"Torna a Surriento, famme campà!" (updated)

A friend of mine recently asked me if I create a drink for her; she said she was passionate about mojitos, but she wanted something that was a bit novel, a little less standard, a little more interesting. So I told her I'd do some digging around, and would come up with something for her. Gary Regan made a really interesting version of the Mojito swapping in limoncello for the rum...it's very very citrusy, but it also called for muddling four lemons (at least, so said the adapted version of his Massa Mojito from the Cocktails+ iPod Touch app I refer to sometimes. Mr Regan has very kindly reproduced the original recipe in the comments, which I have added to the end of this post). That seemed a bit excessive, even for me, so I did some tweaking to his drink, called the Massa Mojito, and I came up with this:

The Sorrento Mojito

1 lemon, cut into eighths
2 barspoons raw sugar
15-20 fresh mint leaves
2 oz lemon juice
2 1/2 oz limoncello

Muddle lemon, sugar and mint in a tall mixing glass. Add lemon juice, limoncello and ice and shake well. Strain into a tall glass, topping up with club soda, and garnish with spring of mint.

First of all, it's lemony. I mean, crazy woo-woo lemony. But it's got that deep green herbal mint flavor in there, too, though the mint really hits you as an aroma. It's fantastically refreshing, and I think if you're tired of the basic rum-mint-club soda Mojito, you may enjoy this one.

EDITED TO ADD: As I said above, Gary Regan actually stopped by and commented on my blog, setting me straight on the original recipe for the Massa Mojito, which I will concede is not only easier to make than the adapted version I saw, but likely a damn sight tastier than mine (I'll try it this evening and report back, but he's a professional, and I'm an enthusiast, so the odds are in his favor, I'd say). Here is his original guide for the drink:

Gary Regan's Massa Mojito

Adapted from Pizzicato Restaurant, Philadelphia

30 ml (1 oz) fresh lemon juice
20 ml (.75 oz) simple syrup
15 fresh mint leaves
60 ml (2 oz) Massa Limoncello
club soda
1 mint sprig, for garnish

Muddle the lemon juice, simple syrup, and mint in a mixing glass. Add ice, and the limoncello. Stir and strain into an ice-filled collins glass. Top with the soda. Add the garnish.

"Ensign authorization code 9-5-wiktor-wiktor-2"

So, it should come as no surprise to regular readers that I'm doing yet another show. This time I'm working a little bit behind the scenes as a dialect coach, in addition to the on-stage role I've got. One of our actresses has to do a Russian/Ukrainian dialect (doesn't have to be perfect, just suggestive) and so I got to thinking about Russian drinks. I looked through my collection, and I found one that sounded intriguing (if slightly risqué), and I served it up at rehearsal tonight (relax, it was just a table reading...we weren't stumbling around on stage. We'll save that for performances!) I present it to you now.

The Vladivostok Virgin

1 1/2 oz London dry gin
1 1/2 oz vodka
1 oz grapefruit juice (canned is traditional)
dash of Angostura bitters (I threw a dash of my Jamaican bitters in, as well, just for kicks)

shake all well with ice. Garnish with a cucumber slice, or, failing that, a lime slice

Tart. And herbal. And vodka-y. You all know I'm not a huge fan of vodka...I sort of consider it the Muzak of the liquor world...there to fill space, but not really bringing anything to the drink. And here, it really serves to just dilute the botanical notes of the gin, sending it into the deep background. Still, though, the grapefruit juice does something kind of interesting, and makes an almost basil or tomato leaf flavor pop into the drink, and that's kind of cool, though I have no idea how it does that.

All in all, it's tasty. I'm not sure exactly what's virginal about it (maybe it looks like it's blushing?) but it's still a tipple worth sampling.

Oh, I'm gonna get letters about this one...if only for the name...

It didn't occur to me until literally this minute, as I write this post, what the name of this drink could refer to. And now I'm almost scared to post it. So let me get this out of the way right now. The name of the drink is "Roman's Scandal" and at first, I was thinking "Oh, how cute, it's sort of titillating in an ancient history sort of way." But then I thought, "Uh oh. What if it's 'Roman' as a first name, say, of a film director who did a very bad thing a few decades ago." Suffice it to say, I'm going to assume that this drink doesn't have anything to do with that Roman, and proceed from that starting premise.

Remember the orange-flavored gin I mentioned back in the "Flying Dutchman Cocktail?" The stuff I said was too esoteric, too hard to find, and too expensive? I found it, cheaply, on a trip to a Woodman's Market near where I work, and snatched up a bottle at a very good price. (Did you know Seagram's also has an apple-flavored gin? I'm a little scared of that...). And so I set about looking for drinks that I can use my 1.75 liters of orange gin in, and I stumbled across this one.

Roman's Scandal

1 1/2 oz orange-flavored gin
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
3/4 oz dry vermouth
1/2 oz kirsch
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir all well with ice, strain into cocktail glass or serve on the rocks, as desired.

I think this bears a similarity to the Martinez, with kirsch instead of maraschino, but it does a little something else, too, which I like. The orange gin doesn't really blare its orangeness at you, but sort of hangs back. There's really a depth to this drink that you usually don't expect from gin drinks...it's not as crisp as you'd expect, and has a surprising subtlety. I'm especially pleased with how the kirsch stays well away from the realm of the cloying, which it will zoom straight to, given half a chance. All in all, a most surprising drink, and one that I wouldn't hesitate to try again.

Pearls before swine?

No, I'm not calling you all swine. Please, put the baseball bat down, Mrs. Higginbotham.

Thank you.

There are very few funny quotes about pearls. I don't know why. But I needed something relevant to the drink, so you get that one up there.

Tonight's drink is one that I found on one of the many cocktail blogs I read...Bibulo.us featured it the other day, and pointed out it was one made by the inimitable David Wondrich, one of my all time cocktail heroes. I did, however, tinker with it, because that's what I do. The original used vodka, I swapped in gin for a little more complexity. The original used a strip of lemon peel, but I dashed in some of my Jamaican bitters. I like to think mine holds a candle to the original, but you be the judge.

The Pearlescent Cocktail

2 1/2 oz gin (originally vodka)
2 teaspoons orgeat syrup
1 teaspoon Maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Jamaican bitters (originally a strip of lemon peel)

Combine all with ice and shake viciously. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

It's sweet, but not cloying. It's vaguely vegetal, faintly citrusy, and it has a little bit of funk from the Maraschino. I like it! Plus it's this really cool color, the eponymous Pearlescent sheen. Tasty.

"If I...were king...of the foreeeeeeeeest!"

Yes friends, I'm actually posting within a few days of the last one. I feel bad about leaving you in the lurch for so long, and I picked up a couple nice deals at the liquor store today, so I'm mixing up a new one for all of you.

Tonight's drink is one that features a spirit I haven't used in far too long; rum. Rum was one of the first liquors I actually picked out as being something I liked. Before I really started to branch out into the world of spirits, rum was my old standby. I think it was, in no small part, an extension of my interest in Tiki drinks that made me gravitate towards rum, but I can now tell you, that rum is by no means the exclusive spirit of faux Polynesia.

That being said, rum's really an interesting spirit, one that's far too often taken for granted. Tonight, though, I've got a great showpiece for it.

The White Lion Cocktail

1 1/2 oz white/silver rum (I used Mount Gay Eclipse Silver)
1 oz lemon juice
1 tsp sugar (I used raw sugar, but that's just me. Bar sugar would dissolve a lot more readily)
1/4 oz grenadine or falernum (I had falernum in the fridge, so I used that)
2 dashes bitters

Shake all with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Spicy, sweet, fruity, sour...this drink really hits all the notes you want a drink to hit. There's the acidity of the lemon, and the spice and lime notes of the falernum, the subtle tropical fruit notes from the rum (banana seems to be a popular note detected in the Mount Gay Eclipse Silver), all of these combine to make for a really interesting drink. I have no idea of the provenance of this drink, especially since one old drink book, 1888's "New & Improved Illustrated Bartender's Manual" by Harry Johnson (no laughing, please), has the White Lion as four ounces of rum mixed with raspberry syrup, curaçao, lime juice and seltzer, and served in a pint glass...quite a different beast altogether. All that being said, this would be a different drink entirely just by swapping the falernum with grenadine. Not a bad one, but very very different. If you feel up to making some falernum (and I highly recommend you do), try using it in this drink. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Y'arrr, it be a ghost ship!

Battling my way through some sort of head cold, I bring you a new drink! Yay!

Tonight's drink is named after the ghost ship of legend, the Flying Dutchman. The good news, as Ted Haigh puts it in "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails," is that this is a most interesting variation on what's normally a bland drink. The bad news is that you'll have to buy a new ingredient; orange gin. Haigh found Seagram's Orange Twisted Gin, which he says has an unfortunate name, but otherwise tastes pretty good. I've only been able to find that in 1.75 liter bottles, and I didn't really want to rush in to get one only to discover no uses for it. But I did find something at my liquor store (and on sale!) that I think will make an adequate substitute; Stellar Citrus Crush Gin. Apparently it has 6 different citrus fruit flavors in it, so I figured it'd do a comparable job.

Here's how to make it:

The Flying Dutchman Cocktail

2 oz orange gin (or the Stellar Citrus crush stuff)
juice of 1/4 orange
juice of 1/4 lemon
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake all with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish, if desired, with an orange twist.

Yes, it's a glorified gin 'n' juice. No, it doesn't taste like crap. It's supercharged with citrus, to be sure, but it's really quite tasty and nuanced. The bitters do a lot on that front, I'm sure. If you know of a place to get orange gin, grab a bottle and give this a taste. It's certainly easy enough to make, and innocuous enough that most anyone will like it.

Sorry for the lack of drinks these last two weeks

I've been broke-ass broke, and haven't been able to procure any new libations. I've got enough to make a new one, and I'll try to have it posted here for you all either tonight or tomorrow...

Thanks for your patience, everyone!

And there’s a hand my trusty friend! And give us a hand o’ thine!

And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

For our New Year's Eve post, I'm of course using champagne, but I'm doing a little something different with it. Not a lot of non-lushes realize that champagne makes a great mixer. You get the effervescence of club soda with the flavor of wine, plus hell, anytime the champagne gets broken out, it's a party in and of itself.

This drink has many many stories as to it's origin, but it seems most likely that it originated just after World War I. Some say it was first made with cognac, which I can see, because cognac and champagne would have a lot of similar flavors going on, both being grape-based spirits, but my version, which could perhaps be considered the British version (as I am an unrepentant Anglophile), is made with gin. Named after the rapid-firing artillery piece that proved so useful to the French in WW I (contrary to popular belief in the US, the French are not the cheese-eating surrender monkeys they're so frequently portrayed as), I present to you, the last drink on this blog for 2009...

The French 75 Cocktail

1 oz gin
3/4 oz lemon juice
2 bar spoons simple syrup
champagne to top

Shake the first three ingredients with ice and strain into a small champagne flute. Add champagne to top. Garnish, if desired, with a lemon peel spiral and/or maraschino cherry.

Rather than the single-minded sweetness that so often plagues champagne, this really is a complex drink. The gin adds a little crispness that's most welcome here, and the lemon juice and small amount of sugar syrup also tweak the flavor profile of your champagne, making for a really interesting drink. The only problem is that it's waaaaay too easy to down two or three of these in rapid succession. And then, well, the eponymous machine gun may feel like it's opening fire on your sobriety...but hell, it's New Year's Eve!

Thanks for sticking with me so far, dear readers. I hope to keep things lively and interesting for you well into 2010 and beyond.

"And of course, you remember the Gray Rabbit and the Blue Chipmunk?"

First of all, if any of you know what movie the line I used for the title came from, I'll be very much surprised. If you do, drop me a line so I can applaud you.

Now, on to the drink. I must say up front that I would never have tried this drink were it not for scomorokh over at "Science of Drink." He featured this one about a week ago, and I sampled it and quite enjoyed it. He also takes photos that put mine to shame. Go on. Look at them. I'm almost ashamed to post mine, but no matter. I tried something new with my photo on this one, and I think you'll find it amusing.

This drink is sort of a herbal, woodsy flavor in a glass. With a cherry. It's called...

The Yellow Daisy

1 1/2 oz London dry gin
1 1/2 oz dry vermouth
3/4 oz Grand Marnier
a few drops of absinthe

Shake all with ice, strain into chilled glass. Add a cherry.

Simple enough, but it's really quite interesting. All those botanical notes from the gin, the vermouth and that little bit of absinthe in there really go to work, pairing up and sounding off just like some sort of alcoholic square dance (and I'm of the opinion that if you plan to go square dancing, you're going to need some alcohol to live with that decision). The little bit of the sweet orange flavor from the Grand Marnier shines through, and the cherry is just sweet dyed icing on the cake. Try it out.

"I got a lot of problems with you people!"

Happy Belated Festivus, dear readers. I should have a new drink for you this weekend. For now, I'm self-medicating in advance, the better to deal with my family tomorrow...

And when that drink gets posted, you'll know I'll have made it through my family time unindicted, and that will be a true Festivus Miracle.

Make way for the seaway...

I was bumbling around CocktailDB the other night, trying to find uses for dry vermouth. I picked up a second bottle for Thanksgiving, thinking that what I had on hand wouldn't be enough. Ha. Silly me. I had MORE than enough for my friends at Thanksgiving, and so I've been trying to use up some of this stuff...

Well, I fumbled my way through the database, and I landed on this one...at first glance it seemed like another Manhattan variant, but this one has 3 parts vermouth to 2 parts whiskey. Canadian, of course, given the name. I tried it and liked it, and am now featuring it here.

The St. Lawrence Cocktail

2 1/4 oz dry vermouth
1 1/2 oz Canadian Club whiskey
3/4 oz Grand Marnier
dash of Angostura bitters

shake well with ice, strain into cocktail glass.

What's interesting in this drink is how the whiskey plays backup to the vermouth...it's still well balanced, it's just not what you expect. The orange flavors of the Grand Marnier keep it from veering too far to the dry side of things, though, and make for a nicely tuned flavor. Give it a go...no passport required.

"In a pagoda, she orders a soda; banana-fanana...hey diggity!"

OK, first, before you wonder if I'm having some sort of transient ischemic attack and talking funny, watch this video. I'll wait.



All done? Excellent. The song is an old one, as evidenced by it's presence in the "Jeeves and Wooster" universe...it's called "Nagasaki" and dates back to 1928. I figured, since in my last post I was experimenting with reconstructing the old Jamaican Ginger, sans paralytics, I might as well make one up of my own creation. And so I give you tonight's drink:

Hot Ginger and Dynamite

3/4 oz lemon juice
3/4 oz Dubonnet
3/4 oz London dry gin
1/4 oz Jamaica Ginger (or equivalent. I wound up using a barspoon each of ginger syrup, ginger beer base and ginger extract)

Shake all with ice, strain into small cordial glass.

It's small, it's spicy, it's complex, and it'll make a great digestif. The gin and Dubonnet work nicely together, as always, the lemon and ginger play along, and all in all, it makes for a really interesting little concoction. I think if I had a spicier ginger extract, things would be even better. I'll have to keep plugging away at that.

Adventures in Illicit Ingredients

This drink cannot be made the way it was originally intended. It just can't. One of the crucial ingredients no longer exists. And frankly, it's a good thing that's the case. The original version of this drink used an ingredient called "Jamaica Ginger," which was a patent medicine of the 1930s, a 150-proof nostrum of ethanol and ginger, that managed to dodge Prohibition agents, at least for a short while, by virtue of being "medicinal." However, much as Listerine now adds an agent that makes its mouthwash "non-potable," the T-Men of yesteryear insisted that changes be made in the formulation of Jamaica Ginger to discourage it from being quaffed straight. A bit of a battle ensued, with bootleggers replacing ginger solids that existed in the drink (a measure by which Department of Agriculture inspectors would test) with actual pieces of ginger, or other adulterants like castor oil or molasses.

One day, however, a pair of bootleggers who were too smart for their own good, Harry Gross and Max Reisman, tried adding a plasticizing agent, tri-ortho cresyl phosphate, or TOCP, to the mix. It passed the Treasury and Department of Agriculture tests with no problems, and was assumed at the time to be non-toxic. It wasn't. It wound up being a neurotoxin, and scores of Jamaica Ginger drinkers wound up with severe, often permanent, cases of peripheral neuropathy...they lost feeling in their hands and feet. Leg and hand muscles atrophied. It's estimated that between 30 and 50 thousand people in the US were affected by this adultering agent. Jamaica Ginger, sometimes called "jake," was quickly yanked from the market.

Today, there are several ginger spirits on the market, and it's easy enough to make ginger-beer base, but I decided, on a whim, to try to make a rudimentary ginger extract. I soaked about an ounce of shredded ginger in enough 190-proof neutral grain spirits to cover it, and let it sit in the fridge for a week or so. It's crude, but it'll do. Had I some distillation apparatus, I could perhaps make a better quality jake. But then I'd likely have ATF and T-Men beating down my door. I'd rather avoid that. So I just combined some ginger-beer base, a fraction of an ounce (maybe 1/16th) of ginger extract, and a little leftover ginger liqueur. Seems to work, although it merits mentioning that even the most meticulously prepared ginger solution eventually loses most of it's pungency, in as little as two weeks. For best results, make your ingredients as fresh as possible.

There's more than a few drinks out there that call for Jamaica Ginger, and I'm going to try a few over the next few weeks. Tonight, though, I thought I'd try one that sounds appropriate. For me, the name conjures up visions of a ridiculously hot area on a steam ship. You may think that sounds uncomfortable, but given that the high-temperature here today was in the single digits, I'll take that trade-off, thanks. And so I present to you...

Hot Deck Cocktail

2 dashes Jamaica Ginger (two eyedroppers of ginger extract, two barspoons each ginger beer base and ginger liqueur)
1 oz sweet vermouth
3 oz Canadian Club

shake all with ice, strain into chilled glass.

As long as you've got fresh ginger extract, beer, and liqueur, this should be a remarkably potent drink. The nose-searing character of the ginger should meld with the slight spice of the Canadian Club (it's got a little rye in it, after all), and be tempered just a bit by the sweetness of the vermouth. Oh, yes...this is a fine one for those cold winter nights. Plus, tons of booze, for that extra warming effect.

If you're a cocktail enthusiast or professional that's come up with a better, more accurate reproduction of that hoary old Jamaican Ginger, do let me know how you made it, won't you? I'm a ginger fanatic, after all...

And now I'm back, from outer space. Or at least Chicago.

Oh, and what a libation-filled weekend I had, too, friends. Mixing drinks at a birthday party, mixing drinks at a combination housewarming/holiday party, making a pilgrimage to the new Chicago Trader Vic's and befriending my bartender...oh glory and trumpets it was a swell weekend.

But now I'm back, and after a weekend with no small amount of Tiki drinks (three of 'em at Trader Vic's alone), I figured I'd go for something a little more, well, sane and easy to make. This is yet another classic from the Savoy Drink Book, and is yet another variant on a whiskey cocktail. This one, however, is called:

The Commodore Cocktail

2 barspoons simple syrup
2 dashes orange bitters
juice of 1/4 lemon or 1/2 lime
1 1/2 oz Canadian Club (the Savoy Drink Book calls it, so that's good enough for me)

Combine all in shaker with ice, shaking well to combine. Strain into cocktail glass.

Yep, another variant on a whiskey cocktail or whiskey sour, but still...I never really get tired of them. Even in the little tweaks from drink to drink, there's still enough variety to keep things interesting. In this case, the lime juice and orange bitters are strong enough together to keep it from getting too sweet, and the Canadian Club has just enough heft to add just a little spice to things. It's a nice, very reasonably sized and tasty drink for a civilized gathering.

And speaking of civilized gatherings, I'll have to tell you all some time about some of the fantastic spirits my host at the housewarming/holiday party was good enough to share with me...oh, mercy, those were good.