March Drink of the Month - the D'Angelo

For Christmas this year, I decided to go back through six years of Bar Kiley posts and assemble the best of the best into a little book for friends and family. I'm still figuring out how best to produce said book, so it hasn't hit shelves yet (my parents and sister got galleys in their stockings), but the process of revisiting and tweaking 60+ recipes was a lot of fun. It also reminded me that I am really bad at naming original drinks, as is evidenced by the except below from the entry for the "Blade":

There is an old axiom: never let your idiot friends name your drinks when they are sleep deprived and watching old Marvel movies. Blade is made from hibiscus syrup (more on that in a moment), so it has a really pretty ruby hue. Hypothetically, if you and your friend are both sleep deprived because of travel and small children AND you happen to be watching the 1998 super hero/horror classic Blade, you may be tempted to imagine your drink as a goblet of blood, and name the tipple in honor of the movie. But that would be an incredibly dumb name, so no matter what you do, you should probably never promise your friend that they can name the drink you’ve handed them. Otherwise you’ll end up writing a 150 word essay in a cocktail book on why your drink has such a dumb name…. hypothetically.

I intensely dislike naming drinks because my naming conventions often come down to terrible puns, and no one needs more of those in their lives. With that as a given, I'm going to leave the name of the D'Angelo shrouded in mystery. I will say that it is an homage to one of the worst professors I ever had at Notre Dame, but the drink has nothing to do with her personality, subject matter expertise, or dress. It was a name association/pun, which I had better keep to myself in order to continue to project an aura of mystique.

The drink for this month began as a recreation of a tasty happy hour beverage I enjoyed at LatinicityRosa Maria from Latinicity became a sweet and sour porch sipper called the D'Angelo, and I hope you enjoy the fruits of our tinkering!
in downtown Chicago. It was a sweet and syrup-y (and likely spiked with soda-y) vodka drink made with lime, passion fruit, and rosemary. Down in the basement lab, we tweaked it into a passion fruit daiquiri riff with added notes of rosemary for complexity. The

Ingredients: 2 oz white rum, 1.5 oz lime juice, 1 oz passion fruit syrup, 0.75 oz rosemary simple syrup

Preparation: For the rosemary simple syrup: combine 0.5 cups water and 0.5 cups granulated sugar in a saucepot over medium heat. Stir until combined, add in 3 large sprigs of rosemary. Steep rosemary over medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Allow to cool, then strain and store for up to 3 weeks. For the cocktail: combine all ingredients in a Boston Shaker, shake over ice and strain into an ice filled goblet. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.

February(-ish) Drink of the Month - The Viking Fog Cutter

The first encountered auqavit when I was living in Minnesota, which makes sense. A clear grain spirit, usually flavored with caraway, Aquavit is native to Scandinavia. As any lutefisk or hot dish enthusiast could tell you, Minnesota is home to a large population of Swedish immigrants, so naturally I would find aquavit in the great North. Surprisingly, Minneapolis and Saint Paul don't list any "sister cities" in Sweden or Norway, but travel outside of the big towns and you'll find places like Elbow Lake (sister city: Flekkefjord, Norway) and Chisago Lake/Lindstrom, where all the signs in town are posted both in English and Swedish (sister cities are Algutsboda and Tingsryd, Sweden, respectively).

I had the pleasure of living with a few Swedes during my childhood, when we hosted au pairs to help with my brother's physical and occupational therapy. One thing I learned from the Swedes (and Danes) that lived with us was their great love for black licorice. One Dane (Christian) was very upset with the quality of American black licorice, and had me try some he had brought from home. He told me some of the ingredients would be classified as cleaning products here in the states, so it was "illegal" to import. I'm not a great lover of straight anise myself, so I found Christian's licorice abhorrent. But those Nords - they love the stuff! And so it makes sense that they would flavor their drinks with as much anise as they could.

While I will never be one to buy a bag of "all black" jelly beans, anise does do wonders to boost and compliment other flavors. It actually plays nicely with citrus/tropical flavors, as well as the vanillin in oak aged spirits. While aquavit is mostly drunk straight (in Norway, where it is usually aged in oak before serving) or as a shot during festive occasions (Sweden, where it remains unaged), it has begun showing up in cocktails. Our drink for this month takes a classic tiki drink and adds a aquavit float to give it depth and complexity. While using a clear liquid for a float doesn't do much for visual appeal, aquavit lends the drink spicy/earthy notes that transform the sweet/cirtus-y drink into something all together different. 

Ingredients: 1 oz light rum, 0.5 oz gin, 0.5 oz brandy, 0.5 oz orgeat, 2 oz orange juice, 1 oz lemon juice, 0.5 oz aquavit float

Preparation: Combine all ingredients except aquavit in a Boston shaker. Shake over ice, strain into a red wine goblet filled with crushed ice. Using a barspoon, float aquavit on top, serve ungarnished.