Bourbon + Candy Canes = Holiday Goodness

The good people at Woodford Reserve sent me the following recipe, noting that they know I'm a Knob Creek fan but figuring they might win me over with a holiday cocktail suggestion. Sounds simple and delicious and I'm going to have to try it. Will let you know how it works out.

Woodford Candy Cane

Ingredients:

1 Liter of Woodford Reserve

3 Candy Canes

Instructions:

Empty out bottle of Woodford Reserve into a clean container.

Place Candy Canes at the bottom of the bottle (break Candy Canes into smaller piece if need be).

Pour Woodford back into the bottle and allow the concoction to infuse for 24 hours.

Serving suggestions:

Serve 2 oz. Candy Cane infusion in cordial glass or chilled martini glass.

Combine 1 1/2 oz. Candy Cane infusion with 4 oz. hot chocolate. Garnish with whipped cream and a candy cane.

Pour 2 oz. Candy Cane infusion over ice in rocks glass. Garnish with a mint sprig.

Pour 1 1/2 oz. Candy Cane infusion over ice in rocks glass. Fill with eggnog and stir. Garnish with whipped cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg.

General Infusion Tips:

1. Select the freshest ingredients. In the case of seasonal fruits thoroughly wash, rinse and dry ingredients. Peel the skin off certain fruits like pears, as the skin can turn bitter.

2. Gently layer ingredients in the bottom of your container. Add the Woodford Reserve last.

3. Discard ingredients after 24 hours to avoid any flavors overwhelming the bourbon.

4. Taste the infusion. For a sweeter infusion add simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar boiled until the sugar dissolves).

5. Be creative with your choice of glassware and cocktail recipes. The infused bourbon offers a whole realm of possibilities to cocktail creation.

"The Vesper" martini deconstructed

In the latest James Bond film, Casino Royale, Bond creates a drink he will come to call "The Vesper."

Esquire took on the drink in their November issue, essentially saying it hadn't aged well for reasons that have nothing to do with author Ian Fleming's initial invention and everything to do with the way booze has changed - lower proof, scarcity of some ingredients, a change in glass sizes, etc.

Here's the original passage from Ian Fleming's 1953 novel:

“A dry martini,” he said. “One. In a deep champagne goblet.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large, thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?”

“Certainly, monsieur.” The barman seemed pleased with the idea.

“Gosh, that’s certainly a drink,” said Leiter.

Bond laughed.

“When I’m..er..concentrating,” he explained, “I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink’s my own invention. I’m going to patent it when I can think of a good name.”

Esquire's assessment?

Gordon's used to be 94 proof and is now 80. Russian Stoli (Bond's preferred Vodka) used to be 100 proof. You can still find the strong Russian stuff, but you have to look for it. As for the Gin- go with Tanqueray, which is still 94 proof (I couldn't agree more). Lillet was reformulated in the 1980s but you can still get quinine powder online (they suggest www.raintreenutrition.com) and that's a good substitute in addition to the Lillet.

While you're at it: your drink will almost always be stronger and colder if it's stirred rather than shaken.

So, the recommended modern recipe for "The Vesper" winds up being (courtesy of Esquire):

Shake (if you must) with plenty of cracked ice:

3 oz. Tanqueray gin

1 oz 100-proof Stolichnaya vodka (be sure to get the strong stuff)

1/2 oz Lillet Blanc

1/8 teaspoon (or less) quinine powder or two dashes of bitters

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and twist a large swatch of thin-cut lemon peel over the top. Shoot somebody evil.

As much as I love James Bond I've never been much for vodka martinis myself. Plenty of people hate gin, but if I'm going to drink a martini (and I'm not going to, often) it's going to be made with either Tanqueray or Hendrick's gin.

There's the idea (chiefly because of Roger Moore, I think) that James Bond is a bit of a snob. But in the original source material, Ian Fleming's novels, he's just a man who likes things a certain way. That way doesn't have to be luxurious or expensive (and frequently is not) but he does, as a product of boarding schools and the British Navy, believe that things are to be done a certain way - from the construction of drinks to driving a car, to his dress to the cooking of an egg.

This may not be my sort of drink, but I do think it's Bond through and through.

God, the Enabler

“Give strong drink to them that are sad and wine to them that are grieved in mind, Let them drink, and forget their want, and remember their sorrow no more.”

-Proverbs 31:06-07

Red Stripe at the Green Bean

Joe Killian
Staff Writer
Go Triad
4/12/06

The Green Bean
341 South Elm Street
691-9990

The Drink: Red Stripe Lager

Rating: Three swizzle sticks

Hours: 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday to Thursday; 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday

The Drink: If you're serious about your beer there are going to be plenty of moments in your life when you walk into a bar and they're not serving anything that interests you. Nothing but domestic and light domestic swill at the tap. It's unavoidable and, if only because there may be interesting women at the bar, you have to break through your snobbery to form a contingency plan more sophisticated than heading for the door.

Luckily places like this will usually have one or two decent bottled beers as a sort of acknowledgement that their selection otherwise sucks. Though good (and even mediocre) beer is always better from the tap, there are a few bottled brews that are always safe and even delicious - well worth ordering when your options are limited or even keeping in the fridge at home.

My favorite of these is Red Stripe - the Jamaican Lager you can usually find even in bars where the only other bottled import is Heineken. I have no idea why you can find these stout little bottles just about everywhere - I'm just glad that, when it's a beer night, I can usually be sure they'll be there for me wherever I go.

Red Stripe is a lager - a beer that's traditionally cold-stored for a few months before being bottled and served for a fresher, crisper taste. Though modern brewing methods cut this time down to usually just a few weeks the highly carbonated, hops-forward taste often appeals even to people who don't really like beer. This may explain why the world's best-selling beer, Budweiser, is also a lager.

The Spot: The Green Bean has an excuse for a limited beer selection - it isn't really a bar. More of a laid-back cafe known for its flavored teas, coffees and pastries it none-the-less has the wisdom to stock a number of good bottles - among them Guinness, Hoegaarden and Red Stripe.

With frequent movie nights, live music on the weekends and access to their wi-fi network the place can be something of a hipster magnet but in the best possible way.

SIPS: Scotch at the Tap Room

Joe Killian
Go Triad
3/30/06

Tap Room Grill
1740 Battleground Ave., Greensboro
274-4439

Drink Specials: Half-price martinis on Mondays, dollar off all drafts on Tuesdays

Drink: Glenfiddich Ancient Reserve single malt Scotch, aged 18 years Glenlivet 18-year-old single malt Scotch

Rating: Four swizzle sticks

The Drink: There are few spirits more bitterly divisive than Scotch whisky (no "e" when you're talking Scotch). Worshipped by some and derided as wood-polish by others, Scotch is a liquor whose mystique is deep and long lived, whose history is colorful and unique and whose devotees are frighteningly, almost erotically intense in their affection.

This is what your grandfather drank, and with good reason.

As Dennis Leary once ranted, there was a time before chocolate liqueurs and candy flavored schnapps, when you had to love the taste of liquor to want a drink. Martinis were made with Gin, not vodka. Cocktails did not come pre-mixed in cute bottles. Sugary syrups and sour mixes had not yet invaded and taken over the whiskey kingdom. There's an argument to be made that most whiskey has since fallen -- Irish, American sour mash (like Jack Daniels) and even America's only native spirit, Bourbon. If you ask for these in any but the most traditional of bars, they'll wait for you to add a qualifier… "Whiskey sour? Bourbon and Coke? Jameson with a twist?"

But Scotch? The sweet stuff never had a chance against Scotch. A little history may be instructive.

The Scots have been making whisky since at least the 1400s. It was made, in much smaller scale, much the way it is today by malting barley over a peat fire, creating mash with fresh water, letting it ferment and running it twice through simple pot stills.

When this method caught on all over Scotland and Ireland, the English (never shy about exploiting the hell out of its far-flung and disenfranchised citizenry) began heavily taxing the hooch. The Scottish went to the hills, and by the early 1800s there were hundreds of illegal stills in Scottish glens that provided fresh spring water.

The most famous of these was the Glenlivet. The illegal whisky produced there was so famous that when King George IV made a fence-mending state visit in 1822 he asked for a glass. His hosts, who had been drinking it illegally for years, obliged. The king loved the dram so much he had another. One year later, the Excise Act was passed, making it possible for distillers to actually make money on legal whisky. Distiller George Smith legally founded The Glenlivet Distillery (which he'd been operating illicitly for years) in 1824. Other distillers used and abused the Glenlivet name until George's son legally secured the name in 1884. If you're drinking Glenlivet these days, it's George Smith's famous whisky.

The Glenlivet's 18-Year-Old single malt is a prime example of why Scotch has survived in the face of cheaper, easier-to-produce whiskeys from all over the world. The malted barley's interaction with the oak as it ages produces a powerful dram with a strong but not overpowering smoky taste and hints of ginger and fruit.

Cut with a little fresh water or served over ice it becomes a little warmer and spicier, and the strange organic transformation of the warm, velvety whisky from glass to lips to tongue is part of the experience. Sip slowly and hold it in your mouth for a moment, warming it. It's strong stuff. Go easy. At $8 a glass you want to enjoy this.

Another sure thing is Glenfiddich Ancient Reserve single malt, aged 18 years. Like a lot of single malts, it's aged in barrels previously used for sherry and bourbon, which adds to its character and gives the bourbon industry something to do with its white oak barrels, which by law cannot be used to hold bourbon more than once. This one's a bit more mellow and well-rounded than The Glenlivet, which may be why it won the Best in Class Gold Medal at last year's International Wine and Spirit competition - a category Glenlivet has had locked up since 2002.


The Spot: The Tap Room is Natty Green's smaller, more upscale sister bar. While Natty's has become an area beer Mecca, the Tap Room with its "Wall of Scotch" and extensive specialty martini menu, draws the sort of crowd that appreciates the best of the hard stuff. The place is delicately lit with no garish neon - old school, but wonderfully so. The seating is at the bar or at a number of four person tables with wooden barstools. The juke box leans heavily toward jazz, soul and funk. The food ranges from simple sandwiches to gourmet pizza, and it's worth a try.

Server: Adrienne Lester, 22.

Adrienne is the owner's niece. And no matter how drunk and annoying you become, she'll call you "sweetie." She's looking to get into UNCG's school of interior design soon. So Natty's and the Tap Room may become a bit swanker if possible.


WHAT MAKES SCOTCH SCOTCH?

All liquor made from any sort of grain is technically whiskey. To legally qualify as Scotch it has to meet a few standards:

1) First, it has to come from Scotland and be aged in oak barrels there for no less than three years.

2) It has to be made from water and malted barley, to which nothing but other whole grains and caramel color can be added. It can also only be fermented in yeast.

3) It has to have an alcoholic strength of less than 94.8 percent by volume. The best Scotch is single malt created at one distillery and distilled only from barley.

Don't let them hear you say that in Kentucky...

There's a piece called "Bourbon 101" in this week's Village Voice that, as far as I can tell, misses the mark and just plain misinforms people at several turns. The writer, who I'm not sure did much independent research, went to a "bourbon expert" who owns a liquor store in Red Hook.

The "expert" blurs a lot of the lines between bourbon and sour mash whiskey and, I'm pretty sure, just gets a lot of things wrong.

When I interviewed Fred Booker Noe, great-grandson of Jim Beam and creator of the world's #1 Premium Bourbon, Knob Creek, he gave me the run down on what bourbon makers and bourbon enthusiasts consider real bourbon. It doesn't have to come from Kentucky - but it does have to be composed of 51% corn and aged for at least two years in white oak barrels.

The liquor store owner argues that straight bourbon whiskey doesn't need to be aged at all and is simply corn whiskey distilled differently than sour mash. Even the people at the Jack Daniels distillery (which I toured last year and who have a long running professional rivalry with Jim Beam and bourbon makers in general) will tell you that's crap. Sour mash has its ingredients, traditions, distilling and aging methods and Bourbon has its own. They're ALL important and play into the character of the spirit. That's what makes them different, sets them apart from other spirits (almost all of which are technically whiskey).

The liquor store owner also doesn't seem to really understand what is meant by "single barrel." The term does not(at least according to the Jack Daniels and Jim Beam people, who are responsible for creating the country's most celebrated whiskeys) just mean that the whiskey in the bottle all came from a single barrel. Most whiskey is blended, coming from several barrels. "Single barrel" almost always denotes a whiskey that has been singled out as extraordinary and has, in its single barrel, been aged and/or distilled separately. There are people who are employed specifically to taste the whiskey and designate certain barrels worthy of single barrel treatment. The whiskey (or bourbon) this produces should (and almost always does) have a taste distinct enough to be identified not just by experts but by just about anyone who's reasonably experienced in tasting different whiskeys.

The guy interviewed by the voice is right that there are some younger, cheaper bourbons that are good - which is one reason why I miss New England and giant, privately owned liquor stores. The ABC store model does do you in a bit when it comes to variety. If you want to experiment you really need just aisles and aisles of things in which you might run into something you've never had and can take home and experiment with. At a bar the whole thing isn't in your hands, you have to trust that the bartenders know what they're doing (unless you're drinking it straight, which is how I prefer it) and it's going to cost you at least twice as much anyway.

The Drunkard's D-Day

The Village Voice has a quick word with a bartender at McSorley's - arguably NYC's oldest bar - on the St. Patrick's Day rush, which at this place means drinkers lining up before 8 a.m., lots of stout, the occasional vomiting incident and lots and lots of sawdust on the floor.

Where are you guys drinking on St. Patrick's Day?

Sips: Chocolate Chip Mint Fancy Shake at Cook Out

Cook Out

Address: 2411 Battleground Ave., Greensboro

Telephone: 336-288-8643

Website: Nope.

Drink: Chocolate Chip Mint Fancy Shake

Rating: Three swizzle sticks

The Drink: The problem with the shakes at Cook Out isn't that they're too thick.

It's that they're too cold. Until you let them melt a bit you have two choices — vainly suck on the straw, getting nothing, until you pass out, or eat it with a spoon. But, as my mom always told me: the longer you wait, the better it tastes. Let it melt a little and you've got one of the best shakes in Greensboro. This one's refreshingly minty with real chocolate chips — rich, but not so rich you'll leave half of it in the cup.

How do you know they made it just for you? Because they only have vanilla ice cream. Take a look at the inside of your lid and you'll sometimes see the ingredients that just went into it. Miles removed from most pre-mixed shakes you can get at a drive-through, and each one just $1.99.

The Spot: Cook Out is a Greensboro institution beloved of the drunk people in the back of your car, insisting at the top of their lungs that you, as their designated driver, take them to get a shake. Luckily there's a double drive-through, because at 1 a.m., you're likely to be waiting in line.

The barbecue, chicken and 1/4 lb. burgers are great — particularly after a long night of war with your liver — but the real attraction is the shakes, of which there are more than two dozen (including the seasonal watermelon and egg nog varieties).