Let's Talk About Shrubs.

You guys, let's talk about shrubs. No, not the bushes. The drinking vinegars. I'd been seeing shrubs on fancy cocktail menus for years, and I was always in awe of them, like, ooh, a shrub, but really shrubs are very simple. There are lots of different techniques for making shrubs, and lots of debate about which technique is the best, but all shrubs have the same three main ingredients: fruit, sugar, and vinegar. That's it.

A glass of seltzer water and tasty, tasty strawberry shrub. 

Initially, the idea of mixing fruit with vinegar might seem a bit strange. The art of making shrubs arose out of necessity: pairing fruit with vinegar is a great way to preserve it, and adding sugar to the mix is a great way to make that fruity vinegar palatable. Shrubs were very popular in colonial times as a way of preserving that ripe fruit flavor without the aid of refrigeration, although the history of vinegar-based drinks goes back much farther: both the Babylonians and the Romans enjoyed drinks made from vinegar mixed with water. The word shrub comes from the Arabic 'sharbah', which means 'drink', and also gives us 'syrup' and 'sherbet'. The more you know!

Now that I think about it it's weird that I didn't get into shrubs sooner, because I love the taste of vinegar, and I love drinking. But when I finally began experimenting with shrubs, earlier this summer, I got really really into it, as if to make up for lost time. I made a strawberry shrub (excellent), a sour cherry shrub (just ok), a tomato basil shrub (weirdly delicious), a sugar plum shrub (so tasty), and a honeydew shrub (which I actually don't like at all but might be coming around to).

Although my process varies a bit from shrub to shrub, here's the one I've used the most, which comes from Food52. It's really very simple, and would work for pretty much any kind of fruit (or veggie) - the sky's the limit.

Cover a pound of chopped or sliced fruit with two cups of sugar in a glass bowl. You'll want to alternate layers of fruit and sugar, and moosh the whole thing up a bit as you go, which will encourage the fruit to release its juices. Cover the bowl and let it sit for two days, or until the sugar has completely melted into a fruity syrup. (Stirring a bit will help to encourage this.) This is called a 'cold processsed' shrub - in this case, the sugar helps to draw out the flavor of the fruit, so you get a nice, richly flavored syrup.

Once all the sugar has melted, the fruit will look a little like this, floating in delicious goo. 

Once all the sugar has melted, strain out the fruit, mashing the fruit gently as you strain it to make sure you get all the syrup. Then add two cups of vinegar, and your shrub is ready for consumption. It will keep in the fridge for quite a while, and the flavors will marry as time goes on, so the vinegariness of the shrub becomes less pronounced. (This is what I'm hoping for with the aforementioned honeydew shrub.)

You can create all kinds of flavors by mixing up different kinds of fruits and sugars and vinegars - for the strawberry shrub, I used white sugar and red wine vinegar, with a touch of balsamic. For the sugar plum shrub, I used brown sugar and cider vinegar. Food52 has all sorts of suggestions, all of which I am of course dying to try.

Once you've made your shrub, how do you drink it? This is weird to say, since this is supposed to be a blog about alcohol, but one of my favorite ways to drink shrub is with a little bit of soda water. (Of course, you can also drink shrub on its own, although most people (including me) find the flavor to be a little too powerful.) Strawberry shrub, I've found, is really nice with a dry rosé. And of course, I've been experimenting with mixing it into cocktails, which was really the whole point of making shrubs to begin with. If you follow me on the Instagram (which you should!), expect to see a whole whole lot more drinks made with shrubs. Shrub.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Egg White Cocktails

I have a confession to make: until a few months ago, I had never made a cocktail with egg white. Apartment Therapy had an "Around the World" themed happy hour, and I volunteered to make Pisco Sours (for Peru, naturally) without thinking that I might be in a little over my head. Fortunately, my Pisco Sours (pisco, lemon, simple syrup, egg white, angostura bitters) turned out beautifully despite my lack of experience. This was mostly thanks to the Egg Beaters eggs whites I used, which, despite the name, do originate from actual eggs. They just come in a carton, not a shell, which is perfect if you want to make 50 drinks at a time, or you're just really lazy. The Egg Beaters egg whites don't need a great deal of convincing to produce a nice, creamy foam. With traditional egg whites, though, you're going to have to work a little harder.

A few months later I went to the Pegu Club with Ariel, and she ordered a drink with egg white in it, and I watched the bartender extract the egg white from an egg, kind of like this, and I was like, I could do that. At the time, I was just starting to get into the Blue Moon cocktail, so I went home and made one with an egg white, and it was so good that for about two weeks I didn't drink anything else. (The egg white, if you're wondering, adds a nice, creamy feel to the drink, but no discernible eggy flavor. That is, unless you mess up on extracting the egg white and get a little yolk into your drink, in which case I make no guarantees.)

The difficultly, I soon discovered, of making cocktails with for real egg whites and not Egg Beaters was that getting a nice thick layer of foam was a lot more work. The first cocktail I made the traditional way: put all the ingredients in a shaker, add ice, shake, strain into a glass. I shook it for about 45 seconds, which I feel is the longest you can shake a drink without it getting ridiculously watered down. Still, the flavors felt a little weak. And although the egg white gave the drink a nice mouthfeel, the layer of foam that I created was unremarkable. But what could I do? Shaking the drink longer would just dilute the flavors even more.

This is a Blue Moon cocktail, made with a dry shake. 

Fortunately, bartenders have developed techniques for getting around this. One is called the dry shake. For a dry shake, you combine all the drink's ingredients in a shaker, without ice, and shake them for about a minute. (This may seem like a really long time, but it's necessary to get a nice, dense froth from your egg white.) THEN you add ice to the shaker, shake as your normally would, and strain into a glass.

The reverse dry shake produces a stiff, dense foam. 

Then there's a third way of shaking an egg white drink that some bartenders favor, called the reverse dry shake. For a reverse dry shake, you add all the ingredients to a shaker, with the exception of the egg white. Then you add ice and shake as you normally would. After that, you strain the cocktail into a different shaker glass, add the egg, and shake for a minute.

The coupe glass in the front has an egg white cocktail shaken the traditional way. On the left is the reverse dry shake drink: dry shake on the right. 

Each of these three techniques produces a remarkably different drink. As noted before, the egg white cocktail shaken the traditional way tastes just fine, but its looks aren't anything to write home about. The dry shake produces a drink with a rich, creamy opalescence, almost like milk. Within a few minutes it settles into two layers: foam on the top, opaque, creamy cocktail below.

The reverse dry shake produces by far the most striking drink, with a layer of foam so dense you could rest a quarter on it. The foam is fluffy and thick, and particularly distinct from the drink below. This is, presumably, what all those folks on Instagram are doing to get that big, dramatic layer of foam. The only thing I don't love about the reverse dry shake cocktail is the experience of drinking it, which feels almost like drinking a normal Blue Moon through a nest of foam. So, unless I'm trying to impress people on the 'gram, I'll stick to making my cocktails with the plain old dry shake technique. But don't let that keep you from trying them all.

Here are three ways to make a classic Blue Moon cocktail with egg. The Blue Moon is a sort of cousin to the Aviation, another favorite drink of mine, although the Blue Moon is a bit more violette-forward, which I don't mind at all. But one difficulty of all the shaking and re-shaking is the fact that if you shake violette too much, it turns from a nice pretty purple into an unappealing shade of grey. (This helps explain why a good Aviation cocktail is a bluish-grey, rather than bright purple.) This is why, in the drinks that call for double shaking, I recommend adding the Violette on the second pass. It's also why, when you look at the photo of the three drinks together, you'll see that besides having different densities of foam they're also all slightly different colors. Science is fun! It's also delicious.

Blue Moon cocktail (traditional shake)
2 oz gin
1/2 oz creme de violette (you can also use creme Yvette)
1/2 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a shaker. Add ice, and shake for 45 seconds (or a minute, if you're really comitted) and then strain into a glass.

Blue Moon cocktail (dry shake)
Same ingredients as before. Add all the ingredients, except the violette, to a cocktail shaker and shake for a full minute. THEN add the ice and violette to the shaker and shake as you normally would. Strain into a glass.

Blue Moon cocktail (reverse dry shake)
Add the gin and lemon juice to a shaker. Add ice, shake and strain into another cocktail shaker. THEN add the violette, and the egg white, and shake (sans ice) for another minute.

The Whiskey (Hot and) Sour

A good whiskey sour is like an old friend. Even when you haven't had one in a while, it welcomes you with open arms. There's something about that combination of the sour, and the sweet, and the kick from the alcohol that gets me every time. So when I picked up a bottle of spicy maple syrup at the farmers market, I already had a good idea of what I was going to do with it.

The Deep Mountain Maple farm is located just outside of West Glover, Vermont, a little town about half an hour from the Canadian border. On the day I found them at the Union Square farmers market, they had a maple syrup infused with hot peppers, perfect for adding a little extra something to a whiskey sour. This one is bright and boozy, exactly as you like it, with just a hint of heat.

Whiskey (Hot and) Sour
2 oz Rittenhouse Rye 100 proof whiskey
1 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
2 tsp Deep Mountain Farms hot pepper maple syrup

Add all ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Add ice, shake, and strain into a glass. Drink deeply and dream of summer.

Here's a Little Something to Keep You Warm.

Eight years ago I visited New York for the first time, and the first bar I ever went to in the city was a little underground cocktail joint called PDT. The first drink I ordered there was something so weird and exotic I could barely wrap my mind around it - an old fashioned made with bacon infused bourbon. Yes, you read that right. Bacon.

Here I am, circa 2010, enjoying a bacon old fashioned and some tater tots.

The Benton’s Old Fashioned, made with orange, maple syrup, bitters, and bacon-infused bourbon, is a really interesting drink, and it’s not just gimmicky - it actually tastes good. Drinking meat seems fairly horrifying, but somehow the addition of bacon gives the old fashioned a smokiness and robustness you never knew it needed. The Benton’s is a staple of the PDT cocktail menu, and it’s one of their most ordered drinks.

While hunkered down during our recent cyclone, I had the idea to make some bacon infused bourbon. And then I had the idea to turn the Benton’s Old Fashioned into a hot toddy, because it is punishingly cold outside and why not? I was a bit worried that bacon in a hot drink would just be incredibly strange, but I shouldn’t have been: my bacon hot toddy was only a little odd, a pleasantly surprising kind of odd. It's warm and full, with a subtle smokiness that resolves itself into a round sweetness. This weird little toddy is the perfect sort of thing for drinking around a campfire, or just in your tiny apartment when the weather outside gets to be too damn much.

Benton's Hot Toddy
1.5 oz (or more, I don't know your life) of bacon-infused bourbon
1 teaspoon maple syrup (grade B preferred)
1 cinnamon stick
1 whole anise star
5 whole cloves
slice of orange

Combine the bourbon, maple syrup, and spices in a mug or heat-proof snifter. Add the boiling water: squeeze the orange slice (but not too much, or it'll get all pulpy) and drop it in.

(This toddy recipe, as ever, is adapted from Art of the Bar, a cocktail book I never get tired of.)

The Pear Apparent

Those of you who know me know that I am not much of a cook, but still, I take a lot of inspiration from the culinary world. Some people, I imagine, have a sixth sense for flavor pairings, but I am always looking for clues. I had been wanting to make a pear cocktail, because I have a weird affinity for pear brandy, and at the farmer’s market I spotted a pear butter flavored with almond and cardamom, which was all the inspiration I needed to get started.

I knew that pear and bourbon were a good match, thanks to this pear old fashioned I made years ago (from Danny Meyer's Mix Shake Stir). So you have bourbon, and pear brandy, or eau de vie (a liquor distilled from pears), and also orgeat, an almond syrup frequently seen in tiki drinks, and cardamom bitters and a bit of lime. It all comes together beautifully, as if all these flavors were meant to be together, which, of course, they were.

The Pear Apparent

1 oz bourbon

1 oz pear eau de vie (Neversink Spirits' pear brandy, which is distilled in New York from New York pears, is a really beautiful option.)

.75 oz fresh lime juice

2 tsp orgeat

2 dashes cardamom bitters

Combine all the ingredients in a shaker with ice, and shake and strain into a glass. Garnish with a slice of pear and a cinnamon stick if you're feeling fancy - or just drink it down.

I'm Back! With beets.

Hi everyone. It's been a while. Sometimes life happens to you, and then you don't update your blog in three years. I've been busy, making the move from Texas to New York and creating lots of great content for Apartment Therapy. But it's good to be back. Last Saturday I wandered around the farmers market, looking for something to liquify, and I had that feeling of pleasure and deep rightness that you get when returning to something that you really love.

I bypassed lots of decorative gourds and settled on some beets, because I remembered having seen a beet cocktail once in a book of seasonal drinks. And because I didn't feel like juicing a pumpkin. Juicing beets, it turns out, is quite an ordeal. The pumpkin might've been easier.

Right away, I cut into my beets and was horrified to discover that they were not bright pink on the inside, but rather pink and white striped. I began to panic, thinking I had accidentally bought radishes. A little research revealed that my beets were actually chioggia beets, an heirloom variety from Italy. Sources vary as to whether chioggia beets taste the same as other beets, or a little bit sweeter. I had nothing to compare them to, having never eaten raw beets before, and I thought they tasted like a carrot that's been rolled in dirt.

Cooked beets, of course, are much sweeter, but I couldn't help thinking that that earthy, rooty flavor would be a nice match for something else that's a little earthy and vegetal: tequila. Pair raw beet juice with tequila, lime, and ginger liqueur, and you get all the brightness of a margarita, but with a touch of dirt, like the raw, rich smell of a chilly winter hike.

Beet It*
1.5 oz beet juice**
1.5 oz tequila
3/4 Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
3/4 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice

Combine all the ingredients in a shaker with ice - shake and strain into a glass. (If you're using homemade beet juice you'll definitely want to double strain this one to remove any lingering beet gunk.)

*After considering many puns about beets, I went for the most obvious. Have other suggestions? Leave them for me in the comments!

**A note about juicing beets: This is totally possible, even if you don't have a juicer! It's just a complete pain in the ass. First you wash the beets, and then chop them up into little cubes. Place the cubes in a blender, and add enough water to get to a consistency that's a little slushier than what you'd expect from a smoothie. Then, run this unholy mixture though a strainer, pressing with a spatula (like so) to make sure you get all the juice out. (You will have to periodically discard the spent beet gunk to make sure your strainer doesn't get clogged.) Voila: fresh beet juice! Your kitchen is now a disaster. (You could also buy beet juice from the supermarket, and that would probably be ok.)

Disturbing Movie Inspires Delicious Drink.

Did you ever watch the original Willy Wonka as a kid? I did, and I was terrified. Of course there's plenty to be creeped out by in a movie about a vindictive candymaker who preys on misbehaving children, but the one scene that really gave me the willies was the one where Violet Beauregarde turns into a giant blueberry. That, my friends, is the stuff of nightmares. And also, it turns out, delicious cocktails.

Because somewhere along the line, I had the idea to make a cocktail in honor of poor Violet, with creme de violette and, of course, blueberries. And as luck would have it, blueberries and violet are actually really, really good together.

I started out mixing the blueberries and violette with rum, but I didn't quite like how that turned out, so I switched to gin, which was better, and a natural choice because gin and floral flavors are always a good pair. And then I tried it with Cointreau, which was a bit much, and sugar syrup, which was a bit eh, and then with maraschino, which was just right. It was only after I'd done all this work that i suddenly realized: "wait... this is just an aviation with blueberries in it." Oh well. is pretty good.

The Violet Beauregarde Cocktail
2 oz gin (I used Nolet silver, which pairs really beautifully with floral flavors)
.75 lemon juice
.5 creme de violette
.5 maraschino
12 blueberries (Texas ones!)

Here's how you do: place the blueberries in the mixing glass of your shaker, and cover with the lemon juice. Muddle gently until the lemon juice turns a nice dark pink. (Don't go too crazy with this: there is no need to smoosh the blueberries all up, just get the juice out.) Add all the other ingredients, and ice, shake shake shake and then double strain (you'll definitely want to double strain this one, to get out all those floating blueberry bits) into a glass befitting the loveliness of this lovely drink.

Okay, it's more than pretty good. It's really really good. Every time I make this drink I remember again how obsessed I am with it. Jonathan, my erstwhile drinking buddy and taste tester, had one and even said it was better than a plain aviation. And that's high praise, because the aviation is a damn good drink.

In this one, the violette is a bit more forward (which is appropriate, considering the name), but the flavors still blend together quite beautifully. It's my platonic ideal of a cocktail: lots of interesting flavors come together to make something smooth and highly drinkable. The sort of thing where you could take a sip and be like, ooh, violette! ooh, gin!, &c &c, or you could just plunk yourself on the couch and I dunno, watch game of thrones and sip one of these puppies and drink yourself into a happy stupor. Hunting down the violette may prove to be a bit of a chore, but it's worth it, I promise you. It's worth it.

The Quick & Dirty Daiquiri

More fancy stuff comin soon, I promise, but in the meantime, something distinctly not fancy. It's a delicious daiquiri that you can make with only three ingredients, which you probably already have around the house. (Okay, so maybe you don't always keep limes around the house, but I recommend you change that. Fresh lime juice is an essential part of the good life.)

Recently I was mixing up drinks for my lovely friend Kassie's bachelorette party, and I realized that, like a dumbo, I had forgotten to bring any simple syrup. What I did have, though, was brown sugar, so I made a Fitzgerald with brown sugar in place of the simple syrup. It looked like pond scum - but it sure was delicious. 

This experience inspired me. I was also inspired by that bottle of Jamaica rum I had sitting on the counter, with juuust enough left for a couple of drinks. Jamaica rum is delicious. You don't want to waste that shit. 

Thus was born: The Quick and Dirty Daiquiri.

What you will need:
2 oz Jamaica rum (okay, or use any other kind of rum, whatever, but it might not be as good)
.75 oz lime juice (fresh squeezed!)
1 tablespoon brown sugar (don't pack it, unless you want a really sweet drink.)

How to make this thing:
Place all the ingredients in a shaker. Add ice. Shake everything up. Double strain into a glass.

It's not so pretty. But it sure tastes good.

The Best Mint Julep You Will Ever Taste.

I love cocktails, but my favorite cocktail is the mint julep. Just sugar, mint, and bourbon - it's simple, it's delicious, it's brilliant, I wish I had thought of it myself. I used to angst over the perfect recipe for a mint julep - what kind of sugar? how much mint? what ratio of sugar to bourbon? - because I pride myself on making the best cocktails, and if I'm going to claim the mint julep as my favorite I should be able to make a damn good one. Right? But then I convinced one of the bartenders at the Anvil, my favorite local bar, to tell me their recipe for a mint julep. And then I stopped worrying, because this is the best mint julep you will ever taste.

The secret to its deliciousness is the 2:1 turbinado syrup. That means simple syrup, made with turbinado sugar, in a 2:1 sugar to water ratio. This stuff is lovely and thick and really delicious. If you have some left after making mint juleps, you can just eat it. I will not blame you.

How To Make the Best Damn Mint Julep Ever
2 oz bourbon
2 barspoons (teaspoons) 2:1 turbinado simple syrup
some mint (spearmint, from the backyard!)
oh, and crushed ice

Cover the bottom of an old-fashioned glass (or a silver julep cup, if you're all fancy) with a layer of mint leaves. Heck, make it a double layer if you really like mint. Pour the simple syrup on top of the mint and muddle it all real good. Then fill the glass with crushed ice. Then add the bourbon. Then stir. Then drink.

Bonus, because I like you: here's a video of New Orleans bartender Chris McMillian discussing the history and significance of the mint julep. His voice alone is a national treasure, but you'll want to watch because of the 'little bit of prose,' dating back to 1880, that he recites as he makes the drink. It begins like this: "Then comes the zenith of man's pleasure, then comes the julep, the mint julep. Who has not tasted one has lived in vain." Amen.

When Life Gives You Lemons... Make Whiskey Sours.

My wonderful, teetotaling Baptist parents have a Meyer Lemon tree. It lives in a pot in the backyard and is mostly neglected, except for the occasional watering, but somehow that thing is just lousy with lemons. While my precious, coddled pink lemon tree this year produced... three lemons. But I don't mind their gardening triumph so much because, of course, they shared with me. ("Don't tell me what you are going to do with those," my mother said.) I thought briefly about making a pie, but I hardly ever cook, or even bake, and I don't even like pie. So instead I made a whiskey sour.

This whiskey sour is just a little bit more specialer than your average whiskey sour. Even if you don't have gardening parents, you can hunt down some Meyer Lemons at the grocery store when they're in season. (A Meyer Lemon is a cross between a traditional lemon and an orange, and is therefore a bit sweeter than the Eureka lemons you're used to.) The drink also makes use of a simple syrup made with turbinado sugar - the ratio of sugar to water here is 1 to 1. I like to use an overproof rye (like Rittenhouse) for this, but feel free to use whatever you've got around. I promise it'll still be delicious.

Meyer Lemon Whiskey Sour
1 oz Meyer Lemon juice (fresh squeezed, duh)
.5 oz turbinado simple syrup (1:1)
2 oz rye whiskey (overproof if you're a badass like me)

Shake (over ice) and strain into a glass. Enjoy.

The Lafayette Cocktail.

So it is Mardi Gras, the part of the show where good Catholics party it up before the season of sobriety that is Lent. In celebration of the day, and of my (sort of) Cajun heritage, I bring you the Lafayette, a cocktail named in honor of the town that I was born in. If the Lafayette looks a little familiar, it's because it's really just an original Hurricane, made with extra-molassesy Black Strap rum. The rum is what takes this drink to the next level. It's sweet, and rich, and dark. And looks like pond scum. But don't let that deter you.

The Lafayette Cocktail
2 oz Cruzan Black Strap Rum
1 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 oz Passionfruit Syrup (this stuff can be a real bitch to find - get it on Amazon.)

Shake all ingredients over ice. Then pour them into a highball glass with ice, or whatever floats your boat. Then laissez les bons temps rouler.

The Gold Rush - A Deliciously Simple Cocktail with a Twist.

I have a shameful secret. Occasionally, people ask me what my favorite 'everyday' cocktail is. Something to make after coming home from a long day at work. (Or after stepping into the kitchen from a long day at work. Working from home is pretty sweet.) My favorite cocktail to make at the end of a long day is: beer. Seriously, who wants to juice limes and muddle cucumbers and make syrups after nine hours of work? Not me. Cocktails are delicious. But I am lazy. 

However! Lately, the thing I find myself reaching for is not a beer, or even a nice tall glass of wine. It's a Gold Rush, a delicious (and stupidly simple) amalgamation of bourbon, lemon and honey. Jason gets credit for discovering the Gold Rush when we went to LA's Copa D'Oro, part of a disturbing trend where my friends always manage to order delicious-er drinks than me at schmancy cocktail bars. I thought of this cocktail when another friend texted me wanting to know of a good bourbon cocktail for someone who found an old fashioned a little too strong. Recollecting the Gold Rush and its bourbony deliciousness, I decided to mix one up for myself. Here are a couple of recipes I found, courtesy of the internets:

Gold Rush 1 

(from Spirited Cocktails)

2 oz bourbon

.75 oz lemon juice (fresh-squeezed, and don't cheat)

.75 oz honey syrup

Gold Rush 2

(from the Lush Chef)

2 oz bourbon

.75 oz lemon juice

1 oz honey syrup

To make the honey syrup: mix one part honey with two parts hot water. Stir. Super easy. 

To make the drink: combine all the ingredients in a shaker full of ice, shake the hell out of it, and strain into a cocktail glass. 

I tried both variations: version 2 is a smoother cocktail, whereas the one with less honey is a little saucier. At the time I couldn't decide which one I liked better, but after a while I decided to go with version 2, mostly because this recipe lends itself quite well to the addition of a little bit of lavender bitters, which will give the drink a little something floral on the nose and a certain je ne sais quoi on the tongue. I've decided to call the lavender version 'Purple Rain'. I'm sure I'm not the first person to call a drink that. But I'm sure mine is the best. 

Purple Rain

2 oz bourbon

.75 oz lemon juice

1 oz honey syrup (from local wildflower honey!)

I dash lavender bitters (I used Bar Keep Lavender Spice bitters. Don't go too crazy with this stuff, or your drink will taste like a bar of soap.)

Quick, put on a Prince album. And drink up. 

A Tale of Two Daiquiris.

The good folks at Brugal Rum were kind enough to send me a bottle of their Brugal Especial Extra Dry, which, it turns out, makes a really lovely, balanced Hemingway Daiquiri.

The Hemingway Daiquiri
2 oz white rum
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz fresh grapefruit juice
1/2 oz maraschino liqueur

And as luck would have it, Texas ruby red grapefruit is just back in season, so get you some of that. To make the drink: shake over ice and then strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with lime.

So how does it taste? Just like it looks. If you've been used to daiquiris of the kind dispensed by slushee machines on Bourbon street late at night, you may be in for a bit of a surprise. This daiquiri is very light, and delicate, and pink. 
This particular recipe for a Hemingway Daiquiri comes from Jim Meehan (the PDT guy) by way of Food & Wine magazine. The other recipes I stumbled across did not quite agree on the proportions, but they did agree on the four basic ingredients: white rum, lime, grapefruit, and maraschino liqueur. Interestingly enough, according to Paul Clarke, the original Hemingway Daiquiri (which Hemingway invented and dubbed the 'Papa Doble', since I guess he was too modest to name a drink after himself), was composed thusly:
"...two and a half jiggers [or 3 3/4 ounces] of Bacardi White Label Rum, the juice of two limes and half a grapefruit, and six drops of maraschino, all placed in an electric mixer over shaved ice, whirled vigorously and served foaming in large goblets."

So of course I had to try that too. This wasn't the first time I had followed in the boozy footsteps of Ernest Hemingway, but I'll admit, I was a little intimidated. because you know, that's a whole lot of rum. Like a whole whole lot.

The Hemingway Daiquiri (ORIGINAL FOR REAL ERNEST HEMINGWAY VERSION)
3 3/4 oz white rum
juice of two limes (I wound up with a little more than 2 oz, but I swear I have terrible luck with limes and always end up with the non-juicy ones, despite my best efforts)
juice of half a grapefruit (about 2.5 oz)
6 drops maraschino liqueur (I used an eye dropper to be extra super sure to be faithful to the original recipe. Okay, I might've gotten 7 drops.)

Then I put all those things in the blender, and kept adding ice, running the blender occasionally, until I got to the desired consistency.

So here are some things you should know about the original, for real, super-authentic Hemingway Daiquiri. For one thing, this recipe makes a drink that is truly massive. I had trouble finding a glass that would fit the whole thing. It's also quite tart, although not in a bad way - I found it to be light and incredibly drinkable, like a limeade with a little extra kick. This might help explain how Hemingway supposedly consumed 16 of them at one sitting. Actually, according to Paul Clarke (who got his info from Papa Hemingway, a memoir about the author written by longtime friend A.E. Hotchner), the recipe above was the formula for the drink served by Havana's La Floridita bar to tourists who wanted to drink what the legendary author drank. The drinks served to Hemingway, Hotchner indicated, came in glasses approximately twice the size of those used for the 'tourist' version. Let's do a little math, shall we?

3.75 oz rum x 2 x 16 = 120 oz

Um. Dang. 

So just to put that into perspective, a 'fifth' of rum (ie, a traditional 750 mL bottle) contains about 25 oz of liquor. 120 oz of rum = almost FIVE BOTTLES of liquor. Even if we assume that Hemingway's record was for the 'tourist' daiquiri, that's still an impressive two and a half bottles of rum consumed in one sitting. From this we can draw one of two conclusions:

A. This story is exaggerated a wee bit, or

B. Ernest Hemingway was a BEAST. 

Believe what you will. 

Whatever your thoughts on this, though, it's true that both Hemingway's original and the modern version are a surprisingly delicious, and remarkably efficient, alcohol delivery system. Cheers. 

A new twist on an old favorite.

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. It is also the mother of delicious cocktails. Such as! A few weeks ago (okay, maybe months - I've been a bit remiss in updating the blog) Gojee featured my blueberry gin rummy as one of their top 3 drinks of the week. Since my skills of the photography have improved since I originally conceived the drink, I decided to do another photo shoot - you know, make it look really good. So I went the grocery store, and bought blueberries and lemons and stuff, and of course when I got home I realized that, like a dummy, I didn't have any ginger ale. What I did have was a bottle of Dry Lavender Soda, and it looks the same in the photos, right? Nobody would know I cheated. So I made the drink with the lavender, and then I took some pictures of it, and then I tried it, because I was curious, and it was even better than the original drink. So there you go.

The Blueberry Gin Rum-y
Thawed (or fresh) blueberries
2 oz rum
.75 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 tbsp brown sugar
DRY Lavender Soda

Prepare according to the directions you find here.

Verdict: All the rummy blueberry sweetness of the original, but a bit lighter and more floral. In other words, just perfect.

Back to the Backyard.

I have sad news, and also happy news. My gig at the Kitchn is ending...because I've started working for Apartment Therapy full-time, as their Assistant Editor. (You should check it out, because it is the greatest website of all time. Except maybe for this one.) This is especially good news for you, because it means that the Backyard Bartender will be getting a little more love.

While I'm dreaming up new cocktails to delight you, here are a few treats from the end of my tenure at the Kitchn. Such as:

The Hot Toddy Project, Parts One, Two, and Three: a whole week's worth of ways to drink hot booze. All delicious, of course. This may not be super seasonally appropriate anymore (it is 85 degrees here (although it is almost always 85 degrees here)), but you can file this one away for future use.

There's also the his and hers gin and tonics, a schmancy re-mixing of these earlier his n' hers variations from the backyard. Originally conceived as a Valentine's day post, but delicious pretty much any time, I promise. Gin knows no season.

You may think you've had a Hurricane if you sipped some koolaidy concoction at Pat O'Brien's, but you haven't had a real New Orleans hurricane until you've made it the original way, with just dark rum, lemon, and passion fruit syrup. Passion fruit syrup is a bitch to find, so try Amazon if you're thinking about making this recipe.

I fell in love with Dowton Abbey, just like everyone else, so then of course I had to make some Downton Abbey cocktails. There are champagne cocktails for Sybil, Edith, and Mary, but I think the Edith might be my favorite.

And finally...start yourself off with a new bar for the new year. (It is no longer the new year, but it was when I wrote this post.) My list of 12 bottles any home bar should have turned out to be very popular and very controversial. (Most people thought two bottles of tequila was overkill, to which I say, hey - I really like tequila.)

That's all for now. But look for new cocktails, coming very soon to the Backyard Bartender.

2011: A Year in the Backyard

In case you missed any of this boozy goodness - here's a review of last year's very best cocktails from the Backyard Bartender.

1. Celery-Infused Tequila
2. Carmen Sandiego
3. Cranberry Spice Sangria
4. Lillet Blanc and the James Bond Martini

5. Five Classic Cocktails to Order 'Off the Menu' at the Anvil
6. Mezcal Cocktails
7. Maple Strawberry Rhubarb Mojito
8. Even More Harry Potter Cocktails
9. Kool-Aid Cocktails
10. Cocktailing Chicago: The Violet Hour. (And check out Chicago bars Whistler, Matchbox, and the Drawing Room.)

11. Mojito MADNESS
12. The best of the infused vodka, and what to do with it.
13. The Bachelor Cocktail
14. His and Hers Gin and Tonics
15. Winter White Sangria

2011: A Year in the Kitchn

I know it seems a bit late for this year-in-review stuff, considering that 2012 is already 1/12 over. But in defiance of convention, here's a retrospective of my work for The Kitchn, the cooking site where I am now a real, bigtime, bona-fide, professional cocktail blogger. A review of this year's work here at the Backyard Bartender is coming soon. Happy (belated) New Year!

1. Easy Pitcher Cocktail: Strawberry Basil Margaritas
2. Halloween Pitcher Cocktail: El Diablo
3. Spiced Pear Margarita
4. Apple Spice Bourbon Infusion
5. Pumpkin Buttered Rum

6. The Summer Sage
7. Blueberry Rum Smash
8. All About Chartreuse
9. Beer Cocktails!
10. Fig Old-Fashioned

Happy Holidays from the Backyard Bartender.

Here's a warm and bright little sangria, perfect for sipping with the family this Christmas. The cranberry is a tart and tasty complement to the wine, a little bit of spice adds holiday cheer, and a cup of Lillet makes everything just a little more deliciously grown-up.

Cranberry Spice White Wine Sangria
serves 8
1 bottle (750 mL) dry white wine (such as Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc)
1 cup fresh cranberries
1 orange, sliced and cut into quarter-wheels
15 whole cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
1 cup Lillet Blanc
1 cup white cranberry juice
1 cup red cranberry juice (I used cranberry juice cocktail, since real cranberry juice is very tart and a bit hard to locate.)

Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and allow to steep overnight. Serve over ice.


Thanks for reading, friends. I appreciate you all, and hope you have a wonderful, safe holiday filled with good friends, good times, and good drinks.

Beer Cocktails: Redneck Mother

Ever since I first had a "beer-tail" at Beaver's Icehouse, one of my favorite places in Houston, or the world, I have longed to create one of my own. It seemed so simple, and yet so terribly difficult - I know which liquors go together, but what goes with beer?

I started with sloe gin, beloved of Anglophiles and snooty mixologists, and Lone Star, beloved of me, while floating down the river. While some friends had suggested that 'Down the River With Nancy' would be a delightful name for a cocktail, I was stuck on 'Redneck Mother', and sloe gin (which is red) and Lone Star (which is a little redneck) seemed to fit the bill. To this I added ruby red grapefruit (newly in season - buy local!) and ginger beer. I confess I was inspired in this by the Shiner brewery's summer seasonal, the Ruby Redbird, which is (was) brewed with ginger and grapefruit. So it's unsurprising that the finished product is a bit reminiscent of Shiner's summer brew - but that's not a bad thing. I could use a little remembrance of summer right now.

Redneck Mother
1 oz Rio Star ruby red grapefruit juice (fresh-squeezed!)
.75 oz sloe gin (Get the Plymoth, if you can. It's a bit hard to find, but completely worth it. If you can't hunt down the Plymoth, use a bit less, as other brands tend to be sweeter.)
Lone Star beer
Ginger beer

Add the sloe gin and grapefruit juice to the bottom of a pint glass (or mason jar). Fill the remaining portion of the jar halfway with Lone Star and top with ginger beer. Cheers.

All You Ever Wanted to Know about Chartreuse.

Those polled had mixed opinions about Chartreuse.

Betty: "This tastes like food. Kind of like herbs de provence." (But she really liked it.)

Luke: "I don't want to drink anything that sounds like 'shart'."

If you can see past the 'shart' (and the prohibitive pricing - a bottle of this stuff cost me nearly 60 dollars) - Chartreuse will unfold its strange, age-old secrets to you. Its taste is distinctively herbal, not quite like any other liqueur you've ever had, and its history is old and rich. (Chartreuse has been made exclusively by French monks since 1605, and its formula is known only to two people. Take that, Coke.) Read all about it at the Kitchn, where yours truly expounds upon the mysteries and wonders of this mysterious and wonderful libation.