Month: November 2017

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Classic Recipe: The Aviation

The Aviation is a classic cocktail, named after its unique hue – a light shade of something between blue and violet, reminiscent of the morning sky.  It is more than a century old at this point, reportedly printed for the first time in a 1916 book by Hugo Ensslin, the head bartender of the Hotel Wallick in New York.

Despite its early birthdate, the Aviation had faded into obscurity for a time due to the difficulty in obtaining a key ingredient:  crème de violette.  This violet-flavored liqueur gives the drink its signature color but, for many decades, was not widely available in the United States.  But renewed interest in the Aviation was sparked by Paul Harrington and Laura Moorhead’s 1998 book, The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century, which covered the Aviation among many other traditional cocktails.  And today, a number of crème de violette options are available, including one by Rothman & Winter, which is the ingredient used in this recipe.

The drink has a strong floral, herbal taste.  It shares three of its four ingredients – gin, Maraschino, and citrus (though here lemon instead of lime) with the Last Word, and as such there are some overlapping flavors here.  But the use of crème de violette instead of Chartreuse pushes the drink in a more floral direction.  Note that, for my preference, less is more with the crème de violette, so if you are tinkering with the portions here, you probably want to exercise restraint in increasing that ingredient.

Here is the recipe:

The Aviation recipe
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Aviation

Recipe for the Aviation, a classic, century-old cocktail with an herbal and floral taste, made from gin, lemon, Maraschino and crème de violette.
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Sour
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 200kcal

Ingredients

  • 2 oz. gin I used Botanist
  • 3/4 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/2 oz. Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
  • 1/4 oz. crème de violette liqueur I used Rothman & Winter
  • cherry

Instructions

  • Combine the gin, lemon juice, Maraschino and crème de violette with ice in a mixing glass and stir.
  • Strain into a coupe or martini glass.
  • Garnish with a cherry.

Enjoy!

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December Cocktail Events Round-Up

December is nearly upon us.  If you live or will be in D.C., here are the cocktail events that should be on your calendar (and if I’m missing something you know about that should be on here, let me know).  Note these events do not include New Year’s Eve, which I intend to cover in a separate post:

Miracle on 7th Street.   The annual winter-holiday-themed pop-up bar in the Mockingbird Hill, Eat the Rich, and Southern Efficiency spaces on 7th Street in Shaw is up and running again.  Come for the amazing decorations, stay for the cocktails that you won’t find on any other menu in town.  Also dress warmly and prepare to stand in line outside a very long time.  1839 7th Street N.W.; ongoing from November 24th through December 31st.

1930s-Inspired Repeal Day Fête at Jack Rose.  Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933.  Come celebrate the anniversary at Jack Rose’s sixth annual party honoring the day, this year featuring “Pappy Hour,” from 5:30 to 7 p.m., when the entire line of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon will be offered at discounted pricing; “bottomless bubbles” for $20; and Prohibition-era cocktails served up by Dram & Grain in the bar’s basement.  Burlesque performers will provide additional entertainment, and Jack Rose encourages guests to dress in Prohibition-era attire.  2007 18th Street N.W.; December 5 from 5 to 10 p.m.

Cocktail Class:  Brandy Cocktails at barmini.  barmini hosts cocktail-making classes on a monthly basis.  I’ve been to couple of these this year and have had a blast every time (for an example, see my Instagram post about the Chartreuse class here).  You will be greeted with a cocktail on your arrival.  Then you will mix three cocktails of your own with the careful and attentive instruction of the barmini team, with small snacks in between.  This month’s class is on brandy cocktails – perfect for December.  501 9th Street N.W.; December 6 at 5:30 p.m.

D.C. Champagne Week / Vintage Champagne Tasting at Columbia Room.  Started last year, D.C. Champagne Week is back for its second season from December 4-9.  Celebrate the week at a special event at the Columbia Room, which will uncork 1982 and 1990 vintages from “top champagne houses,” guided by Champagne Week co-founder Alison Marriott and paired with food by Columbia Room’s Johnny Spero.  Tickets are $450 per person.  124 Blagden Alley N.W.; December 8 at 6 p.m.

D.C. Craft Bartenders Guild’s Tenth Annual Repeal-Day Ball.  Celebrating Repeal during the week at a bar is one thing, but blowing it up on the weekend at a black-tie event at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium is quite another.  This is the Tenth year of this event, but the first year at this venue, which the Guild (@dccraftbarguild) has rightfully been boasting about on Instagram.  E.g.:

Tickets range from $90-140.  1301 Constitution Avenue N.W.; December 9 from 7:30 p.m. to midnight.

Have fun out there!

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Original Recipe: The Autumn Breeze

If you read my last post offering cocktail gift ideas for the 2017 holiday season, you know I’m a fan of shrubs and Chartreuse.  This recipe – the Autum Breeze – shows you how to make good use of these things together.

The context for this recipe is my frame of mind when I was dreaming it up:  thinking about the last days of fall and avoiding unpleasant thoughts of winter by imagining myself on a Caribbean vacation.  This daydream inspired island ingredients like pineapple and rum on the one hand and warm autumnal flavors like smoky scotch and spices on the other.  My ingredient list became clear:  rum, scotch, a pineapple-allspice shrub by Shrub District, and yellow Chartreuse.

This is a spirit-heavy cocktail so I decided that stirring rather than shaking was the way to go.  I stirred the ingredients with ice and strained into a couple glass and garnished with a lemon peel.  And here was the result:

Autumn Breeze

This is a sweet drink, with a pleasant complexity provided by the different flavors.  The smokiness of the scotch and the herbal goodness of the Chartreuse come through clearly, offsetting what might have been an overpowering sweetness if the rum and pineapple flavors had been left alone.  It definitely works as a fall sipping drink, but you could easily pour this over crushed ice and swizzle for a fine poolside (or seaside) drink and throw a number of these back quickly.

Here is the recipe:

The Autumn Breeze recipe
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Autumn Breeze

The Autumn Breeze is the perfect cocktail for that fall day when you're daydreaming about a tropical vacation, with rum, scotch, pineapple and Chartreuse.
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Sour, Tiki
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 175kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

  • 1 oz. aged rum I used Appleton Estate 12-year
  • 1/2 oz. Laphroaig 10-year
  • 1/2 oz. yellow Chartreuse
  • 1 oz. pineapple-allspice shrub by Shrub District
  • lemon peel

Instructions

  • Combine the rum, Laphroaig, Chartreuse and shrub with ice in a mixing glass and stir.
  • Strain into a coupe.
  • Express lemon peel over the glass and add the peel as garnish.

Enjoy!

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Cocktail Gift Ideas – Winter 2017

Black Friday is behind us and Cyber Monday is upon us.  If that hasn’t already driven you to drink, then you might be sober enough to be wondering what to buy the home bartenders in your life for the holidays.  Here are a few cocktail gift ideas for your list.  (Note that some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning this website might earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.)

A culinary torch.  This fall I finally acquired a torch for my cocktail toolset – the Keen Smart Culinary Creme Brulee Torch.  And I have no regrets.  The joy of playing with fire speaks for itself, and it has practical applications, too.  Use the torch to add a burnt finish to your citrus garnish (see my recipe for the Smoked Pearl).  Or use the torch with some wood planks (I used this variety pack) to smoke your glasses (see my take on the Old Fashioned for an example).  Don’t forget to add fuel; Keen recommends at least 5x pure butane.  On Amazon.

A set of cocktail vinegars from Shrub District.  The folks at Shrub District are champions of the “old art” of the shrub, in which vinegar and sugar are used to preserve fruit.  Shrubs make for a brilliant addition to a cocktail (see my recipe for the Autumn Breeze, and also check out many compelling recipes on one of my favorite cocktail feeds on Instagram, @sashadallasgirl).  Pineapple Allspice shrub from Shrub DistrictAs a bonus for buy-local enthusiasts in the D.C. area, they are locally based and put a premium on local ingredients.  And they have a Cyber Monday deal going; use the code “cranberrysauce” at checkout and save 10% on your order.  On the web at www.shrubdistrict.com.

Two-inch ice square ice cube tray.  For some drinks, standard freezer-made ice or ice-tray ice cubes won’t do the trick.  The problem is that small cubes melt quickly.  This is fine for some drinks, but others need a bigger ice cube that allows you to finish a drink before it gets too watered down.  I like this tray from Cocktail Kingdom, which allows you to make six square two-inch cubes and doesn’t take up too much space in the freezer.  Pro tip: let the cubes sit for a couple of minutes after you take the tray out of the freezer.  They’re easier to pop out if they warm up a bit first.  On Amazon.

Chartreuse.  If you have been following my Instagram (@capitalcocktails), you know that I am obsessed with Chartreuse.  It’s a monastic liqueur from France that is predominantly available in two varieties – green and yellow.  Both are unique herbal liqueurs; the green is slightly stronger than the yellow, and the yellow is slightly sweeter.  Either would make a great gift for a home bartender.  They will also come in handy if you’re following along with any of the recipes I post here (try the Autumn Breeze or the Decorator’s Drink) or on Instagram, which will continue to make good use of this excellent spirit.  Available at many liquor stores; average price $55.

‘Imbibe’ by David Wondrich.  If you’re looking for a great gift for the cocktail enthusiast/history buff, consider this great book by David Wondrich.  Wondrich, a regular contributor to Esquire, chronicles the history of the cocktail and its evolution over the years, with a particular focus on Jerry Thomas, known as “The Professor” and godfather of the modern cocktail arts.  The book is well-researched and easy to read.  It also includes recipes for some classic cocktails to make the tour through history even more tangible.  On Amazon.

Authentic D.C.-area “medicinal” whiskey prescriptions from the Prohibition era.  Finally, a cocktail gift for the history buff who prefers artifacts to books:  authentic whiskey prescriptions written by D.C.-area doctors during Prohibition.  It actually wasn’t impossible to drink legally during Prohibition; you just needed a doctor to write you a prescription.  This loophole  kept the Buffalo Trace distillery in business and many good Americans drunk while the Temperance experiment ran its course.  And now, it will help you get your home-bartending friends the best gift of the season.  On Etsy through the ProhibitionAct store; prices range from roughly $10 to $45.

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Recipe: The Thanksgiving Boulevardier

Searching for an aperitif to round out that fantastic Thanksgiving dinner you have been planning?  Try this twist on the Boulevardier, a classic cocktail based on the Negroni, but with whiskey instead of gin as the base spirit.

The traditional Boulevardier recipe calls for 1 1/2 ounces of bourbon and an ounce each of Campari and sweet vermouth.  But Thanksgiving can involve more drinks than the average meal so I dialed back the bourbon just a touch to 1 ounce.  I also replaced the sweet vermouth with Kina l’Aero d’Or (more on this fantastic aperitif wine here).  And I added 1/4 ounce of lemon juice to balance out the sweetness just a touch.  Stir these ingredients together, strain into a rocks glass, express a lemon peel and add the peel as garnish, and you get something like this:

The cocktail works nicely as a Thanksgiving aperitif because the tangy flavors of Campari and lemon combine in a way that pleasantly previews the cranberry sauce to come.  And as noted above, the drink isn’t so strong that you could not have a couple of them if the dinner takes a little bit longer to get to the table than anticipated, as is often the case at Thanksgiving.

Here is the recipe:

Thanksgiving Boulevardier recipe
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Thanksgiving Boulevardier

Looking for the perfect Thanksgiving aperitif?  Try this twist on the classic Boulevardier cocktail to round out that fantastic dinner you have planned.
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Spirit-Forward
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 245kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

  • 1 oz. bourbon I used E.H. Taylor
  • 1 oz. Campari
  • 1 oz. Kina l'Aero d'Or quinquina
  • 1/4 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • lemon peel

Instructions

  • Combine the bourbon, Campari, quinquina and lemon juice with ice in a mixing glass and stir.
  • Strain into a rocks glass.
  • Add a large ice cube.
  • Express lemon peel over the glass and add the peel as garnish.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Drinking D.C.: Speakeasies in the Washington Post

In its Going Out Guide last week, the Washington Post (digital subscriptions available here) covered several D.C.-area speakeasies in D.C.’s Hidden Bars, Ranked from Easiest to Hardest to Get into.  In the article, the Post’s Holley Simmons (@holleyunedited) tells us how to get seats at Chicken + Whiskey on 14th Street, Nocturne and Backroom Bar in Shaw, Captain Gregory’s in Alexandria, Le Cafe Descartes at the French Embassy, Sidecar downtown, and Bar 3100 at the British Embassy. Consider it a roadmap to your next bar crawl in D.C.

Simmons also tantalizes us with tales of an Ernest Hemingway-themed bar at the Cuban Embassy, to which she was unable to gain access, but the existence of which was confirmed by another Post reporter in 2015. Bonus points to the reader who makes it in and reports back to us!

Update:  Some Instagram sleuthing suggests that the Cuban Embassy’s Hemingway bar indeed exists!  Check it out:

The Ernest Hemingway bar inside Cuba’s embassy 🍹

A post shared by Julia Greenough (@juliamaegreenough) on

“Hemmingway’s”

A post shared by Bryan Kevan (@bryanmkevan) on

Someone tell us how its drinks are already!

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Classic Recipe with a Twist: The Old Fashioned

It’s old fashioned week, where we celebrate a cocktail that (per the preceding source) has roots as far back as 1802.  The classic cocktail uses classic ingredients:  whiskey, sugar and bitters, along with some muddled fruit or at least a cherry, depending on what you have handy.

But after 215 years of the same old recipe, @theoldrefashioned thought it was time for an update.  This Instagram feed invites followers to submit their variations on the classic, and I couldn’t resist joining in the fun.  Expanding on the use of fruit and sugar in the original, and with the fall season on my mind, I started by smoking a rocks glass with orange peel and cinnamon, which I torched over a maple wood plank (I found an assorted set of planks here):

For the recipe, I kept the traditional sugar, bitters, whiskey and fruit ingredients, but I added a bit of amaro and Maraschino liqueur.  I muddled and mixed and added a big cube of ice, and it came out looking like this:

(Ignore the gridlines. Oops.)

I really liked the way this tasted.  The smokiness was subtle but definitely there – there was a hint of cinnamon on the nose the whole way through.  And the amaro and Maraschino combination combined with the fruit in a very pleasant way to make this an exceptionally smooth old fashioned.

Here’s the recipe:

Geoff's Old Re-Fashioned recipe
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Geoff's Old Re-Fashioned

A new twist on the classic Old Fashioned recipe in celebration of the "Old Re-Fashioned" thread honoring Old Fashioned Week.
Prep Time7 minutes
Total Time7 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Ancestral
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 200kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

  • 2 oz. bourbon I used E.H. Taylor
  • 1/2 oz. amaro I used Averna
  • 1/4 oz. Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
  • 3 dashes old-fashioned bitters I used Fee Brothers
  • cinnamon stick
  • orange slice
  • lemon peel
  • cherry
  • sugar cube

Instructions

  • Smoke a rocks glass by holding it upside down over an orange peel and cinnamon stick while torching the ingredients over a maple wood board.  Let the orange and cinnamon catch fire before removing the flame and place the rocks glass over them while they continue to smolder.
  • Turn the rocks glass right-side up.  Add sugar cube, three dashes old-fashioned bitters, the orange slice, and a bit of lemon peel.  Muddle the ingredients.
  • Add the bourbon, amaro, and Maraschino, and mix the ingredients.
  • Add the cherry.
  • Add a large ice cube.
  • Optionally, garnish with the burnt orange peel or cinnamon stick.

Try it out and let me know what you think – and please share your own takes on the old fashioned!

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Original Recipe: The Smoked Pearl

Last weekend fall truly came to the District:  leaves are finally turning, temperatures are dipping, and to mark the transition we were visited by a heavy rainfall on Sunday.  It’s the perfect occasion for a new cocktail, and for a shift in thinking toward ingredients befitting the new season.

Maple and fire were the first two that popped in my mind, reflecting two of the better parts of fall:  maple leaves and roaring fires.  Not to be combined in a woodland setting, I suppose, but in a shaken cocktail – using maple syrup, mezcal (smoke) and poblano liqueur (heat) as proxies – I thought they would play very nicely together.

And they did.  I combined those ingredients with lemon juice, added ice, and shook, and out came this beauty:

It was absolutely delicious.  The smokiness, spiciness and tangy sweetness produced a satisfyingly complex flavor profile – with the smoke and spice providing some heft, cushioned slightly by the maple syrup.  I settled on the “Smoked Pearl” name because the drink’s ingredients somewhat resemble those of a margarita, which means pearl in various languages, and because of the smoky flavor.

Update:  After I first posted this recipe I came across Tippleman’s smoked maple syrup for the first time.  It takes this recipe to another level, amplifying the smoky goodness of the mezcal.  (It also works very well on waffles, French toast, and pancakes.)

Here’s the recipe:

Enjoy!

The Smoked Pearl Recipe
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Smoked Pearl

Try the Smoked Pearl, an original cocktail recipe perfect for fall with flavors of maple syrup, smoke, spice and citrus.
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Sour
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 250kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 oz. mezcal I used El Silencio
  • 1/2 oz. Ancho Reyes Verde
  • 1 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/4 oz. maple syrup
  • 1 fresh lemon

Instructions

  • Prepare a rocks glass with one large ice cube.
  • Combine ingredients in a shaking tin and add ice.
  • Shake ingredients vigorously and strain into the glass.
  • Garnish with a burnt lemon wheel.