MxMo: Spice

It's Monday, and that means it's about time for the international drinkblogging community to showcase all the cool things we've been playing with. This month's Mixology Monday is being graciously hosted by Craig at Tiki Drinks & Indigo Firmaments (thanks!) and - topically, for Christmas - the theme is spice. Spices belong to that category of things you won't miss until they're not there. It's literally inconceivable to eat without salt and pepper on the table. Vanilla has become so prevalent as a flavour that the word can be used to describe things that are boring, unremarkable, and yet the general connotation of spices is of exoticism, of a faraway culture.

The problem I've always found when using spices in cocktails is that I tend to focus on one in particular, with the result that the drink ends up pretty one-dimensional. This time, I made a conscious decision to use a range of spices but I also realised that combining a number of ground spices, roots, barks and the like in a shaker would prove troublesome. In order to get around the problem, I made a bottle of Krupnik, a traditional Eastern European vodka liqueur, using some honey, cloves, cinnamon sticks, vanilla pods and nutmeg. Being honest, if I'd used red wine as a base and replaced the honey with a couple of orange wedges, I'd have ended up with mulled wine - the stuff tastes like Christmas in a bottle.

There was another problem, and this time there wasn't a lot I could about it. Christmas is crazy time in the bar industry, meaning 300 covers over the course of the day in the brasserie and 12 hour shifts representing an easy day. Saturday, for example, started at 10am and finished at 2am, with just about enough time to grab a Chinese takeaway and a coffee around 5pm. All of this made it tough to find the time to prototype drinks.

This isn't something I'd call a hardship. After all, I've always been a fan of making drinks that are a simple twist on an established cocktail. From what I know of David Embury's Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, he concludes that all cocktails can be traced back to six 'essential' cocktails, so I can claim I'm on decent theoretical ground. I played with a couple of ideas - a Krupnikito could have legs, I reckon - before deciding on a simple twist on a Cosmopolitan. Substituting the Cointreau for my Krupnik, I also opted to use some Zubrowka Bison Grass vodka with the aim on contrasting the mellow floral notes with the stronger spice flavours in the liqueur.

Stargazer

25ml Zubrowka Bison Grass Vodka
25ml Homemade Krupnik honey vodka liqueur
25ml Cranberry Juice
15ml Lemon Juice
1 dash Egg white

Shake all ingredients with ice and fine-strain into chilled martini glass. Garnish with an apple fan.

This recipe will work with commercially produced Krupnik, which has less of a spice hit than my homemade variety. If you're using it, garnish with some ground cinnamon and nutmeg; flame them over the drink for effect. I'd probably recommend using less lemon juice, too. The homemade Krupnik is almost syrupy sweet.

*** 

The name comes from the Polish tradition of keeping a vigil for the first star on Christmas Eve, the moment which marks the start of the traditional Christmas feast. It seemed appropriate, given I'd chosen to use two Eastern European products in the cocktail.

Thanks to Craig for hosting this month's MxMo; the fun continues over at TDIF!

24hr Project: Homemade Krupnik

Krupnik is one of those products that see in tons of bars, but keeps a low profile. It's got a really old school label, straight out of Eastern Europe - appropriately, it's hugely popular with Edinburgh's growing Polish community - but people only seem to know two things: a) it's vodka based, and b) it's honey flavoured. That's not even unhelpful.

It is a tasty product, though, and a recent article on money-saving Christmas gifts in the Guardian got me thinking.

Bottle some Krupnik

Give a bottle of home-made Christmas Krupnik. Henry Besant, founder of worldwidecocktailclub.com suggests this recipe. Buy a bottle of the best Polish vodka you can afford and pour the contents into a saucepan. Add 500ml of runny honey, 2 cinnamon sticks, 3 cloves, a teaspoon of grated nutmeg and an opened vanilla pod and heat gently until the honey is completely dissolved. Simmer for 20 minutes (but do not allow it to boil). Let the mixture cool and then strain it through muslin into a bottle of your choice. Decorate with ribbon and a cinnamon stick around the bottle neck, and add a tag with a serving suggestion, such as: "Serve with warmed cloudy apple juice and a dusting of nutmeg; add a dollop of double cream for a richer alternative."

Not only does this make a handy gift, it's just about perfect for the upcoming spice-themed MxMo. Coaxing the flavour from spices into room-temperature liquids can be troublesome, so getting that flavour extracted before kickoff could be awesome. Another bonus is the simplicity of the recipe - no macerating citrus peels for two weeks, people; instant results!

I opted for the above recipe, more or less verbatim. The thing I changed was the honey. In the end, I used three different varieties: acacia (light, floral), manuka (heavy, medicinal) and blossom (somewhere inbetween). The acacia honey keeps its liquidity naturally, so I picked a 'runny' pack of the blossom, leaving the heavier, more solid manuka to provide some bass. The other key ingredient was, of course, the vodka. I already had a bottle of Sobieski Vodka on a shelf thanks to an old colleague, and not being a prolific vodka drinker, it wasn't doing much.

Making the liqueur couldn't be easier. 

1. Pour vodka into a largish pan.
2. Heat gently and add the honey.
3. Add spices (3 sticks of cinnamon, 3 whole cloves, 1.5 barspoons ground nutmeg, 1 vanilla pod).
4. Simmer for 20 minutes - don't let it boil; we're not looking for another distillation.
5. Strain through muslin, bottle and stick it in the fridge.

There are things I'm disappointed in: the colour, for one. The blossom honey is pretty dark and combined with the manuka, it makes the whole thing look kinda murky. Still, it shows a lovely amber glow when you hold it up to the light and if I had any skills in clarifying liquids, I'm sure I could clean it up further. I'm also pretty sure that I put too much honey in the mix; the final liqueur is maybe just a shade too sweet for me.

On the plus side, it tastes phenomenal. The first thing that hits is the honey, with all the depth of flavour that comes from the different varieties. That's followed by a strong cinnamon finish, with a hint of cloves lingering around after. I think it might be the manuka, but this batch reminds me a lot more of Drambuie than it does of Krupnik. That's not a bad thing. Not bad at all.

Update: turns out my two concerns may have been related. After sitting for a couple of days, the liqueur separated, leaving a thick greyish-brown sediment at the bottom and a lovely, clear, amber liquid at the top. That suggests that I either saturated the mixture with the honey or didn't heat it thoroughly enough to dissolve all of it. Given the sweetness and that I didn't use the 500ml specified in the original recipe (I used nearly 350-400ml), I'm going with the former. It's still incredibly sweet, which isn't necessarily a problem, but it's looking way better.

On classic cocktails

Next Friday marks the 75th anniversary of the repeal of US Prohibition, a day that will be celebrated with the downing of a significant number of old-school cocktails. It's just got to be done. After all, FDR headed straight to the liquor cabinet on signing off on the 21st Amendment. I'd guess that the cocktailblog community is going to have some cool things lined up to commemorate the anniversary. These things don't happen every day, and I'm no exception. I've been spending some time looking at some of the great cocktails created outside of the USA during the dry years, but that's a tale for another day.

Next Friday's looking good, I reckon.

Anyway, the thing is this: what are the great modern cocktails?

There's a fairly nebulous group of mixed drinks that are referred to as "classics". Some are more or less undisputed - martini, Manhattan, Old-Fashioned, Daiquiri, for example, and some are kinda borderline - the Aviation? (Yes, if you're from the States, maybe not if you're British.) Off the top of my head, I can't think of any bona fide, nailed-on classics that date from after World War 2.

Taking 1948 (the first publication of Embury's Fine Art of Mixing Drinks) as the cut-off, what are the great modern cocktails?

I see two major problems. The first is the idea that Embury came up with, that all cocktails come back to six essential drinks. Well, five, and the Jack Rose. If that's true, then barring minor variations, everything's already been done. The second is the 1980s, which was as good a decade for mixology as 1666 was for London.

OK, just to be contrary - to counter the first problem, a truly great drink should transcend its formula. There is only one point of difference between a martini and a Manhattan, yet they're both considered classics in their own right. To counter the second, I just need to find a genuinely excellent cocktail that was invented about the time disco was considered acceptable to play out loud in public.

Here's a clue: it's not Sex On The Beach.

So, the question remains. Oh God, I feel a Workshop series coming on...

Workshop, pt. 6: regionals

Today was my regional heat for the Bacardi Legacy competition. Regionals can take many forms and today's format was another new experience. For the purposes of the competition, the UK was split into seven regions. More than two hundred entries were whittled down to seventy (ten per region, but I'm guessing on that), with only one entry from each region progressing to the national final in February.

So, statistically speaking, a 1 in 10 chance of making nationals. But, cocktail comps aren't decided out of a hat, so my odds just lengthened. Given I don't know who else qualified from my region (which, let's face it, is going to be one of the hardest to get out of if the likes of Mal Spence submitted entries; I'm also hoping that all the Scotland-based bartenders who have recipes in the 2008 Legacy Book aren't getting another go) and that adjustment might have to be in orders of magnitude.

A lot of competitions involve making your drink in front of your direct rivals as well as the judges, unless it's judged on a blind tasting, in which case your audience will largely comprise people who want to beat you. The interesting thing about the Legacy regional heat was that it was conducted by two judges in your bar, without spectators, without other competitors. It made for a refreshing change. That's not to say that the format's without it challenges. One of the judges who was assessing me spoke of a bartender in Belfast who had made his presentation while still serving paying customers and making service checks because his replacement was running late.

The format allowed me to focus on my presentation and my drink, which isn't always the case if I get starstruck or rattled by the guys I'm up against. It shouldn't happen, but it does. At any rate, the national final is set to be a more traditional competition format, so there's that bridge to cross. Or not.

(Judges Score photo from CraigOppy's photostream on Flickr.)

MxMo: Made from scratch

Mixology Monday is a monthly catalogue of interesting things people have been doing with alcohol, based around a theme set by that month's host. November sees Doug at the Pegu Blog calling out all our homemade treasures - every drink has to contain one ingredient that's made from scratch. It's often said that every major ingredient and technique in cocktail-making was on the table from about 1920 onwards. This is largely true, if you discount the recent emergence of molecular mixology which is going to be one of those terms that sticks if only because there isn't a better-sounding one, and also one of those things where its influence will probably be obvious decades down the line. So, when you want your drinks to stand out from the crowd, it's usually easier to go old-school, and make your own ingredients.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the majority of spirits began life as a backyard venture, just to see what happens if... There's still a strong tradition of home-distilling in France and Eastern Europe, and the kudos that comes with being a small-batch, artisanal spirit or liqueur is as high as its ever been. There's a wealth of bartenders using their knowledge to make their own bitters and recreate lost ingredients.

And then there's me. I've written about my attempts at making my own grapefruit liqueur (verdict: not bad) before - recipes here! - but what I didn't mention was that, at the same time, I diverted some resources into another simple project.

The story goes a little something like this: after prepping up the grapefruit liqueur, it turns out I had about a third of a bottle of vodka leftover. Couple this with a jar of cinnamon sticks that weren't doing anything, add a couple of days in a mason jar and 70-odd ml of overproof rum in a misguided attempt to make it inflammable and you get a serviceable cinnamon tincture.

One of the first things I tried was throwing it into something resembling a Rob Roy, mainly because I wanted a pretext to buy a bottle of Monkey Shoulder. This served to prove the hypothesis that a serviceable cinnamon tincture isn't necessarily a great replacement for purpose-made aromatic bitters. The major problem is the clarity: the tincture is pretty cloudy, and combined with the Punt Y Mes I used, the drink came out really dark and opaque. The overall effect didn't compare well to a standard Rob Roy.

I used my second attempt to use the tincture as an accent rather than a main ingredient, spraying it over the top of a twist on an Old-fashioned. As a package, it was a lot more successful but again, nothing to recommend it over a regular Old-fashioned. There is a drink out there for a serviceable cinnamon tincture, but until I find it, I guess it's back to the drawing board.

Ednbrg's Serviceable Cinnamon Tincture

250ml Finlandia Vodka
200g Cinnamon sticks

Soak cinnamon sticks in vodka for up to three days. Strain through a cheesecloth and add 70ml of Overproof rum. Or don't; it may work out better.