Prohibition Bramble

We all know what to do when you have lemons, right? Well, when you have blackberries and lemons and gin, you make Brambles.

It's been a while since I've used my muddler.  But blackberries alone don't make the flavor of this cocktail. It is the combination of the berry and lemon juice, sugar and herbaceous gin that do the trick. I used my Prohibition-style bathtub gin, that simulates how people would flavor raw spirit back when buying gin was illegal. Despite the steeped, less refined gin, the Bramble is more interesting for it. 

You have to start with muddled berries for this drink. Fresh lemon juice and simple syrup are the ingredients that help you taste the berry juice. Have a fine mesh strainer in addition to the strainer you use for your shaker when you make this. You don't want the mess of all those seeds showing up in the drink.

• 2 oz. gin (homemade steeped gin used)
• 1 oz. lemon juice
• 1/2 oz. simple syrup
• 5 blackberries

Muddle four blackberries in a shaker with lemon juice and simple syrup. Add the gin and cracked ice and shake. Double strain into an Old Fashioned glass full of fresh crushed ice and garnish with the remaining berry.

 

 

Vintage Martinis With Homemade Gins

Here aret two new gins I've been making at home. After several batches, I've settled on the recipes and I am ready to share them, knowing that they are pretty solid. It was a matter of proportions of botanicals to spirits, as well as a tricky trial and error period for infusion time.

Let me be clear, I don't have a still. I wouldn't mind getting into the weeds of how to make gin completely from grains. But I don't have the equipment and it is unlikely that my readers do either. Instead, I'm offering recipes for bathtub gin or steeped gin. These are neutral (or mostly neutral) spirits infused with gin botanicals. The types of gin, their recipes and cocktails I've used them in can be found below:

Dry Gin

Most gin drinkers are familiar with dry gins. There's no added sugar or juices, just dry fruit peels, berries and seeds. Feel free to adjust the recipe to your liking, but know that this method is safe.

In a large jar with an airtight lid add the following and allow to steep for three days. Strain out solids through mesh and store in a bottle with an airtight stopper or cap.

• 1/4 cup juniper berries
• 1 tbsp. angelica seeds
• peel of 1/2 of a lemon
• peel of 1/2 of an orange
• 1 tsp. anise seeds (1/2 anise pod is okay but not ideal.)
• 2-3 sprigs of basil
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• 1 750-ml. bottle of 100-proof vodka  

 

Dutch Courage or Shiedam Gin

Steeped gin is kind of a Dutch tradition. The original Dutch genever was made with a malted barley mash with juniper berries fermenting in it. Then the mash was distilled and later flavored by steeping more botanicals. To replicate this malt distillate, I used moonshine rather than vodka. Climax Moonshine from Virginia has the perfect flavor that I'm looking for. It is made from corn, sugar and malted barley, so it has that beery nose that a Dutch gin needs. Finally, after steeping the botanicals, I added 1 1/2 oz. of malt whiskey. This is because Dutch gin is often aged for a few months. Malt whiskey like Copper Fox single malt or Virginia distillery whiskey will work. If you cant get these, use a single malt Irish whiskey. There's no peat in Dutch gin, so a malty and even slightly smoky whiskey will do, but not Scotch. 

Add the moonshine and all dry ingredients to a jar with an airtight lid and allow to steep for ten days. Strain out solids using a mesh strainer and add malt whiskey. Store in a bottle with an airtight stopper or cap.

• 1/4 cup juniper berries
• 1 tbsp. angelica seeds
• 1/4 tsp. corriander
• 1/4 tsp. crushed cardamom 
• 1 pinch fresh rosemary
• 1 pinch fresh basil
• 1 tsp. dried birch leaves
• 3 cups of Climax moonshine or other white whiskey with malt character
  
• 1 1/2 oz. malt whiskey 

Classic Martini With Homemade Dry Gin:

This is classic Prohibition style Martini with classic proportions. Lots of gin and a fair amount of vermouth.  

• 3 oz.  homemade dry gin
• 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
• 1 dash orange bitters
• olives or lemon twist garnish

Stir liquid ingredients on ice in a mixing glass. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish according to preference.  

Classic Martinez With Dutch Courage

You want a gin that plays like whiskey for a Martinez. It's a lot like a Manhattan, or more so than a Martini. 

• 3 oz. homemade Dutch courage
• 1/2 oz. sweet vermouth
• several dashes Luxardo maraschino liqueur
• one dash orange or aromatic bitters
• orange twist garnish

Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Twist the orange peel over the glass and drop it in. 

Night Train

How do you spice up a pretty typical Gin Sour cocktail? By making it with a prohibition-style bathtub gin and a touch of kirsch.

Truthfully, this cocktail has a lot of trappings of the pre-Prohibition era: it's a potent gin drink with fresh juice and a name that suggests rail travel. Kirschwasser just happens to be one of the international spirits that bars would have had in the U.S. and a well-traveled person would know of its ability to lend potent fruit-scented punch to drinks when they are served up.

It's the large flat surface of a coup glass that really gives off whiffs of evaporating alcohol that is pleasing to drinkers. Gin itself, with its herbal and citrus botanicals really dances under the nose. Kirsch, which is distilled cherry juice, is a little darker with a smoother flavor and a rustic taste similar to pisco.

Making your own bathtub (steeped gin) is easy with 100-proof vodka, some juniper berries and citrus peels. Just throw about 20 juniper berries in a jar with just a peel of lemon and orange. I like a dozen angelica seeds and a dozen anise seeds as well as a sprig of basil and rosemary, but that's my preference. I've learned that understeeping is better than oversteeping, though, so strain out the solids after about three days.

The result is a green colored gin that is pretty dry and strong. It has the hearty flavor profile of a Prohibition era gin made the same way (hopefully not in a bathtub).    

• 2 oz. gin (homemade dry gin used)
• 1 oz. Cointreau (triple sec used)
  
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• dash kirsch

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

Port Light

This is one of those majestic tasting cocktails that are only possible with highly specialized ingredients like La Grande Passion and honey whiskey. Of course, I make a lot of my own ingredients, so what you see here is a cocktail made almost entirely from my knocked off spirits collection. And honey whiskey isn't a requirement at all. The recipe I'm providing allows you to use hone and whiskey separately.

The advantage of honey whiskey for a bartender, however, is huge. Honey is very hard to work with in an environment where you cannot easily produce heat. Now that I'm mostly bartending in my kitchen, I have electrical burners. But you won't often see a bar where the bartender heats up something before adding it to a drink, which is what you have to do when you use honey.

Cold honey becomes a chunk of sugar when you shake it on ice. It gets left behind in the shaker and the drink comes out too tart. That is why honey whiskey exists in the first place. You skip a step when building a drink if you don't have to add hot water to your honey. And there are a lot of honey whiskey products out there--Irish Mist being my longtime favorite. But get your own bottle of whiskey and add two tablespoons of honey to it and let that expand into the spirit. You'll have your own infinitely more drinkable (if it was cheap) whiskey and a go-to sweetener to boot.

• 2 oz. bourbon (or honey whiskey)
• 1/2 oz. La Grande Passion
• 1/2 oz. honey (50:50 mixed with hot water if you don't have honey whiskey)
• 1 oz. lemon juice
• 1/2 egg white (or double the recipe, make two and drink them both)
• several mint sprigs

Combine liquid ingredients including egg white in a shaker with cracked ice. Shake vigorously and pour into Collins glass. Garnish with mint.

Pere Bise

In French, this cocktail is called "Father Kiss." I'm hoping it is a chaste kiss, which is why I am showing off my Sacre Coeur Basilica coaster. I got it from the gift shop there years ago.

This is another one of those cases where blended whiskey is the recommended base spirit, but feel free to take it in any direction you want with the exception, maybe, of blended scotch. Blended whiskey is usually very malleable in terms of a spirit category. So I usually opt for flavors that compliment the rest of the ingredients. You could use Bourbon and send it sweeter, and a scotch would add sweetness and smoke. But this is already an herbaceous and citrusy drink. With an egg white in it, I wouldn't want to risk going too rich. That's why I've got the lemon whiskey out for it.

Overall, this is a very classy Egg Sour kind of cocktail with the pastis there just to suggest French herbs de Marseilles. It is interesting that in this instance the recipe calls for keeping the ice, which I think tames the foam. Next time I'd like to see what would happen if I really got a foamy top on this glass. Without ice, I'd have the room to do that.

• 1 1/2 oz. blended whiskey (MurLarkey lemon whiskey used)
• 1/2 oz. Cherry Herring
  
• 1/4 oz. lemon juice
• 1/2 egg white (or double the recipe and make two so you can drink them both)
  
• several dashes Pernod (Ricard used)

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with crushed ice. Shake vigorously and pour into a Sour glass

Peach Smash Margarita (Original Recipe)

Technically this is closer to a Smash than a Margarita, but I wanted to have a tequila drink, and Bird Dog doesn't actually add much whiskey flavor because the artificial peach flavor is so strong.

I've finally bought a bottle of my favorite tequila, Corralejo! It is a reposado with a lot of caramel notes that come through even better than Patron Anejo or Don Julio. Why does this matter? I like a tequila that is just as good by itself, neat, as it is in a cocktail. And the price, which is always a factor when I say something is my favorite, is very reasonable. It's no wonder that my former favorite tequila was Sauza Anejo.

This cocktail is the first I've needed a muddler for since covid-19 hit this year. I'd prefer not to be too fussy with my drink preparations if I can help it, and muddling seems like an extra step. If you are going to do that, you might as well get out a blender. But it is high summer now and I feel like the fresh ingredients require the respect of fresh muddling.

It was an easy drink to make, despite all that. Muddle in the shaker with your juice and add liquor. I recommend removing the peel from the peach because this drink isn't going to be strained--it's a smash.

• 1 1/2 oz. tequila (Corralejo used)
• 1/2 oz. peach liqueur (Bird Dog peach whiskey used)
• 1/2 oz. triple sec
• 1 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 pealed ripe peach sliced
  
• tsp. of sugar syrup or to taste.

Combine sugar, juice and peach in a shaker and muddle until the peach slices are nicely pulverized. Add liquors and ice and shake. Pour into a chilled Old Fashioned glass and garnish with a peach slice from the remaining half of the fruit.

Chocolate Soldier

This cocktail has an enigmatic name until you realize that Chocolate Soldier is a breed of peony that has this exact color. The color comes from Dubonnet Rouge, a rich--and appropriately chocolatey--fortified wine from France.

The other ingredient, besides lime juice, is gin. For this post I decided to show off my homemade bathtub gin. My first batch of the stuff was questionable: oversteeped and bitey, it had all the tannin and none of the freshness of a proper gin. I'm happy to say that this latest batch came out remarkably well.

• 1 1/2 oz. gin (homemade used)
• 1 oz. Dubonnet Rouge
• 1/2 oz. lime juice

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