sfoil blog

Category: Drinks

Chocolate Lemonade

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On October 12, 2019

In Drinks

Summer’s over here so I wanted to relay a success on the mixology front.  My cocktail posts get the fewest reads but, nevertheless, I have a duty to share this information with the world.

This is a simple recipe:

Juice of One Lemon

Equal Parts Creme de Cacao (white, preferably)

Pour over rocks in highball glass and top with soda water

To my great surprise, this is quite a pleasant drink.  In each sip, the more pungent lemon hits first, then you taste the chocolate as an afternote, and the two tastes merge quite well.

That being said, this is definitely a “weird” drink with a lot going on outside the recipe.  The most important is to make sure that you don’t use a “weak” lemon with little sourness.  Just taste the inside of the rind after you juice it to make sure it’s as sour as expected.

The other is that creme de cacao formulations vary quite a bit.  I use the DeKuyper’s White Creme de Cacao, which is 48 proof and pretty balanced between chocolate taste and sweetness.  I prefer and encourage in others a taste for less sweet lemonade, but if you want something closer to the typical store-bought sweetness you might want to add a little simple syrup.  48 proof also means that each glass is about a quarter to half of a standard drink, something like a low-alcohol beer at most.  You might want to test this recipe out with whatever specific brand of creme de cacao you’re using to make sure it tastes right before producing it en masse — I think the drink, while simple, requires a pretty narrow range of sweet:sour:chocolate to be palatable.

Orgeat Syrup

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On April 15, 2019

In Drinks

It will soon be summer time and I haven’t written anything here in a while.  So, let’s start off with some refreshments: orgeat syrup.  Orgeat syrup is, basically, sugar syrup flavored with almonds.  It generally imparts a more “refreshing” taste with nutty undertones when used in place of simple syrup in a given drink.

Commercial preparations are available, but rare.  So if this sounds interesting, you’ll probably want to brew your own — and fortunately you’re reading this.

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A Manhattan for Manhattan Haters

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On July 25, 2018

In Drinks

As far as the island in the mouth of the Hudson River: sorry, it sucks and there’s nothing I can do about it.  This is about the Manhattan cocktail.

The Manhattan is a mixture of whiskey and vermouth, by default sweet (red) vermouth.  The International Bartenders’ Association says:

5 cl Rye Whiskey

2 cl Red Vermouth

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Pour all ingredients into mixing glass with ice cubes. Stir well. Strain into chilled cocktail glass.Garnish with cocktail cherry.

The only real variation on this are advocates of a 2:1 spirit:vermouth ratio and assurances you don’t need to use rye whiskey (you don’t, but more on that).

The problem with this is — at least if your crowd is anything like mine — drinking anything with vermouth in it is sort of like paying black people a fair wage to pick cotton on your farm.  There’s nothing, on examination, wrong with it, but still comes off as a sort of sinister affectation.

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Mint Julep Idiosyncrasy

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On July 6, 2018

In Drinks

It’s hot, and you don’t like to drink the chilled rice-based swill that passes for “beer”.  What do?  Perhaps the mint julep…is right for you.

Mint julep recipes are highly variable, but have several things in common: mint, sugar, bourbon, and ice.  The IBA recipe:

6 cL Bourbon whiskey

4 mint leaves

1 teaspoon powdered sugar

2 teaspoons water

In a highball glass gently muddle the mint, sugar and water. Fill the glass with cracked ice, add Bourbon and stir well until the glass is well frosted. Garnish with a mint sprig.

Aside from the fact that this is a triple-strong drink — which may or may not be what you want — it’s light on the mint.  I’m not sold on powdered sugar either.  By the way, in this and other julep recipes it’s assumed that the highball glass is metal, hence the “until frosted” direction.  Don’t wait for glass glasses to frost.  Silver straw optional.

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Pink Lemonade

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On June 24, 2018

In Drinks

Sometimes the lemonade you buy at the store is pink instead of yellow, because it has a different color of dye in it.

PinkLemonade_2LBottle_Hero[1]

But what if you want to drink patrician lemonade instead of mass-market swill?  Red food coloring is not the answer you’re looking for.

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The “Cream Fizz”

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On May 21, 2018

In Drinks

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Reading the Savoy Cocktail Book several years ago, I encountered a mysterious recipe for a so-called “Cream Fizz”.  The recipe is as follows (p. 194):

The Juice of 1/2 Lemon

1/2 Tablespoonful Powdered Sugar

1 Glass Dry Gin

1 Teaspoonful Fresh Cream

Shake, strain into medium glass, and fill with soda water.

Now, adding lemon juice to milk causes it to curdle.  An old substitute for buttermilk, in fact, is lemon juice + whole milk.  Still, I gave this a try.  The result was…not appetizing.  I don’t know how common this alleged cocktail was back in the Savoy, but I can’t imagine it was popular.  However, after encountering a non-alcoholic drink recipe called the “Thai Daisy” combining lime juice and coconut milk while looking to find uses for orgeat syrup, I became intrigued by the possibility of using coconut cream to make citrus cream cocktails that didn’t curdle.  Despite making a mental note, it was some months before I got around to doing it.  When making a coconut milk curry for dinner, however, I had the presence of mind to reach into the liquor cabinet before I dumped the milk in.  Here is the recipe I used:

3 oz Dry Gin

1.5 oz Fresh Lemon Juice

3 oz Coconut Milk

1 Tbsp Powdered Sugar

Shake and dump into a highball glass, top with soda water.

The results were quite satisfactory.  Unfortunately I drank it rather than take a picture [update: I made another one, see picture].  1 oz simple syrup would probably substitute for the sugar.  Also, make sure the coconut milk is well mixed/shaken unless you don’t mind chunks of coconut cream floating around.

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