"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...

Can't get theah from heah...

This was another libation I served at Thanksgiving, and again, it will require a little prep for one of the ingredients. However, it's non-alcoholic, so little Johnny and Susie can have one, as well as Mabel, your tee-totaling great aunt, thrice removed on your mother's side. I got this recipe from the November/December 2009 issue of Imbibe Magazine, and they built it thus:

New England Buck (mocktail)

4 oz apple cider
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz sage and juniper syrup (recipe follows)
2 dashes orange bitters
ginger beer (I used mostly ginger ale and a splash of ginger beer base I had sitting around)

Combine all but ginger beer with ice in a cocktail shaker and shake to mix. Strain into an ice-filled double old-fashioned glass and top with ginger beer. Gently stir and serve.

Sage and Juniper Syrup

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
5 fresh sage leaves
10 juniper berries, cracked in mortar and pestle

Heat ingredients in saucepan until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, let stand 10 minutes, then strain into a clean squeeze bottle or glass container. Keeps for up to a month in the fridge.

The cider's natural tartness plays with the really fresh flavors of the sage and juniper and makes something that's really unique and crisp-tasting. The ginger gives it a little warmth, too. It's really an appealing drink, and a good one to serve at any fall or winter family gatherings. It would also work well for, say, a brunch with certain family members who don't believe in mimosas before noon.

This drink is not kosher, halal or safe for vegetarians.

As I said, as long as I had leftover base ingredients from my Thanksgiving mixology experiments, I would share the fruits of my research and testing. And tonight, I have something that may shock, terrify and amaze you. Those of you with sensitive dispositions, please leave the room now. If you have small children...why the hell are they reading this blog with you?

Tonight's drink requires you to devote several hours over the better part of a week making one of the ingredients, and the guide for that will follow the main recipe. Believe me, though, it's well worth the effort. Behold! I give you...

The Bacon Old-Fashioned

2 ounces bacon-infused bourbon (recipe follows)
1/4-1/2 oz maple syrup (less if you use Grade B, which is stronger in flavor)
2 dashes Angostura bitters
orange zest
Urban Moonshine Maple bitters (optional, but if you have them, great)

Place orange zest in the bottom of an Old-Fashioned glass with Angostura bitters and maple syrup. Gently muddle to express oils. Add ice and bacon-infused bourbon, stirring gently to combine. Add two dashes Maple bitters to top.

Bacon-Infused bourbon (makes about 750 ml)

750 ml bourbon (nothing too pricy...I used Evan Williams)
4 strips of bacon
a 1-liter Mason jar with lid

Slowly cook bacon over low heat, in a cast iron skillet if you have a well-seasoned one, reserving drippings (which should total about 1 ounce). Eat the bacon or set aside to eat later. Allow drippings to cool slightly. Meanwhile pour the bourbon into your scrupulously clean Mason jar (rinse well with boiling water, and swish a little high-proof neutral grain spirits around inside if you have them) and add the bacon drippings. Store at room temperature overnight (or about eight hours) then move to the fridge for three days. Move to the freezer for one day, and then strain out solidified drippings. Run bourbon through a paper coffee filter, rebottle and refrigerate. Bourbon should keep for several weeks in the fridge.

Yes. Bacon-infused bourbon. No, I have not lost my mind. It really is fantastically good...the sweetness of the bourbon is the predominant flavor to begin, but then the smokiness of the bacon makes itself known. It's also wonderful for horrifying your friends when you tell them what you've made. Well, horrify or delight...the reactions usually go to one of those two extremes.

A new homemade ingredient

I've been making a whole slew of tinctures and other homemade ingredients lately, some of which you'll hear about in the post-Thanksgiving drinks. But one that I recently started mentioning here in my drinks is "Jamaican bitters." Let me tell you how I make them.

Jamaican Bitters

Zest of two grapefruit, with as little pith as possible. A Microplane grater works well for this.
2 slices fresh ginger, with skin still on
6 allspice berries
6 whole cloves
1 inch of cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
6 tbsp neutral grain sprits (the higher the proof, the better. I used 190-proof...basically generic Everclear.)

In a mortar and pestle or food processor, break up the spices into small pieces, but don't pulverize. Macerate spices and grapefruit zest in neutral grain spirits for a week. After a week, add two tablespoons of water and filter through a coffee filter or double-thickness of cheesecloth into a small jar or used (and well cleaned!) bitters bottle.

Makes a scant 1/2 cup.

This has a predominantly grapefruit flavor, as you'd expect, but it's got an underlayer of spice that really makes it interesting. If you've got a week in which to make them, it's really a fun flavor to play around with.

Adventures in horrible drink names

I was just hanging out in the chat room for Tiki Bar TV, and an unofficial challenge was hanging in the air. Create a drink or shot themed around "sweat." I decided to go with something that I've termed:

Frog Sweat

1 oz absinthe
1/2 oz gin
3 dashes Jamaican bitters (or Bittermens grapefruit bitters if you don't feel like waiting a week while your homemade Jamaican bitters mature)

build in a chilled shot glass.

Very spur of the moment, but the name's kinda whimsical, in that absinthe is traditionally associated with the French, those Frenchy-froggy-froggy-Frenchies. Tastes good, though.

Here's a quick photo I snapped off of it.

For the full list of Sweat themed cocktails (some of which may not be very good...they wound up drifting toward the theoretical), please visit www.tikigeeki.com. Dogs and cats, living together...mass hysteria.

Lebkuchen? Gesundheit!

I was casting my mind around to see what I could do with some of this ginger liqueur I made, and I though perhaps something with a lot of spice notes could be interesting. I remembered a great cookie my mother and I made years ago called "Lebkuchen," a traditional German cookie that's related to gingerbread. It seemed like we threw the whole spice rack in there, so I set out to invent the alcoholic equivalent of it, and came up with this:

Lebkuchen Cocktail

1 1/2 oz ginger liqueur
1 oz aged rum
1/2 oz bourbon
dash Angostura bitters
dash pimento dram
dash homemade spice extract

Build all over ice, stir to combine.

This is really kind of uncanny. It tastes almost exactly like a spice cookie...the allspice of the pimento dram, the myriad spices in my spice extract, the ginger, the silkiness of the rum, the sweet spiciness of the bourbon; they all combine into a drink that greatly resembles the cookie of my memory. It does not, however, pair as well with milk.

In which I create a drink and name it for a celebrity.

So, on the heels of the "RumDood's Revenge" of the other night, I decided to create another cocktail, but name it after a real celebrity this time. (Sorry, Matt...you're only famous in our mixology circles.) And I figured, who better to name it after than a person who's interest in classic drinks is quite well known. We've already seen David Wondrich name a drink for a broadcaster famous for "truthiness," so let's name one after another newscaster. Ladles and Gentlemints, I give you...

The Maddow Sling

1 oz Plymouth Gin
1/2 oz ginger liqueur (mine's homemade, but Domaine de Canton will work, too)
1/2 oz double-strength Earl Grey Tea
1/4 oz Cherry Heering
1/4 oz 2:1 simple syrup
1/8 teaspoon Fernet Branca
dash orange bitters
2 oz seltzer, to top

Build all except soda over ice in an Old-Fashioned glass. Stir to combine, then top with seltzer.

It's really a nice, subtle drink. Not one-dimensional, lots of flavors in there, but all working together. Ginger naturally pairs with bergamot and tea quite well, so that's the Earl Grey right there, the Cherry Heering brightens the whole thing, and that tiny bit of Fernet Branca adds a little more complexity. I quite like it, and if she's reading this, I hope Rachel Maddow likes it, too.

It's not a drink, per se, but it's got booze in it!

I decided earlier this week to try to make my own ginger extract/liqueur. I haven't tried it yet, but I wanted to document it before I forgot. So here's what I did...

On Monday, I took pretty much the remainder of my bottle of J. Wray and Nephew White Overproof rum, about 300 ml or so, added 2 oz of shaved ginger (unpeeled) and let it sit, covered, but shaking it periodically, until Thursday night, when I added another ounce of crystallized (candied) ginger chunks. I let those sit in there until tonight (Saturday), when I strained it into a clean bottle, mixed up some simple syrup in a 3:4 water:sugar ratio, and poured that in, shaking to combine.

By my back of the envelope calculations, it should still be about 40% alcohol by volume, plenty strong to be shelf stable, There's about 16 or 17 ounces of liqueur in there, so I may try a rye and ginger tonight, and we'll see how it turns out. If it's good, there's be some posts in the future featuring it. If it sucks, well, at least you'll have had some entertainment making this for no good reason whatsoever. Maybe you could use it as a marinade, or something...

EDITED TO ADD: Oh, yeah, that's nice and spicy. That'll be a featured drink soon!

I have been informed that today is International Rum Day!

That means, of course, a rum cocktail. And I'm going to take a page out of Matt "RumDood" Robold's book and modify an existing drink. Earlier this year, he took an El Presidente and turned it into a Machado Cocktail. Well, I'm taking his Machado and turning it into what I'm going to call:

RumDood's Revenge

1 1/2 oz aged rum
1/2 oz dry vermouth
1/4 oz orange liqueur
1/8 oz pimento dram
2 dashes Angostura bitters
splash of grenadine

build over ice in a Double Old-Fashioned glass, stir, and garnish with lemon twist.

This drink turned out to be so ridiculously smooth it ought to be illegal. The aged rum is so incredibly mellow, the dry vermouth keeps it from veering too far to the sweet, the orange liqueur and lemon zest brighten it, and the bitters and pimento dram add a smoky, spicy complexity. Oh, Sweet Saint Seryn the Merciful*, this is a good drink.

*Saint Seryn the Merciful is patron saint of brewers, bakers and distillers...my kind of people.

What can I say, I felt like experimenting.

So. Short and sweet because I've got to return some videos got eleventy-billion library books to read before they're due, and I want to make some headway on my days off from the the show. I made up a drink tonight. It's quite tasty and subtle and I think you should try it. I have not named it. If you try it and like it and want to serve it to other people, you can say it's just something you threw together. I give you full permission to claim it as your own.

1 3/4 oz orange flavored vodka
3/4 oz London dry gin
1 1/2 oz pineapple juice
1 oz Tahitian limeade
dash of Peychaud's bitters

Build over ice in an Old Fashioned glass, stirring well to combine.

The citrus all plays very well together, the coconut water and the botanicals from the gin live together in perfect harmony (oh lord, why don't we?) and the Peychaud's extremely subtle notes waft through the whole thing, tying it all together. I like it. Hopefully you will do.

Now to read!

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.

How 'bout a nice Hawaiian punch?

I'd stumbled across this drink a while back, and was intrigued by the notion of "Tahitian limeade." It turns out that it's limeade made by substituting coconut water for the normal stuff. I didn't add any extra sweetener to it, as I figured it'd likely be sweet enough when mixed with all the other ingredients. I just used about three limes worth of juice to an 11.1 oz Tetrapack of coconut water, shook, and chilled, though the typical proportions are anywhere between 3 and 5 parts coconut water to 1 part lime juice. I assembled the rest as follows...

Kamehameha's Mighty Punch

2 oz pineapple juice
1/2 oz mango puree (I just made my own, simple enough. 1 mango gave me about 6-8 oz of puree)
1 oz tahitian limeade
1 1/2 oz amber rum (I used Bacardi 8)
powdered chipotle pepper

Shake all but the pepper with ice, double strain into a cocktail glass or coupe. Lightly dust with the chipotle.

The flavor, while fruity, is surprisingly delicate, which is really neat. The use of the powdered chipotle really works well, both visually and in terms of flavor; the red of the pepper complements the yellow/orange of the drink, and the heat pairs really well with the mango. It sort of tingles and warms as it goes down. It's unusual, but tasty. This is, however, another one of those drinks that I enjoyed, but not one that I'd drink all the time. Although that Tahitian limeade will undoubtedly see use in some other cocktails...I've got a couple more flavors of Dry Soda to play around with!

With apologies to Schlotzky's Deli; Funny Name, serious drink.

One of my cocktail-making heroes, Paul Clarke over at "The Cocktail Chronicles," recently celebrated the anniversary of his blog by embarking on a quest to mix up 30 cocktails in 30 days (he succeeded, admirably). In his research, he came upon an old drink from New Orleans, named after the street upon which it was invented, at the Iron Horse Tavern in the 1850s or 1860s. It's called the Tchoupitoulas Street Guzzle, and in its original form, was a shot of Cuban rum with a split of ginger beer. Paul, upon tinkering with the drink, decided that it would be best to reintroduce this as a short, refreshing, quick drink, one to be guzzled and then moved on from, rather than savoring and sipping slowly. To that end, he concentrated the flavors so you get the full effect and sensation of it, but one that can still be downed in a hurry, the better to get back to work after your surreptitious tipple. Hey, things were very different in the 1860s...

Tchoupitoulas Street Guzzle

1 1/2 oz a good, strong, smooth, vanilla-y rum, say a Cruzan Single Barrel or a Bacardi 8 (I think a good mix is 1 oz of the Bacardi 8 and 1/2 oz of Coruba)
1 1/2 oz ginger beer base
1 oz seltzer
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake all but seltzer with ice, strain into a small chilled tumbler, add seltzer, stir briefly, and drink before it gets too warm.

The sharpness and heat of the ginger beer base is tempered slightly by the smoothness of the rum and the fizziness of the seltzer, but it's still a powerfully flavored drink...and for that reason it's wonderful. You get a fantastic blast of flavor, and then you can move on to whatever you need to do next. I'm a big fan of this cocktail, regardless of whether I can properly pronounce it or not.

Should've saved this one for Columbus Day...

I have a whole slew of cocktail blogs that I read. Mostly for fun and enlightenment, but occasionally I'll poach a drink from them for later use. This one comes courtesy of "batgirl," a participant in the weekly "Thursday Drink Night" over at the Mixoloseum. It's a complex, but ultimately quite tasty little (ok, not so little) concoction called the Columbus Rum Sling.

Columbus Rum Sling

1 oz Appleton XO rum (I didn't have it on hand, so I mixed equal parts of Bacardi 8 and Coruba)
1/2 oz Myers rum (I subbed Cruzan Blackstrap rum)
1/2 oz London dry gin
1/2 oz Cherry Heering
1/2 oz Cointreau
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/4 oz simple syrup
1/4 oz ginger syrup (I used my ginger beer base)

Shake all with ice, strain, and top with tonic water. Garnish with grated nutmeg.

Holy Ferdinand is this thing good. It's also huge and strong, but good. There's so many things going on here that it's really impossible to pick any one element out, but it's tremendously satisfying.

In which I enjoy being contrary...

I figured that, since today people are grilling out and mowing lawns and most likely drinking beer and wine, I'd go outside of the booze bubble entirely and make a non-alcoholic drink. That doesn't mean that it's gonna be boring, though.

I was at the store the other day, and I found a variety of four-packs of "Dry Soda", a company that makes not-too-sweet soft drinks in unusual flavors. I saw lemongrass, rhubarb, juniper berry, vanilla bean and lavender, and I picked up those last two. So I'll use them periodically either in cocktails or with non-boozy ingredients.

Today, I'm using the lavender soda and making an unusual lemon-based drink. I started by looking around the web at what ingredients people usually pair with lavender, and got some ideas...so I came up with this:

Lavender-Herb Raspberry Lemonade

3/4 oz lemon juice
3-4 raspberries
3/4 good sized leaves fresh rosemary, bruised
pinch dried thyme
4 oz Lavender DRY Soda

Bruise rosemary with the bowl of a spoon against a hard surface, add to lemon juice. Add thyme and raspberries and muddle briefly. Let stand for several minutes. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer, gently pressing with a spoon to get all the juice out, and add 4 oz chilled Lavender Dry Soda.

I gotta admit, for wing-and-a-prayer-ing this drink, it turned out pretty well. If I could do it over with some extended prep time, I would have put the thyme and bruised rosemary in some boiling water, then strained and frozen it until it was time to use. The herbal flavor is a little weak. But given enough lead time, you could make a rosemary extract, let it steep and use that for a concentrated rosemary flavor. Or, if you like the idea, but want booze, you could use a good, herbaceous gin, or a tiny bit of Yellow Chartreuse. But even as a liquor-free drink, it's still something unusual and tasty.

EDITED TO ADD: Yep, I tried it with steeping the herbs in boiling water, and it gets a LOT more flavor out of them. So take your bruised rosemary and your pinch of thyme, stick them in a tea ball or self-fill tea bag, and steep in about 1/2 ounce of boiling water, scaling up the water and herb quantities for multiple drinks. Let it sit for about 10 minutes, pull it out, and chill the herb tisane until well cooled. Then add it to the lemon/raspberry mixture, muddle, strain and mix with the Lavender DRY as before. Since every dried and fresh herb is different, though, I'd try the tisane before you plan to serve it out...that way you can test and adjust the strength of the herbal flavors.

I love happy accidents in the lab.

Last night I was playing around with Tiki drinks, because I just got this nifty little iPod Touch app called Tiki+ (link opens in iTunes), which features more than 150 tiki drinks that Jeff "Beachbum" Berry has dug up over the years. So I was looking through them for inspiration, and, well, I wound up going a little "mad scientist," what with a dash of this and a little of that, and just generally experimenting. And I'll be frank, sometimes when I just mix stuff together, it really really sucks. But sometimes you can surprise yourself, and I'm delighted to report that this was one of those times.

And, since I made it up, I got to name it, which is one of my favorite parts of the process. So, since it's just some random thing, I went with the Hawaiian pidgin equivalent of "whatchamacallit," which is "da kine" (it's been described as "the word you use when you don't use the word")

Da Kine Cocktail

1/2 oz pimento dram
1/4 oz falernum
1/4 oz orgeat syrup
dash of vanilla extract
juice of 1/2 lime
slice of lemon
1 oz white Puerto Rican rum (I used Bacardi)
1 oz dark Barbados rum (I used Gosling's Black Seal)
dash of orange bitters

Combine all ingredients in shaker with lots of crushed ice, squeeze in the lemon juice and drop in the slice, and shake well. Pour, unstrained, over the juiced lime half, into a favorite Tiki mug, or boring old glass.

Brok'da mout*, da buggah is ono**! This turned out to be a great drink in the spirit of all the Tiki drinks it drew inspiration from...sweet, sour, full of spice, complex in character. Oooh, man. You gotta make this. Drink more than a couple of 'em, though, and you'll be pau***!

*"Brok'da mout" = "It's so good, it broke my mouth"
**"Da buggah is ono" = "This wicked little thing is delicious"
*** "pau" = "done" or "finished"

It was hot today...I want a popsicle. With booze.

It was a most peculiar weather day here at Chez Casa Urbane Not Cosmopolitan...85ºF and windy. And it's still in the 70s well after sundown...so I don't plan to do anything too crazy tonight...I'm just gonna sit in bed, read, and sip on this little drink of my devising...I'm trying to power through that Svedka Clementine, so I mixed it with some seltzer and threw a few drops of homemade vanilla extract into it. Light, fizzy and it tastes like a Creamsicle. Simple, convenient, and refreshing. Can't ask for more than that.

See-Thru Creamsicle Fizz

2 oz Svedka Clementine or other orange vodka
5-6 oz seltzer or club soda
5-6 drops homemade vanilla extract (halve the amount if using commercial vanilla extract, it's much stronger)

Build over ice, sit back, and sip.

Apologies for the brevity tonight, gang. It's been a long day. I'll have some good ones up going into the weekend. Pinky swear.

You just can't leave well enough alone, can you?

I've got a fun tale to relate about this drink; I made it before I went on vacation last summer, and I think Nature decided to punish my hubris. My trip to Florida coincided with the arrival and subsequent quadruple-landfall of Tropical Storm Fay, and my entire vacation was spent dodging downbursts. The drink's name: Dark N' Stormy. The Atlantic has a cruel sense of humor.

Despite that, it's a wonderful, and very simple drink. Despite that, you all know I can't leave well enough alone, and I've doctored it a little bit. I'll give you the original, and then my take.

Dark N' Stormy (original version)

2 oz Gosling's Black Seal rum (or any dark/blackstrap rum, but Gosling's is traditional)
5 oz ginger beer (or as strong a ginger ale as you can find)
Large lime wedge (1/4 lime, or so)

Build over ice (rum first) in a highball glass, then squeeze in the lime

It's great as is, but I tinkered with it a touch and made this:

Dark N' Stormy (my version)

Juice of 1/4 lime
1/2 oz ginger beer base (recipe follows)
1/4 oz falernum
2 oz Gosling's Black Seal rum
5 oz ginger ale

Pour first four ingredients over ice, stirring to combine, then add the ginger ale, stirring gently to integrate everything.

The ginger beer base is more or less a homemade ginger juice, but one that doesn't require any juicer. It does require a bit of patience, however. I'm using the recipe from The Cocktail Chronicles, but I've scaled it down by about 1/3, just to keep it from going to waste:

3 1/3 cups water
4 oz ginger, finely chopped or sliced as thin as possible on a mandoline
2 oz light brown sugar (processed as minimally as possible)
juice of 1/4 lime
1/3 bay leaf

Boil the water, remove from heat and add the ginger and bay leaf. Cover and let steep for at least four hours but preferably overnight. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth, squeezing out all the liquid you can. Add the sugar and lime juice, stir/shake to combine, bottle and refrigerate.

You can use this to make your own ginger beer, mixing with club soda at about a 1:1 ratio of base to soda, or for ginger ale, at about a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio. It's wonderfully spicy.

Anyway, as for my variant on it, I think it's a great take on the original, if I do say so myself. The ginger and spice in the falernum really meld with the ginger beer base and ginger ale to make a deep, satisfying drink, and the fresh lime juice notes really make it pop. This is a fantastic summer drink...you could probably even serve it with a brunch (if you must. I hate brunch, but that's just a personal neurosis) as it's light and crisp. Plus, ginger is an excellent digestive aid, so it might even help you eat more. Just please, don't tempt the fates like I did and drink it before leaving for a vacation in the middle of hurricane season. It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

Adventures in Tiki Mixology

For years, tiki drinks have languished under the misapprehension that they are only sugary, syrupy confections made with cheap rum. And sadly, that became sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because with few exceptions, that's how they came to be made. The classic, exotic ingredients, with names like "pimento dram" and "falernum" were lost or just deliberately omitted, so that ingredients like commercial mai tai mix and corn syrup-laced passion fruit flavored goo and sour apple mix (!) could be added instead. Well, mercifully, there have been some devotees of Tiki culture who have kept the old ways alive, and others who have sought them out. And it's thanks to wonderful people like those that I can tell you about a great ingredient that you can make yourself; falernum.

Falernum, as I mentioned in last night's post, is a liqueur that's usually a rum base, and is flavored with lime, cloves, ginger, almond, and various other spices. And to make it takes about 20 minutes (just spread over two days). Using a recipe from Kaiser Penguin as a jumping off point, I started mine yesterday, finished it today, and made my first drink with it tonight. It's got two stages; the first one, what Rick at KP likes to call "Soak lots of tasty things in rum" and the second one, where you whip up a quick simple syrup and add it to the booze you soaked everything in during step 1. Here's what I used to make mine:

8 oz overproof rum (I used Wray and Nephew White Overproof)
30 cloves
1 nutmeg
1 tsp whole allspice
1 dozen assorted peppercorns (I went a little OCD and used 3 each of white, green, black and pink)
zest of 8 limes
1/2 cup julienned ginger

Quickly toast the spices over medium heat until they're nice and fragrant, then drop the spices, the lime zest and the ginger into the rum. Cover with plastic wrap, and let macerate for 24 hours. It'll look like a jar of kitchen scraps, but just roll with it.

for the syrup, combine 2 cups cane sugar and 1 cup of water over medium low heat, stirring until dissolved.

After 24 hours, strain your booze-soaked mix through a fine mesh sieve and/or cheesecloth, squeezing to get as much liquid out as you can. Combine with the simple syrup and add 10 drops of almond extract. Bottle and chill.

And with that, you've got falernum. A little goes a long way...I've yet to see a recipe that calls for more than 1/2 oz of the homemade stuff at a time (There are a few companies that produce falernum for purchase, but they tend to be a lower proof or non-alcoholic, and generally a little milder than the homemade version, plus you can't customize those).

So, the drink that I'm featuring tonight with the falernum is called the Ranglum cocktail, from a a bar called Le Lion, by way of a wonderful cocktail blog called Oh, Gosh. Since the original drink features a lower proof commercial falernum, I've dropped the amount a bit to factor in the stronger nature of our homebrew stuff.

Ranglum Cocktail

2 oz Gosling's Black Seal rum, or other dark rum
1 oz lime juice
1/2 oz falernum
1/2 oz Wray and Nephew White Overproof rum
1/8 oz simple syrup

Shake all ingredients with ice, and strain into an ice-filled Old-Fashioned glass.

As Strong Bad likes to say, "Oh holy crap." This is an incredibly awesome drink, and I think if I could just freebase falernum, I totally would. It's sweet, it's sour, it's spicy, it's molasses-y, it's all sorts of good and wonderful things, and it's all in one drink. Plus, there's a ton of booze in there...Gosling's Black Seal is 80 proof, Wray and Nephew is 126 proof, plus the falernum is probably somewhere around 55 proof...This is some serious happyjuice here, folks. Go make some falernum, for your own good.