8th July, 2010 | Tags: , | 2 Comments
 

One day I’ve red a little story about a cocktail made by Murray Stenson, bartender at Zig Zag Café, Seattle, USA. That article has been written by well-known mixology expert Gary Regan for his San Francisco Chronicle column. It was very warm-hearted text among other things.

I was intrigued with such complex ingredients combination – whiskey and equal parts of cherry brandy, lime and Fernet Branca.

Porteno

That cocktail is called Porteño. As far as I know it means Argentinean who lives in Buenos Aires. Another interesting fact is that Argentineans are mad about Fernet. While all world drinks Coca-Cola with rum, they drink Fernando – Coca-Cola mixed with Fernet.

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29th June, 2010 | Tags: , , , | 6 Comments
 

тоже

Vodka-based Martinis now become an everybody’s fad. A lot of recipes, variety of vodkas – flavoured or not, juices, liqueurs, bitters… Crazy times, crazy drinks.

I have to admit that recently I’ve gave up and started to invent my own Martinis too.

Baltic Martini

Here is one of that recipes. I’ve called it «Baltic Martini» because of Riga black balsam and Finlandia Vodka used there. The third ingredient is homemade black currant infusion traditionally made in Central and Northern Russia.

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3rd June, 2010 | Tags: , | 14 Comments
 

For some time bourbons became my favourite strong alcohol I’m used to utilize in cocktails.

I think the perfect companion for bourbon is fresh orange juice possibly with lime juice or syrups to bring sweetness and sourness to the balance. I’ve knew it from my own experience but later I’ve got that this combination is well-known so I’ve ended my attempts to find a perfect recipe and started to search for the known mixologists’ cocktails.

Soon I’ve found three wonderful cocktails – Bourbon Cooler and Eastern Whiskey Sour in «Thinking Bartender» book by George Sinclair and St. Nicky Sour at Cocktail Chronicles website.

St. Nicky Sour, as Paul Clark said in his post, is the creature of Jeff «Beachbum» Berry, a specialist in tiki drinks culture. And George Sinclair calls Trader Vic (Victor Bergeron) an author of  Eastern Whiskey Sour.

Bourbon Sours

Two my bourbons comparison was another object I pursued. It was Basil Hayden’s, a wonderful whiskey of Jim Beam premuim bourbons line, and Old Virginia Straight Bourbon, little known but definitely not bad whiskey.

I didn’t compare these bourbons neat but explored how they work in cocktails like that I mentioned above.

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12th May, 2010 | Tags: , | 9 Comments
 

For a long time I was going to tell about a couple of premium bourbons I love very much. But it turned out otherwise, and now I write about one little known bourbon which is always within easy reach of my hand. It’s called Old Virginia Kentucky Straight Bourbon, and I’m used to choosing it when I make cocktails with bourbon.

Old Virginia Kentucky Straight Bourbon

I can’t find enough information concerning this whiskey. It’s known that Old Virginia brand is owned by French company Le Martiniquaise which also owns several little known whisky, vodka and gin brands. It seems like these ones as well as Old Virginia Bourbon are distributed mainly in France.

In Russia these brands are available through French retailer Auchan. And Auchan hypermarket was the place where I’ve bought a bottle of Old Virginia Kentucky Straight Bourbon aged for six years.

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15th April, 2010 | Tags: , , , | 6 Comments
 

Lemon Drop (or Lemon Drop Martini) is very popular drink. Google gave me links to millions of pages referred to this recipe.

My choice is the CocktailDB recipe, nice drink without vermouth, triple sec or bitters. I’m not an expert in mixology history but CocktailDB tells me that this Lemon Drop is taken from “The Joy of Mixology” by Gary Regan; New York: Clarkson Potter; 2003.

This is the second reason why I wanted to make Lemon Drop. The first one is my new citrus tinctures as well as my intention to use it in some recipes.

Lemon Drop

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