EMBURY COCKTAILS

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.

 

Literary Cocktails: Molé Margarita Punch

For the final party at the Key West Literary Seminar we decided to pull out the stops and make a really dazzling, seemingly improbable cocktail as the grand finale. Over the 3 days of the Seminar our little cocktail table had gained something of a faithful following, with repeat visitors who sought us out and even one group that referred to themselves as our "groupies", which was flattering. I was struck by how this sophisticated, literate crowd of (as I like to refer to them) lifetime New Yorker subscription holders found the notion of specialty cocktails to be quite novel. It's easy living in New York and being within this whole cocktail scene to forget that this boozy renaissance has not quite hit outside of urban centers--there are certainly exceptions around the country, little bars and restaurants that take the craft of the cocktail seriously, but there's plenty of room for education and better libations.

So when we began serving the molé margarita minds were promptly blown.

It's gone by different names since Mark Buettler created it in the fall at Dressler, after challenging himself to find a way to use Ovaltine in a cocktail. When German bitters outfit Bittermans came out with their Xocolatl Molé Bitters, he saw a way to crack the code. The resulting neo-margarita was called Puebla on the Dressler menu, but I called it Y Tu Molé Tambien when I first wrote about it. We re-dubbed it the  Tarnished Halo at a party for James Rosenquist where Mark did the cocktail catering and renamed the drink after one of the artist's pieces. But for for the purposes of the party I simply referred to it as a "molé margarita"....and the crowd went wild. I'd batched it by sense rather than measurements---I had the luxury of having had many, many of the originals from Mark's hands. And in lieu of using store bought Orgeat Chris Otten of Bad Boy Burrito made a batch from scratch, toasting almonds for a couple hours, then cooking them down with a quite a lot of dark agave nectar--he did it using his considerable cuisine kung fu, dispensing with anything resembling a recipe, so I can't tell you what he did. But Torani makes a perfectly fine Orgeat (here). Like with the Bennett punch we made a big batch, shook individual drinks with ice and strained into glasses, topping with the bitters as a final touch. These glasses were rimmed with the crowning touch--a combination of Ovaltine, almond flour and Murray River Flake Salt. I'd recommend starting small and making individual drinks before jumping up to the punch version--get to know the flavor and you'll be able to tweak the big version to your taste. Here is the original recipe:

Y TU MOLE TAMBIEN/TARNISHED HALO

1 1/2 oz blanco tequila

1/2 oz fresh lime juice

1/3 oz dark agave nectar

1/3 oz Orgeat

Shake Strain into a Double Rocks Glass rimmed with Ovaltine/Almond Flour/Sea Salt

Add Fresh Ice

Top with 4 Dashes of Bittermans Xocolatl Molé Bitters

Give a Slight Stir to Incorporate the Bitters and Serve....

Rim Mixture:

2 parts Ovaltine
2 parts almond flour
1 part sea salt (Mark used  Fleur de Sel de Guerande, we used Murray River Pink Flake Salt)

Happy literati, suffused in a molé and tequila glow.

Torani Orgeat

Bittermans Bitters

All Mark Buettler posts and videos 

Literary Cocktails: The Bennett

The weather was erratic in Key West over the 4 days of the Literary Seminar this year, ranging from bizarrely cool, wet and blustery on Saturday to a typical sunny January day with a high in the low 70s on Friday. This was fortunate as the drink I'd planned for then was the beguiling citrus and gin number, The Bennett, a perfect warm weather choice (although I've had 'em in the dead of winter with no ill effect.) We were stationed on the second floor of the historical building where the Seminar is held, the San Carlos Institute, a beautiful 1924 structure whose design echoes many elements of Cuban architecture--the Institute was founded by expatriates led by Jose Marti in 1871.  We anticipated about 100 guest for that evening's party and so batched up a large quantity, expanding from the original recipe:

THE BENNETT

1 1/2 ounce Hendrick's Gin
3/4 ounce lime juice
3/4 ounce simple syrup
2 dashes Regans' Orange Bitters

Shake and pour over ice into a rocks glass, or strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a cucumber slice.

We expanded this pretty massively, working from the basis that a 1 liter bottle equals 33 ounces, which means one bottle contains 22 1 1/2 ounce servings. Thus was born:

THE BENNETT PUNCH

4 liters Hendrick's Gin
2 liters fresh lime juice (fresh is key--if you don't have a juice, try a local juice bar and arrange to purchase the necessary quantity of juice from them.)
2 liters simple syrup (we started with Demerara sugar which brought a nice base note that anchored the high citrus element)

We batched the whole thing in a large container, then shook each one to order, which added some necessary ice and water into the mix. We strained into plastic cups garnished with cucumber slices, and as a finishing touch hit each one with a couple drops of Gary Regan's Orange Bitters #5 as we served each drink, which brought that orange, cardamom flavor right to the nose on the first sip.

A couple things I learned: you can't ever have enough of a punch, for if it's tasty enough someone will invariably come back looking for more, and also that 8 ounce plastic cups fall over under the weight of cucumber garnishes. Otherwise, armed with this info, you're ready to make this one for your next party--it's light, refreshing, and not too potent, but the citrus, sugar and general delightfulness of it gets guests happy fast.

 

Here's Jim Ryan of Hendrick's explaining how to make a single Bennett:

Past Key West Literary Seminar posts here

Literary Cocktails: The Beautiful Toddies

Photo: Curt Richter

When the Director of the Key West Literary Seminar, Miles Frieden, asked me to come down to do a little specialty cocktail table for the various parties that follow the days' more sober proceedings I simply reviewed Embury and pulled some of the best recipes we've run over the years (yes, years!) and batched them up. But for the first night's party I pulled a last minute substitution. The same cold snap that descended over the rest of the continent did in fact reach Key West and nighttime temperatures in the low 40s meant that an outdoor partygoers could really use something warm. 

A last minute experimentation with my crack drinking & concocting team from Bad Boy Burrito yielded the below version of a hot toddie. My one bit of advice for serving 300 people a cocktail with hot water as an integral part: make sure you've got working hot water source. And if you get percolators, make sure they don't have a residual coffee aftertaste. My assistant Zeph Allen and I worked with the one acceptable percolator and made it work, shuttling hot water across the garden in air pots. A bank of 3 or 4  instantly heating tea pots would have been nice. I'd named the Toddie after Seminar honoree Richard Wilbur's poem "The Beautiful Changes"

THE BEAUTIFUL TODDIE

(We used 8 ounce paper cups)

1 good slug of dark agave nectar, just enough to fill the bottom of the cup (to about 1/3 inch.)

1 1/2 ounces Maker's Mark

Hot water--fill to about an 3/4 inch from the rim, and stir about 5 times

Squeeze and drop in a substantial lemon wedge

Top with a couple healthy dashes of Fee Bros. Grapefruit Bitters.

The Grapefruit Bitters push the whole flavor equation into a zestier zone, bringing up the citrus and offsetting the sweetness of the agave and the Maker's Mark perfectly. By all accounts this was a home run, warming guests so sucessfully that many were able to brave the chilly night for a couple hours, and a couple rounds.

Helper monkey Zeph Allen taking the wheel. (One uses "helper monkey" in the most affectionate sense, and of course it comes from a Simpsons episode where Homer gets one as a sort of drinking & slacking buddy.) It was cool to watch a non-bartender start to get the whole key notion of balance in cocktails, and play with levels and tweak ingredients, an innate sensibility that probably is rooted in his musicianship. Towards the end of the evening Zeph made a few alternate iterations, subbing some light agave for the dark to refreshing, less knock-out drops effect

 

Jolly Benson, Lighting Director for the KWLS and too-infrequent Embury contributor (here) and myself.

Check out Littoral, the blog for the Seminar, here, and look for podcasts of readings and talks from the Seminar at the Audio Archives.

Tomorrow: The Bennet for 200.

Photos: Ian Rowan