EMBURY COCKTAILS

Fantasy Fest, Smuggler's Paradise, And Several Thoughts On Tailgate Punching Technique

 
Dateline: Key West, Fantasy Fest '09. For several years creative juggernaut Cayman Smith-Martin has been dominating the giant annual parade in terms of pure balls-out creativity, assembling large groups of local kids of all ages to help create high concept ensemble performance art krewes for the event that marks the climax of the week-long, all-the-way-over-the-top  party. Most floats are simply sloppily-themed slutty chicks or dudes dancing around to pop hip hop--Cayman's projects tell a story, from his Indian-themed "Lotus Eaters" to the dazzling "Dia De Los Muertos" to this year's theme, his most ambitious yet. "Smuggler's  Paradise" was an epic recreation of a golden, dirty era in Key West's past-the early 70s, when the string of islands were one of the biggest in points for drugs coming from the Caribbean and Central and South America. By all accounts it was an incredibly lawless era, a wild, wild west on the water, with massive amounts of drugs and money changing hands between various players from drug cartels, hippy importers and corrupt cops. Cayman set out to recreate this legendary time with some 60 players.

Since I was going to be in town I thought I might pitch in with some kind of punch. The theme of Smuggler's Paradise made me think of Sailor Jerry Rum, with its surfer, slightly punk image and serious punchability. I was particularly keen to use an off-message rum, as that lousy Captain Morgan Rum was a main sponsor of Fantasy Fest. Sailor Jerry's is affordable and mixable and after I stocked up I started sourcing punch fixins' the morning of the parade. One unusual detail was that I planned to make it from scratch at the staging grounds for the parade--on site, and hopefully enlivening, stimulating, euphoria-enhancing, something that would contribute in some way to this endeavor and this vibe.

Sticking with the sweaty, Caribbean theme I went with tropical fruits--I was tempted to go with fresh-squeezed juices, but given the rough, in-the-field nature of the event and the as-yet unknown facilities, I opted for the highest grade store bought juices I could find, and garnished the punch liberally with slices and chunks of fresh fruit. 100% fresh is of course always best, but in this case expediency trumped purity. I picked up some fresh (in the not-pasteurized but not-fresh squeezed sense) OJ. In Key West the best available--and it's quite good-- is Orchid Island. Mango juice from Looza Juices was my secret weapon, bringing the serious island flavor. Fresh lemon and lime juice, and slices of pineapple and banana rounded it all out, and lots and lots of Sailor Jerry punched it up and lots and lots of club soda stretched it back out. cI transported all the gear and product to the staging grounds (basically just a waterfront) in a bike trailer lent by a friend, and found a friendly tailgate where Cayman and crew were getting prepped and got to work.

SMUGGLER'S PARADISE PUNCH

(No recorded ratios...)

Sailor Jerry's Rum
Orchid Island Orange Juice
Loov Mango Juice
Lemons
Limes
Angostura Bitters
Banana slices
Pineapple Slices
Club soda
Ice 

I gained some insight into creating punches in the wild; below are some thoughts.

DO: Splurge on very good juice. Non-pasteurized is a good start, and never, ever Tropicana. You might as well pour corn syrup in the punch.

DO: Use big ice cubes made in take out soup or yogurt containers. I messed around with bags of deli ice and it adds complication and drips water everywhere. The giant cubes melt slowly and are easy to transport.

DO: Bring Angostura bitters. Other kinds of bitters too, possibly, like Fee Brother Rhubarb or Regan's Orange # , but never be withouth Angostura. It can rescue a punch that's gotten too sweet and butch it up, and fast, bringing a dirty rootsy flavor that punctures anything saccharine that you've mixed by mistake.

DON'T: bother cutting up bananas, unless it's a garnish. They don't juice up. Try a Looze banana juice.

DO: Squeeze fresh lemon and/or lime juice. This brings the sweetness of the juices back into tangy, interesting territory, and makes even lame tinned juices taste more alive.

DO: Use soda water liberally. You will not regret watering a delicious punch down a little and stretching it out, and neither will your thirsty chums.

DO: Let one batch pretty much run out before starting another--I had a never ending, ever-mutating punch going as I jsut threw stuff in as it got lower and that was probably a little too chaotic for quality control. No one complained, however.

David Wegman was around during those crazy during that era, and his presence added a nice bit of real life to the make believe. This "Olaug" bike boat is inspired by a real boat that was busted with some insane amount of hashish onboard in the early seventies. 

Cayman The Smuggler, outfitted as one of the South American militia memebers who were a key part of the drug trade, here with our smuggled rum. More photos after the jump.

Krimko On Wine: Thanksgiving Edition; Lioco, Scalloped Potatoes, George Strait & Taylor Swift.

Can someone explain to me why I've been listening to nothing but George Strait lately?  And it's not only the King of Country himself; I've even been listening to other people sing songs George Strait has sung.  Does Embury count among its readers anyone else who has watched Taylor Swift sing 'Run' a dozen times on Youtube?

Perhaps someone can also help explain why I've been favoring big white wines lately.  This week it was Lioco, a Sonoma County Chardonnay (I've really been keeping my promise to myself to drink a lot of wine from California).  Lioco got some good press from Eric Asimov in The New York Times, but he drank Indica, their red Rhonish blend.

The Chardonnay is made in about as Burgundian a style as you can make in the Russian River Valley.  No oak.  Perhaps not as zingy as I might like, but there is a kelly green, minerally thing going on in the midpalate that I cannot remember tasting before.  Almost synthetic.  Probably would go pretty good with those scalloped potatoes on your Thanksgiving table.  $19.75, tax included, at Silverlake Wine; $17.99 at Astor Wines & Spirits. S.K.

Dinner With Krimko: "Killing"; Cheap Terroir; And Octopus & Bratwurst Stew

(Embury Wine & Food Editor Stuart Krimko will be taking us through his rock & roll dinners periodically.) People in Los Angeles are always killing things.  There are gang members, for instance, who kill other gang members––sometimes from the same gang!  Angelenos have gotten used to the Lakers killing the majority of their opponents.  (I'm a baseball fan, and the Dodgers got killed by the Phillies in the NLCS, but that's another story.)  And then there are all the comedians, actors, and musicians who are looking to kill their next performance:  'Dude, The Pixies killed last night at The Palladium.' Recently Silverlake Wine has been killing its selection of cheap wine with a bit bottle age.  Last week I bought a 2004 Mercurey 1er cru for $10.  It wasn't the most amazing bottle of Burgundy I ever had, but it was damned good and it had that thing that named growths have––I guess I should just own up to wine terminology and call it terroir.  Usually you have to pay for esteemed terroir, but sometimes you don't.  Esteemed terroir does not always mean good wine, and it rarely means good value, but once in a while worlds collide, cases fall off a truck, and a buyer for a particular store kills and makes a great purchase.  When this kind of killing is going on I like to stock up. A case in point: this 2001 Saint-Chinian 'Les Sigillaires' from G. Moulinier in the Languedoc.  Apparently 'sigillaires' are plant fossils, and there are a lot of them in Mr. Molinier's vineyard.  The wine probably has a higher percentage of Syrah than is typical for Saint-Chinian, and it is drinking very well; it's spicy, fresh, and deep.  And it only costs $11 at Silverlake, where it was described to me as 'textbook Saint-Chinian.' I must say that I killed the dish that I served with this wine last Friday night: octopus and bratwurst stew.

First you submerge a small octopus in water that's just below a simmer for about half an hour.  Do not boil the octopus, lest it toughen.  While the octopus is not boiling, slowly sauté a sliced bratwurst, onions, carrots, a mildly hot pepper or two and a bay leaf in a medium Dutch oven.  Once these start to caramelize, add a good dose of red wine (I used a cheap tempranillo) and scrape the bottom of the pan.  Now add more wine, and some tomatoes from a can.  Let them reduce, then add some more.  Then add some diced potatoes, a few more sliced bratwursts, some chili sauce, some soy sauce, etc.  Slice the octopus into 1- to 2-inch pieces, head and all, and throw them in the Dutch oven.  You should have poured about 2/3 of the bottle of wine in there by this point.  Keep it at a low simmer for about two hours, until the potatoes are soft and the octopus is no longer tough.  Serve the stew over slices of baguette toasted in olive oil, salt and pepper.  Garnish with a tiny dollop of chili sauce and toasted pepitas. If I'd stuck to the Saint-Chinian and the octopus it would have been a healthy and satisfying night of culinary murder.  But then someone put on Albert Ayler and I filled my wine glass with Jim Beam and things took a turn for the ruthless.

All things Krimko here.

Friday Night Cocktails: Party Of Six

As part of his duties as Bartender Of The Month here at Embury, Mark Buettler is required to contribute an original cocktail every week in October. He'd forgotten that fact when I'd stopped by to shoot his entry for the sherry cocktail contest that every bartender with a blog or a Facebook page seems to be entering, and he was put on the spot to come up with something on the fly.  This impromptu number made from spirits in Mark's bar started out life as the Party Of Five, but the last minute addition of Aperol was the sweet but surprisingly complext guest that truly made the party.

PARTY OF SIX

1 oz tawny port (Mark used a 1997 tawny Colheita)

1 oz Beefeater 24

1/2 oz Poire Williams

1/2 oz Aperol

1/4 oz. St. Germain elderflower cordial
1/4 oz. lemon juice

 

Shake and strain into an up glass of your choice, garnish with a lemon twist.

Wednesday Wine: 2007 Le P’tit Blanc, Les Sablonettes, Anjou

 

I’ve been feeling restless this summer––perhaps an impending move to Los Angeles has something to do with this––but managed to settle down enough to cook myself dinner last Tuesday.  A whole dorade, some battered, pan-fried zucchini, and a bottle of this Chenin Blanc.  Les Sablonettes is a good producer of naturally-made, Anjou-centric (Loire Valley) wine.  This relatively inexpensive bottle had an incredible (and welcome) amount of acidity when I first opened it.  In fact, it reminded me of some Jura wine: slightly oxidized down below with an electric line of acidity humming along on top.  But as I drank it, the acidity settled down and the Chenin fruit characteristics began to emerge.  I left a glass or two for the next night and by then it reminded me of a cider of some sort.  I have to buy a camera and figure out how to take pictures, because this bottle, with the roasted dorade and golden zucchini slices, looked almost as good as it tasted [Editor's note: We got you covered].  $14.99 at Astor Wines and Spirits, but I think I saw in their mailer that it’s down to $12.99 now.  S.K.

Friday Night Cocktail: Brandied Cherry Bourbon Sour

An unexpected surplus of bourbons was delivered to my friends' home in Lyme, New Hampshire, all  in service of a piece I'm working on for VMan Magazine. This led to an impromptu and extremely casual tasting session of four bourbons, which I'll be writing about Monday. It also compelled me to make some cocktails with the bounty--after a lengthy swim across Loch Lyme and back we were all a bit knackered and sunburnt and something sweet and revitalizing was called for. I'd intended to make some Meyer Lemon Whiskey Sours but, of course, Meyers have a way of being elusive when you're looking for them. I decided to adapt John Byrd's recipe for the Meyer Sour and simply use some lemons we had on hand, very simple, very classic. The stroke of unintentional genius came when I wondered aloud if there were maraschino cherries in the house or if we'd need to go the store and Sarah suggested using her brandied cherries that she'd made for desert to follow the southern-style meal she was preparing (buttermilk-soaked fried chicken, collard greens, beans and bacon). I tried a sour with a brandied cherry as a garnish and knew we'd hit on something.

 

The added booziness and sugar of the brandied cherries pushes the equation in a decadent direction--proper Italian luxardo cherries would be great in a sour, but the brandy adds a heady opulence and gives the drink a lovely pink cast. We were all immediately revived and in good cheer. J.R.

BRANDIED CHERRY BOURBON SOUR (Adapted from John Byrd's Meyer Lemon Whiskey Sour recipe)

2oz. Basil Hayden's Bourbon
A light .5oz. of simple syrup (the brandied cherries bring plenty of sugar so go easy on the simple.)
Juice of 1 Meyer Lemon
Shake and strain
Garnish with brandied cherry (don't be afraid to throw in some extra juice) & orange slice

BRANDIED CHERRIES:

1 lb. Bing Cherries, pitted
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 vanilla bean, split in half
1/2 cup brandy

Combine sugar and water in sauce pan.  Scrape seeds from vanilla pod into sugar mixture and add pod as well.  Bring mixture to a boil.  Add cherries and 1/4 cup brandy and simmer for ten minutes.  Remove cherries with a slotted spoon and reserve.  Simmer liquid in saucepan until syrupy and reduced to about 1/2 of a cup.  Pour syrup over reserved cherries and let cool.  When cherries are cooled, stir in remaining 1/4 cup brandy.

Brandied cherries can be kept covered and refrigerated for several weeks.  Flavors will improve with time. Sarah Hodge.

 

Results of the eratz bourbon tasting next week.

Cross Training Monday: Pressing Ginger

How best to press ginger? This question presented itself on my recent recent trip to Key West, during which I busted out some Moscow Mules for a party at friends' house. The ginger beer we had was a little anemic, so we sought to squeeze some fresh ginger to punch them up. Approach #1: use a ginger grater, a ceramic sluice with a textured surface over which you scrape cut ginger, and then wait for the juice and bits to slowly drain out the bottom. Clearly intended for this use, it indisputably worked, but a little patience was called for. Approach #2: place cut ginger into a citrus press and squeeze directly into the glass. General acclaim over the unexpected success with the re-purposed press ( a garlic press would do as well, but in much smaller portions). A follow up phone call revealed that the citrus park had broken a couple weeks later after too-frequent and too-vigorous ginger pressing, so it's not without a downside. Approach #3: use your hands. Chef Chris put the ginger through a box shredder then squeezed the shredded chunks inside his fist, directly into the glasses. This one takes the prize in the no-tools-required category, it's totally rock and roll, and it looks cool. Sometimes chefs do this but wrapping the ginger in cheesecloth or muslin to strain out the little bits that make it through your fingers. But that's not how we roll.

The next batch of Mules came around days later, and the improbable alchemy that ginger beer, limes and vodka can acheive wasn't happening for some reason--too much fresh ginger is certainly the likely culprit but we'd recklessly gone way off recipe and too much vodka could be to blame, too--it wasn't clear why exactly but it wasn't working. This was at a small gathering to greet Will and Mrs. Foster, and I pressed him for a solution. 'Have you got bitters?' was the response and happily we did. 3 to 4 dashes of Angostura bitters anchored the dueling citrus and lime, and brought the rogue mules back into the correct spectrum of flavor. J.R.

ROGUE MULE (loosely adapted from Dale DeGroff's Moscow Mule recipe by Will Foster)

1 1/2 ounces vodka
4 ounces ginger beer
Lime wedge (Degroff calls it a garnish, but we squeezed it into the drink)
3-4 dashes Angostura bitters 

Dale DeGroff Website

Bourbon Fest Postcards Pt. 2

(Much of the  following is borrowed liberally from press materials from Jim Beam) At the Jim Beam plant, a table representing the components of the distillation process. Ground corn is mixed with pure limestone-filtered water and then cooked at a fairly high temperature. The temperature is then lowered and the ground rye is added. After the mixture has cooked, the temperature is lowered again for the addition of barley malt. This begins the mashing process. Barley is malted by moistening the grains until they sprout, which releases an enzyme that converts grain starch into sugars. When the conversion is complete, the mash is transferred to the fermenters.

Yeast is then added to the mash to begin the fermentation process. Each different strain of yeast imparts a distinctive flavor and aroma to the finished whiskey, and each distiller has a preferred strain. At Knob Creek, they use a proprietary jug yeast that has been the same since the end of Prohibition. The yeast converts the grain sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

When the fermentation is complete, the mash, now called “distiller’s beer,” is pumped to the still. Inside the tall column still, mash entering from the top meets steam entering from the bottom. The steam vaporizes the alcohol in the mash and carries it out the top of the still to be cooled and re-condensed. This product of the first distillation is called “low wine.” The low wine is delivered to a second still where it is heated and converted again to a vapor that is collected and condensed. The product of this second distillation step is called “high wine” or “white dog.”

New whiskey is as clear as water. All of the distinctive color, and some of the flavor, come from aging in new, charred oak barrels. The longer a Bourbon is aged, the more flavor and color it takes from the wood. The charring of the inside of the barrel produces a layer of caramelized sugars in the wood, which slowly dissolve into the resting Bourbon.

Bourbon Fest Postcards Pt. 1

In 2007 I visited Bardstown, Kentucky as a guest of the Jim Beam family. While it's a family of bourbons, and a business enterprise, it's also a real family and what I was struck by how much it felt that way.  Certainly, Fred Noe, the seventh-generation head of the Beam company, made u feel like guests of a family, sitting at the head of a picnic table at a party at his house, telling some of us how Jim Beam and ginger ale was his drink of choice on a ht summer night, and that he was never happier when he was sitting on his back porch drinking one. It was also fantastic how these big guys in suspenders and non-ironic trucker hats were crafting some of the best spirits in the world with the same level of care and understanding of terroir and process as as a French winemaker. I grew up in rural Oregon in a town dominated by the logging industry so I was quite comfortable among these guys, but back in Molalla men that looked this cut down trees for a living, and here they made wondrous, sophisticated spirits.  I took to referring to the distillers we met, and with no disrespect intended, as redneck artisans. It's hard to convey how completely bourbon suffuses Kentucky culture; there's a level of tradition and passion for spirits passed on from generation to generation that I've certainly never experienced anywhere else in America. The landscape feels steeped in bourbon--it's in the fields of corn, rye and barley and it's in the water.

At the Jim Beam ditillery the group of spirits writers were led on a tour that was much like going through Willy Wonka's Chcocolate Factory filled with all manner of magical surprises.

Wednesday's Cocktail: Will Foster Double Bill

Will Foster, proprietor of Casita Bar in East London's Shoreditch District and the man who turned Embury onto The Verdita, was recently in Florida at the same time as I was in Key West, so he and Mrs. Foster came down for a visit. Naturally, we had to have a little drinks get-together. Will had some pretty grand ambitions that were amended due to lack of availability of a couple of key ingredients, and his ability to change it up and adapt is instructive to the home bartender who doesn't have access to all ingredients under the sun.  Will and I had been chatting about bourbon since his arrival and when I asked him what we might serve at the party he ruminated on it over the next 24 hours. He arrived on a riff on the Bossavelha, a cachaça based drink he'd created for Sagatiba Velha: 

BOSSALVELHA

50ml Sagatiba Velha
20ml Creme de Peche,
25ml lemon juice
1 bar spoon accacia honey
3 quarters of a peach,

Muddle the peach, cachaça and honey add the rest,  shake very hard and strain into a coupe. W.F.

Will planned to adapt it to a bourbon base, and was dead set on Buffalo Trace: "Buffalo lends itself well to cocktails because of its deep flavour and smoothness - one can still taste it through mixers and other elements."  Will asked for fresh peaches, creme de peche, lemon and white honey, and while he and Mrs. Foster were out enjoying the Key West sunset our host Haven and I were driving all around town trying to source the ingredients.  Key West is one of the great drinking towns but that's great in the volume sense, not in quality or variety. After hitting almost every liquor store in town with no luck, at our last  stop we did find the Trace, and big bottles too. No creme de peche was to be found, but there was some peach brandy, situated next to racks of the peach schnappes Will had explicitly warned against, and after some soul searching I grabbed it. So the key ingredient was covered-or was it? Three grocery stores later and there were no fresh peaches to be found. So we hit the frozen aisle and grabbed bags of frozen peaches.

Back at Haven's we rendezvoused with the Fosters and brought him up to date on the near misses, a bit   hesitant-the man's an artist behind the bar and you want an artist to have his weapons of choice. No fear. As Will wrote to me later, "When winging it, it is always essential to remember that there's always a way and the show must go on!" So a muddled drink became a frozen one, as the peaches would only work that way, really, and the peach brandy was in fact an acceptable substitute in our pinch.

THE BOSSY BUFFALO

50 ml Buffalo Trace
20 ml peach brandy
1 teaspoon honey
25 ml lemon juice
4 frozen peach slices,
3 ice cubes, blended

Of course, these proportions were quadrupled by Will as he made blender-size batches of the Bossy Buffalo, and it all worked out perfectly.

Mr. and Mrs. Foster, impressed by the massive jug of Trace, dutifully document it.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Foster picking mint for the batch of Mint Juleps they served.

Some guests were a little taken aback by how strong they were: essentially just bourbon, mint and sugar, and crushed ice. As they chill up in the glass and the ice melts they become much more manageable for the bourbon novice. Will advises infusing  the bourbon with the mint at least overnight to achieve a very saturated flavor. Our resident Kentuck native Jenny (left) approved of the Juleps, which was doubly nice as the mint came from her garden. J.R.

Casita Bar

Sagatiba Velha,

Buffalo Trace

And everyone was quite happy at the end of the party.