Mai Tai Digestif

I am not a Mai Tai puritan even though Trader Vic's 1944 Mai Tai just happens to be my favorite cocktail. And yes, yes I know the original rum used has been lost but the gist of his creation stands.

I'm always up for a clever twist or riff on the drink - one that respects the original but dares to play with the ingredients or the measurements.

I have made a few twist myself over time and think I have gotten away with it.

So when I saw a recipe for a Mai Tai with Jägermeister I was intrigued. It was posted in a Tiki recipe group on Facebook and all the poster wrote of the origins was "at a new Cuban place in Atlanta".

I can google the information that a place called 1 Kept  in Atlanta once served a Mai Tai with Jägermeister but that's all I know.

I wanted to try out a recent birthday gift of a Hario Filter-in Coffee Bottle so I put a handful of fresh lavender and some espresso roast coffee beans in the filter and poured in a mix of Jägermeister, Fernet Branca and Branca Menta - just basically emptying some bottles.

After 24 hours I mixed the drink:

• 3 cl light rum - I used Havana Club 3 yo
• 3 cl Jägermeister - I used my infused mix
• 2 cl lime juice
• 1,5 cl orgeat - I used home made
• 1,5 cl curacao - I used Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao

Shake everything with ice and pour unstrained into double old fashioned glass or Mai Tai glass. Garnish with a lime wheel and a sprig of lavender.

I have to admit that the lavender and coffee was hard to find in the mix - so I will let it infuse for another week and try the drink again then.

Cherry Tai - my way

Messing with the mighty Mai Tai is always fun - I know some people think it is sacrilege, but I think it is such an amazing recipe, that riffing on it is bound to deliver a great tasting drink. I still drink my previous rhubarb driven attempt - Tøppe - so I knew it could work.

While shopping for Libbey's latest tiki glasses at Barkonsult, I was gifted samples of Three Cents Soda.

I was particularly interested in the Cherry Soda and I spotted a recipe for a Cherry Tai on their website.

But I decided to make my own interpretation:

• 6 cl rum - I used Plantation Xaymaca
• 3 cl lime juice
• 1 cl orgeat- I used Giffard
• 1,5 cl curacao - I used Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao
• 1 cl cherry liqueur - I used Frederiksdal

Shake and pour into glass ice included. Add a bottle - or 2 dl - of cherry soda, garnish with maraschino cherries, a mint sprig and a pretty flower.

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.

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.

LMG - Light Machine Gun

Cocktail history is full of tall tales and outright lies. Perhaps that's why I like it so much? And I do enjoy being part of inventing a cocktail based on a true story!

Last summer I found myself in excellent company, where the drinks were flowing and the stories got better and better.

Then we came to the point in time, when an American president visiting Denmark was invited to stay at the lovely baroque palace Fredensborg Palace. The couple I visited lived in Fredensborg, and the visit brought lot's of chaos to their community and especially to their neighborhood.

For the sake of a good story, let us say: Where their garden ended the palace grounds began. And it turns out: Where an American president visits American rule prevails.

But the man of the house had a building project running in front of his house, and no visiting dignitary was about to interrupt that.

Unfortunately he accidentally cut the power supply to his house. Fortunately he is an electrician and could splice the cables him selves, but not without a bit of help from the power company.

An unscheduled van from the power company - not expected to visit any of the house - meant the van driver was treated like an intruder attempting to gain access to the bedroom of The White House.

Meanwhile the unlucky electrician was on his hands and knees in his own front yard working to reconnect the severed cables. That attracted the attention of a helicopter. A dark figure kneeling in the open door pointing a weapon on the unsuspecting guy. His wife heard the noise - and noticed the power cut - opened her front door. Saw her kneeling husband, saw the hovering helicopter, saw the pointed weapon - which was immediately pointed at her.

She then decided she could not deal with the scene. Quietly closed her own front door and retreated into her home - a maneuver Danes are famous for.

Later her husband informed her: It was a Light Machine Gun the guy pointed at us.

We were quiet around the table for a while after the story. Then I was send into the kitchen to come up with a drink:

• 2 cl gin
• 0,5 cl orange Curacao - could be Cointreau or Pierre Ferrand
• 0,5 cl Fernet Branca - on the day I used Jägermeister, but I think the FB adds a little complexity
• 3 cl fresh, unpasteurized apple juice - I used juice from Elstar apples today and Norwegian apple juice on the day

Shake everything with ice. Serve in a cocktail coup. Garnish with Maraschino cherries - a dried apple ring would be nice too.

And as you can see from the picture, I have new cocktail books to read. Hope they are full of medium tall tales.

Wallingford

A bottle of Kina L'Avion D'Or was waiting for my in front of my door as I came home yesterday.

It has taken me more than a month to find a place that would sell me this gem and send it to me in Denmark, but I finally tracked it down with help from a friend at Lion Spirits in Germany and once ordered they delivered super fast.

Today I googled for a cocktail to really show my new acquisition off and came across Jamie Boudreau and his cocktail Wallingford.

And what a lovely cocktail it is - it's tart and refreshing but also warm an welcoming, if that makes any sense.

• 6 cl gin
• 3 cl Kina L'Avion D'Or
• 1 cl Orange Curacao
• orange bitters

Stir everything with plenty of ice and then using a grapefruit twist rim a chilled martini glass. Strain cocktail into glass over the twist.

Strawberry Daiquiri

Pretty soon I will have to rename my blog Gin and Rum Hound. But the weather in Denmark at the moment is just perfect for iced rum drinks.

The Strawberry Daiquiri holds a special place in my heart. 35 years ago when I was an exchange student in the suburbs of Seattle the elder sister in the family I lived with came home for a weekend and for some reason she, her three sisters and I had a whole evening to ourselves.

As the cool college student she was, she and one of the sisters somehow in spite of being underaged sourced the stuff for Strawberry Daiquiris.

We felt very grown up, as we sipped them and made spaghetti with garlic bread and swore the youngest to secrecy.

I don't have any blood sisters but over Strawberry Daiquiri they became exactly that and this summer I'm meeting two of them in New York where I'm in charge of finding the good bars ;)

So to work - and just out of curiosity I checked in my cocktail books, not a single one of them lists this marvel:

• 6 cl white rum
• 2 cl lime juice
• 4 strawberries 
• 1 cl orange Curacao

Start by smashing the strawberries in the lime juice and the Curacao at the bottom of a nice glass. Fill it with crushed ice and the rum and stir to cool and mix. Garnish with a strawberry.

Mai Tai

I can feel my hands slightly shaking as I start to write this.

One reason is probably that I just tasted my Mai Tai with a Wray and Nephew over proof float.

The other reason is awe and fear: The history of this legendary Tiki-cocktail is fraught with intrigue and feuding.

In other words it's easy to write something somebody will take in the wrong way, and then I fear a new generation of Tiki-lovers and -connaisseur are ready to cast spells that blows the top of my shaker the next time I fiddle with egg white or replace all the bottles in my liquor cabinet with no name brands.

For Mai Tai lore read this rant.

Putting on a brave face I type what I mixed:

• 6 cl golden rum
• 3 cl lime juice
• 0.75 cl Orgeat
• 0.75 cl Amaretto
• 0.75 cl Orange Curacao

Pour everything in a shaker full of crushed ice including one half of the juiced limes. Shake well and pour into a low wide glass.

Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint and add a small float of either black rum or over proof rum so the first impression is rum and the almond and lime will materialize later.

Margarita

In honor of Cinco de Mayo I chose the Margarita as this weeks cocktail.

First time I had one was 25 years ago at a Mexican restaurant in Seattle. I was overwhelmed both by the size of the thing and the taste.

When I got back to Denmark I had packets of sour mix with me and dazzled my friends with this exotic drink using the cheapest tequila I could find and topping the whole thing of with Seven Up.

Haven't had one since. Read a bit about the history of this cocktail - enjoyed David Wondrich's explanation the most and took my inspiration from the recipe in the PDT book.

• 3 cl mezcal
• 3 cl tequila
• 2 cl orange curacao
• 2 cl lime juice
• 0,75 cl agave sirup

Shake everything with ice and serve in glass with a salt rim and a piece of citrus for a garnish.

Brandy Crusta

This cocktail reminded me, how much in awe I am of the skills of professional bartenders.

It's not really difficult to mix a nice cocktail if you follow a recipe and have the right ingredients.

What sets the professional apart is doing it quickly and repeatedly.

Between cutting the long lemon peel and making the sugar rim on this cocktail any patron would have left my bar and I hadn't even gotten around to start shaking.

A barmanager in Copenhagen told me that 2012 just might be the year of the brandy - or cognac - based cocktail, I believe he is right.

This one really has a lovely balance and is amazingly refreshing for a drink that full of booze.

And did I mention, it's also very old? David Wondrich tells the story better than I ever could:

• 6 cl cognac
• 0,5 cl orange curacao
• 0,5 cl Maraschino
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• 1 cl freshly squeezed lemon juice
• fine sugar
• peel of a whole lemon
• a little more lemon juice

Start by cutting the peel. I decided it would be better to cut a little deep and then trim rather than risking break stride mid ways. The trimming can be done by laying the peel flat on cutting board and then cutting away from yourself with very sharp knife.

Next moisten the top 0,5 cl of the rim of a pretty glass - not too wide - with lemon juice and roll it in fine sugar.

Then you are ready to shake - or stir - as you please: In shaker over ice pour lemon juice, Maraschino, orange curacao and brandy. Shake and stir until cold, then strain into the sugar rimmed glass where you have placed one big, slow melting ice cube, add the two dashes of Angostura bitters  and finally place lemon peel at the top of the glass so that it sticks up.

Be careful when you drink ;)

Pegu Club

Oh, how I love the history of this cocktail. It speaks to me of Kipling and gentlemen

I've never been anywhere near Burma, and have no doubt that Burma under British rule was a pretty dismal place for a majority of the Burmese.

But every Dane of my generation, have this very romantic vision of Burma, because of and a very corny old Danish hit song Mandalay (Yes, it's Kipling's poem translated into Danish).

Every Sunday I heard this song on the radio all through my childhood.

What makes this song so perfect for this cocktail is that the four gentlemen singing it all had a true fondness for drink, and most of them died from it.

They would have loved a Pegu Club Cocktail.

• 6 cl gin
• 2 cl orange curacao (or Cointreau or Triple sec or even Grand Marnier)
• 1,5 cl fresh lime juice
• Dash of Angostura bittes
• Dansh of orange bitters

Add everything to mixing glass, add ice and stir until well chilled. Strain into your most beautiful glass.