Gin Shots

When I was younger and a lot more flush, I would think nothing of plunking down top dollar for the few luxuries that I enjoyed. However, with age, poverty, and a greatly narrowed social life, I have long since learned the art of economizing. This is especially evident when one considers my liquor cabinet.

In my grad school days, I usually kept a bottle of Tanqueray or Bombay Sapphire gin on hand, and would gladly argue for hours about the relative merits of various top-shelf tipples. Recently, however, I bought my first bottle of gin in years. It was New Amsterdam.

In my defense, I will point out that it was cheap, it had a cool bottle, and it tasted pretty good when I tried it in a taste test at my local liquor store. However, in the fullness of time, I have come to the conclusion that it actually has notes of cheap perfume, and is redolent of some sort of industrial process.

My other gin, Rogue's Spruce, came from Sebbie, the incredibly cool lady whose image appears on Rogue's chocolate stout. I met Sebbie at a "Taste of Oregon" culinary event in the Lower East Side. We hit it off immediately, as she helped me sneak my wife and daughter in. Later, when I admitted that I was too soused on good Oregon absinthe to effectively review Rogue's new gin and spice rum offerings, she sent me home with a fifth of each.

The hazelnut spiced rum has long since gone to meet its maker, but my impressive restraint has kept the gin around for quite a while now, although I am rapidly reaching the end of the bottle. As the New Amsterdam demonstrates, finding a suitable replacement isn't exactly an easy prospect.

Before I finished my Rogue and New Amsterdam, I decided to taste test the two to get a better feeling for gin. Here's what I came up with:

New Amsterdam: Rough, industrial taste, sweetish. When chilled, rough tones smoothed out and it tasted overwhelmingly sweet.

Rogue: Much milder than the New Amsterdam, with vegetal, cool tones. Strong taste of cucumber and spruce. When chilled, the alcohol flavor almost disappears completely, rendering it supersmooth and very chilling.

On a side note, New Amsterdam's roughness is surprising, particularly given that the Rogue is actually about 10 proof higher.

Basil's Bite

When our friends Jen and Joey visited a few weeks ago, Virginia and I bumped up our alcohol consumption a bit. This isn't to say that we are usually teetotalers or that Jen and Joey are a bad influence; the truth of the matter is that they are just a great pair to hang out with, and tend to be fine companions when one wants to take a trip through the liquor cabinet.

One night, shortly before they left, Joey and I decided that we had grown bored with the meager offerings of my booze collection. In search of mountains unclimbed and wonders untasted, we wandered down to North End Liquors, my favorite local booze emporium.

As a side-note, most liquor stores in my neighborhood are vaguely reminiscent of a methadone clinic. To purchase something, one walks into a narrow, cramped little room. On three sides, there are walls constructed out of bulletproof glass, through which one can see the establishment's entire selection of booze. By a combination of pointing, yelling, and performing a sort of booze-themed game of charades, one picks out the liquor of choice, ascertains the price, and passes over the dough.

Needless to say, the entire experience is a little unsatisfying, particularly for those of us who like to read labels or comparison shop.

The North End Liquor Store on Webster Avenue, near Fordham Road, may well be the only traditional liquor store on this side of Arthur Avenue. The shop always has a great selection of bargain-priced wines, as well as all the basic liquor-cabinet standards. Best of all, it consistently maintains a good selection of weird little liqueurs and bizarre tipples.

On the night in question, Joey and I decided that our goal was to find the most bizarre booze that the store had to offer. After about fifteen minutes of searching, we narrowed the field down to three choices: Kummel, a German caraway-flavored liqueur; Aperol, which was flavored with "China, Gentian, and Rhubarb"; and Cynar, which boasted an image of an artichoke and looked like something devised by a Soviet-era propagandist. After some soul-searching -- and the sad discovery that the Kummel wasn't even in the store's database -- we decided that both the Aperol and Cynar were needed at home.

When we got back to the apartmen, we discovered that we loved the Aperol and hated the Cynar. To be fair, however, after a few shots and some bleary-eyed contemplation of the Cynar's label, we felt an unexplainable desire to overthrow the government and put an artichoke in charge.

At any rate, that's where it all lay until I found this recipe in Mr. Boston. Not only did it use the weird-ass liqueurs that were gathering dust in my liquor cabinet, but it even made use of basil. Seriously, what could be better?

Admittedly, it isn't the best drink. I made it with Rogue, my better gin, but even that couldn't erase the horror of the Cynar. The finished product was mildly sweet and complex, with a really unpleasant, vegetal, bitter aftertaste that was slightly reminiscent of homemade absinthe. After a while, the aftertaste faded, but never completely went away.

Bottom line, this tasted like some sort of nineteenth-century vegetable tonic that was supposedly good for you, but was later found to contain laudanum.

Basil's Bite
(from Mr. Boston Official Bartender Guide

3 basil leaves
2 ounces gin
1 barspoon Cynar
3/4 ounce Aperol

Muddle Basil leaves. Add ice and shake with remaining ingredients. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a small basil leaf.

Artillery Cocktail

After I blew a chunk of change on the ingredients for the Rosita, I realized that my goal of making a new cocktail every night could conceivably get me into a lot of trouble. My solution was to take stock of all the booze in my liquor cabinet, find all the drinks that I could make, and work my way through them before buying more hooch. As I finished bottles, I would replace them, and as I ran out of available drinks, I would add to my selection. Over all, it seemed to me that this was the only way to avoid going broke on this venture.

Apart from the vermouth, Campari, and tequila that I picked up during my Rosita buying spree, I had the following (all in fifths):
1/4 bottle of Rogue Gin
3/4 bottle of New Amsterdam Gin
1 bottle of Llord's creme de menthe
1 bottle of Hiram Walker creme de cacao
3/4 bottle of Lucid Absinthe
1/3 bottle of ouzo
1 bottle Cynar
1 bottle Aperol
1 bottle Harvey's Bristol Cream
1 bottle each homemade honey, lime, and blueberry liqueurs
1 bottle Santa Clara rompope
1 small flask Zubrowka Polish grass vodka

It was an odd list, and I had gathered it in my normal, disorganized way. The flask of Polish grass vodka was an engagement gift from my wife, and I've regularly refilled it over the years. The Bristol Cream, creme de menthe, and creme de cacao were all part of various recipes, and the rompope was an impulse buy, based on the fact that I like egg-based liqueurs. I made the honey, blueberry and lime liqueurs last year, when I was able to get grain alcohol from Connecticut. The Cynar and Aperol both came from one frenzied visit to the liquor store, when I felt the need to find the weirdest booze in the joint. The Rogue gin -- which is really good, by the way -- came courtesy of a Rogue representative who wanted me to review it for a blog, and the New Amsterdam was purchased after a taste testing at the same local liquor store.

At any rate, my bar was -- as I might expect -- well stocked with the bizarre, while decidedly lacking in the mundane necessities (like rum, vodka, whiskey...). Luckily, The Ultimate A-to-Z Bar Guide was chock full of gin recipes, which meant that I would be able to go a while before I had to buy anything else.

The artillery cocktail is simplicity itself. Kissing cousin to the martini, it is two parts gin and one part sweet vermouth, shaken and strained. It is a beautiful taupe color and looks particularly sophisticated in a cocktail glass. In terms of taste, it is slightly fruity and slightly sweet with a gin kick that let's you know that you aren't screwing around. All in all, a nice drink.

Oddly enough, there are a bunch of gin and sweet vermouth cocktails. With a cherry garnish, it is called a "Gypsy cocktail" or a "club cocktail." With an orange slice, it's called a "Homestead."

Artillery Cocktail
(from The Ultimate A-to-Z Bar Guide)

2 ounces gin
1 ounce sweet vermouth

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.