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.

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.

Space Gin Smash

     6 Mint Leaves
  .25 Lemon
     2 Green Grapes
  .25 Green Apple
  .33 oz Simple syrup
1.25 oz Tanqueray Gin

In a shaker, muddle the mint, lemon, grapes, apple with the simple syrup. Add the gin shake with ice.  Strain into a rocks glass filled with fresh cracked ice and garnish with apple slices and a mint sprig.

Its been raining for the last few days straight and while gloomy and disruptive to my running schedule it is a perfect chance to try out some rainy day cocktail recipes.  A few months ago I saw this post about rainy day cocktails and have been thinking it since then.

Of the two cocktails featured the one I went for was the Space Gin Smash.  I went for it because, well, it looked the most like a rainy day w/ a foggy green / grey tint.  Mine is a bit pinker cause I couldn't find green grapes and had to go with red.  In my defense, I did go to two stores looking for green grapes and debated a switch to kiwi (except prior experience shows kiwi turns into an impossible to strain mush).  Guess it just must not be grape season or something.

The drink presents a mint smell with a bit of sharp citrus.  Taste is watery and begins with a bit of mint.  It moves to a light gin presence and ends with more lemon juice and some mint herbals on the swallow.  This is a really mild tasting drink.  Between the water from the cracked ice and the mild tasting grapes / etc it ends up tasting very light and diluted.  This not necessarily a bad thing.  I enjoyed the drink and it seemed to be pretty strong all things considered.  It is also a drink you could finish in less time than it takes to make it.

Which brings me to ny biggest complaint with the drink, all of the muddling.  I am fine muddling ingredients, but since the flavor of the apple / grape didn't really shine in the final product I am wondering if I can made a version of it where I muddle mint and use apple / grape juices or pre-make a batch of the muddle solution.  Because while a pleasant drink it didn't seem to justify the extra prep time.  If I can figure out a way to turn it into a punch it could be a winner.

Spiked Blueberry-Thyme Lemonade

1.25 oz Vodka
  .75 oz Blueberry Thyme Shrub
    .5 oz St Germain
    .5 oz Lemon Juice.
     1 oz Spring Water
Barspoon Berechovka

Inspired by a recipe on the Cure bar website I decided to make some shrubs last week.  I made 3 takes on the blueberry shrub featured here.  The three varieties I made were Blueberry-Cucumber (to use in a Cure recipe), Blueberry-Thyme (cause blueberries and thyme go well together), and Blueberry-Lavender (cause well, I just like lavender).  This means a lot of purple drinks in the next few days... but I'll try and spread em out.

I really like the concept of shrubs since the vinegar gives a drink a different dimension.  As a plus they work really well in citrus style recipes.  Using the blueberry thyme shrub I modified the recipe for spiked blueberry-thyme lemonade from organic shaken and stirred.  The changes I made to the recipe were that instead of .75 oz of simple syrup I used the shrub, I removed the thyme / blueberry muddle step and I used some berechovka since I ran out of yellow chartreuse.

The drink's nose begins with a hit of thyme with a slight vinegar backing.  The taste is predominantly blueberries and lemon.  Thyme and a slight honey / herbal flavor kicks in at the end.  Overall the lemon juice and the vinegar combine for a perfect lemonade pucker.  The only concern with this drink (and a lot from organic shaken and stirred) is that it is a bit sweet / syrupy.  Next time I may put it on ice (ran out of ice or I would of), add a pinch of salt, or play w/ the shrub/lemon levels a bit to lower the sweetness level.

The Tween Barber

Whiskey Version:
1.5 oz Single Malt Scotch (Dalmore Cigar Malt)
.75 oz Red Wine
  .5 oz Licor 43
.25 oz Lemon Juice
.25 oz Simple Syrup
  dash Orange Bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with a lemon peel

Wine Version:
   2 oz Red Wine
.75 oz Single Malt Scotch (Dalmore Cigar Malt)
  .5 oz Licor 43
.25 oz Lemon Juice
.25 oz Simple Syrup
  dash Orange Bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a wine glass.  Garnish with a lemon peel

In preparation for a trip to New Orleans I have been checking out the list at my favorite bar down there Cure.  They have a lot of interesting things on their menu.  One that that caught my eye was the Twee Barber with the use of wine, scotch and Licor 43.  For this reason I decided to try to recreate it at home.

Since I've never had the original and only had the ingredients list to go by I made two versions.  The first is more whiskey driven and uses the wine as a flavor element.  The second version is more of a sangria.  Both versions turned out good, so I still don't know which direction is better.

 

Whiskey Version:
In the whiskey version the drink starts with a lemon and slight whiskey aroma.  The taste starts with the scotch and a hint of smoke and changes to sugar, citrus and a purple almost creme de cassis fruit note.  It reminded me of cool flavored whiskey sour or similar whiskey driven drink.

Wine Version:
The wine version starts with lemon oil.  The taste is incredible smooth with the wine notes as the primary taste with the sugar and lemon juice coming in after the wine notes.  The whiskey is almost invisible in the drink, it provides some body and depth but doesn't stand out on its own.

As I said both drinks were good.  I'd probably make the whiskey version if I was having a cocktail or 2 with friends, but on a summer night sitting outside, the second more wine driven version would be more my go to.