Cocktails, Spirits and Mixology Thread

The Dark and Stormy:



Nothing too fancy, but I still had some ginger beer left.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_%27N%27_Stormy

 

I had the greatest time getting tanked on these on a rainy, blustery afternoon in Bermuda a couple years ago when a golf round got cancelled. Highly recommended.

 

Three-Ingredient Summer Cocktails

The Times asked some of the country’s top bartenders to suggest streamlined coolers built for easy warm-weather drinking. The rules were simple: three ingredients, not counting straightforward garnishes, sugar, seltzer and simple syrup. The goal was loads of refreshment with minimal effort.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/06/22/dining/20110622-summer-drink-recipes.html?ref=dining

 

A Cilantro Gimlet:



Idea stolen from Province restaurant: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=9853070&l=a61fb5eabf&id=49287677734

Used the whiskey smash recipe for the proportions: http://www.makersmark.com/recipes/75-whisky-smash

Made the cilantro simple syrup, substituted gin for bourbon, and lime for lemon.

 

Campari, soda and a blood orange. That's a summer drink.

 

I like tequila, and recently was introduced to a new tequila called Diosa. It's pretty darn good, and even the flavored versions are better than their Patron counterparts (the cafe caramel especially).
And I was a patron-only kinda guy until I tasted this.
Not bad for the expensive but not bank breaking expensive taste.

 

The WSJ on produce driven cocktails:

 

I am not a fancy cocktail guy. Single-malt on the rocks in winter and gin and tonic in summer do me fine, thanks. But in France, I became acquainted with an apertif called a Communard. It's red wine with a splash of sweet vermouth. Tastes good, but there's a potential sugar-fueled hangover there.

 

See my palette is a wuss. I can't do the manly stuff like single malt and gin and tonic. Gin is just too dry and bitter for me to get behind. That's why I really like these drinks that have a lot of nice sugar and fruit infusion. They don't look girly and they taste great, which is what I want in a drink with dinner, a drink that tastes great.

 

I am a beer snob now...but in college I was more fond of liquor.

Two go-tos at the bar I worked:

Grapes of Wrath:
1 oz Bacardi 151
4 oz Grape Pucker
- drink as a shot (we used to make a camelbak and sell a "mouthful pour" for a buck)
- as a drink, pack a 16oz plastic cup with ice, pour in liquor and top with Sprite

Jersey Devil:
2 oz vodka
1 oz Southern Comfort
1 oz amaretto
1 oz sloe gin
1 oz triple sec
top with 50/50 of lime and orange juice

Tastes like Hawaiian Punch, named after drinking in in a bar in Newark. Got to drunk to remember the name, I think they called it a New Jersey Devil...so I kept the Devil part. Those things outsold Long Islands for a while.

 

AT Cask, a San Francisco liquor store run by the people who own that city’s high-end cocktail bars Rickhouse and Bourbon & Branch, the spirit most coveted by customers is George T. Stagg, a limited-production bourbon that can exceed 70 percent alcohol. The store’s owner, Brian Sheehy, said the waiting list for Stagg is 190 names long.

When Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky began rolling out Stagg a decade ago, the bourbon’s overpowering kick made it something of an anomaly. But today, Stagg isn’t going stag on the shelves. High-alcohol spirits — variously sailing under the terms overproof, cask-strength and barrel-strength — are becoming commonplace.

Scotches and bourbons dominate this bruising category. But recently, Redbreast, an esteemed Irish whiskey, released a cask-strength version. So-called “navy strength” gins have arrived, like Leopold Bros. of Colorado and Perry’s Tot from Brooklyn. And last year, DeLeón unveiled what it calls the first cask-strength tequila.

In general, alcohol levels have been creeping northward for a few years, as distillers aim to please bartenders and enthusiasts who thirst for a more potent dram — 50 percent has become the new 40 percent. But a goodly number of bottles are now speeding past even that mark, weighing in at anything from 51 to 70 percent, and beyond.

True to the name “cask-strength,” these liquors are bottled uncut, at the same concentration they possessed in the barrel. (Yes, most spirits are diluted to render them palatable, a fact that comes as a shock to many otherwise savvy drinkers.)

Flavien Desoblin, who owns the Brandy Library in TriBeCa, guessed that one out of every dozen new Scotches he encounters is high octane. The number of bourbons is fewer but still substantial, including barrel-strength expressions from Wild Turkey and Four Roses.

“We’ve got lots of people asking about cask-strength,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/dining/high-alcohol-spirits-gain-in-number-and-popularity.html?ref=dining

 

I am not a big fan of Four Roses.