Sunday, March 23, 2014

The Improved Dirty Martini

I love olives. Put pretty much any kind of olive in front of me and I'll eat it. I also love martinis, and I'll put as many olives in the glass as it will hold. So I'm very excited to try the Olives 7 Ways, as described in this New York Times article, "The Dirty Martini Cleans Up Well."

Fortunately, to tide me over until I have time to get to the East Village, the article included a home version of the recipe, "The Improved Dirty Martini," and I made my first one tonight.



I couldn't find Perry's Tot (I didn't look very hard) so I used Dorothy Parker, for the very scientific reason that it's made by the same distiller and has the same label design. I did get Noilly Prat and the Cerignola olives. In lieu of an eye dropper, I dipped a chopstick into a small dish of olive oil and kind of flung the drops onto the drink. The drops are smaller than in the Times photo, but it worked.

Instead of a dish of olives on the side, I put a single Sicilian olive in the glass.

You guys, this thing is amazing. It's incredibly smooth, and you can taste the olive and the salt without it being olivey or salty, if that makes sense. It has a slight bitterness and tang that I really like. It really is a far cry from the "slop of random brine" of the classic dirty martini. The olive oil adds a scent more than anything. I was worried about the drink being oily but it's really just a garnish. Even on the last sip I never felt like I was drinking oil.

With the 1:1 ratio of gin to vermouth, I can see why a stronger gin was recommended, and I'm looking forward to trying different ones and playing around with the proportions.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Brisa Frances

Okay, so you would not expect The Grove to be a place to find a good cocktail, and you certainly would not expect a bar called (ugh, I can barely even type this) Mixology 101 to be the establishment that would serve said cocktail. And yet, dear readers (both of you!) that is exactly the case. (Editor's note: I will be censoring the bar's name from now on because I find it that offensive.)

The menu at M******y 101 is pretty extensive, with a solid mix of the old-school and the new-fangled.  Since I'm perfectly capable of making the former at home, I opted for one of the modern drinks, the Brisa Frances. (I did ask the bartender if he could make a Holland Razor Blade, but alas, they had no cayenne.) And luckily for me, M******y 101 has the recipes for many of their cocktails printed on the walls, so I didn't have to awkwardly ask the bartender for the exact measurements.

I'm always partial to mezcal cocktails, as well as anything with a touch of absinthe (or a lot of absinthe, or just plain absinthe), and I also love a good cucumber margarita, so the Brisa Frances seemed like an ideal choice.  As expected, it was refreshing and delicious and just the right amount smoky.



***

Recipe (transcribed from the walls at this place):

1.5 ounces mezcal


0.75 ounce agave syrup

0.75 ounce lime juice

0.25 ounce absinthe

0.5 ounce cucumber juice

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into a highball glass with fresh ice cubes, and top with soda water and a cucumber peel.

***

Some notes:

- Mezcal is easier to find than it used to be. BevMo sells a few varieties, and even less well-stocked liquor stores often have one or two. As with any other spirit, you can safely buy a cheaper variety if you're going to use it exclusively in cocktails like this one, but if you want one that's good for both mixing and sipping, you should probably get something in the $30-40 range.

- As far as making cucumber juice goes, if you don't have a juicer at home, you have a few options. You can put cucumber in a blender or food processor and strain it, or just go to a juice bar and have them juice you up a pint or so of cucumber-only.  It should keep in the fridge for at least a couple of weeks.

- There are a couple of brands of absinthe you can buy in 100-ml bottles like this one, which is ideal if you just want to be able to add a splash of it to a drink like this one (or for rinsing the glass to make a Sazerac). We'll get into sipping absinthe in a subsequent post.

- To make agave syrup, mix agave nectar (the squeeze-bottle stuff you buy at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's) with equal parts boiling water, stir it up, and let cool. You'll end up with a much thinner liquid that dissolves more easily in drinks (especially cold drinks), and it'll last longer too. (And don't worry, it's still insanely sweet even in diluted form.)