Boozehound (20 page)

NOTE :
Use a good, unaged 100 percent agave blanco, or silver, tequila.

Recipe by Bastian Heuser, editor at the German bar magazine
,
Mixology

But even the Agavoni took second place (by a whisker) to another Negroni alternative. I don’t know whether I was channeling Hemingway, but I found this cocktail in a forgotten bartending guide, published in Paris in the 1920s, called
Barflies and Cocktails
. In it, a drink called the Boulevardier is described: equal parts bourbon, sweet vermouth, and Campari.

The Boulevardier was named after a 1920s magazine for expats living in Paris that was run by socialite Erskine Gwynne. I added a bit more bourbon to the mix, but this drink is in every way the equal of the classic Negroni. In fact, it’s better. Meaning, I guess, that looking at things and trying new drinks does occasionally have its rewards.

BOULEVARDIER

Serves 1

1½ ounces bourbon

1 ounce sweet vermouth

1 ounce Campari

Lemon peel twist, for garnish

Fill a mixing glass halfway with ice. Add the bourbon, vermouth, and Campari. Stir vigorously for 30 seconds, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the lemon peel twist.

NOTE:
Use a bourbon that’s on the spicier side, such as Buffalo Trace, Four Roses, or Russell’s Reserve.

So now that we’ve reengineered the Negroni, perhaps we should focus on a few of the other strange Italian spirits we’ve talked about. Barolo Chinato is not featured in many cocktails, but it probably should be. This recipe, created by Adam Bernbach of Proof in Washington, D.C., is an instant classic. Maybe if more cocktails this good are invented using Barolo Chinato, it will become a back-bar staple.

DARKSIDE

Serves 1

2½ ounces gin, preferably Plymouth

1 ounce Barolo Chinato

3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Lime peel twist, for garnish

1 whole star anise, for garnish

Fill a mixing glass two-thirds full with ice. Add the gin, Barolo Chinato, and bitters. Stir vigorously for 30 seconds, then strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the lime peel twist and star anise.

Adapted from a recipe by Adam Bernbach of Proof, Washington, D.C
.

An amaro, such as Ramazzotti, Montenegro, or Meletti, is usually consumed solo after dinner as a digestive. Many in the bar and restaurant industry drink Fernet-Branca as a badge of honor. I was recently at a dinner where one famous bartender ordered it, and then everyone else felt that they had to order one. It’s particularly popular in San Francisco, where locals order a shot with a ginger ale chaser. And in Argentina, the national drink might as well be Fernet and Coke.

As for mixing cocktails with amari … well, that’s a little trickier. But you’re seeing it more and more as an ingredient on cocktail menus all over the country. Averna, for instance, has been having its moment for a couple of years now. It’s used in the
Black Manhattan
variation.

The Intercontinental takes a different, but still classic, approach. It’s a unique concoction that balances the richness of cognac with Averna’s herbal and bittersweet chocolate flavors plus the fruity aroma and almond notes of maraschino liqueur.

INTERCONTINENTAL

Serves 1

1½ ounces cognac

1 ounce Averna

½ ounce maraschino liqueur

Orange peel twist, for garnish

Fill a mixing glass two-thirds full with ice. Add the cognac, Averna, and maraschino liqueur. Stir vigorously for 30 seconds, then strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the orange peel twist.

Recipe by Duggan McDonnell of Cantina, San Francisco

Our last elegantly balanced cocktail is a variation on both the Greyhound (vodka and grapefruit juice) and the Salty Dog (gin and grapefruit juice with a salted rim). It calls for Italy’s unique Punt e Mes vermouth, made by Carpano, whose taste falls somewhere between a traditional red vermouth and a bitter.

ITALIAN GREYHOUND

Serves 1

Kosher salt, for rimming the glass

2 ounces Punt e Mes

2 ounces freshly squeezed grapefruit juice

Rim an old-fashioned glass with salt, then add 3 or 4 ice cubes. Add the Punt e Mes and grapefruit juice. Stir.

Adapted from a recipe of No. 9 Park, Boston

CHAPTER 6

WATER OF LIFE

I SEND YOUR GRACE SOME WATER CALLED AQUA VITAE. THIS WATER CURES ALL TYPES OF INTERNAL DISEASES FROM WHICH A HUMAN BEING MAY SUFFER
.

—
Letter from a Danish lord to the Archbishop of Trondheim, Norway, 1531

N
EW YORKER ART CRITIC
Peter Schjeldahl once compared looking at Edvard Munch’s paintings to “listening to an album of a certain blues or rock song that, once upon a time, changed my life. I can’t hear the songs, as I can’t see the Munch images, without recalling earlier states of my soul, as if to listen or to look were, beyond nostalgia, an exercise in autobiography. Each song, each image, reminds me of myself.”

I was thinking about this around 4 a.m. on a summer Saturday morning as I walked back to the Hotel Munch after an evening out in Oslo. I’d met some lovely people who’d taken me to a country music club to listen to a band called Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, and then to a rock club where a heavy metal cover band played Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” for its last number, with everyone singing along.

By then, it was late, or early, and I had to wake up in a few hours to meet some Norwegian spirits industry people for a tasting. As I walked home, past lines of people waiting for kebabs and hot dogs, the sky was that amazing shade of dark blue it only turns during a Nordic summer, when the sun never quite goes away.

The Hotel Munch provides clean, agreeable accommodations for budget travelers on a side street in downtown Oslo. It’s a nice enough place, a step up from the dormitory at the youth hostel, though the rooms are small and a bit overheated. One hot shower will turn the poorly ventilated space into a steam bath for several hours afterward. The shower will also leave water all over the bathroom, because “shower” is a loose term referring to a curtained-off corner where water spills down into a drain on the floor. I could tell you I chose to stay at this hotel only because its namesake is an artist whose work I have always loved. Though that is true, I was also staying at the Hotel Munch because it’s as cheap as downtown rooms get in this ridiculously expensive city.

That beautiful Saturday morning, at my hotel, I was scheduled to meet representatives from two small, craft-distilled Norwegian aquavit brands. I had not intended to host a tasting of premium spirits in my steamy little room at the Hotel Munch. I don’t believe the thought of a premium spirits tasting has actually ever crossed the mind of anyone at the Hotel Munch. I’d planned to do our tasting at a restaurant—perhaps the same restaurant where we also planned to have lunch. But the day before, the distiller for both brands, Ole Puntervold, emailed saying, “Norway is a civilized country, so tasting should perhaps be in your room at the hotel, not in a restaurant while you are eating lunch!”

At first I thought he was kidding, but no. Two brand representatives, Henrik Holst and Sven Hauge, showed up at the hotel before noon with bottles and promotional material and aquavit glasses. We crowded into the tiny elevator, took it up to the third floor, and entered my room; the air was still muggy from the shower and redolent of the previous late night. We set up the glasses on the tiny IKEA-like table next to my skinny single bed strewn with dirty clothes. I dumped out the dregs from a paper coffee cup, which would serve as a makeshift spit bucket. Munch, who reveled in this type of shabby bohemian milieu, probably would have been pleased.

We wiped the sweat off our brows, and Sven and I took our jackets off. Meanwhile, Henrik took up the prime position next to the window, which was the kind of northern European window that you can only open the merest crack at the top. We all chatted awkwardly, trying to avoid looking at my dirty socks and unmade bed, and then began our tasting.

“Well,” said Henrik with a nervous chuckle, “I guess we can call this a David-versus-Goliath tasting.” The Goliath he was referring to was Arcus, the giant Norwegian distillery that, until 2005, had for decades operated a state-run spirits monopoly. Henrik’s and Sven’s are two of the first spirits brands made by privately licensed distillers in Norway.

I’d actually visited Arcus the day before, and though it technically may be a Goliath, producing about fifty different aquavit brands, the people couldn’t have been friendlier. I spent the morning with Frithjof Nicolaysen, Arcus’s vice president of corporate affairs, who was dressed in a white lab coat and was described to me as “one of Norway’s leading experts on food, wine, and spirits.” Nicolaysen took me to the company’s “Spice Room,” which, with its wooden shelves of spice jars and big manual scales, looked like an old apothecary shop.

Norwegian aquavit must traditionally be made with potato-based spirits and infused with herbs and spices that must include a predominant profile of caraway. Why caraway? “It was the local remedy for indigestion” Nicolaysen said. “It’s a northern European flavor and it was always plentiful.” But caraway is only the beginning, and the spice room was full of pungent containers. Dill is also a major ingredient in aquavit, as are mustard blossom, fennel, coriander, guinea pepper, clove, and cardamom. And of course, our old friends anise and star anise. “Star anise, you know, becomes Tamiflu,” Nicolaysen said. “To fight the pig flu”

Nicolaysen clearly enjoyed the olfactory experience in the spice room. “What would life be without spices?” he asked. “Many of the spices have their basis in medicine. It was much easier to drink these herbs than to chew them.”

After the spice room, we toured the cask cellar. Unlike Danish and Swedish aquavit, Norwegian aquavit must mature in sherry oak casks, and Arcus has thousands of casks stored, including several earmarked for Norway’s royal family. Arcus’s most famous brand is Linie, which means “line” in Norwegian—in this case the equator. Linie is carried in sherry casks aboard ships that cross the equator twice before it is sold; the voyage date and ship are listed on every label. The flavor is supposedly “mellowed by its voyage.” I have asked every Scandinavian I know whether this makes any difference whatsoever to the taste. This question has been met with a shrug every time.

We tasted about fifteen of the fifty bottlings, from a young, clear
taffel
, or “table,” aquavit (aged in older casks that don’t impart color) to a twelve-year-old bottling that tasted like a cognac. Some versions have a blast of caraway and dill on the nose, while others have fruitier notes, and the more aged versions have hints of vanilla or caramel. Aquavit in all its versions is a strange, complex, and wonderful spirit, and a good match with the traditional winter Scandinavian fare of pungent fish, sharp cheeses, and heavy meat dishes. “The food is always deciding the character of the aquavit. We don’t make wine here. So this has been adapted to the Nordic kitchen,” Nicolaysen said. For example, there are special holiday bottlings to pair with bacalao (dried salt cod) or rakefisk (salted, fermented trout). In fact, the rakefisk bottling, which is aged three years, has an illustration of a fish on the label with a wavy line emanating from it—the international symbol for “stinky.” “This aquavit has to match a very stinky fish.”