The Reverse Martini

Tags

Cocktail, Julia Child, Lillet, Martha Stewart, martini

Greetings from the other side of DC and yet another year of graduate school. Somehow I could continuously update during my first year of law school, but library school — otherwise known as the easy graduate program I’m in — totally escaped me, and there went a year. A thanks to all of my readers and Pinterest Pins who have stayed faithful (or discovered me on Google) while I strayed to graduate school, Kansas, Florida, and DC and picked up my life after my apartment building caught fire. Y’all have been very sweet, while I have been very distracted. Thank you, and on to the real reason you’re here: The Reverse Martini.

Cocktail Urban legend has this as Julia Child’s favorite cocktail. I’ve read My Life in France, As Always, Julia, and Mastering the Art of French Cooking and have yet to find evidence of its truthfulness. But, we never let the truth get in the way of a good story, so onward and upward.

Julia Child is purported to have this as her favorite cocktail. She would drink it while cooking and would serve it with appetizers. Her reason was that (1) it tasted good and (2) the drink with stimulate the appetite. Julia Child, as someone intimately concerned with food, would have thought this drink balanced nicely without intoxicating the drinker before the mail. As is so far the case with Mrs. Child, I have yet to find her wrong.

Reverse Martini

3 oz Lillet
3/4 oz Hendricks Gin
2 dashes orange bitters.

Shake over ice and strain into a martini class.

Review

Lillet is a relative of vermouth, so if you have had vermouth or the perfect than you have an idea of that this drink tastes like. If you have not had either, than it is difficult to describe the flavor, as it is unlike most other food or drink I have otherwise tasted. As an ingredient, vermouth and lillet are mysteries. Few people know all of the ingredients, and there are perhaps to many to guess.

The drink runs counter to the current American tradition of relying on the sweet and not the savory, so it is a gift to American cocktail culture, especially those who have drinks before dinner. Also, don’t pay attention to the drink that Martha Stewart calls a reverse martini in Martha Stewart’s Hors d’Oeuvres Handbook. That’s a wet martini, not a reverse martini.

The Lillet is sharp but clean and even with a decent gin the aftertaste fades quickly. While the Lillet recipe calls for Hendricks gin, I have found Beef Eater works just as well. Remember the orange bitters, or you will be doing yourself a disservice.

This drink should be a stand by for anyone who serves hors d’oeuvres before dinner. Don’t take my work for it. Have faith in Julia Child.

Cost:

$22 Lillet Rouge for a 750 mL bottle
$18 Beefeater gin for a 750 mL bottle OR
$35 Hendricks Gin for a 750 mL bottle
$6 Orange Bitters

$46 if made with Beefeater Gin
$63 if made with Hendricks Gin

Cost per Drinks
$2.57 for Lilet
$0.53 for Beefeater Gin
$1.03 for Hendricks gin
$0.01 for Orange Bitters

$3.11/drink if made with Beefeater Gin.
$3.61/drink if made with Hendricks Gin

As always, happy and safe drinking.

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Martinis, Evolution, and the Evolution of the Martini (Part 4)

Tags

Cocktail, Gin, martini, Vermouth, Vodka

I hope you all had a Happy Christmas and will have a Happy New Year. I wrote about New Year’s cocktails in 2009, and I’m just not feeling inspired for ringing in 2012. The cocktails are still amazing and unusual, so I strongly recommend you look at the post for a Champagne cocktail suggestion for New Years.  Both drinks are really easy and quick.

I’m writing this blog post in advance so I will be in Kansas traversing the eastern third of the state. I’ve realized that 2011 was a good year for me. I was out-of-town for about 9 weeks. I had a great time. I traversed the countryside and got into a really good law school. This year, I will be looking back at the great year I was fortunate enough to have. So, thank you who helped make this year great. At the time of writing, my blog is over 5,000 hits, which is crazy, because I hit just over 1,000 hits in May. It is certainly not the insanity of the millions of viral hits, but those hits are important. I have had a number of you tell me that I’m a great writer and you like reading the blog. I hope you have had as much fun reading this and encouraging me, as I have had writing it. I like and need this creative outlet into my brain.

This year, I’m feeling simple, which is why I want to keep exploring the martini. A martini has few ingredients but somehow exists in infinite permutations. To quote H.L. Mencken, “The martini: the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.” It’s a beautiful drink.

Evolution, Part 4: From Gin to Vodka

You can’t write about the martini, without writing about the evolution from gin to vodka. There are several theories of when the vodka martini first appeared in print. The first theory is that the vodka martini recipe appeared in a 1939 advertisement for “Vodka Kiprisky.” This theory is perpetuated by Ted Haigh, in his book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. He is also the curator for the Museum of the American cocktail.  However, in Straight up or on The rock: The story of the American Cocktail  by William Grimes, he states that the vodka martini was originally put in print in 1934 in Esquire in their article “Top 10 Best Cocktails of 1934.” I cannot find a copy of that ad, but I emailed the Museum of the American Cocktail, and they sent me a copy of the recipe as printed in 1934. They also have a great blog, which I highly recommend.

In 1934, the year after Prohibition, the drink was originally called the vodka cocktail. From the recipe, though, this obviously evolves from the martini, that not including it would be doing you a disservice. It is one of the few times I will include a drink not called the martini, but you’ll see why.

So, on to the first time that I have found that the vodka martini ever appeared in print.

The Vodka Cocktail

3 parts Vodka

1/2 part Italian (or dry) vermouth

1/2 part French (or sweet) vermouth)

Stir over ice. Strain into a martini glass.

Evaluation

It’s interesting because we see vodka merging with the tastes of pre and post-Prohibition era gin martinis. In Part 2, the drink was half gin and half vermouth, but either kind of vermouth could be used. Here we see an example of a perfect martini where the types of vermouth are in equal proportions. The drink is also clearly influenced by the post-Prohibition martini, written about in Part 3, martinis moved away from the half gin, half vermouth from the early days.

This drink is a 3 to 1, so think is totally my speed, but as we all know this drink was quickly abandoned. I recommend it to the vermouth lovers out there, but there are so few of us left.

This martini necessitates a proper bottle of vodka. My personal favorite is Ketel One, so prices will be based on that vodka.

Cost

Vodka: $25 per 750 mL bottle

Dry Vermouth: $8 per 750 mL bottle

Sweet Vermouth: $8 per 750 mL bottle

Total cost: $41.

As always, happy and safe drinking.

 

Martinis, Evolution, and the Evolution of the Martini (Part 3)

Tags

Cocktail, Gin, martini, Vermouth

So, I’m done with law school finals, and I get to pretend to have a life again! I’m hoping to get my blog in order, so that way it’s not 3 blog posts in a week and then zero for the next few months.

So, I have no idea how finals went. For those of you who were smart enough not to go to law school or talk to law school students, this is how exams work. You walk in feeling prepared, and then the one small point about the law is the one not in your outline, and then you’re graded against everyone else. Law school finals are a real curve and not a fake curve in undergraduate when the curve meant “The highest grade missed 4 points, so we’re moving everyone’s grade up by 4.” It’s a real bell curve with a target median. So not only do you not know how you did on the final, but you have no idea how you did relative to each other. It’s a sadistic little system.

But on to more important things:

Evolution of the Martini, Part 3

In Part 1, we looked at a martini recipe from 1895. Then we moved into Prohibition in Part 2, and looked at martini recipes from 1934, but that focused on how Martinis were made during Prohibition.

Now, we’re going to take a look at a post-Prohibition cocktail, although it’s from a book published the same year. 1934 was a big year for cocktails. The next, which will be the recipe for the first published vodka martini, is from Esquire from 1934, which makes sense because the 21st Amendment which repealed Prohibition, passed in December 1933.

Prohibition was probably the most defining moment of how Americans drank liquor of the 20th century. In 1934, everything changed. As we’ll see below, there was no more bathtub gin, spirits like brandy could be brought in from France, alcohol tasted better and was less likely to kill you. Americans went back to wanting to taste the booze.

So, from Burke’s Complete Cocktail & Drinking Recipes by Harman Burney Burke, published 1934

The Martini

2 oz Gin

1 tsp French Vermouth

Orange Bitters

Place all ingredients over ice. STIR. Pour into a martini glass.

Evaluation

As we can see, this is a huge shift away from the Prohibition cocktail, which was half gin and half vermouth. The martini is getting a lot drier. So, if you know anyone who likes a 12 to 1 martini, they like the 30s martini.

As many of my readers know, I am a gin martini fan, however, I like my vermouth. I am not afraid of it. So this martini is too dry for me. Although, I think it beats the vermouth rinse martini or my least favorite: the vaporizing of vermouth across the room from the glass martini. Or, as I like to call it, “I don’t want to admit that I really just want gin shaken on the rocks, but I’m not an alcoholic” martini.

Cost

I think the less vermouth you use, the better the gin needs to be. I would go with Hendricks, Tanqueray, or Bombay.

Gin: $30 per 750 mL bottle

Vermouth: $8 per 750 mL bottle

Orange bitters: $5 per 12 oz bottle.

Total cost: $43

As always, happy and safe drinking.

Barn Raising, and Apple Cider

Tags

Apple Cider, Apple Jack, Brandy, Cider, Drink

Barn Raisings

Barn raisings occurred primarily in the Midwest where there weren’t a lot of people. They brought the community together to create a shared sense of purpose and to help one of their neighbors, friends, or strangers. As the Industrial Age dawned, fewer and fewer people moved to the rural, most remote parts of the country to farm, and those who were already living there either had barns or hired labor. Eventually, barn raisings disappeared from our cultural consciousness.

Maybe they shouldn’t have.

While not all migration is western, people still move. We move to escape our past. We move to create a future. We move because it’s the only way to start over. We’re really not so far beyond the pioneers of old. We just have I-Phones, GPS, and American Airlines. It takes us hours to get home, instead of days, weeks, or months. However, many of us are far from home. Far from where we started, and we need a barn raising.

A barn raising created permanence. It created stability. It created belonging. It created the future. As migratory creatures, we still need these qualities. The qualities are just needed more as metaphysical symbols than physical buildings.

At some point, we have bought into this idea that it’s good to be as strong as steel. We refuse to ask for help. It is a virtue to be independent to a fault, despite feelings of isolation and loneliness. We credit those who pull themselves up from the brink of despair, but few do it alone.

Setting up a barn raising is not simple. It was an all-day if not several day event. The pioneer needed to ask for the help. The pioneer had to be ready. The community had to be ready to respond.

I have many friends who have migrated. Now, they are stuck in a rut. But because of their stubbornness, they refuse help. They refuse advice. Instead of being guided by their “friends who have gone before” they are trapped by their own obtuseness and faith in independence. They moved from where they were to escape the life they left behind, but they have ignored the next step: looking forward towards the life they want. They are so stuck looking backwards that they never look forward. If this were still migratory pioneers instead of migratory individuals, they would starve to death in winter. They don’t open themselves to the new experiences present in their new location.

We haven’t lost that sense of pioneering spirit. When we return home, sometimes we do it with our head held high, and sometimes with our head held low. But, when we do return home temporarily or forever, shouldn’t we have the opportunity to feel like something we did mattered, even in the smallest way? Shouldn’t we feel that by moving our life blossomed instead of withered?

How do we help those who forgot the single greatest lessons the fathers of our country ever taught us? Without interdependence, we would die. We wouldn’t have food, a house, or a barn. How do we recapture of a sense of community in the face of desperate independence?

Apple Cider, again

When you’re ready to celebrate your own barn raising, or just fall, try this recipe at a party.

Two Gallons of Apple Cider

Four Cinnamon Sticks

One (750 mL) bottle of Apple Jack brandy

One (750 mL) bottle of unflavored brandy

Put two gallons apple cider and four cinnamon sticks into a giant stockpot on the lowest possible heat. I let it simmer for about 5 hours. Immediately before serving, remove from heat and add a bottle of apple brandy and one bottle of unflavored brandy. Serve warm.

Evaluation:

I wrote about making homemade apple cider already, and I thought that was a bust. So I went out and bought apple cider, looked at a few recipes, and came up with this instead. I think making homemade apple cider is a good waste of time and money. It is cheaper to buy it than to make it, unless you have an apple orchard. I thought it was great. It went over really well at a party I through last week.

Cost:

2 gallons of apple cider: $10

Four Cinnamon Sticks: $2.50

One (750 mL) bottle of Apple Jack brandy: $20.00

One (750 mL) bottle of unflavored brandy: $10

Total cost: $42.50

Cost per Drink:

The drink makes 306 ounces. We’re going to call each drink 6 ounces (approximately.) This makes 51 drinks for $0.83/drink.

As always, happy and safe drinking.

Beach House Rum Punch

Tags

Caribbean, Cocktail, Cooking, Punch, Rum, Rum Punch

Rum Punches are one of the oldest cocktails in history. It started in the Caribbean colonies in the sixteenth century, before punches migrated Northward and were perfected by Americans. Rum punches have mostly gone out of favor recently, but they are an important part of our shared cocktail history.

However, there are times where rum punches are a great look back on the development of the cocktail in America. Sometimes they’re just necessary. I went to Myrtle Beach this weekend with my friend Paul to his family’s house. Before traveling, I premixed the Raleigh Iced Tea, a bottle of Limoncello, and the Sicily. Paul and I drank about half of this the first night there. Paul usually makes a punch to take to the beach and on Tuesday, he asked me to make it since he was mowing the lawn and things.

I didn’t have a lot of options. For those of you who have seen my bar, it’s ridiculous. Not only do I have about 70 bottles of alcohol, but I have multiple bartending books and access to the internet if I need true inspiration. However, I didn’t have any of that in Myrtle Beach, so I had to get real creative. Even more of a challenge, neither Paul nor I wanted to go the liquor store or the grocery store. But I was able to make due.

This is my:

4 cups Cranberry Juice

1 cup Lemoncello

1 cup Black Rum

1/2 cup Silver Rum

Mix all ingredients. Place in container for the beach (and remember to bring solo cups!)

Evaluation:

This was probably not my best cocktail.It was a good “on the beach, having a few drinks” while Paul tanned and Brett burned. I definitely came back looking like a lobster. The limoncello definitely helped to sweeten and compliment the black rum really well, hiding some of its harsher flavors.

However, I was proud of myself for having a good cocktail knowledge that I could look at limited ingredients and make a tasty drink. We admire people who have a base knowledge of food, but not cocktails until we’re actually in the moment where we have 6 ingredients and need to make something great.

Cost:

Like I said, this was free for me, because all of the ingredients were in the beach house. The cranberry juice needed to be used or tossed, and Paul doesn’t really drink black rum.

However, if you wanted to make this at home:

And didn’t have any ingredients:

64 oz bottle of Cranberry Juice: $4

1 750 mL bottle of Black Rum: $14.99

1 750 mL bottle of Silver Rum: $13.99

1 750 mL bottle of Homemade Limoncello: $16.20

Total Cost: 49.18

Cost per Punch:

32 oz Cranberry Juice: $2

8 oz Black Rum: $4.80

8 oz Homemade Limoncello: $5.19

4 oz Silver Rum: 2.24

Total Cost for the Punch: $14.23 for 52 oz (or roughly 6 glasses)

As always, happy and safe drinking.

 

 

Homemade Amaretto

Tags

Amaretto, DIY, Do it yourself, Homemade Amaretto, Svedka

So, anyone who is a friend of mine on Facebook, knows that I have branched out from making my own drinks to making my own liqueurs. I doubt I’ll dry distilling soon, if ever. (At least not while I’m living somewhere rented.)

About a month ago, I made my first attempt at homemade Limoncello, and a few weeks ago, while waiting for my Limoncello to mature, I decided to make my Amaretto and Kahlua. The recipes for the other two liqueurs will follow in the next few weeks.

I have to admit, I just used the recipe from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups vodka
• 2 tablespoons almond extract
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 

Directions

1. Combine water and sugars in a saucepan over medium heat. Heat until the mixture is boiling, and all of the sugar is dissolved. Remove the pan from the heat and let the mixture cool for 10 minutes.
2. Stir vodka, almond extract and vanilla extract into the mixture. Store in a sealed bottle.
3. To store the Amaretto, I used an empty vermouth bottle. It’s always good to keep empty liquor bottles for projects like these.

Evaluation:

I usually only drink inexpensive Amaretto, and I was not sure that I liked the liqueur. However, to make this recipe cost me about $14, which is the slightly more than the least expensive bottle of Amaretto in a liquor store in North Caroline for about $10. Because of the cost, I figured it was worth trying.

This recipe changed my mind.

I now understand why Disaronno has the following it does. The difference between a cheap bottle of Amaretto and this recipe is negligible for price but worth the little time it takes to make it. In my next blog post, I’m going to talk about making an Amaretto Sour, which normally I hate.

It’s always good to have your mind changed.

Cost:

If you have none of the ingredients:

Vodka: $20.00

Water: Free

5 lb bag of White sugar: $5.00

1 lb of brown sugar: $3.00

Almond Extract: $5.00

Vanilla Extract: $5.00

Total Cost: $43

I bought a 1.75 mL bottle of Svedka for about $20.00, and this recipe used 2 cups or about a 1/4th of the bottle. Also, you still have a mostly bottle of vodka left! I almost always have every other ingredient on hand except for almond extract. You’ll use most of a 2 oz almond extract of bottle. About 1/3 of a 2 oz vanilla extract bottle. You’ll use one-tenth of a 5 lb bag of white sugar. You’ll use half of a 1 lb bag of white sugar.

2 cups vodka: $5.00

Water: Free

5 lb bag of White sugar: $.50

1 lb of brown sugar: $1.50

Almond Extract: $5.00

Vanilla Extract: $2.00

Total Cost: $14.00

So, it’s a bit more than buying an inexpensive bottle of Amaretto, but totally worth the money. If you don’t believe, try it for yourself.

As always, happy and safe drinking.

Cucumber Martini

Hello, all readers!

So, I have talked about this before, and I’m creating a bartender’s garden. There will be more to come on that later. In our garden, Michael and I will grow cucumbers. Because of this, I wanted to try to recreate a really common gin martini: The Cucumber martini, so I’m all set to go when they start needing to be picked.

About a year ago during a mixology pub crawl, I went to Zydeco in downtown Raleigh and had a great cucumber martini that the bartender made for me. I wanted to start working on this recipe, because in the incoming months, we’re going to have a ton of cucumbers and you can only eat so many cucumber sandwiches.

So, because of this I made myself a Cucumber martini

The Cucumber Martini

3 slices of cucumber

2 ounces Hendrick’s Gin

1/2 ounce Dry Vermouth

• Muddle 2 cucumber slices in a shaker
• Add ice, gin, and vermouth
• Stir
• Strain into a martini shaker
• Garnish with a slice of cucumber
• Sip and Enjoy!

Thoughts

First of all, I rarely tell you which type of liquor to use, but a cucumber martini requires Hendrick’s Gin. Here’s why: one of the notes of Hendricks is cucumber. Adding the vegetable draws out that particular flavor of the gin. It helps increase the potency of the taste without taking away the integrity of the gin or

I know that I like Cucumber Martinis, but the dry vermouth overpower the flavor of both the gin and the cucumber. I felt like the dry vermouth was really competing with Hendricks.When I remake this, I might completely remove or decrease the amount of Dry Vermouth. I also want to dry it with muddled basil from our garden. That being said, if you like Hendrick’s dry gin martinis, this is a great twist for you.

For the rest of us, does anyone have a Cucumber martini recipe they swear by?

Cost:

750 mL of Hendrick’s Gin: $35

750 mL of Dry Vermouth: $5

Cucumber: $1

Total Cost: $41

Hendrick’s Gin is great, and you should buy it to keep on hand.

As always, happy and safe drinking.