One aspect of this season in particular is that a lot of people ask for cocktail ideas or the contribution of a beverage or two for their party.  Of course I’m not one to turn down either and I’m more than happy to contribute to the quality quaffing of the season.

Obviously there are several usual suspects when it comes to Holiday drinks – Hot Buttered Rum, Mulled Wine, Spiced Apple Cider, & Egg Nogg just to name a few.  And while all of these are great options I wanted to add something else to the list.

This past Saturday Sylvie and I went to a Soup & Cookie holiday party at our friend Josh’s house co-hosted by his lovely gal Jenny.  I was tasked with bringing Egg Nogg to the party and I was happy to oblige.  My go-to Nog is the easy-as-pie recipe from Jeffrey Morganthaler. But being a Scofflaw, I couldn’t just leave it at one drink.  I wanted to come up with an original cocktail that was boozy, non-too-sweet, and really made me think of Christmas.  Even further, I wanted a cocktail that brought the flavors of what I feel are Victorian-esque Christmas desert flavors.  So what could that be?  Plums!  Fruit Cake!  Spices!  Brandy!  Oh for the love of Santa Claus, FIGGY PUDDING!!!

Now just to turn these ideas into a cocktail.  Here’s what I came up with:

Christmas Pudding
1.5 oz Brandy
1 oz White Port
.50 oz Bonal quinquina
.25 oz Cointreau
.25 oz Allspice Dram
.25 oz Trader Tiki’s Cinnamon Syrup
3 d Fee’s Plum Bitters

Stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with an orange peel and maraschino cherry.

Before you say anything, yes that’s lemon peel as a garnish in the picture.  I didn’t have any fresh oranges on hand so I used what I had.  Sue me.   To me, the flavors that combine in this drink really hit all the high notes of what I was looking for.  It’s boozy, that’s for sure.  But you also have the spices, citrus, and a bit of a dried fruit character from the white port and the Bonal.  The Plum Bitters adds another layer of fruit and helps to marry the sweetness and spiciness from all the ingredients.   I definitely want to give this recipe a try with a tawny port in place of the white port.  I think that will heighten the dried fruit flavors even more.  If you try it, let me know the outcome.

So tell us what your favorite Christmas cocktails are!  Do you have a unique recipe or an old standby?  Leave us a comment and share.

Cheers!

Annnnnnndddddddd . . . we have a winner!  The rules were pretty simple.  Tell me how you started down the cocktail path, the catalyst if you will, and tell me your favorite cocktail.

And the winner is Helena Tiare Olson from Stockholm, Sweden.  Tiare is also the writer of A Mountain of Crushed Ice.  And without further ado, here it Tiare’s story:

For me it started with a tiny mini bottle of El Dorado 15 year old demerara rum.

It’s a bit odd, I know but that´s what happened. I got that bottle from God knows where and drank a little bit of the rum and discovered that liked it, no – I mean really liked it. Its not the first alcoholic thing I had of course but it was the first alcoholic beverage that really opened my eyes and led me to discover the world of cocktails and this evolved to be where I am today.

This happened a couple of years ago.

So I tasted some of that rum neat and then I took the rest and mixed a ”tropical drink” having not much clue how to mix a proper cocktail – even though I had some vague idea still after my years in the restaurant business. But I threw together some fresh fruit juices, a little simple syrup and the rum with plenty of crushed ice and made some kind of elaborate fruit garnish. All happily served in a hurricane glass!

After that I got myself a big bottle of El Dorado and now I started to experiment more seriously.

I searched the net which eventually led me to tiki drinks,The Ministry of Rum and some of the cocktail blogs where I was a lurker for quite a while, without commenting – I didn´t dare to…but reading and absorbing everything I came over that interested me. I kept experimenting at home with cocktail mixing and ingredient making and garnishing. Eventually the whole thing grew to a lifestyle and I became a cocktail geek.

Then one day (a year ago) I started to write my blog, and the rest is as we say – history.

Today I’m much more into learning the classics, so i have started in a bit of an odd way, otherwise i believe tiki drinks is maybe not usually the first type of drinks you start with.

I will never abandon my first love – the Mai Tai, it will always be my favorite cocktail, but only if its made the way it should be and with good rum. The recipe I use is Trader Vic`s and I use either Appleton Extra, Havana Club 7, St James Hors d´age, Clemènt VSOP and various demerara rums.

Why do I love cocktails? Oh – its the craft, the art, the culinary and experimental aspect, and of course the aroma and taste – and then, they do look so beautiful! And a well crafted cocktail really is something very special.

When I think back I`m quite amazed myself how it all started with a tiny mini-bottle of El Dorado.

Mai Tai
1 oz dark Jamaican rum
1 oz Martinique rum
1 oz fresh lime juice (one lime)
0.5 oz orange curacao (or Cointreau)
0.25 oz each of orgeat and simple syrup

Mix all ingredients and shake with ice.Strain into a double old fashioned glass over crushed ice.Garnish with lime shell and a sprig of mint.Serve with 2 short straws placed near the mint.

Great story Tiare.  Congrats on your win and I hope you enjoy the 2009 Tales of the Cocktail Recipe Book!

Cheers!

Mixology Monday is back and this month we’re hosted by Tristan Stephenson over at the Wild Drink Blog.  Tristan’s edict was to take a classic cocktail and put a twist on it that makes the new version superior to the old.  He also requested for us to tell our favorite song to do the twist to – ACDC’s Back in Black.

The first thing that popped in my head when thinking about twists was my Chichicapa Margarita.  It is simply a margarita with either the addition of a smoky mezcal or a complete replacement of tequila with the mezcal.  But to be honest, I love the addition of the smokiness and don’t know if I’ll make a regular margartia for myself again.

Chichicapa Margarita
2oz Del Maguey Chichicapa mezcal
1oz fresh lime juice
.5oz Contreau
1 Tbls agave syrup

Shake everything with ice and strain into a chilled glass.  Or if you want, strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass.

The second twist a little more obscure.  One evening while sitting at The Gibson, one of their wonderful bartenders, Tiffany Short, whipped up a drink for me when I wasn’t sure what I wanted.  That drink was an Old Pal.

Old Pal
1oz Rye Whiskey
.75oz Campari
.75oz Sweet Vermouth

-Stir with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

For my twist, I decided to take the spicey, bitter, deep flavor of the Old Pal and make it lighter yet still packed with flavors.  I simply twisted the original ingredients by replacing them with lighter versions of themselves.

New Acquaintance
1oz Bourbon [I used Bernheim - a Wheat Whiskey instead of bourbon, Maker's Mark would be a fantastic choice!]
.75oz Aperol
.75oz Dolin Blanc Vermouth

-Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The nose is reminisant of mellon and citris.  You taste the bourbon which is rounded out by a bitter citrus and a roundness from the Bolin.  It is light sweet and flavorful.  Certainly a new twist on a classic cocktail.

Thanks again to Tristan for hosting this month!  I can’t see what the other folks out there come up with!

Don’t forget to check out my Templeton Rye give-away!!!  There’s still another week to enter!

Anyway, while there, I was talking with Joe and he mentioned having a mezcal margarita made with the Del Maguey Chichicapa.  Although he couldn’t remember the exact proportions, I think a basic 3-2-1 ratio would be a great place to start.  If you aren’t familiar with the Del Maguey brand of mezcals you really are missing out on a fantastic spirit!

Del Maguey (pronounced: ma-gay) imports their mezcals from single villages produced by individual family producers.  They truely are small batch local products.  Del Maguey has several bottlings including the Chichicapa that graces my bar.  The mezcal has a strong smokey flavor and nose, not unlike a smokey scotch, with a deep agave flavor.  If you’re not expecting the smokiness, it certainly can catch you off guard.

For the Chichicapa Margarita, you get the sweet tart flavor of a traditional margarita combined with a hint of orange (Cointreau) and the smoke of the mezcal.  For someone who doesn’t like a big hit of smoke or thinks the mezcal is a little too strong, you can always vary the amount of mezcal by adding regular tequila.  Start with a 3:1 ration of tequila and mezcal and alter from there until you get the amount of smoke you like.  However, the as-is recipe is a combination that is perfect for an overcast, cold March day when you’re really looking forward to Spring.

Chichicapa Margarita
2oz Del Maguey Chichicapa mezcal
1oz fresh lime juice
.5oz Contreau
1 Tbls agave syrup

Shake everything with ice and strain into a chilled glass.  Or if you want, strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass.

Cheers!

I could write about brands of spirits and liqueurs which offer the best quality and variety of purpose for your dollar.  Or, I could write about what I drink when the financial belt tightens.  Or I could just make something up as I go along.  Yeah, I’m pretty much doing that last one if you haven’t guessed.

Now don’t get me wrong.  Articles about the best bang for your buck on the spirit shelf are great and generally contain lots of useful information.  I just feel I’ve read this same story a hundred times since the word “recession” became ensconced in everyday vernacular.  With that said, I can certainly see me writing the same kind of story for Scofflaw’s Den because I feel like it.  Oh well . . .   As far as what I drink when the financial belt tightens, well that’s easy.  I drink the same things I do when I’m not concerned so much about my finances.  Rather, I cut back on purchasing booze and limit my trips to bars/cocktail joints.  I love buying random ingredients and spending an hour or two bellied up at one of my favorite bars having great conversations with the bartenders and friends, new and old alike.  But both of these activities tends to eat into my bank account and by curtailing both, I feel much on much more stable financial footing.

So for this Mixology Monday, I decided to page through some cocktail books and give you two drinks on different ends of the “hard times” continum.  First, we have a cocktail that would perfect for those times when you’re very concerned about your next paycheck.  When your job may fall victim to a lay-off or go to the ATM to check your accounts and the machine laughs at you, I give you;

Gloom Chaser Cocktail
1/4 lemon Juice (.5 oz)
1/4 grenadine (.5 oz homemade grenadine)
1/4 Grand Marnier (.5 oz homemade tangerine ratafia)
1/4 Curacao (.5 oz Cointreau)

-Shake everything until well chilled and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
(The Savoy Cocktail Book, p. 76)

The Gloom Chaser is one sweet cocktail.  Literally.  I was a little surprised at how sweet this came out considering it only has half an ounce of grenadine.  The Cointreau also adds some sweetness but I’ve never considered Cointreau to be a “sweet” liqueur.  The homemade tangerine ratafia is brandy based, like the called for Grand Marnier.  I’ve found the ratafia works admirably well as a replacement liqueur.   Regardless, the drink isn’t bad, just a little sweet.  Then again, I think that is precisely the point for a cocktail called the Gloom Chaser.  The orange reminds you of brighter sunnier days and the sweetness is like a reminder of childhood sweets.  Certainly a drink that would provide an uplifting step during a hard time.

Of course, the old saying goes “it’s always darkest before the dawn.”  Or “every dark cloud has a silver lining.”  The point is even though many of us are weathering this troubling financial storm, eventually things will look up.  When they do, our worry and dread will seem like a distant memory.  Who knows, maybe it will lead you to greener pastures and brighter skies.  Maybe, you’ll even find yourself as . . .

The CEO Cocktail
2oz Brandy
.5oz Chambord or creme de cassis (.5oz Massenez Creme de Cassis)
1oz Lillet Blanc
2 dashes orange bitters (Angostura Orange)
a lemon twist for garnish

-Shake (stir please) with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass
The Joy of Mixology, p. 237

A nice brandy cocktail that isn’t too sweet.  The cassis adds just a touch of sweetness and really mellows out the brandy.  I was afraid the brandy and cassis would fight in the glass but the Lillet plays mediator really brings the two together.  I wonder how Chambord would change the outcome of the drink.  Seeing as I don’t have chambord, nor am I inclined to go buy a bottle, I’ll just have to wait until these economic waters even out a bit.

Thanks again for Matthew Rowley for hosting MxMo this month.

Cheers!