The Elmwood Sour

(a.k.a., whiskey sour with cassis and rosemary)

First of all, this delicious summer cocktail is blatantly (and respectfully) derived from Jeffrey Morgenthaler's recipe for the Bourbon Renewal. Mr Morgenthaler's recipe is an inspiring take on the whiskey sour, adding crème de cassis. One taste of this and my wife promptly emptied her glass and called for another. It's easy to have one too many.

My personal twist on this recipe (and the reason I have taken the liberty of calling it something different) is that I use rosemary-infused simple syrup rather than plain simple syrup. The notes of rosemary - fragrant, woody, and redolent of southern France in summer - provide a subtle complement to the equally Mediterranean blackcurrant and lemon. It's easy to make rosemary syrup; you'll find a recipe here.

I have bestowed the name "Elmwood Sour" on this drink for purely nostalgic reasons. My grandparents lived in Chiswick, London, at 44 Elmwood Road. My grandfather, John Laycock, was a Yorkshire man who married a lovely French woman named Blanche Messager, before going off to fight the Germans in a British tank in WWII. After the war, they settled in Chiswick, where they lived in a modest, bone-white terrace house with a massive sycamore tree in the front (with which my grandfather had a controversial relationship) and a delightful English garden in back.

It was a cozy garden, with a high fence for privacy and a border-path of flagstones set into the thick grass. Hiding the fence was a thick-but-manicured growth of flowers, cyprus, apple trees and blackberry brambles, roses, hollies, butterfly bushes, and blackcurrants. For a city garden, it was a wedge of paradise where birds sang endlessly, and butterflies and bumble bees zigzagged.

I loved that garden, and to this day the memory of my grandparents is cradled within its grassy, Edenic confines; it is the bright days of August, and they are on recliners, reading and drinking tea (or gin and tonics, depending on the hour), soaking up the unreliable British sun. The fragrance of the garden was rose petal, the flavor blackcurrant. Picking and eating the small, bittersweet fruits was a childhood pleasure. I loved blackcurrant drink (Ribena) and blackcurrant sweets. For many English who grew up during WWII, blackcurrant was the flavor of England (the plant was grown during WWII to provide much-needed vitamin C for the embattled islanders, especially children, who drank the syrup mixed with water to get vital nutrients). The rosemary element, with its fragrance of hot, dry Southern France, is representative of my grandmaman's French heritage. Together with the lemon and cassis, the flavor is English summer for me, in times of great happiness.

Back to the topic on hand. I will say, before attempting this cocktail, you will want to lay your hands on a very good bottle of crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur). The one I purchased is Crème de Cassis de Dijon, by Maison Brunet. I found this at Cambridge Wine & Spirits - a sort of heaven for folks like me. The Maison Brunet has an intense blackcurrant flavor that you cannot replicate with artificial flavors. If you see the words "artificial flavors" or "artificial colors" on the label, steer clear.

Without further preamble, here is the recipe:

The Elmwood Sour

2 oz bourbon

1 oz fresh lemon juice

1/2 oz  crème de cassis

1/2 oz rosemary-infused simple syrup (recipe here)

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Have it over cracked ice: Take some ice cubes and put them in a plastic bag. Whack 'em with a hammer or the blunt side of an axe (or a meat tenderizer, if you have one) just enough to crack the ice. Put the cracked ice into a highball glass. Then, add all the ingredients to a cocktail shaker, add ice, and shake vigorously. Strain into the cracked-ice filled highballs. Garnish with a sprig of rosemary.

Bottoms up!

In the garden at 44 Elmwood Road

The Kentucky Longshot, the Back Forty, and the Mint Julep

In honor of it being Kentucky Derby Day 2011, I am posting a couple of bourbon recipes I found. It is a day for bourbon, and there are many choices... For a few more, visit this article "Beyond the Julep" by the Wall Street Journal.

The first is called the Kentucky Longshot, and it is a great way to use Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur. According to Gary Regan, who adapted the recipe in Joy of Mixology, the drink was created in honor of the 1998 Breeders' Cup by the late Max Allen Jr., a bartender at the Seelbach Hilton Hotel in Louisville, KY. 

The drink has an interesting fusion of flavors, with a good spice from the bourbon (I used my standby, Wild Turkey 101), Angostura, and ginger (I used the aforementioned Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur), followed by a sweeter note of the peach (Hiram Walker Peach Schnapps) and the unique, floral aspect of the Peychaud's. One might think the liqueurs would make this drink too sweet, but that is not the case. It has some sweetness, not too much, and is complex in its depth. You can add more bourbon and bitters or adjust the ratios of the liqueur and brandy. Think of it as a Manhattan with liqueurs replacing the vermouth.

Kentucky Longshot

• 2 oz bourbon
• 1/2 oz ginger liqueur
• 1/2 oz peach brandy
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1 dash Peychaud's bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. The recipe I took this from recommends garnishing with three pieces of candied ginger (representing "win, place, and show"). One piece is plenty, though.

I also found a recipe online for The Back Forty, devised at the restaurant of the same name in New York. It's very much like a whiskey sour, but with an unusual and delicious distinction: it is made with Vermont maple syrup. The syrup, to my taste, is less sweet than your average simple syrup, so is ideal for a sour that has the notes of candy without being sickly sweet.

The Back Forty

2 oz bourbon

4 teaspoons of maple syrup

1 oz fresh lemon juice

3-5 dashes of Fee Brothers orange bitters

In a shaker with ice, shake all the ingredients vigorously, to ensure that the syrup is well-mixed. You could also stir the syrup with two teaspoons of hot water to dissolve it, then add the other ingredients.  

Strain into an ice-filled rocks glass. Garnish with a lemon or lime wheel, or a cherry, and enjoy. Perfect for a summer day.


Note: You can also make the sour mix by the batch: 1 part maple syrup to 1 part lemon juice.

Julep cups, courtesy of Anne & Todd, Derby Day 2011

Finally, it is Derby Day - the day of the famed Mint Julep.  There are certainly many variations of the julep, from a big ol' glass of glass of bourbon over crushed ice (with a sprig of mint for fashion) to bourbon with mint-infused simple syrup, to bourbon and various liqueurs. in common, perhaps, they should all be very, very cold. Crushed ice adds a lot of water to the drink (which is probably not a bad idea if you're in the big ol' glass of bourbon mode), but it also allows the cocktail to become extremely cold. The idea is to stir the drink until frost forms on the outside of the glass (or a nickel- or silver-plated julep cup, if you happen to have one).

Here is my variation on the julep:

The Mint Julep

3-4 oz Kentucky bourbon
1 oz peach brandy
Bunch of fragrant mint

Muddle a generous portion of the mint and the ounce of peach brandy in a glass (gently: just bruise the mint to allow the bouquet to flourish). Remove the bruised mint. Pour in the bourbon, fill with crushed ice - right to the top of the glass - and stir in a clockwise motion with a swizzle until the outside of the glass (or julep cup) is frosted. Or as long as you can stand. Add a fresh mint sprig as garnish; the sprig should be generous enough to provide fragrance while sipping...

Bottoms up.

The Whiskey Sour

Cape Cod + Whiskey Sour = Paradise

The perfect cocktail to top off a day at the beach.

Whiskey Sour
Adjust ratios of whiskey to sour mix to taste.

• 2 parts bourbon or rye whiskey
• 1 part homemade sour mix (recipe here)

Shake with ice. Shake it like hell until the ice is shattered and the shaker is too cold for your hands. Strain into an Old-Fashioned glass, and garnish with a maraschino cherry and a slice of orange. Or strain it over rocks, if you prefer it that way.

Be sure to check out the "Back Forty," a variation on the whiskey sour with a maple syrup-based sour mix, and the "Elmwood Sour," made with rosemary simple syrup and creme de cassis.

Bottoms up.