Dhalgren (Death & Co. Recipe)

 

Believe it or not, a port drink can be light an refreshing if done with juice bitters. Even with the richness of ginger syrup, this fun drink feels like a day at the docks, if not the beach. 

Just as I use cinnamon whiskey to flavor my simple syrup, I've trotted out my ginger brandy for this recipe's sweetener. While my ginger infusion is more intense than Domain De Canton, it is just a backbone to this mostly fruity cocktai made with port and tequila.

• 2 oz. blanco tequila (El Jimador used)
• 1 oz. tawny port (Porto Morgado ruby used)
  
•  1/2 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 oz. ginger syrup (simple plus 1/2 oz. ginger brandy used)
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1 lime wheel garnish

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a highball glass filled with ice cubes. Garnish with the lime wheel. 

Port Authority (Death & Co. Recipe)

 

This cocktail needed to be made. The name, the ingredients, even the look all should have happened a hundred years ago. Luckily Death & Co. made this amazingly rich blackberry and port cocktail come true. I love it. I love the chocolatey port accentuated by chocolate bitters. I love how creme de cassis reinforces blackberry and cognac with a Dijon black currant spirit. And of course the fresh ingredients--these are all hallmarks of cocktail revival that Death & Co. ushered in.

Presentation is everything, and the beautiful chocolate grape color and blackberry garnish only add to the experience. Not one ingredient distracts from this purpose. I have to say that even though this is still essentially a Sour or Daisy variation, you wouldn't know it because you can't remove any ingredient and have it be as good. 

• 4 blackberries
• 2 oz. cognac (Martell single distillery used)
• 3/4 oz. tawny port (Porto Morgado ruby used)
• 1/2 creme de cassis (G.E. Massenez used)
• 1/2 oz. lemon bitters
• 2 dashes Aztec chocolate bitters
• 1 blackberry garnish

Muddle blackberries in a shaker. Add the rest of the ingredients and shake with ice. Double strain into a chilled coupe glass and garnish with the remaining blackberry. 

The Dead Reckoning (Smuggler's Cove Recipe)

 

This Tiki cocktail is part of the Tiki revival movement--balanced but rich, classic ingredients, but made for the new Tiki bar scene. According to Martin Cate, a lot of restaurants have adopted something similar to this popular cocktail on the menu at his Smuggler's Cove.

You don't see all that many Tiki drinks with maple syrup (behind the glass). Nor did old-school Tiki drinks feature infusions like Smuggler's Cove. This drink has a vanilla infused brandy. I got around it by adding some vanilla infused vodka (that I always keep around for these occasions) to some cognac for a more than passable substitute. 

The experience is like I said above--balanced. A modern Tiki has the richness of the rum flavor as well as the lightness of soda and fresh citrus and fresh squeezed pineapple juice. There are no artificial mixers or canned juices involved, and it shows. I'm featuring George Bowman rum for the first time on my home bar as a great blended aged rum with all the Caribbean flavors of Guyana and Jamaica. It's going to be my main aged rum until I finish it off. 

One last note on preparation: the recipe includes directions for a drink mixing machine, which I don't have, but I was able to replicate a flash blend with agitator cubes in a shaker with pre-crushed ice. I'll include the recipe as written, but the photo in the book shows that this use of the mixing machine really gives you varied sizes of ice, which you can see in my photo above. Some tiny chips, some chunks, and some pretty big cubes. Just pre-crush some ice into tiny chips and lightly crush some cubes and load all of the chips and some of the cubes into the shaker tin and shake. When you strain, open the gate to allow the small and medium-sized pieces to flow into a glass that's already half-full of crushed ice and you are golden.

• 2 oz. blended aged rum (George Bowman used)
• 1/2 oz. tawny port (Porto Morgado used)
• 1 oz. lemon juice
• 1 oz. pineapple juice
• 1/2 oz. vanilla brandy
• 1/2 oz. grade A maple syrup
  
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1 oz. seltzer
• pineapple leaves and mint sprig garnishes

Add seltzer to a Collins or highball glass. Fill the drink mixer with rum, port, vanilla brandy, juices and syrup. Add 12 oz. of crushed ice and 4-6 agitator cubes and flash blend. Strain the contents over the glass and fill the glass to the top with more crushed ice before adding the garnishes

Burgundy Punch

Not all punches are rum and fruit juice. A good number are wine-based. This punch is reminiscent of old world punch and cocktails that use European wines and spirits to create a balance between sweet, sour, tanic and earthy.

The result is a smooth punch with lots of depth. It is neither too strong, nor uninteresting. At first you notice the cabernet (the recipe calls for Burgundy, but I opted for Poppy, Paso Robles cabernet. This wine is not so much rich as it is flavorful. The addition of port softens this somewhat. In the center of the sip you notice the orange and lemon citrus burst. The finish is characterized by more port and a whiff of boozy Kammer Kirsch, one of the best examples of Kirschwasser--a black cherry spirit similar to white brandy.

• 2 bottles of red Burgundy or cabernet sauvignon
• 8 oz. kirschwasser
• 8 oz. port
• 16 oz. orange juice (fresh squeezed cara cara used)
• 4 oz. lemon juice
• 1 oz. simple syrup
• orange slices

Combine all ingredients in a chilled punch bowl with a block of ice. Stir well and garnish with orange slices.
*Note: I chilled all the ingredients in the punch bowl for two hours before serving on ice. This prevents watering the punch down too much and even enhances the flavor combination as ingredients sit with each other and while the punch warms up. This punch serves twenty.

Port Wine Cocktail

Such a simple cocktail, you can see why the founding fathers enjoyed it so much. Port, a fortified wine that was popular at the American revolution, gets a little help from American brandy--Catoctin Creek 1757 Distiller's Reserve brandy made from Virginia grown grapes. The alcohol content is light in this drink, so have more than one.

• 3 oz. port
• 1 tsp. brandy

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

Port Wine Cobbler

I'm finding that I enjoy most cobbler drinks as they are similar to punch. They are also very colonial-style cocktails with ingredients that were available to our forefathers who first came to America. In this way, cobblers impart a sort of fun sense of "period" cocktail when you are enjoying one. This cobbler is sweeter than most, but a nice alternative to a wine spritzer.

Notice that I used a Michigan cherry rather than maraschino. I felt that this also accompanied the colonial flavors of the drink.

• 3 oz. port wine
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 2 oz. sparkling water
• orange slice
• maraschino cherry

Dissolve sugar in sparkling water in a wine goblet. Add port and crushed ice and stir gently. Garnish with fruit.

Crimson

There's not enough grenadine in the recipe (thankfully) to really make this drink actually crimson. And port tends not to be a bright red. What you have here is an old-school tasting gin cocktail that I wasn't especially fond of. It was still a nice summer drink with plenty of fruit flavor and port sweetness. You see my hand adding the port as a float, however, port tends to sink into juice, so you are left with a big gob at the bottom of the glass.

• 2 oz. gin
• 1/2 oz. ruby port
• 2 tsp. lime juice
• 1 tsp. grenadine

Combine all ingredients except port in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Float port on top.

Cognac Coupling

Cognac is France's national spirit. It is to France as Bourbon is to the U.S. and scotch is to Scotland. Unlike whiskey, it is made of grapes (the juice peels, seeds and stems) fermented and distilled and aged. It is aged in barrels that formerly held wines, ports, and sherries. That is why it combines well with tawny port, which provides a nice foam when shaken. But the nutty tasting port is less important in the flavor of this cocktail as the absinthe or Pernod and the Peychaud's bitters, which really balance this drink away from being overly sweet.

I used Remy Martin 1738 for the cognac, which makes for a very sherry-forward first sip. I also reduced the proportion of absinthe from 1/2 oz. Pernod to 1 tsp. Absente Refined (a stronger and dryer spirit with lots of wormwood botanical) so as not to overwhelm. Altogether, this was a very balanced and very French cocktail.

• 2 oz. cognac (Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royal used)
• 1 oz. tawny port
• 1/2 oz. Pernod
• several dashes Peychaud's bitters
• 1 tsp. lemon juice

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