EMBURY COCKTAILS

The Right Bourbon For The Julep

My piece on how various bourbons produce markedly different qualities in Mint Juleps is online at OUT here. Many thanks to Seth Thompson of The Bourbon Review for his excellent suggestions and guidance. 

Many thanks also to Chad & Ashley Mumm, who hosted a Julep Taste-Off at their East Village apartment, all in the name of research. Lots and lots of research. Every year I'm surprised anew by just how potent Juleps are, and this year was no exception. It was a great afternoon party--Juleps have a way of igniting the party's fuse in short order.

A tip of the hat to Derby headgear.

Embury Revisited: Mark Buettler's Perfect Louis

On the occasion of his birthday I've decided to revisit Mark Buettler's Perfect Louis. While Mark and I are partners in Brooklyn Hemispherical Bitters and he makes some very delicious celery bitters, we don't sell them--but the Bitter Truth Celery Bitters work very, very nicely in this riff on a Perfect Manhattan. I recall Mark used some lovely light organic honey from the Bay Area for his white honey syrup--make sure to get something delicate.

PERFECT LOUIS

1 oz Bourbon (Mark prefers Old Forresters)
1 oz Dry Vermouth
1 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz White Honey syrup (equal parts white honey and hot water)
2 dashes Angustora bitters
2 dashes Celery bitters 

Stir 30-35 times, Strain up, No garnish

 

Sunday Morning Cocktails: Palm Springs Eye-Opener

Sometimes the ones you come up with on the fly and with a minimum of conscious thought work out perfectly, and sometimes you even make a breakthrough to a new combination you'd never considered. When I was given a strict 24 hour deadline to come up with all the recipes for 3 upcoming parties at The New Traditionalists I had to pull a few out of thin air, from the dimly-lit back reaches of my cocktail consciousness. At one point I'd thought of doing a Rat Pack-themed party and banged out some aptly-named cocktail ideas--the Ring-A-Ding Zombie being my favorite. This was going to be an afternoon event and when I tried to imagine what Dino or Frank might debut their days' drinkng with I thought of rye, orange juice, and something with a kick, like a bullshot, but spicy--and that led to the Palm Springs Eye-Opener.

Originally chile-infused rye, orange juice and simple syrup, it evolved quickly into chile-infused bourbon, fresh orange juice and a strong simple syrup (1.25 sugar: 1 water) lightly infused with some chiles too, just to get that heat into another layer of the drink, add some complexity. If follow a very basic 2:1:1/2 ratio:

PALM SPRINGS EYE-OPENER

 2 parts chile-infused bourbon

 1 part fresh orange juice

1/2 part chile simple syrup (to taste)

Simply build the drink in a large rocks glass, stir, garnish with a section of red chile, and serve.

 As far as how hot to take it--again, all to taste, and it's always tricky to quantify heat. For me this should have a significant kick but no burn. Interpret as you will.  I took a serrano pepper purchased in New York in early November with a sort of medium heat, sliced it open and dropped it into a bottle of Old Michter's Bourbon and let it sit for about 1 1/2 hours. Worked for me. With the simple I simply dropped in a few slices of serrano just as the demarara sugar and water mixture began to get near boiling, let it go for a couple moments, then scooped 'em out and used as garnishes for the final drink. 

Bourbon and chiles. Fusing the smooth-but-firey spirit with actual vegetal heat--just fantastic. They must have been combined before, but I've never come across it, and no one I've turned onto the almost-too-obvious combination seems to have, either. And I've been to Kentucky recently, where I mixed some up for the crew at Garage Bar. If anyone know of other chile & bourbon numbers I'd love to hear about it in the comments. J.R.

Friday Night Cocktails: Jonny Sweat

After making cocktails at a party at the Joseph Abboud showroom the other night I came home quite knackered. When my friend who'd worked the party with me demanded I make him a drink I went with what was simple and on hand. We had some Basil Hayden's bourbon left over from the event, and some Meyer Lemons. I poured a healthy 2 oz. of BH over ice in a large rocks glass, then topped with about 1 1/2 oz of soda (from my beloved Sodastream, which is great for making non-cloying or syrupy soda water).  The Meyer was a bit overripe--too far gone to go into our bitters--but its richness suited the occasion, and a substantial section was squeezed over the drink and then dropped in. Apparently Basil Hayden's and Meyer Lemons are a perfect complement, with the rich brioche-y, white flower notes of the bourbon dovetailing beautifully with the opulent creaminess of the Meyers. A perfect 2-ingredients-and-a-garnish drink, simple as hell and the perfect salve for a sweaty summer night in New York City. 

The next night I tried it again on another friend who was so enraptured he dubbed it "Jonny Sweat". Whence the name? He described the drink as being "what you wring out of Jon Hamm's t-shirt after he's mowed the lawn in the hot sun."  Quite an image! And quite a drink. Best one I've come up with in quite a while. J.R.

Bitter Sweet Symphony

Photo: Jonathan Kamouris

My piece on cocktail bitters for Out magazine is up at Out.com here with lots of killer recipes from some of my favorite ace bartenders, most of whom we've featured here on Embury before. My original intro for the piece was a bit too long and the bits about the history of bitters were cut for space. Below is the original draft of the piece, but do head over to Out.com for lots of bitters extras, including 9 recipes in which bitters play an integral part.

Along with the global rebirth and reinvention of the craft cocktail over the past twenty years, revivals of classic cocktail bitters and a host of new bitters are amplifying layer to this drinking revolution, one that fuses historical arts with cuisine sophistication. Bitters can add a crucial additional layer, or layers, to a flavor profile of a drink without significantly altering it’s basic make-up, transforming it from flat to dynamic, from plain to bewitchingly complex and lively with just a few dashes; they are a highly effective flavor delivery system. They're often called the salt and pepper of cocktailing, but they can be even more: an incredibly well-stocked spice rack for the bar.

Bitters, essentially, are complex blends of roots and herbs mascerated in high proof spirits and then filtered, leaving a sediment-free (generally) dark distillate, rich with vegetal and herbal flavors and aromas.Their origins date back as the 1600s, when hundreds of varieties of bitters were made and used across Europe as very old school DIY homeopathic remedies, employing the epoch’s profound understanding of roots’ and herbs’ medicinal qualities. They first crossed over from the medicinal to the recreational around 1806, when some clever fellow, in a brilliant bit of re-purposing, realized that the intense flavors of bitters could not only mask the flavor of dubious-tasting spirits, but could make something quite new and delicious, with the addition of just a few dashes of the flavor-rich potions. The earliest definition of a cocktail from 1806 actually describes a combination of spirits, water, sugar and bitters. Over the centuries bitters have ebbed and flowed in cocktailing, falling to the wayside after Prohibition. For decades the old reliable Angostura Bitters were about the only kind you could find, but a new wave of inventive and surprising artisanal bitters are afoot, both commercially and privately, as a wave of mad scientist-style creativity taking place in bartenders’ kitchens and garages across the world. J.R.

And here are a couple videos featuring 2 of the 9 recipes in the article.

Further New Traditionalists Partying & The Meyer Lemon Whiskey Sour

Team Embury just catered another event at The New Traditionalists, this one extremely well-attended, very liquid and quite the bash. We batched up 3 great punches and I'll post those recipes shortly, but I wanted to get this recipe for the Meyer Lemon Whiskey Sour I was making to order up here now, as Meyers are very available right now, at least here in New York.  Initially I used Basil Hayden's which is always lovely and delicate, but switched to the durable and more affordable Jim Beam Rye when that ran out, with no significant loss of drink virtue--in fact, the more earthy rye may stand up to the sweet Meyer better. I used Agrimontana sour cherries (available here) to bring a rich, savory extra sweet/sour-ness that is far superior to poisonous red maraschino cherries. When I ran low on simple syrup I added some of the syrup from the cherries which yielded a darker cocktail with a certain fatty quality--also delicious.

MEYER LEMON WHISKEY SOUR

2 oz. Bourbon or rye
1/2 oz/ Simple syrup
Juice of 1 Meyer Lemon (about 1/2 to 3/4 oz, mix to taste)

Shake with ice, serve up or on the rocks. Garnish with an orange twist and a cherry or two.

World Cup Drinking: England Vs. Algeria, Louis 649 and Further Daytime Bourbon Cocktailing

 

Another maddening draw on the field, but the cocktails in New York are fine. Louis 649's suggestions for daylight World Cup imbibing includes the Brown Derby, further supporting my hunch that bourbon and citrus cocktails like Rye House's "Team USA World Cup Smash" and Embury's own "In Another Time" are the way to go over mimosas any day, particularly weekdays when you find yourself commencing cocktail hour around a 10 am kickoff.

BROWN DERBY

2oz Old Forester Bourbon
1oz Grapefruit Juice
.5oz honey syrup

Shaken & strained into a chilled coupe glass.

World Cup Drinking: USA V. Slovenia, Rye House & The Worst Call In Recent Memory

How this....

and this...

 

...went to this, after what the New York Times called a "stunning rally
 followed by a "shocking call" (Full NYT story here) will be discussed for decades to come.

The giddy euphoria that had followed the late game rally was replaced by quiet desperation for this crew that showed up at 10:00 a.m at Rye House to watch the high-pressure game. It was the kind of devastation where you don't even want to drink, but Lynnette Marrero nobly poured USA Goa Shots (a Tito's Vodka Lemon Drop) all around despite the goal being discounted.

 

It was a bit like the band playing on the deck of the Titanic as it sank. We all drank them, however, and mine gave me the inspiration, perhaps ill-advised, to drink through to England Vs. Algeria at Louis 649. This World Cup, if you're fortunate to live in a time zone where games come on in the mornings, is a great rallying cry to daytime drinking.

The "Team USA World Cup Smash" Lynette handed me upon arrival was a delightful little pre-breakfast eye opener, rivalling Embury's own "In Another Time" as an extremely persuasive bourbon cocktail alternative to the dreaded Mimosa.

TEAM USA WORLD CUP SMASH

Muddle 4 Lemon Wedges
3/4 oz simple syrup
2 oz Old Forrester 100
6 Mint leaves

Shake & strain over ice.

And in Lynette's own neat hand:

Wednesday's Cocktail: The 6th Borough

The first question I was asked upon my return from overseas was, 'what was the best drink you had in Australia?'. I debated for a moment but there was never really any doubt--it was my final drink of the journey, and it came from the nimble hands and mind of Phil Gandevia at Eau de Vie, the tucked away bar where I ritualistically, almost superstitiously in the end, enjoyed my first drink of each evening during my entire stay in Sydney.  This night I began and ended there, appropriately, and Phil was planning to make me a Brooklyn or a Red Hook, in honor of my home city and all those Manhattan homages that have developed over the last several years. When it came time for that final drink, however, Phil got that funny look in his eye of a bartender with a hunch, and he whipped up this further flung riff on the Manhattan using Basil Hayden's. "Basil Hayden's loves Lillet Blanc," he confided, and proceeded to build a simply sublime drink. I found it so sublime, in fact, that, doubtless affected by the knowledge that the end of a charmed trip was imminent, brought tears to my eyes.

"The 6th B0rough", enters the pantheon of Red Hooks, Greenpoints and all the rest as Phil posited Sydney as a sort of extension of New York City, at least for the moment of this drink. Served in a coupe. I'm awaiting confirmation on whether it was shake or stirred (suspect stirred, can't quite recall for certain, remember: this was not only the last drink of the evening, but of an epic trip exploring bars in both Melbourne and Sydney). I'm off to a train, bus and ferry journey to Martha's Vineyard to attend to the Rhubarb Bellinis for friends wedding, and I'll post a more formal version of the recipe, but for now, this note in Phil's own handwriting will do.

 I had to post this note in case something should happen to me on the next leg of my journey and its mysteries be lost forever. The world must know. Those seeking deeper meaning such as philosophers, The Super Hadron Collider Team, and a thousand chanting Suffi mystics--can call it a day. True harmony has been achieved, and it's called The Sixth Burough.

Embury Events at The New Traditionalists

 

Embury did our first proper cocktail catering this week for an event in the showroom of The New Traditionalists, makers of classically inspired, environmentally sound furniture. The crowd was a lively mix up uptown and downtown, the showroom was a great setting for a party and the drinks, if I do say so myself, were smashing.

 

We made 3 large batches of some of our favorite cocktails, all of which proved to be highly effective in punch form. We poured the punches over ice and added garnishes with each serving.

NEW LONDON PUNCH (from the mind of Naren Young)

5 parts Beefeater 24 
1 part St Germain 
1 part Maraschino 
5 parts Chilled Green Tea 
1 part Lime Juice 
5 parts Proseco

Add ingredients to Punch Bowl with Ice Block, stir well, serve on the rocks, dropping a blackberry in the glass as a garnish.

PETER PAN PUNCH (All credit to a pre-Hendrick's Jim Ryan)

1 1/2 part Basil Hayden's Bourbon
1/2 part Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
1/2 part Lemon juice
1/2 part. Simple syrup
Middle of 1 Pixie Mandarin (I per serving)

In a bowl, muddle Mandarin sections and add Luxardo, lemon juice, simple syrup and Basil Hayden's. Stir well, add a large block of ice and pour into a rocks glass--garnish with a good cherry, in syrup.

IN ANOTHER TIME (An Embury orginal)

2 parts Basil Hayden's Bourbon
1 part fresh grapefruit juice
1/2 part ginger simple syrup (instructions here)

Pour into punch bowl, add ice block, stir. Pour over ice, top with a fanned green apple resting on top of the rocks.

I served some impromptu cocktails from the New Traditionalist's highly desirable Bar Cart no. One., a great piece that stands at the exact proper height for building drinks. More about that bar cart to come.