This past Monday I helped put together the Campari/USBG Cincinnati regional event for their national Best Campari Aperitivo competition. I also created the passing cocktail. The passing cocktails don't generally need to follow the competition rules, so mine involved homemade ingredients while the competitors' did not.
Aperitivos are are liquors/liqueurs/cocktails designed to stimulate the appetite and get your tastebuds working. To break my cocktail down, Campari is an aperitivo liqueur, anise is a spice that is known to be an appetite stimulant, and prosecco is commonly a first-ordered drink before dinner. I tried to make this as textbook aperitivo as possible. I also tried to make it as light as possible, and not use the full ounce of Campari that the competitors were using, as I didn't want to overwhelm anybody's palates before the main show.
I thought the name thoroughly appropriate, as the phrase generally refers to beginnings of many kinds (relationships, business endeavors, etc.), and the use of garnish, and the cocktail's style as a "beginning" before a meal...very multifaceted meaning.
Stars in Our Eyes
Glass: Champagne Flute
Garnish: Long twist of blood orange and Star Anise
Method: Shake and Double Strain
Ingredients:
.5 oz Campari
.25 oz Fresh blood orange juice (I used Moro blood oranges)
.5 oz Anise simple syrup (2 parts sugar, 1 part water, 1 tsp anise seeds)
1/4 tsp Anise seeds
Shake well with ice, double strain into champagne flute, and top with 3-4oz of Brut Prosecco. Garnish with long blood orange twist and star anise.
Okay...trying to make up a bit for lost time. Sorry for the sad lack of October posts, guys! It's been a busy month!
I did a fall cocktail event with Buckeye vodka earlier this month, so be prepared for some more Buckeye vodka recipes over the next month-ish. Since the fall and winter tend to be more dark liquor months, I tried to incorporate some fall/winter types of flavors into vodka cocktails for them. This one would be lovely for a Christmas-ish or New Years party. I'd never even tried quince prior to making this syrup, but I was extremely pleased with the result!
For those of you who don't know about quince fruit, historians and mythologians are pretty certain that it was the "apple" referenced in the Garden of Eden, and any golden apple references in Greek and Roman mythology (like the one Eris inscribed and tossed to Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera that essentially started the Trojan War). The raw taste is very dry, tart, and somewhere between an apple and a pear. I also read that they have ties to the rose family--hence the intoxicating scent, I'm guessing. To get real flavor out of it you want to make it into a syrup or jam, really. I made a very easy simple syrup. I peeled and diced three quince fruit and brought it verrrrrrrrrry slowly to a boil with about 30oz sugar and 30oz water (I typically use Store and Pours to measure for my syrups...ha) and then strained out the diced fruit. The syrup turned a gorgeous pink color with an incredibly intoxicating scent as it simmered.
Rose of Eris
Glass: Champagne flute
Method: Shake and Strain
Garnish: Long lemon twist
Ingredients:
1 oz Buckeye vodka (Ciroc might be a great substitution for those not in Ohio)
.75 oz Quince simple syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters
Shake with ice and strain into a champagne flute. Top with prosecco and garnish. Indulge.
So it appears that Blogger ate my Mixology Monday post,and since MxMo is tomorrow and my post still hasn't returned...I guess I need to try this again.
This month's theme for MxMo is Flores de Mayo--floral cocktails!--and is being hosted by Dave over at The Barman Cometh. My cocktail is actually a pair of cocktails that came about when I was trying to think of what flavor profiles I would like to pair with Hendricks. I ended up with Fernet Branca and rosewater in the recipe, and then I thought..."hm...Four Roses would go really well with these, too!" What resulted was a pair of cocktails that I knew I could not bear to separate if they were ever to go on a cocktail list. The only challenge was naming them. These are two pages taken from the same chapter, so to speak, and the name needed to reflect that. After grilling my brain since their creations in...well...February, I finally figured it out a few weeks ago--Gatsby and Daisy.
The Gatsby
Method: Shake and Strain
Glassware: 10 oz Collins
Garnish: Lemon twist
Ingredients:
1.25 oz Four Roses bourbon
3/4 tsp Fernet Branca
.33 oz Rosewater simple syrup**
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into Collins glass filled with ice. Top with ginger ale. Garnish.
The Daisy
Method: Shake and strain
Glassware: Champagne flute
Garnish: Lemon twist
Ingredients:
1 oz Hendricks gin
1/2 tsp Fernet Branca
.33 oz Rosewater simple syrup**
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into champagne flute. Top with prosecco. Garnish.
**To make the rosewater simple syrup, simply add one drop of rosewater to one ounce of 2:1 simple syrup.
Given that right now I'm wrapping up work on my Valentine's menu (and given that the holiday is just around the corner), I'm sticking with cocktails I've been working on for that. One of the things I love to do is introduce people to liquors they think they don't like through drinks that I'm pretty certain they'll like. The Lady Godiva's Stand from my last entry is one great example of that (it features Cognac, and people seem to be scared of Cognac, for some reason), and this is another (tequila is another that too many people seem to shy away from).
St. Cupid's Arrow
Glass: Champagne flute
Method: Shake and Strain
Garnish: No garnish, though if you have elderflowers that aren't riddled with pesticides or other chemicals, one floating would be lovely, as they are edible.
.75 oz Sauza Hornitos Plata tequila
.5 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur
Dash of simple syrup
Shake the above ingredients with ice, and strain into a champagne flute. Fill with a dry prosecco.
On naming: This is a drink where the name came before the cocktail. I rarely attempt this because I'm generally terrible at pairing what would taste like the name sounds. This started as "Cupid's Arrow" for a suitably Valentine's-y drink, and I added the "St." when I decided to use the St. Germain.
On my Valentine's menu in general: You'll probably notice that my Valentine's cocktails are actually fairly simple to execute. Valentine's weekend is notoriously busy in the restaurant industry, and I wanted to make it as painless as possible for my bartenders. While our normal drink menu (which will also be available that weekend as usual) contains a lot of fresh-squeezed juices and other things that take some time and patience to execute, I wanted to give them a bit of a break on one of the busiest weekends of the industry. I love craft cocktails, and cocktails that take love and time and effort, but learning to balance that with a restaurant space that used to be corporate and so seats over 200 once the patios are open this summer (yet only has a 12-seat bar) has definitely been a learning curve.
