EMBURY COCKTAILS

KWLS 2013: Sean Hoard's "The Third Man"

For the debut cocktail on offer at the Key West Literary Seminar 2013, we went with no less loaded a Graham Greene project than "The Third Man". The connection to the drink? The citrus, black tea and English gin punch was certainly emminently British which always connects with Greene, but the ostensible hero of the movie is American. And the titular character, Harry Lime, played by Orson Welles in an epic eleventh hour cameo that informs the entire film, also seems to be American, or perhaps simply post-war mid-Atlantic thespian. But the essence of the concoction, sweet, smooth, even beguiling, and irresistebly seductive, matches Harry Lime's troubling charm nicely. Also, we wanted to really go full-on with the Greene connection when we served the punch to guests and authors as they streamed out of the auditorium after the opening night keynote adress. Sometimes a name is about expediency, another aspect that certainly fits the self-serving Lime. Sean Hoard and I and our lovely assistant Lauren served from punchbowls as the crowd streamed past, handing them plastic cups to sip from on their walk to the evening's actual party, several blocks away. 

When I enlisted ('conscripted' might be more apt) Sean to work on this endeavor I gave him a long reading list of Greene books as well as the requisite Greene films like The End of the Affair (which he didn't like) and The Third Man (which he dug, of course--it's an inarguably great film). Sean took his research seriously and read several books, and I think The Third Man came at the end of the whole process--an unmitigated treat and a nice cherry on top of the boozy sunday that was this massive project. In the end I think he was more well versed in the Greene ethic and aesthetic than me--he was certainly fresher to the material. And the enthusiasm and focus he brought elevated the entire project in exactly the manner I'd hoped, bringing serious cocktailing technique, a refined palate and unvarnished enthusiasm.

The day of the opening party he spent hours zesting lemons and oranges and muddling with the cane sugar in a 15 liter Cambro, returning over and over to muddle the citrus in the sugar and shake it around, sort of hyper-melding the citrus oils and zest with the sugar and creating the foundation for the oleo saccharum syrup. You could smell the infusion start to take hold as the elements were made to dance with each other repeatedly--an almost alchemical process. With the addition of Irish Breakfast Tea the syrup was complete, and then it as simple as 2 bottles of Beefeater and 1 of Absolut, a neat mediating of the london dry gin citrus & juniper profile with a nice clean vodka to soften it up. Using the same citrus to get 32 oz. of fresh juice was the next move, and after pouring into a punch bowl and garnishing with lemon & orange wheels adding a final touch of fresh ground nutmeg, a la minute, moments before we served the punch. That nutmeg was really the crowning touch, adding a nutty, fatty layer and nose to the potentially-too-sweet concoction. There's a great thing that happens when someone takes their first sip of a drink and their pupils widen a bit and a little color comes to their cheeks--perhaps it the Cocktail Blush Response. We saw it over and over that night, and it's an incredibly gratifying experience all around.  

KWLS Board Member Peyton Evans & Josine Hitchcock sampling The Third Man.

THE THIRD MAN

20 lemons
4 oranges
2 lbs cane sugar

Muddle peels of citrus in sugar and let sit for at least an hour, muddling periodically.

Brew 64 oz black tea (10 tea bags) 4 min.

Pour hot tea over muddled peels, stir until sugar is dissolved.

Juice citrus and add to mixture.  If needed add more juice to taste goal should be around 32 oz citrus.

Add 2 bottles of Beefeater gin and 1 bottle of Absolut vodka.

Strain peels, add 3-5 liters of soda water and serve over ice.

Garnish with fresh nutmeg, lemons wheels, and orange wheels.

 I think we got everyone in a jolly mood straight off that night, which was of course the whole point. 

 
Photog Michael Blades and KWLS President Lynn Kaufelt hugged it out.

Edmund White and Carol Munder.

The Talented Mr. Hoard at the Oldest House & Garden Museum, in an expansive mood.

Marky P. of Key West Burlesque and Momo, co-designer of the KWLS 2013 set and a noted public artist--check out an incredible collaboration with Eltono in Bacelona here.

From The Third Man, Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins and Trevor Howard as Major Calloway or as Martins refers to him, Callaghan."It's English, not Irish" he retorts, setting him up as a snob and a bad guy, but one of the endlessly facsinating aspects of  The Third Man'is how right & wrong seems to continually shift around and how good guys are revealed to be bad guys--and the other way around. A smart essay on Calloway's ulitmate role as moral guidepost in this film that is all about slippery morals by Rob White for BFI here, and Greene's screenplay in full here.

Poppa Bear Rowan, not in any way directly connected to the Seminar other than the fact that two of his sons work for the thing, was at most every party, a high grade party crasher with not moral qualms about it. Also one of our most appreciative customers. J.R.

Event photos by Nick Doll.

Coming next: Airstream Cocktails, The Power and The Glory & The Loud American.

Key West Literary Seminar 2013, Graham Greene Cocktails & Aunt Augusta

I've been doing cocktails for the Key West Literary Seminar for the past couple years and this time around I, in an outrageously audacious move,  decided to create a series of cocktails for the event's nightly parties inspired by the works of Graham Greene. Travel writer & essayist Pico Iyer's meditation on his internal relationship with Greene through his work, "The Man Inside My Head", has been an important touchtstone at this year's Seminar, the theme of which is "Writers On Writers". Iyer himself attended and spoke eloquently about the book and Greene.

It had been when I'd found out the Iyer would be attending that the idea first took hold, as I'm a huge Greene fan myself. Knowing this project would be a big undertaking I recruited Sean Hoard of Teardop Lounge in Portland, Oregon to develop Greene-tails with me, and we've been corresponding and tweaking recipes and concepts for months. Hoard joined me here in Key West this week where we've been serving cocktails for the 300 plus authors and serious readers nightly all week.

Greene was a commited drinker, and drinking is a common activity in his books, as is travel, and many are set in exotic locations, so finding national spirits or local culinary cues to look to for inspiration in his work wasn't hard. And some characters suggest drinks quite easily in your imagination. The iconoclastic eccentric grandmother-aged Augusta in "Travels with my Aunt" powers through quite a lot of champagne on trains and at various bars around Europe, so I'd thought of a champagne cocktail with a little punch as an homage to her libertine spirit, something a bit saucy. When I discovered that KWLS Lighting Director Jolly Benson had a calamondin tree in his front yard, and more significatnly that his chef mother Sarah had made an amazing marmalade with it, it all sort of wrote itself from there. The citrus' bitter-but-invigorating rind and pith was definitely saucy, and its brilliant orange actually matches Maggie Smith's flame red hair in George Cukor's film adaptation quite closely. (Smith, below, in a still from the film, looking her actual age for a flashback. Her Aunt Augusta is interesting, but Katherine Hepburn, who was originally slated to do the part and was closer to the character's age, and temperment, may have been a better choice. Still, Smith does look fantastic here.)

I mixed the marmalade with Beefeater 24, selected for its elegant, astringent notes culled  from its grapefruit and Chinese green and Japanese Sencha tea botanicals, a little honey syrup (1:1) and lemon, shook it all up vigorously & strained into a flute, topped it with champagne, expressing a lemon twist over the top and discarding. I used about 1 oz of the stock in the early versions at the opening night party, but as the evening went on I thought that more of the gin and citrus stock would make everyone ever merrier and I started pouring around 1.5-1.75 oz. Even later I began scopping a small bit if the marmalade into the flute before building the drink, with the benefits of that  flash of orange at the bottom of the transclucent, almost mother of pearl colored finished drink, as well as a little hit of the bite-y marmalade.

 

AUNT AUGUSTA

STOCK:

1 part Beefeater 24

1/2 part calamondin marmalade

1/2 part lemon juice

1/4 part honey syrup (1:1)

1/8 part Aperol

Combine all elements, stir extremely well. Shake to order and pour into a flute (to taste), top up with sparkling wine. But not before adding a dollop of the calamondin marmalade into the bottom of the flute. Lemon zest and discard. 

SARAH BENSON'S CALAMONDIN MARMALADE

Wash, cut in half, seed, and purée In a food processor enough calamondins to measure 2 cups - The skin should be in 1/4 inch pieces
1 cup orange juice
3 cups sugar
In a stainless steel pan bring the juice and Calomondin purée to a boil. Stir in the sugar. Cook the mixture over a medium-high heat at a steady boil for 15 minutes stirring several times.

Spoon the marmalade into clean jars, let it cool and keep refrigerated.

Fantastic stuff, integral for our Aunt Augusta but also brilliant on some toast.

More cocktails to come this week from me and Mr. Hoard, including The Third Man, The Power & The Glory, The Hotel Continental, The Whisky Priest, The Pennyfeather, The End of the Affair & The Loud American.

Wednesday's Cocktail: Dicken's Cider

This post Thanksgiving dinner punch came from the man with gravity defying hair that falls somewhere between the coiffures of Gary Cooper and  Morrissey, Beefeater & Plymouth's Nick Van Tiel. "Dicken's Cider" is as luxurious and reviving as its punuendo name is pleasing ribald. NVT brought his punch kit to Naren Young's place, tucked it into a corner and assembled the batch whilst the guests leaned back in their chairs and relaxed. It seemed like a fairly easy one to put together to the casual observer full of turkey and mushroom-free gravy (thank you, Naren & Kimiko, for remembering my non-magic shroom aversion.) But the ease of production on site belayed the rather considerable prep work Van Tiel had gone to beforehand; the homemade lemon & honey shrubb that Nick was packing along wtih nutmeg to grate, and cloves to pin into the center of lemon wheels betrayed the forethought and legwork off site.

Naren & Nick cutting and prepping lemon wheels in the same cutting board. One of bartenders' mutant powers is the ability to work in very small areas with other bartenders.

But the results were stellar, and worth it, and worth following closely if you need to make a guaranteed winner of a punch. Perfect balance of supple, inviting qualities contrasted with a little spicy, henry, nutty pushback. 

NVT and his fantastic hair.

DICKEN'S CIDER

32oz Homemade lemon & honey shrubb*

33oz Beefeater "Winter Edition" Dry Gin

4oz Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur

4oz ginger juice from baby ginger root

20oz Fresh apple juice

10oz Fresh pear juice

5 Dashes Reagean's

1/2 Bottle Perrier Jouet Champagne [750 ml [Edit. note: just in case you were thinking Magnum]. Add this last.

Serve in a 4 quart punch bowl/Chill with a large 2 pound ice block frozen with cranberries, cloves, cinnamon sticks and orange pieces frozen into it/Garnish with lemon wheels with cloves stuck into them, and a light grating of nutmeg

*SHRUBB RECIPE

12 Regular unwaxed lemons

1/2 Cup granulated sugar

1 Cup honey

10oz Water

1 Pinch ground allspice

1 Pinch ground ginger

1 Pinch ground cinnamon

5 Cloves

1 Star anise

Make an oleo-saccharin from the peels of the 12 lemons (no pith), and the sugar.  Leave for 30 minutes to extract oils/Mix the 8 oz of honey with 10 oz water and add oleo saccharin, mix well until sugar etc is dissolved. Juice the 12 lemons (approx 14 oz of juice) and add this also. Finally add the dry spices, and let sit for 1 hour/Fine strain the peels, pulp, spices and sugar out, which should leave 1 quart of shrubb.

Hosts Kimiko & Naren. Nice thing about using PJ in a punch is that there's bound to be some extra around for a glass or two.

That punch didn't stand a chance.

And in honor of NVT's "Keep Calm and Listen to Hip Hop" tee topped with an old school LL Cool J style Kangol icon, Cool James himself. Happy Holidays.

Friday Night Cocktails: Extra Fancy's "Baby You're Driving"

Some pals and I stopped by Williamsburg's new eastern seaboard cuisine and cocktail joint Extra Fancy (302 Metropolitan Avenue) from partners Mark Rancourt, David Brilliant &  Rob Krueger. Between my mates and I I'm prety sure we sampled the entire cocktail list, and we shared, and were impressed across the board, as well as rather merry, by the end of our visit. 

Krueger behind the wheel.

Wound up writing up a couple of the drinks from that evening for Men's Journal but only one, the delicate riff on a French 75 dubbed the "Fancy 75," made it into the story. My personal favorite, with one of the better cocktail names (with an equally good story behind the name) in recent memory, did not. Here's what I'd written about "Baby You're Driving", more or less:

When Krueger and his partners moved into their new space they discovered a backyard herb garden left over from the previous tenants, a Japanese restaurant. lemon balm, spearmint, peppermint, sage, rosemary, thyme, lemon thyme, chervil & parsley grew in abundance in what is now Extra Fancy's outdoor dining area, and they pull these heirloom herbs for both dishes and drinks. Sprigs of Lemon Balm garnish the “Baby You're Driving”, along with a star-shaped orange zest, painstaikingly made using cookie cutter forms. The basis of the drink is the bison-grass infused Zubrowka Vodka with its vanilla and sweet spice finish, anchored by Dubonnet Bland, and given a delicate citrus spin with Combier's Pamplemousse (grapefruit) Liqueur. A little lime juice make it a perfect easy summer sipper, but it's perhaps a bit decpetively soft on the palate. In fact, the name of the drink came about during the testing period for the bar menu, when managing partner Mark Rancourt's girlfriend Charlie turned to him after polishing one off and declared, “Baby, you're driving.” 

BABY YOU'RE DRIVING

1 oz Zubrowka Vodka

1 oz Dubonnet Blanc

1 oz Combier Pamplemousse (Grapefruit) Rosé Liqueur

1 oz Fresh lime juice

Shake, double strain into a cocktail glass, garnish with Lemon Balm Sprig & Orange Peel Star.

 The cookie cutter in question.

"The idea for the cookie cutters was pursued after  a suggestion by Mark that I get a "punch" to cut fancy spirals," Rob texted me later."Then I found the lobsters [for the Squibnocket] and stars at our restaurant supply store. [Ed. note: found some nice aspic cutters that would do the trick at Whisk." Then they went out and got  a 1 ton arbor press from Harbor Freight, as one does. Thus  was constructed a rig that enables cutting multiple zests at once, stacked atop one another.

I finished up shooting for the Men's Journal story and  Rob and I were chatting as barback Jimmy Palumbo pressed the stacks of zest. Rob regarded the elaborate production and said a bit ruefully, "As if it's not enough work squeezing fresh juice every day, and making these kinds of cocktails....". I'd already seen Jimmy power squeezing limes earlier, for what seemed like a very long time--one of those occasions when you realize just how labor intensive putting out any volume of craft cocktails in a bar actually is. Adding extra fancy garnishes only adds to that workload.But sometimes a good idea and a great presentation is too compelling to avoid, as in this case. The first night I tried it I took the impromptu photo below in extremely dim lighting--you can't take a bad photo of this one. 

Leo Robitscheck's "Paris Is Burning"

Cocktail realness.

Tasted Leo Robitscheck of Nomad's dynamic cocktail at the English Gins party atop the brutally chic Nomad Hotel, on a sun-drenched Saturday afternoon during the Manhattan Cocktail Classic. The mezcal punched through the gin's sweeter side and accented its herby botanicals, pineapple and lemon juice always makes a vibrant mix, and the judicious use of St. Germain didn't pretty her up too much and gave her that light French touch (Mexico, England and France all represented, not an easy party to host.)  The name alludes to Jenny Livingston's 1990 film about the drag balls of Harlem so it seems appropriate to run the cocktail on the weekend of Gay Pride in NYC. Amazing to revisit the film 22 years after I first saw it at the Indepent Feature Project when Livingston was seeking distribution. The film, and the subject, remains as radical, subversive, empowering and bad-ass as ever. For a neat summation of the pre-Madonna, pre-RuPaul uptown gay phenomenon read Janet Upadhye's s article at Huffington Post, clip of the movie below and a link to the full film on YouTube here.

PARIS IS BURNING

1 oz Mezcal
1 oz Beefeater gin
1 oz Pineapple juice
1/2 oz Lemon juice
1/2 oz St Germaine
1/4 oz Cane syrup

Shake and strain into a coupe. top with angostura bitters

Drink It This Weekend: Jason Cousin's "Margherita"

I recently helped judge the New York finals of a Plymouth competition, along with Gary "Mr. Cool" Regan, Noath Rothbaum of Liquor.com, Stanislav Vladna and Plymouth's uncommonly well-dressed Nick Van Tiel. The sartorial prowess of this panel was nearly as daunting as their cocktail savvy, but I busted out my silver/blue Joseph Abboud suit and my brown leather $10 Yves Saint Laurent thrift store shoes and was able to make myself reasonably presentable. Some fine cocktail were shaken up that evening, but the clear winner was from Jason Cousin of Brooklyn's Meatball Shop.  "The Margherita" is an improbable salad-in-a-glass that lingered in the mind's palette for days. Bearing some resemblance to Scott Beattie's vodka-based "Upstairs Neighbor", this "Margherita" pulls classic Italian food elements--basil, tomatoes & balsamic vinegar-and fuses them with citrus and gin for an unexpectedly subtle tall cocktail that's incredibly summery. And so out-of-the-blue that it should catch anyone you make it for way, way off guard, and subsequently delight the hell out of them. Once you make the basil-peppercorn syrup production is relatively simple, and with a little prep you can bang out a few of these at a barbeque or at the beach with minimal effort, and maximum joy.

THE MARGHERITA

1.5 oz Plymouth Gin
.75 oz lemon juice
.75 oz basil-peppercorn syrup
1 barspoon balsamic vinegar
3 plum tomatoes (1 for garnish)
3 large basil leaves (1 for garnish)
Club soda
Ground black pepper

Muddle 2 tomatoes and 2 basil leaves in the basil-peppercorn syrup in a mixing glass. Add all other ingredients, shake and double strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice. Top with 2 oz of club soda and garnish with a basil tomato flag and ground black pepper.

BASIL PEPPERCORN SYRUP

1 Cup water

1 Cup sugar

10 Cracked black peppercorn

5 Basil leaves

 

PREPARATION:
Bring the water and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and add the peppercorns and basil. Simmer for 15 minutes, then remove from the heat and strain. Store in the refrigerator.

Cousins, in the "shaking and be judged" portion of the competition. Intimidating judges, too.

Nick Van Tiel, so well-dressed it borders on the rude. Look at that watch! There's a small list of brand ambassadors who really rock the suits--Paul Franich, formerly of 42 Below, is one (and he rocks the non-suit too) and Raj Nagra of Bacardi come to mind, but Van Tiel's a new contender in this ambassadorial bespoke fashion promenade of swagger. They might be discussing some arcane aspect of spirit production or the nuances of a cocktail, but you find yourself staring resentfully at their shoes, or cufflinks, or their windsor knot.  

Saturday Special: Saxon + Parole's Pimm's Cup

This all-day sipper comes from Naren Young of Saxon + Parole . The pleasures of enjoying this fresh, fruit-laden mellow concoction whilst sitting in the outside dining area as cabs crawl past down the Bowery can't be understated. And it's perfectly simple to make at home--and malleable, as it's construction is by nature eclectic and personal. Whatever fresh fruit is available and looks good belongs in a Pimm's Cup. Here's Naren's recipe, cued towards the personal serving. I recommend going for the pitcher.

SAXON + PAROLE'S PIMM'S CUP

1.5 oz. Pimm's

1/2 oz. Pierre Ferrand Orange Curaçao

1/2 oz. Hendrick's Gin

Dash lemon juice

Top with Fever Tree Bitter Lemon, garnish with reckless abandon.

Looks like Naren's garnishes for this one include cucumber, raspebrry, orange and a slender stalk of lavender, a nicely British touch.

SAXON + PAROLE, 316 Bowery at Bleecker, 212.254.0530

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. 

Wednesday's Cocktail: The Ghost Of Christmas Past....

This louche riff on a French 75 comes from DJ and Beefeater and Plymouth's man about town Nick Van Tiel. It's a bit flash with the Be24 and the P.J., but it is the holidays after all, and one ought to treat one's guests to something special. And oneself. The honey syrup is simply 3 parts honey to one part water--Nick pours the honey in a mixing tin, adds the water  and shakes vigorously---cold  water is fine when you shake honey, it blends up nicely, something I didn't know. The Angostura pulls it back from the cusp of too-sweet, or too-tart. If you make several at once, which is only natural with champagne cocktails, this is actually a rather simple recipe--as simple as Nick's crisp handwriting on the page of my notebook. I could drink these until New Year's Eve.

Holiday-Cocktail-In-Progress

Worked this one up over the weekend at a friend's home upsate. Juniper plants ring the house, and I cut  a couple sprigs and stuck them in a bottle of Beefeater 24 and let it sit overnight (about 9 hours).

While brazenly retrofitting the meticulously crafted riff on the classic Beefeater recipe I felt a pang of anxiety; mucking about with master distiller Desmond Payne's elegant gin is a bit like playing God. But the result was good good I got over it-- the juniper actually melded in to the grapefruit and tea-inflected profile, adding a crisp, mineral complexity to the subtle gin. I chilled a coupe, then gave it a rinse with Dolin dry vermouth, shaking well. Stirred the B24Juniper about 30 times then strained into the glass, garnishing with a fresh sprig of juniper and some small red berries called crab apples that came from the field in front of the house. The finished martini was zingy and ennervating, with a more crisp menthol note from the leaves of the juniper than you get from the oily, denser berries that are distilled in the gin already. Cranberries, huckleberries or even a red grape could work as a subsititure for the crab apples for the choice visual flourish. No name yet-open to suggestions. J.R.

Juniper on the lower right, Autumnal beauty straight ahead.