Mixology Monday XC

This month's Mixology Monday is being hosted by Joel of Southern Ash. The last MxMo of Joel's that I joined was Highballs, my entry for which can be found here and the roundup can be found here.  Thanks for hosting again, Joel!  His theme this time around is "Perfect Symmetry" cocktails, which use (binarily) opposed ingredients in the same recipe.

As I've mentioned before on this site, my trial-by-fire entry into the world of cocktails was through tiki drinks, which is not something you'll hear very often.  The force that originally bridged my gap from tiki to classic cocktails is Robert Hess, a mixological champion who, if not a founding father of the modern cocktail movement, was at least in the first wave of its cavalry.

Robert Hess' main vehicle of evangelism is his website DrinkBoy, which is where I began my own adventure years ago, and luckily for us all, the site, while simple, remains just about the same today as it ever was(more on that later).  Hess also has a video series called The Cocktail Spirit, the episodes of which are linked to individual cocktail recipes on DrinkBoy.com, thereby intertwining the two resources.  Be glad!

Hess more often celebrates the artistry and nuance of established recipes than creating his own, but when he decides to flex his creative brawn, his aptitude always shows.  A recipe of Hess' that I've been making for years now is the Jolly Roger.  Leave it to the personality who pulled my attention from tiki to hold my attention with a classic-tiki style hybrid, which is most certainly my favorite drink of his.

The Jolly Roger uses both light and dark rum, a classic tiki drink trope.  However, I could swear that the recipe used to use all dark rum instead of the mix, and that Hess changed the recipe a few years ago.  Fortunately, the wonders of the internet responded to this nagging feeling of mine.  Archive.org is a website that creates frequent automatic backup "images" of many websites so that you can view how they looked in the past.  Looking back to DrinkBoy.com at January 1, 2007, shows that I'm correct, pictured below.

And so, the original Jolly Roger contained only dark rum, while the modern one has a mix of light and dark.  I'm not inclined to forget the original, as I think I actually preferred it to the newest recipe.  However, I believe the new version is interesting in a different way, and with its light-and-dark rum mixture, I wouldn't hesitate to call it a Perfect cocktail.

A note about the ingredients.  Hess seemingly changed the rums in the Jolly Roger recipe to understandably accommodate the assertive character of (my beloved) Cruzan Black Strap Rum, which he later began using for the recipe.  Astonishingly, today I will not be using Black Strap.

I will first be using the new Captain Morgan White rum (un-spiced), which deserves your attention, despite what you may think.  It's a properly good rum at its price point; notes of its vanilla and raspberry are so strong that they remain detectable while mixed in simple cocktails.

My second rum is Captain Morgan Deluxe, which is also un-spiced and unfortunately not available in the United States.  Any non-Jamaican dark rum will do.

This recipe uses falernum, the fruity and spicy syrup/liqueur used in tiki drinks.  Instead of searching out obscure bottles of the stuff or soaking spices in rum for a month, I suggest that you make your own rich falernum syrup using a recipe by Kaiser Penguin, which only takes mere minutes, but doesn't taste like it.

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Perfect Jolly Roger

1oz light rum
1oz dark rum
1oz orange juice
.25 oz falernum
1 dash aromatic bitters

Shake ingredients in a shaker and strain into rocks glass over ice.

MxMo: See You on the Flipside

This month's Mixology Monday is hosted by Cocktail Assembly, and its theme is the flip. Flips are a style of drink, just like sours, fizzes, punches, or crustas. The modern flip is defined as a base spirit, a little syrup or liqueur, and 1 whole egg, shaken with ice, strained into a glass, and a little fresh grated nutmeg on top.

Yeah, that's right... a whole egg, yolk and all, shaken into a cocktail. The construction and appearance of flips are very much like the Alexanders that I've been making. Their consistency is creamy, and their weight is heavy. The original flips, which were once created with warm beer, were essentially small meals unto themselves.

Click here to see the final MxMo roundup!

Although I'm a huge fan of food that breaks American norms and taboos, I've never been a fan of flips. It's not really the risk of sickness, but rather the taste of raw eggs... I just don't like it. I like my eggs cooked until they're rubber, and I tell every IHOP server accordingly.

But, Mixology Mondays have driven me to undertake daunting tasks before, and this shall be no exception. I will give the flip another earnest attempt, because even when I dislike something, I've always been known to give it another chance. I can safely say that there's no food or drink that I'll permanently avoid.

Because the formula for the flip is just about as versatile as the Alexander, I have a lot of room for creativity to maximize my chances of success. I figure that a good strategy is simply to create a flip that uses my favorite things... surely I couldn't dislike it then, right?

Well then, I can safely say that my favorite spirit is probably Cruzan Black Strap rum, which is an aged rum mixed with molasses. It tastes of brown sugar and maple syrup. I could sing its praises for hours, but that will be for a later post. Interestingly, I recall coming across quite a few flips on Frederic's blog Cocktail Virgin Slut which use Black Strap rum.

But instead of following one of those recipes, I will be mixing the rum with falernum. Falernum is a dark syrup that is flavored with almonds, ginger, cloves, allspice, and limes, and is primarily used in tiki drinks. One can acquire falernum in several ways. You can buy falernum syrup, the most popular of which is Fee Brothers... there are various websites which will sell and ship it to you. There is also an alcoholic falernum: Velvet Falernum Liqueur. Of the two, I have only tried the Fee Brothers falernum, and while it is ok, I have irritatingly found, as I often do, that making your own is superior to what can be bought in every way.

A small amount of Googling can find you a recipe to make your own falernum. One that stands out is Kaiser Penguin's recipe. Most do-it-yourself falernums involve infusing things in rum(pictured to the right by the Penguin himself), and then adding sugar syrup (thereby creating an alcoholic falernum), a process that takes a lot of time. However, the Kaiser Penguin has also posted a rum-free falernum recipe that can be made in minutes, and quite honestly, is delicious. It's now the only recipe I use.

On the subject or raw eggs, you may have a consideration: did you know there exist pasteurized eggs? They're not easy to find, but I found some at a local Whole Foods, and I bet you could find some at your nearest premium (super)market. Pasteurized eggs contain no chance to get you sick when consumed raw, unlike normal eggs. While that chance was still small, it's nice to know that you could be consuming a 100% safe cocktail.

I'm going to add a dash of aromatic bitters to my flip, because then it will actually be a flip version of the Corn N' Oil cocktail. Here we go!

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Corn N' Oil Flip

1.5 oz Cruzan Black Strap rum
.5 oz falernum
1 dash aromatic bitters
1 egg

Shake ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice*. Double-strain** into a cocktail glass. Grate a bit of fresh nutmeg on top.

*You may need to shake the ingredients first without ice, then with ice. Sometimes the cold prevents the egg from properly frothing during shaking.
**One double-strains their cocktail by using the regular cocktail strainer, but also running the liquid through a wire mesh strainer as well. This is usually done to remove small ice shards, but in this case, we want to remove any chalaza that might be in the egg white, which is a small cord of connective tissue that may not disintegrate in the shaking.

I daresay that pasteurized eggs taste less "eggy" in cocktails than their normal counterparts. The egg offers additions in the department of texture and substance, but it really offers no flavor in this iteration. The fattiness of the yolk deadens a lot of the flavor that would be in the cocktail; the Corn N' Oil has a very bold flavor while the Corn N' Oil Flip is quite subtle. The addition of the nutmeg is great, but perhaps offers too much flavor... it shouldn't be as prominent as it is. Overall, I don't dislike this flip, but I just don't love eggs in my cocktail. It's certainly good enough such that I would give flips yet another try some day soon down the road, which I consider a great success.

Tiki Drink Contest Entry

I'm a sucker for a cocktail contest... and not usually because of prizes, but rather for the chance to see if any of my concoctions are decent beyond my own delusional tastes. Rick Stutz from Kaiser Penguin is holding a tiki drink contest, and I'm joining in the festivities.

No one needs to hear me blather on about my own accomplishments, so I'll keep it short. I wanted to make a drink with Cherry Heering, which I think is the superior cherry-based liqueur around. I've had tiki drinks that use Maraschino, and they're just not that great. I found myself wanting to put both Cherry Heering and sweet vermouth in this drink; I've been making many more classic cocktails recently than tiki (which do occasionally overlap, btw), so it's like I've been drawn to incorporate some classic ingredients into this drink like some traveller who's picked up a foreign accent after living in some far off land for a period of time. In this drink's preparation, I've shaken the actual drink with citrus peel, an idea I got from Ken at kenmoorhead.com. Whether or not this is a popular thing to do, I'm giving Ken the credit, because in my modest cocktail dealings, I've NEVER come across it, and it's really a great idea. I recommend shaking your cocktails with citrus peel/twists... just try shaking(I know, just this one time) your Martini with a few lemon twists... or my favorite... pomelo twists (if you can find them). Enjoy the results.

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ORIGINAL REMIX

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Flattering Wench

1.5 oz gold rum (something other than Jamaican)
.5 oz white rum
.5 oz falernum
.5 oz Cherry Heering
.5 oz red wine (drier is better than sweeter)
.5 oz sweet vermouth
.5 oz lemon juice
1 oz orange juice
1 oz pineapple juice
2 dashes Angostura bitters
3-4 grapefruit twists

Shake everything, including the twists, in a shaker with ice cubes. Pour all contents into a double Old Fashioned or Mai Tai glass. No additional garnish is needed.

Rum Punch Contest Entry

It's not often that I attempt to create a tiki drink. Why? Several reasons:

1) My attention span is barely long enough to acknowledge all the ingredients sometimes needed to make a good one.

2) Rum combinations are daunting.

3) Some of the best ingredients are obscure as hell.

4) The best ones have already been done.

I love rum and I love tiki drinks; they're actually what got me into cocktails. And some of the tiki drinks' complexities border on the most interesting things you've ever tasted. They merit you checking them out for yourself(in the links above) instead of ordering them in some restaurant.

But along comes Rumdood, who's hosting his own contest on who can make the best tiki drink, or more specifically, a rum punch. While rum punches may not specifically be tiki(the concept of tiki irritatingly clings to cultures and evocations of the Pacific while all of its ingredients come from the Caribbean), I essentially made it so with my ingredients. The prize for this contest is a free bottle of each product Mount Gay makes. I'm specifically excited about the Mount Gay XO, which is an exceptional rum, and Mount Gay Eclipse Silver, which is probably my favorite white rum. He's also giving away a bottle of his famed falernum, whose reputation precedes it. (But, as Dr. Bamboo has found, one should never give one's true opinion of it. Just smile and nod.)

I'm not allowed to make a recipe with specific products, which I'm disappointed about, so I'm going to do my best to not suggest brands for each ingredient. (Oh, and if you think bourbon isn't "tiki", shut up.) The general rule of rum punches is "One of Sour, Two of Sweet, Three of Strong, Four of Weak", which refers to the parts of the drink, and the proportions between the different parts. I stuck pretty close to this formula for my recipe, which I hope the Dood likes. It's very much the bastard child of the punch that your grandma used to make(you know, the one with the pineapple juice and ginger ale?) and the Champagne Cocktail.

Cheers!

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ORIGINAL REMIX

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**This recipe can easily be cut in half**

Dragonfly Rum Punch

1 oz lime juice [the sour]
1 oz cinnamon syrup [the sweet]
.5 oz falernum [the sweet]
2 oz gold rum [the strong]
1 oz bourbon [the strong]
2 oz pineapple juice [the weak]
2 oz champagne or sparkling white wine [the weak]
2 dashes aromatic bitters

Shake all ingredients except the champagne with crushed ice. Pour everything into a tall collins glass. Pour in champagne, stir, and top with more crushed ice. Garnish tastefully, perhaps with a brandied cherry, lime wheel, or even a stick of sugar cane.