Cheers!

This is it - my blog is officially moved to www.qmixalot.com

2010-01-24T14:21:00.001-08:00

If you have subscribed to this blog, please take a moment and redirect to my new wordpress blog at www.qmixalot.com. Now that everything has been moved over, the Jerry Thomas Project is back in full swing.
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The Jerry Thomas Project - Repeal Day Cocktails

2010-01-09T04:51:00.000-08:00

A little catch up with the Jerry Thomas Project. I’ve still been making drinks, but haven’t a spare moment to blog about them. Repeal Day offered a chance to put together a pre-prohibition cocktail list and I chose drinks entirely from Thomas’s book. Repeal Day was a success and I had quite a few people come in because of the marketing I had done and I also had a lot of people get really excited about being able to try Thomas’s drinks. Now that the holidays are over and I am not chained to the service bar for 14 hours a day, I can take the time to figure out some ways of getting people excited about Thomas’s drinks and for the project itself.
So for December 5 Repeal Day 2009 (seventy-six years to the day the prohibition was lifted) we served the Whiskey Daisy, the Brandy Smash, the Saratoga Brace up, the Whiskey Cocktail, the Martinez Cocktail, the Stone Fence, and the Santa Cruz Sour. The menu also had little prohibition lore on it like, “Which state never passed prohibition?” to which the answer is Maryland.
As for the drinks:

The Whiskey Daisy
I loved the whiskey daisy so much that I put it on the happy hour menu. It also has a more modern taste as it is well balanced with citrus and sweet. I’ve found that a lot of Thomas’s drinks that they are very sweet because Thomas will use gomme syrup but no citrus. The whiskey daisy satisfies, with a beautiful combination of whiskey, lemon juice, and orgeat syrup. Orgeat syrup is an almond syrup that we make in house using blanched almonds, sugar, water, and a fresh orange.

The Brandy Smash
The key to making a good smash is letting the mint steep long enough in the spirit to get a rich minty flavor. I really love this way of infusing the flavor and you would be quite surprised what a five-minute mint steep will accomplish. I am not the hugest fan of muddling as I believe there are a lot of other ways to impart flavors and muddling is messy and time-consuming. (As I know there are a million muddler aficionados who are cursing me right now, but take a moment and let the mint steep, I think you will be surprised.) The brandy smash consists of mint-infused brandy, angostura bitters, and gomme syrup.

The Saratoga Brace Up
This was my favorite of the all the cocktails on the list. The Saratoga Brace Up is composed of brandy, fresh lime, egg whites, and a splash of absinthe. It had a lot more depth and complexity than a lot of other of Thomas’s cocktails. I loved the frothiness and the creamy mouth feel from the egg whites, the warm vanilla tones from the brandy, and the snap at the end from the absinthe. To this point, this is my darling of the Thomas cocktail repertoire.
A quick note about brandy. I find it nearly impossible to sell as everyone thinks of it as something their grandfather drank when he was ill. I’ve done a bit of wordsmithing and started calling it American Cognac – and by jeez! Now everyone wants it.

The Whiskey Cocktail
The Whiskey Cocktail contains whiskey, boker’s bitters, and gomme syrup. I was excited to put this together because I got to use two of the hard to come by ingredients (boker’s bitters and gomme syrup). I’m quite pleased with my boker’s bitters and they could make warm piss divine. As not very much gomme syrup goes in this drink, I didn’t notice it was all the much sweeter. Very nice; it definitely needs a hard shake as the water opens it up and brightens up the bitters.

The Martinez Cocktail (I’d be interested to know why he named it this, but there is no mention. I assume it was named after someone.)
This drink too utilizes Boker’s bitters along with Old Tom Gin and maraschino liqueur. If you are not familiar with Old Tom Gin, it is a gin that was popular in the 19th century and is more in a jenever style in that juniper is not the prevailing essence. The Old Tom Gin I use is Ransom, which is made here in Oregon and has a beautiful pink hue to it as it is finished in Pinot Noir barrels. As this drink calls for very little maraschino or boker’s bitters to be added to it – I didn’t find it to be much of a cocktail but rather more along the lines of a gin martini. The Old Tom Gin has such a demanding flavor that you really have to counter to get another flavor to pop when mixed with it. The maraschino added a sweetness that I didn’t care for, as the gin is already fairly sweet (as far as gins go). Not one of my favorites. But I really wanted to showcase the Old Tom Gin because it is so pre-prohibition and I love that Ransom is an Oregon product and this drink did just that.

The Stone Fence,
The Stone Fence is probably one of the easiest cocktails I’ve made of Thomas’s. It is just rye whiskey and apple cider. We have a delicious apple cider that we use to cider brine our pork chop. This is a great drink for fall when there is cider everywhere in the Northwest and there is just an overwhelming overabundance of apples.

The Santa Cruz Sour
This is the drink that we sold the most of. The Santa Cruz Sour is a combination of rum, lemon juice, sugar, and soda water. Santa Cruz rum refers to rum from the Virgin Islands, so I used Cruzan dark (I lived in the U.S. Virgin islands so I have a certain affinity for Cruzan). I used the dark rum because it has a lot more flavor than white rum and I thought it would complement the lemon and sugar better than white rum. Thomas calls for sugar, but I ended up using simple syrup as sugar doesn’t mix well with cold ingredients. I do love Thomas’s call for garnish on this drink: orange and fresh berries (perhaps not the drink to make in the middle of the winter)

Sorry to post this a month after repeal day, but hey – I’m still celebrating!!!!!

Where have I been?

2010-01-06T16:58:00.001-08:00

Please excuse the lack of posts this past month, as I am trying to move the blog over to wordpress (which sounded soooo easy, but hasn't been). I promise to catch you up on the Jerry Thomas Project this week, along with the last couple of Cheers columns. Thanks for being patient and look for my blog at www.qmixalot.com in the next couple of weeks. I'll put a link on this page when the wordpress blog is ready to roll.
Columbine

Collateral Damage

2009-12-01T00:04:00.000-08:00

There are few ways that you can attempt not to pay for your drinks. While the bartender has your attention, you can break your neighbor’s highball so that she has to clean up ice cubes, slivers of glass, and spilled whiskey and seven. And while her head is turned, you can play Houdini and disappear. Or you can give her a bunk credit card to open a tab. Or you can wad up your money up so tight that it takes so much time to unfold it that when she is aware that she has been shorted that you have gone awol. But if that she is me, I will find you and make you pay, Nothing makes me madder than someone trying to pull the wool over my eyes. I have pursued unpaid bar tabs to other bars, I have filed charges against people with stolen or fraudulent credit cards, and I have even hunted down two grown men to find them huddled blocks away in their tiny barren apartment to make them pay me for two Irish Car Bombs.
Delusion doesn’t count as a defense. This past Friday a gentleman’s debit card didn’t run, so I held his wallet while he went scouring for cash. Returning with no money, he claimed that while he was at the bank someone there had told him that his charge had already gone through, so he would just take his things and be on his merry way. I am still not sure if he talked to his reflection in the ATM machine or screamed through the glass to the poor janitor vacuuming at 2 a.m. But let’s just say, a lot of places have gone 24 hours - but excluding the ATM the bank has not. Needless to say, he left some collateral.

Collateral damage

2 ounces of Seagram’s 7
4 ounces of 7-up

Repeal Day is this Saturday!

2009-11-30T02:10:00.000-08:00

Once again let's thank Jeffrey Morganthaler for recognizing Repeal Day and putting some spark into what should be America's favorite holiday. Can you imagine a world where you couldn't have a gorgeous glass of wine with a nice meal or envision a sports bar without beer? December 5 is the day to celebrate. At my bar we are having a special celebration with a pre-prohibition cocktail list with such delights as the whiskey daisy, the saratoga brace up, and santa cruz sour. Anyhow, you have a week to make plans for this special day where you don't have to have an excuse to drink - to drink is the reason for the holiday.

Here's some prohibition trivia:

In 1921 prohibition agents seized 414,000 gallons of alcohol. In 1929, eight years into prohibition they siezed 11,860,000 gallons of alcohol (28 times more). Way to go moonshine!

Some commercial wine was still produced in the U.S., but was only available through government warehouses for use in religious ceremonies, particularly for communion in Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Episcopal churches and in some Jewish ceremonies. "Malt and hop" stores popped up across the country and some former breweries turned to selling malt extract syrup, ostensibly for baking and "beverage" purposes.

Whiskey was available by prescription from medical doctors. The labels warned that it was strictly for medicinal purposes and any other uses were illegal. But even so doctors freely wrote these prescriptions and druggists filled them without question, and the number of "patients" increased dramatically. (Sound like something else that is currently illegal?)

Even some prominent citizens and politicians later admitted to having used alcohol during Prohibition. President Harding always kept the White House bar well stocked with bootleg liquor, though, as a Senator... he had voted for Prohibition!

Prohibition also presented lucrative opportunities for organized crime to take over the importation ("bootlegging"), manufacture, and distribution of alcoholic beverages. Al Capone, one of the most infamous bootleggers of them all, built his criminal empire largely on profits from illegal alcohol.

With alcohol production largely in the hands of criminals and unregulated clandestine home manufacturers, the quality of the product varied widely. There were many cases of people going blind or suffering from brain damage after drinking "bathtub gin" made with industrial alcohol or various poisonous chemicals.

Yay for Repeal Day!

The Jerry Thomas Project: Whiskey Cocktail & Boker's Bitters

2009-11-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

The Boker’s bitters are done! They aren’t perfect, but they are the best and only Boker’s bitters I’ve ever made. And I think they are absolutely delicious. My only real qualm is that I couldn’t find any tincture of cochineal (which is the shell of a pregnant little red insect), as our resident witch doctor is in Phoenix for the winter.

A real quick glance at Boker’s bitters: they were one of the most popular cocktail bitters at the turn of the century and a good quantity of Thomas’s recipes call for Boker’s bitters. But prohibition ensured that almost all of the bitter companies went out of business, never to be reconstructed after Repeal Day. The truth is, no one really knows what Boker’s bitters tastes like as there has only been one bottle found in modern day that showed up at the London Bar Show in 2006 and unfortunately, there wasn’t enough to go around.
So I made one of the first cocktails in the book that I earlier had to skip over because I was missing almost all of the ingredients, but now everything is in stock.

The Whiskey Cocktail
2 ounces of whiskey
3 drops of gum syrup
2 dashes of Boker’s bitters

It was really delicious. The Boker’s bitters have a lot of fascinating flavors and a lot of depth. I really like the addition that the cardamom gives the bitters. I have used cardamom before in bitters, but I used too much and it trumped all the other flavor suggestions. Anyhow, here is my tweaked recipe for Boker’s Bitters.

2 cups 100 proof vodka
(I have used a myriad of different bases -- whiskey, rye, vodka, high-proof rum, and ginger vodka) when making bitters and I have found that I can taste no difference once the ingredient has spent so much time in the solution)
.5 ounce of quassia
.5 ounce of catechu
.5 ounce of calamus
Peal from one small orange
5 cardamom pods
I let this compound sit for three weeks, and then I ran it through some cheesecloth. It’s got a very nice balance of flavors with a long slightly astringent finish. The cardamom really adds a lot of depth and an underlying layer of mystery.

Gomme Syrup

2009-11-23T03:45:00.000-08:00

Tonight I broke out the gomme syrup and made a lemon drop with regular simple syrup and a lemon drop with gomme syrup and quite honestly, I couldn't tell the difference. I had three other people with excellent palates blind taste the two lemon drops and nor could they taste any distinction. On it's own, the gomme syrup has a distinct flavor and texture, but as it is so sweet you need not use much of it and I don't believe that the texture is coming through in a mixed drink. Obviously, further research must be done.
As I am not accustomed to mixing with the highly concentrated gomme syrup I also found that I had to keep tinkering with it and the other ingredients to get a good balance. I do hope that I am not such an old dog that I can't learn new tricks, but as for now I prefer simple syrup. It is quite easy to make, I know exactly the proportion to use, and I can't personally taste any difference.

Recipe for simple syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Bring to just before a boil and then immediately take off the heat. Let it cool and enjoy!

The Jerry Thomas Project: Whiskey Smash, Brandy Smash, and the Gin Smash

2009-11-20T05:21:00.001-08:00

For those of you who haven’t read my entire blog, I am currently in the process of recreating all of Jerry Thomas’s cocktails from his 1887 book, Jerry Thomas’s Bartenders Guide Receipts for Mixing All Kinds of Punch, Egg Nog, etc. Thomas is the grandfather of American Mixology and lived pre-prohibition, pre ice machine, pre car but was able to travel the world and make a career out of mixing drinks.

GOMME SYRUP
Finally, some progress. First, the gomme syrup is done.
(Gomme syrup is a syrup very similar to simple syrup that's used as a sweetener. But instead of just using sugar and water to make the syrup, you add a little gum arabic. Gum arabic is a very complicated fusion of long and short chain sugars and is used on the back of postage stamps or on envelopes to make them seal. Anyhow, you can make a very decadent simple syrup by reducing the amount of water to sugar as gum arabic is a stabilizer and it will help prevent the mixture from crystalizing.)
I took 2 ounces of gum arabic and let it sit in 2 ounces of water overnight. The next day is was rather putrid looking with black floaties in a yellowish viscous sap. It distinctly reminded me of a time I had a bottle of Knob Creek that fruit flies infiltrated and turned it into a devilish solution of grey bourbon with thousands of dark mites. So I wasn’t real apt to turn this gum arabic solution into something I planned on drinking.
But I’m not afraid of something that looks like thousands of drowned fruit fly babies, so I added three cups of sugar and one cup of water and brought it to a boil. It foamed up intensely with thick yellow bubbles. I ran it through a chinois (which is a very very fine mesh colander) but there were still odd little bits floating in it so I ran it through some cheesecloth. The texture was very silky and the flavor was slightly chalky. The flavor reminded me of necco candy buttons (the little tiny rainbow dots of sugar that come on rolls of paper). I haven’t mixed it with anything yet, so I will be interested to see if I like it or not. On first impression, I wasn’t a fan of the chalky flavor but I am fascinated by the texture.

BRANDY SMASH, WHISKEY SMASH, AND GIN SMASH
So I made three cocktails: the brandy smash, the whiskey smash, and the gin smash. The whiskey smash in particular has made a bit of a resurgence and my beloved work mate Jonathan Hardy has taken to making a whiskey smash sazarac that he prides himself on (and a bit unfortunately has created a bit of a following for as the drink takes about 15 minutes to make). Nonetheless, he allows the mint to steep in bourbon (usually Jefferson’s) for 10 minutes. He then smashes about two handfuls of ice between linen with a hammer and dries off the excess water. He then rinses the glass with absinthe, adds the bourbon, adds the “dehydrated” ice, a splash of angostura bitters, and a splash of peychaud’s bitters. It’s rather tasty, just very time consuming.

Unlike Hardy’s version, Thomas doesn’t say how long to leave the mint in the spirit. He also doesn’t use any bitters, but rather a teaspoon of white sugar. I had Hardy smash ice for me and “dehydrate” it. Although the moment the ice hits room-temperature booze, it immediately begins to melt so I don’t know if it makes a difference or not. Nonetheless, it does look rather sleek and frosty before you put it in the glass. I found that the sugar didn’t really dissolve, it just sat at the bottom of the glass. The brandy was our favorite, it was better balanced and the mint really flattered the drink. Our least favorite was the gin, which surprised me as it seems that mint and sugar would make gin taste amazing. But it really didn’t make the biggest difference. I used Ransom gin, which is a pre-prohibition style of gin that uses malted barley as the base wort, is distilled in alembic pot stills, and then finished in Pinot Noir barrels (which makes it slightly pink). It is divinely delicious and every time you taste it, something new will pop out at you: mint, lavender, coriander, lemon, hops, cardamom, and juniper to name a few. But I think because it has so many layers, the mint dousing didn’t drastically modify its character.

Nonetheless, I recommend to anyone to put some mint leaves and let them soak for 10 to 15 minutes in 2 ounces of any type of spirit. You will be surprised by how much mint flavor imparts in such a short amount of time.

Brandy Smash

1 teaspoon of white sugar
2 tablespoons of water
3 - 4 sprigs of mint
2 ounces of brandy

Let the mint sit in the brandy for 10 minutes with the sugar and water. Add shaved ice and enjoy.

Hot toddy - what kind of booze should I put in it?

2009-11-10T05:15:00.000-08:00

So after I put up the hot toddy post I got a lot of questions about if you can use brandy, or rum, or bourbon in a hot toddy. You can use whatever you have in the house. I’ve made hot toddies with lemon vodka and lemon ginger tea. Quite honestly, if your balance of honey to lemon is good, this is a drink you can’t really mess up. If you don’t care that much for the taste of alcohol, go with brandy. It will coat the throat and be easy on the palate. If you like a more robust hot toddy, then by all means use a good strong whiskey or even throw in a little blended scotch.

Never fail you hot toddy

2 ounces of honey
2 ounces of lemon juice (use fresh if you have it but if not the little plastic lemon will do in a pinch)
2 ounces of alcohol (traditionally brandy (which is what cognac is), whiskey, or rum) but you can also use flavored vodkas, tequila, whatever you have lying around
4 ounces of hot water

Put the ingredients together in a coffee cup and stir with a spoon (as easy as that!)

The hot toddy is one of the easiest drinks to put a spin on. Drop your favorite tea bag in it and add some more depth and dimension to your winter warmer.

Jerry Thomas Project

2009-11-10T02:00:00.001-08:00

Two major obstacles will be tackled this week. Gum arabic is soaking in water as I write this so gomme syrup shall be ready this week and the boker's bitters appear to be done.

More to come.

Work, Work, and more Work!

2009-11-02T01:30:00.000-08:00

Now that an exhaustive two weeks are over I can devote my free time back to the Jerry Thomas Project (there the Broker's bitters have currently been brewing for two weeks and should be ready very very soon). I also got a bag of gum arabic - so I can make some true gomme syrup. I overhauled the cocktail list for fall - still want to do a couple of tweaks such as add a deconstruced hot toddy but for the most part I feel this is the best cocktail list I've done yet (although I always feel that way when I put the new one out). I wasn't going to do a pumpkin martini as I felt it was a bit cliche this time of year, but I got so many requests that I relented and man am I glad I did. It came out absolutely delicious and really tastes just like a pumpkin pie.

Bend Blacksmith Cocktail List November 2009

Vulcan (The Blacksmith God) 8
This drink takes the Blacksmith Idea of New Ranch Cuisine and Spins it into a Cocktail - Maple-Infused Vodka, Ancho Chile, With a Hint of Lime and Epazote
Absinthe - it’s legal after 90 years
Le Tourment Vert - French Absinthe with rich sweet botanicals 12
Kübler- from the Swiss Alps with floral and herbal aromatics 14
Lucid – French with grassy notes with a slight numbing sensation 14
Please try a half pour of each for 18
Guava Mojito 7
Guava Rum, Guava Purée, Fresh Mint, Fresh Lime, and Soda Water
Cucumber Mojito 7
Cucumber Purée, Fresh Mint, Fresh Lime, and Soda Water
El Scorcho 8
Habañero-Infused Vodka, Pineapple, Ginger Syrup, Lime, & Siracha with an Jalapeño Foam- This drink is ÜBER HOT!
Cured Mary 9
Bacon-Infused Vodka, Housemade Bloody, with a Bacon Bit Rim
Hick Coke 7
Hickory-Infused Bourbon and Smoked Coke
Save the Pacific Lamprey – He Needs Your Love Too!! 10
Hypnotic, Citros Vodka, Pineapple, and Fresh-Squeezed Citrus
Sum Yung Gi (Red Curry) 8
Coconut Rum, Mazama Pepper Vodka, Fresh Lime, and Ginger Syrup
Tamarind Margarita 8
Tequila, Tamarind, Orange Liqueur, and Fresh Squeezed Lime
Gin & Q's Tonic 7
Gin with Handcrafted Tonic Water Containing Rich Citrus and Botanicals
Floral Fusion 8
Hibiscus-Infused Vodka, Crème de Violet, & Fresh Squeezed Grapefruit
Zwack Attack Sidecar 8
Zwack Herbal Liqueur, Orange Liqueur, with Fresh Lemon and Lime
Hot Pink 10
X-Rated Liqueur, Mazama Pepper Vodka, and Fresh Lemon and Lime
Sour Patch 8
Lemon Vodka, St. Germain, and Fresh Citrus with a Super Sour Rim
Bubble Trouble 8
Lime Bubblegum Vodka with Lime Cordial & Apple Schnapps Shaken Frothy
Manhattan Flight 9
Three Baby Manhattans w/ Dolin Rouge and 3 Types of Housemade Bitters
Butterscotch Manhattan 8
A healthy pour of bourbon with our housemade butterscotch
Hard Dog Fizz 8
Gin, Juniper Cream, Orange Juice, Egg Whites, and Fresh Lime
Snik Khers Martini 9
Super Decadent Chocolate Martini w/ a Caramel Peanut Chocolate Rim
Pumpkin Partiality 8
An Absolutely Delicious Pumpkin Cocktail that Rivals Your Mama’s Thanksgiving Pie
Chai Tini 9
Voyant Chai Liqueur, Vanilla Cream, & Cinnamon Syrup

And then for Happy Hour I've been doing a lot of classic cocktails - a fun way to bring some of them back into fashion.

Fizzy Lizzy
Blueberry vodka, blueberry mint purée, fresh squeezed lime, and soda water
Gin Jin
Gin, juniper mint syrup, and fresh lime
Brandy Bop
Brandy with Peychaud’s bitters, ginger syrup, & lemon
Bloody Mary
From-scratch bloody mary with Keea's famous pickle
Grapefruit Go Go
Vodka, orange liqueur, grapefruit juice, & fresh lime
Rum Runner
Dark rum with banana and blackberry liqueurs, oj, and pineapple
Whisky Daisy
Bourbon, orgeat syrup (made from almonds) and fresh lemon
Peach Perfect
Vodka, peach puree, mint syrup, and fresh lime
Bubble Gum Lemondrop
Bubblegum-infused vodka, fresh-squeezed lemon & simple syrup
Agave Bliss
Tequila, grapefruit juice, fresh-squeezed lime
Sloe Gin Fizz
Sloe gin, gin, fresh-squeezed lemon, and soda water
Singapore Sling
Cherry brandy, gin, Angostura bitters, and fresh lime
Cherry Yum Yum
Vanilla vodka, fresh lemon, and cherry juice

The Jerry Thomas Project Measurements

2009-10-20T15:03:00.001-07:00

I dusted off David Wondrich’s Imbibe today, as I know he has quite a bit to say about making pre-prohibition cocktails. Most importantly found was the table of measurements - which is quite handy but takes away from the notion that Thomas was mixing drinks with wine glasses of absinthe - when in fact a wine glass is only two ounces.

1 wineglass = 2 ounces
1 jigger = 1.5 ounces
1 pony = 1 ounce
1 tablespoon = .5 ounce
1 teaspoon = .3 ounce or .5 ounce (interesting as there are 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon)

And last but not least, I am not sure if Thomas was using a U.S. pint (16 ounces) or an imperial pint (20 ounces) or if he was using a U.S. quart (32 ounces) or an imperial quart (40 ounces. It appears that the British redefined their measurements in the early 19th century as a response to the commercial alcoholic beverage industry; the Americans did not follow suit, thus the discrepancies. But this means that our measurements have stayed the same since early American immigration and as Thomas was mixing here in the States - my guess is that he used American measurements (although I can’t see where it says for sure).

The Jerry Thomas Project The Saratoga Cocktail

2009-10-20T00:51:00.001-07:00

For those of you who haven’t read my entire blog, I am currently in the process of recreating all of Jerry Thomas’s cocktails from his 1887 book, Jerry Thomas’s Bartenders Guide Reciepts for Mixing All Kinds of Punch, Egg Nog, etc. Thomas is the grandfather of American Mixology and lived pre-prohibition, pre ice machine, pre car but was able to travel the world and make a career out of mixing drinks.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Things are looking up for the Boker’s bitters as the last of the ingredients arrived this week and I will start the infusion process tomorrow evening. I figure that they should be done by the first week of November and for the meantime I will plug away at the cocktails that don’t contain Boker’s bitters (although I’m thinking that the vast majority appear to be comprised of what I hope to be a little jewel of an ingredient).

So today I made the Saratoga Cocktail and the Whiskey Daisy. The Saratoga Cocktail is named after Saratoga Springs, New York which was a primer resort at the time of Jerry Thomas. Due to an abundance of sparkling warm water that came out of the ground, a huge tourist business was built with hotels and restaurants lining the streets. In addition to the spa seekers, gamblers ventured to Saratoga for their grandiose racetrack and casinos.

The Saratoga Cocktail contains Angostura bitters, brandy, whiskey, and vermouth. All in equal parts, except for the bitters, which of course is only a couple of dashes. The drink was good, very similar to a Manhattan but much sweeter (due to the brandy). I also wasn’t quite sure which vermouth to use, but I decided on sweet vermouth as it is just not my nature to put whiskey with white vermouth - although I guess I should try it.

The Whiskey Daisy is mixed by using 3 dashes gum syrup (I used plain simple syrup - I still have not found the time to make real gum syrup), 2 dashes orgeat syrup, lemon juice, and bourbon. All the ingredients are mixed together and then topped off with Soda water or Apollinaris water (which I came to find is bottled in Germany and was once owned by the Nazis but now is owned by Coca Cola - I feel like there could be more to that story). As no one in my quaint village sells Apollinaris water (every place I called had me repeat what I was seeking at least three times and Whole Foods put me on hold for approximately 11 minutes transferring me from one belabored miserable hourly employee to the next until they determined that it was not in their current inventory) I just used soda water from the gun. When I first made this drink, the lemon was a little overpowering and I felt that it needed to be balanced with more syrup. I added some orgeat syrup (as I love it) and I found this to be one of my favorite Jerry Thomas cocktails. It was tangy and delightful on the pallet with a zing of lemon and roundness from the almond syrup. The soda water gave it a little sparkle. Perhaps I’ll put the revised Whiskey Daisy on the happy hour cocktail menu.

Here’s my recipe for orgeat syrup

2 cups blanched almonds
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 orange
1 teaspoon almond extract

Bring the almonds, water, sugar and one cut orange to a boil - take off the heat and let sit overnight.
Squeeze the orange of any fruit juice it might still have and add one teaspoon almond extract after the syrup has cooled. Strain the almonds and orange remnants out of the syrup.
How do you say orgeat? Or shaaht

And then another common question I hear: what are bitters?
Bitters are an alcoholic beverage that contains herbs and botanicals, at least one of which has to have a bittering component. Originally bitters were marketed as medicines (and today most bitters you find are in the digestive section of your local health food store) but they are mostly used for cocktail flavoring. They have a very intense flavor that is typically not very desirable on their own. Every bar has angostura bitters, so next time you are out - ask to sample a little with some soda water. Angostura bitters are a great thing to keep around the house also as they are great for tummy aches (put a couple drops in some soda water and within a half hour any misery you were facing will typically be gone) and hiccups, douse a lemon or lime segment in Angostura bitters and eat all the fruit. Most people hate how this tastes, but I promise, it will cure your hiccups.

Feel Good

2009-10-04T06:09:00.000-07:00

Been on vacation lately and thought you were feeling so much better from much needed rest and relaxation? Or it could just be the case you spent a week downing blended drinks where there’s heap of anti-depressants in the drinking water. Why cities are afraid to post results of what’s mingling in their municipal water supply is a real shame. Especially since forty percent of bottled water comes from municipal sources and they could use these findings for a whole new genre of marketing. Wouldn’t it be great to choose your water according to your needs and desires? Feeling a little run down, choose water from a source that has high levels of anti-biotics in it. Thought about slicing your wrists yesterday, don’t worry the lower Mississippi’s got some water for you packed full of Prozac and Zoloft. Sport teams looking for a leg up, they can have their training camps where trenabolic and other anabolic steroids reign supreme in the drinking water.

The entire art of mixology could change as you certainly can’t add pharmaceuticals to people’s drinks, but you can add water. Local distilleries could advertise where they got their water from, forget about Grey Goose’s H2O that’s naturally filtered over champagne limestone. Get excited about Estra Vodka distilled with water from the world’s highest concentration of Ortho Tri-cyclen. No need for the morning after pill when Estra and tonic is your drink of choice. The older gentleman can feel good about having two when his vodka martini is made from Viagravodka, distilled with pure Florida tap water. You can’t feel bad about having another French fry with your vodka cranberry made with HDL vodka distilled from the finest quality drinking water with the highest parts per million Lipitor of anywhere in the world! It’s true, pills and booze don’t mix - but pill infused water, well that’s a whole different story.

Life’s Good

6 ounces of Viagravodka

Shaken and served up

The Hot Toddy

2009-10-02T14:32:00.000-07:00

As the nights cool off and you start thinking about putting the air conditioning unit away and just turning the furnace on for a couple of minutes, it might be time to make a warm nip. Nothing is as heart warming as the classic hot toddy. It has a perfect balance of lemon, honey, and bourbon that calms the nerves, warms the belly, and soothes the throat.

The hot toddy is an old drink whose history is left largely unknown. It was most likely created in the 1700’s in Scotland to make the taste of smoky peaty scotch more palatable to women. No one knows who created this drink or who named it. Some believe that since there was a lot of trade with Great Britain and India at this time that the name might have come from an Indian beverage named toddy, which is created from fermenting palm tree sap. Others believe that the name came from Allan Ramsay’s 1721 poem, The Morning Interview, in which Ramsay refers to the water used for a tea party as coming from Todian Spring (which was also called Tod’s well). As Todian Spring is the water supply for Edinburgh and as hot water is one of the most important ingredients in a hot toddy, it’s possible this is where our beloved warm libation acquired its name.

The hot toddy is one of the most loosely defined cocktails having only to contain a spirit, a sweetener, and a warm base. Toddies can be made from tea, coffee, apple cider, sugar, syrup, brandy, bourbon, or rum. But the most traditional toddies are made from honey, lemon, hot water, and bourbon.

When making a hot toddy you should use quality ingredients as there is no place to bury a cheap or flawed ingredient in this drink. When choosing what honey to use, ensure that you are selecting a high-quality honey with a low water content. Honey that has a water content of 19% or higher will tend to ferment and lose its freshness. One simple way deciding which honey has less water is to take two jars of honey, turn them upside-down, and watch the bubbles rise. The honey with more bubbles that rise faster has more water, and that is not the honey you want.

Ensure that you use fresh lemon as pasteurized lemon juice has a bitter aftertaste and does not have a well-rounded fruity flavor. To buy a super juicy lemon, there are some little tricks: first smell it, you want the lemon to have a strong lemony scent. Next, give the lemon a slight squeeze. If it feels firm, it contains juice. If it feels soft or has an airy, it is most likely a dry lemon. To get the maximum amount of juice from your lemon, put the lemon down on a hard surface, press on it, roll it around before you cut it open for squeezing.

Last but not least, make sure that you use a quality bourbon, rum, or brandy in your hot toddy. Bourbon has a stronger flavor than rum or brandy and when you use it in a toddy it is going to stand out. This is an excellent choice for someone who likes to taste the alcohol in his drink or someone who likes that warm feeling as a good spirit titillates the throat. Rum is a great choice if you like your cocktails a little sweeter, as rum is made from sugar cane and has a sweeter profile than most other spirits. Brandy (or cognac) makes for an extremely well balanced hot toddy.

To make a traditional hot toddy:
Cut a lemon into eighths.
Take half of the lemon and muddle it into a coffee cup
Add two ounces of high-quality honey
Add two ounces of your choice of spirit
Add four ounces hot water
Stir until all of the ingredients are well blended.

Go sit out on a cool evening and enjoy the beginning of fall.

The Jerry Thomas Project The Fancy Vermouth Cocktail

2009-10-02T03:36:00.000-07:00

Boker’s bitters might lead to a huge delay in the Thomas Experiment, as it appears that almost every drink has at least a drop of this mystical tincture. I have the sneaking suspicion that Jerry Thomas would be fascinated by how easily I retrieve ice, typically I only have to yell, “¡Tao, tráeme hielo!” (Although I’ve got to hand it Tao, who is más duro que burro, that I rarely ask for ice as he is a mad man when it comes to washing glasses and getting ice.) Anyhow, I can only imagine Thomas’s fascination with a machine that just spits out little ice cubes day and night - no chipping, no shaving, no hammering from a block that was brought from across town. And in return, I would be fascinated by how easily he could get Boker’s bitters.

Today’s creation was the Fancy Vermouth Cocktail (fancy indeed!) which had a slightly metallic sweetness and an undisputed disruption of any pleasantries as its ingredients didn’t blend or flatter one another.
Fortunately, I had the time to make another of Thomas’s cocktails, the Absinthe Cocktail (Once again, may I applaud Thomas in his creativity in naming his creations). Which is comprised almost entirely of absinthe (which I love) and as the 2 dashes of anisette and the 1 dash of angostura bitters did very little to sway the taste of the absinthe, I found this drink absolutely alluring. The bitters did give the absinthe a bit of a black peppery note.

I’ve decided to peak ahead and see what I might need to order to make this dream of making all of Thomas’s drinks a reality. Quite honestly, I work at a very well stocked bar and I didn’t think that making all of these drinks would be that difficult at all. In fact, I thought it might not be challenging enough to even bother, but I thought it would be educational nonetheless. Well, it’s proven to be much more difficult that I originally assumed, as many ingredients are difficult to come by and there is no way I could do this without the advent of the internet. It’s made me think a lot about a many who never saw a car, but I can’t make his drinks without a high-speed Internet connection and a FEDEX man.

Just a couple of items that popped out at me:
Capillaire, which is a syrup made from maidenhair fern (whoops forgot to plant that last spring!). Like most syrup ingredients in the 19th century, it was used for medicinal purposes in this case being heart problems and hair loss. Supposedly it tastes wretched. I have no clue where I am going to get this, as I see no one selling it on-line.
Catawba Wine which is wine made by Native Americans. Unfortunately, once most of the tribes opened casinos - Native American viticulture went down the tubes. Supposedly, you might be able to buy Catawba wine in Ohio - so maybe I’ll stumble across some while I’m in Western Pennsylvania next week!?!?
Isinglass which is sourced from fish’s air bladders. Isinglass has been replaced with gelatin for most recipes, but it is still used in clarifying beer in brewing - so it appears isinglass will not be so hard to find.

The Jerry Thomas Project The Coffee Cocktail (The Thomas Tawny)

2009-09-29T15:57:00.001-07:00

So today I made the coffee cocktail. A quick note on Thomas’s cocktail names - he may have been a real showman with diamond buttons and flame-throwing antics, however his ability to name his creations has much to be desired. Thomas even says, “The name of this drink is a misnomer, as coffee and bitters are not to be found among its ingredients, but it looks like coffee when it has been properly concocted, and hence probably its name.”
Well if it supposed to look like coffee when it is properly concocted, I can tell you right now that I didn’t make it right. The drink gets powdered white sugar, 1 fresh egg, 1 large wine-glass or port wine, 1 pony of brandy, and 3 lumps of ice. I really wasn’t that keen to put the entire egg in the drink and I thought maybe just to put the white in, but I wanted to follow Thomas’s recipes so in spite of my uneasiness about dropping what is baby chick embryo food, I decided to just close my eyes and just dump it in without further ado. I didn’t have powdered sugar, so I put some sugar in the robot coupe to make a very fine powdered sugar. After shaking I topped with some grated nutmeg.
My drink came out a very pleasant dulled violet color, a color I don’t see often when mixing drinks. Most likely because I don’t use port wine for anything, although a couple of years ago I did a Manhattan with port - but there wasn’t enough in the drink to turn it Spartan purple.
The egg made the drink extremely frothy and gave the libation a viscous quality. I think if I made it again, I would just stick with the white and omit the yolk. Otherwise, the drink was quite tasty with nice dark currant and toffee notes (I used Taylor Fladgate 20 year). I couldn’t taste the nutmeg that well, I would be tempted to make a nutmeg syrup and omit the sugar and nutmeg and impart the flavors that way. I think the nutmeg might shine a little more and add some depth to the cocktail.
Anyhow, one worth trying.
Here is my updated recipe of the Coffee Cocktail to which I am also renaming

The Thomas Tawny
1 teaspoon nutmeg syrup
4 ounces tawny port
1 ounce brandy
1 egg white

Shake vigorously to incorporate the ingredients together and strain into a cocktail glass. Preferably one that has some character.

Nutmeg Syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
3 teaspoons ground nutmeg
Bring to a boil while stirring, take off the heat and let cool

The Jerry Thomas Project The Champagne Cocktail

2009-09-29T00:34:00.001-07:00

So today I ran into a huge stumbling block when trying to make the Whiskey Cocktail. I don’t have Boker’s bitters and since the cocktail is just whiskey, gum syrup, and Boker’s bitters I’ve decided that I need to try a lot harder to make a batch of Boker’s bitters before I make this cocktail. The next four cocktails utilize Boker’s bitters - so they are going on the backburner until I get some made.

O.k. so seriously, why can’t you buy Boker’s bitters? They seem to be Thomas’s favorite bitters. David Wondrich, who has written extensively on pre-prohibition mixology, says that they were the leading cocktail bitters for much of the nineteenth century but just like the horse and carriage they are now only found in Amish barns (the Rumspringa kids drink them for fun) or on the shelf of super geeky mixologists. Making Boker’s bitters has proven harder than anything should be in this day of Internet love. Catechu was holding me up, thank god I don’t have to call places and ask for it - as I don’t even have a clue how that word is pronounced. I finally figured out that catechu comes from the betel nut - so that is what I am going to use to make Boker’s bitters. I found the best price for betel nuts on a site that also sold ten different book titles on pagan spirituality, so it will be interesting to see the junk mail I get from these mailing lists. Everything has been ordered, so hopefully I can start the bitters early next week and they will be ready by the middle of October.

Instead I made the Champagne Cocktail, which is still a cocktail that I get orders for on occasion. Not as often as ten years ago, but every once in awhile I’ll have a woman order one. My most current patron who orders them always tells me how to make it, which always makes me want to roll my eyes and glare at her for a good fifteen seconds but no one would find me charming then, now would they? So instead, I smile reassuringly as she tells me about the sugar cube.

Thomas uses a lump of sugar, I just used a cube. We’ve made sugar “cubes” in the restaurant before and I really should have take the time to make such a lump - but I didn’t want to wait a day to make a sugar lump so I just vied for the simplicity of the store-bought cube. Or I could be trying to make it a lot harder for no reason because it could also just be old vernacular for a cube, as the Brits say lump when they really mean a cube. Anyhow, I don’t think the flavor would change - just the lump would dissolve faster and you probably would get more bubbles as the lump might have more surface area. Thomas says that a quart bottle of wine will make six cocktails, so each cocktail is a little more than five ounces. This one was simple and I already knew it was delicious. In my decadent younger days my friends and I would drink Pez Clicquot Cocktails, using pez candy as the sugar lump and foregoing the bitters.
(If only wine still came in quart bottles!)

As for gum syrup, I am going to make a batch using gum arabic - as I would really like to know the flavor difference between that and simple syrup.

Concerning ice, Thomas calls for putting a small lump of ice in his champagne cocktail. Which I wouldn’t typically do, but I did for this drink. It occurred to me that Thomas’s ice most likely came in huge blocks and he either had to chip it or shave it away. Wondrich confirmed my believe and clarified that the debate over ice was just as hot in 1887 as it is today, Thomas argued shaved ice should be used in drinks where there was no water added and lump ice should be used when using egg, milk, wine, and vermouth (but the ice should be removed before you served the drink - although he doesn’t say to remove the ice in the champagne cocktail recipe). Today we argue if you should use commonplace restaurant ice, freeze your own ice and chip it, create ice balls one at a time with a $200 machine from Japan, or purchase a Kold-Draft ice machine (which makes the densest coldest commercial ice available). It makes you wonder what ice is going to be like in another 130 years.

The Jerry Thomas Project The Improved Brandy Cocktail

2009-09-27T05:33:00.000-07:00

Today I made the Improved Brandy Cocktail which I don’t think was improved upon at all. Unlike the Brandy Cocktail that was rich and satisfying with beautiful vanilla undertones and a sweet cherry nose this drink bordered on medicinal. I made the drink three times, first using Lucid Absinthe – a French absinthe (the first on the U.S. market). I like mixing with it because it has a strong anise flavor and my favorite absinthe we carry, the Kübler; I like to save for sipping. The drink was a little rough with the Lucid, so I tried making it with Kübler – which changed the drink ever so slightly (I was hoping to get a bit of the creamy mouth feel you find in the Kübler) but I would like it with a bit more anise flavor so I would definitely add more. The finish created bumps on the tongue like peppermint. I would also squeeze more lemon oil in the drink than he recommended, as I would like the citrus to stand out a little more. I made the drink again, the third time using bourbon which was much more delicious, bordering on the flavor profile of a sazerac.

I’ve decided that it might be helpful to have Mr. Thomas’s recipes in ounces for those who want to make them at home. (Maybe a bit of a translation after more than one hundred years).

5 ounces of brandy
1 dash of Kübler absinthe
2 dashes of Maraschino Liqueur
3 dashes of simple syrup (I might leave this out)
2 dashes of Angostura bitters
1 large piece of lemon rind (squeeze to expel the oil into the drink)

Shake and strain into a martini glass
Squeeze the lemon oil into the cocktail after you’ve strained

The Jerry Thomas Project The Brandy Cocktail

2009-09-26T06:27:00.001-07:00

Oh Julie and Julia, taking the blogosphere to a whole new level. I was quite sure that you couldn’t turn a child’s action figure into a feature film but the colossal hit Transformers proved why I am still standing behind a bar and not working for a big studio in L.A. So I certainly could never have guessed that you could turn a blog about epicurean cooking into what is one of this summer’s most talked about movies. But it inspired me to make all of Jerry Thomas’s cocktails and put it on my blog. Jerry Thomas isn’t a name you hear often, even in the upper echelon mixology world. It’s too bad most of us don’t know more about him as he is considered the father of American mixology and published the first cocktail recipe book, Jerry Thomas’s Bartenders Guide. Not only was he a master at mixing drinks, he also had a show of flare with flashy clothing and some juggling tricks.

So for the next couple of months, I will make all of Jerry Thomas’s cocktails from the book Jerry Thomas’s Bartenders Guide that was published in 1887. These cocktail recipes are all pre-prohibition and were certainly created long before the spirits market started spiraling into what after spending two days at a liquor convention will convince you has gotten completely out of control. There were certainly no TY KU’s (which is a spirit distilled from sake and yuzu that comes in a glowing green bottle) or vodkas with caffeine and guarana. I have to wonder with the plethora of vodkas on the market, who is thinking that they can out-market Absolut or Grey Goose. The people not buying one of the five major labels who decide to buy a small batch spirit are unfortunately few and already there are hundreds of choices. Not that I want to discourage the small batch distilleries, but I feel a bit overwhelmed by one spirit after another that has very similar flavor profile and slightly more or less attractive packaging.

I’ve decided to make the drinks in order of the book. The first drink is a Brandy Cocktail. Obviously, Thomas didn’t have the menagerie of glassware we are accustomed to today either. He specifies either a large, medium, or bar glass. He also doesn’t use ounces, just the measurement of wine glass.

The first drink is a Brandy Cocktail which calls for a small bar glass. As he later specifies to shake and strain it into a cocktail glass (what many call a martini glass), that is the glass I went with. He calls for 3 to 4 dashes of gum syrup, which he doesn’t give a recipe for, but I used simple syrup which we make using equal parts sugar to water. He then calls for 2 dashes of bitters (Boker’s or Angostura) and as I don’t have Boker’s bitters – I used Angostura. I have desperately tried to make Boker’s bitters but unfortunately, I have not found anywhere that sells catechu or tincture of cochineal (although it sounds like this might have only been used for color and I don’t know if it affected the taste of the bitters or not but as the recipe calls for such a large quantity I do believe that it must affect the flavor),.

Thomas calls for a wine glass of brandy, which we use Riedel stemware at my bar (a 30 ounce glass) so I decided to not use an entire wine glass. I was a bit afraid to add the 1 or 2 dashes of Curacao, as I only have blue and I thought it might turn the drink some nasty color. But the few dashes did very little to the hue and actually added some depth to the amber color of the brandy.

The drink was a lot tastier than I thought it would be. I assumed that it would be a bit too sweet with the simple syrup and the Curacao, but it was more like a brandy Manhattan with nice vanilla undertones.

Nice job Mr. Thomas.

Here’s a recipe for Boker’s bitters. Send me a sample if you find all of the ingredients to make them. (you might want to decrease this recipe - or else you are going to have six lifetimes of Boker’s bitters)

4 liters of whiskey
3 ounces of quassia
3 ounces of catechu
3 ounces of calamus
2 ounces of cardamom
40 ounces of tincture of cochineal
5 ounces of burnt sugar
24 liters of water

The Hot Toddy

2009-09-26T06:00:00.001-07:00

Berry-ly friends

2009-09-26T05:56:00.001-07:00

There is no doubt that I have never felt as much pressure to do anything as I’ve felt about joining facebook. Relentlessly my friends bargained offering me favors and treats to join but it was only after three days of water boarding that I finally surrendered. Of course, once you are part of this cult you feel the innate need to get others to join. Thought we were going to have a great debate about health care - I’d turn it into why you should join facebook. Thought it would be fun to play a board game, I’d spend the whole time telling you why it was better to play virtually on facebook.

The sad thing is, I didn’t have a relationship with my “friends” on facebook, I had a compulsive affair with facebook itself. I didn’t suddenly reconnect with the snob that carved bitch in my 8th grade locker but it didn’t stop me from spending 40 minutes looking at photos of her five kids and mullet-head boyfriend. Instead of actually reading books, now I was spending hours making lists about books I’d like to read. Instead of having a beer with a real live friend now I was sending my friends jpegs of cocktails. And what an easy addiction to have, can’t smoke cigarettes in public anymore - but you can have facebook at home, at work, and on your phone (in fact I can’t figure out how to remove the factory installed ap from my blackberry!)

And like any addict should, I quit. And it wasn’t easy - I cried, I shook, and I screamed with dry heaves and cold sweats. But I got through it and now I’ve been over 60 days clean. But I won’t lie to you as every day is a challenge. I am tempted by baby photos and people’s vacation videos but I know that I have to stay away as once an addict, always an addict.

Berry-ly friends
1 ounce fresh lemon juice
1 ounce mint syrup
1 ounce strawberry puree
4 ounces sparkling wine

Bested Again!

2009-09-02T02:14:00.000-07:00

The beloved “Best Of” issue -- everyone in the restaurant industry awaits it with a hungry appetite, unbeknownst what will be betrothed upon them. The rumors flare, the questions gnaw - who is going to get what this year? And then for one week, a year’s worth of dedication and voters’ fickleness is presented in grandeur, and it’s the talk of the town for days until something more interesting comes into play - like if they are ever going to dredge Mirror Pond or if they are going to finish resurfacing the parkway.
And once again, if the event ever rose where someone needed to know who the second best bartender in Bend is - well that’s when I would blow off my fingernails, polish them on my shoulder, and proudly rejoice that I was the person they were seeking. Because, you might not know this, but for the life of me I cannot win that category. Cocktail show, cocktail classes, cocktail column, Las Vegas cocktail contest, radio promo, none of this is enough in today’s highly competitive popularity contest. I’m not quite sure what this Will Pack guy has going on but I suspect that it has something to do with the Russian Mafia and a pack of Eastern European hookers casting illegal votes. Some might call me a sore loser or even a conspiricist, but I feel like there’s been a lot more ladies in town named Ivanka and this would certainly explain it. Nonetheless, I would like to congratulate Will Pack on his win. And give myself a little pat on the back for the best cocktail list category where Blacksmith took first and 28 took runner up, both my babies and since they are the only children I have - I don’t mind showing them off. So thank you Bend for all of your votes - and to the Russian Mafia, isn’t there some business to tend to over in Hood River?

The best of
1 oz Mint Syrup
1 oz Fresh Lime
5 oz Champagne
Cherries for garnish

Le Jungle Cat

2009-09-02T02:12:00.000-07:00

Most children by the age of ten can recite a chilling version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow or another outlandish ghost tale. At summer camp they sit around late at night terrifying one another by raising the anti each story. But the child that terrorizes like no other is always the child of an Oregon bartender. No other child has experienced the true-life horrors of the creature many simply refer to as Olcc. Stories of their pappies disappearing in the middle of the night because daddy’s server permit was at home instead of tattooed on his upper right shoulder and tales of mommy turning into an evil mummy because she told someone over the telephone that her place had happy hour on Fridays.
Most can’t believe these crazed stories. But others claim these tales are true, and some claim they must be true because they’ve heard about these rules and regulations and they’ve heard that if you break them - be petrified as you have no clue what is about to happen.
There are people who have seen this creature and they say they would never cross his path. They claim the creature once took a bartender mid-shift in deceit and then stuffed him into a black bag and threw him down a well. The bartender had no retaliation not knowing left from right or up from down so he soon relented and spent the rest of his days as a lifeless pithed bag of bones estranged from his family and loved ones.
Then there are others who have dared to knowingly cross the creature, defied his antics clueless that they were walking into an eternal trap of terror. The creature has no mercy. He thinks of the bartender as his toy, a plaything, and will torture him like a jungle cat plays with its prey until all that exists is a corpse with only a few shallow breaths. The only reason he doesn’t seal the deal is because something got caught in the trap and the writhing of fresh meat turned his attention from his floundering prey. But maybe, if we are lucky, good will defeat evil this ghost story season and this creature will be put to an end once and for all.

Jungle cat
2 ounces of Le Tourment absinthe
Drink enough so you either see a scary creature or that the scary creature doesn’t scare you anymore.

El Mojito

2009-08-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

The mojito is one of the oldest cocktails that we know the history of. It is believed that predecessor to the mojito was created in the mid-16th century by Richard Drake, an English pirate, who made a good living robbing trade ships going to and from the Caribbean. To improve his spirits and good health he drank one tonic a day containing a wretched form of crudely processed rum named aquardiente, sugar, lime, and mint. Richard named the drink el draque in honor of what the Spanish called his captain Sir Francis Drake, as Drake’s men were sure to find humor in the fact that Sir Francis was a hero to the English but considered a national threat to the Spaniards. Ironically, around 1650, Spanish rum took the market by storm as it was easier to drink and soon the draque became the mojito with the simple adjustment of using Spanish rum instead of aquardiente.

The first recorded recipes of the mojito come from a 1931 Bar Manual from one of Havana’s more popular clubs Sloppy Joes. As this was long before the Cuban trade embargo and Key West is only 90 miles from Cuba, it didn’t take long for this tasty drink to appear in the States. It might have been the heavy trafficking of rum during prohibition when the drink arrived in the States, or it could have been the quell of American celebrities like Ernest Hemingway, Bridge Bardo, and Nat King Cole who frequented Cuban night clubs and brought the drink home with them. But for sure the mojito was available in the States in 1933 as Sloppy Joe’s opened a second location in Key West that year (which is still open today). The drink’s popularity ensured that it was soon available in all the cosmopolitan areas, and it became the predecessor to one of America’s most famous cocktails the mint julep. Quite unbelievably, the first recorded mint julep recipe from 1937 does not call for bourbon, but rather rum.

The mojito saw a decline in popularity for most of the century until there was a revitalized trend in Latino cooking in the 1990’s. This increased exposure to the cocktail has brought it back to the utmost of popularity.

Making a mojito is easy. When preparing a mojito take half of a lime cut into wedges, and eight mint leaves and put them in a pint glass. Gently mash these ingredients with a muddler. The mint leaves should be bruised to release the essential oils - do not shred them. Then add two ounces of rum and two teaspoons sugar. Shake these ingredients with some ice and pour into a tall collins glass - not straining your ingredients. Top with soda water. The mojito is perfect for summer, as almost everyone has some fresh mint in their garden and it is light and refreshing.

The Sham Woops

2009-08-06T03:19:00.000-07:00

There is never a void in cable television. You will find that be there ruinous fire, torrential flood, cataclysmic volcano, or category-five hurricane that you will still have access to 24-hour programming. Most of it tends to be awful as we have all watched at least an episode of something embarrassing, demoralizing, and contemptible like The Swan where they found Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeon to turn 300-pound losers into cougar-ready material for Real Wives of Orange County. Or My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé where a schoolteacher agreed to marry a rude, loathsome, and slobby hippopotamus for a cash prize. Unfortunately, what I’ve just described is wretched and is aired at prime time - so you can only imagine what I watch when I finally have time to ignite the boob tube at 4 a.m. I flip between infomercials with Tattoo selling personal massagers, discount telephone psychics, and Suzanne Sommers doing kegel exercises with what appears to be pool noodle. I flip through hundreds of channels in determination of finding something somewhat satisfying and urch I hate to admit it, but I always stop at the sham wow guy.
He’s got two commercials, the sham wow and the slap chop. He’s so upbeat and amusing with a musical cadence to his regaling pitch. He makes cutting up tuna fish with a pickle look as fun as being at Studio 54 with table service Patron and your own personal dj. He never fails to delight when he beams and announces, “You’ll love my nuts,” as he chop chop chops peanuts into ice cream topping. So I was shocked when I heard today that earlier this year he was arrested on a felony charge for beating up a prostitute because she had bit down on his tongue and wouldn’t let go. Talk about embarrassing things you would rather not admit to in the middle of the night.

The Sham Woops
1.5 oz fresh squeezed lime
1.5 oz simple syrup
1.5 oz blue curaçao
1.5 oz vodka
Pour all the ingredients into a Sham Wow and squeeze into a martini glass

Be Better

2009-07-19T05:06:00.000-07:00

I along with many have experienced the worst of the worst this allergy season. One day I was frolicking about allowing the sun to make my golden tresses blonder, my pale skin bronzier, and my deranged spirit lighter. And then, mysteriously I couldn’t breathe with a nasty case of bronchitis and a headache that felt like a dentist had jabbed a syringe of Novocain below my right ear. There was no doubt that a little hit of Advil Cold & Sinus would allow me to smile while telling people about the soup de jour.
As I sniffled my way through the pill aisle at Freddies, my beloved tablet wasn’t there. They were just out I assumed, so I immediately ordered online to find they couldn’t be shipped to Oregon. Yes that’s right, thanks to this state’s abundance of meth producers my only chance of not blowing snot bubbles while setting down someone’s tenderloin was blown.
It’s one of those times that made me feel old, as in my college days ephedrine was on every gas station counter, the bright blue and red Mini Thin label screaming out to me - eat me I’m so much fun with a margarita. Or eat twelve of me and you could write two term papers, take a ten-mile run, and scrub all your floors with a toothbrush and still feel fresh, with the exception of my heart beating 132 beats per minute.
Unfortunately, I have found Claritin and Zyrtec to be of little help and my mother has insisted that sending me a box will ensure her a spot in federal prison for drug trafficking so I have no choice but to hunt down a meth lab to get two measly allergy pills. As my lovely but overprotective mother forewarns me constantly - alcohol and pills don’t mix, so may I offer you this mocktini perfect for allergy season.

The Be Better Bloody
3 oz tomato juice
1.5 oz Worchester
.5 oz lemon juice
a pinch celery salt
1 oz olive brine
1 teaspoon horseradish and a couple shakes of Tabasco

Tasting Notes

2009-07-07T01:55:00.000-07:00

After reading a recent article about smoked beers, I have no doubt that we need to carry one at the bar. Especially since our fare is New Ranch Cuisine, focused on cured and smoked meats as a centerfold to our menu. So the first sample came last week, Spezial Rauchbier Lager. Spezial Brewery is the oldest brewery in Bamberg (1536) which is located in Bavaria on the Regnitz River and is one of the few towns in Germany that was not devastated from bombing in World War II. Spezial does all of its own malting and smoking at its brewery in downtown Bamberg. In this beer they use 40% smoked malt and 60% Bavarian barley malt, which gives a slight smoky flavor to the beer but not as much as I was hoping for. Pours a nice deep amber color. The nose is fruity as in over-ripe apple with a touch of peaty smoke. It is sweet and malty on the palette with vanilla and very little smoke. The finish is not very long and the smoky flavor does not linger. Not quite what I was looking for, hoping that the next sample is smokier. This brewery also makes another Rauchbier that is 70% smoked malt and 30% barley malt, so maybe we can get a sample of that.

We just got in the Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier for summer and by accident our rep sent us the Weihenstephaner Kristall Weissbier. Pretty much any beer drinker knows that Weihenstephaner is the oldest running brewery in the world (although a neighboring abbey Weltenburg says that this claim to fame belongs to them). Regardless, Weihenstephaner is well known for their wheat beers and it is their dunkelweiss that turned me on to drinking beer, as I had absolutely no palate for beer before this experience and thought it all to be quite boring as it all just tasted like beer. The Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier is a beautiful wheat beer that is perfect for summer. It pours a beautiful golden color with just a hint of cloudiness. The nose is banana, citrus, and a hint of clove. Flavor wise there is a smidgen of citrus with a gorgeous creamy finish. It is by far the best Hefeweizen I have ever had.

The Kristall Weissbier was very light in style and if I had blind tasted it, I would have never guessed it was a wheat beer, but rather a lager. The color of it is a crisp clear yellow. There is still a hint of banana but minus the clove of the other Hefeweizen, it is also lacking the creamy finish of the Hefe but still had a refreshing finish with some nice hints of lemon zest. It was interesting but too light for most people’s expectations of a Hefeweissbier. I’m glad the regular Hefeweizen came on this last order.

We also got a new IPA two weeks ago, Lompoc’s C Note. It is an Imperial Ale which means that the brewer altered the style of the beer to make it bitterer. In the beer world there is actually a bitterness scale (IBU International Bitterness Unit) which is used to determine how bitter a beer is. Typically heavier beers have a higher IBU because the beer needs more bitterness to be balanced, but they might not taste as bitter because they used more malt to balance the flavor. There is no way to measure a beer over 100 IBU’s and the Lompoc C Note claims that they have over 100 IBU’s. To put things in perspective, most American lagers (Budweiser, Coors, Miller) have and IBU of 5. Porters tend to have between 25 to 40. Stouts tend to have between 25 to 60. And IPA’s tend to have over 40.
Lompoc named this beer the C Note because they are using all the C hops, Centennial, Crystal, Cluster, Chinook, Cascade, and Columbus. It is brewed in Portland, although I’ve been surprised that there is not a lot of name recognition. I’m sure time will change that. It pours a hazy amber color. The nose is very floral with a little bit of lavender and lemon. Has a very dry mouthfeel with lemon and pine and a long bitter finish. I personally like something a little more rounded with more grapefruit (i.e. Pliny the Elder) but this is a fairly-well balanced IPA and the bitterness is smooth and long, not abrupt as in the West Coast IPA.

It was also the week of bitters as my long awaited Angostura Orange bitters came in. I’ve wanted them for a long time and was hoping the liquor store would stock them, but that never came to fruition so I ordered them online. I also got a bottle of Regan’s orange bitters and Peychaud’s bitters (embarrassed we didn’t always have them). This in addition to the bitters I made last month, which all turned out quite well (although the cardamom in the Bitters IV is a bit too strong - will tool around with that in the near future) has made for very little space on the bar top (need a shelf just for the bitters). I cannot tell you how I love the Angostura Orange bitters, they got excellent reviews and they are the best orange bitters I have ever had. They have a much deeper complex flavor that the Fee Brothers (which taste like Fanta Orange) or Regan’s. There is cardamom, lemon zest, and cinnamon which add an intricacy that you don’t find in other orange bitters. The flavor is long and involved with the flavor of orange essential oils bursting through at the end.

I just ordered some bottles that I am quite excited about, so when they come I’ll keep you posted: Franca Menta, Strega Strega, and Aalborg Akvavit.

The MJ

2009-07-06T16:20:00.001-07:00

Due to Michael Jackson’s recent death, even NPR is starting to sound like an 80’s pop station as Beat It or Man in the Mirror haunts the back of every other interview. As a child of the 80’s, my first introduction to star hysteria was Thriller and I would practice moonwalking and other jerky crotch-grabbing dance moves with my childhood girlfriends donning legwarmers and side ponytails.

The man needs a cocktail in honor of all he’s done but which Michael do you base the drink on? Is it the African American Wonder Boy, the White King of Pop, the Soul-Searching Humanitarian, the Amusement Park Pedophile or the Looks-Like-an-Alien Philanthropist? Or do you just base it on one of his song titles, like just create some vile concoction that figuratively screams "I'm Bad" when you taste it?

The drink definitely must have the ability to go from dark to white, as that is one of MJ’s most distinctive qualities. It must also have a flaming aspect in honor of Jackson’s hair lighting on fire during a Pepsi commercial in 1984. It definitely needs to have a little non-alcoholic chaser. It has to be flashy and visually appealing. And last but no least, there needs to be a little bit of mystery to it and be ridiculously expensive but half of the proceeds go to charity.

As for stipulations when you drink the drink, it must be drank with large sunglasses on. You must drink it alone and never in public. And at the last sip, you must shout out “wee hee” and then perform the moonwalk followed by a double spin. We’ll miss you Michael Jackson.

The MJ

Rim glass with Bacardi 151 and sugar
Patron XO Coffee Liquor
Float with cream
Light the rim on fire
Drop in a little mystery flare & serve with a small Shirley Temple

Follow me on Twitter

2009-06-24T23:59:00.001-07:00

http://twitter.com/qmixalot

Cocktail Class

2009-06-24T23:52:00.001-07:00

Demystify the Cocktail
Sponsored by Crater Lake
Saturday, June 27 2 p.m.
at the Blacksmith
211 NW Greenwood
Bend, OR
541.318.0588

Spend a pleasant afternoon at the Blacksmith with Mixologist Columbine Quillen talking about the history of your favorite liquors, creating fabulous cocktails, and hanging out with your friends. Skills taught include learning how to balance the acid in a perfectly blended drink, the art of infusions and syrups, and garnishes that are sure to impress. Reservations are required as space is limited. Must be over 21 or over as price includes three cocktails and appetizers.

Bitters yes!

2009-06-23T13:47:00.001-07:00

With the reemergence of the speakeasy and the emphasis on perfecting many of the classic cocktail recipes, many mixologists are branching out with what they can do with bitters and fiddling around with making their own. Bitters are a highly flavorful aromatic potion created by blending one or more of the main bitter principles (angostura bark, cascarilla, quassia, gentian, orange, or quinine) with other herbs and botanicals. Bitters were first created in the 16th century and were drank alone as medicine, but as they were slightly caustic it became more and more popular to mix them with wine to make them more palatable. People soon enjoyed the flavors of these new concoctions and the tainted wines soon became popular aperitifs. By the 18th Century, distilleries in Italy began studying how to distill numerous herbs and spices and such favorites as Campari, Fernet Branca, and Cynar were born. France too was taking an interest in the aperitif market and soon France and Italy had a “bitter” rivalry as to the quality of production and the quantity of consumption.

Any cocktail historian will tell you that the Sazarac is the first cocktail created in America. The original recipe was an easy-to-make concoction of cognac and Peychaud bitters. Peychaud invented his bitters in Santo Domingo and brought his recipe to New Orleans in the 1830’s. He opened a drugstore where he sold cocktails that he served in an egg cup, which in French is called a coquetier. The English speakers around him mispronounced the word leading to one of the greatest words in the American bar scene, cocktail.

Every bartender knows the magic of Angostura Bitters, it makes manhattans sparkle, cures stomach aches, and dispels the hiccups. But none of them know its secret recipe as it is highly guarded; rumor has it that only five people in the world know its secret. Named Angostura for the Venezuelan town they were developed in, they also contain the bark from the Angostura tree, which is highly astringent. They were developed in 1824 by a German doctor who was the Surgeon General under Simon Bolivar’s military in Venezuela. Most likely, he stole the medicinal secrets of the Amerindians and began producing his bitters on a local level. Everyone who tried them loved them and encouraged him to travel the world to sell his bitters. By 1850 he had resigned his military post and was selling his bitters on an international level.

Making bitters is not difficult, but rather just time consuming. To begin with, many of the ingredients are obscure and difficult to come by. Furthermore, most herbs must be left sitting for weeks to allow for the alcohol to slowly take on their flavor. As it is difficult to know how different flavors will impart in alcohol, it is best to steep the ingredients separately as each spice will relinquish its flavor in the alcohol at its own pace. These separate tinctures can then be mixed together to achieve the desired flavor.

Bitters are one of the great establishments of mixology. They give a depth and complexity to cocktails that can’t be achieved any other way. They also make you feel good, as there are hundreds of years of herbal medical beliefs in every drop. Next time you mix your favorite cocktail, drop a drip or two of bitters in it to make it something new, exciting, and invigorating.

The Sophisticate

2009-06-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

No one is as discerning as the yellow beer drinker. I work with a guy who can jam his nose deep in a Bordeaux glass and tell you because of the slight aroma of charcoal that it is a 2006 pinot blend from Walla Walla. I work with another guy who will tell you that he is a certified beer snob who spends all of his free time reading about lagers, stouts, and ales; brewing different hop and barley concoctions; and traveling to breweries on any long weekend. But neither of these guys’ palates can rival the yellow beer drinker.
It is he who knows that Budweiser is absolutely delicious and Coors is unpalatable. It is he that knows that Miller Light is scrumptious and agreeing to the soul but that Fosters is so unagreeable that even the mention of such drink is enough to cause a gag reflex.
You might think that marketing has created image and brand loyalty, but I have asked the lager sophisticate and they will tell you it is based entirely on flavor. Considering that they all taste so similar (many the less worldly would tell you that they all smack of piss) it is truly awesome that so many have developed such acute senses of smell and taste. The pity is that the yellow beer drinker, unlike other food and drink snobs, is unwilling to expand their repertoire. The third level sommelier will taste Three Buck Chuck but the Michelob Ultra drinker will ascertain that tasting Amstel Light will tarnish them for life. The Iron Chef will taste the oily rancid gray meat of the lamprey by slowly churning it in his mouth but the yellow beer drinker knows that if her delicate palate only knows the satisfying deliciousness of Rolling Rock that a mere splash of PBR will singe her tongue. As there is no doubt there is extreme torture assumed when a Busch drinker has to down a Pacifico (I have heard their cries) we should consider any detour in brand physical and mental torture per the Geneva Convention. We feel your pain yellow beer drinkers!

The Sophisticate
Blind taste ten lagers and pilsners - that’s it. I dare you to.

The Go Getter

2009-06-07T04:47:00.000-07:00

As my beloved bar assistant Regan is off on an internship in hopes of making the world a better place for developing nations, I am left with the task of replacing one of the most loyal, hard working, and intelligent people I’ve ever worked with.
Anyone that has ever hired and collected resumes will tell you that unfortunately most people’s resumes are hard to read, bear little relevant information, and are unappealing to the eye. This hiring process has been no exception.
The first resume I received made me wonder if the applicant was living in the 21st century as it contained her full name, passport number, social security number, driver’s license number, address, and phone number. The only other piece of information I would have really liked to see was her mother’s maiden as it would be helpful with my new identity where I plan on lounging in Tahiti thanks to a couple of new Mastercards and an unsecured line of credit.
If you have perfect nails and beautiful skin you may not need to have a reference, as I was told earlier this week, “I don’t have any references because I am an esthetician.”
I received an e-mail yesterday that was two paragraphs about how I should not contact his present employer or any of his past employers, EVER.
I had a guy stand as he knocked over his bottle of Coors Light so it was draining all over the bar and his shoe tell me what a great addition he would be as he had a tremendous attention to detail.
You would think in a challenging job market that the quality of resumes would be improving, but perhaps the reverse has been true. So if you’re out on the job hunt, take a good hard look at your resume and think, “What if this were the only thing that anyone knew about me?” Because it is unless you get an interview and quite honestly, you’re not going to get an interview with a crappy, misspelled, ugly resume filled with personal rants.

The Go Getter
3 oz espresso
1.5 oz coffee liqueur
2 oz vodka

Shake and put it in the most boring, least impressive glass you own.

The Thump

2009-05-20T20:56:00.000-07:00

No one can escape the excitement leading up to the Pole, Pedal, Paddle in Bend. And the bar was no exception. Our sites were set high on beating our bitter rival, Thump Coffee. One might think that after my last experience at the PPP, I would never return to compete, but alas I relented.
Three years ago, my husband and I tackled the challenge. We were sporty, in good shape, and avid outdoorsmen; how could we not battle in Bend’s ultimate contest? Brad was off to a swift start and came quickly down the mountain to jump right into the skate ski. Neither of us skate skied but figured “how hard can it be?” As we began screaming at one another because Brad couldn’t get his boot into the rental ski bindings, I began to recognize we didn’t have a damn clue what we were doing. Brad kept the skis on for about 10 minutes when he figured he’d be faster in an ungainly snow jog as bright yellow spandex whisked by. For over an hour, I stood patiently at my bike with cold cramped feet and an attitude that greatly improved once it occurred to me to wait in the car. A loud knock and a wicked scowl scared me onto the bike where I pedaled swiftly down the mountain and got to the run where my legs were jello. For the first mile I could barely stand much less run and I had to piss like a racehorse so all I could focus on was finding some sort of privacy. I tagged Brad at the paddle, where he paddled the entire length in a six-foot creek boat with perfect strokes as school children with upside-down paddles passed him in 17-foot race boats. By the time I did the sprint, the damage had been done. We knew that we hadn’t been competitive but when we saw our names last in our class, we had to admit to the world that we were losers.
And so again this year I stood at the board to find that we were beat. So congratulations Thump, you thumped our ass.

The Thump
2.5 ounces boiling water
1.8 grams (one package) powdered gelatin
2 oz espresso
2.5 oz coffee liqueur
Briskly whisk powdered gelatin into boiling water. Add espresso and coffee liqueur. Pour into mold and chill.

An Ode to Absinthe

2009-05-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

Nothing gets more questions on the bar than absinthe. Allured by the tall glass fountains and the beautifully etched green bottle, everyone wants to know what the mystery is. Absinthe is a distilled spirit made from grand wormwood, anise, and fennel. Most premium absinthes are distilled from white grape spirit although absinthe can also be distilled from grain, beets, or potatoes. But what is most important in absinthe distillation is the presence of wormwood as that it what differentiates it from other anise spirits such as chartreuse or sambuca.

Wormwood is a bush indigenous to Southern Europe and northern Africa that grows in dry regions, although now it is found all around the globe. Historically the leaves and flowers were used to cure stomach ailments, comfort pregnant women with labor pains, and better blood circulation.

But wormwood’s real claim to fame is thujone, which was thought to cause people to hallucinate and bring Van Gogh to cutting off his left ear. Thujone is what led to absinthe’s ban from the U.S. and most of Europe through most of the 20th century. But it is now speculated that their bizarre images were due to an inexpensive chemical added to enhance the green color in bargain bottles of absinthe. Thujone has been studied widely and today it is known that it does not cause hallucinations. It can kill you in high enough doses and cause muscle spasms, but fret not - you will die of alcohol poisoning first.

So what’s all the fuss about? Well, whenever you can’t have something you always want it and none of us in the States have been able to get it in our lifetimes until the ban was lifted in 2007. Furthermore, it is drank with tradition and showmanship that trumps any other spirit on the market. And it’s delicious. Traditionally it is drank in a special glass that has a little bulge or bulb in the bottom of it that measures out the absinthe. A special slotted spoon is placed on the glass with sugar cubes. Some pour the absinthe through the cubes so that they can be lit on fire and caramelized, but others claim that will add a burnt flavor to the absinthe. A special water fountain is used so that you can slowly drip the water into the absinthe. This is called louching and you will notice the color of the absinthe change from clear to a milky color. These are the herbs and botanicals in the absinthe that aren’t water soluble, so they create cloudy effect.

Absinthe is not for everyone. It has a very rich anise flavor and is very strong, that is why it is watered down. However, absinthe is a brilliant piece of modern human history from Hemingway’s favorite cocktail of absinthe and champagne to Degas’s beautiful painting of a woman absinthe drinker. It can sculpt a culture that is cosmopolitan, thinking, and brave and there isn’t any other distilled spirit that can say the same.

The supreme obscene

2009-05-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

No one who’s ever seen the Mr. Boston’s bar guide could expect a bartender to know all of the drinks in it, in particularly the more obscure. But it never fails that someone can’t believe that you don’t know how to make their favorite shot, which is usually crudely named or has a name that has nothing to do with its ingredients.

Last night I was informed what a Vegas Bomb is. I thought it was most likely a shot of Grey Goose with a showgirl and a line of blow, but this gentleman disdainfully informed me that a Vegas bomb is Jameson dropped into Redbull. I must admit it confounds me that a green-malted Irish Whiskey from Cork is in any drink with Vegas in the title.

The night before a guy ordered a Coors Light and three pink pussies from me. Upon knowledge that I didn’t know what the hell that was, this guy looked at me like I told him I flunked the second grade. “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS???????” “Yeah, I know what I pink pussy is, I just don’t know what you think it is. And furthermore, we’re just not in the business of selling them.”

With names like abortion, bloody tampon, gorilla’s puke, and smoker’s cough (which I have come to find is a shot of Jägermeister with a scoop of mayonnaise in it), there is an endless supply of nasty tasting and nasty named shots that very few if any bartenders know all the names and ingredients to. My word of wisdom to you is to learn how to drink Jäger or Jameson if you like to have a shot, which will save you from having to explain to someone what a dirty sanchez is, especially when most people know what it is and it doesn’t have any alcohol in it.

The supreme obscene
This shot can be made with any leftover condiments in your refrigerator and old alcohol left in your parent’s liquor cabinet from the early 70’s, but my favorite is as follows.

2 oz chartreuse
1 egg yolk
2 splashes of taco sauce

The Spitter

2009-05-04T04:23:00.001-07:00

There are some things that are never o.k., for example spitting on the floor in a public place. I make reference to the gentleman on Saturday night who convincingly hucked a huge loogie high into the air so that it landed in a slimy spat in the middle of the bar area. Instantaneously, I told him that he had to leave and when I came round to show him the way out he replied, “I’m not drunk! I haven’t even been drinking.” Which is unfortunate because then he would have an excuse for his absolutely insolent behavior.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had to kick someone out of the bar for spitting on the floor. The other time was many years ago when I had a guy from Oklahoma who kept expectorating on the floor for no apparent reason other than he clearly thought that our wood floor would be more pleasant with a good spit-shine. When I told him that if he hucked on the floor one more time he would have to leave he quickly proceed to spit again, as obviously he was accustomed to dribbling as he pleased much like a slobbering bulldog. On his way out he excused himself by stating he was from Oklahoma. Which don’t get me wrong, we all know that Oklahoma has more than its fair share of red necks and hicks, however I have never met another Oklahoman who thinks that it is o.k. to spit inside.
So in lieu of this beastly trend I’ve thought that perhaps we need a very quick Ms. Manners refresher. Ms. Manners states, “The fact is (and she hates to be the one to break the news to you) that spitting is not in the current lexicon of permissible public pleasures, except in rare areas that are especially consecrated to the purpose, such as old-fashioned porches among consenting cronies who are skilled enough to miss the porch railing and hit the ground.”
Point is, never spit inside.
The spitter
2 oz fresh squeezed lemon
2 oz hot water
2 oz honey
2.5 oz bourbon
Stir and add ice
As you drool smelling this delicious cocktail, allow your slobber to slowly drip into the drink as a frothy garnish.

The Efficiency

2009-05-04T04:22:00.001-07:00

It would be extremely efficient if the bar was like a coffee shop and there was one line where people ordered and one place where they picked up. No one would ever get missed, everyone would wait the exact same amount of time for a drink, and nobody would ever wait for change or a credit card slip. But that isn’t the bar. The lackluster appeal in ordering a double skinny latte doesn’t compete with the excitement to snuggle in next to the girl you’ve thought was hot all night as you order your next beer or to buy your buddies liquid cocaine shots from across the way. I’ve spent years streamlining the back end of the bar from moving around refrigerators to revolutionizing the way we do prep. But I have yet to figure out how to streamline the guest. However, I have begun my fact-finding research and these are the most vicious of the clock milkers when ordering a drink.
The first is the Long Drink Orderer. The LDO insists on finding the longest way possible to tell you his drink order. Typically the LDO drinks simple highballs, so it seems that the LDO could order quickly by getting straight to the point. However, that is not the LDO’s nature as he finds comfort in using 16 words when only two or three would suffice. For example, instead of saying rum and coke with a lime or cuba libre, the LDO insists on each time spouting out, “coca cola with your well rum with ice in a bucket with a slice of lime.”
The next is the I’m going to order for my friends but they don’t know what they want. This guy has good intentions as he has manhandled his way up to the bar, has staked his claim, and finally has the bartender’s attention. But once he has her attention, he turns his back for ten minutes while he and his friends decide what they want to drink.
The last is the whisperer. Sometimes I think that it is a ploy as the whisperer speaks so quietly I have to lean in close enough that I fear him jamming his tongue in my ear. But then it occurs to me that the whisperer is just trying to be über polite in an atmosphere that resembles the library about as much as Times Square resembles Walden Pond. Unfortunately, the whisperer must always repeat his drink order three or four times before it can be understood.
Now that I’ve compiled the data I can finally start working on how to create the perfect bar guest.

The Efficiency
Kahlua & Coffee

Raymos Fizz

2009-04-06T00:48:00.000-07:00

Anyone who follows current cocktail trends has noticed that there’s been a blast to the past concerning the use of egg whites. Egg whites can add a delicate silky mouth feel to your cocktail and an exquisite foam that you cannot create by any other method.

Egg whites were abundantly used in cocktails around the turn of the century, but bad press concerning salmonella scared consumers away from using raw eggs. The unfortunate current reality is what doesn’t have salmonella in your local grocery? The bagged lettuce is tainted, the tomatoes are tainted, and now the pistachios are tainted. Upon further research, it appears that eggs might just be one of the safest provisions in the grocery store aisle.

Quite honestly salmonella is very rare in eggs, on average in the U.S. only one out of every 20,000 eggs might contain the bacteria. So if you consume a customary 256 eggs per year, you will on average encounter a tainted egg every 84 years. Furthermore, the FDA agrees that salmonella typically is in the yolk, which pretty much zilches your chances of getting salmonella to nothing.

So now that you aren’t afraid to crack a little egg in your cocktail, what’s next? Any cocktail with egg white needs a little citrus juice, typically lime or lemon to stabilize the egg whites. The whites are the protein of the egg and when you shake them really hard the proteins spring apart (which is what creates that delicious foam), but the proteins want to regroup. The acid in the lime juice inhibits the proteins from rejoining and thus keeps those tight delicious little bubbles lingering for a little bit longer.

One of my favorite classic cocktails that use egg white is the Raymos Fizz. In 1888 Henry C. Ramos came to New Orleans from Baton Rouge and purchased the Imperial Cabinet. He created a special gin fizz for his new bar that people said tasted just like a flower. No one knows Raymos’ exact recipe but it is believed that he added vanilla extract and that’s what made his gin fizz so special. And special indeed, before prohibition his bar would be so busy at Mardi Gras that he would employee 35 “shaker boys” that would just shake all day and night long keep up with the demand.
This is a tasty cocktail for a delightful brunch or something refreshing on a nice sunny spring day.

Raymos Fizz
1 oz simple syrup
1 oz fresh squeezed orange juice
1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
the white from one egg
1 oz heavy whipping cream
2 oz London dry gin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (if you so desire)
Shake vigorously with a lot of ice for at least 60 seconds until you get a very frothy thick consistency. Pour into a tall collins glass with ice and top with 1 ounce of soda water. Garnish with a fresh orange wedge.

Sucker Punch

2009-03-30T02:34:00.000-07:00

One unfortunate side effect of alcohol is that normally calm and often times bland people will become uncharacteristically headstrong, violent, and/or maniacal. This weekend seemed to bring out the most unusual in people. On Saturday, two guys dropped by in good spirits, laughing and smiling as they both ordered a beer. About twenty minutes later we found one guy with the other one guy’s hands around his neck. They were just standing there perfectly calm, not talking in raised voices, not trying to punch or fight one another. When we asked if everything was o.k. the guy being strangled cordially replied no, as if we had asked him if he liked his coffee with cream and sugar.

On Friday, a girl I know who was always very quiet and reserved came in to release a bout of pent up energy. Usually, she doesn’t drink and just sits at the bar and has macaroni and cheese as she talks to her friends about things like what type of Kleenex is the softest or if you could really teach a cat to use a toilet. However, I came to find that one Pacifico can magically turn her into a gawky obscenity shouting Brittany Spears want-to-be. She spent the rest of the night showing off her amateur stripper moves which included her hanging her pinky barely out of her mouth the whole night and slapping her right ass cheek as she bent over and wiggled her butt like an overexcited puppy.

But what might just take the cake is when one of Bend’s most beautiful women who is always very put together and perfectly coifed decided on her way out the door to sucker punch our door man. And then as he was on the phone with the police and telling the general manager what had happened, she ran back to also sucker punch the GM. So if you are one of those people who turn from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde at even the whiff of a margarita, well then maybe drinking is just not for you.

Sucker Punch
Cut the top 1/4 off of a lime. Hollow it out with a grapefruit spoon. Fill with 1.5 ounces of tequila and .5 ounces of cointreau. Take the shot and squeeze the lime as you are drinking. Grab the fruit pulp and when your best friend isn’t looking, huck it in his face.

Classic Manhattan

2009-03-19T02:06:00.000-07:00

Right as you think that spring might be just around the corner, winter shows her frigid face and instead of sunshine and bicycle rides you endure prevailing winds and white out skiing. But fear not, there is warmth to found in the most chilling of winters from the inside out with a favorite winter classic, the manhattan.
Although there is a bit of debate, most agree that the manhattan was created in 1870 at the Manhattan Club in New York City. It was invented for a party that Winston Churchill’s mother was giving for Samuel J. Tilden, who was running for president that year.
One of the simplest of the classic cocktails to make, the manhattan is a combination of whiskey, sweet vermouth (a fortified wine with aromatic herbs and spices), and Angostura bitters (a extremely potent secret recipe of herbs, spices, and alcohol).
When mixing a manhattan, sweet vermouth should be used sparingly, as it has a very strong flavor that will overpower the flavor of the whiskey. This is particularly important if you are making a manhattan with a whiskey or bourbon that you consider a sipping whiskey.
As for whether to use whiskey or bourbon, that is really up to the drinker. Bourbon is American whiskey that is distilled from fermented corn and must be aged in charred oak barrels for at least two years, although most premium bourbons are aged for four years. Canadian Whiskey is a blend of different grains such as corn, wheat, rye, or barley and is typically aged in used oak barrels for four to six years. Canadian Whiskeys tend to be lighter in body than American whiskey.
As for Irish whiskey, it is my favorite to mix a manhattan. Irish whiskey is made from barley and rye, which have been steeped in water so that they germinate and become malt. It is distilled at a very low temperature so the whiskey retains a sweet toasty honey flavor.
A manhattan by any other name might just be made with Scotch whisky, as that is a rob roy.

Classic Manhattan
5 oz whiskey
1 oz sweet vermouth
4 drops angostura bitters
Shake vigorously and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Shake It Up Las Vegas 2009

2009-03-19T02:01:00.000-07:00

Columbine Quillen of the Blacksmith Restaurant, Bar, and Nightclub won fourth place last Tuesday March 3 at the International Shake It Up Creative Cocktail Competition in Las Vegas. Only 25 mixologists from around the globe were invited to the competition where there were contestants from Brazil, the Czech Republic, and Puerto Rico. Quillen was invited after submitting her cocktail the hot pink, which is a tart fruity drink with a little bit of spice. “I usually use the locally made Mazama Pepper Vodka for this drink, but I had to handcraft one of my ingredients, so I made a three pepper syrup to replace the heat from the Mazama Pepper Vodka.”
The contest was in the Las Vegas Convention Center and was judged by a panel of leading mixologists, many of whom have authored cocktail books or lead large beverage programs.
“I had never done anything like this. We got there and Food Network was set up filming the whole event.” Quillen had 15 minutes to prep all of her ingredients and then seven minutes on stage to make five of the same cocktails for eight judges. Two judges shared a drink and then the last drink was put out on display so that people could look at it and straw taste it.
The first round Quillen had to create the drink she was chosen for, the hot pink. The judges chose five people to advance to the second round where there would be a secret ingredient. Grand prize was $5000 and anyone who advanced to Round 2 would win a cash prize.
“When I went to the next round I was ecstatic! My two friends were in the audience just whooping and hollering, it was really exciting.”
The secret ingredient was passion fruit. “I made a blackberry passion fruit cocktail with absinthe and Navan Vanilla Cognac. It was delicious but the flavor of the passion fruit got lost and I think that’s why I didn’t place better.”
“However, fourth place at such a big competition is still an accomplishment.”
Quillen brought home $700 and a little bit of fame to Bend, Oregon.

The Anti-oxidant

2009-03-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

It is no secret that we as a nation are struggling with how to make health care affordable and available for everyone. The Republicans are afraid that after the socialization of their beloved banks that the state might try to subsidize health insurance too. But fret not, there is a business opportunity to be had that can no doubt bring about lower health care costs.

Hospitals need bars in them. Certainly it is a place where we could all use a drink, from patient to doctor to visitor, there is plenty of stress that a little highball could do wonders for.

Patients could frequent the bar assuming that it would not threaten their life to drink on whatever drugs they might be on. For those that feel that alcohol is bad for you, certainly alcohol can’t be any worse for you than hospital food, which has the nutritional value of a Twinkie and looks like the chefs of Fear Factor cooked it for you. Furthermore, alcohol when mixed with the right tincture or tonic can have great health benefits as gin and tonics have prevented malaria for hundreds of years.

Guests to the hospital could drink at the bar in times of celebration. The bar could have an events room for special occasions such as births, knee replacement surgeries, or heart transplants. These are all happy days and nothing says cheers like a bottle of champagne. Why drink it in an institutional mint green hospital room when there could be a beautiful space just for this purpose right there in the hospital?

Last but not least, anyone who has been to the doctor lately knows that they were lucky to spend 15 minutes in his or her presence. Nothing brings people together quicker than the social lubricant alcohol. Three drinks into it, patient and doctor will be with arms around one another singing their old favorite college tunes, and who couldn’t benefit from that sort of love?

The Anti-oxidant

20 muddled blueberries
1 oz. Pomegranate Juice
1 oz. Fresh Squeezed Lime
2. oz Simple syrup
1 oz. Pomegranate liqueur
1 oz. Organic vodka

The Tramp

2009-03-19T01:59:00.001-07:00

As Obama sweeps the country with hope and transformation, might there also be change in what is perhaps the most obnoxious way that girls garner attention at the bar - the girl-on-girl make out session? Yes, we have all seen it. Some drunk girl notices that no men have lavished any attention on her so she grabs her best friend by the face and forces her tongue down the back of her throat. Her friend (no stranger to the game) sloppily kisses back never failing to run her hands through her friends hair and to let out some sort of I-once-watched-a-porno moan.
Don’t get me wrong, they want attention and it never fails. However, the girl-on-girl kiss is stale and old. With a metamorphosis in regime and hope to make the world a better place, might we move forward from this frat party charade to something more interesting or meaningful?
How about a spin on the girl-on-girl kiss where girls with tongue piercings wear highly magnetized tongue rings. It will be a real battle of tongue strength to see who can get their tongue untied while smooching. Some girls will have tongue rings with opposing magnets, so no matter how much they want to make out their tongues will be forced away from one another in a wicked display of willpower.
Or the girl can just get naked. Why involve anyone else when you can get all the attention yourself? Typically singing, dancing, or doing yoga while you are nude will add to the fun and assure that you get even more attention. Furthermore, no one will ever be confused if they should be interested in you or your friend - there is no doubt that everybody will be fascinated by you and no one else.
Last but not least, the girl can also read a book or magazine and conjure up some conversation with the guy she has a crush on. Perhaps the most difficult of the methods, but it assures the best results. Furthermore, you will be saved from being made the fool and the boy you like might actually call you the next day knowing that you are not a trampy whore when you happen to get a teeny bit drunk and want a little male attention.

The Tramp
1 oz cheap vodka
1 oz redbull

Add a dash of food coloring to color your shot to give it more personality.

The Victory Shot

2009-02-12T03:59:00.001-08:00

There are a few givens that can lead a man to drinking: divorce, death of a loved one, and the use a voice-activated phone menu system. Even the most tolerant will find themselves throwing the phone across the room after they have had to repeat “check account” sixteen times to hear the same voice repeat again and again, “I’m sorry. I didn’t get that.” Succumbing to screaming, “No kidding you didn’t get that. You are a goddamn voice without a brain - so how could you possibly GET THAT?” You walk to the bar because nothing cures a broken soul like a cocktail.

Sitting on your barstool feeling slightly ashamed that you are the only person in the bar mid-afternoon, you start to wonder whose idiotic idea was it to have you clearly shout your account number and password repetitively into the phone. What was wrong with pushing the buttons? Obviously there is a lobby by Identity Thieves of America to keep up this practice, as there is no doubt they are all over Washington doling out gifts and promising senators favors to keep this system alive.

It seems like a no win situation, but really you just need to keep control. Next time, just start saying random words so when she says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t get that.” At least you understand where she is coming from. Some of my favorite lexicons are shuttlecock, giblet, and haberdashery. I also like to ask certain questions like, “Do you know who shot Kennedy?” or “Where does your soul go when you die?” If you are lucky, you speak a foreign language and can ask things like, “Ertu alltaf svona pirrandi?” which is Icelandic for, “Are you typically this annoying?”

That way you have the upper hand in the situation, and isn’t this what it’s all about? Eventually, if you confuse the voice enough it will put you through to a real human at which point you are justified to spend the next ten minutes repeating, “I’m sorry I didn’t get that,” to every question they ask you.

After this tête-à-tête, nothing will warm your heart more than knowing the voice didn’t win. And a winner always deserves a victory shot.

Victory Shot
1.5 oz tequila
.5 oz blue curaçao
.5 oz fresh squeezed lime

Shake and strain into a shot glass.

Next time Quinine Caviar

2009-01-29T01:22:00.000-08:00

Tonic water

This is something that I've been meaning to work on for a long time. I bought quinine powder over a year ago and messed around with it a bit, but never was that happy with the results. I want to thank Jeffrey Morgenthaler for his tonic water recipe, as it gave me a base to work with and my tonic water turned out delicious. I'm going to use it for happy hour, as I am trying to make a muddle-free, almost shake-free cocktail list for happy hour.

1 large grapefruit cut in pieces (with rind)
1 lime cut in pieces (with rind)
1 lemon cut in pieces (with rind)
1 tablespoon allspice berries
1 oz quinine powder
2 cups sugar
4 cups water

Bring to a boil. Let rest until cool (probably two to three hours) Strain off syrup and dispose of waste. Use one part syrup to three parts soda water.

In addition to making tonic syrup, I spent most of the evening making fruit caviar.
They turned out great considering I don't have a scale and I didn't have Matt (who is the chef who originally showed me how to make them and has been there every time I've made them in the past). I was extraordinarly proud that they turned out so perfect but as always, now I will see if I can figure out a way to sell them. I'm going to start them out similar to the jello shot presentation where we have a long glass tube with four indentations on it. Three indentations will have fruit caviar, the fourth will have a shot of 360 vodka. Underneath will be three litecubes, lighting up the caviar to make it look more glammy.

360 vodka is one of my favorite vodkas on the market and has actually decreased in price in Oregon - which never happens. It is four times distilled and five times filtered. It is very easy on the palette, and I will put it up to Grey Goose any day as to which drinks cleaner. The bottle is post-consumer recycled glass, as is the paper label. It comes with a reusable Grolsh style lid that can be mailed back as part of a recycling program and the company donates $1 for every lid received to renewable energy projects. The case box is the same size as a filing box, so it can be used in the office after you drink 12 bottles of vodka. McCormick Distilling, who makes 360 vodka, is very progressive and green. As their vodka is fantastic and so are they, it was an easy choice as to which vodka to have flatter the caviars.

Fruit caviar
I used 10 oz of hot water in which I blended 2 teaspoons of algin into. I used a very high powered bar blender. I added 12 oz of fruit concentrate and a couple drops of food coloring - as I've noticed the algin makes the color fade in the bubbles. I blended this three times and then dropped it into very very cold water that had two teaspoons of calcium chloride dissolved in it. The caviar came out perfect. An absolute success after the last two times I tried on my own - the first to have absolutely nothing happen when I dropped my fruit gel into the hardening agent. And the second time to make little fruit globs that looked just like nasty scabs.

FAQ

2009-01-27T18:13:00.000-08:00

FAQ

Why do some bars call last call early, and why don’t they just do another round if people are still in the bar? I’m a paying customer, don’t they want my money?

First, yes we want your money - that’s the only reason that we open our doors everyday. However, maybe we call last call because of the type of liquor license we have. Or maybe we call last call because things are rowdy and no one needs to drink more, or maybe we call last call because it’s getting late, or maybe we call last call because it’s been a long hard night and we are just done. It doesn’t matter the reason behind calling last call, the important thing to remember is last call is last call. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve spent, who your friends are, or that you know the owner - when last call has been called, then you can order one more drink and then are you done drinking at this establishment. If it isn’t 2:30, go to another bar that does last call later. That’s how it works.

You only have Coors Light on draft, I only drink Bud in a bottle. Now I have to go someplace else.

You are welcome to go anywhere you want and certainly if the only thing you drink in this world is Budweiser in a bottle and I don’t have it, I find it completely legitimate for you to spend your money at a location that carries what you want. On the other hand, it’s a sad state of affairs that you will not branch out of your box. And even more sad is that I am positive in a blind taste test that you couldn’t taste the difference between Coors Light and Budweiser. I have met beer cicerones that couldn’t taste the difference (not that I think this is a particularly interesting topic to a cicerone). I have met third level sommeliers that will try Three Buck Chuck, but you aren’t willing to go from one yellow swill to a different yellow swill because you are so positive the flavor of it will be so despicable that you won’t be able to palette it? Ridiculous.

The biggest beer snobs are always domestic yellow-beer drinkers. I assure you that you can’t taste the difference, I know this as I spent one long winter working a ski area bar where we served Budweiser, Bud light, Coors, Coors Light, and MGD. We very rarely had all five beers on draft, as distribution was an issue at 11,000 feet. One day I had five guys who ordered one of each type of beer. I didn’t feel like having the yellow beer meltdown, so I brought them all MGD (the only yellow beer we had on draft). After two rounds where each thought they were drinking their brand of choice, they ordered another round and I informed the buy who was drinking Budweiser that we had ran out, but I had MGD. With a huff and a smirk he informed me that he would never drink such shit. I just smiled - proof positive he couldn’t taste any difference.

There were many days where we didn’t have all the beers on tap and I often substituted one for another without informing the guest, I never once had anyone tell me that they weren’t drinking the beer they ordered. (I don’t consider this good practice, but these were special circumstances as I worked for a very poorly ran, micro-managed, hole-in-the-wall ski area bar and I must admit - it was the perfect situation to test a theory I had always had.)

Check out this article, a good piece on Brand loyalty and the belief that you CAN taste the difference.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/virgin/321214_virgin26.html

A challenge to all yellow beer drinkers to do a truly blind taste test challenge. And a bigger challenge to expand your palette to darker beers or better yet, how about small batch bourbon.

The Mating

2009-01-27T02:13:00.000-08:00

Animal Planet doesn’t run nature shows on human mating rituals because they don’t want to be confused with Girls Gone Wild. As all bartenders know, courtship and mating rituals are among the most varied and fascinating of all human behaviors. The sequence and variety differ by age, but a few essentials are usually in place - cocktails, dim lighting, and music.

Most courtship takes place in the evening, starting with bathing and preening. The female of the species may spend hours working on her plumage and makeup. The male concentrates on shaving his facial hair into the desired effect to attract the right mate: clean shaven for the girl who cares about success and prosperity, a goatee for the woman who desires adventure, and no shaving to attract the female who prefers life in a Volkswagen bus. Aromatherapy is usually in play as well. The female douses herself with a bouquet of floral or fruity aromas, while the male is drawn toward woody or spicy scents.

Once a male and female attract each another, they move on to the mating dance. The female is usually dominant during this display. While the male awkwardly punches the air with his feet rooted in place, the female runs her hands through her hair; dances with her ass in the air; and juts her chest out. The more colorful the female’s display, the more interested the male becomes. He increases his movements until the two are rubbing against each other in synchronized rhythm.

If the female is unable to lure a male, she lowers her top or lifts her skirt, which usually solicits a mate. If the male is unable to lure a mate, he may try to fight an already-paired male in hopes of winning over his mate. However, aggression does not usually entice the female of the species, and males who resort to this method usually leave alone.

Once the mating dance is complete, the male and female advance to a nesting site and stay until morning.

The Mating
1 oz vodka
1 oz gin
1 oz lemon
1 oz lime
1.5 oz of simple syrup
Shake and serve up in a martini glass
Garnish the rim with heart shaped maraschino cherries

Originally printed in The Source Volume 13 Issue 4 January 22, 2009.

Winter nips

2009-01-27T02:12:00.001-08:00

Nothing’s as pleasurable as a warm nip after you've spent a long day playing in the snow. The steam melts the last of the snowflakes from your eyelashes and thaws your frozen cheeks. The first sips inch from the tip of your tongue to the bottom of your belly. Most people are familiar with the classic winter cocktails - hot toddy, Bailey's and Coffee, and Peppermint Schnapps in hot chocolate. This winter, why not try a twist on your favorite classic?

Bailey's and Coffee is an easy drink to make and an easy drink to put a spin on. The simplest way to mix things up is to try one of Bailey's other flavors - Bailey's Mint or Bailey's Caramel. Making flavored whipped cream is also fun and effortless. Just add a little chocolate syrup, caramel, or strong coffee to the cream before you whip it. For a truly decadent treat, shave some dark chocolate on the infused whipped cream.

Hot toddies are where you can really let your creativity shine. Traditionally a hot toddy is bourbon, lemon, honey, and hot water. Try rum, brandy, or a delicious liqueur like Tuaca or Navan vanilla cognac instead of the bourbon. In place of hot water, use a hot herbal tea such as chamomile or ginger. Or really mix it up by using hot apple cider. Add just enough lemon to cut the sweetness of the honey and give the drink some tang. A beautiful garnish always adds to the fun, so cut a wheel off the lemon, and float it on top.

Peppermint Schnapps in hot chocolate is even more delicious with extra chocolate. Dip a couple of marshmallows in melted baking chocolate, let them harden, and use them as a delicious garnish. To make it out of this world, top your whipped cream with crushed peppermint candy, and watch it melt right into the drink.

A sweet drink is always better with a sweet treat companion. So while you’re warming your lips with your favorite winter cocktail, warm up your house by baking a batch of your favorite cookies.

Originally printed in The Winter Guide January 22, 2009.

The Grind

2009-01-27T02:00:00.000-08:00

Somehow Nelly's “Hot in Herre” appeals to a generation that I'm quite positive he did not intend to appeal to. I’m contemplating saying, “No shirt, no service,” but I'm still caught off guard that a doughy 58-year-old man has decided to dance half-naked at the service bar.

Before I can say anything, his mate joins him with a long lick to his chest and a grind straight from Christina Aguilera's "Dirty" video. Trust me, it's not quite the same when the two people are not 20 and over-the-top beautiful. But, like a train wreck, I can't shift my gaze.

Fortunately, just in time to quell my vomit reflex, the gentleman breaks away, still panting, and orders a vodka tonic. He doesn’t stop gyrating his hips while wiping copious amounts of sweat from his forehead. His dance partner goes back to the main dance floor, allowing him an extra minute with me. I tell him that he owes me $6.50. He stops the hip motions just long enough to pull out his wallet, and then tells me he’s always wanted to be a pole dancer.

“Really?”

I ask him what he does now, and he replies that he’s a mortgage broker. In the current market, pole dancing might not be such a bad sport to take up, I tell him.

I wonder if he's been caught grinding on the bus stop sign while waiting for the number two, or been asked to leave playgrounds after dry humping the pole on the jungle gym. Maybe that’s what led him to brokering mortgages.

The Grind

Muddle four mint leaves
One splash of mint bitters
2 oz of vodka
2 oz of lime juice
1.5 oz of simple syrup

Stir it with a long stick and top with soda water.

Originally printed in The Source Volume 13 Issue 2 January 8, 2009.

Bitter beer, bitter attitude, and just bitters

2009-01-27T01:55:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the more interesting items that have come to my attention this week.

Pliny the Elder Double IPA

I am not a beer drinker, but this is one of the best beers I have ever had. It begins with a beautiful tangerine and grapefruit bouquet. It is bitter but not astringent. Perfectly balanced, as the bitterness is slow on the palette with light malt. Nice crisp bubble structure with medium mouth feel make this one sensational beer. Do try do try! I like it better on tap than in a bottle - maybe because it opens up a little more.

Hard to find bitter ingredients

Ah bitters! I have been trying to make some of the classic bitters such as Boker’s bitters and Boudreau Bitters No.2 to find that the ingredients are almost impossible to find. I went online to find quassia, catechu, and calamus with not much luck. I found catechu but I had to order a pound of it (only need three ounces). Looks like a lot of these items are used in acupuncture, so perhaps I can get them that way. I’ve also contacted a girl from where I used to live who is an herbalist, so perhaps she can be of help to me. For the meantime, I’ll experiment with some different ingredients.

The tic tac craze.

I had not heard of this drink a month ago and now it is the new hot item amongst the late night crowd. I guess as long as you get to drop something into red bull - it’s good?!?!?!? I’ve always joked that people will buy anything that comes out of the fryer and better yet if you put it on a stick. The same rings true with anything with red bull in it and then anything where you get to put a little glass inside of a big glass.

My HOT drink right now is El Scorcho, easy to make.

EL SCORCHO

1 ounce ginger syrup
1.5 ounces fresh-squeezed lime
1 ounce pineapple
2.5 ounces habeñero infused vodka

Ginger syrup

1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1 cup peeled and cut fresh ginger

Bring to a boil, let sit for two hours. Do not let sit overnight as the ginger will instill a bitter heat into the syrup.

Habeñero infused vodka

Cut one habeñero pepper in half. Put into a fifth of vodka and let sit overnight. Obviously the longer you let the pepper stay in the vodka the hotter it will get. But after one day, most of the heat is released into the alcohol.