Urban folklore places the phrase may you live in interesting times as an old Chinese curse. The implication is, of course, that if your life is anything other than peaceful and predictable, then the interesting events are probably not good.

Bearing this nugget of information in mind, I’ll tell you that the Chelada is an interesting drink. This one comes from Mexico and, judging from what I’ve been able to find, is fairly popular. The idea is that beer on its own is boring, which is actually pretty much right on the money if we’re talking about Mexican light beer. To give it a little more zing you first add ice to keep it really cold, and then add some lime juice and salt to give it a little more bite.

Weird, huh? It gets worse. The above combination is what gets called a Chelada, and is actually not as bad as it seems as long as you don’t go overboard with the salt. There is a more sinister variation that calls for pretty much anything hot or spicy that you can find. There is no fixed recipe since each person makes it as they prefer, much like a Spanish Sangría. I have seen versions calling for Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce (you can use it instead of salt) and many different kinds of hot sauce, among other ingredients — I found it interesting that some recommend you don’t use Tabasco, since it adds too much flavour to the resulting drink when all you want is to feel your mouth burning. This monster version is called a Michelada.

There are also variations in the beer you should use. Whereas most people will probably use Corona (Coronita in Spain) or Sol, a decent version can apparently be made using Negra Modelo, a dark beer made by the same folks as Corona. And I haven’t even begun to enumerate additional ingredients like Clamato, etc. You can find a bunch of versions in the Wikipedia Michelada entry. I found the Manuchelada to be especially disturbing because of how complicated the preparation seems.

Recipe:

Juice of 2 limes
1 bottle Mexican Beer
salt

Rim a pint glass with the salt and fill with ice. Squeeze the limes into the glass and fill with the beer.

For a Michelada add:

Hot sauce to taste (I used some Portuguese piri-piri sauce, a chilli pepper-based hot sauce).
Soy sauce to taste.
Worcestershire sauce to taste.

Notes:

There isn’t much to say, really. The Chelada on its own was ok, if a bit strange. But I can imagine getting the palate used to the interplay of lager and lime juice. The Michelada is reminiscent of a Bloody Mary, but much lighter. It’s not a bad drink per se, I just can’t imagine a situation where I’d prefer it over anything else.

Rating:

- Icy Spicy Beer. As odd as it sounds, but cool to whip up as a party trick for people who think they’ve had it all.

The Japanese Cocktail was one of the first drinks I read about on Drinkboy when I started getting beyond Rum ‘n’ Cokes and Long Island Iced Teas. Before I had even seen the recipe, my head was brimming with ideas. Would it use sake? Soy sauce instead of bitters? Maybe it had a piece of raw fish floating in it as garnish. Perhaps you had to drink it barefoot and sitting cross-legged on the ground to get the full taste of the experience.

The truth was far more mundane. As the page loaded I saw three simple ingredients, one of which I had never even heard of before. The mystery ingredient, Orgeat syrup, revealed itself to be unobtainable in my part of the world, so I just clicked on the back button and moved on to something else.

The name stuck in my mind, though, and every now and then I’d see references to it, look it up, see I still didn’t have any Orgeat, and again mix up something else. Until today, when I came across a mention of it as well as a pointer to a post by Robert Hess over at The Spirit World where he goes over the Japanese Cocktail in his usual authoritative style. After the usual click through to remind myself of the ingredients, I realized that it was finally possible to mix one up.

After a summer of basically drinking light citrus-based drinks, I wasn’t too sure how well a classical-style cocktail would go down. I needn’t have worried, the Japanese Cocktail is quite refreshing for a drink that is basically brandy. What really surprised me was how well balanced it is, and how tasty such a simple drink can get. I have to admit, Orgeat is quickly becoming a favourite ingredient of mine.

The link above outlines what little is known about the Japanese Cocktail’s history. Basically, not much. It is one of the cocktails included in Jerry Thomas‘ classic Bartender’s Guide (or How to Mix Drinks). Some theorize that it was created by Jerry Thomas himself in honour of a delegation of Japanese dignitaries that visited the US at some point, but nothing is known for sure.

Here’s how to make one.

Recipe:

2 oz. Brandy
1/2 oz. Sirop d’Orgeat
2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Notes:

A masterfully balanced drink, one of the best I’ve had in a long time. The Orgeat brings the drink to life, without overpowering the flavour of the brandy. You don’t want to skip the garnish in this one, and should make sure to twist the lemon on top of the glass — as opposed to using a pre-made twist — so all the essential oils get sprayed onto the surface of the drink. This adds an additional dimension.

I was expecting a serious drink, but this one is lots of fun.

Rating:

- Better than sake with a piece of fish in it!

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.

The Planter’s Punch is one of that class of drinks with no fixed recipe. If you look in ten different places, you’ll likely find ten different formulations. Many books and databases even include several variations, giving each one a number.

I decided to look into the history of the Planter’s Punch to see if I could find a definitive or original recipe, but things don’t seem to be that clear. According to Wikipedia, the first known reference to a Planter’s Punch is in the August 8, 1908 edition of the New York Times, where a generic recipe is given as this little poem:

This recipe I give to thee,
Dear brother in the heat.
Take two of sour (lime let it be)
To one and a half of sweet,
Of Old Jamaica pour three strong,
And add four parts of weak.
Then mix and drink. I do no wrong —
I know whereof I speak.

Now I don’t know about you, but to me that seems like an invitation to improvise. The recipe gives four ingredients — lime, Jamaican rum, something sweet and something weak. Lime and rum are fixed, so we’re left with two ingredients to play with. Thankfully the measures were easy to translate into modern units, with each part being half-an-ounce in my interpretation.

For Sweet I decided early on to use my newly acquired Orgeat syrup (there’s a Mai Tai post coming soon when I can source the quality ingredients needed). I tried another version with a new homemade grenadine I’ve been toying with, but the Orgeat was somehow more satisfying. That may just be me favouring something new, though.

Weak is obviously some sort of fruit juice. Orange and pineapple are the usual suspects here, so I wanted a little change from that, but without going all out and using mango or passion fruit either. I settled on grapefruit juice as being out-of-the-ordinary enough without being cliché tropical.

For the rum, I cheated slightly because I found that the full given amount of dark Jamaican rum overpowered the drink. So I reduced the Jamaican rum to one ounce, and threw in some Havana Club Añejo 3 años for it’s distinctive nose and taste. I suppose that reading my new Beachbum Berry book arsenal is having an effect on me.

As to the name, it’s an allusion to the numbers given to variations I mention in the beginning of the post, joined with a rather geeky pop-culture reference.

Recipe:

1 oz. Dark Jamaican Rum
1/2 oz. Light Rum
3/4 oz. Sirop d’Orgeat
1 oz. Lime juice
2 oz. Grapefruit juice

Shake with plenty of cracked ice until you can’t feel the tips of your fingers, and serve in a large tall glass.

Notes:

The Orgeat is pretty pronounced, so you may want to reduce it to 1/2 oz. to make it more subtle. Either way, it’s a nice drink that’s refreshing and not too sweet.

I’ll also be trying this with a slightly less pungent Jamaican rum, and using the full 1 1/2 oz. to see how that works out.

Rating:

- Refreshing and different.

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.

One of the timeless summer classics, the Margarita is a typical example of a decent drink with a bad reputation. When it is well made, with quality ingredients, it is a nice and balanced drink suitable for hot afternoons.

Like many classics, its origin is lost in the mists of time. Robert Hess outlines quite a few of the available stories in the Drinkboy Margarita recipe page. I don’t have enough data to choose any one account as being more likely than the rest, so I won’t bother. However, it’s safe to assume that a 1930’s/40’s origin is likely.

This date can help explain reason why the Margarita became so spectacularly popular, since it coincides both with the beginning of the tiki, and by extension tropical-drink, craze and also with the beginning of the United States’ view of Mexico as a party-place of sorts. The combination of tropical theme and the Mexico angle given by tequila may have pushed this drink over many others to its current status as one of the most well-known cocktails in the world.

But this is all speculation, of course. Maybe part of the appeal is because of people’s view of tequila as an especially nasty spirit, imbuing the Margarita with a certain mystique and aura of danger, and making it intriguing and attractive to many.

Whatever the reason for trying one, many tend to indulge in a few more, due in no small part to the fact that it’s actually not a bad drink. Unfortunately, the morning after ends up being more memorable than the night before.

The components of this potion are as well-known as they are simple — Tequila, lime juice and triple-sec. If you want your drink to be the best it can be, you need to use the best ingredients. To begin with, a 100%-agave tequila, preferably a young tequila with a little bite to it, is essential. The lime juice should be freshly squeezed and not from a bottle. Finally, the triple-sec must be Cointreau, there is no equal.

Finally, the signature of the Margarita is the salt around the rim of the glass. The technique for this is simple. Place some kosher salt in a saucer, run a lime wedge around the edge of the glass and dip the tip of the glass sideways in the saucer until the outside rim is covered in salt. Many places will just put your glass upside down into a plate of salt, but that will result in salt sticking to the inside of the rim as well as the outside. From here it can slide down into your drink making it salty, which is a very undesirable effect.

As to how to combine these ingredients, there are a few accepted ratios. I’ve settled on the 3:2:1 ratio of tequila/Cointreau/lime juice, which Drinkboy also endorses after a suggestion from Gary Regan. Other recipes call for equal parts of all ingredients, or else a 2:1:1 which reduces the sweetness somewhat.

Recipe:

1 1/2 oz. Tequila
1 oz. Cointreau
1/2 oz. Lime juice

Shake everything with ice and strain into a salt-rimmed cocktail glass, or Margarita saucer.

Notes:

Although It’s not a drink I normally consider, it’s status as a classic is indisputable. The taste is really very distinctive and mixing up a few as a party trick will usually get you looks of admiration, especially if you can drink it and not fall over.

Some people recommend making them with Grand Marnier, an orange liqueur with a brandy base, although in those cases the ratios should be modified to accomodate the additional sweetness of the Grand Marnier.

Rating:

- Maybe if I was more of a Tequila connoisseur, I might like it better.

July’s Mixology Monday brought us a whole host of cool drinks, from many great blogs. Interestingly, the bramble was the only drink mentioned by two different people, and this attracted my attention.

Originally mentioned over at Bartender Thinking, the Bramble is the child of Dick Bradsell, a respected London bartender. As the Thinking Bartender points out, it can be adapted to many different fruit liqueurs, such as creme de cassis, etc. I haven’t gone that far in my experimentation yet, but the idea of using a gin/lemon juice combination as the base for a fruity drink doesn’t seem too bad to me. I will try other variations.

The recipe calls for Plymouth gin, something I haven’t been able to find here. I have no idea what it adds to the drink, but I can tell you that with both Bombay Gin (regular, not Sapphire) and Seagram’s, the result is quite good. Also, I tried both variations mentioned in the post and ended up using the original recipe. The variation was just too sweet for me.

Recipe:

1 1/2 oz. Plymouth Gin
3/4 oz. Lemon juice
1/2 oz. Simple Syrup
3/4 oz. Creme de Mure

Build everything except the Creme de Mure over crushed ice and stir. Add a straw and slowly pour in the Creme de Mure to create a cascading effect.

Notes:

The final drink is just a delivery mechanism for Creme de Mure. Not that this is a bad thing, of course. It takes a very sweet liqueur and turns it into an enjoyable and refreshing drink, without masking the original flavour or adding too much extra. It just goes to show that originality can be tied to simplicity.

Rating:

- A great little drink.

I first saw this drink mentioned on Beachbum Berry’s blog over a month ago, and had been intrigued by it until a few days ago, when I finally got my hands on some allspice and made the requisite syrup. I have to say it is very good. So good, in fact, that it made me ponder the adequacy of my rating system.

You see, a four-star drink has to be like a friend who is always there for you no matter what. That means, apart from tasting great, it has to be easy to make and have ingredients I am likely to have around the house. The rating system is very clear — rare ingredients or difficult methods get you two stars.

The ingredient list is where the Navy Grog falters. It uses something called Grog Mix, which is an allspice syrup you pretty much have to make yourself. The directions are simple, according to the Bum:

Grind enough whole dried allspice berries to make 6 level tablespoons. Place the ground allspice in a saucepan with 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water. Bring it all to a boil, then cover and simmer for two minutes. Remove the saucepan from heat and — keeping it covered — let steep for two to three hours, then strain into a bottle and refrigerate.

No matter how simple-to-make an ingredient is, it remains an added complexity. This is especially true for me because I’m so lazy when it comes to making these things, hell, I don’t even have any simple syrup usually.

The resulting drink, however, is really something. The allspice is very prominent and unlike anything I’d ever tasted before in a glass. It works wonders with the robust rums in the mix, and makes the entire experience very satisfying. I recommend you make yourself one right away, or as soon as you’ve mixed up some Grog Mix.

Recipe:

1 oz. dark Jamaican Rum
1 oz. Demerara Rum
3/4 oz. Lime juice
1/2 oz. Grapefruit juice
3/4 oz. Grog Mix

Shake everything together briskly with plenty of crushed ice and pour into a double old-fashioned glass.

Notes:

Demerara rum is impossible to find here in Spain, so I ended up just substituting it for a completely different rum, to see what the effect was. I used Cruzan gold rum, which is new round these parts, and the result was quite decent.

Rating:

- If I make Grog Mix on a regular basis, it’s no longer a difficult-to-find ingredient, right? Right??

There was some talk recently on the Drinkboy Forums about the Jasmine cocktail. Supposedly a good introduction to both gin and Campari, it’s also an attractive pink colour that fool those friends you have that don’t appreciate good drinking. These might also be swayed by the drink’s uncanny resemblance to grapefruit juice, and might be convinced to use the Jasmine as a gateway drink to further gin and Campari debauchery.

At about the same time, I noticed that Drinkboy himself, Robert Hess, had done a video on the Jasmine also extolling the similarities to grapefruit juice. Well, I can’t lay off if something seems difficult to believe, so I set out to construct one of these mythical creatures.

The result isn’t too bad. The gin is fairly subdued, as you would expect in a drink directed at people who don’t like gin. It is fruity and interesting, though, and pretty nice.

Still, I was left wondering where it is that Mr. Hess buys his Campari-flavoured grapefruit.

Recipe:

1.5 oz. Gin
1 oz. Cointreau
3/4 oz. Campari
1/2 oz. Lemon juice

Shake everything up and serve in a cocktail glass.

Notes:

It still tastes of Campari. I’ll be trying some different versions reducing the Campari in the search for that elusive grapefruit juice taste. Even if I don’t find it, it’s still not bad.

Rating:

- Not bad, but not incredible either.

This post is actually about two different drinks that just happen to share the same name and ingredients. Confused? Read on.

I was actually looking for some information on tiki legend Don the Beachcomber when I came across this cocktail. There are a few recipes out there with the same name, so I used the one I found most frequently. Luckily, it’s also the recipe that used ingredients I had on-hand.

The reason I mention two drinks is that most sources simply call for rum, which has many different incarnations, so I tried mixing up a couple of these with two very different rums to compare the outcome.

The first rum I used was Captain Morgan’s Black Label Jamaica Rum, my default dark rum. I won’t lie to you, it wasn’t great. The balance was off and the rum overpowered everything except the maraschino liqueur, which is almost impossible to tame. The sugar rim worked quite well in improving the drink somewhat, but I still wasn’t impressed.

Not one to accept defeat so readily, I figured I’d try the other rum in my arsenal at the moment, the Havana Club Añejo 3 Años. This light rum is a staple in many cuban drinks, and since the Beachcomber is similar in nature and ingredients, I figured it would work better. I wasn’t mistaken, this new drink was lighter and more refreshing than the previous effort, with the rum and lime working together and the maraschino giving it that touch of bitterness. Altogether a much better drink.

If you’re looking for something similar to a Papa Doble but in a cocktail glass, you could do worse.

Recipe:

1.5 oz. light Rum
0.5 oz. Lime juice
0.5 oz. Cointreau
1/4 tsp. Maraschino Liqueur

Shake everything together with plenty of ice, and serve in a sugar-rimmed cocktail glass.

Notes:

Don’t even think about omitting the sugar rim. Without it, the cocktail is simply too tart, and in a cocktail glass with no ice it’s not going to remain cold enough for this to be a pleasant experience.

Rating:

- A decent, if unadventurous, summer concoction.