Ginning Up A Post

So the thing about gin is — and this is probably just me, and I’m sure it’s just me — that it’s kind of a weirdly uninspiring spirit. OK, I said it. I invite the one-and-a-half people who read this to challenge me, tell me what I’m missing or what I’m doing incorrectly. But the more I drink cocktails — and the more I notice what I’m drinking — the more I realize that I avoid gin.

Gin is OK, don’t get me wrong. I like a gin martini before dinner — but only one! — but it seems like something that gets covered up more than it gets highlighted. I do have some gin drinks I like: the mastic liqueur one and a Negroni both come to mind. But I don’t sit there and sip gin — I’m guessing no one does. [Googling: OK, some do, but I’m unconvinced; I also see that it’s classified as a neutral spirit, so OK, I can kind of trust my intuition sometimes.]

The first gin drink comes from Robert Hess’ The Essential Bartender’s Guide: How to Create Truly Great Cocktails. It’s the Caprice (page 137): an appropriate balance (3:1:1) of gin, dry vermouth and Bénédictine with a dash of orange bitters. It was OK.

The second gin drink comes from Mr. Boston was the Leapyear: basically the same proportions as above (4:1:1) but with more gin, then sweet vermouth, Grand Marnier (we substituted that Domanier Cognac A l’Orange for that) with a dash of orange bitters. The Leapyear was OK, too. I was sitting there thinking something along the lines of, “This would be good for people who really like gin because it lets that floral shizz through but adds a little flavor.” But then you’re like, “Who the fuck really wants to taste gin?”

And don’t even get me started on vodka cocktails; as far as I’m concerned they don’t really exist. Which probably means we should try making more of them.

Hello, Cocktail!

The Junior (PDT cocktail book, page 154) is a nice drink: rye, lime juice, Bénédictine and Angostura bitters. The amount of lime juice — 3/4 ounce — is a lot but as the note in the book says, it’s a “sophisticated sour.” Jen likes puckery cocktails, and she immediately took to it.

Nothing Says “Tequila Cocktail” Like The Name Of A Major Mexican City

The Guadalajara, made with tequila, dry vermouth and Bénédictine, is a nice little drink (Mr. Boston, page 137). From our tasting panel: “flavors hard to place” and “it’s good.” The recipe calls for a lemon twist, which I think would actually benefit the drink — we nearly always omit twists and such because just no.

Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico, includes St. Louis as one of its sister cities, along with Albuquerque, Cleveland, Downey (California, in Los Angeles County), Kansas City, Lansing, Portland (Oregon), San Antonio and San Jose (California) (and also San José, Costa Rica).

I don’t know why tequila cocktails have all this cheesy Mexican imagery attached to them. Thinking about why the name “Guadalajara,” I sort of see it like calling your fantastic bourbon creation a “Paducah.” Harrumph. Then again, maybe they should do this more . . .

And . . . Maybe We’ll Even Make It Correctly Next Time

The Shruffs End cocktail in the Mr. Boston guide (page 196) calls for Islay single malt scotch, apple brandy, Bénédictine and Peychaud’s bitters. We actually have Islay single malt scotch around most of the time; it’s something I like, one, so yeah, and also it’s something that a lot of good cocktails include, so we also have cheap versions of Islay single malt around. So actually there’s none left right now, only a Highlands single malt that from the label sounds like the opposite of Islay scotch (“never peated!”). Between using an inappropriate expensive single malt scotch in a cocktail and using a cheap-shit blend in a cocktail, 19 times out of 20 I’ll choose the latter. So of course I went for the triangular bottle of Grants.

And even in spite of all that, this is a good cocktail. Maybe we’ll make it correctly next time.

That Magical Cedilla, How Easily It’s Erased

Long before we knew what cocktails were, or knew how to construct them in our own house, we had a bottle of curaçao. I think it was blue curaçao. Before we moved I drank it just to get rid of it. It tasted orange.

I only realized tonight that the very strange thing is how idiotic we once were about cocktails. Jen said it was because we were young and had stupid money to spend on cocktails in actual places, but that doesn’t make sense to me: we knew literally fucking nothing about drinking cocktails, and looking back, it’s unclear we ever drank cocktails at home. What the fuck? And I’m talking, like, 2009 or 2010 or something, not like 1976.

Part of doing cocktails at home is to subvert the mixologistic paradigm of the “lounge”; it’s ridiculous to pay 12, 15, 18 dollars for one lousy drink. The other part is to understand what you don’t actually know; there’s nothing artistic about mixing one ounce, one ounce, one ounce of this or that. That shouldn’t require a premium. Some of this other shit you encounter is different: house-tinctured tinctures mixed in single batches is labor intensive; of course I’ll bite. Which is to say, mixing your own drinks makes you a better consumer. Embrace it. “Now go start your own cocktail lounge.”

Jen was tasked with drink research, in preparation for doing our taxes. She found the Honeymoon Cocktail in the PDT book (page 143). It was good, if lemony. The base was apple brandy (Applejack), followed by equal parts orange curaçao, Bénédictine and lemon juice. It’s a vintage recipe, from 1916. We used some off brand Grand Marnier knockoff instead of curaçao.