My shitty bar set cocktail shaker has
been getting a workout lately. Brett
found my copy of the Death & Co
cocktail book and has committed our livers to a winter of gin. Which is fine by
me, having a curious mind constantly making cocktails when the city streets
become littered with gray, gritty snow will be very handy.
We are ahead of the death of winter
thus far, as he has already studied and perfected construction of the Corpse Reviver No. 2. He won’t tell you
that. But he has. Besides it tasting like the kind of
botanical, boozy lemonade that F. Scott Fitzgerald might take to, when we were
out Friday he instructed the bartender at a respected drinking establishment on
how to make one. (Equal parts gin,
Cointreau, Lillet Blanc, and lemon juice with a few drops of absinthe, for the
record.)
Having an architect sling drinks is a eureka! moment. There is an equal proportion of precision and
creative thinking to the craft that lends intuition on when to short shake and when
to adlib with an herb garnish. This is
precisely the person I want building my cocktail.
Which leads me to a class of drinks
known as tiki. I have thought long and
hard about this next statement, but I am sorry and can come to no other
conclusion: I cannot like someone who dislikes this class of cocktail. It is like saying you hate Scooby-Doo or
Caribbean vacations or brunch.
They are also easier to make than you might
think. And the best part might be
getting to smash ice with a rolling pin.
(Again, if you do not like this sort of thing, that is fine, but please
keep your influence away from my joyful extracurricular activities.)
Tiki drinks are pleasure and pain. And this one, called Strange Brew by the good
people at Death & Co, is no exception.
It is, however, arguably much more balanced than some other tiki
cocktails, which can be overly sweet and high octane and, thus, prohibitive
regarding regular and continued consumption.
Strange Brew is decidedly more delicate,
and floral. It has pineapple and Velvet
Falernum, a spicy syrupy liquor from Barbados, to offer up subtle sweet notes.
It also has a dousing of IPA for bitterness, which I suppose is falling out of
favor with many beer geeks, but I still love it. You can float the hoppy brew on top, but I
prefer to swizzle it in, so it lends a slight fizz to the length of the
cocktail.
But perhaps the best part is that the
drink gets better as you continue to sip it.
This might also be because you get looser on the way down too. I guess, technically, it is impossible to judge
the fluid merits of an alcoholic concoction with an unsullied sober mind. And you need other drinks for comparison. Which,
I suspect, is a secret motive fueling the craft cocktail scene. And I wager, with their strange brews, these
people are on to something.
Strange
Brew
Adapted from Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails
Ingredients:
9 ice cubes, divided
2 ounces gin (try Tanqueray or Alchemy
Dry Gin)
¾ ounce Velvet Falernum
1 ounce pineapple juice
½ ounce fresh lemon juice
2 ounces of an IPA beer (such as GreenFlash IPA)
Mint sprig, for garnish
Instructions:
Place 6 ice cubes in a plastic freezer
storage bag and bang with a rolling pin until well crushed. Place the crushed ice in a highball glass
(the cubes should fill a 12-ounce glass to the top). Store in the freezer until needed.
In a cocktail shaker, place the
remaining 3 ice cubes and add the gin, Velvet Falernum, pineapple juice, and
lemon juice and short shake them (shake quickly and briefly, just to mix the
ingredients).
Strain the liquid into your prepared
highball glass and top with the IPA.
Stir briefly and garnish with mint.
Makes 1 cocktail
Notes:
-Alchemy is my new favorite gin: it’s
incredibly delicate and hails from Portland, Maine. Their distillery is also
very happening.
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