Posted by Paul Clarke, April 18, 2008 at 6:30 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? Hit up the archives. Cheers!
What, you thought Manhattan was the only borough of New York that had a drink named after it? We’ll get to the Brooklyn later, but Staten Island and Queens? Well, sorry—better luck next time.
Like its namesake, The Bronx cocktail has taken a beating over the years. It all started out well (with origins at the old Waldorf-Astoria back when that was the place to drink), but when Prohibition hit, the Bronx became ... popular. This was a bad thing, you see, because all sorts of rotgut gin were being mixed into cocktails, and the Bronx was one of those that had enough other stuff in it to somewhat obscure the vile taste of the booze. By the time Repeal rolled around, many drinkers had lost a few layers of stomach lining to Bronxes and others of its ilk. As a result, it was remembered with so much ill will that the drink practically disappeared.
Let’s be honest: The Bronx is unlikely to be anyone’s favorite drink. But while it’s not exactly bottled excitement, The Bronx is actually pretty good, and surprisingly refreshing. Be sure to use fresh-squeezed orange juice (and if you add a dash or two of Angostura bitters, you’ve got a somewhat tastier Income Tax Cocktail on your hands), and approach it with an open mind. There are some things from the past worth revisiting from time to time.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, February 29, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
When I was a kid, one of my mother’s closest friends was in the habit of slyly pointing out that she’d had only twelve (or thereabouts) birthdays—this, despite the fact that she was a middle-aged mother of three. Her punchline of course—and note I never said it was a good one—was that she was born on February 29, a date that only appears on the calendar when leap year rolls around.
Hey, look at today’s date! As you might expect from such a benign oddity, the day has spawned its own cocktail. The Savoy Cocktail Book states, “This Cocktail was created by Harry Craddock, for the Leap Year celebrations at the Savoy Hotel, London, on February 29th, 1928. It is said to have been responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail that has ever been mixed.”
I can’t attest to Craddock’s claim, but I can back up the notion that the Leap Year is a very engaging concoction. Mildly sweet, with a faint touch of bitterness, the cocktail is tasty enough to be enjoyed regularly while we wait for the next February 29 to roll around.
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Posted by The Gurgling Cod, December 18, 2007 at 10:00 AM
Eggnog may be second only to fruitcake as a holiday punchline. And why not? It comes up most often as an explanation for otherwise inexplicable behavior at office parties, and the pre-made version in most grocery stores resembles an opaque, insipid quart of 10W-30 motor oil. For the first 30 or so years of my life, I never gave much eggnog much thought. Then, thanks to a lucky day at Myopic Books, the Gourmet's Guide to New Orleans came into my life. The name is misleading—it is, in fact, a Junior League cookbook. Charleston Receipts is probably the most famous Junior League cookbook, but as a rule, they are worth keeping an eye out for when you trawl the cookbook section at your favorite used book store. My copy is the 13th edition, from 1955, but I don't know when the eggnog recipe became part of the collection. After I read the recipe, I knew immediately I had to make it:
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Posted by Paul Clarke, December 14, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Think of it as an easy, no-egg eggnog. Or think of it as a classic Southern tipple, with an alluring blend of sweetness and richness, and a deep-flavored kick. However you approach the milk punch, just be sure to think of it sometime during the holiday season.
I had a great time sipping one of these on a July morning in New Orleans, but with its fullness of flavor, its silky texture and its nutmeg finish, the milk punch seems particularly well-suited to this time of year. Classically made with a combo of brandy and rum, the milk punch also works well with bourbon in the place of either or both. And while it’s lovely to drink the punch when poured into a glass full of crushed ice, you can instead serve it hot, for a rich and potent warmer. Either way, this drink that dates back to horse-and-buggy days has a way of slowing everything down, taking the edge off a hectic holiday season if only for an hour or two.
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Posted by Jenn Smith, December 13, 2007 at 3:00 PM
Before he was an Iron Chef, before challenging other cooks to a Throwdown, before planning an upscale burger joint, Bobby Flay was a cook with a passion for the flavors of the Southwest—smoky, spicy, fruity. He translated this love of chiles, honey, and mesquite into the menu for his first restaurant, Mesa Grill.
In the 16 years since it opened, the menu has evolved, but the core ideas and the Mesa classics that bring the color and energy of the "contemporary Southwest" to diners in New York and Las Vegas year after year are still present.
Today Flay is everywhere, including on the bookshelves (he's written six previous cookbooks). This is his first restaurant-related cookbook, but the translation of food created in the professional kitchen into recipes useful to the home cook is pretty successful.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, November 23, 2007 at 2:45 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. And since it's a day off for many people out there, let's kick it off a bit early today. Here's a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) to get things going. Need more than one after yesterday? Here you go. Cheers!
While retailers started gearing up for the season weeks ago, now that Thanksgiving is over it’s one long sprint to Christmas. Shopping malls opened at midnight in the suburbs around my Seattle home, and some crowds had been gathering since early Thursday morning. Without delving into news from around the country – really, checking out what’s happening at the malls in Des Moines isn’t my idea of a good time—I’m sure the story was repeated nationwide.
Whether you’re settling in after a long day of shopping, or letting the swarm blow past you while biding your time until closer to the holiday, the dawn of the Christmas season calls for some refreshment. The Stinger isn’t a seasonal cocktail, per se, but its crisp minty snap always puts me in the right frame of mind for the festive weeks to come.
While early recipes call for two parts brandy to one part crème de menthe, many contemporary palates find that way too sweet; a more brandy-heavy 4:1 ratio is much easier to handle. And while brandy is traditional, the stinger is comfortable with other spirits: I’m quite fond of substituting bourbon for the brandy, and rum works well, as does vodka, so I’m told – technically that’s called a White Spider, though I doubt you've heard anyone call it much of anything lately. However you choose to fix yours, be sure to make a toast to the long holiday season ahead.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, November 9, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Before serving a big Thanksgiving meal, there are two things you want to avoid: getting your guests (or yourself) too giddy on generous pours of wine or scotch; and killing the palates of all the assembled guests by doling out rich, sweet pre-prandial ice-breakers that blunt, rather than enhance, the appetite.
Here’s a way to avoid these related hazards, while still serving something creative that will help get the conversation flowing. Created by Audrey Saunders, co-owner of Pegu Club and the mind behind some of the best cocktails in current circulation, Eve relies wholly on a base of dry vermouth, its herbal flavor enhanced by a slow maceration of fresh apples. Lower in alcohol than a cocktail or a scotch on the rocks, and with a complexity of flavor that sets the stage for the meal to come, Eve has a delicate character perfectly suited for the season.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, November 2, 2007 at 6:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
I don’t know who Cameron was, or why he might want to be kicking. But I do know that this unlikely union of ingredients makes one of the most startlingly appealing drinks in the bartender’s vintage-cocktail arsenal.
Scotch whisky is a notoriously difficult ingredient to use in cocktails; Irish whiskey isn’t much better. Introduce them into the same glass, though, with some lemon juice for brightness and the ethereal character of orgeat for sweetness, and they get along as nice as can be. This cocktail dates back to at least 1930; that’s when it crops up in a slim book called Cocktails, by “Jimmy” late of Ciro’s (it also appears in the Savoy Cocktail Book at about the same time). It’s too unlikely a bird to ever have enjoyed widespread fame; but its idiosyncrasies are the very things that make it so appealing.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, October 26, 2007 at 5:45 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
It may sound like a powder keg, but this drink that predates the republic has its own charm. Quintessentially autumnal and once a staple of every tavern menu, the Stone Fence is a bibulous fossil of the colonial era, a time when hard cider filled every cup, sometimes mixed with something harder to help ward off the chill.
Use an artisanal cider, if you can find one, but the choice of spirit is pretty open: applejack or the bolder Laird’s Apple Brandy provide a nice boost of apple flavor, but bourbon, rye, scotch, or dark rum are all perfectly acceptable. Just don’t underestimate the Stone Fence—get too casual with a second or a third, and you may feel like you’ve run headlong into the drink’s namesake.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, October 19, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
It ain’t fancy, but that’s a big part of its appeal. Because at the end of a long day—scratch that; long week—you don’t always feel like challenging your palate, or even thinking about it very much. You just want a nice, easy drink, one that’s as loyal and friendly as an old dog, that doesn’t mind if you pad around the living room in your socks or lie back on the couch watching shows you’d never dare admit you enjoy. Who’s it gonna tell, anyway?
It’s Friday afternoon, and if you’re lucky you’ve got about 60 hours before you have to think or speak for anybody else again. Time for the Whiskey Sour—the comfortable T-shirt of drinks.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, October 12, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
You could call the Last Word the true zombie of the cocktail world. Unlike the Zombie—that venerable tiki concoction which was constantly altered over the years, but which never actually disappeared—the Last Word was created and was then promptly forgotten for decades, before being brought back to life—rising from the grave, as it were—stronger and more powerful than ever.
The Last Word dates to Prohibition, as far as anyone can tell, and except for a brief mention in Bottoms Up!—a 1951 cocktail manual by Ted Saucier—the drink languished in obscurity until about four years ago, when Seattle bartender Murray Stenson dusted off the recipe and began serving the drink to customers at Zig Zag Café. Fast-forward to the present day, and the Last Word is a fully revived classic, gracing the bar menus in cities around the globe. More popular now than it ever was in its youth, the Last Word is a surprisingly tasty balance of four ingredients working in perfect unison. Mix one up this weekend, and make up for lost time.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, October 5, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
I first noticed it two weeks ago, when I’d look out my front window in the morning: The first few branches on the maple tree near the street were tinged with bits of yellow and orange. Now, the sidewalk is lightly coated with broad yellow leaves, and in a couple more weeks, I’ll have to shuffle my way through the crunchy mounds beneath the trees just to get to the corner.
I love October.
This is a perfect autumn cocktail. With the color of its namesake foliage, the Fallen Leaves has a rich, delicate flavor derived from that most seasonal of spirits, aged apple brandy. It’s fine to use Calvados in one of these, but I like to reach for the 8-year-old Eau de Vie de Pomme, from Oregon’s Clear Creek Distillery. At a time when the autumn chill is becoming a little more apparent each night, a Fallen Leaves can be a great evening companion.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, September 28, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
New York’s contributions to the cocktail world are legion, but here’s a drink that includes a good dose of New Jersey. Combining Gotham ingenuity with the Garden State’s native spirit, the Marconi Wireless is a pretty simple cocktail: Take our good friend the Manhattan, but instead of using whiskey, reach for the applejack—produced in Monmouth County by the Laird family for more than 200 years.
In Old Waldorf Bar Days, published in 1931, Albert Stevens Crockett writes that the Marconi Wireless "first sprang across the Bar of the Waldorf when the ancestor of the radio began to raise its ghostly voice." While the precursor to the radio may be lost to the ages, this Marconi Wireless is still as vibrant as ever. Besides, I have yet to see a drink named the Streaming Audio.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, September 21, 2007 at 5:15 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
The Cocktail à la Louisiane is much more delicious than a near-obsolete drink has any right to be. Once the house cocktail for the Restaurant de la Louisiane—“one of the famous French restaurants of New Orleans,” wrote city historian Stanley Clisby Arthur in 1937—this rich, voluptuous mix of rye whiskey, sweet vermouth and the herbal Benedictine liqueur is accented with the subtle flavor of anise, provided by New Orleans’ homegrown Peychaud’s bitters and a few dashs of absinthe or pastis. First documented 70 years ago in Arthur’s Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em, the Cocktail à la Louisiane has been largely ignored since then. It’s worth the effort to search out the ingredients (or a talented bartender in a well-stocked establishment) and bring this drink into the 21st century.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, August 10, 2007 at 2:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
Don’t let the color fool you. With its gentle pink hue, the Jasmine may look as prissy and cute as a Hello Kitty armband, and its unassuming appearance and sprightly color has no doubt appealed to many drinkers of the once-ubiquitous Cosmo. But unlike that candy-colored alcopop, the Jasmine is all business, its alluring tint supplied not by the Cosmopolitan’s innocuous red cranberry juice but by the intensely garnet Campari, an Italian aperitif famous for its powerful bitter flavor and its racy advertising campaigns.
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