Well here`s something right up my alley…a twist of the Sazerac containing absinthe, gin and campari…
And not only that but it also uses a strong spicy bourbon while the classic Sazerac uses rye or cognac or both.
I`m a huge fan of the Sazerac – THE quintessential cocktail of New Orleans, or shall we say one of them because we also got the Vieux Carrè, Ramos gin fizz, the Hurricane, the Crusta, the Frappè etc etc – but the Sazerac is and will always be the number one for me.
And i`m an equally huge fan of Campari – since i was 15….
So here with this interesting twist of it….brought to my attention by Warren Bobrow â€who invented it and wrote about it on his blog DrinkUpNY – i`m gonna make it here and spread it further because this is indeed a good cocktail.
THE SATCHMO COCKTAIL
2 oz Four Roses Small Batch Limited Edition Bourbon (sub any good bourbon)
1/2 shot of Tenneyson Absinthe (for the washed glass) Â (sub any good absinthe or Pernod)
0.5 oz Campari
0.5 oz Death’s Door Gin ( sub a similar gin, like Hendricks)
1 sugar cube
Bitter Truth Creole Bitters (enough to soak the sugar cube)
Lemon zests – to rim the glass and a spiral for garnish
Chill a crystal glass (or other) with ½ shot of Tenneyson Absinthe, packed with ice and water, let cool for a bit then pour out – or drink up..
Rub the inside of the glass with a lemon zest – aah….the fragrance….
Add a sugar cube soaked in the Bitter Truth Creole Bitters to your glass and crush it with a wooden cocktail stick or a spoon or a muddler to release the flavors.
Add the bourbon, campari and gin and stir with a lemon zest threaded onto a cocktail stirrer.
This drink tastes like a spicy Sazerac with herbal/citrus notes and a touch of campari…it´s interesting…and definetily something to sip and savour.
Sip and enjoy…
And why not put on some music with Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong while you sip on this drink named after him?
The Creole Bitters…the left bottle is the 10 year anniversary bottle that was sold at the Tales of the Cocktail this year in limited quantity and the right bottle is the ordinary Creole Bitters by The Bitter Truth. Both bottles contains the same bitters.
The 1o year TOTC anniversary bottle is a piece of art.
During Tales there´s always some bitters going around and i now have five new bitters to play with and first out are 2 bitters from Miracle Miles – Chili-Chocolate and Yuzu.
Miracle Miles bitters are locally made artisanal bitters that started just over a year and a half ago. Louis Anderman – the maker of these bitters became friends with Joe Keeper from Barkeeper (an awesome barware shop n LA) and would always bring him some of his homemade experiments, bitters, Nocino, etc.
In December ’09 he did the Chocolate/Chili bitters, and Joe flipped over them and begged for some. Louis tweaked the recipe a bit for the next batch and gave some to Joe, then after refilling his bottle for the second time in about 3 weeks he said, “Hey, why don’t you start selling these here?”
Then more and more bars started picking them up, and all of a sudden Louis was getting so much other momentum (e.g., interest from distributors) that he realized he was reaching a point where he had to go pro, or go home.
The varieties Louis currently makes are: Chocolate/Chili Bitters,
Gingerbread Bitters, Castilian Bitters, Sour Cherry Bitters, Yuzu Bitters, Forbidden Bitters and finally Orange Bitters.
That`s a bunch! and i don`t think they are out for purchase yet so i`m very happy i have got 2 of them.
CHILI-CHOCOLATE BITTERS
The chili-chocolate is made with fine Vahlrona chocolates and a mix of chilis.
In the nose you feel an exquisite and fine chocolate smell and when you taste it it´s there together with ginger, allspice and nutmeg, sweetened with molasses and maple syrup – with a slight chili bite.
The chocolate-chili bitters are perfect for dark rum drinks as well as bourbon, rye, tequila and well – any dark spirits really – anything that goes with well chocolate.
People also use them on ice-cream and coffee..mmm – i´m gonna try them with my blend of Community Coffee Nola blend with chickory and Pecan-Praline…oh my..
I stumbled upon a drink when i was sitting and reading an article about whiskey cocktails in Hawaii. Since ii like both cocktails, whiskey and Hawaii they had my attention.
The drink i was reading about – The Whiskey Thatcher – really looked interesting to me and looked like something where the chili-chocolate bitters would add a nice spicy touch. (btw the Whiskey Thatcher is a variation of a gin drink named after former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher- but don´t mix things up now…i`m not promoting Thatcher…and this blog is totally politics-free – i`m promoting booze!)
The Whiskey Thatcher was created by Dave Newman, bar manager of Nobu, Honolulu, Hawaii who was wondering if the Thatcher would work with whiskey which apparently it did.
Today people want spirits with more character – and i see whiskey coming back and also other flavorful, handcrafted spirits like rum, tequila and mezcal. Even vodka producers are going in that direction creating small batch vodkas with flavor – one example is Karlsson´s which contains 12 different potatoes.
The Whiskey Thatcher blends citrus and sweet, herbal and bitter with the depth and roundness of the whiskey. And besides, anything that contains campari is worth trying i think.
So here we go – the Whiskey Thatcher with dashes of chili-chocolate bitters!
WHISKEY THATCHER
0.5 oz Campari
2-3 mint leaves
A strip of lemon peel
1 tsp fine sugar. (i used Oxfam`s raw sugar)
1. 75 oz Bourbon
Hibiscus syrup ( a splash)
Bourbon ( a splash)
Top with dashes of Miracle Mile Chili-Chocolate bitters
Muddle a slice of lemon peel, two or three mint leaves, 1/2 ounce Campari and 1 teaspoon of fine sugar in a mixing glass.
Add 1. 75 oz bourbon, and a splash of hibiscus syrup and fresh juice from half a lime.
Shake with ice.
Put a splash of pernod and a splash of bourbon (the recipe calls for Wild Turkey but i had Maker`s Mark on hand) in the bottom of another (slightly preheated) lowball glass, light it on fire and burn off the whiskey and pernod. And fresh ice; and strain the drink from the first glass into the prepared glass and stir.
Top off with dashes of the chili-chocolate bitters. (I added a generous amount of dashes..)
Garnish with a fresh mint sprig and if you feel like it a lemon peel as well. (The garnish is not in the original recipe)
Yeah…I like it…it´s spicy…
From that i moved on to mix me this next drink because Louis told me to try it -Â 2oz demerara rum, 1/2 oz pineapple gomme, 2-3 dashes chocolate/chili bitters, built like an old fashioned – and indeed it was good – very aromatic and deep.
YUZU BITTERS
Now after these two very satisfying cocktails with dark rums it was time to try out the Yuzu bitters.
Released only a few months ago, it’s quickly catching up to the Chocolate/Chili in popularity in LA, and KL Wines in SF sold out of a full case within five days. In addition to the yuzu, cinchona is used for the bitter plus cardamom, cinnamon, and burdock root among the other spices, and two kinds of green tea to round out the finish.
The flavor of the yuzu bitters is something in between a lemon and a tangerine, with a deep citrus flavor. Yuzu is a citrus fruit rom SE Asia and which is a cross between sour mandarine and Ichang papeda – Citrus ichangensis × C. reticulata
These bitters would go well with anything that goes with citrus and i`m sure also with herbal liqueurs and so therefore i decided to try a variant of the Chartreuse swizzle adding Yuzu bitters thus turning it into a Yuzu Swizzle.
YUZU SWIZZLE
1 oz Green Chartreuse
1 oz Smith & Cross Jamaican rum
1 1/2 oz Pineapple Juice
0.75 oz Lime Juice
1/4 oz Falernum (i used B.G Reynold`s Dark Falernum)
3 dahses of Miracle Mile Yuzu bitters
Add ingredients to a large glass full of crushed ice. Swizzle to mix, lavishly garnish with mint, squeeze a bit and add a few extra dashes of the bitters on top of the ice as well.
After trying this i can say that it is tasty – no doubt – but i wonder if the yuzu and the green chartreuse might play out each other a bit…i cannot detect the flavors of the yuzu so clearly. Nevertheless – tasty it is. But i needed something “cleaner” to give the yuzu bitters space to play and the flavors to shine a bit more..
So how`bout a Yuzu daiquiri?
Hell yeah! and this is what i used:
2 Havana Club 3 yo
0.75 oz fresh lime juice
0.5 oz sugarcane syrup
3 dashes yuzu bitters
Float Coruba overproof
Now this was better in the sense of putting the yuzu flavors more forward and a Daiquiri is always a very nice cocktail – one of my favorite cocktails.
This has been fun and i`m very pleased with the Miracle Miles bitters, go try them when you get a chance.
Time for a planter´s again! drink number 20 from Grog Log is Don`s own Planter´s. These are what i would call comfort drinks.
The history of the old Planter´s punch has been told many times and it´s not that long ago i did a post on it with eight different variations where Don`s own is one of them. Now i`m back with the planter`s again since it`s one of the drinks i need to try and post from Grog Log since i`ve taken upon myself the task to do that inspired by Erik`s stomping through the Savoy – a real heroic effort since that book is not a small one.
Well, mixing through Grog Log is both great fun and educational!
This Planter`s punch was made by Don the Beachcomber in Honolulu in the 50s. It must have been nice to be around in the great tiki era when it comes to tasty drinks.
DON´S OWN PLANTER`S
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz soda water
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 oz honey-mix (equal parts honey and water, heated up to dissolve and mix, then cooled to room temp. Can be stored in fridge and will stay liquid)
1.5 oz dark Jamaican rum
1 oz Light Puerto Rican rum
Shake with ice cubes and pour everything into a pilsener glass and garnish with mint, cherry and pineapple finger.
I didn´t have any pineapple at home, so i used an orange peel for garnish instead plus a cherry and some fresh mint. Then i topped with a few extra dashes Angostura bitters on the ice.
This drink is what you put in it, you can play with various rums and get different flavors. For example i made one with 1 oz aged cachaca and 0.5 oz Smith & Cross. An aged rhum agricole would make it yet different and add some grassy notes.
But to entirely change things around i decided to make a Planter´s punch with bourbon instead of rum,
PLANTER´S BOURBON PUNCH
0.5 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz sugarcane syrup
1.5 oz Bourbon
0.5 tsp hibiscus grenadine
0.5 tsp falernum
1 dash Angostura bitters
6 oz crushed ice
Blend everything in blender for no more than 5 sec. Pour everything into a tall glass and garnsih with pineapple and cherry.
It was tasty with bourbon too! and very refreshing. Yeah me loves me some Bourbon!
This is a lazy drink..meant to be sipped and savored in a rocking chair on the porch..watching the tropical sun go down.
It´s julep time and i`m not going to pass the opportunity to post a mint julep on Derby Day! few things are bettter than sipping slowly on a cold mint julep..especially if i s a hot day.
Since i did post a classical julep last year i`m gonna mix up a variation this year using my favorite chocolate spirit Mozart Dry which i can just feel will be very tasty in a julep. I`m into a chocolate craze for the moment and cannot have enough of Mozart Dry and chocolate mint combined.
I did a chocolate Mai Tai a while ago and now i s a chocolate Julep, not sure what comes next if anything but that will show.
This isn´t going to be a long post since i wrote about the history of the julep and the original recipe etc before and you can read it here and besides there´s tons of info out there about the mint julep and the Kentucky derby day which takes place every first saturday in may.
What interest me the most since i`ve never been to any derby and i`ve never been into horse racing either is of course the julep! that is something i can relate to – and i think its a very fine tradition.
CHOCOLATE JULEP
2.5 oz Bourbon (Using Maker´s Mark)
0.5 oz sugar syrup
0.25 oz Mozart Dry Chocolate Spirit
Plenty of mint leaves, or a handful – i used chocolate mint to pair with the chocolate flavor in this julep.
Lightly muddle mint and sugar syrup together in a julep cup, don´t muddle too hard since that will bring out bitterness from the leaves. When done muddling add Bourbon. Add shaved or crushed ice and stir drink gently until a frost forms on the outside of the cup. Ah…this is lovely!
Then top off with crushed ice and garnish with a sprig of mint.
As usual Mozart Dry doesn´t disappoint, it adds a subtle hint of very fine chocolate which in no way overpowers the drink, instead it blends well with sugarcane syrup and bourbon and stays in the bacground, it`s simply awesome.
I`m not sure i can stick with just one here. This is a wonderful way to start a saturday! of course i had to make me another later on but that one i made in a glass since i also like the color of the spirit, syrup and ice in a julep, it looks so tasty.
Also i added 0.25 oz of Navan vanilla liqueur to go with the chocolate and took down the sugarcane syrup from 0.5 to 0.25 oz. So 0.25 oz each of sugarcane syrup, Mozart Dry chocolate spirit and Navan.
Chocolate and Vanilla Julep
Not a big difference, the vanilla added some very slight softening notes to the chocolate and as chocolate and vanilla goes hand in hand it was good. Now the Mozart Dry actually does contain some vanilla as well but the result of adding a little Navan didn´t make it overpowering in any way.
I have no doubt that that is because the Mozart Dry is a very high quality chocolate spirit that is dry and crisp with a very fine chocolate flavor which makes me think about very dark chocolate – and it´s not so sweet and also Navan is a very fine liqueur made with natural vanilla beans from Madagascar.
Then also there wasn`t much added – only 0.25 oz of each. Overall the chocolate and vanilla flavors in these two mint juleps were subtle and didn´t change the “julep flavor” which is what i wanted.
‎”Sip it and say there is no solace for the soul, no tonic for the body like old Bourbon whiskey”
The whole recitation that is a part of the very special way the Mint julep is made by Chris Mac Millan can be read and seen on video here.
Today its the mint day! if you wonder what the mint day is – you can read about it here.
As it happens the BoozeFairy did time it well and came with Firefly Sweet Tea Bourbon just when i got the first of this years fragrant Moroccan mint from the market.
So then tht is perfect for making a Sweet Tea Julep – i know i just posted about the Mint Julep – but the way i see it – you cannot have too many!
But first i`m gonna tell you about Firefly`s latest addition, the Sweet Tea Bourbon.
Its made with straight bourbon from the Buffalo Trace distillery and the bourbon is infused with South Carolina sweet tea and cane sugar from Louisiana. The result is a sweet bourbon with a hint of tea flavor – Interesting.
As this bourbon is so sweet already there`s no need to sweeten the drink with any other sugar or syrup, and i actually used only 1 oz of this and 2 oz of another bourbon to tone down the sweetness.
I see this bourbon more as a drink ingredient than a base spirit because of its sweetness, you can only use a little.
And here`s the drink:
SWEET TEA JULEP
1 oz Firefly Sweet tea Bourbon
2 oz Bourbon of choice ( i used Wild Turkey 101)
8-10 mint leaves
Crushed or shaved ice
Put mint and a small amount of crushed or shaved ice into the bottom of a julep cup or tall glass. (Optional: Muddle the mint and bourbon, then let stand for a bit to allow the broken leaves to release their flavor.)
Add the two bourbons, top off with crushed or shaved ice, and stir well to mix and chill the mixture. Garnish with a sprig of mint.
The mint julep isn`t original to New Orleans though, but imported from the southern states where it was developed. Nevertheless it has become a very important New Orleanian Cocktail.
Without doubt, a good Mint Julep is a true Southern pleasure. On the first saturday in may is the Kentucky Derby Day and julpes are served around the US and bourbon is the spirit used.
The Julep wasn`t originally invented in the US though – it was actually invented very far away – many centuries ago in Persia. It might be even older than that, i`ve read that it dates back even to A.D 1400.
Water and rose petals made a refreshingly scented Arabic drink called julab. This drink was later introduced to the countries around the Mèditerranian sea and the rose petals was replaced by mint which was a plant indigenous to the area. The drink changed its name to mint julep and became very popular in Europe. It was most commonly used in the eastern parts as a morning drink among the farmers.
Water and mint =Â julep. How could that become an American Bourbon drink?
The way to the mint julep as we know it today is both long and colorful. Originating in Persia, drunk in various forms in Europe and without doubt developed in the US – the addition of American whiskey did dramatically change the recipe.
But the first julep drinks in America were probably not made with bourbon but rather rye or other available spirits of that time like rum. Its believed that the drinking of the julep started in the US somewhere on the southern and east coast around the 1700s.
The first reference of a non medical type of mint julep in 1833 states:Â Put 4 to 5 unbruised mint stalks into a tumbler, on them place a lump of ice, add brandy water and sugar.This was a recipe identical to a drink called mint sling and it was the first time brandy was used in this drink which was referred to as a morning drink at the time.
Early juleps contained even fresh pineapple that was rubbed around the rim of the glass, then Claret or Madeira was added. The beverage were supposed to be of southern origin and the way of preparing seemed to have been varied among the states. There were also many different varietes of juleps made and were both stirred and shaken – look at these for example:
In 1846 fresh mint, equal parts brandy and rum, sugar and thinly plained ice was shaken in two tumblers. In 1852 another julep called cocoa-nut julep (!) was made with water from the young green coconuts that was poured into a glass goblet holding at least half a gallon and to this is added the coconut jelly…sweetened with sugar and Holland gin..aka Genever. There even appeared juleps garnished with strawberries in 1853…and in juleps have been used both bananas, raspberry juice and cucumbers.
In 1856 a gentleman in Louisiana placed side by side two large tumblers. In one he putted a spoonful of white crushed sugar. Then a slice of lemon and a slice of orange and then a few sprigs of fresh mint. Then a handful of crushed ice, a little water and finally a large glass measure of cognac.When this was done he lifted the glasses in each hand and poured from to another and back.
Then a fresh piece of a pineapple was cut and swept around the rim around the glass.The pineapple cleared the glass from sugar and pieces of mint and added a sweet fragrant aroma on the glass. This was called “The latest New Orleans touch 😉
I`m not sure when silver pitchers first were used but around 1901 it was spoken of as the only way to make a real julep. At around the same time the leaves of the mint were stripped off the stems one by one as the stems are bitter. The leaves were steeped in whiskey over night.
The cup was filled to the brim with ice and a small lump of sugar was mixed with as little water as possible. The leaves were strained off from the whiskey and the water and sugar mixture added. Now the drink was stirred and finally a sprig of mint added on top of the ice. Probably this was the first mint julep similar to the julep as we know it.
The good thing with using the julep cup is that it chills the drink and makes the frost appear faster and its also very nice to look at if you ask me.
BOURBON
The first uses of Bourbon came around in 1933 when cold spring water was first mixed with sugar. Then in a separate glass the mint was crushed within the glass with a spoon and then mint was discarded as a sacrifice. The glass was filled with cracked ice and bourbon poured in the glass. The mixture was left to cool for a while before sugared water was poured over it. No stirring was allowed. It was set to stand for a moment before finally fresh sprigs of mint were placed around the brim.
The Mint Julep became Churchill Down’s signature drink in 1938Â when they started to serve the julep in sourvenir glasses for 75 cents a drink. Today Kentucky Derby serves more than 80,000 juleps over the two-day event.
I love the julep! its refreshing and its tasty. There are many different juleps..and many ways to prepare them and here´s one:
MINT JULEP
Bourbon, Water, Sugar (or simple syrup) and Mint – is all you need.
1 Tbsp. simple syrup (or use fine sugar and water)
2 oz. bourbon
6–7 fresh mint leaves (and a mint sprig for garnish)
Crushed ice
I can sure haz me some julep! and here`s the famous video again with Chris McMillan, showing you how to make a proper julep while reciting a wonderful poem – well worth watching:
ginger, allspice and nutmeg, sweetened with molasses and maple syrup – with a slight chili bite.
