Tonight at Thursday Drink Night, in the Mixo chat room, we’re hosting Allison Evanow, founder of Square One, and bartender H. Joseph Ehrmann, to discuss Botanical, the latest offering from Square One.
Here’s a great recipe that uses this spirit.
Back Again
3/4 oz. Square One Botanical
3/4 oz. Cointreau
3/4 oz. Lillet Blanc
3/4 oz. fresh lemon juice
2 dashes absinthe or Herbsaint
stemless cherry, for garnish
Combine all ingredients in a shaker with cracked ice. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass. Add garnish.
(Disclaimer: Square One sent me a sample bottle of Botanical.)
I don’t talk about this much, but I’m a member of the Cocktail and Spirits Online Writers Group, Guild, Gang, Gigolos, or… well, I forget, really. We’re a non-profit organization that offers educational and cocktail-appreciation events for the general public, via online publishing and live events. It’s through this writers’ gang that I’m going to New York in a couple of months to attend BarSmarts Live (I’ll have more to say about this soon), and it’s also through this group that I receive many of the product samples that I do, as brands attempt to reach out to the public through our group.
The Mixoloseum is our online presence. The Mixo front page currently includes a rudimentary cocktail database; you’re free to try it, but the web monkeys are still populating the database with drinks recipes and hammering out the programming of the search engine and the design of the page. The two main areas of the Mixo are the blog and the chat room, and it’s in this latter area where you’ll find us yammering at each other at pretty much any hour of the day or night.
One of these events that CSOWG hosts in the chat room is Thursday Drink Night, which happens one night a week at 7 p.m. Eastern time. The guild’s boffins choose a theme, and anyone who attends can create a new drink based on that theme, or can simply sit back and watch the hilarity. You can adapt a classic, or you can go all crazy and build something new. If you’re like me, folks will make your drink, make polite noises, toss it in the sink, and never speak of it again. If you’re actually talented, though, your drink goes up for a vote. If you’re voted Mixolomancer of the Week or whatever, you win a real prize!
Sometimes, TDN, as we affectionately call it as we cradle it in our arms and caress its chin, is sponsored by a liquor brand. Past sponsors have included Beefeater 24 gin, Fernet Branca herbal liqueur, Absinthe Mata Hari, and Oval vodka. And sometimes, TDN includes a live component, wherein a bunch of nerds invade a hosting bar, set up laptops in a corner, gank the bar’s wi-fi, and chat with the other geeks in the far-flung reaches of wherever. Back in April, I was in Brooklyn for the Beefeater 24 TDN.
Upcoming, we have, well… just stick around. We have some exciting sponsors coming up, including a few well-known brands.
This week is an unsponsored night; it’s the first anniversary of TDN and the theme is Tiki. Our extra-special guest star this Thursday will be Tiki author, sartorialist, and raconteur Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. This week’s prizes include a beautiful 50 cm gold Japanese bar spoon (that’s nearly 20 inches, folks, one of the longest spoons you’ll see), six of the newest books from Cocktail Kingdom, a signed bottle each of Obsello and Port of Barcelona gin, and a bottle of Old New Orleans Cajun spiced rum.
Every Thursday night, the cats at the Mixoloseum host a chat-room event in which folks get together to share original drink recipes. Cunningly named Thursday Drink Night, this event draws a good crowd each week. This past week’s Thursday Drink Night was sponsored by Martin Miller’s Gin. Now, I’ve written about Miller’s before. It’s a delicate, pot-distilled gin with notes of citrus and cucumber. It’s a favorite at Chez Dietschyblossom, and I love mixing with it.
I don’t often participate in TDN. Usually, Jen and I are catching up on our day right when it tips off, but because of the Miller’s theme, I wanted to participate last week. We had bought some beautiful flowering thyme from the farmer’s market, and I chose to infuse some of it into a small bit of the Miller’s. If you don’t want to take the time for thyme, you can get a similar effect by either muddling a couple sprigs of thyme into the mixing glass, or rubbing it against the inside of a chilled cocktail glass, to release its oils, before pouring the drink into the glass.
I hate naming drinks; coming up with something original is usually difficult. However, I’ve mentioned before that I think naming drinks for famous people is a “great and longstanding tradition” and it’s one I chose to uphold. Who better than the singer, songwriter, former model, and current French first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy? (By the way, if you’ve never heard her sing, and I’ll bet you the first round you haven’t, you should. She’s got a smoky, torch-singer voice.)
(drink photograph by Jennifer Hess)
Carla Bruni
2 oz. thyme-infused gin
¾ oz. Lillet
2 dashes maraschino
2-3 dashes absinthe (be very careful with this, lest you overwhelm the drink)
Thyme sprig, for garnish
Lemon peel, for twist
Stir over cracked ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass, twist lemon peel over surface of drink and discard, and garnish with a thyme sprig. Sip while enjoying this video of Carla Bruni singing her own song, “L’Amoureuse,” from her third album, Comme si de rien n’était.
As some of you know, I spent much of the last week traveling to Southern Indiana to visit my family. My mother was recently hospitalized with an illness, and after her release I made plans to see her. Jen was unable to get away from work, so she was home alone with the cats. Without [...]
Beefeater has launched its new style of gin in the United States, Beefeater 24. A production of Beefeater’s master distiller, Desmond Payne, 24 takes its name from the amount of time Payne allows its botanical blend to steep, prior to distillation. B24 features the same blend of citrus peels, juniper, coriander, and other botanicals as [...]
A Dash of Bitters is part of the Cocktails & Spirits Ad Network. To advertise on this site or across a network of cocktail and spirits related weblogs, click here.
spaetzle
SeanMike
Ryan
Cocktail Buzz
DJ HawaiianShirt
kaiserpenguin
cocktailnerd
erik_flannestad
jollyinebriate
drink-well
stevi
camper
TraderTiki
JohnTheBastard
sylvan
keith p
