A Muddled Thought

With Father’s Day vastly approaching, and summer on the horizon if our previous article on Father Day Spirits didn’t have something that caught your eye, perhaps getting dad some rum that goes great in summer drinks might be the way to go.

Tommy Bahama had Allen Katz of Southern Wine and Spirits create a few recipes that highlight the flavors of both the Golden Sun and White Sand varieties of Tommy Bahama.

Tommy’s Punch
10 Fresh Mint Leaves
1 ½ oz Tommy Bahama Golden Sun Rum
½ oz Le Combier Triple Sec
½ oz Fresh Lime Juice
½ oz Orgeat Syrup
3 dashes Angostura Bitters

Shake ingredients over ice and strain into a collins glass with ice. Top with Sprite and garnish with a fresh mint sprig and a lime wedge.

CASELLE
2 oz Tommy Bahama White Sand Rum
1 oz Campari
1 oz Sweet Vermouth

Shake ingredients over ice and strain into an old-fashioned glass ¾ filled with ice. Garnish with an orange twist.

FLAT BOTTOM PUNCH
1 oz Tommy Bahama Golden Sun Rum
1 oz JC Cognac
½ oz Fresh Orange Juice
1 oz Fresh Lime Juice
½ oz Simple Syrup
1 Egg White

Shake ingredients over ice and strain into an old-fashioned glass filled with ice. Garnish with orange and lime twists (discard).

LOVEBIRDS
1 ½ oz Tommy Bahama Golden Sun Rum
¾ oz Fresh Lime Juice
1 oz Simple Syrup
6 Fresh Mint Leaves
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
2 oz Prosecco

Muddle Mint with Lime Juice and Simple Syrup in a mixing glass. Add Rum and Bitters and shake over ice. Strain into a cocktail glass or coupe and top with chilled Champagne.

Okay so what does this mean?

Well first of all it’s an excuse to make cocktails using Cachaca. Okay so I have your attention, another excuse to make cocktails on a Friday right? Sounds like fun, but what is Cachaca exactly?

Well it’s a Brazilian spirit that’s distilled from fermented sugar cane juice. Sounds like rum doesn’t it? Well its a bit different, while rum is mostly made from molasses, cachaca is only made using sugarcane.

Now what makes June 12th International Cachaca Day?

This day commemorates the anniversary of June 12th, 1744 when the selling and production of cachaca became illegal in Brazil. Since that time cachaca has become a favorite among mixologists through the US and the world. Keeping that in mind here are a few cocktails that might be fun to try this Friday, or throughout the course of the summer.

Courtesy of Bar 44 inside the Royalton Hotel-

The Royalton Caipirinha
1.5oz Cabana Cachaça
1 whole Strawberry
½ a lime quartered
.5oz St. Germain
.5oz Simple Syrup

Garnish: No
Glass: Rocks
Preparation: Muddle the fruit add the rest of the ingredients, add enough ice for one cocktail shake and pour all contents into a rocks glass

The Beach Comber
1 oz. Cabana Cachaça
1 oz. Veev Acai liqueur
1 oz. kiwi puree
½ oz. of fresh lime juice
1 oz. of simple syrup
Shake and pour

The Gisele

2.5 oz. Cabana Cachaça
3 tablespoons Acerola puree (Acerola is an Amazonian cherry)
Splash of fresh lemon juice
Rose champagne

Combine Cabana Cachaça, acerola puree & lemon juice in a mixing glass with ice. Shake well & strain into a chilled martini glass. Top with rose champagne. Garnish with 3 flower petals & a lemon twist.

Courtesy of The Blue Owl Lounge-

The Marpessa

1 oz Cabana Cachaça
1/4 oz Orchard Pear Liqueur
1/4 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
1/4 oz Fresh Lime Juice
1/4 oz simple syrup
1 oz Aloe Vera

This is the first of a new column on A Muddled Thought, to be known as the Brown Spirit Highlight.

The goal of this column will be to highlight a particular bourbon or scotch aka the brown spirits that go above and beyond quality and flavor in their execution.

The honor of the first brown spirit highlight goes to Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon.

The secret to the products within the Four Roses family is a combination of several different mashbill recipes in conjunction with 5 proprietary yeast recipes to create any one of ten final recipes.

One of the end results of this process is their Small Batch. Their small batch is made by combining two of these mash bill recipes with two yeast recipes: “One known as the O yeast for notes of fruit and the other “K” yeast for a spicy flavor. This creates a flavor profile that’s made up of mild notes of coffee, cocoa and hints of vanilla. Adding a splash of water the profile expands to include notes of caramel, nuttiness and some mild spice as it hits your tongue.

Four Roses Small Batch retails for $27.99.

I remember the first time I came across Bittermens Bitters, about a year and a half ago. I had just ordered a “Conference” at Death and Company as the ingredients had caught my attention. Comprised of Rittenhouse Rye, Buffalo Trace, Cognac, Calvados, Angostura and Bittermens Xocolati Mole Bitters, this has to this day never been topped as as my all time favorite drink. As a self-proclaimed cocktail geek, I have harassed the owner of Bittermens, Avery Glasser since that very day for a bottle.

Due to bitters not exactly being alcohol nor exactly falling into the category of food, a good portion of the delay in getting Bittermens to the masses as been obtaining approval from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as well both the FDA. After getting approval for sale from both of these agencies, Avery then had to obtain approval at the state level.

As of today, June 18th, 2009 Bittermans has made their Xocolatl Mole and their Grapefruit bitters available for sale.Hopefully more flavors will follow in the near future.

To give you an idea of the potential for cocktails that these flavors open up I’ve included some recipes provided by Bittermens that showcase the bitters.

For starters here’s the recipe I mentioned earlier-

The Conference
A play on the Old Fashioned by Brian Miller at Death and Company, 2007. It’s one of those drinks that evolves as the ice slowly melts into the cocktail.

1/4 oz Demerara Sugar Syrup
1/2 oz Rittenhouse Bonded Rye (100 Proof)
1/2 oz Buffalo Trace Bourbon
1/2 oz Cognac
1/2 oz Calvados
2 Dashes Angostura Bitters
1 Dash Xocolatl Mole Bitters

Garnish
Orange Twist (wide)
Lemon Twist (wide)

Stir all the ingredients aside from the twists in an ice filled shaker glass. Strain into a double old fashioned glass over ice. Add orange and lemon twists.

And another drink courtesy of Death and Company showcasing the Xocolatl Bitters-

Latin Quarter
Joaquín Simó reinterprets the classic Sazerac with fantastic results. Death and Company, 2007.

2 oz Ron Zacapa 23 year old Rum
1/2 Bar Spoon Sugar Cane Syrup
1 Dash Angostura Bitters
1 Dash Xocolatl Mole Bitters
3 Dashes Peychaud Bitters
Lemon Twist

Rinse
Absinthe, Herbsaint or Ricard

Fill a double old fashioned glass with ice and a small amount of Absinthe, Herbsaint or Ricard. Stir the Rum, Sugar Cane Syrup and bitters in an ice filled shaker glass. Dump the ice from the old fashioned glass and rotate the glass to ensure that the rinse coats the entire inside of the glass. Strain into the glass. Twist lemon peel over the glass and discard (do not put the twist in the glass).

A drink created by a Ago Perrone of Montgomery Place that showcases both the Xocolatl and Grapefruit Bitters together-

45 ml Cabana Cachaca
20 ml Lillet Rouge
2 dashes Grapefruit Bitters
2 dashes Xocolatl Mole Bitters
5 ml Simple Syrup

Lemon Twist (discard after twisting)

Stir in a large beaker (like the one in the picture at the top of this page) and strain into a cocktail coupe. Twist and discard lemon and garnish with a fresh cherry.

And as the guys from Death and Company never stop creating masterpieces here’s another Xocolatl showcase recipe-

New England Daiquiri
A modification of a classic cocktail by Joaquín Simó at Death and Company, 2007.

2 oz Ron Zacapa 23 year old Rum
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
2 tsp Maple Syrup
1 Dash Xocolatl Mole Bitters

Shake and serve up in a cocktail glass.

And one final drink based around the Grapefruit bitters-

Bob McCoy of Eastern Standard Fame created the Diablo Azul-

3/4 oz Siembra Azul Blanco Tequila
3/4 oz Lime Juice
3/4 oz Yellow Chartreuse
3/4 oz Cointreau
Dash Bittermens Grapefruit Bitters

Shake and serve up with no garnish.

Bittermen’s Xocolatl and Grapefruit Bitters are available for order from The Bitter Truth.