Coffee in Venice, or Black Russian vs. Spritz Veneziano

♪ I'm beginning to drink a lot like Christmas ♫

Oh, hello everyone!  I thought this entry would be pretty straight forward - I only like coffee flavor in coffee - not desserts, ice cream, or liquors, and I enjoy most orange flavored everything (except orange flavored tofu - don't even get me started), so I'm thinking that the Black Russian would lose, and the Spritz Veneziano would win with little problem.

The Black Russian is made with vodka and coffee liqueur.  Kahlua is often used as the coffee liqueur for this, but I decided to go a different route.

Two parts of the Black Russian

Black Russian

1.7 oz. Vodka

0.7 oz. Coffee Liqueur

Pour the ingredients into the old fashioned-glass filled with ice cubes.
Stir gently.

Next at bat was the Spritz Veneziano or, as my research would show, the Aperol Spritz.  Aperol is the little brother of Campari.  You all know how much I love Campari, so I was a little nervous about this even though it wasn't supposed to be as strong a flavor as Campari.

Spritz Veneziano Ingredients

Spritz Veneziano

2 oz. Prosecco

1.4 oz. Aperol

Splash of Soda Water

Build into an old-fashioned glass filled with ice.
Top with a splash of soda water.
Garnish with half orange slice. 

The Tasting

I was amazed how much I liked the Black Russian - again, I really dislike coffee flavor in anything other than coffee, so this really surprised me.  It was, really, almost like a dessert.  The sweetness of the coffee liqueur came through nicely - I think more than 0.7 oz. would be too much.  

Side by side cocktails

I loved the taste of the Spritz Veneziano while it was in my mouth - sweet, orangey, light.  Here's the problem; when I swallowed it, it was like swallowing tobacco.  That was wet.  Because it had already been chewed.  By this guy:

Yeah, so I'm not so sure how Aperol tastes really great before swallowing, but horrid after, but it freaks me out, so the winner in this post, to my utter surprise is the Black Russian!

Black Russian Winner!

As a side note; I tried Kahlua as the coffee liqueur as well - it had that alcohol "bite" that I write about and dislike so much.  The Café Granita was so much smoother, and sweeter.  It also had a "bigger" mouth feel too if that makes sense...try it yourself, and you'll see what I mean.

Have a fantastic Christmas everyone!!!

The Ingredients

For the Black Russian:

Vodka - Prairie Organic Vodka

Coffee Liqueur - Café Granita Coffee Liqueur

For the Spritz Veneziano:

Prosecco - Riondo Prosecco

Aperol - Aperol Aperitivo

Soda Water - Canada Dry

Up Next -  Side Trip #3 - Christmas Day at Dave's

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

The Pirates Smoked my Cigars! or, Bacardi vs. Cuba Libre

I let you down.

I let myself down.

I let the entire cocktailian community down.

This is pretty bad folks.  I can't apologize enough.  It happens to everyone at one time or another, I suppose.  I just didn't think it would happen to me so soon.  See, there's been a lot of stress in my life lately, and I know it's not an excuse, but I guess that's all I have.  Please forgive me.  I can't believe I'm saying this myself, but here it goes - I bought grenadine instead of making it.  I told you it was pretty bad.  I just simply didn't have enough time to juice the pomegranate, let alone time for it to cool properly.  I will say that the brand I bought - Stirrings - is the finest manufactured version I've ever had.  It's not that red colored sugar water that's passed as grenadine so often today.  So - whew! - I feel much better now!  Next time I need grenadine I will make it, and show how I do...

...our first drink is the Bacardi!  The only drink recipe that's protected by copyright law.  "Is that true?", I wondered.  "Maybe." I answered.  "You're being incredibly liberal in your use of punctuation and grammar.", I added.   Sorry - wow - see?  A lot of stress...

Well, yeah, it's true, but only because of the name Bacardi.  If it were called "Rum Cocktail" it couldn't be copyrighted.  So - this was a fine drink - just a little too harsh/sour for me.  I think it was the rum, and you'll see why I think that at the bottom of this entry.

Bacardi

1.5 oz. Bacardi White Rum

0.7 oz. Fresh Lime Juice

0.3 oz. Grenadine

Pour all ingredients into shaker with ice cubes, shake well, strain into chilled cocktail glass.

The three parts of a Bacardi

Now we move on to the Cuba Libre.  I was surprised by this - I've had it before and really didn't care for it at all.  I had it this time, and...well..."Free Cuba!"  Hold on - if you're reading this, and part of Homeland Security, I'm not in any way saying that the US should lift any part of the embargo on Cuba.  I'm just saying that I really enjoyed this drink, so please don't deport me back to Canada...Free Cuba is what Cuba Libre means in Spanish.

Bacardi on the left and Cuba Libre on the right

Cuba Libre

1.7 oz. White Rum

4 oz. Cola

0.3 oz. Fresh Lime Juice

Build all ingredients in a highball glass filled with ice. Garnish with lime wedge.

Toss these in a glass for a Cuba Libre

Now the key to this, that I think is missed a lot, is that the directions say to build the cocktail - don't stir, just build.  Much like you'd build a pousse-café (see the B52 entry) - one ingredient at a time, and no mixing.  I'll tell you, this drink was very refreshing - it even bordered on Gin and Tonic refreshing for me.  I should A/B them one day...I'll put it on the to-blog list.

Cuba Libre!

The winner in this round was easily the Cuba Libre.  So I think the big difference was the rum brands.  I've drank Bacardi before, and I think they have a decent product, but when I compared it with Don Q's Cristal, it was night and day.  Bacardi had that nasty alcohol bite, and Don Q was smooooooth and had that nice easy-drinking mouth feel to it.  I'm glad I only bought a small bottle of Bacardi for this entry...

The Ingredients
For the Bacardi:
Bacardi White Rum - Bacardi Light
Grenadine - Stirrings

For the Cuba Libre:
White Rum - Don Q Cristal
Cola - Coca-Cola (Coke)

Up Next - Fishing in Sicily, or Barracuda vs. Bellini

If You're Gonna Bet, Is Penguin the Best Choice?, or Casino vs. Tuxedo

The titles are seriously starting to stress me out.

The Casino cocktail isn't that far away from an Aviation that you'll remember from a previous post, except it adds orange bitters and uses a different type of gin.  Actually, both drinks in today's match use a different type of gin - Old Tom Gin.  The question is - what is Old Tom Gin?  So maybe there was a neighbor of mine, let's say old Tom Finklestein (or was it stine?) that used to drink gin all the time.  Maybe I used to think Old Tom Gin was just a saying around town for normal, everyday gin.  So maybe I would have been right, if I lived in the pre-prohibition era.  Then again, I'd be writing this on an oil powered computer too.

Old Tom Gin was the gin behind every bar pre-prohibition.  The production at that time was unregulated, so a lot of the gins were quite harsh and had impurities in them - the attempt to hide the harshness resulted in the addition sugar.  Basically, Old Tom could be considered Dry Gin's (today's "typical" gin) softer, sweeter, subtler relative.   It's alcohol bite isn't as sharp and it's a little sweeter than Dry Gin, although its mouth feel was pretty heavy in the Old Tom brand I picked up.  I've heard that some people have tried to add simple syrup to gin to get Old Tom, but that just doesn't work.  Until recently, you couldn't find Old Tom in the US, but there are a couple of brands being marketed now.  What I will try at some point, is a Gin and Tonic with both a Dry Gin and an Old Tom and report back here in a future post.  I'm tingling with excitement already...

Back to the Casino - I didn't enjoy the Aviation too much, but I did really enjoy the Casino - I think the big difference was the Old Tom Gin.  I would definitely order this drink in a club...or in a casino!

Casino Ingredients

Casino

1.4 oz. Old Tom Gin

0.3 oz. Maraschino Liqueur

0.3 oz. Orange Bitters

0.3 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice

Pour all ingredients into shaker with ice cubes, shake well, strain into chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist and a maraschino cherry.

The Contenders

Now the Tuxedo was good, but I just didn't "get" as the IBA describing as an All Day Cocktail.  It's just too heavy to drink more than one of.  Ya know, too much booze in one drink for me (for those of you who know me well, you can pick your jaws up off of the floor now please).  I mean I can appreciate it, but I just wouldn't drink it again.

Tuxedo Ingredients

Tuxedo

1 oz. Old Tom Gin

1 oz. Dry Vermouth

1/2 bar spoon Maraschino Liqueur

1/4 bar spoon Absinthe

3 dashes Orange Bitters

Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into cocktail glass.
Garnish with a cocktail cherry and a lemon zest twist.

The clear winner for me is the Casino!

My bet is on this one...

 As a side note - both of these drinks have Maraschino Liqueur in them, so in my research, I was watching a video, and the bartender pronounced Maraschino with a hard k sound...so Mar-a-skee-no.  I thought the guy was off his rocker, so I had to check it out.  All of these years, I've been pronouncing Maraschino incorrectly!  It IS pronounced with a hard k!  Take that English language!  Wait....it's Croatian, isn't it?  Anyway - don't take my word for it - turn on your speakers, and check it out:  Maraschino @ Webster's.  Oh.  You already knew that?  Never mind then.

The Ingredients

For the Casino:

Old Tom Gin - Hayman's

Maraschino - Luxardo

Orange Bitters - Stirrings

Lemon Juice - Fresh

For the Tuxedo:

Old Tom Gin - Hayman's

Maraschino - Luxardo

Absinthe - St. George Absinthe Verte

Orange Bitters - Stirrings

Up Next - The Pirates Smoked my Cigars! or, Bacardi vs. Cuba Libre

War Planes for Dracula, or B52 vs. Vampiro

Welcome back!  This was an interesting match - one drink was a shot, and the other was a tall one.  The IBA recipe for the B52 says that it should be lit - I tried to light it, but I couldn't get it to flame, so this was an unlit B52.  Actually, upon further research, I've found that a B52 that's lit is called a Flaming B52...something quite different...okay, not quite different, just a bit flamier.

So the title's a little incorrect, because in my research, I found that the B52 wasn't named after the plane, but a band; a bartender in Banff, Alberta created the drink, and named his drinks after his favorite bands - so this drink was named after The B-52s.  Come to think of it, the drink really was named after a plane because the band got its name from the plane. See? Mixology can be so confusing...

B52

1 oz. Kahlua

1 oz. Bailey's Irish Cream

1 oz. Grand Marnier

Layer ingredients one at a time starting with Kahlua, followed by Bailey's Irish Cream and top with Grand Marnier.

B52 divided by three

I really enjoyed this shot - it's coffee, cream, and orange all rolled into one.  It's a type of drink called a pousse-café, or layered drink.  You build the drink one ingredient at a time.  The specific gravity of each type of alcohol is different, so one will sit upon another, making it look pretty cool.  I could see these getting sneaky on you and causing a pretty bad hangover...

...speaking of pretty bad hangovers, the Vampiro was introduced in at the 2009 New Orleans Tales of the Cocktail conference, at the session called "Paying the Piper: Your Hangover and You." (Nice segue, Dave!  My writing teachers would be so proud)!

The multitude of Vampiro ingredients

B52 and The Vampiro

It's reminiscent of a Bloody Mary, or for you Canadians, a Caesar, only with much more spice, prep work, and clean-up.  The orange juice was a nice touch.  I really couldn't taste the tequila at all, but I'm thinking that's the idea behind all of the tomato based cocktails - if I'm mistaken, chime in and let me know.

Vampiro

1 3/4 oz. Tequila (silver)
2 1/2 oz. Tomato Juice
1 oz. Orange Juice, Fresh
1/3 oz. Lime Juice, Fresh
1 tsp. Clear Honey
Half slice finely chopped onion
Few slices fresh red hot chili peppers
Few drops Worchestershire sauce
Salt

Pour all ingredients into a shaker filled with ice. Shake well, to relaese the flavour of the chili. Strain into a highball glass, filled with ice. Garnish with a wedge of lime and a chili (green or red).

It was good - the problem is that it wasn't great.  In all fairness, I think that the Bloody Mary will lose it's match too (wait, spoiler alert....oh....too late.....sorry about that....).  I'm just not that into tomato juice based cocktails I suppose....c'est la vie (for those non-francophones, I'm pretty sure that c'est la vie means "no-tomato-juice-based-cocktails-for-me-please-and-thank-you-very-much").

The Winner!

The Ingredients

For the B52:

Coffee Liqueur - Kahlua

Irish Cream - Bailey's

Orange Liqueur - Grand Marnier

For the Vampiro:

Silver Tequila - Espolon Silver Tequila
Tomato Juice - Store Brand
Fresh Orange and Lime Juice
Clover Honey

Up Next - If You're Gonna Bet, Is Penguin the Best Choice?, or Casino vs. Tuxedo

Side Trip #2 - In Over My Head, or Thanksgiving Dessert

What in the world have I done?  Ten people for Thanksgiving dinner and I've agreed to be in charge of desserts and cocktails.  Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but this year?  With all of my national campaigning and Ohio being such an undecided state?  How could I say yes to desserts and cocktails for Thanksgiving?  Oh wait.  That wasn't me...

...just know that I've had a lot of personal stuff going on - after one pivotal episode, my family kept telling me that I needn't worry about desserts or cocktails, but I foolishly said everything was fine, and I would have everything there as expected.

Around noon on Thanksgiving day, I realized that I had taken on too much (stubborn much?)  - I mean I kind of thought that the dessert bit was too much, but I could have pulled it off...I was wrong.  Soooo...my wife called her parents, and delivered the news that Thanksgiving would probably be ruined because her husband couldn't deliver dessert.  They said as long as the booze would be there, all would be forgiven.  Good to see a family that has its priorities in order.

In all seriousness...how cool is my family?  They knew that  we've been going through  life-sometimes-throws-you-curve-ball-rough-patches-all-at-once-to-see-how-much-you-can-take-before-you-break for the past few months, so our cousins from L.A. bought desserts as backups...how cool is that?

Just a quick observation...so I titled this entry on November 13th, with every intention of making the dessert for Thanksgiving.  Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy?  Maybe it was me making an announcement to the Universe, and the Universe providing what I announced?  If that's the case...hey Universe...let me pick a number...twenty seven million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars....lay it on me, please!

Back to Thanksgiving - I had already bought the alcohol, so I told them that I'd bring everything up to the in-laws for the day.  One of the drinks was a Pumpkin Alexander.  I tried to get the recipe worked out at home - one that I found online said to have equal parts brandy, creme de cacao, and pumpkin puree.  After one swallow, I threw it out and went back to the drawing board.

Ingredients for the first drink

Another version was equal parts brandy, half and half, and pumpkin liqueur.  That was okay, but really didn't taste too much like pumpkin.  I then added pureed pumpkin...too much liqueur, so I backed it off a bit, and voilà!

Pumpkin Alexander

1 oz. Cognac

1 oz. Half and Half

1 oz. Pureed Pumpkin

1/2 oz. Pumpkin Liqueur

Dash Nutmeg

Combine all ingredients except nutmeg in a shaker with ice and shake until combined.  Pour into a chilled cocktail glass.  Dash nutmeg on top.

Overall, a good pumpkiny drink.  Will I make it again?  Ummmmmm....no.  I think I was hoping for pumpkin pie in a glass, and that's not anything like what I got  - oh well - there's always next year.

Pumpkin Alexander

The next drink turned in to be something unexpected. I was looking for something that was a fall cocktail, so I found the Apple Jack Rabbit.  The only thing I didn't like about it was the Maple Syrup that was in it.  I like Maple Syrup as much as the next Canadian born boy, but I'm not so sure that I want it in a cocktail.  Someone change my mind for that.   So I substituted Brown Sugar Simple Syrup for Maple Syrup, and it worked great!

So the recipe I had was:

Apple Jack Rabbit

2 oz. Apple Brandy

3/4 oz. Lemon Juice

3/4 oz. Orange Juice

1/2 oz. Maple Syrup

....and with the Brown Sugar Simple Syrup, the recipe looks like:

2 oz. Apple Brandy

3/4 oz. Lemon Juice

3/4 oz. Orange Juice

1/2 oz. Brown Sugar Simple Syrup

The men in the family really liked this drink - the women thought it was too sour, so I altered it to be:

2 oz. Apple Brandy

2 oz. Orange Juice

1 oz. Brown Sugar Simple Syrup

To me, this was overly sweet - I think that was true by the women in the family too because B. and C. suggested that we mix the modified Apple Jack Rabbit and the non-lemon drink together, and see what we got.  AH-HA!!!!  This was a good drink!  Personally, I think it needs a little more lemon, but I think that's just a personal preference thing.  I named it after the first initial of each family's last name.

The official family cocktail as decided by me

BDM Holiday Blast

2 oz. Apple Brandy

1 1/2 oz. Orange Juice

3/4 oz. Brown Sugar Simple Syrup

1/2 oz. Lemon Juice 

So there ya have it - my 2012 Thanksgiving.  No rabbits were harmed in the creation of this post, but two turkeys were cooked and we also almost ran over a squirrel on the way to the in-laws'.

The Ingredients

For the Pumpkin Alexander:

Cognac - Landy VS

Pumpkin Liqueur - Hiram Walker Pumpkin Liqueur

For the BDM Holiday Blast:

Apple Brandy - Laird's Apple Jack

Up Next - War Planes for Dracula, or B52 vs. Vampiro

Side Trip #1 - All Hands Man Battle Stations, or Torpedo IPA

Well, well, well - our very first trip away from the IBA list to focus on an IPA.  <Nigel Tufnel accent on>Just a clever little trip upwards on the middle letter <Nigel Tufnel off>

I would have considered myself a beer guy before I moved to California.  Now I know I knew nothing.  I grew up in Canada and, like most Canadian boys, grew up thinking that our beer was better than any other in the world - especially better than that watered-down 3% grog they call beer in the land to our south.  Every time my friends and I traveled to Detroit for a concert we never thought that the beer there would affect us as much as our home brew.  Funny thing is that it always did.

The beer I'm writing about is made in the Sierra Nevada foothills by a brewing company coincidentally called Sierra Nevada.  This is an India Pale Ale called Torpedo, and quite a departure from the suds I grew up with.  It's my "go to" beer if I'm unsure what to buy.  I'm not sure how I stumbled across it, except that I was trying different beer, and ran across IPAs, and really liked them.  Most of them are citrusy, and very bitter.

The bottle

I say most because I was in Canada about three months ago after being away for five years, and had to try one of their India Pale Ales.  I won't say which one, but its initials were Alexander Keith's - it was NOTHING like an IPA here.  Ya know what it tasted like?  Yup - a lager.  What's up A.K.?

Then I was in a club with a couple of my best friends - these are brothers who know their beer.  They live an hour away from Michigan and occasionally drive there to buy beer because they can't get the good stuff in Ontario.  One of them also started to brew his own beer - with his brother helping in the capacity as the quality control engineer (read drinks the beer).  We were sitting around, chatting about beer and drinking what I thought was a lager, and they pointed out to me that it was actually an ale.

Hmmm...an ale that tastes like a lager...hey Labatt's!  There's a new marketing angle for you..."Labatt 50 - an ale that tastes like a lager!"  Leave your email address so I can tell you where to send the checks...you're welcome...

Anyway, what's my point?  Oh yeah...this is a great beer at 7.2% ABV...try it if you have a chance.  Happy Thanksgiving!

The beer

The Ingredients
Beer - Sierra Nevada Brewing Company Torpedo Extra IPA

Up Next - Side Trip #2 - In Over My Head, or Thanksgiving Dessert