More Notes on Cocktails.

I haven’t until recently understood bitters.  In fact, I’ve enjoyed them in the past few months without so much as looking into what exactly they are until this very moment.  They’re alcoholic digestifs flavored with herbal essences.  What I take away from this and my experiences is that they are a cocktails perfume.   

Last week I discovered a small cupboard in the back of my local spirits shop (calling it a liquor store would being doing a great disservice to its atmosphere and sophistication), that placed bottles of bitters in each cubby hole like tiny treasures and keepsakes.  I was enthralled, as girls often are with small, cute things.  I picked them up. I studied them. I read the ingredients.  I marveled at the variety.  Yes, there were your usuals of orange, lime, grape, what-fruit-have-you, but there were also borderline insane ones such as Jamaican Jerk, Thai Chili and Curry.  I immediately wanted to bite off more than I could chew by having my first bitters experiment be with the curry, but Toph talked me off of that ledge and I settled on Lavender. 

My first experiment went surprisingly well.  I mixed 1 tbsp of home-infused rosemary gin, 2 tbsp of Hendricks gin, the juice of half a lemon, agave nectar to taste and a couple dashes of lavender bitters with seltzer and old fashioned ice cubes.  It was delish.  The tartness of the lemon played well off of the smokeyness of the rosemary and floral notes of the gin and lavender bitters, and the agave gave it that sweetness it needed to take the edge off of its savory bass notes. 

Last night I popped into the same shop on my way home from a bike ride, intending to pick up a bottle of white to end my weekend with, but again, found myself at the bitters cupboard, marveling like a small child.  Toph may have stroked my ego too much with his praise on my first bitters experiment, because I walked out not only with the intended bottle of white, but also with Curry and Cardamom bitters to play with.  And thus, my home bar became a much more tempting playground.  Of course, I will keep you all abreast of anything noteworthy I come up with, because if life is too short for boring cocktails, it is immoral to withhold the interesting ones from the public.  Happy mixing, everyone!

Simple Syrup, Complex Cocktail.

Life is far too short for boring cocktails.  I have a fair few mantra’s, but one of the more important one’s that’s cropped up since college is that.  I don’t drink a lot, so when I do, it has to be fantastic (do I sound like the Dos Equis man right now? Good.) I think if I had to choke down one more $12, watered down cranberry vodka or rum and coke with well liquor, I would weep.  Quite simply, I and my pallete are better than that.  We’ve developed taste.  We’re more sophisticated.  More discerning.  Less complacent.  More snobbish in our old age. 

While my neighborhood and the neighborhoods just across the river from me offer up some incredibly creative, inventive, delectible and sinful cocktails that leave me with absolutely no need for the boring mixed drinks, sometimes I’d rather just mix myself up something from my bar at home.  I’ve gone to fairly great lengths to make sure that what I have in stock there is great, but often times, I lack in the mixers department.  Most of the time, I rely on fruit and herbs I have laying around, along with my soda stream and juicer as my mixologist wingmen  This sounds fancy and fussy, but I prefer to make my own flavored seltzers, and I think the result is far more satisfying (and healthy).  Last weekend before we headed out camping, Toph and I packed up some bourbon along with a home made ginger ale I’d made by juicing a ginger root and adding that with agave syrup to seltzer.  It was amazing, spicy, sweet and cut the rough burn of the bourbon just enough for this lass to take a swig without a boozy shiver following in quick succession.  Anyway, my point here is, craft your cocktail, you will thank yourself in the end.  

The fixings

Now, one of the easier ways to add some depth of flavor and personality to your drinks (not to mention making it sound ever-so-impressive when you tell your freinds what is in their cocktail) is by using an infused simple syrup.  Making simple syrup is just that: simple. All it takes is equal parts water and suger, heated over the stove until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture appears clear.  To infuse it, all you need to do is throw whatever you’d like in with the sugar and water while you heat it.  I ran to my local gourmet food store, Marlow & Daughters tonight (with 15 minutes until they closed because, you know, impulse being what it is and all...) and made 5 tonight to keep in the fridge for up to 6 months to jazz up my cocktail musings. I threw vanilla bean in the first, ginger root in the second, orange peel in the third, cinnamon in the fourth, and a mixture of cardamom and ground clove in the fifth.  Now I can sit back for the next 6 months and know that whatever I might feel like making, however basic in combination, will always have the option for an added depth of flavor.  

Bottle it up!

Now that I’ve got that sqaured away, I’m on to discover the wide world of bitters.  First up is lavender, and after that I’ve got my eye on a curry one my local wine shop is stocking (aggressive, but then, so am I).

Two-Handers

I’ve only recently started to give a damn about breakfast.  I really only have one requirement for a good breakfast:  a runny egg yolk situation.  However you wanted to create an allure around that, I was cool with, but even with that requirement, not too much blew my mind, it was just something pretty nice that I could eat while enjoying a heavily-horseradished-bloody with friends.  My complacency, however, was just recently blown out of the ever-lovin’ water.  

I am oh-so-stupid-lucky to have found myself a boyfriend who is not only utterly fascinating to team up with in the kitchen, but often-times does better with off-the-cuff “what do we have in the fridge” situations than ones that take planning and time.  On his first visit here (he lives in Chicago), he made us a breakfast that I’m now dubbing a “two-hander”, that just about changed my whole attitude towards the meal.  It can pretty much consist of any amalgamation of what you want, but involves making a real, lunchtime-style sandwich with eggs.  

Gone are the days of bacon egg and cheese, friends.  This thing was two poached eggs on grilled brioche with beefsteak tomato, sauteed garlic scapes (I didn’t know what these were until about 2 months ago when I saw them at the market and thought they looked so wonky that I had to figure them out -- they’re like scallions if scallions did acid with Tim Burton and Mario Batali), and grated aged gouda.  Like I said, a lunchtime sammy with eggs.  I looked at it and went catatonic, and then took a bite and looked at Toph with childlike wonderment.  My day was made and we hadn’t even left the couch yet.

Since then, I’ve been kind of obsessed with trying it different ways, and even made one for myself for dinner tonight.  That’s right, they’re so damn good, I’ll even eat breakfast for dinner now.  

My favorite so far, not to toot my own horn, has been my own.  Before a day trip to Stone Barns a couple of weekends ago where we took a tour learning about wild food and ecology (go, do it, it was amazing), I whipped up maybe the best breakfast I’ve ever had.  Behold:

To be fair, Toph poached the eggs.  I was running a little slow taking care of my accouterments, and he gets cave-man-cranky when his hunger hits a certain level.  On the grilled toast I spread some curried garlic scape ricotta that we had used the night before to make some incredible stuffed zuchinni flowers.  Then I took juicy vine ripe tomatoes and tossed thick slices of them, along with slices of pear and some pea shoots, in a white balsamic vinagarette that I'd whisked up. E voila.  All of this -- the depth of the curried g.s. ricotta, the vibrance of the marinaded tomato, sweetness of the pear, the green crunch of the pea shoots and the deep golden molten ooze of the egg yolk (I prefer Kinderhook Farms free-running, free-nesting chicken eggs) -- combined in the most joyous symphony of flavor my tongue has ever seen before noon.  I am converted, and even if you didn’t need converting, do yourself a favor, open up your fridge, and make yourself a two-hander with whatever-something-like-this you can.  You’re welcome in advance.