Bibulo.us - We plead the 21st.

Spread Eagle Punch

When you love your guests and want them to know it, make this powerful and premium punch. It's yet another winner from Jerry Thomas's 1862 How To Mix Drinks by way of David Wondrich and was featured in the December 2009 issue of Esquire magazine. (Do go subscribe; they really have been keeping the quality very high lately and we often read it cover to cover).

One key to this punch is the oleo saccharum – the potent oil which lemon peels will give up to sugar after half an hour or so. There was no liquid in the pot shown in the picture on the right when the peels and sugar were first stirred together. It's magic! (Well, fine, it's osmosis, but that's as good as magic).

As with all good punches, freeze up a big piece of ice using a small bowl 48 hours before you'll be serving.

On the day of your party, peel 1 dozen lemons, getting as little pith as possible. Put them in 2 or 3 gallon pot and muddle them with 1 cup sugar. Leave them alone for 30 minutes and then come back to marvel at the delicious lemon oil exuded.

Add 2 bottles of a nice smoky single-malt Scotch – we recommend Laphroaig – and 2 bottles rye whiskey – Wondrich was right about how wonderful Sazerac is here. Stir, then put in 1 gallon boiling water and stir to dissolve the sugar. Cover and let cool.

When you pour it over your big ice block in your punch bowl later, add 4 thinly sliced, de-seeded lemons and grate half a nutmeg over the top.

Stunning. Possibly literally. This is a 44 proof punch. Put out the small glasses.

Sonoma Libre

While it is not inappropriate to label it "vinegar", Sonomic is unlike any we've tried. From our first taste of its complexity we knew this sweet, tart syrup was destined for our cocktail glasses.

A few brief rounds of experimentation - and perhaps a flash of divine inspiration from Bacchus - brought us to an incredibly simple drink to make that has a complex taste which defies tasters to identify the ingredients and prompts looks of incredulity when telling them there are only two.

Sonoma Libre

2 ounces Rittenhouse Rye 100 (or other strong, spicy rye whiskey)
.5 ounce Sonomic cabernet grape vinegar

Stir with ice to chill and serve in a chilled cocktail glass.

Garnish with a small lime wheel.

Sonomic is the result of a collaboration between winemaker Bill Reading of Sonoma Valley Portworks, distiller Don Payne of Stillwater Spirits, and chef Mike Giacomini, one of Payne's business partners. After only being available in the tasting rooms of Sonoma Valley Portworks, it is newly available in select stores or from Bella Mia Gifts. (A bottle has also, to our surprise, pleasure, and slight exasperation with Neyah White's unerring ingredient radar, already appeared on the backbar at Nopa).

The Bibulo.us Guide to Your Home Bar: Part 3

Our strategic approach in this guide is laid out in a series of steps, let’s call them adventures, which build upon each other and which space out the expense of building your collection of tools, ingredients, and resources. The speed with which you take on these adventures is up to your budget and time, but our goal is for each one to provide an immediate reward and a new array of possibilities.

Through these adventures you will be introduced to the core set of classic cocktails and techniques. Many of the tools, ingredients and other resources described are available through our shopping links.

The first adventure, Tabula Rasa, introduced the Old Fashioned.

In the second, Waltz Time, we focused on the Martini.

Adventure #3: In Her Steam and Her Steel

Possibly the best cocktail in the world, but maybe we feel a little too much passion for the Manhattan. Give it a try, as it really should be made, and see what you think.

Ingredients: rye, sweet vermouth, aromatic bitters, lemon twist or cherry or flamed orange peel.

New techniques: Flaming Orange Peel, Batching Drinks.

Shopping:

• Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth (~$8)
• Luxardo Gourmet Maraschino Cherries (~$17, this may sound like a lot to pay for cherries but they are truly astonishingly good and there are a whole lot of them jammed into this jar; it’s worth every penny)
• A really good garnish knife (if you don’t already have a paring knife you love & can use very safely) Consider a Santoku style which is large enough to discourage you from dangerously cutting fruit in your hand and which has an edge design that makes it easier to start a cut on a firm curved surface like a lime.
• A couple very fresh oranges with a nice strong orange scent on the skin (indicating plenty of orange oils).

Preparation:

Find a safe small candle holder such as might be used in a bar or restaurant.

Get some toothpicks.

Light the candle & place it on your bar surface but a little bit out of your way, resting on a saucer with a bit of water in it.

Making the drink:

1. Wash your hands.
2. Rinse the lemon and the orange.
3. Chill three glasses if you don’t have them already cold in the freezer.
4. Set out the cutting mat, rye, sweet vermouth, orange bitters, lemon, cherries, orange, mixing container, jigger, barspoon, Hawthorn strainer, channel knife and garnish knife.
5. Measure & add .5 oz x 3 = 1.5 oz sweet vermouth to the mixing container.
6. Shake a dash (a “dash” means its okay if it’s several drops) of orange bitters into the mixing container. Do this twice more because you’re making three servings.
7. Measure & add 1 oz x 3 = 3 oz rye.
8. Stir with ice (remember to add more ice because your liquid level is higher in the mixing container).
9. Strain evenly into the 3 chilled glasses. (Try to pour an ounce into each and then even them up in small pours as you dispense the rest of the liquid. Notice how the melt from the ice has increased the fluid beyond the added ingredients.)
10. Move a glass somewhat away from the others so that the lemon oil doesn’t spray across them & add a small lemon twist.
11. Move the second glass near the first and use your barspoon to gently drop one cherry from the jar into it.
12. Take the orange and, holding on the cutting mat end up, use the garnish knife to slice off a stripe of the outer skin, about 1” wide and 2” long, trying not to squeeze it as you handle it.
13. Light a toothpick in the candle (we recommend using toothpicks rather than matches in order to avoid the sulfur smell) and, holding the flame about 3” above & away from the drink, pick up the orange peel strip delicately (like an eggshell, as Dale DeGroff says) by the edges, angle it towards the drink about an inch further away from the drink than the flame and squeeze. The orange oils should be expressed, passing through the flame & igniting before falling onto the drink. Drop the toothpick in the water in the saucer and throw away the peel.
14. Not to worry, this takes a little practice. Read the description from King Cocktail himself and try again if you didn’t get a nice burst the first time.
15. Rinse your bar tools.
16. Compare your drinks. We’d recommend the lemon twist version first, since you have had a rye drink with that garnish before (the Old Fashioned). Next the orange version, since it’s going to be closer in flavor to the lemon version. Lastly try the one with the cherry. Notice the impact of the different garnishes. Which works best for you with this rye, this vermouth, and these proportions?

Progress report:

You can make multiples of a drink at once. You have a new garnishing technique. Since you have oranges, you can try making orange twists with your channel knife and orange zests. With those and the cherries, your world of garnishes continues to expand. You now also have a new kind of vermouth. Compare half an ounce of each served in room temperature glasses (so you can really taste the differences). You’re learning to analyze your ingredients and to see where particular ones perform well or poorly in a given recipe.

Where you can go from here with these skills:
Try the three Manhattans again sometime using Angostura aromatic bitters instead of orange bitters.

Revisit the Martini concept using gin and sweet vermouth. 2:1 with Angostura bitters and a lemon twist is an Artillery or with an orange peel instead of the lemon it’s a Sunshine. 3:1 with no bitters and a lemon twist is a Blackstone. 2:1 with orange bitters is a Rex Cocktail. 1:1 with both aromatic and orange bitters is a Hearst Cocktail. 2:1 with Peychaud’s bitters (which you’d have to go buy since we didn’t already send you shopping for them) is a Hilliard Cocktail. 2:1:1 bringing in sweet AND dry vermouth with aromatic bitters is a Farmer’s Cocktail or with orange peel it becomes a Kup’s Indispensable or at 8:1:1 with the lemon twist again it’s a Perfect. 3:1:1 with 2 dashes of orange bitters and an orange peel is an R.C.A. Special Cocktail. 3:1:1 with a dash each of aromatic and orange bitters is a Wild Rose Cocktail.

As you can see gin + vermouth(s) + maybe some bitters + citrus peel garnish of some sort is the foundation of a panoply of cocktails (indeed, much of the Savoy Cocktail Book).

For vermouth variations using rye whiskey, try a Dry Manhattan, Perfect Manhattan, or a Jumbo.

You can also try some other recipes using these other new ingredients, with specific recommendations where we have them noted:
Honolulu or Rosemary or Brown University (buy some bourbon, say Four Roses (~$22) or Buffalo Trace or Bulleit (both ~$23))
One Of Mine Cocktail (squeeze some juice from one of those partially skinned oranges)
Smiler (also using some orange juice)
Martinez (buy Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur(~$28))
Move Over Cocktail (buy Cherry Heering (~$24))
Rob Roy (buy Dewar’s blended scotch, either White Label or 12 year & check the prices  since the bottle twice the size might be only 25% more expensive (~$21-28))
Black Manhattan (buy Averna (~$29))

The Bibulo.us Guide to Your Home Bar: Part 1

Somehow, somewhere, you had a drink which blew your doors off and enlightened you to what a cocktail could really be. Now that your eyes are open to the vast and beautiful landscape of possibility, how to begin exploring it? In these trying economic times, may we recommend a two-fold approach?

• When you drink out on the town, spend your dollars on quality and your time on people from whom you can learn.
On our site we will highlight the sorts of places and bartenders we admire and are grateful to for the experiences they provide. While we’ve learned much from websites and books, the core of a great bartender is not recipes or drink assembly technique, but the skill of hosting. This you learn best by being served and by watching good service. It is the grace that takes a drink to its highest level; the right drink for the imbiber, made with care, delivered with charm and respect.

• At home, build your home bar and your own knowledge and skills strategically.
Better tools and ingredients cost more, yes, but not all that much more and they will serve you far better. In this guide we hope to help you optimize your expenditures for outstanding results.

Our strategic approach in this guide is laid out in a series of steps, let’s call them adventures, which build upon each other and which space out the expense of building your collection of tools, ingredients, and resources. The speed with which you take on these adventures is up to your budget and time, but our goal is for each one to provide an immediate reward and a new array of possibilities.

Through these adventures you will be introduced to the core set of classic cocktails and techniques. Many of the tools, ingredients and other resources described are available through our shopping links.

Adventure #1: Tabula Rasa

On this blank slate inscribe the ancestral cocktail, the Old Fashioned.

Ingredients: ice, simple syrup, aromatic bitters, rye whiskey, lemon twist.

New techniques: Cracking Ice, Building In Glass, Stirring, Garnishing with a Twist.

Your ice needs to be fresh and not taste like your freezer. If you don’t have really good tap water, use filtered water or bottled water; ice melt is a significant taste factor in good drinks. Your cubes should be larger, to reduce melt. Avoid fancy shapes which provide too much melting surfaces. If you don’t have an ice cube tray, we recommend the Beaba Multiportion Freezer Tray (tray & lid $19.95). A good fallback from that larger, lidded tray is the Tovolo “Perfect Cube” silicone tray (set of 2 ~$15). The cube shape is a good compromise between freezing speed and cube size, but you’ll want to keep a lidded container in the freezer to hold the cubes once made so they don’t pick up freezer tastes & smells. With soft silicone trays, just push the base of the cube to extract it, rather than twisting the whole tray as one does with a hard tray. [Note: As of 2015 we no longer recommend silicone trays as they tend over time to pick up and firmly retain unpleasant freezer smells and tastes. Instead, try a non-silicone, lidded plastic tray. Oxo makes several including individual larger sizes as part of their Tot line.]

 

Shopping:

• Angostura bitters (4oz jar ~$7)
• Old Overholt rye (750ml bottle ~$15) (If unavailable, substitute Pikesville, Rittenhouse, Rittenhouse 100, or Wild Turkey 101)
• Zyliss Easy Grip channel knife/zester (~$8)
• heavy duty stainless steel bar spoon (~$5, avoid the red plastic ended kind)
• Oxo Mini Angled Measuring cup/jigger (set of 3 ~$10)
• lemon with clean unblemished skin (less than $1. Always use fresh fruit; it has a huge impact on your drinks)

Preparation:

If your freezer is smelly, clean it; you don’t want that smell to come into your cocktails by way of the ice. Freeze up some nice fresh ice. 
Locate a completely clean kitchen towel (unless by some chance you already own a Lewis bag, in which case use that and tell us why someone with Lewis bag needs help setting up their home bar).
 Locate an old fashioned or rocks glass, i.e. a smaller, fairly straight-sided, flat-bottomed glass.

Make simple syrup by heating 1 cup water in a small pan on the stove or in a microwave-proof dish in the microwave until it is steaming, pour in 1 cup sugar, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves and the liquid is clear. Let cool and then store in the refrigerator in a sealed container (e.g. a clean glass jar that doesn’t have any smell remaining from whatever it previously contained).

Optional, but recommended: locate a thin silicone cutting mat. These are usually cheap (around $2) and provide a super simple-to-clean bar surface. Just do your mixing on top of the mat and then rinse it along with your other bar tools. Very handy when dealing with simple syrup and sticky liqueurs.

Making the drink:

1. Wash your hands.
2. Rinse off the lemon to remove any wax, chemical residue, or fingerprints of unknown picky shoppers who came before you.
3. On top of your cutting mat, set out your glass, bitters, rye, barspoon, zester, and jigger.
4. Set your clean towel beside it.
5. Put a teaspoon of simple syrup in the bottom of the glass.
6. Add two dashes of Angostura bitters.
7. Stir to blend.
8. Place enough ice to mostly fill your glass on the towel, then twist the towel around the ice and strike it sharply against the countertop once or twice to crack the ice a bit. (Alternately, rinse the barspoon and use its handle end to crack each cube in the palm of your hand. This takes a bit of practice, which we recommend you do in private before attempting for guests). Your goal is to split the cubes into a 2 or 3 pieces to provide a bit more melting surface and more interesting shapes.
9. Add the ice to the glass by lifting the large chunks from the towel (trying to shake from the towel into the glass will only lead to a mess and too watered down a drink).
10. Pour 1.5 oz of rye into your jigger and add it to the glass.
11. Stir with your barspoon to chill. Do not “chop” the barspoon up and down, instead insert it along the side of the glass and gentle swirl the whole contents of the glass. Your goal eventually is to keep the contents circulating smoothly while having no risk of spilling them as you make eye contact and conversation with a guest. Stir for at least 20 seconds.
12. Cut your lemon twist over the glass by holding the fruit firmly in one hand, digging the blade of the channel knife into the peel, and drawing it around the fruit as you rotate it with the holding hand. The oils from the peel should spray across the glass and you should be getting almost entirely zest with little white pith. For this drink a short twist an inch or two long is appropriate. Use your index finger on the hand holding the fruit to catch the twist and hold it against the fruit after it’s cut. Set down the channel knife, take the twist and wipe the peel side (not the bitter white pith) against the rim of the glass, then drop it in.
13. Rinse your bar tools.
14. Enjoy your drink.

Progress report:

You now have the base equipment for measured drinks which are not shaken or strained. You have a clean work surface and good ice. You have good ice which you can use cracked in cocktails where you want more dilution or uncracked to chill without watering down a drink or spirit served by itself. Using the back of your barspoon as a surface onto which to carefully pour a float, you can layer an ingredient atop a drink. Your channel knife also includes a zester (the little holes) which give you an alternative way to add citrus flavor and a visually pleasing garnish to a drink. You can also use zest in creating a citrus-flavored simple syrup. You have Angostura bitters which when dashed into soda water can help settle the stomach.

Where you can go from here with these tools & skills:
non-rye Old Fashioneds (buy a better grade gin, brandy, rum, tequila or Irish whiskey and follow exactly this same recipe).

You can also try some other recipes using these other new ingredients, with specific recommendations where we have them noted:
Champagne Cocktail (buy decent champagne, sugar cubes, champagne flutes to serve in)
Black Velvet (buy decent champagne, Guinness stout, champagne flutes to serve in)
Caipirinha (buy cachaça, a lime)
Improved Holland Gin Cocktail (buy Bols Genever (~$50), Peychaud’s Bitters (~$4), and Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur(~$28))

The Clerkenwell

What happens when a bunch of cocktail geeks get together? Well, apart from a lot of photography of their concoctions, peculiar inventing sometimes takes place.

I mentioned a friend from Britain bringing me gifts including the real version of Worcestershire sauce, which uses malt vinegar and does not contain high fructose corn syrup.

Someone, maybe ol' lazybones on the right there, said "Why aren't there any drinks that use Worcestershire sauce?"

That's all it takes with this bunch.

A short discussion of flavor profiles took place and without further ado, a winning drink was created on the first try.

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you what the world has been waiting for, named for the famous Italian neighborhood in London, please enjoy The Clerkenwell cocktail.

2 oz Rittenhouse rye
1 oz Punt e Mes
2 dashes Worcestershire sauce (English variety!)

Stir on ice and strain into cocktail glass.
Ideally garnish with an orange twist so you get the orange oils over the top. (Those out of oranges, should use a nice bright orange bitters like Angostura Orange or Fee Brothers' Orange. If you've got a frozen orange slice, drop that in as garnish).

Liberal

Perhaps due to the change in Amer Picon's recipe in the 1970's rendering it lower proof we don't really know what this drink is supposed to taste like, however, if you can get your hands on a bottle of the stuff currently available in Europe (e.g through Gerry's of Soho, London) you will not find yourself disappointed. If this is a shadow it's former self, it's still a darn tasty shadow.

Robert Hess has also suggested that Torani Amer is a good substitute for Amer Picon, an experiment the authors have not yet had opportunity to make. If so, you may wish to add a drop of orange bitters to better replicate the taste of the original Amer Picon - or so it's been said Ted Haigh who has tasted the original has advised. Dave Wondrich, as Splificator of the eGullet forums, was able to do a head-to-head comparison against the pre-1970s Amer Picon and various bitters and recommends Amaro Ciociaro as the closest match. Other drinkers in the eGullet thread encourage the use of orange bitters with the Amaro Ciociaro as well.

The truly bold are encouraged to make their own Amer Picon, following the instructions of bartender Jamie Boudreau.

 

We recommend rye whiskey for the Liberal.

Recipes:

1895 Modern American Drinks by George J. Kappeler

Fill a mixing glass half-full fine ice
1 dash syrup
Half a jigger [1 oz] Amer Picon bitters
Half a jigger [1 oz] whiskey
Mix, strain into cocktail glass
Small piece of lemon peel on top

By the 1930s the drink had changed dramatically.

1935 The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book by Albert Stevens Crockett

Dash of orange bitters
3 dashes Amer Picon
One-half Whiskey
One-half Italian vermouth (stir)

The Manhattan

The Manhattan is one of the archetypal classic cocktails and it is here we begin the bibulo.us journey.

It is basically some whiskey, usually less sweet vermouth, plus a dash of some kind of bitters. Traditionally it is made with rye, the spiciness of which plays nicely with the flavors of the vermouth. It originated in New York, probably in the 1870s, but beyond that there is disagreement over its precise origin.

The personal experience of the bibulo.us authors is to recommend Carpano Antica Formula as the vermouth most suited to the drink.

Recipes:

1884 How To Mix Drinks - Bar Keeper's Handbook [by George Winter?] (cited by Wondrich 2007)

2 or 3 dashes of Peruvian Bitters
1 to 2 dashes (.5 tsp) of gum syrup
One-half wine glass (1.5 oz) of whiskey
One-half wine glass (1.5 oz) of vermouth
(no garnish mentioned)

1892 The Flowing Bowl by William "The Only William" Schmidt (cited by Wondrich 2007)

Half a tumblerful of cracked ice
2 dashes (.5 tsp) of gum
2 dashes of bitters
1 dash of absinthe
2/3 drink (2 oz) of whiskey
1/3 drink (1 oz) of vino vermouth
(a little (1/4 tsp) marschino may be added)

1895 Modern American Drinks by George J. Kappeler

Fill mixing glass half-full fine ice
2 dashes gum syrup
2 dashes Peyschaud [sic] or Angostura bitters
1 half jigger Italian vermouth
1 half jigger whiskey
Mix, strain into cocktail glass
Garnish with piece of lemon peel or a cherry

Dry version: without syrup or cherry.
Extra dry version: dry version with French vermouth instead of Italian

1907 The World's Drinks and How To Mix Them by William "Cocktail" Boothby

2 dashes of orange bitters
2 drops of Angostura bitters
1/2 jiggerful of Italian vermouth
1/2 jiggerful of bourbon whiskey
Stir, strain and twist & squeeze a lemon peel over the top.

A variant with a faint touch of Curacao apparently was all the rage among the science community in the early 20th century:

1910 The Scientific American Cyclopedia of Formulas Partly Based Upon the 28th Ed. of Scientific American Cyclopedia of Receipts, Notes and Queries by Albert Allis Hopkins

Vermouth wineglassful
whisky wineglassful
simple syrup 30 drops
Angostura bitters 10 drops
Curacoa 6 drops
a little shaved ice
lemon peel 1 small strip

Put all the ingredients except the lemon rind into a large tumbler
cover the top closely shake well and strain into a wineglass
Place the strip of lemon peel on the top and serve.

1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock

2 dashes curacao or maraschino
1 pony rye whisky
1 wineglass vermouth (mixed)
3 dashes Angostura bitters
2 small lumps of ice
Shake, strain, garnish with one quarter slice of lemon.

or

1 dash Angostura bitters
2/3 Canadian Club whisky
1/3 Ballor Italian vermouth
Shake, strain, garnish with cherry.

or

Sweet version: equal parts Italian vermouth and rye whisky, no garnish.
Dry version: half rye whisky, 1/4 each French & Italian vermouth.

1933 The American Bar Guide by R.C. Miller (2nd edition)

1/2 wine glass whiskey
1/2 wine glass vermouth
2 dashes bitters
3 dashes gum syrup
Strain in cocktail glass.

1935 The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book by Albert Stevens Crockett

Dash of orange bitters
One-half Italian vermouth
One-half rye whiskey (stir)
Serve with maraschino cherry

or

2 dashes orange bitters
2 pinches sugar
One-half Italian vermouth
One-half Irish whiskey

1946 The Stork Club Bar Book by Lucius Beebe

2/3 oz rye whisky
1/3 oz Italian vermouth
Decorate with maraschino cherry, stir, and serve.

1998 Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century by Paul Harrington

2 oz rye
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
1 to 2 dashes Angostura bitters (optional)
Stir, strain, garnish with maraschino cherry.

2002 Esquire Drinks by David Wondrich

Stir well with cracked ice
2 oz good rye
1 oz Italian vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters or orange bitters
Strain into chilled cocktail glass and garnish with [lemon] twist or maraschino cherry.

2006 The Art of the Bar by Jeff Hollinger & Rob Schwartz

"Uptown" Manhattan
2 oz bourbon (preferably Maker's Mark)
1 oz Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
Dash of Angostura bitters
Dash of orange bitters
3 brandied cherries for garnish
Orange twist for garnish

Robert Hess' The Cocktail Spirit video demonstration

Steve & Paul's Cocktail Buzz episode pairing the drink with bacon-wrapped dates

Chris Doig's Brilliant Cocktails video demonstration

Other useful references:

History & recipe variants in Imbibe! by David Wondrich, pages 236-243

Wikipedia entry

Wikitender entry