Christmas Bonus

Here is a little bonus on top of the 12 Drinks of Christmas.  These two festive cocktails are a perfect way to tempt your taste buds and bridge the food and beverage binge between Christmas and New Year’s.  These two drinks provide something for everyone, a refreshing vodka treat in the Poire Victoire and a bourbon based beauty in the Jeff One.

Both drinks are recent creations from a couple of Paris' better Bar Anglais.  The Poire Victoire from the Hemingway Bar in 2008 and the Jeff One from the Cambon Bar in 2002.  As with the other delightful creations from Colin Field, these both posses the depth of character and flavor of drinks from centuries past.

First the Poire Victoire, this is an elegantly simple drink with such amazing flavor, it quickly became the favorite at a recent Christmas Eve party.  Start with two and a half ounces Grey Goose Poire in a cocktail shaker, add two ounces of apple juice and half an ounce of fresh squeezed lime juice.  Fill with ice, shake and serve in a cocktail glass.  When your guest asks what it is, summon your inner Frenchman and let Poire Victoire roll off you tongue like it’s your first language.

Second the Jeff One.  Construct this one in an old fashioned glass, start by cutting the ends off of a mandarin orange, slice down one side of the peel and carefully remove the peel in one piece, place it in the glass, place the orange inside it and muddle.  Fill the glass with ice, add one teaspoon of superfine sugar, two ounces of bourbon (Maker’s Mark is always a good choice), and fill the glass with ginger ale (about three ounces).  Stir well to dissolve the sugar and serve to your Old-Fashioned appreciating friends.  This is a nice refreshing alternative to mix into your repertoire, that will help you survive even the preachiest of christian Santas.

Poire Victoire

2 ½ oz grey goose poire

2 oz apple juice

½ oz lime juice.

Add all ingredients to ice filled shaker, shake and serve in a cocktail glass.

Jeff One

2 oz bourbon

3 oz ginger ale

1 tsp superfine sugar

1 mandarin orange

Cut ends off the orange and discard.  Remove peel from orange and place in an old fashioned glass, place orange in the center of the peel and muddle.  Fill glass with ice, add sugar, bourbon, ginger ale, and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Robertino

Today’s delight comes, once again, from the Bar Hemingway.  It is sure to please all members of the fairer sex that you may be entertaining, as well as any gentlemen who stop by.  The Robertino has just the right amount of sweetness to it, the balance impeccably perfected at the esteemed establishment of its birth.

Once again there is not a depth of history involved , it was created in 2005 by one of the bartenders at the Ritz for a regular who frequently brings models, actresses and rock stars into the bar. It is obviously influenced by the Cosmopolitan, but the flavor seems more balanced and enjoyable.

To me this is a drink meant to share with someone, so this will make enough for two.  Start by placing a sprig of fresh mint in a shaker, add two ounces of Grey Goose vodka, and muddle slightly.  Add one ounce of fresh squeezed mandarin orange juice and an ounce of Cointreau.  Lastly add six ounces of cranberry juice.  Fill the shaker with ice and mix.  Pour the contents into two ice filled old fashioned glasses, garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.  Serve while Labelle's Lady Marmalade plays suggestively in the background.

Robertino

2 oz vodka

1 oz mandarin orange juice

1 oz cointreau

6 oz cranberry juice

2 springs of mint

Add vodka and a sprig of mint to a shaker, muddle.  Add orange juice, Cointreau  and cranberry juice.  Fill with ice and shake.  Serve in an ice filled old fashioned glass with a sprig of mint.  Serves two.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

As the halfway mark of our holiday journey falls on a Sunday just two short weeks before Christmas, I can only hope that the rest of you are feeling better than I am this morning.  Apparently there is such thing as too much Christmas spirit.  But fear not, along with being one of the all time classic brunch cocktails, the Bloody Mary is also an amazing hangover cure (the shampoo effect).

While there is some evidence to discredit the commonly held belief that the Bloody Mary was invented at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris around 1920, I love the bar and its history so I am going to stick with that until proven otherwise.

At its most basic level this morning after favorite is a combination of vodka, tomato juice and any number of fruits, vegetables, spices and seasonings. Everybody has their own personal touches to the point that one of the only compliment’s I can still give Delta Airlines is the Bloody Mary condiment tray in the crown room that allows each weary traveler to dress their cocktail as desired. I like this version as it is heavy on the citrus and a packs a nice kick. Start by mixing the tomato juice mixture below in a large pitcher and refrigerate until well chilled, it should make enough for six to eight cocktails. The time of day will dictate the amount of vodka to use. Prior to 10:00 AM use use one ounce, from 10:00 to 11:00 AM work your way to an ounce and a half, and from 11:00 to noon work from an ounce and a half to two. Once the clock hits twelve all bets are off, make them as strong as you desire. When ready to serve fill a glass with ice. Add the appropriate amount of vodka, fill glass with tomato mix and stir. Garnish each drink with a lime wedge and a spear of pickled asparagus.

Bloody Mary

46 oz tomato juice

¾ cup fresh orange juice

3 tbs worcestershire sauce

2 tbs prepared horseradish

2 tbs fresh lemon juice

1 tsp tabasco sauce

1 ½ tsp celery salt

Vodka

Mix first seven ingredients in a large pitcher and chill. For each drink pour one to two ounces of vodka into an ice filled glass. Pour in tomato mixture and stir. Garnish with a spear of pickled asparagus and a lime.

Reinvigorating the Vodka Soda

I have been fortunate enough to enjoy a cocktail or two with some truly incredible women, and this seems to be the favorite among them (there is the rare whiskey drinking woman, but they are few and far between). I personally have always found the vodka soda to be a little bland, tasting like a watered down vodka tonic, so I have shied away from it. But I do see the allure in a simple, refreshing cocktail that is easy to concoct so I took it upon myself to delve into this feminine favorite.

My goal was to find a combination that stayed true to the beautiful simplicity of this drink and its three ingredients, but that overcame the dull flavor. I found the secret is in the vodka. My local purveyor of spirits has an entire wall dedicated to the simplest of grain alcohols, the number of brands and flavors is incredibly overwhelming, so I focused my search on the citrus flavored options as I felt they would stay most true to the drink while adding some complexity of taste without sacrificing ease of concoction. I hope to deeper immerse myself in this wall of flavors in hopes of finding some truly unique flavor combinations, but for the time being the cocktail made in my house for the fair maiden desiring a vodka soda will be the following.

Start with an ice filled glass; add two ounces of orange vodka. I like Three Olives Rangtang, the name is awful, but the taste is unmatched (try it by itself on the rocks). Add three ounces of club soda and squeeze a wedge of lime. In the spirit of simplicity the drink is complete here, but muddling a slice of clementine in the glass adds another nice subtle flavor (a clementine slice is also a nice garnish). Serve this to the next woman who asks for a vodka soda and you will be remembered as the person who re-awakened her taste buds and gave new life to her go-to drink.

Vodka Soda

2 oz orange flavored vodka

3 oz club soda

Add vodka and soda to an ice filled glass with a wedge of lime.

A Sophisticated Screwdriver

Breakfast/brunch cocktails is an area that is all to often ignored in the cocktailing community. While cocktail hour has traditionally started at five, there is absolutely no reason that any of us need to wait an entire day to enjoy a libation. This is a slightly more complex version of an old favorite that has been received with outstanding results among my closest friends.

As I am sure most everyone will agree, you can mix just about anything with orange juice and drink it.  In fact, my underage drinking career depended on it, but there are some classic orange juice based morning breakfast pick-me-ups which deserve coverage, many of which I plan to cover in the coming months. Today we will start with the screwdriver, a mixed drink that has saved many a wounded soldier. This is a more complex version though, that will please even the most discerning drunk.

The history or the screwdriver is a pretty simple one. In 1949 Time magazine described a drink where American engineers in Turkey would mix vodka and orange juice and stir it with a screwdriver. The original article is available online here, isn’t technology amazing!

For the purposes of our slightly more high-brow concoction, start by slicing two oranges into quarter inch thick slices and place them into the bottom of a large pitcher, add a pinch of kosher salt and the juice of one lemon; muddle well to release the oils from the orange peel and break up the fruit. Add forty-eight ounces (six cups) of fresh squeezed orange juice and 16 ounces (two cups) chilled vodka. I like Smirnoff, Sky or Absolut in this recipe. Stir well and pour into ice filled glasses and top with one of the muddled orange slices.

Screwdriver

2 oranges cut into ¼ inch thick slices

1 lemon, juiced

1 pinch kosher salt

6 cups fresh squeezed orange juice

2 cups chilled vodka

Place sliced oranges in large pitcher, add lemon juice and salt, muddle thoroughly.  Add vodka and orange juice, stir.  Pour into ice filled glasses, garnish with a muddled orange slice.  Makes six to eight drinks.