I have been traveling around too much to be in Mixology Monday mode recently.  Unfortunately I missed the last one on 19th Century cocktails.  How did I manage to miss that?  It sounded great.  Ahh. . .the travails of travel.

Anyway, this time round the theme is Guilty Pleasures, hosted by Two at the Most.  The main idea behind the theme seems to be ‘comfort cocktails’, similar to ‘comfort food’. There is also a suggestion that it could include drinks that appeal a poorly educated palate.  Hmm. . .

Forgive me if I randomly muse rather than picking a single drink.

OK, what I’m really going to do is smack you in the face with a Bunnyhug.  However, I’ll soften the blow by first musing on cream, creme de menthe, and other inoffensive things.

The White Russian immediately came to mind when I thought about ‘comfort cocktails’, but I see Dr. Bamboo has already covered it.  There is nothing too special about a White Russian though.  When you are in the mood for a White Russian just about any sweet and creamy drink might do equally well.  Perhaps the ideal time for these drinks is when watching a DVD at home on a winter evening.  A Brandy Alexander is great, and so is the original Alexander Cocktail (simply substitute gin for the brandy).  Tossing aside any pretense of sophistication, I also have to admit possessing a soft spot for a Grasshopper (creme de cacao, creme de menthe and cream).  My incredibly discerning palate means I find a mixture of two liqueurs and cream slightly sweet.  This is where vodka becomes my friend.  A slosh of vodka cuts the sweetness and boosts the octane.  The ideal proportions for these drinks depend on how you are feeling and how heavy your cream is, but equal parts is a good place to start.

I have a weakness for creme de menthe.  The taste might be sweet and one dimensional, but there is a pleasant simplicity about it, plus a gratifyingly lurid greenness.  Creme de menthe harks back to a simpler age.  Just possibly the whole concept also worked better pre-toothpaste.  Part of the appeal for me is probably that creme de menthe was the first liqueur I was ever properly served (stealing a bottle of Chartreuse as a toddler doesn’t count since I forgot to nick glassware).  I was maybe seven or eight years old or so at the time, and watching Murder on the Orient Express on television.  Hercule Poirot was sitting in the train dining car drinking a glass of green stuff.  Clearly this was something I needed to do myself at some stage.  I asked my father what the famous Belgian detective was drinking and within seconds I had a matching drink, right down to the glass.  I have trouble thinking of a really great cocktail that requires creme de menthe, but how can a bar be complete without a bottle of the green stuff?  It has to be there, even if you just pick it up and admire the color occasionally.

Anyway, before I got sidetracked by creme de menthe I was going to give a shout for the Bunnyhug.  For some reason everybody hates this drink.  I admit the Bunnyhug has a rough edge or two, and perhaps my palate could be more refined, but really, for pure abrasive flavorsomeness the Bunnyhug has few equals.  Another drink that comes close is the Asylum Cocktail.

I no longer drink the Bunnyhug often, but I think both it and the Asylum have a place.  The Bunnyhug is more of a flavorsome pick-me-up, an ill-advised strategy for grappling with a major life crisis, or something to order in a bar that can’t mix drinks.  I am less sure about the Asylum.  Given the visual effect I guess you could consider it an alcoholic’s Tequila Sunrise, save it as  shock therapy for a friend whose addiction to colorful umbrella drinks is annoying you, or treat it as an entry level Bunnyhug.

The theme for this Mixology Monday (hosted at Save the Drinkers) is Local Flavor.  The idea is to make a drink featuring local ingredients.  I will treat New Zealand as my locality.   During my temporary sojourn in the Dominican Republic I have no bar besides a couple of bottles of rum.  I think I should blog on a drink I invented a few years ago and had the foresight to photograph.

Sensitive readers should be aware that this drink contains vodka.

Those open-minded and inquisitive readers that are still with me will be wondering the circumstances that led me to invent a vodka drink.  You can blame the arrival in China of 42 Below vodka.  An Australian friend of mine with a bar in Shanghai was impressed with 42 Below.  I think he was impressed with the marketing more than the product, and you have to admit that some of it is hilarious.  Anyway, my friend asked me to invent some house cocktails, featuring New Zealand’s very own 42 Below. My reward was free alcohol and the chance to strike at the French via creative cocktail nomenclature.

Even the cocktail inventing was not entirely joyless.  Vodka may be the most boring spirit in the world, but  occasionally you find a flavored vodka that offers you a taste you would otherwise have trouble getting in a drink.   Poland’s Zubrovka (flavored with bison grass) is one example.  New Zealand’s 42 Below Feijoa is another.

The kiwifruit flavor may not have been such a good idea.  In New Zealand we seem to suffer a compulsion to produce kiwifruit everything (candy, liqueurs, soap, juices, facial scrubs, and much more), then plead with tourists to take the crap off our hands.

Feijoa is a different story.  While the fruit is native to Brazil, it is oddly popular in New Zealand.  While efforts have been made to cultivate it in quite a few countries, I do not know of anywhere else it is taken on in quite the same way.  Visitors to New Zealand are often unfamiliar with it so I am guessing not many places grow it on any scale.  Even in New Zealand it only began to be sold in supermarkets fairly recently.  It was popular long before the supermarkets took it up, but was the type of fruit people either had in their gardens, acquired from neighbors, or bought at the side of the road.  Feijoa is an under-appreciated fruit with an interesting flavor (something like a weird twist on a guava), and seeing it show up as a vodka flavor was good.  Finally, an interesting flavored vodka, and with a local flavor to boot!

You could do all kinds of things with this stuff.  It should be great in Tiki drinks.  However, I went for a simple riff on a classic French high-ball, a cognac and tonic.  Then, in recognition of my debt to the French, I named the drink in a manner calculated to cause them embarrassment and offense.  Really though, what kind of nation sends their special forces to blow up a Greenpeace protest vessel?  What kind of secret agents get caught because of a neighborhood watch group?  The French are truly special.

The Rainbow Warrior

1 oz Cognac (or other decent Armagnac or brandy – since it gets cut with vodka a robust Armagnac is not a bad choice)

1 oz 42 Below Feijoa

1 lime wedge (lemon will do in a pinch)

Tonic water

Build over ice in a collins glass, squeezing the lime wedge to extract the juice.  Serve with a straw.  Show your angry side by garnishing with a burning French flag, or be humorous and use a mechanical bath toy in the shape of a frog or a scuba diver.  It all depends how you are feeling about the French that day.

The above makes for a pleasant, fruity, and slightly exotic twist on a cognac and tonic.  Recommended if you have 42 Below Feijoa lying around.

Needless to say the Chinese barmen soon began ‘improving’ the recipe.  The drink morphed into vodka, peach schnapps, and soda, and subsequently died a deserved death.  Here you have the drink in its original version.

To assist my anticipatory salivation ahead of Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown’s Tales of the Cocktail presentation on “The Cafes of Paris”, I have been taking a look at a few lesser known French aperitifs. Several weeks ago I took a look at Pineau des Charentes. Today I focus on a pair of fruit quinquinas.

Quinquina is vermouth’s neglected cousin. Vermouth is well recognized, if widely feared and misunderstood. Martini drinkers fall into two camps: those who really want vermouth in their drink, and those who merely wish to ritualistically conjure up its spirit. However, while vermouth provokes fierce debate and elaborate juju, the mention of quinquina elicits little more than a blank stare. This is a shame because quinquina is an interesting category. To fix those blank stares, perhaps a little explanation is in order.

Both quinquina and vermouth are aromatized wines (i.e. wines flavored with herbs and spices). Quinquinas distinguish themselves from vermouths in using quinine as a key flavoring. As in tonic water, the quinine originally served a medicinal purpose – warding off malaria and all that. Vermouth and quinquina are not mutually exclusive categories. Some vermouth producers sell ‘quinquina’ versions alongside their regular vermouths: for example Martini & Rossi release their sweet vermouth in both ‘quniquina’ and standard versions. However, despite some overlap there are marked differences, with quinquinas tending to emphasize spice while vermouths are more herbal.

Similar to vermouths, which can be broadly classified into sweet and dry styles, quinquinas largely fall into rouge and blanc styles. The rouge style is rich, spicy and based on red wine – Dubonnet Rouge is the classic example. The blanc style is light, citrus accented, and based on white wine – Lillet Blanc is the iconic product.

For some reason neither of these mainstream styles of quinquina ever challenged vermouth to become a ubiquitous cocktail ingredient. Cocktail recipes never casually call for a generic rouge or blanc quinquina. Quinquina is called for only occasionally, and always by brand. Even luminaries like Charles H. Baker considered Dubonnet to be “only needed in the more elaborate establishments”, and I do not recall him mentioning Lillet at all. Considering that Baker saw orgeat, kummel and six types of bitters as more or less essential bar supplies, this adds up to a bit of a slap in the face for the quinquina category.

If mainstream quinquinas like Dubonnet and Lillet are fairly obscure, fruit flavored quinquina are even more so. These fruity quinquina do not fall within either the rouge or blanc styles, with heavy fruit macerations completely masking the base wine. They deserve a look from cocktailians though, offering a great source of fruit flavors and complexity, yet one with minimal sweetness. Two products are introduced below: RinQuinQuin and Orange Colombo.

RinQuinQuin (15% alcohol by volume) is a peach flavored quinquina. It is produced in Provence by the same firm that makes Henri Bardouin pastis. The name means something like an invigorating drink or a pick-me-up in French. The production process involves maceration, distillation, blending and several months of aging. Both distilled alcohol and wine are infused with quinine, other herbs and spices, and peaches. The peaches are what distinguish the product, and are added not as fruit, but rather as leaves, skins and kernels. This makes for a very complex flavor. The product is lightly sweetened. The result is a fruity but refreshingly dry aperitif wine with a distinctly bitter edge.

Orange Colombo (15% alcohol by volume) is an orange flavored quinquina along the same lines as RinQuinQuin. Based on its complex taste I am guessing it is flavored with more than just orange skins. As in RinQuinQuin, leaves, blossoms or other material may also be used.

These fruit quinquina are traditionally consumed either chilled or over ice, perhaps garnished with a twist of lemon. However, there is no reason they cannot be used in cocktails. Bear in mind that their mild fruitiness makes them poor vermouth substitutes, while their lack of sugar and their herbal complexity prevent them from standing in for fruit liqueurs. A bit of a fresh approach is in order.

Here are a few ideas. . .

Peach Martinez

1 oz Genever (Bols Oude)

1 oz Italian vermouth (Martini Rossi)

1 oz RinQuinQuin

2 dashes Fees Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters

1 tsp maraschino

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

A nice take on the Martinez. Cutting the vermouth with RinQuinQuin makes for a lighter and more interesting drink. The Genever provides a mellow but solid base, neither fading into obscurity nor dominating. The complex peach notes mingle nicely with the cherry. Increase the Genever a little if you find it lacks kick.

When playing around with RinQuinQuin to create variations on existing recipes you will probably find that cutting vermouth half-and-half with RinQuinQuin works better than a straight substitution. RinQuinQuin is more of a one note product than vermouth, albeit a complex note.

RinQuinQuin Vesper

3 oz gin (Tanqueray)

1 oz vodka (Stolichnaya)

¼ oz Lillet Blanc

¼ oz RinQuinQuin

Shake over ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a large lemon twist.

This is just brilliant. By upping the bitterness the RinQuinQuin addresses the problem of Lillet having been reformulated and lightened since the Vesper was originally invented. The RinQuinQuin also adds a peach layer to the citrus in the Lillet.

Orange Colombo can be used to create another nice Vesper variation. Both products can also be used in regular Martinis, where they work especially well with delicate gins like Tanqueray 10 that stand up poorly to vermouth. I would be inclined to split the quinquina 50/50 with vermouth.

Orange Colombo Pisco Sour

2 oz pisco

½ oz Orange Columbo (or cut back to 1/4 oz)

¾ oz lime juice

1/3 oz simple syrup

1 egg white (half an egg white per drink is sufficient if making multiple drinks)

Dash or two of Fees Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters

Put everything except the bitters in a mixing glass. Shake long and hard over ice until the drink becomes foamy. Double strain into a sour glass. Finish the drink by garnishing the foam with a few drops of bitters – you can use a toothpick to draw a pattern on the foam. A sour glass, champagne flute or wine glass is preferable for this drink. The garnish of bitters on egg-white foam is intended to provide aroma. A sour glass concentrates the aromas, while the smaller surface area means that the foam, and the aromas, last longer.

The Orange Columbo adds both a subtle orange note and a light bite, making a pleasant variation that jazzes up the original. Perhaps I am not using the right pisco, but I find pisco sours tend to be a little too plain and smooth. Orange Columbo livens things up without creating an unseemly ruckus. You can also try a splash of Orange Colombo in a Margarita – obviously you will still need the orange liqueur, but possibly it could be scaled back a notch.

There is tons of potential for using these obscure fruit quinquina in cocktails. If you see a bottle you should grab it and have a play around. Currently these products are underutilized, leaving the field wide open to experimentation.

I am not certain about the origins of this drink. I suspect it is originally Japanese. The balancing of a bitter element (grapefruit) against a sweet element (lychee) seems Japanese to me. The name ‘China Blue’ applied to an exotic blue drink also only makes sense if the drink originates outside of China. Japan is perhaps the only Asian country to have a developed cocktail culture. Finally, the drink seems relatively unknown in the west but common in Asia, which would suggest an Asian (likely Japanese?) origin. Of course I may be completely wrong. Taiwanese have told me this drink is named after the Taiwanese band of the same name – led by the famous Taiwanese rocker Wu Bai (伍佰). At any rate this is a popular drink in Taiwan (in so much as any cocktail is popular there), and a staple of Japanese bars in both Taiwan and China.

China Blue

2 oz lychee liqueur

Grapefruit juice

1 teaspoon Blue Curacao

Build on rocks in a highball glass. Drop the curacao into the drink to create a blue cloud effect . Pouring the curacao down the side of a straw, spoon, chopstick, or similar will help it travel directly to the bottom of the drink. You can also draw the liqueur out of the bottle by capping your finger over the end of a straw and drop it directly into the bottom of the drink. Pale colored grapefruit juice is best to maximize the blue cloud effect. My photo did not come out very well. I swear the drink was bluer than it appears

If you want a less sweet drink you can also make this with 1 oz lychee liqueur and 1 oz vodka – or 3 parts lychee to 1 part vodka. I tend to go down the latter route myself.

This one is not going to set the cocktail world on fire, but then again it is not bad. The grapefruit stops it tasting like too much of a sugar bomb; there is plenty of sugar but the overall impression is still bitter sweet rather than sweet. The lychee contributes a strong scent that is interesting and refreshing. The curacao makes it fun to throw together and admire.

Drinks like this have a place. There is a certain type of girl who will feel extremely short changed if she gets invited out for a cocktail and doesn’t receive a blue drink. Having got the blue drink out of the way she might feel included to venture further and try something else – perhaps a faintly violet Aviation. Hell, plenty of guys feel the same about blue drinks. Blue drinks are simply exotic and cool, even if they do not always taste very good. The China Blue is a good choice for those occasions when only blue will do. It is suitably exotic looking, easy to drink, and has enough challenging bitterness to make a good stepping stone to something more complex – and a good fall back if that more ‘sophisticated’ drink doesn’t work out.

Incidentally, the illustrious London chef Alexis Soyer marketed a blue soft drink in the mid 19th century. The drink, called Soyer’s Nectar, was hugely popular. The fact that soft drinks were considered de facto health drinks at the time helped its popularity further. Soyer’s Nectar even saw use as a cocktail ingredient during the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Soyer’s Nectar Cobbler was rather popular, being simultaneously nutritious, boozy, and blue. If blue drinks were good enough for Alexis Soyer then critics of the genre, before expressing their views, should consider whether they are willing to enter a toe to toe culinary debate with an impassioned Frenchman. Personally I’d just enjoy the blue drink.

I got hold of some Lillet the other day. I really like Dubonnet so had been looking forward to trying Lillet. Dubonnet and Lillet both belong to the ‘quinqina’ category of flavored wines, namely quinine flavored wine-based aperitifs. Dubonnet is red while Lillet is white, though Dubonnet also produces a less well known white version and Lillet also has a red version. The situation is a little like that with vermouth, where vermouth producers typically offer both sweet and dry versions.

Tasting Lillet on its own I found it sweeter than I had expected, and not that different to a fruity white wine. I had been hoping for something a little more assertive. I think Dubonnet remains my favorite of the two. Dubonnet has a discernable medicinal bitterness that is only faintly present in Lillet. Incidentally, while some people describe ‘quinquina’ as similar to vermouth, I don’t think this description is very helpful. To my mind Dubonnet and Lillet are far more gentle than vermouth, and thus those who fear vermouth could consider quinquina. To me, vermouth is so heavily flavored that the base wine becomes hardly noticeable, while with Dubonnet and Lillet the wine stands in the foreground and is accentuated with the flavorings. Dubonnet makes me think of spiced port, while Lillet resembles a desert wine with a touch of bitter complexity.

The formula of Lillet was changed significantly in the 1980s. Compared to the original the new version is said to be fruitier and less bitter (less quinine?). The Lillet website describes the new version as less ‘syrupy’, so possibly it also has a lower sugar content. The modern Lillet is still pretty sweet though. Perhaps when they say ‘syrupy’ they have something like cough syrup in mind? In that case they could really be saying the new version is less bitter. Anyway, compared to other aromatized aperitif wines (i.e. vermouths or Dubonnet) Lillet comes across as sweet and fruity rather than aromatic or herbal. It could almost pass for a desert wine. The bitterness and aromatics in Lillet sit in the background. Personally I reckon they should think about reworking the recipe again to restore the lost oomph.

Incidentally the formula for Dubonnet also appears to have changed recently. They redesigned the bottle to give it a more modern look and simultaneously shaved a percentage point or so off the alcohol content. I did a comparison between the remains of an old bottle and a freshly opened new one. I have to be honest and say I couldn’t taste any real difference, but I would still rather they had left it unchanged. If it ain’t broke, why fix it? However much you rework it, Dubonnet is never going to become Diet Coke – at least I hope not.

There are dozens of Lillet cocktails I want to try, but the obvious first thing was to do like James Bond and make a Vesper! So I did the following. . .

3 oz gin (Bond drank Gordons but I used Tanqueray since the only Gordons in New Zealand is nasty, low-proof stuff)

1 oz vodka (Stolichnaya, what else?)

½ oz Lillet Blanc

Shake over ice and garnish with a lemon twist.

I believe this marks the first appearance of vodka on this blog. I had to go out and buy the vodka specially, so rarely do I have a reason to use the stuff. Stolichnaya is a little sweet, particularly given the already sweetish Lillet. In its defense though it is cheap, genuinely Russian, not distilled from Icelandic glacier water and filtered through a Javanese volcano or some other bullshit, and has one of the coolest label designs out there. Whatever you may say about the contents of the bottle, the Stolichnaya label is a true piece of socialist art. Moscovskaya would have been my first choice if available given that it is a little drier. I guess Bond would have drunk Smirnoff. Still, lets not get too hung up on the finer points of a flavorless spirit.

The vesper is an extremely easy to drink yet high octane martini variation. The alcohol is not exactly disguised, but you don’t sense that you are drinking lots of alcohol in quite the same way that you do with a standard martini. Somebody used to low alcohol drinks will probably taste lots of alcohol when drinking this and exercise caution, but somebody used to the traditional gin and vermouth martini could end up putting these away rather fast. The fruitiness in the Lillet makes the drink eminently shippable and the vodka lightens the gin and gives an impression of the drink being less potent than it in fact is.

I probably wouldn’t drink these too often but they are a nice thing to have in the rotation.