From the monthly archives:

January 2007

Embury and his fine art

by Michael Dietsch on January 31, 2007 · 5 comments

in In the library

Embury's "Fine Art"

photograph by Jennifer Hess

The 1948 first edition of David A. Embury’s The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. This thing usually sells for upwards of $150-200, but Jen got it for a steal, from an online vendor who apparently didn’t know what he/she had. Although the dust jacket is missing, the condition of the book itself is excellent, with just a few scratches on the cover and a stamp on the edge of the book. But no tears, dogears, or obvious wear on the pages. Bargain!

5 comments

Party drinking: Ward 8

by Michael Dietsch on January 28, 2007 · 2 comments

in Cocktail recipes,Rye

For my friend’s birthday party a couple of weekends ago, I wanted to take a special cocktail. One that I’ve been wanting to try at home is the Ward 8–which is rye, lemon and orange juices, and grenadine–but Jen’s allergic to orange juice, so I’ve never mixed it up here. However, I thought it might go over well at a party.

Rather than trucking oranges and lemons, though, I decided to premix the juices and grenadine the morning of the party, mix, and bottle them. For the grenadine, I used Paul Clarke‘s recipe from Imbibe magazine. I used equal parts Pom and superfine sugar (half a cup each), which I shook together in bottle. I added an ounce of pomegranate molasses (which we found at Whole Foods) and shook it some more. (Paul, by the way, has a couple of other variants on grenadine recipes on his blog, if you want other ideas.)

Ward 8 recipes come in varying proportions depending on the taste of the mixer. I looked at a number of recipes and decided on these proportions:

Ward 8

  • 2 oz. rye whiskey
  • 1 oz. fresh lemon juice
  • ¾ oz. fresh orange juice
  • ¼ oz. grenadine

Technique: Shake over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

To scale this up to party measurements, I had to do a little math. Since I was planning to add the rye and ice at the party and then shake, I didn’t add any water to the mix. (If you’re fully premixing a cocktail to prechill and then serve later–that is, if you’re mixing up the base spirit and all the modifiers and you’re not planning to shake it over ice just before serving–it’s good to add water since you won’t have the water you’d get from the ice.)

A 750-ml bottle of spirit equals just over 25 ounces, and I was using an 8-4-3-1 ratio of rye-lemon-orange-grenadine. I ignored an ounce from the rye and came up with these proportions:

Ward 8, party style

  • 24 oz. rye
  • 12 oz. lemon juice
  • 9 oz. orange juice
  • 3 oz. grenadine

Technique: Shake the last three ingredients in a 24-oz. bottle.

When ready to serve, pour equal parts rye and juice-grenadine mix into a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a glass.

2 comments

Charbay v. Mother Nature!

by Michael Dietsch on January 25, 2007 · 3 comments

in Vodka

Charbay wins!

If you’ve turned on the teevee at all this month, you know that Cali got hit hard by a deep freeze that wiped out its citrus crops. To the tune of $800-million bucks, it seems.

Bad news for those of us who like some fresh juices in our cocktails. But not everyone’s so unlucky.

Just days before the cold snap, Charbay‘s master distiller, Marko Karakasevic, picked up four tons of Meyer lemons from the grower. Charbay distills its fruited vodkas using real fruits instead of chemical compounds that mimic fruit flavor, so it’s important to get good produce. Without this shipment, Charbay wouldn’t have been able to produce its Meyer Lemon vodka this year.

3 comments

More odds than ends

January 25, 2007

Feast or famine around here. I either have nothing to write about or I have more to write about than I know what to do with. I still owe Todd and Lauren’s friends a recipe for the Ward Eight, so that’s coming soon. Jen and I had an anniversary dinner/cocktail hour at Pegu Club this [...]

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Syrup experimentation

January 21, 2007

Inspired by this post, by Sam Kinsey on eGullet, I decided to make a lime syrup for gimlets. Jen and I both enjoy gimlets, but I haven’t made them in a long while because I wasn’t too crazy about the way I’ve made them. I’ve tried gin and Rose’s, but that’s too sweet and artificial [...]

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MxMo11: Winter Warmers

January 15, 2007

This month’s edition of Mixology Monday comes to us from that fine new magazine, Imbibe, whose editors have chosen the theme winter warmers, in keeping with the issue on the stands right now. My contribution isn’t particularly original, but it’s a drink I’ve wanted to try at home for a while now: Irish coffee. Jen [...]

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Party drinking

January 14, 2007

My good friend Todd had a birthday brunch party today and to help him celebrate, I took along a couple of premixed drinks that seemed to go over well. I brought a Bloody Mary premix, and also a Ward 8 premix. I left the Bloody Mary stuff out for folks to pour into a glass [...]

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Odds and ends

January 11, 2007

I’ve been quiet, but I haven’t been a complete slug. The holidays were mainly a fall-back period, in which we enjoyed our favorite cocktails and didn’t try a lot of new drinks. I sampled a few new whisk(e)ys–bourbons, scotches, and ryes–during the holidays, and I’ve come up with a fun way to evaluate a new [...]

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Green Ghost

January 8, 2007

Inspired by drinkboston.com, I decided to try a Green Ghost, since I had everything on hand the day I read Lauren Clark’s post. We loved this drink. Thanks, Lauren! photo by Jennifer Hess

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