Tag Archives: spot at the bar

Spot at the Bar: New Amsterdam Gin

Posted on by
Reply

Photo from New Amsterdam Gin

I was first introduced to New Amsterdam Gin at a Tales of the Cocktail event hosted at MiLa. The gin hadn’t particularly made it onto my radar, but we had been to plenty of special dinners at MiLa and have always been pleased, so we figured we’d give it a shot.

As far as gin’s go, New Amsterdam falls into that catch-all category of New American (or New Style) gins, which basically means it isn’t a London Dry, Genever or Plymouth gin. That New Amsterdam is unlike most any other gin you’ve had is obvious from the get go. While not all gins are dominated by juniper flavors, New Amsterdam basically forsakes it all together. The result? A citrus focused gin that boasts the ability to be enjoyed straight. While few outside the frat houses would typically have the desire or fortitude to take a slug of warm gin, new Amsterdam’s smooth candied orange flavor actually make this an accomplish-able feat for most people (of course, not that you should). Best of all is New Amsterdam’s low price, we were able to pick up a liter bottle from the Rouse’s for a mere $19.99.

This isn’t to say that New Amsterdam is the kind of gin you go looking for to use in classic gin based cocktails. It isn’t. But it is a great change of pace to vodka in many citrus driven cocktails and as an easy re-introduction for those who have sworn off gin entirely. I’ve found it the New Amsterdam to bring in rave reviews for cosmopolitans and, in most instances so far, preferred by vodka drinkers instead of their normal vodka cosmo. At such a cheap price, its basically a no-brainer.

My New Amsterdam Cosmopolitan
1.5 ounces New Amsterdam Gin
.75 ounces Cointreau
.25 ounces fresh squeezed lime juice
1 ounce cranberry juice (I prefer to use the tarter 100% cranberry juice, if you prefer a sweeter drink go with the cranberry cocktail)

Shake over ice, strain into a chilled glass. Orange peel for garnish. Enjoy!

Spot at the Bar: PumpkinPalooza! The Smashed Pumpkin

Posted on by
1

Cupcake loves the Fall and one of the true flavors of Fall is the pumpkin. So to honor that much beloved gourd, Cupcake has settled on PumkinPalooza. This week long celebration seeks to give you lots of recipes to use through the Fall and over the upcoming holidays. As Cupcake has things pretty tightly wrapped up on the cooking end, I’ve tried my hand on the boozing end (I’m sure that shocks you all). What I’ve got here is a Cupcake tested and approved pumpkin cocktail. This little guy packs quite a wallop, so I’ve decided to call it the Smashed Pumpkin. If anyone else has a better name, feel free to let me know and perhaps we will rename it for you.

All measurements in parts (using 2 cls as 1 part in this recipe fills one of our martini glasses):

1.5 pumpkin puree (you know, the stuff you use for pumpkin pie filling)
1.5 soda water
1.0 Domaine de Canton
1.5 Tuaca
1.5 Laird’s applejack
Cinnamon-Sugar for the glass rim

Step 1: Prepare your glassware

On a flat plate, spread out the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Wet the rim of your glass (including the inside). Some people like to run a wet cloth, but I find just using the faucet works best. Once you’ve wet the rim, place it in the cinnamon-sugar to coat the entire rim. NOTE: This step is really important. It really pulls the drink together.

Step 2: Prepare the drink

Put all the ingredients but the soda water in a shaker and shake. This will let you mix in the pumpkin sufficiently without fizzing up the soda too much. Then add the soda water and ice and shake again. Strain into the cinnamon-sugar rimmed glass. NOTE: depending upon personal preference you may want to strain the mixture through a fine strainer before serving to remove some pumpkin “debris.” So far everyone has preferred the pumpkin debris, but people are different.

Step 3: Serve and enjoy!

Hand people their drinks.

Spot at the Bar: Speakeasy’s Lavender-Infused Gin

Posted on by
2

A few weeks ago we reviewed Speakeasy, which contains not only a bunch of great recipes and drink making tips, but also a bunch of recipes for homemade syrups, cordials, infusions and accompaniments. One big drawback of these recipes is that the directions are not nearly as precise or detailed as they are for the drinks. Which has led to some colossal failures, such as the spicy ginger beer, and some successes, the lime cordial and the lavender-infused gin.

The lavender gin is required to make one of the drinks in Speakeasy, but is also a nice change of pace in your normal gin cocktails. A Darren Sproles for your Pierre Thomas or Mark Ingram, if you will. Best of all, it is easy as can be to make, as the hardest part might be gathering the lavender. While the off-the-wall ingredients normally required for a Speakeasy recipe can usually be wrangled up at Whole Foods, not so with the Lavender. Instead, we stumbled across the last jar in the store at Williams-Sonoma. Other than that, you’ll need a bottle of Plymouth gin, which you can find at most liquor stores, but not most grocery stores, and a cheesecloth, available just about everywhere.
Continue reading →

Spot at the Bar: Book Review–Speakeasy

Posted on by
Reply

Tales of the Cocktail has once again come and gone. But this year has sparked something inside of you. You feel like it is about time you get on to the throwback/craft cocktail bandwagon. Its been around long enough, that you figure this is no longer a phase people are going through, but something that is sticking around for a bit. Only you’re not sure where to begin with it all.

Or perhaps you’re tired of the craft cocktail movement. You’re sick of mustachioed bartenders giving themselves fancy meaningless titles, like mixologist or drink scientist, and lording their “cocktail knowledge” over your head. You figure it shouldn’t take 30 minutes to make a drink and you sure don’t want it served with a heaping side of pretension. You’re out to have a good time, not be lectured for your tastes (or apparent lack thereof). If only someone not dripping with pretension, rolled up jeans and a creepy mustache could make the drinks. Someone like yourself.

Enter Speakeasy by Jason Kosmas and Dushan Zaric of New York’s legendary Employees Only bar. Unlike most books focusing on the classic cocktails and their modern variants, Speakeasy goes beyond a history of the cocktail and a handful of recipes. To help you hit the ground running, the meat of the book opens with the tools you’ll need and the techniques to master to help you craft a great cocktail. Beautiful pictures illustrate some of the harder to grasp techniques to ensure the non-bartenders among us can hit the ground running.

Speakeasy breaks the drink recipes into three categories: Aperitifs; Long drinks and Fancy Cocktails; and Pitchers, Punches, and Sangrias. A fourth section of recipes teaches you a bevy of Homemade Syrups, Cordials, Infusions, and Accompaniments, which will help you make your drinks a completely home crafted product. Of course, these are the things you’ll find in most every cocktail book. What I find separates Speakeasy’s recipe sections is that they will often take a contemporary recipe and follow it with its historic counterparts so you can see the evolution of the drink. They provide you a cocktail family tree, if you will. For a budding cocktail enthusiast, seeing this progression is immensely helpful in learning the basic concepts of building a delicious drink.

Because every cocktail needs a good story (true or not), the recipes are all preceded with a story of the drink. And at the bottom of each page, Speakeasy lays out a variety of tasting notes, much like you’d find for a wine, noting flavors, body, complexity, etc. Wonderful pictures are spread throughout the book to give you a clear vision to strive for in the presentation of your own cocktails. With Speakeasy as your guide, you’ll be crafting amazing cocktails in no time at all. Cheers!

Spot at the Bar: Port of Barcelona Gin

Posted on by
Reply

Port of Barcelona's unique squat bottle should be relatively easy to spot

Port of Barcelona gin comes from the Esmeralda Distillery, which produces the award-winning Obsello absinthe. A triple distilled malt gin, Barcelona features 13 different botanicals. The distillation process, malt base and 13 botanicals lead to an incredibly unique gin. Continue reading →

Spot at the Bar: Stirrings Blood Orange Bitters

Posted on by
Reply

Image from stirrings.com

After returning home from a recent shopping, Cupcake uttered some of my favorite words: “Oh, I bought you a surprise.”
Knowing that I was glued to the Ravens epic collapse, she came into the room with what looked like an over-sized worcestershire sauce bottle filled with a dark ruby liquid. I was now the proud owner of blood orange bitters.

Continue reading →

Spot at the Bar: Sazerac–the play at home version

Posted on by
Reply

My recent (read: 6-8 months) obsession with the Sazerac reached new heights this last week. As you may recall in my first post about the sazerac, I said:

Given the sazerac’s storied New Orleans history, you’d think that every bar in New Orleans should be able to make a decent sazerac.

Then I realized that I have a bar in my house, which is in New Orleans. Which lead to the horrible realization that not only had I never made my own sazerac, but I didn’t even have all the necessary ingredients on hand to attempt to knock one out. Thankfully, with liquor available most everywhere it was only a short detour before I was fully stocked and ready to go.
Continue reading →

Spot at the Bar: Gin’s Grandpa–Bols Genever

Posted on by
Reply

While combing the gin aisle at a local liquor store in search of strange and unusual gins, I spied a tall, slender bottle that for some reason had not caught my eye before. I was even more surprised by the date on the bottle, an impressive “Est. 1575.”
Continue reading →

Spot at the Bar: The Sazerac

Posted on by
3

The sazerac is without a doubt a truly New Orleans creation, vastly superior to our more recent contributions to boozing, like the Hand Grenade or Hurricane. So thoroughly New Orleans is the drink that our legislators saw fit to have declared it the official drink of New Orleans. Of a slightly more disputed nature is the claim that the sazerac was the first cocktail, so named for the coquetier (pronounced “ko-k-tay”), a double-sided egg cup, that was used in the preparation of the drink (further clouding the issue is the claim that the drink was actually served in the coquetier). The sazerac is a simple drink which boasts only four ingredients and a garnish, yet it proves to be exceedingly difficult to master.

Continue reading →

Spot at the Bar: Sailor Jerry Rum

Posted on by
2

Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum takes its name from Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins, the father of old-school tattoos. Each bottle bears the fine example of Sailor Jerry’s seen above. A special surprise awaits on the inside of the label as you finish off the bottle, revealing itself with each drink.

A lot of people I know look down upon spiced rum, equating it as a necessary evil for tropical drinks to be downed only when away on vacation. Well if that’s how you feel, you’re missing out on a fantastic and versatile liquor. Spiced rum is a key component in refreshing summer (not tropical) drinks and warming winter drinks. Even standard drinks can get a new life simply by switching out regular rum for spiced rum.

One simple spiced rum drink I love is a Dark and Stormy:
Fill your rocks glass with some ice
One part Sailor Jerry
Two and a half to three parts good ginger beer, such as Bundaberg.

A good ginger beer is key to the dark and stormy, so test your ginger beer first.

Can’t find ginger beer, but managed to score some Canton? Here’s a Dark and Stormy knock-off that knocks quite a punch:
Fill your rocks glass with ice
3 parts Sailor Jerry
1 part Canton
top with soda water
(it’s a good idea to sufficiently stir the Sailor Jerry-Canton Mixture first)

Want to go simpler? Sailor Jerry’s smooth taste really lets you get a great drink out of practically nothing (credit for this drink goes to my neighbor, Susan who first introduced me to Sailor Jerry with this drink). Susan’s Drink:
3-4 ice cubes
A healthy pour of Jerry
Squeeze in half a lemon and half a lime
Add sugar/sweetener (if desired)

That should get you started with your bottle of Sailor Jerry’s, but if you need more ideas you can find a slew here.

Do you have any great drinks using Sailor Jerry? If so share in the comments.