Cocktail Experiments 2018

We always record cocktail experiments we would make again. Here are the ones from 2018 we deem delectable. Some of the ingredients may be hard to find in your area, in which case substitutions may be made. We always encourage messing around with ingredients.

Farewell, 2018. We are not sorry to see you go.

The Remsen Cooler Will Remind You of Summer No Matter What Time of Year

As you peruse the shelves at your local liquor store this holiday season, you may come across a bottle of Old Tom gin. We’ve talked about Old Tom gin before in an earlier post. It’s slightly sweet, and the Hayman’s Old Tim gin discussed is not so juniper forward. If you pick up a bottle for the Holidays, and you’re into Martinis, then do try the Improved Tom Gin Cocktail that we adapted in that write-up. But if you want something not so boozy, try a Remsen Cooler. This refreshing elixir made with Old Tom gin and soda was putatively created in the mid 1800s by one William R. Remsen, a retired navy officer, who made them for the men of the private Union Club in New York City, of which he was an imbibing member. Cut to 2010, and at Paul’s office there works a woman named Michele Remsen, a writer who occasionally likes to kick back with a gin cocktail in her hand after a hard day of turning a phrase. Could she be a descendant of the esteemed William R.? And is liking gin hardwired into our genetic code? Regardless, the Remsen Cooler may appeal to anyone who enjoys a highball. It may appeal more during the hotter months or in warmer climates, but having one now as the weather turns frosty in many parts of the world will take you back to summer barbecues and afternoon cocktail parties.

What makes a Remsen Cooler special is the wide swath of lemon peel that’s required to gussy up the drink and give it some bright citrus flavor. If you plan on making a bunch of Remsen Coolers, make sure to buy some extra lemons so you can practice on a few using a vegetable peeler to remove the rind in one go. It takes a little getting used to, but hold the lemon in one hand, and start peeling it as you would an apple in one long, wide spiral. Just keep turning the lemon as if your hand were a lathe, and let the peeler do its magic. If, after you’re done, a lot of the white pith remains on the underside of the peel, you can remove it by laying down the peel with the pith side up, and scraping it off gently with a small knife.

Just make sure you also have a lot of ice, and thirsty party guests, and you’re all set. If you can’t find Old Tom gin, you can do one of two things: (1) substitute your favorite gin (try Bulldog or New Amsterdam) and add some confectioners’ or superfine sugar, or (2) try another sweet-ish gin, such as Beefeater 24. Remember, all gin are not created equal. They are as disparate as Chihuahuas and Great Danes, and every breed in between.

To make a Remsen Cooler, some dexterity is required:

Remsen Cooler
(adapted by Cocktail Buzz)

Ingredients
2 ounces Old Tom Gin*
soda
very long, wide lemon peel (with no pith)**
ice

Method
1) In a highball or collins glass, place one end of the lemon peel at the bottom so that the shiny side is pressed up against the inside of the glass, and drop in a few ice cubes to anchor it. Then slowly twist the peel up against the glass and press it as it spirals toward the top (this will release some of the lemon oil), all the while adding more ice to keep it in place, filling the glass.

2) When the lemon peel and ice are in place, add the gin, then top with soda. Give a quick stir.

* You can substitute another gin for Old Tom gin, plus 1/2 teaspoon superfine or 1 teaspoon confectioners’ sugar. To make this version, add the peel, then the sugar to the glass, followed by the gin. Stir, making sure you press the peel against the glass to release the oils. Add ice, making sure the peel spirals to the top, then top with soda.

** One peel will last for several drinks per glass.

Bitters Is Better: The Bitter Truth Mingles with Bols Genever at Clover Club

Four down, five to go, but Paul’s just sipping this time.

Let me start by saying that, although I very much wanted to, I did not even come close to finishing the nine cocktails served to me at the recent Bols Genever Classic Cocktail Series: The Influence of Bitters. Even though bringing each coupe to my lips was like tasting history, I only took two sips of each drink (three if I really liked it), and gently pushed them away from me as I listened to the estimable Stephan Berg, who cohelms The Bitter Truth company in Germany. He began his presentation, behind the bar at Brooklyn’s newish classic cocktail hot spot Clover Club, by saying, “I’ll tell you anything you’d like to know . . . except the recipe for The Bitter Truth.” For those of you not familiar with The Bitter Truth, Stephan Berg and business partner Alexander Hauck travel around the globe promoting their excellent line of cocktail bitters (Steve and I have two in our collection: Orange and Celery). They are amazingly balanced, well-crafted bitters, and have spiced up cocktails throughout the free, drinking world for several years now. Germany, which once only had Angostura bitters available, now has a host of flavoring agents to be proud of. While at the event, I was lucky enough to try the hard-to-find, small-batch Jerry Thomas’s “Own Decanter Bitters,” A piquant blend of citrus fruits and clove, derived from a recipe from the 19th century’s master bartender, Jerry Thomas. A truly masterly concoction. (I even got to try a Holland’s Pride Cocktail, made with the extinct Boker’s bitters—a rare treat, indeed!)

Holland's Pride
(adapted by Stephan Berg, mixed by Brian Miller)

Ingredients
2 ounces Bols Genever
1 ounce dry vermouth
1/4 ounce simple syrup
2 dashes The Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas bitters
1 dash absinthe

Method
Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe.


Stephan Berg shares cocktailiana with his rapt audience.

We began sipping bartender extraordinaire Brian Miller’s take on one of the first published cocktails, the Brandy Cocktail, a simple and flavorful classic, and then moved into cocktails highlighting Genever, an old-school maltwine-based gin that Bols has reintroduced to the world in the form of a smoky-gray bottle containing this unique spirit (the smell reminds one of yeasty, fresh-baked bread). Bols rep Tal Nadari had explained to us in his opening remarks the history of Bols Genever and its reemergence into the world of cocktailiana, and now we were about to taste Genever in action with our second sipper, the Gin Cocktail . The Genever truly is a revelation, closer in flavor profile to a dry whiskey than a London dry gin. Just adding a dash of bitters, some curaçao, and some simple syrup to create the Gin Cocktail was only the racehorse out of the starting gate. I couldn’t wait to see what drinks would come out next, and which ones would be my favorites.

Brandy Cocktail
(adapted by Stephan Berg, mixed by Brian Miller)


Ingredients
2 ounces brandy
1/4 ounce simple syrup
1/8 ounce orange curaçao
2 dashes The Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas bitters

Method
Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.



Those that did stand out were the early Martinez Cocktail (a Manhattan essentially, but with Genever substituting for whiskey), the early Martini Cocktail (not to be confused with a current-day bone-dry Martini—this one contains Old Tom gin, a sweeter and mellower cousin of Genever, and a dash of absinthe), and the Bamboo Cocktail (a mix of dry vermouth, sherry, orange and aromatic bitters, garnished with an olive).

Martinez (19th c.)
(adapted by Stephan Berg, mixed by Brian Miller)

Ingredients
2 ounce sweet vermouth
1 ounce Bols Genever gin
1/8 ounce orange curaçao
4 dashes Angostura bitters

Method
Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe.

Martini (19th c.)
(adapted by Stephan Berg, mixed by Brian Miller)

Ingredients
1 ounce Old Tom gin
1 ounce dry vermouth
1/4 ounce simple syrup
1/8 ounce absinthe
3 dashes The Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas bitters*

Method
Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a cherry, olive, or lemon twist.

Bamboo Cocktail
(adapted by Stephan Berg, mixed by Brian Miller)

Ingredients
1 ounce dry vermouth
3/4 ounce oloroso sherry
2 dashes orange bitters
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Method
Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.

❤ ❤ ❤

During the seminar, we listened to Stephan expound the different eras of the cocktail, backed up by a photo presentation (my favorite: an old snap of bitterly stern Temperance Movement ladies underneath the banner “Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Not Touch Ours”—the poor dears looked as though they had never been touched by anyone, or anything, except perhaps the catarrh). It was comforting to see some familiar faces at this event, such as those attached to the able bodies of Erik Ellestad (Underhill-Lounge), Joaquin Simo (Death & Co., and one of Playboy Magazine’s top 10 bartenders of the year), Jonathan Pogash (The Cocktail Guru), Zachary Sharaga (Louis 649), Michael Anstendig (food and lifestyle writer), Francine Cohen (Food & Beverage Magazine), and Dave Wondrich (Imbibe!, the book).


Giuseppe Gonzalez, head bartender at Clover Club, and Tal Nadari, the man behind the bols Genever Classic Cocktail Series.

And it was equally delightful to meet some new comrades, especially the two amicable gentlemen sitting next to me: Giuseppe Gonzalez (the head bartender at Clover Club), and Chris Stanley (Foodbuzz Featured Publisher, An Exercise in Hospitality); also Greg Boehm (mastermind behind the re-release of classic cocktail books from MudPuddle Books), and the charming Julie Reiner, the lady with her finger on the pulse of the Cocktail Renaissance and owner of Clover Club. Without her help (and gorgeous bar), and the talents of Stephan, Tal, and Brian, I would not have been able to spend a sybaritic afternoon in my favorite place on Earth—Brooklyn—with some of the nicest folk around. Here’s to Bols Genever, The Bitter Truth, and Clover Club. Cheers and Bottoms Up.



P.S. My slight hangover the next morning was only cured later in the evening by a cocktail at the new Prospect Heights bar, Cornelius. Good luck and welcome to the ’hood.

* Because the Jerry Thomas bitters is difficult to come by, you can substitute it for another bitters, such as Regan's Orange Bitter No. 6, or perhaps a combination of Angostura and The Bitter Truth Orange Bitters (you want both citrus and spice flavors). —Cocktail Buzz

photos © Cocktail Buzz

Mixology Monday XXXI: Imbibing Old School with Old Tom

In C. F. Lawlor’s 1855 The Mixicologist, or How To Mix All Kinds of Fancy Drinks, there appears a recipe for The Improved Tom Gin Cocktail. For those of you who are not familiar with Old Tom Gin, or are but have never tried it, we direct your attention to Hayman’s Old Tom Gin, a botanically nuanced, balanced gin that is pleasantly sweet. Old Tom gin is called for in a lot of 19th-century cocktails, and has always been available in England, but in the U.S. it has only been recently made available since departing some time in the 1950s. Imagine taking your favorite London Dry Gin and adding a little simple syrup to it. That’s Old Tom gin in a nutshell. So we thought it would be fun to pick up a bottle and make one of Lawlor’s recipes, and see what happens.

The Improved Tom Gin Cocktail differs from its predecessor, the Tom Gin Cocktail, by requiring Curaçoa [sic] in place of simple syrup. We decided on l’Original Combier Liqueur d’Orange for our Curaçao, a perfect match since Combier touts itself as being the original triple sec (from 1834). It’s also delicious, with intense orange aroma and taste. Add to that a few dashes of The Bitter Truth Orange Bitters, which gives the drink a jolt of sharpness, and you've got on your hands a 19th-century recreation that will pack quite a punch. A few sips of this, and you'll feel like your brain’s taken a mini-vacation (both spirits are 80 proof.) As far as garnishing goes, we had some blueberries left over from a blueberry-stout salsa we had just made, so we threw in a few to give the drink a little color (and it’s always extra nice to bite into a gin-soaked berry once the drink has been imbibed).

So here’s our recipe for this 19th-century spirituous delight, based on C. F. Lawlor’s:

Improved Tom Gin Cocktail
(adapted by Cocktail Buzz)

Ingredients
2 ounces Old Tom gin
1/4 ounces triple sec
3 dashes orange bitters

Method
In a mixing glass filled halfway with ice, stir the ingredients for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish. Sip. Get carried away.

Further Exploration
We are happy to report that since posting this, a new Old Tom gin, developed with the collaboration of cocktail guru David Wondrich, has hit the market. It’s from Ransom, and it touts itself as being historically accurate, the way gin was made before Prohibition. Its hue is a deep gold, and the smell and taste of the botanicals and slight maltiness will definitely win you over, tempting you to make old school pre-bathtub gin cocktails, like the one above. Seek it out today and start stirring tonight.

photo © Cocktail Buzz