Category Archives: Food And Drink

The Classic Daiquiri - Rum's Perfect Cocktail

The Classic Daiquiri – Rum’s Perfect Cocktail

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The Classic Daiquiri - Rum's Perfect Cocktail

The rum daiquiri is one of world’s great drinks, yet it’s often prepared so poorly that you’d never know it. Somehow, someone, somewhere got it into their heads that a daiquiri should be thrown into a blender with lots of sugar, and lots of fruit, and made into something closer to a slurpee than a cocktail. In reality, a properly made classic daiquiri is a beautifully elegant and delicious drink.

While we don’t know exactly where or how the classic daiquiri was invented – many countries and bars lay claim to its origin – the drink came somewhere out of the Caribbean where sugarcane, rum, and limes are plentiful. As with many great classic cocktails, the daiquiri is made with three simple ingredients: rum, lime, and sugar. This basic structure is nearly identical with other tropical rum classics like the Ti Punch, Caipirinha, and Mojito (which adds mint to the mix).

A great classic daiquiri is all about balancing lime, sugar, and strong rum. It’s extremely easy for one of these elements to overpower the daiquiri, so when making a daiquiri it is essential to be precise with your measurements and always use a jigger. It’s also extremely important to use fresh lime juice. Using bottled lime juice will turn your drink into something barely palatable. This difference is as significant as the one between a fast food hamburger and a burger at a steakhouse.

The Classic Daiquiri

1 1/2 oz Rum
3/4 oz simple syrup
3/4 oz fresh squeezed lime juice

Shake with ice and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a lime.

The best place to start with the classic daiquiri is with a white rum like Bacardi Supreme, Brugal Especial Extra Dry, Angostura Reserva, or Denizen Rum. Starting with a white rum shows off the dry quality of this cocktail and makes it a perfect aperitif cocktail that holds its own against other great aperitifs like the martini.

The daiquiri can also stand in as an ideal after dinner drink if you choose a more complex rum like Banks Five Island Rum or a darker rum like Appleton Estates – you get something that tastes completely different. Using darker sugars for your simple syrup like demerara also dramatically transforms the drink.

The daiquiri may have gotten a bad rap from its time spent as a blended slushy, but it is truly one of the world’s great cocktails, one that when prepared correctly will impress even the most picky of imbibers.

 

 

Photo by Jackson Stakeman

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Date: This Monday, April 23rd—Park Avenue Tavern To Host Free John Allan’s Men’s Salon Services

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Monday’s aren’t your favorite? Live in or are visiting New York City? Then mark this on your calendar—John Allan, owner of John Allan’s Salons (located in New York City—one inside Saks Fifth Ave., Chicago and Toronto) is sending his team of male grooming experts to New York’s Park Avenue Tavern this Monday, April 23rd in the hopes supplanting your Monday evening commute with something more satisfying. There, between the hours of 5pm and 8pm, you’ll be able to snag yourself free massages (his masseuse is brilliant), manicures, shoe shines, all around touch-ups…and to really take the Monday edge off—some Stoli cocktails. Once you’re gotten your fill, check out the pub—not only does the Park Avenue Tavern serve up quite a savory blend of classic American fare (with local fresh ingredients and wines), but they have the Barrel room (the first of its kind in the city) featuring bartender-free beer taps attached to your table. For more about John Allan’s go to johnallans.com For more about Park Avenue Tavern go to parkavenuetavernnyc.com

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Bacardi 8 Year Rum – Time to Sip your Rum

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When most people think about Bacardi, they think Bacardi Superior white rum. This is the rum that you’ll find behind most bars, and typically it’s you’ll get when you order a ‘Rum and Coke.” Bacardi Superior is very light, slightly sweet, dry and clean, perfect for mixing into cocktails, and it goes well in Coke.

The universe of rum is vast with a tremendous number of different kinds of offerings beyond the basic white rum. Bacardi 8 Year Aged Rum is a great way to begin your exploration of rum beyond the standard white rum. It maintains many of the same easy qualities while adding to the mix flavors that come from the aging process.

Bacardi 8 Year Aged Rum has a light and soft nose with vanilla, brown sugar, and the slightest undercurrent of oak spice. The entry is soft and sweet with the vanilla and brown sugar leading and a subtle, charred oak note underneath. The oak spice builds slightly in the midpalate where it picks up the slightest bit of heat for a solid and clean finish.

Bacardi 8 Year Rum performs solidly both as a sipping rum served neat or over rocks, and as a mixing rum. Perhaps the best way to enjoy Bacardi 8 is in an Old Fashioned where the soft and flavorful qualities all come together.

Rum Old Fashioned

2 oz of Bacardi 8 Year Aged Rum
1 sugar cube or 1 tsp of sugar
3 dashes of bitters (Angostura, Cherry, or Chocolate Bitters all work well)
A dash of water or soda water (no more than 1 tsp)
Orange and Lemon Zest

Put the sugar in a glass and add the bitters and water. Stir together until the sugar has completely dissolved. Add the Bacardi 8 Year Rum and ice and stir well (at least 30 stirs). Add both a lemon and orange zest.

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Scrappy’s Bitters – New Drinks with Just a Dash

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You don’t have to be a mixologist to quickly change up a classic drink and transform it into something new. While many classic cocktails call for Angostura, Peychaud’s, and Regan’s Orange bitters, you can easily mix them up by substituting one of the many new bitters options now available.

One of the best of this “new wave” of bitters is Scrappy’s Bitters. Handmade and bottled in Seattle, Washington, by noted bartender Miles Thomas, Scrappy’s Bitters are intense in flavor and capture the fresh, true flavor notes of what they are made from. Scrappy’s Bitters are available in a myriad of flavors, including Grapefruit, Orange, Cardamom, Lime, Aromatic, Lavender, Chocolate, and Celery.

Of the flavors Scrappy’s offers, the Celery is by far the most amazing. Bursting with celery flavor, Scrappy’s Celery Bitters is a perfect addition to a vodka soda, giving it a fresh, crisp celery note. Because Scrappy’s is so intense in flavor, you only need a couple of dashes in your drinks. In addition to Celery, we love to add a few dashes of Scrappy’s Lime into our gin and tonics, a few dashes of Cardamom in our Old Fashioneds, and the Lavender in our daiquiris.

Scrappy’s is sold in both in full 5oz bottles and in four ½oz-bottle sample packs. There are two sample collections: a Citrus set that has the Lime, Grapefruit, Orange, and Cardamom; and an Aromatics set that includes Chocolate, Aromatic, Celery, and Lavender. The sets sell for around $23 and can be purchased online at Kaufmann Mercantile. They are a great way to get your feet wet experimenting with bitters.

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Maker’s 46 is Maker’s Mark on Steroids

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Most companies look at things in terms of brands, which typically means putting out a number of related products under a single brand name. Maker’s Mark has always seen things in terms of products, and they’re one of the few major companies that for years was a single product company. When you referred to Maker’s, you meant one and only thing: Maker’s Mark Bourbon.

Maker’s Mark established itself as a kinder, gentler bourbon – one with a lot of flavor but no kick, no harshness. Critics have often noted that the easier nature of Maker’s comes at the expense of a nice long finish. After running Maker’s Mark as a single product company for over 33 years, Bill Samuels, Jr. decided he wanted to leave behind something new as his legacy. To do this, he set out three criteria that would guide any new product: one, it needs to be yummy; two, it needs to be Maker’s Mark “on steroids”; and, three, it needs to have a long finish. Maker’s Mark was built on the ideal that whiskey could taste better, but a sweet, affable bourbon with a long finish was long considered impossible. Bill Samuels, Jr. really wanted to leave his mark on the bourbon space by figuring out how to accomplish this.

After a tremendous amount of experimentation, Bill Samuels, Jr. along with Master Distiller for Maker’s Mark, Kevin Smith (who is now the head of production for Jim Beam), came up with a way to take Maker’s Mark and build on it. To make Maker’s 46, they take bottle-ready Maker’s Mark and put it back in the barrel along with ten ‘roasted’ French oak staves. The whiskey is given an additional 90 days to age, during which time it takes on a lot of the wonderful qualities of the French oak. The result is a bourbon that is distinctly Maker’s Mark, on steroids.

Maker’s 46 takes all the wonderful front palate flavors of Maker’s Mark, including vanilla, caramel, and light oak, and adds a deeper vanilla note along with deep, sweet, cinnamon. Even though it’s higher proof than Maker’s (94 proof vs. 90 proof), it’s actually soft and easy, and you don’t taste the additional alcohol. With all that flavor, you get a nice long finish. Maker’s Mark has always shined when served neat, over ice, or with a simple mixer. Maker’s 46 expands Maker’s sweet spot, performing much better in cocktails like the Old Fashioned and Manhattan.

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The $10,000 Cocktail – David Delaney, Jr. & The Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge

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Imagine making a cocktail that could mean winning $10,000 and a job as the Global Brand Ambassador for Angostura Bitters and Rum. Talk about pressure. This past week, fifteen of the world’s best bartenders went head to head in Trinidad & Tobago for a chance to win this top prize. Each bartender was given exactly seven minutes to make two cocktails, a freestyle cocktail and a rum cocktail. They were then judged by some of the spirits industry’s luminaries, including Tony Abou-Gamin, the bartender who helped put the cocktail on the Las Vegas map, Jacob Briars, the award winning global brand ambassador for Leblon Cachaca, and Eric Forget, the cellar master for Hine Cognac.

Of the fifteen bartenders, three came from the United States: Ryan Maybee from The Rieger Hotel Grill & Exchange in Kansas City, Rachel Ford from The Monkey Bar in New York City, and David Delaney, Jr. formerly at Niche Hospitality in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Joining the US contingent was a host of bartenders from around the world including Nastassia Martin who works at London’s Hyde Bar, Rikki Carter from the Matterhorn Bar in Wellington, New Zealand, and Joe Sinagra from the Luxe Bar in Perth, Australia.

David Delaney, Jr. ultimately won the day with his drink “On Second Thought,” which both helped him win the competition and snagged the award for best freestyle drink. Delaney’s cocktail is a delicious mix of flavors that combines sweet notes with herbal and bitter notes, with some lemon juice to pull it all together.

On Second Thought
1 ½ oz Laird’s Apple Jack
½ oz Benedictine
½ oz Cherry Heering Liqueur
½ oz Maple Syrup (medium grade “A”)
¾ oz Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice
5 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters

Add all ingredients into mixing tin, add ice, shake and strain into pre-chilled coupe. Garnish with a cinnamon dusted, dehydrated lemon wheel and serve.

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The Famous Grouse – A Scotch Blend You Should Know

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Johnnie Walker and Chivas Regal tend to dominate the discussion when talking about blended scotch whisky, but the bottle I tend to grab more often is the lesser known The Famous Grouse. It’s slightly ironic that one of the best ‘hidden gems’ of the blended scotch whisky world is called “famous”, and although it may not be as famous as Johnnie Walker or Chivas Regal, it’s still one of the top ten Scotch whiskies sold in the world.

A blend is only as good as the malts that go into it, and Famous Grouse draws from some pretty amazing malts, including ones from The Macallan and Highland Park (which I consider one of the best whiskys in the world). Famous Grouse ages a significant amount of its malt in ex-sherry casks versus ex-bourbon barrels, and the result is a fruitier, sweeter, and more lush blend that’s extremely easy to drink and mixes very well in cocktails.

The nose on Famous Grouse is soft, sweet, and fruity with clear sherry notes combining with dried apricot. Underneath all that is a thick, sweet honey note that is incredibly inviting. The entry for Famous Grouse is very flavorful but also very soft. The sherry notes from the nose are clearly there along with vanilla, toffee, and a nice barley grain note. There is a perfect balance in the mid palate as the sweet pulls back a little and a toasted oak and subtle smokey flavor emerges. The finish is nice and easy with more of the toffee and barley lingering on the palate with just a kiss of heat.

Famous Grouse works perfectly straight up as it’s as easy drinking as many Irish whiskeys, including Jameson. Even though it’s as easy as an Irish, it has a lot more flavor than most Irish blends. Famous Grouse really shines when it’s mixed. My favorite way to enjoy Famous Grouse is to put a shot of Famous Grouse over ice in a highball and then top the glass up with Reed’s Ginger Beer. It couldn’t be easier.

Typically found under $25 a bottle, Famous Grouse is one of the most affordable quality blends on the market. You may not be familiar with The Famous Grouse, but it’s a scotch blend you should know.