August Drink of the Month - The Blue Orchid

First, a programming note: I realize its not yet August, but I'll be traveling for the next two weeks, so I felt the need to get the August DotM up before I left. I hope I haven't offended anyone by talking about August while we're still in the middle of July!

Now on to this month's drink. This was a month when I went to the store and looked around for a fun new ingredient and then decided what drink to make with it after I got home. I went with my friend Zack to City Wide Liquors yesterday, but nothing stood out to us as we roamed the aisles. We were about to give up and buy some Kirschwasser (clear, German cherry brandy) when Zack had the genius idea to invest in some new, exotic bitters instead. I came home with some Fee Brother's Black Walnut bitters as well as some Rose Water (also from Fee Brothers). I'm slowly growing my bitters collection, already having bought Angostura bitters (the classic "bitters"), orange bitters (the second most commonly used bitter variety) and Wild Cherry bitters (great in as Old Fashioned, as noted earlier).

We played around for a bit with the Black Walnut bitters, and even found a decent drink designed to bring out their unique flavor using Rye, Grand Marnier and maple syrup (an Autumn Leaves, featured in Esquire), but nothing we made really stood out to us. I did read that the Black Walnut bitters would be excellent in a Manhattan, and I believe it - their flavor enhanced the smoky flavor of the Rye quite well in the Autumn Leaves. I should be posing on Manhattans some time in the near future, and we will have more to say about the Black Walnut bitters then.

After playing around with the Black Walnut bitters, we turned to the Rose Water. Unlike the newer Black Walnut bitters, there were plenty of recipes to explore with Rose Water, which has been around since ancient times, especially in Turkish and Middle Eastern cultures. Most recipes called for it to be combined with sparkling lemonade, and I can understand how the strong floral taste of the Rose Water would combine well with the tartness of lemonade. The drink we ultimately settled on, however, was called a Blue Orchid. Before giving the recipe, I should make a disclaimer: there are many websites that list recipes for Blue Orchids using Hpnotiq (a blue vodka similar to UV Blue), vanilla vodka and a splash of OJ. This is a much sweeter drink then the one we made - and I would never make it due to my long-standing feud with all blue-colored "fun" vodkas like Hpnotiq and UV Blue. Our Blue Orchid, following a recipe from absolutdrinks.com, featured bourbon as the principle ingredient, resulting in a much smokier drink. The blue color comes from Blue Curacao, which adds a slight hint of orange to the drink and the Rose Water provides a very nice contrast to the bourbon - it has its own distinctive note while also sweetening the drink ever so slightly (though most of the sweetness comes from the Blue Curacao).

Here is the recipe we used. Simply combine the following ingredients:

3 ounces Bourbon*
1 ounce Blue Curacao
2-3 dashes Rose Water

The Blue Orchid

*Quick note on bourbons: Old Grandad is a great inexpensive bourbon if you need recommendations.
Cabin Still is also an okay brand for this drink. Don't buy the expensive $30-50 bottles for mixing - those should be served neat or on the rocks (if for some reason you feel the need to dilute your drink).

Shake the three ingredients over ice for 10-15 seconds, strain and serve in a Martini glass. The blue color is quite pretty - the amber of the bourbon combined with the Blue Curacao creates a dark aquamarine. As far as blue drinks go, it is one of my favorite - perhaps just behind the Blue Hawaiian, which stands at the pinnacle of all blue drinks.

Enjoy your Blue Orchid!

Home Made Syrups and Whatnot

I think I've already groused enough about store bought Grenadine, so I won't spend a long time trying to convince anyone that making your own is a good idea - hopefully I've already done that! I've been promising that I would try making my own Grenadine for a few weeks now, but it wasn't until last night that I finally took a whole 20 minutes out of my "busy" day and boiled the pomegranate juice that I bought back in late June. Despite one small misstep which resulted in me having to spend fifteen minutes removing carbonized pomegranate from the stove top, the process was relatively painless. Here are the instructions I followed - while there were more complicated recipes online, I think simple is better here (I'm still mystified as to what "orange flower water" is):

Procure 2-4 cups of pomegranate juice. Fresh juice is highly recommended - nothing from concentrate
if at all possible. Pomegranate is often mixed in juice cocktails, but you will have to look a little bit to find pure pomegranate juice. POM is the most popular brand, but there are less expensive options available. I was able to find a 4 cup (32 ounce) bottle of organic pomegranate juice for $2 less than POM.

Boil the pomegranate juice until you have reduced the liquid by half. Watch out - this stuff boils up like crazy if you are not careful and it can spill over your pot in a heartbeat - hence my burner cleaning chore. Carbonized pomegranate doesn't smell particularly great...

Once your juice has reduced by half, transfer to a glass measuring bowl. Slowly whisk in sugar - you should use equal parts sugar and juice. If you started with 32 ounces of juice (before boiling), then you should add two cups (16 ounces) of sugar. If you started with 16 ounces of juice, only add one cup of sugar.

Once the sugar has been fully mixed into the juice, allow the resulting syrup solution to cool and then bottle and refrigerate. You wind up with a much darker product than commercial Grenadine and you'll find the flavor is significantly different. No more high fructose corn syrup (which is either a good or bad thing, is suppose, depending on your tastes)!

Another bar staple that you can easily make at home and that significantly enhances your drink quality is Sweet & Sour Mix (sometimes just called Sour mix). This recipe is even simpler, as there is no need to reduce anything. All you will need is a 3 pound bag of lemons, a 3 pound bag of limes, some sugar and some water! Here's the step-by-step instructions:

Heat three cups of water on the stove - do not boil, instead you'll keep the water at "hot tub" levels. I would recommend using distilled water - tap water works fine, but the minerals and impurities in the tap water (especially in South Bend, IN) can give your Sour mix a weird after taste.

Slowly add three cups of sugar to the hot but not boiling water. Add about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of sugar at a time, allowing the sugar to fully dissolve before adding your next spoonful.

Guess what? You just made simple syrup! Congratulations! If you were making mojitos or any number of other drinks, you could stop right here. Good to know for future reference, right? A real bartender NEVER buys simple syrup - make your own people!

Half and then juice your lemons and limes. You will need two cups each of lemon and lime juice. I like my sour mix a little pulpy, but if you'd like the clean, commercial look for your sour mix, strain your lemon and lime juice through cheese cloth to remove any of the lemon and lime pulp.

Combine your simple syrup mixture with your two cups of lemon and two cups of lime juice. Shake well and refrigerate. Now you have your very own Sour mix. Again, no more high fructose corn syrup taste, which is a big win in my book. The lemon and lime flavors stand out a bit more as well, which can add some nice notes to your drink that the processed Sour mix lacks.

Hey, congrats - you just learned how to make three different bar syrups! Enjoy!

Bar Kiley Bonus Drink #1 - The Old Fashioned

While I only started this blog a little over a month ago, I've been operating Bar Kiley for a little over four years and I've been using the "Drink of the Month" system for at least the last two and a half years. This means that there are at least 30 drinks I've made as my drink of the month in the past that have not been chronicled on this blog (its called math, son). With that in mind, I've decided to include a few of my favorite former "Drinks of the Month" form time to time to round out the collection here on Bar Kiley. The first of the Bar Kiley Bonus Drinks is a true classic: The Old Fashioned.

I will readily admit that I had never heard of the Old Fashioned before Don Draper and his Mad Men friends began slinging them back at the end of the day. I began experimenting with the Old Fashioned soon after I read an article about the Mad Men property department and their commitment to authenticity, including their authentic cocktail. My first few efforts were admittedly mediocre - this was still early in my development as a bar tender - but they were passable. It wasn't until Matt Haggerty's wedding, when my friends Ryan, Kyle and I all decided that would be our drink for the evening from the reception bar, that I had a truly bad Old Fashioned (sorry Matt - the wedding was great!). No one should be forced to drink watery bourbon mixed with table sugar packets, but that didn't stop us from trying that evening. When I got home, I resolved to learn how to mix a quality Old Fashioned so that I would never be disappointed by the classic cocktail again.

The one tool every bar tender needs to craft an excellent Old Fashioned is a wooden muddler (none of this metal or plastic stuff). The muddler is used for crushing ingredients, such as crushing mint for use in a Mojito. While some people insist that using Simple Syrup is sufficient for a good Old Fashioned, I am convinced that muddled sugar makes a far better drink, as long as it is mixed well. Poorly muddled and mixed sugar can result in a cruddy final sip filled with undissolved sugar, but if it is done well, it is superb.

That being said, here is the recipe that I most often use for my Old Fashioned:

1) Muddle one or two sugar cubes with just enough soda water to allow for the sugar to completely dissolve. Amount of sugar depends on your taste, I would recommend only one cube.
2) Add 3 dashes of Angostura Bitters to the sugar/water mix
3) Add 1.5 ounces of bourbon. Whiskey or rye is also acceptable but bourbon is the best for a true Old Fashioned.
4) Top with ice. I also like to add a small amount of soda water on top. Garnish with a cherry and serve.

The fine folks at oldfashioned101.com disagree with my recipe slightly. In their august opinion: "There is no seltzer, soda water, ginger ale, or lemon soda in an Old Fashioned." While I strongly agree with many of their other precepts (such as no vermouth or mashed fruit of any kind in an Old Fashioned), I really believe the soda water adds something to the drink above and beyond what regular water would impart. I am also a total sucker for adding a cherry, so you have to include it.

You will note that there are many possible variations listed in the recipe I provided. This is a drink that you absolutely have to make to taste. The flavors are subtle and interact quite a bit, so try out different varieties of whiskey (bourbon, rye, scotch, Canadian or Irish whiskey, etc) and different amounts of sugar. One change that can make a big difference and can be fun to experiment with is using different types of bitters. While Angostura Bitters are always a winner, I've really enjoyed experimenting with other bitters. Fee Brothers has an excellent line to try out with many different flavors. Of late, I've been mixing my Old Fashioneds with 2 dashes of their Cherry Bitters and one dash of Angostura Bitters. Orange Bitters also work well here, although I would be hesitant to use "out there" flavors such as grapefruit or rhubarb in this drink.

 Agree or disagree? I'd be happy to discuss the merits of soda water or the necessity of muddling any day. Enjoy your Old Fashioned!

July Drink of the Month - The Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford and
Douglas Fairbanks 

After experimenting with a classic, prohibition era cocktail last month with the Aviation, I decided to keep up the Prohibition-era flavor this month with The Mary Pickford. Mary Pickford was one of the first true movie stars, and created one of the first Hollywood power couples when she married famous swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks (incidentally, Fairbanks had a cocktail named after him as well - see below for one variation on Doug's drink as well).

The Mary Pickford cocktail, much like the venerable Shirley Temple, features grenadine as one of its central ingredients. The gold standard for grenadine on your local grocer's shelf is Rose's Grenadine Syrup, a bright red concoction made primarily from high fructose corn syrup, citric acid water. My little sister, the resident Shirley Temple fan in the family, would be perfectly happy to drink a whole bottle of the stuff (as well as the left-over syrup found in commercial Maraschino cherries), but in the interest of building a better life through "from scratch" bar tending, I would recommend making your own Grenadine Syrup. Grenadine takes its name from the French word for "pomegranate," and so true Grenadine syrup owes its flavor to that odd, seed-filled fruit, not cherries as people often suspect. There are several recipes online for making your own grenadine. Perhaps the easiest comes from the Cocktail Chronicles, which simply recommends boiling two cups of POM pomegranate juice until it is reduced by half and then stirring in one cup on sugar into the hot but not boiling juice reduction. There are other, more complicated recipes involving such interesting ingredients as "orange flower water" to be found (click here for that one), but simple is usually better. I intend to try a few different recipes over the weekend, and I will report back with results soon!

Once you have mastered making your own Grenadine, the rest of the Mary Pickford is simple, yet elegant. To make an elegant, classy Mary Pickford, simply combine:

1.5 oz white rum
1.5 oz pineapple juice
0.5 oz grenadine
1 dash maraschino liqueur

*A quick note on grenadine portions: some recipes call for as much as 1.5 oz grenadine, some for as little as .25 oz. Less is more here, especially if you are using commercial grenadine, such as Rose's. If you are using the homemade stuff, you can add a little more, as the flavor is more subtle.

As you can see, maraschino has made a comeback from last month! The resulting cocktail should be a pretty rose color. Shake the ingredients over cracked ice and serve in a martini glass. If you want to go the extra mile and garnish your drink (always a big winner if you want to class up your parties), a maraschino cherry would be perfectly appropriate. A cocktail skewer with strawberry and pineapple chucks balanced on the rim or halved on the lip of the glass would be even better!

As promised above, a bonus drink for the month in honor of Mary Pickford: The Douglas Fairbanks! Doug's drink combines gin, apricot brandy, lime juice and egg white (yes, egg white is a common bar ingredient - hope this doesn't scare you off!). The resulting drink is a little frothy (mostly because of the egg), but the lime and apricot flavors combine very well. Here is the recipe:

2 oz gin (Plymouth is the preferred brand for the Doug)
1 oz Apricot brandy (usually found in the schnapps section of your liquor store)
0.75 oz lime juice
0.5 oz egg white (one egg - what you do with the yolk is up to you!)

Dry shake the ingredients for 10 seconds to allow the egg white to emulsify. Add ice and shake the ingredients for an additional 10 seconds, then strain into a martini glass and you will have yourself a Douglas Fairbanks. If you want to go all out, may I suggest hosting a his/hers party with Mary Pickfords for the ladies and Douglas Fairbanks for the gentlemen? I think that is a way better idea than Tennis Pros and Golf Hoes, but what do I know?

Enjoy your Mary Pickford!