James' recipe book

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October, 2007 - March 2009
v8.0
Cocktail Snob recipes by James Teitelbaum


I do not pretend to be a mixologist of the same caliber as the people who are most enthusiastically celebrated on Cocktail Snob, but I do play with the odd recipe in my home bar, Aku Hall.
These are my favorites from the various things I have created:

Peek of Spring
Gal Friday Night suggested a drink made of Gin, St. Germain, and lemon.
Inspired by (and meant for) that one week at the end of Midwestern winter when we know spring is around the corner - and yet we also know that we're still due for a snow storm or two.
Wanting a suitable springish color, the blue Curacao adds to the yellowish color of the St. Germain and lime juice (as it ended up) to make a fun greenish color.

2 oz. gin (we liked Tanqueray over Beefeater)
1 oz. St. Germain
.75 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
.25 teaspoon blue Curacao
2 teaspoons Green Chartreuse

Shake vigorously and strain into a cocktail glass.
Garnish with a mint leaf.

Katy's Kiss
1.5 oz Bourbon (I've been using Evan Williams)
.5 oz Pimm's
.5 oz Peter Heering Cherry Liqueur
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lime juice
2 shakes Angostura bitters.

Build all above ingredients over ice cubes in a Zombie glass.
Add 2 to 3 oz seltzer water over the top and stir vigorously with a bar spoon.
Add a maraschino cherry garnish.

Quarante
Note: No brand substitutions are possible on this drink.

1.5 oz. Clement VO rhum vieux agricole
1/2 oz. Clement Creole Shrubb
3/4 oz. St. Germain (I promise, this is my last St. Germain drink!).
1/2 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice

Shake like mad and strain into a cocktail glass.
I have also played with adding between 1/2 and 1 teaspoon of absinthe to this drink.
Try it!

Aku Hall Sour
Upon my first visits to Easter Island and Chile (May, 2000), I had many Pisco Sours served to me in both places.
The following drink is my own needlessly complicated twist on that experience.

(for two):
  5 ounces Pisco
(try the Capel brand in the Moai bottle for novelty value, but BarSol tastes better)
1 ounce fresh lemon juice
1.25 ounce fresh lime juice
.75 ounce simple syrup
1 ounce Triple Sec
.75 ounce Falernum (John D. Taylor’s)
.25 teaspoon orange bitters

After shaking with 10 cubes worth of crushed ice (or blended briefly with pre-crushed ice), pour into Moai-shaped Tiki mugs with 1/4 lemon rind (and the crushed ice).
Float a spoonful of very dark rum on top (try Cruzan Black Strap or Gosling's Black Seal), and then sprinkle a pinch of brown sugar onto that.
Drink with a straw.
Carefully.

A few other notes: I tried simplifying this drink, subtracting ingredients, and it just doesn't seem to work without all of this stuff in it.  I also tried adding egg white, as is the custom with a traditional Pisco Sour.  The results didn't justify the additional layer of complexity.  The Triple Sec can be replaced with a better orange liqueur (like Gran Marnier or the great Clement Creole Shrubb), but you'll have to modify the amount so that it doesn't become overwhelming.  The Creole Shrubb, in particular, has a way of taking over a drink.

Velo I tried this one about 6 or 7 times over a few nights to get it just right, and I am pretty pleased with it. It then became my entry into the monthly St. Germain-sponsored drink making contest. The Velo tied for first place in August of 2008! 1 oz. St. Germain 1/2 oz. home made passion fruit syrup (try two parts Goya brand passion fruit pulp, to one part sugar and one part filtered water) 4 dashes Peychaud’s bitters 1.25 oz. Gin (so far: Beefeaters and Hendrick's win, Tanqueray works, avoid Sapphire) 3/4 oz fresh squeezed lime juice. Shake for a long time with a lot of ice and strain into a wine glass. Hangaroa Hangover We improvised this one while sitting on a lanai, after a long day of hiking among Easter Island's big stone heads (Moai). Equal parts: Havana Club Anejo Reserva rum, fresh pineapple juice, fresh lime juice. Shake with ice. ...to be honest, I was just excited at getting Havana Club Anejo Reserva for like $12 a bottle! Gulliver While sipping some tawny port that I had opened, Gal Friday Night decided that she wasn’t a fan of the carmely flavor.  We wondered if a cocktail could be made with the port (after all, the bottle will only last so long once opened, so something had to be done with her share).   Dark liquor seemed to be the best option, but nothing as sweet as rum (the port is already quite sweet); I needed something with a bite, such as whiskey.  But whiskey and port?  Woah! Then, in a flash of inspiration I grabbed a bottle of Laird’s Applejack (bonded variety, if possible).  I was skeptical of making a cocktail out of port wine at all, but with the Applejack, it worked really well. The drink came together fast after that, I had it in two or three tries - 2 oz. Tinta Tawny Port 2 oz. Laird’s Bonded Applejack 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice more than 1/8 teaspoon of Pernod, but less than 1/4. Shake with ice, but not for too long, and serve cool (not cold), neat in a cocktail glass.

Red Palms

Art by the incomparable Shag: click it!

This one was created in December of 2007 for the Red Palms chapter of the Fraternal Order of Moai.

Serves Two:
3 oz clear Puerto Rican rum
2 oz pomegranate juice
1 oz Grand Marnier
1 oz fresh lime juice
1/4 tspn orange bitters
1 tspn Collins grenadine
2 big shakes of allspice.

Shake vigorously in a cocktail shaker full of ice.
Serve in a rocks glass with a big lump of fresh ice in it.
Shake the allspice on top. This is more for nose than flavor.
Garnish with a sprig of mint and a tiny floating sliver of a wheel of lime (as cut from one of those baby key limes if possible).
Please note that grenadine is based on pomegranate, so using grenadine in a pom-based drink might normally be seen as redundant.   The grenadine in this drink is mostly to lend a deep red color to the drink.   While fresh or home made grenadine might taste better, we recommend using the Collins brand (which we would avoid in most other cases) because it has the property of imparting a bright firetruck-red color to the drink.

Rio Gimlet
The problem with making a Gimlet exactly true to the classic recipe is that the classic calls specifically for Rose's Lime Juice.  Back in the day, Rose's was made with real lime juice and sugar.  Today it is a nasty and toxic combination of artificial flavors and high fructose corn syrup.  So, paradoxically, in order to make a Gimlet 'properly', one must use fresh lime and sugar and sort of guess or approximate what classic-era Rose's might have tasted like.  While playing with this one day, I went off the map a little bit and created this Gimlet-based variant which I call a Rio Gimlet (yes, I know Falernum is from Barbados, not Rio; the reasons for naming this drink remain cryptic and a bit silly).

1.5 oz gin
1 oz John D. Taylor's Velvet Falernum
.5 to .75 oz fresh lime juice
1 dash orange bitters.

Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.
Garnish with a lime wheel.

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