Dayton937

Things to do in Dayton | Restaurants, Theatre, Music and More

Happy Hour

To Your Health, Happiness, and Prosperity – National Anisette Day

By 1 Comment

Anise flowers

Such a lovely bunch of flowers…

Anise has a long and flavorful history. It is mentioned in the Bible as a lesson not to be stingy to the Lord. It marched with Caesar as a treat for his troops, possibly one of the first candies developed. The Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians all used it to help digestive ailments, from upset stomachs to bad breath to indigestion. The Romans went so far as to bake it into mustaceum cake, where it was used with other herbs to aid in digestion. It was used for medicinal purposes as well as in cooking to add stronger flavors, or balance out sweetness. As time continued, more and more uses were found for this aromatic and powerfully flavored herb, from cosmetics to liquor. On July 2, we look to its use in liquors as we celebrate National Anisette Day.

Anisette is a generic name used for a liqueur that is primarily flavored with the herb anise, giving the drink a black licorice flavor. Sugary syrup is added to tone down the flavor ever so slightly. Anise grows mainly in the Middle East, Turkey, and Greece, but has spread through the world. Many of those countries also have created their own distinct anisette variations: in Greece it is known as ouzo, in Turkey it is called raki, in Syria, Egypt, and Israel it is known as arak. It is believed that Marie Brizzard, the popular French liqueur company, started to make anisette in 1755 with their other flavored options, helping to spread the popularity of the flavor through Europe. The Spanish fell in love with what they call Anis del Mono (“the monkey’s anisette”), the French created pastis and another infamous liqueur, absinthe. The Italians developed both white and black sambuca. All of them have their own variations of sweetness from the sugar added to the base spirit.

Milky white Yeni Raki

You can find this example of louched anisette at Pasha Grill in The Greene.

The flavor of licorice is a strong one, and anisette is rarely found without something mixed in it. The popular mix of choice for anisette in its many forms is water, whether you are looking at an elegant absinthe fountain or just pouring equal amounts of water and reki in a glass to create Lion’s Milk. One reason is the water dilutes the flavor, making it less intense and easier to drink. The other is to create and effect call louching, where the latent oils that are in the anise refuse to bond with the water mixture, giving the beverage a cloudy look. This is rarely done with sambuca (thought it would work), but the Italians came up with a unique solution to help cut the flavor of the anisette. They serve it with three coffee beans floating on top of it, calling it sambuca con la mosca, sambuca with a fly. The three beans represent health, happiness, and prosperity. You can do it with more or less, but it is considered bad luck to do it with an even number. After you drink the sambuca, you can chew on the beans to enhance the rich anise flavor.

Looking for it in this area can be difficult. Some of the more craft cocktail oriented places like Salar and Rue Dumaine may have absinthe or sambuca as aperitifs or digestifs to have during your meal, or for use in cocktails like a sazerac, Café de Paris, or typhoon. If you are looking to try an excellent louched drink, look to Pasha Grill for Yeni Raki, one of my favorites. Absinthe, sambuca, and ouzo are also common to find in liquor stores like Arrow Wine if you are feeling adventurous and want to bring some home for your own personal trials in cocktails.

From candy to medicine to cocktails, anise has proven to be a versatile and coveted plant. Its flavor profile, similar to a sweeter black licorice, is something people either love or hate. It blends well with other flavors in cooking as well as in adult beverages, helping to tone down bitter flavors and enhance sweeter ones. Over the Fourth of July weekend, with all of the family and friends you are going to be seeing, you have an opportunity to gather around a glass of something unique after a good meal and toast to each other’s heath, happiness, and prosperity.

 

Summer Sipping

By Leave a Comment

Summer cocktail

Summer is here…and look what it brought with it!

The unofficial beginning of summer has become Memorial Day weekend. It is a long weekend, the weather has turned warm for the season, and pool and festival season kicks off during the extended break from work. The official first day of the season is June 21, during the summer solstice and the longest day of the year. When summer hits, everything changes. Fresh fruit is much more available, and you can get VERY fresh fruit at local farmers markets and Second Street Market downtown. This is also a perfect excuse to change up what you are drinking.

The craft beer distilleries have been summer beers for a month or two now, adding berries, peaches, melons, and citrusy flavors to provide some light flavors more in tune with the season. People are turning to lighter cocktails, looking to all flavors of mojitos, margaritas, or any other light drink. And of course, you need to hit the patio wherever you are at. The season to relax on a patio with friends does not last forever, so  get while the getting is good. But what to drink while you are out there? That is the real question. Here are some answers.

BEER

Shandies

Beer of your choice, typically a lager
Lemonade or lemon lime soda

Fill half a pint or other tall glass half way with your beer of choice. Fill the rest of it with the lemonade or lemon lime soda. Enjoy!

Shandies have been around for about a century, starting in Europe and spreading across the pond. Different places around the world use different regional mixers, but the general idea is the same. It is a drink with a little bit of an alcoholic punch, but mild enough to sip it all day long. Any beer can be used, but a good witbier can make a really tasty pairing.

Shandy beer cocktailCOCKTAILS

Lynchburg Lemonade

1.5 oz. Jack Daniels (it can be any whiskey, but seriously…)
.5 oz. peach liqueur
1 oz. lemon juice (about lemon)
.5 oz. simple syrup
Club Soda

Pour the whiskey, peach liqueur, lemon juice, and simple syrup into a cocktail shaker. Shake well (10-15 shakes), and pour into a glass filled with ice. Top off with about an ounce of club soda.

The Lynchburg Lemonade has fallen on hard times. It has a bad reputation of being overly sweet, fizzy, and generally frowned on in this world of craft cocktails and more available ingredients. Jeff Lucas, a contributor to Serious Eats, worked out this upgraded version. It allows the whiskey to come forward, with the rest of the flavors there for support. This is one you can make in the comfort of your own house.

Paloma

1.5 oz. tequila (I have been enjoying Avion lately)
4.5 oz. grapefruit soda
A splash of lime juice

Fill a tall glass with ice. Pour the tequila in first, then the grapefruit soda and lime juice. Stir and enjoy!

While we like to drink margaritas to celebrate Mexican culture, Mexicans like to drink this very refreshing tequila cocktail. It is simple to make and perfect for a hot day out with friends.

Floridita (Or Hemingway Daiquiri)

2 oz. rum
.5 oz. lime juice
.25 oz. simple syrup
.25 oz. maraschino liqueur
.5 oz. grapefruit juice

Pour all of the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake until cold, and pour into a cocktail glass. Enjoy!

Hemingway needed to take a bathroom break.  A charming little bar in Havana, the El Floridita, was on his way, so he pulled in there to use their facilities. He saw the bartender mixing up a batch of daiquiris. The bartender noticed the famous writer and offered him a glass. Hemingway liked it, but he wanted his a little stronger, and without the sugar. A little maraschino liqueur and a lot of rum later, this delicious summer cocktail was born.

Mixed berriesStrawberry Sorbet

.75 oz. vodka
.75 oz. strawberry schnapps
4 oz. milk

Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake until cold, and pour in a tall glass filled with ice.

What is summer fun without a little ice cream? This is a richer drink you may want to consider as a dessert or a sweet treat. You can switch out any flavored schnapps you would like to make the ice cream your preferred flavor. You can even reduce the amount of milk to 2 oz., add 4 oz. of ice cream, and turn it into an actual shake. Add two or three fresh strawberries while you are at it!

WINE

White Wine Berry Sangria

1 750 ml bottle of white wine that matches your taste
.75 cup white rum
.5 cup sugar, less if you choose
.5 cup blueberries
.5 cup blackberries
.5 cup raspberries
.5 liter of ginger ale

Pour the wine, rum, sugar, and all of the fruit into a large pitcher and mix well. Put into the refrigerator for two hours, or until you are ready to serve. Just before you serve it, add the ginger ale to the mix.

Summer is a great time for berries. It is also a great time for white wine. It seems only natural to mix the two together for a light wine cocktail. You can up the tartness of the sangria by getting rid of the rum and switching it to .5 cup of limoncello (Italian lemon liqueur).

This is the season where families spend more time together and people go out and relax more. It is time to add some fresh flavors to the typical drinks you are enjoying. Where is your favorite patio to hang out on in Dayton during the summer? We would love to hear about it in the comments! There is a little extra daylight to burn today. Get out there and start enjoying it.

Live From New York: Brian Van Flandern Trains at Salar

By Leave a Comment

Cocktail with gin and chartreuse

Fresh new cocktails coming to the Oregon District!

It was in New York that an actor was working his way through school. The year was 2003; he had one more semester to go, and the bar he was working in was failing. He was no ordinary bartender. While working in theater and other pursuits, he had nearly two decades of bartending under his belt. Knowing he had one more semester to go, he agreed to take one more restaurant job in New York and work there until he was able to get “a real job”. The new restaurant was the brainchild of Chef Thomas Keller, who had already created the very successful French Laundry in California, and now wanted to expand it to New York. While working with the chef of Per Se to create the menu, and learning to pair wines with dishes, this bartender asked “Why can’t we use fresh ingredients and make great cocktails that pair with food?” This simple question lead to a rethinking of how food and cocktails can interact. He had to prove to the chef that, despite their higher alcohol content, you can create cocktails that went well with food.

After the initial terror and question of “What did I do?” subsided, experienced bartender Brian Van Flandern set out to prove his point. The quest included three distinct elements. The first was to make cocktails from fresh and local ingredients, something that had been spreading like a virus through the New York cocktail scene. The second was pairing great cocktails with great food, something he was sure could be done. The third, and this was the hardest sell for the consumer, was to lower the alcohol content so that the palate was not damaged by the liquor. He was looking through a list of the basic cocktails when he picked his battle: the gin and tonic. Gin was an element that he was familiar with, and how much more simple of a cocktail can you make than one with just two elements? As he dissected it, he started to learn about the history of the drink, really questioning how it was made. That led to Van Flandern making his own tonic water, importing powdered quinine from Brazil, well before craft and artisan tonics were in vogue. Combining his home made tonic water with a special gin from San Francisco, he created the Tonic and Gin Per Se. When renown New York Times Critic Frank Brunei gave his four star review of Per Se, he mentioned that cocktail by name. “And all of a sudden my bartending job became a career”, Van Flandern said with a smile and a laugh.

Brian Van Flandern

Three star Michelein Mixologist Brian Van Flandern educating the staff.

Brian Van Flandern, three star Michelin rated mixologist and world class cocktail educator and creator, met with me at Rue Dumaine to discuss all things cocktail. Two things strike you as you are talking with him: he is naturally very friendly and easy to chat with, and he is passionate about cocktails and how they fit into our current culture. He has a very impressive resume to stand on. He has cocktails in over forty countries, as well as a very thick book of places where he has shared his experience and passion. He is the author of two books, Vintage Cocktails, which is currently available and Craft Cocktails, which will be released by Assoline later this month. Like anyone who is passionate about what he does and where he is going, he is well versed in where his craft has been. “Prior to Prohibition in the United States, being a bartender was a respected craft, like a pharmacist or a cobbler. It was a trade that was passed down from father to son. These famous barmen were making their own tonics, their own tinctures, their own syrups.” He goes on, describing the flight of these great bartenders to Europe so they could keep making good cocktails. Europe became no better for cocktails than America, getting caught first in the worldwide Great Depression and then World War II. “By the time World War II was over, we had lost an entire generation of mixology and had lost the art of the cocktail.”  He talks about the evolution of the cocktail, not only in terms of how it went from strong in the 50’s and 60’s to sweet in the 70’s and 80’s, but how people perceived it and how consumer demand influenced it.

It was not until the late 90’s that the cocktail started to edge back to where it had been before prohibition. “Dale DeGroff started to do critical thinking like a chef. He took a recipe from a woman who had won a cocktail competition in Florida, and made a cocktail called a Cosmopolitan. He used fresh ingredients and quality spirits, balanced it out, and he made an amazing Cosmopolitan that became so famous in New York that Sarah Jessica Parker mentioned it in her show ‘Sex and the City’. That cocktail became a global phenomenon. That was only the beginning. Now we are seeing the great mixologists are emulating the great chefs, working with global, fresh ingredients, their balancing the acids and sugars, and they are creating original flavor profiles that are aesthetically pleasing to the eyes and the palate.”

Mixology class at Salar

Class is in session for the future Salar mixologists.

Understanding where the cocktail has been helps Van Flanern see where it is going. Asking him about the next big cocktail trend, he feels that “we will never see a global trend like the Cosmopolitan again.” He sees bartending going in the same direction that the culinary world has been going; becoming more and more innovative, looking more to local and fresh ingredients to create their signature libations. He compared the growth of a bartender into a mixologist in the same way a cook evolves into a chef. Mixologists “innovate, they create, the do anything a bartender does, and more. They take it to the next level,” according to Van Flandern. Cocktails are no longer the big trend to look for, spirits are. People are embracing white whiskey, mescal, and pisco right now on the East coast, and it has been moving inwards through the country. The bigger spirits companies, like Diaego and Beam Global,  are also helping to move trends, polling to see what people want to drink and encouraging the distilleries they own to develop spirits in that direction. This has allowed smaller, boutique, small batch distilleries to grow, fuelling a revolution in smaller craft spirits.  “There is a lot of boutique, small batch, pot distilled distillations. We have seen a lot of boutique spirits are coming out where these guys are doing unique and innovative, cutting edge products in every major and minor spirit categories.”

Thanks to pioneers like Dale DeGroff, bartending has returned to the respectable trade it was before Prohibition chased bartenders to Europe, and their knowledge out of restaurants and bars. “It is an exciting time to be a bartender, globally”, offers Van Flandern, and he is right. Society’s palates have changed over the last two decades, and the explosion and expansion of craft liquors and spirits have given bartenders more options as far as ways to create cocktails. With the rising tide of skill and respect, the bar is no longer just a place for people to wait in a restaurant while their table is getting ready.  It is an integrated part of the dining experience, with cocktails being paired with meals like wine traditionally has been and craft beers were a few years ago. “In my professional opinion, the long term trend in the next five years, great Chefs are going to supplant themselves in communities throughout the nation,” Van Flandern notes. He has seen this trend spreading, starting in places like London and New York, and in recent years moving to smaller cities like Cleveland and Columbus. And once the trend hits a city, it starts to spread to other lounges and restaurants.

Chef Margot Blondet

Chef Margot Blondet, Executive Chef at Salar.

Mr. Van Flandern was recruited by Chef Margot Blondet to help give Salar, the restaurant she is creating, a globally inspired, signature cocktail menu. “We see great chefs like Chef Margot moving in to Dayton and settling down roots here, and then making commitments to great cuisine in Dayton, and making a similar commitment to her cocktail program.” That commitment extended to training the bar staff to make cocktails that had the same elements she was passionate about: fresh, innovative, exciting, locally sourced and the best in Dayton. Making great cocktails like that will also include training on the history of the spirits and the cocktails they would be making, so they understand them on a deeper level and can create new ones using the same philosophy. He assured me that all of their cocktails, while well crafted, will be delivered in a timely manner. If it is not exactly what you were looking for, the staff there will have no problems making it to your tastes. His customer first philosophy is one other thing that will be instilled into the bartenders he is training.

Salar is looking to open up in the next few weeks with not only fanfare, but with great ambition. Bringing a mixologist like Brian Van Flandern, with his years of experience and training, shows just how serious of an impact Chef/Owner  Margot and General Manager Harry Trubounis are looking to make in the culinary landscape of Dayton. The stage is set in the Oregon District for a new star to rise.

Lovely Day for a Guinness!

By Leave a Comment

The gates to the glory that is…Guinness!

Until the discovery of germs and bacteria, water was unsafe to drink. Europe had it the worst, with so many people and so much industry located near bodies of water that people also drank out of. People were turning to spirits in droves, since it was much safer to drink then the water. Gin was the popular choice; it was cheap, it had some flavor, and brandy had been banned because of England’s on again/off again love affair with France. It was getting so cheap that people were abusing it. At the height of the Gin Craze, the British were drinking an average 2.2 gallons of gin a year. The population was so drunk on such a constant basis that society and the economy were beginning to slip. Beer was being brewed offered by monks and the church as a way to have a drink safer than water and not as harsh and debilitating as gin.

Arthur Guinness, founder of the beer that bears his name, was a good and humble man. His godfather was the Archbishop of Cashel in Ireland, and he was very faithful to the Irish church. So faithful, in fact, he began the first Sunday Schools on the island, and spent a great deal of his time and money helping the poor. He inherited some money, 100 £ to be exact, and used it to lease the brewery at St. James Gate. In 1759, the lease was signed for 9000 years for a price of 45 £ a year. He saw that he could play a part in stemming the flood of gin that was destroying Britain, and began brewing immediately. By 1769 he was able to start shipping his beer to England. Guinness himself passed away in 1803, but his son took up the family business. Not only did he take up the business, he took up the giving philosophy and helping of his fellow man.

The 19th century was good to the brewers at Guinness. It continued to grow despite doing nothing that other breweries were doing to promote their beer. They did not advertise or give discounts, relying mainly on word of mouth to spread the word about their product. They also did not own any public houses, which many breweries at the time did to promote their own beers. Beer was booming in Britain. It was seen as a “healthier” alternative to gin, and so it was not as strictly regulated as gin was. This allowed for thousands of public houses to be opened through the country. By the beginning of World War I, Guinness accounted for about 10% of the beer in Britain. While business was booming for the company, they were also giving their workers benefits that were almost unheard of at the time. They even pioneered quality control techniques that helped them put out a better, safer product. It was adopted by other industries, and is now known as the t-test. The quirkiness of the company also touched a little on its religious heritage; until 1939, if a Guinness brewer wanted to marry a Catholic, he would have to resign.

Guinness advertisement with toucans

How grand to be a Toucan!

The 1930’s started off by seeing Guinness as the seventh largest company in the world, and falling steadily towards the end of the decade. The company started looking for a new ad campaign as sales started to slide. They wanted to maintain their wholesome image and still promote the “healthy” benefits of their beer. S.H.Benson was the advertising company tasked with the project, and accomplished artist John Gilroy was the man they gave the job to. The combination of health, wholesomeness, and avoiding the typical beer advertisement led them to…zoo animals. The Zoo ads were incredibly successful for Guinness, incorporating a seal balancing a pint, an ostrich swallowing one whole, and the most enduring image, the toucan with two pints. The advertising campaign went strong for decades, until the early 1980’s when they decided it was dated and retired it. It has been showing up again more recently, making its presence felt again as one of the lone animal survivors of the campaign. The ads helped for a while, but Guinness continued to struggle against the lighter colored lagers.

In the 1970’s the company, who had up until this point been making porters and stouts, stopped experimenting with porters and stuck strictly to stouts. Ever the contrarians to popular sentiment, they began to market their beer as something to be enjoyed by people who desire something a little different, seeking to attain a cult status in the face of their declining sales. They embraced the unique look the beer had when it was poured; a sharp white cap of bubbles on a deep, dark base. It was successful, stopping Guinness’ sales slide and spreading its popularity. The 1980’s brought another distinction to Guinness as well: the can with the widget. Guinness tried to keep as much carbon dioxide as possible out of their beer, preferring nitrogen to add and carbonation to the brew. The bubbles are smaller, helping to not only create a smoother mouthfeel, but it is important in creating the distinct look of a well poured draught. Guinness had been doing canned been since the 1970’s, but did not sell it internationally because is needed an additional piece to inject the nitrogen/carbon dioxide mix. The widget solved that by injecting the gasses into the can when the can is opened; the change in pressure activates it. The widget was a thing of engineering beauty; it even won the Queen’s Award for Technological Achievement. Guinness, through clever advertising and its outsider status has maintained its cult status nicely over the last few decades.

Guinness coaster

I cannot agree with this coaster enough.

A cult status is good to maintain a little bit of mystery. That mystery has lead to some interesting rumors, everything from rats in kegs to making you stronger. The facts are not as sultry, but here they are: Guinness is made of dark roasted barley, hops, water, and yeast. The roast gives it a flavor that ranges from dark chocolate to coffee, and balances out the hops. It weighs in at a very light 4.3% ABV and a respectable 125 calories per 12 ounces. It is not even physically heavy; it is the beer sitting on top in a Black and Tan and its many variants. If you are a strict vegetarian, it is made with a byproduct of dead fish, isinglass. The isinglass is used to separate solids out of the brew, so it very rarely hits the bottle. Some studies have shown it could possibly maybe sort of be a little healthy for you, but not actually that much healthier than other beers. Pouring a pint of Guinness properly, the “Perfect Pint”, takes 119 seconds and two pours at about 45 degrees F. However, with modern technology, that has time has been cut down to four seconds.

On St. Patrick’s Day, put away the green beer and embrace something that has always been a little different from the norm.  If you are looking for somewhere to celebrate, head on over to our Events page to see everything that Dayton has to offer on March 17. It is fitting that a God-fearing man created a beer that is a big part of a holiday the Irish use to celebrate a saint. Even as sales for it decline in other parts of the world, the Emerald Isle still loves its native stout. The craft beer revolution may have opened up our palate to other stouts, but Guinness is still the one people think of. And if for no other reason, do it for the toucans.

Seven Years in Mexico – The Kahlua Story

By Leave a Comment

Kahlua Bottles

Ready and waiting for National Kahlua Day.

What were you doing in 2006? It was not an incredibly memorable year overall, but some major events happened. It started off with the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Italy had a big year that year, also beating France in the World Cup 5-3. The St. Louis Cardinals, Miami Heat, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Carolina Hurricanes all took the championships in their respective sports. The Oscar that year went to Crash and the Grammy for Album of the Year was U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The population of the United States hit 300 million in population that year as well. It was not all fun and games that year, though. Poor Pluto lost its planetary status that year, and Western Union sent its last telegram. YouTube played its last video independently that year, as it was bought by Google. James Brown, Steve Irwin, Don Knotts, Lou Rawls, and Coretta Scott King all passed away that year as well. But to end it on a good note, gas prices were only $2.59 on average for the whole year.

Why do events that happened seven years ago matter in a column that is about cocktails and liquor? Seven years ago some coffee beans and sugar cane, growing side by side, began a journey that would lead them to become a bottle of coffee liqueur better known of Kahlua. The coffee plant is what takes the longest time to grow, taking up to seven years for the Arabica coffee plant to reach maturity and produce coffee cherries. After the coffee is harvested, the beans are removed from the cherry and dried for at least six months before roasting, to get the proper flavor. While the coffee is being prepared, the neighboring sugar cane (which matures much faster) is being crushed so the juice can be collected and fermented; similar to how rum is created.  When coffee is roasted and the sugar cane juice is fermented, the two are blended together with some caramel and vanilla flavors to create the second most distinct liquor to come out of Mexico.

The company celebrated its Mexican heritage all through its growth. The flirting began in Veracruz, in the south of Mexico on the Gulf. In 1930 the Alvarez brothers offered their premium coffee to a local man experimenting with making spirits. Things became serious in 1936, when the spirit was created and started to be sold. Its popularity blossomed  over the next few decades, the final marriage of all the ingredients coming to fruition in 1962 before taking off in the United States through the mid 1960’s.The explosive growth in North America spawned multiple pretenders to the throne including lower quality versions like  Kapali, Kamora, Copa De Oro, and deKuyper’s Crème de Café. Some well known coffee brands, like Starbucks and illy, also tried to get into the coffee liqueur game. Patron makes their XO Café, which is a blend of tequila and coffee. It is made in the same manner as Kahlua, but the tequila changes the flavor profile a bit. As many imitators as there are, there ain’t nothing like the real thing.

Espresso Martinis

Rich and delicious, espresso martinis are a nice after dinner cocktail.

Kahlua (meaning “House of the Acolhua people” in Nahuatl) has maintained its 20% ABV and slight caffeine content (about 1/10th of what a cup of coffee has) throughout its history. It has branched out into new flavors as the years have passed. They offer the original coffee flavor, as well as a more intense (and higher proof) Especial. On top of the Especial, they also have a 35% ABV Midnight, the strongest liqueur they have in their line. Staying close to the coffee flavor theme, they also offer Mocha, adding a hint of chocolate to the coffee, and a special holiday Peppermint Mocha. To round out their flavor offerings they have Hazelnut, French Vanilla, and Cinnamon Spice. Kahlua, and all of its many flavors, are sipped nicely on the rocks. So nicely, in fact, that one of the first mainstream cocktails made with Kahlua was the Black Russian, using two parts of vodka with the Kahlua over ice. A simple addition of cream or milk will make a White Russian, made famous in The Big Lebowski. It is also a key ingredient in any version of the Espresso Martini. It is prominently featured in shots like the Baby Guinness and B-52. Of course, it also goes very well in a nice cup of coffee.

February 27th is National Kahlua Day, and the coffee that was planted in 2006 is now sitting in bottles, waiting to be enjoyed. There are plenty of cocktails you can try with this sweet coffee liqueur, or just enjoy it on the rocks. As an Ohioan you get an added benefit: Kahlua can be sold on our great state at 21.5%, slightly higher than the rest of the world. Just another thing to celebrate today! Cheers!

Tasting the Stars in Champagne

By 18,068 Comments

“I only drink champagne when I’m happy, and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it – unless I’m thirsty.” ~Madame Lily Bollinger

Champagne coupe

Originally, champagne was served in glasses that looked like this.

Madame Bollinger would know the best time to drink champagne. As one of the greatest women to work in the champagne industry in the house whose name she bears, Mme. Bollinger brought champagne through the Great Depression and World War Two. She promoted a style of champagne that changed the industry, moving it from the sweeter side of the spectrum to the dry the British always seem to favor. She was the face of the Bollinger brand, an unusual position for a woman in 1941, and through her efforts, helped the city of Ay, after the war, while earning several honors from both Great Britain and France. She continued the tradition of providing the royalty of England with champagne for all of their events, but more importantly creating champagne so iconic that even James Bond drinks it.

Champagne is a drink of celebration, and is there a better time to be celebrating than on Valentine’s Day? Love is in the air, chocolates and flowers are roaming through offices and homes around the world, so why not bring out that bottle of champagne you were saving for a special occasion? And while you are enjoying your wine, enjoy some interesting facts, trivia, and quotes about this bubbly beauty.

  • Dom Perignon, considered the father of champagne, was not trying to create a sparkling drink. He was trying to demi_sec
    prevent it. The bubbles in champagne were a flaw caused by secondary fermentation. Cold stops the fermentation process, and can leave some sugar in the bottle. When spring comes back and the weather warms up, the fermentation starts up, and creates the fizz. Dom Perignon was the father of blending grapes before pressing them.
  • The grapes blended to make champagne in the modern era are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier.
  • Modern champagne tastes were determined by the British. Champagne was first deliberately created by a man named Christopher Merret in the mid 17th century. They liked the carbonation in their wine, though it was the French king that Louis XIV made it popular with the nobility. It was much sweeter at the time. It was the British again that demanded drier and drier champagne, giving us the general range of sweetness we enjoy today.
  • Uncorking a bottle of champagne is serious business. Before the glass was strong enough, the secondary fermentation caused bottles to explode. All of that gas with no outlet builds up pressure. It can be up to 90 PSI, just under three times what is recommended in a car tire. Plenty of pressure and a little neck, when put together, create a weapon that can shoot the cork at speeds of up to 50 MPH. That could put your eye out. Ain’t nobody got time for that on Valentine’s Day.
  • If you are going for distance, not speed, you are going to have to shoot your cork over 178 feet to break the world record, set by an American in 1988.
  • Champagne_bubblesThe bubbles are crucial to the enjoyment of the champagne. There is an estimated 49 million bubbles in a bottle. Moet and Chandon, in tandem with Heineken, spent $7 million dollars on special photography that revealed 250 million bubbles were contained in each bottle. To get the most bubbles in your bubbly, cool the bottle to about 45 degrees F. With the bottle at a 45 degree angle, put the bottom of the bottle against your hip or thigh. The first thing you will need to do is remove the foil, then the cage on the cork. Be careful; sometimes the cork is loose, and removing the cage will cause the cork to pop. Take a towel and wrap it around the neck, making sure you cover the cork. Holding tight to the cork, twist it gently until it comes out. The less noise you make, the more bubbles you get to enjoy in your glass.
  • Champagne only comes from France by international law. Champagne is part of the larger group of sparkling wines you can find anywhere in the world. If you get it in Italy, it is prosecco , which is becoming very popular. Spain has cava, Germany has sekt, and Portugal has espumante.

    Bottle of Cava

    The Spanish sparkling wine cava, made mainly in the Catalona region.

  • How sweet do you want your champagne? Brut Nature  is the driest of the dry, with no sugar, or very little, added to the wine. Extra Brut has some sugar added, but it still very dry. Brut is the most commonly purchased champagne, and is still a little on the dry side. Extra sec has a little more sweetness than Brut, and a little more sugar added. Demi Sec is dessert-level sweet, with quite a bit more sugar added. Sec is a very sweet champagne, definitely served after a meal as a dessert.
  • We prefer to drink champagne in a flute, but if you watch older films, you can see them drinking champagne out of a wider glass known as a coupé. It does not hold the bubbles as well, but was the traditional way of drinking champagne. It is also said to be molded from the breast of Marie Antoinette. Let them eat cake indeed…
  • Beautiful women have always been linked to champagne. One of the most beautiful women of all time, Marilyn Monroe, is rumored to have taken a bath in over 350 bottles of champagne.
  • The tallest champagne flute was revealed at a festival in Italy. It stands seven feet tall and can hold twenty two bottles of champagne. The largest bottle of champagne currently made is called Midas, holding forty regular sized bottles of premium bubbly. Only six were made, at a cost of $100,000 a bottle.

While Valentine’s Day is a special day and calls for a special celebratory beverage, champagne is something that can be enjoyed every day. The season of champagne tastings is usually in December for New Years or Christmas, but many restaurants will sell certain champagnes by the glass if you are looking to try some out. The staff here will let you know when the next tastings or events are.  Spend today surrounded by friends and loved ones, and celebrate with a drink that has a little more sparkle.

A Spot of Tea to Warm the Soul

By Leave a Comment

Hot ToddyThere is something absolutely thrilling to people about looking at fossils in a museum. Staring up at the skeletons of huge, ancient lizards allows your imagination to wander. What did they really look like? What sort of coloration did they have? You can stand there and look at the artists renderings of them, what the scientists tell you they should look like based on what they know about modern lizards and how they might have changed over the years. However, you can also look at them and imagine what you think they might have looked like. Add some spines, or smoother skin, or different colors, absolutely anything to suit your fancy. A simple structure to allow your imagination to play and an ancient history are also part of cocktail culture. January 11th is a day where we celebrate one of those cocktail dinosaurs; something that is more of a skeletal idea than a fully evolved, finished recipe. It is the hot toddy, and January 11th is National Hot Toddy Day.

The toddy palm is common in India, and that is where the first bones of the cocktail can be found. The locals would tap the trees to get the sap and they allow the sap to ferment in the warm sun, creating a palm wine. If you take the wine and distill it, you get brandy; if you take palm wine and distill it, it becomes arrack.  India is a very hot country, and the British were not used to that sort of heat. The colonists would drink anything to cool off and get away from the heat. Fortunately the natives already had something ready for the overheated British; a drink called “panch”, which is Indian for “five”, supposedly the number of ingredients contained in the beverage.  It had water, some spices, lemon, sugar, and the arrack. It watered everything down, was refreshing, and made the days a little more bearable. It was so good they brought this panch back to Britain with them, but used the name of the tree that it originally came from. The drink became known as a toddy. A cold toddy.

The toddy continued to evolve once it made it north. Britain is a chilly, damp place. Cool and refreshing drinks do not go over as well there, since the messagepart-2environment is chilly more often than not. They are trying to figure out ways to warm up, not cool down.  Water, spices, sugar…sounds like a good hot cup of tea to me. They were now roughly five thousand miles away from the arrack that was used in the original recipe. Being British, they kept calm and carried on, substituting the arrack for whiskey and gin. Some stories say that this mixture of sugar, water, and lemon was used to soften the overly peaty and strong Scotch whiskeys in the 18th century, making them more favorable to women. England loves their gin, and the juniper in the gin went well with some spices that are found in tea. Yes, tea had also become an element to add to this loose recipe, mixed more to the taste of the drinker and a general idea than any specific recipe. The bones of the recipe were still there, but the flavors and the details adapted themselves to the environment.

When the British travelled to America, the evolution continued. Scotch was not as easily available, but there was no shortage of liquors ready to take its place. Traditional liquors like gin and brandy were still very popular in the colonies, but newcomers like rum, bourbon, and rye whiskey were growing in popularity. There was also more access to sweeteners like honey and molasses, not just the sugar that was more traditional in Great Britain. In colonial times, sugar was not granular; it was brought in blocks and you had chip off and crush what you needed for the drink. The stick that was used (in some of the tales) was called a toddy stick, another possibility for where the name came from. Tea was still readily available to mix all of the ingredients in. The one major thing the colonies added was a standardization of the size. It went from something that could be made in a mug, a quart, a punch bowl, or any large container for multiple servings. By the end of the 19th century, famous bartender Jerry Thomas had compressed the cocktail into a cup. Everything had also start to become a little more codified. The revolving carousel of liquors finally stopped at whiskey (though rum and gin was still found to be more popular in New England), the sweetener became sugar, and the tea went away for a while in favor of hot water (though now tea or spice is considered part of the drink).

messagepart-5What kept such a simple, erratic cocktail so popular over such a long period of time? While the flexibility of the drink helped keep it popular for a wide range of palates and environments, the biggest reason was the supposed medicinal purposes. People would drink it when they were under the weather, which made them feel a little better for a while. It was hot, which helps loosens up mucous and helps you breathe a little easier; if you use tea, you also get the benefits tea brings. The acid in the lemon adds some vitamin C, and using honey helps to coat your throat as well as the other medical benefits honey has. Alcohol has been used for years either as a medicine (as vodka was in Poland and Russia) or as a big part of medicine (like it was at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century). The problem of using alcohol as medicine too often is that the cure can be worse than the disease. Yes, the alcohol makes you feel a little better for a short time, but it is dehydrating. It may leave you feeling a little worse than before you drank it. Drinking too many will give you a hangover. A small dose before bed, however, can help you sleep a little better while the rest of the ingredients go to work. A hot toddy will help to relieve some of the symptoms of a cold or flu, but it is not a cure. You should still use medicine for that.

Hot Toddy6a0105354fa49a970c0120a69b2b10970c-800wi

1.5 oz. whiskey
.5 oz. lemon juice
.75 oz. simple syrup
4-6 oz. of hot water
Tea bag or other spices (cinnamon or nutmeg are traditional)(optional)

Brew the cup of tea to your taste. In a cup, stir together the whiskey, lemon juice, and simple syrup. Add the tea, and then stir the mixture a few more times. You can garnish it with a lemon wedge or cinnamon stick. You can also substitute hot water or cider for the tea, and rum or brandy for the whiskey.

As this mysterious cocmessagepart-6ktail passed from continent to continent, it changed and adapted to the needs of the environment it was in. With all of the changes it made, from a cooling drink in India to a warming drink in America, the basics never changed. The skeleton of a drink was created that maintained a certain simplicity while emphasizing a world of possibilities. You can usually order one at a bar (can you imagine the whiskeys you can choose from at The Century Bar for this one?), but why? Wrap yourself in your warmest blanket, find a great book, and settle in with this steaming cup of goodness next time you feel a little under the weather. What you put in it is all in your imagination, as long as you stick to the basic structure. Happy National Hot Toddy Day!

So You Want to Bar Tend…

By 1 Comment

Fancy cocktail with a twist

Perhaps you will be making many of these…

Bartending has a fog of grandeur around it. We lean against the bar polishing glasses, we are in touch with deeper wisdom than many mortals, and we know the ins and outs of every drink known to man. In the middle of the chaotic bar scene you are used to, we are the men and women who navigate through it all with ease and confidence, remembering drink orders of most of the patrons. That is why we always get one or two numbers a night from the people in the bar. I hear more than once or twice a week how nice it must be to be a bartender, and how they would love to do what I do.

Bartending is a tough gig. The hours are long, there is quite a bit of very physical work involved (kegs and cases of beer are incredibly heavy), and the pay is always uncertain. Being on top of your game means doing what people in other professions do: reading the trades and books, searching the internet for the edges of the trends, and trying to stay one step ahead of what your customers might be demanding. You get to deal with very drunk people, sometimes demanding people, and of course cleaning up after a great party every night.

There are good and bad things about every job. The first time I went behind the bar, I knew it was something I was going to love doing. It was comfortable, like a well worn t-shirt. It is not something for everyone. If you are looking to eventually work your way into becoming a bartender, here are a few things you want to consider:

  1. Pick your spot. It is interesting to note that not all places offer the same sort of bartending. Jokers and the Funny Bone work on the premise of speed. We had a limited amount of time, and we wanted to make the best cocktails at the fastest pace. That leaves many cocktails with muddling out. Or making cocktails with fresh squeezed ingredients. However, there are places around town where they can take their time to squeeze oranges for each drink, and delicately muddle the mint in a mojito. They may even make their own liquor infusions. On the other end, some bartending jobs are little more than pulling draughts, pouring shots, and opening cans. Look for the type of bartending you want to do, and try to get in a place that offers it.
  2. Prepare for a long apprenticeship.  I started bartending at Jokers Comedy Café in 2005.  I started working at Jokers in 2002. I do not know of any bartenders that walked in and right away got the job unless they had some experience. And not classroom experience; real world behind-the-bar experience. To become a bartender, you are going to have to take some time lurking in the shadows at the place you want to bartend at. Maybe as a bar back. Maybe as a server. Just get in somehow, and let the manager know you want to be a bartender. It may be a long time, but you might actually get back there. Then there will be a period of working the Tuesday dinner shifts, the Sunday brunch shifts, or other less than desirable bartending periods. Once make it through all of this, it makes it easier to get bartending jobs at other places.
  3. Everyday you’re hustling. There is a hierarchy in the serving industry, and bartenders are on the top of it. There are usually very few of them compared to other positions in the restaurant, and they are picked from the best servers and workers. They are given the most autonomy out of any position, and it is not by shirking shifts and needing to be prodded to do their job at every turn. Why? They are in charge of one of the most precious commodities a bar has: the liquor. The management has to trust you with such a vital and expensive part of their business. You have to show them that you are that person they can trust.
  4. Study the menu. See the type of drinks they offer, and the types of drinks people are ordering. I have made hundreds, possibly thousands, of Mai Tais and Blue Kazoos (.75 oz. blue curacao, .75 oz. Bacardi 151 rum, and lemon lime soda, served in a highball glass). I could count the number of Rob Roys or Rusty Nails I have made on my fingers. This gives you a chance to start learning the popular drinks and how to make them.

    Cans of beer

    …or opening quite a few of these.

  5. Learn your trade. What is the difference between cognac and brandy? What craft beers are starting to become popular? Who is Jerry Thomas? Or Gary Regan? These are things you want to start learning as you are waiting to become a bartender. Go to tastings like the Century has for whiskey, the Trolley Stop has for beer, and various places around the area have for wine. Read books. Check out magazines. Surf the web. Absorb everything you can, and use it. Your customers will thank you for it. Hopefully with money.
  6. Weekends? Holidays? Most people see weekends and holidays as a time to relax and spend time with family and friends. While they are winding down, you have to be winding up. Weekends are when you make your money. Friday and Saturday night are the prime shifts, when all the real money making occurs. Though, you have probably learned all this through the apprenticeship phase. Or just by looking around when you are out on Friday and Saturday while waiting for a table. It could cause some friction with family and friends when you tell them you really cannot make it for the big Saturday graduation party because you have to, you know, pay rent. It becomes a trade off you have to be willing to accept.
  7. Love thy customer. The other side of your bar has people on it. They are not the enemy, they are not walking ATMs, they are not trying to make you have a bad night. They just want a drink, even if that drink is something that makes your bartender soul cringe (chocolate martini with Tanquery, anyone?). They want to celebrate their birthday, have fun on their date, or commiserate a bad day with friends. Your rough night behind the bar, broken glass in the ice, or bartender that did not show up is not their concern. Always smile. Chat with them, ask them about their day, and enjoy their company. Being a great bartender is more than just knowing how to make a good cocktail; it is knowing how to help a few hundred people a night a really good time.

I am a huge fan of working behind the bar, making cocktails for people, and seeing all of them enjoying their night. When I do complain about the bad tipper or the overly needy customer, I remember that they are in the minority, and ninety five percent of the people I deal with are incredible, fun, and are looking to enjoy their night. If after reading all of this, you still are looking to bet back there and make the best damn drinks in Dayton, good luck. I hope you make it. If anyone else has some tips, or wants to share their story about getting into bartending, we would love to hear it. Cheers!

Short, Dark, and Strong – National Espresso Day

By Leave a Comment

Cup of Espresso with Foam

A traditional cup of espresso.

Europe is a culture always on the move. In the 1600’s, coffee was introduced to Europe, allowing people to stay up longer to get more done. After it was given the blessing of Pope Clement VIII, it spread like wildfire through the continent, allowing people to stay up longer, be sharper, and get even more done. It overtook beer as a breakfast drink in New York by the 1670’s, and just kept getting more and more popular. Things moved really fast for coffee. The only thing that was not moving fast for coffee was how it was made. There were some innovations, like the French press and the vacuum pot, but they could only make small quantities, taking upwards of ten minutes to make two cups. People had factories to build and continents to conquer, so there was a constant search to speed up the process. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century, in the explosion of the Industrial Age, that coffee was put on the fast track.

Luigi Bezzera was one of the many people looking for a better way to get a cup of coffee. He created a machine that used steam power to force hot water at a high rate of speed through the coffee grinds, pulling out all of the best aspects of the coffee and doing it rapidly. It took the five minute long process of making coffee down to thirty seconds and the product tasted delicious. A machine to brew coffee for the masses was created in 1884 by Angelo Moriondo, but each cup was not created for individuals. Bezzera’s made a cup of coffee expressly and quickly for each individual. The patent was eventually bought by Desiderio Pavoni and then the machine mass produced, which helped to spread the popularity of this coffee concentrate, referred to as “espresso” (“fast” or “expressed” in Italian), throughout Italy. Eventually it conquered the European continent and went anywhere Italians travelled to. It was not just the speed at which espresso was made that boosted its popularity in Italy; if you wanted to sit down to drink your coffee, you paid an extra fee. Enjoying your coffee standing up made it a little cheaper, so you wanted to drink it a little faster. The espresso machine has gone through many refinements since it was first created. A piston pump was eventually added to force water through the coffee without depending on the boiler. This removed some of the burnt flavor from the espresso, since the water being forced through the grounds could be done at a cooler temperature. This was eventually replaced by an electric pump, which has created the modern espresso machine.

Espresso machines

The traditional espresso machine. A big machine for a little drink…

Espresso has a rich, deep flavor to it, much like you would expect when you compress an eight ounce cup of coffee into two ounces.  The cup of coffee, however, has more caffeine per serving. Espresso does not have a specific roast required, so you can make a dark or light roast coffee into an espresso. The beans are typically ground very fine; since the water is being forced through at a high rate of speed and you want to get the most flavor out of it. Espresso is also the foundation for a whole industry of beverages. American soldiers started to drink it while they were stationed in Europe during World War II, but added hot water to it do dilute the strong flavor, creating the Americano. Cappuccinos and lattes became popular because of the uniqueness of the foam on top of the cappuccino, and the American tradition of adding cream or milk to their coffee. If you want to add a little chocolate flavor to the mix, you can have a Mocha (also the name of the area coffee was rumored to be discovered). Most coffee chains also offer the ability to add espresso to a standard cup of coffee for a little extra kick, a red eye being one shot, and a black eye being two shots. The deep coffee flavor of espresso has also jumped into the world of cocktails as well.

When people think coffee flavor and liquor, Kahlua is what people reach for. It has been the go to coffee flavoring for drinks for decades. As the flavored vodka boom expanded, there were two companies in the early days that created enduring espresso vodkas: Three Olives Triple Shot Espresso and Van Gogh Double and Single Espresso.  Sminoff also has jumped into the mix with their Dark Roasted Espresso vodka, which also steps in with a 100 proof punch. Of course, if you want to make your own espresso vodka, there are simple ways to do that as well (via Bex Huff).

Equipment:

  • Coarse ground espresso beans
  • A 4 cup French Press for making coffee
  • Good vodka (I will always recommend Buckeye)
  • A funnel
  • A glass bottle

Process:

  1. Put a ½ cup of the espresso beans in the press.
  2. Add three cups of vodka to the press.
  3. Allow the mixture to sit for about fifteen minutes.
  4. Press down the plunger to strain out the coffee grounds from the vodka.
  5. Pour into the glass bottle for storage.

Now that you have a good, solid espresso vodka (store bought or homemade), here is the most popular recipe used for espresso vodka, the espresso martini.

Espresso MartiniEspresso Martini 1

1 oz. cold espresso
1.5 oz. vodka
.75 oz. coffee liqueur
.5 oz. white cream de cocoa

Pour the ingredients into a mixing glass over ice. Shake vigorously, and pour into a chilled martini glass. If you want to make it extra fancy, you can rim the glass with powdered chocolate.

Espresso Martini 2

1.5 oz. espresso vodka
1 oz. vanilla vodka or vanilla liqueur (Dr. McGillicuddy makes a fine one.)
1 oz. white cream de cocoa

Pour the ingredients into a mixing glass over ice. Shake vigorously, and pour into a chilled martini glass. If you want to make it extra fancy, you can rim the glass with powdered chocolate.

Espresso’s richness, versatility, and speed of making it has helped it become a staple to the coffee culture that has developed in the United States. It simmered as a novelty until chains like Starbucks helped it to cover the nation with its deep flavor and versatility. Our culture is not going to be moving any slower in the near future, so our need for a quick pick me will continue for a long time. However, we have found other ways to relax with this densely caffeinated drink. Where is the best place to hit before work to get a little espresso pick me up, or the best place to wind down with an espresso cocktail, in Dayton? Let us know in the comments! And however you enjoy your shot of joy to the mind, have a happy National Espresso Day! Cheers!

 

 

Hello Sunshine!

By Leave a Comment

Harvey Wallbanger Ingredients

Just add some avocado shag carpeting, and the 70’s are back!

Cocktails made a very slow recovery after World War II. The basics, like the Manhattan and the martini, came back rather quickly. In all honesty, they never really disappeared. During the 1950’s, like most of the culture, we were slowly getting back into the swing of things after three decades of unrest. We tried to put things back together the way they were, but it really did not work that well. Vodka became the staple spirit, once people realized that three martini lunches could be had without smelling of strong liquor. That led us to the 1960’s, where boundaries were pushed as far as they could go. The tiki cocktail craze hit and drinks got complicated. We went from simple combinations of one or two spirits and one mixer to the Mai Tai, Zombie, Planter’s Punch, and crazy combinations of exotic spirits and mixers. Rum was king, and every drink had multiple mixers, liquors, and garnishes. The 1970’s simplified the cocktail game a little. There were a few throwbacks to complexity, like the Long Island Iced Tea, but simpler cocktails returned. They returned with additional flavors. A little bit of a twist on the traditional. It was in this environment that the Harvey Wallbanger thrived.

The Harvey Wallbanger is incredibly simple to make. Take a Screwdriver (1.5 oz. vodka, 4-5 oz. orange juice, and build over ice) and float an additional .75 oz. of Galliano over it. Simple, but with a little twist.  The story behind the cocktail also has a little twist. One story revolves around a surfer named Harvey, who had a bad day on the waves. He lost a big contest, and went to one of the local watering holes, where Donato “Duke” Antone had a drink special going that day: a Screwdriver with a float of Galliano. Harvey apparently loved them, and spent the afternoon drinking them. When he got up to leave, he was stumbling out of the bar, hitting tables and banging into walls. From that day forward, they called him “Harvey the Wallbanger”, and the name stuck to the drink. The twist to the story? It could have been completely fabricated by the Galliano company, who was trying to figure out a way to sell their liquor to a market that was willing to experiment. The drink was invented in the 1950’s, but did not hit its stride until the 1970’s. It was so popular that it actually earned enough votes in the 1972 election to be noticed, and was named as one of the top food fads of the 70’s by the Food Network.

Much like polyester suits and disco, the drink fell back into obscurity after the 1970’s. You will still see a tall, lone, golden bottle of Galliano in bars, just waiting to be used in a Harvey Wallbanger, possibly a Golden Cadillac. It will then go back to its seat on the shelf. There are rumblings that the elaborate craft cocktail movement may be transitioning to simpler cocktails, and the Harvey Wallbanger might become one of the fads of 2013. On this November 8th, National Harvey Wallbanger Day, search out one of those distinctive cocktails and try and become a trendsetter. Cheers!

 

Punching It Up

By Leave a Comment

Fish House Punch Bowl

Hello fancy!

Our cocktail history is a long and rich one. Starting with the Pilgrims stopping at Plymouth Rock because they were out of beer, up to the current rise of the craft cocktails, we have seen a little bit of everything. One of the longest runs in our cocktail history is one that for the most part has been forgotten, other than remnants of them in some of the cocktails we enjoy today. It was present up right to the end of the 19th century, encouraging people to gather around and spend a few hours with each other, ladling out glasses of potent liquid to cool off in the hot summer months, and to warm up in the cold winter months. The punch was a staple of the growing United States, being present at every bar and gathering in the country, and for some very good reasons.

Punches originated in India, where the British were stationed with little access to the good alcohols they enjoyed at home. And the British sailors did not like to be separated from their ration of one gallon of beer a day. Or a half pint of rum, whichever they preferred. One of the origin stories for why they called it “punch” was a slant on the Indian word panch (five), the number of ingredients the punch was supposed to have. The drink was created with alcohol, lemon, sugar, water, and tea or other native spices. The alcohol became whatever was handy at the time. It began with wine, but rum, brandy, and whiskey punches were also popular in the various areas of the British Empire. It was so popular that a special bowl was even created for it, called a Monteith Bowl. It had a scalloped edge, which eventually became removable, where a ladle could be kept or the stems of wine glasses could be held.

It spread with the empire. Rum houses sprang up all over the United States and Caribbean islands. The earliest recorded punch in the New World is the Bajan (Barbadian) Rum Punch. It was so popular it even had its own rhyme for a recipe: One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak. One part lime juice, two parts sweetener (usually sugar), three parts rum, and four parts water. Local spices were also added to the mix, recreating the five part panch.  As the drink spread through the country, regional variances changed the flavors, and in some case the potency, of the tipple. The Schyulkill Fishing Company created the most famous variation, known as the Fish House Punch. Possibly for the gentlemen there to enjoy, possibly something lighter for the ladies to enjoy at a Christmas Party in 1848. Punches of all varieties became a staple of dinners, of meetings, of daily life in the young country. At one dinner in 1785, the host reported that sixty-eight people went through forty-four bowls of punch, as well as eighteen bottles of wine and a large quantity of other rums and brandy. Rum was the staple liquor in the colonies, and in many punches, since it was readily available and cheap. The cheapness of the rum was another reason punches were so popular; in the 18th century, rum was still in its infancy. It was awful. The additional flavors and water added to the punch helped to hide the awfulness of the cheap and nearly raw spirit.

Monteith Bowl

Monteith bowls never go out of style.

Punches started to fall out of favor just before the Civil War. Punches were something to be consumed by a group of people over several hours, and we were starting to roll out across the country. Railroads were being built, gold was being discovered, and acres of land were out there for the taking. This was a growing country, and this was no time to sit and drink. There were more options for drinks as well, and people were looking for something more individualized. They did not want to all have to drink the same thing. They lasted until the beginning of the 20th century as a curiosity, something of a cocktail throwback. They were pushed to the back of recipe books in favor of collins, cobblers, and sours, many of which owe their existence to the recipe of punch. Some of the first tiki style drinks from the 1950’s were also based off of punch recipes. Since then, punch’s non-alcoholic form (which was always around, just not as popular) became a staple at kids’ parties for the same reason it was a staple at dinners; it brings people together around a communal place to drink something refreshing in a social setting.

Punches are still a great way to present something to your guests at a party so they can serve themselves. They can be prepared in advance, and you can make them to taste, taking into consideration the time of year you are serving them. Right now, a nice apple cider punch or something with fall spices like cinnamon and nutmeg would be delightful. September 20th is National Punch and Rum Punch Day. Gather some friends together, stir together one part sour, two parts sweet, three parts strong and four parts weak, add a few spices to taste, and enjoy an evening around a fire. Cheers!

Barbadian Punch

1 cup lime juice
2 cups simple syrup (Heat one cup of water, then add a cup of sugar. Mix until dissolved, allow to cool)
3 cups of rum
4 cups of water
A few dashes of Angostura bitters
Nutmeg to taste

Stir all of the ingredients into a pitcher or bowl. Ladle into individual cups over ice, add nutmeg to taste.

Philadelphia Fish House Punch

1 cup sugar
3 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups fresh lemon juice
1 (750-ml) bottle Jamaican amber rum
12 oz Cognac (1 1/2 cups)
2 oz peach brandy (1/4 cup)

In a large bowl, stir the sugar into the water until the sugar is dissolved. Then mix in the lemon juice, rum, cognac, and brandy. Put the mixture into the refrigerator for three to four hours until chilled. Serve over a large block of ice for the sake of tradition, or in cups with ice in them. Garnish with wheels of lemon. If you deem this as too strong when tasting it, add more water or black tea.

(Recipe via Epicurious)

 

Highland Fling

By Leave a Comment

Scotch being poured into a glass

Doesn't that look stunning?

The first true royal and celebrity to fall in love with Scotch was Scotland’s greatest king, James IV. He kicked off the popularity of the strong spirit, and it has been growing ever since. The English parliament tried to tax it heavily at the beginning of the 18th century, and it went underground. People still had no problem getting it (and not paying the tax on it). After one hundred and fifty years, the British came to their senses and realized that they were losing tons of revenue. They lifted the tax and charged for a more modest license. It was a timely move. A few decades later, the phylloxera beetle destroyed the grapes in France, nearly wiping out the wine and brandy industries. During that time Scotch rose back to the palate of the nobility and elite, who were looking for something new to fill their liquor closets with.

It became a mark of distinction to enjoy a good scotch, and we have seen that in our stars and culture. Prohibition was good to the Scotch community. Since bourbon was no longer available in America, people looked across the pond to find good whisky to drink. Scotch, while usually watered down, was a perfect replacement for it, and relatively safe compared to some of the other “liquor” that was available. Hollywood rose not long after, and many of the stars at the time commented on the benefits of, and how much they enjoyed drinking, Scotch. George Burns once remarked “I love to sing, and I love to drink scotch. Most people would rather hear me drink Scotch.” Humphrey Bogart and W.C. Fields also commented on the delights of drinking Scotch. It has been mentioned most recently on sitcoms like “How I Met Your Mother” (Barney loves it), by comedians like Ron White, and of course is the favorite on air drink of Ron Burgundy. Mr. Burgundy told us that is why he started National Scotch Day on July 27th. (It is as good of a reason as I have found yet…)

He said July 27th is National Scotch Day. We won't argue.

One of the reasons it became so popular is its complexity. There is a wide variety to Scotch, which makes it one of the more varied members of the whisky family. To begin with, there are two major types of Scotch, single malt and blended. Single malt Scotch is created with malted barley from a single distillery, made only in copper pot stills. They are blended together from different casks to create the distinct flavor of the Scotch. The youngest Scotch used in the blend is the age you find on the front of the bottle. Single malts you may be familiar with are Glenmorangie, Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Talisker, The Macallan, Glenfiddich, and The Glenlivet. Blended Scotch can be created through the combination of malted whisky from barley, as well as grain whisky. The blends have an advantage of creating a distinct flavor you cannot get from only malted barley. They are usually a little smoother, and are the bulk of what people drink when they have Scotch. Blends you may be familiar with are Dewars, Johnnie Walker, Chivas Regal, and J&B. Other categories of Scotches exist, such as blended malt (blended malt from separate distilleries), single grain (grain whiskey and malt whiskey from the same distillery), and single cask (all from one cask, 100 to 120 proof), but are very hard to find.

Scotches are also identified by the area they are from. Traditionally, there have been four areas that Scotch production has been broken into, but now number five. The Highlands have a wide variety of Scotches in it, but that is because it encompasses over half of the area of Scotland. You may also see a Scotch refer to itself as Island or Isle of Man. That too is part of the Highlands. Lowland, where there are only three distilleries creating sinlge malts, are usually triple distilled and have a lighter flavor than other Scotches. Speyside, which was once considered part of the Highlands, has nearly half the total distilleries in Scotland. With such a high number, it is very hard to categorize on defining characteristic. It is a safe bet that most of the Scotches you have heard of come from this region. Islay Scotches are the advanced class of Scotch; they have a heavy smoky, peated flavor to them, and tend to put off new Scotch drinkers. The smallest is Campbeltown, with only three active distilleries. It used to be the largest producer of whisky in the world, but collapsed through overproduction, then finished off by Prohibition and the Great Depression.

Copper pot stills where scotch is made

Scotch has rules, like most all other alcohols today. The latest incarnation of these rules, the Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009, lay out what it takes to be called a Scotch. First, it must be produced in Scotland, of barley and other whole cereal grains. Second, when it is turned into mash, only yeast may be used to convert the sugar into alcohol. Third, it has to be matured in Scotland, in oak casks, for a period of no less than three years (though most Scotches are matured for five or more). And finally, nothing other than water or plan caramel color can be added to the final product. As of November of this year, the rules will also state that single malts will have to be bottled and labeled in Scotland. You will also see many Scotches with a year on them. Blends can still be bottled anywhere in the world.

If you are looking for a good place to try out some Scotch in Dayton, The Pub at the Greene has a good selection of Scotches, as well as flights to try them in. Side Bar also has a lovely selection of Scotch for you to try out, but no flights. For those of you just starting your Scotch journey, let the bartender know what your tastes are, and they can recommend the right one for you. You will want to begin with some of the sweeter, maltier Scotches, moving through the various complexities of the spirit until you begin to enjoy the peaty richness of the Islays. Scotch is not used in very many cocktails, but the two you will find most often mentioned most at bars are the Rob Roy (a variation on the Manhattan) and Rusty Nail (Scotch with a hint of sweet Drambuie).

If Scotch whisky is good enough for Humphrey Bogart, George Burns, and Ron Burgundy, it should be something that you try a few times in your life. Tonight is a great time to sit back and relax with a fine dram of Scotch and good friends, and just chat the night away. Preferably on a patio. Cheers!

El Meson unveils a new “$3 Appy Our”

By Leave a Comment

Starting today, Feb 15th and running weekdays from 4:30-6pm, El Meson will be tempting us with some $3 cocktails and some really affordable appetizers.  Featuring a rotating menu of empanadas, chinckent Tinga, Flauta, tacos and chees puffs you’ll be able to enjoy Tapa and small plates for a small piece of your wallet.  This treats all run  $3 – 5.

Here’s the weekly line up:

Mojito Monday

Taco & Tequila Tuesday

Sangria & Small Plate Wednesday

Tapa Thursday

Weekly Featured Cocktail Friday

 

You can find the family owned El Meson at 903 E. Dixie Drive in West Carrollton.  The area is currently experiencing some road construction, so be aware of orange cones and detours that may appear from time to time! And while you’re there, check out the salsa dancing or sign up for a cooking class!

 

Think Pink

By Leave a Comment

Yeah, that IS quite a few cocktails in front of you

In 1998, HBO brought something to the small screen that had a far reaching impact on the pantheon of great television shows. “Sex and the City” was an audience and critical hit, winning seven Emmys and eight Golden Globes in its six year run (and providing the title to this article). It has also spawned two movies (possibly a third), and a diverse following across the country. It also brought a relatively young cocktail into the spotlight, one that was barely a decade old when the show was introduced. It is what Carrie Bradshaw and her friends started drinking towards the beginning of the second season, but tapered off towards the end. Near the end of the series,  Miranda asked Carrie “Why did we ever stop drinking these?” Carrie’s answer was, of course, “Because everyone else started!” That now iconic pink drink is known far and wide as the Cosmopolitan.

The flavor profile of the Cosmopolitan (or a Cosmo for short) came from an older cocktail, the Harpoon. The Harpoon, which is where many have attributed the paternity of the drink, came from a marketing campaign conceived by Ocean Spray. During the 60’s, Ocean Spray was looking for other ways to market their cranberry juice cocktail. They came up with a series of several drinks, some of them stuck (the Sea Breeze is one they offered as a premade drink) and some did not (the Firecracker was cranberry mixed with Canadian whiskey. All they were missing was apple pucker to make a Washington Apple). The Harpoon was a drink made with vodka and cranberry juice, with a splash of lime juice thrown in for good measure. It was quite close to where the drink eventually ended up just a few decades later.

Just a little pink...

The Cosmopolitan itself is a relatively new drink. As with most drinks, it has quite a few people claiming that their bar was the place that it was invented. One account has the drink being created at a steak house in Minnesota in the 1970’s. Many bar and cocktail historians believe it may have been created by the gay community in Provincetown, MA, which is in Ocean Spray’s back yard. Another account has the drink created in the same era in San Francisco, being a well received drink in some of the more upscale bars of that city that were tended by John Caine. The most popular story for the creation of the Cosmo is that that it was created in the mid-80’s by a bartender named Cheryl Cook. She worked in Miami, and noticed that the martini craze had come back. However, people did not actually like the flavor of the classic cocktail; they just wanted to be seen holding the glass. She created a cocktail that tasted better as well as having a brighter, look-at-me color to it. Initially, she used citrus vodka (a test version of Absolut Citron), a splash of triple sec, a hint of Rose’s lime juice, and “just enough cranberry to make it pink”. The drink travelled very well, spreading from San Francisco to New York in an era when there was no Internet or cocktail databases to make it easy.

By the late 90’s, the cocktail had slid backwards a little, going from the color of pink lemonade to more of a ruby color, and the citrus vodka had been replaced by regular vodka. It needed a bit of a touch up, and cocktail expert Dale DeGroff was the right man for the job. Dale revived the cocktail at The Rainbow Room in New York by adding the citrus vodka back into the mix, and substituting out the lower quality processed lime juice and triple sec with fresh squeezed lime juice and Cointreau, a high quality orange liqueur. With a room like that showcasing the drink, it was just a matter of time before stars were seen sipping it, and it started to take off in popularity. A picture in the New Yorker with the caption “Madonna drinks Cosmopolitans at the Grammy after party, Rainbow Room, New York” certainly helped the drink’s popularity. With Sex and the City showcasing it a few years later, it was well on its way to becoming an icon in the pantheon on great cocktails.

The Cosmo, due to its pink color and prominence in Sex and the City, has a reputation as a ladies drink. Do not let the pleasant taste and soft color fool you; it is a cocktail that still packs a punch. The lime juice and the cranberry juice add a little color and enhance the citrusy flavor of the vodka, but that is all. The rest of the cocktail is, like any other martini, alcohol. It has a lovely, fresh flavor, and tastes light enough to enjoy several. If you have not tried this gem, you should give it a look. Imbibe magazine notes, when naming this one of their Top 25 Most Influential Cocktails of the Twentieth Century, that this cocktail is perfect for someone looking for something “pretty, potent, and tasty”. I am not sure Carrie Bradshaw could have summed it up and better. Cheers!

Cosmopolitan

1 1/2 oz. citrus vodka
1/2 oz. Cointreau (or triple sec)
3/4 oz. fresh lime juice
1/4 oz. cranberry juice

Combine the ingredients in a shaker and fill it with ice. Shake well and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.

Halloween Spirits

By Leave a Comment

Happy Halloween!

On Monday, the kids will go out and bring home candy by the bucket full. They will run around all of Dayton, princesses and heroes, having a good time and asking us all for tricks and treats.

Adults are allowed to have a good time for this holiday as well. Some adults have already had a great time dressing up for Masquerage (Editor’s note:  Brian managed the bars there this year), and if they missed that grand soiree, they have the Hauntfest to look forward to this weekend. While you are bouncing around the Oregon District, or at home throwing a party of you own, try offering (or asking for) these more adult candy treats. Some of these candy-based cocktails have multiple recipes, so the simplest recipe was used whenever possible. Also, specific brands of liquor have been removed unless that particular liquor’s flavor is required for the drink. Let’s begin with the fact that it is fall, and this is the best time of year for caramel covered apples.

Caramel Apple Martini

1 oz. tequila
1/2 oz. butterscotch schnapps
1 oz. apple cider
1 tsp fresh lemon juice

Shake vigorously with ice and strain into martini glass. Garnish with Apple Slice

Fall also brings bags and bags of candy corn. Some people love it (that would be me), and some people who don’t. Either way, it makes a tasty little shot.

Candy Corn Shot

1 part Licor 43® liqueur
1 part orange curacao liqueur
1 part cream

Carefully layer on top of each other to resemble the halloween candy. Lay down a layer of Licor 43 on the bottom of a shot glass. Then, over the back of a spoon, add the layer of orange curacao. On top, add the layer of cream (not milk. Milk does not layer all that well.)

While you are in a layering-candy-shots mood, here is another one for you to try out.

Bailey’s Chocolate Cherry

1/2 oz grenadine
1/2 oz coffee liqueur
1/2 oz Irish cream
Pour a layer of grenadine at the bottom of a shot glass. Then, over the back of a spoon to disperse and control the pour, add a layer of coffee liqueur. Finally, layer the Irish cream on top.

It is apparent you can use Peeps for anything. Even as the basis for, and garnish of, a sweet martini.

Peeping Halloween Martini

Scary for so many reasons

1 oz. milk
1 oz. vanilla vodka
1/2 oz. white crème de cacao
1 Halloween Marshmallow Peep

Pour the milk, vodka, and crème de cocoa into a mixing glass with ice in it. Shake vigorously and pour into a chilled martini glass. Use the Peep as a garnish

There are plenty of delicious candy bars out there, and good bartenders across the country have been trying to recreate them in liquid form for many years. Fortunately, they have been very successful going about it.

Liquid Snickers

1 oz. dark crème de cacao
1/2 oz. Irish cream
1/2 oz. Frangelico
1/2 oz. light cream

Pour the crème de cacao, Irish cream, and Frangelico over ice in an old-fashioned or other taller glass. Top with the light cream, give it a stir, and enjoy.

Almond Joy

1/2 oz. coconut rum
1 oz. amaretto
1 oz. crème de cacao
2 oz. cream

Fill a mixing glass with ice, add all of the ingredients. Shake, then strain it into a highball glass filled with ice.

Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. -Ogden Nash

Butterfinger

1 1/2 oz. butterscotch schnapps
1 1/2 oz. Irish cream
2 parts milk

Fill glass with ice. Pour Butterscotch Schnapps and Bailey’s into the glass. Fill with Milk. Shake. Serve with sip straw.

Milky Way Martini

2 oz vanilla vodka
2 oz chocolate liqueur
1 oz Irish cream

Fill a mixing glass with ice, add all of the ingredients. Stir it up and serve in a chilled cocktail glass without ice.

Tootsie Roll

2 oz. coffee liqueur
2 oz. orange juice

I know how it reads. Pour the coffee liqueur over ice in a shorter glass. Fill the rest of the glass with the orange juice. Believe it or not, it will taste like a Tootsie Roll.

Peppermint Patty

1 oz. crème de menthe
1 oz. crème de cacao
Splash of vanilla vodka or vanilla schnapps

Fill a mixing glass with ice, add the ingredients. Shake it up, and pour it over ice in a short glass.

With an array of cocktails like that for your weekend, you should have no shortage of shots, martinis, and other liquid confections for your guests or your travels this holiday weekend. However, the phrase we hear is “TRICK or treat”. If you are feeling a little feisty, or are looking to play a trick on someone who has been particularly mischievous, here is a little something that is not sweet. Not a treat in the least.

The Graveyard

1 oz. hot sauce
1 oz. tequila
Lemon lime soda

Pour the hot sauce and tequila over ice. Fill the rest of the glass with lemon lime soda. Stir a little, and then serve to your unsuspecting victim.

Cheers!

Home Bar Primer

By 2 Comments

We are looking for a good home. Won't you help?

The holidays are right around the corner, and the first big party holiday of the season, Halloween, is next week. That means a great deal of entertaining in the home, bringing people over, and having cocktails on hand for all of the guests you will entertain. It is a perfect time to start up that home bar you have been talking about for years. With the Cocktail Revolution in full force, there are more choices of liquors out there than ever before, from a wide range of flavored vodkas to classic ingredients making a comeback. Not only do you need the liquors, you need something to mix them with. There are also few basic tools that every bartender needs to make sure they can produce a wide range of drinks, from a classic Sazerac to a modern Cable Car. Glassware is an important part of a nicely stocked bar, and the range of glassware you can find in most cocktail books can also be very daunting. So let’s start with…

The Basics

Of course, the defining characteristic of a bar is the liquor, and your bar will be no exception. The first rule of putting together your own home bar is: It is your bar. You can have whichever liquors you like, crafted to whichever cocktails you prefer to make. If you love tequila, you can have five bottles of various styles of tequila handy, to enhance the flavors of everything from a margarita to a Paloma. Most bars have at least one of what are considered the five main liquors that most cocktails are based off of.

Rum

This is the liquor most historians say the first cocktail started off in. Rum is an incredibly versatile liquor, working well popular summer drinks like the Mojito to the hammer-you-in-the-head strength of a Devil’s Poison. It ranges from the lighter flavors of Bacardi to the full flavors Kraken. For a home bar, Bacardi or Cruzan are great stock rums for you to have. If you want to add a little spice to you bar’s selection, Captain Morgan or Sailor Jerry are excellent options as well.

Vodka

The most recent addition to the cocktail world (it did not get big until the 20th century), this is now a staple to almost every bar. Its colorlessness and lack of flavor makes it a great base spirit to use if you are looking to have a lively drink with less liquor burn. It also boasts a wide range of flavors, from sweet cake and whip cream to spicy pepper. For your bar, it is best to stick to the original. Flavored vodkas are great if there is a specific drink for it, like Absolut Peppar in a Bloody Mary, or Stolichnaya Citros in a Cosmopolitan, but not for general cocktail making. Absolut, Grey Goose, and Ohio’s own Buckeye vodkas are all great brands to stock your bar with.

Whiskey

A classic, this is also something that you should have in your home bar. Whiskey has been around for centuries, and one of the earliest bases for cocktails to be made from. Whiskey is a little tricky to add, since there are so many types of whiskey on the market, all with unique characteristics. Do you get a bottle of Canadian whiskey? Irish whiskey? Scotch? Bourbon? The answer is to go with the one that you drink the most. If you are looking for a good base for a wide variety of cocktails, Jack Daniels or Jim Beam are the best bets. They also both mix well in cocktails.

Gin

The refreshing gin and tonic

A staple of many classic cocktails, gin has fallen out of favor because of its bold flavor (typically heavy on the juniper, which makes it taste piney). However, this is a great liquor to rediscover because it mixes so well with other liquors. Most cocktails we now love also started their lives as gin cocktails, but gravitated to the less-obvious-you-had-a-three-martini-lunch vodkas. Tanqueray, Bombay, and Beefeater are good basic gins to have as ingredients behind your home bar.

Tequila

Tequila and gin hang out in roughly the same neighborhood: good liquors with a tarnished reputation. Tequila is needed for many cocktails like the margarita and Tequila Sunrise, and even makes a guest appearance in a Long Island Iced Tea. And, of course, people will take shots of it. Silvers seem to be very popular at the moment, Patron being the brand of choice with 1800 and Jose Cuervo both being good choices for your bar.

Outside of these five liquors, there is one other you may choose to add.

Brandy/Cognac

Brandy and cognac are liquors that are fairly out of fashion at the moment, but are useful to have for an assortment of classic cocktails like the Sidecar (I am a huge fan of this cocktail). This category is very much a matter of choice; if you are not much for brandies, there is no real need to keep one behind the bar. Paul Masson and E & J both make a nice brandy to have in stock.

Schnapps, Liqueurs and Other Flavors

There are a few liqueurs you will want to have for you home bar, for a variety of reasons. Triple sec is a popular ingredient in many cocktails, adding either a sweetness to the cocktail or a slight orange flavoring. DeKuyper or Mr. Boston makes a fine triple sec, but you may also be tempted to purchase Cointreau or Grand Marnier as higher end substitutes. In the same vane as triple sec, blue or orange curacao can be added to you bar for an orange flavor. The blue variety is much more common than the orange. Amaretto is another liqueur that you should add to your basic par set up, again being very versatile in multiple cocktails, and just as delicious on the rocks. Disaronno is a good upscale amaretto, but others can be found at a lower cost. Vermouth, both sweet and dry, are good pick ups as well. A bottle will last you a long time, since most recipes that call for either call for a splash, dash, or other very small amount. Most people are familiar with dry, since it is a key component in a classic martini. Sweet vermouth is found in Manhattans, and other whiskey based cocktails with a similar flavor profile. While we are discussing the Manhattan, add a bottle of Angostura bitters to your list of mixers. Usually only a few drops of this potent liquid is needed in any drink, so a bottle of it will last you a good long while.

Flavors for all occasions...

Flavors are something else you are going to want to look for. Schnapps have a smoother, more natural flavor profile for cocktails. Apple, peach, and banana are popular ones. They do not punch out as much as stronger puckers do. Puckers , which still fall into the schnapps category, are usually very sour, and add a stronger flavor to your cocktail, as one might find in an Appletini. Other popular puckers you may consider are Razzamatazz (raspberry), cherry, grape, and watermelon. To round out the flavors you may consider behind the bar, add some white crème de cocoa and white crème de menthe (mint). They add flavor without tinting your cocktails, and some classic cocktails have these flavors to add some bite, like the classic Stinger. DeKuyper and Mr. Boston make a wide selection of flavors for you to try and add to your collection. If there are cocktails you or your friends like that have different schnapps, make sure you have some on hand. Schnapps will usually last quite a while, depending on use.

Mixers

Very few cocktails are straight liquor. You are going to need something to mix them with. Of course, the common ones to buy are cola, diet cola, lemon and lime soda, ginger ale, tonic, soda water, orange juice, cranberry juice, pineapple juice, and sweet and sour mix. For carbonated drink mixers, most cola companies make smaller sized cans that are perfect for mixing into a cocktail. Using the smaller containers helps to keep the carbonation popping for when you want to make the drink. Opening and closing a two liter may be fine for the non-alcoholic glasses of pop, but you will not go through it as fast behind the bar. Sweet and sour mix can be found with pre-mixes in most groceries and liquor stores. You should also pick up a bottle of grenadine and a bottle of Rose’s Lime Juice, for the added color, flavor, or both. The juices can be bought in the juice aisle. For orange juice, I would suggest the pulp free kind. Having lemons and limes handy would help as well, since some drinks call for fresh squeezes of both of these fruits.

Mixers are things that you do not always have to have stocked behind your bar. Make sure you have the ones you commonly use on hand, but buy the others before a big event. Even sealed or closed, it is possible for fruit juices to go bad and carbonated beverages to go flat.

Basic Tools

Stainless steel tools for all your bar needs

There are plenty of gadgets you can have behind your home bar, but only a few that are truly needed as part of a kit of basics. Jiggers are a must. Recipes for cocktails are put there for a reason, and the jigger will help you make sure your drinks taste the same each time you make them. There are two types: you can get the single glass with measurements on the glass, or a stainless steel one with separate measurements on each side. A wine key is an outstanding all purpose bottle opener, useful in opening everything from wines to bottles of beer. A cocktail shaker will be needed for chilling liquors and mixing ingredients. Speaking of mixing, you should also have a bar spoon handy, since not all drinks need to be (or should be) shaken to blend the ingredients together. Since some of the older style drinks are coming back into vogue, a muddler is also a good tool to have behind the bar. It is used to crush herbs and fruits to release their oils or juices into the drink. They are more commonly plastic or metal, but you still may be able to find a wooden one if you look around. And once you have all you ingredients mixed, muddled, or chilled, a Hawthorne strainer will help to get the cocktail neatly into the glass you are serving it in, while keeping the ice and crushed fruit in the shaker. One other tool that every bar has is a handy book filled with cocktail recipes. It is always nice to have a reference book for cocktails, either to try new things with the ingredients you have on hand or to see which ingredients you need for one you wanted to try. Mr. Boston Platinum Edition is one of the ones I have behind my bar, but swing by a local book store to check them out. The book will also help you determine which garnishes you will need for your drinks, such as olives, oranges, cherries, and a host of assorted others. Many will even tell you how to prepare them.

Glassware

There isn’t a great deal of glassware you should run out and buy to get your home bar started. A set of martini glasses would be a lovely addition, as well as a set of wine glasses. You can put a wine into any wine glass, so pick the wine glass most appropriate to your favorite type of wine. If you do add brandy or cognac, a set of brandy snifters should also be added to enhance the aromas and flavors of the liquid in the glass. Any other cocktails will go fine into the glassware you have in the house. You are going to be spending plenty of money on the rest of the tools and liquors to set up your bar, so no need to get fancy with the glassware up front. Save that for the next few rounds.

While the list above may look daunting, over a short period of time you can acquire are fairly well stocked home bar. Buying a few pieces at a time will help spread the costs out, as well as give you some time to figure out what you need and what will just turn into something else for you to dust. And of course once your bar is nicely stocked, you get to enjoy experimenting with some cocktails at home you may never have thought to buy while you were out on the town, and share some of that with your friends. Maybe even invite them all over for a fun night in. Cheers!