Making the Original Southern Comfort

The history of liquor is fascinating. I heard the legend of where Southern Comfort came from and it turned out to be an old time infusion by a tavern owner. Something you could so very much do at home! The story, including exactly from where I heard the legend, can be found in the history section of the Wikipedia entry on Southern Comfort.

I first tried it within a week of seeing a TV show about it in 2010 and it came out mighty fine. It took about 3-4 weeks total and it sipped great on the rocks for the short time it lasted.

Since then I have infused a bunch of other flavors in vodka and infused the itch to try it for herself into our friend Amy. She came back with a tray of different flavors for us to try. Nearly two dozen in all! This year is cooking up some kind of madness with gin and the party to celebrate it all is in June.

As a gift to thank her for all of the good drinks I created from her last share, I decided to make her a quart of homemade Ancient Fire Bourbon Comfort. And I couldn’t overlook sharing this recipe with you all, it is just too good!

Ancient Fire Bourbon Comfort

1.75 L Jim Beam White
Peel of 1 orange
Peel of 1 lemon
1 & ½ vanilla beans, sliced lengthwise
1 & ½ inches of cinnamon, broken into 3 pieces
5 whole cloves
8 cherries, canned in heavy syrup, sliced in half
Simple syrup to taste

Remove 3-4 ounces of the bourbon from the bottle. Add everything but the simple syrup. Top off with the reserved bourbon as needed. Drink the rest! Recap the bottle.

Shake the bottle once per day for 2-3 weeks. Flavors and aromas will develop and you should test it to see if you like the flavors along the way. When you do, use a sieve to filter out the solids. Combine the bourbon with sugar syrup, mixing well, to taste. Store in mason jars, wine bottles, etc in a cool dry place. Serve on the rocks.

Cheers!

Jason

p.s. I apologize for the picture. I made the limoncello and the comfort on the same night and the pictures came during the drinking phase. How delightfully trashy. That’s all for you Janis!

Making Limoncello

( I took the picture at an angle because that is how things look if you drink too much of it! )

Limoncello was my first ever infusion. I only made it once back in 2009. In the two years since I have infused vodka with all sorts of things, made my own spin on Southern Comfort using the original recipe and inspired friends try it all themselves. It is fun, and if you haven’t tried it, you should.

Making Limoncello is really simple. The waiting in the hard part!

Ancient Fire Limoncello

16 lemons, carefully peeled to get mostly yellow skin and minimal white pith
2 – 1.75 liter containers of 100 proof vodka
1 gallon empty jug with a re-sealable top

Wash & peel the lemons. Put the peels in your empty container. Cover with the vodka. Shake every day for 2-3 weeks. The yellow color will develop within a few days and the depth of the flavor and aroma will continue to grow as you shake it.

After 2-3 weeks strain the vodka to remove the peels and any sediment. Sweeten the nearly finished Limoncello with simple syrup to taste. Just how much sweetness is really is a matter of taste. Because I have lots of empty wine bottles laying around, corks and a corker I fill bottles and seal them for safe storage. Because of the sugar in the drink you really don’t want to store your creation in a container that isn’t airtight. If you have to store it in one container, the refrigerator is a good bet to keep it from getting funky. I normally put a bottle in the freezer a few hours ahead of when I want to serve it, typically in the summer. It comes out super cold and makes for a great way to cap off a meal in the backyard.

Cheers!

Jason

Ginger Cocktails

I had a fit of creativity last night and did some trials on cocktails influenced by the flavor of ginger. I had two ginger flavored ingredients to work with, a handmade ginger syrup and ginger brandy. I didn’t take pictures of anything, simply due to being tired after coming home from a two day leadership conference. I hope the drink recipes more than make up for it. Margot helped with sampling and giving names to the drinks.

Frootsie

2 parts hand-infused vanilla vodka
2 parts Ancient Fire 2009 Pear wine
1 part ginger syrup
Splash of lime juice

Combine in a shaker with ice, shake well and pour in a rocks/lowball glass. That combination of the vanilla, pear and ginger came together to taste like Frootises, the fruit flavored Tootsie rolls. It is very pleasant to drink with enough acidity to keep it crisp.

Ginger Lemonade

2 parts gin
1 part lemon juice
½ part dry vermouth
½ part ginger syrup

Combine in a shaker with ice, shake well and pour in a rocks/lowball glass. This is a very simple drink, but by no means unworthy, especially on a warm summer day. The gin and vermouth adds some herbal notes to a nice balance of lemon and ginger.

Watermelon Jolly Rancher

2 parts hand-infused cranberry vodka
2 parts club soda
½ part ginger syrup
¼ part lemon juice
Splash of lime juice
4 drips Angostura bitters

Mix vodka, syrup, and juices in a shaker with ice, shake well and pour in a rocks/lowball glass. Add bitters and give it a quick stir. Top off with the club soda. Margot really like this one and zeroed in on the flavor before I did. I am still amazed that this combination of flavors ended up tasting like a watermelon Jolly Rancher, but some of the best things in life are surprises! With a slight fizz and crispness from several of the ingredients we will definitely be making this for friends as soon as we can.

Spiced Pear

1 part vodka
¾ part amaretto
1 part pear wine
½ part ginger brandy
1/8 part agave syrup
1/8 part molasses
Dash of cinnamon
Dash of cloves
Dash of allspice

Combine in a shaker with ice, shake well and pour in a rocks/lowball glass. This drink has a lot of complexity with the rich flavors and tastes like spiced pears common around Christmas in New England. It isn’t a drink I would go to regularly, but that says nothing about how good it is. It might even be better slightly warmed in the middle of a cold and dark winter.

Ginger Sazerac

2 parts bourbon
1 part ginger syrup
4 drips Angostura bitters

Combine ingredients in a rocks/lowball glass over ice and give it a gentle stir. I saved a spin on a classic, and one of my favorite styles of drink, for last. The ginger flavor comes through well and meets up with the smoky, woody flavors in the bourbon to create a rustic feel. I could sip on these for hours!!

One thing I have yet to experiment with is ginger liqueur, like Domaine de Canton, and the drinks above make me think I might be missing a versatile bottle in my bar. Something for next time.

Cheers!

--Jason

Independence Day Mixology

I am really getting into making cocktails as a means to experience and play with flavors. It seems to be consuming more of my waking thoughts and the ideas are coming fast and furious. I am also finding I am drinking less. I guess exploring and enjoying flavors is making me slow down for extended appreciation.

Just last night I read about Erik Ellestad who is working through all 888 of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book. Check out his blog, the Underhill Lounge to see all the madness! I’m not that ambitious, but I can also live through his experiences to find ones of my own. He has become a focal point for mixology, cocktail history and is well known personality in a revival of craft cocktails that are more interesting than the same old tricks almost every bartender seems to know. The article and lots of other interesting stuff was in the most recent issue of Imbibe magazine.

On the 4th we rolled on over to Ed & Jim’s for their annual Independence Day BBQ. We have partied with them and their friends before, many of whom are “our people” as I often say to Margot when we meet food and beverage obsessed folks. I decided that I would pack a bar into the cooler and do some mixology and live recipe development while we kicked back and had fun. With an audience interested in trying anything I figured I would get some excellent feedback.

I packed the cooler with the following:

• Ice (of course)
• Triple-Sec
• Vodka
• Gin
• Dry Vermouth
• Hand-infused cranberry vodka
• Hand-infused basil vodka
• Hand-infused lavender syrup (2:1, with handful of lavender steeped within for 3 days)
• Lime juice
• Blueberry / Pomegranate juice
• Simple syrup (2:1)

I borrowed a shaker and strainer from Ed & Jim because I forgot the bottom to mine chilling in the freezer. We had turned around once already for a few things I forgot, so the sexy stainless shaker didn’t get to impress the crowd.

My plan was to make three different drinks and potentially some variations of each based on the feedback. The theme with the flavors was assertive fruit flavors and nice crisp acidity to quench thirst on a hot day.

1. Lavender Martini
2. Basil Vodka Gimlet

3. Cranberry Vodka Cosmo

I led off with a Lavender Martini (pic on the right) containing a vodka base with 1 part vodka, 1 part dry vermouth and 1 part lavender syrup. Assembled in shaker with ice, shaken and strained into glasses. Everyone who wanted to try any of the drinks got a small glassful. I filled full glass re-orders a bit later.

The immediate reaction was that it was too sweet. I even thought so. I moved on to the Cosmo knowing I would be back to the lavender recipe shortly.

The Cosmo included 1 part cranberry vodka, 1 part triple-sec, ½ part blueberry/pomegranate juice and a splash of lime juice. Same drill; assemble, mix and strain. This one hit with flying colors. Just the right amount of sweet and plenty of tartness from the cranberry, blueberry and pomegranate. I made several more batches of these before moving on. The last picture below is of this drink.

I got back to the lavender martini and swapped in gin for the vodka, reduced the lavender syrup to ½ part and kept the vermouth as it was. Bingo! I like the botanicals in gin so this one was more complex and exciting for me. I could see sticking with the vodka and keeping the syrup reduction for a less assertive and clean tasting drink. I didn’t make it that way because nobody asked.

The final drink was the Basil Vodka Gimlet, which can be seen in the picture at the top of the blog. I had worked out what I thought was a pretty good recipe for this at home and went with that. One part basil vodka, 1 part lime juice, ½ part simple syrup. Shaken and strained again. This one ended up winning the day. The response to the basil vodka was more than expected. It is unmistakable, but not overpowering in this drink. I had some requests to try it straight up, which I thought would be interesting. If you haven’t had it before you should seek it out or make it home (recipe below). I still have to work out a good recipe for a dry martini using the basil vodka. My initial trials were not pleasing.

The basil vodka was created using ½ of a 1.75 L bottle of Smirnoff 100 and a handful of sweet basil from my garden. I placed the washed basil in a canning jar with the vodka, closed it and shook it twice daily for 4 days. Once I felt I had a good flavorful infusion I strained off the basil and put the vodka in a clean wine bottle with a reusable cork stopper. The cranberry vodka was made using a similar process and the other half of the bottle of vodka, except that it was left to sit for 25 days, shaken twice per day. Infusion times for various ingredients’ vary and using high proof vodka is recommended for the best flavor extraction.

I found an article at bexhuff.com with some good tips on vodka infusions. 
I have some additional infusions in mind including black pepper and vanilla. My jalapeno wine is almost ready as well, and I think that will fit prominently into my ongoing mixology adventures.

Cheers!

--Jason