Cachaça and the Missing Links

There’s a place where the Sidecar-Margarita sours all get together to chatter and take time out from the customers and the other drinks. I can see them in front of the mirror or flopped on a chair or bench, some straightening garnishes or fixing a salt rim. Maybe they’re gossiping about the G&T one of ’em is going out with for a couple in the corner. Or there’s a party of six that ordered the same all around, and the drinks are all giggling in the same way, hoping to meet a pig in a blanket or two later in the evening.



Cachaça Sidecar

• 2 oz cachaça
• 3/4 oz Cointreau
• 3/4 oz lime juice

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Gaz Regan calls the rum interzone of this style of sour the Missing Link. Cachaça is another superb cane spirit for the purpose: delicate, herbaceous, green, vanillic, subtly oceanic all at the same time.

Jitters and Bitters

Ever shake up pineapple juice? It’s kinda odd. There’s this foam that looks good on the top of the liquid in the tin, yet when you get to the bottom of the drink, the glass is coated with residual crud. Unappetizing. No wonder all those Tiki things come in ceramic idols full of crushed ice.

But I’ve learned that this can be avoided if you shake gently. Shake well, but shake very gently with plenty of ice. Pretend you’re about to begin the beguine with that someone you always wanted in high school. Smile like Burt Reynolds and shake to last you all night. You can double strain through mesh too for an additional step of refinement, though if there’s pulp in the mix, it’s kind of a pain in the behind.



Bourbon Beguine

• 2 oz bourbon
• 1/2 oz pineapple juice
• 1/2 lemon juice
• 2 dashes Jerry Thomas’ Decanter Bitters
• 1 dash Angostura Bitters
• Ginger beer (Fever Tree)

Shake (gently) all but ginger beer with ice and strain into an old fashioned. Add a couple of ice cubes and top with ginger beer. Lemon twist.
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I sometimes try the bourbon sour special drinks in bars but never care for them. They’re too candy-like and seem to have no complexity. I find that the missing thing that brings it all together is bitters.

Two at a Time

Till the break of day we’re gonna set ’em up
Two at a time
Just be’s better that way when you set ’em up
Two at a time
Set up till the morning
Don’t say boys we don’t give you no warning
Till the break of day were gonna set ’em up
Two at a time

—Andy Bean, Two at a Time

We had some people over from work for a classic cocktail session, tasting lots of things in miniature portions—a fun evening. As someone who makes drinks primarily for guests at home, I often find myself mixing rounds of the same drink in quantity. Maybe I ought to get me some of that fancy vintage home bar gear that was designed for this purpose—big mixing vessels with fun decorations and ingenious pouring spouts, matching cocktail glasses, serving trays that look like carousels—but I never seem to get around to it. Maybe next time.

Anyway, I’d like to have the folks from work over again. They were a game crowd. The runaway hit that party was the Jack Rose, a favorite here at the Lounge. Seems funny that folks order these faddish pomegranate syrup things lots of times without realizing that it’s just good old grenadine. Here’s something similar.

Demerara Rose

• 4 oz Demerara rum (El Dorado 8)
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 1/2 oz grenadine (Small Hand Foods)

Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glasses. Makes two.
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My own current favorite variation of the rum and grenadine sour. My guests who liked the Jack Rose might try this one. Where the Jack Rose is snappy, this one’s rich and velvety.

Tangelo Terrarium

We’re enjoying the last evening of Tiki Month here at the Lounge with another original tropical climate in a glass. This one’s tangy and a little spicy, sort of a snifter-sized tangerine in crushed ice.



Tangelo Terrarium

• 2 oz gold Barbados rum
• 1/2 oz Swedish punsch
• 1/4 oz allspice dram
• 1/2 oz Lemon Hart 151 (float)
• 2 1/2 pink grapefruit juice, fresh
• 1 oz tangelo juice
• 1/2 oz lime juice

Shake all except Lemon Hart with ice cubes and strain into a large snifter. Add crushed ice. Float the Lemon Hart. Tangelo twist, mint sprig.
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Sort of an aquatic terrarium—or a rum one. I like overproof floats on Tiki drinks for so many reasons, not least because they’re something to look forward to in all that crushed ice at the end.

MxMo LXX: Inverted—Reverse Chancellor

A big Fogged In thank-you to Stewart Putney of Putney Farm for hosting this month’s Mixology Monday, and for his challenging theme, “Inverted.” Stewart has tasked us to come up with a drink recipe that is some way turned upside down, whether that be a reversal of the ratio of a classic or any of the elements turned on their head in some way.

Well, the composition process is sort of twisted here at the Lounge to begin with so I had to decide how I’d make this demonstrably inverted and not merely warped. I ended up restacking the measures of a great recipe just to see if I could color inside the lines and still come up with something inspired. For this exercise, I went with a superb standard, the Chancellor. Regular visitors may recall that scotch is a favorite ingredient around here, and the Chancellor is the… the prime minister of scotch cocktails. Whisky, port, dry vermouth, orange bitters—what more could you want?

Except that to invert the ratios I’d need a stand-in for the orange cocktail bitters. This was going to be the base of the drink so two ounces of something meant to be an accent might be a lot. Maybe an amaro, a type of bitters constructed as a beverage, would make more sense. Of the ones I had on hand, Torani Amer seemed the best match: mellow and distinctly orange-scented.

And since I was making adjustments, I changed the blended scotch in the original recipe for a single malt that would work a little better in the accent role, the smoky, peaty Laphroaig. I had always been curious about using it in a Chancellor anyway.

Reverse Chancellor

• 2 oz Torani Amer
• 1 oz dry vermouth
• 1/2 oz ruby port
• 2 dashes Laphroaig 10 year

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Rich and evocative of the original. I’d definitely make this again.

FM

We’re celebrating Tiki Month here at the Lounge, a time of fantasy and frivolity to buffer us from those slings and arrows that give even the best people a bad time. And so we bring you another luscious libation, an elixir for grooving to the radio all night long. As Fagan and Becker say, “No static at all.”



FM

• 2 1/2 oz gold Barbados rum
• 3/4 oz white crème de cacao
• 2 oz grapefruit juice
• 1 oz lime juice
• 2 – 3 dashes grapefruit bitters

Shake with ice cubes and strain into a double old fashioned. Fresh ice to fill. Grapefruit twist.
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Grapefruit and chocolate in a delicate state of winter suspension.

Up the Beach

Aloha, people. Tiki Month is here again, and we welcome you to another fine tiki moment here at the Fogged In Lounge. Here’s a little libation by yours truly that ought to help you while away a bit of time in the shoals of contentment with some Wray & Nephew Jamaica rum, green Chartreuse and homemade crème de banane.



Up the Beach

• 1 1/2 oz Wray & Nephew overproof white rum
• 1 oz crème de banane (Serious Eats recipe)
• 1/2 oz green Chartreuse
• 1 oz lime juice
• 1 1/2 oz soda

Shake all except soda with ice, and strain. Add fresh ice and top with soda.
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