Blackbeard's Revenge

This drink has not only a location and a story, but even has a date: March 31, 2010. On this day we're in the middle of our Caribbean cruise, stopping off at St. Thomas for the day. We've chosen a walking tour for our activity, starting at Blackbeard's Castle and wandering down the hill. The end point of the trip is the Amber Museum (meh) and Hotel 1829.

The view from the bar. Hotel 1829, St. Thomas

We've been walking a chunk of the day, it's warm but not unpleasant, and all of the house tours along the way take advantage of the temperate breezes for cooling (read: no air conditioning). We're warm but not uncomfortable, but ready for a break from walking downhill for a couple of hours. The hotel has a small bar attached that looks out over the bay (the bar is the former kitchen of the house, from when it was built in 1829), and we pull up a couple of chairs in the small, empty bar and survey the scene.

There's a sign attached to the woodwork touting the bar's signature drink: the Blackbeard's Revenge. We are not predisposed to turn down something new, so Julie and I each order one.

The bartender ignores the variety of glasses surrounding him and drops two translucent plastic beer glasses filled with ice on the counter. I was in college for 7 1/2 years, so this is not unfamiliar territory, even if a seems a bit odd to skip straight to the plasticware.

Next, he grabs four different bottles of Cruzan flavored rum. There's a little part of me that sighs; Cruzan's the $10 rum back home, so I'm apparently getting the cheap stuff in this drink. He gives each glass a shot from each bottle, and returns the bottles to the bar.

A dose of orange juice is next, followed by a grenadine sink to the bottom of the glass. My pancreas is now setting up protest signs for what, to my mind, has to be a syrupy-sweet tourist trap of a drink.

Then, he grabs one more bottle: Cruzan Blackstrap rum. Now THIS gets my attention. I've not had the blackstrap rum before, and I'm now much more interested in seeing what the drink will shake out like. The bartender floats a scant shot over the top.

The final drink has a pretty red base, the light orange torso, and a roiling black top, all masked and softened by the translucence of the cup. We're handed the drinks, we hand over some cash (less than I expected, as I recall), and took a sip. Fruity, clean, certainly sweet but with the blackstrap rum holding it just in check, cold, full of alcohol but not strong to the taste. The glass is even a welcome touch, giving the layers of the drink soft edges without hiding the dramatic shifts in color. At the moment we had our first sip, it was the perfect drink for the place and time: a cold, fruity rum drink in a old, wooden shady bar on a warm day overlooking paradise.

I've come to appreciate the Cruzan rums as light additions to drinks; not something I would often go to, but they have the ability to unobtrusively add delicate rum flavor to drinks that concentrate their flavors on the surface. I'm a biiiig fan of the Cruzan Blackstrap, and have found several common uses for it. In replicating this drink, the only deliberate change I've made is to reduce slightly the amount of coconut rum in the mix; it seems to take over the drink if you're not careful, and I prefer it to be more balanced in the drink. And, I totally recommend a glass with a bit of frost to it; it really does make the effect of the drink more dramatic.

The drink is pictured in the
Etched Squiggle 16 oz pint glass
and is available for purchase
on the Contemporary Complements website.

Blackbeard's Revenge (from Hotel 1829, St. Thomas USVI)

1 oz. Cruzan Pineapple Rum

.75 oz. Cruzan Coconut Rum

1 oz. Cruzan Mango Rum

1 oz. Cruzan Citrus Rum

1.5 oz. orange juice

.5 oz. grenadine (pomegranate syrup; I use Monin)

.75 oz. Cruzan Blackstrap Rum

Add the four flavored rums and the orange to a glass filled with ice; stir. Sink the grenadine to the bottom by tilting the glass slightly, then pouring the grenadine slowly so that it runs down the side of the glass to the bottom without mixing. Float the blackstrap rum on top (pour the rum over a spoon, bottom side up, positioned close to the top of the drink so that the blackstrap floats on top of the drink).
Stir before drinking.

Sangria

Well, take a month off, and coast in with an easy one, shall we?...

Sangria is a summer staple around our house, and our "adult fruit punch" is the only way Julie will drink the robust red wines that I'll occasionally sneak a taste of. There are a tremendous number of variants that we've had over the years, but we've had enough to know when a restaurant has let their fruit sit too long, or aren't balancing their flavors, or wasted time chopping up fruit salad and dumping it into our glass to somehow prove that there's fruit flavors in their sangria.

This Polka Dot Stemless Martini

glass (13.5 oz), is available on the 

Contemporary Complements

website.

Our first real flirtations with sangria came with the 1998 recipe from Cook's Illustrated (of which I am proud to be a charter subscriber to). The recipe is deceptively simple: 2 oranges, 1 lemon, sugar and triple sec for each bottle of full-bodied red wine you use. There's a bit more to it than that: Juice one of the oranges,  cut the other orange and the lime in reasonably thin slices ( a quarter-inch or so), add the quarter-cup sugar and muddle the fruit until everything looks a bit soggy, then add one juiced orange, a generous quarter-cup of triple sec and the wine, then throw the whole thing in the refrigerator. Next morning, strain the liquid from the fruit, and you're ready to go.

And, as usual, there's even still a few more details to mention. We add one lime per bottle of wine for our default recipe. Make sure, of course, to wash your fruit and pick fruit that has a good-looking skin; you're going to be drinking whatever's on the outside, remember. Places that put little chunks of fruit in your glass are doing it for garnish; all your flavor comes from the fruit soak that you do. And, critically, do NOT let your soak go longer than 8 hours. You need a few hours to get everything to start releasing, but after the 8-hour mark, the rind begins to make its presence known, and your sangria will become increasingly bitter the longer you let it soak. Six hours seems to be the sweet spot; overnight and drained around the 8-hour mark is also fine.

For the triple sec, don't go super high-end for a couple of reasons. First off, Cointreau, Citronage or Grand Marnier will either add flavor notes that detract from the base flavors, and/or will introduce a much higher proof alcohol to the mix than the other ingredients. For this, stick to a basic triple sec, and we use either the 30- or 42-proof Bols triple sec as our preferred ingredient.

We have two go-to wines for our sangria. The René Barbier Mediterranean Red (available widely, including Cost Plus World Market) has been the wine of choice for years, but we've recently started using a local winery's goods: if you're near Michigan, the St. Julian's Simply Red is a bit more robust, and stands up to the citrus without overpowering it. In both cases, you'll find these wines available for under $7 a bottle (considerably less by the case, as we tend to use a bunch of it in the summertime).

This recipe makes for a slightly sweeter sangria than some might prefer; each to their own, but given that you're going to be using ice in the drink, then going outside and letting it melt down a bit, I prefer erring on the sweet side once diluted a bit. If you choose to experiment with other fruits, do so in moderation, and do single batches (although my wife, who is the sangria master of the house, has had considerable success with a half of a pear per bottle of wine). In any event, enjoy sangria while the summer sun shines!

Sangria (after the Cook's Illustrated recipe)

1 750 ml bottle of red wine (medium body, strong fruit notes, NOT sweet)
1 orange, juiced
1 orange, cut into 1/4 in. slices
1 lemon, cut into 1/4 in. slices
1 lime, cut into 1/4 in. slices
1/4 c. white granulated sugar
1/4 c. triple sec (cheat it up to taste)


Put sliced fruit into a large container (we recommend an iced tea pitcher), layering fruit and sugar. Take a ladle or wooden spoon and gently press the fruit against the bottom (you're trying to release some juice without shredding the fruit). Continue until the sugar has incorporated into the liquid.

Add in orange juice and triple sec, and then the wine. Stir, and then place in the refrigerator for 4-8 hours (6 is best; do not allow to go past 8 hours).

Strain the sangria using a large mesh strainer to remove the large pieces of fruit; then pour it back through a fine mesh strainer to remove small pieces. Keep refrigerated until used; add ice to individual glasses to serve. Sangria theoretically should last a week or so before the notes start to change, but who would let a batch go that long?...

The Pomegranate Martini, Part 2

So, this week it's the vodka martini version of the pomegranate martini. In the hope that I could make one drink and call it a day, I started with the recipe from last week, and simply swapped out the gin for vodka. Hey, maybe I get lucky and we all go home early!

Yeah, not so much. As expected, when you're trying to be noticed over the top of gin, you have to be much more shouty with your flavors. With vodka, there's a whole midrange of flavors that disappear, and suddenly you're shouting in an empty room with no good effect. For the vodka version, we need to tone down the flavors to a more subtle level to be appreciated.

There's a variety of recipes on the Internet, and all of them have the basic three ingredients: vodka, pomegranate juice, and orange of some kind. We fiddled a bit with options, but settled with Patrón Citrónge as a starting orange flavor source, and my faithful standby of Watershed Distillery for the vodka (though any good, neutral vodka would work). Our first step was to determine where the ratio of Citrónge to vodka would give us a subtle layer of orange without being too sweet. Two parts vodka to 1 part triple sec worked to give a balance between the two I liked. (Note that Citrónge is 80 proof, so simply swapping in triple sec for it is going to change things radically. Ditto for Grand Marnier, as the base alcohol is so different. Cointreau is probably a reasonable swap, but keep reading.)

This Wave Polka Dot Martini

glass (7.5oz), is available on the 

Contemporary Complements

website.

Next was ratio of alcohol to pomegranate juice; recipes ranged from 2 parts vodka, 3 parts pomegranate juice all the way up to 3:1. The vodka/Citrónge mix to pomegranate juice at 1:1 tasted good, and with a splash of lemon from a wedge, it gave the drink a nice, balanced taste that everyone involved liked.

But, I wasn't quite convinced we were there. One of the liqueur options we have here at Chez Yeager is Pama pomegranate liqueur, and I wondered whether the clear, concentrated flavor of the Pama might give a cleaner taste to the drink than the juice. So, we went back to the drawing board for a balance of vodka to Pama. The Pama website starts with 2 parts Pama to 1 part vodka; this might help them sell more Pama, but it was not a ration I could live with. Splitting the difference between the folks involved with the tasting, we came up with a 2:3 ration of Pama to vodka. With two alcohols already going in, I wondered if I could get rid of the third, so we bid a reluctant farewell to the Citrónge (actually, the Citrónge flat-out overpowered the drink in testing) and went to the fresh orange juice of last week's drink. A squeeze of lemon later, and we were at a happy place for all involved. Preferred above the pomegranate juice version, the Pama version allows a clear, clean pomegranate note to sing through, with the citrus gently singing harmony underneath.

Pomegranate Martini (vodka version)

1.5 oz. vodka (Watershed, or any other neutral vodka)
1 oz. Pama pomegranate liqueur
.5 oz. orange juice (fresh, unsweetened)
Juice from a small wedge of lemon

Combine ingredients. Shake briefly with ice and strain into a martini glass.

Pomegranate Martinis, Take One

So, my wife has been encouraging me to take on the pomegranate martini. I can't say as I've been necessarily resistant, but there's been one roadblock to this process: gin.

If you say "martini" to me, I will automatically start at the traditional gin-and-vermouth cocktail. Vodka martinis are excellent at best, but a cocktail that, however good it may be, is not part of the storied tradition of a martini. I don't want to come across as a martini snob: I've ordered very good vodka martinis, and don't even twitch if Julie wants to order a "chocotini" or whatever we're calling a vodka milkshake nowadays. Okay, maybe a bit of a snob, but I like words and terms to have definition, as well as definitions.

So, before I get to her martini next week, I'm doing one this week with gin. The usual bit of research came up with a wide variety of vodka recipes, but one basic recipe with gin, from Bobby Flay via the Food Network. It was as good a starting point as any, so we started by using his recipe and determined that it was tasty (more in a bit). The recipe calls for Tanqueray No. Ten, so the first step was to check the gin choice against a few of the usual suspects. None made for a bad drink; Beefeater was my least favorite of my tested options (slightly jarring in the mix). New Amsterdam, a popular and inexpensive gin option getting traction for a variety of uses, made for a very mellow blend of flavors, and I decided to use it for the balance of the testing. I also used my 6-year oude genever, because I had it and I could; it was very good, but impractical for recipes outside the Netherlands, so we set it aside reluctantly and pressed on.

As I said, the drink is tasty; to use the music metaphor I so enjoy, this recipe is a jazz trio - gin providing our percussive and bass notes as usual; the orange and lemon juice the hot saxophone line across the top of the piece, and the pomegranate syrup acting as a centering piano line. The problem to my palate with the drink as written is that the drink is one long saxophone solo. Consider: the basic recipe as given by Mr. Flay is 1.5 oz. of gin, 2 oz. of lemon/orange juice (and that's skimping the orange down a bit), and a half-ounce of pomegranate syrup (years of tiki drinks requires me to keep Monin pomegranate syrup handy).The drink ends up being something very vodka martini-ish, with the forward citrus flavors stomping around, barely letting the pomegranate - the namesake of the drink, you'll recall - any kind of space to be heard.

This Polka Dot Mini Z-Stem Martini
glass (5oz), is available on the 

Contemporary Complements

website.

So, our first task was to cut the citrus. Orange is a common ingredient in the variety of vodka martini recipes you will encounter, and for good reason. Orange juice adds sweetness and a familiar citrus buzz to the midrange wall of sound that pomegranate represents. So, we cut the orange juice back to a half-ounce, and dropped the lemon entirely. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered why the lemon is there: to mask the alcohol heat from the gin and add the high notes that orange just can't reach. But, a hit from a lemon wedge provides just enough flavor to take the edge off the gin, brighten the sound and let the pomegranate shine. Shaking it with ice cools it down (a good thing) and adds a little bit of water to activate the flavors (also a good thing). I knew I got it right when Julie tried it and said, "I'd drink that." From someone who does not like gin, I considered it high praise indeed.

Finally, to complete the circle, I used my recipe with the Tanqueray No. Ten from the original recipe, and I have to admit that I prefer it to the New Amsterdam in the drink. If you keep No. Ten around, I'd recommend it, but otherwise I'm very happy with the results that New Amsterdam will give you in this drink. Either way, the pomegranate gets a chance to shine at the front of the drink.

Pomegranate Martini (gin version)
1.5 oz. gin (New Amsterdam, or Tanqueray No. Ten)
.5 oz. orange juice (fresh, unsweetened)
.5 oz. pomegranate syrup
Juice from a small wedge of lemon

Combine ingredients (pomegranate last). Shake briefly with ice and strain into a martini glass.

Postscript: this subject may be the tipping point I needed to make my own pomegranate syrup and grenadine (trust me, Rose's is not used in my bar). I'm collecting recipes now, but if you'd like to weigh in (especially on hot-process vs. cold-process), I'd be eager to hear about it!

Taking the Pisco

Sabor Latino is a Latin restaurant in Ann Arbor that's successfully served food for over a decade, but I hadn't stopped in for a few years. I had great experiences with the restaurant early on, but Julie has the occasional allergic reaction to one or more ingredients in Mexican/Latin cooking, so we don't often stay from the proven restaurants (avocado was recently outed as one of the culprits). However, I was recently on a fish taco bender, and it brought me back to Sabor, where I was pleased enough with the results that I dragged Julie along one evening (with the promise of a quick trip home and Benadryl if things went south).

The star of the evening was their Media Noche. It's not the Cuban sandwich that the name is most associated with, but a drink featuring three ingredients per the menu: pineapple juice, pomegranate-blueberry juice and pisco (garnished with blueberries). It's a surprisingly smooth grape brandy in the same neck of the woods as slivovitz–an understated, distinct flavor riding the alcohol burn (pisco can range from 60-100 proof).

I don't have a lot of experience with pisco (certainly not enough to have a set opinion on the Peru vs. Chile battle for the appellation), but for this recipe, I put two different piscos head-to-head: Capel vs Pisco Patron. Tasting each separately, my clear choice was the Patron from Peru; the flavor was somewhat deeper and more forward than the Capel.

Recreating the drink (or at least getting in the neighborhood of the drink) was a straightforward process. The drink is summery–goes down easy, a touch sweet but not overtly so, and served over lots of ice to mask the alcohol. The pineapple juice is the source of whatever sweet there is and since it's not lemonade-sweet, it's going to be the short stack in our recipe. So, the only real experiment is how much pomegranate-blueberry is necessary to fill out the middle of the flavor profile, cut both the alcohol and the sweetness, and produce the correct color in the glass over ice. A few steps later, I had a basic 2-3-1 ratio set that seems to work well. be careful on the pineapple juice–an extra splash will add noticeable sweetness to the recipe (and you might even want to knock a tiny bit off the pineapple juice if you want to tweak the sweet down a notch.

I used both piscos in the recipe, and the clear winner was...Capel. The Patron did nothing for this drink; the flavors were subsumed by the juice without masking the alcohol one bit. The Capel produced a much smoother, balanced taste, and is the clear favorite for this drink (I'll have no problem drinking the Patron straight, and I'm saving a bit for a future pisco sour episode.)

Media Noche (Evening Alchemist version, after Sabor Latino)

1 oz. pisco
1.5 oz. pomegranate-blueberry juice (100% juice)
.5 oz. unsweetened pineapple juice

Shake with ice and serve over ice; garnish with blueberries.

Under Yeager's Law (ingredients I have trump ingredients I don't), I did try the drink first with a cranberry-blueberry juice blend I had laying about. It worked well–you might want to edge down the pineapple juice a bit to compensate for the apple/etc. in the juice cocktail, but it's not unacceptable.

A Tale of Two Tikis (and My Dad)

In Phoenix AZ there's a place called Hula's Modern Tiki. It's a big contemporary building, with a full menu. The seafood (ceviche to fish tacos) is great, and the bar offers a wonderful set of tiki drinks. Their Mai Tai is somewhat non-traditional, but it's a wonderful swirl of citrus and orgeat, happily strong and delicious. The Dr. Funk could have been a sweet mess, but lets the sweetness shine lightly through a coconut-banana base that's terrific. And, if there's a sauce offered with your appetizer or entree, accept it without question.



In Las Vegas NV there's a place called Frankie's Tiki Room. It's a little hole in the wall, well off the Strip, built by a Vegas bar developer who wanted a "locals" place modeled after the tiki bars of the past. It has that slightly-sordid exotic edge you want in a bar, there's no food (check the food cart out front), and some of the best tiki drinks you will ever encounter. Their Mai Tai is the Mai Tai (lucky) people have been drinking for decades; their drink feature homemade mixers (get anything with falernum), original tiki mugs to take home, and a bartender (we've had the same one every year for the past four years) who makes everything perfectly and with a smile.

My father, who passed this week, was a schoolteacher for 26 years, mostly in middle school social studies. He used a grading scale I've never seen before or since:
70-79 = D
80-89 = C
90-99 = B
100+ = A

If you did everything, perfectly, that you were asked to do, you'd squeak by with a A. Miss one question anywhere, and you would need to do extra credit in order to get your A. And, my dad would accept almost anything as extra credit: reports, field trips with parents, anything remotely relevant to social studies. The meta-lesson: if you want to to get top marks, you have to do something extra–you have to find something special to earn your A.

I have no recipe this week; I'm not home to finalize one, and we're letting others do the heavy lifting this week. That said, I hold up these restaurants as two very different examples of the same concept, one that my father passed on to me as part of his legacy many years ago: if you want to be the best, you must go beyond what is expected and provide something extra–even if it is completely different from someone else's attempt to be the best. Hula's and Frankie's are both places that do very different things under the tiki umbrella, but end up being shining examples of exceeding the goals set out by their respective visions. It's a reminder that I do this not to simply drink great drinks (a happy coincidence, to be sure), but to seek out experiences that are beyond the ordinary, and strive for greatness in my own quiet little way.

Good Drinking Through Bad Planning

This week's drink begins with bad preparation on my part.

I'm at home, and my thought is to have a drink. This is a thought that I am adequately prepared for, so I consider my options. Orange juice sounds good, so perhaps a simple screwdriver would work. I snag a glass, pour a shot of vodka, and head upstairs to the refrigerator.

Well, the reason orange juice sounds so good is that we don't have any. So I now have an ounce of vodka in my glass, and it's not going to drink itself, so I rummage through the fridge for mixers. And, towards the back of the fridge, I find an unopened bottle of apple cider.

Now, for those of you not within the Apple Belt, this is not the season for cider. Any cider that I find has been in the fridge for some time, and may be dangerously close to being a bottle of science project rather than juice. So, we follow the Three Scientific Steps of Refrigerator Food Validation:
- Visual inspection: Okay, nothing growing and the bottle has not become an inflated balloon...
- Sniff test: Smells like cider...
- Taste it: No tingling on the tongue, and I'm not dead after a minute. Hooray!

Now, this little project has taken me away from my primary project, which was Get Alex a Drink. I still have my shot of warm vodka, and now a desire to have a bit of cider. So, why not?–I pour a glass of cider on top of my vodka.

This Painted Daisy

Goblet (16oz), is 

available on the 

Contemporary Complements

website.

Unfortunately, I'm now in mixing mode, which means I can't just enjoy my vodka and cider, but need to evaluate the rest of the cabinet and see if anything else catches my eye. So, I wander back downstairs to the bar (making a note to buy orange juice so I don't have to go through this much work next time), and dig around the collection.

And lo and behold, I have something that intrigues me. SNAP is a spirit made by Art in the Age, as an homage to the flavor set found in lebkuchen (a German ginger cookie). Molasses, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and other spices makes SNAP spicy, but not sweet. It's not a sipping drink, as the lack of sugar means the alcohol bite shines through more than I would like, but it makes for a great mixer in other drinks. So, in goes some SNAP, and both Julie and I are pretty happy with the result.

The drink starts with the great sweet-tart profile that a good cider should have, and the SNAP gives us the complexity of spices bubbling around inside. The vodka serves two purposes: it shaves some of the sweet off of the cider, and, somewhat paradoxically, takes some of the alcohol bite away from the drink. (I note that while trying to recreate the drink for this blog, I tried to use a midrange vodka, with less good results. You're going to need a very good, neutral vodka for the proper profile on this one.)

In addition to validating the ratios, in the name of due diligence I also tried the drink hot instead of cold. Doesn't work; all it does is let the alcohol become the dominant taste in the drink. This is a cold drink, either shaken with ice and poured, or over ice (but melted ice does the drink no favors).

Cidersnap

6 oz. fresh apple cider
1 oz. vodka (Watershed Distillery was the go-to here)
1 oz. SNAP

Serve chilled.