A Pair of Irish Whiskey Cocktails

I came home with a bottle of Tyrconnell Single Malt a few days ago, and this post ought to have been written sooner but the whiskey was so charming that it took me a while to settle down to work. Maybe that’s the nature of Irish whiskey, and why experimentation seems limited. And then I bought a nice bottle of barley beer thinking it would compliment, Almanac’s Honey Saison, and that was pretty and quaffable too, and was soon sucked down without a thought to cocktails.



Raising the Stakes

• 1 1/2 oz single malt Irish whiskey (Tyrconnell)
• 1 1/2 oz amontillado sherry
• 2 dashes peach bitters

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

Amontillado is a great compliment to this whiskey, emphasizing vanilla and caramel. The peach bitters open up fruit aromas without adding sweetness on the palate. I tried playing with spicier flavors but they only got in the way.



Double Barrel Barley

• 1 oz single malt Irish whiskey (Tyrconnell)
• 1 oz amontillado sherry
• 3 oz Almanac Honey Saison

Stir whiskey and sherry with ice and strain into a wine glass. Add beer.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Eventually, I managed to hold onto a bottle of beer long enough to make a cocktail with it. Almanac is a local brewery based in San Jose. The barley and honey compliment the gracefulness and flavor profile of the spirit. Rich but light.

MxMo LXXVIII: Intercontinental—Time of the Saison

Howdy folks! It‘s another fine Mixology Monday. Today our host is my San Francisco Bay Area neighbor Stewart Putney of Putney Farm. I can always count on Stewart for inspiration and an adventure in the experience of taste, and his theme for this MxMo, Intercontinental, is certainly no exception.

Everywhere we travel these days we see cocktails on the menu. And not just here in the USA, but all around the world. And that’s not only the drinks, but the ingredients as well…. So let’s celebrate the global reach of cocktails with an “Intercontinental” Mixology Monday challenge. Create a cocktail with “ingredients” from at least 3, but preferably 4, 5 or 6 continents. And if you can include Antarctica, then you get a Gold Star.

OK, I missed Antarctica. And Oceania. (There was a well-intentioned Vegemite experiment. Not so good.) But as usual, I was thinking of my own current preoccupations and wondering how they related to the theme at hand. Lately, I’m most interested in fermented beverages, brandy cocktails and food pairing, and this MxMo offering could represent all of these things. It’s based on a saison (Belgian-style farmhouse ale) made here in the U.S. with the addition of grains of paradise, an African spice reminiscent of black pepper, ginger and citrus oils. I pumped up the alcohol with calvados, a Normandy apple brandy—not too much. There’s a ginger liqueur to represent Asia, and allspice liqueur and Peruvian bitters to represent the Americas.



Time of the Saison

• 1 oz calvados
• 1/2 oz Domaine de Canton
• 1/2 oz lemon
• 4 dashes Amaro Chuncho
• 1/4 tsp St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
• Ommegang Hennepin (about 4 oz)

Lightly shake with ice all except the Ommegang. (Just box it back and forth 2 – 3 times.) Strain into a stem glass. Top with beer.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Delicate fruit, spice and little bubbles, this is bright and light enough to accompany a meal of seasonal related flavors. Here in North America, it happens to be autumn but don’t let that stop you from mixing one up if you’re somewhere entirely different.

Many thanks to Stewart for hosting and for his great theme.

MxMo LXXVII: Smoke!—Smoky Mountain Boogie

It’s time again for another Mixology Monday. A big Fogged In thank-you to our host Elana of Stir and Strain for a theme close to my heart, a flavor I crave intensely—smoke. There’s any number of exciting ways to work with smoke in cocktails. For this round, I thought of an ingredient I like a lot, smoke beer. Today I’ve used a favorite oak smoke doppelbock by Schlenkerla in a riff on a classic bourbon cocktail that normally calls for champagne, the Seelbach Cocktail. The original version is a house specialty of the Seelbach Hotel in Kentucky.



Smoky Mountain Boogie

• 1 oz bourbon (Buffalo Trace)
• 1/2 oz Cointreau
• 7 dashes Regans’ No. 6 Orange Bitters
• 7 dashes Bar Keep Baked Apple Bitters
• 5 oz smoke beer (Schlenkerla doppelbock)

Stir bourbon, Cointreau and bitters briefly with ice and strain into a chilled pokal or other slender pilsner glass. Fill with smoke beer. Orange twist.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Smoke, fruit, spice and refreshing bitterness. Both bitters are perfect complements to the doppelbock.

MxMo LXVIII: Humbug!—Snakebite

A big Fogged In thank-you to JFL of Rated R Cocktails for braving the hazards of the season to host a Mixology Monday. His theme is “Humbug!” After an evening on the town trying to find a friendly beer or two in a San Francisco filled with smug, banal, poorly socialized revelers, “humbug” seems about right.

JFL invites us to “create or find a drink that is Anti-Holiday Season, or personifies your favorite Holiday Villain.” After last night, I might just become a holiday villain myself, but maybe it’s wiser to retreat with an anti-holiday drink instead. Behold the classic Snakebite. No fake cheer here—just cider and lager. To dress it up a little, I served it with an evil clown. Everything’s better with an evil clown.

Snakebite

• 1 part beer
• 1 part cider

Built in a pint glass.
TRADITIONAL RECIPE

Samuel Smith’s Organic Lager and Crispin Natural Hard Apple Cider combine in a tasty, undemanding pint, good for drowning out those awful voices of the nitwits all around you. Humbug!

Special thanks to Dave Hauslein and everyone at Healthy Spirits for gamely playing along, as always.

Smoky Michelada

Maybe I could wait until the weather’s warmer before posting a quencher like a Michelada, but suddenly I feel like playing with beer. The one in this recipe is Schlenkerla Oak Smoke, a great ingredient to cook with as well. A pint bottle will do two drinks—or one if you’re very thirsty.



Smoky Michelada

• 8 oz Schlenkerla Oak Smoke beer, or to taste
• 3 oz tomato juice
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 dashes hot sauce
• 2 dashes Worcestershire sauce
• salt, for rim

Rim chilled pint glass with salt. Shake remaining ingredients except beer with ice lightly 10 times. Pour into glass and add beer. Stir briefly. Lime shell garnish.
SOURCE: COMPOSITE, ADAPTED BY ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

The smoke’s in the background, contributing to the overall savoriness and amping up the pepper sauce. Light but very flavorful.

American Aquavit, Scandinavian Beer

For whatever reason, finding aquavit in San Francisco always takes some doing. Maybe it’s a caraway thing (you like it or you really don’t). And a survey of dealers online suggests that only a few brands get imported. But a few American distillers are producing aquavits of their own.


My previous post features the great North Shore Private Reserve from the North Shore Distillery in Illinois. This big, bright, slightly fruity aquavit has pronounced cumin and coriander notes, and would be a good place to start for those for haven’t acquired a taste for caraway.

Very different from North Shore is House Spirits Distillery’s Krogstad, a fiery pairing of caraway and star anise I first tasted in Portland, Oregon, where it’s made. There’s an elegant aged version produced in a limited run, Gammal Krogstad, that would be perfect for sipping with traditional Scandinavian food.

Some great mixed drinks can be made from aquavit, though I find that the challenge with some brands is to compliment the bite of the botanicals without watering it away. So to preserve the intensity of the herbs, I’m going to keep ice out of the glass this time, and mix with a mug of hot beer instead. My inspiration comes from Gary Regan’s recipe for a gin and stout classic, the Dog’s Nose.

Special thanks to Dave Hauslein, the beer buyer at Healthy Spirits, for his help with dark beer. Dave steered me in the direction of some stout and porter from Scandinavia that were perfect.

The Loki Dog’s Nose

• 12 oz dark beer
• 2 oz aquavit (Krogstad)
• 2-3 tsp brown sugar
• ground nutmeg for garnish

Heat the beer. Gary Regan says to put it in the microwave on high for a minute, but I’m nervous around microwaves after liquefying a takeout container at work last month. Heat the beer on the stove. Pour into a warmed beer mug, and dissolve the sugar gently. Add the spirits. Dust with nutmeg.



I made two rounds of this. For the first round, I used Sundby Stout from Denmark. The resulting mug was substantial but not too heavy, dry but not bitter. It was a little like drinking a glass of dark bread.

For the second one, I used a porter, Sinebrychoff from Finland. Rich and creamy. The stout worked very well, but the porter was more luxurious. And I increased the sugar for the porter from 2 teaspoons to 3 to bring up the richness a little.

This is really soporific, by the way. If I wanted to nod off gently on a lazy afternoon, this drink would be the best thing. Or the next best thing. I find a dog helps, but you can’t drink that.