cocktail review no. 69 - French 75

You thought I was going to do something dirty for this review, didn't you?

Admit it, you perverts, the only reason you even clicked over here is because of the number in the title, am I wrong? (I'm sure the word "French" doesn't hurt either.)

Well, my apologies. If you crept in here hoping to see a couple of French chicks doing something kinky, you're out of luck. This is the dirtiest you're going to get: the French 75 cocktail.

It's a classic one...or perhaps I should say a vintage one. You remember that coffee table book Vintage Cocktails I keep raving about? The one Miss H and I picked up at the Anthropologie in Victoria Gardens nearly two years ago?

The French 75 is one of that book's most prominent constituents. That is to say, it's got an entire two pages devoted to it (as do all the other drinks in the book)—a gorgeous color spread and a recipe written in crayon. There's some debate about whether the primary ingredient should be gin or cognac, but I'm sure you could use either one and still make a damn fine beverage.

I've heard that the drink was created in 1915 at the New York Bar in Paris by a fellow named Harry MacElhone. Rumor has it that ol' Harry (who would later come to own the New York Bar) created the drink specifically for returning WWI fighter pilots. It was so powerful, Harry said, that it felt like being on the receiving end of a French 75-millimeter howitzer. 

On that note, here's the recipe (as found in Vintage Cocktails): 

• 1.5 ounces V.S.O.P. cognac
• 1 ounce simple syrup
• 3/4 ounce lemon juice
• champagne

Shake the cognac, simple syrup and lemon juice together and strain into a flute. Fill the flute the rest of the way with champagne.

Just so you know, "V.S.O.P." stands for something. "V" is "very"; "S" is "special"; and "O.P." means "order of the prince." At least that's what this bartender has heard. A cognac may be "O.P." or "V.S." or just plain "S," but if it's "V.S.O.P.", then it's special stuff. Fit for a king (or a mighty good drink)!

And the French 75 is mighty good, I must say. I've had more powerful cocktails, but boy, this thing must have been a killer in 1915. I didn't think brandy and champagne would mix well, but they do.

Even so, brandy does go harmoniously with sugar and lemon juice. (Without the champagne, the French 75 is basically a Between the Sheets cocktail.) The addition of something sweet, tart, and fizzy like champagne does wonders for this libation's flavor and texture. We're given something to offset the sourness of the citrus and the dark spice of the brandy, and a lovely textural counterpoint in the carbonation. We've already seen that brandy mixes well with fizzy things (I think I reviewed a brandy and soda at one point, didn't I?). The French 75 bears that impression out. Even though this drink has four ingredients and therefore violates Dad's Golden Rule, it's still worth your while. So drink up!Wait, what's that?

You came here for something sultry, and by God you're not leaving without it?

Oh, all right. Here:

Now shut up and drink, you lecher.

a day at the races

I love it when I get to drop Marx Brothers references in my blog post titles, but this one is especially apt. I just came off the perfect weekend in Seoul, and it wasn't even a holiday. Yet.

Here's what happened on Saturday, . First, Miss H and I went on our first double-date. It was one of my best buds from Sejong University, whom I'll call Sam, and his girlfriend JB. We went to Seoul Racecourse Park and bet on the ponies:

I even included a video for you schmucks, 'cause I think that highly of you: this is the final stretch of the 7th heat:

I was slightly disappointed. This was my first horse race, but even though I'd known in advance that they only ever made one lap of the track, it still went by too quickly and ended too abruptly. On the other hand, the palpable excitement we felt when the racers rounded the final curve and went flat-out on the home stretch, with the Koreans yelling and stomping all around us, and their cheers and shouts gradually building to an inhuman roar, was something to experience.

Then we went to our favorite Uzbek restaurant in Seoul (yes, we have one): the Fortune Café. Left to right: lagman (lamb and noodle soup); shiz-biz (bits of mutton and onion over French fries); and manti (enormous meaty dumplings, boiled or steamed); and there were at least five varieties of Baltika beer to go with it. (No. 7 is my usual favorite.) A steady stream of Russian pop music videos on the TV set guaranteed that we were never at a loss for something to listen to when conversation waned.

 
The Fortune Café is in Dongdaemun, which is sort of the Russian district of Seoul. So we also stopped by one of the many tiny Russian markets in the vicinity. We walk into the first one and see this:

Holy cow, ain't nobody got a selection of vodka like that around here. I nabbed some Parliament-brand vodka and a bottle of Napoleon brandy (French stuff; I've heard it's excellent). Score!

Then we walked back outside into the dying evening light. And lo and behold, what did we see but a grand parade! It was the Lotus Day Parade, an early celebration of Buddha's Birthday, which would be coming the next weekend. Take a look! It was an amazing spectacle.

 

Each group of people represented a different Buddhist temple in the vicinity of Seoul, and each had different flags and lanterns of all shapes and hues. And it wasn't just Koreans, either: the Chinese and Tibetan diaspora were out in force as well, with the flags of their nations and their own brand of Buddhism on display.

After the temple-goers passed in review, we moseyed down the road in the direction of the Dongdaemun gate, viewing the floats and moving sculptures people had fabricated for the occasion. The elephant dipped its head...

...and the lotus flower opened and shut, giving birth to Siddhartha over and over again.

When we'd finished viewing the parade, we slid down an alley to a tent city filled with cheap merchandise and street food.

This is a mixture of noodles, onions, cabbage, spicy red sauce, and sundae (noodles wrapped in the lining of pig intestines, a Korean favorite). It was surprisingly good. We got ripped off, though; these two plates and the four cans of warm beer cost us 40,000 won, or roughly $36.

And then it was time for the evening's crowning glory: a gem of a place I had no idea existed anywhere in Seoul. It's called an LP bar:

This one was called the Sam Cooke, after the American soul singer. It's near Hyehwa Station, north of Dongdaemun, near Seoul University. These LP bars are the bee's knees. Sam Cooke was no exception. It was quite dark (as you can see from the photos) and the decor was eclectic: photos of the Beatles on the walls, cubist paintings behind the booths, an image of Che Guevara by the door. We walked in, sat down, and looked around. The shelves behind the bar were filled with vinyl records. There were two turntables on the counter just going like the clappers, and sound—a sound I'd not heard played in public for 15 months—was blasting out of the speakers.

Classic rock.

No joke! These LP bars sprang up back in the 1960s when Park Chung-hee outlawed listening to Western music. Enterprising bar owners sneaked onto American army bases and bought LPs off the G.I.s, secreting them in their establishments and playing them after dark for willing patrons. Now these LP bars are old and scuffed, just like the records they play, but they survive as novelties, places where oldsters can go to feel nostalgic and young 'uns can go to feel hip. And that's surely what we felt as we scribbled arcane requests on slips of paper, giving them to the barman up front. Our eyes widened and our souls soared as we heard the familiar tunes piping out of the speakers a few minutes later. It was downright psychadelic to sit there sipping beer in a dark wooden bar while the Doors' "The End" oozed serenely out of the speaker grilles. 

And that was just Saturday. On Sunday, our old friend Joanna, Miss H and I went to Myeong-dong to go shooting (in and out, no pictures), had some delectable Italian food and then went down to Gwacheon to hit up Seoul Zoo. Another full, lovely day in the third-largest city in the world!

I'll just leave you with this bear to keep you company until my next adventure-filled post.

Stay tuned...

cocktail review no. 60 - Scorpion

One of the things I love about drinks is the wild abandon with which they're labeled. Monikers for beverages can be clear off the sliding scale of weirdness and obscurity, and dang near unpronounceable to boot. Tropical drinks are most guilty of this (although shots sometimes take a hand). Although most are semi-normal (Planter's Punch, Hawaiian Cocktail, Tidal Wave), some are downright bizarre (Zocolo, Zombie, the Green-Tailed Dragon of the Maroon Morning).

And then, of course, there's the Scorpion.

The name alone fascinated me, as it does with most drinks I'm compelled to sample. Scorpion. In a world of limp-wristed, foully-named drinks, this one word encapsulated pure-d badass to my ears.

I'd have included a picture of a real scorpion, just to prove my point (as I think scorpions are one of the most badass animals out there), but for one, that would probably have creeped some of you wimps out, and for another, this is a tropical drink I'm reviewing. Which means you'll probably drink it on, near, or within 500 miles of a beach. So here's a sea scorpion for you. Don't worry, they may have been ten feet long but they've been dead for millions of years. Feel free to dunk your toes in the water.

• 1½ ounces añejo rum
• ½ brandy
• 1½ orange juice
• 1 ounce lemon juice
• ½ orgeat syrup
• 1 cup crushed ice
• 1 orange slice
• 1 maraschino cherry

In a blender, combine the rum, brandy, orange juice, lemon juice, and orgeat syrup with the crushed ice. Blend well and pour into an old-fashioned glass. Garnish with the orange slice and the cherry.

Pretty straightforward, right? The only oddball ingredient is that one right there in the middle. "Orgeat syrup." I had to look long and hard for that one. I finally found some at Wine & More, Inc. in Rancho Cucamonga. Or rather, Dad found some. My folks were making a trip down there and I asked them to pick some up for me if they saw it. The clerks really couldn't understand poor Pop when he said "or-gee-at syrup." He finally made himself understood, though, and the clerks came back with a big plastic bottle of pink stuff. In the meantime, I was at home, on my computer, researching. Turns out it's pronounced "or-zhat" syrup. French, see? It's an infusion of citrus juices, almonds and rosewater. And MAN, is it sweet. I suppose it's the syrup you use when simple sugar won't suffice.

Anyway, the taste:

I can confidently say that the addition of brandy and orgeat syrup created a flavor above the norm and beyond the pale in the realm of tropical drinkage. There's a tendency for tropical cocktails to be over-fruity, with pineapple juice taking a dominant role over the booze. Thus you get a crush of fruity redolence, pineapple most primary, with sugar adding a sickly undertone. I've tried a lot of tropical drinks and I'd venture to suggest that this is the main problem I have with them. One gets bored after a while.

Not so with the scorpion. Just as giant scorpions have three ways to kill you (mouth-parts, pincers, and stinging tail), the Scorpion cocktail has three things going for it: the rum, the brandy, and the orgeat syrup. The pineapple juice, I'm glad to say, takes a backseat. The orgeat syrup provides all the sweetness necessary while accentuating the citrus goodness of the orange and lemon juices. The almond flavor provides a lovely counterpart to the smoky spice of the brandy, which gives you a midrange boost (enough to make this blogger rear back, look at his drink, and go "Mmmmm!"). Overlaying this is the rum, which is not subverted and subjugated as in other drinks; it hovers smokily above the rest of the components.

I would venture to suggest that this is the best tropical drink I've ever slugged back.

As always, I invite you to decide for yourself.

cocktail review no. 50 - Boston Sidecar

Having delineated the Sidecar, it behooves me to give honorable mention to one of its more popular variants, the Boston Sidecar.

• 1 ounce light rum
• ½ brandy
• ½ Cointreau or triple sec
• ½ lemon juice

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine all the ingredients. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.

This is delicious. Normally it's tough to find a drink variant (a play on the original, often adding or subtracting an ingredient) that's not merely "good" or "interesting" but is actually an improvement upon the original.

In Postie's book, the only "developments upon the original" which I've ever truly liked are (a) the dirty martini, (b) the Colorado bulldog, and (c) the Boston sidecar.

I explained the taste of a regular ol' Sidecar to you in the previous review: sweet with a sourish kick at the end, heightened by the warmth of the brandy. Picture that in your mind, and add another wallop on top of it: a powerful overtone of rum. This changes the game completely. Whereas before the lemon juice and triple sec were the dominant players of the game, here they have been relegated to second fiddle, only not in the exclusive and humiliating way in which most things are relegated to second fiddle. They still harmonize, still play their part, still provide a vital backdrop to the rum's lead role. And the brandy isn't overwhelmed either: it exchanges heating duties for complementing the rum, and does a good job of it.

The cumulative effect of all this is that you get a slightly sweeter, cooler drink, which lends itself less to the after-dinner scene and more towards the back porch on a summer evening. And you get extra booze. What's not to like?

cocktail review no. 49 - Sidecar

Anyone for a brandy?

I'm not sure how much of these cocktail reviews you, dear reader, actually absorb. I'm not sure whether I'm reporting on the right drinks, either. The ones I've put up here are far from popular. They're not even that well-known anymore. Generally I try to go for classic drinks, with a good smattering of the most odd and esoteric cocktails I can find. I think I've accomplished that goal quite well. Of course, if you already know your classic drinks, you're bound to find these reviews sterile and pedestrian. In that case, I suggest you skip 'em and go find the oddball reviews. If, by chance, you don't know what a gimlet or a sidecar or a Moscow mule is, then by all means, pull up a chair, pour yourself a round and have a listen.

This here is another classic. 

• 2 ounces brandy
• ½ ounce Cointreau or triple sec
• 1 ounce lemon juice

Combine all of the ingredients in a shaker half-filled with ice cubes. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.

A great many good drinks got their start in the hotel business. A fancy hotel is a veritable spawning ground for high-class libations. (The Moscow Mule, as you'll recall, was first incepted at the Chatham Hotel in New York, depending on who you talk to.)

In this case, the Ritz Hotel in Paris claims authorship of the Sidecar; supposedly they first served it around the end of World War I. (I suppose there must have been a proliferation of motorcycles and sidecars in Paris at that time; although, in hindsight, the drink might just as well have been named the Rusty Tank or the Horse's Ass.) The first Sidecar recipes appeared in 1922, and legend has it that it contained several more ingredients than listed above, at first; but these were "refined away." Experts claim that the Sidecar is simply a Daiquiri with a  brandy base rather than rum, and triple sec in place of sugar syrup; but any fool could tell you that.

It certainly tastes nothing like a Daiquiri. Irrespective of the clam chowder and peanut butter sandwich I was consuming as I sipped on it, the Sidecar has a tart nose and a dry, sweet, fruity sort of flavor that almost reminds one of a reisling or some other dulce vino. The lemon juice and triple sec make a citrus blast which overrides and yet compliments the firm warmth (this is an R-rated cocktail review) of the brandy. And what's better, it's got only three ingredients. This means the libation passes the "Dad test" (Pop doesn't believe any drink with more than three ingredients is worth a tin shit). By proxy, it's also insanely simple to whip up.

Get some quality brandy (I'd recommend cognac, or perhaps something aged a little longer than your standard Christian Brothers) and some Grand Marnier, and you'll have yourself a fine old sip some evening when you're playing bridge with Mr. and Mrs. Kellerman.

cocktail review no. 46 - Sazerac

Now here's an interesting one.

Miss H and I were wandering around Victoria Gardens the other day. (It's this marvelous outdoor shopping mall down in Rancho Cucamonga.) Over on the southwest side we noticed a shop we hadn't seen before, called Anthropologie. We wandered in. Lots of scuffed wood, dry grass, pottery, and other nature-inspired décor; we assumed it was one of those places whose clothing line was designed to make everyone believe the wearer to be a famous explorer on safari in East Africa or Australia, but instead reveal on closer inspection that he or she is in fact dressed in designer labels for an afternoon out.

Nonetheless we felt the place worth checking out. Full-length linen dresses in blue or beige, trimmed in beads...straw sun hats, pre-weathered...a wicker deck chair, couch-size, with silhouetted antelopes growing out the back...blue china plates with a stylized octopus...

Ah. Here we go. This is more like it.

I found a book propped on a nicked coffee table called Vintage Cocktails.

I opened it up and found the table of contents. There were a few dozen familiar names, listed side-by-side with libations I'd never heard of in any bar, club or mixology handbook: things like "Pimm's Cup," "French 75," "Mary Pickford," and "Agave Gingerita."

Author Brian Van Flandern and photographer Laziz Hamani have, apparently, created a rough-and-ready go-to guide for all the classic highballs and mixers that ever got wildly popular or well-known at some point in American history. There was a picture in the front of the book depicting Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart and some other heavy hitters standing at the bar, knocking back a few examples. Some concoction among these might have been the preferred tipple of Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra.

I was intrigued, let me tell you.
So I started leafing through it. Laziz Hamani should be put up in bronze, along with whoever mixed the drinks he shot (so to speak). Each full-page photo was jaw-dropping and mouth-watering; each cocktail looked good enough to dive into. The recipe (on the opposite page from the accompanying photo) was uniquely laid out too. Rather than a dull typeset font or a trite quotation or a humdrum backstory, the ingredient list and step-by-step preparation were laid out with a minimum of fuss, in giant letters, apparently written with the nearest box of crayons.

Many of them I was familiar with, due to prior interest in the pantheon of time-honored cocktails: the Bloody Mary, Cape Codder, Brandy Crusta, Between the Sheets, Moscow Mule...

And then I saw it.

Sazerac.

Now, I'd seen that name many a time in The Bartender's Bible. It was hidden up near the front of the book, at the tail end of the chapter on bourbon. Odd name. As you may have guessed, it's French. The Sazerac was first mixed around 1850 at the Merchant's Exchange bar in New Orleans, mostly likely by owner Aaron Bird, using a brand of cognac (also called Sazerac) imported by the Exchange's previous owner, Sewell T. Taylor. The original recipe called for one and a half ounces of Sazerac cognac, a quarter-ounce of Herbsaint, one cube of sugar, three dashes of bitters and a lemon peel. (Legend has it that a local druggist down the block, Antoine Amedie Peychaud, mixed up the bitters; on occasion Peychaud himself is credited with the invention of the Sazerac.) Later, due to an epidemic that devastated France's grapes, rye whiskey was substituted for cognac. In one old-fashioned glass, ice was packed; in a second glass the sugar and bitters were muddled, and the whiskey was added. The ice was then discarded from the first glass and the Herbsaint was poured in and swirled to coat the interior; then the excess was discarded. The rye/sugar/bitters mixture was then added to the coated glass (along with ice, if desired) and garnished with the lemon peel.

It's a tricky drink to compile, as you can tell. (Herbsaint?) In The Bartender's Bible,  orange peel, Ricard (anise-flavored liqueur) and Peychaud's bitters are listed among the ingredients. Vintage Cocktails, however, had it differently. Peychaud's bitters was still a factor, but absinthe could be used rather than Picard or Herbsaint. In fact, certain research suggests that the Sazerac was originally made with absinthe; Herbsaint was substituted when absinthe was outlawed in the United States some years ago.

Absinthe, eh?

I just happened to have a bottle of Czech-made absinthe sitting in my liquor cabinet at home.

This was getting more and more interesting all the time. A whiskey cocktail with absinthe, bitters, sugar, and an orange-peel garnish! I could only imagine what it tasted like. I had to admit to myself that I'd begun the long slide into jaded indifference in the realm of cocktail-drinking. I've mixed so many and sampled so much that many libations are beginning to taste the same to me. There's a great deal of variation on a select theme in the world of hooch. These days it's hard to come by a drink that tastes nothing like anything you've ever had before.

Well, this was it. Here, then, culled from the best bits of The Bartender's Bible and Vintage Cocktails, is the Sazerac I've thrown together.

• 1 teaspoon absinthe
• ½ teaspoon superfine sugar
• 1 teaspoon water
• 2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
• 2 ounces bourbon
• 1 orange peel

Pour the absinthe into an old-fashioned glass and swirl to coat the insides of the glass. Discard any excess. Add the sugar, water, and bitters, and muddle with the back of a teaspoon. Fill the glass halfway with ice and add the whiskey. Garnish with the orange peel.

That there may be no speculation, I used regular ol' Angostura bitters; Mata Hari Bohemian Absinthe; Old Crow bourbon (my favorite); and some simple syrup I'd prepared beforehand. It made the muddling rather pointless but I did it anyway. I'd still recommend Peychaud's bitters above all else; it has a lighter, fruitier element to it, more suitable for our purposes.

Oh, and one other thing: I didn't discard the "excess."

Heh heh. Life's too short to skimp on stuff like that. I figured since there'd be a whopping four ounces of bourbon in, I'd better keep what absinthe I had and liven things up a little, right?

I knew I was going to wind up with something different, but the reality of it took me by surprise. Having nearly despaired of the cough-syrup redolence of the bourbon/bitters combo, I was pleasantly surprised at the way it meshed with the rest of the conspiring flavors in this beverage. While the sugar keeps the mixture from being too bitter (for after all, Old Crow and Angostura form a powerful team), the bourbon still has its full sway, providing the nose and the bouquet and (partially) the finishing sting.

The aftertaste is what this drink's all about. I'm glad I left the absinthe in. The anise flavor comes on strong just after the bourbon passes over the taste buds, allying itself with the sugar to lend a sweet licorice undertone to the Sazerac. You mightn't think licorice would mix well with bourbon, but it does. To whatever extent the absinthe is not disguised by the bourbon overture, it melds seamlessly with the whiskey and then adds its own kick at the end. The sugar and bitters create a delicate balance and the orange peel rounds the experience off with a citrus interlude that complements the anise rather well. All in all, it's a smooth and flavorful cocktail with a sumptuous bouquet and a sweet-spicy kick at the end. 

Try it, and raise a glass to Jimmy Stewart or Dino. And buy Vintage Cocktails. Right now. Go do it. You won't regret it. It's as much art as a recipe book.

a dearth of eggnog

Dear Readers,

     I'd just like to point out (with no little pride) that not a single drop of eggnog touched my lips during the entire calendrical year of 2010.

     Honestly. The carton just sat there in the fridge. I promised myself, "Yeah, sure, tonight I'll grab that sucker out of there, add a nip of brandy, sprinkle some nutmeg on top, and have at it." But nothing materialized. Always I'd pass the nog over for something else, like a whiskey sour or a Bloody Mary or even a margarita, for Pete's sake. (Is this any time for a margarita? I mean, I know I'm in Southern California, and the nearest snow is halfway up the mountains in the distance, but hey, margaritas in winter? Ain't that some kind of alcoholic faux pas? A deplorable lack of sympathy for the poor saps up in Minneapolis huddling by their fires, trying to keep warm on Irish coffee and hot buttered rum?)    

     All the long days of the holiday season I let that carton of eggnog lie. I didn't touch it after a hard day's night of Christmas shopping; I forgot all about it for those three hours I spent actually writing during the month of December; I left it right where it was on Christmas Morning, Christmas Day and Christmas Night. Entire football games passed with the eggnog unmolested. I saw San Diego lose their place in the playoffs for the first time in five seasons without a sip of eggnog to soothe my heartbreak. I passed the stuff up on many happy evenings with Miss H, assembling that 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle (a nice painting of Nantucket with five identical hillsides and a huge rock pile and a lighthouse that could be the beach if you turn it on its side and eighteen square miles of goddamn ocean).

     When did I finally polish off that eggnog?

     Why, tonight.

     January 1.

     2011.

     After Yule. After Christmas. After New Year's Eve.

     Have I committed some kind of cardinal sin?


Your Sententious Correspondent,


Postman

cocktail review no. 32 - Stinger

I'm beginning to feel like a manipulative five-year-old again—or more like a genie in a magic lamp. With a sigh, or an impassioned look, I can summon any bottle of liquor to this house.

Partly out of pride in my progress through bartender's school, and partly out of parental affection, my folks have been stumping up for strange liqueurs all seven months I've been home. The most recent acquisition? A bottle of green crème de menthe. Ordinarily, my folks wouldn't be caught dead with crème de menthe. Mom, in particular, wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. She hates mint, especially minty drinks. She can't stand 'em. Naturally she was somewhat averse to the idea of bringing a innocuous green bottle of the enemy into the house. But after I painted glowing pictures of all the cocktails I could be making IF ONLY I could get my hands on some crème de menthe...Mom relented. Bless her loving heart.

The things my folks do for me...I don't know how I'll ever thank them. Probably by living next door to them and taking them out to lunch every day.

It wasn't just motherly sacrifice, though. Ma was vaguely curious. One of her favorite movies (and mine) is The Apartment, with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. (Fancy a guy named "Lemmon" being in the same movie with cocktail parties! There may very well be a just and loving God after all.)

There's a particularly memorable scene in that film, involving a cocktail party. On the menu that evening were "a frozen daiquiri, a Rum Collins, a Tom and Jerry, and a stinger." Ma had heard of some of these drinks before, and was intrigued. Over the course of the last seven months I have eagerly sated Mom's curiosity about those drinks. One by one I've mixed them up for her, she and Dad and I have sat around in the living room and tested them, and duly crossed them off the list. As of the night of February 16, only one remained. This one.

• 2 ounces brandy
• ½ ounce white crème de menthe

In a mixing glass half-filled with ice cubes, combine the brandy and crème de menthe. Stir well and strain into a cocktail glass.

Yes, yes, I know. The recipe says white crème de menthe. As I mentioned, we had green. But there's no difference in flavor between the two; just color. We didn't mind drinking green drinks if we knew we were still getting the authentic stinger flavor. And get it we did.

We weren't expecting much. We anticipated being overwhelmed with mint. We expected liquefied pillow mints, in fact. What we got was something else entirely. We found, instead, that the mint flavor of the crème de menthe was more like kiddie mouthwash: pleasant, mild, not overwhelming in the slightest. We weren't puckering up while drinking it.

Moreover, we could still taste the brandy, which is fortunate, because we've got some good brandy at my house. There's some E&J VSOP on one side of the liquor cabinet ("VSOP" stands for "Very Special, Order of the Prince"; definitely upper middle class), and a bottle of Hennessy cognac on the other side. In other words, the stinger pleasantly surprised us. It's not overpowering or wanting in good taste. On the contrary, the mint and brandy boutiques complement each other rather well. Up top, the heady aroma and cool flavor of the mint liqueur dances over the tongue, backed by the burnt depths of the brandy beneath (how's that for some alliteration, eh?). Be sure to heave a slight sigh after every swig; your mouth will feel an Arctic blast, as though you've just run a measure of Listerine through it...and the brandy will have a little to say as well.

Worth your time. Just pretend your Frasier Crane from Cheers and drink up.

cocktail review no. 25 - Tom and Jerry

Ha! Previous record smashed! THREE cocktail reviews in a row, by golly! Postman, you've done it again. I mentioned earlier that the tower topper was redolent of cooking, reminding one of the smells and sounds and sensations of a kitchen full of happy people during the holidays. Well, this drink is actually cooking.

• 1 whole egg, separated
• ⅛ teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons superfine sugar
• 2 ounces (plus 1 teaspoon) light rum
• 6 ounces hot milk
• ½ ounce brandy
• ⅛ teaspoon grated nutmeg

In a mixing bowl, whisk the egg white until it forms soft peaks. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolk until it gets frothy. Fold the white into the yolk. Add the baking soda, sugar, and one teaspoon of the rum. Whisk it all together to form a stiff batter. Pour the batter into a warm beer mug and dissolve in it 1/4 of a cup of the hot milk. Add the rest of the rum and the brandy; fill the mug with the rest of the milk; stir, and sprinkle the nutmeg on top. See what I mean? Froth this, whisk that, stir here, sprinkle there. And "soft peaks"? What the hell are "soft peaks"? What the Sam Hill is "folding"? Jeez, I could've gone off on a tangent and made lemon meringue pie if I'd wanted... That being said, this drink is dynamite, and well worth the work. You have a frothy, fluffy medium disguising a hefty rum-brandy-nutmeg kick. It's similar to hot buttered rum, though a great deal more work-intensive; but it is also smoother, tastier, richer, creamier, and heartier. It's more flavorful and somewhat more comforting, particularly at this time of year. Nothing beats a hot mug of this while watching the original cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (which, in my opinion, is the only credible version; Jim Carrey's be damned). I'd say it'd be good for a game of Taboo or Pictionary on New Year's Night, too. And I'd be willing to bet it's perfect for cuddling. Happy New Year!

cocktail review no. 21 - Brandy Alexander

Just to clarify, this is not my pick for Christmas cocktail of 2009. That's coming later. This is just a prelude. Well, it would've been my pick, knowing what's in it and all, but the fact remains that it's a cold drink, and this is the season for hot ones. So there'll be a hot drink coming later. Oh, heck, it's Christmastime. Let's just call this one Christmas Cocktail the First. The other will be Christmas Cocktail the Second. Not that I'm advocating anybody getting smashed during the holidays, but one more won't hurt, now will it? (Insert grim chuckle here.) Anyway, this cocktail is one of the ones I learned about last Saturday. It's a cream drink.

• 1½ ounces brandy
• 1 ounce dark crème de cacao
• 1 ounce half-and-half
• ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine the brandy, crème de cacao, and half-and-half. Shake well. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with the nutmeg. I didn't make mine with nutmeg the other night, mainly because I was a bad bartender and forgot there was supposed to be nutmeg in it; but it was a decent drink as cream drinks go. I'm not big on crème de cacao, and I wasn't really in the mood for something creamy that night (my brother had just gotten home from the University of Wyoming, and I hadn't seen him in 18 months, so my mind was elsewhere). Still and all, I'd recommend this drink around this time of year. I feel like making it again to give it a fairer shake. Something to sip by the fire, or in company, or (as with the tower topper) while cooking.