Recapping my ’08 trip home to New Orleans for Christmas …

After The Swizzle Stick was a visit to a new place — not only new to me, but brand new to the city too, having opened at the beginning of October. Rambla is a Basque-influenced Spanish tapas restaurant at the International House hotel in the 200 block of Camp Street. It’s owned by the same folks who own Cuvée on St. Charles and Dakota on the Northshore, so it’s already off to a good start. Mary had been in Rambla a few weeks ago, checking them out for inclusion in Frommer’s I imagine, and put me in touch with their bartender Maksym Pazuniak, who’s a really nice guy, a graduate of B.A.R. and really cares about quality cocktails.

Maks and his colleagues are doing a great job with the cocktail menu there, with several really tasty-looking offerings: Spanish 75, a variation on the local penchant for making French 75s with brandy instead of gin, with Maks’ version done with LePanto brandy de Jerez, fresh lemon juice and Cava. The Sardinia combines Tanqueray gin, fresh lemon, housemade rosemary syrup and a splash of Campari, and a Pecan Hot Toddy warms dark rum and sweetens it with a housemade spiced pecan syrup.

Maks offered to make this one for me, a holiday-themed variation on an Old Fashioned and one of his own creations. I’m approximating the proportions from having watched him make it.

Goodnight St. Nick
(adapted from Maks Pazuniak, Rambla, New Orleans)

2 ounces Sazerac rye whiskey, 6 years.
1/2 ounce allspice dram.
1/4 ounce grade B maple syrup.
2-3 dashes Fee’s Whiskey Barrel-Aged bitters.
4 or 5 fresh cranberries.
Orange slice.

In a mixing glass muddle the cranberries and orange slice. Add the remaining ingredients and shake vigorously until very cold, then double-strain into an Old Fashioned glass with ice.

I don’t think St. Nick would mind being left one of these. (We always just left milk, cookies and whiskey.)

[UPDATE: Maks is currently doing wonderful things behind the stick at Cure in Uptown New Orleans, and writing about them at beta cocktails.]

Our friend Gregg directed us recently to The Spirit World, which we were familiar with but which was new to him. (NOTE: Site now defunct.) I was appreciative for the tip, though, because I hadn’t read it in a while and the nudge was helpful. I’ve now added the RSS feed to my reader, so I won’t forget again.

Wesly was digging through the more recent posts, and noted a recent series called “Winter Wonders,” a collection of wintry cocktails for the ’08 season. He thought this one seemed the most appealing, which was our evening cocktail the night before Gluttony Day.

The Park Slope

2-1/2 ounces rye whiskey.
3/4 ounce Punt E Mes.
1/2 ounce apricot brandy (Apry, or Orchard Apricot, not eau de vie).
1 dash Angostura bitters.

Stir with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a good quality cherry.

I love Manhattan variations.

Going out to a bar and closing it down on a school night. You’re a bad boy, Taggart.

This is an occasional occupational hazard of having friends who are bartenders, of course. Late nights are no problem for those guys, but for me and another friend who had to get up early today, the getting-up part was a bit dicey. By the time I got on the road this morning I was pretty much over it. Could be famous last words, though — let’s hope I don’t just conk out a little later on.

Last night was a long overdue visit to Seven Grand, occasioned by our friend Eric‘s visit to start getting Old Tom Gin into the L.A. market (yay!). More on that a bit later.

Order of the day was Bartender’s Choice, which I love doing there — it’s one of the few places I’ll let someone just make me anything and trust that it’ll be wonderful. (It gladdens my heart that the number of such places is slowly but steadily growing.) Our friend John took marvelous care of us, and when I asked to be surprised he asked what I was in the mood far — “Something on the tart and fizzy side, maybe something more on the bitter side?” Bitter always works for me, and John presented me with a wonderful Audrey Saunders variation on the Manhattan, with Cynar, the artichoke flavored bitter aperitivo, sitting in for the aromatic bitters.

This is Audrey’s original recipe below; John varied it slightly by cutting the sweet vermouth back to 1/2 ounce but using the powerfully spicy and flavorful Carpano Antica Formula, and garnishing with a lemon peel instead of two cherries on a pick.

Little Italy Cocktail
(by Audrey Saunders, Pegu Club, New York)

2 ounces rye whiskey.
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/2 ounce Cynar.
2 good-quality cocktail cherries.

Combine with ice and stir for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the cherries, speared on a cocktail pick. (Variation: cut vermouth back to 1/2 ounce but use Carpano Antica or Vya, and garnish with lemon peel.)

The rye and the Cynar played very well together, with their alchemy creating chocolatey notes in this drink that I really loved. I’m very curious to try augmenting that with a dash of Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters.

Damien ordered a Negroni variation that was really tasty too — substitute Partida Blanco tequila for the gin, add a barspoon of absinthe and serve on the rocks with an orange twist.

We tried a ton of other things too — a Martinez Cocktail using the Old Tom gin, the way it was originally made (although with a slight variation in proportion — 1:1 with the gin and vermouth). As we had several of Eric’s products on hand (as well as the guy who makes them, visiting from Austria!) we tried a few of those in cocktails as well. Mr. Purkhart himself asked for something using his Crème de Violette, and was given a variation on the Ramos Gin Fizz, sort of a violette fizz: Swap out Old Tom gin for the London Dry, substitute 2 barspoons of the violette instead of the orange flower water, and add several drops of Regans’ Orange Bitters No. 6 to the frothy head and swirl around with a toothpick. Holy crap, that was good.

Then they were kind enough to make two of mine. Eric brought out the St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram and asked for a Réveillon, so we had a bit of Christmas in September. Then John asked about the Hoskins recipe — he had had one at Zig Zag but hadn’t made one himself — so we got one and shared it with him and everyone else. So nice to be able to get one of those in a bar. Speaking of the good ol’ Hoskins, I hear tell that Torani have reformulated their Amer, removing the vegetal characteristic that so many people found off-putting and making it taste much more like Amer Picon did. If so, I can’t wait to taste that!

All that, plus a visit to Leo’s Tacos at 2:30am. Great night.

My friend Erik posted a brief tweet in his Twitter feed the other day that said this:

GeorgeTStagg’06 + JerryThomas’ManhattanRecipe = Holy Crap!

An exclamation point suddenly appeared over my head, encased in a thought balloon. Sometimes ya gotta love Twitter.

The Manhattan Cocktail was invented sometime in the 1860s, with conflicting stories as to its origin, as is the usual case with classic cocktails of its age. One reliable source, quoted by Dave Wondrich in his superb tome Imbibe!, was William F. Mulhall, who was a bartender at New York’s Hoffman House from 1882 until 1915. He said that “[t]he Manhattan Cocktail was invented by a man named Black, who kept a place ten doors down below Houston Street on Broadway in the [eighteen-]sixties.” There’s also evidence to think it was created at New York’s Manhattan Club as well, although the stories of it being created for a banquet thrown by Winston Churchill’s mother, enduring as they are, were disproven by a little simple math with the dates. Professor Jerry Thomas included it in one of the later editions of his pioneering bar guide, and his version is quite a bit different from what we’re used to today.

The main difference is that the proportions are reversed — this old version calls for twice as much vermouth as whiskey. There are a few reasons for this: Dave talks in his book about the Vermouth Cocktail being fine and dandy, at least you’ve got a drink in your hand, but it lacks a certain kick the many members of The Sporting Life demanded. However, a pure whiskey cocktail, consisting primarily of spirit, didn’t allow the consumption of too many before you were likely to be whacking your chin on the end of the bar as you were on your way down to the floor. Ah, but the mixture of whiskey or other spirit with the wildly popular new vermouth that was coming in from Europe … now there’s a drink where you can knock back a few, know you’re doing it and last a bit longer on your feet! On top of that, the interplay between the flavors of the spirit and the spiced wine created a whole new universe of flavor.

Also, back in the day, a lot of whiskey tended to be stronger than what we typically get today; Old Potrero’s 18th Century Style Whiskey is a modern example of what many of those old whiskies were like. I’ve never tried making a Jerry Thomas Manhattan using an 86-proof whiskey, but I don’t think it would be all that well balanced; I probably should try it, actually, just to see.

Old Potrero would be a good idea for this cocktail, as would the lovely Thomas Handy Sazerac Rye, which is fantastic stuff and comes in at 132 proof. But the stuff Erik suggested was really exciting — the 2006 release of George T. Stagg Bourbon, aged for 16 years and bottled at barrel strength, came in at a whopping 144 proof. That’s 72% alcohol for the math-impaired, and what the Buffalo Trace distillery calls one of their “Haz-Mat” releases. It’s actually illegal to transport this stuff on a plane yourself; you can bring up to 5 bottles of booze in your checked luggage, but only if it’s below 140 proof.

After seeing Erik’s tweet, I made two as soon as I got home.

The key to this drink, besides Erik’s excellent suggestion of a super-powerful and flavorful whiskey, is to use a really spicy, flavorful vermouth as well. Top choice would be the incredible Carpano Antica Formula, followed by Punt E Mes or Vya. If you have one of the other releases of Stagg that should work well too, as will the Thomas Handy rye or Old Potrero 18th Century.

“Reverse” Manhattan Cocktail
(Professor Jerry Thomas’ 1887 version of the Manhattan
modern variation by Erik Ellestad)

2 ounces sweet vermouth (Carpano or the like).
1 ounce George T. Stagg Bourbon ’06.
3 dashes bitters (Fee’s Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters, Angostura or Abbott’s if you’ve got ’em).
2 dashes maraschino liqueur.

Stir with ice and strain into a claret glass, then garnish with a quarter lemon slice if you’re doing Jerry’s presentation. I used a standard cocktail glass and a Luxardo cherry.

Our reaction … HOLY CRAP!

Thanks for the suggestion, Erik!

That’s amaro!

(Okay, that was bad. Sorry. Here’s hoping I won’t be assaulted by the ghost of Dean Martin.)

I’m usually not one to toot my own horn too much, but I think it’s a credit to my stamina (and my liver) that my hangover on Friday morning, July 18, was not nearly as catastrophic as it could (or should) have been. Six Scotches, ten gins, four wee gin cocktails, nine brandies, three wee brandy cocktails, three wee cocktails, then five HUMU-HUMU-MONGOUS tropical cocktails at the Tiki dinner the night before; then as Wesly mentioned, after that I visited the Partida / Plymouth / St. Germain suite on the 9th floor, then my friend Eric Alperin of The Doheny handed me one more drink … and that’s when my brain shut down. The next day I marveled at Seamus’ and Rick’s excellent posts on the dinner, and especially wondered how Seamus was able to pull off such a great post right after the dinner. (I was more occupied with the daunting task of walking.)

So, to continue with the pokiest and longest-running Tales of the Cocktail recaps of any cocktail blogger out there …

We slept through the media breakfast at Brennan’s and managed to rouse our carcasses (“Quiet darling, your Auntie Mame is hung”) to get to one of the most-anticipated seminars of my schedule: “Amore Amari: A Very Bitter History of Bitter Spirits in Apertif Service and Cocktails,” presented by Averna, Campari and The Bitter Truth. Wesly and I have been mad for bitters for years, obsessively collecting as many varieties as we could (including our best score ever — three pristine, full 18-ounce bottles of Abbott’s Bitters), and over the past year or so have become amaro fanatics as well — the bitterer the better.

Eric Seed of Haus Alpenz led the panel and began by talking about the history of bitters in cocktails, and how up until the beginning of the 19th century bitters were truly strictly medicinal, and medical miracles were attributed to their regular use. Our favorite of the historical ads that they showed were for Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters, the makers of which exhorted you to “Renew Vigor and Make Life Worth Living!” Hostetter’s also helped you “renew your life-giving blood currents” and took care of your dyspepsia, malaria, indigestion, fever and ague, nervousness, kidney, bladder and bowel disease, neuralgia, rheumatism, menstrual cramps and hysteria. While I can’t vouch for most of those claims, bitters then and now are great for indigestion and overindulgence, and many of us have but a few teaspoons of Angostura in soda water to settle our tummies.

Eric also reviewed several of the primary styles and components of bitter liqueurs. Wormwood-based bitters, in addition to absinthe, include relatively mild examples such as vermouth, which comes from wermut, the German word for wormwood, plus some massively and wonderfully bitter concoctions such as Gorki List from Serbia. (My good friend Dule, from Belgrade who now lives in Zurich, loves the stuff and always keeps a bottle on hand “to test the mettle of my guests.” You’ll be able to test your own mettle soon; Eric plans to bring Gorki List to the States later this year.)

Gentian-based bitters, which have an almost horseradish-like bitterroot flavor without the burn, include Suze from France and Averna from Sicily, and gentian is also an ingredient in most aromatic cocktail bitters such as Angostura. Cinchona bark, from which we get quinine, is the bitter agent in tonic water as well as in quinquinas, aperitif wines like Lillet, Dubonnet and bitters such as Amer Picon. Citrus bitters are sought for their flavor, aroma and sweetness as well as the bitter components. They make very popular amari (Campari, to name the most popular, and it’s “younger brother” Aperol), as well as beloved cocktail bitters such as the wealth of orange bitters we’re able to enjoy now from Fee’s, Regans’, The Bitter Truth, Hermes and the wonderful new Angostura Orange Bitters.

LeNell Smothers also spoke about her massive collection of bitters at her shop in Brooklyn (and I’m preparing a frighteningly large order for her), and Stephan Berg of the wonderful new bittersmakers The Bitter Truth came from Germany to speak of his products and also regale us with some wonderful history of Angostura and Abbott’s Bitters.

We also had three terrific cocktails:

Les Voûtes

1-1/2 ounces Rittenhouse Rye 100 proof
1/2 ounce Martini & Rossi Rosso Vermouth
1/2 ounce yellow Chartreuse
1 splash Clear Creek kirschwasser
2 dashes The Bitter Truth Orange BItters

Stir over ice many times over, strain into chilled cocktail glass.

This is a lovely Manhattan variation, and shows what can be achieved with just a small amount of an aromatic herbal liqueur, changing the character of the drink completely. Yellow Chartreuse plays with other ingredients a bit more readily than the green, which has such a unique and assertive flavor that it tends to dominate if not carefully balanced. The kirsch gives it a bit of cherry flavor while keeping it dry, and the orange bitters tie everything together beautifully.

Negroni Transalpina

2 ounces Martini & Rossi Rosso Vermouth
1 ounce Plymouth Gin
1 ounce Campari
2 dashes The Bitter Truth Orange BItters
1 teaspoon apricot eau de vie

Shake first four ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass and float the eau de vie.

This Negroni variation is heavier on the vermouth (we like the variation called the Cinnabar Negroni, which doubles the Campari), and a bit of dry apricot brandy (the lovely Marillien that Eric’s Haus Alpenz imports) also adding fruit flavor without the potential of overly cloying sweetness from too much liqueur. This reminds me of a drier, more bitter Martinez.

La Cola Nostra

1-1/2 ounces Pampero Anniversario Rum
1 ounce Averna
1/4 ounce St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram
1 ounce Bubbly Brut Cuvée
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
1/2 ounce Fee Brothers Rock Candy Syrup

Shake and strain.

A Daiquiri variation, again demonstrating that a little liqueur can go a long way flavorwise. Here we have only 1/4 ounce of Eric’s new product, St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram, and it lends great character and spice to the drink. The Averna gives it a lovely bitter component, with the sparkling wine lightening it all up. Funny name too, but you do get a sense of kola nut flavor (itself a very bitter ingredient, if you’ve ever tasted one on its own) in this mixture of flavors with the most well-known Sicilian amaro.

As great as this all was, perhaps the best part was at the very end, when we were invited to come up if we were interested in tasting some of the myriad stash of bitters they’d brought, including … vintage 19th century Boker’s Bitters, the bitters used to make the first Manhattan cocktail. (If we’re interested? Ya think?) Stephan placed one precious drop on my hand and I tasted … and wow. Wow wow wow. Amazing body and spice and depth of flavor, baking spices like cinnamon and clove and ginger and all kinds of strange and wonderful things and YUM. It reminded me of Abbott’s, but without the elements you get from the barrel aging in the latter. It still tasted terrific, and I wish Stephan had had enough to make us all Rittenhouse Manhattans with it. We got more tastes from LeNell and Eric, and as Jay Hepburn put it, “I have the wonderful aroma of 10 different bitters on my hands.”

I’d be happy to smell like that (and taste all those wonderful tastes) every day!