In the Spirit

Online Amaro

Tax write-offs never tasted so good

By Tony Cross

I recently received my online, bi-yearly shipment of spirits. Just under one grand and a week or so later, a big box with lots of stickers sits on my front doorstep like one of those old-fashioned steamer trunks in black and white movies. My latest treasures included a bunch of amari that I cannot get at any local ABC.

Amaro (amari is the plural) is Italian for “bitter” and has been extremely popular over the last decade or so. While lots of cocktail bars use these in mixed drinks, amaro was first intended as a digestif to be taken after a meal. Lots of countries have their own version of digestifs: cognac in France or underberg in Germany, for example. In Italy, it’s amaro. I’ll be using author Brad Thomas Parsons’ book Amaro: The Spirited World of Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueurs as a reference in the quick summary below.

I’m not going to pretend I’m a bitter liqueur scholar. I’m not. I’m neither bitter nor scholarly. I’m listing these in order from lowest to highest ABV (alcohol by volume). The differences are minute, 21-35 percent, but I’m tasting them this way because, well, why not?

Amaro Bráulio

First up is Amaro Bráulio. Created in the Italian Alps in 1875 by pharmacist Dr. Francesco Peloni, this amaro hit me with heavy gentian on the nose right off the bat. Now, I’m not the best taste-tester, but I have a large nose and I work with gentian root quite a lot (it’s one of the ingredients in my business’s tonic syrup). On the palate, I taste some sort of mint, spices and a touch of bitterness. Not too bitter at all, and I’d even say that if you’re a beginner with amaro, this is a good place to start. As far as cocktails go, I would mix this with a cola-tasting rum, like Zaya.

Amaro Lucano

Per the back label: “Created in 1894, Amaro Lucano today still uses the same secret ancient recipe. A skillful blend of more than 30 herbs that the Vena family has handed down from generation to generation.” This amaro doesn’t have that gentian kick like the Bráulio; instead, I’m smelling something sweeter — if I made a Coke from scratch and let it go flat, that’s what it would smell like. Amaro purists are probably wincing right now. There is a lot going on palate-wise. Front palate has me wowed. What the hell am I tasting? Help me out, Brad. “Medium sweetness with herbal bitterness and notes of cinnamon, licorice, and caramel.” OK, I get the licorice and caramel for sure. Cinnamon is pretty faint, but it doesn’t matter — this amaro is delicious. “Headquartered in Pisticci Scalo, a small southern Italian town in the Matera province in the region of Basilicata, the Lucano brand was founded in 1894 by Cavalier Pasquale Vena, and his descendants, now representing the fourth generation, run the family business to this day.” As Parsons also notes, the fifth generation is helping their brand reach cocktail enthusiasts by ramping up production. It’s very impressive how balanced this amaro is with over 30 ingredients. Talk about talent.

Averna

While I’m trying the other three amari on their own for the first time, I poured this one over a big rock with an orange peel last weekend and it was so good I just did it again. Phenomenal after-dinner drink. I’ve had this (and the next amaro on the list) mixed in cocktails, but never have I owned a bottle and savored it on its own. This is an easy sipper for me. Parsons’ book says that the known ingredients are lemon and orange essential oils, and pomegranate. Orange is definitely a standout, which is why adding a peel from the fruit makes its flavors pop. There’s not a lot of bitterness due to the sweetness from a cola flavor. As far back as 1859, the spirit was used by monks who passed the recipe on to Salvatore Averna, a benefactor to San Spirito Abbey in Caltanissetta, Sicily. Soon after, Averna “was the official supplier to the royal house of King Vittorio Emanuele III and the royal coat of arms was permitted to be displayed on the label of the bottle.” Parsons notes that in 2014, Averna was sold to Gruppo Campari for $143 million dollars.

Amaro Nonino Quintessentia

We finish with Amaro Nonino Quintessentia, the most beautiful of the four bottles, and the amaro with the highest ABV. I smell chocolate on the nose. Sue me. I do. On the palate, caramel and orange right off the bat. The flavors (also a nuanced bitterness) linger quite a bit longer than the other amari. I’m guessing this has to do with the higher proof. Parsons calls the bottle and finished product “elegant,” and I couldn’t agree more. Parsons writes that the Nonino family’s “amaro story begins in 1933, when (owner) Benito’s father, Antonio Nonino, made a grappa-based amaro he called Amaro Carnia, named after the nearby mountains. In 1984, Benito and (wife) Giannola developed their proprietary ÙE Grape Distillate, a unique distillation of the whole grape-skins, pulp, and juice — that captures the production elements of a wine distillate with the craft of grappa.” The recipe was reformulated in 1987. The grappa distillate and ÙE were aged for five years in barriques (wine barrels, especially small ones from France that are made from oak) and sherry barrels. Parsons writes about his tastings in New York and Friuli, Italy with one of Benito’s daughters, Elisabetta. She taught him the way she enjoys her family’s spirit, which he refers to as “Elisabetta style.” It’s Nonino in a small glass with two ice cubes and an orange slice. And that’s exactly how I’ll imbibe mine tonight.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

 

In the Spirit

Frozen

Break the ice this summer

By Tony Cross

If you’ve ever experienced a Carolina summer, you’ll know that the heat and humidity are enough to beat you down to the point you’ll ask a bartender for a Zima. Almost. Instead of having 10 drinks on a menu that each have a hundred steps before the bartender can put that lifesaving, cool drink in front of you, I learned to integrate punches and bottle cocktails that could be served as quickly as pouring a glass of wine. Another batched elixir that’s perfect for taking the sweat out of summer is a frozen cocktail.

I remember going to the bowling alley with my family in the early ’90s and seeing a daiquiri machine. Daiquiri-schmackeri. All I knew was that it looked like something for kids but that I wasn’t allowed to drink it. Once I was of age, I finally got to have a frozen cocktail of my own in New Orleans. I honestly can’t tell you if those slushy hurricanes were nice and balanced. I was in my early 20s. It was the Big Easy. I wasn’t very balanced myself. Trends come and go, but luckily for cocktails, we’re blessed with creative men and women behind the bar who can make what was once unpalatable, desirable. So, I headed out to a few bars and restaurants in the Triangle to learn their tricks for getting frozen cocktails just right.

The restaurant scene in downtown Durham has exploded in the past decade. A town that once took a backseat in the culinary department to neighboring Raleigh isn’t in the shadows anymore. Dashi, a Japanese ramen shop and izakaya (the word for a Japanese pub that’s located above the restaurant), has only had its doors open for a few years, but the combination of yummy and speed keep their guests coming back for more.

All of the cocktails at Dashi are made in the izakaya. “So, when the staff downstairs are really busy, they push these,” says bar manager Gabe Turner, pointing to his slushy machine. “They’re delicious, too, so it’s not like we’re sacrificing quality for efficiency.”

Purchasing a slushy machine was a no-brainer for Turner. “When we started fooling around with recipes, we stumbled into a pretty good template,” says Turner. “We don’t like to use too much sugar. Using an oleo-saccharum (oil-sugar) helps us keep a nice balance in our drinks.”

And you won’t find Gabe and Co. doing frozen margaritas. “The style we’re doing is a Japanese cocktail called chuhai, which traditionally is sh¯oōch¯uū (a fermented Japanese liquor made from sweet potato, barley, rice and other ingredients with a relatively low alcohol proof) and fresh juice. In Japan, they call them sours. The idea was, ‘Let’s do frozen chuhais.’ We used sh¯oōch¯uū, fresh juice, and then sake to round it out. To get the alcohol level up, we’ll add a little bit of vodka, but not enough to change the flavor profiles.”

One of Dashi’s current chuhai slushies combines the classic ingredients along with a spicy ginger syrup, orange oils and juice. How popular are the frozen chuhais? “I’ll make a whole batch of our slushy cocktails every week,” says Turner. Each batch serves around 50 8-ounce drinks. “We use the Bunn slushy machines and have a second machine in the back, so they don’t get too burned out. They’re being used 24/7.” If it’s not slushy season — a rarity at Dashi — two weeks is the longest they’ll keep a batch before letting the staff dip into the leftovers. “Rarely does it not sell out,” Turner says. Too bad for the staff. Dashi carries two different slushy cocktails at a time — a quick and cool option for a bar otherwise known for its myriad sake and sh¯oōch¯uū bottles.

What if your establishment (or you) doesn’t want to invest, or can’t find room, for a slushy machine? Get creative. A block away from Dashi, the chic cocktail lounge Alley Twenty-Six has its own twist on frozen drinks. Longtime bartender Rob Mariani, formerly of Alley Twenty-Six, says, “While a slushy machine is on the wish list, we don’t have one. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t make frozen drinks. By using crushed ice and giving it a good shake, you can get a drink that mimics a slushy and has a similar dilution rate. One would think that smaller ice melts faster than larger ice, which would be true if we were looking at two cubes melting on their own, but when you pack a glass full of crushed ice, there is lots of surface area, and the dilution rate is quite slow.”

Mariani has mastered the technique and suggests adding a bit more sugar to your specs. “The ideal ABV (for a frozen cocktail) is about 10 percent and the max is around 18 percent. Anything above that will not result in a frozen texture. Bitterness and sweetness are suppressed by cold temperatures, so more sugar is needed to achieve a balanced, frozen drink,” he says. “Up your sweet by 50 percent. For example, instead of using 1/2 ounce of simple, use 3/4 of an ounce.” There are many ways to master a frozen cocktail — having a machine constantly rotating the perfect, temperature-controlled slushy is one — but there are multiple ways to skin an ice cube, at home or away. Mariani shares one of the frozen cocktail recipes he uses for his weekly Cap’n Rob’s Waikiki Wednesday.

Frozen Rum and Tonic

1 1/2 ounces aged rum

3/4 ounce tonic syrup (Mariani uses his own Alley Twenty-Six Tonic.)

3/4 ounce pineapple juice

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

4 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients (sans the bitters) with crushed ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake like hell or until you can’t feel your hands. Pour into a Pilsner glass. Top with crushed ice and four dashes of Angostura bitters. Garnish with a large sprig of mint and dehydrated lime wheel.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

His favorite book is No Death, No Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh.

In the Spirit

Grab ’n Go

Your cocktails need a vacation, too

By Tony Cross

When I go to the beach on vacation, the last thing I want to do is spend my time whipping up drinks. Who wants to pack a bunch of cocktail tools with the beach towels, the sunscreen and the latest John Grisham? Other than throwing together a margarita, I’m not doing anything besides laying out in the sun and sipping. So, here are a couple of punches — the non-violent variety — that you can throw together before you shut down the laptop and head for the coast. Consider portioning them out in small drink containers: Think 8-ounce water bottles. Keep in mind that you may still want to bring a hand-held juicer. Even though you’re traveling light, you may want to add the fresh lemon and lime juices à la last minute.

Planter’s Punch

This classic punch is one of my favorites, because it’s easy to make and delicious. As Shannon Mustipher explains in her book, Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails, “The ingredients are simple and echo an old Barbadian recipe for a rum punch in rhyme form: ‘One of Sour/Two of Sweet/Three of Strong/Four of Weak.’ This is the holy trinity plus the addition of spice.”

8 ounces pot still Jamaican rum (Smith & Cross)

3 ounces grenadine

2 ounces fresh lime juice

2 ounces still water

6 dashes Angostura bitters

(Serves four)

If you’re batching this before you hit the road, combine all ingredients except for the lime juice; you’ll want to add that on the day of consumption. Also, if you are making this for more than four people, add your bitters last. When batching large amounts of cocktails that call for bitters, you don’t necessarily want to add the multiplied number of bitters into your batch. Start with half the amount, and then add more to taste. Lastly, make your grenadine from scratch, unless you’re buying from, let’s say, Small Hand Foods. It’s quite easy to make — equal parts POM pomegranate juice and demerara sugar; place over medium heat and stir until sugar is dissolved. Keep refrigerated after the syrup cools.

Pisco Punch

Before you go any further, order pisco online now — it’s hard to locate a bottle on any of North Carolina’s ABC shelves, but much easier after a few clicks on the web. “What is pisco?” you ask. It’s a spirit made from grapes, indigenous to Peru and Chile. If you’ve never tried a pisco sour, you haven’t lived, and if you’ve never tried the punch, well, you’re about to be reborn.

My memory is spotty, but I do believe that in his book Imbibe! David Wondrich explains how pisco punch was the only drink bars served in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast during the Gold Rush. This drink is easy to make, incredibly tasty, and unique and likely foreign to your friends and family. Use Small Hands Foods’ pineapple gum syrup — it’s killer. Years back when I bartended, I kept the punch pre-batched in my bar fridge, minus the lemon juice, of course. In Meehan’s Bartender Manual, bartender and author, Jim Meehan explains: “Pisco punch became legendary thanks to Scottish barman Duncan Nicol, who purchased San Francisco’s historic Bank Exchange Saloon — with its house punch recipe — in 1893 and kept it a secret, despite fanfare and public prying, until his dying day in 1926.”

Some speculate that Nicol’s secret ingredient wasn’t just the gum arabic, it was cocaine. Meehan says that might “explain why he permitted only two portions per patron.” Better to stick with the recipe below and imbibe safely this summer.

8 ounces Campo de Encanto pisco (did you order it yet?)

4 ounces pineapple gum syrup

3 ounces lemon juice

2 ounces pineapple juice

4 ounces still water

4 dashes Angostura bitters (optional)

(Serves four).  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

In the Spirit

Gin Summer

Three easy summer cocktails to beat the heat

By Tony Cross

My favorite time of the year is upon us: unbearable heat and ridiculous amounts of humidity. It’s summertime, by God, and it’s drip-sweat hot. There are tons of different cocktails to help cool you off, but I’m going to focus on gin.

It’s funny how some people make a squirming face at the very mention of gin. If you’re one of those, stick with me — one of these drinks might make you a convert. Often the ghost of gin past, or whatever you call your previous bad experience, usually came from drinking juniper-forward, cheap gin. There are different styles of gin out there, and I’ll pick three of them, one for each cocktail. You can always swap out whatever gin you want for the drinks below. But watch out, you might find that you kind of like it after all.

Get Innocuous!

This is a spin on the gimlet cocktail, adding arugula to the original recipe of the gin and lime cordial. Actually, the recipe has a few tweaks, but it was definitely inspired by the classic drink. I read an article many years ago where a chef was making arugula gimlets on the rocks, and it sounded delicious. It quickly made its way onto our cocktail menu.

The spiciness from the arugula pairs well with the soft, earthy flavor of Plymouth gin. Plymouth is my go-to gin for martinis, as well.

2 ounces Plymouth gin

1 ounce lime juice

1/2 ounce light agave syrup

Healthy pinch of arugula

Place arugula and agave syrup in a cocktail shaker. Muddle. Add gin, lime juice and ice. Shake hard for 15 seconds and double strain into a rocks glass over ice. Add a piece of fresh arugula for garnish.

Gin and Tonic

On a hot, summer day, there’s nothing quite like a good gin and tonic. When I was a teenager working as a dishwasher at a country club, one of the servers would slide me G&T’s through the window on busy weekend nights. The gin was cheap, and so was the tonic. It didn’t matter — what did I know?

These days, we have lots of different choices of gin, so many it can seem a little overwhelming. I recommend a London Dry Gin, which is juniper-forward, but if that’s not your style, you can substitute a softer, drier gin like Plymouth.

When it comes to tonic water, you can never go wrong with Fever Tree, but for this recipe, we’ll be using Reverie’s tonic syrup, TONYC. Instead of adding a lime wedge to the drink, we think the oil from an orange peel brings out the best in our syrup.

2 ounces Beefeater’s gin

3/4 ounce TONYC syrup

4 ounces sparkling water

1 orange peel

Pour gin and syrup into a rocks glass. Give it a quick stir with your barspoon. Add ice and top with sparkling water. Again, give it a quick stir. Express the oils from an orange peel over the cocktail and drop into drink. If you’re using tonic water, pour gin into glass, add ice, sparkling water, and stir. Use a lime wedge if using tonic water.

Southside

The Southside is a guaranteed seller on your cocktail menu this time of the year, and for very good reasons. It’s light, refreshing, and goes down quickly. If you’re hosting a cocktail party, it’s a real crowd pleaser.

One of my favorite things about gin is how versatile it is. It pairs well with so many different ingredients and, in this case, it’s lemon and mint. I once put this on a cocktail menu for our outside seating guests and everyone was raving. And drinking. Sutler’s Spirit Co. gin out of Winston-Salem is so damn good. Even if you’re not a fan of gin, give this a go. Owner Scot Sanborn reached out to me when I first started Reverie. I was blown away by how delicious it is and the packaging is gorgeous, too. There’s lots going on — lavender, coriander and lemon up front, with juniper and bitter orange in the background. Just lovely.

2 ounces Sutler’s Spirit Co. gin

3/4 ounce lemon juice

1/2 ounce simple syrup (2:1)

4 sprigs of mint

Sparkling water

In a cocktail shaker, add mint, gin, lemon juice and simple syrup. Add ice and shake hard until shaker is ice cold. Add a healthy splash of sparkling water into the vessel after shaking, and double strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. No garnish.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

In the Spirit

Batching Tips

How to be fast and flavorful

By Tony Cross

Now that our state’s restrictions are easing up and spring is in full effect, more and more folks are venturing back out to their favorite restaurants and watering holes. It’s nice to have a form of normalcy back, isn’t it? I know the word “normalcy” has been thrown around a lot lately, but if you’re a foodie (and drinkie) like I am, you appreciate what it means.

Despite the dumpster fire that last year left us, it is interesting to see how different businesses got out of their comfort zone and adapted to the chaos that quickly became everyday life. My business has been rooted in our slogan “flavors to go,” and we definitely had our run this time last year — we delivered over a thousand growlers of our carbonated cocktails to help medicate cabin fever sufferers. Batching is what we do. Now that we’re almost back at full capacity in bars and restaurants, I’d like to offer a few ways where you can get those drinks out fast while being able to connect with your guests for a longer period of time.

Punch

I still don’t get why more places don’t have punch on their menu. Once you have a great recipe in place and get it balanced, you should be able to make other concoctions around your base recipe. There are myriad examples in cocktail books and even more on websites that will give you the specs you need. It’s up to you to understand why these ratios work and go from there.

I read online a few weeks ago that a good rule of thumb for punch goes like this: 8 parts spirit; 5 parts water; 3 parts sour (citrus); 2 parts sweet (sugar cane, demerara, gomme syrup, agave, etc.); 1 part bitters or bitter liqueur; 1 part salt. For your sweet and sour, it always pays to start with oleo-saccharum. A trick I learned from bartender Jeffrey Morganthaler is to vacuum seal your oleo-saccharum syrups ahead of time and place them in the freezer. This way you can just pull out whichever one you need for the punch of the day. Let it thaw and build your punch.

Not only is a good punch delicious, it allows speed of service. Getting out cups of punch during a busy shift is effortless and allows you or your bartender to interact with your guests without running behind the bar like a crazy person.

Bottle

My business, Reverie Cocktails, started offering bottled cocktails to go last year for a few reasons. First, we know our flagship carbonated cocktails are not for everyone, and we wanted to attack sales from a different angle. Second, I know firsthand how delicious stirred cocktails are when they’ve had time to marinate. So, we started by delivering bottled old fashioneds and Sazeracs, and then graduated to martinis.

Yes. Martinis. I amaze myself how dumb I can be. How in the hell did I not offer these years back when I tended bar? One of the issues with a martini is you want it to be very cold when it arrives in front of your guest. Problem is, on a busy night it might take a server longer than usual to get that cold martini out. And even if it’s cold when it arrives, your guest’s second half won’t be as cold as the first. That is, unless they throw them back like I do daiquiris.

Enter prebatching. Being able to pull a bottle of martinis out of a freezer, and just pour into a chilled glass (be it a coupe or traditional martini glass), is a little bit of heaven. Your cocktail is now piercingly cold. Not only is it frigid, but now it will stay cold in that glass way longer than making it from scratch. I’m pretty confident in saying that it’ll be a long time before I make one at a time at my place from here on out. It’s too easy and yummy to just pour from the bottle. It’s one of life’s simple luxuries.

Don’t forget to dilute your stirred cocktails with good drinking water, and in the case of martinis, you’ll need to scale back on the H2O, or your bottled cocktail will freeze.

Draught

This is not a shocker. It’s my business’s expertise. To be honest, cocktails on tap can be easy, yet painful at times. If you’re starting out for the first time, start simple. Just because you have a great cocktail on the menu doesn’t mean it’s going to go well on draught. One does not simply take the ingredients and multiply by 50 and then fill up a keg and go to town.

Our customers often ask, “Can you do this drink? It’s killing our bartenders on the weekends.” Sometimes we can, sometimes we can’t. Try a modified highball cocktail (vodka plus soda) on draught. Add some of your favorite bitters and/or a liqueur to match. You will soon see what flavors amplify, and how you’ll need to balance it out.

A quick rule of thumb: Do not serve anyone a 2-ounce-at-a-time pour of carbonated spirit or they will light up like a Christmas tree. And make sure the water you’re using is delicious. It makes all the difference.

I have other suggestions, too, and if you’re interested in starting your own draught cocktail program — or just have questions — feel free to contact me via the email address below.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

In the Spirit

Respect

Staying humble and giving credit where it’s due

By Tony Cross

I reminisce from time to time about my days — or nights — as a bar manager and the thrill I got creating a new cocktail menu. I constantly challenged myself to make each menu better than the last. To some, that might mean simply mixing a better tasting cocktail.

Making great-tasting drinks was definitely an end goal, but there was more to it than that. Our ABC system limited what I could play with, spirit- and liqueur-wise. What may have been available in the spring could be unavailable in the fall, and vice-versa. At the time, I usually had to order by the case. Like Tony Shaloub says on Monk, it was a blessing and a curse.

The first time I placed an order for a case of Rittenhouse Rye it was a blessing — our establishment was the first in Moore County to get this great-priced rye whiskey. We crushed sales and, within the month, I needed more. After ordering a truckload of cases, our local ABC decided Rittenhouse Rye deserved a place on their shelves.

On the other hand, there was a case of the Luxardo Maraschino liqueur that sat on our shelf so long it could have grown a beard. When I ordered it I was still learning the ropes and failed to realize that a little bit went a long way — it was going to take a while to go through 12 bottles. Then it dawned on me to take another bartender’s cocktail recipe with said ingredient (that I now possessed by the boatload) and put that drink on my menu. It would showcase two things: the spirits and liqueurs that I was still learning about (I had nobody to bounce ideas off, so you can imagine how long that would take.) while incorporating them into a cocktail that was already a winner.

It also highlighted the bartenders and the bars that I read and obsessed about daily. I noted on the menu next to the ingredients who created it, when and where they worked. Not only did this pay homage to the bartender, but it was always a great conversation piece for my guests. Here are a few of the cocktails I put on my menu, and the bartenders who created them.

Cubed Old Fashioned

Jamie Boudreau, Canon, Seattle, 2011

Jamie Boudreau was one of a few people I watched on a YouTube channel named “Small Screen Network.” His video clips were short and always to the point. Everything from what type of ice you should use and why, to how to shake and stir. In addition to technique, Boudreau had videos on how to make cocktails: barrel-aging, smoking cocktails, carbonating and, one of his signature drinks, the Cubed Old Fashioned. He used three different types of spirits and three different types of bitters. In addition to this spin on the classic old fashioned cocktail, Boudreau also created what he calls an old fashioned syrup, using whiskey, Angostura bitters and demerara sugar. He opened up Canon: Whiskey and Bitters Emporium in the same year that this cocktail was created. When I put it on the menu, it was the first time I worked with a cocktail that was a spin on the classic old fashioned and it was the first time I used Maker’s Mark 46. Boudreau’s original recipe called for equal parts Maker’s 46, Mount Gay Extra Old Rum, and Rémy Martin. It gave me the opportunity to share this new spirit with my guests.

Cubed Old Fashioned

3/4 ounce cognac

3/4 ounce rye

3/4 ounce aged rum

1/4 ounce old fashioned syrup

1 dash each aromatic, orange and chocolate bitters

Orange zest

Cherry

Combine all liquid ingredients in a chilled mixing glass filled with ice. Stir until proper dilution is achieved, and strain into a rocks glass over ice. Garnish with orange zest and a cherry.

Naked and Famous

Joaquín Simó, Death & Co. NYC, 2011

When Death & Co. released their Modern Classic Cocktails in 2014, I couldn’t keep my nose out of it. Loaded with much more than cocktail recipes, this was the best bartender’s manual available — at least I thought so. As for this particular cocktail, the folks over at Death & Co. describe it as “the bastard child born out of an illicit Oaxacan love affair between the classic Last Word and the Paper Plane, a drink Sam Ross created at the West Village bar Little Branch.” I was sold before making it since I love the Last Word.

My affinity for green chartreuse cocktails aside, this drink contains mezcal and yellow chartreuse. I was in possession of a rather large order of Del Maguey Vida mezcal prior to getting my hands on this book and I had also just received three bottles of yellow chartreuse. The Vida mezcal was already an ingredient in one of our margaritas, but I wanted to try something else and this was the drink to do it. I wasn’t thrilled the first time tasting yellow chartreuse and was having a hard time incorporating this liqueur into a cocktail. Naked and Famous was fantastic on the first sip. The smokiness from the mezcal is balanced with the soft bitterness of Aperol and the sweeter, less herbaceous taste of the chartreuse. The lime juice adds the acidity that cuts right through the three other ingredients.

This was the first time I’d done a riff on the Last Word, and it opened the door in my mind on how and why this works. Most of my staff loved the drink, and it went on our menu immediately. Most folks ordered it because of the name. I guarantee 90 percent of our clientele had no clue what yellow chartreuse was, and if they heard of mezcal, it was “tequila with a worm in the bottle, right?”

Naked and Famous

3/4 ounce Del Maguey Chichicapa mezcal (I used Del Maguey Vida at the time.)

3/4 ounce yellow chartreuse

3/4 ounce Aperol

3/4 ounce lime juice

Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake hard. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. No garnish needed.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

In the Spirit

New Digs

Ammo for my arsenal

By Tony Cross

During the holiday season, I tend to go overboard with gifts and usually spend beyond my means. I’m still getting thank-you notes from Visa. I try to outdo myself every year, and it’s clearly becoming a problem. But I love watching family and friends’ faces when they open their presents and, on the flip side, I do a little shopping for yours truly. Here’s what I splurged on (big and small), and a little something I got in the stocking from a North Carolina distillery.

Angostura Cocoa Bitters

After almost 200 years, the House of Angostura released their third bitters. I believe the unveiling happened around August of last year. I remember seeing an ad in a magazine, and thinking, “Oh, (expletive of your choice)!”

Angostura’s aromatic bitters has been the standard in the bitters/cocktail world, and their orange bitters is a must (for me, anyhow) when blending a house bitters for cocktails. Simply put, it was kind of a big deal. So I copped a bottle, and yeah, it’s yum. They use cocoa from Tobago and Trinidad, and blend with gentian spices, water and alcohol. Yes, it is bitter, but with a rich chocolate nuttiness. For those of you who are new to cocktails, think of bitters as salt and pepper to your drink. Since it is an Angostura product, you should have no problem finding this. If your local grocer is only carrying the aromatic and/or orange bitters, just ask them to add this to their shelf — it’s really that simple. Pairs great with an old-fashioned, be it with whiskey or rum. I can see this going great with a lovely aged tequila, too. You can also try the cocoa bitters in a Manhattan.

Manhattan

2 ounces rye whiskey

1 ounce sweet vermouth

2-3 dashes Angostura cocoa bitters

Orange peel

Combine all ingredients in a chilled mixing vessel. Add ice and stir until drink is cold and diluted. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Express oils from an orange peel over the cocktail. Discard peel or add to drink.

Purchase Knob Unaged Corn Whiskey

Elevated Mountain Distilling Co., Maggie Valley, North Carolina

This bottle of unaged whiskey (moonshine, white dog . . . whatever you’d like to call it) was gifted to me last Christmas by one of my best friends. He and his wife were vacationing in Waynesville, took a drive out to Maggie Valley, and found Elevated Mountain Distillery. This corn whiskey is a touch sweet and has only a little bit of heat (a moderate 44 percent ABV). I know I’m going to whip up sours with this whiskey. I’m also going to tinker around with some Collins-style recipes. This is an easy drinker, that’s for sure. From their website, it looks as though Elevated Mountain broke ground in 2017, and they also offer an aged corn whiskey, as well as a small batch, flavored moonshine, and vodka. Elevated Mountain Distillery spirits are available through our local ABC.

El Jolgorio Pechuga Mezcal 2019

This purchase was my ends-justify-the-means moment of clarity after buying gifts for everyone else. If that makes sense. I ordered this online and was excited to try this aged mezcal. I received bottle number 475 of 800 and was delighted when I finally got around to tasting it. First, let’s do a quick recap on Pechuga. Translated as breast in Spanish, it is made when the distilled mezcal is distilled (again) with nuts and local fruits. Then a raw turkey or chicken breast is suspended over the still, which adds to the flavor of the spirit. In the case of this Pechuga, the bottle states: “It is distilled twice in copper stills with seasonal fruits and the breast of a wild turkey native to this region.” On the palate, there is a slight minty/minerality going on; a touch of smoke; a very slight hint of banana. It’s got a bit of heat to it, and I’m hoping time will remedy that. Overall, this mezcal is a delicious sipper and, with a bit of self-discipline, I can make this bottle last the year. I will always recommend Pechuga but know that you’re going to cough up close to $200 a bottle (this one was just under). As always, drink this neat. A lot of the nuances will get lost if you mix this in a cocktail. Just neat. No ice. This particular edition is sold out (where I purchased it online, at least), but don’t fret. With some online searching, I’m sure you can find a bottle somewhere. If not, there are plenty of other beautiful Pechugas on the market.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

In the Spirit

Ready, Set, Go

Shake, stir and be snappy

By Tony Cross

One of my good friends manages a restaurant and recently had to jump behind the bar because of a lack of help due to COVID. As new bartenders emerge in restaurant bars — and establishments who market themselves as “cocktail bars” — there are basics that even novice bartenders need to master.

My friend can make a decent drink — no worries there — but it pains me every time he shakes a cocktail. When he’s finished, he has the damnedest time separating the two shakers. So, what does he do? He bangs it against the bar until he gets them to come apart. Good thing he’s got two tin shakers. If one of them was a pint glass, hitting it against the bar could send shards of glass flying, ruining a perfectly good drink. That’s cocktailcide.

So, what to do? When placing your two shakers together, don’t put the top shaker (smaller tin, or pint glass if using a Boston shaker) pointing straight up. Place it at a slight angle, so that the two shakers sort of curve, something like the contour of a banana. Then shake. And shake hard. When you’re ready to separate your two tins (or Boston shaker), hit the bottom of the inside of your hand against the seal of the two shakers. You’ll see the two start to separate — that’s where you give it a quick snap of the hand, and voila! This is the correct way to do this, but it also saves time, and looks way more professional than beating it against the back of your bar.

Previously, I’ve discussed the importance of dilution in your cocktails, and how/why water is a key ingredient. Dilution is important, so when I watched a bartender take the time to whip up a nice variation of an old fashioned, it killed me when she added a small bit of ice and gave it a few lousy stirs, like it bored her. In that short 10 seconds of her life that I know she wants back, she had to have been thinking, “Ehh, here you go.” Now, did I ask her to redo the drink and stir more? Of course not, that would be silly. What’s also silly is charging $12 or $15 for a cocktail, and not knowing what you’re doing from A to Z.

So, what to do? Pack it with ice in a chilled stirring vessel and stir until cold and diluted.

I’ll finish with a pet peeve: Be fast. This is a must in any establishment, whether they’re busy or slow. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen bartenders doing their thing, but taking forever to get the drinks out. Bartenders do a lot more than just make cocktails — they set the tone for the night, make their guests feel at home, and so on. But you have to be fast. The stirred cocktail I ordered above was correctly made, minus the lousy stir job, but it took her forever to make it.

The establishment was slow, so she was conversing with a couple at the bar while she made my drink. It was torture. I once worked under a bartender that loved chatting with his patrons more than making the drinks, or it seemed that way. The wait staff and I almost formed a coup. Yes, it was that bad. So bad that in between ingredients, he would forget what he had put into his mixing vessel. His solution? Add another part of spirit. Nine times out of 10 this resulted in the drink being sent back for being too boozy.

So, what to do? Move it. If you want to be good at your job, you’ll be multi-tasking drink orders, conversation, food orders and so on. You have to be fast. Don’t be that place that’s known for slow service. Eventually your guests will go somewhere else.   PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

In The Spirit

So Appalled

A duck walks into a bar and orders a diluted drink

By Tony Cross

Last year my company launched a little promotion on social media letting folks know about our bottled cocktails. Previously, we dealt in and delivered growlers of carbonated cocktails, but now we’re offering stirred cocktails such as old fashioneds, Sazeracs and Manhattans, in addition to a few signature drinks of our own.

We’ve done a couple of different promotions, but the very first one got the most buzz in the comment sections. Everyone was kind and excited, tagging their friends and loved ones. A month after the first promo, I received a notification on my phone that we had a new comment. I pulled it up, and it read like this: “Why diluted? Never go into a bar and order diluted drinks.”

This is interesting on a few levels, but first I need to explain this in context. In the promo, we listed the ingredients of the cocktails we were bottling and added that “Each bottle yields nine cocktails and is diluted with distilled water.”

Dilute? What? Yes. Dilute. Why? Easy. When you order a cocktail — let’s say an old fashioned — the bartender will most likely create it with the following steps: She or he will take an aromatic bitters and add a few dashes to a chilled mixing vessel (perhaps with a dash or so of an orange or other bitters); then take sugar, in the form of either syrup or cube, muddle for a moment to break the sugar down to mix with the bitters (if it’s cubed) or use a spoon to mix (if it’s a syrup); then add a couple of ounces of whiskey (bourbon, rye or whatever is on the menu/house whiskey). Finally, the bartender will add ice and stir.

Now, this is important. Why? Because ice is just as much an ingredient as the others. Some might argue it’s even a more crucial ingredient than the others. When the bartender feels that the cocktail is ready, he or she will stop stirring, possibly taste a small thimble of the drink to ensure it’s right, and then strain the old fashioned over a large cube of ice in a rocks glass. Next comes the garnish, and it’s done.

How does the bartender know when the drink is ready to strain and serve? Temperature and dilution. Oh, snap! The bartender stirs the cocktail to make sure that it gets cold, but at the same time, the ice that’s spinning round and round like a carousel has another job: to melt. That’s right, water is an ingredient in the old fashioned. If the bartender simply mixed all of the ingredients together (without ice) and put it in the freezer for a couple of minutes, the cocktail would be cold, but it would also be unbalanced. Without the dilution, the old fashioned would taste hot, or too boozy. 

The very first cocktail book I read started off explaining that ice is as much an ingredient, if not the most important ingredient, as all the others in a cocktail. Admittedly, I was unsure if what I was reading was overly dramatic. It wasn’t. It was spot on. You want your ice made with water that you would enjoy drinking. Sulphur-rich town water ain’t it. Ice that’s been in your freezer with that half-opened box of frozen shrimp ain’t it either. Clean ice. You can have a great rye whiskey, a nice organic cane sugar syrup, and the perfect pairing of bitters, but once you add that old, cloudy ice to stir it with, none of those other ingredients hold as much weight.

I mentioned earlier that the bartender might extract a touch of the old fashioned from the stirring vessel to taste. Many bartenders do this to make sure the cocktail is diluted enough. If it’s not, they’ll stir until it is.

Now, in defense of the person that posed the question, we should agree that an over-diluted cocktail isn’t acceptable. I have never bellied up to any bar and ordered a diluted drink and, to my knowledge, I have never imbibed with any friend or date that has. It would not be a good thing if the bartender stirred your old fashioned for five minutes straight. No thanks. We add distilled water to our bottled cocktails so they’re ready to go — properly diluted with no stirring required. Pour it over ice (or neat), stay calm, carry on, and cheers.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

In the Spirit

Straining for a Gift?

Wu-Tang Clan to the rescue

By Tony Cross

There’s always that one person who’s impossible to buy for. My father is a struggle during the holidays; he has a habit of buying himself what he would like a month or so before Christmas. Maybe if we just stopped buying him gifts altogether, he would stop that nonsense. So much for hindsight. Even if you’re a great gift giver, here are a few recommendations that probably haven’t crossed your mind. All are unique and will hopefully stand out.

Mover & Shaker Co. Raekwon Cocktail Strainer, $105

Calling all Wu-Tang fans: I saw this advertised a few months ago, and I splurged immediately. With my wallet. Cocktail company Mover & Shaker has teamed up with legendary MC (Emcee), Raekwon, from Wu-Tang Clan, on a signature cocktail strainer. They’ve only made 300, so you’ll have to act fast. Go to moverandshakerco.com. It’s shaped like the Wu-Tang “W” and has “chef RAEKWON” etched on it. If I had never seen this, and someone gifted it to me, I would be thrilled. Even if that hard-to-buy-for-person isn’t the biggest cocktail fan, having this piece could change their mind. If they love Wu-Tang, of course. A few weeks after receiving my strainer, I went live with my company’s promotion of bottled cocktails. One in particular we call “Surgical Gloves,” named after a Raekwon track. I made a little video and posted it on our social media sites. The next morning, not only did I have a message from the Chef, himself, he also shared it on his Instagram stories. I screamed like a little girl.

Crude Bitters Attawanhood #37 and No No Bitters

Based out of Raleigh, local business Crude Bitters has plenty of great bitters to choose from, but these two seasonal bottles don’t stay on the shelves long. The Attawanhood #37 and No No bitters couldn’t be more different. They’re the spice rack in a cocktail smorgasbord and, depending on whom you’re buying for, one might complement that person’s cocktail palate more than the other. This is what they say about their seasonal bitters:

“Attawanhood is a variation of a classic aromatic with a tart cherry in the forefront. Named after the street our founder grew up on (a fun “A” name like the classic bitters you many know). Stone fruit, silkiness, with sharp bitterness and dark spice bite. For classic and modern cocktails.” In addition to the tart cherry, there are flavors of cinnamon and cloves as well. They describe their No No bitters as, “A tasty mix of sweet and hot peppers. You don’t want these bitters. They’re a spicy meat-a-ball-a. Blending bhut jolokia, guajillo, habanero, Scotch bonnet, jalapeño, bell, and more. We craft this to add a sweet pepper flavor, one you can taste, and then it finishes with a slow capsaicin burn.” Visit your local wine shop, or wherever local mixers are sold to grab yours. If your local establishment doesn’t carry Crude, ask them to! Until they do, you can place an order over at crudebitters.com.

The Spirit of Haiti-Clairin

Clairin, a native rum to Haiti, is one of my newest fascinations. If you are buying a gift for a rum fan, look no further. Oh, and when I say “rum fan,” I don’t mean flavored Bacardi or Captain Morgan’s. This is the real deal. Previously, I’ve raved about The Spirit of Haiti’s Michel Sajous clairin. That bottle comes in at a whopping 51 percent ABV, but when used in a daiquiri, it’s pretty damn tasty. No, it’s really tasty. Since then, I’ve become enamored with their Clairin Vaval. My new favorite, hands down. Still high proof, coming in at 48.7 percent ABV, this is my Ti’ Punch rum. Distiller Fritz Vaval uses 100 percent Madame Meuze sugar cane juice — Vaval’s family has owned their distillery since 1947 and has 20 hectares of land planted with varieties of this type of sugar cane. According to the spiritofhaiti.com, “It’s fermented naturally with wild yeast and distilled in one continuous copper column still with 10 trays and a homemade condenser made from a gasoline can.” Small batches. Beautiful packaging. Exquisite rum. Odds of finding this in any of our local ABC stores is probably as good as bumping into Fritz on the street. Go online and grab a bottle as soon as possible to ensure arrival by the 24th. The Spirit of Haiti distributes three other types of clairin, so if this one’s a winner, you can grab another variety next go-round.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.