Rotorblade

Welcome to National Brandy Alexander Day!

...

Ok, maybe not as much resonance as the folks in Congress intended.

But! To close out a spectacular January by most likely gaining the blog's 5,000th hit as well as its first 1,000+ hit month, a little libation felt in order. That, and the general idea of a Cherry Alexio had been on the backburner for awhile and the timing seemed perfect, as far as occasion as well as proximity to Valentine's Day (plus, Peychaud's connection to NOLA's upcoming High Holiday, Mardi Gras).

*puts a lampshade on the transition's head, it's drunk and having a good time*

Mars lurks right behind on the track list.

Rotorblade
1 1/2 oz cachaça (unaged, raw as a fresh Brazilian wax)
1 oz cream
3/4 oz Cherry Heering
1/4 oz coffee liqueur (I used the sultry Tia Maria)
2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
rinse of Black Sambuca
drops of Peychaud's bitters for garnish


Rinse a chilled cocktail glass with the sambuca.

Shake the first five ingredients with ice, then double-strain into the glass.

Decorate the foamy top radially with further drops of Peychaud's (recommend an eyedropper/toothpick for this).





Barring that it was a take on an Alexander, the original Alexio had some interesting points for using underexplored cachaça plus particular ingredients with numbers in their names (that's pretty much how I came to it, a year ago on National Brandy Alexander Day, to begin with). Adapting the flavor profile to cherry would mean an inexact line-up between ingredients, ratio-wise, and I wanted to go a bit further in interest level than simple cherry. (although I have to say, subbing Maraschino liqueur for the coffee liqueur makes for an excellent overall rounded cherry flavor, the full fruit and then the pomace)

So to start, for a creamy Alexander-style drink you want a cachaça that can let down its long curly mane, petrol notes and all, to make sure it comes through. 51's my stalwart standby, though Pitu is very comparable (I can't speak for any other brands, but anything LOUD should work just fine). With a cachaça like this, it's all so very primal and it would probably be foolish to not use that as the angle, what with the petrol notes: everything else just has to rise to their occasion.

As far as cherry flavor, where else do you go but the rich (but not overly sweet) Cherry Heering? I cut it back from a full ounce in order to work some sub flavors in: something dark, moody, chthonic; something with weighty bass notes. Peychaud's bitters was the first to pop to mind, and the cherry-anise link led me to black Sambuca: off to a good start -- a rinse here since even a quarter ounce would be tongue-numb overkill. While Maraschino was a nice mix, it wasn't dark enough. Working on this until the last minute, I happened to hop over to Chemistry of the Cocktail's very latest post as of yesterday, and the suggestion of coffee notes intermingling in another Cherry Heering cocktail pointed me towards coffee liqueur. (Really, with a dessert drink such as this, an after-dinner cordial is the likeliest fit and would balance with the Heering's slight lack of sweetness) Tia Maria is a good fit with its own character not getting lost; Kahlua may run a bit too sweet; I'm very curious to know how espresso-flavored Galliano Ristretto might work. Finally, to make this a little more approachable to drier palates, and tie all the flavors together, this is when I decided to add the Peychaud's as more than an aromatic garnish.

It comes together quite well, with an almost ethereal metallic void taste. While neither cherry nor anise dominate, the anise bonds intriguingly with the petrol notes into a metal spice. Baking spices, particularly cinnamon and allspice, could easily find their way into this concoction, but I'm happier for the restraint and novel flavors. The bitters function well to downplay the sweetness and ultimately all the ingredients get their due, ebbing in and out of the cream clouds. The name Rotorblade is a track off of my favorite all-time album: Juno Reactor's Beyond the Infinite, a sublime hourlong mix of Goa trance electronica from the mid-90s. With the metal, hypnotic anise, dusky cherry, and coincidental bitters pattern, it seemed a natural fit for the track. I could probably sip on these and commune with the music all day and night.

Mixology Monday, January 2013: Fortified Wines

Happy Mixology Monday, everyone!

The mighty Jordan Devereaux of Chemistry of the Cocktail hosts this month's MxMo event - giving us the ever-enlightening theme of Fortified Wines:

Fortified wines began, in large part, as a way to deal with the difficulties of shipping wine long distances in the holds of sailing ships. Without the rigorous sterilization that is possible today, wines would often spoil en route. However, increasing the alcohol concentration to around 20% ABV was enough to keep them from going off… These wines held an important place in.. punch and have continued on in cocktails proper.  [These wines include] sherry, port, and, to a lesser extent, madeira and marsala, all find their way into various mixed drinks… They can play many different roles – from taking the place of vermouths in classic drinks, to providing richness and sweetness in winter tipples, to serving as a base for lighter aperitifs. Whether forgotten classics or new creations, let’s see what you can put together.

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


Goodnesses, this was an educational MxMo. Before this month I'd only had/worked with sherry once, out of the many fortified wines listed in the prompt. I honestly found the palo cortado so-so: the quality was evident, but there's only so much nuttiness I can stand - maybe there was some slight salinity in it enhancing those notes too. That and the way sherry has been especially popular in the last few years made me curious about lesser-used Madeira. So, I figured this would be a grand opportunity to start in on my education on that particular spirit.

Sercial, Verdelho, Bual, and Malvasia (Malmsey). And Rainwater, a style offshoot of Verdelho. Those are the primary varietal names you'll see with Madeira, listed from driest to sweetest, respectively. There are blends as well, and vintages too. But in the circumscribed confines of MxMo, I chose to focus on the drier styles and challenge my sweet-leaning palate with Sercial and then Rainwater -- and managed to come up with some rather enjoyable cocktails with both.

With Sercial, I started out playing around by adding brown spirits (bourbon, rum, armagnac) and either PAMA pomegranate liqueur or a homemade blood orange cordial plus Angostura bitters and possibly dashes of amaretto. (Blandy's 5 year Sercial LOVES Angostura). The drinks turned out decently, but it was hard to highlight the Sercial - and differently from the many already-established madeira cocktails (particularly of the "Creole" persuasion). But when pressed at the last minute, I happened upon a golden combination:


The Light Will Guide Me
1 1/2 oz Irish whiskey (Clontarf Black Label)
1 1/2 oz Sercial Madeira (Blandy's 5 year)
1/4 oz Benedictine
5 drops Urban Moonshine citrus bitters
1 dash Dr. Adam's Aphrodite bitters
lemon zest

Stir all on ice to chill and dilute. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a swatch of lemon zest.


The lone true-hearted sailor drops anchor on a distant verdant and lush island: one with a fortifying spirit. Now he sits in his cabin watching the late afternoon sun stream gold through his chalice on the fine wooden furnishings. He knows his course is true, blessed even. Lemon, vanilla, grain, and the faintest hint of sub-tropical mystique: he feels the hands of his angel on his shoulders, and she presses towards the Isle of Light.


Many of the madeira recipes described over at Cocktail Virgin Slut (and many thanks to MxMo coordinator and CVS blogger Fred Yarm for keeping things up and running, at that) are interesting for the equal ratio given between the madeira and base spirit. All the better to taste both, surely, so, I started with that. My instinct was to try to think of the fortified wine as one would a vermouth, but given the lack of herbal thrust tried to make that up via the Benedictine and bitters. Sercial is especially difficult to mix with (note the lack of recipes using that particular varietal, and, I was constantly thinking to myself "why mix with it when it's so perfectly balanced [between nutty sweetness and dry acidity]?!"): it either dominates or gets lost in the mix. Here, the acidity is naturally ever-present, and here and there the nuttiness pops through in a sip and is a delightful surprise.

Curious enough, instead of using the bitters to bind, I wanted that bitterness to crash through and break things up: give some flavor variation on which the other spirits could better make themselves known. The Urban Moonshine citrus urged a general trend towards citrus (Clontarf has some interesting tropical notes like passionfruit and pineapple to boot), but with a spare astringency that would work against the madeira's body which dampens individual flavor notes. A more complex bitters like Aphrodite further helps break things up while pulling forth the madeira with coffee and chocolate notes.


Furthermore, in the last week or so I was noodling around on another side project trying to come up with some drink names for ingredient combinations that were skewing very soft, feminine and youthful (but with off-the-top-of-the-head names like "Baby Blocks", perhaps a little too youthful). Well, I stumbled onto a naming convention that allowed not just 3 recipes but nearly a dozen more, and with that idea giddiness came this writes-itself recipe, perfectly timed for MxMo:

Raindrops on Roses

2 oz Lillet Rose

1 1/2 oz Rainwater Madeira

1 oz grappa

2 dashes Dr. Adam's Teapot bitters

grapefruit zest garnish

(like the pic shows, I used Miles Medium-Dry Rainwater Madeira & Alexander Grappa di Cabernet)

Stir all on ice to chill and dilute.

Strain into a champagne flute or sherry glass.

Garnish with a thin grapefruit spiral, or if you really want to get fancy, a rose made of grapefruit zest.



Notes:

• This one comes together especially well, with some fascinating rose-like qualities emerging from the various ingredients. And, I'm happy to have it inaugurate the My Favorite Things project this year (if you think about that for 5 seconds, you know exactly what the other 12 cocktail names will be, though I'm still coming up with worthy ingredient combinations: and yes, somehow there will be a Schnitzel with Noodles). 
• I tried an earlier version with pisco instead of grappa and there's a world of difference: the pisco merely added weight in a grape-spirit-minded way, but the grappa lets you know it's in charge here (probably a good thing because the pisco version was a tad too easy to drink). The thing that strikes me about using grappa is how its weight and general flavor tone remind me so much of the characteristics of a large weighty tea rose, further enhanced by the other ingredients.
• Rainwater Madeira truly does match your mental image of the spirit: it has a soft dewy body, which dampens the acidity a shade, though it's still noticeable -- enhanced by the Lillet and zest, no doubt.
• Lillet Rose serves as the flavor that colors everything else going on. The Teapot Bitters add their special whimsy on the nose, and their vanilla, hazelnut and rose notes punch up to the fore those elements in other ingredients.
• Be mindful of the zest: too much for too long infusing into the drink can overwhelm with bitter acidity, though just enough brings out some interesting watermelon notes from its good friend Lillet.

The Lady's Piercing Eyes

They told me I couldn't miss her. I did.

Trawling up'n'down the Rue Whatisevers, right aroundside the Pantheon for 3 hours, they told me I'd find her sitting outside at a café - and there weren't too many of 'em in that district.

To coin a phrase: Hah!

Turns out, after sweatin' like a hunk o'capicola left out on the sidewalk in the afternoon sun ('cause that's what I was, y'know), I find her sittin' outta sight in the shadiest corner under a canopy I musta looked in 10 times.

There she was, lookin' the perfect evil French stereotype: black bob under a purple beret, black Lennon shades, green sheath dress and stilettos that said "don't fall for me." Coulda been my eyes adjusting to the shade, but she blended in a little too well into the texture of the bushes behind her. Sitting tall at her lone table reading a book and sipping a demi-tasse. All she needed was a yard-long cigarette holder.

So I go up to her to deliver my message and I says: "Meduse de Javert? Good to see that you're well. I'm Bateman. Mr. Kinich sends his regards."

The lady's eyebrow twitched up and back, less reflexive than a brief display of inner calculation. She shut her book and sat back, taking me in. Felt like I broke some minute degree of protocol - maybe I didn't get everything outta the real Bateman when we were ripping out his fingernails to take over this transaction.

"Merci. J'envoie mes salutations à M. Kinich, aussi. Avons-nous un accord?"

"Oui, madame. Mr. Kinich also invites you for dinner this evening at Agapé Substance to further discuss the implementation. Seven Pee Em."

"C'est agréable. Mais, j'ai l'intention de manger légèrement." Here she was speaking too fast for me to hear. "Ma taille fine." But that I understood.

"Of course. Merci, madame. I will apprise Mr. Kinich." And here I half-turned: I shoulda just kept business and left, but something about her tickled me, like a faint tingle at the back of my ankle.

"de Javert, eh? Like that guy from Les Mis? Your family ain't into hockey, is it?"

She looked down, brow furrowed, squeezing her eyes so tight white light flashed out from behind her shades, scratching irritatedly a little too far up her scalp. Nah, couldntabeen. She murmured something under her breath. "Pardon, ma'am?"

She looked up. All I could see were those black holes over her eyes. They were swirling. Glowing. "Des. Yeux. Verts."

"H-huh? I don't speak.."

"Vous n'êtes pas Bateman. Et je ne travaille pas avec les incompétents!" The tingle at my ankle got the better of me. My head hit the concrete and all I see is her head in the red canopy, staring down cold dinosaur-like. Those black dots transfix me like the petite shoe sinking into my chest.

"A message for your employer: no one wishes to be Bateman." She lifted her shades, mouth wet, savoring the taste of her words. "Vois-ci!"


The garçon arrived to clean up the (medium-rare and babbling) mess. "Et votre café?"

"C'est bon. Mais, c'est l'heure: je voudrais voir votre carte de cocktails?"

The Lady's Piercing Eyes

2 oz Leblon cachaça

1/2 oz lime juice

1/4 oz Rumple Minze

1/4 oz simple syrup

3 dashes Vanilla Lace Bitters

1 barspoon crème de mûre

sage leaf 

Chill your serving glass.

Shake first 5 ingredients on ice to chill and mix.

Double-strain drink into serving glass and sink blackberry liqueur.

Lightly press sage leaf to promote oils and float on top of drink.

Whether your stir her glowing red eye is up to you.

One thing I keep forgetting to mention in these Vanilla Lace Bitters recipes: I try to keep my recipes not only seasonal, but connected to meanings associated with calendar and zodiac months as well. If my original batch of VLB had worked out, its recipe and these last two cocktails using it would have come out some time in October during the month of (Venus-ruled) Libra. Hence the exotic lady themes. My excuse for January? I associate it with snowy whiteness, to which vanilla is a natural match. (and Northrop Frye associates Winter with the Satire, being a season of Mind *draw the connection to* cerebral blackberry...or that might've just been the Smuckers commercial talking...)

With the idea of ladies and the Feminine firmly ensconced in my head, my first thought was to the White Lady cocktail, including an earlier version of the same, utilizing crème de menthe. The idea itself, associating white and white crème de menthe isn't bad -- there's a fitting purity in the bracing sharp peppermint in white crème de menthe (which is a little more toned down or rounded in the green variant) -- the execution and balance could just use a little work in that drink.

But: what lady would make use of razor-sharp peppermint? Shall we just say, cue the cachaça!

You might think the bitters get a little lost here, they certainly aren't as featured as in La Dame de Chantilly. But, I think their Venus-in-Libra pleasing/harmonizing aspect comes out well here: the vanilla falls behind the scenes to smooth and unite what is otherwise a lime-bright and slightly mint-chalky mix while the spices contribute depth. Interestingly, the most prominent note from the bitters is the vegetal/black pepper damiana (the Mexican aphrodisiac herb), which matches with the cachaça's grassy notes.

Overall, it's a little Stinger, a little Bramble, a little Caipirinha. Cerebral with blackberry and sage, an Amazon waiting to explode under demure (natch) lacy wraps. Beware the lady's daggers.


Notes:

• Of the 3 cachaças available on PA shelves, Leblon is easily the most refined and ladylike (another brand of similar characteristics would be advised if a sub is needed). [UPDATE (02-28-2013): Having just made this recipe with my new bottle of Neisson Rhum Agricole Blanc, I would say the cocktail is markedly improved with this drier, lighter sugar cane spirit. I surmise any agricole might make for an improved quaff.] However, that means it needs a larger share of the ratio in order to not get lost in the other Big flavors: 4:1:1, instead of the standard 2:1:1 sour formula.
• The mint aspect was the hardest to get right. Straight white crème de menthe as the sweetener was perhaps a touch too sweet (Leblon being noticeably wetter than a London Dry gin in the comparable Bramble) and the sweetness dulled the mint's sharpness in the final cocktail -- a requisite given the name, ne? Given the need for a more thunderous mint, I reached out to left field for the mini of Rumple Minze I had in my fridge. There's an unspoken taboo about using any schnapps in proper cocktails (the connection to frat party pantydroppers ought to be good and well severed for those to whom discernment matters less), but here's a drier, high-proof, potent-flavored spirit of fine German craftsmanship*. In combination with simple syrup the sweetness balances just right, and the peppermint undergirds with a perceptible, perpetual frost.

*ranty MoD note: this is about the only place you'll see me use the C-word (e.g. in conjunction with 'German', from which the word originated and with which it still retains real meaning). MAKE. GOOD. COCKTAILS. Be confident, patient, persistent. All else flows from there. If you feel you have to associate yourself with a certain word (and in a world in which one can "Craft 2" at Qdoba) you're actually downplaying the quality of your work by qualifying it.

La Dame de Chantilly

Vanilla: shy, coquette, courtesan?

What's that just behind her lace?

La Dame de Chantilly

2 oz Remy Martin V

1/2 oz simple syrup

2 tsp Vanilla Lace Bitters

1/2 tsp LACTART

3/4 - 1 oz egg white

Shake (hard) all the ingredients dry and then with ice.

Garnish with a further spritz or two of Vanilla Lace Bitters and possibly a marzipan flower or candied violet.
















While definitely borrowing from the White Lady for general structure, I wanted to create a cocktail purely to showcase the Vanilla Lace Bitters. Gin seemed a bit too intricate and aromatic in its own right to use as a base spirit, though something white would be appropriate so there would be no overlap with vanillin from barrel-aging. In focusing on the "Lace" part of the bitters, my thoughts went straight to the Big Bopper. And given Chantilly is one of oodles of famed lace-making villages in France, my favorite white brandy seemed appropriate here.

The base out of the way, I also wanted to minimize other flavors in the drink, the sweet and the sour that is. Easy simple syrup fit for the sweet, but I took time to seek out something more flavorless than any citrus: namely one of the food acids championed by Mr. Fix the Pumps himself, Lactart (the acid, not Darcy O'Neil). The Lactart surprised me: maybe I just needed to practice with it, but in my 2 testers of this recipe it proved enough acidity to get the egg whites foaming without crazy-hard shaking while being mild enough to, well, minimize spit-curdling (an issue I've had with lemon juice in a number of cocktails).

Now, I always get confuzzled about egg white measurements given in amount of what's in the egg (half a white, a whole white..). No doubt we all buy different sizes of eggs and even within a carton there can be noticeable variation (case in point while testing: one egg from my carton yielded 1 oz egg whites while another yielded 1 1/4 oz). The 3/4 - 1 oz indicated above seems to be about right for adding body to a cocktail and then a nice thin lacy layer of steady foam on top (without it being wet dog aromatic overkill). I wouldn't go lower than 3/4 oz: 1/2 oz seems too little to get the foam going properly, at least with this amount of acid.

Perhaps it's because of the egg white's body or the robust grape spirit flavor of the Remy V, but this recipe needs about 2 tsp (plus the spritzes on top) to properly taste the Vanilla Lace Bitters. Because they're rather bitter, that touch of bitterness can serve as a good hallmark for telling when the drink is balanced. You might want slightly more or less depending on your palate.

I'd be curious to know your thoughts on this minimalist cocktail. You could probably use it in numerous ways to highlight various bitters ("La Dame de...") and for its structure...also very like the Pegu Club now that I think of it...the rare triad of sweet, sour and bitter cohere like (because I've got them on the brain) Led Zeppelin getting back together (there, I said it).

Stay tuned in a day or so, I've got one other recipe using the bitters!

Vanilla Lace Bitters

Happy New Year!

Living out in cocktail-land on Twitter, you get to see all the incredible things people are doing and how there are so many methods and sources for bringing flavor into a cocktail: spirits, liqueurs, juices, zests, herbs, spices, infusions, tinctures, syrups, shrubs, and, of course, bitters. But even with all the spirits/liqueurs/bitters flavors available to buy, there are a few ideas that seem to have slipped through the cracks: a lemon triple sec, Usquebaugh spiced brandy or whiskey, vanilla-dominant bitters, for instance.

Sure, there's the difficult-to-get famed Bob's Vanilla Bitters, Bittercube does a Cherry-Bark Vanilla bitters and if you google "vanilla bitters" you'll see everyone and their mother republishing Dr. Schwartz's Cherry-Vanilla bitters (the latter two are lovely, but they're not exclusively vanilla-focused). And oh, hello there Imbibe magazine sneaking in this Vanilla Bitters recipe very very recently (ack!). For completeness' sake, there's also this less-complex vanilla bitters recipe on Foodista and Bittermens makes a rare experimental Squirrel Nut Pecan Vanilla Bitters. I also hear there's a hush-hush local Philly recipe featured at the Four Seasons' Swann Lounge.

So where does that leave me? Mainly with a bottle of Bittercube and not much else (save for the homemade batch of the below recipe, natch). And I have to say, I appreciate that Imbibe recipe: it's a different flavor profile than I have/would've done, but the complexity is what I would've looked for a few months ago. Still, for where I was a few months ago, I dreamed about something spicy and exotic beyond what you could get with plain vanilla extract, but would emphasize and expand vanilla's flavor. (I also dreamed a bit beyond the scope of this recipe about making a bitters the flavor of barrel-aging - imagine adding that to unaged spirits.. But, for another time, achieving vanilla is enough for now.) So, I picked up a copy of Bitters by Brad Thomas Parsons, ordered up a slew of herbal ingredients from Penn Herb Co. and set to work.

Vanilla Lace Bitters

2 vanilla beans, split and quartered

1/2 nutmeg, crushed

3 pods black cardamom, woody hulls discarded, crushed

4 allspice berries, crushed

1/2 tsp milk thistle seed, cracked

1/4 tsp sweet anise seed, crushed

1/4 tsp damiana leaves, dried and cut

1/4 tsp gentian root, dried and cut

tiny pinch quassia chips, dried and cut

1 1/2 cups Everclear 150

3/4 cup water

3/4 tsp vanilla sugar

Combine all but the water, vanilla sugar, and 1 vanilla bean in a mason jar. Set in a dark cool area like a cabinet and let infuse 1 week, shaking twice daily to circulate the infusion. After that first week, add the second vanilla bean and infuse/shake as before. The first week is about setting the underlying flavor profile, including some vanilla in the mix so the addition of more vanilla doesn't taste disjointed in the final bitters. The second vanilla bean is about bringing that flavor to the forefront on top of all the earlier flavors.

After two weeks infusing, strain the liquid first through a sieve then through a coffee filter into a new mason jar and set back into the cabinet to rest - you're done shaking it. Take the strained-off herb and spice components and set them in a small pot with the 3/4 cup water, simmering (not boiling) on the stove for 10 minutes. Once cool, pour all the contents of the pot into a new mason jar and infuse/shake for 1 week as you did the first jar. On the 6th or 7th day of infusion, add the vanilla sugar to the water-infusion jar and shake to dissolve.

After a week's infusion, double-strain the water-infusion as you did with the grain alcohol infusion, then combine the two infusions in a glass jar/bottle big enough to hold the batch (makes about 2 to 2 1/4 cups).

Bitters, not bourbon.

The above technique I've borrowed from B.T. Parsons' Bitters, but here I'd like to add on a component which I think better clarifies the resulting liquid. Instead of simply letting rest at room temperature a few more days for sediment to form and then re-straining through a coffee filter, I would suggest taking your bottle or jar of bitters and sticking it in the fridge for an ensuing week (yes, I know, this goshdarn recipe takes a full month!). While it's resting in the fridge, give it a swirl or two daily. Sediment will naturally form regardless of temperature, but by chilling it, you're letting the particles contract away from each other, allowing the sediment more of a chance of separating. By giving it a swirl or shake, you're letting those free sediment particles circulate to better clump (and they like clumping). After a week, coffee filter strain your bitters one final time. It's a good method: nearly 2 months after that final strain there's barely a dusting of sediment left in the bitters.



The above recipe is my second try at the bitters. Originally I had included dried hyssop and more quassia chips on a base of overproof rum (hey, I figured, the vanilla in the rum would back up the vanilla otherwise - not quite). There was almost a too-sweet taste with an odd vegetal tang that just didn't fit. I also infused spice, herbs, and bittering agents separately to blend to the best ratios, but the overall result didn't quite mesh. Back to the drawing board, I focused the flavor a bit more and switched to neutral-tasting Everclear to let the ingredients better shine through.

The resulting bitters really do bring the "bitter" along with a more complex and subtly spicy vanilla taste than you might get with, say, vanilla extract (which this isn't too far from, I'll admit). The cardamom and nutmeg function as the secondary flavors, almost like legs or a foundation for the vanilla to stand on, meshing seamlessly. The anise and allspice do a little bit of this too, but in more tertiary roles. Milk thistle seed has a slight, well, milky taste which harmonizes. Damiana is a wonderful mix of green vegetal and black pepper notes - this Mexican aphrodisiac puts the exotic "Lace" in the bitters. And a little quassia goes a very long way - best to stick with chocolate and coffee-noted gentian as a bittering agent.


As far as use, it depends on the backbones of the spirits you're using, but generally you'll want to use the bitters sparingly so they don't overtake your cocktail. However, they play so nice with aged spirits. Try a healthy dash of Vanilla Lace Bitters in a bourbon Old Fashioned with cinnamon syrup - all but a touch of the spice and bitter is detectable, leaving the enhanced spirit naked on your tongue and not bogged down by the other ingredients (something I've noticed happens with plain sugar sweetness in Old Fashioneds).

Or even if you're not looking to have a cocktail:

Virgin Old-Fashioned Lace
8 oz milk
1/4 oz Vanilla Lace Bitters
1/4 oz vanilla sugar

Muddle the bitters and sugar in your serving glass to help the sugar dissolve. Add milk, stir lightly, enjoy!

Ever take-out burgers and fries or do them at home, but feel a little less indulgent about completing the classic '50s pop food triumvirate with a milkshake? Have something less heavy, just as delightful and more complex - and frankly better for you, both for your bones and your digestive health. A perfect pairing, really.


Keep an eye out this week. I've been working on a couple more recipes to demonstrate Vanilla Lace Bitters, so stay tuned!

Ombudsman's Report 2

We're back with another Ombudsman's Report, this one to look back on the year prior and tie up a loose end or two.


Ombudsman: Well?

MoD: That's it? You're not going to nitpick?

Ombudsman: The recipes and writing have been more consistently strong after we last talked, ahem.

MoD: Passive-aggressive much, are we?

Ombudsman: When we deign. Still, that you're doing work that gets mentioned by brands speaks to their quality and is quite an achievement. Solerno has done special Facebook posts for Hebe and Sun King's Crown, and Urban Moonshine sent out a newsletter featuring Karya. (no telling how much time was needed to test those recipes, what with the more intricate ingredients involved in each)

MoD: Each one of which I'm very proud. It's not something I would've imagined happening, or at least not nearly so quickly, when I started Feu de Vie. The learning curve's been a bit rough, but I think I've gained a better sense of what balance means and how important it is. Also, not stopping and settling when you know a recipe isn't quite right.

Ombudsman: Balance in all things, of course.

MoD: Woo boy, yeah. Testing Tiki drinks on a tight schedule is not something I'm going to do again - big kudos to those who Tiki regularly. It's good to have learned some limits, learned how and when to ease off and give it a rest, and then learned how to re-approach more judiciously. Planning a cocktail with a good sense of the ingredients and how they work together in a structure or formula is a way to save time and liquor cabinet resources (and your liver). I'm also more ok with pouring a drink down the drain if it isn't there - no sense in drinking something if it isn't good, and it better enables me to continue this blog over the longterm.

To throw a slight wrench into the above, formulas can be crutches. They can be great when you're looking to dash a recipe out and nail it first time, like say, for a holiday party during a period when you're trying to abstain. But I'm also already noticing a touch of dependence on the Sidecar structure that I want to move away from (even though it served as the foundation for possibly my first got-it-all-together recipe El Clavel Rojo hey, for whatever reason it's been getting a lot of love recently - thanks to whoever's been spreading the word, of all my recipes to me that one is an especial jewel). When I started Feu de Vie, I was pretty much a know-nothing from the hinterlands feeling my way through to complete recipes - maybe I miss the Use-the-Force-like intuition of the early days, but starting with a template can be problematic from an artistic perspective in first seeing the structure, but not the cocktail itself with all its flavor intricacies. I feel seeing things anew each time and being able to innocently ask "Why not?" (and only bringing in structure at the end to firm up the proportions) helps to keep things interesting, at the very least. Again, balance.

Ombudsman: But you'll still be making the wild and crazy garnishes, right?

MoD: Goodness gracious, yes. Mixology Monday has been nothing short of spectacular on so many levels: the sense of vibrant community, getting to see what special things everyone comes up with every month. And it thrilled me tremendously that the Fall Carnival helped inspire November's Garnish Grandiloquence theme. Now to improve the timing of my posts..

Ombudsman: So then, the loose ends?

MoD: I'd like to first give a big shout-out to Dagreb, the Garnish God. Back in October I may have done a little muse-ly poking and prodding to see what he could do with Jack-o-Lantern garnishes, which, wow (and doesn't that first one have a cheeky l'il grin?). I was working on a Cinderella's Coach recipe - now finished - and wanted to throw in a shout-out to his pumpkin work since I wound up doing something similar, but got bogged down in writing a side-story to go with it for the post. My dear departed Boomer (my Twitter avatar) would feature, and me and my little Sidecar buddy would banter cutely as we chased after the Coach. The Great Clobbering of October got the better of me, but I figured I'd still have time the week after Halloween what with All Saints/All Souls/First Day of Winter on the 8th, etc.. Then the family dog Peanut died after a long illness, and well... I should (I hope) have it in me to finish that post in time for next Halloween - shout-out intact.

Secondly, I've been intimating some drink ideas on Twitter. The Anti-Cider needs to be taken back to the drawing board, Fortune Teller needs more ingredient exploration, Candy Corn Shooters need to be redone with the right ingredients - all for next autumn, naturally - I do like to keep seasonal, and it's one way to manage the overflowing number of idea drafts. Vanilla Lace Bitters posts tomorrow, after a delay due to recipe modification. You should then see follow-up recipes exploring its usage later this week in La Dame de Chantilly and The Lady's Piercing Eyes.

So stay tuned, and thanks for visiting! Feu de Vie just passed the 4,000th hit mark today. I'm grateful for your interest and hope to keep bringing the joy and wacky ideas for 2013! Happy New Year!

Mixology Monday, December 2012: Humbug

Is this the last Mixology Monday....ever?

...

...

Probably not.

In which case, HUMBUG! I really was looking forward to the end of the world. *pouts* (What?! Whaddya expect from a Muse of Doom?)

But to better elaborate, here's what JFL from Rated R Cocktails has to say:

Lets face it the holidays suck, yeah I said it. You put yourself in debt buying crap people will have forgotten about in a month. You drive around like a jackass to see people you don’t even like, or worse they freeload in your house. Your subjected to annoying music, and utterly fake, forced kindness and joy. Plus if you work retail your pretty much in hell, so don’t we all deserve a good stiff drink? So for this Mixology Monday unleash your inner Grinch. Mix drinks in the spirit of Anti-Christmas. They can be really bitter and amaro filled. They filled with enough booze to make you pass out in a tinsel covered Scrooge heap. They could be a traditional holiday drink turned on it’s ear. Or they could be a tribute to your favorite holiday villain. If you celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanzaa then you still suffer through the holidays, so feel free to join in with your Anti-Holiday drink as well. Whatever it is add a hearty “Humbug!” and make your drink personify everything annoying or fake about the holidays.

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La Vielle Fée Dragée

2 oz reposado tequila
1/2 oz cassis vinegar
1/4 oz walnut liqueur
1 dash orange bitters
barspoon absinthe for glass rinse


Shake first four ingredients on ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass that has been rinsed but not emptied of absinthe.


Now...why this particular hodgepodge of ingredients, and what's a Fée Dragée, let alone an old one? Well, if you pop back in next week the day sugar plums dance in your head, you may have a better idea of what I'm riffing off of (some posts are just ideally published on given days). But essentially, what if the Sugar Plum Fairy broke up with her prince, got old and sour, went to pot, and bunked down with her friend the Green Fairy? (I had a dialogue in my head about this, but it's being very slow about it. I may update later on, but you're not missing too much)

But while everyone else seems impelled towards the bitter for their drinks, I'm surprised how overlooked Sour is. I saw the cassis vinegar at Sur la Table this summer and knew it would make an interesting shrub-like ingredient. And it is interesting - almost tomato-ey even. But its big berry notes naturally pair well reposado tequila (think El Diablo). On the other side of the cocktail's equation, the absinthe just tastes really darn good with the repo - the repo isn't so oaked that it loses its vegetal qualities found in blanco, so that the absinthe's fennel, tequila's grass and agave, and nocino's alpine herbs marry well. Moreover the port-like qualities of the nocino undergird and deepen the cassis. The orange bitters' citrus complement the El Diablo pieces and reinforce the herbacious/bitter side of the drink.

And for the record, if you're doing an absinthe rinse for a drink, you're really "bunking down at the Green Fairy's".


[Hat tip to Joel DiPippa of Southern Ash for the linkage. And if you really want to know the name origin of the Perfect Wee Bastard, ye best look in the mirror, lads and lasses.]

Rudolph Steps Out & Maccabee Sling

It's company holiday party time, and as resident Cocktail Girl I've been asked to whip up a few recipes with some bare requirements: a Christmas cocktail with red and green colors, and a Hanukkah cocktail with blue and white colors. In addition, we were pairing drinks with the beginning of a lovely multi-course Italian meal at a local culinary school, so I wanted to include Italian spirits and elements where possible. Here's what I wound up doing.

Rudolph Steps Out
1 oz bourbon (Elijah Craig 12 year)
1 oz sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
7/8 oz Ramazzotti
1/8 oz (barspoon) Solerno
bourbon cherry skewered on rosemary sprig*

Stir ingredients on ice and strain into a(n ideally chilled) cocktail glass. Garnish with a bourbon cherry skewered on a rosemary sprig. Bonus points if garnish is twisted reindeerly and Rudolphly.

*bourbon cherry a modified take on Dr. Adam Elmegirab's cocktail cherries, using Buffalo Trace and subbing half an orange's zest for vanilla bean

I originally wanted to use Cynar instead of Ramazzotti in the drink because in coordinating with dinner there were several earthy rustic-style options, including some artichokes in the appetizer course. Trying to think to my audience, however, Cynar has a particular long bitter finish, which, while good as an aperitif function, might not agree with the audience (also, that drink veers very close to a Colonel Carpano). I've had Ramazzotti on my to-get list for awhile now, so testing was a great excuse to bring it into the fold. Ramazzotti's bitter/sweet ratio is on par with Averna and the gentian similarly stands out among its bittering agents, but I like how its famed cola flavor comes through. Some would say it's more root beer/citrus, but while I do get root-i-ness, it's, well, less dour than Averna. That cola note (and, if we're getting highly aesthetic, the red and white label coloring -- and the word "cola" with its rounded shapes evoking images of red glass ball Christmas tree ornaments) just has a friendly let's-get-down-and-boogie feel to it that finishes a sip on par with the bourbon and vermouth, perfect for a holiday party.

So overall, this is a Boulevardier variation, along the lines of my Doe's Path. Solerno is the orange liqueur here - opulent, regal, ornament-invoking. Along with the green rosemary, red cherry and general red tint of the cocktail, this fit the Christmas criteria


Maccabee Sling
1 oz Magellan gin
1/2 oz honey-ginger-lemon sour mix
top with prosecco (about 3 oz)
Fuji apple garnish

Shake gin and sour mix with ice, strain into a champagne flute and top with prosecco. Garnish with Fuji apple cutout or sliver.

While not a "sling" cocktail per se (more of a champagne cocktail), the Maccabee Sling riffs on the French 75 using classic Jewish flavors apple and honey. With this drink I wanted a lighter and drier cocktail to provide variety up against ol' Rudolph up above. Magellan gin is a French-style gin that utilizes orris root and blue iris flowers during its final distillation, rendering the gin a pale sky blue (if unavailable, substitute Citadelle gin and a smidge blue food coloring). To add white to the equation: delicate-flavored Fuji apple. The apple along with the ginger-honey add hints of flavor around the edges but not as to dampen the gin's multitudinous aromatics.

Honey-Ginger-Lemon sour mix
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup honey (a lighter honey helps the cocktail remain gin-forward)
1/2 tsp powdered ginger (McCormick has a new interesting roasted ginger powder out at the moment)
1 cup lemon juice

Blend water, honey, ginger in a pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Immediately strain through a coffee filter into a container to cool. Refrigerate until ready to use. Blend syrup half-and-half with fresh-squeezed lemon juice just before cocktailing.

Mixology Monday, November 2012: Garnish Grandiloquence

Wait for meeeeeeee!!!!! *runs after the bus*

How could I possibly miss out on a truly awesome MxMo theme this month? Garnishes! Before I keel over from blushing pride and delight*, I'll let the prompt, from host Joseph Tkach of Measure & Stir, do the talking:

I’m always shocked by the way that an orange peel or a lemon peel can transform the experience of drinking a mixed drink from something mundane to something magical. In a similar vein, eating the olive in a martini will totally transform the imbiber’s perception of the drink. So this Mixology Monday, let’s really make a study of art of the garnish, by mixing up drinks where the garnish plays a central role in the experience of the drink. Of course, you don’t have to make a latticework out of orange peels, a pirate ship out of citrus, or a ferris wheel out of pineapple and squash, but it sure would warm my heart. This type of garnish is traditionally in the realm of tiki, but you could mix anything, so long as the garnish is the star of the show.

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Uncanny that you mention the more out-there garnishes tend to fall with the realm of tiki. When I was researching tiki for the ferris wheel cocktail mentioned above, I came across this post from A Mountain of Crushed Ice discussing ice cones (note the suggested use of pilsner glass molds) among other crushed ice creations. What a stellar visual ripe with possibilities. A few ideas hit me at once (ow..), including one for Thanksgiving! The below is what I finally got to work after a few tries.



Art Deco Cranberry Ice Corn

Fresh cranberries
marble-sized crushed ice or mini ice cubes
dried Indian corn hulls
seltzer

Shake ice and cranberries in a shaker briefly to jumble. Pour into a V-shaped glass (pilsner or perhaps smaller - anything where the rim won't hinder the ice from leaving the glass). Use a chopstick or similar to drill a center hole in the ice mixture and poke corn hulls down in to secure. Surround with more ice/cranberries if needed. Nearly cover the mixture with seltzer and place glass in the freezer to bind everything together. Once frozen and ready to use, remove from the freezer to thaw just enough to pry the ice corn free.


Initially I wanted to use cranberry juice and apple cider mini ice to make a true Indian corn ice cone, but it seems that juices, probably because of their sugar content, don't freeze as firmly as water-based ice, making it difficult to extract neat cubes from their molds. Perhaps next Thanksgiving I'll get closer to that mark.

Regular ice freezes much nicer, however, and you can see in the close-up above how that random arrangement creates a nice kernel-y texture, particularly once the cone starts to melt. The seltzer only aids that, dissolving faster and with a less solid color that prevents the mini cubes from being lost in the mix. The white-on-white look for some reason reminds me of Art Deco style.


As for the cocktail? Well, it was getting down to the wire and I'm noodling the many many many ways this drink could go, and, honestly, I didn't have it in me to do much testing. With that in mind I figured "if this MxMo challenge really is all about the garnish, then why not let the drink BE the garnish?"

There really are a lot of ways you can cocktail around the ice corn (thinking in Cobbler, Julep, or French 75 modes here).

If Julep-ing or Cobbler-ing, take a base spirit and 1/4-1/2 oz simple syrup, pre-mix, then pour over the garnish - possibly with accoutrements like muddled herbs or citrus. In keeping with the general New England Thanksgiving theme implied, I could see rum (America's first spirit) for the rum trade run through region, Plymouth gin, Yankee favorite rye whiskey, very Thanksgiving-friendly bourbon, or a classy cognac pairing well. My thoughts trend towards white or medium-aged spirits for this drink -- why mess with a well-aged spirit with this much ice? If you want to improve on that, sub an orange or cranberry liqueur for the simple syrup, possibly with a dash of allspicy Angostura or other bitters.

Also in the Cobbler mode, a maple-y or nutty sherry wine would make a nice visual pairing with the tart cranberries. Really, you could extend the wine selection to anything white you'd use as a Turkey Day aperitif (Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Vouvray..). Something ginger-y like Gewürztraminer or even Stone's Green Ginger Wine would be delightful. Or go the extra mile and break out the bubbly! You may or may not want to exclude the sweet element, it depends on the wine's sweetness itself.

And trailing off from the champagne or prosecco idea, if you really want to go the French 75 route (spirit, sour, sweet, bubbles), well, I leave that to your better judgement.

Or if you'd rather: make a mocktail with apple spritzer or ginger ale.

The little ditty you see pictured pairs brut sparkling wine with 1/2 oz homemade blueberry liqueur (cranberries and blueberries being 2 of the 3 fruits native to North America) and one dash each Angostura and lemon bitters. It's my way of bringing a personal sense of harvest, enjoying the fruits/labors of summer with the liqueur. Light, crisp, the blueberry trends the flavor from a gold bubbly to more of a dry rosé - a perfect aperitif.

The main point when doing the ice corn: don't let a li'l recipe idea like this drive you bonkers in addition to all your other Thanksgiving prep. Whip up a few batches of ice, fill your glasses, add tailfeathers, freeze -- and it should work well with most anything else you've already got planned. Cheers!


*and on a personal note, if any of these wacky cocktail ideas on Feu de Vie actually have any merit and inspire (!) drinks of your own, I'd love love love to hear about and have you show off your shiny drink! MoD's a sad panda hamster when she doesn't know she's being muse-ly.

Mixology Monday, October 2012: Bein' Green

It's that time again: Mixology Monday! Thoroughly back into the swing of things, this month's shindig is hosted by Ed of Wordsmithing Pantagruel with the theme Bein' Green:

With the warm days of summer now fading off into the distance in our rear view mirrors, let's pay one last tribute to the greens of summer before the frosts come and our outdoor herb gardens give up the ghost for the winter. For our theme for this month, I have chosen: (it's not easy) "Bein' Green." (Perchance due in no small part to my predilection for Green Chartreuse.) I'm giving you a wide berth on this one, anything using a green ingredient is fair play. There's not only the aforementioned Chartreuse; how about Absinthe Verte, aka the green fairy. Or Midori, that stuff is pretty damn green. Crème de menthe? Why not? Douglas Fir eau de vie? Bring it! Apple schnapps? Uh...well...it is green. I suppose if you want to try to convince me it makes something good you can have at it. But it doesn't have to be the liquor. Limes are green. So is green tea. Don't forget the herb garden: mint, basil, cilantro, you name it - all fair game. There's also the veritable cornucopia from the farmers market: green apples, grapes, peppers, olives, celery, cucumbers...you get the idea. Like I said, wide berth. Base, mixer, and or garnish; if it's green it's good. Surprise me. Use at least one, but the more the merrier.

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Oh goodnesses, truly, when the nights are getting down into the 30s and 40s, I'm all about the maize and apples and pumpkins and all I want to do is hibernate (a good thing in my book - we had a lousy fall 'round these parts last year). There's still plenty of greenery around, though, so all is not lost on that front. Autumn may be in full swing and the flavors may be abundant, but there's no reason why we can't invoke a summer form: the tiki cocktail.

And to up the ante: raise your hand, anyone else think "pumpkin spice" has gotten officially overblown this year? I think it's about time we give some other squashes some love. In this case, the Carnival Squash. You heard me right: harvest tiki with squash!


I need to give some big shout-outs. If it weren't for the years of hard work of these fine cocktail bloggers and others, it would be impossible for a complete Tiki novice like myself to do a crash course in the scope of about a week. I still have a ton to learn and try, but I feel like I have a decent grounding now. So, many thanks to Doug at the Pegu Blog, Jordan at Chemistry of the Cocktail, Tiare at A Mountain of Crushed Ice, Matt at RumDood, Mike at Cocktail Democracy for pointing me to PKNY's recipe menu, and particularly this one tiki-breakdown post by Joseph at Measure & Stir that started me down the path.


Fall Carnival
1 oz gold rum (I used Mount Gay Eclipse)
3/4 oz aged rum (I used Appleton Reserve)
3/4 oz pear eau-de-vie (I used Schladerer Williams Birne)
3/4 oz carnival squash syrup (recipe below)
1/2 oz hazelnut orgeat (sub orange blossom water for rose water)
3/4 oz lime juice
1/2 oz pineapple juice
1/4 oz orange juice
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash Urban Moonshine maple bitters

Blend all ingredients with 8 oz ice. Pour into a large glass and garnish with a pineapple-squash Ferris wheel and straw for sipping.

I am very green when it comes to Tiki, so please feel free to experiment with rum choices. Overall, though a less-elegant recipe than, say, a Mai Tai, when fine-blended with ice it comes off creamy and delicate. I think balance has been achieved here as far as each flavor getting its due, though it trends sweet. I toyed around a lot with the ratios, trying to pull out ingredients to simplify or pull them back to let the others shine, but the mix wasn't stomaching much alteration from the above. That said, I'd welcome any thoughts from the Tiki aficionados out there.

On the spirits: I wanted a good low/medium note rum combo to go with the pear's light notes. A dark/blackstrap seemed like too much for some of the more delicate flavors going on, so I opted for something aged - you could go even further aged than the Reserve with better results, my own spirits cabinet is just underdeveloped on rums. The gold rum's medium note holds it all together, Eclipse's dryness is good for balancing the sweet. The pear? Another way to bring in some autumn flavors.

On the syrups: Autumnal tweaks to tiki staples. We swap hazelnut for almond orgeat, and as odd as it sounds the lemon and creamy vanilla notes in the carnival squash syrup aren't too far off from passion fruit.

On the citrus: Lime is the natural match for rum and makes a better sour foundation than lemon. I added the bit of orange to help round the citrus flavors. And pineapple? Pineapple, pineapple, pineapple... This is one ingredient I thought could be cut back, but it turns out that it boosts the carnival squash flavor and gives a nice overall body to the cocktail, despite it being show-offy.

On the bitters: Autumnal flavors to help break up and point out all the other flavors going on. You don't get much of them, but they fit in and add a good finish.


I think that's about i... [backstage assistant hands her a card] Oh yeah! The theme! Well, I did use lime.. ...shakin' your head on that one, aren't you? Well, ok. How about..while I was at the farmers market a few weeks ago, poking around to see what interesting things there were, I came across these:

How do you not use these little critters for garnishes?

So...trying to figure out a name and garnish idea, the "carnival" theme seemed appropriate. And with Tiki, you've got to have extravagant garnishes..

...right? I mighta mentioned something about a pineapple-squash Ferris wheel up above.. (consider the squashes as gondolas)

Here, let me get you some other views, I know you're curious:


On the left, you can see, top-down, the pineapple core peg into which the wheels are double-skewered from both directions. The peg nestles securely in the neck of the squash-shaped glass, its woodiness sturdy enough to support the entire structure.

On the right, you can see how the gondolas on single skewers are secured: screw a (hazel)nut on the end!


Needless to say, I have a fair amount of extra pineapple juice on my hands.



So, happy harvest tiki: autumn greens, but still very much reminiscent of summer.



Carnival Squash Syrup
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup cooked/packed carnival squash*
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger

*¹ To cook squash: halve it from top to bottom. Remove seeds and pith. Lightly coat cut sides with butter, oil or maple syrup. Prick the hull to release steam if desired (not wholly necessary). Place cut sides down on a foil-covered cookie sheet and bake at 350 F for 30-45 minutes or until the hull has softened and squash has caramelized a little at the bottom.

Click to enlarge

² Quick note on Carnival squash: they're rather similar in appearance to Sweet Dumpling squash, but a bit bigger, so make sure to check the label. Carnival is yellow-fleshed with a lemon-vanilla character whereas Sweet Dumpling is orange-fleshed and nutty like Butternut (but less smooth).

Combine squash and water in a blender until smooth (it beats trying to purée just the squash). Add all ingredients to a small sauce pan and stir over medium heat for 5 minutes until sugar is dissolved and mixture comes together. Pull from the stove and fine strain the syrup to remove the fibrous bits you don't want to cook further. Return the syrup to the stove, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, whisking frequently. You'll know the syrup's ready when the thickened sugar begins to collect on the sides of the pan and it's taken on the opaque/glossy appearance of vanilla pudding (but should still be pourable, like a liquid caramel sauce). Remove from heat, let cool. Pour into an air-tight container to refrigerate until ready to use. Feel free to add half an ounce of neutral spirit to fortify if you feel like (emphasis on the neutral - add something like Sailor Jerry and you really will have vanilla pudding on your hands).

In addition to this cocktail, try adding carnival squash syrup to some chai tea!


But MoD? What about all this leftover squash I have, including the purée strained out of the syrup? It's not the standard acorn, butternut or pumpkin, so what should I do with it?

Funny you should ask! Have a nummy (and festive) recipe:

Carnival Squash Mash
Pre-soak 1/2 cup craisins in pomegranate juice (or pomegranate craisins in cranberry juice, or...). Sauté a minced shallot in olive oil until translucent. Add your squash, a bit of fine lemon zest, 1/2 tsp powdered ginger, maybe a little butter if you like. Mix and mash to lumpy potato consistency. Mix in pre-soaked (and drained) craisins and serve topped with basil chiffonade. Goes well with Italian-seasoned chicken/pork and couscous.