Old Monk

In our blog so far, we have covered a ubiquitous ingredient and a very sophisticated one. This one is neither of those, in every possible way. So if you were expecting to hear about an exotic ingredient that you could add to you bar to be the envy of all your friends, this post is probably not for you. Instead, we are going to be talking about some cheap, shitty booze (not Natty Ice or Franzia or Steel Reserve mind you, we’re not that bad); so say hello to Old Monk!

This is a dark rum from India, and no that is a not a typo. It comes in a bottle that looks like it contains moonshine that barely passed some government inspection. As if that isn’t enough, drink this neat and it will burn more than a shot of fire ants. However, a shot of fire ants wouldn’t leave you with the warm taste of caramel and butterscotch a shot of Old Monk will.

It's not much to look at but that's why we were
taught never to judge a booze by its bottle.

It’s only because of this subtle sweet aftertaste that we’re even bothering to talk about this rum. And boy, if you can get rid of that burn does this rum help make an amazing drink. First, in honor of what countless people in the subcontinent drink, here is a twist on the classic Cuba Libre (presented in slightly different manner from our usual cocktail recipes).

Monk on Coke

Take a tall glass and fill it with some ice, as much Old Monk as you feel like drinking and the rest with Coca-Cola. Add a lime twist for garnish. Enjoy.

Why use Old Monk instead of any other rum? This rum adds a hint of vanilla and butterscotch to the Coke making it taste like a grown-up version of vanilla Coca-Cola. Not bad for something that also gets you tipsy.

While a perfectly legitimate use of Old Monk, the cocktail we really prefer it in is our version of the Dark and Stormy inspired by the way Drink, the bar in Boston we recently raved out, makes it. If, like us, you want a Dark and Stormy with a much sharper ginger flavor, try this:

Dark and Stormy

1.5oz Old Monk

3.5oz Goya Ginger Beer

Fill a highball glass a third of the way with ice. Add all the ingredients and garnish with a wedge of lime (if you absolutely must have a garnish).
 

The Goya ginger beer is much sharper and more gingery than the more traditional Gosling’s ginger beer; this complements the butterscotch sweetness of the Old Monk resulting in a truly enjoyable drink.

So, the next time the monsoon (or a thunderstorm for those of you who don’t conveniently live near monsoon prone regions) rolls around, mix yourself one of these and watch the rain.

Cheers!

A&B

Drink (tra la la) - A Review

If you were to sit down and make a checklist of everything you would expect from of an excellent bar, Drink would meet all of those criteria and then some (and if it doesn’t, then you may be looking for the wrong things in a bar).

A bar in southern Boston, I came across Drink when I was visiting the city for a conference. Some friends and I were looking for a place to go for a drink after dinner, when one of my friends suggested Drink, further claiming it to be one of the best bars in Boston. He was quite wrong, by the way: it’s actually one of the best bars in the world, a fact I soon found out and have only been able to reaffirm every time I’ve been there since.

Actually, you don't even need to read the rest of this review.
This sign should convince you how awesome this place is.

At the time of my first visit to Drink I knew a lot less about cocktails and what I enjoy than I do today. What makes this bar so exemplary is that it couldn’t have mattered less (if anything, it was probably better). The bartenders there are so outstanding at recommending drinks based on your taste and preferences that not knowing what you want to order, but having an idea of what you want to drink, is probably the best way to go. Even if you do know what you want, try asking the bartenders for a recommendation, they will not disappoint. A case in point is when a friend of mine walked into Drink asking for “a drink that tastes like summer turning into fall”, he was given a Martinez with a taste profile that exactly matched what he asked for (Hell, it’s such a great way of describing how a Martinez tastes that whenever anyone asks me, I now reply with what that guy said). That a bar is able to so consistently offer excellent drink suggestions to its customers is a rarity, setting Drink apart from all other bars I’ve visited.

Of course, a cocktail recommendation alone not enough, what makes them a world class bar is their ability to follow it up with a perfect drink. From making all their juices and syrups fresh in house to the painstaking detail with which every drink is crafter to the very liquors they use, this establishment does all the right things to make sure that the cocktail you ordered will redefine what you expect from that drink in the future. Take, for example, their Dark and Stormy; this classical cocktail has a well agreed upon (and indeed trademarked in Bermuda) recipe. However, Drink decided that they can do better. Using their own homemade ginger beer and an Indian dark rum instead of the more traditional Gosling’s, they create a drink with a much sharper ginger flavor balanced by the subtle, lingering butterscotch sweetness from the rum. So yes, they can do better, way better in fact, with almost every drink (be it a Sazerac or an Oaxacan Old Fashioned) on their menu, which by the way is very minimal, further encouraging you to talk to their excellent bartenders.

Three realizations of a Dark and Stormy.
Did I forgot to mention that they also gave us free drinks,
and samples and allowed us to taste individual ingredients?

Now, you may say that there’s nothing exceptional about a bar that makes excellent drinks with homemade ingredients considering the speakeasy revival these days; however, Drink sets itself apart from most of these other bars by not doing everything with an air of haughtiness. An unfortunate reality of the modern bar culture is that a lot of bars, especially upscale ones, treat you like shit if you don’t know what you want or look like you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re looked down upon if you order “the wrong thing”. But Drink doesn’t do that. Yes they make amazing cocktails but they do so without any arrogance or pomp. Ultimately, it’s an atmosphere where you can have the most amazing drink of your life while being in a completely comfortable, relaxed and unassuming environment.

I have been to many a high-end bar after Drink, most of them because of the experience I had at Drink and based on suggestions from a bartender there. And while I have had many great cocktails at some great bars, none of them were on par with the sheer brilliance of Drink. My only complaint then about this bar is that it isn’t where I live. Maybe I should just move to Boston.

Oh yeah, one of the drinks was also on fire!
Don't lie, you know you want one.

The Martini

 Arguable the most famous cocktail, the martini is probably also the quintessential cocktail (even though it actually isn’t a true cocktail, but more on that in another post) although the exact recipe is a topic of long standing debate. A true martini, contrary to what Mr. Bond will have you believe, consists of two ingredients: gin and vermouth and absolutely must be stirred and not shaken. However, that’s where the agreement stops. Depending on the type of martini and who you ask (and what mood they’re in) the type of vermouth and quantity vary greatly.
 
First, let’s address the question of the quantity of vermouth. Winston Churchill (admittedly probably apocryphally) said that it was enough to whisper the word “vermouth” over a glass of gin; others argue that waving the glass of gin in the general direction of Italy suffices. Cocktail recipes vary from gin to vermouth ratios of 1:1 to 1:100. To add to the confusion, the IBA recommends 6:1 while a ratio of 4:1 is probably most popular and found in many recipe guides. So, the final verdict, you’re going to have to decide for yourself what proportion you prefer. All we’re going to say is don’t add too much vermouth!
 
Now onto the matter of the type of vermouth. The martini is generally made with dry vermouth (as any purist will agree); an extra dry martini (the only way a martini should be drunk) is a martini that has very little vermouth (or even none at all). A martini may, however, also be made with sweet (or red as it is also known) vermouth, while considered by many (including one of the authors of this blog) to not be a true martini.
 
For the record, the term “perfect”, when applied to a martini, refers to a martini that is made from the perfect (i.e equal) amounts of both sweet and dry vermouth, and not, as some bars use it, a martini that is made in some way that achieves the abstract notion of perfection. (Or perhaps not quite that abstract, one of us will tell you: Don’t use sweet vermouth, light on the dry vermouth and viola, that’s a perfect martini, but we digress.) 

Our preferred ratio of gin to vermouth for the classic dry martini is 7:1:  



Dry Martini
3 1/2 oz Bombay Sapphire
1/2 oz Martini and Rossi Extra Dry
Stir with ice until very cold and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Optionally garnish with two cocktail olives.

 
This drink is generally served before dinner; As an after-dinner cocktail, a sweet martini, or a perfect martini may be considered an acceptable substitute.

For a sweet martini we recommend the following variant:


Sweet Martini
3 oz Plymouth
1 oz Carpano Antica
Stir with ice until very cold and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Do not garnish.

 
This form of the sweet martini has an extremely complex taste profile for a duo cocktail; you can taste the subtle herbal flavors of each ingredient accented by the sweet and bitter overtones of the Carpano Antica.

The variants on this classic do not end here. Martinis nowadays can be ordered a hundred different ways to Sunday from the shaken vodka martini of James Bond fame to the dirty martini to drinks that are not remotely martini-like at all (the lemon-drop martini or the infamous appletini for example). To try to re-instill some civility to the world, we will refrain from presenting any of those recipes (in this post at least) and instead leave you with a quote (more aptly, true wisdom) we encountered at Drink, an absolutely spectacular bar in Boston:
 
“Do not let children mix drinks, for it is unseemly and they use too much vermouth”
 
Cheers!
A&B

Chartreuse and the Greenpoint

In a post earlier this week we talked about one of our favorite herbal liqueurs, Benedictine. Now we’d like to introduce another: Chartreuse. Made by some Carthusian monks in France (by the way, some of the best booze in the world is made by monks; we wonder why), this liqueur is made with more a hundred herbs using a recipe that is a closely guarded secret since the mid-18^th century.

Starting off sweet (how sweet it is depends on whether you have Yellow, which is milder, or Green Chartreuse), it develops a strong and complex spicy flavor. If you’re trying this for the first time, we do suggest trying it neat although you should probably start with a small amount since it has a very intense flavor.

While it is not very common in cocktails, it can be used to great effect to add herbal tones to a drink; thus it pairs very well with gin and whiskey. One of our favorite recipes calling for Chartreuse is the Green Point, a cocktail invented at Milk and Honey in New York City. Whereas the original calls for Yellow Chartreuse, we chose to use Green Chartreuse in our version instead, both because we like this liqueur so much and since that’s what we happened to have lying around! 
 

The Greenpoint

2    oz Bulleit Rye

1/2 oz Punt e Mes

1/2 oz Green Chartreuse

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Stir all the ingredients in a shaker with ice until cold. Strain into a cocktail glass.
 

It has whiskey, chartreuse, and bitters. What more could you ask for? Oh right, Punt e Mes, but that’s a post for another day.

Cheers!

A&B

Angostura and the Manhattan

Angostura bitters are the most ubiquitous cocktail bitters currently in existence. Found in nearly every bar, Angostura aromatic bitters is the most common and popular brand of aromatic cocktail bitters and one of the few brands that was been consistently available to bartenders in the United States before the start of the 21st century. First sold in 1824, its recipe remains a closely guarded secret purportedly known to only five people. The International Bartenders Association specifies the use of angostura bitters in no less than seven drinks on its list of official cocktails including such classics as the Manhattan, the Old Fashioned, and the Singapore Sling.

Cocktail bitters are used to add not only an extra layer of flavor but also (arguably more importantly) aroma to cocktails. They can be bought in nearly any flavor (and those flavors that might not be readily available for purchase could be created with a little creativity, time, and of course, high-proof grain alcohol). Adding cocktail bitters to a drink requires careful consideration of the both type and quantity used, since they make a huge difference in the effect on the drinker’s palate. You may expect to see many more posts about cocktail bitters in the future.

Angostura bitters are used to good effect in many classic cocktails and has been a favorite ingredient in our mixology experiments. It has a very pleasant, spicy and herbal aroma, a distinctive taste, and can be counted on to stand out even in fruity drinks. It is one of the few bitters that can be used in larger amounts (up to 1/8 oz in most cases) without overpowering the other flavors in the drink. As pleasant a flavor as it has, we do not recommend that you drink straight angostura bitters (or any bitters for that matter) as the flavor is very concentrated and very bitter on its own.

We have already presented two of our own cocktails that use Angostura bitters and you may find them in the “About Us” section of the blog, so for this post we will include another classic (which just wouldn't be the same without the bitters; go ahead and try it if you don't believe us). We hope you enjoy the following version of the Manhattan, a beloved before-dinner cocktail:

Manhattan

1 1/2 oz    Bulleit Rye
1/2    oz    Martini and Rossi Rosso
2 dashes  Angostura bitters

Stir ingredients with ice until cold and strain into a chilled cocktail coup. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Cheers!
A&B

The B and B

Of the myriad of liqueurs that exist, herbal liqueurs tend to be some of our favorites. One in particular that we both love is Benedictine. With a complex flavor profile that is both spicy and sweet (and hard to describe beyond this because of the many spices used to make this liqueur), this is a key ingredient in many a cocktail that we have invented or refined. While it can be enjoyed on its own, neat or on the rocks, one of our favorite ways to enjoy Benedictine is with a classic duo cocktail called the Benedictine and Brandy, better known as a "B and B".

The B and B

1 oz Benedictine

1 oz Hennessy VS

Pour over ice in an old fashioned glass.

Because of its spicy but sweet flavor, this is cocktails is one of our preferred notes on which to end our evenings of drinking and mixological experimentation.

Cheers!

A&B

An Introduction to Classical Mixology

You know we wanted to start the blog with something profound that outlined our philosophy and outlook on mixology and the taste profiles we favor in our cocktails. But you know what? Fuck that. Here's a cocktail we just came up with. It is inspired by the "Holy Smoker" cocktail served at Bourbon and Branch in San Fransisco.

We present the "Smoking Monk"  
1    oz   Bulleit Rye
1/2 oz   Benedictine
1/3 oz   Averna
1/4 oz   Talisker 10 yr
3 drops Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters
Stir with ice and strain into an old fashioned glass.

We'll probably end up putting our condensed mixology philosophy in future posts and we will ply you with plenty of recipes for [amazing] cocktails if you care to follow our blog. 

Cheers!

A&B