The Lemon Drop

This simple cocktail is a good one to have in your repertoire for those times when you have guests who might not be able to appreciate the full flavors of some of the more interesting, booze-forward classic cocktails we prefer here at A Bitter Spirit. 

The lemon drop first showed up in the 1980s as a vodka based variation on the tequila shooter – do a shot of cold vodka from a sugar-rimmed glass followed by biting into a lemon wedge. It has since transformed into a shaken cocktail.

Lemon Drop

Adapted from New Classic Cocktails

1 ½ oz. vodka (or citrus-flavored vodka)

½ oz. lemon juice

¼ oz. simple syrup

Shake with ice and strain into a sugar-rimmed cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon wedge. A dash of grapefruit bitters makes for a nice variation.

Some More Summer Cocktails

Hello everyone – It's been a while since I posted anything here. The combination of a temporary job doing some physically demanding work, time spent writing fiction, and the summer heat wave has kept me away from the blog. Also, the heat here in NY has us drinking more gin & tonics or cold beers than anything particularly interesting.

I'm quite sure that a lot can be written about mixing a gin and tonic, and I may just pursue that subject some day. Today, though, I'm just going to throw a few more refreshing summer cocktail recipes your way.

Tara's favorite lately is the Pink Lady, an old drink very similar to the Clover Club cocktail. The Pink Lady adds some applejack to the recipe, resulting in a slightly boozier, tastier drink.

Pink Lady
¾ oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
½ oz. real pomegranate grenadine
1 ½ oz. gin
½ oz. applejack
½ egg white

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. It doesn't need a garnish, but a cherry wouldn't be out of place.

I make my own grenadine by shaking equal parts pomegranate juice and sugar together until the sugar dissolves, then adding two or three ounces of pomegranate molasses to each cup of pomegranate syrup. It's far, far better than any commercial grenadine I've tried, but if you prefer to buy your grenadine, Small Hands Foods, Sonoma Syrup Company and Stirrings all make real pomegranate grenadine. Please avoid the nasty, chemical-laden red sugar water on the shelf at your local supermarket, as it will spoil any cocktail you put it in.

My sipper of choice lately has been something I call the McGee, after Travis McGee, the beach-bum/knight errant hero of John D. MacDonald's series of novels. These books are some of the greatest detective stories ever written, and McGee emerges as one of the truly great characters in all literature. If you haven't read them, do so. If you have, read them again.

McGee is a gin man, and the original version of the McGee cocktail was simply Boodles gin on the rocks, served in an old fashioned glass. Now, this isn't a cocktail, or even a mixed drink, but it is pretty much a modern Martini served on the rocks rather than up. Since I personally want the Martini to regain it's place as a specific drink, I've taken to calling my version a McGee instead.

In keeping with the lore in the books, you can rinse the ice in the glass with sherry or vermouth, dumping the excess before filling with gin. Stick with Boodles, which McGee drank for much of the series, or Plymouth, although McGee seemed to only drink from his stash of old-style Plymouth and had some unkind things to say about the current formulation. Well, current circa-1980-something, anyway.

My preferred McGee goes like this: Fill a rocks glass with large ice cubes, add a splash of Noilly Prat dry vermouth and a dash of Regan's orange bitters, swirl to coat the ice and glass and dump the excess. Add a good amount of Boodles gin, stir to chill and sip. Ahh...

Obviously, you need to love whatever gin you're going to use in a McGee. Happily, Boodles is both my favorite London dry gin and accurate to the books, but feel free to use your own favorite if Boodles doesn't do it for you. Maybe, if everyone starts calling a gin-with-little-to-no-vermouth a McGee instead of a Martini, it will help nudge the Martini back towards being a specific drink, rather than a catch-all term for a mixed drink served up in a stemmed glass...

I'll stop here, since I'm also working on a future post detailing the history of the Martini. My apologies for the lack of photos this time around, I'll try to get back in the swing of taking pictures for next time.

Summer Cocktails (Part One)

Well, we’re having our first real taste of summer here in NY. It’s hot and sticky, the kind of weather that makes you want to sit in front of an air conditioner and move as little as possible. Something cold and refreshing to drink? Of course!

Summer is a time for tall drinks, packed with ice as a foil to the heat. Here’s a couple old favorites we’ll be relying on to keep us cool this summer…

El Diablo

1 ½ oz. blanco tequila

½ oz. freshly squeezed lime juice

¾ oz. crème de cassis

ginger beer or ginger ale

Shake first three ingredients with ice and strain into an ice filled highball or Collins glass. Top with ginger beer, stir gently, and garnish with a lime wedge.

This drink was a big hit with Tara’s family at the lake house last summer. This year I’ll be making them by the pitcher, which should work out to around 8 oz. of lime juice, 12 oz. crème de cassis and a fifth of tequila, stirred in a pitcher and set out for everyone to serve themselves, topping each drink off with ginger beer or ginger ale individually to taste.

Mai Tai

Adapted from Mr. Boston Platinum Edition

1 oz. gold rum

1 oz. white rum

½ oz. orgeat

½ oz. orange curaçao

½ oz. fresh-squeezed lime juice

½ - 1 oz. dark rum

Shake all except the dark rum with ice, strain into an ice-filled rocks glass or ceramic tiki mug. Float the dark rum on top, and garnish with a cherry, citrus wedges, a mint sprig, a couple of plastic monkeys… Whatever appeals to you!

My “house” rums for the Mai Tai were, for a long time, Appleton Estate gold and Cruzan white, with a float of Gosling’s Black Seal. Recently, I swapped Gosling’s gold in for the Appleton, and while I think the Appleton is a better rum, the sharper, less refined Gosling’s works really well in this drink. Also, when I ran out of Cruzan, I subbed Oronoco white rum for our last round of Mai Tais, and while delicious, I think the Oronoco might be better saved for drinks that allow it to stand out a bit more (the Oronoco is a fantastic spirit; one of the few white rums that works sipped neat as well as it does mixed). Play around with a variety of rums and find out what works best for you.

The mai tai is one of those drinks that everyone has heard of, but few have had made properly. The original Trader Vic recipe calls for ingredients no longer available, but this recipe is a good place to start that uses easily available ingredients, maintains the integrity of the drink, and provides plenty of room to tailor the cocktail to your individual preferences.

I’ll be posting more summer cocktails as the hot months drag on. If you have any summer favorites of your own, leave a note in the comments.

The Gall Bracer Cocktail...

...and the importance of using real pomegranate grenadine.

To say I’m a fan of the Old Fashioned cocktail is probably putting it a little mildly. A properly made Old Fashioned is a thing of beauty, and probably the closest to perfection that one can achieve in a libation. I drink enough of them that there’s no need to measure anything when I’m making one at home. I know my glass well enough to eyeball the ingredients and get an identical drink every time.

Since I appreciate this drink so much, I usually notice cocktails that are close relatives to the Old Fashioned. The Gall Bracer is one of these drinks – In fact, it’s only one ingredient away from being an Old Fashioned…

The Gall Bracer Cocktail

2 oz. bourbon or rye

1 barspoon simple syrup

dash Angostura bitters

2 dashes grenadine

Stir with ice & strain into an ice-filled old fashioned glass. Garnish with a cherry, if desired.

As you see from the recipe above, if the grenadine is replaced with an orange twist, you’ve got an Old Fashioned. What I find most interesting about this drink, though, is that it beautifully illustrates the difference that real pomegranate grenadine can make in a cocktail.

My first try at a Gall Bracer was pretty uninspiring. I used store-bought grenadine, and the drink basically tasted like an Old Fashioned with a funky, chemically sort of undertone in place of the sparkle that the orange zest brings to the game, and while I didn’t toss the cocktail into the sink, nor did I feel inclined to have another.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I’m paging through my little recipe notebook looking for something appealing that contains grenadine. I had just finished putting together a small batch of homemade grenadine, you see, and I was eager to try it out in a cocktail. I ran across the Gall Bracer, and decided to give it another shot.

Wow! What a difference this one change made… In place of the nasty chemistry set taste of my first attempt, I instead had a perfectly respectable alternative to my dear Old Fashioned, one that married the tang of fresh pomegranate to the bourbon in place of the citrus notes of my standard cocktail.

Make your own grenadine, and you’ll never buy a bottle of that nasty red stuff at your local supermarket again.

Grenadine

16 oz. POM Wonderful 100% pure pomegranate juice

8 oz. sugar

Splash of vodka or grain alcohol (as a preservative)

Heat pomegranate juice in a saucepan until boiling, add sugar and stir to dissolve. Lower to a simmer and let reduce by half, about 40 minutes. Let cool and add a splash of vodka or grain alcohol as a preservative. Should keep for months, but it’s so good that you probably won’t need to worry about shelf life…

Update - The above post is about a year old, and since writing it I've found a homemade grenadine recipe that I like even better. I take equal parts pomegranate juice and sugar and shake them together until the sugar dissolves, then add a healthy splash of pomegranate concentrate.

You can find pomegranate concentrate in some health food stores and ethnic markets, or click here to buy some from Amazon.

The Billionaire Cocktail

I found this one at Serious Eats, where the drink calls for the soon to be released Employees Only brand grenadine, Pernod absinthe and Baker’s 107-proof bourbon. Well, I make my own grenadine and Pernod’s modern absinthe is overpriced junk. Baker’s is good whiskey, but not one I usually keep on hand, so I subbed in Kubler for the absinthe and Wild Turkey 101 for the Baker’s. The Employees Only recipe calls for a half-ounce of simple syrup as well, which I skipped because I didn’t want the drink to be too sweet.

The Billionaire Cocktail
2 oz. 101+-proof bourbon
1 oz. freshly-squeezed lemon juice
½ oz. grenadine (homemade, or EO Grenadine)
¼ oz. absinthe

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon wheel.

This one is a winner for me – I love whiskey, and this combination is a whiskey drink for the summer that doesn’t lose the base spirit altogether.

Sanbitter... Uses?

I picked up a couple bottles of this stuff months ago at my local Italian grocery (Marino’s Supermarket on 29^th avenue), just because it looked interesting and I thought it might make a good cocktail ingredient. Well, it turns out that San Pellegrino makes Sanbitter as a non-alcoholic alternative to Campari and soda. Personally, I find the idea of “non-alcoholic” alternatives to good honest booze a little nauseating, and since I love Campari and thus always have a bottle around, the little bottles of Sanbitter have been pretty much ignored since they found their way into my kitchen.

Now I need the fridge space back, so I’m once again trying to find something to do with the Sanbitter. So far I’ve had it with about two ounces of 101 proof gin, on the rocks in a highball glass, which was decent but not spectacular. I think adding a splash of Campari would help it out, but that just seems silly… Why not just have a Campari and soda?

So I’m opening this one up to the readers – Does anyone have any suggestions for this stuff?

Bumbo

Bumbo is an old drink, dating back to the 18th century at least. George Washington served bumbo to voters in Virginia in 1758, and prior to that the drink was a favorite of Caribbean pirates.

Originally, bumbo was a mixture of rum, water, sugar and nutmeg and/or cinnamon, served straight up. Ice was uncommon, so bumbo was likely drunk at cabin temperature.

The modern bumbo keeps the rum and spices, but replaces the sugar and water with grenadine and lemon juice. I made two versions, the current iteration and a variation on the original.

Bumbo (modern)
2 oz. rum (gold or dark; I used Brugal gold)
1 oz. lemon juice
½ oz. grenadine (homemade)
pinch nutmeg

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The modern bumbo is a nice drink, especially for the summer months. The only downside to it is that the nutmeg doesn’t dissolve in the liquid, and tends to collect at the bottom of the glass. I suppose you could fine-strain the drink, but that might also remove most of the flavor of the spices. The best solution would likely be a tincture – cinnamon and nutmeg soaked in alcohol to extract the flavor. A spritz of each on top of the drink would add the spice components without the grit.

For my variation on the original, I used 2 oz. rum and ½ oz. cinnamon syrup, stirred for a long while with ice and served over fresh ice in an old-fashioned glass. The melting ice provides the water, and the syrup gives a spicy note to the drink without the grit that results from using ground spices. This is a great drink, a simple variation on an old-fashioned that would be nice any time of year.