Cocktail: The Stork Club

I assume that this cocktail, like its cousin who we reviewed earlier this week, The Pegu Club, was named after the club it was created in: The Stork Club. This cocktail is almost identical to The Pegu, except this one has some orange juice in it, the gin and cointreau are scaled back a bit and it is garnished with an orange twist instead of lime. I give you the Stork Club courtesy of Robert Hess:

The Stork Club

1 1/2 oz Gin

1/2 oz Cointreau

1 oz Orange Juice

1/4 Lime Juice

1 Dash Angostura Bitters

Shake with ice strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with an orange peel.

Very refreshing like The Pegu Club.

Cheers!

Video: Drinking and Driving Don't Mix!

In my previous post, The Pegu Club Cocktail, I mentioned the renowned mixologist Salvator Calabrese, which reminded me of a funny commercial involving him making a cocktail while being driven by Formula 1 racer Michael Schumacher.

Here it is! Enjoy.

Pegu Club Cocktail

Recently I stocked up on fresh limes and I have been trying to find new ways to use them in cocktails, like we did last week here at Keep Your Spirits Up with the Caipirinha. Usually, when I find a new ingredient that I am interested in using in a cocktail, be it a spirit, fruit or anything else, I search for recipes by ingredient in one of three places:

• The Internet Cocktail Data Base: CocktailDB
• Robert Hess' site: Drink Boy 
• "Classic Cocktails" by Salvatore Calabrese

After Plugging in lime I came across the usual suspects: The Margarita, The Daiquiri, Kamikaze, etc...   Then one of them caught my eye... The Pegu Club Cocktail.

The Pegu Club Cocktail

The reason that the Pegu stood out for me is because in addition to lime juice it contains two ingredients which I really enjoy together: Gin and Cointreau (swappable w/ Triple sec & Curacao). In the past here at keep your spirits up we have wrote about at least two other cocktails which use those two ingredients: The Corpse Reviver #2 & The Jasmine Cocktail, both of which I recommend my readers and fellow cocktail enthusiasts try.

The Pegu Club Cocktail was invented at The Pegu Club (no, really?!), a Victorian style Gentlemen's club in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar). You know, where Rambo 4 takes place and kills half the country. This club was created for British Army officers and civilians after the British annexation of Burma in 1885 and was one of the most renowned clubs in Southeast Asia mentioned by Rudyard Kipling in his novels. There are many different recipes for this cocktail but below I am providing you with Robert Hess' recipe. 

 The Pegu Club Cocktail

2 ounces of gin
3/4 ounce of orange curaçao (or Triple Sec)
1/2 ounce of lime juice
dash of Angostura Bitters
(dash of orange bitters)

Stir with Ice. Pour into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lime twist.

According to Hess if you don't have one of the bitters you can still make this cocktail but he himself feels that it will be lacking. I only used Angostura bitters because I do not have orange bitters at the moment.

People have claimed that this cocktail's taste is reminiscent of that of grapefruit juice, I am not sure if that is how I would put it. I felt that The Jasmine Cocktail tasted a lot closer to grapefruit juice. The Pegu was sweet, sour  and bitter all at once. It is an excellent thirst quencher for hot or warm nights. Make sure to give this one a try.

Cheers!

Fun with Cachaca and the Caipirinha Cocktail Part 1

 Hi folks! We are back and gonna be better than evah!

Between papers for college and university plus work it has been very hard to post. Now things are getting back to normal at KYSU so we hope all you loyal fans (if there are any ;)  will continue to follow us here

We have not touched on the subject of cocktails for a while on this blog. The last one I reviewed was "The Corpse Reviver". Since I have been away I have been trying some different cocktails which I hope to add soon.

Most recently I fell back in love with the "Caipirinha" after finding Limes in the neighborhood grocery store. Unfortunately by me Limes and good Cachaça  are hard to come by. About two years ago I picked up a bottle of Cachaça  61 and tried making a Caipirinha with lemons... just plain wrong. Occasionally I would have some Cachaça & Coke, but as far as sipping goes 61 is an industrial Cachaca and just doesn't cut it. Although it does make a decent Caipirinha.

Some background on Cachaça for those who are not familiar

 

Picture by Phil Gomes @ cachacagora

 

Cachaça is the Brazilian equivalent of a rhum agricole. Both of which are made out of fermented sugar cane juice as opposed to molasses, such as rums like Bacardi and Captain Morgan are made.

On a brief side note, recently I had an encounter with rhum agricole thanks to my father and enjoyed it thoroughly. I tasted La Favorite blanc, which is bottled at 50% abv, good for mixing and vieux (aged rhum) 40% abv , and good for sipping. rhum agricole is usually, but not always, made in the French West Indies with La Favorite being made in Martinique.

Which reminds me...


LA COMPAGNIE CREOLE - CA FAIT RIRE LES OISEAUX
Uploaded by rawestern. - See the latest featured music videos.

But back to our issue at hand...Cachaca... Also known as "aguardente de cana" or fire water is produced primarily in Brazil. According to USA TODAY "396 million gallons are consumed in Brazil annually". There are two types of Cachaca: artisanal and industrial as well as Silver (Prata) and Gold (Ouro) the difference has to do with the barrels and aging. Some of the well known industrial brands include: Ypioca (which we plan to review in the near future), Pitu, Cachaca 61 and the famous Cachaca 51 that most are familiar with due to their large market share. These industrial Cachacas are generally more for mixing in Caipirinhas and Batidas and less for sipping, although I have heard that Ypioca Ouro is sip-able. There are many artisanal/premium brands like Leblon, Cuca Fresca, etc... but the ones I'd really like to taste are the home made specialties.

My friend, Marcio from Rio de Janeiro, wants to invite me to try some hand made Cachaca he brought back from a four day trip out to the sticks in the country side of Brazil where the Cachaca is supposedly the best. He's really my kinda guy, I mean four days for some killer Cachaca... Awesome!



Tune in next time for Part 2 "The Caipirinha"...

It's good to be back :)

The Jasmine Cocktail

Being a Cointreau, Campari and Gin fan I felt that tonight I would try, for the first time, Robert Hess' take on the Jasmine cocktail. The original recipe was designed by Paul Harrington in the 1990’s and calls for different ratios than Hess' version. Robert Hess, who I’d like to thank for introducing me to this cocktail, was dead on when he described this cocktail’s color and flavor as being similar to grapefruit juice. This cocktail is essentially like drinking a complex alcoholic version of grapefruit juice straight up. I love the fact that you can clearly taste the Campari’s bitter orange along with the sour lemon juice and sweet Cointreau. For those of you who tend to stay away from gin I recommend that you give this one a whirl since this cocktail is so well balanced that the gin works in harmony with the other ingredients to help give you that robust grapefruit flavor without the over powering pine tree taste. If you like sour/bitter cocktails in the style of the cosmopolitan, sidecar and White lady you won’t be disappointed.

The Jasmine Cocktail (courtesy of Robert Hess):

• 1 1/2 oz gin
• 1 oz Cointreau
• 3/4 oz Campari
• 1/2 oz lemon juice

Shake with ice (for roughly 15 seconds or until cold), strain into a cocktail glass

Garnish with a lemon wedge