What are you drinking right now? - Page 777

Quote:

Originally Posted by b1os 

Thanks for the heads up. I have a high opinion of your judgements, so I will tell you this: I won't get a bottle of the Pierre Ferrand tomorrow (sorry, Kyle). I won't have access to my liquor stock for the next two months, so I'll probably get some Dolin dry tomorrow. Also need to restock bourbon (see below). Maybe Cointreau as a mixer.


The Smoke and Chartreuse sounds very good, though if I ever do it, it'll probably be with Laphroaig 10. Love me some Scotch cocktail.
BTW, I'm a little puzzled about the Blood & Sand at Le Lion. As mentioned before, they always served it to me without orange juice, which is a must in the standard recipe. I even asked if they added orange juice, and the one bartender (whom I respect, he's quite good.. others not so much) declined. Then I read a blog post by Jeffrey Morgenthaler from 08 or so where he posted abou the night he spent at Le Lion. He wrote about the Blood & Sand, which was refined by Gonçalo De Sousa Monteiro (a bartender that doesn't serve at Le Lion anymore, unfortunately). And yeah, he definitely mentions orange juice in it. Next time I'm at Le Lion, I'll inquire about it.

 You are too kind, thank you. Dolin makes a lovely dry and blanc. Cointreau, I find, is the most essential mixer to me.

The Smoke and Chartreuse was originally made with Laphroaig 10, so I'm sure it will be fine. The only expression I stock is the 18, hence its inclusion. I, too, love scotch cocktails, but good ones are very few and far between. I've had the Blood and Sand on a number of occassions, and have never found it effective (I find orange juice cocktails in general to be a little flat), so I have always read with interest your stories of Le Lion. Absent the OJ, however, I don't really think it is a Blood and Sand. Interested to hear what you find out. Do you think they might have ginger syrup? My favorite scotch cocktail at present is the superlative Pennicillin from Milk & Honey in NYC -- Ginger-Honey syrup, Lemon, Scotch, with a float of something smoky. Everything that a cocktail is supposed to be.

~H

Writing that post inspired me to go and have a drink, but as I am reading for Federal Courts and need to be sharp until midnight at least (eight hours away), something milder than a cocktail was called for. I thought a nice Manzanilla would be good, but I am all out of Sherry! Horrors. I am having some Churchill's White Port instead, with almonds and mimollette. Pretty fine way to study.

~ H
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by b1os 

Today, I got myself a bottle of Cointreau and Broker's. So it's Pegu Club and Sidecar time.
I've tried two different recipes for the Pegu Club. 2oz gin/1oz Cointreau/1oz lime juice and 1.5 oz gin/.75oz Cointreau/barspoon lime juice (this is the one that's on Wikipedia); plus bitters. I prefer the former, it's less sweet and seems more balanced.

Nice. When I first started making cocktails, I read a post on Art of Drink indicating that any cocktail programme involving fresh juices must also involve simple syrup. That made sense to me, especially as the acidity in citrus varies so widely. Getting consistency of the flavor I want without altering the modifier percentage doesn't seem to work out any other way for me. Of course, some cocktails, like The Last Word have so much sweet modifier that all but the greatest variation in citrus acidity doesn't make the cocktail unacceptable. That, anyway, is the preamble to my Pegu Club recipe, and the explanation for why it contains simple.

1.5 Gin, 0.5 Cointreau, 0.75 lime, 0.25-0.375 simple (1:1), dashes each aromatic and orange bitters.

My Sidecar is on a similar philosophy:

1.5oz Cognac, 1 oz Cointreau, 0.75 oz Lemon Juice, 0.25-0.375 simple.

I have a particular bias with the Sidecar, because it was my 'first' cocktail, if you will. I swore to the eminent bartender who made it for me that I would never order that cocktail from another. What I didn't know was that it was her last night behind the wood, and I haven't ordered a Sidecar since. This recipe captures what I remember from that first sip, while none of the 'standard' ratios work for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cptjeff 

With the Bobby Burns, made with something smoky, how many scotch cocktails do you need?

Moar!

~ H

Yeah, I am not a fan of making drinks with spirits that are too fine to be adulterated by the other ingredients, but also to make them from spirits that are good enough to produce a good product. I use Courvoisier in my Sidecars also, but merely the VS.

~ H