American Drink

March 28th 2012

The Daiquiri

by seoulbrother

The Daiquri shares a name with a beach near Santiago, Cuba and a nearby iron mine. One story says a bunch of American mining engineers came up with the drink after dusting off their gin and substituting rum. Another says the drink started life as the legendary Grog back in the 1700s. What we do know about the daiquri’s origin story is that in 1909, a U.S. Navy Admiral with a pimp’s name— Lucius Johnson— introduced the drink to the Army Navy Club in Washington, D.C. Ernest Hemingway and John F. Kennedy enjoyed everything about a daiquiri or two (or 12) and In 1948 David Embury tapped it as one of the six basic drinks¹ in his seminal book The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks.

What about any of that begs to be slurped from a whale bone while getting your vacation-braids did or screams “SHOW ME YOUR TITS!”

The daiquiri is a good, hard drink. Simple, dry, refreshing, a classic sour with more in common to a Tom Collins than a Slurpee.

So what happened? Well, it’s difficult to tell exactly so let’s take a look at the obvious: America happened. On the one hand, we often accidentally define cool. On the other hand, we commodify, artificially color and sweeten it and call it progress— worse yet, innovation. Apparently this resonated with a post-WWII population eager to unleash the atom, cure polio and win space. Advertisers jumped on it by printing recipes calling for limeade frozen concentrate. That’s about as timeless as a Foreigner slow-jam. [queue butt-rock ballad]

Big Papa

A man walks into a bar and orders a daiquiri. The man drinks it down, looks at the bartender and says, “That’s good, but I prefer it without sugar and double rum.” The bartender turns around and whips one up. The man says “This is very good!” The end.

That man? Ernest Hemingway. You may have heard about his drinking or maybe his writing. His version of the daiquiri became the Papa Doble.

The Hemingway Daiquiri is different. It’s made with a teaspoon of maraschino liquor and a quick splash of fresh grapefruit juice, Buh-lended. Just like them chicken-heads in Cabo San LOCO do.

That’s right: He preferred his daiquiris blended and by the dozen. Like the big ol’ former war-reporting, big-game hunting, sissy-pants that he is.

Chances are that your first daiquiri was made from frozen juice concentrate. It was mine. I’m sure I was under the legal drinking age and my palate was still that of a child. It was too sweet. I got too sick. Because Americans don’t read and I am an American, I never learned about Hemingway’s fascination with them.

To crib from Adam Lisagor:

“Sometimes I don’t know things for a really long time, and then suddenly I know them and I feel much better.”

The Daiquiri² is one of those things.

The Daiquiri

2 oz white rum
1 oz lime juice
1/2 - 1 oz simple syrup to taste

Shake³, strain and serve that bad boy up. Try a woody gold rum like Rhum Barbancourt Five Star or Cruzan Aged Light Rum instead of the Bacardi your aunt used to drink.

The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks lists the Manhattan, Martini, the Old Fashioned, Sidecar and the Jack Rose alongside the Daiquiri as the six basic drinks. ↩
And Adam Lisgor’s little gem about one of Miles Davis’ massive influences. Check it out. ↩
A note on shaking and straining: Use lots of ice in your shaker and shake for at least a standing-8 count, about 10-15 seconds. Once done, strain your drink out and never use that shaken ice again. Throw it out like you’re made out of new money. ↩

Posted at 12:00pm and tagged with: basics, recipe, rum,.

March 4th 2011

Questionable Taste: An Intro to Bitters

by sloganeerist

175 notes

Am I the only one who remembers that day in grade school when our teacher handed out tongues? Not real tongues, which would’ve been way cooler. I mean those crude, hand-drawn blobs reaching out to lick you from damp ditto papers labeled THE HUMAN TONGUE or YOUR TONGUE, that mapped out the organ’s specialized taste regions like a butcher’s diagram maps out cuts of beef.

The tip, you learned, was for detecting Sweet flavors, and was flanked by two Salty zones. Behind those, a pair of Sour regions controlled your pucker reflex. And in the back, far from all the honeybuns and ice cream and Dorito parties, there lurked a weird neighbor who kept to himself except for the occasional, vaguely threatening note on your windshield about “the noise last night”. That weird guy who feeds the cats. Bitter.

According to The Ways of Science, these four basic tastes were laid out on your tongue like an artist’s palette, ready to help you paint a description of any food. Or so we thought.

Turns out that’s all bullshit.

We now know the tongue is a way more intricate machine. Instead of a rigidly defined grid, it’s like a giant hippie commune of receptors and sensors and fungiform pappilae (those ones with the dreadlocks) working in harmony to help to you identify thousands of subtle flavors.

But while the tongue map has long been debunked, it’s based on one fact: every food or drink that hits your mouth can be defined by four basic tastes: salty, sweet, sour and bitter.¹

Salted rims and Bloody Marys aside, it’s those middle two (and the balance of them) that are responsible for most of what we love about a good drink. But not everything.

Enter the old hermit, Bitter. Once banished to the back of the tongue, destined to die alone in a trailer with tinfoil on the windows, this outdated evolutionary defense mechanism now finds his calling behind the bar—as a GOD.

Used properly, bitterness is 1% of your glass population, with 99% of the power.

A few dashes can bring a syrupy Mai Tai or punchy whiskey sour to its knees, balancing things out, but also calming them down, allowing you to pick out flavors you didn’t notice beneath all that sugar and citrus. In the same way Sweet and Sour can work together to reach a higher level of craft, Bitter can work with both to create something closer to art.

Overstatement? Bombast? Hyperbolic blogwankery?

Tell you what. Grab that bottle of Angostura that’s been in your cupboard for three years and jack a couple spurts into your stadium-sized bourbon & 7. Don’t overdo it, 2-3 dashes is fine. You’ll notice it’s dramatically less sweet than before, but without a hint of added tartness.

This was a revelation the first time I tried it. After years of Manhattans and Old Fashioneds, this exercise made me understand what cocktail bitters can do, at least from a balance standpoint.

With dozens of varieties and hundreds of herbal, woody and floral ingredients, cocktail bitters (and their cousins, tinctures) can also provide endless flavor epiphanies that go beyond simple drink balancing, adding accents that enhance the character of your favorite drinks. But we’ll save all that business for future posts. For now, let’s keep the tongue breakthroughs simple.

Here’s a slightly dialed-up version of the experiment above that shows how a tasty but ultimately two-dimensional drink can be crafted into a genuinely intriguing cocktail, simply by adding a bitter.

Ginger

2oz Jameson Irish whiskey

2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Ginger ale (I love Boylan’s, but let’s not get picky)

Lemon wedge (optional)
Pour the whiskey over ice in a 12-16oz glass, and add 2 dashes Peychaud’s (up it to 3 if using Angostura). Top with ginger ale and stir lightly. Add the lemon wedge if you’re interested in bringing some sourness to the party. I usually am.

Improvise at will, replacing the Jameson with bourbon or even gin, and the ginger ale with 7up or tonic. Any of these basic combos is a great way to play around with the added power of bitters.

1: (Yes, it’s true that Western culture has recently has embraced umami as a 5th basic taste. But I haven’t.) ↩

Posted at 11:29am and tagged with: recipe, basics, JT,.

January 17th 2011

28 notes

Imbibe Magazine has a nice collection of how-to videos featuring Evan Zimmerman of Laurelhurst Market and Jeffrey Morgenthaler of Clive Common, both in Portland, on their YouTube channel.

In this video, Mr. Zimmerman goes over the basics of muddling.

Enjoy.

posted by seoulbrother

Posted at 3:34pm and tagged with: basics,.

December 15th 2010

Home Bar Basics - Tools

by sloganeerist

97 notes

We’re a little ashamed that we haven’t covered some of the basics about building your home bar here on American Drink. So when Cary, aka Monkeyfrog, asked us via email how to decently stock her home bar, we figured our long-ass response would make a pretty decent Part One.

Before we get to the shopping list though, here’s an appeal from the heart: Please don’t spend a lot for bar tools. If your city has a restaurant supply store, and you still haven’t visited, GO. Stick a Jackson in your sock and you’ll walk out with every item here, save for glassware, plus change.

This ain’t golf or flyfishing or even cooking. More expensive equipment doesn’t mean better results. After all, you can’t drink a $12 strainer. So spend wisely on your gear and blow the savings where it’ll make a difference - in your liquor cabinet.

The Shaker
Albert McMurry – So you’ll need a good shaker. If you don’t have one, just look for a metal one that’s anywhere from 24 to 36 ounces. They usually come in three parts with the top being the strainer and the cap is the 2 oz jigger. Word of warning: Don’t prep a drink in the shaker and put the lid and the cap on thinking it will be water-tight. It won’t be for long and you and your kitchen will be covered in little bits of your delicious drink. You’ll like drinking less when you’re cleaning Tom Collins jizz off your ceiling the next day. Nobody wants that.

You also need a pint glass. Like a beer pint glass. You could also use a highball.

J.T. Dobbs – So a shaker. Yeah, what Albert said. Me, I use a Boston-style like the one I was reared on, with a plain-old pint glass. I prefer this to the 3-piece leisure pad rig which is kinda clumsy, leaky, never fits together right, and is often thinner and so doesn’t get as cold. Plus, pouring and muddling in the clear glass lets you to see what’s going on, and all that room inside means nuclear shaking power for colder, more aerated drinks.

Kim Lisagor - J.T. likes the Boston-style shaker for all the right reasons. I prefer the 3-piece shaker because the built-in strainer shaves precious seconds off my production time and because it fits better in my dainty lady hands.

Mixers, Boobs and You

by seoulbrother

97 notes

Scientist recently found a link between fructose and cancer. It’s early yet and much more research is needed, but one thing is clear: I like boobs.

All kinds of boobs. Big ones, small ones, high ones, low ones, soft ones, firm ones, but most of all, I like natural ones. When you look into the eyes of a natural pair of breasts, there’s an honesty, a humility if you will, that fake tits lack.

Go to any high-end grocery store at 2 in the afternoon and watch the parade of trophy wives. Their never sweated-in, velour tracksuits, or racksuits, can barely contain the specular highlights of breasts that look like they were constructed by Dreamworks Studios. These ladies of the afternoon meander through the aisles, stopping to study labels or strain for top shelf items… Just. Out. Of. Reach.

Hey, eyes up here, buddy!

Pre-made drink mixers are the fake tits of mixology. In the U.S., Rose’s Sweetened Lime Juice lists lime juice concentrate third after water and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The words “lemon” or “lime” don’t make the cut in [popular brand] whiskey sour mix, and what fruit or berry does Hpnotiq blue come from? Believe it or not folks, there’s no such thing as an Alizé berry. BEWBZ

Implants aren’t all bad. Just the ones that come with the Desperate Housewives Starter Kit. Same with mixers especially if you’re a 19th century British sailor¹, or work a busy bar. Most places, beer-n-shot bars and chain resturaunts especially, have the same neon drank found where the Plastics shop… just out of reach. It’s false authenticity much like product placement².

The better places make their own in advance, sometimes daily. The problem though, is that the sweetness or sour…ness(?) of the drink is predetermined, so fuck you, enjoy.

The best places make your cocktail to order, relying on ratios, expertise and the customer’s preferences much like you do (or can!) at home.

Besides the fake ingredients and make believe colors, you can’t find a bottle of mixer smaller than about 24 ounces. Which means, you will have to find space in your fridge. Space better used for Chinese delivery, condiments and fancy cheese.

She’s fresh! (fresh)

Fresh ingredients, a citrus juicer and simple syrup made with real live sugar are all you need to make most cocktails. Buy three or four lemons, limes or a quarter pound of fresh berries and you won’t have to worry about storing nuclear waste. If you’re lucky enough to live in sunnier climes, plant a citrus tree and grab a handful of nature whenever you’re ready to make a drink.

It’s cheaper, takes up less space and the flavors cannot be substituted. You know that sour mix taking up space in the fridge? Throw it out. Not to be one of those assholes but please get rid of that stuff. It’s full of crap.

Sour Mix

2 parts fresh lemon juice
1 parts fresh lime juice
1 to 2 parts simple syrup (1:1 or 2:1 sugar dissolved in water) to taste

Too easy.

If you’re looking for something more complicated, check out Darcy S. O’Neil’s Art of Drink. He’s a former chemist and current bartender and presents a complex recipe that includes maltodextrin which helps smooth it out a little. Seriously. Maltodextrin, beeyotch.

You could also use egg white. It sounds fucked up but it does almost the same thing, plus makes your drink smooth and frothy. Wanna try it out? You should try it out.

Whiskey Sour

1 1/2 oz bourbon
3/4 oz. lemon juice
3/4 - 1 oz Simple syrup (to taste)
Egg white-small egg (optional)

Put everything in a shaker without ice and shake for 30 seconds (that’s a dry shake!) Add lots of ice to the shaker and shake 10-20 seconds or until cold. Strain over ice. Garnish with a cherry.

Play with this recipe a little bit. Not sour enough? Add an additional 1/4 oz. of lemon juice. Too sweet? Cut down on the syrup. Not enough booze? Add a 1/2 oz. of octane. Don’t worry about the egg, wimpy. The alcohol and the dry shake takes away the danger.

Skip the mixers on aisle five and head straight over to the fresh berries, limes, lemons, oranges, melons and…hang on, I need a sec… Besides, we all know the real action is in the produce section.

140 years ago, the Brits required all Royal Navy and Merchant Navy ships to provide a daily ration of lime to prevent scurvy. Rose’s lime juice became so ubiquitous on British ships that the sailors were called “limey.” ↩
Buy Doritos Late Night, Last Call Jalepeño Popper flavor tortilla chips at Amazon!! Actually, don’t. ↩

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: mixers, basics, Whiskey Sour, boobs, Recipe, Albert,.