Mixology Monday Roundup: Chocolate

It's time for the January Mixology Monday roundup! Despite some technical difficulties that kept the announcement off the MxMo website, we still had seven cocktail bloggers share some amazing chocolatey cocktails. I seriously want to try every single one of these. I'm so glad everyone embraced the theme in such varied and creative ways!

First up is The Cocktail Couple with their Million Dollar Chocolate Cocktail. This positively decadent drink is a mixture of Irish whiskey, cold brew coffee, cinnamon, grated Taza Chipotle Chili Dark Chocolate, chocolate porter, and a whole egg. Does the inclusion of the coffee and egg make this drink appropriate for breakfast? Discuss.

Fred Yarm of Cocktail Virgin Slut must have known that chocolate and champagne are my two biggest weaknesses, because he made the Negative Space from Imbibe Magazine using Suze, lemon juice, crème de cacao, absinthe, orange blossom water, and Blanc de Blancs champagne. I just got a bottle of Suze, so I'll definitely be giving this one a try!

Over at Nihil Utopia, Dagreb kept it classic with the Alexander No. 1: gin, creme de cacao, and cream. Though you're probably most familiar with the Brandy Alexander, the original version of this cocktail was indeed made with gin. This is an elegant after-dinner cocktail, and probably the most iconic use of crème de cacao out there.

Muddle & Stir joined the party this month with their Chocolate Dream Old Fashioned. With Nikka Coffey Grain Whiskey, Marble Distilling Company Moonlight EXpresso, Hershey's Special Dark chocolate syrup, and Mister Bitters Cocoa Macadamia Bitters, this cocktail really does sound like a dream come true!

Adam of Mr. Muddle whipped up the positively drool-worthy Brandy Alejandro, a boozy and spicy hot chocolate with brandy, Ancho Reyes, Becherovka, and Allspice Dram. Ancho Reyes and hot chocolate = genius. This looks and sounds so ridiculously good, and it's perfect for dreary winter weather.

Gary at Doc Elliot's Mixology was a real overachiever this month, with three chocolatey cocktails to share! He showcases the perfect pairing of chocolate and tequila with the Chocolate Manhattan: Milagro Plata tequila, Lillet, and Godiva Dark Chocolate Liqueur. I'm personally quite intrigued by the Chocolate-Covered Rum, since coconut and chocolate is one of my favorite combinations; this cocktail combines them with a bit of a spice from chipotle powder and Aztec chocolate bitters. Finally, the same chocolate simple syrup he whipped up for the Chocolate-Covered Rum makes an appearance in the Chocolate Rum Old Fashioned, along with Barbancourt 12-year. I think chocolate simple syrup is definitely going to find a place in my arsenal of ingredients.

And last but not least, I contributed the Syracuse, made with cacao nib-infused Rhum Clement, East India Solera Sherry, Ramazzotti, Cointreau, and El Guapo Spiced Cocoa Tea Bitters. I love the combination of dark chocolate and orange notes in this drink.

What an incredible bunch of recipes! Thanks so much to everyone who participated. See you all next month - keep your eyes on the MxMo Twitter account in case the website's not up and running for the February challenge. Cheers!

Mixology Monday: Syracuse

This is the first time I've ever made a cocktail for Mixology Monday when I was the one who came up with the theme! The monthly cocktail challenge has been through 114 iterations at this point, and they've covered all sorts of topics and ingredients. I was a little surprised that chocolate wasn't already on the list. I can't wait to see what everyone does with what is quite possibly my all-time favorite food. If you missed it, check out the announcement post here.

I decided I wanted to use cacao nibs in my cocktail. I have a whole bag left over from my homemade Coffee Pecan Bitters and I've been itching to do something with them. They have this incredible dark chocolate scent that I wanted to impart into a cocktail without introducing the sweetness of chocolate in most of its other forms. I figured the best way to do this would be with an infusion. There are a couple of cocktails in the Death & Co book that use cacao nib infusions, and it's a quick and easy way to introduce the flavor of cacao nibs into a drink.

Cacao nibs are the seeds of the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao. The seeds are removed from the fruit, fermented, dried, roasted, and cracked open, giving us cacao nibs. From here, the nibs have many uses. They can be ground up and mixed with milk and sugar to make chocolate, or the grinds can be used sort of like ground coffee to make traditional cocoa tea. Cocoa powder is made through a process that removes the fat, or cocoa butter, from the nibs, allowing them to be ground even finer and drier for baking or hot chocolate. The cocoa butter can be added to chocolate bars or used in lotions. Cacao nibs are amazing little things!

Death & Co provides recipes for cacao nib infused tequila blanco and Campari. I decided to try both of these, as well as some bourbon, sweet vermouth, and rum. For the rum I went with my new bottle of Rhum Clement, an agricole rhum from Martinique. The results were interesting. I found the tequila a bit strange and jarring, and the sweet vermouth smelled exactly like barbecue sauce - intriguing, but not really appealing to me. The bourbon, Campari, and rum were my favorites, and as I started experimenting with them in cocktails, I ultimately settled on the Rhum Clement.

I was also interested in introducing some Ramazzotti to the mix. I haven't talked about Ramazzotti yet, except briefly in my post on amari - my growing bar has outpaced my Bottle Buy posts, and I need to catch up! Ramazzotti is a thick, sweet, citrusy amaro. It's often described as having a "root beer" flavor, but it's the orange notes that I really pick up on. Right after I got a bottle I had a bit with some Godiva blood orange dark chocolate that we'd gotten for Christmas, and I thought it was the most perfect pairing imaginable. I wanted to capture some similar flavors in my cacao nib cocktail. I added some sweet and nutty East India Solera Sherry, another new purchase, as well as a bit of Cointreau to enhance the orange flavor. Finally, to blend it all together and amp up the cacao flavor, I included a dash of El Guapo Spiced Cocoa Tea bitters.

I really like this cocktail. The aroma is lovely: raisins, chocolate, and orange. It has flavors of bright citrus and rich sherry, with a hint of bitterness and deep dark chocolate notes. The orange flavor is the most intense, whereas the chocolate is a more subtle background note that really comes through at the end of your sip. This is exactly why I love Mixology Monday - I never would have come up with this combination otherwise.

Check back here for the roundup of everyone's chocolate cocktails! I hope to post it in a week, but I'll be doing some fieldwork in Texas until the end of the month, and I'm not sure what the internet situation will be. So don't be concerned if there's radio silence from me on the blog and social media. (Unless it lasts into February - then send a search party.) I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!

Syracuse

1 1/2 oz. cacao-nib infused rum (I used Rhum Clement)*
3/4 oz. East India Solera Sherry
1/2 oz. Ramazzotti
1/4 oz. Cointreau
1 dash El Guapo Spiced Cocoa Tea bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass with one large ice cube. Garnish with an orange twist.

*To infuse rum with cacao nibs, combine 1/2 tsp. of cacao nibs per 2 ounces of rum in a jar or bottle. Seal it and let it sit overnight, stirring or shaking occasionally. Strain out the cacao nibs.

Cacao nib infusion adapted from Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails.

Mixology Monday CXV: Chocolate

Well, the holidays may be over, but the good news is it’s Mixology Monday time again! If you’re not familiar with Mixology Monday, it’s basically a monthly online cocktail party. Each month a host blogger chooses a theme, and anyone who would like to participate can mix up a cocktail based on that theme and share it.

I’m very excited to start off the new year by hosting my first Mixology Monday challenge. And I’m sorry to sabotage your well-intentioned New Year’s resolutions to cut back on the booze and eat fewer sweets, but this month’s theme is… chocolate.

When I think of chocolate and cocktails together, my mind still automatically conjures the image of a chocolate martini with a syrupy drizzle and a dollop of whipped cream, plucked right from the photo-laden menu of a classy establishment like Chili’s or The Cheesecake Factory. (As a kid I considered this the ultimate drink, the paragon of all cocktails, and it baffled me that adults did not drink them more. Why would you have something as utterly disgusting as a beer or a glass of Scotch when you could be drinking chocolate?)

My tastes have since evolved, and so has the role of chocolate in cocktails. Instead of creamy sugar bombs, bars are serving up crème de cacao classics like the 20th Century and Brandy Alexander, Boulevardiers made with cacao-nib infused Campari, and Oaxaca Old Fashioneds with mole bitters. Chocolate has found its way into serious cocktails, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

So this month, give in to your sweet tooth (or not) and see what you can do with a little chocolate! Chocolate liqueur, crème de cacao, chocolate bitters, cacao nibs, cocoa powder, cocoa tea… if it comes from the cacao plant, it’s fair game.

Here’s how to participate:

• Find or create a cocktail recipe that incorporates chocolate in some way.
• Make the drink and post the recipe, a photo, and your thoughts on your blog, Tumblr, or website or on the eGullet Spirits and Cocktails forum.
• Be sure to include the Mixology Monday logo in your post, and links back to Mixology Monday and Garnish. Once the round-up is posted, a link to the summary post would be appreciated.
• Provide a link to your submission in the comment section here, tweet to @garnishblog, or send an email to garnishgirl@garnishblog.com.

Submissions are due by Monday, January 23rd. That gives you two weeks to get mixing. I can’t wait to see what you all come up with!

Mixology Monday: The Innocents Abroad

Hello from Louisiana! GarnishGuy and I are back home until Christmas, spending time with family and eating far more than we ought to. We're hoping to sneak away to New Orleans later in the week to celebrate our anniversary (eight years!) and check out some bars. Until then, we've been having fun experimenting with the contents of my parents' liquor cabinet, which has definitely grown since I started this blog! Last night's cocktails were, appropriately, the De La Louisiane and the Vieux Carre - both big hits.

Since we were pretty busy leading up to our trip, I didn't have much time to experiment with cocktails for this month's Mixology Monday. Luckily, the theme of this month's challenge, hosted by Stacey Markow, is digestifs. And I've had an absolutely fantastic recipe for a digestif that I've been looking forward to sharing. It's not an original recipe, but it's so good I can't resist sharing it for this challenge.

There's an excellent new restaurant in Boston's South End called SRV. It's a "Venetian-style Bacaro and wine bar" from the folks behind The Salty Pig and Canary Square, two of our favorite spots. We first went there for a drink while we waited for a table at Toro. We ordered a couple of cocktails and several of their bar bites, and we were really blown away. The bar snacks were ridiculously good: salt cod brandade on black bread with herbs, soft boiled quail eggs with white anchovies and a crunchy garlic pangrattato, grilled octopus with pine nuts and preserved lemon... I need to stop talking about this, I'm making myself really hungry right now.

The cocktail menu at SRV is heavy on amari and vermouth, which I love. They have a vermouth of the day ("We always drink to world peace") and some really great cocktails. One of these is The Innocents Abroad: Fighting Cock bourbon, Amaro Nonino, Gran Classico, and Kina L'Aero D'Or. It's been a while since I was so blown away by a cocktail that I thought, "I HAVE to make this at home," but that was what I thought about The Innocents Abroad, and I didn't really care how many bottles of liquor I needed to buy (three, it turned out - four if I wanted to use the same bourbon). On our second visit, I worked up the courage to ask the bartender for the recipe, which he happily shared. I hope they won't mind me re-posting it here, so that others can know the joy of this wonderful drink.

The Innocents Abroad is a perfect digestif. We recently made it after dinner for a couple of friends, and it was wonderful: sweet with just enough bitterness. It has an almost syrupy texture, thick on your tongue. It's one of those cocktails where the ingredients knit together so perfectly and tightly that it's hard to pick them all out. It's nutty, citrusy, and herbal, with the lovely flavor of the Amaro Nonino in the middle of your sip and the distinctive bitterness of the Gran Classico and Kina L'Aero at the end. It's definitely one of the best cocktails I've tried this year.

History: This cocktail was created for SRV by David Spielburg. According to this article, it's a something of a riff on the Paper Plane. I imagine it must have been named after the book The Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrim's Progress by Mark Twain, which tells the story of his travels through Europe and the Holy Land on a retired Civil War ship.

The Innocents Abroad

1 1/2 oz. bourbon (Fighting Cock recommended)
3/4 oz. Amaro Nonino
1/2 oz. Gran Classico
1/2 oz. Kina L'Aero D'Or

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

Recipe courtesy of SRV.

Mixology Monday: Bombay Sour

This month's theme for Mixology Monday is quite close to my heart: brunch cocktails!! Gary at Doc Elliot's Mixology has chosen the theme "Bacon, Eggs, and Booze" this month, and I couldn't be more on board. I love brunch. It's easily my favorite meal. And as Gary reminds us, "A brunch without booze is just a sad, late breakfast." We all enjoy our Mimosas and Bloody Marys at brunch time, but there's a lot more to brunch cocktails than that, and I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone whips up for some late-morning imbibing.

The timing of this challenge was quite fortuitous, because I already had a couple of cocktail recipes I was playing with that would be very brunch-appropriate. One involves some coffee-infused rye, which I managed to over-infuse into the realm of unpalatable bitterness, so that one is still in the pipeline. But this one is utter perfection, and I'm pretty excited to share it. It works for brunch because it basically contains a healthy breakfast: yogurt, mangos, and honey.

The inspiration for this cocktail was Black Cloud's Saffron Mango Bitters. The flavor made me think of a mango lassi, so I decided to include some yogurt in this recipe. I've been wanting to use yogurt in a cocktail for a long time, ever since this article from Liquor.com made it look so ridiculously good. And after trying it, I think it's definitely going to end up in more drinks in the future. It adds a thick, silky texture to your cocktail, along with a slight tang. It's really lovely.

Before we get to the recipe: my fellow home mixologists who are reading this might be interested in a cocktail contest that's being hosted by Durham Distillery. This North Carolina distillery produces Conniption gin and a number of liqueurs. Enter your cocktail recipe using their products or any gin or comparable liqueur to win $150 worth of prizes! It's open to everyone, not just bartenders. So get mixing!

Bombay Sour

1 1/2 oz. aged rum
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. honey simple syrup*
1/2 tbsp. Greek yogurt
3 large pieces of mango
2 droppers Black Cloud Saffron Mango bitters

Place mango and honey simple syrup in the bottom of a shaker and muddle well until the mango has released its juice. Add rum, lemon juice, Greek yogurt, bitters, and ice. Shake well to incorporate the yogurt into the cocktail. Strain into a rocks glass and fill with crushed ice. Garnish with saffron threads.

*For honey simple syrup, combine equal parts honey and water in a saucepan and simmer, stirring occasionally, until honey is dissolved. Let cool entirely before using.

Mixology Monday: Dram Positive

It's Mixology Monday again! This month's challenge is hosted by Fred Yarm of Cocktail Virgin Slut and the theme is mashups. The idea is to take two cocktails and combine them into one. It was a bit challenging! I played around with a lot of different ideas. Since I just featured Drambuie on the blog last week, the Rusty Nail was still fresh in my mind. I thought it would be a good candidate for a mashup cocktail because its recipe is so simple - just Scotch and Drambuie.

I decided to combine the Rusty Nail with the Penicillin, another Scotch cocktail. I haven't featured the Penicillin on the blog yet, but I really should. It's a spectacular cocktail, one that could definitely be considered a "new classic." It was created by Sam Ross, formerly of Milk & Honey and now at Attaboy in the Lower East Side. It's a mixture of blended Scotch, lemon juice, honey-ginger syrup, and a float of peaty single malt. Since Drambuie has a Scotch base and strong honey flavors, I thought it would be perfect. I stuck to a ginger simple syrup and let the Drambuie bring the honey notes itself.

You'll have to forgive this cocktail's name, but I just couldn't resist. Sir Alexander Fleming (who was Scottish, by the way) discovered penicillin when a colony of Penicillium mold contaminated a plate of Staphylococcus in his lab, inhibiting its growth. Staph is a gram-positive bacteria. This cocktail is a Penicillin with Drambuie, so... Dram Positive!

I'll just see myself out.

Dram Positive

1 1/2 oz. blended Scotch (I used Famous Grouse)
1/2 oz. Drambuie
3/4 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. ginger syrup*
1/4 oz. Lagavulin or other peaty Scotch

Combine blended Scotch, Drambuie, lemon juice, and ginger syrup in a shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Strain into an old fashioned glass over one large ice cube. Float the Lagavulin on top by gently pouring it over the back of a spoon. Garnish with candied ginger.

*For ginger syrup, peel and slice a 1-inch piece of fresh ginger. Bring equal parts sugar and water to a simmer in a saucepan and add the ginger. Let simmer for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool completely and strain.

Mixology Monday: European Vagrant

Is it already time for Mixology Monday again? I feel like August and September have flown by. That's not really a bad thing - I'm so excited for the start of fall. Cooler weather, fall colors, hair that doesn't frizz within moments of walking outside... it's possibly my favorite season.

This month's MxMo is hosted by Rebecca of The Shrubbery, and the theme is Drink Nerdy. Acknowledging that all of us who participate in MxMo are probably nerdy about cocktails, Rebecca has challenged us to create a cocktail inspired by something else we're nerdy about. This is such a fun challenge, and I'm excited to see what everyone else likes to geek out over.

As both a devoted fantasy reader and a scientist, I can get pretty nerdy about a lot of things. But the most unique thing I'm nerdy about is probably birds.

I have no idea why I started liking birds, but I've been interested in them for the longest time. Around seventh grade, I decided I was going to be an ornithologist, and that's what I've pursued ever since. I defended my PhD thesis last year, so I guess I've officially fulfilled my childhood dream! While my enthusiasm for the world of academia has waned a bit, I've never lost interest in birds. They are just hands-down the coolest animals out there, and I feel so lucky that I get to spend my time studying them. And while I’ve never gotten into the crazy competitive side of birdwatching (oh yes, this exists), I do keep a life list and get pretty darn excited when I see a new species.

When I started thinking about what it means to be a bird nerd, I thought the concept was well encapsulated by a brief exchange I witnessed a couple of weeks ago. My lab went out to Plum Island to watch shorebirds, and there were tons of other birders there. We were all lined up by the road with binoculars and spotting scopes, gazing out at the birds on the mudflats. Two girls pulled up in a car behind us, peering out at the sea. I don’t like to jump to conclusions based on appearances, but I’m going to guess that these ladies were not the type to do much birding.

“What are you all looking at?” one asked.

One of the other birders turned around and said excitedly, “A Ruff! It’s a European vagrant!”

I have no idea why she didn’t share our enthusiasm.

“Vagrant” is the word we use to describe a bird that turns up somewhere it shouldn’t be. Most bird species have well-defined ranges where they occur, but every now and then an individual will end up somewhere odd due to a storm or some confusion during migration. Birders get really excited when this happens. The Ruff (Philomachus pugnax) is a shorebird that generally only occurs in the Old World, so getting the chance to see one in Massachusetts was pretty cool.

But still quite nerdy.

The Ruff, Philomachus pugnax. This is what we saw, except much further away, somewhat blurry, and surrounded by native Massachusetts shorebirds that looked basically identical. I don't know why no one thinks birding is exciting.

For my European Vagrant cocktail, I wanted to work with local ingredients and throw in one very European one. While thinking about thoroughly American ingredients, I was reminded of the American Trilogy, a riff on the Old Fashioned with rye and apple brandy. I decided to replace the orange bitters with an Italian amaro. After some experimentation, the winner was Amaro Nonino. I thought the nutty flavors of Nonino blended really nicely with the apple, and it provides just the right amount of sweetness and bitterness. Unfortunately I haven't introduced Nonino yet with a Bottle Buy, but stay tuned! It's coming soon.

One more note - as with my original American Trilogy, I made this recipe with Laird's Applejack, which is a poor man's apple brandy (about 35% apple brandy, I believe). I need to hunt down a bottle of Laird's Bonded Apple Brandy and make these cocktails properly. That said, I still really enjoy them with the Applejack, and I think you will too if that's what you have on hand.

European Vagrant

1 oz. rye whiskey

1 oz. Laird's Applejack or Bonded Apple Brandy

1/2 oz. Amaro Nonino

1/2 tsp. simple syrup

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into an old fashioned glass with one large ice cube. Garnish with an apple fan and an orange twist (and preferably a bird-themed cocktail pick).

Mixology Monday: You Say Tomato

After a summer away, Mixology Monday is back! This month's host is Mr. Muddle, and the theme is vinegar. I'm pretty excited about it. I've only used vinegar in my cocktails twice: for the Bufala Negra and the Strawberry Balsamic Smash, both of which use a bit of balsamic vinegar. But if you're into cocktails, you probably know that the most common use of vinegar in cocktail recipes is the shrub.

Shrubs, also called drinking vinegars, are mixtures of fruit, sugar, and vinegar that are usually consumed with club soda or included in a cocktail. Shrubs were popular in colonial times, when the vinegar was used as a preservative for fruits and berries. Like just about every other old-timey cocktail ingredient, they're making a comeback in modern mixology. And with good reason. There are few ingredients as positively flavorful as a shrub.

I've only attempted to make a shrub once before, a black peppercorn and cranberry shrub following this recipe from With Food & Love. It did not come out well - it was way too vinegary and was basically undrinkable. I definitely should have added the vinegar bit by bit and tasted it until it was perfect. That scared me off of making my own shrubs for a while, but now I have the perfect excuse to try again.

As I was trying to decide what kind of shrub to make, my eyes fell on the cucumbers and tomatoes I had just harvested from my garden. I remembered a wonderful cocktail I had at Eastern Standard made with tomato shrub and cava, and figured...why not?

I followed the instructions for a cold-process shrub from this Food52 article that MrMuddle kindly provided. It takes a couple of days, but it's a pretty hands-off process, and very easy. You can make a shrub. Trust me.

I did find Food52's suggestion of one cup of sugar for half a pound of tomato to be too sweet. I'd possibly even use half the sugar. I didn't use as much vinegar as they recommended, either. If there's one thing I'm learning about shrubs, it's that you've got to taste as you go and ad-lib a lot. But I am so glad Mixology Monday convinced me to give them another chance - I love the finished product. It's delicious.

As for those cucumbers... stay tuned!

Tomato Shrub

8-10 oz. tomato, chopped
1/2 cup to 1 cup sugar
~6 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Combine tomato and sugar in a bowl and stir to combine. (I mashed it, and I think this resulted in too much particulate matter floating in the shrub.) Cover the bowl with a dish towel and let sit on the counter for two days, stirring once a day. The tomatoes will release a lot of liquid. After 48 hours, strain the syrup into a measuring cup. I had about 1 cup of syrup, so if you've got more or less than that, adjust your vinegar accordingly. Stir in the vinegar one tablespoon at a time, tasting as you go. Consider setting aside half of your syrup before you add the vinegar, so you can even it out if you add too much.

Recipe adapted from Food52.

I don't remember the exact ingredients of the tomato shrub cocktail I had at Eastern Standard, but I liked the idea of mixing this shrub with some sparkling wine, so I decided to use it as my inspiration. I added gin, which went nicely with the shrub, and some grapefruit bitters to tone down the sweetness.

You Say Tomato

1 oz. gin
1 oz. tomato shrub
3 oz. prosecco
2 dashes grapefruit bitters

Combine gin, shrub, and bitters in a shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Strain into a champagne glass or coupe. Top with prosecco. Garnish with cherry tomatoes.

Mixology Monday: Cape Cod Swizzle

I dropped the ball on the last couple of installments of Mixology Monday, but I'm happy to be back for April's theme of Swizzles, hosted by Fred Yarm of Cocktail Virgin Slut. I was particularly happy about this theme, because I've never made a swizzle before. I've had the well-known Queen's Park Swizzle a couple of times, but I've never made one at home. I was excited to learn more about them and come up with a recipe of my own.

A swizzle is a cocktail that is made with crushed ice that is then mixed using a unique "swizzle stick." We tend to call anything you stick into a cocktail a swizzle stick, but the real thing looks like this. It's inserted into the cocktail, which is served in a tall glass filled with crushed ice, and twirled by rubbing it between your palms ("as if you were a boy scout making a fire," as David Wondrich aptly puts it). This process originated in the Caribbean, where mixtures of spirits, sweeteners, and citrus were swizzled to frosty perfection as early as the late 1800's.

Since it's the first time I've made a swizzle, I didn't want to make my recipe too unusual. I decided to use the Queen's Park Swizzle as a base recipe and add a dash of thoroughly New England flavor: GrandTen's Craneberry cranberry liqueur. My husband and I went on their distillery tour a few weeks ago and were so impressed by it that we had to buy a bottle. If you don't live near Massachusetts, it might be tough to get your hands on, in which case you could also try and make your own. But if you have the opportunity, you've got to try the Craneberry. It uses a base of white rum infused with cranberries and aged in used Cabernet Sauvignon casks. The name refers to what early Massachusetts settlers called cranberries due to the crane-like shape of the cranberry flowers. It's intensely, deliciously tart, and I love what it does for the swizzle.

It's the technique and construction that really makes a swizzle a swizzle, and mine was admittedly quite cobbled together; lacking a Lewis bag and mallet to properly crush my ice, I used a clean dishtowel and an ice cream scoop. I don't have an authentic swizzle stick, so my barspoon had to suffice. But I was still very impressed by how wonderfully frosty the outside of the glass became as I swizzled away, and how the incorporation of the tiny pieces of ice into the drink made it into a cold, delicious, utterly drinkable cocktail. It's exactly what I'd like to be drinking on Cape Cod during the summertime.

Check back here for a link to the Mixology Monday roundup with lots more refreshing swizzle recipes!

Cape Cod Swizzle

2 oz. white rum
1/4 oz. Craneberry or other cranberry liqueur
1 oz. lime juice
3/4 oz. simple syrup
10-12 mint leaves
4 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine mint leaves, simple syrup, and lime juice in the bottom of a glass and muddle well. Add rum and swirl to combine. Fill glass with crushed ice. Gently drizzle Craneberry and Angostura on top. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

After you've finished admiring the lovely layers, insert a swizzle stick or other stirring device into the cocktail. Like a good boy scout, rub it between your palms to stir the cocktail and melt the little shards of crushed ice into the drink. The outside of the glass should become frosty and the whole cocktail should turn a pleasing shade of pink. Add a straw and enjoy.

Mixology Monday: Blood and Smoke

It snowed last night in Boston. I woke up to see a beautiful, smooth blanket of white on my balcony, all the neighboring roofs dusted with snow. I stood in my pajamas gazing at the tranquil winter scene, sipping my coffee, feeling at peace with the world.

Then I remembered: shoveling.

Nothing kills the magic of winter quite like home ownership. We moved to Boston from Louisiana, and for the six years that we rented, we never had to worry about the snow. We'd walk right out of our door onto the (usually) shoveled walk and go about our day. Since we didn't even have a car, I never touched a shovel. Snow remained a magical, beautiful thing, at least when it was freshly-fallen.

Then we bought a condo, and last winter the shoveling began. It's not that bad when there's just a few inches on the ground like today, but unless you've successfully blocked it out, you probably remember that more than just a few inches fell last winter. I got very, very tired of shoveling. Maybe if we avoid any more record-breaking snowfall this year, I'll be able to rediscover my love of snow. But until then, shoveling it is.

The only really good part about shoveling snow is that moment when you come inside, hot and cold and the same time, shake off your boots and jacket, and have something to drink. This morning, I swear a mug of hot coffee has never tasted better. And last winter, when we shoveled in the evenings, nothing was better than a cocktail.  So it's fitting that the theme for this month's Mixology Monday, hosted by Doc Elliot, is Brace Yourself. The Doc asks, "What adult beverages can best prepare the body and steel the will for that moment when we go forth into Winter?"

Some drinks really do lend themselves perfectly to winter weather. Bourbon and Scotch, red wine and brandy. There's hot toddies and mulled wine and spiced cider. And sometimes it's great to try and forget that it's winter at all, with Tiki cocktails or winter citrus that tastes like summer. I never used to pay much attention to all the winter citrus fruits that pop up in grocery stores right around now, but this year I've been taking advantage of the variety: satsumas, tangerines, clementines, and of course blood oranges. I've never bought blood oranges before. It's pretty hard to find them at other times of the year. But now there are piles of them, and I couldn't wait to try them in a cocktail.

In the Blood and Smoke, I combined the bright taste of blood orange with the spicy and smoky flavors of rye whiskey and Scotch. It's a cocktail that warms away the winter chill while giving just a hint of summer to hold you over. It's quite similar to an Old Fashioned in flavor, except that the blood orange is richer and more tart, and a rinse of a peaty single-malt Scotch gives it a subtle smokiness.

I can't wait to see the bracing concoctions that everyone else whips up. It's only January - I think we're going to need them.

The roundup for Mixology Monday CV is here!

Blood and Smoke

2 oz. rye whiskey
1 oz. blood orange juice
1/4 - 1/2 oz. simple syrup (depends a fair bit on the tartness of your blood oranges)
1 dash Angostura bitters
Scotch rinse (use a smoky single malt like Lagavulin or Laphroig)

Combine rye, blood orange juice, simple syrup, and bitters in a mixing glass. Add ice and stir until well-chilled. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass that has been generously rinsed with the Scotch. Add one large ice cube. Garnish with a slice of blood orange.

Mixology Monday: Mad Scientist

This month's Mixology Monday is hosted by Rated R Cocktails, and the theme is Spooky Sips. I love it! I had several different ideas aesthetically, from a bloody dark red cocktail fit for a vampire to some sort of witches' brew using this stuff, but actually making something that would taste good was the real challenge. I decided to go with this one because it has a theme close to my heart: the Mad Scientist. It's a Daiquiri with a lemon foam on top (raw egg whites are spoooooky) and a dropper of Green Chartreuse for you to mix in yourself (or just shoot straight from the pipette, I won't judge). I really, really wanted to work in some dry ice, but not only is it pretty unsafe to stick a chunk in an individual cocktail (if you swallow it, it's going to do some serious damage on the way down), it's also best to get food-grade dry ice to avoid any additional contaminants, and there's no way the stuff we use in the lab is food-grade. In retrospect I really should have taken some home anyway, because it would have looked great in this photo. Alas.

Mad Scientist

2 oz. white rum (I used Bully Boy)
3/4 oz. simple syrup
3/4 oz. lime juice
~1/2 oz. Green Chartreuse
1 egg white
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice

For foam: (Only use fresh egg whites when consuming raw, and be aware that there is a risk of salmonella.) Place egg white in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat with the whisk attachment until slightly foamy. Add in sugar and lemon juice and beat until the mixture reaches desired consistency.

For cocktail: Combine rum, simple syrup, and lime juice in a shaker with ice and shake until very well-chilled. Double-strain into a beaker. Spoon lemon foam on top. Fill a disposable pipette with Green Chartreuse. (It was a little difficult to get the pipette as full as I wanted it. After I sucked up what I could, it worked best to snip the tip off of another pipette, fill it, hold it with the opening facing down, insert the pipette going into the cocktail, and suck the liquid out.) Place pipette into the cocktail and serve.

Mixology Monday: Old Cuban

Today may be Friday, but it's Mixology Monday time again! And this one is very special: MxMo C, the 100th Mixology Monday. I'm very much a newcomer to this online cocktail party, having only participated in three so far, but I love that it's been a way to instantly become a part of a great community of other bloggers who love cocktails. I'm thrilled to be here for the 100th.


This month's theme is Cocktail Chronicles, hosted by Frederic of Cocktail Virgin Slut and fittingly inspired by Mixology Monday founder Paul Clarke. He's been blogging about cocktails longer than most; his blog The Cocktail Chronicles was started 10 years ago, and he's since become a big-name cocktail writer for all sorts of major publications. His book The Cocktail Chronicles: Navigating the Cocktail Renaissance with Jigger, Shaker & Glass just came out last month. So it's really perfect timing that we can celebrate the 100th anniversary of Mixology Monday with a tribute to him.

The challenge, then, is to choose a cocktail that is "timeless (or potentially timeless) and elegant in its simplicity" using Paul's blog and book as inspiration. It's certainly a theme open to interpretation, and I can't wait to see the collection of recipes that fellow bloggers think will continue to stand the test of time. I went to Paul's blog and looked at the recipes he had posted there, and the one I wanted to make jumped right out at me: the Old Cuban.

Paul actually made the Old Cuban for MxMo III over nine years ago. If you're not familiar with this cocktail, it's basically a Mojito with aged rum and champagne instead of club soda, and a couple of dashes of bitters for good measure. The champagne is what cemented the choice for me. I love champagne cocktails, and when I see the word "elegant" I can't help but think that something with champagne is an obvious choice. The Old Cuban exudes elegance. Another thing Frederic stressed in his announcement post is how Paul thinks that cocktails should remain accessible to everyone, and I think the Old Cuban nails that. The ingredients are simple, and I can't imagine someone not liking it. Still, its combination of flavors and textures is something that I think even a cocktail connoisseur has got to appreciate. What's more, I think it is definitely a drink with staying power. The first place I ever saw it was in Vintage Cocktails, and I assumed it had been around for a while. It's also on the menu at Park in Cambridge, and I've recommended it to numerous friends. I was pretty surprised to find out that it was invented recently, by Audrey Saunders of the Pegu Club in New York. As far as I'm concerned, it's a new classic, and one of my favorites.

The MxMo C round-up post is here!

Old Cuban

1 1/2 oz. aged rum (I used Folly Cove)
3/4 oz. simple syrup
3/4 oz. lime juice
2 dashes Angostura bitters
6 mint leaves
Champagne

Combine mint, simple syrup, and lime juice in the bottom of a shaker and muddle. Add rum and bitters. Shake with ice until chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe glass and top with champagne. Garnish with a sprig of mint or a sugar-coated vanilla bean. (For the record, when I have vanilla beans sitting around to be used as cocktail garnishes, I will know I've made it.)

Recipe adapted from The Cocktail Chronicles.

Mixology Monday: Boston Molassacre

The theme of this month's Mixology Monday, hosted by PuntneyFarm, is Hometown Hooch. The idea is to use locally-distilled spirits. And, being in Boston, I'm in luck. There are distilleries popping up in the Boston area left and right. I chose to use Folly Cove rum from Ryan & Wood in Gloucester, MA, but there were tons of other options, including Bully Boy, Berkshire Mountain, GrandTen, and the new Boston Harbor Distillery, just to name a few.

The current resurgence in local distilleries harkens back to the early days of booze production in the States, when most spirits were made and sold locally. However, Boston had a further reach than most. Its first distillery opened in 1667, and by the American Revolution, gallons of molasses were being imported from the Caribbean every year for Bostons 50+ distilleries to make rum. Rum was the most popular spirit of the time, and Massachusetts was America's leading exporter. But in the 1800's, importing sugar and molasses became more difficult, so most of America turned to whiskey made from home-grown grains. The number of rum distilleries steadily decreased.

The final nail in the casket of Boston's distilling industry was in 1919. Purity Distilling Company was operating at 529 Commercial Street in Boston's North End, right at the mouth of the Charles River. They were still in the business of distilling molasses, but not to make rum; during World War I they used it to make explosives, and in 1919 they were mostly producing industrial ethanol. At center of the distillery was an immense tank for storing and fermenting molasses. We're talking 58 feet high and 90 feet in diameter, containing something like 2.3 million gallons of the stuff. And it wasn't in the best shape. It leaked so regularly that residents of the North End would go collect the molasses dripping off of it.

It was just after noon on January 15, 1919. It was an unseasonably warm day in Boston, which may have had something to do with what happened next.

The tank burst. Its steel plates flew apart, shooting rivets like bullets. A huge wave of warm molasses swept over the North End at 35 miles per hour, leveling buildings, sweeping away cars, and destroying the elevated subway tracks leading to North Station. Twenty-one people were killed and another 150 were injured. Many who did not drown in the molasses were crushed by debris. Today the event is known as the Boston Molasses Disaster, or, more irreverently, the Boston Molassacre.

They say that on warm winter days in the North End, you can still smell the molasses.

The aftermath of the disaster.

The cleanup took six months. While it was still ongoing, Prohibition was passed into law. And that was the end of Boston's distilleries. Did the Molassacre actually have anything to do with this? Probably not. But damn, it's a great story. And who knows? Maybe if Purity Distilling had still been around and had 2.3 million gallons of molasses on hand when Prohibition ended, they might have decided to make some rum.

The headline of the Boston Post the day after the disaster. Note the article on Prohibition on the left.

Now, nearly 100 years later, Boston and its surrounding areas are finally getting back into the game. As soon as I remembered the Molassacre, I wanted to use a local rum for this cocktail. I was a bit down to the wire and the liquor store I went to didn't have Bully Boy or Medford rum, which are actually made inside the city limits, but I came across Ryan & Wood's Folly Cove. It's made in Gloucester, which is about 35 miles north of Boston on Cape Ann. I'm not a rum connoisseur, but I really like it; it's smooth and has such a nice flavor that I enjoyed it by itself. But any rum distilled from molasses would work.

This recipe is a riff on the Dark 'N Stormy, which is usually made with Gosling's Black Seal Rum and ginger beer (in fact, Gosling's has trademarked the cocktail, so if you don't make it with Gosling's brand, you're technically not making a Dark 'N Stormy). Add some lime and you get a cocktail called a "buck," though that's not a term you really see anymore. The Moscow Mule (vodka, ginger beer, lime) is a vodka buck.

Blackstrap molasses is pretty thick and has a strong taste on its own, so I made a molasses simple syrup by adding it to sugar and water. And let me tell you, after working with it, I do not want to know what it would be like to drown in the stuff.

UPDATE: The Mixology Monday roundup is here!

Boston Molassacre

2 oz. rum
5 oz. ginger beer
1/2 oz. molasses simple syrup*
1 lime wedge

Combine rum and molasses syrup in a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled and strain into a rocks glass. Top with ginger beer and garnish with a lime wedge, squeezed and dropped in if desired.

*Molasses simple syrup: combine 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water, and 1 tbsp. blackstrap molasses in a small saucepan on the stove. Heat on low until sugar is dissolved. Do not allow to come to a boil. Let cool before use.

P.S. The map of Boston in the back of the top photo is from GeoArtShed. Check them out!