Savoy Stomp
Stomping Through the Savoy Cocktail Book
January 23, 2012 by erik.ellestad

New Year Punch, 2012

Had a few people over for Chinese New Year dinner, so figured I should make a punch. Didn’t know if everyone would be drinking so left the booze out for people to add in their individual cups.

It had to be red and gold, thus the pomegranate and orange wheel garnishes.

Chinese New Year Punch, 2012

Peel and Juice 4 Lemons
1 Cup Sugar
16 oz Pomegranate Juice
2 Teaspoons Green Tea
4 Whole Cloves
4 Green Cardamom Pods, crushed
1 Cup Water
1 Bottle Knudsen Sparkling Pomegranate, Chilled
Oranges, sliced for garnish
Ice
Freshly grated nutmeg

Macerate the Lemon Peels in the Sugar until they release their oils.

Boil water and combine with tea and spices. Steep for 6 Minutes.

Strain hot spiced tea into sugar and peel mixture. Stir to dissolve sugar. Combine strained lemon juice with spiced tea syrup and chill your “Shrub”.

Pour Shrub into punch bowl, add Pomegranate Juice. When guests arrive add ice and Sparkling Pomegranate. Garnish with orange wheels. Serve in small cups and dust with freshly grated nutmeg. Add booze to taste, if desired.

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January 22, 2012 by erik.ellestad

Life in the Service Industry

“Is this someone influenced by the Red Hot Chili Peppers or someone who influenced them?”

It’s Funkadelic, the title song from their album “Cosmic Slop”, so I’m going to go with “Influencer”.

—-

“I want to get a Corgi and name it ‘Stein’.”

“Stein”? Why Stein, some German thing?

“There’s this Anime, “Cowboy Bebop”, which has a Corgi named ‘Ein’ in it, named after Albert Einstein. Then I want to name my child ‘Albert’. Do you think that is too weird?”

Well, weird names are kind of in these days… “Cowboy Bebop” was a great series. Movie was a little disappointing, but you know.

“Yeah, if you hadn’t had enough by the time you got the movie, it wouldn’t have been perfect.”

—

Unnamed Brooklyn Variation (That Other Thing)

2 oz Rye Whiskey
3/4 oz Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz Cardamaro
1 generous teaspoon Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with grapefruit twist.

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January 8, 2012 by erik.ellestad

Pork Tenderloin Stuffed with Mushrooms and Pecans

Tasty enough that I am writing this down, so I don’t forget.

Pork Tenderloin Stuffed with Mushrooms and Pecans

2 Whole Pork Tenderloins
Tree Oyster Mushrooms
1 large Shallot, Chopped
Thyme
Sage
Breadcrumbs
Pecans, chopped
Butter
Dry Vermouth or White Wine
Chicken Stock
Salt and Pepper

METHOD:

Pre-heat oven to 400.

Clean Oyster Mushrooms. Saute in Butter until lightly browned. Add Shallots to pan and continue sauteing until cooked. Deglaze pan with White Wine and stir in breadcrumbs, sage, thyme, and pecans. If necessary, moisten with chicken stock and additional butter. Check seasonings and adjust salt and pepper to taste. Cool stuffing mixture.

Make a Slit in the underside of each pork tenderloin and fill with Stuffing mixture. With the large ends opposite from each other, use twine to tie tenderloins together, stuffing sides together (see picture, below).

Roast in oven until temperature reaches your desired level of doneness.

Slice and serve with oven roasted potatoes, a vegetable side, and a nice wine.

Pork Tenderloin Stuffed with Mushrooms and Pecans

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December 23, 2011 by erik.ellestad

Life in the Service Industry

Server A: “I finally got my best friend to send me my albums.”

You mean vinyl albums or CDs.

Server A: “Yeah, vinyl albums. I have a bunch more at home, but she sent about 40. It was surprisingly cheap to send them as media mail.”

Cool!

Server A: “Yeah, I don’t buy CDs any more. If I can’t find it on torrent, I’ll maybe buy it from apple, but I haven’t bought a CD in a long time. Plus, when you buy vinyl, they usually give you the digital version for free.”

Nice! Yeah, I got a turntable for Michele for Christmas. I have a really excellent turntable I’ve had since college, but it’s belt drive, so you have to track down new belts every couple years. It’s just gotten harder to find the belts over the years.

Server B: “I buy vinyl and have a Crosley turntable, but I don’t really use it too much. I just mostly listen to digital.”

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December 21, 2011 by erik.ellestad

Gin Fix

Gin Fix
Use small bar glass.
1 Tablespoonful Sugar.
1/4 Lemon.
1/2 Wineglass Water.
1 Wineglass Gin.
Fill 2/3 full of shaved ice. Stir with a spoon and ornament the top with fruits in season.

OK, so those instructions are kind of hopelessly munged. First, this is an old recipe, so we’re definitely using Genever, not Dry Gin. Second, remembering the caveat from the Brandy Fix, “In making fixes be careful to put the lemon skin in the glass,” but let’s punch-i-fy further (oleo sacharum baby!) and muddle the peel of the lemon in the sugar.

How about the following:

Genever Fix

1 Generous teaspoonful sugar.
Rind and juice of 1/2 lemon.
Water.
2 oz Bols Aged Genever.
Fruit, in season, to garnish.

In heavy double old fashioned glass (or similar), muddle lemon rind in sugar until fragrant. Add water, and muddle until sugar is dissolved. Pour in Genever and lemon juice. Stir to mix. Fill with fine ice and swizzle until well frosted. Garnish with fruits, in season.

Ah, yes, delicious! And Kiwis are in season here in California, so there!

Mr. Angus Winchester, man about town and global ambassador for Tanqueray Gin, was kind enough to come out to one of our recent Savoy Nights at Alembic Bar.

When I was chatting with him, I quizzed him about what he thought was notable about the category of drinks called “Fix”.

Interestingly, he said his theory was the name “Fix” referred to the fact that the drink was “Fixed in the glass”. And went on to say that he considered one of the more important Dick Bradsell drinks,the Bramble, an elaborate “Fix”.

Hrm, well, Mr. Bradsell doesn’t exactly see it that way, he considers it a Singapore Sling variation, nor does he mix his bramble in the glass, but in a way, it works. Let’s “Fix” a Bramble.

Fixed Bramble

Rind and Juice 1/2 Lemon.
1 generous teaspoon Sugar.
Water.
2 oz Dry Gin.
1/2 oz Blackberry Liqueur.
Blackberries or other seasonal fruit, for garnish.

In a heavy old fashioned glass muddle the peel of a lemon in sugar. Add water, and muddle to dissolve. Add Gin and Lemon juice. Mix to combine and add ice. Swizzle until glass well frosted. Drizzle on Blackberry liqueur and garnish with fresh fruit and lemon slice.

Swizzle Stick courtesy Samurai Bartender, Chris “Rookie” Stanley.

This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the drinks in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, the, uh, Sauterne Cup.

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December 15, 2011 by erik.ellestad

Life in the Service Industry

What do you think of my new black shirts? I kind of like them, but they’re a little odd in the yoke to iron.

“Iron? What is this IRON you speak of? I don’t iron my shirts, I just hang them in the bathroom while I take a shower.”

Huh, good idea, I’ll have to try that. It’s just I don’t like to tumble dry my cotton clothes. I find they wear longer if I line dry them after washing. Then they’re too wrinkly to not iron them.

“Laundry?! I hate doing laundry! I just drop my clothes off at Laundry Locker in the Lower Haight, it’s a dollar fifty a pound for wash and fold, a dollar a pound if you sign up for a laundry plan.”

Clearly, I have a lot to learn about life in the service industry.

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December 13, 2011 by erik.ellestad

What’s Up, Winter 2011

I guess you might have noticed that the Savoy Stomp has been slightly stalled of late.

The long and short of it is I have been a bit too busy to find much time for leisurely making, photographing, and writing about drinks.

Full time job, Bartending shifts at Heaven’s Dog, Holidays, Travel. They’ve all contributed to a slight stagnation of content creation for the blog.

And to be honest, I don’t imagine there will be much else happening until 2012.

On the plus side, there really are very few Savoy drinks left to make. A couple more Fixes, Juleps, Smashes, Punches, and Cups and we’re DONE. Kaputt. Outta here.

What happens after that, with the Savoy Project and the blog, I really don’t know.

We’ll just have to see what develops.

As far as Savoy Cocktails go, you can always get your real world Savoy fix at Alembic Bar the last Sunday of the Month, when we hold Savoy Cocktail book Night.

Though, do note, as the last Sunday falls on December 25 this month, we’ll be holding it a week early, on Sunday, December 18.

And if Savoy Cocktails aren’t your thing, you can often find me at Heaven’s Dog on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, when I can make cocktails with ingredients which weren’t included in the Savoy Cocktail Book.

Hope to see you around!

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December 6, 2011 by erik.ellestad

Omakase

From the wikipedia entry about “Omakase“:

“Omakase is a Japanese phrase that means “I’ll leave it to you” and it comes from the word for “entrust”.

“The expression is used at sushi restaurants to leave the selection to the chef. It differs from ordering à la carte. The chef will generally present a series of plates, beginning with the lightest fare and proceeding to heaviest, richest dishes. The phrase is not exclusive to service of raw fish with rice, and can incorporate grilling and simmering as well. Customers ordering omakase style expect the chef to be innovative and surprising in the selection of dishes, and the meal can be likened to an artistic performance by the chef. Ordering omakase can be a gamble; however, the customer typically receives the highest quality fish the restaurant currently has in stock at a price cheaper than if it was ordered à la carte. From the restaurant’s perspective, a large number of customers ordering omakase can help in planning for food costs.”

The other day, while I was working with him at Alembic, Danny Louie asked me what bartenders I admired in San Francisco.

I went through the litany of respected bartenders I admire in San Francisco and why.

But later, I was thinking about it, and another candidate for my favorite tender of a bar doesn’t make drinks at all.

Tim Archuleta and his wife run Ichi Sushi in my San Francisco neighborhood.

Tim runs his Sushi Bar more like a neighborhood Sushi Tavern, greeting guests as the come in. Asking them about their families or dogs. Keeping track of the progress of the various diners’ meals at his sushi bar. Pacing people’s meals so they don’t get too full or wait too long. All the while, cutting and serving some of the freshest sushi I’ve ever tasted.

I really admire the spirit he brings to the restaurant and to his guests.

Every time we go in, I usually just say chef’s choice and tell him how much we’d like to eat and what we are in the mood for.

It’s really fun, the way he paces the meal, starting with lighter fare, throwing in a few cooked dishes, and finishing again with lighter, almost dessert sushi.

Watching him work has made me think about how to properly pace and what order to serve people drinks. What drink is best first, what to follow with, what to finish with. If a guest asks you what to pair a dish with, what do you tell them?

Some of the best experiences I’ve had being served by a bartender have been at the Slanted Door, when my wife and I are lucky enough to be served by Mr. Erik Adkins*.

Like Omakase, we give him a framework of what we are interested in, how hungry, do we have food allergies, do we like oysters, etc, and he fills it out with what food is currently best at the restaurant and pairs it with wine, beer and spirits. His knowledge of both the food and drink is amazing but it is his apparent joy at serving us, as guests, with the best he has to offer, which is truly inspirational.

I don’t really have a moral to this story, other than to to point out the self evident: As bartenders, it is important to be aware of the larger context of the guests’ experiences.

I REALLY enjoy making great cocktails and impressing guests with them, but sometimes you have to put away the desire to impress a guest with your cocktail making skill and respect the trust they have put in you, whatever that means, on that on that night, for that particular guest, at that exact moment.

*I will note that I do work for Mr. Adkins at Heaven’s Dog. This is in no way meant to suck up to him, he already gave me a job afterall, just an honest expression of my admiration for his talents as a host and bartender.

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November 29, 2011 by erik.ellestad

Brandy Fix

Fixes.

In making fixes be careful to put the lemon skin in the glass.

Brandy Fix
Pour into a small tumbler 1 teaspoonful of sugar, 1 teaspoonful of water to dissolve the sugar, Juice of 1/2 Lemon, 1/2 Liqueur Glass of Cherry Brandy, 1 Liqueur Glass of Brandy. Fill the glass with fine ice and stir slowly, then add a slice of lemon, and serve with a straw.

Oft times, people looking at the two pages of the Savoy Cocktail Book with the Daisies on one side and the Fixes on the other, will have the question, “What is the difference between a Fix and a Daisy?”

If we say a “Daisy” is Spirits, Citrus, Sweetener, Ice and Soda Water, then the only real difference between the Daisy and the Fix is the presence of Soda Water in the recipe for the Daisy.

Looking at some old recipe books:

While the 1862 edition of Jerry Thomas’ Bartender’s Guide did not include Daisies, he did include a section of “Fixes and Sours”.

Brandy Fix.
(Use Small Bar Glass)

1 table-spoonful of sugar;
1/4 of a lemon;
1/2 wineglass water;
1 wineglass brandy.

Fill a tumbler two-thirds full of shaved ice. Stir with a spoon and dress the top with fruit in season*

*The Santa Cruz fix is made by substituting Santa Cruz rum instead of brandy.

Gin Sour
(Use Small Bar Glass)

The gin Sour is made with the same ingredients as the gin fix, omitting all fruits except a small piece of lemon, which must be pressed in the glass.**

**The Santa Cruz sour is made by substituting Santa Cruz rum instead of gin. In making fixes and sours be careful and put the lemon skin in the glass.

For Jerry Thomas, then, a Sour is a Fix without a fruit garnish.

From Harry Johnson’s 1888 “Bartender’s Manual”:

Gin Fix
(Use a large bar glass)
1/2 tablespoonful of sugar;
3 or 4 dashes of lime or lemon juice;
1/2 pony glass of pineapple syrup; dissolve well with a little water, or squirt of selters;
Fill up the glass with shaved ice;
1 wine glass of Holland Gin.

Stir up well with a spoon, ornament the top with fruit in season, and serve with a straw.

As usual, Mr Johnson is slightly more ornamental than Mr Thomas with his sweetener choices, but the two recipes are more or less the same. Sugar, Citrus, and Spirits served on fine ice and ornamented with “fruit in season”.

While we are at it, we might as well check Cocktail Bill Boothby, from 1908:

Fix.

Fill a punch glass with fine ice and set it on the bar. Then take a medium size mixing-glass and put in it one dessertspoonful of sugar, the juice of one lemon, a jigger of whiskey and enough water to make a drink large enough to fill the punch glass containing the ice. Stir well, pour over the ice in the punch glass, decorate and serve with straws.

With Boothby, I think the words, “punch glass” are particularly telling. A Fix is a single serving punch, mixed a la minute, and served over fine ice.

OK, back to the Savoy. The most troubling part of the Savoy Brandy Fix recipe is the “Cherry Brandy”. What do the authors mean, Cherry Liqueur or Cherry Eau-de-Vie?

Well, let’s try it both ways and see what we get.

Brandy Fix (Kirsch)

1 1/2 oz Artez Folle Blanche Armagnac VSOP
3/4 oz Clear Creek Kirsch
Juice 1/2 Lemon
1 teaspoon Rich Simple Syrup
Peel 1 Lemon
Grapes
Lemon Slice

Shake on cracked ice and pour into a wine glass decorated with whole lemon peel. Garnish with fruit in season and lemon slice.

Huh, that’s actually not awful, in fact kind of tasty. The Cherry Eau-de-Vie diversifies the flavor and increases the intensity of the Brandy’s taste in the drink.

Brandy Fix (Heering)

1 1/2 oz Artez Folle Blanche Armagnac VSOP
3/4 oz Cherry Heering
Juice 1/2 Lemon
1 teaspoon Rich Simple Syrup
Peel 1 Lemon
Grapes
Lemon Slice

Shake on cracked ice and pour into a wine glass decorated with whole lemon peel. Garnish with fruit in season and a lemon slice.

On the other hand, this IS kind of awful. Maybe my Heering is past its prime, but this tastes rather too much like cough syrup for me to be comfortable with. I can only imagine this would be even more medicinal with Gin or Genever. I might be wrong, but I’m going to side with Eau-de-Vie for the Brandy Fix.

This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the drinks in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, the, uh, Sauterne Cup.

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November 22, 2011 by erik.ellestad

Savoy Cocktail Book Night

This Sunday, November 27th, marks the third year of our monthly event at Alembic Bar, Savoy Cocktail Book Night.

I have a vague memory of being at Alembic Bar with my wife, mentioning to Daniel Hyatt that they should reinstate the discontinued Savoy Cocktail Book Nights. Having him tell me, if they did hold the Savoy Cocktail Book Nights again, I should be involved.

I remember thinking, maybe I shouldn’t sound too enthusiastic, maintain a bit of distance, so as not to scare him with my enthusiasm. One of my favorite bars, Savoy Cocktails… Is this the “Make a Wish Foundation”?

“Yeah, that might be OK, let me check my schedule.”

Here we are, three years later, I suppose I should have learned some lessons.

Man, it’s still hard. Of all the bartending things I do, the mental effort of looking up all those cocktails in a night is one of the hardest exercises I do. I always find myself way more tired on Monday morning than I really should be for being as busy (or not) as we were and only staying up until midnight or 1 the night before.

People pick weird cocktails, for the sake of being weird. That’s the only thing I can figure, as to why the Green Dragon or Snowball continue to be ordered month after month.

There are some really good cocktails in the book and I enjoy pointing people in their direction. The Dandy, The Elk’s Own, The Rattlesnake, the Imperial, Jabberwock etc. There are quite a few fairly obscure and unjustly ignored cocktails in the book, and it is just fun to turn people on to them.

Anyway, I am grateful every month for the time I get to spend with the fantastic staff at Alembic, and especially, for the chance Daniel Hyatt has given me to spread the gospel of these cocktails using his bar as a podium.

Stop by after 6 PM on Nov 27. Cool drinks, great bar, fantastic staff. And, yes, if you really want a Southern Exposure or Pisco Sour, we can make those too…

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