Standards

Day 222, Cocktails 219 & 220

You didn’t really think that just one cocktail would be enough while we watched White Christmas on Friday night, did you?  While Gwen stayed with the White Christmas, I decided to continue my exploration of the whiskey sour theme.  I went back to The Ultimate Bar Book and perused the options that Mitte Hellmich presented.  The first one that caught my eye was the Double Standard.

  Double Standard Sour

• 3/4 oz whiskey
• 3/4 oz gin
• 3/4 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz bar syrup
• 1/8 oz grenadine

Combine all the ingredients in a shaker with ice.  Shake to chill and mix and pour into a rocks glass.  Garnish with an orange slice and cherry.

I like this one.  The whiskey (Jim Beam rye) and gin (Plymouth) interacted well (somewhat to my suprise).  The grenadine added a very nice flavor dimension as well.  However, I found this to be just bit a sweet – probably because it only has 1-1/2 ounces of booze, 25% less than the other sours I’ve been mixing.  With this in mind, I decided to try my own version.

  Gold Standard Sour

• 1 oz Jim Beam rye
• 1 oz Plymouth gin
• 3/4 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz bar syrup
• 1/8 oz grenadine
• 1 dash Peychaud’s bitters

If I liked the Double Standard, I really liked this one.  The extra booze cuts into the sweetness and lets the gin and rye flavors be more readily available to the palate.  The Peychaud’s adds another dimension of complexity that makes the flavor profile more interesting as well.  It’s a nice twist on a classic sour – give it a try and let me know what you think!

Well, after three sours, my sour exploration was done for the night, along with the movie.  Do you have a favorite Christmas movie that calls for a cocktail?  If so, share it with us!

Cheers!

White Christmas

Day 222, Cocktails 218

Friday night turned into home movie night for Gwen and me, with both the daughters out of the house.  We took advantage of the evening by watching one of our favorite Christmas movies – White Christmas with Danny Kaye, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen.  Man, can that Vera Ellen dance!  We also love all the cocktail lounges that are part of the movie and how the women wear cocktail dresses and the men suits.  I swear that I should have turned 30 in about 1952!

When watching a movie like this we like to sip cocktails ourselves.  I wanted to stay within my sour theme of the moment and also wanted to create a cocktail that would be emblematic of White Christmas.  So, down to the Twilight Lounge I went and started tinkering.  This is what I came up with:

  White Christmas

• 2 oz Death’s Door gin
• 3/4 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz bar syrup
• 1/2 bar spoon peppermint schnapps

Combine all the ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake, shake, shake to mix and chill.  Strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with 3 fresh cranberries.

This was delicious!  Using the shaker and really shaking vigourously left bits of ice that came through the strainer and helped froth up the cocktail a bit.  This gives the drink a very nice, white, almost snowy appearance.  I did have to be careful with the peppermint schnapps to be sure not to overpower the gin and lemon juice with it.  Too much and it just takes over!  You can, however, adjust the amount of schnapps to your taste.  For instance, I do like mine just a bit more minty than Gwen did.  The Death’s Door gin is a local product made from wheat and juniper berries grown on Washington Island.  It’s not quite as strong on the flavor as a typical London dry gin.  If you don’t have Death’s Door in your area I would substitute Plymouth in its place.

With our cocktails in hand we settled in for the movie and had a fun evening!

Cheers!