Pete,

A nice drink that I discovered a couple of days ago:
2oz White tequila
1/4oz Yellow Chartreuse
3/4oz Lemon juice
1/2oz Simple syrup

The recipe calls for three drops of rose water but since I don't have that I used orange flower water. It tastes a bit like a margarita but it's a bit lighter in the acidity and the Chartreuse gives it some nice herbal tones. I don't want to call it a girly drink, but I'm sure it would do great with the ladies, as the taste is halfway between a margarita and a lemon drop.

Peter,

If you ever find yourself in San Francisco, drinks are on me.

There's definitely a standing drink invite from me for Diablo, El Timon, and Peter Harris, but that's an easy offer for me living in Ithaca, NY. Still if any of you are ever upstate...

I've heard it's gorges up there. Eh? Eh?

Claunchy,

Ithaca is gorgons, actually. Terrifying place.

I went to Syracuse for work 3-4 times a few years back. All I remember is gray skies. And cold weather. Good environment to take on drinking imo.

Gents all round. Of course the exact same applies here in Edinburgh, should you fancy visiting the land of Scotch. I know most the bars in the city and wouldn't say no to yet more distillery visits...

It's also not out of the realm of possibility of us hitting the USA in the next couple of years as I want to return to SF, and Mrs Harris hasn't spent much time at all there (a day), and none in NYC (so if we went we'd perhaps visit Niagara and make a visit of upstate along the way?) - so don't rule anything out.

P

Drinkers,

Today was a hot day and I was in the mood for a pisco sour:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisco_Sour
2 fl oz (8 parts) Pisco
1 fl oz (4 parts) Lime juice
3/4 fl oz (3 part) Simple syrup
1 Egg white
1 dash Bitters

Except I don't have Pisco, am out of limes, don't have any simple syrup made.

So I improvised w/ Cachaca, lemon, and agave syrup. Turned out pretty tasty.

Whee, just got an order in from drinkupny.com:

John D. Taylor’s "Velvet Falernum" Liqueur (750ml)
Heering Cherry Liqueur (750ml)
Rothman & Winter Creme de Violette Liqueur (750ml)
Chartreuse Green Liqueur (750ml)
Domaine de Montreuil Reserve Calvados du Pays d'Auge (750ml)
Luxardo Fernet Amaro Liqueur (750ml)
Clear Creek Oregon Cranberry Liqueur (750ml)
St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur (750ml)
Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao Ancienne Methode (750ml)
Old Pogue "Master's Select" Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky (750ml)
Old Forester "Birthday" Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey (750ml)
St. George "Breaking & Entering" Bourbon Whiskey (750ml)

My local liquor stores don't have any of this stuff, and even down in Anchorage some of the herbals are hard to find, so this is pretty exciting to me. So what's my first cocktail going to be? I've never had Chartreuse before, or Falernum, or most of the others for that matter. Not in the mood for something sweet tonight, but bitter would be great.

Spent half an hour browsing web pages with cocktails using ingredients from that list, but decided I'd better hurry up and make something or it would be bedtime already. A "My Word is Gold" (.75 oz St-Germain, .75 oz Fernet Branca, .75 oz Green Chartreuse, .75 oz fresh lime juice. Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a pre-chilled rocks “down” glass.) from http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food...ink_steve.html looks good, but I got lazy and tried a "Rendezvous" (3oz gin, 1oz Cherry Heering, 1/2oz Campari, Combine ingredients with ice in cocktail shaker and shake well. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and garnish with fresh cherry.) from http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/mxmo-17...#comments-wrap because I wanted something bitter and the Campari sounded good.

Results: well I'm only halfway through, and it's growing on me. Seemed a little gin forward at first, I probably shouldn't have used Sapphire, but I don't have anything but that and Hendrick's around right now. That's fading though. Now every sip is gin first, then the cherry comes through, with the Campari bitterness at the end. Really nice, but it's packing quite a punch, too. Going to be a little wonky by the time I go to bed, not usually the case from just a couple of drinks.

If you want to hit bitter notes with any of those ingredients, your best bet is going to be the Fernet, as basically all the other non-Bourbons are pretty sweet.

There's a lot of interesting things you can do with Fernet, but a fairly straightforward one is to make a Manhattan variant.

2 oz whiskey (not scotch) preferably rye, but canadian and bourbon will work
1/4 oz Fernet
1/4 oz simple syrup (1-1 dillution of sugar and water)

No need to add bitters here unless you're feeling creative, though an orange twist can't hurt. The Fernet wil be too herbal/bitter for most people if you don't balance it out with the sugar, but the ratio might need changing for your taste.

edit - oh, didn't realize you were willing to pull other ingredients for the bitter part. that makes things a lot more wide open. one of my favorite cocktails is the paper plane: equal parts bourbon, lemon, aperol, and amaro nonino. You can toy with this thing in a huge number of ways without breaking it - swap in Campari for Aperol. Swap in another herbal for the nonino, etc. I'm not sure I've seen variants with Fernet, but who knows, can't think of a reason it wouldn't work, honestly.

Thanks citanul, I'll give that a shot tomorrow. A Manhattan is one of my standbyes. I have some decent rye around (Russel's reserve 6 yr I think). I'll probably end up with less simple syrup than you describe, since my taste tends towards liking bitterness. (Preferred margarita is 3 tequila, 2 freshly squeezed lime juice, 1 triple sec, for instance, way higher on the lime than most people.)

The bourbon is not necessarily for cocktails, I'm often lazy and bourbon neat is a pretty simple drink. Works well for taking out to the cabin or on camping trips, too. I also drink a lot of single malt scotch for the same reasons.

Oh, just saw your edit now, the paper plane looks good too, although I'm going to have to go Campari instead of Aperol and use the Fernet Amaro in place of Amaro Nonino.

Most of the reason for this order was just to expand my choices for cocktails, I already have a lot of other ingredients around.

Diablo,

You live in SFO and don't have pisco? I am dissapoint.

Interesting recipe with the cachaca. Is the bottle you used the one in the background? The one I have is more transparent. I may try your recipe but with lime instead, make it more of a caipisour.

I really like the improvisation. You can get Cachaca Verde

as well as Blanco, have a bottle of both on the bar just now. Mmmmmm. I presume it's like the Blanco/Plata/Reposado thing with tequila?

Got my mum to bring a bottle back from Peru. What else was she gonna bring? Except guinea pig maybe. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

I'm going to Brazil later this month, I'll make sure to bring back a nice bottle of Cachaca. I recall that one of my Brazilian friends used to come back from his Christmas trips home with at least two bottles of Cachaca, one for drinking straight and one for Caipirinhas.

Funny language anecdote from back home: Back in the 90's the first Brazilian bar opened in Peru. When you drink Cachaca straight they call it "pinga", which in (Peruvian) Spanish is a slang term for "dick". Also, the common slang term in Peru for drinking is "chupar", which means sucking. So, when you were drinking Cachaca straight, you were sucking dick. No wonder no one wanted to do it

ET: You def want the clear kind for Caipirinhas. The bottle I have is supposed to be pretty good, but I don't think it tastes very good and def don't want to sip it. It worked fine in that cocktail, though.

Fitz: Damn, that is a nice order! I've been seeing Creme de Violette and Velvet Falernum in a lot of drinks at fancy cocktail places here lately.

That's about a 1/4 ounce of the green Chartreuse neat (actually pretty damn good) so I'd know what it tastes like. The glass is a new cut-crystal cordial glass that I really like, got a small set of them for sipping stuff like this. The Chartreuse is about what I expected, I think I'll like this in some cocktails, and I can even understand those who drink it straight.

And next to it is a Toronto (google it yourself), made on the rocks, or I guess on the rock, singular. Used Pendleton "Canadian" whiskey (made in Oregon, but damn good), and the Fernet from my order above. Fernet is incredible! This thing rivals my old standby Manhattan. The glass here is exactly the opposite of my fancy cut crystal glass above - some copper clad bottom cheap glass I found at a garage sale once - it's my "comfort" cocktail glass. Probably couldn't break it if I tried, just old thick glass. I should polish the copper though, it looks kind of cool when it's shiny.

Edit to add: damn, that came out worse than I thought. Stupid iPad camera really sucks. Oh well, you get the idea. I was hoping the etching on the crystal glass would come through - nice flowers. And the white balance sucks so you can't even tell what color things are...

El D, that is a badass picture.

Ao: Thx! I was happy w/ the bitters face I made

Fitz: Fernet is great (we drink it like crazy in SF), but IMO there are better herbal amaros. The two I have on my shelf now are Cynar (similar profile but a little more balanced and not as much of a cloying Jager style sweetness) and Gran Classico (this is just amazing, quite bitter but not as herbal, and a caramel rather than cloying sweetness, I ****ing love Gran Classico in cocktails).

All: Last night, made one of my all-time favorites, the Brooklyn:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2...-vermouth.html
I didn't have Amer Picon, so I did a couple dashes orange bitters and a couple dashes ango.

Now, need to think something up for tonight...

Thought I had a brilliant idea, after making pazole tonight (see the "Cooking a good everything else" thread) but it turns out I'm not the first.

When I was 25 or so, my dad taught me the classic Stinger - not as exciting as a lot of the stuff we have in this thread, but a damn good after dinner "Let's sit back and watch a movie" cocktail. It's (roughly) 2 parts brandy, 1 part white creme de menthe, on the rocks; feel free to alter if it's too sweet or not sweet enough. Big swingers drink in the 60s, should bring a feeling of living back then...

So I figured, pazole is Mexican, usually when I'm in Mexico I go back to the room after dinner and pour some tequila neat, but today I want something sweet. I bet you could mix tequila and mint. Brief internet search, and sure enough, I am *not* the first person to think of a tequila stinger.

So, as soon as I finish my cheap Mexican beer I had with dinner, I'll let y'all know how that tastes...

El D nailed it on the recommendations, Cynar and Fernet are delicious and now on my bar thanks to him. I bought a friend Falernum as it was an interesting left-field choice and now the shop doesn't stock it now I'm after a bottle for myself. A delicious Falernum cocktail (fruity enough for the ladies) is:

Tailor Made
1 spoon runny honey
1.5shots bourbon
1/4 shot (2 spoons) Velvet Falernum
1 shot pink grapefruit juice
1 shot cranberry juice

Method: stir honey with bourbon in base of shaker. Add other ingredients, shake with ice and fine strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a grapefruit zest twist.

For the hardened, Hemingway-level drinker, however, I present you the
Nuclear Daiquiri
1 shot overproof rum (e.g. Wray and Nephew)
3/4 shot green chartreuse
1 shot lime juice
1/4 shot velvet falernum

Method: shake with ice (add 1/2 shot water if ice is sticky, not wet) and fine strain into chilled cocktail glass, garnishing with a lime wedge on the rim.

I took that one out of a book, as I'm missing all 3 of the key ingredients in this one. Now to go shopping, as it sounds delicious

The Brooklyn looks nice, and a Sicilian friend of mine brough back an Amaro made from rocket, of all things. I may try the Brooklyn soon!

El D, you have been improvising some on your cocktails recently, what's on your bar so we could help you with some other possibilities?

This weekend I had to re-order my beer shelf below the cocktail stuff as I have about 40 bottles (mixed beer, ale, lager, cider) I needed to sort into expiry order to make sure nothing drops off the end of drinkability...

It does indeed! I'll pick up a bottle of Lemon Hart 151 (Amazingly, carried here in town) soon and give it a shot. Last bottle I had I killed pretty quickly, that's good stuff.

Lemon Hart 151 changed formula a few months ago, unfortunately. Someone bought the brand, I think, and is selling worse stuff under the same label.

Well crap. Internet research says that happened over a year ago: http://slowcocktails.squarespace.com...where-you.html

My bottle was from about a year ago, but (from the pictures) was the original, not the new formulation. Oh well, in the name of science I'll have to try the new formulation anyway.