The Norman Conquest: from England to San Diego

Last year I visited the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel in London and tried one of Erik Lorincz‘s creations, the Norman Conquest. It was similar to a Manhattan with a mix of bourbon and calvados as the base spirit. I love calvados so the drink captured my interest.

At the American Bar they used Woodford Reserve bourbon and Martini Rosso vermouth; at home I recreated the cocktail with Buffalo Trace and Dolin rouge for a more assertive mix. My calvados is Daron.

Then I remembered that I had tried a similar Manhattan variation with apple brandy in the past, Sam Ross’ Grandfather. He calls for applejack but I used calvados. I made them side-by-side for comparison purposes. The differences are minor – the simple syrup and orange twist in Erik Lorincz’s version, the Peychaud’s bitters in Sam Ross’ version, calvados vs. applejack, rocks vs. up.

Level-headed

Dinah Sanders who authored the Art of the Shim, a nice little book about low-alcohol cocktails, is hosting Mixology Monday this month and has chosen shims as her theme. She defines them as drinks that contain less than half an ounce of strong spirits.

One of my favorite discoveries in the book is the Rhum Dandy Shim by Craig Lane of Bar Agricole in San Francisco. It’s red vermouth-based and cleverly uses rhum agricole and absinthe as modifiers. It manages to create a huge amount of flavor with only half an ounce of hard liquor. A very inspiring drink that shows that you don’t have to compromise on taste with these low-octane libations.

Tailspin

The Tailspin is another cocktail from the Death & Co Cocktail Book, this one from the Classic & Vintage section.

I realized while making it that it’s a Bijou (gin, sweet vermouth, green Chartreuse, orange bitters) with a Campari rinse.

At Death & Co, they make it relatively Chartreuse- (and vermouth-) heavy with 1.5/1/1 ratios. I am used to 2/1/1 as in, for example, the Bartender’s Choice version, although historically this may be an equal-parts drink (see Harry Johnson’s Bartender’s Manual), like its younger cousin the Negroni.

I used Dolin sweet vermouth, which is lighter than the Carpano Antica used in the Death & Co version. It’s a pretty drink, although a little busy. You would think that, as a fan of the Negroni and green Chartreuse, I would be all over this one. But Chartreuse is richer than Campari, so the cocktail ends up being a little over the top for my taste buds. And there is a lot of Chartreuse in that cocktail.

All in all, it’s best enjoyed as a post-dinner drink.

Down the rabbit hole

I’ve been interested in cocktails for a long while now, but started documenting my efforts only about four years ago. Which may very well be for the best; one of my first attempts at a tiki cocktail was a now legendary Mai Tai Bowl that was incredibly strong – I had no idea that batched cocktails had to be pre-diluted – and the most unfortunate shade of emerald green, thanks to the lovely blue curaçao I had included in the recipe. I have since seen the light and am now a devoted Jeff Berry disciple, but for sure it’s fun to look back and remember these early efforts.

It looks like this was not my first catastrophe with blue curaçao either. The first cocktail I remember making was a cloyingly sweet Blue Hawaiian. Enough to lose my interest in making mixed drinks for a while.

Curiously, it’s not a cocktail book that led to my first cocktail success, it’s actually a cookbook – Jamie Oliver’s Happy Days with the Naked Chef. At the end of the book is a little cocktail section which includes a recipe for the Sidecar. Making my first Sidecar with a good VSOP cognac and fresh lemon juice was a revelation. There was a simple 3-ingredient cocktail that was more than the sum of its parts, bright and complex at the same time, and felt very elegant.

I proceeded to look for more cocktail recipes in my cookbook library and stumbled upon my next big discovery in Mario Batali’s Babbo cookbook. In restrospect, the drink could not have been more different from the Sidecar. I am talking about what is probably my favorite cocktail ever, the Negroni. I was instantly seduced by its moreish bitter orange flavor. The recipe in Babbo also introduced me to the amazingly juniper-forward Junipero gin from Anchor Distilling in San Francisco. Things progressed naturally from that point on, and my home bar rapidly expanded.

Booze and elderflowers

After making a cordial from wild elderflowers, for my first drink I decided to make a Far Eastern Gimlet. It’s a very simple cocktail based on the classic Gimlet where Rose’s lime juice is replaced with lemon juice and elderflower cordial, plus a dash of Angostura bitters (another well-known bartender ketchup…! I know, I know…). Originally the drink was created at the Merchant Hotel in Belfast, and it was later tweaked by Maks Pazuniak (including the dash of bitters). It has a typical Gimlet profile with a subtle elderflower flavor. It’s nice but may be a little too simple. It’s not quite unforgettable, but if you are a Gimlet fan you will like this version for sure. Trying different gins would be a good idea since the flavor is already subtle, although I would stay with a gin that is juniper-light.

The Milano Swizzle, Bitter Giuseppe, and the Search for Delicious

Most nights I make cocktails for two, but when my husband is out of town I almost always reach for the amari (he is not a bitter lover and that is an understatement). Campari, Cynar, Fernet-Branca – it’s all fair game, and the more bitter the better as far as I am concerned (I wonder, is there such a thing as a bitterness scale for amari, similar to IBUs for beer?).

Last night, I decided to try a riff on a Cynar + sweet vermouth combination, Christian Siglin’s Milano Swizzle.