Category — Bourbon

With just a few days remaining before Valentine’s Day, I suppose it’s time to sort through some of these Valentine’s-themed emails.  There are lots of cocktail recipes in the mix, a testament that no matter your date status for the big day, you can always cozy up to a nice cocktail.

A couple drinks to kick things off –

Cupid’s Arrow

1 ½ parts Maker’s Mark
¼ part DeKuyper Crème de Cacao
¼ part DeKuyper Hazelnut Liqueur
Cream or half and half
Bar of chocolate for garnish

Shake Maker’s Mark, Crème de Cacao and Hazelnut Liqueur with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass, and top with a thin layer of cream or half and half. Garnish with chocolate shavings.

Aphrodite’s Ambrosia

1 part Maker’s Mark
¼ part Apricot Liqueur
6 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Proseco

Stir Maker’s Mark, Apricot Liquor and bitters with ice. Strain into a champagne flute, and top with cold Proseco.

And if drinks don’t excite you on Valentine’s Day, consider opting for a Naked Lady instead.

I delete a lot of emails.  Mail touting something irrelevant to this blog’s focus, like a book about the evils of drinking, goes straight into the trash.  Pitches about obnoxious new products, like yet another flavored vodka (“now infused with unicorn tears!”), gets a glance before being buried.  But a pitch titled “The world’s first beer, bourbon and BBQ cocktail” gets my rapt attention.  It’s not too often that three tenants of my diet are mixed into one drink.

Tom Fischer of BourbonBlog.com, along with Louisville mixologist Stephen Dennison, created the cocktail, which will be premiered at this weekend’s Beer, Bourbon and BBQ Festival in New York.

The cocktail blends a smoky barbeque water with Maker’s Mark and Evan Williams Honey Reserve, and is then topped off with some Hefeweizen foam.  I can’t vouch for the drink, having never tried it, but it’s certainly interesting.  Those attending this weekend’s festival in Manhattan can sample the cocktail at la.venue, where Tom will be playing bartender from 3:30 to 4:15 on Saturday, January 30.  Otherwise, just check out the recipe and video below.

Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Cocktail

1 1/4 ounces Maker’s Mark Bourbon
1 ounce Evan Williams Honey Reserve
1 ounce BBQ water
Hefeweizen beer
1 Orange

To make BBQ water, combine a 19 ounce bottle of Jack Daniel’s Honey Smokehouse Barbecue Sauce with an equal portion of hot water in a mixing bowl. Whisk until incorporated, and let cool. Shake Maker’s Mark, Evan Williams Honey Reserve, BBQ water and a squeeze from a quarter of an orange with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass. Dry shake 1/4 bottle of Hefeweizen beer, and garnish top of cocktail with beer foam.

Once per month cocktail aficionados band together to create a booze-soaked collection of drink recipes for Mixology Monday.  This month’s host is Frederic of Cocktail Virgin Slut, who chose tea as the theme.  From Frederic –

Tea has played a historical role in cocktails for centuries. Perhaps the best documented early example was its inclusion in punches as part of the spice role to round out the spirit, sugar, water, and citrus line up…Find or concoct a drink recipe that uses tea or tisane (an herbal “tea” which lacks tea leaves) as an ingredient. This can be hot tea, cold tea, tea syrups, or infusions, and use it in a cocktail, punch, or other drink type.

After first attempting to pair a smoky añejo tequila with allspice-infused black tea, some bitters and an orange garnish, I moved onto green tea, and went the route of tea syrup.  To make my green tea simple syrup, I used a 1:1 ratio of Chinese green tea to sugar, boiling and stirring my way to a syrupy mixture that, quite honestly, tasted pretty decent on its own.  I then set about to pair my new green tea simple syrup with some booze.

I first associated green tea with lemon, which made me think of a whiskey sour, which in turn brought me to a Maple Leaf, a drink composed of bourbon, lemon juice and maple syrup.  Of late, I’ve been enjoying Urban Moonshine’s maple bitters in my Old Fashioneds and Manhattans, so I thought I’d give it a try in the whiskey cocktail laying itself out before me.

I wound up with the following drink, which I dubbed the Bourbon Tease.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 ounces bourbon (I used Wild Turkey 101)
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
2 dashes maple bitters
1 bar spoon green tea syrup

Shake all ingredients with ice, and strain into an ice-filled rocks glass.

The inclusion of maple bitters added a depth of flavor to this whiskey sour variant, and the sweet, herbal quality of the green tea syrup kept the tart lemon juice in check.  All in all, it made for a pretty tasty cocktail.

Rye whiskey is back, and in a big way.  The recently released 2010 edition of the Whisky Bible, the prominent whiskey book by Jim Murray, has named Kentucky’s 18-year-old Sazerac Rye  as the finest whiskey on the market.  It edged out Scotland’s second-place Ardbeg Supernova—which has dominated the awards for several years—and a relative newcomer to the mix, third-place Amret Fusion from Bangalore, India.

Jim Murray described Sazerac’s 18-year-old Rye as “reaching previously unknown heights,” and mentions that by being named the world’s top whiskey, Sazerac 18 has “set the bar for rye whiskey, and it will be fascinating in forthcoming years to see what is bottled to at least match it.”

Regarding Amret Fusion, Murray said, “It makes no matter where in the world a whisky is made. If it is magnificent, then it stands a chance of being recognized in the Whisky Bible Awards. Amrut has been bottling astonishing whisky for a few years now. But this particular bottling just made my hairs stand on end. It is hard to find a whisky with better balance. India has unquestionably arrived as a whisky nation.”

While many rare, expensive whiskies comprise the winners, there are several inexpensive, household names representing various categories.  For example, Johnny Walker Black Label was named best blended scotch aged 5-12 years, and Jim Beam Rye was awarded best rye aged 10 years or younger.

The full list of winners includes Murray’s top-rated whiskies from a pool of nearly 4,000 bottles.

With Thanksgiving nearly upon us and a slew of other holidays on the horizon, it’s time to pull out cocktails that you don’t make any other time of the year.  Drinks with ingredients like pumpkin puree and vanilla liqueur are acceptable and downright tasty during the judgment-free holidays, when festiveness trumps sensibility.

The below cocktail recipes utilize some seasonal flavors as families everywhere gear up for the holidays with a drink in hand.

Pumpkin Egg Nog

Ingredients:

1 1/2 ounces Appleton Estate Reserve Rum
1/2 ounce Navan vanilla liqueur
1 ounce egg nog
1 ounce pumpkin purée
4 dashes Angostura bitters
1 bar spoon real maple syrup

Shake all ingredients with ice, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Optionally, add a topper of whipped cream.

Apple Pie Cocktail

Ingredients:

1 ounce white rum
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
1 teaspoon Applejack brandy
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon grenadine

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Maple Leaf

Ingredients:

1 1/2 ounces bourbon
1/2 ounce real maple syrup
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

Shake all ingredients with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass.

Apple Pie Martini

Ingredients:

2 ounces apple cider
1.5 ounces Navan vanilla liqueur
1 ounce vodka
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 pinch cinnamon

Shake all ingredients with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass. Sprinkle cinnamon on top.

No drink quite embodies the Kentucky Derby like the Mint Julep, the classic concoction of bourbon, sugar and mint served in an iconic copper cup.  But another cocktail, simply known as The Derby, was created to commemorate the Kentucky Derby.  The below drink recipe is taken from The Bartender’s Guide by Trader Vic.

Ingredients:

1 ounce bourbon
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
1/2 ounce orange curacao
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice

Directions:

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with a lime.

As the seasons change, I often retire certain foods while introducing others to better complement the changing weather.  Hot summer days call for cold beers and barbeque, while cooler weather means hot soups and cozy cocktails to be enjoyed by the fire.

A favorite fall cocktail is the Maple Leaf, a drink that combines bourbon, maple syrup and fresh lemon juice.  The sweet maple syrup is tempered by the tart lemon juice, with each flavor melding nicely with the bourbon, yielding a tasty drink with enough kick to warm you up on a cold day.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 ounces bourbon
1/2 ounce real maple syrup
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Created by Jim Beam descendant and late Beam master distiller Booker Noe, Booker’s is part elegant bourbon and part fire whiskey.

Wanting to bring bourbon back to the way it was crafted around the turn of the century (that’s the 19th century), Booker Noe produced this barrel-proof (bourbon goes into the barrel at about 125 proof), uncut, unfiltered monster of a bourbon that, under the watchful eye of Booker’s son, Fred Noe, now clocks in at a whopping 130.1 proof.

But despite it’s high alcohol content and unfiltered approach, which leaves the appearance a smoky amber color, Booker’s is surprisingly smooth.  It has intense aromas of smoky oak and vanilla, and a complex taste of fruit, oak, coffee and more vanilla.  The pleasant, lingering finish is clean oak and rye.

Final Thoughts
Booker’s is one of the finest bourbons I’ve ever tasted, but it’s not your every day kind of bourbon.  A strong, complex spirit, the real accomplishment is how Booker’s manages to retain so much flavor amidst all that alcoholic heat.  It’s definitely one worth trying, and for my money, it’s the best bourbon among Jim Beam’s small batch lineup.

Proof: 121 – 130.1, depending on the year it was bottled
Price: Approximately $50

The Seelbach is a pre-prohibition cocktail that originated at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, KY.  Lost to drinkers for nearly 80 years, the recipe was rediscovered in 1995.

If you’re ever in downtown Louisville, head into the gorgeous Seelbach Hotel to taste the famous cocktail.

Ingredients:

1 ounce bourbon
1/2 ounce Cointreau
7 dashes Angostura Bitters
7 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters
Champagne

Directions:

Pour bourbon, Cointreau and bitters into a champagne flute, and stir.  Top with champagne, stir once more and garnish with an orange twist.

With the Kentucky Bourbon Festival two days behind me, my blood alcohol level is finally fighting its way back to legal levels of sobriety.  And while I may abstain from bourbon flights and bourbon pancakes for a few days, I left Kentucky, the drinking man’s mecca, with a newfound appreciation for bourbon.  Check out some highlights from this weekend:

Day One

• Life slows down when you’re sipping bourbon with the “Colonel” at the historic Chapeze House in Bardstown, KY.  Each glass of rare whiskey begets a story from the Colonel, which in turn spawns another story and likely another healthy pour of bourbon.  Drinking with the Colonel is a must for anyone traveling to Bourbon Country.

Day Two

• Touring the Maker’s Mark distillery with Master Distiller Kevin Smith was an incredible opportunity to learn about the distillation process of bourbon from the man responsible for making it.
• After the tour, I attended a party at the home of Maker’s Mark President Bill Samuels.  It was a rare opportunity to talk with the son of Maker’s Mark founder T.W. Samuels and to tour his home, a veritable museum of memorabilia that included rare pre-prohibition bourbons and the personal pistol of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Day Three

• Day three started early with a behind-the-scenes tour of the Jim Beam distillery.  Led by Master Distiller and Jim Beam descendant Fred Noe, the tour was a telling insight into the sheer volume of bourbon produced at this booze factory.
• After the tour we tasted a brand new batch of Booker’s, a barrel-strength, small batch bourbon clocking in at a whopping 130.1 proof.  Although it’s the most potent of the Beam portfolio, Booker’s exhibits a remarkably smooth quality with sweet, tasty notes of vanilla.
• Friday night included a visit to Fred Noe’s house for a barbecue and some live entertainment.  Noe was a generous host, and the bourbon flowed freely.  He even led us through a tasting of each of Beam’s small batch bourbons — Basil Hayden, Knob Creek, Baker’s and Booker’s.

Day Four

• Continuing to eschew such social norms as sleep and non-alcoholic beverages, my troupe headed to Louisville for lunch and–you guessed it–bourbon.  Lunch meant a trip to the Brown Hotel for the famous, heart-stopping “Hot Brown,” a dish consisting of hot, melted cheese, bread, a thick slab of turkey, more cheese and several pieces of bacon.  While I appreciated this unparalleled gastronomic experience, this surely took years off my life.
• The Kentucky Bourbon Festival culminated with the Great Kentucky Bourbon Tasting and Gala.  The attendees’ tuxedos and evening gowns were no impediment to their swilling bourbon with no regard for their livers.  With nearly ten distilleries present and dozens of bourbon brands represented, there was something for everyone.
• At the gala I tasted the rare Parker’s Heritage 27 Year Old, the oldest bourbon on the market.  This gorgeous spirit is complex, yet well-balanced and mellow.  Another highlight was sipping the William Heavenhill 225th Anniversary Edition, aged 18 years and nine months.  With only 225 bottles originally available, all at the same location–Heaven Hill’s Bourbon Heritage Center in Bardstown, KY–it’s the most expensive bourbon on the market and will set you back $500.

If you’re still thirsting for some bourbon, check out my coverage from day one, day two and day three of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.