Dark & Limey

summer turns autumn
still rum lime soda want friends 
turmeric makes fall


Dark & Limey
1 T. grated fresh turmeric
2 t. granulated sugar
Dash of salt
1/4 t. lime zest
1 1/2 oz. dark rum
1 1/2 T. fresh lime juice
3 ice cubes
4 oz. seltzer
Dash of bitters

Muddle turmeric, sugar, salt, lime zest and bitters in a mixing glass.  Add rum, juice, and 3 cubes.  Stir until chilled.  Strain into a highball glass filled with ice and top with seltzer.  Garnish with twist of lime rind.

The Dark & Limey is a wonderfully light, bright fall bev I found in the October 2016 issue of Cooking Light.  Dare I call it an autumn mojito?  If you can't find fresh turmeric root you can swap a teaspoon of ground which seemed like a lot; so I used a scant teaspoon to avoid grittiness.  I've made it now with both the fresh and ground.  The ground did have, let's say, "mouthfeel".  But on the whole, I think it was richer, which makes sense.  The fresh version had a much lighter quality that made the drink seem a bit more watery.  But on the whole, this is a nice cocktail for hanging out with friends and can go a couple rounds with it!

The L'Orange and The Gene Splicer

The Orange Popsicle, or The Gene Splicer

Not the best way to start one's Sunday morning, opening the New York Times over coffee and seeing a headline heralding the demise of breakfast across the continent: A Race to Save the Orange by Altering Its DNA.

With the Florida orange business coming in at $9 billion a year -- second only to Brazil globally -- you'll perhaps forgive me if I don't take  beknighted little orange farmer, Ricke Kress, at face value when he suggests he's fighting against the big, bad FDA, consumer groups, and environmentalists to save the noble orange as a service to mankind.  I think it's pretty safe to say it's about profits.  And when the article concludes with Kress talking about how GMO technology might one day “... improve orange juice....  Maybe we can find a way to have oranges grow year-round, or get two for every one we get now on a tree.”  who is he kidding?  This is about Big Agribusiness doubling down on yet another mono-culture (think bananas and corn) and doing anything and everything it has to protect that monoculture, supersize its production and thus its profits.  Even if it means twisting nature by inserting pig or spinach genes into orange trees to do it.

Remember seasonal produce?  Wouldn't it be great to return to them.  We value things so much more when we can only enjoy them for a limited period of time each year.   Scarcity not only makes things more valuable, but when it comes to food, I firmly believe scarcity makes them taste better.  It's not like the Frankenfoods Big Agribusiness has produced to keep seasonal fruits and veggies in our supermarkets year round are tastier.  So now we have them year round.  How is it a bonus to the consumer?  For all their genetic manipulation, irradiation, and nitrogen storage foods have no taste and lousy texture.  Take tomatoes.  So we have them year round.  The outcome is that they're now orange/pink, mealy, and tasteless year round.  Unless you're willing to shell out $5-$7 a pound for "heirlooms".  Big Agribusiness is making our food supply more vulnerable to disease and species eradication the more they widdle our food stocks down to a mere handful of species.  Genetic diversity is a bulwark against disease and extinction.  As we're seeing with bananas and now oranges, we're just one bug away from losing some of our favorite foods.  But hey, as long as Southern Gardens Citrus, or Tropicana, or Florida's Natural, or Monsanto gets those record profits in the here and now, who cares if future generations never get to eat another banana or drink another glass of OJ again.  Right?

OK, ranting is over.  Let's drink.  In the interest of genetic diversity, I made two tipples here.  The first is more cocktail-like with nice depth and body.  It's a little sweet, but not cloying.  It's a surprisingly nice orange cocktail -- which doesn't get said too often.  Let's dub this one L'Orange, given most of its ingredients' French pedigree.  The other is a nice summer sipper -- light and tasty. In the summertime as a kid, I loved to make homemade popsicles by pouring straight OJ into popsicle molds and putting them in the freezer.  So seasonal.  Well, this one tastes just like that.  So we can call this one The Orange Popsicle, or the Gene Splicer.  I think I prefer the latter because it starts off as a L'Orange, but then you splice in some other ingredients, just like Southern Gardens Citrus and Monsanto!

L'Orange:  The template DNA for The Gene Splicer

L'Orange
1 1/2 oz. orange juice
1 1/2 oz. Lillet blanc
1 oz. Cointreau

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.  Add the OJ, Cointreau,  and Lillet.  Shake 12-15 times.  Decant into a chilled martini glass.  No garnish.

The Orange Popcicle, or the Gene Splicer
2 oz. orange juice
1/2 lime juice
1/2 oz. Cointreau
1/2 oz. Lillet blanc
2 dashes orange bitters
2 oz. seltzer

Pour the OJ, lime juice, Cointreau, Lillet, and bitters in a Collins glass.  Fill with ice.  Top with the seltzer and stir.  No garnish.

Mojito | 28 down 247 to go

Mojitos should be made in a particular order to release

the botanicals in the mint & limes.

The mint in the herb garden has gone all Audrey 2 on us and The Partner has been yearning for mojitos ever since we planted the stuff.  So I figured what better way to celebrate the Fourth of July weekend than with an antes de la revolución Cuban bev allowing me both to hack down the rabid space plant and satisfy The Other Half all at the same time?

The best mojitos I’ve ever had are served up at Nacional 27, here in Chicago.  Rimmed with raw sugar and served with a sugar cane swizzle stick, these are the stuff of legend.  These days, mojitos are everywhere, most of them either too thin and flavorless or too syrupy and sweet.  All in all, most are just plain bad.  I think that’s because muddled anything is labor-intensive for a bartender who doesn’t enjoy crafting.  To be fair, usually one person ordering a mojito leads to everyone ordering a mojito.  So when half the bar orders cocktails requiring a lot of squeezing and muddling, round after round I can kinda understand the irritation in their eyes when you ask for one.  That is if they’re not being poured from a mix.  So they probably make them subpar to discourage consequent rounds and thus more muddling.  But I digress…

There are two keys to making a good mojito and they both have to do with the volatile oils of the key ingredients.  To start, muddle the mint with a little of the simple syrup and a splash of the seltzer.  The sugars and bubbles help draw out the oils in the mint.  Only muddle until you can smell mint wafting up from the glass.  The other trick is to leave the lime hull in the glass so the rind releases the citrus oils, adding to the play of bitter & sweet.  While you’re squeezing the juice of a full lime, you only need half the hull for the proper balance.  When well crafted, a mojito should be light, bright and terribly refreshing on a hot summer day.  Imbibers should be able to enjoy several rounds without experiencing sugary, syrupy overload.

Mojito

2-3 oz. light rum

1 lime

½ oz. simple syrup

8-10 mint sprigs

Seltzer

Put the mint, simple syrup and a splash of seltzer in a 16 oz. pint glass and muddle until you can smell the mint.  Then squeeze in the lime juice, including half the hull to the glass.  Add the rum, stir, fill with ice.  Top with seltzer and garnish with mint sprigs.

This isn't even a good pic and it's not even as big as it got.  Ah, mint!

UPDATE:  The venerable mojito, like it's cousin, Margarita, was the go-to bev of summer mainly for our guests on the roof.  It was familiar, exotic, and it helped to have had a bumper crop of some of the best mint we've ever grown.  In fact, it's still going strong and I'm going to try to keep it through the winter.  

We got more than a friend or two to their happy place with this tipple.  And the recipe here, like the Marg, often brought claims of being the best the bevver's ever had.   

**Dilettante blushes.**  

**The Partner rolls his eyes.**  

(Not really.  He pretty much beams with pride, but the former maintains the humorous caricature.)   

I now understand why bartenders hate mixing mojitos -- especially when they're busy.  They take forever to craft.  And that's why I've stopped ordering them out.  But, I will admit, when it's only a handful of friends on a warm summer day and no one's in a rush to go anywhere or do anything, all that muddling is worth the effort.  The mojito really isn't that complex, but it does have a big wow factor!

Old Fashioned | 24 down 251 to go

In another nod to the ancestors and not wanting to work too hard for this evening’s cocktail, we went with the Old Fashioned.  This is another one I remember the adults drinking at parties when I was a kid.  The cherry and the orange in the glass always seemed so exotic to me.  And the rich smell of the bourbon mingling with the pipe smoke from my father and grandfather… heady stuff.

This is another super easy one that requires some muddling, which is always fun.  And can I say, wow, right to the brain!  Starting with a real kick, they get sweeter and easier as they goes down.  The combination of bitters and sugar adds that je ne sais quoi dimensionality as they balance and counter each other, just as they do in a Champagne Cocktail.

H&M dispute whether the OF may have been the first American cocktail.  Regardless, it’s indeed and oldie.  They offer two versions of the history of the OF and say they won’t take sides.  I on the other hand will.  My fave of the two is the far more interesting one that traces its origins back to the Whiskey Rebellion of the early 1790’s.  When the new Federal government levied its very first excise tax on whiskey to raise some money to pay down the national debt, folks on the frontier didn’t take it so well.  (Sin taxes?  Deficit spending?  Regionalism?  Tax rebellion?  What exactly has changed in 220 years?)  Westerners found it particularly onerous arguing it hit their pocketbooks harder than Easterners’ since farmers made whiskey from surplus grain left over from the harvest.  Whiskey also operated as an alternate currency since money on the frontier was often scarce.  Poor folks were sometimes paid in whiskey.  So for them it was also an income tax.  When tax officials tried to collect, in many instances the response turned violent.  This was particularly the case in the southwestern counties of Pennsylvania where the rebellion was centered.  In Kentucky, as it turns out, no one was trying to collect the tax.  So some farmers and tavern owners moved their whiskey operations there.  When they went, they took with them their recipe for the Old Fashioned.

As a result of this muddled history (yep, hadda do it!) there’s some disagreement about whether the bev was originally made with bourbon or rye.  Today however, use whichever is your fave and you’ll not only be correct, but you won’t be disappointed either.

Old Fashioned
2 oz. whiskey
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 t. sugar
Splash of seltzer

In a chilled Old Fashioned glass, muddle sugar, bitters, orange wheel, and a maraschino cherry until the sugar is dissolved.  Add whiskey and ice and seltzer.  Stir.  Optional: garnish with a lemon twist.

Cocktail Chat | An Original Cocktail for Mother's Day

This entry is a Cocktail Chat since it is not a drink out of Cocktail.  However, it is absolutely an inspiration that's resulted from this undertaking.

A couple hours ago, I thought it'd be fun to create a cocktail for Mother's Day.  Since I can't be with my mom today, I thought I'd design something she would enjoy.  So mom, if you're reading this, Happy Mother's Day.  This bev's for you!

Once the weather warms up, mom loves a good white wine spritzer.  So that's where this drink begins.  But since this is a special day and the tipple a part of the Dilettante project, it couldn't be just a spritzer.  The fact that mom isn't big on liquor, finding accents was a bit of a challenge until I thought about the aperitifs she enjoys.  So this will have a citrus note to it.  I'm sure I'll tweak the recipe over time, especially if I get some feedback and ideas from mom herself.  

But in the meantime, I offer the first draft of the Diane Spritzer!  May it refresh on a hot summer day!

The Diane Spritzer

4 1/2 oz. Sauvignon Blanc

2 oz. Cointreau or Grand Marnier

1 oz. gin

1 oz. lemon juice

4 dashes orange bitters

seltzer to taste

Stir with cracked ice; pour into a wine glass filled with ice; garnish with a lemon wheel.  For some added dimension, shake 3 dashes of Angostura bitters on a sugar cube and place in the bottom of the glass.

Texas Fizz | 16 down 259 to go

Think strawberry Starburst.

It’s been very busy at the Dilettante house this week, so even though numbers 16 & 17 were concocted on Saturday, they are being posted a little late.  Apologies.

Saturday was a busy day.  I needed to spend some time with friends who were helping me out on a project.  That evening we were having dinner and cocktails with J- & M-.  On my way out the door I suggested to The Partner that he select a cocktail from the bible for a pre-dinner warm up.  He protested saying this was my thing.  I insisted.  He protested.  I insisted.  He…you get the drill.  Yet to my pleasant surprise, when I came home, he had picked out the Texas Fizz.

Yes, it looks like liquid baby aspirin with a radioactive maraschino glowing in the bottom.  Yet it wasn’t that bad.  It had an elusive yet familiar flavor that I couldn’t put my finger on until The Partner said, “It tastes like a strawberry Starburst!”  Spot on!  We only had one as we had an evening of cocktailing and dinner ahead of us.  But we’ll be revisiting this one again in the future.  Sante!

Texas Fizz
1 oz. gin
1/2  oz. orange juice
1/4 oz. lemon juice
1/4 oz. grenadine
Soda water

Shake gin, juices & grenadine with cracked ice; strain into chilled wine glass.  Top with soda & garnish with lemon twist & a maraschino cherry.