This morning I watched an amazing cocktail video, produced by Shlomo M. Godder at the bar Dutch Kills in New York City. It’s absolutely gorgeous — beautifully directed and photographed, entirely visual (no dialogue at all), nicely integrated graphics and lush music. It begins with a fascinating look at the unnamed bartender’s custom ice prep before shift, moving onto a cocktail that I had been making for quite a while and didn’t even know it.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, the Old Fashioned might just be my favorite cocktail ever. It’s certainly at the top of my “comfort cocktails” list, being the first one I ever learned to make — Dad taught me when I was a kid, and sometimes I’d get to make him one after he got home from work. That basic recipe, truly the first “cock-tail” ever, adheres to a very simple recipe — “spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters.” One of my favorite variations has been to make Old Fashioneds with half rye whiskey for spice, and half bonded applejack for the wonderful fruit flavors, along with a variety of different bitters. Turns out that for the last four years or so, head bartender Michael McIlroy of New York’s Milk & Honey has been making essentially the same drink for over three years now. I’m glad to know that my cocktailian brain is wired properly, at the very least!
His cocktail is called the American Trilogy, combining those two very American spirits with orange bitters. Whether he named his drink after Mickey Newbury’s song, an arrangement of 19th Century traditional songs that was a hit for Elvis Presley, I don’t know. It’s a decent guess, at least.
Make sure you use Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy for this drink (and for all drinks containing apple brandy if you’re not using Calvados), a 100% brandy product not to be confused with Laird’s other product, called Laird’s Applejack. “Applejack” is the proper name for American apple brandy, but Laird’s Applejack brand is not all apple brandy; it’s 60% grain neutral spirits (i.e., vodka), with only 40% actual apple brandy by volume. It’s an inferior product to be avoided if the bonded product is available, so don’t be fooled by the prettier bottle. Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy is an outstanding product, and an indispensable part of your bar. I really wish they’d ditch that blend and concentrate on the bonded product, which is one of the finest spirits produced in the country.
In the video the bartender is shown muddling a sugar cube with a splash of water. I’m down on the use of sugar cubes in cocktails unless you can be certain that every granule of sugar is dissolved; I don’t like grit in my cocktails, and it takes time to do it this way. I much prefer a 2:1 simple syrup — either brown or demerara sugar in this case.
Thanks to Garret Richard for sending me the video — he’s becoming our semi-official Looka! New York correspondent!
AMERICAN TRILOGY (adapted from Michael McIlroy, Milk & Honey, NYC, 2007)
Combine with ice and stir for 20-30 seconds, strain over a large ice cube into a large Old Fashioned glass. Express the oil from the orange peel onto the drink and around the rim of the glass, and garnish with the peel.
Sadly, I don’t have a spiff new prototype iPhone which will take the texted recipe and use its built-in replicator to rez one on the spot. (“Cocktail. South Central. Cold.”)
My friend Garret recently moved back to New York City to go to gradual school and regularly excites/taunts me with reports from their amazing bar scene, including some recipes for drinks he’s managed to pry out of the bartenders. Since my iPhone won’t rez them just yet I have to make them myself — fun, and easy enough … if I can find the ingredients, that is.
The latest one he sent was one he encountered at Fatty Johnson’s, one of the newly trendy “pop-up” restaurants and bars, which will serve for a mere six weeks and then close, perhaps to move on elsewhere, or perhaps not. Fatty’s features a rotating cast of bartenders and mixologists, and recently featured Eben Freeman, head bartender at Tailor Restaurant in NYC, whose amazing cocktails range from perfectly-made classics to complex, modern cocktails employing molecular techniques from the restaurant kitchen, working closely with the chef in developing his cocktail program.
I’ve never met Eben nor have I had the opportunity to sit across the bar from him, but have been reading about his work for quite a while and have been quite eager to sample his concoctions. (His signature drink at Tailor is the Waylon, made from Bourbon with a smoked Coca-Cola syrup … wow.) The drink Garret had and texted me about sounded fantastic, but one specified ingredient was going to give me a bit of trouble.
The cocktail was called the South Central. I liked it already just from the name, having grown up in the south central part of the country, also growing up with our own version of Ma Bell in the form of South Central Bell plus being part of the title of an R.E.M. song I love, so the name rang a few … um, never mind. Two rums formed its base — one light, one dark. In the video below Eben says any light and dark rum will do; he named the drink not for any of the things that the named triggered in my memory, but for the South and Central American rums he mixed. The ones he was using at Fatty Johnson’s have very distinct flavors, though — the rums you choose to make this drink will definitely make a difference, and I wanted to try it the way he was serving it there. The dark one he specified is one of my all-time favorite rums, the rich, brown-sugary, caramelly, spicy, tropical fruity wonder that is Lemon Hart Demerara rum. The other was one I’d never heard of, and that I’d never seen locally — Banks 5 Island.
I looked up Wayne Curtis’ review of Banks rum from about a year ago, and it sounded fantastic. It’s a blend of rums from five different islands, if you pretend that Guyana (the source of Demerara rum) is an island and not a very continent-bound north-coastal nation in South America. Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados round out the actual islands, along with the Indonesian isle of Java. Yep, this blend of rums actually contains some Batavia arrack, the sugar cane and fermented red rice spirit that gives this rum some of the wonderful funk that Garret mentioned in his voluminous text messages. Wayne mentioned aromas and flavors that led him to believe there was an agricole rum in the blend, and was startled to find that there was none. The various rums are aged between 3 and 12 years, blended then filtered through charcoal, resulting in a crystal clear, nicely dry spirit.
I can’t WAIT to get my hands on some of this stuff, but I’ve had no luck locally so far — even the venerable Hi-Time Wine doesn’t seem to have any! I’m unaware of anyone in the L.A. area who’s carrying it at the moment. (Matt, please correct me if I’m wrong.) It is, however, mail-orderable from DrinkUpNY.com, from whom I order regularly, so I’ll have some on the way soon.
“This doesn’t do me any good NOW,” I whined night before last, because I was channeling Veruca Salt and wanted the drink NOW, Daddy! Furthermore, Eben uses his own cacao-mole tincture that he makes “with a crazy process involving liquid nitrogen,” Garret said. Impractical in my kitchen, to say the least. He recommended substituting Bittermens most excellent Xocolatl Mole Bitters, and I concur.
So, except for the housemade mole tincture, here’s the drink you’d get if you ordered it from Eben:
SOUTH CENTRAL (adapted from the original recipe by Eben Freeman)
1-1/2 ounces Banks 5 Island Rum.
1-1/2 ounces Lemon Hart Demerara Rum, 80 proof.
1/2 ounce white crème de cacao.
3 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters.
Orange peel.
Combine with ice in a chilled mixing glass. Stir for 30-45 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Express the oil from the orange peel onto the drink and garnish with the peel.
First problem — no Banks 5 Island. Second … I was almost out of Lemon Hart. There wasn’t enough to make one drink, much less two, and the future of this brand was in question for quite a while.
If I was going to try this drink — which I really, really wanted to do — I was going to have to improvise and come up with something similar, but not the same. Since I didn’t have enough (or any, in the case of the Banks) I need to do some blending. What the hell, blending one, two or several rums into one drink is a classic Tiki technique, right? And stumbling into a more or less blind blend of rums in order to substitute for and approximate an unavailable rum that I’ve never even tasted before? Yes, that’s crazy talk, but I want a drink and I want it now. Let no man, beast or empty bottle stand in my way.
Given that the review had cited an herbal, vegetal agricole-like flavor, I thought of using a non-agricole cane juice rum like 10 Cane. Checked the rum stash, and … nope. Out of 10 Cane. Well, what the hell, let’s try for that vegetal, herbal, tropical fruity flavor from an actual agricole. And since the blend contained Batavia arrack for a little funk, let’s throw in a little of that. And because I love the funk and felt like funkin’ it up, let’s supplement the Lemon Hart with some magnificently funky Smith & Cross Jamaican pure pot still rum. (Garret used half Banks — available in NYC, and half Smith & Cross, but if I’m blending to try to approximate this other rum that I’ve never tasted I want some of the other described characeristics to come through and not be too funky just yet.) Then maybe a visit to our hometown run to help balance and tie things together.
Okay, okay … it wasn’t all that much alchemical cleverness. It was mostly me finishing up the last few drops of some of the rums I had because that’s what I had on hand, not unlike the chemistry student who says, “Hey, let’s mix some of this stuff together, and hope it doesn’t blow up!” or the explorer who plows into the jungle on heretofore unexplored Skull Island hoping not to become dinosaur or giant spider food.
There was a total of 2 ounces of Lemon Hart left (and that’s the end of my supply of the 80 proof until it’s reimported) and a scant ounce of Smith & Cross. I just needed something else to make up for what I was missing, and I needed to finish up some bottles that had a half an inch of spirit in them. I stumbled right into this one; fortunately, no explosions.
Do I really get to rename his drink? Probably not, but I’ll name this version anyway. Given that I’ve been wanting to name cocktails after some R.E.M. songs, one of the names I had already picked out to use for some future drink was so close to the one he chose for his original that it had to be used for this one. I want to make clear that this is still Eben’s drink, but with the slight variation of my wacky blend of rums. To paraphrase the namesake song, “The wise man built his drink upon the rums / But I’m not bound to follow suit.”
That said, I steeled myself before the first sip. “This is probably going to suck.”
SOUTH CENTRAL RAIN (adapted by me from Eben’s original)
1 ounce Lemon Hart Demerara Rum, 80 proof.
3/4 ounce La Favorite blanc rhum agricole.
1/2 ounce Smith & Cross Jamaican pot still rum.
1/2 ounce Old New Orleans Crystal Rum.
1/4 ounce Batavia Arrack van Oosten.
1/2 ounce Marie Brizard dark crème de cacao.
3 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters.
Orange peel.
Combine with ice in a chilled mixing glass. Stir for 30-45 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Express the oil from the orange peel onto the drink and garnish with the peel. Just like above!
*sip* … oh my. No, this most certainly did not suck.
I was halfway through drinking this when Wes said, “You know, I think you have a keeper here.” Well actually, Eben has the keeper, I just switched the rums around a bit. Still though, he said I should write it up, hence this post. As the drink was already half-gone I wondered if I should bother with a picture, but what the hell … I grabbed my iPhone and snapped. Imagine a full glass — it’s a big drink.
This was one of those weird combinations of cocktailian effort — part trying to recreate someone else’s drink, part dumb luck and part total fluke. Fortunately it worked, and I hope this encourages experimentation! There’ll have to be more experimentation soon, though — that’s going to be the last Lemon Hart I see until Ed Hamilton completes his Herculean efforts to get Lemon Hart — both the 80 and 151 proof varieties — back intothe States, and there’ll have to be yet another variation next time we try it. I have a couple of bottles of Lemon Hart 151 left, but that along with the navy strength Smith & Cross might just knock me flat on my arse. I may just have to do it Garret’s way with all Smith & Cross, or try it with 2 ounces of the Banks and one of the 151. It shouldn’t be too much longer before my Banks rum comes in; I am eager to try different variations, and will stock up on both varieties of Lemon Hart the instant I see them. This is indeed one hell of a drink, and I look forward to finally trying one as close to the original as possible.
I love it when I get a cocktail via text message, and I love it even more when it sends me on an adventure. Thanks to Eben for coming up with this superb drink, and thanks to Garret for sending it to me!
Next, stay tuned for a three-part series on delectable Negroni variations.
[N.B. -- If you 1) haven't read Frank Herbert's Dune novels, and/or 2) aren't a geek, then this post is likely to make little sense to you.]
My old friend Chris Caldwell, a writer and cocktailian living in Denver, issued the following post on his Twitter feed the other day:
“And how can this be? For he is the Kwisatz Sazerac!” #cocktailsonarrakis
I laughed, I groaned, I shouted “ARRGGGHHH!”, I wanted to buy him a drink, I wanted to slap him upside the head with a flyswatter. In other words, my natural reaction to a really great/awful pun.
But it got me thinking.
I wrote him back right away and said, “Shai-Hulud’ll get you for that, Chris. That said, The Crysknife would be a great name for a drink.”
He replied, “That was better than ‘I must not beer. Beer is the mind-killer. Beer is the little death that brings total oblivion.’” Oh, gods. *facepalm* Okay, it’s a good thing I wasn’t in the room with him, because he’d have flyswatter prints on both cheeks.
“Or ‘May thy coupe glass chip and shatter.’” Hmm, that’s better. Now we’re getting somewhere.
“Or ‘When you reach the bottom of the drink you dare not drink, you’ll find me staring back at you!’” Oh, oh … the boy’s on a roll.
I told him that now he has to make a Kwisatz Sazerac. It would, of course, have to have a faint whiff of cinnamon, to recall the spice melange — “the smell – bitter cinnamon, unmistakable.”
Not only that, we need to get to work on other Dune cocktails too. The Crysknife, of course. The Heighliner? The Gom Jabbar! Chris said, “A Gom Jabbar would be an awesome drink! ‘I remember your gom jabbar, you remember mine!’” I mentioned this to Matt “Rumdood” Robold, and he immediately said, “You mean a Gomme Jabbar, of course.”
*SCREAM!* Genius!!
A while after our initial conversation Chris got back to me with the results of his experimentation. “Surprisingly good,” he said. It’s really just a simple Sazerac variation, but the geeky pun is just too priceless to pass up, and warrants a post of its own — the first, I hope, of several posts featuring Cocktails on Arrakis.
It’s still a rye base with a rinse of absinthe. A spiced simple syrup is the main difference, plus some orange bitters (the color of the spice) and an orange peel instead of lemon.
Don’t add a splash of the Water of Life, though, because you’ll die an agonizing death. Or, if you’re female and can transmute the poison, you’ll become a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother. Or if you’re male, and you don’t die, you become …
As in a traditional Sazerac, coat a chilled Old Fashioned glass with the absinthe and discard all or most of the excess. Combine rye, Spice-Must-Flow syrup and bitters in a chilled mixing glass and stir with ice for 30-45 seconds. Strain into the absinthe-coated glass. Twist the orange peel over the drink. It is the will of Shai-Hulud that you drop the peel into the drink (especially if you’ve cut it to look like a sandworm).
SPICE-MUST-FLOW SYRUP
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cinnamon stick
1/8 teaspoon green cardamom seeds (not pods)
Crush the stick and seeds in with a mortar and pestle. Toast the spice gently in a small saucepan, tossing constantly, until it begins to become fragrant. Add the water and sugar and heat gently, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and allow the syrup to steep for 15-20 minutes. Strain out the spice through a fine strainer and pour into a jar. Keep in the fridge; should last about a month.
Stay tuned for the Gomme Jabbar — the high-handed enemy. My idea for the base was a navy-strength gin; Matt thinks Wray & Nephew Overproof, which I may like better and should be sufficiently deadly. Don’t worry, though — it kills only … animals.
P.S. — Chris has one of the most consistently great Twitter feeds of anyone I know. Follow him.
As Al Johnson sings, “It’s Carnival time … everybody’s havin’ fun!”
In fact, Carnival season has been going on for a week now, having begun as true to tradition on January 6, the Twelfth Night of Christmas. Carnival kicks off in New Orleans with the very first Carnival ball that night, put on by a krewe called the Twelfth Night Revelers. Also that night, another group called the Phunny Phorty Phellows take over a streetcar for their first-night-of-Carnival revelry.
The Phunny Phorty Phellows, Twelfth Night 2011. Photo by Jim Hobbs, via Creative Commons
We’ve got a nice long Carnival season this year, which I love — Mardi Gras Day isn’t until March 8. That means there’s more time for … KingCake! You can read more about the tradition at the links, but in a nutshell … King Cakes are a sweet, coffee-cake like ring cake decorated with purple, green and gold sugar (the colors of Mardi Gras), available from Twelfth Night until Mardi Gras Day. (There are those who make them available year-round, but it is BLASPHEMY! BLASPHEMY, I TELL YOU! to eat King Cake anytime other than between these dates. Just don’t.) Baked into the cake is a small plastic baby, and if you get Da Baby in your piece of King Cake, you are obliged to throw the next King Cake party. This is a lot of fun, but can be problematic if your luck (good or bad, depending on your perspective) leads you to get the baby numerous times in one Carnival season. As a cartoon in artist Bunny Matthews’ old “F’Sure!” strip, which featured actual dialogue heard in New Orleans once portrayed, a guy said, “Yeah, when I was a kid at St. Rita’s, I got da King Cake baby five pawties in a row! My mama almos’ died,” to which his podna’ replied, “Yeah brah, ya shoulda swallowed dem!” (If this isn’t hilarious to you … well, it’s a New Orleans thing; you wouldn’t understand.)
Expatriate New Orleanians and others who love the city are now, thanks to the fact that we live in Da Future, ordering King Cakes over the Internets! They’re a bit expensive to ship, but as far as I’m concerned it’s worth every penny. Those of us who have baking skills or who live too far away for reasonable shipping, both of which apply to my friend Tiare in Sweden, make things easier by simply making their own!
King Cake, baked in Sweden! Looka dat! Just like ya mamma usesta go ova by McKenzie's ta buy!
I can’t bake worth a hoot, so this year I got mine from my old high school classmate Manny Randazzo’s King Cakes, which are some of the best in town. The first one I tried this year is one of his Pecan Praline King Cakes, which sounds really good. It was JUST delivered, and we’ll haul it to Seattle tomorrow to bring a little touch of Carnival to the snowy Pacific Northwest.
Speaking of pecan praline … King Cakes have come a long way since I was a kid. I grew up on the plain, dry, bready King Cakes made by McKenzie’s Pastry Shoppes, and I loved ‘em. A lot of people didn’t (the plain, dry, bready bit being a big reason why), but I suppose it’s a nostalgia thing for the rest of us. Most “plain” King Cakes today are at the very least a sweet, moist cinnamon coffee-cake dough, and many have myriad fillings — fruit, vanilla, chocolate, etc. Pecan praline is a new one on me though — nice going, Manny ‘n krewe — and I can’t wait to try it.
There are those who might want to take their King Cakes a bit … further. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Larry Ragusa.
Could it be … the ultimate King Cake? Awrite … I know what you want.
(Thanks to Greg Beron for sending this to me; that’s his brother Larry portraying “Larry.”)
looka, <lʊ´-kə> dialect, v.
1. The imperative form of the verb "look," in the spoken vernacular of New Orleans. It is usually employed when the speaker wishes to call one's attention to something, or to what one is about to say.
2. --n. Chuck Taggart's weblog¹, est. 1999, with contributions by Wesly Moore, updated (almost) daily (except when it's not), focusing on cocktails and spirits, food and other drink, music, New Orleans and Louisiana culture ... and occasionally movies, books, sf, public radio, media and culture, travel, Macs, humor and amusements, reviews, news of the reality-based community, wry observations, complaints, the authors' lives and opinions, witty and/or smart-arsed comments and whatever else tickles the authors' fancy.
This weblog is part of The Gumbo Pages, by the way. It's big and unwieldy and full of all kinds of fun food, drink and New Orleans stuff. Check it out.
If you divide 1/998,001 you get a list of all 3-digit numbers from 000 to 999 ... except 998. https://t.co/ypxkIKvB *head explodes* #math!!! 23 hours ago
Wesly just made this -- 2 oz Bulleit Bourbon, 1 oz Cocchi di Torino, 1/2 oz Amaro S. Maria al Monte, dash Forbidden Bitters. Yum! #cocktail1 day ago
"Doctors, Professors, Kings and Queens: The Big Ol' Box of New Orleans" is a 4-CD box set celebrating the joy and diversity of the New Orleans music scene, from R&B to jazz to funk to Latin to blues to zydeco to klezmer (!) and more, including a full-size, 80-page book.
Produced, compiled and annotated by Chuck Taggart (hey, that's me!), liner notes by Mary Herczog (author of Frommer's New Orleans) and myself. Click here to read more about it!
