Monday, September 28, 2015

#156 Cocktail: Hurricane

      Even if the summer is gone, that doesn't mean that we should stick to the hot tea or toddies. The Hurricane, as you may see, is a tropical, summer cocktail, a mix of several juices and rum, which makes it extremely delicious.
       The creation of this passion fruit–colored relative of a daiquiri is credited to New Orleans tavern owner Pat O'Brien. The bar allegedly started as a speakeasy called Mr. O'Brien's Club Tipperary and the password was "storm's brewin'."
      In the 1940s, he needed to create a new drink to help him get rid of all of the less-popular rum that local distributors forced him to buy before he could get a few cases of more popular liquors such as scotch and other whiskeys. He poured the concoction into hurricane lamp–shaped glasses and gave it away to sailors.
      The drink caught on, and it has been a mainstay in the French Quarter ever since. It is more commonly served in a disposable plastic cup, as New Orleans laws permit
drinking in public and leaving a bar with a drink, but they prohibit public drinking from glass containers.
Wikipedia
1 1/2 ounce light rum
1 1/2 ounce dark rum
1 ounce fresh orange juice
1 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup
2 ounce passion fruit
grenadine to taste


       

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

#155 Cocktail: Hot Buttered Rum

   After molasses began being imported to Colonial America from Jamaica, and distilleries opened in New England in the 1650s, colonists began adding distilled rum to hot beverages such as toddies and nogs, creating beverages such as hot buttered rum and eggnog, among others.
   Spiced rum drinks are especially popular during the winter months. Charles Coulombe, author of Rum: The Epic Story of the Drink that Conquered the World, writes that rum has always been an "important component of American holiday celebrations", and given the Puritanical ban on outright celebration of religious holidays, hot toddies and spiced rum drinks share an association with American civic holidays, such with New Years and Thanksgiving.
    I know that is more a winter-ish drink, but because I feel like I will catch a cold and I am at letter H in this book, then, VoilĂ  !!

4 ounces warm water or apple cider
1 tsp honey
1 whole clove
2 ounces dark rum or spiced rum
1/2 tsp unsalted butter
ground cinnamon to taste
1 cinnamon stick


Tuesday, September 22, 2015

#154 Cocktail: Hemingway Daiquiri

    Do not confuse this one with El Floridita.
  This cocktail was the Ernest Hemingway's favorite drink, that's why is called a Hemingway Daiquiri. A double Hemingway Daquiri is known as a Papa Doble and uses four ounces of rum rather than two.
    This Daiquiri is made without simple syrup, because as you know, Hemingway was a diabetic, so instead they used the maraschino liqueur to sweeten the drink.
     Is a summer cocktail (even if the summer passed already), with a taste of Cuba

“I drink to make other people more interesting.” –Ernest Hemingway

3 ounces light rum
1 1/2 ounce fresh grapefruit juice
1 1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
1 ounce maraschino liqueur



Sunday, September 20, 2015

#153 Cocktail: Hawaiian

    When you hear the name "Hawaiian" for a drink , and especially for a cocktail, you immediately think of a tropical cocktail, with a small umbrella and a combination of vivid colors. Well, this time.....wrong. This cocktail appeared in 1935 and first time appeared in the "Old Mr. Boston" barguide.
    Old Mr. Boston was a distillery located at 1010 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts from 1933 to 1986. It produced its own label of gin, bourbon, rum, and brandies, as well as a few cordials and liqueurs.
    The "Mr. Boston" name is known not only for its brands of distilled spirits, but also for its unique reference book, (Old) Mr. Boston Official Bartender's Guide, used by both professional and home bartenders as the "Bible of Booze." The Guide was first published 1935, according to the first date published in the Guide's publisher information page, the early days after the Repeal of Prohibition, when the distillery started up business again.
     In the original recipe, the two dashes of Angostura were missing and they were added by Gaz Regan so the drink will receive a more complexity. Enjoy!!!

2 onces Gin
1/2 ounce Cointreau
1/2 pineapple juice
2 dashes Angostura aromatic


     

Thursday, September 17, 2015

#153 Cocktail: Hop Toad

    The drink here is adapted from a recipe in Crockett's "The Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book", but the ratios are not the same as the original ones.
     David Wondrich gives a nice description or tale in the Esquire Magazine regarding this cocktail:

      "A slippery one, this, but worth catching if the effort required isn't too great. Here's the thing of it: It's as easy to mix as an Alka-Seltzer and twice as restorative -- provided you can get the main ingredient. It calls, you see, for apricot brandy. But not just any apricot brandy. It calls for Hungarian apricot brandy, and nothing else will do. In Hungary, they make the stuff by mashing up a mess of apricots, fermenting it, and running it through the still a couple times -- yielding what the French would call an eau de vie.Delicately perfumed, smooth, and yet still a little bit fiery. Here, we make apricot brandy by flavoring grape brandy with apricots, perhaps even artificial ones, and then sweetening the shit out of it. It has an unfortunate tendency to taste like cough syrup, and that not of the highest grade. It's not recommended for anyone over legal drinking age. Or under it. (Our lawyers made us add that. Thanks, guys.) If you do get your hands on some of the stuff -- "barack palinka," they call it, and it is in fact imported here* -- you might as well try the venerable Hop Toad"

1 1/2 ounce dark rum
1 ounce apricot liqueur 
1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
Angostura to taste


Sunday, September 13, 2015

#152 Cocktail: Gotham

      This cocktail was created in 2001 by David Wondrich for the debut number of New York's Gotham magazine.
      David Wondrich is widely hailed as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the history of the cocktail and one of the founders of the modern craft cocktail movement.
      I think this cocktail is one of the sweetest cocktails I ever drank, by the use of the creme de cassis which in my opinion overpowers almost all the other flavors. But is still a pretty tasty and enjoyable drink.
2 ounces brandy
1 ounce Nolly Prat dry vermouth
1/2 ounce Creme de Cassis
2 dashes fresh lemon juice



Friday, September 11, 2015

#151 Cocktail: Gibson

    The exact origin of the Gibson is unclear, with numerous popular tales and theories about its genesis. According to one popular theory Charles Dana Gibson is responsible for the creation of the Gibson, when he supposedly challenged Charley Connolly, the bartender of the Players Club in New York City, to improve upon the martini's recipe, so Connolly simply substituted an onion for the olive and named the drink after the patron.
     Gibson could have been the Californian popular onion farmer as seen in the publication Hutchings' illustrated California magazine: Volume 1 (p. 194) by James Mason Hutchings in 1857:
           ONION VALLEY. During the winter of 1852 and '53, snow fell in Onion Yalley to the depth of twenty-five feet, ... Even the towns of Gibson- ville, Seventy-Six, Pine Grove, Whiskey Diggings, and several others, did their trading here.
     There is no direct evidence that Charles Dana, or any other Gibson, created the drink. But, Charles Dana Gibson was certainly the artist who created the 'Gibson girl' illustrations—popular from the 1890s through about the time of the first world war.
(Wikipedia)
2 ounces Gin or Vodka
1/2 ounce dry vermouth


Wednesday, September 9, 2015

#150 Cocktail: Glenkinchie Clincher

    This cocktail was made by Gaz Regan who was hired by Glenkinchie to create a cocktail that should be served at a reception for Tony Bennett in London in 2000
    This is a fairly typical lowland whisky in that it is fresh and light in character, with notes of lemon and cut grass. It has a sweet nose and a hint of peat.
     Very smooth, with a silky texture, this cocktail can be served as an aperitif or after diner

2 ounces Glenkinchie single-malt scotch
1/2 ounce amaretto
1/2 ounce triple sec




Monday, September 7, 2015

#149 Cocktail: Harvey Wallbanger

      According to an article by Brooks Clark in “Bartender” magazine, the Harvey Wallbanger was created at a party in mid 1960’s in Newport Beach, California.
      The host of the party was a certain Bill Doner, then a sports editor for a small newspaper, who, finding that the only potables he had in hand were vodka, frozen orange juice and a bottle of Galliano, simply mixed them altogether. In the early morning a guest by the name of Harvey was found banging his head against the wall and blaming Doner’s concoction for his misery.

A drink was born!

2 ounces vodka
3 ounces fresh orange juice
½ or ¼ ounce Galliano