Rum Cocktail: Buddah's Hand Syrup, Lime

If you're like me, and your fridge has several jars of this and that that concocted for cocktails that you never got around to mixing, and you happened to score a jar of my buddah's hand syrup last Christmas, this post is for you. Turns out a 1:1 cocktail of that syrup, your rum of choice, the juice of one lime, and seltzer (to taste) is pretty good - even a little exotic.

An Overdue Entry On the Sazerac Cocktail

I was on my own for a night in New York a few weeks ago and ate at Quality Meats. Waiting for my table to open up, I asked the bartender if he could do a Sazerac. He said he couldn't. "Don't have any rye." In a restaurant paneled with wood recovered from the Mississippi, there wasn't a single rye whiskey. Still, I had to appreciate his commitment to orthodoxy.

The history of the Sazerac cocktail is rich with speculation, old New Orleans establishments and family names, and an evolving ingredient list that sees French colonial influence giving way to American rusticism in the wake of the phylloxera epidemic that struck France in the late 1800s. Cognac replaced with Rye whiskey.

Other folks have outlined that territory more credibly than I can, even if everybody leans heavily on Wikipedia's Sazerac article for their narrative arc. With two trips to New Orleans under my belt, I didn't have my first Sazerac until last year at San Jose's Fairmont hotel. What I've been mixing up since last fall ignores a lot of Sazerac orthodoxy anyhow.

I've settled on a version of Esquire's recipe using Old Overholt Rye, a simple sugar made with Dark Muscovado, Peychaud Bitters, and St. George's Absinthe. I was looking forward to trying this with the Corsair Rye (Corsair's product page, K&L's product page or blog) we picked up a couple of weeks ago, but it was a non-starter. The flavor a mis-match. You can make the drink with any old bourbon in a pinch. You can use Angostoura bitters. In either variation it will be tasty, but it will not be a Sazerac.

Appletini

I've been sneaking an Appletini into the line up once a week or so, mostly to make the next Sazerac taste better. I work with the IBA specified ingredients, but skew heavier on the apple pucker - which tastes exactly like an Apple-flavored Jolly Rancher. Goes down pretty easy, which is more than I can say for our recent addition.

New Fangled Old Fashioned Cocktail

On my first trip to Lake Chalet, I ordered their Old Whiskey Cocktail. I'd struck out with their Dark and Stormy and didn't want to order a drink with a silly name. Also Lake Chalet uses rye whiskey for their Old Fashioned. While Wild Turkey is available in a rye version, I've had a soft spot for rye whiskey since The New Low Down poured me a dram of Old Potrero. How long ago was that?

For whatever reason, the Old Fashioned clicked this year. My first scrounge for a recipe went the usual way - everything I thought I knew about the old fashioned was wrong, because I hadn't read this. Tasty stuff:

'Young impudent sir, he screamed, '...Man and boy I've built Old-Fashioned cocktails these 60 years... and I have never yet had the perverted nastiness of mind to put fruit in an Old-Fashioned. Get out, scram, go over to the Palmer House and drink.' I was rebuked.

Me too. And the adulteration goes further. In place of sugar I like to add just enough cane syrup to get the cocktail slightly viscous. Please be tolerant of this backward, blurry, and uncomposed photo. I'll replace it one day soon:

My new-fangled old-fashioned cocktail recipe goes something like this:

• 2 full shot glasses of Bulleit Bourbon, aka the best of the cheap stuff at Trader Joe's. Here's Liquor Snob's review.
• Angostura Bitters, three dashes plus that first splash that splashes out unbidden.
• Water. Maybe 1/2 a shot's worth.
• Blood orange if you've got it, an obnoxiously large wedge a la Cafe Van Kleef.
• Depaz Cane Syrup, to taste and feel. At least 1/2 tsp.
• Your favorite dried cherries. Will impart hardly any flavor, but are tasty after the fact. My digging for them, as I read in bed, has led to some grumbling from Amy who usually goes to sleep earlier than me.
• Directions: Get your orange wedge into the glass somehow. It may take shoving, and some incidental juicing is encouraged. Don't go crazy. Cherries if you like. Then dash in the bitters. Pour in the cane syrup, then the bourbon. Then the water. Somehow 3 ice cubes always seem to fit into our Crate and Barrel highballs.

Cherry Pit Vodka Tonic

Cherries showed up at the farmer's market over a month ago. Back in April, I'd overheard a vendor tell someone that they expected to have their cherries in the third week of May. When I bounced this date off of Brad Gates at Wild Boar Farms, he responded that the third week of May was,"the sort of date someone pulls from an almanac." Hidden Star Orchards and Hamada Farms cherries showed up sooner than that. Brad brought his first batch on May 31 and said that in a week they'd be off the charts.

In what has to be considered a pretty odd coincidence, the following weekend someone showed up at his stand with a brix meter and more or less verified this claim. An average cherry apparently measures in at 16 brix, Brad's cherries measured in at 25 brix. He offered up that this wasn't a fair comparison. That an average cherry is grown for yield, whereas the fruit on his eighty year old trees which have never been sprayed with pesticides is not. Still, 25% sugar.

Anyway, as I ate my way through the last 6 weeks of cherries, I deposited the pits into a glass of vodka. I'd had some vague idea of attempting to recreate Tord Boontje's cherry pit necklace and figured the vodka soaking would help somehow when it came time to cleaning them up. Two weeks ago I noticed that the vodka had taken on some of the cherry taste though, and well - tonight it was hot.


Owing to some over-indulgence in caipirinhas last night all I could muster the courage for was a cherry pit vodka tonic. Refreshing though. If you're of a mind to try it, I'd recommend at least two weeks of soaking.