Part of the fun of drinking cocktails is tapping into a history and a culture of a particular time. This is a discussion of drinks, spirits, bartending, and history for beginners and professionals alike.
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Last week Veneto shared their "Rockefeller" - a Manhattan with chai-spiced whiskey. Bar manager Simon Ogden has contributed another tasty winter drink, again employing the infused rye. This nog finds its name from the 1964 holiday stop-motion classic, "Rudolph: The Red-Nosed Reindeer." In the film, Rudolph meets the self-proclaimed "greatest prospector in the north," Yukon Cornelius, who eventually finds what he's spent his whole life seeking: the legendary peppermint mine. This drink is brimming with Christmas flavours, and is an excellent reason to make a chestnut syrup, which makes for some festive baking as well as cocktails.
The Yukon Cornelius
2 oz Chai spice-infused rye whiskey
1/2oz chestnut-infused syrup
A whisper of Menthe Pastille mint liqueur
1 whole egg
Dry shake all ingredients together, then shake briskly with ice and strain.
Finish with a little fresh-grated nutmeg and cinnamon bark.
Our final Bittered Sling contribution takes us to South Granville where we visit both a restaurant of great renown and a bar program run by one of Canada's most recognized bartenders, and thanks to the cocktail being shared today, he's now recognized world-wide. West, or Ouest as it was originally known, has been consistently viewed as one of Vancouver's best food options since it opened in 2000, with its delicious West Coast style cuisine, and delicate and regional-inspired desserts. With an award-winning staff from the kitchen to the bar and sommellier to management and service, West has it covered from every angle. The bar sports a huge array of spirits, and a full wall of temperature-controlled wine selections, including thirty offered by the glass. It is definitely one of my favourite places to both eat and drink in the city.
Bar manager David Wolowidnyk has resided at West for eight years now, racking up awards from magazines like Urban Diner and GQ, festivals like Art of the Cocktail, and world-wide spirit competitions from national brands. Most recently, David represented Canada in Morocco for the "World's Most Imaginative Bartender" competition presented by Bombay Sapphire, where his original cocktail, "Beldi," won him the competition. Thousands of competitors contributed from all over the world, but it was David's combination of flavours inspired by his experience in Marrakech that proved to be the best.
Combining botanical flavours from the Bombay gin with others from the region, "Beldi" brings strong and complex spice elements to a very basic cocktail structure (essentially a Martini), creating a light and refreshing drink that piques curiosity with each sip. An ingredient list will give an idea of this drink's depth: saffron, ginseng, mint and mint tea, cinnamon, cassia, coriander, almond, lemon, liquorice, juniper, orris root, angelica, cubeb, grains of paradise, plus the wealth of herbs and spices in the Bittered Sling Lem-Marrakech bitters.
Beldi
45ml Bombay Sapphire Gin infused with Moroccan Saffron and Ginseng 20ml Martini Bianco infused with Moroccan Mint Tea and mint leaves 15ml Cinnamon & Cassia Syrup 2 dashes Bittered Sling Lem-Marrakech Extract Toasted Moroccan coriander tincture
Combine gin, vermouth, syrup, and extract with ice and stir in a mixing glass. Mist a chilled cocktail glass with the toasted coriander tincture. Strain the mixture into the glass and garnish with a lemon zest. Mist the tincture again over the surface of the drink.
(Instructions for making the infusions, syrup, and tincture are at the bottom of this page)
West's cocktail menu is equally filled with well-chosen classics and some fantastic originals. The mix of both classic bartending and modern "mixology" hits a perfect balance here. A dealer's choice is always an exciting choice as well, so make your way down soon and supplement your "Beldi" with another of David's creations. Stay for dinner too.
Combine & let sit for 24 hours then strain off solids
Infused Vermouth
Cold-steep 1tsp of Moroccan Mint Tea with
6-8 mint leaves
in one bottle of Martini Bianco vermouth
strain off solids and keep refrigerated.
Cinnamon / Cassia Syrup
1 stick of Cinnamon
1 stick of Cassia
1.5L water
Boil Cinnamon & Cassia in 1.5L of water until reduced to 1 litre
Strain solids
Measure 2 parts sugar to 1 part liquid
Simmer until disolved
Cool before bottling in a sealed container and refrigerate
Toasted Coriander Tincture
500ml Coriander Seed, toasted in a dry pan on medium heat
Crush/Grind toasted seed
500ml Bombay Sapphire Gin
Infuse for 24 hours
Strain out solids through a fine filter
Note: Normally David would use a higher proof alcohol to make a
tincture, yet during the competition he had to work only with products
on hand or that he was able to acquire in Morocco.
I'd like to do a (hopefully) briefer post today. I was flipping through my notebook full of drink recipes I scribble down when something catches my fancy and was reminded of one of the more refreshing rye drinks I've had - The Black and Tan. I found this on Jamie Boudreau's site from a few years ago when it was served as part of a lecture at the Tales of the Cocktail festival in 2007. The name rang a bell in my head and I suddenly remembered a Duke Ellington piece by the name "Black and Tan Fantasy" from 1927. I figure, while the time periods may not match up, the names do and that's good enough for me.
So this cocktail was introduced by Allen Katz at the Rye Whiskey presentation, who claims it was from the Baltimore Country Club in 1898. Now, I may be wrong here, but the Baltimore Country Club was created in 1898, and due the wording of every mention of this cocktail I can find, it seems that Katz was claiming that the drink comes from the same time. This seems a little unlikely to me, as ginger beer was just gaining popularity as a drink by itself in the late 19th century, and mixing it with anything else wouldn't have come until later. So I took a look for any old ginger beer mixed drinks. The oldest I could find with specifically ginger beer is the Moscow Mule from the 1950's (though there is the Horse's Neck, or Kentucky Gentleman, which dates back to the 1890's, but uses just liquor, ginger ALE, and a lemon twist), but that brought me to finding out about the "mule" or "buck" style of drink. The Buck is ginger beer or ale, mixed with liquor and citrus juice, but I can't find any definitive information on how old it is. If anyone has details, please leave a comment!
As for the style of the drink itself, combining whiskey with citrus and sugar, then topping it with ice and soda and garnishing with fresh fruit was a very common drink in the 19th century, with subtle variations leading to numerous names - the Fizz and the Daisy, for example - and numerous others without the carbonated water, such as the Cobbler, Fix, Smash, and so on. There were also Champagne Cobblers, combining fruit, sugar, citrus, and bubbly, and Cobblers that required the fruit to be muddled and not just decoration, so from different directions a Black and Tan could have been plausible for the time. Having said all of this, I still have seen no proof or direct written account that claims the Black and Tan comes from 1898, only that it comes from the Baltimore Country Club.
Regardless, it's delicious and refreshing and very pretty. I always include this disclaimer for any Canadian readers - "rye" means whiskey made specifically from at least 51% rye grain. It does not just mean "Canadian whisky," and it's very sad and frustrating that the term has this second meaning because it leads to confusion and misinformation. This drink should be made with American straight rye whiskey, such as Rittenhouse 100 or Sazerac, and it just won't taste right if you try to use Canadian or bourbon.
Another disclaimer - this cocktail is NOT to be confused with another of the same name that requires you just to mix a light and dark beer. I'm not a beer drinker, but I think that's kind of weird.
BLACK & TAN
2 oz American rye whiskey ¼ oz simple syrup ¼ oz fresh lime juice 5 blackberries 8 mint leaves Ginger Beer
In a mixing glass, muddle blackberries with simple syrup, lime and mint. Add Sazerac rye and shake vigorously over ice. Strain into a Collins glass filled with ice, then top with ginger beer. Garnish with two fresh blackberries on a cocktail pick.
Duke Ellington, in case you are unfamiliar, is widely considered one of, if not the greatest American composer of all time. He wrote over 1000 compositions, has been decorated with every kind of award, tribute, and induction that can be bestowed upon him both while he was alive and posthumously. He scored for everything, not just big bands, and was integral to the evolution of jazz, helping to make it considered more of an art than just young-people-or-black-people-party-music, and he was also integral to the paradigm shift of America's view towards "coloured" people. His compositions were dynamic, intricate, and beautiful, and ranged from dance-floor romps to delicate ballads. He also incorporated African culture into his performances and music in the earlier years, in part leading to the misinformed and offensive term "jungle music." In 1927, Ellington wrote a piece called "Black and Tan Fantasy," which was later adapted into a feature film in 1929 by the same name as a showcase for the Harlem Renaissance Movement in art and music. Due to racial issues in the south, a lot of African American/black families moved to the northern cities to build better lives and get better jobs, particularly after World War I, and a mecca for this migration was New York City, namely Harlem. This became a centre for artistic culture through the 1920's and 1930's (at the time named the "New Negro Movement"), and really became a driving force behind the Civil Rights Movement that was to come after the 1940's. Jazz was a huge part of this scene, and it was innovators like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington who, as I have mentioned more than once, shaped the genre into what it would become.
"Black and Tan Fantasy" is a typical blues progression, one that served as a framework for the majority of early jazz, so is still a fitting piece if we want to come back to the year 1898. It is a sad and angry piece of music, filled with aggression but also despair and apathy of sorts, which would be very fitting for the racial situations of the time. It is ironic to pair a cocktail from a white country club in Maryland with a Harlem Renaissance piece of music, and also ironic that they share the same name (again making me wonder exactly when this cocktail showed up), but that's the fun of doing this sort of thing.
Enjoy your delicious and refreshing spring/summer drink, The Black and Tan, perhaps with a little of the Duke - though perhaps put something a little more upbeat on afterwards, like "It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing," or "Take The 'A' Train."
[[ Photography by sloshed.hyperkinetic.org (cocktail) ]]
To kick off Maraschino March we're heading to a city filled with cocktail culture - Seattle. One of the biggest bar names in the city's scene, and actually in North America altogether as it was named by Esquire as one of the "Best Bars in America," is Vessel. According to David Wondrich, world-reknowned cocktail writer/historian, "the cocktails are as modern as the design; a benchmark 21st century mix of tweaked, often molecularized classics and clever new creations - style never tasted so good." 5 years ago when Vessel opened, the bar was definitely raised for cocktail culture in the Pacific Northwest, and it happened at such a time when interest was really beginning to boom.
After a change in some high level personnel (including Jamie Boudreau, who was formerly the bar manager there), and a closure of its location next to the history 5th Avenue Theatre in downtown Seattle in December 2010, Vessel is finally planning to reopen in late April 2012 a few blocks away. The new location was previously a speakeasy of sorts in the 1950's called "El Gaucho," and is twice the size of the previous building. While the decor and design it was so famous for is gone, it's a guarantee to be one of the best places in the city to get a great cocktail.
One of Vessel's specialties is cocktail carbonation, which may sound a little crazy - and it is. Co-owner and bar manager Jim Romdall is one of the first bartenders to make use of the "Perlini Cocktail Carbonation System," (actually invented in Seattle as well by Evan Wallace) which you can see put to use here on the Small Screen Network. It's a CO2 injection system that will carbonate a cocktail without diluting it with club soda. Imagine drinking a Martini that tastes the same, but is bubbling. It's a little unimaginable, so I suggest you just head down to Vessel when they reopen and try it out yourself.
The recipe today is courtesy of Mr. Jim Romdall himself, and uses a spirit you don't often see in mixology - aquavit (or Akvavit). This is a Scandanavian grain or potato spirit that is infused with herbs, spices, or fruit oils, and often aged in oak casks. The main flavour is usually caraway, or dill, and adding that to thyme, mint, and Maraschino will give a complex collection of herbal flavours in the cocktail. If you want to try this at home, you can get some akvavit in the B.C. government liquor stores and bigger independents like Legacy, but I encourage you to put your name on the Vessel mailing list at www.vesselseattle.com so you can get down there as soon as they reopen and have Jim make you one himself!
The Hemingway Solution 1.5oz Krogstad aquavit 0.5oz Luxardo Maraschino 0.75oz fresh lime juice 0.25oz simple syrup 1 sprig thyme 2 mint leaves Combine all ingredients in a shaker, add ice, then shake and fine/double strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with a sprig of thyme.
[[ see "Oden's Muse" from Tavern Law here ]]
[[ see the Maraschino March introduction here ]]
[[ see "The Division Bell" from Mayahuel here ]]
[[ see "The Shibuya Crusta" from L'Abattoir here ]]
[[ see "The Unforgiven" from Russell Davis of Rickhouse here ]]
[[ see "Cherry Bob-omb" from Veneto here ]] [[ see "Primer Beso" from The Refinery here ]]
[[ see "The Rubicon" from Jamie Boudreau at Canon here ]]
So here's a fun one. This is a great drink to get you into gin if you have had a negative experience, and it has a very possibly interesting history.
Why "possibly"?
Because there are three completely different stories on where this drink came from, and one of them is very plausible but boring, one is also plausible but still not super interesting, and one is exciting but basically disproved. I'm going to tell you all three, but I'm sticking with the fun history for the general theme today: 1920's Chicago.
The History of the Cocktail
So first, here is the semi-interesting story:
The drink was created in New York City at the 21 Club, which was originally a speakeasy during Prohibition named "Jack and Charlie's" after its two Austrian owners. The location moved around a fair bit before settling on 21 West 52nd Street, leading to the eventual name-change. Jack and Charlie rigged up a system of hiding the then-illegal alcohol with a series of levers that would drop all of the bottles down a chute into the sewers in the alley, and stored all the wine in a cellar that was only accessible through the adjacent building. Such was the alcohol culture of the time.
The second story, which is basically confirmed as the origin of the drink, is that it was invented at the Southside Sportsmen's Club on Long Island, New York. For years rich men from NYC came to Long Island to fish and hunt, and they would stay at an inn/tavern known for its Mint Juleps. This reputation, unfortunately for the rich folks, meant it started to get crowded so in 1866 they bought the place and turned it into the aforementioned club. The famous Mint Juleps eventually evolved into other mint drinks and the Southside was born. Over time, country clubs started making "Southside" mixes, letting mint steep for days in a sugar and lemon juice, then using this mix with a spirit and soda. Further evolutions have changed the original gin to vodka or even rum (which makes the drink basically a Mojito). Sadly, the Southside Sportsmen's Club doesn't exist anymore, but its legacy lives on in country clubs everywhere in the form of the Southside cocktail.
The last story takes place in Chicago. During Prohibition times, the city was very much a gangland split between the north and the south. The gangs of the north cornered the market of high quality spirits by smuggling liquor across the border from Canada. This left the south side gang, the Saltis-McErlane gang, with no choice but to sell locally made spirits - literally bathtub liquor. This booze tasted awful and made people sick, and the bartenders on the south side started using sugar, citrus, and even mint to mask the terrible flavour and imperfections. The gang's leader, Frankie McErlane, one of the two main mobsters on the south side, killed at least fifteen people during the bootlegging wars in Prohibition Chicago, and was the first man to use the Tommy gun.
This exciting story is unfortunately disproven from what I've read, with stories of the south side gangsters forcing bars by gunpoint to sell their beer and nothing else. And of course, then there's the question of how a Chicago speakeasy cockail found its way into lush country clubs of upstate New York. But it's way more fun to sip a Southside and think about Capone, McErlane, and all the bad boys of Chicago fighting on the streets while you watch some of music's greatest icons play on stage at the city's famous jazz clubs than it is to envision rich, old, white folks sipping mint-fizzes in between tennis sets.
The "proper" way to serve this drink in Long Island is with soda, but I much prefer the more sophisticated straight-up version. There are versions of this drink listing either lemon or lime as well, and everywhere I've looked I've seen a different recipe. I will go with Gary Regan's recipes (never a bad idea) from his book "The Joy of Mixology," one being straight up and the other being a fizz: Southside Cocktail
4 lemon wedges
2-3 teaspoons sugar
4-5 fresh mint leaves
2.5oz gin
Muddle the lemon, sugar, and mint in a shaker, add gin and ice, shake, strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a sprig of mint.
Southside Fizz
4 lemon wedges
2-3 teaspoons sugar
6-8 fresh mint leaves
2.5oz gin
Dash of aromatic bitters - optional
Muddle lemon, sugar, and mint in a shaker. Add gin and ice, shake, strain into a collins glass over ice, top with soda, and garnish with a sprig of mint.
(You can substitute the lemon wedges for just fresh juice. I'd go for a 2:1 or 3:1 gin:lemon juice. You can also substitute the solid sugar for about 3/4oz of simple syrup, depending on your taste. Or mix it up even more and try making it with lime, which just makes it a Mojito with gin. So many options!)
The History of the Time and Place Prohibition was implemented in 1919, so it was illegal in the 1920's to distribute or manufacture alcohol in the U.S.. Racism was rampant, there was a general fear of foreigners (partially because Prohibition played on fears by linking immigrants - particularly Europeans - to the consumption of alcohol), but women were able to vote and join the workforce as of 1920. Of course, they got paid less, didn't have many opportunities, and were under constant pressure to maintan outdated ideals. This lead to a female rebellion culture called "Flappers." These girls cut their hair short, hiked up their skirts, and partied like crazy in speakeasy's around the country.
Art deco, modernism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, dadaism, and surrealism were popular art forms at the time, and authors like R.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway were publishing. American baseball was popular, Harry Houdini was performing his great escapes, and the Miss America padgent had just begun. 1920's America was the Golden Age of organized crime, which was previously limited to extortion, prostitution, rackets, and the like, but now the mob was able to use Prohibition to control one of the most lucrative businesses ever. Bootlegging really funded the mob and made them into the wealthy and powerful force they came known to be. Gang wars raged throughout Chicago in particular, and spread across the country and into the streets. Al Capone was the biggest name in crime, running his gang on the south side of Chicago until his eventual incarceration in the early 30's.
Musically, Chicago was one of the most important jazz scenes, with a great number of New Orleans early jazz bands and musicians moving north for a better quality of life. King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong, some of the most influential artists in modern music, all moved to Chicago in the late 1910's. Armstrong and his Hot Five (and later Hot Seven) recorded throughout the mid 20's and developed jazz from its raw beginnings to the intellectual, improvised style focusing on soloists that became the framework for all jazz to come. The music got faster, more complicated, more arranged, got rid of tuba and replaced it with upright bass, and really kickstarted the genre, leading it into the swing era of the 30's and 40's. Armstrong's influence on American music, and popular music in general can not be understated, and neither can his influence on racial culture, as he was essentially the first widely popular American personality who wasn't white.
Enjoy your delicious and refreshing Southside Cocktail, and imagine yourself at its fictitious birthplace in 1920's Chicago with gang wars raging outside while you listen to one of the greatest and most influential musical artists of all time, Mr. Louis Armstrong with his Hot Five. Here is one of his most famous performances, "West End Blues" recorded in 1926.
