Something Something "From the Ashes"

I recently discovered the below post, in more-or-less complete form, sitting in my drafts. I had written it in February 2020, and was polishing it when the world went sideways.

Obviously, things have changed a great deal since last year, in the world as a whole and also in the narrow corner of it reflected in this website. The spirits consulting business I mentioned was sidelined by the pandemic; on the other hand, I’ve gotten to write two more books, and developed an online cocktail course that is my closest approximation yet to the kind of experience I’ve been trying to offer since 2012.

I’ve also been much better about posting here than I had been in 2018 and 2019. I haven’t developed the formalized blog series I was mulling in 2020, but I’ve effectively covered the “Back to Basics” one with my posts on recipes for Classic Cocktails, and covered a good chunk of the material for “Workhorse Spirits” along the way. The other ideas you’ll see below are still in my mind, and I think I may just have to pursue them now - reviving this particular post essentially makes it the first in the “From the Archives” series, although whether that’s ironic or apt I’m not quite sure.

I’ve mostly chosen to share the below as a sort of time capsule from just before the pandemic. There is an optimism to it that made so much sense at the time, and that rings strange in retrospect, knowing what was right around the corner. But, with more and more people getting vaccinated, perhaps it’s beginning to be warranted once again. Enjoy.

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Let’s try this again.

I knew it had been a long time since last I posted an update. I was aware, in the back of my mind, that it had in fact been far too long, some might even say unconscionably long, since the last time I both started and finished recording a thought on this site.

But I had no idea it had been two years.

So much has happened in that time! I made it to the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel (of eponymous cocktail book fame), and there tasted the finest expressions I’ve ever had of not one but two different classic cocktails. I met one of the authors of the cocktail guide that has had the greatest impact upon my life, bar none, and got him to sign the weathered copy I’d been carting around for seven years. I attended the best spirits history panel I’ve ever seen, as well as a seminar on brand ambassadorship that has genuinely changed the trajectory of my professional life.

My foray into craft spirits distribution turned into three years of growth, exploration, and creative pathfinding throughout Massachusetts. And just since the start of this year, I’ve moved on from that sales role to start my own spirits consulting business.

All of which finally came to a head, persuaded me that the time had come to resume posting to this site in earnest (like my friend Randy over at Summit Sips, who’s also recently reawakened from a lengthy slumber), and having come here to write it, I find:

Two. Years.

I know better than to promise that updates are about to become frequent, per se, but I think I can confidently manage to post more than once every 730 days. Y’know, for a little while, at least.

That’s in no small part because I have a lot bottled up to share, including a lot of previously-begun material that’s already nearly ready for prime time.

So, here’s a preview of what I’d like to put on this site now that the Roaring ‘20s have finally returned. Keep an eye out for the following tags:

• Back to Basics - A series focusing on true classics done well, with history and commentary as applicable. This is my bread and butter, but it’s not represented proportionally on this website; I’m going to fix that. (Also the name of one of the remarkably few complete digital albums I own.)

• From the Archives - If every draft post I have at 70-80% readiness had been published on the day it got there, you would never have noticed a gap in the updates to this blog. Often apropos of nothing, I’m going to begin pulling those updates (plus some other, even older ones!) and posting them more or less as they are, filling in only any obvious gaps in the material.

• Workhorse Spirits - Long promised and little delivered, except in the form of a quick guide with precious little detail. But I have three of them locked and loaded in the aforementioned Archives and more in the pipeline.

• History of Boston Cocktails - Likewise teased in the past, but never fully fleshed out. The distance between here and there is the greatest for this series, but I have a lengthy list going back to 1840 and quite a lot of material to work with.

And to kick things off, a recipe that’s both thematically appropriate and one of the two fabulous above-mentioned drinks I had at the Savoy:

Corpse Reviver №1
2 oz. Cognac
1 oz. Apple Brandy
1 oz. Sweet Vermouth
Stir. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. Do not garnish.

Both grape and apple brandy are criminally underrated these days (the latter even more so) - sure, cocktail bars will stock them, but they’re not stalwarts on the menus in the way that gin, whiskey, and even mezcal are these days. And that’s at the places that know what they’re doing! The country is still full of establishments that have missed the memo on the last thirty years. In such places, you can often get a recognizable Martini or Old Fashioned, but God help you if you’re hoping for a halfway decent brandy drink. Unless you’re in Wisconsin, in which case you can drink the signature local Old Fashioned variant to your heart’s content.

In that respect, it’s perhaps fitting that the Corpse Reviver №1 languishes in the shadow of the Corpse Reviver №2, but it’s also dreadfully unfortunate, because this is a lovely drink. The recipe I’ve given follows Harry Craddock’s original from the Savoy Cocktail Book, which I’d say is just about perfect. Some people will prefer a lower proportion of vermouth; others will follow Trader Vic and garnish with a lemon twist. Both are perfectly fine variants, but as a lover of old things and brandies - including the very brandy with which vermouth is fortified - I’m content with the original.

How this particular concoction came to be called a ‘corpse reviver’ has been lost to time. Craddock was the one who established the current numbering scheme, and he famously accompanied this one with the instruction, “To be taken before 11AM, or whenever steam or energy is needed.” But while the №2, with its light color and bright, citrussy flavor, seems like a perfectly plausible brunch cocktail, the №1 is unlikely to revive any corpses until about suppertime.

The Manhattan and Margarita

(This post is part of a series that I’m using to help write my next book, the new edition of 100 Classic Cocktails, and provide inspiration for home bartenders in these times of social distancing. Some of the recipes are ones I’m trying to workshop, and I’m asking my readers to test the recipes at home if able and send me their thoughts on the questions I have. Others are ones I think I’ve nailed that can be easily made with common household ingredients, and I’m sharing them to help my readers keep their spirits up while spending a lot more time at home than usual. I’ll always specify which is which. For more background on all of this, including the book, you can check out the first post in the series here. All posts will be tagged “(100) Classic Cocktails”.)

I had planned to write most of these up as single-drink posts, but I’m doing at least this one more as a twofer, if only for the chance to make a punning allusion to a classic of Russian literature.

And guess what? This one’s actually short!

Pay no attention to the Cognac behind the curtain.

[The] Manhattan
1 3/4 oz. 100º Rye or 2 oz. 80º Rye
1 oz. Sweet Vermouth
2 ds. Angostura Bitters

Combine ingredients in a mixing glass and stir with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a brandied or maraschino cherry.

The Mahnattan is today’s Quarantine Cocktail, and was the first beneficiary of the conclusion I described in the math section of yesterday’s post, that if you want to substitute a roughly 100º whiskey for a roughly 80º whiskey, you should reduce your pour by a quarter of an ounce in order for the recipe to hold. My higher-proof rye was leaving my Manhattans a bit too hot at a fairly standard 2:1 ratio, so I did some calculations and came up with this substitution. It’s proving to be a godsend for a man in a house full of high-proof liquor.

That brings us to today’s Question Cocktail:

[and] Margarita
2 oz. Blanco Tequila OR 1 1/2 oz. Blanco Tequila
1/2 oz. Orange Liqueur*
1/2 oz. Lime Juice

Shake with ice. Double-strain into a chilled (and, optionally, salted) cocktail or Margarita glass.

Though easy to learn and an unimpeachable classic, the Margarita is hard to master. Not only does tequila vary widely, but your choice of orange liqueur has more of an impact on the end result than is the case with many other drinks. And as I learned the other day while working on the Jasmine, my bottle not be the most representative example.

I was actually able to get this one tested with a group of people before the coronavirus outbreak, but it resulted in a split decision: some felt it was balanced better with 1 1/2 oz. of tequila, and others felt it was better with 2.

So today’s assignment, at least for those who are able to make the Margarita, is to try it once with 2 oz. of tequila, once with 1 1/2 oz. of tequila, and send me your findings, along with the names of the tequila and liqueur brands you’re using. For the rest of you, stay healthy, and remember that many of your local liquor stores are still delivering through Drizly!

(See? I told you it was short!)

Notes

(*) While there are technically distinctions to be drawn between triple sec, curaçao, and the like (and there certainly were historically), contemporary product labelling is a jumbled mess. Don’t confuse yourself needlessly. When a recipe calls for anything like this, “orange liqueur” is what is meant in practice. Any sweetened distillate flavored with oranges and bottled at 40% alcohol by volume or less can be used. Whether a given such distillate should be used, or how the recipe should be altered to accommodate its employment, are questions that only experience or experimentation can answer.

The Hot Toddy, the Queens, and Substituting Spirits by Strength

(This post is part of a series that I’m using to help write my next book, the new edition of 100 Classic Cocktails, and provide inspiration for home bartenders in these times of social distancing. Some of the recipes are ones I’m trying to workshop, and I’m asking my readers to test the recipes at home if able and send me their thoughts on the questions I have. Others are ones I think I’ve nailed that can be easily made with common household ingredients, and I’m sharing them to help my readers keep their spirits up while spending a lot more time at home than usual. I’ll always specify which is which. For more background on all of this, including the book, you can check out the first post in the series here. All posts will be tagged “(100) Classic Cocktails”.)

Without going into too much detail (I want to keep this round shorter than the last one, after all), I’d like to take a few minutes to discuss spirit strength, and the many ways it can affect one’s process.

Any distilled spirit will include ethanol and water in some proportion, as well as a variety of other substances that contribute flavor and texture. As a general rule of thumb, ethanol will be a better carrier for most of these other flavor chemicals than water will. It is thus often (if not necessarily) the case that stronger spirits will be able to deliver more flavor than weaker ones. At least, up to a point, after which the increase in the proportion of ethanol can overwhelm the palate and render any further increase in soluble flavors irrelevant.

Unless labelled as ‘cask strength’ or something similar, most distilled spirits - gin, whiskey, rum, etc. - are sold at a proof that is at most in the ballpark of 100º, which is to say 50% ethanol by volume and 50% water, the flavor chemicals being dissolved and making up a negligible percentage of the total volume. In the U.S. at least, they are also sold at at least 80º, which is to say 40% ethanol by volume and 60% water.*

A plurality of distilled spirits on the market are sold at exactly 80º, and the most common proof after that is almost certainly 100º, which is also the proof at which bonded spirits are sold.† In general, spirits also tend to cluster in strength around 80º and 100º even if they’re off by a few points, which makes these reasonable benchmarks for what a person is likely to have in their house. A 102º whiskey is probably a fair substitute for a 100º whiskey in a cocktail, and so on. (There is another, smaller cluster around 90º, which I’m not addressing for the time being.)

It will probably not surprise you to learn that my personal bar skews disproportionately towards higher-strength spirits, in part because I appreciate the flavor they can deliver, in part because I like how well they stand up in cocktails, and in part because the local and small-batch distillers that I tend to favor often make stronger spirits, in order to better showcase the quality of their work to audiences who don’t know them yet. This is perfectly fine for making cocktails at home, because high-proof spirits tend to hold up quite well against mixing, and using them allows you to match stronger flavors against them. But for testing cocktail recipes that are meant to be as universal as possible, having mostly high-proof spirits poses a problem.

Just to keep things clear, for the rest of this post, if I describe spirits as “high[er]-proof” or “high[er]-strength”, I mean they’re roughly 100º, and if I say “standard-proof” or “standard-strength”, I mean they’re about 80º.

Consider two ounces of 100º whiskey. In that, you have one ounce each of ethanol and water, as well as the flavors carried (mostly) by the ethanol. In two ounces of 80º whiskey, you have 4/5ths of an ounce of ethanol and associated carried flavors, and 1 1/5ths ounces of water. These will play differently in a cocktail - not necessarily enough to be noticed by every person or in every recipe, but enough that we can’t automatically assume that you can substitute one for the other in equal proportions. Both the respective total amounts of ethanol and water and the ratio between the two are different.

Now, given 1 3/4 oz. of high-proof whiskey, you end up with 7/8 oz. of ethanol instead. Let me switch to decimals to make this clearer: that works out to .875 oz. of ethanol, compared to .80 oz of ethanol in a 2 oz. pour of standard-proof whiskey and 1.00 oz. of ethanol in the same pour of 100º-whiskey.

In other words, 1 3/4 oz. of high-proof whiskey gives you an amount of ethanol (and ethanol-delivered flavor) that is closer to what you’d get from 2 oz. of standard-proof whiskey that 2 oz. of high-proof whiskey would supply. So much closer, in fact, that the difference between them is less than 1/13th of an ounce of ethanol, and appreciably less than the change you’d get from adjusting the total amount of either whiskey by a quarter of an ounce (which ranges from 1/10 oz. of ethanol to 1/8 oz. of ethanol in the 80º-100º spirit strength range).

My goal with this book is to compile benchmark recipes. I’m not a world-class cocktail bar trying to help you replicate their careful compositions exactly at home: I’m trying to give readers a good starting point that they can adapt to their own tastes and bar selections as needed. I want these recipes to be as good right out of the box as they can be, subject to reasonable expectations and constraints, but I’ve never seen a jigger that got down below the quarter-ounce range, and I don’t want to assume that my readers will have access to tools that even I don’t. All of which is to say, I’ve concluded that 1 3/4 oz. of high-proof whiskey and 2 oz. of standard-strength whiskey are going to be reasonably interchangeable to the standards I’m observing.

That said, they still aren’t perfect substitutes (and I haven’t really touched their different water contributions, either), and so it will be useful to check that assumption against some hard evidence from my *ahem* research team.

Onward to cocktails!

You’re getting a twofer again today. Our Quarantine Cocktail is the Hot Toddy, made yesterday because it was snowing here in Cambridge and there’s nothing better for winter weather. When making Hot Toddies or any other hot drinks, remember that you don’t want to heat the liquor directly. Ethanol is more volatile than water, so if you put into the pot for your toddy or hot apple cider, you’re just going to boil it off. Heat the non-alcoholic ingredients separately, then mix them with room-temperature alcohol.

Mug with moustache guard courtesy of the inimitable gift-giver Tristyn Wade.

Hot Toddy
~4 oz. Boiling Water
1 1/2 oz. Standard-Proof Whiskey OR 1 1/4 oz. High-Proof Whiskey
1 tsp. Sugar or Honey
Lemon Wheel
Cinnamon Stick

Heat water in a pot. Put sugar or honey in a mug with lemon wheel and cinnamon stick. When the water comes to a boil, remove it from heat and pour it into the mug. Stir until the sweetener is dissolved (the cinnamon stick is great for this). Add whiskey and serve.

The Hot Toddy is less a drink than a style of drink. You can substitute any spirit for whiskey here - though I’d recommend limiting yourself to aged ones - and you can used ground cinnamon instead of a stick, or substitute cloves or nutmeg to taste. Honey is a pretty traditional sweetener here, but I’m fond of using a sugar cube, which is simple, aesthetically pleasing, and conveniently about a teaspoon by volume.‡

Speaking of aesthetics: to make a lemon wheel, cut a lemon in half, then take one of those halves and slice off the now-exposed flat surface. It’s possibly the easiest garnish there is, and you still have a nearly complete lemon to use for juice if you wish. Lemon wheels float in water and look very pretty.

I’d be interested to hear how you liked the Hot Toddy with these proportions, and particularly which strength of whiskey you were using, once the weather gets cold enough to make these again.

- - - - -

Our next drink, the one I have more substantive questions about, is the Queens. The name refers to the borough of New York City rather than a collection of sovereigns, and it is in fact one of four boroughs that have classic drinks named after them. (Staten Island, you may be unsurprised to learn, does not.)

The Queens, alas, is the least classic of the bunch. Much like the stirred and fortified wine-d Brooklyn is the offbeat Luigi to the Manhattan’s mainstream Mario, the Queens feels at times like the weird sidekick to the Bronx - which is itself a weird drink, a perfect Martini with added orange juice. The Queens follows the same principle, but with pineapple replacing the orange.

Here’s the thing: It isn’t bad! It’s just very tricky to balance. This may in fact account for its low popularity, coming decidedly fourth on the list of borough-named cocktails in frequency of consumption. I’ve probably made more of them while testing this recipe than anyone else has in a single twenty-four hour period in the last hundred years.

And yet, I feel compelled to include it. First, the last edition of 100 Classic Cocktails has a subtle New York theme in the list of included drinks. Things that might not have made the cut in another book - the Bronx among them - were included if they tied into the Big Apple in some way. I consider that part of the book’s internal tradition, and want to take at least some of my cues from that. And second, the Queens itself is already in the book! Or at least a version of it is, going by the equally New York moniker of the Park Avenue.

So in it goes! After extended trials, I think I may have this recipe about right - but if I do, it’s a drink that requires a standard-strength gin, and I simply don’t have any left. Thus, for today’s Question Cocktail, I present to you the:

What a meteorological difference a day makes.

Queens Cocktail
1 1/2 oz. 80º Gin
1/2 oz. Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz. Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz. Pineapple Juice

Shake with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

I have been experimenting with giving this a dry shake and a wet shake as well, like I did with the Bee’s Knees. The pineapple gives off a nice little bit of foam when I do that, but I’m not convinced it does nearly as much as it did for the honey last time, and consequently I’m not considering that part of the recipe just yet. For extra credit, feel free to try a dry shake and let me know how it changes your opinion of the drink.

But the No. 1 question I have for those who are able to make this drink is is: do you like this balance with 1 1/2 oz. of standard-proof gin? Because what I have in my house is just a bit too strong to be sure.

As a final note, canned or bottled pineapple juice is generally fine (and even assumed) in cocktails, in contrast to many other fruits. Pineapples are harder to break down and juice than, say, lemons are, and the canned juice really isn’t bad. But if you’re feeling like a socially distant pineapple juicing session, please don’t let me stop you!

Notes

(*) Proof is a measurement that corresponds to twice the percentage of ethanol in a spirit and is indicated using the degree sign (º). Thus, a whiskey that contained 45% ethanol and 55% water could be described as ninety proof or 90º, both vocalized the same way.

(†) Bottled-in-bond is a U.S. government designation that’s been around for a very long time. Bonded spirits are, among other things, certified to be the product of a single distillery in a single distilling season (i.e., half a year), to be aged for four years, and to be bottled at exactly 100º. The consumer thus knows with certainty who made it, when, and where, and how strong the product is - all of which where much more commonly cast into doubt by unscrupulous spirits peddlers when the act was passed than is the case today. Spirits being bottle in bond is nowadays more often taken as an indication of quality or of confidence on the part of the distiller; as a guarantor of authenticity, it’s been largely superseded by other federal statutes.

(‡) This is, incidentally, one of two reasons I’m open to using teaspoons (1/6 oz.) but not any other measurements below a quarter of an ounce. The other is that most people have spoons in their house that, whether or not they’re meant to measure things, do in fact hold about a teaspoon.

Prohibition Cocktails

Finally getting around to putting up the recipes from our Repeal Day party - which, in case you're wondering, went very well:

We'll definitely be using the model again, so keep a look out for announcements on other holidays. In the mean time, here are the recipes we covered:

Hanky-Panky
1 1/2 oz. Dry Gin
1 1/2 oz. Sweet Vermouth
2 dashes Fernet Branca
Twist of orange or dash of orange bitters
Stir with ice and serve neat.

The first patron to consume this drink is said to have downed it in one gulp, and then exclaimed, "That is the real hanky-panky!" At that time, and in Britain especially, which is where it was invented, the phrase would have meant something like "black magic," and the whole sentence roughly, "That's so good I can't believe it." Its *ahem* other connotations, particularly in the United States, didn't exactly hurt the drink's popularity during Prohibition, when speakeasy bartenders were serving titillating drinks like the Between-the-Sheets and the Monkey Gland. (In our age of Screaming Orgasms and Slow, Comfortable Screws Against the Wall, it all seems a little quaint and innocent, doesn't it?)

Those who know me know that Fernet Branca is, in my view, the most foul drinking concoction yet conceived of by man. Yes, it's worse than Malort - and by a long shot. Yes, it's worse than Dr. McGillicuddy's peppermint schnapps. Yes, it's worse than plastic-bottle Popov vodka. It's like someone took a perfectly good bottle of Amaro Meletti and threw all three of those in there, with a little Aunt Jemima's for color. By what hanky-panky it has brainwashed so many otherwise-reasonable people into claiming that they like it, I have no idea.

Having said all of that (and much more besides; don't get me started), I have to compliment the Hanky-Panky Cocktail, for being the only drink I have ever had that uses Fernet Branca well. It adds a suite of interesting flavors, including its signature menthol, saffron, and bitter bite, all of which are able to contribute without overpowering one's senses because there are only two drops of the stuff. Perhaps the secret to using Fernet Branca well is to treat it as a non-potable bitters, and never use more than a dash. In any case, it and the little, remarkably essential bit of orange oil are enough to pull this cocktail's flavor profile far away from the sweet Martini it would otherwise be.

Scofflaw
1 1/2 oz. Rye Whiskey
1 oz. Dry Vermouth
3/4 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice
3/4 oz. Pomegranate Grenadine
Shake with ice and serve neat.

Another Prohibition drink-naming style is the "laugh about how illegal all of this is" school. The Three-Mile Limit falls into this category, named after the distance one had to travel off the coast before reaching international waters and legal hooch. So does the Twelve-Mile Limit, invented shortly after that distance was quadrupled.

The Scofflaw is another such funny case. I assumed for a very long time that "scofflaw" was a general old-fashioned word for a ne'er-do-well, but it actually referred to scoffing at one law in particular. The Boston Herald held a contest, to see who could coin the best term to describe all the people flagrantly and frequently violating the Volstead Act; "scofflaw," submitted by two different people, was the winner. So, in a purely technical sense, one could argue that the teetotaling '20s kingpin Arnold Rothstein was less of a scofflaw than the average speakeasy patron.

As for the drink, which is somewhat similar to its cousins the N-Mile Limits, this is a nice case where what you see is what you get. It's sweet and it's tart, and it's a bit smoother and more complex than it would be without the vermouth. The end result is what you would get if a Brooklyn and a Jack Rose met up for a little law-scoffing and ended up with a little hanky-panky.

Day 7: Trina's Starlite Lounge

Apologies for the lack of visual for this post - I have no idea what happened to the relevant photograph, but it's time to put this series to bed either way. The final bar on my Negroni Week list was Trina's Starlite Lounge in Inman Square. I went there Sunday evening for dinner and the completion of my quest.

Trina's is a homey place, cool and dark on the inside. They advertise "drinks and air conditioning" on a sign above the entrance.

Their service station looks like a house kitchen, with mid-century powder-blue cabinets and a squat white fridge of similar vintage, covered in magnets. The whole place is decorated with Americana, most especially advertising signage and old cocktail shakers. Dark wood paneling suggests a pub or tavern past.

It's clearly a regulars' bar; the bartender was bidding a patron farewell by name as I sidled up. On Mondays, they have an industry brunch, to cater to folks for whom Monday is the weekend. There's surprisingly little of this type for Boston's barkeeps and restauranteurs, and Trina's is well-known and respected for it.

As for the cocktail, it was the most classic, archetypical Negroni I'd had all week. It tasted like a bitter orange peel with a burst of sweetness. A good ruminating drink. It was the right way to finish the experiment.

This week forced me to give more consideration than I ever had to the Negroni, naturally, and to its role in the wider cocktail world. In the end, I come back around to the bold and bitter classic recipe as the proper standard version of the cocktail - although if many are to be consumed in a fairly short period, a lighter variation is definitely preferable.

I do come down more harshly on the game of ingredient substitution than I did before we started all this. The Negroni is a recipe, not a category heading. Not everything containing potable bitters qualifies. The formula, though standard, is not fixed. It can be tweaked, stretched, and twirled around a spoon, if you like, but the end result should bear some resemblance to what was started with, if you're going to use the name.

Well done on that front at Trina's. It's also worth noting that their food is delicious (I'm assuming my experience is representative). I had a baked haddock to follow my Negroni, on a bed of sauteed spinach and sweet potato bacon hash. Yes, it was as good as it sounds. I highly recommend it.

Money from my Negroni went to the Sean A. Collier Memorial Fund. I expect Boston-area readers will recognize that name; the Fund will provide annual scholarships in his name at both MIT and the Boston Police Academy, and maintain a permanent memorial to him in Cambridge. The Globe has more detailed coverage, for those who are interested, but you don't have to read the article in order to donate.

This was a fascinating undertaking, from both the mixological and the philanthropic sides. My compliments to Imbibe and Campari for making Negroni Week a major, annual event; and to the 1,325 (at last count) participating bars around the world.

And if you missed out on the fun, don't worry: with numbers like that, they'll be back in 2015.

Day 6: Barracuda

My thanks to the operator of the 43 bus, for driving right on by on night six of Negroni Week. It was supposed to be a trip to Wink and Nod, the South End's (relatively) new '20s-inspired bar, but sometimes plans change.

Rather than wait around for the next bus, I walked about a hundred steps from Park Street to local standby Barracuda. I ordered a beer.

Barracuda is the sort of place that feels like it's always been there, exactly as it is, even though you can tell that isn't true. It's a second-floor bar, which is a quirk on its own, and features like the Jack Daniels Honey dispenser and the cheery blue walls remind you that this is no old ward boss haunt. It's only been around for a few years.

The proprietor is a fellow named Luka, who spends a lot of time behind the bar personally. He, along with the people he hires, is unusually good at remembering names, faces, and details from visit to visit. Barracuda, unsurprisingly, has a lot of regulars.

It also has a little curiosity of Massachusetts law, namely a cordials license. I'd always assumed it was an old, outdated regulation, but apparently it only turns twenty this year. The good people at DrinkBoston tell me that it started with North End restaurants that wanted to serve digestifs, and then found wider application around the city.

Bars with this permit can serve liqueurs and cordials along with beer and wine, although the definition of a liqueur is generally left up to the people who make it. This is my long-winded way of telling you that they have Diep9 Genever on the menu at Barracuda.

Genever (juh NEE ver) is a spirit similar to gin, in many respects the parent of gin, and it remains very popular in Holland and Belgium. It was also very popular in the United States, back before the twentieth century came along. Many old cocktail recipes call specifically for "Hollands gin," by which they mean genever.

Genever is less piney and more malty than gin. Some varieties are aged; others are practically vodka. Serious Eats has a good run-down. In any event, the premise of a grain distillate flavored with juniper and spices is something both have in common.

And so, when it occurred to me that Barracuda had both sweet vermouth and Campari, and I asked Kaitlyn to make me her best approximation of a Negroni within the constraints of a cordials license, I ended up with a Genever Negroni.

The result? Not bad. Surprisingly Negronilike. But again, the base spirits are very similar - particularly given that the genever in question was jonge genever, which tilts more to the vodka than to the Scotch end of the genver spectrum. (Genever is often described as a cross between Scotch and gin. I know, it sounded weird to me, too.)

Barracuda was a nonparticipant in Negroni Week - I wouldn't be surprised if I was the first guy who ever asked them for one - but Wink and Nod's Campari drinks supported Community Boating, the oldest public sailing center in the country. If you like seeing sailboats on the Charles, and don't think that should be limited to people with the money to buy one, you like Community Boating, and you can give them a hand here.

Epilogue: I've since been to Wink and Nod, and have some very complimentary things to say. I expect I'll say them later. Perhaps on this very blog.

AccesSport Young Professionals' Event (Also, Day 3)

Here are some shots from the AccesSportAmerica young professionals' networking event! We had a great showing, and raised a bunch of money for an awesome organization.

It was a two-drink menu, consisting of the Negroni and the Frisco Sour - the theme was "herbal cocktails for the summer." We had 3-oz. paper cups instead of 1-oz. ones, so our pouring was...generous. We ended up needing six shakers' worth of each drink, but nobody was complaining.

These were the recipes we used:

Negroni
1 part Beefeater gin
1 part sweet vermouth
1 part Campari
Stir with ice. Strain into cups. Garnish with a tiny orange peel.

Frisco Sour
4 parts Michter's rye
1 part Bénédictine
1/2ish part lemon juice*
Shake with ice and strain into cups. Garnish with a tiny wedge of lemon.

The asterisk in the Frisco Sour indicates a deviation from my standard recipe of 4:1:1, because that preparation assumes fresh lemon juice. We had the more concentrated, bottled variety, which called for a (roughly) 50% reduction in volume. 

The Negroni got a fair bit of it's-just-not-for-me, which makes sense, because both Campari and gin are love-it-or-hate-it spirits for a lot of people. I found myself explaining that Campari is a "potable bitters" a lot that night. I also couldn't resist the (perhaps apocryphal) story that Campari was legal during Prohibition, because the regulators couldn't believe anyone would drink it who wasn't taking it medicinally. It's easy for cocktail enthusiasts to forget, given how much we all love the Negroni, but it really isn't for everyone.

The Frisco Sour, on the other hand, was almost comically popular. The nice thing about events like this is that it's really easy to judge your success - the Frisco Sour was the only thing going around in cocktail glasses, and there were a lot of those to be seen. I owe a debt of gratitude to Frank Bruni of the New York Times, for first introducing me to the drink in this article.

Thanks also to North 26, for donating the space and the liquor, and to everyone who came out for AccesSportAmerica - this is the second year in a row they've asked HCS to play this event, and I feel good about our odds of a third performance.

For more pictures, check out our facebook page. You should also feel free to like us, along with North 26 and AccesSportAmerica!

Manhattan

Manhattan

3 parts (1.5 oz.) Old Overholt rye whiskey
2 parts (1 oz.) Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth
3-4 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters

Yesterday was a snow day for me, so I decided to whip up examples of David Embury’s major classic cocktails. There are six he says everybody ought to be able to make, as a basis for cocktail knowledge, and for further experimentation. I realize I’ve put up plenty of innovations and outlandish drinks, but the really essential standby cocktails haven’t gotten much airtime. That changes now.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t make all of them. A trot out to the corner store (good on them, being open) got me the citrus I needed, but I was still short the Daiquiri’s light rum and applejack for the Jack Rose. The others will show up as I load them in, all tagged appropriately.

I started with the Manhattan, one of the most famous and most accessible classic cocktails. The Manhattan is that rare drink that is not merely more, but something else entirely than the sum of its parts. A well-mixed Manhattan does not taste like whiskey or vermouth. It tastes like a Manhattan.

The recipe you see here is a bit of a poor-man’s Manhattan. Old Overholt is perfectly serviceable, but it is bottom-shelf, by rye standards. Now, fortunately, rye whiskey is like applejack, brandy, gin, and dark rum, in that the cheapest stuff you can possibly find will be miles ahead of the glorified ethanol that comes packaged as bottom-shelf vodka, light rum, or nonspecific “whiskey.” I’ll indicate in later posts on the Manhattan what price point we’re talking about. The Manhattan, like many of the classics, falls into the “easy to learn, hard to master” category. It can be varied greatly.

For now, though, let’s talk about the poor-man’s Manhattan. Old Overholt and Jim Beam are the two cheapest ryes on the market. Expect to pay $15 for a fifth. I’ve seen them anywhere from $11 to $22, but $15 is a good estimate. I happened to have Old Overholt, although I tend to prefer the Jim Beam, which is slightly more complex. A tenth-size bottle of Martini & Rossi will hit around $7 or $8 at the most. It is the cheapest vermouth on the market, but as with rye, cheap vermouth is still plenty drinkable.

Never be stingy with the non-whiskey ingredients in a Manhattan, but especially when you’re using bargain ingredients. I say 3-4 dashes here. The bourgeois Manhattan would call for 2-3. The royal Manhattan uses such good stuff the bitters falls to one dash. The vermouth percentage also falls as the whiskey gets better - but I reiterate, don’t be stingy. If your Manhattan is drier than about a 3:1 whiskey:vermouth ratio, you’d be better off with an Old Fashioned.

The end result is extremely drinkable, and a good example of how to do cocktails on a budget. If you (and your guests) are used to drinking nothing but highballs, the Manhattan is a great transition drink. Just be careful with your vermouth, which will eventually spoil if left out. Keep it in the fridge, and you should be fine.