Cocktails, Spirits and Mixology Thread

Chicago Cocktail



2 oz. Rye
1 oz. Sweet Vermouth
1 oz. Champagne
2 Dashes Orange Bitters

Apparently there are several recipes for this drink. This one is basically a Manhattan brightened with Champagne. A couple of them will knock you on your ass.

 

Blood & Sand



¾ oz. Scotch
¾ oz. Orange Juice (I used blood orange juice)
¾ oz. Cherry Heering
¾ oz. Sweet Vermouth

Savoy, Harry Craddock, first published 1930

http://www.sfgate.com/wine/cocktailian/article/Professor-gets-some-education-2578897.php

What's Cherry Heering? Glad you asked: http://imbibemagazine.com/Elements-Cherry-Heering

This was delicious.

 

Are you looking for gin recipes in general, or recipes that would be particularly well suited for this specific gin?

 

It wasn't terrible, just not worth it. The whole was not better than the sum of its parts.

 

Perfect cocktail?


+

 

Ward Eight



2 oz. Bourbon
½ oz. Lemon Juice
½ oz. Orange Juice (I used blood orange juice)
½ oz. Grenadine

This classic cocktail is a relative of the Whiskey Sour and thought to have been invented at Boston's Locke-Ober Café in 1898.

https://imbibemagazine.com/Ward-Eight-Cocktail-History

To make your own Grenadine, mix equal parts 100% pomegranate juice (POM will work) and sugar (super fine if you have it). Put them in a sealed container and shake until the sugar dissolves.

 

Japanese Cocktail



2½ oz. Cognac
½ oz. Orgeat
3 Dashes Angostura

Created in 1860 by famed barkeep Jerry Thomas, this cocktail was a pre-Prohibition standard. It was named to commemorate the first Japanese legation to the United States, which occurred in the same year.

http://www.esquire.com/drinks/japanese-cocktail-drink-recipe

Pronounced or-zhat, orgeat is a French almond syrup. Made from California almonds and a small proportion of apricot kernels to give it a distinct "marzipan" flavor without the addition of extract.

http://smallhandfoods.com/store/index.php/orgeat

 

I'll take a Bloody Caesar over a Mary any time. Clamato juice instead of tomato juice

 

New York Times, with links to a few recipes:

There’s a Reason That Rye Is Having a Moment

If we were playing a round of word association a few years ago and you said, “Rye,” I wouldn’t have skipped a beat before saying, “Pastrami.” For most of my drinking life, rye whiskey seemed like tough-guy stuff, cowboy stuff. And to drink as they drank (or at least as I imagined they did) seemed affected or unduly performative. Why would I replace my everyday Irish whiskey with rye? Why trade the bourbon in my manhattan for another brown American spirit?

For the same reason, it turns out, that I want that pastrami on rye instead of on white — the flavor of the grain. While bourbon must include at least 51 percent corn in its grain composition, American rye whiskey must contain no less than 51 percent rye. The resulting dryness and earthiness, that spice and faint sourness are irresistible to me, as is rye’s wonderful chewiness.
Related Coverage

I’d like to think that rye’s resurgence is partly a reaction against the snootiness that often accompanies the consumption of Scottish single malts. But I also think that whiskey drinkers are, like me, simply responding to rye’s many inherent virtues, including its budget-friendliness. There are “top shelf” rye whiskeys, sure, but it’s pretty hard to be a snob. More often than not, I steer my customers toward one of the greatest liquor bargains I know: Old Overholt, which, at about $20 a bottle, deserves a place in any home bar too. In the same price range, Rittenhouse is another solid, flavorful stalwart, fine on its own and for mixing. In the $50 range, I enjoy Russell’s Reserve, for its nuttiness, and Templeton, for its exceptional dryness.

Rye’s cowboy reputation isn’t totally unfounded. Though the drink was born on the East Coast — there were distillers in 18th-century Pennsylvania — rye became associated with the West thanks to the singing cowboy Tex Ritter’s hit “Rye Whiskey,” his version of the folk song “Jack O’Diamonds.” (The song was also recorded by another true son of the West, Woody Guthrie.)

These days, rye is perfectly in its element in classic cocktails like the old-fashioned and the manhattan. It’s also absolutely vital in a Sazerac (among the most supernaturally alluring of drinks, frequently a bartender’s favorite), my first choice for a stone fence and a supremely compatible sidekick for an ice-cold bottle of beer. Sweet it’s not, but it’s really not so tough, either.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/magazine/theres-a-reason-that-rye-is-having-a-moment.html

 

It's funny how regional that article reads.

Rye was the drink of most of my friends Dads growing up. Crown Royal and Coke was around at every Christmas party. Bourbon was something they drank on TV.

Rye (whichever decent brand is on sale) is my standard mixed drink.

 

Business Week has a story this week about Miller Fortune, the new high-end beer from Miller, that notes that in the last 10-20 years, beer sales have fallen off drastically as young people have converted to spirits.

I was really surprised, because my friends almost exclusively drink beer. When I mix anything else, I catch 10 kinds of good-natured shit over drinking it.

Then again, I guess we aren't so young any more, so we aren't the ones affecting the sales.

 

Did you see that Three Floyds is looking to expand, doubling their capacity -- and adding a distillery?