Spirited Cocktails

Another cocktail courtesy of Rachel Maddow. Isn’t she the best?

This excellent holiday punch actually comes by way of Josey Packard of the bar Drink in Boston. You can watch Josey make the punch via this video from Rachel Maddow’s show:

Here’s the recipe (you can find the full details on Rachel’s website). Heed their advice – when playing with alcohol and fire, caution is the word of the day. Have a fire extinguisher handy.

Prep:

Acquire a pyrex bowl or other heat-treated (or otherwise fire resistant bowl).
Stud 3 oranges with cloves.
Roast them for 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees, until softened.

Warm the alcohol for the punch (immerse a container of it in hot water).
Set the spices aside, for the pyrotechnics.
Also warm the diluting ingredients.
Have some sugar on-hand.

Spices for pyrotechnics:

Ground cinnamon
Ground allspice
Ground nutmeg

Alcohol:

1 pint dark rum
1 pint brandy

Diluting ingredients:

Juice of 3 oranges
Juice of 2 lemons
Pint of apple cider
Pint of water

On-hand, for continued extinguishing:

Pint of apple cider
Pint of water

Procedure:

Pre-heat punch bowl with hot water from the tap.
Put roasted oranges in hot, newly emptied bowl.
Pour heated alcohol mixture over oranges.
Use a match to ignite alcohol.
Be aware at all times of how hot the bowl is by touching the outside of it frequently.
Toss pinches of the spices at the flame carefully.

Extinguish the flame by pouring the heated juice/cider mix over the punch.

If the punch doesn’t completely extinguish, pour more cider or water over the mixture.

Cheers!

-Josh

This evening, my friend Laren (@sweetblogomine) and I joined Jonathan Pogash for his Cocktail Lab class at the Astor Center Lounge. I’ve mentioned Jonathan here before (he was the source for our post on the Maple Plum Sparkler), but to refresh your memory, Jonathan is a cocktail development consultant, and the beverage director for Hospitality Holdings (which manages a number of major bars here in New York, including the Campbell Apartment and Bookmarks Lounge).

I’ve taken a number of classes at Astor Center in the past, and they’ve all offered an opportunity to learn a great deal from some of the country’s most talented mixologists. Be sure to check out their full calendar; if you’re in the area, I highly encourage you to give one a try. Jonathan’s class is actually offered monthly, so you can definitely take that one. If you’re just starting out, I’d suggest the Home Bar Basics course.

In any case, Jonathan’s class tonight was really about developing new cocktails – how to come up with your own recipes using classic cocktails as a guide, but also taking advantage of fresh, seasonal, and often unique ingredients. As an exercise, we broke up into groups and were each given one ingredient that had to make an appearance in whatever cocktail we developed. As long as that ingredient was included, everything else was up to us (think Iron Chef meets… something with booze.) Laren and I paired up, along with another member of the class, and were asigned Averna as our key ingredient.

Averna is a classic Italian liquer, often served as a digestif. It’s very herbal – almost bitter – with hints of citrus and caramel. We figured this would make for a great addition to an autumn cocktail. The result: The Pumpkin Pie

Here’s what you’re going to need:

1 1/2oz Rye (we used ri1, which has a nice spice to it)
1 bar spoon Averna
1 bar spoon maple syrup
1 bar spoon pumpkin puree
1/4oz orange juice
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 dash of pumpkin spice (the supermarket kind; a blend of nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, etc.)
1 egg white
1 orange peel (for garnish)

I know – that’s a lot of ingredients. But many of them are things you probably already have sitting around the house (if not, they’re certainly available at your local grocery store.) Once you have all the ingredients, simply combine everything in a mixing glass.

Because of the egg white in this, we did a double shake. That means that we combined all the ingredients in our shaker *without* ice, and shook well for about 10 seconds. Then we added ice, and shook well for another 15-20 seconds. The result, thanks in large part to the egg white, is a nice foamy cocktail, the consistency of which certainly brings pumpkin pie to mind!

We garnished the cocktail with a flamed orange peel. A regular orange peel will do, but flaming the peel helps to caramelize the citrus oils, giving a nice depth of character to the taste. If you’re unfamiliar with how to flame an orange peel, Jeffrey Morgenthaler has a great walkthrough on his site.

The result: a lovely autumn cocktail, with flavors of pumpkin, spice and maple. I hope you like it!

So thanks to Laren (@sweetblogomine) for a fun time; to Jonathan Pogash for the great instruction, and Astor Center, for hosting the class in such an awesome space!

While I have you – a public service announcement: Laren has actually organized a great event in the Astor Center space next Monday, November 2nd. The event is a fundraiser for the NYC chapter of LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails), and will be presented in conjunction with the folks from Chartreuse (including Chartreuse Brand Ambassador Todd Richman and Chartreuse Diffusion President Jean Marc Roger). I’ll be there for sure – I encourage you to join us as well. Tickets available from the Astor Center website.

Cheers!

Josh

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I’m a big fan of whisky – bourbon in particular. And in my mind, there’s no better bourbon cocktail than the Old Fashioned. Truly a classic (dating back to Harry Johnson’s recipes in 1888), and beautiful in its simplicity, the Old Fashioned adds some complexity with the inclusion of a small amount of sugar and bitters along with a twist of lemon and orange, but it still allows the unique flavor of whichever bourbon you’re using to shine through. As a result, I enjoy test driving new bourbons using this cocktail (after sampling them neat, of course!)

The recipe couldn’t be simpler. Here’s what you’re going to need:

2oz bourbon
1-2 sugar cubes (consider 2 if you’re using the small grocery store brand; only one if it’s a larger raw sugar cube)
A few dashes of Angostura bitters
Lemon and Orange peels for garnish

 

In the bottom of your Old Fashioned glass (a sturdy-bottomed rocks glass works well), place your sugar cubes and add a few dashes of Angostura bitters (generally 2-3 shakes is good, but you can experiment to taste; basically you’re just looking to soak the sugar cubes). Using a muddler, crush the sugar cubes and mix the sugar and bitters well until you have a syrupy liquid in the bottom of your glass.

Add 2oz of bourbon and several ice cues, and using your bar spoon, stir well. You want to stir this for a particularly good amount of time (generally at least a minute or so; some will argue for even longer), both to chill the cocktail, and also to dissolve the sugar/bitters syrup. Twist a peel of lemon and a peel of orange over the surface and around the rim of your glass, and drop them in to the cocktail. And voila – you’ve got an Old Fashioned.

Generally speaking, I don’t think this cocktail needs much in the way of embellishment. There is, however, one exception, and one I would only make for Jim Meehan and Don Lee of PDT. The Benton’s Old Fashioned at PDT takes the Old Fashioned to the next heavenly level, which can only be achieved through the addition of bacon. Yes, bacon. The folks at PDT infuse bourbon with a smoky bacon, separate out the fat, substitute high-grade maple syrup for the sugar, and deliver a supremely excellent cocktail. They were kind enough to share their recipe, by way of New York Magazine (including a video of Don preparing the cocktail).

Cheers!