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 first thing any living creature will ask itself after drinking AL LONG’S SPECIAL HOT TODDY is “Who the hell is Al Long?” Jesse asserts that Mr. Long is a veteran of the blue movies, but after significant digging I conclude that Al Long is not actually Al Long at all, but A.L. Long (Armistead Lindsay…
AGGRAVATION 1 oz. Kahlua 1 oz. Scotch (Monkey Shoulder) Milk Fill glass with milk, add ingredients and two ice cubes, stir slowly, and serve. Brian That’s weird, but it’s not bad. It’s the scotch. The scotch is weird. Eric Why is this called the Aggravation? Brian I don’t know. I am in no way aggravated…
In Part 1 of the After Dinner Aggravation, Brian, Eric, and Guest Taster Jason tried out two separate “After Dinner” drinks with unprecedentedly positive scores, while still kind of hating them. We pick up where we left off, with Rituals crew building the AGGRAVATION: Next up we have a drink that uses Kahlua and of…
AFTER DINNER SPECIAL .75 oz. cherry brandy (Cherry Heering) 1.5 oz. Swedish Punsch (homemade) 1 oz. lime juice Combine with ice; shake. Strain over ice. Brian It’s good. Lime and Cherry Heering. I can’t taste the punsch. Not overpowering lime. Jason The bitter part is the punsch. This is a citrus bomb. Brian Ladies will…
AFTER DINNER 1.5 oz. apricot brandy (Rothman and Winter Orchard Apricot) 1.5 oz. curaçao (Ferrand Dry Curaçao) 2 oz. lime juice Combine with ice; shake. Strain. Add a twist of lime and ice. Drop in the peel. This week we recorded our tasting notes so we could remember all of the good points. Eric It’s…
I hop in the Lyft I requested minutes ago. As I sit into the front seat bottles can be heard clanking and clinking. “How’s your day going,” the driver asks. To which I reply, “It’s about to get better. Heading to a friend’s to have some cocktails.” This is how most of my Lyft rides…
If you live in Seattle a craft distillery might not seem like a big deal—there are 24 to choose from. But if you live in Los Angeles, like us, you have nothing—or you had nothing, at least, until 2011 when Greenbar Craft Distillery ended a 95-year spirits-making drought for L.A. by moving downtown. The company’s story reads like a…
ADAM AND EVE 1 oz. gin (Bombay Dry) 1 oz. cognac (Hennessey) 1 oz. Forbidden Fruit (Rituals DIY) A few drops lemon juice Combine with ice; shake. Strain over ice. It’s called this because of the FORBIDDEN FRUIT in the recipe, and though it seems like some kind of modified Negroni, we immediately question if our…
I arrive at Brian’s thinking how grateful his wife Amanda must be now that we have finished the cooking and bottling portion of the Rituals (at least for awhile). The ACADIAN MEAD is aging in his closet, sure, but it’s out of sight and out of mind. We’ll be using our homemade ANISETTE today and our DIY CRÈME…
Previously on the Rituals: We rescued the ACADIAN MEADS, made two kinds of ANISETTE DE BORDEAUX, and started the FORBIDDEN FRUIT simulacrum. All five items have been sitting in my closet for a couple of weeks. I stop by every couple of days and swirl around the bits that have settled to the bottom. Somehow this…
ABSINTHE COCKTAIL 1 ½ oz. absinthe or a substitute (Vieux Pontarlier) ¾ oz. water 1 tbs. anisette (Rituals DIY, brandy version) 1 dash orange bitters (Rituals DIY) Combine with ice, shake and pour over shaved ice. This is basically an anise-flavored drink with extra anise-flavored liquor added. It also uses three different kinds of water…
ABERDEEN ANGUS 2 oz. Scotch (Famous Grouse) 1 oz. Drambuie 1 tbs honey 2 tsp lime juice Combine the Scotch and the honey; stir until smooth. Add the lime juice. Warm the Drambuie over a low flame, turn out on a ladle; ignite and pour into the mug. Stir and serve immediately. Eric has the highest…
Since the first few meetings were consumed with getting the dreaded A-1 PICK-ME-UP off the ground, we are tingly with excitement to get started on the first four cocktails after the A-1: the A.J., the ABBEY, the ABBEY COCKTAIL, and the ABERDEEN ANGUS. We will be mixing, and talking, and consuming, and comparing, and contrasting,…