Sassy Orange Julep

Posted on May 13, 2014 by abourbongal

Bourbon-Campari Sassy Orange Julep

I’m going to cut straight to the chase on this one–well, as much as I ever do–because it is so good. So refreshing. So few ingredients! Plus, I abso-freaking-LOVE Campari cocktails of any kind, and this is like a classic Boulevardier cocktail, but lighter, fruity-er and served on the rocks. If you still have some of that minted syrup left over from Derby weekend, now, my friend, is the time to use it up or pitch it out because pretty soon you’re going to have that nasty sugar gel bacteria glob baby growing in the middle of your syrup. Nasty.

This is also really good made with plain old simple syrup (equal parts granulated sugar dissolved in very hot water until combined, then cooled) too, but add a bit more mint to your shaker. No need to muddle the shit out of your mint; you’ll get plenty of flavor by just adding it to the shaker and letting it beat up against all that ice while you shake it like a Polaroid picture.

Now you’ve got that song stuck in your head, too. You’re welcome. Sh-sh-sh-sh-shake it.

To a cocktail shaker add:

1.5 oz bourbon

0.5 oz Campari

4-5 leaves fresh mint

The juice of ½ fresh orange

1 oz simple syrup (BONUS if you’ve got minted simple syrup)

Enough ice to almost cover your ingredients

Shake it shake it shake it until frothy.

Pour into a pint mason jar or (in this photo) Belgian beer glass. Pretty! Add another 1-2 oz. club soda if it’s particularly hot day and you are pacing yourself.

White Wine Sangria with Melon & Mint

Posted on April 9, 2014 by abourbongal

My guys last season. Awwwww

Nothing heralds Spring quite like baseball season in our house. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a completely shallow fan of the game. I’m not super invested in a particular team, don’t follow stats with regularity, and am an inconsistent televised viewer. But I freaking love the experience of live games. When I worked for the National Park Service based out of Boston [this is pre-kids, y’all], I traveled a shit-ton for my job as a museum consultant, and a couple of my co-workers were also big baseball fans. We’d plan our summer evenings around visiting AAA, double-A, and single-A ballparks for games. We’d get there early, buy a hot dog and some peanuts, and drink draft beers which would invariably get warm long before we’d finish them in the humid dank heat of mid-summer in say, Virginia.

Both my boys play, and my hubster, The Macallan, has been a little league coach for forever. Sure, I love watching my kids’ games, but there’s nothing quite like seeing the pros [or in the case of our town, the Salt Lake Bees, a AAA farm team for the Angels] knock out nine innings. We plan our family road trips around visiting as many MLB ballparks as we can, since we’ve made a goal of hitting every major league stadium for a game before our youngest graduates from high school.

The Colorado Rockies players were super-friendly with the kids and signed a ton of pre-game autographs. Thanks, guys!

A couple of weeks ago, we took a break from the mayhem of shoulder season [in our house, it’s the overlap of the kids still ski racing, and the beginning of little league baseball #FML – hence, taking a month off from blog-writing. Sorry!], and went to a couple of preseason games in Arizona during “Cactus League” Spring training. One of the nicer surprises of the visit was checking out the Rockies/Diamondbacks practice facility Salt River Fields at Talking Stick on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Those folks know how to run a badass ballpark: gracious and helpful staff, parking was efficient and easy, the practice fields gorgeous, and the Rockies players were genuinely fan-friendly and signed tons of autographs for the kids pregame. There were even complementary sunscreen dispensers located around the ballpark, with free-flow SPF 30. Nice.

32 oz. white sangria at Salt River Fields [at Talking Stick, near Scottsdale, Arizona]

As you’d imagine, I base a lot of my positive stadium experience on the adult beverage and food selection, and Salt River Fields did not disappoint. Lots of great microbrews on tap, terrific selection of ballpark standard fare as well as local nosh [fantastic street tacos and margaritas the size of your head!], and my favorite: 32 oz. sangrias. Choose red or white, mixed up with as my barely-dressed barmaid described, “wine, brandy, Sprite, and fruit juice.” Not what I’d use, but it’s an efficient and delicious vehicle for dispensing alcoholic refreshment. So, while my guys discretely ogled the halter-clad and short-short sporting drinks slingers, I appreciated the players warming up pre-game, and sipped [okay, guzzled] my humongous sangria. I find these athletes vigor, flexibility, and dedication to fitness as showcase exceptionally well in baseball pants inspiring. Very. Inspiring.

Rockies pre-game warm up. Their athleticism is inspiring. Very. Inspiring.

Mmmm, baseball. A little something for everyone.*

Here’s my version of white wine sangria, which is more flavor-packed than “authentic.” Mix it up on a scorching day for instant refreshment. Halter tops and tight pants optional.

White Wine Sangria with Melon & Mint [makes about 6 cups]

1 750-ml bottle dry white wine

½ cup Melon liqueur [like Midori] OR orange liqueur [such as Cointreau]

2 Tbs. [or more, to taste] agave nectar

1 cup honeydew melon, cubed into ½” pieces

1 lemon, sliced

1 cup seedless green grapes, halved

1 10 oz. bottle club soda, chilled

6 stems fresh mint

White Wine Sangria with Melon & Mint

To a large pitcher, add all ingredients. Stir gently to combine. Fill six tumblers or large wine glasses with ice, and pour sangria over ice. Smack the mint sprigs between your palms [as if clapping], to release fragrance and place a sprig of mint in each glass. Split the fruit equally between the glasses as a garnish and for yummy boozing snacking.

* Yes, I realize this is shallow and objectifying the undeniable talent that it takes to mix drinks or play major-league baseball. But this blog is about mixing drinks and enjoying all that life has to offer, not about changing the rules of society. Everybody’s got their thing.

The Old-Fashioned Way

Posted on February 22, 2014 by abourbongal

I wrote this piece for the cityhomeCOLLECTIVE blog last year for their “Cocktails 101” series. See more delicious photos from the party, as shot by Tristan Shepherd, here. Edited by the lovely and talented Amy Tibbals.

Cranberry-Clementine Old Fashioned. Mid-century style (photo by Tristan Shepherd).

It only takes one sucky Old-Fashioned to put you off this drink for life. My first introduction to the Old-Fashioned was the one served for pretty much every holiday gathering with my family. It looked like fruit vomit, and tasted like booze-tinted water. My-relative-who-shall-remain-nameless [he meant well, really] smashed great masses of fruit—orange slices, godawful red maraschino cherries, sometimes some lemon—in the bottom of a glass, stirred in a spoonful of sugar, a spoonful of grenadine, and a dash of Angostura bitters. Then he filled the glass with ice, added a splash of Canadian Club, and quite a few glugs of club soda [ladies, after all, shouldn’t be served full-strength cocktails. Psh.]. I’d smile weakly and say thank you, and then later my brother-in-law and I would scrounge for the bottle of bourbon I gave them the year before at Christmas and make our own drinks. Booze: the gift that keeps on giving.

In defense of my relatives, the aforementioned version of this wayward drink is the one that most post-Prohibition-era Americans drank, and expected to be served if they ordered one at the club. And until Don Draper’s character made it sexy again on Mad Men, nobody without an AARP card would be caught dead ordering one at a hipster bar. It’s the version I’d been taught to make at my first bar gig in the 1990s. And it’s a goddamn shame, too, because in its purest form, the Old-Fashioned is a tasty thing of beauty: just a bit of citrus, sugar, bitters, a large cube of ice, and booze. Barmen in the late 1800s started making drinks by request “the old-fashioned way” in protest against what their patrons saw as unnecessarily elaborate cocktail chicanery of fruit concoctions, fussy garnishing, and flashy shaker work. Ironically, that original Old-Fashioned recipe was hijacked after Prohibition and turned into just the sort of muddled-fruity-watery vulgarity that the 1880s bartenders had been protesting. Cocktail history, my friends, is a fickle bitch.

Many Old-Fashioned’s later…. [photos by Tristan Shepherd]

Flash forward to now, people, and keep up, ‘cause this is where it’s going to get tricky. In today’s bourbon-is-sexy-again cocktail-crazed scene, you never know what you’re going to get if you order an Old-Fashioned. You may get a stunning—and short [I’m not gonna lie, 2 oz. of liquid looks pretty puny with only a big ‘ole ice cube keeping company]—Old-Fashioned at a place like Bar X, or as mixed up by the booze slingists of C&S Spirits. They’ll kill it, you’ll love it. Or, you could end up with my in-laws’ version at the golf club. Sucks to be you.

*Solution: start making your own. Try a few out and find what you like. Here’s a few basics to get you get started:

THE BOOZE: It doesn’t have to be the most expensive bottle on your shelf. Bourbon? Classic. Rye whiskey? A nice touch, and historically accurate. Southern Comfort? Um, not what I’d pick, but okay for a 21-yr-old frat boy. Brandy? Way sweet, but it’ll work in a pinch. Tequila? WTF, people. No more experimenting. Bottom line, I prefer a 90 proof or higher bourbon or rye for making Old-Fashioneds; make the booze the star.

THE BITTERS: You can get super ambitious and make your own artisanal bitters, and in a couple of months, if they turn out, you’ll be ready to make a drink. You can buy fancy-schmancy fruit bitters, like Fee Brothers, online, but Angostura bitters are available at most supermarkets and are a classic addition.

THE SWEET: Use white sugar, Demerara or turbinado sugar, hand-harvested by virgins, organic beet sugar, sugar shaved raw from a pressed loaf smuggled through customs from your last Cuban vacation. Sure, why the hell not. Stay away from brown sugars.

THE FRUIT: Please, for love of all that’s holy, try to keep the fruity additions to a minimum, and make them the background notes to support the flavor of your liquor. Avoid a fruit salad that you have to slurp around to get to your drink.

THE WATER: If there’s one thing you remember when making this drink, it’s to watch your water content; a mere baby splash of club soda or water [less than ½ oz.] will open up the nose of your booze nicely, but a watery Old-Fashioned is just fuckin’ gross. If you’re pulling your rocks from an ice bucket, make sure that they’re cold and hard..not floating sadly in water. Oh, and the bigger your cube, the better. Now, let’s make drinks, shall we?

The Classic Old-Fashioned [by booze historian David Wondrich for Esquire]

Place ½ tsp of loose sugar in the bottom of an Old-Fashioned glass, then add two or three healthy dashes of Angostura bitters and ½ tsp of water. Muddle until the sugar is dissolved. Add three ice cubes to the glass. Stir. Add 2 oz straight rye or bourbon whiskey. Stir again. Twist a thin-cut swatch of lemon or orange peel over the top, add a stirring implement, and let sit for one minute. After that, enjoy thoroughly.

Cranberry-Clementine Old-Fashioned [a cross ‘twixt the 1880s classic and a mid-century cocktail, with a sparkly rim for festivities’ sake. I made a cranberry-rum citrus jam to use as the sweetening/fruit element, but you can totally use leftover, cold, cranberry sauce from your holiday dinner and it’ll rock, just the same.]

Rub ½ of the rim of a lowball glass with ¼ of a Clementine wedge; dip the citrus-coated rim of the glass in turbinado sugar to coat. Then, to a short glass add: juice of ¼ Clementine wedge [drop it into the glass, if you want to be like Don Draper’s daughter], three dashes bitters, ½ tsp. cranberry jam [or cranberry sauce], ½ tsp sugar. Stir with a spoon until sugar dissolves. Add 2 oz. bourbon and 3 to 4 cubes of ice, then top with an optional tiny-baby splash of club soda. Stir gently to combine, garnish with 2-3 sugared cranberries, and enter the gates of heaven.

Bloody Marys 2 Ways: Sriracha Basil Lime & Smoky Cajun Bacon

Posted on February 19, 2014 by abourbongal

Thanks to Brighton Ski Team for this great photo of the racers at last year’s Grand Targhee race.

Last Spring, I wrote about our [mis]adventures at Grand Targhee with my boys’ downhill race team, the Brighton Competition Team, and shared a recipe for a traditional spicy Bloody Mary.The madness has continued yet again this season, with both kids competing in alpine race events all over the place. Usually on different mountains on the same day. #FML. The Macallan has finally embraced Google calendar and we’ve synched up our lives to get the boys where they need to go.

Slope-side selfie

Over President’s Day weekend—one of the busiest weekends at every ski resort, just sayin’ in case you are already making vacation plans for next year—my older son Tim Collins raced slalom and giant slalom at Snowbird. One of my favorite traditions of ski racing, and hell, any outdoor sporting event, is the tailgate party. In the past year, our home mountain team has paired up with Summit Ski Team of Park City and put on a seriously festive tailgating party, that is [dare I say it] the envy of other race teams. Well, at least we have the best bar and loudest cowbells.

Summit Ski Team’s fantastic “GrillSki” [patent pending, I’m sure].

Think of moving everything from your truck ONTO the mountain at whatever resort you are visiting: tents, chairs, tables, grills, coolers, bars. You name it. A parent on the Summit team has even become the envy of pretty much every race dad in the Intermountain Division by mounting a grill on SKIS = the GrillSki. Yes, you can slide your grill to the tailgate spot. Ingenious. It’s up there with the ‘shot ski’ as best re-appropriation of old gear.

On Monday, our family’s contributions to the party were a couple of different kinds of Bloody Mary mix and an XL bottle of vodka. Each of these recipes makes about 1 quart, so increase quantities as needed. A plastic gallon jug, for instance, is perfect for pouring mixers for a crowd. If we’ve got the space and muscle, I like bringing pint Mason jars to serve the drinks; just put ice and all of your ingredients into the individual jars and they become both the shaker and the glass. Keep all the lids on hand to seal up the jars for mess-free clean up and transport.

Bloody Mary Bar

Sriracha-Lime-Thai Basil Bloody Mary Mix

As one race dad said, “This isn’t a cocktail. This is the best freakin’ breakfast I ever had in a glass.” Aw, y’all say the sweetest things.

3 ½ cups [about 28 oz. +/-] tomato juice or original V8 juice

¼ cup Sriracha hot sauce

½ cup packed [about 2 large heads] Thai basil leaves

4 scallions

Juice of 3 fresh limes

Sriracha Bloody Mary with Lime, Thai Basil, and Scallions

To a small food processor [or large-mouthed quart jar so you can use a stick blender] add all ingredients EXCEPT for the tomato juice. Blend thoroughly, until basil and onions are minced but not a gooey slushy mess. Add herb mix to the quart jar along with tomato juice, replace lid, and shake to combine. Add some crushed black pepper and sea salt to taste. Mix up with a ratio of 2 parts Bloody Mary mix to one part vodka. Serve over ice. Garnish with a sprig of Thai basil and a slivered scallion.

Cajun Smoky Bacon Bloody Mary Mix

You can either make your own bacon salt—cook down 3-4 strips of smoked bacon until crispy, drain on paper towels and cool, then add to a food processor with a pinch of smoked paprika and ¼ cup kosher salt and buzz until all minced together—or use a commercially available blend. If you have time, infuse your vodka by adding all those leftover bacon drippings to 2 cups vodka, chill for a couple of days, and then strain through a double layer of cheesecloth before use.

3 ½ cups [about 28 oz. +/-] tomato juice or original V8 juice

¼ cup Crystal [or other Louisiana-type] hot sauce

1 Tbs. smoked paprika

1 Tbs. bacon salt [plus additional for dipping the rim of the cup]

2 tsp. liquid smoke

Juice of 1 large fresh lemon

Cajun Smoky Bacon Bloody Mary. Great slope-side or during your next ski tuning session.

Combine all ingredients in a quart Mason jar and shake like crazy. If desired, rub the rim of the cup/glass with a lemon wedge and dip in additional bacon salt. Mix up with a ratio of 2 parts Bloody Mary mix to one part vodka. Serve over ice, and garnish with pickled okra, a strip of bacon, olives, or whatever you’ve got on hand.

Thanks BST for this photo of my racer!

New York Sour

Posted on February 13, 2014 by abourbongal

Classic New York Sour made with rye whiskey and homemade sour mix

This week’s H.O.A.G.Y. (Help Out a Gal/Guy, Yeah?) comes via the ABG Instagram feed [@abourbongal] from a local cutie, Sparkling Rosé. Here’s her request:

“I’m throwing a birthday party for a friend. I want to have semi-fancy cocktails but I don’t want them to take forever to make; there will be a lot of people at the event and I’m the only bar tender [ABG note: you go, girl!]. Have you ever made homemade sour mix?! I was thinking a New York Sour would be fun and easy.”

Sours ARE fun and easy! And really goddam delicious. Several bars in the SLC make delicious New York-style sours, two of my favorites being Whiskey Street and The Copper Onion. A couple of weeks ago we made a Tullahoma Whiskey Sour for my dear friend Strawberry Julep, but that was makin’ one cocktail, not prepping for a crowd. Commercial sour mixes are, IMHO, cloyingly sweet and thick. Some have tons of corn syrup, and lots of preservatives to keep them shelf stable. Once you’ve tasted fresh-made sour mix, you’ll be able to spot the bright notes of just-squeezed citrus quicker than a 75% off sale at H&M and it makes all the difference in the freakin’ world. Except for the run to Costco for your bags of lemons & limes [you’re going anyway, right?], and squeezing all those suckers, making the sour mix is dead simple.

The New York Sour makes for a terrific Valentine’s cocktail** or, in Sparkling Rosé’s case, a festive party drink. Why? Well, it’s got a nice sweet-sour balance point, making it perfect for soirées when you don’t know if you’ll have guests who like super-sweet cocktails or will be serving purists who just want some high-proof bourbon, served neat. The finishing float of red wine makes it super pretty AND festive. As booze historian David Wondrich describes, back in the day [like, the mid and later 1800s] barkeeps claimed all of their New York sours were topped with “the claret ‘snap’” –really any fruity red wine fancily declared ‘claret’ no matter the origin, but a Bordeaux works especially well in this application. It’s a fun bit of drinks history: the ‘sour’ is a fancy single-mixed drink adaptation of the ubiquitous Punch during the Victorian age. It’s kind of a proto-cocktail. The recipe I use is loosely based on the one Wondrich quotes in his cocktails history bible Imbibe! [p. 103], which he found in the 1869 Steward & Barkeeper’s Manual:

One wine glass [2 oz.] of spirits

Half wine glass [1 oz.] of water

One Tablespoonful of sugar

Half of a lemon

Method: “Squeeze a portion of the lemon into the tumbler, which should be a quarter full of ice, and rub the lemon on the rim of the glass. Stir with a spoon…. In the manufacture of fixes and sours a small bar-glass or ordinary tumbler is employed.”

ABG note: wine glasses were really freaking tiny back in the day, right?

So, basically the barkeep was mixing up impromptu simple syrup with just a bit more than equal portion of citrus. And sours can be made with brandy, gin, amaretto, rum, applejack [The New Jersey Sour], just about any liquor, although the New York Sour was traditionally made with rye. In making homemade sour mix, I’ve found that the ratio of simple syrup to citrus is just about right at two parts syrup to three parts citrus. As noted before when making drinks in the ‘sours’ category, a little pinch of salt gives a great tart pinch to cocktails.

*Homemade Sour Mix: makes about 2 ½ cups [about 20 oz.] of sour mix for 10-12 cocktails.

Here’s my super-basic recipe for homemade sour mix. Really, the ratios depend on what kind of citrus I’ve got on hand, and what I’m mixing with. More lemon goes great with whiskey, more lime with tequila. I’ve made great sour mix using grapefruit and lemon for amaretto sours. I’m sure you know the trick about microwaving citrus for 10+ seconds and rolling it to extract the most juice, ’cause you are a bar god/goddess. Own it!

Make a simple syrup with 1 cup boiling water mixed with 1 cup sugar. Stir to dissolve, and let cool to room temp. Meanwhile, juice 1 generous cup freshly squeezed lemon juice [4-5 large juicy lemons], and 1/2 cup juice from fresh-squeezed limes [4 limes]. Or, whatever ratio of citrus you like that gets you 2 parts simple syrup to 3 parts citrus juice. Strain the citrus through a fine mesh strainer to remove seeds and pulp. Mix citrus and syrup together [I like shaking & storing it in a quart mason jar], and it will keep in the fridge for weeks.

New York Sour

The great thing about mixing drinks at home [especially in Utah], is that you can mix them to YOUR taste, not to the letter o’ the state liquor law. So, fair warning, this drink is a bit stiffer than the one you’ll be served at a bar in the Beehive state. The egg white is totally optional – I’ve got fresh eggs coming out the wahzoo from my backyard hens so I’m not worried about cooties—it just gives the drink a little more velvety body and helps the wine “float.” If I’m making drinks for a crowd I leave the egg out ‘cause it’s a total pain in the ass to crack all of ‘em perfectly and you don’t want ANY yolk ending up in your drink [yellow strings of egg = gross].

2 oz. rye whiskey

1.5 -2.0 oz. homemade sour mix*

0.5 oz. Disaronno [or amaretto liqueur]

1 egg white [optional]

Tiny pinch of sea salt

0.5 oz. rich fruity red wine [like Bordeaux]

New York Sour

Add all ingredients except the wine to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake like crazy. Strain into a highball glass or tumbler filled with fresh ice. Pour wine slowly over the back of a spoon to “float” on top of the cocktail.

** In case you are color blind, never go to the ‘seasonal’ aisle in the store, or don’t have a calendar, I’ll remind you that Valentine’s Day is THIS Friday, y’all. It’s hard to believe, but it was just about this time last year that I’d started this here blog [I know! A year!], and posted a rant on why y’all should avoid restaurants for V-day, and might choose to make “Oh, You Sexy Beets!” Dirty Martinis at home, instead. It’s a tougher sell this year, since a Friday or Saturday holiday doesn’t get the middle-of-the-week buy-out. Sucks to be you. I also recently posted a blog over at my other gig at cityhomeCOLLECTIVE about Chocolate-centric stuff you can do all this month in the SLC. Why save the romance for one day?

Hot. Buttered. Rum.

Posted on January 7, 2014 by abourbongal

Hot Buttered Rum. Yeah, baby.

Baby, it’s freaking cold outside! Well, here in the SLC it’s a balmy 21 degrees, but I’m feeling for my friends braving the Polar Vortex. Yikes! That’s some serious shit goin’ on, there. Although my hot beverage of choice is usually a bourbon or rye based Hot Toddy, I do love a nice mug of Hot Buttered Rum on occasion. Around Thanksgiving I mix up a pint jar of butter batter, and scoop it out as needed all winter long. It’ll keep for months in the fridge, and one pint will make 20+ drinks, depending on how buttery you like your mug. For a serving a crowd, I like to dole out individual portions of butter and rum, leaving the spoon in the mug so guests can make the buttery magic happen when we top off their serving with hot water. You can also put the entire butter batter recipe in a crock pot with 4 cups of water and a bottle of rum (heat on low, then reduce to ‘warm’ – don’t let it come to a boil or it will cook off your alcohol!), it makes for delicious self serve ladle-ing.

For the booze component, a golden-hued barrel aged rum like Mount Gay from Barbados gives the drink a nice molasses tone, but you can use white rum if that’s what you’ve got on hand. Spiced rum? Gross. If you like heavier spice than what’s in this subtle butter batter, just shave a little more nutmeg in, or a bit more cinnamon.

Hot Buttered Rum

To an 8 oz (1 cup) mug add: 1 heaping tablespoon of butter batter* and 2 oz. dark rum. Fill the mug almost to the rim with hot water (just off the boil), and stir gently until the butter is melted and sugar dissolves. Rub the rim of the mug with a bit of orange zest and drop the zest into the drink. Top off the mug to the rim with more hot water, and another little grating of fresh nutmeg.

Best Butter Batter with rum

Rum Butter Batter

You want to use artificial sugar and margarine instead of butter? Y’all are making me sad. It’s BUTTERED rum. Not margarine-ed rum. Gah.

½ cup vanilla ice cream, softened

½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 ½ cups packed light brown sugar

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

¼ tsp. fresh grated nutmeg

¼ tsp. ground ginger

A pinch each of: ground cloves, ground mace, and smoked sea salt

Butter Batter at its best.

In a bowl, smash all of the ingredients together until they are completely combined. Transfer to a pint mason jar or other re-sealable container. Store in the refrigerator until ready for use.

The PomeGrenade

Posted on December 31, 2013 by abourbongal

This week’s H.O.A.G.Y! (Help Out a Gal/Guy, Yeah?): a pomegranate-tequila-sparkling wine cocktail

The PomeGrenade – made with Pomegranate-tequila liqueur

My gal Big Bold California Cab brought me back a bottle of tequila-based La Pinta Pomegranate Liqueur after her last turn-around to Mexico (she’s a flight attendant for a major airline). She said all of the folks she worked with were raving about the stuff. They mostly liked it on the rocks mixed with diet lemon-lime soda, or with seltzer, but they’d like to try it out in some festive cocktails. It’s definitely a tequila-forward liqueur (38 proof – 19% ABV), with a bright ruby color and not-too-cloying sweet fruity tone that rings pretty true to pomegranate with some cranberry notes; it also has a slight citrus finish.

Well, with it being New Year’s and all, I thought it would be perfect in a champagne cocktail! I’m in the middle of writing a piece for CityHomeCOLLECTIVE about the French 75 for my “Cocktails 101” series, so I have WWI artillery (it’s named after the eponymous 75 mm gun), and champagne on the brain already. The old root of the word “pomegranate” comes from the French name for the fruit first cultivated in Persia; the French called it a pomme-grenade. The word “grenade”—referring to ordinance—is believed by historians to come from the Old French word that alluded to the resemblance of hand-sized bombs to the fragmented nature of the fruit within its spherical hull. Hence, the fruity AND explosive moniker for this cocktail. Plus, it will totally knock you on your ass after one or three. BOOM.

So, here ya go, my flighty friends! I’m happy to take any and all extra drinks coupons you may have laying around off y’alls hands in exchange.

The PomeGrenade

½ teaspoon superfine sugar

Juice of ¼ lime (plus a nice long twist cut from the rind)

1.5 oz. pomegranate liqueur

2 oz. sparkling wine (champagne, prosecco, or whatever you’ve got open)

To a cocktail shaker add sugar, lime, pomegranate liqueur, and 4-5 cubes ice. Shake like crazy, and strain into a martini glass. Fill to rim with champagne. Garnish with a long lime twist.

Cranberry Nation

Posted on December 19, 2013 by abourbongal

Cranberries Three Ways: in an Old-Fashioned, Sugared, and in a Cranberry-Rum ginger jam that is amazeballs instead of that jiggly canned shit served at Thanksgiving. Trust me. It’s also delightful stirred into rum cocktails, or into club soda with a dash of bitters for a gorgeous spritzer.

Cranberry-Clementine Old Fashioned. Mid-century style (photo by Tristan Shepherd).

My super-hip friends Fat Tire Ale and Cosmopolitan recently asked me to curate—which it seems is a fancy-schmancy word used everywhere now for ‘make shit up’ as opposed to the ‘curatorial’ work I did in museums, anyhoooo—the cocktails for a holiday party they hosted recently at their gorgeous mid-century modern house. I was MORE than happy to do so, and even more excited about the substantial research and testing needed to get the job done. I suffer for y’all. Really I do.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been experimenting with making a cranberry jam. Cranberries are perfect for canning projects: they are easy to process (no peeling, seeding, etc.), take on flavor well, and already have a lot of natural pectin, which means they gel delightfully well. As I often do, I referenced the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (ed by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine) to make sure my acid levels would be appropriate for canning to avoid the cooties. In case you hadn’t heard: Botulism sucks. Avoid it. If you are a beginning canner, or just want to have pretty much The Bible of Canning on hand, THIS, my friends, is the book for you. Here are the recipes I came up with, based very loosely on the Ball book’s Cranberry Rum Sauce.

Cranberry-Clementine Old-Fashioned

My buddy Ramos Gin Fizz and I, all fancied up. Classic polaroid. (photo by Cody Derrick)

For the full story on my Old Fashioned experience, see the piece that I wrote for CityHomeCollective this week. Apologies in advance to my in-laws: they are wonderful, talented, loving people. They are just not-so-great bartenders.

Rub ½ of the rim of a lowball glass with ¼ of a Clementine wedge;

dip the citrus-coated rim of the glass in turbinado sugar to coat.

To a short glass add:

juice of ¼ Clementine wedge (drop it into the glass, if you want to be like Don Draper’s daughter)

3 dashes bitters

½ tsp. cranberry jam (or cranberry sauce)

½ tsp sugar

Stir with a spoon until sugar dissolves.

Add 2 oz. bourbon

3-4 cubes ice

Top with an optional tiny baby splash of club soda.

Stir gently to combine.

Garnish with 2-3 sugared cranberries*.

Cranberry Jam with ginger and citrus. If you have a few tablespoons left from canning, it’s terrific on toast, or mixed into a rum-citrus cocktail with a little ginger beer floater.

Cranberry-Rum Jam with ginger and citrus

Makes nine or ten 8oz. jars

3 lg. (6”) cinnamon sticks, broken into 2” pieces

12 whole allspice berries

9 whole cloves

4 ½ cups granulated sugar

2- 2/3 cups water

12 cups fresh cranberries

3 large apples (sweet or tart, or a combo), peeled, cored, and chopped

1 ½ cups rum

2 Tbs. fresh grated ginger

Zest of 1 orange

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 envelope liquid fruit pectin

Prepare canner, jars and lids for water bath canning.

My Canning Bible.

Make a spice bundle with a large square of cheesecloth: add cinnamon sticks, allspice, and cloves.

To a very large non-reactive saucepan, add sugar, water, and spice bag. Bring to a boil, and stir constantly until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat, and boil gently for 5 minutes.

Add cranberries and apples, and return to boil. Boil on med-low gently, stirring frequently to avoid scorching, for about 15-20 minutes, or until cranberries have burst and the apples are very tender.

Remove the spice bag, and remove pan from heat. Add the rum to the pan. Purée until smooth using an immersion blender (or in batches- careful!!!- in a regular blender). Add the ginger, orange zest, and vanilla extract. Stir to combine.

Bring to a high boil that cannot be stirred down (as for jam), add the liquid pectin, and stir constantly to avoid scorching. Boil hard for one minute, then remove from heat.

Ladle hot jam into jars leaving ¼” headspace. Wipe rims, add new sterilized lids and clean rings. Tighten to fingertip tight.

Process in boiling water bath canner for sea-level baseline 15 minutes (adjust for altitude wherever you are!). Turn off the heat, and remove canner lid. Let jars sit in canner 5 minutes. Remove jars, cool, and store for up to one year.

Sugared Cranberries

To make sugared cranberries: whisk together 1 egg white and 1 Tbs. water in a medium bowl until frothy.

Throw 1 cup cranberries in the egg-water and toss to coat; shake off the excess egg by letting it drip through your fingers.

Immediately toss the cranberries with 1 cup turbinado or sanding sugar until evenly coated. Set out in a single layer on a rimmed cookie sheet to harden for 24 hours. Store for up to one week on the cookie sheet or in a vented container (if it’s sealed tightly, the sugar will melt).

The Poison Apple: a bright red cinnamon-apple cocktail

Posted on October 29, 2013 by abourbongal

The Poison Apple

This week’s H.O.A.G.Y (Help Out A Gal/Guy, Yeah?) comes from my friend Sazerac –she’s from Baton Rouge, y’all—who texted me with this request:

“I’ve decided to be Snow White for Halloween! I want to make up a ‘poison appletini.’ Can you help me?!”

Of course, gal! We’ve got your adorable backside covered. Sazerac also said it needed to be a simple cocktail, since folks would be mixing up their own at her party.

The result: With a day or two of prep to start an infusion and freeze up some “poison apple” ice balls, the drinks only had three ingredients and they were both gorgeous and delicious, especially if you like your cocktails on the sweet-spicy side. If you don’t have the time or equipment to freeze ice balls – which look supah cool, but I’m warning you they are a pain in the ass to remove from the trays, the red food coloring gets EVERYWHERE, and beware the red shits the next day—regular old ice cubes work just fine and the drink is still a beautiful clear red color.

24 hours + in advance:

Start your Cinnamon Vodka Infusion: to a clean glass quart jar, add 25 cinnamon hard candies, and cover completely with not-expensive vodka (about 3 ½ cups). Store in a cool place out of direct sunlight, and shake the jar a few times a day to dissolve the candies. After one or two days, strain the vodka through a fine mesh strainer to remove any candy pieces that did not dissolve. I poured the vodka into an oversized clear liquor bottle and labeled it with a cool sticker label for the party. This will make about 20-25 cocktails.
Make the Poison Apple Ice balls: I make these in my kitchen sink to trap spills. Fill up the bottom half of your ice mold almost all the way to the rim with water. For a tray of 4, add about 12 drops of red food coloring and an optional 4-6 drops of cinnamon oil (available at most baking supply stores). For cripes sake be careful with the cinnamon oil and food coloring: the former is super strong flavored, and the later will stain everyfuckingthing it touches. Tightly secure the ice mold lid, tip it slightly to remove excess water, and move the ice mold to a flat spot in your freezer. I put paper towels under the tray to collect the red staining water as the trays froze.

Snow White and Sexy Jesus (aka my gals Sazerac and Saketini) – Halloween 2013

The Poison Apple

1 oz. red hot cinnamon-infused vodka

1 oz. Applejack (such as Laird’s)

1 oz. ginger beer (Sazerac likes using diet ginger ale)

Add all ingredients to a large wine glass or martini glass, stir gently to combine. Add a couple of ice cubes or a poison apple ice ball.

Happy Halloween, y’all!

The Poison Apple

Corny Candy Cocktail

Posted on October 24, 2013 by abourbongal

Corny Candy cocktail

Now, this is how you make a safety cone orange cocktail, my friends. One week left until Halloween! I love this holiday: the weather, the ancient ties to pagan harvest festivals like Samhain, the slutty costumes, the silly-themed food, and especially the outrageous cocktails. I started a couple of infusions last week in preparation for the festivities. The one I’m sharing now uses a candy-corn infused vodka that is shockingly hunter-vest orange. Fabulous! I’ll post the other one (hint: it’s called The Poison Apple, for my gal Sazerac who is dressing as Snow White) after it premières at her party this weekend.

Corny Candy Cocktail

2 oz. candy corn-infused vodka*

2 oz. blood-orange sparkling soda

Pour both ingredients over ice and stir gently. Garnish with a couple of candy corns threaded on a toothpick (make sure they are fresh from the bag, if they are dried out they will crack right in half).

*Candy corn vodka: Fill any sized jar about 1/3 full with candy corns. Fill the jar up to within ½” of the rim with vodka (use the cheap stuff for this one). Store in a cool place out of sunlight for 3 days, shaking the jar twice a day or so to encourage the candy disintegration. After 3 days, strain the vodka through a mesh strainer to remove candy fragments, and decant into a clean glass container. Shelf stable for about a month, refrigerate for up to one year after that.

I’ve also been writing for SLC’s fabulous City HomeCOLLECTIVE blog recently, and what a freakin’ fun gig that’s been! To see more on their blog about a fabulous dinner by Pago chefs at Frog Bench Farm, featuring unfiltered totally fab RUTHLewandowski wines, click here.

A Bourbon Gal in Utah

DARBY DOYLE: food, booze & all things outdoors

Category Archives: Drinks for a Crowd

Sassy Orange Julep

White Wine Sangria with Melon & Mint

The Old-Fashioned Way

Bloody Marys 2 Ways: Sriracha Basil Lime & Smoky Cajun Bacon

New York Sour

Hot. Buttered. Rum.

The PomeGrenade

Cranberry Nation

The Poison Apple: a bright red cinnamon-apple cocktail

Corny Candy Cocktail