The Kentucky Fix

If you enjoy coffee and you have a taste for bourbon, then you will most certainly appreciate the coffee-infused bourbon at the heart of this delicious and simple cocktail, which is in the style of the classic Old Fashioned. In addition to the obvious medicinal qualities of bourbon, one benefits from a gentle kick of caffeine. This is an elegant, sophisticated, wholly adult beverage.

You have to start by infusing the bourbon with full-bodied coffee beans. It's a painless procedure. Put a quarter cup of fresh, whole coffee beans and two cups of bourbon in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Let the mixture sit for 12 hours, and then strain out the coffee beans (you might use cheesecloth to keep the smaller particles out of the liquor).

That said, I am known to be a lazy man. I rarely endeavor to make infusions, even simple ones such as described above. The truth is, I am not only slothful, but impatient. I don't like to wait for anything, whether it is public transportation or late-arriving guests, a slow walking companion, or 12-hour infusions. When I seek to slake my thirst, I demand immediate satisfaction, as I am sure you do as well. So, when I have actually planned ahead and made an infusion, it is a particular treat to enjoy. We made a batch prior to the Christmas holiday, and my wife and I enjoyed one on Christmas Eve (or truthfully, Christmas Eve day). Delicious - and I must say it perked us up a bit too.

The Kentucky Fix

• 2 oz coffee-infused bourbon (recipe here)
• 1 big barspoon of demerara sugar
• 2 dashes Regan's Orange Bitters
• 1 dash Fee Bros. Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters
• Garnish: flamed orange peel

In a mixing glass, combine the sugar, the bitters, and the infused bourbon. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Add ice, and stir until very cold (count to 50). Strain into a rocks glass with freshly cracked ice. Flame a thick swatch of orange peel over the drink, and drop the peel in.

If you are in doubt about how to flame a peel, check out the technique on my Infusions, Syrups, Concoctions page.

Bottoms up - and a very happy New Year to you!

"Christmas" Manhattan

The so-called "Christmas" Manhattan is simply one of my variations on the standard Manhattan. It substitutes a couple of the traditional ingredients: standard sweet vermouth is replaced by the more complex Carpano Antica Formula vermouth, which is based on what is purported to be the original sweet vermouth recipe from Antonio Benedetto Carpano, created in 1786. You can find it a bit more easily nowadays; if you are in the Boston area you can try Dave's Fresh Pasta or Cambridge Wine & Spirits. 

Carpano happens to have many of the characteristic flavors one might associate with the holidays - think licorice, herbs, figs, cocoa, and sweet cinnamon. The Fee Bros. Old Fashion bitters have a cinnamon profile (try to find the limited edition whiskey barrel aged bitters, released once a year...) that sings holiday carols with Regan's Orange Bitters, which are especially good (you can substitute Fee Bros. Orange Bitters or Angostura Orange Bitters). Hell, for that matter you could approximate this using any sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters, and whatever orange bitters you can find, if necessary. 

That said, this particular combination of ingredients, listed below, derived its name when I proffered one to my lovely wife, who responded by saying, "It's like Christmas in my mouth."

I thought it would be appropriate to post this heading toward Christmas, simply so as to put before you an option, which you may essay to concoct, for a December evening's celebratory tipple. Christmas Eve, especially.

The "Christmas" Manhattan

• 3 oz Wild Turkey 101 bourbon
• 3/4 oz Carpano Antica Formula Sweet Vermouth
• 2 dashes Regan's Orange Bitters
• 1 dash Fee Bros. Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters
• Garnish: Maraschino cherry

Combine the ingredients, bitters first, in a mixing glass. Add ice and stir until very cold (count to 50). Strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with a Maraschino cherry. 

If you are bothered to acquire the listed ingredients, go a step further and buy Luxardo Maraschino Cherries in syrup. They are the best money can buy (and quite dear, unfortunately), but you will be grateful at the end of your drink when you taste a Luxardo cherry: tart, sweet without being saccharine, deeply flavored, and all natural. After all, it's a holiday and you only live once.

Bottoms up - and Happy Holidays!

Punch Drunk

Punch is fun. And it makes an especially good party offering, as the hosts don't have to spend their evening "behind the bar," so to speak, but can mingle freely with their guests. Well, actually, it is usually only served at parties nowadays, though once upon a time it was a standard libation. You just don't see it that much anymore.

The main problem is finding punches that are interesting, and also not too sweet. Because so often, punches are made (or refreshed mid-party) by people who have already had way too much to drink - I am sure you have seen it: A soused host debonairly dumping sickly sweet rum into some sort of sickly sweet juice, concocting a recipe for one of the worst headaches in the world.

So, after some years, I have refined my list of punch recipes to just a few. And of those, these two are the best. They are deeply flavorful, complex, and not too sweet. They work wonderfully as holiday party punches, but are not limited to that service.

By the way, here is a good book about the history of punch by David Wondrich.

Without further ado:

Kentucky Cardinal Punch
Courtesy of Imbibe Magazine.

Says Imbibe, succinctly: "This punch from Kentucky bartender Kyle Higgins gets a strong fruity backbone from Southern Belle shiraz, a robust Australian wine aged in used Pappy Van Winkle whiskey barrels." 

It was incredibly difficult for me to track down this wine. Originating from Australia's R Wines Winery, I finally found a distributor in New York (and reasonably priced, too). I had a friend lug up a few bottles. In any case, I have not seen any since. I am sure nothing tastes quite like it (thanks to that aging in Pappy van Winkle bourbon whiskey barrels), so choose whatever bold wine you can find and don't expend energy on regret.

8 cups Southern Belle Shiraz, or other bold, spicy red
2 cups rye whiskey
2 cups brandy
1 cup sweet vermouth
1/2 cup Carpano Antica
1 lb granulated sugar
2 cups Moscato d’Asti
8 cups sparkling water
Ice block (freeze water in a Bundt cake or loaf pan)
Garnish with orange twists

Combine shiraz, rye, brandy, vermouth and Carpano in a pitcher. Slowly stir in the sugar until dissolved. Refrigerate for several hours until cold. When ready to serve, place ice block in punch bowl and pour chilled mixture over. Top with moscato and soda water and serve. Garnish each serving with an orange twist.
Makes approximately 50 servings.

Bourbon Punch with Pink Grapefruit and Mint

Courtesy of Melissa Clark, Bon Appetit. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

This is quite an interesting punch. Sort of a mix between a Mint Julep and Brown Derby. It is not too sweet, and has a tart, citrusy sparkle to it, thanks to the mingling grapefruit, mint, and club soda. The ingredients may seem a bit unusual, but this was a successful punch at one of my holiday parties. Very flavorful and with mass appeal. I doubled this recipe.

Hors d'oeuvres

• 1/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 15 fresh mint sprigs, divided
• 4 cups strained fresh pink grapefruit juice
• 2 1/2 cups bourbon
• 12 dashes angostura bitters
• 1 cup club soda

Stir 1/3 cup water and sugar in small saucepan over low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and bring to boil. Add five fresh mint sprigs. Remove from heat; cool syrup completely.

Strain syrup into punch bowl. Add juice, bourbon, and bitters; mix in soda and 10 mint sprigs. Add a block of ice to bowl.

A note about ice blocks: You want an arctic hunk of ice. While you can certainly buy blocks of ice, it is is easy to use a large Tupperware container, or as suggested above, a Bundt pan, to create a frozen block or ring of ice. Just freeze the water over night or longer to be sure it is solid! Have a backup ready, too, in case the first block melts too much.

If you are not serving the punch immediately, keep it refrigerated until you are ready to serve, and then add the ice to the punch bowl. Yes, you need a punch bowl. Bottoms up!

Whoa, whoa!

Holiday Eggnog

My childhood memories of Christmas resemble faded Polaroids: mustard-yellow or pine green shag carpets, gaudy Christmas trees, bed-headed family members in bath robes and gowns, stockings over the hearth, the mouthwatering smell of a roast in the oven, blaring holiday music, and, of course, eggnog. Go on, try the link.

Eggnog - specifically, the eggnog my father used to make - was a staple at my parents' holiday gatherings for as long as I can remember. My dad would make gallons of the stuff in vats, and serve it up to guests - who, enthralled by the silky texture and rich flavor, would quaff cups of the stuff and wind up three sheets to the wind. That is because there is a boatload of bourbon in it, and rum too. Those parties got louder and louder as the night wore on.

As I grew a bit older, I was eventually initiated into the eggnog ritual, but allowed only one glass... My grandmother once got quite ridiculous after drinking two or three glasses of the stuff, triggering a laughing fit that took over the whole family for an hour. 

Oakland 1977

A few years ago, prior to a holiday party I was hosting, I asked Dad for his eggnog recipe. This makes a damn fine eggnog for the holidays, truly old school. It is incredibly thick, the consistency of heavily whipped cream. After shaking and serving, an inch of dense froth forms on the surface, which makes the ultimate moustache. It is definitely a dessert in a glass. Be forewarned, however, that the quantities seem to double once the cream is whipped and the egg whites are beaten. You will need very big mixing bowls in order to avoid the sort of billowing spillover that happened to me, ending in a desperate rummage for additional bowls into which to split the rapidly ballooning volumes of liquid.

You'll understand why this is a special treat, and why you are best off limiting yourself to this once a year at most, after one glance at the ingredients. A few notes before you get started: Dad recommends making this a week in advance, so the flavors meld. I am not sure it is necessary to do this - maybe a night or two instead. 

Holiday Eggnog

Makes a gallon plus

12 egg yolks

12 egg whites

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 quart heavy cream

1 quart milk

750 ml bottle of bourbon

1 cup of light rum

Nutmeg for garnish

Beat the egg yolks with 1 cup of the sugar and the salt, until very light. In a separate bowl, beat the whites until stiff, then beat in the additional 1/2 cup of sugar. Combine the egg mixtures and beat until thoroughly blended. Next, whip the cream and then beat it into the egg mixture, followed by the milk. Stir in the whiskey and mix well, and finally, add the rum. 

You'll need a jug that holds over a gallon to store this, as the eggs and cream become very voluminous after beating. Store in a cool place (the fridge, in other words, or outside if you have cold winters). Be sure to shake the stuff vigorously before serving. Sprinkle nutmeg on top and watch your guests get loopy. It's good.

Bottoms up, and season's greetings! 

The Brown Derby Cocktail

The Brown Derby on Wilshire

In 1926, the original Brown Derby Restaurant opened at 3427 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Like most good things from that time, it no longer exists. It moved to 3377 Wilshire Boulevard, eventually got sold, and at last report was part of a typical LA strip mall.

The Brown Derby on Hollywood and Vine

It was not the only Brown Derby. Another branch, probably more famous, opened in Hollywood at 1628 North Vine Street. This branch also sported a distinctive brown dome, though it was not quite as derby-shaped as the original. The Hollywood Brown Derby was the place for the city's movers and shakers. A place to see, and be seen. They say Clark Gable proposed to Carole Lombard at this location. They also shot the "L.A. at Last" episode of I Love Lucy within its walls. There was a "Great Wall of Fame," on which hung the caricatures of the restaurant's many celebrity diners.

Allegedly, the Cobb Salad was invented there, made by owner Bob Cobb as a midnight meal for Sid Grauman (Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, Grauman's Chinese Theatre).

The Brown Derby Cocktail, however, was not invented there. Instead, it came from a competitor called the Vendome Club, also in Hollywood. According to Dale DeGroff's Craft of the Cocktail, this recipe dates to 1930.

The Vendome Club, Hollywood

The ingredients may sound strange at first, but bear with me. The flavors work well together - you get a very fleeting, candied sweetness, followed by a much more nuanced honey taste, then a pleasing bitterness introducing the whiskey's spiciness, and at the end, an incredibly dry finish - and it is a very simple drink to make. No fancy Italian liqueurs or hard-to-find bottlings. All you need is some fresh grapefruit juice, some honey, and some bourbon. For this drink I happened to use Old Grand-Dad 114 proof bourbon, which worked well. I had a grapefruit that was getting a bit soft, so I squeezed it for fresh grapefruit juice. And to make the honey syrup, all you do is mix one part honey with one part warm water, and stir until the honey dissolves.

My wife suggested that using different honeys - lavender, for instance - would impart variations in flavor that would be particularly pleasing. This would also be a success with rye whiskey. So, play around!

The Brown Derby Cocktail

• 2 oz bourbon (or rye)
• 1 oz fresh grapefruit juice
• 1/2 oz honey syrup (recipe here)

Shake the ingredients with ice, until very cold. Strain into a cocktail glass and enjoy. Easy peasy, nice and tasty.

Bottoms up!

Romeo & Juliet Manhattan

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

The Romeo & Juliet Manhattan is simply a variation on the traditional Manhattan, albeit with something of a bittersweet tone, redolent of orange peel and darker flavors of leather, raisin, burnt sugar, violet, and nutmeg. This nuance is due to the tryst of Carpano Punt e Mes - an aperitif similar to sweet vermouth, but with a mild bitterness that brings to mind an amaro - and Carpano Antica sweet vermouth. These two combine nicely, tempering each other's more passionate qualities without losing their ardor. 

Similarly, the combination of Angostura and orange bitters highlight the bouquet of fruit and spice in both Punt e Mes and Carpano Antica.

Of course, all of this is happening under the all-encompassing embrace of bourbon. For those who find a standard Manhattan too sweet, this is worth a try.

The Carpano Antica and Punt e Mes are critical components to this, as they produce a harmonious interplay of flavors. Substituting the Carpano Antica will alter the character of the drink, but I realize it's not necessarily easy to find these bottles. So a regular vermouth could work instead. Punt e Mes should be easier to come by. 

Romeo & Juliet Manhattan

3 oz bourbon (Wild Turkey 101 is my choice)

1/2 oz Punt e Mes

1/2 oz Carpano Antica sweet vermouth

1-2 dashes Angostura bitters

1-2 dashes orange bitters (I recommend Regan's)

Stir all the ingredients with ice until nice and cold, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry, skewered through the heart (O happy dagger, this is thy sheath).

Bottoms up.

My Father's Manhattan

Simply put, my father makes the best Manhattan.

I don't know what makes it the best. It could be nostalgia. It could be the ratios, the precisely limited amount of bitters, the maraschino cherry juice (yes, the bright red kind). It could be the sheer consistency of the recipe - year after year, not one of these magnificent drinks has wavered in flavor. Each encounter with a Manhattan made by my father is like a reunion with your own flesh and blood. If there was one thing I could have learned from this, it is don't muck about with perfection.

So, like a proper son, I did muck about. And as a result, I lost the magic touch.

I used to make a good Manhattan; slightly more bitters, slightly more vermouth. In fact, in the quest to find my own take on this classic - my own perfectly rendered Manhattan - I have tried scores of different bourbons and ryes, many types of bitters and vermouths, and so many damned ratios that I have effectively forgotten how to make the same drink twice. I have made some outstanding cocktails, real beauties, with rich, complex flavors. I have made many that were merely so-so. The problem is, I have no standard to which I can adhere. I am always trying some new thing. It's hit or miss. Until, that is, I do it Dad's way.

That's why, in honor of my father's recent October birthday, I decided to write about his consistently delicious, soul-warming, old friend Manhattan. A chance to come home, so to speak. The Prodigal Son. It is like hitting the default button, starting over, finding the trail out of the wilderness. For me, it is the control in the experiment. It is the measure by which all other endeavors must be judged.

I would like to say I can remember the first time I was old enough to be offered my initial Manhattan. It was probably Christmas Eve. It probably came, as it always does, brimming with amber liquid and mystery, that dark cherry nestled deep in the glowing heart of the drink. Here was the special-occasion cocktail I had seen my father sip on for most of my life, always during gatherings or holidays. It represented festivity and camaraderie. It was always a libation indulged in as a group: the family raising a toast; a boisterous group of friends carefully clinking glasses, trying not to slosh. On trips to visit my mother's family in London, Dad would bring Wild Turkey, and would introduce the English relatives to this uniquely American cocktail. Everyone there who tasted it remembered it - such a cocktail was almost completely foreign to England at the time - and it was in demand at every visit, year upon year.

As for me, I loved it immediately. Spicy, sweet, floral, woodsy, each sip ushering a fugue of flavors, developing and restating themselves, from toasty vanilla to nutmeg and a mere hint of cinnamon, to something like burnt sugar and charred wood. Such a remarkable drink undoubtedly fostered my (quite possibly unhealthy) need to discover what transforms a good cocktail into a beautiful experience.

So here, a little over week past my father's birthday, I offer the king of Manhattans: Dad Bradley's.

My Father's Manhattan

• 4 parts Wild Turkey 101 bourbon
• 1 part sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
• Dash of Angostura Bitters
• Small barspoon of liquid from the maraschino cherry jar

Note that I say parts, not ounces. The number of ounces that comprise four parts is up to you. Shake the ingredients with ice until very cold (about a 20-count) and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry (and no, not the fancy kind... the artificially colored kind).

My brother, Ben, and father, Damon - happy with Manhattans

I have quite recently introduced my father to Carpano Antica, a particularly flavorful sweet vermouth, the "ancient formula," and Luxardo's fancy marasca cherries which are tart and delicious. And Dad politely agrees that these tastes indeed add new dimensions to the old classic Manhattan - and he may mean it. But ultimately, I like the Manhattan best when it is made the unfussy way Dad makes it: using the old, sticky bottle of Martini & Rossi, the trusty Wild Turkey 101, and the bright red cherries. And just a dash of bitters.

Here's to you, pops. (Forgive me if I don't say "bottoms up" this time.)