward to trying that liqueur again. Bonus points if the price point is a tick bit lower than either of those established products, which hopefully won't be too hard to do.

Overall, I was quite impressed with the products that Sounds Spirits is putting out. While it's clearly early days, there's a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do in the future. Here's to the expansion of distilling in the Northwest!

Book Review: The Joy of Mixology

© Gary Regan, 2003

As I've noted before, Gary Regan's The Joy of Mixology is one of the books that helped to send me down the path of cocktail nerdery. Though nominally aimed at aspiring bartenders, this is an excellent book for anyone who wants to understand the theory behind cocktail recipes.

The book opens with a condensed history of cocktails, going all the way back to the 18th century when cocktails emerged as a drink form in Colonial America. As Gary points out, the cocktail is one of the few culinary inventions that is entirely unique to America rather than being derived from imported ideas.

In my opinion, the most useful aspect of this book is the way that drinks are broken into families and presented in spreadsheet form to show how changing the base spirit or an ingredient can produce an entirely new drink. For instance, the Margarita and Daiquiri are all in the sours mold of spirit, sour and sweet, with different spirits (tequila vs. rum) and sweeteners (orange liqueur vs. simple syrup). Understanding those foundations allows one to easily swap one ingredient for another to create new drinks. This has led Regan to create new cocktails to fill "holes" in the cocktail canon where there is an obvious and easy swap that for whatever reason had previously not been made.

The Joy of Mixology would be the first book I would tell someone who wants to learn more about cocktails to buy. It contains all the basic recipes you'll need to keep yourself and others happy. There's plenty of technique and recommendations for equipment you'll need. And it will give you a huge leg up on how to making your own cocktail recipes. If it's not on your shelf yet, go out and buy it right now.

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.

Rum Reviews, Pt. I: Barbados

Barbados is, by most accounts, the birthplace of rum as we know it. According to the excellent ...and a Bottle of Rum by Wayne Curtis, rum was likely first distilled on the island around the mid-17th century. While this probably began as an effort to use up the all of the molasses generated from sugar production, it soon became a booming export industry.

All of that is to say, Bajan rums have a long history. And the most famous rums from the island come from the Mount Gay distillery, the oldest continually operating rum distillery on earth. A deed for the estate from 1703 marks the oldest piece of evidence for the distillery's history, which likely goes back even further.

I've raved before about how good Mt. Gay Extra Old (XO) is and I stand by that first impression. It really is one of the quintessential rums on the market today. A lush, rich rum, so smooth that the alcohol is barely detectible. The nose has a fair amount of oak, a bit of brown sugar and a hint of citrus. Straight, it glides across the tongue with just the right amount of buttery body and a taste entirely consistent with its smell. There's almost no burn, only a light peppery finish and residual taste of oak. While that's all well and good, I'm more concerned with how it works in a cocktail. And there's no better way to judge a rum, in my opinion, than a Daiquiri:


1.5 oz rum
0.5 oz lime juice
0.4 oz simple syrup

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

Compared to crisper, white rums, making the ingredients of a daiquiri balance can be a bit trickier with an aged rum. Mt. Gay XO has a healthy dose of oak, which provides body for the drink, but can seem harsh if the proportions of lime and sugar aren't right. When they all come together, this is an incredible drink to sip outside on a summer day, the flavors coming together in perfect harmony.



A now defunct part of the Mt. Gay portfolio, their Sugar Cane Rum (or Brandy, outside of the states) is a rather peculiar product. Though produced from molasses, it has a lot of the characteristics of a fresh cane juice rum. This rather peculiar nature and the fact that it was released a bit too early to ride the burgeoning wave of rum means that it was dropped sometime within the last couple of years. Like I mentioned, in some respects it resembles a rhum agricole, with a light but distinct scent of cane in the nose. However, the smell and flavor are much lighter than a true agricole, producing a much smoother and less aggressive taste. Beyond that more unique flavor, it's a fairly standard Bajan rum, smooth, with a pleasant amount of molasses and spice. However, it does shine in one place, the Mai-Tai:

1 oz Mt. Gay Sugar Cane Rum
1 oz Smith & Cross Rum
075 oz lime juice
0.5 oz Clément Creole Shrubb (or other orange liqueur)
0.25 oz simple syrup
0.5 oz orgeat

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass, either up or with crushed ice.

While the Mai-Tai was originally made with one rum, J. Wray & Nephew 17-year, we now have to make due with substitutions. One of the best is a combination of a robust, funky Jamaican rum combined with a Martinique rhum agricole. I find that the Sugar Cane Rum provides just enough grassiness and smoothes out the rather assertive nature of the S&C to make a really excellent mai-tai. For those making it at home, be sure to use homemade orgeat. It's vastly superior to commercial products and relatively easy to make.