Paris Magique: recipes for two great Cassis cocktails

Today you get two great cocktail recipes, similar but different, for the price of one. On Father’s Day I received a bottle of Cartron Crème de Cassis and mentioned it on Twitter. I soon received a tweet from @kingvonelk (Kelvin Kong) with an interesting recipe to try: 1/3 each of Gin, Dry Vermouth, and Crème de Cassis. It sounded like something definitely worth trying, so I gave it a go. It was delicious (a trifle on the sweet side) with the Cassis dominating the flavors. After requesting the name of this delectable cocktail from Kelvin via Twitter, I started doing some research on the web and discovered a cocktail with similar ingredients: the Magique. Kelvin soon messaged me with the name of his cocktail: the Paris. The Paris cocktail has been around a while: it shows up in the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) under the name “Parisian Cocktail”.

In the Magique, the flavor of the Vermouth comes out more as that ingredient predominates, resulting in a dryer cocktailthat still delivers that great Cassis flavor. So if you’re looking for a good Cassis-based cocktail, these two should be high on your list. Try the Magique if you want something on the dry side; the Paris if you want something a little sweeter. The two dominant ingredients in these cocktails are the Crème de Cassis and the Dry Vermouth. When buying Crème de Cassis, you should avoid the really cheap stuff that my wife says tastes like cough syrup, and stay in the $20 or higher price range. Having a bottle of Crème de Cassis around the house is also your gateway to great apertifs like Kir and Kir Royale. As for the Vermouth, Noilly Prat is a good, dry French Vermouth that will improve your Martinis as well provide a nice boost to these cocktails, so pick some up if you don’t already stock it.

Paris Cocktail

1 oz Bombay Sapphire® Gin

1 oz Cartron Crème de Cassis

1 oz Noilly Prat® Vermouth

Combine ingredients in a shaker half full of ice. Shake enthusiastically while remembering your last romantic night in Paris (use your imagination if necessary). Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a twist of lemon. Salut!

Magique

1 oz Bombay Sapphire® Gin

½ oz Cartron Crème de Cassis

1 ½ oz Noilly Prat® Vermouth

Combine ingredients in a shaker half full of ice. Shake enthusiastically while imaging a magique night in Paris. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a twist of lemon. Santé!

Cocktails for Father’s Day: give the old man five!

It’s Father’s Day and you’re unemployed and broke. What can you do for your Dad to make him happy he has you around? How about making him a special cocktail? Whether you’re home for a visit, or still living with Dad, the smile on his face when he takes his first sip of the great looking cocktail you just shook up for him will be your reward as well as his. If Dad’s not a drinker, you’ll have to find some other way to make him happy (mow the lawn?), but then you can enjoy your own cocktail when you get back home. I must admit to being a little self-centered in making up this list; I just came up with five cocktails that I would like my kids to mix for me (hint). On the other hand, I think there is enough variety here that you and your father can find something to enjoy. So with your Dad’s (and your) satisfaction as my goal, I offer you this handful of cocktails to consider for Father’s Day. Enjoy!

Old Fashioned – there’s something here for almost any Dad! While the classic Old Fashioned uses Bourbon, an Old Fashioned can also be mixed with Canadian Club, Brandy, Gin, or Rum, so you can almost make an Old Fashioned with your Dad’s favorite liquor, whatever it is.

Margarita – if Dad likes Tequila, he’s almost certain to love Margaritas. I like mine blended to moderate the speed of consumption.

Manhattan – Dad may already be an aficionado of this classic “man’s drink”. If he’s not, it’s high time you introduced him to this American original.

Sazerac – if Dad is partial to Rye, he will love this cocktail; if he’s not, maybe it’s time he and Rye were introduced. Warning: you will need an anise based liqueur (preferably Absinthe) to make a good Sazerac.

Sidecar – have you ever noticed Dad sipping on a Cognac or a fine brandy? If yes, chances are that he would enjoy a Sidecar. Why not help him give it a try? Be sure to tell him that the Sidecar is probably older than he is…

View a Slide Show of these cocktails.

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Vodka Gimlet: a tart treat of a cocktail

I came back to the Vodka Gimlet cocktail in a round-about way. My wife was reading Julie Powell’s book Julie & Julia when she noticed she didn’t actually have time to read it, so she decided she would listen to the second half on CD while driving to and from work. The point of all this is that one evening she came home and commanded that I prepare her a Vodka Gimlet because inside the CD case for the book is a recipe card for a “Perfect Gimlet”. I won’t duplicate the book’s recipe here, but a quick perusal of the recipe card indicated that it was an avenue I would not travel due to the inclusion of Rose’s Lime Juice. Now I have nothing against Rose’s except the sugar and the fact that it’s bottled lime juice. I don’t mind getting the carbos in the alcohol (they are, after all, a necessary evil), but I try to avoid empty sugar calories. Many Gimlet recipes insist on Rose’s, but unless you had your first Gimlet with Rose’s at your mother’s knee, you shouldn’t mind a little substitution.

It had been many years since I had had one (that’s no longer true), but I remembered it as a very simple drink and Julie’s recipe had confirmed that: Vodka + sweetened lime juice = Vodka Gimlet (a Gimlet familiaris is made with Gin, originally this was probably bathtub gin due to the cocktail’s birth during the roaring twenties). I set to work to forge my own recipe, immediately upgrading the Rose’s to freshly squeezed lime juice combined with zero-calorie, vegetable-based sweetener. I like things tart, so I used the equivalent of one teaspoon of sugar with three-quarters of an ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice. (Note: I always specify sugar in my recipes, even if I’m not actually using it. Feel free to substitute your sweetener of choice, or even to use Rose’s if you must.) As usual, you should adjust the lime juice and sweetener to suit your taste.

You may have noticed that there is a lot of potential here for a tall summer cooler. Prepare as below, but increase the lime juice and sweetener to taste, strain into a Collins glass full of ice, fill with soda, garnish with a lime wheel or wedge, and serve with a straw.

Vodka Gimlet

2 oz Vodka

¾ oz Lime juice, freshly squeezed

1 tsp Simple Syrup

Combine ingredients in a shaker ¾ full of ice. Shake to the beat of the Charleston while thinking of a flapper in a short skirt (but not your grandmother). Strain into a pre-chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a lime wheel, and settle down to enjoy one of life’s tarter pleasures.

Sidecar: the perfect cocktail to end a bumpy day

I was flipping through the Savoy Cocktail Book the other day when I noticed another well known cocktail that I had never tried: the Sidecar. The Sidecar is another venerable World War I era cocktail that sounds like something your dad would order. Everyone has heard of it, but few have tried it. Its popularity has declined enough that it’s no longer on the IBA short-list of cocktails. Its name seems to imply a good, stiff drink… exactly what you would need after bouncing down an unpaved road in France in a rickety motorcycle sidecar. No one knows precisely where or when it was invented; it is first mentioned in print in 1922.

The Sidecar owes its longevity to simplicity and great taste. Its winning combination of cognac (or brandy), orange liqueur, and lemon could be just what you are looking for in a cocktail. Of course, if your taste runs to American whiskeys, you can substitute your favorite Bourbon for the brandy. Play around with the proportions until you get the right balance of sweet and sour for your palate. If your first one’s too sour, add a little simple syrup.

Sidecar

1 ½ oz Cognac or quality brandy (some prefer Bourbon)

¾ oz Grand Marnier®

¾ oz freshly squeezed lemon juice

Combine ingredients in a shaker ¾ full of ice. Shake as you imagine dodging the shells falling all around you. Strain into a pre-chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a wedge of orange or a twist of lemon, and savor your first sip.

Top Ten Summer Cooler Cocktails

Summer is rapidly approaching. That’s a strange thing to say in Utah in June, but June has been cool and wet so far. One of these days, though, the heat will arrive with a vengeance. When that happens, your best bet is to have a selection of summer cooler cocktail recipes available to mix and enjoy on those hot week-end days as you sit and think of the yard work you should be doing. Better yet, have the ingredients for two or three of them available for your next summer cook-out. Your guests will thank you, and you may even want to thank yourself. If you’re not having a cook-out, they’re great to enjoy while you’re sitting in your lawn chair when you’re supposed to be mowing the lawn…

Links to the recipes follow, but first view the slideshow. Find a cooler you like the looks of, and then return here to click through to the recipe (or recipes).

Mojito
Mai Tai
Tom Collins
Rum and Coke
Dark and Stormy
Hurricane
Pomegranate Rum Rickey
Singapore Sling
Gin and Tonic
Margarita Cooler

Photograph © J. Mathews

Explore my Cocktail Brain

How much time have you wasted running Google searches in attempts to find bits of cocktail lore or new cocktail recipes? For me, the answer was plenty! Sometimes I can’t find what I’m looking for, or can only find it after repeatedly refining my search and clicking through to lots of disappointing web sites. Other times I would serendipitously find a really cool site and bookmark it, even though I knew I might never remember to go back to it again due to the size of my cocktail bookmark folder. I knew I really needed an effective way to organize my cocktail knowledge, but had no idea how to do it.

Then one day I was playing with the Personal Brain software I had downloaded when inspiration hit: I should build a Cocktail Brain. It would be a repository of all my cocktail knowledge. It would include my best bookmarks and give me an easy way to find them by linking items together by topic and relationship. I started, and it was like eating popcorn. I kept enhancing my Cocktail Brain: adding new thoughts, building new links, adding new topical areas, refining my knowledge…

I think it’s a really cool way to look at cocktails, and I plan to work on it continually. It will change and grow, just like a real brain. An early version is now available on the web, just follow the link below. I would like your feedback if you have time. What do you think? Is it useful? Could you find what you’re looking for? What was your experience? Did you like it? Just reply to this post with your opinions, any questions you may have, or any ideas for improvement. I promise to get back to you unless the response is truly overwhelming. Welcome to my Cocktail Brain. When you get there, check out the “Welcome” and “Help” documents and the start exploring.