Category Archives: Rum / Cachaca

  • So We Opened A Bar And Restaurant….

    November 4, 2015

    44 Comments

    Timber&SaltFinalWhite….it’s called Timber & Salt. It’s in Redwood City California (a very cool town). We serve craft cocktails and artisan comfort foods with fresh seasonal ingredients (sound familiar?). We have a strong, experienced team and are off to a great start with plenty of regular customers. And we are more than a little tired…but very, very happy.

    So now back to blogging. Please pardon our silence of the last few months, but at least we have an excuse. There are few things quite like opening a restaurant. It is a very involved process to build a restaurant from the ground up- normally you buy your first restaurant but we couldn’t pass up our location. It is in the center of town, next to the movie theater, a block from the train station and across from a new office development with parking, oh, and did I mention the sidewalk seating area? Yup, just had to do it….

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    Rio Star Cocktail

    So you wanna know what you need to do to build and open a restaurant? Here we go: take a very deep breath, convince your spouse it is a good idea, get a decent lawyer, form an LLC, recruit your core team of experienced bar and restaurant managers, build a deal structure that works for all stakeholders (takes a while), scout 15+ locations, buy a place and have the deal fall apart, find a better location but you need to build, negotiate the lease terms for eight months (yes, eight months and that is considered “fast”), match the concept to the location and size of the space, get a good architect / builder, get an interior designer (you need one, you really do), do a real business plan with financials, sign the lease (deep breath, avoid panic), raise money, make sure you have an accountant, submit plans to the town and landlord, revise/repeat, select your builder, start buildout, buy furnishings, buy equipment and smallwares, start real menu development with team, set up accounts with multiple government agencies, finish basic buildout, start recruiting your staff, select and install a good POS system, select a merchant payment solution, fill out dozens of credit applications for suppliers (be ready to sign your life away), buy a ton of food and booze, buy all sorts of extra stuff you didn’t expect, train your team, install your furnishings and fixtures, do a few weeks of warmup and catering events, pass all of your inspections, tune the menus, set an opening date (another deep breath), open the doors and say a little prayer…..then smile, welcome your guests and make them feel at home.

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    Smoked Trout & Salmon Salad With Ecopia Microgreens

    And that last one is key. We are in the hospitality business because we truly believe that time spent breaking bread with our friends and family is the most important time in our lives. We opened Timber & Salt because nothing is better than sharing that feeling of hospitality and welcome with our community. Every time a customer walks in to a welcoming host, smiles at the look of the room (a room without a TV, btw), relaxes with a cocktail at the bar, waves at friends when they arrive, then shares a good meal mixed with laughter and conversation is a small victory for civility. Our hearts rise. (Of course, we are crushed when we fall short, but we never stop trying to improve). In our minds, there is no better business to be in, even if it is hard work. And let’s face it, anything done well and with real commitment requires hard work.

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    Bacon-Wrapped Dates, One of our most popular dishes. They go great with cocktails.

    Moving forward, we will be blogging and sharing more stories, images and recipes from here at the farm, but also the restaurant. We hope you join us “virtually” here at the blog, but also visit us in the “real” world at Timber & Salt. Now for some photos of the food and booze, and look out for more posts with new photos and recipes!

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    Black Pepper Quail Salad. Moving off the menu now, but will come back with warmer seasons.

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    “Ham & Cheese”. Cheddar gougeres and ham consomme.

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    Aged Rum Old Fashioned. Our flagship cocktail. Aged rum, Mauby Syrup (house made Caribbean spiced syrup), twist, big rock. Perfect.

     

  • Mixology Monday XCIX Cocktail: The Reef Pass

    July 27, 2015

    3 Comments

    reefWe had to laugh out loud when we saw this month’s Mixology Monday theme was “Ice” (kindly hosted by our friend the Muse of Doom at the excellent Feu de Vie Blog). You see, as our bar/restaurant Timber & Salt nears its opening in September, we are spending a lot of time on ice. Ice is a key ingredient in cocktails, and there is no substitute- you need the right ice for the right drink. But more on that later, here is the rundown for the 99th (!) Mixology Monday:

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    And in all this time there hasn’t once been a theme dedicated to that undersung-yet-essential part of nearly any cocktail: ICE. The word says it all. Big ice cubes for Old Fashioneds, pellet ice for juleps and cobblers, shaved ice for adult snowcones, crushed ice molded into a cone for a classic Navy Grog. The art of the blender. Tell us why your selected or invented cocktail needs this particular ice usage. Show us how to make perfectly clear ice at home or what you get to work with as a professional drink-slinger. It doesn’t even have to be pure H2O, either. Flavor it up! Teas, juices, liqueurs, bitters, other frozen edible objects serving as ice. Tell us the nuances of a properly-made Il Palio. Show us why a decorative approach takes your recipe to the next level. Whatever tickles your tastebuds and refreshes you this summer.

    reef4Perfect. In this summer alone we compared all commercial ice machines in mind-numbing great detail, made crystal clear ice (using the igloo method, it works very well), made almost-instant ice balls using a Japanese mold (a great show), used long ice sticks for Collins-style drinks (very cool) and experimented with the best way to get crushed ice for summer tiki drinks. And since crushed ice is our latest experiment, that’s what we will use here.

    reef1reef2And while some tiki drink recipes specifically call for blenders (and at the restaurant we may go this way), we usually prefer to use our cheap (about $20) manual ice crusher at home. Ours does both fine (tiki) and coarse (juleps and cobblers) chop, works well enough and is easy to clean. The blade apparatus comes apart occasionally, but it is easy to reassemble and it makes for a rocking tiki drink without fussing with a blender. And you really do need crushed ice for a good tiki drink, that frosted glass (along with a good dose of rum) just seems to make everything better.

    So what drink did we make? It turns out that we have tons of mint and basil in our garden this summer and we tend to freely substitute both in many of our savory preparations, so why not try it in a tiki drink? We already know that a touch of herbal flavor can enhance tiki drinks, so we took the next step.

    reef3The Reef Pass is basically a Mai Tai variant using amaro instead of simple syrup and basil instead of mint. We went with one of our favorite amaro, Santa Maria al Monte, a bittersweet and heavily herbal amaro similar to Fernet Branca, but with less overt mint/menthol notes. We also went for two strong, funky rums (Appleton V/X and El Dorado 15) that have enough flavor to match the amaro.

    How did it turn out? Extremely well. The Reef Pass does make you think Mai Tai, as the rum, lime, orgeat and Curaçao all shine through. But the basil on the nose and the slightly bitter and herbal finish of the amaro make for a very clean refreshing sip. (Surprisingly, the lime and amaro play particularly well together and we will continue to experiment here.) If you think tiki drinks are too sweet or cloying after a few sips, the Reef Pass is a good antidote. This one we are still making and enjoying. And we are always using our perfectly crushed ice…..that frosty glass never gets old. Continue reading →

  • A Cocktail Experiment With Ash Apothecary Flavored Syrups

    July 9, 2015

    6 Comments

    ashFull disclosure; cocktail-oriented folks send us all sorts of cool spirits, bitters, flavorings and gear to try out here at the farm. We make no promises, but if we like an ingredient or tool we use/mention it in our posts (and always disclose the source). That said, we almost never do a full post on something that is sent to us…until now.

    But when the team at Ash Apothecary from Brooklyn (they have a kickstarter, btw) offered to send us some flavored syrups, we looked at their flavors and decided to give them a try. And we are very impressed with what they sent- enough to run an experiment making easy, but deeply flavored, riffs on sours and tiki drinks using their syrups.

    ash5ash6So why would “farmers” like us use someone else’s syrups vs. making our own? Firstly, the syrups are excellent, with clear and creative flavors. Secondly, consistency can be hard to maintain at home. There is a reason bartenders most often use quality ingredients from good suppliers, rather than DIY- good products taste the same every time. And finally, we all get lazy…or just ARE lazy.

    But not so lazy that we wouldn’t try a boozy experiment. A few of the syrups like Chocolate and Chai Masala were faves in coffee and tea, and we love the rose syrup but can’t quite figure out what to use it with (still trying..). However, when we saw Lavender Bud, Honey and Ginger, Cafe De Olla and Winter Spice syrups, we knew exactly what to do…make a few sours (and think tiki, as well).

    ash4The key here is to pull out the syrups, a bottle of dry gin and a decent bottle of rum. We went with Brokers, a traditional dry gin, and Flor de Cana 4 yr. a quality (but affordable) gold rum. Then we got some limes, lemons and a grapefruit and started mixing. Generally gin will go with floral and lighter spice, while aged rum can handle bigger flavors/spices. Gin likes lemon and lime, rum likes lime and grapefruit. We started with a ratio of 2 oz. spirit, 1 oz. sour and 1/2 to 3/4 oz. syrup, and commenced with the mixing/tasting.

    What did we come up with? Firstly, the Honey and Ginger syrup works with both the gin/ lemon and rum/lime . Too easy. As for the Lavender Bud, well, you know we like lavender, gin and lemon- and this was great, all herbal gin, lemon and bright lavender (and no soapy flavors you can get with some floral syrups or liqueurs).

    ash1Next we dug deep into the “archives” and remembered one of our favorite lost cocktails, the Port Antonio; a rum, lime, falernum and coffee liqueur cocktail (awesome, btw). Since the Cafe de Olla syrup is a mix of spices and coffee we know we had a fit. A simple combo of the rum, lime and syrup was delightful riff on a Daiquiri with a backbone of coffee that works way better than you might expect- try it.

    Finally we had the Winter Spice syrup, which tastes a lot like Allspice Dram, but without the booze. Spices go with tiki, so we did a riff on a Jet Pilot using the rum, grapefruit, lime and syrup. Perfectly tiki, but very easy…and very good.

    ash2So thanks to the team at Ash Apothecary for giving us, yet another, excuse to enjoy more cocktails!

  • Monthly Cocktail #2: The Case For A True Mai-Tai

    August 14, 2014

    7 Comments

    MaiTaiThe Putney Farm crew recently returned from a delightful trip to Kauai. All good, nothing to complain about…but, maybe…um…there was one little thing. And it has to do with the classic Tiki drink, the Mai Tai.

    maitai2You see, the problem was that while we were served a number of “Mai-Tais” on the trip, the only real Mai Tai we had was at home (of course we stocked a decent bar in Kauai!). Not to say there was anything wrong with the many fruity-dark rum floater-bamboo cup-multiple garnish catastrophes “creations” we drank. Hey, its rum, lime, pineapple and a bunch of other stuff- how bad can it be? And usually it isn’t all that bad. However…maitai8

    maitai3A real Mai Tai, made with the right ingredients and in the right way, is just so much better. There is a reason everyone thinks “tiki” when they hear the word Mai Tai, it is a damn fine drink. Sweet, tart, funky with a nutty “I-know-not-what” at the finish, the Mai Tai is a perfect example of what makes cocktails so special. It is way more than the sum of its parts.

    maitai4So what about those “parts”? The other good thing about the Mai Tai is that the only truly esoteric ingredient is Orgeat (pronounced or-zhay) syrup, basically almond (and sometime apricot kernels) flavored syrup with some orange flower water. You can find Orgeat in many liquor stores or make your own. We have done both. Here is a well-known recipe to make it yourself. Small Hands makes a natural version that is very tasty, but the artificially (gasp!) flavored versions from Trader Vic and Fees taste just fine.

    maitai5Otherwise you need just a few other ingredients; fresh lime juice, triple sec, sugar syrup, a light grassy rum (rhum agricole is good), a dark funky rum, a sprig of mint and some crushed ice…..and a few extra minutes to make the drink.

    As for the rum, experts like Beachbum Berry and Rumdood all suggest an equal combination of Appleton 12 year (for the dark, funky notes) and Rhum Clement VSOP (aged, but still bright and a bit grassy) as the “standard”. And we agree. But we also like to play around and find other dark rums like El Dorado 8, 12 and 15 are all good (inexpensive) subs for the Appleton 12. We also think you can sub rhum Barbancourt (3 or 5 star) for the Clement, if the Clement is hard to find.

    maitai6Triple sec? We like Cointreau, but many suggest Clement Creole Shrub. Use what you like. Crushed ice? Trust us, it looks better and dilutes the drink properly. Mint Spring? Adds a bright note to the aroma of the drink, and it looks good. So does the lime shell. Got it? Good!

    Finally, one note on the history of the Mai Tai. While cocktail geeks historians quibble about the details, Trader Vic Bergeron made this version of the drink famous (even if Don the beachcomber made something else with the same name earlier). And Vic was a Bay Area guy, so we will stick with our man and tip our caps to Vic for this delightful sip. Now go make one before the summer is over!

    maitai1The Mai Tai:

    Ingredients:

    • 1 oz. dark(er), funky rum (Appleton 12 or El Dorado 8, 12, 15)
    • 1 oz. light(er) rum (Clement VSOP, rhum Barbancourt)
    • 3/4 oz. lime juice
    • 1/2 oz. orgeat syrup
    • 1/2 oz. triple sec
    • 1/4 oz. simple syrup
    • Mint sprig, for garnish

    Assemble:

    1. Using a blender, ice crusher or lewis bag, crush a bunch of ice.
    2. Add all the liquid ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice. Reserve the lime shell. Shake until well chilled.
    3. In a lowball glass, add the crushed ice and the lime shell. Stain the cocktail into the glass and garnish with the mint spring. Enjoy. Repeat.

     

     

     

  • Mixology Monday LXXXVI Cocktail: The Nuevo Presidente

    June 23, 2014

    12 Comments

    pres6Ah, just when we started slowing down on cocktail posts, it’s Mixology Monday again. Just another excuse to keep mixing drinks. Such is life…..and life is good.

    mxmologoThis month, the theme comes from Thiago of the excellent Bartending Notes blog. Here it is:

    Let’s bring the king of fruits back! After being canned, mixed with all sorts of sugary liquids and blended into… some 80s dreadful cocktails, the pineapple needs more respect! Once a symbol of hospitality, the King of Fruits might be know misunderstood. One of the greatest non-citrus souring agents, used for crazy garnish ideas, infusions, old gum syrup flavoring, the pineapple is a fruit to be reckoned. Be in a tiki cocktails, an old school classic like the Algonquin, a crazy flavor pairing or just mixed in a delicious Verdita, get creative and make a cocktail using any part of this delicious, juicy fruit or share you favorite pineapple cocktail with us!

    Pineapple, a perfect choice for some of the longest (and hopefully the laziest) days of the year. And as happy tiki drinkers, we enjoy plenty of pineapple here at the farm (also great in dessert- see here). And we just happened to have a pineapple cocktail we wanted to check out.

    pres1pres2Normally we get a bit “experimental” for Mixology Monday, but we recently read about a pineapple cocktail called the El Presidente and put it on our list of cocktails to try. Funny thing, normally an “El Presidente” refers to a rum-based martini variant, and it is something of a classic. But we also found references to this other “El Presidente”, basically a daiquiri with pineapple juice and grenadine replacing sugar. A decent drink, with a bit more complexity and that nice foamy texture from the pineapple, but one that could be tweaked a bit.

    pres3pres4pres5For the Nuevo Presidente, we chose an aged rum (we used El Dorado 5 Year, but use an aged rum you like) with some funk to add more flavor. Pineapple loves darker rum, so that was an easy fix. The other change we made was replacing the grenadine, which doesn’t do much in the original. We tried different bitters, Chambord and crème de cassis to add some kick and depth. And in the end a few dashes of cassis added to the completed cocktail was the clear winner. The cassis sinks to the bottom of the drink and adds a layer of color, while offering a distinct deep berry bite to the last sip. A nice touch and a very good way to riff on a  daiquiri. This is an easy drink to make and enjoy, and it will appear a few more times this summer at the farm.

    PresSo thanks to Thiago for hosting this month and to Fred Yarm at Cocktail Virgin Slut for keeping the monthly party rolling.

    The Nuevo Presidente:

    Ingredients:

    • 2 oz. aged rum (El Dorado 5 Year Old)
    • 1/2 oz. pineapple juice
    • 1/2 oz. lime juice
    • 3 – 4 dashes  crème de cassis

    Assemble:

    1. Add the rum, pineapple juice and lime juice to a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until chilled and double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass, coupé or flute. Add the crème de cassis to the drink and let it settle to the bottom of the glass. Serve.

     

     

     

  • Monthly Cocktail #1: The Midnight Daiquiri

    June 17, 2014

    18 Comments

    mid5Happy Tuesday! And we choose to celebrate this auspicious day with something new, the “Monthly” cocktail feature. It was weekly, but we were having a hard time keeping up. So “Monthly” it is…

    In any event, is there any better flavor combination in cocktails than rum, lime and sugar?  So simple, so perfect and yet so flexible. The basic daiquiri is still a classic and one of our “go-to” drinks in any season. But like most classics, one you fully embrace the basic structure, one starts to riff and experiment. And with rum, probably more than any other spirit, the possibilities are endless.

    mid1Rum has more varieties than almost any other spirit. Molasses vs. cane juice, pot vs. column still, country of origin, aging, blending and filtration all come into play. And in the end, every nation, every island, every distiller has it’s own distinct flavor. And unlike whiskies, the range is incredibly broad. Scotch and Bourbon have many flavor profiles, but you know exactly what they are. Meanwhile there are rhum agricoles and cachacas that taste grassy like tequila, white rums so light in flavor that they are closer to vodka, aged rums that sip like whiskey and dark / black rums that are something else altogether….and that is where we have been playing lately.

    mid2While it may have a questionable reputation, (a few too many Meyers ‘n Pineapples in your youth can leave a mark) dark rum is nothing to be afraid of. In fact, the flavors range as widely as rum overall. Most dark rums will have bittersweet molasses core, but they also feature spice, vanilla, funk, chocolate, coffee and even maple syrup notes. And these are all flavors that make for tasty, complex and sometimes memorable cocktails.

    We often wax poetic about Appleton 12-year-old, our favorite rum, and one that may be called “dark”. But recently we started playing with something cheaper and a lot funkier, Cruzan Blackstrap rum. And this is fun stuff to play with. The Cruzan has all the dark molasses flavors along with notes of spice and maple, and with a lighter mouthfeel than you might expect. And at under 20 bucks a bottle, a real deal.

    midSo what did we do with the stuff? Experiment, of course. But after a while we made our own creation, the Midnight Daiquiri. The Midnight Daiquiri uses Cruzan Blackstrap rum (you could sub Gosling’s or Meyer’s), lime juice, falernum syrup, coffee liqueur and bitters. The sip starts with a bittersweet molasses nose and then a sweet, spicy “rum, lime and coke” flavor that ends with a slightly bitter note that cleans the palate. A very easy sipper, more refreshing than you might think and certainly worth a try.

    mid4The inspiration for the Midnight Daiquiri comes from a few excellent cocktails. The falernum (spiced lime syrup) and dark rum are from the Corn ‘n Oil, the coffee liqueur from the Port Antonio and the extra bitter notes from Comal’s Black Daiquiri. In each cocktail the common thread is to embrace the flavors of the dark rum, and not hide them. And in the Midnight Daiquiri you get the full spectrum, spice, coffee, maple and, of course, molasses, all playing well together.

    mid3So the next time you see that bottle of dark rum gathering dust on you shelf, take it down, pull out some limes and get to work. You never know what you might find…

    The Midnight Daiquiri:

    Ingredients:

    • 2 oz. black or dark rum (Cruzan Blackstrap)
    • 1 oz. fresh lime juice
    • 3/4 oz. falernum syrup (you can sub Velvet Falernum in a pinch)
    • 1/4 oz. coffee liqueur
    • 3 dashes Angostura bitters
    • 2 dashes Bittermens Tiki bitters (optional, but good)
    • Lime wheel, for garnish

    Assemble:

    1. Combine the liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until well-chilled. Strain into a chilled coupé or cocktail glass. Garnish with the lime wedge and serve. You can also serve this cocktail on the rocks in a lowball glass.