AMER PICON COOLER 1.5 oz. Amer Picon (substituted Amaro CioCiaro) 1 oz. gin (Bombay Sapphire) .5 oz. cherry liqueur (Cherry Heering) 1 tsp. sugar syrup 1 tsp. lemon juice Club soda Combine with ice; shake well. Strain. Add ice and club soda. Eric: Amer Picon is no longer available so we’re using a substitute, Amaro CioCiaro….
KITCHEN SINK: A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS ACT II “AMER PICON COOLER” Passage of time. The sun clicks downward in the sky. The two men in the kitchen, Brian and Eric, address the next recipe in the ancient bartending manual. This is what it says: AMER PICON COOLER 1.5 oz. Amer Picon (substituted Amaro CioCiaro)…
In the Trenches at St. George Spirits St. George Spirits occupies a large airplane hangar on a former naval base in Alameda, California. It is the oldest craft distillery in the United States and one of the most experimental. To get an idea of its range of expression, one only need to take inventory of…
The ALLIES cocktail relates to World War I with the English, French, and Russians representing the Triple Entente. The recipe uses English gin, French vermouth, and Russian kümmel. The naming of this cocktail works wonderfully but does it taste good? ALLIES 1 oz. gin 1 oz. dry vermouth (Dolin) 1-2 dashes kümmel (Combier) Combine with ice;…
In a previous blog post we dealt with the subject of cocktail names. You can give a cocktail, or anything for that matter, a fancy intriguing name but none of that matters if the drink is unappetizing. The Complete Bartenders Guide is abundant with amazing cocktail names but (if you’ve been following along) lacking in flavorful cocktails. Once again…
Pop Quiz: Which of the following are not cocktails we are making today? All-White Frappe Partially White Frappe Flat White Frappucino The New Zealand All-Blacks Allen Woody Allen Ethan Allen GG Allin The Alan Parsons Project Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold Alien Answer: Well, if you read the title to this post,…
The ALFONSO SPECIAL has some good things going for it in the naming department. Brian may disagree—he has written about cocktail naming before—but I think it the Alfonso Special gets points for having an interesting person or place featured in the name and I like the traditional nature of the “special”, which of course makes one…
One thing this Rituals project has taught me is that a cocktail’s name is actually important. Previously, it didn’t matter much whether the drink was called an Attaboy or a You’re Gonna Get It or a Ronda Rousey (all fictional, by the way). The ingredients were there to speak for themselves, right? Who cared what…
The Brandy Alexander is sometimes referred to as an Alexander No. 2, which makes one wonder if there is an Alexander or an Alexander No. 1. And if so, how come we have never heard of it? Turns out there is an Alexander cocktail that has been largely lost to history—buried by its own shiny…
The Brandy Alexander has its roots in the 19th century but it really came into its own in the 70s. The Brandy Alexander—cognac, cocoa liqueur, and cream—just sounds like the 70s: . You can picture smoke-filled living rooms in which this drink was consumed; you can see the glassware and the chunky jewelry and the…
I would like to talk a little bit about the ALEXANDER WITH PRUNELLE, which first means talking about prunelle. I stated earlier that one of our drinks used a now defunct ingredient. I was referring to prunelle. I say defunct because it is not something that you can get in the states, at least we couldn’t…
Ale, ale, prunelle. Like some outlandish alcoholic version of Duck Duck Goose, today we delve into some early cocktail history and end with a defunct liqueur. We also have a guest with us today, James Mann. Eric and I have known James for quite a while. We all met early on in our careers in…
According to Wikipedia (always love saying that), the word ALBEMARLE is the Latinised form of the French county of Aumale in Normandy (Latin: Alba Marla meaning “White Marl”, marl being a type of fertile soil). White marl, eh? The Savoy Stomp blog digs around and finds some more interesting history about Albemarle: It was also an early Virginia colony gone bad,…
Lately I’ve been biking to Brian’s place when he hosts the Rituals. This seems like a safe and effective way to bookend cocktail tasting with a workout, and it is. The laws on drinking and riding your bike vary from state to state, but in California it is definitely illegal so I always make sure…
This cocktail has us venturing to America’s last frontier, ALASKA. No one knows how this cocktail got its name, but The Savoy Cocktail Book speculates it came from South Carolina. I’m unsure if that’s 1930s humor or not. The ALASKA piques our interest with its recipe of liquor, liquor, and bitters, but once again we have something to take…
Jerry Thomas, the most famous celebrity bartender, first wrote about the Fizz cocktail in 1876. Fizzes became so popular that bars would have teams of bartenders just to make them. There would be bartenders to shake the drinks and bartenders who would add the soda water and finish it with superfine sugar to make the drink…
What’s in a name? Mr. Bill Shakespeare aptly used this question in Romeo and Juliet to show that names are but labels and that the worth of the person is all that truly matters. Today we measure the worth of a few cocktails with the names ALABAMA FIZZ (not too intriguing), ALABAZAM (piques interest), and ALASKA (it’s…
36 HOURS OF MAYHEM “I’m scared, Brian.” This is not the first time I have uttered these words and it probably won’t be the last. But it is a very real fear this time and it is potent. We are attending our first liquor convention, the San Francisco Craft Spirits Carnival, and we have no…
Melaney Schmidt manages the restaurant bar at the Standard where she has created the White Duck (Aperol, Ford’s gin, grapefruit), the Smith & Crossing (Caña Brava rum, Smith & Cross pot-still rum, lime, mint, pineapple, absinthe), and other delicious concoctions. Her focus is on using fresh kitchen ingredients and pairing these culinary flavors with boutique…