Cinderella's Coach

I can see the pumpkin up ahead, hurtling down the road like a rickety jalopy driven by Mr. Toad, lantern light screaming into the forest darkness.

"Faster!" I declaim. "We gotta catch it this year! We've been trying to get this recipe out the door since 2012!" "And don't say it! We don't have room for an Emilio Rivera cameo in this vignette!"

MoD, ever the bombshell waiting to go in her diaphon and plum-paired mask, conductor's jacket, and boots, revs the throttle and looks down at my sidecar. "You better drink that down to a stable level then."

"Since when have I ever been stable?"

"Good point. I still don't know why we have to follow this coach though."

"Because," I cry, gripping the short windshield. "THE CHAISE IS ON!"

The four white horses are no match for four cylinders, and steady-up to a stop as my partner-in-crime and I keep pace aside.

As the bike's motor clips to a halt, whose face should appear at the gilded glass window but that humble lass, pearl hairnet spritzed with gold pins, growing more ashen by the moment. "No! Not now!"

My partner leans back to not obstruct and tilts me an "Ok, let's see this" eye of bemusement. Seizing the opening, I tip my coupé at a jaunty angle and lift my wind-goggles. (with the bomber jacket and long whiskers I'm sure I could be mistaken for Clark Gable) "Pardon me, mademoiselle. Do you have any Brain Poupon?"

"Boomer!"

My partner's not liking how I start, but I lean in, letting the candlelight catch my eyes so they light up like a hungover jack'o'lantern. "BRaInSsss......"

A squeak comes from inside the coach, and I'm not sure if it's the maiden. "Sacre bleu! I ran him through once! I vill do eet again!"

"Come out from behind her skirts, Remy, and say it to my face, why don't ya?"

From around the flaxen-haired beauty pokes the snout of my old enemy: same empty black stare, same dumbo ears, same overbite that could cut cigars, just a lot more human this time. "You're supposed to be dead!"

"I am dead, ya mook. Doesn't mean I still can't get work. I see you've been playing coachman again, eh?" I grab my bamboo cocktail skewer. "Come on out, I want a rematch!"

Remy just chuckles. "And what do you intend to do avec ça? Pick my teeth? You are just a little undead dwarf hamster. Go away and stop bothering us."

"That's loaded undead dwarf hamster to you, bucko! You might be towering now, but in a few minutes it'll be an equal mano-a-mano. And I know drunken boxing! Hoowah!"

"Just like last time, a drunken lout who knows nozzing of ze finer methods in life. Excuse-moi madam-- Oh no, leave ze coach mademoiselle, hurry!"

He's right, everything's beginning to shrink back to its old self. Why the old dame kept doing this year after year is beyond me. Maybe by now it was her one night out from the great beyond. How many of us coachmen had attended her... Ooh, peanut, for me? *stuff* Anyway..

The fading lady throws herself to the ground, but Remy's not so lucky. A dim squeaking and clawing echoes from the beach-ball-sized gourd. "Don't worry. The bugger'll claw himself out pretty quickly."

MoD gapes askance. "Should I have sought more references before hiring you?"

"Probably so. I mean, that's why you made me head of HR, right?"

"The blog doesn't have HR! You're an admin!"

"Adding additional responsibilities outside the role description! Workplace abuse! I'm reporting you to HR! Hello, me? MoD's at it again. What can we do about this?"

"I'd like to contest these charges."

"DENIED. Consider yourself suspended, missy!"

With that, MoD rises from the bike, aghast. "Hey, Cinderella-bella." The ol' lass looks towards me.

"C'mon, ma cherie. Hop on. I know a nice place where we can get drinks.."

To be continued...

Cinderella's Coach

1 1/2 oz cognac

3/4 oz lemon juice

1/2 oz Gran Gala

1/4 oz orgeat

1 (rounded) barspoon pumpkin butter

mist Galliano

Shake the first 5 ingredients on ice and double-strain into a chilled cocktail coupe misted before and after with Galliano.

Notes:

I had originally started with a base of pumpkin-infused cognac, but, well..try as I might, it just didn't turn out. It doesn't last long if made with puree, and pie pumpkins can be hit-or-miss for flavor.

The difference in switching over to pumpkin butter was stark: pumpkin butter is rich, deep and fruity -- an excellent match for brandy. I've tested using off-shelf Kozlowski Farms (delicious, and a beautiful almost-red color - imagine the caramelization here) which is a great guarantor of consistency, and also homemade pumpkin butter (see below for the recipe, which comes close to the off-shelf). If you've got good pumpkins, more power to you. With the lighter flavors in the cocktail, making from-scratch will also let you fine-tune the flavor profile away from allspice and clove to match the anise and vanilla.

But while the pumpkin butter may be bouncy with the flavor, this is where the orgeat and Galliano really come in, pulling the drink in lighter and more elegant directions, fit for a Gran Gala (yes, I pun, it's a way of life). Though a mist generally functions better on top of egg white foam, Galliano's anise comes through well, diverting the pumpkin aroma from the nose so that pumpkin becomes a prominent though not dominant flavor.

Homemade pumpkin butter (just enough for a small jelly jar)
Half a 15oz can of pumpkin puree
1/4c apple cider
1/4c water
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all in a small pot (butter warmer size if you got it), cover mostly with some opening for evaporation, and let slow cook on the stove on the lowest heat possible for about 4 hours, stirring occasionally. Let cool and store in a jar in the fridge.

The above story was probably not included in Grimm's Fairy Tales for....reasons.

Related recipes:
The Pumpkin Pie: by Erick Castro; cognac-pumpkin butter sour but a straight Sour/egg white formulation (not a New Orleans Sour as one Mr. Regan would term it)
Charante Hessian: by Rhett Williams; Hot pumpkin-buttered cognac
Pumpkin Patch Julep: page has a bad certificate so I'll spare you: not a Julep (has lemon juice); whiskey Cinderella's Coach, without the Gran Gala or Galliano
Also, probably too many others since it's 6 years later, but the heck with that. Unless there's a really distinctive ingredient apart from all the rest (including pumpkin), it all kinda blends into one another.

That said, from all these years ago I must shout-out @dagreb, because this is the proper way to present the recipe.

Bonus recipe!

Cinderella's Coach Royale

1 1/2 oz cognac

3/4 oz lemon juice

1/2 oz Gran Gala

1/4 oz orgeat

1 (rounded) barspoon pumpkin butter

3 oz brut sparkling wine/Champagne

mist Galliano

Shake the first 5 ingredients on ice and double-strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Add wine. Mist with Galliano


The dryness of the bubbly makes this truly magical. Enjoy!

Not Quite Mixology Monday, April 2015: Drink of Shame

Hi everybody! The grand catch-up continues with my entry for last month's Mixology Monday event (gotta get it out before today's deadline for May's event, natch!).

For the month of April, our host was Whitney of Tipicular Fixins, a lass with a creative bent and sensibility for far-ranging ingredients after my own heart - go check her out (especially the Ikea lingonberry post)! She brings us a theme that's a recipe for searching out the deep dark parts of our cocktail psyche (bring Q-tips!): Drink of Shame!

So, you’re a certified, mixologist, craft-tender, bar chef or fine spirit enthusiast...now.

But, there was a time when you only ordered Long Island Iced Tea. Or, maybe you always made the Jello shots for your frat? Perhaps you’re the reason that your local had an Island Oasis machine for so long? Rye & Ginger? Vodka Seven? Someone was ordering these things. Your street cred would be ruined if you ordered or (gasp) served one now, but don’t you miss it, just a little?

Wouldn't you love to have one more Jolly Rancher? A chance to drink a mudslide without shame? We all made questionable drink choices in our past, the popular drinks from 1970 to the year 2000 were a cheap, sugary mess. Now is the time to resurrect your favourite drink from the time before modern Mixology. Give a new life to the drink you had to put down after you had your first real cocktail.

This is the remix.

Maybe you need to use fresh ingredients, or you can try elevating the spirits. Make everything from scratch or remove an offending ingredient. Do whatever you can to bring back and legitimize a drink you used to love.

Check out last month's round-up post here, along with the transformative magic at work from all the participants!



Y'know? For the life of me, I struggled to even remember a trashy recipe I had more than once (and that's not just because of the blackouts they induced). No, I remember the Cerebral Hemorrhage and the What She's Having and (ha!) the Angel's Tit (the crusty old bartender at the brewpub went wild, swinging his towel around when he heard that order - that was actually in a recipe book they had, natch). But my motto back then was (and largely still is except for certain classics) "never have the same drink twice." And with all the recipes I was finding on drinksmixer.com (don't click, avoid the potential viruses) and writing down on business cards I'd never otherwise use so I could have them at the ready for bartenders, I had too big a world to explore not to.

Our drink, nearly finished, with my old
Incredible Hulk/Chuck Norris recipe card.

But there is one recipe I do remember quite well and maybe even had a couple of times, both at home and out when I could find a place that kept Hpnotiq in-house (yes, we're going there, today): the Incredible Hulk. Real simple: drizzle an equal part bright sky-blue Hpnotiq over cognac on ice, letting the drink morph into a radioactive green mess - bing! There's your Hulk. (although if you add a shot of Johnnie Walker Red from there, the Incredible Hulk gets angry and morphs into Chuck Norris! I never had a Chuck Norris.)

The Hpnotiq was good while it lasted, both for the Hulk and other brand-proprietary recipes (and my own bright violet Fairy Princess made with pink Kinky liqueur and vanilla vodka - see what my early editorial discretion saved you folks?). But I finished that bottle off in my early days of getting serious and haven't looked back. Until now.

Looking at the recipe, the cognac was never the issue, just the crayon-colored industrial sugar and acid bomb that was Hpnotiq. How much actual cognac they used and what their definition of "premium" is, we'll never know. Nor do we know the exact flavor profile other than "vaguely tropical with a heaping helping of passionfruit esters" according to its brand competition with blue Alize (don't get me started on the Alizes..). Ahhh...but tropical, that's something we can work with, especially if it involves approximating a flavor with a stack of ingredients.

Bruce Banner's ditched his plane somewhere in Fiji and taken up with a hula maid down in a little tiki hut by the sea. I give you the Tiki-fied...

The Beachcomber Hulk
1 1/2 oz cognac
3/4 oz Batavia arrack
3/8 oz passionfruit syrup
1/4 oz blue curaçao
1/4 oz lemon juice
1 dash orgeat
1 dash vanilla bitters
1 slice starfruit
Mint and cherry for garnish

Fill a rocks glass with pellet or slightly-larger-than-pellet ice.

Muddle the starfruit in a shaker along with everything but the cognac and garnish. Shake with 1 small ice cube to agitate with minimal dilution.

Add the cognac to the rocks glass and then drizzle the blue mixture over top, letting it sink down to turn the drink green.

Give a little stir and garnish.

Secret of the Ooze

Passionfruit and blue flavors, anchored by the wondrous funk of arrack, a light lemon acid edge not generated by a dumptruck of sugar, based on able illuminous cognac. Avec un certain je ne sais quoi.

So I gave the blue mix a good initial eyeball for ingredients -- how was I supposed to know it'd smell exactly like Hpnotiq? Incroyable! Who says you have to stick to the model of a cognac/vodka base? Batavia arrack is infinitely more interesting, and at 100 proof a lot more Hulk-like. The starfruit extends the tropical flavors and brings some good mild freshness as well, though you might want to play around with other tropical fruits too.

I know the pics show one large rock instead of small ice - that was a misstep for the initial version, however much the flavor was spot-on. You want something that will bring a good dilution and balance without also over-diluting. Otherwise, go to town!

Thanks to Whitney for hosting a fun theme and to Fred for wrangling as ever.

Stay tuned, dear reader - this very eve is another Mixology Monday - and this time I've got the time, the recipe and the name already in place.

Mixology Monday, April 2014: Temperance

....ain't it gorgeous out? We should do something about that.

Welcome to April's edition of Mixology Monday. Scott of Shake, Strain & Sip is back again as our host (last spring he also hosted the From Crass to Craft theme). Spring Fever must be going around because he throws MxMo a real curveball: Temperance!

While many of us today think of overly sweet and unimaginative uses of fruit juice combinations when we hear of nonalcoholic beverages, there is a growing resurgence and movement of creating real craft “mocktails” in cocktail bars around the world.  With there being more exotic and unique ingredients available to us then ever before, there are an abundance of innovative spiritless libations being developed today.  Believe it or not, there’s actually a company that produces non-alcoholic versions of rum, vodka, brandy, and a number of other faux spirits and liqueurs.

As such, this month’s theme challenges you to create unique craft “mocktails” only limited by your imagination.  Perhaps you have an abundance of that homemade lavender syrup sitting in your fridge?  Maybe you’ve been thinking about creating a non-alcoholic version of your favorite cocktail.  Or maybe you just wanted an excuse to mix up an Angostura Phosphate you saw in Imbibe.  Oh yes, non-potable bitters are fair game here since they are legally classified as nonalcoholic in the states.  However, if the Teetotalist inside of you won’t allow it, you can go without them.  Cheers!

As always, follow this link to the round-up post when active.


The lady in white tights, did you see?
The lass with violets on her hat? A rose in her hand?
My, she was a dainty thing, strolling out from Mass on her way to tea.
I hear all the boy's'chewin mint, the only way they can get fresh with'er.
Har! Those white legs always come round in the end.

Combining the tastes of the Victorian Era, by way of France and the Mediterranean, with the best of the month of May and the Run for the Roses, here's the prettiest Arnold Palmer you ever did see.

Miss May

4 oz triple-brewed violet tea, chilled

2 tsp orgeat

1/2 oz Fentiman's rose lemonade

mint and a candied violet, and mini-rosebuds if you're lucky

Brew the tea ahead of time, with half a pod of black cardamom granules per quart; permitting to rest and chill in the fridge for a day will help bring out that subtle spice.

When ready to mix, combine tea, orgeat and rose lemonade in a mixing glass, no ice, and stir to dissolve the syrup.

Layer pebbled ice and spanked/chopped mint in a rocks glass to 3/4 full (a few mini-rosebuds would also be pretty here). Pour your mixture into the glass. Garnish with a mint sprig and a candied violet.

Hints of rose and mint perk up the predominant violet, with lemon putting a shine on the tea's astringency. Cardamom punctuates a sweet tea fade and creamy legs of almond come 'round on the finish.

A virgin tea-based spin on the rose julab and the May classic Mint Julep, with some complimentary flavors thrown in for good measure.

Cheers to Scott for hosting a lovely theme and hard-working Fred for keeping the best cocktail party on the 'net alive and thriving!

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.

Ti(n)sanity!: eThéreal Toddy

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.

If given a particular flavor, how many different ways could you use it in a cocktail? What about herbs and spices pre-collected in a particular flavor profile? Could you make your own "Benedictine" with herbal tea?

As I began speculating in my Vanilla Lace Bitters recipe, there are tons of ways to add flavors to a cocktail. The question is: if you like a particular flavor, what are the challenges to using it in certain ways? That's what I'm hoping to explore over the next half year or so, in a series of nine (maybe more) posts beginning with this one. My featured common denominator, or Maguffin if you will: Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer herbal tea (or that is to say, tisane).

One of the things I'm struggling with right now in my cocktailing is how to combat flatness from single-note ingredients, all the better to keep recipes simple and elegant but still intriguing for the palate. You have your liquors, which by nature tend to have a certain complexity, a certain weight and depth of flavor, due to aging and/or their distillate base. You have fortified/aromatized wines or herbal/amaro liqueurs, all of which are intentionally quite complex. Some bitters also are good for complexity, but only in an accenting capacity. What can be done to broaden the range of complex flavors available for use?

So I'm sitting, or pacing in thought, around my kitchen, noodling and angsting over these questions, wondering if even vermouths could be broadened with new flavors, when my eyes alight on my stack of tea boxes: there's green tea and black, peppermint and chamomile. Even a couple different varieties of chai (but those tend to be particular in their flavor uses..). And then I spy my box of Tension Tamer tea.

It's helped me stop clenching my teeth at night after "those kinds of days" and it has this delicate vanilla-like flavor with lemon undertones: kind of remarkable given its lack of vanilla. If you taste a little deeper you can pick up the cinnamon, peppermint and licorice notes, but faintly. I also find the combination of peppermint, cinnamon, ginger, and lemon remarkable: you generally don't see peppermint and cinnamon, or cinnamon and lemon pairings in culinary usage, for instance.

And then the Wonder Spark happens.



For the month of February we're going to start gently and not add anything to the tea or the tea to anything: we're going to take it as it is, but play around with temperatures.

First up, tea au naturel, in its intended form: hot.  A Hot Tea Toddy to be precise.

eThéreal Toddy

2 oz grappa

4 oz hot Tension Tamer tea

1 tsp orgeat

nutmeg

In a mug or Irish coffee glass, pour 1/2 cup boiling water over a tea bag. Wait a few minutes until desired strength is reached: since it's a more delicate tea, an intensity approaching double-brew strength would be desirable.

Once the tea is deemed ready, remove/wring out/discard the tea bag. Add the orgeat and stir to dissolve, then add the grappa and stir lightly. Grate a little fresh nutmeg on top and enjoy!


I used Alexander Grappa di Cabernet and I would highly recommend tracking down a bottle for this recipe. I'm no grappa expert, but I do know grappa can run the gamut from delicate and refined to pure firewater. The grape-berry rose-floral notes of this particular grappa balance perfectly with the vanilla-honey-spice of the tea, with the orgeat (homemade, with rose and orange blossom waters) supporting the former and the nutmeg the latter. If not this particular bottle, any silky and refined grappa with floral notes would work well here.

Most proper toddy recipes use the above formula of 2 oz spirit, 3-5 oz hot water or tea, and 1 tsp sweetener (per Rhett from And One More For The Road, pulling from Jerry Thomas in his 1862 tome, "How to Mix Drinks or the Bon Vivant's Companion", and also per Gary Regan's The Joy of Mixology). Your mileage and taste may vary, but I have to say, as concerned as I was that the grappa would pack a wallop, it balances perfectly using the recipe above. There's a little heat from the grappa remaining, but it comes off anise-like, another welcome flavor in the cup.

As for the orgeat, its exotic flavor folds right in and probably stands out less than would simple syrup or honey. It's a much different spin than a brown spirit/honey/lemon toddy combination, much more, well, ethereal. This would be good for a chilly day in late February or March when the rain or even snow is coming down, but you can still feel Spring presaging in the air.