EMBURY COCKTAILS

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

Wednesday's Cocktails: Poolside Sangria & Spicy Pepino

Two more today from the poolside Tres Generaciones party in New Orleans. The Poolside Sangria defied two strong convictions I'd held for decades: first, that tequila and white wine should never, ever play together and second, that peach schanpps should never, ever be played with period. Two simply brutal hangovers from senior year at Catlin Gabel High School led to these aversions.  But Bobby Gleason's winning white tequila-gria (sorry) cleared those misconceptions right up. The Poolside Sangria is perfect for wilted guests seeking relief on a blazingly hot summer afternoon, instantly delivering cottonmouth-grade refreshment and almost just as instantly an inescapable sense of euphoria. Crying out to be batched as a punch, this one.

3G POOLSIDE SANGRIA

1.25 oz Tres Generaciones Plata
.50 oz DeKuyper Peachtree
1.50 oz Fresh Lemon Sour*
1.50 oz Sauvignon Blanc

Build cocktail over ice, garnish with a sliced strawberry a thin lemon wheels.

The more Tabasco that can be added to drinks the better. The jalapeno and Green Tabasco in the Spicy Pepino rocks some serious heat, but the cucumber and cilantro soothe your tongue. Another party-starter.

SPICY PEPINO

1.50 oz. Tres Generaciones Plata
2.0 oz. Fresh Lemon Sour*
3 - ½” slices of peeled cucumber
¼ cup fresh Cilantro leaves (15-20 leaves)
1/3” slice of fresh Jalapeño pepper or 2-3 dashes of Green Tabasco Sauce

In a mixing glass muddle the pepper first then add cucumber and cilantro and muddle again. Now add remaining ingredients and shake vigorously with ice. Double strain using a fine mesh strainer into a chilled cocktail glass,

Garnish with a cucumber wheel on the rim and a floating cilantro leaf.

* HOW TO MAKE FRESH LEMON SOUR: "I use a mix of lemon juice and simple syrup. I always start with 3 parts lemon juice and 2 parts simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water) then adjust them there. I feel it is always better to be a bit tart and add a sweetener to the cocktail because if it is too sweet you can't take sugar out. Some people will use a ratio of equal parts lemon juice + simple syrup + water."

Bobby Gleason, Beam Global Ambassador.

Wednesday's Cocktail: Sweet Breeze

This is from Eddie Perales, Tequila Ambassador for Beam Global. Eddie and Bobby "G" Gleason of Beam served up some impromptu Tres Generacioes Plata cocktails poolside at the W French Quarter on Saturday afternoon at Tales, inviting a few journalists to stop by. Happily we'd wound up on that list, but anyone lucky enough to be staying at the W that afternoon was in for a treat as well. You walked in to the the courtyard and were greeted by giant platters of cucumbers, strawberries, lemons, limes, basil and jalapeno--more fresh produce than I'd encountered in a week of unrepentantly fatty and heavy New Orleans cuisine. Not that you'd want the food any other way, but you do begin to yearn for something fresh and green and uncooked.

The fresh fruit and the bracingly clean, triple-distilled Plata in Eddie and Bobby's capable hands helped clear away some of the the fog of Tales and for a couple of hours we felt human again. Bobby wrote us about his creation:

SWEET BREEZE

1 ½ oz. Tres Generaciones Tequila Plata

Take 6 fresh basil leaves put in a glass shaker with one half peeled red grapefruit, four large ripe  strawberries, muddle altogether

Then add fresh lemon sour, (I took the juice of six lemons and added a table spoon of orange marmalade and boiled it together, let it cool and added it to my cocktail.

Method – add all ingredients together shake “hard and with a smile’ and pour over fresh ice, garnish with a strawberry perched on the rim of glass and dust with fresh ground nutmeg.

Wednesday's Cocktail: Picnic Punch

 

The night before flying down to Key West I stopped into Dressler, where Mark Buettler served up a couple mini versions of some new items on their summer drink menu: boozy little amuse-bouches. A standout was the Picnic Punch, created by his colleague Sarah Oda. Watermelon, mint and Plymouth gin, with simple syrup and lemon. Simple, fresh, and a great little picnic-in-your-kitchen number.  Mark wrote the recipe on the back of a Dressler postcard:
 

After you've added all the ingredients into the mixing glass add ice, shake, and pour into a rocks glass. Instant picnic.

Key West Postcards: The French Poodle

After brunch with a couple rounds of mimosas, and Bottle Number One of decent commercial Chateau St. Michele champagne back home between four of us, Bottle Number Two of the same was looking only moderately exciting. We were all gathered on the front porch of Chris and Erin of Bad Boy Burrito, the late afternoon sun was low and hot and we were all a little dopey. Erin walked inside and returned with a large slice of organic pink grapefruit which she squeezed directly into her almost-full flute. We tried and asked for the same treatment: The French Poodle wipes away the thick coat that decent mimosas and just-okay champagne can leave in your mouth and in your head, and it clears the palette with grapefruit's astringent pop. The complex sweet-and-sourness of the tangy fresh fruit compensates for the merely acceptable sugar of the champagne, and makes drinking it a pleasure again, as well almost feeling like it's good for you. The name's a riff on The Salty Dog, and it's perfect for helping extend a lazy Sunday afternoon in the sub-tropic heat and light. J.R.

THE FRENCH POODLE

Champagne, most any quality
Fresh organic Grapefruit.

Squeeze grapefruit into flute glass of very chilled champagne. Chunks of fruit are good..

J.R.

Wednesday's Cocktail: The Seelbach

As we approach the Kentucky Derby on May 2nd, we'll be talking about bourbon here at Embury. One of my favorite drinks for daytime, and a wonderful one to turn someone onto is The Seelbach. If you've never heard of it it could sound sketchy--a dining companion at Union Square Cafe on a recent Saturday afternoon was extremely dubious at the thought of bourbon and champagne together, but he smiled when he tasted it.

THE SEELBACH (from Gary and Mardee Regan’s New Classic Cocktails)

1 oz bourbon
1/2 oz Cointreau
7 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
7 dashes Angostura bitters
5 oz Champagne
Pour the liquor and bitters into a Champagne flute and stir. Add Champagne and stir again. Garnish with an orange twist.

Lauren Clark of Drink Boston offers this slight, very sensible variation on the Regans' recipe: I prefer to stir the liquor and bitters lightly over ice and then strain them into the Champagne flute before adding the Champagne. It makes a pleasantly chilled drink that is not so cold or watered down that it dulls the spirits’ character.

One's choice of bourbon is always key, of course, but The Seelbach is quite versatile and can be adapted to what's on hand. I'm always a fan of the delicate Basil Hayden but the malty honey of Makers Mark more than compensates for a less than glorious champagne, and knocks a Seelbach out of the park every time. Peychaude's bitters are great to mix with Angostura, but either will do. On a recent Saturday afternoon at Union Square Cafe the bartender doubled up the Angostura due to lack of Peychaudes-to no ill effect.  fact, I'd consider the Seelbach to be marvellously flexible-just stick to bourbon, bitters and something bubbly on top and a litle something sweet and you'll acheive the same response. The one in this photograph was sourced over a long day in Key West, pulling Pechaudes from friends at the Island House, Angostura from Bad Boy Burrito, Martini & Rossi Proseco from Fausto's and Evan Williams Bourbon from my dad's liquor cabinet. An Exacto knife in the toolshed (same toolshed I'd made so many other drinks in) proved to work fine to cut twists, in this case lemon twists-heresy to some as orange is called for, but the lemon added a nice kick. When my dad looked a little wary even after he'd taken a sip, I remembered this was missing something sweet. With no Cointreau or simple syrup around Ijust spooned in some raw sugar, stirred it up and handed it back to him. That got the smile.

Drink Boston

Gary and Mardee Regan

New Classic Cocktails 

Wednesday's Cocktail: William Grant & Sons Quartet

The other night I was a guest at a William Grant & Sons cocktail tasting at the Bouley Test Kitchen on lower, lower, lower West Broadway. Leisurely, intimate, and painlessly informative-the drinks' creators were right there to discuss their inspirations as they made them for you-it was one of those surreal, highly cinematic and unusually gracious evenings you sometimes experience when you write about cocktails.

William Grant's small portfolio boasts a hardy, eclectic array of spirits, so the cocktails employing their brands were all over the map, but unified by a certain elegance and certainly a high grade of craftmanship. Bartenders and brand ambassadors. ringed the room serving Grant-based drinks, four of which were real standouts for me.  William Grant's noted doyenne, Charlotte Voisey, manned the first cocktail station as you entered the kitchen, and we found ourselves migrating back their throughout the evening for another taste of her Blood and Sanguinello, a pink and amber cloud of single-malt scotch, Lillet Rouge, and exotic citrus punched up by Solerno, their new blood orange liqueur.

BLOOD AND SANGUINELLO - Charlotte Voisey

Solerno 0.75 oz
Glenfiddich 0.75 oz
Lillet Rouge 0.75 oz
Fresh pink grapefruit 0.50 oz
Fresh lemon juice 0.25 oz
4 luxardo maraschino cherries
Orange bitters 2.00 dashes
Egg whites

Combine ingredients and shake very well
Serve up in a coupe (or small wine glass)
Garnish with a thin slice of blood orange.

People kept migrating back to Charlotte's table for to further sample the Blood and Sanguinello.

Rob Krueger  of Employees Only and Macao served up his Kobayashi Cocktail, with homemade candied kumquats. He told me he'd wanted to strike a balance between the style of his two establishments.

A Cocktail for the Beer Drinker

 

Tabasco not pictured.

This will probably hit anyone above, say, 34 degrees latitude pretty hard, but for me it's time for summer drinks.

I've relocated to Los Angeles - in November, actually - and while the locals still treat the "winter" here as if it requires scarves and hats, the fact remains today was fully sunny and 69 degrees F. Meaning: I want a warm-weather drink.

Now, this is Embury. We've shown you how to muddle cherries into honey with chamomile tea and fresh-squeezed lemon juice; we've shown you how to blend cilantro, mint, jalapeno, and pineapple juice for a shot to follow good anejo tequila - I get that we're all about the effort that goes into a superlative drink.

But sometimes, it's much, much simpler.

As in the case with a Chelada.

Simply put, a Chelada is a Mexican beer with some local spices and citrus. I'm all for exploring the provenance of this drink, except that I want to make one now, and I want it to taste good - regardless of authenticity.

So, going on the above definition, a Chelada is like a Mexican Bloody Mary that isn't a Bloody Maria. No tequila. I've researched many an article that says a chelada should consist of a regional beer mixed with local peppers, tomatoes, salt, and, weirdly, Worcetershire sauce.

Here's my take: Do you have light beer left over from your party last weekend, as I do? Is some of it Corona, or Pacifico? Can you squeeze the juice of two limes into a large glass, add a shot or two of Tabasco, add ice, then beer, and stir it all together?

If the answer to all of these questions was "yes," you're drinking a very basic form of Chelada. A basic, tasty form that transforms cheap or flavorless beer into something divine - in short, you're drinking a beer cocktail.

Enjoy.  J.C.

Wednesday's Cocktail: The Verdita

Wednesday's Cocktail will also be the Friday Night Cocktail, a rare double booking, but the Verdita is a rare and special creature that merits the expanded coverage. A two part drink, not entirely dissimilar the the Sangrita, with which it is sometimes taken in tandem. Shoot the Verdita, then tequila. The Verdita is mint, cilantro, and jalapeno, finely blended in pineapple juice, then strained.  A good anejo tequila is called for; Embury partnered with Milagro tequila for a Verdita party last month that we filmed for our first throwdown clip. Please check back here Friday for the full story on how to make it, and how we do it.