February Drink of the Month - Shudders in a Whisper

Passion fruit syrup. A tiki drink's best friend!

As I mentioned last month (okay, I wrote my "January" post three days ago, but who's counting? At least I got this one written during the month of February), one of the best birthday presents I received was the wonderful Smuggler's Cove cocktail guide. I'm still making my way through the book (it''s lengthy, and has a wonderful history of tiki culture, luminaries in the field, and detailed descriptions of their methods), but the most useful thing I've found so far is their rum classification system. Some tiki books I've found focus on the regions from which a rum originated. While I enjoy rum from Barbados as much as the next person, I've had trouble in the past trying to keep my rums straight when making drinks that often call for a mix of 3-5 different sugar cane distillates.

The Smuggler's Cove system helps clear this up for me. They break down the spirits first by raw components, then by distillation method, and finally by length of aging. They develop 21 categories, but they list 8 as essential categories for building your own "speed rack" of tiki rums. If you noticed sticky tabs on my Journeyman rum from last "month," that was my own attempt to follow the Smuggler's Cover method. Here are their eight essential rum categories, along with the brands I've purchased to use in my home bar. Each category lists component first, followed by distillation method, and then age (lightly aged = 1-4 yr; aged = 5-14 yr; long aged = 14+ yr):

1) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Pot Still - Lightly Aged:  Journeyman Road's End Rum

2) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Blended - Lightly Aged: Appleton Estate Signature Blend

3) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Pot Still - Aged: Diplomatico Reserva

4) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Column Still - Lightly Aged: Flor de Cana 12 year

5) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Black Blended: Gosling's Black Seal

6) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Black Blended Overproof: Lemon Hart 151

7) Fresh Can Juice - Cane AOC Martinique Rhum Agricole - Unaged: Rhum J.M. White 100 proof

8) Fresh Can Juice - Cane AOC Martinique Rhum Agricole - Aged: Clement V.S.O.P 6 Years Tres Vieux

With these eight rums and a number of homemade syrups that they list at the end of the book, you can make most anything in their tome. For this month, I decided to make one of the author's (Martin Cate) original concoctions. It features passion fruit, which was on sale this month at my local Meijer. I was able to make plenty of fresh Passion Fruit syrup, which elevates the drink significantly (and I also made a bunch of hurricanes, because, duh). Shudders in a Whisper, a drink Cate whipped up for a photo shoot, is bubbly, fresh, tangy, and boozy. It made a great sipper, although my drink mixing partner Zack and I both agreed that could use a little less seltzer. Below is the recipe for Shudder in a Whisper - make it yourself and let me know if you agree (I'll list our recipe modifications in the notes below):

Our coupe glasses overfloweth - use a snifter if you
have one to avoid this issue!

In a Boston shaker, combine the following ingredients:
3/4 oz lime juice
1/2 oz passion fruit syrup*
1/2 oz pear liqueur**
1/4 oz Drambuie
2 oz seltzer***
2 oz column still aged rum (#4 above)
2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a brandy snifter (or if you're me, and your snifters don't exist, a coupe glass will do)

Notes:
*To make the Smuggler's Cove passion fruit syrup, combine equal parts passion fruit puree and 2:1 rich simple syrup. You can make the passion fruit puree using fresh fruit (its ripe now) or buy frozen
**We used pear brandy from Black Star Farms in Traverse City, MI. It is tasty stuff!
***We reduced the seltzer to 1 oz and added an additional 1/4 oz of pear liqueur - its less watery and more potent in our estimation with this change.

I hope you enjoy your Shudders in a Whisper (even if the name is a little creepy)!

January Drink of the Month - Oaxacan Daiquiri

Ann and I ended our 2016 by traveling to New York City for Christmas. Ann crossed off an item on her bucket list by seeing the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, we saw Something Rotten in its last few weeks on Broadway (hilarious!) and we were able to make it on to the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon with standby tickets (and we even made it on the broadcast when someone in the row ahead of us won an ugly Christmas sweater. All of these were noble pursuits, but I was perhaps most excited to explore some of the finer craft cocktail bars in NYC. Without making reservations ahead of time, we encountered disappointment at PDT (although the setup was fun to see - its hidden behind a sliding door in the back of an old phone booth in a hotdog shop) and Dead Rabbit Grog and Grocery. However, the experience we had at Death & Co. NYC more than made up for any of these disappointments - even Ann who was not drinking (because baby - coming soon to a theater near you) had a magical couple of hours talking with out excellent and skilled bartender while she sipped an over the top virgin pina colada.

A lack of yellow chartreuse (because baby - chartreuse is expensive!) keeps me from replicating my favorite drink from that night (a Yellowjacket with mezcal, yellow chartreuse, and jalepeno infused goodness), but I was lucky enough to find Death and Co's beautiful book in our local library, and I found plenty of wonderful recipes in there (as well as a shout out to my alma mater in the form of a profile of Holy Cross priest and drink connoisseur Fr. Bill Dailey). The end of the book featured a whole set of riffs on classic drinks, with over four pages devoted to daiquiri variations. A daiquiri is a simple combination of good rum, simple syrup, and lime juice. Some of the riffs published by Death and Co. went far afield from that simple construction, but my favorite only added one ingredient: mezcal.

Ingredients on display. Note the sticky on my rum, explained
in the notes section below.

Mezcal, the native spirit of Oaxaca, Mexico, is made from the pina (nut) of the agave plant (unlike Tequila, which is made in Jalisco, and made exclusively from blue agave). Many of the native Mexican spirits are regulated by region. When Ann and I went to visit my parents for Christmas, they had just returned from Jalisco, the home of tequila. But the fine people of Jalisco also make a mezcal-like spirit, which they call Raicilla. Like mezcal, it is smoky and sweeter than tequila. It packs a punch, and not everyone loved the drinks I made using my bottle of raicilla. But substituting it for mezcal in the Oaxacan Daiquiri riff from Death & Co. was a wonderful application of this fine spirit.

Scotch haters, beware. This drink is equal parts tart, sweet, and smoky. Rum provides a strong backbone for a strong smoke flavor, which is mellowed by the sweet rum and simple syrup on the finish. My parents promptly turned up their noses to this drink, but I've found myself making this drink whenever I want something simple and flavorful. It will certainly be a staple in my home bar menu, and I hope you might try it out as well! The recipe for the Oaxacan Daiquiri follows.

In a Boston shaker, combine the following ingredients:

2 oz Pot Still Lightly Aged* Rum**

3/4 oz simple syrup

3/4 oz lime juice

1/4 oz mezcal or raicilla***

Shake over ice for 10 seconds, strain and serve up. Garnish with a lime wheel if you are feeling fancy and have company over. Omit if you are drinking alone in your basement while writing blog posts.

Notes:

*Ann got me a wonderful Tiki book for my birthday: Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki. They have their own helpful classification for various types rum, which I've found immensely helpful. I will try to use their system when making rum drinks on the blog in the future (and I'll feature one of their drinks next month, so get ready). If you notice the little sticky tab on my rum bottle (pictured above), this comes from their rum classification system, and it is really helpful!

**I used locally made Road's End Rum from Journeyman's Distillery. It is slightly overproof, and is excellent. It was actually recommended by the Smuggler's Cove folks in their book, so good on you Journeyman!

Ungarnished Oaxacan Daiquiri, because I made it alone
in my basement while writing a blog post.

***Mezcal is much more common in the US than Raicilla. But if you find yourself in Jalisco (say in Peurto Vallarta), pick yourself up a bottle. If using mezcal, make sure to avoid anything with a worm - its a cheap gimmick that is not representative of some of the fine mezcal now found stateside.

I hope you feel bold enough to enjoy your Oaxacan Daiquiri!