I've traded in my garden clippers and my canning pot for some heels and a cocktail! Although a Manhattan may have been more appropriate, we decided to celebrate our re-entry into city life with a Champs Elysee.
1.5 oz Cognac
.5 oz green Chartreuse
.25 oz lemon juice
1/8 oz simple syrup & 2 dashes Angostura bitters
Shake Stir Shoes Optional
The EU is about to pass a decree that it is permissible to mix red wine and white wine to make rose' wine. I can't pin down the best words to describe this: really stupid?, short sighted cash hungry? self defeating? opportunist? dopey?
Rose' wines are lovely, delicate expressions of a good winemaker's skills and this approach is a slap in the face to dedicated wine makers and rose' wine drinkers. Read more here.
It’s a cocktail, not a final pronouncement.
John Deragon, mixologist extraordinaire, at PDT introduced me to this cocktail, and it’s ethereal, you can’t quite put your finger on its complex flavors, its like gazing at a young girl who has knowing eyes.
Simple enough recipe: equal parts gin, Green Chartreuse, Luxardo Maraschino and fresh lime juice. Shake hard. Rest. Shake hard again and serve.
I’ve resisted buying Chartreuse because a) its expensive and I’m not even talking about the superior quality VEP b) my cabinet has no more room c) what else can you do with it? But, it was on sale, so what the heck.
I read the label and it turns out Chartreuse is made by the Carthusian
monks; the ones that are featured in the elegant film “Into Great Silence”. The original formula for this ‘long life elixir’ was given to the French monks in 1605 and allegedly contains 130 herbs, flowers and secret ingredients. Eventually the recipe makes its way to the Grande Chartreuse monastery in Voirion, France where it takes a little over 100 years to tweak the recipe into something palatable. The monks get into trouble and are kicked out of France in 1793. They are allowed to return, in 1838 they develop a yellow, sweeter version of the original and in 1903 the French government seizes the distillery and kicks the monks out and into Spain. Local townspeople from Voiron buy up shares of the distillery send the shares to the exiled monks and they come back into France. It seems the monks are living illegally in France when in 1935 a mudslide destroys the distillery. The French government sends an army corps of engineers in to restore the distillery and lifts the ban on the monks who are still happily involved in making Chartreuse.
What a story! Why do the French keep kicking out the Carthusians? They seem to be pretty quiet, as in very, very quiet, so why the expulsions? Mystery and history in a bottle, a perfect combination to contemplate while sipping this long life elixir.
Facebook is full of these wacky quizzes: what painter are you, what nationality are you, where should you live?
Here’s my quiz: what cocktail are you?
Do you:
a) never drink
b) refer to scotch in the past tense
c) refer to cocktails as mixed drinks
d) quote David Windrich at the drop of a bar spoon
e) devote large quantities of shelf space to esoteric ingredients
When you are offered a gin drink, do you:
a) recoil in horror
b) ask if there is any vodka in the house
c) look at host as if they were in a time warp
d) ask if the gin will be Plymouths or Bombay
e) whip out that nifty leather Hendricks bottle container and sniff deeply of its contents
When was the last time you tasted pure rye whiskey:
a) never
b) when you raided your parents liquor cabinet
c) last night
d) at a recent rye whisky tasting hosted by local distillers
True or False: Maraschino is by Luxore and is virtually impossible to find in its home country.
True or False: Real maraschino cherries are small, dark and delicious
If offered a gin and tonic on a hot summer afternoon, you would:
a) smile and refuse
b) smile and ask for a beer
c) smile and recognize the classic genius of combining gin and tonic
If offered the aperitivo nazionale of Italy, you would be drinking:
a) Proseco
b) Cappuccino
c) Negroni
What state was responsible for casting the deciding vote that overturned the National Prohibition Act?
a) New York
b) Florida
c) Burgundy
d) Utah
This concludes our test of your cocktail identity. If this had been an actual test, you would have been required to drink a gin-based cosmopolitan and quit your whining. This post was inspired by the NT Times bliog “The Proof” which somehow manages to squeeze and squander every last drop of cocktail pleasure. There can be no definitive answers to this quiz, just an opportunity to meditate on the intricacies of a well made cocktail. Please drink responsibly or not at all.
A welcome article in today’s NY Times about pinot noir’s evolution in California.
A person’s wine preferences and tastes change over time, so why can’t there be a whole new style emerging on the west coast? Newbies to wine imbibing like a bit of sweetness in the glass, so instead of a coke they’re reaching for a white zin. Anyone else remember the taste of Boone’s Farm? Little sip by little sip you get exposed to other wines and you start to build up a mental flavor repository. You become the sum of all your tasting experiences.
I think this may be what California is flirting with, a sense of confidence that comes when you realize the wine does not have to jump out of the glass and explode in your mouth to be enjoyable. We used to collect Turley wines; they were huge, massive experiences in a glass. Now, I don’t know what to do with them; I don’t know what foods I can pair them with; they are stand-alone wines, not food enhancers. For me, the whole point of wine is to create a bond with the food and to elevate both flavor experiences. I usually start with the food and then pick the wine but everyone has their own style, which is as it should be.
It’s a good thing when winemakers experiment with different styles, the same way that it’s a good thing when wine drinkers experiment with different flavors. Viva la difference!
All the buzzwords are here. Local. Heirloom. Hand made. Tradition. Organic. Eco friendly. Farm products.
Certainly in tune with the times. Could be the poster child product for the Slow Food movement. What are we talking about?
Answer: Bourbon, Rye, Vodka
Right under our noses, and to the delight of the connoisseur, a small group of hardy pioneers are attempting to return to our whiskey producing American roots.
Tuthilltown Spirits in the Hudson Valley is an excellent example of this new wave of distillers. Housed next to the historic Tuthilltown Grist Mill, they are pioneering a return to the tradition of small batch distilling in New York State. Yes, tradition. Bourbon may take its name from Bourbon, Kentucky, but there was plenty of good whiskey being made in New York. By 1825, New York State counted more than a thousand small distilleries, and these are only the ones that ones that were willing to be counted. Prohibition killed the industry and only with recent changes to NYS liquor licensing is the small distiller able to function in the legal light of day in New York.
I confess to being completely fascinated by distilling. Every since my soap making days the concept of distilling something to its purest essence, whether its lavender oil or grain spirits, has appealed to me. Which is why we jumped at the chance to visit Tuthilltown distillery in the quaint little town of Gardiner NY in the heart of the Hudson Valley.
The crew at Tuthilltown Spirits is reviving tradition by using produce from local farmers, their vodka comes from the nearby orchards, and they are using heirloom strains of corn for their whiskey and bourbon.
If you are new to the world of spirits, it can be overwhelming. I always thought you made vodka from potatoes, but Joel at Tuthilltown explained that you could make pure vodka from any produce that has a natural sugar content. They are in an area that has an abundance of apples, so it was a natural to distill their pure vodka from apples. This sounds like ‘terroir’ to me: developing vodka that tastes of its origins. Likewise with their bourbon, it’s being made from an heirloom corn strain that is grown in the region.
The food world elite is obsessed with knowing the origins of their food, so it makes perfect sense to have the development of responsible, local distillers. Let's be clear: we are talking about a very high end premium product, not something that is going to wind up at a college drinking party. This is a precious (read expensive), hand crafted product and something that the Hudson Valley should be proud of.
And what is ‘the angel’s share’? That’s the fanciful description for the amount of whiskey that gets lost to evaporation during the barrel aging process. Can’t you just picture the angels gathering about Gardiner NY and smiling in approval?
P.S. Please visit Tuthilltown.com for more info about this distiller. You must be at least 21 years old to enter the site. I'm not even going to comment on the utter lame hypocrisy of clicking on a link that certifies that you are over 21.
Click here for more photos from our Tuthilltown field trip, no age restrictions.
One last post for the New Year... I was worried that last post was a little somber....
Here is a pretty cocktail for the New Year and you get to use up that pomegranate that you have hanging around in the fruit bowl
Pomeranian
2 oz. Hendricks gin
.5 oz St Germaine
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz grenadine
Shake. Shake again. Garnish with a lime peel.
* Don't buy or use that icky, nasty grenadine syrup in the stores. It's a cousin to cough syrup. Grenadine syrup is 1 part pomegranate juice to 1/2 part simple syrup. You can crush the pomegranate seeds in a sieve with a wooden spoon, or gently crush them in a food mill.
*Mitch, this drink isn't for you....because you are the Anti-Saint Germaine!
Happy New Year!
Prosecco is to Italy what Champagne is to France; namely it is the signature bubbly wine of each country. Champagne producers have fought long and hard to protect the name and integrity of their product and now it seems that Italian Prosecco producers must do the same thing. I suppose when Paris Hilton’s image appears on a can of prosecco in a gas station, that does make you stop and think. (Warning: clicking on that link may make you sputter anything you are drinking right onto your computer screen. It's bad taste on so many levels.)
Prosecco is a somewhat generic name in Italy, it can mean any sparkling Italian wine, however that is not the case. Prosecco comes only from the Prosecco grape and from the Valdobbiadene region, near Venice. So, if you are buying Prosecco, take a closer look at the label; make sure you are getting the real deal.
That being said, there are some outstanding sparkling chardonnay’s being produced in Italy. Lungarotti in Umbria makes a particularly clean, crisp sparkling wine with a delightful, lingering finish. Keep your eye open for these gems, they cost more that your basic Prosecco, but they are worth the money.
Repeal, not repent!
Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition. We're going out to a proper cocktail lounge to celebrate. But after reading NY Barfly's post, now I'm thinking I need to dress in a period costume. Then again I haven't bought anything new in so long I'm always dressed in a period costume.
To get yourself in the mood, check out this little Wiki entry on Carrie Nation. Pay special attention to the party about mental illness running in the family. Hatchetations! Thanks god she couldn't get her hands on an automatic weapon or she probably would have gunned down McKinley herself. Yikes, she was one wackadoodle on a mission!
Come to think of it, I'll think I'll dress like my hero, Myrna Loy in the Thin Man films. Cocktails anyone?
