Category — Drinks

While yesterday was a rye day, today was most definitely a gin day.  With an assortment of gins at hand (Plymouth, Tanqueray Ten, Sapphire, Aviation and Martin Miller’s) I wanted to drink either something new, or something I hadn’t had in awhile.  Enter Esquire Drinks.

I perused several gin-based cocktail recipes before landing on the Hearst, a fine cocktail that I haven’t had the pleasure of knowing for at least a few years.  Comprised of gin, sweet vermouth—rather than the classic dry vermouth and gin pairing—orange bitters and aromatic bitters, it’s a well-balanced cocktail that packs a boozy wallop.

The gin and sweet vermouth work together to create a gorgeous aroma and clean, crisp flavor.  I tried it with a few different gins, but settled on Plymouth, my go-to source for sustenance, inspiration and general happiness.

Hearst Cocktail Recipe:

2oz gin
1oz sweet vermouth
1 dash orange bitters
1 dash Angostura bitters

Stir with cracked ice, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Bulldog Gin has partnered with bartenders around the globe to develop some refreshing cocktails as we prepare for warmer months ahead.

Adam Dennis, Bartender at Box 109 in Newton, MA debuted his drink, “Henry VIII,” a take on the Corpse Reviver #2.

Henry VIII

1.5 oz. Bulldog Gin
1.5 oz. Lillet Blanc
1 oz. Cointreau
2 dashes Kubler Absinthe
1 whole Squeezed Lime

Shake well and strain. Serve in a martini glass. Garnish with lime wedge.

Thomas Tripoulas, bartender at New York City’s Hudson Hotel created the “Tower of London,” which features Asian-influenced ingredients like green tea and sake.

Tower of London

2 oz. Bulldog Gin
1.5 oz. St Germain
2 oz. Green Tea
1 oz. Simple Syrup
0.5 oz. Sake

Shake well. Serve in a highball or Collins glass over ice. Garnish with lychee.

Juan Romo of London’s Drunken Monkey used passion fruit and cucumber to develop his summer drink, called “Blondie.”

Blondie

2 oz. Bulldog Gin
0.5 oz. Passion Fruit Liqueur
0.5 oz. Simple Syrup
1 piece of Cucumber
1 slice of Passion Fruit

Muddle cucumber and shake well. Serve in a martini glass. Garnish with passion fruit slice.

Along with the above cocktail recipes, Bulldog also premiered the winning recipe from its 2010 Cocktail Contest.  Raymond Bernard from Massachusetts fashioned the “Mint Cherry Jubilee,” describing it as a “simple, sweet and refreshing cocktail, complemented perfectly with Bulldog Gin’s complex and unique taste.”

Mint Cherry Jubilee

3 Bing Cherries
2 Mint Leaves
2 oz. Bulldog Gin
4 oz. Club Soda

Shake well. Serve over ice in a highball glass.

Click for a review of Bulldog Gin.

Once per month cocktail fiends band together to create a booze-soaked collection of cocktail recipes for Mixology Monday.  This month’s host is Sonja of Thinking of Drinking, who chose absinthe as the theme.  From Sonja –

The topic for February is Absinthe. That much maligned, misunderstood, mistreated spirit, suddenly plentiful again in the US and other parts of the world. Absinthe played a role, whether large or small, in a variety of great cocktails from the 1800s and early 1900s – the Sazerac, Absinthe Suissesse, Corpse Reviver No. 2… I’m getting thirsty. So let’s celebrate absinthe’s history, and it’s future, with all manner of cocktails using absinthe.

I drink my fair share of Sazeracs and Corpse Revivers, and for good reason – they’re delicious.  But I wanted a drink that showcases absinthe as more than just a rinse or dash; and rather than going the route of an Absinthe Frappe, I decided to meet absinthe halfway.  So for this round of Mixology Monday, I’ve pulled out a cocktail that uses just enough absinthe to lightly slap you in the face, without knocking your teeth out – the Chrysanthemum Cocktail.

This little fellow is one of the few cocktails that uses vermouth as its main ingredient.  In fact, it uses a hearty two ounces of vermouth. Joined by one ounce of Benedictine and a teaspoon of absinthe, the Chrysanthemum comes together beautifully.  The floral vermouth tempers the strong flavors of the Benedictine and absinthe without being lost in the shuffle.

The Chrysanthemum Cocktail

2 ounces dry vermouth
1 ounce Benedictine
1 teaspoon absinthe

Stir with ice until cold, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a wide strip of orange peel.

Classic cocktails continue to resurface in speakeasy-style cocktail bars in select cities across the country. One such drink is the tequila cocktail, El Diablo, which appeared in Trader Vic’s Book of Food and Drink as early as 1946.

The cocktail combines the classic pairing of tequila and lime with Creme de Cassis—a sweet blackcurrant liqueur—and ginger ale, which back in the 1940s tasted more like the spicy ginger beer of today.

Here’s a recipe for the Diablo cocktail, as provided by Maestro DOBEL tequila:

El Diablo

1 ½ oz tequila
½ oz Creme de Cassis
1 lime wedge
Ginger beer

Combine tequila and crème de cassis with ice; shake and strain into a chilled rocks glass. Top with ginger beer, squeeze the lime wedge and garnish.

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.

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.

While doing a bit of light reading on the Aviation cocktail, I came across a drink created by Gary Regan that he dubbed the Moonlight Cocktail. 

According to Gary, “I merely took the Aviation formula and tweaked it a little. I used Cointreau instead of maraschino, and lime instead of lemon juice. Why lime? I had no lemons.”  Finding his reasoning sound, I went about crafting myself a cocktail.

I started with Plymouth Gin, which is my go-to gin when making a new drink, and Rothman and Winter’s Creme de Violette, a violet flower liqueur that became available to the U.S. market in 2007.  The end result was a pretty tasty cocktail, with the vibrant orange flavor of Cointreau and the soft, violet flavor of Creme de Violette complementing each other well.  Both were kept in check by the half ounce of lime juice, which tempered the drink’s sweetness to a very manageable, pleasant level.  Gary may be onto something here.

The Moonlight Cocktail

1 1/2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce Cointreau
1/2 ounce Creme de Violette
1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

Shake with ice, and strain into a chilled Champagne flute.

Last night I wandered into one of my favorite local cocktail spots and ordered an Aviation, that tasty, well-balanced drink with gin, maraschino and fresh lemon juice.  A few minutes later, when a nearly purple cocktail was placed in front of me, I assumed there had been some mistake.  But when your bartender quotes Gary Regan as to the authenticity of your purple Aviation, it’s hard to argue.

It seems the original Aviation included the little used and hard to find liqueur, Creme de Violette.  Gary Regan notes that a 1916 recipe called for two parts gin, one part lemon juice and a couple dashes each of maraschino and Creme de Violette, which “makes for a very sour drink indeed.”  Instead, Regan proposes using three parts gin and one part each of the liqueurs and the lemon juice.

While I still love the Aviation sans Violette, or with a more moderate proportion of the liqueur, this new-to-me concoction is quite good.  Plus, it gives the drink a more intense purplish hue.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur
1/2 ounce Creme de Violette
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

Shake with ice, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Composed of cachaça, limes and sugar, the Caipirinha (pronounced kie-purr-REEN-yah) is Brazil’s national cocktail.  Cachaça is the most commonly distilled alcohol in Brazil, and is often referred to as “Brazilian rum.”  But unlike rum, which is distilled from the sugar byproduct, molasses, cachaça is distilled from fermented sugar cane juice.

Not too long ago, the Caipirinha was a drink only enjoyed in Brazil, in large part because cachaça, especially good cachaça, wasn’t readily available outside of Brazil.  But in recent years the drink has begun to experience a revival and is popping up on cocktail menus across the world.  Hell, even TGI Friday’s offers a version of the Caipirinha, though it’s usually flavored and overly sweet.

Ingredients:

2 ounces cachaça
1 medium lime, cut into wedges
2 teaspoons fine sugar

Add lime and sugar to an old fashioned glass and muddle.  Add crushed ice, then cachaça, and stir.

Cachaça isn’t always easy to find, but many liquor stores will carry at least one brand.  Some available cachaças include Cabana, Leblon and Heaven Hill’s Agua Luca.

The coca leaf has a long and storied history dating back thousands of years. From its use by Bolivian farmers for its energy giving properties to its use in the production of cocaine, the coca leaf is surrounded in a mysticism of attention and controversy.  And adding to the fun, it’s also distilled for consumption as Agwa de Bolivia Coca Leaf Liqueur by Amsterdam’s BABCO Europe Ltd. From the company –

To make the spirit, wild Bolivian coca leaves are hand-picked at 2,000 meters in the Andes and shipped under armed guard in 2,000 kilo bales to Amsterdam to be macerated and de-cocainized. The potent high strength flavor formula is reduced to 60 proof, bottled and then shipped around the world in a more conventional format.

Leave it to Amsterdam to undertake something so painstakingly cool.  Aside from Bolivian coca leaves, Agwa contains many other natural herbs and botanicals including green tea, ginseng, and guarana.  The coca leaf has its cocaine alkaloids removed during production, so the liqueur does not contain any traces of the drug.

Following are a couple cocktail recipes from Agwa de Bolivia, to be mixed up during the holidays, while alone on the couch, or wherever you find yourself wanting a drink –

Bolivian Mojito

1.5 ounces AGWA de Bolivia Coca Leaf Liqueur
12 spearmint leaves
1/2 lime
7 ounces club soda
2 teaspoons sugar

In a large glass, gently crush mint leaves.  Squeeze lime juice over crushed leaves, then add sugar and ice. Next, add Agwa and club soda, and stir. Garnish with a lime wedge and tiny pieces of mint leaves.

Amsterdam Martini

2.5 ounces AGWA de Bolivia Coca Leaf Liquor
2 ounces Citron Vodka
Squeeze of Lime Juice 

Shake all ingredients with ice, and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with olives.

Click to check out more Agwa cocktails.

Agwa can be purchased online and shipped anywhere in the U.S. via www.shoppersvineyard.com.