Christmas Drinking

The Holidays have rolled around again, and whether that holiday is Christmas, Festivus, Saturnalia, or all of the above that means getting together with family. And for pretty much everyone (at least that reads this) that necessitates drinking. As to whether you drink with your family or drink because of your family that's up to you, we don't judge here. Of course the classics for holiday drinking will pretty much always work, and if you turn down eggnog, wassail, mulled wine, or possibly just shots I will judge you in a lesser light.
That doesn't mean that there isn't room for new drinks, and with that in mind I set out to create a cocktail for a gathering of local food and booze impresarios. I wanted to make a drink that just screamed Christmas, obviously pimento dram had to be included, gin for the piney influence and finally cranberry juice for the flavor and the color.

Saturnalia Sling

1.5 oz Gin

1.5 oz Cranberry Juice

.5 oz Pimento Dram

Once again I must be off... On Tender, On Acacia, On Harvard and Highland, Butcher and Rye!

Rum in the Strip

It's no surprise that I am a rum guy, whether that rum is in a Tiki drink, a classic cocktail, or even straight; I always enjoy rum. Which is why I am so happy that Pittsburgh has a new distillery in the strip that makes rum. Tim Russell made the news locally, nationally, and even internationally after his label approval was delayed by the government shutdown. After being brought up in Congress as part of the efforts to refund the government Maggie's Farm Rum received label approval and is ready to be sold. The first batches will be appearing behind local bars first but Tim hopes to have the rum available for sales to the public at the distillery by Black Friday.

I've also had a chance to sample this rum, and it's a very nice white rum. There aren't many white rums that i would sip straight but this might be one of them. It's made from turbinado sugar and distilled to a lower proof leaving it a lot of body and a little residual sweetness. I haven't had a chance to mix with it yet, but it should do very nicely with recipes where a white rum really shines, such as a daiquiri.

Pittsburgh Cocktail Week

This September 16-22 marked the first annual Pittsburgh Cocktail Week. The week's events were geared towards the industry professionals during the day and to the general drinking public at night. As one of the co-founders of the week I somehow managed to make it to almost every event. I'll give you a brief visual rundown of the week. As always, click the pics to see them larger.

Jeff Catalina provided a seminar on Agave spirits, providing a rundown of the spirits beyond tequila and mezcal. 

Later, Verde bartenders taught customers how to make their own margarita. They provided the ingredients and instruction on how to mix the perfect margarita. 

Tuesday, Giuseppe from Bar Marco showed us all how to cut ice, and in a remarkably brave turn of events he passed off the chainsaw to let participants try it. 

Wednesday was Wigle Wednesday, and Eric taught a class on the aging process. Which included a chance to taste each of the aged whiskeys Wigle has produced to date. 

Thursday we took a group out to Glenshaw to tour local Vodka producer Boyd and Blair. 

We invited Johnny Foster from Smooth Ambler Whiskey up to talk about the difference between a craft distiller and a craft blender. 

The Butterjoint and Will Groves hosted a sold out class on shrubs and preserving for cocktails. Each participant came home with the makings of a pineapple-ground cherry shrub. 

On Sunday night during our wrap party we announced the winner of the week long cocktail contest. Erika Jiggerfingers Joyner won the event for Salt of the Earth. She was presented with a certificate and a prize pack by Andrea from Steelite and Chip from Rhomania.

There are many more photos from Cocktail week over at my 500px site.

Benefits of Aging

Let me set you at ease, this post has nothing to do with my own impending fatherhood or indeed about me growing older. I am still going to celebrate my 25th birthday next July, (for the ninth year in a row). Instead this post is about small barrel aging at home. Going back to my last 25th birthday in 2012 one of my presents was a 1 liter oak barrel for at home aging. I started almost right way in aging rum. I selected a pretty innocuous rum, DonQ Cristal, with the intent of aging it for almost a year with the idea being of turning it into a roughly 12 year old rum. Alas, I underestimated just how greedy the angels are, particularly in a small barrel, so when I opened it up at 9 months I had less than a 750ml bottle left. It was also over-oaked, it tasted far too much like licking the barrel. Not to say that it doesn't work in certain tiki applications. What I haven't already drunk is visible on the far left in the photo.

Next I noticed that the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had Neisson Agricole Blanc on clearance, so I went and picked up two 1 liter bottles. This was an easy decision to add the liter bottle of rum to the liter oak barrel. This time I was more judicious and removed it from the barrel after 6 weeks. This had a most interesting effect as now there is a distinct banana flavor in the nose and it is deliciously smooth. You can see the unaged Neisson on the left of the barrel and the now golden Rhum on the right of the barrel.

Once again though the barrel was empty. Time to try something else. It was also at around this time that the El Presidente really came back onto my radar. This Manhattan-like rum drink makes a delightful after dinner drink and as a bonus I can make it without having to squeeze a lime. I pulled up Jeffrey Morgenthaler's recipe and went with it. I used a bottle of Bacardi 8 that I had sitting around and Noilly Prat dry vermouth. It sat in the barrel for about a month and I just drained it into the bottle seen on the right. The oakiness is noticeable, but not overwhelming. The convenience is amazing though, I can have a really nice cocktail by doing nothing more than pouring 3 ounces over some ice to chill it and then strain it into a serving glass. This will be most useful during my impending fatherhood.

Once again though the barrel is empty and I need to find something else to put in it. I'm leaning towards another rum cocktail or a batch of bitters. Feel free to add suggestions below.

MxMo Fire

It's time for Mixology Monday once again and this time we're en fuego. The theme for this month is fire, thought up and hosted by the Muse of Doom herself.

There is a story involved with my drink this month, more so than normal. In addition to boozy subjects I also have been known to photograph sailboats of various sizes. It is for that reason that I found myself getting up at 6 AM to drive to Cleveland on a Saturday in July. I had secured myself a place on a yacht for the Leukemia Cup races (you can see those photos here). However I am an efficient man with a nose for rum. Rumors of a Cleveland distillery making rum on the shores of Lake Erie had reached me and I wanted to look into it for myself. I found Portside Distillery and looked through their porfolio of spirits. Rums like Maple Vanilla and Hop infused rums served to inspire my creative drink juices, but I also wanted to be sure that the drinks had a definite Cleveland theme to them as well. 

One of the Portside Rums is a spiced rum, and I have been playing around with spiced rums a bit myself by substituting it for gin in classic drinks. My thinking there is that the basic idea behind spiced rum and gin is reasonably similar. With that in mind I came up with a Cuyahoga Fizz inspired by the Cuyahoga River that runs through Cleveland into Lake Erie. 

Cuyahoga Fizz

1.5 oz spiced rum

1 oz lime juice

1 egg white

.5 oz demerara syrup

1 oz cream

2 oz soda

Combine all ingredients save the soda in a shaker with ice and shake until you can't feel your hand anymore. strain into a tall glass and then top with soda water. The claim to fame of the Cuyahoga river is that it has a tendency to catch on fire. Yes, the river has caught on fire no less than 13 times. With that history of inflammation it hardly seems right to leave the top of the drink a pristine white meringue. instead sprinkle on a little brown sugar and 2 dashes of Angostura bitters, then get out your torch and brule that sucker. Not only does the brown sugar caramelize and form a crispy crust (like on a creme brule) but the generous application of heat to the bitters brings out a fruity quality that I had never noticed before. 

Hey! Still reading? Good. There's a reason why the old blog has been a little slow this year. I've been part of the committee putting together Pittsburgh Cocktail Week (and on Facebook). If you are available to to check it out it looks to be a good time.

MxMo 74: Cherries!

  Time again for another Mixology Monday. This time the theme is cherries and hosted by Andrea of Gin Hound. While this could be an interesting opportunity to break out a shrub or a cherry infusion, I've been much more interested in classic cocktail both 'normal' and Tiki. So as I've been reading up and researching classic drinks I kept bumping up against a single ingredient that I didn't have. It was getting annoying. So I finally went out and picked up that ingredient. That mystery ingredient: Maraschino Liqueur.  Since most of the people who will read this post already know and love this liqueur it can be easy to forget that it's not that widely known among the commoners. This was well illustrated for me when the cashier at the store, actually asked me what it was and what you do with it. I just smiled and said that it's used in a lot of classic cocktails and left it at that. 

Anyway, I have been playing around with finally having a bottle of Luxardo and mixing drinks like Papa Dobles and Aviations because I could all the while chiding myself for not getting it earlier. So when the cherry theme came around this month I knew what I wanted to use for this month. A quick trip through Beachbum Berry's Grogalizer showed me a nice selection of tiki drinks that also used the lovely maraschino liqueur. I chose the Gold Cup recipe from Remixed. 

3/4 oz Lime Juice

3/4 oz simple syrup

1/2 oz maraschino

1.5 oz gold Jamaican

teaspoon Pernod

3 drops almond extract

The ice shell for the glass was surprisingly easy to make with a little help from Dr Bamboo's advice on ice cones. I froze my blender to make sure that it was nice and cold so that when I made some snow the ice didn't immediately melt leaving only water and large chunks. This is an amazing drink with a depth that defies the simplicity of the recipe. 

It's definitely been useful studying up on the classics to see how just the right mix gets you an amazing drink. Look for more coming forward as part of a project that I'm slowly trying to put together. 

Like Butter

Will Groves had a decision to make. He could continue to be the General Manager for  successful Pittsburgh restaurant and worry about things like being short on hours for the week; or he could be a bar manager and have to figure out what to do with large amounts of locally grown strawberries fresh from the farm. So now when you go to the Butterjoint and you have the strawberry infused tequila, be glad that Will chose wisely.