Savoury deliciousness with Belvedere Bloody Mary

I had the rare pleasure last week to sit next to the most glamorous woman in drinks, Belvedere ambassador and head of spirit creation Claire Smith. She was in the lucky country launching her latest expression of Belvedere, Bloody Mary.

The spirit is crafted out of a blend of rye based macerated distillates. For those of you who don’t spend your days talking distillation, that means that a whole lot of vegetable or spices are chopped up and left in raw spirit to flavour it, the resulting liquid is then run through the still. Each individual flavour is distilled on its own and then blended together into the final product, to ensure a consistent tasting liquid in every bottle.

The Bloody Mary is flavoured with tomato, black pepper, horseradish, capsicum, chilli, vinegar and lemon. The tasting notes claim a dramatic an complex nose, and I’d agree that the result is unlike much that can be readily found bottled for consumption. It performs well enough on it’s own, bringing memories of mile-high Bloody Mary’s flooding to my mind.

In cocktails it lays down well with cucumber, elderflower, citrus, tomato juice and practically any herb. A delightful surprise can be found with some pineapple juice, a squeeze of lime, a dash of orange bitters and a good pinch of smoky paprika.

I’m playing with a bottle at home and am loving a world of savoury based creations that this spirit opens up.

Expect ten cents back from seventy bucks if you’re picking one up from Dan Murphy.

MixMarch #29: The Flying Dutchman

Updating the Classics is a tricky business. You are taking a recipe that is loved by people around the world. It’s a fucking hard thing to do with any level of success. Imagine my surprise then, when American Bartender of the Year, Jim Meehan, stepped up to update both a classic and one of my favourite drinks, the Aviation Cocktail.

I’ve tried a few updates on the Aviation, and most end up like the Cherry Aviation at Pocket Bar in Burton St, too sweet, too different, just not really at all like the Cocktail they’re supposed to be channeling.

This is so very different to that scenario.

Jim’s drink amplifys everything I love about the Aviation, Strong, Sour and fruity floral. Sitting at home back in Sydney, I’m ready to book a ticket, pack my bags and fly half way around the world just so he can make me another one.

The Flying Dutchman

.75 oz. (22.5mls) Clear Creek Plum Brandy, .75 oz. (22.5mls) Bols Genever, .5 oz. (15mls) Creme Yvette .5 oz. (15mls)Lemon Juice, .5 oz. (15mls) Pineapple Juice, 1 Barspoon (5mls) of Luxardo Maraschino

Shake with ice and fine strain into a chilled coupe

Garnish with one brandied cherry

(Jim Meehan, Winter 2010)

An ancestor of the Aviation Cocktail, first published in Hugo Ensslin’s Recipes for Mixed Drinks in 1916, this blue plum, pineapple, cherry and violet accented sour references Dutch genever, not the cursed ship forever lost at sea.

MixMarch #10: The Zombie

Unlike the sours, slings, flips and smashes set down in the somewhat finessed worlds of American and European bar tending, Tiki drinks have a habit of evolving. I’m not sure if it’s the transition of a laid back lifestyle into the bar, the quality and availability of ingredients or just that tiki tradition seems to be more about scribbled notes than printed volumes, but I have seen upwards of 20 different recipes all claiming to be a Zombie.

A chap by the name of Patrick Duffy claims to have invented the beverage and certainly has the first version in print. His Zombie calls for Apple Brandy and launched a number of recipes that use fruit brandies, but I’ve found they tend to come out a bit sick sweet.

While there’s debate about who went first, Don the Beachcomber made this drink famous.

The Zombie, despite variations in print, is about just one thing – packing as many different rums into a beverage that remains palatable while delivering uncompromising alcoholic strength. Huzzah!

While Tiki has made a marked comeback in other parts of the world, it has been largely overlooked in Sydney, with only a few notable exceptions. Bacardi brand ambassador, Jeremy Shipley, has installed perhaps the city’s best bamboo shrine to the gods of tiki, unfortunately it is in the back of his house, rather than on public show in a bar. This snippet does point to the fact that Tiki is something that Sydneysiders will have to invest in and indulge themselves at home.

My recipe leans on Dr Cocktial’s recipe, with a couple of little additions of my own.

The Zombie

The juice of one whole lime, 30mls unsweetend pineapple juice, 15mls fresh Ruby Red Grapefruit juice, 15mls Falernum, 15mls passionfruit syrup, 30mls Ron Zacapa 23, 30mls Rum Shrub, 30mls Bacardi, 30mls Mount Gay XO, 5mls Absinthe, 4 dashes Angostura bitters, shake over ice and pour into a highball or tiki mug, half filled with crushed ice. garnish with a mint bush and plastic monkeys, if available.

I make my rum shrub by infusing the remnants of my anejo rums with dried orange peel, cinnamon, cardamon and vanilla. I store it in a dark cool place, and it hasn’t started fizzing yet. Clement have a nice product too.

And if you’re interested, this is the earliest Don the Beachcomber version:

Don the Beachcomber Zombie recipe

“Zombie Zowie, Hollywood Night Life Weird and Wonderful,” Winnipeg Free Press, Oct. 28, 1938

“The serving glass should be approximately 14 ounces and frosted. Into it is shaken one ounce of Demerara 150 proof rum, one ounce of heavy Jamaican rum, one ounce of Guadalupe rum and one ounce Porto Rican cartadora. To this is added one ounce of Falernum and one ounce of simple syrup, the juice of one whole Mexican lime and four dashes of bitters. Decorate with fruits in season, and mint.”

This one is pretty good too, and shows how the drink evolved:

Zombie

Recipe from “Hawaii Tropical Rum Drinks & Cuisine by Don the Beachcomber” by Arnold Bitner & Phoebe Beach (2001)

• 3/4 oz Lime Juice
• 1/2 oz Grapefruit Juice
• 1/2 oz Falernum
• 1/2 oz Simple Syrup
• 1-1/4 oz Ramirez Royal Superior – Puerto Rico*
• 1 oz Lemon Hart Demerara 151
• 1 oz Palau (30 years old) – Cuba*
• 1 oz Myers’s Planter’s Punch – Jamaica*
• 1 oz Treasure Cove (32 years old) – Jamaica*
• 2 dashes each Angostura bitters, Pernod
• 1 Dash Absinthe, Pernod
• 3 dashes Grenadine
• 3/4 oz Marashino Liquor

Lime in the Coconut

It’s getting warmer. Rum drinks and warm weather go together. Time to buy some tiki mugs.

As an interim measure, I picked up a young drinking coconut at the supermarket and decided to revel in the kitschness of it all.

Lime in the Coconut

15ml fresh lime juice, 30ml coconut juice, 15ml fresh pineapple juice, 30ml spiced rum, 30ml Mount Gay Extra Old rum,  10ml Amaretto. Shake all ingredients well and strain into a well iced coconut. Garnish in a garish fashion, I’ve gone with pineapple leaves, a wheel of lime, 1987 fluro straws and ice cube Moai heads.

Unusual Martinis #2

Sometimes just producing a more meaty martini doesn’t quite cut it. For those times, and probably only as a first drink, i give you the Curry Martini. This drink was invented by Rush, a Nepalese bartender at Opia at the Jia Hotel in Hong Kong for the 42 Below Regional finals.

The Curry Martini

Muddle red and green chilli, lemongrass, shallots, coriander, ginger and garlic in the bottom of a Boston Glass. Add 30 mls 42 Below Manuka Honey vodka, 15 mls ginger liqueur, 30mls pineapple juice. Add a dash of egg white for a silky consistency and a dash of simple syrup for balance. Top the glass with ice and shake vigorously. Double strain the drink into a martini glass to ensure none of those pesky chili seeds make it through to burn your mouth. Garnish with chili, onion and coriander and let the flavor explode on your palate.

You can even watch Rush make it himself on youtube.

Rush likes his with a reinvention of the Falling Water cocktail, but its great on its own as well.

The Falernum Friday Fix.

I made a batch of Falernum Syrup yesterday, so I thought I’d share the recipe that I intend to wind down with this evening. Rather than just make more tiki rum swizzles, I feel like a fix…

The Chartreuse Swizzle, courtesy of Sloshed!

1¼ oz green Chartreuse
½ oz falernum
1 oz pineapple juice
¾ oz lime juice

Swizzle with crushed ice (or shake with ice and strain over crushed ice) in a tall glass. Garnish with a spring of mint and fresh nutmeg

Have a good weekend! I’m going drinking.

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.