A Bitters Pill To Swallow

We’ve all seen that little brown bottle on the bottom shelf of the liquor store.  You know the one: it has a slightly oversized label that extends over the fat part of the bottle.  There is probably a bottle in your home bar right now.  You bought it years ago to put in a particular drink that you didn’t like and you haven’t opened it since.  So there it sits, in cocktail purgatory.  You don’t know why you keep it; it doesn’t know why it has to sit there unused.  I’m here to tell you that a functional relationship between you and bitters can be salvaged. 

To start, there are two different varieties of bitters: cocktail bitters and digestive bitters.  Digestive bitters can be consumed straight and can be served in measurable quantities.  Examples of digestive bitters are Campari, Chartreuse, Benedictine, and Absinthe.  For the sake of brevity (and perhaps laziness), we will only be covering cocktail bitters, (specifically aromatic bitters) in this post. 

Cocktail bitters are made by soaking herbs and spices in alcohol, which extracts and concentrates the flavors of the ingredients.  With that in mind, there are a variety of recipes that correspond to today’s market offerings of bitters.  The bottle with the oversized label is Angostura bitters, probably the best known and most recognizable type of bitters.  It’s also the easiest to find.  The Old Fashioned is an example of a cocktail that utilizes Angostura.

Old Fashioned

1 sugar cube

1 tsp water

2 dashes Angostura bitters

2 oz rye or bourbon whiskey

Muddle sugar, water, and bitters together until the sugar is mostly dissolved.  Fill glass with ice and then add the whiskey.  Garnish with a twist of orange peel and a cherry.

Another example of an aromatic bitter similar to Angostura is Peychaud’s Bitters.  Peychaud’s is the vital component in the Sazerac, which I covered in an earlier post about The Monarch.  Other examples of aromatic bitters include Fee Brother’s and Scrappy’s. 

There are tons of other types of cocktail bitters beside aromatic, from lime to chocolate to apple to lavender.  I will make an entirely separate post that deals with exotic bitters.

Do you have a bottle of bitters in your bar?  What’s your favorite drink that contains bitters?  Comments are always appreciated, and questions can be directed to @rebellionwhisky.  

Red-eye Roulette: Grumpy Old Man

Dear Internet,

I cannot express how much joy you bring me.  If it were not for you, I would probably be outside right now, actively participating in a physical activity in which I have no interest.  Instead of swimming in a lake, I am watching someone else swim in a lake on Youtube.  Instead of watching a sporting event on television, I am following my friend’s reactions on Twitter and Facebook.  Life is good.

But all is not perfect in this relationship, internet.  No, there is one outstanding issue that I have with you: there are too many websites that provide user-submitted cocktail recipes.  You know the sites, the ones where the drinking community can post the cocktail they concocted last night; the one they had to create because they ran out of orange juice so they used Bud Light instead.  What am I supposed to do with all of these drinks?  Are any of them good?  How do I filter out all of the cocktail nonsense?

Sincerely,

A Disgruntled Drink Searcher

Well, seeing as how the internet hasn’t responded to me personally (yet), I decided to get to the bottom of this whole business with a series of posts called: Red-eye Roulette! (Applause)  Many of us try to be bold and attempt to get out of our comfort zones with a new cocktail.  We have been to those overwhelming websites with page upon page of drinks that you have no idea if they are good or not, only to get desperate.  Eventually, you end up with something that only the bravest of us or those firmly entrenched in the college lifestyle should try.  The easy solution would be to ignore those drinks and just stick with what you know, but I am a glutton for punishment; therefore, I will be trying a random drink approximately once a week to help filter out the noise. 

Without further ado, this week’s drink is: the Grumpy Old Man.   (The fine folks at http://www.drinksmixer.com/ will even scale the recipe to the number of servings you desire.) 

       

Disclaimer: it’s ultimately up to you to decide the quality of the whiskey you put into these drinks, but for this one, I wouldn’t use anything from the top shelf.

Lucky me, it’s a bourbon recipe.  I used W.L. Weller 12 year old bourbon for this recipe, which has high wheat content, so the bourbon is fairly smooth.  The shot of lime reminds me of a whisky sour, but the ginger ale adds a dry mouth feel.  Don’t have any tequila?  No problem, because I can’t help but thinking that this drink is a perfectly fine substitute for a margarita.  Sure, the ginger ale adds crispness to the drink that you won’t find in a margarita, but when push comes to shove and you just happen to have some ginger ale, give it a try.

Did you take the leap of faith and try the Grumpy Old Man?  Let me know what you think in the comments.  As always, follow me on Twitter for updates on new posts and random other thoughts about cocktails.   

The Manhattan

I’ll make no secret about it:  I love whiskey.  More specifically, I love bourbon.  What makes whiskey bourbon? According to United States Code of Federal Regulations, Title 27, Section 5.22(i)(1):

“Bourbon whisky”, “rye whisky”, “wheat whisky”, “malt whisky”, or “rye malt whisky” is whisky produced at not exceeding 160° proof from a fermented mash of not less than 51 percent corn, rye, wheat, malted barley, or malted rye grain, respectively, and stored at not more than 125° proof in charred new oak containers; and also includes mixtures of such whiskies of the same type.

Right, what you need to know there is bourbon has to be 51% corn.  (Note that, contrary to popular belief, bourbon does not have to be made in Bourbon County, Kentucky.)  From there, however, the amount of adjuncts (other grains) can vary wildly.  With this in mind, you have to be careful when selecting bourbon for particular types of cocktails.  Bourbons with a significant amount of wheat, such as Maker’s Mark or W.L. Weller, tend to be smoother than bourbons with more rye.  Rye imparts a spicy character into the bourbon as can be seen in Bulleit (pronounced “bullet”) bourbon.

So, how does this apply to making the superior cocktail?  Let’s take a fairly straightforward cocktail to see if we can taste the difference.            

The Manhattan, my wife’s favorite, and a cocktail that I have shared with her frequently as of late.  Normally, we would make her Manhattan’s with bourbon, but after some research (you know, Google), I found that the time-honored Manhattan is made with rye whiskey, rather than bourbon.  I liked the bourbon version, but if the traditionalists say rye, then I would give it a shot.  Here are the recipes for the two cocktails that we compared:

Bourbon Based Manhattan

2 oz Bulleit bourbon

½ oz sweet vermouth

3 dashes of Angostura bitters

Rye Based Manhattan

2 oz Bulleit 95% rye whiskey

½ oz sweet vermouth

3 dashes of Angostura bitters

I chose Bulleit bourbon because of its high rye content, thinking that a rye based bourbon will be closer to the traditional Manhattan recipe.  With that said, these two cocktails are like night and day.  The bitters work much better with the rye whiskey.   The vegetable flavors imparted by the bitters work significantly better with the bite of the rye.  With the sweeter, smoother bourbon, the cocktail is far too sweet.  Granted, I wouldn’t have made this distinction without comparing the bourbon version to the rye.  Still, that’s what this blog is all about: discovery.  There is no comparison between the two beverages, and I will never make/purchase a Manhattan without rye whiskey as the backbone again.

How do you take your Manhattan?  Comments are always welcome, as are suggestions for future drink experiments. 

The Search

Ah, the Jack Daniels and Coke.  A simple, ubiquitous beverage that combines the two most recognized drink brands in America.  It is an effortless cocktail that both elder statesman and collegiate drinkers can prepare and enjoy.  I cannot tell you how many of these sweet, mellow beverages I have consumed in my young life, but I’ll tell you one thing: though I have enjoyed them, I am getting bored with the drink.  With the beverage’s inherent simplicity, comes the drink’s unfortunate plainness.  So, what do you do? 

Rebel, obviously, against bland drinks, pre-conceived notions, and our personal cocktail histories.      

With all of that said, welcome to my first sojourn into the world of blogging.  I am actually a little nervous; the thought of individuals caring about what I think and those same individuals basing their choices on my opinions is unsettling.  What type of knowledge do I have over any other individual? 

There is the beauty of this blog: I am not an expert and I will never claim to be.  I am hoping to discover my own opinions about the world of cocktails and try and find a higher level of cocktail enlightenment.  In doing so, I hope readers, whether few or many, also find that next level.

So how do we achieve this enlightenment?  Is it as easy as just trying new cocktails and telling you how I feel about them?  I doubt it; the enlightenment comes from the sharing of opinions, recipes, and techniques.  It’s about searching for the classic way to make cocktails, and then experimenting, expanding, and improving upon the recipe. 

Initially, I will start with finding those classic cocktails and preparing them in the traditional manner.  This will include both simple and complex recipes, varying from a straightforward gin and tonic to an ambitious sazerac (rye whiskey and absinthe!). 

Another significant part of the search will include obtaining opinions about the different brands of spirits available.  Do I prefer Maker’s Mark or Knob Creek as my bourbon of choice?  Is a margarita better with resposado or añejo tequila?  Should you shake a martini á la James Bond-style or stir?  All these questions will (hopefully) be answered. 

 I can hear your skepticism radiating from my computer screen.  How on earth am I going to learn how a cocktail is actually supposed to taste like?  A Mr. Boston recipe book is no assurance that I will be able to make the drinks properly.  Therefore, the final portion of my search will include visiting as many knowledgeable cocktail artists and mixologists in the St. Louis area as possible.  In simpler terms, I will go to a lot of bars.  I will savor their take on classic cocktails as well as taste the bartender’s signature cocktail (hopefully they have one) and rate the experiences. 

Please, feel free to comment on the things I have posted.  Post your favorite way to prepare the drink.  What is your favorite rum?  Tell me your opinions on bars in the St. Louis area.  Who has the best old-fashioned in the city?  Let’s try and find out together.  A whiskey and coke is nice beverage, but do you want to be stuck with just that option?  Or do you like a Cuba Libre better?  Or a Rob Roy?  Or a whiskey sour?  Hopefully you are the inquisitive type like me, and hopefully, you will find your personal cocktail preferences along with me.

Thanks for reading.