Category Archives: vodka

UBONs Bloody Mary [+ Giveaway]

ubons bloody mary

The Bloody Mary is THE drink for Sunday brunch. Up until now, I’ve avoided posting a Bloody Mary recipe for one primary reason: they’re not simple. The simplest recipe I’ve found was from The Cocktail Spirit, and it has 9 ingredients: vodka, tomato juice, lemon juice, celery salt, worchestershire sauce, black pepper, horseradish sauce, ancho chili powder, and a celery stalk garnish.

When I want a Bloody Mary, I buy a mix and put vodka in it. I’m generally very cautious about using mixes, though, because many commercial mixes contain nasty goblins like high fructose corn syrup or MSG. Usually, Trader Joe’s mix is the one I go with.

I do think that if care is used in the mixture and it remains natural, a mix can make for the simplest cocktails of all. Which brings us to Ubon’s BBQ Bloody Mary Mix: an all-natural mix that’s made by award-winning Ubon’s (pronounced YOU-bons) of Yazoo, Mississippi. The mix itself is incredibly tasty and it makes a great Bloody Mary, the best one I’ve ever had. The recipe is simple (of course), but make sure to add the vodka first because Ubon’s is thick and it’s easier to mix this way:

Ubon’s Bloody Mary

  • 1 oz of vodka (I used Cathead, also from Mississippi)
  • 4 oz Ubon’s BBQ Bloody Mary Mix
  • garnish with a celery stick, pickle, asparagus, olives, onion, lemon wedge, crab claw, etc.

I’m giving 3 lucky readers 2 bottles each of Ubon’s BBQ Bloody Mary Mix. Just leave a comment below telling me what you drank during the Super Bowl last night and you’ll be entered to win. Drawing will be held on or about February 18, 2013.

Cathead Vodka

1 Reply

cathead vodka

Cathead is a moderately priced vodka from the state of Mississippi. One dollar of every bottle is given to foundations that support live music, and right on the label it says “Support Live Music.”

Cathead is very smooth and tasty with no alcohol burn, and being U.S. made and very well-priced, it’s a great choice for the liquor cabinet. Cathead’s available primarily in the South for about $20 a bottle, though they’ve recently started distributing to Colorado as well. I used Cathead in a Vodka Sour (pictured above), and you can make it at home:

Vodka Sour

  • 2 oz vodka
  • 1 oz lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp of powdered sugar
  • shake with ice and strain into a glass
  • garnish with a lemon wedge and cherry

I was surprised at how much I liked the Honeysuckle variety of Cathead, too. It’s slightly lower proof than the standard vodka, and there’s a trace of sweetness to it (which is pretty normal with flavored vodkas). I just had the Honeysuckle on the rocks, all by itself, and it’s a really wonderful late-night or dessert drink. The flavor is fresh, clean, and very natural, all of which make it a welcome contender to a way-too-crowded flavored vodka game.

Sub Rosa Saffron Vodka

1 Reply

sub rosa saffron vodka

Unfortunately, the sweet (sometimes creepy) flavored vodka category is the #1 seller at the liquor store nowadays. Aside from the philosophy attached to this, let me remind you that vodka is still a legitimate cocktail ingredient, and occasionally, vodka flavors are great additions to the liquor shelf.

Exhibit A: Sub Rosa Saffron Vodka. Distilled and infused at a small Oregon distillery along with a tarragon vodka, it escapes all the trappings of modern “flavored” vodkas, aligning itself more with gourmet cooking than with Katy Perry’s bra.

Sub Rosa has designed a beautiful and simple bottle to showcase the electric-yellow saffron vodka within. Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice at $500-5,000 per pound, and this vodka is rich, aromatic, and savory. Intense flavor like this is usually found in gins, not vodkas. On first taste, I thought about potential cocktail partners for such a unique flavor, and both lemon and olive came to mind. A martini variation is a good start:

Saffron Martini (by Greg Mays)

  • 2 oz Sub Rosa Saffron Vodka
  • 1/4 oz lemon juice
  • 1/2 oz olive juice
  • shake with lots of ice, double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass
  • olive garnish

Still Waters Whisky and Vodka

Leave a reply

Still Waters Whisky

I’ve hated the sour, watery Canadian whiskies that I’ve tasted previously (Crown Royal, I’m looking at you). When I poured my first glass of Still Waters Blended Canadian Whisky, that changed. As you drink it, you’re met with a pretty complex mix of sweet and spice. The grain base for this whisky is corn (sweet), rye (spicy), and malted barley (earthy), and it works through your mouth in that order. On your first tasting, you could mistake it for a bourbon, and I’ve found it to be really tasty every time I pour a glass. Still Waters Blended is light and refreshing, extremely easy to drink straight, and should run you about $35 a bottle.

Still Waters Single Malt Vodka

Still Waters Single Malt Vodka is a good buy as well, similar in price to the blended whisky. It’s base is 100% malted barley (the stuff scotch is made from) which gives it a smooth, earthly, sweet finish that I initially experienced in Don Quixote Blue Corn Vodka.

Karlsson’s Gold Vodka

Leave a reply

Karlsson's Gold Vodka

Karlsson’s calls their vodka “a natural vodka with taste.” It’s distilled from virgin potatoes in Sweden once, which is really unusual for vodka – most vodkas are distilled 4-6 times to render it properly flavorless. Karlssons has lots of flavor then, just as they claim. It has a very earthy scent, not the usual vodka ethanol smell I expected. I had it in their signature drink: the Black Gold. This may be the simplest cocktail yet.

Black Gold

  • 2 oz Karlsson’s vodka, poured over ice
  • dust the top with fresh cracked black pepper

I could never imagine drinking vodka this way and being able to describe it as “refreshing,” but it is certainly that. Karlsson’s is full-flavored, sweet, earthy, with minimal alcohol burn, and as far as I can recall, it may be the most interesting sipping vodka I’ve tried.

New Mexico Vodka All-Stars

1 Reply

There are 3 distilleries in New Mexico, offering a gamut of products from 15-year-old rye whiskey to gin to vanilla extract.  All three, however, distill vodka.  Don Quixote offers Blue Corn Vodka, KGB Spirits has Vodka Viracocha, and Santa Fe Spirits has Expedition Vodka. Don Quixote and Santa Fe use corn as a base grain and KGB uses potatoes.

New Mexico Vodka

I thought a blind taste test was best since I have some personal ideas and allegiances to each of these distilleries.  Two of us sampled the vodkas, and here are the results:

Vodka #1: bright, citrusy, minty, alcohol burn, not a great mouth feel.

Vodka #2: desert and cherry aroma, sweet, malty, finishes a bit harsh.

Vodka #3: smooth, flavorless, no alcohol smell, feels good in the mouth, clean finish.

I knew right away when I had tasted the Don Quixote Blue Corn Vodka (number 2). The sweetness that comes through is the result of the blue corn that’s used.  Don Quixote calls it the “sweetest of the 4 varieties of corn.”  Also the desert aromas instantly reminded me of their Spirit de Santa Fe Gin, which I wasn’t a fan of, but the vodka fared much better. Vodka 1 was Vodka Viracocha from KGB Spirits, and Vodka 3 was Expedition Vodka by Santa Fe Spirits.

Each of these New Mexico vodkas is a worthy addition to your home bar and certainly better than 90% of what you’ll find at the grocery store.  The three are $25-35 per bottle, depending on where you purchase them.  Don Quixote sells through their website, Santa Fe at the distillery and online, and KGB products are available at several New Mexico stores.

Vodka Flavors Gone Wild

Leave a reply

I will admit that I can have a snobby attitude about some vodkas, particularly the strange new flavored ones that have appeared in the stores recently, going way beyond fruit flavors to marshmallow or whipped cream vodkas! These flavored vodkas have begun to outsell nearly everything in the liquor stores, so it seems appropriate to at least give them a try.

van gogh pbj, three olives smores, three olives loopy vodkas

I tried three flavors of vodkas: Van Gogh PB&J (peanut butter and jelly), Three Olives S’mores, and Three Olives Loopy (Fruit Loops). Three Olives brand is about $20 a bottle retail, and Van Gogh is priced slightly higher. At first whiff, every single one of these smells exactly as the labels suggest they would. I made some simple cocktails with them, some recommended by the manufacturers. From left to right, these are pictured below:

S’mores Cocktail

  • 2 oz Three Olives S’mores Vodka
  • 1 oz half and half
  • 3 drops Fee Bros. Aztec Chocolate Bitters

PB&J Cocktail

  • 1 oz Van Gogh PB&J Vodka
  • 1 oz grape juice
  • grape garnish

BOC (“Breakfast or Champions” or “Bowl of Cereal”?)

  • 1 oz Three Olives Loopy Vodka
  • 2 oz milk

van gogh pbj, three olives smores, three olives loopy vodkas cocktails

This was an interesting experience, and the flavors were surprisingly accurate. Loopy in particular tasted so much like a boozy version of  it’s cereal brother, it was scary. I think that S’mores would be the most flexible permanent addition to a home bar as it could be used in White Russians and other cocktails featuring coffee or chocolate. The flavor of S’mores was also the most subtle of the three.

This is certainly one of those “you’ve got to try this” experiences, and the fact that these exist and sell well is a commentary on the state of modern alcohol consumption, though I’m not sure what to make of it or what to conclude.

All three of these vodkas had very interesting flavors and there’s room for creativity in how to use these flavors in cocktails, but I imagine these will mostly be consumed with a very simple mixer, like “PB&J and Soda,” or “S’mores and Coke,” or something like that.

Genever: “Dutch Courage”

2 Replies

boomsma genever

Genever (or jenever), pronounced “YUH-nee-vur,” has it’s roots in the Dutch word for juniper, as that’s the primary botanical in it, similar to gin. Genever is the most popular spirit in the Netherlands. There are a few brands of genever available in the U.S.: Bols and Boomsma, and American-made “genever-style” Genevieve, but only one is currently distributed to New Mexico, and that’s Boomsma.

There are two types of Boomsma Genever, jonge and oude, and they’re very different from each other. Wikipedia summarizes it great: “Jonge genever has a neutral taste, like vodka, with a slight aroma of juniper. Oude genever has a smoother, very aromatic taste with malty flavours. Oude genever is sometimes aged in wood; its malty, woody and smoky flavours lend a resemblance to whiskey.”

I made the mistake of expecting genever to be like gin when I first opened the bottles. Like it says, there is a light aroma of juniper to the jonge genever, which I smelled when I first opened the bottle, but that was it. After tasting the jonge genever, it was very much like vodka, with a very faint hint of herbs. The oude tasted a lot like American whiskey, which was frankly pretty alarming for me as I’m normally not a fan of American whiskeys.

boomsma genever

Once I got over the fact that I was not dealing with gin (it took me 2 days), I made a Holland Martini with the jonge genever. It was really good, and unique enough that I’d recommend it as a herbal alternative to a vodka martini:

  • 2 oz jonge genever
  • 1/2 oz dry vermouth
  • olive garnish
  • stir, strain into a cocktail glass

I also found a recipe to use the oude genever in the Holland Razor Blade:

  • 2 oz oude genever
  • ¾ oz lemon juice
  • ¾ oz simple syrup
  • shake, strain into a cocktail glass
  • sprinkle a pinch of cayenne pepper over the top
holland razor blade cocktail

Surprisingly, the Holland Razor Blade was good and very easy to drink.  I didn’t like the taste of oude genever straight, but it worked really well in a cocktail, just like the jonge.

I would ultimately describe genever as a botanical/interesting alternative to vodka and whiskey, but not much of a gin alternative. As a bartender, genever is a great tool for some variety in your cocktails. As a gin lover, the jonge will give you an occasional alternate flavor to London Dry, but will not ultimately replace your Tanqueray.

Boomsma Oude and Jonge can both be found in Albuquerque at Jubilation Wine & Spirits.

Santa Fe Spirits Distillery Tour

2 Replies

santa fe spirits sign

I had the pleasure of taking the VIP tour at Santa Fe Spirits in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Santa Fe Spirits distills unaged Silver Coyote Whiskey, Expedition Vodka, and SF Spirits Apple Brandy.  They have been in business since Spring of 2011 and plans are in currently the works for gin and single malt whiskey, too.  On the day I went, I had the pleasure of meeting everyone: the owner Colin, their distiller Nick, and their all-around good guy Sean.

santa fe spirits distillery

Sean served as my tour guide and showed me the distilling equipment and warehouse.  Everything is distilled at least twice, with the vodka going through 6 cycles of distillation.  Malt is the basis for their whiskey and corn is the basis for their vodka and both are distilled very traditionally.

The first batch of Apple Brandy is sold out there at the distillery (though you may still be able to pick up a bottle at a New Mexico Trader Joe’s) and they were in the midst of aging batch #2.  It’s made in the traditional calvados style and the genesis of it was in Colin’s backyard apple orchard.

santa fe spirits tasting room

I did, however, have the opportunity to try Silver Coyote Whiskey and Expedition Vodka (both are great).  Sean is very knowledgable and between him and SF Spirits’ distiller Nick, I had all the information I could want.  Nick told me about their future plans for distilling gin and gave me tastes of some botanicals for that, too.

It’s important to note that their Silver Coyote Whiskey is unaged, which means it’s a clear whiskey, and very unique.  It tastes like whiskey for sure, but as Sean described it, a whiskey drinker may or may not like it, and folks who usually like clear spirits tend to like it quite a bit.  I agree as it’s the best whiskey I’ve had yet, and I’m a gin lover.

Sean also served me a bit of their barrel-aged Manhattan, which they can serve you when you go to Santa Fe Spirits for cocktails.  Bitters, sweet vermouth, and Silver Coyote in a little mini-barrel makes an outstanding cocktail and I made myself one at home, too, to make sure I was right about how good it was.

All in all, it’s a treat to visit SF Spirits, and the team there is stellar at what they do. I have found their whiskey and brandy at Trader Joe’s in Albuquerque and you can search nearby places to buy their products by clicking here.