Tag Archives: rum
Mocha Flip
Ever want a nice silky mocha when all you have is rum? Happens to me all the time. And everyone else too, I’m sure. Here’s the solution.
Mocha Flip
- 2 oz El Dorado 12 year aged rum
- .5 oz creme de cacao
- .5 oz coffee syrup*
- .5 oz milk
- Whole egg
- A chunk of dark chocolate
- Chocolate bitters (optional)
Dry shake the first 5 ingredients. Add ice, shake, and double strain into a cocktail glass. Dash chocolate bitters on top. Use a microplane or grater to grate some dark chocolate over the top of the drink.
* – Make coffee syrup by combining equal parts brewed coffee and sugar in a bottle larger than the combined volume and just shaking (for a long while) to combine. It’ll last in the fridge for quite a while. Use a lighter roast or cold brew to minimize bitterness. (A coffee liqueur could be used instead of this, but it’d have to be exceptionally high quality or homemade. Use Kahlua in cocktails at your own peril.)
Drunken Angel
Coconut syrup was one of my primary cocktail revelations of the last year. It’s a flavor that generally evokes in me an absolute numb, deadened sensation. Total ennui. It’s not that I hate coconut: I just don’t like it, and it’s never done much for me.
But last January or so, I had some ideas for drinks based off of coconut ranging from mixing it with rum and Aperol to using it in an egg white foam atop bourbon and chocolate bitters with fresh chocolate for sort of a German Chocolate Cake flavor. I found earlier this month that I, much to my surprise, missed having coconut syrup around.
So I made more and decided to start making drinks based upon it again. Of all the cocktails I’ve made recently, this is surprisingly my favorite, a nicely balanced drink that really only hints at coconut. The absinthe rinse is crucial: Minus that component, this particular recipe comes off as a just a touch flabby. Somehow, the absinthe highlights the citrus without adding much of the characteristic anise/licorice flavor. Pretty much awesome.
I’m calling it the Drunken Angel. Here’s the recipe.
Drunken Angel
- .75 oz aged rum (not too flavorful – in this case, I used Appleton 12)
- .75 oz white rum
- .75 oz lime juice
- .5 oz yellow chartreuse
- .5 oz coconut syrup
- Absinthe
- 1 egg white
- Peychaud’s bitters
Combine all the ingredients save the bitters in a shaker. Dry shake. Shake with ice. Swirl a bit of absinthe in a coupe and discard any that immediately puddles. Double strain the drink into the coated glass. Gently dash the Peychaud’s over the top of the drink, trying to concentrate several dots in the center. Use a toothpick to draw the bitters out into a nebulous, heavenly shape. Discard the toothpick, pick up the glass, and get your drink on.
To make coconut syrup, heat up equal parts sugar and water to create a 1:1 simple syrup. Give it a stir and don’t let it boil. As soon as all the sugar is dissolved, add unsweetened, unadulterated, flaked coconut to the syrup and let it sit for about a half hour to an hour until your kitchen smells like coconut.
Crafting a Better Cuba Libre
Though its exact origins are a mystery, the Cuba Libre was invented near 1900 in, you guessed it, Cuba. Washington Post spirits writer Jason Wilson takes a deeper look into the history of this simple mixture of rum, cola and lime. Today we know the Cuba Libre as an even simpler bar standard of rum and Coke that’s hardly useful for anything but getting wasted. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Quality ingredients and a straightforward addition of bitters will produce a far tastier and certainly a more historically correct version of this classic drink. Rise up!
Recipe
1-1/2 to 2 ounces rum: While most rum is made by fermenting and distilling molasses, a byproduct of the sugar refining process, Trinidad’s 10 Cane rum is created from the first pressing of Trinidadian sugar cane (basically a Rhum Agricole). 10 Cane is distilled twice in small batches in French pot stills and then aged for 6 months in vintage French oak barrels. The result is light, golden rum with mild flavors of pear and vanilla ideal for premium cocktail mixing.
There are plenty of options though. Dark, aged rum will obviously impart its unique flavor characteristics and cheap, white rum will lay a more neutral base. 10 Cane is a good in-between choice.
Juice from half a lime: There is no substitute for freshly squeezed. You can throw the spent lime half into the drink, you can garnish the finished cocktail with a fresh lime wheel, or both.
Cola: Here is where you can really turn a basic rum and Coke into a more elegant drink. Fentimans Curiousity Cola is made by brewing and fermenting herbs and milled roots over seven days. After cola flavoring is added, the soft drink has a depth that blows every other mass produced cola off the shelf. It will make a sexy-hot Cuba Libre.
Premium colas like Virgil’s and Boylan can also be used. Even Coke will make a decent Cuba Libre as long as attention is paid to the other ingredients.
1-3 dashes Angostura bitters: If using Fentimans cola, the bitters are optional or can be cut to only a dash. Any other cola will call for at least two dashes of bitters to help balance out the sweetness.
1-2 teaspoons Allspice Dram (optional): Rarely do we extol the splendor of drinks that aren’t available in Michigan but St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram is a bottle we’ll order from out of state. Traditionally known as pimento dram (pimento is the West Indies term for allspice), this liqueur made from Jamaican pot-still rum and allspice berries is cherished for its extraordinary flavors of clove, cinnamon and nutmeg. Not only does it add island flavor to Caribbean cocktails and tiki drinks, it works well in a wide variety of holiday desserts. It will elevate a Cuba Libre — particularly one made with Coke.
Preparation
Squeeze the lime half into a Collins glass. Add 3 or 4 ice cubes. Pour in the rum and top with cola. Add the bitters and optional Allspice Dram. Do a quick, gentle stir to incorporate the ingredients.
Trial Bikram = Cocktail Night
Suz went to try out Bikram Yoga somewhere tonight on some sort of trial basis. She enjoyed it. Sounds like living hell to me. Free or not, my ass is remaining firmly planted on the couch or behind the home bar.
Regardless, while working on some freelance projects, I decided that her extended absence meant it was a perfect night to experiment with some drinks. After all, I’ve been writing about natural meats, traveling in Texas, and cellared wines. It feels wrong to go two weeks without a blog post on making cocktails. Really, really wrong.
Bitter Kitty
- 1.5 oz white rum
- .75 oz Campari
- .75 oz lemon juice
- .5 oz limoncello
- .5 oz falernum
I had a great campari swizzle in Austin, TX, and I wanted to make something similar but a bit more citrusy, since that’s what first drew me to cocktails. This is the result. It’s tart and bitter with a crazy bit of spice at the end. I shake it and strain it over crushed ice like a swizzle.
Silk Boxers
- 1.5 oz Zaya aged rum
- .75 oz Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot
- .75 oz lime juice
- .5 oz falernum
The first thought I had when trying this drink, shaken and served up, was that it was surprisingly silky for a drink with three-quarters an ounce of lime juice in it. So the “Silk Boxers” was born. A quick Google search found a few disgusting party shot recipes with the same name, but screw those guys. You deserve to have your drink reclaimed if your drink sucks. I’m a sucker for all of these ingredients, and they’re working for me together.
Cheers!
Austin Dead Blog: Post 4
I suspect that as I grow weary of posting about my various adventures in Austin while half asleep (see figure 1 and figure 2), these blog entries will grow shorter. By Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I very well may just copy a tweet for my blog post. Maybe something like “omg, #sxsw is awesome, love #austin food and drink, and I zzzzzzzzzzzz”
Sunday: On Which Meat Becomes Thy Watchword
There’s no more rousing start to one’s day than an hour-long panel on relational databases. Except, I suppose, caffeine in the form of excellent coffee. I chose to merge the two, starting with the former and ending with the latter. One of Austin’s many street side carts is Patika Coffee, which features roasted beans from Texas’ own Cuvee Coffee Roasting Company.
I thought their El Salvador single origin brew was remarkable on two levels: It was only $1.75 for a 12-ounce cup and it just smacked me across the face with cocoa flavors. I have no idea what experienced coffee tasters would describe with this brew, but this particular cup, to me, was rife with caramel and chocolate flavors with minimal bitterness. There was a fruitiness to it, but to me, it played second fiddle to this overwhelmingly powerful cocoa flavor. What a treat after walking past two or three Starbucks with lines to find a quick cup of coffee that was exceptionally good.
After more panels and discussions — including one about Detroit featuring several well-known local activists and artists (we’re everywhere, apparently) — it was time for a late lunch, and my colleagues Lara and Rachel and I decided it was time to try some BBQ. So we headed a few blocks north to a tiny cart operated by “the Simms brothers.” The others in my party had a couple of sandwiches, but I opted for the full-sized two meat meal plate consisting of ribs, brisket, potato salad with pickles, beans, and a couple of slices of the cheapest semi-local white bread money can buy. I’m far from a BBQ expert, but I make some damn tasty spareribs and really solid pulled pork in my estimation, and the stuff here was top notch: The brisket was tender and buttery, and the spareribs were remarkably moist. The sauce wasn’t as vinegary as a Carolina-style sauce, but I was a bit surprised to find a bit of tang in there. That’s the not the perception I had coming from Michigan.
Then, 3:30-6pm… Time for more panels and sessions.
Afterwards, I elected to catch up on sporting news — most importantly, a nice seed in the NCAA tourney for Michigan — before meeting up with colleagues Lara and Patti for a meal at Frank, an Austin artisan hot dog joint. I had the most amazing sausage, which they call the Jackelope, a medley of antelope, rabbit, pork, and sage, topped with a huckleberry compote and smoked cheddar.
I finished off the evening back at Haddington’s, part of my absurdly long, alcohol-fueled first night in Austin. It was a much less intense evening this time around, though I tried a few new drinks, including a frothy egg white drink based on rum, chartreuse, orgeat, lime, and Peychaud’s called the “Dover to Calais,” which was absolutely excellent.
Another rock star caliber day. I even had a few random, interesting, even inspiring conversations with other attendees along the way. Though sadly, unlike some other SXSW participants, I have not run into Eliza Dushku or Jake Gyllenhall or Conan, though I will say that I did attend a moderator-led discussion with Paul Reubens today that was informational, touching, and hilarious. Still, as much as I loved that, and no matter who I might have seen, I think the highlight was always destined to be the BBQ.
Can anyone blame me?
Cocktails: Experiments in Coffee and Foam
Deadwood, the HBO series that I’m finally getting around to watching, has been on constant playback in my house of late. So I’ve been drinking an awful lot of whiskey. What better way to turn an otherwise passive television experience into an interactive one?
But when Sazeracs, Old Fashioneds, and straight up bourbon aren’t cutting it, I’ve also been tinkering with some new ideas as well.
Variations
Tentatively and uncreatively titled “Rumbaroni,” we have:
- 1 oz aged rum
- 1 oz Carpano Antica
- 1 oz Zucca rhubarb amaro
- Stir with ice, strain, serve over up or on the rocks with orange twist
- This is pretty much awesome.
Foams
Fairly famous west coast bartender Jamie Boudreau invented a drink at his former place of employment, Vessel, called the Vessel 75. The drink is stirred bourbon and Peychaud’s served in an old fashioned glass and topped with a foam made of egg whites, water, lemon juice, and maple syrup. Having just acquired an iSi cream canister, I made a couple to excellent results.
But then it got me thinking about other possible variations. Here’s my first stab, a delicious but yet-to-be-perfected variation on the Mojito / Gin-Gin Mule theme.
Thoroughly Modern Mojito
- Muddle mint with a modest dollop of 2:1 simple syrup and Bob’s Peppermint Bitters
- Add to that 3 oz aged rum
- Stir with ice and strain into an old fashioned glass
- Apply a ginger-lime foam to the top
- Garnish with fresh mint
- The foam as currently constructed, using very similar proportions to Boudreau’s maple foam, is too loose. The ginger syrup was too strong in flavor and too watery in body. With a bit of adjustment there, I think this will be in great shape.
Coffee and Coffee Syrup
My friend John shared with me some coffee syrup he used to re-create a drink he had at the Violet Hour in Chicago. Here’s our effort at duplicating it:
- 1 oz blackstrap rum
- 1 oz tawny port
- .5 oz coffee syrup
- Whole egg
- Shaken, served down, grated fresh nutmeg over the top
Still having tons of syrup left, I’ve played around a bit more. Thus far, my favorite original drink using the syrup is as follows:
- 1 oz cognac
- 1 oz rye
- .5 oz coffee syrup
- .25 oz maraschino
- 3 drops lemon juice
- Stirred and strained
I also took a stab at a few coffee-based drinks, one of which I’ll mention here.
- 1.5 oz aged rum
- .5 oz green chartreuse
- 1 oz room temp coffee
- .5 oz pineapple juice
- Shaken, served down
- The proportions could stand to get some adjusting, but on the whole, this crazy thing is actually pretty good
Live Blog: Saturday Night Fever Tree
Somehow, people got the idea that it’s bad to drink alone.
It’s definitely bad to drink because you “need” to. It’s bad to drink too much too often. It’s bad to drink and pass out on your couch at 8pm. But it’s bad to do any of those things if you’re with people too, right? Last night, I had the good fortune of eating and drinking with friends. Most of the night centered on wine, but for a brief while, we chatted about Fever Tree tonic water, which got a ringing endorsement from Putnam Weekley. Tonight, I’m flying solo. But really, it’s kind of fortuitous since solo drinking nights mean the freedom to explore.
A few hours ago, I literally ran into a ginger beer/root beer/tonic shelf at Holiday Market that was full of Fever Tree products. Having decided that it was kismet given the previous night’s discussion, I picked up some Fever Tree tonic and ginger beer (I’m guessing this recent addition is courtesy of GU Detroit member Jefferey Mar, though I can’t say for certain). It was then that I decided tonight would become a study in cocktails. So for the zero people who will be reading our blog on this particular Saturday night, I will be live blogging these drinks as I go.
Drink #1: Using Fever Tree Tonic (7:45pm)
Gin and tonic is great, but I wanted to try something a little different. Fever Tree’s tonic has great citrus fruit flavors and a bright acidity in addition to all the bitterness in the finish, so I thought there might be some potential to try something in a Caribbean-inspired vein. Here’s what I ended up with:
- 1 oz white rum (I used Mt. Gay)
- 1 oz aged rum (I used Angostura 1919, 8 year)
- .5 oz fresh lime juice
- .25 oz Cherry Heering
- .25 oz simple syrup
- Fever Tree tonic
I shook this briefly, without tonic, poured it into a tall glass with ice, and topped it with probably 4-5 oz of tonic. This starts with a pretty big fruit flavor and then has a wash of tonic bitterness through the finish. Somehow it tastes like vanilla in the mid-palate. Kind of awesome, though I might use a little less tonic next time.
Drink 2: Bittered Rye Sling w/ Fever Tree (8:30)
I’m a big fan of this rye-based drink that I had at The Gibson in Washington, DC. I’ve been making it with Fentiman’s, but I wanted to give the Fever Tree a shot.
- 2 oz rye whiskey (I used Russel’s because I’m out of Rittenhouse)
- 1 oz sweet vermouth (Dolin)
- .5 oz lime juice
- Assload of Angostura bitters
- Fever Tree ginger beer
I shook everything except the Fever Tree with a couple ice cubes just briefly to mix and slightly chill the ingredients then poured it over ice in a tall glass and topped with the ginger beer. Good drink, but I prefer this one with Fentiman’s, which I think has a much stronger spice quotient.
Drink 2 Redux (8:42)
This is getting better. As it’s melting and warming, there seems to be more ginger spice. Fever Tree could totally work its way into my ginger beer rotation — and since I still have 3 little bottles left, I’d say there’s a good chance of that happening.
Drink 3: Keanu Reeves Says “Woah” (9:30)
Last night, a good friend texted me from my favorite cocktail bar, Vessel, located in Seattle. He and his wife were enjoying a few drinks, and he sent a list of ingredients with no commentary other than “Awesome.” The text read, “creme de violette lillet blanc egg white club soda citrus.”
I didn’t have any club soda, so I did the following:
- 1 oz creme de violette
- 1 oz lillet blanc
- Half an egg white
- 2/3 oz lemon juice
Dry shake, shake with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. And I have to agree with my buddy. Awesome.
If you’re a creme de violette fan, this is a great drink. The egg white gives it body, the lillet kills a bit of the intensity, and the lemon just makes for a nice, bright, balanced drink. Low alcohol brilliance inspired by the finest cocktail bar I’ve been to.
Drink 4: Mystery! (10:24)
I made a fourth drink. I had an idea the other night while drinking a Ramos Gin Fizz. If it went well, I would have posted more. But it only went OK, so further tinkering is in the cards for the next couple day/weeks. But in the meantime, I’m done experimenting (both with alcohol and how many calories I can ingest before bed) for the evening. I’d encourage Detroiters to stop by Western Market in Ferndale or Holiday Market in Royal Oak and pick up some Fever Tree products.
The Month of May
May began for me at the stroke of midnight on the first with a gathering of friends, some new and some old, hosted by James Cadariu, the green coffee buyer and blender for Great Lakes Coffee. And it’s coming to an end shortly, likely with some sort of family gathering over Memorial Day. In between, it’s been a good time for all my gustatory habits.
James poured us a Romanian rosé from Davino that I believe is a blend of cab and merlot aged in stainless. It was delicious, semi-dry stuff with a tremendous amount of body and flavor.
Jared Gild at Western Market in Ferndale has spurred the brilliant addition of a natural meat freezer at the store. From it, I plucked a pound of frozen buffalo meat. It made delicious burgers, closer to a typical beef patty than anything else but much, much lighter feeling. Almost airy, if such a thing is possible.
I decided to play around one night, muddling rhubarb with just a bit of simple syrup and to it adding aquavit, sloe gin, limoncello, and lemon juice. The resulting drink tasted quite a bit like tart cranberry. Something in me likes the paradox in the name “European Cranberry” for the drink, but that’s a mouthful and a rather dull mouthful at that.
I went to Chicago for a wedding, arriving a few days early to sample some of the city’s culinary offerings. The Purple Pig on Michigan Avenue served me a nice glass of burgundy with this whipped goat cheese and roasted beet salad as well as a glass tub of pork rillettes accompanied by toast and preserved apricot.
Dinner that same evening was at Longman & Eagle, where I had a Zabuton of Dietzler Farms beef — essentially a steak prepared sous vide and then seared. It was served over asparagus, morels, and gnocchi with bone marrow on top and a black olive caramel to the side. Yes, black olive caramel. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.
I also drank a few cocktails, including a unique creation of the bartender, Derek, called the Carpathian that consisted of Aperol and Fernet Branca topped with birch beer over ice. It was too strange to pass up (much like the black olive caramel sauce) and too delicious to last more than 5 minutes sitting on the bar in front of me.
I could live entirely off of places within stumbling distance of the blue line of Chicago’s “L.” I wandered parallel to the tracks, down Milwaukee Avenue, until I hit The Whistler, a small cocktail bar serving lovely drinks. I haven’t tried to replicate them yet, but they were delicious. The “Slippery Slope” featured bourbon, Punt e Mes, Apricot Liqueur, some kind of amaro, and lemon juice. And the “Fig Leaf” was made from Carpano Antica, rum, lime juice, and bitters.
The Violet Hour was a highlight for me. Over two nights, I had nine drinks at this posh Bucktown/Wicker Park spot, but it was the first hour of the first night that really sticks out. In glancing at the menu, I noticed a drink that used Cherry Heering and egg yolk. Not white. Yolk. I understand that yolks played some role in early variants of a gin fizz among other things, but not in one of the 6 or 8 first-rate cocktail bars that I’ve visited had I seen a contemporary drink that made use of the generally discarded fatty cousin of the egg white. And Cherry Heering? Other than a singapore sling, who the hell uses that as an ingredient, let alone a primary ingredient? The beverage, termed “The Golden Age,” came to me in a tall glass with crushed ice and drank like a cherry milkshake. A few rounds of back and forth with the bartender over the various qualities of the drink, and I was hooked for the next three or four hours… and another two-and-a-half hours the next night. (The drink pictured is a Bitter Giuseppe, 1/3 Carpano and 2/3 Cynar with, I believe, a very gentle dose of citrus as well as the lemon peel garnish.)
Red & White is a small, brilliantly stocked wine shop several long blocks northwest of The Violet Hour. Natural wine and small production stuff from around the world, all generally priced from 15-50 dollars a bottle, is pretty much all they do — save for the occasional obscure spirit, like the bottle of Ransom Old Tom gin I bought. One of the proprietors, Nathan, took a few moments to chat, and I had to push my burgeoning sense of jealousy back into the pit of my stomach from whence it came. Several of the wines from Domaine de Briseau/Christian Chaussard were stocked, and I couldn’t resist purchasing a bottle of Patapon, made exclusively from Pineau d’Aunis. I want all of this in Detroit.
While at Longman & Eagle, I’d been alternating between conversations with the bartenders and other patrons and reading the most recent issue of The Art of Eating. The cover story was about Iowa pork. The first thing mentioned was the prosciutto-style ham aged by La Quercia. So when I visited the uber-popular restaurant The Publican the next night and saw La Quercia Rossa among their charcuterie offerings, I had to get it. Mild yet clear and focused, the flavor is outstanding. Very delicate. I’m not any sort of expert, but it’s certainly the best American-made product of this style that I’ve ever had. From what I gather, the ham is made not from the whole leg but only from the best part along the femur. The rest of the dinner was excellent as well, but the sheer coincidence (and the thinly sliced fatty goodness) made the ham memorable.
We did the wedding on Friday and Saturday, and that was a treat — including the seemingly non-stop parade of Indian food. After gorging myself for four days, I vowed to take it easy on Monday — until I remembered that we’d decided to meet my grandparents and dad at Slows BBQ in Detroit Monday evening. While some brisket was melting on my tongue, my grandmother told me she’d left a gift at my house for me. When I got home, I discovered Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans.
My grandma is the one who taught me how to make pierogi that my co-blogger saw fit to mention in the Metro Times, and she’s an eager proponent of the recipes contained within this Other Little Red Book. Someday, I hope to make Beggar’s Cake — a rich construction built from 40 eggs and 12 sticks of butter, among other things, that gets roasted on a wooden rod over open flame. Intense. For now, I’ll stick to pierogi, beets, cabbage, and maybe some tripe if I’m feeling “old country.”
Complaints? Not a one. Here’s to May.
How Easily Can One Speak After a Visit to The Gibson?
Among the traditions associated (for some) with Thanksgiving, the one that annoys me the most is the notion of forcing each of those seated around a well-provisioned table to recount a single thing for which a person is thankful. It’s not that being grateful or demonstrating appreciation are offensive sentiments. But to my mind, being goaded into a sappy public display is, no matter the intent, irritating, boring, and dare I say contrived.
So in lieu of that particular custom, I shall instead confess to the public some of the things for which I am thankful in the most privately publicm, egomaniacal fashion of them all — a blog post.
This year, my wife and I set sail — or more accurately, boarded a flight — bound for Baltimore in order to visit family. The day before Thanksgiving, we were to meet up with our good friends who live near DC, my brother, and his fiancée for dinner and drinks. After doing some research and consulting the natives, we elected to dine at Masa 14, an inexpensive Latin+Japanese fusion place that serves small plates, and to drink at The Gibson, a speakeasy-style joint down the block which nearly always requires reservations to get past the doorman.
Dinner was wonderful — I particularly enjoyed the yucca fries, the pork belly “tacos,” some mussels, and some of their flatbreads — but this is a drinks blog, and we’re more than mere casual drinkers, so let’s focus our attention on The Gibson, shall we?
During Prohibition, I’m sure it would have taken quite a bit to gain entrance to The Gibson. Knowing the proprietor, perhaps. Knowing a codeword, probably. But today, we have Google. Following the recent trend of modeling sophisticated watering holes after the speakeasys of yesteryear, this establishment is virtually invisible from 14th Street NW. Only a single light bulb, a single doorknob, and a single door buzzer sandwiched between two other businesses alert you that there might be life inside the otherwise decrepit-looking building. But after perusing reviews on Yelp, we were on the phone to The Gibson, making reservations.
Once we were done with dinner and wandered up the street to that barely lit entrance, we headed in, initially greeted by a young potbellied man dressed in all black, his face adorned with mutton chops that threatened to engulf his face. He led us through a second door to a dimly lit, beautifully decorated room. Standing isn’t allowed — the bar has 48 chairs, and if you’re not in one of them, you’re not in the bar — and half the tables are set aside for those who call in advance to make reservations.
We took our seats, looked over the menus, and ordered some damn fine drinks.
Among our more memorable drinks were a Blue Blood (Laphroaig 10-Year Single Malt, Leopold Bros Tart Cherry Liqueur, Grand Marnier, and Dolin Dry Vermouth), a Bittered Rye Sling (Old Overholt Rye, bitters, lime, Dolin sweet vermouth, and Fever Tree ginger ale), and a Brunswick Sour (Appleton white rum and lime juice with merlot floated on top).
My brother’s fiancee described the Blue Blood as “feet wrapped in bacon.” Sounds ideal to me, and indeed it is: The smoky flavor from the scotch certainly dominates the drink, but it’s made balanced by the tart cherry and orange. My personal favorite, though, was the Bittered Rye Sling I ordered. Tart, drinkable, and surprisingly aromatic, it was served in a Collins glass and garnished with a cherry and a lemon twist.
The waitstaff was pleasant and felt comfortable questioning odd orders, hoping to save both him and us from having to deal with a drink that didn’t match up to our party’s tastes. The Brunswick Sour and a few others were recommendations of his throughout the evening, and he did well. And of course, the drinks were absolutely delicious.
Atmosphere is a focal point for The Gibson: Beautifully stained wood is accented with regal reds and golds on cieling inlays, and red velvet covers the back of the bench seating. Orange peel garnishes were brought to the table and, when squeezed, lit on fire for every drink. Showmanship is fun, but on more than one occasion, we sat waiting awkwardly for a minute while our waiter tried to flame the peel. And truth be told, our second round came a bit late in the evening because of the slow pace of service.
Nonetheless, The Gibson was a great drink experience. It would be easy to over-consume there: The bartenders are the real asset at this establishment as the drinks were universally well-made. Even the strongest, booziest cocktails were eminantly drinkable. And prices were fair and reasonable. If driving 50 minutes back to Baltimore hadn’t been a concern, I would have been joyfully slurring and stumbling my way out of The Gibson as my mutton-chopped doorman friend booted my ass to the curb at closing time. If you’re in DC, you owe yourself a trip.
