Drinks to Make: November

Photo by James Ransom via Food52.

As it often does in Los Angeles, November snuck up on us. A trip to San Francisco last weekend kick-started our longing for cold weather but LA has been reluctant to comply.

Despite the sun, here are a few of the wintery drinks we're looking forward to this month: 

• Food52's Boozy Mulled Cider
• Another boozy cider, the Ginger Lemon Apple Cider with Bourbon from Outerlands. We had this last weekend and it was perfectly balanced and delicious.
• The Tonga Room's Mai Tai. At the advice of a friend we skipped the Tonga Room and got our San Francisco Tiki fix at Smuggler's Cove. Now we can recreate the drink at home, minus the boat. 

Greenbar Collective

Last week we were treated to a tour of the Greenbar Collective, a craft distillery located in Downtown Los Angeles. The distillery, tasting room, and bottling facility are located in a warehouse off 8th street. This building produces all of the company's bitters and liqueurs as well as their gin and Slow Hand whiskey. Their products are available at many bars and restaurants around Los Angeles and at select retail outlets across the country. 

There are a lot of flavored liquors out there, some of which are downright horrifying. Greenbar's spirits are refreshing in that they taste exactly like what goes into them. Allow us a Willy Wonka moment: their vanilla vodka was rich and deep, the hibiscus liqueur was appropriately sour and bitter, and the TRU organic garden vodka tasted like herbs. There were no off flavors or cloying aftertastes. 

After the tour we were able to sample all of their products in their upstairs tasting room. Our pick is the Grand Poppy, an European style aperitif/amaro, made with ingredients from and inspired by the California landscape. Greenbar offers tours and tastings, both of which come highly recommended by us. 

Summer Shrubin'

After two root vegetable and greens filled seasons, the markets are finally overflowing with fruit. Purchasing tons of nectarines, peaches, strawberries, and cherries is especially tempting after the lack of variety at the markets in the winter. You could cut back on these purchases but the better option is to take all the fruit home, regardless of your fridge space, and make a shrub.

Shrubs are made by combining fruit with vinegar. You then cook the mixture or leave it to steep before adding sugar to tame the vinegar's acidity, bottling, and storing in the fridge. Also called drinking vinegars, shrubs can be mixed with flat or sparkling water in addition to using them in cocktails. This article has great information about the history and uses of shrubs.

Using this recipe from Food52, we made a strawberry shrub during the spring and have been drinking it nonstop. Although there are commercial shrubs and plenty of fruit infused vinegars on the market, making your own is so easy and gives you endless options for experimenting. Making our own shrub also meant we could use our favorite apple cider vinegar from Ha's Apple Farm. We never thought we'd have a preferred vinegar, but we totally do, and it is this one. 

Since shrubs are bright and refreshing, they make the perfect addition to the lighter cocktails of summer. The Summer Shrubin' was created to make use of the complex, fruity, and acidic shrub while creating a low alcohol, sessionable day drink. Hey, it's summer!

Summer Shrubin'
This recipe makes two drinks.

1 1/2 oz. shrub
6 oz. sweet vermouth (Dolin is preferred)
4 oz. soda water

Pour vermouth and shrub into an iced cocktail shaker

Stir for 30 seconds
Strain into chilled coupe
Top with soda water

Cocktail!

On Friday night Bar Made went back to school with the Institute of Domestic Technology to study cocktail making*. We mixed up bottles of bitters and limoncello, then used our newfound cocktail knowledge and an assortment of homemade liqueurs and extractions to craft a unique drink. 

Our class was taught by the Institute's founder, Joseph Shuldiner, and Plow & Gun coffee co-founder Daniel Kent. Joseph and Daniel walked us through how to make extractions using herbs, dried fruit, and Everclear before letting the class loose on a table filled with extractions grouped into floral, earthy, bitter, and fruity categories. Students were encouraged to taste the pure extractions before adding them to our bottles. Our favorites were the lemongrass, peppercorn, and wormwood. #bitterparty

From there we moved on to making liqueurs using citrus rinds, simple syrup, and more Everclear. Samples of a batch of limoncello that Joseph made were passed around, and the flavor was far superior to many of the bottled varieties available at liquor stores. Once you realize how easy it is to make a bottle of bitters or a liqueur using whatever you have on hand, it seems weirder to not make this stuff yourself. 

Joseph and Daniel were funny, knowledgeable, and eager to make you as excited about cocktails as they are. One of our unique cocktails tasted like ab-so-lutely nothing, and the instructors were there to taste and offer suggestions how to improve the final product. One half of Bar Made has taken a class at the Institute before and we see many more classes in our future.

*The setting was Greystone Mansion, a historic, much-used filming location. Specifically the setting was the speakeasy in the billard room in the basement bowling alley of Greystone Mansion. More specifically, this. 

New Year!

Bar Made's New Year's Resolution is simple: to not drink more, but to drink better. 

When the idea for this blog was conceived back in the summer of 2011, our first goal was to write about products that would help people discover new beers, liquors, and drinks. People tend to graviate towards the familiar, and even seasoned drinkers such as us can spend night after night drinking martinis*, Corpse Reviver #2s, and cans of Licher. 

We came up with this cocktail in the early hours of 2013 and would like to share it here as a reminder to get behind your bar and get creative. This cocktail was created to go along with an Italian meal we were making, but the bitterness and balanced sweetness would go well with almost anything. 

The Argyle
This recipe makes 1 cocktail; double measurements to make 2 drinks.

2 oz. grappa
1 oz. maraschino liqueur
3/4 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 oz. Cynar
1/4 oz. simple syrup**

Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker; add ice
Shake until frost forms on outside of shaker
Strain into coupe, garnish with a Luxardo cherry

*Abby's preferred martini is 3 oz. gin (preferably Hendrick's); 1/2 oz. Dolin Dry vermouth; dash orange bitters; garnished with an olive; stirred, ice, coupe, downed, etc. Mike's preferred martini is 2 oz. gin (any gin will do, he says); 1 1/2 oz. Dolin Dry vermouth; dash orange bitters; stirred, ice, lemon twist, research historial beer recipes, preferably Presidential ones. 

**We originally made this drink with 1/4 oz. simple syrup, but ended up liking the one without more. Include it if the mood strikes!

The Diki-Diki

 




The Diki-Diki is a simple drink, which is why we made it tonight’s accompaniment to Pizza Night. Pizza Night is the night where we are too tired or hot to cook so we make other people do it for us. Pizza Night can occur multiple times a week. 

The Diki-Diki consists of only three ingredients, including two complex liqueurs: Swedish punsch and Calvados. Swedish punsch is a reddish-brown liqueur from Sweden that was recently made available in the U.S. under the brand name Kronan. It is sugar cane based and tastes earthy, smoky, and toasted. Calvados is an oak-aged apple brandy from Normandy. Young Calvados tastes like fresh apple cider but takes on notes of leather and becomes tannic as it ages. Similar to true Champagne and cognac, which both have to be from certain regions to carry that name, true Calvados must be from the Normandy region of France. Domestically produced versions are called applejack or simply apple brandy.

In this cocktail the rich earthiness of the punsch pairs well with the fruity earthiness of the Calvados with the acid and freshness of the grapefruit juice acting to tone down all that dirt.

Admittedly this wasn’t a great pairing for pizza as the fatty cheese ruined the depth of the Calvados and punsch. The Diki-Diki is better as a stand-alone cocktail that we recommend trying because of its ease and delicious, fresh taste.

The Diki-Diki

This recipe makes two cocktails.

3 oz. Calvados

1 oz. Swedish punsch

1 1/2 oz. fresh grapefruit juice

Measure the ingredients into a shaker, fill shaker with ice, and shake. Shake well.

Strain into cocktail glass.

Lillet Rosé!

A bottle of Lillet Rosé never lasts more than a few days in our house. Surprisingly versatile, Lillet Rosé can be sipped by itself or added to a cocktail. The rosé Lillet is sweeter and less dry than the blanc and has notes of stone fruit and herbs. 

Rosé Reverse Martini
Pictured at right. This recipe comes from the booklet attached to bottle of Lillet. It is strong and delicious! The following recipe is for one cocktail; double the measurements to make two drinks.

4 oz. Lillet Rosé
1 oz. Hendrick's gin*
2 dashes orange bitters

Combine ingredients in a cocktail glass, add ice.
Stir well!
Strain into a cocktail glass
Garnish with an orange peel


Corpse Reviver #2
Pictured at left. This is a classic that we really shook up by simply replacing the standard Lillet Blanc with Lillet Rosé.This recipe makes two cocktails.

2 oz. gin
2 oz. Prunier (an orange liqueur similar to Grand Marnier)
2 oz. Lillet Rosé
2 oz. fresh lemon juice
2 dashes of absinthe

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker, add ice. 

Shake well!

Strain into a glass.

*We used Hendrick's because we had it on hand but you can use any gin.