On pink drinks that are not Cosmopolitans

Odds are, if you see someone drinking a pink liquid out of a cocktail glass, it's a Cosmopolitan. Especially if that someone looks like they're in the target demographic for "Sex and the City." There, are, however, many other drinks that are served up in a cocktail glass that are pink that are NOT Cosmopolitans, and tonight I feature one. It's called a Juniper Club Cocktail, and like last night's Ranglum, it comes via that remarkable cocktail blog, Oh, Gosh. As you might expect from a drink with "Juniper" in the name, it features gin, and it's similar to the Pegu Club cocktail featured previously. However, this one adds a little twist with the use of Peychaud's bitters.

Juniper Club Cocktail

1 1/2 oz dry gin
1/2 oz lime juice
1/3 oz Cointreau or some other good triple sec
1 barspoon Peychaud's bitters
1/2 barspoon sugar syrup

Shake all ingredients together and double strain into a cocktail glass.

The Peychaud's bitters make this really quite unusual. They're a bit sweeter and more elusive than Angostura bitters...they're also very red, which is where this drink's color comes from. I used my local Rehorst gin here, which is pretty strong on the juniper and other herbs, and through some strange transformation, one of the most prevalent flavors I get from this drink is a sort of coconut...which is very unexpected, but very welcome. I'd be very interested to hear how this plays with other gins that you may have on hand. Let me know if you try it!

I figured tonight I'd post a rant...

I am, I'll admit, a child of the 80s. I grew up thinking that the pinnacle of cool in 1987 or so was Rude Dog, that ALF was hilarious, and that candy cigarettes were fun but didn't especially make me want to start smoking the real ones (ultimately I did start, and then quit, but I don't blame the little sticks of peppermint-flavored chalk). There were two flavors in my childhood; sweet and...everything else. Now, I did like a number of things in that "everything else" category, but like so many kids, the sweet things were vastly more desirable. Even for non-kids in Reagan's America, sweets were what we wanted. The Gipper had a thing for jelly-beans, after all.

So I suppose it's no surprise that the liquor industry, being paradoxically slow to change but quick to jump on new bandwagons, felt that what Americans wanted in their spirits was an abundance of candy-like flavors. Even most domestic beers, with their reliance on things like rice for a "clean" taste, are far sweeter than those you'd find in Europe. We like our candy, and we like our alco-pops, the failure of Zima notwithstanding.

Now I've commented here before that I like a multitude of flavors in my cocktails. I like it when one ingredient plays off the other in some magical, alchemical way. And I'm not averse to infusing liquor with essences of various things. I like a good Sailor Jerry Rum or complex gin as much as the next guy. I prefer, however, that my flavors come from things I can actually see, touch and squeeze in the real world, rather than the labs from which so many liquor flavorings emerge. By and large, the flavorings in that rum or vodka you're mixing with are synthetic. They may taste like the real thing, or some platonic ideal of the real thing, but they're about as genuine as Michael Jackson's current nose (the pop star, not the late and much-missed beer expert).

And while I'm thinking of it, why are there about 60 linear feet of shelves at my local grocery's liquor department containing vodka of various types and flavors versus about 5 feet of rye or maybe 15 of rum (when the rum's not being mixed in with the tequila, that is)? How did a spirit whose main claim to fame was its absence of flavor suddenly explode into countless permutations whose labels proclaim, via text and color-coding, what flavor they'll impart? Do we need 15 different Smirnoff Twists? Do we need well over a dozen Absoluts, each as inscrutably clear as the last, regardless of what flavor the label tells us it is? If we want flavors in our liquor, why not extract them ourselves out of real, tangible ingredients rather than some compound that imparts something that only resembles what it purports to taste like? Have we grown that reliant on convenience that we'd take a handy simulacrum over a legitimate, slightly more laborious reality? If you macerate a handful of strawberries and plop them in vodka, you can stash in the back of your fridge for a week, strain off the solids, and have a spirit that not only tastes of real strawberry, but also has the coloration to prove it!

Believe me, the irony of a 20-something railing against the inexplicably clear flavored spirits like a buggy-whip manufacturer railing against the automobile owner is not lost on me. I'm not against progress at all. I love my computer, my iPod, my house's HVAC system, and indoor plumbing. But I'm a foodie as much as I'm a...drinkie? Well, I suppose it's better than "alcoholic," but... I like knowing where my food comes from, and that the flavors I'm tasting are genuine. I don't think that the artificial alternatives are bad, or are poisoning my precious bodily fluids, I just think that they're not as good as the real thing. To use something less for expedience or price seems unthinkable to me, especially if the savings is negligible. Would you rather have real vanilla that's been extracted from a pod that grew on an orchid, or imitation vanilla extracted through various chemical processes from oak chips, when the difference is less than a dollar a pint? Why settle when you don't have to? After all, the fermentation and distillation of spirits emerged from the advent and evolution of agriculture, doesn't it seem appropriate that the further refinement and augmentation of liquor should continue that tradition?

Oh, and tonight's cocktail is bourbon with a couple dashes of bitters. How's that for simple, honest flavors?

Top 12 Step Program Obscure Booze Facts

12. An alcoholic beverage cannot be greater than 95% alcohol (190 proof). At concentrations higher than that, the solution will actually pull moisture from the air and self dilute. However, if you're relying on fermentation alone, you won't even get close. The best you can get with fermentation is about 36 proof, or 18% alcohol.

11. Most people are familiar with panagrams (phrases or sentences that contain all the letters of a native alphabet) from the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." However, predating that, a common one among typesetters was "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs."

10. Most drinkers in the US become acquainted with Jägermeister as an somewhat unpleasant liqueur to be downed in one gulp. It was originally used in much the same way as bitters are today, as a flavoring agent, not as the "main course." However, it's sweeter than most spirits carrying the "bitters" label, and is therefore termed Halbbitter or Kräuterlikör, respectively half-bitter or herbal liqueur.

9. The logo on Jägermeister, the head of a stag with a glowing cross between its antlers, refers the the stories of St. Hubertus and St. Eustace; both are patron saints of hunters.

8. The Bacardi logo, on the other hand, refers to the distillery that the Bacardi company had while still based in Cuba, which had fruit bats living in the rafters.

7. Estimates of rum consumption in the Colonial United States, prior to the American Revolution, averaged out to every man, woman and child drinking the equivalent of 3 gallons (13.5 liters) of rum annually.

6. By an act of Congress, bourbon whiskey has been declared to be the official spirit of the United States.

5. Bourbon whiskey must, by law, be made of at least 51% corn. Rye whiskey, on the other hand, must be made from at least 51% rye. Bourbon tends to be sweeter, as a result, while rye tends to taste more "peppery."

4. Whiskey/whisky encompasses a broad range of spirits that are distilled from fermented grain mash and aged in wooden casks. The appellation includes rye, bourbon and Scotch, among others, and derives from uisce beatha in Irish Gaelic (uisge beatha in Scottish Gaelic) and means "water of life."

3. "Water of life" is also used, albeit in different languages, as the term for other spirits: "Akvavit" from Scandinavian countries, is a spirit distilled from grain or potatoes and flavored with herbs such as caraway, dill, fennel, or anise. "Eau de vie" is a clear distilled fruit brandy, often made from stone fruits, pears or apples.

2. Apart from consuming alcohol with a meal, there are also precedents for drinking before and after, to alternately stimulate or aid digestion. Before-meal drinks, such as champagne, ouzo, or vermouth, are referred to as apéritifs, while those consumed afterwards, like bitters, port, brandy, limoncello or grappa, are called digestifs.

1. There is a cloud of pure alcohol in outer space large enough to make four trillion-trillion drinks -- if it weren't made of methanol, that is. Sadly, it's not the drinkable kind.

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany. Unless you go to a "Chili's"

Greetings and salutations to you all. I'm Chris, and I've decided that I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and start a booze blog. I, like so many, started drinking in college, and viewed it as a quick and easy way to, well, get quick and easy (moreso than normal, anyway). My tastes went from vodka (for its lack of taste) to beer (for its availability and low price point) to pretty much anything I could afford and/or mooch.

Since (ostensibly) growing up and getting into the real world, I've gone through a few more phases. For a while I was gaga over fruity drinks (don't judge me!), then I learned more about wine and grew to appreciate that, and then I moved into rum and the Tiki drink culture, which I'm still very interested in. But I've come to have a real appreciation for the drinks that predated Prohibition, and the ones that returned and arose after its repeal.

That's what started me posting on my own blog about cocktails, and that's what made me think "Hey, why not just start a blog devoted to your consumption of liquor? That way your friends can choose to see how much of a lush you are!" (The answer is "Not very." I usually don't have more than two a night, when I drink. My liver is grateful for that, I'd imagine.)

Part of the reason I latched onto "golden era" drinks, I think, is that they represent the antithesis of the predominant school of bartending here in the US...the mantra of "faster! bigger! cheaper!" and trying to pour simultaneously for 38 giggling sorority girls who want, "like, a Cosmo, but not something as totally cliché as a Cosmo, you know?" A Cosmo, as David Wondrich, eminent cocktail historian comments in "Esquire Drinks," is "[a] mutant child of the Sidecar and the Cape Codder...it has all the appearance of tradition without any of the workmanship." We will not ever make one here. Hence the name of this blog. We are aiming to be urbane, not cosmopolitan...

Now, I've never been a full fledged bartender. I was a bar-back at a restaurant for a while, and I had my license and everything, but I saw what my bartenders would go through during the dinner rush, and it's hard to display any element of craftsmanship when you're pouring and shaking as though the very hosts of Hell are sitting at the bar, reaching for the salted peanuts. I much prefer the (most likely idealized) notion of the laid back gentlemen bartender of yesteryear. For a sense of what I think we need, please read "The Local Bar" by Kate Hopkins at "The Accidental Hedonist" (who's incidentally got a book on whiskey coming out later this year). If you find yourself nodding agreement, you're exactly the kind of person I'm aiming this blog at. If you think she's out of her gourd, may I suggest you head for TGI McTchotchke's GoodTime FoodDrinkery and pick up something candy-tasting in a commemorative hurricane glass?

My first posts will likely be reworkings of some of my greatest hits from my old personal blog, but after a while, I hope to get some new stuff up on here. Hope you'll stick with me.