Alcademics

Category: cocktails

  • Cocktail Snobs

    Cocktailsnob In the March issue of 7×7 Magazine, I have a story about Cocktail Snobs.

    Now that customers know so much more about cocktails some us are becoming fussy about them, never ordering from the menu but insisting on on-the-spot creations,  trying to stump or school the bartender with obscure drink requests, and trainspotting mixology by parking in front of the bartender's station and asking questions about every drink being made. 

    Note: I've been guilty of all these offenses at one time or another.

    Kindly read the story first, but one aspect I didn't get room to touch on much was that snobs in bars are hardly a new thing; cocktail snobs are just a new species thereof. There are still and will always be people who get angry that a bar doesn't carry what they percieve to be the best brand of vodka/tequila, snap their fingers at the bartender and treat them like servants, and exhibit other forms of bad behavior.

    At least, I hope, the new breed of snobs are cocktail snobs because they care about good cocktails.

     

  • Flowers and Champagne

    June & Champagne with garnishM Here's something you already know: Sparkling wine + Floral liqueur = fun drink.

    I hadn't realized until I started writing my latest Fine Cooking blog entry just how many new floral liqueurs have hit the market.

    In recent years several new floral liqueurs have been brought to market, including St. Germain (elderflower), Esprit de June (grape vine flowers), Rothman and Winter Crème de Violette (violet), Crème Yvette (violet and berries), Fruit Lab Theia (jasmine), J. Witty Spirits Organic Chamomile, and Loft Liqueurs Organic Lavender.

    So, here is the rest of the story.

  • Which Vermouth is Which?

    In Friday's FineCooking.com blog entry, I have a little story about how I remember which vermouth is which: sweet, French, white, Italian, dry, red. I could never keep them straight until I came up with a mnemonic device.

    Read it here.

    Bamboo1m

    Plus! There is also the recipe for the Bamboo cocktail.

  • Sherry, Reconsidered in the Los Angeles Times Magazine

    **Update: This story is no longer on the LA Times Magazine website, so I have pasted it here.

     

    In yesterday's LA Times Magazine I have a huge feature on sherry.

    Sherry2 (photographs by Nigel Cox)

    As a wine category, sherry has practically everything going for it: a tremendous range of flavors, a rich history dating at least as far back as the Romans, the ability to pair magnificently well with food and an increasingly hip status as a cocktail ingredient used by top bartenders.

    Most people, when they think of sherry at all, consider it an ingredient their grandmothers cooked with rather than something ripe for sipping on its own. Sherry is about due for a comeback, but it’s so unfamiliar to us now that it really needs a thorough reintroduction.

    The story features eight drink recipes from the lofty likes of Murray Stenson, Andrew Bohrer, Alex Day, Zahra Bates, Kenta Goto and Audrey Saunders, Brian Miller, Neyah White, and Kevin Deidrich.

    Go read the story, and then go make the drinks!

    Sherry3 (photographs by Nigel Cox)

  • Cocktails and Italian Spirits

    Vino2011logo Last week I spoke on a panel in New York for the Vino 2011 convention. The event mostly focuses on Italian wines, but this year they also offered a cocktail seminar.

    The seminar was called “Renaissance of the Cocktail in America: Top Spirit Professionals Assess the Role and Opportunities for Italian Spirit.” The panel was moderated by Francesco LaFranconi and the other panelists were Anthony Dias Blue,  Lamberto Vallarino Gancia, Paolo Domeneghetti, and Tad Carducci.

    I figure I may as well share my answers with people who couldn't attend the seminar.

    Question 1: As one of the industry’s most credited spirits’ blogger and writer, what fascinates you the most about Italian liquors (Spirits, Amari, Aperitifs and Liqueurs) and which category provides you the most opportunities to write your stories/articles?

    Prettymuch what I do for a living is identify and report on trends in cocktails and spirits, most of which are generated by progressive bartenders at the nation's top bars. So I'm most interested in what they're interested in.

    Category-wise, we see the most action in amari and aperitifs as bartenders are playing with bitter modifiers, better vermouths/vermouth substitutes, and low-alcohol cocktails.

    But across all categories there are other flavor trends into which different Italian spirits can fit.

    • Extreme spirits. The most bitter, the most raw, the highest-proof, the funkiest, most challenging spirits are all the rage. Think: Smith & Cross, mezcal, Islay scotch, barrel-strength everything.
    • Flavorful white spirits. Think: genever, pisco, cachaca, agricole rhum. Why not grappa too?

    Question Two: When did you start noticing interest (among bartenders and mixologists) in the US for Italian liquors (Spirits, Amari, Aperitifs and Liqueurs) and cocktails made with them?

    Back in the early 2000s when classic cocktails started their comeback. Back then it was all about making the most authentic Negroni, Aviation, Hemmingway Daiquiri, etc. These drinks need their original Italian ingredients like Campari, maraschino liqueur, vermouths, etc.

    Now, even though we're still in the classic cocktail craze, it's more about spin-offs of classics: variations of the Manhattan using various amari, spin-offs of the Bamboo with other fortified wines, Negronis switching out everything for something else, and so on.

    Question Three: Which Italian liquors (Spirits, Amari, Aperitifs and Liqueurs) categories do you believe are the most favorite by the American palate these days, and which are not fully embraced yet (what would you suggest to do about it)?

    Now we're talking about consumers, and I don't think most consumers are in love with any of these spirit categories at all. That said, they all have their place in cocktails, which consumers love indeed. Italian (and any) spirit owners should think about their spirits as ingredients in popular cocktail formats and sell to the cocktail. Right now, consumers are especially interested in drinks they can make at home that they've tried out. Some top examples are:

    • Anything that mixes with ginger beer in a Buck/Dark & Stormy format.
    • Cocktails with baking spice flavor- allspice, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. Many tiki drinks would fall into this category.
    • Aromatic herbs like mint, basil, cilantro, lemon verbena, etc. These can be used both in the Gimlet and Mojito format.
    • Anything coffee – cold or in the future, hot. With the fresh-roasted, slow-drop coffee phase that's sweeping  the nation, perhaps the grappa producers could work on a deluxe version of Cafe Correcto.
    • Anything floral in the wake of St. Germain, or with strongly floral aromas.
    • Any liqueur that can be mixed with sparkling wine.  

    I even tried to look like I know what I'm talking about wearing a suit and tie (and an expression that says "I'm up in your seminar, dropping knowledge.") But you know, since it was in a room full of Italians, my wardrobe probably fooled no one.

    Camper in a suit

  • The Anti-Malarial Further Fortified Fortified Wine Cocktail

    DubonnetCocktailm_lg In my latest post for FineCooking.com, I touch on Dubonnet and the Dubonnet Cocktail. Dubonnet was invented as an anti-malarial wine. It's useful even if you don't have a mosquito problem.

    Read! Learn! Behold!

  • Back In My Day, It Was Called A New-Fashioned

    In my latest post for FineCooking.com, I cover the history of the cocktail- the original one. I'm sure you've heard of it: spirit, sugar, water, bitters.

    Spirit sugar water bitters7s

  • Spicy Mary

    Infusions1m_lg A bunch of years ago I tried to sell a book on infusions, because there weren't any at the time. In some ways I'm glad it didn't sell, because my cocktail knowledge and abilities are so much better now that I would have been embarrassed by many of the cocktail recipes you were supposed to use after the infusions were done. 

    But I did do enough recipe development that I learned the timing for a lot of infusions. In my latest post for FineCooking.com, I list the quantities of spicy things like pepperonchini, peppercorn, chili peppers, and horseradish to make a 1-day infusion. 

    Then you can add those to tomorrow's Bloody Mary. 

    When I was working on the book, I had all the different infusions sitting around and decided to dump them all into the drink at the same time. It was pretty amazing how you could clearly taste each infusion separately, rather than them being all muddled together into one new flavor. 

  • The Martini Does Not Exist

    The word 'Martini' has very little meaning.

    Two versions of the cocktail may have completely different ingredients and be served in different formats: A bone-dry-and-dirty Grey Goose Martini on the rocks with extra olives has nothing in common with a Fifty-Fifty gin Martini with orange bitters and a twist. They're not even close to the same drink – in ingredients, in format, or in purpose.

    Martinilatimes

    More than that, the Martini no longer exists even as a drink concept. It means different things to different people: strength, dryness, elegance, simplicity, an aperitif, glassware, crispness, an era in time, an intellectual challenge, etc.. Some of its concepts are mutually exclusive.

    This conundrum surfaced when in New Zealand last year for the 42Below Vodka Cocktail World Cup, in which they had a Modern Martini challenge. The problem was that nobody agreed on what the Martini was, so everyone updated it in a different way.  Most of those ways differed from the judges' concept of the drink.

    The Martini is as amorphous a concept as morality.

    In this Sunday's Los Angeles Times Magazine, I wrote a story about how the Martini Does Not Exist, except in the mind of the individual.

    I'm pretty happy with how it came out. After going through the issues involved with the concept of the drink (and revealing how that cocktail contest turned out), the story lists the Martini recipe as a moving target throughout the years.

    Please give it a read.

  • Cheers to Rudolph, Not the Reindeer

    Blood_and_sand_med

    (Image courtesy of Cherry Heering.)

    In my latest blog post at FineCooking.com, I introduce the Blood and Sand. The cocktail was almost certainly created in honor of the  1922 silent movie of the same name, staring Rudolph Valentino.

    I've also written a long story about all the different ways bartenders are changing this drink, but that's going in an upcoming issue of Mixology Magazine so unless you read German you're out of luck on that one.     

    I will say, though, that should you decide to watch the movie on which the drink is based, the 1941 version with Rita Hayworth and Tyrone Power is much more entertaining than the original. Unless you want to watch Rudolph on a silent night. 

    The blog post is here.