Category: cocktails

Cocktail of the Week – Aviation

Aviation

This week continues the trend of popular pre-Prohibition cocktails with the Aviation. This cocktail is a a mix of gin, Maraschino, and lemon juice. The original recipe calls for creme de violette, but that’s a hard, and expensive, liquor to find and doesn’t add much more than a purplish-blue hue to the drink. Many bartenders skip it, as I have.

Aviation
The ingredients

Aviation

  • 1 1/2 oz. gin
  • 3/4 oz. maraschino liquor
  • 1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice

Add ingredients to an ice filled shaker. Shake well until thoroughly chilled. Pour into cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry. (Please use an actual cherry not one of those disturbingly highlighter red “maraschino cherries.”)

Aviation

The Aviation is a tricky cocktail. I made a number of them and the balance between the liquids is very important. A little too much lemon juice and its too sour, too much gin and you can’t taste anything else. Even the maraschino liquor can throw the whole drink off. I found that being a light on the gin and a little heavy on the lemon juice made for an ideal drink.

The Aviation isn’t a popular cocktail. I don’t think I’ve ever heard one ordered at a bar. I know why too. It doesn’t take much to mess it up and even when you have a perfectly made one it isn’t going to “wow” you. Maraschino liquor might also be a turn off for people. It’s an interesting liquor that starts sweet but leaves a herbal, acidic, minerally aftertaste that takes some time to get used to. I ended up with a version of the drink I’m happy with but I don’t see myself making, or ordering, it that often…

Cocktail of the Week – Horse’s Neck

Horse's Neck

I know I talked about Autumn and cooling weather last Monday but as soon as I posted last week the temperatures here in central Northern California spiked with the mercury rising back into the 100s… One step forward and two steps back. This week we go with a the refreshing and cool Horse’s Neck.

Since I went ahead and picked up a bottle of brandy I wanted to make sure I included it in some cocktails. The first of which is the Horse’s Neck, a simple cooler that was popular before Prohibition. Originally made with brandy and ginger ale or soda when it was revitalized bourbon replaced the brandy, ginger beer was substituted for ginger ale and angostura bitters were added.

Horse's Neck
The ingredients

Horse’s Neck

  • 2 oz. brandy or bourbon
  • 3 dashes Angostura bitters
  • Ginger beer/ale
  • lemon for garnish

Peel a lemon in one long spiral, twist the peel around finger or spoon to create a coil. Place the peel in a Collins glass with one end hanging over the lip. Fill glass with ice. Add brandy and bitters. Top glass with ginger beer/ale.

Horse's Neck

The sweetness of the brandy blends nicely with sharp, pepperiness of the ginger beer and the bitters. It’s also really easy to make! By far the hardest part was peeling the lemon for the garnish, a step you may skip if you want. Though the long coil going up the Collins glass makes for a great presentation it isn’t actually necessary for the cocktail.

Best of all when its over 90 degrees outside at 8:00 PM this is a cold, delicious drink.Tonight I’m enjoying mine at my kitchen table instead of out on the patio…

Cocktail of the Week – Sidecar

SidecarIt seems we’re finally moving into Autumn here in Northern California. The temperature during the day day isn’t rising into the 90s or 100s and the nights are cooling down into the 60s. (Edit: Of course as soon as I write this up the temperature shoots up into the 90s again…) With the move into Fall you can expect the cocktails to be less fruity and a little warmer. To welcome in the season I picked up some cognac and made that most classic of cocktails, the Sidecar.

Sidecar
The ingredients

Sidecar

  • 3/4 oz. triple sec
  • 3/4 oz. lemon juice
  • 1 1/2 oz. cognac

Pour ingredients into a shaker with cracked ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The rim of the glass may be sugar coated and a lemon twist may be used as a garnish

Sidecar

The Sidecar is first mentioned in a book around 1907. It’s current form is believed to have taken shape around the end of the First World War in either London or Paris. I’m most reminded of a sour when drinking a Sidecar, the lemon juice providing most of the flavor with the cognac and triple sec mellowing out and sweetening the drink. Some of called the Sidecar the only good thing to come out of Prohibition. Which is a silly thing to say because the drink came out of Europe… The cocktail is a beautiful, glowing strawberry-straw color and it’s taste is a wonderful blend of citrus and brandy. Don’t be afraid to tweak with the amounts until you find the blend you find most please. Just be careful! So smooth is this drink that it can sneak up on. Two or three go by before you know it!

Sidecar

Cocktail of the Week: Caipirinha

Caipirinha

I know, I know you’re asking what the hell is a Caipirinha? It’s the national cocktail of Brazil, a combination of cachaça, lime, and white sugar. I know, I know you’re asking what the hell cachaça is? It’s a sugarcane liquor. No, it isn’t rum. Rum is generally made from molasses while cachaça is made from the fermentation and distillation of fresh sugarcane juice.

It used to be nearly impossible to get a Caipirinha in the US because of the rarity of cachaça. That is slowly changing as the market in the US has started to see high quality brands enter the country. I’m pretty open about my admiration of the Brazilian people and culture and when I realized cachaça was appearing on American liquor store shelves I rushed out to purchase some and make Brazil’s most recognizable cocktail.

Caipirinha
The ingredients

Caipirinha

  • 1 2/3 oz. cachaça
  • 1 lime quartered
  • 2 tsps white sugar

Muddle lime and sugar in an old fashioned glass. Fill the glass with crushed ice and add cachaça.

Caipirinha

Caipirinhas are delicious, smooth and refreshing. Not too sweet and with a hint of bitter from the oils in the lime peel. Though they are also strong. Make sure you stir the drink after adding everything to incorporate the lime juice and sugar into the alcohol. They remind me a lot of a mojito minus the mint and with more sour from the lime. Tasting this good and being this simple the Caipirinha might be the perfect cocktail for summer evenings.

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