Here is the video clip from my appearance on The Morning Brew with Larry Ahrens in Albuquerque. These are the recipes from the show:
White Sangria
Mint Julep
Here’s another great cocktail from The Savoy Cocktail Book. One thing I’ve noticed about these early-1900s cocktail books is that they often post their citrus measurements by size and not ounce, like “1/4 of a lime,” or “juice of one lemon.” It’s a quick guide, sure, but an argument against it is that citrus varies in size and juiciness based on where you are in the world.
Measurements aside, let’s just enjoy a drink! This cocktail looks awesomely orange and tastes great.
Income Tax Cocktail
Who defined vodka? We locate Snake River USA. Greg plays the flavor game as he forces Lisa to define “smooth” as we drink American Harvest. Sticky vs. salty lips. Who was the liquor sponsor of Wizard of Oz? There’s usually brown going around. As Lisa makes a Manhattan, Greg mentions his cocktail beakers.
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Sparkling Margaritas are a line of pre-made cocktails from tequila brand Sauza, available in original, wild berry, mango-peach, and the newest flavor: watermelon. A bottle will run you about $12 for a 750ml, with alcohol is right at 10% for all of the flavors.
I expected these to be something like a wine cooler or Bacardi Silver, based on malt liquor or maybe wine, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the ingredient list: silver tequila, triple sec, carbonation, and flavor – those are the actual ingredients to a Margarita!
When I make margaritas at home, I usually include a splash of club soda, so this is a familiar experience for me, though I’d admit that the Sparkling Margaritas are sweeter than I’m used to. These are great party drink solutions because they’re so easy to serve, and if you drink them on the rocks, it cuts the sweetness down a bit.
As far as the individual flavors, we had a tasting party and Original and the Watermelon were the favorites of the bunch (which the photo above helps to illustrate). The interesting thing is that Original and Watermelon are flavored “naturally”, while Wild Berry and Mango-Peach eliminate the word natural from their label.
It’s rare that you find decent bottled cocktails in stores, but this one fits the bill as good as any I have seen yet. Sauza Sparkling Margaritas get the ingredients right and outside of the usual cocktails, beer and wine, they’re a nice option to include at a party, too.
We tasted Sauza Sparkling Margaritas on the first episode of the Simple Cocktails Podcast.
“Have you heard of Sauza Sparkling Margaritas?” The blasphemy of Margaritas without salt rims. Is a cherry a berry? Lisa makes a Vodka Sour.
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If you enjoyed the show, please write a brief review on iTunes. That would help us get the word out and raise the visibility of the show. Thank you!
I have written about Fernet Branca in the past, an increasingly popular and pretty legendary bitter liqueur. BrancaMenta is a companion liqueur, Fernet Branca combined with mint syrup, which makes the liqueur mintier and sweeter (obviously), but actually changes the taste of the whole thing a bit.
While Fernet Branca is more bitter and is a stronger alcohol experience, BrancaMenta is a sweeter and more palatable drink for many. In side-by-side tests at my home bar, folks who didn’t like Fernet Branca usually liked BrancaMenta when they tried it. One said it “tastes like a Thin Mint,” and that’s not too far off the mark as BrancaMenta is more chocolaty and sweet than it’s big brother.
I was challenged to come up with some original cocktail ideas with BrancaMenta, and it’s a surprisingly easy liqueur to mix. Since it’s not overly sweet, you can use it in place of a liqueur or a base liquor. I made two types of recipes: BrancaMenta plus and cocktails with BrancaMenta. Try these out:
Creamy Mint Stout (by Greg Mays)
Branca Moji-Tea (by Greg Mays)
I’m going to be really straight with you here: I didn’t expect these next two drinks to be as great as they are. They looked good when I was photographing them, sure, but when I tasted these cocktails, they were excellent, simple, balanced, and refreshing. I’ll be making these regularly at the home bar for sure:
White Italian (by Greg Mays)
CocoMenta Cocktail (by Greg Mays)
I’ve spoken about it before, but it’s been quite a process for me to become a scotch drinker. As such, the majority of scotch that I am sent are low-dollar blended scotches that are typically less than $30 a bottle. Fat Trout is no exception – it’s a $25 blended scotch.
A relatively new U.S. import, The Fat Trout is branded the “Sportman’s Choice” by the bottler and aged a minimum of three years, which is relatively young for scotch. The initial scent of Fat Trout is bananas and tropical fruit, certainly quite sweet. When tasting, this scotch is a touch immature, with a stronger flavor on the tongue that’s not as sweet as it smells.
In you can imagine a spectrum that includes American-palate-friendly scotches on one end (like Dewars or Johnnie Walker), and smoky, peaty scotches on the other (like Bruichladdich or Laphroig), I’d place The Fat Trout at maybe the 25% mark. It has a richer barley bite and a touch of peat, but it’s definitely not as polarizing as some of the advanced single malts that I’ve tried.
Here’s a 2-ounce cocktail that’s ghostly white and is a really accessible recipe for most people. I found this one in Gary Regan’s Bartender’s Bible and it’s pretty different from it’s popular brother, the White Russian.
Remember that the general rule of thumb is if a drink is all spirits (liquors, liqueurs, vermouth), you should stir it, and if a cocktail has citrus or cream, you should shake it. Freeze a cordial glass to get it nice an cold, then stir this drink with as much ice as you can for as long as you can. You’ll end up with a nice, cold, chocolaty drink:
Russian Cocktail
Recently, a friend gave me a bottle of Crème de Banane, a banana liqueur and a staple ingredient in several Tiki drinks. Since I’ve never had a bottle of this liqueur, I had some fun looking up classic recipes and experimenting with them. These are my favorite Creme de Banane cocktails:
Elephant Lips
Bananarama
Let me know in the comments what your favorite Crème de Banane cocktails are.
I’ve covered Chartreuse before and it’s an amazing, storied liqueur. It’s the only spirit that’s still actually distilled by monks, and it even had a color named after it.
So what is this small medicine bottle – the Élixir Végétal variety of Chartreuse? The 10 cl (3+ oz) bottle is packaged in a custom-carved wooden sleeve, this 69% alcohol elixir is meant to be used in small doses. Ignoring it’s questionable legality in the U.S., how do you use this elixir in cocktails?
My suggestion is that you either use Élixir Végétal in the place of cocktail bitters, or drink it as you would absinthe: 1 oz of Élixir topped with very cold water poured over a sugar cube. If the black-licorice flavor of absinthe hasn’t appealed to you in the past, this herbal liqueur is different enough that you may enjoy it instead. For me, I created a cocktail with it that’s a twist on the Old Fashioned:
Monk’s Old Fashioned (by Greg Mays)
