The first drink of Christmas: Champagne

“Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content and sufficient champagne”

Dorothy Parker

Like no other product, Champagne epitomises a collective celebration. Weddings, success and life’s little highlights, the bubbly amalgamation of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier is seen by many as the perfect accompaniment to good old times. What happens however, if you’re lucky enough to have a glut? There are certainly many out there who would believe that there is no such thing.

Regardless, here are a few options to get you underway. These will work just as well, and in some cases greatly improve the product if you’ve got Methode Traditionelle or something else that bubbles.

Morning.

Perhaps the greatest aspect of the now quasi-religious holiday is that drinking becomes socially acceptable or even expected before the traditional 11 o’clock start point. Hitting the heavier stuff might not be such a grand idea, especially if you’re entertaining an older crew. Cut back the booze with some fruity goodness and get the day started right.

Mimosas & Bellinis

Mimosas mix bubbles and juice together. At the most traditional, use orange juice. I’m always astonished by the number of people who will mix a fifty dollar bottle of bubbles with a two dollar tetrapak of OJ. Show your guests a little bit of love and squeeze the juice fresh. The results will be better than you’ve ever imagined.

1/2 glass Fresh OJ, top with Champagne. For something a little brighter combine 10mls Grand Marnier with 20mls Fresh OJ.

Bellinis call for a puree of fruit. The Italian who came up with the drink used fresh white peaches, if you’d like to do the same, be aware that if you try and make the puree ahead of time it will oxidise and turn a funky brown colour. You could try adding an anti-oxidising agent, like lemon juice, but you’re best just to do it the laborious old fashioned way, to order as they are needed.

1/3 glass White Peach puree, top with Champagne

With both of these, there is huge room for experimentation, use whatever local, ripe, amazing fruit you can get your hands on. The Tokyo Strawberry Bellini is worth a crack too.

Noon.

Personally, i think lunch is the absolute perfect time for a sparkling glass. But if you must have something that’s been adulterated, let me suggest the Imperial Mojito, The French 75 or perhaps a delicious punch.

The Sparkling Ginger Daisy & The East Hollywood Sparkling Sangria over at Sloshed! also are going to be making it on my Christmas drinks list.

Night.

While the classic Champagne cocktail is a great way to start any night, I’d also recommend changing the Gin for Cognac in your French 75. Alternatively, try this:

Ritz Cocktail

22.5mls ounce Cognac (Hennessy), 15mls Cointreau, 15mls Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur, 15mls  Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice,  Champagne (approximately 90mls) stir all but the Champagne over ice, strain up and top with champagne.   Garnish with a flamed orange peel

 

 

MixMarch #19: The Bronx

David demands drinks definitively dry. The Bronx delivers, and how.

My second delve into The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks landed me in New York. Everyone knows the Manhattan, not so many have an intimate knowledge of the Bronx. This Gin strong, dry cocktail with a hint of herb each way from the pair of vermouths really impressed me. It was, like a lot of the drinks Embury favours, bone dry on the first sip, but the second sip was bliss. This one is a new fast favourite.

From a more historical perspective, The Bronx was number 3 on a list of the top ten most popular cocktails in 1934. Oh! how far the mighty have fallen…

The Bronx Cocktail.

7.5mls Sweet Vermouth (Martini Rosso), 7.5mls Dry Vermouth (Noilly Prat), 7.5mls Freshly squeezed orange juice, 45mls Yellow Gin (Tanqueray 10) combine all ingredients over ice, shake and serve up, with a twist of orange peel.

I am sure someone will call me on the fact the Tanqueray is not Yellow Gin. I concur, Yellow Gin is very hard to come by, being London Dry Gin aged in oak casks. It would be more proper to use Oude Genever perhaps, but I am all tapped out after my recent escapades in the Land of Dutch Gin. I would also be interested in a known source of Yellow Gin, should one become available…

UPDATED: The Monkey Gland

This is one of Harry’s drinks. Published in 1922, his book, Harry’s ABC of mixing cocktails lays claim to it. The drink is made with Gin, orange juice, absinthe and grenadine. I’m not sure why, but this drink makes me think of Colin Peter Field from the Hemingway Bar in Paris and his rules for making cocktails. I remember, first reading, then hearing them straight for his lips.

I probably thought some of them seemed like a limiting. Ideas like only using a single base alcohol with the addition of citrus, small amounts of aromatizers and bitters. They do maybe limit complexity, but they also leave balance and subtlety, naked for you to experience. The orange juice tarts the drink with the strength of the Gin and the great finish of the absinthe.

The Monkey Gland.

50 mls of Beefeater Gin, 50 mls of orange juice, 10 mls absinthe, 10 mls grenadine. Over ice in a shaking glass, combine and shake with some vigour. Strain it up. I’ve gone with a ridiculous twist, but i’d also like to give a rockmelon hook supporting a plastic hanging monkey or absolutely nothing at all.

Confession time. I used a store bought fresh squeezed OJ that was quite sweet and used a pomegranate concentrate instead of grenadine.

There is something rewarding about the feeling you get working through the classics. One of the nice things about this drink is the story of its name. Harry was quite fond of naming drinks for the clients and things happening in their shared sphere of experience.

The Monkey gland got is name from Serge Voronoff, a French doctor of Russian extraction famous for his work inserting thin slices of monkey glands (testicles) into patients scrota to deliver exuberance and youth. UK footballers the Wolverhampton Wanderers were among those who swore by the therapy.

It’s definitely an enlivener.

 

And here is how it looks with freshly squeezed orange juice. Much better I think.

Friday Fix from Tales – The Winter Sour

Something nice and new to try from N’Awlins. This recipe is by Chris Odeja of Varnish. It belongs to an article from Tales that you can read here, with some home truths about starting a bar. Like all of the drinks recipes, it doesn’t have a method, just a description. So again, this is how I would make it.

40 mls Campari, 20 mls lemon juice, 10 mls orange juice (both freshly squeezed) 15 mls rosemary syrup. Combine over ice in a shaker and go to work on it. Strain it up or over ice. garnish with a sprig of rosemary.

Making rosemary syrup: combine 500g sugar with 500 mls of water. hot, cold, boiled, your choice. I like to boil the water, take it off the heat and then stir in the sugar. Add plenty of fresh rosemary to the mixture and let it steep for at least an hour.

The end result should be a bitter sweet spicy symphony that warms the cockles of your heart.

Good weekend everyone.

The Old Fashioned

On May 13, 1806, The Balance and Colombia Repository printed the first known definition of the word “cocktail”

`Cocktail, then, is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters it is vulgarly called a bittered sling`

This somewhat unsavoury sounding mix is what we today call the Old Fashioned. 

Like almost all things alcohol related, there are disputes as to who coined the name instead of it just remaining ‘Cocktail,’ the members of the Pendennis Club claimed for some time in their blustery Colonel Sanders way that the name belonged to a Bourbon Cocktail made in the club. David Wondrich, who looks not dissimilar to a member of the Pendennis Club, discounted this theory by uncovering a wealth of examples of the use of the word prior to the Club’s foundation in 1880.

But I digress.

The Old Fashioned Cocktail

Take a sugar cube* and douse it in three or four belts from a bottle of Angostura Bitters, slide this into the bottom of an Old Fashioned glass. I use at least 60 of good quality Bourbon in my version, Maker’s Mark would be a fine choice. Add a little of the Bourbon, with a couple of pieces of ice and start stirring. Keep adding a little more Bourbon, a little more ice and perhaps around 15 mls water. 

The result is an amazingly balanced, rich and seductive elixir. 

*I prefer to use a cube of sugar as the time it takes to get it to dissolve is around the same time it take to mellow this drink to a superior level.

Variations.

This cocktail is amazingly adaptable, you can change out the spirit for a Rye Whiskey, Brandy, Cognac or Rum.

At Toko on Crown St they do a Old Fashioned with Junipero Gin and there is a fashionable trend for Tequila Old Fashioneds around the world right now.

Once you’ve tried a variety of spirits, perhaps making a move on to changing out the bitters. Peychaud’s, Fee Brothers Peach or Orange Bitters, even Aperol or Campari. I’ll post an article later in the week about the process of homemaking bitters as well, to really change things up.

This really is a drink for the ages, we’ll be putting this up against the Trans-Galactic GargleBlaster when we make it to the restaurant at the end of time.

Friday Fix for a quick thrill

Ok, so I know it seems like everyone on earth must be writing a Michael Jackson post right now, and it’s my second in memoriam post in as many weeks, but I know Gregor was in favour of intoxication and by the looks of Michael’s autopsy, the King of Pop wasn’t shy when it came to mixing it up.

The legal ramifications of championing OxyContin and Demerol use in Australia seem a little dicey at best, so let’s go home tonight, mix up a Thriller and settle back on the couch to watch the prisoners in Cebu, Philippines perform their very special tribute.

Thriller Cocktail.

45mls Laphroaig Scotch Whisky, 30 mls Stone’s Green Ginger Wine, 30 mls Orange Juice. 

Combine the ingredients in a Boston glass, top with ice, slap on the tin and shake vigorously with a sparkly white gloved hand.

Strain into a martini glass, collapse on the couch and marvel at the life of a man who may have touched kids, and not in a good way but who inspired the likes of this: 

Fog Cutter Friday Fix

It’s a rainy crappy old day here in Sydney, so I’m going home to make a drink that will improve my sodden spirits and to cut through the length and breadth of another week in advertising.

The Fog Cutter is a tiki drink that’s not as sugary sweet as many in the class, but packs the punch of a zombie.

Start with a well iced shaker, add to it 45mls of Havana Club light rum, 15mls brandy, 15mls gin, 45mls orange juice, 15mls lemon juice and 15mls of orgeat. Shake the living fuck out of it.

Strain it into a tall iced glass, or better yet, a Tiki mug, float between 10 and 20 mls of Sherry on the top of the drink, garnish it with a South Seas maiden.

A couple of these and you won’t even notice the cold.

Hendrick’s Gin – It’s very special.

A gin that’s not for everyone the little label on the neck of this dark, squat and frankly medicinal looking bottle. Hendrick’s offers an unusual addition of cucumber and rose to the traditional British recipe. Perhaps it would be more at home in a Persian pantaloon convention, if it wasn’t for the fact that this little tweak, coupled with the use of a very special still makes a Gin that just works.

Fragrant and soft martinis, surprisingly refreshing gins and tonic, all garnished with a slice of cucumber that screams “look at me! I’m different!”

Anyway, seriously, more inconoclastic than Scotland’s own John Knox. Go and get yourself a bottle today and make:

A Punch and Judy.

INGREDIENTS: 1 oz Martell VSOP, ¼ oz Old New Orleans Crystal Rum, ½ oz Hendrick’s Gin, ½ oz Bols Orange Curacao, 2 oz Pineapple Juice, ½ oz Freshly squeezed lime juice, ½ oz orange juice, ½ oz Partida agave nectar, 2 dashes Angostura bitters, 4 mint leaves. PREPARATION: Assemble ingredients in a mixing glass with as much love and interest that is healthy (that is to say not in a obsessive fashion but certain passionate and perhaps as if you were preparing the drink for someone you respect, admire and love in a plutonic fashion) – no need to muddle the mint, just throw it in- shake properly (hard) and strain over fresh ice in a highball glass.

 

 Cut a thinly sliced lime wheel and place on top of the Punch and Judy; add a hearty sprinkle of ground nutmeg directly on the lime wheel fresh from the “nut” with a small grater or using already ground nutmeg from a small shaker.

This rather complicated cocktail is the first of a series which I will appropriate from Dale De Grof, the King of the Cocktail, and maker of extremely fine Irish Coffees.