Aquamarine

Aquamarine

1 1/2 oz Irish whiskey

3/4 oz bianco vermouth

1/2 oz rhum agricole blanc

1/2 oz green chartreuse

1/4 oz tequila blanco

1 bsp pear eau-de-vie

1 bsp blue curacao

2 dashes rhubarb bitters

2 dashes Bittercube Jamaican #2 bitters

Stir. Strain. No garnish.

For all the March birthdays out there, especially the Pisces. Still, I'm sorry: somehow, it tastes like a more-richly-vegetal-but-clear Shamrock Shake. Yes, I'm telling you you'll taste mint and cream, despite (because of?) the ingredients. And it's both delicious and complex!

For a long while I'd had a draft post with only the title, Aquamarine. Similarly, I've wanted to devise an Irish whiskey/cachaça recipe because the high school percussionist in me adores how Brazilian rosewood marimbas often accent Irish folk music - though that's a recipe better realized at another time. Given how I generally prefer a good rhum agricole blanc to something like Leblon, I figured I give that combo a whirl while pulling in some of my favorite early spring cocktail ingredients (fast become a trend for me): bianco vermouth, pear eau-de-vie and rhubarb bitters (in addition to Irish whiskey and rhum agricole being stars of some Ti(n)sanity posts from this time last year). Plus, some elements simply demanded inclusion, if only because of the name and that St. Paddy's Day draws nigh.

Now, I'm sure you're looking at all the ingredients above and shaking your head, because it is an obnoxious list (which would probably run you close to $200 plus a week's time for potential mail-order if you wanted to collect-bottles-from-scratch). But, I have tasted the recipe if you broke it down to base parts of whiskey, vermouth, rhum, chartreuse and rhubarb bitters - and it's only 66% there. The other small ingredients truly give a proper rounding and depth - the tequila, eau-de-vie and curacao (yes, the curacao has a flavor, it ain't vodka) add extra vegetal and fruity notes with their sweetness taming the heat from both the chartreuse and rhum, while the bitters balance out the added sweetness. And...well, there's more, but it's better developed at the next Ombudsman session.

Suffice it to say, to hell with current attitudes: elegance rocks and generally produces greatness (and the Manhattan is a supreme muse-rich cocktail, despite it being untrendy in some quarters), but a muse has gotta do what a muse has gotta do, whether it's neophyte (or even cognoscenti)-friendly or not.

For those brazen hearts who wish to take up the challenge of this drink, some notes on ingredients:

• Tullamore Dew 12 years - a dry Irish whiskey like this sets the cocktail up for success.
• Martini & Rossi - aggressive vegetality is a plus.
• Neisson - the rough, funky 100pf doesn't get lost.
• Azul - a blanco with vegetal notes is again what's best.
• Schladerer - it's an eau-de-vie we're after, not a brandy or a liqueur. Dry, but so flavor-intense it becomes sweet. Anyone else using an eau-de-vie like this for a rounding accent? I'd be happy to give a shout-out.
• Eyeball the curacao - you know what an aquamarine gem look like, so use that as your final color target.

Sláinte!

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]

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.

Difference between ice shell and frozen filler.

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.

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.

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.

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.





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.

La Primavera Nella Campagna

It's the little things that inspire. Case in point. Then there's also.. [alack, not very spirit-forward] And then there's also.. (hm!) Ok, why not?

I love Galliano. First going out to bars for after-work happy hours, I'd see that tall bottle reaching above all the other bottles on the backbar, announcing its presence, and think "I gotta see what that's like." And granted, I'm something of an intentional oddball: when everyone else is doing beer, wine or vodka, I'm the one ordering the Harvey Wallbanger (and this in the '00s when Cosmos were all the rage - alas, I wasn't born in time for the '70s). It's something of a conversation piece - it gets people pulling out their phones to google the recipe, and I like to think it pushes their boundaries.

I also like to think I had an insta-bond with Galliano, something I never came close to having with a flavored vodka or even my dear darling tequila. When I bought my first bottle this past January, at the start of my Great Cabinet Buildup (ABC should really make a show out of that..) I felt like I had finally arrived and simple dabbling was now behind me.

So Galliano became my starting point for this "ultimate spring-themed drink." Now, unfortunately, while it is a beautiful spirit, there aren't a lot of cocktails that use it. My impression: it has this prim/proper way of reeling in the flavor notes of other, lesser, ingredients under its apron, mainly due to its sweetness. However, it's this very prim/proper mannerliness which served as inspiration.

Of all things, for me, it evokes images of the French countryside, bright spring greens, roses, subtle scents of wildflowers and herbs. Tidy acres just sown with crops, small groves of trees, orderly pastoral dirt roads with slender wood fencing. A lot of that could well apply to countryside in general, but my overall first impression (because evidently we swerve back around to Italy) suggested French instead of Italian because temperate France seems more overtlymannerly with colors popping avec précision (et c'est tout!), whereas sun-drenched Italy seems a touch more languorous. And the colors get me every time: rose, soft yellow, spring green.

There was a lot of development on this drink. The brief version of it goes:

Version 1: Remy Martin V, Galliano, St. Germain, Meyer lemon (muddled, through all versions) and plum bitters. The one nagging problem with this recipe started at the very beginning: too sweet.

Version 2: Swap in Pisco as the base spirit, because that seemed like something fresh and spring-like (from what I had read). I realized I wanted a more dry aromatic thrust, so I chucked St. Germain and, head-still-firmly-in-France, added tarragon - based on research I figured it would further enhance Galliano's anise note. Also, rhubarb (rhubarb simple syrup in this version) for plum because at this point I had read plenty about how it's such a spring flavor (and it completed my aforementioned color trifecta).

I had never used Pisco, tarragon or rhubarb before, ever. The tarragon was lovely, rhubarb had a nice flavor but syrup made things too sweet, and ye gods, Pisco! The South Americans do this wild petrol-note to their spirits that makes me imagine cold-steel Transformers rising from the Andes with slanted top hats and voices like crushing garbage cans, and I love it! But in a more delicate cocktail like this...your mouth goes numb.

Version 3 is largely what you see below. Fixing the Pisco problem...I'm not a big fan of pears as fruit or flavor, so when I saw this tweetin my feed awhile back, it stuck in my mental mixology toolbox.

Version 4: still dealing with the sweetness problem, I came across this blog post from Chuck Taggart - exactly what I needed. Testing at my office suggested the add of San Pellegrino balanced the drink just right (over straight and diet tonic water versions).

In short, kudos to all the gents who helped in the development. I'm much obliged. Without further adieu, the final version:


La Primavera nella Campagna
1 oz pear eau-de-vie
1 oz vodka
1/2 oz Galliano l'autentico liqueur
1/2 Meyer lemon, quartered
1 inch of rhubarb, cut into muddling pieces
1 moderately frilly sprig tarragon, picked into smaller sprigs
3 dashes rhubarb bitters
San Pellegrino or club soda

1 Meyer lemon twist for garnish (hold off cutting until indicated)

Muddle the rhubarb, lemon, and bitters in a shaker until broken down. Given the small amount of rhubarb, you may want to muddle it alone first before adding the lemon. Sprinkle a Tinkerbell-sized amount of sugar on the lemon to help abrade.

Spank the tarragon like the naughty-but-shy vixen it is. Add. Lightly muddle/stir in.

Add a few lumps of ice, vodka, eau-de-vie, and Galliano. Shake 15-20 seconds.

At this point, put the shaker down and cut the lemon twist garnish (and twirl 'round a chopstick or similar for a tight spiral). It's probably more efficient to do this as prep beforehand, but it wouldn't hurt for the drink to sit a moment to further draw out the flavors from the fresh ingredients and encourage melding.

Once the garnish is prepped, half-fill a Collins glass with ice (I'm using large 1"+ cubes here). Shake the drink an additional 5-10 seconds to wake it up, then pour all into the glass. Finish adding ice to the glass, then top with San Pellegrino. Use a straw to stir and help anchor the lemon twist in the drink.

Final notes:

• The flavor is light but intense for what it is, and while you can identify where different pieces originate, they all meld into something emergent.
• As you might notice, the predominance of Italian ingredients (Galliano, San Pellegrino) pushed the name to Italian. Italians also aren't strangers to either rhubarb (Nardini makes Rabarbaro, a rhubarb amaro, and there are a handful of restaurants named "Rabarbaro" in Tuscany) or tarragon (a notable herb in Tuscan cooking).
  
  Theoretically, pear eau-de-vie may not be a stranger to Northern Italy, with its culture and climate closer to middle-Europe, but I can't find find an example after googling (Poire Williams is more native to Switzerland and France, and I used Schladerer's Williams Birne in testing). Meyer lemons, while native to California, do pop up in plenty of Italian-style recipes, per Google.
• After the fact, I half-wonder what dry vermouth (or maybe Lillet) would do in place of the vodka. But, for another time - I'm done tested out.
• Do be cautious with this one. You don't taste the alcohol, but it does sneak up on you pretty quick.