Two At The Most » Absinthe

Death in the South Pacific

Stevi — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:25:38 +0000

The theme for this year’s official cocktail contest for Tales of the Cocktail was “Punch It Up.” Entrants were invited to submit a cocktail based on the Planter’s Punch recipe. Today the winner was announced, and I was excited to learn it was Evan Martin’s Death in the South Pacific.

Death in the South Pacific

Death in the South Pacific

0.75 oz. Appleton Estate Extra 12 Year Old rum
0.75 oz. Rhum Clement VSOP rum
0.5 oz. Grand Marnier
0.33 oz. Trader Tiki’s Orgeat Syrup
0.33 oz. Fee Brothers Falernum
3 dashes Absinthe
0.5 oz. Fresh Lime Juice
0.5 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice
0.5 oz. Fee Brothers Grenadine
0.5 oz. Cruzan Blackstrap rum

Add all ingredients except for the grenadine and Cruzan Blackstrap to a Zombie shell glass and fill with crushed ice. Swizzle the drink well to mix and frost the glass and then pour in grenadine. Overfill the glass with crushed ice and then pour in Cruzan Blackstrap.

Garnish:
Take a bamboo skewer and put a brandied cherry through at the very top followed by 1 pineapple leaf (insert through the middle) and then cut off skin from 1 large orange slice and then cut the strips in half. Insert the ends through the skewer having them hang on opposite sides of each other. Then insert the straw through the loop in the bamboo skewer. It should look like a guy hanging off of the drink (cherry=head, pineapple leaf= arms, citrus peel dangling away from each other are the legs)

Evan is a great bartender, and I consider myself lucky that he’s at Naga Cocktail Lounge at Chantanee Thai in Bellevue. Even better, it’s a fantastic drink. He made it for me right after the finalists were announced, and I have to say, I’m not surprised it won. Evan did a great job of creating an accessible, easy-to-drink cocktail that is still complex and rich. He combined a Zombie and Death in the Afternoon to come up with a great tiki cocktail.

As you can see from the photo, I didn’t get the full dead guy garnish. But I did get a very delicious drink, and I’m sure I’ll have a few more over at Naga between now and Tales.

If you’re in the Seattle area, be sure to drop in to Naga to congratulate Evan Martin, and then put him to work making you one to try!

Pacific Distillery Dinner at Prohibition Grille

MxMo XLVI: Absinthe — The Atlantic

Stevi — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:05:51 +0000

This month’s Mixology Monday is hosted by Sonja Kassebaum over at Thinking of Drinking. In addition to running a fine boutique distillery, North Shore, with her husband, Sonja is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.

This month she’s chosen the topic that’s near and dear to my heart:

The topic for February is Absinthe. That much maligned, misunderstood, mistreated spirit, suddenly plentiful again in the US and other parts of the world. Absinthe played a role, whether large or small, in a variety of great cocktails from the 1800’s and early 1900’s – the Sazerac, Absinthe Suissesse, Corpse Reviver No. 2… I’m getting thirsty. So let’s celebrate absinthe’s history, and its future, with all manner of cocktails using absinthe.

Atlantic Cocktail

I seriously thought about just writing up the absinthe drip for this month, as that’s my favorite way to enjoy the liquor. I decided instead to hunt for a new cocktail that shows off how little absinthe it takes to transform a dull collection of ingredients into a fantastic drink.

I stumbled upon the Atlantic on the CocktailDB, which gives credit for its creation to “H. Losappio.” I searched through all my cocktail books, and have not yet found another reference for it.

Atlantic Cocktail

1 ounce gin (Voyager)
1 ounce white rum (Ron Matusalem Platino)
0.75 ounce Cointreau
2 dashes absinthe (Pacifique)

Stir over ice until cold as the North Atlantic and strain into cocktail glass.

If you shake it, it becomes a White Lily, which I find listed in several other online cocktail databases, but also find no hint of in any of my cocktail books. This is an all clear spirits drink, so naturally, I opted to stir. The high amounts of liqueur gives it a mysterious lightly cloudy look that goes well with the name.

The original recipe calls for equal parts gin, rum, and Cointreau, and only one dash of absinthe. I found that a tad too sweet. Dialing back the Cointreau makes for a much drier drink I’m tempted to call the North Atlantic.

When making this, I mixed everything but the absinthe and stirred until properly chilled and took a taste. It was an ok, if uninteresting cocktail.

Adding one dash of absinthe really brought the gin and rum flavors out. Adding one more dash let the absinthe play in the background with hints of anise. I chose to use Pacific Distillery’s Voyager gin and Pacifique absinthe, which naturally pair well together, as the gin uses many of the same botanicals as the absinthe.

The Atlantic is a great example of how it takes just a little absinthe to bring a cocktail to life.

Thanks, Sonja, for a great topic. Be sure to drop by Thinking of Drinking to see the complete MxMo round-up!

Gloom Raiser

Stevi — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:00:29 +0000

I was paging through the delightful Barflies and Cocktails by Harry McElhone, one of the wonderful reprints by Mud Puddle Books. Amongst all the wonderful illustrations by Wynn Holcomb, I found a variation on the martini that was new to me.

Gloom Raiser

Gloom Raiser

1.5 ounces London dry gin
0.75 ounces dry vermouth
2 dashes absinthe (I prefer a white over verte here)
2 dashes grenadine

stir and strain into cocktail glass, garnish with lemon twist.

This is a great variation to my tastes. It takes the venerable dry martini and adds just enough absinthe for that wonderful anise scent and a hint of taste, and just enough grenadine for just a little sweetness.

I tried this with both a blanche (Kubler) and verte (Pacifique) absinthe, and found the blanche worked a bit better. The Kubler brought a great balance while the Pacifique, even at just 2 dashes, wanted to assert itself too strongly in this mix.

In the spirit of Harry’s New York bar, still located at 5 Rue Daonou in Paris, I used Citadelle, a French-made gin.

This cocktail is another great example of how just a little bit of a strong ingredient can change a cocktail for the better.

Obsello Abinthe Verte

Stevi — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:03:14 +0000

Lately I have received an embarrassment of riches in terms of sample bottles of absinthe. One of those I was most excited to receive was Obsello, a Spanish verte.

Obsello Absinthe Verte

Obsello is an absenta, which is the Spanish word for absinthe. Absentas are known to be slightly sweeter than the traditional French style. They also tend to have a distinctive citrus note to their flavor profile and are flavored with melissa (lemon balm), higher levels of star anise, and coriander.

Obsello is made with grape neutral spirits produced from grapes grown in the Penedès region of Spain. Eight herbs, including grande wormwood, melissa, star anise, coriander, and mint, are added to the copper alembic stills used to make this absinthe. The final product comes in at 100 proof (50% ABV), which while stronger than most base spirits, is actually quite mild for an absinthe.

Obsello is bottled in a black champagne bottle. After corking, it is dipped in black wax. And this is a pretty successful sealing mechanism. It took me quite a while to pry the wax off.

The absinthe itself is a very pale green, almost more yellow than green. It is very pleasant on the nose, with slight hints of anise and mint. Straight, it has a very balanced set of flavors, with none predominating.

It louches quite quickly. A 4:1 water to absinthe ratio with just a dash of simple syrup works very well, although sometimes I dispense with the sugar altogether. With water, the scent opens up. On the tongue, this is a milder absinthe. The anise flavor is there, but not highly dominant, making this an excellent introductory absinthe. The mint is also there, with the mild citrus. Wormwood plays quietly in the background. I can’t pick out the coriander. The aftertaste is surprisingly mild, althought the tongue does get that pleasant absinthe numbness.

One of my favorite absinthe cocktails is the Death in the Afternoon. What’s not to love? Contributed by Ernest Hemingway to a 1935 celebrity recipe collection, he advised “Drink three to five of these slowly.”

Death in the Afternoon

1 oz absinthe (Obsello Absinthe Verte)
5 oz champagne

Build in champagne glass and enjoy on a languid afternoon.

I find the Death in the Afternoon an excellent, slow slipping cocktail, and the relative mildness of the Obsello works well here.

Quality absinthes tend to be expensive in comparison to other liquors, but given that I rarely use more than 1 ounce at a time, that’s fine for me. The list price for Obsello is $60, and in comparison to other absinthes, I think this is a fair price. This is a well crafted product that I quite enjoy.

What’s your favorite absinthe cocktail?

Port of Barcelona Gin

Bluecoat Gin and the Corpse Reviver No. 2a

Stevi — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 01:41:12 +0000

It’s definitely a fun time to be a gin lover in the US. Several distillers across the country are producing new, exciting gins. I’ve tried most of the West Coast contenders, but my latest acquisition comes to us from Philadelphia: Bluecoat American Dry Gin.

Corpse Reviver No. 2a

The distiller tells us they use a handmade copper pot still, using a slow heating process in their five batch distillations to maximize separation to reduce impurities. They use a secret blend of botanicals, including, of course, juniper berries and citrus peels.

On first scent, this is a very clean gin, perhaps the least aggressively aromatic I’ve tried recently.

I have to admit, I didn’t really enjoy it straight, but then, I don’t drink gin straight, so this wasn’t a huge setback. It does have a nice feel on the tongue, but I couldn’t quite place what flavor was disagreeing with me.

The first drink I tried with Bluecoat was the Astoria. With Martini and Rossi Bianco, this was a very nice cocktail; I think I like it even better than with Junipero. Next I tried a Martinez. While it wasn’t my favorite Martinez of all time, it was very enjoyable.

Tonight, I decided I would give the Corpse Reviver No. 2a a try. After reading about it over at the Underhill-Lounge, I suspected I’d really enjoy this use of my Swedish Punsch. And I was not disappointed. The Swedish Punch and lemon juice work really well together, softened by the Cointreau. Bluecoat gives a nice background accompaniment that accentuates the Swedish Punsch flavors. As always, the dash of absinthe is just enough to punch up the drink without distracting from the other flavors.

Corpse Reviver No. 2a

3/4 oz gin (Bluecoat American Dry gin)
3/4 oz Swedish punsch (Carlshamns Flaggpunsch)
3/4 oz Cointreau
3/4 oz lemon juice
1 dash absinthe (Lucid)

shake over ice, strain into cocktail glass

I’m looking forward to more experimentation with Bluecoat. To my palate, it’s a quality product that will work well in most dry gin cocktails.

MxMo XXXI: 19th Century Cocktails — Plain, Fancy, and Improved Gin Cocktail

Stevi — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 03:08:40 +0000

Another month, another Mixology Monday! This month, the theme, courtesy of Bibulo.us, is 19th Century Cocktails. I’ve been joking with the crowd over at the Mixoloseum that we all need to claim our page in Imbibe! and go from there. I decided to be greedy and take several.

As a long time gin fancier, I’ve been frustrated by my inability to get a taste of genever. For those who don’t know, genever is the source liquor for gin. Made in Holland, it was made predominantly from malted grain, resulting in a sweeter, heavier product than we find in the modern London dry style.

Plain (front), Fancy (left), and Improved (rear right) Gin Cocktails

In the 19th century, genever was the dominant style of gin, especially as London dry wasn’t developed until the later half of the century. Genever fell out of style in the United States with the rise of the popularity of dry vermouth as a mixer; genever doesn’t work as well in the lighter, drier style of cocktail that became the fashion in the 1890s and later.

Until recently, this presented a problem for the modern US-based cocktail geek. Genever has had very limited distribution in the US. For those of us where that means no distribution, it’s either wait for someone to bring a bottle back, or hope for a change.

And change is coming! One example is the new product, Genevieve, from Anchor Distilling. Using the same botanical blend they use in their excellent Junipero, they’ve started distributing this new genever-style gin.

Which gives me the chance to finally try some gin cocktails in the style Jerry Thomas would be used to. I thought I’d compare the plain, fancy, and improved gin cocktails, as described by David Wondrich in Imbibe!.

The Jerry Thomas recipes call for Boker’s bitters, which I haven’t tried to recreate. I decided I’d use Peychaud’s in all three. Also, I don’t have any gum arabic to make a proper gomme syrup. As many comments focus on the toothiness that gomme syrup brings to the drink, I decided to use agave nectar as the sweetner, as I find that brings an enhanced mouthfeel over simple syrup.

Plain Gin Cocktail

2 oz genever-style gin (Genevieve)
1 tsp gomme syrup or agave nectar
2 dashes bitters (Peychaud’s)

stir ingredients over ice, strain into cocktail glass, twist lemon peel over glass and throw away.

This is an enjoyable drink, if a little plain. The maltiness of the Genevieve really plays through, as well as the botanicals.

Fancy Gin Cocktail

2 oz genever-style gin (Genevieve)
1/2 tsp curaçao (Harlequin orange liqueur)
1 tsp gomme syrup or agave nectar
2 dashes bitters (Peychaud’s)

stir ingredients over ice, strain into cocktail glass, twist lemon peel over glass, moisten rim with peel, and throw into glass.

As always, it’s very instructive to see how little of an ingredient can make a huge difference. I really like the depth the curaçao brings to the drink, as compared to the plain version.

Improved Gin Cocktail

2 oz genever-style gin (Genevieve)
1/2 tsp. Maraschino liqueur (Luxardo)
1 dash absinthe (Lucid)
1 tsp gomme syrup or agave nectar
2 dashes bitters (Peychaud’s)

stir ingredients over ice, strain into cocktail glass, twist lemon peel over glass, moisten rim with peel, and throw into glass.

This is quite a busy cocktail. The maraschino funkiness is there, but to my palate, it competes with the Genevieve rather than complimenting it. I’m not quite sure the absinthe brings much to the party either.

I’m definitely eager to try the fancy and improve versions again, starting with different bitters. And as soon as I can get my hands on some real Dutch genevers, I’ll get to know how close the Genevieve is to the real thing.

This was definitely an enjoyable experiment for me. Be sure to check back with Bibulo.us to see the rest of the round-up.

MxMo XXIX: New Orleans — Absinthe Suissesse

Stevi — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:07:00 +0000

It’s been torture this week, reading all the posts from everybody enjoying Tales of the Cocktail. To salve the wounds, I’ve been doing research for this month’s Mixology Monday, hosted by Paul Clarke. For those of us that didn’t make the great NOLA party, he challanged: mix up a cocktail that either originated in or is inspired by New Orleans.

I started with several favorite New Orleans classics, especially Sazeracs, Vieux C arrés, and Cocktails à la Louisiane.
One thing I noticed is how much I’m enjoying that little something extra that the small dashes and rinses of absinthe bring to these drinks. I decided that it might be time to try a proper absinthe cocktail in the spirit of New Orleans. Naturally, Chuck Taggart came to the rescue in his first day summary, where he details the Absinthe Suissesse. At first read, it sounded almost like an absinthe version of a Ramos Gin Fizz, and I love the Ramos Gin Fizz, so I was eager to try.

For my first round, I generally followed Chuck’s recipe, including the optional dash of orange flower water. But I shook the drink using cubed ice, not crushed, and strained it into an old fashioned glass. I gave an initial dry shake, as is my wont for drinks with egg whites, then shook for 15 seconds as suggested. Here the recipes for the Absinthe Suissesse to vary from the Ramos Gin Fizz, in that the goal doesn’t seem to be the meringue-style foam on top; the egg white is there mostly for body.

This was a very enjoyable drink. I’d recommend it as a first absinthe cocktail for anyone who, like me, is still afraid of the green fairy. The cream and egg really soften the anise flavor, making it very mellow indeed. The orgeat plays nicely – it provides a nice dose of sweetness. I suspect it’s far more complimentary that straight simple syrup would be. I did find one recipe variation that used sugar instead, and decided that just wasn’t meant to be.

In searching for recipes, and deciding whether to try the crème de menthe version that Chuck so strongly recommends against, I stumbled across a page of recipes from the Old Absinthe House, including their Absinthe Suissesse recipe. Their recipe is very similar, although it uses the whole egg, and milk instead of cream. For my next round, I decided I’d give the whole egg a try, and use the blender this time.

I think the result is an excellent variation. The whole egg gives the drink a lot more roundness. It’s a more pronouncedly complex drink, with the absinthe coming in after the round smoothness of the dairy and egg to remind you, hey, I am a cocktail made with 124 proof liquor!

Absinthe Suissesse

1 1/2 oz Absinthe (Lucid)
1/2 oz orgeat
1 egg
1 dash orange flower water
2 oz heavy cream
4 oz ice (crushed for shaking or cubed for blender)

blend or shake until frothy, serve in old fashioned glass (up or strained, your preference)

Apparently this is recommended as a great morning hangover cure; I’ll let you know if I ever dare to try it as such. In the meantime, I’ll be waiting for the roundup by our host over at the The Cocktail Chronicles.