Winter Cocktails Trio

 

Winter Mule

Sometimes you want a refreshingly light and juicy cocktail with crushed ice even when it is cold outside. Sometimes a cocktail in pretty Mule mugs is also a must. That's where this recipe hits the spot. 

Simple Times Mixers makes a cranberry apple cider mule mix that is perfect for winter sipping (and making non-alcoholic cocktails as well.) The recipe on the back recommends using whiskey or rum, which is nice, but I also enjoy the taste of Laird's Applejack 86 since this is going for apple flavors as well. 

The only downside to using this Simple Times product and spirit alone is that the ginger flavor is very understated, while apple and cranberry are in the foreground. I miss a spicy ginger mule taste, so I augmented the recipe further with my own ginger-infused brandy. You can use King's Ginger or a  ginger brandy from one of the economy flavored brandy producers like Jacquin's. It is best if it is a brand-based flavor to give the drink a nice gingersnap taste. 

• 1 1/2  oz. Laird's Applejack 86 or apple brandy
• 1 oz. ginger brandy
• 3 oz. Simple Times Mixers apple cranberry mule

Shake all ingredients and strain into a chilled mule mug full of crushed ice. Stir with stir straws and add more crushed ice. (This will get a nice frost on the outside of the mugs.) Garnish with a lime slice and serve with two stir straws.

 

Highland Cream Cocktail--Scotch and sherry are excellent mixing companions. Whether it is McCallan 12 and a bone-dry fino or a blend and cream sherry, there is a range of sweetness you can control with the addition of sherry. Scotch is often finished in sherry casks, oloroso and PX make for some of the richest flavors we have come to appreciate in scotch. This cocktail does that with a bourbon finished scotch and an especially rich sherry: Lustau East India Solera.

Bourbon finished scotches like Speyburn Bradan Orach are becoming more popular because bourbon barrels can only be used once for bourbon. Scotch has no such rule, and Scottish distillers are snapping up these American oak barrels to finish their beautifully dry and oaky tasting whisky. But I still miss the sherry finish of some of the oldest scotches--you pay a premium for it. Nowadays, the price of a sherry cask finished scotch is between ten and fifty dollars more than a bourbon finished scotch. That's the beauty of adding that sherry flavor back to the whiskey yourself. Round it all out with Aztec and aromatic bitters and a Luxardo cherry, and you have an especially rich treat for winter sipping.

• 1 1/2 oz. bourbon finished scotch like Speyburn Bradan Orach
• 1 oz. Lustau East India Solera sherry
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 3 dashes Fee Brothers Aztec bitters
• Luxardo cherry garnish

Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a Luxardo cherry.

 

Agave Old Fashioned

It's not whiskey or tequila, but Mt. Defiance anejo agave spirit is somewhere in between. It has loads of vanilla and oak and not much bitterness at all. That's what makes it an excellent ingredient in an Old Fashioned. 

For this cocktail, I used simple syrup and not agave syrup, which might sound a bit like a mistake. Trust me, agave syrup is way sweeter and thicker. It's fine for citrus drinks where the sweetness is cut with acid, but it makes Old Fashioneds taste like rock candy. 

Outside the classic recipe, I used a squeeze of a lime zest rubbed on the rim and a flamed orange peel dropped into the glass. In addition to Angostura bitters, I used one dash of Fee Brothers Aztec bitters for a cinnamon and cocoa note appropriate for the holidays. Cheers!

• 2 oz. Mt. Defiance anejo agave spirit
• 1/2 oz. simple syrup
• 3 dashes Angostura bitters
• 1 dash Fee Brothers Aztec bitters
• lime peel zest
• orange peel flamed as garnish

Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into an Old Fashioned glass over a large ice cube. Twist lime peel over the glass and rub it around the rim before discarding. Flame orange peel over the glass and drop it in as a garnish. 

 

Sweep the Leg (Death & Co. Recipe)

There's some Karate Kid fans working at Death & Co. for sure. This cocktail uses Japanese whiskey, to tie into the name. But I can't afford the stuff and really I get a kick out of using malted whiskey (and beer whiskey, which is malted) to approximate Japanese whiskey. That malted whiskey is Catoctin Creek Colossal X!

I also loved that this drink includes sherry, orgeat and chocolate bitters. These flavors all come across as deep and tropical, so it is no surprise they end up in this Japanese themed cocktail. 

• 2 oz. Suntory Hakashu 12-year whiskey (Catoctin Creek Colossal X used)
• 3/4 oz. orgeat (Fee Brothers used)
• 1/2 oz. Amontillado sherry
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 1/2 oz. orange juice
• 1/4 oz. acacia honey surp
• 1 tsp. Luxardo Amaro Abano (a combination of homemade Amer Picon and Don Ciccio and Figli Ambrosia used)
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1 dash of Aztec bitters
• Garnish: lime wheel, orange crecent, brandied cherry, mint sprig (not pictured)
  

Combine all liquid ingredients in a shaker with three ice cubes. Short shake and strain into a pilsner glass full of crushed ice. Skewer garnishes on a pick and place on the top of the glass.

 

Sweet Hereafter (Deat & Co. Recipe)

This is an unusual pisco cocktail: it is sweet, stirred and aromatic. Nothing like the pisco cocktails you find in South America or California. Some people think the only thing pisco is good for is punch or Sours. Well, Capel pisco is dry and fairly neutral. It functions a lot like a vodka or gin and, therefore, makes a good Martini variation. 

I loved the elderflower and grapefruit nose that this cocktail brings upfront. It melts into rich aromatic wines like Dolin blanc and Cocchi Americano. It's a sweet Martini, and the name fits it perfectly.

• 1 grapefruit twist 
• 2 oz. pisco (Capel used)
• 1/2 oz. Cocchi Americano
• 1/2 oz. Dolin blanc
• 1 tsp. St-Germain
• 1 dash hopped grapefruit bitters (Fee Brothers grapefruit bitters used)

Squeeze the grapefruit twist over a mixing glass and discard (or keep as shown). Combine the remaining ingredients in the glass and stir with ice. Strain into a chilled coupe glass.

Cigarettes And Carrot Juice (Original Recipe)

 

"Cigarettes and carrot juice. Get yourself a new tattoo for those sleeveless days of June." That's the opening lines of Cracker's The Golden Age album of 1996. Full of the depression and male angst of that era, the protagonist is sitting in a cafe and angry at the happy world because he hasn't gotten over a breakup yet.

I've been wanting to make a cocktail to commemorate this feel-bad song for a long time, and I knew it had to include carrot juice. But what about the cigarettes? I had a breakthrough when I made the Death & Co. recipe Coffee and Cigarettes. This scotch, Galliano, sweet vermouth and chocolate bitters combination really clinched the taste of cigarettes. Now I only needed to combine the two. 

• 2 oz. Islay scotch (McClelland's Islay used)
• 1/2 oz. Galliano
• 1/2 oz. Cocchi Dopo Teatro vermouth
• 2 dashes Fee Brothers Aztec chocolate bitters
• 3 oz. carrot juie
• small carrot garnish

Combine all ingredients except for garnish in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into an Old Fashioned glass full of fresh ice. Garnish with the small carrot. 

A Coffee In Manhattan (Original Recipe)

 

Another original recipe, here: this time I'm playing around with flavors that aren't often paired together to create yet another Manhattan variation. The theme I'm going with is breakfast--coffee enjoyed with half of a grapefruit. I love this combination of acidic flavors. They don't go together at all. Coffee is so dark and bitter and grapefruit juice is so tart but also a little bitter and sweet. Having them together is jarring, but not unpleasant. I recommend it.

But I really recommend this Manhattn variation because of its lifting grapefruit bitters that set it apart from other coffee Manhattans. Lifting bitters bring essences up to your nose and provide a palate lift that breaks up heavy tasting ingredients. This is opposed to binding bitters that help join disparate flavors like whiskey and vermouths. This cocktail still has whiskey and vermouth, but it the use of Fee Brothers grapefruit bitters puts a burst of acidity right in the middle of that bitter depth of MurLarkey Coffee whiskey and bittersweet vermouth that normally a Manhattan drinker looks forward to. It essentially causes you to wake up from the boring slumber of drinking the same kind of Manhattan, and it does this with the flavors I enjoy at breakfast. 

• 2 oz. MurLarkey Heritage whiskey
• 1 oz. MurLarkey coffee whiskey
• 1/2 oz. Cocchi Dopo Teatro sweet vermouth
• 4 dashes Fee Brothers Grapefruit Bitters
• 1 Luxardo cherry garnish

Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the cherry stuck on a cocktail pick. 

Doc Daneeka Royale (Death & Co. Recipe)

What is up with the Catch-22 reference in the name? This is the famous fictional doctor who gives name to the insanity catch underpinning the novel. Maybe this is a drink for paranoids, or maybe it is a balm for paranoia. Either way, it was an interesting take on a French 75 with maple syrup used as the sweetener and grapefruit bitters to provide a bitter lifting notes. 

This cocktail is an all-around fruity and bitter drink that is far more complex than the French 75. A squeezed grapefruit peel adds even more citrus bitterness on the nose, and dry sparkling wine (Aria cava) and herbal gin (MurLarkey ImaGination) do not let up on dry and spicy notes. The direction the flavors take on your tongue is up, only up. Sourness and tang give way to a bubbly tingle that isn't solely produced by the sparkling wine. What a fun and dangerous drink!

• 2 oz. gin (MurLarkey Imagination used)
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 1/2 oz grade B maple syrup
• 1 dash bittermen's hopped grapefruit bitters (Fee Brothers' grapefruit and celery bitters used)
• dry champagne (Aria cava used)
• 1 grapefruit coin

Combine all liquid ingredients except for champagne in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled champagne flute or coupe and top with champagne. Squeeze the grapefruit zest coin over the glass and discard. 

Le Subtil (Death & Co. Recipe)

 

Subtle is a good way to describe this drink. It isn't the kind of cocktail that beats you over the head with bitterness or spicy gin. Spirits like genever and Cardamaro are soft. Any spicy notes they carry are smoothed out by aging. The genius of Le Subtil comes from finding that sweet balance of these ingredients that don't especially assert themselves too strongly, then boosting them with lifting bitters like hopped grapefruit.

I got this Fee Brothers' grapefruit bitters to make this cocktail, since I couldn't find Bittermen's hopped grapefruit bitters. I know from past experience that a dash of my own celery bitters gives a drink hoppy notes of bitter flowers very similar to hops. The experience, once you twist grapefruit peal on top, is a drink with a no grapefruit juice that smells and tastes like a grapefruit juice drink but rich with all the other spirits. The Bols barrel-aged genever has the oak, malt and juniper that fits right in with cardamom of Cardamaro, which also has other bitter herbs. The Antica Formula vermouth (which the recipe calls for but I am using a Cocchi product with a similar profile) is rich with quinine and oak as well. And it all floats upward with citrus notes at first sip and at the finish. 

• 2 oz. Bols Genever (barrel aged used)
• 1/2 oz. Cardamaro
• 1/2 oz. Carpano Antica Formula vermouth (Cocchi Dopo Teatro used)
• 2 dashes Bittermen's hopped grapefruit bitters (Fee Brothers' grapefruit bitters and homemade celery bitters used)
• grapefruit twist

Combine all liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with the grapefruit twist.

Lillywhacker (Death & Co. Recipe)

 

Is it possible I've exhausted all of Death & Co. apple brandy cocktails? Not quite. This silly sounding cocktail calls for Laird's and a bitter vermouth in what amounts to an Apple Brandy Manhattan with chocolate, cinnamon and orange notes. Not bad, considering how much Laird's Applejack 86 tastes like real baked apples. Now we have the makings of an apple pie in one drink. 

• 2 oz. Laird's apple brandy (Applejack 86 used)
• 3/4 oz. Carpano Antica (Cocchi di Torino used)
• 1/2 oz. Cointreau (triple sec used)
• 1 dash Bittermen's Xocolatl Mole bitters (Fee Brosthers Atec Chocolate biters used)

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

East India Trading Co. (Death & Co. Reciep)

 

Death & Co., like any bar, has to limit its ingredients to a set of standards that can be re-assembled in different configurations. This one is more variations on a theme involving dark spirits in a coupe glass that taste of exotic rum, chocolate and cinnamon. Here, I put a few of my own liquors to use to pull off this cocktail.

My Amer Picon (hiding behind the Aztec Chocolate Bitters) is made with Ramazzotti, so I used it as an obvious substitute. George Bowman's rum tastes like Jamaican rum, and it is a blend that might include some from Jamaica. Finally, the chocolate bitters are intended to have the cinnamon notes of Mexican chocolate, so Fee Bros. Aztec chocolate works just as well as Death & Co.'s Bittermen's Xocolatl mole.

• 2 oz. Appleton Estate Reserve rum (George Bowman's used)
• 3/4 oz. Lustau East India Solera Sherry)
• 1/2 oz Ramazzotti (homemade Amer Picon with Ramazzotti used)
• 2 dashes Aztec chocolate bitters

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