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RHUBY Experiment: Pale Fire

August 18, 2011 by Jen

photo via Art in the Age

After weeks and weeks of anticipation for Art in the Age’s newest spirit RHUBY, Jon surprised me with a brand new bottle that he had literally snatched from the hands of a clerk at our local Wine and Spirits store. We had been waiting for a while to try their new liquor, being huge fans of ROOT and SNAP. We each had a glass of RHUBY by itself to see what it tasted like on its own and it’s definitely unlike Art in the Age’s other 2 boozes.  RHUBY is much more delicate and has a vaguely spicy initial taste with a surprisingly citrus-y finish.  Unlike ROOT, I don’t think I’d drink this spirit on the rocks, but in my opinion, it makes a really great addition to cocktails with rum, gin or whiskey.

I decided to start my experimenting with RHUBY and rum, so I mixed up this little cocktail:

Pale Fire
1.5 oz RHUBY
1.5 oz 10 Cane Rum
1 oz vanilla syrup
3 dashes West Indian Orange Bitters
2 strawberries, muddled in a rocks glass

Shake well with ice, and serve over crushed ice and muddled strawberries and a strawberry garnish.

NOTES: I have to admit, this drink would have been 10x better had I made a real vanilla bean syrup and not an embarrassing short cut syrup that I won’t even post the recipe for because it was awful. I think, overall, the drink would be fantastic with 1.5 oz RHUBY and just 1 oz of 10 Cane plus a real vanilla syrup (that I swear I’ll make once I can afford to buy a handful of vanilla bean pods).  I’m excited to try RHUBY with gin as well, because I think the two flavors will mix very nicely.  Also, I’m making a peppercorn tincture for RHUBY too because I’d really like to bring out the hint of pepper and spice it has.

Posted in Orange Bitters, Rhuby, Rum, Strawberries, Vanilla Syrup | 2 Comments »

Common Sense

August 18, 2011 by Jon

After being teased with advance ads for over a month, we were finally able to get our hands on a bottle of RHUBY, Art In The Age’s newest liqueur. We sat down to try it out by itself first. I will say it’s not quite the sipping spirit that I found ROOT to be, mostly because it’s got a much more delicate flavor, so I could taste the neutral spirit coming through a bit. Once we started mixing it, however, it really started to shine. I was most impressed with the way it blended with bourbon and rye, really enjoying glasses of 1:1 RHUBY and Bulleit bourbon, which I expanded on a little in this one:

Common Sense
1 oz Buffalo Trace Bourbon
1 oz RHUBY liqueur
0.25 oz Grand Marnier
0.25 oz Cherry Heering
0.5 oz Vanilla Syrup

Shake ingredients well with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass and serve up with a maraschino cherry garnish.

NOTES: Pretty damn good. With the exception of the vanilla syrup failure, it balanced nicely. The first couple sips of the drink before the chemical vanilla ruined it were really enjoyable, and I might sound like a broken record here, but those cherries really improve EVERYTHING. I’m definitely going to revisit this one when we get some proper vanilla pods and make the syrup correctly.

Vanilla Syrup
I’m going to get it right out of the way in the beginning: the corner-cutting we did to get this done without a trip to the store was a big failure. The flavor was right for a minute or so, and it smelled fantastic, but imitation is really just that. We’re going to give it another shot with vanilla pods, and I’d even try it with real vanilla extract, but imitation was gross. It had a real chemical aftertaste that ruined drinks after a couple fingers.

6 oz water
6 oz sugar
1 oz Imitation Vanilla extract

Posted in Bourbon, Cherry Heering, Grand Marnier, Rhuby, Vanilla Syrup | 1 Comment »

Closing Time

August 15, 2011 by Jon

This weekend, Philadelphia Distilling had a contest that invited people to come up with recipes for their new booze, Shine, including one of their other spirits (Vieux Carre Absinthe, Penn 1681 Vodka & Bluecoat Gin) for the chance to win a free bottle of Shine. Here’s the one we came up with!

1 oz Shine (corn) Whiskey
1 oz Dill-infused Penn 1681 vodka
0.5 oz Benedictine
1 oz Homemade Corn Syrup
3 healthy dashes Celery Bitters

Cut the skin off a pickle and muddle the meat of it in the bottom of a rocks glass with the celery bitters. Add crushed ice.

Shake remaining ingredients well with ice and pour into the glass. Top off with a splash of seltzer and stir once, taking care not to disturb all the pickle on the bottom.

Rim glass with a slice of pickle, garnish with it, and enjoy!

Corn Syrup
Puree 1 cup of fresh or frozen corn with 1 cup of water. Bring the mixture to a boil and add 1 cup of sugar. Simmer on low heat until thickened. Remove and bottle without closing the top. Once cooled, add 1 oz vodka and shake well. Refrigerate.

Dill-Infused Vodka
Cram some dill into a bottle of vodka. Wait to drink until most of the color has leeched out of the dill. That’s it!

NOTES: Might be one of the weirder drinks we’ve attempted, but it ended up being really interesting. The corn flavor isn’t completely overpowering, and it’s sweet without being cloying. Surprisingly, the celery bitters are what make the drink. I would actually enjoy this as a brunch drink, personally. It’s a little reminiscent of a pickle-heavy bloody mary, but more refreshing and less substantive.

Oh, and don’t mind the photo. Jen is on vacation, so I had no choice but to take it myself. Sorry.

Posted in Benedictine, Celery Bitters, Corn Syrup, Corn Whiskey, Vodka | 2 Comments »

The Sun Also Rises

August 8, 2011 by Jon

1 oz SNAP
0.5 oz Mount Gay Light Rum
0.25 Oz Green Chartreuse
1 oz Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice
4 drops Molasses Bitters

Combine all ingredients with ice and shake well. Pour over an ice cube and spray drink with the oils from a slice of orange peel. I wrapped the orange peel around candied ginger, but I’m sure garnishing with just the orange peel would be just fine.

NOTES: I’m surprised how much I actually liked this one. Before now, I was struggling to really enjoy SNAP as I did with ROOT because it was just too sweet on its own, but the Chartreuse really helped to level it out, and bring just a hint of that side-of-the-tongue tingle that I always get from Chartreuse. The orange juice being actually fresh squeezed is imperative, too. Not even just that organic fancy orange juice, because it’s just too thick and soupy. Squeezing it straight out of an orange into the measuring cup leaves you with a nice thin, orange-without-being-too-orangy juice much closer to lemon juice than what you buy at the supermarket. Overall, this was a really nice drink. Refreshing, but boozy enough to still have a good kick. Might use 0.75 oz orange juice next time just to make sure I’m not losing any of the flavor behind the citrus.

Posted in Green Chartreuse, Molasses Bitters, Rum, Snap | Leave a Comment »

How To Start Your Own Home Bar

August 5, 2011 by Jon

Our own @jen_k put together a guest post on how to get started on your own home bar over at Drink Up Columbus. Check out the full article here!

Do you have a couple bottles of random liquor sitting around your house? Have you ever wished that you could throw together some delicious cocktails on a moment’s notice? Maybe your story sounds like mine: About a year ago, after spending one too many nights and a few too many dollars on cocktails at bars, I decided that it might be time to do something about my habit. With tee-totaling out of the question, my only option was to cut out the middle man and learn how to experiment with cocktails at home.

Initially, it seemed like one hell of an undertaking. Aisle after aisle of vodka flavored for every mood imaginable. Dark rum, light rum, spiced rum, aged rum, etc, etc, etc. After lots of “research” (does driving down to Kentucky to try 6 different kinds of bourbon at The Party Source count?), I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to build your own home bar. If you have about $200 and an adventurous liver, you can easily start stocking your own liquor cabinet and begin to impress your friends with your own homemade creations.

Disclaimer: I am in no way a professional. I’m a booze hobbyist and enthusiast, and nothing more. With that in mind, I hope you can benefit from the research and experience I’ve gathered over the past year, and I hope you have as much fun experimenting as I have! (more >)

Posted in Miscellany | 1 Comment »

National Watermelon Day

August 4, 2011 by Jon

On Wednesday morning we learned that it was officially National Watermelon Day, and we just so happened to have a watermelon in the fridge, so it would have been unpatriotic to NOT make watermelon cocktails. Surprisingly, we tried three, and all three were pretty tasty. The watermelon juice was simple enough:

Puree some watermelon in a blender, then strain. The end.

The first of the three (above) was a general approximation of a drink that a friend of ours told us about having in a bar (DeepWood in Columbus, OH) made of  gin, watermelon juice and Creme de Violette. We made a slight alteration, and the result was pretty damn good.

1.5 oz Bluecoat Gin
2 oz watermelon juice
0.25 oz Creme Yvette

Shake well with ice and serve up, garnish with watermelon.

As good as that one was, the two drinks we tried on our own actually came out even better. (After the break)

Continue Reading »

Posted in Angostura, Aperol, Burlesque Bitters, Creme Yvette, Gin, Rye, St Germain, Tequila, Watermelon Juice | Leave a Comment »

The Bag Project, pt 1

August 2, 2011 by Jon

So it’s not exactly a cocktail recipe, but ever since I saw this amazing (but wholly unaffordable – at least for me) bag for carrying around all of my bar tools, I’ve been trying to come up with a way to approximate it at home. I’ve come up short on bags for other purposes that could be easily co-opted, so I’ve landed on just sucking it up and trying to make one myself.

I went on eBay and bought a cheap shoulder bag and some heavy-duty elastic and velcro, and plan to attempt my own version of a bar tool carrying case. It won’t be the vintage-looking work of art from Moore & Giles, but if I do it correctly, it ought to do the trick. The picture shows roughly what I’d like to get into the bag (with a few changes…I’ll probably omit the flask and try to add a cutting board and I forgot to include measuring spoons & a knife), but that is the gist. I’m giving myself even odds on failure, and was going to hold off posting anything about this until I started to make real progress to save myself the embarrassment, but maybe this can be the motivation to NOT fuck up.

Oh, and I don’t have a sewing machine, so this will have to be all hand-sewn. Progress reports to follow.

Posted in Miscellany | 5 Comments »

Citrus County

July 28, 2011 by Jon

2 oz Bluecoat Gin
0.5 oz Ramazzotti Amaro
0.5 oz Lemon Juice
1 egg white
4 dashes West Indian Orange Bitters

Shake everything but the bitters really hard for about 10 seconds without ice. Then add a couple cubes and shake for an additional 10 seconds. Strain carefully, making sure to get all of the good egg froth from the bottom of the shaker. Dash bitters on top of the finished drink.

NOTES: Jen certainly loves her egg white drinks, that’s for sure. Super citrusy and pretty damn tasty. If anything, a little too much gin and not enough Ramazzotti. Might try 1.5oz / 1 oz next time.

Posted in Egg White, Gin, Orange Bitters, Ramazzotti | Leave a Comment »

Night Train

July 28, 2011 by Jon

2 oz Bourbon
0.75 oz Applejack
0.5 oz Cherry Heering
0.25 oz Aperol
3 drops Burlesque Bitters

Shake well with ice, pour over a large ice cube. Squeeze some orange oil out of a peel into the finished drink and drop in to garnish.

NOTES: Good flavor, but the Bulleit bourbon was a little overpowering. Would like to try again with a smoother rye, maybe upping the applejack to a full ounce. Burlesque bitters are a little less potent than the Fee Brothers I’m used to, so that could also probably increase.

Posted in Aperol, Applejack, Bourbon, Burlesque Bitters, Cherry Heering | 1 Comment »

Deadeye Dick

July 27, 2011 by Jon

1.5 oz Scotch
1 oz Ginger Syrup
0.5 oz Honey Syrup
0.5 oz Pimm’s
0.5 oz St. Germain
0.5 lemon juice
2 healthy dashes Whiskey Barrel Bitters

Shake ingredients well with ice and pour over a large ice cube. Dash with seltzer (we’re talking like a tablespoon here, don’t drown the thing) and garnish with candied ginger.

07/27/11 NOTES: Kind of took a shot in the dark with some of these ingredients and it really ended well. This one turned out to be damn tasty, if ever-so-slightly too sweet. Making again I might up the scotch to 2 oz and/or cut out the honey syrup totally. The Pimm’s gave it a nice, surprising aftertaste. I’ll be making this one again.

09/11/11 UPDATE: 2 oz Scotch and cutting out the honey did exactly what I hoped it would. I also made a new batch of ginger syrup that turned out a bit spicier than the last, which had a great effect on the drink. Otherwise, unchanged this is a really drinkable one. Winner, in my opinion.

Posted in Ginger Syrup, Honey Syrup, Pimm's, Scotch, St Germain, Whiskey Barrel Bitters | 2 Comments »

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