2013 Mas Karolina Côtes Catalanes

Dark fruit, tobacco, cacao, hard licorice, black pepper. Lively and charming blend of Carnignan, Grenache and Syrah that amplifies food aromas delightfully. A real deal. K&L Wines, $13.99

Solano Cellars

Another warm, happy East Bay bottle shop run by adults with style and humor. The tasting bar in back is a refuge of many lovely glasses. Good eats too. Check ’em out.

Dashe Cellars

An Oakland, California winery making elegant wines from varietals that aren’t necessarily known for being vinified that way. The friendly tasting room folks know what they’re selling and care. Check ’em out.

Oakland Crush

“Oakland Crush is a neighborhood wine shop that focuses on small-production, independently owned wineries that follow sustainable practices.”

Non-corporate wine, impeccably presented, affordably priced. Buy a bottle to take away or drink there. Beautiful space: simple, clean, bright, practical, elegant. Very refined sensibility. Nice folks, too. Wine is alive.

Second Honeymoon

There’s a classic cocktail called the Honeymoon Cocktail, a calvados-based number with Bénédictine and Cointreau, sort of like a Sidecar. The recipe below ain’t that one. No, folks—no honeymoon here.

Let’s celebrate with a bottle of bubbly!

Seriously, though, the basic ingredients for the Honeymoon make a dandy royale with the addition of brut sparkling wine. I left out the Cointreau.



Second Honeymoon

• 1 1/2 oz calvados
• 1/2 oz Bénédictine
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• sparkling wine to fill (about 4 oz)

Shake all except wine with ice and strain into a wine glass. Add sparkling wine, lemon twist.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Lately I’ve been on the lookout for cocktails that can pair with food, and wanted a balance of sweet, tart and savory elements without being excessively strong. For the wine, I used L’Hereu by Raventós i Blanc from Spain, a great compliment to salty foods and crisp apples. Not surprisingly, it marries very well (heh—see what I did there?) with the fruit and herbs in the spirits. And if you don’t quite finish the wine when making the cocktails, it’ll be great with cheese at the end of dinner.

Grapefruit Aperitif Cocktails with Wine

Two great and geographically related fortified wines combined with fresh pink grapefruit and bitters for light cocktails to begin a summer dinner. The first one features madeira and allspice notes from Jerry Thomas’ decanter bitters; the second is made with white port and lavender bitters. I just got the Bar Keep Lavender Bitters and really like them.



Ribeiro

• 2 oz madeira (medium-rich)
• 2 oz pink grapefruit juice
• 1 dash Jerry Thomas’ Own Decanter Bitters (Bitter Truth)

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Grapefruit twist.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE



Vicente

• 2 oz white port
• 2 oz pink grapefruit juice
• 2 dashes lavender bitters (Bar Keep)

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Grapefruit twist.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

One grapefruit does two drinks. Strain the pulp. It seems like I ought to say that fresh juice is essential here, but if you’re cooking the sort of dinner these things would go in front of, you probably knew that anyway.

MxMo LXXIV: Cherries—Silver Spurs

A very warm Fogged In thank-you to Andrea of Gin Hound for Hosting this month’s Mixology Monday, and for her excellent theme, cherries. These stone fruits are essential to so many great and varied cocktails that it took me a while to decide on a direction that I hadn’t explored before. But lately I’ve been working with wine-based ingredients, which suggested a cherry-sherry combination. Tequila seemed a natural compliment to both.



Silver Spurs

• 1 1/2 oz blanco tequila
• 3/4 oz amontillado sherry
• 1 barspoon Maraschino liqueur
• About 1/2 tsp mezcal

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Lemon twist.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Off-dry; delicate fruit and florals. Black pepper from the tequila softened by the sherry.

Booze Up Your Sherry

When it comes to wine cocktails, I find there’s no flavor compliment more felicitous than a good slug of liquor. The drink below by yours truly is an equal parts trio like Whispers of the Frost except with rum instead of port. Puerto Rican rum is a good choice for this Manhattan-type drink, though a more full-bodied style like Pampero Aniversario seems appropriate and would add interest.



W 67th St

• 1 oz rye
• 1 oz gold rum
• 1 oz East India Solera sherry
• 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Brandied cherry.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

For the sherry, East India Solera was what I happened to have though anything in the medium-to-cream zone would probably work. Or use madeira.

Bamboo Cocktail

All right—this here’s the Bamboo Cocktail. It’s another sherry drink in this wine series I’m doing. A classic 19th-century thing, I had it just this weekend at Comstock Saloon here in San Francisco, a fine place to drink in Barbary Coast style. The next day, I tried my hand at the Bamboo as well.



Bamboo Cocktail

• 1 1/2 oz dry sherry
• 1 1/2 oz dry vermouth
• 1 dash orange bitters
• 2 drops Angostura bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Twist a strip of lemon peel over the glass and discard. Stuffed olive.

I worked from David Wondrich’s Imbibe! which recounts the creation and naming of this light, dry cocktail by saloonman Louis Eppinger. The recipe calls for two dashes orange bitters, though results vary considerably with the brand. Fee Bros seemed better at one dash. Regans’ added a nice cardamom note. And because I’m a scotch nut, I tried a dash of single malt as well, which didn’t hurt a thing.

Fred’s Sherry Mai Tai

This is a great wine cocktail remix by the incomparable Frederic Yarm of Cocktail Virgin Slut. The recipe follows the basic Trader Vic template, changing the Jamaica and Martinique rums for two styles of sherry. These wines as well as the classic Mai Tai are house favorites here so of course I jumped when I saw this item on Fred’s blog. Rich and flavorful, the crushed ice held onto the sherry flavor to the last.



Sherry Mai Tai

• 1 1/2 oz amontillado
• 1/2 oz Pedro Ximenez (subbed East India Solera)
• 1/2 oz curaçao
• 1 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz orgeat

Shake with ice and strain into a double old fashioned full of crushed ice. Mint garnish. (Used a cherry.)
SOURCE: FREDERIC YARM, COCKTAIL VIRGIN SLUT

Sorry to be all out of mint last night when making these but the sweet almond aroma of the (naturally) candied cherry worked well enough with the other nutty flavors in the drink.

Manhattan Transfer

Someone’s surely made this before though I couldn’t find a recipe: the Manhattan cocktail formula transposed for sherry and port. It’s bright with the acidity of the wine, and definitely lighter in alcoholic impact than spirits, like you’d expect. But for an aperitif cocktail, it seems kinda like a New Yorker.



Waverly & Waverly

• 2 oz amontillado (Lustau)
• 1 oz port (Churchill Reserve)
• 2 dashes orange bitters (Regans’)

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Orange twist.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Paper design: Vibe, Jean Orlebeke, eieio. 

George Plantagenet Cocktail

Have some madeira, m’dear
You really have nothing to fear
I’m not trying to tempt you, that wouldn’t be right
You shouldn’t drink spirits at this time of night

—Madeira M’ Dear, Michael Flanders and Donald Swann

This first in a wine cocktail series is based on Madeira, of which I am fond more than somewhat. For the Madeira in this, I used a 5-year Malmsey, a very tasty wine, so I’ve called this drink after George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, who was supposed to have been drowned in a butt of Malmsey, poor devil. Whatever really happened, it’s still a hell of a way to go. Everybody raise a glass to old George.



George Plantagenet Cocktail

• 2 oz Madeira
• 1 oz gold Barbados rum
• 1/2 oz lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE