Since I think I’m the Recipicitor closest to Manhattan, and I know I’m the one who’s mixed the most, here’s a basic Manhattan guide.

A Manhattan cocktail is bourbon whisk(e)y, sweet vermouth and aromatic bitters. Since bourbon and sweet vermouth are both, well, sweet, the bitters is an important part of composing the cocktail. The cocktail “cool kids” (not to be confused with the law library “cool kids”) are all a-twitter about bitters, so that’s something you can play with once you have the basics worked out.

The unsung, and unphotographed, hero of our cocktail is the ice which chills the drink but also serves to provide water to the mix. Shaking and resting after shaking before pouring for different lengths of time will change the nature of the drink. If your water is nasty, please buy ice or make it with filtered water.

I know I have some mid-South / Bluegrass colleagues, so I’ll set aside discussion of which bourbon to use. And what counts as bourbon. And which is best. I’m a card-carrying Marker’s Mark ambassador, so I’ll say I use (the admittedly mild and sweet) Maker’s for Manhattans and you can use what you prefer. Since the bourbon is the base spirit, changing it up will change the drink quite a bit – please experiment.

The recipe:

• 1/3 sweet vermouth
• 2/3 bourbon
• dash bitters

Shake vigorously with ice, strain into cocktail glass. Add stemmed Maraschino cherry.

So you can see I use Noilly Pratt vermouth. This is another thing that can radically change your cocktail. Try several – like dry vermouth, if you don’t like the sweet vermouth straight, don’t put it in your cocktail.

I like Angostura bitters generally, and it’s definitely the thing to use in a classic Manhattan. It’s also the easiest to find – probably in your supermarket, definitely in your liquor store. I have experimented with orange bitters and it works well in this drink. Anise-y Peychud’s, a must for any well stocked bar since it’s required for a Sazerac, doesn’t work with this one, in my opinion.

The cherry is really part of the drink – even if you don’t like them – it adds some sweetness, so drop one in. If you hate it, put the rest on your sundaes.

A word about measuring and servings

You wouldn’t make most (any?) recipe for the first time without measuring. Don’t mix cocktails by “eyeballing” them. Use a proper measure of some sort.

Since I have your attention, I’ll also comment on the disturbing size of modern cocktail glasses. The ones shown here are 8 oz. capacity. That’s to say that if filled with a strong cocktail like a Manhattan or Martini, you’d have about 3.5 oz. of pure alcohol – over 8 units (a pint of 6% beer is 1 unit). I usually mix two doubles of an evening – 1.5 oz vermouth and 3 oz bourbon – I shake and let rest long enough for the melt to make up two 3 oz pours, which fill the glass “half-way” (triangles, cones, geometry, fun!). That still means 3*40% + 1.5*16% / 2 servings = 0.72 oz of alcohol each, or 1.8 units – a true double for each of us. Please, as the lawyers make the advertisers say, drink responsibly.

“Foamy. Beer Foamy”
Buffy is right. Beer is foamy. Cocktails can be too: intentionally in the case of foams, flips and carbonated concotions, or as a side-effect of shaking, as here. A Manhattan should not be foamy when served – let it sit for a minute or two and the drink will clear.

Whiskey, vodka, gin, vermouth and a series of mistakes

As a final dash towards the end of the Fall 2009 college semester, I felt that I should at least go out with some style. Regular readers (irony here, if any) know that my affection towards the art of the cocktail has been growing stronger over the past several months. But, my weekly efforts contained little more than a single concoction that I had already had a taste for. So, using all that I have (or hoped that I have learned) about the drink-world I’m gonna try my own collection. Round of drinks for everyone.

But, before anything is said or done – know that I am of the legal drinking age. What I’m about to do is only advised for those that wish to try a variety of drinks in their own home – particularly those of an age where they have been able to experience much variety.

First, lets aim for some simple yet contemporary – The Martini. I often reference the excellent work of Esquire Magazine and their online drink catalog and cocktail expert David Wondrich, and this recipe remained no different. The martini, in the words of many, has been analyzed and described far more than any other cocktail. The drink’s origins, according to Wondrich arrived sometime in the late 1800’s, but its exact origins are traced back to around 1900, before prohibition was enacted in the United States.

At first, the martini consisted of a slightly rougher ratio for the taste buds; two ounces of dry gin to one ounce dry vermouth. Since then the ratio has been gone a little wider (as has the content of pretty much all aged cocktails). Famed New York City bartender Albert Trummer’s recipe for a simple one, is as follows:

Ingredients –

(4) ounces of gin (Beefeater, or Bombay is preferred); (1) ounce vermouth; (1) Spanish olive; ice.

• Fill a martini shaker with cracked ice and an ounce of vermouth. Stir the contents briefly.
• Strain the contents out. Strain gin out and stir drink for around 10 seconds.
• Serve in a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a Spanish olive.

Martini in a drinking glass. Cheap and classy at the same time.

The taste is essentially aged, and very dry. Often the classic variant of the martini is criticized, for well, it’s pure bitter and alcohol induced taste. But, when taken in its pure form, the dry martini is jarring in a way that would make those with weak stomachs cringe. Its allure and symbol evoke a style of simplicity and fortitude, making it stand among the cocktails in a bold, often misunderstood light. But to those who enjoy it, it’s pure enchantment in a glass.

The next try in the short-winded attempt at conquering the amateur section of bar tending school is a drink with a little more flavor behind it; the Whiskey Sour.

A more contemporary and dulled taste, the whiskey sour offers a more pleasant variety to those whose range is more, lets say, impaired. The recipe often does not follow the ordinary routes, so mixing it up is advised.

Whiskey sour

Ingredients –

(2) ounces whiskey (using Tullamore Dew); (3) ounces lemon or lime juice; (1) teaspoon of sugar; sour mix (optional).

• Shake all ingredients with cracked ice.
• Strain into a chilled glass.
• Garnish with a maraschino cherry, orange or whatever fruit you like.

Sour indeed. The drink, which Wondrich refers to as “the cocktail in its undershirt,” is more flavorful, fun and fuzzy drink that seems to have more cause for a party than pure personal joy. This is not a detriment for the drink’s overall appeal, however. It’s easy to like and, more importantly, to fool around with the recipe. Different varieties of fruit juices and tastes can be added, and no peculiar alcohol is terribly necessary. There are several different varieties of the sour drink; rum sours, scotch sours, vodka sours – there are really no proposed limits for what should be in a sour. Just drink and have fun with it.

For our third drink in our short line, I’ll try my hands at a Cliquet. Cliquet is a French term that means “clicky thing.” But the drink is more suited in the style of an Old-fashioned. Obviously when I decided to aim for these recipes, I was looking for ordinary ingredients in college fridges, and when the cliquet recipe called for only whiskey, orange juice and rum, I had to jump in.

Ingredients –

(1 – 1 1/2) ounces of whiskey, rye preferred; orange juice; (1) teaspoon of rum

• Mix all ingredients together in a small chilled glass with ice.

The cliquet, because of the orange blend, comes off as a tangy cream with the slight sting of whiskey, which can be a welcomed feeling to some and an off-putting one to others. But hell, most of the world’s cocktails have that same effect. If there ever were to be an early day drink, as much as the idea of it seems to connotate something, I don’t know, a poor decision. It’s very healthy, yes, with plenty of orange juice (if you add such an amount), and has a smoothness that fits in a lunch-time scenario.

Lastly, I’d like to go a simpler route and stick some of the ingredients I’ve already touched on; gin and orange juice. An Orange Blossom is impossibly simplistic, served in a cocktail glass with just equal parts gin and orange juice. Again, anything in a college student’s fridge would work here.

Reading the finer details here, you’d realize I’m describing simply “Gin &’ juice,” ala the hit 1992 single from Snoop Dogg. At this point, with the volume of attempts I’ve taken in, simplicity has become key.

Ingredients –

(1 1/2) ounces of gin; (1 1/2) ounces of orange juice.

• Mix gin and orange juice
• Serve in a chilled martini glass.

Orange Blossom, try again.

Well, this one turned out arguably bad – too much gin. Basically I made orange gin in a glass, which may be fine for some people but it wasn’t what I was aiming for. No smoothness, lots of punch and a very small amount of joy came out of my rendition of an orange blossom which I’d like nothing more than to forget.

So, four drinks down, among the several hundred I hope to learn and master in the oncoming years. Some success and some failure occurred in my self-made Round of Drinks project, but overall I’m more than satisfied with what I’ve experienced. The tastes of these cocktails, however, doesn’t precede me alone. Truly the test and vigilance of these tastes lasts among the true patrons of the “art,” as it is so deemed. And this “art,” for all its variants and reasons, has truly become an art over the last century.

December 10, 2009
Orange Martini

December 10, 2009
Leap Year Martini

Ahh, yet another one of those British nursery rhymes that sounds so innocuous and yet seems to have some kind of creepy undertones.  I will always think of this rhyme from the book, “1984″, by George Orwell, one of my longtime favorites, although far from what I’d call a happy tale.  The last verse goes, “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, and here comes a chopper to chop off your head!”  A few references I found seem to indicate those last lines refer to public executions back in the days of Merry Old England.  Kinda hard to get happy after that.  The fact that the martini wasn’t invented until a couple hundred years later could explain why these folks were so maudlin all the time.  Despite the fact that Snopes.com debunks the theory of “Ring Around the Rosie” referring to the bubonic plague, I still think it sounds cool to think of it that way, in a creepy fashion, but that’s just me. 

I command you all to drink a martini! And grow some hair while you're at it!

I enjoyed this link discussing the oranges and lemons poem, which also gives some insight into the phrase, “on the wagon”, which to be honest I never understood the origins of.  Sounds as good as any to me! http://www.rhymes.org.uk/oranges_and_lemons.htm.  And of course, just to continue my train of thought that has now derailed over to track 9 3/4, certainly one of the best “Big Brother” images of our time has to be from Apple’s iconic 1984 Superbowl commercial, which was apparently given a hearty thumbs-down by Apple’s board of directors at the time.  I had no idea that Ridley Scott of Blade Runner fame was the director for this, although open watching it again on YouTube, it makes sense.  There is a great story behind the making and marketing of this commercial here: http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=1984.txt.  I love stories like this where visionary folks (Steve Jobs in this case) thumb their noses at the establishment and go with their gut – and it pays off.  What does all this have to do with martini drinking?  Absolutely nothing, really.  Other than trusting your own judgement, and if personally you happen to love the taste of licorice and think I’m full of crap whenever I diss Pernod, well, by all means, try the recipes yourself and you will probably find them delightful! 

Which brings me, in a roundabout fashion, to the martinis of the other night.  The (for a change) appropriately yet uninspiringly named Orange Martini – yeah, I know, we’re never happy around here, are we?  First we’re bitching that we can’t figure out where the hell the name comes from, now I’m bitching that the name is too generic.  Go figure.  The Orange Martini is 6 parts vodka, 1 part triple sec, 1 dash orange bitters, orange twist – pretty much clear and actually very good  – not the sickening sweet taste of a screwdriver for a change, but just a nice, light sweetness, not as acidic as orange juice would be, but with a bit of a bite.  I really liked this.  Like Sue, I’m not that skilled with whipping out lemon or lime or orange twists, so I just put in a very slender wedge from a navel orange rather than risk hacking off a thumb for the sake of presentation.  Although orange isn’t one of my top favorite flavors in general … well, it’s FRUIT, for one thing, vs. being chocolate, and since I take my vitamins regularly it’s not like I’m worried about skurvy, so fruit isn’t a big draw for me … this was a version of orange I could take a liking to.  A good 4.25 stars for this one, I would have it again.

Now back to drinks with names of unknown origins – the Leap Year Martini.  Well, I guess this is served up in bars on February 29th, according to  my internet searches, and then forgotten again for the next four years.  Apparently there are variations out there with gin, also, but I think this, the vodka one, is a better option.  6 parts vodka, 1 part sweet vermouth, one part Grand Marnier, and 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice, garnished with a lemon twist.  The color is a light orange/peach, rather pretty.  Good, sippable drink, not too sweet or tart, the lemon juice probably cuts what might be an overly sweet drink.  Not a fave, but not bad, either.  I’ll have to give it 3.75 stars and try it again in 4 years!    Or on February 29th, 2012.

Cheers,
Cathy

PHILIP
“Did you hear about Edmonton? Their temperature dropped to -46 degrees [-51 F]. Now that’s cold.”

TONY
“But you gotta remember it’s dry cold. And I know the difference, if you know what I mean.”

Ingredients

• Dry Vermouth
• Gin
• Apricot Brandy
• Lemon Juice
• Lime Juice

Quantities

• 1 oz Dry Vermouth
• 1/2 oz Gin
• 1/2 oz Apricot Brandy
• 1/2 tsp Lemon Juice
• 1/2 tsp Lime Juice

Blending Instructions

• Pour the vermouth, gin, brandy and fruit juices into a cocktail shaker half-filled with ice cubes
• Shake well, strain into a cocktail glass, and serve

*Serve in a Cocktail Glass

** Good for one drink

Ingredients

• Scotch Whisky
• Sweet Vermouth
• Benedictine Herbal Liqueur

Quantities

• 1 1/2 oz Scotch Whisky
• 3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth
• 1 tsp Benedictine Herbal Liqueur

Blending Instructions

• Stir ingredients together in a mixing glass with cracked ice
• Strain into a cocktail glass
• Squeeze in the juice from a twist of lemon peel, place the peel on top, and serve

*Serve in a Cocktail Glass

**Good for one drink

As Woody Allen said, “Man cannot live on bread alone.  Frequently, there must be a beverage…”  Stories vary on the origin of the Manhattan, but the one thing that virtually all of them agree upon is that the drink WAS invented in the city that bears its name.  Easy, delicious, classic!

MANHATTAN

6 parts bourbon whisky

3 parts sweet vermouth

A couple dashes Angostura bitters

Maraschino cherry juice/liqueur (to taste)

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice.  Stir or shake briskly.  Strain into two chilled cocktail glasses.  Garnish with maraschino cherry.  Serves two.

Like martinis, varying the amounts of vermouth, bitters, and maraschino juice can alter the flavor of the drink significantly.  Less vermouth = dry, more vermouth = sweet…  You’ll have to experiment to get it the way you like it.  (The experimentation is the best part of the process!)

As always, enjoy (responsibly, please)!

Brett & Kelly

1 cup red wine
2 shallots (1 roughly chopped,
   1 finely chopped)
8 tbsp. unsalted butter (6 tbsp. softened,
   2 tbsp. diced)
2 tsp. chopped flat-leaf parsley plus
   1 tbsp. thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper,
   to taste
3 medium leeks (white and light green parts only),
   julienned and washed
1⁄2 tbsp. finely chopped marjoram
1⁄2 tbsp. finely chopped thyme
1 tsp. crushed fennel seeds
1⁄3 cup dry vermouth
2 cups heavy cream
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
4  8-oz. skinless boneless salmon filets
3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1. Combine red wine and roughly chopped shallots in a 1-quart saucepan; bring to a boil over high heat. Boil until reduced to 1 tbsp., about 13 minutes. Strain the wine through a fine sieve into a bowl; discard shallots. Let wine cool. Add softened butter and chopped parsley and season with salt and pepper. Stir with a fork until well combined. Transfer red wine butter to a sheet of plastic wrap and roll tightly into a 1″-thick cylinder about 5″ long. Twist ends of plastic wrap to seal tightly. Chill until firm. (The red wine butter may be made and refrigerated up to 1 week in advance.)

2. Heat remaining butter in a 12″ skillet over medium-high heat. Add the leeks, marjoram, thyme, and fennel, season with salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly wilted, about 2 minutes. Add the vermouth and cook, stirring occasionally, until almost all the liquid has evaporated, about 8 minutes. Add the cream and lemon juice and cook, stirring occasionally, until the leeks are soft and the cream has thickened, about 25 minutes. (Add a little water if leeks become dry.) Season with salt and pepper. Keep leeks warm, covered, over low heat.

3. Heat oven to 275°. Arrange the salmon on a foil-lined baking sheet. In a small bowl, combine the remaining shallots, olive oil, and garlic. Rub salmon with the shallot mixture and season with salt and pepper. Roast the salmon until medium rare, about 12 minutes. Cut four 1⁄4″-thick slices of the red wine butter, place 1 on top of each filet, and let melt slightly in the oven, about 3 minutes.

4. To serve, spoon some of the leeks onto the center of 4 plates. Using a spatula, place a salmon filet atop each. Garnish with remaining parsley.

Recipe

Moving into a new place is like resetting your priorities.  You throw out old, dumpy clothes, get rid of the jars of moldy jam that have been percolating in your fridge for years, and get to start fresh by stocking up on things that support your new goals.

Mine, for example, involve increasing the quality of liquor in my home bar so I feel just a tiny bit more classy as I piss/puke my money away rather than saving up for frivolous things like ‘real estate investment’ and ‘rrsps’.   I’m pretty sure that by the time I can afford to buy a 300 square foot closet on the outskirts of the skids, the freemasons will have already relocated to the moon and left the rest of us to disintegrate under turbo charged UV rays.

So, here’s a list of what I want for my housewarming:

1.  Green Chartreuse

French monks.  Secret recipe. 130 herbal extracts. Magic.

2. Maraschino

Marasca cherries. Honey. Finnish ashwood vats.  (Nothing to do with those formaldehyde soaked radioactive cherries).

3. Hendrick’s Gin

Juniper. Bulgarian rose. Cucumber. Beware of blindness.

4. Punt E Mes Vermouth

Sweet. Red. Hard to find in Canada.

5. Campari Bitters

Bitter herbs, pomegranate and secrecy dating back to the 1860s.

Finishing Touches

Fuck Canada Food Guide, throw in a bag of ice, some oranges, a rocks glass, a martini glass, and some bartending classes and you’ve got everything you need for a perfectly balanced liquid diet.

As a consolation for spending too much money paying bills, I ordered a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve 15 years last week. I firmly intended on buying nothing else, but got tempted by a bottle of Aperol, which has become a very popular cocktail ingredient. Both arrived yesterday but remained in their box. Tonight was another story, however: After a harrowing few days with hardly any sleep, a big deadline met, a successful meeting with the PR and marketing teams for Culinary Careers, I decided to reward myself with a cocktail (and a nap). I wanted to make a Negroni, because I spent time researching and writing about that and a couple of other Italian cocktails just yesterday and had a craving, but was out of Campari. Since it belongs to the same family of bitter Italian liquors, I decided to use Aperol instead. The result was a more mellow drink–Aperol only contains 11% alcohol, versus more than 20% for Campari–and a slightly sweeter one. Regardless, this variation is one that I will continue to make because it is delicious and perfectly hit the spot. You can shake the ingredients and serve them in a chilled glass if you prefer. Opening three bottles took all the energy I had left so I wasn’t about to go the extra mile, but I enjoy strained negronis in martini glasses, for example.

Aperol Negroni

Place two ice cubes in an old-fashioned glass. Pour the gin, Aperol, and vermouth over the ice and shake the glass slightly to mix. Sip, relax, and repeat.

English pub meets West Elm.  CommonWealth is my kind of place—clean, rustic, welcoming and romantic.

Having had many meals here, I think CommonWealth is a classy addition to Columbia Heights.  Portions are satisfying (unless you’re a three-hundred-pound trucker), the food is consistently fresh and beautifully presented, and the staff is at the top of their game.

Start with a rocket salad.  Very simple with lemonette, sliced radishes and shaved sheep’s cheese.  Savory, bitter, tart, and a healthy start to your meal.

The grass-fed beef burger is exceptional.  Taste it and you will immediately know the difference between cows raised on a natural diet and those fed grains and hormones.  The taste is clean, natural and tender.  The way beef is supposed to taste.

Try the steamed mussels.  An appetizer that will surely wake up your taste buds with an array of flavors—sweet, tender mussels, with dry-cured sausage, a kick of vermouth, sprinkled with smooth squash.

But the main reason I come here is the Scotch eggs, a very unique food item in my book.  Hard-boiled eggs are wrapped in pork sausage and fried.  A British picnic food, Scotch eggs are traditionally served cold.  At CommonWealth, they are served hot with green chutney, honey mustard, and remoulade (I think).  Staying true to form, I take them to go and eat them cold.

They’re better that way, anyway.  Kudos!

CommonWealth Gastropub
Reserve now
1400 Irving Street
Suite 109
Washington, DC 20010
(202) 265-1400

Thursday, November 19, 2009
FDR’s Martini

This seemed like an appropriate cocktail after my Martin Sheen/West Wing analogy of the other day, except with a real President this time. I confess, prior to looking up how FDR and Teddy were related, I had no idea that Eleanor and Franklin were already both Roosevelts prior to marrying (they were, apparently, fifth cousins).  Teddy was actually Eleanor’s uncle.  I have absolutely no idea what that makes him to FDR.  Makes me think of the dialogue between Dark Helmet and Lone Starr in “Spaceballs”:

FDR and Teddy Roosevelt meet in another dimension

Dark Helmet:  I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate.
Lone Starr:  What does that make us?
Dark Helmet:  Absolutely nothing!  Which is what you are about to become.

In The Martini Book, there is a quote above this recipe, which reads:  “FDR was a serious martini drinker [I like the guy already] and carried a martini ‘kit’ with him whever he traveled.  During the Teheran conference, he insisted on mixing one of his specialties for Joseph Stalin.  Stalin found it ‘cold on the stomach,’ but liked it.  FDR’s martini was most likely the first ‘Dirty Martini’.”

Definitely like the guy.  Although his Dirty Martini is kind of wussy as far as dirty martinis go.  2 parts gin, 1 part vermouth, 1 teaspoon olive brine, lemon twist, and a cocktail olive.  But as I’ve noted earlier, more vermouth to gin is okay with me when it’s gin.  When it’s vodka, not so much.  Me, I prefer a vodka dirty martini and I like it very dirty, as you’ve probably figured out by now, and very dry.  But I’m not FDR, and we’re talking a good … yikes, what, 70-80 years ago?  Oh dear.  Anyway, this was educational for me, reading up on FDR and his infidelities (ditto with Eleanor and hers, some of them with the same gender, but not until after he committed his).  I had no idea.  Alas, my high school history education ended somewhere between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.  Why?  Because I was taking Chemistry II, which met at the same time that the “gifted” history class met, so I ended up in the so-called bonehead history class for my senior year.  After the first quarter/semester (whichever it was – we’re going back waaaaay too far for me to remember which), my history teacher realized that everyone in the class was going out of their way to copy off my paper/tests and that I was throwing the curve way off.  So he gave me a “research” assignment to find all of the CIF championship victories for my high school dating back to something like 1898 when the school was established, which I did, to the best of my ability, given the fact that there was no internet in that day and age (1980).  That encompassed the 2nd half of my senior year and thus took the place of learning about anything beyond the early 1800’s.  I’m not sure why I know about WWI and WWII and various other things, I must have learned that in junior high on a more peripheral level and remembered it.  But I never got to learn about Teddy or FDR or Eleanor.  Or martinis.  Not that martinis would have been appropriate subject matter back in my high school day.  Now?  No idea.  But you gotta like FDR for the fact that he carried around the fixings with him.

As for the namesake drink itself – I give it a “DNS” rating.  Which stands for “Does Not Suck”.  Not quite a 4 stars but definitely a 3.75 stars.  As I mentioned before, I think I like the higher proportions of vermouth when gin is invovled but not vodka.  The lemon twist (rubbed around the rim of a chilled cocktail glass before serving, then discarded) and the olive are a nice touch.  I liked this one more than I expected I would and give FDR credit, assuming credit is due, for coming up with a good one.

Cheers,
Cathy

Saturday, November 14, 2009
Cuban Martini

Saturday, November 14, 2009
Dirty Vodka Martini

The Cuban Martini is made with 6 parts rum, 1 part dry vermouth, a granulated sugar rim and a lime twist for garnish.  Prior to this I don’t think I associated Cuba with rum.  Cigars, check.  Fidel Castro, check (aka skanky old guy who looks like he’s been living in the same military uniform since before I was born?  Check).  Ricky Ricardo, check.   I guess maybe the Mojito, but that’s such a recently trendy drink and personally I never cared for them.  I don’t like stuff “muddled” in my drink.  Maybe I’m weird that way.  Olives, lemon twists, etc. – okay, that’s different.  I don’t want loose shit floating around in my booze.  It’s like dunking cookies into milk or a donut into coffee.  Nope.  Not for me. 

Only these guys could make satin evening jackets look this good.

But back to Cuba.  My favorite thing to associate with Cuba is Armand Assante in The Mambo Kings.  And really good jazz music from that same 50’s era.  Now I never quite got the whole white dinner jacket thing especially when it always looked hot there, but Armand and, to a lesser extent, a young Antonio Banderas, made sweating look good.  They also made wearing hats, wife-beater tank tops, and smoking cigars look good.   They probably could have made drinking a Cuban Martini look good.  Or, hopefully, Armand could have whipped one up for me while wearing one of those tank tops, preferably after extinguishing his cigar outside.  Yeah.  That works.  Where was I?

Oh yes, the martini.  Very nice concoction, the dry vermouth balances out the sweetness of the rum just enough so it isn’t too much, and the sugar rim and lime twist are a nice tropical/exotic contrast to the drink without being all in your face with a huge pineapple slice and an umbrella.  Probably akin to the contrast in my mind between, say, Jamaica and Cuba.  Jamaica to me is pina coladas and some hottie dreadlocked bartender (similar to Christine Baranski’s paramour in Mamma Mia) playing steel drums, and Cuba shall be slick, evening-jacketed 50’s dudes offering me cool rum-based martini drinks.  Such as this.  4 stars for the Cuban Martini. 

Now being a gal like me who loves dirty martinis, you wouldn’t think a martini could get TOO dirty.  And in truth, I haven’t met one yet that is.  However, I did just meet a martini that was too WET.  I believe technically the dryness of a martini doesn’t necessarily refer to the quantity of vermouth but to using dry vermouth vs. the sweeter variety.  But for the sake of argument I’m going to use wet to refer to a martini with too much vermouth.  The Dirty Vodka Martini recipe from The Martini Book is just such a drink.  6 parts vodka, 2 parts dry vermouth, 1 part olive brine, and a cocktail olive for garnish.  I’ll have to ask Sue what she thought of the dirty gin version she was supposed to have, maybe all that vermouth goes better with gin than it does (at least for me) with vodka.  All I could think of when I sipped it was that it was spoiling a healthy glass of vodka!    I’d give this 3 stars.  When I was about halfway through the drink, I poured in probably another 2 parts’ worth of straight vodka to thin out the vermouth taste, and that was much better.  Were I not following the recipe, I’d use about twice as much olive brine and about 1/4 as much vermouth.  I like my martinis naughty (i.e., dirty), but I also like ‘em dry. 

Cheers,
Cathy

A little trick I learned recently from Julia Child’s cookbook that I have.  If you don’t have white wine to cook with or don’t know which one to pick, dry vermouth is a perfect substitute.  I tried this out with the mushroom risotto recipe I posted on an earlier posting and it worked PERFECTLY!  The risotto was delicious and flavorful!  I often forget to pick up the white wine when cooking risotto, but with this new vermouth substitute, it’s easier to just buy a bottle and keep it in the cupboard.  For less than $10 it’s a good choice that you can use to cook with serveral times before running out.  Chose to use the Noilly Prat brand of dry vermouth and it worked out well for me.  Tasty risotto.  YUM!

Son aperitivos ideales para acompañar una copa de cava bien frío, un vermouth o una copa de vino antes de comer o de cenar, también podemos servirlos para acompañar una velada con nuestros amigos.

Bocadito de ternera
Mezclamos 100 gramos de ternera de calidad óptima, picada con dos cucharaditas de alcaparras y 2 cucharaditas de cebolleta roja muy picada. Sazona con sal y pimienta negra y guarda en la nevera el preparado. Sírvelo muy frío en cucharillas de aperitivo.

Uvas rellenas de foie
Lava, seca y corta por la mitad 12 uvas moscatel y vacíalas con cuidado con un cuchillo afilado. Introduce el foie en una manga pastelera y rellena las uvas. Decora con medio pistacho y un trocito de cebollino cada uva. Un bocado delicioso.

Con estos aperitivos siempre hemos tenido éxito, ¿tienes alguno para añadir al recetario?

Sibarita: (Del lat. Sybarīta, y este del gr. συβαρίτης, de Σύβαρις, Síbaris, ciudad del golfo de Tarento, en Italia, célebre por la riqueza y el refinamiento de sus habitantes).
1. adj. Dicho de una persona: Que se trata con mucho regalo y refinamiento.
2. adj. Natural de Síbaris.
3. adj. Perteneciente o relativo a esta ciudad de la Italia antigua.
Real Academia Española © Todos los derechos reservados

En la actualidad, el término sibarita está dotado a menudo de una connotación negativa, como hace Wikipedia, que asigna a los sibaritas una arrogancia ostentosa, presuntuosa, petulante y reservando este estatus a personas de elevado poder adquisitivo. Según la Real Academia Española, queda claro que la definición de sibarita es aquella persona que se trata con mucho regalo y refinamiento, es decir, la que sabe que, ya que la vida es corta, debe procurar disfrutarla todo lo posible. El Búho, siempre sabio, quiere reivindicar el verdadero significado del término y para ello os va a explicar cómo, de qué manera, por qué pequeños detalles se conoce a un auténtico y verdadero sibarita, distinguiéndolo así de los esnobs con los que a veces es confundido.

Supongamos, por ejemplo, que tenemos la suerte de comer con nuestro querido sibarita. Éste (o ésta, ya que el sexo del sibarita es como el sexo de los ángeles) nos guiará a lo largo de nuestro periplo, indicándonos y asesorándonos no sólo con lo que debemos comer y beber, si no que, además, nos hará comprender por qué es mejor una elección que otra. También nos hará ver las aristas ocultas, las facetas que nosotros no podríamos ver sin su intervención. Con ello, conseguiremos el valor añadido, la cadena de valor que dicen ahora los ejecutivos agresivos, aumentar el goce, disfrutar de un producto de la misma forma en que los guías de un museo nos enseñan las obras maestras de los artistas colocando cada una de ellas en su contexto histórico, social, etc., para poder apreciar aquello que sin esa preparación nunca acertaríamos a ver.

Ya antes de iniciar nuestra comida empieza el sibarita con su trabajo. Cuando en la barra del bar de la entrada del restaurante, el camarero nos ofrece un vermú de aperitivo y pretende servirnos el más anunciado o un anónimo solera casero, rápidamente interviene y pide para todos un tinto Gran Reserva Vermouth Perucchi, que desde 150 años elabora Montana-Perucchi, S.A. en unas instalaciones ubicadas en la calle Ripollès de Barcelona, equipadas con calderas, toneles y prensas que se han conservado y utilizado desde mediados del siglo XIX.

Augustus Perucchi fue el creador del primer vermú elaborado en España, fruto de una compleja mezcla artesanal de vinos, mistelas, hierbas, plantas y raíces y es suministrador de la Casa Real Española. Por lo tanto, sea uno monárquico o republicano, si es digno de la Real Casa también es digno de nosotros. En este vermú de sabor peculiar, complejo podemos reconocer la sabiduría concentrada que atesora. Empezamos a entrever como el verdadero sibarita, consciente de su condición, procura mejorar las experiencias de su entorno, de sus amigos y familiares, alegrando así su existencia.

Una vez en la mesa, cuando empezamos nuestra comida con un sabroso marisco, por ejemplo, unas ostras de Arcade, para seguir con una espléndida merluza del pincho, rulada en la hermosa villa asturiana de Cudillero y solicitamos su ayuda para encontrar el vino adecuado, nos sorprende al aconsejarnos un Kripta de Agustí Torelló Mata, un cava artesanal que une el más hermoso continente con el espléndido contenido, un Brut Nature Gran Reserva, con el coupage clásico de los cavas catalanes, 45% macabeo, 23% xarel.lo y 32% parellada, pero que en este caso proceden de viñedos de más de 50 años y, elaborado a mano de principio a fin, nos da el placer de contemplar ese color amarillo pálido brillante, esas burbujas sin fin, saliendo de la nada para morir en la superficie, ese aroma donde se mezcla un carácter frutal con algunas notas de levadura, de panadería y que al paso por boca demuestra su gran estructura y su elegancia innata. Ahora comprendemos por qué un Brut Nature debe beberse al principio de la comida o con el plato principal, pero no debe ser desperdiciado al final de la comida, con los postres donde no congenia de la misma manera. Y también admiramos la hermosa botella en forma de ánfora que diseñó el escultor y pintor Rafael Bartolozzi, que deleita nuestra vista y acrecienta así el placer causado por este vino.

No nos queda mucho espacio, así que hoy pasaremos directamente al postre, un coulant de chocolate, producto que Hernán Cortés trajo a Europa, admirado por el xocolatl consumido por los aztecas y que mejoró al añadirle azúcar y vainilla consiguiendo así su popularización, lo que no había conseguido Colón que introdujo el cacao en la corte de los Reyes Católicos y no tuvo éxito con el chocolate por ser amargo y picante, como nos cuenta Chantal Coady en su “Chocolate. Manual para sibaritas”. Para acompañar al coulant nuestro sibarita nos apunta que nada mejor que un Jerez, un Venerable de la bodega Pedro Domecq, elaborado con soleras fundadas en 1902, con uvas de Pedro Ximénez, que son expuestas al sol hasta que se pasifican, prensan y envejecen un mínimo de 30 años, por lo que tienen la categoría VORS (del latín Vinum Optimum Rare Signatum que coincide con el inglés Very Old Rare Sherry). El color caoba oscurísimo, su aroma a pasas, su enorme densidad, la dulzura espléndida hace de la cata de este vino de postre una experiencia inolvidable. Además, su persistencia es tal que parece no tener fin. Recordemos que el chocolate quita las depresiones y una copa de Venerable las ahuyenta definitivamente.

Amigas y amigos, cómo podría expresar lo agradable que es estar sentado en la mesa con la compañía de nuestro querido sibarita, que sabe la palabra precisa, el dato curioso, la anécdota divertida, la cita culta, que, en suma, nos hace pasar una velada inolvidable. El sibarita, a modo de un ilustrado del XVIII, eleva nuestro nivel cultural, incrementa nuestros conocimientos, hace por nosotros mucho más que una medicina tradicional y todo ello a cambio de una simple invitación.

Queridos lectores de “El Búho Sibarita” espero que hayáis comprendido que nuestro querido sibarita no es una persona que se conforma con disfrutar sino que necesita también que disfruten todos los que le acompañan. Y también quería deciros que ser sibarita no es caro, lo caro es tener un amigo sibarita. Pero recordar que más caro es no tenerlo, ya que entonces os perderéis lo mejor de la vida y eso no tiene precio.

Gårdagskvällen ägnades åt något som kan tyckas vara en lätt bisarr familjesysselsättning för den oinvigde, nämligen att göra vin tillsammans. Eller rättare sagt Vermouth. Eller Martini, och man nu föredrar den benämningen.

Synen av en småbarnsfamilj som alla sitter i en ring på golvet runt en stor plastdunk och samtidigt har lite vatten kokandes på spisen, lite trattar och slangar på golvet och mängder av potatis, apelsiner och socker runt omkring må vara lite udda. Speciellt när de mest aktiva och glada dryckeskreatörerna var de som inte ens uppnått den ringa åldern av två år. Det vill säga de som understeg den lagstadgade åldersgränsen med si sådär sexton år. Lite drygt. Men det kändes som en bagatell i sammanhanget tyckte vi. Slutprodukten kommer dock hållas utom räckhåll från vissa av dess skapare.

I övrigt bjöd gårdagen på ytterligare en bisarr situation då jag skulle snygga till min fickparkering jag gjort efter vårt IKEA-besök genom att backa bilen lite närmare bakomvande bil för att försäkra mig om att jag inte stod närmare än tio meter till övergångsstället som var framför min bil. Detta gjorde jag samtidigt som ägaren till den bakomvarande bilen stod och sopade bort löv från sin bil. Tyvärr hade jag tankarna på annat håll och fokuserade  inte helt och fullt på uppgiften och backade helt sonika in i bilen bakom medan ägaren till bilen hade första parkettplats till förseelsen.
Tack och lov var det en väldigt gladlynt herre som med en cigarett hängandes ur mungipan mest garvade åt min totalt värdelösa avståndsbedömning. Vilket jag var väldigt glad över.

Skönt att det finns människor som kan se det komiska i andra människors brister. Hade lika gärna kunnat bli bjuden på en ordentlig avhyvling. Något jag mer än väl förtjänat.

Taggar: vermouth, martini, krock

I’ve missed you, my minions. And by “missed,” I mean “strangled in my dreams in your absence.” I’ve been vacationing in sunny San Quentin, surrounded by perfect specimens of manhood and finishing my college thesis. Wish you were there. In the meantime, the cum scabs have been running free. Some balloon-humping kid disappeared and the news covered it like it was a tragedy. My inbox overfloweth with untimely topics and sweet photos of landing strips and gently trimmed shrubbery. But we need to forget about all of that for a minute and focus on the most pressing matter. And that is the night of satanic ritual and infant murder that we will celebrate tomorrow.

I know you’ve all received your invitations by now. If your invitation didn’t arrive, it probably poisoned your postman before he made it to the mailbox. Check the ditch. The flayed cock in the envelope has been tattooed with the address and other details. If yours had a foreskin, you should have detached it and sent it back to RSVP. If not, just come anyway. We can’t all be gentiles.

Remember to bring a dish to share. I’ve been marinating a virgin for about three weeks now, so all we need are side dishes. Coleslaw and shit. But for chrissake, put a little effort into it. If you show up with a bag of bbq chips that you just picked up at Kroger on the way over, you’ll be eviscerated and forced to gargle your own colon squeezin’s and run through a juicer and added to the punch bowl. If they’re sour cream-n-onion, we’ll let you try the hummus first. If two people bring the same dish, they’ll get to fight for the credit in the cage o’ death. So check with your buddies first.

If you’ll remember, there was some confusion at last year’s festivities. Apparently, some people thought that Halloween is not a gift-giving occasion. And others brought mass-produced chocolate products that contained neither peanut butter nor coconut. Disgustingly inferior. Fortunately, George gave me that hand-scribed copy of the necroguyacon, stylishly bound in a leather of unknown origin, so I could reduce them to a jizz-like syrup in a timely fashion. This time, be sure to bring treasures worthy of my dark grandeur.

Spiked anal condoms, sacrificial goats and fingerbowls of puppy blood will be provided. And I’ve rented one of those bouncy ball pit things. If you like my signature dish: violently violated virgin roasted vertically with vermouth glaze, I’ll be happy to brand the recipe into your scrotum. (The trick is to insert peeled cloves of garlic under the skin.)

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Bloodhound

My divadom-ness is continuing, I am afraid.   The next cocktail on the docket was to be the Berrytini, but my husband had a bad day at work – a common occurrence for me, but not for him, thank heavens – and he didn’t want a fru-fru drink.   He did not want to share in a Berrytini or an Au Courant Currantini (the two I’ve skipped!) so we went ahead and had the Bloodhound.

I have always thought Bloodhounds were so sad looking but very cute.   And they always bring to mind hard boiled crime detective novels of the 1930’s, like The Maltese Falcon or something.   I do not think that there was a Bloodhound in The Maltese Falcon so I am not sure why my twisted mind makes this connection.     The only dog I can think of in a detective story is Asta from Thin Man fame—now there is a martini soaked story.   Maybe I will find a suitable cocktail soon to hitch to that!    Asta and Scooby Doo, but he was a cartoon, so I am not sure he counts.

OK, back to the Bloodhound Martini, it does sound rather manly, does it not?   Not fru-fru, right?

Well, maybe not too manly: gin, equal parts dry and sweet vermouth blended with strawberries.   The blending of the strawberries make it more feminine, in my opinion.   Maybe it’s the color.  I think it may qualify as a pseudo fru-fru drink, but I am not sure.  There was a little too much sweet vermouth for my tastes.   Once I got past the first sip, it got better.  I think if the sweet vermouth proportion was less, then I would have enjoyed it more.   If I played with the recipe a bit, this may be an OK drink.

Here’s looking for the perfect Thin Man martini.   Now, this is my quest.

Thanks for stopping by,

Sue

  Just in time for Halloween, this drink is bound to be a hit at your party.  This cocktail takes the best elements of a martini and a bloody mary and combines them into one drink that is more suitable for the evening.  The finishing touch is the skewered olives that resemble two goulish eyes.

A Bloody Mary with sophistication.

2 oz. lemon vodka (Absolut Citron)

1 oz. dry vermouth

2 oz. tomato juice

2 cocktail olives

In a mixing glass half-filled with ice cubes, combine the vodka, vermouth and tomato juice.  Stir well.  Strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with the olives.

TOXIC AVENGER

Vermouth: a challenge to all bartenders and home mixologists alike. The general public still sees Vermouth as “toxic waste that should be used in the smallest of quantities” as author David Wondrich so elegantly put it. Cocktilians may be enjoying the relatively new bottling of Noilly Prat with its increased spices and new hue but to the general Martini drinker, Vermouth still holds a place of contempt.

Who would blame them? For years the bar going public had been coaxed into believing it. The drinking culture had a virtual book’s worth of rituals and tools aimed to undermine vermouth such as misters, rinses, and the Churchill favorite, a look towards an unopened bottle of vermouth (or France if one wasn’t around).

I have been fortunate to start my bartending hobby/career as the tide shifts back in Vermouth’s favor. The ingredient that, to cite Mr. Wondrich again, was considered to be “the St. Germaine of its time” in the nineteenth century is finally starting to get the respect it deserves in the twenty first century

Robert Hess’s Black Feather cocktail is a particular favorite that comes to mind and I just love that he bosts it has a full ounce of the “toxic waste” in it. The Pegu Club’s Fity Fity martini is another favorite, showing the joyous marriage of the spices in vermouth and the botanicals of a juniper forward gin like Tanqueray. Whether it is Italian, French, sweet, or dry, vermouth is starting to come back.

“IT’S MARTIKI TIME!”

I decided to take a different approach with this MxMo and do a tiki style Vermouth drink and then provide my own recipe as a supplement. I went to the holy bible of exotic drinks, Beachbum Berry’s Intoxica and came across a composition I had never made before but had always been curious to try….

The Martiki was a house cocktail of the legendary Hawaiian palace, the Luau in Beverly Hills. Intoxica and Sippin Safari documented the tragic loss of the Luau in 1979 to developers who turned the vintage slice of oasis into a parking lot. Just as vermouth had had its resurrection, the Luau returned like a phoenix from the ashes in 2008. I have not had the opportunity to visit the new restaurant but it will be a prime destination of mine when I visit Los Angeles during the holidays. [Perhaps a Bo-Lo from Santa?]

The Martiki is a simple cocktail using the basic Martini formula and substituting a premium white rum for the gin. The idea of substituting spirits in time tested cocktails is not a new concept in either the tiki or standard world of mixology. The Buhens have been doing that for years at the Tiki Ti with modified versions of the Dr. Funk and the Blood and Sand while in the nineteenth century Jerry Thomas gave us cocktails that used brandy, whiskey, genever, or rum.

The execution of this drink is fairly simple but I found that it lends itself to adding some personal touches to the drink (highlighting a bartender’s skill and instincts).

· 1.5 oz El Dorado 3 yr old Demerara rum

· ¾ shot / 22.5 ml/1 oz Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth

· ¼ shot / 7.5 ml/2 dashes Fee Brother’s West Indian Bitters 7.5 ml /

· 1 dash Reagan’s orange bitters

Stir all ingredients with hand cracked ice and strain into a chilled martini glass

VERMOUTH VERDICT

The marriage of these two phoenixes, vermouth and the Luau, seemed perfect if not symbolic. However, I found the drink to be lackluster. It was very smooth and had a nice balance between the herbal Noilly Prat and the vanilla toned El Dorado but it didn’t have the snap or pop that a good martini drink should have. Not a bad drink but not memorable either

I leave you with a drink that I think is a stronger marriage of white rum and dry vermouth. Everyone knows the Cuban classic, the El Presidente cocktail, so I won’t even bother posting that one and instead I offer you an improvisation from a 09 New Years party.

This one is called the Izzy. It was a hit with the entire crowd shattering many people’s stereotypes about what vermouth should taste like. I believe that the problems in the Martiki are somewhat solved in the Izzy with citrus and cacao adding that necessary one two punch of flavor.

· 1.5 oz El Dorado 3 yr old Demerara rum

· ¾ shot / 22.5 ml/1 oz Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth

· ¼ shot / 7.5 ml/111asddfsadf ¾ oz fresh lime juice/

· ¼ oz crème de cacao

· ¼ oz- ½ oz simple syrup

Shake all ingredients with hand cracked ice and serve up or on the rocks.

It is admittedly similar in style to the Floridita cocktail but the incorporation of the dry vermouth adds a different balance of flavors and proved to be a popular concotion that night. This was my very first MxMO and I hope to do many more – also its early but HAPPY NEW YEAR!

]]> http://zapatablood.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/enfermo/ Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:07:02 +0000 zapatablood http://zapatablood.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/enfermo/

Vomité todo el vermouth de ayer junto con toda la esperenza de seguirme contento me estoy mareado. Me via bien me via lindo pero ahora ya estoy cinco quilos más flaco desde de el ultimo viernes…cinco…el ultimo numero que me podria saltar. El único que hago es consumirme junto al mate y el alcohol. Me voy echar de menos sin embargo, sigo muriendo. La vida se dió asi las cosas no se poderia ser distintas, en esta noche no me pude dormir…a mi me da por caminar y aplastarme en las veredas de Almagro sigo intentando encontrar una casualidad que me liberte de verdad.

“yo no buscava nadie y te vi.”

beauty

Te amo, te amo
Con un amor que no estoy muy seguro
De poseer

Dos torres cayeron,
Cayeron en silencio y la verdad
No se que hacer.

Si perderme por ahí
O drogarme hasta morir

Uuuuuuu tanta belleza inútil
Uuuuuuu nos fuimos tan lejos, tan lejos
Que no me importa que se rompa
La casa.

Pendemos de un hilo
Y el equilibrio al fin nos hace bien
Nos hace bien.

No siento, no siento
Lo que sentía ayer
Voy a empezar a enloquecer

tanta belleza inútil
nuestra belleza inútil
Por mas que busques alli trata y deja de mentir
Ya estás muy lejos de mi. ahhhhh.

Te amo, te amo
Con un amor que no estoy muy seguro
De poseer.

La vida se dio así
El mundo se dio así
Jugá jugá jugá,
Amá lo que hay que amar.