Two At The Most

Believe it or not, I still have a little bit of my bottle of Swedish Punsch left. Tonight I decided to find a recipe to appreciate it. I hit a real prize with the Pooh Bah cocktail.

Pooh Bah Cocktail

3/4 oz gin (Bombay)
3/4 oz light rum (Flor de Caña 4 year Extra Dry
3/4 oz Swedish punsch (Carlshamns Flaggpunsch)
1/4 oz apricot brandy (Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot)

stir over ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass, sip with a smile.

This is really a delightful cocktail. Yes, it’s a sweet cocktail, but not overpoweringly so. In this case the … Continue Reading

One of the real joys of cocktails as a hobby is comparing recipes and discovering what you like best.

Last time I wrote about the Blinker, I used a recipe that called for 2 parts bourbon, 1 part grapefruit juice, and 1 part grenadine. Before trying the recipe, I worried that the grenadine would be too much at that level, but was happy that the sweetness balanced the grapefruit in a way that convinced grapefruit-phobic people that it could be used to good effect.

This time, I decided to try using rye, and dial down on the … Continue Reading

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 … Continue Reading

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 … Continue Reading

By modern standards, the Astoria is a very wet martini. I was telling the owner/bartender of the Three Lions Pub that the Astoria was my current favorite take on the martini, and he nearly fainted when I told him it was a 2:1 gin to vermouth ratio. He makes his martinis by rinsing the glass with vermouth and then shaking the gin separately over ice.

I’ve been experimenting with different gins in the Astoria. I had been using Vya extra dry vermouth, although I find it a little too spicy and, well, dry. Using … Continue Reading

I’ve had my eye on Magellan Gin for a while. Something about that ethereal blue tinge in the nicely decorated bottle. When I saw my local store had a gift pack with an attractive, hand-painted glass, I decided to finally give it a try.

Magellan is made in France from wheat. It is triple distilled with juniper, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, grains of paradise, licorice, cinnamon, coriander, orange peel, cassia, and iris. According to Magellan’s web site, there is then a “fourth distillation,” which sounds more like an infusion, when additional iris root and iris flower are added to give Magellan … Continue Reading

Here in the United States, we have a day for everything. There’s a national pound cake day, national pecan day, and even something on a stick day.

August 16 particularly appeals to me because it’s National Rum Day. Just how this designation was set I haven’t been able to ascertain, but who cares? It’s an excuse to make a delicious rum cocktail!

One of my favorite rum-based drinks is the El Presidente. I first discovered it in Wayne Curtis’s article … Continue Reading

When Kevin Kelpe at Save the Drinkers announced that August’s Mixology Monday would be about local flavor, I knew I’d have to come to terms with the blackberry, my great summertime foe.

In the Seattle area, we are overrun by the Himalayan wild blackberry, considered an invasive weed. When I ride in the summer, I wear chaps to protect my legs from the thorny vines I swear I can see growing, … Continue Reading

Attention! It was on this day in 1970 that the British Royal Navy discontinued the centuries old tradition of providing a daily rum ration, or “tot,” to its sailors.

In rememberance of Black Tot Day, let us all raise a glass of grog:

Grog

2 ounces water
1 ounce Jamaican rum (Pusser’s)
1/2 ounce lime juice
1 tablespoon raw sugar

shake over ice, strain into a rocks glass full of ice.

If this was once part of my compensation and it was taken away, I’d be pretty darned upset!

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…. Continue Reading