I thought I should post a quick something to just round off the Tales of the Cocktail thing. I may still post more on individual sessions later of course. A few random thoughts and observations follow:

- The best thing was probably getting to put faces to so many names. It seemed like almost everybody who blogs about cocktails was there, as was everyone who runs online communities with a cocktail or spirits focus. Everybody turned out to be very sociable and I had some great times chatting with people. Knowing who people is also going to make it so much more interesting reading what everybody writes in future.

- Thanks to Paul of Cocktail Chronicles for organizing us bloggers. Somebody likened the task to herding cats, an apt comparison if ever there was one.

- Thanks also to Ann Tuennerman for letting us descend on the event like a plague of booze fueled locusts, then saying how everybody loved us being there.

- While I saw, heard and tasted an awful lot of good stuff, I also missed out on so many amazing sessions. How could I have missed Juniperlooza, where they sampled all the major styles of gin – including things like Old Tom and Spanish gin that I have yet to try? Some of the presenters organized simply fantastic sessions. How did I miss the American Whiskey and Rye sessions? It was just a case of too much happening in too little time.

- New Orleans needs to do some work to lift the quality of its drinks. Highlights were the Absinthe Suise at Luke, the Calvados Cocktail at the Swizzle Stick Bar at Café Adelaide (most of it ended up on the floor, but it was tasting great until I knocked it over), and the Brandy Milk Punch at the Carousel Bar (just seeing a worked-off-his-feet barman throwing together something as obscure as a Brandy Milk Punch without complaining was a treat). Low points were the lack of a truly good Sazerac anywhere, and the barely shaken Ramos Gin Fizz at Café Adelaide. Café Adelaide was a weird place, a mix of very good and very bad.

- While New Orleans may not make the greatest cocktails in the world it has an awful lot of beautiful old bars. Some, like Lafitte’s Blacksmith’s Shop are amazing venues that have fallen on hard times. My pick would probably be the French 75 Café at Arnaud’s. You have a beautiful old wooden bar, a marble counter, a scattering of rattan furniture, an absence of crowds despite the close proximity to Bourbon Street, and a barman that makes good drinks. I am not a fan of a French 75 made with Cognac – I prefer it with gin. However, I gave the drink a try and they make it well. They looked to be making good Sazeracs though I didn’t have time to have one.

- Tales of the Cocktail really needs to issue everyone with a schedule that gives the locations of events. Between sessions everybody was running around asking each other which room their next session was in. The fact that people had to mill around the hotel simply to find out where they were supposed to be added enormously to the congestion and chaos – especially in the lifts. Some people were walking from the 15^th floor down to street level via the fire escape, then reentering the building through the lobby just to dodge the crowds. Lack of organization was part of the problem here, but maybe the event has just become too big for the venue. That is sad though, since the Hotel Monteleone is a great old hotel that oozes character.

- I thought I had bid a temporary goodbye to my bottle collection when I left New Zealand. However, what with all the stuff the sponsors threw at us I now once again possess a respectable sized bar – albeit in miniaturized form. The Asian inspired ‘liqueur’ called something like ‘Ty-Kyu’ was unimaginably dreadful. It wasn’t even a liqueur as such, more a ready to drink cocktail – though drinking it is not really advisable. Everything else was pretty good. Being in the Caribbean I will use my numerous Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur miniatures to spice up my rum and coke.

- Getting to see, meet and chat with so many well known drinks writers was amazing.

- Martin Cate of Forbidden Island gets my award for best presenter at Tales. His presentation on cocktail garnishes was very entertaining, The guy’s timing and level of preparation were amazing. The Tiki drink experts might have found it covered familiar ground, but much of it was new to me.

- There was so much happening at Tales of the Cocktail that I barely got to see New Orleans. That was a shame since it seems an amazing city full of fun and friendly people. I pretty much covered the French Quarter, ate enough beignet from different places to begin getting a grip on why they are the ideal breakfast, and tried some of the local restaurants on my to do list. There was an awful lot that I did not get to see though. Perhaps I need to visit New Orleans again at some stage.

This session tried to cover an awful lot of ground in a limited time so the treatment was a little superficial.  There was some interesting information though.

One of the highlights was the discussion of a product called Vin Mariani, a cocoa leaf infused aromatic wine (perhaps something like a quinquina) that was popular in the later 19th century.  This stuff was consumed widely in Europe and the United States before cocaine was made illegal.  Apparently it later morphed into coca-cola under pressure from prohibitionists.

Another interesting point was the lack of citrus juices in early 20th century French cocktails.  France only got into citrus juice containing drinks in the 1920s.  The popularity of gin as a base spirit in early French drinks was also surprising.  Apparently gin appears in the majority of the early drinks.

We also got an insight into what the disappeared liqueur Cordial Medoc was.  Supposedly it was a coffee and citrus liqueur.

Interesting stuff anyway.

I got out of bed early enough to make the media breakfast at Brennan’s.  To start we had a tasty Bloody Mary with a splash of red wine in it, then more wine to follow during breakfast – baked apple with cream, two types of eggs, and Bananas Foster.  They take breakfast seriously in New Orleans.

At 10.30 I caught the session on the life and times of Jerry Thomas.  A ton of people were there to hear David Woodrich and Ted Haigh discourse on how cocktails got started.  It was covering pretty familiar ground if you have read their books and know a bit about 19^th and early 20^th century social history.  However, it was great to see them speak in person and some interesting ideas were bounced around.  I had nearly gone to the session on bitters and apparently I missed out on some good stuff here, with real samples of discontinued early 20^th century products being passed around.  There was a third guy on the panel in this session as well.  I arrived a little late and missed the introductions but I think he was Pat O’Brian.

Next up I headed to Rum, Ron, Rhum with Wayne Curtis.  I was hoping to learn more about rum, but sadly this turned out to be a quite average session.  Wayne Curtis gave a good talk introducing rum.  Unfortunately the brand sponsors took over the rest of the session, introducing their products, talking us through a very brief tasting (a basic white and aged product from each distillery), and serving a cocktail.  I can’t say I got much out of the session itself besides tasting Rhum Clement .  The Rhum Clement was nice but I think I have had better rhum agricoles.  However, while the session itself did not exactly enthuse me, I got a chance to chat with Wayne Curtis afterwards.  He had some interesting things to say about Havana Club rum and travel in Cuba.  Apparently there are a lot of rum scams going on there, and even Havana Club themselves seem to have picked up a reputation for sometimes adulterating their own product (adding leather and the like to simulate aging).  Jeff Berry stopped by to say hello while we waited for the session to start, so I got to talk rum with him for a while.  I also had a chat about Tiki bars with Martin Cate from Forbidden Island – I really should have got to his place while I was in San Francisco.

During the next slot I ducked into Grape Expectations, a session on grappa.  It was happening close by, seemed a better idea than fighting the crowds in the lift, and I find the whole grappa-pisco-marc category interesting.  The session was chaotic in the traditional Italian manner, with numerous delays to start with, then a race to sample eight or so grappa in the final 20 minutes.  The aged grappa were very interesting.  There was a 50% vol 12 year old from the Marolo distillery with some great dry scented wood aromas.  There was another aged product from Poli that was also really interesting, but we were literally tossing these final products back as we had to make way for the next session.  There was also a chamomile liqueur that was really interesting.  The good thing about the session was getting a better handle on the differences between grappa and pisco, a question I have tried to resolve before with little success.  They presented a product called Uga Viva, which they presented as being ‘more a pisco than a grappa’ on account of being distilled from a fermentation based on the whole grapes (i.e. juice, skins etc.).  This stuff had great aroma by the way – almost like a hoppy pale ale.  Anyhow, Diego Loret de Mola of Barsol Pisco was there at the end of the session and proved to be a great source of information on exactly how pisco is produced.  According to him it had been a little misleading to present the Uga Viva as ‘pisco-like’, since Peruvian Pisco is distilled from fermented grape juice only (i.e. there is no solid matter in there whatsoever).  So really Peruvian pisco is simply an unaged brandy, with the unique taste coming entirely from grape variety and distillation techniques.

Afterwards I went to Sensory Perception in Mixology where Darcy O’Niel conducted a scientific experiment that proved me to be a non-taster.  Needless to say, this session completely sucked.

I grabbed some jambalaya and headed to Preservation Hall for Rum and All That Jazz.  There were a bunch of cocktails made with product from the New Orleans Rum Company.  To call this event incredible would be to do it a huge disservice.  The rum drinks were great and the band was unbelievable.

Words can’t really describe the amazing old style jazz that was being played so I’ll just focus on the drinks.  We started with a spiced rum punch.  There was a little chili in the mix, but it was at that level where it was accentuating the other tastes rather than taking over the drink.  Next up was a rum sour with egg white and a lemongrass and melon puree.  The melon seemed to contribute to an enjoyably rich texture.  At first I was wondering whether there was some yolk in there too.  There were a couple more drinks as well, a daiquiri type thing and a creamy smoothie.

Back at the hotel I dropped by the St. Germain party and had a cocktail made from St. Germain, Sazerac Rye, and a pear brandy from the exceptionally good Shladerer firm.  Some guy called Jamie Bourdeau mixed the thing up.  Well, at least it was free booze.

OK. . . it was great, and Jamie is a really nice guy.

I just got back from the Tiki Dinner with cocktails designed and mixed by Jeff ‘Beachbum’ Berry and Wayne Curtis.  A last minute and little advertised change of venue almost saw me miss the thing completely, but after a little running around I eventually got there only slightly late, and just in time for an excellent meal.  I meant to pinch a copy of the menu for reference, but since it somehow got lost in the last minute confusion of leaving, this account is a little cursory.

We had four tiki drinks and a succession of tiki inspired dishes.  The stand-out drink was the  ‘Luau Coconut’.  This was served in a coconut shell, and the combination of rum, lime, coconut water and coconut milk made for something ‘more coconut than coconut’.  This was a totally exceptional drink, and as luck would have it The Bum himself came past to give us a refill.  Generally I find coconut water drinks a little austere and coconut milk drinks a little creamy.  The mixture of  coconut water and coconut milk in this drink struck just the right balance.

The second high point of the meal was the desert, a massive rum-soaked merangue, served in a ring of flaming rum.  A common weakness of booze inspired deserts is a light hand with the actual booze.  This desert suffered no such weakness.

Besides those two highlights there was Kahlua flavored pork belly, a subtle and interesting fish, bitters, maraschino liqueur and mashed parsnip dish (weird sounding but really good), poison cru, sashimi, and a bunch of other delicious things.  At the end we also tried some 10 year old rum from the New Orleans rum comany.  This stuff was very enjoyable – a little rough around the edges but packed with intense flavors.  You could almost have mistaken it for a scotch there was so much going on.  I could have sworn it was overproof, but it turned out to be just 40%.  Great stuff.

After dinner I had a bit more of a chat with a few bloggers – from Gumbo Pages, Kaiser Penguin and Trader Tiki – then headed back to the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone where I ran into Edward Hamilton.  We headed up to to a party in one of the hotel suites where there was some dutch Genever on offer from an obscure company I had never heard of.  After all the Tiki drinks it was a little hard to give a comprehensive assessment of the genever but no doubting it was interesting stuff.  The weird thing to me was that their ‘XO’ genever was aged jongue style genever (i.e. a light style with a high ratio of ‘vodka’ type spirit), while their more heavily malted oude styles seemed less aged.

Tales has been an enjoyably chaotic mess. The Internet refused to work for me before and time was short so this first round up has to cover a fair bit of territory.

Tuesday Night:

Got to the hotel on schedule and hit the bar where I caught up with a bunch of fellow cocktail bloggers. The bar was mayhem, and with everybody drinking Sazeracs was pretty soon drunk dry of rye whiskey. We headed out to Coop’s Place for some food. Coop’s Place is a kind of hole in the wall joint, but we had some great gumbo and jamblayna (spelling?). No cocktails there, I just stuck to beer. Then we hit Bar French 75 where I actually didn’t have a French 75, instead electing to try the regular Bombay gin in a gin and tonic. Regular Bombay is a great gin, much more versatile than the Sapphire. Why is regular Bombay not available in New Zealand and China? It has the light spiciness of the Sapphire, but unlike the Sapphire it still has a juniper taste. After the French 75 bar we dropped by Pat O’Brians for Hurricanes, which were awful beyond words. . . I had expected a sort of cheap and alcoholic punch made of low end rum and juices. What I got was grain alcohol and cordial – lots of it mind you. It was an experience.

Wednesday:

I took off sightseeing around the French Quarter for most of the day. I did beignet and coffee at Café du Monde. The beignet are seriously great – super crispy and fried, just drenched in sugar, but you can still taste the yeastiness. The ultimate doughnut. I checked out a few museums: museum of the American cocktail (just a one room collection but if you are into it you can browse surprisingly long there), a little voodoo museum, and the Louisiana State Museum (great Civil War display). By that stage it was time to head back to the Hotel Monteleone to pick up a Tales registration pack and start getting serious.

I dropped by the welcome reception for bloggers where I met more people, then I hit the Plymouth Sloe gin tasting. Plymouth is better than Gordons – way more bitter and intense. After the Plymouth tasting I tagged along with a group going to check out the Beefeater welcome reception. It was massively crowded and nearly impossible to get a drink so after a quick drink we left and headed to a French-German place called Luke for dinner. The special thing here was the absinthe/anise/pastis cocktails. I had an Ojen Frappe: a Spanish anisette brand called Ojen and Peychauld’s Bitters over ice. Then I had an Absinthe Suisse: Herbisant, the local New Orleans pastis, egg white, cream, orange bitters, crème de menthe, and ice. The Absinthe Suisse was really special. The mussels and chips were great too. The local mussels are way smaller than the New Zealand variety and I think they have a sweeter and superior taste. Mind you, visitors to New Zealand seem to rave about the New Zealand ones. I guess it depends what you like.

From there we headed to the Save the Daiquiri Party where I managed to quickly get a drink despite the hordes. It was a weird Daiquiri, containing 10 Cane rum, Lillet, pastis, and probably some other stuff. From what I could tell the 10 Cane was good stuff, but with all that pastis in there it was hard to really get a handle on the stuff. We gave up on the Save the Daiquiri Party and dropped by the Absinthe Bar for an absinthe frappe. Mine was with Kubler and anisette and was kind of average. They topped it off with some soda water which seemed unnecessary to me. Finally we had a last drink at the Carousel Bar in the hotel. I had a Herbisant and really enjoyed it. It is less sweet and Pernod and kind of rough-in-a-good-way.

Thursday:

Headed to the Hemingway session with Phil Green. He covered a lot of ground so things were kind of rushed – something that was getting to be a theme with Tales of the Cocktail.

The interesting points that came out of it for me were some more insights into what Hemingway liked in a drink (besides lots of booze). He was obsessed with drink temperature and went to big lengths to keep his drinks cold. For example, he would freeze cocktail onions so as to have a garnish that simultaneously helped keep the drink chilled. He also made giant ice cubes in tennis ball cans – another way of getting a cold drink in the tropics. Admirable innovations. His vermouth obsession was something I couldn’t understand so well. He seems to have been very vermouth averse, drinking his 15:1 Montgomery Martinis etc., and quipping that stories about him carrying two canteens, of gin and vermouth respectively, while fighting in Spain were false since he would never have carried a whole canteen of vermouth. Vermouth seems good to me. Oh well. . .

The interesting drink from this session was the Green Isaac’s Special, basically a gin highball made with coconut water and angostura bitters. This was a very interesting drink – kind of dry and austere.

Next up I headed to the Molecular Mixology session. Jamie Boudreau gave a great talk, just too short. He could have kept speaking for the whole hour and half and I’m sure it would have been fantastic. Of course the other speakers were also interesting, but Jamie really did have the most to say and it was a shame he wasn’t allotted a little more time. There were a ton of people there so it was kind of chaotic and hard to take notes.

After that it was time for a grape brandy tasting, covering cognac, armangnac, and jerez brandy. This session was very educational, though again sadly rushed since we got into the room late, and then there were some delays getting bottles up to the room and pouring samples. The good thing was that the delay gave me a chance to chat with Chuck Taggart of The Gumbo Pages.

I should try and post on the tasting in a little more detail at some other stage since it was a good one. We tried eight different brandies, plus B&B liqueur and three brandy cocktails. The stand out product for me was Castarede Blanche, an unaged armagnac. This reminded me so much of pisco and yet was different. It was thinner than most piscos, and yet had far more smoothness than any thin-bodied pisco I have had. I guess the main differences in taste were coming from different grape varietals, since the armagnac and Peruvian pisco production techniques seem pretty similar – i.e. single distillation in a pot still. A pisco sour with this stuff would be interesting. The cocktail they served it in was a sort of ice-coffee style concoction with a little caramel. It was a tasty drink but this unique product probably deserved a drink that brought out its unique characteristics a little more.

Next up I stayed on for Latin Libations. The session led by Tony Abou-Ganim from the Bellagio in Las Vegas. He was a very entertaining and fun speaker and took us through some basic Latin drinks and spirits, including the pisco sour, caipirinha and so on. I scored a free Barsol pisco t-shirt, which was cool since I drank a fair bit of the stuff in San Francisco and am starting to like it.

Next up is a Tiki Dinner at The Delichaise with Beachbum Berry. Given The Bum’s reputation this could be the last anyone hears from me for a while. I will update as soon as I get discharged from hospital.

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899. Were he still alive, he would be celebrating his 109^th birthday just as Tales of the Cocktail wraps up. No doubt he would mark the occasion with a drink, or several. It should come as no surprise then that Tales of the Cocktail will see a seminar on Ernest Hemingway – writer and drinker extraordinaire. Phil Greene, in a session entitled “To Have and Have Another: The Hemingway Bartender’s Companion”, will introduce some of the mixed drinks associated with this prolific literary and cocktailian figure.

There is surely no other writer with the same number of drinks associated with them. From absinthe to vodka, if it contained alcohol Hemingway drank it, and chances were he wrote about it too. Of all the drinks Hemingway enjoyed, the Daiquiri is probably the one in which his spirit endures most strongly. I wrote a post on the Daiquiri and Hemingway here. The post includes some cool photos so check it out if you haven’t already. Of course there were many cocktails Hemingway enjoyed besides the Daiquiri. Martinis featured prominently. He was also partial to absinthe topped with champagne, a mixture he dubbed Death in the Afternoon.

Recently I obtained a copy of Charles H. Baker’s “Jigger, Beaker and Glass: Drinking around the World”. Flipping the pages I was surprised to find a drink called Ernest Hemingway’s Reviver, or Death in the Gulf Stream. Interestingly, Baker and Hemingway appear to have been friends. Baker introduces the recipe as follows:

“One January 2 years back we took MARMION in a howling no’theaster along with the, then, 4 year bride, a companion, and an insane steward, and pointed her down to Key West to get some receipts from Hemingway for the cookery book. We fished the Gulf Stream by day, and ate and drank and talked half the night. Even by the second day we were withering slightly on vine, and along with raw conch salad, or “souse,” listed in Volume I, we got Hemingway’s other picker-upper, and liked it.”

Both men spent time living in Florida so I guess it makes sense that they should have known one another. No doubt their mutual interest in drinking helped.

Baker mentions that before trying this drink he had an aversion to Genever, which he considered to taste like “fermented radishes mixed with spirits of turpentine”. As someone who traveled the world to gather cocktail recipes, Baker was obviously no slouch when it came to drinking. His feeling the worse for wear and needing a “picker-upper” after an evening with Hemingway therefore speaks volumes. Meanwhile, the fact that Hemingway’s “picker-upper” converted Baker on the matter of Genever confirms that Hemingway was more than your average boozer. Papa’s drinks were generally pretty damn good.

Death in the Gulf Stream

Recipe follows:

“Take a tall thin water tumbler and fill it with finely cracked ice. Lace this broken debris with 4 good purple dashes of Angostura, add the juice and crushed peel of 1 green lime, and fill glass almost full with Holland gin. . . . No sugar, no fancying. It’s strong, it’s bitter – but so is English ale strong and bitter, in many cases. We don’t add sugar to ale, and we don’t need sugar in a Death in the Gulf Stream – or at least not more than 1 tsp. It’s tartness and its bitterness are its chief charm. It is reviving and refreshing; cools the blood and inspires renewed interest in food, companions and life.“

Given my recent experiments with Genever I was pleased to come across this recipe. I made the drink up and found it to resemble a citrusy and summery pink gin. The drink is refreshing, aromatic, and a little bitter, with the Genever providing malty body and a slight funk. This is a good drink for appreciating the character of Genever. London Dry will make an serviceable drink, but will lack the essence of the original. Use an Oude Style Genever if at all possible.

To build the drink to best effect I suggest proceeding as follows: fill the glass nearly full of crushed ice; add two or three dashes of Angostura; quarter the lime, squeeze the juice from the wedges directly into the glass and drop each spent wedge into the glass; add a dash of simple syrup (if desired); top off with Genever and stir everything up; finish with a little more ice and a final dash or two of Angostura. Made this way the final addition of bitters will create a lacework effect in the ice on the top of the finished drink. To me this seems a nice touch.

To Have and Have Another: The Hemingway Bartender’s Companion takes place Thursday, July 17, from 10:30 to noon at the Hotel Monteleone. Tickets may be purchased here.

To assist my anticipatory salivation ahead of Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown’s Tales of the Cocktail presentation on “The Cafes of Paris”, I have been taking a look at a few lesser known French aperitifs. A few weeks ago I took a look at Pineau des Charentes. Today I am going to introduce a pair of fruit quinquinas.

Quinquina is vermouth’s neglected cousin. Vermouth is well recognized, if widely feared and misunderstood. Martini drinkers fall into two camps: those who really want vermouth in their drink, and those who merely wish to ritualistically conjure up its spirit. However, while vermouth provokes fierce debate and elaborate juju, the mention of quinquina elicits little more than a blank stare. This is a shame because quinquina is an interesting category. To fix those blank stares, perhaps a little explanation is in order.

Both quinquina and vermouth are aromatized wines. Quinquinas distinguish themselves from vermouths in using quinine as a key flavoring. As in tonic water, the quinine originally served a medicinal purpose – warding off malaria and all that. Vermouth and quinquina are not mutually exclusive categories. Some vermouth producers sell ‘quinquina’ versions alongside their regular vermouths: for example Martini & Rossi release their sweet vermouth in both ‘quniquina’ and standard versions. However, despite some overlap there are marked differences, with quinquinas tending to emphasize spice while vermouths are more herbal.

Similar to vermouths, which can be broadly classified into sweet and dry styles, quinquinas largely fall into rouge and blanc styles. The rouge style is rich, spicy and based on red wine – Dubonnet Rouge is the classic example. The blanc style is light, citrus accented, and based on white wine – Lillet Blanc is the iconic product.

For some reason neither of these mainstream styles of quinquina ever challenged vermouth to become a ubiquitous cocktail ingredient. Cocktail recipes never casually call for a generic rouge or blanc quinquina. Quinquina is called for only occasionally, and always by brand. Even luminaries like Charles H. Baker considered Dubonnet to be “only needed in the more elaborate establishments”, and I do not recall him mentioning Lillet at all. Considering that Baker saw orgeat, kummel and six types of bitters as more or less essential bar supplies, this adds up to a bit of a slap in the face for the quinquina category.

If mainstream quinquinas like Dubonnet and Lillet are fairly obscure, fruit flavored quinquina are even more so. These fruity quinquina do not fall within either the rouge or blanc styles, with heavy fruit macerations completely masking the base wine. They deserve a look from cocktailians though, offering a great source of fruit flavors and complexity, yet one with minimal sweetness. Two products are introduced below: RinQuinQuin and Orange Colombo.

RinQuinQuin (15% alcohol by volume) is a peach flavored quinquina. It is produced in Provence by the same firm that makes Henri Bardouin pastis. The name means something like an invigorating drink or a pick-me-up in French. The production process involves maceration, distillation, blending and several months of aging. Both distilled alcohol and wine are infused with quinine, other herbs and spices, and peaches. The peaches are what distinguish the product, and are added not as fruit, but rather as leaves, skins and kernels. This makes for a very complex flavor. The product is lightly sweetened. The result is a fruity but refreshingly dry aperitif wine with a distinctly bitter edge.

Orange Colombo (15% alcohol by volume) is an orange flavored quinquina along the same lines as RinQuinQuin. Based on its complex taste I am guessing it is flavored with more than just orange skins. As in RinQuinQuin, leaves, blossoms or other material may also be used.

These fruit quinquina are traditionally consumed either chilled or over ice, perhaps garnished with a twist of lemon. However, there is no reason they cannot be used in cocktails. Bear in mind that their mild fruitiness makes them poor vermouth substitutes, while their lack of sugar and their herbal complexity prevent them from standing in for fruit liqueurs. A bit of a fresh approach is in order.

Here are a few ideas. . .

Peach Martinez

1 oz Genever (Bols Oude)

1 oz Italian vermouth (Martini Rossi)

1 oz RinQuinQuin

2 dashes Fees Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters

1 tsp maraschino

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

A nice take on the Martinez. Cutting the vermouth with RinQuinQuin makes for a lighter and more interesting drink. The Genever provides a mellow but solid base, neither fading into obscurity nor dominating. The complex peach notes mingle nicely with the cherry. Increase the Genever a little if you find it lacks kick.

When playing around with RinQuinQuin to create variations on existing recipes you will probably find that cutting vermouth half-and-half with RinQuinQuin works better than a straight substitution. RinQuinQuin is more of a one note product than vermouth, albeit a complex note.

RinQuinQuin Vesper

3 oz gin (Tanqueray)

1 oz vodka (Stolichnaya)

¼ oz Lillet Blanc

¼ oz RinQuinQuin

Shake over ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a large lemon twist.

This is just brilliant. By upping the bitterness the RinQuinQuin addresses the problem of Lillet having been reformulated and lightened since the Vesper was originally invented. The RinQuinQuin also adds a peach layer to the citrus in the Lillet.

Orange Colombo can be used to create another nice Vesper variation. Both products can also be used in regular Martinis, where they work especially well with delicate gins like Tanqueray 10 that stand up poorly to vermouth. I would be inclined to split the quinquina 50/50 with vermouth.

Orange Colombo Pisco Sour

2 oz pisco

½ oz Orange Columbo

¾ oz lime juice

1/3 oz simple syrup

1 egg white

Dash or two of Fees Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters

Put everything except the bitters in a mixing glass. Shake long and hard over ice until the drink becomes foamy. Double strain into a sour glass. Finish the drink by garnishing the foam with a few drops of bitters – you can use a toothpick to draw a pattern on the foam.

The Orange Columbo adds both a subtle orange note and a light bite, making a pleasant variation that jazzes up the original. Perhaps I am not using the right pisco, but I find pisco sours tend to be a little too plain and smooth. Orange Columbo can liven things up without creating an unseemly ruckus. You can also try a splash of Orange Colombo in a Margarita – obviously you will still need the orange liqueur, but possibly it could be scaled back a notch.

There is tons of potential for using these obscure fruit quinquina in cocktails. If you see a bottle you should grab it and have a play around. Currently these products are underutilized, leaving the field wide open to experimentation.

Between now and July I will be bringing you few posts on France’s rich traditions in the areas of aperitifs and mixed drinks. Why this disconcerting focus on French excellence you ask? The purpose is to whet your appetites for the Tales of the Cocktail session entitled The Cafes of Paris, led by Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown, and to be held on the afternoon of July 19th. It promises to be a very interesting session.

It looked better full. . .

Pineau des Charentes is an interesting aperitif from France that I have only recently tried. It seems to be relatively unknown outside of France. Pineau des Charentes is typically drunk straight and only rarely used in cocktails. However, since I am interested in aperitif wines as cocktail ingredients I picked a bottle up to try it out.

Pineau des Charentes (also known simply as pineau) is said to have originated in the 16^th Century when wine must (i.e. unfermented grape juice) was accidentally poured into a cask containing cognac eau de vie. The cognac prevented the must from fermenting and the barrel was set aside as an unfortunate mistake. However, it was found that extended maturation saw the flavors of the wine must and cognac blend to produce a fine drink. Pineau has been a specialty of the Charentes region ever since. The Charentes region seems to be sub-region within Cognac by the way.

The regulations governing production of Pineau des Charentes are quite strict. For a start the product must come from the Charentes region. The grapes used for the must should be Ugni Blanc, Folle Blanche, Colombard, Sémillon, Sauvignon or Montils. Pressing must be light to ensure the pressed juice is of high quality. The cognac used for blending must be a minimum of one year old, 60% or higher alcohol by volume, and from the same vineyard as the must. According to the Comité National du Pineau des Charentes the finished product must be matured in oak barrels for a minimum of 18 months. Other sources mention minimum maturation of 8 months for red pineau and 12 months for white, so there seems to be some ambiguity on this point. Old pineau can be aged for 10 years or longer. The alcoholic strength by volume must be in the range 16-22%. Most pineau is a blend of roughly one quarter cognac to three quarters wine must, with an alcoholic strength of around 17%.

The vast majority of pineau is either consumed within France or exported to Francophone markets. Less than 25% of pineau production is exported, and over 90% of exports go to Belgium and Canada. In practice France and Belgium together consume almost all pineau production. Canada follows a very distant third, but still consumes several times more than the next largest pineau drinking nation. I am guessing Quebec is the center of Canadian pineau consumption. The French are keeping this one very much to themselves. So enough of facts and figures! It is time to open that bottle and see what the French are hiding. . .

The taste is mild but interesting, and unusual compared to other aperitif wines. No herbal flavors, bitterness or spice leap out at you. There is also little of the matured complexity of aperitif wines like port or sherry. This stuff is simply sweet, full bodied, and extremely ‘fresh’. It tastes like a very fruity wine, but also reminds me strongly of mead (honey wine). It is hard to believe it contains no honey since the honey taste is so strong. There is also some apple aroma, though again no apples were harmed in its manufacture. It has an unusual ‘primeval’ character, reminding me of the opening titles in Werner Herzog’s ‘Fitzcarraldo’, which describe the Amazon is described as a place where God never finished his creation. Pineau seems slightly rough-and-ready, with a plethora of interesting aromas that threaten to erupt all over the place and are disinclined to sit still. This stuff should have potential as a cocktail ingredient. I wonder why it isn’t used more?

In terms of mixing I would tend to think (roughly in order of potential) along the lines of cognac (the obvious choice), calvados, rhum agricole, pisco, Cuban rum, and whiskey. Pineapple juice also springs to mind, and perhaps Cynar could be another idea. This is not experience talking. I am just making some guesses as to what might work. I should also note that I did not dream up the rhum agricole angle. I bought a bottle of pineau partly so I could make a rhum agricole drink, the Pompadour, from the Esquire Drinks Database. Lets start with the Pompadour then. . .

The Pompadour
1 ½ oz rhum agricole vieux (I used St. James Ambre)

1 ½ oz pineau

½ oz lemon juice

This shows off the characteristics of both the rhum and the pineau. It is weird and unlike anything you are likely to have drunk. It is also fantastic. There is a full on aroma symphony, with the fresh and aromatic characters of both ingredients getting a chance to shine. You should seek out Pineau des Charentes for this drink alone.

Next up are a couple more pineau cocktail recipes I found online. I will include some experimental recipes of my own in a subsequent post. This next recipe is from website site of a producer of Pineau des Charentes.

Charentais

2 1/2 oz pineau

½ oz cognac

¼ oz crème de framboise

1 tsp lemon juice

This smooth and tasty refresher is just lightly spiked pineau. The source of this recipe was unclear on whether a liqueur or eau de vie framboise was called for (mentioning both in different places). I did not have an appropriate eau de vie so I went for a liqueur. The lemon juice was added by me as an afterthought to give it some zing since it tasted a bit flat.

The next was something not unlike the above, but with the addition of a dash of pineapple juice and the whole then being brought to life with champagne. Again the recipe was from the website of a pineau producer.

Reaulais

2 oz pineau

½ oz cognac

½ oz pineapple juice

1 dash grenadine

2 oz champagne or sparkling wine

Shake everything except the champagne over ice. Strain into a glass and top with champagne.

A very rich yet slightly lively drink. There are no real surprises but it is most pleasant.

The next recipe was from a French language website – hence a little ambiguity over what liqueur is meant.

Ambassade

1 ½ oz pineau

½ oz gin

½ oz ‘orange liqueur’ (I used Grand Marnier)

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Another “take Pineau des Charentes and spike it with a little hooch” type of drink. It tastes good though. French style cocktails, by which I mean drinks that are heavy on aperitif wines and light on spirits, are tasty. Made with Grand Marnier the drink is rich and smooth. With Cointreau or some other triple sec it would probably be more fresh and fragrant.

I love the way the French can’t help adding London Dry Gin to things. It has to hurt them, right? I am imagining an “every time you spike your drink with gin, somewhere in the world a DGSE operative in scuba gear dies” kind of thing.

Sorry, I’m unrelenting about the Rainbow Warrior Affair aren’t I? The French are a fine race, and have punched well above their weight in terms of inventing delicious aperitifs. I’ve had better cocktails than this one, but I’ve also had much worse.

In my next post on Pineau des Charentes I will experiment with some recipes of my own.

The Cafes of Paris takes place Saturday, July 19, at 2:30 pm at the Hotel Monteleone. Tickets are available here.