better than poison

we do our best to bring in new art for the walls every 2 months. currently we're featuring the work of a friend named Joe Anthony Brown. the night we hung his work, it was just joe and me and when we were done hanging the work, we were a bit parched.

"what'll it be?"

"dunno, something with gin."

"just something with gin, or something gin forward?"

"gin forward," came the reply.

my immediate decisions were that i wanted it to be a cocktail (spirit,sweetener,water,bitters) and that somehow it would most likely end up being a riff on a martini.

we had recently returned from the states toting not only my first bottle of yellow Chartreuse but also St. Germain elderflower liqueur. they had to be played with.

i quickly threw together 60ml Beefeater / 7.5ml Chartreuse / 7.5ml St. Germain / 2dash Peychaud's. it was ok, indicated possibilities but wasn't quite there.

replaced the beefeater with tanqueray- a step in the right direction. a firm enough step that Joe felt compelled to name this second experiment. "Salmonella" he said. as if i could ever get anyone to order a drink named Salmonella. but there it was. and as a working name it stuck.

at those ratios the drink had all the flavors i was looking for, but not only was the balance off, i also hadn't garnished yet. bumped the tanqueray to 75ml and the gin stepped into its rightful place- garnish? lemon twist.

here's where the experiment got interesting. first i twisted over the drink, the effect on the front was as expected- fragrant lemon essence nose followed by the sequence of gin/elderflower/chartreuse- but the surprise was in the finish: the lemon essence not only elongated the finish but magnified the perception of the sweetness from both liqueurs. i was convinced lemon was what i wanted (i like the way peychaud's and lemon interact), but could not have the drink finishing that sweet. solution: rim the glass with the lemon peel but do not twist over the drink.

and with that, the formula was set.

next day joe came back for the opening of his show, and i presented the reformulated drink to him with a plea to rename it, as i was rather proud of this formula and would like to have someone, anyone, be able to order it without feeling that they would be poisoned.

he tasted, recognized the improvements, and took a minute to mull the sensation.

"... how 'bout The Cheeky Rose?"

The Cheeky Rose (for Joe Anthony Brown)

75ml Tanqueray gin

7.5ml Chartreuse (yellow)

7.5ml St Germain elderflower liqueur

2 dash Peychaud's bitters

lemon peel to rim glass for garnish

add all liquid to mixing glass,

stir,

strain into chilled cocktail glass, 

rim glass with lemon peel but do not twist onto drink,

serve.

photograph by Alp Esin

the final round

saturday night we threw an "i heart new york" night: new york street food and new york cocktails. was a good night; a potluck photography show with contributions from all sorts of new yorkified folk, manhattans brooklyns bronxes and queens cocktails flowed and dirty water dogs were chomped. one of my partners-in-crime requested a manhattan as his nightcap and, as there were 6 people there at the time, one cocktail became six. oh, and we were out of clean cocktail glasses- so i went Gary Regan style and pulled out the champers glasses. i must say, i dig Gaz's style.

how to understand your bartender, in one easy step

request an old fashioned whiskey cocktail.

bartending is a craft; as such its execution has as much to do with making the best of what's at hand as it does designing from the ground up for perfection.

case in point: this old fashioned.

my go-to bourbon is Bulleit. it's strong, spicy, and delicious with a good enough body to play well in all sorts of mixtures. recently, it's been hard to come by. at the same time one of our local booze reps was very kind in giving us a monster bottle of Jim Beam white. not a bad bourbon by any measure, but one without the strength, spiciness or body of Bulleit. the first test old fashioneds did not impress. not enough body? use gomme instead of 1:1 simple. not enough spiciness? i tried upping the Angostura, too much. i tried Fee's whiskey-barrel aged, way too much. then i tried Unicum. spot on. somehow it works with the Jim Beam white- just enough of a complex bitter note to compliment the bourbon but not dominate.  as for the citrus garnish, since Daniel Hyatt's old fashioned at Alembic i've been on a lemon instead of orange kick, either way i use two pieces- one spritzed into the initial gomme/bitters mixture then thrown, and another twist to finish.

so there it is, a Jim Beam white old fashioned that actually stands on both feet.

Old Fashioned (Jim Beam white)

2oz / 60ml Jim Beam white

1/4oz / 7.5ml gomme syrup (Monin)

7 dashes Unicum (using repurposed Angostura 4oz bottle)

2 lemon peel, one for syrup, one for garnish

-built in glass: gomme syrup, Unicum, first lemon peel spritzed in/ 3 cubes of ice / first 30ml of bourbon / stir well to combine / second 30ml of bourbon, do not stir / 2 or 3 more cubes on top making sure that the last cube stays dry / twist second lemon peel over drink, wave it over the rim and slide into the drink / serve.

Ahhhh... two of the most refined mixtures!

A clever take on the Negroni, one that uses an artichoke Amaro liqueur as an ingredient, called the Berlioni.



Our man gracefully balances a rose leaf on a razor-thin slice of cucumber floating on a masterpiece of a blend: the Hendricks martini.

Bring out the fruit creatures

Did you ever feel like meticulously carving fruit, selected at the peak of it's season, into Godzilla movie monster shapes?

A flight of something green

Scenes of a different nature

At 11, we're proud of the oddities and curiosities we've collected. A lot can be learned about what you might find on someone's shelf.