American Madness

Today’s recipe comes to us by way of OverTheHillAndOnARoll (an LA Blog for “Folks… who like livin’ the good life.”), their thoughts on Gin are pretty similar to mine. I haven’t yet had a chance to sample this one, but it sounds super refreshing, especially with the hint of cucumber.

2 oz of Gin
5 oz of Tonic Water
3 cucumber slices
1 sprig of rosemary
1 wedge of lime
Soda Water

Place the cucumber slices at the bottom of the highball glass. Squeeze lime juice into glass and slightly muddle the cucumber. Add sprig of rosemary and fill highball glass with ice. Add Gin, tonic, and finish off with a splash of soda water. If you prefer a less sweet cocktail, add less tonic water and more soda water.

Now, technically, I guess this is kind of a cheat, the rosemary acts more as a garnish then an actual ingredient, but I am guessing it is strong enough to either flavor the drink or acts an an aromatic and influences the taste through scent. Either way this definitely sounds like one to try.

So we would hate for all of that fresh basil you purchased yesterday for 1 drink to go to waste, so we figured we’d help you out with another Basil recipe today… Actually a large number of the recipes I have call for either basil or gin (and some for both.

This one comes to us from Rye in San Francisco (by way of The Kitchn), it is one of their most requested cocktails apparently and super simple to make:

Basil Gimlet

5 fresh basil leaves
2 ounces Plymouth Gin
1/2 ounce agave nectar
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice

Method: In a pint glass, muddle fresh basil, agave nectar, and lime juice. Add ice and gin. Shake vigorously and strain into stemmed glass. Garnish with fresh basil leaf.

So if you are going to whip this up keep a few things in mind- (more…)

So, you may recall that back in October I thought that this summer was going to be all about drinks made with fresh herbs.

Well, the summer is here and I’d like to give myself partial credit. Although it hasn’t been an overwhelming push, there have been a number of summer cocktails I have seen that incorporate herbs (mostly basil, some sage, a couple of others as well).

I was hoping to just collect them together and post them all at once. Instead, I am going to do one a day until I have them all posted, or at least a nice bulk of them, so keep an eye our for the “Herbal Remedies.” we’ll post over the next few days.

We’ll get you started with one I posted a few months back:

Basil Martini
2 oz DH Krahn Gin
1 oz Fresh lemon juice
3/4 oz Simple Syrup
3-4 Fresh basil leave

Put all the ingredients in a shaker with ice, adding the basil leaves last and shake hard to get the basil flavor in there nicely. Strain into a cocktail glass.

Nice and simple. We recommend DH Krahn Gin for this one because that is the gin we first had it with, and David Hughes from DH Krahn provided us with the recipe. We’ll also have a review this week of DH Krahn Gin. So this really works as a nice segue.

We have a special guest reviewer today for 10 Cane Rum. Rachel Godfrey has sat beside me tasting all the other alcohols reviewed for AmericanMadness and since she is a die-hard mojito drinker, I figured she would be the go to person for a review of 10 Cane Rum.

RG:

I enjoy good food, but as my husband will tell you that when left to my own devices, I can feed myself for an entire weekend with a jar of peanut butter and whatever I find in the pantry. (If need be, I will nuke a hotdog or two for a better balanced meal.)

I’m pretty much the same way about alcohol. College years where I happily drank whatever was handed to me because it was free still have a lingering effect. Now that I am paying for drinks, I at least have a preference—mojitos have become my summer go-to drink, despite the fact that I always get a scowl from the bartender because of the extra work involved. But when he would ask while muddling away if I had a brand preference for my rum, I generally shrugged and said whatever. In my mind, outside of my closet, brand names mean very little.

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So, you might think this is going to be a post about boats and bacon or seafaring bacon or even bacon life preservers or something, but no, when I say going overboard, I mean too much bacon.

New York Magazine has a recipe for a Bacon-Infused Old Fashion from PDT. Part one of the recipe is making Bacon Bourbon.

Here is where I am torn: Bacon and Bourbon are two flavors that go really well together. I know this from mixing up some Bourbon Maple Syrup and pouring it all over my waffles and bacon. Great flavors. The richness of the bourbon complements the smokiness of the bacon really nicely.

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Christiania Vodka is pretty good stuff. A Norwegian vodka made from organic Trondelag potatoes and Norwegian arctic spring water, Christiania is an ultra-premium vodka that bills itself as “The World’s Smoothest Vodka.”

Now, I liked this vodka, it is really good stuff, however, if you are going to make a claim in advertising like “The World’s Smoothest Vodka” you better have some seriously incredible vodka on your hands. While I really enjoyed Christiania I’ve got to say, I have had smoother vodkas. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t really a dig at Christiania itself, but rather directed towards their trademarked tagline. In fact the US Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) apparently even approved them to be labeled as such… Though there is no indication as to when they did this.

Besides, in my opinion, not being the world’s smoothest, it is a really good vodka, an ultra-premium if you will. That means it is going to be sitting on the topshelf at the bar, right next to Grey Goose and the likes. A little background- (more…)

Reflecting upon Cook. Eat. Drink. Live., I noticed a bit of a trend developing amongst mixed drinks.

Herb’s Vodka flavors their vodkas with rosemary, dill, coriander and fennel.

DH Krahn Gin was serving a Basil Martini.

U’Luvka Vodka had a drink that called for fresh rosemary and another on their website that calls for sage leaf

And of course there is always the mojito with fresh mint.

I think this is going to be the summer of the herbed drinks. To get you started on mixing the perfect summer cocktail, here are a few recipes that you can work on to get you through the winter and look forward to what awaits: (more…)

When it was just a few articles here and there posted days after we posted them folks started saying it was just a “coincidence” that New York Magazine had written about the exact same thing that we had just covered.

Now, I am getting a little scared. I have had a small bottle of Lucid Absinthe sitting in my apartment for the last two months now waiting to be tasted and reviewed. The biggest problem I was encountering in getting around to tasting it was not having an absinthe spoon. Though technically not necessary you know me when it comes to my reviews I like to drink alcohol the “traditional” way. In terms of absinthe, this means with an absinthe spoon, sugar cube and water (and maybe some flame as well… we’ll see about that).

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To date, we haven’t been especially impressed with the liquor industry’s manic attempts to revolutionize stale brands by infusing them with a witch’s cauldron of weird flavors. However, Maurice Cooper & Cie has probably got a hit with Canton, a slightly syrupy blend of cognac and ginger.

The first sip had us a little worried. The liquor does suffer from a certain stickiness, which is generally true of all liquors, and the first sip had us remembering certain childhood remedies (Nyquil, anyone?).

But all it took was a second sip to convince and the next few glasses made us believers. The drink gives a slight burn going down each time: nothing as severe as the first swig of brandy, but instead a nice reminder that you’re not drinking beer. And the high notes from the ginger keep the drink from quickly becoming oppressive or numbing the mouth the way some hard liquors can.

Canton is 28% alcohol, which means you soon won’t care what it tastes like.

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If you couldn’t quite tell yet, when I drink alcohol I like to drink it in a classic form, a way in which is was meant to be enjoyed. For gin that meant a gin & tonic, bourbon was straight up and on the rocks, and tequila was obvious both straight up and as a margarita. Of course, this meant that when I went to drink some Cabana Cachaça I had to mix it as a caipirinha.

Before we get into it, a little background on cachaça (from the pages of Wikipedia): It is an alcohol made from the distilled fermented juice of sugar cane. The most popular drink in Brazil and weighing in between 76 and 96 proof. Similar to rum, the big differences being that rum is usually made from molasses or from sugar cane juice that is aged in oak barrels. While there are two types of cachaça aged and unaged, outside of Brazil you are most likely to find the white, unaged, variety. The caipirinha, a mix of limes, sugar, and cachaça was big in in New York a few summers ago (before folks switched to the slightly more accessible mojito) and the most popular brand of cachaça, at least in the U.S. is Pitu. Though I am not familiar with many cachaça brands, I would guess Pitu is a nice middle middle ground, like Baccardi to rum. (more…)