Author: Bob Westal (Page 62 of 65)

Drink of the Week: The Bacardi Cocktail

September 2, 2011 /

Bacardi CocktailIn many respects, I’m still just finding my way around the world of cocktails but one thing is now clear to me: you can’t really separate mixology and marketing. As with so many drinks, the precise history of our Labor Day weekend selection, the Bacardi cocktail, remains pretty much a complete mystery, but clearly the manufacturers and promoters of the best known brand of rum must have had some connection to the formulation of this simple and surprisingly delightful concoction, a pretty basic variation on the booze, tart citrus juice, and sweetener formulation of so many fine drinks.

The Bacardi cocktail is nevertheless a special case in the annals of alcohol marketing. In 1936, just three years after the repeal of prohibition, a lawsuit was brought and the New York Supreme Court actually ruled that this drink must be made with Bacardi rum or it’s not a Bacardi cocktail.

The Bacardi Cocktail

1 1/2 ounces of Bacardi light rum (use another brand at your own legal peril!!)
1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon grenadine.
Maraschino cherry (extremely optional garnish)

Combine rum, lime juice, and grenadine in a cocktail shaker with lots of ice. Shake vigorously, and pour into our old friend, the chilled martini/cocktail glass. Do not be alarmed if the color is a bit more pinkish and cloudy than the picture above. It’s possible the photographer preferred his Bacardis stirred, not shaken. Regardless, throw in a chemically preserved cherry, if you like, and toast the New York State bar (sorry).

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Apparently back during the prohibition era, some cocktail classicists insisted that a “real” Bacardi Cocktail was made with sugar or simple syrup and not grenadine. I have no real argument with that except that, if you do that, then you basically have our last DOTW, the Daiquiri. I will say that I strongly recommend sticking to these proportions. A little bit of grenadine, it seems, goes a long way. I tried indulging my sweet tooth by using an entire teaspoon of grenadine per 1.5 ounces of rum, and the result was not at all pleasing. Even such a seemingly still small amount of the very sweet syrup created an unpleasantly saccharine drink. Some prefer to use a very small amount of sugar or simple syrup and just a tiny dash of grenadine for color. That might work as well.

Have a good holiday, everyone. Also, be safe on the roads. There are still some people out there who think they can imbibe whatever they like and get behind the wheel. Don’t be one of them.

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

Drink of the Week: The Daiquiri

August 26, 2011 /

http://blog.bullz-eye.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/213ba60487turale-200x3001.jpgToday it’s a milestone at Drink of the Week as we’re leaving behind our old friends whiskey, gin, and vodka for that tropical favorite, rum. Nevertheless, we’re holding on to our classical cocktail standards, so you may abandon all thoughts of blenders.

This is not the ultra-sweet ice-based monstrosity of a strawberry daiquiri that you’ll find at your local Bennigan’s/El Torito/Acapulco/TGIFriday or the devastatingly alcoholic quasi-Slurpees sold by hole-in-the-wall vendors on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Nope, at the risk of sounding like a complete snob, this is the more civilized, yet refreshing — and vastly less fattening — beverage reportedly named either for a Cuban beach or an iron mine and favored by Ernest Hemingway and John F. Kennedy. The former personage is a lot more popular in post-revolutionary Cuba than the latter, but that’s another story.

Here’s the drink:

The Daiquiri

2 ounces rum
1/2 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
1/2 teaspoon superfine sugar
Lime or orange wedge (optional garnish)

Mix sugar with room temperature lime juice. Add rum and plentiful ice to your cocktail shaker. Shake very vigorously and strain into a chilled martini glass. It’s not really necessary, but you can garnish it with a lime wedge, or an orange slice if you’d like an extra touch of sweetness. You can add a little more sugar if you like, but remember that rum has, for a hard liquor, a lot of built-in sweetness. It will taste even better with Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo’s Afro-Cuban classic, Manteca, playing in the background.

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I’ve tried this a few ways, but I’m happy to say this is a rather indestructible drink if you don’t mess with it too much. Most recipes call very specifically for light rum, but it was only slightly less good when I tried it with gold rum. Cocktail historian David Wondrich says you can also use the even sweeter and more complex dark rums, but cut back some on the sugar. Since I ultimately determined that his recipe was better than those I found in several other places calling for more lime juice and sugar, I imagine he’s right about that, too.

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

Drink of the Week: The Caipirinha

August 19, 2011 /

CaipirinhaAs of right now, the national drink of Brazil isn’t that well known stateside. If the PR savvy makers of Leblon Cachaça have their way, however, the cachaça-based caipirinha will soon be doing battle with the mojito (which I promise we’ll be covering here shortly) for the title of most chic Latin American beverage in North America.

Because of U.S. labeling regulations, cachaça is frequently confused with rum. While rum is made from molasses, cachaça is made from sugar cane juice which makes them relatives, but anything but identical twins when it comes to flavor. As I understand it, most brands of the drink consumed in Brazil are also first-cousins to lighter fluid, but Leblon — the only brand I’ve tried so far — is of a far finer stripe and sells here for between $20-$30. The reason I know the brand is that it is buying influencing writers like me with bounteous alcoholic swag. Not a bad start, to be honest.

I’ve experimenting with the stuff for over a week and what I can tell you is that, like all really interesting booze, it’s a somewhat acquired taste, but I’m enjoying doing the acquiring. It has a complex flavor that is less sweet than rum or whiskey and is closer to dry gin or vodka, but with more than a hint of olives about it and some other odd flavors I can’t quite identify and am still getting used to. It makes an okay martini, but it’s terrific with a few splashes of ginger ale and a lot of ice. I’m sure there are lots of other classic drinks using gin or vodka it could be easily worked into.

So far, the Caipirinha, which is somewhere between and old fashioned and a mojito in terms of preparation, is the most intriguing way to go with cachaça that I’ve found, and it’s about as refreshing on a hot August night as any drink I’ve had. And, no, I have no idea how to pronounce the name of the cocktail, either.

The Caipirinha

2 ounces cachaça
2 teaspoons superfine sugar
1 lime

Cut a good sized lime into wedges. Add sugar and muddle vigorously in a rocks/old fashioned glass. The backside of a spoon won’t do here; you’ll want a proper muddler or a blunt instrument of some sort because you’ve really got to smash the lime wedges and sugar but good to form a sort of juicy paste. Add lots of crushed ice and pour the cachaça over it. Stir with a bar spoon or swizzle stick for maybe 30 seconds or longer to allow a lot of the ice to melt. Sip away.

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The recipe the Leblon people provided me called for the drink to be shaken with vigor for about 10-30 seconds, and you can do so either in a cocktail shaker or by shaking the concoction in the glass itself using a professional-type shaker. My personal opinion is that’s only necessary if you don’t have crushed ice, because you’ll need a way to extract some water out of that ice fairly quickly. If you’ve got crushed ice handy, my way is easier, tidier and, I think, tastier.

Not surprisingly, there are endless variations on the caipirinha theme, many of them involving smashed fruits of various sorts. I haven’t tried any of them yet, but a lot of them sound delicious and you can definitely check out more recipes at the Leblon website. Personally, I’m just thinking about raiding my fridge for whatever fruits are there and seeing what happens.

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

Drink of the Week: The White Russian

August 12, 2011 /

The White Russian.Cocktail classicists beware, because this week we’re saluting the immanent blu-ray release of the Coen Brothers’ comedy classic, “The Big Lebowski,” as well as the historic Lebowski Fest cast reunion with a drink that not only contains vodka but which usually requires no shaking and perhaps not even a great deal of stirring. That’s not all, the White Russian is extremely sweet and seems to derive not from the cocktail heights of the early 20th century but closer to the mixological nadir of the 1970s. The fact that it was a drink simple enough for a stoner to love led to it being immortalized on celluloid in the aforementioned 1998 film with Jeff Bridges, easily the greatest example of the pot-driven comedy genre yet made. Next to James Bond’s shaken vodka martini, the Dude’s Caucasian — same drink, different name — is easily the most legendary of all movie cocktails.

Still, no movie can make a drink popular all on its own, and the White Russian’s appeal is obvious; it tastes like a frozen candy bar. Moreover, the fact that it contains a bit of caffeine and even some rudimentary nutrition also makes it a highly appropriate beverage, not only for achievers but for caffeine heads like me. No wonder that it was one of the first cocktails I gravitated to in my ignorant youth and no wonder I still enjoy it when the time is right. Sometimes there’s no time for a martini and a very sweet cappuccino to follow it up. Impact-wise, the white Russian gives you a bit of both.

The White Russian

1.5 ounces vodka
3/4 ounces Kahlua or other coffee liqueur
3/4 ounces of heavy cream (or somewhat larger portions of half-and-half, whole milk, or even 2% milk)

Pour vodka and Kahlua over ice in rocks glass. Add heavy cream, which should “float” over the top, or other dairy topping. Stir and proceed to get into endless arguments with your friends about whether or not urinating on a rug constitutes a Saddam Hussein-like act of imperial aggression.

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There are a number of variations on the above, of course. You can eschew the diary product and go for a black Russian. I understand that if you use 2% or lower fat content film it’s called a Skinny Russian, which isn’t awful. On the other hand, I can tell you first hand that going past half-and-half and into the land of heavy cream will make the drink all the more tasty, though perhaps not tasty enough to warrant the eventual heart attack if you drink these things on too regular a basis. On the other hand, if you’re drinking as many Caucasians as the Dude seems to do during the course of a single day, wear and tear on your heart may not be your primary concern.

Also, I have to note cocktail historian David Wondrich‘s recipe actually calls for the drink to be made in a shaker and strained into a chilled rocks glass. It’s not bad that way, though it’s hard to imagine the Dude putting in all that work. As Wondrich points out, this is a drink beloved both by very occasional drinkers like my former self for its sweet-as-ice-cream taste and for the most down and out of out-and-out alcoholics, for whom it’s often the closest thing they’ll get to a balanced meal. Yes, a White Russian is for all, but really it belongs to just one man.

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

Drink of the Week: The Pimm’s Cup

August 5, 2011 /

Pimm's CupLike Campari, Sambuca, and the like, Pimm’s Cup #1 is a bottle you’ll see at a lot of bars but which, at least here in the States, no bartender ever seems to open and which most barfolk will tend to discourage you from trying. They have their reasons because, on its own, it’s definitely not for everyone. It’s a concoction of gin and various herbs that has a nicely sweet but also fairly bitter flavor. It’s somewhere between a liqueur and Angostura.

It may be a little harsh straight, but it can mix very accessibly. A popular cocktail classic in the UK that has been referenced on both “Mad Men” and “Boardwalk Empire,” Pimm’s Cup, the cocktail, combines this relatively low alcohol (50 proof) base spirit with various types of soda and fruit and vegetable garnishes.

In my experiments, I avoided some of the very elaborate recipes which are more like very large and very wet fruit salads and eventually settled on the simple recipe below, adapted freely from the method used by Minneapolis mixologist D.J. Kukielka. It’s a winner — a tasty refreshment for lightweights with discerning palettes.

The Pimm’s Cup

2 ounces Pimm’s Cup #1
4 ounces (approximately) ginger beer or ginger ale
Cut-up cucumber (to taste)
Cucumber slice (garnish)
Lemon slice (garnish)

Place cucumbers in cocktail shaker and muddle. (Having an actual muddler on hand is a real help here, and essential if you want a truly well-stocked bar.) Add Pimm’s Cup #1 and ice. Shake very vigorously and strain into a Tom Collins glass over ice (preferably crushed). Top off with ginger ale and garnishes. Stir with swizzle stick or barspoon.

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I’m barely exaggerating when I say that there are a million recipes for this beverage on line, and they’re all pretty different from each other, which I suppose befits a drink that is something like the British equivalent of sangria. I get the impression that you could pretty much throw any fruit you can think of in, if you want. Still, I had by far the best luck with the recipe above and, though it’s more expensive, ginger beer does work slightly better than good old Canada Dry.

If you want to be really authentic, however, be aware that the original recipes often call for lemonade. The confusion here is that what the British call lemonade and what we Yanks call it are two different things. UK lemonade is a lemon soda which some compare to 7-Up — and many online recipes specially call for American-style lemon-lime soda — but Brits inform us that true British lemon soda tastes fairly different than our uncolas. If you’re lucky enough to live in a city like Los Angeles with a large British ex-pat population and specialty stores to go with it, or want to go online and don’t mind spending a little extra cash, I bet you can find some and go full Brit.

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

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