Modern Classics

snackish:

McKittrick old fashioned - bourbon, sherry, and chocolate bitters
Stopped by the new, no-secret-phone number-required Milk & Honey on 23rd Street today. Just like the times I visited the old locale on Eldridge Street, I discovered a new recipe I’d like to recreate. Aside from a strange looking-over at the door (pardon my scruffiness, sir), it was a chill evening. But with places like this charging $16 per drink, methinks it’s time to start flexing the cocktail shaking muscles and testing recipes for springtime rooftop imbibing. This one will make a fantastic nightcap.

McKittrick old fashioned - bourbon, sherry, and chocolate bitters

Stopped by the new, no-secret-phone number-required Milk & Honey on 23rd Street today. Just like the times I visited the old locale on Eldridge Street, I discovered a new recipe I’d like to recreate. Aside from a strange looking-over at the door (pardon my scruffiness, sir), it was a chill evening. But with places like this charging $16 per drink, methinks it’s time to start flexing the cocktail shaking muscles and testing recipes for springtime rooftop imbibing. This one will make a fantastic nightcap.

1 month ago -

7

With the arrival of The Butterfly, Eben Freeman and Michael White’s take on a Wisconsin-style supper club, comes that state’s favorite tipple, the brandy old-fashioned—a Badger State bastardization of an old-fashioned old-fashioned, which tampers with that revered classic by swapping cheap California brandy for whiskey, muddling citrus and maraschino cherries with the bitters and sugar, and sometimes topping the thing with Sprite or 7Up for that fillip of high-fructose delight. In this haute-cocktail age, that simply won’t do. Drinks czar Freeman’s remake subs a vacuum-sealed oleo saccharum (basically a long-macerated citrusy syrup) made from Seville oranges and Washington State cherries for the muddling, and tops up the drink with club soda.

What to Drink at the Butterfly, Eben Freeman and Michael White’s Wisconsin-Style Supper Club — Grub Street New York (via Briana Mowrey)

As covered here before. In this case, Freeman’s sous-vide citrus and cherry is a clever take on the oft-maligned “fruit cocktail” approach to Old Fashioned making.

2 months ago

(Source: pactressia, via jhermann)

2 months ago -

2711

To paraphrase Hunter Thompson, once you get locked into a serious bitters collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. Like most cocktail nerds, I have a shelf full of exotic bitters I rarely use, or only use for a particular drink once in a blue moon. Occasionally, though, I discover a true gem I want to find an excuse to work into every drink I make. My friends Courtney & Robert just sent me a bottle of Toasted Pecan bitters from Miracle Mile Bitters Company in Los Angeles, and I’m already convinced I’ll be using them regularly.

While its essential sweetness would seem to make bourbon the obvious Southern-inflected pairing for pecan bitters, the first spirit I was eager to test drive my new acquisition with was rye. Inspired by the rye pecan pie Brooklyn’s Marlow & Sons makes during the holidays, I had a feeling the spiciness of rye might be a perfect counterpoint to the sweet nuttiness of the bitters, and I was right. They were lovely in a Rye Old Fashioned, if perhaps a just a touch sweet for my taste (a problem adding additional aromatic bitters solved), but I was really impressed with how nicely they rounded out a Sazerac. A couple drops along with the usual Peychaud’s Bitters adds a nice extra layer of depth and helps soften the edges of a normally rather stiff drink.

2 months ago -

4

Mr. Berger claims to have sold Britain’s first commercially served picklebacks in 2011, from the Southbank food truck that was the restaurant’s predecessor. Word quickly got out, aided in no small part by the drink’s novelty. “People would come up and say, ‘We want five picklebacks. What are they?’

Half Full: The Power of the Pickleback - WSJ.com

The pickleback has officially gone international.

2 months ago

Leonardo DiCaprio comercial for Jim Beam’s Asian Market

“Cool Bourbon”

2 months ago -

4

landofmaps:

1931 alcohol map of the USA [1200X690]

An atlas of Prohibition.

(via fuckyeahcartography)

3 months ago -

88

“Dead clear” ice from Okamoto Studio in Long Island City, New York, which (in addition to high end ice sculpture work) supplies cocktail ice to bars like Dutch Kills. Currently wondering if I could rent a Zipcar, walk in and buy myself a block!

3 months ago -

2

Parks and Recreation - The Wrong Way to Consume Alcohol (via Dan Budiac)

“This is a sort of play on Scotch—it’s a whiskey infused lotion!”

4 months ago -

3

Move over, Jeppsons; there’s another malort in town. Last year, the Violet Hour announced that they were collaborating with then-brand-new Letherbee distillers to create their own in-house exclusive version of Malort, the famously bitter Chicago spirit. Well, it’s finally here. The bar announced that the Malort was in stock on New Years Eve and now it’s being mixed into a brand new cocktail.

The Violet Hour Debuts New Custom Malort: Chicagoist

For those who aren’t familiar with Malort, the Chicago Reader did a great article a few years ago about bartenders attempting to tame the Windy City’s challenging indigenous bitter spirit.

4 months ago -

7