Good, Better, Best; Or Whatever

The Easter Elchies cocktail (Mr. Boston, page 179), named for some fucking house on the Macallan estate, calls for eight parts single malt scotch, one part Cherry Heering and one part Punt y Mes plus on dash of orange bitters.

Of course we didn’t use single malt scotch because WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD USE SINGLE MALT SCOTCH IN A COCKTAIL? I actually have a bottle of single malt here, maybe two, and honestly, I never know when to drink it. Most nights seem not to rise to the level of single malt. The bottle(s) just sit there. Weird because they’re not that much more expensive, or at least the single malt I get. Which is to say, if they cost twice as much, you’d think they only get tasted every two or three times you drink booze. Instead, it never gets drunk. I probably should just change that. It would be a more “mature” move.

So anyway, cheap blended scotch with that weird Polish cherry stuff I got and mostly Punt y Mes but also a little bit of sweet vermouth because we ran out of Punt y Mes. And . . . it was good! Uncle Goober noted the Rob Roy-plus thing going on. Oh, yeah, right — I always forget about that; variations on this-or-that. Would it have been more good with single malt scotch? Is that ever even a possibility?

When Cocktails Are Like Sex With Bad Pizza

The great thing about the Mr. Boston book is that there are loads of cocktail recipes that are included and it’s not completely clear whether they’re there because they exist or if there is some kind of endorsement. I assumed it was the former, that the book was intended to be a dictionary of stuff. At the same time, the nod toward curation in the accompanying text makes you wonder if they’re serious about some of these drinks. And what I like about it is that there are no “bylines,” unlike a lot of books, so it’s never really clear what’s new and what’s old.

At any rate, I would like to say that the Guadalajara (page 137) seems like a flabby, uninspired cocktail. It’s got tequila (four parts), dry vermouth (two parts) and Bénédictine (one part) and yet nothing really comes forward from that. I didn’t use a lemon twist as was called for, and maybe that would make a difference, and it’s silly for me not to have done that because there are a bunch of lemons in the fridge, but at the same time, I have such an aversion to dismembering fruit that it’s hard for me to think to go over and do such a thing.

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.

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 . . .