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The Friday Cocktail: The Berry Cosmo

Wednesday, July 4, 2012 in cocktails | 1 comment

Cosmopolitans, like chunky shoes and flannel shirts, were everywhere in the 90s, thanks largely to Miss Carrie Bradshaw and her gal pals on Sex and the City. While I tended to avoid Cosmos when SATC was all the rage, I have to admit that when I’m outside in the good ol’ summertime there’s something superbly refreshing about a well-made Cosmopolitan. The problem is that most bar Cosmos are either too tart (usually because they’ve cheated on the Cointreau and made up for it with a dousing of lime juice) or too alcoholic. The thing is, in the summer you want fruit and low alcohol—not a martini bomb.

To solve this dilemma, I started infusing vodka with fresh summer berries. I started out with strawberries (too sweet) then went to blackberries (not pronounced enough) and ended up using a mixture of raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries.

Perfection. And nothing could be simpler than making berry-infused vodka. Buy a pint each of strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, add a little simple syrup (a quarter to half a cup, depending on how sweet you want it) and a whole vanilla bean, then dump in a bottle of vodka and let it sit for four or five days in a cool, dark spot like the pantry. To make your cosmo, rim a chilled martini glass with a lemon twist, combine two shots of berry-infused vodka with half a shot of Cointreau, shake and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with the lemon twist and an infused raspberry.

You’ll notice in the photo that my vodka is being infused in a very cool glass container. Anything from a pickle jar to a lemonade pitcher will work, but I like using a clear glass 64 ounce Milano infusion jar, complete with spigot, that I got from Infused-vodka.com. It’s the perfect size for infusing a bottle of vodka (or any other spirit for that matter) and only costs $23. They also have 20 other infusion jars in every shape and size imaginable up to a 240 ounce Tuscany behemoth that would handle about four bottles of booze. I don’t have any connection with this company—in fact, they don’t even know I’m promoting their products. I’m just saying, in the summer you ought to make your own infused spirits (in addition to the berry vodka, I’m currently also making a strawberry tequila and a pineapple rum and vodka infusion that makes the best Hawaiian martinis you’ve ever had) and if you do, these jars are cool and cheap. And they come with a recipe book for making over 50 infused vodkas from Cran-Orange Spice Vodka to Vanilla Banana Twist.

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More on kalimotxo and botellones in Madrid

Tuesday, May 1, 2012 in Madrid, Spain

The go-to box wine for making a kalimotxo in Madrid.

In talking about kalimotxo cocktails and the mass street parties in Madrid called botellónes yesterday, I failed to mention several important details. First, I learned about both from my friend Lisa Abend, a writer who has lived in Madrid for many years. She mentioned kalimotxo in a really brilliant story she recently wrote for AFAR magazine on the San Fermin festival in Pamplona (you can read the article here) in which, as part of her “Survival Guide to San Fermin,” she recommends that you “Don’t drink more than three kalimotxo in a row. Trust me.” I can second that. In fact, I’d advise that you never drink more than one kalimotxo (and be sure you’re under 30 if you do).

As I was writing my piece on kalimotxo and botellónes (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read yesterday’s blog), I e-mailed Lisa and asked her if she thought botellónes were dying out in Madrid. She said no. “Actually, it’s stronger than ever, thanks to la crisis. No one in Spain is going to actually give up drinking; they’ll just do it in the street, with litronas and those nasty boxes of wine, instead of paying to go to a bar. Public drinking is illegal (if you’re not seated at an outdoor café, which since the smoking ban went into effect, has become a meaningless distinction as every bar in the city sets up tables on whatever meager piece of sidewalk they can find. The entire city looks like a fucking food court these days) at all hours, not just after ten. Cops show up every weekend to the botellón outside my apartment and stand in one part of the square. People who want to drink get up, walk ten meters around the corner, and resume their drinking there. It’s a very efficient system.”

Lisa’s e-mail reminded me of something else I forgot to mention yesterday: The legal drinking age in Spain is 18 and it’s illegal to drink in the streets of Madrid after 10pm. Which is pretty funny since a botellón never gets started before 11 or so. My experience has been that the police aren’t as concerned with the drinking (or the age of the drinker) as much as they are about littering and noise. So if you throw your shitty Don Simon Tetra Paks in the trash and keep your voices down, it’s generally not a problem.

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Madrid: Drinking a kalimotxo at a botellón

Monday, April 30, 2012 in Madrid, Spain

A botellon in Plaza de la Cebada in Madrid.

If you’re under 30 and visiting Madrid, there are two words you need to add to your Spanish vocabularly: kalimotxo and botellón. They’re related. Kalimotxo (the tx is pronounced ch as in much) is a street cocktail made, quite simply, from mixing equal amounts of cheap red wine and Coca-Cola. (Funniest thing I’ve ever read: The swanky food and wine magazine, Saveur, calls the drink a “red wine and cola spritzer.” Yep, and a hot dog is richly spiced and roasted meat nestled in a lightly baked bun.)

It doesn’t make any difference what kind of wine you use (although the box wine Don Simon, which comes in a Tetra Pak and costs one euro, is hugely popular) but it always calls for Coca-Cola (there’s something about the sweetness and caffeine that makes it the go-to kalimotxo mixer). Here’s how you make a kalimotxo: you get a one-liter drinking glass called minis or cachi or macetas, fill it half way up with red wine and fill the rest of it up with Coca-Cola. If you’re really sophisticated, you can add ice. Voilà! You have a kalimotxo cocktail.

You could drink a kalimotxo at home, but nobody does that in Madrid. Instead, you drink it at a botellón. The word itself means “big bottle” (in reference to the liter-sized minis) but refers to the groups of young kids (generally between 15 and 28) who gather in public places all around Madrid (and elsewhere in Spain) to share a kalimotxo or two. Three very popular places to botellón, particularly in the summer: Plaza de Espana, Plaza de Santa Ana, and Plaza de Dos de Mayo (although every neighborhood in Madrid has its own favorite botellón spot).

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The Friday Cocktail: Whiskey Smash

Friday, May 14, 2010 in Vanuatu | 4 comments

I missed the Kentucky Derby this year which is just as well since I’m not a huge fan of Mint Juleps which, to me, taste like a child’s version of bourbon, if such a thing is possible. Like marzipan and fudge, the julep is just way too sweet for me. What it lacks is some sort of tart component to balance out all that sugar and mint. Which is why I much prefer a cocktail invented by the King of Cocktails, Dale DeGroff, called the Whiskey Smash, which is very much like a Mint Julep except better. Much better.

Now I say that DeGroff created this drink and maybe he did, but the Whisky Smash has a long history although, like a lot of cocktails, the exact ingredients have changed over time. Jerry Thomas, who is generally considered the patron saint of bartenders, briefly mentions a Whiskey Smash in his landmark cocktail guide, How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant’s Companion, first published in 1862.

“This beverage is simply a julep on a small plan,” he writes, and then lists the ingredients as 1/2 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon water, and 1 wine-glass of whiskey.

Well, okay, we get the idea: bourbon, mint, and sugar. A bit anemic, that.

Flash forward to 2005 when Bobby Flay opened Bar Americain in Midtown Manhattan. One of the most popular drinks on the cocktail menu was a Whiskey Smash, which was quite different than the Thomas concoction. To whit, while muddling the mint with simple syrup, Flay added a couple of lemon wedges and smushed those up to get some of the juice as well as a little of the lemon oil (think bitters). Then ice, add the bourbon, and—this is a bit unusual—top the whole thing with a splash of soda.

Did DeGroff come up with his version of the Whiskey Smash before or after Bobby Flay? Who can say. What we know is that his version calls for Makers Mark Bourbon, three lemon pieces, five mint leaves (five: not four, not three—five) and no soda. The version they serve at Bemelmans Bar in New York City’s Carlyle hotel, which credits DeGroff as the creator, insists on Bulleít Bourbon, which I quite like, and lemon juice instead of muddled lemons. I don’t know. I could go either way on the lemon issue. On the one hand, muddled lemons do give you that slightly bitter lemon oil which I find quite nice, but just using fresh lemon juice makes the drink a little smoother I think. Maybe try it both ways and see what you think.

Cheers!

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The Friday Cocktail: Vesper Martini

Friday, May 7, 2010 in Vanuatu

Last Friday, in writing about the Negroni cocktail, I mentioned that its precursor, the Americano, is what James Bond first orders in Casino Royale.

Some readers took me to task for this, pointing out that it is in this very book that the most famous of Bond cocktails, the Vesper Martini (named after the novel’s lead female character, Vesper Lynd), was created.

Right on both accounts. The Negroni is the first cocktail mentioned in the book but the Vesper is the most famous. Here’s how it reads in the book:

“A dry martini,” Bond said. “One. In a deep champagne goblet.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?”

“Certainly, monsieur.” The barman seemed pleased with the idea.

“Gosh, that’s certainly a drink,” said Leiter.

Bond laughed. “When I’m…er…concentrating,” he explained, “I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink’s my own invention. I’m going to patent it when I can think of a good name.”

The novel goes on with Bond telling the barman, after taking a long sip, “Excellent…but if you can get a vodka made with grain instead of potatoes, you will find it still better,” and then adds in an aside, “Mais n’enculons pas des mouches.”

Kina Lillet isn’t the same stuff that it was when Fleming made up this drink in 1953 (it’s been reformulated) so I go with Lillet Blanc (which is also lovely on its own as an aperitif served on the rocks with a lemon twist). And if you want the same kick Bond wanted, go for Tanqueray instead of Gordon’s (which has a lower alcohol content than it did back then) and 100-proof Stolichnaya vodka. I’d also suggest forgoing the champagne goblet since the martini glasses most of us have these days are much larger than the little things Bond was drinking out of back in the day.

I would, however, stick to his advice on having just one before dinner. Otherwise you might end up like Dorothy Parker who famously said, “I like to drink martinis. Two at the most. Three I’m under the table, four I’m under the host.”

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