Conference

 

Story

Since the 1930’s, creators of tiki cocktails have been blending different rums together to create novel flavor profiles.  Cocktail Club recipes often feature a “split base” in which multiple spirits make up the core of a drink.  But prior to 2008, split-base cocktails were quite rare in the modern cocktail scene.  To be fair, cocktails with multiple spirits existed back in the 1800s: the Saratoga (brandy + whiskey), our old friend the Vieux Carré (rye + cognac), and others.  But when the modern cocktail renaissance started in the early 2000’s, most places were following classic single-base templates.  Veteran bartender Brian Miller was working in NYC at Death & Co in 2008.  He drew on his extensive tiki cocktail experience to begin applying the tiki blending approach to non-tropical drinks.  Other bartenders were doing similar things, but many point to the Conference as a breakthrough in popularizing the approach.  It’s a strong but balanced Old Fashioned with an extra bit of complexity to keep it interesting.  The “bunny ears” garnish (both lemon and orange twists) is classic for this drink.  It’s an extra bit of flair to remind you that you’ve got a little bit of tiki history in your stirred, boozy cocktail.  Cheers!

Recipe

0.5 oz bourbon
0.5 oz calvados (apple brandy)
0.5 oz Rittenhouse 100 rye
0.5 oz cognac
1 tsp demerara syrup
2 dashes angostura bitters
1 dash Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters
Orange twist; lemon twist
-Stir ingredients with ice.  Strain into chilled rocks glass over ice. Express and garnish.

Prime Inspector

 

Story

I always have trouble remembering where the Negroni fits into the “6 basic cocktail” classification constructed by Gary Regan in The Joy of Mixology.  The martini/Manhattan category is its home, since it’s (spirit + fortified wine + bitters), but it’s hard for me to remember because it’s very much its own thing.  The Prime Inspector is a Negroni variant, even though every component has been subbed out for another that plays its role. The core spirit is apple brandy, a barrel-aged spirit that retains a fruity quality under the oak. Averna Amaro bring in the bitterness that Campari would provide, while Punt e Mes is a type of vermouth that’s darker and has more fruit notes than a standard sweet vermouth. Peychaud’s is not my go-to bitters, but anise is subdued here while the spice and fruit notes come to the fore.  Mitchell Taylor created this drink while at the Nashville branch of New York’s Attaboy.  The Prime Inspector is dark, fruity, and bitter with none of the vermouth aftertaste that sometimes puts me off.  I prefer calvados apple brandy rather than Applejack because it’s extra smooth.  Cheers!

Recipe

1 oz apple brandy (calvados or Laird’s Applejack 86)
1 oz Punt e Mes
1 oz Averna Amaro
Orange twist (or brandied cherry if you prefer)
-Stir ingredients with ice.  Strain into rocks glass with fresh ice. Express orange twist and garnish.

Corn 'n' Oil

 

Story

The Corn ‘n’ Oil is a famous cocktail that originated in the Caribbean (possibly in Barbados) which is notable in that it contains neither corn nor oil.  So why do they call it that?  As is so often the case, nobody knows.  The best guess is that it’s a reference to a verse in Deuteronomy where God promises “that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil”.  Why that verse?  Again, no idea.  What we do know is that this drink is made with blackstrap rum or dark rum, both of which are intensely flavored.  I went with dark rum because it’s a little more smooth and refined than blackstrap. The other key ingredient is falernum, a spiced syrup with flavors of clove, ginger, and almond. There is a nonalcoholic variety (why?) and a traditional liqueur, which is what I used. The drink is surprisingly mellow and smooth, with clove and cinnamon notes.  Modern bartenders have added more lime juice, added in aged rum, and made other adjustments, but I think the traditional version is the way to go.  Be sure to used cracked or crushed ice so the drink rounds out over time.

Recipe

2 oz dark or blackstrap rum  (Gosling’s Black Seal)
0.5 oz John D. Taylor Velvet Falernum
2 dashes angostura bitters
Lime wedge
-Build the drink in a rocks glass.  Fill with cracked or crushed ice.  Lightly express a lime wedge into the drink and use a garnish.

Augie March

 

Story

The Adventures of Augie March is a 1953 novel by Saul Bellow about a poor but spirited boy who grows to manhood through a series of increasingly unexpected escapades.  It sounds like one of those books I would love in retrospect had I been forced to read it for an English class but would not be able to push through on my own.  The Augie March cocktail, on the other hand, is a drink I would finish and immediately re-order.  It’s a variation on the classic Manhattan (rye + sweet vermouth + bitters) but with reposado tequila as the base spirit and Cynar subbing in for the bitters.  The very bitter Cynar definitely jumps in with both feet, but the vermouth balances it out nicely.  Once again I’m reminded how well reposado tequila can bind flavors together.  My notes say, “just right”.  Cheers.

Recipe

2 oz reposado tequila
0.75 oz Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
0.5 oz Cynar
Brandied cherry
-Stir ingredients with ice.  Strain into chilled coup or Nick & Nora.  Garnish with cherry.

Wooden Ship

 

Story

As someone who really likes the movie Master and Commander, I was always going to make a cocktail called Wooden Ship.  This is the 2011 creation of Thomas Waugh, another bartender at Death & Co.  The template is of course that of an old fashioned (spirit + sugar + bitters) with a split base of gin and genever.  There’s another similar drink farther along the same family tree called a Fancy Gin Cocktail, which appeared in the 19^th century.  The base spirit was, unsurprisingly, gin, sweetened by a liqueur (curacao or Maraschino) and seasoned with bitters.  The Wooden Ship uses a more modern liqueur along with a little cane sugar syrup to balance the maltiness of the genever, and the result is something much more interesting than I would have expected.  The nose on this one is all citrus.  The gin greets you first on the sip, but the genever adds enough balanced complexity that you want to roll it around and figure it out.  There’s just the right amount of sweet and bitter and the slightest hint of malt.  Then, like the HMS Surprise, it’s gone before you know it.   For England, for home, and for the prize  -- cheers!

Recipe

1 oz Tanqueray Gin
1 oz Bols Genever
0.5 oz Grand Marnier
0.5 tsp cane sugar syrup
1 dash Fee Brothers old fashioned aromatic bitters
-Stir ingredients with ice.  Strain into chilled rocks glass. Express lemon twist over drink.  Garnish.

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.

Lost Horizon

 

Story

Lost Horizon is an Old Fashioned variant created by Tyson Buhler, manager of beverage operations at New York bar Death & Co and winner of the 2015 World Bartending Championship.  The drink features a split base of cognac and Jamaican rum with Fernet Brance serving as the bitter ingredient.  The sweetener is a banana liqueur from Giffard, a French company that makes a series of outstanding flavored liqueurs that avoid tasting either artificial or too sweet.  In the case of Giffard banana du Brasil, it smells and tastes like banana bread.  The Lost Horizon is rich, fruity, smooth, and bittersweet.  The subtle smoke from the Islay scotch rinse is great, but if you’re smoke-averse the drink is terrific without the rinse as well.

 

Recipe

Islay scotch (Laphroaig 10-year), to rinse
1 oz cognac
1 oz Jamaican rum
2 tsp Giffard banana du Brasil
1 tsp Fernet Branca
-Rinse rocks glass with scotch and dump excess.
-measure remaining ingredients into mixing glass with ice.  Stir to chill.  Pour into glass.
-express orange twist and use as a garnish.

Aces and Eights

 

 

Story

“Aces and eights” is a reference to what’s also known as the “dead man’s hand” in poker: two black aces and two black eights.  Legend has it that Wild Bill Hickock was holding this hand when he was shot in the back at a poker table.  There is absolutely no evidence that this was the case, but I don’t see why that should make a difference.  The drink itself is a flavor bomb that was invented by bartender Jarred Weigand in 2016 at the New York bar Death & Company.  Coffee is a prominent flavor, but the amaro and bitters add chocolate and spice notes.  The tequila adds richness to the drink but the tequila flavor itself only peeks out shyly from the background.  You can think of this as a type of Old Fashioned, which is a spirit (tequila), sweetener (amaro, vanilla simple), and bitters (mole bitters, coffee liqueur).  This cocktail is both bold and easy to drink.  Bang!

Recipe
2 oz reposado tequila
0.5 oz Meletti Amaro
1 tsp Mr. Black cold brew coffee liqueur
1 tsp vanilla simple syrup  (1:100 vanilla extract to simple syrup, very roughly)
1 dash Bittermens Mole Bitters
-measure ingredients into mixing glass with ice.  Stir to chill. Strain into rocks glass over ice.
-express orange twist and use as a garnish.

iiekanzou (ē-CON-sō)

 

Story

A home bartender named Matthias Soberon created a drink called The Nawashi (Japanese for “rope master”) that won a Home Bar Award and ended up on the menu at Amor Y Amargo in NYC.  It contains dry vermouth, CioCiaro amaro, benedictine, Peychaud’s bitters, and a whopping 0.75 oz of absinthe. As you might guess, it tastes like a glass of black licorice.  Despite that, it managed to be balanced rather than overwhelming, and was interesting because it has powerful flavor but no base spirit.  There were some suggestions online that Green Chartreuse might serve a similar role as absinthe in the drink without being quite so divisive, so I swapped that in and switched to tiki bitters instead.  Bingo.  Now the flavors are more equally represented and interesting.  The vermouth lengthens the punch of the chartreuse, while the amaro and benedictine amp up the fruitiness and the bitters tie it all together.  The name is a portmanteau of the Japanese words for “no licorice”.

 
Recipe
1.5 oz dry vermouth
0.75 oz green chartreuse
0.5 oz Ramazzotti Amaro
0.5 oz Benedictine
1 dash Bittermens Elemakule Tiki Bitters
-measure ingredients into mixing glass with ice.  Stir to chill. Strain into coupe or Nick & Nora.

-express orange twist and use as a garnish.