Bloomsbury Blast

 

This is one of those kitchen sink fortified wine cocktails that sneaks up on you. I'm not sure if it is named after the early 20th century artistic movement in Britain or if it is more centered on the town of the same name, but I can see a cocktail like this being popular about an hundred years ago. 

There's not a lot of interest in overloading drinkers with rich sherry and vermouth flavors now. Even with the cocktail revival that brought back vermouth, we tend to appreciate stand-out ingredients without crowding a cocktail with more than one. I mean, Cherry Herring, curacao, creme de cacao, and gin all have a way of dominating. That means that this recipe is somewhat less than the sum of its parts, for what its worth. 

On the other hand, there is something liberating about throwing together hefty doses of sherry and vermouth in what is already a legally maxed out spirits drink. Then you get to enjoy an easy drinking cocktail in a large wine glass and experience how it kicks your butt as you dive deeper and deeper into its rich depths. I hope that this sells the cocktail to some of my readers. We all have open bottles of sherry, and you have to use them.

• 1 1/2 oz. gin (Vitae Old Tom used)
• 1 1/2 oz. medium sherry (Amontillado used)
• 1/2 tsp. sweet vermouth
• 1/2 tsp. dry vermouth
• 1/4 oz. curacao
• 1/4 oz. cherry brandy (Herring used)
• 1/4 oz. creme de cacao
• 1 oz. lemon or lime juice

Combine all ingredients with cracked ice in a shaker or blender. Shake or blend and pour into a large wine glass. 

Beginning of the End (Difford's Guide)

 

This wonderfully balanced cocktail combines some of my favorite things: aged rum, sherry, sweet vermouth and Amer Picon. The rum might not be spiced, but the cocktail is with vermouth, amaro, and flamed orange peel--it makes for the perfect winter sipper.

One of the new ingredients on my bar is George Bowamn dark Caribbean rum from the Bowman Distillery in Fredricksburg, Virginia. This rum has a great small batch, island produced flavor that really works well with American colonial-style cocktails. Rum, sherry, a quinine spirit to ward off malaria--these ingredients, taken from all over the world, came together in America through colonial trade and make up the flavor profile of our nation's cocktail history.

This is a Difford's Guide recipe that plays on the Fin de Siecle, or "End of The World," a classic cocktail with similar proportions of ingredients but uses gin instead of aged rum. 

• 1 1/2 oz. aged dark rum (George Bowman used)
• 1/2 oz. Antica formula vermouth (Cocchi di Torino used)  
• 1/3 oz. Amer Picon (homemade used)
• 1/3 oz. Oloroso sherry
• flamed orange peel garnish

Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. To flame the orange peel, cut a piece of orange zest. While holding a flame over the drink, squeeze the zest to release oils onto the flame to produce a flash and burnt orange oil fregrance. 

 

The Highlander

 

I love scotch; I love the peat smoke, the sweet maltiness of the barley, and the raisin-like fug of sherry cask that you get from whisky of the northern Scottish Highlands. For me, a chilled scotch cocktail is a rival of any bourbon or rye Manhattan. But quality single malt scotch is super expensive right now. It's not something that you just want to throw into a mixed drink and slam quickly. That is why I went to some effort to create a scotch cocktail using local Virginia whiskey.

Scotch has a flavor that is hard to imitate with other ingredients. Blended scotch is particularly hard, but it is possible to knock off regional expressions of the Highland spirit. Highland whiskey is well rounded, with it's maltiness central to the flavor profile. Smoke is understated in most cases, but some distillers rely on used sherry casks to finish their whisky. In The Highlander, I bring together each of these flavor notes from three different ingredients: Virginia beer whiskey, smoked black tea leaves, and amontillado sherry.

First, a limited release of MurLarkey Brutality uses Octoberfest beer for its mash build. That means actual beer, hops and all, is distilled and aged for two years in oak. The whiskey is then proofed down with more beer, which gives Brutality its mellow malty flavor. Octoberfest lager is malty beer to begin with. That brings this Virginia whiskey closer to scotch than bourbon. German style hops linger in the finish, also imitating the style of Highland peat water. 

For smoke, I used a tsp. of lapsang souchong tea leaves steeped in whiskey. This black tea that is smoked on pine embers. When steeped in whiskey, it is not as smokey as it is if you steep it in hot water. This is further downplayed when used in small proportion in the cocktail, but it hints at smoke that the Brutality does not have in itself.

Finally I cut the corner of finishing in sherry by adding amontillado sherry in a small proportion. This also rounds out some of the beer notes of the Brutality and takes the flavor toward the fruitier style of Highland whiskey. 

• 2 oz. MurLarkey Brutality Octoberfest whiskey
• 1/2 oz. lapsang souchong infused whiskey
• 1/2 oz. amontillado sherry

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Quarter Deck (With Pusser's Rum)

This simple cocktail is part of a pair of naval drinks that swing towards rich and sweet aperitifs or desserts. The "Deck" cocktails that include the Poop Deck and this one are very similar in that they use an aged spirit and a fortified wine in a simple mixture that is served up. I've re-done this cocktail to bring it a little closer to something that might be enjoyed on a British Navy vessel some hundred and sixty years ago. In a previous iteration I used spiced rum, which isn't historically accurate.

As it appears now, the sherry is medium sweet and the Pusser's is Caribbean dark rum with lots of character from its wooden still and barrel aging. A sweeter sherry is probably appropriate for balance, so I added a touch of brown sugar syrup that blends with the dark sugary notes almost imperceptively.

• 1 1/2 oz. dark rum (Pusser's used)
• 3/4 oz. cream sherry (Amontillado used plus 1/2 tsp. brown sugar syrup for balance)
• 1 tsp. lime juice

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Rum and Sherry

 

I expected this to be a somewhat dry cocktail. It calls for light rum and amontillado  sherry, which is sort of medium dry, or at least that is what this blend of Dona Luisa amontillado says. I'm glad that I used the more rich Plantation 3-Stars blend of Caribbean rums rather than a super dry rum. The effect of the drink, and not all amontillados are this sweet, was like a Manhattan. 

This cocktail is more for a whiskey drinker than a rum drinker. Particularly, I think, scotch lovers will find this one attractive. I'm interested now in doing a bourbon barreled rum and sherry or sweet vermouth to see if I like this very classy way to enjoy nice rum.

• 1 1/2 oz. light rum (Plantation 3-Stars used)
• 3/4 oz. amontillado sherry (or medium dry sherry. Dona Luisa used)
• maraschino cherry

Combine rum and sherry in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Drop the cherry into the glass.