bringing drinks to life

Reluctantly I have settled back into the routine now that I am back from France and have 30 days until our next trip (Tales of the cocktail and a tour of the Bourbon distilleries in Kentucky!) but after a long weekend away with friends, Sarah suggested that we shake up a few drinks while we chatted about recent trips and planned for our next one!

So here's what we were drinking last night... I am sure we did some planning too, but it is the drinking that (as per usual) has stuck in my mind!

Inspired by my recent time in France at the EUVS ( http://www.euvs.org/ ) I reached for the Calvados and in respect to our upcoming trip to Kentucky I grabbed the honey sweetened bourbon liqueur from Wild Turkey and came up with this twist on a sidecar... it still needs a little fine-tuning so please feel free to improve on it and let me know what you come up with.

Apple blossom sidecar

50ml of good dry Calvados

25ml of lemon juice

20ml of Wild Turkey American Honey

pour into a boston glass with cubed ice and shake. Moisten the rim of a chilled cocktail glass with absinthe and dust with sugar, giving it an absinth and sugar rim. Pour into the prepared glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

Sticking with the French/American theme I moved onto adulterating a Manhattan... as for the name, well what else could I call a Manhattan made with Calvados???

The Big Apple

50ml Calvados

15ml Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth

5ml Green Chartruese 

2 dashes Peychaud's bitters

pour ingredients into a mixing glass and stir with cubed or cracked ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass and finish off with a lemon twist and a small apple fan to garnish.

After a couple of these we moved onto our new favourite, Remember the Maine. This is a slight variation on the original recipe from Jigger, beaker & glass to which we were introduced in M&H in NY by Sam and Michael. Cheers lads!

60ml Rye whiskey (if you can find it try it with Hudson Rye!)

15ml Carpano Antica Formula vermouth

2 barspoons Cherry Heering

2 dashes Angostura bitters

pour ingredients into mixing glass and stir with cubed or cracked ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass which has been rinsed with absinthe, finish of with a lemon twist and as Charles H. Baker Jr. said in his notes with the original recipe 'Treat this one with the respect it deserves gentlemen!'

now back to that planning!