Lurking in the Deep Blue

The theme for this month’s MxMo is Spooky Sips. While I tried to think of something scary it dawned on me, that there must be a huge cultural factor in what scares us.

Denmark became a Lutheran country with the stroke of a pen the day before Halloween in 1536.

From that day the church stopped observing saints days - and the king grabbed all property and land from the roman-catholic church.

I’m sure the reformation did not stop common people from putting out lamps cut not from pumpkins but gourds since they were plentiful to fend off evil spirits, but the tradition slowly faded and did not return until about 10-15 years ago.

So if spirits from the dead does not hunt us, what does? Being surrounded on all sides except for 68 kilometer land border with Germany by water anything lurking in the sea will get our blood pumping.

Not that we have many dangerous sea creatures in the cold waters of the northern Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. But the idea is scary.

Denmark send out the worlds first expedition with oceanographic tasks in 1761. And since then there have been several and several brilliant Lego Deep Sea Exploration Sets to inspire future oceanographers. (Yes I want a set)

The most famous expedition was the Galathea II expedition from 1950-1952. The scientists found life at the bottom of the Philippine Trench - at the time thought to be the deepest spot on earth.

So in response to the request from JFL of Rated R Cocktails for spooky sips, mine had to come from the bottom of the sea.

As an interesting Tiki aside - one of the regular sailors on the ship - Ole Reiman - brought home huge amounts of ethnographic and opened a bar called Galatheakroen in Copenhagen that has an amazing Tiki vibe but serves mainly beer and is famous for it’s Rijsttafel.

I don’t know if Reiman visited any tiki bars during Galathea’s circumnavigation - but according to the log the ships was in Honolulu for 3 days in March of 1952 and 10 days in April so it’s not impossible.

And now for the Lurking in the Deep Blue:

• 6 cl white rum - I used Plantation 3 star
• 0.75 cl creme de banana - I used Giffard
• 0.75 cl blue curacao - I used homemade
• Big dash of creme de menthe - I used Tempus Fugit Spirits Crème de Menthe 
• 9 cl tonic water - I used Pellegrino

Stir the first four ingredients with ice, serve over ice in a highball glass with the tonic added at the end.

Or go crazy in a fish bowl with Titanic ice cubes, stones and sea shells (I boiled mine for 5 minutes), fish cut from orange peel and blood - I had some thick rhubarb shrub - grenadine would be good too. What ever scares you.

And now I am off to the beach - to quote John Masefield from his poem Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

I will leave you with a couple of nice videos

A 20 minute long film from the actual expedition - unfortunately this is in Danish only but around the 17 minute mark the net is brought up from the deep and life discovered.

A delightful portrait of the now 96 year old scientist who discovered life at the bottom of the Philippine Trench with English subtitles:


The Old Man and the Deep Sea from Natural History Museum Denmark on Vimeo.

Pink Cadillac

My shameful cocktail secret hails from the longest running cocktailbar in Copenhagen outside of hotel bars. All you need to know to see the interior in your minds eye is the bar’s name: MexiBar.

Normally I would never admit, that I have partaken and even enjoyed a drink from the Dark Ages of Mixology, but Whitney of Tipicular Fixin’s leaves me with no choice with her MxMo theme: Drink of Shame:

So, you’re a certified, mixologist, craft-tender, bar chef, or fine spirit enthusiast…now. But, there was a time when you only ordered Long Island Iced Tea. Or, maybe you always made the Jello shots for your frat? Perhaps you’re the reason that your local had an Island Oasis machine for so long? Rye & Ginger? Vodka Seven? Someone was ordering these things. Your street cred would be ruined if you ordered or (gasp) served one now, but don’t you miss it, just a little? Wouldn’t you love to have one more Jolly Rancher? A chance to drink a mudslide without shame? We all made questionable drink choices in our past, the popular drinks from 1970 to the year 2000 were a cheap, sugary mess. Now is the time to resurrect your favourite drink from the time before modern Mixology. Give a new life to the drink… maybe you need to use fresh ingredients, or you can try elevating the spirits. Make everything from scratch or remove an offending ingredient. Do whatever you can to bring back and legitimize a drink you used to love. 

So let me introduce you to MexiBar: It opened sometime in the early 1990’s, it’s still running and must be be very close to it’s 25th anniversary.

The bar serves a few old classics made with great speed but no real love and many, many drinks of the 80’s variety with lot’s of vodka, cream, garishly coloured “fruit” juice and the garnish is often umbrellas and hanging monkeys.

For a few years that was the choice you had in Copenhagen if you didn’t want to go to a hotel bar to get a cocktail.

So we chose Mexibar. And regardless of how often I tried to make “good” choice when ordering at some point during the evening I started to drink Pink Cadillacs.

According to the bar menu it’s a mix of gin, vodka, Malibu, cream, grenadine, pineapple and orange juice topped off with bitter lemon.

So that’s what I had to work with.

Since I refuse to buy Malibu on the grounds of being a snob I left a good amount of fresh coconut squares steep in Plantation 3 Star white rum for 10 days.

I also decided to get a little more taste into the drink by using a good, clean dill aquavit instead of vodka. Homemade Grenadine, check, a decent bitter lemon, check, and of cause fresh juice. And to add to my overwhelming snobbery: Organic Cream.

Time to mix:

• 3 cl gin - I used Tanqueray
• 3 cl dill aquavit - I used D Argentum from Den Ny Spritfabrik - you could use vodka instead
• 1,5 cl coconut rum - if using Malibu I would say up the amount of gin to 4,5 cl
• 3 cl fresh pineapple juice
• 3 cl fresh orange juice
• 2 cl grenadine - I bring fresh pomegranate juice to a boil with half the amount of sugar, strain and cool it.
• 3 cl heavy cream
• 5-6 cl of bitter lemon

Measure everything but the bitter lemon into a shaker, shake hard with plenty of ice, strain into a hurricane glass and top off with bitter lemon.

Garnish with orange slice and pineapple tops and every piece of 80’s drinks paraphernalia you can lay your hands on.

The taste? Sweet like candy although the bitter lemon saves it from being undrinkable to my superior and evolved taste buds. But dang we had fun at MexiBar.

Blugu

The theme for this month's Mixology Monday is Blue, I can't complain about it because I picked it and put the goal posts as far apart as I possibly could in my announcement post.

January needs a bit of color – or perhaps the month after all the holiday mania makes you feel…blue? Either way this month’s Mixology Monday is a chance to live those emotions out. You can dazzle us with a brilliant blue drink or you can share that blue feeling with a melancholic drink.
Blue has been predicted as a new cocktail trend several times in recent years… But any mixer of blue drinks is faced with a bit of a dilemma as there is nothing “natural” about E133 – the most common of blue food colors: Do I really want to mix chemicals into my prefect mixture of fresh juices and good booze? Feel free to interpret blue as freely as you wish – if natural is the way you want to go blueberries, violets, cornflower or red cabbage could be good ingredients to work with.


My own entry this month started with the blue curacao I started 21 days ago. This recipe was my inspiration, but not one I followed.

I started with three different oranges: A navels orange, a Bergamot and a Seville orange. It would probably be more correct to say three different citrus fruits, the Bergamot my be in the lemon family.

I put them in a jar with one whole split vanilla bean, eight cardamon pods, one star anise and a bit of extra fresh peel from half a Bergamot I had lying around. I added 3 dl sugar and the filled the jar with aquavit and brandy in the ratio 4:1. The aquavit was a mild tasting brand without much dill or caraway.

I shook the jar daily for a week until the sugar was dissolved and then today after about 25 days I broke into the jar. Literally - the lid was stuck - and filtered the resulting orange liqueur through two different sieves.

Then came the moment, when I was ready to add the E133 blue food coloring. My glass bottle was rinsed out with boiling water and filled with about half the orange liqueur.  Everything was ready. Except me: No reading glasses. I reach for a bottle of color, poured and was very surprise to see a deep warm green color.

Well, guess what - green food color will do that!

Good thing I still had half the orange liqueur left. Second attempt was a succes: A deep blue color. I can dilute it with water for a lighter color and less alcohol, I will do this as needed.

To test this new marvel of a cocktail ingredient I settled on the footprints of a Pegu.  Behold the Blugu:

• 6 cl gin - I used Bulldog
• 2 cl blue curacao - I used my homemade undiluted
• 2 cl white grapefruit juice
• 1 cl banan liqueur - I used Giffard<

Measure everything into a shaker, fill with ice and shake good and hard. Strain into cocktail coupe and enjoy.

Copenhagen Stick

The moment I saw that pineapple was the theme for this edition of Mixology Monday I knew I wanted to work with a childhood summer treat: Københavnerstang. (Literally meaning: Copenhagen Stick)

Bartending Notes challenges us with the mighty pineapple and even made us a sweet little pineapple MxMo-logo:



The idea is to: "...bring the king of fruits back! After being canned, mixed with all sorts of sugary liquids and blended into… some 80s dreadful cocktails, the pineapple needs more respect! Once a symbol of hospitality, the King of Fruits might be know misunderstood. One of the greatest non-citrus souring agents, used for crazy garnish ideas, infusions, old gum syrup flavoring, the pineapple is a fruit to be reckoned. Be in a tiki cocktails, an old school classic like the Algonquin, a crazy flavor pairing or just mixed in a delicious Verdita, get creative and make a cocktail using any part of this delicious, juicy fruit or share you favorite pineapple cocktail with us!"

Since sometimes in the 50's the major ice cream company in Denmark have produced an ice cream lolly with a center of vanilla ice cream center and then a thin layer of pineapple sorbet on the outside. The wrapper is decorated with drawing from Copenhagen and Tivoli - the amusementpark in the city center all befitting the name Københavnerstang.

There is nothing gourmet or New Nordic about it - it's most likely made from margarine, fake vanilla and artificial pineapple, but I've always liked it.

In other to recreate it in a glass I had to decide on a base spirit. I do believe Danish bars since back in the 80'ies have made one with vodka and overly sweet pineapple juice. But that's not what I wanted.

So I decided to go with Del Maguey's Crème de Mezcal, it has a little smoke from the mezcal and added sweetness, the vanilla I introduced by way of Galliano and then I mixed a little lemon juice into the pineapple juice to balance out all the sweetess. It workes well and would make a lovely summer dessert cocktail.

• 4,5 cl Creme de Mezcal
• 6 cl pineapple juice (I just put chunks of a pineapple in food processor and strained the juice of)
• 2 cl Galliano
• 1,5 cl lemon juice

Measure everything into a shaker, add ice and shake well. The pineapple juice will give you cocktail a lovely head of white foam.

And then since I couldn't find a place close by selling the original ice cream lolly (it's mostly enjoyed by old folks like me) I crochet one as a garnish. (jump past photo for instructions:)


Round 1: Using yellow cotton yarn sc 6 in magic ring (6)
Round 2: 2 scs in each st around (12)
Round 3 : * sc in next st , 2 scs in next st *. Repeat from * around (18)
Round 4: * sc in next 2 sts , 2 scs in next st * . Repeat from * around (24)
Round 5-Round 8: sc  in each st around
Round 9-Round 10: sc in each st around using off white cotton yarn

Ava

Some of my favorites are coming together in this cocktail: Cats and absinthe.

I'm far from the only one who sees a strong connection between the two. The brilliant poster for the endlessly fascinating Absinth Depot Berlin hangs over my chair and reminds me daily.

When Nick of The Straight Up announced anise as the theme for this month's Mixology Monday - I knew that I wanted to mix with absinthe even if that falls squarely in the playing it safe bracket.

Then when a good friend of mine send me an adorable picture (your see it at the end of the post) of her new kitten sniffing her cocktail and I suggested mixing one for the little one, my faith was sealed. The kitten is named Avalon - Ava for short.

The Ava is basically an absinthe sour:

• 3 cl absinthe (mine is at a staggering 74 percent alcohol, if yours has a lower proof use 4,5 cl)
• Juice from one seville orange - if you can't get them, don't make the drink.
• 1/2 seville orange seeds removed and cut into four chunks
• 1 table spoon organic sugar
• 1 cl cherry liqueur - I used Frederiksdal New Nordic but Cherry Heering would work too
• Seltzers

Put the chunks of the seville orange in the bottom of a shaker, add the sugar and the juice and muddle. Add the absinthe and ice and shake.

Fill a nice wine - or absinthe - glass with crushed ice, strain the cocktail, top with the seltzers and try to float the liqueur, mine immediately seeped into the drink.

Emperor Penguin Flip

I made two decisions the moment I saw the theme for this months MxMo: I was not going to shop and add booze from hitherto unexplored continents and I wanted to have a go at all the continents.

But let Stewart of Putney Farm - this month's gracious host - present the intercontinental theme himself:

Everywhere we travel these days we see cocktails on the menu. And not just here in the USA, but all around the world. And that’s not only the drinks, but the ingredients as well… So let’s celebrate the global reach of cocktails with an “Intercontinental” Mixology Monday challenge. Create a cocktail with “ingredients” from at least 3, but preferably 4,5 or 6 continents. And if you can include Antarctica, then you get a Gold Star. And remember, sometimes the tools used, glassware, names or back stories of cocktails are important “ingredients.” Creativity and a bit of narrative exploration are encouraged. So if you have been waiting on buying that bottle of Japanese Scotch, Bundaberg rum from Australia, Pisco or Cachaca from South America or Madagascar vanilla, now may be the time to try them out….except for the Bundy…trust us on that. Have fun.

Like most participants in this months MxMo I had the greatest trouble finding a way to incorporate the continent of Antarctica into a drink. 

As far as I know the only two life forms actually calling that barren, icy desert home are penguins and lichen. Neither of which are readily available for purchase.

However should you ever come across a fresh egg from an Emperor Penguin this is the drink to mix: Emperor Penguin Flip.

It even has a subtitle - the Cherry-Garrad Flip.

You see my most cherished book is not a bar book, it's not even a book about the Titanic. It's a book about three mens quest to secure enough emperor penguin eggs to test a theory that penguins were the missing link between reptiles and birds.

In 1911 they went on a 60 mile sled trek from the winter quarters at Cape Evans of Robert Falcon Scott's British Antarctic Expedition to Cape Crozier.

This was at the height of the Antarctic Winter, so they made the trip in total darkness and in temperatures as low a -60 C. They suffered greatly and nearly died during a blizzard that blew their tent away - but they found five eggs and brought them back to base camp.

This trip has been described in a book by the only survivor of the three Apsley Cherry-Garrad, his two companions Dr. Wilson and Birdie Bowers died with Scott on the return trek after they were beaten to the South Pole by Roald Amundsen.

Cherry-Gerrads book The Worst Journey in the World is my most cherished book. 

I do hope my drink is not the worst journey around the world but here are the ingredients and their continents:

• 5 cl golden rum - I used Diplomatico from Venezuela and South America
• 2 cl New Nordic Cherry Liqueur - Europe
• 1 egg - Europe (or Antarctica if it's from an Emperor Penguin)
• 1 cl coffee and wasabi syrup - bring equal amounts of Ethiopian Coffee, Sugar to a boil - as it cools of add a dab of wasabi for fire and balance - Africa and Asia
• Grated macadamia nut - Australia
• Cherry Bitters - North America

Place rum, cherry liqueur, egg and syrup in a shaker. Add ice and shake vigorously. Double strain into pretty stemware and garnish by drawing feather in foam with a couple of dashes of cherry bitters and grate macadamia nut on top.

And the eggs from the emperor penguins? Only three were intact at the end of the worst journey in the world. Cherry-Garrad brought them to the Museum of Natural History in London but had a bit of difficulty convincing anyone they were important. They weren't actually examined until 1934 and by then the theory of penguins being missing links were already disproven. Good things as the embryos did not look any different than other bird embryos.

And should you ever get a hold of a fresh emperor egg for this cocktail you need to multiply all other ingredients by 11 as an emperor penguin egg has a volume of about 500 ml as opposed to a medium chicken egg with a volume of about 43 ml. Also the taste and appearance of the egg might surprise you.

Fire Engine with Lights Flashing

I was a little pressed for time on Monday, as the deadline for this month's Mixology Monday approached, and I did not find time to mix my runner up cocktail.

Then today as I noticed my raspberry bush was almost bend to the ground with ripe berries I knew what a great start to my little midweek weekend would be: A Fire Engine.

In Denmark it's a quintessential 80's, dark age of mixology-type drink.

Danish kids have been served Red Soda or Hindbærbrus - a horrible artificial raspberry soda pop - since before I was born.

In the 80's someone figured the taste was strong enough to mask even the cheapest vodka and the Fire Engine was born.

At some point someone wanted to get drunk faster and added Jägermeister and came up with the name Fire Engine with Lights Flashing.

I figured this drink could be salvaged by decent ingredients, so I started by making fresh raspberry cordial.

I make the stuff as old school as possible: Equal amount of berries and water, and half the amount of sugar along with the juice of one lemon (about 1 dl) plonked into a small pot.

Then I cook this - a gently rolling boil - for 4-5 minutes and strain and press all the liquid out of the pulp.

Since I plan to drink this within the next 1-2 days I just bottle it and stick it in the fridge. A little vodka will probably add up to a week to it's life.
 
Next I set to mixing in a highball glass with plenty of ice.

• 6 cl gin
• 1 cl Fernet Branca
• Raspberry soda*

Start by adding the gin and almost top with the soda - I just mixed equal amounts of cordial and seltzer but you have to find your own golden ration - gently stir until glass is chilled and then float a small amount of Fernet Branca on top and garnish with a slice of orange expending the oil on top of the drink.

Simply put - raspberry and gin is a match made in heaven, as the Clover Club Cocktail is testament to - and the liquorice notes of the Fernet works well with raspberry too.

If liquorice is not your thing - then either leave it out, in which case the drink is just a Fire Engine - or mix it with the gin to start with so it's incorporated into the finale taste profile.

Either way welcome to my youth.

Hot Rod - MxMo LXXVI

The name of my entry for MxMo LXXVI is only really fun if you understand Danish: Rod is Danish for root and this cocktail contains juice of not just one root but two - one of them hot enough to be called the chili of the North and supposedly burn the stomach lining of a cow or horse unfortunate enough to eat it.

This months theme for Mixology Monday is Fire. Kate of Muse of Doom - the gracious host - puts it like this in her announcement post:

Tiki-philes have their flaming spent lime shells and scorpion bowls. Classic cocktailers have the magic of a flamed orange zest. Molecular mixologists have their Smoking Guns. (and yes, frat boys have their flaming shots.) Even brunchtime drinkers have spicy Bloody Marys.

You don't have to go full Blue Blazer, not nearly -- heck, you could go full Fireball Whiskey! (or Fire Rock Pale Ale, etc..) You could riff on the Old Flame or come up with an inventive name of your own. You could even use a good firewater or burned wine. (and if you're grilling fruit, save some for me, will ya?)

In essence, bring the heat! Bring the Fire! Bring your inspiration!

On a serious note: remember that lass in Britain who lost her stomach because the mixologists weren't in control of the dangerous elements they were using in a cocktail? Let's have none of that here, huh? There's a lot more to Fire than just the electrochemical reactions happening on the end of a lit match. Stay safe and trust your gut about what you're comfortable doing. We're all here to have fun.

I immediately knew I wanted to work with Armoracia rusticana commonly known as horseradish. It's about the only edible plant grown in Denmark that has any kind of heat - other than stinging needles, but been there, done that.

The next obvious ingredient was aquavit - a name not often used in Denmark - most people call it snaps or brændevin. The latter literally means burned wine, because the first commercially produced spirit in Denmark was made by distilling wine. Pharmacists and munks had the market with this expensive medicin believed to cure anything from pox to the plague from the 1200s.  If it didn't at least you died happy - if you could afford it because obviously it was expensive.

Not until the 1600s when someone figured out snaps could be distilled from fermented wheat instead of expensive imported wine did aquavit gain popularity as a beverage and not as medicine.

Since I was already looking a local ingredients I decided to use carrot juice as a mixer hence the second root.

And when a friend gave me an amazing bottle of a tincture of Apothecary's Rose it all came together:

• 6 cl aquavit - I used Brøndums Snaps which has a mild taste of caraway
• 6 cl carrot juice
• 3 cl lemon juice
• 3 cl horseradish syrup*
• 3 drops of rose tincture**

Shake with plenty of ice and double strain into cocktail coup. Garnish with tiny carrot.

It turned out really well - the horseradish does not overpower the other ingredients, but it adds a bit of bite along with the aquavit to balance out the sweetness form the carrot juice. The rose tincture brought it all together.

* Bring equal amounts of fresh grated horseradish, sugar and water to a boil. Let steep for 15-20 minutes and then strain.

** My friend Dana, who made the rose tincture, kindly supplies this recipe:
Stuff a small jam jar full of petals + stamens of rosa officinalis. It must be officinalis, because rugosa imparts the scent but not the flavour, whreas the other gallicas impart the flavour but not the scent ... get the picture? Officinalis.

Cover with vodka and let steep three days. Strain, wring all the moisture out of the petals - and repeat three times more. Four glassfuls of petals + stamens to the same jarful of vodka!

Strain, stopper airtight, and let sit for three months at least to mature before using.

This yields a very concentrated 'image of a rose'. We are talking drops, not dashes. May be diluted 3 - 4 times and will still give you an intense scent and flavour of midsummer roses.

Mixology Monday LXXIV Cherries Round-up - part 2

Hopefully you have enjoyed reading about all the amazing contributions to Mixology Monday with a cherry theme in the first part of the round-up.

If not, hurry over, there are many pretty and tasty drinks to try and/or be inspired by.

Rowen of Fogged in Lounge leads off the second part of the round-up with a cocktail he calls Silver Spurs. It's the happy marriage of tequila, sherry and Maraschino liqueur.

In part one of the round-up we have already met Remember the Main, a Rye based classic cocktail that Nick mixed for us.

Jacob Grier from Liquidity Preference sends a variation of that cocktail. Anahuac has a tequila base and takes it's name from a Mexican navy ship. Unlike her American counter part, the Maine, Anahuac did not experience any catastrophic episodes at sea and was quietly scrapped in 1938.

Ceccotti from Bartending Notes takes us through three sours all mixed with Maraschino Liqueur. First one of my favorites, the Aviation and then the Prado and Prado Mineiro mixed on tequila and cachaca respectively and both made smooth with egg white. 

For the second time this MxMo black pepper pops up as a way to compliment the taste of cherry. Todd used pepper in his cocktail Backhand Compliment and Zach of The Venture Mixologist uses pepper in his cocktail.

When in France is a cognac based cocktail mixed with Leopold Bros Michigan Tart Cherry Liqueur. Zach has infused the pepper in grain spirit for a pepper tincture, definitely something I will try.

Then let us head to the 70's cocktail culture. A time known as the dark age of cocktails. Mike from Disco Ginferno shows us otherwise with a cocktail from Playboy's Host and Bar Book from 1971.

The San Juan Sling is a rum based cocktail and looks amazing:

And then a warm welcome to a new participant in MxMo.  And what an impressive debut from Chris and A Bar Above. Not only his first MxMo post but with a video to boot.

The Lone Rainier is a wonderful sounding cocktail based on gin, with cherry, ginger and honey as tasters. And not just any cherries but the priced yellow and pink Rainier cherries developed in the state of Washington.


I don't know if it never happens, that two identical cocktails are submitted to MxMo. It didn't happen this time but we have two with almost identical names. Remember the corset fabric inspired cocktail Fred mixed? The Cherry Blossom Brocade.

Well, Scott of Sip, Strain & Sip has named one of his two entries Cherry Blossom. This gin based cocktail merges St. Germaine and a clear Cherry Liqueur for a real pretty result.

Scott gives us an excellent recipe for preserved cherries that he also uses as a garnish in his second cocktail Cherry Bomb. This is quite a tiki sounding cocktail mixed on rum with pineapple juice and clear cherry liqueur among other ingredients.

The good people of the eGullet Forums sends four lovely cherry cocktails to the party.

Chris Amirault mixed two cocktails with Cherry Heering. The first Tommy Appleseed is an exciting mix of Old Tom Gin, Apple Brandy and Ardbeg Scotch Whisky. His second offering is Sachaca Sling. No photos and I can't find a link deeper than this.

FrogPrincess calls her cocktail Cherry Pop but it's all booze - gin, Maraschino and muddled cherries. A deceptive looking drink definitely not for kids:

Fernet Branca and cherries in a cocktail? Haresfur thinks so and made a variation on the Fernet Cocktail from the Savoy Cocktail Book that also includes a home made Polish cherry liqueur and sounds wonderfully medicinal. This I have to try:

To round of MxMO LXXIV two cocktails that dares to use the word daiquiri in relation to cocktails not strictly rum, lime and sugar.

JFL of Rated R Cocktails mixes an Oregon Outcast - well blends actually - half a cup fresh cherries goes into this ice cold mix based on 12 year demerara rum. 

And I took my clue from a banana daiquiri with dried parsley and added a cherry liqueur drenched ice cone for the full disaster look in The Red Volcano.

UPDATE: I forgot Mark from Cardiff Cocktails in the round-up. Really bad manners especially as his contribution is an Aviation with extra cherry oomph. He calls it Carlig Cocktail and he adds both Cherry Heering and cherry bitters to a base of gin and Maraschino Liqueur and ends up with this pretty presentation:

So there you have it 33 34 amazing cherry cocktails to last you until the next MxMo. It I have forgotten anyone or misunderstood your creative ways let me know. Thanks for participating and thanks to Fred for keeping us all busy with MxMo.

Mixology Monday LXXIV Cherries Round-up - part 1

Like a typical neurotic hostess I was concerned that nobody would participate as I sent out the invitation for this months Mixology Monday.

After the broad themes of drink your vegetables and witches garden in April and May I feared my theme of cherries was way too narrow.

I needed not to have wringed a single hand - you contributed an amazing 33 34 drinks in total (I overlooked an entry) and my spread sheet for getting an overview runs a staggering 10 pages.

The 33 drinks utilizes cherries in many, many forms from fresh fruit to a homemade Polish cherry liqueur and everything in between.

So let's get started because: Dang, cherry cocktails are pretty!

Christa and Shaun of Booze Nerds sends two cocktails.

The Southern Virgin is a fizz mixed with muddled fresh cherries, bourbon and St. Germaine. If it tastes half as refreshing as it looks I'll have a couple:

The second cocktail - Peruvian Disco - is a clever use of syrup from brandied cherries either commercial ones like Luxardo Maraschino Cherries or homemade ones. The syrup is balanced out by Pisco and orange and lemon juice.

Stew from 901 Very Good Cocktails uses Kirchwasser and Cherry Bitters in his intriguing sounding The Cherry Heering No. 2 where the surprise to me is the pear liqueur.

Raff from The Shorter Straw really got into the cherry theme and mixed three cocktails while at the same time taking on Jeffrey Morgenthaler and his claim to make the worlds best Amaretto Sour.

But he started off with the pretty in pink, the Sour Cherry Ramos Gin Fizz. It gets the stunning color from the home made sour cherry soda Raff made for the occasion:

His next presentation is the Amaretto Sour with organic sour cherry jam as the magic ingredient. It certainly looks tasty:

After these two rather complicated cocktails his last offering is a cognac based swizzle. His Casta Swizzle involves muddled sour cherries after they have been flambéed by a burning Angostura Spray, rum, absinthe and several juices. Well done!

One of the ingredients I was hoping someone would mix with is Belgian cherry beer.

And that is exactly what Dustin from Dunder and Lees does. His Guatemalan Poker Hand utilizes both cherry beer and Red Stag Cherry Bourbon for a very hearty sounding cocktail. And he give a great introduction to Belgian beer a long the way.

And then we jump from beer - although as Dustin mentions some Belgian beers are brewed for childen - to cherry soda. I have to admit I didn't know the stuff existed, but it sure lookes tasty.

Ian from Tempered Spirits mixes two cocktail with Cheerwine soda which dates all the way back to 1918. Cheerwine cocktail No. 1 is mixed on gin, it's a variation of a gin rickey and looks like a thirst quencher.

Cheerwine Cocktail No. 2 is a cherry soda variation of an Americano and looks every bit as delicious as No. 1.

Fred from Cocktail Virgin Slut serves a liquid fabric pattern best known from corsets! Kirch meets Genever and Absinths in what sounds like a very happy tryst called Cherry Blossom Brocade.

Kirch is also one of the cherry ingredients in the cocktail from Putney Farm. Stewart turned to a 1951 cocktail book for inspiration and found The Baur Au Lac.

It takes it's name from a fancy hotel in Zürich. At Putney Farm the cocktail got a bit of a makeover with muddled cherries and it looks stunning:

Mike from DrinksBurgh takes us into Tiki territory with a drink called Gold Cup. Maraschino Liqueur is the key to that drink and it involves an ice shell for a dazzling presentation:

And now we are going to sea - actually the bottom of the sea. Nick from The Straight Up settled on Remember the Maine after careful consideration of some of the most classic cherry tasting cocktails. A deceptively simple mix of among other things Rye Whiskey and Cherry Heering.

Todd from Concoctails figured he would go all in with the cherry theme. Not only has he mixed two cocktails one of them is the equivalent of three cherries on the slot machine. The gin based The Payout features Cherry Heering, Kirchwasser and Cherry Bitters.

Todd's second cocktail brilliantly mixes pepper and cherry with bourbon in Backhanded Compliment.

Muse of Doom from Feu De Vie also mixed two cocktails. One of which does not look one bit cherry - so to speak. Sweetness and Light is a pretty mix of clear or almost clear ingredients and takes it's taste from both Kirch, orgeat and Solano on a base of Lillet Blanc.

The second cocktail from Feu de Vie had me googling like mad to see if I could find somewhere to purchase ROOT the alchoholic root beer cleverly included in the cocktail So We're Havin' a BBQ, huh? along with cherry liqueur and Jack Daniel's. I love the taste of root beer which is virtually unknown in Denmark. And this cocktail sounds - and looks - great:

And that concludes the first half of the round-up. So get reading, get mixing or just stare at the many lovely drinks while I get started on the second half. Cheers!

The Red Vulcano - MxMo LXXIV

I have so looked forward to this months edition of Mixology Monday - as the host I got to choose the theme of cherries and I also managed to secure one of Cocktail Kingdom's Navy Grog Cone Kits.

That gave me so many options.

The inspiration to the Red Volcano I found in a drink by Hardeep Rehal (sorry in Danish only but try Google Translate) who is head bartender at bar 1105 in the center of Copenhagen.

His Musa Daiquiri is basically a banana daiquiri mixed on aged rum and garnished with dried parsley.

It got me thinking and this is what I ended up with:

• 6 cl white rum - I used Plantation 3 Star
• 3 cl lemon juice
• 1,5 cl gomme syrup
• 3 cl Frederiksdal Cherry Liqueur - similar to Cherry Heering
• 1/4 very ripe banana
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley (I dried it in my oven at 75C for about an hour and then pulverized it) 
• 1 ice cone

Get your cone ready before mixing - just fill it with crushed ice and let it freeze for an hour with the metal straw inserted to make room for a drinking straw.

With a muddler smash the banana in the lemon juice, rum and gomme syrup. Add ice and shake until the banana is completely mixed into the liquid and all is very cold.

Insert straw into cone and place it in a glass,  than strain cocktail over it without soaking the part sticking out.

Next drip the cherry liqueur over the top of the cone to imitate hot lava and sprinkle the dried parsley for an deforestation imitation.

Enjoy!

Mixology Monday LXXIV - Cherry

Singapore Gin Sling, Blood and Sand and the Aviation wouldn't be the same without them. They are brilliant in pies, go great with  pork dishes and may even be a super food able to combat insomnia.

But cherries in cocktails are also horribly abused, few things taste worse than artificial cherry aroma and the description of how most maraschino cherries are made can make you sick to your stomach.

So it's my pleasure as the host of Mixology Monday number 74 to challenge you to honor the humble cherry.

However you choose to do that, is entirely up to you. You could use Maraschino Liqueur, Cherry Heering, Kirchwasser, Belgian Kriek Beer, cherry wine or any spectacular infusions invented by you in a cocktail. Or make your own maraschino cherries for a spectacular garnish.

Whatever you choose, here is how to participate:

Post your drink on your blog, or on egullet’s spirit and cocktail’s forum if you don’t have one, with a picture, the recipe list, and any thoughts on the drink or theme.

Add the MxMo logo to your post with a link to the Mixology Monday website, and one to my Ginhound blog.

Finally comment on this post, with a link to your entry, or you can email me at andreadoria56(at)gmail.com or tweet me on twitter @Husejer. Do all this by midnight on the June 17th.