a 12 Bottle Bar original

1.5 oz Pusser’s Rum
1.5 oz Agua de Tamarindo (recipe below)
3 – 4 oz Club Soda, to top

Add all ingredients to a collins glass with ice
Stir gently
Garnish with a lime wedge

* * *

Without tequila among our bottles, you might be inclined to think that 12 Bottle Bar would sit out Cinco de Mayo.  In fact, when we’ve asked the experts, a few of them have suggested that we replace one of our bottles with one from south of the border.  While we certainly love tequila (in particular, great mezcals), we hold to the belief that its use in classic cocktails is limited.  Besides, if you’re craving a taste of Mexico, there are so many other beverages to explore – like agua de tamarindo.

I can safety say that tamarind pods are among the strangest ingredient we’ve ever worked with.  Beneath their egg-like shell is a sticky pulp that covers a handful of hard seeds.  When we bought them at our local Mexican grocer, they were packed into large bins, and we were hesitant to thrust our hands in to pick them out, as they looked less like a mound of tasty fruit than discarded and dead tree trimmings.  Still, they’re a Mexican staple, and we were determined that if we were to make agua from them, it would be from scratch.

If you look at a map, it becomes readily apparent why tamarind plants would have been transplanted from North and Central Africa to Mexico, as the two regions – along with the Indian subcontinent, where the plant has also been naturalized – share a common latitudinal range.  As for how the plants arrived in the New World, the seeds most certainly came aboard colonial and slave ships heading from the West African coasts, where tamarind trees grow in abundance.  Given its immense popularity in Southeast Asia, tamarind is often referred to as the “Indian date”.  In many ways – especially if you consider the sticky pulp of the pods alone, which is very date-like – this is understandable, but the plant is actually a legume of the Fabacecae family, which also includes soybeans, peas, beans, and peanuts.  It’s the pulp – sandwiched between the hard shell, twine-like threads, and a cartilage-esque inner core – which must be harvested.  After picking up a few pods and having a go at cracking and peeling, you’ll quickly give up – it’s an almost impossible task (or, at least, a frustrating one).  No need to fret, as there is a simple solution, which we provide in the recipe below.

It’s the exotic taste of tamarind, however, that makes it worth the trouble.  The best way to describe the flavor is as a combination of date (hence, the above misconception) and citrus.  Around the world, it is used in foods both savory and sweet from Imli Chatni (an Indian chutney) and Worcestershire Sauce to Mexican candies and aguas frescas, or sweet fruit drinks. It’s in this latter group – a simple combination of fruit, sugar, and water – that we find agua de tamarindo, which is often sold in taquerias and the like as a tart, refreshing cooler.  Today, you can even buy it in bottled pop form from the Jarritos Company.

What we particularly love about agua de tamarindo is its ease in making (trust us, despite what we said above) as well as the fact that it can be deliciously consumed sans alcohol, should you desire, or quickly boozed up, as we’ve done here.  With the addition of a little rum, some club soda, and a squeeze of lime – taking its influence from the rickey family of drinks – you have one of the quickest tiki drinks under the sun.  The profile of the tamarind is so complex and marries so well with rum (if you don’t have Pusser’s, it shouldn’t stop you from using your favorite), that it may become our summer cooler of choice.  The result is something close to Grog – tart and astringent, yet absolutely refreshing.

Our recipe for the drink is completely flexible – add more or less of any of the ingredients as desired – and if you keep the agua de tamarindo in the fridge (we’re not yet sure how long it lasts; be your own judge), you can throw a few glasses together whenever company pops ‘round.  The uncomplicated, yet completely tropical nature of this one takes me back to days spent on the beaches of Baja, where life moves at a much slower pace.  Salud!

Agua de Tamarindo
We used a Rick Bayless recipe, but unlike most folk drink recipes, this one seems to be pretty consistent wherever you look.  The recommendation here is for traditional Mexican piloncillo, but any brown sugar will work.

8 large fresh tamarind pods (with brown flesh, if some of the shell is missing, that’s okay)
0.5 Cup brown sugar (piloncillo)
1 Quart of filtered water

1. As best you can, remove as much of the shell and strings from the tamarind pods, being sure to leave all the sticky flesh.  If the pods break, that’s okay.  If some shell and strings remain, that’s fine too.
2. Bring the quart of water to a boil.
3. Add pods and sugar (if using piloncillo, you may need to chop it up in order to measure it) to the boiling water.
4. Return to a boil and let everything boil again for one minute.
5. Remove from heat and pour everything into a non-reactive bowl.
6. Let sit for approximately 2 hours.
7. Scrape the tamarind flesh from the pods using a spoon or your hands (hands are easier; wash them first, of course).
8. Strain the mixture through a fine strainer, pressing out as much liquid from the solids as possible.
9. Store in the refrigerator, and stir well before using.

By Lesley Jacobs Solmonson

It’s fun keeping secrets, especially when you finally get to share them. Only two short weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be the guest of Pernod Ricard for a week-long sojourn to the Beefeater and Plymouth Distilleries. (Tune in this week for details of my gin-soaked escapades.)  While at Beefeater, Master Distiller Desmond Payne hinted at what would soon be Beefeater’s newest offering. You, dear readers, are some of the first to hear of this exciting development, a true labor of love for Mr. Payne: Beefeater Burrough’s Reserve Oak Rested Gin.

The new Burrough’s Reserve will be rested in oak barrels that formerly contained Lillet, the delightfully herbal/citrus aperitif wine made from a blend of Bordeaux grapes and fruit liqueurs that is exquisite by itself and in cocktails as well.  For Mr. Payne, the botanical element of Lillet made for a perfect marriage with the essential character of gin and, thus, a new chapter of Beefeater history was born.  Mr. Payne was almost giddy with excitement, in a restrained British manner of course, as he explained how he had spent many long hours trying to decide what sort of barrel to use, what sort of barrel would have particular relevance to gin.  The answer was a long time coming, but beautifully logical when Mr. Payne hit upon it.

Although it won’t reach U.S. shores until October 2013 (Spain will get this beauty first), Beefeater Burrough’s Reserve is set for release.  Distilled by hand in one of James Burrough’s original copper pot stills — lovely little #12 with its miniature 268 liter capacity — this gin, based on the original Beefeater recipe, will then be rested in the Lillet casks.  To get technical, each cask is filled three times for a single batch of the Reserve. “First fill” casks hold the gin for several weeks, while the gin in “third fill” casks sit longer to fully extract flavor and color (the gin is pale gold). As with all Beefeater gin, the bottling only commences when Mr. Payne feels that the product is consistent in character with other batches.

As I haven’t tasted it (yet), I can only offer up the provided tasting notes, which mention a spicy floral and vanilla nose, and a flavor that evokes “soft, complex spice. Subtle citrus flavours lead to a distinctive juniper middle-taste, returning to gentle spice on the finish.”  What differentiates this bottling from other Beefeater products is the emphasis that this gin should be sipped neat.  This is something we 12BB-ers find incredibly exciting, as gin has spent years – decades, in truth – in the shadow of spirits like single malt Scotch and Cognac, never drunk for its own subtle pleasures, always mixed.  Don’t get us wrong, cocktails are one of life’s great pleasures, but the spirits from whence they came are the true alchemy.

Perhaps what makes it even more intriguing is that Beefeater and Payne want this to be a niche product or, as Payne says, a new chapter in gin that will appeal to “free thinking individuals”.  Since we at 12 Bottle Bar like to think of ourselves in said manner, we hope to be sipping the Reserve in the nearest possible future.

This is a re-post.

1.5 oz Dry Gin
0.75 oz Dry Vermouth
0.75 oz Sweet Vermouth
0.50 oz Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice
2 Dashes Angostura Bitters

Add all ingredients to a mixing glass.
Stir with ice and strain into a coupe.
Garnish with an orange twist.

* * *

This drink is from the Savoy Cocktail Book, and it is a Bronx with bitters, which is fair enough – new drinks have been created on shakier foundations.  Ted Haigh says that “the bitters add another dimension to the construction, and with correct measurements… and the fresh-squeezed juice, it is memorable and delicious.”  Which, in a nutshell, is pretty much everything there is to say about the Income Tax, except that, on tax day, one or two of these may be just the thing.

In the meanwhile, here are some weird tax deductions we purloined from the interwebs.  We won’t vouch for their accuracy, but they’ll provide some much needed tax day relief, nonetheless.

• A man with a failing furniture business tried to deduct the $10,000 he paid an arsonist to burn down his store.
• Stripper Chesty Lover successfully deducted the cost of her 56FF implants.  They were considered integral to her stage act.
• Forget medical marijuana.  If you can get a doctor to write you a prescription for a swimming pool, it may be tax deductible.
• Bodybuilders can deduct the body oil they use to make themselves glisten in competitions.  (If only I had known this years ago).
• A man tried to deduct the cost of his wife’s mink coat.  Because she wore it to dinner with clients, he deemed it a conversation starter and part of the evening’s entertainment.
• A lawyer claimed $100,000 spent on prostitutes and porn as medical expenses in an effort to improve his osteoarthritis.
• Fearing a tax evasion charge in addition to a drug bust, a dealer decided to report his illegal earnings and pay taxes on them.  The expenses he claimed in the operation of his illegal business, however, were denied.
• A successful business man tried to deduct $50,000 in entertainment expenses – namely, the cost of his daughter’s wedding.
• Owners of a dairy successfully deducted an African safari, claiming that the study of wild animals was germane to their business.
• A man hired someone to sit with his dog on a daily basis, then tried to claim a day-care tax credit.  He was denied.
• A Spanish language teacher tried to deduct the cost of his television and his monthly cable bill, insisting that he only watched Spanish programming in order to be a better teacher.
• A man in Louisiana called a tax hot line asking how to depreciate an ostrich.  Turns out, it was a fair question, as livestock used for breeding can be depreciated.
• A CPA once kept a fishbowl of random receipts in his office.  If clients were short of deductions, they could just reach into the bowl.
• An old man lost his dentures when they fell in the toilet and tried to claim them as an act-of-God casualty loss”.
• Clarinet lessons were deemed a permissible deduction because they had been recommended by a doctor to lessen the pain of an overbite.
• If your child is kidnapped, you can still claim them as a dependent until they are eighteen.
• Just because you have a home office, doesn’t mean you can deduct your toilet paper.  Many have tried.
• When her husband cheated on her, a woman gave away everything he held dear and tried to claim it all as charitable donations.  Her accountant took it as far as he could – to the legal maximum – and swore the return would be audited.  It never was.
• A woman wanted to get rid of trees on her property.  She had them appraised, donated them, and successfully deducted them.
• An elderly woman claimed a tenant as her nephew and a dependent for three years.  Of course, she also failed to report the rent he paid her over this time.
• Another elderly woman, who had been prescribed to take dancing lessons by her doctor, tried to deduct over $50,000 in lessons, gowns, and cruise trips for her and her twenty-year-old “instructor”.
• A man (I’m assuming) asked his accountant to deduct a donation he made at a sperm bank.  He filed for a “depletion allowance”.
• A woman (I’m assuming) tried to claim $2,000 in gynecologist bills as “business repairs and maintenance”.
• Any business convention held in Bermuda can be written off without even showing there was a special reason to hold your business meeting there.  The same goes for Barbados, Costa Rica, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, Mexico and all U.S. possessions.

And, yes, we wrote off all of our readers as dependents.

By Lesley Jacobs Solmonson.  A 12 Bottle Bar original. 

Gin-Pineapple-Mint Sorbet (recipe below)
Champagne

Add a scoop (or, if you’re feeling fancy, a quenelle) of sorbet to a chilled coupe.
Fill glass with champagne.
Garnish with a sprig of mint.

For the kids:  Leave the gin out of the sorbet and fill with ginger ale or 7UP.

* * *

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
– George Bernard Shaw

As an only child, I have always attached enormous significance to holidays.  Without siblings or extended family to help create a festive mood, I tend to go a bit overboard.  If one Christmas tree is good, wouldn’t two be amazing?  And why have only one pie at Thanksgiving when I can make two – or even three?  But Easter, well, as an adult, Easter has always stumped me.

Leaving religion out of it for a minute, this is really the only holiday that is purely for children.  As adults, we share presents at Christmas, on Halloween we give out candy and dress for parties, on St. Patrick’s Day we raise a glass.  But Easter.  All that egg coloring, and hiding, and hunting.  All those jelly beans and bunnies and baskets.  Oh my.

The older I got, the more I felt a certain childhood longing every time Easter came around.  I wanted to go on egg hunts and dress up for Easter brunch. I dreamed of excelsior-filled baskets brimming with bunny bevy.  But, as an adult, you sort of have to play it cool at Easter.  Easter is for the little ones.

When my son finally came along, it was a mind-blowing, life-altering experience. Any parent will tell you that a kid changes everything.  What they don’t tell you is this – when you have a child, holidays rock.  I now have carte blanche to decorate with abandon no matter what the time of year.  Our holiday “tree” has a special place in the living room where it stands ready for the seasonal switcheroo. Right now, not surprisingly, it’s decked out in hanging eggs.  (You’re wondering about Cinco de Mayo?  Got it covered – a blow-up cactus (no jokes please) and mini-piñatas.  Olé!)   With my son here, I can act like Martha Stewart on steroids all in the name of being a “good mother”.

Have I taken it too far?  Maybe.  Does my kid appreciate it?  Probably not.  But the truth is, it’s fun — and fun is something that is often forgotten in the midst of adult worries and woes.  And I suddenly realized that the sense of “childhood longing” I was feeling was really just a desire to inject a bit more fun into my life.  Instead of all work, I just wanted a little bit of play.

Even with all the perks of adulthood, do we ever really want to grow up?  I don’t think so.  Perhaps that’s one of the reasons for today’s obscene commercialization of holidays.  Sure it’s gone too far, but, subliminally, it’s tacit permission to not only embrace the celebration hook line and sinker, but to do it like the kids we all used to be.

Which brings me to… punch.  At 12 Bottle Bar, we are obviously big fans of the stuff.  We’ve done more than fifteen posts devoted to various “punches”– from the brunch stalwart Brandy Milk Punch to the pirate favorites Bumbo and Grog to our own non-alcoholic Halloween tipple, the Poison Apple.   Punch is great for a party, encourages socializing over the bowl, and isn’t as alcoholic as a cocktail.  It’s also history in a glass, being the “original” mixed drink long before the cocktail and its brethren came on the scene.

Like all drinks, punch was of its time, a drink that invited long hours lingering over a communal bowl.  As David Wondrich says in his definitive Punch, “It’s not Punch if there’s nobody to drink it.”  But, times changed, people got busy, and standing over the punch bowl looked more like loitering than socializing.  The single-serving punch begat the cocktail and the rest is history.  Folks could now shoot down their booze with efficiency. The allure of punch was lost until recently when bartenders and cocktail mavens came back to their senses and realized that punch is overflowing in merits, the most important of which is – fun.

It’s the “fun” part that concerns me today.  Who among us doesn’t have a childhood punch memory?  Perhaps it’s the “fruit juicy red” flavor of Hawaiian Punch with its appalling 5% fruit juice.  Or, maybe Kool-Aid on a hot summer day.  Or, perhaps you were the wild child who spiked the prom punch bowl.  Whatever your moment, if it’s about punch, it’s got to be good.

For me, it’s those fizzy sherbet concoctions that seemed to be reserved only for birthday parties and holidays.  My favorite was lime sherbet with 7UP, the sherbet bubbling up as the soda hit it, creating that  perfect combination of citrus and sugar.

Historically, the latter potion really isn’t so far removed from some of the original punch recipes.  Switch out the 7UP for Champagne and you’ve essentially got a Champagne Punch.  And the classic Punch à la Romaine combines citrus juices with frothed egg whites, freezing them to create a sherbet-like component to the mix.

So here we are with Easter fast approaching and the need to booze it up.  We wanted to create an Easter punch that combined the best of both worlds – the indulgence of youth (fizzy sorbet) and the privilege of adulthood (boozy goodness).  And we wanted something a bit unorthodox, not just the standard “punch in a cup” recipe, but rather a palate cleanser that could lead us to dessert.   Our Easter Sorbet Punch — a combination of gin, pineapple juice, and mint syrup in frozen form nestled in a pool of Champagne — is something of a deconstruction, but one that works.  Should you be so inclined, a non-alcoholic version requires substituting 7UP or ginger ale for the champagne and, of course, leaving the gin out of the sorbet.

The result, we think, is a wonderful marriage of Easter flavors. But more than that, it satisfies our inner child, the need to be playful even when the weight of adult life intrudes.  This Easter, why not, make some punch and channel your inner Peter Pan?  And, if you think you’re just too sophisticated for this tipple, think again.  As Casey Stengel said, “the trick is growing up without growing old.”

Gin-Pineapple-Sorbet

1 cup Water
1 cup Pineapple Juice, strained
1 cup Rich Mint Syrup
6 oz Leopold’s Gin
Yellow food coloring

Chill all ingredients, except food coloring, prior to use.
Stir together all ingredients but gin to gently combine.
Add four or more drops food coloring to achieve desired brightness.
Pour mixture into a moving ice cream/sorbet maker.
When mixture begins to get slushy, slowly add the gin.
Once mixture is done, transfer to a non-reactive container and freeze overnight.

For non-alcoholic version, omit the gin.

Rich Mint Syrup
Cover a handful of fresh mint leaves with rich (2 parts sugar, 1 part water) simple syrup.  Leave to stand, covered, overnight.  Remove leaves.

Recipe courtesy of Denis Heffernan

1.5 oz Powers Gold Label Whiskey
2 tsp Brown Sugar
4 oz Hot Coffee
Unsweetened Whipped Cream

Place a metal spoon in an Irish coffee glass, then fill the glass with boiling water (the spoon will keep the glass from breaking)
Once glass is hot, add sugar, then whiskey
Fill glass to the three-quarters mark with hot coffee
Stir to dissolve sugar
Carefully lay cream atop the drink, filling the rest of the glass

* * *

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

If you’re in Los Angeles today, east of the 405, and you’re looking to get your Irish on, there’s a good chance you might be headed to Tom Bergin’s Tavern.  When I lived in the relative vicinity, Bergin’s was my local, and I earned my shamrock (right next to Lars’) chiefly through a series of well-placed Irish Coffees.  Aside from Guinness, if you were to ask the average person on the street to name an Irish drink, they’d most likely offer up the Irish Coffee.

In researching today’s post, I looked at a number of recipes, and truth be told, there’s very little variation.  Some might choose one whiskey over another, add more or less coffee, or replace granulated sugar with simple syrup, but no one messes with the basic formula established seventy years ago.  In picking the right recipe for 12 Bottle Bar, we had our choice of the original Joe Sheridan version, the Buena Vista Café recipe, or more modern spins like the one from master bartender Dale DeGroff.  All of these are brilliant, I will not lie, but there was only one recipe that would do for 12 Bottle Bar – the Cashel Palace Hotel’s version.

Rock of Cashel

As far as we’re concerned, Cashel is the very heart and soul of Ireland.  It’s at the Rock of Cashel, the towering monolith that overshadows the town, that St. Patrick himself reportedly converted the King of Munster – and all of Ireland, in turn – to Christianity.  It’s in Cashel that Richard Guinis (Guinness) planted the first hops that would sire Guinness Stout, and it’s in the room that is now that Guinness Bar at the Cashel Palace Hotel that the contract between Richard Guinis and Archbishop Price was signed for said stout.  As the hotel also once served as Archbishop Price’s residence – and it was Price who willed Richard Guinis’ son, Arthur, the money that the younger Guinis would use to start his first brewery – we feel pretty strongly about claiming that Cashel is indeed the center of Ireland.  If you accept that logic, then you’ll understand when we say that if you zoom in to the very heart of hearts – from Ireland to Cashel to the Palace Hotel to the Guinness Bar – at the core of it all, you’ll find Denis Heffernan, who has presided over the Guinness Bar for almost forty years.

The man himself.

When I think back on many things I’ve done in my life – such as dinner last Wednesday – the memories are foggy at best, but every moment I spent atop a stool at the Guinness Bar, all ears as Denis regaled us with stories of Richard Harris, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan and so many others – not to mention the history of Cashel, the Rock, and Guinness – remains crystal clear.  I can’t tell you if Denis can make a Sazerac  or a Holland Razor Blade, but he can make a mean Irish Coffee, which tastes all the better as the smell of the peaty fire fills the air.

The history of Irish Coffee, like that of most mixed drinks, is not without a few speed bumps.  The most prevalent origin story starts with a chef named Joe Sheridan, who worked at Foynes airbase in Rineanna (later to become Shannon Airport).  It was a horrible night in 1942, and unable to battle the storm, a pilot bound for New York radioed that he was turning back to Foynes.    Deciding that the passengers would need a good warming up – as well as something to put smiles back on their faces – Sheridan added a shot of whiskey, some brown sugar and a dollop of fresh cream (fresh Irish cream is a wonder) to the glasses.  When one of the delighted passengers asked if he was drinking a Brazilian coffee, Sheridan responded with, “No, that’s Irish Coffee.”

The true popularity of Irish Coffee spread when the drink found its way back the States – chiefly to the Buena Vista Café in San Francisco and Tom Bergin’s in Los Angeles – and estimates are that thousands upon thousands will be served today alone.  We’ll certainly be having one.

As it was when we were in Cashel, Denis insists that Powers Gold Label whiskey is the only way to go – that it’s the only whiskey which blends properly with the rest of the Irish Coffee ingredients.  Unlike our Redbreast, which is a blend of all pot still whiskey, Powers combines malted pot still whiskey with grain whiskey, a common practice which many claim produces a softer tasting spirit.  Denis tells us that Powers, which dates back to 1791, is the true whiskey of Ireland – the one that his father and his father’s father drank – and, based on Powers’ popularity within Ireland, he certainly has a point.  Of course, if you’re a 12BB purist (good for you!), the Redbreast certainly won’t disappoint.

So, cozy up to an oak bar tonight and order yourself a proper Irish Coffee, for today we’re all Irish.  As you do, please accept a hearty Happy St. Patrick’s Day from all of us at 12BB and from our friends in Ireland, who asked us to pass along this message:

Greeting to all the great people all across the Great United States of America.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all from Denis Heffernan and from St. Patrick’s Rock of Cashel, where Christianity began in Ireland in the year 432 AD – Cashel Palace Hotel, Eire

And, to cap it all, like a dollop of fresh Irish cream, here’s Denis in action.

a 12BB original

3 parts Advocaat (Dutch/Belgian eggnog liqueur)
3 parts ESB ale (Extra Special/Strong Bitter)
1 part (or to taste) spiced brown sugar syrup (recipe below)

Add all ingredients to a glass of any shape or sort and stir to combine. Some may like a cube or two of ice. Grate a bit of fresh nutmeg over the top

* * *

It was roughly around this past Halloween that we answered our nation’s call. By “our nation”, we mean PBS.org, and by “answered”, we mean responded to their email requesting an original drink for a collection of holiday recipes. Obviously, it was an honor to be among those chosen by PBS, but coming up with a new Christmas-themed concoction was a bit of a challenge. Not only did the drink need to be simultaneously new and fresh while still conjuring up Christmas traditions, it also needed an appropriate moniker — something that could rationally be applied yet esoteric enough not to have been previously taken.

The first question we asked ourselves was: What connotes Christmas (or the holidays, if you prefer)? In modern days, the first thing that usually comes to mind is eggnog. A hundred years ago, the drink that would have been at the top of everyone’s minds — and on the tips of their tongues — would have been a Tom and Jerry. Now, without rehashing the entire tale of Corinthian Tom and Jerry Hawthorn, Esq. — and the subsequent cultural phenomenum they spawned — we will cover the basics: Tom and Jerry were a pair of early 19th century men-about-town who indulged in the highs and lows of London society in Pierce Egan’s Life in London (1821). As mentioned, the series of misadventures were a huge smash, inspiring all manner of spin-offs, including — most important of all for our purposes — the Tom and Jerry drink. Today, a bowl of Tom and Jerry is all but forgotten, but a few generations back, it was de rigueur at Christmas.

Now, while Tom and Jerry were central to holiday toasts for the better part of a century, one important part got left behind — namely, their faithful associate, Bob Logic. Logic was the third member of their crew, and as he was a member of the University of Oxford, he was given the sobriquet, “The Oxonian”. And so, our inspiration was born.

Having jumped onto the 19th century Christmas bandwagon, we decided to build our drink around inspirations from the period. Since egg-booze bases form the foundations of both eggnog and Tom and Jerry, we started there. Advocaat is not only arguably the king of egg-booze drinks, it forms the basis for a handful of holiday classics like the Snowball and the Bombardino/Calimero. Thus, should you tire of Oxonians, you’ll have options. Plus, you can buy it pre-made. Homemade is better, but the bottle won’t harm you.

The next spark came from the beer punches of “Oxford Night Caps”, one of favorite recipe sources from the period. A nice ale — particularly an ESB — when combined with the advocaat and the spiced syrup creates a drink that not only evokes traditional holiday flavors, but also stands apart from the usual fare. If you’ve tried our Buttered Beere, you’ll discover the Oxonian to be quite similar, yet much lighter, in profile.

If you’re looking for something equal parts traditional and tradition-breaking, we recommend that you give the Oxoian a whirl. Most of all, however, we wish you and yours the warmest and most joyous of holidays. As always, the best Christmas present we get each year is your readership.

By Lesley Jacobs Solmonson

2 oz Rye
0.25 oz Manischewitz Concord Grape Red Wine
Angostura Bitters

Instructions per Mr. Handler:

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.
Pour in the rye and the Manischewitz, and add one dash of Angostura bitters for each living female relative over the age of seventy in your extended family.
Shake, then pour into a cocktail glass and garnish with a cherry you’ve plucked from a fruitcake someone gave you.
Sip frugally while arguing over something that does not matter in this world or the next, and allow the ice to melt in the shaker.
When it has melted completely, pour it into your cocktail glass and convince yourself that you are drinking a second cocktail for free.

* * *

It’s Hanukkah, and if you are anything like us at 12 Bottle Bar, you’re probably wondering why aren’t there more Manischewitz cocktails?  Our thanks to author Daniel Handler for filling the obvious gap.  Handler’s Jewish Manhattan is an amusing, mildly disturbing, yet somehow thoroughly logical transmogrification of a classic cocktail.  In place of the traditional sweet vermouth is the oft-derided, sweetened Kosher wine Manischewitz, producing what we think is a very clever little Hanukkah cocktail. Of his drink, Handler muses:

I’m of the faith that celebrates a military victory while you Gentiles sit around pretending myrrh is a great baby gift, so it seems appropriate to share The Jewish Manhattan.  I learned this cocktail more or less at the knee of my father, who spent his childhood in Germany only to leave in the late 1930s for obvious reasons.  It blends the Jewish traditions of both the assimilated European and the new American immigrant.  I like a Sazerac or Michter’s Rye, but such a choice would not honor my father, who insisted on the cheapest available whiskey and told me, over and over, that rye and bourbon are the exact same thing and not to be fooled.

As you might guess from his commentary, Mr. Handler is both amusing and clever, words that describe his drink to a great degree.  We would expect nothing less from a man whose career highlights include being a best-selling author, screenwriter/producer, and accordionist.  Way back in 1998, I became a fan of his after reading his scathingly dark portrayal of high school in The Basic Eight (1998).  His most recent book Why We Broke Up (2011), which tells the story of a high schooler’s parting of ways with her boyfriend as seen through objects from their relationship, has been garnering rave review as well.  Handler’s quirky world view translates to his choice of instruments as well.  His accordion playing can be heard on the Magnetic Fields’ 1999 three-volume album 69 Love Songs among many others.  Let’s just say, the man is impressive on every level – including sharing a good cocktail anecdote or two.

Now, where a true Manhattan gets its complexity from the combination of rye and sweet, mildly herbal vermouth, Handler’s ersatz Jewish version marries the rye with what is essentially alcoholic Concord grape juice.  In some ways, this bibulous swap of booze isn’t that surprising as vermouth and Manischewitz are rather like kissing cousins.  After all, both use tertiary wine varietals and are about as far-removed from “real” wine as a product can get.  But, where vermouth is meant to be a cocktail mixer, Manischewitz is a wine with a mission, created specifically as a kosher beverage for Jewish holidays.  And, as luck would have it, the journey to create this sweetened vino is an interesting story.

Back in the year 1888, the B. Manischewitz Company was founded in Ohio and quickly made a name for itself by mass-producing matzo, an unleavened bread crucial to Jewish holiday meals.  Ironically, Manischewitz wine is related in name only to the food company, which licensed the brand name to Naples, New York winery originally founded in 1927.  If you look at the label on the bottle, you’ll notice that Manischewitz wine is kosher, which means that every part of the winemaking process – from planting to harvest to bottling – must be performed by Sabbath-observant Jews.

Things start to get really interesting when you look to the particularly American history of kosher wine.  Manischewitz and its competitors use the labrusa grape, a native American varietal that is known for its not particularly pleasant “foxy” flavor (think musky, cloying and none too subtle.)  Not to be confused with the slightly sweet sparkling Italian lambrusco wine, vitis labrusca grapes have probably been growing wild in North America since the 11^th century or earlier.  In the 19^th century, Ephraim Bull of Massachusetts took wild labrusca seeds to create the Concord grape, the perennial favorite for grape juice, grape jelly, and, yes, kosher red wine.

At the same time, Jewish immigrants were settling up and down the East Coast.  With new communities came the demand for Jewish, i.e., kosher, products.  In the beginning, wealthy Jewish transplants could import kosher-certified wines from Europe for their holy days, but less well-off families struggled to acquire wine that could be called kosher, thus handled only by Jews.  In a thoroughly enterprising manner, until bottled kosher wine was easily available, many Jews simply substituted other popular liquors of the time like hard cider or even bourbon and rye. (Thanks to a special exigency in Jewish law, you can substitute booze for wine in special situations; unless you are Orthodox, in which case, it’s a no-no to consume corn-based products on Passover.)

So, following the law of supply and demand, enterprising Jewish businessmen/winemakers set up wineries in areas from the Finger Lakes to Chicago and Ohio, all of them using Concord grapes.   Ironically, the connection between Concord grapes, sweetness, and kosher wine – a frequent Boscht belt comedian’s joke – is coincidental.  The first widespread Jewish communities in the U.S. just happened to be on the East Coast where the only grapes that could be reliably grown were Concords and its labrusca siblings.  In A History of Wine in America: From Prohibition to the Present, Volume 2 (2005), author Thomas Pinney explains simply, “American kosher wine became Concord wine.  And because the Concord grape will not make a stable wine without added sugar, and because the defects of Concord wine are to some extent masked by sweetness, American kosher wine became sweet wine.”

As a thoroughly amusing sidebar, Welch’s (Concord) Grape Company was founded by teetotaling Methodist Dr. Thomas Welch, whose modus operandi was to produce a grape juice that could replace wine in church. In 1950 when kosher wines were literally all the rage, Welch’s had such a surplus of grapes that they couldn’t say no to the wine business.  The good temperate doctor, deceased by this time, would have been happy to learn that his company couldn’t stand up to the competition of Manischewitz and its brethren.  They ceased production almost immediately.

What I love about this drink is Handler’s comment that “it blends the Jewish traditions of both the assimilated European and the new American immigrant.”  In this sense, it is the perfect drink for the American Hanukkah celebration – equal doses indigenous ingredients and old world tradition.

As you’re sipping your Jewish Manhattan, we thought that you might also enjoy some holiday entertainment beyond Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song.  To that end, we’d like to recommend The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story from Lemony Snicket and Lisa Brown.  The story spins the tale of a poor latke who wakes up in a sizzling pan and finds himself thrust into a world filled with Christmas symbols who are mindlessly ignorant of latkes and the traditions of Hanukkah.  It’s funny, irreverent, and hits a little too close to home for Jews and Gentiles alike – just our kind of book.

Esoterica: Mr. Handler Senior’s mixological skills have a certain prescience to them.  In fact, back in 2009, a little restaurant named JoeDoe offered the Drunken Pharaoh cocktail as a starter to its “Progressive Passover” seder.  Where Handler’s drink has a sort of dignity to it, though, the Pharaoh went a bit too far, adding a chunky rim of crushed matzo and powdered sugar.

a 12BB original

1.5 oz Rye Whiskey
0.75 oz Dry Vermouth
0.75 Pineapple-Sriracha Syrup

Shake with ice and strain into a coupe

For Pineapple-Sriracha Syrup:

1 part canned Pineapple Juice
1 part White Sugar
Sriracha Hot Sauce to taste

Dissolve sugar in pineapple juice over very low heat
Stir in Sriracha

* * *

First off, Happy Repeal Day!  It’s the day when we celebrate our freedom to enjoy an adult beverage.  And so, we shall…

There are few things worse than seeing a favorite artist live, and the artist doesn’t play the hits.    Or, maybe, it’s seeing Larry the Cable Guy and being denied even one well-placed “Git ‘er done”.    When it comes to hiring a bartender for your event, there are a handful of expectations that come to mind – a bit of wit and charm, a level of skill behind the stick, or perhaps an introduction to some long-lost corner of mixology.  True bartending is more than just serving up drinks – that’s the easy part – it’s part theatre, part confessional, and always worth a generous tip.

Once we had decided upon the Blue Harvest as the first of two drinks we’d be creating/serving for the event co-hosted by our friend Garrett Markenson, we began work on the second drink with some clear objectives in mind.  As the Blue Harvest (beer, sweet vermouth, spiced syrup) is sweet, deep, and low proof, we needed something drier and a bit more bold.  Garrett had specifically requested whiskey, and we chose rye, which he and his compatriots have been known to enjoy at past events.  If you read our previous post, you already know of our concerns regarding overly boozy drinks (more easily inebriated guests) and the potential pitfalls of citrus (cost, prep, mess), so we looked beyond the Manhattan and traditional sours.  Finally, as the Blue Harvest would be quietly and unceremoniously ladled out of a punch bowl, we needed to fulfill one key expectation of our hosts and their guests – the magical music of a cocktail being shaken.

Taking all of the above into account, our first stop was the Algonquin, which combines rye with dry vermouth and pineapple juice.  Revisiting the Algonquin two years on, I have to confess that I found much less in the drink to admire than the first time out.  Part of this may have been due to my use of Old Overholt rye, which is 10% ABV lower than our usual Rittenhouse.   I chose Old Overholt for this occasion knowing that the guests would chiefly be younger, female, and most likely, vodka drinkers.   With the Overholt, the Algonquin is a distinctly lacking affair; still, I was set on a rye and fruit juice drink that didn’t involve citrus.  The path of least resistance was simply to tweak the Algonquin to my purposes.  It needed more “heft” – more viscosity, if you will – and a bittering element.   For the heft, adapting the pineapple juice into a quick syrup was easy enough.   For the bitters, my experiments were initially quite literal but, ultimately, unsatisfying.  So, I began to look at flavors that would complement and balance the sweet pineapple notes.   Sriracha is never far away in our house, and a couple of drops later, I was more than happy with the results.

The balance on the Sriracha is, of course, a matter of personal taste, but I always tend to strive for evenness, or – better yet – a war between sweet and hot that neither side wins.  And while adding a unique level to the profile of the drink was certainly the Sriracha’s primary mission, it also adds a distinct bit of theatre to the proceedings.  When you offer a well-known drink like a Martini or Margarita, many guests will arrive with prejudice, but when you offer a wholly unique choice (and the bar is free), most people will take the leap.

Having created a riff on the Algonquin, it was only fitting to name that drink after Vicious Circle founding member Robert Benchley, a man who not only contributed some of our best drink witticisms (“I know I’m drinking myself to a slow death, but then I’m in no hurry.”) but also loved drink to the point of terminal excess.  Indeed, in 1945, he died of cirrhosis of the liver.  Prior to that, however, he led an incredibly productive life as a writer, critic, and humorist, as well as an actor in Hollywood.

Benchley’s style of humor, which carried over into the roles he played as an actor, evolved while he spent time at the Harvard Lampoon in college.  He was equally annoyed by and fond of dissecting the foibles of the hapless “common man”, an unintentionally amusing fellow whose antics show him to be both clueless and purposeless.  This sort of thematic voice carried through in his work whether writing for Vanity Fair or scripting and acting in short films in Hollywood.   Today, Benchley is best known for his role as writer/actor in the short film “How to Sleep” (1933), which won an Academy Award and epitomizes his tongue-in-cheek, self-mocking style.  In whatever form, there is something infinitely refreshing about Benchley’s perspective on the world.  He called it as he saw it and he often saw it with a wry and bitter sensibility – rather like a good drink.

On this 79^th anniversary of Repeal Day, 12 Bottle Bar raises a glass to our bibulous freedom.  Mix yourself a drink – a Benchley perhaps – and enjoy.  Cheers to all.

Esoterica:   After enjoying a few Benchleys, here’s some award-winning advice from the man himself on “How to Sleep”:

a 12BB original

4 oz Blue Moon Wheat Ale (or similar)
2 oz Sweet Vermouth
1 oz Harvest Spice Syrup

Combine all three ingredients, stir
Serve over crushed ice
Garnish with a bit of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
Scale as required

For Harvest Spice Syrup:

2 cups Brown Sugar
1 cup Water
0.25 tsp Cinnamon
0.25 tsp Ground Ginger
0.25 tsp Ground Cloves

Over low heat, dissolve sugar and spices in water
Allow to cool

Featured Glassware:  Boston Highball by Villeroy & Boch

* * *

We have to admit it, we’re not really Thanksgiving people. Of all the major holidays throughout the year, turkey day is low on our hit parade. The reasons are simple enough. We’ve never been able to rationalize the two days of prep to 20 minutes of dining to 4 hours of dishes ratio – unless you have a family of ten visiting and helping tend to the chores, which we don’t. On top of this, Thanksgiving comes with the promise of a guaranteed four-day weekend – not to mention the cheapest PTO expenditure to claim a whole week’s vacation – and we’re inclined to spent the time cashing in on off-season rates in pilgrim-free regions of the northern hemisphere.

In keeping with our holiday tradition, we had planned to bolt town this week for a quiet respite somewhere off the grid, but alas, things did not materialize as expected and we found ourselves spending the week at home, taking care of chores and giving in to a menu rife with cranberries, mashed potatoes, and stuffing.  Part of the reason for this change of heart is that 12BB Junior – now graduated from toddler to preschooler – decided the he was particularly looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner around the big table.   Like it or not, family and traditions have a way of trumping the most freewheeling of intentions.

Hailing from a larger family, I’ve learned a thing or two about negotiating holiday landmines.  The primary defense when the cousins come marching in is to be flexible.   Schedules will be missed; plans will be half-communicated, if at all.  And, you will need a drink.  Something festive, something simple, and something that can scale from five to fifty at a moment’s notice.   Here, we offer the Blue Harvest.

We recently created the Blue Harvest for an event hosted by our good friend Garrett Markenson.   It’s the second fete at which Garrett has asked us to tend bar, and when we’re invited to perform services as such, the first considerations are the number of guests, the budget, and our own particular skill level – parameters well worth acknowledging when it comes to hosting holiday feasts as well.

Going into Garrett’s event, we knew a couple of things:  there would be approximately 100 guests – chiefly au courant Los Angeles hair stylists – and we were working with a modest but reasonable budget.  As the bar was to be free, it would be foolish and budget-breaking to lead with top-shelf, spirit-heavy drinks like martinis, which offer much lower bang for the buck.  At approximately 9 drinks per 750 ml bottle of spirit, a martini with decent gin and vermouth can easily set you back $2.50 or more per drink.  Plus, booze-heavy drinks at an open bar can produce some unfavorable side effects, such as having to cut people off or, even worse, not cutting them off.   The next consideration was our own skill level as amateur bartenders, and the time-and-effort considerations that go into assembling many drinks.   Slow stirs outside of a bar can leave guests anxious.  Citrus, aside from being costly, is messy and time-consuming.  Since we had no knowledge of space or sink-accessibility, we decided to come up with a drink that was not only low cost but easily batched ahead of time and served as quickly as we could ladle.

I’ve become a fan of Blue Moon lately, mostly due to its availability and quaff-ability.   Given its wheat beer base and traits of orange and spice, it makes a solid base for a beer cocktail.   Also, as we discovered, it’s well enough known to make the final product more readily approachable for most people.  Being a big fan of early 19^th century beer “punches”, I decided to riff on the classic recipes, like Brown Betty with something that covered a broad spectrum of beer-inspired flavors – predominantly spice and sugar – while keeping the cost low.  We served those 100 guests 3.5-ounce servings (half the size recommended here) at a cost of $0.50 per drink.   Over three hours, we went through just two 6-packs of beer and three bottles of Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth – just $40 worth of supplies, before the syrup, cups, and ice.

Of course, a cheap drink is a worthless drink if it doesn’t taste any good.  On this front, I’m happy to report that not only has Lesley claimed the Blue Harvest to be one of the best original drinks to come out of 12BB but almost every guest at Garrett’s event came back for seconds, if not fourths.  The low-alcohol content combined with the high taste factor makes this a drink that can you can easily serve at any holiday gathering with almost absolute impunity.   And, best of all, not only does it scale from a single glass to a trough without issue (the syrup scales equally well), it is best if made slightly ahead of time.  To chill our punch bowl without diluting the drink, we simply placed the bowl inside another bowl filled with ice.  If served over crushed iced, the drink will chill itself in a moment, so just leaving the bowl un-chilled won’t present an issue.

The Blue Harvest is the first of two drinks we concocted for Garrett’s party, and it was a real crowd pleaser.  Inexpensive and easy-to-make in batch form, it will also get you out from behind the bar and let you spend your holiday mingling with your family and friends – if you go in for that kind of thing, that is.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Esoterica:  If you’re a nerd, and you think that the name of the Blue Harvest alludes to something more than Blue Moon and Harvest spice, you would be correct.  After all, we’re nerds, could you blame us?

2 oz Gold Rum
2 oz Unsweetened Cranberry Juice
1 oz Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Add all ingredients to a mixing glass and stir together without ice.
Pour into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice and stir gently.
Garnish with an orange wheel.

Featured Glassware: Boston Double Old-Fashioned by Villeroy & Boch

* * *

Yes, I realize that it’s Thanksgiving today, and yes, I also know that of any cocktail we could present today, one called the Bermuda Triangle may not be, well, the most logical drink.  But it is – in part because Thanksgiving means cranberries and, in another part, because at our house cranberries on Thanksgiving also mean Lesley’s homemade orange-accented cranberry sauce, one of my favorite additions to our holiday table.  Actually, there are two sauces on our Thanksgiving table – the homemade one and those Industrial Age jellied wheels of burgundy I don’t-know-what.  It’s a generational thing – the grandparents remaining suspicious of any food which doesn’t properly reflect mankind’s triumph over nature.

Of course, what I’m most thankful for today – and, for that matter, on each and every day – are my wonderful wife and child.  Sure, it’s an obvious choice, but if you know them, you won’t blame me for not trying to be clever here.  Some things just are, and Lesley and the boy keep my rudder steady and the wind in my sails.  I suppose that’s why we’re keen on having families –they keep us on the straight and narrow and provide us with second chances when we might not deserve them.  Even when we’ve tried to incite a mutiny and overthrow the local government.

Okay, there was a tricky little segue in the middle of that last paragraph  – we’re now talking not about me but rather about one Stephen Hopkins, early American settler.  In June of 1609, Hopkins set sail from Plymouth, England as part of the crew of the Sea Venture, the flagship of a fleet of eight vessels (The Third Supply) on its way to replenish the very young colony of Jamestown.  On July 24^th, the fleet – just a few days away from the colony – was caught in a hurricane that would ravage it for almost four days.  The tempest which rattled the ships turned the sky so black that navigation was impossible.  St. Elmo’s Fire surrounded the ships “like a faint Starre, trembling, and streaming along with a sparkleing blaze, halfe the height upon the Main Mast”.  On the day of the 28^th, the Sea Venture, separated from the other ships, struck a reef about a quarter mile from a small island, and the entire party, including women and children, was safely rowed ashore.

For the next nine months, the castaways remained on the island, under the command of Sir Thomas Gates, Governor-elect of Virginia, and Sir George Somers, Admiral of the fleet.  As the island upon which they found themselves stuck was uninhabited (up to that point, at least), the group kept itself busy building two new ships out of the remains of the Sea Venture, catching wild hogs, fish, and sea turtles, and going about their daily lives as normally as possible.  Accounts tell us that, during the period, there was one murder, one execution, one marriage, two christenings, and three mutinies.  It’s as a part of at least one of these mutinies that Stephen Hopkins enters the picture.

A man of God – he joined the Sea Venture as a minister’s clerk – Hopkins nevertheless found himself more than a bit dissatisfied with how things were being run on the island.  Although he had come to the New World indentured to the Virginia Company, which owned both the Jamestown colony and the Sea Venture, Hopkins had deep-seated authority issues.  In late January, he pulled aside Samuel Sharpe and Humfrey Reede and made the following argument:

“— it was no breach of honesty, conscience, nor Religion to decline from the obedience of the Governor or refuse to goe any further led by his authority (except it so pleased themselves) since the authority ceased when the wracke was committed, and, with it, they were all then freed from the government of any man – “

Of course, with not much to talk about other than the day’s catch of sea turtles, news of the potential mutiny spread (by Sharpe and Reede themselves, directly to Sir Thomas Gates), and Hopkins was captured, tried, and found guilty.  Hopkins, who had made the sea voyage without his family, was sentenced to death.  It’s at this point that the wife and kids come in, because they provided the totality of Hopkins’ plea for mercy.  “So penitent he was, and made so much moan, alleging the ruin of his wife and children in this his trespass, as it wrought in the hearts of all the better sorts of the company.”  Hopkins’ waterworks did the trick, and his life was spared.

On May 10, 1610, the two ships built from the wreckage of the Sea Venture set sail for Virginia with small crews and a handful of provisions.  They arrived at Jamestown on the 24^th, only to find the colony on its last legs.  With the provisions from the Sea Venture, there would only be enough food to sustain the already skeletal remains of the colony for another two weeks.  On June 8^th, the decision was made to abandon Jamestown and head north.  Fate intervened in the form of a second supply fleet commanded by Lord Del La Warr (Delaware), and the colony survived, cementing England’s foothold in America.

Hopkins, it seems, held true to his claim of providing for his wife and children, returning to England where they had remained.  Unfortunately, his first wife and one of his three children died while he was away, but Hopkins remarried and built a new family and life atop the old one.  At this point, as we approach the end of our tale of Stephen Hopkins, you might still be wondering what any of this has to do with today’s drink – and why it does indeed fit in with our Thanksgiving theme.  Aside from the cranberry and orange base – flavors which not only work beautifully together but which also are both cocktail and Thanksgiving stalwarts – there’s the name of the drink, the Bermuda Triangle.

The drink we present here is one of a few variations with the Bermuda Triangle moniker.  Logic traces them back to the versions made with Gosling’s Black Seal rum, a product of Bermuda and wonderful stuff in its own right.  If you’ve got it, use it and skip the bitters.  Otherwise, any nice gold rum will work.  The “triangle” apparently comes from the three main ingredients, the proportions of which we’ve tweaked a bit here and added the bitters to produce a drink with a bit more tang and depth.  But still, what’s the connection between Bermuda and our story?

Take a look at the Bermuda coat of arms, and you’ll see the image of a ship thrown about by the waves and struck upon the shore of the islands.  The image commemorates the settlement of the islands – accidentally – by the crew and passengers of the depicted ship, the Sea Venture.   Yes, it was upon the shores of what would become Bermuda — officially, the Bermudas or Somers Isles, named for Sir George Somers, of Sea Venture fame — that the ship’s company found itself stranded those ten long months.  Of course, a four-day hurricane off the coast of Bermuda swallowing up a ship and crashing it onto the shore of a deserted island is the stuff of which Bermuda Triangle legends are made.  That explains the name of the drink, but what about the Thanksgiving connection?

Stephen Hopkins, as luck would have it, decided to return to America – this time with his family in tow.  It was a decade after his shipwreck adventure, and things were looking up across the Atlantic.  With a new family, a New World, and a new lease on life, Hopkins returned to America in 1620 aboard a ship called the Mayflower and — along with wife Elizabeth and children Constance, Giles, and Damaris — was among those in attendance at the first Thanksgiving.

Now, our story should end there, but I have to add that if we fast forward another ten years or so, Hopkins was again causing trouble.  He may have been a man of God, but he was hardly a Puritan.  By the late 1630s, Hopkins had opened a tavern and was fined for letting people drink on Sundays, for letting them drink excessively, and for selling beer for twice its value (I’d have his back on the first two counts, but not the third).  He never did take a cotton to authority.

In 1644, Hopkins passed away and, per his will, was buried next to his wife and children.

Esoterica:  The tale of the tempest which had its way with the Sea Venture was big news back in the England of 1609.  In fact, many claim that it inspired one William Shakespeare to write a play called, would you believe, The Tempest (1610).