Grog Talk

I'm off in Virginia for a photo assignment shooting OpSail for Spinsheet magazine. That means that I'm going to be on one of these bad boys.

Naturally this has me thinking about what is probably the mother of all Tiki drinks: Grog. I'm not thinking of the classic Tiki drink Navy Grog. I'm talking the real thing, daily rum ration, lime juice to prevent scurvy grog.

No one know the exact recipe for grog, likely I suspect it's because there wasn't one recipe for grog. I've seen and heard many different versions of "original" grog recipes. Everything from "1 of sweet, 2 of sour, 3 of strong, 4 of weak," (which is patently wrong as this is a punch recipe) to 1:1 of rum and water.

Now a little history:

Up until 1972 the British Navy regulations specified 1 pint of ale per day per sailor. This was fine while they were sailing the cold and gloomy North Atlantic close to home. As they began expanding their travels the ale soon became impractical. It would often go bad before the men could drink it. So the Admiralty responded in perhaps a strikingly practical way. They allowed the ale to be replaced with whatever the local drink that they could procure. In the Caribbean that meant rum. That's the first ingredient for grog.

The second important ingredient was citrus juice. Scurvy was a huge issue for sailors going back at least to the Romans, probably earlier. As early as 1497 citrus was known to have a curative effect on scurvy, though vitamin C wasn't isolated and identified until 1937.  Thanks to Admiral Edward Vernon of the British Navy, (known to his sailors as Old Grog for the grogram cloak that he wore) in 1740 citrus juice was added to the daily ration of rum. At this point we can say that we have grog consisting of water, rum, and citrus juice. Sailors likely would have added whatever they had handy to make this drink more palatable.

Me being me I decided that it would be interesting to play with a drink based on the idea of grog that would have been Piratically inspired. So I decided to create the drink below with the idea of an English Privateer using what they had available from successfully taking ships in their own version of a trading triangle.

Pirate Triangle
1 oz lime juice
1 oz white grapefruit juice
.5 oz lemon juice
.5 oz pimento dram
1 oz vanilla simple syrup
1 oz brandy
1 oz dark Jamaican rum
.5 oz Lemon Hart 151
Shake with  crushed ice.
Garnish with fresh grated nutmeg

Growlin For You

 Scott Smith isn't your typical Brewer, if such a thing even exists, sure he makes good beer but that isn't the end of his efforts.  Scott seems to be everywhere these days either coming up with innovative funding methods like his Good Beer Investment Program or helping to raise funds for Aboard Autism Connection of PA and Bike PGH with the Keg Rides for the release of Pedal Pale Ale. East End Brewing Co's beers are at all the best tap spots in the City and will be at more once their planned expansion is completed. In the mean time, you can fill up one of their distinctive growlers at the Pittsburgh Public Market or at the brewery.

Yard Work

So, I'm going to try changing things up around here a bit. We're still going to have the visual who's who of Pittsburgh's craft drinking scene on the same schedule of roughly every two weeks. The change is that in the off week between the portraits I'm going to write about my own experiences in Pittsburgh boozery.

My very first portrait subject for the blog was Dr. Bamboo, a member of the CSOWG, invited me to their Thursday Drink Nights (TDN).The TDN is basically an excuse for the members to meet up in a chat room and invent new drinks around a theme. While at first intimidated by the idea, and lacking sufficient ingredients and knowledge, I stayed away for longer than I should have. Finally getting into it I found a welcoming, if slightly odd, group of guys.

In early March Wigle Whiskey began selling their fine product, and I came home from opening night with 2 bottles of Rye, (one to drink, one to save from batch 1).  Largely unsure what to do with this white whiskey i began experimenting on my own. Of course, a sour was easy and quite tasty. it became my wife's favorite drink, which mainly meant that I had to make it for her.
 White Whiskey Sour:
1.5 oz white rye
1 oz Lime juice
1 oz lemon juice
.5 oz simple syrup
Shake with ice and pour into a rocks glass.

While simple enough, I didn't feel like I was really putting the rye to it's best use. Shortly thereafter the TDN theme was Spring. An abstract theme, I could use anything that I wanted for ingredients. I knew then that I wanted to make use of the rye in some way.  Sticking with the spring theme I felt like I should use some sort of fresh herb, problem was I didn't have anything growing from my garden. I took a look at the herbage available at the grocery store and came up with the idea of using lemon grass. The lemon grass gave my spring theme a double hit with the fresh herb and the implications that I would have to start mowing the grass again. Building roughly on a mojito style construction I started mixing. I stuck a small stalk of lemon grass in the glass, added a 1/2 ounce of simple syrup and muddled. To my concoction I then added 1.5 ounces of the white rye and shook. I strained it out over ice and then needed something to top it off. After mowing the lawn there is nothing better than a cold beer so I went with that, but rather than adding a lager I went with ginger beer, Reed's to be precise.

To finish the drink I topped off the rocks glass with the Reed's and stirred to integrate the ginger and the lemon grass.  Happy with the result, I sent the recipe over to Wigle, who now feature it during their cocktail nights on Fridays and have it listed on their website. Now when I finish doing yard work I come inside to cool with a Yard Work.

Yard Work
• 1 1/2 oz White (unaged) Rye
• 1/2 oz Simple Syrup
• 1 stalk Lemongrass
• 3 oz Ginger Beer
Muddle the lemon grass in a mixing glass along with the rye and syrup. Strain into a rocks or highball glass filled with ice. Top with ginger beer and gently stir to mix.

Stop the Presses

One of the most important roles in spreading the craft cocktail culture isn't necessarily the person making the drinks.  Bill Toland instead spreads the word through his cocktail columns for the Post-Gazette. Whether he's telling you the new place to drink, what to drink, or how to make a drink; it's clear that Bill is out there spreading the work for craft drinkers in the Pittsburgh area.

Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week

Pittsburgh's first annual Craft Beer Week was April 20-28. There were a 360 events ranging from tap take overs to a gaggle of 600 cyclists moving kegs of beer on on bike trailers. This is a brief summary of the events that I was able to attend.You can see more of my photos from Craft Beer Week on my 500px page. Be sure to keep your calendars clear for the last week of April 2013 for the second Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week.

Hough's Copper Kettle Brewing Company had Brew with the Brewers events. Saturday the 21st it was brewing with Steve Sloan from Church Brew Works.

One of the Premier events was the Beer vs Cocktails dinner featuring East End Brewing Beer vs Wigle Whiskey Coctails and featuring Dinner by Salt of the Earth.

There were many beer and food pairing events, shown here is The Beerhive's maple bacon wings.

Craft beer week brought out breweries from all around the country. Heavy Seas Brewery came up from Baltimore with a Firkin of their Loose Cannon Pale Ale to serve at the Wexford Ale House

Rock Bottom Brewery hosted a beer as cocktails event featuring the collaboration brews and local bartenders.

The yearly Keg Ride from East End Brewing to deliver their Pedal Pale Ale to a thirsty populace had 600 riders and a police escort to the secret destination of Station St Hot Dogs.

Mixing it Up

When Steven Kowalczuk relocated to Pittsburgh in 2011 he brought with him his own cocktail media empire dedicated to teaching the Art of Mixology. He runs the Cocktail Chef website, has his own video series on YouTube, and teaches a live class at Olive or Twist in the cultural district.

DrinksBurgh Field Trip: Orange County, CA

While the stated goal here is to focus on Pittsburgh's craft brewers and cocktail impresarios (cocktailiers?) There are some folks, thanks to the internet, who are able to influence the craft drink world from wherever they may be. In that vein, we present the DrinksBurgh Field Trip.

The first field trip was out to Orange County, CA and a visit to 320 Main in Seal Beach with Matt Robold. In addition to slinging booze at 320, Matt runs the Rumdood blog and is a founding member of the International Rum Expert Panel.