I didn’t entitle this post with a “Negroni Variations,” because technically it isn’t, although it has two of the same ingredients and follows the same general formula.

This is a drink that I think should get a lot more attention than it does, ’cause it’s damned good. It isn’t a Negroni variation per se, as it developed quite independently from that drink, but fits in with them quite nicely. As Dr. Cocktail said in the above link, “The Boulevardier … appeared in Harry [McElhone]’s 1927 bar guide, Barflies and Cocktails … Obviously, this is a Negroni with bourbon in lieu of gin. The Negroni, however, would not see print for another 20 years, and Americans had never heard of Campari in 1927.”

THE BOULEVARDIER COCKTAIL

1-1/2 ounces Bourbon whiskey
1 ounce Campari
1 ounce sweet vermouth.

Stir and strain. Garnish with orange slice, lemon twist or cherry at your discretion.

Ask for it by name!

Finally, here’s a variation on that which came about one night when bartender Chris Day and I were talking about cocktails in Google Chat. Our Boulevardier and Funky Negroni got together and had a demon spawn, which is actually amazingly good.

The conversation went something like this: I wanted a stiff drink, something with Stagg Bourbon. Chris and I had been talking about Smith & Cross rum. As I was musing about mixing Smith & Cross and Stagg, Chris said almost simultaneously, “Try a Boulevardier with a Smith & Cross float.” My eyes lit up and I said, “A STAGG Boulevardier!” He said, “Oh god, what have I done?” (AWESOMENESS, that’s what you’ve done!)

George T. Stagg Bourbon is arguably the best Bourbon on the planet. It’s certainly my special favorite, so full of flavor that it makes your head spin … quite literally. This is because Stagg is also barrel proof, slightly varying in proof each year but is generally around 144 proof. That’s 72% alcohol, kids — not to be trifled with. It’s a bit hot to drink neat — you might want to add a bit of cool water — but it mixes amazingly well. Given its strength proportions almost always have to be adjusted, but this gets easier with practice.

I wondered if the strength of this whiskey would overwhelm the Campari, but when I tried it with equal proportions I didn’t like it as much. The Campari is still there in the standard Boulevardier proportion, but it’s less assertive. That said, Wes and I both preferred the version below. “The other one was perfectly fine,” Wes said, “but this one … this is the one that makes you pound on the table, say ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ and order it again.” Your mileage may vary; try it 1:1:1 if you like, and see if you like it. Justin Burrow in Houston said, “That drink should be called the ‘Naptime.’” That gave me the idea to call it this:

BOULEVARD DES RÊVES

1-1/2 ounces George T. Stagg Bourbon
1 ounce Carpano Antica
1 ounce Campari
1/4 ounce Smith & Cross rum

Combine the first 3 ingredients with ice, stir and strain into a chilled coupe. Float Smith and Cross onto the surface of the drink. Lemon peel garnish.

Make sure someone else is driving you if you have this one.

And with that, our little series on Negroni variations comes to an end. This should give you plenty of stuff to try at home or in your favorite bar, as they should be pretty easy to order (i.e., “Genever Negroni,” “Stagg Boulevardier with a Smith & Cross float,” etc.). So, give ‘em a try!

First of all, if you haven’t seen the site Liquor.com, and if you’re not subscribing to their daily email newsletter, you should go see it and subscribe now. It’s all about cocktails and spirits, and you’ll see many familiar names go by in the bylines: David Wondrich, Dale DeGroff, Audrey Saunders, Jim Meehan of PDT, H. Joseph Ehrmann of Elixir, and many more. The website is still relatively new and not quite all there yet, but the newsletter is particularly nice; it’s a great little boozy tidbit in your mailbox every day.

To entice you (and as a useful li’l list for us all), here’s an excerpt from a recent non-byline Liquor.com post about how to choose a Bourbon based on ones you already like, with the help of Knob Creek’s “whiskey professor,” Bernie Lubbers:

From how long the spirit ages to the proof, there are a number of key factors that contribute to the flavor of bourbon. But today we’re focusing on the most basic: the three grains used to make the whiskey. While all bourbons must be at least 51 percent corn and usually contain some barley, the third grain can vary from brand to brand. Using that so-called “flavoring grain,” Lubbers divides the whole bourbon category into three main groups. “I try to find the common dominator,” he says.

There’s the “traditional bourbon recipe,” which calls for about 70 percent corn and then roughly equal amounts of rye and barley. [...] Then there’s the spicy “high-rye recipe,” which includes a higher percentage of, you guessed it, rye. [...] The last group is the “traditional wheat recipe,” which, according to Lubbers, has a “sweeter and softer” taste since it’s made from corn, barley and wheat.

While the bourbons in each group will taste different, there’s a good chance that if you like one you’ll like the rest. With Lubbers’ assistance we created a cheat sheet that breaks down the most popular brands into these three categories. Now it’s time to go back to the liquor store.

TRADITIONAL BOURBON RECIPE:
Baker’s
Booker’s
Elijah Craig
Evan Williams
Jim Beam
Jim Beam Black
Knob Creek
Old Crow
Wild Turkey

HIGH-RYE RECIPE:
Basil Hayden’s
Buffalo Trace
Bulleit
Eagle Rare
Four Roses
George T. Stagg
Old Forester
Old Grand-Dad
Woodford Reserve

TRADITIONAL WHEAT RECIPE:
Maker’s Mark
Old Fitzgerald
Rebel Yell
Van Winkle
W.L. Weller

This was nicely enlightening, and I was unsurprised to see most of my favorite Bourbons in the high-rye category, being the lover of rye that I am. I was also pleased to see Old Forester in there, which was my first Bourbon — it was the only one Dad kept in his bar when I was a kid. (That, and the super-mild blended Seagram’s V.O. were the two whiskies he kept around.)

Then again, I really love Booker’s, which is in the “traditional” category; that beautiful caramelly sweetness with nuts and vanilla (and the ass-kicking proof) really does it for me. I’m also a fan of Maker’s, which we still keep around primarily for sipping; Buffalo Trace has replaced it as our default mixing Bourbon at home.

I never was that much of a fan of Jim Beam, but after trying Evan Williams over the past couple of years I’d like to try to keep some of that around. I’ve never tried Baker’s at all, so we’ll have to add that to the list.

I’m always happy to buy more Bourbon!

(Oh, and subscribe to the liquor.com newsletter! *nudge*)

Chef Celestino Drago’s latest Los Angeles restaurant Drago Centro has looked and sounded so good for so long (a whole year and a half!) that it was almost criminal that we hadn’t been there yet. We finally made reservations for this past Saturday night, which promised to be an evening full of WIN. (And it was, in a couple of ways. Dinner was fantastico, bellissimo! I’ll have some food porn up from that later.)

We’ve been big fans of Chef Drago’s other restaurants around town (and I still miss his late, lamented Sicilian restaurant L’Arancino in West Hollywood). In addition to the enticing menu they’ve got a very good cocktail program (regularly spoken of with enthusiasm by our friend Mark, who’s a bartender there) that’s headed up by sommelier and beverage director Michael Shearin and head bartender Jaymee Mandeville.

Michael and Jaymee have been up to something interesting. They’ve organized something called the People’s Cocktail Contest, and it’s primarily happening via Twitter. Yes, I’ve been dragged screaming and kicking into the Twitter thing (I still refuse to use the word “tweet” as a verb), and despite having had problems with certain Twitter+food combinations in the past, I found myself inexorably drawn into this one (especially since it involves making cocktails and doesn’t involve anyone sending hundreds of the Teeming Masses into my neighborhood to wait 90 minutes in line for an expensive taco). Here’s how it works:

The contest lasts for four weeks. Each week on Monday, a “secret ingredient” will be announced via Twitter. (“Kyo no tema … KORE DESU!”) Participants will create an original cocktail featuring that ingredient. Cocktails are judged on appearance, aroma, taste, creativity, name, and its compatibility with the existing Drago Centro cocktail list. You post your recipe on Twitter, directing it to Drago Centro’s account (@DragoCentro) with the hashtag #pplscocktail to identify it. Include all instructions, muddle, shake, stir, whatever, and use 2-3 posts if you have to. The secret ingredient will be different each week, and each weekly round will end on Friday at noon. After 4 weeks the winners will battle it out live for a panel of judges. The winner will have his or her cocktail featured on Drago Centro’s list.

Week 1 was this past week, and last Monday the secret ingredient was announced, something “seasonal and appearing at all of our local farmer’s markets … BLUEBERRIES.”

Well! That sounded fun. I gave it some thought, then decided to work with flavors that I knew worked well together, to use an Italian amaro and to keep it simple. I’ve enjoyed berry-infused whiskeys before, both Bourbon and rye, and decided to go with a higher-proof Bourbon. I probably would have preferred to steep the berries in the spirit for a couple of weeks, but there wasn’t enough time, so vigorous muddling was called for.

The first tries yielded not enough blueberry flavor, so I upped the number of berries until it seemed right. 12-16 was definitely too few, and about 20 seemed right. Taste your blueberries for tartness and flavor to determine how many you’ll need. The amaro was Ramazzotti, one of my favorites, not too bitter and with a nice flavor from Sicilian orange peels, along with rhubarb and a touch of cinnamon. I love the flavor of blueberries and cinnamon together — I recalled a fantastic risotto I had at Trattoria Tre Venezie in Pasadena with wild blueberries and cinnamon — and wanted to accentuate that cinnamon flavor while bumping up the sweetness just a bit. My friend Blair’s excellent new product did the trick, but you can make your own cinnamon syrup by steeping cinnamon sticks in hot simple syrup, or adding a cinnamon tincture to simple syrup if you’ve got it.

I wanted to name the drink after Violet Beauregarde, who was turned into a gigantic blueberry in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” but “beau regarde” (literally “beautiful look,” in French) didn’t sound like something that’d fit into the cocktail menu of an Italian restaurant where all the drink names are in Italian. A quick (and bad) Google translation of “beau regarde” into Italian yielded “bello sguardo,” the grammatical and idiomiatic correctness of which got a “Nope” from Italian speaker and general manager Matteo Fernandini at the restaurant. He said he’d give it some thought, but I didn’t think to ask him later (and he was somewhat busy with that whole running-a-restaurant thing). Anita came to the rescue yesterday, saying that if we’re trying to be literal with “beau regard(e),” a better rendition would be “bell’aspetto,” an Italian expression for “handsome.” Bingo. Thanks, Anita. (I should really start learning some Italian.)

BELL’ASPETTO

2 ounces Woodford Reserve Bourbon whiskey
About 20-24 blueberries
1/2 ounce Amaro Ramazzotti
1 barspoon (tsp) Trader Tiki’s Cinnamon Syrup
Lemon peel

In a mixing glass, muddle the blueberries thoroughly in the whiskey. Add the Amaro and syrup, ice and shake for 15 seconds. Double-strain over ice into a large Old Fashioned glass, and garnish with a large swath of lemon peel.

We tried another one last night using Knob Creek Bourbon, at a higher proof of 100. We really liked it. We may even have liked it better. (Bonkers Wesly wants to try it with Stagg now.) Play around with your own favorite higher-proof Bourbon, but the “official” version still uses Woodford.

Oh, by the way, yesterday afternoon they sent out a Twitter post that out of fifteen entries — including one described as tasting “just like pot” (?!) — this past week’s winning cocktail was … this one. Hoo!

A new theme ingredient goes up this afternoon. Check the @DragoCentro Twitter feed to find out what it is.

Just in time for the final day of World Cocktail Week is another new one from Chris McMillian in New Orleans.

This is one Chris had initially concieved for a cocktail contest. He wanted to start with a Bourbon base and did lots of trial versions until he came up with something that clicked for him. After all that (as I recall the story), he never got around to actually entering it in the contest, and from what one of the judges said afterward, it probably would have won! Ah well, at least we still have this gorgeous drink, which isn’t nearly as sweet as it sounds.

The key to keeping control over the sweetness is by choosing the right crème de cacao. Marie Brizard is the only one you want — it has a rich chocolate flavor but reins in the sweetness that inevitably dominates cheaper brands. The extra bit of spice you get from a couple of dashes of Bénédictine is the secret ingredient to this prescription … wish my childhood allergy medicine had tasted like this, rather than like green mold with a dash of Fernet. (C’mon, I hadn’t developed a palate for Fernet yet when I was a kid.)

And yes, the photo below actually depicts a cocktail that’s been consumed by 2/3 of its initial volume. After the first sip all I wanted to do is drink it, all other thoughts more or less swept to the side, until I realized, “Crap … if I want to write about this drink at this bar, I’d better take a picture.” Better late than never.

DOCTOR’S ORDERS
by Chris McMillian, Bar UnCommon, New Orleans

2 ounces Bourbon
1/2 ounce white crème de cacao (Marie Brizard)
2 dashes Bénédictine

Combine with ice in a mixing glass, stir for 30 seconds, strain into chilled cocktail glass. No garnish.

If you’ve wondered what to do with coffee liqueur other than put it in your coffee or defend the integrity of your White Russian as The Dude so memorably did, here’s another idea. In fact, you may get several tonight.

Yes folks, it’s another Thursday Drink Night, starting right now in that wretched hive of sum and villainy delightful chat room called The Mixoloseum Bar. Our sponsor this evening is Kahlúa coffee liqueur, who sponsored us last year with their limited edition holiday release Kahlúa Cream. From 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern until midnight/3am various bartenders, cocktail nerds and assorted smartasses will gather to make original cocktails featuring Kahlúa, critique them (and quite likely, make rude remarks about one another’s mothers). You are more than welcome to join the fray.

Alas, I won’t be participating tonight, as tonight I’m still back home in New Orleans, getting ready to leave the Fair Grounds after the final performace of today’s Jazz and Heritage Festival (I think it’ll be Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes, or else Bobby Lonero’s tribute to Louis Prima with Johnny Pennino and the New Orleans Express, or perhaps Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole) and then heading to dinner at Le Foret. And as I had to prepare this post several days in advance, before leaving for NOLA, I was far too lazy to come up with something original.

Better still is something from a couple of terrific bars.

My friend Damian Windsor made me a lovely cocktail at The Roger Room which I thought was one of his, but he told me it came from Bourbon and Branch in San Francisco. It features the somewhat unlikely combination of Bourbon, coffee liqueur (they use Tia Maria, but we’ll use Kahlúa tonight) and orange bitters. Y’know what? It works, really well. The orange plays off the chocolatey notes of the liqueur and gives it a desserty feel without making it overly sweet (one of the banes of cocktaildom, as far as I’m concerned). Lovely after dinner or any other time.

REVOLVER

2 ounces Bourbon whiskey.
1/2 ounce coffee liqueur (Tia Maria or Kahlúa).
2 dashes Fee’s orange bitters.
Orange peel.

Combine with ice in a mixing glass, stir for 30 seconds and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the orange peel after expressing the oil.