EMBURY COCKTAILS

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

Cross Training Mondays: Bread Salad

This recipe for a savory, fresh, booze-soaking bread salad comes from Embury friend Sarah Hodge, a fine chef and a fine drink-maker, and drinker. Follow her food adventures at Rapscallion Pancake.

TUSCAN BREAD SALAD Vinaigrette: 2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar 1 Tsp. Dijon mustard 1 Tsp. minced shallots 1/2 Tsp. chopped thyme 1/2 Tsp. minced garlic 3 Tbsp. pesto (store bought is ok) 1/3 cup olive oil Combine vinegar, mustard, shallots, thyme, garlic and pesto.  Slowly mix in the olive oil in a slow stream until the dressing emulsifies.  Season with salt and pepper. Salad: 4 slices rustic Italian Bread (about 1 inch thick) 1 pint cherry tomatoes 1 cup mozzarella, cut into 1/2 inch cubes 4 cups salad greens (or arugula, watercress, etc.) 1/4 cup thinly sliced shallots 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese 1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted 1/4 cup chopped parsley Juice of 1 lemon Brush bread with olive oil and either grill or broil until golden.  Cut bread into bite sized cubes.  In large bowl combine bread, tomatoes, mozzarella, salad greens, shallots, parmesan, pine nuts and parsley.  Dress salad with enough dressing so that the bread is absorbing dressing, but not so much that the bread and greens are soggy.  Sprinkle lemon juice on top and serve. Serves 4

 

Cocktail World Cup: Team Scotland's "The Wandering Chai"

For the punch competition at the Cocktail World Cup Team Scotland ( L-R, Aaron Jones, Ben McFarlane and Nick Reed) may not have won (Team U.S.A. took it home that night) but they did come up with a winner. A delicious milk-style punch, with soy milk taking the place of milk milk, some homemade chai, Appleton's 8 Year Old Rum and the 42Below Manuka Honey. When explaining their thinking behind the drink to the judges (including "Punch: The Delights (And Dangers) Of The Holiday Bowl" author David Wondrich, which made it a bit nerve-wracking, to be certain) the team talked about the fast pace of modern life and the popularity of coffee drinks on the go--to that end the punch was served warm, and in paper coffee cups, with sippy lids.

The use of soy was ingenious, keeping the mix from becoming too fatty, too savory--and it was one of the best uses of the hard-to-define Manuka in a cocktail that I've ever experienced. It was perfect for a cool fall night--as it was  when we were in New Zealand, and as it's--hopefully--the last few wet, cold weeks of spring here in the North there's still a chance to enjoy this liquid antidote to the chill.

THE WANDERING CHAI

800ml Soy milk
600ml 42 Below Manuka Honey
300ml Appletons 8yo Rum.
300ml Homemade chai syrup (made by boiling down chai tea and 1:1 sugar to water.)
A large knob of butter

Add all ingredients to a saucepan and heat (not boil) until butter is melted and milk warm. Serve in a take away coffee cup with a piece of home made almond and manuka honey praline.

Cocktail World Cup: Postcards From Queenstown (1)

The dust is settling and the sleep patterns are beginning to return to normal after the balls-out marathon week of competitions, seminars and truly epic revelry that is the Cocktail World Cup. When 21 bartenders from around the world, assorted cocktail writers and media and a ton of brand folk get together the game is changed, party-wise. An interesting thing though--there was a real fraternal aspect to the late nights, of bartenders coming together through some real shared sensibilities and passions. And almost inhuman stamina. Which you needed to get up in the morning and listen to people like David Wondrich and Salvatore Calabrese drop knowledge. Sensory overload all around. Above, a shot from behind the judges at the final competition in the Cup, held in a giant circus tent somwhere in the wilds around Queenstown.

Team Italy's Daniele Dalla Pola brandishing bitters (Brooklyn Hempispherical Rhubarb Bitters, to be precise) at one of the highlights of the week. After a punch competition (dauntingly judged by David "Punch" Wondrich, the man who knows more about the stuff thatn anyone else) the teams of bartenders took turns behind an incredibly well-stocked bar and made cocktails for the assembled, who included actual real local folk, not just the ingroup of 60 who traveled as a pack all week. it was great to see the bartenders just freehanding cocktails and making drinks to order, and making drinks up.

3 of Daniele's creations from his turn at the bar, all employing rhubarb bitters. I'm particularly proud of being able to carry 3 drinks in one hand.

At the punch challenge, Team New Zealand rocked a punch served from a gourd.

For this challenge teams had to build a cocktail around wine, wine from the very vineyard we were at, the very beautiful Peregrine.

Bartenders and media.

The Peregrine open air tasting room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday Night Cocktails: Lindsay Nader's "Evening Delight"

In the latest in a series of cocktail vids I've coordinated for Out.com, the lovely and mad-skilled Lindsay Nader of PDT demonstrates her Banks 5 Island Rum-based creation "The Evening Delight". Lindsay was inspired by a concoction from East Village juice bar Liquiteria, a tremendous resource for fatigued and possibly hungover bartenders and fans of their work (like me). We've written about Liquiteria and the benefits of raw juice to the person with the "active lifestyle" (a term I pulled from the packaging for Kiehl's Facial Fuel Ey Ed-Puffer) here. It's great to see the Nader bring one of their hangover cures full circle and take it back to the bar. J.R.

Other cocktails created at PDT here.

Key West Literary Seminar Cocktails 2011: Avocado Jalapeno Margarita

 
This one sprang from the fecund mind of Mark Buettler, but I revamped and refined a bit for the purposes of serving 300 at a pop, rather than just one. I made some other aethetic shifts as well. Where Mark added a dash of kosher salt to the top of the drink, I went with Murray River Pink Flake Salt, which brings a certain exotic flavor that's hard to describe--this Australian salt tastes like, well, this salt. I purchased mine at The Filling Station in New York's Chelsea Market, an excellent resource for salts and olive oils.  Mark's technique (see his video where he walks you through the process) involves muddling and straining; I opted to get the infusion of avocado and jalapeno going by throwing it all in a big blender and hitting "puree", then straining out the remaining bits of fruit. Very important to remove the seeds and the pith, or white stuff, in the jalapeno, leaving you with only the flavor and the suggestion, the evocation of heat, rather than the fire itself. And where Mark went with Anejo, I opted for  the more supple, almost honey-kissed Don Julio Reposado, for a softer, sweeter experience.

AVOCADO JALAPENO MARGARITA

8 Parts avocado & jalapeno infused Don Julio Reposado Tequila

(-) 4 Parts Lime Juice (to taste)

1 1/2 Part Dark Agave Nectar

1 1/2 Part Grand Marnier

Shake, Strain into a double rocks glass add fresh ice

Garnish with a lime wheel dropped into the glass. and
Finish with a healthy pinch of Murray River Pink Flake Salt on top.

AVO-JALA TEQUILA

The Avo-Jala Tequila is simply avocado & jalapeno infused and strained tequila. Use not-too ripe avocado, taking care to cut out any brown spots, cut up slices. Puree, let sit for a couple hours. For the Seminar I opted for a less spicy approach and removed seeds altogether, and let the peppers macerate for only a short while. To make hotter, leave seeds in and let the potion sit for 12-24 hours before straining. 
   

Team Embury at the Audubon House in Key West. Far right is Patrick Symmes who was recounting his unsusessful attempt to make whiskey. Courage, Symmes! Don't give up! Trial and error is the name of this game.

Key West Literary Seminar 2011: The Hungry Muse & The Debut of The Airstream Gimlet

Things have been a little quiet online here at Embury in the past couple weeks, but in the real world we've been busy mixing up cocktails for the many, many parties that occur during the Key West Literary Seminar. The theme this year, "The Hungry Muse: An Exploration of Food in Literature", meant the crowd was extra food savvy, and we took a cue from the kitchen for our cocktails. Kumquats, Meyers, agave & fresh-squeezed citrus dominated our creations . For the sort of crowning--or at least most flashy--moment of our ten-day journey of cocktailing we went to the rosemary section of the garden, pulling together a bristlingly fresh vodka gimlet with rosemary-infused simple syrup, and serving to 300 guests from the inside of at giant 1986 Airstream.

Brother Josh and his wife Bonnie had driven their Airstream down to Key West from Maine and when I saw it for the first time the idea of serving cocktails from it for one of the KWLS events popped into my head, fully formed. Josh and Bonnie were game, and thus we all embarked on a hairbrained scheme that was so crazy it might just--and in fact did-work. Batching massive amounts of a new invention, a Kettel One Rosemary Gimlet was the first step, but prepping the Airstream and scheming on how to best execute this. We decided to pop up outside the San Carlos, the auditorium where the Seminar takes place after Adam Gopnik's Keynote Address, and serve drinks from the trailer's kitchen window to guests as they exited the building. This required a test run prior to the evening's events to see if the 34 foot trailer would even fit in the loading zone outside the building. It did, and quite neatly thanks to Josh's really astonishingly good parallel parking skills. So we proceeded with the plan, crossing our fingers that our permit-free and doubtless quite, quite illegal endeavor would not land us in jail. When we pulled up a time hinged to when we though Gopnik's talk would end, we found half a dozen scooters parked in our spot--not assigning a team to guard it was a mistake. (It was a loading zone and they shouldn't have been there, but still--a glaring oversight in our cocktail heist). But after hauling them out of the way Josh got 'er nestled up against the curb and we set to fixing up 300 gimlets. And we served all of them, and got away without attracting attention from the cops. Somehow.

Moments before the storm. Airstream co-pilot Bonnie with Lauren Kincheloe, and Airstream Gimlets on the ready.

So this was the site awaiting Seminar guests as they exited Gopnik's talk (notes on that here).

AIRSTREAM GIMLET

1 1/2 Part Kettel One Vodka
3/4 Part Lime
3/4 Part Rosemary syrup

Combine ingredients on ice, shake well, pour over fresh ice. Garnish with a sprig of fresh rosemary. If serving in large quantities simply batch all the elements together and shake each drink to order, pouring over fresh ice. And as always with big batches, mix it on the sour side to begin, and gradually bring up the sweet until it's right.

ROSEMARY SYRUP
Separate the leaves from the stem of the rosemary. Start a good sugar syrup--equal parts water and sugar--anything from Sugar In The Raw, Turbanado or Demarara works nicely. Heat slowly, adding lots of rosemary and bringing the mixture to a low boil, keeping it there for about five minutes, stopping before the rosemary turns brown. Let the syrup cool in the pot to achieve maximum extraction. Strain before using.

Somehow I scored Lauren Kincheloe as my partner-in-crime (literally). Lauren cut her teeth bartending at Employees Only and helms the bar at Bar Marmont when she's not breaking various laws in the service of gonzo cocktailing. She came up with a couple original cocktails over the course of the events--we'll be running those recipe here this week.

It was a pretty impressive mob scene on the sidewalk for about ten or fifteen minutes. Guerilla cocktailing--wave of the future.

Full recipes from all the parties will be posted here this week. For more on the Seminar itself check out Bone Island Book Blog for some fine crib notes on the panel discussions and readings from the week..  We'll also be featuring the recipe for tapenade crostini (for 300) from Lisa Esposito, who served out of another window of the Airstream.

 

Sangritas, Verdita & The Evil Michelada.

Check out a fine assortment of variations on Sangritas and Micheladas at Inside F & B, including our pet passion, the Verdita. F & B Editor Francine Cohen managed to refine a very general, feel-your-way recipe for the mint, cilantro, jalapeno and pineapple riff on the sangrita into the first really coherent proper recipe version--many thanks on that. Naren Young's recipe for the Evil Michelada at Locanda Verde looks wickedly good, and somehow made me think of Kids In The Hall's Simon & Hecubus and their gleeful evil antics; Watch after the jump. (The above photo is actually of Charles Steadman's also-tasty sounding Dragón Rojo which is served at Echo Palm Beach and is mentioned in the same article. We're thinking the Evil Michelada looks very much like it, however.)

EVIL MICHELADA

1/2 oz. Tequila
1/2 oz. Mezcal
1/2 tsp. Chipotle puree
Juice of 1/2 lime

Pour over ice, add beer and stir well
Served in a glass rimmed with smoked paprika/salt mixed together.

Naren Young, Locanda Verde

Photo: Charles Steadman

Krimko On Wine: The New World: Headaches and Lamb Necks

Me:  Do you have any shanks?

Stoned Farmer's Market Dude:  Oh yeah, sure, we got shanks.

Me:  Good, it says on the chalkboard that you have shanks.

SFMD:  Yep, we got some shanks.  (Rustles around in a deep cooler full of lamb.)  Yep, some nice shanks right here.  (Pulls out part of lamb, definitely not a shank.)

Me:  That's not a shank.  A shank is part of the leg.  It looks like it's part of a leg.  What is that?

SFMD:  It's a shank, oh, wait, let me look at my inventory.  (Pulls out legal pad, scans it.)  Nope, you're right, not a shank.  Didn't bring any shanks today.  This is a neck.  You don't want that.  How about this nice rack of chops?

Me:  (Spying price on bag containing rack.)  Does that say $60.00?  How much is the neck?

SFMD:  $9.00

Me:  I'll take the neck.

I took the neck indeed, made a delicious stew out of it with potatoes, tomatoes, onion, carrot, and yogurt.  Threw in some of the strange (to me) new spices Brigid gave me for my birthday, in particular the beguiling asafeotida, or 'devil's dung,' harvested in Afghanistan from a flower and used as an onion/garlic substitute by Jainists, who apparently try not to cook with onions or garlic.  It's got some funky, mountainous Middle East umami thing going on.  Also lends a nice yellow color to a stew.

With the above we drank a bottle of Ojai Red from the Ojai Vineyard.  It's their 'Table Wine' cuvee, made from a slightly different blend of Rhonish grapes each year.  Made up in Santa Barbara County, this comes pretty close to expressing hometown terroir here in Los Angeles.  It's powerful stuff, up around 15% alcohol.  Those of you who have been following these posts have witnessed my conversion––I am officially a fan of big fat New World wines.  Something about the Los Angeles winter makes them particularly satisfying, sweet and good.

That sweetness and alcohol comes at a price, though.  Headaches are a little swimmier in the morning.  Like the price paid for most good things, they're worth it.

A few of you West Coast readers have asked about Trader Joe's recommendations.  I shall oblige in coming weeks. S.K.

Krimko On Wine: Back To California, Perfecta

After a productive, energetic, and exhausting two months on the East Coast, I'm back in Los Angeles. Good to go away, and good to come home.  One of the highlights of my time in New York was the Sand Paper Press book release party––I've got a new book of poems out from the Key West-based independent publisher; the reading we did was fun, but what pushed the evening over the edge was Embury Cocktails' tequila punch. I'm sure your fearless editor Jason Rowan will fill you in on its makeup in due time.  All I know is that my mom hadn't had tequila in some time, and one was enough to make her quite happy.

Anyway, back to sunny California.  Went by my local standby Silverlake Wines yesterday, in search of something cheap.  Being in and out of New York for eight weeks has a way of draining the pocketbook.  I found this Perfecta stuff, an Arroyo Seco red made up of mostly Grenache, and some Syrah.  Southern Rhone blend, over 14% alcohol.  At only $8, I wasn't expecting much.

I used a little of it to mix with a few tablespoons of miso paste and made a glaze for some chicken quarters that I roasted in the oven.  When they were finished and we sat down at table, I remarked to my cohorts as I tasted Perfecta, 'This isn't bad, for California.'  They laughed.  'We see you're ready to abandon France,' they joked.

No, France is still the standby for me for cheap, distinctive wine, but this stuff is good.  Jammy, perhaps a tad larger than its French cousin might be, but imminently drinkable and even (gasp) unique.  It tasted like earth, such a rare thing for New World wines, especially cheap ones.  Not sure about the Mucha-like lass on the label, but hey, could be worse.  Kind of fetching, draped over her bike like that.

The chicken quarters glazed with miso and Perfecta were quite good.  I also made some oven-roasted, thinly sliced potatoes and green beans.  Drizzled chicken fat over the potatoes.  Good to be home. S.K.

2006 Perfecta Arroyo Seco Red Wine, $8 at Silverlake Wines.

All of Stuart Krimko's wine writing here.