Saturn

Foxbat's Secret Lair

My garnish ring is more of a half circle.

I spent some time this week with Smuggler's Cove; Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki and Trader Vic's Book of Food and Drink (1946) identifying some possible drinks to put on the menu for this month's Tiki Thursday. One interesting non-rum cocktail was the Saturn, so I thought I'd give it a try this afternoon.

Man, this one is dangerous! Passion fruit on the sip, with the falernum and orgeat coming out a bit after that and lemon with more passion fruit on the finish. I'm not tasting the gin at all in here (and I'm using a pretty powerful gin, with Martin Miller's Westbourne Strength); these things would sneak up on you and club you over the head if you weren't careful! I might screw around a bit by cutting back the passion fruit syrup a bit and upping the velvet falernum to see what that does (who am I to meddle with the Master's recipe though?) but I like it the way it is, a fruit-forward cocktail.

This drink tells me that I really gotta up my garnish game though. My "long" lemon peel spiral is pretty short, making for some sub-standard rings around Saturn, to be sure. Still, it's better than some of the long, narrow peels I've tried in the past. It's time to scour the YouTube to find some good videos on the subject, I guess.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 oz. London Dry Gin
  • 1/4 oz Velvet Falernum
  • 3/4 oz. Lemon Juice
  • 1/2 oz Passion Fruit Syrup
  • 1/4 oz Orgeat

Directions

  1. Combine ingredients in a shaker, add some ice, and shake for about 15 seconds
  2. Double-Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe.
  3. Garnish with a long, thin lemon peel, wrapped into rings and laid on the top of the drink.
  4. Wonder if Saturn would taste this good.

Experiment: Cucumber Martini

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It's the gin that gives it that dark color

I had some left over cucumber juice from my Professoressa Montenegro the other night and I want to find something that used it before it went bad. I didn't have any other recipes on tap that called for the juice, so it was time to try to cobble something together. Gin and cucumber always seem to go pretty well together, so I thought I might go with something that combined those two. It was pretty easy to keep it simple and go with some type of martini variation.

Initially, I tried just going with gin and about a half ounce of cucumber juice. The gin, especially this St. George Reposado Dry Rye Gin (lovely stuff, by the way), simply overwhelmed the juice. So I doubled up on it and got closer, but it was too cucumbery and a bit too bitter. To bring it back more towards the martini, I mixed in a half ounce of Dolin Dry Vermouth and that was much more pleasing. I threw in a dash of my Cilantro-Lime bitters to give it a bit more characters, stirred it with some ice and strained it into a cocktail coupe.

The result is something with the gin upfront and a definite cucumber feel on the back. The vermouth mellows it out a bit and I'm not sure I'm really getting the bitters at all. Next time, I'll probably try a more herbal (but robust) gin, cut the juice back to 3/4 oz and throw in another dash or two of the bitters. Still, I'm calling this one a qualified success.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • 2 oz. botanical-forward Gin
  • 1 oz fresh Cucumber Juice
  • 1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
  • 1 dash Cilantro-Lime Bitters (homemade)

Directions

  1. Combine ingredients in a mixing glass, add some ice, and stir for about 15 seconds
  2. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe.
  3. Garnish with a slice of cucumber (I was too lazy to do this tonight) and maybe a little fresh cilantro.

As previously described, to make fresh cucumber juice, peel a cucumber, slice off and discard the ends, cut it into pieces and puree it in a food processor or blender. Strain it through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl, using a spatula to press on the pulp to extract all of the juice. 1 cucumber makes a few ounce of juice, which will last a week in the fridge.

Pooh Bah

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...or the mystery of the missing Cognac. Tonight's cocktail was going to be a Shylock, a tasty-looking combination of brandy, vermouth, Crème de Caco, Torani Amer, and Swedish Punsch. I was especially looking forward to messing about the the Swedish Punsch in a cocktail. However, as I assembled the bottles for the cocktail, I could not find my bottle of Cognac! I remember buying it but could not find it. Strange.

So tonight's drink became the Pooh Bah. This one still used the Swedish Punsch I wanted to play with, but change out the brandy for gin and rum. Always a great combo! Rich and a little orange on the taste, you get a hit of the rum and gin as it develop in your mouth. NIce, but maybe it could use a splash of orange juice to bring out a bit more citrus.

Pretty nice for a cocktail call-up.

Pretty nice for a cocktail call-up.

It's definitely an tasty drink and one that's a bit on the sweet side (but not overwhelmingly so.)  This one is worth revisiting at some point. However, so many recipes and so little time... we'll see when I get back to it.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 oz. Jamaican Rum
  • 1 oz Dry London Gin
  • 3/4 oz Swedish Punsch
  • 1/4 oz Apricot Brandy

Directions

  1. Combine ingredients in a mixing glass.
  2. Add ice and stir to chill
  3. Strain into a cocktail coupe
  4. Express an orange peel over it. Use it as a garnish if you'd like.
  5. Sip while researching the history of Swedish Punsch -- it's fun stuff! 

Petruchio Cocktail

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...or more fun with egg whites!

Hot on the heels of my failed experiment, I went back to the egg white recipes because I wanted to give it another try. Plus I wanted to try a stencil for bitters on a cocktail and you really need a good egg white topper for that. I supposed you could do it with a cream float as well, but I don't have any heavy cream, so egg whites it was.

This one was a success. The egg whites are light, fluffy, and had a nice float on top of the drink. My secret? I pulled out the immersion blender and used that in place of the dry shake. It did the job in a few seconds, with no mess and much less wear-and-tear on my arms. It felt a little industrial-strength for the job, though. Next time, I'll try a milk frother to see if I get the same kind of results with less wattage.

I like the way this one looks.

While the idea of making a pretty picture in bitters seems like a good one, it didn't work out in practice. The Regans' Orange Bitters No. 6 aren't really dark enough to show up against the Aperol-colored egg white. This probably led me to over-bittering the drink, but that works for me!

This one is smooth and orangey and a bit sweet, with a nice touch of bitterness to it. I'd be interested in swapping the Aperol out for Campari or Gran Classico to see what it does to the flavor. I might also try a contrasting bitters next time; something more aromatic would bring some interesting notes.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 oz. Gin
  • 1 oz. Aperol
  • 1/2 oz. Lemon Juice
  • 1/4 oz. Simple Syrup
  • 2 dash Orange Bitters
  • 1 Egg White

Directions

  1. Combine all of the ingredients in a shaker tin. Shake the crap out of it for 1 minute or two, keeping in mind that the volume will expand, which can force the shaker apart. Or succumb to the lure of technology and use a stick blender on it for a few seconds.
  2. Add ice and shake again to chill, 20 - 30 seconds.
  3. Double strain into a cocktail glass
  4. Consider making pretty pictures on the top with bitters and then change your mind.
  5. Toast the wonders of science.

Source

I got this one from the always excellent Cocktail Virgin blog. Check it out!

 

Petal on the Wind

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Tonight's cocktail of the evening is a variation on the Aviation, which is one of my favorite gin drinks. I wanted to play with a hibiscus-based liqueur here, in place of the Crème de Violette that gives this cocktail its beautiful blue color. I don't know if there are any commercially-made hibiscus liqueurs out there, but I wouldn't want to buy a bottle just to try this one drink. Instead, I turned to Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki for a house-made recipe that would work. I wanted something a little more botanical and earth for the gin, so instead of going with a London Dry-style gin, I turned to St. George Terroir Gin. A bit of that earthiness comes through, especially on the back of the taste. Next time, I might try this with their Dry Rye Resposado Gin to see what that  brings to the mix. (The problem with that is that it's a limited release, so when that bottle is gone, I'm not going to be able to duplicate the drink.

The color kind of makes this look like a Campari cocktail; not subtle at all.

I think this one is a success, though I think I used the wrong glass and garnish for it. It deserves to be spread out in a coupe, with a hibiscus flower floating on the top. Also, I want to play a bit with the proportions; I might cut the Crème de Hibiscus down to a barspoon or two to see what that does (and I might kick it up to 1/2 oz to see what that does.) I'm calling this one Petal on the Wind, with all due apologies to Wash and Joss Whedon.

I made way more of this than I needed to; next time I do 1/4 of the recipe instead of 1/2.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • 2 oz Gin
  • 1/2 oz Maraschino Liqueur
  • 1/2 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
  • 1/4 oz Hibiscus Liqueur

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a shaker, add ice, and shake for 20 - 30 seconds to chill.
  2. Double-strain into a cocktail coupe.
  3. Garnish with a fresh Hibiscus blossom
  4. Go re-watch Firefly while enjoy this beverage.

A Failed Experiment

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Tonight's cocktail was an attempt to make what I call the Word Up, which is basically a Last Word cocktail with an egg white thrown in. I'd successfully made this one when I was living in Hamburg and really enjoyed the texture and richness the egg white brought to this lovely drink. Tonight, however, it didn't work. I failed to get decent emulsification of the egg white and thing just felt flat and listless.

I can think of a few reasons why it might not have worked:

Alas, I didn't get a good emulsification on the egg white on this drink.

Alas, I didn't get a good emulsification on the egg white on this drink.

  • I could have failed to shake this one enough.
    This is unlikely to be the reason; I really shook the heck of the cocktail. I think I gave it a good minute plus during the dry shake. I might resort to using a blender to really whip it up next time to see, though.
  • The egg whites could be old.
    Again, I think this is unlikely. I just used this carton of egg whites on Thursday to make a pretty acceptable Singani Sour, so I think they have as much fluff to them as ever. Also, they are no where near their expiration date. While pasteurized egg whites aren't as fluffy as fresh ones, they still have no problem doing the job.
  • I didn't use enough egg white.
    This might be the culprit. I only used about a half egg's worth of white in there, and that might just might not have been enough for the volume of the other liquid. I'm going to give this a try in a few days with a full egg white and see what happens. 

In any case, it was a noble experiment and certain one I'm going to revisit. I think there's a lot of room out there to incorporate egg whites into classic sours, and I'm going to be giving that more and more of a try.

Word Up

(with all thanks to Murray Stenson for reviving the Last Word)

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the ingredients in a shaker without ice and shake the crap out of it for a minute or two. Seriously shake weight action here. Be careful! As the egg white emulsifies, the volume of the liquid expands and can force the shaker open, especially if you're using a Boston shaker. Also, without the ice in there, you don't get as firm of a seal (the ice chills and contracts the metal shaker, which helps make a tight seal.) I usually wrap a dish towel around the shaker at this stage to prevent any spills.
  2. Add ice and shake to chill, about 20 - 30 seconds
  3. Use a Hawthorne strainer and a fine-mesh strainer to strain the drink into a martini glass or cocktail coupe.
  4. Express a lime peel across the top and garnish with a Maraschino cherry.
  5. Admire the nice egg white float you earned through the strength of your arms. Sip and enjoy.