Now that I’ll be picking up my new bottle of Calvados on the way home from work tonight, I’ve given some thought to makeing cocktails with it rather than simply drinking it neat. Don’t get me wrong — a snifter of Calvados after (or even during) dinner is absolutely superb. It seems to me, though, that the intense apple flavor and aroma of this magnificent brandy would lend itself wonderfully to a good cocktail recipe.

After my parents came back from their first trip to France several years ago they were raving about Calvados, the superb apple brandy made in Normandy. Dad told me about what became his favorite cocktail while on this trip, a simple mixture of Calvados and apple juice on the rocks. He wasn’t sure of the proportions, and this seems to be perhaps the best way to drink this brandy if you’re going to mix it. Also recommended is 1/3 Calvados and 2/3 tonic water, but I haven’t tried that yet.

Oddly enough, I haven’t been able to find any reference to the supposedly classic Calvados/apple juice cocktail on the web, although many Calvados makers produce a product called Pommeau de Normandie, which is a mixture of Calvados and apple juice that’s aged anywhere from 1-3 years in oaken casks (and which sounds fabulous). I’ll experiment more with the proportions in my on-the-spot mixture thereof, and let y’all know.

In the meantime, have a look at his recipe, which I found on the website of a Calvados distillery. This looks potentially tasty, but use a good product like Apry rather than a cheap apricot brandy (don’t use Hiram Walker!)

Le Normandie

1-1/2 ounces of Calvados
1 ounce apricot brandy (Apry is a good brand)
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1 thin slice of apple (brushed with lemon juice to prevent discoloration)
1 long thin piece of lemon peel

Pour the liquors and lemon juice into a cocktail shaker over cracked ice, shake until chilled, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the slice of apple and lemon peel.

Wes and I have grown fond of many “classic” (i.e., more commonly quaffed by sophisticated cocktail drinkers 60+ years ago) cocktails, one of which is the Fancy-Free, consisting of 2 ounces of Bourbon, 1/2 ounce of Maraschino and a dash each of Angostura and orange bitters. Wes, who seemed to be itching to create something new, decided that he was going to concoct a cocktail called … the “Footloose”.

I got mysterious updates all week, as he tweaked unnamed ingredients and their relative proportions. I was finally presented with one last Friday. Initial impression … pretty! Pink not unlike a Cosmopolitan, but slightly opaque and with a lovely green twist of lime floating in it — a nice change from the usual lemon. The aroma was familiar yet unfamiliar, with a bouquet of fruit that I couldn’t quite place. I sipped it, and the familiar-yet-unfamiliar sensation intensified. It’s a yummy drink, but I just couldn’t place the ingredients. It was fruity without being cloyingly sweet, and with a nice bite to it (or, as my friend Jordan said, “Oh, like Paul Lynde.” Heh.) and a pleasing finishing scent from the lime oil in the twist.

Wes finally let me in on the ingredients. They combined together so well that I might never have guessed. I found it to be very different and quite nice. Try one sometime.

The Footloose Cocktail
(created by Wesly Moore)

2 ounces Stolichnaya Razberi raspberry-infused vodka
1 ounce Cointreau
1 teaspoon fresh squeezed lime juice (NOT Rose’s!)
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a long twist of lime.

A tip from Wes and a little dig into a heretofore unnoticed DrinkBoy link revealed a “new” (to me, but undoubtedly old) cocktail that has been a favorite of mine for the last couple of weeks …

The Fancy-Free

2 ounces Bourbon whisky
1/2 ounce Maraschino liqueur (I use Luxardo)
1 – 2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 – 2 dashes orange bitters

Shake with cracked ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry. Yum.

Wes came across another old cocktail recipe recently, gave it a shake, and now he’s quite fond of it. Since neither of us like vermouth, we’ve reduced the amount the original recipe calls for (and at half of that, it gives the drink just enough tang without having a too-assertive vermouth flavor), but vermouth lovers may feel free to follow the original recipe. This drink was named after the Algonquin Hotel in New York.

Algonquin

2 ounces rye whiskey
1 ounce dry vermouth
1 ounce unsweetened pineapple juice

Same drill as above … shake, strain, chilled, cherry. Sip. Aaaah.

(Okay … after two drinks, now I’m ready for all this election crap to follow.)