EMBURY COCKTAILS

Literary Cocktails '12: China Miéville Double Header

The lighhouse at the Key West Lighthouse Museum. All photos: Nick Doll

One of the great pleasures of the Key West Literary Seminar every year is discovering writers you're not familiar with,  and who completely captivate you with their erudition, humor and charm onstage. A couple years ago astrophycisist Janna Levin was a compete surprise to me, and since then I've followed her writing closely. This year a new find for me was China Miéville, a genre writer who both embraces and refutes the label. Passionate and a bit irreverent, and armed with a seemingly effortless volubility,  he more than held his own a formidable panel the included Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates, whose witty, pointed sparring called to mind a more intellectual  Joan Crawford & Bette Davis. For  a crash course in Mielville read his interview in The Believer from 2006 here, and there's a recording of one of his brisk talks at the Seminar here.

For a party at the Key West Lighthouse museum we decided to christen a couple cocktail in Miéville's honor. When I saw that one of his books was called "Kraken" I decided that a phrase ruined by the CGI atrocity that was the remake of the 1981 film "Clash Of The Titans" had been redeemed, and so dubbed a high-octane rum punch we made that evening "Release The Kraken". 

 RELEASE THE KRAKEN

3 parts Ron Zacapa 23 Rum

1 part lime juice

1/2 part lemon juice

1/4 part orange juice

A few slugs of Bulleit Bourbon (This really Krakens it up)

Combine ingredients in a large punchbowl, adding round slices or orange, lime and lemon. Muddle some strawberries and raspberries, shake them up with some of the punch and throw it in there.  Soak Pineapple cubes in dark agave and Grand Marnier, then toss in. Cut up some Braeburn apples and throw them in as well.  Add ice, ideally a  couple large cubes made in a soup take-out container/yogurt container/etc.. Stir well, adding club soda to taste. Add liberal dashes of Angostura Bitters, Peychaud's Bitters & Brooklyn Hemispherical Rhubarb Bitters.

KWLS Speaker Jennifer Egan Releasing The Kraken.

Our other headliner that evening was a slightly tweaked version of the big cocktail hit of the KWLS 2011, the avo-jalapeno margarita. The original version and template came from my partner in Brooklyn Hemispherical Bitters, Mark Buettler as the Lovely Rita, video here. I've changed it a bit for Key West, adding a generous pinch of Pink Flake Murray River Salt directly ontop of the drink, and with Rhum Clement being unavailable in Key West I used Grand Marnier and a bit more dark agave, which I'd made more mixable by turning it into a 1:2 water/agave syrup. The local avocadoes we used were really nice and fatty, I think that's the key--a  couple nice ladies who'd had the drink they year before had tried to make it from my previous notes and hadn't had much success. Good avocadoes are vital, and getting them emulsified rather than leaving chunky bits floating makes the flavor more evenly distributed--I used a wand this year which worked very well. As far as the heat of the jalapeno--that's all very subjective. I'd sliced open some pretty fiery jalapenos and let about 6 of them sit in 2 quarts of Don Julio Repo for about 4 hours, then fished them out. It's a tricky metric to describe--for me you should feel the heat slowly, and have it linger, extending the experience of that sip--but it should not burn or cause you to catch your breath. In the simplest form it's:

FANTASTICAL VICTORIANA*

2 parts jalapeno & avocado infused Don Julio Reposado

1 part fresh lime juice

1/4 part dark agave syrup (1:2 water/agave)

1/8 part Grand Marnier (to taste)

Combine over ice, shake well--you want it creamy, almost foamy--and pour onto fresh rocks. Add a liberal pinch of Murray River Pink Flake Salt to the top of the drink.

*The name comes from Miéville's off-the-cuff descritption of the steampunk aesthetic at a talk that very morning. A podcast of his talk on TK is up on the Key West Literary Seminar's site here.

China Miéville audio at KWLS. And don't miss his own site, Rejectamentalist Manifesto.

Miéville with KWLS Board Member Judy Blume.

Formidable bunch: "Faster" author and KWLS 2012 Program Chair James Gleick, Miéville & Jesse Soodalter, and William Gibson.

Key West Literary Seminar 2012 Cocktails: The City Of Tomorrow

Photo: Nick Doll

For a champagne reception on the grounds of the Audubon House in Key West, I recruited my pal Che Bastien (above) to help with bartending duties. I put him in charge of making The City Of Tomorrow, named after a poem of KWLS returning champion, Billy Collins. The man has a voice like a fine scotch followed by a shot of warm honey, and he seems like the scotch type but I happen to know he favors vodka and so I felt correct in dubbing this one in his honor. I'd taken some Kettel One and infused it with lemons and oranges--like seeing a red door and wanting to paint it black, I've rarely met a vodka I didn't want to infuse, at least for cocktailing.   

Then I went out and got an assortment of fruit, including the most perfectly ripe pineapples I've ever tasted.  My somewhat grandiose vision for the drink and the link to the title was that this future city would embrace all different peoples from all parts of the globe, thus the assortment of fruit, bringing different flavors together from different regions. Perhaps a conceptual stretch, but the resulting fresh fruit cocktail was simply delicious, and simple to make-if a bit sticky. Cutting, muddling and shaking fruit and citrus can be a messy job, and we both were living in a world of stick for a couple hours. Worth it, though.

THE CITY OF TOMORROW

1 1/2 oz citrus infused Kettel One Vodka

1/4 oz lime juice

1/4 oz demarara simple syrup

Fruit. Lots and lots of fruit.

In a mixing glass muddle a small handful of fruit (we used pineapple, raspberries, blackberries, apples, strawberries and honeydew melon, mixing freely, and taking requests). Top with the rest of the ingredients and ice, shake rigorously, pour into a tall rocks glass, mint sprig garnish.

It's really just fruit and good vodka and just a touch of raw sugar to pull it all together. It's a much better version of the sickly sweet spring break girl drinks that cause so many problems. So perhaps in this city of the future we shall drink fresher, and drink better. Jason Rowan

Photo: Michael Blades

Above: The Key West Of Tommorrow, Enjoying Cocktails Today: L-R, Marky Pierson, ringleader of Key West Burlesque Theatre, public artist Momo, who collaborated on the KWLS set, Photographer Nick Doll (who shot the images up top and below), Lighting director and Cicero reader Jolly Benson, Cayman Smith-Martin who designed the set and Shane Benowitz who worked on social media during the Seminar.

The Set Of Tomorrow

Key West Literary Seminar

Billy Collins

2012 Key West Literary Seminar Cocktails: The Neurogibson

I've spent the first couple weeks of this year working on cocktails for the many parties of the 30th annual Key West Literary Seminar. Team Embury and I made drinks in honor of several of the attending speakers including Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, China Miéville and William Gibson. The pickled scallions in the above photo were used as an onion sub in the Neurogibson, inspired by both Gibson's book "Neuromancer" and Jonathan DeLeon of Sorella's Flying V, where the idea for this recipe oringinated. We departed quite a bit from his original formulation but the principles remain similar--gin, picked green onions, an herbal liqueur and Sriracha Bitters. Jonathan went lean and mean for his Gibson riff, tapping Death's Door Gin & Cocchi Americano.

THE FLYING V

2.5 oz Death's Door gin
1/4 Cocchi Americano
Splash scallion pickling liquid
3 dashes Sriracha bitters
Pickled scallion (pickled with rice vinegar and aromatics, mostly ginger).

Rinse a large chilled glass with the Cocchi Americano. Over ice,
combine gin and pickling liquid. Stir well and strain into the chilled
glass. Finish with Sriracha bitters, garnish with the pickled
scallion, and serve!

Once I had the William Gibson/Gisbon name connection light bulb moment I instantly wanted to start with Jonathan's elegant creation and take it someplace a little more far flung, unexpected and audacious-- hopefully something like Gibson's bold work. Briney, piney Tanqueray, herby, swampy Yellow Chartreuese, a little lime juice, even less simple, the nub of a pickled scallion stalk and a dash of the pickling juice. The heavy ginger in the pickles is a nod to the Asian element in Gibson works and indeed in cyberpunk as a whole--I was thinking of Beat Takeshi in the Gibson film adaptation "Jonny Mnemonic", as well as the strong Chinese and Korean elements in the not-too-distant-future of other KWLS guest Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story." 

NEUROGIBSON

1 1/4 oz Tanqueray Gin

1/4 oz Yellow Chartreuse

1/2 oz lime juice

1/4 oz demarara simple syrup

1 bar spoon pickled scallion pickling juice

In a pint glass take 2 leaves of lemon balm (I pulled mine from my host and KWLS Board Member Nancy Klingener's garden, check out her blog here) and lightly tap, adding all elements and topping with plenty of ice, shaking vigorously and strain into a rocks glass ( we used stemless wine glasses), topping with a couple drops of Brooklyn Hemispherical Sriracha Bitters to add a little apocalyptic heat.

The resulting cocktail was pretty damn cool, but not one you'd drink all night unlike many that we made for other parties.These considerably more approachable ecipes to come this week. 

The Best Drink I Had This Year: Rhubarb Gimlet

Francine Cohen  of Inside F & B and I came up with the idea of doing a roundup of cocktail folks' favorite drinks--and drinking experiences--of the past year. The group of 14 bartenders, brand ambassadors and cocktail writers hail from all around the world--Sydney, Wellington, London, Austin, Portland, San Francisco, New York and beyond. Read about all the contributors' favorite drinks here, inlcuding mine, a Rhubarb Gimlet at London's Drink Facotry.