Banana Passion Grove Swizzle

Swizzles are fun to both make and drink so my third cocktail to try from Matt Pietrek's book Minimalist Tiki was his own creation Passion Grove Swizzle. Only - I don't really like Falernum so I changed that out for banana liqueur instead.

That however was not the only change I made I noticed after mixing the drink and taking the first satisfying sip - I had also misread the recipe. CocktailWonks original recipe calls for a lightly aged/filtered rum like Plantation 3 Star - but I had grabbed Plantation Xaymaca when gathering the ingredients for the drink.

It did however turn out great so I this is going to be my future recipe:

• 2 cl white over proof rum - I used Wray and Nephew
• 4 cl aged/golden rum - I used Plantation Xaymaca
• 2 cl lemon juice
• 3 cl pinapple juice
• 1,5 cl creme de banana - I used Giffard Banane du Bresil
• 1,5 cl passion fruit syrup - I used homemade

Build the drink in a tall glass add crushed ice and swizzle with a swizzle stick or a long bar spoon - I cut my own swizzle stick from local pine back when I made my first swizzle - they are fun to work with. Top the glass with more crushed ice once the drink is mixed and very cold. Garnish with a fun piece of banana candy - mine was banana and liquorice.

Wandering Dolphin

Good friends brought me back a souvenir from their trek along the Portuguese coast to Santiago de Compostella in Spain: Shell shaped ice coolers. The shell is traditionally the sign of the pilgrim.

I wanted to show them off in a cocktail, and have had an eye on Cocktailwonk's twist on The Banana Life for a while. Not least because I am the last cocktail blogger to try my hand at a banana dolphin. I don't know it the actually invented it at Three Dots and a Dash but they certainly made it popular.

I ended up tweeking the twist, so I gave it a new name:

• 6 cl light golden rum - I used Damoiseau Gold from Guadeloupe
• 1,5 cl banana liqueur - I used Tempus Fugit Creme de Banane
• 1,5 cl blue curacao - I used a homemade
• 3 cl ruby grapefruit juice
• 3 cl pineapple juice
• 1,5 cl passion fruit syrup - I used a homemade
• 1,5 cl lime juice

Add all ingredients to a shaker and shake with ice, pour unstrained into nice tiki glass and garnish with a banana dolphin. Use blue sugar pearls for eyes and a good cocktail cherry in the mouth.

I added my cocktail coolers on top og the drink mainly to show them off, but they actually kept the ice in the drink from melting and diluting the drink, so they ended up serving a purpose.

Banana Daiquiri

It is actually quite winterly here in Denmark these days - frost day and night which isn't all that common.

But just because snow and ice is part of the landscape at the moment that doesn't mean I can't dream of icy cold drinks under a tropical sun - I just have to drink them in front of my wood burner.

After a nightly online conversation with some colleagues about the drinking habits - and preferences - of Hemingway I've been wanting a Daiquiri badly

Particularly one I have tinkered with a few times from a bar in Texas - a golden, sweet Banana Daiquiri. Here is the recipe I have been tinkering with.

My version looks like this:

• 3 cl white rum - I used Plantation 3 Stars
• 1,5 cl over proof white rum - I used Clairin Casimir
• 2 cl fresh lime juice
• 0.75 cl simple syrup
• 1,5 cl banana liqueur - I used Tempus Fugit Creme de Banane
• 0,75 cl chili liqueur - I used Ancho Reyes

Blend everything with crushed ice

Garnish with a coin of banana - if you have a dehydrator springle with banana and chili dust on top. 

 

The Potential Reviver

The name of this new Danish cocktail might lead you to believe it is a riff on a Corpse Reviver - it's not really - more like the child of a Mai Tai and a Corpse Reviver.

It's that rare bird: A gin based Tiki cocktail.

That is probably what attracted me to it when I came across the recipe in a new book on Danish gin.

The book - Danske gin og ginmagere (Danish gins and gin makers - full review in Danish here) - is written by Christian Wendelbo who happens to be the son of a dear colleague.

Not only does the book cover a great number of new Danish gins and a few of the established ones like Geranium and Jensen, it also offers more than 30 cocktails developed to suit each individual gin.

On top of that there is a nice introduction to both gin history and the science of distilling. And then a good starting point for anyone wanting to get started shaking cocktails at home. Even the Gin and Tonic drinker get's nice pointers about which gin goes with which tonic.

So a very interesting book that quickly left me thirsty for a drink.

When I came across The Potential Reviver I knew I had found the one to try first. I did not have the gin this cocktail was developed for - Marstal no 31 - but I substituted an orange forward gin instead:

• 4 cl gin - I used Copenhagen Orange Gin
• 1 cl aquavit - I used D Argentum
• 1 cl orange liqueur - I used Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao
• 1 cl banana liqueur - I used Giffard Banane du Bresil
• 1 cl orgeat - I used Giffard
• 2 cl lemon juice
• 2 dashed orange bitters - I used Angostura Orange

Add everything to a shaker, fill the shaker with ice, shake and then double strain into a Tiki or old fashioned glass over fresh ice. Garnish with orange.

Bananas

Have I gone b...? Well just a bit. I am old enough to remember, that bananas were once a priced fruit in Denmark.

During the second world war they were completely absent from the market, and when the first banana boat arrived i November 1945 it was front page headline news. A sign that the war really was over.

No, I a, not old enough to have actually lived through that, but I remember my parents telling me about it. And I remember my father pointing out the huge warehouses that turned green bananas yellow.

All of this to say, bananas are kind of sacred to me: Even when they are old and brown you find a use for them. That is why I made some banana salt caramels a few days ago, I was afraid of wasting bananas.

And those caramels. Yes, there is both butter and cream in caramels but first and foremost there is sugar. So a caramel could be the sweet in an Old Fashioned. Right?

Laura from Sass & Gin have set this months challenge in Mixology Monday. She wants us to make the pater familias of cocktails, or as she puts it in her announcement post:

So, here's the challenge: We will be sticking to the traditional ratios of spirit, bitters and sugar, but I'm challenging you to step outside the box with your selections. In addition, how will it be chilled or garnished? Do you want to add a secondary spirit or rinse? Go to town!

I have previously mixed the Bananarac and know that banana and whiskey work together, but since Laura asked us to go to town I decided to change the base spirit. Behold the Bananas:

• 4.5 cl Creme de Mezcal - I used Del Maguey
• 0.75 cl banana liqueur - I used Giffard Banane du Bresil
• 2 homemade banana salt caramels - a dark simple syrup would work too.
• 2 dashes of Eucalyptus bitter

Place the caramel in a shaker or stirring glass, add the banana liqueur and bitter and muddle a bit to get as much of the caramel dissolved in the liquid as you have patience for. The add remaining ingredients and stir with ice until well cold.

Strain into old fashioned glass over one big or two medium ice cubes. Garnish with a bit of fresh banana.

Winter Goodbye

Spring is in the air in Denmark, time to clear out the old winter greens and air out the house.

I'll leave the latter for later because right now I'm taking an early cocktail hour with a cocktail that completely surprises me.

Having looked at a gradually more sorry looking cauliflower in my fridge for a week with not devine inspiration for it's use I finally ran it through my juicer and got a vibrant, pale, milky juice with a very complex flavour.  It is both peppery, sweet and nutty.
 
I decided to mix it with summer flavours - since spring is the average of those two seasons ;) - and my old all season favorite: Gin.

• 6 cl gin - I used Tarquin's
• 0.75 cl banana liqueur - I used Giffard Banane du Bresil
• 1.5 cl lime
• 3 cl fresh cauliflower juice

Add the ingredients to a shaker, fill with ice and shake hard. Strain into a cocktail coupe and garnish with a slice of lime.

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.

Bananary Buzz

Recently I conducted a cocktail beginners class for my coworkers.

It was a lot of fun. Very attentive pupils and always a joy to teach the alchemy of a well put together drink.

I'll not be so bold as to state with absolute certainty that my Bananary Buzz is that kind of a cocktail, but I'm quite pleased with it.

It is obviously a riff on a rye Manhattan - but it is mostly a tribute to the buzz.

One of my coworkers - who took the class - reminded me just how pleasant that first hit of strong booze on a late Friday afternoon anticipating a weekend off is.

How clever, pretty and on top of the world that one drink - maybe two (after three I'm under the table, after four I'm under the host) can make you feel.

And since a good drink needs a good snack, I tried out a recipe I noticed from Not Whithout Salt - Sweet and Spicy Peanut. I just used fresh rosemary instead of thyme and loved both the kick and the sweetness.

• 6 cl rye whiskey - I used Rittenhouse 100 for that perfect buzz
• 0,75 cl sweet vermouth - I used Carpano Antica
• 0,75 cl banana liqueur - I used Giffard Banane du Bresil
• 0.75 cl Maraschino - I used Luxardo
• 0.75 cl lime juice
• 0.75 cl simple syrup - made from moscavado

Measure all ingredients into a stirring glass and stir until quite cold. Strain into rocks glass with huge chunk of ice.

Tøppe aka the ESC

Tomorrow Denmark hosts the Eurovision Song Contest. One of those cultural events that makes the rest of the world feel as much out of the loop as Superbowl does most Europeans.

Basically it's just a huge music show where viewers from all the participating countries - more than 25 - root for their favorites and national juries award points that will determine the final winner.  A process that opens hostility between many other wise closely related countries.

The competition is more than 50 years old and the most watched show in Europe every year. Some call the show Gay Christmas - and this year one of the favorites and a contestant Putin would hate to see win is a drag with a full beard.

Concita Wurst have drawn some ugly comments from other contestants - but this is a song contest and sing is what she does.

One of my coworkers is the Danish commentator for the show, his name is Ole Tøpholm otherwise know as Tøbbe.

He has had some voice problems the last couple of days - so I figure a cocktail will help him to be fit for the job tomorrow.

I've taken a huge cue from one of my own favorites - the Mai Tai - and another favorite rhubarb.

• 6 cl golden rum - I used Mount Gay XO
• 3 cl banana liqueur - Giffard Banane du Bresil
• 1,5 cl orgreat
• 3 cl lime juice
• rhubarb cordial

Put the first four ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake well. Put one half of the spent lime in a tall glass with ice and strain the content of the shaker over it, top off with the rhubarb cordial. For the party vibe it needs a straw and a cocktail stick.

Bananarac - books and bananas

I am looking at my cocktail book library with new eyes - and ears. That might lead to a new post on cocktail books - my old one still gets a surprising amount of traffic.

For mind numbingly boring garden/house maintenance work this morning, I revisited The Hour - a cocktail manifesto by Bernard DeVoto.

That is, I plucked stinging needle out of the ground, and washed garden furniture to my audiobook of that particular text. As it only runs about an hour and 50 minutes, that seemed like a doable trade off between menial labour and pleasure.

I do wish it was actually Bernard himself reading his text, but the gentleman who does the honors have a nice voice and a calming tempo.

However the words of the manifesto itself are so loaded, that it's impossible to know, just from listening to then, if Bernard was a twat or the greatest satirical write of his time.

I suspect the truth is not so black and withe and chuckle at faith.

Bernard DeVoto did not like cookbooks. He especially disliked the Beverage section of cookbooks:

As I have shown, the basic idea was to see how many ingredients you could put into a drink, especially a cocktail, and still survive. Year by year, that mania of our national adolescence killed more Americans than smallpox, the Colt revolver, or the Indian. Yet publishers go on endorsing the same toxins to more than a million women a year.

Bernard DeVoto is in some circles today only know as the husband of Avis DeVoto, who helped Julia Child and her two French co-developers get their Mastering the Art of French Cooking - the ultimate cookbook - published. And Avis DeVoto then went on to become the greatest cookbook scout of all times, after Bernard's early death.

He would have loved it, I suspect.

And so to honor him, I decided to mix a drink, that he would have hated. The Bananarac.

A twist on the Sazerac which is a twist on the Old Fashioned, and since he abhorred sweet drinks and just barely tolerated The Old Fashioned adding banana liqueur would have enraged him.

But I'm just too happy that I have finally found a decent banana liqueur that is neither glow in the dark yellow or smells nauseously artificial, to let that stop me.

Giffard Banane du Bresil is the real stuff: Macerated bananas and cognac.

• 3 cl rye whiskey - I used Old Overholt
• 3 cl cognac - I used Pierre Ferrand 1840
• 1,5 cl banana liqueur - I used Giffard Banane du Bresil
• 0,5 barspoon simple syrup
• Dash Angostura
• Absinthe

Stir the first five ingredients in a mixing glass or tin with ice until very cold, spray absinthe in a rocks glass, pour cocktail over big ice cube.