Boozehound (34 page)

Fill a highball glass with ice. Add the chinotto and apple brandy. Stir gently. Garnish with the orange slice.

Recipe by Jackson Cannon of Eastern Standard, Boston

JACK MAUVE

Serves 1

This variation on the classic Jack Rose calls for homemade grenadine. Since homemade grenadine will be purple rather than red, the Jack Rose in this case takes on a sort of mauve color—but more important, this version is much tastier. The original recipe calls for applejack; I recommend Laird’s apple brandy or a nice Calvados for a sublime cocktail. With Calvados, though, use slightly less grenadine—about half an ounce
.

1 ½ ounces apple brandy, applejack, or Calvados

¾ ounce freshly squeezed lime juice

¾ ounce
homemade grenadine

Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Add the apple brandy, lime juice, and grenadine. Shake vigorously, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

CORPSE REVIVER #1

Serves 1

1½ ounces brandy, preferably cognac

¾ ounce apple brandy, preferably Calvados

¾ ounce sweet vermouth

Lemon peel twist, for garnish

Fill a mixing glass halfway with ice. Add the brandy, Calvados, and vermouth. Stir vigorously, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the lemon peel twist.

WIDOW’S KISS

Serves 1

This cocktail, first created in the late nineteenth century, involves two French liqueurs with romantic, and mysterious, company stories. Bénédictine is believed to be the world’s oldest liqueur, dating to 1510. Made from brandy or cognac and a secret infusion of herbs, the recipe is closely guarded at the Benedictine abbey in Fécamp, Normandy. Chartreuse is made in the alpine town of Voiron, at a monastery called La Grande Chartreuse. There is little chance its secret recipe will ever be revealed. The only two Carthusian monks who know it have taken a vow of silence
.

1½ ounces Calvados or applejack

¾ ounce Bénédictine

¾ ounce yellow Chartreuse

1 dash Angostura bitters

1 strawberry, sliced, for garnish

Fill a cocktail shaker two-thirds full with ice and add the Calvados, Bénédictine, Chartreuse, and bitters. Shake vigorously, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the strawberry slices.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

F
IRST AND FOREMOST
, thanks to Joe Yonan, my editor at the
Washington Post
. It was he who made the brilliant decision to let me to write about booze for his section. Thanks also to my other wonderful Food section colleagues: Bonnie Benwick and Jane Touzalin for editing me to success every week—their fingerprints are all over this book; Jane Black for setting the writing bar high, but also for being the president of my fan club; and Leigh Lambert for sharing chuckles over the many unintentionally hilarious press releases we receive.

Thanks to Lisa Westmoreland at Ten Speed Press for seeing
Boozehound
as a worthy project, and huge thanks to Sara Golski, who certainly had her hands full editing me, yet shepherded this book through the process with aplomb.

My colleagues at The Smart Set, Jesse Smith and Brittany Tress, deserve my undying gratitude for putting up with me during all the travel and the writing. This book, in fact, wouldn’t have happened without the amazingly generous support of Drexel University, in particular Dave Jones and Mark Greenberg. I should also give a shout-out to my “protégé” Emily Callaghan, whose talent and friendship is unwavering (even when her “assistance” at Tales of the Cocktail is shaky).

There are so many bartenders, drinks writers, and spirits people whose knowledge, generosity, and camaraderie is always greatly appreciated: Duggan McDonnell, Audrey Fort, Maggie Savarino, Jordan Mackay, Todd Thrasher, Derek Brown, Adam Bernbach, Gina Chersevani, Chantal Tseng, Dave Wondrich, Jim Meehan, Neyah White, Jackie Patterson, Janell Moore, Camper English, Wayne Curtis, Charlotte Voisey, Nick Jarrett, Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, and Danielle Eddy, among many others.

I’d also like to thank some of my great drinking companions over the years: Trine Skj⊘ldberg in Copenhagen, James Wood in Boston and Edinburgh, Vanessa Polk in the East Village, Kevin Meeker in Haiti, Italy, and Philly, Addy and Sonja and Hjalti in Reykjavík, the old Jersey Shore crowd (including Chris, Snap, Fran, and Game Girl), whoever played “apartment golf” that fateful night in Burlington, Vermont, and the whole gang at La Quercia in Pieve San Giacomo. I’m sure there about 9,999 more people who’ve bought me a drink in my lifetime … Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten. I’ll get the next round.

Thank you to Haddonfield, New Jersey, for being a dry town. It makes things a little more challenging to live here, keeps me on my toes.

An extra-special thanks is reserved for my family, including my in-laws, Jack and Mariann, who have hopefully forgiven me for taking their daughter away from California, and especially my own mom and dad, who surely could not have imagined the strange trajectory of their son’s career, and yet have steadfastly supported it all the same. One thing, however, Mom: You once said that drinking wouldn’t get me anywhere. Well, I hate to you inform otherwise … but …

Thanks to my brother Tyler, who has imbibed with me all over the world—from Iceland to the Netherlands to Portugal to Central America—and who may have the finest home bar of anyone in North America. And I would also like to give a shout-out to my youngest brother, Brad—though he is a teetotaler, we love him anyway.

I save the most love for those who put up with me every day, or at least when I’m not off tasting this or that. Cheers to my boys, Sander and Wes, who will only be allowed to read this book, and this acknowledgment, many years from now when they are twenty-one years old.

Finally, last in the acknowledgments but first in my heart, thanks to my beautiful, talented, and patient wife, Jen, my trusted first editor. Surely someday soon she can write her own gimlet-eyed book, called
Living with Boozehound
.

APPENDIX

H
OME BARTENDING
is a source of much anxiety, which is likely one reason why people don’t experiment with new and interesting spirits. But really, making great cocktails in your kitchen is easy. Just keep a few basic truths in mind:

• Always use fresh citrus
  . Whenever a recipe calls for lemon, lime, orange, or grapefruit juice, squeeze the fruit yourself.
  
• Never use premade mixes
  . Remove “sour mix” from your shopping list. If you’ve only ever had a margarita made from a Day-Glo mix, then you have been living a lie. Besides, how much time and effort are you really saving? A real margarita only has three ingredients to begin with!
  
• Always measure
  . A cocktail is about the balance of flavors and textures, and ratios matter. Yeah, it looks cool to free pour, but most of the best bartenders measure out their drinks.
  
• Never shake when a recipe calls for stirring, and vice versa
  . It makes a big difference. Also, when a recipe says “shake well,” for god’s sake, shake
  well!
  
• Always take care of your vermouth
  . Don’t be one of those people who thumb their noses at vermouth—it’s an essential part of a cocktail maker’s repertoire. Remember, vermouth is an aromatized wine, so you must keep it in the refrigerator and replace it every month, because otherwise it will go bad. For this reason, I like buying small bottles for home use.
  
• Never forget the bitters
  . There’s a reason the recipe calls for bitters. Bitters balance flavors and add texture to a cocktail.
  

Stocking the Basic Bar

Though this book has been mostly about obscure booze, you’ll notice that many of the cocktail recipes listed throughout call for more familiar spirits. In fact, liqueurs, amari, and eaux-de-vie are most often the supporting players in cocktails; almost all cocktails call for a base spirit in one of the following six categories:

• Gin
  . I always stock a Plymouth gin, a traditional London dry gin like Tanqueray or Beefeater’s, and Old Tom gin.
  
• Whiskey
  . Bourbon and rye are essential, and there are plenty of reasonably priced options. Buffalo Trace bourbon costs less than twenty-five dollars and Rittenhouse rye less than twenty, to name two go-to brands. An Irish whiskey like Bushmills or Redbreast is also good to have on hand. And, of course, a single-malt Scotch whisky—because if there’s a single-malt drinker in your life, that’s likely all he or she is going to want.
  
• Tequila
  . You should always have a good blanco or silver, a reposado, and an añejo. Good, 100 percent agave tequila is more expensive than you think, but don’t skimp.
  
• Rum
  . A well-stocked bar will have, at least, a white rum, an aged rum, a rhum agricole, and a cachaça, the Brazilian cane-based spirit. This may sound like a lot, but rums are complex, and each is distinct.
  
• Brandy
  . You’ll want a good-value VSOP cognac, such as Pierre Ferrand Ambre, and a Calvados, apple brandy, or applejack; I’ve also started stocking the Peruvian brandy pisco.
  
• Vodka
  . Yes, despite my antivodka ranting, you should always keep a bottle on hand. You want to be a good host, and inevitably someone’s going to come over and want a vodka tonic.
  

Beyond the Basic Bottles