While Sylvan and I were at Tales of the Cocktail last year, we were lucky enough to have Chris Stanley, recently of New York’s Clover Club, make drinks for us at the Mixo House.  Of all the liquors and bar fixings at our disposal–and believe me, the amount was epic–the one ingredient that seemed to pique Chris’ interest more than any of the other ones was our sherry collection.  He said he used sherry all the time in his drinks and people love them.  After tasting his cocktails, I see why.   I like to have a little glass of it before dinner, but Chris opened my eyes to how versatile it is, drunk straight or mixed in a cocktail.  I realized that I don’t know squat about sherry as a cocktail ingredient, but would like to learn more. And I found I wasn’t alone.  Several of our friends had a hankering for a sherry tasting, so we got a group of people together who each brought a bottle or three. We also collected a number of cocktail recipes containing sherry to experiment with. Much like a wine tasting, we started with the driest finos and progressed to the sweeter amontillados, olorosos and the the dessert stylings of Pedro Ximénez. Here are my (uneducated and increasingly tipsy) notes from that fun evening.

FINOS

Alvear’s Fino—Very light in color, almost greenish. Strong aroma. Dry at first, slightly sour, with an almost salty finish. We agreed it would make a good addition to a dirty martini.

Lustau Light Fino—Light yellowy green in color. Weak aroma. Light on the palate, with a slightly lemony finish.

Williams & Humbert Dry Sack Medium—Brownish color, smells of brown sugar. Sweet, smooth, almost maple-like taste. This one really seems to be in a genre of its own since it didn’t seem to resemble the other finos. In fact, we moved it over to the amontillado table after tasting it.

AMONTILLADOS

Alvear’s Amontillado—Light brown in color. Complex aroma that is woody, citrusy and I thought almost fishy. The flavor was bright, balanced and sweet but not too sweet.

Sandeman Character Amontillado—Brown in color. Citrusy bouquet. Sweet at first, then woody and bitter. Though it has a fairly light finish, it was slightly astringent.

Hartley & Gibsons Amontillado—Dark brown in color. Alcohol fumes hit you before the sweet fragrance. This one has 19% alcohol. Sweet and strong flavored. Hints of orange and musty basement. Complex.

Valdespino Contrabandista—Cool label! Brown in color. Musty aroma. Hard to pin down this one. Bright yet woody, astringent yet slightly sweet with citrus flavors.

OLOROSO/CREAM

Alvear’s Cream Montilla—Orangish brown in color. Round and sugary, lightly orange in flavor.

El Maestro Sierra Oloroso—Dark brown with lots of body. Woody aroma. Taste was sharp and spicy, almost like witch hazel. Our least favorite sherry of the evening.

El Candado Pedro Ximénez A.R. Valedespino—Dark brown. Smells of raisins and molasses. Sweet and saturated flavor. Tastes of fruitcake and very raisiny.  Popular with everyone, especially near the end of the evening.  A good replacement for a glass of port after dinner.

Barbadillo Pedro Ximénez—Warm dark brown color. Sweet but weaker in flavor and more drinkable than El Candado. Light raisin and caramel flavors.

Sandeman Armada High Cream Oloroso—Pretty, walnut color. Velvety smell? (Okay, I was a little drunk by this time.) Balanced sweetness with a bright finish.

The surprise winners of the evening were all the Alvear’s sherries.  They are affordable, complex and tasty.  After the tasting of the sherries and the cocktails, most of us came away feeling more confident using sherry in cocktails, while also knowing what style we like to drink straight. The following cocktail was quite popular that night, and it introduced us to White Port as yet another new ingredient that we love in cocktails. Just when you think you know everything about everything in the liquor world, there’s always something more to learn.

The Robert Frost Cocktail – by Derek Brown

• ¾ oz Bourbon
• ¾ oz Amontillado Sherry (dry)
• ¾ oz White Port
• ½ oz Simple Syrup
• Dash of Orange Bitters

Combine ingredients and shake with ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and add thinly sliced orange and lemon wheels.

The other night at TDN: Fruit Brandy I came up with a drink that I’m quite proud of: the Rhumble. For those of you not familiar with Thursday Drink Night, it’s a weekly chat room gathering of cocktail folks inventing original drinks around a pre-chosen theme and awarding prizes to the one voted ‘best’. It’s put on collectively by the CSOWG.

I’ve always liked the apricot brandy and dry vermouth combo (ie Darb, Frankenjack from the Savoy Cocktail Book) and wanted to see if sherry could stand in if some bitters were added. Also, I really haven’t spent too much time with the Bitter Truth Celery Bitters (available here) so I fit them in there. I didn’t want to overcome the apricot fruit aroma with heavy spices, so they fit the bill quite well.

Rhumble

• 1 1/2 oz rhum agricole blanc (Saint Etienne)
• 3/4 oz dry sherry (Barbadillo Manzanilla)
• 3/4 oz apricot brandy (Rothman and Winter)
• 2 dashes celery bitters (Bitter Truth)

Stir, strain, up. Lemon twist.

I think that one really has good bones, and would be different but quite good with other bottlings. So far the Neisson blanc has proven a tasty alternative.

As a bonus recipe, I’ll leave you with my other drink that night, the Miss Haversham.

Miss Haversham

• 1 1/2 oz Irish whiskey
• 3/4 oz pear eau de vie
• 1/4 oz 2:1 demerara syrup
• 2 dashes Jerry Thomas bitters
• 1 dash Fees Barrel Aged bitters

Stir, strain, up.

This one is named after the Jasper Fforde character, who is a kind of an alter ego of Dicken’s Miss Havisham. I used Redbreast, but I’m sure something like Powers or Jameson would work as well.

The Whiskey Sour is a true classic that has somewhat fallen out of favor because it is very difficult to get made well in a bar. Even if your bartender isn’t using commercial sour mix, he or she has to be willing and able to adjust the sweetness to your taste. Much like lemonade, everyone has a slightly different preference between mouth-puckeringly sour and syrupy sweet and so this is really a drink that you need to adjust to you or your customer’s taste, recipes aside. However, as a starting point, I humbly submit mine to be used as a starting point for your own.

Whiskey Sour

• 2 oz whiskey
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz simple syrup (1:1)

Stir all ingredients in a rocks glass to dissolve syrup; add ice and stir until cold. OR shake and strain over ice if you like it frothy. If you like it really frothy, shake ‘dry’ with about half an egg white before shaking with ice. I often serve/drink these on the rocks, but they can also be served up in a chilled glass. One popular garnish is a maraschino cherry, but I usually use a lemon twist.

While almost any blended whiskey will work for this drink, I usually go for a straight bourbon. Nothing too fancy, maybe Evan Williams black label, Elijah Craig 12 year, or Buffalo Trace.

Variations

The Sour is an eminently versatile drink for substitutions. This drink is kind of a ‘cold toddy’, and indeed, honey as the sweetener is a fine variation. To aid in dissolving the honey, pre-mix a syrup from equal parts honey and water. I also really enjoy using demerara syrup because it always seems to work well with whiskey drinks. And rum ones too, for that matter.

Other base spirits, such as rye whiskey, brandy, rum or even tequila all respond well to this basic template. A rum sour with lime is, of course, a Daiquiri, and a tequila sour with lime and a bit of orange liqueur is a Margarita, and a Cosmopolitan is not far off. Add a little grenadine to the base recipe and you’ve got a Ward 8.

To be honest, the primary reason that I make Whiskey Sours is to use up lemons that have been denuded to make garnish for other drinks! After you’ve made a number of Whiskey Cocktails, it seems a shame to throw out the lemon. However, the Whiskey Sour is a drink that anyone who wants to call themselves a bartender should have in their repertoire because it really is a template for so many drinks, as well as being quite tasty on its own.

For those readers that are not regular scourers of the cocktail blogs, I wanted to let you know that SeanMike over at the Scofflaw’s Den has just posted about a drink named after yours truly, the Sylvania. It’s kind of a whiskey sour with addition of cherry vanilla bitters, mint and St. Germain. I haven’t gotten around to whipping one up just yet, but I’ll be fine straining out the mint.

It’s his drink, so I’ll let him tell it:
http://scofflawsden.com/blog/2009/06/24/sylvania/

While I feel like I buy bourbon whiskey more often than other spirits, I can’t say that bourbon is my favorite spirit to mix with; I’m much more likely to drink it on the rocks or in a Whiskey Cocktail (basically an Old-Fashioned without fruit). But there are a few drinks that I make regularly using bourbon. For mixing, I recommend using an affordable bourbon like Evan Williams black label or even the Elijah Craig 12 year old. There’s really no need to go to more expensive ’single barrel’ or ’small batch’ bottlings. Unless that’s just ‘how you roll’, in which case you should invite me over for drinks sometime.

One of my favorite variations on the tried-and-true Champagne Cocktail is the Kentucky Champagne Cocktail, which is nothing more than a Champagne Cocktail with a shot of bourbon in it.

Kentucky Champagne Cocktail

• Put a sugar cube in a largish champagne glass and soak with 3-6 dashes of Angostura bitters.  Then add:
• 1 oz bourbon
• Fill with champagne or other bubbly (Segura Viuda Cava, recommended)

Other bitters will work, especially orange bitters, but the venerable Angostura is my current favorite for this drink. This one isn’t too far from the classic Seelbach Cocktail either – just up the Ango. to 7 dashes, add 7 more dashes of Peychaud’s and 1/2 oz of Cointreau and you’re there.

One thing to note when making this, or any other champagne cocktail, is to be very careful when pouring the bubbly, as it tends to foam up dramatically when poured onto the sugar cube.

Another drink that I make at home (mostly because they are almost impossible  to get made well away from home) is a Whiskey Sour. I’m most likely to make this to use up some extra lemon juice, or to use a lemon that has been thoroughly peeled for garnish. I’ve recently added a variation on the Whiskey Sour to my repertoire, the Port Light.

Port Light – from Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log

• 1 oz bourbon
• 1 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz passion fruit syrup
• 1 Tbsp grenadine

Blend with 1 cup crushed ice for 5 seconds and pour into a collins glass.

This is quite tasty – there is more going on in the glass than a traditional Whiskey Sour. The tartness is nicely balanced and given depth by the passion fruit and grenadine. I’m using a homemade passion fruit syrup from the clear part of a settled out Looza passion fruit nectar and sugar.

There are more bourbon drinks out there than you would think, once you start looking. Whiskey Smash, Mint Julep, Manhattan, Bourbon Crusta, Honi Honi – what’s your favorite bourbon drink?

New Orleans has been on my mind this week, with Mardi Gras being this last Tuesday and all. I’ve found that one of the more elusive classic New Orleans drinks to get out on the town is the Vieux Carré. It seems that few bars, even at Southern or Cajun/Creole restaurants, deem it necessary to have Bénédictine on hand, presumably due to the expense. I would remind them that there has always been a distinctly French influence on the cuisine of New Orleans, and this drink only uses 1 teaspoon. And you just can’t duplicate this drink without it.

The Vieux Carré is one of the few drinks that we conclusively know the origin of; it was invented in 1938 by Walter Bergeron at the Monteleone Hotel in New Orleans. Vieux Carré (meaning ‘Old Square’) is also one of the local names for the French Quarter.

Vieux Carré

• 1 oz rye whiskey
• 1 oz cognac
• 1 oz sweet vermouth
• 1 tsp Bénédictine
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Stir with cracked ice, strain and garnish with a lemon twist and its oils.

This is a fine and balanced drink that turns out to be very sensitive to the exact amounts called for. When proper care is exercised in measuring, I love the way the spiciness of the rye and the sugar notes of the cognac mellow with the sweetness of the vermouth and the Bénédictine. Then the drink gets a quadruple blast of herbal complexity from the herbal liqueur, the vermouth and the two kinds of bitters. It’s kind of like a Manhattan, but smoother, sweeter, more refined, and more complex.

If I use 100 proof rye, I’ll back it down to 3/4 oz. Be careful when measuring the Benedictine; use a proper kitchen teaspoon and don’t overdo it or the drink will veer into cough syrup territory. While I have used brandy as a sub for the cognac, there is definitely room here for a nicer cognac. You can control the amount of water added by the fineness of the ice. Freshly hammered ice with a reasonable portion of crushed/powdered ice makes for a smoother potion. And, of course, with a classic mostly whiskey and bitters cocktail like this, be sure to get a goodly spray of lemon peel oil on the surface and rub the peel around the rim for a wonderful citrus entry as you bring the glass to your lips.

The Vieux Carré is really one of the most enjoyable signature New Orleans cocktails and it is a shame that more of the restaurants purporting to deliver the unique cuisine of the Crescent City do not serve it on their menus.

A note on pronunciation – I’ve heard a number of folks put the full Gallic gargle on the end ‘r’. But both proper French (note the accent on the é) and current New Orleans usage is ‘voo cah-ray’ or ‘voh cah-ray’, and of course some are going to say ‘view cah-ray’.

There was a time not too long ago when rye whiskey almost disappeared, another victim of Prohibition. It didn’t, though, and thanks to the internet, rye has enjoyed something of a revival in America. So much so that there have even been shortages caused by its rapid return to semi-popularity. However, despite this new popularity, you can still get blank stares from cocktail waitresses on Main St bars and questions like, “Is that a kind of whiskey?”

Yes, Virginia, it is a kind of whiskey. Believe it or not, a whiskey made from rye, which is a close cereal relative of wheat. For American producers to label their bottles as rye whiskey, the mash bill must be at least 51% rye, among other things. Using the word ’straight’ adds a requirement of at least 2 years of aging in new, charred oak barrels. Canadian producers are under no such restrictions, and currently very little rye is used in whisky making north of the border. The ever reliable wikipedia even claims that Canadian law allows the label ‘rye whisky’ on products that contain no rye at all! That said, there are a few 100% rye whiskys (Alberta Springs, for one) being made in Canada, and I’d love to try them. Banff is lovely this time of year…

Rye can also feature in the recipe for a bourbon whiskey. Bourbons are only required to use 51% corn, leaving plenty of room for other grains, especially one as distinctive as rye. It is commonly used and a number of bourbons show more or less of rye’s unique musty and spicy flavor. For instance, the Evan Williams Single Barrel Bourbon could be mistaken for a rye in a blind tasting and the Four Roses Single Barrel 100° is 35% rye.

Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Old Overholt and Rittenhouse are the major brands on the market. Other ryes are basically specialty items, with the possible exception of the Sazerac 6 year old – called the ‘Baby Saz’ to differentiate it from its 18 year old stablemate. Pikesville Rye is the only surviving Maryland rye, and has limited distribution. Moving up the price scale a little, you’ll find the Tuthilltown Manhattan Rye and Michters US1. In the ‘very expensive’ category, look for A.H. Hirsch, Van Winkle, Black Maple Hill and Sazerac.

I recently acquired the Thomas Handy Sazerac from the Buffalo Trace 2008 Antique Collection. Maybe I’ll make a Manhattan with some Carpano Antica and cherry vanilla bitters one of these days. For now, I am content to sip it with some water and a bit of ice as it is barrel strength, a tongue blistering 127.5 proof. It is truly a joy of a sipper, starting out with a vanilla, filling the mouth with a wonderful buttery texture, and finishing with notes of black pepper and cloves.

Mixing wise, rye is a great ‘bottom’ or ‘bass note’, that pairs well with sweeter or brighter things like citrus, Benedictine or St Germain, yet has enough punch not to get lost in the mix. One of the best ways to enjoy it is in an Imbibe!-style Fancy Rye Cocktail or a Sazerac.

Sazerac (a là Imbibe!)

• 2 ounce rye whiskey (Rittenhouse)
• 1 scant teaspoon simple syrup
• 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
• 1 dash absinthe ( as a rinse)

Stir with fine cracked ice, strain into a chilled glass and garnish with a nice curly lemon twist.

Wow, that is fantastic! Ordering these out at bars usually results in a sickly sweet rye syrup, and when I usually make these freehand they have much more bitters than this. Carefully following Thomas Handy’s (by way of Wondrich) recipe is well worth it.

Another classic cocktail utilizing rye is the Manhattan. However, only having space for one more drink, I couldn’t neglect that wonderful Negroni variation known as the Boulevardier.

Boulevardier

• 1 ounce rye whiskey (Old Overholt)
• 1 ounce Campari
• 1 ounce sweet vermouth
• 1-2 dash rhubarb bitters (optional)

Stir well over cracked ice for 20 seconds and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry or a twist of orange peel.

A fine, balanced cocktail with the Campari and rye characters tamed but still present to be savored. Another plus – the basic recipe is simple enough that you might be able to get a decent one out of your bartender.

A few links for those interested in further reading:

Here’s Mud in Your Rye

How to Make it at Home

All but Lost, Rye Is Revived as the Next Boutique Find

For some tastings of various ryes, check out Paul Clarke’s nine post series at The Rye Chronicles and LeNell’s Rye Class.