Mixology Monday, March 2014: Preserves, part 2

[Insert picture here when taken - this particular composition needs natural, morning light, and a very specific prop. It'll be up Wednesday morning. moving real slow this week -- The Management]

Welcome back to Mixology Monday here at Feu de Vie! We've got a second, much more classically-hewing recipe for this month's theme: Preserves. (Head on over to Craig Umpleby's A World of Drinks, where there will soon be a round-up post of all the delightful concoctions.)

One of the best things about being a cocktailian and someone who late-bloomed from being a picky eater is discovering the wide range of flavors and foods in the world at an age where it can best be appreciated. Even better, so many new fruit flavors and more can be explored within the relatively "safe" medium of a preserve. Heck, as soon as I moved out from home it was a bottle of currant jelly and a bottle of apricot preserves, and it was all downhill from there (with maybe a little tequila thrown in for good measure).

Following up on that initial impulse, visits to HomeGoods and other stores with obscure offerings are a regular occurrence now. And, despite the gigantic brand name (literally, just look at the lettering on any of the blue-and-yellow buildings), IKEA has been home to some can't-find-anywhere-else ingredients: gooseberry preserves, pear soda, the best price anywhere on lingonberries, and then, the very-new-to-me pièce de resistance: cloudberry jam.

Ethereal, floral, much like honey but fruitier and more floral again.

JAM SOUR. Full stop.

But before getting to the recipe to showcase these show-stoppers, first a little background on these rare delicacies. A drupe like raspberries and blackberries but bright golden orange with rosy undertones, cloudberries tend to grow at mostly northern latitudes comprising Scandinavia and the British Isles, Russia, Canada and Alaska, and go by other names like salmonberry and bakeapple. In Sweden, they are Hjortron (ready-made for a Jeff Bridges-meets-Dr. Seuss mash-up - and I'm not talking White Russians). In Finland, they are Lakka.

So to show off these little gems, a nice dry white spirit was in order. Having used tequila and rum of late, and gin being a bit of a flavor show-off itself, grape-spirited pisco with brandy's affinity for fruit flavors seemed the right way to go. Further, the honeyed aspect of the jam put in mind a number of other honey-sweetened sours like the Brown Derby, the Airmail, the Bee's Knees, etc.. The Brown Derby's grapefruit led me to the Seventh Heaven and the El Floridita, and then finally searching Kindred Cocktails for "pisco" and "grapefruit juice." A number of Pisco Sour riffs popped up, most hewing rather closely to the style of the Miraflores, the direct model I used here.

Ah, so the cloud-berries of Scandinavia and the towering heights of the Andes. Sounds like a recipe for climbing a beanstalk to the whimsical heights of the Mushroom Kingdom.

Lakkatu

2 oz pisco

3/4 oz ruby red grapefruit juice

1/4 oz lime juice

(fat) 1/2 oz cloudberry jam

1 egg white

1 dash Teapot bitters

2 dashes Boker's bitters

garnishes: dropper of dark-colored (pimento) bitters for egg white art, 

unshelled lychee nuts or rambutan

Dry shake, wet shake, double-strain into a chilled coupe.

Garnish like you're 7 years old on summer vacation in the mid-'80s.

So it's not lychee or rambutan season, apparently, let alone would fresh cloudberries be available. *sigh* [the final pic will be worth it -- that is to say, substitute a fresh lychee or rambutan for the dried jujube hanging off the glass, and fresh cloudberries instead of raspberries for the Spinies]

A simple, happy sour, with or without garnish. The cloudberry features strongly, supported by the grapefruit juice (I also tried both white and pink grapefruit here - the bitterness of both detracted and stood out like a sore thumb), the hint of lime keeping the recipe bright and shapely. To mimic Miraflores' dual bitters, I selected a pair from Dr. Adam Elmegirab's collection (their rum base harmonizes well here): the strong/spicy Boker's to weight and whimsical Teapot to match the Nintendo attitude and further decorate the cloudberry. The pimento bitters for decoration also mimics the Peychaud's bitters' anise, while providing handy colorant for a certain image.


Cheers to Craig for a wonderful hosting job and a fun theme, and to Fred, as always for the cat wrangling - may you never be turned into a wolf and have to hunt down 20 cats in an abandoned one-street western town, just for a measly piece of heart.

Mixology Monday, June 2013: Cherry, part 1

Rise and shine, early birds! It's Mixology Monday!

Andrea of Gin Hound is our host for the month, with the theme Cherry.

Singapore Gin Sling, Blood and Sand and the Aviation wouldn't be the same without them. They are brilliant in pies, go great with pork dishes and may even be a super food able to combat insomnia.

But cherries in cocktails are also horribly abused, few things taste worse than artificial cherry aroma and the description of how most maraschino cherries are made can make you sick to your stomach.

So it's my pleasure as the host of Mixology Monday number 74 to challenge you to honor the humble cherry.

However you choose to do that, is entirely up to you. You could use Maraschino Liqueur, Cherry Heering, Kirchwasser, Belgian Kriek Beer, cherry wine or any spectacular infusions invented by you in a cocktail. Or make your own maraschino cherries for a spectacular garnish.

When active, these 2 links will send you to the summary posts of this month's festivities.


I'm going to divide this post in twain, if only because I'm only allowed 200 characters of labels per post.

My first offering came about after noting the interesting flavor combination of Solerno and marzipan (or orgeat, as one would have to translate to cocktails). Some noodling and taste-association led to a classic-styled wine-based cocktail featuring kirschwasser, the cherry-and-pomace eau-de-vie. I think the name sums it up quite nice:

Sweetness and Light

1 1/2 oz Lillet Blanc

3/4 oz kirschwasser

1 bsp* Solerno blood orange liqueur

1 bsp orgeat

3 dashes Bokers bitters

lemon twist

*I use 3/4 tsp as my barspoon measurement, precision being important here for how easily this could be oversweet vs. the bitters taking over.

Shake and strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.


Notes:

For as intriguing a combo as Solerno and orgeat are, they're also highly sweet cocktail elements, limiting their usage in a balanced drink: proper spirit bases would be needed. Kirschwasser seemed a natural start, particularly with orgeat's almond. But given how intense kirsch could be, only so much could be used of it too. And I didn't want to make this too heavy a drink, so, eschewing a natural fit like gin, a wine base seemed a good final component. Dry vermouth's herbals were ok but didn't mesh the best, so I opened my first bottle of Lillet Blanc and hit paydirt. With each of the elements being sweet in body or sweet in taste, and the combined drink reading like something out of a classic cocktail book (kinda similar to this one, in fact), a few dashes of Bokers and a lemon twist turned in elegant finishing stylings.

The kirsch dominates on the nose and palate. Lemon joins on the nose in a lemonade-like way, while Solerno and orgeat pull the kirsch in two different directions. Solerno volcanically undergirds the cherry in the kirsch, while orgeat grabs hold of the pomace and seduces it away in waves of satin. Undersung base Lillet serves as a canvas, with gentian notes pairing with Bokers to keep everything in line.

And please look to the following post for an additional MxMo recipe, this time with Jack Daniels.

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:


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!