Some drink recipes spend a lot of time rattling around in my head. I have a moleskin notebook full of recipes that I either come up with out of the blue or during one of the Thursday Drink Night events with the rest of the Cocktail Blogging Degenerates at the Mixoloseum.
Most of these recipes are demonstrated to a single person once and then never seen again. On rare occasions I’ll find myself convinced of an idea’s worth and will endlessly tinker with the idea in the futile hopes that some day I’ll come up with a drink that’s actually worth drinking.
Jaunty Angle
1.5 oz Aged Rum
.75 oz Rye Whiskey
1 tsp Green Chartreuse
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
1 dash Ango. Orange Bitters
1 tsp Gomme SyrupStir with ice and strain into an Old Fashioned Glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
The Jaunty Angle was originally the Victorian House, a cocktail I came up with for TDN: New Orleans. I named the drink after the bed & breakfast at which I stayed with my fellow bloggers because, well, why not? I took inspiration from the Sazerac, even contemplating using the Chartreuse for a rinse instead of just adding it to the drink. In the end, the drink’s construction is similar to a rummy Vieux Carre.
Fast-forward about 14 months and I find myself spending my Sundays working in a bar in Seal Beach – 320 Main. The odd thing about being The Rum Dood is that when people know who you are and you’re behind the stick, they tend to ask you to make them “something with rum in it” a lot. Usually this leads to people getting an El Presidente, a Hemingway Daiquiri or a Three Dots & A Dash.
A few weeks ago someone stopped by and had each of those and asked for another Bartender’s Choice with rum. We recently started using gomme syrup in the bar for our Old Fashioneds and Sazeracs, which lends a really amazing texture to the drinks without over-sweetening them. I glanced over the tools at my disposal and thought, “What the heck? One more try at getting that blasted drink right.”
Suggested Rums:
- El Dorado 12 Year Old
- Zaya Gran Reserva
- Dos Maderas PX
I grabbed the El Dorado 12 Year Old, which I recommend for this drink. I had been fiddling with the recipe with ED15, but never tried the 12 and that had been a mistake. The ED12 plays perfectly against a rye like Russell’s Reserve 6 Year Old. I also swapped out the Peychaud’s for Angostura Bitters and altered some of the proportions.
My favorite rum/rye combo right now is the aforementioned El Dorado 12 Year Old and Russell’s Reserve. They have a good mixture of richness, sweetness and spiciness. With a rye like Rittenhouse Bonded you might want to up the richness of the rum and try something like Ron Zacapa or Zaya or just adjust your gomme syrup, but your mileage may vary.
In the end, you’ve got a drink that’s complex and gives you a lot over the course of each sip as the rum, rye, Chartreuse and even bitters each take their turn in the spotlight on your palate.
Question of the Day:
What’s your favorite drink of your own creation?
Comments on this entry are closed.
Colin
I made a drink a few weeks ago after a weekend in New Orleans. I also ended up naming it after the place I stayed. The drink its self is loosely based on something I read on A Mountain of Crushed Ice a LOOONG time ago, but I think I’ve changed it enough to make it my own.
Carondelet Tiki Punch
2 oz pineapple-orange-banana juice (I used Dole)
1 oz Old New Orleans Cajun Spice Rum
1 oz Banana-Fig-Vanilla Spiced Old New Orleans Crystal Rum (the recipe for this came off of the Leblon website, i just subbed ONO Crystal for Leblon.)
0.5 -.75 oz Butter Pecan syrup, depending on how much sweetness you want (the recipe for this came from A Mountain of Crushed Ice)
0.5 oz Fresh Lime juice
1 Dash of BitterCube Blackstrap Bitters
3 Dashes of AB Semby’s Black & White Bitters on top of the ice
Mix in blender with crushed ice for 10 seconds or shake vigoriously with ice, strain and serve in a glass filled with fresh crushed ice, add some extra ice to build it up over the glass a bit and add the Black & White bitters on top. Garnish with fresh mint.
Raymond
What do you think about using some Wild Turkey 101 Rye in the mix? Would it work with the ED 12, or should I still dig a little richer?
Chuck
I note for the record that I voted for “The Victorian House” as the name. 🙂 We’ll be making these tonight! We’re out of ED 12 so I’ll have to suffer with 15, I guess.
As for our favorite home creations — from me the Hoskins and the Réveillon, for Wesly the Anodyne (all three recipes at the above link under “Cocktails”).
Matt Robold
Colin: Looks delicious. I’ll have to acquire some more ONO Crystal first.
Raymond: It would probably work great with the ED12, but I haven’t had Turkey in so long that I’m running on old memories here.
Chuck: Yes, I recall. I actually came THIS CLOSE to going with Nouvelle Carre or Nouvelle Monde instead to hearken back to the Vieux Carre that the drink resembles. With the ED15 I really think something ends up lacking in the drink, oddly enough. I think it’s one of the reasons I was never satisfied with it.
DJ HawaiianShirt
I’m gonna make this thing once my strep throat heals.
butters
I think my favorite might be this one
communication breakdown
3/4 batavia arrack
3/4 maraschino (i use maraska)
3/4 cynar
3/4 lime
1/2 bonal
shake, serve up
Brian Johnson
What’s a good source for gomme syrup? Can anything be subbed in for it?
Andy
@Brian Johnson
amazon has a 1 lb bag of powdered gum arabic for $20 that you can melt in simple syrup to make your own gomme pretty cheaply and easily. Past that, if you’re lucky, small hands foods makes an excellent gomme, but I don’t know how widely she distributes.
Andy Stewart
One of my favourite creations is another Sazerac variant I came up with for a comp a few months back:
Papa Ghuede
37.5ml Myers Jamacian Rum
12.5ml Havana Especial
12.5ml Velvet Falernum
2 Dashes Peychauds Bitters
Orange Spiral Garnish (cut over the drink so the oils fall onto the surface)
Stir with ice and strain into an absinthe rinsed Absinthe glass.
Jac
I’m pretty proud of my Dutch Caribbean Fizz from the Bols TDN
2oz. Genever
.75oz. Lemon juice
.75oz. Curaçao
Dash Angostura bitters
Ginger beer
Shake first four ingredients with ice and strain into a collins glass filled with crushed ice… Top with ginger beer. Garnish with lemon zest.
KeithP
Oh my … Matt this thing is DAMN good! Made it last night, plan on making it again tonight. Used Rittenhouse and ED 15 (would like to see how it changes subbing in Zacapa … ) and rich simple syrup. I like the interplay of the spirits with the herbally funk of the Chartreuse. A very nice drink.
My fav drink of my own creation (I don’t have many) is a quirky little mixture, a riff on the Mikado —
2 oz of scotch (used Compass Box Oak Cross)
1 1/2 barspoons of orgeat
2 dashes of Ango bitts
2 large lemon twists
– add all to a mixing glass and stir (including the twists) – double strain into a coupe and garnish with a lemon twist.
Colin
DOOD!, you should barrel age this thing!
Tracy
This looks good, think i have to try it for myself.
Tiare
This drink looks VERY nice to me, i`hope it works with Wild Turkey since its the ONLY rye i can find here!
Emerson
I was pretty pleased with how the following came out. It took a few tries to get the balance right, at least for my palate.
Lowland Julep
Press 8-10 mint leaves in 0.5oz rich simple syrup. Add:
1.5oz Genever gin (I used the Anchor Genevieve)
scant 0.5oz lime juice
0.25oz Fernet Branca
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Shaken, double-strained, no garnish. It’s busy, but I hope not too much so for a blog that’ll countenance tiki drinks. Thanks!
Matt
favorite drink of my own? I’d tend towards whiskey 9 times out of 10, but my obsession with this lavender-based drink is starting to scare me.
http://embitter.net/2011/03/wake-up-march-cocktailing-with-lavender/