American Harvest

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american harvest

American Harvest is an interesting liquor. It’s tempting to refer to it as vodka, but that’s not exactly what it is. The distillers refer to American Harvest as an organic spirit, a 80-proof combination of organic vodka and organic flavor.

The ingredients of American Harvest are mostly harvested in Idaho, and this not-exactly-vodka has the earmarks of a tasty liquor: organic, wheat-based, no artificial additives, sustainable ingredients from a family farm….you get the idea. So when you combine natural ingredients and a something-like-vodka, I’d say the big questions have to be: how does it taste, and is it a vodka replacement?

American Harvest is pretty guarded about what that “organic flavor” actually is, but to me, it’s a mixture of sweet and spicy. Similar to the rye vodka Tallarico, it has a bit of a spice in the middle of it’s flavor. In the scent and finish of the liquor, though, there’s also a sweetness and I can’t really tell if that’s from the wheat (which can be quite sweet), or whether the liquor itself is sweetened. I’d guess that it’s both, but there’s no way to know for sure since the recipe and ingredients (other than wheat) are a secret. It’s a tasty liquor though, that’s for sure.

As far as a “vodka replacement”, American Harvest has a bit more character than your usual vodka, I prefer sipping it on the rocks with a lemon twist. The character of the flavor makes it a great cigar companion for those who enjoy a stogie, too. In cocktails, it’s best reserved for subtler vodka drinks, like a Vodka Martini or a Sour.

Don Alberto Cocktail

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don alberto cocktail

This is another cocktail that I had to try from Trader Vic’s book. To be honest, outside of the Pisco Sour that I made almost 2 years ago, I never reach for the Pisco in my home bar, so it’s definitely time I dug up another good Pisco recipe.

And this is a good one! It’s pretty sweet with both triple sec and grenadine, so even those who don’t like stronger drinks might want to give this one a shot. Here’s how you make it:

Don Alberto

  • 1 1/2 oz pisco
  • 1 1/2 oz Italian (red) vermouth
  • 3/4 oz triple sec
  • 3/4 oz grenadine (I used Jack Rudy)
  • stir well with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass

Los Angeles Cocktail

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los angeles cocktail

I have several cocktail books that I find recipes in, and while I love books like The Savoy and Jerry Thomas, these 100-year-old guides often have recipes that are hard to follow or antiquated. With drinks like smashes and sangarees and measurement sizes like ponys and wineglasses, I browse through them regularly, but hardly ever choose recipes to make cocktails from.

One of the most useful recipe books I have, though, with a nice balance between old school and modern, is Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide. I was flipping through Trader Vic’s this weekend and found a tasty recipe for a Los Angeles cocktail. It’s rich and refreshing, with similarities to a Whiskey Sour. Try it out:

Los Angeles Cocktail

  • in a shaker, combine:
  • 1 1/2 oz of bourbon
  • 1 dash of Italian (red) vermouth
  • 1 teaspoon of sugar
  • 1 egg
  • juice of 1/4 lemon
  • dry shake (no ice) the ingredients, then add ice and shake well
  • pour into a cocktail glass or small old fashioned and garnish with a lemon slice

Passion XO: Sun

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passion xo sun

Passion XO is a line of cognac-based liqueurs in a rainbow of primary colors. At about $20 a bottle, previous versions Of Passion XO include Pink and Blue, and the newest version is Passion XO Sun. Sun’s primary ingredient (other than cognac) is passion fruit juice, and it clocks in at an alcohol level between wine (usually about 12%) and liqueurs (usually about 20%).

It would not be wise to dismiss this type of hard-liquor-and-fruit juice mixtures, as they’re one of the largest-selling and most popular bottles on the shelf. Kinky, a competitor to Passion XO, is to date the most popular blog that I’ve ever posted at Simple Cocktails (I know, it surprises me too).

That being said, Passion XO is really a cocktail in a bottle. You can put your bottle of Sun in the fridge and pour it in a glass to serve. Sun tastes pretty good too, a bit like a Bellini or Mimosa, a premade brunch cocktail. While cognac is the base, Sun tastes mostly like a mixture of fruit and wine (which makes sense because cognac’s distilled from grapes), and it’s a bit cloudy like orange juice.

Depending on your cocktail preference, you may want to add some harder liquor to Sun, like cognac or vodka, to tame the sweetness a bit. I personally prefer it chilled on the rocks before dinner, or with absinthe in this simple cocktail:

Sun and Moon (by Greg Mays)

  • in an old fashioned glass filled with ice, add:
  • 3/4 oz absinthe
  • 2 oz Passion XO Sun
  • stir and garnish with a lime slice

Bar Spoons Compared

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bar spoons compared

As a companion piece to my recent post 7 Essential Bartending Tools, I thought it would be fun to compare and price several bar spoons. There are really 3 things that make a good bar spoon: the shape and size of the bowl, the shape of the handle, and additional utility. I’ve found that:

              • Smaller spoon bowls make stirring easier, but you can’t measure with them.
              • The more round a handle is, the better it stirs.
              • Additional tools are nice, but not necessary.

red knob bar spoon

First we look at the “Red Knob” Bar Spoon. I got this one at Bed, Bath and Beyond for $2.99, and you can get it lots of other places, including Amazon, for about that much. It doesn’t stir well because it has a big bowl and a flat, twisted handle. I can promise you that the red knob will fall off, too, either in the dishwasher or at another time.

bar products bar spoons

BarProducts.com generously sent me 6 spoons for this writeup, ranging from only $1 to $3 in price, plus shipping of course. From top to bottom:

  • Classic Bar Spoon. Like the Red Knob, but without a red knob to lose. It’s an ok spoon if it’s all you’ve got. (Note: link actually goes to the red knob version. Apparently I lost my knob in shipping. Told you they fall off!).
  • Ball Tip Spoon. An improvement from the red knob (the ball tip doesn’t come off), though it’s still a flattened handle with a large bowl, so it’s still not the best option for stirring.
  • Spoon With Steel Knob. One of my favorites in this batch. The handle is perfectly round and the spoon bowl is small, so it stirs drinks very well. The weighted knob on the reverse side is handy for crushing individual pieces of ice in your hand, too.
  • Bar Spoon with Disc. A helpful spoon if you don’t have a muddler to crush your mint or citrus with. The flat handle and large bowl make it not as great for stirring, though.
  • Bar Spoon with Fork Tip. This spoon still suffers from size and shape issues, but it adds a reverse-side fork for your garnishes. While the fork is handy, it’s a little too small, and I found the bar spoon end was better to scoop olives out of their jars.
  • Long Handle Oval. This spoon is another one of my favorites from Bar Products. Long, elegant, and round-handled. The small bowl makes this a really good stirring spoon, so I don’t really miss the lack of additional tools.

world market bar spoon

World Market Bar Spoon. For $3 at World Market, this has served as my favorite bar spoon for quite a while. It’s got some impressive weight and the handle is twisted but well-rounded, and the spoon is good for measuring. The lack of additional tools and the large bowl have made this one a target of some of the other spoons in this list though.

rsvp endurance bar spoon

RSVP Endurance Spoon. I bought this spoon for $7 from Amazon, and I’ll just admit that I’m crazy about it. Not specifically marketed as a bar spoon, the RSVP Endurance is the slimmest of the bunch, and I can stir drinks long and fast with almost no ice noise or spillage. You get no measuring or additional tools with this spoon, but the RSVP Endurance the best stirring spoon I’ve used yet.

cocktail kingdom trident bar spoon

Trident Barspoon. From Cocktail Kingdom, this is the top-of-the-line spoon on our list at $19. This spoon is elegant and shaped well for stirring. The spoon bowl is not tiny, but is a good shape for both measuring and stirring, and I found the trident to be more useful than the fork tip model above for garnish-fishing.

7 Essential Bartending Tools

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home bar tools

While there are dozens of bar tools available from liquor stores to housewares, there are really only 7 tools that you need to get your home bar started (other than liquor and ice). Here’s what I recommend.

  1. Measuring cup. Measuring your liquids for cocktails is essential for making balanced drinks. While I have jiggers and other fancy measuring tools, I use these 4 oz measuring glasses all the time. They’re dishwasher safe and I’ve had them for years.
  2. Mixing glass. Some cocktails should be shaken and some should be stirred. For stirred drinks, a standard pint glass will be fine, though something with a wider base is better in the long run. A Yarai Mixing Glass is elegant and professional, but they’re also $40. I bought a six-pack of 600ml beakers for $14 that I use to stir my cocktails.
  3. Strainer. You really can’t stir drinks (see #2 above) without a strainer to pour the finished product through. The best strainers I’ve found are usually the cheapest. I bought this one for about $4.
  4. Shaker. While most professional bartenders use a Boston Shaker, I’ve found a 3-piece shaker (also called a cobbler) like this one has worked best for me at home. These will run you $10-20.
  5. Knife. You’ll be cutting lots of citrus to pour into your cocktails, so make sure you have a knife to do it with. I have 5 or 6 Kuhn Rikon paring knives, and I love them.
  6. Squeezer. I realize that you can just use your hand to squeeze the citrus for your cocktails, but you’ll get way more juice if you use a squeezer like this one.
  7. Glassware. Using the proper glassware for your cocktail is essential. Save plastic, paper, or other vessels for the frat house. Now that you’re making great cocktails, use the proper glasses.
Photography by Jasmine Nicole.

Crater Lake Rye

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Crater Lake Rye

Crater Lake has a wide range of spirits (distilled by Bendistillery), though this rye is their first aged spirit,. Until now, it was just clear stuff – gins (which I really liked) and vodkas.

I love rye whiskey, and this is a decent one, though a tad on the mild side. Crater Lake is a nice, copper colored whiskey that’s 95% rye and 40% alcohol. Even with 95% of the grain being rye, the spice is pretty tame. Maybe this is because of the 40% alcohol level (some of the more premium ryes can be as high at 60%), or maybe it’s something in the aging (Crater Lake doesn’t list the age of this whiskey).

At $30, Crater Lake Rye will get you a whiskey that has a really nice smell, some marzipan/almond sweetness in the flavor, with a touch of apricots and cherry. The alcohol hits you in the nose a little bit, particularly for a lower-alcohol spirit. It is a good cocktail rye, and it’s a good sipper too.

The Murph’s Bloody Mary

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The Murph's Bloody Mary

Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to try several different Bloody Mary mixes, from BBQ varieties to one with ghost peppers. With 5 different bottles mix in my fridge as of now, I’ve gotten used to pouring myself a Mary on a Sunday afternoon.

My current fave is The Murph’s, particularly the Hot and Spicy variety. Available primarily in New York and New Jersey right now, The Murph’s is very much a traditional-tasting Bloody Mary. It’s very tomato-forward overall, which is exactly what you’d expect. The ingredient list is the same for both versions of Murph’s, though it seems Hot and Spicy just has a heavier dose of horseradish, cayenne, and black pepper (which I love).

There is unfortunately one drawback to The Murph’s: one pesky thing I found in the ingredient list, and that’s corn syrup. Now I’m no scientist or doctor, so I can’t give you a technical reason why, but I don’t like corn syrup. In fact, I avoid the high-fructose variety (HFCS) altogether. Now, the corn syrup in The Murph’s is one ingredient of one ingredient (the Worcestershire sauce), so I can forgive it to some extent, but I just wish it wasn’t in there.

I like The Murph’s and I like the traditional flavor of the mix. On the whole, it make for a tasty Bloody Mary, and it’s a valid choice when you see it on the shelf, I just wish they could dump that one pesky ingredient to perfect the recipe (in my eyes).

G’Vine Gin

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g'vine gin, southside cocktail

There are some pretty common subcategories popping up in the gin world, though it seems the most dominant ones are the traditional London Drys (like Tanqueray or Beefeater) and the “softer” gins (like Hendrick’s or Aviation). Most gins share common botanical elements, and the way those botanicals taste will likely help you choose a gin for your cocktails.

G’Vine Gin is distilled from grapes in Cognac, France. It’s flavor is primarily licorice, which has a bit of a bite at the end of your sip. It’s a little bit sweet, too, and while the flavors are clear and pronounced, they’re also pretty mild, giving you a subtle cocktail ingredient that’s somewhere between vodka and the bolder London Drys.

I found a great cocktail for G’Vine. The Southside Fizz is growing in popularity, and to the unfamiliar, it’s really a “Gin Mojito.” You can also serve this without the soda and ice in a cocktail glass (just called a Southside then). Here’s the recipe:

Southside Fizz

  • in the bottom of a Collins glass, muddle mint leaves in:
  • 1 oz simple syrup
  • 1 oz lime juice
  • fill the glass with ice and add 2 oz gin
  • top with club soda and stir well

Averna

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averna

Averna is an amaro, one of the charming Italian bitter liqueurs that are hugely popular with certain groups of people, and nearly unknown to others. Campari is the most popular amaro, and just this week, Campari purchased the Averna brand to include in their catalog of liqueurs.

Here’s a question I haven’t answered yet at Simple Cocktails: why bitter? Mrs. Simple Cocktails refers to bitter as a flavor “she tries to avoid,” yet amari are unique drinks as they can be served as both aperitifs and digestifs. An aperitif is meant to whet your appetite before dinner, and aperitifs are usually dry and bitter. Bitterness causes your tongue to salivate, effectively preparing your mouth to eat. A digestif is meant to finish your meal with both sweetness and aiding digestion. Because amari are bitter and sweet, they fit both definitions, and they’re a fun cocktail ingredient as well.

Amari can have a wide variety of dominant flavors, from vegetal (Cynar) to herbal (Fernet Branca) to citrusy (Aperol). Averna is a sweet cola-like experience, almost like root beer. It’s tasty combination of cherry and coffee, too, and actually leaves a little tingle on your tongue just like soda. It’s closest amaro comparison would be Fernet Branca, though it’s not minty and is much less bitter.

Averna is the most accessible amari that I’ve had yet, and it’s great on the rocks after dinner, or a shot in a glass of club soda makes a great, natural, old-timey “soda.” It’s earned a permanent place in my home bar.