Booze Pairings: Cocktails with the Game

A couple of posts ago I wrote about pairing cocktails with specific activities.  I noted that some such pairings were more intuitive than others.  As I was watching the NBA playoffs the other day, it dawned on me that I don't really have any association with sports viewing and cocktails, save the mint julep and the Kentucky Derby.  This seems strange.  A lot of people watch sports.  I'm sure some of them drink booze.  Yet I can't remember any commercial or pop culture reference of any sort linking cocktails and watching sports.  Historically, this might have had something to do with most stadiums only serving beer, but far more people now watch sports at home or a bar, where booze is available.

Thus my contemplations started.  There are times, perhaps at home or at a bar where the taste of the drink is paramount despite any ongoing conversation.  When I get certain cocktails, particularly more complex or challenging ones, much of my concentration is on the drink.  Conversely, when watching sports, the game gets the bulk of my attention, leaving the remainder for talking to others and paying attention to the drink.  That doesn't mean that the taste is irrelevant, only that perhaps simpler is better.  Particularly for home viewers, it might also be nice if the drink wasn't too much trouble to make - relatively few ingredients and little juicing, muddling, or use of eggs.  The drink should also be one that you can milk for a bit while watching, where even a commercial break is sometimes not enough to make a cocktail, so something with ice makes sense. 

The And One

Ingredients
2 ounces of bourbon (Jim Beam)
0.75 ounces of lime juice
a bar spoon (healthy splash) of maraschino liqueur (Luxardo)

Directions
Shake ingredients with ice and pour into cocktail glass with ice cubes.

Outcome
I was pleased with the drink, which is a variant on the whiskey sour. Despite the juicing, it wasn't too much effort to make.  As with the Last Word, the lime and maraschino liqueur mix well and the bourbon works with both.  The taste starts with what I'd described as a the peanut flavor of Jim Beam Black and transitions to the lime, with the maraschino adding flavor and a hint of sweetness latter in the swallow.  I think that the drink was traditional, and kind of many befitting sports with the bourbon, but had a bit of flair from the maraschino.  Further, because of the ice cubes, I was able to nurse it for most of the first half of the game, where normally I feel compelled to finish cocktails before they warm up too much. I'm sure there are other cocktails that work for watching sports, so I and hopefully readers will come up with a some other ideas.

Booze Pairings: A Cocktail for Any Occasion

One preoccupation of certain wine aficionados is matching match specific wines, sometimes down to the brand and vintage, with specific meals.  As someone without much of a wine palate, the extent of my matching is drinking red wine with red meat and white wine with fish or poultry (I guess vegetarian dishes and pork go either way).  Although I think this activity, taken to the level of detail that I've seen, trends on absurd mysticism and pretentiousness, the idea of thinking through the best time for various drinks has merit.

I think that, particularly for cocktails, which for the most part I don't drink with meals, such matching should be approached broadly, considering the occasion for the drink rather than the food.  Let me give a couple of examples before getting to my first entry.  For celebrations like graduations, promotions, or engagements match with drinks that are fairly light and can be quaffed relatively quickly.  Champagne cocktails sound right while heavy and complex drinks like a Last Word or Negroni do not.  The first nice weekend of the spring might be a good time to break out the Pimm's while a Sazerack might go well with the first cool day of autumn.  A lot of this matching is intuitive like imbibing tequila or rum primarily when it is warm, but I think that other occasions might merit a bit more contemplation. 

Onto today's example.  On this beautiful Washington Sunday, my wife and I (more her than me) attacked the garden for a bit.  Light labor in the sun seems to yell for a rum or tequila but I wanted to go another direction, but still drink something with a fruity or herbal edge befitting the setting.  An drink called Black and Brown that I'd run across seemed to fit the bill, with its unusual combination of fruit, bourbon, and brandy. 

Black and Brown (courtesy of Food and Wine)

Ingredients
2 ounces of bourbon (Buffalo Trace)
1 ounce of vanilla brandy (Tuaca)
1 dash of Peychaud's bitters
7-10 blackberries
1 ounce of lime juice

Directions
Muddle the blackberries in the shaker, add other ingredients, and shake with ice.  Strain (I used both the shaker top and a sugar sifter to catch most of the lime and blackberry pulp) into a chilled cocktail glass that you have coated the edge of with lime and added a bit of sugar to.  Garnish with a lime wedge.

Outcome
Despite the odd brandy and bourbon pairing, I thought it worked well.  The swallow started with the bourbon and transitioned to the lime and blackberries.  The Tuaca only came through a bit in the aftertaste and the bitters were also hard to pick out but probably tempered the sweetness of the fruit and Tuaca.  All and all, this was an amazingly smooth drink (and dangerous giving the whopping three shots of booze in it).  I think that the sugar and lime on the rim was unnecessary.  However, it added to the visual appeal of the drink, which was quite gorgeous with the lime and blackberry mixing in the center of the cocktail.  Next time, I might add a bit more bitters but thought it was quite nice.  One note: make sure you have some time to kill, as this drink takes a while to make with the juicing, muddling, and coating of the glass rim.  Nonetheless and importantly for this discussion, the Black and Brown proved a pleasant accompaniment to our gardening and was refreshing despite its punch.  I'd love hear what others think are the best drinks for specific occasions or activities.

Revisiting a Shunned Spirit: Tequila

Like many people, I got turned off from tequila in college.  I didn't have any singular "tequila night" but more the combination of lame experiences and the ghastly taste of Jose.  It seemed the novelty of tequila was to take something really nasty, combine it with lime and salt, perhaps with the assistance of someone of the opposite sex, to hide the taste, and show your mettle by quaffing it.  The point was, if anything, overcoming the nasty taste of the tequila.   It seemed like one of those things best left at school.  Since then, except for the occasional margarita at a Mexican restaurant, I've avoided the stuff.  I've recently gotten around to buying a decent bottle of blanco and giving tequila a second look.  One of the first recipes I started with was the Lolita, which includes tequila, angostura bitters, lime juice, and honey.  Below is a spin on it called the Road to Juarez.

Road to Juarez

Ingredients
1.5 ounces of blanco tequila (Tres Generations)
.25 ounce of lime juice
3 dashes of orange bitters
1 teaspoon of agave nectar

Directions
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a lime wheel.

Taste (flavor, balance, and clarity):  8.5
Though I'm a neophyte regarding tequila, I really enjoyed this cocktail.  I never extpected to write that a drink with tequila was smooth and dangerously drinkable.  The flavors worked very well together with the orange bitters combining with the lime to enhance the citrus flavor.  The agave nectar took the edge of the tequila and lime to soften the drink wihtout standing out too much.  The tequila taste lingered after the swallow in a nice way as well. 

Versatility (when and for whom the drink works):  8
I think that this drink could be enjoyed by a lot of folks because its is fairly mild.  While quite strong, it doesn't taste to boozy.  I do think that this is more of a warm-weather drink though.

Hassle (cost and time): 8
The drink included decent tequila but all in all was not too expensive.  I had to juice a lime but otherwise it was quicker to make.

Overall:  8
I really enjoyed this drink.  It was flavorful but subtle and unexpectedly smooth.  Not a bad drink for a party at all.  No specific improvements for this drink come to mind.

The Spirit of Costa Rica: Guaro?

Yesterday, we returned from a tremendous vacation in Costa Rica.  Even before I took a serious interest in mixology, I tried to see the local booze when out of the US.  For instance, my wife and I went to port lodges in Portugal.  Prior to a little pre-trip research for this journey, I wasn't aware of any booze native to Costa Rica or any rum produced there.  It turns out that Costa Rica is home to a spirit named guaro that is made from sugar cane.  The national brand is Cacique, which was established in 1853.  The locals seemed to regard it with a mixture of civic pride and mild disdain.  One tour guide said that guaro tears a hole in his stomach.  A bartender described it as closer to vodka than rum, based on how mild it was.  Needless to say, I was intrigued.

Although I didn't manage to get to the distillery, I had several cocktails with guaro, most of which were versions of a daiquiri or sour.  The ones pictured here were not so much classic cocktails as giant vats of awesome consumed with my wife next to a pool with an ocean view in front and monkeys overhead (no joke).

The first drink was called a Guaro Sour and contained some mix of guaro, lime juice, and simple syrup.  Crucially, the limes were much better in Costa Rica than in DC.  They were sweeter and were light orange inside, probably because they ripened on a vine as opposed to in a shipping crate.  The drink was quite tasty, though not very strong.

The next drink was called Mango Moonshine and was a signature cocktail of the hotel.  It contained blended mangoes, ice, and guaro.  Importantly, the mangoes were locally grown and delicious.  This drink was also a wonderful poolside sipper, though it was neither strong nor complex.

As a means of remembering the trip and adding an obscure spirit to my collection, I bought a bottle before leaving (FYI, it was very cheap).  Sipped straight, it tastes like a mix of rum and vodka, with only mild hints of the sugar.  Not the best drink, but certainly usable.  In the coming months, I'll no doubt figure out more interesting ways to employ it.

The Peruvian Sidecar: The Painted Forest Cocktail

As I discussed earlier in the month, I was pretty disappointed with my Pisco Sour experience.  Nonetheless, I have a nice bottle of pisco and wanted to use it to good effect.  Seeing as how pisco is in the brandy family, and the Sidecar is probably my favorite brandy drink, I decided to make a variant using pisco.  Pisco has a spicier flavor than Cognac and a tropical heritage so I decided to play on that.

I've always felt that the point of the Sidecar was the interaction of strong bitter (lemon) and sweet (Cointreau and sugar) flavors, with the brandy or Cognac serving as background.  I think that pisco has a slightly more aggressive flavor profile than most Cognac or brandy so I wanted to feature that more.  To do so, and to avoid too much of a cacophony in the drink, I substituted lime for lemon, lessening the sour notes, and  blue agave nectar for the sugar on the rim, diminishing the sweetness.

As for the name, we are painting the living room, occupying all of last weekend (sanding and priming) and a good chunk of the coming week, so paint is on my mind and the tropical tones of the drink lead to the forest part of the name.

Ingredients
1.5 ounces of pisco
3/4 ounce of Cointreau
3/4 ounce of lime juice

Directions
Shake well with ice and poor into a chilled cocktail glass with agave nectar on the rim and garnish with a twisted lime peal.

Taste (flavor, balance, and clarity): 9
I think this drink works really well on a lot of levels.  Much like The Last Word, I would characterize the Sidecar as showing a "bouncy" taste, where different parts of your palate are absorbing very sweet and very tart flavors, with the brandy holding it together.  The sweet and tart flavors have been muted a bit and the spicier pisco replaces the Cognac, resulting in an equally balanced, but more subtle drink.  Because the sweet notes are not as strong with the agave than with the sugar rim, I think the drink has a more savory feel.  I also like the aftertaste of lime better than that of lemon. 

Versatility (when and for who the drinks works):  9
This drink is neither too sweet nor bitter, as a lot of classic cocktails are.  It also features an amenable middle ground between very strong cocktails that scare off the likes of my wife and sweeter ones that hide the booze.  My wife liked (though didn't love) the Painted Forest.  Additionally, I could see drinking this in a lot of settings, though warm weather like this evening with the windows open is probably ideal.

Hassle (cost and time): 7
The drink is moderate in both time and money.  The drink requires juicing about 1.5 limes and pealing one as well.  I got the pricier of the piscos that I could find, though Cognac still usually runs far more and Cointreau is moderately expensive as well. 

Overall:  8.5
I really enjoyed this drink. I think it's an excellent cousin for one of my favorite classic cocktails, the Sidecar.  I think it would work for a lot of people in numerous settings with a moderate amount of hassle.  Additionally, it features a primary ingredient that lacks a lot of recipes.  I also like the use of agave for several reasons.  One, it is less intense than sugar.  Two, it adds more complexity to the cocktail than sugar.  And three, I enjoyed dipping the rim the glass in a ring of agave. That said, as you can see from the picture, agave, which is a bit runnier than honey, drips, which makes the drink look sort of sticky and sickly.  Oh well...

Potential Improvements
I might tinker with the proportions, perhaps taking down the lime and Cointreau to 1/2 ounce each to further feature the pisco.  No major changes though because the flavor is complex enough that any additional ingredients would likely muddle things.

Mixology Monday: Calm Seas Cocktail

This month's Mixology Monday, hosted by Spirited Remix, challenges participants to describe the "best drink you've ever created," one that you have been tweaking over time.  After some thought, the drink that of late I've been fiddling with the most with pretty good outcomes uses Jasmine Cocktail as the starting point.  The Jasmine combines gin, Campari, Cointreau, and lemon juice to create a drink that taste startlingly like grapefruit juice.  I liked this drink but thought I could take it a little further and make it a bit more complex.  I wanted it to be little less about the gin and more about the interplay between the Cointreau and the Campari so I increased their amounts a bit.  I then substituted lime for lemon to make it little mellower and less tart.  Finally, mostly for scent purposes, I added a bit of St. Germain Elderflower Liqueor and a twisted lime peal.  The result is the Calm Seas.

Ingredients
1/2 ounce of Campari
1/2 ounce of Cointreau
1 1/2 ounces of gin (Plymouth)
3/4 ounce of lime juice
1 teaspoon of elderflower liqueor (St. Germain)

Directions
Place ingredients and ice in a shaker, shake well, and poor into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime peal.

Final Thoughts
I'm pretty pleased with the drink.  I think it maintains the grapefruit taste of the Jasmine to an extent but adds some complexity and subtlety.  My wife tends to shy away from drinks this tart (including the original Jasmine) so for her I've added about 1.5 teaspoons of simple syrup.  I might in the future try using an edgier gin than Plymouth, which pretty much plays nice with everything.  Specifically, I might try using genever (Holland) gin or Bombay Sapphire, which would add a spicey element.

Are you ready for some raw egg? Pisco Sour time!

My new booze of the month for April is La Diablada pisco, an alcholado.  It adds to my list of brandy variants, which includes two VSOP brandies, Laird's apple brandy, a pear brandy, and Gran Marnier.  The principle drink one makes with pisco is the pisco sour.  I tried this drink at a Peruvian restaurant a long time ago, though I'm not sure if I knew at the time that it had egg in it.  Anyway, I went forth with the pisco sour, though my wife was not up for it.

Ingredients
1.5 ounces of pisco
0.75 ounces of simple syrup
0.75 ounces of lime juice
1 dash of angostura bitters

Directions
In shaker mix pisco, lime, and egg.  Then add ice and shake and strain into a whiskey (or pisco) glass.  Add sever drops of bitters to the top.

Taste (flavor, balance, and clarity): 7
I'm not sure what to say here.  The taste was good but slightly underwhelming, and not quite as good as I remember.  The cocktail was balanced and generally tasty but left me a bit disappointed.  I think that part of the problem was that I started thinking a bit too much about the raw egg, particularly when I got to the foam at the end of the drink.
 
Versatility (when and for who the drinks works): 4
This is primarily a warm-weather drink (which is the case most of the time in Peru and parts of Chile.  I'm not sure if this is something that you sip inside on a cold night.  I think it's best use if on the deck while grilling or some such nonsense.  As for who would drink works for, I think you can rule out most folks based on the egg alone.

Hassle (cost and time): 3
Perhaps I need practice, but it took me a couple of tries to separate the egg white without getting any shell.  Then you have to shake it twice.  I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced this, but when I shook it to mix the egg, the shaker got some pressure and basically pushed itself apart when I was done, letting out a bit of egg goop.  The drink also involves juicing a lime and making simple syrup.  I will not be offering this drink at parties, based on the amount of time and work.  The cost was neither cheap nor expensive, as pisco isn't too much, thought the egg (I used farmers market organic to try to avoid getting sick) and the lime added at bit.

Overall: 5
Not a bad drink, but not the exotic treat I was hoping for. The flavor was nice and the texture was unique based on the egg. Nonetheless, I think that there are tastier drinks and the limited appeal and the amount of prep work makes this drink a bit limited.  I'll give it another try, perhaps tweaking the ingredient ratio, but this will not make the regular rotation.