At the violet hour, the hour when eyes and back and hand
Turn upward from the desk, the human engine waits–
Like a taxi throbbing waiting at a stand–
To spring to pleasure through the horn or ivory gates.¹

The Violet Hour is a drink that was submitted and featured at Tales of the Cocktail…2008. Yes, sometimes it takes me that long to trudge through a deck of 300 recipes to find ones that show some promise and don’t require my traveling to the plateau of upper Tibet in search of Witches Bane root to be steeped in Unicorn saliva for 20 years under the shade of a Wispwillow tree. I am remiss in taking so long to get to it, as it’s quite dandy.

Toby Maloney opened the Violet Hour in 2007 and it has received accolades as one of the best bars in America. And, certainly, when one visits Chicago, it has become a must-visit attraction for cocktailians. And while I’ve not seen the Violet Hour cocktail on their current menu, Toby apparently featured it at last year’s Tales of the Cocktail as a means of honoring his bar and honor it he has.

The Violet Hour

• 2oz Bourbon (used Bulleit)
• 3/4oz Sweet Vermouth (used Carpano)
• 1/4oz Dry Vermouth (used Cinzano)
• 1/10oz Cruzan Blackstrap
• 3 dashes Fee’s Old Fashioned Bitters

While very much like a Brooklyn that’s been inverted and is using Blackstrap instead of maraschino as a sweetener, the Blackstrap and heavy dose of bitters makes different enough to warrant its own place in a cocktail rotation. The Violet Hour starts with a very Manhattan-esque flavor and then a caramel back with just enough cassia and cardamom from the bitters holds sway to give you something else to think about and consider. Using Fee Old Fashioned is critical in this one. Having tried several others, the rest not quite giving the baking spice zing of Fee’s and allowing the drink to fall off, Fee’s is the order of the day.

The other note I have on this drink is the Blackstrap. 1/10oz is around 1/2 teaspoon and I believe it could use a touch more. And by “touch” I mean about twice as much. The caramel character blending with the spice of the bourbon and the bitters at the back-end of this drink is, to me, what makes it special. Even if you up it to 1/8oz (3/4t) you’ll have an improved drink. So, my recommendation is to use 3/4t or 1t Blackstrap in the drink and move back from there if you find it overly tacky or aggressive.

Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the violet hour, which usually falls around 8:00pm this time of year. A perfect time for a drink, don’t you think?

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The Violet Hour Rating:

1. this is a line prior to Eliot’s revisions to the first draft of “The Waste Land”, and I prefer it still to the folderol re: Tiresias and his bloody “throbbing” [↩]

Upcoming TDN: DOM – B&B and Benedictine

B&B and Benedictine are classic and elegant ingredients used in a host of cocktails from the Singapore Sling (ok, *some* versions) to the Widow’s Kiss to whatever you decide to make at this Thursday’s TDN. THIS week’s special feature will be a LIVE! broadcast of the goings-on at the Monkey Hut where Craig, Blair, Rick, and special guest star Jeffrey Morgenthaler will be mixing and waxing poetic the whole evening. As always, festivities begin at 7pm EST in the Mixoloseum Bar.

TDN Vermouth Wrap-up

It was going to be tough to follow TDN: Mata Hari what with its awesome live action at the Tabard Inn and mocking of Oklahoma and sinking of such glorious failures of drinks as the Cannibal Curse (1.5oz Batavia Arrack, I rest my case) but TDN Vermouth came close. Vermouth, in many ways, gave birth to the modern cocktail and opened up endless possibilities beyond the simple “spirit, sugar, bitters, and water” make-up of the earliest cocktail form. The Manhattan, Martinez, and, in turn, the Martini, of course, being the primary examples of the explosion that happened after vermouth was introduced and popularized in the U.S. Whether our contributions will reach that same level of global appreciation and ubiquity remains to be seen, but at least it wasn’t for lack of trying:

Winning Drink

If I had no shame I would award it to my own drink, The Right Stuff, because the use of Pisco and how it came together was really sexy. However, the Financial District was a widely-tried and very well-regarded drink submitted by drink-well of LA who needs to get ahold of me to pass along his information to get his prize to him. Congrats, sir¹ .

Financial District

• 1.75oz Bourbon
• .75oz dry vermouth
• .25oz coffee liqueur
• dash orange bitters
• dash peychaud

Stir, strain, and garnish with a lemon twist

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Other drinks you should try:

By beautiful wonderful, me.

The Right Stuff

• 2oz pisco
• 1oz bianco
• .5oz grapefruit juice
• .25 simple
• .25 curacao (used Grand Marnier)
• 2dash old fashioned bitters

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

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Submitted by Paul who warns, sharply, do NOT use McClelland’s Islay single malt for this drink, gabe.

Ex

• 1.5 oz sweet vermouth
• .5 oz cask-strength rye
• .5 oz Campari

Stir & strain in glass rinsed with Islay single malt

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Offered up by Rick who will claim it’s the greatest drink ever made, and is dead wrong. But it is awfully damned good.

Jaynestown

• 2oz Firefly sweet tea vodka
• 1oz Dolin blanc
• 2 dashes lemon bitters

Stir and strain over ice

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One of my favorites of the night, and a very classically-styled drink submitted by Jake Parrott.

R.W. APPLE’S ORCHARD

• 1.5 oz apple brandy
• 1.5 oz Dolin blanc²
• dash peach bitters
• dash Decanter bitters³

Stir/strain and garnish with a lemon twist

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Offered, presumably with affection, by Rick and Craig.

Tiki Antica

• 1.5oz Carpano Antica
• 1oz Appleton Extra
• .5oz dark Jamaican rum (used Coruba)
• 1oz Licor 43
• .5oz lime
• .25oz falernum
• float 1oz ginger beer and .5oz Blackstrap Rum

Kick Rick and Craig’s collective asses with a swizzle stick for throwing in the kitchen sink where it’s not likely needed, and then make think and probably enjoy it.

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Submitted by John, a surprisingly good drink that I would cut back on the orgeat with if made again.

Well Stocked Bar

• 2oz gin
• 1oz lillet
• .5oz cynar
• .5oz dry vermouth
• .75oz orgeat
• 1oz lime
• 1 egg white
• 2 oz soda

Shake, strain, top w/ soda

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As always, the whole shameful debacle can be perused, mocked, and set aflame at your leisure.

NOTE: In the future, TDN judging will be handled in a new and exciting way. YOU can be part of selecting the winning cocktail each week. The host(s) will select a group of 4-5 cocktails they feel are worthy of consideration and post them on Friday in a poll on the Mixoloseum blog. Then, over the next few days, try the drinks and vote on your favorite and it will be declared in Tuesday’s wrap-up. Viva la Democracy!!

1. or ma’am, you never can be sure [↩]
2. I used Cinzano Bianco [↩]
3. I used Fee’s Old Fashioned [↩]

I have a problem with Imbibe!¹ and, in a larger sense, fussy-buns cocktails that require a body to prepare anywhere from 2 days to 4 weeks in advance to make a drink. You see, I’m not a planner. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the publication and think it’s gorgeous, brilliantly designed and edited, and I find you can rarely go wrong mixing up one of its drinks. But, therein lies the problem; I often can’t. This, from a guy with over 200 bottles of spirits and 30+ mixing supplements (bitters, syrups, infusions, etc.) at his disposal. I can’t imagine what a traditional reader faces what with the calls for tamarind syrup, algarrobina syrup, pinot grigio syrup, Ceylon black-tea infused silver tequila, pomegranate balsamic drizzle…I could go on and on, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that another blogger at TotC said it best when he said, “If I’m not able to reach for the bottles and mix it up, it gets a bit tiresome and fussy.”² In other words, I’m in this to make drinks, people. And, I have a feeling this is why I go in for the classic and vintage cocktails so heartily; they simply require, for the most part, you have a well-stocked bar, some juices, and the gumption.

In going through my Tales of the Cocktail recipe cards I find so many obscure liquors and spirits I can’t come near to acquiring³ here (Rain Organics Honey Mango Melon Vodka? I mean, C’MON!)⁴ or esoteric and arcane ingredients such as Bauman’s unsweetened Spice and Sassafras Apple Butter that I just begin to throw my hands up at the byzantine morass I see ahead of me that would make drinking a slog and turn to a nice classic Attention or Jack Rose cocktail and call it a night.⁵ Maybe I can be accused of not being serious or devoted enough, I don’t know.

But, this is why I get so delighted when I see a drink such as the Elan Vital, by Daniel Shoemaker, featured towards the back of the magazine’s July/August 2008 issue. “Alas,” I say, “a drink I can make this very instant, and it looks divine.” Read More »

1. Anita at MWD made a good point that Food & Wine may be a worse offender than Imbibe! about this. When a publication hunts out recipes and features bar/bartender’s “house ingredient” it becomes a barrier to entry to trying, and enjoying, it [↩]
2. I’m paraphrasing, but it was refreshing to hear the same “Dammit, I want to be able to make the drinks I discover.” sentiment [↩]
3. or wanting to acquire, how many damned specific types of vodka do you expect me to have or invest in, bastards? [↩]
4. GOB of “Arrested Development” reference here… [↩]
5. I understand the difference between having a bar where these ingredients can be made in large quantities and used to differentiate your cocktails and make them unique flavors not found elsewhere, that’s awesome stuff [↩]

Vermouth is, obviously, best known for its role in the quintessential cocktail, the Martini. However, as I explored classic cocktails and discovered what a prevalent role vermouth plays in so many vintage drinks I became more curious about what other charms this enigmatic liquid held. I also saw a very interesting piece on the Fine Living network (shut up, my wife has to have the TV on to go to sleep) where Cinzano Rosso vermouth was featured and how vermouth is appreciated as an apertif was heavily covered. Hmmmmm, while I’ve always been a, ‘as long as I have a white and a red, I’m good, right?’, kind of guy, this intrigued me. This interest led me to purchase a good number of apertifs and vermouths on my last outing to Denver liquor stores, but let’s get to what sweet vermouth entails and what qualifies an aromatized or “fortified” wine as vermouth first.

Antonio Benedetto Carpano developed the first vermouth in 1786 and named it vermouth in honor of a German wine using wormwood (‘Wermut’ am Deutsch) as a primary herbal. Initially, vermouth was developed as a means of flavoring wines of poor quality while also lending them a dubiously ascribed ‘medicinal effect’. As vermouth came into its own, both as an apertif and as a cocktail mixer, higher-quality vermouths were produced in all variations of dryness, sweetness, and character. In brief, though, white (or bianco) vermouth is called ‘French’ style vermouth and red (or rosso) vermouth is called ‘Italian’ style. As you would expect, both styles, red and white, are produced in both areas with little regard for consistency in herbs used, alcohol content, or character of dry and sweet between manufacturers.

Read More »

Since acquiring Punt e Mes last week I've been tinkering with it and chose it as my focus going into Mixology Monday 19. Punt e Mes is an apertif that is frequently used in place of Campari to create smoother, less bitter, but still strongly herbal edge to a mixed drink. A classic example is the Negroni. By replacing the Campari in a Negroni with Punt e Mes, you still have a strongly bitter and herbal drink but the sharpness is taken down a few notches and instead of that instinctive puckered face and shiver-down-the-spine reaction most people have when first encountering Campari you get a 'Hmm, that's interesting', and then they shiver. See?, much better.

For the end of Summer I wanted to explore a tall drink, and while the Punt e Mes Negroni was nice, it just wasn't different enough to get me excited enough to write about. So, I went back and thought about the Tart Gin Cooler I wrote about a couple of months ago for inspiration and came up with the 'Point and a Half Cooler' (get it? 'Punt e Mes' = 'Point and a half'… Hah!). It turned out very nicely, even if Joana did say it tasted like 'moldy wood'.¹

Read More »

1. I didn't have the inclination to tell her wormwood is a primary component of Punt e Mes' flavoring [↩]

As you can imagine, after finally getting my hands on Parfait Amour, the first thing I did was find the recipe that had first piqued my interest long ago; the Jupiter cocktail. I originally found the recipe and description of the drink in Ted Haigh’s Vintage and Forgotten Cocktails but Robert Hess presents the same recipe on his drinkboy.com site here (with a slight variation we’ll discuss below) with the same warning Haigh offers in not overdoing the Parfait Amour in the drink. But before we get into the construction and flavors of the drink itself, a look at Parfait Amour.

Parfait Amour (or Parfait d’Amour if you’re feeling particularly Continental) is produced by two manufacturers; Marie Brizard and Bols, from France and the Netherlands, respectively. There is some variation between the two apparently, but since I have no access to Bols I can’t speak specifically to what they are. As for the Marie Brizard its nose is heavy on the orange (in a curacao, not a triple sec, sense) with a floral and marshmallowish back end. It smells like it looks, sweet and purple. In tasting it I can see how this would overpower a drink as its flavor profile isn’t unpleasant but is very distinctive and heavy. Not to mention the sheer sweetness of the liqueur; it’s pretty unabashed in its syrupy quality. Ok, then, on with the Jupiter, which appears to be a wet-ass Martini with additional nuances.

Read More »

This Mixology Monday, as you’ve probably already read, Paul at The Cocktail Chronicles invites all of us partcipating to select and discuss a drink from a site we frequent that we’ve enjoyed, discuss our favorite drink blogs, and perform a little self-reflective metablogging about what made us ‘cross our cocktail shakers with our keyboards.’ Happy to, Paul!

The drink I’ve selected is from a blog of the old guard that isn’t updated as frequently as it used to be, but still has plenty of value in visiting and perusing its archives, and, when it is updated, always has an interesting take on cocktail or bar culture as well as any drink it posts. Plus, it’s a little ranty, which endears it to me all the more. I selected the ‘Golden Age Martini‘ as created by Brad Ellis, self-proclaimed ‘Bar Mix Master’ at www.barmixmaster.com. Brad hails from New Orleans, has a deep love of Manhattans, and has a wonderfully designed layout and feel on his site; the photos are always top-notch and it’s obvious he has an eye for design, something I always appreciate in a blog. Read More »

I’ve been intrigued by classic films since I became fascinated with quality filmmaking and studying its art. In classic films you often see drink and/or drinking used as a metaphor much more often than you do today. I’m not talking about Days of Wine and Roses sort of in-your-face with alcoholism and its destruction of a man’s soul, but more of how drinking (and smoking) were used as character signals for dramatic subtext, whether it be, ‘hey, that guy just lit a long thin cigarette, he must be morally ambiguous,’ or it’s in a sexual context where sharing a drink with pregnant pauses and dramatic lighting display the growing tension between two people who may just well be married to boot. In other words, drinking and smoking used to be used as dramatic shorthand to great effect. Where sexual tension was once gracefully handled between two characters by the touching of their hands at the passing of a bottle or cocktail glass it is now grossly on display and, more often than not, handled without the slightest hint of subtlety or panache. It’s ironic that what sexuality was once kept off-screen for propriety’s sake is now left on-screen, often with all the delicacy and respect afforded a plumbing training video, and what was once a romanticized and accepted part of adult life, drinking, has been co-opted by the forces of political correctness and is often left off-screen or avoided entirely (except as a means to self-destruction), much to our loss. Read More »

At the behest of Mark in my ‘Spotlight On: Chartreuse‘ entry, I pulled out my Savoy cocktail book and went to work mixing up the Bijou cocktail as it features two of my favorite ingredients; gin and chartreuse. There are only two basic recipes I’ve found for this (though you’ll find slight variations in garnish and amount of bitters – 1 dash or 2) in my search, the ‘Savoy Cocktail Book’ version which you can find here (with equal portions gin, chartreuse, and vermouth) and another you can find here (with a 3 parts gin to 1 part chartreuse and 1 part vermouth). Now, the first strikes me as being much more likely to retain its balance given the volume of sweet vermouth to offset the gin and Chartreuse. But, being the ever-faithful explorer of libations and other treats, I forged ahead trying both. Read More »