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.

Sugar Skull

I bought a bottle of Tres Agaves on impulse, and it had an unexpected caramel note that took me off in a different direction from the cocktail planned for the evening.

Sugar Skull

• 2 oz blanco tequila (Tres Agaves)
• 1/2 oz Amaro Nonino
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1 tsp mezcal
• 1 tsp coffee brandy (Firelit)

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

I had been thinking of something with vermouth on the lines of a Manhattan but the caramel thing made me reach for the Amaro Nonino. The lemon’s very bright with the Nonino but the smoke and touch of coffee in the background give it some depth.

Monterey Bay

Old Father Time checked, so there’d be no doubt,
Called on the north wind to come on out,
Then cupped his hands, so proudly to shout,
“La-de-da, de-da-de-dum, ’tis Autumn!”

—Henry Nemo, ’Tis Autumn

A big, smoky one full of fruit for the turning of the season. Fall makes me all dreamy-eyed, like I don’t want to do anything but sit around and watch the sky and the stuff floating inside my head. It’s the time in Northern California everybody seems to like best.



Monterey Bay

• 2 oz reposado tequila
• 1/2 oz crème de framboise
• 1/2 oz crème de cassis
• 1/4 oz mezcal
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 2 oz soda, or to taste

Combine all but soda and shake with ice. Top with soda and stir gently. Lemon wheel.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

A Few of My Favorite Things: Mayahuel Roundup

There’s such an array of riches on the Mayahuel list that I’m sort of amazed our bartender Kate could keep it all straight. I’m not even sure I remember everything my friends and I tasted on this recent adventure (I know somebody ordered the cocktail in the photo above) but three stand out:

The Mad Cardoon is a long drink of mezcal, cognac, pineapple, lemon and Cardamaro. Funny to think of it but I hadn’t put it together that Cardamaro’s got cardoon in it. I confess to never having eaten a cardoon so I couldn’t say what one tastes like, but the pineapple was very forward and gave it that balance of smoke and fruit you hope for in such potations. The brandy seemed to help too.

The elegant Warlock, an aromatic elixir of reposado tequila, Punt e Mes, pear eau de vie with a rinse of mezcal and absinthe, is one I’ll be playing with at home. If you’re in for a long session, the Warlock would be a good place to start before your palate gets smoky from all the drinks that are heavier on mezcal and from that amazing red salsa.

The West of East India Cocktail is a like a list of sure-fire ingredients, so it’s not too surprising that it’s so drinkable: reposado tequila, Demerara rum, East India sherry, falernum, Amaro Nonino and Xocolatl Mole Bitters. Broadly appealing, it looks like a few of someone else’s favorite things too.

All these fine concoctions were compounded with aplomb by Kate, who made us feel at home right away. Many thanks to her for a great visit.

Summer and Smoke: Smoky Margarita

We’re having one of our infrequent heat waves here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I’ve been making intense drinks for the intense weather. Here’s a mezcal-scented Margarita, our recipe for chili night at the Lounge. You could go smokier here, but for this I like to use mezcal as an accent to the basic Margarita flavor.



Smoky Margarita

• 2 oz reposado tequila
• 3/4 oz Cointreau
• 1/2 oz fresh lime juice
• 1/4 oz mezcal
• kosher salt, for rim

Rim a chilled cocktail glass with cut lime and kosher salt. Shake remaining ingredients with ice and strain into prepared glass.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Calaveras

Two nights ago, I made up this drink, the Calaveras, a smoky calvados-mezcal variant on the Sidecar. The housemate and I liked it. So I made it again to photograph on the following night. At the same time, it just happened that for dinner I needed some broth, and substituted Schlenkerla, a smoked beer from Germany. It perfumed the whole house appetizingly, blending with the other cooking aromas, making us very hungry. But we could no longer taste the smoke from the mezcal. I dumped another half ounce in my glass. Still didn’t seem smoky. The drink was completely overpowered by the smoke flavor in the air from the food.



Calaveras

• 1 1/2 oz calvados
• 3/4 0z Cointreau
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/4 oz mezcal
• 1 dash Fee Bros Aromatic Bitters

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

The Smoking Banana

It’s been a while since I last went crazy and made a mess of the place Tiki-style. This one is a little Mexican in feeling from a dose of mezcal, which brings out a subtle plantain note in the banana. I used Demerara rum but you could probably substitute something like a gold Jamaica.



The Smoking Banana

• 1 1/2 oz Demerara rum
• 1/2 oz mezcal
• 1/4 oz pimento dram
• 3 oz pineapple juice
• 1/2 oz vanilla syrup
• 1/2 ripe banana

Blend with a cup of crushed ice on high for 30 seconds. Serve in a large glass or mug.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

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

Vulcanalia

Inspired by the most recent New York sessions, your intrepid bartender here at Fogged In Lounge went off in search of mezcal, tequila and new tastes to play with via the recently acquired juicer.

Walking into the liquor store, I had to admit that I didn’t know what I was doing, but Sombra mezcal was not prohibitively expensive for cocktails. For tequila, I settled on Hacienda Vieja Reposado since I knew I liked it already and it was reasonable.

At the greengrocer, every piece of produce I saw had the potential to wind up in a cocktail. Having read Rick’s Chartreuse Swizzle post, I was hoping to find a pineapple, but didn’t see one. And I reflected that broccoli and chard, while nutritious, probably wouldn’t lend much excitement to mixed drinks. Settling on a couple of sweet peppers, I headed back to see what could be made of them.

Two average-sized peppers yielded about 6 oz of very bright red juice. The taste was pretty mild, so I chose lemon over lime for some acidity without being too assertive as I felt my way along. And it seemed as good a time as any to play with my new Sardinian bitter honey, so that went in too. Two ounces of pepper juice overwhelmed the other stuff and made the drink too watery. One ounce was about right.



Vulcanalia

• 2 oz reposado tequila
• 1/4 oz mezcal
• 1 oz red sweet pepper juice
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1 tsp bitter honey

Dissolve honey in lemon juice. Add remaining ingredients and shake with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
SOURCE: ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE