Category Archives: Spirits

Gin, Green Chartreuse, Maraschino Liqueur No comments

The Last Word

I had this prohibition-era cocktail for the first time in a restaurant in Chicago earlier this year and was well and duely impressed. So I had to try it for myself. After trying a couple of gins, I found that Gin Xoriguer, a grape-based gin from Mahón on Menorca, Spain, which has a distinctive Mediterranean feel to it of juniper, pine, herbs and citrus that combines well with the herbal taste of the Green Chartreuse, the maraschino cherry liqueur and the fresh lime juice.

¾ oz 22.5 ml Gin Xoriguer de Mahón, ABV 38%
¾ oz 22.5 ml Green Chartreuse
¾ oz 22.5 ml Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
¾ oz 22.5 ml Fresh lime juice

Shake the ingredients with ice cubes and then double strain into a chilled coupé glass. Garnish with a slice of lime or even better a dried slice of lime.

Curaçao, French Vermouth, Ron No comments

Presidente Cocktail

Recently, I have been taking a look at the Presidente Cocktail and have been amazed by it and it has since become one of my new favourites. It appeared in the 1920s in Cuba and the following recipe was taken from page 14 of the “Manual de Cantinero, Habana 1924, Cuba”:

½ [part] Ron bacardi
Bacardi rum
½ [part] Chambery [vermouth]
Poquita granadina, o curacao mejor
A little grenadine or better curaçao

Sírvase en copa de cocktail, con cascara de naranja y una guinda.
Serve in a cocktail glass, with orange peel and a cherry.

As most people are aware the Barcardi rum from the 1920s has nothing to do with the rum of the same name today. Using a premium aged light Cuban style rum instead of Ron bacardi really makes this cocktail special. Being half rum to half dry vermouth, you could hint at calling it a Rum Martini and it does have similar qualities to that most famous cocktail. The vermouth plays off the a good premium light aged rum well and the curaçao plays off both the rum and vermouth extremely well.

Puerto Rican and U.S. Virgin Island rums, such as Cruzan® Single Barrel Rum, would be an alternative to Cuban rums, although the Mixelero has not yet tried the Presidente Cocktail with these rums (update to follow). Using such premium rums does make the cocktail quite pricey, but Mixelero believes that the results speak for themselves and you won’t regret it. To achieve a great cocktail use great ingredients.

The following recipe is Mixelero’s currently recommended expression of this classic cocktail. I have chosen to omit using grenadine, because the cocktail is simply perfect without it.

1 oz 30 ml Havana Club Seleccíon de Maestros, 45% ABV
1 oz 30 ml Dolin Vermouth de Chambéry Blanc, 16% ABV
¼ oz 7.5 ml Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao Triple Sec, 40% ABV
Orange peel

Add all ingredients into a mixing glass with ice and twist orange peel and drop into glass. Stir for at least 30 seconds to chill. Strain into a chilled Nick & Nora or small cocktail glass. Optionally garnish with a Luxardo maraschino cherry.

 

 

Cocktails, French Vermouth, Gin 2 Comments

Martini

Have finally got around to taking a closer look at one of the classic cocktails, the Martini. The basic recipe is, of course, gin and dry vermouth. But the problem is that in every cocktail book you read, you encounter a different ratio of gin to vermouth. The ratio also depends on when the cocktail book was published, with the Martini becoming drier over the years as tastes changed, that is the ratio of gin to vermouth becoming larger.

If that was difficult enough, the resulting flavour of the Martini also depends very much on the brands used, with the result that for different brands, different ratios work best. This was a revelation that for a given recipe the final result was so different when different spirit brands were used. More so than I ever expected, so much so that you cannot really recommend a given recipe (ratio) without specifying the brands to use! Below are some pairings that I personally prefer. Again, taste is subjective – I prefer my Martinis less dry – and this post encourages you to vary the ratios for each brand used until you find your own personal favourite brand pairings and ratios. Feel free to discuss such pairings here.

Tanqueray No. Ten Gin: Ratio 3:1

1½ oz 45 ml Tanqueray No. Ten Gin, 47.3% ABV
½ oz 15 ml Dolin Vermouth de Chambéry Dry, 17.5% ABV

Portobello Road No.171 London Dry Gin: Ratio 4.5:1

At a ratio of 3:1, I find that the vermouth is too dominate when using Portobello Road No.171 London Dry Gin, so I upped the ratio of gin to 4.5:1, which I found better balanced.

1½ oz 45 ml Portobello Road No.171 London Dry Gin, 42% ABV
⅔ oz 10 ml Dolin Vermouth de Chambéry Dry, 17.5% ABV

Add plenty of ice to a mixing glass. Add the gin and vermouth. The best Martinis should remain crystal clear, so stir gently for about 1½ minutes and then double strain into a Martini or coupé glass to ensure no small pieces of ice remain in the drink.

Lime Juice, Rum, Simple Syrup No comments

Bajan Rum Punch

One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak. Well that’s the general formula for rum punch and this applies on Barbados as well. For Bajun Rum Punch, which is ubiquitous on Barbados, you use Barbados rum, of course. In addition, fresh nutmeg is grated on the finished punch as garnish. Sometimes nutmeg is also mixed in with the drink.

2¼ oz 67.5 ml Barbados rum (strong), e.g.,
Mount Gay Eclipse, 43% ABV, or Old Brigand, 43% ABV
¾ oz 22.5 ml Fresh lime juice (sour)
1½ oz 45 ml Simple syrup (sweet)
3 oz 90 ml Still mineral water (weak)
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
Nutmeg

Shake ingredients with ice and pour contents and ice unstrained into a Collins glass. Grate a little nutmeg onto the finished punch as garnish.

Angostura Bitters, Bourbon Whiskey, Rye Whiskey No comments

The Old-Fashioned

As I have been reading Robert Simonson’s book “The Old-Fashioned: The Story of the World’s First Cocktail with Recipes and Lore” (ISBN 978-1-60774-535-8), I had to try the Old-Fashioned, the original ‘cocktail’, for myself to see if I would actually like it. I was skeptical, because I had trouble enjoying the classic Manhattan, which on my initial attempt was not quite to my taste (yet anyway).

When mixing an Old-Fashioned, I followed the basic recipe without the fruit. Authentic Old-Fashioneds are to be made with either Kentucky Bourbon or rye Whiskeys. My first attempt was using Elijah Craig 12 Years Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, as recommended by Robert Simonson in his book. I’ll try the rye version at a later date. I must say that I was really pleasantly surprised by the cocktail. It really has something. I also found that the traces of orange coming from the orange peel really went well with the taste of the Bourbon whiskey, to such an extent that I mixed a second Old-Fashioned replacing the Angostura Bitters with Angostura Orange Bitters. However, this did not have the effect I was looking for – the original was much better. So I will have to investigate the addition of orange to Bourbon more thoroughly at some later date. I think that there is a cocktail in there somewhere.

2 oz 6 cl Elijah Craig 12 Year Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 47% ABV

or

Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 43% ABV

 Rittenhouse 100 Proof Rye Whiskey, 50% ABV
1 Twist of orange peel Twist of lemon peel
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
1 Sugar lump

Add the sugar lump into an Old-Fashioned glass, dash the Angostura Bitters over the sugar lump, add a barspoon of warm water and muddle the ingredients until the sugar has dissolved. Pour the whiskey into the glass and stir. The add ice, preferably a single large ice cube, and stir to cool. Add a zest of orange or lemon, depending on the type of whiskey used, as garnish. Enjoy.

Cherry Heering, Lime Juice, Orange Juice, Pomegranate Juice, Rhum Agricole, Tiki No comments

Lalau Cocktail – A messed up Aloha Cocktail

I basically made this cocktail by mistake, when trying to decide between making a Donga Punch or an Aloha Cocktail. The former is a cocktail from Dick Santiago’s personal notebook used whilst working at Don The Beachcombers in Hollywood and the latter is by Hank Riddle, 1970, who worked as a bartender at Don The Beachcomber in Palm Springs. Basically, I unintentionally mixed the two recipes and added fresh pink grapefruit juice to the Aloha cocktail. In a second attempt, I replaced the light white rum with the Martinique rhum agricole blanc used in the Donga Punch recipe. So try it and see if you like it. I’ve called it the Lalau, which means error or mistake in Hawaiian, using the Negroni Sbagliato (messed up or mistaken Negroni) as example.

½ oz 15 ml Clément Rhum Agricole Blanc, 50% ABV
½ oz 15 ml El Dorado Superior Overproof Demerara Rum 151, 75.5% ABV
½ oz 15 ml Fresh lime juice
½ oz 15 ml Fresh grapefruit juice
½ oz 15 ml Fresh orange juice
½ oz 15 ml Fresh pomegranate juice
½ oz 15 ml Sugar syrup
¼ oz 7.5 ml Cherry Heering Liqueur, 24% ABV
2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Shake the ingredients with ice cubes and then strain into a flute champagne glass.

Cocktails, Cointreau, Cranberry Juice, Rhum Agricole, Rum No comments

Cosmopolitan malgache

I have recently been reading Tristan Stephenson’s “The Curious Bartender: The Artistry and Alchemy of Creating the Perfect Cocktail” (ISBN 978-1-84975-437-8) and was intrigued by his discussion regarding the cosmopolitan. Unfortunately, I did not have any citrus vodka to actually try out the cocktail, but I had given my partner a bottle of Dzama Rhum Cuvèe Blanc, a rum from Madagascar, for her birthday in February and this rum certainly had a citrus note to it. So this gave me the idea to try a cosmopolitan by substituting the citrus vodka with the Dzama rhum. And yes, well, it was a revelation! Really, a  very delicious cocktail! Try it at your pleasure. The colour is also something to savour.

So here is my recipe. Try it if you can.

2 oz 6 cl Dzama Rhum Cuvée Blanche Prestige, 40% ABV
1 oz 3 cl Fresh lime juice
1 oz 3 cl Cointreau, 40% ABV
1 oz 3 cl Cranberry juice

Add the lime juice, rhum, and Cointreau to a shaker. Add ice and shake. Double strain into a Martini glass. Add a zest of orange as garnish. Enjoy.

Absinthe, Angostura Bitters, Cinnamon Syrup, Falernum, Gin, Lime Juice, London Dry Gin, Navy Strength Gin, Old Tom Gin, Pomegranate Juice, Simple Syrup, Tiki No comments

Lunipela Zombie – Another twist on the Zombie

Having read “Professor Cocktail’s Zombie Horde” by David J. Montgomery (ISBN:9781-494352806), a book devoted to just Zombie recipes, I noticed that there were really very few Zombie recipes that used other spirits than rum. One that caught my eye though was a single Zombie recipe based on gin. This sounded interesting, so I went about creating a gin-based Zombie, starting from Don the Beachcomber’s original Zombie recipe, replacing the rum with gin and the grenadine with fresh pomegranate juice as described in an earlier post.

I found that the recipe was astoundingly well balanced. The absinthe played well against the juniper coming from the gin. Try it out and see what you think.

1 oz 30 ml Tanqueray No. Ten Gin, 47.3% ABV
1 oz 30 ml Haymans Old Tom Gin, 40% ABV
1 oz 30 ml Haymans Royal Dock of Deptford Gin, 57% ABV
½ oz 15 ml John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum Liqueur, 11% ABV
¾ oz 22 ½ ml Fresh lime juice
¾ oz 22 ½ ml Fresh pomegranate juice
½ oz 15 ml Simple syrup
6 drops / 1/8 tsp 0.5 ml Absinthe Libertine 55, 55% ABV
1 dash Angostura Bitters
2 tsp 10 ml Fresh grapefruit juice*
1 tsp 5 ml Cinnamon syrup*
6 oz /
¾ cup		 180 g Ice cubes

Place all ingredients but the overproof gin in a blender, adding the ice last, and blend at medium speed for no more than 5 seconds. Pour into a Tiki mug or, to better experience the beautiful vibrant colour of the cocktail, a tall glass (at least 15 oz/450 ml). Add ice cubes to fill. Layer the overproof gin over the ice at the top of the drink. Garnish with a wedge of fresh pineapple sandwiched between 2 maraschino cherries. Enjoy.

I have called this the Lunipela Zombie; lunipela in Hawaiian means Juniper, referring to the gin and also keeping it in the Tiki mold.

* Don’s Mix.

Absinthe, Cinnamon Syrup, Falernum, Jamaican Rum, Lime Juice, Overproof, Pomegranate Juice, Ron, Tiki No comments

Revisiting Don the Beachcomber’s Original Zombie Again

Having watched Jamie Oliver create a Zombie on his Drinks Tube, in which he used fresh pomegranate juice with its beautiful deep red colour instead of grenadine, I thought I’d see what a difference it would make to Don the Beachcomber’s original Zombie recipe. So I bought some pomegranates and extracted the juice from one. Extracting the juice was a little tricky, but it was easier than I thought. I cut the pomegranate in half and used a simple run-of-the-mill orange juicer to press out and collect the juice. Be careful though, because the juice tends to squirt out from all directions, especially if the skin of the pomegranate breaks, which it tends to do. Finally, squeeze the remaining pieces of the pomegranate to extract the last remnants of juice. I was surprised that the yield from one pomegranate was roughly 200 ml (just over ¾ of a cup)!

The colour is astounding and really improves the general experience of the Zombie. Unfortunately, to enjoy the colour you have to do forgo the Tiki mug. But how much juice should be used? The original recipe calls for 5 ml grenadine, but grenadine is a syrup and much sweeter than the fresh juice. Jamie Oliver used 15 ml. So I initially started with 15 ml, but soon went to 22 ½ ml (¾ oz). To compensate for the loss of sweetness from the grenadine, I added 15 ml (½ oz) of simple syrup.

So to add an extra dimension to the Zombie, replace the grenadine with freshly pressed pomegranate juice and simple syrup. This is now the recipe that I use when making my Zombies.

1 ½ oz 45 ml** Myer’s Original Dark Jamaican Rum, 40% ABV
1 ½ oz 45 ml** Ron Varadero Oro 5 Años, 40% ABV
or
Ron Palma Mulata de Cuba Añejo Reserva 5, 38% ABV
1 oz 30 ml Lemon Hart 151 Proof Demerara Rum, 75.5% ABV
½ oz 15 ml John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum Liqueur, 11% ABV
¾ oz 22 ½ ml Fresh lime juice
¾ oz 22 ½ ml Fresh pomegranate juice
½ oz 15 ml Simple syrup
6 drops / 1/8 tsp 0.5 ml Absinthe Libertine 55, 55% ABV
1 dash Angostura Bitters
2 tsp 10 ml Fresh grapefruit juice*
1 tsp 5 ml Cinnamon syrup*
6 oz /
¾ cup		 180 g Ice cubes

Place all ingredients but the overproof rum in a blender, adding the ice last, and blend at medium speed for no more than 5 seconds. Pour into a Tiki mug or, to better experience the beautiful vibrant colour of the cocktail, a tall glass (at least 15 oz/450 ml). Add ice cubes to fill. Layer the overproof rum over the ice at the top of the drink. Garnish with a wedge of fresh pineapple sandwiched between 2 maraschino cherries. If available, additionally garnish with a half of a passionfruit, whose aroma will significantly add to the Zombie experience. Enjoy.

* Don’s Mix.
** The amount of rum can be reduced to 30 ml (1 oz) without a serious loss of enjoyment, if you wish to minimize the impact of the Zombie.

Absinthe, Angostura Bitters, Cinnamon Syrup, Falernum, Grenadine, Jamaican Rum, Lime Juice, Overproof, Ron, Tiki No comments

Revisiting Don the Beachcomber’s Original Zombie

In earlier post I describe my attempt to create Don the Beachcomber’s Original Zombie, but could not source the Lemon Hart 151 Proof Demerara Rum. In the meantime, I have managed to obtain a bottle. And yes, it makes a big difference compared to the El Dorado Superior Overproof Demerara Rum 151. Firstly, it has a much more characteristic rum aroma and taste. Secondly, its dark colour adds to the drink experience. So it is a must for the Zombie and have adjusted my recipe accordingly.

1 ½ oz 45 ml** Myer’s Original Dark Jamaican Rum, 40% ABV
1 ½ oz 45 ml** Ron Palma Mulata de Cuba Añejo Reserva 5, 38% ABV
1 oz 30 ml Lemon Hart 151 Proof Demerara Rum, 75.5% ABV
½ oz 15 ml John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum Liqueur, 11% ABV
¾ oz 22 ½ ml Fresh lime juice
1 tsp 5 ml Grenadine
6 drops / 1/8 tsp 0.5 ml Absinthe Libertine 55, 55% ABV
1 dash Angostura Bitters
2 tsp 10 ml Fresh grapefruit juice*
1 tsp 5 ml Cinnamon syrup*
6 oz /
¾ cup		 180 g Ice cubes

Place all but the overproof rum in a blender, adding the ice last, and blend at medium speed for no more than 5 seconds. Pour into a tall glass. Add ice cubes to fill. Layer the overproof rum over the ice at the top of the drink. Garnish with a wedge of fresh pineapple sandwiched between 2 maraschino cherries. Serve.

* Don’s Mix.
** The amount of rum can be reduced to 30 ml (1 oz) without a serious loss of enjoyment, if you wish to minimize the impact of the Zombie.

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