Imaginary Grace

 

Story

Cream sherry is an ingredient I’ve seen in a number of cocktail recipes, but I assumed the name meant it was something like Bailey’s.  Not even close.  As we know from previous cocktails like the Bone Machine, the McKittrick, and the Trident, sherry is a dry white wine that’s fermented, fortified with a neutral grape spirit, and then aged in different ways to produce all sorts of amazing varieties.  Cream sherry is created when a dry style of sherry is blended with sweet Pedro Ximenez sherry or dessert wine.  The result is dark, slightly sweet, and smooth.  The smoothness is supposedly how cream sherry got its name, although the origin stories all clearly sound like a drunk person made them up.  Joaquín Simó of Death & Co. created the Imaginary Grace in 2009.  He apparently has a habit of naming cocktail after song lyrics, with this one deriving from Modern English’s 1982 banger “I Melt With You”.  The nose on this drink is nothing special, but on the sip it reveals itself to be many-layered and super interesting. The sherry and bitters have chocolate and nutty notes that build on the aged tequila base.  My notes say, “love, love, love”.

Recipe

2 oz reposado tequila
1 oz cream sherry
0.5 tsp Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
0.5 tsp pear brandy
0.5 tsp agave nectar
1 dash Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters
1 dash angostura bitters
-Stir ingredients with ice.  Strain into chilled coup or Nick & Nora. No garnish.

Manhattan Transfer

 

Story

Recipes in the Club use a lot of amari.  (That’s the pleural form of amaro, although I immediately sound like an “actually…” guy whenever I say it, so I’ll try to use the singular as much as possible.)  We know that an amaro, speaking extremely generally, is neutral spirit + bittering agent(s) + herbs/spices/aromatics + sugar.  What’s interesting is how these amazing bittersweet liqueurs are used in Europe compared to how they’re used in the U.S.  In Italy and much of continental Europe, a small pour of room-temperature amaro is often consumed after dinner as a digestif (digestive aid).  These are typically the darker, stronger amaro varieties, meant to help settle the stomach.  Lighter types of amari (Campari, Aperol – pretty much anything clear or red) are usually consumed before dinner as an apertif to stimulate the appetite.  In the U.S., of course, if we drink an amaro at all it’s almost always in a cocktail.  It’s thought that, because we ‘Muricans prefer things that are sweet rather than bitter, we needed cocktails as a way to initially appreciate an amaro’s flavor.  The Manhattan Transfer takes advantage of a terrific amaro to add complexity to a Manhattan.  Phil Ward came up with it in 2008 at Death & Co.  Ramazzotti is an Italian amaro created over 200 years ago.  With notes of baking spices, chocolate, and mint, it’s great to sip on its own and really elevated this Manhattan.

Recipe

1.5 oz Rittenhouse Rye
1 oz dry vermouth
1 oz Ramazzotti Amaro
1 dash orange bitters
-Stir ingredients with ice.  Strain into chilled coup or Nick & Nora. No garnish.

Lilywhacker

Story

The Manhattan – just a spirit, vermouth, and bitters, stirred with ice to chill and served up.  The vermouth is what differentiates a Manhattan from an Old Fashioned (spirit, sugar, bitters).  So what exactly is vermouth?  It’s technically a “fortified and aromatized wine”. It starts out as white wine.  A neutral grape spirit or brandy is added to raise the alcohol content.  It’s then blended with a botanical infusion made by macerating botanicals (bittering agents, spices, citrus, and so on) in alcohol.  Sound familiar?  It turns out that vermouth has a lot in common with amaro, which starts with a spirit base rather than a wine base.  Exact processes and recipes vary by type and brand, of course, and amari generally end up with higher ABV, but the similarities are pretty cool.  All of this is to say that the Lilywhacker, invented by Phil Ward of Death & Co. around 2008, is a Manhattan variant that uses apple brandy as the spirit and features a bit of Cointreau to balance the flavors.  The apple brandy is Laird’s Bottled In Bond, which is strong enough to stand up to the other flavors.  This one should come in kind of hot, but it doesn’t.  Balanced, fruity, delicious.

Recipe

2 oz Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy, Bottled in Bond
0.75 oz Carpano Antica
0.5 oz Cointreau
1 dash Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters
-Stir ingredients with ice.  Strain into chilled coup or Nick & Nora. No garnish.

Pressure Drop

 

Story

The Martinez is a classic cocktail that first appeared in print in 1884 in The Modern Bartenders’ Guide by O.H. Byron.  The origins of the cocktail are lost to time, but it featured equal parts gin and sweet vermouth, plus some maraschino liqueur and bitters.  There is some evidence that the Manhattan was invented first, the Martinez was a variant, and further tweaking over time resulted in the modern martini.  Thomas Waugh created the Pressure Drop for Death & Co. in 2009 as a riff on the Martinez.  By replacing sweet vermouth with a dry vermouth / amaro mix and dropping in a bit of pear brandy as a fruity accent, he created a marvel.  The aroma is all gin, but a sip reveals a balanced interplay of fruit, saffron from the Meletti, and a hint of bitterness wrapped up in a smooth pillow of Old Tom.  Easy to make, even easier to drink.

 

Recipe

1.5 oz Old Tom gin
1 oz Amaro Meletti
0.5 oz Dolin dry vermouth
1 tsp pear brandy
1dash Angostura bitters
-stir ingredients with ice
-strain into chilled coup or Nick & Nora
-no garnish

Walnut Crown

 

Story

It all started when I picked up a bottle of Nux Alpina Walnut Liqueur.  It was bitter and nutty and interesting, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with it.  I happened on a recipe called the Storm King (2 oz blended Scotch, ½ oz walnut liqueur, ¼ oz Benedictine, ango bitters), which of course I had to make because of the name.  Unlike the distinctive smoky, peaty flavor of Islay Scotch whisky, blended Scotch is typically smoother and more balanced.  Monkey Shoulder Scotch, which I used, is not smoky at all.  I hated the Storm King, probably because it turns out that I don’t like blended Scotch.  I keep wanting it to be bourbon!  So, I thought, let’s take out the Scotch in favor of bourbon while also mixing up the bitters a bit.  The result is a classic-tasting Old Fashioned topped off with a nifty flavor of walnut and a bit of honey.  Much more to my tastes.

 

Recipe

2 oz bourbon
0.5 oz walnut liqueur
0.25 oz Benedictine
1dash Angostura bitters, 1 dash Bittermens Elemakule Tiki bitters
orange twist
-stir ingredients with ice
-strain into rocks glass with fresh ice
-express orange twist and use as a garnish.