Matthew from Monte’s talks cigars with us. Douche liqueur? We taste Underground Herbal Liqueur. Energy and baby-making. Four Lokos? Greg’s “sticky” game. Morning cocktails (not brunch). We make the Mark Twain Cocktail. Cutting though extension cords. Brian’s got a good Shake Face. Tarty cigars.
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I’ve heard about this drink for a while, but only recently decided to try it out myself. It’s meant to be a sort of bitter-on-bitter experience: a bitter liqueur with a bitter beer. We don’t make a lot of beer cocktails at Simple Cocktails, but if you want to explore some, check out the Caramel Guinness or the Merican Negroni, the second of which is really just a souped-up version of this very cocktail.
I suppose it’s a stretch to call a beer-and-a-shot a cocktail, but I’m going to call it that because I’m serving it already mixed (not a separate shot as a chaser). If you look around the internet, this drink is definitely a thing, but it goes by a variety of names, usually Beer Campari or Campari Spritzer. I’ve decided to settle on the most obvious name, one that will be specific enough that your bartender should know what you mean when you order it:
Campari IPA
In Albuquerque, you could argue that IPA is our king of craft beers. Our best IPAs here are the driest that I’ve had: when I try IPAs from other states, they usually finish too sweet for me. Adding Campari has this amazing effect on a quality IPA in that it increases both the bitterness and the sweetness of the beer, which to me is perfectly acceptable and the final product remains deliciously balanced. I will certainly be drinking more of these in the future!
Homemade Valentine’s gifts. Peaky Blinders. More friends! We taste Jacob’s Ghost. The boys vs the girls. We make an Our Stanley Cocktail with fruit jelly garnishes. Freak fruits?
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Last month, I did a seminar at San Antonio Cocktail Conference about cigar and cocktail pairing. The gist of the seminar was this: cigars are typically paired with similar-tasting drinks (smoky scotch, spicy rye). If, however, you pair a cigar with an opposite-tasting cocktail, like a creamy or sweet drink, the pairing can enhance the flavors of both the smoke and the drink.
To be quite honest, the attendees weren’t totally convinced that cream-based cocktails were a good fit, but a recent conversation I had confirmed that a creamy cocktail actually pairs quite well with a stogie. The following are some cream-based cocktails I recommend pairing with a cigar, including a Puerto Rican cocktail that’s basically their equivalent of egg nog:
Coquito
…with friends again! Making simple syrup with a Keurig. We taste 3 flavors of Vodka 360: Huckleberry, Double Chocolate and Sorrento Lemon. White people toothpaste. Sticky head to toe. Little Cesar Chavez. Drinking snake blood in Thailand? We make a Kingston Cocktail. “I make a lot of drinks you don’t like, dear.”
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To feed our Simple Cocktails philosophy, we introduce “podcasting with friends.” Hanging out is part of our job. Because more tongues. We taste iichiko Kurobin Shochu. Kampai! We make the Fox River Cocktail. Shaking and stirring a drink and what happens to it. How Greg responded to a shaken Martini. Where chocolate comes from. Fox River is real.
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We recently had a little fun on the podcast at the expense of Twenty Boat Spiced Rum. A rum from Cape Cod? If you heard the episode, however, you noted how quickly the jokes ended when we tasted Twenty Boat.
Distilled by South Hollow Spirits in Massachusetts, who distills both Twenty Boat Spiced and Twenty Boat Amber Rum, this is a spiced rum to try if you see it (it’ll run you about $45 a bottle). With spices like vanilla, cinnamon and chai in the mix, Twenty Boat ends up lead by a strong butterscotch note most of all.
I love to use spiced rums in my rum-and-cokes (made in a 1:3 ratio) because the spices in the rum usually closely pair and complement the flavor or Coke, and Twenty Boat fits the bill. I’ve found that if a spiced rum isn’t strong enough and spiced enough (duh), that it tastes too watery and bland. Twenty Boat doesn’t suffer from wither of these and it comes in at a impressive 95 proof. Because of the high proof, Twenty Boat is a decent sipping rum too, and a good pairing on the rocks with a cigar.
We taste Cinco Vodka and talk about San Antonio Cocktail Conference 2016. Featuring awesome interviews with Pamela Wiznitzer of Seamstress and Lynnette Marrero of Speed Rack!
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Well, this is a first! We have never tasted (or covered) a shōchū here at Simple Cocktails, and it’s fun to continue to explore the world of distilled spirits.
Shōchū is a Japanese spirit distilled from barley, rice, sweet potato or buckwheat. In the case of iichiko, it is distilled from 100% barley, y’know, the same stuff that scotch is distilled from? iichiko retails for $30 and is the best-selling shōchū in Japan. This particular type of iichiko is Kurobin, which means black bottle.
As with anything, it’s always helpful to be able to compare a new distilled spirit to something else, and the best comparison I can make for shōchū is genever, a Dutch spirit which is also sometimes distilled from barley. There are several ways that shōchū is served, including the tea I tried it in, neat or on the rocks. The flavor of shōchū is malty, light and fruity. I tasted it (as pictured above) in the following ratio:
This produces a malty liquor tea with a flavor that’s vaguely reminiscent of a light-tasting high-malt beer. There is a clear asian flavor to shōchū, too, a light freshness that I can’t associate with any particular flavor, but it’s definitely unique and something worth trying.
James Bond VHS library. The easiest way to start a home bar. The Simple Cocktails Buyers Guides. We make a Sweet Pink Gin Cocktail. Guilty for emptying bottles? Pay attention to your children. Steel drums, no umbrellas. We taste Twenty Boat Spiced Rum. Cape Cod knows….noodle salad.
You can send questions and comments to podcast@simplecocktails.net.
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