If you’ve been interested in cocktails for any length of time, you know that there is a symbiotic relationship between the words “Hemingway” and “daiquiri.” Papa has become something of a shameful secret in literary circles; when I was in college studying for a degree in literature, there was nary a seminar available on him. Chaucer, Milton, Blake, Keats, literature of the Caribbean, of the Holocaust, of the South, seminars on Romantic and Victorian poetry, surveys of female writers, but no Hemingway. He (and many others) fell out of favor in light of certain changes in literary criticism that occurred in the middle of the twentieth century. I’ve been in many spirited disagreements over the years, as the predominant perception of Hemingway’s writing is that it is too “male,” too macho, too brash and unemotional. In short, despite his importance to the canon of American literature in the twentieth century, Hemingway as a writer is by and large forgotten or marginalized as the literary icon of the Hugh Hefner Playboy set.

All of which has nothing to do with this cocktail, but these are the things that I think about when considering Hemingway’s close ties to the daiquiri, a drink that not only contributed to his larger-than-life persona but to his lonely and unhappy death. Named for the bar in Havana where it was served, the daiquiri at La Floridita was Hemingway’s favorite drink—except of course for the mojitos from La Bodeguita. The common and popular face of the daiquiri is a brightly-hued, tropical frozen concoction mostly imbibed by drunken revelers on booze-soaked vacations—a reality which sadly parallels the drinking that so dissipated Hemingway’s life. For the rest of us who don’t drink solely for recreation in strange and foreign locations, a true daiquiri is a fine cocktail, another in the long line of drinks that have slowly evolved into something they distinctly were not in their inception.

Though many drinks have been successfully revived during the present cocktail renaissance—the Manhattan, Sazerac and Aviation come to mind—the daiquiri is still something of a sleeper hit. It appears to be the next big thing so far as concerted salvation goes, so here’s my contribution to the groundswell: the La Floridita Daiquiri, as reported in the now out of print Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails by the inimitable Ted Haigh. Continue →

The Bramble, as a drink, can be fairly easily explained by the word itself:

bram·ble – (brām’bəl) – n.

1. A prickly shrub of the genus Rubus, including the blackberry and the raspberry.
2. A prickly shrub or bush.

[Middle English brembel, from Old English bræmbel.]

So we know we’re dealing with blackberries—fresh fruit, perhaps, or créme de mûre. My first encounter with anything resembling the Bramble was a rum-based variation called the Rumble on the cocktail menu at Comme Ça. It was delightful, so naturally I couldn’t leave a good thing well enough alone and had to play with it at home.

A descendent of the Gin Fix, a drink composed by Jerry Thomas and made up of sugar, raspberry syrup, lemon juice and gin served over crushed ice, the Bramble was, to the best of my limited sleuthing abilities, created by Dick Bradsell in Soho, London. It’s a slightly more complex variation on the Fix, which recipe I found by way of George Sinclair, also known as the Thinking Bartender, who has kindly posted all manner of interesting cocktail-related documents online.

Interestingly (to me, anyway), though the Bramble was originally concocted using gin, there are a large variety of alternate versions using all manner of liquors. I tried the recipe with both gin and blanco tequila because, well, it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Sadly, in spite of my research, I didn’t have any blackberries at home—but I did have a pint of fresh mulberries. Mulberries, being of the genus Morus, do not share the same botanical or etymological roots as their Rubus cousins, but they do have a blackberry-like appearance and have a mildly sweet berry flavor. Though créme de mûre or cassis are most commonly found in recipes for the Bramble, I felt that raspberries were the closest in flavor to the milder mulberries and, since they share the same genus as blackberries, using framboise wasn’t a case of the berry falling too far from the bush. Continue →

Since our bizarre cold snap seems to have abated (not that I’m complaining—we need the rain here in parched SoCal) and we’re back to warm spring weather, I’m happily back on the tequila bandwagon.

Not that I don’t love tequila at other times during the year, but summer is when I learned how much I love it. Since our hot, dry summers are similar to the weather that produces the agave plant, tequila is a natural fit for residents of Southern California’s unique climate.

I became enamored of tequila because of The Boyfriend. He hails from the High Desert, a blanket term for the northern Mojave, which encompasses a large swath of San Bernadino County, as well as the northern part of Los Angeles and eastern Kern counties. As the name implies, much of the desert is above sea level, and the area is known for high winds, scorching summer temperatures and freezing lows (with snow!) during the winter. It’s inhospitable and wildly beautiful, stretching away in a golden plain until it hits the mountains, with only joshua trees and scrub brush to break up the relentlessly flat earth.

Based on that description, I’m sure it’s clear why tequila and ice-cold beer are the drinks du jour during the 100º+ summers. And, while straight tequila is a wonderful thing, when used correctly it’s also great in cocktails. On my regular internet rounds I’ve been bookmarking tequila recipes here and there and this one worked its was to the top based on the fact that it was 80º outside and I, stupidly, had planned a dinner that required turning on the oven. With my kitchen roasting at a cheerful 95º, I turned to my summer libation of choice and mixed up the Limonada. Continue →

Hopefully you’re as excited as I am about the triumphant return of créme de violette. While the Blue Moon was a lovely drink, it was a bit of a disappointment (comparatively speaking). So, to make up for that, I bring you a long weekend gift in the form of the Violet Fizz.

Those of you who do the cocktail blog rounds will remember this drink from Jamie Boudreau and Paul Clarke, and readers of Imbibe might remember this from one of Dr. Cocktail’s articles. It’s a simple preparation that makes a lovely light little drink that nicely highlights the herbal, floral nature of créme de violette.

I’ve discussed the history of the fizz before, but I’ll recap a bit: A cousin of the sour family, it is a simple mix of liquor, citrus juice (generally lemon) and carbonated water. The Violet Fizz is a variation on the ever-popular gin fizz, which is composed of gin, lemon juice, sugar, and soda water. The inclusion of egg is a common variation on the fizz theme, which also results in a new class of names: “silver” if you use egg white, “gold” for egg yolk, “royal” for a whole egg. If you work an egg white into the Violet Fizz, it becomes the Fizz a lá Violette. Which is probably more than you needed to know, but you can knock ‘em dead with trivial cocktail knowledge over barbeque on Sunday. Continue →

This, as so many things in my life, started with a book. A cookbook, to be more precise. I have something of a compulsive personality and used book stores are a weakness of mine. If I see one, pass one, hear about one—be it home or away—I have to visit. Used book stores are often filled with many of the same things; multiple copies of past Oprah’s Book Club selections, dog-eared and highlighted textbooks, a variety of Betty Crocker cookbooks from years past. Beside and around those books, though, live little treasures. Forgotten tidbits of history, culture, imagination, little time capsules that can transport you to childhood, to your grandmother’s kitchen, to eighteenth century India—books that you can hardly find anywhere any more unless you take the time to seek them out and discover them anew.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with my purchase of Mario Batali’s Babbo Cookbook, being neither forgotten nor ancient, but I did find it during a regular foraging jaunt to my local bookshop. It’s not the sort of book I would buy new, as I can make or adapt perhaps half of the recipes, but as I flipped through it I noticed the introductory section on aperitivi and I was sunk. Having been fortunate enough to sample from the drink menu at Osteria Mozza, I knew that Babbo’s drinks would be high quality. The book came home with me.

It features about eight aperitivi recipes from prosecco cocktails to the Negroni, but we chose to start with the Cin Cyn because it meant playing around with Cynar, the artichoke liqueur. I’d only had Cynar in perhaps two cocktails, so I was excited to give this a try. As luck would have it, I had a back issue of Imbibe handy which also contained a recipe for the Cin Cyn, albeit in different proportions. Being a conscientious and diligent reporter, I just had to try both recipes to see which one we preferred. Continue →