Session 12: Real Ale Sisyphus

Welcome fellow beer lovers. I know you might be wondering how a cocktail blog found its way to the beer party, but hey, good beer has a special place in every imbiber’s heart, especially when it is barleywine. Regular readers of this blog are aware of my support for local products; I generally go on at least one rant every couple of months abut how large corporations are threatening the autonomy of small spirits destroying both quality and innovation with their massive purchasing. The only way to resist the Pernod-Ricard leviathons is to support the micro-distilleries that are popping up all over the country in the same manner that micro-breweries did a decade before, reinvigorating the creative elements of the industry. Unfortunately, for a long time, Texas was far behind the micro movement in regards to both spirits and beer. Fortunately, the last several years have produced several breweries and, most recently, a few new micro-distilleries. Texas beer and spirits are finally becoming noteworthy.

The mere existence of a brewery, however, does not mean that drinkable beer is being produced. I’ve had some local brews that the community must be tolerating because they just want to have their own nostalgic brewery nearby. Under these circumstances, one of two things occurs: the brewery goes out of business or they get better. Texas has had both over the last 15 years, but fortunately, one brewery in particular has began producing some excellent beers that should position it as the lone star state’s premier brewery: Real Ale Brewing Company.

Their barleywine, Sisyphus, is just one example of their stellar seasonals. If you can get past the name and drink the beer without putting on a condom, you’ll find that Texas might just be catching up with the rest of the micro-brewery scene. Actually, as you might know, Sisyphus is a mythical Greek figure, not a STD, who was doomed to pushing a boulder up a hill for all eternity. When the boulder finally reached the top, Sis would lose the rock and be forced to repeat the exercise. All this because of his belief that his trickery was beyond that of Zeus. I don’t know why you would name a beer after this guy. If you ask me pushing heavy loads up hills and drinking beer are just about as opposite as you can get, but to each their own. Maybe the brewery is hoping that we will repeat the exercise of drinking the barleywine over and over again.

But, at 11%, this might be a bit overwhelming. The beer pours a thin tan head atop a amber coloered beer. The nose has toffee, caramel, honey, and floral elements. The mouthfeel is surprisingly smooth for a barleywine. Maybe it’s just me, but I find this to be the easiest to drink barleywine I’ve ever had. I think this beer is easier to drink than their recent seasonal release the Phoenix Double ESB. Me and Sisyphus here could get into trouble quickly, and I don’t think the “push the boulder up the hill option” is an option nowadays. This of course is riding on whether the beer tastes good. This is certainly the case as a pleasant combination of light coffee and toast, honey/maple syrup, and floral flavors are balanced well with a present, but not overbearing bitterness. I read some of the reviews on BeerAdvocate, and people mentioned citrus frequently. I really didn’t notice very many citrus components at all, which is something that usually jumps out at me in beer. I do think this beer could have offered more however. The beer’s flavor was rather modest for a barleywine, which isn’t what you are usually looking for when pulling this style of the shelf. Nevertheless, evaluated independently, it is exciting to see a Texas label put this out.

Combined with some of the St. Arnold’s Divine Reserves released in recent years, Real Ale’s seasonal, especially the Sisyphus are redefining Texas beer. The days of Shiner dominance may finally be coming to an end. Granted a good Shiner now and then is never a bad thing, but hey we were once our own country, I’m sure we can make our own beer too. Hopefully, the upcoming release of Southern Star’s first batch will add another contender to the group. Well, this Session thing was kind of fun; I might have to try this out again next time. An excuse to drink more beer isn’t really needed, but I’ll gladly use the justification. Be sure to head over to the Brew Site for more barleywine post and the Session round-up.

Smoked Cocktails: Part 3

Man, life has been pretty crazy lately. I haven’t had a day off in a couple of weeks, and as you might have noticed, this hasn’t left a lot of time for blogging. One of my regulars even called me out tonight and told me I needed to write more on the blog. Anyway, the bar has blown up. I go home and my arms hurt from shaking for like 8 hours straight. Egg cocktails on the bar menu = wicked case of tennis elbow, but as my Treatise on Egg Cocktails might have suggested, I kind of like them. Drunken chickens aside, in the midst of all this shaking, I have found time to continue the smoked cocktails experiments.

Using the smoked fruit discussed last time has endless possibilities, but it does limit what types of cocktails can have a smoke element added. Cocktails made strictly from spirits obviously don’t use any fruit, so another route must be found. The spirits must be changed; let the infusions (and taste-testing) begin. We could throw a piece of charcoal in a bottle of vodka, but I think Absolut already made an announcement that this will be its next commemorative tragedy flavored monstrosity: Absolut California - an infusion of charcoal and other fruit flavors that should not be combined. If you’ve actually tried Absolut New Orleans, you’ll get this joke. Otherwise, I’m just an insensitive asshole.

Instead of the charcoal, I opted for a smoked ingredient that has already been used by one spirits producer. Qi Black Tea Liqueur is a brandy-based spirit that combines Lapsang Souchong with fruit and spices. I had some Qi just before I left Illinois last year, but I never got around to mixing with it or tracking it down once I got to Texas. Had it not been for the Savoy Cocktail journeyman who sent me an e-mail after my last post, I might have forgotten completely about the stuff. Nevertheless, the concept of using Lapsang Souchong had already found its way into a few infusion jars at the bar, I guess I was going to have to sacrifice originality for a great drink.

Unlike the Qi, my infusions used a gin base. I really like how the herbal elements of the gin dance with the tea and smoked flavors. I tried adding some additional ingredients into the infusion, but it just seemed like keeping it simple and adding other flavors in cocktail worked much better. Gin selection was also an important issue. Using a lightly flavored gin like Hendricks does not work well at all. If you’re unfamiliar with Lapsang Souchong, tracking some down is an endeavor worth pursuing. Lapsang Souchong is Chinese black tea that is cedar smoked. I get mine from a local coffee roaster, Katz Coffee. Owner, Avi Katz, told me that the tea resulted from traders who would allow their camels to lay next to the fires on colder night. The tea bags, strapped to the camels’ backs, were smoked, and a new tea was born: Lapsang Souchong. It has a bold and very prominent smoked flavor, so a gin with some backbone is needed.

I settled on Plymouth, it had enough juniper to make a statement, but it still yielded to the tea’s flavor without becoming jumbled as some of the strong London Dry styles did. Mixing it was easy. Smoked negronis, smoked martinis, the possibilities were endless. Try this one:

Smoked Pegu Club

2 oz Lapsang Souchong-Infused Plymouth Gin
3/4 oz Orange Curacao
3/4 oz Lime Juice
Dash Fee Brothers Orange Bitters

Shake and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with lime wheel.

With all the popularity surrounding tea cocktails in recent years, Lapsang Souchong needs to get some more attention. If the idea of a smoked cocktail sounds like a stretch, try starting with the tea, and I might just have you convinced. Soon, you might be asking for more information about smoked drink elements, in which case, you will find your way back here, waiting for the next smoked cocktail post: air infusions. This is a really cool idea (I think), and I am going to do a write-up on how to infuse smoke in a spirit in order to create a smoked bitters. Until then, don’t burn your house down. and let me know what you think of this infusion.

Smoked Cocktails: Part 2

Well, the smoked cocktails experiments continue. As I described in my last post, I have been struggling to refine the introduction of smoke into cocktails, and I am now here to post my results. Three major ways of introducing smoke into cocktails without the use of liquid smoke have been discovered and tested. This post will discuss smoked fruit, but please check back to read up on the uses of smoked tea next time. The best will be saved for the end however; I’ll show you how to do an air infusion (for lack of a better term) using an aerator and other common aquarium supplies. I know what you’re thinking. Are you sure the only smoke referred to here involved cocktails? And yes, I assure you that these concepts were tested free of any drug-related activity. There was of course, a lot of tasting involved. Now, I am sure that there are other methods for introducing smoke flavors into cocktails, so I’m not claiming these categories to be exhaustive. But, I think that the methods described herein are pretty well documented and the air infusion is especially creative if I do say so myself. First, however, let’s talk fruit.

If you remember my previous post, you will recall that the strawberries that were used were far too smoky and overwhelmed anything that they touched, including my fingers. There were a few problems with these strawberries that needed to be corrected:

1. Shorter smoking time
2. Different type of wood
3. Wrong Fruit

Initially, the strawberries were smoked for an hour. This was far too long. Even at thirty minutes, the strawberries were still too cigar-like. Fifteen minutes was about the right time for the strawberries in our smoker at Beavers, which uses red oak and maple wood. Yet, even fifteen minutes, while lowering the smoke flavor to a reasonable level, still left a domineering smoked element in drinks. The wood was just too strong and didn’t allow for any balance in the cocktails. It left a lingering finish on every drink I made, with nothing to respond from the drink after the smoked finish, the previously noted description of “drinking a cigarette” was still far too accurate. I was going to try some different wood, but then it occurred to me that trying to force strawberries to work might have just been a bad idea. I was certainly going to try other fruits already, but I just wanted to use the strawberry because I had before and could note changes with different methods more easily. I should have let the fruit go long ago, as the strawberry was far too similar to Roger Clemens: you can inject flavor into it easily, but any trace of the integrity of the strawberry will be lost forever.

Here are some better candidates for smoking:

1. Pineapple
2. Melons
3. Lemons
4. Oranges
5. Grapefruit
6. Cucumber
7. Tomatoes
8. Watermelon

Avoid these items when smoking for cocktails:

1. Mangoes
2. Limes
3. STRAWBERRIES!

As you can see, smoking fruit and such has a lot of possibilities. Mainly, try and use fruit that has a soft center but a thicker skin. My conclusion is that the denser or less permeable skin protects the fruit from losing flavor. The smoke will get through; the aim is to create a flavored fruit that still maintains it original elements. Mangoes an strawberries just let too much through and become smoke bombs. I thought the limes would work like any of the other citrus, but for whatever reason the limes’ flavor changed drastically. Perhaps, the lime batch received too much heat. Cooking citrus can really alter its taste after all. Oh well, more tasting to be had later; for now, limes are on the avoid list.

My favorite was by far lemons. Maybe it was just easier to see the connection to widespread cocktails using lemon juice, but I thought the lemons were amazing. They were smoked for about two hours and demonstrated a present, but yielding, smoke flavor. I wanted to make virtually every cocktail using lemon juice with them initially, but ultimately, I found the lemons to work especially well with gin. The herbal flavors of gin paired really well with the smoke. I found this interesting because charred flavors, such as those found in bourbon, are never really used in combination with the juniper in gin. The two however, work very well together. Smoke some lemons and try them in your favorite gin/lemon recipe, but start off with a basic Tom Collins so you can see how they work:

Smoked Tom Collins

2 oz Junipero Gin
1 oz Smoked Lemon Juice
3/4 oz Simple Syrup

Shake and strain into a collins glass filled with ice. Top with soda water and garnish with a smoked lemon wheel.

The Tom Collins is a good one to start with because right off the bat, you get to taste smoke flavors in conjunction with carbonation. This was a mouth-shocking experience to me at first and very cool.

Smoked lemon juice is good stuff. You need to be working with this. People have been claiming things like vinegar to be the ingredient of the new year. I did vinegar cocktails in 2007; this year it is smoke! Just kidding Camper; I think you’re probably right.

Well, there you have it: smoke installment number one. Next time, I am going to discuss the use of Lapsang Souchong, a Chinese smoked black tea, which also appears St. George Spirit’s Qi Tea Liqueur. Tea has also been a recent popular trend in cocktails, but I personally haven’t seen much use of Lapsang Souchong outside of the St. George product. It makes a great addition of flavor to cocktails. Be sure to check back later in the week for information on this smoked chapter of the series. Until then, what are your thoughts on smoked fruit, particularly lemons? Any questions or suggestions?

Smoked Cocktails?

I generally try and write about cocktails in a somewhat informative manner. In other words, I tinker with bottles and ingredients behind the bar and post the results of my efforts here for people to read if they desire. Sometimes, however, I am boggled by my own ambitions. This week’s project at the bar has been trying to incorporate smoke into a cocktail. Unfortunately, the undertaking has been hazy at best.

The concept of using smoke in a cocktail had been introduced to me by a friend who was considering using liquid smoke in a cocktail in small amounts, like bitters. I thought the idea had potential, but I never really got around to tracking down some liquid smoke and dropping it into my Manhattan. As any good bartender searching for new ideas would do, I shelved the idea, promising to come back to it someday.

Enter my new position at Beavers. If you are unfamiliar with Beavers, we are a modern take on an icehouse. In other words, we take icehouse staples, such as food and drinks, and do them right with fresh ingredients and a chef-driven approach, all while maintaining the casual and fun atmosphere. I love working at Beavers because it has some of the best food I have ever had, but it is accessible to people. A white cloth isn’t and shouldn’t be a requirement for well-done food. The same applies to the drinks at Beavers.

A great house drink is all about utilizing the unique opportunities of the house of course, and well, our house loves to smoke stuff. This one could be a challenge; integrating a smoked flavor into a cocktail is difficult. We could opt for the liquid smoke as mentioned before, but I wanted to use the supplies at Beavers to make a specialty you couldn’t find anywhere else. But, how do you smoke a drink? I didn’t really know where to begin so I asked our chef to smoke some fruit for me. The next day I had the gnarliest strawberry I have ever tasted in my life before me. Seriously, the strawberry had lung cancer.

He could have smoked me something easy like tomatoes for a Bloody Mary, but I guess that would have been too easy. Plus, as I said before, a Bloody Mary should be vibrant, not taste like a steak. I tried the strawberries in several drinks only to to get those “I’m only drinking this and telling you it’s good so you don’t feel bad” reactions. Man, I hadn’t got those in a while; it hurt my mixology ego a little bit. This strawberry had me stumped. Finally, I tried muddling the strawberry with a small amount of simple syrup and pouring a Blood and Sand on top.

Blood and Sand

.75 oz Scotch
.75 oz Orange Juice
.5 oz Cherry Herring
.5 oz Sweet Vermouth

Shake and strain into an ice-filled glass.

Sure, this drink usually calls for a blended scotch, avoiding the overly peaty flavors of the Islays, but what the heck I thought. I was running out of ideas. The smoked strawberry Blood and Sand was the best attempt I had tried yet. It definitely had the flavor I was looking for. The only question I hadn’t answered was: Is this a good cocktail? I couldn’t decide. As one person described it, it was like drinking a cigarette. Not everyone agreed with this view, but man it was definitely like drinking smoke. It was a cool experience, yet it wasn’t something I could see enjoying after the novelty diminished.

For starters, the drink was obviously not balanced. The strawberries were oversaturated with smoke causing them to dominate anything they touched, including my hands. You should smell my keyboard (yes, I wash my hands). But, mostly, I just couldn’t decide how to use the smoked flavor correctly. What balances smoke? Should the smoked ingredient be treated like the charred flavors in some mescals or the Islays?

This would suggest that generally a lighter spirit should be used to allow the smoked strawberry’s flavor to speak in place of the mescals or Islays in conjunction with citrus of some sort. But, pending a more lightly smoked strawberry or another type of fruit, I still wonder if this will work conceptually. Maybe, I should just accept the cocktail for what it is, an expression of a smoked flavor, Like many extreme cocktails, found in some circles of molecular mixology, using flavors traditionally reserved for food can be an intriguing experience in which we confront a familiar flavor in a way we have never experienced before. The Smoked Blood and Sand certainly fits this description.

I have done some searching on smoked cocktails and a few results have appeared. Eben Freeman, formerly of wd-50 and now Tailor, smokes coke syrup to make a smoked rum and coke. Kristin Woodward is using smoked pears, and a few have used liquid smoke. The most similar idea to my own seems to be a bar in India at the Smokehouse Grill that is doing a mojito with muddled smoked melon and a, dare I say it, a Smoked Apple Martini. You think you’ve gotten as far from the apple martini as possible with your smoked cocktail idea, and bam, it appears like another final Kiss tour. Either way, at least a few people are thinking like me. So obviously, the smoked cocktail has some degree of potential. Just where the road leads remains to be seen. I am going to see if different fruits work, and the thought of smoked citrus sounds cool because of the possibilities for a smoked zest. Other than that, I am still somewhat stumped. Any suggestions???

Imbibe Magazine Contribution on Gastriques

I’ve rambled on and on about gastriques and their use in cocktails on this blog, and apparently, somebody was reading. Imbibe Magazine has an article about gastriques on page 76 in their latest issue this week, and I provided some info so they could help spread the word about their unique properties in cocktails. Hey, if an actual publication thinks they work now, maybe you should give them a try too. Pick up the latest issue of Imbibe for more information, or you can read all of my gastrique thoughts on this blog. You can read my thoughts here or here to find out more about the use of vinegar in cocktails. Or, you can come by Beaver’s in Houston, TX for a cocktail using gastriques. We make a vanilla-cardamom sidecar and use apple-cider vinegar, palm sugar, cherry, thyme, gastrique in a rum sour variation with Peychaud’s Bitters and mint. Feel free to ask me more questions about gastriques and check back here for more info later.