Author: Bob Westal (Page 61 of 65)

Drink of the Week: The Smokey Scotsman

September 30, 2011 / Bob Westal

the Smokey Scotsman Anyone here remember the gag from “Risky Business” when a teenage, home alone Tom Cruise destroys his dad’s expensive Chivas Regal by polluting it with Coke? The idea of mixing a really good single malt Scotch with anything other than a smidgen of water no doubt strikes many today as nothing short of sacrilege. Indeed, classic cocktail heads will note that, like Irish whiskey, only a very select few cocktails call for Scotch. In cocktail land, the North American whiskeys tend to dominate.

Nevertheless, we are noting a contrary trend here at DOTW central. Manufacturers of single malts — presumably even more resistant to promiscuous mixing than a blend like Chivas — are letting their guard down and openly promulgating cocktail recipes via such highly praiseworthy PR strategies as sending me a free bottle of very good Scotch alongside an intriguing and surprisingly good recipe.

Lacking any added sweetness, the Smokey Scotsman is not a recipe for everyone, but what is? It certainly has its Calvinist charms to go with the very sturdy product that is the Macallan 10 Year-Old, which I’ve enjoyed imbibing in several different forms over the last couple of weeks. I had some issues understanding the recipe at first, but now that I do, I’m ready to declare this cocktail to be of the elect. (Yes, this is your comparative religions edition of DOTW.) It helps to really like Scotch and sage, though.

The Smokey Scotsman

2 ounces Scotch whisky (very preferably The Macallan 10 year-old single malt, of course)
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
3-5 sage leaves

Pour Scotch over sage leaves and muddle the leaves into the booze and lemon juice. Add ice, shake like crazy and pour — do not strain, unless you like your drinks as severe as the most hellfire and brimstone Scottish preacher — into an old fashioned glass, preferably chilled.

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Since this is, as far as I can tell, a rather new beverage, I don’t know of many alternative versions. I did try this myself adding a teaspoon of sugar to the mix. The result was less forbidding but also less interesting

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

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Drink of the Week: The Americano

September 23, 2011 / Bob Westal

the Americano Of all the boozy discoveries I’ve made in the relatively short time I’ve been writing DOTW, easily the most personally fascinating to me is Campari and the great cocktail made with it, the Negroni. Mine is a lonely passion, however. American bartenders tend to play down Campari and Campari-based drinks, even while they usually stock it. It’s not hard to see why because it’s a dangerous drink, taste wise. It’s essentially the bitterest of bitters mixed with the sweetest of liqueurs. When you drink it straight — and you really should, just once — the sweet part leads the charge followed by a sharp, intoxicating punch of bitterness. Pleasure followed by a punishment I personally find quite addictive.

Fortunately, the Negroni is not alone among Campari-based cocktail classics. This history of the Americano goes back the mid-19th century, when it was first known as the Milano-Torino before the Italians noticed that we Yanks we’re taking to the drink. No doubt, that was because it does such a great job of softening the Campari 1-2 punch.

Wikipedia also points out that the Americano is the first bar order made by James Bond in Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, Casino Royale. Relax, however; you don’t have to be a super-spy to enjoy this and you certainly don’t need to be a super-mixologist to make it. In fact, it’s a perfect drink for lightweights and/or lazy bartenders with a mild adventurous streak.

The Americano

1 ounce Campari
1 ounce sweet vermouth
Carbonated water
Orange slice or lemon peel (optional, but desirable, garnish)

Pour equal parts Campari and sweet vermouth over ice cubes in a rocks/old fashioned glass. Top off with carbonated water of your choice. Add citrus slice/peel of your choice. Stir.

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If you’d like a bit more hydration or if you’d like to put a bit more distance between yourself and the Campari bitters, it’s also perfectly acceptable to make an Americano in a Colllins/highball, leaving more room for the carbonated water. As to the type of soda water, club soda or plain seltzer/carbonated water are fine, though I understand 007/Ian Fleming suggested using Perrier with it in the short story, “A View to a Kill.” On the other hand, since that magnificent snob recommended using the French mineral water as a relatively inexpensive way to improve “a bad drink,” he couldn’t possibly have been talking about the Americano.

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

Campari Casino Royale cocktails Drink of the Week Happy Hour Ian Fleming James Bond the Americano vermouth

Drink of the Week: The Mojito

September 16, 2011 / Bob Westal

Yes, I’ve been putting it off. Forgive me, I know not why I waited. The Mojito might be the trendiest drink going right now and there are the usual cocktail abuses committed by misguided bars, but overall it’s the kind of booze trend that even a staunch cocktail classicist can support.

Like so many classic cocktails, this venerable Cuban creation is a sturdy drink — great in the hot, moistish weather we’re still kinda sorta having in Southern California — that can bear a number of variations and is actually quite easy to make. And, or so the Wikipedians tell us, it’s possibly a relatively ancient drink and was even approved of by the Cuba and daiquiri loving Ernest Hemingway. What other encouragement do you need?

The Mojito

2 ounces light rum
1/2 to 1 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice/wedges
1-3 teaspoons superfine sugar
2-5 sprigs of fresh mint
1-2 ounces (approx.) club soda or seltzer (sparkling water)

Combine lime juice and sugar — use more sugar to go with more lime juice or less to go with less — with mint in the bottle of an old fashioned glass or, perhaps, a smallish collins glass. Muddle enough to mix the sugar and juice and also lightly smash the mint leaves; they need not be pulverized. Add ice — very preferably crushed ice. Also add the spent lime wedges from your juicing. Stir vigorously with a swizzle stick or bar spoon — enough to melt some of the ice. Then, top off with a small amount of club soda or plain sparking water/seltzer and stir a bit more. It’s important to remember that last step. I know because I forgot a couple of times and wondered what was missing. Without just a dash of sparkle, a mojito fails to come alive.

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Though I provided a fair amount of flexibility above, there really are an enormous number of ways to skin the mojito cat and the ‘net provides no end of options. Even so, the simplest way I found was demonstrated by Rachel Maddow on a recent segment highlighted by this reasonable thought: “nuns deserve good drinks.” Her version was fairly similar to the way I make a caipirinha and involved less squeezing and measuring and definitely called for a wide-bottomed rocks glass on account of some heavy duty muddling. You basically just cut up a lime, throw in an entire tablespoon of sugar (!) and smash the heck out of it along with the mint leaves.

I found that version worked very nicely, but I was, to my own surprise, actually drawn more to the more squeezey/less smashy low lime juice and low sugar version promulgated by David Wondrich. If you keep the lime juice to 1/2 ounce, the natural sweetness of the rum and just one teaspoon of sugar is plenty to create a really full bodied refreshment. Still, the other ways are not one bit bad. There are doubtless many roads to mojito hell, most of them involving sour mix or who knows what other kinds of chemical monstrosities, but just as many paths to mojito enlightenment.

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

cocktails Cuba Daiquiri David Wondrich Drink of the Week Ernest Hemingway Happy Hour mojito Rachel Maddow rum the mojito

Drink of the Week: The Ward 8

September 9, 2011 / Bob Westal

Ward 8 The next presidential/congressional election isn’t until next year, but politics is in the air as Republicans debate and the president makes his case. All things considered with the state of our union these days, that’s reason enough to take to strong drink, classic or otherwise.

The Ward 8 hails from the fine city of Boston and appears to have been somehow involved in a late 19th century election during the period we now call the Gilded Age. Many believe that our current time period kind of rhymes with that time when money ruled the day, and that’s all I’m going to say right now. As for the drink, it’s pretty tasty and a refreshing repast after you’ve been walking precincts or taking whatever your personal political poison may be.

The Ward 8

2 ounces rye or Canadian whiskey
1/2-3/4 ounces fresh lemon juice
1/2-3/4 ounce orange juice
1 teaspoon grenadine syrup
1 maraschino cherry (optional garnish)
1 Massachusetts flag (extremely optional inedible garnish)

This one’s easy, once you’ve finished squeezing your juices. (Vastly less filthy a process than I’ve just made it sound.) Simply combine the whiskey, juice, and the teaspoon of grenadine in a cocktail shaker and shake it down like a corrupt pol, pour into a chilled martini glass. Add a cherry and if you’re a resident of the Bay State who takes such matters seriously, add that flag if you must. Just don’t try it eating it along with the cherry.

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I tried this drink with both more and less juice and found that it worked fairly well at all levels, but I lean towards the idea that more may be more in this case. I also ran out of oranges during one go-round an used tangelo juice instead. It wasn’t half bad.

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

Boston Canadian whiskey cocktails Drink of the Week gilded age Happy Hour maraschino Massachusetts rye whiskey the Bay State Ward 8

Gangster fan alert: “Scarface” Blu-ray hits the mean streets today

September 6, 2011 / Bob Westal

It’s true. You can say hello to Tony Montana’s little 1080p friends and their DVD buddies in stores nationwide as of right now and, naturally, the gangstery promotional wheels have been turning. We were lucky enough to be invited too a DVD release party at which fans of director Brian De Palma and writer Oliver Stone’s 1983 gangland spectacle got to view a pretty interesting Q&A featuring producer Martin Bregman and “Scarface” cast members Robert Loggia, F. Murray Abraham, Steven Bauer (who turns out to be something of an unembarrassed fanboy for the film which largely launched his career), and a distinctively, er, regal Al Pacino.

For a limited time, you can actually check out the complete Q&A from the event for yourself via Livestream.

A couple of interesting thoughts from the Q&A. A lot of props were given to hip hop artists for their part in turning “Scarface” from a movie with a mixed reputation — many of the initial reviews were far from positive — to a movie very many regard as a classic. (The event was followed by a performance by rapper Ludacris.)

A moment this film geek appreciated was when Mr. Pacino recounts how he says the genesis of his “Scarface” began when he saw Howard Hawks’ 1932 “Scarface,” starring Paul Muni as a gangster inspired by Al Capone, at the old Tiffany Theater on the Sunset Strip, at the time one of L.A.’s best revival houses. After the flip we have a short video from the event and maybe a clip or two from the both “Scarfaces.”

Entertainment, Movies

Al Pacino Brian De Palma F. Murray Abraham Howard Hawks little friends Ludacris Oliver Stone Paul Muni Robert Loggia Scarface Scarface Blu-ray Steven Bauer Tiffany Theater Tony Montana