The Whiskey Daisy

I would like to extend my apologies for not getting a classic cocktail up for you last Monday. At Drink Dogma, I am going to do my best to shed some light on the classics at the beginning of each week. In researching the Whiskey Daisy, it became quickly apparent that there are a lot of different recipes for this drink that hold very little in common with each other Read more

The Ramos Gin Fizz & The Evening of Enlightenment

A while ago, my wife and I were celebrating our first wedding anniversary in New Orleans. A few months before, I had begun to develop an interest in classic cocktails after an accidental trip to a well-known watering hole in San Francisco. So, after a decent amount of research, I knew that we had to make it to the Swizzle Stick and Library Lounge for drinks before we headed back to Texas. Read more

The Aviation Cocktail

On the heels of my unintentionally pot-stirring article about Texas wine, I figured I would run with the controversy and write about one of the most talked about and highly debated cocktails of late: the Aviation. Mention its name in the presence of anyone at all interested in cocktails, and you invite upon yourself a dissertation’s worth of material regarding its history and, of course, enough recipes on what makes a “proper” Aviation Read more

Carpano Punt E Mes

I consider one of my purposes in life to introduce Campari to as many people as possible. I just think you should try and make a difference in the world before you go. But, helping people to appreciate Campari is kind of like teaching a child to play catch. You know you’re going to hit them in the face, Read more

Rhubarb Cocktails

While rhubarb certainly isn’t going to abduct you anytime soon or appear in a Will Smith movie, it is almost an alien to the world of bartending. One of the greatest things about working at the bar is the relationship we as bartenders have with the kitchen. When we don’t have time to do it ourselves, our executive chef, Dax, has a habit of whipping up a cool new syrup or ordering us some newly available produce for us to play with. Read more

Apple Tinis & Paris Hilton

Sometimes at the end of the day, I get home and gaze into my liquor cabinet—my eyes wandering over the plethora of bottles, contemplating all of the possibilities. Then I get a bit of a panic attack trying to decide what to have. Something new? Something tried and true? Something complex? Something mind-numbingly simple? Something sweet or sour? Something boozy? Read more

The Margarita Alternative: El Diablo Cocktail

The measure of a good bartender for the majority of eager patrons in Texas is the margarita. This standard is generally unfair as the criteria for the most classic of tequila cocktails is constantly under attack from inferior orange liqueurs like Patron Citronge, this month’s “best margarita mix”, and the notorious frozen varietal. With such a wide spectrum of margarita preferences, it is anyone’s guess what the guest staring at me from across the bar is requesting. Read more

The State of Rum

The world of cocktails and spirits is caught in a persistent rotation of new hits. Actually, none of these spirits are “new”; instead, they are classic, but forgotten, spirits that have been resurrected for today’s renewed fascination with the antique cocktails. Read more

An Evening with the Darb Cocktail

In early February, my wife and I had the privilege of spending a weekend in San Francisco. Of course, a trip to this fine city would not be complete without visiting the Absinthe Bar & Brasserie. This evening, after too many cocktails, the bar sent out an old drink from Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book. Read more

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.

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