That map of drinks is too big and too keyed for me to figure out. I looked at the Rusty Nail, which my father-in-law makes for himself all the time and offers them to us. Sometimes I take it, sometimes I don't. Here's how you mix up a Rusty Nail: When your father-in-law offers you one, say, "Yes, please." My sister-in-law specializes in Manhattans. She will make you one if you ask her. They're really good. I got to be known at the go-to guy for Mai Tai's. Here's how: 1/4 glass dark rum, 1/2 glass pineapple juice, 1/4 glass light rum. How big the glass is determines how drunk you want to be. You should only drink these in warm climates near bodies of water, while wearing flowery clothes. When I just want a cocktail on a given night, I put some ice in a glass, throw in some irish whiskey, then fill it the rest of the way up with ginger ale. When I want to drink, I drink scotch.
I like Hendricks, but it is pricey. I used to get the Sapphire, but lately I've been doing Beefeater.
I did a blind horizontal of 4 or 5 gins. Maybe posted about it earlier in this thread (AHA, I DID). The lesson I took away is that Hendricks and Knickerbocker were nearly tied but I gave the edge to Knickerbocker. I'd like to try Bluecoat, and now local distiller Valentine is making a gin too. It's a good time to enjoy cocktails. The local craft cocktail lounge the Oakland blew my socks off recently with what they called a "Beercan Flip." From their menu (I take a photo every time I go because it changes so often): Fucking sublime. I can't even describe how yummy and creamy and delicious it was OH WAIT I JUST DID.
FUCKING FERNDALE DUDE. We need a BF Metro Detroit gathering that starts at One Eyed Betty's and then walks across the street to end the night at the Oakland.
Same here. And I kind of liked the Earthquake, but it is really strong and needs to be very well chilled. Not my favourite drink by far, but a lot better than absinthe by itself.
So my recipe for the Old-Fashioned calls for a sugar cube, a couple drops of bitters, and a splash of soda water muddled in the glass prior to adding the ice cubes, rye, orange slice, and cherry. Muddling the sugar cube with the bitters and soda is nice and traditional but (A) I lack a muddler (though an ice-cream scoop makes a not-bad substitute), and (B) it's time-consuming to do while I have friends waiting for me to get back to Torchlight 2 so we can kill bosses. So, two questions: 1. Is it acceptable to substitute a small amount of simple syrup in place of the sugar cube? 2. Do any of you make your own simple syrup using cool ideas other than just sugar in boiling water? If so, share.
Just put the liquids (maybe not the soda so it doesn't go flat) in the glass add the sugar and stir, then add your fruit. I don't see how muddling adds anything when it's just sugar and liquids. Things like lime leaves or zests get muddles to release more of their natural oils.
You're supposed to crush up the sugar to help it dissolve in the mixture. Otherwise you're just left with a pile of wet sugar at the bottom of your glass and an unnaturally bitter cocktail. Sure, you can stir - for a while - but that's still unnecessarily time-consuming. Regardless, the two questions stand. Simple syrup Y/N? And if so, who makes their own?
So don't use a cube, just put in a teaspoon (or whatever amount) of granulated sugar. You're making this excessively hard on yourself. As to your questions 1: sure, 2: nope cause I'll just dissolve the sugar directly in the liquid. Making syrup isn't hard but unless you plan on using a decent amount of it in a relatively short period of time it doesn't make much sense. I guess the question then is how drunk do you get during these gaming sessions?
Simple syrup all the way. It's stupidly easy to make, and if you make it 2:1 sugar:water and put a shot of vodka in, it'll stay in perfectly good shape in the fridge for a surprisingly long time. I make up batches and decant them into 8oz plastic squeeze bottles. Also, you can play around with demerara syrups and the like, which gives you nice flavor options.
I had to look up "demerara syrup" and that sounds like a great idea. Where do you typically buy demerara sugar, someplace like Whole Foods or the like?
So, my roommate just came home with a bottle of vodka and a bottle of coffee liqueur. This brings all of my potential cocktail-mixing alcohol ingredients up to...um. Maybe five bottles? Total? (Spiced rum, white rum, coffee liqueur, whipped cream vodka, regular vodka. After that it's all beers, ciders, and wines. I had a bottle of St. Germaine's, but I gave it away because I was unworthy of such a nice ingredient.) I'm sort of late to the cocktail-mixing game, but by god, I'm working on it! We have plans for a Bloody Mary round this Friday evening, tonight's getting doctored hot chocolate, and at some point I will get enough basic ingredients in the house that I can look at a glorious cocktail chart like the one posted above, and be able to find at least one thing on it that I can make with ingredients on hand. I feel like I'm at the "grinding spice bread" level of this particular skill tree, but everyone's gotta start somewhere.
Hahahaha, grinding spice bread. Jesus, for a second I couldn't even remember why that made so much sense. As you continue to collect ingredients, try this out to learn recipes according to the fixings you have on hand: http://www.cocktaildb.com/ You can search by cocktail name, but the awesome part is that you can just enter in some random ingredients and it'll tell you which recipes can use them. Happy mixing :)
OK, let me go off a bit on the old fashioned: almost all recipes - and I think yours included - end up way too sweet. Granted, the whole point of the old fashioned is to sweeten up the whisky. Adding sugar *and* an orange just goes way too far; I've tried that variant and I find it cloying. You might not so don't let me dissuade you. However, let me offer an alternative: - In an old fashioned glass, muddle a strip of orange peel with a tsp sugar (more or less to taste; usually I go less) and a dash of bitters. You can add a splash of water or soda here too. - Now dump in your whisky, stirs. - Take a strip of lemon peel and express (squeeze) it over the drink. This makes an absolutely wonderful old fashioned that showcases the rye, rather than just overwhelms it with SWEET.
Interesting! Other than muddling the orange peel versus adding a slice, that's almost exactly what I'm doing. A teaspoon of sugar is probably more than I use, but the lime peel is a good idea. A bit impractical for just a single drink at home, but worth trying at our party next weekend. Cheers!
Did I say lime? Christ. I meant lemon. I'm too sober to be posting about cocktails! fwiw I put in less than a teaspoon of sugar; I agree that's too much. I'd describe what I put in as a generous dash. When I'm drinking old fashioneds I basically keep a spare lime and orange around for peels; they'll last for several days and produce aromatic peel.
Okay, that makes way more sense. I didn't really want to say "wow that's fucked up bro" since you seemed so proud of it and stuff. I'll admit this whole slice is cumbersome and leads to pulp, which is kinda harshing my mellow.
Yeah, it's usually in the baking aisle at Whole Foods or your local hippie food co-op. If you look around you can also find demerara sugar cubes, which are great in cocktails.
While you are at it, get some Muscovado sugar as well. Perhaps not for cocktail, but it is amazing for anything chocolate-related.
And every kitchen (and cocktail bar) needs one of these for zesting anyway: I also make my own syrups, for when it's mojito time in the summer (my very small yard is like 10% grass and 90% mint). Very easy and keeps well - haven't tried adding vodka, though.
No, that's a Microplane - I use mine for Parmesan. But sure, if you need the entire fruit - if you just need a bit, then the regular zester is much more gentle, and you can also make lovely looking strings for garnish.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Besides, everyone knows you Scandinavians have loose morals where fruit is concerned.
No, it's a channel knife. Oxo calls it a zester, but it's not really clear to me why. Super-handy for lemon / orange twists, though.
Yeah as handy as microplane-grated lemon zest is for cooking, I'm not about to put it in my drink. Unless it's for texture!
For zest that makes it into the drink, yeah, I'll use one of those channel-zesters. But if it's going into the cocktail and can be filtered out, I'll use the microplane. And Hanzii, you could use the microplane for a quick bit of zest, no need to do the whole lime every time.
That's a good point; the next time I make cordial mix (from that NYT recipe that got posted on qt3 waaaaaaaay back) I'll have to try that. Peeling limes is a pain in the ass!
Holy shit, you've been making that cordial using a regular zester or a peeler? Man, I moved past that on the second batch. ;)
Yeah, that's what I meant by peeler. I will say that for a larger fruit, like an orange or grapefruit, the peeler works fine, it's just tough not to get some small amount of pith no matter how deft you are with a peeler. But anything smaller than an orange and the zester is way more effective.
So today I went into the big liquor store that's conveniently located in walking distance, and threw myself upon the mercy of the clerks. I believe my explanation was somewhere along the lines of "I know nothing about cocktails, I want to try making some easy ones, all I have is vodka and rum and coffee liqueur, so please help me find $50 of expansion for my wee bitty liquor cabinet." Came home with a bottle of gin, two types of bitters (who knew they made rhubarb bitters? rhubarb, man!), a little four-pack of bitter lemon tonic water, and a bottle of pecan liqueur. Because, dude, pecan liqueur! Who knew? Tonight is totally going to be a wee bitty amateur cocktail night. I have PLANS.
So a bottle of these lavender bitters showed up tonight: Two dashes of them immediately went into a gin & tonic made with this: some Fever Tree tonic: a 2" ice cube: and a lime wheel. This is the best goddamn gin & tonic I have ever had. Holy crap.
Next up! Hellfire Habanero Shrub! How can you not want that? This also showed up in the mail from KegWorks today, so I mixed up a 700 Songs Gimlet from the Bittermens recipe page: It has a little less habanero bite at the start than I'd expect, but you end up with a nice slow burn in the aftertaste. I don't have the Perry's Tot, so I ended up using Martin Miller's Westbourne Strength, which was pretty nice. I'll need to dig up a full Navy strength gin and see if it's even better. Anyway, highly recommended. I'll make it again happily.
I generally make my own tonic water, using a recipe I stole from Jeffrey Morganthaler. It's pretty freaking easy, especially if you have a SodaStream or similar. Here's the link, but I would make two comments - first, get cinchona bark in strips or chopped, not ground. It is completely impossible to filter out when it's ground, the French press method he suggests does not work. Second, make a double batch - it goes too quickly otherwise.
I've thought about trying that, but the idea of murky brown tonic is a little unappetizing. How does the color end up for you?
