Friday, June 10, 2005

The Friday Cocktail - Home to Ohio Edition

CocktailDB: The Internet Cocktail Database | Home On The Range

Leaving work at noon today to head home to Ohio for a long weekend to see my family and a wedding between good friends Shonda and Jake. I've been waiting to post a cocktail from this site for a while. It's got the most exhaustive database of drinks I've encountered. That leads to finding a lot of drinks with exotic ingredients, which can be frustrating, but all ingredients are hot-linked so you can find out more about them and consider alternatives. Another great part of the site is the mixilator, where you can specify a few parameters such as (strength of coctail, cocktail hour, style, and complexity) and it will mixilate a random recipe. Here is the Home on the Range from the CocktailDB:

  • 1oz Bourbon
  • 1oz Red Dubonnet
  • 1/2oz Cointreau
  • dash of Angostura Bitters
Stir in mixing glass with ice, strain into cocktail glass, and garnish with orange and lemon peels. Dubonnet is a sweet French aperitif wine, so I expect this cocktail to fall somewhere between a manhattan and an old fashioned (two of my favorites).

Here are a couple more "Home" cocktails:

Take Me Home:
  • 4oz Whiskey
  • 2oz Pernod
  • 20z White Creme de Cacao
Stir in highball glass. Given the strong flavor of Pernod, I'd guess this one might need a bit of personal adjustment to get it right, but the ingredients sound good to me.

Goin' Home
  • 1oz Gin
  • 1oz Peach Schnapps
  • 1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
  • 1/3oz lime juice
  • 1 1/2oz sparkling apple juice
Shake all ingredients (except apple juice) and strain into an old-fashioned glass half-filled with broken ice. Add apple juice, and serve.

Ohio Cocktail:
  • 1/2oz Sweet Vermouth
  • 1oz Whiskey
  • 1/2oz Orange Liqueur (Triple Sec, Curacao, Cointreau, etc.)
  • dash of Angostura Bitters
  • Champagne
Stir or shake all ingredients except the champagne in ice, strain into a champagne flute, and top with champagne. Garnish with a cherry. Sounds like a more refreshing version of a Manhattan.

Enjoy your weekends, I'll be back on Tuesday.

Cheers

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So a few weeks ago, I was at Tsunami downtown, which apparently suffers from the same faux-high-end disease as other downtown libation establishments. Don't get me wrong, I love the place, but this is so typical downtown. It's the beginning of summer and this one night I was excited about that, and as such ordered an old fashioned - they should be able to make one there, right? Wrong. The girl tending bar almost had a nervous breakdown. After I told her how to make it and waited like 15 minutes I got a so-so version of it. Be wary. Be very wary.

experiment33 said...

Old Fashioneds are surpisingly difficult cocktails. I probably wouldn't order one from anyone under 40 unless they had already shown themselves to be knowledgeable. Honestly, I don't make a very good one myself...yet.

Anonymous said...

I think that more drinking establishments, esp those positioning themselves as at least semi high end, should hold education like on sundays or early in the day before the bar opens once a week or month or so. Salons do it. They get the top employees to show the others tricks, certain skills, etc. and attendance is required. Sometimes a mentor can help much more than a book or touch-screen.

experiment33 said...

Love the idea, but I doubt it's realistic in this market. Why do people go to a particular bar in Baton Rouge? I'm guessing these reasons, and generally in this order: 1. to see/be seen, 2. atmosphere, 3. entertainment, and 4. drinks/price. Obviously, the priorities adjust from evening to evening. But, even a self professed "cocktail snob" such as myself generally uses these priorities. I go places where I might run into friends depending on the type of atmosphere I'm in the mood for. E.G. if I'm feeling fancy I'm going to end up at Tsunami/Red Starr/Marazil and if I'm feeling more grungy it will be Chelsea's. Duvic's is a good example, it's closer to home than the downtown establishments, but I doubt I'd ever run into any friends there and although they may make a better cocktail it's nothing special and the prices are unbelieveable. I'd love it if Tsunami or Red Starr gave a rat's ass about making a better drink, but it's not keeping people away. We just adjust our drink orders. That's why I'm almost always drinking Maker's on the rocks when I'm out, but rarely at home.

Now, to make it a more fun conversation, how would we improve Tsunami/or make something else better. I'd go with the idea of special training. I'd also make sure every bartender had a different personal specialty drink that would have to pass my inspection (so they don't just pick a recipe out of a book that taste's like donkey piss so noone ever orders it). I'd probably make that change seasonally. Maybe something like that could cultivate a cocktail conniseur clientele that would make the extra work worthwhile. Maybe when we have more downtown options it will be a gimick that could catch on. But, people are afraid of cocktails whey they have to pay through the nose. We know they're not afraid at my house, but when you're out you don't want to spend $6 on a bad old fashioned so people stick with beer, basic martinis, cosmos and 1 liquor + flavor highballs (rum and coke, gin and tonic, etc.). I think a bar would have to create the demand before we're going to get better bartenders and cocktails.

Of course, there may be bars with different clientelle that I just never go to that do some of these things. But, I also don't want to spend $6 on a good cocktail if I'm drinking it by myself.

Fingers cramping, must stop typing...

Anonymous said...

All good points. I like the idea of each bartender having their own drinks. Jeff K. and Peter Marshall, two of the better barmen the red star has ever had, are back. Jeff indefinitely as bar manager, and Peter for who knows how long, probably so long as he's in law school. He just picks up shifts whenever. Peter is responsible for "The Marshall Plan", which is delightful, as are most of the drinks he makes. Jeff had defected to marrazil, but since it's closing, is back for good he says. Marrazil has closed and a semi-ikea-mod tapas bar with new owners has taken it's place. I forget the name, but I believe they are in cahoots somehow with Roux House and Tsunami (who does Karaoke Wednesday nights now - how original). I'm in the middle of doing a "Favorite Drinks" menu for the RS right now and have suggested they might do well to back up the boasting such a menu implies. I know this was part of the employee meeting that just let out downstairs, so we will see. . .

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry - it's the Roux House who now does wed night Karaoke, not Tsunami - thought that would fit better - in that little room with the beads maybe?