Sanctuary

   1 oz Hum
   1 oz Orgeot
.75 oz Lemon Juice
  .5 oz Peaty Scotch (Laphroaig 10)

Shake and serve on the rocks with a lemon twist.

Taking a trip to NYC to buy a bottle of Hum is pretty silly.  That being said, it is the reason I went there.  Tasted a bit of it in New Orleans, liked it and assumed I could find it in Mass.  Turns out I'm shit out of luck, so a NYC trip was born.

Hum is an American take on an amaro, so its sweet with a lot of herbs.  The cool part is the herbal blend because there is a lot of ginger, cardamom and lime flavors in the mix so its a bit different than what you'd expect out of an amaro.  It is a very strong flavor, so you'd either love it or hate it, and I can see it taking over a lot of drinks.

Found this recipe for the Sanctuary off of the Hum site.  I decided to try it straight up because I'm not the biggest fan of drinks on the rocks.

Smell on the drink was lemon with a bit of cardamom.  Flavor was heavily sweet with cardamom / ginger notes that transitioned into smoke from the Laphroaig.  The Lemon Juice came out as a pleasant tartness.  Drink was good but very strongly flavored and cloying sweet.  Maybe some ice for ice melt would help dilute some of the sugary sweetness, but maybe the recipe just needs to be played with (maybe less hum and more base spirit or less lemon juice).  Reminded me of the drinks out of Organic Shaken and Stirred.  Good but cloying.

Fatigue

1 oz Bourbon
1 oz Maraschino Liquor
1 oz Angostura Bitters
Grapefruit Twist

Stir the Bourbon, Maraschino and Angostura and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with the grapefruit twist.

Another recipe out of beta cocktails.  I gotta admit, this book is amazing.  The drinks don't use wildly difficult to find ingredients (no smoked ice or 1 use simple syrups), but the results are usually surprising.  This is one of the surprising recipes. 

I've been making a few heavy angostura drinks lately and while I enjoy them, they usually end up tasting the same, so the novelty was beginning to wear off.  This one didn't taste like any of the other ones and has renewed my desire to try new Angostura recipes.

 

There wasn't a very noticeable smell, some citrus and allspice.  As time went on a funky cherry became more prominent.  The taste hits like a wallop.  I used 107 proof bourbon so the drink started with a spicy burn on the lips and continued to spicy cinnamon and chocolate notes.  My first thought was mexican hot chocolate (which may of been on my mind since I just made a batch of mexican hot chocolate cookies).  Drink was real good, and I'm surprised I got more of a cinnamon taste from the Angostura instead of the allspice I have come to expect.

Silver Monk

   2 cucumber slices
   8 mint leaves
   pinch salt
  .5 oz simple syrup
   2 oz blanco tequila
.75 oz yellow chartreuse
   1 oz lime juice

Muddle the cucumber, mint leaves, salt, and simple syrup together.  Add tequila, chartreuse and lime juice.  Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with mint and cucumber.

Wanting something light and summery I went for this recipe from Food & Wine Cocktails 2011 that I remember making a few months ago.  I also went to goodwill again, and bought some new glasses and I figured this light colored drink would make for a good photo.

I don't really know what the difference is between this version and other times I made this drink.  It seemed a lot harsher and less blended than other times.  Maybe it was due to using some leaves off my chocolate mint plant instead of the usual spearmint, or maybe I needed a larger pinch of salt.  Either way, I'll have to give it another go soon and see.

The drink gives off a pleasant aroma of cucumber, yellow chartreuse and mint.  The taste starts sweet with sugar, cucumber and chartreuse herbals.  After this initial sweetness the drink changes to a harsher tequila and lime burn with a bit of mint.

Caffe Salvatore

2.5 oz Averna
  .5 oz Vodka
   2 oz Horchata

In the Food & Wine Cocktails 2012 book I found this recipe for the Caffe Salvatore.  Under the White Russian section this take excited me because it used horchata instead of milk or cream.  Horchata a sweet rice drink with cinnamon reminds me back to when I just became a vegetarian and made it a few times from a recipe off the post punk kitchen tv show.  I had to dig up the old video to try and remember the recipe I used to use.  There are a lot of recipes, some use normal milk / whole rice / etc.  IDK I liked this one.

Horchata
Ingredients:
4    cups rice milk divided
2    cups water
2    cinnamon sticks
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup ground almonds
1/4 cup rice flour
zest 1 lime

Directions:
Combine 2 cups of rice milk with the water and cinnamon and bring to a low boil.  Take off of the heat and add the sugar, ground almonds and rice flour.  Let the mixture sit warm on the stove for 2 hours then chill.  After the mixture is chilled add the remaining 2 cups of rice milk.  Remove cinnamon sticks and strain the mixture.

The smell off the drink is light with a slight hint of vodka and almonds.  The taste is cool with sugar and rice followed by the herbal hit of Averna.  The drink ends with lime / Averna.  One person on sampling it said it tasted like 'a vodka version of eggnog'.  When I mentioned it came from the White Russian section they said it makes sense.  It is surprising how well an amaro stands in for coffee liquor in this drink.  I liked the cool refreshing taste of horchata.

The horchata I made was a little light on cinnamon flavor so I threw an extra pinch of cinnamon into the drink and it became more exotic and less 'oh, a slightly different white russian' tasting.  I prefer it with the extra cinnamon and that's how I'll make the drink but it does change the drink so I'd recommend trying the unaltered one first.

I also do not know how important the 1/2 oz of vodka is in this drink.  The second time I made it I left out the vodka and didn't notice a big difference in flavor.

Prince of Orange

1 1/2 oz Bols Genever
1 oz Drambuie
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
1/4 oz Orange Juice
1 tsp Orange Marmalade
2 dash Angostura Bitters

I was browsing the cocktailvirgin blog and saw this recipe for the Prince of Orange.  A couple of things drew me to this one.  I liked that it used Genever / Drambuie.  Genever is one of those bottles that I have but I rarely know what to do with, and Drambuie has some interesting taste notes that I like better than other sweet liquors in drinks (like St. Germain for instance).

Another reason I decided to make this drink was that it had orange marmalade in it.  One of the first homemade cocktails I made out of Organic Shaken and Stirred had marmalade and it seemed like an interesting idea.  The fact that I have a bottle of blood orange marmalade sitting in my closet sealed the deal.

Whew, this is a sweet drink.  The smell is all oranges and sugar.  On the taste there is an Aperol style bitter orange with a lot of sugar and some slight floral notes from the Drambuie.  The drink ends with a slightly funky malt note from the Genever at the end.  If I gave it a quick description my thought would be melted orange freeze pops.  Next time I'll double strain anything with marmalade because the bottom 1/3 was full of orange peel.

La Vida Del Diablo

1.5 oz Mezcal
  .5 oz Creme de Cassis
   3 oz Ginger Beer
  .5 oz Lime Juice

   2 dash Angostura Bitters

Combine all ingredients in a chilled collins glass filled with ice.  Stir well

Going through Food and Wine Cocktails 2012 I saw this recipe for a twist on an El Diablo, and realized I never made the original drink.  Taking this as a sign I decided to try both the classic El Diablo and the twist on the El Diablo at the same time and compare.

El Diablo

1.5 oz Tequila
  .5 oz Creme de Cassis
   3 oz Ginger Beer

  .5 oz Lime Juice

Lime wheel garnish.

The composition of the two recipes were pretty similar.  The biggest difference was the use of mezcal instead of tequila.

  

El Diablo is on the left and the La Vida Del Diablo on the right. 

El Diablo:

The classic starts off with tequila and citrus on the nose.  The taste is ginger and lime tartness with some tequila.  At the end the flavor gives way to lush berry notes from the creme de cassis

La Vida Del Diablo:
The La Vida starts with tar and smoke on the nose.  The taste starts with a slight lime taste followed by a oppressive punch of mescal that almost convers the berries in smoke.  Ginger is light throughout.

Comparison:
With the mezcal change the two versions end up being quite different and I'd have them in different situations.  The classic El Diablo is very light, reminiscent of a flavored margarita and refreshing.  It reminds me of something that could be used with food as a pallet cleanser.  The mezcal version feels heavy and aggressive and leaves you with smoke on the tongue for minutes afterwards.  It is more of a nighttime sipper compared to the El Diablo's daytime fair.  Both are good though.

Naked and Famous

.75 Mezcal
.75 Yellow Chartreuse
.75 Aperol
.75 Lime Juice

Shake all ingredients and strain into a chilled coupe glass.

I recently picked up this year's Food and Wine Cocktails 2012.  I've been buying these books for a few years now because they have some interesting recipes ideas in them (although some are misses).  This year's version is set up a bit different than past years.  In previous years there were sections for drinks by spirit (brand, gin, vodka, etc) or theme (pitcher, mocktail, classic, etc).  This year it is organized by classic cocktail(blood and sand, margarita, etc), and then takes on it (classic, twist, reinvention, mocktail).  Seems to be a pretty interesting idea for people who want to get into making their own variations on a drink. 

The Naked and Famous was listed as the reinvention in the Last Word section.  I made this Last Word variation as one of my first drinks out of this book because Last Words are one of my favorite drinks (although they can come off as a little sweet), and the mescal / aperol / yellow charteruse version sounded cool.

The drink starts off with a muted mezcal smoke on the nose.  Taste begins with mezcal and smoke reminiscent of a mezcal based margarita or el diablo.  This transitions into faint grapefruit and herbal notes with a subtle sugar sweetness.  The drink ends with some chartreuse herbals and leaves a smokey flavor on the tongue.  As time goes on the initial hit of mezcal starts to dissipate and the aperol comes through with hints of grapefruit and lime.