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AlcoHOLidays | National Mustard Day | Pretzel Dip

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jwalker_ss_pretzeldip_mustard_cocktail

To presume that National Mustard Day was a promotional effort instigated by one of the many mustard producers (or Big Mustard?) wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility but, as near as I can tell, it wouldn’t be true, either! Apparently National Mustard Day, celebrated on the first Saturday of August, is the product of the National Mustard Museum, currently located in Middleston, Wisconsin, and houses over 5,500 mustards and various mustard memorabilia.

Barry Levenson founded the Mustard Museum while he was still the Assistant Attorney General of Wisconsin and 6 years later changed careers to run the museum full time. The Mustard Museum was been the sponsor of National Mustard Day since 1991.

Now, mustard can be sweet. My favorite used to be this raspberry honey mustard I first had at a wine tasting. Just amazing! Of course, just your usual run of the mill honey mustard is pretty tasty, too, but these days I gravitate more towards Dijon and Creole mustards, the grainier the better. Mustard is part of the holy trinity of my mom’s ham glaze (brown sugar, orange juice, and the aforementioned mustard), pretzels and hotdogs would be lost without it, and the powdered variety is wonderful to cook with (then again, so is the prepared variety).

So the challenge was to create a cocktail based on this “King of Condiments.”

Pretzel Dip

2 oz London Dry Gin
1 oz Beer
1/2 oz (or 1 Tbsp) Dijon Mustard

Combine ingredients over ice and shake until nice and frothy. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a mini gherkin or kosher dill pickle, whichever you best prefer.

You could even go more elaborate with your garnish and skewer a cocktail wiener or some deli meat with an olive. Or, hey, if you’ve got some pretzel bread handy, go for it!

I don’t think I have to point out that this is not a sweet cocktail. This is very much along the lines of a dirty martini with the added boost of the emulsifying property of the mustard. The mustard and gin go so well together than I’m seriously considering using gin instead of vinegar in my next vinaigrette, and the beer gives the cocktail a bright finish–though the exact tone will change depending on what beer you have on hand.

AlcoHOLidays | Carnival & Mardi Gras | King’s Cup

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King's Cup Cocktail for Carnival (aka Mardi Gras)

Following right on the heels of the Christmas season–when most people are beginning to experience the post-holiday doldrums–certain parts of the world have one thing in mind: continuing the party.

For most areas, Carnival starts somewhere between January 6th (Twelfth Night or the Feast of Epiphany) and just before Lent, flowing merrily onward for a month or more, culminating in Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras (I know a lot of people refer to the entire festival as Mardi Gras, and I suppose these days it’s not entirely wrong to do so, but technically Mardi=Tuesday Gras=Fat or thereabouts, so take what you will from it), the last day of feasting and indulgence before the aforementioned Lent begins with it’s fasting and restrictions.

Regardless of the extent of debauchery that an area’s Carnival parties may or may not have, the prevailing goal is truly to eat, drink, and be merry–since rich meats, fat, and sugar are traditionally prohibited during Lenten observances that follow. In some lower-key celebrations, like Shrovetide, pancake flips are a common party-theme. The celebrations I’m most familiar with, though, include rich seafood dishes, the meat and cheese-filled muffuletta sandwiches, and King cakes decorated in green, gold, and purple (colors symbolizing faith, power, and justice, respectively).

Because Lent is the 40 days (not counting Sundays) before Easter, and Easter is a movable holiday, the exact date of Fat Tuesday also varies from year to year but usually falls at some point during February. In 2013, Fat Tuesday falls on February 12th.

And, yes, while most people in the United States consider New Orleans the place to be for Mardi Gras, it’s American seat is actually Mobile, Alabama (and their celebrations start in November!). Of course Mobile was originally settled as the capital of French Louisiana, so the state still has ample claim to the tradition.

When it comes to a Carnival cocktail, there are plenty to choose from. Hurricanes, made famous (or, perhaps, infamous) by Pat O’Briens, make a great party punch for this time of year. And then there’s the Absinthe-laced Sazerac, born in New Orleans.

But you know I can do more than just post a cocktail everyone else has already seen, right?

So I set out to concoct something on the savory side, a foil to some of the sugar-laden goodness that the holidays are known for, and kept going back to the muffuletta sandwich. Those savory flavors have formed the basis of today’s cocktail,

The King’s Cup

1 oz Dry Gin
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
1/2 oz Galliano
1/4 oz Agwa de Bolivia
1 barspoon Garlic-infused Olive Oil
splash Olive Juice

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass half-full of ice and shake like you’re trying to get a Krewe-members attention. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a spear of 3 olives (or one large olive, preferrably stuffed with blue cheese).

The King’s Cup takes the idea of the dirty martini and turns it on its ear. After all, the muffuletta is just an Italian sub sandwich until you add the amazing olive salad, redolent with garlic.  Yes, I’m serious about the garlic-infused olive oil–it’s fabulous to cook with, so you won’t have to worry about it going to waste, the garlic flavor is pronounced but not overpowering and the oil gives the drink a velvety smoothness. The grapefruit juice keeps the gin and herbaceous liqueurs from making the drink overly strong without sweetening it up too much.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!*

——————–

And we’re back! Thank you all for your patience while Sips & Shots (and the rest of the Helper Monkey Network) took a much needed break during January. A lot of the work we did was behind-the-scenes, but if you read these posts in a feed reader, you might want to head on over to Sips & Shots and take a gander at the front-of-the-house sprucing-up that has gone on, too! As always, we welcome your feedback and hope you’ll share the posts you like with family and friends.

*(That’s “Let the good times roll” for those who don’t speak Carnival!)

AlcoHOLidays | Repeal Day | Good Clean Fun

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Good Clean Fun cocktail for Repeal Day, December 5

From 1920 to 1933, the United States was technically dry, minus a few loopholes and a helluva lot of bootleggers.

See, the temperance movement thought that many of society’s ills would be cured if drinking were just outlawed. And even though President Wilson tried to veto it, Congress used their 2/3 vote to overrule him and they signed the 18th Amendment into existence, banning the sale, importation, or exportation of intoxicating spirits throughout the country. For the curious the intoxicating spirit threshold was .5% alcohol.

Now, the funny thing about number 18 was that it didn’t make consuming alcohol illegal, just the making, buying, and selling. So folks in the know stocked up big-time before the Volstead Act took effect on January 16, 1920. And even the making of spirits wasn’t completed forbidden–individuals could brew fruit-based wines and ciders for personal consumption and vineyards took to selling grape concentrates to facilitate just those measures with packaging that told folks exactly what not to do if they didn’t want their reconstituted grape juice to ferment. Wink wink.

Of course the hope that banning alcohol would immediately dissuade folks towards drinking backfired spectacularly. To many the law made absolutely no sense and it ruined a lot of faith in both the government and the police forces tasked with enforcing the new law. And then there was the not-so-small matter of the government losing out on all that taxable revenue now that all sales were under the table.

It took 13 years for folks to see the light. Thirteen years of bootleggers, speakeasies, and increased crime rates (instead of the hoped-for lessening). Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933, by the ratification of the 21st Amendment.

Good Clean Fun

1 sugar cube
Angostura Bitters
1 3/4 oz Gin
3/4 oz Limoncello
strips of citrus zest for garnish

Drip enough drops of the bitters onto the sugar cube to “soak” it and place it in the bottom of a low-ball or small cocktail glass. Combine the gin and limoncello over ice and stir until thoroughly chilled (10 to 15 turns should do it). Strain the chilled alcohol over the  sugar cube and add a couple strips of citrus zest to the drink, swirling it to start the sugar dissolving.

Soaking a sugar cube in bitters is a long-standing tradition of blending the savory and the sweet in drinks. And while cocktails were around two decades before the U.S. tried their little “Noble Experiment”, the trend to drink good alcohol neat was problematic when you were dealing with the low-quality and sometimes dangerous concoctions that served for spirits in speakeasies, hence the many mixers of Prohibition-era cocktials.

The term bathtub gin refers to grain alcohol flavored with various items (like juniper) and topped off with water from the bathtub spigot (as the bottles were apparently too tall to fit easily under the kitchen faucet)–so the story goes. In this cocktail I use gin as an homage to those dark days but pick a good one. Limoncello, while not tied to Prohibition per se, appealed to me in the vein of making lemonade out of lemons. Limoncello make take longer (though not 13 years, thank goodness), but it’s certainly tasty.

We all know full well that drinking without discretion or moderation can lead to some very bad things. Anything from bad choices of who to go home with to DUI-accidents to diseases of various sorts can befall someone who drinks too much or too often (or both). But a well-made cocktail really is, in my opinion, good clean fun.

Cheers!

AlcoHOLidays | Veterans Day | Alliance

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Alliance Cocktail for Veterans Day

Veterans Day began life as Armistice Day, commemorating the cease-fire (aka an armistice) that halted actual fighting on November 11, 1918, even though the end of World War I wasn’t until the Treaty of Versailles was signed the following June.

WWI, also known as The Great War, was thought of as “the war to end all wars.”

How optimistic.

Never underestimate man’s ability to fight about anything and everything.

At any rate, after WWII and Korea, veterans service organizations headed the requests to change the name to include soldiers of the later conflicts. In 1954 President Eisenhower made it so.

The idea behind Veterans Day was that it was a day to thank those who’ve served our country and “dedicated to the cause of world peace” (via Dept of Veterans Affairs) Banks, the Postal Service, and government offices close, most schools, too, and many communities throw parades in honor of our servicemen and women.

So make sure to thank your nearest Veteran this coming Sunday, and raise a glass in honor of those who fought and gave their lives for the freedom we enjoy today.

The Alliance

3/4 oz Rye Whiskey
3/4 oz Cognac
3/4 oz London Dry Gin

Combine liquors over ice in a mixing glass and stir until everyone is shaking hands. Strain into a rocks or cocktail glass with 3 ice cubes inside.

As with other all-alcohol cocktails, we stir this one so that the drink reserves a silky feeling on the tongue without diluting it overmuch. In The Alliance, the Cognac greets you nice enough, the rye pushes its way in a bit, and the gin’s botanicals bring up the rear. Purists might cry havoc at the combination of 3 such strong flavors, but war makes strange bedfellows, and these 3 are making the best of it.

Cheers… and thank you.

AlcoHOLidays | Leif Erikson Day | That Norse Thing

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In my original blog schedule, I had today pegged for the upcoming Columbus Day holiday (observed on 10/8 in 2012, the landing was actually 10/12). While I’m not averse to hit on some more obscure holidays over this next year, I figured it made sense to hit up all the US Federal holidays, too.

That Norse Thing Cocktail for Leif Erikson Day

Until I started brushing up on my Columbus Day research, and realized that (obviously) not everyone considered this a positive celebration (several states don’t even observe it). While I don’t think it’s necessarily right that our generation be held responsible for things done by generations (centuries) past, it’s one thing to accept the unfortunate-to-our-modern-eyes culture of the day back in the age of exploration and move forward and another to celebrate that which displaced nations. At first I thought maybe to do equal time: Columbus Day this week, Indigenous Peoples Day next. But then I realized how much poor taste it would be in to raise a cocktail in celebration of a culture for whom alcoholism is a severe problem.

So I decided we’re just going to back slowly away from that whole minefield and focus on another upcoming holiday: Leif Erikson Day!

You know, the Viking that actually discovered North America almost 500 years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue?

From what I can tell, though the son of Erik the Red did land and settle, for a time, in present-day Canada around the turn of the last millennia  he didn’t really set down roots. And the family of his that went back were, in fact, wiped out by native tribes and that was pretty much the end of that.

And although October 9th was not the day Erikson set foot in the New World, it was the date chosen to celebrate the Norwegian discovery of the New World.

That Norse Thing

3 oz Apple Juice
2 oz Gin
1 oz Pomegranate Tequila

 Combine all ingredients over ice in a tall glass and stir until frigid.

The way I see it, if your off on a voyage of discovery, you don’t need to be fiddling around with a lot of gear, glasses with tiny stems, or anything overly complicated. You need your drink ready to go in a few moments because that’s all you might have. So this cocktail is built in the serving glass and stirred to combine. Juniper and apples are common(ish) in Norse cooking, and the pomegranate is my nod to Erikson (son of Erik… the red… please tell me I don’t have to keep explaining that one). Tequila may seem an odd choice–he didn’t land in Mexico–but the Pomegranate Tequila I have is far smoother and blends better than the pomegranate liqueur on its own.

And about the name. One thing I noticed when I was reading up on Erikson and Norway was that they have a lot of Things–in this case, thing meaning an assembly or group, later the matter or object being discussed at the assembly or meeting–and I just had to work that in somehow. They weren’t the only ones with Things (there are similar Germanic roots, too), but it was just something to good to pass up.

Regardless of what you choose to celebrate this coming week, make sure you celebrate with awareness.

And, you know, don’t drink and boat.

Cheers!