Cocktail Advent Calendar-Dec23 rd, The Friar Briar’s

This is by far the most difficult drink in the Cocktail Advent Calendar.  We did not make it authentically, but we did make it for service, and that is much harder.  It is the winning recipe from 2006 at the Cocktail World Cup and is a twist on the classic cocktail: the posset.  The recipe seems simple enough except that it is very hard to hold the posset in warm form form service.  It is even harder to wield a red hot poker behind the bar, but we’ll get to that too.  Anyone can give you the recipe, but here is how we did it:

Friar Briar’s

in a crock pot keep mix

• 3 oz 42 Below Manuka Honey Vodka
• 3 oz dark ale -use a sweet one or add sugar
• 1 oz rum
• .5 oz honey
• .25 ox Benedictine
• 2 dash Angostura

separately and hold at a safe chilled temp mix

• 2 whole eggs
• 3 oz  cream
• 1 tbsp sugar

Combine 3 oz warm mix to 2 oz cold mix in a toddy glass

Dip  a hot poker is each mug

Sell the sizzle

For our poker, we used an iron meat flipper kept hot by leaving it in a panini press.  Finally got some use out of that thing. The sizzle from the poker does add an earthy smokey flavor to the drink, the hot poker was the microwave of it’s day.

For an old style cocktail I have an old style song, “Silent Night,”  by Stanley Jordan.  I couldn’t find it online, I got mine off a old Blue Note Jazz compilation.

Cocktail Advent Calendar-Dec 21st, Betsy Ross

I first learned about the Betsy Ross cocktail for today’s Cocktail Advent Calendar from a Crosby Gaige book.   I know of another variation for this cocktail that turns it into a flip. It is easy to see why a drink that has an egg in it or a drink that is syrupy sweet is not going to be a very popular cocktail. However, this time of year, in the holiday season, it’s a fairly ideal drink – egg or not. I would try it both ways. If there’s no egg in your Betsy Ross cocktail I think it works very well at room temperature or over ice. The ice will continue to send the drink out a little bit which works fine for this. And at room temperature your basically just creating your own liqueur. At room temperature this drink is one of the few times a snifter would be acceptable.

This is the definition of a bullshit aromatic garnish

Betsy Ross

• 1 oz port
• 1 oz cognac
• .25 oz orange curacao
• 1 dash angostura
• if you add an egg yolk, add a dash of simple syrup

Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” can’t really be legitimately tied to the Betsy Ross cocktail in anyway.   The only distant way in which I can tie them together would be that people leaving town to see family for Christmas are gone by now. If you are still in town you should look to your left and look to your right because that’s who you’re spending Christmas with.  But I’m running out of days and I’m running out of sad songs so couple of them are just going to have to be thrown together.

Cocktail Advent Calendar-Dec 20th, Irish Coffee

The Irish coffee will be treated differently than the other drinks on the Cocktail Advent Calendar. Almost every other cocktail that we’ve worked with this month we’ve dressed up. We’ve taken a classic not very good cocktail, substituted good ingredients, added a bit of care, and voilà – a much better cocktail. This is not the case for the Irish coffee, this classic will be made exactly the way it’s supposed to be made, because it’s a perfect cocktail.

The original Irish coffee had no Bailey’s, it had no brown sugar, and it had no whipped cream topped with green crème de menthe.  The best way to enjoy this cocktail is perfectly as it is written on paper.  The only thing to keep in mind that is not written on the original recipe is that when you’re making coffee cocktails it very much helps to make the coffee extra strong and pre-heating the vessel that the cocktail will be poured into is essential.   Last month I was in San Francisco at the Gold Dust in Union Square. The legendary $3.50 Irish coffees are served there. People have told me throughout the years that they just want to go there and drink them all day.  I never understood why until I had one at 10 in the morning.   Being in a dark bar when it’s bright outside, where people are selling rude stories and nude cherubic women are painted on the ceiling is the perfect place to enjoy an Irish coffee.

The best cocktails have only 3 ingredients, in perfect cocktails, one of those ingredients is whiskey

Irish coffee

• 1.5 ounces Irish whiskey
• 4 ounces very strong black coffee
• 2 ounces lightly sweetened whipped cream

There’s a certain type of “drunk in a bar when you’re not supposed to be” aspect to the Irish coffee that I think lends itself to listening to the rat pack. Auld lang syne, by Frank Sinatra I think is the perfect listening choice for drinking an old-style cocktail made just right.

Hope you wait til the end for the good joke

Cocktail Advent Calendar-Dec 19th, Harvest Moon

If you look up the “Harvest Moon” cocktail you’ll see about 40 to 70 different recipes for it. You’ll find that this is often the case for any cocktail that might be named after a song from the 70′s. Try looking up various Fleetwood Mac titled cocktails and find that every single song on “Rumors” has a cocktail, or eight, named for each track. Despite this overwhelming love for making harvest moon themed cocktails. ours is a quite simple showcase of harvest flavors unlike the rest of the pack. It will showcase applejack, bonded applejack and, of course, orgeat lime juice and Angostura bitters. This is the same formula as a classic Tiki recipe called the Barbancourt rum cup. And it works so well I basically would call for the “spirit, orgeat, lime juice and a dash of Angostura” to be a cocktail template. I have already used this in a template for one of my “originals” called a “Signal to Noise.”  I hope today’s Cocktail Advent Calendar recipe has given you a new drink family, might as well call it the “Harvest Moon” drink family.

That's a pretty little number.

Harvest Moon

• 1.5 oz applejack
• .5 oz orgeat
• .25 oz lime juice
• 1 dash Angostura

It could, quite possibly, be one of the worst day’s of the year today. Simply because it is the Monday before Christmas, and everyone will be building up to the *big day* by yelling at each other and generally being snot faces, and there’s no legitimate way to take Friday off of work. It’s going to be a long shitty week. Today’s sad song to go with that is, “I’d like you for Christmas” by Julie London.   It’s not a particularly sad song but it is a song that’s incredibly slow and longing and goes on a while – like this day probably will – but fear not! Hopefully you get a three day weekend coming up soon.

Cocktail Advent Calendar-Dec 18th, Hot Espresso Buttered Rum

Hot Espresso Buttered Rum. That is what today’s Cocktail Advent Calendar holds in store for you. You can buy hot buttered rum batter in the grocery store that’s not very special. We could make you a better version of that better and will be kind of special. But today Anu is whipping up espresso & vanilla bean buttered syrup with date puree to drizzle across your hot buttered rum.  This actual recipe may be a proprietary secrets so we’ll have to wait to put out the actual ingredients but I’ve had said, “drizzle,” and it is amazing.  It’s the kind of life-changing experience that makes you wonder why Starbucks doesn’t just have vanilla butter as a flavor. It’s so good it makes you wonder if, “drinking butter,” is going to be a new trends like drinking chocolate. It’s the kind of game changer that should make you want to own your own dairy cow.

The goldfish represents the drizzle of espresso butter.

Hot buttered rum mix TBA.

 

 

 

 

It’s actually even so good I can’t even really pair it with a sad Christmas song.  which is why today is more of a sultry slow Christmas song.  Baby it’s cold outside by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan, perhaps the one sad thing about this song is a woman’s concern that she might be labeled a strumpet where she should just stay inside with someone Sheidaig’s and have a warm Christmas beverage. What kind of terrible world could’ve written this song where snuggling with something to be feared. Oh how far we’ve come.

Cocktail Advent Calendar-Dec 17th, Buddha’s Hand, Dealer’s Choice

Be desire-less and expect austerity.

Once a year a crazy Southeast Asian citron comes on the market called a Buddha’s Hand.  This fruit’s history is quite impressive as it seems to have traveled most of the known world before written history began.  I bought what was basically a Buddha’s “grizzly bear paw,” a few weeks back, it was easily the largest one I’ve ever had.  We infused it for 1 week at Rob Roy in 1 part gin to 1 part rum.  And that is today’s Cocktail Advent Calendar, Buddha’s hand, dealers choice.

 

Shaking hands with Buddha

 

There is a great lesson in this fruit for bartenders. Buddha’s hand is candied, steamed and fried is Asian culture but the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t taste like much of anything.  Why infuse it?  because it smells great.  Buddha’s hand is mostly used as an air freshener.  Because is smells good, we infuse it with 80 proof spirit to let the scent continue in cocktails.  If we made a syrup out of it we would have what is basically lightly citric yellow syrup that is very expensive.  To keep it short: infuse scents into spirits, cook flavors into syrups, and figure out when you want those two to overlap into a liqueur.

 

A weird sad song to go with this nontraditional winter drink is, “Did I Make You Cry on Christmas?” by Sufjan Stevens.  Kind of a song about I guy who just can’t get this season right, like when you call infusing crazy citrus a Christmas cocktail.

 

 

By the way, today is not some bullshit 1990′s infused vodka slacker day.  All of those fads are still aplicable when used correctly.  You are going to be clowning on making your own bitters like they were bellbottoms soon enough.

The Cocktail Advent Calendar-Dec 16th, Eggnog

A drunk kid at the university of college one day said, “art is what separates us from animals.”  That is fine and dandy if you live in a dorm and have a pony tale.  But I was in a coffee shop a couple months ago and heard a grown man say it.  I barfed on him to complete his college experience.

I have also heard a very smart man say, “seasonal beverage is what separates us from animals,” I thought about this as a profound statement and he continued,“ I’m going to drink a quart of eggnog tomorrow and watch that Raiders game.”

Perhaps what separates us from animals is planning our Sundays.

It's hard to dress this one up.

Eggnog

• 4 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 pint whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 4 egg whites
• 2 oz allspice dram (going to help you sell it out this month Eric)

But you need to prepare like we did with the Tom & Jerry.  Separate eggs and beat the whites until stiff, with a bit of sugar.  Mix everything else separately then combine in a bowl.

Add 2 oz bourbon per serving.

 

 

Yes, today’s Cocktail Advent Calendar is Eggnog.  Everybody’s mom can make eggnog but if I call it a pre-cocktail tradition egg libation, I sound like the smart one.  Look, I know you want an eggnog, you fucking need one.  And ours is homemade with fresh spices and expertly crafted.  I know you can pour a shot of bourbon into your Starbucks latte*, but I think we have that beat

For the eggnog, a pre-cocktail known the whole world over (check out the Japanese Tamagozake) I have a sad X-mas song about WW1.  I think everyone knows, “Christmas in the Trenches,” by John McCutcheon.  If you don’t then listen on, but a lot of people don’t know it’s based on the real life impromptu Christmas day cease fires in 1914.  These were unofficial and not allowed again but basically the troops on both sides went into no man’s land to drink, smoke and sing.  Seems like both sides were more naturally inclined to pub life than war.  There is a lesson there.

*Makes Xmas shopping easier.

The Cocktail Advent Calendar-Dec 15th, The Coffee Cocktail

Today’s Cocktail Advent Calendar is the dumbest name for a cocktail ever: The Coffee Cocktail.  The Coffee cocktail has no coffee., nor is it a cocktail (a cocktail being spirit, water, sugar, bitters, and stirred).  This is a Jerry Thomas era moustashe-tasctic recipe that is a great goodnight cocktail. What is the difference between a Coffee Cocktail and  a Porto Flip?  If you ask the internet you’ll get a list that says they are pretty much the same cocktail, but upon consulting one of the few places on the internet where I actually like getting recipes: cocktaildb.com I see that Ted say, “no brandy in a porto flip.”  I’d generally side with him on matters such because he can do that um, citing precedent thing.  Anyone else?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I invented the smily face cocktail garnish.

The Coffee Cocktail

• 1 oz Cognac
• 1 oz Port
• .25 oz Simple Syrup
• 1 whole egg

grate a little nutmeg on top

This is a bit of a lazy Xmas (so much so that I can’t spell out Christmas) cocktail that I envision as the height of exotica in old wood paneled dive bars.  I think there is a certain type of awareness I have about that as I remember this drink as one of the first egg cocktails I made when everything was new to me.  I disagree with what most would say about using mediocre port in this cocktail, it is by no means a time to crack a fine one, but a $10 fifth from the grocer & cooking brandy make this drink that good.  A nice ruby port with a heavy VS cognac make the Coffee Cocktail much better.  OF course if you are in that dive bar, you’d get in trouble for having an egg in cognac.   Another sad song with a hopeful feeling of, “things might get better,” is the Tom Waits song, “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis.”

The Cocktail Advent Calendar-Dec 14th, Bourbon Furnace

Today’s Cocktail Advent Calendar is a real simple one, the Bourbon Furnace.  I like to imagine this was a cocktail that originated as: bourbon, “instead of a,” furnace because this warms you up without changing your heating bill.  Long story,  but to keep it short, I didn’t have heat one year in college, I drank pan warmed Jack Daniels and decaf Earl Grey tea to get to sleep at night.  Tucking into to a bourbon in the cold really warms you up.

 

What is the best way to make un pasteurized cider safe? Bourbon.

 

The Bourbon Furnace

• 1.5 oz Bourbon
• 5 oz Apple cider
• .5 oz Allspice dram

 

Pretty easy to pull off, but the house spiced cider at Rob Roy is not to be missed.  This warm glass of bourbon love makes me think about having one out in the cold.  It is rough time of year for anybody that has to be outside a lot and having a furnace seems an amazing luxury to have on the cheap.  Feeling the cold mix with the cheer and again sadness, of the season, this cocktail makes me think of the Roy Orbison tune “Pretty Paper,” a tear in your toddy holiday song about being out in the cold.

 

 

 

Not every garnish tonight is going to be a flaming apple, but every cocktail will still be made with love.

 

Cocktail Advent Calendar-Dec 13th, The Hot Toddy

Today’s Cocktail Advent Calendar begins with a line in the sand and a threat of war.  It pains me to make this threat because is is against those in the trade that cares for me most, the baristas.  Baristas, I love you all but we need to get some shit straight right now before I start smashing mugs and bending demitasse spoons- the toddy, is our word and it means HOT.  If you are lost on this rant, the recent popularity of cold brewed coffee has brought on the word, “toddy,” meaning a cup of cold brew. “Toddy,” is a brand name of a trademarked brewing system, just like kleenex or band-aid.  The Toddy company, by their very name, has committed a trespass on my trade like those that would use the suffixes, “tini, ” or “rita.”  All of that lot can fuck right off.  That being said, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Anyway, the Hot Toddy is what we are here to talk on today. This drink of unknown origin has been kicking around for 300 years, perhaps from Scotland, perhaps from India nobody really knows. I know it doesn’t seem like a very special drink, and in many ways it isn’t.  But I’d like to offer 2 ways in which it can be special.

1.  Often simple drinks such as the Hot Toddy are never fully executed because they are taken for granate.  When we apply all of our skills to them, it’s an epiphany moment waiting to happen.

2.  The Hot Toddy works with any aged spirit and can always be reinvented.

This was my nice Irish Toddy, angry and profound like Shane MacGowan yet delightful and gentle like Kristy MacColl

Hot Toddy

• 2 oz Aged Spirit - you pick, rye, scotch, bourbon, calvados, cognac, tequila, rum, applejack
• 1 oz honey -or agave syrup for tequila or demerara for rum , maple syrup for Canadian
• 4 oz boiling hot water
• 2 dashes Angostura - or any bitters you like
• garnish with a lemon - it is important to be able to add acidity if needed

and alway make sure to heat the cup first

Last week I made myself a,”Sad Bastard X-mas,” playlist, 12 very sad Christmas songs because that is how I like ‘em.  I popped into work one evening after strolling through the frosty downtown listening to, “A Fairytale of  New York,” by the Pogues. I asked for a Hot Toddy with a smoky Irish single malt called Connemara.  It fit the tune in my head perfectly and let me enjoy a Hot Toddy for the first time all over again.

I’ll throw out the rest of my, “Sad Bastard X-mas,” playlist as the rest of the advent calendar plays out.  For the record, this is not any sort of ironic playlist, I love sad music, I love Christmas music and I love sad Christmas music.