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!

Home-made crème de cassis, part two

Back in July I put a jar of blackcurrants and grain alcohol. Yesterday, I got the jar out of the cupboard to do the last steps to make it crème de cassis, with the help of my devoted assistant, Aldara.

This summer, Jessica made some jelly from the other currants we harvested—redcurrants and gooseberry. She ordered a jelly strainer on-line so I set it up to strain the currant-infused grain alcohol into a pot:



Assistant Aldara enthusiastically spooned out the first few scoops of currants, dropping only a small handful into the pot. I then poured the rest of the mixture into the strainer and we waited a half hour or so for it to strain out all the alcohol:



I ended up with a little over 2 cups. Most of the recipes I found on-line call for an equal amount of water and an enormous amount of sugar: over a pound for 4 cups of liquid. I decided to underdo both other quantities so I added a cup and a half of water and started with 8 oz. of sugar. I brought it to a boil and cooked the mixture for 2 minutes (I don't know how rigorous a timing that is in terms of sterilization, but after all there's a hell of a lot of booze in there!). I let it cool and after tasting it, decided it was a little too bitter. Not bad, but the crème's role is partly as sweetener after all. I added another 4 oz. or so of sugar and heated the pot enough to melt it.

I poured it (once more through a strainer (and funnel, of course)) into this pretty bottle I have that used to contain Los Danzantes mezcal (there's also some in a less pretty bottle):




Since our household is awaiting a second baby there's not a lot of drinking going on these days, but I think I'll hazard a little kir for me and th'wife at lunch today.

Read more!

Home-made crème de cassis

A couple of weeks ago I put up my annual batch of crème de cassis using the bounty from this year's garden. Here's the black currant bush, already denuded:

And here's a colander full of fresh black currants:

The first time I made this, a few years ago, I found just one recipe on line (in French) after a considerable amount of searching. I tried to search again and now, of course, there are tons of different recipes (still almost all in French) on a variety of websites and message boards. The most interesting departure from what I did before was on where you macerate the currants in burgundy wine. Mm, I think I'll try that next year! Another interesting detail a lot of recipes featured was to put in a few leaves from the plant as well. To me they had a spice, slightly anisey taste:


The recipe is straightforward. Measurements vary but basically you clean the currants and cover them with grain alcohol (I'm all out, good thing it's legal in NY, now—at least that's what I've heard).


Now the currants need to macerate. The biggest change to my method this time around is that whereas previously I have steeped the currants for three days, I found that most recipes recommend something more like three months, so I'm giving it a try.


The jar is sitting in a cupboard and come September I'll strain out the alcohol, boil it, and add some water and sugar—a bit less of both than is called for with the aim of getting a less-sweet and more "currant-forward" liqueur. I'll post photos when the time comes. 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!

Five Spice Bitters Follow-Up Report

Here's a photo of a little eye-dropper bottle full of my finished Five Spice Bitters. I'm happy to say it turned out quite well. The anise flavor of the star anise definitely dominates. the first thing I did was to have about an ounce of the bitters on the rocks with some water and it tasted more or less like pastis--which is why I like it so much. If I make it again, however, I'll try to balance out the flavors some more. I'm particular curious about how far you can go with the szechuan pepper. A mildly spicy bitters sounds intriguing although a little iffy (I've never tried it, but I've heard that some bartenders add a dash of tabasco sauce to their martinis—I think it may be a fad that's come and gone in NYC).

I didn't end up adding any coloring. The natural color is a pale blonde, like tequila reposado, and it looks nice. In any case, I looked around for Jamaican burnt sugar, as I had seen in it local supermarkets here in Sunset Park, which has a big Carribean community. As it turns out, I seem to have missed the swan song of this particular minor ethnic food ingredient. I even asked the manager at Key Foods, a South Asian looking man who is probably from Trinidad or French Guyana and he scratched his had and said, "no, I don't think we've carried that for years." I could swear I'd seen it on the shelves--in fact, at least two different brands--in the last year or so. It's too bad because I was curious as to whether burnt sugar would truly add only color as promised or if it wouldn't sweeten the bitters just a bit as well. If I track some down in one of the smaller grocery stores I'll give it a try and report back.

As for recipes, I've tried adding my Five Spice Bitters as a replacement for angostura/orange bitters in martinis and manhattans with great success. I even made a sazerac and used Five Spice Bitters in place of absinthe and it was quite good. So what I've found is that you can use these bitters for an anise-y replacement of the usual bitters, or you can use it in place of absinthe/pastis when it's called for in very small amounts as in two favorites of mine, The Preview and the "New Standard" Manhattan (skip the "gum syrup" though). Read more!

Five Spice Bitters in progress

My five spice bitters have been steeping for a few weeks. Today I strained off the alcohol and put it back in a jar. I broke up the bigger spices and put them in a pan and simmered them in water for five minutes or so. (photo above) I put this water-spice mixture in a jar and will let it sit two days before straining it and combining it with the alcohol again. I'll decide at that point if I want to add burnt sugar for coloring or not. Read more!