Champagne Cocktails

Yesterday, Heather and I attended the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island, an event at which the attendees are encouraged to dress up in period clothing--1920s or so--and enjoy live jazz music and dancing as well as some vendors and various planned events such as a tug of war.  They had all sorts of food, beer, and other refreshments, but only one type of cocktail.

One of the event's sponsors was a liqueur called St-Germain.  If you are unfamiliar with St-Germain, it is a sweet liqueur that is made from elderflowers.  The literature that was available at the table said that the drink was aptly named The St-Germain Cocktail and it lists the recipe as follows:

The St-Germain Cocktail
-2 parts Brut Champagne or Dry Sparkling White
-1 1/2 parts St-Germain
-2 parts Club Soda

Fill a tall Collins Glass with ice.  Add Champagne first, then St-Germain, then Club Soda.  Stir completely.  Garnish with a lemon twist, making sure to squeeze the essential oils into the glass.

The cocktail was good.  A little sweet for my taste but good.  It reminded me that I had been meaning to try some champagne cocktails of my own.  It's a subject I've dabbled with in the past.  There was a time just after college when we were knocking back Hpnotiq and champagne.  We were doing a lot with Hpnotiq back then; it was a good way to sweeten up whatever you were drinking, but ultimately we grew out of it and stopped buying it.

I enjoy a good mimosa from time to time.  Heather loves them.  For her, it's the most exciting part about getting champagne.  "This is really good, but don't kill it.  I want mimosas tomorrow morning."

Mimosa
-3 parts champagne
-1 part orange juice

Combine in a champagne flute and enjoy.  If you're feeling really ambitious, add a dash or two of peach liqueur.

This past New Years Eve, we rang in 2010 in our apartment watching Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest while enjoying a drink called the Benediction.  We discovered it in a New York Times article about Benedictine.

The Benediction
-3/4 oz. Benedictine
-dash orange bitters
-Champagne to top

Add Benedictine to a Champagne flute, add the bitters, then fill with Champagne.

In doing research for my absinthe post, I found a recipe on the Wikipedia page for a drink called the Death in the Afternoon Cocktail.  It was created by Ernest Hemingway and calls for you to "Pour on jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass.  Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness.  Drink three to five of these slowly."  A jigger is a measurement that I took to mean one ounce, but I think I may have overdone it a little bit.  The absinthe overpowered the cocktail a little bit.  For next time, I would use about 1/2 to 3/4 oz.

When I purchased my bottle of absinthe, I also picked up a bottle of pear brandy.  It was the kind with the pear inside the bottle.  I was researching some of the things I could do with it and one that kept popping up was adding Champagne directly to the brandy.  Simple, easy, basic.  Lately, these Champagne cocktails have been finding me.  Heather really liked this one.  It packs a punch but it has a nice syrupy sweetness.  It would serve really well as a dessert cocktail.

Pear Brandy Champagne Cocktail
-1 oz. pear brandy
-Champagne

Add ingredients to a Champagne flute and garnish with a pear wedge.

I love Champagne, but there are a few people in my life who don't like it as much as I do.  And for those people, it's nice to have a few ideas like this in my back pocket to supplement the dryness and fortify the Champagne with a little more kick.

Absinthe

I celebrated my birthday about a week and a half ago. In the weeks leading up to it, my parents were trying to decide what to get me. I sent them a list of stuff on my amazon.com wish list, but I also told them that there were a bunch of spirits that I wanted as well--things that I've wanted but couldn't work up the nerve to spend money on right now. Things like 15 year single malt scotch, Hendricks gin (I've been meaning to develop a taste for gin and I've been hearing good things about this one,) and a premium tequila (Patron or Don Julio for example.)

I spoke to my dad on the phone before my birthday and he told me that they didn't have a chance to swing by the liquor store and that he would send me a check. Perhaps they didn't have time to do it, or perhaps they didn't want to encourage what can best be described as my enthusiasm towards alcohol--at least not directly. The check comes and I weigh my options. When considering things to buy, I wanted to make sure that I made my spending count. What was something I've always wanted but never had the wherewithal to get. It hits me: Absinthe.

Absinthe is one of those spirits of legend and myth. It has a sexy mystique to it due in part to its ban in the United States in 1912. The controversy was around a chemical compound called thujone that is alleged to have hallucinogenic properties. The ban was lifted in 2007, but with a caveat: U.S. imports can only contain a maximum thujone of 10 parts per million. An article was printed around then in Time Magazine that shed a little light on the subject.

Since the ban was lifted, I was excited about being able to try absinthe. After doing some research, I decided to go with a brand that seemed reputable--Lucid. I was hoping to get a bottle that seemed more old-timey and vintage looking. You know, something that you might find in your grandparents attic. A relic that was previously undiscovered. But as it stood, Lucid comes in a big dark green bottle with ominous feline eyes at the top. It's pretty badass in its own way. At 62% alcohol, it definitely packs more of a punch than most of the other liquors on my shelf at home. The section of the store the bottle was in also contained several different types of absinthe, varying in color, price and alcoholic content.

One tools necessary for the appropriate preparation of absinthe is a slotted absinthe spoon. They come in a wide range of different designs but share some features in common. The heads are flat with little holes to allow liquid to easily pass through them and they are large enough to rest comfortably on the rim of the glass. "How cool," I thought, "to have one of these spoons with which to prepare my absinthe. I suppose I'll have to improvise with a regular spoon or something." However as soon as I had this thought, I noticed that the bottles of Lucid behind the first bottle had something sticking out of them. I inspected and, much to my surprise, each of them came with their own absinthe spoon. I feel like I'm part of a community now. A community of spoons.

The traditional French way to serve absinthe is to pour 1 oz. of absinthe into a small glass, place the absinthe spoon on top of the rim, place a sugar cube on top of the spoon and slowly drip 3-4 oz. of ice water on the cube, dissolving the sugar into the drink. The drink will then turn a bit cloudy. That is just the anise and other herbs coming out of the drink. The bottle itself recommended that we use 1.25-1.5 oz. of absinthe to 5 oz. water but I figured I would heed my research.

An alternate way of preparing the absinthe--which is less authentic but more fun to watch--is to soak the sugar cube with absinthe, set it on fire for a moment, dump it into the absinthe then extinguish with a shot of ice water. It tastes roughly the same but a tad more caramelized and with the satisfaction of setting something on fire.

The taste was as you would expect, licorice and sweet, and it had a nice cloudy green hue. As far as hallucinations, I think that the effects are largely exaggerated...and the purple gremlin dancing next to me concurs. Since we only drank a total of 1 oz. of absinthe a piece, we were not feeling buzzed from that drink alone. Diluting it with water brought the alcohol down to a manageable level.

The allure of absinthe lies not in its physiological effects, but in the concept itself. it taps into a much larger idea. It harkens back to another time and place--one with great artists and intellectuals. A dreamlike state that can be perceived with total clarity. There's something that seems a little dangerous about it too. Absinthe represents all of these things and should be enjoyed with that in mind.