Little Apple Watch. Christmas is here. Swamp Thing. Electrocution and fear. We taste Tullamore DEW. “The story matters.” We make an It’s Chila Outside. The bitterest of nuts. Try it with brandy! “Happy birthday Jesus!”
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Hearing from listeners. We screwed it up: #FAIL. What a Commodore really should be? Here’s the photo. We taste Maraska maraschino liqueur. Greg does things the way Marilyn does things. We refer to a White Martinez. We make a Green Dragon cocktail. Talking about ice. “Valuable” liquor.
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Tea cocktails are most definitely a thing, from teas designed specifically for cocktails (like the Owl’s Brew) to many ways of infusing tea into booze, even smoking tea into it. Tea can add two great dimensions to a cocktail: lightening the alcohol content or adding a plethora of flavors into a drink that you don’t usually get through alcohol and mixers alone.
10th Avenue Tea is a new tea company with a specific passion for the environment. Available in 4 flavors: Green, Chai, English and Tropical, 10th Avenue gives you a unique option for how to work your tea into cocktails, though: because their tea is concentrated and dry, you can adjust tea strength on the fly and mix drinks quicker than if you were using pre-made teas or teas you have to brew before you use.
I experimented a little bit with 10th Avenue and I think I’ve found the perfect ratio for using their tea in a near-unlimited variety of cocktails: 2 parts spirit, 1/2 part citrus, 1/2 part simple syrup, and then the tea, which I’ve been making with 1 oz of water. Here are the drinks in the photo above:
Midsummer Dream (by Greg Mays)
Bourbon Bulldog (by Greg Mays)
Note I made the exact same drinks above but substituted Green tea for Tropical and Chai for English on a recent podcast episode. They also turned out great, but the Green/Spiced Rum drink was a runaway favorite.
Tullamore DEW is an actual, ancient whiskey. I say that because, particularly in the United States, Prohibition really short-circuited both the legends and history of all the old whiskey brands. Some refer to legends from long ago featuring George Washington and Lincoln, both many of our modern legendary whiskies (Bulleit comes to mind) are just that – modern.
But back to Tullamore. I always envisioned the dew on the grassy fields of the Emerald Isle when I heard that name, and I’m sure that’s intended, but the DEW in Tullamore is actually names for the original manager of the distillery: Daniel E. Williams. The bottle bears his signature.
Irish whiskies are somewhat of a forgotten element of the spirits world, at least to common folks. They’re an essential element of the Irish Coffee cocktail, but outside of that, it’s usually not called for specifically in a drink. Irish, in my opinion is a real gem though. While I’ve openly struggled with adapting my palate to scotch. The bourbon-Irish transition is an easy one. Irish whiskey is usually distilled more times (traditionally three times vs scotch’s double distillation), and almost never uses peat or smoke in the process. This results in a cleaner, less earthy whiskey that’s more familiar to an American palate.
Tullamore DEW, specifically, has some nice rich caramel with finishes clean and dry. I’ve been enjoying it on the rocks with all nature of holiday-season desserts: pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and pumpkin ice cream. It pairs well with buttery, flaky desserts like this and is a good companion for a cigar, too (because of its cool sweetness).
Ultimately, you owe it to yourself to try an Irish whiskey that’s not Jameson. Not that Jameson is bad in any way, but it’s prolific and just like “big brands” usually do, it appeals to the masses, and isn’t particularly unique. Tullamore DEW is a great example of a historic, classic Irish whiskey and you should definitely have a sip if you get the chance.
A third chair on the Simple Cocktails podcast! We welcome Joan Marie as our scotch expert and taste Laphroaig 10, Balvenie Double Wood 12 and Usquebach 15.
Playlists. Tasting by money and year. “Where’s it from?” We mention Two Fools Tavern. Bottle talk. Sweating in specific places. Dirty jokes. “Don’t disrespect the scotch.” We talk about Colkegan from Santa Fe Spirits. How about a chant? Inhaling fireworks. “Send him scotch more often.”
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At times, I can find myself pretty preachy when it comes to cocktails. You’ll hear my sermons on natural ingredients, fresh juice or using minimal ingredients, both here and on the podcast.
One thing you might hear me say is that you don’t need to buy a cocktail mix when your cocktail only has 3 ingredients! A margarita is the perfect example: just tequila, lime juice, and triple sec. Yet you can get Trader Joe’s Margarita Mix, then you just need to add tequila and triple sec to it. Still just 3 ingredients, so why bother with a mix in this case?
The Old Fashioned is one of the oldest cocktails, and it adheres to the 1806 definition: “a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters.” An Old Fashioned is whiskey, bitters, and sugar. So why bottle it if it’s so simple? Well, not everyone has cocktail bitters these days, and sometimes the supposed simplicity of the recipe (from the guy who writes a cocktail blog) isn’t actually so simple for everyone.
There are a few critical details about bottling cocktails, in my opinion:
I’m glad to say that Bully Boy’s Old Fashioned is, in fact, a yes to both. It smells and tastes precisely as an Old Fashioned should. It is definitely easier to “make.” I told Lisa on the podcast recently that this is the sort of bottle that you set in the middle of the table (hopefully with cigars) at a party and it just…disappears because it’s so easy to pour and drink. We debated back and forth the sweetness of this drink. I found it just right – Lisa felt it was a little sweeter than I usually make.
When I serve this Old Fashioned, I tend to just pour it on the rocks in an Old Fashioned glass and drink. No garnish, no fuss. Which, I imagine, is just the way that Bully Boy intended.
Corkcicle has several fun products available for drinkers, from the original Corkcicle product (to keep wine sealed and chilled) to stainless travel coffee mugs and water bottles. Two of their products stand out the most for readers of this blog are the Whiskey Wedge and Chillsner.
The Whiskey Wedge is a drinking glass that you insert a rubber lid into, then fill with water through the lid. You freeze the whole thing, then when you’re ready for a glass of whiskey, remove the lid and you have a 1/2 glass of ice in a wedge. This allows for cooling of your whiskey with slower dilution.
I find the whiskey wedge to be handy (I like ice in my bourbons and ryes) with a few stipulations. If you’re lazy and don’t keep up with wishing, filling and freezing the glass, you may not use it much. For solo sipping every couple of days at home, the Whiskey Wedge is a nice way to cool and slowly dilute your whiskey. Get one from Amazon here.
The Chillsner is a stainless steel icicle that you freeze, then insert into a bottled beer to keep it cool as you drink. These are pretty readily available in 2-packs for about $17, though Corckcicle lists the 2-pack on their site for $27.
First, let me say that I usually drink beer in a frozen pint glass or mug, so this device has me reverting to drinking out of the bottle. The Chillsner most definitely keeps your beer colder as you drink, plus it adds a larger, smooth lip to your bottle. Once I took an initial sip out of the bottle (so it didn’t overflow) and seated the Chillsner, I found that sometimes I couldn’t seat it right on the bottle, so it would leak a little underneath my lip as I drank. Because these are made from steel, it also ends up making the cost pretty prohibitive, too…you could buy a couple of six packs instead of a couple of Chillsners.
The best fit for this is someone who drinks bottled beer often, but finds their beers getting warm before they finish them. If that describes you, you’ll like the Chillsner!
Fowl liquor. A very normal Thanksgiving. “My people need carbs.” We taste Art in The Age Sweet Potato Vodka. “Happy Thanksgiving back.” A shoutout to the Totally Beverages podcast. We make 2 cocktails with 10th Avenue Tea. Greg mentions Owl’s Brew. “A little frightened from the gobble.”
Here are the 10th Avenue Tea recipes:
Green Tea Daiquiri
Dirty Bourbon
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Gonzalez Byass is primarily known as a wine family in Spain, though they also own several spirits as part of their portfolio, including Flor de Caña rum. Two of their brandy lines are Soberano and Lepanto.
These two, however, are very different brandies. Soberano 5-year, which is about $30 and distilled in a column still (a pretty new way of distilling), is sweet in the smell and candy-corn-like in the flavor. It has no spice or alcohol burn and would make an excellent Sidecar cocktail.
Lepanto is a 12-year-old brandy, distilled in a copper pot still. The price tag reflects its age ($60) and the flavor is quite different than Soberano, with a stronger and spicier flavor than its younger brother, with burn on the finish and sizzle on your tongue. In a vague way, this brandy reminds me of a very old whiskey-barrel-aged tequila – spice mixed with a freshness from the grapes, slightly sour notes in the nose and a vanilla cream flavor on the finish. For the price, you’d be more likely to sip Lepanto than mix it, but it would make an outstanding, complex cocktail if you decided to shake one up. We initially tasted Lepanto on the Simple Cocktails Podcast.
From what I can tell, the Gonzalez Byass family of brandies are just beginning to be distributed in the United States. If you have a chance to try Soberano or Lepanto, let me know what you think in the comments.
On this very special edition of the Simple Cocktails Podcast, our producer Larry Ahrens interviews us about the origins of Simple Cocktails. We also talk about the our first podcast, Viva Podcast, the first in New Mexico.
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Download this Special Episode.
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