The Occasional Morning Alchemist

Yes, I work from home. Mondays are Bathrobe Mondays at the ol’ workplace, and when you work from home, EVERY day can be Bathrobe Monday. That said, it still requires discipline to get up, get ready for work, and then go to work, even if the office is two half-flights of stairs away.

This drink is pictured in the

Polka Dot  8.5  oz. Stemless

Champagne Flute, available on the

Contemporary Complements website.

Which means that every morning, I go by a bar on the way to work. It’s open for business that early, and the drinks are pretty reasonably priced. And I don’t stop, because one doesn’t show up to work impaired at 9(ish) in the morning. But every so often, on a weekend morning when I know I’m not going anywhere, and the futon on the back porch is calling, more often than not, this is what I pour.

I like my anise drinks. For this drink, you’d better as well, because there are only two ingredients here, and one of them is sambuca. I was first introduced to sambuca years ago at Gratzi’s in Ann Arbor. Originally envisioned as a testbed for Italian menu experimentation for the head chef of the Mainstreet Ventures chain, when they first opened, every meal ended with a complimentary shot of sambuca or ouzo. For our drink, we’re doing nothing fancy – just mixing it 1:1 with orange juice.

It works amazingly well – trust me on this. Sweet citrus, deep anise, and enough ice to keep it cool in the summer morning sun. I can’t say that I have this often, but when the morning commute allows me the luxury of a right turn at the back porch door, and I’ve got time for a quick stop on the way, there’s nothing better to help let the morning drift by.

Rick (non-shooter version)

3 oz. sambuca

3 oz. orange juice

Combine; pour over ice.

Shrubbery

This drink is pictured in the

Double Spiral Etched Whiskey

Sour Glass, available on the

Contemporary Complements website.

Not every drink is for every person. Sometimes, one should accept that you’re beyond the bounds of what you like, and learn to smile, nod and say, “I think I would prefer something else.” (I can only imagine what that phrase would do to wine sales if people employed that phrase more confidently.)

Fortunately, this story does not end at something I don’t like, but it does lead us to a drink that’s not going to tickle everyone’s palate. This story begins at The Ravens Club, where Tammy Coxen (of Tammy’s Tastings) is doing a guest bartending gig. She’s made up a custom menu for the night, and two of the drinks feature shrub.

I do what any self-respecting person would do – order something else while waiting for the Google search for shrub to complete on my iPhone. Eventually, I get to a page that spells out exactly what we’ve been confronted with, which is a traditional blend of macerated fruit (cherries, here) and balsamic vinegar as a mixer (details below).

This is not a mixer for the timid, and it’s a ten-day process to make up a batch. So, of course, I snag a quart of cherries from farmer’s market, drag them home and start a-macerating (that is to say, cover ‘em in sugar and wait). At the end of the process, I have a bottle of shrub, and...well, not much to do with it. Recipes are a bit thin on the ground, owing to the fact that you’re putting, y'know, vinegar into your drink, cherries notwithstanding.

What recipes there are, often imagine it as a replacement for sour mix in things like a whiskey sour, if you handwave the fact you’re adding a mixer that threatens to beat up the other alcohols from across the room. But, the vinegar caused me to remember another alcohol in the bar that gets limited love due to its high alcohol and its unique herbal footprint – Chartreuse (green, to be precise).

So, a few attempts later, I have something that’s...well, pretty darn drinkable. None of our liquids here are shrinking violets (well, let’s give a pass to the club soda, there to let the flavors blend and linger a bit more softly on the palate). My wife gamely tried it, handed it back to me, and said, “I’d prefer to drink something else.”

The Kentucky Monk

2 oz. Maker’s Mark

.5 oz. balsamic black cherry shrub

.5 oz. Chartreuse

1 oz. soda water

Combine; pour over ice.

Balsamic Black Cherry Shrub

I could spell out the recipe, but credit where credit is due; here’s where I found the recipe I used. As Ann Arbor residents have the luxury of Zingerman’s Deli on our doorstep, there’s no such thing as cheap balsamic vinegar to use for this, just different levels of better.

OYO Stone Fruit Vodka

This drink is pictured in the 13.5 oz
Polka Dot Zombie Glass, available on the
Contemporary Complements website.

“Buying Local” doesn’t necessarily mean buying local to YOU. What it does mean is that when you travel, whether it be down to your local farmer’s market or four states over, you take a moment to look around and see what the locals do well. In 2011, our annual game convention in Columbus, Ohio brought me in contact with the folks (or, more accurately, the output from the folks) at Middle West Spirits. At the time, they had two spirits released: a whiskey and a vodka under their OYO brand.

Later in the year, a friend of mine brought a bottle of their latest effort up to my place: their OYO Stone Fruit Vodka. I found it to be a nice, summery vodka, improved when served chilled (I love the concept of fresh summer fruit flavors in alcohol; I made a rumtopf for the first time this year), but also found that a bit of this in lemonade will transport me to our back porch on a summer evening, watching the chickadees make their last runs of the evening at the feeder as the fireflies begin to light up the backyard. I expect my first bottle of this will not be my last.

1 oz. OYO Stone Fruit vodka

2 oz. lemonade

Serve over ice and enjoy!

Happy Holidays to Us!

If you do a search on "weihnachtslikör" on Google, you get 1410 hits in English, and 369,000 in German. The English links are mostly useless, so I can only conclude that they're hiding it from us. Until now.

Hütt'n is a little restaurant on the way up from the Hauptmarkt towards the castle. It's basic fränkisch food, but they're currently blowing through the last of their Weihnachtslikör. It's made from scratch from apple, cinnamon, vanilla, hazelnut and lebkuchen liqueur, all aged in barrels for 9 months. It's like drinking a baked apple finished in an oven where you're baking gingerbread. It was well worth braving the -11C weather to walk back and get a bottle to bring home. Just wow.

The Local Custom

I'm in Nuremberg right now, working at the annual toy fair. Eighty thousand people, and we all either make games, sell games to others, and/or write about games. It's a hard life, but I manage.

We had the opportunity to frequent a local chain in town, Landbierparadies. The beer was wonderful (I recommend the Meister), the food was basic, hearty and delicious, and their are many more fränkische delights on the menu to try next time.

Wait a minute. I thought I was in Bavaria. Why are these "fränkische" items?

Fränkische Schweiz (Franconian Switzerland) may be part of North Bavaria, but as my local guide pointed out, this is a region with its own rich history, and a fiercely independent personality. Calling the food or the beer Bavarian would have, at best, gained me a bit of stony silence.

I have blundered my way through some awkward cultural faux pas as only us loud Americans can, but I'd like to believe that when I am informed of a custom, I can respect it and try to understand it in context. Hence, kruglegen.

Kruglegen is another manifestation of the practicality the inhabitants of the region are known for. The mugs that are used for serving beer are, of course, opaque. Sure, the server could come over, ask you if you are done or need another, but that's not very efficient, is it? Instead, you simply tip your mug over onto its side - kruglegen - and a refill appears quickly.

Just like ordering a pils in Köln (hint: DON'T), regions have customs that range from practical to emotional to the simply expected. Sitting in the back room of Landbierparadies, watching the locals play schafkopf at long wooden tables, there was some comfort in knowing that, although I would be instantly recognizable as a visitor the moment I opened my mouth, it's pleasant to know that at least I know how to get another beer with a smile from the waitress.

The Long Island Iced Tea (v. 2012a)

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

We’re starting with the drink that I’ve spent the most time playing with – the Long Island Iced Tea. I’ve had more than my share of these, across a couple of continents and about any bar I’ve spent any amount of time in. Why the fascination? Well, it’s a drink with simple components – four (yes, I said four) basic alcohols, sour mix and Coca-Cola, and it’s amazing the variety of outcomes that these ingredients can yield, for good or ill.

This is the first iteration of the recipe for 2012, hence the version number above. I expect to revisit this at least annually, if not any time I make a change for the better. At the end of the article, I’ll let you know what’s next on the testing list for improvement, if you’d like to play along. You’ll note I haven’t strayed too far from the basic formula you’ll find elsewhere; I’m not out to reinvent the drink, but simply to get it as close to ideal as I can for my palate (and my wife’s palate, more importantly).

I’m going to use a musical metaphor for this drink – it’s the device I use for this drink to think about how each component works to make the drink work, and it’s a way of thinking about how I would change aspects of the drink. Whether it comes off as pretentious is your call, but it’s my way, and I’m sticking to it.

Gin: The percussive notes of the drink, adding the counterpoint to the sweet and sparking notes the other alcohols bring to the party. My wife does not like gin as a rule, but I’ve gradually demonstrated to her that the drink suffers without gin contributing its fair share to the mix.

Vodka: The bass line, all thrummy and low. As is the case with all of the specific alcohols here, I believe that a good brand will provide excellent results, results not significantly improved by doubling or tripling the price or the alcohol used. But, vodka is the one I’d be willing to stretch the rule a bit on, since if you experience headaches after a night of Long Islands, you were probably drinking crap vodka.

Triple Sec: My rhythm guitar, always grinding away underneath the flavors from beginning to end. You’ll find I cheat this up a bit, both because my wife prefers it that way, and once you start playing with the sour mix, this is a way to add not only sweet but citrus to the flavor profile. This has been my most recent significant change to the recipe (changing over to Bols 42-proof), but it’s probably the most heretical part of my recipe. That said, it works for me.

Rum: my lead guitar, my soloist, my melody that I hum along with. Rum adds sweet, it adds a touch of bite, and some low feedback notes that poke out every so often. I’m a rum guy by nature, and so I’m always looking for the rum in anything I drink, and this drink in particular.

Sour mix: I consider this the producer of the piece, providing the blending package to smooth out the rough bits, fill in the gaps, and help to keep the drink stable over time. I say “sour mix”, but you’ll be making it yourself – the only premixed sour mix allowed is premixing simple syrup with the insides of a couple dozen lemons before the party.

Coke: The packaging, art for the single, and the marketing needed to get a little attention and love for the drink. That splash of Coke is what’s needed to give it the visual appeal that the name invokes.

There’s no tequila in my Long Island, because I am not a college student looking to puke on my roommate’s bed. Tequila is an instant DNQ for me if it’s offered in a Long Island.

So, here we are, at the recipe itself:

1 oz. rum (I use Bacardi Gold) – literally dozens of rums that I have to choose from at home, and this is still my go-to for this recipe.

1.25 oz. triple sec (I use Bols 42-proof) – I prefer it to others in the price range, and haven’t found jumping up to Cointreau or Grand Marnier to give me enough results to justify it)

1 oz. gin (I use Tanquery, but have no problem with Beefeater) – Dutch-style gins are disqualified here

1 oz. vodka (I use Absolut by default, but have been known to slip Ketel One in at home for myself) – any reasonably neutral mid-value vodka should do, and I’ve used half a dozen or so successfully

2 oz. sour mix – I use an equal mix of freshly squeezed lemon juice and 1:1 cold simple syrup. Take a jar, add a half-cup of sugar and a half-cup of water; shake. That’s 7-8 oz. of simple syrup; your average good lemon should give you 1.5-2 oz. of juice, so 5-6 or so lemons should do. Don’t short the lemon juice!

.5 oz. Coke – I use...uuh, yeah.

Combine; pour over ice with a lemon wedge garnish.

Current paths of investigation:

Sour mix: I’ve rejected 2:1 simple syrup for my sour mix, demarara/turbinado sugar (I use basic organic white sugar), and most other citruses beyond lemon for this drink. That said, I want to explore some of the side ingredients that are designed to thicken or froth homemade sour mix. If it affects the mouth feel of the drink positively, I’m in.

Rum: There’s always another rum, and always another excuse to find another. Demararas and darks overpower the drink for me, but white rums cause the drink to lose a touch of dimensionality. So, a gold rum, with a bit of Puerto Rico bitter, but with that hint of molasses sugar, would be the flavor profile I’m looking to meet or beat.

All This Could Be Yours!

You will note the photo attached to this post. This is a private edition piece of glassware by Contemporary Complements for this blog exclusively – not to be sold elsewhere. In fact, there’s only one way you can get one of these nifty pieces, and it’s by talking with us here on the blog!

For people that contribute worthy comments, helpful tips or others interesting bits to the comments section here, we’ll put your name in a hat every other month and draw out one lucky slip of paper. The person whose name is on that paper will receive a glass free of charge; we’ll contact you for your address, and send it on its way as a thank you for making our little corner of the Internet that much more interesting.

I suppose there are a few general rules: no multiple winners within a one-year period, our discretion on mailing outside the US, yadda yadda. Otherwise, I hope that you find hanging out here to be worth it on its own merits, but consider this incentive to tell us so (or how to improve)!