Keep it Simple - The Bloody Mary

Sorry, dear Reader. . . I sometimes lapse into Stream of Consciousness writing.  I did describe how I simplified my dry martini.  Now for a few words about the Bloody.

On the face of it, "simplifying" might mean just pouring your vodka or gin into a glass, then adding a dollop of a commercially made Bloody Mary mix.  Not so.  It's not the number of bottles on your shelf, but the ingredients in that mix, that make it overly complex.  For the most part, Bloody Mary mixes are - to me, at least - not much more than tomato flavored salt, with some heat.  And because these bottles of mix remain on the shelves for some time, they contain things that help make them seem fresh, and so that the semisolids don't separate.  So consider getting away from a complexity that you don't need.

My personal preference in this genre is the Red Snapper (or Ruddy Mary), the gin version of the Bloody Mary.  But whether you prefer vodka or gin, consider this:  Into a mixing glass, place your preferred spirits, tomato juice, a squeeze of lemon juice, a dash of hot sauce (PLEASE don't make your Bloodys so hot and spicy that it dominates the flavor!), and a dash of Worcestershire sauce.  That's all. Mix and enjoy.  It may take a few moments to appreciate the utter simplicity of this mixture, now that it doesn't contain celery salt, habanero peppers, minced clams, horseradish or other accouterments. If you use vodka, don't opt for a top-shelf brand.  It will be lost in a Bloody Mary, anyway.  If you choose gin, select one with a noticeable juniper infusion.

Come up with your own simplifications. The idea of good cocktails is to savor the flavor and to socialize.

Keeping it Simple. Keeping it Real.

Most of you who follow this occasional cocktail blog know me as a classic cocktail purist.  I do add the drop or two of Fee's Orange Bitters to my dry GIN martini; I believe that blended whiskey is a far better choice for making Manhattans; and I know that Bloody Marys are best made fresh, and not from any mix - no matter how "authentic" they claim to be.  But there are times when simplicity is best, a rule that applies to life and to cocktails.

The other day, I set out to make my personal favorite - a dry martini.  I put the cocktail glass into the freezer, I filled my martini pitcher with ice, set out the bottle of orange bitters, and I got the olives (plural) ready.  But in a last-minute change of heart, I removed the glass from the freezer, emptied all but two or three ice cubes from the pitcher, put away the bitters and exchanged the olives, for a freshly-cut strip of lemon peel.  You see, even though each of those special effects was still "classic," I wanted to simplify even more.  And the result was spectacular!  With a room temperature glass and far fewer ice cubes, the martini wasn't ice cold. . . so I actually GOT to taste the botanicals in the gin and dry vermouth.  And what can be distracting for the palate, the olives and bitters turned out to be better omitted now and then.

There seems to be such an emphasis on complexity, these days.  Wines with complex "levels" of aromas and flavors; bourbons that have complex oak and caramel "notes" (Gee, I hate that word!), and beers/ales with complex malt backbones or hop infusions.  But it's simplicity that helps us appreciate cocktails (and other drinks), because it encourages our taste buds and olfactory cells to SEARCH for flavor, instead of drowning them with complexity.  Don't believe me?  Think of this, for a moment: You're more likely to enjoy the real flavor of a piece of filet mignon, when it's just simply grilled, than when it's wrapped in bacon, sauteed in garlic and placed over burning mesquite.  It's not that those other flavors aren't pleasant, but it's when the palate gets to sample all the natural flavors inherent in the meat, that the enjoyment follows.

Seek simplicity.  And you don't need to do it regularly.  But now and then, give complexity a rest, and enjoy the "ahhhhhhhh" of the simple things in life.

Bar Shortcuts

Mixology is a wonderful hobby, pastime or way to enjoy adult beverages.  But we can't always have everything on hand.  Here are several short cuts to save you time (or money).

Sour mix: While not a fan of sour mix (I'd rather make my own, from scratch), it does save time.  But what if you're OUT of sour mix?  Crystal Light fills the bill.  Take a good, rounded teaspoonful for each drink, place it into the shaker or blender, along with about the same amount of water for each.  Add your spirits and blend, stir, or shake.  Voila!  A Crystal Light Tom Collins, for example:  1 tsp Crystal Light Lemonade powder, a tsp of water, 2 oz gin, and shake.  Pour into a highball glass and add a splash of club soda.

Pernod/Absinthe:  I once ran out of Pernod, after promising myself a Sazerac.  But I did have a bottle of anisette liqueur on hand.  So my ersatz (substitute) Sazerac was made this way:  1 tsp anisette liqueur, 2 oz rye whiskey, and a dash of Peychaud's Bitters. 

Good bartenders (home and professional) need to be good at having a "Plan B," as well.  Out of Peychaud's Bitters?  Use Angostura - not as good, but it works.

Rose's to the Rescue:  I wanted to make a daiquiri but had no fresh (or bottled) lime juice, nor did I have any simple syrup.  However, I did have a bottle of Rose's Sweetened Lime Juice.  My Rose's Daiquiri was 2 oz Bacardi Superior Rum, 2 oz Rose's Lime Juice, a dash of lemon juice (for acidity). . .and it worked!

You get the idea:  In a pinch, be resourceful.  Be creative.  I'm a cocktail purist, by nature - and experience - but when I'm in a bind, I get creative.  And who knows?  You might discover something new.

I was wondering one day, what rum and orange juice would taste like.  Here I was, thinking I had created something new. . . then I found that I rediscovered a drink called the Scurvy Medic (also the Cuban Screw).  I wasn't let down - I felt pretty good about it.

The Cubanita

When I think of rum, I think of summer.  Not sure why, but perhaps it’s the image of fields of sugar cane, waving in tropical breezes, and enjoying some of my favorite cocktails on my deck, as the summer sun slowly sinks low over my neighbor’s newly shingled roof. . .

Kidding aside, rum isn't just daiquiris or colorful umbrella drinks.  It’s a really refreshing variation on some of our favorite classics. One of my favorites is the Cubanita.

The Cubanita

The Cubanita is the rum variation of the Bloody Mary.  Because rum is a flavorful spirit, keep this variation simple.

2 oz Bacardi Superior (white rum)

4 oz Tomato juice

Dash Tabasco (or cayenne pepper)

Dash Worcestershire sauce

Dash Lemon juice

Pinch of black pepper and salt

Place the ingredients in tall glass with ice, and stir.  I’ve purposely omitted the horseradish, but that’s a personal preference.  Instead of making this from scratch, feel free to use your favorite Bloody Mary mix, for convenience.  Try to choose one that’s balanced and not overly spicy.  Garnish a Cubanita any way you like.  My personal preference is a nice wedge of lemon or lime, a slice of bacon, or a spicy, crunchy pickled okra.  

The Gibson

On the surface of it, the Gibson appears to be merely a dry martini with a cocktail onion garnish, instead of an olive or lemon peel.  But as the olive gives a certain character to a dry martini, the cocktail onion - a GOOD cocktail onion - will make all the difference in producing a perfect Gibson.

First, a little background. The most frequently offered story on the Gibson attributes its name to the famous illustrator who challenged a bartender to improve on the martini.  But that particular story is unlikely.  More likely is that the prominent San Francisco businessman Walter D. K. Gibson (1864–1938), was said to have created it at the Bohemian Club in the 1890s.

Whatever the backstory, here's where I make the distinction between the martini and the Gibson:  Shaking.  As for martinis, I say, "stir, stir, stir."  For some reason, a stirred Gibson (to me) never quite makes the grade.  So I fill my impeccably clean stainless steel shaker about 2/3 full of ice, add the ingredients and shake it for a good 60 seconds.  Then I strain it into a chilled cocktail glass and add its signature garnish.

Like all cocktail bloggers, I have my preferences and opinions.  I prefer the larger cocktail onions, to the tiny pearl onions often prescribed in bar recipes.  Why?  Because the smaller onions tend to be fragile, and simply passing a cocktail skewer through them, generally causes them to begin peeling and disintegrating.  The larger onions are far more sturdy.  The ones most commonly seen in liquor stores and supermarkets are the "Tipsy Onions," which are stored in a bit of brine and a little dry vermouth.  The Tipsy brand are too sweet for me.  If you can find the cocktail onions made my Silver Palate, try those.  If they're too sweet for you, dump the pickling liquid and replace it with fresh, white vinegar (or if you prefer, you may use any simple brine used for pickles - stay away from the dill brine).  Here's how I make my Gibson:

The Gibson

3 oz Dry gin (I prefer Beefeater - it's not too heavy in juniper or botanicals)

1 oz Dry vermouth

2 Cocktail onions

Place gin and vermouth into a shaker filled 2/3 with ice.  Shake vigorously and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with two, skewered cocktail onions.  If you like the taste of orange bitters, feel free to add a few drops to the shaker, before you add your ingredients; or you can twist a lemon peel over the Gibson, before you add your garnish.

News You Can Use

This entry isn't about a cocktail, but about the "stuff" we use to MAKE cocktails.  If you have any personal pride as a mixologist, then certain things have to be a part of your way of doing things:

• Cleanliness.  It's not a habit or a tradition, that bartenders are always wiping the bar, cleaning or drying glassware or putting things in order behind the bar.  Lots goes on in that space.  And anything from plain vodka, to sugary, sticky fruit juices or simple syrup can splash on the bar.  When you reach for a maraschino cherry, you want them to be there, and you shouldn't have to fish around for an olive, to complete a dry martini.  So clean, clean, clean.

• Glassware:  You can fnd the names of the different barware pieces anywhere on the internet.  But the one piece I need to straighten out is the cocktail glass.  There technically is no such thing, as a "martini glass."  The cone-shaped, stemmed glass in which a dry martini is served, is a COCKTAIL GLASS.

• Martini:  A Martini is a cocktail made with dry gin (or vodka) and dry vermouth.  A Cosmo is NOT a martini, nor is a chocolate cocktail a martini.  Let's do this again:  MARTINI = GIN OR VODKA + DRY VERMOUTH.  Period.  (And as long as I'm on the subject, the martini was NOT named for the vermouth.  It is a distant cousin of the Martinez Cocktail, a sweet, pre-Prohibition version originally made with Old Tom Gin, Sweet Vermouth, and Maraschino liqueur).

• Fruit garnishes:  Generally, citrus garnishes are applied as the cocktail is served.  It can be a peel, shave, wheel, half-wheel, or wedge.  A peel is made by THINLY peeling just the colored part of the citrus peel, from the fruit.  A wheel is a thin slice cut crossways, and a half wheel is self explanatory.  Technically, bartenders refer to ANY garnish as a "fruit."  So a "dry martini, no fruit" would mean a dry martini without an olive (or perhaps even a lemon peel).

• Stir or Shake:  If you're making a dry martini, the answer is STIR.  Shaking makes a very cold martini, but it shakes air bubbles into the drink, and tiny shards of ice make the drink look odd.  Stirring also allows the requisite amount of ice to melt (about an ounce) into the drink, taking the sharp edge off.  The ONLY - repeat ONLY - martini shaken, rather than stirred, is the Vesper, which James Bond created in Casino Royale.  It contains gin, vodka and Lillet and - as per his instructions - is shaken until very cold.  Then, it's served in a champagne coupe and garnished with a "thick peel of lemon."

• Builds:  Builds are drinks that are neither shaken nor stirred.  You "build" them, right in the glass.  A Bloody Mary is one.  An Old Fashioned is another, and so is a Caipirinha (most mixologists build these, some shake).

Dead Reckoning. . . The Ramos Gin Fizz

I first heard about the Ramos Gin Fizz, while watching one of my favorite 40's film noir offerings: Dead Reckoning (1947).  Lovely Lizabeth Scott's character seemed to really like this tall cocktail, and because I wasn't awfully interested in mixology in my mid to late twenties, I let it slip by.  But there was something about this drink that intrigued me, and when I became a cocktail blogger, I re-discovered this drink, while researching classic cocktails.  And this is a CLASSIC!

Way before Lizabeth Scott's character sat across from Humphrey Bogart's character in Dead Reckoning, the Ramos Gin Fizz had been a classic for decades.  Because mixology is about folklore, I'll share the backstory about this absolutely DELICIOUS drink:

The Ramos Gin Fizz was created by Henry C. Ramos in 1888, in his New Orleans bar, where it was originally called a New Orleans Fizz. Before Prohibition, labor was not expensive, and the Ramos brothers could afford to hire more than a dozen men to shake these drinks, during heavy bar times. The Ramos Gin Fizz was so popular, that it was still difficult for them to keep up with the orders. As time went on, the focus changed from a quality drink made for a valued customer, to a quickly made drink that could be easily provided to a crowd.  However, the Ramos Gin Fizz is still made in bars and hotels, but very few outside of New Orleans.  NOLA has a well established reputation for taking the time needed, to give the customer a quality cocktail - no matter how complicated.  The Sazerac is proof of that.

The attraction of this classic cocktail is about its consistency and unique taste.  As you look at the recipe and the preparation, you'll see how important it is to get the components right. . . and to shake, shake, shake to get the right mouth feel.  Here's how I make mine:

Ramos Gin Fizz

2 oz dry gin (Some recipes recommend Old Tom [sweet] gin)

1/2 oz Lime juice

1/2 oz Lemon juice

1-1/2 oz Simple syrup

2 oz Heavy cream

1 PASTEURIZED egg white*  (I recommend using Frothee, if you do NOT have pasteurized egg whites)

2 dashes Orange Flower Water**

Club soda

Into a cocktail shaker WITHOUT ICE, place all the ingredients EXCEPT FOR the club soda.  Dry shake (NO ICE) for one minute.  Add cracked ice, then shake HARD for at least another two minutes.  Strain into a highball glass containing a splash of club soda.  Garnish with a lemon peel, lime peel, orange peel, OR a sprig of mint.  Pop in a straw and PLEASE don't gulp this one down.  It's light and interesting, and from a mixologist's point of view, this is a gentle feather stroke on the cheek, compared with the slap in the face of a piña colada.

* Any number of cocktail recipes include an egg white.  Keep in mind that these recipes were created back when eggs were not an issue.  IF AND ONLY IF - repeat: IF AND ONLY IF - you can get PASTEURIZED egg whites, include it in the recipe.  Most supermarkets carry cartons of PASTEURIZED egg whites.  Keep them refrigerated.  You may also use powdered egg whites.  And I heartily recommend a product called Frothee, which has NO egg white but makes a very nice froth.

**  For many/most of you, orange flower water may be a strange ingredient, for ANY purpose.  I grew up in an Italian American home, and orange flower water was part of the recipe for the annual Grain Pie at Easter (Pizza Grano).  This was made with cooked wheat, eggs, ricotta cheese, sugar and a dash of orange flower water.  But don't look in a liquor store for this.  You're more likely to find it in a large supermarket or in a specialty store, with the baking items.  If you can't find it, I would recommend using a grating of orange peel.  But DO try to get the orange flower water.