drink/family

Cucumbers

Posted on by Will Cox

D and the children planted a nice garden this year in Gram’s front yard: tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, corn, watermelon, butternut squash, zucchini, and cucumber. We took our first batch of zucchini and cucumber off the vines the weekend of July 17th, and are coming up with some new dishes to eat.

I just happen to have a gin here that claims to taste of cucumber: Hendrick’s. And it does taste of cucumber, if you put a cucumber in the glass with the gin.

First up in the mixing cup was Hendrick’s twist on the martini.

Cucumber Martini

  • 2 1/2 parts Hendrick’s Gin
  • 1/2 part dry vermouth
  • cucumber slice

Stir Hendrick’s Gin and vermouth in a mixing glass with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Finish with a cucumber garnish.

Then in “Ginning Things Up,” Imbibe Magazine (Sept./Oct. 2009), I ran across mention of the Eastside, a variation on the Southside which adds cucumber.

The Eastside

  • 2 oz. gin
  • 1 oz. fresh lime juice
  • 3/4 oz. simple syrup
  • 8 mint leaves
  • 2 slices cucumber
  • Ice cubes
  • Tools: shaker, muddler, strainer
  • Glass: cocktail
  • Garnish: thin slice of cucumber

Using a muddler, lightly crush cucumber and mint leaves in a cocktail shaker. Add liquid ingredients and shake well with ice. Strain into a chilled glass. Float garnish on top of drink.

And the Poughkeepsie Journal just happened to publish a recipe syndicated from McClatchy-Tribune: the Capulet Collins. This is basically the same as the Eastside, but in a Collins glass filled with ice and seltzer water.

Capulet Collins

Mixologist Toby Maloney prefers to make this cocktail with Hendrick’s gin, which has a crisp, cucumberlike flavor note.

  • 3 slices cucumber, each 1/2-inch thick 1 tiny pinch salt
  • 2 mint sprigs
  • 2 ounces gin
  • 1 ounce simple syrup
  • 1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
  • 5 drops rose water, optional
  • Soda water

Muddle cucumber and salt thoroughly in cocktail shaker. Add 1 sprig of the mint. Bruise gently. Add remaining ingredients. Add ice. Shake. Strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice. Top with soda water. Garnish with remaining mint sprig

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I’ll take a Manhattan

Posted on by Will Cox

After a late, or early for me, arrival home from the office, I fried up a pair of cheeseburgers. I’m not quite ready to drink the Budweiser I have in the house, so what cocktail might go with a cheeseburger?

A Hamburger Today asks the same question, but didn’t answer it so much as review some hamburgers at two cocktail bars, and I’ll certainly not try this Whiskeyburger documented by Esquire. Of course, Jimmy Buffett might recommend a margarita, in the absence of Landshark Lager, with one’s cheeseburger in paradise.

Perhaps a Manhattan?

Manhattan

Stir in mixing glass with ice

Strain into a a cocktail glass and garnish with a cherry.

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The Deepwater Horizon

Posted on by Will Cox

In honor of our friends over at British Petroleum, I tender the following creation, which I’ve christened the Deepwater Horizon (attempt 1 of n).

Build, in a deep glass, the following.

  1. 1 tsp. of blackstrap molasses
  2. 2 oz. dark rum, very cold
  3. carefully fill with 4 oz. soda water, so as not to disturb the rum

Float syrup of ipecac on the surface. This latter step is optional, depending on whether or not you want to experience the full effects of the calamity.

Cut a hole in a wide straw, and drink.

Update: I recommend trying the Gulf Spill instead (via Liquor Snob).

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Gin with Basil Pesto

Posted on by Will Cox

What’s a good drink to go with pasta and pesto? I dunno. Let’s make one!

Gin with Basil Pesto

Step One is very difficult: marry an Italian girl. The rest is easy.

In a mixing glass, combine one bar spoon of her pesto, two jiggers of gin, and a splash of water. Shake hard with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, like so:

gin and basil pesto

Now I just have to find out what she puts in her pesto besides basil.

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Mint Lemonade

Posted on by Will Cox

I may have mentioned this before, but, if not, there’s some mint taking over a corner of my yard. And, thus, it is best if I mix drinks which contain mint. This was mixed for D. after No. 1 Son‘s birthday party.

Mint Lemonade

In a mixing glass, muddle eight mint leaves with the juice of one lemon (about 2 oz.) and a teaspoon of honey. Fill a tall glass half full with ice. Strain the juice and mint into the glass, and top with seltzer, about eight ounces. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

Alternately, muddle the ingredients in the tall glass itself, and allow the crushed mint to be the garnish.

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Gin Fizz

Posted on by Will Cox

An old friend from St. John’s College recommended that I try a gin fizz. And so I have.

The gin fizz recipe in CocktailDB calls for fresh lemon juice, when she had recommended lime. I used lemon since I had half a lemon already cut. (As we learned this weekend, each lemon produces 2 oz. of juice.) The result tastes very like lemonade.

Gin Fizz

Shake together 1 oz. fresh lemon juice, 1 tsp. sugar, 1 1/2 oz. gin, and 3 cubes of ice. Strain into a highball glass, and fill with soda. Stir. Drink.

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Martha Washington’s Rum Punch

Posted on by Will Cox

But Independence Day should perhaps be celebrated with a, somewhat, more domestic punch, using Martha Washington’s rum punch recipe. (Warning: the source given does not cite her sources, so while the punch is attributed to Mrs. Washington, the Internet has not offered up conclusive evidence of the same.) This recipe was made exactly as written, but served in a pitcher with crushed ice instead of in a punch bowl.

The recipe calls for 4 oz. each of orange and lemon juice. Assuming that Mrs. Washington didn’t just hop on over to the Piggly Wiggly, I squeezed some Florida juice oranges and domestic lemons. Each fruit produced about 2 oz. of juice.

MARTHA WASHINGTON’S RUM PUNCH

  • 4 oz lemon juice
  • 4 oz orange juice
  • 4 oz simple syrup
  • 3 lemons quartered
  • 1 orange quartered
  • 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
  • 3 cinnamon sticks broken
  • 6 cloves
  • 12 oz boiling water

In a container, mash the lemons, orange, nutmeg, cinnamon sticks and cloves. Add syrup, lemon and orange juice. Pour the boiling water over the mixture. Let it cool. Strain out the solids. Heat the juice mixture to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Let it cool and refrigerate overnight.

In a punch bowl, combine:

  • 3 parts juice mixture
  • 1 part light rum
  • 1 part dark rum
  • 1/2 part orange curaçao

Serve the punch over ice. Top with grated nutmeg and cinnamon.

drink/family

Sangria

Posted on by Will Cox

We had family and friends over tonight for the 1st Annual Firefly Catching Contest. It was a blast; we’ll certainly have the 2nd Annual one next year.

This was all D’s idea. She made some appetizers, and invited the other families to bring over a dessert around 19:30. I made a sangria based on the recipe from Tertulia Andaluza, and reproduce my modifications here. This is the first sangria I’ve made. The next one will probably avoid using as much citrus: it tasted a bit like grapefruit juice.

Peel one orange and one lemon, and cut them into small pieces. Soak the pieces in their own juice with 2 tsp. sugar. While they soak, squeeze the juice from two oranges, one lemon, and a lime. Mix the juices with a bottle of wine and 150 ml of rum in a wide-mouthed jug or pitcher able to hold about 2 liters. Add the mixed fruit and sugar that was left to soak earlier, and an additional 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar. Mix using a wooden spoon, then dilute to taste with sparkling water. By this point the pitcher should be about three-quarters full. Let it sit in the refrigerator until your guests arrive, then add four scoops of ice, stir again, and serve.

A similar drink was made for the children. Instead of the wine, citrus juices and rum, the punch used 2 cups unfiltered apple juice and 1 cup pomegranate juice.

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Pomegranate Lemonade

Posted on by Will Cox

The other day I drank an Honest Tea Cranberry Lemonade. I expected it to not be sweet, since they say it’s just a tad sweet. I did not expect that I wouldn’t be able to tell if any cranberries or lemons had been harmed in the making of it. Overall, however, not a bad drink for flavored water.

I got to wondering what exactly goes into pink lemonade besides Red No. 40. How would I make a pink lemonade? Cranberry? Pomegranate?

Let’s try pomegranate.

Mix in a glass, 2 oz. of POM 100% pomegranate juice and 1 oz. of lemon juice. Stir together with 3 cubes of ice and about 8 oz. cold water.

That was good. I’ll need to determine the proportion of water a bit more exactly before mixing up a quart.

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Stirred, Not Shaken

Posted on by Will Cox

I read, in one of the many things I’ve read recently regarding cocktails, that James Bond’s ordering of a martini shaken, not stirred, was his ordering the martini watered-down and being snooty about it. This shaking does. It also changes the taste and presentation of the drink.

I stirred my martini this evening instead of shaking it. It was much clearer, but also not as cold. It tasted quite different; still drinkable, but more clearly a blend of the gin and vermouth. I’ll confirm tomorrow, but it seems the presence of the vermouth is stronger when the drink is stirred.

The argument against shaking the martini distills thusly: it bruises the gin.

That’s not precise enough, so I call hogwash.

Another source I’ve read — please accept my apologies for the lack of citations, but I did not keep notes — held that shaking is just as fine as stirring as long as shards of ice do not survive in the drink. I’m fine with this explanation, and tend to shake my martinis rather than stir them, for two reasons: first, the diluted gin or vodka lets me drink more than one; second, the rough mixing of the ice and alcohol, whether vodka or gin, changes the taste to my preference.

On the other hand, it does fill the glass near to tipping.

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On Vermouth

Posted on by Will Cox

My first impression of vermouth was from a bottle of Martini & Rossi’s dry vermouth which had been opened a long time ago, in a land far, far away, and then left to sit in my basement for about four years before I attempted my first martini. I was not impressed. It was, I thought, white wine well on its way to being vinegar. Apparently I was right.

Like wines, vermouth does not store well on the shelf, particularly when opened, and should be kept in the refrigerator or the wine cellar if you’re not planning to drink it all at once. Thus, unless you’re planning to host a party, it’s best to purchase the small bottles. After all, it’s only one of vermouth for every two of gin.

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Blueberry Fizz

Posted on by Will Cox

Tonight I mixed this for D., from scratch, given what we had in the refrigerator and on the shelf.

In a mixing glass, muddle eight blueberries with the juice of one key lime and one teaspoon of granulated sugar. Shake with eight ounces of seltzer. Crush ten or so cubes of ice, and fill the glass. Pour the mixed drink over the ice, and garnish with blueberries.

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A Martini

Posted on by Will Cox

A while back I picked up a new gin and some vermouth: DH Krahn and Noilly Prat.

In a mixing glass, add 3 cubes of ice, then 1 oz. of Noilly Prat and 2 oz. of D.H. Krahn gin. Shake well, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

This is the best martini I’ve made to date.

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Trial No. 1: Mint and Pepsi

Posted on by Will Cox

My sister has given me a challenge: to make a mint julep without bourbon. This is quite a challenge considering that bourbon is the essential ingredient without which one does not have a julep. But perhaps we might come close with a cola — not that bourbon and Coca-Cola taste alike, but that each might serve a similar purpose as the foundation of the drink.

So the first attempt was this, and while good on its own merits, does not taste anything like a mint julep.

In a glass, muddle eight leaves of mint with a teaspoon of sugar. Crush ten or so cubes of ice, and fill the glass. Pour in 4 oz. of Pepsi-Cola, and stir. Serve to your teetotalling friends, if you have any.

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A Martini

Posted on by Will Cox

Last night I found myself at a birthday party, and was offered a shelf of liquors from which to mix a drink. Equipment was lacking, but I made do with a shot glass, a mug and a spoon.

In the mug, mixed one shot of Stock extra dry vermouth, and two of Skyy vodka. Stirred with ice, and strained into an old fashioned glass.

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Mint Julep

Posted on by Will Cox

After a hot afternoon out watching Little League softball, I was in the mood for reducing, if only slightly, the giant patch of mint in our backyard. And so made two mint juleps: one for me, and one for the wife. Then just as they were mixed, I found that we were late for a birthday party, so I had to remove mine from the refrigerator after dinner. It survived stored at 35°F.

Build in a highball glass. Start with 1.5 tsp. sugar and just enough water to cover the sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Muddle 8 mint leaves with the sugar and water. Fill the glass with crushed ice, then add 2 oz. of bourbon. Stir until the glass is frosted. Garnish with a sprig of mint.