Chartreuse on the loose

This week I helped judge a Chartreuse cocktail competition- tough job! Bartenders love making cocktails with the stuff, and I love drinking said cocktails. With my fellow judges Johnny Raglin of Absinthe and Carlos Yturria of Bacar/Grand Pu Bah I think we were in complete agreement with our top choices. Joel Baker of Bourbon & Branch made a phenomenal drink with Yellow Chartreuse, Manzanilla sherry, lemon, peach, and basil, but unfortunately he lost points for going past the time limit (such a perfectionist). Steven Liles of (is it Boulevard?) combined Yellow Chartreuse, St. Germain, gin, lemon, sugar, and cucumber with a lemon verbena garnish that was messy but delicious. Camber Lay of Epic pretty much always brings the thunder and her drink (pictured) with rose geranium, gin, lemon, lime, peach, Szechuan peppercorn, and Green Chartreuse was terrific. If they'd only let her bring her fruit dehydrator who knows what would have happened. And the big winner for the day was H. Ehrmann of Elixir, who combined bourbon, Green Chartreuse, muddled cherries, lavender, and vermouth, sort of like a sweet Chartreuse-cherry-lavender Manhattan. I don't know how it worked, but it totally did. Lavender? Congratulations to the winners.

Ratafia in the LA Times

Ratafia is a homemade fruit-based liqueur from France using both the zests and (unlike limoncello) the juice of oranges or other fruits. It also includes cloves and other spices, and usually has a brandy base such as Armagnac. Project! Read more here.

Tuaca

Jason Wilson has a funny story on Tuaca and other vanilla liqueurs in the Washington Post.

Veloce name change

The delicious grappa/amaro liqueur Veloce that is starting to make waves in the Bay Area just announced that due to a lawsuit they're changing the name of the product.

VELOCE LIQUORE DI MILANO HAD A LEGAL CHALLENGE FOR THE RIGHTS TO THE VELOCE NAME WITH BAR VELOCE IN NEW YORK LAST SEPTEMBER.

WE HAVE DECIDED THAT EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY VELOCE LIQUORE DI MILANO WILL BE RENAMED TO DIMMI LIQUORE DI MILANO.

DIMMI IS A WORD IN ITALIAN THAT IS USED FREQUENTLY EVERYDAY AMONG FRIENDS. IT IS AS COMMON AS THE WORD CIAO. IT MEANS “TELL ME” IN FRIENDLY WAY. IT IS NOW THE NEW BRAND TRADEMARK FOR LIQUORE DI MAILANO.

THE NAME TRANSITION FROM VELOCE TO DIMMI WILL BE OVER THE COURSE OF THE NEXT SEVERAL MONTHS. WE ASK OUR FRIENDS, CONSUMERS AND ACCOUNTS FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND SUPPORT DURING THIS TIME.

THE ONLY THING TO CHANGE WILL BE THE NAME. THE GLASS, BOTTLE DESIGN AND OF COURSE THE WONDERFUL SPIRIT IN THE BOTTLE WILL ALL REMAIN THE SAME.

Goodbye Veloce, Hello Dimmi.

Uslurper and vinegarwatch sighting

Paul Clarke has a story on pimento/allspice dram in today's SF Chronicle. The title: "Hot Dram!" Included in the story is a recipe from Martin Cate of Forbidden Island, and included in that recipe is the magic ingredient: vinegar!

Likeable

Robert Simonson wrestles with the question: Is Canton Ginger Liqueur too easy to like?

As I sipped it and mixed it and enjoyed it, I started thinking: this is too unproblematic. It began to remind me of the reaction I get when I drink St. Germain, the wonderful elderflower liqueur that is also quite new on the market and which I adore. But I'm always a bit suspicious about how utterly appealing it is to my and all other palates, and I feel the same about Canton. It's like that old line: Never trust anyone who doesn't have any enemies. St. Germain and Canton appear to have no detractors.

I haven't tried Canton yet, but I too have seen the universally positive reviews of the product and comparison with St. Germain. I've also been thinking about St. Germain a lot. When it was first introduced, every cocktail competition was littered with entries including the product. Bars that rotate cocktail menus regularly instantly put up to three drinks with St. Germain on the menu. I've come to expect to see one out of every ten drinks on a cocktail menu list include it. I've seen it mixed with champagne, vodka, gin, tequila, bourbon, and pisco. It makes everything better! Let's put it in the water supply! Like everyone else, I couldn't get enough of the stuff- until I did. Burnout, I guess. I've stopped ordering those drinks in favor of trying new flavors. (Aside: has anyone else noticed that the cocktail with St. Germain is usually the first one on the cocktail list?) St. Germain is still a very popular (and delicious) product, and I hope it will continue to do well. On the other hand, it's starting to fall off a few cocktail menus. Other bartenders and drinkers are probably experiencing the same flavor fatigue. (Note: Not in Texas- poor Robert Heugel just got it.) Will St. Germain be the peach schnapps of 2007, a product so popular in its era that it will seem dated when used thereafter? I hope not. St. Germain and I probably just need a little space right now.

Rejoice, Ye Lovers of Falernum

Good news for tiki freaks and other lovers of falernum: The John D. Taylor Velvet Falernum brand will once again be imported into the US. This lost-found-lost again ingredient is a lime, almond, and clove liqueur made in Barbados. Something happened with the importer or distributor this fall and it was no longer available until a new importer agreed to bring it in. And who might that importer be? Eric Seed of Haus Alpenz, who listened to the strained cries of bartenders from coast to coast asking him to get it. You'll remember Seed as the guy who reintroduced Creme de Violette and Batavia Arrak to the states. The falernum will be available in mid-March in NY and a few weeks later in CA. I met up with Seed last night. Also in his goodie bag was the new St. Elizabeth's Allspice Dram, which cocktail nerds will also know as pimento dram, as well as The Scarlet Ibis, a limited-edition, high-proof blend of three rums from Trinidad developed especially for Death and Co. in NY. More info on the products is on the website.

Grandma and friends

Once again CHOW.com's Jordan Mackay reached his psychic fingers into my brain and wrote about the subject sitting on top of my "to pitch" pile. Three steps ahead at all times, he is. Curacao, triple sec, Grand Marnier, Cointreau- what's the difference? Mackay breaks it down (short answer: nothing officially, just go with the color and flavor you like). Then on his blog over at 7x7 Magazine, he notes that Josie Packard of the Alembic has been experimenting with her own orange liqueur she calls "con-treaux"- ha! I've also thought that in the new DIY realm of modern cocktailing people more talented than I would start making triple sec at home. Grand Marnier is brandy (cognac)-based. Rhum Clement's Creole Shrub is rum-based. Patron's Citronge does not appear to be agave-based, which is odd. Would the texture of these different base spirits make much difference, or is it just about the flavor since they're used in such small quantities? What about different sweeteners- using agave syrup instead of other sugars? Do they need to be aged or added to aged spirits to mellow them out, or would a fresh brightness add something new? There's is still plenty to learn (at least on my part) and that keeps this stuff interesting. 2/15- Corrected thanks to commenter. Cointreau may not be brandy-based. The website doesn't specify brandy, which would lead me to agree that it's based on neutral grain spirits.

Lost ingredients

Here's my big fat lost ingredients cover story in today's SF Chronicle Wine Section.

Resurrecting spirits Camper English, Special to The Chronicle Friday, October 19, 2007 Last year, Erik Ellestad, a cocktail aficionado and systems administrator at UCSF, decided to drink his way through a classic recipe book.

Though he initially considered "The Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book," he found a cocktail every couple pages that required an obscure or unavailable ingredient, so he chose the easier-seeming "Savoy Cocktail Book" from 1930. On his path to making the book's 750 drinks, he hit his first snag at the second recipe: The namesake spirit in the absinthe cocktail had been banned in the United States since 1912.

"I tried a couple of substitutes (including pastis) that were not very satisfying. Then I received a bonus from work ... so I decided to order some absinthe from London."

Ellestad has plenty of company: Historically accurate cocktails are a growing trend extending from the classic cocktail craze, with an emphasis on finding and tasting the first-known version of a drink. Such cocktails can be a challenge to re-create. Drink recipes from 100 or more years ago require some translation, as they were smaller in size, used measurements such as drachms and gills, and involved processes like clarifying loaf sugar syrup.

But, as Ellestad found, the bigger challenge is that many of the spirits and other ingredients called for in classic recipes are no longer imported, have changed flavor profiles radically, were outlawed or are simply no longer produced.

Hunting down obscure spirits involves time, travel, collaboration and sometimes, reinvention. Nevertheless, dedicated drink historians (and thirsty mixologists) are working together to bring many of these lost cocktail ingredients back onto the market.

(Go read the rest. There's lots of it and I name-checked about half the booze nerds on the planet.)

Finally!

I can't tell you how many hours I've sat around pining for a caffeinated schnapps, but luckily the wait is over. Available in Cherry Bomb, Mango Chili, and Pomegranate Spice flavor. D00ds, let's get frickin' schnapped!

Sock Suckers

In Eric Felten's most recent Wall Street Journal article, he takes on bad, and badly-named drinks. He goes into one particular drink but takes an extra sentence to describe the name.

Popular in Australia, it seems, is a shooter made of Baileys and butterscotch liqueur. The drink's elaborate and unprintable title vividly describes a "cowboy" engaged in an activity the Supreme Court adjudicated in Bowers v. Hardwick. Frankly, I can't decide which is more distasteful -- the lewd logo, or a drink of Baileys and butterscotch liqueur.

That's a long way of saying "cowboy socksucker." (I'm replacing the 'c' with an 's', as I don't want to get this blog banned from too many more places.) When I moved to San Francisco they made this drink (and I was quite fond of it at the time, but I was dumb and pretty then) but they just called it the socksucker. Back in Boston we called it the butterball. I wondered how many other names there were for this drink containing all of two ingredients, so I turned to DrinksMixer.com. This database has so many repeated and wrong recipes that finding other names for drinks is about the only thing it's good for. It turns out the drink of Irish cream liqueur and butterscotch liqueur is also called:

Bit 'o Honey Butterbee Butterscotch Bomb Butterscotch Cookie Shot Buttery Nipple Buttery Nipple #2 Camel Hump Socksucking Cowboy Copper Camel Cowboy Socksucker Oatmeal Cookie #2 Slippery Nipple

Serendipity

Most of yesterday's BevMo purchases were relatively uncommon aperitif wines, bitter digestifs, and other ingredients that I'll probably never drink straight except to try initially. One thing I picked up was Torani Amer, which I've been seeing used in some cocktail recipes lately and it was also in this month's great Imbibe Magazine story on vintage cocktail ingredients. Then today I found that coincidentally, the incredible Eric Felton wrote about the product in the weekend's Wall Street Journal, complete with a Basque cocktail recipe. What a lucky coincidence!

PICON PUNCH

2½ oz Torani Amer (or Amer Picon) ½ oz grenadine ¾ oz brandy

Pour grenadine and Amer over ice in a stemmed goblet and stir. Top with a float of brandy. Rub a twist of lemon around the rim of the glass, and then toss it in.

It's Pimm's Season

Wimbledon starts June 25th, and that means it time to start drinking Pimm's No. 1 Cups. I wrote about them for the Chronicle in the fall, but it's time to refresh your memory and start planning. At San Francisco's Slanted Door restaurant, they make a Pimm's cup without Pimm's that's an approximation from the old Cocktails of the Ritz Paris book. According to Wikipedia, "A close approximation to Pimm's №1 can be prepared by mixing one measure of gin with one Orange Curacao and one red Vermouth." I've had the Pimm's at Slanted Door and can testify to it's deliciousness. It would be especially nice on a day like today, when San Francisco is having a "heat wave" of temperatures in excess of 80 degrees! (You have to live here to appreciate the rarity of that.) But this year someone upped the Pimm's Cup ante. At Alameda's Forbidden Island tiki bar, Martin Cate decided to make his Pimm's as an approximation as well. But he's adding extra-special garnish. The traditional Pimm's as it was served in England was garnished with borage leaves. When they made a big push to promote the drink in America (I can't remember when- 1950's?) they sold the bottles with packets of borage seeds, since nobody here knows what the heck borage is. This picture from Wikipedia shows it's a big ugly weed. Anyway, borage didn't exactly catch on here but it turns out that cucumber has a similar flavor to borage leaves. So that's why you get them in your Pimm's. Diageo even changed the label on the bottle to reflect this and now recommend garnishing it with cucumber and even strawberries. Some people are not happy about this, and have started an internet petition to strip such blasphemy from the label. (Read the site for a ton of Pimm's info- good stuff.) You can find borage leaves in dishes in some fancy restaurants, an internet search revealed. So Martin at Forbidden Island sent his minions in search of borage leaves. He tells me they ended up going to 11 different garden stores (note: not grocery stores) to find borage to serve in his Pimm's Cups. He also bought some borage seeds to plant outside the bar in the hopes they won't have to drive all over town in the future. That's some serious dedication to a drink. And is anybody else really fricking thirsty right now?

Homemade limoncello

I have a lemon tree in my front yard, so I decided to put it to good use (okay it gets used for juice and garnish all the time) and make limoncello. I used the recipe that was recently printed in the Wall Street Journal:

If you'd like to try your hand at the homemade sort, it's easy enough to do. Peel fine shavings from the skins of a dozen lemons; avoid cutting into the bitter white pith, so that the peelings are pure yellow. Pile the peel into a glass container, and pour in a bottle of vodka. Let it steep for about a week, or until the peels have lost all their color, before straining out the lemon peels. Dissolve two cups of sugar in three cups of water on a medium stove, and let it cool. Add the sugar syrup to the lemon-infused vodka, to taste. Bottle your limoncello, and keep it chilled.

You can make a similar liqueur using oranges instead of lemons -- or just about any citrus at all. But whether you're pouring your own house limoncello or one of the burgeoning number of commercial brands, just remember that it is best after a meal, and that one small glass is plenty.

So that's what I did. I scraped some lemons and let the scrapings soak for two weeks (the color never went away). And added the sugar syrup. I only used about a cup's worth before I thought it was way too sweet.

Anyway, I now have homemade limoncello and that's awesome!

I would love to make my own triple sec, but it will be a huge compromise. I'd actually have to go further for the ingredients than my own front yard.

What I learned this week

I learned that Campari and Aperol are not really amaros, though they, like amaros, are Italian bitter liqueurs. (I wish I had learned this before I sent out a pitch confusing them, but oh well!) Amaros are in the category of digestifs: after-dinner drinks. Aperol and Campari are aperitifs: appetite-inducing before-dinner drinks. Digestifs are usually heavier, darker, and more alcoholic than aperitifs (and this is certainly the case with Aperol versus Fernet), though there is certainly crossover. For example, sherry is consumed as both. In any case, all Italian liqueurs are gunning for summer cocktail popularity, no matter what category they're in.

More Amaro

Oh look, I was just learning about amaros and starting to pitch them, and Jordan Mackay went and wrote a story about them. Always two steps ahead of me, that guy!

Bitter and Loving It

Last week I attended an event for Averna; yesterday it was a poolside Aperol party. Campari is already an essential ingredient in the Negroni though I'm seeing more people enjoy it with soda lately, and San Francisco sells a ton of Fernet-Branca. These brands are all examples of Italian bitter liqueurs, also known as amaros. I have a lot to learn about amaros and the difference between them and other herb-heavy spirits like pastis, pernod, and herbsaint. But I can tell you the marketing push is on for this summer's hot new drink category to be light aperitif cocktails invoking thoughts of holidays on the shores of the Mediterranean. I don't mind that one bit. The thing I do mind is that San Francisco weather doesn't remind one of summer at all.

Here's a new one...

I was flipping through the current issue of GQ magazine and came across this ad for PAMA pomegranate liqueur. I almost missed that it has a scented perfume strip so you can smell what it tastes like. I haven't seen that trick before. I have a bottle at home and can tell you that the stuff in the bottle smells different- pomegranate is syrupy and that doesn't come through on paper. The magazine smells more like pomegranate perfume. Maybe I'll rub it on my neck before I go out tonight. Though I'm used to reeking of booze, it would be nice if that was actually a good smell.

Pimm's in In!

England's classic Pimm's cocktail experiences a Bay Area revival Camper English, Special to The Chronicle Friday, November 17, 2006 In England, the Pimm's cocktail is a refresher most associated with Wimbledon and summer. In San Francisco, the drink has remained on several restaurant and bar menus since earlier this year, perhaps because our fog is reminiscent of the stereotypically unpleasant London weather. The Pimm's No. 1 Cup, the main ingredient in the Pimm's cocktail, is a brown-burgundy-colored, gin-based, semisweet, fruity liqueur. The liqueur is so strongly associated with the Pimm's cocktail that the cocktail is often called the Pimm's cup, the Pimm's No. 1 cup, or Pimm's and lemonade. Pimm's No. 1 Cup (the liqueur) is often simply called Pimm's.

Read my story on Pimm's in today's San Francisco Chronicle.