EE was making dinner last weekend, her first Sunday chili of the colder months, and I was puttering around in my mixology cabinet, trying to create a chili-friendly cocktail.  EE had left some New York sharp cheddar cheese on the counter cut and waiting to garnish our bowls.  The temptation was too great: I infused something with cheddar.

Infusing liquors sounds a bit intimidating, you say?  It sounds complicated and technical, not something for the casual home mixologist?  No!  Infusions are incredibly simple.  Put something in a sealed container with a liquor and voila!  A custom drink and flavor that you can’t get anywhere else.  This allows for incorporating local, seasonal ingredients, and for creating something really unique without having to pay a fortune for a rare bottle of X.  Given the simplicity, the ability to custom-craft flavors, and the cost-effectiveness of the deal, you can expect to hear me suggesting infusions frequently.

I poured about a cup-and-a-half of Sazerac rye whiskey over about one cubic inch of cheese broken-up into smallish chunks.  Whiskey seemed like the natural spirit for a cheddar flavor.  Rye seemed like it had the best balance of earthy, sweet, and cutting notes.  Sazerac seemed better to risk on this venture than my Rittenhouse because Sazerac is sweeter, and honestly, I don’t like it as much.  The concoction sat for three days, and on the third day the cheese was strained.

Opening the infusion, tasting the cheese (blech), and straining.

I was a bit surprised by the fat floating on the top of the rye, and the cheese chunks were like an inedible whey (new rule: don’t eat anything that has been the infuser, ever).  However, after I poured the rye through a tea strainer and a coffee filter, the Sazerac had a pleasant umami flavor that wasn’t present before.  More importantly, the finish on the whiskey was unmistakably cheddar flavored.

Chedda Rye getting strained through a coffee filter.

Chedda Rye is worth having as a stand alone drink – sip it on the rocks when you want whiskey with a little more body.

Not being content to let such a creation go undisturbed, I decided to create a cocktail with it as well.  EE made the brilliant suggestion of doing something with apples, but we have zero in the apple department (this is such a good idea, though, that I saved some Chedda Rye for future creation).  Lacking apples, I created an evening sipping drink that is pretty good.  It is sort of like a Bloody Mary, but not as sharp.  We’ll call it the Chedda Rye Mary

Ingredients

3/2 Chedda Rye

1/3 Dubonnet

2-3 grape or cherry tomatoes

dash Tabasco

Cut the tomatoes in half.  Combine all ingredients in a shaker and shake.  Strain well to avoid tomato seeds.  Garnish with a cheddar cheese twist.

Maybe this is an unexplored area of mixology for a reason, but the results weren’t bad.

A Tessin restorative

My crime today was introducing my coworker J$ to the El Rey del Sabor food cart.  The beef pastelillo (Puerto Rican empanada) I ate while waiting for my burrito was probably a bit much…

Stomach-soothing cocktails must be individually created based on the nature of the underlying upset, but there are some ground rules I mix by:

No clear liquors – too much alcohol with a cutting effect.  I imagine it pitting my upset stomach lining.

Include ginger – widely known as a homeopathic stomach ailment remedy, I use it in drinks for flavor anyway!

Use bitters – like snake oil, many were created as healing tonics.  I doubt they scientifically serve a healing purpose, but the bite on the tongue makes me feel like I am suffering just enough to earn my health.

Use herbal liqueurs – herbs must be good for the stomach.  More importantly, we need a little sugar in this drink and need to keep that medicinal feel if we expect a decent placebo effect.

Keep it on the rocks – these drinks just don’t work up.

My Arsenal of Soothing Ingredients

From Left to Right (back row): anisette, ginger liqueur, Angostura bitters, Dubonnet, Peychaud’s bitters, Pimm’s, orange bitters, brandy, sweet vermouth, Stone’s Original Ginger.  Front row: frozen blueberries, frozen ginger, frozen cranberries.

For tonight’s stomach-soother I used:

Ingredients

1 brandy

1/3 Stone’s Original ginger

1/4 Pimm’s

4 dashes orange bitters

ginger shavings to taste (keep ginger in the freezer and grate into drinks)

Combine over large ice cubes in a tall glass.  Top off with seltzer.  Using your own siphon is great because it will blast the drink enough to mix without stirring.  If you don’t have a siphon, stir.

Cheers (and feel better)!

What would drinking be without music?  Quiet drinking I guess, but that’s not the point.

Like I said on the About page (shame on you if you didn’t read it), this is not all about drinking!  I have been captivated recently by the music of Pomplamoose:

I absolutely love Pomplamoose.  The silliness in the videos coupled with the lack of blinking and facial expressions that say something like, “this is all a fun game,” really appeal to the Tessin way.

Pomplamoose means grapefruit in French (who knew?  probably people who speak French).  I will be making a Pomplamoose drink just as soon as I get myself some grapefruit bitters and grapefruit juice.  In the meantime I will repeatedly watch their fabulous collection of videos on YouTube.  The Pomplamoose channel is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/pomplamoosemusic

Aside from the song above, my favorites are:

Mrs. Robinson

Beat the Horse

I was Dick Tracy for Halloween in second grade.  I had style.

Since then, honestly, Halloween has not been my best holiday.  I’ve never gotten arrested, beaten-up, or improperly drunk.  Maybe it’s for the lack of such events that I’ve found Halloween a bit of a let-down.

Luckily I now have a blog, and blogs can fix anything.  How might Tessin Rinpoche pull this off?  I have as many option as a super-hero’s tool-belt (yeah, blogs are just as awesome as yellow belts over spandex), but I’m only dealing with one of them today: the Vampire’s Tan.

Maisie the Halloween cat guarding a Vampire's Tan

Ingredients

1 white rum

3/4-1 Stone’s

3/4 Aperol

1/3 Cointreau

dash Peychaud

Combine the ingredients in a shaker and shake!  Alternately, if making pitchers, feel free to just stir like crazy.  Serve it up or on the rocks.  Garnish with a piece of black licorice.

Why this is a great Halloween Drink:  It…

1. is orange – people can find it through the eyeholes of their masks
2. tastes good – almost swillable, but not quite so lethal as the Nevermake
3. is resilient – you can just pour it into whatever receptacle you have handy
4. is orange – yet it doesn’t use orange juice, which is typically yellowish anyway
5. uses white rum – a special request from a bride with wedding rum to burn (but not BURN)
6. has a cool name – people have to ponder it a bit (ok, maybe only dorks like me will think it’s a good name)

All in all, I think this is a great, simple winner.  The only downside is that it may be a bit much for a long party, especially if people need to drive home.  This is Halloween, though, so driving is a bad idea no matter what.  You can solve this simply by partying with your neighbors (they’ll be wearing masks anyway – you can pretend they’re your normal friends).

Cheers,

Count Poche

Bertessa's Manhattan. Josef Frank's Manhattan design.

“Hey, come out, a bunch of us are having a drink.”
“XYZ Class HAPPY HOUR! DIVE BAR near you!”
“There’s gotta be a bar somewhere near that subway stop, wait for me there.”

Any of the above can easily lead to a dive bar. I’m using the dive designation broadly to encompass anywhere that:

• has a digital jukebox
• smells pleasantly of stale beer
• isn’t conducive to open-toe shoes because the floor is gross
• allows and encourages beer pong

I am NOT saying that dive bars are bad.  They are a critical piece of any normal social life, but they may not make the best cocktails.  They definitely won’t have a cocktail menu, and the bartender may throw you out for requesting drinks he/she can’t pronounce (plus some patrons may then identify you as an easy mark).

What to do?

You could order a beer.  Unless this is a true dive, there will be some decent beer.  If it’s such a dive there is no decent beer, then definitely order a beer – from bottle if possible.

“I don’t like beer.”  “I’m on a low-carb diet.”  “Damnit, I want a friggin cocktail!”

Right-o, then, let’s think about the criteria for a cocktail you can try in the dive setting:

1. manly (even better if you’re female)
2. dark color (kinda like beer) (see point 1)
3. simple ingredients
4. not too many ingredients
5. taught in any bar course the tender may have once taken
6. resilient to poor craftsmanship
7. enough alcohol to sanitize the glass

Your dive bar testing cocktail: MANHATTAN

Ingredients

1 whiskey

1/2 sweet vermouth

bitters

Why The Manhattan

If the bar fails on any of these points, skip cocktails:

1. any bartender should know it and what’s in it
2. can be made with bourbon (e.g., Jim Beam), something even the diviest bar will have
3. vermouth is the first basic after beer and basic liquors
4. bitters, typically Angostura, are right after vermouth in the basics list

From there, even inverting the ratios will yield something drinkable.

Go forth and fear not, even when diving.

How I make a Manhattan

1 Rye Whiskey

1/2 Sweet Vermouth

6 drops orange bitters

Combine in a shaker and shake.  Serve either up or on the rocks as you prefer.  Garnish with a maraschino cherry.  Be sure to have a stem on the cherry – people can pick it up that way, and the best people can knot that stem in a way that impresses their company at a dive bar.   I know.  I’ve impressed people this way.

A note:

I think Wednesdays are a good day for a regular post.  That makes this the inaugural “What I’m Having” Wednesday post.  The idea will be to cover a basic (that I wouldn’t give blog love otherwise), or let me express a limited thought about how or why something is so.