Final Mixology Monday CXVI: Irish Wake

Mixology Monday was one of the exciting regular events that got me into creating this blog in the first place.  In my opinion, its monthly themes have always been sharp enough to spur inspiration and creativity to share new ideas and spread already-established ones.

MxMo was created by our mixological forefather Paul Clarke, who passed the torch to the eminent Frederic Yarm who, if nothing else, is the most prolific cocktail blogger/author on the internet.  Fred has decided to let MxMo die this organic death, for which he provides his own reasons.

Appropriately, the theme for this final event is in the spirit of an Irish Wake.  I've navigated this broad theme by deciding to write about a time that alcohol has helped me mourn, at Fred's suggestion.

I want to firstly thank Paul and Fred for being stewards of this pillar of modern mixology's presence on the internet.  Its existence was formative on the way I think about and make drinks, and has been from the beginning. (Let's just say that I wasn't even 21 years old when MxMo started.)  As Fred details in the link above, maintaining MxMo was never easy, but his and Paul's work has not gone unappreciated over the years.


In the autumn of 2015 a cousin of mine came to our house with a family friend in order to catch up and have drinks and dinner.  As my dear DJ HawaiianSkirt isn't a big drinker, I often relish the opportunity to use my considerable bar to entertain and, especially, to test new recipes.

My cousin had recently moved to the area and so I wasn't used to seeing her often.  Shortly after our guests' arrival, a topic that quickly arose was the health of our grandmother, as she had been a victim of severe dementia for the last few years and seemed to have recently entered a final spiral.

Moments afterward, I received a text from my father letting me know that our grandmother had passed away minutes ago.  We looked at each other for a moment in silence.  As both of our phones began blowing up over the next few minutes, an ironic thought came to my mind: after living lifetimes apart from each other, our grandmother's only two grandchildren were together thinking about her and talking about her at the very moment of her passing.

After things calmed down, we all wondered if we should continue our evening as planned, or if we were even up for it.  Brief deliberation concluded our grandmother would have wanted us to drink and be merry, and so that's what we did.

What were we drinking that night, you ask?  I don't remember everything, but two things that I do were our "house drink" the Hwalisa, and some tonics mixed with my homemade gin.

Thanks again to Paul and Fred for this august tradition.  May its spirit remain in its absence.

MxMo 107: The Best Amaretto Sour in the World

A big round of thanks to Dagreb for once again hosting this month's Mixology Monday!  And this time he has a clever theme, and an even cleverer title!

Overproof spirits is really a theme I can get behind; I've been known to have a few bottles of such things lying around.  And what's more, Dagreb has firmly defined his theme of "overproof" to be at least over 100 proof, so we're not going to be seeing any sissies thinking they're hot with their whiskies bottled in bond.

I'm going to keep up the "shitty drink" theme that I've got going and post another.  This time it comes from one of our booze blogging forefathers Jeffrey Morgenthaler.  He claims that he makes the best Amaretto Sour in the world, and his secret is cask strength bourbon.  How could he not have your attention?

The result is delicious.  The bourbon acts as a force multiplier and isn't even noticeable in the final result.  Check it out.

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Morgenthaler's Amaretto Sour

1.5 oz amaretto
.75 oz cask strength bourbon
1 oz lemon juice
1 tsp rich simple syrup*
1/2 oz egg white

Dry shake, then shake with ice.  Double strain into an old fashioned glass filled with ice.  Garnish with lemon peel and cocktail cherry.

*Cheap amaretti are usually sweeter than the expensive stuff.  You may not need need to add the syrup when you make the drink.

Mixology Monday Orange Juice Roundup

If trying to mix booze with orange juice is a battle, then the legions of Mixology Monday just laid a merciless siege on the House of Citrus.  Peels and pulp everywhere.  I'd have it no other way for a ReMixMo.

I'm thoroughly pleased by both the success and the effort resulting from this endeavor.  Huzzah to everyone.  And now to the booze.

Pete of the Meticulous Mixing blog clearly speaks my mixological language, though our mother tongues may be different.  Though wont to mix his OJ with rum, he resists this time and gives us two original remixes that I'll be needing to mix up posthaste.  As if playing to my style, Pete chooses a few other less-used elements, like honey whiskey, Southern Comfort, and chocolate vodka, ingredients which I've enjoyed mixing myself.  I'll let his rumless post slide, as the rest of it seethes with creativity and pluck.

Thankfully, the siren call of tiki did not go unheeded for this challenge, and our MxMo patron-saint Fred of the Cocktail Virgin Slut is the first to post a remix of old that is simple, but meticulously constructed for balance.  Exactly what the doctor ordered.

Beca of the Drink Shrubs blog wrests my ReMixMo theme and forces it to conform with her own, something which I welcome. In a decidedly tiki-style move, she deliberately chooses her rum by Caribbean island, specifically for its unique character.  She also tops the mix with a bit of sparkling wine, a technique of which I'm a huge fan, and will be writing about soon.

Andrea of the Gin Hound pipes in and informs me of a method I never knew about: using Trader Vic's Eastern Sour as a template, using various base spirits as you fancy.  She whips out her joven mezcal for a truly interesting remix!

For Doc Elliot's Mixology, the Doc holds fast to a fairly tiki theme throughout.  He comes at us with an eyebrow-raising mix of OJ and bourbon, a dessert drink with coffee foam(!), and a tiki standard that I hadn't yet heard of before.

My boy Dagreb claims to recycle more rum bottles than anything else after I remarked my most recycled is gin.  He proves it by posting a rum & OJ drink that I like for several reasons, the first being that it's forgiving with the type of rum and juice used, and second being that it's just fine built and stirred, for when you're too lazy to shake or if (like me) you don't want more dishes to clean.

Leigh of Salt and Bitters goes after my heart by saying first "I had never thought about the fact that orange juice was so rare in cocktails.", and then, "It's because it's really fucking hard to work with."  Eloquent and blunt!  Her answer is an original remix named like an academic paper and, since I too want to put canned chipotle adobo sauce in everything, the drink sits just fine with me!

Joel of the Southern Ash blog stumbles upon how well OJ and tequila mix together... something I've been wanting to experiment with for quite a while now.  And as a resident of the Washington, DC area and a political junkie, how can I not love another drink named after taxes?!

Scott of Shake, Strain, and Sip takes a remix of old and updates it in a breathtaking way.  This is the perfect example of to use new and revived ingredients to make a tired potable notable again.  No, no, no... touché to you, Mr. Scott!

Christa and Shaun, the Booze Nerds choose this month to sing praises to an aforementioned concoction from Trader Vic, the Eastern Sour.  It doesn't get much better than this: a tiki drink that shirks rum and gives you a lesson in sweet-sour balance.  Maybe this MxMo 101 is about lessons in booze after all!!!

JFL of Rated R Cocktails benefits from the OJ's vitamin C as he mixes some diddies and fights off the flu.  I myself like alcohol's numbing effects while sick, but you need to be careful!  JFL pairs the unlikely duo of Demerara and white Haitian rum(which I've never even had) with some heavy spiced and herbal ingredients for a juggernaut that must taste complex as hell.  I'm totally jelly!

Thanks to everyone who participated, you didn't let me or OJ down.  Viva Mixology Monday, as always!

MxMo C: An Entreaty

I am one of those mentioned by Fred who trembled in the face of possibly hosting Mixology Monday #100.  Luckily, I narrowly missed that mandate to act so seriously, thank god, and will instead be hosting next month's event.  But for this occasion, I can't think of a better host or theme to celebrate Mixology Monday.

EDIT: You can find the MxMo C Roundup here: http://cocktailvirgin.blogspot.com/2015/08/mxmo-cocktail-chronicles-wrap-up.html

MxMo patron-saint Frederic Yarm is thankfully hosting this 100th such event.  The theme he's chosen is "Cocktail Chronicles", the eminent booze blog of Paul Clarke, which played a vital role in the revival of craft cocktail culture last decade and acted as the flagship in the first wave of the cocktail blogosphere, a later wave of which included yours truly.  It goes without saying that Paul Clarke is one of the resources that inspired me to join the party.

Fred accurately deems that the Cocktail Chronicles theme might be distilled(!) to simply "that which is timeless and elegant through simplicity".  Further explanation can be found here.

This leaves me little choice but to choose what might be my favorite cocktail: the Gimlet.

While past posts of mine on the Gimlet have ended up self-righteous and bloviating, this post will be earnestly different.

Like many cocktails, the Gimlet's genesis is in question, though very likely it came from the British Royal Navy.  In the 18th and 19th Centuries, while British sailors and crewman fought off scurvy with grog using rum from the West Indies and New England, their officers several decks above were likely fighting it with Gimlets using gin from London.  (Fun fact: the symptoms of scurvy include "spots on the skin, spongy gums, and bleeding from the mucous membranes".)

The Gimlet is simply a mixture of gin and lime juice, but what kind of lime juice is a controversy.  Though certainly the first Gimlets were made with real lime juice, in 1868 a man named Lauchlan Rose began producing en masse a bottled lime juice cordial, which kept well at sea.  Many a seaman and landlubber began using Rose's Lime Juice for their Gimlets and still do today (though Paul Clarke might not be one of them, alas).

Certain minds (and increasingly more since the craft cocktail revival) reject the use of Rose's cordial in favor of more natural ingredients like fresh-squeezed lime and sugar.  My purpose today is not to issue you an opinion on the matter, but rather a request: give Rose's one more chance.

There aren't many foods I do not like, but for those that I do not, I often try them again every year or two and I find myself surprised at my changes in taste.  We owe foods a second chance.  I encourage this method with food, but also drink.

Do not think of Rose's as a lime juice simulator, because at that it fails.  Think of it as its own product with its own unique characteristics.  One of my favorite bloggers, Doug Ford of Cold Glass, writes, "In addition to lime juice and sugar, Rose's presents additional flavors that would be right at home in tropical or tiki recipes - pineapple and coconut are the ones I can taste mostly easily.  It has a mystery funkiness, a Gimlet analog of the 'hogo' that many consider the main attraction in some Jamaican rums."

If flavor cannot sway you for another try, look toward tradition; cocktail tomes indicate that Rose's dominated among Gimlets in the 20th Century.  Further, quite a few cocktail authorities opine that the modern Gimlet was most probably created to use Rose's.

And so this is all I ask: drop a bit of money on bottle of Rose's Lime Juice and give it another go.  Find the ingredient proportions that intrigue you, if you must, online recipes be damned.  You might too find it more timeless than you once thought.

Viva la Mixology Monday, and thanks to Paul Clarke for everything.

MxMo: Manhattans

This month's Mixology Monday is being hosted by the overall MxMo maestro Fred Yarm over at Cocktail Virgin Slut.  It's times like these with his by-default torch-bearing that makes us appreciate him.  The theme this time around is Manhattans, or thereabouts.

This topic is bittersweet, because while the Manhattan may be the most perfect cocktail ever made, it's highly overdone, and even its myriad variations can begin to lose their edge.

Luckily, I have an old recipe that I (ostensibly) created on a whim a few years back and occasionally whip up when the mood strikes me.

The taste of Manhattans for me always invokes cold weather; on the other hand, the taste of tequila for me always invokes summer.  This drink tries to bridge the gap, perhaps perfect for those last days of summer when the first chilly breezes blow away what's left of the heat.

I went heavy on the Angostura to bring out a bit more of the black pepper from the anejo.

I suppose you could technically call this an equal-parts tequila Manhattan, heavy on the bitters.  Instead I'll call it...

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Original Remix

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Summerdusk

1.5 oz anejo tequila
1.5 oz sweet vermouth
6-8 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  No garnish.

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.

Mixology Monday: Highballs

Picture this: You're meeting up with a friend in an area with which you're unfamiliar.  Maybe you're visiting from out of town or simply on a different side of the tracks, but the important part of the story is that your friend takes you to a bar of their choosing, not yours.

You sit down and realize that this joint isn't exactly embracing the craft of mixing its drinks.  Its half-empty bottles of vermouth sit proudly on the back of the bar unrefrigerated with the spirits, the soda gun is overworked, and there's not a bottle of bitters or a fresh piece of citrus in sight.

You're terrified of what the bartender might give you if you order any kind of serious cocktail, but you still want something a little more bright and lively than a glass of whiskey or a pint of something on tap.

This month's Mixology Monday is hosted by Southern Ash, themed Highballs.  Highball drinks are exactly what you need in the scenario above, but let's pretend you're a bit bored with rum & Coke or gin & tonic.  I have a few go-to's for when I'm in these dire situations, and I thank Mr. DiPappa for giving me the opportunity to share them.

As always, those posted below are a bit unorthodox and are designed to give you something a bit different, should you be in the mood.  Your tastes may vary with highball ratios, but I tend to stick with 1:3 or 1:4 ratio of spirit to mixer if I'm making them at home.

Keep these in mind the next time you find yourself cynical in an unknown bar.

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Citrus Vodka & Tonic

This combo smacks of gin & tonic, but offers up something a bit different.  Less complex, but more fresh and fruity, you'll find yourself surprised at how well this one works.

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Tequila & Coke

Be honest: the reason you like rum & Coke is because the rum disappears in the Coke.  With a few exceptions, most well-priced rums at the bar cannot compete with cola's strong character.  Enter tequila.  Tequila still makes itself known while dipped in Coke, and I daresay is complimented by it.  The spices and citrus oils with which tequila would otherwise pair well are present all at once here.  I've made this drink for a few tequila-fan friends of mine, and the reactions have been revelatory.

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Bourbon & Pepsi

Damn, did you manage to find one of the few bars or restaurants that serves Pepsi products over Coke products?  Worry not.  I occasionally find that Pepsi is better for certain things than Coke, and swimming with bourbon is one of them.  First off, the whiskey is better aided by Pepsi's added sweetness, along with a trait of Pepsi's which I might call gaminess or funk.  And in the end, the two ingredients bring out some of the baking spice flavors that they have in common, especially cinnamon.

MxMo LXXV: Bolaños

Thanks to Frederic of the Cocktail Virgin Slut for extending the submission deadline a bit for this month's Mixology Monday.  Last minute MxMo posts are fetishized in the community; my mind recalls a defiant submission by cocktail blogger godfather Paul Clarke to my very own MxMo event with a cocktail called the "11:59", to signify the last minute on a Mixology Monday that one could possibly submit a post.

This month's theme is "Flip Flop!", which celebrates making thoughtful substitutions in drinks to change its character but to perhaps keep its spirit, if you'll pardon the pun.  Like many ingenious MxMo themes, this one provokes me to finally tackle a recipe or subject that I've been meaning to, but never did.

The project in question was simply to make a thematic swap to the Bombay cocktail. (Fun fact: As a holder of a degree in Geography, I always recall my favorite professor asserting that the city of Bombay, now called Mumbai, will be the largest city in the world before too long.)  I've always wanted to apply a latin theme to the drink for some reason, and so I submit the below for everyone's approval.  This swap in particular used Patrón Citrónge, which is a tequila-based orange liqueur.  While not exactly the most versatile ingredient out there, Citrónge is really enjoyable, especially to the purist who wants more tequila in any drink they make.

I tinkered with the original ingredients' ratios, because the recipe is simply too vermouth-heavy.  I recently found out that Doug of Cold Glass also prefers to dial down the vermouth, even when using the original Cognac.

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Bolaños

1.5 oz añejo tequila
.25 oz sweet vermouth
.25 oz dry vermouth
.25 oz  Patrón Citrónge (substitute Triple Sec)
2-3 dashes absinthe

Stir with ice and strain into cocktail glass.  No garnish.

Mixology Monday LXXII: Drink Your Vegetables

This month's Mixology Monday is hosted by Rowen of the Fogged In Lounge, who is perhaps my favorite blogger who still posts regularly.  I expected a good theme, and Rowen didn't let me down, though I should probably not be surprised that it's a hard one: Drink Your Vegetables.

Instead of taking a safe route for this post, I'll instead expand upon a simple rule that I've discovered over the years: that the Martini is a bulletproof recipient of almost any flavor you throw at it.  Now look, I'm not going to wax poetic about how perfect the Martini is, and I'm also not going to suggest that putting weak bullshit like curacao or Angostura bitters in your Martini is exciting and new at this point.  Anyone who knows my blog knows that I post some unorthodox shit.  I don't intend to disappoint.

I'm here to suggest that you try to get a bit crazy when it comes to adding things to your Martini, and you might be surprised at how well it works, in the end.  If you're in a floral mood one day, I might suggest adding a few heavy dashes of rhubarb bitters to your Martini; I've also even been known to put a drop of rosewater in the mixing glass before stirring.  If you can tolerate a shaken Martini, your options widen.  For a fruity mood, try adding a few pieces of citrus peel into the shaker and let the ice pulverize it.  Try that with chunks of pineapple, pear, or ginger.  For an herbal mood, try shaking with basil leaves.  A savory mood is my favorite...  shake the Martini with a sprig of rosemary.  Or add a dash of mezcal or Islay Scotch.

Today I'm taking you to two extremes of savory and herbal Martinis, respectively.  The former is a way to drink your vegetables, and the latter is simply a bonus.  I decided to end up naming them due to cocktail ego, but I won't be giving them the Original Remix tag.  I ended up calling them the Chef's and Gardener's Martinis.

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Martini au Chef de Cuisine

1.75 oz gin
.5 oz dry vermouth
1 drop (not dash) celery bitters (optional)
1 half thin slice of red onion

Shake all ingredients with ice.  Double strain into a cocktail glass.  Olive or cocktail onion garnish.

The onion doesn't taste like you think it will.  It adds a sweetness to the drink and perfumes it in a way that's not very much like onion.  This is a great choice if you want an extra savory Martini before a big meal.

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Martini au Jardinier

2 oz gin
.5 oz dry vermouth
.25 oz absithe
1 sprig parsley
2 sprigs cilantro

Chop herbs with 2 or 3 cuts, and shake all ingredients with ice.  Double strain into a cocktail glass.  Half lemon wedge garnish.

If you never muddle mint in your Juleps and are afraid of bitter chlorophyll, this isn't the drink for you.

Mixology Monday LXIX

This month's Mixology Monday is being hosted by Jordan of Chemistry of the Cocktail.  His blog is one of my favorites currently, which has really gotten into a groove during this last year of 2012.  Do yourself a favor and put his site onto your RSS feed or your weekly rounds.

Jordan's theme for this month is fortified wines.  Why does he seem to exclude vermouth from this theme?  Probably because vermouth would be too easy.  Either way, I'm up for the challenge.

This is a drink that I created years ago and return to often.  It began, as things do, when I was trying to drain some almost-dead bottles in my playroom.

In creating the drink, I realized that brandy and Madeira go very well together but that it was missing something.  As with many cocktails, it was bitters that it needed to tie the other ingredients together.  Let that be a lesson, if you've not already learned it.

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Original Remix

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Later That Day

1.5 oz Cognac (or brandy)
1 oz Madeira (substitute Amontillado sherry if you must)
1 dash orange bitters
1 dash simple syrup

Build over ice in an Old Fashioned glass.  No garnish.

MxMo LXVI: (It Ain't Easy) Bein' Green

This month's Mixology Monday theme is "Bein' Green", and it's hosted by the Wordsmithing Pantagruel.  The rules of the theme are cocktails whose ingredients concern anything that is the color green.  I've been known to use MxMo themes a bit liberally, but not this time...

There just aren't enough savory drinks, am I right?  Aside from the Bloody Mary, the savoriness of too many drinks are defined simply by their garnish.

This drink is an original of mine which I've been working on for about a year now, but it didn't start out as savory.  I originally sought to combine rye whiskey, celery bitters, and honey syrup... and so, of course, I used all three to make an Old Fashioned.  It didn't really work, and so after much trial and error (hiccup), the Tee Ball cocktail is what we have here today.

As for rye whiskeys, my new favorite is Knob Creek Rye.  It's spicier and more heavy on grain than most of them out there, and it's a real joy in the glass.

I suppose I have 3 ingredients that qualify for this week's MxMo theme.

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ORIGINAL REMIX

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Tee Ball

2 oz rye whiskey
.5 oz green Chartreuse
.5 oz dry vermouth
1 dash celery bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with an olive, or, should you appease the cocktail onion gods, an onion.

MxMo LXV: Equal Parts

Thank god that Frederic of Cocktail Virgin Slut has taken the baton for running Mixology Monday, the biggest online cocktail party there's ever been.  It was getting stagnant there for a while, simply because Paul Clarke is a busy man, no offense to Fred.

The theme for this MxMo is Equal Parts: any cocktail whose ingredients are called for with equal parts, not including garnish, and maybe a dash of bitters, if you're being liberal.  I'm going to be extra liberal and call for 2 dashes of bitters and yet still qualify for the theme.

My entry is as simple as it is sacrilegious: the Saratoga cocktail.  What's the sacriledge?  That this Manhattan variation is better than the Manhattan.  That's it.

I was turned on to the Saratoga originally by an interview with Camper English conducted by the 12 Bottle Bar. (Question # 6)

The Saratoga is simply a rye Manhattan, half of whose spirit is replaced with brandy.  It is my opinion that this combination elevates the Saratoga into a realm of interest and complexity which surpasses both rye and bourbon Manhattans.

As per my suggestion, Rowen of the Fogged In Lounge mixed up a Saratoga to stack up with the slew of other Manhattans that he was comparing recently, and he half agrees with me, at the very least.

Though recipes vary little, my Saratoga recipe comes from 12 Bottle Bar, which comes from David Wondrich.  You owe it to yourself to make this drink, if you haven't, simply so you can strike down my preposterous claim above.

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Saratoga

.75 oz rye whiskey
.75 oz brandy
.75 oz sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with half a lemon wheel.

Mixology Monday LXIV: the Main Brace

February's Mixology Monday is hosted again by Doug Winship of the Pegu Blog. His themes rarely disappoint, but this one is particularly ingenius, since it magically coincides with the theme for his blog this month (and every other February): tiki.


As Doug's submission roundup for this month will likely be a sea of citrus juice and rum(there are worse things in life), I've chosen to post one of the rarer tiki recipes that isn't very typical, like I did one year ago with the Flaming Coffee Grog.

The Main Brace may have one of the coolest names of any drink, but the drink itself might seem fairly mundane: you can either think of it as a tiki drink which replaces rum with red wine, or instead, a tiki take on sangria.

Why is the name so cool? Because it refers to a drinking ritual on seafaring vessels of old.

The main brace(or mainbrace) is the largest/thickest/heaviest rigged rope on a sailing ship, be it a common sailboat or a 3-mast Man-of-War. The braces of a ship were the ropes which helped turn the angle of the ship's sails, thereby steering the vessel. When armed ships engaged in battle, clever commanders knew that targeting a ship's steering apparatus with cannons, the main brace especially, was a much better way to disable an vessel than trying to sink it.

When main braces broke, only the strongest and most skilled of seamen could splice it(thereby mending it), especially in the heat of battle. Those that succeeded on this herculean task were usually rewarded with extra rum that day. The rum reward for splicing the main brace became so customary and traditional that the term "splicing the main brace" was soon used as a euphemism for drinking on a ship, especially after a job well done. This term was said to be used as such in the British Royal Navy until well into the era of engine-powered ships, where braces were no longer even used. (I labored to avoid nautical terminology in this explanation. If you can handle the jargon, you can read more about it here.)

So, why does the Main Brace drink use wine instead of rum? No clue. That's part of the mystery. The Main Brace is one of those drinks that tastes way better than your imagination may guess when looking at the ingredient list. The recipe calls for a wine from Burgundy, but I tend to suggest that a very capable substitute is a dry red wine that has a full body, enough to stand up to the juices.

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Main Brace

3 oz Burgundy (or red wine)
.75 oz orange juice
.5 oz lemon juice
.5 oz sugar syrup
.25 oz triple sec
.25 oz lime juice

Shake with ice cubes, and pour into a tall glass.

MxMo LIX: Wahine Censor

Frederic at the Cocktail Virgin Slut is hosting Mixology Monday again, and this time he's chosen one of the more challenging types of cocktails: beer cocktails. I've once again lucked out by having a subject already in mind for such a post.


Shandy, in its most general sense, is beer mixed with some sort of sweet beverage. Depending on where you are in the world, that beverage can be fruit juice, sparkling lemonade, ginger ale/beer, or even hard cider.

I can't find any firm information on how shandy came about. I can see several reasons how it could have: to make beer sweeter and more palatable, to lower its alcohol content, to stretch out the beer and make it last longer, or to make it more refreshing (especially when fresh water wasn't always safe to add to the drink).

Regardless, shandy is delicious. You should really try it some time. It's especially good on a hot summer day. Light lagers are usually used, and along with carbonated beverages. The norm for shandy in the United States is ginger ale or ginger beer.

There's a certain unorthodox shandy recipe that's been my go-to for a few years now. I found it on the Tiki Central forums, which I've posted about several times before. This shandy is a bit harder, with a shot of gin and some lime juice. Rattiki, the creator of this brew, likens it to a combination of shandy and the Gimlet cocktail. (Though, we all know that real Gimlets are made with and only with Rose's Lime Cordial... right?)

A beer that Rattiki suggest for this mix is Negra Modelo, a dark and creamy Mexican lager which is not only a fairly untraditional beer choice for a shandy, but is also one of my favorites.

I've adapted Rattiki's original recipe for a single serving, though I recommend Rattiki's method of making a large bucket of the stuff (and also placing naked women behind it). I've taken a bit of poetic license with the garnish as well. Rattiki didn't really issue a name for it, and he never got back to me when I told him I was going to write about it, so I'll go ahead and give it a modest yet fitting name.


Wahine Censor

5oz Negra Modelo (substitute smooth wheat beer)
5oz ginger ale/beer
1.5oz gin
.75oz lime juice
.25oz grenadine
1 dash orange bitters

Build over the tallest glass you have, filled with ice. Float Cherry Heering. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry speared through a spent lime shell.

MxMo LVII: Floral Bitters

The month of May's Mixology Monday host is Dave from The Barman Cometh. His theme is "floral cocktails" and he says:

"As the sun starts becoming more frequent and the temptation to play hooky mid-week gets stronger, nothing brightens the day better this time of year than the fresh blossoms hanging from the trees on the street and popping up in your neighborhood gardens. Goodbye cabin fever, hello springtime!"

Dave must not suffer from any sort of botanical allergy, but otherwise, I couldn't agree more. Despite that all the blossoms are here and green is everywhere to be seen, Washington, DC's long winter still lingers with temperatures that have barely broken the 70's (F) and constant rain. Looks like we'll need some liquid persuasion in order to change the mood...


I'm going to be "that guy" and make my post about a floral ingredient instead of a cocktail. Sorry, Dave. I've been waiting to post about my floral bitters for a while now, and surely you can understand how I wouldn't pass up this convenient and serendipitous MxMo opportunity.

As I detailed earlier in my homemade coffee bitters post, I make bitters using a conservative method; I make individual tinctures and combine them in various proportions until I find something that works. This is a method that surely showed its merits in the process of making these floral bitters, because it took me months of combining and testing to arrive at a first decent iteration. If I had done it via single compound infusions, I'd only be on my 2nd or 3rd try. I'd estimate that these floral bitters were made on the 30th or 40th try.

The star and major component of these bitters is pomelo. The pomelo is a cousin of the grapefruit. It's much larger, its peel is green, and its flavor is similar to the grapefruit, except that it's milder, sweeter, and less bitter. But I'm interested in the pomelo's peel, whose flavor can vary a bit... but I've found that especially among the smooth-skinned Israeli variety of pomelo which is available in the winter, the peel's flavor is mostly floral with just a bit of grassiness as well as grapefruit tones.


I made the pomelo tincture just like any other: by soaking its peel and pith in high proof alcohol. On the subject of citrus infusions, most people will advise you to remove the fruit's bitter pith from the peel, but in making bitters, it goes without saying that I'm perfectly ok with having plenty of pith. And pomelos are infamous for having a huge amount of pith between their peel and fruit.

To support the pomelo with a more straightforward floral note is simple rose water. Rose water is a distillation of a mixture of water and rose petals. The result is a strong solution that smells like perfume. Rose water is very common in cuisine (especially desserts) all across the world.

Once again, I'm using a tincture of wormwood as my primary bittering agent. It also has some sour herbal tones to it that I felt would be useful.

The final ingredient is one that I tinkered with for quite a while. I tried tinctures of black tea, green tea, jasmine green tea, hibiscus, and even of green bean and bell pepper. In the end, I went with a lime tincture. I didn't want to add much fruitiness to these bitters, but I feel that the bitter side of the lime really adds to this mix.

In the end, these bitters are less complex than I originally wanted, but I'm satisfied with them as a first version... a Floral Bitters #1, if you will. The pomelo mostly acts a bass while the rose water tends to sing the high notes. The lime and wormwood both add a bit of sourness while the lime also provides a dark vegetal "green" tone.

I essentially made these bitters for gin. I've had great luck with gin Old Fashioneds, Martinis, and Gin & Tonics. I'm still working on how these bitters go with other white spirits like light rum or pisco.

A week or two after I finished these bitters, I learned that the bartenders at The Gibson in DC have concocted a similar brew called "Angel Bitters", which uses chamomile and also rose water. I told them to make me a Martini with them, just for good measure. They taste very much like mine, except that they seemed a bit peppery. Overall, it was a great drink.

Thanks again to Dave for hosting this fun theme.