Fireman's Sour

Wouldn't you know it, no sooner than I rail on the use of powdered sugar than I choose another recipe that has, guess what, powdered sugar.

Thankfully, I can tell you in advance that the Fireman's Sour recipe works.  There's enough of a punch in the other ingredients to quell any offensive qualities that the powdered sugar might otherwise provide.

The Fireman's Sour is especially good on a night like tonight.  I play softball on Wednesdays, and the weather this evening was ideal.  With a nice warm 80 degrees outside and 2 wins in the bag, a refreshing drink is in order.

If the name didn't give it away, the Fireman's Sour is a member of the Sour family of drinks.  No doubt you've heard of whiskey sours, or amaretto sours.  At one time, I drank both, but I always found them to be too sweet, even at a younger age.  It's worth noting though, that the bars I went to served sour mix out of a bottle.  In other words, there was little nuance (or quality) to whatever I was drinking.  It was more of a "let's hit you over the head with sugar" type of whiskey sour.  I think far too many bars, probably well over 75%, use bottled sour mix in the place of fresher ingredients.

Sour cocktails have been defined as any drink that includes a base liquor, lime or lemon juice, and a sweetner.  That's a rather loose definition, as numerous cocktails include lime or lemon juice, but bear no discernable relationship to something like a whiskey sour or even this Fireman's Sour.  Among the drinks listed on the Sour cocktail family Wikipedia entry include Amateur Mixologist alumni, like the Daiquiri, the Kamikaze, and my personal favorite, the Sidecar.

Here is the recipe for the Fireman's Sour:

American Bar, page 95

Fireman's Sour

3/4 ounce lime juice
1 barspoon powdered sugar
dash grenadine
1 oz white rum
1/4 oz dark rum
lime

Shake well over ice cubes in a shaker, strain into a small highball glass over crushed ice, squeeze lime wedge over drink and drop it into the drink.

For the liquid ingredients, I used my trusty old Bacardi, Captain Morgan's, Nellie and Joe's Famous Key West Lime Juice, and Rose's Grenadine.

This is one hell of a drink.  As mentioned above, the powdered sugar is balanced out by the mix of the different ingredients.  It's sweet, but not overpoweringly sweet like the Jack Rose (incidentally, we'll be checking back in with the Jack Rose cocktail in the near future - perhaps a different recipe will change my feelings on the drink). 

This may be the ideal summer cocktail, alongside such classics as the margarita.  It has a freshly made lemonade flavor that is the perfect balance between sweetness, tartness, and overall drinkability.

I highly recommend trying this drink out.  If I had a rating system, which I don't, I'd give this a strong 9 out of 10.  Most of you have the main liquors lying around in your cabinets.  Fork over the $10 to purchase the remaining items and you'll be well rewarded.

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Pedro Collins (Drink # 8)

I watched the season finale of Big Love this evening.  If you haven't seen it, or don't want to know the general story line of the show - skip down to the recipe.


Big Love
This season has been a weird one.  I felt like the show had too many balls in the air, and every story seemed crazier and crazier.  Bill turned into an asshole, plain and simple.  And the idea that he'd come clean about his polygamist family right after the election never quite made sense to me.  How blinded must Bill have been to think that he'd be accepted and not run out of office immediately after he admitted his polygamist-ways? 

Let's talk about the speech for a moment...

Why would a state senator get a platform like that, in front of what I presume was the capital building, for his acceptance speech?  He wouldn't!  It's as though he became a U.S. Senator.  It looked ridiculous.

In any event, I did not think that he would follow through with admitting his family's secrets to the rest of Utah (and the world, I suppose).  None of the wives looked particularly happy, and who can blame them - they're all getting screwed out of what they want.  The end of the show mirrored this season's new opening - filled with blowing hair, and pouty lips.  I'm not sure where the show goes from here, but there isn't enough room for too many more story lines.

Recipe
The Ultimate Bar Book, page 271

Pedro Collins
2 ounces light rum
1 ounce fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon sugar
3 to 4 ounces chilled club soda
Lime slice
Maraschino cherry

Pour rum, lime juice, and sugar into an ice-filled collins glass. Top with clubs soda and stir gently.  Garnish with the lime slice and cherry.


I used my trusty old Bacardi Rum bottle for this one.  This bottle is getting more use in the last month than it had did in the 6-7 years prior.  I'm enjoying rum far more than I ever thought I would.  I guess the last few times I had rum would have been in a rum and coke, or something similar.  Rum and cokes aren't terrible, but they aren't my favorite.  As a result, I never gave rum much of a chance.

This is one hell of a refreshing drink.  Anything with rum, lime juice and ice is bound to taste a little lime-aid-ish - and it surely does, just like the Daiquiri.  And unfortunately, the sugar won't dissolve in the cold liquid, so it's left sitting in the bottom of the glass.  I'm not sure how much additional sweetness is really necessary for the drink.  If it did dissolve, the drink might become a little syrupy.

The Pedro Collins is fairly light on the alcohol relative to the rest of the drink's contents, so you can drink a couple of these and still be sitting pretty.  The club soda adds only a small amount of fizz, but just enough to add a little pop to the drink that would otherwise be sweet and flat.

This is another in a string of summer drinks (see also the Daiquiri and the Sidecar).  There's a reason rum is an alcohol out of the tropics - in the high heat, the Pedro Collins is a good bet.  Next time though, I may mix everything without the ice, in the hopes the sugar dissolves at least in part.  Like I said above, the sugar may be unnecessary in the end, but it seemed silly to have the sugar sitting idly at the bottom. 

I actually think that this phenomenon is a big reason artificial sweetners are so popular - they dissolve in cold liquids far better than regular sugar.  You can read more about this at my new blog:
www.randomthoughtsbasedonlittleornoscientificevidence.com.

Check back tomorrow when I try the dreaded tequila drink I wrote about the other day, the Toreador!  Honestly, I'm not looking forward to it.  I have a soccer game this evening, and there may be nothing worse than tequila after running around like an idiot for an hour.  Though what do I know, perhaps there's nothing better - only one way to find out...

Drink Six - The Old Fashioned

The final recipe of the first six drinks...The Old Fashioned!

According to Wikipedia, the Old Fashioned may have been the first cocktail.  There are many different recipes for this drink, and it has so many components, it's easy to see why some would be replaced with others (or omitted entirely).

Recipe
American Bar, page 145

1 sugar cube
dashes Angostura bitters
2 oz bourbon
soda
stemmed cherry
orange
lemon

Place sugar cube in an old fashioned glass, saturate with Angostura, add orange and lemon wedges, press with a pestle, add bourbon, stir well, add ice cubes, fill with soda or water, stir again, garnish with cherry.


This is by far the most complicated recipe to date.  I used what little Woodford Reserve I had left for the bourbon, real deal Angostura bitters, and thankfully our local Farm Fresh Delivery service had sent oranges and lemons this past Thursday.  I had everything in the recipe at the house, except for the sugar cube and the ice cubes.  I know, I know.  You're saying to yourself "how does he not have ice cubes"?  A good question, though, if you saw the state of the freezer, you'd understand. 

It's not that my freezer is gross or anything, it's merely packed to the brim with a ton of great Costco purchases.  And, my freezer doesn't have its own ice-making machine.  The result of all of this is that I need to pick up an ice bag from time to time.  That's what I did - running to the local Village Pantry (specializing in ice bags and monthly hold-ups).

Once I had everything in place, I started trying to find something that looked like an old fashioned glass.  Not knowing what one would look like, I tried to find a lowball glass that might fit the bill.

And then...and then I gazed upon the finest glass in my collection.  Was it my quirky economics based glass that tracks the NYSE ebb and flow in the 1960's?  No, but alas, that is an outstanding piece of hardware that will definitely be used in the future.

What glass was it?  What I saw, and what would serve as the vessel for this very drink, was my Al Harrington, The South Pacific Man, glass.  I have two of them - somehow finding the pair at a thrift store many years ago.

You're saying to yourself - but I've never heard of this gentleman - who is this man of mystery?!?  I will show you...

Here is the front, announcing Mr. Harrington:

And here is the back -with Mr. Harrington himself:

Genius!!  Love this guy.

Alright, so here are all of the drinks components, including Mr. Harrington:

To the drink itself... 

I'm not sure what to make of it.  When I mashed the sugar, angostura bitters and the wedges together, the glass smelled great!  It was kind of a summer-like spice mixture that I thought would pave the way towards something excellent.

But when it came to sipping time, I was getting bits of pulp with each sip.  I like pulp in my OJ, but not in my cocktails.

It tastes like a watery bourbon drink, with a touch of bitters.  Whatever addition the sugar and fruits are adding gets diluted by the soda water.  I can taste some of the orange at times, which is a nice compliment to the bourbon, but I'd probably cut back on the soda water, or not use any at all.  I think the soda water just takes away from the flavors one would want in this drink, namely: bourbon, bitters and sweet orange and lemon.

The more I type this post out though, the more I'm sipping this drink, and liking it.  It has a refreshing quality, sitting over the ice.  And as the ice melts away, yet more of the flavor does as well.  On second thought, just skip the club soda entirely.  The ice will provide enough liquid to balance the drink out - no need for any additional water (unless watered-down drinks are your style).

The old fashioned, with the necessary adjustments, is a winner.  But the real highlight this evening is being able to share the moment with Al Harrington, The South Pacific Man!

Drink Five - Jack Rose

Our fifth cocktail is the Jack Rose.  Never heard of it before starting this blog. 

My lack of knowledge about drinks never ceases to amaze me - this, despite a solid four years spent in the frat house (Keystone Light, Natural Light and Natty Death...err...I mean, Natural Light Ice were the drinks of choice).

So what is this thing?  I'll give you three choices from which to guess...is it:

a) A whiskey based drink that contains Rose's lime juice as one of the additional ingredients.

b) A vodka based drink that is noticeably red in color due to the grenadine that is also in the drink.

c) A drink whose main traditional component is Applejack, an alcohol made from hard cider.

Have you picked your answer?







It's C. 

Applejack?  Never heard of it either, eh? 

Apparently, no one makes applejack anymore.  Not only that, I'm not sure anyone is making the Jack Rose anymore!  The Ultimate Bar Book - a book that has 1,000 drink recipes - A THOUSAND!!! - doesn't have a Jack Rose cocktail recipe. 

Thankfully, American Bar does have a Jack Rose recipe.  In it, they use something called calvados.  So, I've never even heard of this crap, and I definitely do not have it on hand.  Apparently, after some trusty internet research (the best kind), it appears to be apple brandy.

Already, I'm thinking to myself There's a reason this drink went out of fashion - it had calvados in it for Christ's sake!.  I had to run to the liquor store.  No big deal, except I had no way of knowing if they'd carry this calvados stuff.

And, I'm dressed like a schlub. 

I'm wearing a hoodie with a cardinal bird's face made to look like the ubiquitous Che Guevara face that adorns t-shirts in every Spencer's Gifts location (don't ask about this hoodie's origin...if you know, you know).  Not only do I look under 21 years of age, but I look like I might be robbing the place, as opposed to buying apple brandy.

The store did carry calvados.  They had a selection of calvados.  I could have spent over $100 a bottle if I had wanted to do so.  I decided against the expensive bottlings, and went for the middle ground - a $30 bottle called Calvados Noble-Dame.

Now at the store, the scotch aisle happened to be right next to the brandy/cognac aisle.  It wouldn't hurt to take a peek, just to see what they had, right?  What do you know - Balvenie Doublewood on sale?  Don't mind if I do!

So before I've even made this drink, I'm already out of pocket $75.  Yeah, that's right, I'm including the price of the scotch.  There's a chance that I make the Jack Rose this once, and never again.  I don't suppose I'll acquire a taste for apple brandy either, though we'll see.  I've spent more money on worse things.

Here's the recipe:

Jack Rose
American Bar, page 121

3/4 oz lemon juice
1 barspoon powdered sugar
dashes grenadine
1 1/2 oz Calvados

Shake over ice cubes in a shaker, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Even before my first sip, we know that this drink is going to be crazy sweet.  Between the lemon juice, the grenadine, the POWDERED SUGAR?!?!  Are you kidding me?  Who puts powdered sugar in a cocktail?

I'll cut to the chase - this thing is really awful.  I won't say it's undrinkable, but it's close.  It tastes like lemonade that's gone bad, if that's possible. You can't taste the apple brandy in any way, not that I know what it would taste like. 

It is very sweet too, in a chalky kind of way, in the way that ice tea mixed with too much Splenda tastes chalky.  Someone has to feel me on this one.

The drink was a dud - but maybe all is not lost - I mean, I still have the apple brandy, right?!  I'm going to pour myself a glass in a good ol' brandy snifter.  Look how classy it looks!

Holy hell this stuff is awful too!!  It tastes like it was made in the backyard of a meth lab.  How can anyone drink this?

Thank the lord I bought some scotch tonight - anything to wash this terrible terrible taste out of my mouth.

I do this all for you, my loyal reader, all for you.