March Review

Booze, News, Reviews

Mar 31, 2021

Hello hello!

This is the Cocktail Doodle Review, and I am glad you are joining me for another month.

March is always a back and forth month with the weather, and I find my morale swings with the sunshine. That being said, the days are getting warmer and brighter, and that is A-OKAY with me.

This month involved a sick dog, the passing of a family friend, a dog bite, a tetanus shot, and a whole bunch of other things. I don't mind March being behind me.

TO THE DRINKS!

The Cocktail Doodle Review

Drinks From March

I am calling it now; the drink for this summer is the Caipirinha. Well, at least the technique for a Smash-style drink should be in the running.

Cut up a lime, toss in a good scoop of caster sugar, a few quick mashes with a muddler, fill with cracked ice, and top off with booze.

I foresee this summer being extremely social but still primarily home-based. Keeping sugar and limes around is easy, and when friends swing by to sit outside and enjoy the rays after being cooped up not only for the winter but for an entire year, this will be an easy and refreshing type of drink to mix up.

The drink itself is beautiful, and even during this false spring we've been having, I find the appearance comforting and reminiscent of sunlight shining through the water. If made correctly, the cracked/crushed ice will coat the glass in thin ice, and you can peek through at the limes where your fingers have melted the frost on the outside of the glass.

Cachaça differs from rum in a handful of ways and is made from fermented sugar cane juice rather than molasses. It also has to be made in Brazil. The technique of the Caipirinha is more what I am interested in, though.

I found myself the other night making homemade corn tortillas for the first time, and I whipped up a Caipirinha-style Margarita that totally hit the spot.

So the Smash is in!

Basic Smash
In a rocks glass:
Half a citrus fruit of choice sliced into half moons*
2 Bar spoons caster sugar**
(Optional) Mint
Muddle lightly
Add cracked ice to fill
60 ml Booze of choice*
Jostle with a bar spoon

*You can go about this cocktail in many ways:

Whiskey and lemon (and mint)
Rum and lime (and mint)
Lime and Cachaça
Tequila and lime (and orange)
Gin and lime (or lemon) (and mint)
Take a page from the Ranch Water and add a good splash of soda water

**Regardless of what you choose to put in this drink, you have to use caster sugar. Regular sugar won't work here, and simple syrup is cheating. Look for bakers sugar, bar sugar, or superfine sugar. If you don't have it or you are just impatient, you can toss some regular granulated sugar in a mortar and pestle to break it down, but I'd still recommend the real stuff. I have a post I’m working on for you about sugar for next month!

I did pull the Weber out last week for a two-night-only grilling bonanza before the mercury took a nosedive, and it felt great. Because I am a charcoal griller, I have to get things going a little earlier than I usually do for the evening meal, which means cocktail hour goes on the road to the backyard.

Backyard cocktails pose a significant risk to my stemware, and after learning a few terrible lessons last year, I embraced the Rocks Martini for outdoor grilling. Riedel Martini glasses aren't cheap but they are worth every penny. I try to keep them inside only and if you pick up a set make sure you get the small ones.

Now, the Rocks Martini is a bit rough around the edges. It doesn't have the elegance of a Martini served up in a frozen (expensive) glass. It's just all the ingredients in a rocks glass with ice and the essential thick slice of lemon. I also like to add a dash or two of the same Orange Bitters, Absinthe, and Maraschino Liqueur mixture I have talked about in the past:

Cocktail Picker-Upper
In a dasher bottle:
20 ml Orange Bitters
20 ml Luxardo Maraschino
20 ml Absinthe

Is it a Turf Club? A Martini? Is the Turf Club a Martini?

Eh...it's an in-the-backyard-got-the-grill-going-baseball-on-the-radio-on the rocks-tini, and it is delicious.

Rocks Martini
In a rocks glass filled with cracked ice:
Eyeball ~2/3 full of Gin
Top off with Dry Vermouth to taste
2 Dashes Cocktail Picker-Upper
Garnish: Lemon slice

What are you drinking this summer?

Current Reading

I picked up some really cool books this month, and I'd love to share them with you:

Merry Go Down, A Gallery of Gorgeous Drunkards Through the Ages by Rab Noolas
This is SUCH a neat old book. First off, the pseudonym the author uses is fantastic (read it backwards). The other cool thing is that you can find the original printing of this book, of which there are only 600, on the internet. I got mine on Abe Books, No. 504. Look for the Mandrake Press versions. The book itself is full of poems, articles, and advice from drinkers of the past. I highly recommended it if you like old drinking books!
The Booze Book: The Joy of Drink edited by Ralph Schoenstein
This fun little book was printed in 1974 by the Playboy Press and is a collection of excellent drinking articles. In their words, it contains "stories, poems, ballads, reflections, epigrams, sketches, quizzes, cartoons, entertainments, paintings, and inspirations about the glory of the grape." Our friend Kingsley Amis is featured a few times! Please don't pay the $623 dollars for it that Amazon wants for a new copy; you can pick it up used for around $10. I got mine on Etsy.
The Compleat Imbiber edited by Cyril Ray
I have been scouring eBay for copies of The Compleat Imbiber. Cyril Ray, an English wine journalist, put these collections together between 1956 and the early 1970s. The focus is wine-heavy but includes lots of culture and travel. They have been a fun escape. "A rich mix of old and new, light in tone but satisfying in content, The Compleat Imbiber is the ultimate bedside book for the civilized." There are sixteen or so different editions, and I am trying to track them all down.
Beta Cocktails by Kirk Estopinal and Maksym Pazuniak
My current deep dive series is on the fourteen Precepts listed in one of my favorite cocktail books, Beta Cocktails. Next week we examine:
P. 6:
Recipes are guidelines, not gospel.
and
P. 10:
Share recipes. It can inspire.