A perfect heat wave cocktail: the Remsen Cooler

I was trying to think of a good, cold, wet cocktail that wasn't a mojito and I remembered the Remsen Cooler, in particular, David Wondrich's version I read about in Esquire magazine on an airplane years ago. I even managed to find a link to it, with the photo, here (don't we live in marvelous times).

This is basically a glorified scotch and soda but what I like about it is that it's a rare instance where a flashy presentation—peeling an entire lemon in a single coil—really transforms the flavor of the drink. It's more lemon oil than lemon juice. And it looks really elegant, don't you think?

Remsen Cooler (based on David Wondrich's recipe)

• .5tsp powdered sugar (I often skip it)
• soda (I use seltzer—one of these days I need to figure out if club soda is really good for something)
• 2 oz scotch
• long lemon spiral

Dissolve sugar in some soda, add spiral, add rocks and liquor, top with soda.

***

PS The wife had a Do Be Careful, which solved the conundrum of the peeled-yet-unjuiced lemon. I also read somewhere that it's good for breastfeeding. Isn't it?

• 1 1/2 oz. Gin
• 1/2 oz. Cointreau
  1/2 oz. Lemon Juice (or to taste)
• splash of Grenadine

Shake with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry. Read more!

Some Favorite Cocktails: The Sidecar

I made some new friends recently and had them over for drinks for the first time. I didn't know much about them but I knew exactly which cocktail to make for them: the Sidecar. It's the perfect cocktail when you want to make something fancy but you're not sure what kind of drinkers your friends are (of course you're assuming you're friends are drinkers; if not I guess you can have a double for yourself). The Sidecar is sweet (but not too sweet) and lemony enough to appeal to most palates but the the cognac (or cheap brandy...) makes it sharp and complex enough to keep it interesting. In this sense it's actually quite similar to a well-made Margarita.

When I was living in Chicago briefly, in the fall of 1997, Jessica and I went to the opening of a new bar (name and location since forgotten) that was one of my first encounters with the classic cocktail revival. In celebration of the new establishment they were serving free Sidecars and their own very tasty take on a Gimlet (which maybe I'll describe in a later post). Both were made with fresh citrus and served in cocktail glasses laced with confectioner's sugar. That's more sweet than I tend to like things these days but at the time it was a revelation and the evening as a while was one of the key events that set me on the path to being the cocktail-obsessive I am today.

Making a Sidecar is easy. My version is something like:

2 oz cognac (or decent but cheaper brandy... I use Raynal's sometimes)
1 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1/2-3/4 oz Cointreau

Shake with ice, strain into cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist. (Confectioner sugar rim optional but fun once in a while.)
Incidentally this is the same ratio I use for a Margarita, obviously replacing cognac with tequila blanco.

If I haven't already written it elsewhere, I think the key to good "sweet" cocktails is to underdo it a bit with the sugary liqueurs like Cointreau. Read more!

Manly drinks with Rachel Maddow

From Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (who by the way does a fantastic Barry Gibb (I'm sure everyone else in the world already knows this but I'm catching up on my SNL skits on hulu.com (Justin Timberlake is my new favorite celebrity))), Rachel Maddow (with whom I predict I shall someday make cocktails) shows how to make a Bijou. Read more!

some favorite cocktails: The Martini

With this post I'm starting a new feature where I'll talk a bit about some of my favorite cocktails and give my recipes for them.

I might as well kick it off with the classic gin Martini. It's a perennial and it never disappoints. The word "bracing" seems to have been invented for that thrilling shock to the system of the first sip of a very cold Martini. I never get tired of its icy, herbaceous, astringent effect—it really is as much of an "effect" as a taste.

©the wonderful Virgil Partch

An advantage of the Martini is that despite its mystique it is actually quite easy to make--it's like a soufflé in that sense. There's no real trick, just choice of gin (I like Bombay Sapphire and Plymouth the best, Junipero's also good...), the ratio of vermouth (I like mine relatively wet; I've never measured but I don't use a mister or "glance at the bottle", I give a generous pour), and making it good and cold. Since it's made of stuff-in-a-bottle it's actually a much safer thing to order at a bar than a sidecar or margarita, where you never know (even if you ask, sometimes) if you're going to end up with sour mix.

I'm agnostic on the shaken versus stirred debate. The best argument for stirring I've seen is that it gives you a limpid transparency; at the same time, I actually like the little floes of ice chips that float in the slightly clouded liquid of a cocktail than's been shaken very hard.

All that said, the one thing that is never discussed in Martini-making is the role of the vermouth. If you've ever tasted two dry vermouths together you'll find that they differ quite radically in taste. Noilly-Pratt tastes to me (I find I'm terrible at describing flavors--whenever I describe something as sweet everyone else in the room will insist it's sour) dry and tangy while Martini & Rossi is sweeter and more floral. It makes a difference in how the Martini turns out. I'm currently leaning towards the Martini & Rossi.

Over time I've made a more-or-less permanent conversion to adding bitters to my Martinis, to the point where if I don't it's because I'm looking for a change of pace—something exotic! Apparently many traditional "Martinis" from the evolutionary miasma that led to the current reigning recipe featured bitters. To me the essential, almost irreducible formula for a great cocktail is something like three parts primary ingredient, one part secondary ingredient, plus accent, and a Martini with bitters may be its finest expression.

So here's my typical Martini:

a goodly amount (3oz?) of gin
a generous splash of dry vermouth
several dashes of whatever bitters strikes my fancy: most often Angostura but also orange, grapefruit (from Fee Bros.), or my 5 Spice bitters.

Shake hard and strain into a cocktail glass.

I always garnish it with a lemon twist—or nothing at all (particularly if I'm using bitters, which after all plays a similar accentual role). Read more!