Posted by Anita on 08.03.07 7:03 AM
If you want to play baseball with four strikes in an out, I’m not stopping you. Throw a party on February 31 — knock yourself out. Put “i” after “e”, wear white shoes before Memorial Day, spit into the wind, and mess around with Jim; I’m sure not going to be the one to tell you no. Because, really — contrary to popular belief — I don’t really give an animated rat‘s backside if you order a Mojito in a midwinter maelstrom. I just hope you know that we’re all laughing at you and the bartender’s spitting in your nachos.
In this permissive spirit, I encourage you to make your Bellini with any-ol’ peach puree. Heck, substitute cheap peach schnapps or metallic peach nectar from a can for all I care — I’m sure you’ll love it. But please don’t try to stop me from heading down to the nearest farmers market and finding myself a gorgeous, perfectly ripe heirloom peach. And seeing as how I’m just like that, I’m even going to make it a white peach… Signor Cipriani would be so proud!
You see, these lovely aperitivi are called Bellini not because they’re petite and pretty (which they undoubtedly are, when — ahem — traditionally concocted). But rather, it’s because their decidedly pink blush calls to mind the paintings of a certain Giovanni Bellini, a Renaissance painter who applied a deep, rosy glow to the togas, turbans, and other trappings of his art. Made with a standard yellow Prunus persica, the drink takes on a golden tone — more Klimt than Bellini — so some folks encourage the blush with a touch of raspberry. Which, you know, you could do also. And a very interesting cocktail you would have.
Just don’t make me call it a Bellini, or I’m liable to leave some rude remarks on your blog.
Bellini
1 white peach
1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
2 to 3 ice cubes
Sparkling wine, perferably prosecco or other off-dry bubbly
Peel and pit the peach. Cut into chunks and place in a blender with the lemon juice and ice. Puree very well, until the ice is liquefied and the peach well blended. (The resulting puree yields enough for 3 to 4 cocktails.)
Place 1-1/2 to 2 oz of the prepared puree in a Champagne flute. Top with sparkling wine, stirring constantly with a bar spoon to prevent too much foaming.
Drink of the Week, drinks, recipes, wine & bubbly
13 Comments »
Posted by a Special Guest on 07.27.07 7:04 AM
Editor’s note: Inspired by our recent mojito post and his Kentucky-bred husband’s birthday this week, Sean returns to Drink of the Week guest-bartender duties. By featuring this classic, I think it’s safe to say that he’s absolved of any trauma inflicted by his last stint behind the bar. [wink]
——
I don’t remember just how I started
I only know that we should have parted
I stole a kiss, and then another
I didn’t mean to take it further
One mint julep was the cause of it all
— “One Mint Julep,” Rudy Toombs
Few cocktails are as storied, as fraught with history and tradition in America, as the mint julep. The very word “julep” evokes a paradoxical domestic exoticism: nostalgic visions of the Old South, of white-bearded men in linen suits coddling dogs named Belvedere. But when was the last time you ordered one in a bar?
Somehow, despite its technical similarities to the fashionable mojito, juleps have yet to catch on as a hipster sipper. Perhaps bourbon’s star has not yet risen as the booze of choice in the way that rye, gin and even cachaça have. (Mind you, bourbon is always in vogue at our household.) Maybe its Southern connotations render it undesirable for the too-cool-for-school crowd. Or could it be the special glassware?
Whatever the case, I am here to tell you that nothing is more refreshing than an ice-cold mint julep, condensation sweating down its sides, on a hot, muggy day. Heck, even on a foggy summer’s day here in San Francisco, they’re downright delish.
And then there’s those cups. While you don’t absolutely need julep cups, they do serve a practical purpose beyond merely being stylish and sophisticated (not that those are not reasons enough to use them). Optimally made from sterling silver, the julep cups’ metal sides chill quickly and help keep your drink cool as a cucumber. And let’s face it — the very sight of condensation on the side of the cup makes your mouth water in Pavlovian anticipation.
Like many Southern things — biscuits, fried chicken — mint juleps are simple enough, requiring few ingredients but also a light hand. Though it’s nothing more than mint, sugar, water and bourbon, balance is key. You don’t want a drink that’s too cloyingly sweet, chewing-gum minty or Molotov-cocktail strong. None of those things is particularly refreshing.
Like the mojito, the julep begins with a muddle, and this is where things begin to get complicated. Some recipes call for granulated sugar, others powdered sugar, others still simple syrup. Most recommend muddling the mint first and letting it steep for a few minutes. Yet Robert Duvall as the julep-sipping Captain in Thank You For Smoking extolled the virtues of crushing the mint on the ice.
I don’t know about you, but I’m a busy man. I’m not going to take the time to pluck only the most nubile leaves, to mill my sugar to the right grain or to hand-chisel my ice to a perfect consistency. I prefer to keep things simple — as in simple syrup. (Good thing I have a bunch on hand.)
Just muddle the mint in the syrup, cover with crushed ice and pour the bourbon over. Stir until well chilled, and then sip with an audibly refreshed “ah!”
But if all this is just too rich for your blood, you can still enjoy a proper julep at my new favorite watering hole, The Alembic. They feature the mint julep in their J Peterman-esque menu of cocktails old and new, and they serve it in a proper julep cup and everything. Just one mint julep is guaranteed to inspire spontaneous conversation from your neighbors. And who knows where it could go from there?
I do declare, I believe I’m getting the vapors!
Mint Julep
Several fresh mint leaves, preferably organic, plus sprigs for garnish
3/4 oz simple syrup
2 oz bourbon
crushed ice
club soda (optional)
Place mint leaves in the bottom of a julep cup and add the simple syrup. Muddle the mint leaves just enough to bruise them all over — you don’t want to crush them into a paste, just to release their minty goodness. Let stand for a minute or two to steep. Fill the cup with crushed ice. Pour the bourbon over the ice. Stir to combine and chill, until the cup is good and cold. If there’s room in the cup and you are so inclined, feel free to add a splash of club to lighten it up. Garnish with mint sprig.
If you want to make juleps for a crowd, muddling is too time-consuming. You can make a whole batch of mint-infused simple syrup by steeping a combination of fresh mint and mint tea bags in your syrup for a few minutes, then straining it well, squeezing the mint and teabags to release the maximum mint flavor. Pour the cocktail with the same proportions, minus the muddled mint.
Drink of the Week, drinks, other blogs, recipes
8 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 07.20.07 7:08 AM
It seems like all of the hip kids are doing it: Tossing out their radioactive-looking cocktail cherries in favor of home-steeped alternatives. Hell, even the New York Times jumped on the bandwagon in this week’s food section — a sure sign that a trend has hit the mainstream.
For those of us in the Bay Area, the wave is breaking a touch too late. The cherries at the farmers markets are pretty darned ripe, not to mention enormous… far from ideal specimens when it comes to their intended task. But, if you get a wiggle on, you just might find a few last baskets of not-overripe cherries this weekend. (If they’re huge, you can always halve them.)
Making your own maraschino cherries is as simple as pitting a pint of cherries (or not, if you’re a pit-loving purist), and letting them steep in enough warmed Maraschino liqueur to cover them well. They’re pretty good right out of the pan, but leaving them a few days in the fridge is well worth the wait. If you prefer brandy’s woodsy overtones to the fruit-meets-nuts essence of the traditional liquor, then feel free to make that very acceptable substitution. If you go that route, you may want to add some sugar to the pan when warming your steeping liquor, but it’s certainly not necessary.
Even easier still — and a perfect option when cherry season is but a memory — is the method we’ve been using for the last year or so: Simply soak dried cherries in moderately decent brandy until they’re rehydrated. Or, head to the gourmet grocer: The fresh-brandied La Parisienne cherries sold in small containers at the Whole Foods deli counter are quite nice, and some of our Seattle friends swear by the preserved maraska cherries they buy at a local import store.
In short, there’s really no excuse for choosing a zombie cherry.
The non-neon model is, of course, the perfect garnish for your everyday Manhattans and what have you. But if you’d like to bring its cherri-licious essence to the fore, you might prefer a cocktail like this little number featured a few months ago in Food & Wine’s 2007 cocktail preview. I’ve dispensed with the original’s sugared rim, but feel free to add it back if your palate runs to the sweet side.
Marasca Fizz
3 true Maraschino cherries
1/4 oz cherry-steeping liquid
(use half simple syrup for unsweetened brandied cherries)
2 brown sugar cubes
3 dashes Angostura bitters
1/2 ounce Cherry Heering
4 oz chilled sparkling wine
Put the sugar cubes in a Champagne flute. Add the Angostura, Cherry Heering, cherries and cherry liquid; top with the bubbly and serve.
Drink of the Week, drinks, locavore, other blogs, preserving & infusing, recipes
9 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 07.13.07 7:04 AM
When I read Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s recent post outlining his list of Dos and Donts of Mojitos, I found myself nodding in vigorous agreement. When I got to this entry, I broke into a wide grin:
“Do not order a mojito when the weather is below 70°F. This is almost as bad as ordering a Bloody Mary after the sun has gone down.”
Hear, hear.
I can’t tell you how many winter nights I’ve spent at the Zig Zag watching Murray Stenson painstakingly craft mojitos for some clueless clown. The phenomenon became so epidemic a few years ago that Cameron and I were moved to concoct an alternative, off-season rum drink for Murray to offer. (It’s an amateurish thing called the Wonderland — as in “Walking in a Winter…” and Murray graciously humors us by keeping the recipe in the box behind the bar.)
It’s hard to fault a mojito aficionado from defying the seasonal mandate at the Zig Zag, because when it comes to mojito-making, Murray’s method is a sight to behold. Cameron likes to remark that Murray puts more love into a single cocktail than most restaurants put into a whole meal, and I am convinced that he was witnessing a mojito-muddling marathon for the first time when he coined that oh-so-true aphorism.
As Morgenthaler correctly cautions, a mojito is no drink to order when your fellow tipplers are three-deep at the bar. Even the most slap-dash mojito is a time-consuming order. But making ‘Mojitos a la Murray’ elevates the procedure to high art.
Murray starts out by cutting half a lime into quarters, placing the pieces in a pint glass with half a dozen mint leaves and simple syrup. Crushed ice is added, and muddling commences. Six more mint leaves join the party, along with another dose of syrup and more ice. More muddling. Another dose of mint — this time sans syrup — and still more muddling. Then the rum, and a purposeful stir while surveying the bar. Tasting for balance, he tinkers with his creation until he achieves the ideal balance of sweet, sour, and strength; it rarely needs much to bring it to perfection. Out of his pile of mint, he chooses one more perfect sprig, dusting it with a flurry of powdered sugar before placing it jauntily in the glass, and handing the drink over to the suitably awed customer.
Both Murray and Jeffrey adhere to the unstrained school of mojito mixology: “I leave the ‘salad’ in place,” says Mr. Stenson. My muddling technique must be a bit weak; I haven’t yet mastered the fine art of extracting sufficient mint flavor without creating a pulpy mess, even when using Murray’s step-by-step directions and the prescribed copious amounts of greenery. So, as a compromise, I follow the ‘Murray Method’ right up to the end, but then strain the muddled mixture into an ice-filled cooler glass. A few small bits of mint find their way through the strainer, creating a pleasantly herb-flecked drink with plenty of punch.
Murray also dispenses with the traditional top-up of soda water; his masterful muddling provides the just the right opportunity for dilution. I like a bit of fizz, myself (as does Morgenthaler), but let your cocktail conscience be your guide on this point, as always.
Mojito
1/2 lime
1T simple syrup, or to taste
18 medium mint leaves, plus a sprig for garnish
2 oz silver rum
good-quality soda water (optional)
confectioners sugar (optional)
Cut the lime-half into quarters, and muddle in a 16-oz glass along with 6 medium mint leaves and 1/4 ounce (1-1/2 tsp) simple syrup. Add crushed ice to one quarter of the way up the glass. Add 6 more mint leaves and another 1/4 ounce simple syrup; muddle again. Add crushed ice to a level about 2/3 up the glass, plus remaining 6 mint leaves (no simple syrup this round); muddle yet again. Add the rum and stir until the glass begins to frost. Adjust to taste, then strain the chilled mixture into an ice-filled 12-ounce highball or cooler glass. Top up with a splash of soda water, if desired. Garnish with a sprig of mint, dusted with confectioners sugar, if desired.
bar culture, Drink of the Week, drinks, Mixology Monday, other blogs, recipes
17 Comments »
Posted by Cameron on 07.06.07 7:01 AM
Not too long ago, we got together with our neighbors Erik and Mrs. Flannstad for an absinthe tasting. We cracked open our new bottle of Lucid, the first true absinthe to be sold legally in the United States in nearly 100 years. Our guests generously offered to share tastes of two absinthes that they had brought back across the pond: Jade 1901 and Fougerolles.
As we dripped cold water over sugar cubes and watched the clear green fluid louche, I was struck by the historic nature of our ceremony: It is no small thing to be a party to the greatest snake-oil scam of the last three centuries.
Like many of today’s cordials, absinthe was first promoted as a medicinal elixir. The benefits supposedly arose from the combination of anise, fennel, and grande wormwood, and it was given to French troops as a fever preventative. When the drink became spectacularly popular in France by the late 1800s, it captured the palates and imaginations of several well-known artists, and the allure of the liquor shifted shape. Absinthe, no longer medicine, acquired a reputation as a mind-altering hallucinogen. By 1915 it was considered so dangerous that it was banned in several countries, including France and the United States.
Alas, recent studies have proven that absinthe does not cause hallucinations. I wasn’t able to find anything written on its efficacy as a fever remedy, but I don’t anticipate absinthe putting aspirin or ibuprofen manufacturers out of business any time soon. Nevertheless, the legend, mystique, and flim-flam continues, thoroughly documented by the Wormwood Society and La Fee Verte Absinthe House. The story of a humble patent medicine that grew into a potion so potent as to be banned on two continents is one that would bring a tear to any huckster’s eye.
Happily, absinthe also makes a pleasant drink, and we had fun tasting and comparing the three examples. Of the three, the Lucid was the sweetest and least complex. Despite bringing up the rear in our taste test, Lucid has two strong points in its favor. First, it strikes far closer to absinthe’s correct flavor profile than any of the current substitutes. Second, its modest price and local availability means that absinthe once again becomes fair game for mixological experimentation.
Sources tell us that many cocktails made with pastis (a la Ricard or Pernod) were originally made with — you guessed it — absinthe in the days before the ban. One such recipe, the venerable New Orleans staple known as the Sazerac, looks on paper like a shot of whiskey with some incidental flavorings. But a well-made Sazerac honors its pedigree: One of the oldest of all cocktails, it’s a parade of enchanting flavors that starts with lemon and ends with an herbal snap. Make it with the original American whiskey — rye — in place of that johnny-come-lately bourbon, and you’ve got a taste of cocktail history in an old-fashioned glass.
Vieux Sazerac
1/2 tsp absinthe
1/2 tsp simple syrup
2 dashes Peychaud bitters
2 oz rye whiskey
lemon twist, for garnish
Add the absinthe to a well-chilled old-fashioned glass, and roll it around to coat the inside of the glass. Pour out the excess, leaving a small puddle in the bottom of the glass. Add syrup, bitters, and rye; stir, and garnish with lemon twist.
Note: As this drink lacks ice, think “extra frosty” when chilling the glassware.
Drink of the Week, drinks, recipes
8 Comments »
Posted by Cameron on 06.29.07 7:03 AM
I am not an enormous fan of rum, except for when I’m vacationing in a tropical clime. Then, it’s practically the only thing that I want to drink. I blush to think of how many Painkillers I put away during our too-brief trips to the British Virgin Islands, and as soon as my feet touch the ground in Hawaii, I develop a thirst for Mai Tais that strains the bounds of good taste.
But take the boy out of the tropics and the desire fades. The fruity mixtures never taste as good back in the real world, and when the going gets hot, I’d just as soon have a tequila (or gin) and tonic or a cold beer.
This week’s drink may change that, as I’ve fallen in lust with Cruzan Black Strap rum. It’s the perfect liquor to have a summer fling with: a bold, sexy troublemaker that dares you to stay out late. You know that by the end of the summer it will seem pushy and cloying, but until then: wow, what a body.
The enabler of my infatuation is the Corn ‘n’ Oil, a traditional drink from Barbados and other points Caribbean. The essential ingredients are rum and falernum — beyond that the proportions and additions vary greatly. For the rich, sweet Black Strap, use the recipe below. If you’re using a paler rum, double the falernum and ease off on the bitters and lime.
Want more? Allow me the honor of introducing you to several worthies who have written extensively on both the provenance of the drink and the history of (and creation of): falernum. Like the man said, I stand on the shoulders of giants.
Corn ‘n’ Oil
2 oz Cruzan Black Strap rum
1/4 oz Velvet Falernum
2-3 dashes aromatic bitters
Juice of 1/4 lime
Build over ice in double old-fashioned glass.
Drink of the Week, drinks, recipes
3 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 06.24.07 8:07 PM
Every June 24, Catholics around the globe celebrate the feast-day of John the Baptist. And every year, on that same day, traditional-minded Europeans head into their local walnut orchards, filling baskets and bags with unripe nuts in order to make nocino, an Italian walnut liqueur, or its French cousin vin de noix.
We’ve made nocino every summer for the past three years, usually a bit later than the traditional saint’s day due to trouble in our local supply chain. Suffice to say that we lack the necessary ferme, fattoria, or bucolic farmhouse of any sort, and we’ve relied either on nuts shipped from afar or the whimsical schedule of a certain vendor at the Alemany market.
This year, we not only avoided our usual delay, we even jumped the gun a bit. But I hope you’ll agree our motives were good: We were off to Yountville for our anniversary, and I’d remembered reading Shuna’s story last fall about Hoffman Farm, a Napa u-pick with a vast walnut orchard. The idea of making liqueur with nuts we’d plucked ourselves from local trees was simply too attractive to pass up, no matter the date was a tad early.
It took me days to work up the nerve to call John Hoffman and explain what I had in mind. He’d never heard of anyone wanting green walnuts before. “You do know they’re incredibly bitter?” he asked me on the phone. But he graciously allowed that we might stop the coming weekend and pick some nuts, as long as we didn’t come on Sunday morning during church. I assured him that we’d work around his schedule, and would be sure to call before we came, in any case.
Saturday rolled around, bright and sunny. We called Mr. Hoffman to make sure he was home, then donned hats and sunscreen and pointed the car toward Silverado Highway. Just past the intersection with Trancas, we spied the farm’s little sign, a blink-and-miss-it affair. We pulled up the gravel drive and found Mr. Hoffman waiting for us in the shade near his farmhouse garage.
We introduced ourselves and chatted a bit, and he asked me to remind him about what I would do with my early harvest. I explained about splitting the nuts and soaking them in alcohol for most of the summer, then setting aside the strained, sweetened infusion until Christmastime. I marveled that a walnut farmer — and one with Italian in-laws, at that — had never tasted what I’d always assumed was a relatively common homebrew. Not only had he never made it, he’d never even heard of it. Chuckling, he quipped: “Sounds like a waste of a good bottle of vodka,” and winked at Cameron.
Then he picked up his cane and strolled us out into the orchard. A sun-dappled canopy of walnut boughs stretched as far as the eye could see, all the way back to the crossroads. Mr. Hoffman showed us how to avoid the nuts that suffered from blight — they were few, this early in the season — and how to spy the telltale bore holes of caterpillar infestation. He reached for his pocketknife and cut open one of the few rotten nuts he could find, to show me how the fungus penetrates the hull and works its way to the developing meat.
It was a botany tutorial, a history lesson, and a glimpse at a disappearing way of life. The Hoffmans have worked this land since the end of World War II. Now, they’re farming one of Napa’s few remaining diversified acreages, as vineyards squeeze out the fruits and nuts that once were the valley’s pride. As Shuna mentions, although the Hoffman land is protected for agricultural use, there’s nothing to prevent these noble trees from being torn out in favor of yet another mass of wine grapes.
After a half hour of picking nuts and snapping photos in the late-morning glow, we brought our canvas sack back to the garage. Mr. Hoffman discussed how to price our unusual transaction while he weighed our haul on his weathered scale. When all was said and done, he refused to take more than a fraction of what we’re used to paying, even when we told him that the going rate was much, much higher. He shook his head like we were citified fools, then added: “You can keep the quarters if you tell me that recipe again.” I smiled broadly and promised to send him prints of the photos we’d taken, plus a few different recipes to try.
We grinned all the way home, amazed at our good fortune in finding Mr. Hoffman — all thanks to Shuna.
After stopping by the local liquor depot for bottles of 100-proof vodka, I quickly set to work halving and quartering the green nuts, measuring sweeteners and spices, and sterilizing my infusing jars. Never had I had the luxury of using nuts picked within hours of infusing, much less 7 pounds worth gathered with my own two hands. Unsurprisingly, we had sufficient nuts for two different batches of nocino — my usual recipe, plus an experiment — as well as a version of Abra’s traditional vin de noix and Lucy’s lighter recipe made with white Burgundy and maple syrup.
I left my quartet of crockery on the new breakfast table for a day or two; they caught the light so beautifully that I wanted to see them (and sneak a sniff of them) all the time. Once the liquids steeped to a black-hole opacity, I followed tradition and put them out in the garden — in this case, the back deck — where they’ll commune with nature for the next 40 days and 40 nights. Then we’ll filter them, bottle them, and wait for the other end of the year, when midwinter brings us yet another celebration of the natural cycle disguised as a religious feast.
Hoffman Farm
2125 Silverado Trail
Napa, CA 94558
707 226-8938
drinks, holidays & occasions, Italian, locavore, Napa & Sonoma, preserving & infusing
13 Comments »
Posted by Anita and Cameron on 06.22.07 7:02 AM
Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: St-Germain, the new liqueur that’s sending ripples across the cocktail scene, comes in a bottle so beautiful that it will make you forget your budget, your better judgment, and most of your morals.
The producers call their elderflower-scented concoction “vie parisienne en bouteille” and from the look of things, they’re not far off. The shape is impressively soignée, in a luxe Art Nouveau style. The labels, too, are gorgeous — even the adhesive surface sports a gentle tapestry scroll, so as to please the eye when seen through the other side of the glass. Trés elegant.
According to an impossibly precious marketing backstory, hand-picked wild elderflowers are macerated and combined with eau de vie. The result is a liqueur that balances citrus and floral notes as gracefully as a skilled waiter carries a tray of cocktails. A heavy hand with the sugar is perhaps the liqueur’s only limitation; you need a steady resolve and a miser’s touch to make a drink that captures St-Germain’s floral notes without edging into tooth-aching sweetness.
Smart folks, these Germainistes: They’ve recruited many of the cocktail world’s leading lights to wax rhapsodic about their products, both around the web and in an adorable little booklet attached to every bottle. Alas, the recipes it contains are less successful, leaning toward the cloying and bizarre. Mon dieu! Drinks featuring green-apple vodka and pineapple juice — mercifully, not together — aren’t exactly consistent with the swanky image they’re painting with the rest of the brand messaging.
Left to our own devices, we successfully used a splash and a half of St-Germain to create impromptu Champagne cocktails. Meanwhile, we considered drinks that could benefit from the liqueur’s mysterious undertones without collapsing under the sugar’s weight.
We didn’t have to go far down our roster of possibilities to encounter a combination that puts this floral mixture in a flattering light. We started with a traditional Aviation, replacing the maraschino liqueur with St-Germain. The elderflower twines well with the lemon, but you may need to gently tinker with proportions to compensate for sweeter or more acidic fruit. Lime makes a pleasant alternative, should you be so disposed.
We christened our variation Le Bourget, in honor of the once-bucolic airfield where Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis after his landmark flight; nowadays it’s a bustling commuter hub and the home of the biannual Salon International de l’Aéronautique where — this very week — French aircraft manufacturers are touting their wares to potential clients. What better moniker for a French Aviation?
Le Bourget
2 oz gin
1/2 oz St-Germain elderflower liqueur
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
Shake well with ice, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Drink of the Week, drinks, recipes
7 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 06.15.07 7:02 AM
This month’s Mixology Monday, Creme de la Creme, features drinks made with cream-based liqueurs.
When our hostess, Anna, allowed that “lazy bums can include cream in their cocktail” in lieu of a cream liqueur, my path became clear.
“Sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s The Dude, in Los Anglez. And even if he’s a lazy man — and The Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in all of Los Anglez County, which would place him high in the runnin’ for laziest worldwide.”
A perfect inspiration for lazy, creamy-cocktail drinkers everywhere, wouldn’t you say?
For those of you not acquainted with the Coen Brothers’ 1998 noir parody, The Big Lebowski …well, there’s no way I could possibly convince you of its worth in 20 words or less. Suffice to say that its hysterical, convoluted plot finds room for Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, Flea, and Tara Reid all on the same screen. It’s a rollicking two hours filled with mistaken identities, bowling tournaments, extortionate Nihilists, and many, many White Russians.
Right there in the opening scene, we find our hero Jeffrey Lebowski — known to all as The Dude, or “His Dudeness, or Duder, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing” — strolling through his local Ralphs. He picks a carton of half-and-half out of the dairy case with a connoisseur’s care, pausing to open the container and sniff the contents.
That particular carton meets a sad fate well before finding its way into The Dude’s signature cocktail, but never fear: Many a vodka-Kahlua-cream concoction appears in The Dude’s mitts as the story unravels. One even serves as the vehicle for a nasty plot twist…
“But… aw, hell. I’ve done introduced it enough.”
Like most cocktails that have been around the block a time or two, the White Russian sports plenty of variations, and a number of competing formulas. The “official” recipe seems a bit out of synch with common usage, proposing a 5:2:3 (vodka, Kahlua, cream) ratio. Most cocktail manuals and drink sites lean more toward a 4:2:1 mix, which I prefer. More vodka seems fine, but an abundance of cream quickly overpowers the Kaluha.
Of course, you could do as many folks — including The Dude, it should be noted — do, and swap the cream for a lighter dairy product. Half-and-half makes a pleasant drink; whole milk will do in a pinch; I can’t recommend low-fat or any of that other what-have-you.
White Russian
2 oz vodka
1 oz Kahlua
1/2 oz cream (or half-and-half, if you’re not into that whole gluttony thing)
Combine the vodka and Kahlua in an ice-filled rocks glass. Float the cream on top.
Drink of the Week, drinks, Mixology Monday, movies & tv, recipes
9 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 06.07.07 11:02 PM
I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
After four I’m under my host.
Michael at A Dash of Bitters reminds us that tonight marks the 40th anniversary of Dorothy Parker‘s demise. She died not, as one would expect (and she might have preferred) from suicide or cirrhosis, but from a heart attack in old age. Her modern notoriety hinges on witty bon mots and wry verse, but in her heyday she was nothing short of a cultural icon, a woman who led trends and set tongues a-wagging.
Mrs. Parker found fame as Vanity Fair‘s drama critic, and later reviewed books for the New Yorker under the sobriquet “Constant Reader”. She penned a pile of short stories, and her semi-autobiographical Big Blonde (although she was a dainty brunette) won the O. Henry prize for short fiction. Later, she and her second husband Alan Campbell became a sought-after Hollywood screenwriting team; the original, Oscar-winning A Star is Born topped their credits.
Although much of the Parker mystique hinges on her wisecracking party-girl persona, in fact she was a near-teetotaler for part of her life. In her twenties, she hardly drank at all. Her biographers tell us that she weathered the ironic excesses Prohibition better than many. One or two drinks a night would be plenty for her, in an era and milieu when an evening on the town typically started at sundown and lasted until breakfast at dawn.
As the years progress, the drinks get stiffer: Dottie’s small beer on the bar beside her pal Robert Benchley‘s large Scotch, an Orange Blossom at the speakeasy, Manhattans at her country house, and, eventually, all-night parties fueled by pitcher after pitcher of Martinis (with no food!). Sweet misery — imagine the mornings after those night-befores:
Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)
In the Algonquin era, the Martini had not yet suffered from modern innovation. None of the Round Table denizens would have recognized the drink as anything other than a well-chilled mixture (always stirred, never shaken) of five or so parts gin to one part dry vermouth, and a dash of orange bitters. No gin, no Martini. If olives weren’t at hand, a simple lemon twist could be substituted, but even this would be noted as a touch unorthodox. One can only imagine what the Vicious Circle would make of so-called Martinis of chocolate, sour apple, or (God forbid) vodka.
Martinis made in the classic style fell out of fashion through the years; some speculate that a lack of proper bitters hastened the drink’s metamorphosis into little more than a bruising-cold glass of gin. Thankfully, renewed interest in classic cocktails means there’s an abundance of delectable orange bitters to choose from today. Our house brand is Regan’s, with a bottle of Hermes on hand as a pleasant alternative. But you’re more likely to find Fee Brothers’ in your local liquor establishment, and that will certainly do just fine. I daresay that once you try your Martini made this way, the modern rendition will seem rather flat and unappealing.
Now, what’s stopping you? As Mr. Benchley would say: Get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini.
Classic Martini
1-1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz dry vermouth
1 dash orange bitters
Stir with ice, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with olives or a lemon twist.
Drink of the Week, drinks, literary
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