MxMo 1/19: Surprise Ingredient

The Secret Ingredient

3/4 Oz Sweet Vermouth

3/4 Oz Curacao

1/2 Oz Fernet Branca

1/2 Oz Dark Soy Sauce

1 Dash Herbsaint

Shake and strain.

The trick to this cocktail is to make sure to use dark soy sauce, not the more commonly available light soy sauce (or Japanese style soy sauce).  Dark Soy sauce has a thick almost molasses like flavor in addition to the rich saltiness of the soy sauce most people are familliar with.  My thoughts with this recipe had mostly to do with the effect that salty flavors have on bitter ones – for whatever reason when salty flavors are added to bitter flavors both seem to moderate themselves pretty quickly.  (This is why salads with dark greens taste better with a pinch or two of salt over them.)   So I added the dark soy sauce, which has a fairly salty bite right at the beginning of the flavor, to a drink with a large quantity of the most aggressive potable bitters I had on hand.  The recipe that I’ve provided is actually the result of a lucky mistake – my original plans had only included 1/4 oz of the dark soy sauce (I was afraid the saltiness would overwhelm the other flavors, or end up being unpalateable).  But after I accidentally added a full 1/2 oz I discovered that actually that amount balanced nicely with the other flavors and that the saltiness hadn’t been particularly obvious in the final drink.

The sweet vermouth and curacao actually end up acting as background players in the cocktail, despite amounting to the majority of its volume.  The majority of the flavor comes from the Herbsaint and Fernet Branca, with the soy sauce providing a dark almost chocolatey background to the flavor.  I would go so far as to say that it almost tastes like chocolate, somewhere deep down in the flavor.  There is surpisingly little saltiness in the flavor, or bitterness, at least compared to what the recipe would suggest.  The main effect of the combination of fernet branca and soy sauce is that, despite a good hard shake (as you can see from the photo), the drink is rich and almost syrupy feeling.  I certainly wouldn’t recommend this as a before dinner drink – it is too dark, rich and thick.  But it would make a surprisingly good digestive.  Overall I’m both surprised that Soy Sauce could be as effective an ingredient as it turned out to be and a little bit pleased with myself for figuring out that it could be one at all.

If Fernet Branca isn’t to your taste, though, there is a useful substitution that can be made.  Personally I like the stuff an awful lot, but the peculiar menthol taste isn’t always something people go for.  About a Teaspoon of Angostura bitters and upping the vermouth and curacao to an ounce each should give something pretty similar but with a slightly more aggressive bitter flavor and without the edge that the drink gets from the Fernet Branca.

 

The Odd Couple

I have a digital camera now!

1 Oz Boomsma Oude Genever

1 Oz Islay Mist Blended Scotch Whiskey

1/2 Oz Campari

2 Dashes Kirsch

Orange Twist; Lemon Twist

I think this one turned out fairly well, so I thought I’d post something (mostly, admittedly, for Ian’s benefit). I was thinking about odd combinations of base pairs and figured I’d go for broke and try something I hadn’t seen before. As it turns out the combination of Oude Genever and Scotch works surprisingly well. The gin softens the harder, peatier edges of the Scotch while still keeping the maltiness. This might also work with a Jonge genever, or a different blended scotch (the Islay Mist is pretty, well, Islay-ish, but it seems to meld well). The Campari and Kirsch combination struck me as another possibly interesting pairing as well, and the bitter orange flavors work really well with the maltiness of the base. Finally I put both an orange and a lemon twist in this because, well, everything else came in a pair but it works in an interesting way. Overall I think this drink worked well.

 

Off-Leash Area stuff; also, new blog!

Hey guys. How’re you? I’ve missed you! For various reasons too complicated and boring to explain here, I probably won’t be posting much here anymore. I — gosh, this is hard — have actually been posting on my own blog for awhile now. It started as a summer fling, merely to keep track of how much I was writing and I only told a few folks about it. But it was fun! And before you know it, I was hooked! And then graduate school started, and I had to, like, take classes and teach classes and I started a new job, and I got busy, and I haven’t even been posting on that blog, so…

Yeah, yeah. World’s tiniest violin.

The point being, the new site is called Thoughts for a Sunshiney Morning. Check it out if you’d like. It’s on blogger, which actually sucks–WordPress is way better. But I’m too lazy to switch over.

But I have a final piece of ‘Spar business to take care of, which is: Off-Leash Area. As you may or may not recall, I wrote a review of a show they did some time ago. Anyway, they saw the review, and got in contact with me, and they’re nice people, and now I’m on their board. So don’t let nobody tell you Icelandspar never did anything for me.

So, as one of my first duties as a board member, I’m “hosting” one of the garage shows tonight. That means that I’m going to greet people, make a little speech before the show, and hang out afterwards and have drinks and chat with people by the bonfire.

So, Off-Leash Area fans, you should go! There are shows tonight, Saturday, and Sunday. Check out the website for more information, or look at this:

With a cast of three powerful women, including
Jennifer Ilse,
Co-Artistic Director  OLA
Karla Grotting,
2007 McKnight Dance Fellow,
and
Elena Giannetti

DATES AND TIMES
Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays
2 Weekends ONLY
October 3rd through 12th
ALL Shows - 7pm

TICKETS
Attendance to shows in Our Garage are
by Advance Reservation Only
Please call: 612-724-7372
Suggested Donation: $10-$15
(donations at the garage)

Join Us
after the show
refreshments by the fire pit in Our Backyard

 

26th and Lyndale

I don’t like to think that I’m so locked into my political views that I can’t switch parties if the Republican’s field someone compelling. In my eyes, that hasn’t happened this cycle. But just for fun, I found myself thinking, what would the man have to do to earn my vote?

The Republican National Convention is causing all sorts of havoc for friends of mine in the Twin Cities right now, and that means McCain will be in the Twin Cities too. In order to get my vote, I’ve decided he will need to do the following:

He must go to the C.C. Club, with minimal escort, and order a Premium Grainbelt. Beer in hand he must then go to the jukebox and select “Time” by Tom Waits. When the song comes up, he will then have the secret service clear out the two mobile tables near the jukebox, where he shall proceed to dance a sad little shuffle as the song plays. That will earn my vote. If he manages to mumble the lyrics in a plaintive and half heard sort of way, I’ll even like doing it. Also, as long as he’s there, he should get the jalapeno cheese burger, because it’s damned tasty.

If he were to go to The Bulldog kiddy corner to the C.C., I’ll donate another $50 to Obama. If he goes to Common Roots across the corner, and gets the organic bagel? Well, then we’ll know the end times are upon us.

Ah, to dream that it could happen.

Cross posted at my own damn site.

 

From the music desk: Esperanza Spalding

A few months ago, I was flipping through the channels and settled on Dave Letterman for a few minutes. I was delighted to see that his music guest was not some horrible new indie band, but a jazz bassist and vocalist. After hearing Esperanza Spalding play and sing, I did the requisite Wikipedia search, and found out she was a faculty member at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. At twenty-four. Needless to say, I was impressed with her and depressed at my own lack of accomplishments. (Really, I’m fine with that, but the thrill of über-talented youth is getting to me—did you win eight gold medals last week? I didn’t. I barely managed to floss every night.)

 

From the music desk: Uh Huh Her

Author’s note: Apologies for the long absence. Occasionally, that thing called grad school demands my attention. Also, as of late, I’ve become obsessed with the Olympics. Remedies for my case of Phelps fever, which has now developed into Phelps pneumonia, are welcome. Thank you, Bob Costas. I’ll try to post more regularly.

Driven beats with silky smooth vocals dominate Uh Huh Her’s new album, Common Reaction. The first track, “Not a Love Song,” is an excellent lead-off for a solid electro/pop/rock album. The song captures the seemingly contrasted atmosphere of the entire album—determined, upbeat songs laced with languid yearning. “Not a Love Song” begins with a fairly standard electric guitar intro that is quickly overlaid with almost angelic vocals. The chorus kicks in without apologies. Several layers of guitars and keyboards create an ethereal atmosphere tied down by an unrelenting, solid drum beat. Although the beat isn’t terribly innovative, it serves the purpose of sharpening the meter’s focus. “Not a Love Song” is probably the album’s best song, and the band chose it for a music video, complete with unicorn.

 

La Jeune Lune est Morte

So, while I was busy getting married, it seems that my favorite theater company in the Twin Cities has been uprooted. Facing a hefty debt, the Jeune Lune has decided to sell their space and break up, after thirty years.

My favorite production by the Jeune Lune was their Medea from 2002. Like many of their productions, it was the stage pictures that made this stand out in my memory. From the moment I walked into the space, there was the feeling that things were heightened, that things would be played on a more grand level. The stage was spartan, with several sand pits built into the floor, but the entire east wall had been converted into a small canopy. The trees stretched almost to the top of the enormous warehouse in which the company worked. The stage, and the feeling of its space, dwarfed the seating. From the moment you sat down, you did not feel that you were looking down into a tiny snapshot of some world, played by actors for your amusement, but into a larger and grander world than your life.

When you have that impression, and the acting holds up, as it almost always did at the Jeune Lune, the emotional stakes are far greater. You risk more just by going to the show than you thought possible.

The Jeune Lune always risked more than I thought was possible, or at least more than I thought they should. When talking to Colin, I would often lament that I thought they were making mistakes with their choice of shows, but really I was glad they were willing to do it. I may not have liked their adaptation of Amerika much, but I was glad they went for it. Too much of what I hear about it middle of the road crap like the Guthrie’s production of Third, which was so bland as to make me wish I had not paid with a gift certificate, so I could ask for my money back.

Hopefully it isn’t long before they regroup. Hopefully people will be able to watch Steve Epp cough again soon. Several of my friends and I share a joke about going to shows just to watch him cough. I can’t really explain it, but it is an amazing little gesture when he does it.

It was good that they closed out with Fishtank, which was one of my favorite shows of the past several years and a wonderful experience to behold. It is also more than a little bittersweet, as it enforces the impression of what Minneapolis has lost right now.

 

MxMo: Bourbon – The Bourbon Flip

Mixlogy Monday this week is over at the Scofflaw’s Den, and it’s bourbon. Bless their booze soaked hearts.

In the rich heritage of American drinking, bourbon stands tall. While many a modern man goes to bars and does shots of vodka, our cultural heroes drink whisky, and when most Americans think of whisky, it is bourbon they are thinking of. “Brownest of the brown liquors,” says Lionel Hutz. Rye may have dominated the northern palate, but when it failed to bounce back after prohibition, bourbon was ready to step in with its rich vanilla and oak flavors. So powerful is its image that when politicians need to show they’ve got the stones to lead, their handlers stick them with a shot of the stuff, tell them to drink it down and smile for the cameras.

Q: What could possibly make bourbon more manly?

A: Raw egg.

 

Not Sure How To React

Ian has been bothering me to post more, but since I haven’t tried anything new in the cocktail area recently I’ve been bad about that. (In case anyone is wondering: gin is still excellent.)

That said, there’s always links to things out there on the internet and, in this case, apparently on television as well. Here you go – I am, as the title suggests, not sure how to react to this. On the one hand, it really does appear to exist. But there’s always the chance that this isn’t true, and all that’s happening here is that my brain has started misfiring in dramatic and surprising ways. If it’s the former – enjoy!

——-

Update!   Because I can’t leave things like this alone I started googling “Dog Wedding” and apparently this is, yeah, kind of a thing people do.  A lot of the results – like, I hope, this one and, more straightforwardly, this one – are just about how to include dogs in weddings (ring bearers and the like).

But I also found this how to page on, well, exactly what it sounds like: How To Host A Dog Wedding, which has to be one of the more amazing how-to guides out there.  Highlights include “Set up a dog sized wedding place. The garage will work…” and, (in the “Tips” category) “Don’t go too overboard.”

And, best of all, right in the middle of these search results was this useful page.

 

From the Drinks Desk: The Self-Starter

Summer has come to Minneapolis. Now that our backyards are free for use again, and the produce is starting to look a little less depressing, I start to get the feeling for fresh crisp tasting drinks. A good Tom Collins is always nice, but the other night I was feeling like something a little less rote. Enter the Self-Starter.

I was flipping through my copy of the Savoy Cocktail book, and stumbled upon this little gem: gin, lillet blanc, apricot brandy, and a little absinthe. I have been looking for excuses to use some apricot brandy since I got the bottle, but every time I found a recipe with it and tried it, I was disappointed. Trader Tiki, in last month’s Mixology Monday, mentioned that St. Germain wasn’t something that he could easily get a handle on mixing with. Apricot brandy is in that same space for me. It just never seems to do what I expect it to in a cocktail. So, after a little while I gave up.

Self-Starter Cocktail

1/2 Gin
3/8 Lillet Blanc
1/4 Apricot Brandy
2 Dashes Absinthe

Shake and strain.

Now, with the actual sizes not given, I found myself going a little light on the absinthe. I think that was probably wise. Absinthe is so strong that it takes over a drink in no time. With just one dash worth, against a very large drink mixed as 2 oz., 1.5 oz, and .5 oz, it slid right in with the lillet and gin, sneaking out at different points in the drink, and generally acting mischievous. The apricot kept things from tasting too dry, but it wasn’t very aggressive. It was there, but far in the background. I don’t have a very good apricot brandy, so it might have more backbone when others mix it. I also stirred the drink, as there was not enough absinthe to make it cloudy, and it worked wonderfully. I’d say ignore the Savoy on that front.

Having tried it, I thought it was too good to have been missed, someone else must have been blogging about this cocktail, and I was right. Bunnyhugs used it for Raiders of the Lost Cocktail in February. It’s a slightly different formulation, which I will have to check out.