Top 10 out of 100 - #9 The Caipirinha

Muddling. Technically, it's combining ingredients in the bottom of a mixing glass (typically with an instrument made for this purpose, called a....wait for it....muddler) before the rest of the liquid ingredients are added to make a cocktail. Following shaking and stirring, it is probably the most typical action needed to create cocktails. And it's one which I think is done incorrectly more often than not.

Like any action related to bartending, it can be argued there is no right or wrong way to do anything. Slow shake, hard shake, Japanese shake, lazy shake - which way a bartender performs any action is dependent upon their experiences and preferences, and of course those vary widely. So I am not saying that there is a "wrong" way to muddle ingredients for a drink. However, the basic goal of muddling is to extract desirable flavors from the ingredients being muddled. And it therefore makes sense that different ways of performing this action accomplish this goal better than others.

Of what I have read and seen, a deliberate, GENTLE muddling fits the bill just fine. You're trying to coax the essential oils, juices, and flavors from the ingredients, not beat the living crap out of them (I saw one obviously 'roided-up bartender muddle limes and mint for a mojito like he was driving a steel pole into the ground - he was SWEATING afterwards). And ingredients like mint, which tend to bruise and discolor if too harshly treated, hold up better when not abused like the Washington Redskins on Sunday afternoon.

Which leads us to the Caipirinha (kai-pee-reen-ya), a drink so simple it's almost criminal how good it is. I think the only reason this isn't much more popular than the mojito is that almost no one is confident they know how to pronounce it (or its main ingredient, cachaca (ka-sha-suh)). The muddled lime stays in the glass, there is no shaking required, no bar instruments other than something to perform the muddling with need be brought out - cut lime, add sugar, muddle, add ice and cachaca, quick stir, done. And it's gorgeous to look at - perfect for those warm spring cocktail parties or hanging out on newly opened bar patios.

The Caipirinha

2.5oz cachaca

.5oz simple syrup (or barspoon of sugar)

one lime, quartered

Muddle the lime and sugar in the bottom of an old fashioned glass. Add cracked ice to fill the glass. then add cachaca. Stir well.

Top 10 out of 100 - #10 The Pisco Sour

As a favor for stealing one of her best employees away from her on detail, a friend asked that I follow up on my Anvil 100 cocktail effort with a ranking of my top 10 cocktails from that list. As I mentioned before, there were definitely a number of cocktails on that list that I would consider marginally enjoyable, at best (I'm looking at you, Ramos Gin Fizz), but there were far more I thought were pretty darned tasty. So coming up with my favorite ten was not an easy task. Plus, I had to take into account my own preferences (I am a whisky / whiskey fan first, with gin a very close second), making sure that I wasn't skewing the results based on what I was predisposed to like in the first place. There are many cocktails that don't appear on this list which I love (Whiskey Sour, where are you??), but I figured that I would keep it simple and just work with the ones on the List.

So these will be the 10 I enjoyed making and drinking the most from the list, number one being my favorite (duh). Starting with Number 10:

#10 The Pisco Sour

Pisco isn't something I had any personal exposure to before starting The List - I knew it came from the land of llamas, and I like llamas, so no worries there. Since I am a big fan of Whiskey Sours, this was a cocktail I was eager to try. It surely did not disappoint. Pisco is Peruvian or Chilean grape eau de vie, one which is typically not wood aged, and has a unique tang to it - not quite citrusy, but one which hits you a little bit on the tart sensing part of your tongue. Mixed with the sour component, pisco's unique tang really adds to the complexity of the drink (in a way I don't think whiskey does quite as well). And then adding the egg white brings the whole cocktail together - sweet, sour, creamy, tart, with a touch of bitterness added by the bitters.

Definitely one I will go back to. If you wear one of those cute little Peruvian hats while drinking one, all the better - and it may lead to singing a short ditty about transporting llamas to places of higher education, and what could be wrong with that?

Pisco Sour

2oz pisco

1oz lime juice

.5oz simple syrup (I used agave syrup)

an egg white

single drop of Angostura bitters

Shake HARD with ice to build up the froth from the egg. Strain into a chilled rocks glass, add drop of bitters on top.

Hemingway Daiquiri

Ok, so the Hemingway Daiquiri really is way out of order on the list of 100. This should have been a review for a Brandy Alexander - but right now the weather in DC is sunny, upper 70's, and gorgeous. Not weather you would associate with a drink heavy on the cream and nutmeg. So, at my wife's request, I inserted the Hemingway Daiquiri into the order. Citrusy, refreshing, not really sweet at all, it fit the weather and the Friday afternoon, pre-Labor Day weekend mood much better.

I won't go too much into the history on this - Hemingway is obviously Ernest Hemingway, famous novelist, reporter, traveler, and booze hound. Tales of his drinking are legendary. And the fact that our wedding reception was held on the grounds of his house in Key West means the man holds a special place in my heart (and liver). I am sure he would view this 100 cocktail endeavor as a noble undertaking - kind of like an old man trying to catch a big fish in a little boat or some crap like that.

Hemingway Daiquiri

1 1/2 oz light rum
1/4 oz maraschino liqueur
3/4 oz lime juice
1/4 oz grapefruit juice

Shake all ingredients vigorously in a cocktail shaker and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Airmail Cocktail

Some cocktails have rock solid recipes which can not be deviated from if they are truly to be called a correct version of that cocktail (for instance, a Dark and Stormy HAS to have Gosling's Black Seal rum in it, otherwise it must be called something else). Others are left open to wide interpretation - ingredients in some cocktails may vary by quantity, composition, proportion, and sometimes even base spirit. Looking up how to make the Airmail, I saw a pretty wide variation in the suggested recipe. All were rum based, but after that it got a little dicey - recipe for the honey syrup? Lot of different honey/water proportions. Garnish? some, none, and gray areas in between. Champagne or prosecco? Simple syrup or no? And appropriate glassware? All over the place - highball, champagne flute, champagne coupe, cocktail glass. I'm surprised there wasn't one which called for drinking out of a shrunken monkey head.

Given the defacto wide latitude being granted to me in creating this cocktail, I cobbled together a recipe from a number of sources. Although I couldn't find a history of the origin of this cocktail, given the call for "rhum" and champagne in most recipes I found, I would imagine it had its origins in the French-speaking Carribbean countries. Rhum agricole, or "agricultural rum," made from straight sugar cane as opposed to mollasses, is most popular in these countries. Given that, options such a Italian prosecco don't seem to make as much thematic sense as French champagne.

The results were just pretty good - I can see why this cocktail made it on Anvil's list, but I think the lime proportion I used was a little too high (recipe below reflects downward adjustment). Refreshing, sophisticated, not overly sweet - I would imagine that this would be fantastic sipped on the beaches of Martinique (since it was pretty good sipped in my kitchen.)

Airmail

1 1/2 oz. rhum agricole
1/2 oz. fresh lime juice
1 oz. honey syrup (1 part honey/2 parts water)
1 oz. champagne
2-3 drops Angostura bitters
mint leaf for garnish

Combine rum, lime juice, and syrup in shaker. Add ice, shake vigorously. Strain into glass and top with champagne. Gently drop 2 drops of bitters on top of cocktail. Garnish by dragging mint leaf through bitters to create an attractive design, then laying mint leaf on top.

Portonic

Food magazines are so hit and miss. I used to get Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, and I think a couple of other food magazines, and in any given month, I might be able to pull two recipes from all of them combined that looked worth trying. Of those recipes, I would put, at most, one in my folder of "keeper" recipes every 6 months. But every few years one of those magazines would be stuffed with awesome recipes or food / drink ideas from fonrt to back. The June 06 Food and Wine is an issue like that - tons of great grilling suggestions, recipes, and wine picks. In their grilling section, I found a recipe for this refreshing cocktail - the Portonic.

Named probably because it's easy to describe if you're several barbeques into a long Memorial Day weekend ["ummmmm.....that drink with the port....and tonic....ummm...you looking at my hotdog funny? You want a piece of thi..." (cue sound of drunk man falling into a kid's sandbox)], it's a great party drink because it's so easy to whip up as many as you need. White port is harder to find than regular port, but it's worth seeking out. Not as overly sweet nor as strong as a regular ruby or tawny port, it's great for mixing. In this cocktail, the bitterness of the tonic water cuts that sweetness even more, making for a very drinkable cocktail that's right at home at an upscale cocktail party or a backyard gathering of drunken pickle vendors.

Portonic

2 oz white port
2 oz tonic water
1/2 oz fresh lime juice

Fill white wine glass with ice. Add port and lime juice, and then add tonic water. Garnish with a lime peel on a toothpick, or with a sprig of mint.

Frozen Banana Daiquiri

Exotic, tropical drinks always seemed very intimidating to me (not to drink, of course - drinking them is painfully easy.) Between the combinations of fruit, fruit juices, somewhat exotic liquors, and having to know whether the garnish was an umbrella, a chunk of fruit, or a shrunken monkey head, it all seemed like just too much info to bother processing just to make a drink. Zombies, Stingers, Blue Hawaiians, Daiquiris - more than happy to drink them if someone else was making them (and REALLY more than happy if someone else was buying), but I wasn't going to fool around with all that fussy stuff.

A daiquiri is the OPPOSITE of fussy - in fact, it's so simple, the only really fussy thing about it is its name. Created in Cuba at the end of the 19th century, and made fashionable in the US during the 1940's when rum was much easier to come by than gin, vodka, or whiskey (because of open trade policies with Latin America), a daiquiri is white rum, lime juice, and sugar. Period. It really doesn't get to much simpler than that. For my version, I just happened to have two bananas that were about to go south, so I threw those in as well for some extra flair and made a frozen version. This is a super easy drink to make and, given its simplicity, a really easy drink recipe to remember (which is probably why it became so popular - most drunks can remember how to put three ingredients together in a glass regardless of how many drinks they've had prior.) The non-frozen, non-banana version is shaken with plenty of ice and strained into a cocktail flute - the frozen version is blended with plenty of ice and poured into a margarita glass.

Frozen Banana Daiquiri

2 oz white rum (I didn't have any, so I used Appleton Estate)
1 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
1 ripe banana

Put all ingredients in a blender. Add ice to blender (to half full for one drink.) Blend until smooth. Poor into a margarita glass and garnish with a lime slice.

Pisco Sour - v.Dos

So having failed (relatively speaking) at my first attempt at making a Pisco Sour, I decided to try the Wikipedia version of the recipe, which called for limes, egg whites, bitters, and simple syrup in addition to the pisco. I utilized the agave nectar in place of the simple syrup because I was just too lazy to make some real simple syrup (and I had a couple of beers after work, so I wasn't in the prepping mood). Knowing I had the right ingredients, I tried again at making a decent example of this drink.

This time I think I succeeded. The egg white was the real difference - without that, I don't think you have a drink anywhere near as good. I had never really used egg whites in drinks before - both because of a concern about killing myself (highly over dramatized - if you have fresh eggs, there is almost no chance of any type of botulism issue), and because I wasn't really looking to mix up cocktails that called for eggs most of the time anyway. But the egg white not only gives you a nice frothy head on the drink, but it gives the drink a creamy, velvety texture definitely not present without it. It's a texture really foreign to citrusy cocktails normally, and that makes it even better. The key is to really shake the hell out of it - straining it into the glass brings the froth level down some, so you want to be sure to build up a lot in the shaker to ensure a good amount makes it into the final product.

Pisco Sour

2 parts pisco
1 part lime juice
1 part simple syrup (agave nectar)
1 egg white
bitters (Angostura, or home made)

Add ice to a Boston shaker. Add pisco, lime juice, agave nectar, and egg white. Shake vigorously for 20 seconds. Strain into an old fashioned glass. Add two to three drops of bitters to top.