Infusion #3: Winter Rum

I talk quite a bit about infusions on this blog. If you're tired of it, you're welcome to leave, but if you're not, then you're in for a treat, because I'm "turning it up a notch" today.

Over a year ago I decided to see what would happen when I infused fresh cranberries into white rum. The result, obviously, was cranberry rum, and while it achieved a beautiful red hue on the order of Campari, very little flavor was added to the final product except for a nice acidic tartness. I concluded that fresh cranberries would make a great infusion if used along with other ingredients. Today I'm finally running with that idea.

What I'm doing is what you could call a compound infusion, not simply because of how many ingredients I'll be using, but because of how I will be doing it. When I talked about making bitters a while back, I spoke of a conservative method of infusion whereby one infuses alcohols separately and then combines them into a perfect blend via trial and error. Today, I'm using a different technique with the same soul: instead of infusing all the ingredients at once, I will be doing it in stages. With this method, I can halt each infusion handily at the moment when its flavor is perfect, and then continue with the next so as to best balance the combination of tastes in the final product.

I'm going with three infusions this time: dried berries, fresh cranberries, and cinnamon, and I'll be doing it with rum. Why rum again? Because it's what I know best and because it's so versatile. I promise to do a non-rum infusion soon.

I've used Cruzan Estate Light in several infusions, and I'm using Cruzan again this time, but I will be using their Cruzan Estate Dark product. It's really more of a gold rum than a "dark" rum, but its flavor is dry and peppery as opposed to fruity and sweet, which makes it a perfect candidate for the base of a "winter rum".


The first infusion was with the dried berries. I used all natural berries from Stoneridge Orchards, which is a combination of cherries, blueberries, cranberries, and raspberries. Infusing dried fruit into your liquor yields a very different result than fresh; the flavors are dark, earthy, and oxidized as opposed to bright and fruity. It also imparts more sweetness than usual. I put about a dozen berries in the bottle of rum, and less than 24 hours later, I decided it was already done, and strained them out.

Next up is the fresh cranberries. Like last time, I'll point out that you really need to rupture each berry so that the hollow inner surface area of the berry can add to the infusion.


About 15 crushed cranberries went in, and it was done about 36 hours later. Also like last time, the color of the rum has turned a beautiful red (pictured left), and there is now a tartness that balances out the sweetness imparted by the dried berries.

Lastly is the cinnamon (pictured right). Using a whole stick of cinnamon (and not the ground stuff) guarantees the cinnamon's quality and ease of extraction, and trust me when I say that shortly after being put into the rum, the stick unfurls and allows the liquor access to its whole surface area. As you can see, the berries so far have soaked up quite a bit of the rum that we won't get back. So sad!

The cinnamon only needed about 24 hours to impart what I wanted. The Winter Rum is complete (pictured left). The final result is interesting in that all of the infused components can be tasted individually in the rum. It has a very warming characteristic to it, which I suppose was what I was going for. The dried berries give an underlying sweetness, the cranberries lend a tartness that keeps the rum from being too boring, and the cinnamon applies an overall earthiness that really gives the rum its warmth. I'm satisfied with this experiment, though I would have wanted to infuse the dried berries for less time. For any of you trying something similar: go easy on the dried fruit.

You could use something like this in almost any application of spiced rum, or even in the stead of any gold rum to add a decidedly wintry spin on any cocktail. My application will be simpler.


Winter Rum & Ginger

2 oz Winter Rum
2.5 oz ginger ale or ginger beer
1 dash aromatic bitters

Combine ingredients over ice in a tumbler.

Next time you're at a bar where you don't trust the bartender, order a spiced rum and ginger ale; although cola is more traditional, I find that ginger ale better complements spiced rum, whereas I feel cola simply trounces it. Ginger ale is also well mixed with any old decent gold rum. Try it next time when you're out of ideas on what to make to drink.

This rum combines very well with ginger ale. The dried fruit flavors and cinnamon go especially well with the aromatic bitters. The concoction is pictured above in a beautiful gold-rimmed glass (of 4) that I found at an antique shop. The outsides (and insides) of the glasses are curiously adorned with miniature reproductions of pages and ads from old Montgomery Ward magazines.

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.

The Alexander Ratio, Remixed

The cold weather can drive one's taste buds to yearn for warm flavors. Well, I don't know of any flavor warmer than cinnamon, and I don't know of a hotter liquor than Goldschlager.

Almost a year and a half ago I wrote of the ironclad Alexander cocktail type. What? You haven't been experimenting with it like I asked? WELL DO IT NOW. I'll wait.

This here is a drink that myself and the adorable DJ HawaiianSkirt have been working on for a while now. It's still not perfect, because even cream can't tame the alcoholy kick of the Goldschlager, but damn if this isn't tasty. The Cognac provides just enough of a counterpoint to the Goldschlager such that it's not simply a "Goldschlager milkshake".

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ORIGINAL REMIX

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Hugo Bar Cocktail

1 oz table cream
1 oz Goldschlager
1 oz flavorful brandy, or Cognac

Shake ingredients in a shaker full of ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish in some way with your favorite cinnamon candy. (jelly beans pictured here)

Review: Woodchuck Winter & the Amber Stonewall

A popular alternative to beer in the United States is hard apple cider. Simply put, hard cider is beer that's been made with apple juice as a source of fermentation instead of beer's barley mash, but don't be fooled... cider isn't simply an alternative to beer, but a great drink in it's own right. (For a way to make a simple cider at home, check out my review of Spike Your Juice.)

As I understand it, cider is a much more popular drink in the UK than it is in the US. Truth be told, cider is rarely drunk by American beer drinkers as an alternative, but instead usually drunk by small cadres of cider fans. There are various kinds of cider around certain regions of the US, but Woodchuck is a brand that you’ll find almost nationwide. Luckily for us Americans, it’s a great brand, and they make great products.

Woodchuck's flagship is their Amber variety, a simple cider made from red apples. It's sweet and delicious. They make a Granny Smith cider, and one called 802 Dark & Dry, which is mixed with caramelized sugar. They also have Raspberry and Pear ciders, though consumer be warned: these are simply flavored apple ciders, not ciders of a different fruit.

Recently I learned that Woodchuck makes limited release seasonal ciders. While most websites pertaining to beer and spirits are dreadfully out-of-date when it comes to documenting their products, woodchuck.com is different. It tells me (albeit in marketing-speak) that they sell barrel-aged Winter, honeyed Spring, blueberry Summer, spiced Fall, and even Private Reserve Pumpkin cider!

But depending on where you live, they may be quite difficult to find. Even wine and beer authorities in my area such as Ace Beverage and Total Wine were unable to handily make a special order for me. But, for some reason, Harris Teeter has always had a superior Woodchuck selection, and that is where I haphazardly found a pack of Woodchuck Winter.

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The Review
Woodchuck Winter

From the website:
"Somewhere between a delicate snowflake drifting down to your tongue and a hard-packed snowball to the teeth, the power of this winter Cider is a balanced culmination of Premium French and Traditional American Oak, giving the cider great complexity and broad characteristics that neither style could produce on its own."

I don't mean to give anything away, but I really had to compare side-by-side the Winter cider to Woodchuck's Amber cider in order to be able to discern some of the former's characteristics.

In the Glass

Like any cider, when poured into the glass, the Winter developed nowhere near the head that beer fans are used to. Once settled, the cider's color is a few shades darker than the Amber.

Smell

The smell of the Winter is delightfully apply, as expected, though its aroma is less powerful than the Amber.

Taste

This is the point where I realized that I needed to bring in the Amber cider for comparison and start over. The flavor of the Winter cider seemed undetectably different than the Amber, if perhaps a little less sweet. Disappointed, I cracked open some cold Amber and took a few sips. When I revisited the Winter, the differences finally arose.

The flavor is definitely less sweet, probably more on par with the Woodchuck 802 Dark & Dry. I finally taste the woodiness of the cider's extra aging... it's a very faint dry flavor much like the characteristics I taste in my own Cask-series spirits. I'm also able to detect a little bit of vanilla in the mix.

But alas, after a few sips, I can no longer taste the unique character of Winter. But when I switch back to Amber for a few sips and return to Winter once more, I can taste it again.

Conclusion

I guess I see what Woodchuck is doing here. They make a varietal of their cider whose flavor doesn't appreciably stray from their "core" ciders. That way, their loyal fans are able to drink their varietals without having to adapt their tastes or think too hard. But when someone like myself can barely taste the difference between your core and varietal ciders, then you have a problem.

I dearly wish that beverage and spirit companies would take more chances in issuing unique variations of their products. It really comes down to money versus innovation: you can either ensure that a new product is close enough to the old to keep consumption the same on average, or you can take a leap that may fall on its ass, but it may also advance the industry.

Perhaps I'm being a little harsh or hyperbolic, but I'm quite disappointed with Woodchuck Winter. I wouldn't go out of my way again to obtain it. I'd buy it again only to impress my cider-drinking friends at a party. I'd recommend it only to those who could obtain it easily. As for the other Woodchuck limited releases, I'd still love to try them, but knowing how nebulous it is to get my hands on them, I don't know if I ever will.

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While we're on the subject of cider, let me share with you a great drink: the Stonewall cocktail.

You won't find too much information on the Stonewall for some reason, but some quick research makes it clear that the drink consists of whiskey and apple cider, hot or cold. I've found that Woodchuck Amber and bourbon make a fine Stonewall, and its flavors really hit the spot in fall or winter, for whatever reason. The bourbon manages to bring out the yeastiness of the cider, and the cider manages to highlight the pungent corn flavors of the bourbon. Do yourself a favor and pick up a pack of Woodchuck for this year's New Year celebration, and do yourself a second favor by making an Amber Stonewall.

Amber Stonewall

2oz Woodchuck Amber hard cider
1oz bourbon

Pour ingredients into a tumbler filled with ice. Optional cinnamon stick for a stirrer/garnish.

Review: Spike Your Juice

One of my favorite blogs is the Drinkhacker. Primarily a booze review blog, it constantly reviews anything alcoholic with a discerning palate and thoughtful notes. My favorite is when some of the more rare or unusual products are reviewed.

A while back, I saw that the Drinkhacker had reviewed a curious product called Spike Your Juice. I was so excited by it that I emailed their Customer Service on the product's website to see if they would send me a free sample to review, and they did. Because of their kindness and their great product, I will be ordering more soon with my own hard-earned money.

Spike Your Juice is a small kit that contains all you need in order to begin making your own cider or wine at home. The kit comes with a bubbler airlock that will fit on most large commercial 64oz juice bottles, six packets of yeast, and a bunch of quaint labels to put on your homemade hooch once it's done.

The process to make your own booze with this kit is simple and fun. You take a bottle of your favorite kind of juice, pour in a packet of yeast, plug the bottle with your bubbler airlock filled slightly with water, and wait! The yeast immediately begin consuming the sugar in the juice and begin emitting alcohol and carbon dioxide as waste... delicious, delicious waste. Within 8 hours you can see many tiny bubbles rising to your juice's surface while your airlock lets out excess gas and keeps out bacteria. If you didn't have an airlock, your capped bottle would explode in a matter of hours.

As a side note, it turns out the the Spike Your Juice yeast packets are in fact yeast and a bit of sugar mixed in. It may be the added sugar or that it's a particularly fast kind of brewing yeast, but the effects of the yeast's consumption can be seen hours quicker than if you used a simple run-of-the-mill yeast from your grocery store... I experimented and confirmed it.

The fermenting will stop when either 1) you put the bottle in the fridge to chill and kill the yeast (but cap it loosely if your airlock doesn't fit in the fridge!), 2) you drink it, 3) there is no sugar left for the yeast to consume, or 4) when the alcohol-by-volume of the juice reaches about 14%, which is an environment that naturally kills off the yeast. But watch out, if you let it ferment much past 48 hours, most of the juice's sugar will be consumed by the yeast, and your juice/hooch will no longer be very sweet.

This stuff is great fun. The first thing I fermented was Welch's Concord Grape juice, a product on Spike Your Juice's recommended juice list(pictured right). After 48 hours, the juice was carbonated, still sweet, and slightly boozy. The yeast lend a pungent flavor to the juice, which is tolerable, but not ideal. I found that running the juice through a coffee filter can remove most of the yeast (taste)... also another way to slow down the fermentation.

After I tested a recommended juice, I set out to try it on my own favorites... and I learned a valuable lesson: carefully check your juice's ingredients list before you try to ferment. It goes without saying that yeast will only consume natural sugar and not artificial sweetener, but another aspect to consider is preservatives. I wanted nothing more than Hawaiian Punch wine, but it is not to be; after the yeast floated in the punch for a day, I realized that (with the help of my friend who's a doctoral biology student) the culprit is the punch's Potassium Sorbate, a preservative which is specifically used for killing yeasts and molds. Whoops.

So far I've fermented grape juice, apple juice, cranberry cocktail, fruit punch, (bottled, non-refridgerated) orange juice, and a big jug of apple cider. I brought the fermented cider to Thanksgiving, and it was a hit (pictured below).

Herein lies, in my opinion, Spike Your Juice's best application: parties. The life of your fermented juice will be short; like soda, the hooch's carbonation quickly dissapates, and further, the yeast's consumption doesn't stop on a dime. What tastes delicious and sweet today might be dry and sugarless tomorrow, even if you put it in the fridge. Further still, Spike Your Juice recommends throwing away your juice's cap once you begin to ferment it, because you can essentially never safely cap the bottle again without it exploding, which doesn't exactly encourage you to keep it long before drinking it. All this volatile nature means rapid juice drinking is best, and that is best done among friends or family.

I highly recommend this product. It's cheap($10), simple, educational, and a lot of fun. You can turn your favorite juice into a wine or cider and enjoy it in a different and novel way.

Experiment responsibly!

theSpeakista reviews the DJ's experiments

There is a chap named Keith who lives in New York City, and he runs a booze blog called theSpeakista. You should read his blog, because it details the coming-of-age of a novice cocktailian, and if you like drinking Manhattans in Manhattan bars, then you should really read his blog, because that is a subject in which he's quickly becoming an authority.


And now you have yet another reason to read it, because he has recently crafted a in-depth and detailed review of both my home-aged Composite Grape Spirit and my homemade Coffee Bitters, of which I sent him samples.

Thanks for the kind words and the thoughtful analysis, Keith. I'm dedicating my next Manhattan to you, sir.

MxMo: Forgotten Cocktails

This month's Mixology Monday is hosted by Rock and Rye, and the theme is "Forgotten Cocktails". Contextually, Dennis of Rock And Rye is referring to cocktail recipes that may be of old age and, even better, underrated!

I have just the candidate, and as one of my favorite cocktails, I've been waiting to post it for quite a while.

The mythology behind the Oriental cocktail is that the recipe was loosed upon the world when an American engineer shared it with a Filipino doctor as repayment for his having saved his life from some tropical disease, as first mentioned in the Savoy. I personally find cocktail histories to be untrustworthy and dull, and so I'll stop here. Let's get on with the drinking.

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Oriental

1.5 oz rye whiskey
.75 oz orange curacao*
.75 oz sweet vermouth**
.5 oz lime juice

Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass. No garnish.

*Triple sec, if you must
**Try to use a sweet vermouth that isn't overpowering. I find that certain brands, such as Martini & Rossi, are veritable herbal assaults on the tongue, and just a bit too much. If your vermouth is too strong, it will upset the balance in the drink.

What separates this from many other obscure vintage cocktails is the flavor. Erik at the Underhill-Lounge remarks that it has a "very modern" taste, and he's right. As I've mentioned before, whiskey and lime is a fairly uncommon combination, which is what might lend to the drink's modern flavor. Furthermore, as Erik also points out, the amount of sweet and sour in the drink is high, such that the whiskey isn't exactly singing the lead.

It's the struggle between each ingredient in this recipe that makes it so interesting. Nothing is accenting and complementing the other here; instead, it's like a flavor free for all, where each is vying for your attention. It's an unusual dynamic for a cocktail, but it proves that it can be done, and in an entertaining way.

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A variation on this recipe is the James Joyce which replaces the rye whiskey with Irish whiskey, constructed by the legendary Gary Regan.


James Joyce

1.5 oz Irish whiskey
.75 oz curacao/triple sec
.75 sweet vermouth
.5 oz lime juice

Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Chuck Taggart declares this drink to be superior and more complex than the Oriental, but I don't agree. (Probably because I used the balmy Jameson as my whiskey.) For me, this variation throws the Oriental's balance a little out of whack, as the subtler whiskey recedes to let the fruit and the sweetness take over. Regardless, it's still a fascinating drink, but in a different way.

Lastly, I have my own variation, which I daresay is my favorite version so far. One simply replaces the Oriental's rye with bourbon...

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ORIGINAL REMIX

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Sentimental

1.5 oz bourbon
.75 oz curacao
.75 oz sweet vermouth
.5 oz lime juice

Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass. No garnish.

This drink tips the recipe's balance ever so slightly into the "sweet" direction, thanks to the bourbon, but I feel it's not too much. If you use something on the sweeter side, like Knobb Creek or Woodford Reserve, you'll find a deep spiciness appear in the drink causing you to praise whatever god you worship (or lack thereof).