Mixology Monday, May 2013: Witches' Garden

*opens one eye from her coma* It's MxMo-time, again?!

Gee, I'd better do something about that..




The theme for the 73rd edition of the Greatest Cocktail Jamboree on the Planet, comes via our host Mark Holmes of Cardiff Cocktails -- home of delectable tipples, always-intriguing ingredient combinations and sepia-ambianced photography that aches comfort: Witches' Garden.

As far back as we can look, the use of fresh herbs have been prevalent in the world of mixed drinks. From the early days of the julep, through Williams Terrington’s 19th century Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks, to Don the Beachcomber’s ahead of their time Tiki drinks, fresh herbs have always been at the forefront of mixology. So lets take influence from the bartenders that once ruled the world of mixology, raid your herb garden that too often gets neglected, and start mixing. I don’t want to put too many limits on this theme so get as creative as you please, want to use roots, spices or beans as well? Sure thing. Want to make your own herbal infusions or tinctures? Sounds wonderful.

When active, this link will send you to the summary post of this month's festivities.

Let's get straight to the recipe:

Recipe at 150% size to fit the glass.
Perfect for a long languorous afternoon.

Acrasia's Bower
2 oz grappa
1-2 strawberries
2-3 sprigs of mint
1/2 oz Tuaca
1 dash Boker's bitters
3 oz carbonated chai green tea
sprigs of mint for garnish

In a highball glass, muddle the strawberry with the Tuaca and bitters (more than a dash, depending on your palate).

Spank the mint and add, gently pressing in/stirring with the muddler.

Add the grappa and stir.

Add ice to fill the glass and top with carbonated chai green tea, giving all a stir.

Garnish with fresh mint sprigs.




Carbonated Chai Green Tea
Steep 1 tea bag of chai green tea in 2 cups near-boiling water until cool. Carbonate per your device's instructions, perhaps under-do it slightly as the tea particles encourage foaming. Stash is my tea brand of choice, spicy and invigorating, and delicious even without the regular milk-and-sugar chai fixings.


Mint isn't the most original ingredient for a challenge such as this, but I was at the farmer's market a couple weekends ago and the chives just weren't sparking a desire to create as much as a lush bundle of mint was. I was still in the North African flavor state of mind from last MxMo, so when approaching the mint I automatically thought "Moroccan mint tea."

After a meh attempt at something more Penicillin-like with weak-flavored carbonated green tea [forgive me: I just got a SodaStream machine and am now going through a "let's carbonate EVERYTHING!" phase], I had an "I wonder.." moment with a more flavorful chai green tea on hand. Carbonating this tea was much more interesting (with a great backbone), but it needed a different pairing than scotch. More through a process of intuition and "what would I like to drink, right this moment?" than anything else, I happened on my bottle of grappa di cabernet, and then soft vanilla/chocolate-y Tuaca, and then, needing some kind of warmth or red-ness to balance, strawberries. Cardamom-rich Boker's served as a final add-on to match the chai spice and help some of the other flavors come through.

This is probably a little more understated a recipe than my usual M.O., but the finished sip came across especially refined, something which doesn't happen with every drink I do. Plus, I like how the strawberry's tartness and the astringency of the carbonated tea also help balance the sweetness, without resorting to citrus and making this a full-on Smash.

I also tried this with Strega (the witch liqueur, more successfully used in Putney Farm's Strawberry Witch this MxMo), but that ended up far too sweet here: Tuaca has a great advantage with slighter (and less sour/dry) ingredients like green tea and unaged grappa, being less syrupy-sweet than most liqueurs and therefore dampening flavors less.

The strawberry in Acrasia's Bower comes through luscious and fresh-tart, with an indefinable exotically-spiced sweetness. The grappa is a lurking, rolling fist encased in satin, but you don't pay attention to that so much as the soft green edge of the mint, both delicate accent and a visual jungle. The imagery reminded me of the descriptions of the Bower of Bliss in Spenser's Faerie Queen (as I read of it in Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae -- F.Q.'s still in my book basket waiting to be read). And me, grasping for a name this morning, did some googling for some kind of reference: the name "Acrasia" itself just seems to fit the cocktail's image above (in F.Q.'s book on Temperance, no less!). Only after I decided on the name [mind you, I'm still quasi-comatose] did I realize, hey, Acrasia's an enchantress. This drink really is a Witch's Garden!


Many thanks and props to Mr. Holmes for hosting and Mr. Yarm for wrangling. Cheers!


And stay tuned shortly for a non-MxMo post, a little something for the month of Taurus, now that we're in Gemini!

Mixology Monday, April 2013: Drink Your Vegetables

Welcome back to April's Mixology Monday event, the 72nd by Pan-Galactic Reckoning. Rowen of Fogged In Lounge, home of elegant gourmet morsels of cocktail blog reading, is our host for this go-round. The theme? Drink Your Vegetables.

Want to get more vegetables but you’re always eating on the run? Maybe you hate vegetables but feel you should get more of them? Well then, how about a vegetable cocktail? No, not that nice little glass of red stuff Grandma put at each place setting—we’re talking something with a kick in it. You can definitely start with the little glass of red stuff and expand it to a Red Snapper-style drink like a Bloody Mary. Or how about a cucumber-scented cooler like a Pimm’s Cup, or maybe a cocktail featuring a vegetable-based ingredient like Cardamaro or celery bitters? Maybe you’ve been wondering if you can get more mileage out of that juice extractor before consigning it to the garage sale. However you get them in that glass, be prepared for the most fun with vegetables ever.

 When active, this link will send you to the summary post of this month's festivities.


So I'm home late last night, checking on my red cabbage shrub for MxMo: it just doesn't have enough cabbage-y flavor. And as I'm standing there playing with it, removing the now-pickled cabbage to add in fresh plus a little sugar to turn it into a proper shrub, I'm munching on a very late dinner of McNuggets while racking my brain for an alternative in case it doesn't work out.

Huh, well ketchup's a vegetable right? [depends on who you ask]

*explosion* [because added explosions are excellent ways to jazz up re-tellings]

I eyeball my McNugget, covered in thick bright red sauce. I eyeball my berry-bright shrub in its mason jar.

Aside from the salt, ketchup's basically a tomato shrub, right?

You look at the label: tomatoes, vinegar, sugar corn syrup, various spices. It's everything I was doing with my cabbage, albeit I wasn't pureeing that vegetable into the final result.

Ha, well I laugh to myself: but what on earth would you pair it with? Potato vodka? Tequila, in some sort of riff on a Bloody Maria? Mezcal? Nyeeeeah.. I'm not feelin' it, and not just because I'd have to run out and get a bottle of mezcal.

But the Bloody Mary riff doesn't quite lose its grip, and the ketchup visual right in front of me, is, well, blood-like.

Blood and Sand..

Hah, but how would I work that in? Would it sub for the cherry or the orange? ...

SMOKEY SCOTCH!

I'm not feeling the mezcal, but suddenly there are visions of peaty barbecue in my head and a good weighty blended scotch could definitely hold its own against the dense tomato.

I sleep on this, do a little googling this morning for food pairings and start drifting in a North African direction: if we're playing on some savory elements, let's dig deep.

I Stubbed My Toe on the Way to the Arena
3/4 oz blended scotch
3/4 oz bianco vermouth
3/4 oz orange juice
1/2 oz brandy
1/4 oz ketchup
1/2 tsp fresh crushed coriander
Cherry tomatoes (or bacon) for garnish

Shake the ingredients on ice and double strain into a chilled coupe.

Garnish with skewered cherry tomatoes or perhaps a nice crispy, smokey piece of bacon.



It's very much similar in taste to a Blood and Sand, but for what you gain in body, you lose in subtle nuance via the Cherry Heering to ketchup switch. The ketchup I used, Heinz, you probably get a very salty vinegar-y taste sensation when thinking about it, but when working with it tonight it came off mellow with lactic acid. With any major brand you can probably be guaranteed that the food scientists and statisticians have honed the formula to something intense in flavor, but never-overmuch in any aspect. The saltiness doesn't cause a problem, either: you know how it's recommended to use a pinch of salt in drinks with citrus? Same principle here.

The ketchup flavor doesn't come on strong at these proportions (at 1/2 oz, it would), but it's a subtle savory fruitiness in the background, while the general Blood and Sand dynamics happen. It's hard to overdo the intensity of scotch in the recipe, given what it's up against, so go bold! I find bianco vermouth, though very similar to rosso, to be a bit more aggressive, herbal and savory - in most cases it'll dominate my drinks, but here it holds its own without overdoing. Beyond that, the brandy keeps the overall proof up to expected levels (because a full part of ketchup, er...) and orange juice's brightness offers a sensory respite from the heavy ingredients. The coriander I included to help bridge the ketchup to the more complex ingredients while upping the smokey and savory qualities that much more.

Many thanks to Rowen for hosting with another wonderful challenge, and Fred of Cocktail Virgin Slut for herding us crazy cats for yet another month!

My Favorite Things: Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With Strings

Sometimes these recipes write themselves.

Perhaps one of the best principles for creating a good cocktail is simply asking yourself: what would I want to drink? In this case, I saved this particular recipe name in the My Favorite Things series for my birth month, April. Who wouldn't want presents?! But, with my b-day otherwise occupied with tax-completing, I had to put off my indulgences for a little bit, which was beneficial.

This past week was nerve-wracking enough for anyone in the US, but especially those in Boston -- little did I realize that when I put in a supply order the Friday prior. As we all know now, all's well that ends well in greater things and small: my order, including a bottle of passionfruit syrup, came in -- maybe a little later than initially expected, but still quite timely in light of events -- many thanks to the fine folks at the Boston Shaker.

Now, passionfruit is quite possibly my favorite fruit: exotic and subtle, with hints of vanilla. It's just very soothing and mellow, even when concentrated. What's more, April's always seemed to have a monthly color of yellow, all the better for the fruit to fit.

In the meanwhile, my initial thoughts for indulgence trended towards Bourbon, accented with my homemade Vanilla Lace bitters. I haven't done a recipe with the bitters since January, and though I think they work fabulous in almost any recipe, I've wanted to be judicious in using them in recipe posts. Combine the bourbon and bitters with vanilla-hinted passion fruit syrup (and a serious one from B.G. Reynolds at that, much better than I could make at home) and you've got the fixings for a mighty tasty drink.

But something seemed missing. I mentioned before how a Yankee Candle series partially inspired this cocktail series, and here reminisces of lily scents and the very clean orderly notes of brown wrapping paper itself came to the fore: if not lily, perhaps almond to round out the cocktail? Not amaretto-almond, either, but something understated and milky without being thick, lest the nuances of bourbon and bitters be lost. Almond water? Or...or maybe I'll treat myself to a soda carbonating machine and get a bit fancy (nevermind the other plans I have for it later on..). If the ingredients aren't brown themselves, they do indeed come in brown paper packages!

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With Strings

2 oz bourbon

1 tsp passionfruit syrup

3 dashes Vanilla Lace Bitters

3 oz unsweetened almond soda

Stir the first three ingredients dry in a rocks or highball glass, then add ice cubes and almond soda. 

Finish with an extra dash or two of Vanilla Lace bitters.

Somewhat a cross between a Tiki Old Fashioned and a highball. As good as the recipe reads, and even more ethereal.

A few weeks back I was at Whole Foods when I came across Victoria's Kitchen Almond Water. It seemed an interesting cocktail ingredient, so of course I bought it. It's quite delish, but it's difficult to work with because it comes pre-sweetened. So what's a girl to do but attempt to make her own, despite there being a general dearth of online recipes on almond water. (there are Chinese almond tea recipes, however, which is more of a dessert recipe thickened with rice starch)

My general impression on how to make this is: make orgeat, leave out the sugar.

Unsweetened almond soda
100g blanched almonds
3 cups water

rose water
Lactart

Making almond whey.

In a food processor, finely blend the almonds and water (perhaps as little as a cup if your blender is small, adding the rest of the water post-blending). Let this mixture rest an hour or so, then, as if you were making orgeat, strain through cheesecloth, wringing out the chopped almond. Bring the extracted liquid to a boil on a pot on the stove, then add back in the wrung-out chopped almond to continue extracting almond oil. As soon as you add the almonds back, remove from the heat, cover, and let rest until cool. You want to avoid using the stove to cook the almonds because that results in a starchy cooked-almond flavor.

Making almond clotted cream.

Once cool, strain the liquid through cheesecloth and a fine strainer a few more times to get the large particles out. Then, strain the liquid through a coffee filter. "Almond milk" really isn't a misnomer: the liquid tends to separate into curds and whey, the purified whey being what we're after. Let the liquid rest in the fridge until you're ready to use it; if more particles clump, coffee filter strain again (there's no over-straining this almond whey, all the better to carbonate).

Once you've obtained the whey (my batch resulted in a little over 2 cups of liquid when all was said and done), mix as follows to prepare the almond soda.

Per 1 cup of almond whey add 1 cup water, 1/2 tsp rose water and (post-carbonation) 2 tsp Lactart. (Gently!) carbonate using your device of choice; depending, this may go against your warranty, so cocktailer beware.

The soda is ready for use in the cocktail as-is. Add some simple syrup if you'd like to enjoy it by itself.

Also? Happy milestone, Feu de Vie. Post #50 and still going strong!

Kore and Kore-dial

Hail maiden of Spring, plucky girl, ye of the delicate ankles,

You course through meadows whose many buds reach to your delighted hands.

Yet innocent are ye of the Host of Many,

Knowing only the gloomless heights of Olympus, the perfume of blossoms, and the taste of ambrosia.

Kore

1 1/2 oz Metaxa 5 Star brandy

3/4 oz Lillet Rose

1/4 oz apricot-Meyer lemon shrub

1/4 oz Skinos Mastiha liqueur

1 small dash rhubarb bitters

rinse crème de violette

half spring of mint for garnish

Shake all on ice and double strain into a chilled and crème de violette-rinsed cocktail coupe.

Garnish with a half sprig of mint. 

Kore comes together far better than I was expecting, harmonizing into a new emergent flavor that is both confident and well-rounded. Here the violette and Skinos' celery and sweet lime notes dance with the mint and botanicals from the Metaxa, or there the apricot leap-frogs to the palate via Lillet's acidity on top of the Metaxa's oak-derived notes.

To break them down individually just a bit:

• Metaxa: how do you not make a recipe for a Greek goddess without using rose-infused Metaxa 5 Star? The tricky part is that it's a bit on the sweet side, so balancing ingredients become essential.
• Lillet Rose: and how do you not use ladylike fresh-for-spring Lillet Rose? Lady Lillet is perhaps under-noticed here amid all the other aromatic delights happening, but none of them would be able to take off without this flavor-right lengthener.
• Apricot-Meyer Lemon Shrub: would you believe, way back when, I concocted this shrub expressly for this particular cocktail? The fruits offer flowery, innocent and girlish aspects, perfect for the theme, which open up in the drink despite the small amount. The original batch still holds up, I should add, especially having had time to rest and meld. You could say this speaks to the essence of Kore herself: soft spring-like flavors preserved through the frigid winter to re-emerge as youthful as ever as the world reawakens.
• Skinos Mastiha liqueur: the hard part of this drink was how to finish it after starting with the above three ingredients. The wine and shrub took it in a tart direction and I wanted to encourage the apricot notes further, but after some difficulty obtaining a fruit-fly-free apricot liqueur I wound up swinging wildly for the fences by special-ordering this spirit (and for something this unique, how could I not want it in my cabinet?). At 80 proof, it's in roughly the same boat as the Metaxa for being a sweetened-but-not-oversweet liquor -- which is actually just-right here. The shrub couldn't be used overmuch because of its vinegar base, but the Skinos balances it without making things candy-sweet, plus adds an intriguing exotic flavor. Going back to something more conventional after testing with this ingredient was not an option.
• Rhubarb bitters: these add a nice berry note which compliments everything, especially the Lillet, while taming the apparent sweetness. I would urge no more than a single heavy dash if you like things drier/bitterer, since it's easy to destroy the other flavors while you're at it. Besides, some sweetness is itself thematic.
• Crème de violette: as difficult as this liqueur can be for some palates, its aromatics enhance the drink's floral aspects while blending in well as a rinse. And, it's a natural for "violet-garlanded Kore."
• Mint: originally I was planning to use the floral aromatics of Meyer lemon zest, but, with the addition of the Skinos on top of the Metaxa, using mint, a classic Greek herb, seemed both adventurous and fitting. The mint is a bit less overwhelming on the nose and it surprised me for merging so well into the other ingredients. A foreshadowing of who Kore would become.

I should note: there were a lot of earlier permutations as I tried different ways to bring together flavors. One of the more successful ended up being a homemade cordial, or should I say, Kore-dial. Essentially: de-stone and quarter 2 ripe white peaches and add to a mason jar along with the zest of one clementine, covering with Metaxa 5 Star. Shake and let rest in a cool dark place. Remove the zest after 3 hours, the peaches after 3 days. Coffee filter-strain and store in the fridge. Delightful as a sipper.

Yiamas! [pace @BitterBooze]

Ducklings and Mother Duck

Hour 1: Make way for ducklings! Gee, there sure are a lot of you little ones..

Hour 2: You really don't stop, do you? Just one big long line of ducklings as far as the eyes can see..

Hour 5: Any of you guys want some Rice Krispies? Y'know, just hang out for awhile instead of waddling for miles? And really now, where are your mothers?!

Day 8: *a passerby has stopped to marvel at the balsa wood staircases and platforms, directing the endless line of ducklings in almost-Escher-like ways, though ultimately never distracting them long from their course. Miniature red and white umbrellas can be seen discarded at various junctures*

"Did these guys do all that?"

Heh, that would've been nice. I gave up on playing Lemmings when I ran out of materials. Now I'm trying to come up with a Rube Goldberg machine made entirely out of ducklings.

Day 14: *the line of ducklings has slowed. The few continuing on bounce up every now and again as the earth rumbles* *morning stretch* Gooood mornin', chickie-kids. What's the latest? *the sky dims* *looks up* *blink blink*

QUACK.        QUACK.

It's the Mother Load!


*ducks*


Duckling shots

1 part Advocaat
1 part pear soda

Add the (chilled) pear soda to your shot glasses first, followed by the advocaat - this way the advocaat will integrate better and not stick to the glasses as much. Give the shots a stir with a chopstick if you like; the advocaat should suppress loss of fizz. The pear soda gives the shot a refreshing dryness without being too sweet. Pear nectar tends to be sweet overkill, and the soda's fizz matches the aquatic nature of the bird - it makes me think of a duckling ruffling itself and shaking its tail.

Wondering where to find pear soda? I was too, for over a week! I went been to nearly 10 grocery stores, farmers' markets and convenience stores before lucking out. The duck gods must've wanted me to work for it, or maybe they just wanted me to pick up some lingonberry preserves. Yes, that's right, I found my pear soda at, of all places, IKEA (16.9oz cans ready in their food goods refrigerated section). Quite tasty, a developed flavor with some dryness. In case you don't have in IKEA nearby, though, try perhaps a Whole Foods, which typically, most weeks, carries the Kristian Regale brand (also Swedish, which gave me the idea to check IKEA). Beyond that, a local grocery store might carry R.W. Knudsen's Sparkling Pear, or check a store like Home Goods or TJ Maxx to see what indie brands they might have.

It all started with the Fluffy Duck, and the Advocaat/egg-related spring animal ideas inspired by it: baby birds that is, hence shooters. But, there was more space to do regular cocktails beyond the shooters, so it made sense to "mature" the shots into fully-fledged cocktails. To follow the pre-established pattern, apricot was the flavor of choice for Chicks and Mother Hen, so for Ducklings and Mother Duck we have fizzy pear (because, quite frankly, ducks are pear-shaped!).

To gussy up Mama Duck, we have a cocktail with pear eau-de-vie, Aquackvit, and Tuaquack:

For this cocktail, tip duck over
and pour her out.

Mother Duck
1 oz green tea-infused aquavit
1 oz pear eau-de-vie
1/2 oz dry vermouth
1/4 oz Tuaca
1 drop aromatic bitters
1 1/2 oz San Pellegrino
dill sprig

Stir first five ingredients with a couple of ice cubes to dilute and chill, then strain into a sherry copita or cocktail glass.

Top with an ounce and a half of San Pellegrino (the minerality is a good accent here).

Garnish with a dill sprig.

Green tea infused aquavit: 1 teabag green tea, 1/2 cup aquavit, 45 minutes, no shaking. [updated to include]


In all, Mother Duck is drier, more savory, and less ruffled than Mother Hen. The green tea Aquavit adds a mellow substantiveness and combines seemlessly with the pear eau-de-vie, with a sense of smoothness imparted by the Tuaca's vanilla. The flavor reminds me of rustic woodlands and the coloration of Mama Mallard up above, right down to the dill-like clump of algae you might see her nibbling.

The visual of dill in a cocktail drew me to aquavit, in my case to caraway and anise-infused Krogstad based on availability and potential use of dill in its botanicals. Any type of aquavit would probably work well here, not just one with dill: aquavit's savory characteristics are what's important. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my dill-in-cocktails-full-stop inspiration: the beautiful Freeside from Cocktail Democracy, with a wonderful bit on general cocktail inspiration at that.

On the aromatic bitters: since these duck recipes are trending Scandinavian, Swedish bitters would be a nice touch. If you don't have those, Angostura, Urban Moonshine or Fee's Old Fashioned would do in a pinch. Just a little something earthy, dark, and diffuse in flavors to help balance the Tuaca and pear eau-de-vie -- being mindful that the cocktail is somewhat delicate in flavor and too much shows up fast.

That said, I'm not entirely wedded to the dry vermouth lengthener, but availability of dry quinquinas or gentian aperitifs is sparse around these parts. I used Vya Extra Dry, which imparts a nice rustic herbal quality in keeping with theme, though I'd be curious how an aperitif wine like Suze might work (perhaps omit the bitters here?).


In short: this ain't your mother's Taiwan Duck Fart, nuh-uh.


[Stay tuned, dear readers (and when I say that, I mean later this afternoon!). The last two weeks have been a royal whumping both at work and for my recipe schedule here. We're going to try to fix that, starting now and for the rest of the month of April. There's a MxMo coming up and the My Favorite Things and Ti(n)sanity series require their monthly updates, among other items.]

My Favorite Things: Silver White Winters...that Melt into Spring

Besides, how many of you were still getting snow last week?

So....March's entry in the My Favorite Things project is one day late - and this is no April's Fool. I think it was worth it, though, to get the specs right. Again this month, I'm playing with technique, plus rarely-used tea ingredients and one of my favorite ingredients from my cabinet: rhubarb bitters!

Naturally there's one fitting lyric from My Favorite Things which best fits the month of March: Silver White Winters that Melt into Spring.




The name pretty much says it all: you start with Winter, and involve a component that melts, bringing with it notes of Springtime. Fancy ice is something I've been playing with for about half a year now, and this recipe pulls together elements already developed on various drinks: an ice sphere, filled with alcoholic ingredients, and alcoholic ingredients cut with water-based ingredients and then frozen. One realization that I've come to and implemented well with SWWTMIS is the secret to using flavored ice may be to find flavor combinations and ratios which will work at the outset and then at the tail end, that way the ice melt is one long fade between two controlled points.

But now then, let's dive into the recipe!


Silver White Winters that Melt into Spring, what you'll need
water
dried flower teas (lavender, linden blossom, elder flowers, etc..)
Hendrick's gin
plain vodka
white crème de menthe (for glass rinsing)
rhubarb bitters
edible flower or wild strawberry

Quick note on the spirits: I think Hendrick's especially suits the theme of the recipe, with its downplayed juniper plus rose and mellow cucumber notes. I recommend an eastern European vodka like my personal "house vodka", White Diamond, which is from Latvia. Eastern European vodkas tend to be known for their mineral notes, so it's nice to have something in stock which can bring that element.

Brew floral tea

Make a pale but fragrant tea from dried flowers. Mix and match varieties, but try to include lavender as an ingredient because it pairs so well with the Hendrick's. I used 1/2 tsp each lavender, linden blossoms*, and elderflower blossoms to 8 oz boiling water. Let steep (preferably in a tea ball or tea strainer) until cool.

*aka lime blossoms, aka tilia flowers.

Difference between ice shell and frozen filler.

Mix the filler

For each ice ball, mix 1 1/2 oz Hendrick's gin, 1 1/2 oz cooled floral tea, and 1 dash rhubarb bitters. Store in the refrigerator until ready to fill the ice ball.

Ice ball

In a large ice ball mold, freeze plain water for about two hours or until a quarter to a third inch of ice is formed on the surface. Poke a small hole in the ball to drain the unfrozen water, but leave perhaps a quarter inch of water at the bottom for reinforcement. Place the shell back in the freezer for the reinforcement to freeze up, also adding the container of filler to the freezer -- the colder the filler is, to the point of ice crystals beginning to form, the less likely it will wear away at the ice shell as it's being added.

Why I advocate small fill-holes. Large holes
like this are more difficult to cover over again.

Once the shell is completely frozen and the filler is suitably chilly, it will be safe to fill. Start to fill the sphere by adding the garnish: either an edible and foodsafe spring flower or other small garnish reminiscent of spring (a wild strawberry maybe?). Depending on the garnish you may need to carefully widen/melt-out the hole, but try to avoid making it bigger than necessary: the hole is something you'll need to freeze regular water on top of, lest the flavors of the filler leak out too quickly (and they likely will, because the gin makes it more eager to melt than the plain water shell).

Once the garnish is in, go ahead and add the filler - a small/thin funnel may be useful here. Be mindful of what you touch -- the heat from your skin will enhance melting, and, vice versa, it's easy to get fingersicles fast!

The full 3 oz of the filler should be able to fit inside the sphere. You might want to practice the timing with plain water as a filler until you find the timing for an appropriate ice thickness that works for your freezer -- it'll be worth it for the flavor ratios to work, as well as the cocktail's overall alcohol level. If you've found your sphere has a little extra room after filling (without the filler being spilled on top - a problem for the drink's flavor), just add a little water to top it off.

Once the filler is in, return the ice ball to the freezer in its mold and let it freeze solid, about 4-6 hours (ok, maybe not that long, depending on your appliance, but be generous with the time you allot anyway, since the center has to develop ice crystals in the midst of alcohol).

Once the ice ball appears thoroughly frozen, drip a few drops of water on top of the fill-hole -- as you'll see in the bottom-most image, the ice ball will melt from the fill-hole outwards if not covered. Keep layering drops of water then freezing until the fill-hole is covered over. At this point the sphere is ready to use.

To serve:

Rinse a chilled double old-fashioned glass with white crème de menthe (discard the remainder). Add your frozen ice ball. Pour one ounce vodka over the ice ball, swirl to start the melting, and sip to savor the emerging flavors.

You really don't need me to give you a guide on how to add vodka to the drink, I was just especially pic-happy with this recipe.
Also, pretty.

Spring has sprung!

At first you'll have the minerality of the vodka on your tongue, along with a sparkle of sweet mint. Then, perhaps imperceptibly, you'll find a hint of juniper, and a few moments later, something vaguely floral. The floral taste expands upon itself, sweetening (thanks to the tilia in the mix) with the lavender coming through better, and the wetness of the drink starts to stand out like chilly spring rains. You can tell the center of the ice ball really starts to take over when you taste the rhubarb bitters: spring has sprung! (even if there's still some late snow showers/vodka minerality)

It's not that far off from a Martini (but with more Old Fashioned ratios): you get added herbal and bitter components thanks to the floral tea and bitters, but less sour with slight sweet notes.

Chicks and Mother Hen

You never know what you might find on an Easter egg hunt..

Would you believe that I've been sitting on these recipe ideas for over a year? (and I won't repeat that often, but from here on out it's quite possible an idea got triaged from an earlier year, just for time, scheduling and resources) Frankly, it's about darn time these chicks hatched!

In this case, I had a very late special order of advocaat -- a brandy-based egg custard liqueur that's a traditional digestif in the Netherlands -- to contend with. Naturally, it's especially popular around Eastertime, though I'm somewhat surprised more hasn't been done with that angle. There's a Fluffy Duck recipe (more on that later in the week), but that's as close as advocaat gets to an Easter theme. So let's change that, and give you an option a little more naturally-flavored than Peeps.


Chick shots
1 part Advocaat
1 part apricot nectar*

Depending on how many shots you're making, add a cube or two of ice to the shaker along with the 2 ingredients, to help agitate. Shake and pour into shotglasses. Shoot these little low-alcohol sweet eggy bursts of yumminess to your heart's content!

*seriously, don't fret about using the canned stuff. You'll be lucky enough to find non-cardboard-tasting apricots in peak season in late summer, let alone at Easter time. Any store taking the chance of stocking apricot nectar will stock decent stuff for our purposes here. Besides, when mixing with advocaat, all we really want is sweetness and a bit of flavor.

But now then, now that we have the baby recipe down, what say we find what happens when baby loses its fresh-from-the-egg qualities and grows up?

Mother Hen

1 1/2 oz bourbon
1 oz dry-ish madeira (sercial or verdelho)
3/4 oz apricot brandy
2 dashes Dandelion & Burdock bitters
1 dash aromatic bitters

Stir all on ice and strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Garnish with a brandied apricot.

On what I used: Bulleit bourbon; Blandy's 5yr Verdelho; homemade apricot brandy (from the recipe at bottom here) using Remy Martin VSOP, from which I obtained my garnish; and Fee Bros. Old-Fashioned Aromatic bitters (careful on this: it's easy to overdo with the angostura bark notes). If without homemade apricot brandy with the apricots still in to use as garnishes, try simmering some dried apricots in brandy until slightly darker and plump, about half an hour or so.

If you want to work the full Hen pun glory, use the Kickin' Chicken itself, Wild Turkey 81 bourbon (yes, 81 and not 101: females are smaller than males) plus use Hennessy for the apricot brandy. Madei- is already close to Madre, so the fortified wine's covered.

The bourbon sets the tone with the apricot brandy's fruit notes (passionfruit and apricot) prominent, with the acidity of the Madeira rounding the edge and the bitters' savory, warm spice and barnyard notes providing texture and depth (barnyard as in straw and hay, not that dressed-up tasting note for manure - I almost used this combo for the Bull's Meadow, there's something wonderfully pastoral about it). I can't comment on brands of apricot brandy, but I found my homemade apricot brandy (using Sun-Maid dried Mediterranean apricots) led with big notes of passionfruit -- a fitting connection to Easter, natch.

In all, you get some down-home on the farm with the bourbon, some Sunday aperitif with the Madeira, and a light sweet warmth from the apricot brandy, with some spice and mussed feathers thrown in for good measure.

Happy Easter!

Mixology Monday, March 2013: From Crass to Craft

Once again it's Mixology Monday! (on a Sunday. Yeah, um.. it'll still be here on Monday.)

Our host this month is Scott Diaz of the quite snazzy Shake, Strain & Sip blog, who gives us the theme From Crass to Craft:

"The evolution of the cocktail has been a wondrous, and sometimes, frightful journey.  From its humble beginning, to the "Dark Ages" of most of the later 20th century, to the now herald "Platinum Age" of the cocktail,  master mixologists and enthusiasts alike have elevated its grandeur using the best skills, freshest ingredients and craft spirits & liqueurs available.  But with all this focus on "craft" ingredients and classic tools & form, it seems we have become somewhat pretentious.  The focus on bitter Italian amari, revived and lost ingredients such as Batavia Arrack or Creme de Violette, the snickering at a guest ordering a Cosmopolitan or a Midori Sour; has propelled us into the dark realm of snobbery. Many scratch bars and Speakeasies have gone as far as to remove all vodka and most flavored liqueurs from their shelves.  Some even go as far as to post "rules" that may alienate most potential imbibers.  Remember, the bar was created with pleasing one particular group in mind: the guest.  As such, this month's MxMo LXXI theme, From Crass to Craft,  will focus on concocting a craft cocktail worthy of not only MxMo but any trendy bar, using dubious and otherwise shunned ingredients to sprout forth a craft cocktail that no one could deny is anything less.  There are a plethora of spirits, liqueurs and non-alcoholic libations that are just waiting for someone to showcase that they too are worthy of being featured on our home and bar shelves.  So grab that bottle of flavored vodka, Jagermeister, cranberry juice, soda, neon colored liqueur, sour mix or anything else deemed unworthy of a craft cocktail, and get mixin'!

When active, this link will send you to the summary post of this month's festivities.


Uh....fellas? (ladies?) I never got the memo on prohibited ingredients. Granted, I understand how high quality ingredients simply taste better and produce more interesting harmonies and contrasts between themselves, but if I need a precise certain ingredient for a recipe I've never seen why I shouldn't use it. It's why I've never considered myself "Craft" to begin with. Cocktailian, yes; Craft, no.

For instance, I've worked with Rumple Minze, and Black Haus and Cask & Cream liqueur before (and have a healthy love of Galliano). Given all that, I figure I ought to pull out one of the lesser schnapps in my girly-girl cabinet and go to work. Buttershots, you're up!


I first tried the Buttershots out in a Scotch sour, but that seemed a bit too on the nose as far as obviousness. However, fresh off of making the T. T. Punch in the past week with a new fascination for the form, plus staring at a cooling mug of Tension Tamer tea as I was making the sour, a punch seemed like a more interesting drink. At that, a punch would need less Sharp citrus and instead use its hefty Weak part to keep the Sweet Buttershots in check.

May David Wondrich have mercy on my soul.

Butterscotch Punch
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz Buttershots schnapps
1/4 oz simple syrup
2 oz blended scotch (Famous Grouse)
1 oz Tension Tamer tea
1 oz ginger beer (Fever Tree)
fresh ground black pepper

Shake the first four ingredients then double strain into a chilled serving glass.

Top with ginger beer.

Garnish with a faint grind of black pepper.



Quite frankly, this works AMAZEBALLS. The schnapps has an over-eager puppy way of being out front wherever it's used (typically). But here you get the butterscotch flavor without a dominant sweetness, as all the other ingredients do an excellent job of drying the punch out and achieving a balance (the simple syrup was a late addition: it helps with the body and balance while managing the combined astringency of some of the other ingredients). The schnapps is still prominent, but there's a lot of interesting flavors happening around it. The Scotch holds its own and (of course) works with the schnapps. The Tension Tamer tea is a good flavor complement, and including it works better than an all-ginger beer Weak component, as 1 oz ginger beer is pretty spicy already. The black pepper seems a natural fit, better even than the darkest baking spices (clove, cardamom) or punch-traditional nutmeg.


The sour cocktail worked rather nicely as well, so here's the recipe for those interested:

Butters' Sour
1 1/2 oz blended scotch (Famous Grouse)
1/2 oz Buttershots schnapps
1/2 oz lemon juice
1 tsp Averna
orange twist

Shake on ice and double strain into Professor Chaos' chilled chalice of choice. Twist an orange zest over top and drop in. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!

Ti(n)sanity!: Eire Light

Welcome back to Ti(n)sanity's week of March Madness! And what a week it has been. Using our common denominator/Maguffin tisane, Celestial Seasonings' Tension Tamer, we've seen the last of the straight-water tisane infusions, the cooled brew an ingredient in a rhum agricole punch. Beyond that, we've grown the types of applications into a syrup, a straight spirit infusion, and then finally today, a combination syrup/spirit-infusion for when you want a sweet element to pair with the intensity of flavor that alcohol draws out. You might know this combination as simply a liqueur. Said liqueur is a little something special for St. Patrick's Day, the idea in development for nearly a year but made a finished reality just last night.

Imagine, if you will, a dark forest with black-boled trees. And then a small glade lit from above by straw-golden light, growing to engulf the lawn in pale spring green and extending out to the forest floor in sprightly, misty mint blue. You walk through this glade and the trees begin to thin into a grassy dale: the wind sings through the light-air, carrying motes of citrus orange and yellow bouncing like beachballs. Ireland may be an earthy country, verdant amid its browns and grey skies, but the idea of Eire always takes me to this sort of mystic imagery.

This final liqueur recipe came about with a lot more failed testing than you might imagine. Budding cocktailian that I was last year, when it came to St. Patrick's Day drink recipes I had a vision of an Irish flavor variation on a Sazerac, with Irish whiskey, lighter-than-Peychaud's bitters and an appropriate herbal liqueur as a rinse. Naturally, one does some research on this last point.

Irish Mist, Celtic Crossing, Celtic Honey, Drambuie: these are all classic British Isle herbal and honey liqueurs. A sticking point for me, however, is that they're all whisk(e)y-based. That's like making a cognac Sazerac with a Grand Marnier rinse: maybe just a little too close to the base spirit, which diminishes the herbal contrast. Something more strictly herbal would make more sense here. Based on that, many herbal liqueurs that one finds tend to be monastic in origin, and as luck would have it, Glenstal Abbey in County Limerick in the southwest of Ireland makes a lemon verbena liqueur (any imagery being prompted in your mind?). Alas, it's limited to usage in chocolates and local venues (perhaps not a bad thing, given the humble philosophy behind it). But, it's enough of an idea to get started.

Back in November I set myself up with a variety of dried and fresh herbs, including dried lemon verbena, and got to work infusing. Neither of my tester mixes turned out near to what I was looking for, though: dried herbs generally have a darker flavor to them at odds with the concept of a light sprightly green liqueur glowing with mystic dawn. Lemon verbena, at that, apparently loses most of its lemony perfume once dried.

So, the idea was backburnered, until Ti(n)sanity that is. It made a lot of sense to build on that old concept with an agreeable and appropriate herbal blend, plus some fresh ingredients to round out the flavor just-right (those with long memories might note the details I pulled from La Primavera nella Campagna). Given fresh lemon verbena can be difficult to find unless you grow your own, the below liqueur includes a variety of citrus zests to make up for that flavor; I imagine adding some fresh verbena leaves would only enhance the liqueur that much more, though.


Note: as with all infusions, they should be kept in a cool dark area as sunlight and heat will impact the final quality.

Sunlit only for the pics.

Eire Light Liqueur
Part 1:
1/2 cup pear eau-de-vie
strips of zest from lemon, lime, Meyer lemon and/or sweet lime*
1 inch fresh lemongrass, chopped
1 sprig tarragon leaves, and stem (use 17 leaves for St. Paddy's Day)
1/2 sprig fresh spearmint, stem but not leaves crushed

*1/2 inch wide, taken lengthwise from the fruit. Mix 'n match fruits based on availability and preference. Roughly 1-2 strips from each kind of fruit.

Add all to a glass mason jar and infuse for 3 hours. Remove tarragon and mint, then continue infusing to complete a full 24 hours, shaking occaisionally.

Part 2:
1/2 cup 100pf vodka
1 Tension Tamer teabag

Infuse in a separate mason jar for 45 minutes, shaking occasionally. Remove and wring out teabag. Let rest until Part 1 is complete.

Part 3:
Combine parts 1 and 2 once part 1 has infused for 24 hours. Keep the zests and lemongrass in the mix for another 6 hours to help combine flavors, then fine strain off the solid bits before giving the liquid a good coffee filter straining. Once that's done, add 1/4 cup mild honey and shake to dissolve. Skim off the foam once it's settled a few minutes. Let rest at least a few hours before using, and don't feel you have to use it up all at once. If you can, let it rest a good month or three before using (again): the maturation and bottle-aging will improve the flavor all that much more.


[Update, 03-14-2013, 11:00pm: It's come to my attention this evening that the liqueur has turned a bit cloudy with some sediment. If you encounter this, my recommendation is to let the liqueur rest as-is a few more days at room temperature. If there will be sediment, the worst of it should happen early: it may be wax from the honey or simply an infusion by-product, which is natural. Either way, it's best to let it clump, all the better for decanting and/or straining off through coffee filters (a time- and filter-consuming process, yes, but an effective clarifier). Normally with infusions I would recommend a good chill-in-the-fridge before straining, but with a honey sweetener this is liable to cause crystallization which could affect the quality.]


I highly recommend using linden flower (aka lime blossom, aka tilia flower, aka basswood) honey. Not only is it delicate with a flower scent somewhere between green honeysuckle and gardenia, but it matches with the tilia flowers in the Tension Tamer tea. Linden also has a pure, sacred quality in Germanic folklore as a tree of lovers and jurisprudence -- not far off at all from the original mental imagery. Given linden honey might be difficult to find, a minimally-pungent ambrosia or clover flower honey would do well in a pinch.

Designing this liqueur for this particular Sazerac take, knowing that it would substitute for a potent and higher-proof absinthe or pastis, I found it worth it to use straight honey instead of a honey syrup with added water. Lack of water means an increased viscosity and less dilution of flavor, perfect for rinsing a glass. With precisely 1/4 cup of honey moreover, there remains a bit of pungency and astringency from the herbal ingredients. Aging will mellow these aspects while retaining the intricacy of the flavor, whereas extra honey will only mask it, regardless of time.


But now to make that Irish Sazerac...

Eire Light

2 1/2 oz Irish whiskey

1 cube or 1 tsp white sugar

3 dashes Branca Menta (or impromptu Branca Menta)

rinse of Eire Light Liqueur

lime zest

Muddle the sugar and bitters until the sugar is dissolved, then add ice and your Irish whiskey of choice. Stir to dilute and chill. Strain over one large ice cube in a chilled rocks glass rinsed with Eire Light liqueur. Twist a piece of lime zest over the drink then drop into the glass.

Impromptu Branca Menta: 1 tsp Fernet Branca to 1/2 tsp crème de menthe to 1 dash Fee Bros Mint Bitters. (going roughly by Dr. Henderson's suggestion here, but with a touch more bitterness)


The cocktail does just what I was hoping it would. You're greeted on the nose by something soft, ineffably-herbed, honeyed, intermingled with rolling verdant lime hills and valleys. On the sip: earth and grain. But then you're transported beyond such rigid sensory categories: there's light-filled minty mist, juicy green pastures, and a sense of home ideal and elevated.


At some point I'd like to try the Branca Menta version, having used the substitute because Branca Menta's a bit difficult to obtain in PA. I wanted something a bit earthy, mintiness being a bonus. Fernet Branca on its own up against Irish whiskey seemed an unfair fight, but tempered with a bit of mint became more palatable in the context of the cocktail, if maybe a little too scotch-peaty. From the specs, Bittermens' Boston Bittahs could also be interesting here, though it seems like it wouldn't quite have the earthiness or command you would expect for a Sazerac variation.



Thank you for reading this week and have a happy (and alcoholically-responsible) St. Paddy's Day! Just a reminder: Ti(n)sanity slows down from here on out for at least four further, more complex applications. I'm planning on doing one a month from here through July, so please check back in from time to time if it interests you. Sláinte!



Previous Ti(n)sanity recipes:

Hit the Road to Dreamland (rum)
Lullaby Sangaree (madeira) and Insufferable Creole Minx (bourbon, gin, madeira)
T. T. Punch (rhum agricole)
Me-tea-orite (single malt scotch)
Introduction and eThéreal Toddy (grappa)

Disclaimer: this is a non-sponsored post. Also, I'm not looking to do sponsored posts. I just really like this tea, is all, and have a policy of happily and independently buying all my ingredients.

Ti(n)sanity!: Hit the Road to Dreamland

Wasn't that a lovely musical interlude for halftime? We're into the second half of Ti(n)sanity's March Madness week, here on Feu de Vie. Our friendly neighborhood Maguffin, Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer tea, is about to take the big plunge into waters yet-unknown: namely because it's not water, it's rum!

That's right, after four dreary posts of build-up, we've finally hit our first alcohol-infusion. Let's go to the tape, and see just how this infusion came to be:

Tension Tamer Rum: In a mason jar or similar, add one Tension Tamer teabag to one cup of white rum (or more, keeping the same ratio). Infuse for 60 minutes. Remove the bag(s), wringing out the final richly-infused drops. Seal the jar and store in the fridge overnight or longer until ready to use. The flavors will clarify as the excess infusion oils sink to the bottom of the jar.

Wasn't that exciting? All that drama watching the clock so it doesn't overdo! But what'll happen now as we get to see how this infusion defines greatness. Let's go live to the court:

Hit the Road to Dreamland
2 oz Tension Tamer Rum
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz triple sec
1/4 oz simple syrup
3/4 oz egg white
nutmeg


Dry shake (i.e. without ice) the first four ingredients until foam is started, then add ice and shake to dilute and chill.

Double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a faint hint of fresh-grated nutmeg.





Oh! MoD's run a classic Sidecar play, with an egg white option. There's very little that can bust that structure as it moves down the field. Though to be technical, this play is more Cable Car. No no no, that's not right, or wait, let's check that. All right, we can call it a Difford's Guide Cable Car play. There's definitely something British with the use of tea. But wait, what's this? Nutmeg! MoD unleashes the nutmeg! Ho-lee cow!

This may well be the strongest application of our Maguffin yet. Though dense and dry like gin when the infusion is tasted neat, when applied to a cocktail it's permitted room to breathe and the flavor comes through exactly as if you had just brewed a cup. Moreover, the cinnamon spice in the herb mix especially comes through: dry like gin, but spiced like rum. Whereas the nutmeg would have drowned out the Lullaby Sangaree, here it's a pleasant touch for the nose, mixed with hints of lemongrass from the Tension Tamer.

Stay tuned for your local news, and one final post tomorrow, with a special recipe for St. Paddy's Day.

(and don't be shy about playing around with base spirits! If the below-linked recipes indicate anything, it's that our Maguffin works well with a great number of base spirits. Vodka would be the least-interesting option, to be sure.)


Previous Ti(n)sanity recipes:

Lullaby Sangaree (madeira) and Insufferable Creole Minx (bourbon, gin, madeira)
T. T. Punch (rhum agricole)
Me-tea-orite (single malt scotch)
Introduction and eThéreal Toddy (grappa)

Disclaimer: this is a non-sponsored post. Also, I'm not looking to do sponsored posts. I just really like this tea, is all, and have a policy of happily and independently buying all my ingredients.

Ti(n)sanity!: Lullaby Sangaree and Insufferable Creole Minx

Welcome back to the March Madness portion of Ti(n)sanity!, the series exploring all the unique ways you can use herbal tea in cocktails, featuring Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer tea (tisane, natch) as the Maguffin/common denominator. 

As you might expect when it comes to teas or tisanes in cocktails, they're primarily utilized in various forms of infusions. Our previous three entries explore straight water infusions (that is, how you'd normally brew tea or tisane). The first baby step beyond that is to brew the tisane as normal, but then add a sweetener: a tisane syrup.

Syrups in cocktails tend to be restrained in usage: a quarter to half an ounce is generally considered plenty of sweetening for one drink, unless the syrup is to be the star of the cocktail (overmuch sweetness has a tendency to mask flavors too - and what's the point of putting something in a drink if you're not going to get a sense that it's in there?). Syrups also have the inherent problem of diminishing the alcohol level of the cocktail, so too much will limit the kick of the drink.

Let's start by making the syrup, and then getting to its applications:

Tension Tamer syrup
1 cup (8 oz) strong-brewed Tension Tamer tea (2 teabags)
1/4 cup mild honey

Pour the boiling water over the teabags and let steep until cool. Remove and squeeze out the tea bags, then combine the tea and honey in a sauce pot on the stove, stirring and heating gently until reduced to 1/2 - 3/4 cup. Let cool, bottle, then store in the refrigerator until ready to use.


To shake things up a bit for this series, I'm going to offer two different recipes to highlight different syrup usages. Now, before I really got started mixing in earnest, the first thing I did was follow a hunch by pairing the syrup with some Rainwater Madeira I had on hand. Match. Made. In. Heaven. It's like the Madeira rejoiced at evolving into a slight vermouth.

But one of the flaws of Tension Tamer tea as an ingredient is its delicacy: cocktails need to be kept simple and on the light side in order to best highlight it. And the first cocktail I worked on here didn't do such a good job. So, I retreated back to that basic Madeira/syrup combination and pushed it just a little further into a Sangaree.

No! Not the Bronze Age Batman pirate rogue. A Sangaree, which isn't too far etymologically or ingredient-wise from Sangria, tends to use fortified wine (or ale, or porter, or regular wine) plus a small amount of fine sugar, crushed ice, and a couple of citrus wheels or zest all shaken together then poured into a serving glass. Some classic, but more modern recipes will use a liquor as the base, though generally a fortified wine will be included in the mix too.

For this Sangaree, I figured soft and simple was best, not to mention it would make a fitting toast to my newborn nephew, barely one day old today.

Lullaby Sangaree

3 oz rainwater madeira

1/2 oz Tension Tamer syrup

1 or 2 red grapefruit wheel halves

strawberry fan

Shake the first three ingredients with crushed ice and pour mix and ice into a chilled tumbler. Taking Mr. Ellestad's suggestion to include fresh berries, garnish with a strawberry fan.

Nutmeg is the traditional garnish for a Sangaree, but the Tension Tamer serves as the spice in this case -- nutmeg would only overpower anyhow. Madeira is the first set of flavors you taste, with the herbs sneaking in in bouts of sweetness, counterpointed by glancing sour and bitter grapefruit notes and tart strawberry on the nose.


For the first cocktail I developed, with the Tension Tamer syrup meshing so well with Madeira I wondered how a take on the Creole Lady would work. The Creole Lady was a recipe I saw while researching Madeira back in January, which happened to use a syrup, albeit grenadine. For some reason when researching, though, I swore I saw two different versions of the Creole Lady, one with bourbon and one with gin; it probably didn't help that I conflated the Creole Contentment --and the notion of unfixed base spirits-- into the same family, either. Turns out, both versions of the Creole Lady exist on the Internet but the gin variant appears to be an aberration of mysterious provenance while the bourbon (or whiskey, generally) variant has roots back to 1937 (at least).

The clarification on that point didn't happen until well after the recipe development, however, and when mixing, neither the gin nor the bourbon were just right. I also happened to have the Suffering Bastard, no doubt prompted by Dagreb's recent inversion, the Flourishing Heir, floating around in my head -- the bourbon and gin an intriguing combination I had never tried before, until now of course. 

Insufferable Creole Minx

1 oz bourbon (Elijah Craig 12)

1 oz gin (Citadelle)

1 oz rainwater madeira

1/2 oz Tension Tamer syrup

1 dash cherry bitters 

grapefruit zest

Stir all on ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnishing with a grapefruit twist.

You'd think gin might not be a good match for other herbal notes (though that never stopped the Martini), but here the gin and syrup work on different levels, all while sharing a couple of botanicals so as not to be completely disjointed. The bracing dry gin is out at the fore, leaving the sweet herbal syrup to linger as an undertone revealed on the finish. Further, the bourbon, Madeira and syrup do blur into one another with shared cinnamon, wood, nut and sweet notes, but the dry gin helps to break that up, all the better to appreciate the mix.

The cherry bitters are a nod to the Creole Lady's dual-cherry garnish and single dash of bitters - one dash should be all that's necessary, before you start drowning out the other flavors. The grapefruit zest bridges many of the disparate ingredients, while punching them up to a new level, plus adds a little extra bitterness in case you need it (somewhat reminiscent of a Brown Derby).

In all: malty, rich, bitter, with a surprise around every turn.

Stay tuned dear readers! Tomorrow our Maguffin makes the big leap to alcohol infusions!

[Update: Hi, dear readers! I couldn't help but notice how popular this post has been. If you'd care to leave a comment, I'd be curious to know which of the recipes you like or what drew you to follow the link. Best, MoD]

Previous Ti(n)sanity recipes:

T. T. Punch (rhum agricole)
Me-tea-orite (single malt scotch)
Introduction and eThéreal Toddy (grappa)

Disclaimer: this is a non-sponsored post. Also, I'm not looking to do sponsored posts. I just really like this tea, is all, and have a policy of happily and independently buying all my ingredients.

Ti(n)sanity!: T. T. Punch

Disclaimer: this is a non-sponsored post. Also, I'm not looking to do sponsored posts. I just really like this tea, is all, and have a policy of happily and independently buying all my ingredients.

To coin a phrase: ACK! Funny how life, a fridge in terrible need of total defrostment, and the need for a crash course in punch can get in the way of cocktailing. My intent was to get this punch recipe out at the end February (ideally while still in the month of Aquarius, the libation-bearer). But, we are still in the watery Neptune-ruled month of Pisces and that has to count for something.

Anywho, welcome back to Ti(n)sanity!, a series exploring all the unique potential applications for herbal tea (that is to say, tisanes), with our friendly Maguffin common denominator, Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer tea. This is the third post, of at least ten, and the first post for our mad month of March!

Now, I say "mad" because, aside from the basketball and the airhorns I hear outside from Villanova students, for this next week we're going to go a little more crazy than usual by exploring four different though related applications, leading up to a special do-it-yourself homemade liqueur for St. Patty's Day that only takes a day or two to put together. After all that, we're going to reduce the Ti(n)sanity scheduling to about once a month for slightly more complex applications.

As with our previous two entries, today's recipe works with strong-brewed tisane -- all the better to mix and permit the flavor to come through. This time, instead of boiling hot tisane for a Toddy or tisane ice for an Old Fashioned, we have room temperature or chilled tisane for use in that classic mixed drink form known as Punch.

Put simply, the essence of punch is strong and weak, sharp (sour) and sweet, and of course: spice. Tea will often feature as a combination weak/spice ingredient in punch, though it tends to be black or green tea: something astringent, unctuous and flavorful to be used in place of plain water (and potentially something that can hold its own against hogo-filled rum).

So, to start for this punch, I was somewhat limited in my choices for a base spirit. One of my aims for the entire series is to not reuse ingredients wherever possible, to avoid redundancy and boredom on your part and to showcase the range the herbal tea can have. Given my plans for other recipes, I was angling for either cachaça or new-to-me rhum agricole. The cachaças in my cabinet weren't throwing off vibes for this one recipe, so I soon found myself with a new bottle of Neisson Rhum Agricole Blanc: light, delicate, astringent with soft savory funk. Everything I could have hoped for this recipe and beyond.

As to mixing? Sometimes the simplest concoctions are best. Here, I took rhum agricole's signature cocktail, Ti' Punch --which techinically isn't a punch-punch: wrong ratios, no weak, no spice-- and turned it into one.

T. T. Punch

1/2 oz lime juice

3/4 oz sweet lime syrup

1 1/2 oz rhum agricole blanc

2 oz Tension Tamer tea, brewed and cooled

lemongrass

fresh grated cinnamon

Give the four liquid ingredients a quick shake without ice to blend, then strain into your serving cup over a large cube or sphere of ice. Garnish with fresh grated cinnamon and a lemongrass straw.

If making a full-sized punch, multiply your ingredients as needed and serve in a punch bowl with an ice ring or block possibly filled with mint and slices of sweet lime, with lemon grass curls strewn and cinnamon grated over the whole punch.

If your taste runs drier than average, try reducing the syrup to 1/2 oz.


The Tension Tamer isn't as perceptible here as one might want, but when you consider how the punch would taste with water instead of tea, the herbal undercurrent it provides becomes that much more noticeable. In all, though, all the flavors harmonize especially well, making a light, sweet-ish, gently funky punch. It's not the perfection as is this Donn's Gin Punch I discovered while researching punch, but it's more than serviceable.**

The story on the sweet limes? (which are different from regular limes) I never had them before this recipe, but they seemed like a good flavor match for Tension Tamer. As it turns out, there's a lot of sweet and very little acidity to them, so their juice would function as a sweet and not a sour ingredient. However, their zest's scent was incredible and too good to pass up making oleo saccharum (a process where citrus zest oils are extracted by being immersed in sugar, the oily sugar then used to sweeten and flavor the punch).

On the cinnamon and lemongrass, nutmeg tends to be the most common spice grated over punch, but in this case I opted to play up ingredients in the Tension Tamer. You may find this tactic cropping up again and again the further we get into Ti(n)sanity!


Sweet Lime Syrup
2 sweet limes - pithless zests only
1/4 cup demerara sugar
1/4 cup white sugar

Combine zests with the sugars in a sealed plastic bag (as much air squeezed out as possible). Let it oleo saccharuminate anywhere from an hour on the counter to overnight for a day or two in the fridge (probably not good to let it go beyond two days, tops). Once you're satisfied with the amount of oil extracted from the zests, pour 1/2 cup warm water into the bag, seal up, and agitate until all the sugar is dissolved. Strain off the zests and store in a sealed container in the fridge until ready to use. Makes about 3/4 cup.

Given sweet limes tend to be pretty difficult to find, especially as we're moving out of citrus season, feel free to just do a simple syrup using the above-listed sugars and the 1/2 cup of water. Regular lime zest is too bitter to substitute here.


**On the MxMo with which Donn's Gin Punch is associated: you might notice that Hobson's Choice, the host blog, is viewable by invite-only. If interested in exploring punch further, though, here's a list of all the entries to MxMo XLVII that I was able to google up, from the finest cocktail blogging minds out there, natch: Spirited Remix, Fogged in Lounge, Wordsmithing Pantagruel, Cocktail Chronicles, A Mountain of Crushed Ice, Inspired Libations, Science of Drink, Cocktail Virgin Slut, Rum Dood, and Drink of the Week.


Previous Ti(n)sanity recipes:

Me-tea-orite (single malt scotch)
Introduction and eThéreal Toddy (grappa)

The Selkie

Happy Birthday Week, Feu de Vie!

As you might've noticed, this past Monday -- the one-year anniversary of Feu de Vie to be precise -- I did some redecorating around here. I hope this design is a bit more pleasing to the eyes than the old model (please let me know what you think in the comments!).

But anyway, I think the start of a new year of posts calls for something challenging, on a number of levels.

Challenge the First:

"This blue smokey foamy cocktail is really quite delicious." - No-one, ever.
— Adam Elmegirab (@AdamsBitters) September 21, 2012

I'd like to test that theory, Dr. Adam.

To lay out the parameters, last-to-first:

• Foamy - this would imply egg white, or possibly fresh pineapple juice - though pineapple would act against the blue coloration of the drink. Egg white it is.
• Smokey - There are actually a number of ways to introduce a smoke flavor into a cocktail. Smoking a glass, using an Islay scotch rinse or utilizing mezcal or smokey bitters were ideas that didn't quite mesh with the idea of using egg white. This pushed me towards using a light to moderately-smokey scotch as a base spirit.
• Blue - Actually, very very recently there's been an upsurge in interest for blue cocktails. But the structure of this one had been decided well in advance. To work against the challenge, however, I wanted something that wouldn't use blue curacao (or colored schnapps or vodka). Magellan gin might be a possibility. Also black sambuca in minute amounts. But somehow neither seemed to fit with the egg white and scotch. Hmmm...
  

Blue. Smoky. Foamy.

So wait, what'd I do to make this cocktail blue?

I infused scotch with Clitoria ternatea.

...

...

I'll let you have a moment there to clean up your keyboard and monitor.

And possibly for someone to give you the Heimlich maneuver.


Clitoria ternatea, also known as butterfly pea flowers or dok anchan in Thailand, is derived from the dried blue morning glory-like flowers native to and culinarily-used in Southeast Asia, and is an example of spectacularly spot-on scientific nomenclature. Given its deep blue coloration, the flowers are rich in anthocyanins and the tisane brewed from fresh or dried blossoms confers health benefits related to the eyes and nervous system (and some would say reproductive system as well). It is also used to color various dishes, notably including blue rice. Even better for cocktails? It's very light in flavor, if it has any at all.

How on earth did I come across this? Google "blue tea". If ever you run into a wall with a cocktail, oftentimes something herbal will do. I should note, there are number of online sites where you can buy the tea direct from Thailand. I bought through Franz Market on Amazon, with good service, price, and delivery a week earlier than estimated (20 days, but still better than estimated).

Ok, so, the source of blue found, the easiest thing to do would be to infuse it, and into the base spirit instead of a supporting spirit for the best color "coverage." That's fine, but therein lies the second challenge.

Challenge the Second (and Third and Fourth): you notice down towards the end of the linked page - how a few drops of lime juice turn the tea from a gorgeous imperial blue to fuschia? Dilemma. Egg whites only foam with the introduction of acid to break their protein bonds. How to get both blue AND foamy using butterfly pea tea?

Upon the above realization, I dropped citrus juice and Lactart from consideration as ingredients. However, fresh off of MxMo LXIX: Fortified Wines, I had a heightened appreciation for the acidity in fortified and/or aromatized wines. Could a slightly higher pH than lemon or lime get the job done? (and would it taste good? I don't think I've ever seen a vermouth-egg white cocktail before. Have you? [UPDATE (03-07-2013): Yes I have! Just this week even (though, granted, not back in January). Chalk it up to cocktailsphere hivemind synchronicity perhaps? Apologies for my ditziness, Dagreb!]) And I say slightly higher because as this chart will evidence most vermouths and the like tend to have a pH between 3.0 and 3.9, rather than the 2.3-2.5 of lemons and limes.

Getting some decent lighting

As it turns out, vermouth works quite nicely to get a bit of foam going - and it adds a nice bit of body too. Not as intense as a lower pH would bring out, but delightfully frothy for our purposes here. (and bianco vermouth is a delicious match for scotch - why haven't I seen recipes with this combo before?)

There's another small issue inherent here: scotch itself can be rather acidic (as the above-linked chart also shows). I imagine some of it has to do with the type of cask it's aged in. I tested infusing in both Macallan 12 (sherry cask) and Glenlivet 12 (bourbon cask). As the image at the right shows, there could be a red undertone to the infusion, which was more pronounced with the Macallan (acidic sherry remnants in the oak, perhaps?). Still, the scotch poured out indigo.

But what about adding vermouth? Wouldn't that turn it fuschia? Probably, but there's one final factor to consider: egg white, as with dairy in general, is alkaline.

Ping!

And thus, as the cocktail image above evidences, the pH balanced. We have a blue drink!



To wit:

The Selkie

2 oz butterfly pea tea-infused The Macallan 12 Year*

1/2 oz bianco vermouth

1/2 oz egg white

7 drops Teapot bitters

fleur de sel

* or other sherry cask-aged smoky single malt whisky. Or possibly Highland Park or Scapa, native to Orkney as Selkies are.

To infuse the Scotch, add roughly 8-9 individual flowers per 2 oz of spirit to be infused. Let sit for a few hours or forget about it a few days - any taste change is indiscernable. Strain out flowers before use.

For the cocktail, shake first three ingredients without ice, then with ice. Strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with the bitters and lightest sprinkle of fleur de sel.

It tastes of violets and scotch and mists on the sea.

The thought of something blue and foamy gave rise to thoughts of the sea. Add in a Scottish influence, both in the use of whisky and the source of the first challenge, and one arrives at Selkies. To gild, the myths of Selkies in one way or another use a trope involving seven teardrops being cried into the sea. Teardrop er, Teapot bitters seemed natural at this point.