Fishing in Sicily, or Barracuda vs. Bellini

 Riiiight?  So you get the fishing reference but what about the Sicily one? I thought I was so clever! Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Opera composer in the 1800's from...Sicily!!!  Ha-HA-hahaha!  The drink wasn't named after him, but a toga on a saint in a painting done by 15th-century artist Giovanni Bellini. Thought I'd throw a curve ball in there.

I wasn't sure how the Barracuda was going to be - the Galliano intimidated me - I think that was one of the main reasons why I disliked the Yellow Bird so much, so I was a little apprehensive to try it.

The Uncaptured Barracuda (get it?  It doesn't have a glass around it...aww...nevermind...)

Barracuda

1.5 oz. Gold Rum

0.5 oz. Galliano

6 oz. Pineapple Juice

1 dash Fresh Lime Juice

Top with Prosecco

Stir all ingredients except Prosecco with ice in a mixing glass.  

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and top with Prosecco.

Now onto the Bellini - did you know how it was named?  Oh yeah.  This was truly a great tasting cocktail - I really enjoyed it. - great great tasting cocktail.

The Two Parts of the Bellini

Bellini

3.4 oz. Prosecco

1.7 Fresh Peach Puree

Pour peach puree into chilled glass and add sparkling wine. Stir gently.

The Tasting

My Barracuda fears were unfounded - this was a great drink...a little heavy for me, but overall, a really good drink.  The Bellini was a fantastic tasting drink.  I just couldn't get past the mouth feel of the peach puree.  It was really thick, and stuck around for a while - hey...kind of like my wife's meat loaf....ummm....only in a bad way....(nice save Dave - I don't think she reads this blog anyway so...hmm...note to self - remember to delete this and put something more clever in later...just.in.case...)

The Challengers

The recipe does say to use fresh puree, but it's December so it's obviously unavailable - I'd like to revisit it sometime with fresh puree, but the Bellini won't be moving onto Round Two, so the winner for this match is the Barracuda!

Barracuda

The Ingredients
For the Barracuda:
Gold Rum - Pusser's British Blue Label Rum
Galliano - Itself
Pineapple Juice - Dole (I know I always said to use fresh, but I don't have a juicer yet - stay tuned)
Fresh Lime
Prosecco - Riondo Prosecco

For the Bellini:
Prosecco - Riondo Prosecco
Peach Puree - Finest Call Peach Puree

Up Next - Coffee in Venice, or Black Russian vs. Spritz Veneziano

Brandy, Birds, and Mother-in-Laws, or Alexander vs. Yellow Bird

Welcome to my first blog post!  I think I'm supposed to say somethin' like that, ain't I?  I'm pretty sure Google won't let me post if I don't put that first bit in, so...there it is Google people...relax...

Okay...for this first installment, I'm going to tackle the Alexander and the Yellow Bird.  I had never heard of the Yellow Bird, and I wasn't sure if the Alexander was the same as the Brandy Alexander.  I looked at the recipe on the IBA's site, and instead of it calling for brandy, it asked for cognac.  Cognac?  Why isn't it called Cognac Alexander instead of Brandy Alexander?  Oh wait...this is just called Alexander.  I got it - an Alexander isn't the same as a Brandy Alexander.  Look at me - learning stuff already!  

Well...wait...they actually are the same...sort of...I did some digging, and I found that cognac is brandy, but brandy isn't cognac.  For brandy to be considered cognac, it has to be from a region of France called, strangely enough, Cognac. So...a Cognac Alexander could also be called a Brandy Alexander, but a Brandy Alexander may or may not be called a Cognac Alexander depending on where the brandy is made, which is why...

...ready?

...they just call it an Alexander.

Yeah...I know...I was pretty excited too.

Alexander ingredients

I didn't have fresh nutmeg so I used the pre-ground -I'm not so sure how much of a difference the fresh ground would make.

Alexander 

1 oz. Cognac

1 oz. Crème de Cocoa (brown)

1 oz. Fresh Heavy Cream

Fresh Nutmeg

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Sprinkle with fresh ground nutmeg.

Ingredients in a Yellow Bird

Now onto the Yellow Bird - I had never heard of this drink before, so I really wanted to try it.  I've searched recipes on the net, and none of them look too much like the one from the IBA.  Most of them add fruit components like pineapple juice, or crème de banana.  I wasn't quite sure why they weren't closer to the IBA recipe until the actual night of the taste test.  The IBA recipe is pretty straight forward, so here it is:

Yellow Bird

1 oz. White Rum

0.5 oz. Galliano

0.5 oz. Triple Sec

0.5 oz. Lime Juice  

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.   

The Taste Test
I love the Alexander - what a great drink to unwind with (and zero calories too, I've heard).  I couldn't drink it all night, but after a meal or while watching a movie, it's fantastic.

My Mother-in-law was over and she wanted to try the Yellow Bird.  Once she took a sip, she made a face, shook her head, and blurted out, "cough syrup!".  My thought was that she normally has an impeccable palate, so she must just be exaggerating, or senility had finally settled in, and she was indeed, asking for cough syrup in addition to the cocktail in the hopes of reliving her teenage youth, and those cough-syrup-shooter filled nights in Alabama.  Ah, the stories she tells.


But back to the test - she didn't read it wrong - after tasting the Yellow Bird myself, I then knew why the recipes on the Internet included so many different fruit elements...it tasted like cough syrup (and not even the good kind).  I tried to alter proportions a little bit to see if I could get it less cough-syrupy and more want-to-drinky, but I really couldn't.  This was just not good - at least I didn't like it.

The two competitors

So the clear winner in the first edition of Drinking the IBA is - the Alexander!

The winner!

Ingredients  
For Alexander:
Cognac - Courvoisier VS
Crème de Cacao - DeKuyper
Organic Heavy Cream
Fresh Lime

For Yellow Bird:
White Rum - Don Q Cristal
Galliano - Ummm...Galliano
Triple Sec - Cointreau
Fresh Lime

Up next...The Drinks That Fun Forgot, or Americano vs. White Lady