Hot Buttered Rum

Christmas came down Friday.  Saturday we awoke to snow and freezing rain.  Thus begins the dreary slide that is Chicago between New Year's and  Memorial Day.  So we are definitely in need of something to cozify.  Having a new bar text specifically dedicated to winter cocktails is just what we need to warm our happy hour cockles!

Hot Buttered Rum.  It sounds so rich and comforting, doesn't it?  Honestly, it's just this side of gruel.   The specs for this was a starting place.  Tweaking was done.  

This bev is an exercise in delayed gratification.  It gets better as you get closer to the bottom and in the end, it's all about the last mouthful -- rich, fatty, and full of winter flavors. The trick is to get each sip to taste this way.




Hot Buttered Rum

The Butter
4 T. butter
1 vanilla bean
1.5 T. dark brown sugar

Using a knife tip, slice the vanilla bean open and scrape the seeds from the pod into the butter.  Add the sugar.  Stir it all together until the vanilla seeds and sugar are well mixed throughout the butter.

The Rum

Hot Buttered Rum is all about the butter.
Additions like vanilla bean and brown sugar make it special.

6 oz. dark rum
3 cups hot water

Divide (room temperature) butter mixture between 4 toddy glasses.  Add the rum mixture.  Enjoy*

* : Ok, so here's the tweaking.  To start, give the drink a few swirls with a spoon to break up  and dissolve the butter mixture throughout the drink.  It's not a bad idea to keep one handy and do it a couple times as you sip, as the butter fat will both float to the surface and settle to the bottom of glass.  In this state, the drink will be more gruel-like when first sipping and become richer as you get to the bottom of the glass.  

The first round I made with Mount Gay rum.  It's dark, but not as dark as Myers -- which I used in the second round.  Additionally, I only used about 2.5 cups of hot water to the 6 ounces of rum.  In the future, I'd try only 2 cups, all in an effort to get a richer experience from each sip and not just towards the bottom.  

Winter Cocktails

The weeks after Christmas are such fun as we actually get to play with our gifts.  In the Dilettante's case, it's delving into a bar book from The Partner -- Winter Cocktails: Mulled Ciders, Hot Toddies, Punches, Pitchers, and Cocktail Pary Snacks, by María Del Mar Sacasa.  I guess I'll just have to do more planning over morning coffee :-)

I've always wanted to do more seasonal mixology.  This tends to be much easier in the summer months.  Tipples like Margaritas, Moscow Mules, Pimm's Cups, Caipirinhas, Corpse Revivers clearly refresh.  But what warms and cozies during the frigid winter months?  Most cocktail books don't organize themselves seasonally.  So winter sippers like hot toddies and mulls aren't typically included.  But I'm very excited to delve into the latest addition to the bar literature! 

Last week we did a traditional hot toddy after a walk on a raw, lakeside New Jersey day.  So, why not stick with tradition on a freezing, rainy day, here in Chicago?  Stay tuned...

Hot Toddy-Or, The Siblinghood of the Traveling Mug

"After a strenuous six months of travel all over these great and glorious United States, I've finally returned home.  And what perfect way to celebrate that homecoming than with a walk to the end of the lake on a damp winter's day and a hot toddy?  Traditional?  Yes.  Easy?  You bet.  But then again, what should the holidays be?  Especially when sipping with family!"

(This post goes out to The Dilettante's sister, C. of One Kiss Creations fame!  *SMOOCHES!*)

Hot Toddy

2 T. honey

1 c. hot water

6 T. bourbon

2 cinnamon sticks

Bring water just to a boil.  Mix with the honey.  Place 3 tablespoons of bourbon and a cinnamon stick in two toddy glasses (or in this case, a traveling mug and another of wintry spirit) and pour half the hot water and honey mixture in each.  Stir and garnish with a strip of lemon peel.  If you'd like a bit more lemon zing, squeeze just a couple drops from the lemon.

Enjoy one or two with someone you love -- and who needs their cockles warmed! 

Drinking Chocolate

Drinking chocolate- spiked or not,
the perfect sippable winter dessert

It's been a busy week in the run-up to Christmas.  While our annual Solstice celebration was pared
down to just a few family and friends, there was a lot of cooking and baking to do.  So no cocktails Friday night.  Yet the Dilettante needs to post something during the fragile opening stages of a return from hiatus.

At this time of year we always tend to think big when it comes to desserts.  Cakes, cookies, pies, and brownies are all just delivery vehicles for over the top gooey, creamy, buttery, sugary.   And I'll admit, I was no exception to this extravagance.  In 6 desserts on the buffet I used 1 1/2 gallons of whole milk, a gallon of heavy cream, 2 pounds of butter, about 2 pounds of sugar, and 2 dozen eggs.  My lord.  Double your Crestor dosage.

But here's an idea.  Instead -- or in addition to fewer of the gooey, creamy, etc.-- why not make dessert drinkable?

As part of the solstice dessert buffet, I included a pot of drinking chocolate along with decanters of cognac and Irish whiskey.  Revelers had a choice of straight chocolate or to spike it according to their tastes.  Simple.  Elegant.  Classy.

Happy solstice, everyone!  There will be one more minute of daylight Monday!  Long live the Oak King!

Drinking Chocolate*
1 vanilla bean
4 1/2 c. milk
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
2 T. sugar


Slit the vanilla bean lengthwise, put in a saucepan with the milk and bring to a boil.  Course-chop the chocolate into small pieces and put in another saucepan with some of the warm milk to melt.  Remove the bean and scrape the vanilla seeds that are left in the pod with the tip of a knife and add back to the milk.  Stir the chocolate mixture into the hot milk along with the sugar.

At this point you could serve it as is.  But if you want a super silky drink, strain it once or twice.  Drinking chocolate is not very sweet, but it is rich with intense cocoa flavor.

Serve in shooter glasses as is or with cognac to make Russian drinking chocolate or with Irish whiskey for Irish drinking chocolate.

*: Recipe courtesy of The Chocolate Bible, by Christian Teubner, et al.

Coffey Park Swizzle

The pic captures my mood this season.
Ambivalent and washed out when it comes to the holidays.
But the Coffey Park Swizzle is a bright spot of warmth and color.

The Holidays.  Or, the Holla-daze.  I'm finding myself a bit ambivalent about the season of light and gifting now that Thanksgiving is over.  So, I thought a cocktail that tasted like a North American Christmas would help me rally.  Isn't it funny how the flavors of a northern winter are downright Caribbean?  All those warm spices like nutmeg and clove and allspice and ginger.  I don't know whether I want to build an edible house, bake cookies shaped like amorphous little men, or make jerk chicken.

The Dilettante sat down with Death & Co. over morning coffee to cruise the text looking for just the right sipper to suit the mood.  (At this point I'm feeling the need to reassure that even though he was looking at a mixology text while enjoying his morning cuppa, the Dilettante does not have a problem.  Well, let's qualify that.  The Dilettante does not have a problem with booze.  Several other categories are up for grabs!)  Leafing through the pages I came across a whole section of swizzles.  Interesting, but not necessarily what one thinks about as a winter beverage since swizzles are typically served in pilsners filled with crushed ice.  Think adult snow cone.  That's summer rooftop, right?  But then Coffey Park Swizzle caught my eye and the taste buds began to imagine.  This could be just the cocktail to jump start my mood for the winter season.  But first I needed to do some shopping and then just a bit of advance prep before Happy Hour!

Such an interesting mix of ingredients -- both familiar and new.  Even as we were taking our first sip, I really didn't know if this was gonna play out.  All the ingredients -- sherry (recalling that classic short story, "The Cask of Amontillado"), French Caribbean rum, lime juice, ginger syrup, the exotic new Falernum, bitters -- each on its own was so good.  But mixed incorrectly, this could easily wind up being a tall cold glass of soap.

There is a lot to sort out in that first sip.  The words "interesting" and "I don't know" immediately followed it.  The Partner and I stood in front of the tree, warily eyeing each other.  We couldn't even sit down, locked in place by that first sip, impish smirks on our faces as we processed what our taste buds were telling us.  I wanted to like it, so, the next sip.  Processing.  By the third, we knew we had a winner.  Cold, wintery, refreshing and spicy.  A little ginger syrup goes a long way.  So much so that our lips were still tingling in the cab on the way to dinner after only one round.  And one round is really all an imbiber should attempt.  A tall, cold aperitif that morphs as the crushed ice melts and nuances the drink's complexity.  In fact, the Coffey Park Swizzle put us very much in mind of the Bourbon Squash which has become one of our summer go-tos.  So summer swizzle, winter swizzle. Coffey Park could be the featured cocktail on the bar until spring.

Coffey Park Swizzle
1 oz. rhum*
1 oz. sherry
1/4 oz. Falernum
3/4 oz. lime juice
3/4 oz. ginger syrup
3 dashes Angostura bitters

Mix the first 5 ingredients in a shaker with only a few pieces of crushed ice and shake just until cool.  Strain into a pilsner filled with crushed ice and swizzle**.  Add the bitters and blend it down through the drink, swizzling and stirring to do so.  Garnish with mint sprig.



*: Rhum or rhum agricole is the French Antilles version of rum, made from cane sugar as opposed to cane molasses.  If you can't find the former, feel confident substituting the latter.

**: The verb swizzle means to stir by spinning a stirring stick between both hands while drawing it up and down in the glass.  The noun swizzle or swizzle stick is not what we think of today as a stir stick.  It's more like a muddler with a set of short spines coming perpendicularly off the bottom.  So when it spins it creates a bit of a vortex to mix.  A regular stir stick will not do this effectively.  If you can't find a swizzle stick, you can get the job done pretty well with a long bar spoon.

New Book Haul

Lillet rouge, Falernum, rhum agricole, ginger syrup,
  and a new strainer, just cuz.

I love getting a new cocktail book.  There's always something in it that's new to me.  New information, new history, or a new spirit -- which means a field trip to Binny's!  Here's a little preview of today's haul and anticipation of the evening's cocktail.

I took advantage of seeing rhum agricole mentioned more than a few times in Death & Co. to pick some up.  It's not part of tonight's cocktail, but now it's on the bar.  Just from the French, I've been assuming it's a more, shall we say, "rustic" version of rum.  In fact, it's rum made from cane juice instead of molasses -- the way they do it in les Antilles (ou, the French West Indies).

I finally picked up some Lillet rouge.  If you're a fan of the Corpse Reviver #2 or the Vesper, then you're already familiar with the blanc variety.  Not in the specs tonight, but can't wait to give it a whirl too!

Falernum will be in tonight's tipple.  It's an Caribbean liqueur infused with island spices.  The ingredients include lime juice, sugar, almond and clove essences and white rum.  Tonight's cocktail also calls for ginger syrup, so I whipped up a batch this afternoon.  This is going to be my new favorite thing on the bar, however it will need to be used sparingly.  It is smoooooth, but spi-cy!  I have a sneaking suspicion The Partner might not take to this.  It is hot.

On to the mixin' 'n' shakin'!

Ginger Syrup

The hardest part of making this amazing syrup is grating the ginger by hand.  I suppose it could be done in a food processor too and it wouldn't be such a workout (note to self!).

Here's how:

1. Finely grate about 16-24 oz. of fresh ginger root.
2. Wrap the grated root in cheese cloth or a clean kitchen towel and squeeze all the juice out of it.  Strain it 2-3 times to get all the little root and peel bits out.
3. Place 1 cup super fine sugar* in a blender with 1/2 cup of the ginger juice.
4. Run the blender until all the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is smooth** (about 2 minutes)

Makes about 1.5 cups.

*: Super fine sugar is not confectioners sugar.  It's finely ground sugar -- the kind we all buy by the 5 lb. bag.  If you can't find it in the store, just throw some regular sugar in a food processor and let it spin for about 2-3 minutes.  Voilá!  Super fine sugar.

**: Taste gingerly (***groan***...but I had ta!) for smoothness.  It'll be sweet, but hot!

Death & Co. Double Fill-Up

Ahhh...Here's to homecomings.  It's good to be back and getting into a cocktail groove again.  Something to look forward to in the cold, dark months ahead as winter takes hold of Chicagoland.  Thanks to all who have provided feedback and encouragement during the Dilettante's hiatus.  It's so affirming to hear that people read the blog and have missed it while dormant.

So, why the return now?  Last week, The Partner and I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time.  My folks -- the consummate road-trippers -- drove in from NJ with dear family friends to spend the week with us.  (The Partner's folks were here and it was great stuffing them full of food and drink too; though their road trip was just from the suburbs :-)  As thank you/host gifts, my folks brought two great books.  One is the spark of inspiration to reboot our exploratory cocktailing and blogging.  It's a gorgeous book from the famous NYC bar, Death & Co.  I'm going to enjoy reading it as well as mixing from it.

Friday is, of course, Date Nite.  I chose our pre-dinner tipple as an homage to the gift givers.  Nothing would please dad more than if he never had to stop for gas when on the road.  A double gas tank?  Heaven.  So, Double Fill-Up caught my eye and seemed an appropriate choice.  Reading the ingredients list, I recalled a conversation in the kitchen with mom on Thanksgiving Day.  While I was preparing something she was reading over the recipe for one of the sides I made.

"Pomegranate molasses?  I've never heard of such a thing!"  So again, Double Fill-Up seemed the right choice for our first sip from the new book they gave us.

What good luck to pick a new bev for the Dilettante's return that goes right into Drink it Again, Sam.  Not only does it look like a nice apple cider, it rather tastes like one too.  It's very much about the play between the lemon juice and molasses that gets it there.

Now, what you've all been waiting for, The Partner's reaction:

"Oh.  OOOOH!" as he responded to the initial refreshing tartness and then the slightest teasing sweetness in the finish.  "This is good!  This is really good!"  Three sips later, "I'd do this one again!"  He would repeat this refrain two more times on our way to dinner.  And as you know, if The Partner has a second, it's a good drink and not too citrusy.

So there you have it.  The "inaugural reboot post".  Google pomegranate molasses and find a store near you that carries it.  Not only is it good in a cocktail, it's great in stews and salad dressings, so it will get used.  Bottoms up! 

Double Fill-Up
2 oz. good quality rye
3/4 oz. simple syrup
3/4 oz. lemon juice
1 tsp. pomegranate molasses
3 mint leaves

Shake all ingredients over ice and double strain into a chilled coupe.  Garnish with a mint leaf.

Is this thing on...?

...puh-puh-puh...

huh--
--hullo?

puh-puh-puh...
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeng--

puh-puh...

hello?
Is this thing on?

Uuh...OH!  It is!  Ok, here we go...

So, let me just get in here...and dust...this...thing...off....  There.  All.  Right.

"Dude!  What's up with the blog?!"

"Are you doing the blog anymore?  I know I never commented, but I read every post.  I miss it!"

"My RSS feed has been empty for over a year.  It's lonely.  I looked forward to my weekly cocktail read."

Well, there's new inspiration just arrived.  Stay tuned.  There will be something freshly shaken, poured, toasted & posted before the weekend is out!

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.

Sloe Gin Fizz or The Cure for US Health Care

Hello, Dilettante Friends! Long time no see.  Happy Fourth to you!  Life’s been busy the last four months, but not without it’s cocktails, despite what the dearth of entries might suggest!

So right to it, shall we?  

After years of wondering exactly what it was, I purchased a bottle of sloe gin about 3 months ago which promptly got shoved to the back of the bar, forgotten and unopened.  It got pulled out at last weekend’s Pride celebration and once again became a priority.  Wow.  Sounds just like the on-again, off-again health care deform reform in this country.  But I’m getting ahead of myself...

First, though, check out that awesome single block of ice in The Partner’s Manhattan. (Prepared with orange bitters this time around.  He seems to prefer that these days.  I know, right?  As you regulars will know, this is unexpected considering his constant whinging about classic cocktails being too citrusy and acidic.  **sigh**  Though I will admit, they do brighten the bev up a bit.)  For my birthday, The Partner’s parents contributed to the bar with a set of ice cube forms that yield these fantastic blocks of ice.  Coincidentally, they didn’t even know how much we covet the look, sound, cooling power, and overall effect of these when we go to trendy, hipster, shee-shee-la-la bars.

For mini-Date Nite, on a damp, foggy, July 3rd, we closed up shop a little early.  Never having had sloe gin before, I tried a sip of it straight.  The Partner winced.  Apparently, sloe gin figured into his days as a frat boy.  Wishing me well he took his Manhattan and several steps back, waiting for me to finish making my fizz.  The brand I have is Plymouth.  Click the link above and read the description of the taste.  Mmm-hmm.  Right.  Let’s just say it’s more akin to watered down cherry cough syrup from when we were kids and call it a day.

That said, I was a bit apprehensive on the first sip of fizz.  But to tell the truth, it was quite delightful and refreshing.  The lemon, gin and seltzer cut the medicinal sweetness of the sloe gin to nice effect. Had the weather been a bit less October in London and a bit more July in Chicago, I could have had multiple rounds of these.  The Partner even ventured a cautious sip...which turned into four:  “...[sip]...Hunh...[sip]...Oh wow...[sip]...This is a lot different than what we drank in college...[sip]...Sure beats drinking it straight outta a bota bag!”  

Good lord.

So I’ve read in my hometown rag that the administration might be postponing parts of the health care “reform” bill.  Possibly, in part, in order to get Dems through the mid-terms before elements of the bill go into effect.  Naturally, Republicans are making hay out of this, even though they’ve been fighting the bill tooth and nail for the past 5 years.  I say, hey, what’s the rush?  Politicians have enjoyed very comfortable health care benefits for decades.  So they’re good.  And We The People’ve gone 237 years without a comparable safety net.  What’s another two?  We’re hardier stuff anyway.  In the meantime, if we get sick and we’re under-age, unemployed, not employed, self-employed or our employer hovers around the cusp of 50+ employees and is tarrying about providing insurance, we always have sloe gin.  Straight.  For that cherry-flavored cough syrup experience of our childhood.  Or Jäger.  Or Pernod.  Or slivovitz.  Or...

Sloe Gin Fizz

1 oz. sloe gin

1 oz. gin

1/4 oz. lemon juice

1/4 oz. simple syrup

Shake ingredients with ice.  Decant into a fizz glass with ice and top with club soda.  No garnish.

Dedicated to Congress - The Blarney

Now that Congress has to get home
we all can fly the friendly skies again...

It's been a few weeks since the last post.  Coincidentally, since then, The Partner and I had the pleasure to travel via our nation's airways.  On the outbound trip our original flight was cancelled.  Then our new flight was delayed 6 hours before we finally pulled the ripcord and decided to try the next available flight to our destination -- 36 hours later.  Granted, those delays were due to all the rains and flooding hitting Chicagoland.  On the way back, we just barely missed the first wave of delays brought on by sequester-induced furloughs at the FAA.

As the week wore on, people were getting fed up.  Pilots were directly telling passengers that if they're upset they should call Congress.  Then this morning, in the face of outraged business travelers and the airlines' CEO's, and their own recess & need to travel themselves, lo' and behold, Congress was able, somehow, to pass a law allowing the FAA to use hundreds of millions of dollars to pay air traffic controllers, end the furloughs and keep America flying.  And in a bill that was barely four pages long.

So today's cocktail is the Blarney - a cocktail from the old H & M bible and dedicated to Congress and all its bullshit.  Delightfully smooth, peaty, smokey, it's amazing what a few ingredients can do...rather like Congress when they put their collective minds to serving their own self-interests.  A good sipper for back room politicking, boardroom wheeling & dealing, or  Red Carpet or Admirals Club fuming as you wait or reschedule your flight home.  

The Blarney
2 oz. Irish whiskey
1 oz. sweet vermouth

Shake over ice and serve in a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a maraschino.

NRA Shooter

As if it were possible to have anyone crazier than Moses as the face of the NRA, meet Wayne LaPierre.  In the wake of the Newtown tragedy, he's gone unabashedly nuts.  From "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." to the call for putting an armed cop in every school, the man and the lobby have no sense of propriety or respect for what we all lost that day.  His lap dog, Asa Hutchinson is hardly better, pushing the school program in Congress at a price tag of $2 billion.  (Can you imagine what that would do going to the schools for programs and teacher training?)

So today's original bev is the NRA Shooter.  This was a challenge to craft since as a shot it needs to be sweet enough to go down easy.  But we don't like cloying shots (sorry Intoxicator!).  So I wanted it to have some kind of sour or bitter effect too.  Just like the NRA!  The Partner describes it: "It starts off without much effect, then goes to sour, then finishes like a mouthful of Smarties."

Without putting too fine a point on it, no matter what, it was going to be a red shot.  Get it? 

NRA Shooter

2 oz. gin

1 oz. strawberry cachaca

1/2 oz. grenadine

3 deep-cut strips of lemon zest

grapefruit bitters

Muddle the lemon zest in a bar glass with the bitters and a dash of gin.  When the zest is fragrant, add the  rest of the ingredients and shake over ice.  Pour into shot glasses. 

Makes 4 shots. 

The Amigo, or the Rand Paul

Tea Partier Rand Paul has come out of the closet on immigration reform! But looking at his effusive remarks in this Washington Post article about how he "lived, worked, played and grew up alongside Latinos" working shoulder-to-shoulder as a teenager "alongside immigrants mowing lawns and putting in landscaping around businesses," one could hardly be surprised at this sudden coming out. Ay Guero! He's practically an immigrant himself! This might be Rand's own "Ich bin ein berliner!" moment, save it being more like Soy un inmigrante!  But hey, this makes total sense.  With more above-board taxpayers it's easier for radical Tea Partiers to hold their hardline ideological stances on taxes. 

This week's homemade concoction is The Amigo, or the Rand Paul, made completely with ingredients from south of both the Mason Dixon & the Gadsden Purchase. It's gonna sound a bit shocking, but oddly enough the mix of silver tequila & some honey bourbon kinda works. Thank goodness. After all, it wouldn't be a true homage to Rand Paul without Kentucky's native spirit.  That said, the effect of the drink as you sip is much the same as the Tea Party itself.  On the surface, it sounds good.  The initial pulls are palatable enough.  Still, like the Tea Party, there's something that doesn't sit quite right the more time you spend with it.  And like US immigration policy, with some minor tweaking, it could be quite good.

The Amigo, or the Rand Paul
2 oz. silver tequila*

1 oz. honey bourbon

1/2 bar spoonful agave nectar

4-8 dashes grapefruit bitters

1 good squeeze of fresh lime juice

Fill a bar glass with lots ice.  Add the ingredients and stir well with a bar spoon.  Adjust the lime juice to taste.

*:  I imagine the use of añejo might make for a smoother tipple.  But the silver adds a smokey touch and keeps the hue of the beverage from looking too mestizaje.

Corpse Reviver #3, or the Marco Rubio

I’ve been getting bored lately with posting mere reviews of new beverages and quips from The Partner (hysterical as they are).  But recently, I had a brainflash. Let’s give it some time and see how it works. Here's the story of my brainflash. 

There is so much in the media that makes me sad or angry lately that this NPRoholic can't even listen to super-high quality news shows like Morning Edition or All Things Considered anymore.  And don't get me started on The Partner's fave: Today.  At least in the former it's the news that disturbs.  In the latter it's the cast that makes me apoplectic.  (Yes, cast.  I will not besmirch the Fourth Estate by suggesting that biased Matt; bland, insipid Female Sidekick; bland, insipid Female News Reader, or clownish Al are even remotely related to professional journalists. But I digress...somewhat.)  Then there's "reality" TV.  Talk about man's inanity to man.  If we take these shows as a reflection of society, then as a nation we must be a bunch of developmentally stunted adolescents who can't get enough of the trumped up drah-mah more characteristic of middle school classrooms and high school drama clubs.  I'm digressing again. But bear with me. It's all about to come together here.

So The Partner and I were catching up on our TiVo queue and I felt like getting mixologically experimental.  I looked at the bar and saw two lone Florida oranges about to skip past their expiration dates.  I also had a sudden jones for something akin to a lemonade.  Then it occurred to me.  I'll riff on the Corpse Reviver! I whipped one up with fresh OJ and found it worth repeating.  (Look here to learn more about the Corpse Reviver and here for the Corpse Reviver #2.)

As we sipped, a news tease featuring Marco Rubio and his filibustering ass zipped by as we fast forwarded through a commercial block.  If you’ve paid any attention to the news over the past couple weeks, the message (for now) is clear:  Marco Rubio is the savior of the Republican party!  In fact, just try Googling “Marco Rubio savior”.  In a mere .27 seconds you’ll get about 58,000 results.  Scoffing at the TV, I took a sip and it hit me.  The media, and probably even Marco himself, see him as the reviver of the Republican party corpse.  And thus the latest incarnation of Dilettante is conceived.  Cocktailing as social commentary!

So here’s the first such entry:  The Corpse Reviver #3, or the Marco Rubio.  During the late 19^th early 20^th Centuries, revivers were hair of the dog bevs after excesses of the night before.  After the excesses of the party of frightened, angry, old, straight, white men-in-denial, the media and the party are hanging all their hopes on Rubio.  He’s young, Hispanic, telegenic, from Florida.  What do you know?  Everything Tea Partiers and the rest of the party have been saying is true.  The Republican party really is a big tent!  I love it when they point to one or two people going against type and call it proof of their rhetoric. 

But more importantly, as I sipped I was thankful, thankful that God sent us Marco.  See, recently I haven’t been sleeping very much out of fear that a drone might come crashing through the window of our Chicago condo and take us out.  But now I can sleep at night, feeling safe that my president and his justice department have promised not to dispatch us from a distance in the middle of the night.  Phew!  Marco, despite your tweeted protestations:  

There is only one savior, and it is not me. #Jesus
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 7, 2013

...you are my savior! 



Corpse Reviver #3 or the Marco Rubio
equal parts:
gin
Cointreau
Lillet Blanc
orange juice

Shake over ice and pour into (an Absinthe-rinsed, if you must) coupe.  No garnish.

Gone Fishin'

A hectic weekend with social events, family obligations, and prepping for a crazed week ahead of  12- to 15-hour days Monday-Friday.  So we're taking a week off from creative cocktailing & blogging.  Instead, it's coasting with easy-breezy martinis & manhattans at our favorite sushi joint.  (Remind me sometime to tell you about a friend's $200 bowl of noodles!)

Have a good week, everyone!

Smoky Grove

PDT Interview

Personal preferences: Something new & warming
Style of drink: cocktail
Spirit of choice: whiskey, bourbon, brandy
Last drink: Siesta

Despite the fact that I've stumbled upon the tactic of letting The Partner select the tip, I thought I'd do a little reconnaissance earlier in the day. I was gonna run it past him, but ... nah.

While I was prepping, he snuck a peak over my shoulder at the Smoky Grove, "Hmmm...interesting." Still, I think it's something he'll like.

Made with a single malt scotch, this bev comes by it's name honestly. It's a mouthful of smoky peat. The charred orange twist only adds to the effect. It's not unpleasant, but it is powerful. At first one might expect it to be rough, but despite the smokiness, it's nice and smooth with notes of vanilla & orange (so The Partner detected). Just like one ought to do with a good scotch, this is a sipper, maybe one or two before dinner, no more. The rave of the night? The Partner: "This is good. I could have a couple of these. It's my kind of drink: not overly citrusy or acidic. Nice and smooth & smoky. I like it."

Validation. Date Nite can proceed.


Smoky Grove

2 oz. single malt scotch whisky
1/2 oz. sweet vermouth
1/2 oz. dry vermouth
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters

Stir ingredients in a mixing glass over ice. Serve in a chilled coupe. Garnish with a flamed orange twist.