tea berry-blue

 

notes

Eagle Rare is relatively easy to find. If you cant find it, any quality bourbon will do. I recommend one on the drier side, like Woodford Reserve.
Cointreau is an orange liqueur that is very easy to find, but a touch pricey if you're jut starting out. If the price tag scares you, pick up a bottle of Citronge or even plain old Triple Sec.
Baladin's Spuma Nera is a soda that tastes like an amaro. It is likely to be hard to find. Try an Italian food store. If not, my recommendation would be to just add .5 oz of an amaro (probably Ramazzotti for this one) and use plain club soda.
Bittermen's Grapefruit Bitters might be tricky to find. Replace with any citrus-flavored bitters.


I posted another cocktail recipe on Nommable today! Read it here. It's a drink with vodka and apricot!

 

notes

Eagle Rare is relatively easy to find. If you cant find it, any quality bourbon will do. I recommend one on the drier side, like Woodford Reserve.
Cointreau is an orange liqueur that is very easy to find, but a touch pricey if you're jut starting out. If the price tag scares you, pick up a bottle of Citronge or even plain old Triple Sec.
Baladin's Spuma Nera is a soda that tastes like an amaro. It is likely to be hard to find. Try an Italian food store. If not, my recommendation would be to just add .5 oz of an amaro (probably Ramazzotti for this one) and use plain club soda.
Bittermen's Grapefruit Bitters might be tricky to find. Replace with any citrus-flavored bitters.


I posted another cocktail recipe on Nommable today! Read it here. It's a drink with vodka and apricot!

I went to my friend Rina’s house on Thursday, planning on just helping her out with some stuff and then going out to dinner, but when I walked in, she asked if I’d make her a drink. Now, of COURSE I will make her a drink, all the time, as she’s one of my favorite cocktail guinea pigs, but I had all these neat little ingredients I had wanted to show off and I hadn’t brought any of them over. So I worked with what she had in the house. Which is not an unimpressive collection.

Her husband, Brendan, recently acquired a full set of syrups from the new syrup company, Royal Rose, which is in nearby Brooklyn. I had been itching to try them. They also had a bottle of Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur, which I ‘d heard good things about, but never had, and Cocktail Kingdom’s Wormwood Bitters. (Note: Cocktail Kingdom is one of my favorite places to buy bitters. They have lots of awesome small batch stuff that I haven’t found anywhere else).

We tried a little of the Solerno neat, and it was very, very sweet, sweeter than I expected. It tasted kind of like a melted popsicle, but with more depth to it. I’m not so sure I got ‘blood orange’ so much as a brighter orange-tangeriney flavor.

Here’s what I ended up making:

Mirrored from Nommable!.

So keeping with the recent fresh flower blossom theme, i decided to add sage blossoms to my juleps this year:

Most people don’t eat sage flowers, even if they eat sage all the time. They’re very sagey, and a little minty, and a tiny bit sweet, and a really good addition to a salad, if you already grow sage and don’t do anything with the flowers. So I thought they’d be good in a julep.

Ingredients
3 oz bourbon
1 oz brown sugar simple syrup
1/2 cup of mint sprigs plus two for garnish
about 15 sage blossoms

Instructions
Chill a julep cup or rocks glass
Add ice to a pitcher
Add all ingredients except mint for garnish
Muddle well, let sit about five minutes, stir and pour
Add mint for garnish

And here is me in my derby hat! I am rooting for Pants on Fire and Rosie Napravnik!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

I have been totally fail at posting new cocktails, and I have a bunch, only now I have so many that I don’t even remember what-all I put in some of them. Two of them were good, too. One had gin, muddled stevia and pluots, but I don’t remember what else.

But here are drinks from this weekend.

On Friday, I did something I almost never do, and mixed a drink from a magazine. It was a drink from this month’s Food & Wine, made with Hendricks, arugula, lime, and agave. I mixed it for two reasons: one, because it had arugula in it; and two, because it accompanied an article that reflected a lot of my own thoughts about bartending (and particularly my thoughts on the pretentiousness of the term “mixologist” and the unsettling trend of people putting things in drinks purely as a type of liquid oneupmanship as opposed to making something that tastes good. I wasn’t fond of the agave, and think it’s just not really the right sweetener for gin, but the arugula was really nice.

On Saturday, I made this:

Basil Negroni

This isn’t quite a negroni with basil in it; it’s a little bit off a traditional negroni recipe and has a sort of duskier flavor.

Ingredients for two drinks
6 oz gin
1 oz Campari
1 oz port wine
1/2 oz Grapefruit bitters
About 20 leaves basil, plus two pretty sprigs with blossoms

Instructions
Put everything in a shaker with ice, except basil flowers
Muddle until basil is bruised
Shake
Strain into two chilled cocktail glasses, add flowers for garnish

On Sunday, I started out my day by infusing a bottle of gin I wasn’t too thrilled with with lavender. We’ll see how it comes along next week.

Then I made this:

Elderfields Road

Elderfields Road is the name of the street my father grew up on. This drink is a variation on a Manhattan, and since he grew up right outside the city, I thought that was appropriate, considering the major ingredient here.

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz bourbon
Juice of 1 lime
2 oz elderberry syrup (homemade)
1 oz red vermouth
2 splashes blood orange bitters

Instructions:
Mix everything but the bitters together in a shaker with ice and shake
Pour into two chilled cocktail glasses, add bitters

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

This cocktail has a story.

Last night, when Rina came over, I offered to make her a drink. She said she liked Manhattans and drinks of that ilk, so I pulled out some bourbon and vermouth (Punt E Mes is my red vermouth of choice).

While I was doing this, I opened up a bottle of Fernet-Branca and asked her to smell it, toying with the idea of mixing it into the drink. But Fernet-Branca is one of those things that people either love or hate, so I didn’t want to put it in the drink if she wasn’t going to like it.

She took a sniff, and said “that smells like my childhood!”

Rina went on to talk about her Italian family and their cakes, which, and I agree from my experience with my Italian family, are always covered in delicious icing, but when you get to the cake part, it’s always drenched in liquor to the point that for a child who is craving sugary sweetness, it’s inedible.

So I made her a drink. Tonight, I remade the drink for my mother, who said it was “a better Manhattan.” It’s not as sweet, and the Fernet-Branca is a much more sophisticated flavor than, oh, maraschino cherries.

Here it is for you:

Ingredients:
3 oz bourbon (I used Eagle Rare last night, Buffalo Trace tonight)
1 oz red vermouth (Punt E Mes)
1/2 oz Fernet-Branca

Instructions:
–Pour all ingredients into a shaker with ice, shake
–Serve in a chilled martini glass
(easy!)

In other proportions, served on the rocks or shaved ice, this is called a Fanciulli Cocktail, but I use a lot more bourbon here. And no ice.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

For my birthday, my parents took me on a tour of the Tuthilltown Distillery in Gardiner, New York.

The story of whiskey in New York is a funny one. You know what a Manhattan cocktail is, right? The Manhattan was called a Manhattan for a reason– because New York state was known for their abundant rye whiskey.

But then Prohibition came along, and the distilleries closed. When Prohibition ended, in many other parts of the country, the stills went back to work, but in New York, they stayed shuttered. Tuthilltown Distillery didn’t open until…I think 2005? I might be wrong on the year, but around then, and that was the first distillery in New York to produce whiskey since Prohibition ended. It is a tiny microdistillery inside an old mill granary on an 8-acre farm (which appropriately grows hops), but they make some of the best whiskey I’ve ever tasted. So when we found out they gave tours, I was really excited.

Click the link for massive awesome pictures of the distillery!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Yeah, so…I already told you all about the mishaps with my camera, but it means I now have four pictures of four different drinks to share with you!

1) Rhubarb Capirinha

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz cachaça
2 oz rhubarb syrup*
1 stalk rhubarb
1 Tb sugar
1 lime
Ice

Instructions
Fill 2 rocks glasses with ice
Cut rhubarb into 2 4-5″ pieces
Roll rhubarb in sugar and set aside
Cut lime into eighths and put in pitcher.
Add rhubarb syrup and muddle.
Add cachaca
Pour contents of pitcher over ice, including lime pieces
Add 1 piece rhubarb to each drink.

2) Spruce Juice

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz Rogue Spruce Gin
6 strawberries
2 oz Acacia Honey
1 small Kirby cucumber, trimmed but not peeled, or about 4″ of another larger cucumber
1/4 oz Absinthe or Pernod

Instructions
Put ice in two martini glasses to chill
Set aside 2 slices of cucumber and 2 strawberries
Cut remaining cucumber and strawberries to a 1/2″ dice
Put honey, cucumber, and strawberries in shaker and muddle
Add ice to shaker
Add gin to shaker, shake
Remove ice from glasses
Coat each glass with Pernod, pour out excess
Pour contents of shaker into glasses, garnish with strawberry and cucumber

3) French Mojito

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz white/silver rum
1 Meyer Lemon
1 oz lavender syrup
1 cup fresh mint sprigs, plus 4 sprigs
Club Soda

Instructions
Put ice in two highball or rocks glasses to chill
Cut lemon in eighths, put in pitcher
Roughly crush mint and add to pitcher
Add lavender syrup
Muddle contents of pitcher
Add rum and stir
Remove ice from glasses
Add mixture to glasses, including lemon pieces
Top off with soda
Add mint to garnish

4) Rhubarb Manhattan

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz bourbon
2 oz sweet vermouth
2 oz rhubarb syrup
4 dashes Fee Brothers’ Rhubarb Bitters
2 4-5″ pieces of rhubarb

Instructions
Add ice to martini glasses to chill
Put ice in shaker
Add all ingredients but rhubarb to shaker and shake
Remove ice from glasses and pour
Add rhubarb to garnish

*We have a lot of rhubarb growing in the garden, so I made a lot of rhubarb syrup.

Ingredients
2 stalks rhubarb
1 cup sugar
3/4 cups water

Instructions
Chop rhubarb into 1/2″ pieces
Boil water with sugar in a small saucepan until sugar is dissolved
Add rhubarb and turn to medium heat
Cook, stirring intermittently, until rhubarb has softened and “melted” and consistency is syrupy
Pass through strainer to remove stringy bits

Enjoy, everybody!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Yeah, so…I already told you all about the mishaps with my camera, but it means I now have four pictures of four different drinks to share with you!

1) Rhubarb Capirinha

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz cachaça
2 oz rhubarb syrup*
1 stalk rhubarb
1 Tb sugar
1 lime
Ice

Instructions
Fill 2 rocks glasses with ice
Cut rhubarb into 2 4-5″ pieces
Roll rhubarb in sugar and set aside
Cut lime into eighths and put in pitcher.
Add rhubarb syrup and muddle.
Add cachaca
Pour contents of pitcher over ice, including lime pieces
Add 1 piece rhubarb to each drink.

2) Spruce Juice

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz Rogue Spruce Gin
6 strawberries
2 oz Acacia Honey
1 small Kirby cucumber, trimmed but not peeled, or about 4″ of another larger cucumber
1/4 oz Absinthe or Pernod

Instructions
Put ice in two martini glasses to chill
Set aside 2 slices of cucumber and 2 strawberries
Cut remaining cucumber and strawberries to a 1/2″ dice
Put honey, cucumber, and strawberries in shaker and muddle
Add ice to shaker
Add gin to shaker, shake
Remove ice from glasses
Coat each glass with Pernod, pour out excess
Pour contents of shaker into glasses, garnish with strawberry and cucumber

3) French Mojito

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz white/silver rum
1 Meyer Lemon
1 oz lavender syrup
1 cup fresh mint sprigs, plus 4 sprigs
Club Soda

Instructions
Put ice in two highball or rocks glasses to chill
Cut lemon in eighths, put in pitcher
Roughly crush mint and add to pitcher
Add lavender syrup
Muddle contents of pitcher
Add rum and stir
Remove ice from glasses
Add mixture to glasses, including lemon pieces
Top off with soda
Add mint to garnish

4) Rhubarb Manhattan

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz bourbon
2 oz sweet vermouth
2 oz rhubarb syrup
4 dashes Fee Brothers’ Rhubarb Bitters
2 4-5″ pieces of rhubarb

Instructions
Add ice to martini glasses to chill
Put ice in shaker
Add all ingredients but rhubarb to shaker and shake
Remove ice from glasses and pour
Add rhubarb to garnish

*We have a lot of rhubarb growing in the garden, so I made a lot of rhubarb syrup.

Ingredients
2 stalks rhubarb
1 cup sugar
3/4 cups water

Instructions
Chop rhubarb into 1/2″ pieces
Boil water with sugar in a small saucepan until sugar is dissolved
Add rhubarb and turn to medium heat
Cook, stirring intermittently, until rhubarb has softened and “melted” and consistency is syrupy
Pass through strainer to remove stringy bits

Enjoy, everybody!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Ingredients for 2 drinks
6 oz Kentucky Bourbon (I used Rip Van Winkle)
1 oz rhubarb syrup
1 oz blackberry syrup
1 cup fresh mint sprigs plus 4 mint sprigs
8 whole fresh blackberries

Instructions
Add ice to two julep cups or rocks glasses
Put ice in mason jar
Add mint and syrups to jar, muddle
Add bourbon, close jar and shake
Take ice out of glasses, pour
Add mint sprigs and whole blackberries for garnish

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.