2 oz Genever [Bols]
1/2 oz Green Chartreuse
1/4 oz Drambuie
1/4 oz Averna
Few dashes Charred Cedar Bitters [Black Cloud Bitters]
Stir with ice in a mixing glass, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
A few months ago I picked up the Black Cloud Bitters sampler from Muddle & Stir. There are five kinds in there, all wonderfully odd. Simply based on the labels, the Charred Cedar bitters excited and intrigued me the most. Continue reading “My Tongue is a Battlefield”
3/4 oz White Rum [Smoky Quartz Distillery]
3/4 oz Green Chartreuse
3/4 oz Licor 43
3/4 oz Lime Juice
Shake ingredients with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lime twist.
If you’ve been following me out in the Drinkstasphere, you’ll know there is a global event going on called “We Have the Last Word”. Conceived by my instagram pal @mmydrinks (aka Mike), it’s an opportunity for all the cocktail minded instagrammers out there to offer up some variations on the classic Last Word Cocktail. He even created @wehavethelastword instagram account to track and share everyone’s takes. After contributing two via social media #wehavethelastword, it seems only natural for my first post this month to continue the theme.
2 oz Blanco Tequils [Lunazul]
1 oz Green Chartreuse
Few Dashes Black Cloud Garden Party Bitters (celery bitters would work too)
Combine ingredients in glass, stir with ice. Strain into an ice filled cocktail glass. Garnish with lime twist (or lemon in this case, since I didn’t have any lime).
The nice thing about making drinks at home is you can do whatever the hell you want. It’s not like you have an unhappy customer on your hands if it doesn’t work out. You only have yourself to blame. And really, that just means you get to tweak things in the next drink. It’s a liberating feeling, and it’s one of my favorite parts of home cocktailing. Throw stuff at the wall (or in the glass, as it were) and see what sticks.
2016 is officially behind us, so let’s take a peak in the rear view mirror and hand out some some awards (the Muddlees? Still working on that one). On to the winners.
Top Three Most Viewed Posts
#3 – It’s Pronounced Yah-grr (featuring the Jagroni) – Negroni variation with Becherovka
#2 – Build a Better Bar Part 1: Poppin’ Bottles (featuring the Training Wheels) – A great intro to Aperol
And the most viewed post is…
#1 – The Ol’ Switcheroo (featuring the Half Windsor Knot) – This one actually makes me Continue reading “A Year in Drinks”
2 oz Gin <Short Path>
1/2 oz St. Germain
1/4 oz Green Chartreuse
1/4 oz Lime Juice
Shake with ice, strain into an ice filled rocks glass, garnish with lime peel.
It’s been upwards of 90 degrees here in Boston of late, so this week I wanted something light and refreshing. I grabbed my journal and thumbed through the pages, looking for only drinks on the rocks. This made me realize two things. 1) I should start using symbols to show how drinks are served (Mr. Boston does this wonderfully, with a little picture of the glass type next to each drink). 2) Apparently I really like up drinks (Is it too late for a retroactive New Year’s resolution to make more drinks on the rocks?). Despite the lack of distribution in my recipes, I managed to find a suitable warm weather tipple.
3/4 oz Gin <Boodles>
3/4 oz Green Chartreuse
3/4 oz Maraschino Liqueur <Luxardo>
3/4 oz Lime Juice
Shake with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.
It’s almost April, which can only mean one thing…Masters Week! I have the privilege of attending Wednesday’s practice round this year, and could not be more excited. As such, I’ll be taking next week off*, but I knew whatever drink I wrote about today would be required to have Green Chartreuse in it, natch**. What better cocktail to choose than the one that introduced me to this herbaceous, floral liqueur…the Last Word.
2 oz Pisco <Macchu Pisco>
1/2 oz Dry Vermouth <Dolin>
1/2 oz Green Chartreuse
Combine ingredients and stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. To oak age, make a ten serving batch in a container with a tight fitting lid. Add about an ounce of oak cubes (or a spiral). Shake every day or so and taste every few days until desired flavors are reached. Strain into clean container.
In the last few years, barrel aged cocktails have definitely become a thing. Bars are taking classic cocktails (or even their own creations), throwing them in an oak barrel, and waiting to see what happens. For brown spirits in particular, kind of takes the whole booze thing full circle. Bars have the buying power and space to procure and store 3-5 gallon barrels without much hassle. So what is the home bartender to do? Fear not, for I have the answer for you. Even better, you can play along at home. Continue reading “Aged from the Inside Out”
3/4 oz Genever <Bols>
3/4 oz Becherovka
3/4 oz Aperol
1/2 oz Blood Orange juice
1/4 oz Bourbon <Woodford Reserve>
Shake with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass
Genever is an interesting beast. It lives somewhere between gin and whiskey. Gin is simply a distilled neutral grain spirit infused with some botanicals; genever is partly that same spirit, but also blended with a maltier spirit made from the same grains to give it a sweeter edge. Serious Eats goes into a bit more detail, but you get the idea. Genever is also the proto-gin, as the Dutch were making the stuff and throwing some of the classic gin botanicals (juniper, coriander, etc) into it to take the edge off. Eventually it made its way to England and the malty base was eliminated, and you get the more familiar London Dry Gin.
1 1/2 oz Bourbon
3/4 oz Green Chartreuse
1/2 oz dark Creme de Cacao
1/4 oz Cointreau
Few dashes Fee Bros Chocolate bitters
Stir with ice, strain into empty rocks glass
After a year or two of building our home bar, we had a wide variety of bottles to choose from. We were able to make a nice range of interesting cocktails on any given night. However, every now and then Mrs. Muddle would drop subtle hints that we should add some chocolate liqueur or creme de cacao to the mix. Not surprising, since she has the bigger sweet tooth in the house. After a few trips to the liquor store which resulted in nary a chocolate liqueur, the requests came more frequently. Conveniently by this point, Valentine’s Day was right around the corner.
Head to Muddle & Stir for 10% off using discount code MR10MUDDDLE!
