Congrats, Marco!

This week we learned that our friend and favorite bartender, Marcovaldo Dionysos, has been nominated as a top 10 finalist for American Bartender of the Year by Tales of the Cocktail! Read more about it here. We have previously written about our adventures recreating his cocktails featured in Left Coast Libations and have to say that the Chartreuse Swizzle is an all time favorite. Of course, he makes it best. If you have a chance to meet him and try one of his creations, do! An amazing man with amazing talent. We're rooting for him to make it to #1!


Cheers!

Mixing Up the Left Coast, week 10 (part 2)

Here you go, part 2 of the Mixing up the Left Coast for week 10. This one goes out to our Padawan A, who loves Laphroig. Hopefully this will inspire him to purchase a bottle instead of drinking the one in the Gindicate Test Kitchen. This cocktail is again from Mr. Jimmy Patrick from the SF Bay Area.

William Orange

1 ½ oz Highland single malt scotch

½ oz Grand Marnier

½ oz Orgeat
½ oz Lime juice
1 drop Absinthe
1 drop Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Aged bitters

Sprig mint (garnish)

Shake all ingredients over ice, strain into a old fashioned glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with sprig of mint.
There are a lot of scotches out there and the choice you make for this recipe will greatly determine how this cocktail comes out. We only had Laphroaig and it is a peat monster! It made the aroma and the flavor very peaty and overwhelming. The Laphroaig has a smoky quality that hid our wimpy mint and gave the flavor a slightly medicinal taste when added to the absinthe. It was like sweet campfire juice.

Then we used St. George’s Single Malt whiskey and everything was amazing! The aroma was woody and minty, the flavor sweet but with a great whiskey kick. It allowed the absinthe to settle into the aroma and not overpower the rest of the cocktail. It was delicious! This is a drink we love and highly recommend!

Cheers!

Mixing Up the Left Coast, week 10 (part 1)

This week we taste the recipes created by Jimmy Patrick from the SF Bay Area. We haven’t had a chance to try any cocktails from the man himself, the book says he tends the bar at the Lion and Compass in Sunnyvale, CA. Hopefully we'll get a chance to meet him if we head back to the old Homestead! This weeks drinks will be split into two posts because the second drink is a doozey and deserves some extra consideration. Enjoy part 1, the Bohemian ...

Bohemian

1 oz Bacardi Superior Rum

1 oz Lemon Hart Demerara Rum

1 oz St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur

½ oz Licor 43
½ oz Lemon juice
½ oz Lime juice
1 drop absinthe
Lemon peal spiral (garnish)

Shake all ingredients over ice and strain over crushed ice into a highball glass. Garnish with the lemon peel spiral.

The aroma is spicy and a bit of absinthe, but primarily of rum. Somehow all these ingredients make a very strong spiced coffee flavor. Also, the elderflower and Licor 43 are a little overpowering. It is a complex drink with too many flavors warring for attention on your pallet. The second time we tried it out we reduced the St. Germain and Licor 43 by half. This time the aroma is less overpowering, but more lemony and sweet. Unfortunately the flavor was completely overpoweringly coffee and too astringent thanks to the Bacardi. It seems like it needs seltzer or ginger beer to thin it a little. It was not the cocktail for us.

Perhaps next time...

Mixing Up the Left Coast, week 9

Lately we have been featuring a lot of tequila drinks since we were able to mix up some great cocktails with friends at their home bar. The Gindicate has always had gin in its heart and luckily for us there are quite a few cocktails featuring our favorite liquor in Left Coast Libations. This week we have a gin double feature from Joseph Brooke out of Los Angeles. We hope you enjoy these delightful cocktails!

The Brass Flower

1 oz Gin

1 oz Grapefruit juice

¾ oz St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur

2 dashes Fee Brothers Grapefruit bitters

Brut Champagne

Strip of grapefruit peel (garnish)

Gently toss (a 5 second shake) all ingredients over ice, except champagne. Strain into a flute and top with champagne. Twist the grapefruit peel over the cocktail to express the oils. *The book also requires you to dink and laugh in this recipe, which is charming!

This recipe calls for a London Dry gin and we used Brokers for our first round. This simple cocktail smells of the pepper and fruitness of grapefruit, while expressing the lovely floral notes of the St. Germain. It has a lovely blend of champagne, grapefruit and gin. There is a refreshing flavor and dryness to it, but the elderflower was not prevalant. However, we wished that the gin was a little less sharp since our grapefruit was not sweet. Therefore we used Plymouth gin in the second round. With this there was more citrus flavor in the gin and therefore it is enhanced in the rest of the cocktail. The elderflower was more present, but still not too sweet. It became more balanced and a little less dry. Watch out, it is a very easy drink that only hits you after a few.

The Lively

1 large fresh Strawberry

2 oz Gin

¾ oz Agave-Ginger syrup

¾ oz Lemon juice

Splash simple syrup

Slice ¼ of the strawberry off and set aside as the garnish. Muddle remainder of the berry with other ingredients and shake over ice. Strain over fresh ice into a sours glass (5-6 oz stemmed glass) and garnish with strawberry piece.

We had some difficulty with this cocktail because we used Ginger People ginger juice in the Agave-Ginger syrup. We recommend that you juice your own ginger or greatly reduce the Ginger People amount by half or ¾ the amount. When we mixed up this cocktail using this recipe we didn’t realize the strength of the ginger and it really affected the flavor. The aroma was of stone fruit, strawberry, and astringency from the ginger. The ginger bit so hard in this cocktail that you could not get any other flavors at first. We then adjusted the cocktail to ¼ Agave-Ginger syrup, ½ lemon, and ¼ simple syrup. This time, the aroma was of strawberry, gin, ginger and a hint of stone fruit. The flavor was much more balanced; sweeter but still not sweet. The harsh ginger bite was gone. It was a bit like spring with its cool astringency yet there is sweetness like the promise of summer.

Cheers!

Thank you St. George, we love your Gins!

It took us some time, but we finally got St. George Spirits Gin selection. They are amazing! What we have (so far) in the Gindicate Test Kitchen is a sample box, not the full sized bottle of each, but a box of 200ML bottles. We purchased ours at their Hanger 1 distillery store. This means we have to be careful with mixology until we can drive the 15 miles to get a larger bottle! We aren't even surprised that their Gins taste great straight at room temperature. That just shows the craftsmanship and truly excellent quality of St. George. Below is our breakdown of their Gins:

Dry Rye Gin – “An assertive and elegant American dry gin to delight the unabashed juniper lover,” and how! We get rye, licorice, rock candy and cardamom in a full frontal assault of flavor that leaves you saying, “Please, sir, can I have another?!”

Botanivore Gin – “A botanical balancing of the highest order, pot distilled from wildcrafted juniper and an array of choice herbs, spices and citrus.” This is a crisp, well balanced and juniper forward gin that is extremely versatile. We can’t wait to try it in a martini, Collins, and gimlet!

Terroir Gin – “A uniquely California gin with a sense of place and poetry, distilled from sustainably sourced botanicals,” which is an understatement. This gin smells like the trails that crisscross over the Northern California foothills. It reminds me of running through those sweet grasses as a child, brushing against bay laurel and picking the fronds off wild anise to eat on the way home. This is my kind of California.

Congrats to St. George Spirits on a fantastic line of Gin! Now we get to experiment in the Gindicate Test Kitchen to find our favorite pairings/cocktails. Follow St. George Spirits' twitter feed for great cocktail suggestions and come back soon so we can show you what we’ve been up to!

Mixing Up the Left Coast, week 8

We have been remiss in our writing duties recently. Times have been very difficult for us with work, holidays, and family obligations. We have been regularly making cocktails each week and will try to update more regularly so that you may all enjoy them as well. This week we discuss the cocktails of Jennifer Colliau of San Francisco. The cocktails use unusual ingredients like pink peppercorns and a lime-whey mixture. You can get more information on this exciting bartender on her blog .

Brace

1 ½ oz Pisco
1 oz Lime-Whey mixture
½ oz Contraeu

½ oz Simple syrup

3 dashes The Bitter Truth Celery bitters

Orange peel (garnish)

Shake all ingredients vigorously with ice and double strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with an orange peel.

For this cocktail we used Don Cesar Puro pisco from Peru. Since pisco is made from grapes, like a grappa, we find the aroma of this liquor to smell a lot like vermouth. The cocktail has a very strong pisco aroma that is highlighted by the orange peel. The flavor starts sweet and then goes dry and tastes a lot like very good dry vermouth. The lime-whey mixture is very refreshing, although making it was time consuming. The recipe for this ingredient can be found in Left Coast Libations and it is a unique item we recommend trying. The next time we made this cocktail the aroma was crisper and less sweet. We were less generous with the bitters this time and it made the cocktail more appealing to us. If you like dry vermouth, you will find this cocktail enchanting.

Reunion Cooler

½ oz Pink peppercorns
4 total 1-inch Chunks ripe pineapple
2 total 1x8-inch Strips of grapefruit peel
1 oz blanco tequila
½ oz Lime juice
1 barspoon agave nectar
Crush peppercorns at the bottom of a mixing glass with a muddler. Add the pineapple chunks and grapefruit peel and muddle again. Then add the liquid ingredients and shake thoroughly. Strain into a double old fashion glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with the remaining grapefruit peel fashioned into a rosette.
For this cocktail we used Partida blanco tequila and it was a good sharp contrast to the agave nectar. The grapefruit peel gives this cocktail a lovely peppery aroma that gives you a good warm up for the pink peppercorns. The flavor is very floral and slightly spicy. The tequila and pineapple are a great mix and this cooler is a little short, it felt odd in the glass like there was something missing. The next round we made of this cocktail used Partida reposado tequila and added a topper of seltzer. It really improved the cocktail and made it more light and refreshing. The flavors were always fantastic, it just made it a little more of a summer cocktail. Don’t forget a straw!

Salud!

Aspall Dry Draft Cider

Aspall is an English Draft Cider that has a variety of different "styles" for sale. I got this bottle at BevMo. There is a lot that can be said about how it tastes (technically) but that isn't what I'm here to tell you about. If you're one of the lucky few who understands what a number means or what "white spices aroma" is, good on you. For the rest of us, you just really want to know what it tastes like, compared to what you know. It's rather expensive ($4 for 500ML and 6.8% ALC/VOL) and you may not want to buy it if its not in your flavor profile.

So here's what it really tastes like (btw I'm not a super-taster, I just have a snooty pallet). It's dry, sharp, and a bit skunky. If you like beers like Heineken then this might be a good draft cider for you. I was a little shocked that the aroma is so light but the taste is so ... full? It has a sharp vinegary middle and a pleasant tart apple after taste. I finished the whole bottle, so I must have liked it well enough. It's not Strongbow (which is sweeter) or Magners Irish Cider (which is extra dry/skunky) but definitely somewhere in the middle to Magners end.