Science Of Drink

The extremely positive experience of exploring of Bloody Mary Cocktail inspire me to try some similar cocktail with another nutritious component. Two present cocktail – the Bull Shot and Bloody Bull – contains beef broth and I think it is very interesting.

Bull Shot

45 ml vodka
1 bsp. fresh orange juice
1 dash fresh lemon juice
2 dash Tabasco sauce
pinch of salt
pinch of freshly ground black pepper
120 ml beef broth
Shake all ingredients with a lot of ice and strain into tall glass. Garnish with an orange peel.

Some recipe of Bull Shot prescribe Worcestershire sauce. But I decide to omit it.

The Bull Shot Cocktail has piquant and spicy taste. I think that it is great anti-hangover stuff. Next cocktail in the beef topic is Bloody Bull.

Bloody Bull

45 ml vodka
1 bsp. fresh orange juice
1 dash fresh lemon juice
2 dash Tabasco sauce
pinch of salt
pinch of freshly ground black pepper
60 ml tomato juice
60 ml beef broth
Shake all ingredients with a lot of ice and strain into tall glass. Garnish with an orange peel.

The taste of Bloody Bull Cocktail is so similar to Bloody Mary but with meat taste. It is very interesting drink.

The Bloody Mary Cocktail is one of the most famous and most consumable cocktail in the world. It is great pick-me-up and anti-hang-over remedy. The key of this mix is a sauce. Two old and famous sauce – the Tabasco and the Worcestershire make Bloody Mary Bloody Mary.

Bloody Mary Cocktail has interesting and so unklear story. The common version say that this cocktail was invented in Paris Harry`s American Bar by Fernand “Pete” Petiot in 1920-s. Some people suggest that first cocktail with tomato juice and vodka was prepared by George Jessel but Petiot only improved this drink. Interesting article about this problem you may read at the great blog – Bourbon George (Thinking Bartender, or George Sinclair).

The original garnish of the Bloody Mary Cocktail with selery stalk also has own unclear story. This garnish was incidentally invented by unknown quest of Pump Room Bar, Ambassador Hotel, Chicago under 1960-s.

For my first real Bloody Mary Cocktail I use recipe from one of my favorite cocktail book – The Craft of the Cocktail by Dale DeGroff:

Bloody Mary

45 ml vodka
2 dash Worcestershire sauce
4 dash Tabasco sauce
pinch of salt
pinch of freshly ground black pepper
15 ml fresh lemon juice
120 ml tomato juice
Add all ingrdients of mixing glass. Add ice and than rolling mixture. Pour into highball glass with several ice-cubes. Garnish with selery stalk as swizzle-stick (optional) and lemon or lime wedge.

The amount of the Tabasco sauce is very variable. My choice is about two dash of Tabasco for my Bloody Mary Cocktail. Also I prefer to decrease amount of Worcestershire sauce to 1 dash.

The Bloody Mary Cocktail has delicious spicy taste. It is awesome drink and it is very nutritious. Great choice for supper.

Next we explore Russian variation of Bloody Mary Cocktail – the Bloody Mary Shooter.

Bloody Mary Shooter

30 ml vodka
30 ml spicy tomato mix
Pour first tomato mix and than layer vodka into shooter glass with spicy rim.

To make spicy tomato mix you should mix tomato juice, lemon juice, Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt, freshly ground black pepper, optional – horseradish, while olives or whatever else you like to put in your Bloody Mary.

For spicy rim you should make mix with teaspoon of salt, dash of freshly ground black pepper, ground red pepper and pinch of celery seeds or caraway seeds. Then moisture the rim of the shooter glass with a lime or lemon wedge and dip it into the mix.

Actually this shooter is great way of drink vodka. This cocktail has awesome look and very balanced taste of strength vodka and sweet and spicy tomato mix.

And finally we explore one of the modern version of canonical Bloody Mary Cocktail – the Inside Out Bloody Mary – martini style cocktail created by Kim Haasarud (founder of the Liquid Architecture and author of several book about cocktails – “101 … (Margaritas, Martinis, Sangrias etc.)”)

Inside Out Bloody Mary

3 to 4 spicy Mary cube
60 ml pepper (or citrus) vodka
dash lemon juice
Shake vodka and juice. Straint into cocktail glass with spicy mary cubes. Garnish with small celery stalk, speared red chile pepper (optional).

To make spicy Mary cubes pour the spicy tomato mix into ice trays. Place the trays in the freezer and let sit until cubes are frozen.

The Inside Out Bloody Mary Cocktail has strong and spicy taste of vodka. After melting of spicy cubes its taste is so similar to original Bloody Mary Cocktail.

As the Difford`s Guide specify, the Blue Lagoon Cocktail was created by Andy MacElhone (son of legendary Harry MacElhone – the creator of White Lady, Monkey Gland and Side-car) at Harry’s New York Bar, Paris, France in 1972. Some sources specify another date of birth for this cocktail – a 1960s, when blue curacao liqueur was launched at european market by BOLS.

Common recipe for Blue Lagoon Cocktail specify vodka (as main alkohol), blue curacao liqueur (as sweetener) and lemonade (as deluent). The most abstruse component of this cocktail is lemonade, actually. I have three ways to avoid this difficulty.

1. Using of the home-made Lemonade.

It is more correct solution. You may cook your own lemonade in such way (recipe from Cocktails and Mixed Drinks by Anthony Hogg).

Lemonade, home-made. Wash three big lemons, cut each in half and squeeze the juice. Pare off the rinds, putting them in a basin with 150 g sugar. Add 850 ml boiling water, cover and leave until cold, stirring occasionally. Then strain into a jug, add the lemon juice and chill. (I recommend to remove the white mesocarp of lemon skin before hot-water infusion. I prefer to add some soda in this concentrate before using).

Blue Lagoon

45 ml vodka
20 ml blue curacao liqueur
home-made lemonade
Build. Collins glass. Garnish with orange slice and maraschino cherry.

The Blue Lagoon Cocktail with home-made lemonade is great summer drink with interesting citrus sour-sweet taste with some bitternes of lemon peel essential oil in the palate. This is admirable drink.

2. Using different recipe.

This recipe of the Blue Lagoon Cocktail was found in the The Classic Bar & Cocktail Book by Jonathan Goodall.

Blue Lagoon

45 ml vodka
30 ml blue curacao liqueur
15 ml fresh lemon juice
soda water
Build over ice in a large goblet. Garnish with blue maraschino cherry.

This version of the Blue Lagoon Cocktail has refreshing sour-sweet and tart taste with light citrus palate. You may use some simple syrup for best sweet and sour balance in this drink.

3. Using of lemon-lime soda.

One of my favotite version of the Blue Lagoon Cocktail is drink with lemon-lime soda. This cocktail is very popular among my guests. I think it is best choice for cocktail-neophite.

Blue Lagoon

45 ml vodka
20 ml blue curacao liqueur
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
lemon-lime soda
Build. Collins glass. Garnish with orange slice and maraschino cherry.

This version of the Blue Lagoon Cocktail has so sweet and citrus taste. This drink also has great show. It is admirable drink for hot summer days, beach party or club.

Some day ago one of my favorite cocktail-blogger Dr. Bamboo posted some words about marvellous liquor – the Midori. And my cocktail-friend from St. Petersburg, Russia nabocov wrote about Melon sour (Midori-based sour). Actually it is strange thing – three blogers on one week wrote about Midori…

I explore some cocktails with the Beautiful Green Liqueur last week too. First of all I prepared one of the signature Midori cocktails – the Japanese Slipper. This cocktail was invented in 1984 by Jean-Paul Bourguignon at Mietta’s Restaurant in Melbourne. This cocktail has very strange recipe with Cointreau liqueur as main alcohol.

Japanese Slipper

25 ml Cointreau
25 ml Midori
25 ml fresh lemon juice
Shake. Pour into cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

The Japanese Slipper Cocktail has light sour-sweet fruit taste. It is good cocktail for summer or tropic beach. If you replaced cointreau with vodka you may obtain more powerfull drink.

Next my cocktail is Suntory Cocktail. Suntory, as you know, is a large japanese beverage holding, which launched Midori worldwide. This recipe was found in The Craft of the Cocktail by Dale DeGroff.

Suntory Cocktail

30 ml citrus-flavored vodka (Absolut citron)
20 ml Midori
20 ml fresh grapefruit juice
Shake. Cocktail glass.

The Suntory Cocktail has sweet candy taste with fruit-melon palate. Admirable cocktail.

The Golden Cadillac Cocktail is one of the famous after-dinner cocktail from Alexander`s family. It was invented at Poor Red`s Saloon in El Dorado, California, near Sutter`s Mill, which was Gold Rush territory, hence the name (or only half of the name :) ). It has composition similar to Alexander – spirit, liqueur, cream. Simply and very tasty. This kind of cocktail is great stuff for St. Valentine`s Day evening.

Golden Cadillac

30 ml Galliano
30 ml creme de cacao white
30 ml cream
Shake vigorously and pour in a cocktail glass.

Salvatore ‘The Maestro’ Calabrese garnish some of creamy cocktail with ground-cherry. I think that is great idea. A ground-cherry is very interesting and good-looking garnish for cocktails.

The Golden Cadillac Cocktail has sweet, creamy taste with chocolate and vanilla with a hint of spices palate. It is admirable cocktail.

My next choice for Valentine`s evening is modern Creme Brulee Martini. This recipe was found on the so interesting site – Cocktail Times. It is so rare chance to use in cocktails another interesting italian hazelnut liqueur – Frangelico.

Creme Brulee Martini

45 ml vanilla-flavored vodka
30 ml Frangelico
15 ml Cointreau
30 ml half and half
Shake. Pour in a cocktail glass and garnish with a vanilla stick.

I use Absolut Vanilla in my cocktail. The result are excellent. The Creme Brulee Martini is sweet creamy cocktail with comlex palate. It is like an ice-cream from my childhood.

Happy New Year! This beautiful holiday is excellent cause for great party with best cocktail in the world. But for party we need especial cocktail with a little festivity. Like this Finlandia Arctic Cosmo Martini!

Finlandia Arctic Cosmo Martini

50 ml vodka Finlandia Cranberry
13 ml Cointreau
5 ml cranberry juice
1 bsp. fresh lime juice
Shake. Serve in frosted cocktail glass. Garnish with lime wedge.

Strong and so sweet cocktail with crisp frosty taste. The Finlandia Arctic Cosmo Martini Cocktail is ideal celebration cocktail. It has interesting taste, great looks and it is so strong. Happy New, 2010, Year my dear readers! I wish you all the luck in the world! Sincerely yours – scomorokh.

This month MxMo hosted on Beers in the Shower. The author of this blog announce theme so interesting, but extremely elusive for me. I think “Money Drinks” is like “worth the money” drinks or “make the money” drinks… I hope I have right understanding. For this MxMo I explore one of my favorite “for my guest” cocktail – Cosmopolitan. The Cosmopolitan Cocktail is very popular modern cocktail. It has so many fans and it is a TV-star. It is really one of the most popular cocktail worldwide.

The story of this cocktail is relatively unclear, you may read some of it here (wiki) or here (webtender). My favorite Dale DeGroff in The Craft of the Cocktail and The Essential Cocktails wrote that author of Cosmopolitan is Cheryl Cook. Also he associate the Cosmopolitan with Ocean Spray cooperative and its cranberry juice.

Now we have many recipes of Cosmopolitan. The Cosmopolitan is father of big “cosmo”-family (like margarita or martini). I think that Cosmopolitan consist of vodka as main alcohol, Cointreau as sweetener, cranberry and lime juices. Optional ingredients are orange bitter, simple syrup or lime syrup. Generalized recipe of Cosmopolitan therefore is:

Cosmopolitan

30-45 ml vodka (or citrus vodka)
7-25 ml Cointreau
2 dash – 28 ml cranberry juice
5-13 ml fresh pressed lime juice
optional:
0-2 dash orange bitters
0-8 ml simple syrup
0-5 ml lime syrup
Shake all ingredients in ice-filled shaker and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a orange twist (spiral) or flamed orange peel or lime wedge (or wheel) or lime zest.

I tested eleven version of Cosmopolitan which was found in different sources (like blogs, sites, books etc) and at different times. You may find all recipes in this .pdf files. You may organize yours own “Great Cosmo Roundup” with this simple and clear table :)

Cosmopolitan.PDF

This is results of my “Great Science of Drink Cosmopolitan Roundup”. It begin with my first Cosmopolitan, I do not remember a source of this version.

1. Cosmopolitan (Unknown version) – so strong cocktail with elegant citrus taste;

2. Cosmopolitan (Chris Doig – Brilliant Cocktails) – this version has medium strength and sour-sweet very orange taste, good choice for novice;

3. Cosmopolitan (Jay Hapburn – Oh, gosh! ) – aromatic version of Cosmopolitan, has rich aroma and taste;

4. Cosmopolitan (Dale DeGroff – The King of Cocktails ) – it is well-balanced version with medium strength and delicate citrus taste, this recipe has one lack – too much of the cranberry juice. This is good for novice, not for adept :) ;

5. Cosmopolitan (cocktailtimes.com) – this version has very indistinct taste;

6. Cosmopolitan (Davide Wondrich — quintessence (Esquire Drink Database)) -
it is very good version, it has smooth aromatic and citrus sour-sweet taste, but please omit sugar rim – I think it is joke;

7. Cosmopolitan (Gary Regan (The Joy of Mixology, 2003) (from CocktailDB) – strong and sweet cocktail (Kamikaze :) ) with cranberry juice as dye-stuff, excellent drink;

8. Cosmopolitan (Time Out (wiki.webtender.com)) – sophisticated recipe but mediocre results;

9. Cosmopolitan (Salvatore Calabrese – The Maestro – (from book Classic Cocktails)) – so strong and tempered version;

10. Cosmopolitan (IBA) – light sweet cocktail, novice only;

11. Cosmopolitan (cointreau.com) – strong, sweet and citrus cocktail.

Some tips for your Ultimate Cosmopolitan:

- use good quality vodka (pure or citrus-flavored depend upon you taste, both variants work well in Cosmopolitan)

- use Cointreau (not cheap triple sec), it is good choice for you fresh and citrus Cosmo;

- use good and expensive cranberry juice (and omit the recipe with high amount of cranberry juice, if it possible);

- use fresh ripe limes for yours fresh pressed lime juice, DO NOT use preserved lime juice or something like that. You may add some simple syrup for preferable balance of sour-sweet. Omit lime syrup;

- you can use orange bitter for high aromatic cocktail, please add bitters responsibly ;) ;

- in my humble opinion, most appropriate garnish for Cosmopolitan cocktail is orange zest. I use orange zest spiral for strong version (with high Cointreau content) and flamed orange peel for the others. Flamed orange peel is real show, it is real Cosmo-mood. For flamed orange peel you may:

1. Cut small piece of orange peel. Take this piece of orsnge peel in one hand and a match in other. Strike a match as you see on foto :)

2. Heat the surface of peel with a flame of match through few seconds.

3. Press on peel for release of essential oil.

I can resume that Cosmopolitan cocktail is awesome drink. It has right name, good taste, good looks and good mood. It is acceptable as for cocktail novice as adept. When made correctly, it is a brilliant drink.

Both of this cocktail was created by Philip Duff – the ambassador of BOLS. I found this recipes on bolscocktails.com, both of them are rare possibility to use BOLS Kiwi and Bols Lychee liqueur in so average cocktail. This cocktails are not extraordinary but so interesting “for girls” drinks.

Antipodean

15 ml BOLS Strawberry
45 ml BOLS Kiwi
45 ml cranberry juice
Shake. Cocktail. Garnish with kiwi slice and lime slice.

Eurasian

15 ml BOLS Peach
45 ml BOLS Lychee
45 ml cranberry juice
Shake. Cocktail. No garnish.

Both cocktails has sweet and fruity taste. The Antipodean and Eurasian cocktails by Philip Duff is light and sweet concoction. They has one lack – they are very weak. I reccomend to add some (about 15 ml or more) premium vodka for more crisp and bright cocktail.

This modern tropic cocktail was found on epicurean.com in article about Passoa liqueur by Roberta Roberti. The Monkey Passion Cocktail is sweet and tropical concoction for pleasant rest on the summer beach.

Monkey Passion

60 ml Passoa liqueur
30 ml vodka
60 ml Cointreau
150 ml fresh orange juice
Combine all ingredients in a shaker with crushed ice. Serve in a tumbler.

I recommend shake this cocktail with cubed ice and serve in double rock glass or hurricane glass.

The Monkey Passion cocktail has sweet, light and tropical taste. Admirable drink!

This interesting modern cocktail was found on the Dale`s DeGroff site. The Metropolitan cocktail is so close to the Cosmopolitan, but use black currant vodka instead citron vodka. Dale DeGroff inform that author of this version of the Metropolitan Сocktail is Mike Hewett at Marion`s Bar on the Bowery in the NYC. Site and two books – The Craft of the Cocktail by Dale DeGroff and The Essential Cocktail by Dale DeGroff has similar composition but different proportions. This proportion was found on the Dale`s DeGroff site.

Metropolitan

60 ml Absolut Kurant
15 ml cranberry juice
8 ml Roses lime juice
8ml fresh lime juice
Shake with ice and pour into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.

The Metropolitan Cocktail is admirable cocktail with strong and dilicious currant taste with a hint of citrus. For more smooth, light and sweet cocktail you may to decrease the amount of vodka to 45 ml and inrease the amount of cranberry juice to 20 ml and lime syrup to 15 ml (as in The Essential Cocktail by Dale DeGroff specified).