Bull with a Barette

Welcome back dear reader! Now, in the next step of getting caught-up on posting, here's a recipe whose initial testing dates back to 2012 or 2013 (and whose quality merits a weekday post while we're still in the month of Taurus). Those with sparkling memories might remember a promise about a White Bull recipe made in 2013 from the Bucentaure recipe - take a few moments and catch up, we're working the thematicness here. The White Bull itself is closer than you think, but this recipe is an offshoot from Bucentaure development (back when I didn't know a thing about structure and was just throwing things in a glass hoping it would taste good) that was just too darn good to let slip away.

As I mention at the end of the Bucentaure post, "I started with a taste-image combo of Fernet Branca and violet liqueur to match the season, though I had tried neither, and it all grew from there." Literally, one day the idea hit me and that night I had picked up my first bottles of Fernet Branca and Rothman & Winter Crème de Violette, entranced at the idea of loamy/minty earth* --or perhaps by its symbolic counterpart, the zodiac's Earth-sign bull-- covered over by tiny violets and enjoying the sun-heated ground, crisp breeze, and very fresh grass of this time of year.

*many thanks to all the internet Fernet reviewers out there - I actually wasn't very surprised/shocked by the time I finally tried Fernet!

You might be wrinkling your nose right about now - Fernet and violette are not natural partners as I quickly came to realize. (hence frantic searching for a newfangled revival of Crème Yvette just getting rolled out in state stores at the time) However, HOWEVER... When moderated by the lightness of lemon (and a gradient of aged spirits, wine and bitters)? Hmm...

I forget the exact circumstance of the limonata here: either I tried veering Bucentaure in a less-heavy/Sour direction (so I could work in an egg white) or I mixed in some leftover soda when exasperated by the heaviness of the recipe. Either way, the sour and added dilution lift the drink just-so. And the addition of very-recent find, black mission fig bitters, is a perfect bridge, making up for lost dark dried fruit notes from Bucentaure's armagnac when switching to a more standard brandy (and losing some of the wild tang that might interfere with violette's integration). You might try the fig bitters in place of the plum bitters in Bucentaure as well, to fab results.

So anyway, as if I haven't already given you enough, here's a whole lotta Bull.

Bull with a Barrette

2 tsp Fernet Branca

10 drops Brooklyn Hemispherical black mission fig bitters

10 drops Xocolotl Molé bitters

2 oz San Pellegrino limonata

1 oz Smith & Cross naval rum

1 oz tawny port (Sandeman)

1 oz brandy (Masson VSOP)

1/4 oz crème de violette, divided

Mint & fresh violets for garnish

Build in a rocks or highball glass on ice, giving small stirs after the limonata and first half (1 bsp) of the violette. Drizzle the remaining violette (1 bsp) over top for aromatics and garnish with mint & violets.

Let the drink rest a few minutes, let it dilute properly: the melody arises in the dilution.


Heavy for a long drink but it melds luxuriously. Mint and faint citrus lift the nose, followed by earthy aged grape and bitter herbs. Violet mellows and balances. You could almost say this is a very boozy version of Miss May.

The violette enunciates the port first (undergirded by brandy) and underneath that is a subtle rum funk. And finally underneath all that you get Fernet's chocolatey herbs. All this is evidenced by limonata's pectiny savory oh-so-sippable edge. Despite the name and my grander cocktail plans, this taste fits the perfect flavor idea of a bull in my mouth.

This isn't a fierce bull that's going to become infuriated at the drop of a red waiving cloth. This is a bull that's perfectly happy to lie in a flowery meadow and be kissed on the ear by butterflies. Bucentaure was the Id, and here we have the Ego. Stay tuned for Super Ego!

Mixology Monday, December 2013: Anise!

*glides in on ice skates* Christmastime is heeeeeeer--wuh wo WAOH!! *crash*
*gets covered in snow from the branches above*

Par for the course this month.

It 'swas Mixology Monday again! Nick over at the très très snazzy The Straight Up is our gracious host for the month with a theme for the soft spot in any mixologist's heart, that particular flavor we all probably didn't like when growing up but now adore after having our first Sazerac: Anise!

Although great any time of year, there is something about colder weather and the holidays that really sets my anise fetish into overdrive. While past MxMos have seen a few specific sources of anise, such as pastis and absinthe, I wanted to open things up to anything anise flavored, the more unique the better.

Most folks have something with anise notes laying around, whether it’s Absinthe or Pastis, Ouzo, Genepy, even Green Chartreuse, Peychaud’s, Raki, etc.

Maybe get creative and make something tasty with some star anise, like a syrup, infusion or tincture. Show us that riff on a Sazerac or Improved Holland Gin Cocktail that you love, or create something entirely new.  If you’re feeling frisky, see if you can work in a few anise ingredients. Either way throw something together and share it with us all.

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

If anything, this theme needs only one question: which anise-flavored spirit do you use?!? Or, in my case, do you have a work-in-progress which would fit? Answer: Yes!

It was one of those Twitter-challenge types of recipes:

@MuseOfDoom your next challenge: a drink named for Golden Glider.
— dietsch (@dietsch) August 20, 2013

[hat-tip, Mr. Dietsch!]

So, where to start? Golden Glider, aka Lisa Snart, is the younger sister of Flash archvillain Captain Cold. Now, despite said affiliation, she was on the straight-and-narrow with a career as a figure skater, but when her lover and coach, Roscoe Dillon - aka The Top, perished due to speed-related illness, she laced up her razor-sharp skates and swore mighty vengeance against the Flash. Equipped not just with her skates (which borrowed technology from her brother's cold guns that could project aerial ice) but with a range of jewel-themed weapons (nicely keeping in the "ice" theme) she pursued her vendetta up until the Flash/Barry Allen died in the conflict known as Crisis on Infinite Earths. With her foe dead, for a time she went quasi-straight and teamed up with her brother as the Golden Snowball Recovery Company, a duo of bounty hunters. As these things go, though, soon enough she was lacing up her skates once again, bigger and badder than before.

Where does that leave the cocktail? Well, for starters it needs to be golden. Given Lisa's heyday was in the 70s and early 80s, it only seems fitting to turn to that swingin' cat of the period: Galliano (and there's our anise!). Also, there is a known cocktail called the Snowball (advocaat, lime cordial & lemonade) - I'll drop the advocaat here, but steal the lemon. Ah, we've got a Sour cocktail in the making. Now for a base spirit, also golden. Something premium, sippable and glides smooth down the throat, a bit sweet: 10 Cane Rum. And heck, why not make it luxe and bubbly with a splash of golden champagne (and steer it away from being a Yellow Bird)? But of course, a healthy dash of bitter would truly match Lisa's personality. Finally, because I really can't help myself where fancy ice is concerned, just like I can't resist the idea of jewel-themed gadgets with which to wreak havoc, a little something special in that department, no need for a garnish.

These recipes are dedicated to the world's foremost Golden Glider fangirl, Lia Brown, from an old Rogues fangirl acquaintance from LiveJournal.

Golden Glider
2 oz 10 Cane Rum
1/2 oz Galliano
1/2 oz lemon juice
1 dash Fee Bros gin-barrel-aged orange bitters
1 oz champagne (dry, please)

orange blossom jewel-shaped ice*

Shake the first four ingredients with light ice.

Add the champagne to a chilled Collins glass over 4 or 5 jewel-shaped orange blossom water-infused ice cubes.

Top with your shaken mixture.

Jostle to blend if you feel like it.









You'd think the rum and Galliano would be more forward in this drink, but it's ultimately much more orange-oriented. Instead of the straight sweetness you'd expect to find in a syrupy liqueur like Galliano, you first get a low bitter note immistakeable of Fee Bros. Orange across your tongue (where it'll linger on the finish), which then literally blossoms as the ice melts and releases a metric centiliter-ton of orange blossom water anchored and fused to Galliano's deep anise. It's not Orange Crush, though it might prove challenging to your palate depending on how sensitive it is, but I like it for how different a profile it is. The floral and rarefied orange make you slow down...it feels like a special occasion. As you drink down the long thin glass, you get wonderful bursts of aromatics as well. Rum/Galliano vanilla and lemon pick up on the tail end, and the champagne dries just enough to a wonderful balance overall.

Of course, comic book characters tend to go through many permutations: What-If? storylines, situations and extremities to be undone by the end of the story, and failed attempts to keep up with the times. Like the above-pictured story where the washed out Flash Rogues gather to reminisce after the death of Barry Allen, one of my favorite issues of The Flash is Annual #5 from 1992, one of the early stories from the Eclipso: The Darkness Within crossover event. In addition to much witty banter and inside baseball from a great trio of Rogues (Captain Boomerang, Weather Wizard and The Trickster) and some very pretty Image-esque art which fits the story though is perhaps a bit out of place in the greater Flash universe, the story features Golden Glider gradually revealing her compulsion to steal Eclipso's black diamond, finally being taken over by the archaic Spirit of Vengeance and raising hell on Central City. Of course, this lends itself to a variation with a black (Sambuca - also anise! Yay!) diamond.

Golden Glider (Eclipso)
2 oz Smith & Cross rum
1/2 oz Galliano
1/2 oz lemon juice
1 dash absinthe
1 dash bitter orange amaro like Campari or Gran Classico

orange blossom jewel-shaped ice + 1 black Sambuca diamond ice cube*

It seems the same Golden Glider, but without bubbles and stronger and...there's a funkiness to it, but loads of vanilla too. Makes me wish I had Malört on hand. The quick-melting black Sambuca ice gives a nice "contamination" effect.

But for a being on a cosmic power level with The Spectre, you could probably get away meaning-wise by using all Lemon Hart 151, but that's not recommendable (and I can't, just on a practical level, because PA effectively makes you buy a lifetime supply if you're going to buy any of that bottle - hence no LH151 pour moi). The absinthe and bitter orange liqueur also rachet up the evil level while enhancing the already-existing flavors.

* For orange blossom water ice cubes, use 1/2 tsp orange blossom water for every ounce water.
For black Sambuca ice, use 1 teaspoon Black Sambuca and fill the remainder with water.
[2013-12-25 00:40, Edited to add, for want of totally-organized thoughts earlier: lack of time and resources prevented this, but if you wanted to be thoroughly geeky about the original Golden Glider recipe, use a different hydrosol for each ice cube to play up the different functionality in each of Lisa's jewel-weapons. The likes of rose water, or homemade violet, mint, and almond hydrosols would be quite an arsenal.]

Now quick, someone make a Spectre cocktail or set, distinguishing between Ostrander, DeMatteis and Rucka incarnations!

Cheers to Nick for hosting a delicious MxMo and to Fred for wrangling the cats into their Santa suits yet again. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Mixology Monday, October 2013: Intercontinental

*crawls back from the world of Westeros with a very repaired liver and a creative drive at loose ends* HI!

So not only is it Mixology Monday, but we've got a real doozy of a challenge this time: Intercontinental, courtesy Stewart of Putney Farm:

Everywhere we travel these days we see cocktails on the menu. And not just here in the USA, but all around the world. And that’s not only the drinks, but the ingredients as well. Nowadays when we look behind most bars we see spirits, liqueurs, aromatic wines, bitters, herbs, spices, tools and glassware from all corners of the globe. So let’s celebrate the global reach of cocktails with an “Intercontinental” Mixology Monday challenge. Create a cocktail with “ingredients” from at least 3, but preferably 4, 5 or 6 continents. And if you can include Antarctica, then you get a Gold Star. And remember, sometimes the tools used, glassware, names or back stories of cocktails are important “ingredients”. Creativity and a bit of narrative exploration are encouraged. So if you have been waiting on buying that bottle of Japanese Scotch, Bundaberg rum from Australia, Pisco or Cachaca from South America or Madagascar vanilla, now may be the time to try them out….except for the Bundy…trust us on that. Have fun.

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

This recipe is very much indebted to Tiare's Coffee Barrel from A Mountain of Crushed Ice. Her love of the coffee-pineapple flavor combo caught my eye, and then got me wondering: if you've got coffee syrup and orgeat, why not combine the two? And frankly, if you're splitting the atom of orgeat like that, what next?

This is a little cart-before-the-horse: I've been noodling recipes that utilize tea over coffee and then a blend of nuts to expand upon my Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini Punch. We'll get to those in due course, maybe a slower than in previous times.

But in the meantime, I've envisioned an out-growth of those two cocktails, taking Jane Porter and Jane of the Jungle to great -- nay, GIGANTIC -- heights with another jungle lady of pulp: Giganta, Doris Zeul, DC Comics supervillainess, Wonder Woman rogue and 50-foot (and beyond) woman who classically became dumber the bigger she grew (you can imagine how that works with rum). All that mixed in with mad scientist and gorilla roots from the 50s/60s -- I'm slightly surprised I'm not referencing To Russia With Love.

[insert Comic Books Cocktails Badge here, once designed]

Wonder Woman v2. #3, Heinberg & Dodsons
Blue Beetle v3. #19, Rogers, Baldeon, Bird
As Paco, lower-right, says:
HE NEEDS OUR HELP WITH HIS SEXY FIGHT!

Giganta
3/4 oz Smith & Cross rum
3/4 oz white cachaça (51)
1/2 oz spiced rum
1/2 oz lime juice
1/2 oz pineapple juice
1/2 oz coffee-macadamia orgeat
1/4 oz banana liqueur
1/4 oz Becherovka
banana and macadamia nuts for garnish

Shake all but the garnish in a shaker full of ice. Pour all into a chilled Hurricane glass. Garnish with banana and macadamia nuts as you like. Note: the more overproof the spirits, the better.

For those keeping score at home: cachaça (South America), lime juice (Persian limes as the labels say, albeit from Mexico - Asia), rums and banana liqueur (North America), Becherovka and Tiare's (Sweden) recipe (Europe). And coffee-macadamia orgeat counts for both Africa (Fair Trade Rwanda Wild Mountain Gorilla Fund coffee) and Australia (indigenous macadamia nuts). As far as I know, Giganta hasn't teamed up with The Penguin or joined Justice League: Antarctica, so the seventh continent remains elusive.

The resulting cocktail is a tad sweet, though quite rounded in flavor, particularly due to the sweet ingredients (especially the banana liqueur). You get a nice coffee undernote, enhanced by macadamia's earthiness (would be much different if it were almond). The citruses add bite. I'm still new to the art of Tiki rum-mixing, but the rough 51 cachaça enhances the bite (the petrol note blends seamlessly with the coffee), while Smith & Cross adds needed oomph and hogo, and the spiced rum (Sailor Jerry) brought some vanilla notes which complimented the sweet elements. [Kraken might be nice here as well: a black element would always be favorable in a villain cocktail.] Becherovka restrains some of the sweet elements too, while adding a touch more depth.


Coffee-Macadamia Orgeat
2 oz roasted, crushed macadamia nuts
1/3 cup water
1/2 T coffee
1/3 cup turbinado sugar

1. Crush your macadamia nuts with a rolling pin in a baggie of some kind. You want the nuts well-crushed but not powdered, all the better to quickly extract the oils. If not roasted, roast on a baking sheet in the oven 4 minutes at 400F.
2. Add nuts and water to a small sauce pot and simmer for 5 minutes on the stove. Remove from heat and let rest 30 minutes. (Do not apply too much heat. If you smell cooked nuts/oatmeal, you've overdone it). Pour mixture through a sieve covered in a few layers of cheesecloth into a cup. Thoroughly wring out excess liquid from the nuts.
3. Add liquid back to the sauce pot, bring to simmer, add the same nuts, and repeat step 2.
4. Repeat step 3, but add the coffee along with the nuts this time and omit resting. After sauce pot has been emptied, rinse out any stray particles, then add liquid back along with the sugar. Gently heat and stir to dissolve. Let cool and store in the fridge.
5. No hydrosol necessary due to the use of coffee.

I think I've done enough orgeat at this point that I can really comment on the process. You want to make your nut milk first with as minimal cooking as possible prior to adding any sweetenings and flavorings. The more heat you apply, the more you get a cooked nut flavor -- but that also doesn't mean you have to take a full day or two to make the stuff. A few good wringings and you'll have extracted the bulk of the nuts' oils into your base liquid, to be modified as your wont.

Cheers to Stewart for hosting and Fred of Cocktail Virgin Slut for wrangling!

Bucentaure

Odd things happen as you pursue the cocktail behind a given name. For instance, the recipe you were so certain would be the best representation of the concept, ends up needing to be flipped on its head only after it's finalized.

Case in point: the idea of Taurus. The Bull is arguably the most sensual of the Zodiac, gathering to itself an assortment of all that is richest and most pleasing. Unlike Aries, which has sunshine but is still bound by cold wild winds as spring begins to break, surging rainshowers imbuing the world with life anew, Taurus is the promise of Aries realized: May flowers, spring greens deepened to lush jungle, azaleas and rhododendrons bursting as bold color is no longer limited to solitary tulip cups but whole landscapes decked out for weeks in the kirtle of the Spring Queen. Even the sunlight becomes a richer gold as the chill fades in late April. Whereas Aries held the first signs, the individual spurts of new life here and there, in Taurus the entire Earth rises up in its full potency, stamps its hooves, snorts a humid and fecund breath and lets you know just how little you are.

[*feels a tap on her shoulder* Yes, I know it's Gemini. You don't wake up from a coma without first asking what day it is, just in case. *the giant alligator-man shrugs and walks away*]

The trouble with naming this cocktail "Taurus" is that it doesn't fully encapsulate all the Bull's various aspects, namely, the symbolism and then the rich deep spring weather. I think this cocktail well-encapsulates the earthy "bull" half, but it's too heavy for the "white bull"/spring cocktail half: just on the specs, it drinks like something for the winter months. Using the word "bull" is also tricky, because most such existing cocktails involve tequila, so the assumed lineage would mislead. But there's a downright earthy quality to the drink, with the idea of time and slowness deriving from its aged spirits, that makes me not want to stray far from the concept.

So what to do? Due diligence.

When hitting upon a flavor combination that really works, you need to be humble and think "Golly, surely someone's come up with something along these lines already." [yes, use the word Golly, go on, use it! I'll wait.]-- particularly if they're spirits or wines in existence prior to the 20th century, or you're effectively making minor tweaks to a classic cocktail like the Vieux Carré. And then there's the googling. Rum and brandy, rum and port...to my surprise, I've only found a couple of rum-armagnac-port combinations, both on the same page. If I'm following in the footsteps of David Wondrich, I must be doing something right.

Trafalgar Punch as a name itself is pretty brilliant, what with the convergence of British, French and Spanish influences. The Battle of Trafalgar, itself, seems plenty ripe for concepts and names too. And "Lo!" thanks be to Wikipedia: Bucentaure. A French flagship in the battle, from the Greek bou-centaur: roughly ox-man as centaur is a horse-man; that is, a mythical being with the body of an ox and the torso-on-up of a man. The flagship even had such a creature as a figurehead.

I'm happy with that. And it even retains the taur of Taurus to boot.

So, while you're lounging around in the bowers of emergent spring and summer, have something to go with. Imagine you're an ox luxuriating in a meadow: your hooves have stirred up the earth and you breathe deep of intoxicating violet patches tended by dancing bees.

Bucentaure

1 tsp Crème Yvette

4 1-oz Fernet Branca ice cubes

1 dash Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters

3 drops Fee Bros. plum bitters

1 oz tawny port

1 oz armagnac

1 oz Smith & Cross naval rum (or other powerful/dark/aged Jamaican rum)

1 lime twist

Start by making your Fernet Branca ice cubes: the earth and loam vibrant with minty life.

Rinse a chilled rocks glass with the Crème Yvette, but don't discard: the smell of flowers heavy in the humid air.

Add the Fernet Branca ice cubes and build the remaining ingredients: spicy heat of the earth, dancing flowers, fruit of the vine, the vine kissed by the burning sun, and the lush island forests where the bull roams.

Stir for 10-15 seconds at the end and garnish with a lime twist, loosely knotted to make a Taurus sigil (♉).

Fernet Branca ice cubes



Depending on your tolerance for bitterness/sweetness, use 1/2 tsp-3/4 tsp Fernet Branca per 1 oz water/cube.

I like the Tovolo 1" cube molds because they hold just over 1 oz water and you get some nice showy rocks as a result.


These ice cubes work brilliantly, particularly in a rich cocktail such as this: as the ice melts the bitterness and other notes develop within the drink, preventing a diluted flavor and permitting one's digestion to keep up with the cocktail.




Afterthoughts:

It took me awhile to work this one out, over a year in fact. I had started with bourbon and Dubonnet Rouge instead of the rum and port (I had little fortified wine knowledge a year ago), but the drink blurred together. The Dubonnet overlapped with the Yvette and no matter the burly proof, the bourbon liked to hide. But soon enough I discovered what a good hogo would bring to the concept, and then the raisin notes of tawny port. The armagnac I had from the start: the wilder cousin of cognac seemed just the thing. But really, I started with a taste-image combo of Fernet Branca and violet liqueur to match the season, though I had tried neither, and it all grew from there. Sometimes taste descriptions on the internet really do paint the perfect picture on the tongue.


The White Bull arrives next year.