I wrote a cocktail menu and it turned out pretty well.

In December 2011, I was asked by my brother-in-law and his fiancée to write a cocktail menu for their wedding. Their wedding was this past weekend and I’m pleased to say it turned out pretty well.

The lovely couple wanted classic cocktails that were whiskey or vodka based. The idea was that not everyone wanted whiskey and many people enjoy vodka. I convinced them to add gin as there aren’t so many classic vodka cocktails and if someone wanted a vodka “martini,” the ingredients would be there for that. Further discussion led to the inclusion of sparkling drinks as well.

The drinks also had to be easy to make as the catering staff wouldn’t be craft bartenders. An informal survey of friends found that people generally don’t trust wedding bartenders to make a good cocktail. Guests tend drink straight spirits, highballs (gin and tonics, whiskey and ginger ale, etc.) or opt for beer or wine. One friend’s response was, “Never a Manhattan, as it will not be good enough.” Feel free to leave a comment of what you drink at weddings or in other open bar situations.

I set out to curate of a list of simple (or at least hard to screw up) whiskey, gin or sparkling wine based cocktails with no more than three or four ingredients. After scouring a dozen cocktail books and at least as many websites and extensive recipe testing, I narrowed it down to a dozen or so drinks of which the bride and groom selected eight. My final list:

The French 75 was requested by the bride. The Maple Leaf was also a request by the bride and groom as it was the drink they had enjoyed throughout the previous year. The Bridal was a late addition found in Robert Hess’ The Essential Bartender’s Guide, which I had received for my birthday a few weeks before the wedding. The Collins and Gimlet were the ways to get vodka into the menu. (The Moscow Mule was not chosen as I was trying to limit the number of juices needed.)

Of course you can’t just write a menu, you have to write out instructions for the caterers. This is easier said than done. Do you have any idea how many recipes exist for the French 75? I found that no two were the same. Ultimately, I modified the best one I found from Jim Meehan’s wonderful The PDT Cocktail Book: The Complete Bartender’s Guide from the Celebrated Speakeasy. (While that recipe is my favorite, I thought it might look a bit small in a Champagne flute so I added another ounce of bubbly which still tasted decent.) Also, not knowing exactly which brands of spirits or mixers would be on hand, I couldn’t tailor the recipes to particular flavor profiles.

If you’re interested, here are the drink recipes as a pdf.

Once I had sent the menu and recipes to my brother-in-law, it was out of my hands.
Here’s what went wrong:

• The bartenders did not measure. Everything was eyeballed.
• Shaking and stirring appeared to be pretty much the same thing to the bartenders: gently swirling the drink in a shaker with ice.
• None of the drinks were served on the rocks.
• The Maraschino liqueur was for a time misplaced, which led the bartenders to use the red goo from the jar of Maraschino cherries, WHICH IS NOT THE SAME. After hearing a couple people (including my wife) note that the Bridal was too sweet and tasted a little funny, I sought out the bottle and remedied this.

While this may sound like a list of crimes, everything turned out fine and I was probably the only one to notice. I heard the next day that a few people attempted to try them all, which is sweet, but ill-advised. Everyone was happy with their drinks, particularly the bride and groom. And that’s the point.

I drink Fernet.

Old Fashioned 101

There is no slice of orange in an Old Fashioned.
There is no cherry in an Old Fashioned.
You do not mash up fruit of any kind in an Old Fashioned.
There is no seltzer, soda water, ginger ale, or lemon soda in an Old Fashioned.
There is no vermouth of any kind in an Old Fashioned.
There is no beer in an Old Fashioned.
There is no lemon juice, lime juice, orange juice or sour mix in an Old Fashioned.
There are no frothing agents in an Old Fashioned.
You do not shake an Old Fashioned.

via Old Fashioned 101.

Fernet Fascination 2: Fernet and White Dog

There are a dearth of cocktails containing Fernet-Branca. How do I know this? My previous Fernet post is far and away the most popular post I’ve written; at the time of this writing it has 3,829 views while the homepage has 2,226. As such, I feel it behooves me to create some more.

A search on CocktailDB yields 28 results. The easiest entry point for the uninitiated is the Fanciulli (sometimes Franciulli) cocktail. Essentially a Manhattan with Fernet in place of the Angostura bitters, I find myself making this more often than the traditional Manhattan. (My Fanciulli recipe is 2oz rye, 1oz sweet vermouth, 1/4oz Fernet.)

Looking through the rest of CocktailDB’s Fernet cocktail listings, I notice that many of them consist of spirit, sweet vermouth and Fernet. As Fernet is a bit of a bully, I sought to find an spirit that could stand up to it. The answer is unaged white whiskey, aka white dog. With it’s bold flavor, the white dog isn’t overwhelmed and definitely holds its own.

Dog Will Hunt
1.5 oz white dog (House Spirits)
.5 oz Fernet-Branca
.5 oz sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
1 bar spoon 2:1 rich Demerara syrup
Stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with orange peel. 

I should note that the white dog I used is 100 proof. If you use a lower proof whiskey, like Woodinville Headlong or Death’s Door, increase to 2oz. Also white dogs vary widely in flavor, perhaps more so than aged whiskeys which are mellowed by the wood. The House Spirits white dog is 100% barley, thus its flavor is unique among unaged whiskeys.

Happy Holidays!

For Christmas Eve I’m making up a batch of what I think is one of the best fireside drinks, the Star Cocktail. I take a couple liberties with my variation, but it’s what tastes best to me and delightfully simple.

Star Cocktail
1.5 oz applejack (Laird’s)
1.5 oz sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
1.5 dashes each Angostura & Peychaud’s bitters
Stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with lemon peel. 

You’re probably thinking, “How do I get 1.5 dashes of bitters?” You make two cocktails at once and double all of the quantities. The original recipe calls for 3 dashes of Angostura or Peychaud’s, but I see no reason not to use both; the spices in the bitters add to that fireside feeling. I’ve also tried this with Laird’s bonded apple brandy and syrup and found it lacking. Somehow the applejack with its neutral spirits makes this drink better.

However you decide to make it, or whatever you are having, happy holidays to you and yours.

Rattan Cocktail & Last Gasp

I can’t overemphasize my love for Cocchi Americano. Regardless of appropriateness, it’s one the first ingredients I reach for when I’m creating new cocktails and variations. Here, I’ve tinkered with two of the most iconic cocktails, the Manhattan and Martini/Martinez. I’ve got them all Cocchi-ed up and also fancied or improved (I can never remember which is which) with some pastis.

The whiskey variation is almost a cross between a Manhattan and a Sazerac. Actually, the most similar thing I could find at CocktailDB was the Satan Cocktail. Garble those three names together enough and you kind of get the…

Rattan Cocktail
2oz rye (Bulleit)
1oz Cocchi Americano
dash Angostura bitters
dash Peychaud’s bitters
absinthe or pastis (Legendre Herbsaint)
Stir rye, Cocchi and bitters with ice, strain into a chilled, absinthe/pastis rinsed cocktail glass and garnish with lemon peel.

Switching the rye for gin, the Angostura for orange bitters and the lemon peel for orange peel gets you the…

Last Gasp
2oz London dry gin (Beefeater)
1oz Cocchi Americano
dash Regan’s #6 orange bitters
dash Peychaud’s bitters
absinthe or pastis (Legendre Herbsaint)
Stir gin, Cocchi and bitters with ice, strain into a chilled, absinthe/pastis rinsed cocktail glass and garnish with orange peel.

To find out why this one is so named, inhale sharply through your mouth after swallowing a sip.

Don’t cry. Dry your eye.

Bulleit makes a rye whiskey now. That’s good news. We like rye. Bulleit bourbon has one of the highest rye contents of any bourbon (28%) and in a pinch, it’s a decent rye substitute. But now there’s Bulleit rye. With rye making up 95% of the mash bill, you won’t confuse it with bourbon.

I’d been toying with a cocktail that was somewhere between the El Presidente and a Sazerac. It wasn’t coming out right. The Missus and I concluded that the problem was that we were using a relatively weak 80-proof rye. Say hello to Bulleit rye and quit yer cryin’.

No More Tears
1.5 oz rye (Bulleit)
.75 oz dry vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
.25 oz triple sec (Royal Combier)
.5 tsp absinthe or pastis (Legendre Herbsaint)
Stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with orange peel. 

The combination of the pastis and dry vermouth make this is a very dry cocktail.