Winter White Sangria

A few weeks ago, Houston was in the sway of something resembling Winter - the temperature dropped below forty for almost two weeks, the sun did not come out, and a couple of days it even FROZE and everyone in our lovely city lost their collective shit. Of course I'm also a total wimp when it comes to cold weather, because hello, I live in Houston, so I stayed at home and drank hot tea and took long hot baths and dreamed of summer and sangria.


During which time I thought, hey, I don't think I've ever made a sangria with cucumber. It seemed like an interesting challenge - the savoriness of cucumber in a sangria. I though about the Mr. Stair, the pretty green pear sour that I had to puree a cucumber to make. With that as my inspiration, it wasn't long until...

The Winter White Sangria
A white sangria recipe with pear, cucumber, blood orange, and St. Germain elderflower liqueur.

1 bottle dry white wine (pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc)
1/2 cup eau-de-vie poire william (pear brandy)
1/2 cup St. Germain elderflower liqueur
1 pear, cored and sliced
8 cucumber slices
1/2 blood orange, cut into half-rounds

Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and chill overnight (or for at least 8 hours). (Most sangrias get better as you continue to infuse them, but you actually don't want to steep this one much longer than 8 hours or the cucumber will become too pronounced.) Serve in a glass over ice.

Verdict: I did done good. Beautiful and crisp and fresh, with a lingering sweetness. Just the thing to tide you over until spring.

The Dream Team

This week I did something very atypical, which is - I made a fantasy football team. This would seem, at first glance, to be absolutely foolhardy, since I know next to nothing about football. And seeing as the season has not actually begun yet, there are still plenty of chances for my team to be an epic failure. But, on Tuesday, with a lot of help from the football gal, I participated in my first draft, and now I've got what is (I think) a pretty decent team. I have Chris Johnson, and Steven Jackson, and Tom Brady (hot!)** and some guy named Jermichael. (As a person who strives to create cocktails which are innovative mashups of familiar ingredients - I appreciate this name.)

So, what I've learned thus far is: having a good team is really important. The other day I came across a cocktail that teamed up:

1. St. Germain

2. a margarita

3. cucumber

4. Fever Tree Bitter Lemon Soda*

*What?? This is a mixer that was recommended by loyal reader Rosann way back in the Pimm's Cup days. I had been wanting to try it.

That, my friends, is a good team. So, in (hopeful) anticipation of all the glorious beatings that will soon be delivered by my fantasy football team***, I mixed up one of these puppies.


The Escapology
(from the Burger Bar in San Francisco, via sfist)
1.5 oz silver, un-aged tequila
.5 oz St. Germain
3/4 oz simple syrup
1 oz lime juice (fresh squeezed!)
4 thin slices of cucumber (farmers' market!)
Fever Tree Bitter Lemon Soda

In a shaker, muddle the cucumber slices with a splash of the simple syrup. Fill the glass with ice and add the remaining ingredients, except for the soda. Shake, strain into a glass over ice, and top with soda. You don't want to add too much soda or the drink with get too bitter. I poured mine into an old-fashioned glass with a handful of ice in the bottom and then filled with the soda, and that was just perfect.

Verdict: Sweet, summery, and delicious. Surprisingly, tastes not very much like a margarita. Tastes not very much like booze, either (although I sometimes worry that my definition of "tastes like booze" is not quite that of a normal person, since many drinks that I would describe as simply "tasty" are described by other people as "really, really strong"). Not that that's a bad thing. There's this delicate interplay of lime, cucumber and tequila flavors going on, and the soda makes it light and refreshing. With a lineup like this, it's hard to go wrong.

**Update: Tom Brady is still hot, but my gosh, what the hell is up with his hair? Get a haircut, Tom. You're embarrassing the team.
***Another Update: As of monday night, the first of these beatings was officially delivered. Cheers.

Mr. Stair

I wanted to try the Mr. Stair pretty much as soon as I got my copy of Food and Wine Cocktails 2009. It's right there on the front cover, all pretty and opaque and pale green. Problem was, the recipe calls for...cucumber juice. As you can imagine, I was a little bit intimidated by this. How does one liquefy a cucumber? In the wise words of my friend Sarah, "juicing a cucumber sounds a little bit like milking a cat. Possible but uncommon and possibly unpleasant".


So I shelved my dream of a pretty green cocktail until sometime after this post, when I picked up the book again and realized, wait. I juiced a blackberry...why the heck can't I juice a cucumber? (Plus, I had just made the post about St. Germain and was pretty pumped about making cocktails with it.) Turns out the cucumber was a bit more work, but I persevered. Here's what you have to do - cut the cucumber into little bits. (And I mean little, like 1/4" cubes.) You don't need to juice the whole cucumber if you just plan on making a few drinks...about 1/3 will do. Throw them into the blender with a little bit of water (I added 1/2 oz), and start on a low setting, working your way up to higher settings until the cucumber is liquefied. Then strain the cucumber through a sieve, as described here.

Then gather together:
2 oz. Williams Pear eau-de-vie*
3/4 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur
1/2 oz lemon juice (fresh squeezed please)
1/2 oz hard-fought cucumber juice (from a cucumber grown by some nice local farmers)
1/4 oz simple syrup
The original recipe calls for a dash of orange bitters, but I like it better without. If you have some, feel free to try it both ways and judge for yourself.

*Pear eau-de-vie is a brandy that's made from distilled pears. (As opposed to traditional brandy, which is made from grapes.) This stuff is expensive, but surprisingly versatile. It shows up here, came in handy in the St.Germain sangria, and is an essential ingredient in the pear/bourbon old-fashioned that is one of my favorite drinks. (And very likely a future post.)

Add all the ingredients to a cocktail shaker full of ice. Shake until the shaker is nice and frosty. Strain into a pretty glass.

Credit for this recipe goes to Vincenzo Marianella (at the Copa D'Oro in Los Angeles. (Actually, Santa Monica, which, as Rachel knows, is where Frank Gehry is from)). To whom I say: you, sir, are a cocktailing genius. Also, I may have to plan a trip to LA just to visit this bar.

Verdict: Very pear-y. (It's a teeny bit of a disappointment after all that work I went to, but I don't taste the cucumber at all.) Beautifully light and sweet - looks and tastes not quite like any other cocktail I've ever had.

The Pimm's Cup

Pimm's No. 1 is a liqueur from Great Britian. It's gin-based, with lots of fruit and herb flavors up in the mix, and at 25 percent alcohol it's roughly half as boozy as say, vodka or tequila. If you did not need the above explanation you are probably a snooty mixologist type, since most people I meet have never heard of this stuff. Or you're British. Pimm's No. 1 is the essential ingredient in a cocktail called the Pimm's Cup, which is to Wimbledon what the mint julep is to the Kentucky Derby.

Pimm's is also an essential ingredient in these ridiculous hats. Crazy Brits.

One night at the Black Lab, being the cocktail adventurer that I am, I ordered a Pimm's cup. It was dark brown, came in a pint glass with cucumber spear, and tasted like...well, it tasted like Pepsi. Really, guys? All that fuss about a drink that tastes like Pepsi?

So I decided to make my own. Comprised of:
2 oz. Pimm's No. 1 Liqueur
2 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 oz sugar syrup
Ginger Ale *
2 strawberries, hulled and quartered
2 cucumber slices (I got an especially twisted one from the farmers market)
2 slices green apple **
2 sprigs of mint (harvested from the back porch!)

* The Brits make their Pimm's cups with some kind of sparkling lemonade that isn't available in the states, so we have to get creative.
** I know all this fruit is starting to seem like overkill, but it's to bring out all the great fruit flavors in the Pimm's. Trust me.

Pimm's loves fruit.

Combine all the ingredients except the ginger ale in a cocktail shaker full of ice. Shake until a frost forms on the shaker. (You don't want to shake this one too long, since the idea is for the fruit flavors to be fairly subtle.) Pour the whole thing (ice and all) into a pint glass, and top with a bit of ginger ale.

The verdict: First of all, so, so pretty. Nice and tea-colored, with all that lovely fruit floating around. I didn't know whether to drink it or photograph it. (So I did both.) As for taste: refreshing, summery, a bit unexpected, like a lemonade that's all grown up. (Cucumber definitely comes through - but in a good way, I promise.) Oh, and tastes nothing at all like Pepsi. Sorry, Black Lab.