Mister Minneola

Yet another of my attempts to find something useful to do with seasonal produce besides cutting the stuff into wedges, this has some Bronx inspiration, though it feels more integrated and modern than most of my ventures into Bronx Cocktail territory. The dash of Laphroaig adds a little depth without peating it up much.



Mister Minneola

• 2 oz gin
• 1/2 oz sweet vermouth
• 1/4 oz orange liqueur
• 1/2 oz tangelo juice
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• dash Laphroaig

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

Cerrito Cocktail

This is a gin sour I’ve been kicking around with a friend. The combination of maraschino and allspice isn’t one I immediately think of so I’m glad for the inspiration. Here’s my current variation.

 
Cerrito Cocktail

• 2 oz gin (Junípero)
• 1 oz lime juice
• 1/2 oz maraschino
• 1/2 oz triple sec (Combier)
• 1 dash allspice dram
• 1 dash absinthe

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

The twist disappeared in the drink I photographed but it’s in there.

I’m always at a loss to describe the profile of maraschino. It has a bitter almond component but it’s more complex than that, drier than most cherry flavors and floral at the same time. And in this drink it seems to shimmer with the dashes of allspice and absinthe. The orange twist is the perfect top note. It points up the triple sec and helps bring the flavors together.

MxMo LXXIX: Resin—Mister Moose

Hey folks. It’s time for another magical Mixology Monday. I’d like to thank our hosts Christa and Shaun of BoozeNerds for their inspiring and intensely aromatic theme, Resin. They write:

We thought hard about a theme that would work well for this time of year, and after contemplating the food, booze, and decor we like for the holidays, we settled on “Resin.” From savory rosemary in a stuffing, to a delicious juniper-y gin in a martini, to a fragrant fir ornament or garnish, our friends the evergreens have a lot to offer. The challenge: come up with an ingenious creation using the resin-y ingredient of your choice. Zirbenz, retsina, hoppy IPA, pine-nut puree, even? Sure! Spirit, garnish, aroma, all are fair game. Whatever resin means to you, we want to hear it.

It’s definitely late autumn in San Francisco. It doesn’t freeze here, but the days are noticeably shorter and there’s a scent of of wood smoke in the chilly evenings. What better way to prepare for the coming Thanksgiving holiday than an evergreen-scented drink?



Mister Moose

• 2 oz gin
• 1 oz Zirbenz Stone Pine Liqueur
• 1 oz sweet vermouth
• 1 oz lemon juice
• 1 oz ginger beer
• 1 generous dash Bar Keep Baked Apple Bitters

Lightly shake all except ginger beer with ice. (Don’t over-dilute.) Strain into a double old fashioned. Top with ginger beer and add fresh ice. Rosemary sprig garnish.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

The Zirbenz is a surprisingly easy, versatile ingredient, adding a unique balsam spice. Here it’s accentuated by the ginger, bitters, and the earthier herbs in the vermouth. The gin works as a background taste to lengthen the evergreen notes and dry the whole thing down.

The Ferryman

More fun with St. George Spirits’ Dry Rye Gin, one of the grooviest things out of Alameda since the China Clipper. And here’s another Cynar-fueled vegetal cocktail. I’ve said before that I can’t do cucumber drinks for my housemate, but the Cynar-celery combo is really working for him. This one has ginger too.



The Ferryman

• 1 1/2 St George Dry Rye Gin
• 1 oz Cynar
• 1/4 oz Canton Ginger Liqueur
• 1/2 oz lemon-lime juice
• 2 dashes celery bitters

Shake with ice and strain into an old fashioned. Ice cube.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Tempus Fugit Liqueur de Violettes

This is a fine, Swiss-made violet liqueur from a company in Petaluma, California. Their media points out the lower sugar content of this product compared to crème-style violet liqueurs, and how this showcases the delicate florals. I’d probably care more if I were drinking the stuff neat except to taste a bit. That said, a sip is definitely intriguing. There’s a subtle musk note I keep chasing but never catch up with. The color is interesting too, and appears to be from the flowers, a lilac-pink. Let’s try a cocktail with the stuff.



Erik Satie Cocktail

• 1 1/2 oz St. George Dry Rye Gin
• 3/4 oz dry vermouth
• 1/2 oz Tempus Fugit Liqueur de Violettes
• 2 dashes absinthe
• 2 dashes lavender bitters

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

The liqueur is based on a French recipe from 1868, and has something both old and Old World. I composed the above cocktail from the Violettes’ logical compliments, the other tastes of the Belle Époque, with which it goes perfectly. The mauve—“pink trying to be purple,” as Whistler would say—turns rosé in the company of dry vermouth.

Sourer Than Usual

I’m really liking Kronan Swedish Punsch. Until recently, I had so much trouble buying punsch that I simply made it from Erik Ellestad’s recipe, which works very well. Kronan is a little heavier and darker in character—not a bad thing at all, merely different. I also wonder if it’s a little sweeter since I’ve had to adjust a few cocktails.

But then maybe it’s just me. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth in any case. But as I continue to think about taste and how it works, I notice a slight preference for more tartness in sour drinks—maybe the result of a subtle physiological change with the passage of time. (It’s unlikely that I want more sourness because I’m getting sweeter. Friends would say otherwise.)



Have a Heart

• 1 1/2 oz gin
• 1/2 oz Swedish punsch
• 3/4 oz lime juice
• 1/4 oz grenadine

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
SOURCE: ADAPTED FROM THE OFFICIAL MIXER’S MANUAL FOR HOME AND PROFESSIONAL USE, PATRICK GAVIN DUFFY

I first saw the original version of this recipe in Dr. Cocktail’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. I especially like the way the intense flavors play off a personality gin like Beefeater 24 or Botanivore.

MxMo LXXII: Drink Your Vegetables—Low Country Celery

Guest blogger Matt L. Miller sends us an original recipe in response to this month’s Mixology Monday, the theme of which is Drink Your Vegetables. I, Rowen, have the pleasure of hosting this MxMo here at Fogged In Lounge, and invite participants to create a drink around one or more vegetable ingredients in any form. Matt responds with a celery-salted Holland gin Martini illustrated by his photo and description below.



Low Country Celery

• 2 oz genever gin (Genevieve)
• 1/2 oz dry vermouth (Dolin)
• 2 shakes celery salt

Stir vigorously over ice. Strain immediately into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with one spicy pickled green bean (Tillen Farm).

Strangely, Anchor Distilling has found it necessary to add the following warning label to Genevieve, their genever-style gin: WARNING: This is NOT a gin for making martinis! It is a “Genever” or “Schiedam” style gin, for old-fashioned cocktail recipe mixing. Or enjoy it on the rocks! Well, I suppose some people had complained. But I’m an iconoclast, so I decided to make a martini variation despite the warning, having run out of more orthodox recipes for genever. Strongly herbal, of course, but with a real backbone from the rye. It needed salt to go with the genever’s funkiness. And maybe something bitter to cut the genever’s sweetness. Celery salt? Perfect! Leafy vegetables were brought out by the salt, the Dolin vermouth added some more flowery herbal notes, and the celery completed the salad. Oh, and a spicy pickled bean for fun and distraction.
MATT L. MILLER

Komodo

Substitutions are real fun, and the Singapore Sling template makes so many tasty fizzy sours. For this adventure, I went with another herbal liqueur in place of the Bénédictine: the incomparable green Chartreuse. The resulting color and big flavor, together with a powerful alcohol wallop, reminded me of one of them gigantic reptiles they have in Southeast Asia, the ones that might just as soon eat you. They stun their victims with poison and then finish ’em off. Last I knew, these creatures are only wild in Indonesia, though maybe by now they’ve headed over to the Western Hemisphere and acquired a taste for rhum agricole in addition to the occasional person. In any case, the drink seems fairly pleasant to me, which might explain a few things around here.



Komodo

• 2 oz London dry gin
• 1/2 oz Martinique rum (La Favorite Cœur d’Ambre)
• 1/2 oz green Chartreuse
• 1/2 oz crème de pêche (Massenez)
• 1 oz lime juice
• 1 1/2 oz soda

Shake all except soda with ice and pour into a collins glass. Top with soda. Fresh ice to fill.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Martini Time (and a Thyme Martini)

Greetings from the bleak shores of post-holiday confusion, where those of us in northern latitudes stumble around in the cold and dark, numbly bumping into things. (“Stupid parking meter!”) Martinis help a lot. It’s true that they increase the delirium but then you don’t mind it as much as you did before. They seem so astringent and boozy that you can’t help but think after a sip or two that they’re good for everything that ails you. (They’re not, but even so….)

And there’s something comforting in that trace of brine from an olive. Its savoriness is sort of bracing—like soup for people who drink. That’s why I like a garlic-stuffed olive. Big flavor. Substantial. Add a green herb and it’s practically a meal. I’ll just illustrate with a recipe here:

Thyme Martini

• 2 oz London dry gin
• 1 oz dry vermouth
• thyme sprig
• lemon peel
• scant pinch sea salt

Gently muddle a 2- or 3-inch sprig of thyme with a wide, thin piece of lemon peel and a pinch of sea salt. Add plenty of ice and the gin and vermouth. Stir and double strain. (Second one is mesh to catch the bits.) Garlic-stuffed olive.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

This is exactly what it sounds like, a Dry Martini with stronger herbal notes. Think about going easy on the muddler since the thyme can get pretty assertive if you mash it hard. (I guess you could add more booze to dilute it. Heh.)

What’s that salt doing there? Why not extra olive brine? I gotta say I’m not crazy about the Dirty Martini for some reason. I understand why other people like them but to me, they always taste, uh, dirty. But a small pinch of sea salt in a cocktail like this is very nice indeed.

Sloe and Frosty

Here’s a winter woods number we’ve been enjoying for several nights here at the Lounge. Juniper, sloe and blackberry combine to form some imaginary fruit only found in those millpond snow scenes on Christmas cards—and for some reason, in dental offices.

Sloe and Frosty

• 2 oz gin
• 1/2 oz sloe gin
• 1/4 oz blackberry brandy
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 2 dashes Fee Bros orange bitters

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

Fort Point (San Francisco)

John Gertsen created one of the same name at Drink, which is in Boston’s Fort Point, but I’m thinking of a different bay. If you’ve seen Kim Novak jump into the water in Vertigo, that’s the spot.



Fort Point (San Francisco)

• 3/4 oz Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy
• 3/4 oz London dry gin
• 3/4 oz Aperol
• 1/2 oz lemon

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

A morning cocktail I ad libbed while having bagels with a friend—on a recent visit to New York, oddly enough. Related to my Baker Beach, hence the name.

MxMo LXV: Equal Parts—Arithmetic Leisure

Very warm thanks to Frederic of Cocktail Virgin Slut for both taking over Mixology Monday and for being this month’s host. And most of all, I’d like to thank him for eliminating the need to rack my tipsy brain trying to remember how much was measured for each ingredient in the final version of my drink because Frederic’s theme is equal parts. (Whether I can pour equal parts by the end of the evening is another story.)



Arithmetic Leisure

• 1 oz Dry Rye Gin
• 1 oz Punt e Mes
• 1 oz Campari
• 1 oz fresh orange juice

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

This aperitif cocktail is built around the Dry Rye Gin from St. George Spirits, the fruit notes from the other ingredients balancing the rye, juniper and peppercorns, and the bitter botanicals all coming together as a whole.

Golden Gate No. 2

I found this while rummaging around for San Francisco cocktails in John Poister’s New American Bartender’s Guide and thought it looked interesting. The version he gives is sort of a Twentieth Century with rum accents—more gin-forward than the one below from the CocktailDB. Wanting more of a rum cocktail, I gotta wonder what was meant by “light rum,” since the standard options give this thing no focus at all. But made with Wray & Nephew White Overproof, it’s a completely different story.



Golden Gate No. 2

• 3/4 oz gin
• 3/4 oz light rum (Wray & Nephew)
• 1/4 oz 151 proof Demerara rum
• 1/2 oz white creme de cacao
• 1/2 oz Falernum
• 1/2 oz lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
SOURCE: COCKTAILDB

This is a miniature ocean of Tiki magic served straight up. There’s supposed to be a curled orange slice garnish but it sounded too fussy for my nice little gold-rimmed glass—like it would just hit you in the nose or something.

Bustle In Your Hedgerow

This one’s all about dashes of stuff. I remember reading somewhere that a dash was a sixth of a teaspoon, though I’d like to know how this was worked out, never having seen a spoon that size. I generally reckon the dash at something around a quarter teaspoon. (I’m freer with my splash.)

Strong flavors can bulldoze a drink, though I think it’s funny when I see a bartender drip the Angostura over a Manhattan, for instance, like it’s going to explode with any sudden movement. If you use Fee Bros Orange Bitters in the drink below, as I’ve done, it’s fine to spike the bottle, though if you do that with Angostura Orange it would be better kept at one dash or you’ll taste nothing else.

Bustle In Your Hedgerow

• 1 1/2 oz dry gin
• 3/4 oz sloe gin
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 2 dashes (1/2 tsp) Laphroaig
• 1 – 2 dashes orange bitters
• 1 dash (scant 1/4 tsp) absinthe

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

Herbal candy, juniper and blackthorn. Seaside at the end of the wood. Something in the underbrush is late for an engagement.

Hanky Panky

For Friday the 13th, here’s one that has become a standby here at the Fogged In Lounge, Ada Coleman’s Hanky Panky. It’s a Savoy Cocktail so I’ll let Erik tell the story. I like the Hanky Panky with Punt e Mes in place of regular sweet vermouth, though if made that way following the printed formula, it becomes too heavy for me.



Hanky Panky (Punt e Mes)

• 2 oz London dry gin
• 1 oz Punt e Mes
• 1/2 tsp Fernet-Branca

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Orange twist.
SOURCE: ADAPTED FROM THE SAVOY COCKTAIL BOOK

(This Way to) The Egress

A riff on the Barnum with Ransom Old Tom instead of dry gin. P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York was a 5-story showcase of curiosities of every description. The exit was marked by a cleverly worded sign, “This way to the egress.” Not realizing that this simply meant the way out, people took the bait and assumed the egress was an exhibit, only to find they had left the museum.



(This Way to) The Egress

• 2 oz Ransom Old Tom gin
• 1/2 oz apricot brandy (Apry)
• 3/4 oz lemon juice

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

Ransom’s maltiness seems very 19th-century here, combining with the lemon and apricot in a slightly floral way that reminds me of an old-style punch.

Matinee of the Gods

Not quite the twilight. More like that funny hour after the early show when you have to find a drink somewhere. Martini-Gordon-Vesper variation with aquavit.



Matinee of the Gods

• 1 1/2 oz London dry gin
• 1/2 oz aquavit
• 1/4 oz fino sherry
• 1/4 oz dry vermouth
• 1 dash orange bitters (Regans)

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

Sort of a Martini but cozier.

The Bramble

Like an English summer, Dick Bradsell’s classic blackberry cocktail is over all too soon. The crème de mûre (blackberry liqueur) makes the drink, though it doesn’t need a lot. I get good results by free pouring or “lacing,” as Bradsell puts it—just enough to let some of the flavor and transparency of the Plymouth through.



The Bramble

• 2 oz gin (Plymouth)
• 3/4 oz lemon juice
• 1 barspoon rich simple syrup (2:1)
• crème de mûre to taste (Leopold Bros.)

Combine gin, lemon and syrup and shake with ice. Strain into a 12-ounce glass of crushed ice. Lace with crème de mûre. Lemon and berry garnish.
ADAPTED FROM A RECIPE BY DICK BRADSELL

Dick Bradsell talking about the Bramble:

Dry Rye Martini

I want to say right up front that I don’t approve of the trend of calling everything in a conical glass a Martini. Let’s call things by their own names. A Martini is a gin-vermouth combo. I’m prepared to call any added dashes and splashes a matter of taste, but the Martini has to have gin and vermouth—unless the gin tastes like rye, as in Dry Rye Gin by St. George Spirits, in which case, you would do better to call it a Dry Rye Martini. And if instead of dry vermouth you made it with Cocchi Americano—say a fair amount of it—you wouldn’t have a Dry Martini—though it could still be a Dry Rye Martini. Except that it wouldn’t be dry—only the Dry Rye would be dry. And the Dry Rye is gin, and dry, but not like a London dry gin. But it’s just as dry—you follow me?

Now don’t think for a moment that this is a Martini because it’s not. Except that it is. There’s the gin—but Dry Rye isn’t what I’d call a Martini gin. Except, I suppose, if you used it in a Martini recipe, which this is. You got the gin and the vermouth. And orange bitters. You don’t hear much about orange bitters in Martinis anymore. Why would that ever go away? But it seems to be coming back. I’m glad. Anyway, here’s the recipe. Have at it.



Dry Rye Martini

• 2 oz St. George Spirits Dry Rye Gin
• 3/4 oz Cocchi Americano (or Lillet will do)
• 2 dashes Regans’ Orange Bitters

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

You can twist the twist and drop it in, or discard it if you find that your twist keeps ending up in your mouth near the end of the drink. But if that happens, you’re probably gulping. I won’t tell you not to drink too fast. That’s your own affair.

Gin-Tiki

I can’t let Tiki Month go by without posting a tall gin recipe. Gin’s one of my favorite tropical drink ingredients, whether it be with tonic and lots of fresh lime or one of the more elaborate mid-20th century classics like the Fog Cutter, the Suffering Bastard or any version of the Singapore Sling.

Here’s a seemingly smooth but potentially lethal one of my own, the Gin-Tiki. Beware the calm seas and don’t go down with the raft.



Gin-Tiki

• 2 oz dry gin
• 1 oz gold Puerto Rican rum
• 1/2 oz Velvet Falernum
• 1 oz white grapefruit juice
• 1 oz pineapple juice
• 1 oz lime juice

Shake with ice cubes and strain into a 12-ounce collins glass. Fresh ice to fill. Mint garnish.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE