Aperol Spritz!

It's a beautiful saturday afternoon and nothing is better on a nice day than a refreshing beverage.
Today seemed like a good day for an Aperol Spritz. Aperol is an italian apertif, similar to Campari but a little less bitter. It is also 11% alcohol so it does make for a nice daytime refresher. The Aperol Spritz came to be around the 1950s and, much like numerous old school cocktails, has enjoyed a recent renaissance and has become so popular overseas that it is now sold in ready-to-serve bottles. There are several slight variations out there but the idea is simple. Aperol and fizz. The official recipe on the Aperol site is 3 parts Prosecco, 2 Aperol and a splash of soda. This particular recipe is from the PDT cocktail book and adds fresh squeezed orange juice, which I happened to have on hand. I tried a variation with Luxardo Apertivo as well, which is very similar to Aperol. Maybe even a little lighter. Perfect either way! A great substitute for a Mimosa at your next sunday brunch!

Ingredients:

• 2 oz Aperol (or Luxardo Apertivo)
• 1 oz Prosecco, champagne or sparkling wine
• 1 oz Club soda
• 1/2 oz fresh orange juice

Build in tall glass, add ice, stir and enjoy! Add a slice of orange for an extra something nice.

Delightfully smokey take on the Margarita!

Tonight I was flipping through one of last year’s issues of Imbibe for some inspiration and came across “Eight Ways To Make A Margarita”. I settled on the Nuestra Margarita, mainly for its use of Mezcal as it has been awhile since I had the bottle out, and I was intrigued by the addition of green Chartreuse. And it was also the least amount of work compared to the other seven recipes (I am not pureeing cucumber or making habanero-infused simple syrup tonight.)

Well, this turned out fantastic. Occasionally, Mezcal is a little TOO smokey for me but this was a great balance. My only complaint is that I don’t get a lot of Chartreuse in the sip. I may make another and up the Chartreuse to 1/3 oz just to check things out. Aside from that, it’s a great contender for one of my go-to summer drinks and something fun to make for my more adventurous margarita fans!

UPDATE: 
Yes, I do prefer the extra little bit of Chartreuse and I think everyone else will also.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz Mezcal (I use El Buho simply because I think the bottle is cool)
• 1 oz Triple Sec (I used Luxardo Triplum for this. It's 1/2 the price of Cointreau while remaining very high quality. Great for trying recipes for the first time)
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• 1/3 oz green Chartreuse (altered from original recipe to taste)

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a slice of fresh lime.

Who wants the funk?                     Swedish Punsch and Batavia Arrack

As I may have mentioned previously, I'm a big fan of Swedish Punsch. The tradition of Swedish Punsch dates as far back as the early 17th century, when sailors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) began infusing Batavia Arrack, ( a clear, sugar- and rice-based Javanese spirit with a rough, "otherworldly" bite) with sugar and spice to create "punch". By the turn of the 20th century, Swedish Punsch was bottled and found its way to America, where it became an essential ingredient in numerous classic cocktails. However, its popularity faded when Prohibition was established, and it soon disappeared from the market. It's return  in 2011 has made it possible to revisit numerous forgotten cocktails. It has a very rummy, funky taste and can easily dominate a drink if not handled responsibly. My favorite way to drink it is, of course, with an aggressive dark jamaican rum with enough "hogo" to stand up to it. The term Hogo was used in the 18th-19th century to describe the sulfurous odors that happen naturally when raw sugar cane juice is distilled. Basically a strong funky rum that packs a punch. It is a taste that was once desirable but rum distillers tried hard to tame it in the 20th century and light rums like Bacardi became the preferred taste.

So, anyway, I was doing some internet cocktail surfing this evening and came across this recipe. I was anxious to try my peach bitters as they were something I HAD TO HAVE at that moment and they have been sitting around doing nothing since. This was a GREAT addition to the rum and the punsch.
There is a similar cocktail to this called The Tanglefoot that I found in one of my old recipe books that uses lemon juice instead of the vermouth and a light rum vs the dark. I decided on the funk tonight. Gotta have that funk.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz dark rum (I used Zaya)
• 3/4 oz Swedish Punsch (Kronan)
• 3/4 oz Dolin Blanc vermouth ( a bit sweeter than dry)
• 3/4 oz fresh orange juice
• 2 dashes of peach bitters (Fee Bros)

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. The peach bitters really shine through here and compliment the other tastes extremely well. At the moment, Kronan is the only brand of Swedish Punsch available in the US. It's sort of a pain in the ass to get around here so I made a homemade version with Batavia Arrack, demerara rum, sugar, citrus and tea that turned out pretty nice and good to have around.

Mine is a bit lighter for when you don't gotta have the funk.

Happy Birthday to me!

Having dinner with a few friends tonight for my birthday and I decided to try out my Nana's old recipe for Harvey Wallbanger cake. I will admit I used an on orange cake mix for this first time, not wanting to bite off more than I could chew, but this turned out so good, next time I'll try my hand at making it completely from scratch. 
The Harvey Wallbanger cocktail is a modern classic, invented sometime in the early 50s. It's rise in popularity in the 1970s undoubtedly is what gave this drink it's bad reputation. The 70s were a very dark time for cocktails. Fresh citrus was replaced with sour mix from soda guns, artificial sugary bottles replaced real fruit syrups, and numerous other shortcuts were taken everywhere to cut costs and corners. Galliano itself even became a lighter, sweeter version of itself up until a few years ago when the original formula was reinstated. What was once a very tasty cocktail combing vodka, fresh orange juice and Galliano, a sweet, herbal Italian liqueur, basically became a sweeter, headache-inducing screwdriver. Alas, I had never tried a Harvey Wallbanger despite having had a bottle taking up an awkward space in my liquor cabinet for the past few years. 
After reading up on the cocktail while assembling the ingredients for the cake, I was delighted to find that my bottle is the original 80 proof formula and decided the best thing to do would be to enjoy a proper Harvey Wallbanger while I baked the cake. It was refreshing, light and delicious.

Back to the cake. The recipe for Harvey Wallbanger cake is all over the internet, mine varies only
slightly from some, probably not at all from others. But taking your direction from your grandmother's handwritten yellowed recipe card has alot more charm than staring at a screen.

Harvey Wallbanger Cake Ingredients:

• 1 pkg orange cake mix 
• (though next time i may try and make my own instead of a mix)
• 1 pkg vanilla instant pudding
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup cooking oil
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup Galliano
• 2 tbsp vodka

combine cake mix and pudding mix in large bowl.
add the eggs, oil, orange juice, Galliano and vodka
beat on low speed for 5 minutes.
pour into greased and floured bundt pan.
bake at 350 for 45min.

cool in pan for 10min.
remove and pour on glaze while cake is still warm

Glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1tbsp each vodka, orange juice, Galliano (I added a little extra vodka)

I recommend enjoying a Harvey Wallbanger cocktail while you're at it. Why wouldn't you, really?

• 2 oz vodka
• 3 oz fresh orange juice
• 1/2 oz Galliano

Build vodka and orange juice in ice-filled highball glass. Float the Galliano on top.

The Weekly Special Cocktail

Tonight I was perusing through my copy of The Cafe Royal Cocktail Book for an interesting new cocktail to try. The original edition of this book was printed in 1937 consisting of recipes from top bartenders and compiled by William J. Tarling, head bartender at The Cafe Royal in Piccadilly, London. It was an elegant book, printed in color and illustrated. The two main goals of the book were to raise money for the UK Bartenders Guild, and also to compile a set of tightly standardized and accurately measured recipes to be used behind every reputable bar in London, thus retaining consistency and avoiding duplicate drinks with the same name. The recipes here capture a booming time in cocktail history and offers a fascinating view into the wide array of drinks being served in London between the two world wars. Sadly, there was only one printing and the book became unobtainable rarity for several decades. This fascimile edition, published in 2008, unlocks the time capsule of drinks and knowledge for modern bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts. Some of the widely used ingredients in this book have reappeared in recent years, while others still, sadly, remain lost in time. This new edition of The Cafe Royal Cocktail Book is available at Amazon.com.

This particular cocktail, The Weekly Special, grabbed my attention because of it's pairing of maraschino liqueur (a favorite and indispensable home staple for me) and kummel ( a caraway, fennel and cumin flavored liqueur). I haven't had many opportunities to experiment with it and was excited to give it some attention. The kummel was very much tamed by the maraschino and grapefruit but still retained a pleasant background presence.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz gin (I used Seneca Drums from the Finger Lakes)
• 1 oz grapefruit juice
• 1/2 oz Luxardo maraschino
• 1/2 oz Kummel

Shake all ingredients and double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass. No garnish. Maybe a grapefruit peel?

There are some higher end brands of Kummel out there, but I will hold off for the time being. Though this is tasty enough that Kummel might end up going faster than it has!

The feeling of spring continues with The One Flight Up cocktail...

Spring is still in the air, though I don't believe much longer. So to cash in on the fleeting feeling,I found this springy drink from Pouring Ribbons in NYC. I found this because I was trying to find something else to do with my orange flower water other than a Ramos Gin Fizz. It turned out that this also gave me the opportunity to dust off the Pisco for the season. Hooray. This is actually sort of Ramos Gin Fizz-y in a respect. I love the addition of the Campari and the egg white and soda water makes it feel like an old school drug store soda fountain kinda thing....

Ingredients:

• 2 oz Pisco (I used Capel)
• 3/4 oz Bianco Vermouth (Dolin)
• 3/4 oz Lemon juice
• 1 oz Simple syrup
• 5 dr Orange flower water (Fee Bros.)
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1 Egg white
• 1/2 oz Campari
• 1 oz Soda water

Add Campari and soda water to a highball glass and fill with ice. Add the other ingredients to a shaker, seal and shake without ice to emulsify the egg white. Add ice to the shaker and shake to chill, then strain into the highball glass to float over the Campari and soda mixture. Garnish with twists of lemon and orange peel. Serve with straw.

Lots of ingredients, and a good many steps but totally worth it. As long as you have everything out you may as well just have two.

London Briar Cocktail..                    Kind of like a Springy Last Word.

A Last Word Cocktail (equal parts gin, maraschino, Chartreuse and lime juice) has always been kind of an end of the evening cocktail for me, as the name might suggest. The addition of creme de framboise (a raspberry liqueur)in the London Briar kind of lightens it up a bit and makes it not quite so...direct.

Ingredients:

• 2 oz London Dry Gin
• 1/2 oz creme de framboise (Mathilde is a nice brand, affordable and not cloyingly sweet)
• 1/4 oz green Chartreuse
• 1/4 oz Luxardo maraschino
• 1/2 oz lime juice

The classic Last Word cocktail is 3/4 oz each gin, Chartreuse, maraschino and lime. I love it but it can be intense for some. By switching around the proportions a bit, this would make Chartreuse and maraschino much more approachable for anyone new to these unique tastes.