This is exactly the same as 22. Milk Punch, but hot. However, since the instructions are similar I’m making it as a separate post, albeit with less front matter.
Tag: recipe
22. Milk Punch
Knocked out two in a row for this weekend. Why two? Well, because one is exactly the same as the other one, just differs in temperature. The hot version of this is over here. For now, the chilly one.
In the news world, not much to report. Louisiana apparently barred (or rather, chose to not allow) the sale of raw milk, due to health risks. Needless to say, I did not use raw milk for this. Sorry for the lame news (two in a row). It was either this or a story about donated breast milk, which is probably more interesting, but slightly less appetizing.
17. Vanilla Punch
Well, I spent all this time getting curaçao and then decided to make one of his drinks that doesn’t actually need it. Ah well, it was still delicious.
Vanilla Ice performed on the Today Show yesterday. I have no understanding of why this happened. Also, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were involved. This may have been a piece (one of the many) of 90s culture that I missed.
17. Vanilla Punch
(Use large bar glass.) [We didn’t.]
- 1 table-spoonful of sugar.
- 2 oz. brandy.
- The juice of ¼ of a lemon.
- Fill the tumbler with shaved ice, shake well, ornament with one or two slices of lemon, and flavor with a few drops of vanilla extract. [Presumably, you put the ingredients in first, and THEN fill with ice. Also, I used more like 6-7 drops of extract, and you should too.
- This is a delicious drink, and should be imbibed through a glass tube or straw.
Tasting Notes:
BN: I’m not sure why it follows that if it’s a delicious drink, it should be imbibed with a straw, but he’s right on both accounts. Vanilla isn’t a super common drink flavor, other than, say, milkshakes, but it paired really well with the citrus, and the bite of the alcohol. The only change I’d like to make to this drink is to maybe add some soda water, to cut the alcohol a tiny bit and, more importantly, make it last longer. Also, shaking with shaved ice is sort of strange, too, but it seemed to work. It was sweet, flavorful, and not overpowering in any particular way.
PiC: I liked it! It wasn’t too sweet, and I liked how much vanilla there was.
129. Ale Sangaree
And we’re back to Jerry Thomas! I’m still a little behind ingredients-wise, so this is one of his simpler ones, but as soon as I buy some non-blue curaçao we should be on a roll. Also gomme syrup, which is apparently like simple syrup but smoother and silkier, which is intriguing. There’s a trip to BevMo in my near future.
There weren’t many news stories to go after with these particular words, but I found this article that says that Shakespeare’s father was an official ale taster for Stratford. Pretty sweet job, if you ask me. And speaking of sweet ale…
129. Ale Sangaree
(Use large bar glass.)
- 1 teaspoonful of sugar, dissolved in a tablespoonful of water.
- Fill the tumbler with ale, and grate nutmeg on top.
Tasting Notes:
BN: This was a rather vague recipe; I assumed that it wanted you to mix the first ingredient with the ale in the tumbler, rather than just sort of look at it while you drank the nutmegged ale. For the beer, I used the Mammoth Brewing 395 IPA that I brought back from my trip, partially because it was around, but mainly because I thought that the sage and other herbal notes in it would work well with the nutmeg, which they did! In terms of the drink overall, it initially just tasted like beer, with a hint of additional spice, but I think our glass was probably larger than expected, and so there wasn’t enough sugar to go around. So, I added more (probably about double) and then you definitely got the sweetness, which was pretty nice. Hit the bitterness of the IPA and toned it down. However, at the end of the day, it was just sweet beer, which was not too exciting. Nothing compared to the Port Wine Sangaree…
PiC: I thought this tasted good but I wasn’t that impressed with it as a cocktail per se. Maybe the beer tasted worse in his time, so this made it easier to drink? I would drink it, but I wouldn’t make it again, unless I had a beer that was really bad.
Blogger’s Note:
This is not related to cocktails, but rather to the blog itself. As you know, I switched to a self-hosted wordpress site at the beginning of April and, well, it sucks. The hosting itself, that is. I have a bad provider, and while it’s free, I’d rather pay money and get faster loading, fewer errors, etc, because it doesn’t make it easy for readers like you to enjoy the content. So, does anyone know of any good options? I’m looking at BlueHost right now, which is recommended by WordPress itself, and has pretty enticing pricing. Thanks all!
Grilled Pineapple Old Fashioned – News Flash
I saw this drink over at ToGatherCuisine and thought it sounded delicious. He’s got all sorts of good stuff on the blog, so definitely check it out.
I tested out his pretty original take on an old fashioned, with the unique twist of allowing the fruit to make its own simple syrup! Sadly, I found it wanting, but I’m pretty sure this was either my fault or the pineapple’s fault, not the recipe. Notes to follow.
It’s a pretty simple recipe, copied below in its entirety.
Grilled Pineapple Old Fashioned
- 4 oz. bourbon. (Bulleit was [his] weapon of choice)
- 1 slice of fresh pineapple, 1/2 inch thick.
- Using an indoor grill pan or an outdoor grill, grill the pineapple for 3 minutes on each side over medium to medium-high heat. Add the slice of pineapple to a shaker filled with 1 cup of ice. Muddle for 20-30 seconds, leaving only a few cubes of ice still frozen.
- Add the bourbon to the shaker and shake for a few seconds, just enough to incorporate the pineapple and the alcohol.
- Pour the contents of the shaker into a tumbler filled with ice through a strainer, making sure none of the pineapple chunks fall into the glass.
- Enjoy while cold!
Tip: While using an outdoor grill with charcoal and/or wood will add another layer of depth and smokiness to the drink, just make sure to clean the rack your pineapple will be resting on well before grilling the fruit. The last thing you want is remnants of the burgers you grilled floating around in your glass.
Tasting Notes:
BN: I really wanted to like this, but it wasn’t sweet enough and was too watered down. I think therefore that was some issue with my ratio of ice to pineapple, or the fact that maybe I didn’t grill the fruit for long enough to really pull out those caramel-y sweet flavors. Maybe it needed to be fresher pineapple — I’m not sure how good the one I had was. Alternately, maybe canned pineapple would be syrupy enough.
Also, I think this would be an even better recipe with the inclusion of bitters, a) for Old Fashioned’s sake and b) because bitters make everything better. I will try this again, maybe in the summer when I have more grilling confidence, because I love the idea, and I think I just didn’t do it justice. But wrote about it anyway.
PiC: I don’t like Old Fashioneds very much in general, and this one didn’t really have much taste which was too bad because I do like pineapple.
12. Champagne Punch
We were going to have a dinner party a few weekends ago. The party didn’t end up happening, due to the flu (LOOK OUT!), but that meant we had a lot of ingredients lying around. So why not still make a drink? We weren’t the ones that were sick, so we could have all the alcohol we wanted.
Easy to find news this week. A 78-year-old Trump supporter punched a protestor for essentially no reason at a rally on Wednesday. Thankfully, he’s now been charged with assault and disorderly conduct, even though he wasn’t detained at the event itself. He said, after he punched the protestor, “We don’t know who he is, but we know he’s not acting like an American…. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.” I will refrain from being political. Mostly. Let’s hope Trump never drinks champagne to celebrate a nomination.
12. Champagne Punch
(Per bottle.)
- 1 quart bottle of wine. [This is, annoyingly, 1.25 750ml champagne bottles. I ended up roughly proportioning everything else in 4/5ths as well. My guess is it would work fine if you just took this as a regular champagne bottle.]
- ¼ lb. of sugar. [~half a cup.]
- 1 orange sliced.
- The juice of a lemon.
- 3 slices of pineapple. [I took this to mean rings? Up to you.]
- 2 oz. raspberry or strawberry syrup. [I used the syrup I made for the Brandy Punch!]
- Ornament with fruits in season, and serve in champagne goblets.
- This can be made in any quantity by observing the proportions of the ingredients as given above. Four bottles of wine [So five of OUR bottles] make a gallon, and a gallon is generally sufficient for fifteen persons in a mixed party. For a good champagne punch [Umm… Is this one NOT good? Sending mixed signals here, Jerry.], see “Rocky Mountain Punch,” No. 43.
Tasting Notes:
BN: First, we really need champagne glasses… I liked this a lot. He stuffs a lot of his drinks (or at least the punches) full of fruit, which is often a little much for me, but all of these have worked out well so far. It actually tastes very different from the brandy punch, which is surprising since it’s almost the same exact ingredients. I wish it were a little bubblier, and a little less sweet, but that could just be the André.
PiC: I really liked it. I imagine it’s a deadly drink because it’s very sugary and doesn’t taste at all like alcohol. It’s almost like drinking a juice. Plus, it’s very pretty – almost a rose gold which is very trendy right now.
143. Gin Sour
There are a large number of drinks in The Bartender’s Guide that are modifications on other drinks that he lists, and there are also some pretty classic ones. The Gin Sour manages to be both. I stupidly didn’t also make the Gin Fix (141) which is literally the exact same as this, but with seasonal fruits on top (and no lemon juice). I probably will wait a while to make that one, though, so you can just imagine it for now. In terms of sours, I’m much more used to whiskey and amaretto sours, but it stands to reason that you could make them with other spirits as well.
I couldn’t find anything super relevant for Gin or Sour on the news front, but I did find this cool article from The Daily Beast from a few weeks ago talking about the rise of gin‘s popularity in 1700s England. They equate it to meth, in that everyone was making it in their basements, and it was causing all sorts of trouble in society (more crime, obviously more drunkenness, etc.) Everyone developed a taste for it on the continent, and it was cheap and easy, so they brought it back. A fun quick read, and I’ll work on getting more punny news articles next week.
143. Gin Sour
(Use small bar glass.)
- 1 tablespoon of sugar.
- ¼ of a lemon.
- 1 oz of water
- 2 oz of gin.
- Press the juice of the lemon in the glass. Fill two-thirds full of shaved ice. Stir with a spoon. [Technically I’m combining two recipes, the Gin Fix and the Gin Sour, to make the one understandable without the other. Don’t worry about it.]
Tasting Notes:
BN: This was pretty good. It’s pretty sweet (I wonder if a tablespoon might have been smaller back then and I therefore put too much in), and I’m not the hugest gin fan. The herbal notes of the gin, though, might distract from how sweet it is (a good thing), so maybe with another spirit it would be too much. If I made it again, I’d like something to cut it, maybe a bitters?
PiC: I liked this. It tastes like what I might imagine a lemon drop martini would taste like, or one of those lemon drop candies. It’s a little medicinal (the gin, probably). I’d drink this — but I’d like a sugar rim on it! [BN: Jerry Thomas actually does do this for some drinks, which he calls “crustas.” Stay tuned!]
205. Scotch Whiskey Skin
Hoo boy. Well, you can’t win ’em all. That’s really the only intro I have for this drink.
On the current events front, in something that will be old news by the time this goes up, Scotland is really sucking in the Six Nations rugby tournament. Sucking almost as bad as this drink does (eight straight losses). Rugby, though, is really cool actually, and the USA’s own Pro Rugby league is starting up this spring! Just don’t drink this while you’re watching.
205. Scotch Whiskey Skin
(Use small bar glass.) [Or a mug, because it’s hot. Or just don’t make this.]
- 2 oz. Scotch whiskey.
- 1 piece of lemon peel.
- Fill the tumbler one-half full with boiling water.
Tasting Notes:
BN: In case it wasn’t abundantly clear, I hated this. It tasted like really hot watered-down scotch that was slightly bitter (from the lemon peel). So, exactly what it was. I generally like toddies, but they really need a sweetener in there. I’m not sure how anyone can drink this. There’s a small chance a stronger-flavored scotch could have made it better, like a Caol Ila, but I sincerely doubt it.
PiC: Eugh.
228. Soda Nectar
This was a very exciting drink for me, less for the particular flavors and mix itself, and more for the interesting technique it allowed me to learn. In short, if you put a little baking soda into an acidic drink, it makes it bubbly! Which totally makes sense, but it’s not something I had ever thought about before. Who needs a SodaStream when you have baking soda? (But note that I still do have one.)
The Soda Nectar is also notable for being non-alcoholic. Thomas actually has a number of non-alcoholic concoctions in his book — a lot of various lemonades, among other things — and I’m excited to go through those as well. Especially the orgeat lemonade, but that’s another entry.
One note about this one: he uses “carbonate of soda” which is technically different from baking soda (Na2CO3 versus NaHCO3) but may not actually be edible? Obviously it’s basically edible (you can actually make it just by heating up baking soda for a while) but there were enough conflicting sources online that I chose not to use it. Also it’s hard to find. “Washing soda” is the other name for it.
In a surprisingly relevant piece of soda news, Pepsi is going to be opening a restaurant in New York Meat Packing District this spring called the “Kola House,” with cuisine “inspired by the exploration of the kola nut.” Which actually sounds kind of cool, as long as they’re open to serving Coke instead of Pepsi.
228. Soda Nectar
(Use large tumbler.)
- Juice of 1 lemon.
- ¾ tumblerful of water.
- Powdered white sugar to taste. [I probably used about 3 tablespoons, which shows you how sweet sodas are.]
- ½ teaspoon of carbonate of soda. [Again, I used baking soda here.]
- Strain the juice of the lemon, and add it to the water, with sufficient white sugar to sweeten the whole nicely. When well mixed, put in the soda, stir well, and drink while the mixture is in an effervescing state.
Tasting Notes:
BN: As I mentioned before, the drink itself was not super fascinating; it’s basically just bubbly lemonade. However, I just can’t get over the baking soda thing. It kept it bubbly for a while, too — it wasn’t like a grade-school volcano — and I definitely want to try it again in other circumstances!
PiC: It was cool! It was basically like a lemon soda — it’s a cool way of doing that and it didn’t taste like baking soda which was good. Let’s try it with other flavors! (And can we do it with non-acidic flavoring? SCIENCE!)
The Boozy Newsie 