Paddington

Ever since I got The PDT Cocktail Book I have been perhaps a little starstruck.

I love the look and the feel of the book, but can also see that it is cleverly disguised to take over from that other modern cocktail bible: The Savoy Cocktail Book.

So actually I wish the book had a more innovative look but the contents are undeniably good.

And the layout with explanations of everything and a solid section of recipes is very good. It will be a go to book, I'm sure.

I settled on Paddington as my first PDT-cocktail.

I'm a huge fan of the bear and my brother and I loved the sentence: My grandmother has fallen out of the stagecoach.

Once I started chuckling at that the rest was easy:

• 6 cl rum
• 2 cl Lillet Blanc
• 2 cl grapefruite juice
• 2 cl lemmon juice
• barspoon of orange marmalade.

Put everything in a shaker with ice and shake vigorously, strain into chilled cocktail coupe and garnish with a sliver of grapefruit peel.

Blue Smoke

Smoke seems to follow me everywhere this week. Not unwanted cigarette smoke or anything unpleasant like that - nice smoke, evocative smoke.

On Monday a friend and I had a blast at Copenhagen Spirits and Cocktails (Does not seem to be updated - they had a blast too!) We took a class on tequila and tasted nice stuff from Patròn.

Ronan Rogerson explained about the differences between tequila and mezcal and how it is made from agave, that has been smoked in the ground.

How amazing that tasted we found out during a class on drinking rituals where the tradition of pouring mezcal in a cross before serious drinking commenced was explained.

And I had a bit of an epiphany when I inhaled the smell of the mezcal and was transported back to my childhood and the smell of the Players medium navy cut tobacco my Dad smoked in his pipe.

Mezcal smells like his tobacco smelled in the square light blue tin - a bit like prunes, a bit like rubber tires and a bit like honey. A smell I had not given a second thought in the intermediate 40 years but that I suddenly missed.

As I started reading Camper English's article for LA Times about liquid smoke this morning, I suddenly knew I had to lay my hands on some mezcal for my Friday cocktail. I also knew I wanted to mix the cocktail myself and I'm quite pleased with it actually:

• 4 cl mezcal
• 1 cl Yellow Chartreuse
• 1 cl Golden Falernum (wonderful product from Bitter Truth)
• 1 cl dark agave syrp
• 3 cl freshly squeezed red grapefruit juice
• 6 blueberries.

Add liquids and syrup to shaker along with 5 blueberries, muddle gently, then add ice and shake. Strain into cocktail glass with last blueberry placed in the bottom. Cheers Dad!

High Kick

For some reason I have both Aperol and vanilla vodka in my liquor cabinet - the Aperol after a brief flirt with Aperol Spritz this summer - I like Campari so much better - and the vanilla vodka after a brief flirt years ago with vanilla vodka and cranberry juice - then I grew up.

Much to my surprise I stumbled across a cocktail this afternoon containing both of these ingredients and I gave it a shot. It has been developed by Camper English who writes a very nice blog:

• 4.5 cl Absolute Vanilla
• 2 cl Aperol
• 2 cl fresh lemon juice
• 2 cl simple syrup
• 6 mint leaves

Pour everything in a cocktail shaker with ice, add the mint and shake for a good minute. Strain into chilled cocktail coupe and garnish with a mostarda cherry and a sprig of mint.

Amaretto Sour

It's fun to mix cocktails or cook food you have no history with. In other words drink or food where you have no idea how it is supposed to taste.

Amaretto Sour seems to be a cocktail that people have a history with - something sweet, bland nonthreatening served to people who really don't enjoy strong cocktails.

But then Jeffrey Morgenthaler spiced it - and spiked it - up. And he sold me with the claim that he makes the worlds best.

So promptly at 9 a.m. I stood in front of my booze seller as a somewhat tired employee opened the door to let the first customer in.

I went straight for the orange Curacao shelf, where I picked out a bottle of liquid gold: Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao Ancienne Méthode.

I tried it last night at an amazing seminar i the fine baroque manor Moltkes Palæ in Copenhagen in a Brandy Cocktail - well a Cognac Cocktail because it's base spirit was Pierre Ferrand 1840 Cognac.

And then I pointed at a middle of the road Amaretto and was promptly chastised: If you go for the best in Curacao, then why not for the best in Amaretto? And then he sold me a bottle of Zuidam Amaretto. So he might have looked tired but he was a good salesman.

So tonight I mixed a Amaretto Sour, inspired by Morgenthaler:

• 4,5 cl Amaretto
• 2 cl whisky - I used Dalwhinnie
• 3 cl fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup
• 1 egg white

Put everything in a cocktail shaker but don't add any ice yet. Dry shake for a minute then add ice and shake for another 2 minutes.

Strain in to cocktail coupe over fresh ice and garnish with a lemon twist and an Amarena cherry.

Weeping Ukulele

What is a gin hound to do when the theme for the next Mixology Monday hosted by the Pegu Blog is TIKI?

Well I could lie down and weep or be bold. I choose the latter.

Two things inspired me: A wonderful Danish cherry wine and my first batch of syrup for home made tonic water, made by pretty much following Jeffrey Morgenthaler's recipe, but with a few changes described here.

• 6 cl (2 oz) Appleton Estate V/X rum
• 2 cl (3/4 oz) Picon
• 2 cl (3/4 oz) Frederiksdal cherry wine (Cheery Heering would work, but then only half as much)
• 1 cl (2 teaspoons or 3/8 oz) Campari
• 2 cl (3/4 oz) fresh blood orange juice
  
• 1 cl (2 teaspoons or 3/8 oz) tonic syrup (or 4 cl (2 3/4 oz) tonic water)
• 3 cl seltzers (not if tonic water is used)
• Dash of Bitter Truth Xoxolatl Mole chocolate bitters

If using tonic syrup, shake first 6 ingredients with lots of crushed ice. Pour into generous glass, add the seltzers and the dash of bitters and garnish with a slice of fresh pineapple and couple of maraschino cherries and umbrella.

If using tonic water just shake the first five ingredients and then add tonic water, bitters and garnish.

Enjoy - or weep!

Gin and Homemade Tonic

It's a bit insulting to try to tell people how to mix a gin and tonic, right? And is it even a cocktail?

The answers to those two questions must be yes and no.

Strictly speaking a G&T is not a cocktail, unless you make your own tonic water, then it very clearly is, as both something bitter and sugar is present in the process.

I followed a recipe by Jeffrey Morgenthaler - not to the letter, I added bitter orange peel and bitter orange juice as well as dry bitter orange peel. And I sweetened it with a mixture of white sugar, honey and maple syrup.

The greatest challenge was to get a hold of the china bark, but once that was secure it takes less than an hour to make the equivalent of 3 liters of tonic water at a fraction of the cost of designer tonic water like Fentimans, Q tonic and Fever Tree.

• 2 cl home made tonic sirup
• 4 cl gin
• 6 cl seltzers

Stir everything with ice and garnish with a slice of lime or lemon as you please.

Martinez

Let's take a trip back to the very earliest days of cocktails. Back when Mr. Jerry Thomas worked in California and either mixed this for a guy named Martinez or for a guy headed to Martinez in Mexico.
Regardless it is a pleasure to meet the granddaddy of the martini. Like the martini there seems to be many different preferred ratios, I like this one:

• 5 cl gin
• 2,5 cl sweet vermouth
• 1/2 barspoon maraschino liqueur
  
• a dash of Angostura bitters

Mix everything in a mixing glass over ice and stir until cold, then strain into large martini glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

Old Cuban

One of my dreams is to one day visit The Pegu Club in New York and taste Audrey Saunders creations from the master herself (I know, I know she does not run the place herself).

I'm amazed that she always manages to invent cocktails that seem so simple they should have been invented a long time ago.

The Old Cuban would have been a hit at Floridita in Havana in the late 20'ies when Americans came down to drink real cocktails with first class ingredients.

• 4,5 cl golden rum
  
• 6 cl dry champagne
• 3 cl fresh lime juice
• 3 cl simple syrup
• 6 mint leaves
• A dash of Angostura bitters

In a mixing glass gently muddle the mint with the syrup and the lime juice, add ice, the rum and the Angostura bitters. Shake and strain into cocktail coupe and top off with the champagne.

Float a wheel of lime on top with a sprig of mint pushed through a slit.

Ramos Gin Fizz

I happened on a bottle of orange blossom water on a promenade through the part of Copenhagen know as Nørrebro.

It was a bit dusty, quite forgotten but gloriously visible at the back of a shelf in a green grocers that had lured me inside with a stash of fresh mint, fresh corriander and fresh okra. Not produce I normally see in my part of the world - I live 60 km north west of Copenhagen in an area of hardship and processed food.

Once that bottle of orange blossom water was in my possession the weekly cocktail was indisputable: The Ramos Gin Fizz.

I first tasted it at the 1105 cocktail bar in the center of Copenhagen a few years back, and was impressed. It might have been the very first egg white cocktail I ever tasted.

It was invented by Harry Ramos in New Orleans in 1880 at his bar Imperial Cabinet Saloon. After the Sazeraz it is the second most famous New Orleans cocktail.

According to Harry Ramos it needed a 12 minute shake to achieve the perfect smooth texture, so for the 1915 Mardi Gras he hired 32 shaker boys to do the manual work.

As I've previously stated I have no fear of unpasteurized egg white, and also have never had the slime-blob thing at the bottom of the glass happen to me, so here is what I did:

• 6 cl gin
• 3 cl whipping cream
• 1,5 cl fresh lemon juice
• 1,5 cl fresh lime juice
• 1 egg white
• A dash of orange blossom water
• Seltzer

In a shaker put everything but the seltzer and no ice. Dry shake for 2-3 minutes and then rest your arms and shoulder for a minute while you get a good hand full of ice. Add to shaker and shake for another 2-3 minutes and then strain into collins glass topping it off with seltzer and a lime wedge.

Penicillin

Iodine and bandage might not be two tasts that most people enjoy but I do. Sometimes I find them in old French wines - Graves or Margeaux - or in Danish beer from Mikkeller.

Finding them in a cocktail made me quite elated. It happened at Salon 39 a gem of a bar just outside the city center of Copenhagen in Frederiksberg.

Penicillin was invented by an Australian, Sam Ross, and he single handedly convinced me that whisky based cocktails can be amazing.

• 6 cl whisky
• 1,2 cl fresh lemon juice
• 1,2 cl ginger-honey syrup
• 1 cl single malt whisky
• A dash of Cardamom bitters

Start with the ginger-honey syrup: In a small sauce pan mix 1 dl honey and 1 dl water - in Denmark honey from the social project Bybi (City Bees) is an imperative. Add about a pinky fingered sized piece of ginger grated and bring to a boil.

Boil for 2 minutes and then let cool - don't strain out the ginger, let it do it's magic. Cool the syrup.

Then in a shaker add all ingredients except for single malt over ice and shake. Pour into low ball glass and over the back of a teaspoon add a float of single malt the peatier the better.