Tag Archives: Mixology

  • Weekly Cocktail #49: The Tax Evasion Cocktail

    April 19, 2013

    12 Comments

    The Tax Evasion Cocktail.

    The Tax Evasion Cocktail.

    Monday was tax day. Nobody except the most dedicated masochist likes tax day. Regardless of politics, or whether you think you get your money’s worth or not, the actual act of sending the check isn’t fun. But there is a cocktail for that (there is a cocktail for almost everything). In fact, the Income Tax cocktail is something of a classic, and you see it a lot this time of year. It combines gin, orange juice, sweet and dry vermouth and bitters. The only problem with the Income Tax cocktail is that we don’t love the flavor combo of orange juice and sweet vermouth. It’s not as bad as paying taxes, but the Income Tax cocktail doesn’t ease our pain either.

    evaderevader8But being the industrious drinkers farmers that we are, we decided that perhaps we could create our own cocktail to “celebrate” the occasion. Even better, a cocktail that would allow us to fantasize about not paying the “gummumint” at all. Fittingly we chose to riff on the Scofflaw, one of our favorite prohibition era cocktails. The Scofflaw combines rye, dry vermouth, lemon and grenadine, and is an incredibly drinkable cocktail that works both for whiskey fans and those who prefer lighter spirits. A crowd pleaser, and a good template to work from.

    evader3evader7The Tax Evasion Cocktail combines rye, dry vermouth, lemon juice, sour cherry syrup (d’arbo is great stuff) and a dash of Peychaud’s bitters. We chose cherries because paying taxes is, you know….the “pits” (ugh, eye roll). Like a Scofflaw, the dry vermouth lightens the rye so you get a light spicy sip with a touch of the lemon and then the sweet / sour of the cherry syrup and just a hint of the spice and anise of the bitters. You don’t have to use the bitters, but it adds a bit of bite and depth that we like. A very enjoyable cocktail, and if you find the overt sweetness of grenadine a bit cloying, the sour cherry syrup is a very good substitute. The Tax Evasion also works well as a cocktail served “up” or as a longer drink served on the rocks (you have to be flexible to dodge the taxman).

    evader1As for the key ingredient, if you can find the d’arbo sour cherry syrup, we suggest you get some. It is a very tangy sour cherry syrup that makes a great base for sour cherry limeade or lemonade. So even if you just want a “mocktail”, the sour cherry syrup is worth it (but if you sneak in a little gin, we won’t tell). Normally, we would make our own sour cherry syrup here at the farm, but sour cherries are one of the few fruits that are very hard to get here in Norcal. We did just plant our own sour cherry tree, but we don’t expect fruit for another few years. For now, we will just use the syrup, enjoy the cocktail and try to forget about April 15th.

    evader4The Tax Evasion Cocktail:

    Ingredients:

    • 2 oz. rye whiskey
    • 1 oz. dry vermouth (Dolin is good here)
    • 1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
    • 1/2 oz. sour cherry syrup (d’arbo)
    • Dash of Peychaud’s bitters
    • Lemon twist, for garnish

    Assemble:

    1. Combine all the liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until well-chilled and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, flute or coupé. (You can also serve on the rocks, if you like). Garnish with a lemon twist. Serve. 
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  • Weekly Cocktail #45: The Paper Plane

    March 23, 2013

    15 Comments

    The Paper Plane cocktail.

    The Paper Plane cocktail.

    “Now that’s a good brown drink, I like that”, is something we rarely hear from Carolyn when whiskey is involved. She likes her gin, vodka and rum just fine, but most “brown drinks” with bourbon, rye or scotch taste too sweet and heavy for her tastes. And to be honest, even I prefer the spice of rye to the sweetness of bourbon. But we do like the caramel and vanilla notes of good bourbon, we just don’t want it to dominate the drink. But this week’s cocktail, the Paper Plane solves this problem quite nicely. It is by all measures a bourbon drink, but it is a very bright and refreshing sip.

    planeplane1Created a few years ago by well-known New York bartender Sam Ross, the Paper Plane combines equal parts good bourbon, lemon juice, Amaro Nonino and Aperol and is garnished with a lemon twist. The combo of the whiskey and lemon is standard, but the key to the Paper Plane is the use of two sweet and bitter ingredients, the Amaro Nonino and Aperol. These are both bitter ingredients but come from very different ends of the spectrum. We would not have thought to combine these ingredients, but it really works, and that’s why cocktails are fun. There are always surprises awaiting.

    plane4plane3Aperol (which we have discussed in the blog and is one of our favorite ingredients) is Campari’s lighter, less boozy, cousin and features sweet citrus and rhubarb notes with a bitter finish. The Amaro Nonino is a whole other animal. It’s amaro, but it is sweeter and boozier than most and with some fruity notes to compliment the herbal core. Nonino is seriously good stuff and is fun to play around with in all sorts of whiskey-based drinks (Nonino Manhattan variants are very tasty). Also fun to substitute for Benedictine. Along with Montenegro, the Nonino is now one of our favorite amari for mixing. Worth picking up a bottle if you can.

    The Paper Plane cocktail.

    plane9 Continue reading »

  • Mixology Monday LXXI Cocktail: The 20th Century

    March 15, 2013

    16 Comments

    The 20th Century Cocktail.

    The 20th Century Cocktail.

    Another Mixology Monday is almost here, but it looks to be a busy weekend, so we are posting on Friday. This month’s edition of the online cocktail party is hosted by Scott Diaz of the excellent cocktail blog Shake, Strain and Sip. Thanks Scott. And as always, thanks to Fred Yarm of Cocktail Virgin Slut, for keeping the whole Mixology Monday thing going, it is great fun and the source of some very inspiring cocktails. So here is Scott’s theme:

    mxmologoThe evolution of the cocktail has been a wondrous, and sometimes, frightful journey… But with all this focus on “craft” ingredients and classic tools & form, it seems we have become somewhat pretentious.  The focus on bitter Italian amari, revived and lost ingredients such as Batavia Arrack or Crème de Violette, the snickering at a guest ordering a Cosmopolitan or a Midori Sour has propelled us into the dark realm of snobbery… Remember, the bar was created with pleasing one particular group in mind: the guest. As such, this month’s MxMo theme… will focus on concocting a craft cocktail worthy of not only MxMo but any trendy bar, using dubious and otherwise shunned ingredients to sprout forth a craft cocktail that no one could deny is anything less.  There are a plethora of spirits, liqueurs, and non-alcoholic libations that are just waiting for someone to showcase that they too are worthy of being featured on our home and bar shelves.  So grab that bottle of flavored vodka, Jägermeister, cranberry juice, soda, neon-colored liqueur, sour mix, or anything else deemed unworthy of a craft cocktail, and get mixin’!

    20-2Create or find a drink that uses one or more ingredients that are not considered “craft”, but are used in a “craft” cocktail.  Sweet & sour, coffee, cranberry juice, most flavored vodkas, Midori, X-Rated, Alize, almost anything starting with creme, etc., are all game.

    20-1Hmmm. At first, we simply had to laugh. We spend a few years building a bar without “crass” ingredients, and now we need to go buy some. We had visions of Midori dancing in our heads (and back in the day there was plenty of Midori…and headaches). But before we bought anything we decided to use what we have, and we still have the back of one cabinet set aside for “all that other stuff” (you know, the stuff we don’t show off). And the first thing we saw was some Dekuyper White Creme de Cocoa. Yup, crass enough.

    20Dekuyper makes many of the most crazily named, colored and flavored liqueurs you can find. They are responsible for “Sour Apple Pucker”, “Razzmatazz”, bottled “Sex on the Beach” shots and dozens of other types of flavored booze. It may all be decent stuff, even fun, but it certainly ain’t “craft”. (But you should check out the cocktail recipes at their website for Spring Break classics like the “Banana Whammer”, “Apple Spazz” and the “Juicy Screw”. And the list goes on, check it out for a quick smile.)

    20-7So what to make with our very sweet and somewhat artificial-tasting Creme de Cocoa? The 20th Century, of course. Created by British bartender C.A. Tuck in 1937, and immortalized in the classic Cafe Royal Cocktail book by William Tarling, the 20th Century combines gin, Lillet blanc or Cocchi Americano (to mimic the “original” Lillet), lemon juice and white Creme de Cocoa. Think “Corpse Reviver #2 with Creme de Cocoa instead of Cointreau”. And while your first thought may be “gin and chocolate, yuk”, it does work very well. The chocolate plays well with the herbal gin, sweet fruit of the Lillet and the sour notes of the lemon. If you get the proportions right, there is just a very pleasant hint of chocolate to finish a tasty gin, Lillet/Cocchi and lemon sip.

    20-8 Continue reading »

  • Announcing Mixology Monday LXX: Inverted

    February 4, 2013

    61 Comments

    Happy Mixology Monday.

    Happy Mixology Monday.

    Here at Putney Farm we enjoy our cocktails, but we also farm and cook. A while ago, while researching Julia Child’s recipes, we noticed that she was well-known for enjoying “upside-down” or “inverted” Martini’s (God bless her). This is a version of the classic cocktail that swaps the ratios of gin and vermouth, turning the Martini into something of a “long drink”. And if you are cooking for hours at a time (or gardening with a cocktail- something we highly recommend), the Inverted Martini is a very tasty drink.

    mxmologo
    We wondered if we could apply the same “inverted” approach to Mixology Monday and, at first, didn’t think it would work. But then we asked ourselves, what does “inverted” really mean? Well, here is the definition:
    -
    1. To turn inside out or upside down
    2. To reverse the position, order, or condition of
    -
    Hmm…it appears that the definition is pretty broad. It seems that “inverted” really just means something “flipped on its head”. And that can mean almost anything, and leaves plenty of room for creativity. So we are going with the “inverted” theme.  You can invert the ratios of spirits, liqueurs or bitters in a cocktail, but we suggest you go beyond that and “invert” whatever you want. Spirits, name, ingredients, proof, color, geography, garnish and glassware are all fair game.  An apéritif made with Navy-Strength booze? Give it a try. A beer-based cocktail that tastes like champagne? Sure. A clear Manhattan? Worth a shot (and good luck with that). The only thing we expect is the unexpected. Have fun.
    -
    Here are the particulars:
    -
    • Find a drink recipe or create one that “inverts” the ingredients or other elements of the cocktail. Write up the recipe and your thoughts about the drink, add a picture or two, and post it on your own blog, Tumblr, or eGullet’s Spirits and Cocktails forum. If you don’t have any other way of posting, you can also email us at stewartbputney (at) gmail (dot) com.
    • Include in your post the MxMo logo and a link back to both the Mixology Monday and Putney Farm sites. And once the round-up is posted, a link to that summary post would be most appreciated.
    • Get your submission in by February 18th. Any time of day is fine and we are happy to take a few stragglers.

    Thanks again to Fred Yarm at Cocktail Virgin Slut for keeping Mixology Monday going.

    As for us, we would certainly like to “invert” the outcome of the Super Bowl. Oh well. And here are some more photos. Just because.mixologymixology9mixology1mixology8mixology6mixology10mixology5

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  • Max’s Mocktail

    January 29, 2013

    17 Comments

    Max's Mocktail

    Max’s Mocktail

    Truth be told, we mix a lot of drinks and cook a lot of dishes with the blog in mind, but most of the things we make are simply to feed our family and friends. But when they do like something and ask for a recipe, you can be damn sure we are going to post it. Happy faces never get old, and successful dishes and drinks are still hard to come by. If you want the recipe, just ask, we are happy to oblige.

    max3max6As for this “mocktail”, our eldest son had his friend Max over to work on a school project and play some baseball. After some time outside, our son asked for a mocktail, and if our kid gets one, well, so does his guest. And since we had a bunch of fresh winter citrus available, including blood oranges and Meyer Lemons (two of our favorite ingredients) we figured we could make something the boys would enjoy. And Max liked this enough to want the recipe, so here it is.

    max4max5Max’s Mocktail combines blood orange juice, lemon juice, falernum syrup, a dash of Rhubarb bitters (optional) and sparkling water. So what’s falernum syrup? Falernum is a sweet West-Indian syrup with flavors of lime, ginger and clove. Falernum is a common tiki-drink ingredient and is a primary flavor in classics like the Jet Pilot and Zombie. You can find falernum syrup in many liquor stores, it is inexpensive and lasts forever. Just don’t confuse falernum syrup with Velvet Falernum, a version that has alcohol and isn’t safe for “mocktails”. We understand that many people won’t have falernum syrup, so we also have a second version of the recipe that subs a dash of lime juice, sugar and ginger ale for the falernum syrup and sparkling water.

    max7max8 Continue reading »

  • Bonus Cocktail: The Tuxedo

    February 28, 2012

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    Dress up, drink, repeat.

    We are working on some new recipes for this week, including a kick-ass version of Cioppino and some homemade Philadelphia-style ice cream. Asparagus is also in season, and we may have a good dish coming there as well. But the recipes are not quite ready for prime time (or photography) just yet.

    We did mange to stumble upon another good cocktail however, and I could not resist posting it now (for all of you Monday cocktail drinkers…;-). The drink is called the Tuxedo. We found it while researching drinks that use Maraschino liqueur. As you may recall, last week’s cocktail was the Rum Crusta, a lemon-based, “tropical”, rum cocktail that uses Maraschino with great impact. The Tuxedo may use a similar ingredient with the Maraschino, but it a very different animal. If the Rum Crusta is an escape to a beach in the Caribbean, the Tuxedo is a night on the town in New York. Continue reading »