Brandy Sidecar

This past couple of weeks has been good for our liquor cabinet.  Regular readers will recall that I recently received absinthe and pear brandy for my birthday.  I would like to add that I came to visit PA and my mother gave me a bottle of Courvoisier and Danny Devito's Limoncello.

It occurred to me as I was staring at my Courvoisier that I've never made myself a proper sidecar.  I've read about it numerous times, but I always opt for something else.  For the longest time, I associated it with gin--like a singapore sling or a bronx cocktail.  Irrational I know, but it's what happened.

The drink originated in France in the early 1920s and moved west from there, being featured in--amongst other things--The Savoy Cocktail Book published in 1930.  A cocktail automatically wins points with me if it can invoke a prohibition-era mystique.  The cocktail is also made extra attractive if you drink it while wearing a fedora and an Eliot Ness style trench coat.

Sidecar
adapted from epicurious.com
-2 tablespoons superfine sugar
-1 lemon wedge
-1 1/2 oz. cognac
-1 oz. triple sec
-1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice

Rub the rim of a cocktail glass with the lemon wedge and dip the rim in sugar.  Shake cognac, triple sec, and lemon juice with ice in a cocktail shaker and strain into the prepared cocktail glass.  Use lemon wedge for garnish if desired.

I love visiting Heather's mother's house for a number of reasons: we can sleep at night without listening to Indian pop music and disgruntled youths, Heather and I can both be in the kitchen and actually move around and it provides attractive backlighting for photography.  A nice little change of pace for me.  It makes an already attractive drink appear even more so.

I constructed one for myself and one for the matron of the house, who responded with emphatic approval.  Not one for sweet drinks, hers was served sans the sugar rim.  Though the drink is fairly sweet, the tart from the lemon keeps it in check.  Triple sec, while very sweet, isn't quite as sweet as sugar syrup.  The cocktail would probably benefit from the use of Grand Marnier or Cointreau instead of triple sec, but it worked just fine for our purposes.

Well readers, as you read this, we are well on our way to Avalon, NJ for a relaxing (and well deserved if you ask me) shore trip.  With any luck, I should be bursting with several fascinating topics to discuss before the trip is over.  Bon Voyage.

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.

Brandied Cherries--Part One

As Heather tells it, she and her Texan friend Amira go to a bar in Manhattan called Death and Company. Amira has a habit of going to a bar and asking for cherries on the side. The bartender will usually oblige without much thought and slide a shot glass of maraschinos her way for her to enjoy as she sees fit. This time around, the server looks at her quizzically and though slightly puzzled, brings back a few cherries. Amira begins to snack and her eyes widen. These may possibly be the finest cherries in the land.

She implores Heather to try one and when she does, her eyes widen similarly. Could these cherries have been picked from some magical grove on Mount Olympus? When the server comes back, they ask what the deal is. As it turns out, these were no ordinary cherries--they were brandied cherries.

Heather and I have since enjoyed them when we go to nicer bars and order Manhattans and whatnot. We always notice them right away and get excited. It's like Christmas morning. They are a little smaller than normal cherries with a dark color--almost black. That black color lets you know that the cherry is saturated with delicious sweet brandy.

Every time we have them, we swear that we are going to figure out how to do this ourselves. Well ladies and gentleman, talk is cheap and we are lazy people by nature. It's been a couple years since the discovery and we still haven't done anything. Well all that's about to change. We did some research and bought the ingredients and are ready to go. We would have done it sooner but we were so close to cherry season that it would have been a crime not to wait a few weeks.

Many of the recipes out there include a lot of ingredients and spices but we opted for one that emphasized simplicity. We got it off a website called saveur.com. We also liked the recipe because it did not require any complicated canning techniques. One day we will learn how to properly can things, but it is not this day.

Brandied Cherries

adapted from saveur.com

-2 cups sugar

-4 cups brandy

-2 lbs. fresh sweet cherries, stemmed and pitted

Dissolve sugar in brandy in a sterilized 2-3-quart glass jar with a tight fitting lid. Add cherries. Cover jar and allow cherries to macerate in the refrigerator for 6 weeks. To serve, pour some of the brandy into a small glass and add a few cherries. Cherries will keep, refrigerated for up to 1 year.

We halved the recipe for our purposes. One pound of cherries is a lot of cherries. I was nervous about being able to dissolve sugar into the brandy. I just know that when I try to stir granulated sugar into my iced tea at a restaurant, it floats around for a minute and then sinks to the bottom. I don't want all my sweetness at the bottom of my brandy solution where the floating cherries can't get to it. I want it working on those cherries for a month and a half. As it turns out, my concerns were unfounded. It took some doing, but it wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I stirred until I got bored then let it sit and then stirred again. A cup of sugar became a half cup, then a quarter cup, than a smaller fraction and soon it was gone.

I recognize that this is a very simple recipe, but if it turns out well, who knows? We might start branching out and getting fancy with the spices. I hope that the cherries will obtain that much coveted dark color. If not, I'll try another tact. You can't keep a good scientist down. If anyone out there has any insight about brandying cherries, please leave a comment. And please stay tuned to the blog. These babies will be brandy soaked and ready to go by about the second week of August, just in time for my birthday. (The 13th if anyone's interested.)

Sangria

Occasionally it's nice to make drinks in a big pitcher and work on it over the course of an evening or weekend afternoon. It gives one the opportunity to relax and enjoy several rounds without having to constantly labor after each. I suppose there are several cocktails that lend themselves to be made in large quantities. On a couple of occasions, I've made mojitos that way. But there are certain drinks that especially lend themselves to being made by the batch. One of them is sangria.

The first time I've made sangria was a couple of years ago and I haven't made any since. This is one of those drinks that has an infinite number of incarnations. First, one has to decide whether to use red or white wine. Then decide which times of fruit to incorporate. Then decide which sweetening agent (if any) to add. It's really up to the mixologist to decide. I spent a fair bit of time researching several recipes to determine which one appealed to me and my tastes. I couldn't find the recipe I used a couple years ago but I found one that is similar. I'll link to it here but post it anyway.

Red Wine Sangria

adapted from allrecipes.com
-1 orange
-1 lemon-1 lime
-1 medium apple, sliced
-1 cup pitted cherries
-1 cup fresh pineapple chunks
-3/4 cup brandy
-1 (750 milliliter) bottle dry red wine
-1 (12 ounce) can lemon-lime soda to taste
-1 cup orange juice to taste

Slice the orange, lemon and lime into thin rounds. Place the citrus in a pitcher with the apples cherries and pineapple. Pour in the brandy and refrigerate for two hours or more. Chill the bottle of red wine, lemon-lime soda and orange juice at the same time.

Gently crush the fruits with a spoon, then stir in the red wine, lemon-lime soda and orange juice. Add additional brandy or orange juice to taste.

I've found that a dry red wine does complement the sweetness, but a wine with a bit of a spice helps as well. It gives the sangria a little complexity it might not otherwise have.

Part of me abhors this recipe for its use of lemon-lime soda, but there is a certain simplicity to its use that is appropriate to the spirit of the recipe. It's a simple way to incorporate the sweetness, citrus and effervescence into the drink and only using one ingredient. For such elegance, I'm willing to overlook its prepackaged nature.

I tried to put the cherries, apples and pineapple at the bottom of the pitcher while it was chilling so it would soak up more brandy. I figured I would be more likely to eat those things than the citrus.

I've been fortunate enough to attempt this recipe twice in the past week. I hadn't intended on it, but a whole pineapple produces much more than a cup; and I bought a big package of cherries. It would have been preferable if cherries were in season; they would have been fresher and cheaper. But in these less than ideal circumstances, I had to buy a big bag and it would have been a shame not to take advantage of this bounty. I found that cutting the apples and citrus thicker made it easier to work with the second time around. The thinly cut citrus tended to fall apart when stirred or transferred to a glass.

The nice part about this summer drink is that all the labor is done up front, which means that you're free to enjoy the sun and perhaps some pleasant company. My favorite part of mixing drinks and cocktails has always been the social aspect that comes with it. There is an aspect of fruit infusion involved which means that the garnish is taken care of by just pouring the fruit into the glass. All that's left for you to do is enjoy.

Brandy Fizz

I'm in a very summer drinks kind of place right now. Normally I tend towards the aromatic, savory types of cocktails, but sometimes you just have to give in to what your heart desires. And since our apartment is largely un-air conditioned, my hearts have been desiring drinks that are cold, citrusy and refreshing. And as it happens, this line of thinking led me to a place I've been meaning to explore for some time now--Fizzes.

All a fizz is is a drink that incorporates effervescence and some element of citrus (most commonly lemon) into the mix. To that end, I've already done some experimenting with fizzes making drinks like collins and mojitos, but nothing that one would classically think of as a fizz. As an amateur mixologist, I value history and authenticity.

With anything old-timey, my new go-to reference is The Savoy Cocktail Book. It give a lot of prohibition-era drinks that one can sift through. Many of the drinks in the fizzes section fell into one or more of the following categories:

-Has a ton of gin

-Too elaborate/too many ingredients

-Contains mixers I don't have

There were a couple that were just too simple as well. For example, a Bucks Fizz contains orange juice and champagne--basically a fancy name for a mimosa. But finally I stumbled upon one that was simple but not too simple, contained no gin and made with items I had on hand. Success.

Brandy Fizz

adapted from The Savoy Cocktail Book

-2 oz. Brandy (I used Courvoisier)

-1 1/2 teaspoons powdered sugar

-Juice of half a lemon

Shake and strain over ice into a highball glass. Top with club soda. Garnish with a lemon wedge.

And there you have it. A perfectly refreshing summery cocktail. I found it sweet and tart with a beautiful syrupy caramel flavor lent by the Cognac. Normally I would use simple syrup for this sort of thing, but I decided that I would adhere to the recipe and use powdered sugar. In my early days of experimenting with cocktails, I tried to mix cocktails with granulated sugar and found it to be a great burden. I would be left with a fair amount of crystals at the bottom of whatever I was making.

At the time, I didn't have powdered sugar on hand so I put the effort into making simple syrup--a method that has worked for me ever since. But Heather, in all her culinary keenness, keeps a fair amount of powdered sugar on hand. I'm not sure if I can tell the difference, but I think I noticed a subtle smoothness in the sweet flavor of the cocktail--one that I will tinker with in the warm months ahead.

Brandy Alexander--Always Gets Me Into Trouble

A few years ago, Heather bought a Feist album and it contained a song called "Brandy Alexander." It's a mellow little slow jam that has kind of a groovy feel. Heather liked the song so much that she became fixated on getting a brandy alexander. She would wake up in the morning and want a brandy alexander for breakfast. When I told her that cereal would be better, she asked if she could pour a brandy alexander over it instead of milk. She would speak of a perfect world--one with no wars, no hunger and brandy alexanders as far as the eye can see. I found her speech idealistic and psychotic. Kind of like Glenn Beck. I wanted to give her the cocktail. The problem was that neither of us knew what it was. I deduced that it was some sort of brandy concoction crafted by a man named Alexander.

I feel like since we moved to New York, our knowledge of mixology has grown exponentially, but at the time we were neophytes. Let me put it this way: Back then, the most interesting thing in our liquor cabinet was hypnotiq. It's fruity and turns your drink blue. So Heather set out on her task. Every time we went out to a bar, she would ask for a brandy alexander. We soon found out that many bartenders either don't know how to make one, don't have the ingredients, or both. It was getting a little frustrating.

I know what you must be thinking. At this point, couldn't we have just looked up the ingredients, bought them and mixed it ourselves. I should tell you that moving to New York--one of the most expensive cities in the United States--is a money draining undertaking. We were feeling like a couple of miserly broke-asses so at the very least, I was unwilling to blow money on liquors and liqueurs that we didn't even know if we liked. You might then ask why we were going out to various bars and such. Well, considering we were hanging out at establishments that can't make fancy drinks like brandy alexanders, we weren't running up astronomical tabs. I digress.

Cut to Restaurant Week (Heather's favorite time of the year): Winter '08. Heather scores reservations at a place called Osteria del Circo, an Italian circus themed place. We enjoy a lovely dinner and afterwards decide to check out the bar area. I order a scotch and Heather once again asks for a brandy alexander and braces for heartbreak. The bartender nods and gets cracking. Success. Heather takes a taste and is very pleased. It's a sweet, creamy, chocolatey delight that is not entirely unsophisticated. Heather enjoyed it to the last drop.

As we moved from completely broke to just bohemianly poor, we started finding out and amassing the ingredients in our attempt to recreate the drink. We settled on a cognac--Courvoisier-- for our brandy. The rest of the ingredients were easy. A basic creme de cacao runs about ten to twelve dollars and will last a very long time; as for the cream, we already keep half and half in the fridge for our coffee. The recipe calls for heavy cream but I think half and half works just as well, and when I don't use heavy cream in a drink Heather spends less time following me around with the calorie information and talking about expanding waistlines. It's win win.

Brandy Alexander

-1 1/2 oz brandy

-1 oz creme de cacao

-1 oz half and half (heavy cream if desired)

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass and add chocolate shavings for garnish.

And voila. A nice sweet cocktail to chase away the winter blues. An added bonus is that if you get good at making this drink, you will know something that many New York bartenders don't.

Applejack

Fall is approaching. The weather is starting to become a bit cooler. Thoughts of the boardwalk and ice cream give way to those of hayrides and pumpkins. I no longer sweat out half my body weight while I wait for the subway every morning. And one of my favorite fruits happens to be in season--the apple.

I have a big, thick bartender's recipe book with thousands of drinks in it. One of the spirits that keeps popping up over and over again is Applejack--a blend of 35% apple infused brandy and 65% neutral spirits. Until recently, this was seen as a frivolous purchase. A luxury on a par with lighting an expensive cigar with a hundred dollar bill or buying a couple of endangered condors and making them fight to the death. If it were cheap, everyone would do it, but I'm not made of money.

Then I started to get bored with my everyday cocktails. (note: "everyday cocktails" is just an expression. I do not drink everyday. That should keep my parents from hosting an intervention.) I was starting to get sick of these perfectly good drink recipes just staring me in the face, taunting me with their amazing potential. Then I thought about you, the reader. I am a regular contributor to this blog. I owe it to you to carpe diem. To explore strange new pours. To seek out new drinks and new boozy libations. To boldly mix what no man has mixed before.

We picked up a bottle of Applejack in Pennsylvania because we were there and it happened to be a dollar off. It ran us a cool $13.99, much more reasonable than a bottle of Courvoisier which can cost twice as much. When we got it back home, I tried a little out of the bottle as a control sample. Regular readers know I'm a scientist, damn it. I was pleased to find that the apple flavor was subtle and didn't mask the pleasantness of the brandy. Though it has the same alcoholic content as many cognacs, it was a lot less intense. I know when I put my nose too deep into a snifter of Courvoisier, it burns my nostrils a little.

The first drink I made for Heather was an Apple Cart, involving Applejack, lemon, and Grand Marnier. It was good, though I probably went a little heavy on the lemon. Heather had no complaints though and drank it with glee. She's a fan of lemon after all. For myself, I made an Apple Swizzle--Applejack, rum, lime, sugar and a dash of bitters. I figured since we were transitioning from summer to fall, both should be represented in my drink. I get the summery vibe of a rum swizzle with the pleasant fall quality of apple.

The following night, we cracked the Applejack open again and had two more. I went the classy route and made an Applejack Manhattan. It's similar to a regular manhattan except that Applejack replaces whiskey and it calls for orange bitters. I don't have orange bitters so I just used my Angostura. This was less festive than my swizzle but still a lot of fun. Heather asked me for a Jack Rose, a drink she saw on Death & Company's website. It's very similar to the Apple Cart but it's sweetened with grenadine instead of Grand Marnier and the Applejack to lemon ratio is a bit higher. Heather enjoyed the Jack Rose more. It had a ruby color to it and tastes reminiscent of a cosmo--though none of the same ingredients are used. I used apple slices for garnish on all of these drinks. I felt that I would be remiss in not doing so.

This bottle of Applejack boasts that the company started making it way back in 1698. It then goes on to say, "Around 1760, George Washington discovered this unique beverage, asked for and received the Laird family recipe and soon introduced Applejack to the Virginia colony." I'd like to think that George Washington and I have a lot in common: Our love of Applejack for example. Because most of my knowledge of American history comes from liquor bottles, matchbooks and the movie The Patriot, I'm pretty sure we're two peas in a pod.