Monthly Archives: May 2010

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Black Prince Cocktail

While it is fun to go out to Smuggler’s Cove, I find I have a semi-low tolerance for tropical drinks.

Fortunately, Martin Cate’s menu encompasses more than just Exotic drinks. In fact, it is nearly a cross section of Rum Cocktails from the beginning of their history to the present day.

For example, the other day I rather enjoyed the Black Prince, which could only be described as a rum version of the NY “brown, bitter, and stirred”.

According to the Smuggler’s Cove menu it is, “A dark and complex concoction consisting of aged Guatemalan rum, Punt e Mes, Averna, and orange bitters. Created by Phil Ward at Death & Co. in NYC, this is an excellent showcase of rum’s versatility.”

In fact I enjoyed it so much, I decided to try to replicate it at home!

I don’t know the exact recipe, and also don’t have Punt e Mes in the house at the moment, but found this version of the drink quite enjoyable.

1 1/2 oz Zacapa 23
3/4 oz Carpano Antica
1/2 oz Averna
1 dash Regan’s Orange Bitters, 1 dash Fee’s Orange Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Hm, while I liked the Punt e Mes version at Smuggler’s Cove a lot, I think I may like it a bit more with Carpano Antica, as it is not quite so sweet. Gonna have to give it a try again when I get Punt e Mes back in the house.

If anyone knows the exact recipe, drop me a note or comment.

–Edit–

Thanks to Matt Browner Hamlin for the proper Black Prince, straight from Phil Ward:

2 oz dark aged rum
0.75 oz Punt e Mes
0.5 oz Averna
Dash orange bitters

Stir and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

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New Car Cocktail

As “White Whiskey” is a sort of trendy object these days, I’ve been puzzling over some uses for it.

One of my favorite whiskey cocktails is the “Vieux Carre”.

It is traditionally composed of equal parts Rye Whiskey, Brandy, and Sweet Vermouth with dashes of Benedictine and bitters.

As others have already gotten to making White Whiskey versions of Old-Fashioneds and Manhattans, I figured why not a clear Vieux Carre?

I’ve experimented with just about every unaged whiskey and unaged fruit brandy and eau-de-vie at my disposal.

Eau-de-Vies, while initially promising, I have found too dominating for the somewhat laid back character of most white whiskey. With them, the cocktail just tastes of the eau-de-vie and not the whiskey.

I also experimented some with lightly aged apple brandy and found those fairly promising. If you have access to Clear Creek’s young apple brandy, it is quite good in this cocktail. But, unfortunately, rather hard to come by.

After a lot of experimentation, I ended up taking the absolutely most obvious route with this cocktail: unaged whiskey, pisco, and blanc/bianco vermouth.

New Car Cocktail

1 oz White Whiskey
1 oz Pisco (or Pisco style California Brandy)
1 oz Blanc/Bianco Vermouth
2 dash The Bitter Truth Repeal Bitters (Or other relatively clear, spicy, old fashioned bitters. Trying to avoid a pink drink here. Boker’s maybe?)
5ml Benedictine (aka 1 barspoon. Mine is 5ml, I don’t know what size yours might be.)

Stir briefly with ice and strain over fresh cube(s). Squeeze orange peel over drink and drop in.

At work, I have had rather good response to the combination of Death’s Door White Whiskey, Marian Farms Pisco Style California Brandy, Dolin Blanc, and Bitter Truth Repeal Bitters.

Last night, I found the combination of Tuthilltown Hudson Corn Whiskey, Don Cesar Pisco Pura, Cinzano Bianco Vermouth, and TBT Bitters to be appealingly funky and high powered.

Let me know what combinations you come up with.

As far as the name goes, as we discussed before, “Vieux Carre” means something like, “old square,” in French. So a cocktail with unaged spirits obviously has to be “new”. Most Americans pronounce the second word in “Vieux Carre” as they do the word for automobile, “car”. Also, for some reason, “new car smell” comes to mind.

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Some Moth Cocktail

Some Moth Cocktail
1 Dash Absinthe
1/3 French Vermouth.
2/3 Plymouth Gin.
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. Add 1 pearl onion.

027

Some Moth (take 1)

1 oz Plymouth Gin
1/2 oz Genevieve
3/4 oz Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth
dash Greenway Distillers Absinthe
Shake (I stirred) well and strain into cocktail glass. Add 1 pearl onion.

After making the trek to Roxie market before hand to get English Cocktail Onions, I can’t believe I forgot to include the onion the first time I made this cocktail!

Dammit!

Fortunately, it is no great hardship to make another Dry Martini with a dash of Absinthe.

Of course, I was again thinking of the Saveur article where David Wondrich mentions that Plymouth Gin used to taste more like a Genever, thus added a touch of Anchor’s Genevieve to spice things up.

032

Some Moth (take 2)

1 oz Junipero Gin
1/2 oz Genevieve
3/4 oz Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth
dash Greenway Distillers Absinthe
Shake (I stirred) well and strain into cocktail glass. Add 1 pearl onion.

But when I was thinking about this cocktail, and the inclusion of Genvieve, I thought, “Why not use Junipero?” After all, being the hardcore kind of guy that I am, it is my favorite gin for Martinis.

Damn, if that isn’t a lot tastier! Maybe it is just that the flavors of Junipero and Genevieve are so complementary, but this really rocked.

As far as the cocktail onion goes, well, I’d prefer a lemon twist. It’s nice to have a little appetizer with your Martini, but the pickled onion is such a flavor explosion, it more or less decimates the rest of the cocktail when you eat it.

No idea on the cocktail name, “Some Moth,” even though I find it quite intriguing and appealing. About all I can find using Google for “some moth” is the phrase, “some moth damage,” on eBay.

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

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Soda Cocktail

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Soda Cocktail
1 Lump of Sugar. (Oh oops, forgot the sugar cube!)
4 Dashes Angostura Bitters. (4 dashes of Ango Bitters)
1 Lump of ice.
Use long tumbler and fill with a bottle of lemon soda, or lemonade (Fever Tree Bitter Lemon).

As a very bitter man, I felt the combination of bitter lemon and angostura bitters to be quite a delightful, complex, multifaceted taste delight. I suppose, if you are a “super taster” you may not agree with me. Well, unless you are a super taster who really, really likes bitter flavors.

A nice stomach settling delight, this would be perfect if you weren’t feeling 100%.

To me, however, it always makes me think of the question, “Are small amounts of alcoholic bitters allowed in non-alcoholic cocktails?”

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

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Snyder Cocktail

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Snyder Cocktail
1/3 French Vermouth. (3/4 oz Martini & Rossi Dry Vermouth)
2/3 Dry Gin. (1 1/2 oz Tanqueray Gin)
3 Dashes Curacao. (7.5ml Brizard Orange Curacao)
Shake (I stirred) well and strain into cocktail glass. Twist orange peel on top.

Like the recent Smiler Cocktail, an orangey Martini. This time instead of perfect, rather dry. Used Tanqueray, as it was in the house, free, and recently given the “Chairman’s Trophy” for a gin used in an Extra Dry Martini by the Ultimate Beverage Cocktail Challenge. In fact, they went so far as to say it was, “Extraordinary” and given the “Ultimate Recommendation” for that drink.  Wow!  That is SOME Accolade.  Though it is interesting how all the gins judged were made by very large firms, is it not?

I don’t know who Snyder might have been, nor do I find his cocktail particularly compelling, as Martini variants go, even with the “Extraordinary” Tanqueray gin.

Perfectly fine and drinkable, to be sure, just not that much of an improvement over the traditional Dry Martini.

I definitely wouldn’t go out of my way to order it.

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

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Snowball Cocktail

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Snowball Cocktail
1/6 Crème de Violette. (1/2 of 3/4 oz Benoit Serres liqueur de violette)
1/6 White Crème de Menthe. (1/2 of 3/4 oz Brizard White Creme de Menthe)
1/6 Anisette. (1/2 of 3/4 oz Anis del Mono dulce)
1/6 Sweet Cream. (1/2 of 3/4 oz Cream)
1/3 Dry Gin. (3/4 oz Tanqueray Gin*)
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.

This is woman’s work.

I have, in the past, put myself on record as saying this is possibly one of the worst cocktails in the entire Savoy cocktail Book.

Oddly, I have made this monstrosity on more than one occasion during our Savoy Cocktail Book Nights at Alembic Bar. In fact, one time it was even an out of town bartender who asked for it. I was like, “Really?! You know what is in that, right?” Yet he persisted in his desire to experience the Snowball. Curious. Whenever we make it there, it just seems so much worse than anything else we make in the course of the evening.

Considered on its own, however, and in this rather diminutive size, I am not entirely sure it is without its own charms. Perhaps it was my choice of brands? Tanqueray having a bit more spine than the usual Beefeater, Benoit Serres being a fine Violette, Brizard being a tasty Menthe, and Anis del Mono, one of the finest spanish Anis.

In any case, this wasn’t quite the creamy mouthwash disaster I remember. Still, as the Savoy Cocktail Book sez, this really is “Women’s Work”.

*The jungle wrapped, half bottle of Tanqueray Gin used in this cocktail was sent to me by a firm promoting the brand, and, as you may have read on other blogs, the putative birthday of Charles Tanqueray, alleged inventor of the gin. I actually like to have Tanqueray in the house, as it is a fine example of Juniper heavy London Dry Gin. However, as it is rather more expensive than the always useful Beefeater, I often pass it up and save my “special gin” money for things like Junipero. Drinking it in this cocktail, I am reminded that it is really a very good gin.

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

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Snicker Cocktail

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Snicker Cocktail
The White of 1 Egg
2 Dashes Maraschino. (5ml Luxardo Maraschino)
1 Teaspoonful Syrup. (5ml Small Hand Foods Gum Syrup)
1 Dash Orange Bitters. (1 dash The Bitter Truth Orange Bitters)
1/3 French Vermouth. (3/4 oz Martini & Rossi Dry Vermouth)
2/3 Dry Gin. (1 1/2 oz Plymouth Gin)
Shake well and strain into medium size glass.

As always, lemon-free drinks with egg whites puzzle me.

The Snicker is basically a Martini, or dry Martinez, with egg white.  We’ve made this the odd time during Savoy Cocktail Book nights at Alembic. I guess on the strength of the name?

Actually, the Millionaire No. 2, is another lemon free egg white drink, along with some of the Savoy “Pink” drinks.

In addition, some of the oldest Clover Club recipes have no lemon, only Dry Vermouth.  Most people interpret those Clover Club recipes’ lack of lemon as a typo, but given the number of other drinks with dry vermouth and egg white, I’m not so sure.

Alas, the Snicker has never made any sense to me when I tasted them it Alembic, and doesn’t make any sense to me now.

Did Dry Vermouth used to have a stronger acid component, to the point where this drink made taste sense to someone?

Or is the Egg White used simply as a textural element?

I have no answers to these questions.

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

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Smiler Cocktail

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Smiler Cocktail
1 Dash Angostura Bitters.
1 Dash Orange Juice. (1 Dash Tangerine Juice)
1/4 Italian Vermouth. (1/2 oz Carpano Antica)
1/4 French Vermouth. (1/2 oz Martini & Rossi Dry Vermouth)
1/2 Dry Gin. (1 oz Beefeater Gin)
(Strip Tangerine Peel)
Shake (I stirred) well and strain into cocktail glass.

The oranges were getting a tad dry, so subbed in tangerine juice, as it is in season. To punch up the orange, I also squeezed a bit of tangerine peel over the drink and dropped it in before adding ice.

This is more or less a rather easy drinking, slightly orangey, bittered, perfect Martini.

If that’s not something to smile about, I don’t know what is.

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

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Sloeberry Cocktail

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Sloeberry Cocktail
1 Dash Angostura Bitters. (1 dash Angostura)
1 Dash Orange Bitters. (1 dash The Bitter Truth Orange Bitters)
1 glass Sloe Gin. (1 oz Plymouth gin, 1 oz Plymouth Sloe Gin)
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.

Again!? Someone cut the Sloe Gin with Plymouth Gin! My god, what is going on here!?

I thought this was some sort of documentary effort?

Sadly, even cutting the Sloe Gin with regular Plymouth Gin didn’t help much here in the Sloeberry. Far too medicinal for my taste. Though, adding a dash of orange and a dash of ango to the previous Sloe Gin Cocktail, hm…

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