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.

Moltkes Bar Speakeasy

As you walk through the gate on Dronningens Tværgade do yourself a favor and turn around and admire the inside of it - or save it for when you leave, as you please.

Then proceed up the stairs - perhaps a nice man will greet you there - if not turn right and enter one of the best kept secrets of Copenhagen: Moltkes Bar and Speakeasy.

As you leave the splendid baroque of Moltkes Palace you enter into another world. A bar that has a feeling of a 50'ies boardroom in an elegant bank.

It's a strange sensation the bar closes around it's guests. It's another world, a perfect place to put the hustle and bustle of everyday life behind you.

The cocktail menu is strong on the classics and a surefooted selection of a few modern classics.

Their motto is: Why tamper with something already perfect.

We decided to check whether or not the bar stays true to this motto, and did so by way of the Corpse Reviver II, Clover Club, Ramos Gin Fizz and Sazerac. We had three each.

All of the cocktails we beautiful creations - the two egg white cocktails - the Clover Club and the Ramos Gin Fizz - had soft magical foam that attested to the bartenders skills.

The Corpse Revivers where mixed on on a traditional London Dry Gin, but on the French grape based G'Vine which together with orange bitters gave the drink a small twist.

The Sazerac wasn't just served in a Absinthe rinsed glass, the Absinthe also came a part in it's own glass. A wonderful way to serve it.

Moltke does not go wild with garnish - it's a very focused presentation with the underlaying understanding that you come to drink cocktails, not to eat them.

Not that you starve - perhaps the biggest surprise is Moltkes bar snack: A silver platter of croutons and a dry cheese.

And of cause you are offered plenty of water to minimize the damages the next day.

Vesper

I have to admit I've been a bit pig headed about this cocktail. I've considered it a gimmicky martini and only mixed it with gin flat out refusing to consider that vodka could have any place in a cocktail.

Well, then I bought a tiny bottle of vodka and gave it a shot and ended up being quite impressed, the vodka does seem to add something to the balance of this drink.

• 6 cl Tanqueray
  
• 2 cl Smirnoff
  
• 1 cl Lillet Blanc

Stir everything with ice and strain into martini glass - shaking my be James Bonds preferred method, but why bother when stirring keep the drink crystal clear?

Another way at looking at the recipe is: Two parts gin, to one part vodka to one half part dry vermouth. But Mr. Ian Flemming was quite specific and wrote Kina Lillet instead of dry vermouth in Casino Royal where the drink debuts.

Kina Lillet has gone out of production and Lillet Blanc is the closest living cousin.