The Summer Joy of an Aperol Spritz

Last summer I visited Italy, and by my calculation, on a summer evening in Venice, ninety-nine percent of people are drinking an Aperol Spritz. That's when I got hooked. There's something wonderful about the simple, refreshing combination of Aperol (an orange flavored Italian amaro), Prosecco (or any dry white wine) and a splash of seltzer. It's not complex or intellectual. There are no flavor subtleties, but it energizes you after a long, hot day and gets you in the proper mood for dinner. Yes, Campari and Cynar are great as well, but I always come back to Aperol for my spritzes.

Like Rice Crispy Treats or Toll House Cookies, the recipe is right on the label, but even if it wasn't, as long as you know the ingredients, you'll do fine. The proportions need not be exact, the wine need not be anything at all fancy (I use Cecilia Beretta Prosecco Treviso - available at Trader Joe's for $8), and no garnish is necessary, though I go with the large Spanish olive and lemon rind that I got used to in Venice.

The Aperol Spritz, it's one of the reasons to look forward to summer.

Five Foods You Should Never Buy

I'm all for convenience food. We all lead busy lives, and we don't always have time to cook. That being said, there are some packaged foods I don't get. Even in a time crunch, these things can easily be made at home and are so much better than store bought equivalents.

Simple Syrup: The people who managed to bottle and sell simple syrup are operating on a PT Barnum level.  It's sugar water for God's sake.  Sugar + water + 3 minutes in the microwave. Oh, you want some fancy, mint infused simple syrup. Take it out of the microwave and immediately throw in a bunch of mint leaves. Done.

Croutons: Slice bread, coat with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, add some crushed garlic if you want, in the oven for five minutes. Boom. Better than any of those salted pebbles they sell at the store.

Salad Dressing: I really dislike most bottled salad dressing. Making a simple vinaigrette takes all of five minutes, and you can vary it by just throwing in whatever's in your cupboard: Tabasco? Sure. Worcestershire? Why not. Dijon Mustard? Definitely. Angostura bitters? Might as well. A simple blue cheese dressing doesn't take much longer.

Tortilla Chips: You don't need a deep fat frier, just a frying pan. Slice corn tortillas, fry in oil, flip and salt. You will never buy a bag of chips again. The only challenge is not eating all of them as they come out of the pan.

Prosciutto. Don't tell me you're still buying prosciutto. Give me a break! All you need to do is get a leg from a six month old Duroc hog, cure it and hang it in your meat cellar for 12 to 18 months. Well, okay, maybe some things should be left to the professionals (or Oliver Klimek).

What would you add to the list?

Sukkah Hill Spirits Liqueurs: Etrog & Besamim

I don't drink a lot of liqueurs, but every once in a while I find one that's interesting. Sukkah Hill Spirits, named for the outdoor shelters from the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, is a small, Los Angeles area company. Like many liqueur start ups, it was started by a culinarily inclined couple who used to blend alcoholic infusions for holidays (hence name). They went into business and are now making two liqueurs:  Etrog, based on a rare citron-like fruit, and Besamim, a sweet and spicy liqueur.

As a base, both spirits use a neutral spirit distilled from cane sugar in South Africa. They use all natural ingredients with no artificial flavors or coloring, and both of their spirits are certified Kosher. They sell for $33 for a 375 ml bottle.

Etrog (38% abv) has a great nose with bright citrus notes. On the palate, it has a light citrus flavor with none of the Lemon Pledge notes that are so typical in citrus liqueurs. As with most liqueurs, it's too sweet for me to drink straight, but it does well in cocktails.  In terms of whiskeys, they suggest adding it to rye, which is good, but I prefer it with heavily peated Scotch since I love the combination of sweet and smoke. It's like a citrusy, smoky Rusty Nail.

Besamim (37% abv) is a delicious, spice mix with tons of cinnamon (real cinnamon, not that Red Hot style flavor you get in flavored whiskeys), clove and ginger; they hand grind the spices for it. It's pretty much pumpkin pie in a bottle, and puts you right at the Thanksgiving table.  There are tons of cocktail possibilities, but honestly, I just like to sip it neat, even as sweet as it is. That warm holiday feeling that it gives me will be perfect when it starts to cool down around here.

Occasionally I'm surprised by something I wouldn't normally like, and these liqueurs are really good. If you have a sweet tooth, I would definitely recommend them. They may have a holiday theme, but you don't have to wait until the high holidays or Thanksgiving to give them a try.

Thanks to Sukkah Hill Spirits for providing samples of their spirits.

New Books: Bitters, Shrubs and Smoke

The number of whiskey and cocktail books out there continues to grow. Along with great general works, we now have numerous specialty books that dive into very specific and specialized areas. Today, I review two such works.


Bitters & Shrub Syrup Cocktails by Warren Bobrow

Whiskey and cocktail writer Warren Bobrow takes us back to the medicinal history of cocktails with recipes that hearken back to the days when mixology was a subset of pharmacology.  While the title includes bitters and shrub syrups, the book's emphasis is really on shrub syrups which I had never heard of before reading Bobrow's fascinating book. Not being an advanced mixology buff, the only shrubs I knew of were the kind that grow in the yard which don't seem all that fit for use in cocktails. Shrub syrups, it turns out, are vinegar and sugar concoctions flavored with fruits, vegetables and/or herbs. Historically, they were often paired with rhum agricole, but Bobrow provides recipes for numerous shrubs syrups, shrub syrup cocktails, mocktails and even main dish recipes using shrub syrups.

Bobrow's drinks sound fantastic; who wouldn't want to try a cocktail that combines peated Scotch with a syrup made from tart cherries, honey, mirin and rice wine vinegar or a rum drink that includes a shrub syrup made from grilled peaches and Thai basi?  The only challenge is that making your own shrub syrups requires a fair amount of commitment as many of them have to age for at least three to four weeks (though he does provide some recipes that can be made in much shorter times). On top of that, some of the drink recipes include other syrups or infusions that are also fairly labor intensives.

This book is a huge amount of fun.  The recipes are creative, the text is engaging and I'd love to try pretty much every cocktail listed.  For a bar with a serious mixology program, this would be a fantastic resource.  For all but the most ambitious home-mixologists, though, it would be pretty daunting. That being said, there are a few bottled shrub syrups out there, so I might just take a few of these recipes for a spin with some of those.

Bitters & Shrub Syrup Cocktails by Warren Bobrow
Fair Winds Press ($22)
Releases May 1 but is available for pre-order on Amazon


Fire Water: Experimental Smoked Whiskeys by Darek Bell

Another new book that is even more focused on industry professionals is Darek Bell's Fire Water: Experimental Smoked Whiskeys.  Bell is the owner of the Corsair Distillery and is obsessed with integrating smoke into his whiskeys. Bell goes in depth with instructions about the various ways to make smoked whiskeys and then reviews and analyzes dozens of woods, barks, roots and herbs that can be used impart smoke.

This is a book that should be of great interest to craft distillers. One of the benefits of smoked whiskey, which Bell acknowledges, is that it makes very young whiskey more palatable (think Balcones Brimstone, Bruichladdich PC5, etc.) so it's a perfect fit for craft distillers who are trying to do something innovative but need to get product on the market.

As to the non-distiller, for me, it's always fun to read something by someone so dedicated to their craft, but unless you're a real distilling geek, it's probably more detail than you would want. Hopefully, it will inspire some distillers and in a few years, we will see a new generation of smoked whiskeys.

Fire Water: Experimental Smoked Whiskeys by Darek Bell ($30)


Thanks to Bobrow and Bell for copies of their books.

The Bar Book by Jeffrey Morgenthaler

Jeffrey Morgenthaler is one of the stars of the modern mixology movement.  An Oregon bartender, Morgenthaler is the man responsible for multiple mixology trends, including barrel aged cocktails, carbonated cocktails and homemade tonic water.  He became known through his excellent, eponymous blog, a blog so good it still seems to win awards even though he only posts a few times a year (he put up exactly two posts in 2013).   It turns out, though, that he wasn't slacking off on his writing, he just decided it made more sense to get paid for it (clearly, the guy is smarter than a lot of us), and the result is The Bar Book: Elements of Cocktail Technique.

Unlike most bar books, this is not a cocktail recipe book, though there are some recipes.  As the subtitle makes clear, it's a book about technique, including measuring, muddling, shaking and stirring, but it covers non-alcoholic ingredients (soda, juice, cream and eggs), bar tools and garnishes.

An impressively detailed and very eye catching tome with a crisp layout and beautiful photography, The Bar Book is chock full of information and thick with detail.  If you want to know the best way to store simple syrup, how to make ginger beer, the best way to thicken cream for an Irish coffee or what to look for in a bar spoon, this is the book for you.  It's crammed with useful information on pretty much everything you need to know to make great drinks. Morganthaler even does some myth busting, including an experiment which finds that refrigerating citrus doesn't decrease juice production, and rolling the fruit on the table doesn't increase it.

Some of the information seems more geared toward professionals.  Even the most dedicated home bartender is unlikely to need to know how to break down a 300 pound block of ice, but it is sort of fun to consider the possibility.  Overall, Morgenthaler does a good job of writing for both professionals and exuberant hobbyists, and it's organized in a way that makes it easy to skip over sections that aren't relevant to your needs.

While he sometimes seems to be writing for pros, Morgenthaler occasionally goes too far in the other direction with details that seem over the top even for a novice home bartender.  I'm pretty sure most of us know to store dairy products in the refrigerator, and does someone who can't figure out how to use a lemon juicer or crack an egg without instructions really have any business making drinks at all?  Those are minor transgressions, though, and in most cases, I'm glad he erred on the side of detail.

The Bar Book is well designed, easy to use, fun to read and extremely informative. It will immediately take its place as a major work in the field, and anyone interested in making cocktails should own a copy.

The Bar Book ($20.00)
by Jeffrey Morgenthaler
Chronicle Books

Navarre Pineau des Charentes Vieux

Pineau des Charentes is a fortified wine made by adding Cognac to grape juice.  I was first introduced to it by Nicholas Palazzi's Paul-Marie Fils Pineau des Charentes which uses aged Cognac as opposed to the typical unaged eau de vie.

I very much enjoyed the Cognac I tried from Navarre, so I was excited to see they had a Pineau  on the market. Like the Paul-Marie Fils, the Navarre Pineau uses aged Cognac.  A six year old, 1982 Cognac was added to the wine.  The Pineau was then aged an additional 30 years and bottled in 2012.

Navarre Pineau des Charentes Vieux, 17% abv ($70)

This Pineau has some fantastic, complex flavors with heavy sweet syrupy notes rushing in first, followed by the aged Cognac with its earthy notes.  The flavor combination works well, but it's far too sweet for me to take it neat, cutting it is a necessity.

Mixing one part Pineau with two parts club soda makes about the best spritzer I've ever tasted.  The two to one ratio mellows the sweetness without compromising any of the earthy qualities.  It's insanely refreshing and very light, the perfect drink for a summer afternoon.

High West's Barreled Boulevardier

High West is both a distiller and a bottler/blender.  They've also done something fairly unique in bottling barrel aged cocktails.  I'm a big fan of High West's 36th Vote Barreled Manhattan, so I was excited to hear they were releasing a second barrel aged cocktail.  A Boulevardier is a bourbon Negroni, a combination of bourbon, bitter liqueur (usually Campari) and sweet vermouth.  The High West version combines two parts bourbon, one part Vya sweet vermouth and one half part Gran Classico, a Swiss amaro (using more bourbon and less bitter than is typical).  The bourbon is a six year old low-rye recipe bourbon from MGPI in Indiana.  It is then aged in bourbon barrels for four to six months. 

High West sent me a sample of the Barreled Boulevardier along with a non-aged version to compare.

High West, The Barreled Boulevardier, 36% abv ($50)

The Boulevardier has a pleasant herbal flavor.  The botanicals from the vermouth mix well with the bourbon.  The bitterness of the amaro is much more understated than in most Negronis I've had (which are usually made with Campari).  It really doesn't hit until the finish which has just a slight bitterness mixed in with the herbs.

Unaged, this was too sweet for me, but the barrel aging seems to mute the sweetness and bring out the spice.

This is a very nice cocktail and definitely worth trying for the cocktail fans out there.

Compton Comes North: Bludso's on La Brea

What happens when you take a beloved Compton Barbecue pit and marry it with a hipster bar?  The answer is Bludso's Bar & Cue on La Brea, and it's a really good answer.

Bludso's is a Texas style BBQ joint that has been pumping out amazing brisket and ribs in Compton for the past three years.  Golden State is a craft beer pub on the hip stretch of Fairfax that popularized the beer float in LA.  The two got together to open a branch of Bludso's on La Brea, just north of Melrose.

Bludso's La Brea, known formally as Bludso's Bar & Que, has all of the excellent BBQ from Compton: melt in your mouth brisket, smoky pork ribs that almost taste like ham, pulled pork, links and chicken.  The sides are tasty and the sauce is lovely, though I never know what to use it for because the meat is so good on its own that I hate to cover up the flavor with sauce.



But where the Compton spot doesn't serve drinks, the La Brea Bludso's has a full service bar with a menu full of craft cocktails that will stand up to good BBQ.  I had the mint julep (pictured), one of the best I've had in LA (well, outside of my house mint julep).  It's made with Evan Williams bourbon and packs a good wallop.They also have an intriguing Texas Margarita with tequila and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I was shocked, on a Sunday afternoon, that the place was more than half empty, a situation which will surely change once word gets out...so go while you can.  My only qualm is that they aren't open for week day lunches, but hopefully that will change.

This place is a no brainer.  Great BBQ and great cocktails go together like....Compton and Fairfax.



Bludso's Bar & Que
609 N. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, CA  90036
(323) 931-2583

2012 Holiday Gifts: What not to get.

Last week I published my list of whiskey gift recommendations for the holiday season. This week, I want to take some time to tell people what not to get for their spirit loving friends.

The Rabbit Electric Cocktail Mixer ($20) (image from Metrokane). For the past month or so, this has been advertised in full page ads in the New York Times Magazine. According to the ad copy, "Measure the ingredients of your favorite cocktail into the Rabbit Mixer, add ice and press the start button. Sit back and enjoy the mixing show."

This thing may be the saddest statement I've ever seen about American consumers. Is this what we've come to? Are we so lazy that we can't even work up the energy to shake a cocktail? Even if there was a reason someone couldn't shake a cocktail, say that had severe arthritis of the elbow or something, my guess is most people who are into cocktails already have a machine that mixes things for you...it's known as a blender.

If you know someone just getting into cocktails, consider a Boston shaker for $2.75 and use that extra money for ingredients. Come on people, get up and shake that cocktail.


Whiskey Stones ($20). The idea of whiskey stones is to cool your whiskey without diluting it. You put these cute little rocks in the freezer and then add them to your whiskey. Now, I don't typically drink my whiskey on the rocks, so this clearly isn't for me, but even if I did, would I really need a $20 item just for this purpose? Does ice melt so quickly that your drink is diluted before you finish? And isn't the point of ice to dilute as well as cool? If you really wanted to drink cold, undiluted whiskey, why wouldn't you just put the bottle in the fridge or freezer? There, I just saved you $20. You can thank me later.

The Balvenie 50 ($30,000). (image from Scotch Malt Whisky). This new release from Balvenie looks on track to become the whiskey equivalent of fruitcake for the 2012 season. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's great Scotch, but like most whiskey lovers, I'm assuming I'll get dozens of these. Then I have to think about who I can regift them to or whether I can pass them off at the office "white elephant" party. For everyone who was thinking of this as a gift, instead, consider getting 120 bottles of the excellent Balvenie Tun 1401...or a Toyota Camry.

Happy holidays!

The Peated Mai Tai

In all my informal cocktail experiments, I've come to the conclusion that adding peated whiskey to a cocktail is usually a good thing. Now, in the past, I'd reserved such experimentation for traditional peated cocktails, like the Sazerac, but finding myself in the dog days of late summer LA with a still mostly full bottle of orgeat, I figured, why not a peated mai tai?

I used the same recipe I used in my mai tai post, except I substituted an ounce of Finlaggan for one of the ounces of rum (I used Depaz Rhum Agricole for the other ounce).

Sure enough, this was great stuff. The peat created a nice, smoky nose but the lime and orgeat still ruled the palate making this a feast for all senses. It's an unlikely combination for sure, but it works. Give it a shot!

Gettin' Tiki With It: The Original Mai Tai

My cocktail preference tends toward the classical prohibition style, but every once in a while, I yearn for the kitschy comfort of a tiki drink, and there is no more famous tiki drink than the Mai Tai.

While people identify the tiki drink movement with Hawaii, it was born in California, based on a romanticized mid-twentieth century view of Polynesia. Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood was the original tiki bar, but Trader Vic's, in the San Francisco Bay Area, was the most famous. Both Don's and Vic's claim to have invented the Mai Tai, but the recipe I'll use today comes from Trader Vic.

Unfortunately, if you order a Mai Tai today, you're likely to get a rum drink drenched in orange, pineapple or other tropical juices, which is really more like a Zombie. The actual drink is quite simple and much more interesting than a screwdriver with rum.

The only hard to find ingredient in a Mai Tai is orgeat. A non-alcoholic almond and orange flower water flavored syrup, orgeat is now fairly available in specialty liquor stores. I used the version from Berkeley based Small Hand Foods which is available at K&L for $16 for an 8.5 oz container. I know some people are tempted to use something like Monin almond syrup in lieu of orgeat, but I wouldn't recommend it. The orgeat has a much more subtle, milky, almond flavor than the sweet, amaretto-like flavor of a syrup. Save the Monin for your almond mochas.

The recipe also calls for orange curacao. I used Grand Marnier which is an orange curacao, but Cointreau or triple sec will work as well.

The traditional recipe (via drinkboy) is:

1 oz. light rum
1 oz. dark rum
3/4 oz. lime juice
1/2 oz. orange curacao
1/2 oz. orgeat

Shake well with ice and pour (with ice) into a rocks glass. Garnish with an umbrella, pineapple, cherry and assorted other tiki kitsch. You can also float a bit of rum on top.

I'm not a big fan of light rum, so I like to use two ounces of a good dark rum or even mix in some rhum agricole.

This is a great, refreshing drink, and if you're used to the syrupy sweet concoctions that most bars pass off as a Mai Tai, you owe it to yourself to try the original recipe.

More Cool Cocktails for Summer: The Champs Elysées

Still seeking a cool reprieve from the summer heat and seeking uses for my newly acquired bottle of Chartreuse, I've been experimenting with some non-whiskey cocktails. Today, another easy to make prohibition era classic, the Champs Elysées (recipe from the Savoy Cocktail Book by way of DrinkBoy):

1 1/2 ounces brandy
1/2 ounce Chartreuse
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake with ice, strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

This is refreshing enough, but the brandy gets pretty overwhelmed by all of the other strong flavors, I bet this one would do better with a rye whiskey or maybe even gin.

The Last Word on Cocktails

Even for a whiskey nut like me, it's hard to drink whiskey neat when the mercury is hovering near the triple digits. It's times like this that I turn to cocktails, usually whiskey cocktails, but not always.

The Last Word is a prohibition era cocktail that, as with many prohibition era cocktails, has been recently rediscovered. It was brought back by the Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle and apparently remains somewhat of a staple up there.

I didn't have any Chartreuse, an herbal spirit made by French monks, but it is a common ingredient so I decided to pick some up. It's a bit pricy but thankfully is available in 375 ml bottles, which will likely last you a long time given that it tends to be doled out by the half or quarter ounce in cocktails.

The Last Word is an alluringly easy recipe calling for equal parts gin, maraschino liqueur, green Chartreuse and lime juice (I used a half ounce of each), shaken with ice and strained into a martini glass.

It's a lovely drink and very refreshing, equally sweet, sour and spicy, the perfect thing to sip on one of our sweltering LA afternoons.

Whiskey Wednesday: Manhattan in a Bottle

Barrel aged cocktails are a fairly new development on the cocktail scene. I first heard about them last year from Oregon based bartender and (now mostly inactive)cocktail blogger Jeffrey Morgenthaler who posted about his experience putting cocktails into oak barrels. Morgenthaler experimented with Manhattans and Negronis and reported that after five to six weeks, the oak casks had significantly enhanced the cocktail, adding oak notes and tannins, melding flavors and smoothing the impact of the vermouth.

Shortly thereafter, I heard that David Perkins at High West had done the same thing with Manhattans but was only selling them at the distillery. Now, High West is more widely distributing the barrel aged Manhattan and they recently arrived in California where the going price is around $45.

High West's barreled Manhattan, 36th Vote, is named to commemorate its home state of Utah's vote that sealed the deal for the repeal of prohibition. It's made from two parts High West Double Rye, one part sweet vermouth and two dashes of Angostura bitters for every 2.5 ounces. It then goes into a two year old rye whiskey barrel where it ages for 120 days. It weighs in at 37% abv.

David Perkins recently put on a tasting for the LA Whiskey Society where he let us sample the 36th Vote side by side with an pre-barrel sample. The pre-barrel sample was a fine Manhattan but it was a bit sweet, almost cloyingly so, which may be due to the vermouth (Perkins could only choose from vermouths available wholesale in Utah). It wasn't exceptional and I would have preferred the ones I make at home.

The barrel aged Manhattan was a completely different story; the sweetness had ebbed, the flavors had married and there was a slight woodiness that brought out the rye. It really was a wonderful Manhattan and better than the vast majority I've had in bars. I would happily pour it at home.

Great stuff!

Whiskey Wednesday: Classic Whiskey Cocktails - The Whiskey Sour

Most of the whiskey cocktails I've played with are pretty intense alcohol on alcohol concoctions like sazeracs and Manhattans, but on a warm day, it's nice to have something a bit lighter. It could be a mint julep, but another good alternative is the whiskey sour.

The whiskey sour was a precursor to all of those popular sour drinks: the margarita, the daquiri and the sidecar. It's an easy drink to make and a fun one to sip. The ingredients are such:

2 oz. whiskey (I usually use a good mid-level bourbon)
1 oz. lemon juice
3/4-1 oz. simple syrup (to taste)
1 egg white

As with all drinks containing egg white, do a dry shake (without ice) first, then shake again with ice. Strain into a rocks glass with ice. The traditional garnish is a cherry but I dispense with it and usually also add two or three drops of Angostura bitters right on top, which looks cool as well.

Some people drop the egg white out of squeamishness, but I would encourage you to leave it in. I love the frothy, foamy nature of the drink; without the egg, it's just whiskey and lemonade. Yes, there are risks to using raw eggs. I use only eggs I get from the farmers market, but hey, what's life without a little bit of risk, as long as your immune system isn't otherwise compromised.

Now what would happen if we made on with Laphroaig? Hmm, maybe I'll try it and report back.

Thirsty Thursday: Fly the Friendly Skies with an Aviation Cocktail

You can make all the fun you want of the mixology trend with its vested historian/bartenders and their house made coffee/pomegranate bitters, but granting some silliness, these folks have done a lot to improve the way we drink. The Aviation cocktail is a case in point. Ten years ago the Aviation was all but lost to history. One of the ingredients, creme de violette, wasn't even being produced anymore and one of the others, Maraschino Liqueur, wasn't easy to find. Fast forward a decade and every fancy bar has a bottle of Maraschino, there are several brands of creme de violette being made, and the Aviation has become one of the favorites of the classic cocktail crown. And the Aviation is popular for a reason, it's cool, refreshing, simple to make and has a great blend of flavors, plyaing off sour and sweet with the botanical notes from the gin.

I use Gary Regan's recipe for Aviations (which uses a higher percentage of creme de violette than most), but you should feel free to play with the ratios:

1 1/2 oz. gin
1/2 oz. creme de violette (I use Creme Yvette)
1/2 oz. maraschino liqueur
1/2 oz. lemon juice
Traditional garnish is a cherry but I usually skip it.

Shake with ice and strain - couldn't be easier.

Now, this drink is tasty done in the traditional style with London Dry Gin, but rebel that I am, I really like it with Genever Gin, which gives it a mellower herbal flavor which melds better with the liqueurs.

And if you don't have creme de violette, don't panic. Just use a double dose of maraschino liqueur. It won't be technically correct, but it's still a great drink, and unless you become a real Aviation fan, I wouldn't recommend shelling out for a full bottle of violette.

So mix one up on a warm evening. Now this is what I call "something special in the air."

New York Report: Minetta Tavern

Every spring I get back to Manhattan (where I spent time as a student) and take some time to see what's new and fun in the Village and adjacent food scene; over the next few weeks, I'll be filling everyone in on my latest trip.

It seems that New York is busting with food, even more than usual if that's possible. There suddenly seem to be a million more gelato places than I remember in the Village, Eaterly (which I didn't get to this trip) towers over Chelsea and the food truck trend has definitely migrated east...I saw everything from a legit looking taco truck to a truck called Kimchi Tacos (gee, where did they come up with that concept?) One place I'd been meaning to get to since my last year's trip was Minetta Tavern in the Village to try their famous Black Label Burger made of all kinds of prime cuts of dry aged beef.

The Tavern has a great old-school feel with lots of polished wood. I arrived early as a walk-in and had no trouble getting a seat at the bar, where I enjoyed a house specialty Dodd Cocktail, a flip made with bourbon, absinthe and peach bitters; I love a good flip (guilty pleasures you know), and this was a smooth and lovely drink; foamy, cool and slightly fruity, it was the perfect thing for a hot New York afternoon. I was less pleased with the Maple Sazerac, a sazerac with maple liqueur. Any maple notes were drowned out by absinthe, which was of the artificially bright green and overly sweet variety (might have been La Fee). As a disclaimer though, I should say that I'm very picky about my sazeracs.

Then onto the burger. Instead of fries, I opted for the punched potatoes, smashed white potatoes fried in duck fat with rosemary and garlic. The burger, served with caramelized onions, was very good, cooked medium rare it was a nice bright red in the center. It had a rich meaty taste but was a bit less funky-beefy than I might have hoped for. It's a high quality burger, but it didn't strike me as a revelation. I'm not sure that it was significantly better than my favorite LA burgers, and at $26, it was $10 more than Comme Ca's burger, for one, though this is New York and a ten dollar mark up from LA is probably just par for the course. The potatoes were quite tasty, but again, not a revelation. I found myself wishing there had been more fried surface area and bits, that they had punched harder.

Overall, a fine meal in a nice atmosphere, but not one that I will be dreaming about.

Minetta Tavern
113 MacDougal St.
New York, NY 10012
(212) 475-3850

Building the Basic Bar

Even though I'm more of a straight spirits drinker than a cocktail maven, I've done some cocktail write ups, and I especially like a cool cocktail as the mercury starts to rise and the heat sets in. One of the frequent questions I get emailed is people asking what they should have in their basic home bar. There are lots of lists like this on-line, but I though I'd add my two cents. This is intended as the basic spirits and bitters you need to make standard mixed drinks. It's not intended to enable you to make every strange cocktail out there or to provide a selection of premium sipping spirits (the rest of the blog is for that).


The Basic Bar

• Bourbon or Rye (these are pretty much interchangeable in most drinks)


• Gin


• Liqueurs (It's always handy to have one or two of Amaretto, Kahlua, Bailey's, etc.)


• Orange Liqueur (Grand Marnier, Cointreau, etc.)


• Rum


• Scotch (a standard blended - Famous Grouse or Johnnie Walker - will do for mixed drinks)


• Tequila (100% agave)


• Vodka (don't spend too much, it's just vodka)


• Vermouth (a dry and a sweet...beware, unlike spirits, once opened these will not keep indefinitely)


• Angostura Bitters

This allows you to make a wide range of basic drinks: Martinis, Manhattans, daiquiris, Margaritas, Old Fashioneds, and such, but if you want to venture into more complicated territory, you'll need...



The Intermediate Bar (include all of the above plus)

• Absinthe or Pastis


• Bourbon and Rye


• Brandy


• Campari


• Irish Whiskey


• Maraschino Liqueur


• Rum (a dark and a light)


• Orange Bitters


• Peychaud's Bitters

After this it becomes more specific to the type of drinks you prefer. If you love Aviations, you're going to need creme de violette. Depending on what you like, you may need Benedictine, Drambuie or Chartreuse, but I wouldn't spend money on any of these unless they are ingredients in a particular cocktail you want to make. Maraschino Liqueur may be in that category as well, but it appears in enough recipes that I think it's worth having a bottle around. The good thing about these is that a little goes a long way. I have a bottle of Benedictine that's lasted me for years.

A few more basic bar commandments:

• Use fresh juice whenever possible


• Never buy simple syrup (it's sugar and water, for God's sake; it takes all of three minutes to make in a microwave)


• If you want an easy way to experiment, there are lots of great bitters around these days; you can always throw some new fangled pear-artichoke bitters into your Manhattan and see what happens


• There is no need to spend a lot on cocktail ware: a shaker, a strainer, a measuring cup and a muddler should be all you need


• Don't wear one of those bartender vests. Just don't.


• The people who spend a lot of time lecturing you about shaking versus stirring are the same ones who will lecture you about whether or not to put an "e" in the word "whiskey". That being said, the basic rule is shake any drink that includes egg, juice, milk or cream and stir drinks that are only spirits.

Cheers!

Whiskey Wednesday: Use Your Moonshine - The White Manhattan

A few months ago I wrote about the new make or white whiskey phenomenon and promised to follow up with some cocktail recipes. Cocktails are important here, because once you have had the intellectual experience of unaged whiskey and shared it with your friends, it's not something you're likely to sit around sipping, which means you may be left with a number of mostly full bottles of transparent, fetal whiskey (trust me, I have so much of this stuff in the house that I fear that if a law enforcement officer came to visit, they'd think I was running a backyard still).

White dog has really caught on with the mixology crowd, which makes sense. The stuff is more hearty than vodka and a nice alternative to the botanical flavors of gin.

The White Manhattan has become the most well known of white whiskey cocktails. It was originated by Neyah White of Nopa in San Francisco. It's fairly simple to make once you acquire the ingredients. Just mix the following with ice and strain into a cocktail glass:

1 1/2 ounces white whiskey (I used Buffalo Trace White Dog)
1/2 ounce Benedictine
1/2 ounce blanc vermouth
3 dashes orange bitters

Keep in mind that blanc vermouth is different than dry Vermouth. It's a sweet, white vermouth with notes of Christmas spice/fruit pudding. The flavor is closer to sweet vermouth than to dry. Dolin is the most available brand and it usually goes for a bit under $20 per bottle.

I enjoyed the White Manhattan (it's color is actually more in the yellow family). It has a strong botanical flavor, almost martini like, but it's sweet. In fact, it was a bit too sweet for me. Next time I might halve the Benedictine and vermouth, though their sweet/spice flavors do complement the whiskey.

If there's a bottle of white whiskey languishing in your cabinet, give the White Manhattan a try.

Help Me Figure this Out: Bright Kitchen Article

So I'm wondering if any of you can help me identify this implement. I received it as a gift from my mother-in-law, who bought it in Japan. It's a steel utensil about the size of a kitchen knife. It is slightly bulb shaped on one end and stretches into a long tear drop shape on the other. It looks a little bit like a long, flat metal Q-tip or maybe a cuticle pusher.

There is very little English on the package. The company appears to be "Stylish Cutlery," and the product seems to be called "Bright Kitchen Article." It also notes "stainless steel," and "Made in Japan." That's it for the English.

So, what is this thing? Can anyone help me out?

UPDATE: Thanks to Yuki (see the comments) for pointing me in the right direction. Apparently, this is a cocktail stirrer, what we would probably call a bar spoon. Thanks Yuki, time to mix up some cocktails.