A Bitter Spirit

Category: 2014 Advent Calendar

Day 3: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

The carol for Day 3 of our calendar is the traditional English song, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman. The archaic Victorian language make the carol, and in particular the first line, one of the most misunderstood carols in our Christmas canon. While modern singers would interpret the line as telling the titular men to stop their celebrating and happiness making, Victorian peasants would have found a different meaning. In Victorian times, the word merry is more akin to strength or might (think Robin Hood's Merry Men – more mighty than happy) and the word rest means to keep or make. In modern speak, the line would probably best read, "God make you mighty, gentlemen!" Ok, enough with the English lesson! Let's have a drink.

This carol was originally published during the reign of Queen Victoria and made popular in the Anglican Church because of her love of carols. So we wondered, what would good Queen Vic be sipping on while she enjoyed a Christmas Carol? Well she abhorred the idea of teetotaling and often drank a combination of claret (the English name for red wine from Bourdeax) and scotch. Various blogs have said that the Queen Victoria Tipple, as this drink is called in England, can be rather dodgy. So we decided to make it a bit more modern, using the recently popular New York Sour as inspiration.

A New York Sour has a whiskey sour base with a float of sweet red wine on top. It looks pretty fantastic when done properly with the dark red layer at the top and the brownish-yellow layer on the bottom. To give the drink that Queen Vic twist, we decided to make a Scotch sour and then float some Bourdeaux wine or port.

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen Cocktail
3 parts Scotch (we used Balvenie)
1 part lemon juice
1 part simple syrup
1/2 part Merlot
1/2 port
ice
Rocks glass

Mix the first three ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker and shake until chilled. Pour into a rocks glass over fresh ice. Pour merlot over the back of a spoon placed just below the surface of the drink. Step back and admire the float. Pour the port into the cocktail in the same way. The float she is no more.

Cocktail Notes
The Balvenie is a sweet single malt Scotch that tastes surprisingly good as a sour. Like really good. You could probably use any Speyside or Highland scotch (we would expect a Dalwhinnie or a Glenmorangie to work very well). An Islay scotch would be interesting to try. Kate's not a fan of the peat, so we didn't have any on hand, but if you do like a good Laphroaig or Lagavulin, definitely give it a try!

The Bourdeaux we bought wasn't very good and definitely not sweet so we ended up switching to a merlot but we liked the extra sweetness that the port gives. If you have a decent quality, lightly sweet red, you might not need the port (and you'll get the full float affect)!

Listen Along

December 3, 2014
Day 2: Fum, Fum, Fum

Our second carol is Fum, Fum, Fum, a traditional Christmas song from the Catalan region of Spain. Dating from the 14th or 15th century, it didn't become popular in English speaking countries until the 1950's when Robert Shaw & Alice Parker published it in their collection of Christmas carols.

"Fum" means "smoke" in Catalan but several carolbooks suggest that "fum" might be more of an onomatopoeia. Perhaps it is a reference to the sound a strummed guitar makes or a reference to a rocking cradle. Regardless, it's nearly impossible not to have fun while singing this carol and periodically entoning, "Fum, fum, fum."

When crafting a cocktail that could embody this carol, we immediately wanted it to be fizzy to reference the "fum." We also wanted gin to be the base spirit since Spain is the second largest global consumer of gin. The combo of gin and fizzy instantly brings to mind one particular cocktail, a French 75. At the time of this cocktail's conception, Drew had Moscow Mules on the brain and wanted to use lime and ginger. Our Fum, Fum, Fum cocktail is a quirky combination/deconstruction of these two classic drinks. We sustituted cava, a sparkling Spanish wine, for the champagne traditionally used in the French 75. We used lime juice instead of the lemon ala the Mule and made a ginger-infused gin as the base.

Fum, Fum, Fum Cocktail
2 parts ginger infused gin (see cocktail notes)
1 part lime juice
1/2 part simple syrup (see cocktail notes)
Cava
5 drops Addition Thai Green Chili Cocktail Spice
Ice
Highball or Collins glass

Fill the glass with ice. Add gin, lime juice and simple syrup to the glass. Top with cava. Add the cocktail spice and stir slightly.

Cocktail Notes
We made the ginger infused gin by placing about 5 inches of thinly sliced ginger root into a container with 1 cup of gin. The infusion is good to go after about a day but can sit longer for a bitier taste.

Both the gin and cava we used were very dry (Beefeaters & a brut respectively), and we needed the simple syrup to sweeten it up. If you use a sweeter cava, you probably won't need the syrup. We thought that the Thai cocktail spice really rounded out the ginger flavour and added another dimension of spice that you'd find in ginger beer. Scrappy's Firewater bitters or even a barspoon of a pepper vodka might also substitute.

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December 2, 2014
Day 1: The Coventry Carol

Welcome to Advent and to Day 1 of our 2014 Cocktail Advent Calendar. The themes of the carols in the first week of the calendar all revolve around the Christ Child. The first carol on our list is The Coventry Carol, sometimes known as Lully, Lullay Thou Little Tiny Child. It dates from around the 14th century and has regularly been performed in nativity plays in Coventry, England since at least the 1500's. In the plays, the carol is sung by three Bethlehem women who enter on stage immediately after Joseph has been warned by an angel to take his family to Egypt to avoid Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents.

Kate loves this carol largely for the melody which incorporates a Picardy third (a crazy awesome mysterious chord) considered both the most musically and emotionally consonant chord (take that, flattened sixth chord!).

We wanted a drink that would match the mysterious and resonant sound of this carol as well as play to its heritage in Coventry. One of the biggest discussions we had was whether we could make a drink that was good both cold (like Kate wanted it) and hot (like Drew preferred). So we decided to start with a rum base and build from there.

The Coventry Carol Cocktail

3 parts rum (we used Havana Club)
1.5 parts Suze
1/2 part fresh lemon juice
1/4 part lavender syrup
1/4 part lemongrass syrup

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake over ice. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a few lavender buds and a piece of candied ginger.

To make the hot version, pour the mixture into a mug or other heat-tolerant glass. Add 2 ounces of boiling water.

Cocktail Notes
We were originally going to make this with Galliano instead of Suze, but the Galliano was sweeter than we wanted and without a bitter note. The Suze was perfect.

The first version didn't have lemon juice, but it proved too sweet, so we added the lemon juice to freshen it up a bit. If you are not using fresh lemon juice in your cocktails (fresh lime juice, etc), you really need to start. Seriously. Why aren't you?

We also did a version with only lavender syrup (in an effort to cut the sweet), but there is something magical about the lemongrass, so we ended up cutting the ratios down on each syrup by half but kept them both. It may seem a bit fussy to make two syrups, but seriously worth it.

We tried a few different types of bitters, but none of them hit the right note as the Suze. They all substantially changed the nature of the drink and didn't really add the extra dimension we were looking for.

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December 1, 2014
Welcome to our 2014 Advent Calendar

To paraphrase one of the gurus of our age "All right, all right, all right". We're back – the boozin' siblings, Drew and Kate. We had such a great time doing our Cocktail Advent calendar last year that we're doing it again in 2014.

We've got a new theme this year: Christmas Carols. We LOVE Christmas Carols (yes, they even occasionally come up in an iTunes mix on Kate's phone in July). We decided to make a list of all our favourite carols as well as those with an interesting story that would lend itself to a cocktail. Somehow, we managed to narrow that down to 25 carols.

And then we grouped the carols into themes (because who doesn't like a theme?): the Christ Child, Mary, Spirit of the Season, and Family. So week 1 of Advent, all about Jesus. He is the reason for the season after all.

We learned a lot last year about bitters, booze infusions, and the chemistry of cocktail making. This year, we're continuing our exploration of mixology as well as trying a few new techniques (though no bacon-washed bourbon this time).

So welcome to our 2014 Advent adventure .. we look forward to the next 25 days.

November 30, 2014

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