Winter Cocktails: Teardrop Lounge in Portland

Portland will be making its first appearance on this site today! Having finally been able to visit for my first time this year, I was blown away by the amount of great food and drink available (and also by the number of strip clubs, but that's not really relevant). The cocktails were consistently great, as was the coffee, and of course the prices (no tax is as fun as you think). Taking a tour down Distillery Road and seeing the impressive number of great spirits being made in one city was also exciting. House Spirits Distillery stood out to me in particular, with Krogstad aquavit and Aviation gin, and their delicious and fresh-tasting coffee liqueur. The number of high quality bars in the city is exciting as well, with Clyde Common, Kask, Rum Club, Beaker & Flask, The Driftwood Room, and Teardrop Lounge - just to name a few. It is with great pleasure that I am able to share some holiday drink recipes from the most latter of these names, one of the best bars in the U.S., the Teardrop Lounge.

Teardrop has an amazing program with a focus on fresh and high-quality ingredients, adopting as they say the "Golden Rule of the kitchen: the finished product relies entirely upon the quality of source ingredients." Their
diverse menu has a nice collection of original drinks, obscure classics, and those made by friends in other renowned bars. Each of the three menus offer a punch for the table, an excellent and fun way to start your drinking evening.

Bartender and co-owner Daniel Shoemaker has graciously contributed a total of four holiday drinks along with recipes. I will separate these into two separate posts for easier absorption.

First up is the Long Time Coming, a pisco-based cocktail with three house-made ingredients: a cherry digestif, a port redux, and truffle bitters. Daniel shares his recipes for each of these ingredients below, and I hope you find them as creatively inspiring as I do!
Following that is the Humble Pie, a mix of blended Scotch and applejack with Christmas spice flavours like pimento, ginger, and peppercorn.

Long Time Coming

2 oz Campo de Encanto pisco

¾ oz Cherry Digestif*

½ oz Port Reduction*

8 drops Truffle bitters*

Stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  

No garnish.  

*Cherry Digestif

8 Quart cherry pits, topped with GNS, stored in cool place for 1 month, agitated daily.  Strain, add:

40 g dandelion root, toasted                                                

15 g gentian, toasted

40 g cedar chips, toasted                                    

8 g rhubarb root, toasted

40 g dong quoi                                                            

3 g horehound

15 g Cherry Bark                   

Steep all ingredients for an additional 24-36 hours.  

Strain, bottle.

*Port Redux

750ml Ruby port

1/4 oz cane sugar

6 cloves

2 star anise

15 green cardamom pods

1 Indonesian cinnamon sticks, crushed

Bring all ingredients to a light simmer, stirring occasionally until total liquid has reduced by 1/3.  

Allow to cool to room temperature, strain & bottle.

*Truffle Bitters

1 lb unsalted butter

½ oz Oregon black truffles

2 – 750 ml high-proof rye

½ cup toasted quassia

1/8 cup rose hips

1/8 cup sweet orange peel

1 tablespoon grains of paradise

1 tablespoon angelica

1 teaspoon fennel seed

1 teaspoon cumin seed

Clarify butter in heavy-bottomed saucepan at low heat for 1 hour.  Remove from heat, pour over thinly sliced truffles.  Let steep for 1 hour.  Strain through sieve into large, non-reactive container.  Pour rye in with butter, let steep airtight for 6 weeks. Freeze overnight to let separate. Strain off butter & all solids, returning rye to container. Add rose hips, orange peel, & qussia. Let steep for 10 days.  Add remaining spices & seasonings, let steep for 3 more days. Strain, add 1 tablespoon caramelized sugar syrup. Pour through funnel into oak barrel (treated with fine sherry for previous 6 weeks). Let age for 3 months. Strain, filter through brita filter & bottle.

Humble Pie

1 oz Laird's bonded applejack

1 oz Famous Grouse blended scotch

1/4 oz ginger syrup (2:1)

1 teaspoon rich demerara syrup (2:1)

4 dashes pimento dram

1 dash Angostura bitters

2 grinds black peppercorn

Candied ginger

Stir all ingredients with ice, strain over a large ice cube in a  rocks glass.  
Garnish with a piece of candied ginger on a small skewer. 


Stay tuned later tonight for two more holiday recipes from the Teardrop Lounge!


More Holiday Drinks!
[[ Teardrop Lounge Part 2 ]]

[["Yukon Cornelius" from Veneto in Victoria ]]
[[ "The Rockefeller" from Veneto in Victoria ]]
[[ The Hot Toddy ]]
[[ Winter drinks from Smuggler's Cove in San Francisco ]]
[[ "Bear Skin" from The Refinery in Vancouver ]]
[[ "Cold & Delicious" from The Violet Hour in Chicago ]]
[[ The history of Eggnog ]]
[[ "Gold," "Frankincense," and "Myrrh" from Trevor Kallies in Vancouver ]]
[[ "Old Saint Juan" from Shea Hogan in Vancouver ]]
[[ "Hot Buttered Rhum Cider" from Slanted Door in San Francisco ]]
[[ The history of mulled wine ]]
[[ The history of The Flip ]]
[[ Hot Buttered Rum ]]

Halloween Cocktails: "The Bay Harbour Butcher" by Shaun Layton

Our drinks are slowly getting more violent as we creep ever close to Halloween. Today's contribution comes from Shaun Layton of L'Abattoir, located in Blood Alley in Vancouver's Gastown. He shares his bloody creation named after the AMC series, "Dexter," about a blood spatter specialist with the Miami Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer. This cocktail is a fruity and herbal twist on the pisco sour, and Shaun incorporates some interesting ingredients, including Liquore Strega. This bright yellow herbal liqueur was supposedly created by an Italian witch coven in the 1800's. "Strega," actually meaning "witch" in Italian, was originally medicinal in nature, but became later known as a kind of love-potion. It is said that if a couple drinks Strega together they will be forever united.
(I will be talking a little more about Strega before Halloween).

The Bay Harbour Butcher

45ml pisco
30ml lemon juice
10ml Liquore Strega
10ml Campari
Dash of raspberry puree
1 egg white

Combine all ingredients and dry shake, then shake again with ice. 
Fine strain into a chilled coup and make blood-splatter-like dashes on top of the froth with Peychaud's bitters.

If you don't have raspberry liqueur handy, a great substitute (and one I use in Clover Clubs as well) is the award-winning Raspberry Liqueur by Okanagan Spirits. It's a surprisingly tart and dry liqueur made with real raspberries.

You can see Shaun's other contributions to this site here:
Maraschino March
Amaro April
Fernet February
The Butchertown

Stay tuned - there's a final Halloween drink still to come!

The Fall Series:

You can see the series introduction here
and more terrible Halloween cocktails here
"Death & Oranges" by Donnie Wheeler
"Jones' Bitter Aperitif" by Evelyn Chick 
"The Satchmo" by Simon Ogden 
"Dark City" by Jay Jones 
Classic Halloween Cocktails 
"The Giant Huntsman" by Lauren Mote 
"A Nightmare On Juniper Street" by Shea Hogan


[[ "Dexter" image belongs to AMC
cocktail photography by Shaun Layton ]]