Science Of Drink

The MxMo is back! Great! And the scomorokh is back too :) Actually the topic of MxMo August: Brown, Bitter and Stirred is very interesting fo me. This MxMo hosted by Lindsey Johnson from Brown, Bitter and Stirred and thanks for great topic, Lindsey! This about true cocktail (and it is my choice now!) – the mix of aged spirit, bitter and stirred, not shaken! The Connoisseur’s Choice.

I dream about this coctail during long, very long time. But rye is absolutely unavailable in the Ukraine also Peychaud’s bitters. Thanks for God in my way I meet some great people who present me a bottle of great rye – Wild Turkey Rye 101 proof and a bottle of Peychaud`s. Thanks, companeros!

And now I prepare one of my dream-cocktail – the Sazerac. This cocktail was creaded on the 1850-s in the New Orleans. The creation of this cocktail associate with New-Orleans`s pharmacist (and Freemason!) – Antoine Peychaud – the creator of famous bitter. This cocktail is great thing – it include so rare and aromatic ingredients, it has unusual ritual of preparation and it has interesting story.

Sazerac

1 sugar cube
1-2 dash Peychaud`s bitter
1 tsp. water
50 ml rye whiskey
1 bsp. Pernod
Take two rocks glasses. Fill one with ice and soda for chill. In the second glass place sugar cube than add bitter and water. Muddle the sugar and mix all together for dissolving. Than add some cubes of ice and whiskey. Stir. First chiled glass coat with dash of Pernod. Strain the cocktail into this coated with Pernod glass. Serve without ice! Garnish with a lemon peel.

The Sazerac Cocktail has strong and complex flavor and taste. Actually is great strong cocktail with great compose palate and nose.

The Mint Julep is very old mixed drink. The word “julep” is derived from Arabic word gulab – a sweet syrupy drink in which medicine was given in the past. First recording about julep as alcoholic beverage flavored with mint was in 1787.

The Julep was born somewhere in South of USA – in Maryland, Virginia or North Carolina in the early to mid 1700s. The author of this cocktail is unknown. The Modern Mint Julep with bourbon was born in second half of the XIX century somewhere in Kentucky.

The Modern Mint Julep is cocktail consist of bourbon, sugar, mint and water.

Mint Julep

dozen of fresh tender mint leaf
1-2 bsp. sugar
1-2 tsp. water
75-90 ml bourbon
Delicate bruise mint, sugar and water on the bottom of frosted old-fashioned glass (or, preferable, silver or pewter julep cup) than add crushed ice and little of bourbon and swirl the drink until glass frosted. Than add more bourbon and ice, garnish with sprig of mint.

Use frosted glassware, very cold and dry crushed ice and bonded (over-proof) bourbon for great results. Also use metal (silver or pewter traditionally) cups for great look.

The properly made Mint Julep is gorgeous drink with great balanced smooth sweet and strong taste. It is so strong, very strong cocktail with power kick. The main palate of Mint Julep is spicy bourbon and mint sweetness.

The Old-Fashioned Cocktail is genuine cocktail. Actually, as Jerry Thomas suppose, cocktail is mix of strong spirit, bitter, sugar and water. Consequently the old-fashioned is the cocktail. Whiskey cocktail. Simple but famous and great.

The Old-Fashioned Cocktail was created in the Pendennis Club in Loisville, Kentucky circa 1890. This cocktail consist of whiskey (bourbon as a rule or rye), cocktails bitter (Angostura is common), sugar and water. The standart recipe and preparation is follows:

Old-Fashioned

1 sugar cube (or 1-2 bsp. of simple syrup)
1-3 dash Angostura bitter
1 tsp. water
50 ml bourbon (or rye whiskey)
Place sugar cube on the bottom of an old-fashioned glass (or pour simple syrup). Soak the sugar cobe with bitters and carefully muddle it. Add some water and stir. Than add some whiskey and stir. Than add two (only two!) large (very, very large!) cubes of ice. Fill the glass with more whiskey and stir. Garnish with a lemon peel.

You may add some dash curacao or Cointreau in your Old-Fashioned Cocktail (optional).

Actually the Old-Fashioned Cocktail is gobsmacked palate-paralysing drink. Absolutely idiosyncratical cocktail. And I love it!

Next great thing about Old-Fashioned Cocktail is the question. To muddle or not to muddle? :) Some barman (DeGroff for example) prefer to muddle some fruits (as a common – piece of orange and maraschino cherry) for yours Old-Fashioned. Some purists deny.

Old-Fashioned (Muddled)

1 sugar cube (or 1 tsp. simple syrup)
1-3 dash Angostura bitter
1 piece of orange
1 maraschino cherry
1 tsp. of water
50 ml bourbon
In the bottom of an old-fashioned glass carefully muddle the sugar cube, bitter, orange slice and cherry with splash of water. Remove the fruit husks. Add the ice and whiskey, stir. Garnish with orange slice and red maraschino cherry.

Yoг may also muddle some pineapple cubes.

The muddled Old-Fashioned is another Old-Fashioned Cocktail. It has interesting and delicious fruit and whiskey taste. It has great look. But it has not the charisma :) or power… But it is delicious, whatever!

For celebration of St. Patrick Day I prepare one interesting modern club cocktail – the Dancing Leprechaun. It works!

Dancing Leprechaun

45 ml Irish whisky
20 ml Drambuie
20 ml fresh lemon juice
Ginger ale
Shake whisky, liqueur and juice with ice. Strain into highball with ice cubes and fill with ginger ale. Add a twist of lemon.

The Dancing Leprechaun Cocktail has interesting refreshing taste with sweet notes of Drambuie. It is admirable concoction for active celebrating.

This cocktail has so familiar name but great composition. The Old Pal Cocktail recipe was found on the CocktailDB. Some times ago I found this cocktail in one of my favorite cocktail book – Cocktail and Mixed Drinks by Anthony Hogg. But Hogg specified rye instead Canadian Club.

Old Pal

25 ml Canadian Club
25 ml dry vermouth
25 ml Campari
Stir. Cocktail glass.

The Old Pal Cocktail is great drink with piquant and complex bitter palate. It is great aperitive and very interesting cocktail.

This cocktail is rare chance to use Tennessee whiskey. Jack Daniels is U.S. single-malt whiskey distilled from corn mash with rye (used sour mash technology) and filtered through charcoal. One of promotional cocktail of Jack Daniels is Lynchburg Lemonade (modern concoction by Tony Mayson from Alabama).

Lynchburg Lemonade

30 ml Jack Daniel’s whiskey
30 ml triple sec (Cointreau)
30 ml sweet and sour
lemon-lime soda
Stir all ingredients with a lot of ice in highball glass. Garnish with a lemon wedge and maraschino cherrie.

The Lynchburg Lemonade Cocktail is so tasty, sweety, citrus concoction. Is admirable cocktail for happy summer days.

In my new book The Craft of the Cocktail: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Master Bartender, with 500 Recipes by Dale DeGroff was found another recipe of Lynchburg Lemonade Cocktail in edition of the Dale DeGroff:

Lynchburg Lemonade (Dale`s DeGroff version)

45 ml Jack Daniel’s whiskey
30 triple sec (Cointreau)
20 ml sweet and sour
7-UP
Shake first three ingredients and strain into an ice-filled highball glass. Top with 7-UP and garnish with lemon wedge and orange slice.

The Dale`s version is great! The Lynchburg Lemonade Cocktail (Dale`s version) is very smooth and refreshing drink.

This interesting cocktail was found on Esquire Drink Database and stand me in good stead on St. Patrick’s Day.

Brainstorm

60 ml Irish whiskey
8 ml dry vermouth
8 ml Benedictine
Shake. Cocktail glass, garnish with twist of orange peel.

I use Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey for this cocktail. The Brainstorm Cocktail has strong taste with slightly smoky taste of whiskey.

Cocktail Opening is one of my favorite whisky-based drink. This sweet and aromatic cocktail work well before club-night (jazz-club of course!).

Opening

30 ml rye (or canadian whisky)
2 tsp sweet vermouth
2 tsp grenadine
Shake (or stir). Serve in old-fashioned glass with a lot of ice.

Usually I use Canadian Club for this cocktail. Second key-stuff of this drink is homemade grenadine (cold-process) for perfect results.

I use Webtender Wiki for new cocktails this evening. I go mad on tiki-drinks last few days and search something interesting here. And I find great idea – my favorite Mai Tai cocktail, but which made with blended scotch instead rum! Wow! Great idea, I think. And this cocktail has amazing name – Honi Honi… Another great idea – Pinky Gonzalez (Mai Tai with tequila instead rum) I find right here. It is great idea for comparsion of this cocktail.

I use my favorite motto – “Creating a drink that would be the finest drink we could make, using the finest ingredients we could find” (Trader Vic about Mai Tai`s idea) for components choice. Best scotch in my liquore cabinet is Famous Grause 12 y.o. and best tequila – Leyenda del Milagro Select Barrel Reserve Anejo. Both ingredients are ultimate spirit in my collection.

Honi Honi

45 ml blended whisky
15 ml orgeat
15 ml orange curacao
7 ml rock candy syrup
30 ml fresh lime juice
Shake all ingredients and strain in rocks glass over ice. Garnish traditionaly.

Actually it is great, well-balanced cocktail. The scotch give fascinating complex aftertaste.

Pinky Gonzalez

45 ml tequila
15 ml orgeat
15 ml orange curacao
7ml rock candy syrup
30 ml fresh lime juice
Shake all ingredients and strain in rocks glass over ice. Garnish traditionaly.

This is amazing cocktail too. It has complex sweet taste, but in color it is light brown :)

P.S. Another Honi Honi Cocktail – consist of light rum, apricot brandy and lemon juice. It will be tasted soon :)

I purshased two great hurricane glass last summer. This beautiful big glasses needed something beautiful and unusuall. First of all I found cocktail of the same name – Hurricane. And I come tiki-cocktail-lovers with Hurricane cocktail. Now I want to describe some of my favorite recipes of Hurricane Cocktail.

You may read interesting Hurricane recipe comparsion on Rick`s Kaiser Penguin blog. I want to introduce three versions of Hurricane – classical, version by Dale Degroff and unusuall Hurricane Merylin by Salvatore Calabrese.

The key ingredient of classical Hurricane is passion fruit syrup. Common I use Passion fruit Syrup by Monin.

Hurricane

50 ml light rum
50 ml dark rum
30 ml passion fruit syrup
30 ml fresh orange juice
30 ml fresh lime juice
1 tsp. grenadine
Shake. Hurricane glass. Garnish with a flag.

I use Captain Morgan Black and Old Pascas White (Barbados) for this cocktail. The drink has bright sweet taste with some bitternes of lime.

Hurricane (Dale DeGroff)

30 ml dark rum
30 ml light rum
15 ml Galliano
20 ml fresh lime juice
30 ml passion fruit syrup
45 ml fresh orange juice
45 ml pineapple juice
1 dash Angostura bitter
Shake. Hurricane glass. Garnish with tropical fruit.

This mix is one of my favorite tropical cocktail. The drink has super-smooth sweet taste with hint of vanilla and tropic candy. It is great version! Extremely delicious cocktail!

Hurricane Merylin (Salvatore Calabrese)

20 ml Pusser’s rum
20 ml Bacardi rum
10 ml canadian whisky Seagrams
10 ml Cointreau
70 ml cranberry juice
70 ml guava juice
20 ml fresh lemon juice
1-2 drops of grenadine
Shake. Hurricane. Garnish with a strawberry, mint and kiwi slice.

This Hurricane is light and smooth. The drink has very interesting and unusuall taste. I use Angostura 1919 rum and Canadian Club White Label for mix. I think I have good results. Actually I like this cocktail very much.