Ode to Pimm's

Pimm’s and Wimbledon go together like gin and tonic

A Pimm’s Cup is something special, for the key role it plays in marking the precious season of summer. 

Here in the States, though, Pimm’s doesn’t really play that role--rose wine and hard seltzers at outdoor gatherings take on that responsibility--but for the English, Pimm’s and the long days of summer are as blended together as gin with tonic water. Drink a Pimm’s cup, either in a proper glass or in a convenient can, and you have summoned summer on a rainy island. (Yes, you can buy premade Pimm’s Cup in cans in England, which I found out when I attended a friend’s wedding in London a few years ago. We consumed them at room temperature on a double-decker bus, of course.)

Even with my English background, I don’t turn to Pimm’s in the summer as often as I do to England’s chief contribution to summertime drinking, the gin and tonic. I’ll make a pitcher of Pimm’s only every two or three summers for parties, almost as an exotic novelty. Rarely, by the way, do the words “England” and “exotic” find company together. It’s just that Pimm’s hasn’t crossed the Pond to our shores and has thus retained its distinctive English character.

Only very recently did it occur to me to serve individual servings of Pimm’s. It took a friend toying with the idea of buying a bottle of Pimm’s No 1--the herbal, gin-based cordial that’s the sine qua non of a Pimm’s Cup--for herself to watch Wimbledon on television that got me thinking Pimm’s Cup for one. I encouraged her to buy that bottle, and then I fished the depths of my liquor cabinet for a bottle leftover from two summers ago, when it was safe to throw parties. 

Thanks to my friend, I am now drinking Pimm’s Cups solo while watching replays of Wimbledon matches in the evening. It is surprising that it never occurred to me to enjoy Pimm’s Cup for Wimbledon despite their strong connection--in 2019, more than 276,290 glasses of Pimm's were served at The Championships at Wimbledon--especially since I relish imbibing traditions and following professional tennis. 

I don’t imagine that this will be the last and only summer of Pimm’s Cups for one. As someone who embraces rituals, it’s fun to have a drink for an annual event, just like a mint julep for the Kentucky Derby. Event-specific drinks mark time and a full trip around the sun, and they offer an excuse to enjoy an oddball drink. I mean, how often do you find yourself crushing ice for a julep? Or asking your local liquor store if they carry Pimm’s No. 1.

Even beyond the Wimbledon fortnight, I’ll be offering Pimm’s Cups to guests. I won’t be the only one. Nettie’s House of Spaghetti in Tinton Falls, N.J., fortifies a Pimm’s Cup with a shot of gin at its stylish and fun retro bar. All year, Pimm’s Cups  at Napoleon House in New Orleans are popular drink to battle the heat, so much so that tipplers in the Crescent City don’t know about Pimm’s English origins which date back to the 1820s, when James Pimm created the herbal liqueur at his oyster bar in London as a digestive aid. Long ago Pimm’s lost its medicinal connotations and is now purely pleasure, on both sides of the Pond.

If you’d like to learn more about the history of Pimm’s, please join me for an on-line cocktail making class with Context Travel on Sunday, 18 July, 5pm EDT. 

For those of you who are craving a Pimm’s Cup now, to watch the women’s and men’s finals this weekend or to mix up your summer-specific tipples, here’s a recipe for Pimm’s Cup for one:

Pimm’s Cup
2 oz Pimm’s No. 1
5 oz Sparkling lemonade, lemon-lime soda, or ginger ale
(or ½ oz lemon juice, ½ oz simple syrup, and soda water to top)Garnish (any or all of the following): Cucumber spear or slice, lemon slice, orange slice, mint sprig, strawberries, borage
—-
In a Collins glass half-filled with ice, add Pimm’s No. 1, and, if making your own “soda,” lemon juice and simple syrup. Stir until combined. Fill glass with ice and pour in the sparkling lemonade, lemon-lime soda or ginger ale, or soda water if making your own soda. Stir gently. Garnish with any or all of the garnishes. 

It's Mardi Gras! Let the Good Drinks Pour!

Mardi Gras, aka Shrove Tuesday, aka Fat Tuesday, is happening today all over the Christian world, but no city is more associated with this last hurrah before the abstemious season of Lent than New Orleans. Though Rio could give the Big Easy a colorful run for its money. Venice too. And Trinidad. Sydney, as well. So, you see, there are plenty of other cities--and an island--that know how to throw a party during Carnival season.

I am not here to argue that the Crescent City doesn’t deserve that top spot, but rather to go all in with New Orleans as inspiration for marking the day before Ash Wednesday. Since it’s too late to decorate our houses as parade floats, as the Big Easy creatively did this year in place of their joyous Mardi Gras parades that have been banned this, we’ll have to settle for something more realistic to do right now, this late in the day, and I have an idea. Rest assured, if you’re prone to worry even on a day of anything-goes fun, it is no less joyous, creative, and ritualistic. I am talking about cocktails. 

New Orleans is a drinking town like nowhere else in the States, and not just in the way you might initially think--of tourists loudly stumbling around with neon-colored slushie drinks in super-size, single-use plastic glasses getting hammered. That for sure is part of the drinking culture of New Orleans and has been for over a century, but New Orleans is also the spiritual home of one of America’s greatest culinary contributions to the world: the Cocktail.

The Cocktail didn’t spring forth like Venus from the Mississippi (the Hudson River can claim that paternity), but its muddy waters did nurture the Cocktail in New Orleans, a French colonial city that has known for a long time how to have a good time, independent of Protestant pressure to rein it in. 

Let’s us too be unbridled in our celebrations tonight, or as much as we can be while stuck at home without a throng of merrymakers around us, and knock back one or two or three mixed that were birthed in New Orleans in the 1800s, with spirits that are fittingly Gallic: brandy and absinthe. Here are three classic recipes.

Let the good drinks pour!

Sazerac
Absinthe, to rinse
2 oz Cognac or Rye (or a combination; rye is the standard)
¼ oz Simple syrup
4 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Garnish: Lemon peel
--
Pour a small amount of absinthe into a rocks glass. Fill the glass with ice and swirl the ice around to chill the glass and to coat it with absinthe. Set aside. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the garnish, to a mixing glass and fill with ice. Stir until combined and chilled (about 30 seconds). Dump ice out of the rocks glass, and strain the drink into the glass. Express the lemon peel onto the top of the drink and discard.

Absinthe Frappé
1½ oz Absinthe
½ oz Simple syrup
2 oz Soda water, chilled
---
Add the absinthe and simple syrup to a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice and shake until chilled. Add soda water to the shaker. Strain into a rocks glass, Collins glass, or a julep cup that is 3/4-filled with crushed ice. Top with more crushed ice if necessary. 

Brandy Crusta
2 oz Cognac
½ oz Lemon juice, fresh
½ oz Orange liqueur (e.g., curaçao, triple sec, Cointreau, Grand Marnier) 
¼ oz Maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Garnish: Sugar + lemon juice for rim of glass and Lemon peel spiral
--
Wet the rim of a small wine glass, preferably chilled, with lemon juice and then dip the moistened rim into sugar. Set aside the sugar-rimmed wine glass, preferably in the freezer. Add the remaining ingredients, except the garnish, to a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice and shake until chilled. Strain into the wine glass and garnish with lemon peel spiral.

Mocktails for Dry January and Beyond

Alcohol-free cocktails by the_cocktailguy

Happy New Year! A gentle breeze of optimism begins to blows on January 1. Carried in the light wind is the hope that this year will be better and different. That we ourselves will be better and different.

This hope, nourished  by the opportunity to hit the reset button, leads to making personal vows and promises to do things in a different way for the next 365 days and beyond--read more, workout more, eat better, be nicer, answer emails more promptly, post blogs more regularly (ahem!)--all those things that we think will make ourselves and our lives better.

Engaging in this process can lead to an honest examination of, or at least a good look at, our relationship with alcohol. For many this means taking on Dry January, a whole month of not drinking. Others give up alcohol for good, or at least drink more moderately in the coming year, asking themselves, Do I really want that drink?

For as much as alcohol is at the center of our professional and personal lives here at Night Owl Hospitality, we get it. We won’t steer you away from Dry January or any other approach you take to moderate your drinking. We get it because we acknowledge that alcohol is tricky business. 

What lies at the center of alcohol’s complicated role in our lives is that it’s never just one thing. It has a dual nature. What I mean by this is alcohol ‘s unique property of encompassing polar opposites. It can, for example, be deleterious and beneficial to our health. It’s consumed in good times and bad. It’s a product of both agriculture and industry. It’s sacred and profane. It’s urbane and lowbrow. It’s so many conflicting things.

For the 9000-plus years that we humans have intentionally been producing and consuming alcohol we haven’t manage to successfully negotiate alcohol’s duality, and thus we have oscillated between accepting it and demonizing it. Evidence of this is the U.S.’s prohibition on alcohol that went into effect 101 years ago on January 17. There were some sound, well-intentioned reasons to give the noble experiment a go (other reasons were less savory: bigotry, racism, and nativism), but, as we know, whatever the rationale for prohibition, it didn’t work.

So, what to do? I can’t answer this definitively other than to reiterate that alcohol is tricky business. So it’s up to you to determine what you want to do.

Luckily, we are currently living during a time when there’s heightened awareness and understanding about people’s uneasy relationship with alcohol. This extends to the business side of alcohol. Bartenders are creating delicious alcohol-free cocktails and “low ABV” ones that are as delectably nuanced as their high-octane versions. The beverage industry is coming out with alcohol-free cocktails, beers, and wine.

We at Night Owl are on board as well. Whenever we do a cocktail demonstration (now mostly online) we are careful to showcase alcohol-free versions of our drinks. That goes for our catering gigs, too, when we get back to doing them again in a post-Covid world.

If you’re sober curious, as they say, here are some tasty alcohol-free drinks, based on classics, that you can give a whirl for Dry January or whenever, for yourself or whomever.

Rosemary & Tonic
2 oz Rosemary-juniper syrup*
½ oz Fresh lemon juice
4 oz Tonic water (preferably Fever Tree or Q Tonic)
Garnishes: Rosemary sprig, lemon wheel, and (optional) whole juniper berries 
--
Fill a wide-mouth wine glass three-quarters full of ice. Pour in rosemary-juniper syrup and lemon juice and then gently pour in the tonic water. Gently stir to combine. Garnish with the rosemary sprig, lemon wheel, and a few juniper berries (optional).

Shortcut: Skip the syrup.

* Rosemary-Juniper Syrup
1 sprig Fresh rosemary
1 Tabl Whole juniper berries, slightly crushed (optional; if you don’t have, use an additional sprig of rosemary)
½ cup Water
½ cup Sugar
---
Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a gentle boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Remove the saucepan from heat and cover. Let steep for 20 minutes and let syrup come to room temperature. Strain into a container and keep in fridge until needed.

Old-Fashioned Tea
2 oz Strong tea (room temperature or chilled)
½ oz Simple syrup or 1 Tabl sugar
2 dashes Angostura bitters (note this does contain alcohol)
Garnish: Orange twist
--
Add all the ingredients except the garnish to a mixing glass. Add ice and stir until combined and chilled. Strain into an old-fashioned glass. Gently add a large ice cube to the glass (optional). Express the orange twist and drop into the glass.

No Words
2 oz Celery shrub**
3 Maraschino cherries (preferably Luxardo)
1 tsp Syrup from the maraschino cherries
2 oz Club soda
Garnish: Maraschino cherry
--
Add the cherries to a cocktail shaker and muddle thoroughly. Add the celery shrub and syrup to the cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into a chilled coupe. Top with club soda and garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Short cut: Pour chilled cherry-flavored kombucha into a coupe and garnish with a lime wheel. 

**Celery Shrub
Adapted from the New York Times
½ lb Celery
¼ cup Water
½ cup Sugar
½ Apple cider vinegar
--
Coarsely chop the celery, including leaves. Add chopped celery and water to a food processor and blend until smooth and pourable. Add a bit more water if necessary. Strain into a jar and add sugar and apple cider vinegar. Shake vigorously until sugar dissolves. Store in fridge until needed, shaking 

Solo Celebrations with Holiday Cocktails

Holiday cocktail for one

The winter holidays may be grounded in religious tradition and significance, but for many, what elevates these December days from gloomy and dark to special and joyous is the opportunity to gather with friends and family and enjoy each other’s bright company. Without them, December and its short days would otherwise slide by unnoticed and unappreciated until the year’s end.

This December, however, many of us cannot wait for this last month of an unbearably difficult year to speed along so we can shut the door hastily on 2020, a veritable annus horribilis. The holidays aren’t even something to look forward to, since we can’t gather and make merry--no office parties, no SantaCon, no extended family meals. In fact, for some, like me who will be totally alone at the holidays, they have the reverse effect this year; they are going to make the final days of the year even more unbearable. To be frank, being alone at this time can suck.

It’s tempting, then, to close your eyes to the holidays and ignore them, or to grit your teeth and endure them as best you can. If that’s your choice, that’s fine. We all need to be doing what we can to make it through December safely, both in spirit and body.

But I am going to urge you to mark the holidays--even me who’s on her own. Why bother, you may ask? My response is that a celebration, even a solo one, helps us to grab onto time and make it work for us, to savor these fleeting days, and to do as Mohammed Ali encouraged us to do, to make the days count, not count the days.

The next question is how to do so. Under normal circumstances, one of the clear markers of the holidays are seasonal cocktails, the ones that you don’t imbibe at any other time of year. You’re not going to shake up eggnog in July (even though it’s basically melted ice cream) or gently simmer spiced mulled wine during the dog days of summer. No, these drinks have a firm hold on the month of December.

And usually, under normal circumstances, eggnog and mulled wine are made for a crowd. But this year, crowds are the Grinch of Christmas this year--not welcome. So, let’s make individual servings of them. It’s possible!

I present to you single-serving recipes for holiday drinks that you can whip up, and in so doing, acknowledge and even enjoy this strange holiday season. And please don’t be ashamed or hesitate to enjoy a few cocktails on your own, with moderation. For encouragement, check out my blog on the subject. Or do as we’re all doing, drink them in the company of friend or family on Zoom!

Ho ho ho! And, Cheers! 

Glüwhein (individual serving)
(Adapted from Micahel P. Foley's Drinking with Saint Nick)

4oz hearty, dry red wine
1 stick cinnamon
1/2 tsp. sugar (or more to taste)
1 orange peel
1 lemon peel
1 whole clove
---
Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and gently bring to the boiling point (but do not let the mix boil, or the alcohol will evaporate--unless, of course, you are serving children and want it to evaporate). Let it cool it a bit. Meanwhile, pour boiling water into an Irish coffee cup or coffee mug to warm it. Pour out the hot water from the mug and pour in the glüwhein.

Mulled Wine, but Chilled
(Adapted from Rebekah Peppler, NYTimes)
1 ½ oz dry red wine, such as Pinot Noir, Gamay, or Grenache
1 oz Cognac
½ oz Sweet vermouth
½ oz Fresh lime juice
½ oz Mulled simple syrup*
--
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled coupe glass.

* Mulled Simple Syrup (Make ahead of time)
1 (5- to 6-inch) piece ginger
2 cinnamon sticks, lightly crushed
4 whole cloves
4 whole black peppercorns
¾ cup granulated sugar
5 whole green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
---
Use the larger holes on a box grater to grate the ginger, and add to a small saucepan. Place over medium-high heat. Add 1½ cups water, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and peppercorns. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer on medium until the liquid reduces by about half and is very fragrant, about 20 minutes. Add the sugar and cardamom, and stir until the sugar dissolves. Remove pan from the heat, and set aside to cool completely. Strain through a fine mesh sieve. This makes about 1 cup. Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. (You can use the extra syrup by adding it to lemonade, drizzling it over oatmeal or substituting it for standard simple syrup in another cocktail to make it automatically cozy.)

Gin Punch
(Adapted from, Drinking with Dickens)

½ lemon, juiced
Pinch ground cinnamon
1 whole clove
1 tsp Brown sugar
1 tsp Honey
1 oz Madeira
1 oz Gin
Boiling water
Garnish: Freshly grated nutmeg
---
Pour boiling water into a mug to warm it. Dump out the water and then add the lemon juice, cinnamon, clove, sugar, and honey. Fill the mug three-quarters with boiling water and stir to dissolve the honey and sugar. Add the madeira and gin and stir with a stick of cinnamon. Garnish with grated nutmeg and the cinnamon stick. 

Eggnog (Individual serving)
(Adapted from David Wondrich's Imbibe!)

1 Tbls Sugar, dissolved with 1 Tbls water
1 Egg
2 oz Cognac
1 oz Dark rum
4 oz Whole milk
Garnish: Freshly grated nutmeg
---
Add all ingredients, except garnish, to a cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake and strain into a glass. Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.

Cocktails for Thanksgiving

Corpse Reviver No. 1. Photo by Alchemy & A Twist

We live in a divided country. 

No, I am not talking about politics, but about Thanksgiving and the great, forever-unsettled debate over what is the centerpiece of the holiday table. As with our political system, there are only two options in this contest: There’s the camp that casts their vote for turkey, while the other party rallies for the side dishes. Although never the twain shall meet, at least we all can agree that Thanksgiving is all about the food, whether it’s the turkey or the sides. (For the record, I campaign for the side dishes.)

As a result, drinks don’t get much attention at Thanksgiving, other than from wine journalists who every November recycle an article on the theme of yet another forever-unsettled Thanksgiving debate: which style of wine can successfully take on the the wide range of foods crowding the table (Brussels sprouts, marshmallows, cranberries, gravy, sweet potatoes, and so much more), often with flavors as discordant as your political views and Aunt Nellie, who’s sitting right next to you at the adult table? These wine writers usually make a few specific suggestions, depending on what’s trending that year, but their message to hosts unusually is: make sure there’s plenty of wine (with the vast amount of food being served, the amount of wine shouldn’t be any less) and that there’s a style available for everyone--red, white, and even rose and sparkling. In my mind, hard cider (so seasonal and does a stellar job of going with a variety of food) and beer should be included in the drinks menu.

With the beverages settled for dinner--lots of it and lots of variety--what about what to drink before sitting down to the table? And what about something for dessert? And for after the meal to help settle stomachs, if not your political arguments with Aunt Nellie. Wine can’t handle all this.

Actually, wine would be a fine--and easy-peasy--aperitif, to sip while nibbling on appetizers, but it’s a holiday, and an American one at that, so let’s offer something a bit more distinctive--and American-- than a ho-hum glass of wine, like a cocktail, which is even more American than apple pie. Mixing up something pre-batched makes a lot of sense so that you, as host, don’t have to worry about fixing drinks while also scrambling in the kitchen to get the food out in time to the dining room. That’s why wine usually takes this role as all you have to do is uncork a bottle and and pour. Guests can even do it for themselves.This is why a pre-batched cocktail, served in a pretty pitcher, can be a festive way to bump wine off the stage--just as easy-peasy as wine, if prepped beforehand.

Any of the cocktails that I suggested in my recent blog about autumn-time cocktails, would be an excellent way to go. I might be partial to the Applejack Cobbler since it has almost all the makings of a Thanksgiving dinner, minus the turkey: cranberries, apple brandy and apple schnapps, and pomegranate molasses. And the amount of cranberry syrup that you are directed to prepare for the drink, whether for a solo tippler or for a crowd, is enough to make 8 drinks. Just multiply the other ingredients (orange slice, applejack, sweet vermouth, apple schnapps, bitters, and  pomegranate molasses) by eight and put everything into a pitcher and give a good stir. Stir again before serving to dredge up the cranberry syrup which will settle at the bottom.

For sure, no one will have wine for dessert, unless you’re French or Italian and have cheese before dessert. Or if you're British and have cheese after dessert, which I still can’t wrap my head around even though I love cheese and have British parents. A fortified wine--port, sherry, madeira, pinneau--would be divine, but let’s give a cocktail a go for this course, too. The Great Pumpkin is almost dessert onto itself. One Thanksgiving I shook them before the meal, as I suggested you do for the Applejack Cobbler, but that was a big mistake. The Great Pumpkin is so creamy and scrumptious that one of my guests consumed three of them, which left him both too drunk and too full (he more or less drank the equivalent of an omelet) to enjoy the holiday meal. From this experience, I now think that serving it after the meal is the way to go. Or perhaps a pumpkin liqueur hot toddy. 

After a cocktail and nibbles, dinner and wine, dessert and a creamy connotation,  everyone is surely stuffed. A drink to the rescue! In the tradition of European digestifs, there’s the Reanimator (rye and amaro) or Corpse Reviver No. 1 (cognac or armagnac, apple brandy, and sweet vermouth; most people know the lighter gin-based Corpse Reviver #2, which I sacrilegiously suggest as an Easter Cocktail). These drinks were originally created as hangover helpers, but they will do quite nicely as a way to bring your stomach back to life so that you can eat a turkey sandwich a couple of hours later if that’s your thing, which for most Americans it is. It’s not Thanksgiving unless you stuff yourself silly. Let a postprandial quaff help you in this mission. 

Whether you are campaigning for the turkey or the sides, give pre- and postprandial cocktails a go this Thanksgiving. But more than anything, stay safe and keep others safe.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Apple Brandy Cocktails for Autumn

Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy in a .Issac Newton cocktail.

As soon as the clocks “fall back,” there is no denying the change in seasons--the shift from the languid and long days of summer to the brisk days of autumn that are--admittedly--beautifully bathed in the golden glow of the weakening sun. Even if temperatures occasionally border on summer-warm, at least in a comparative sense, there is no confusing fall for summer when the sun sets before 5 p.m.

People adapt to this seasonal change in different ways. As a point of exploration, let’s examine drinks (of course!). There are those folks who have their favorite beverages--whether it’s Diet Coke, iced coffee, or gin and tonics--and steadfastly hold on to them no matter the time of year. And then there are those, like me, who transition into drinks that seem appropriate for the season. As such, you won’t see me sipping a gin and tonic when it’s as cold out as a highball!

So, what will you see me drinking? From late September through Thanksgiving, I select from a range of cocktails in my binder of recipes, clipped from magazines and printed from the Web, that I reserve for these months, and these monthly only. What qualifies these particular drinks is that at least one of their ingredients evoke autumn. As for the nonalcoholic components, this could be something like pumpkin butter, maple syrup, apple cider syrup, cranberry syrup, and pumpkin beer. The spirits tend to be “brown,” that is, aged and hearty spirits such as whiskey and brandy. I do allow for pumpkin vodka, even though vodka, especially sweetened, flavored ones aren’t my thing. I can’t say no to anything pumpkin in the fall.

There is one spirit that is the autumn-est of them all and that’s apple brandy. The type most known around the world is Calvados from Normandy,France, but the one I turn to more often hails pretty much right from my backyard in New Jersey. It’s bonded apple brandy from Laird’s, considered the oldest licensed distillery in the United States. Laird’s & Company received License No. 1 from the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 1780. 

To be fair, you can drink Laird’s various apple distillates anytime of the year, even with tonic water in the summertime, but I find myself embracing it in the autumn. Who can blame me? This is, after all, apple season, when we all go apple-mad, for ciders, apple cider donuts, and apple pies, baked with the surfeit of apples from a weekend of apple picking. 

So, why not put down that gin and tonic and go apple brandy mad along with me this autumn? There are so many fantastic cocktails, both stirred and shaken, that you can make with Laird’s. A classic is the Jack Rose shaken with citrus and grenadine, which is basically pomegranate syrup (not molasses) and which is additionally evocative of autumn. 

To inspire you, here are some of my favorite apple brandy cocktails from my recipe binder. Note that I make all of them with Laird’s bonded apple brandy, not their applejack, because it is 100 percent apple brandy, whereas the applejack, aka Jersey Lightening, is blended with grain neutral spirits. If this is apple season, you might as well go all-in with the bonded apple brandy. In addition, at 100 proof, it has the warming heft to stand up for itself in a mixed drink.

Great Pumpkin: Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy, bonded rye, pumpkin ale, maple syrup, egg & nutmeg
Apple Crisp: Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy, bourbon, lemon, honey, club soda & cardamom 
Honeymoon: Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy, orange curacao, Benedictine & lemon
Applejack Cobbler: Laird’s Applejack, apple schnapps, sweet vermouth, bitters & pomegranate molasses
Applejack Rabbit: Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy, lemon, orange & maple syrup
Apple Blow Fizz: Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy, lemon, sugar, egg white & club soda
Pomme en Croute: Laird’s Applejack, Campari, orange & lemon
Issac Newton: Laird’s Applejack, cider syrup, lemon, bitters & cinnamon

These drinks certainly make up for the sun setting much earlier than I’d prefer it to. I hope they do the same for you!

Freaky Tiki

Photo and pineapple jack o’ lantern by .Modern Tiki.

Worn down by seven months of a global shutdown, we may be done with the Coronavirus, but it’s not done with us. Spikes in cases and deaths around the world attest to its ongoing, menacing grip on our lives. As such, for our physical health, we still need to keep ourselves and others safe by socializing outdoors, wearing a mask, and maintaining our distance. 

But what about our mental health? This may seem frivolous in these worrying times, but we also need to find some fun and merriment. Our souls need and crave it.

Just two months ago, during the summer, it was comparatively easy to take part in this kind of social fun, or at least it was for us on the Jersey Shore, where the beach was a safe space. But as the days get cooler, wetter, and shorter, this gets trickier, but not totally impossible or irresponsible. 

Speaking of tricks—and souls—we’ve got an idea for some joy before full-on winter descends: an afternoon-time, outdoor tiki party on Halloween, which conveniently falls on a Saturday this year. Just because the warm weather has come to an end in the northeast, doesn’t mean a tiki celebration with its evocation of tropical climes can’t happen. In fact, there’s an established crossover between tiki and the occult.

Just think of the iconography of tiki culture--the tikis themselves warding off evil spirits and curses, the shrunken heads of enemies, sacrificial volcanoes, and the deadly fangs of animals and monsters. Even the names of classic cocktails evoke the otherworldly, such as the Zombie and Mexican El Diablo, and new classics, such at The Dead Reckoning, 

From here, it’s easy to come up with suitably spooky drinks, food, music, and decorations (check out that pineapple jack o’lantern!) for a Halloween tiki party, which we’re cleverly calling Freaky Tiki. 

As for drinks, my mind went straight to the Italian herbal liqueur, Strega, which means “witch.” How fitting for Halloween, no? Not having used Strega much before, except for the summertime martini, Spellbinder, I Googled, tiki drinks with Strega, as one does for recipe ideas, and discovered this one from Seattle, Bruxa Irmã Seis Batida. I am not entirely sure what its name means, but I know “bruxa,” is Portuguese for “witch.” A tiki drink with a “witch” in its name and in its ingredient list--perfect!

Now for food. In keeping with Halloween’s connection to what and who lies six feet under, I chose this seemingly fitting dish of bite-size baked potatoes--black ones at that!--that guests need to exhume from a half-inch of salt to eat. (The potatoes are buried in kosher salt and baked.)

Next up I should design a campy and creepy costume, but I’ve already expended my creativity capabilities with the cocktail and appetizer, so all I can come up with are a witch’s hat and orange capri pants with pineapples embroidered on them. Got any other ideas?

Thankfully, the spooky surf music playlist has been supplied by the tiki professionals at Hi Tide Recordings and I don’t need to figure it out (Spotify and Apple Music). Thank you!

Stay safe and spooky!

Nine Ways to Celebrate National Bourbon Heritage Month

The line-up at the September meeting of the Asbury Park Whisky Club.

Almost every day of the year is reserved for a gimmicky food and drink holidays, chiefly created by marketing teams. They’re fun but ultimately silly. I mean, who doesn’t want to celebrate Gumdrop Day (February 15, by the way)? But, also, who can take such a “holiday” seriously?

If you reserve holiday celebrations for the historical and traditional, then we’ve got one for you, a drinking one that  lasts for the whole month of September, as designated by the 110th Congress in 2007. So it’s legit--and patriotic! 

It’s National Bourbon Heritage Month, which “recognizes bourbon as ‘America’s Native Spirit’ [which Congress declared in 1964] and reinforces its heritage and tradition and its place in the history of the United States.”

But what the Senate of the United States neglected to spell out in its August 2, 2007, resolution
(S. Res.294)  is exactly how to celebrate National Bourbon Heritage Month. Big fans of bourbon (we run a monthly whiskey club, too, after all) we’ve got some specific ideas of how to commemorate America’s native spirit  in case you’re left wondering how to make the most of the final six days of September. 

1. Drink bourbon, of course! Drink it neat or stir or shake it into a cocktail or high ball. Classics would be a Manhattan, a mint julep, or a whiskey sour.

2. Be proud of bourbon. It’s our whiskey. It’s American. As Congress noted in its resolution, bourbon is “the only spirit distinctive to the United States.” But its consumption and appreciation is not limited to the States. It’s imported by countries all over the world, accounting for two-thirds of the $1.6 billion of U.S. exports of distilled spirits. As relative newcomers to global trade and distinct culinary traditions, we can be proud of this.  

3. Know what bourbon is. As mentioned in #2, bourbon is uniquely American and it can be made anywhere in the United States, not just in Kentucky. So, what distinguishes bourbon from other whiskies other than  its being distilled in the U.S. There are several defining regulations, known formally as “the standard of identity,” but the important one to remember is that the mash bill (the grains that are fermented and then distilled) has to be at least 51 percent corn.

4. Explore bourbon. You might have your go-to bourbon, say wheated Maker’s Mark, which goes down smoothly, or historic Four Roses that weathered Prohibition, or something highly coveted such as Pappy Van Winkle.You may think that all bourbons are pretty much the same except for variations in quality, but there are at least three distinctive “recipes”, e.g, traditional (70% corn and then roughly equal amounts of rye and barley), high-rye, and traditional wheat. Collect all three!

5. Support your local bourbon distillery. Drink local! In the past 10 years or so, micro-distilleries, much like craft breweries, have popped up all around the country. Visit one and sample their bourbon. It’s bound to be special.  

6. Read about bourbon. These are some of my favorite reads on the subject of America’s native spirit.

   1. The Best Bourbon You’ll Never Taste: The True Story of A. H. Hirsch Reserve Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Distilled in the Spring of 1974 by Charles K. Cowdery

   2. The Bourbon Bartender: 50 Cocktails to Celebrate the American Spirit by Jane Danger and Alla Lapushchik

   3. Bourbon: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of an American Whiskey by Fred Minnick

   4. Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America’s Whiskey by Reid Mitenbuler

   5. Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage by Michael R. Veach

7. Experiment with bourbon cocktails. Try those that I mentioned in #1 or check out the ones in the books listed in #6 or create your own.

8. Celebrate Negroni Week belatedly and make a Boulevardier*, which is basically a Negroni with bourbon subbing for gin. 

9. Enjoy bourbon! 

* Boulevardier
Adapted from the Bourbon Bartender

1½ oz Bourbon (preferably Russell’s Reserve)
¾ oz Campari
¾ oz Sweet vermouth (preferably Carpano Antica)
Garnish: Orange twist
--
Stir all ingredients except the garnish in a mixing glass with ice until well-chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe and express the orange twist over the top of the drink. Drop the orange twist into the cocktail.