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!

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 Preview

From the cocktail I drink the most to perhaps the favorite cocktail I drink the least. You have to be in the right mood for the slightly odd Preview and it requires a delicate ratio of ingredients not to make it too sweet. (I find this is always the case with cocktails that involve Cointreau.) It shares with my martini recipe that classic proportion of main ingredient plus small amount of secondary ingredient plus accent.



I read about this in Terry Sullivan's "Mixology" column in GQ, which I liked a lot the occasional times I would find myself reading that magazine (on airplanes primarily). Sullivan claims this cocktail was a favorite of "that other guy in the Rat Pack", Peter Lawford. This link appears to be an unattributed copy of the recipe (and anecdote) as it appeared in Sullivan's column.

Two unusual things about this cocktail are that it features Cointreau without its usual citrus juice accompaniment and that it is accented with a splash of anise liqueur. What made me want to try this one out—aside from the gin, of course—is that I had enjoyed the combination of orange juice (Cointreau's underlying flavor) and anise liqueur in the embarassingly-named Monkey Gland.

When I get this one right—and I confess I often put in too much Cointreau—this is a rather exotic-tasting drink, the sweetness of triple sec countered by the anisey herbiness of the liqueur. The louching of the anise also creates a beautiful pearlescent glow, like a martini with some plutonium in it.

Here's how I make it:
about 3oz. gin
scant 1/2 oz. cointreau
a few drops of absinthe or pastis

You can lace the inside of the cocktail glass with the anise liqueur but I usually just dump it all in the cocktail shaker, shake it not-too-hard (it's nice to keep this one as clear as possible), and pour. I'll sometimes garnish it with orange peel if I have some handy. 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!

The Happy Hooligan

I've invented quite a few cocktails, some worth remembering, others just improvisations of the moment. I do have a few though that I'm happy enough with to want to share. One of those is the Happy Hooligan, named in honor of Frederick Burr Opper's wonderfully iconic tramp character from the Sunday papers (when is someone going to gather and reprint that stuff? It's past due!). I tried to come up with something that might have existed at the turn of the last century, so gin was the obvious choice for the base liquor (and in any case it's always the bottle I reach for first!). I tried to keep it simple and classic: some lemon juice, sugar, and a few dashes of Angostura Bitters to finish it off. I liked the cocktail so much I made a comic out of the recipe (click to enlarge for a legible version):


Feel free to print this out and take it to your local drinking establishment! Read more!