A Bitter Spirit

Day 8: The Holly and the Ivy

The carol for Day Eight of our calendar is the British carol, The Holly and the Ivy. Holly and ivy have played a large role in English Christmases since at least the fifteenth century. Since both plants stay green throughout the winter, they were frequently used to decorate the inside of country churches during Christmastide. When the carol was published as part of the New Oxford Book of Carols, it gained world-wide notoriety.

Holly and ivy hold a large amount of cultural significance in Europe and England. The druids commonly associated holly with the winter solstice and Romans considered holly to be the sacred plant of the god Saturn. Additionally in Victorian England, men associated themselves with holly for its "masculine" qualities while women affiliated themselves with ivy because of its "feminine" qualities. At least one recorded song has a "contest" between the two plants with men and women extolling the virtues of their identified botanicals while denigrating the other.

The greenness of the titular plants got us thinking about herbs; we focused on mint and making a julep-type drink for the winter months. So some bourbon, mint and a couple of other liqueurs round out the cocktail. Like the Coventry Carol cocktail, this one can be served either cold or hot. Also worth noting, this cocktail moves us from a week of celebrating the Christ Child to a week of celebrating Mary with cocktails inspired by carols associated with our favourite virgin mother.

The Holly & the Ivy Cocktail
2 oz bourbon (we used Maker's Mark)
1 oz Galliano
1/2 oz brown sugar syrup
1 bar spoon of Fernet Branca infused with mint
2 oz hot water (for the hot version, obvi)
Julep cup or rocks glass/mug

Place all of the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice and stir until chilled. Pour into glass of choice. Add hot water if desired as a hot drink.

Cocktail Notes
We made the mint-infused Ferent Branca by placing a generous tablespoon of fresh torn mint into a container with a half cup of Fernet Branca. The infusion should be ready after a day but can sit longer, if desired.

We tried infusing some sweet and white vermouth with the mint to test in the cocktail. The mint flavour did not (read DID NOT) go with either vermouth.

This cocktail was originally inspired by the Winter Julep cocktail.

Listen Along

There's a little skip in the video about 1:45 .. but you can still enjoy Lennox's fantastic performance of this carol.

December 8, 2014
Day 7: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
Our cocktail today is inspired by the carol, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, a hymn that Drew often used to sing in his university choir. There are two origin stories of this carol. One – that it references the apple tree in Song of Solomon which is often interpreted as a metaphor for Christ "As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love." The second – that it comes from an attempt to Christianize several English winter season songs that were often used in wassailing the apple orchards.

We like the second origin story better.

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree Cocktail
1/2 an apple (a good crisp fall apple – we used a Pink Lady)
1 part bourbon (you want something smooth – we used Trace – we tried Maker's Mark, but it was too fiery)
1 park calvados (we used Père Magloire)
1 part Sortilège (a Canadian whiskey & maple syrup liqueur)
1 dash Apothecary's General Ambrose's Bitters
fresh egg
ice
random cool glass
- Coarsely chop apple into shaker. Muddle it.
- Add alcohol to shaker. Shake to combine. No ice.
- Strain it.
- In a clean shaker, add the strained liquid and the egg – no ice.
- Dry shake for a good long while (listen for a change in viscosity). Once you hear that, add the ice in and continue to shake.
- Since this is a flip, it will probably take longer to shake than you think it will.
Cocktail Notes
When you're making a lot of cocktails there's always one that turns out to be your white whale. It just doesn't usually happen this early in the process. Turns out apple is a tricky flavour profile. At one point we thought, to hell with this, let's just make a Sour Puss Green Apple Martini. But we persevered.

First draft: brandy, Apfelkorn and Giffard's Ginger of the Indies. Hmm .. that base ain't right. Is it the ginger? Must be the ginger – ditch the ginger. (Spoiler alert: it wasn't the ginger).

Second draft: brandy and Apfelkorn. We need a bitter element. We tried Fernet Branca (No! HELL no!!); Dubonnet (No – tastes like spoiled vegetables); Suze (better, but you lose the apple so what's the point); B&B (no, terrible).

Third draft: bourbon (we used Trace), calvados and Apfelkorn. OK, pretty good base – moving to bourbon was a good idea. Needs some sweet. B&B (no); Tuaca (no).

ARGH!

Here's where Drew says "Eff it. I'm muddling an apple."

Fourth draft: Muddled apple, bourbon (again, the Trace – it is really smooth), calvados (this is so nice and subtle) and Sortilège (maple to the rescue!). OK, this is a great base. Ditching the Appelkorn was a good idea. Let's finish it with some bitters: Apothecary Smokey Pear (Drew's preference – works well); Apothecary Latin Lime (Kate's preference – brings out the right apple notes); Apothecary General Ambrose (the one we can agree on).

And that's how you concoct a cocktail.

Oh, if you don't want to muddle an apple, you can try plain fresh apple juice. We did in a 1 part ratio. It was not as apple-y. Fresh ingredients are better, kids. It might taste OK with a double part of apple juice.

Listen Along
December 7, 2014
Day 6: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Today's carol is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel … one of Kate's favourite carols. This carol is really old; or, people think it is. There is an argument to be made that it has its origins (at least its melodic ones) in a series of "antiphons" or chants that were sung by monks in the eighth century. But the carol in its current form didn't make an appearance until the mid-to-late 1600s when it was assembled by a Jesuit hymnographer and incorporated into a Psalter.

When planning our cocktail around this carol, we noted "Super old. Maybe some monks." (seriously, check the spreadsheet). And what is super-old and monk-influenced? Chartreuse. But we also wanted to keep it simple; monks don't go in for frou-frou drinks. And what's more simple than a martini? So this carol's cocktail is a little riff on a Chartreuse martini.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel Cocktail
2 oz vodka (we used Grey Goose)
1 oz genever (we used Boomsma young genever)
bar spoon of Creme de Cacao
Green Chartreuse (for a rinse)
Cocktail Glass
Ice

Pour chartreuse into cocktail glass and coat sides of glass. Pour out (or drink) excess. Combine vodka, genever and Creme de Cacao in cocktail shaker. Add ice. Shake and strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with a couple cocoa nibs.

The astute among you may notice that the Chartreuse in this picture is yellow, not green. The recipe uses green. We were drunk when we took this picture.

Cocktail Notes
Before adding the Creme de Cacao, to get the chocolatey flavour, we tried a couple of different bitters. Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters didn't work at all. Apothecary "The Darkness" Bitters were good, but not quite what we were looking for. So we went with the straight-forward Creme de Cacao and it was perfect.

Listen Along

December 6, 2014
Day 5: Mary’s Boy Child
The carol for today's cocktail is Mary's Boy Child written by the great composer and somtime actor, Jester Hairston. He originally wrote the melody of this calypso-tinged carol for a party that was attended by people mostly from the West Indies. Years later, when asked to compose a Christmas carol for the Hollywood Choir, Hairston returned to this melody and changed the lyrics to what we now know as Mary's Boy Child. The song became even more popular when the likes of Harry Belafonte and Mahalia Jackson recorded it.

The melody's original title was He Pone and Chocolate Tea. He pone is a type of cornbread (mmmm … corn pone!) After some research, we learned that there is a drink from the West Indies called St. Lucia Tea that is made from steeping grated pure cocoa. We used the tea as a base and added some booze to make it a little more festive.

Mary's Boy Child Cocktail
2 cups water
1 cup almond milk (or regular milk)
1 cup cocoa nibs
1 stick of cinnamon
5 cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cardamon
1/2 cup brown sugar (or to taste)
1 tsp vanila
1/2 cup rum
5 oz Galliano
5 Tbsp coconut cream
mug or heat-resistant glass

This recipe is a little more involved than most of the ones we do, so we're breaking down the steps:
- Tie the cloves and cinnamon into a piece of cheesecloth.
- Add it, the rest of the spices, the water, almond milk and cocoa nibs to a heavy pot. Simmer the mixture over a medium-low heat for 40 minutes. Allow to cool slightly.
- Add the brown sugar and stir to dissolve.
- Remove the cheesecloth containing the cloves and cinnamon from the pot.
- Pour the mixture into a high-quality blender. Pulse on high until the cocoa nibs are broken down.
- Strain the liquid through a fine sieve and return it to blender.
- Add the vanilla, rum, Galliano and coconut cream.
- Pulse until well blended and frothy.
- Adjust sweetness as desired.
- Serve hot, room temperature or chilled.
Cocktail Notes
As we were making this, we kept wondering if this was going to turn out to be any good. Surprisingly, it's delcious. It is definitely NOT hot chocolate but very much a tea-like drink. And the great thing is that everything can be adjusted to personal taste. The ratio of liquid to cocoa nibs (3:1) seems to work, but the quantities or types of spices, sugar or booze could easily be changed.

For a creamier drink, switch out more milk for the water. We added the coconut cream to give it a creamier texture and help emulsify the drink but isn't vital to the drink if you don't like coconut. The drink also gets better as it sits and the flavours mingle togther.

Listen Along
December 5, 2014
Day 4: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

The carol for Day 4 of the Advent Calendar is Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. The text for this carol most likely originated as an ancient Greek chant (like 5th century ancient) but it wasn't until Ralph Vaughan Williams translated a hymn version that it became more frequently used in Protestant services. While the language is archaic, the hymn has grown enough in popularity that it is a common addition to the modern hymnal.

Our first thought for this cocktail was a drink with an equally grisly name, a Corpse Reviver. Corspe Revivers are a group of classic cocktails that were used by turn of the century imbibers to help with their morning hangovers. A bit of the "hair of the dog" if you will. Or something to help revive you when you feel like the dead. The most popular of these drinks is the Corpse Reviver #2 which consists of gin, an orange liqueur, lemon juice, Lillet Blanc & an absinthe rinse. Given this general formula, we played a little with the components, keeping the gin and subsituting in lime juice, yellow chartreuse for absinthe and some fernet branca. The result has a similar taste of the original cocktail but with a more herbeceous and caramel taste.

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence Cocktail
1 oz yellow chartreuse
1 oz gin (we used Ungava)
1 oz Tuaca
1 oz lime juice
1 bar spoon Ferent Branca
Cocktail glass

Pour all of the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Pour into a cocktail glass and garnish with a piece of lime rind.

Cocktail Notes
The Tuaca has a citrus taste but also adds a slight caramel flavour. The chartreuse adds a more herbacous taste than the original has but plays well with the lime juice. The addition of the Fernet Branca helps round out the cocktail.

Listen Along

December 4, 2014
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.

Listen Along

December 2, 2014
2013 Cocktail Advent Calendar

Following are all the cocktails we created for our 2013 Cocktail Advent Calendar. The theme that year was Christmas Characters.

  1-Dec: Heat Miser
  2-Dec: Cold Miser
  3-Dec: Ebenezer Scrooge
  4-Dec: Jack Frost
  5-Dec: Jack Skellington
  6-Dec: Yukon Cornelius
  7-Dec: The Griswold
  8-Dec: The Randy
  9-Dec: The Grinch
10-Dec: The Clara
11-Dec: The Sugar Plum Fairy
12-Dec: The Nutcracker Prince
13-Dec: The Karen
14-Dec: The Prancer
15-Dec: The Virginia O’Hanlon
16-Dec: Clarice the Reindeer
17-Dec: The Hermey
18-Dec: The Bob Cratchit
19-Dec: Ghost of Christmas Past
20-Dec: Ghost of Christmas Present
21-Dec: Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
22-Dec: The Kaspar
23-Dec: The Balthazar
24-Dec: The Melchior

December 1, 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.

Listen Along

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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