When Black Friday Comes

If you’re reading this in the United States, you probably know it’s a big shopping day here. Whether you like that sort of thing or don’t, a tropical drink might help.



When Black Friday Comes

• 2 oz amber Martinique rum (Saint James)
• 2 tsp allspice dram
• 1/4 oz absinthe
• 2 oz lime juice
• 2 oz ginger beer

Shake all except ginger beer with ice and strain into a 10-ounce glass. Top with ginger beer and fresh ice. Mint sprig.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

For the rum, I went with Saint James Royal Ambre. It’s mellower than some other Martinique rums but the funk is definitely there, and it plays subtly with the absinthe and allspice. This drink should be good with Caribbean or Chinese food.

I use a lot of Fever Tree Ginger Beer—my favorite. It has the light body and clean flavor I prefer. The little market where I do most of my daily shopping stocks Bruce Cost’s Ginger Ale, tasty if a bit rich for highballs. It’ll work in the above recipe.

Maybe someday I’ll get it together enough to make Erik’s luscious-looking fermented ginger beer.

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.

Beyond the Sea

A big mahalo to Doug for spurring us all into Tiki action for the month of February. (Sorry I’m late putting on my aloha shirt. Too busy getting... aw, skip it.) Here’s a spice number I made up this morning: cinnamon out front doing the funk with the Smith & Cross. Note the groovy mid-century Tapio Wirkkala glass. Hey, Finland’s an island—sort of.



Beyond the Sea

• 1 1/2 oz gold Puerto Rican rum (Don Q Añejo)
• 1 oz Smith & Cross Jamaica pot still rum
• 1/4 oz St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
• 1 oz lime juice
• 1/2 oz Don’s Mix (B.G. Reynolds)
• 1 1/2 oz ginger beer (Fever Tree)

Shake all except ginger beer with ice cubes and strain into a double old fashioned. Add ginger beer and ice to fill. Lime garnish.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Bright-Eyed

You eat your vegetables? Me neither.

Kidding. In fact, I’ve been so into cooking different veggies lately that thought occurs that they ought to appear in more cocktails. I happen to have a centrifuge-type juicer for doing my own root vegetables and apples and stuff, though if I get lazy, there’s a place five blocks away that sells most of the ones you might expect: carrot, carrot-celery, beet, etc. I get the feeling after cleaning the juicer after carrots that I’ll be headed over to that store soon.



Bright-Eyed

• 2 oz gold barbados rum
• 2 oz carrot juice
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 2 dashes Angostura Bitters
• 1 oz spicy ginger beer (Fever Tree)

Shake all except ginger beer with ice and strain into a double old fashioned. Top with ginger and add fresh ice.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

The carrot comes through, nicely accentuated by the spices and the sugar cane from the rum, but keeps the vegetal thing and doesn't get too sweet.

Smith & Cross Cooler

Don’t know what it is—maybe the San Francisco Indian summer—but I’m craving fizzy rum sours. I was just saying to the housemate that my drinking today has been all of a type: brunch was a Pusser’s Navy Rum Collins, then later a Churchill’s Southside while I was taking a break from my errands. At home, I stared at the bottles for inspiration but it was the same story.



Smith & Cross Cooler

• 2 generous dashes Angostura Bitters
• 2 oz Smith & Cross
• juice of half a lime
• spicy ginger beer, about 3-4 oz (Fever Tree)

Build in a 12-ounce glass over ice cubes. Stir gently and briefly.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

These are all things that are made to go together. It’s nicely dry and clean, with a balance of aromatic, bitter, sour and strong. I guess it’s a classic drink, though I have no idea what else you’d call it so I named it after the rum.

Concorde

This combination of flavors has been in my head for a while: off-dry, gin and lime, a white wine note. As much as I’m taken with Fever Tree ginger beer lately, I used Reed’s for this to compliment the subtlety of white vermouth. You could use a spicier ginger beer but reduce the amount.



Concorde

• 1 1/2 oz gin
• 1 1/2 oz dry vermouth
• 1/2 oz lime
• about 4 oz ginger beer (Reed’s Extra Ginger)

Stir all but ginger beer with ice cubes and pour into a 10 oz glass. Fill with ginger beer. Lime garnish.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

The Golden Hind

This is a riff on the Ur-Tiki, the Singapore Sling, but with chocolate in place of cherry and ginger beer instead of plain soda. I’m a big fan of long drinks with lime and ginger beer—especially with Fever Tree ginger beer. Never thought I’d be able to say this of a product: it has that bright, sharp, clean ginger flavor for perfect highballs every time.



The Golden Hind

• 2 oz gin (Tanqueray)
• 3/4 oz oz crème de cacao (Joseph Cartron brun)
• 1/2 oz cognac (Courvoisier VS)
• 1/2 oz Bénédictine
• 1 oz lime juice
• 1 1/2 oz ginger beer (Fever Tree)

Shake all but ginger beer with ice cubes and strain into a tall glass. Top with ginger beer and add fresh ice. Garnish with cherry sprinkled with a bit of coarse sea salt. (Named for the Golden Hind.)
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Gin Buck

Dr. Cocktail—where would we be without you? Well, I guess the answer is, boozed up, but less pleasantly so. The Gin Buck is a drink I learned from the Doctor. He mentions it almost in passing in the Moscow Mule article in Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails. A Gin Buck is a Moscow Mule with gin instead of vodka. I gotta say vodka has its points in cocktails, but gin is another story. I haven’t quite got around to making a Moscow Mule, but do a fair number of Gin Bucks. Light, bright, grownup, friendly. Here are the Doctor’s Mule instructions adapted for a Buck.

Juice of 1/2 a lime
2 oz gin
Ginger beer or ginger ale

Squeeze the lime juice into a double old-fashioned or collins. (Recipe says Moscow Mule mug. Probably there are no Gin Buck mugs, but I still hope. Maybe I’ll invent one.) Drop the spent lime shell into the glass. Add ice cubes and the gin, then fill with ginger beer.

Source: Ted Haigh, a.k.a Dr. Cocktail, Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails