“Mamie” was a “Liberal”, used to throw “Paper Planes” off the “South Slope”. One day, tuckered out, she laid down for a “Siesta” and slept like a “Corpse”. (You’ll have to pardon me… I had no good title for this post.)
Posted: August 26, 2012 Filed under: alcohol, Cocktail recipe, cocktails, drinks, Food and drink, liqueur, liquor, mixed drinks, mixology, spirits, Uncategorized | Tags: absinthe, amaro, Aperol, bourbon, Campari, Corpse Reviver #2, gin, ginger ale, ginger beer, grapefruit juice, Herbsaint, Jim Meehan, lemon juice, Lewis Osterweis and Sons ginger beer, Lillet Blanc, lime juice, Mamie Taylor, orange bitters, orange curacao, Paper Plane, PDT Cocktail Book, rye whiskey, Schlafly, scotch, Siesta, silver tequila, simple syrup, South Slope, sweet vermouth, Ted Haigh, tequila, The Liberal, triple sec, Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails 2 Comments
The conclusion that you might draw from the lame title of this post is that there’s no real overarching them to this post’s drinks. You’d be right! I present to you 6 random drinks that feature random ingredients, with nothing in common with each other, other than the fact that they’re all pretty damn good. A couple of them feature Lillet Blanc, which is a new ingredient for my home bar. Lillet is a delicious French aperitif wine. It’s rather sweet and fruity, consisting of a blend of mostly Bordeaux wines and some citrus liqueurs. One of its most famous roles being that of a key player in a cocktail with one of the best names ever, the “Corpse Reviver #2”. (I actually went out to get my first bottle of Lillet Blanc, specifically so I’d be able to make this drink.) Another new ingredient featured in this post is ginger beer. I love ginger ale, but this is the first time I’ve ever tried true ginger beer. Ginger beer is what ginger ale used to be like, back in the olden days. Ginger beer actually has ginger in it, and quite the spice you’d expect from a soda made with real ginger. A lot of classic cocktails call for ginger beer, so I picked up a bottle of “Lewis Osterweis & Sons” ginger beer, made by The Saint Louis Brewery (aka Schlafly). It’s not something I’d necessarily want to drink every day, but it’s definitely worth keeping a bottle or two in the house for when you do want one.
“Corpse Reviver #2”
What a delicious drink! I love the taste of the lemon with just a slight underlying flavor of absinthe, mmmm! I might actually think this drink is a little heavy on the lemon, and I might like it more with a little less, but nonetheless, it’s delicious! It’s very smooth and easy to drink, but also a bit complex in its flavor mixture, with the Lillet and a little bit of the absinthe (Note: 3 drops means just that, 3 small drops, not 3 dashes). Love it!
1 oz. gin
1 oz. Lillet Blanc
1 oz. lemon juice
1 oz. triple sec
3 drops of absinthe
Shake well with ice and then strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with a cherry
“The Liberal”
I’ve been wanting to try this drink for some time, as I love its name too. It’s a pretty good drink. It’s got a unique taste. The amaro wrestles with the sweet vermouth, pinning the vermouth’s sweetness and adding a bittnerness, while the orange bitters and bourbon stand on the side lines cheering and encouraging the fight. Good drink indeed.
1.5 oz. bourbon
1.5 oz. sweet vermouth
6 dashes amaro
2 (healthy) dashes of orange bitters
Stir well with ice and then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with a cherry
The good version of “The Liberal” from “Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails” by Ted Haigh (above)
There’s another recipe for “The Liberal” that’s actually more common on the Internet. I, for one, am not a fan of this version. I highly recommend following the recipe above instead.
More common recipe (echh):
1.5 oz. rye whiskey
1/2 oz. sweet vermouth
1/4 oz. amaro
2 dashes or orange bitters
Stir well with ice and then strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with a lemon twist
The not-so-good version more commonly found on the Internet (below)
“South Slope”
This drink is delicious! It’s dry, citrusy, bitter and smooth, all in one! It’s a really nice cocktail, a perfect blend of tastes and senses. 
3/4 oz. gin
3/4 oz. Aperol
3/4 oz. Lillet Blanc
1/2 oz. orange curacao
1/2 oz. lemon juice
Shake well with ice and then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with a lemon twist
(“PDT Cocktail Book”)
“Mamie Taylor”
This is a good drink, with quite a unique flavor combination with the smokiness of the scotch and the spiciness of the ginger, pulled together by the unifying lime juice. It works very well together though! It’s quite a unique summer-time refresher. Ted Haigh writes in his book that this drink was considered a fancy drink back in its heyday, and I understand why… the scotch soothes the soul while the ginger excites the heart, and the lime keeps it all in perspective.
2 oz. scotch
3/4 oz. lime juice
ginger beer (not just ginger ale)
Pour the scotch and lime juice into an ice-filled highball glass, and fill to the top with ginger beer, and then stir gently.
Garnish with a lime wedge
“Paper Plane”
This is a pretty good drink. It’s a bit too lemony perhaps, but a nice flavor, all in all. All the different flavors (a little bitter meets a little tart) blend very well in to a good single, unified flavor. Definitely not a bad drink (but nothing that special either).
3/4 oz. bourbon
3/4 oz. amaro
3/4 oz. Aperol
3/4 oz. lemon juice
Shake well with ice and then strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
“Siesta”
And last but not least… Definitely NOT least! This drink is absolutely AMAZING! This is one of the best drinks around. This drink is so good and delicious! The smooth, sweet tequila, with the tart grapefruit juice and the bitter Campari, smoothed out in relief of the simple syrup… Mmmmmm… a perfect mix of flavors! It’s a complex drink that’s both an “easy goin’ summer-time drink” and a “sophisticated cocktail” at the same time. Write this one down, then drink it down, folks!
2 oz. silver tequila
1/2 oz. Campari
1/2 oz. lime juice
1/2 oz. grapefruit juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup
Shake well with ice and then strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with a grapefruit twist (I used a lime twist)
(“PDT Cocktail Book”)
A Scientific Spring
Posted: March 25, 2012 Filed under: alcohol, bitters, Cocktail Book, Cocktail recipe, cocktails, drinks, Food and drink, liqueur, liquor, mixed drinks, mixology, on the rocks, summer drinks, Uncategorized | Tags: 100 Anos, American Pale Ale, anejo tequila, aperitif, Aperol, Aviation, beer cocktail, Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters, bitters, bourbon, Breast Pocket Cocktail, Campari, cherries, chocolate bitters, cocktails, creme de violette, Dry Hopped APA, Fee Brothers, Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters, gin, green Chartreuse, Left Hand Cocktail, Luxardo, maraschino liqueur, orange bitters, PDT Cocktail Book, pear liqueur, rhubarb bitters, Rothman and Winter orchard pear, rye whiskey, Schlafly, sweet vermouth, tequila, vermouth, whiskey, winter 5 Comments
I, Scientist McGee, am formally declaring myself ready for spring time!
It’s been well over a month since my last post, and I have no real good reason for the delay at all. The true reason for the dry spell has been a total lack of inspiration on my part. I think I’ve been totally uninspired to try new drinks, because of the limbo between winter and spring that I found myself stuck in. I had grown tired of warm winter drinks, but wasn’t quite ready yet to mix up cool summertime favorites.
Well, it’s warm out there, and beautiful too! And I’m ready to drink spring and summertime fancy drinks! So in today’s blog, I’m putting winter to rest, and providing a “sneak peek” at some of the new lighter ingredients that should be gracing the SMcG blog in the next several months!
Let’s close out winter, shall we? And then I’ll show you the fun assortment of ingredients I splurged on this weekend, and am very excited to try!
Closing out the winter months, I’ve got two good ones for you…
“Breast Pocket Cocktail”
My favorite of the two is my favorite because it’s one I dreamed up. I call it the “Breast Pocket Cocktail” because it could very well be concocted at a beer drinkin’ party with a secret flask of rye in one’s breast pocket of their jacket. It’s a beer cocktail featuring the pride and joy of St. Louis, Schlafly beer (http://www.schlafly.com/), specifically Schlafly’s Dry Hopped APA (American Pale Ale). I love Schlafly’s Dry Hopped APA, and as I was drinking it recently, I thought that it would go great with some rye whiskey added to it. The beer itself is very hoppy and aromatic, and I thought it would mix nicely with the spiciness of rye (my favorite type of whiskey). After a few tries, I figured out a good balance where the APA contributes flavors to the drink without overshadowing the other ingredient. The hops of the APA go really well with the spice of the rye, and the orange bitters and lemon add a refreshing citrus zip. I’m not one to make up my own drinks. I think this is technically only my second? The way I see it is that there are thousands of amazing drinks that have already been made up, that I’m sure I’ll never even have time to try. I enjoy drinking my way through these, so why would I feel the need to focus on making up my own drinks as an at-home bartender? Unless inspiration strikes me, and I’m craving something that probably does not exist – like a cocktail featuring a hometown beer. I have to say, I’m quite proud of this delicious drink!
2 oz. rye whiskey
3 oz. Schlafly Dry Hopped APA
2 dashes of orange bitters
Build over ice, in a rocks glass, then stir gently, and garnish with a lemon peel.
“Left Hand Cocktail”
This cocktail’s one I made last night using one of my new ingredients, Aztec Chocolate Bitters (Fee Brothers). This drink comes from “The PDT Cocktail Book”, and actually calls for Bittermens’ brand of “Xocolatl Mole Bitters”. The only snag was that the Bittermens bitters cost $20 for a 4 ounce bottle, and I did not want to spend that much money on a bitters. So instead I bought the Fee Brothers, which ran me $6.50 for the same size bottle. I’d never tried either of these chocolate bitters, so I was a little worried that they’d taste dramatically different, and perhaps they do… I won’t know until I get a taste of the Bittermens. I have a feeling though that they’re similar enough to warrant saving the $14. Both are based on Mexican ingredients, featuring chocolate, peppers and spices. Some reviews I was able to find online described the Bittermens as more complex in its flavors and the Fee Brothers as having the chocolate flavor more prominent. Maybe this is true, however I found that I really liked the Fee Brothers bitters because of its spiciness. Maybe they’re more chocolaty than the Bittermens, but they’re also definitely not just chocolate… they’ve got some peppery spice and kick to go along with it! (I’m sure the Bittermens are in fact better and more complex, because the Bittermens are 53% alcohol, whereas the Fee Brothers are a water-based bitters, but the $14 I saved bought me 4 used jazz records and a stock of plastic LP sleeves on the way home, so I think I definitely won!)
This drink wound up being a very unique and tasty one. It was a dark, somewhat sweet drink, with a relatively bitter taste (with the Campari). It also had a nice freshness added though, by the peppers in the bitters, and just a faint smoky chocolate flavor underneath. It was definitely a very complex tasting drink, that I was glad I had tried.
1.5 oz. bourbon
3/4 oz. sweet vermouth
3/4 oz. Campari
2 dashes of Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters (or Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters, as called for in its original recipe)
Stir well with ice, and then strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
Add 3 cherries on a pick as a garnish.
(“The PDT Cocktail Book”)
And now, without further ado… I declare winter officially over for me! On to my new springtime splurge!
This weekend, I splurged and bought more than I am usually able to buy at once. I had to do this though to gear up for spring and summer! As I explained earlier… I haven’t been inspired to try any new drinks.
But now I am!
Several of these ingredients I’ve been wanting to buy and try for quite some time. They are the Aperol and the anejo tequila, as well as the chocolate and rhubarb bitters. Aperol is an Italian bitter aperitif much like Campari (in fact it is now owned by the Campari company), but I’ve heard that it’s perhaps a bit sweeter and bit less intense and less bitter? (Not sure, but I’ll know soon enough.) Anejo tequila is tequila that’s been aged for at least a year, but no more than 3 years, in oak barrels. The oak barrels tend to be old ones that were previously used for whiskeys and Bourbons north of the border, adding more of a complex flavor than other tequilas.
The Luxardo maraschino liqueur is one I’ve enjoyed many times before and just needed to make sure to have plenty in stock for the spring and summer months ahead. As I’ve mentioned many times before in this blog, I love maraschino liqueur! I’d go so far as to say that I can’t live without it. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ahem.
The orchard pear liqueur is made by Rothman & Winter, the same company that makes the creme de violette I have on hand to make my Aviations. This was bought on kind of a whim because I’ve just recently begun liking pears this year. Plus I spotted a recipe in the PDT book that looked really good (the “Statesman” with gin, orchard pear, green Chartreuse and orange bitters… mmmm…)
So let Spring begin! I’ll be gladly sharing some new drinks, featuring these new ingredients that have been added to my bar, in the upcoming season. Cheers, and Go Cards!
A very, very good book
Posted: February 14, 2012 Filed under: alcohol, bitters, Cocktail Book, Cocktail recipe, cocktails, drinks, Food and drink, liqueur, liquor, mixed drinks, mixology, spirits, Uncategorized | Tags: absinthe, Angostura bitters, apple brandy, applejack, Benedictine, Chris Gall, De La Louisiane, East Village Athletic Club Cocktail, Famous New Orleans Drinks, Four Seasons, Four Seasons Cocktail Book, George Kappeler, Honeymoon Cocktail, Hugo Ensslin, italian vermouth, Jim Meehan, Laird's, Laird's applejack, lemon juice, Modern American Drinks, orange curacao, PDT Cocktail Book, Peychaud's bitters, Recipes for Mixed Drinks, rye, rye whiskey, Stanley Clisby, Stanley Clisby Arthur, sweet vermouth, tequila, white tequila, Widow's Kiss, Yellow Chartreuse 8 Comments
Hey everybody, I’m excited for this post because it’s sure to feature the first of many drinks from a new book I picked up called “The PDT Cocktail Book”. I really felt like I had hit a lull of inspiration and needed a new, quality book to perk me up. I tried buying a book that I’d really enjoyed flipping through at the bookstore called “The Four Seasons Book of Cocktails”, but it turned out to be just a very attractive book, a fun read and flip through. But when it came down to wanting to make any of the drinks, I wasn’t inspired. It’s nicely organized, and has some great pictures, but nothing too exciting.
Then a couple weeks later, at the bookstore again, I came across just what I needed… a book I had seen online before, but nothing I never really paid much attention to – “The PDT Cocktail Book”. This book is pricey for a cocktail book at $25, but worth every penny! It’s a book put out by Jim Meehan, head bartender at PDT (Please Don’t Tell). The actual bar and locale of PDT is a pretty cool story, but I’ll leave that for you to read if you pick up a copy. Basically, this is a modern version of the Savoy Cocktail book, in that it’s a manual of the day and features many cocktails from PDT, but also many classic cocktails, along with drinks from contemporary drink-slinging peers. Just like the Savoy book, it’s a snapshot of what drinks are being drank at this time in history. Also like the Savoy, it’s got no pictures of the drinks themselves, which may sound annoying but it’s not. Instead it features illustrations inspired by the drinks. That may sound like a negative to many, and I’m the first to admit – I usually need photos to get inspired, but trust me… these drinks are generally basic enough, with typically only 3-5 ingredients, that you don’t need a picture to get the idea. Plus the illustrations are kind of more inspiring than a snapshot of the drink could be. That’s another big reason I love this book… the drinks themselves. Yes, there’s a few unusual ingredients that I’ll probably never have, and therefore never try, but for the most part, the drinks featured, some may be new, some may be old, but they all resemble the stripped down simplicity of all the classics. Instead of having a list of 7-8 ingredients, 2 or 3 of which need to be infused or what not, like some current cocktail books… most of these drinks feature all classic, stand-by ingredients… brandy, rye, maraschino, orange juice, bitters, absinthe, simple syrup, etc. Another great similarity to the Savoy is its simplicity in just organizing the drinks alphabetically. Only the PDT fixes the one major mistake about the Savoy – it features an index by ingredient as well. That’s the one annoying thing about the Savoy, it’s nearly impossible to look up drinks by ingredient. I can’t say enough good things about this book. It’s an instant classic, and I’m so glad I bought it! Nearly every page is rabbit-eared because there’s a drink I want to try, and I’ve already started…
This post features 4 of the drinks I’ve tried since buying this book. They come straight from the pages of the PDT. Two of them feature apple brandy, I just realized that three of them feature Benedictine, and my favorite is a combo you can’t go wrong with – tequila and Chartreuse.
“East Village Athletic Club Cocktail”
I’ll start with my favorite of the four, the East Village Athletic Club Cocktail. This is only the 2nd drink I’ve had that has both tequila and Chartreuse, and both drinks are up there in my favorites (the other being the Loop Tonic, made with the green stuff). I need to scour the internet and books for more drinks with these two troublemakers in it. (Anyone have any suggestions?) This drink is a creation of Mr. Meehan’s and he explains it as as a variation on the “Last Word” cocktail (one of my favorite drinks), and it’s amazing! Tequila and Chartreuse go so nicely together – they hit each other head on and create a real zip! It’s also the first drink I’ve tasted since buying my first bottle of yellow Chartreuse where the yellow stuff really holds its own and steps up to the plate. The curacao really adds a nice element too.
1.5 oz. white tequila
3/4 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. yellow Chartreuse
1/2 oz. orange curacao
Shake well with ice and then strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
(“The PDT Cocktail Book”)
“Honeymoon Cocktail”
This was a good sour with a nice orange and apple combo flavor, a really nice balance between the two. I recently bought a bottle of Laird’s applejack, and often recipes will call for applejack specifically, but most call for apple brandy. I know that applejack is not 100% apple brandy, but it was cheap and I like it. Now that I know I like it though, I want to buy a bottle of apple brandy and give it a go. I’m not sure how different the two will be from each other. I’m assuming the 100% apple brandy will be much better, since the applejack is only 35% apple brandy (65% grain neutral spirits). In the meantime, this $13 bottle of applejack was a nice introduction in to the apple brandy world. I like it, and will be returning. This drink’s almost like a daiquiri, but a little more “mature” in its taste… not as “childish” as rum (no offense to rum) but not as “manly” as whiskey.
2 oz. apple brandy
1/2 oz. orange curacao
1/2 oz. Benedictine
1/2 oz. lemon juice
Shake well with ice and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
(“The PDT Cocktail Book”, from Hugo Ensslin’s “Recipes for Mixed Drinks”, 1916)
“De La Louisiane”
This was a very good, warming drink with a hint of refreshing absinthe…
2 oz. rye whiskey
3/4 oz. sweet vermouth
3/4 oz. Benedictine
3 dashes absinthe
3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Stir well with ice and then strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with a maraschino cherry or 3
(“The PDT Cocktail Book”, from Stanley Clisby Arthur’s “Famous New Orleans Drinks”, 1937)
“Widow’s Kiss”
This was another good drink. This drink wasn’t all that special, but it’s not bad if you’re looking for a nice, smooth stiff drink…
2 oz. apple brandy
1/4 oz. yellow Chartreuse
1/4 oz. Benedictine
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Stir well with ice and then strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
(“The PDT Cocktail Book”, from George Kappeler’s “Modern American Drinks”, 1895)
Introducing “Scientist McGee’s Annual Cocktail Menu: 2011 Edition” – Now you can play along at home with the Scientist!
Posted: January 22, 2012 Filed under: alcohol, bitters, Cocktail Book, Cocktail recipe, cocktails, drinks, liqueur, liquor, mixed drinks, mixology, spirits | Tags: absinthe, Angostura, Aviation, Benedictine, bitters, brandy, Brigadier, Campari, chartreuse, Cherry Heering, cocktails, creme de violette, dry vermouth, Ernest Hemingway, gin, grapefruit juice, green Chartreuse, Harry Craddock, Havana, lemon juice, lime juice, liquor, Manhattan, maraschino cherry, maraschino liqueur, Margarita, Martini, orange juice, Peter Heering Cherry Heering, pineapple juice, rum, rye whiskey, Savoy Cocktail Book, Sazerac, scotch, simple syrup, St. Germain, sweet vermouth, Tanqueray, tequila, The Last Word, triple sec, Vanilia Vodka, vermouth, whiskey, whisky Leave a commentWelcome to 2012, the second year of Scientist McGee! This blog was created on March 6, 2011. It’s hard to believe that it’s only 10
months old.
I’ve had a lot of fun along the way, trying new drinks and sharing them with all of you! All of you have been really nice and supportive, excited to 
see what new concoctions the Scientist would post next. It’s fun enjoying the drinks and it’s also fun to document them so that I can refer back to them later on, but it’s obviously a whole lot more fun to do, knowing that my friends and some like-minded strangers are actually reading it and getting a kick out of it too!
So thanks a lot for having fun with me, and I hope you tag along for some more cocktails in 2012 as well.
To celebrate the close of the first year of the Scientist McGee blog, I’m starting what will hopefully be an annual tradition – a recap of the cocktails shared on the blog in that year, in “Cocktail Book” form!
Click on the 2 links below to access a printable version of all the cocktails (except for one bad vodka drink I choose to forget, and therefore removed) from the Scientist McGee blog in 2011. The book is separated in to two documents, and put together make a very handy guide that I hope you all will enjoy. (Makes a great gift too – ha! ha!)
Scientist McGee’s 2011 Cocktail Menu COVER, TABLE OF CONTENTS and MEASUREMENTS
Scientist McGee’s 2011 Cocktail Menu
Thanks, and cheers!
SMcG
A random assortment of drinks, tied together by nothing more than time.
Posted: August 6, 2011 Filed under: Chartreuse, cocktails, drinks, Food and drink, liqueur, liquor, mixed drinks, mixology, spirits, Uncategorized | Tags: Art of the Bar, Bartender's Bible, basil, basil cocktail, bitters, blue curacao, Blue Devil, celery bitters, chartreuse, cocktails, dark rum, dry vermouth, Fee Brothers, Gary Regan, gin, grapefruit juice, green Chartreuse, lemon juice, lime juice, liquor, Loop Tonic, maraschino liqueur, muddle, Plantation, rum, simple syrup, Sitarski, tequila, triple sec, vermouth, white tequila 2 Comments
This latest post is a random grab-bag of cocktails. There’s no overarching theme. There’s no prominent new ingredient used in all of the drinks. They’re not all from some new book I bought.
These four drinks have nothing in common other than the fact that I’ve made and drank each of them in the last couple of weeks, since my last post. Each of them comes from its own, unique source as well… the Loop Tonic from a blog I read called “Spirited Cocktails”, the Plantation from one of the first cocktail books I ever bought called “The Art of the Bar”, the Sitarski from the actual first cocktail book I ever bought, Gary Regan’s “The Bartender’s Bible”, and the “Blue Devil” from a book that I picked up at a used book fair called “The New York Bartender’s Guide”.
Loop Tonic
The Loop Tonic has knocked my socks off! It's a drink I just happened to read about in a blog called "Spirited Cocktails". When I read about this drink, I was shocked by the idea of putting tequila and green Chartreuse together (I'd never tried that), but looking at all of the ingredients together, I thought it looked really, really good, and had the potential to be amazing. I was intrigued... especially by the notion of celery bitters. And that's the only thing I needed to go out and buy to make this drink that seemed so exotic to me. So that day, I went out and got some celery bitters, and made up this drink. I'm so glad I did because this drink is super delicious! I flip, and grin ear-to-ear, when I think about making this drink, because it's so tasty and such an interesting drink! All of the ingredients meld very nicely together, and the celery bitters add a really nice bite to the drink. If you like Chartreuse and you have 6 bucks to spare, I highly recommend going out and buying the celery bitters to try this drink.
2 oz. white tequila
1 oz. dry vermouth
3/4 oz. lime juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup
1/2 oz. green Chartreuse
dash of celery bitters
Shake well and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
(“Spirited Cocktails” – http://spiritedcocktails.com/index.php/2011/07/29/beautiful-combinations-tequila-chartreuse/ )
The Plantation
This is a really great drink as well. I found this drink while flipping through the pages of perhaps my favorite cocktail book I own, “The Art of the Bar” by Jeff Hollinger & Rob Schwartz. I was bored and wanted to try something new, when I stumbled across this drink which called for basil. Since the basil plant on our back porch had just recently begun to look healthy and good, I figured this’d be a fun one to try. It was a good call, because this drink is really good! The fresh taste of the basil, mixed with the lime and gin, make this a really refreshing summer cocktail. I love basil in general… I love its taste and I love its smell… basil makes me happy. So this drink, incorporating fresh basil, makes me happy too.
5 fresh basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 oz. gin
1/2 oz. triple sec
1/2 oz. lime juice
1 oz. grapefruit juice
1 basil leaf for a garnish (the original recipe calls for a slice of grapefruit as the garnish)
Muddle the basil and sugar in the bottom of your cocktail shaker until it’s like a paste, then add the rest of the ingredients and ice.
Shake well and then strain, using a fine-mesh sieve, in to a chilled cocktail glass.
(“The Art of the Bar”)
Sitarski
Again, an evening where I was a little bored of my standing drink menu, I started flipping through the pages of the very first cocktail book I ever bought, Gary Regan’s “The Bartender’s Bible”. I wanted to make a drink using dark rum in order to try the Jamaican rum my wife and I had won a couple of months ago, while on vacation, playing “Name That Tune” on a stormy day at our resort in Montego Bay. This bottle of rum holds a special place in my heart for two reasons… 1- It reminds me of one of the most fun vacations I’ve ever been on, and 2- It reminds me of the victorious, proud feeling I had when my wife and I schooled a bunch of youngsters by knowing more music from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s than they did. I always love when music comes up in trivia games, as it lights the biggest competitive fire in my belly. But I digress, that’s neither here nor there. I wanted to try the rum, and so I picked out this drink, the Sitarski. This drink’s pretty good when you’re looking for big ole drink with rum that’s easy to kick back and enjoy.
1.5 oz. dark rum
2 oz. grapefruit juice
1/2 oz. lime juice
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon simple syrup
Shake well and strain in to an old-fashioned glass filled with ice cubes.
(“The Bartender’s Bible”)
The Blue Devil
This last drink was purely made because I wanted to try a bottle of blue curacao that I’d just bought. So I flipped to another cocktail book’s index and looked under “B” for blue. Sure enough, there were 12 drinks with “blue” in the name, and 9 of them contained blue curacao. This drink’s nothing special, but if you really need a blue drink, it’s good enough.
2 oz. gin
1/2 oz. lime juice
1 tablespoon maraschino liqueur
1 teaspoon blue curacao
Shake well and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
(“The New York Bartender’s Guide”)
Back in St. Louis
Posted: June 5, 2011 Filed under: absinthe, cocktails, gin, lime juice, mixed drinks, spirits, Uncategorized | Tags: absinthe, Aviation, bitters, Blue Moon, champagne, Cherry Heering, Cherry Vodka, cocktails, creme de violette, creme yvette, Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway, Galliano, Galliano Margarita, gin, lemon juice, lime juice, Limon Sunrise, limoncello, liquor, maraschino liqueur, Margarita, Mary Pickford, Peter Heering Cherry Heering, pineapple juice, rum, tequila, The Stork Club, triple sec, Vanilia Vodka 1 Comment
It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted an update to the ole Scientist McGee’s blog… a really long time. It seems like ages in fact. Since my last post, over a month ago, I took a trip to Jamaica. It was a wonderful and restful time away from the daily grind. My wife and I stayed at an all-inclusive resort in Montego Bay… all you can eat, all you can drink. I had a lot of tropical drinks, from morning to mid-morning, to lunch, to afternoon, to dinner, to after dinner and so on… repeat for 7 days. It was great… the drinks were very nice and easy and thirst quenching… lots and lots of Tequila Sunrises and an occassional Margarita thrown in there, amongst random others like the Bob Marley, Rum Punch, Pina Colata, etc. I even got some classic drinks mixed in as well, like a Rusty Nail, a Harvey Wallbanger, a Manhattan, etc. The people in Jamaica are amongst the nicest I’ve ever met, and the bartenders were no exception. They were happy to oblige and make a few drinks for me that weren’t on the menu because you can only take so much rum and tropical drinks after a few days. I even tried a new drink that I’d read about in the book I brought along to read on the beach. (Which reminds me… I’ve added a new piece to the side bar of my blog, on the right-hand side… It’s a list of books that I own or have read, and a brief rating of what I thought of them… check it out. And if you have any recommendations for me, please let me know.) The book I read on the beach was called “The Little Green Book of Absinthe”, and as the title suggests, it’s a book dedicated entirely to Absinthe. Pretty fun read, with little anecdotes, quotes and tales of the history of Absinthe. I was even happier to notice that the bartenders at the resort had in fact a bottle of Pernod behind the bar. A lot of the drinks in the book had too unusual of ingredients for me to order them, but one in particular struck my fancy on the 5th day of our stay. My wife had gotten hooked on Mimosas while we were there, and so I thought that the “Death in the Afternoon” cocktail sounded like a perfect companion to hers.
A “Death in the Afternoon” was a classic Ernest Hemingway drink and is…
1/2 oz. Absinthe
4.5 oz champagne
Stir together in a champagne flute.
(recipe from “The Little Green Book of Absinthe”)
And now for all the different drinks I’ve tried since my last post, in no particular order…
“Aviation” (w/ creme de violette)
Shortly after a post of mine a couple back, called “Trips back and forth to the booze merchant…”, in which I had just recently acquired some maraschino liqueur, I got a great tip from a reader who recommended me trying it with some Creme de Violette (some times referred to as Creme Yvette). Thank you to him, because it’s a great addition and a serious twist on the drink itself! As you might imagine, the creme de violette is very floral and a very strong flavor… a little added to a drink goes a long way, and definitely “blues” up the color of the drink, which is kind of fun. In the Aviation, it definitely adds another dimension. In this drink, using only 1/4 ounce is nice as then it’s somewhat subtle, as opposed to its strong presence in the “Blue Moon” coming up next.
2 oz gin
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz maraschino liqueur
1/4 oz creme de violette
Shake well and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
“Blue Moon”
Fresh in to my creme de violette kick, I attended a wonderful wedding reception with a very nice open bar and I spotted a bottle of the creme de violette behind the bar… but no maraschino liqueur. I asked the bartender what he’d recommend for the creme de violette, and he made me a “Blue Moon”. Pretty great drink, I must say. The violet melds wonderfully with the lemon, and it seems to almost bond with and transform the gin. It’s a drink of 3 really good flavors working really well together. Each flavor seems very clear and distinct, but also blend nicely to make an overall flavor greater than the sum of its parts.
2 oz gin
1/2 oz creme de violette
1/2 oz lemon juice
Shake well and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
“Mary Pickford”
This drink was one I found in the book “The Cocktail Hour”, which is a book celebrating the old fashioned drinks and their history, and I wound up really liking this one. It’s a great summertime drink. It’s sweet & refreshing without being “candy sweet”, due in large part to the nutty element of the maraschino liqueur. The recipe looks very simple, but its taste is surprisingly complex… again, thanks in large part to the maraschino liqueur, which leads me to my revelation that – the maraschino liqueur is king! (in my book anyway)
2 oz light rum
2 oz pineapple juice
1 t maraschino liqueur
1 t grenadine
Shake well and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
(recipe from “The Cocktail Hour”)
“The Stork Club”
Another drink I grabbed from this same book was “The Stork Club”, named after a famed nightclub in New York. I didn’t care much for this drink, and after this one and “The Bronx Cocktail” from my last post, I’ve decided that I don’t care for the gin and orange juice combo in drinks. It tastes like watered down OJ to me, and similar to Tang… which is never good in my opinion. Oh well. The lime juice made it a little better, but still the gin and OJ combo tastes flat & hollow to me, leaving me wanting something more.
1.5 oz gin
1/2 oz triple sec
1/4 oz lime juice
1 oz orange juice
Dash of Angostura bitters
Shake well and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
(recipe from “The Cocktail Hour”)
“Cherry Vodka”
I made this drink on a whim because I wanted to try a new drink using Cherry Heering. I found this one online, and I did not like it. But full disclosure, I don’t like vodka (as you may have noticed, there are very few vodka drinks in any of my posts). Since vodka doesn’t have much of a taste, this drink tasted like I was drinking just lime juice with some Cherry Heering, and a noticeable “hole of nothingness” where the vodka was. I won’t be making this one again ever.
1.5 oz vodka
3/4 oz lime juice
1/2 oz Cherry Heering
Shake well and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass.
“Galliano Margarita”
I bought my first bottle of Galliano yesterday (along with 2 new glasses, pictured here)! To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from the Galliano, as I was sort of just buying it because my wife likes “Harvey Wallbanger” drinks, so I bought a half-bottle (375 ml). But boy was I in for a very pleasant surprise! I love it! I was under the wrong impression that Galliano was strictly a vanilla liqueur. I hadn’t realized how it has quite a bit of an herbal undertone as well, and a strong anise secondary flavor too. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed this on the prior occassion when I had tried it before, but I hadn’t. I have to say, I think that Galliano is very good indeed. Plus I lucked out by stumbling upon a recipe for a drink that I just loved. When I brought the bottle home, I didn’t want to just make another Harvey Wallbanger, so I looked online for what I could make and figured I’d give a Galliano Margarita a shot. What the hell, eh? It was around 95 degrees out, so perfect, right? Oh my, what a treat! What a good drink! I highly recommend this to everyone.
1 oz tequila
1 oz Galliano
1/2 oz lime juice
Shake well and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass. Salt rim.
(As you can tell from the picture, I wasn’t in the mood for a salted rim.)
“Limon Sunrise”
And last but definitely not least, is a drink I looked up also online when I found myself reminiscing about the endless Tequila Sunrises in Jamaica and also re-discovered a bottle of limoncello I’d forgotten we had in our house. This one’s a very fun drink for the summer time. Very refreshing and the orange & lemon combo is very good.
1 oz limoncello
3 oz orange juice
Splash of grenadine
Fill a highball-sized glass with ice, and build the limoncello, followed by the orange juice, and then add the grenadine.
Goin’ on down to New Orleans… in my mind
Posted: April 2, 2011 Filed under: absinthe, bitters, cocktails, Dry Vermouth, Food and drink, garnish, Havana, lemon peel, lime juice, liquor, Manhattan, maraschino cherry, Martini, mixology, orange juice, Peychaud's bitters, rye whiskey, Sazerac, simple syrup, spirits, sugar cube, Sweet Vermouth, tequila, Tequila Sunrise, Uncategorized, Vermouth, whiskey | Tags: absinthe, bitters, cocktails, Havana, liquor, Manhattan, Martini, rye whiskey, Sazerac, simple syrup, tequila, vermouth, whiskey 3 CommentsHey everybody,
I’m back with a short blurb about cocktails in my home in the months of March and April.
Baseball’s back, and that means that the weather in St. Louis is warming up. With hotter weather, that usually means lighter drinks, so that’s what I’ve been having a little more of these days. Just a “little more of” though, because I really tend to enjoy whiskey on a regular basis much more than say gin or tequila. But it’s hard not to crave some lighter, more refreshing drinks in the spring & summer time, so I’ve been making some easy-to-make tequila drinks on a warmer spring evenings – the Havana and the Tequila Sunrise drinks. I’m sure my taste for lighter drinks will only increase as the weather in town becomes swelteringly hot and unbearably humid.
Also, I’m posting here some very basic cocktail recipes for 2 of the most classic cocktails of all time… the Manhattan and the Martini. These two classics are such staples that I’ve neglected to post anything about them up to this point, I think. So I’m honoring them with a little attention and a little of the spotlight, for good measure. They are, after all, 2 of my favorite, go-to drinks. When I don’t want to mess around, and I don’t want to think too much, and I want to just go for an easy-to-make drink that can’t go wrong… these are the drinks. They’re perfectly simple. When I’m in the mood for whiskey, it’s the Manhattan (even though, half the time I’ll make the drink’s variation, a Dry Manhattan with dry vermouth and lemon, and the other half of the time, I’ll go for the classic Manhattan); and when I’m in the mood for gin, it’s the Martini. Both of these classic cocktails showcase the base spirit so perfectly and clearly, without having to drink either of the base spirits straight. Vermouth plays the role of the red carpet in both drinks so perfectly, and lets the stars of the drinks shine through.
And last, but not least, I’m offering up a recipe for a drink that I’ve not yet tried, but I will be trying at some point this weekend. I tend to get very intrigued by cocktails with a good history behind them. Ever since I started enjoying making cocktails and reading about them, I’ve been intrigued by one called the Sazerac. The Sazerac is apparently one of the first important cocktails. It’s a signature drink of the great city of New Orleans. It was created in the 1860’s and was originally made with cognac as its base. Over time however, rye whiskey gained in popularity as cognac’s popularity with the public decreased, and now the Sazerac is a rye whiskey drink. I think another reason I became intrigued and obsessed with trying this drink is the fact that it contains absinthe, and so it seemed to me that it’d probably be a while before I could make this drink myself, since absinthe’s pretty darn expensive. However, it dawned on me this morning that my spirits store, Friar Tuck, sells miniature “sampling” bottles of many liquors, a couple of which I think were bottles of absinthe! So, I’m going today to get get a little bottle for around $6.00 I think. This is actually perfect too, because I’m really only buying the absinthe for this drink, and this drink only calls for enough absinthe to coat the inside of the glass. So this tiny little bottle should last quite a while for the purpose of making Sazeracs. Another item I need to pick up at the store today is a bottle of Peychaud’s bitters. The Sazerac recipe calls for specifically Peychaud’s brand of bitters. Apparently, Antoine Peychaud was a Pharmacist in New Orleans and he concocted this special blend of spices and botanicals, and using his bitters, his pharmacy was actually the birthplace of the Sazerac cocktail. (His pharmacy seems alot better than my local Walgreens… The closest thing I can get to a Sazerac at my modern pharmacy is Four Loco. Actually, I guess Four Loco is a good modern equivalent though to a drink that contains absinthe, since both Four Loco and Absinthe have reputations for seriously harming one’s physical health and possibly killing you, but I digress…) Anyways, that’s my objective today… to purchase the Peychaud’s bitters, a little bottle of absinthe, and a lemon, and be on my way to trying a Sazerac for the first time this weekend.
Without any further ado… Here’s recipes and photos of the 5 cocktails discussed above:
“Havana”
1.5 oz rum
3/4 oz triple sec
1/2 oz lime juice
1/4 oz simple syrup
A splash of orange juice (I actually enjoy about a full 1 oz of orange juice)
A dash of orange bitters
Shake well and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass (Optional: coat the rim of the glass with sugar)
http://www.theartofthebar.com/html/index.html
“Tequila Sunrise”
This drink is really easy to drink… it’s really easy to make and it’s really refreshing and tasty, and it looks really pretty too! My wife loves it, and I agree. It’s just a really fun, easy drink, that’s really tasty.
1.5 oz blanco tequila
4 oz orange juice
3/4 oz grenadine
Fill a highball glass (I prefer to use a good sized white wine glass, like the one pictured) with ice, and build (no stirring/shaking necessary) the tequila, followed by the orange juice, and then lastly pour the grenadine slowly through the drink to create the “sunrise” look. Lovely!
http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Cocktail-Mixing-Perfect-Drinks/dp/0307405737
“The Manhattan”
2 oz whiskey
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
3 dashes of bitters (I prefer Fee Brothers’ Cherry Bitters in my Manhattan, from time to time)
1 maraschino cherry for garnish
Stir the whiskey, vermouth and bitters with ice, and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass
“The Martini”
There’s a million variations on how to make a Martini… this is my preferred recipe:
2.5 oz gin
1/2 oz dry vermouth
1 or 3 olives for garnish
Stir the gin and vermouth with ice, and strain in to a chilled cocktail glass
Most people remember James Bond ordering his martini “shaken, not stirred”. However, the general rule is that a bar tender stirs drinks with ice when all of the ingredients are alcohol based, and shakes drinks when the recipe includes fruit juices and other non-alcoholic ingredients. So, the general rule is that a Manhattan and Martini should always be stirred to mix with ice, rather than shaken. However, there is no right way and wrong way to drink… One should do whatever they want to get the drink however they like it. I’ll stir a Manhattan and Martini 95% of the time, but every now and then, I do tend to enjoy the frothier texture one gets by shaking a drink as a result of small ice chips breaking up in the shaking process. So once in a blue moon, I will in fact shake the martini. You can kind of see the difference in the picture below of a shaken Martini – it’s not quite as clear as the picture of a properly stirred Martini above.
(Martini, shaken)
And last, but not least, here’s the recipe of my next adventure… the Sazerac! We’ll see if it lives up to the hype.
“Sazerac”
(no photo yet)
1 sugar cube
3-5 dashes of Peychaud’s bitters
2 oz rye whiskey
Splash of absinthe
lemon peel for garnish
Combine the sugar and the bitters, and muddle to dissolve the sugar. Add the rye and some ice, and stir gently to combine. Take the chilled serving glass and add a splash of absinthe… Swirl the absinthe around to just coat the inside of the glass, and then pour out the excess absinthe. Strain the chilled rye, sugar and bitters in to this prepared glass. If you’re a purist, rub the rim of the glass with the lemon peel, and then discard. If you’re not a purist, twist the lemon peel over the top, or rub the rim, and drop it in to the drink for a garnish. (This recipe is a combination of 2 slightly different recipes from 2 different sources – see references below)
http://www.theartofthebar.com/html/index.html and http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Cocktail-Mixing-Perfect-Drinks/dp/0307405737
