October 2011: Mysteries of the Spirit World!

Spirits old and new were conjured and exorcized at the October cocktail club meeting. Inspirations for the haunting libations (below) included Poe, Trader Vicky's recent trip to France, and her new assistant the chihueagle (that's chuh-wee-gle) Jinx.

Tell-Tale cocktails with pulsating hearts, the classically wonderful feeling of resurrecting the dead that comes from a well-made Corpse Reviver, and Halloween trickery like steeling away the Ghoul's Gold... all delightfully wicked! And, the meeting wouldn't have been complete without a cocktail for Vicky's new assistant, Jinx!

Here are some of the recipes.

Mysteries of the Spirit World! (October)

Our host: Trader Vicky

Contributing NY Cocktail Club Members: LP, YL, and me (Urban Gastronomer)

Tell-Tale Heart

Tell-Tale Heart*

1.5 oz Dark Rum

1 oz Canton

.75 oz Cranberry Juice

.25 oz Navan (vanilla liqueur)

.5 oz Lemon Juice

3 dashes Chocolate Bitters

Shake & garnish with a brandied cherry

Corpse Reviver #2

1 oz Gin

1 oz Cointreau

1 oz Cocchi Americano

1 oz Lemon Juice

1 dash Absinthe

Shake and garnish with orange peel

Ghoul's Gold

Ghoul's Gold*

2 oz Calvados

.5 oz Benedictine

1/2 oz Pear Liqueur

1/2 oz Lemon Juice

Shake and garnish with a fresh apple slice

Jinx

Jinx**

1 oz Gin

1 oz Calvados

1 oz Passion Fruit Juice

.5 oz Grand Marnier

Shake, shake, shake!

*Created by the lovely and talented mixologist Trader Vicky.
**Improved by Cocktail Club with Grand Marnier

Menu

To keep the spirits (of all kinds) from going to our heads, Trader Vicky served seasonal snacks (all homemade)... cheddar witch fingers, pumpkin cheese balls, savory puffs and tarts, devilish cupcakes, and colcannon (a traditional Irish potato dish with hidden treats).

Witch's Finger

July 2011: Happy Birthday Harry

Last Sunday was Harry Potter's birthday. I know we are all grown ups here, but some of us quite enjoy occasionally escaping into the world of wizards, witches, mischief and magic. Add the endless possibilities of potion making and character reflection and you have yourself a theme for a cocktail party and a fabulously fun excuse to drink.

Thus, LP named Harry Potter as the theme for July's meeting of the NY Cocktail Club. The cocktail menu is below, followed by notes about food, and finally, a list of all the ingredients at the bar.

Harry Potter Cocktail Club Meeting, July 31, 2011

Our host: LP
Contributing NY Cocktail Club Members: Trader Vicky and me (Urban Gastronomer)

Cocktails: The recipes are below. All were original except the Polyjuice. Our favorites for the evening were the magical and sparkly Felix Felicis, the lovely and composed Minerva McGonagall and the earthy Whomping Willow. 

Gold sparkly cake decorating gel adds luck to Felix Felicis

Felix Felicis 
(Liquid luck)  (LP)

1 oz Applejack 

¼ oz Grand Marnier

¼ oz Peach liqueur

Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp Falernum 
1 tsp Orgeat
2-3 dashes Chocolate Bitters

2-3 dashes Orange Bitters

A dollop of gold cake decorating gel

Shake vigorously

Familiar Cicero

Minerva McGonagall (TV)

1.5 oz bourbon

1.5 oz Drambuie

1 oz lemon juice

½ ounce cranberry

3 dashes orange bitters

Shake, add 1 brandied cherry

Completely clear  veritaserum with a few "crazy" ingredients
to make you tell the truth

V for Veritaserum (LP)

1.5 oz Hendricks Gin 
¼ oz Tequila blanco
¼ oz Cocci Americano
1 tsp  Maraschino liqueur
1 tsp Elderflower liqueur
2  dashes Regan's Orange Bitters

Stir, garnish with orange zest 

Triwizard Cup

Triwizard cup 

(inspired by the Trinity at Weather Up) (LP)

1 oz Old Tom Gin
1 oz Cocci Americano
1 oz Cardamaro

Stir, garnish with orange zest

Professor Sprout

Whomping Willow (UG)

2 oz cucumber vodka

½ oz lemon juice

¼ oz green chartreuse

¼ oz yellow chartreuse

¼ oz absinthe

Fennel fronds

Shake

Fennel stem straw (optional)

Note: If you forgo the straw, strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove the grassy bits before enjoying.

Butterbeer (LP)

½ ounce Butterscotch schnapps
2 dashes bitters

1 ounce Chimay OR Stout

Polyjuice Jelly before slicing. Pretty gross.

Polyjuice Potion (recipe from Jelly Shot Test Kitchen): I substituted a neon green lime ice bar for lime sherbet, because I couldn't find the sherbet. Don't do this! The result was a very bitter jelly shot. I'm sure the actual recipe is delicious!

Menu: LP whipped up a British-themed feast: a main course of eggy in a basket with sides of roasted tomatoes, potatoes and cherry scones with clotted cream. And, there was an assortment of sweets and treats worthy of a Honeydukes display. Our host also conjured cauldron cakes, licorice wands and chocolate insects, and Trader Vicky made Golden Snitch cake balls with liqueur instead of frosting inside. All delicious!

Golden Snitch cake balls!

Cauldron Cakes!

The Bar List

Base Liquors: Applejack, Bourbon, Cucumber Vodka, Hendricks Gin, Tequila Blanco, 

Vermouths and Amaros: Cocci Americano, Cardamaro

Liqueurs: Absinthe, Butterscotch Schnapps, Drambuie, Grand Marnier, Green Chartreuse, Maraschino Liqueur, Peach Liqueur, St. Germain’s Elderflower Liqueur, Yellow Chartreuse

Bitters: Chocolate Bitters, Orange Bitters, 

Syrups: Falernum, Homemade Gold Syrup, Orgeat

Produce: oranges, lemons, fennel fronds and stems 

A copy of this post is on the Urban Gastronomy.

Photos copyright Christina Saylor and Vicky Sweat.

Round 2: Parks and Recreation

Actually, Round 2 was Gin. In August. Yes I know that this post is much delayed, but I thought it might be better if I posted it before our NEXT cocktail club meeting. It is a bit short, mainly because of my poor memory (and need to get to work).

H hosted Round 2 and given the oppressive heat, she had the lovely idea of taking the club outdoors. Which was quite a wonderful idea. It was the first relatively cool night in some time. We gathered in the early evening and had a pleasant and thoroughly relaxing picnic...complete with the most appropriate cocktails that you could think of. H also handed us printouts that explained a lot about the origin and history of gin....wonderful little history lesson to go along with our cocktail studies : )

I may have a bit of a bias, but to me, gin is the perfect summer liquor choice one can think of. It is perfect for cocktails, stands up to ice very well, and has a crisp refreshing edge that just makes you feel cooler. Plus, there are so many different flavors in gins, it is endlessly fascinating to mix. So what did we drink?

Well H started us off with a classic known as the Bee's Knees. And it was....gin (Tanqueray), lemon, and honey..light, refreshing and perfect for a summer night. In fact, we could have just drank those all night, except we had other beverages to imbibe in as well.

We did a brief tasting of three different gins: Plymouth, which we found to be pleasant and well balanced but not overwhelmingly junipery, Tanqueray, in which the juniper taste predominates, and Old Tom's....which was so smooth, we all thought this could be a sipping gin (how often does that happen!). We tried these alone, and with several accompaniments..most particularly, watermelon and cucumber, to bring out different characteristics of the gin. Mrs. O brought another gin based concoction....one that reminded us of bad nights in college and grape drink. Oh my, how far we have come.

We followed up our little tasting with several classic gin based cocktails...the gin and tonic, the Negroni (made with Hendrix Gin, Campari and Carpano Antigua), and a Gin Fizz (which makes that little fizzy sound that is so refreshing to hear as well as drink).

By this time, we were being feasted upon by mosquitos, so we decided to call it a night.

Until next time!

NY Cocktail Club

Round 1: Rum

The first round of the cocktail club was an exploration of rum...because it's summer and 100 degrees outside. In preparation for this, Digital Girl and I picked up 3 bottles to try. El Dorado 3 Year Aged Light Rum (from Guyana), Plantation Rum Grand Reserve Aged 5 yrs (Barbados) and English Harbor (Antigua). Detroit contributes 2 bottles (Angostura 1919--an amber, and 10 Cane--a light). I already had a bottle of Gosling's Dark (Bermuda). Digital Girl also contributed a bottle of Ron del Barrilito's (Puerto Rico) and Jersey Girl brought a bottle of Sailor Jerry's Spiced Rum, which, appropriately enough, is bottled in good old Edison, New Jersey.

That's right, we had 8 bottles of rum, for ...6 people (we did start with 7, but one had to make a quick exit due to cat allergies).

After warming up with a Dark and Stormy (using Gosling's of course!) with Angostura bitters, Jamaican Extra Ginger Beer and a slice of lime, we started with a tasting of each rum and then we played....making cocktails from the rums we thought might work.

Of the light rums (10 Cane and El Dorado)..the El Dorado was the clear favorite. Maybe it was because it was aged, or because of the notes of coconut. We ended using it in many of the cocktails we created.

On to the ambers. Many thought the Plantation Rum Grand Reserve surpassed the others, although the Angostura 1919 was a bit similar to our tastes too. Both had strong vanilla notes, that we thought were very appealing, but the Plantation Rum Grand Reserve also had a variety of other notes, including coconut. The Ron del Barralito had a complexity in the finish and a lot of floral notes, but it wasn't as smooth to our admittedly tipsy taste buds.

We didn't get a lot of complexity from the Gosling's either, but it did have chocolate notes that had people thinking about mixing it with cherries. So of course we did. YumCat took a few cherries and macerated it with the Gosling's. Two hours wasn't enough time, so we will see what they taste like today. The English Harbor seemed to be the most drinkable, with a smoothness and complexity that we thought was quite delicious.

We also tried the Sailor Jerry's Spiced Rum and maybe we had sensory overload, but it didn't seem overly spicy compared to some of the other rums we tried. There was a strong vanilla overtone, but it was drinkable and smooth as well. If we had started in the reverse order, I wonder what we would have thought of each one?

Now the fun began. People started concocting.

Detroit decided that she needed to make a daiquiri based on avocado. it required a lot of trial by error...mostly error. In the end after using avocado, El Dorado rum, lime, jalapeno simple syrup, pineapple juice etc, I think she came up with something that would make an excellent ice cream when frozen.

TraderVicky brought "Trader Tiki's Don's Mix" to make a simple version of the classic Zombie....using equal parts Plantation and Gosling's and garnishing it with mint....how refreshing...we were on our way!

After the Zombie's, I (LP) made Hemingway Daiquiri's based on the recipe from http:rumdood.com (thank's rumdood!)...and used the El Dorado. It was quite refreshing, although Detroit and Jersey Girl were not big fans.

Detroit's third experiment fared better....using English Harbor, Lemon Juice and Ginger Simple Syrup.....very nice

Digital Girl picked up with the experimentation...using different rums to make the same drink. Her first used 10 Cane, mixed with Canton (a ginger liqueur), lemon juice, mint and Regan's orange bitters. Her second version used the Ron Barralito's and Bittermen's grapefruit bitters. What a difference. The first drink was nice, but the second was very interesting...we thought adding some basil as a garnish would really set it off. Next time.

We had to go....that many beverages in one evening will tire out even the most die hard tastebuds...and we are just getting started.