I’m on a bit of a Beachbum Berry run here, since acquiring a batch of his books. You’ll have to forgive me, and rest assured I will stop before I get to plagiarism.

Today I bring the Fog Cutter, another Tiki standard from Victor ‘Trader Vic‘ Bergeron. In his Grog Log, the Bum quotes Trader Vic as saying: “Fog Cutter, hell. After two of these you won’t even see the stuff,” and there’s no doubt that it’s a potent mix. Two ounces of rum in a cocktail can already be considered a generous serving. If on top of that you add another ounce and a half of hooch, you get something pretty explosive. And I haven’t counted the float yet.

There were a few reasons for trying this one out. Firstly, it’s a classic in its realm. Also I had all the ingredients, which is pretty rare for most of the Bum’s recipes. Well, with one exception, but I’ll get to that. This includes my latest toy, Orgeat syrup.

The rum mentioned in the book is light Puerto Rican rum, which is a euphemism for Bacardi Carta Blanca. I always substitute a decent rum instead of that particular one, and it’s usually Havana Club Añejo 3 Años. The spicy notes add character to any drink, and it’s probably the most historically correct anyway. There is no note in the book of when the drink was created, but the Bacardi that all these Tiki legends used was made in Cuba in the same distillery and using the same recipe as the current Havana Club. Even if the drink wasn’t created prior to the Cuba embargo, I reckon Trader Vic knew exactly what he was aiming for when he used Bacardi, and this was probably it.

My missing ingredient was sweet sherry, since I usually keep some of that around in the winter. The summer in Spain calls for the dry Fino or Manzanilla varieties of Sherry. I had a reasonable substitute, though, in Málaga Virgen, a sweet fortified wine made from Pedro Ximenez grapes. These grapes are used at least in part in most sweet sherries, and although the wine is missing some of the character of being fortified with sherry brandy, it’s pretty similar.

It wasn’t much of a big deal anyway, because I used sherry brandy in the drink, whereas most people would probably use something from France. So all the elements ended up there, even if the components were a little different.

By the way, have you noticed the photo in this post? I figured that it would be a good idea to start doing that with this new design, you know, to spruce things up. If by sprucing up I mean highlighting my failures, of course.

First of all, you may have noticed I’m not exactly Rick from Kaiser Penguin when it comes to taking pictures of drinks. I hope to improve, but until then you’re stuck with my experiments. Second of all, you see that brown sludge at the bottom of the glass? That’s the float. Yeah, I know, let’s pretend it didn’t happen. And third of all, even though I tried to follow Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s instructions to the letter, my orange twist sucks.

But whatever, I’ll give you the recipe and you can try and do better.

Recipe:

2 oz. Lemon juice
1 oz. Orange juice
1/2 oz. Orgeat Syrup
1 oz. light Rum
1 oz. Brandy
1/2 oz. Gin
1/2 oz. sweet Sherry

Shake everything — except sherry — with ice cubes. Pour into tall tiki mug and add more ice cubes to fill. Float sherry on top of drink.

Notes:

The first time I made the Fog Cutter I skipped the float altogether, and only included it the second time for completeness and the photograph. That didn’t work out too well, and I ended up mixing the float with the rest of the drink, which wasn’t too great.

I’m left without knowing what it’s like made exactly right, but I’ll probably be skipping the float the next times I make it. The cocktail is strong enough without it anyway, and the tartness just right.

Rating:

- A good drink, but too strong to enter my regular rotation.

It’s been a difficult week here at Casa Dave. First, I managed to catch a ‘flu (in August for crying out loud!), and have been on medication for a few days. This has cramped my cocktail style like nobody’s business. If you add to this the descent of my in-laws over our previously peaceful abode, then you’ll be able to appreciate my predicament of wanting to contribute to this round of Mixology Monday without actually being able to get in the mixin’ and drinkin’ mood.

However, I’ve managed to eke out a swift half-hour, from 23:30 to 00:00 on Monday actually, to perform a quick experiment and report back on the results. Ironically, since I’ve been unable to actually try any drinks, I’ve been thinking about this month’s theme quite a lot. The theme is Orange, which is so broad as to be infuriating. What am I after here? A cocktail made of only orange-based ingredients? Any cocktail that has any orange in it? An orange-coloured drink?

I was baffled. Then, while reading my new copy of Beachbum Berry’s Sippin’ Safari, I saw just the drink I was after.

The Hula Hula Cocktail is unusually rum-free for a tiki-style drink. It is also fairly traditional in structure. Created in 1934, this drink comes from Ray Buhen, one of Don the Beachcomber’s original cocktail mixers. The three ingredients are gin, curaçao and orange juice, making this drink the perfect subject for a quick-and-dirty post.

I’ll admit I used blue curaçao in mixing it up, since it’s the only one I have at the moment (hey, the only difference is the food colouring — check out my curaçao page) and it ended up looking very modern and blue. Unfortunately, it was pretty dire. Equal amounts of everything made it taste kind of sludgy, and I had my brain on overdrive thinking of how to save it given that I only had about 10 minutes of my allotted time left.

I had done everything right — a decent gin, Marie Brizard curaçao and fresh orange juice — and still, it wasn’t even an O.K. drink. My first reaction was to add another ounce of orange juice, to try and clear up the mess it left on the palate. It was an improvement, but still too similar to the original. In a flash of inspiration, I added a couple of dashes of bitters and yet another ounce of OJ (hell, the theme is orange, isn’t it?).

That seemed to do the trick. If you ignored the swamp-green colour in the glass, the drink was pretty nice. There was a certain clarity to the flavours that wasn’t there before, and it was distinctively orangey without tasting of oranges. On its own I don’t think it has much future, but as a base for further explorations I think it shows promise.

Sorry to Mr. Buhen, since I know I’ve probably picked a drink he never meant anyone else to taste (the Bum mentions it’s from his personal notebook). Still, I’m happy just to play around with drinks. I’m a bit of a geek that way…

Oh, and it’s a little past midnight here in Spain, but there are still a few more hours of Monday left elsewhere in the world, so I’ll take the leeway and run with it.

Recipe:

1 oz. Gin
1 oz. Curaçao
3 oz. Orange juice (1 oz. in the original)
2 dashes Angostura Bitters (none in the original)

Shake everything together and serve in a (large) cocktail glass.

Notes:

There isn’t much else to say that I haven’t mentioned already in my account above. Maybe with a gin that differs significantly from the “standard”, like Plymouth or maybe even Genever, it might have been different.

Rating:

- Not great on its own, but useful as a base for further experimentation.

Check out the rest of the Mixology Monday entries at Intoxicated Zodiac.

Recipe:

1 oz Vodka
1/2 oz Creme de Banane
1 dash Grenadine
Orange Juice

Build in a tall glass over ice in the order given.

Notes

A useful girl-drink to have in your repertoire for emergencies.

Recipe:

1/2 oz Triple Sec
1 1/2 oz. fresh Orange Juice
3 1/2 oz. chilled Champagne

Build in the order given in a Champagne Flute, and add an orange slice for garnish.

Notes

Oh-so-classy drink, great for a morning reception or brunch, but I can’t see myself drinking it too often. It just seems to demand a special occasion.

Rating

- Champagne makes this drink a 2-star affair. I’m not going to buy and open a whole bottle of champagne just to make one for myself.

Recipe:

3 parts Campari
7 parts Orange Juice
Build in glass over cubed ice.

Notes:

From the Drinkboy forum article I found the recipe in: “This cocktail want to remember Garibaldi, an Italian famous hero. He landed in Sicily during the independent Italian war with his standing army made by 1000 men. The distinctive element of the uniform was a red scarf. So oranges from Sicily and red (Campari) for the scarf remember us this important man.”

Rating:

- Meh, no big deal.