Cocktail Hacker

This week we’re going to be highlighting a cocktail that nearly everyone has heard of if not sampled. However, my guess is you’ve never had it made the right way. Sours are a traditional family of cocktails that date back to the time of Jerry Thomas’ How to Mix Drinks. Their composition is generally very simple. Composed of a base spirit, a sour ingredient, and a sweetener. In our Whiskey Sour we’ll be using whiskey (Bourbon per the recipe), lemon juice, and simple syrup. The recipe we are starting with adds a bit of a wrinkle by adding some bitters and an egg white.

Whiskey Sour #2 (Difford's Guide #7)

[Ingredients]

2 oz Bourbon Whiskey

1 oz Lemon Juice

1/2 oz Rich Syrup

3 Dashes Angostura Bitters

1/2 Fresh Egg White

[Directions]

1) Shake ingredients with ice

2) Strain into a glass with ice

[Notes]

• Add the egg white last or it will start to clot

• Shake the drink a little longer than usual to make the egg white frothy

I had every intention of making this week’s cocktail some how related to our immense Vegas winnings, but in my searching I only found the Millionaire cocktail. Sadly though, when trying it I was under impressed. So maybe some other time.

So, I’m a relatively simple guy with relatively simple tastes, and it should be known that if a cocktail’s name includes the word Grog you can count me in. Gets me back to my pirate roots, you know. So, when I ran across a reference to Navy Grog while researching Tiki cocktails I knew I had to make one. One of the ingredients also piqued my interest, Allspice Syrup.

Allspice syrup is nothing more than simple syrup that has been infused with Allspice. There was a simple recipe given on the Tiki Central Forums. I used this as my base and went from there. I used an entire container of allspice that I got from the local Safeway, on sale no less. Rather than grinding the allspice in a spice grinder I chose to crack them in a mortar and pestle. My thinking being that this would make it much easier to filter out the solids after infusing. I combined one cup of white sugar with one cup of water and the cracked allspice berries. Simmered the lot, stirring occasionally for 2 minutes to dissolve the sugar. Then turned off the heat, covered the pot and let it sit for two hours. By now the wonderful smell of allspice had filled my apartment and I was loving it.

Now came the part I had been slightly dreading, filtering. In the past I haven’t had much luck with the coffee filter method as it takes way too long to filter. A strainer is much faster but tends to leave some of the smallers bits in the solution, not a great option. In one of my lesser use cupboards I found a French press coffee pot, which turned out to be a perfect answer. I poured the syrup and spice bits into the pot and slowly depressed the plunger. Since my grind wasn’t terribly fine the filter was able to remove all the solids leaving a nice brown flavored syrup. I added my usual one ounce of everclear to increase the syrup’s longevity and I was ready for cocktail making.

The recipe I used was also from the Tiki Central discussion referenced above and is credited to Jeff “Beachbum” Berry’s Grog Blog.

Navy Grog

[Ingredients]

3/4 oz Fresh Lime Juice

1/2 oz Grapefruit Juice

3/4 oz Allspice Syrup

1 oz Light Puerto Rican Rum

1 oz Gold Jamaican Rum

1 oz Demerara Rum

[Directions]

1) Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker

2) Shake well with ice to combine and chill

3) Strain in to a Double Old Fashioned glass

* [Note] I went with an addition of 1 oz of rum to bring the total to

three ounces.  This was the poster's recommendation.

This cocktail has a great flavor. The allspice comes through but not overly strongly, which I think is key. Allspice could easily overload the other flavors in this cocktail. It also presents a nice fruity flavor and the rum flavors shine through. I tried two different mixes of rum. One pretty standard with Bacardi Light Rum, 10 Cane, and Gosling’s Gold Seal. The other a more top shelf blend with Rhum Barbancourt White Rum, Rhum Barbancourt 7 year, and Flor De Cana 7 year. Both were very good and truthfully I don’t think you gain much by using the top shelf rums in this drink. The other flavors are strong, so they overwhelm the subtleties of the more expensive products. One thing I do really like about the Barbancourt Rhums is they add a nice grassy note to the cocktail.

This was a great cocktail and made me feel like a true pirate. Although, next time I think I need a more Tiki inclined drinking vessel. Looks like it’s time for some eBay searching. Enjoy your Grog matey!

So, we live in Colorado which is, without question, a semi-arid region of the US. So when it rains for two days straight, as it did on Friday and Saturday, it’s not a typical occurrence. Therefore, it seems exceedingly fitting that I should celebrate this rain by making a Hurricane cocktail.

Hurricane Emily 2005 - Thanks NASA

The Hurricane cocktail arose from a glut of rum at Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans, Louisiana. The story goes that during World War II whiskey was in extremely short supply. As such to get any one had to purchase a huge amount of rum (as much as 50 cases) for each case of whiskey that could be bought. So, when faced with such an incredible surplus the bartenders at Pat O’Briens created the Hurricane. Named after the glass in which it was served, which mimics a glass hurricane lamp.

This cocktail is, in my opinion, very definitely a Tiki drink, although this may be questioned by some. The primary flavoring for the drink, beyond the rum, is Passion Fruit Syrup. Up until late last year there was a syrup marketed by Trader Vic’s that is said to be very good. It has since been discontinued though. So, I had to go it alone. Beachbum Berry gave the following suggestions on the Cocktail Spirit comments:

Looks like Robert was using the good stuff that Trader Vic bottled until late last year, which had 11% passion fruit in it. Now they sell an entirely artificial syrup that is no longer usable. Funkin and Perfect Puree both sell excellent passion fruit purees that, when mixed with simple syrup to taste, will give you a VG passion fruit syrup. Less expensive is to buy Goya frozen passion fruit pulp (sold at Latino markets), and mix the defrosted pulp 1:1 with simple syrup. Other good brands of ready made passion syrup: Tessiere, Finest Call, our Auntie Lilikoi (sold online from Hawaii).

Okole maluna!

By beachbum berry on 2008 02 05

So, my first goal was to get a hold of the Goya pulp that Jeff suggests which was also the suggestion of my Aunt Ronnie. Unfortunately, it seems that it’s not readily available in my area. The closest I was able to find at ny of the places I checked was Passion Fruit, Carrot, Apple juice. Since the passion fruit was the third ingredient on the list I didn’t think I’d be getting the right flavor from this product, so I again went searching. This time I headed to Denver to the Pacific Mercantile. The Mercantile is known for having a lot of Hawaiian food and I knew they’d have Hawaiian Sun canned juice. And, indeed they did. I picked up two cans of Lilikoi Passion juice and used that as the base for my syrup.

To make the syrup I poured the two cans (24 oz) of juice into a sauce pan and reduced by 2/3 to about 8 oz. I then added one cup of sugar and stirred to dissolve. The resulting syrup is pleasantly golden and very tasty. Granted I don’t think it matches the flavor that would come from passion fruit pulp, but hey, there’s always next Tiki week right?

The resulting drink, based on the recipe that Robert Hess gave in his video, is deceptively simple to make and nicely complex to drink. The Passion Fruit syrup adds a very exotic and unique flavor to the cocktail. I can see why these are still extremely popular at Pat O’Brien’s today. This is one that you should very definitely try if you can track down the ingredients.

The Hurricane

[Ingredients]

2 oz Dark Rum

1 oz Passion Fruit Syrup

1 oz Fresh Lemon Juice

[Directions]

1) Combine ingredients in a shaker

2) Shake with ice to combine and chill

3) Serve in a Hurricane or pint glass (Collins glass in my case)

The Zombie was created by Donn Beach in the late 1930s. Legend has it that Donn concocted the Zombie for a friend, a friend on his way to San Francisco. After consuming three of the delicious drinks, the man left for his trip. Upon his return, he reported that the cocktail had turned him into a zombie for the trip’s entirety.

Due to the great deal of secrecy surrounding many Donn the Beachcomber recipes, many variations of the Zombie exist, and many of the variations are surprisingly terrible. After a great deal of research, however, Donn the Beachcomber’s original recipes were rediscovered and published by Jeff “Beachbum” Berry in his book “Sippin’ Safari”.

Though truly a tiki drink, in the sense that a lot of alcohol is hidden by a sweet fruity flavor, the Zombie, owing mostly to the inclusion of Maraschino liquor, Pernod, and Angostura Bitters, has a very complex and surprising flavor.

I would provide you with more of a background, but as I write this, I am working on my second cocktail, having royally FUBARed the first, and have achieved third stage zombification:

I’m drinking Donn the Beachcomber’s 1956 recipe as published by Beachbum Berry and described by Robert Hess here. I highly recommend that you do the same. I’ve tried many Zombie variations, and this is by far the best.

No, not the stingy ones, the tasty ones. The Scorpion is truly an exemplar of the Tiki cocktail. This drink has an almost excessive amount of alcohol, fruit juice, and the aforementioned Orgeat. The combination of which results is a truly delightful cocktail that you would never guess has as much punch as it does.

I followed the recipe that Gary Regan lays out in the Joy of Mixology. Although, as you can see from the picture my float of 151 Rum didn’t float as nicely as I would have liked. In the future I’ll be sure to pour it over the back of a spoon to prevent mixing. The result of this float is a great Rum kick as you’re getting to the end of the drink. Please be warned that this cocktail can have side effects in some imbibers. Side effects can include a loss of balance, blurred vision and slurred speech. If you experience any of these effects please slow your rate of consumption. The Tiki gods will approve of this plan, I assure you.

The Scorpion

[Ingredients]

2 oz Light Rum (10 Cane)
1/2 oz Brandy (Germain-Robin)
2 oz Fresh Orange Juice
3/4 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Orgeat Syrup
1/2 oz 151-Proof Rum (Gosling's Black Seal)

[Directions]

1) Combine all ingredients, save the 151-Proof Rum, with ice
2) Shake well to combine
3) Strain into a highball glass
4) Float the 151-Proof Rum on top