Caroubel

A friend came in for a nightcap after a day of eating and drinking around town. The drink I came up with has the end-of-meal elements without getting too heavy or sticky. It works on a smaller scale too. The ones we drank were half the recipe.



Caroubel

• 2 oz brandy
• 1 oz port
• 3/4 oz nocino
• 1 tsp Laphroaig (approximately)
• 1/2 oz lemon juice (or less)
• scant pinch fine sea salt

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

The port is a natural compliment to the walnut of the nocino, as is the salt. I like to stir my salt in before the ice to make sure it dissolves. The port gives this some acidity to help balance the sugar, so if you try this, you may want to under-pour the lemon a little.

Apple Brandy Cocktails for Autumn

Calvados, the great aged cider brandy from Lower Normandy, is sometimes served in the middle of a meal to re-awaken the appetite, and I can see why. Complex and refined yet still bright with apple, the aroma alone makes me hungry. It calls to mind all the tasty thing apples go well with, like salty cheese, honey, legumes, cabbage, herbs, root vegetables, caramel. I definitely see some pairings in my future, but for now, here’s a couple of drinks before dinner.



The Butterfly and the Bee

• 1 1/2 oz calvados
• 1/2 oz ginger liqueur (Domaine de Canton)
• 1/2 lemon juice
• 2 dashes lavender bitters

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

The apple-lavender combination is intense and complex, amplified by brightness of the lemon and ginger. Orchard and field. Last breath of summer.



On a Lark

• 1 oz calvados
• 1 oz dry vermouth
• 1/2 oz Averna
• 1 scant pinch fine sea salt

Stir salt in vermouth until dissolved, then add remaining ingredients and cracked ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

More autumnal than the previous one. White wine and herbs from the vermouth bring out crispness in the apple and add savory notes. Subtle caramel from the Averna. The salt heightens everything and helps bring it together.

Light, Bright Brandy Cocktails at Bar Agricole

More brunchtime cocktails, though if you really want to explore the kaleidoscopic variety of fine brandy drinks at this beautiful SoMa restaurant, go for dinner. (The bar opens at 5:00.) But on to the beauties I had Sunday morning.



SLEEPYHEAD
Brandy, ginger, mint, sparkling wine. A chalice of tiny golden stars. So soft and elegant, it was like I stayed in bed.



SUPREME
Apple brandy, lemon, orgeat, grenadine. Not merely a Jackrose with orgeat, this is made with a glorious, slightly higher-proof calvados they brought back from France, giving this both richness and snap. Pear and caramel notes in the spirit complement the big, earthy orgeat.

Many thanks to Colin for his charm and grace behind the bar and to everyone at Bar Agricole for making my visit a memorable one.

Swingin’ Brandy Cocktails

Fruit is among nature’s purest, most virtuous wonders—especially when distilled. For those unaccustomed to drinking fruit spirits, just remember that if you can mash it, you can distill it, which makes for a rich variety of cocktail ingredients. These are all fruity in aroma but dry on the palate, and they are all identified as eau de vie or brandy, though we tend to use the former term for the unaged types and the latter for the brown stuff. To further complicate things, brandy by itself usually means aged grape brandy, like cognac, and the apple brandies and so on are forced to explain themselves every time they enter a room. And then you’re supposed to understand that none of these should be confused with the sort of liqueur with brandy in the name, like apricot brandy or blackberry or whatever, as brandy in that case merely means brandy-based. (Sometimes they tell you the brandy used for the base. Often they don’t.) Those drinks have sugar in them and are not the same sort of thing at all. Still with me? Would a drink help?



Mr. Rosewater

• 2 oz cognac
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/4 oz grenadine
• 1/8 tsp rosewater
• 1 1/2 oz soda

Shake all except soda with ice cubes. Strain into a double old fashioned. Add soda and fresh ice cubes.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Now there’s a brandy drink with a familiar brandy. I could’ve used a California one of the same general type but it wouldn’t be cognac. Only brandy from the wine-growing region around Cognac is called cognac, so you know what you’re getting. French brandy, like all agricultural products from France, is departmental, and a handy thing that it is, too.

The other big aged grape spirit in those parts but from the southwest is armagnac. (If French sounds make you nervous, the gn is just like the one in cognac. That both brandy regions should have the same ending is kind of cute.) It’s a similar sort of spirit but from a different department and with a character of its own. Like cognac, armagnac is easy drinking, delicious and good in Sidecar cocktails. In the recipe below, I’ve combined it with a totally different type of brandy, a pear eau de vie. This spirit is known as Poire William or Poire Williams, after the Williams pear, a Bartlett. There’s a very nice liqueur by the same name but it’s not brandy. (We’ll ignore the question of whether it might be a brandy-based pear liqueur.) Also note that the Cointreau in my recipe is a brandy-based orange liqueur, but we never ever call it orange brandy. Sometimes it’s better not to ask and just keep drinking.



Armagnac-Poire Sidecar

• 1 1/2 oz armagnac
• 1/2 oz Poire Williams eau de vie
• 3/4 oz Cointreau
• 3/4 oz lemon juice

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

Eau de vie tends to come in pricey half-bottles, but it delivers a fairly concentrated blast of fruit aroma and can be used sparingly in mixed drinks. The fruit spirits combine very nicely for symphonic effects like you get with multiple rums in Tiki. Some fruit brandies are snappy like applejack; others are lush and round like cognac. You can pair them for the best of both brandies.

MxMo LXXIII: Witches’ Garden—Reynardine

It’s time again for Mixology Monday. This month, Mark Holmes of Cardiff Cocktails invites us to show off our mad herbalist cocktail skillz with his awesome theme, Witches’ Garden. I was expecting this challenge to help me welcome in the summer time with something light and bright, but ended up with a velvety room-temperature potion of rosemary, sage, and port wine goodness.




Reynardine

• 1 1/2 oz cognac
• 1 1/2 oz port
• 3-4 sage leaves
• 1 sprig rosemary (an inch or so)

Bruise the herbs lightly but thoroughly in a splash of the cognac. Add the remaining cognac and the port, stirring well. Strain through mesh into a snifter or other balloon-shaped glass.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

The herbs bring out savory notes in the port and brandy. Rich and subtly aromatic, this would be just the thing for a winter night. On a May afternoon, it’s contemplative and still, and casts a strange spell.

Pumpkin Waltz

The return of the squash-chili syrup. It’s a pretty good ingredient, though I’m thinking I could turn up the heat of the chilies a little. I’ve played more with the savory side of the squash this time with dashes of balsamic vinegar and salt, and a little Laphroaig for smoke. Sorta Sidecar-ish.



Pumpkin Waltz

• 2 oz cognac
• 1/2 oz squash-chili syrup
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 3 drops or so balsamic vinegar
• 3 drops or so Laphroaig
• pinch sea salt

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

Booze and Sympathy: Fun with Russian Caravan Tea Syrup

Russian Caravan is grand stuff, a blend of smoky Chinese teas that’s a natural compliment to cocktails. There was about a third of a cup of tea left in the tin. I made a simple syrup of 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water, and added the tea the second I turned the heat off. (Strain after 5 minutes, cool, bottle, refrigerate.)



When We’re Alone

• 1 1/2 — 2 oz cognac
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1 barspoon Russian Caravan tea syrup
• 1 tsp Cruzan Blackstrap rum

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



Patience and Fortitude

• 2 oz bourbon
• 1 tsp Russian Caravan tea syrup
• 1 dash Jerry Thomas’ decanter bitters
• tangerine twist
• Small splash soda

In an Old Fashioned glass, muddle a broad, thin strip of tangerine peel with the bitters and syrup. Add ice and spirits and stir gently. Splash of soda.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Manhattan Variations: Saratoga Cocktail

DJ HawaiianShirt of Spirited Remix suggested that this Manhattan relative might make an interesting taste comparison with the more familiar standard. It’s certainly very grand, swapping half the whiskey with brandy. I went all the way and made mine with Courvoisier and 100-proof rye, just as I sometimes do with Sazeracs. The vermouth on the first round was with Martini & Rossi—good to be sure—but it was much richer when made with the dense and vanillic Carpano Antica as Paul Clarke suggests.

I made a Saratoga and a Manhattan with the same amounts of spirits, bitters and vermouth, and the housemate and I each had a half. We agreed that the Saratoga was rounder, silkier, more contemplative. The Manhattan seemed edgier, like its weight was shifted slightly forward.

I dunno that I have a preference per se except to note that for all my years in San Francisco, my feet still wanna get me everywhere in a New York minute.



Saratoga Cocktail

• 1 oz rye
• 1 oz cognac
• 1 oz sweet vermouth
• 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Lemon twist.

This recipe, more or less, appears in Jerry Thomas’s Bar-Tender’s Guide, as per my usual my time machine for the 19th-century cocktail, David Wondrich’s Imbibe!

This Drink’s In Love with You

There’s an imaginary cocktail bar in my brain called the 60s where I’m in Las Vegas with the Rat Pack, in Reno with The Misfits and with Dusty in Memphis.




This Drink’s In Love with You

• 2 oz brandy
• 1/2 oz white crème de cacao
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 2 oz soda or to taste

Shake all except soda with ice and strain into a 12-oz glass. Fresh ice to fill, soda. Lime shell, mint garnish.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

This glass is one of a pair I received as a gift from the housemate from our local de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The pattern repeats in oxidized metal all over the façade of the building.

Pear Sidecar

I had a great Pear Sidecar at Rams Head in NW Portland that was made from Edgefield Distillery’s own pear brandy. The one I show here combines cognac with a touch of Poire Williams. Feels very French to me for some reason—not just because of the two brandies but there’s just something about pear.



Pear Sidecar

• 1 1/2 oz cognac
• 1/2 oz Poire Williams eau-de-vie
• 3/4 oz Cointreau
• 1/2 oz lemon juice

Shake and strain into an ice cocktail glass.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

The Breakfast Cocktail

Rich, elegant, herbal. The housemate and I are of differing views on whether this is best with bitters or without. Good either way, though for me, the bitters adds an astringency that makes it and dries the whole thing down. But I suppose adjusting the ratio of Chartreuse to cognac would cut the sweet a bit while preserving what the housemate calls a roundness. I see his point.

The Breakfast of Champions, as a certain Vonnegut waitress tells us, is the Martini, though Dr Johnson notes that to be a hero, one must drink brandy.



The Breakfast Cocktail

• 1 oz Green Chartreuse
• 1 – 1 1/2 oz cognac
• 1/2 oz Yellow Chartreuse
• 1 tsp Poire Williams
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 1 dash Bitter Truth Creole Bitters or other aromatic bitters (optional)

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

For an old friend.

This is a Sidecar?

Someone who walks up to a bar and orders a Sidecar is likely to want something quite specific—a known quantity. The customer ordering that drink by name without consulting the list is probably not interested in what someone added just to be different any more than a Rum and Coke customer wants Pepsi. (Sorry if this all seems pedantic but lately I’ve been served some pretty nasty things.)

The Sidecar is a three-ingredient classic cocktail than anyone can make and every professional should know. The proportions are a matter of taste, but the ingredients are brandy, Cointreau and lemon juice. Lime is a reasonable substitution without changing the basic personality of the drink. Some people like to add things to the formula, which are sometimes very nice, but the Sidecar cannot be improved upon. And if you substitute an ingredient, it is no longer a Sidecar but something else, and also not an improvement, however tasty it might be.

Some unsuitable things that have turned up in my glass when I ordered a Sidecar:

• Orange juice
• Muddled orange slices
• Bourbon
• Simple syrup
• Sweet and sour mix
• Soda
• Some unidentified substance smelling of bowl freshener

It seems to me that the easiest way to deal with the problem of making a drink you don’t know is to ask how it’s made.



Sidecar

• 1 1/2 – 2 oz brandy
• 3/4 oz Cointreau
• 1/2 oz lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The proportions above are what I happen to prefer, pouring a little on the strong side. Like so many of the best things in life, Sidecars are best rich and boozy. Gautier VSOP cognac makes a great Sidecar, as does Courvoisier VS. A good drink reveals the spirit. To those who have served me bad Sidecars, I simply say fear not the booze. Let it be your friend.

Plum Jamming

A friend gave me a jar of her awesome plum jam—rich, dark, big flavor, a little spicy, not too sweet. I knew right away that I wanted to put it in a drink.



Plum Jamming

• 2 oz cognac
• 1/2 oz plum jam
• 1/4 oz Swedish Punsch (Underhill Punsch)
• 1/2 oz lemon juice

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

The plum jam is thick with lots of texture, so I poured the cocktail through a mesh strainer, pushing the last of it a little with a spoon. If you make this with commercial plum jam, you may have to adjust the balance.

Big thanks to J. for the very cool gift.

Brandy Julep

Another good end to a good bottle this week: Kuchan Indian Blood Peach eau-de-vie. I was planning to use only cognac for this julep, but remembered had about an ounce left of the peach just sort of sitting around so I gave half an ounce each to two drinks. I guess that makes it marginally a Georgia Julep. (David Wondrich and Doctor Cocktail both give the original proportions for the Georgia as half of each.)



Brandy Julep

• 2 1/2 oz cognac
• 1/2 oz peach eau-de-vie
• 1/2 oz simple syrup
• 6 mint leaves

Break mint leaves and drop them in a julep cup or double rocks glass. Muddle lightly with a little of the syrup. Add remaining ingredients and crushed ice to fill and swizzle. Garnish with plenty of mint.
SOURCE: COMPOSITE

MxMo LII: Forgotten Cocktails

A big Fogged In thank you to Dennis of Rock & Rye for hosting this month’s Mixology Monday: Forgotten Cocktails. It’s hard to say what could have been forgotten at this point, as I seem to find myself in a veritable crowd of cocktail archaeologists. But classic brandy and champagne combos seem to get far too little play for my taste, so that’s a good place to start.

The Blue Train Special turns up in the Savoy Cocktail Book, in the CocktailDB and who knows where else. It’s a pineapple royale with brandy. What’s not to love? This would be a natural for brunch, and more to my taste than a Mimosa—certainly more so than any of the nasty, sticky, red variations that are starting to turn up. (’Tis the season for revolting wine cocktails.)



Blue Train Special

• 1 oz cognac
• 1 oz pineapple juice
• brut champagne to fill

Shake cognac and pineapple juice with ice and strain into a chilled champagne glass. Fill with champagne.
SOURCE: COMPOSITE

Heart of the Chartreuse Beast

At a stream somewhere in the Sierra Madre, a large animal laps the water. It makes low, growling, purring sounds that travel through the forest and stop all other creatures in their tracks. It licks its whiskers and speaks a little French.

This latest drink in my current exploration of Mexican spirits is, in outline, a Chartreuse Swizzle transformed by mezcal. (The incomparable Tiare has fun with this too in her Del Maguey Vida review.) For a fan of smoky single malts like me, mezcal is a very exciting ingredient to work with. Like scotch, it has not just smoke but intensity and mystique. And it’s a great pairing for the sweet herbal complexity of Chartreuse.

I based this swizzle on yellow Chartreuse, which tends to inspire me more often than green. I dunno—maybe it’s that I never know when the green plus a lime, delicious though that can be, is going to give me heartburn. Or maybe it’s that I just love the color of the yellow one so much. Yellow Chartreuse is particularly good with pear, and I busted out the juicer again for this one just cuz I could. It’s worth doing a whole bunch of pears at once and storing the juice in the refrigerator.



Heart of the Chartreuse Beast

• 1 1/2 oz yellow Chartreuse
• 1/2 oz mezcal
• 1/2 oz cognac
• 2 oz pear juice (about 1 small-medium pear)
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• Black pepper, for garnish
• Mint, for garnish

Swizzle with plenty of crushed ice and pour into a large glass. Garnish with mint and coarse cracked pepper.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

The Circus

Keep the circus going inside you, keep it going, don't take anything too seriously, it’ll all work out in the end.
—David Niven

The last time I made this, other than the one pictured below, was for a small party for my birthday. It’s the sort of drink that hints at its lethality by way of what you don’t taste. You don’t know where the bottom of the pool is; only that your feet aren’t on it. Normally, I don’t expose my guests to that sort of thing, but it was a special occasion and my friends are such good sports.



The Circus

• 1 1/2 oz gin
• 1 oz vanilla rum (Charbay)
• 3/4 oz Galliano (84.6 proof)
• 1/2 oz brandy
• 2 1/2 oz apricot nectar (Looza)
• 1 oz passion fruit syrup (Trader Tiki)
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a chimney glass. Add fresh ice. Garnish with such small fruits as are available: cherry, kumquat, lemon wedge, etc.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Philadelphia Fish-House Punch

There’s old magic in the legend of Philadelphia Fish-House Punch and the Colony in Schuylkill. It is woods and water and smoke. It is the Fourth of July, and canoes, wet bathing suits and homemade pies. It conjures the spirit of the old republic.

The first time I made this, I used the adjusted recipe from David Wondrich that calls for brandy-based peach liqueur in place of peach brandy from peaches. Since then, a great artisanal Indian blood peach eau-de-vie by Kuchan has come on the market. Either way, the effect is quite similar: sweet and heady, subtly perfumed. This is the taste of the past. The flavors are rich and very old fashioned, though the water helps keep it light. My friends and I find that we can drink it all afternoon long in a pleasant haze.

I pretty much stuck to the proportions of the old recipe, rounding only slightly down on the sugar and up on the water for easy multiplication.



Philadelphia Fish House Punch

• 1 pint lemon juice
• 4 cups sugar
• 3 pints mixture (1 1/2 cups peach eau-de-vie, 3 cups cognac, 1 1/2 cups Jamaica rum)
• 1 gallon water

Make a block of ice for the punch bowl by freezing water in a metal or cardboard container overnight. (Do not use glass, which will break with the expansion of the ice.) Now for the lemons. Squeezing a pint of lemon juice with a small hand press takes some patience and about 3 pounds of lemons. Before you squeeze, take off only the yellow part of the peel of 3 lemons with a sharp vegetable peeler. Muddle the peels well with the sugar.



Start squeezing lemons into a strainer over a measuring cup. Heat a quart of the water to the boiling point and pour over the sugar, stirring to dissolve. Fish out the lemon peels. Wondrich says to add the rest of the ingredients at this point and chill the whole thing, but I find that making a great vat of the stuff for a barbecue means competition with other comestibles for real estate in the refrigerator.



So I cooled it with another quart of the water, added the lemon juice, and chilled the booze mixture and remaining water separately. Assemble the punch in a large bowl over the ice block.
SOURCE: DAVID WONDRICH, IMBIBE!, AFTER A RECIPE IN THE POSSESSION OF CHARLES G. LELAND, ESQ. PUBLISHED BY JERRY THOMAS, 1862