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Archive for the ‘Liqueurs and Liquors’ Category

In which I post about a highly underrated beverage

Posted in Beer, Cider, Liqueurs and Liquors, Wine, tagged , , on July 20, 2011 | 7 Comments »

Meet my heatwave beverage of choice. It is, in my opinion, highly underrated, and deserving of much more praise than it currently receives:

Basic Info:
Name: water
Origin: nature
Style: n/a
ABV: n/a
IBU: n/a
I drank this: from a bottle, in my car, while driving*

See, the thing is, the high today was something like 102, with a heat index so absurdly high it makes me sweaty just thinking about it. The other thing is that, being a sales rep, I spend the majority of my day in my (tiny, black, possessed of very slanted windshields) car.

As a result, I’ve been, well, hot.

As a result of the result, I’ve been drinking a lot of water.**

Water is AWESOME. It is, however, unappreciated in the blogosphere.*** I think I know why. It’s subtle, water is. See, unlike the hop bombs I usually consume (which generally suck if they possess any subtlety at all), water has no scent. It also no color. The flavor is nonexistent. In fact, if there is a scent, a flavor or a color, there’s probably something wrong.

On the other hand, water is wet, it’s chemical free,+ and it helps prevent or cure dehydration, heat stroke, hangovers, illness, etc. So, you know, drink some, especially if it’s as stupidhot near you as it is in the sweltering midsection of the country where my butt is currently sitting.

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*Being that open containers are illegal in my state, this is the only time you’ll ever see a reference on this blog to drinking while driving.
**And iced coffee, if I’m being perfectly honest. But the iced coffee happens in the morning – when it’s only 93 or so – and is a daily necessity. Without caffeine, I’m a horrid, horrid person. With a headache.
***If “blogosphere” is still a thing. I haven’t watched enough cable news lately to know if blogosphere is still a buzzword or not.
+ Actually, unless you’re drinking distilled water, this is a relative term. It’s chemical-free in comparison to my usual review topics.

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This post brought to you by this experience:

On Monday, after the fourth bank thermometer I drove by that had a temperature reading of over 100, I decided to give up on any ideas of getting home before rehydrating and bought myself some water at the convenience store. Then I refilled it twice while I was out. When I got home, I had the brilliant idea of shoving the half-full* bottle in the freezer, so that I’d have a giant ice cube in the morning. This would, in turn, keep my water cold throughout a good chunk of the next day.

Or so I thought.

The chunk of ice that started out the morning like this:

…was completely melted by the time I’d left my first stop (say, 30 minutes), and undrinkably hot by the time I was done with my third (say, 90 minutes total). This was while my poor car was running the a/c full blast. However, when the forecast from the Weather Channel is as gross as mine is, well, the a/c stands no chance at all. Neither does ice.

 

I screencapped this at 8:07pm, and it’s 96 out. 96. Even worse, check out the heat index for tomorrow. I could cry. Furthermore, when it’s this hot, the air shouldn’t even be capable of holding this much humidity. So for everyone who says that Arizona is great because it’s a dry heat, that’s great. Our heat isn’t dry.

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*This is how I typed it without thinking – maybe I’m secretly an optimist.

Then again, this entire post is fundamentally an excuse to bitch about the heat, so. There’s that.

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Pimm’s No. 1

Posted in Liqueurs and Liquors, tagged , , , , , , on April 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Let me get this straight: I am not watching the Royal Wedding. Other than the small part of me that feels bad for Kate having to put up with worldwide media attention during her wedding when being a bride is an already nightmarishly stressful thing, I don’t have an opinion about any of it.

However, I realized the other day, when talking to a friend about the wedding watching party he’s throwing, that I apparently *do* have an opinion about what the proper drink for such a party would be, and therefore think I ought to share it here. That drink is a Pimm’s Cup. It’s alcoholic enough to be worthy of the occasion without being *so* alcoholic that one is stuck spending the next 18 hours wondering why the hell one thought it would be a good idea to begin drinking hours before anyone should ever consider getting out of bed. Plus it’s as English as any drink could be.

Pimm’s is a flipping glorious liqueur-type thing known as a fruit cup - essentially a base of alcohol that gets tarted up with the addition of fruits - that gets mixed with fruit or lemonade or ginger ale or whatever else to have something lovely and lightly alcoholic to enjoy while standing around outside during the heat of the summer. Pimm’s No. 1, the only Pimm’s anyone Stateside is going to have any luck getting their grubby hands on,* is gin-based (as any good English drink should be) and tastes like a melange of citrus and cherry and cucumber and spice (largely clove, allspice and coriander) and a few hints of juniper. I can’t say that it’s bitter and I can’t say it’s particularly sweet or dry or anything else – I’ll stick with “fruity” and maybe, *maybe* bittersweet. Pimm’s is fairly syrupy in texture, and can taste a little thick on its own. To get a sense of the potential of Pimm’s, have a bit of Pimm’s and soda: that will let you taste the flavor without dealing with the stickiness it has on its own. After that, go straight to the Pimm’s Cup.

As far as I can tell, there are several different recipes for a “proper” or “authentic” Pimm’s Cup. Here are a couple of versions:

Standard:
Pour over ice:
2 oz Pimm’s
Top with bitter lemon soda, lemonade, 7up or ginger ale
Garnish with lemon and cucumber

For extra funsies:
Muddle lightly:
1 slice orange
1 slice lemon
1 small slice cucumber
2-3 mint leaves
Add:
2 oz Pimm’s
Shake, pour over ice
Top with lemonade, lemon-lime soda or ginger ale

There’s a variation I tripped across called a Royal Pimm’s, which is 2 oz of Pimm’s poured into a champagne flute and topped with sparkling wine. Should you feel moved to toast the couple from the comfort of your couch and your pajamas, that might be the most appropriate way to go about it. 

People, Pimm’s is yummy, and it’s become much easier to find over the past few years. Try some sometime, whether you’re planning on watching the royal nuptials or not. Beware the added alcohol, though: a Pimm’s Cup is not a hugely alcoholic drink, meaning it’ll be easier to work on than a flute or two of Pimmed-up sparkling wine would be. That is, if you have to worry about going to work after the wedding. If you don’t, then have at having whatever you want.

Me, I’ll be asleep.

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Fun terminology learnings: this is a long drink. A “long drink” is any sort of cocktail that is comprised of alcohol and mixers and designed to be consumed in relatively large volumes. A “short drink” would be the opposite – a drink that is pretty much entirely made out of alcohol, designed to be sipped in small volumes. Think of the difference between a Gin and Tonic and a Manhattan: volume-wise, if you drank the same volume of liquid in a Manhattan that you’d normally drink in a Gin and Tonic, you’d be on the floor. Or, well, I would be anyway.

*There were, in the past, Pimm’s Nos. 1-6, all based on different alcohols. No. 1 is gin-based, as I’ve said already. No. 3 is brandy-based and seasonally available in a few places (probably all in the UK, I’m guessing). No. 6 is vodka-based and still made in small batches.
The rest have been discontinued. I’m giving you this info for the sake of completion:
- No. 2 was Scotch whisky-based
- No. 4 was rum-based**
- No. 5 was rye whiskey-based***
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**cue a series of “why’s the rum gone?” quotes
***yes, I got the whisky/whiskey spellings correct. Yes, there are two spellings: Scotch whisky never uses the ‘e’, but everything else does. There are people out there who will get pissed at an almighty level should one get the “e” wrong (especially on the Scotch side of things), so just file this bit of spelling wonkery in there with every other bit of spelling wonkery in the English language and go on with your life.

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Limoncello: A How-To

Posted in Liqueurs and Liquors, tagged , , , on April 18, 2011 | 11 Comments »

If you have never had limoncello, you are missing out on a beautiful thing. It’s basically lemonade vodka, and it is awesome. And it’s super-easy to make, if you’re the type of person who is good with a paring knife and capable of ignoring/forgetting about something for a month.

Here’s what you need to start off with:

What you’re looking at here is a large, empty container (I think this is supposed to be used for untold quantities of salad dressing or something like that, but it’s ideal – there’s a pouring spout at the top, and it has a rubber seal to keep the cap on and everything airtight), a fifth of vodka (I went local with the Most Wanted), roughly twelve scrubbed and dried lemons, and a tangerine.

The tangerine is mostly because it sounded good on a whim. It’s unnecessary. It’s also an unholy PITA to peel, which I wasn’t thinking about when I got it, so bear that in mind should you kick around throwing one in the mix.

STEP ONE: PEEL THE LEMONS

The hardest thing about limoncello making comes right at the beginning, while peeling the lemons. All citrus has that lovely zesty rind on top of the white pith. The oil (which is what you need) lives in the rind. The pith is NASTYBAD. So when you peel everything, you need to be extremely careful to take only the rind and none of the pith, like this:

A lot of people use a vegetable peeler, but I find I have more control with my paring knife. Notice how thin a strip I’m taking off the orange. You basically want to be able to see through the peel a little as you’re peeling – that will help avoid pith.

Note: your hands will HURT after a while.

When you get done, your kitchen is going to smell *fantastic*. You’re also going to have a pile of lemon peels and a pile of lemons, like so:

 STEP TWO: MIX AND WAIT

Take all the lovely lemon peels and stick in your large, sealable container. Pour the vodka in on top. It’ll look like this:

Stick this in a cabinet or a sunless corner of the kitchen or something and ignore it for a month. Like a full, solid month. The magic of time will suck all the oil out of the peels and give you this lovely yellow liquid:

STEP THREE: STRAIN

This part should be fairly self-explanatory. Pour the vodka through some cheesecloth or a coffee filter or something like that to strain out all the sediment. I won’t show you the pictures of it actually in the process of straining because, well, they look sort of like someone’s in the middle of a drug test or something. Anyway, here’s what happens – you strain, and you end up with yellow vodka and quite whitened lemon peels, like this:

STEP FOUR: SIMPLE SYRUP

For this, take roughly 2 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar. Mix together in a saucepan and stick over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. You know it’s ready when it’s gone from cloudy:

to clear:

See how you can see the light reflecting off the bottom of the pan?

Do this over low heat – all you need is for the sugar to dissolve. You’re not looking for any caramelization here.

When you’ve got the simple sugar, you pour that and the vodka into a giant, sealable container and stir or shake or whatever to mix it together. Then you’re done. Keep it in the freezer and enjoy the hell out of it.

Finished limoncello:

The same sort of process will work for any sort of citrus infusions. I’m playing with a lemon, lime and lavender version next. When I move onto berry infusions, I’ll do another how-to for you people.

Cheers!

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Lillet Blanc

Posted in Liqueurs and Liquors, tagged , , , , , on March 10, 2011 | 7 Comments »

My first-ever liqueur post, featuring a drink of which I do not have a picture because we were out for my birthday dinner and I was trying to be nice by making like an attentive date instead of a semi-obsessive blogger.*

LIQUEUR: Lillet Blanc (there is also a Lillet Rouge, but I haven’t had it yet)
MADE BY AND WITH: the French, using Bordeaux wine and citrus
PURPOSE: Aperitif
COMMON DRINKS: In France/Europe, it’s typically taken on the rocks with a wedge of lemon or lime. The US uses it mostly for cocktails. It was huge in the Twenties.

I had no idea exactly what I was getting myself into other than “hey, we stock that at work” and “I think it’s an aperitif?” – when the opportunity to have some without committing to a bottle presented itself, I grabbed it (at Lidia’s Kansas City, a restaurant you should definitely go to if you’re in KC and have the time/money). I had this on the rocks, no citrus, that being the bartender’s suggestion.**

By means of apology for not having a picture of it, I should point out that you’re not missing much. It looks like white wine on the rocks. It’s not the best sight – given the way I usually turn my nose up at anyone who would put wine on the rocks, I felt a bit uncomfortable having something that even *resembled* wine with ice. I got over myself after a moment, but. Not fun at first.

Anyway: what is this stuff? It smells like a combination of generic white wine and a hint of brandy. Not my favorite smell ever, but not bad. Taste-wise, my notes list:
- white wine
- brandy
- citrus (not sure which)
- coriander?
- ginger?
- grass
- toast
- wood
- white pepper
- something that I know but can’t quite seem to get to***
- apricot
You can take that list as being roughly in order of dominance of flavor from highest to lowest.

Anyway, what I discovered was that after I had a bit of a sense of what to expect, I *really* liked this. It’s not quite as dry as I was expecting (big *eyeroll* surprise: it was reformulated in 1987 to be sweeter, since apparently no one likes/buys brighter, more bitter flavors), but it’s light and refreshing and just strong enough to whet the appetite.

A few recipes:

The most famous pop culture use of Lillet Blanc is in the 1953 James Bond novel Casino Royale, in which 007 orders a Vesper. To make one for yourself:
-         three measures of gin (Bond specifically requests Gordon’s)
-         one measure of vodka
-         one-half measure of Lillet
Shake over ice, pour into a glass and add a peel of lemon. Aspire to a level of coolness neither you nor I will ever actually reach. 

Another Lillet-using cocktail is the Old Etonian:
-         1.5 oz gin
-         1.5 oz Lillet Blanc
-         2 dashes orange bitters
-         2 dashes Crème de Noyeux
Shake over ice, pour into glass and garnish with a twist of orange

I think I’m going to have some of this on hand for the summer months – it would be great on days I want something light, but don’t want a gin and tonic or Campari drink. I’m contemplating the idea of a drink made up of a sugar cube doused in orange bitters, Lillet Blanc, and soda.

Has anyone else out there tried it? I was fascinated – I’d love other opinions.

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*People, I am seriously like the worst person to drink with anymore. Any time we get something new, the notebook and the phone come out so I can take notes and pics and make sure I can blog stuff later. So it’s roughly five minutes per drink that anyone with me is guaranteed not to have much, if any, of my attention.
If the drink in question happens to be wine, expect the no-attention zone to last closer to ten minutes.
**I’m fairly sure I was the first person to ask for Lillet in roughly forever based on the surprised look on the bartender’s face.
***this is a direct note-to-screen quote. My notes get a bit garbled sometimes.

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