"Sittin' here in Avalon, lookin' at the pouring rain..."

Look! I'm back! And I have a drink for you!

Yes, I know it's been an entire month since my last post, and it's horrible, and you've gone un-tippled for entirely too long. My apologies. As I said in my interstitial update a couple weeks back, I've been busy and broke. But I rummaged through my remaining booze inventory and the list of drinks I've wanted to post but haven't yet, and I came across a wonderful convergence of the two.

This is one of those drinks that's more than the sum of its parts...you look at the ingredient list and go "Oh, no. It'll be too sweet/too herbal/too sour/too weird." But no. It turns out to be some impossible balance of all of those. This is a true Prohibition-era cocktail, and it's called:

The Last Word

3/4 oz London dry gin
3/4 oz green Chartreuse
3/4 oz lime juice
3/4 oz Maraschino liqueur

Shake all with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass

All of those unlikely ingredients work together in an most unlikely harmony, and it's really sort of magical. Typically, using that much Maraschino is a death sentence on a cocktail, making it syrupy sweet and repugnant, but here it counteracts the grassy herbal nature of the Chartreuse and the sourness of the lime juice. For a switch up, Paul Clarke over at "The Cocktail Chronicles" suggests swapping rye for the gin and lemon juice for the lime. That sounds like it'd bring it into swinging distance of The Scoff Law Cocktail, but still, different enough.

Give it a whirl. And no, despite the ominous drink name, I'm not going anywhere...I'm just working to get some more money so I can buy more ingredients.

MxMo XLVII: Punch

The challenge posed by Hobson's Choice for this month's Mixology Monday is punch! Now, I used to consider myself quite the expert on punch, back when I was about 10, and my grandmother and I used to mix up non-alcoholic punches for New Year's Eve. I knew that it had to be sweet, but not overly so. Tangy, but not too sour. Fizzy was good. A sort of creamy mouth-feel was sought after, but not a prerequisite. I was, as it turns out, looking for all the criteria of a great punch with alcohol, as well, though I wouldn't know it for another decade-plus.

In trying to come up with an original punch (or, if not original, at least one I hadn't read about specifically), I went back to the well of all punch wisdom, and dredged up that hoary old formula; 1 part sour, 2 parts sweet, 3 parts strong and 4 parts weak (plus spice, as Alton Brown recently pointed out on "Good Eats"). Well, being the crazy tinkerer that I am, I decided to take a few liberties with the formulation. I was remarkably faithful, but in lieu of using grated nutmeg or cinnamon for the spice, as is tradition, I used a homemade tincture of mine.

Then, of course, I struggled with a name. My concoction draws from so many disparate influences, it's really hard to find an overarching theme. Finally I decided to name it after the tincture I used to add that final bit of flavor, and thus I give you, for March's Mixology Monday:

Donn's Gin Punch

1 part lime juice
scant 2 parts limoncello, plus a dash of Maraschino liqueur
3 parts London dry gin
4 parts ginger beer
2 dashes per cup Donn's Tinc
1 dash per cup Blood Orange syrup (optional, for color. I used Torani's version.)

Combine all save for Donn's Tinc with a large block of ice in a punchbowl. Dash in Donn's Tinc to each cup, then ladle in punch mixture. If using Blood Orange syrup, add dash after punch has been ladled into cup. For an individual serving, assume 1 part is 1/2 ounce.

I think this is a wonderfully balanced drink. Sweet, sour, spicy from the ginger, botanical from the gin, ever-so-slightly fizzy, and just a bit of funk from that wonderful Maraschino. I'm tremendously pleased with how this turned out, and I think it could make a nice change from the classic rum- or bourbon-based punch. Come summertime, it certainly would make for a refreshing take on this classic concoction.

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 you make it with shoddy knockoffs, is it an Astroturf Cocktail?

This was the third drink option at Thanksgiving this year, and before you even ask, I have no idea from whence the name springs. It doesn't look like grass, it doesn't taste like grass, and it certainly isn't kicked up by the cleats of football players (US football or the rest of the world football...this is one happy area where the terms overlap). It does, however, make for a very good drink.

Turf Cocktail

2 oz London dry gin
3/4 oz dry vermouth
1/4 oz Maraschino liqueur
dash absinthe
dash citrus bitters (orange, grapefruit or Jamaican are all good here, in their own ways)

Build all in mixing glass over ice, stirring well to combine and chill. Strain into cocktail glass, garnish with lemon zest.

It's herbaceous, which I suppose could contribute to the name...but more than that, it's got a clean, crisp, woodsy character to it that really fit in well with the fall weather on Thanksgiving Day.

Now, of course, it's moving into winter, and more hearty drinks will have to be mixed. Perhaps some mulled wine or hot buttered rum is in the cards? Or a Tom and Jerry? Who can tell? Stay tuned, true believers!

I'm only doing this because I love you all...

I have to get up rather earlier than I like to awaken on weekends tomorrow, in part because we've got a matinee, but also because I'm endeavoring to mow the lawn, shower and shave to ensure proper application of stage makeup, and grab something to eat prior to my 12:15 PM call. Show goes up at 1:30. So think of it this way...in a little over 12 hours from now, I'll be trotting on stage to do my villain schtick. We had a great audience tonight, which may explain why I'm still pumped. So instead of drifting off to dreamland as I ought, I'm giving you a drink...my ever-so-slightly modified take on The La Floridita Daiquiri. My only modifications are to replace the "juice of 1/2 lime" with some of my leftover Tahitian Limeade and alter the "2 bar spoons of simple syrup" to a scant 1/4 oz. Other than that, 'tis the same!

The La Floridita Daiquiri

2 oz good quality rum like Havana Club or Bacardi Anejo (I used Bacardi 8)
3/4 oz Tahitian limeade
1/4 oz simple syrup
2 bar spoons Maraschino liqueur

Blend all with ice until smooth and thick. Serve in a champagne coupe.

It's really quite nice how the sweet spice of the rum and the classic "funk" of the Maraschino play together in this. The tahitian limeade adds just a dash of acidity, but also a great tropical note from the coconut water. If you can, I highly recommend crushing the ice before blending with the liquid ingredients...it really helps things to blend more evenly, and makes for a finer grain in the finished drink. This one's definitely a keeper, and it's a good showcase for a favorite rum, as the other ingredients work to augment, rather than overwhelm the spirit.

"I wanna be a producer, lunch at Sardi's everyday!"

I picked this cocktail earlier today, and was wracking my brain trying to come up not only with a decent title for tonight's post, but also for something I could use in the photo to decently illustrate the abstract concept of the drink's name. I mean, what kind of props can you use for "Fancy Free?" Then, as I was looking over my bookshelf (which overfloweth, and really needs to be augmented somehow with another one, though where I'd put it I haven't the foggiest notion) I spotted one of the "making of" books I picked up like a good little theatre major as soon as it was released: "The Producers." And a little light over my head went "ding!" and Matthew Broderick started singing in my head. I've asked him repeatedly to stop that, and go and bug Cameron Frye or something, but he never listens.

Anyway, Leo Bloom (in "The Producers," not in James Joyce's "The Dubliners") has an extended dream sequence in which he fantasizes about all sorts of wonderous things that will surely await him when he becomes a Broadway producer. Apparently the fact that his soon-to-be-partner, Max Bialystock, has to schtup little old ladies to raise capital for his shows has not sunk in yet. Anyway, he frolics through a big number, replete with showgirls (fresh from the casting couch, natch) and generally convinces himself that yes, he will be a producer, granny-schtupping be damned, because it's gotta be better than his current accounting gig (no word on if this was in the days running up to April 15th or not). So I figured, yes, that'd be a good evocation of "Fancy Free" and would supply me with enough filled space to be a decent start on a blog post. So here's the "Fancy Free" cocktail:

Fancy Free

2 oz bourbon
1/2 oz Maraschino liqueur
1-2 dashes Angostura bitters
1-2 dashes orange bitters

Stir well with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a cherry.

Remember last night now I waxed rhapsodic about that indefinable woodsy flavor that Maraschino brought to the Aviation? There's more of it tonight in this, playing wonderfully off the bourbon, and when the spice and orange join in from the bitters, oh...so good. The only thing that would make it even better would be a flamed orange peel garnish. On that note...

A flamed orange peel garnish sounds scary, but is really quite easy. Just take a vegetable peeler and slice off a half-dollar sized bit of orange peel. Hold it above and behind your drink with one hand, and hold a lighter in the other, positioned between the peel and the drink. Spark the lighter, and squeeze the peel towards your drink. The orange oil will ignite and land on the surface of your drink. Then just rub the orange peel around the rim of your glass, and plunk it into your cocktail.

With that addition, I think this would be utter perfection. If you're a fan of bourbon at all, please go out and try this drink. It's incredibly good.

In non-Maraschino related news, I started making a batch of Falernum tonight, a crucial ingredient in a good number of Tiki drinks. Falernum's a Caribbean liqueur flavored with lime zest, ginger, cloves, almonds, and a variety of other spices; mine has those ingredients plus some allspice, a nutmeg, and a few peppercorns. Tomorrow all the ingredients get strained out of the overproof rum they're soaking in, and get mixed with some simple syrup. I've been wanting to make this stuff for quite some time, now, and I'm very excited that it's almost ready. So there's more Tiki drinks forthcoming, which will be perfect as the weather warms up. Stay tuned!

Life is just a bowl of sickly-sweet, sugar-soaked cherries.

Pity the poor Maraschino cherry...it has to endure the endless shame of being considered nothing more than a artificially-colored, sugar-drenched decoration for ice cream sundaes and the occasional cocktail. An ignominious end for what was once a much more interesting foodstuff.

Pre-Prohibition, a Maraschino cherry was a far more complicated (and alcoholic!) item; it was, in fact, a Marasca cherry that had been soaked in Maraschino liqueur, itself distilled from Marasca cherries, pits, skins, stems, fruit and all. And its pronunciation belied it's Old World roots; [mar-uh-SKEE-no] (I'll spare you the actual International Phonetic Alphabet spelling, because while I'm that geeky, I'm betting most of you are not). But then the Great Experiment rolled around, and even mere cherries soaked in liquor became too much to tolerate for the killjoy tee-totalers, and by the time everyone realized how miserable life was without booze, the cherry had been transformed into it's modern day incarnation; tooth-itchingly sweet, eye-gougingly red, and a pale shadow of it's former self.

However, I'm happy to say that Maraschino liqueur can still be had if you're willing to look (and pay) for it. And to that end, I've procured a bottle of Luxardo Maraschino, and will be doing interesting things with it, the first of which is tonight's cockail, the Aviation.

Now, the original Aviation made use of a very rare ingredient, crème de violette, made from the eponymous flower, giving it a pale, blue-violet tinge, much like the sky in which actual aviation takes place. Since it's so hard to find, most modern takes on the Aviation do without, and are thus made of three simple ingredients: gin, Maraschino, and lemon juice, in a 4:1:1 ratio, like thus:

Avation

2 oz gin
1/2 oz Maraschino liqueur
1/2 oz lemon juice

Shake well with ice and fine-strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

This drink actually marks my first run in with Maraschino liqueur, and I'm delighted to say that it will definitely not be my last. The cherry flavor, what you'd expect to be most prevalent in this drink, is actually really subtle; the Maraschino brings flavors that are almost sweet and woodsy to the drink, even a little bit of an almond note. It's really hard to describe, but it's not at all what you'd expect. I think cherries soaked in this stuff would be nothing short of awesome. I very much look forward to trying Maraschino in more drinks...